Blog on the Learig

  5 July 2026 As well as the metrical Psalms, the Kirk has had its own love affair with the ‘Scottish Paraphrases’ which were published in 1781, barely forty years after the Second Jacobite Rebellion of 1745. The collection was quite innovative. Scots were singing Scripture which was not psalmody. They were called the paraphrases because they were essentially paraphrases of Scripture. In one respect, it is surprising that it took over two hundred years for this change from paraphrases of the Psalms to paraphrases of Scripture to take place. The process was essentially the same. There are 67 paraphrases altogether. Not every book of the Bible is featured in this collection. Some books appear more frequently than others. There are 11 from the book of Isaiah including, ‘Behold the mountain of the Lord’, ‘The race that long in darkness pin’d’ and ‘Art thou afraid his pow’r shall fail’. Amazingly, there are 7 from the book of Job but none of them appear in our Church Hymnary. Of...

  4 July 2026 We managed to watch the second half of the England versus DR Congo in the World Cup competition on Wednesday. At that point, England was 1-0 down. It was a tense game until England scored two goals and won the match 2-1. As you can imagine, the fans in the stadium and in the fan zones in England were ecstatic when both goals were scored but, in particular, when Harry Kane scored the second having already scored the first. It was a remarkable feat. He kicked the ball with amazing accuracy and strength whilst not even having an eye on the goal.   It all happened so fast. Kane was in the right place at the right time. Because he was so aware of his position in relation to the goal, he didn’t need to set his eyes upon it. Time and place are very important not only on a football pitch but also in the church. Time is marked out by the Christian Year – Christmas, Easter, Pentecost and their periods of preparation. But, we also need to sense the right time to act...

  3 July 2026 In Acts 15, we read about the first council of the Church, the Council of Jerusalem. It dealt with a controversial issue. The first Christians were Jews. They had been circumcised. When Gentiles became Christians, shouldn’t they be circumcised too? The Council had to determine whether circumcision was ‘of the substance of the faith’ as we say in the Kirk. To enforce such a practice may appear to be designating the Gentiles as second-class citizens, not fully Christian, not fully human, not fully made in the image of God? The Council decided wisely that Gentiles who converted did not need to be circumcised. That in itself might have been sufficient to demonstrate how much the Church valued them. But there was more. The Gentiles for their part had to give something too! They had to refrain from worshipping in pagan temples. Each party had to give and to receive and so grace was evident in the way the   Council introduced these compromises to resolve a signi...

  2 July 2026 One of the passages which Pope Leo   explored in his encyclical, ‘Magnifica Humanitas’ is the myth about the Tower of Babel. The story is set in the land of Shinar. In the previous chapter, we learn that Nimrod, the first on earth to become a mighty warrior, conducted his conquering exploits in the land of Shinar too. It is an ominous preface for the Tower of Babel was being built taller and taller by people who were determined to reach the heavens. It was a technological project constructed with bricks instead of stone and bitumen for mortar. It looked increasingly successful. But it was built on a foundation of human pride. ‘Let us make a name for ourselves.’ They were self-possessed and remarkably unaware of the dangers which lay ahead. As they built one storey on top of the other, they didn’t give any attention to the God whose place they had usurped! As a result, the tower collapsed and the people who had at first spoken the same language were scatte...

  1 July 2026 ‘The Week Junior’ had the results of a   survey on AI in their ‘Science and Technology’ section. The study was   undertaken by Oxford University Press. They were examining how young people   felt about using AI in their lessons and for their homework. It involved 4,000 young people aged 13-18. Researchers gave one group of students a written task as well as access to an AI tool. Interestingly, 72% of them decided not to use AI. One of the students who chose not to use AI said, ‘AI doesn’t have opinions, so it can’t write what you are thinking and what you believe and sometimes it gives you fake information.’ The researchers gave a separate group a written task but this time the students had no access to AI. Only 23% of them said that they would like to have had   an AI tool to help   them with the task. The results from both groups was similar. Of the other results, 24% of young people frequently use AI tools to help with their homewor...

  30 June 2026 ‘We must lovingly safeguard the grandeur of humanity bestowed upon us and revealed in its fullness in Christ, the splendour of which no machine can ever replace.’ writes Pope Leo in ‘Magnifica Humanitas’. ‘True progress always stems from a heart open to others, an intelligence willing to listen and a will that seeks   what unites rather than what separates.’ Underpinning this quotation are two fundamental pieces of theology which   informs a Christian approach to developments in technology. The first is the infinite value of each individual. Everyone has been made in the image of God and therefore carries something of God within them. We are born in the love of God which is infinite not just because God is infinite and beyond our ken but because his love for us never ends. His love is unconditional. There is nothing that we nor any machine can do to erase it or displace it or deny it. God’s daily call is simply, ‘David, I love you!’ In addition to t...