9 April 2026

Women played a very significant part in bearing witness to the resurrection. They effectively became apostles to the Apostles.  They are numbered amongst our ordained ministries and trace back their historic heritage to the women at the tomb.

Amongst their number are those un-ordained women who also bear significant witness to the good news. In this, we must  not pass too quickly over the ministry of motherhood which is not a celebrated ministry within the Kirk nor the world but which has been vital to the missionary endeavour of the Church.

I am the beneficiary of such a ministry and such good news. For on Christmas Day 1960, which is now sixty-six years ago, my mother gave my brother and I a beautiful book of Bible stories.

It was called ‘The Way, the Truth and the Life’ and was lavishly illustrated with colour plates by Ralph Pallen Coleman. The story-teller was the late Professor Willie Barclay.

The hard-backed book came in a cardboard box with a clear plastic covering. Whilst my brother and I could view and read the book anytime we liked, we always had to put it back in its cardboard box. This was a precious book.

In a very simple but ultimately effective way, my mother nurtured within us a reverence for the Word of God which has never left me and is still to be found in the  tradition retained in some kirks of carrying the Bible up into the pulpit at the start of the service.