In 2008 I graduated from St.Andrews University with a slightly random degree in Biblical Studies and French. I had spent four years studying several different books of the Bible including their history, authorship, historical and cultural contexts and linguistic challenges that exist with them.Continue reading “Canonically “
Open
You get chatting to someone new at church at the end of a service. To you she seems perfectly fine. She is smiley, she is polite and articulate. She is breezy. Her name is ‘any person’. Church gathered is over and you go home and quickly forget about meeting her.Continue reading “Open”
Copenhagen
Here are a few of our snaps from Copenhagen where we visited for our wedding anniversary last week!
©2016, Nick Franks. All rights reserved.
We Are Gomer
This is the seventh and final post that I’m going to do on the book of Hosea. But seventh in the series though it may be, I want to treat it as though it is the first and the last.
Layered over the timeless theology of this minor Prophet’s book, and this series, has been a certain amount of poetic thought. I hope it’s been clear; I hope it’s been helpful.
But, in just a few paragraphs, what is the message of Hosea?Continue reading “We Are Gomer”
Hewn Husband: “Come back!”
It’s impossible to journey through the book of Hosea in a casual way. You would never slip into your favourite flip flops to start an ascent of Arthur’s Seat and neither can we receive from this book what we’re meant to receive without the serious footwear of meditation and prayer.
There are many lows in this book. Imagine the lows from Hosea’s perspective as he discovers that his wife, Gomer, has been unfaithful to him yet again. Imagine his heart sickness.
But God has also been on display as the One moving behind the scenes and also the One moving the scenes He’s behind. He’s in the grandeur and He’s in the infinitesimal.
Hosea and Ezekiel
Tired of Terror
Our Father
Who art in heaven
Hallowed be Your Name
Your kingdom come, Your will be done
On Earth as it is in heaven
Give us today our daily bread
And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who’ve sinned against us
Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil
For Yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory
Forever and ever
Amen
Jesus Come
Mr Cameron, Please Take Note
According to PM David Cameron in his 2015 Easter speech that most of us have heard, the UK remains a Christian country because the government help to repair Cathedrals and older church buildings that, supposedly, represent the ‘living active force’ who are the local church.
Mr Cameron also pointed to the phenomenal welfare efforts of the church in specific terms of homelessness and poverty relief.
Spotlight on this Living Active Force
Here are just two specific examples of this living active Christian force that meet many needs in our fractured society but who are not necessarily synonymous with Cathedrals or dilapidated church buildings.Continue reading “Mr Cameron, Please Take Note”
Hosea 4-10: Facing Our Adultery
Mount Hosea
Over the last few weeks I’ve been studying the book of Hosea which I’ve likened to a world-class expedition up Mount Everest. As I’ve read and thought, it’s been as though the air has been getting thinner and basic, cognitive movement noticeably harder. Continue reading “Hosea 4-10: Facing Our Adultery”
War of the Laws
Circa 1988-2016
It has been my life’s ambition, since under the age of ten, to follow Jesus Christ as closely as I can and to love Him as passionately as I should – with my everything.
This is now more than a 27-year journey: through the undulating rhythms of teenage life; through the University seasons of struggle, growth and sanctification; through post-graduate successes and failures, elation and despair; and of indisputable experiences of a kind of flooring Presence that render everything else irrelevant.
On the other hand, there have also been times of confusion and overwhelming temptation to feel utterly abandoned.
This is the warring reality woven into the mountaineous expedition of Spirit-led sojourn.
It’s my 36th birthday today – and I’ve been meaning to write this for ages – so I thought I’d get this post down today in the hope that maybe, just maybe, it’ll be of some help to someone else experiencing a warring with laws as I am.Continue reading “War of the Laws”
Albania
A chicken and gherkin sandwich, a mozzarella and tomato salad, some crackers, one of those sealed tubs of airline water that you only ever see on a flight, and a surprisingly tasty chocolate mouse: We’re en route back to Edinburgh from a week’s mission trip in Albania and I’m very thankful for the packed lunch Turkish Airways have just provided for our evening meal.
Our gratitude has been primed.
We’ve been humbled.Continue reading “Albania”
firebrandnotes.com 