We were in the kitchen again on Wenesday, looking at the final part of Romans 12 and spending time in prayer.
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Heavenly Worldliness
We were in the kitchen again on Wenesday, looking at the final part of Romans 12 and spending time in prayer.
I've obviously been busy. There is an article of mine on 2 Chronicles 13 in the February Evangelical Times.
The first part of a two part article that I have written on Experiential Calvinism is in the February Banner Magazine.
It was a typical reading day yesterday. I carried on reading Nick Wallis's book on the Post Office scandal on my kindle and, over coffee, completed Ian Shaw's excellent on book on Christians and slavery which is highly recommended (more on that later). (I did have a day off the Tuesday before too when I finished Caleb Morrell's A light on the hill - more about that anon). In the evening we went to the cinema to see Hamnet. The film is about Shakespeare's family life. The first part of the film, set almost exclusively in Stratford, is okay but nothing special. (It also includes an unhelpful and unnecessary scene be warned). It is in the latter part of the film when the focus switches to London and the famous play that things take off and we are presented with a very moving and interesting sidelight on things. While taking the bare facts Maggie O'Farrell has used a her imagination to well to present a compelling drama. Ended the day with a bit of TV including the News.
On Monday, it was good to listen, with about twenty others, to the first of three zoom lectures we have organised for the next few months. This first one from Stan Evers was on John Newton, who was born in 1725. It was good to go through what is a familiar story for many of us. Stan has a very helpful way of telling a story. Newton is a towering figure in the history of evangelicalism in the eighteenth century.
Yesterday's meeting was a little unusual in that we were in the kitchen. The parlour heater is not working. SIx of us huddled together with two on line. Most of us took turns to pray after looking at Romans 12:9-16 and our relations with one another.
Still several away last Lord's Day for various reasons but a good crowd in the morning and nearly double figures in the evening. I looked morning and evening at some Christian paradoxes - the most basic one in the morning (losing and saving your life) and then the fact that the Christian is sorrowful but always rejoicing. I forgot to say that after the morning meeting we were celebrating the birthday of one of our members who is now 87!
So for the final two sessions of Carey, we heard again from James Mildred and Peter Williams and again it was excellent stuff. James looked at the whole assisted suicide bill on which he is very well informed. Peter looked at names in the Bible, which I have heard him on before but this was a fresh and lively presentation. In fact both of these men have spoken with passion and erudition throughout the conference and been a real blessing. About hundred must have been here. The twenty or so women have had their own track with Linda Alcock, looking at Philemon. The high quality and relevance of the last day's speakers made it difficult to choose when to have these sessions.
Yesterday evening we had our traditional prayer adn share, hearing from GBM and about the APCs (African Pastors Conferences) and Myanmar, Zambia and Romania. Later on Peter Abutu gave his second address, this time on the power if the Word. Very helpful. We also had the next bit of the 1689 from pour IOM man, Enoch Adekoya.
On the morning of our only full day here at the Carey we heard again very helpfully from Peter Williams on archaeology and the Bible and then James Mildred of CARE spoke on the subject of abortion and current and future legislation. Again, very enlighteniing and stirring. We have a free afternoon.
A blog featuring whatever I fancy, often on the Christian faith but not exclusively
The similar phrase 'Worldly Christianity' is one used by Bonhoeffer. It's J Gresham Machen that I want to line up most closely with. See his Christianity and culture here. Having done commentaries on Proverbs (Heavenly Wisdom) and Song of Songs (Heavenly Love), a matching title for Ecclesiastes would be Heavenly Worldliness. For my stance on worldliness, see 3 posts here.
Midweek Meeting January 21 2026
We were in the kitchen again on Wenesday, looking at the final part of Romans 12 and spending time in prayer.
Article in the New ET
I've obviously been busy. There is an article of mine on 2 Chronicles 13 in the February Evangelical Times.
Article in the New Banner
The first part of a two part article that I have written on Experiential Calvinism is in the February Banner Magazine.
Day Off Week 4 2026
Evangelical Library Lecture on John Newton
We also had a committee meeting after the lecture. Do pray for the work of the Liubrary.
Stan's lecture will soon be with the other thirty already there here - Evangelical Library. Another version of this lecture given at the Reformation and Revival Fellowship Conference towards the end of 2025 can be found here. The next lecture will be from Ryan Burton King on February 23. Subject: Early English Baptists.
Lord's Day January 18 2026
We had a visiting preacher on Sunday, morning and evening. Chola Mukanga from Bexley Heath had not been with us before and it was good to get to know him a little and to hear him preach from the opening verses of Colossians 3. As is usual with us these days, there were a good nmber in the morning but less on the evening, only fifteen. I led the services and spoke to the children and led communion in the evening but it was mostly sitting and listening for me and that is always a blessing, especially if the preacher is competent.
10 people whose hearts were buried apart from their bodies
1. HENRY I
Henry I (d. 1135), body buried in Reading Abbey heart (along with his bowels, brains, eyes and tongue) Rouen Cathedral, Normandy.
2. RICHARD I
Richard I, “Richard the Lion-Heart,” (d 1199) Ddied after being struck by a crossbow while campaigning in Chalus, France. Most of his body buried at Fontevraud Abbey, heart in a lead box Rouen Cathedral, Normandy.
3. ROBERT THE BRUCE
Robert the Bruce (d 1329) asked for his heart to be buried in Jerusalem. The knight he entrusted it to, Sir James Douglas, was killed in battle with the Moors while wearing the heart in a silver case around his neck. Other knights recovered it and brought it back to Melrose Abbey, Scotland, for burial.
4. ANNE BOLEYN
According to legend, after Anne Boleyn’s beheading in 1536, her heart was removed from her body and taken to a rural church in Erwarton, Suffolk, where the queen is said to have spent some happy days during her youth.
5. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Poet PShelley died sailing the Mediterranean in 1822. Local quarantine regulations dictated that his body had to be cremated on the beach. His heart allegedly refused to burn, and a friend, adventurer Edward Trelawny, supposedly plucked it out of the flames. After a custody battle among Shelley’s friends, the heart was given to Percy’s wife Mary, who kept it until she died. Her children found it in a silk bag inside her desk, and it is now said to be buried with her at the family vault in Bournemouth.
6. LORD BYRON
Byron's body was embalmed but the Greeks wanted some part of their hero to stay with them. According to some sources, his heart remained at Missolonghi and his other remains were sent to England for burial in Westminster Abbey. The Abbey refused for reason of "questionable morality". His body is buried at the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Hucknall, Nottinghamshire.
7. FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN
Romantic composer Chopin died (1849) and most of him is buried in Pere Lachaise but he asked for his heart to be buried in his native Poland. His sister carried it back to Poland, where it is preserved in alcohol (some say cognac) within a crystal urn inside a pillar at the Church of the Holy Cross. Warsaw.
8. THOMAS HARDY
Poet and novelist Hardy wanted to be buried in his hometown, Stinsford, Dorset, but friends insisted that a burial in Westminster Abbey was the only appropriate choice. A compromise was reached - most of Hardy went to Westminster but his heart was buried in Stinsford churchyard.
9. DAVID LIVINGSTONE
Livingstone died May 1873 in Chief Chitambo's village at Chipundu, southeast of Lake Bangweulu, present day Zambia. Led by his loyal attendants Chuma and Susi, his expedition arranged funeral ceremonies. They removed his heart and buried it under a tree near the spot where he died, which has been identified variously as a mvula or a baobab tree but is more likely to be a mpundu tree. That site, now known as the Livingstone Memorial lists his date of death as 4 May, the date reported (and carved into the tree's trunk) by Chuma and Susi but most sources consider 1 May - the date of his final journal entry - correct. The expedition led by Chuma and Susi then carried the rest of his remains, together with his last journal and belongings, on a 63 day journey to the coastal town of Bagamoyo, a distance exceeding 1,000 miles. Seventy-nine followers completed the journey, the men were paid their due wages and Livingstone's remains were returned to Britain for interment Westminster Abbey.
10. I JAN PADEREWSKI (d 1941), pianist, composer and third Prime Minister of Poland, his heart is encased in a bronze sculpture in the National Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa near Doylestown, Pennsylvania. His body was also interred in America, near Wahington DC but in 1992, after the end of communist rule in Poland, his remains were transferred to Warsaw and placed in St. John's Archcathedral.
Midweek Meeting January 14 2026
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David Köhler |
Yesterday's meeting was a little unusual in that we were in the kitchen. The parlour heater is not working. SIx of us huddled together with two on line. Most of us took turns to pray after looking at Romans 12:9-16 and our relations with one another.
Lord's Day January 13 2026
Still several away last Lord's Day for various reasons but a good crowd in the morning and nearly double figures in the evening. I looked morning and evening at some Christian paradoxes - the most basic one in the morning (losing and saving your life) and then the fact that the Christian is sorrowful but always rejoicing. I forgot to say that after the morning meeting we were celebrating the birthday of one of our members who is now 87!
10 Acknowledged Geniuses
- Isaac Newton. Estimated IQ 190 to 200. A scientist - a physicist - ahead of his time. Although best known for his universal principles of gravity (which weren’t inspired by an apple falling in his head), the 17th-century thinker was also a mathematician, astronomer and writer, contributing to the principles of visible light and laws of motion. We also have Newton to thank for calculus, as he developed the techniques of integration and differentiation that are still used to this day.
- Leonardo da Vinci. Estimated IQ 180 to 220. Like others considered geniuses, he had a wide range of skills, excelling in everything from art and science to music and architecture. Although best known for his paintings, da Vinci’s scientific work spanned topics including aerodynamics, anatomy, botany, geology, hydrodynamics, optics and zoology. Fascinated by anything mechanical, he sketched plans for flying machines, tanks, combat devices and submarines - in the 15th century!
- William Shakespeare. Estimated IQ 210. He completed 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two narrative poems and a variety of other poems—several of which contain everyday phrases still in use. While Shakespeare’s contributions to the English language have lived on, none of his original manuscripts have survived. He easily could have faded into obscurity had it not been for the efforts of a group of actors who published a collection of 36 of his plays in 1623, in a book known as the First Folio.
- Blaise Pascal. Like others on such lists Frenchman Blaise was a philosopher and mathematician. WHen he was 3 in 1626, his mother died, leaving his father, Étienne (a lawyer and amateur mathematician) to run the household. Blaise was homeschooled using unconventional methods: most notably, mathematics being forbidden under 15 years of age. Naturally, 12-year-old Blaise (whose IQ was estimated between 180 and 195) wanted to rebel, so he secretly began to teach himself geometry. Eventually, Étienne gave in and gave Blaise permission to read a text by Euclid. As a teenager, Blaise accompanied his father to meetings of Parisian mathematicians and impressed them with his projective geometry theorems. When his father got a job as a tax collector, Blaise spent three years developing the first mechanical calculator to assist him.
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Estimated IQ 150-165. This is based on his incredible precocity, musical talent, memory and ability to compose complex works mentally, though some speculate it could be even higher. He demonstrated extraordinary intelligence through skills like playing music after one hearing, mastering multiple languages and describing acoustics without hearing them, indicating intelligence beyond typical IQ measures.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Estimated IQ 165-175. His father was a vicar and headmaster of an elementary school. He had a total of 14 children with two wives. Coleridge was the youngest in the family and accompanied his father to school, where he was known for being a bright student and voracious reader. Following his father’s death in 1781, Coleridge, aged 9, began attending Christ’s Hospital School, London. With his sights set on following in his father’s footsteps as a clergyman, he enrolled in Jesus College, Cambridge in 1791, but during his first year, he discovered that his personal views did not align with those of the Church of England and dropped out. He spent the next four years planning a utopian community with a philosophy student he met while travelling. After befriending Wordsworth in 1795, he decided to take up poetry - eventually becoming a leader of the British Romantic Movement.
- Marie Curie. Estimated IQ 180-200.Not only was Maria Salomea Skłodowska-Curie the first woman to win the Nobel Prize but she was also the first person to win it twice. And in two different categories. Curie shared the 1903 prize for physics with her husband, Pierre, and another scientist for their “combined, though separate” work on radioactivity, and then was awarded the the prize for chemistry in 1911. Most of her work focused on radioactivity - including discovering radium and polonium and other contributions to the development of X-rays used during surgery. She put her technology to work in World War I, where she served on the front lines as the director of the Red Cross Radiological Service.
- Albert Einstein. Though someone whose name has become synonymous with “genius” Einstein’s estimated IQ is only around 160. Although IQ tests were readily available during his lifetime, the famous physicist never took one. Although it is unclear how, exactly, his IQ was estimated, his scientific contributions - including theories of space, time, mass, motion and gravitation - are well documented. While he’s best known for his theory of relativity, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1921 for his work related to the photoelectric effect.
- Nikola Tesla. Estimated IQ 160-310. Tesla was born in 1856 in a region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that is now part of modern-day Croatia. His father, Milutin, was a Serbian-Orthodox priest, while his mother, Đuka Mandić, was “an inventor of the first order,” per her son’s description, who created various household tools and devices, as well as innovations related to weaving. “I must trace to my mother’s influence whatever inventiveness I possess,” he wrote in 1919 in an article published in Electrical Experimenter magazine. After studying electrical engineering in Europe, Tesla moved to the USA in 1884. Though best known for inventing the first alternating current (AC) motor and developing AC generation and transmission technology, his numerous other inventions include the Tesla coil (used in radios and televisions), the Tesla turbine and shadowgraphs (a type of X-ray technology).
- Stephen Hawking. If theoretical physicist Hawking ever took an IQ test, he never revealed his score. In fact, when a reporter for the New York Times Magazine asked him about it in a 2004 interview, Hawking said that he had “no idea” what his score was and that “people who boast about their IQ are losers.” That hasn’t stopped people from trying to figure it out. The estimate is aroound 160. What really matters is that his scientific discoveries were (literally) out of this world, contributing to the basic laws governing the universe. Perhaps even more importantly, Hawking was committed to making his work accessible - something he did on countless television appearances and through his bestselling book A Brief History of Time.
10 Illustrators of Alice
- John Tenniel, first editions published by Macmillan, London: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland 1865, Through the Looking Glass 1871.
- Arthur Rackham, published by Heinemann in 1907 in a limited edition of 1,130 copies; also a trade edition in a smaller format.
- Mabel Lucie Attwell, published by Raphael Tuck in 1910
- Mervyn Peake, first published by Zephyr, Sweden in 1946 and then by Wingate, London in 1954
- Salvador Dalí, published by Maecenas Press, New York in 1969
- Anthony Browne, published by MacRae in 1985. Winner of the Kurt Maschler Award.
- Helen Oxenbury, Alice published by Walker in a signed limited edition in 1999 & Looking-Glass in 2005 Oxenbury won the Kate Greenaway Medal and the Kurt Maschler Award for Alice
- Peter Blake, Looking-Glass only; published in a signed limited edition by D3 Editions in 2004.
- Ralph Steadman, Alice published by Dobson in 1967 & Looking-Glass published by MacGibbon & Kee in 1972
- Tove Jansson, Swedish edition, 1966; first English-language edition published in 1977 by Delacorte Press, New York; first UK edition by Tate Publishing in 2011
(This is just a selection there loads and loads more, See list in wikipedia,)
Christmas Books 2026
One of the nice things about Christmas is the acquiring of new books. Half of the ten above I bought myself (Poem for every day, Xmas Quiz Book, Dickens and Christmas, an ebook on the Post Office scandal and the devotional based on Messiah by Dave Gobbett and his wife). The other five were gifts (Poem for every night, DK Xmas book, Alistair Begg's Xmas devotional, The redeemed man collection and the Book of 100 childre's books). I have read the DK Xmas book and the book introduing a hundred childrem's books. I didn't quite finish either of the two devotionals and the poetry books will hopefully finsihed by the end of the year. I started the Dickens book and am reading the one on the Post Office.
Carey Conference 2026 Day 3
So for the final two sessions of Carey, we heard again from James Mildred and Peter Williams and again it was excellent stuff. James looked at the whole assisted suicide bill on which he is very well informed. Peter looked at names in the Bible, which I have heard him on before but this was a fresh and lively presentation. In fact both of these men have spoken with passion and erudition throughout the conference and been a real blessing. About hundred must have been here. The twenty or so women have had their own track with Linda Alcock, looking at Philemon. The high quality and relevance of the last day's speakers made it difficult to choose when to have these sessions.
Nice to see many old friends and to meet new ones. There was a good balance of old and young. It was good to see John Benton there for a while after his being so unwell recently. The nice bookstalls added to the ambience.
The plan is to meet again next year (5-7) when the main speaker will be Pascal Denault (See here).
Carey Conference 2026 Day 2b
Yesterday evening we had our traditional prayer adn share, hearing from GBM and about the APCs (African Pastors Conferences) and Myanmar, Zambia and Romania. Later on Peter Abutu gave his second address, this time on the power if the Word. Very helpful. We also had the next bit of the 1689 from pour IOM man, Enoch Adekoya.
Carey Conference 2026 Day 2a
On the morning of our only full day here at the Carey we heard again very helpfully from Peter Williams on archaeology and the Bible and then James Mildred of CARE spoke on the subject of abortion and current and future legislation. Again, very enlighteniing and stirring. We have a free afternoon.
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