Does God Hate?

Hate is a powerful word. We are taught from childhood to avoid hatred at all costs and to obey the command of Christ to love everyone, including our enemies. So it’s shocking to read the words that Paul quoted from Malachi, who declared that God loved Jacob but hated Esau (Malachi 1:2–3). How can a […]

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Still Living: Grieving after Suicide

Disclaimer: If you are thinking about hurting yourself or believe someone you know may be, call the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90 now. When I was a teenager, one of my youth group peers committed suicide. He was about 18 years old. Later, I served in a church where two youths killed themselves. In […]

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Strangely Wrapped, Silently Delivered

Ever since the first Christmas celebration, I think one word has fallen from everyone’s lips more than any other. It isn’t the word joy or carol or tree or food. It’s the word gift. Gifts are so inseparably linked and interwoven with Christmas that we can hardly think of one without the other. However, we […]

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Pondering

One part of the Christmas story has recently come to speak to me – and it’s not even central to the story! It could almost be considered as an aside comment from Luke. You will find it in Luke 2:19, where he writes, “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her […]

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Sanctity of Life

Just how widespread is the practice of abortion? Are we making much ado about nothing, or do we have a full-scale issue deserving of our immediate attention? To begin with, let’s understand that medical authorities determine a person to be “alive” if there is either a detectable heartbeat or brain-wave activity. With that in mind, […]

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Living Well

If there was one thing my dad taught me, it was to enjoy language – to find pleasure in the way words work together. Puns, riddles, crosswords and spelling games were the à la carte fun-fare when I was a lad. His favourite poem was “If” by Rudyard Kipling. But should someone ask him if […]

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Jellyfish Ministry

Recently while in Cuba I walked along a beautiful beach and came upon a jellyfish that had washed ashore. It seems high winds and strong currents had pushed hundreds of them toward the shore with many being cast up on the sand to await death. I bent down and, careful so as to not be […]

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Follow Me

The tension has been building for many years. The rhetoric has gradually been increasing after each of the last several local and national elections. But at the start of 2016, we began to hear from our elected MPs on what they believed was best for Great Britain as a referendum vote was called for by […]

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Cultured Company

How would you define a “culture”? Have you ever given any thought to what makes certain cultures distinctive? Now let me clarify; I’m not thinking of yoghurt, and I don’t mean the opera. I’m not against either, but those aren’t the kinds of cultures I have in mind. A culture is the set of principles […]

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The Apostle of Affection

In his earlier years, John was a short-tempered man with a burning fuse. On one occasion, after Jesus was rejected by the Samaritans, John forgot himself and with whom he was speaking and asked if the Lord would like him to “command fire to come down from heaven and consume [the Samaritans]?” (Luke 9:54). Who […]

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