When our children were little, one of their absolute favourite books was called ‘You choose!’ The idea was very simple: each large double-page spread asked a question: ‘what house would you choose to live in?’ or ‘what food would you choose to eat?’ The pages offered dozens of ideas, from fairly sensible to totally crazy, … Read more
I don’t know about you, but I love the Winter Olympics, and have done ever since I was a child. Although I’m a sports nut generally, I must admit that it’s largely their infrequency – the fact that you only get to watch the luge or Nordic skiing or slopestyle snowboarding every four years – … Read more
It’s easy to rush to a judgement. We see something, smell a rat and immediately form a conclusion – usually a negative one. By nature, I’m as guilty of this as anyone: indeed one of my appraisals from a boss of mine in the past said this: ‘My one piece of advice to Matt would … Read more
I bet you read today’s passage and thought: what on earth has this got to do with worship? It’s just another long list of one tribe getting particular towns to live in…. which is nice for them, but not sure what it has to do with me! The reason is that this is the tribe … Read more
We all love the idea of ‘safe places’ – places of sanctuary, of protection. For many of us we like to imagine our home as being such a place, or a particular room in our home; for others it’s a place of worship; it might even be a remote spot, somewhere quiet where we feel … Read more
Today I’m being nice to you! (Only today, obviously….) Much of chapters 13-19 of the book of Joshua consists of long and detailed lists of boundaries and towns – which I’m going to spare you, save this one passage! These essentially define the land allotted to each tribe, and in which they can now settle. … Read more
The bible is a book full of promises. Many of them are made by human beings, and are sadly broken. But there are hundreds made by God as well, and one of the greatest encouragements of our faith is that God keeps them – all of them! Today’s passage outlines a very personal promise kept. … Read more
Today’s passage comes as something of a shock. Over the last few chapters, the Israelites have conquered the land in what seems like a whirlwind series of successful encounters. You may be thinking that this all took a matter of a year or two, maybe even a few months. And yet, here at the beginning … Read more
Chapters 10-12 of Joshua, in whirlwind fashion from 10:28 onwards, detail the Israelites’ successful conquest of much of the land. It’s a hard read, so today’s passage is illustrative, and I’ve chosen it in part because it allows us to keep looking for those ‘echoes of grace’ tucked away in the narrative of battles and … Read more
I love a good disguise. I’m hopeless at wearing them myself – being well over 6ft tall, it’s hard to convince anyone that you aren’t who you are. But the world of fiction and entertainment is full of great disguises: I enjoyed reading the Arsene Lupin novels a few years ago, and pretty much every … Read more