Showing results by narrator "Neil Gardner" in All Categories

We have a God-given responsibility to infiltrate the world, listening to the world's challenges, but also to bring our own challenge to the world by sharing the good news by word and deed. We look at four aspects of mission: The uniqueness of Jesus, the chief foundation of Christian mission. The nature of God himself, and mission coming from his heart. Mission in word, but also in works. A clear and fresh vision of Christ. We look at the model, the costliness, the mandate, the motivation and the urgency of the mission to which we are called.

If Christ is our Lord, then we are his servants, and if he is our teacher, then we are his pupils. Following Christ is a multi-faceted responsibility. We should remember: Every true disciple is a listener. We are both rational and emotional. We can discern God's call and will. Love is the first fruit of the Spirit, a core ingredient of discipleship.

Scripture has brought us light in darkness, strength in weakness, comfort in sadness. It isn't difficult to endorse the Psalmist's experience that the words of God are 'more precious than gold... sweeter than honey'. So it's distressing to watch the Bible being dislodged from its position of authority, not only in our nation but also in the church. Here we focus on the urgent need to continue in, respond to, interpret and expound God's Word.

Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit, Jacob and the stairway to heaven, Joseph and his brothers, Samson and Delilah, David and Goliath, Jonah and the whale, the miracles and teachings of Jesus, St Paul's vision on the road to Damascus, St John's vision of the new Jerusalem: the Bible is full of dramatic stories that have made it the world's bestselling book, and yet few people ever get around to listening to it from cover to cover.

What is consciousness? Is the mind a machine? What makes us persons? How can we find the path to human maturity? These are among the fundamental questions that Rowan Williams helps us to think about in this deeply engaging exploration of what it means to be human.

Global in scope, but homing in on the role ordinary people play in conflict and division, Reconciliation enables Christians to engage confidently in a ministry bequeathed to us by Christ himself.

Join Tom Wright on a journey with the Apostles, exploring the New Testament themes of thankfulness, patience, humility and joy.

In A Mucky Business, Tim Farron, former Leader of the Liberal Democrats Party and friends, explore and defend why Christianity and politics should and must work together. If Christians are to love their neighbours, they need to engage with the issues that affect everyone. Why should Christians leave their beliefs at the door when they enter public life? No one else does!

The Bible is held to be both universal and specific, the source of fundamental truths inscribed in words that are exact and sacred. For much of the history of Judaism and almost the entirety of Christianity, however, believers have overwhelmingly understood scripture not in the languages in which it was first written but rather in their own—in translation. This book examines how saints, scholars and interpreters from ancient times down to the present have produced versions of the Bible in the language of their day while remaining true to the original. 

The BBC is a central part of British life, shared culture and international standing. But the BBC is in peril as never before in its long history. It faces ever-increasing competition and threats from new technology and consumption trends. It suffers relentless attacks from a range of hostile players motivated by their own political and commercial interests. And it faces deep funding cuts. These pressures may even destroy it within a generation. We must not end up recognising what its value was only when it's gone. 

In 1901 no other city matched London in size, wealth and grandeur. Yet it was also a city where poverty and disease were rife. For its inhabitants, such contradictions and diversity were the defining experience of the next century of dazzling change. In the worlds of work and popular culture, politics and crime, through war, immigration and sexual revolution, Jerry White’s richly detailed and captivating history shows how the city shaped their lives and how it in turn was shaped by them.

London in the eighteenth century had risen from the ashes. The city and its people had been brought to the brink by the Great Fire of 1666. But the century that followed was a period of vigorous expansion, of scientific and artistic genius, of blossoming reason, civility, elegance and manners. It was also an age of extremes: of starving poverty and exquisite fashion, of joy and despair, of sentiment and cruelty.

When Chester discovers he can mind jump, his sister Amy wastes no time in putting his new skills to work boosting the viewing figures on her video blog. And when a TV company takes them global, he does his most daring mind jump yet, into the brain of Tito the gorilla. The trouble is, when he tries to return to his own body - it's gone! Has it been stolen? But who would want it, and why? And how come Chester suddenly has the urge to search Amy's hair for fleas? 

Jerry White's London in the Nineteenth Century is the richest and most absorbing account of the city's greatest century by its leading expert. London in the nineteenth century was the greatest city mankind had ever seen. Its growth was stupendous. Its wealth was dazzling. Its horrors shocked the world. This was the London of Blake, Thackeray and Mayhew, of Nash, Faraday and Disraeli. Most of all it was the London of Dickens. As William Blake put it, London was 'a Human awful wonder of God'.

A fascinating piece of historical scientific writing, written in 1913 by E. Walter Maunder (F.R.A.S.), the superintendent of the Solar Dept. at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. The book is a snapshot in time showing the evolution of thinking on the solar system and cosmology. The author considers, in fine detail, the plausibility of life on other planets within our solar system, the requirements for such life, and the barriers that life faces.

Decades after the colonial powers withdrew from Africa, the continent is still struggling to catch up with the rest of the world. When the same colonists withdrew from Asia, it kick-started several decades of sustained and unprecedented growth throughout the continent. So what went wrong in Africa? And are we doing the right things to fix it, or are we making matters worse?

In 2018, the world will be commemorating the centenary of the end of the First World War. In many ways, 1918 was the most dramatic year of the conflict. After the defeat of Russia in 1917, the Germans were able to concentrate their forces on the Western Front for the first time in the war, and the German offensives launched from March 1918 onward brought the Western Allies close to defeat. Having stopped the German offensives, the Entente started its counterattacks on all fronts with the assistance of fresh US troops, driving the Germans back, and by November 1918 the Central Powers had been defeated.

No city on earth has preserved its past as has Rome. Visitors stand on bridges that were crossed by Julius Caesar and Cicero, walk around temples visited by Roman emperors, and step into churches that have hardly changed since popes celebrated mass in them 16 centuries ago. These architectural survivals are all the more remarkable considering the violent disasters that have struck the city. Afflicted by earthquakes, floods, fires and plagues, it has most of all been repeatedly ravaged by roving armies.

A list of the attributes that define a mammal is a ragbag of things - fur, live birth, three bones in the middle ear, a brain whose two halves are robustly joined together.... But this curious collection of features contain the roots of all the biology that makes us what we are: monkeys with massive brains who parent extensively, enjoy sport and think lots. Which is to say, what makes us mammals makes us human.

The breaking of the Enigma machine is one of the most heroic stories of the Second World War and highlights the crucial work of the codebreakers of Bletchley Park, which prevented Britain's certain defeat in 1941. But there was another German cipher machine, used by Hitler himself to convey messages to his top generals in the field. A machine more complex and secure than Enigma. A machine that could never be broken.