The phrase may be ungrammatical, but it is telling. It is Don Carson’s way of describing what we do when we sin. Every sin we commit is not merely an offence against other people or against our own consciences, it is the ‘de-godding’ of God. We are effectively saying that we will not submit to
Read more“What do you think about Lance Armstrong?” was a question I was asked the other day. This was against the background of mounting evidence that the cyclist was at the head of a highly developed and yet secretive doping programme that helped him to win the Tour de France an amazing seven times. I found
Read moreWe live at a time when there is a fascination with what is new, and a lack of respect for what is old. However, like a good wine, the old can often be better than the new. Last Sunday evening, we began a short series looking at the Apostles’ Creed. In my preparation, I came
Read moreBattles Christians Face is the title of a book by Vaughan Roberts, which was republished earlier this year. Vaughan is a hugely respected Christian leader and Bible teacher – he has even spoken at our church! In the new preface, he says that it “is the most personal of my books … Of the many
Read moreI gather there is a new relationships guide with the straightforward title, Why You’re Not Married… Yet (I haven’t read it myself… yet). It suggests the reasons why a single woman doesn’t yet have a wedding ring on her finger. Interestingly, the author Tracey McMillan has been married three times herself, so she may not
Read moreDualism is the idea that there are equal forces of good and evil at work in the universe – God and the devil. And it is very easy to slip into that way of thinking. After all, God is good and the devil is evil, utterly opposed to God and everything God wants or values.
Read moreA great friend of mine, Richard Coekin, has written an excellent article called Making disciples by planting (read it if you can in The Briefing, Issue 401, Sept-Oct 2012), in which he looks afresh at Jesus’ command in Matthew 28:18-20 to “make disciples of all nations” and its implications for church-planting today. You may be
Read moreSeveral recent conversations, and now the case currently before the European Court of Human Rights, have reminded me how incomprehensible and offensive it seems to most people to say that homosexual practice is wrong. Words such as intolerant, narrow-minded, bigoted, old-fashioned and homophobic come quickly to mind. So, how can we...
Read moreAccording to one writer, the aim of the opening ceremony of the Paralympics was “to celebrate the human spirit, the possibilities that lie within us all.” And who could deny that it did that superbly? And when one reads the stories of the athletes and the terrible injuries they have overcome, and then to see
Read moreI hope you will permit me one more reflection on the Olympics. After all, I won’t be writing about it again for a while (probably!). One of the delights has been to see sports we didn’t know existed. Surely another has been to welcome nations we’d hardly heard of – and which we would struggle
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