Archives: life

On being boring

Life, Sola Panel

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According to a computer analysis, one particular Sunday in the 1950s (the 11 April 1954, to be exact) was the most boring day in the twentieth century. The most interesting things that happened on that day were a Belgian election (yawn) and the birth of a Turkish physicist specializing in atomic microscopes and computer chips. Apart from that, nothing much else happened.

Being boring seems to be a particularly heinous crime nowadays, even amongst Christians. Of course, this isn’t true at all times and in all places. It’s hard to think of the Protestant martyrs who were burned at the stake in the mid-1500s, or Christians today in Pakistan being sentenced to death for blasphemy, being especially worried about the prospect of boredom. On the other hand, if you’re reading this, you probably belong to that portion of humanity with quite a lot of time on our hands. Time to read blogs, for example. Or play sport. Or to like things on Facebook. And since you probably spend quite a bit of time reading, playing and liking, you probably care a lot more about the ‘interest factor’ in your entertainment, your sport and your friends than, for instance, the average Protestant martyr.

So is there actually anything wrong with being boring? Is boredom just a 21st century Western problem that we all just need to ‘get over’?

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Necessary heresies?

Life

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It’s not really necessary to know your heretics, unless they’re doorknocking you.

Even then you can find ways to avoid them or annoy them. I keep a Greek New Testament on hand. When they deny that Jesus is God, I mention John 1:1. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. I point out that in verse 14 of the same chapter, the Word becomes flesh—God becomes man, the man Jesus Christ.

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The hope of biblical peacemaking as a response to the challenge of conflict

Everyday Ministry, Life

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The word ‘conflict‘ strikes us hard.

It evokes an involuntary ‘gut level‘ reaction deep within us, perhaps of pain, or danger or fear. It speaks to us of relationships that won’t heal, of people who won’t listen, of wounds never acknowledged, of conduct never discussed. It may be an extreme situation which is splitting a church, school or marriage, or it may be just that lower level of conflict which causes us to avoid some­one’s company in the workplace, avert our eyes at morning tea after church, and be polite and civil when underneath we feel distant or angry.

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Rowland Taylor, Protestant martyr

Life, Sola Panel

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This month, on October 6, it was 500 years since the birth of the Protestant martyr, Rowland Taylor, in 1510. From Northumberland, Rowland Taylor earned his law degree and then a doctorate from Cambridge in the 1530s. He also married Margaret, niece of William Tyndale (who translated the Bible into English, and for it, was burnt by Henry VIII in 1536). But as evangelical thought developed under Henry and flourished under Protestant King Edward VI, Taylor served each of the three great Bishops of the English Reformation: Latimer, Cranmer (who ordained him) and Ridley. From 1544 he was the Rector of Hadleigh in Suffolk, a post he remained in till his arrest. He also served more broadly as Archdeacon.

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From euthanasia to the gospel

Life

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Euthanasia is a topic that is not likely to go away any time soon. Our friend or colleague, normally keen to avoid thinking about their own death, may now be talking about their right to end their life at some point. So how can we move a conversation about assisted suicide to the gospel? Tony Payne has some practical (and humorous) advice in an article first published in The Briefing in 1995.
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Raising kids in a sex-crazed world

Life

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Imagine living in a world where husbands wooed their wives with Adam’s passion—bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh—and sex was enjoyed. Imagine living in a world where, after the stress of each day, husbands and wives found comfort in sexual intimacy as David did with his wife after the death of their child. Imagine living in a world in which the only reason for not having sex with your marriage partner was the urgency of prayer. It would be a sex-crazed world.1

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Give up your life: When you’re sick

Life

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This is my third year of suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS)1 and I often pray that it will be my last. It has turned me from a confident, extraverted, active, independent person, who hardly ever said ‘no’, into someone trapped in a frail, exhausted, pain-filled body desperately desiring to be able to get out of bed. In a few days, I went from being a young, enthusiastic and highly-driven ministry trainee to being someone stripped of their ability to work, study, go for a run or travel very much; to someone often limited to their bed or couch, missing church, parties, or hanging out with dear friends. It has changed my life so dramatically that it has shaken me to the very core of who I am. (more…)

The God of the nobody

Life, Sola Panel

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This is the sixth post in Jean’s series on women in the Bible. (Read the first, second, third, fourth and fifth.)

Hannah is a nobody, the insignificant wife of an insignificant member of an insignificant tribe. Compared to Eve, mother of all living; Sarah, mother of God’s people; or Deborah, judge of Israel—who is she? Just a barren women loved by her husband but jeered at by a younger, fruitful wife (1 Sam 1:1-8).

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The dangers of oversharing

Life

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The Bible says rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. But does that mean that when you suffer, you should make others suffer too? Claire Smith investigates.

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Top 10 Tips for Sleep Deprived Prayer

Life

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There are so many reasons for losing sleep it’s not really worth listing them. You’re either getting enough sleep or you’re not. And if you aren’t, an awful lot of the Christian life can feel very difficult indeed. Shorter tempers, less self-control, sense of life being out of control, feeling sorry for oneself, irritable, unkind, not listening… Sleep is such a good gift from God if only because it makes so many, many things easier. Prayer is one such thing. What can we do when we aren’t praying because we aren’t getting the sleep we need?

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Stress-throwers and stress-absorbers

Life, Sola Panel

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Are you a stress-thrower or a stress-absorber?

A stress-thrower blames things on others and expresses stress in anger; a stress-absorber blames things on themselves and expresses stress in anxiety (I think I’ve got that right!). This useful distinction was taught to me by Tom Cannon, a chaplain I used to work with in university ministry. In our family, we have both stress-throwers and stress-absorbers.

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Why do we pray for others?

Life

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Learning to pray for others is one of the first things we learn as Christians: we see it commended on every other page of the New Testament; we see it modelled in every other meeting of Christians we participate in; and Christian parents model it to their children from birth.

Have you ever stopped to think about why we pray for others, however? Or why we ask prayer from others? I was made to really consider the question when I first read through 2 Corinthians 1. And what the Apostle Paul says there continues to provoke me to thought and wonder every time I read it.

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