Song of Solomon: The most important verse in the Bible (part two)

~ I am very dark, but lovely,
    O daughters of Jerusalem,
like the tents of Kedar,
    like the curtains of Solomon ~

Songs 1:5

Our Obsession with the Outward

Other than all being blokes with varying degrees of sex appeal, what do Dale Winton, Donald Trump and Bradley Cooper all have in common?

They all have terrible fake tans.

Granted, this probably isn’t the most Solomonic introduction I’ll ever write on this blog but one that still has a measure of poignancy for this second instalment in our Song of Solomon series: our obsession with the external appearance of things – the way we look – is one of the most controlling and crippling idols known to man. It leads us to do the craziest of things: gluttony over God; now over forever; prison over mountainous climbs; temporary over eternal; counterfeits over truth and C.S.Lewis’ mud pies over holidays at the sea. It’s been this way since Adam and Eve lurched naked into the undergrowth to break off handfuls of shrubbery with which to conceal their first furtive blushes before God, (Genesis 3).Continue reading “Song of Solomon: The most important verse in the Bible (part two)”

Snog of Solomon: Kisses (part one)

“Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth! For your love is better than wine”
~ Songs 1:2 ~

Kisses

We all love a kiss even if it’s a TCP-infused kiss from your Grandpa or a hairy peck on the cheek from an old family friend. Kisses can be tolerated and wiped away but kisses can also be like strong, we’re-getting-drunk-very-quickly liqour.Continue reading “Snog of Solomon: Kisses (part one)”

Song of Solomon: When We Don’t Want to Eat (Introduction)

Jack is a young lad who goes to the same gym as us – I guess he must be in his very early twenties – and, very unusually for any bloke in the gym, recently opened up to me while we were stood recovering together next to the leg extension machine.

I’d asked him, “how you doing?” and, rather than giving an off-the-shelf response conveying that nothing in life was even remotely problematic or worrisome, he responded by saying, “I’m doing a bit better now, thanks…”.

What’s going on here then, I wondered.Continue reading “Song of Solomon: When We Don’t Want to Eat (Introduction)”

Growing a Lifestyle of Fasting & Prayer

Mairi was honoured last Sunday morning to take the church through some teaching on prayer and fasting from Matthew 6.

Towards the end of her message she tells a very powerful and personal story that serves as a great example of the importance of our persistence and tenacity in prayer! (see Matthew 7:7 NLT).

Here’s the photo from the very moment she describes.

We hope you guys are encouraged to explore cultivating a lifestyle of prayer and fasting in new ways – and we’d love to hear from you!

Love

N&M

*Please forward to 1 min 50 for the beginning of the visual/audio & apologies that the sound isn’t great.

 

 

Why Every Man Must Step Up His Response to #NotAllMen

It Goes Without Saying

Let me start off by making a couple of very obvious comments: I am in no way belittling either the tip or the larger under water elements of any incidence of sexual harassment or any aspect at all of the abusive casting couch culture of Hollywood.Continue reading “Why Every Man Must Step Up His Response to #NotAllMen”

Paradise: Why Remona Aly’s Heaven is Nowhere Near Good Enough 

Before reading, CLICK HERE & listen to Remona’s 2 minute feature on Chris Evan’s Radio 2 Pause for Thought from earlier this week. Start at 2:50 hours. 

This week’s blog is indebted to a good friend who wrote to me requesting that I have a listen to Remona’s view of spirituality in the radio show, above. My friend had seen my post a few weeks ago about an encounter I had with a couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Glasgow and wanted to know what I thought…
Continue reading “Paradise: Why Remona Aly’s Heaven is Nowhere Near Good Enough “

Not The Real Jesus 

I went to Glasgow this week for a meeting and, coming out of the train station en route, walked past two young girls stood at a Jehovah’s Witness stand doing their thing. (passively standing to attention hoping that someone might stop so that they can ‘witness’ and earn some credits or even an eternal get-out-of-jail-card).Continue reading “Not The Real Jesus “

How We Have Fallen

What would dear Horatius have written had he lived in 2017?

We’ll chat one day.

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“Man is now thinking out a Bible for himself; framing a religion in harmony with the development of liberal thought; constructing a worship on the principles of taste and culture; shaping a god to suit the expanding aspirations of the age…The extent of the mischief no one can calculate. A soul without faith, a church without faith, a nation without faith, a world without faith – what is to be their future? What is their present? When faith goes, all good things go. When unbelief comes in, all evil things follow.”Continue reading “How We Have Fallen”

Respect Your Elders

If you’re a millennial, listen up for a minute!

One of the generational characteristics of millennials – though not always – is often a fundamental lack of respect for adults older than them – “elders” if you want an old-school word. At some point you will have been negatively influenced by this through peers, poor parenting/teaching, pop culture, the spirit of the age…whatever. Being married to a long-suffering secondary school Teacher I know this is a major issue within this particular generation and one that holds back the individual in question, plotting a course for their future that will ultimately be mediocre riddled with stunted relational intelligence.Continue reading “Respect Your Elders”