word | spirit | world | church
Sometimes the Christian life feels incredibly difficult. We wonder, perhaps, what the point of it all is. We wonder whether our attempts, faltering through they may be, at day-by-day faithfulness will every bear any fruit. We wonder whether our wanderings are leading us up the mountain of God or if we’re meandering around the foothills,… Continue reading The Plod of God
We should desire wisdom. “Get wisdom!” Solomon tells us (Proverbs 4). We see that eating from wisdom’s tree (Genesis 3) was Adam’s mistake but also the destiny he was supposed to bear. We also see that one of the ways we learn wisdom is by suffering. Let’s not get this backwards, suffering is not our… Continue reading Learning wisdom
We think of time in a very distinctive way, which many of our forebears did not. We think it’s linear, we think it’s homogenous—progressing in ordered sections we call days or years or hours—and we think it’s largely ‘empty,’ a container that is indifferent to what we fill it with. I’ve been reading Charles Taylor’s… Continue reading Time and the Table
If you’ll do me the favour of indulging me—and if you’re a regular reader then you often do so and I’m grateful for it, or if you’re a supporter then I’m thankful for your help to keep my site advert free—I’d like to tell you about a personal bugbear. Though the title may have given… Continue reading Bring Your Bible to Church
We all struggle. We all suffer. We all know pain. At the same time, we’re acutely aware that we don’t have access to each other’s struggles except as they are related to us. There is nothing more humanising than suffering—this is the human condition—and there is nothing more isolating. When Christians suffer, when we experience… Continue reading The Privilege of Pain
We read in 1 Chronicles 12 of men from each tribe who came to support David in the wilderness. Among their number are the those of Issachar, who send 200 chiefs with their retinues. We also read that they “have understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do.” It’s oft quoted in… Continue reading 5 Ways to Read the Times
Life hurts. Or at least it does sometimes. If we’re honest, it hurts more often than most of us hear in church. Following Jesus is hard work. It is, in some sense, a way of pain. If you’re feeling that right now, the incomparable cuts of choosing to give up your rights again and again,… Continue reading The Sugar-Coating
Jesus wants you to do the next thing in your walk with him. The next act of repentance, the next act of forgiveness, crush the next idol, love the next person above yourself, refuse the next temptation, tear down the next boundary. And he wants you to do nothing else. This might sound like a… Continue reading A Conveyor Belt
I’m going to let you in on a secret that I’m only getting to grips with myself, it’s simple, but oddly revolutionary: hope is an action. We learn it. Hope is not an emotion, as though we summon it up and have a bright day looking at the future. We can certainly feel hopeful, but… Continue reading Hope has to be learned
There’s an old story that used to be often told as a literary cautionary tale, that you don’t hear so much of these days: Faust. In the story Dr Faustus becomes impatient with his limitations and the limitations his various fields of study placed on him. He found no matter how much he learned he… Continue reading Embracing Limits
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