Being holy

I don’t know about you, but I have never found the concept of holiness easy to grasp. Most of us don’t seem to have too much of a problem believing that God is holy: indeed, the very fact that God is holy is sometimes the stumbling block that makes us draw back from...

Disagreeing well

My daughter told me that she recently preached on the subject of disagreeing well. I suspect that for many today it is a lost art, or maybe an art that was never learned in the first place. Jewish rabbis at the time of Jesus would have been well instructed in the...

The almost Christian

When Paul was on trial before Festus and King Agrippa, his arguments were becoming so persuasive that Agrippa responded to Paul, “You almost persuade me to become a Christian”. Agrippa was an interesting person. He was around ten years old when Jesus was born, and...

Being reconciled to being reconciled

If most of us were to be perfectly honest, there are probably some people whom we would rather not forgive and be reconciled to. Sadly, those towards whom we retain an irreconcilable attitude may have once been very close to us. Friends, family members: parents,...

Pretentious? Moi?

Featured in the Psychiatrist episode of Fawlty Towers, aired just over forty years ago, this two-word question must be a serious contender for the prize of the world’s shortest joke. If slipped in fast enough, it might have enabled Tim Vine to make a world record of...

Baruch atah Adonai Elohenu melek ha-olam

Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe One of the things that I have learnt from those who practice the Jewish faith is that it is both healthy and necessary to keep coming back to square one and declaring the blessedness of God’s sovereignty....

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