Bible
This is my final day of some consultancy work in Hyderabad with leaders at Ashirwad (Seva Bharat) – which means, literally, ‘Blessing (Serve India)’. What a place! As I enter the main gates, I am drawn into Genesis One: I walk a little further down to the left and find myself arrested by Genesis Three:…
READ MOREThe critics tend to hate it, but then I’m not one to let Rotten Tomatoes tell me what to think. Those who lived through the events tend to be annoyed by it – but then don’t they see that the ‘based on actual events’ is modified even further by ‘this story imagines’ those events? All I can…
READ MOREEarlier this month, the phrase ‘fake news’ was named by the Collins Dictionary as its Word of the Year in 2017. [Dictionaries are clearly specialists in words, not numbers – because ‘fake news’ is actually two words, not one!]. They define the phrase as ‘false, often sensational, information disseminated under the guise of reporting.’ Two months ago,…
READ MOREMartin Luther bobbleheads. Happy Reformation Day parties. The myriad of memes dealing with either hammers, or theses, or doors. A Halloween alternative? Goodness me, I’m glad we’ve got beyond this silly season. Don’t get me wrong. I’m so grateful to be living this side of the Reformation. I believe the sola-stuff with all that I…
READ MOREAugust has become a big month. Four generations are involved. My granddaughter’s birthday is followed my wife’s birthday which is followed by my son’s birthday … and in the middle of all this comes my father’s deathday – tomorrow, actually. It has been six years. I still miss him. Dad in his New Delhi (I…
READ MOREOver the years of writing this blog I have avoided posting links to sermons I’ve preached. It doesn’t suit the genre to which I have been committed – namely, ‘nice chatting’. This blog is about chatting away to myself about things I am ‘unpacking’ around me. I do this for my own benefit, helping to…
READ MORE“Imagine the biblical writer sitting in the front row as you preach your sermon from their text. Which way is the head nodding? How would you describe the look on the face?” This is such a useful approach to take in the training of preachers. It always has an impact. A few years ago I…
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I am a bit of a mountain man. Not because I am rough and hairy, or even strong and silent (because I am none of these things) – but because I grew up at 8000′ (2300m) in the foothills of the greatest mountain range on earth, the Himalayas. I love the mountains. There is something…
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This book shifted me. Maybe I should say that in theory, it is shifting me – but whether anything happens in practice, time will tell. Lets start with a few appetizers: “We are oriented by our longings, directed by our desires” (11). “You are what you love because you live toward what you want” (13). “Our…
READ MOREThere are two divisions about which the preacher must be wary. One is dividing Spirit from Word. ‘In biblical thought the Spirit of God is as closely connected to the Word of God as breath is connected to speech’ (John Woodhouse). They belong together. Don’t elevate one above the other. God’s speech cannot be separated…
READ MOREAbout Me
the art of unpacking
After a childhood in India, a theological training in the USA and a pastoral ministry in Southland (New Zealand), I spent twenty years in theological education in New Zealand — first at Laidlaw College and then at Carey Baptist College, where I served as principal. In 2009 I began working with Langham Partnership and since 2013 I have been the Programme Director (Langham Preaching). Through it all I've cherished the experience of the 'gracious hand of God upon me' and I've relished the opportunity to 'unpack', or exegete, all that I encounter in my walk through life with Jesus.