If yesterday’s story needed a bit of explanation – why was rubbing grain an issue? – today’s passage is rather more straightforward. We’re still looking at Jesus’ encounters with the Pharisees regarding the Sabbath, and the fundamental question we posed yesterday still applies: what is the point of the Sabbath? Why did God give it … Read more
It’s easy to miss the wood for the trees. We all do it at times – and it’s just as likely to happen in matters of faith, too. What is the point of the Sabbath? That’s the million-dollar question here: why did God command every human to rest for one day in every seven? What … Read more
Being in the presence of a truly holy person can be an uncomfortable experience. Back in 1995, I recall meeting one of the holiest people I’ve ever met – someone who really lived the apostolic life we read in the pages of the New Testament – and feeling both terrified and strangely drawn into their … Read more
I wonder if you’ve had the experience of God asking you to do something surprising? Something that at the time didn’t make a lot of sense? I remember Brother Andrew – who passed away recently after a remarkable life of courageous witness – telling the story of once smuggling bibles into the Eastern Bloc and … Read more
The well-known evangelist J. John is fond of saying: ‘Always remember that the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.’ It’s good advice: whilst we long to grow in wisdom, such that we might have the mind of Christ to apply our faith to the whole of life and of society, … Read more
Our culture has a strange relationship with the supernatural. On the one hand, there is plenty of scepticism about the existence of the spiritual world; on the other, there has also been a significant resurgence of interest recently – there’s never been so many TV programmes about angels or demons or ghosts. This ambiguity is … Read more
I wonder what you think about your home town (or village or city)? On one level, we never really get away from it: if you have a passport, it’ll be recorded as your place of birth for your whole life. And often our place of birth shapes us in ways we don’t always expect, and … Read more
To really understand a thing, you have to go back to its roots. This is good rule of thumb for life, and it’s also true for plumbing the depths of scripture. ‘The New is in the Old concealed; the Old is by the New revealed’ – that’s one way of understanding the relationship between the … Read more
Today’s passage is one of the most famous in the bible. If you’ve been a Christian for any length of time, you will probably have heard lots of talks on it, and may feel that there isn’t much left to say! However, I’m not going to give you a general guide to this passage, or … Read more
Ancestry is big business nowadays. Millions of us now regularly use ancestry websites to track down our family trees, and overall the genealogy market is now worth over £3 billion worldwide. Indeed, its popularity has even recently led to a change in the law. In 2021, the way marriages are registered in the UK was … Read more