Downton Abbey The Grand Finale

I forgot to mention last week that we got along to the cinema  to see the thrid anf dinal Downton film. As ever it was very good and managed not to ruin the franchise with anything ill-judged even tough by now it is 1930 in Downton land. The combination if fine actors, what I presume is meticullous research (although I'm not surprised some have found errors already) and great writing makes it a pleasurable watch. It is also interesting that 1930 sensibilities would make having a divorced woman in your home a scandal while Noel Coward was perfectly acceptable. I'm nt a Downton fan but it is good, clever stuff there is no denying.

Lord's Day March 8 2015

I have been in Aberystwyth this week and so I am behind with blogging. We began last Sunday with a  fairly well attended bitesize theology class on the Trinity. The morning sermon was from Ezra 8 and felt a little apprehensive about it again, though not as much as the previous week. I was able to make what were hopefully helpful points about church life in exegetically defensible ways. I spoke of a church preparing itself to serve by gathering the people and their leaders, of the need for humiliation and prayer and a fresh consecration of ourselves and all we have, assuring of protection and safety as we serve and worship. A couple in the church kindly entertained us for lunch and then we all got together before the evening service for our regular tea time. For various reasons we were mire than usual (I counted 18 - we are rarely that many). We are having a week of prayer this week and so we spent  a short time in prayer until we were interrupted a little sooner than anticipated by the arrival of some visitors. In the evening we looked at divorce from Matthew 5:31, 31 - always a difficult subject but hopefully I said something sound and sensible.

 

Listening again

I was listening again on Sunday to my father-in-law Geoff Thomas in Aberystwyth. It was good to hear him and meet old friends at AP.

In the morning he was in Luke and in the evening in Genesis. Luke 16:18 is about divorce, a sadly all too relevant subject and Geoff tackled it chiefly a la Jay Adams for the most part and was able to answer most of our questions but probably not all. He had the children learn Ecclesiastes 12:11. Genesis 45:16-46:34 is about Jacob learning that Joseph was alive and his going down to Egypt. The sermon covered many helpful themes.

In the afternoon it was great to be with the family and with Keith and Priscilla Underhill once again home from Kenya.