Pause for Thought – 6 January 2021
Pause for Thought for 6 January 2021 is now available:
Pause for Thought for 6 January 2021 is now available:
1 Samuel 3:1-10 Psalm 139 Galatians 2:15-21 The search for identity and purpose is all around us. You only have to look at the situation in Italy, as those with vastly different visions of what it means to be Italian compete to run the country. You only have to look at the Russian billionaire Roman…
Exodus 6:1, 6-9 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 “Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally,” said Abraham Lincoln. Of course, we were pleased to celebrate the bicentenary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade a few years ago. Yet, we all know that slavery…
Hebrews 11:32-12:2 When you’ve lived in the north-east of England, thinking about saints takes on a whole new meaning. St Aidan, St Cuthbert, St Bede, St Oswald, St Chad, St. Hild, and St Wilfrid. The same handful of saints names live on in countless churches, schools, colleges, roads, etc., throughout the region, but not elsewhere….
Romans 8:18-25 I wonder how many of you can readily recall where the last pitched battle on the British mainland was? It wasn’t one of the Civil War battlefields, nor the Duke of Monmouth being put in his place at Sedgemoor. It was Culloden, in the Highlands of Scotland, where the Jacobite rebellion against the…
Proverbs 25:6-7 Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16 Luke 14:7-14 Who should pay for the food provided at Farnham Foodbank? Or for the homeless shelters in Woking and Guildford? There’s a growing trend which says that people should only get what they pay for. Yet the Foodbank and the night shelters can only happen through the generosity of…
Luke 14:25-33 It’s always embarrassing when people talk about money, least of all in church. We will be talking about money in a moment, because the church has bills to pay, like everyone else. What I wanted to do was to set it in the wider context of God giving us all that we have,…