Banffshire Journal
31 July, 2010
RSS
Faith and life as seen by David Randall, Macduff Parish Church
FEATURES » Think About It
Published:  06 April, 2010

IT IS Holy Week - a week when we remember certain events which were decidedly unholy, yet events that are the centre of history and the centre of Christian faith and life.

Published:  23 March, 2010

"HE speaks about God as if he were real." That was the comment made about one of my teachers at college - apparently from someone who regarded 'religion' as just a story, something soothing to help us along the way.

Published:  02 March, 2010

THERE was the question - right alongside one of my previous columns: "Do you have a story to tell?" The editor was inviting people with interesting stories to share them through the Banffie.

Published:  16 February, 2010

A COUPLE visited an orphanage, where they were planning to adopt a child. They met with the boy they hoped would become part of their family and told him in glowing terms about the many things they could give him.

Published:  02 February, 2010

WE all have them - unanswered questions about life, the universe and everything.

Published:  05 January, 2010

HAPPY New Year to all readers. I wonder whether you recognise the message: "Do you want to save the changes made?"

Published:  24 November, 2009

ONE of the birthday gifts I received some time ago is 'Planet Narnia' - a book which claims that the underlying coherence of the famous Narnia tales by C.S. Lewis comes from astronomy.

Published:  10 November, 2009

I HAVE been reading a rather remarkable book recently.

Published:  27 October, 2009

IT was one of these meetings where people were invited to come forward to seek prayer about particular problems.

Published:  13 October, 2009

ACCORDING to a verse in the Bible, we human beings look on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16,7).

Published:  29 September, 2009

IT was a chance encounter and it made me think.

Published:  15 September, 2009

DURING the month of September, many churches are participating in a campaign under the title of 'Back to Church Sunday'.

Published:  01 September, 2009

THERE is a text in the Bible that says: "Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth" (1 John 3,18).

Published:  18 August, 2009

YOU see the "withheld" sign on the phone (if you have Caller Display), but it might be somebody important, so you'd better answer it – only to be met with: "Congratulations, you have won..." – which is further than it gets before I replace it.

Published:  04 August, 2009

HE caught my eye among the 4,000 people gathered in the great tent at Keswick.

Published:  21 July, 2009

CHRISTIAN singer Garth Hewitt once said to a journalist: "My role is that of creating doubt in the mind of the ardent unbeliever".

Published:  16 June, 2009

THIS story concerns a train journey.

Published:  02 June, 2009

THE priest and the Levite may have been in a great hurry; to stop for the sake of the injured traveller might well have delayed them in their urgent business.

Published:  19 May, 2009

THE famous Helen Keller was only nineteen months old when she contracted an illness that left her blind and deaf.

Published:  05 May, 2009

IF only it would! That was the feeling my wife and I had one Monday many years ago as we might have been seen trying to throw a boomerang.

Published:  14 April, 2009

IT SEEMS that we live on a coast of many colours. Within a few miles, we have Whitehills, Redwell, Blackpots and Greenbanks (not to mention Golden Knowes Road). It's a colourful part of the country.

Published:  31 March, 2009

IN MAY 1927 Charles Augustus Lindbergh achieved worldwide fame when he made the first non-stop solo transatlantic flight: 33½ hours after leaving New York, he landed in Paris.

Published:  17 March, 2009

YOU'RE supposed to give a very serious and perhaps religious answer to such questions. "If you were stranded on a desert island and could have just one book, what would it be?"

Published:  03 March, 2009

THE apostle Paul wrote: "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs" (Ephesians 4,29).

Published:  17 February, 2009

ISN’T it nice of the powers-that-be to publish information in the press about where speed cameras are to be operating?

Published:  03 February, 2009

IT IS said that the older you get, the more quickly time flies!

Published:  20 January, 2009

IT'S one of the fascinating things of nature: the homing pigeon.

Published:  06 January, 2009

ISN'T it interesting that we celebrate Christmas at the darkest time of the year and also that Christmas is followed so soon by the start of a new year.

Published:  16 December, 2008

ONCE upon a time there was a kindly man who was generous to his family and upright in his dealings with other people. But he didn't believe in all this Christmas stuff about God coming to earth.

Published:  02 December, 2008

OVER the next few weeks many of us will receive invitations to special events, whether concerts, services or parties.

Published:  18 November, 2008

"PROBABLY?" That's the word. It's from an advertising slogan on London's bendy-buses, which its organisers hope they may be able to roll out across the country — if they can attract sufficient financial support.

Published:  04 November, 2008

ONE of the great things about the Bible is that whatever part you are studying at any time seems to be the most wonderful part of it.

Published:  21 October, 2008

IF there's one passage of Scripture which is more relevant to this particular time than any other, it may be Paul's words to his young lieutenant, Timothy.

Published:  07 October, 2008

ROBERT went late-night shopping in a discount store, where he was the only customer in the shop.

Published:  23 September, 2008

IT'S one of the sayings of Jesus. He had been asked which is the most important of all commandments we have been given.

Published:  09 September, 2008

NOW that the Olympics have come to an end, we can get back to our proper concentration on the good old game of soccer again!

Published:  19 August, 2008

"LIFE consists not in the pursuit of material success but in the quest for worthy spiritual growth". So wrote the renowned Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, whose death was reported recently.

Published:  05 August, 2008

I'VE never actually met the lady, though I know her missionary colleague. Judy has given most of her life to missionary work with a small tribe in Brazil.

Published:  22 July, 2008

IT must have seemed a good idea at the time. Responsible people, after all, want to warn children about the dangers of drugs and do everything in their power to prevent them starting on that downward slope.

Published:  08 July, 2008

THOMAS Edison is reputed to have been the world's most prolific inventor; he took out over 1,000 patents, and this story concerns the most famous of all his inventions.

Published:  24 June, 2008

THEY have been called "the numbers of hope" – not because they may be lucky numbers or anything of that kind, but because they give the Scriptural reference to some words of enormous hope and good news.

Published:  10 June, 2008

OVER the years I have managed to amass quite a few books. It will hardly surprise anyone to know that there are quite a few about Jesus!

Published:  27 May, 2008

IT must be one of the questions most frequently asked, and people assess one another by their answers to that question.

Published:  13 May, 2008

WHAT do you think about these wrestling bouts that are sometimes seen on television?

Published:  29 April, 2008

CONVERSATION supposedly at the famous Western Wall in Jerusalem, often featured in news broadcasts from Israel:

Published:  01 April, 2008

THERE is a story told about a soldier who was standing to attention in an isolated corner of a Russian palace. When questioned about why he was stationed there, he could only say that he was following his captain's orders.

Published:  18 March, 2008

INCREDIBLE as it may seem, it's Easter time already! The lunar calendar has meant a particularly early celebration (first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox).

Published:  04 March, 2008

I WAS supposed to be there at 4 o'clock, but it was past four and I had somehow taken a wrong turning; not to put too fine a point on it, I was lost.

Published:  20 February, 2008

"AN announcement beamed around the world" – begins one of the books I received as a Christmas present – "that the first draft of the human genome, our own instruction book, has been assembled."

Published:  30 January, 2008

A NATIVE American elder was trying to describe the inner struggles that he sometimes felt going on inside him.

Published:  16 January, 2008

ONE of the most remarkable statements of faith in the Bible comes from a man called Habakkuk.

Published:  02 January, 2008

HAPPY New Year! And, before we begin to think about putting the decorations away for another year, let me refer to one family where the mother and daughter, one day in early December, had gone up to the loft to get the Christmas decorations down.

Published:  19 December, 2007

I WOULD like to cast this article in the form of a prayer, in the hope that you would share in offering it as a Christmas prayer to the Lord God, in the remembrance that Christmas is more than the mince pies, crackers and parties. It's more than a midwinter festival. It's more than 'the holiday season'.

Published:  05 December, 2007

CAN you remember when you learned to write your name?

Published:  21 November, 2007

GENERATIONS of children have learned the simple words of the song, "Jesus loves me".

Published:  07 November, 2007

IT'S one of these things that slip off the tongue so easily; I've even seen it described as the "mantra of social commentators" – the reference to people of all faiths and none.

Published:  24 October, 2007

IT'S an old joke. "Do you wake up grumpy in the morning?" "No, I just let him wake up by himself".

Published:  10 October, 2007

APPARENTLY there is such an organisation as the Procrastinators’ Club. But – who would ever get round to joining it?

Published:  26 September, 2007

MAYBE it was a somewhat surreal sight. There I was, sitting on the seat outside the church (on one of the few days this summer when it was possible to do so without being blown away, soaked with rain or frozen stiff!) awaiting the arrival of a former minister who wanted to re-visit the church.

Published:  19 September, 2007

DON'T you think it epitomises the self-centredness and narcissism of our time – that awful song, 'My Way'?

Published:  29 August, 2007

THE trouble with road-signs is that they are planned and erected by people who know the area!

Published:  15 August, 2007

ACCORDING to a report published last week, more than a third of us can't read a basic road map.

Published:  01 August, 2007

HAVE you heard the one about the notice in the "Jobs Vacant" section of a magazine, which said: "Wanted: man to work on nuclear fissionable isotope molecular reactive counters and three-phase cyclotronic uranium photosynthesisers. No experience necessary"!

Published:  18 July, 2007

THE minister was young and new to the particular church where he was called to minister. Every Sunday he noticed that there was one regular attender who always seemed to have a miserable look on his face; sometimes he would find the man’s stony face quite off-putting.

Published:  11 July, 2007

“THE Opiate of the people”

Published:  20 June, 2007

THE STORY is told of an Australian who came home one day to find that his house had collapsed; nothing remained but a pile of dust and rubble.

Published:  30 May, 2007

HOW'S your Punctuation? It can be so important. One of the peculiarities of our time is the misuse of the apostrophe; so often we see one where there ought not to be one, or we see one in the wrong place.

Published:  09 May, 2007

SATURDAY sees the start of Christian Aid Week, a week of much fund-raising on behalf of the poor of the world.

Published:  25 April, 2007

IT HAPPENS nearly every Sunday. People are filing out of church and someone has to come back against the stream to return a hymn-book they had inadvertently taken away.

Published:  11 April, 2007

"1/8 W + (D-d) 3/8 xTQ MxNA" THE worst day of the year! ... According to one widely-reported theory, it was January 24th.

Published:  28 March, 2007

IF ever there was a time when giving up might've seemed justifiable, it would be August 1799, when my subject, William Wilberforce, aged 40, had for 10 years been campaigning for the abolition of the British slave trade.

Published:  14 March, 2007

"Like a cork in a basin" - THE proverbial visitor from Mars, it's suggested in a book used recently by our congregational reading group, might well be surprised "that prayer and worship had not vanished off the face of the earth".

Published:  28 February, 2007

THE story of Daniel in the lions' den must be one of the best-known Bible stories, but how was it that Daniel ended up in that den?

Published:  14 February, 2007

THE date was February 14, the year 269, and St Valentine was to be executed that day. Some legends say that, in a time when Rome was trying to eradicate the new faith, he had refused to give up Christianity.

Published:  31 January, 2007

MUCH encouragement can be found in the stories of some famous people who, early in their lives, were reckoned to be pretty uninspired or uninspiring people, but of whom that reckoning was proved wrong.

Published:  17 January, 2007

"BE PREPARED." It's good advice – not just for Scouts and Guides, who celebrate their centenary this year. "Be Prepared" is good advice for all of us in all sorts of ways.

Published:  03 January, 2007

NEW diary – new calendar – new year resolutions. Have you made any? Maybe it's to go on a diet, take more exercise, be more patient with your children (or parents).

Published:  20 December, 2006

BEST wishes to all readers of the Banffshire Journal for a very happy Christmas.

Published:  06 December, 2006

I SUPPOSE it must happen to dog lovers too. There was I, who have never owned a dog, stepping right into it and having to get home and get the hose out (my good shoes too!).

Published:  08 November, 2006

ACCORDING to a successful advertising slogan for BT, "It's good to talk". Obviously it's very good for BT if we do plenty of talking – but it's a very true saying – it IS good to talk.

Published:  25 October, 2006

MARGE was sitting on a plane bound for Cleveland. They were preparing for take-off and as she settled into her seat, she noticed a strange phenomenon.

Published:  10 October, 2006

IN A pluralistic world like this, one of our great needs is tolerance. We need more of the spirit of Voltaire, who said “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.

Published:  26 September, 2006

STATING the obvious is sometimes no bad thing. Just the other day I came upon some interesting words from Norman Vincent Peale, addressed to preachers.

Published:  12 September, 2006

Among these visits, of course, were several to Scotland, accompanied by his renowned musical associate, Ira D. Sankey.

Published:  29 August, 2006

ACCORDING to an old African proverb, whenever you point the finger at someone else, there are three fingers pointing back at yourself. Yet, it’s so much easier to see the faults of others than to see your own.

Published:  15 August, 2006

CHRISTIANITY is a demanding religion. It is no easy option for people who merely want a religious veneer to make them look better – not the real Christianity of Jesus, that is.

Published:  01 August, 2006

IN THE same year in which I was born in Edinburgh, there was born in Tel Aviv a baby who was named Itzhak.

Published:  18 July, 2006

A SCHOOL geography class studied the Seven Wonders of the World, and afterwards were asked what they considered to be the seven most wonderful things in the world.

Published:  04 July, 2006

THE Dangers of Prosperity: It’s a striking statement, especially from one who was well acquainted with the puzzles and enigmas of the strange 20th century.

Published:  20 June, 2006

FREEDOM, as an old Scottish poem tells us, is a noble thing. So much of history has been the story of different peoples’ struggle for freedom.

Published:  24 May, 2006

TALK about media hype! Few films have attracted the advance publicity that the Da Vinci Code has attracted, with one trailer even describing it as a film that threatens the very survival of Christianity!

Published:  10 May, 2006

WHO ever heard of Eddie Braben?

highlands
  • gifts
  • Horoscopes
  • hotels
  • Photo Sales
  • Webcam
THE BIG VOTE

Does Banff need 900 new homes?

  • Yes
  • No
  • Maybe
All content copyright 2008 Scottish Provincial Press Ltd.