Chalmers' Blog

Saturday Snippets (February 4)

As well as reading a lot of books, I also read a ton of articles every week. Here are some of the articles that I’ve read recently and have found interesting, helpful, challenging and encouraging. I hope that they will be the same for you, my dear readers…

Apologetics, Dating, Marriage, Sex and Womanhood

Many books are written each year focusing on some of the topics that occupy our society and our emotional energy as Christians. Some book are written for pastors and teachers, some for parents and guardians and so on. However, few books are written to equip and encourage students / young adults in growing in their faith and enabling them to engage with ‘hot topics’ of their day. Christian Focus Publications steps in with their ‘Track:a A Student’s Guide to…‘ series which covers a whole host of different topics. Here I’d like to introduce six short books that will help your students think through topics like missions, social media, apologetics, worldview, womanhood, dating, marriage and sex. Each review will be very short, but enough to give you an idea of the idea and feel for the whole book.

Saturday Snippets (January 28)

Can angels sin?

A few weeks ago I was standing in a local christian bookshop, nearby another customer was asking about a book on angels as she wanted to study the topic with a friend of hers. The saleswoman was trying to think of a new book on angels that had been published and asked me if I knew the author (I’m well-known in the shop as I studied in the Bible College attached to it). I told her the book title and author, but they didn’t have it. Anyway, that got me thinking about a question someone asked me a while ago that’s been sitting in my notes app on my phone and I thought I’d have a stab at it here for you. The question was in two parts; 1) can angels sin? and 2) if they can what’s preventing them from sinning/rebelling again?

Here goes…

A Divine Tapestry

The Bible is a very big book which can be quite daunting for some people, both new Christians and people who have been Christians for a while. Because the Bible is made up of different books, spanning across thousands of years, it isn’t always easy to know where to start reading or what the over arching narrative is. In comes Ryan McGraw with a helpful resource for you.

Saturday Snippets (January 21)

Slaves to time

In the majority of cases when people spend time with their family they’re not keeping an eye on the clock. When we’re doing things that we enjoy we’re not making sure that we’re keeping to a strict end time so that we can leave. When we’re in the coming of family and when we’re doing things that we enjoy, we let time go by without much thought. But in a lot of UK church contexts that isn’t the case.

Conspiracy theories, culture, chemistry and rest

Every year there are thousands upon thousands of books published, even in the Christian world there are so many books out there. Different publishers, different authors and different topics, so it’s no wonder that many Christians feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of material and don’t know what book to read next. That’s why this blog was created, to review books to give you a feel for whether it’s something you feel is the best investment of your time, money and energy. The goal of reading, of certain books at least, should be to push you towards Jesus, to know him and love him more. Here are a few smaller reviews for you of some materials I’ve read recently.

Saturday Snippets (January 14)

The benefit of being on site

One of the helpful things about some churches, not all, is that they have their own space. A church premises will most likely be used for church services and other activities throughout the week. This week I started a new job as Pastor of a new church and I’ve loved the benefit of being on site.