Dear Friends, Steve Jobs, the co-founder and former CEO of Apple, was a hero to millions. He’s the man who gave us the iPod and the iPhone, not to mention Apple computers. Some just loved the way his products looked and worked. Others admired his business acumen, taking Apple briefly to be the largest corporation
Read moreDear friends, This week David Cameron said he supported plans to legalise marriage for practising homosexuals. In itself that wasn’t new. What was interesting was the way he justified it: “To anyone who has reservations, I say, Yes, it’s about equality, but it’s also about something else: commitment.” Who could possibly have...
Read moreDear Friends, You may have heard reports that the BBC intends to drop ‘BC’ and ‘AD’ for describing dates. ‘BC’, of course, stands for ‘Before Christ’ and ‘AD’ for ‘in the year of the Lord’. The plan is to adopt the terms ‘BCE’ and ‘CE’ in their place, standing for ‘Before Common Era’ and ‘Common
Read moreDear friends, If my memory is correct, I was six years old when the penny dropped, when God opened my eyes. I came to see that Jesus had given himself for me, and so I gave myself to him in response. Whether or not my memory is correct (and no doubt I didn’t put it
Read moreDear friends, That is one of the questions being debated in the wake of the recent riots sweeping Britain. On the one hand, being poor in itself does not guarantee that you will be a thief. Nor does being rich guarantee that you will not steal from others. There are just too many examples of
Read moreIt would be interesting at some point to have a sermon series of Great Bible Questions, and this would surely be one of them. It’s the question God asks Jonah when he is upset with God for not destroying the people of Nineveh. Jonah even says that, precisely because he thought God would do this,
Read moreDear Friends, ‘A sunshine funeral’ – that was how Chris Sugden described the recent funeral of John Stott. The funeral itself took place in the sunshine of central London in mid-August, an apt visualisation of how the light of the gospel had shone through this great man. Chris Wright preached on John Stott’s two favourite
Read moreDear Friends, Probably the most famous preacher in the eighteenth century was an Englishman called George Whitefield. He used to love to preach on Jesus’ words to Nicodemus in John chapter 3: “You must be born again.” So much was this a favourite text that he was once challenged by a man who asked, “Mr
Read moreDear Friends, We were on holiday in France while the riots were taking place in England. It was odd seeing them on the news – especially pictures of Birmingham – and also hearing about them from people we met there. Nevertheless, a number of thoughts occur: We all have a tendency to be quick to
Read moreDear Friends, “You scratch my back, I scratch your back.” Or, perhaps, in this holiday season, we might say, “I put the sun cream on your back, you put it on mine.” The reality is, an enormous amount of life operates this way: at work, between neighbours, among friends, in the family, even at church.
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