UEFA's exclusive club versus God's open arms
Luke Randall
Date posted: 3 Sep 2025
The start of the British football season brings excitement and anticipation of what might be achieved over the 38-game marathon between August and May. While the likes of Wimbledon and The Open have provided some welcome refreshment, it is always good when things get back to normal.
However, for those of us who support any of the previous season’s five best-placed Scottish teams, the first few weeks thrust us right into the nervous pressure cooker of the European qualifiers as our teams battle to secure places in the continent’s most high-profile and lucrative competitions.
Did seven days of prayer save Britain?
John Williams
Date posted: 2 Sep 2025
Seven national days of prayer were called for by the King at critical times throughout the Second World War. After each one, the natural chain of events which had been occurring suddenly changed and deliverance took place.
Looking back, clergyman Henry Albert Wilson wrote: “If ever a great nation was on the point of supreme and final disaster, and yet was saved and reinstated it was ourselves…it does not require an exceptionally religious mind to detect in all this the Hand of God.”
Finding out about God’s world and how it works
Catherine MacKenzie
Date posted: 1 Sep 2025
September is a month of new beginnings for many of our children. The summer holidays have just ended in mid August if you live in Scotland, while England and Wales return to school life in the first days of September.
If you want to find some interesting books for your curious kids, here’s a varied selection.
engaging with culture today
Is the sermon in the exam?
John Owen
Date posted: 31 Aug 2025
“Is this in the exam?” The question makes my heart sink every time I hear it – I want my students to care for more than exams; I want them to become good engineers.
At work, I’m leading a group designing new undergraduate programmes. As well as thinking about “constructive alignment” and “learning outcomes”, we’ve been wrestling with the problem of students who would rather watch online than sit in lectures, finding the balance between group and individual work, and managing the impacts of generative AI (positive and negative).
pastoral care
How do we grow resilient?
Andrew Collins
Date posted: 30 Aug 2025
Pastoral ministry calls for resilience. As we carry one another’s burdens we carry the weight that Paul called “concern for the churches” (2 Corinthians 11v28). It’s a pressure that reveals our weakness. To bring the riches of the gospel in pastoral care is a privilege. But we carry that treasure in earthen vessels (2 Corinthians 4v7) that are breakable and perishable. Clay pots were utensils that lacked resilience.
Resilience as a concept has its origins in the world of engineering where it denoted a material that could recover from the strain or deformation caused by stress, hence the popular shorthand, “bouncing back”. But clay jars aren’t very malleable!
South Asian exchange
Being a light in dark times
Rani Joshi
Date posted: 28 Aug 2025
“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you” (Isaiah 60v1).
Over recent months I have said to my sister: "It feels like our country has gone downhill." I remember when I first started coming into London 18 months ago, there was not one trip where I couldn’t smell “weed” aka cannabis on the street or the train, or hear news stories about building more prisons, families in temporary accommodation, knife crime, county lines, and homeless people in need of love and transformation… I’m sure there is much more that I haven’t even added here. I want to share one story from my everyday context.
Now This
Sundays: Rediscovering rest in a restless world
Bill James
Date posted: 28 Aug 2025
By the time this article is published, the summer holiday season will be coming to an end. We all enjoy having a break from the routine of daily work – surely there’s nothing controversial about that? And yet the most controversial of the Ten Commandments is number four, relating to the Sabbath.
My own position is that the moral law is expressed in the Ten Commandments, which continue to have universal and binding authority. The Sabbath continues today, being celebrated now on the first day of the week (the Lord’s Day). This view is expressed in the Westminster Confession, the 1689 Baptist Confession, and the Savoy Declaration.
culture watch
The truth is in danger
Rebecca Chapman
Date posted: 27 Aug 2025
A new season starts soon, bringing with it a fresh school year. New classes, new schools, new friends. After a long hot summer, with protests across the country, increased restrictions on social media, and the narrative around migrants and the Middle East almost constantly across the front pages, can we expect a new narrative to emerge over the autumn?
My hunch is that we cannot. As more and more news becomes available across all kinds of online mediums, our newspaper (and wider media) industry comes under ever-increasing pressure to showcase what sells.
Addressing the 'sins' of segregation and nationalism
Neil Robbie
Date posted: 26 Aug 2025
As I drove from Sutton Coldfield to West Bromwich on Monday's bank holiday (a distance of eight miles) I passed dozens of Union Jacks and St George's Crosses fluttering on lampposts.
This phenomenon is not unique to the West Midlands. It’s spreading across England.
What Philippians 4v13 really promises athletes
Jonny Reid
Date posted: 25 Aug 2025
There’s one verse that seems to be beloved by athletes. It’s tattooed on arms, scribbled on armbands, repeated in locker rooms: “I can do all things through him who strengthens me" (Philippians 4v13).
A mantra of motivation – divine strength for success. But what happens when dreams don’t come true? When “all things” don’t happen?
defending our faith
Egypt: New discoveries and the book of Exodus
Chris Sinkinson
Date posted: 23 Aug 2025
Archaeological excavation has been fairly muted in the Middle East during the present crisis there. However, a number of discoveries have been made in Egypt over the last year that have been in the news. One in particular may have significant bearing on how we read the Bible.
Any visitor to Egypt will have been awestruck by the stunning ruins of tombs, temples and pyramids. Among those memorable sights will probably be the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor. Built as three terraces into the sides of a cliff it remains remarkably intact having been used and reused for different purposes over 3,000 years.
Immigration: What is a Biblical policy?
Luke Dorman
Date posted: 22 Aug 2025
Jesus exhorts us with every severity to love foreigners with cost.
The Old Testament provides a model of immigration policy which:
The Cross: Atonement, controversy & victory
Dan Strange
Date posted: 20 Aug 2025
In the last few weeks there's been a flurry of on-line activity over John Mark Comer's comments on Instagram concerning Andrew Remington Rillera's book "Lamb of the Free", writes Dr Dan Strange, Director of the Crosslands Forum.
Comer posted: "One of the most important academic books I've read in years. Next I'll read rebuttals, but this seems to be the final Biblical / exegetical knock out blow to PSA [Penal Substitutionary Atonement]."
What is your summer camp trying to achieve?
Jonny Woodbridge
Date posted: 20 Aug 2025
It is the season of summer camps at the moment, and there are loads that you can choose from.
There are lots of ways that you could distinguish between them, but one way it is worth thinking about is: what is the main purpose of the camp?
autism and the church
Autistic Christians: Providing and receiving welcome
Triona Brading
Date posted: 20 Aug 2025
How many times a week do you think you hear some variation of “a very warm welcome to you”? And what perception do you have of how to welcome people on the autistic spectrum?
I am confident that at almost any church service or event you will be verbally welcomed at least once, perhaps even several times... There might for example be an “official” welcome from someone at the door, one from the leader of the service, and any number of informal welcomes amongst the congregation.
Ageing: Society's view versus the Bible's
Andrew Drury
Date posted: 13 Aug 2025
The desire to prolong life and even to live forever has been the pursuit of humanity ever since Adam and Eve were evicted from the Garden of Eden, being prevented from eating the fruit from the tree of life.
There have been articles, books, plays (such as Peter Pan) and films (notably Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) which have taken this prospect as its theme.
Jewish tradition and radically different interpretations of the Bible
Ziggy Rogoff
Date posted: 11 Aug 2025
Jewish tradition is rich with interpretation, layers of meaning passed down through oral teachings, commentaries, and midrash.
Many modern Orthodox Jews hold these traditions in high regard, often giving more weight to the oral interpretations than to the written text of the Bible itself.
