Just a reminder of the post I put up a couple of years ago about How to be Single at Christmas.
Oh, and in case anyone is wondering what I’m eating for Christmas dinner, let’s just say that Lidl’s promotion of Rudolph Steaks is very welcome in Praepostorial Towers.
As one who grew up(?) in churches leaning toward the view “it’s a tough story for a tough world, how else would God be just?” in varying degrees, I agree the face-value-narrative understanding of the story is repellant.
One thing stood out for the first time during Sunday’s reading: the plurality in Abraham’s line – “…and we will return to you”. I’ve been idly wondering about that since.
It doesn’t make the story wholly acceptable as Abraham still ploughs on ever closer.
But if one’s goal is to find a “by faith, Abraham” in there, better to say it’s the prior confidence that things will somehow work out well (which I thought was how Hebrews was trying to define it), than to locate the commendable quality in violence (which, by rabbiting on about resurrection, Hebrews does).
In the absence of other clear & wholly mitigating contexts in which to place the story, certainly it’s simplest, easiest and probably best to file it under “that’s how they saw God back then” and move swiftly on.
Oofft.
The gospel reading that we have just heard comes in two paragraphs. One apparently easier on our ears and easier on our minds than the other. After all, Jesus says, ?When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens?. Well, after the week…
To Perth this morning for the first meeting of the Electoral Synod. There is a vacancy in the diocese for a new bishop and this was the first part of the process. Most of the time today was devoted to listening to what people from the congregations want from a new bishop. It made me…
I've enjoyed playing around with the Political Compass webpages. No surprises at all about the result I got when I took the test, I could have predicted it pretty accurately beforehand. However, it is interesting to think about the questions that they ask.
Yes, that was me in the swimming trunks and wellington boots trying to prevent water from coming into the Rectory.
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