Christian Focus

Dale Ralph Davis

I’ve been charged with writing a blog about my recently published book on Psalms 38–51 called ‘My Exceeding Joy’. Actually, I don’t write blogs; I rarely read blogs. I remember theologian Addison Leitch saying that magazines were the enemies of books. I think blogs are the enemies of books. We’d be better off if far fewer bloggers wrote blogs. So my writing a blog to commend my book is clearly hypocritical. But it’s only temporary.

Among eminent Victorians, few were more widely known, or greatly appreciated, than C.H. Spurgeon—a pre–eminent philanthropist, college founder, and patron of orphanages—and the pastor of London’s great Metropolitan Tabernacle.

Catherine MacKenzie

Throughout my childhood, from ages 5 to 18, I dreaded the day that my parents received my annual school report card. I think my mother has kept some of these dull but disappointing publications on the off chance that her oldest daughter blindsides the family with a moment of brilliance. She may then wave these foolscap pieces of paper in the faces of various educational professionals and say – So there! But she won’t as she is far too gracious for that…

Catherine MacKenzie

During the 1980s my family did some mammoth car journeys. My parents seemed to think nothing of attaching a caravan to the back of their Citroen estate and heading off to a tiny little village in the South of France, or a soaking wet caravan site on the banks of the Rhine. The car was one of those unusual vehicles you don’t see anymore, as they’ve been replaced by minivans.

Leslie Schmucker

The fall of man altered every atom of creation. From manhood to motherhood to matrimony, nothing is as it should be. Some after–effects of the fall are mere annoyances, like the fear of spiders, or indigestion, or having to wear uncomfortable clothing. But most by–products of the fall take the breath from your lungs, wrench your heart from your chest, and are counted in tears. Childhood mental illness is one of those by–products.

Tim Chester

The great nineteenth–century preacher Charles Spurgeon described the Song of Solomon as the Most Holy Place. He compared the historical books of the Bible to the outer courts of the temple, and the Gospels, Epistles, and Psalms to the Holy Place: the place that only the priests could enter. His point was that, to a greater and lesser extent, all these books bring us near to God. But the Song of Songs is ‘the Most Holy Place’, the inner sanctum, a holy of holies. It ‘occupies a sacred enclosure …

David Luckman

‘And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: “The words of the first and the last who died and came to life. I know your tribulation and your poverty… do not fear what you are about to suffer…be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life… the one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death”’ Revelation 2:8–11 (ESV).

Information on the audiobook giveaway CFP are running on their social media channels throughout the month of September 2023

Karen Martin

Do you know someone living with dementia? Most of us will be able to answer yes to this; more people are being diagnosed each day and it is a disease which affects over 850,000 people.

This means that dementia is not only about the person living with the disease – its impact is far more wide–reaching. Memorable Loss is a story of friendship, and how an Alzheimer diagnosis challenged, changed and deepened my friendship with Kathleen.