GospelBlog

…Well! Openness and transparency have had an interesting effect upon the leaders of the nation. Every day for the past week the Daily Telegraph has tantalisingly drip fed us more and juicier details of the ‘expenses’ and ‘allowances’ claimed by our democratic representatives. Every day the news has been filled with more senior politicians desperately apologising on behalf of “all MP’s” while making it clear that, personally, they have always sought to stay within the Read more…

I find it quite remarkable that in a society that largely ignores God and where many would volubly express their doubts as to His existence, people are so quick to blame God for the bad things that happen to them. Recently I read about the relative of a murder victim who wrote that she could never forgive God for taking away her sister. I have personally spoken to others who have expressed similar anger against Read more…

I don’t often feel the hair on the back of my neck rise as I listen to the radio driving into work in the morning. But yesterday morning that is exactly what happened. On the Today programme on Radio 4 there was a feature on current trends in funeral music. Apparently, in England and Wales at least, more people are requesting secular music at funerals than request hymns. The most popular choice is the Frank Read more…

The Bible is full of practical lessons from nature, including the verse from Proverbs 6 that I have slightly amended for my title, “Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise”. We are fortunate to live on a goose motorway, one of the main routes for migrating geese taking them to and from Loch Leven (beside Kinross), which lies just over the hill to our north. Over the past few nights Read more…

As I write, four former top bankers are sitting facing the Commons Treasury Committee answering questions about their handling of the finances at their respective banks in the lead up to the economic crisis we are now all engulfed in. From the pictures on the BBC website it looks remarkably like a court-room! There is a danger for all of us that we might feel a bit of schadenfreude when we see these pictures. These, Read more…

Apologies to avid readers of the Gospel Blog for my long absence! We are currently having serious work done to our house and every spare minute seems to have been taken up with shifting furniture from one room into another to allow the joiners in, then back again to let the decorators into the first room, and so on! Apologies also to the promoters of the film ‘Twilight’, which I haven’t seen. I just thought Read more…

Sorry! Those of you who have been following the blog you will know that it is over a fortnight since I last contributed anything. It’s not that I haven’t thought about it. It’s not even that I didn’t sit down a couple of times to write something. It’s just that I couldn’t think what to write about! This week I have been attending Bible teaching meetings at the Gospel Hall in Kinross and it has Read more…

The press this week is reporting that St Andrews University in Fife has received funding from a large pharmaceutical company to build a new centre for research into so called ‘hospital acquired infections’, like MRSA and clostridium difficile. With some spectacular reporting in the media, these diseases have become something people really fear when they have to go into hospital: ‘are they more likely to get an addition illness than they are to be cured Read more…

Sorry to keep coming back to the financial crisis. A work colleague tells me that he has stopped reading the paper from the front as it just depresses him. He has started reading from the back and when he gets to the car adverts he stops! The news seems totally dominated at the moment by the most unbelievable of circumstances. We are left with a situation where people cannot even be sure that governments, never Read more…

Friday night and here I am making my first contribution since last Sunday! Almost a week gone past and the intensity of business life, especially in the current economic conditions, has meant the time has flown by without any opportunity to sit down and add a few words to the blog. Life can so often get like that. I remember a man who worked with me on a large construction project a few years ago Read more…