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I learned many things I thought I might never need to know from Jack Duncan. Perhaps that isn't surprising, considering he was (by my maths) in his 40's and I was just started school. He was the farmer my dad worked for, as a dairyman.  From as early as aged 4 until I was about 7 or 8 I remember him as a kindly, slow talking and slow walking man.

He first sat me on a tractor seat when my feet couldn't reach the pedals – I learned amazing words like throttle, clutch, gear-stick. I was his golf ball retriever when he took a couple of golf clubs into a field and practised. He said it was OK to eat the peas that were growing with the barley in the field next to our cottage. He encouraged me to take some of the rich molehill soil just over the dyke at our cottage, for my dad to make potting compost (mixed with river gravel and leaf mould.

He and his wife Nancy took us to Ayr a couple of times each summer, to the beach, for ice cream, and the amazing experience of travelling in an early Austin Cambridge A55. We inherited every couple of weeks the comics that came into the house for their two children, my first discovery of that particular literary genre.

They were generous, kindly people who made life a bit easier for us. These reminiscences are sparked by a photo I took of a Cheviot sheep, one of a few hundred grazed for a few weeks locally. Jack Duncan taught me the names of several sheep; Blackface, Leicester, Scottish Dunface, and Cheviot – the one in the picture. 

Jack Duncan was a good shepherd. His dog was unimaginatively called Shep. and sometimes competed at the sheep dog trials down Ayrshire way. I remember in the evening he took me down to the meadow, and across the main rail line to Dumfries, to look over the sheep.

He was looking for any sheep that was limping, and Shep easily separated it and cornered it. Jack the good shepherd had a sharp pen knife, a wee box of powder and a stick of keel (now called marking fluid). Once treated, he would mark it, and go looking for the same sheep some days later, and if still limping it would be taken to the farm for the vet to treat.

So when I read the Johannine Jesus saying, "I am the good shepherd…the good shepherd looks after the sheep," I already have a stock image in my head of a slow talking, slow walking, kindly man with a bunnet on backwards, a couple of golf clubs, a clever sheepdog, and the wherewithal to deal with foot rot.

I know. It isn't a bible land Ladybird book picture – but it works for me.   

"Lord, have mercy. The sea is so vast, and my boat is so small."

When life seems too much – too complex, too scary, too unpredictable, and yes, too exhausting, I come back to this prayer. It's traditionally called the prayer of the Breton fishermen. 

It's a prayer for those who feel out of their depth. A cry of the heart when the waves keep coming and every one of them gets bigger. 

It may have come as a prayer of desperation, hope clinging to an old story of disciples in a storm, the sea of Galilee a frenzy of destructive forces. And Jesus asleep.

The photo was taken the other day, the sea calm, and a small fishing boat overtaking a platform service vessel, both heading for harbour and home.

Like the sea, long periods of life can be calm, navigable, predictable, and relatively safe. Then weather patterns change and the sea transforms into threat, and we rediscover our finitude, our limits, our humanity; we are reminded of what we can't do, what we don't know, and what we cannot control.

This brief one line prayer asks for mercy, but does not tell God what to do. At most it points out the obvious, the vast realities we face, and the limited resources at our disposal.

God already knows all that. But it is deeply human to cry out for help, for mercy, for something that pushes the balance of fear towards faith, despair towards hope, and transforms that sinking feeling into a sense of being held.

The Psalms are full of such one line prayers. Cries for mercy, recognition of risk and danger, words of complaint at how hard it is – and thanksgiving for a rescue still to come but already promised by the God of mercy.

Does life always turn out like that? Does what we dread never happen? The sea is indeed vast, and our boat exceedingly small. And I guess that's where faith becomes more than, not less than, certainty.

Trust grows out of, and into, our relationship with God, forming bonds of love, trust, hopefulness and purpose. God's mercy is not a guarantee against storms at sea, but of God's presence in the boat. 

"Lord, have mercy. The sea is so vast, and my boat is so small." Whatever we face each day, "the Love that moves the sun and other stars" is on our side.

"Here is love, vast as the ocean, loving-kindness as a flood…" The instincts of the translator are precise; mercy and loving-kindness are English translations of the Hebrew word for mercy, Hesed.

"Lord have mercy…" 

Now and again a moment and a place coincide. A photograph is a way of capturing the intersection of what we are thinking, and what we are seeing. 

Walking through campus on my way to a public lecture, I was still thinking of what I'd spent the last hour reading. Slow reading. The kind of reading that is a conversation with occasional interruptions, and the occasional significant silence.

I was reading an essay by my friend, and Doktorvater, Professor David Fergusson, "Kenosis and the Humility of God." Reading theology has become both lifelong discipline, and a way of loving the God of whom we think, to whom we pray, and whom we seek to serve. So reading theology is a form of prayer, the mind kneeling, the heart attuned to hear what James Denney called "the plunge of lead into fathomless depths."

Here's the two or three sentences I was mulling over as I walked:

"Can divine love be stripped of divine power without weakening its capacity? Paul's insight is that divine power is manifested in the foolishness of the cross, not that it is abandoned or lost in this event. If the fullness of God is here to be revealed, then kenosis, whatever else it is, cannot be construed as a divestment of divine identity in the incarnation. If Christ reigns from the tree, then he reigns." (Kenosis. The Self-Emptying of Christ in Scripture & Theology, eds. Paul T Nimmo, Keith L Johnson, Eerdmans, 2022, page 195)

"If Christ reigns from the tree, then he reigns." That was my thought as I walked down the brae and looked at the King's College Crown and Cross through the trees. Thinking and seeing coincided in a moment, not so much of intellectual clarity, as of spiritual acknowledgement.

Oh the thinking must go on, as must the praying. And the reminders, first, that worship is expressed in the form and content of our thought, and second, our best thinking is done on our knees if not always physically, then certainly intellectually. 

I've said it often now, my camera often becomes and enables reflection on the "sacrament of the present moment."

Once a week I go to my happy (learning) place. I mean this University library. People who know me are aware I have admiration, affection and a long-standing regular attendance at this particular library. This edifice to education polarises opinion – love it or hate it, not many are neutral. 

Here's why I like it. Think of architecture as a power statement. Then think of the large and tall glass temples built in the City of London, and other cities. Most often they are owned or leased by huge finance or corporate companies. They are about wealth and wealth creation, they are statements of power, using the constructive rhetoric of architecture. This University library would not look out of place in such company. Except.

Except that this building is about education and learning, the creation of knowledge, encouraging understanding and facilitating discovery. The end product is not finance but intellectual capital, social capital and the transformation of minds, and hopes, and possibilities. I love the statement that this building makes – a place of learning is a place of power, possibility and riches that can last a lifetime.

When I come here I head for Level 2,4 and 7 – Humanities Journals, English Literature and Art History, and Theology and Philosophy, respectively. I recently borrowed 4 books that would have cost me about £150 to buy.

Most times I avoid the lifts and take the stairs – just under 200 to the top floor – there are 9 floors and I've never really understood why the first two are un-numbered and the top floor is numbered 7. In any case it is often my scala sancta, the long climb towards theological illumination!

Yesterday I chose to take the lift, and discovered why I don't. On the way up, crowded. It stops at Level 1 and two get out; stops again at level 2 and 1 gets out, and 1 gets in, only to get out again at 3. Every floor it stopped. By the time I got to Level 7 the time it took, I could have climbed the stairs and been the fitter for it!

But. I then had just over an hour of reading, browsing and came away with a half page of notes. Was it worth it? Depends what dividends you think you get from the investment of thought. Yes, actually, it was worth it.  

Why? Look at the two photos. The second one shows the football goals in the foreground. Life has many goals, most of them worthwhile. The goal of good learning is amongst the best goals we ever score. 

 

 

 

2 Peter 1.3 “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.”

Godliness isn’t a cosy, spiritual feeling. It means respect for God’s will and obedience as a way of loving God.

Godliness is about how we behave, think and relate to other people.

Everything we need to obey God’s will is already ours by divine power – the Holy Spirit in our hearts and the risen Jesus at our side, and God’s glory and goodness underwriting his call on our lives.

“The Gospel is greater than the words that describe it…” Nijay Gupta is a creative and productive scholar who moves with ease between academic scholarship, and the kind of teaching and wisdom that nourishes Christian community. For him the New Testament is “thought provoking, captivating and worldview shaping.” His aim in this book is to help his readers experience the same transformative encounter with Scripture.

Gupta chooses fifteen key words, explains their use and meaning in the New Testament, and explores the ways each word encapsulates Christian faith in experience and practice. The words are chosen carefully, though none of them are a surprise: righteousness, gospel, life, forgiveness, cross, grace, faith, fellowship, hope, salvation, peace, religion, holiness, love and witness.

Fifteen word studies, but much more than that. Each word is attached to a New Testament Gospel or Letter, which is then used to explain and illustrate not only the meaning of the word, but the spiritual experiences and practical impact of such powerful theological words.

The result is a very different kind of New Testament Theology. The word list touches on almost all of the New Testament books. But Gupta isn’t trying to cover everything. The social and historical context, then the theological content of each word, is skilfully and persuasively presented. In the process the implications for Christian living are spelled out for obedient and faithful Christian existence. The lexical, grammatical, exegetical and theological work is all done, but the end result is a series of practical essays on the “load bearing concepts” that cumulatively spell out the Good News of Jesus Christ. There is much pastoral wisdom and spiritual insight woven throughout this volume

So, a book on New Testament Theology that both draws unifying threads, and yet affirms the diversity of New Testament voices. Gupta demonstrates the practical shaping impact of each of these words on the spiritual experiences that shape Christian existence in community and its witness to the world. Theology and praxis, semantics and spirituality, grammar and grace; Gupta achieves a creative balance of careful scholarship and practical coaching, supporting the reader towards a more confident and trustful improvisation of what it means for us to live into the Christian story.

I warmly recommend this book to those needing more than how to spiritual advice and wanting a deeper understanding of the dynamic core of New Testament faith. It will also serve very well for those seeking a tour of New Testament theology with a well informed and good natured guide. And preachers? They could profitably take and use the fruits of the learning on display in all or some of these exegetical essays. I could see much value in an occasional series applying what is learned here to their hearers, opening up the riches of God’s grace, the joy of witness and worship, and the theological potency embedded in the “load bearing” vocabulary of our faith.

Nijay Gupta is Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary, Illinois, and author of several New Testament monographs and Commentaries.   

My friend Kate, who died about a year ago, was my go-to expert on English Literature. The question I wish I could now ask her is, "What's a good poetry anthology that's come out in the last year or two?" I miss those long meandering conversations which always came round to "What are you reading?" That's when I would have asked my question, knowing the answer would offer something intriguing and promising.

I've been looking for a couple of poetry anthologies that would both refresh the familiar and introduce me to poems and poets new to me. And I so wish Kate was around for one of those conversations. I recently bought two¹ very different collections. In truth, they are more than collections. They are poems collected by the anthologist for very specific purposes, both of which are likely to make the reader think as well as enjoy. 

This post is about Dancing By the Light of the Moon, a thick, readable and conversational collection of poems worth memorising. Clearly Giles Brandreth has a wide and generous repertoire in his own well informed mind. From Shakespeare to Lear, Betjeman to John Donne, Denise Levertov (now a life-member in my personal canon) to Carol Ann Duffy, from Heaney to Herbert, and Auden to Zephaniah; and the poems are arranged into chapters that cover haiku, limericks, sonnets, nonsense poems, Shakespeare soliloquies and various other categories, sensible, and intriguing, if at times refreshingly whimsical.

I'm half way through it, and it's like attending an audience with Giles Brandreth in full flow, with one liners, and personal stories that are funny, laced with name-dropping gossip, and at times poignant. More than that, he is an enthusiast, in love with his subject of poetry learned by heart. At times Brandreth's writing gives the impression of an overfilled wine glass spilling out verses and quotations and complete poems as he walks about the stage. It's a fun read which manages to say interesting and new things about the familiar, and prepares you to read and hear (yes read it out loud) poems for the first time. He is a consummate teacher who is not off-puttingly didactic; more like a conversationalist who shuts up regularly to let the poets get a word in edgeways.

It's nobody's business, but this book is on the bedside table. It's exactly what's needed to calm and re-settle the mind; not too much stimulus, but enough to keep you interested till lights out. 

However all this brings me to one of the more intriguing reasons for his compiling this collection in the first place. Brandreth takes time to introduce the most recent research on the benefits of learning poetry by heart, which points to growing evidence that such cognitive activity helps keep dementia at bay. Professor Usha Goswami, leading researcher in cognitive developmental neuroscience at the University of Cambridge, puts the lie to the myth that as we grow older the brain replaces fewer and fewer cells. Learning new things, and specifically the practice of committing new knowledge to memory, and doing so in language that has rhythm and verbal cadences, strengthens the neural processes by which we learn and retain, remember and recall. That first chapter containing the evidence is worth the price of the book. 

I can still recite, word perfect, several poems and Shakespeare passages learned 55 years ago. As a preacher throughout my life I know a lot of the biblical text by heart, and like most church-goers of my generation I can sing dozens of hymns without the aid of a hymn book.

But that's only half of the good Professor's point. That's the recalling part. What is of primary importance is to learn new poems by heart – or hymns – or Bible passages – or Shakespeare. But learn it, store it in the memory and compel the brain to work at retaining it by repetition, recitation and performance even if only to yourself. Brandreth is fully persuaded by the findings of this fascinating research, probing at the very edges of cognitive science in Cambridge. In response he has assembled more than 200 poems and passages, with introductory context and comment, and in categories chosen for the convenience of the reader intending to memorise. I'm going to try this and see how I get on. It will, I hope, supplement other lifelong intellectual and cognitive habits like textual exegesis, and reading books that provide brain circuit training as a mental workout! 

Half way through it, and I'm glad I bought it. And I so wish that Kate was around to have a serious chinwag about the science, the poems, and the cognitive therapy that is scientifically established, of memorising her beloved Shakespeare – her Norton Critical Edition of which was laid on her coffin along with her flowers. She, amongst all the friends I've known, understood poetry, its place in our human experience, its capacity to teach, to heal, to comfort, to rebuke, to point us beyond ourselves. She knew in that way that the best readers know, the quality of poetry to equip the mind with words and images that sharpen our perceptions of the world, and deepen our understanding of each other, ourselves, and whatever transcends our all too human limits. 

_{1. The second one I bought will be featured in another post once I get to it.} 

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths."

That verse from Proverbs was typed from memory, a mixture of the King James Version and the RSV. The NIV which is by now more familiar to me from years of preaching from it as the preferred translation in my church tradition (Baptist,  is

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight."

My favourite reading version of the Bible is now the Revised English Bible, and it sharpens the translation further:

"Put all your trust in the Lord and do not rely on your own understanding. At every step you take keep him in mind, and he will direct your path."

The most recent scholarly commentary on Proverbs, (Paul Overland in the Apollos series) reads more like a paraphrase, but is the author's own translation:

"Incline your confidence towards the Lord with your entire mind, and do not habitually depend on your own insight: in all your ways know him and he personally will straighten your paths."

And finally, a translation from a leading Jewish scholar of Wisdom in the Hebrew Bible, in a commentary where he also provides his own translation, (M V Fox, Proverbs 1-9, Anchor Yale Commentary):

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and rely not on your own understanding. In all that you do, hold him in mind, and he will keep your path smooth."

All of these translations gather the gist of the text, with small but significant variations. Why trouble you with five different ways of saying (more or less) the same thing? I'll try to explain.

I first started reading the Bible seriously after I was converted at the age sixteen. The book of Proverbs was one of the first books I read through. I guess it was one of the chunks of the Bible that quickly made sense, and that sometimes reads like those Reader's Digest snippets and page fillers of practical wisdom, good advice, pithy sayings and self-help pointers to success in life.

My guide was a now battered and much used copy of Derek Kidner's distilled brilliance at getting quickly to the heart of things. Kidner's wee commentary passed on to me a fascination with the Wisdom tradition in the Hebrew Bible, and particularly how some of its verses can read like a commentary on the latest news of the 21st Century – from Fox News to the Financial Times, from the Guardian to the Daily Mail, from your favourite gossip sources to Have I Got News For You, and most other places where we go looking for someone else's take on the way the world is.

The Book of Proverbs is made up of several collections of ancient wisdom, telling us the tried and tested techniques, attitudes, responses, and reactions to all kinds of human behaviour, from the palace to the market place, from the home to the courts. How to make friends and keep them; when to keep your mouth shut and when to speak; learning to control money instead of letting it control us. And throughout, the contrasting moral options that always come at us in daily life; with examples of the virtues of faithfulness, compassion, truthfulness, and of their opposites of betrayal of trust, hard-heartedness, deceit – and these are only for starters.

This is a book to keep by the bedside and read a few verses morning and evening. Reminders of what a well lived human life looks like when lived wisely; and warnings of what a wasted life looks like when lived foolishly. So, in the world of human relationships of love, friendship, business partnership, neighbourly co-operation, the Sages gives the kind of advice that should be on the back of our business cards, on our screen savers, or a post-it on the fridge and certainly at the edge of your keyboard:

"Let your loyalty and good faith never fail; bind them around your neck, inscribe them on the tablet of your memory. So you will win favour and a good name in the sight of God and everyone else." (3.3-4, REB) 

Chapters 1-9 of Proverbs makes the case for wisdom as the building blocks of a good life. Chapters 10-31 are crammed with one liners. Like this one:

"The righteous suit words to the occasion; the wicked know only subversive talk." (10.32)

Let that sink in. The righteous person wants to speak and act justly and constructively; the wicked bends words and to use an ugly word, weaponises words! Think of our own Parliament, and then read this:

"By the blessing of the upright a city is raised to greatness, but the words of the wicked tear it down." (11.11)   

To raise, or tear down. Our words, attitudes, values and actions have outcomes. They raise or tear down. That's as true in Parliament as in our family life, in the shops as where we work, the office or the church. See what I mean? These one liners from Proverbs judge our habits of thought, our manipulative ways of speaking, the rush to criticise, to look for the worst, to opt for the convenient lie, to make me, I, my and mine the keywords in our ways of being. 

Hence the advice near the beginning of the book, which reads as the learning outcome God sets for this course we are taking called "Living the Good Life" :

"Let your loyalty and good faith never fail; bind them around your neck, inscribe them on the tablet of your memory. So you will win favour and a good name in the sight of God and everyone else. Incline your confidence towards the Lord with your entire mind, and do not habitually depend on your own insight: in all your ways know him and he personally will straighten your paths."  (3.3-6)