Bible
Finding ways to engage meaningfully with the Bible in the midst of traversing time zones is one of life’s challenges. In 2012 I decided to focus on one biblical book for the entire year: Revelation. I blogged about the experience here and here. It was so worthwhile I’ve decided to do it all again in 2013.…
READ MOREAnd so when I come across a you-tube video clip to use in this blog, what do I do? I click on share and then I select embed. The identity of the video clip comes up as a series of letters and numbers. I cut and paste this into my post. I click save, releasing the…
READ MOREBeryl was older than both my parents. I’d known her for more than 40 years – as ‘Auntie Beryl’ in my days as a missionary-kid (MK). Auntie Beryl lingered with us and took an interest in our little MK lives. We loved her. Auntie Beryl died earlier this month. Some years ago she had asked…
READ MORESticking with the apocalyptic theme for one more post… As various scholars like to remind us, in the Book of Revelation ‘numbers are symbols, not statistics’. So, for example, the number 4 is a symbol which represents everything, all of something. A bit like the way the four winds, or the four corners, is a…
READ MOREAs I posted earlier in the year, a project for me in 2012 has been figuring out how to preach from the Book of Revelation. I’ve had the privilege of training people in Indonesia, Pakistan, China (in my work with Langham overseas) – and also people in Dunedin, Mt Roskill and New Plymouth (back home…
READ MOREAfter a month in Asia Major I return home with a heavy heart. Indonesia, UAE, Pakistan and Malaysia. Places where the Christian minority have it tough. Harassed. Marginalised. Shunned. Slandered. And yes, persecuted. One man with whom we work was kidnapped earlier this year… a big sadness It saddens me, even annoys me. I guess…
READ MOREI have been thinking deep thoughts and feeling deep felts. There is Mary (not her real name). Mary and I worked together for seven years in a previous life. I think she would say that we were good friends. She had been a missionary overseas. There were little glimpses of life being difficult for her back then and…
READ MOREI’m confronting my fears. Like so many preachers I have done my little series on the seven churches in Revelation (ch 2-3), but never have I worked right through the rest of the book. I could use the excuse that my time as a preaching pastor was just five years and I couldn’t cover every…
READ MOREI am a timid chap. Always have been. Always will be. If I was to look at the sum of all my fears, dogs and flying figure regularly in the top ten. Not without good reason, I might add. As a little newspaper-delivery boy I had an awful experience of being bitten – and I’ve…
READ MOREI’ve struggled to be happy this Christmas. It was the Friday before Christmas that did it to me. In the morning I try to absorb the news that an enduring and close friend has a brain tumour. Cancer is sinister, evil. At midday I attend a funeral for the father of my brother-in-law. A simple,…
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.