Blog on the Learig

  18 May 2026 After my mother died, I realised we didn’t have a photograph of her on display in the manse. Despite all the photographs which I had collected, my camera-shy mother avoided being caught by the camera. In the end, I found one, only one but it was the right one. It was a photograph of my mum and dad taken at a wedding a few years before her death. I got it enlarged and framed. I put the original inside the Bible which I use for funerals. The framed photograph was duly displayed on a little table in the hall. At first it stood there on its own. Then one day, I noticed that a tiny vase of freshly cut flowers had been placed beside it. The flowers looked beautiful. Mary-Catherine had been at work. My mother loved flowers. We knew she would have appreciated the gift. They were a silent but eloquent witness to our love for her. Nothing more needed to be said. In a way, words were inadequate. We would never have found the right ones. The gift of flowers did a much b...

  17 May 2026 – From My Diary 1996 I took eight members of the Bible Class to the Youth Night at the General Assembly Hall. The Youth Adviser organised buses and fares were paid by the Presbytery.   There were a thousand young people packed into the Hall. The speaker was Bart Campolo, son of Tony, who   was   certainly engaging. The last time I had been at a Youth Night, his father was the speaker. ‘It doesn’t matter whether you believe the right things,’ he said, ‘Have you given yourself to Christ and his suffering world?’ You could hear a pin drop. ‘The Word is certainly not dead.’ I wrote. The Moderator spoke to the young people in buckles and tights. How he managed to do it with dignity, I don’t know. But the young people afforded him the greatest respect. Looking back, could we command such a spectacle? The Moderator would be less formally dressed and now Bart Campolo is an atheist! At our Pentecost worship for all ages, the Session Clerk read ...

  16 May 2026 One of the marvellous things about the letter to Titus is that the author begins and ends the letter with a greeting. These greetings enfold the letter in grace. ‘Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Saviour.’ is the opening greeting. ‘Grace be with all of you.’ is the concluding greeting. This grace has been manifested in the incarnation of Christ. In the centre of the letter to Titus, there is a wonderful celebration of this when the author says, ‘When the kindness and generosity of God our Saviour dawned upon the world … The birth of Jesus and the unexpected consequences of his birth, is described as the dawning of God’s kindness. It’s such a simple expression. God seems so much more accessible, approachable, just like one of us. We know all about kindness. We are kind to our family. People are kind to us. And we are kind in return. But how kind are we to those who aren’t kind to us or to those who don’t return our kindnesses to them? Is...

  15 May 2026 In 2 Timothy, the writer gives a devastating critique of the world. ‘People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers … He goes on, ‘profligates, brutes, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to the outward forms of goodliness but denying its power.’ What a catalogue! What a world! Our world? By contrast, the Christian has not been given ‘a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.’ He is not distracted by unimportant things. He lives by God’s law. He waits with patience for God to fulfil his purposes. He is single-minded and unashamed of the gospel. He has strength to endure whatever comes his way and to endure it with dignity. The gospel is described as a treasure – something rare and valuable and worth a great deal. The re...

  14 May 2026 1 Timothy is full of practical advice. Some of our best known quotations are to be found here. ‘Do not neglect the gift that is in you.’ the writer says to a youthful Timothy. ‘No longer drink only water,’ he says, ‘but take a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments.’ With this explicit commendation, one wonders why the kirk had such a negative attitude towards alcohol. And most famously of all, ‘The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.’ And don’t we know it. Wealth has always been a threat to Christianity. This has been confirmed by history. However, money is amoral. The love of money is not. ‘No-one can serve two masters,’ says Jesus, ‘you cannot serve God and money.’ Right at the start of 1 Timothy, the author makes clear the purpose of his advice. ‘The aim of such instruction is love,’ he says,   ‘love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience and sincere faith.’ If that is the outcome of reading this let...

  13 May 2026 We had family staying with us on Saturday. In the evening, we walked down to the East Sands via the Kinnessburn. At the bridge at the foot of the steep brae leading up to St. Andrews Episcopal Church, we stopped to look at a duck with her ducklings. She had six altogether. She was sitting on a stone beside the running water. Five of her offspring   were sitting underneath her   wings. The six was busy swimming in the burn, darting here, darting there, snatching lots of insects flying above the water. Underneath a nearby blossom tree sat the heron. She was awaiting her chance to gobble up the tiny duckling playing so innocently and cheerfully in the nearby waters. The mother kept quacking, trying to alert her sixth   to come and enjoy the fulfilment of the Psalmist’s prayer, ‘Hide me under the shadow of your wings.’ But to no avail. Gradually a small crowd gathered on the bridge mesmerised by this tense triangulation of fear. It was better entert...