book review
With a seminar to take in Delhi last Saturday, I decided on a (very) early Friday morning flight so that the afternoon could open up for a wander through Old Delhi. After dropping off my bag in Chhatarpur in the far south, I headed for the incomparable Yellow Line on the Metro and made my way…
READ MOREOne of the best and most basic models for training preachers is The Five Looks, devised by Andrew Reid: Look Up (in prayer and faith); Look Down (in exegesis); Look Back and Forward (with biblical theology); and Look Here (in application). In our Langham training this model is often used to help develop sermons which target three criteria:…
READ MOREDalrymple, google maps, and wikipedia have become such a happy triumvirate in my life. Because of it, his books take so long to read, especially this one where he traces the journey of a Byzantine monk through Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt: From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium…
READ MOREWhen I read William Dalrymple’s books there are times when my whole being tingles with anticipation. Look at this opening paragraph to his final chapter in his latest book: On 17 May 1798, two days before Napoleon’s fleet slipped out of Toulon and sailed swiftly across the Mediterranean towards Alexandria, a single tall-masted ship was…
READ MORESome years ago Barby and I started a tradition of giving books to our children. We’d been doing it for awhile, but fresh momentum came at a couple of different times. One was when John Stott died in 2011. He had been such a massive influence in my life and I wanted a deposit of…
READ MOREIn 2015, this author writes ‘a new history of the world’. It sits on those best-seller lists for all those weeks. It sells a few million copies. It is a majestic book, one of the books of the decade for me. Then, in 2019, just four years later, out comes The New Silk Roads: The Present…
READ MORE“One in six people in the world is Chinese, while one in six languages in the world is Melanesian.” This statement has always intrigued me. While it may not be strictly accurate, it certainly infers something surprising about Melanesia. It is a place that gathers an astonishing number of mother-tongue, or vernacular, languages. With this…
READ MOREIn the books I read sometimes I need to stop and ask Barby, “Can I read this aloud to you?” Like when Sanneh speaks of an African childhood: An African child hood such as mine was not littered with the kind of stimuli we associate with age-specific gadgets, including toys of every description and sophistication.…
READ MOREAs an oversized person crammed into an undersized window seat, it wasn’t one of the better flights. I didn’t choose to be tall and I certainly didn’t choose a window seat. But what a memorable flight it proved to be – from Dubai to Bishkek. With one eye tracking the Silk Road territory far below…
READ MOREHearing Lamin Sanneh speak at a conference in 2006 became a pivotal moment in my life. This Professor of World Christianity – originally from The Gambia in West Africa, but finishing up at Yale University – was used by God to draw me into a fresh awareness and commitment to the global church which contributed to…
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.