I hate bad surprises. Who do you blame when you’ve planned everything out and things don’t go right? Someone has messed up the parcel from Amazon, the builders managed to push over a wall, the vaccinations are not coming fast enough. It might be someone obvious – or in the last resort, God, but if...
We are made in the image of God – as the Bible says in Genesis. Tzelem Elohim in Hebrew, Genesis 1:27 but also James 3 – you find it! Somehow or other we are created like God. How?Well as a species we are notoriously creative. Gardening is key in that. Joanna arrived with her brother...
One of my favourite Bible stories is the group of Greeks who find the disciples and then announce that they want to see Jesus. It’s such a reasonable request. They seek out – a man with the Greek name – Phillip. They have come to the Passover in Jerusalem along with tens, maybe hundreds of...
We are made in the image of God – as the Bible says in Genesis. Tzelem Elohim in Hebrew, Genesis 1:27 but also James 3 – you find it! Somehow or other we are created like God. How?Well as a species we are notoriously creative. Gardening is key in that. Joanna arrived with her brother...
The Gibraltar Open is the snooker of the week. No audience, though piped clapping, as far as I could make out. I watched some of it on EuroSport. The rules actually make the game. Harriet, our youngest, got a card game book for Christmas, and I delighted in being with her over the last two...
Most Biblical commentators put Mark as the first of the gospels, and many suggest that the gospel writer knew Peter and received much of the content from St Peter. That makes our gospel reading all the more poignant. It is quite possible that Peter is telling the story about himself, and against himself. When you...
Read Matthew 4: 1-11 Jesus is tested in the wilderness 4 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted[a] by the devil. 2 After fasting for forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.’ 4 Jesus...
Read Genesis 1: 26-31 26 Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’ 27 So God created mankind...
Read Luke 2:22-40 Jesus presented in the temple 22 When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, ‘Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord’[a]), 24 and to...
Read 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do...
