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I laughed. I would have laughed even more if the theatre had been filled with Singaporean-Chinese people, rather than Indians. That would have been great fun. Crazy Rich Asians is a comedy. We watched the sanitised version, with India’s censor adding bleeps/blobs and deleting scenes (probably – how am I to know, really?). Still, we…
READ MOREI gasped. Yes, I did. On the morning of 20 August 2018, I unfolded The Times of India – and I gasped. Why? This is what extended across the full front page: The initial gasp was due to my instinctive response: ‘this would never happen in New Zealand’. The delayed gasp originated with the boldness of the…
READ MOREI’ve enjoyed two books about India this year. One tells the story of the sudden extinguishing of the British Empire – “the largest empire the world had ever hosted … at its peak, six times the size of the Roman Empire” (Indian Summer, 333). The other recounts the gradual decay of the remnants of the Mughal…
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This book will take you less than 10 minutes to read aloud (which is the only way to read it). Once you’ve read it once, you’ll want to read it again and again (so keep it on the coffee table, next to the remote). I promise you. I would do you a great disservice if…
READ MOREIt is a book written over hundreds of years by dozens of authors in numerous cultures. And yet it is one single story, guided by the Best Director, God, and featuring the Best Actor, God. Yes, the Bible is a remarkable book – and it all happened before the globe began to shrink. In training…
READ MOREHe just wandered into my office to ask me how I was. Within minutes the names Chopin and Rachmaninoff filled our conversation and I was rediscovering Dvorak’s New World Symphony at his behest. This octogenarian Swiss New Testament scholar knows his music… A few nights later we were with Dieter and Elizabeth for dinner. They…
READ MOREIt was my grandmother (my father’s mother) who gave me a love for John Baillie’s Diary of Private Prayer (see posts here and here). Grandma would read these prayers aloud to us and, even more significantly, include extracts from the prayers in letters to me. Somehow – let’s assume it happened honourably – I ended up with…
READ MOREAmos. First Peter. Two of my favourite biblical books through which to preach. Doing so, however, creates tension inside me. Amos is a sustained attack by God, through his prophet, on the presence of injustice among the nations of the world – and especially within His people, Israel. It is unrelenting. It is blistering. God…
READ MOREThis morning. Sheer bliss. Why? Copies of The Times of India and The Hindu started being thrown up our stairs once again, complete with wrinkles. I did think about getting out the iron, but then decided against it… This morning. The second page in The Times of India. Look at it. Do you know another newspaper…
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It is a favourite question. No one has ever given me the right answer. What is the only country in the world where the four global religions (Islam-Buddhism-Hinduism-Christianity) are each represented by at least 10% of the population? Yes, I know the official statistics suggest a different story (this happens in many countries, for good reason),…
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.