Why Caesarea Philippi Matters As the episode coming out this week makes clear, Jesus asks his biggest question of the Gospel so far in a place that seems, at first glance, a strange choice. Not the Temple courts. Not a synagogue. Not even pla…
Nicodemus in the Dark: What John 3:36 Actually Says There's a man in John's Gospel who arrives at night with a compliment and leaves with a question he can't answer. His name is Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a respected teacher, someone who has spent h…
Somewhere in the preparation of most things I put in front of you now, a piece of software has had a hand in it. Not writing my convictions for me, but helping me search, draft, and sharpen. And that raises a question worth sitting with honestly: wh…
Today we dig into a 'slow burner'. What I'm suggesting is that there are passages in the gospels that you get to grips with only slowly. It can take years. You think you know them, and then you read them again and something you missed the first d…
Every email seems to start the same way now: "Dear so-and-so, I hope you are well." We type it without thinking. It's become background noise, a courtesy we barely mean. But that little phrase is older than any of us realise. Right at the start …
There's a man in this story in Mark 5 who never gets a name. Mark tells us plenty about him: where he lived, what had been tried to help him, what he was doing to himself. But no name. That's got to be worth noticing from the outset, because it m…
Who Then Is This? Reflections on Mark 4:35-41 There's a moment near the end of this story worth holding onto before we even start, because it's the moment the whole passage is built around. The storm has stopped. The boat that was filling with wa…
If you're going to challenge somebody with the question "who do you think you are?", you'd better make sure it's not the person Mark has just introduced as Jesus Christ, the Son of God. That would be a red flag. You'd be punching WAY above your we…
There is a song being sung right now that you cannot hear. It is being sung by creatures you have never seen, by elders you have never met, by a vast choir drawn from every people who has ever walked this earth. It is addressed to a Lamb who was ki…
National Identity, the Red Dragon, and a Vision That Reaches Further Than Any Flag Jesus was from somewhere. That is easy to overlook, but it matters. He was from Nazareth: a small, undistinguished town in Galilee, part of a people living und…
There is something quietly remarkable about Penarth's Italian Garden. It has been standing for a hundred years. And embedded in its history is a story of welcome: Italian families who came to South Wales around the time of the Second World War, who…
Patriotism, Scripture, and the line that must not be crossed Is it okay to love where you're from? To love your people, your land, your language, your history? Yes. Absolutely, yes. This is not a trick question, and the answer is not grudging o…
There's a song being sung in heaven. It's celebrating a Lamb who was killed, and the song says this Lamb has purchased people for God from every tribe, every language, every people, every nation. It's one of the most sweeping, inclusive statements …
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 …
Have you ever sat through a presentation where the speaker just quoted other people the whole way through? 'Research shows'.'Experts say'.'A study from Yale University ...'And somewhere in the middle of it you think ... well what do you think?'D…
The Most Dangerous Thing That Can Happen to a Church It's not persecution. It's not cultural pressure. It's not even false teaching — though all of these are real dangers. The most dangerous thing that can happen to a church is that it loses its…
There's a moment near the end of Revelation chapter 5 that doesn't get nearly enough attention. John's vision — already astonishing by any measure — pulls back to its widest possible angle. Not just the elders, not just the angels, not just the …
We all carry it. The feeling that the world has stopped making sense. The weight of pain we can't explain, suffering we can't resolve, prayers that seem to go nowhere. And somewhere underneath all of it, a question we hardly dare ask out loud: i…
What do you think of singing? Oh I LOVE a song! There’s something deeply human about it isn't there? A song can lift the spirits, steady the emotions, or help us carry a burden for a while. Even people who would never describe themselves as mus…
Bought? Welcome to this Super Short Thought. What do you think of the idea that you were bought? Now hang on a minute — it’s a metaphor. But it’s a striking one. There’s a line in an ancient song — a song sung in a vision of heaven — that has st…
How d'you fancy being a priest? I know. Priests haven't exactly got the greatest image in the media right now. But that's not the kind of priest I'm talking about. Here's the issue: do you realise that most people, at some point in their lives, …
The Vision of the Lamb ... There's a striking image in an ancient vision I keep coming back to. It's in Revelation 5:6. You've got this picture of a lamb standing upright, very much alive, but bearing the marks of having been killed. Both…