Blog on the Learig

  7 July 2026 Douglas J Maclagan wrote a meticulous history of ‘The Scottish Paraphrases’ which was published in December 1888. As he says in the preface, ‘The main portion of this book is taken up with the reprints of the three editions of the Paraphrases.’ He has laid out the three versions of each paraphrase side by side and has analysed their differences. In addition, he acknowledged that when the Paraphrases were published, it wasn’t customary to append the name of the author. As a result, he spent a considerable amount of time sourcing the original versions and allocating their authorship. In some cases, this wasn’t a straightforward matter. Some were based on well-known hymn-writers like Watts and Doddridge but adapted by less well known Scottish divines. The three editions were completed in 1745, 1751 and 1781. But it was on 25 May 1741 that the General Assembly proposed ‘that it be recommended to some fitt persons to turn some passages of the Old and New Testament ...

  6 July 2026 Alec Cheyne was Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Edinburgh when I was a student.   He was not only a remarkable teacher but also a compassionate pastor to students of several generations including myself. He died on 31 March 2006, twenty years ago. In the last months of his life, he compiled what he called, ‘Scottish Piety: A Miscellany from Five Centuries’. It is a book of spiritual riches from the devotional life of fellow Scots down through half a millennium. He includes   two of my favourites. Firstly, the Preface to the ‘Scots Confession’ with its challenge to   readers on Biblical authority and secondly,   the chapter on preaching from the ‘Westminster Directory for the Public Worship of God’   with its instruction to preach, ‘Painfully, not doing the work of the Lord negligently.’ Amongst the surprising entries are nine hymns from the ‘Scottish Paraphrases’. This compares with only two metrical Psalms – 1...

  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...