Letter from the Manse (152)

Thought provoking, biblical, often topical but always worth a read!

  • Posessions tie us down

    I’m in the process of moving my study up into the loft.  No, this isn’t an attempt to put Proverbs 25:24 into practice.  It’s simply a matter of room.  When we knew that John was on the way, we realised that we would need extra space for our growing family. ...

  • Do you expect to be sent to prison?

    Do you expect to be sent to prison?  For a long time, I’ve accepted the fact that I’m likely to serve a jail sentence at some point. What for?  For preaching the Bible.  And for trying to follow what it says. How close are we to the situation where Christians...

  • Morning Prayer

    Many of us find that the best time to pray is first thing in the morning. Speaking personally, if I don’t get up early to pray, I find it almost impossible to set my heart to pray later in the day.  We know that the Lord Jesus “rose in the...

  • All Change

    It seems that we’re constantly having to make changes these days. Most obviously there are changes in the people who attend the church. Long-established members move on and new faces appear.  Even the arrival of lots of new babies brings change to the congregation – new challenges, new strains, new...

  • Deacons

    Every church needs reliable leaders. The New Testament teaches that in every church there should be two groups of leaders. Firstly, there should be elders (or pastors or overseers: these are all different labels for the same group of men).  Elders are responsible for overseeing the spiritual life of the...