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Stay Salt
You sometimes hear a preacher talking about the Old Testament worthies – the many witnesses that surround us, ‘leaning over the balustrades of heaven to watch us’ (Hebrews 12:1). I’m beginning to guess what they are saying to each other: ‘Look! The believers got into the twenty-first century. After all that persecution in the twentieth, Read more
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Ireland? – in the Bible?!
If you’re living on an island, like I am, let’s enjoy together the privilege of being swept up in the final stage of the Great Commission – that’s from Isaiah’s point of view of course. It seems like God gave the great old prophet a veritable obsession with islands. They hadn’t been a big thing Read more
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Did you hear the eclipse shouting to the BBC?
The BBC does it’s best. On Monday April 8th they arranged for some of their best reporters to observe the eclipse that traversed North America. As soon as totality arrived in Ohio, they had Helena Humphrey on hand to ask the locals what they thought. When the light re-appeared she asked the nearest local, ‘Michelle’, Read more
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Jesus was no saint
Protect me, I implore you, from Easter – if it’s only going to be another vacuous, vaguely religious-sounding bank holiday (and do the banks really need these ‘holidays’ anyway?) I’ve just recently been dragged through St Bridget’s Day. After being deluged with the reported goodwill for Bridget, I thought it was only right to perform Read more
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Easter in the Khyber Pass
I couldn’t miss the massive tribal turban on his head and the rifle hanging from his shoulder. I had noticed a man waving at me while I was waiting for an appointment on Peshawar university’s sparse front lawn. He had been in the shadow of a tree so I couldn’t make him out clearly. More Read more
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Thank you for coming
My dear American missionary friends, of all types and organizations: Thank you for: • Coming to Ireland in the first place. That first day when you stepped off the plane, Ireland wasn’t quite like it is today, was it? • Patiently answering the question, “how were your holidays?”, when you have just come back from Read more
the electrician's children 