Category: Bible bits

  • The Kingdom is like…

    Apologies for being so last week!  based on Matt. ch.13 So I asked, rather foolishly, what happened at 4.30am.  Blank looks.  And it happens every morning, but perhaps not always that early. … ‘sunrise?’ …  Yes! And what will happen tonight at about 10pm? … ‘sunset?’ (they’re catching on!) Is that right says I? (they…

  • Where your treasure is…

    … there will your heart be also. The cynical mind ponders the question, ‘Do most people come across this phrase in Luke’s Gospel 12:34 or in Chapter 16, entitled ‘Godrick’s Hollow’ of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows? I suppose it will be one of those really annoying pub quiz questions one day where a…

  • Last Sunday…

    Dutifully looking up the readings for my last Sunday in the current parish, (Luke 13: 31-35) I was astonished to read the short passage – how apt for one leaving… The I noticed I was in John, not Luke.  Uncanny though, how appropriate some of the words from John were!! Little children, I am with…

  • There is but one way…

    … to get rid of the snow, and that it to build a sled for the children.  When I have finished it, (June or July sometime) the snow will be gone!  Whilst deciding whether or not to clear the drive and risk the car this morning – (nah, walk!) I was browsing a few books…

  • Minister as Midwife and Servant

    We celebrated with Ruth last night as she was ordained into the Church of Scotland as a ‘Minister of Word and Sacrament’  at Lochmaben.  It was her father’s comments to which the title alludes as he preached with reference to Exodus 1:15-21 (Midwife) and Mark 10:35-45 (Servant). Enabling the congregation to fulfil their potential is…

  • Any fool can make things complicated

    E.F. Schumacher said that: “Any fool can make things complicated, but it requires a genius to make things simple.” Satish Kumar quoted this in Resurgence Then went on to say that “Simplicity requires less ego and more imagination, less complication and more creativity, less glamour and more gratitude, less attention to appearance and more attention…

  • Sound of Silence

    It’s been one of those weeks, culminating in today, when I have been humming along to a tune.  Fortunately this week it has been one I’m quite familiar with and fond of!! I treated the congregation to the full three minutes and five seconds of what is perhaps one of Paul Simon’s best known pieces…

  • Hem of the Garment

    I came across this phrase again whilst reading an exegesis the other day, it was of course in the Daughter of Jairus and that bleeding woman story, (not even going to attempt to spell the other word for that!!) I suppose the disciples might have called her that, a)if they spoke english, b)if they understood…

  • Liverpool Nativity

    Arrived home just in time for the Liverpool Nativity at 8pm last night on BBC3, (if you missed it it is on again next sunday on BBC1) Easter 2006 saw the Manchester Passion denounced as blasphemous, yet probably did more than any other easter story-telling to interest people in that story. So was the Liverpool…

  • Advent

    Well it's advent again, the readings from the lectionary this sunday are nicely obscure, just my luck it is a family service. "Watch ye, therefore, for ye know not when the master of the house cometh" Matt. 24:44.  I always remember the King James version of this because of the Film Shawshank Redemption, not that…