It felt a little odd being at the front of the chapel today as it is three weeks since I was stood there having been away last week and in the parlour then the hall before that owing to our gas problem, now well and truly sorted. Being the first Sunday in the month we began with communion. I read from Exodus 11 and 12 about the first Passover, as I like to do from time to time. For various reasons there were only ten of us at that point so not a large number. I preached on Revelation 10 in the morning meeting. As ever there were people missing but one or two new ones had returned.
While we were having a cuppa still at chapel an interesting man turned up. His conversational style, which I warmed to, was using long words and then checking if you understood them. I was doing well until we came to neurosis. I had a bad stab at it with "mania" (wrong!) and so he suggested we ask someone else. My son went at it by contrasting it with psychosis, which was helpful but he then committed the exegetical fallacy of supposing a neurosis affects the brain whereas a psychosis affects the psyche, which almost gets you there but not quite. Anyway this gentleman wanted to say that neurosis is a general term used to refer to mental distress, an illness that does not prevent rational thought or affect daily functioning. I also stumbled on latrogenesis, which can be defined as any effect on a person, resulting from any activity of one or more persons acting as healthcare professionals or promoting products or services as beneficial to health, that does not support a goal of the person affected. He had a Welsh mother and some interaction with evangelicals in the past but had formed his own rather materialist view of life. I hope we see him again.
I also had a good chat with someone from the congregation in the afternoon at our house. He is not converted but came to both services. I wish professed believers were as enthusiastic. We looked at Judges 15 and the enigmatic Samson again in the evening. I have found it difficult to preach on him this time around. Not sure quite why.
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