The Simple Pastor

Despite being one of the most secular countries on earth, cultural religion still has a significant role in Swedish society not least in their national holidays. Today the nation is busy having a day off courtesy of the ascension of the saviour of the world. A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of preaching [...]

God is making even death untrue.

I use a lot of technology. I like my old secondhand smartphone with its apps and I’d like to upgrade. I like my laptop and blogging. I like messing around with design and new browsers, I like Twitter, Google+ and to a much lesser extent facebook. I like sending emails, talking with friends on Skype, [...]

Today is the best day of my year every year. Better than my birthday, better than my kids birthdays, better than holidays, better than our anniversary, better even than Christmas Day. My entire faith hinges and rests on the foundation of this day. Good Friday is not good if the resurrection never happened. Jesus would [...]

There are certain branches to Christianity that tell you that the Christian life is always victorious. What they often mean by that is there will be no suffering, no illness, no failure. Glory to glory, as the saying goes. No room in this scheme of things for depression, gloom, sadness, sickness, defeat. Of all the [...]

Here in Sweden, today is not known as Good Friday but The Long Friday (långfredagen) because ‘the day was marked by sorrow when the day was long and hard for Jesus.’ I was struck by The Gospel of Mark’s account and it’s repetition in just a few verses. This is from the ESV “And they crucified him and divided his garments among [...]

The quest for the historical Jesus is littered with boring books; not so this one. Professor Bruce Fisk has combined the fictional story of Norm, a post-grad student exploring Israel in a personal quest to discover the ‘real’ Jesus with a textbook to all the historical and theological issues that arise from reading the Gospels [...]

The angels gave their message Mary gave her body Joseph gave his reputation Caesar gave his orders The innkeeper gave his manger The magi gave their gifts The heavenly host gave their praise And the shepherds gave their worship. Mary gave birth Joseph gave a name Heaven gave a Saviour The Father gave a Son. [...]

In Acts 20:35 Paul reminds the church at Ephesus these words of Jesus, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ Just take a moment to think about whether you believe that or not. How are you more blessed? Do you feel more blessed when you give? It can be easy if you have [...]

Paul Levy shares a wonderful quote by Thomas Watson on the incarnation. It’s worth taking a moment to read it and a few moments longer to think about it. “If our hearts be not rocks, this love of Christ should affect us. Behold love that passeth knowledge!” Read it all.

I love how every now and then two very different people from two very different places will blog something very similar. For me it brings a little emphasis, a little highlighting to blog reading, makes me pay a bit more attention and ask God what He might be saying to me. (HT: Charles Crosland) Then [...]