Standing on Penarth seafront, Simon asks a simple question: what does God think of Wales?Revelation 5:9 describes a heavenly scene where people are gathered "from every tribe and language and people and nation" before God's throne, every language included, every nation kept distinct, not erased in…
A Saturday morning in Capernaum.An ordinary synagogue.An ordinary Sabbath.And then Jesus walked in.What happened next left the entire congregation 'struck out of themselves', using a word Mark chooses carefully: cognitively dislocated, categories broken.Not impressed. Not entertained.…
What happens when an ancient power-naming strategy meets Jesus of Nazareth in a Capernaum synagogue?Across Egyptian magical texts, Greek exorcism manuals, and fairy tales like Rumpelstiltskin, the logic is consistent: know the true name of a being, gain power over it.When the unclean spirit in Ma…
Every teacher quotes someone. That's how authority works: you borrow it. Rabbis in first-century Judaism built their entire teaching method on citation. You stood on someone else's shoulders and pointed upward.Then Jesus walked into a synagogue in Capernaum and just... spoke.No rabbi quot…
We read about singing planets from time to time, but ...What if the universe has never been silent?In this Super Short Thought, we pause at one of the most breathtaking moments in the whole of Scripture — the closing vision of Revelation 5, where John hears every creature in heaven, on earth, u…
This week's "Word for the Week" finds Simon on Penarth seafront, lifeboat station in view, watching the steady stream of holidaymakers from Wales and abroad passing through.It's the kind of place where you might ask a visitor, "So, what do you t…
Mark writes the way a good news editor would want you to write. Tight. Urgent. No wasted sentences. He barely stops for breath.His opening sentence in the original Greek is 16 words: "The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.…
There's an idea that keeps turning up in the ancient world, across cultures that had no contact with each other, and it goes like this: if you know the true name of a being or a power, you have leverage over it.You can find it in Egyptian magical …