Tag: Paul

From Extremist to Evangelist: Paul’s Conversion and Ours

As has been my tradition, every sermon that I preach will be posted here. This sermon, From Extremist to Evangelist: Paul’s Conversion and Ours, was given at The Salvation Army Rochester on Trinity Sunday 5 June, 2016. The Reading was Galatians 1:11-24.

Autobiography Titles

I’m doing a lot of reading at the moment. For my 30th birthday, I set myself a challenge to read 30 books in my 30th year – books that I had been meaning to read, or I really should have read, by my 30th. So I’ve already read books like Frankenstein, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and a the moment, I’m Reading Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, titled Long Walk to Freedom. And I was thinking this week about the titles of Autobiographies. And there are some fantastic titles out there. Such as the lead singer of the band KISS, Gene Simmons, who titled his autobiography, Kiss and Make Up. Or Davy Jones’ autobiography – They made a Monkee out of me. One of my favourites that I’ve read – Never have your Dog Stuffed: and other things I’ve learned by Alan Alda. There’s a wonderful spoonerism in Tori Spelling’s book, sTORI Telling. And David Hasselhoff plays on his name with his book, Don’t Hassel the Hoff.

Picking the title of your Autobiography can be quite tough. Trying to sum up your life in a short, eye catching phrase, or in just a few words. I wonder what your autobiography might be called. I’ve got a few thoughts for mine: This is my story, this is my song. Or maybe What’s a Violinist doing in the Salvation Army? Could be an interesting read.

Our reading today is Paul telling the Galatians a little bit of his own story. And I read through it, and I think I’ve got the perfect title for Paul’s Autobiography: Paul: From Extremist to Evangelist. What do you think? Would you read it? Continue reading “From Extremist to Evangelist: Paul’s Conversion and Ours”

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God’s Busy Love

As has been my tradition, every sermon that I preach will be posted here. This sermon, God’s busy love, was given at The Salvation Army Rochester on Sunday 31 January, 2016. The Reading was 1 Corinthians 13.

Words for Snow, Words for Love

Did you know that it is said that the Inuit people, or Eskimo as they’re sometimes commonly known, supposedly have 50 words for snow. 50! You know, I come from Perth, and we don’t really get snow there. Occasionally there would be a small patch about the size of a dinner plate on Bluff Knoll, and it would make the news. For us, if it’s white and came from the sky, it’s snow. But for the Inuit’s, because they live their whole lives in the snow, their language developed a lot of different designations for what type of snow it is. Apparently, they have words that mean “powder snow”, “drifting snow”, “snow that falls quickly” and “snow that falls slowly”. They have words for “snow that doesn’t reach the ground” and the “First snow of the year”. But I don’t trust my source, because it also claims that the word for “snow which has melted” is “wa-ter”. So I may be a little bit misled in my claim. Continue reading “God’s Busy Love”