Snowed under in September

Hi everyone,

I thought I'd give you all an explanation of why the blog has been a little quiet recently, and how it is likely to get even quieter for a while.

Last month I purposely had a break from reading theology books and tried (largely unsuccessfully) to spend more time reading fiction and the bible itself. This month I have started a two-year part-time course at the College of Law, as part of my never-ending quest to be a solicitor one day. Having now seen my timetable and the teaching methods it is clear that I'm not going to have much time to do anything other than study and earn the money to live off. Consequently blogging and reading theology is going to be much lower down my to-do list. I'm sure you will all live, but at least you now know I'm not ill or something.

In case you care, when I do get time to read I'll be aiming to read:

• Till We Have Faces (CS Lewis)
• Gilead (Marilynne Robinson)
• The Christian Doctrine of God (TF Torrance)
• War of Words (Paul Tripp)

And I'm reading most of those because I've been told to!

While I'm here though I'll also let you know how much I've been enjoying listening to a bit of Dick Lucas recently. I heard an American introduce him before one of his sermons by saying that he had been told by a British pastor that 'John Stott taught our generation what to preach, Dick Lucas taught us how to preach'. At first you struggle to see how he came to have so much influence. But soon you realise it is his absolute confidence that it is the bible, and not his ideas or rhetoric which has power to change people. In contrast to Dick Lucas you wonder how much you, and many preachers, really believe that the bible speaks today.

Here are a couple of series I've enjoyed:

• Romans 8 Re-Examined at St Helen's Bishopgate (5 talks)
• The Charles Simeon Sermon series (2007) at Taylor University (5 talks)