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Monday

Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
Most blessèd, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
Almighty, victorious, thy great Name we praise.

Worship is a balance between intimacy and awe. Praise is the recognition of God’s glory, the acknowledgement of our limited understanding, and a celebration of God’s grace, wisdom, mercy and love. This verse is a confession of the heart that God is beyond our grasp, his purposes are from everlasting to everlasting. In a world of flux and uncertainty, when our hearts are anxious and life seems uncertain, take time to look beyond the horizons of our sight to the only wise God, the Ancient of Days.

Tuesday

Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light,
Nor wanting, nor wasting, thou rulest in might;
Thy justice like mountains high soaring above
Thy clouds which are fountains of goodness and love.

Behind, above and within the swirling currents of history, and the daily situations and circumstances of our lives, God is active, purposeful, all-seeing, and ever present as Creator, Redeemer and Judge. As Psalm 121 says, “God neither slumbers nor sleeps.” Justice, goodness and love are only three of the attributes of the God made known to the prophets, and revealed in Jesus Christ, God’s Son. But they are important to remember in these our own times – God’s justice is like a granite mountain range, durable, immovable, solid in its moral reality, and like mountains, there, always! 

Wednesday

To all life thou givest—to both great and small;
In all life thou livest, the true life of all;
We blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree,
And wither and perish—but nought changeth thee.

Life is gift, every single day of our lives. In God we live and move and have our being. Every time we say “Our Father” we are reminded that God is the source of our lives. But life isn’t forever, everything changes, including ourselves as we grow and mature and grow older. But our lives are hidden with Christ in God, and God is unchanging in his faithfulness, love and purpose for each of us. In a world that is changing, in ways that are alarming and unfamiliar, nothing changes the nature of God. What’s more, nothing will change God’s redeeming, reconciling and renewing purposes in Christ; and nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord!

Thursday

Great Father of glory, pure Father of light,
Thine angels adore thee, all veiling their sight;
All laud we would render: O help us to see
’Tis only the splendour of light hideth thee.

The writer has James 1.17 in mind: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” So when it seems God is absent, and the world around us is scary, remember darkness cannot exclude God. In Christ, by His Spirit, God is actively present throughout creation, in the history of our world, in our own lives and stories – the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not extinguished it. The splendour of God’s light radiates from an empty tomb, and a heavenly throne.

Friday

Great Father of glory, pure Father of light,
Thine angels adore Thee, all veiling their sight;
But of all Thy rich graces this grace, Lord, impart
Take the veil from our faces, the veil from our heart.

These are the original words, and lines 3 and 4 are too good to be edited out in the modern version! The greatest grace is to have our eyes opened to the glory and grace of God. And the greatest blessing is for us to know God’s merciful grace is both operative and active in all the times and moments, ways and places of our lives. 

Saturday

I Timothy 1.17 “To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory forever and ever, Amen.”

Strange that the two verses echoing loudly in this hymn, come from 1 Timothy and James, and are both 1.17! They are both worth memorising!  When the world is too much with us, the news comes at us in an endless stream of anxiety, people’s misery, and aggressive, divisive political shouting, these two verses, and the words of the hymn, provide a balancing perspective. When the clouds gather in threatening grey, consider those other clouds of God, which “are fountains of goodness and love.”

Sunday

Faithful one, so unchanging, Ageless one, you're my rock of peace;     Lord of all I depend on you; I call out to you again and again.

You are my Rock in times of trouble, you lift me up when I fall down.                 All through the storm, your love is the anchor; my hope is in you alone.

Monday

Ephesians 2.4-5 “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions –“

Paul is never short of comparatives and superlatives when it comes to speaking of the love and mercy of God. God’s love is greater than any other we can conceive, and beyond compare in the whole universe of possibilities. This is love that makes alive, that forgives and cleanses, that sets free and restores. “God, who is rich in mercy”, draws us from death to life giving us a new heart, creating a new centre from which to live, replacing previous disobedience with grateful obedience, and loving service.

Tuesday

Ephesians 2.4-5  “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.“

Grace. The word also gives us the word gift. For Paul Christ is the ultimate gift, for in Christ God gave himself in love, grace and mercy. Paul never tired of telling of Christ, the gift of God’s self in his Son. It is in and through the once for all gift of Christ that God’s great love is made known, and in whom God, who is rich in mercy, enacts his saving grace. In Christ we are saved, by grace, love and mercy. Saved from our sins and delivered to a life of freedom and obedience. Saved by grace! No wonder Paul ran out of superlatives! “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift.”

Wednesday

Ephesians 2.6 “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus…”

The old hymn had it right: “You ask me how I know he lives, he lives within my heart.” Yes, we serve a risen Saviour, but Paul says, there’s more. We are raised with Christ, and we live in Him and Christ lives in us. The resurrection of Jesus has reverberations that extend to the whole of creation, and to the whole of our life. We are made alive with Christ, raised with Christ, seated with Christ. Being saved is a rich incorporation into the life of the risen Lord Jesus. Our lives are now hidden with Christ in God. There is no safer place to be than “with Christ.”

Thursday

Ephesians 2.7 “in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

Paul’s back to his word search, looking for words that describe the riches of God’s grace: unsearchable, extraordinary, outstanding, incomparable, surpassing, immeasurable. All of these have been used to translate that dense and nuanced word Paul uses to distinguish God’s grace from any other kind of generosity. In the end it is reduced to a lovely generality – “his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” It was that word that inspired the lines, “Let us with a gladsome mind, praise the Lord for he is kind.” The word is an understatement of something that can never be overstated anyway. It is by such grace, kindness toward us, that we are saved.

Friday

Ephesians 2.8-9 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God –not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Just to be clear, so there is no misunderstanding, for the avoidance of doubt, Paul repeats the truth that is the cantus firmus, the supporting underlying theme of the Gospel: “by grace you have been saved.” We are not saved by faith, we are saved by the grace that enables us to believe, trust and surrender ourselves to the call of God in Christ. Such faith is itself a gift of God’s grace, mercy and love. None of this is our doing. No wonder Paul struggles for words to describe “the unsearchable riches of God’s grace toward us in Christ Jesus.”

Saturday

Ephesians 2.10 “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.”    

Each one of us is a unique piece of art, crafted with skill, love, and imaginative care, called to be a walking demonstration of the creative mercy of God. We are God’s workmanship. Each of us is unique and uniquely valued, someone in whom God has invested without limit of time, effort or trouble. There is cost in the work of the artist and skilled craftsman; creative excellence can be exhausting. Behind God's workmanship is one whose whole creative purpose is gift, grace and self-giving for the sake of the finished work. We are created in Christ Jesus, to be formed into the community and communion of Christ, God’s masterpiece.

Sunday

Ephesians 2.10 “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.”    

To do good works" literally to walk in good ways, so that as God's workmanship, as an exhibit of God's work, we reflect the style and the character of the Artist. We are not saved by good works, but to fulfil all that God has purposed for us when he called us to faith and obedience. In the gift and grace of our salvation we become implicated in the work and mission of God. We are both called and sent, created in Christ Jesus as collaborators in the mission of God, and ambassadors of Christ.

Monday

Proverbs 22.1 “A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.”

The Book of Proverbs often reads like the old Reader’s Digest space fillers, Life’s Like That. In one sentence they pack in the wisdom of long experience. A good name, a reputation for being honest, to be respected as one known to be trustworthy, you can’t buy that. So it may well be that effective Christian witness happens in our day and time when we shine a light of integrity into the shadows of a world where truth is at a premium, self-interest is becoming an approved social habit, and shame is thought to be a sign of weakness. Your good name is a Christian statement.

Tuesday

Proverbs 22.9 “A generous person will themselves be blessed, for they share their food with the poor.”

Generosity is seldom a mistake. God loves a cheerful giver, that is, someone who gladly gives, without regrets, and as an act of gratitude to God and compassion to others. Foodbank donations, a homeless person with an old polystyrene takeaway cup, the direct debit to a charity which we refuse to cancel, the scones or pancakes handed to a neighbour known to be struggling – and not necessarily financially. Of all the spiritual disciplines that deepen our own spirit, sharing what we have to make other people’s lives better is right up there with the highest forms of prayer!

Wednesday

Proverbs 22.11 “He who loves a pure heart and whose speech is gracious will have the king for his friend.”

A pure heart and gracious words. This is about more than sincerity and politeness. The pure heart, to state the obvious, goes to the heart of who we are! Our motives for what we do, the way we think about other people, our inner climate of thought and feeling within which are formed love and compassion, hope and trust, humility and self-knowledge – these grow through the life of the Holy Spirit nourishing and shaping us towards the image of Christ. In Proverbs, this saying was originally about laying the foundation for political success – but its roots go much deeper into those places where our relationship to God and to others finds its best expressions.

Thursday

Proverbs 22. 13 “The sluggard says, “There is a lion outside!” or “I will be murdered in the streets.”

Excuses! We all make them. When we don’t want to do something, however commendable or virtuous, we look around for reasons to say no that won’t make us look bad. By contrast agape love is disinterested. Agape is love that doesn’t put our own convenience and our own interests first. Love for our neighbour can never be a matter of whim or convenience. Instead of looking for reasons to not get involved, Christians look for situations where help and support are needed. The Samaritan could have conjured up a dozen good excuses to pass by on the other side!

Friday

Proverbs 22.22 “Do not exploit the poor because they are poor and do not crush the needy in court, for the Lord will take up their case and will plunder those who plunder them.”

Decades ago the phrase God’s “bias to the poor” was a Christian buzz phrase. This verse is hard-headed and uncompromising. Power is not over others, but to be used to defend and support the weak and vulnerable, those who need a bit of help to get on in life. In a society where there is great inequality in resources to live in dignity and safety, these are words that judge the policies and rules of our society. For Christians, care for the poor is not mere political preference; it is a moral imperative.

Saturday

Proverbs 22.24-5 “Do not make friends with a hot tempered man, do not associate with someone easily angered, or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared.”  

Anger can be infectious. Outrage can be cathartic. Social media seems to thrive on anger, criticism, and self-righteous outbursts. Jesus warned against those destructive exaggerations of anger. He made the link between anger and murder; the simmering resentment and blazing anger both of which wish harm on others. Not all anger is wrong, but to put up with someone easily and regularly angry is to risk weakening the social safeguards of understanding, respect, conciliation, and care for others.

Sunday

Proverbs 22.28 “Do not move the ancient boundary stone set up by your ancestors.” 

This is about community respect for boundaries. In a society where land was marked out by stones, it was easy to move them and steal some of the neighbour’s crop field. Respect for the neighbour and their property is best preserved through meticulous honesty out of which communal trust and social health can grow. Pilfering from the workplace, shoplifting, vandalism of social amenities, are examples in our own day of abusing other people’s property for our own ends. Proverbs brings wisdom and devotion to God down to the practicalities of being a responsible and responsive neighbour. Often enough spirituality is about doing the ordinary things faithfully.    

I recently came across a reference to a book called Enacting a Pedagogy of Kindness. It takes a bit of unpacking but what a brilliant title! The week I first noticed the book was quite a difficult one, and several folk arrived at our door with flowers, cards, and gifts. Such gestures of kindness are neither required nor obligated. It's the way people have learned to be, a habit of the heart, enacting gestures of kindness.

Another example. I regularly go for tea and a pastry to one of our favourite places. As always, I greeted the person serving us with "Hello, how are you doing today?" I went to pay and he said, "That's OK. This one's on me." I asked why. "Because you're the first person who asked how I was doing today. Thank you." But I didn't think, and don’t think I did anything out of the ordinary.

It occurs to me that kindness is really learned behaviour, intentional goodness. Like good efficient driving, or a practised golf swing, enacting kindness becomes second nature, a way of being. Other words help expand its meaning – thoughtfulness, friendliness, compassion, humanity, attentiveness, generosity, respect for persons.

So yes. It would make some difference in our neighbourhood, our culture and our society if we committed ourselves to Enacting a Pedagogy of Kindness! Can we train ourselves in adopting a disposition of kindness, forming habits of respect and thoughtfulness? And all the while making sure kindness is a practice, a daily enacting of who we are.

Enacting a Pedagogy of Kindness. Great title! Not original though. Jesus said as much in more familiar vocabulary, "Love your neighbour as yourself."

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
forgive our foolish ways;
re-clothe us in our rightful mind,
in purer lives thy service find,
in deeper reverence praise.

The hymn we know so well is part of a 17 verse poem, ‘The Brewing of Soma’, in which the hymn-writer, a Quaker, was critical of one form of religion in India which required intoxication in worship. By contrast, the final verses describe a form of prayer and worship in which silence, thoughtfulness, holiness of life and loving service to others is the most worthy expression of worship. The contrast between ‘foolish ways’ and ‘our rightful mind’ signals a prayer of repentance, our wish for a change of life habits and a cleansing of thought and emotion. Each day this week, looking on a world that often seems foolish, cruel and an unholy mess, pray these words to reorient your own life around the wisdom, holiness and love of God. 

Tuesday

In simple trust like theirs who heard,
beside the Syrian sea,
the gracious calling of the Lord,
let us, like them, without a word
rise up and follow thee.

A Christian life that is wise and knowing, holy and reverent, begins with the grace-filled call of Jesus. Responding to the call of Jesus is an act of lifelong obedience, a willingness to count everything else as secondary. Much recent scholarship on what ‘faith’ is makes clear that the core of faith is trust, a relationship based on love and obedience. Yes, faith is about what we believe, but faith begins, grows and comes to full fruit in our relationship with God in Christ, by the renewing power of the Holy Spirit. Those last two lines can also be our daily prayer, to rise up and follow Jesus.

Wednesday

O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above,
where Jesus knelt to share with thee
the silence of eternity,
interpreted by love!

In an over-busy, anxious world, distracting itself with noise, connectedness, competitive consumerism and constant nagging towards self-development, we need space and time if God is going to get a look-in, or a word in edgeways. This lovely verse takes us into the Gospels to the kneeling Christ. Those last two lines are amongst the most effective descriptions of the loving communion of Father, Son and Spirit. They also point us to the secret of Jesus faithful obedience to the Father, and the resources of a life that was endlessly outgiving in self-expenditure for others. Sabbath rest is making time for such sunbathing in the life-renewing love of God.    

Thursday

Drop thy still dews of quietness,
till all our strivings cease;
take from our souls the strain and stress,
and let our ordered lives confess
the beauty of thy peace.

There is some irony in the fact that life coaching is a growth industry in a culture geared to hoovering up all the spare time and money that can be sucked out of a society revolving around money! The first line is a biblical reference to the manna that is God’s gift. The strain and stress of career, making ends meet, finding a work –life balance, it gradually grinds the joy and hope down. The hymn-writer knew nothing of digital finances, social media, globalised trading, climate change, and much else that falls like a cataract of concerns on contemporary life. Nevertheless, his words touch deep into those familiar strivings of our 21^st Century everyday. These are words intended to draw us into a different way of being. The background words come from Jesus, “My peace I give to you.”

Friday

Breathe through the heats of our desire
thy coolness and thy balm;
let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still small voice of calm.

Poor Elijah. Scared, exhausted, and desperately needing the confirmation that God was present with him, standing on Horeb shaken by earthquake, buffeted by gales, the air scorched by fire. But God was not to be found in elemental power that destroys. A hymn that started “Dear Lord and father of mankind, forgive our foolish ways”, ends in a prayer of listening for the still, small voice of God addressing the broken prophet. When life becomes too much, this whole hymn is a gift to the heart. When we don’t know what to pray, this hymn is ‘one that was prepared earlier’ for immediate use; by a Quaker who understood the importance of “the silence of eternity interpreted by love.” 

Saturday

James 1. 5 “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given him.”

This is another way of recognising our need for a wisdom beyond our own foolish ways. Indeed, wisdom starts when we recognise the limits of our own or any other person’s insight, intelligence and confidence. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” is the advice of the Sage to cultivate reverence for God, to give God his place. In Jesus words, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and everything else will fall into place.” James was a good pastor – he emphasised the generous grace of God, and pointed out God is not in the blame game!

Sunday

Colossians 2.2-3 “My goal is that you may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that you may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that you may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

Here is Paul writing to Christians who are just as shaken up and uncertain as any of us in our own time. Often we haven’t a clue what’s going on in the world, and it’s hard to find a stable place to stand. Paul does what he always does. The focus is Christ. When we are called by God into fellowship and union with Christ, we are drawn into the mystery of God. Christ to whom we belong, is the one in whom “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” We can be encouraged in heart because we are in Christ, and Christ is in us, and we are held and we are safe. We are those who “heard the gracious calling of the Lord.” In Jesus we have beheld “the silence of eternity, interpreted by love.”

…………………………………………..

The hymn, “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind” was written by John Greenleaf Whittier, an American Quaker. He once said, “I am not really a hymn writer, for I know nothing of music. Only a very few of my poems were written for singing. A good hymn is the best use to which poetry can be devoted but I do not claim that I have been successful in writing one.”

The hymn has consistently been voted in the top two or three most popular hymns over decades of polling. It’s a hymn that shapes the spirituality of those who sing it. Read as a prayer at times of stress, hurt, worry or weariness, it takes us to Galilee, to Jesus in the lonely place praying, to Elijah for once silenced by the gentle whisper of God. In reading it, we too can be re-clothed in our rightful mind.

Monday

Matthew 23.36-8 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’” This is the first and greatest commandment.”

In his answer Jesus concentrated all the questions about what true obedience to God might look like. Love God with everything you have, and all that you are. Worship, adoration, praise and thanksgiving are the first response of our hearts to God’s gracious love and faithful mercy. To love God is to give God that space in our lives where we grow, and are transformed by the Spirit who pours God’s love into our hearts. We love because God first loved us – the initiative always comes from God. Our response is loving gratitude and faithful obedience to that love. 

Tuesday

Matthew 23.39-40 “And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Jesus links love for God and love for neighbour. And don’t bother trying to define neighbour to make it manageable and convenient. The Good Samaritan story put an end to all that moral squirming. To love God, we must love those made in God’s image, and in whom we meet those Jesus called sisters and brothers. Forasmuch as you love the poor, hungry, hurting, lonely, scared, struggling person you come across on each day’s journey, to that extent you love Jesus, and show your love for God to be genuine, because costly, generous because a sign of the grace that has helped us.

Wednesday

John 13.34-35 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 

The commandment is new because it has a new point of reference; “As I have loved you.” Jesus is the exemplar of what Christian love looks like, how it speaks and acts. Jesus had just washed the feet of each disciple. This wasn’t an act of passive humility; this was Jesus’ answering all the earlier arguments about who was the greatest. The one who serves, who takes care of others’ needs, they are the greatest. That kind of servant love is the logo of the Christian community. Wear it – with humility!

Thursday

1 John 4.7-8 “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” 

John never forgot the lesson of the foot washing. Now 50 years later he keeps coming back to love as the authenticating test of Christian experience. To know God is to know we are loved with an infinite and inexhaustible love. It is the love that bore the sins of the world, forgives our sins, holds us safe, fills our hearts and guides our ways of being. That’s why whoever does not love does not know God. “God is love” is not for bumper stickers. It’s the theological reason why Christians of all people, love – because it is our calling, and our clearest witness to the love of God.

Friday

1 John 4. 19-21 “We love because he first loved us.  Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.”

This is logic on fire with truth. In three lines all objections or suggested limits for the scope of love to others are brushed aside by an unbreakable argument. We are loved, not because we deserve it, but because God’s love has been made known to us in Jesus. Therefore, it follows, by force of love’s own logic, and as a truth that has to be lived from the heart, we cannot now hate others while saying we love God. The brother and sister are there before our very eyes, their presence is God’s call to do to others as God has done to us. No ifs or buts. We love because he first loved us!

Saturday

Matthew 5. 43-4 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”

This is Jesus the revolutionary asking what seems impossible. Only by grace can we even think like this, and only because God’s love is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. But it’s a start, to pray for those we don’t like, who are a problem to us, and when we pray for them, the face we dislike, even hate, can become the face of one we are learning, by God’s mercy and grace, to love as an also child of God.

Sunday

1 John 4.10-11 “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

The cross of Christ is the defining truth of God’s love. Once we understand that, and receive the gift of God’s love and grace into our hearts, to live in that love becomes our way of life. If God loves us like that, then we ought to love others out of sheer gratitude! Ought is a word of obligation placed on all who stand beneath the Cross.

This is a follow up to the previous post. In that piece I told of the difficulty I had following up on a reference to Rudolf Bultmann's essay "To Love Your Neighbour." You can read that post for the full story of how eventually it was traced, and a copy kindly sent my way.

But there were leftover questions. Why would Rudolf Bultmann have an essay published in the first issue of an obscure Scottish journal? What was Scottish Periodical in the reference? How long did it last? Are there hard copies in existence anywhere?

One of my friends, John Dempster, a professional (retired) librarian, found the answer to some of these questions which unlocked the big one – how did an essay by the leading New Testament scholar of the age end up being published in a completely unknown journal in Scotland in 1947? I had asked John if he could find any trace of a publication titled Scottish Periodical. This was his response:

"I did a little bit of rooting around, and found the attached record in the British Library Catalogue – it suggests they have something called 'Scottish Periodical', and it gives a shelf mark in the record store at Boston Spa. However, there are no bibliographic details present."

But John also sent two extracts from The Scotsman – one  from August 1947 announcing a new Journal, and the other from October 1947 listing the contributors and subjects. I knew it was gold as soon as I saw the name of the Editor – none other than Ronald Gregor Smith! Here are the two Scotsman extracts John sent – now you can see why they are gold!

Ronald Gregor Smith was one of Scotland's most significant theologians in the 1950s and 1960s In 1946, while still a military chaplain, Gregor Smith was appointed Education and Control Officer for the University of Bonn, where he was responsible for the de-Nazification of the University. He was already acquainted with Bultmann, and in the following years he would be instrumental in disseminating German theology in Britain and particularly in Scotland, through his work as a translator and editor. Smith translated and guided the publishing of works by Martin Buber (he had translated I and Thou as a young student in 1937), Rudolf Bultmann, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Soren Kierkegaard. As the later Editor of SCM press he ensured the early publication in English of some of the most influential writings of German biblical and theological scholarship. 

So when in 1947 Ronald Gregor Smith went into full time publication with the launch of Scottish Periodical, of course he would ask Bultmann for permission to publish one of his essays, and one pertinent to the moment. And that's how 'To Love Your Neighbour' was translated into English by the Editor of Scottish Periodical, Ronald Gregor Smith. It had previously been published in German in 1930, then in another journal in French later that same year, but Gregor Smith saw it as important enough to be the first piece of Bultmann he translated and saw through publication for the post-war era. That in itself makes it a significant publishing occasion.

There is more. The Contents announcement in The Scotsman (above) mentions several contributors who became significant Scottish literary figures, including David Daiches, Edwin Muir, Andrew Young and Norman McCaig – Bultmann was in good company! These were Gregor Smith's friends, to whom we can add Edwin Morgan and T. S. Eliot. Eliot wrote very encouragingly of Ronald Gregor Smith's own poems, urging him to keep writing them, not so much for publication but as accounts of spiritually authentic searching. There were only two issues of Scottish Periodical, one in 1947, and one in 1948. By then Gregor Smith, and the post-war world, were moving on.

So all this started by chasing a footnote! That footnote occurs in the important book on New Testament ethics by Victor Paul Furnish, The Love Command in the New Testament. With considerable help from several friends, a modest-sized essay first published in 1930 in German and French, is traced to a now forgotten journal from 1947, and lands in my inbox from a generous scholar in 2025. Then its context and provenance are revealed through the detective work of my friend John. Then after some further digging into the life and times of an unjustly overlooked Scottish editor, translator, minister and theologian who was Primarius Professor of Divinity at the University of Glasgow from 1956 till his early death in 1968, we can understand how this overlooked gem is well worth bringing to light again. Well, at least I think so!