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Barby and I are coming up to six months of living here in Bangalore. One of the first things I did was buy a smartphone. I’ve enjoyed clicking here and there as I see interesting things around where we live. Here are six of my favourites: good looking Paul
READ MOREI have a friend who has been to Myanmar more than sixty times. Another friend is pushing twenty. My sister and her husband are closing in on ten visits. As for me, it has been only three … But that is enough to be sobered by what I’ve seen. There is something particularly evil about…
READ MOREIf you hang around John Stott’s writings for awhile, you’ll soon discover he loved birds. Birding was his favourite hobby and a subject about which he had an encyclopedic knowledge. He wrote a delightful book – The Birds, Our Teachers – in which ornithology drifts across to ornitheology. What a difference an ‘e’ makes… This love for…
READ MOREIt has been around for twenty years. I’ve been aware of it, but just never read it. But recently Langham’s Executive Director, Mark Hunt, gave me a copy of Gene Edwards’ A Tale of Three Kings. It tracks with David as he relates to Saul above him and then Absalom below him, giving the reader…
READ MOREYou know how a book can stay on your shelf and remain unread for years? Then you pick it up, get into it and exclaim ‘how come I didn’t read this ages ago?’. Well, let me introduce you to Cornelius Plantinga Jr.’s Beyond Doubt. As always, read on to the subtitle: ‘Faith-Building Devotions on Questions…
READ MORESome conversations are for keeping. Dinner with Conrad… in England. It was a cold wet night in Sheffield. I was perched at the end of a long table in a restaurant on a night set aside to celebrate the contribution of Jonathan & Margaret Lamb to Langham Partnership. Next to me was a new member…
READ MOREIf’ you are looking for a story of political intrigue to consume you through 2014, look no further than India, the world’s largest democracy. I can’t wait to open my newspaper each morning. Are you in for the ride? Can this dummy give you the dummies guide? I know you don’t think it is relevant…
READ MOREWith this blog, I don’t focus that often on personal stuff about myself. It is more about gathering ideas and resources that I don’t want to lose and filing them under a set of labels where I can find them easily. But when I do become more personal they tend to be topics that soften…
READ MOREI travel a lot and so I see a lot. Not so much touristy stuff. More the people of God in different settings. This can thrill the soul. Every trip abroad by a Jesus-follower should make a priority of visiting Jesus-followers in cultures so different from their own. But then some of best scenery sticks…
READ MORE‘That’s a bit over the top, isn’t it, Paul?’ Most ignored. Yes, it probably is. But I wanted to keep the ‘most’ going and so saying ‘least read’ didn’t fit. Plus this is more than posts that were not read much. This is the second eleven for ‘most important’. These are posts that were not…
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.