Flame of Fire
The Hebrew language can have some curious links which are obscured in English bible translations. The burning bush is one example with the word ‘flame – labba‘, which seems to have a cognate link with the word for ‘heart’. “And the…
Category Psalms
She Crushed his head
“But Jael, Heber’s wife, picked up a tent peg and a hammer and went quietly to him while he lay fast asleep, exhausted. She drove (taqa’) the peg through his temple into the ground, and he died.” (Judges 4:21). In my last post…
Laurence Lovell – gone to Glory
“But we do not you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus,…
Leithart on the heart
I’ve been preparing a sermon on Romans 6 this week. The baptism language of Paul (6:1-4) drew me to read Peter Leithart’s book on ‘Baptism – A Guide to Life from Death‘ (2021). It’s a great little read on the…
Spurgeon and the Lord’s remedy
CH Spurgeon is often noted as not only an extraordinary preacher but a pastor who had to deal with melancholy and depression. Some years ago I came across this wonderful ‘God-give remedy for melancholy’. (It was quoted by John Piper…
Psalms forever!
Andrew Shead spoke on the book of Psalms at the Annual CMS conference this year. I liked this exhortation to spur us on to read and sing the Psalms: “In many churches the Psalms are read or sung every Sunday,…
The Lord is my Rock
“The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge…” The late Pastor-author Eugene Peterson has some typically delightful commentary on these words: “The single most characteristic thing about David…
Imagination and Conceivability
I came across this fascinating little footnote in Graham Cole’s ‘God the Peacemaker‘ book. He wrote: “In my view, imagination (at least in part) has to do with our ability to form a mental picture. Conceivability, on the other hand,…
Consider the ravens
Consider the ravens. (Luke 12:23). I’ll never forget the day that I first preached on Luke 12 at St Stephens. It was February 2003. Five minutes before the service began my son informed me that there was a dead crow…