Bob Crow dies

I see from the BBC here that Bob Crow the Union leader has died from a heart attack. People had me down as his lookalike, which I can see. He was two years younger than me.

Spring in London

Had a nice afternoon by the Thames last Saturday

Lord's Day March 9 2014

I was not preaching yesterday but enjoying the discipline of sitting and listening. In the morning my assistant, Andrew Lolley, preached on Cain and Abel from Genesis 4. In the evening Paolo Patuelli of LTS preached on the woman who anointed Jesus in Luke 7. I led for Paolo who is Italian and read Proverbs 9 for Andrew. Both did very well. We had the students around for lunch (plus my oldest son and his wife before they headed back to Aber) and a nice tea together in the church parlour in the afternoon. Attendances were okay morning and evening. As few away though.

Zip Trick

I'm not sue if it's because I'm fat or a cheapskate but anyway I have zipper trouble from time to time. Someone passed on this excellent trick, which you can find here.

10 VC winners

The Victoria Cross is the UK's highest military award. A total of 1,357 VCs have been awarded since 1856 to 1,354 men. Among them are these.

1. Andrew Fitzgibbon - youngest recipient (15)
2. William Raynor - oldest recipient (61)
3. Noel Chavasse - twice awarded
4. Arthur Martin-Leake - twice awared
5. Charles Upham - twice awarded (only non-doctor)
6. Charles Davis Lucas - first recipient
7. John Gough - only recipient whose father and uncle were also recipients
8. William Congreve - one of only three recipients whose father was also a recipient
9. Frederick Roberts - the other son whose father was a recipient
10. Lloyd Trigg - the only recipient to be vouched for by the enemy

James Ashworth (2013) is the most recent recipient at the present time.

10 boys names starting with J and ending with N

I was trying to remember someone's name - was it Justin or Julian. Turns out it was Jason. A lot of boy's names begin with J and end with N, it seems. Here are ten

1. John
2. Justin
3. Julian
4. Jason
5. Jordan
6. Jonathan
7. Jaden
8. Jefferson
9. Jackson

10. Jocelyn

Diary of a man in despair

I currently seem to be drawn to books about the world wars. Diary of a man in despair came out in English translation in 1974. I became aware if it reading Richard Evans trilogy on the whole Nazi movement. It's taking me a little while to get round to reading it. Friedrich Malleczewen was a very cultured writer who the Nazis eventually caught up with and killed even though he was a minor character in every sense and no agitator. He kept a secret diary through the year wars and before which is a fascinating and well written read. Not sensationalist in any way it gives a good idea of the horror of those years. Malleczewen's Catholic faith peeks through at certain times. It is difficult to see how anyone can look at those years with any degree of composure without a theistic worldview. Always the remarkable thing for many of us is that it happened here in Europe and not so very long ago. How sobering. 

Free kindle book on Romans 8

Derek Thomas's book How the gospel brings us all the way home is currently available free in kindle form. See here.

Carl Trueman and Courtney Love

So I'm listening to a recording of Carl Trueman on Bernard of Clairvaux and he begins "On Courtney Love ... see the chapter ... on Courtney Love". He's a hip guy, I guess, so I wasn't too phased and I soon cottoned on that he was actually talking about courtly love, of course. Still going deaf.

Erroll Hulse One in a thousand

Most of those who know the name of Erroll Hulse will be aware that he had a stroke while in South Africa last year and although he is now back in England his progress to health continues to be slow. Meanwhile his book One in a thousand has appeared. It is an excellent book on pastoral ministry made up of a series of an introductory chapter followed by eight studies first in the New Testament (The Chief Shepherd and Paul the inspirer of pastors) and then in church history. With each biography he seeks to draw out one aspect of the ministry. We begin with a Martin, Martin Luther, and end with a Martin, the recently deceased Martin Holdt. With them we have William Perkins - application in preaching, Richard Baxter - the pastor as evangelist, Jonathan Edwards - the pastor as theologian and Martyn Lloyd-Jones - the pastor as preacher. We thus learn some church history at the same time as looking at pastoralia. This EP book works as both an entry level book for budding pastors or those still wet behind the ears and for those longer in the tooth.

PS See what I did there with the title to this post?

Lord's Day March 2 2014

Quite behind with this but it was good to be back in Childs Hill last Sunday. We started with communion. We were rather few for that but numbers picked up. Still quite a few away, however. I covered the end of Matthew 4 with what proved to be a relatively long sermon. Briefer in the evening looking at that fundamental text in Hebrews 11.6 on faith. I have an LTS student on placement with me so I asked him to read Proverbs 8 in the morning and to pray in the evening, which he did well. So a good day rather than a great day. Good to be there though.

Lord's Day February 23 2014

I was preaching in Aberystwyth, in Alfred Place Baptist Church, on Sunday. We went up as a family on Thursday and enjoyed being with various members of the family over the few days we were there. I was able to attend a men's breakfast in the church on the Saturday, which was good. The Sunday morning sermon was followed by a fellowship lunch and that was good too. I preached from 1 Thessalonians 1 and Esther 6. It is always difficult to decide what to preach when you go away but I felt these were a good pair until I looked at them again and felt their inadequacy but I preached as best I could and I think they were appreciated. Alfred Place was erected in the same year (1870) as our building and apart from Childs Hill being quite wide they would be very similar except that our pews have been replaced by chairs and I preach from the communion table rather than the pulpit. This makes for quite a different experience. The other feature in AP for me is that I know a lot of people there but not overly well. It was great to see 20 or 30 students in the morning lapping up the teaching. Some were fresh in from this weeks CU mission I understand. Tim Curnow kindly preached here for me. Geoff was in Gorseinon.

Rugby not so bad after all

So a fairly comfortable win for Wales over a pretty poor France 27-6. I don't think everything in the garden is lovely still but it all looks possible.

Paxman and Stan Cohen

The fourth and final programme on the Great War fronted by Jeremy Paxman sustained the interest to the end. Perhaps the most interesting section was the second where Paxman spoke to someone about  aplastic surgeon called Harry Gillies. They mentioned a man called Stan Cohen who you can read about here. They say he taught a Sunday School in Bromley. Children were curious but not horrified by his appearance. I wonder if he was a believer.

Novelists 37 Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad (Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski 1857 – 1924) Born in Russia and dying in England, Conrad was a Polish author who wrote in English. Granted British nationality in 1886, he always considered himself a Pole. He is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in English, though he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties (and always with a marked accent). He wrote stories and novels, often with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit in the midst of an indifferent universe. He was a master prose stylist who they say brought a distinctly non-English tragic sensibility into English literature. His modernist style influenced many. Films have been adapted from, or inspired by, his An Outcast of the Islands, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Nostromo, The Secret Agent, The Duel, Victory, etc, etc. I have only read the novella Heart of darkness I must confess.