Monday musing

1, I recently preached a sermon on Ephesians 3 and then birthed another talk on Ephesians 1 inspired by a passage in Peterson's book on Ephesians called 'Practice Resurrection'. What studying these two passages did was lead me to parts of the NT where Paul prays and then to Don Carson's book 'A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and his prayers' 

....Shall we not agree with J I Packer when he writes, "I believe that prayer is the measure of the man spiritually, in a way that nothing else is, so that how we pray is as important a question as we can ever face. Can we profitably meet the other challenges that confront the Western church if prayer is ignored as much as it has been' [p.17]

I am planning to spend a week on each passage and have been blessed by my first week on 2 Thes 1:2-11.

2. I spoke on 1 Cor 13:4-7 and was stuck again by how poorly I love. So many of those phrases set the bar very high and I am mulling on particularly on pride and envy. Although I do feel fairly secure and don't expend much energy looking sideways this post entitled '5 signs you are an insecure leader' fell in the the mix of my mulling.

3. John Irvine, whose preaching I sat under for many years, used to say 'there is no retirement in the kingdom of heaven'. John Piper in this post agrees with him. Life begins at 70.......

4. Someone recommended 'Europe: In or Out' by David Charters to me which I have downloaded on the kindle.

5. 'The bathroom debate' on the other side of the pond is unquestionably coming our way.

6. Evangelism: never the first word in a conversation?

7. Perfectionism can be a dreadful cross to bear and here is a book about it. One to read if this is your cross.

8. John Irvine's sermon on 'Evangelism and the Spirit's anointing' (15.6.16) is worth listening to just for the lovely story about Tony the builder.

9. I rather like the look of this little book called Happy Hour about parties.

10. I cooked Mary Berry's 'Lentil Cottage Pie' which is actually rather good. The lentil doesn't have very good press but in this form it is delicious.