At St Barnabas we proclaim the truth of God's word and his Good News for
the world. Our aim is to show the Bible's relevance for today and help each one
of us to apply God's teaching to our everyday lives.
When we are not using the lectionary readings, but are studying a
particular theme, a synopsis of the current study series will be shown below.
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Spring 2009:
Prayer, Healing and the Bible
Summer 2009:
Community
Living is . . . .
23 January 2011: Copple Street
Teaching series - Autumn 2011
This year is the four hundredth anniversary of the first publication of the
Authorised Version of the Bible. To mark this anniversary the churches are
encouraging more people to read the Bible more regularly.
Experience shows that when people do this an issue they soon encounter is how
to understand properly the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. Here
at St Barnabas we shall be having a mini series of sermons during September that
will address this issue by looking at what the New Testament has to say about
the four key Old Testament characters, Adam, Abraham, Moses and David. This
morning we shall start the series by looking at what Romans 5 has to teach us
about Adam and Christ.
Adam & Christ
Romans Chapter 5 verses 12-21.
When I was on holiday last month I watched a fascinating television programme
about the attempt by the author J K Rowling to discover more about her mother's
French ancestors. This programme was part of a BBC series about people finding
about their ancestors and, significantly, the title of this series is 'Who do
you think you are?' This title is significant because it highlights the fact
that a key reason for wanting to know more about our ancestors is that they are
the people who have made us who we are.
Each of us has been shaped fundamentally by our parents, not only
genetically, but also in terms of our beliefs, behaviour and the opportunities
in life that we have had or not had. It may not be obvious to us, but to any
observant outsider it soon becomes clear that we are our parents' son or
daughter. We are who we are because of them. They in turn were shaped by their
parents who in turn were shaped by their parents and so on up the family tree.
This does not mean that there is no room for human freedom or responsibility.
Each of us makes our own choices and is responsible for them before God.
However, we make our choices and act as we do because of the people that we are,
people shaped by our parents and their parents and their parents and so on down
the line.
Given that the human race has not always existed, this process of parents
shaping their children must have had its starting point when the human race
began. The Bible tells us about this starting point and calls the first human
being Adam. In our Bible reading this morning we hear about Adam and his impact
on all subsequent human beings.
A moment's reflection makes it clear that there is something wrong with the
human race. All human beings who have ever existed, and all human beings who
exist today, are selfish, self-centred individuals who fail in their love
towards God and in their love towards each other. The extent to which this
failure manifests itself varies from one individual to another, but the
existence of this failure, which is what the Bible means when it talks about
sin, is universal.
Now, either this was how God intended the human race to be when he created it
or something has gone wrong since. The Bible rules out the first option, which
would make God a monster. God, it says, created the human race perfect. The fact
that we are now so imperfect is not God's fault, but ours.
The story of what went wrong with the human race is recorded in the Old
Testament and it is summed up by the Apostle Paul in the following words from
today's reading: 'sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin,
and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.' (v.12)
As recorded in chapter 3 of the Book of Genesis at the very start of the
Bible, Adam, the first human being, rebelled against God through his own free
choice and became a sinner and his sin then shaped his children so that they
became sinners and so on down the family line, with each new generation being
shaped by the sinfulness of the ones before it. Furthermore, because God is the
one and only source of life, and because sin cuts people off from God, the
result of the universal spread of sin was the universal spread of death,
physical death which kills our bodies and spiritual death which kills out souls
and can cut us off from God for ever.
It is like a drop of ink placed in a glass of water that gradually spreads
throughout the water and gives it the colour of the ink. In the same way the
effects of Adam's sin have spread throughout the whole human race, involving all
human beings in sin and death.
If Paul had stopped at that point all he would have given us was bad news.
However, he does not stop at that point. He goes on to say 'if the many died by
the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that
came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many.' (v15)
If the story of the Old Testament is about how the effects of the sin of Adam
became universal, the story of the New Testament is about how God has provided a
remedy for that situation. By sending his Son Jesus Christ into the world to die
for our sins on the cross and to rise again on the third day, God has given the
whole human race the undeserved gift of a completely new start. This means that
each of us can become free from sin and the death that flows from it, a process
which begins in this life and is completed in the world to come.
A helpful way to understand this is to think about what happens if a computer
programme refuses to work. Eventually you have to switch the computer off and
reboot. What God has done in Christ is to give a reboot to the human race.
The importance of baptism is that this is the point at which God's reboot
applies to each individual. Through baptism we are given God's gift of a new
start. When someone is baptised, whether they are nine days old or ninety years
old, they are given by God through the Holy Spirit the gift of a new life free
from sin and death. That is why the baptism service declares 'we are reborn
through the Holy Spirit.' However, this gift has to be received. This new life
has to be lived out. As they grow up, those who are baptised as infants have to
decide for themselves whether they wants to accept what God has done for them in
Jesus Christ. None of us can make that decision for them, but what we can do and
what we promise to do every time a baptism takes place, is to help them to
decide rightly by encouraging their growth in faith, by setting them a good
example in our own lives and by praying for them.
To return to where we began, the answer to the question 'Who do you think you
are? ' is that I am someone who is a sinner because of the sin of Adam passed on
to me through the succeeding generations, but, more importantly, I am someone
who has been given the gift of freedom from sin and death through Jesus Christ.
The challenge before those baptised as infants as they grow up is whether they
will receive that gift given to them in their baptism and the challenge for all
of us is to support them so that they choose rightly and also to reflect on our
own lives and to ask whether we have accepted for ourselves what God has done
for us in Christ and are living it out by rejecting sin and growing daily in
holiness. God's free gift of eternal life is given to all of us, but it is not
automatic. We have to receive it.
Questions for further reflection
1. What examples would you give of ways in which parents shape the lives of
their children?
2. How is it possible both to say that we are shaped fundamentally by our
parents and ancestors and yet that we are responsible for our own decisions?
3. What do you think is the overall point that St. Paul is making in Romans
chapter 5 verses 12-21?
4. Why would there be a problem with saying that human beings today are the
way that God intended them to be? In the light of this why it is important to
say that the human race fell into sin through an act of free choice at the
beginning of its history?
5. How can you make sense of the idea that what Adam did has involved all
subsequent human beings in and death?
6. How did Christ give a 'reboot' to the whole human race?
7. What are the ways in which can help those baptised as infants to receive
God's gift of forgiveness and new life?
M B Davie 4.9.11
The
Faith of Abraham
Romans 4 v 16-25
This morning we are continuing our series on what the New
Testament has to say about key characters from the Old Testament by looking at
what
St. Paul
has to say in Romans 4 about Abraham. When we looked at Adam and Christ in
Romans 5 v 12-21 last week we looked at the importance of the fact that we are
all descended from Adam’s family line. Our reading this week invites us to
consider a similar theme, what it means to be the children of Abraham
When reading any of Paul’s letters we need to be aware that he is
responding to a particular issue or set of issues in the church or churches to
which he is writing. In the case of Romans the overarching issue is the tension
that existed within the Roman church between those Christians who were of Jewish
descent and those who were Gentiles.
What Paul wanted to happen in the church in
Rome
is set out in Romans 15 v 7 where he tells both Jewish and Gentile believers:
‘Accept one another then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring
praise to God.’
The way he seeks to persuade them to do this is by showing
them that the Gospel puts both Jews and Gentiles on an equal footing by bringing
salvation in the same way to both of them. Paul sketches out this argument at
the beginning of his letter in Romans 1 v 17 where he declares: ‘I am not
ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to
everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.’ In the
subsequent chapters of Romans Paul develops what he says in this verse and in
our reading from Romans chapter 4 he relates it to the story of Abraham.
The first thing you have to understand about
this reading is that in the first century it was a fundamental belief amongst
Jewish people that to belong to God’s people you had to be a descendant of
Abraham. This was because in Genesis 17 God promises that he will establish his
covenant of blessing with Abraham and his descendants. It is they on whom
God’s blessing will rest.
This fundamental belief raised the question of who
qualified as a descendant of Abraham. The prevailing Jewish view was that to
qualify you had to be ethnically Jewish or become Jewish by converting to
Judaism, observing the Law of Moses and, if male, by being circumcised.
In Romans 4 Paul challenges this view. To see how he does
this it is best to divide our reading into three sections
The first section is verses 16-17:
Therefore, the promise comes by
faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s
offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the
faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. As it is written: ‘I have made
you a father of many nations.’ He is our father in the sight of God, in whom
he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things
that were not.
Here Paul declares that the promise given to Abraham in
Genesis 17 v 5
‘I have made you a father of many nations’ is fulfilled in the
fact that he is the spiritual father of a people that is made up of all those
from every nation who share his faith. What is this faith? It is faith in the
God who is capable of creating everything out of nothing at the beginning of
time and as such can give life in the face of death. Those who believe this are
Abraham’s spiritual children regardless of whether they are Jewish and observe
the Mosaic Law and as such are the recipients of God’s promised blessing.
The second section is verses 18-21:
Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so
became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall
your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his
body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that
Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding
the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God,
being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.
Here Paul explains more precisely the nature of Abraham’s faith. God’s
promise that he would have descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven
(Genesis 15 v 5) seemed, humanly speaking, to be ruled out by the fact that
Abraham was ancient and his wife Sarah was barren. However, Abraham did not
doubt God’s promise but kept on believing, because he trusted that God had the
power to do what he promised He would do.
The third section is verses 22-25:
This is why ‘it was credited to him as
righteousness’ The words ‘it was
credited to him’ were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God
will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord
from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to
life for our justification.
Here Paul gives the practical application of the story of
Abraham. According to Genesis 15 v 6, Abraham’s faith was ‘credited to him
as righteousness.’ That is to say, Abraham was regarded by God as a righteous
man, a man who was in a right relationship with God, because of his steadfast
faith in God’s promise. Why this matters, says Paul, is because these words do
not apply only to Abraham, but also to Christian believers. If Abraham was in a
right relationship with God because he believed what God had promised, then we
also will be in a right relationship with God if we believe what God has
promised.
The only difference between Abraham and us is that we live
the other side of the coming of Christ. That means that for us trusting in the
God of Abraham means believing in the God who raised Jesus from the dead. This
is because the God who gave a promise to Abraham has given us a further promise
through Jesus’ resurrection. This promise is that Jesus has died and risen to
defeat sin and to give us a new life with God for ever and that what Jesus has
done will reach its fulfilment when he comes in glory at the end of time to
bring in God’s eternal kingdom. Having a right relationship with God like that
of Abraham means believing in this promise and that is true regardless of
whether you are a Jew or a Gentile.
Given that this is Paul’s argument in Romans 4, what does
it mean for us today? It means four things
First, it makes clear what it means for someone to be a
Christian. Being a Christian is not a matter of ethnic identity, or coming from
a Christian family, or going to church or taking part in church activities.
Being a Christian means being part of the one family of God made up of the
children of Abraham by doing what Abraham did, that is to say, believing in the
promise giving God. Specifically, this means believing in the God who has
promised us eternal life by raising Jesus from the dead. If you believe in this
God and live accordingly then you are a Christian. If you don’t then you are
not.
Secondly, believing in this God means believing in Him
despite our outward circumstances just like Abraham did. The sixteenth century
theologian John Calvin makes this point well in his commentary on Romans.
‘Our
circumstances are all in opposition to the promises of God. He promises us
immortality: yet we are surrounded by mortality and corruption. He declares that
He accounts us just: yet we are covered with sins. He testifies that he is
propitious to us and benevolent to us: yet outward signs threaten his wrath.
What then are we to do? We must close our eyes, disregard ourselves and all
things connected with us, so that nothing may hinder us from believing that God
is true.’
The importance of looking away from our outward
circumstances and trusting in God is illustrated for us in the Gospels in the
story of Peter’s attempt to walk on the
Sea of Galilee
. According to the account in Matthew 14 Peter was doing fine as long as he
obeyed Jesus’ command to come to him. However, when he took his eyes off Jesus
and looked at the storm he began to sink and Jesus had to reach out and save
him. We are like Peter. All will be well if we trust in Jesus’ word. Where we
will go wrong is if look away from Jesus and start considering the storms of
life instead.
Receiving Holy Communion, is also all about disregarding
outward circumstances and trusting in God’s word. When we receive communion
all we get outwardly is a piece of ordinary bread and a sip of ordinary wine. It
is only as we trust in Jesus’ words ‘this is my body, this is my blood’
(Matthew 26v 26-29) and his promise ‘whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
has eternal life’ (John 6 v 54) that we are fed by God as we receive the
sacrament. Like Abraham, like Peter, we have to disregard outward circumstances
and trust in what God has said.
Thirdly, believing in the power of God to fulfil His
promises by giving us eternal life makes perfect sense if God really is the
creator who called all things into being out of nothing in the first place. If
He could do that then there is no limit to his power, not even death. As the
worship song puts it, ‘my God is so big, so strong and so mighty, there’s
nothing that he cannot do.’
Finally, if we truly believe in God’s promises and in his
unlimited power then we will show this by turning to Him constantly in prayer,
individually and together. The extent to which we really believe in God is shown
precisely by the extent to which we look away from ourselves and to God because
we take seriously Jesus’ promise ‘Ask and it will be given to you; seek and
you will find; knock and it will be opened to you’ (Matthew 7 v 7). Our
willingness to engage in believing and persistent prayer is the true measure of
our faith.
Questions
for further reflection
1. What
was the issue to which Paul was responding in his letter to the church in
Rome
and how do Romans 1 v 17 and Romans 15 v 5 sum up Paul’s response to this
issue?
2. How
do Romans 4 v16-25 fit into Paul’s overall argument in Romans?
3. In
what ways should our faith be (a) similar to and (b) different from the faith of
Abraham?
4. If
someone asked you to summarise what God has promised to you as a Christian what
answer would you give?
5. Why
does knowing that God is the creator help to make sense of believing in his
promises?
6. What
examples would you give of ways in which you have had to trust in God in spite
of your outward circumstances?
7. Why
is it that we are so slow to turn to God in prayer even though we believe in God
and in God’s promises?
M B Davie 11.9.11
Moses and
the Old and New Covenants
2
Corinthians chapter 3 verses 4-18
Verses 4-6
The competence that Paul has to act as an apostle comes from the fact
that God has appointed him as a minister of the new covenant. The old covenant
given to God though Moses at the time of the Exodus was an external written code
of law and brought death because people were unable to keep it (see Romans
chapter 7). The new covenant given by God through Christ is an internal
relationship with God, a law written on the heart by the Spirit, which brings
life by enabling us to become the people God wants us to be.
Verses 7-11 In
Exodus chapter 34 verses 29-35 there is a description of how Moses face shone
with the glory of God when he received the old covenant law to the extent that
he had to wear a veil. Paul makes the point that if the covenant which in the
end brought only death and was transitory shone with the glory of God how much
more glorious must the new and permanent covenant be.
Verses 12-18
Paul emphasises that unlike Moses who concealed the glory of God behind a veil
he fully reveals God’s glory. That is to say, by his preaching Paul fully
reveals what God is like. Furthermore just as the people of
Israel
were prevented by Moses’ veil from seeing God’s glory, so the spiritual
sight of non-Christian Jews is veiled when they read the Old Testament so they
cannot see the glory of God. It is only in Christ that the veil is taken away,
so that people are free to see the glory of God, who God truly is, and through
the work of the Spirit be changed into God’s likeness.
The points which arise
from these verses are:
Questions
for further reflection
1. What aspects of the glory of God are revealed in the Old Covenant?
2. What other aspects of the glory of God are revealed in the New Covenant?
3. As our relationship with God is based on the New Covenant, what aspects of
the Old Covenant give us guidelines for our lives today?
4. How do we reconcile Paul’s teaching that faith has come, we are no
longer under the supervision of the law with Christ’s words “I have not come
to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill them”. (Matthew chapter 5 v
17)
5. If the Exodus is the model of salvation by grace, why was the law given to
Israel
after they had become the people of God by grace?
J Sunley 18.9.11
David
and the Resurrection
Acts 2 v 22-36
This morning we conclude our short series about what the New Testament has
to say about key characters from the Old Testament by looking at what Acts
chapter 2 has to say about David the shepherd boy who became a king.
Ask the average person in the pew what they know about this
David, and the chances are that most will know that he was the person who slew
the Philistine giant Goliath using his shepherd’s sling. Those who know a
little more may also be able to tell you that David was a successful King of
Israel, that he wrote many of the Psalms we have in our Bible and that he had an
affair with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.
It is likely, however, that almost no one will correctly
identify the two characteristics of David which are highlighted in our reading
from Acts chapter 2. These characteristics are set out in verses 30-31 which say
the following about David:
But he was a prophet and knew that God had
promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne.
Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he
was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay.
In these verses we see that David was a prophet and that he
was someone to whom God had given a solemn promise.
The promise that God gave to David is recorded in 2 Samuel
chapter 7 verses 12-13 where the prophet Nathan tells David on behalf of God:
When your days are over and you rest with your
ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and
blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house
for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
Because David was a prophet, he was inspired by the Holy Spirit to declare
how God’s promise through Nathan would be fulfilled.
In Acts chapter 2 Peter explains to the crowd on the day of Pentecost about
the new thing that God has done that has resulted in the disciples preaching
about Jesus in a variety of different languages. As he does this he notes two
passages from the Psalms in which David declared how the promise given to him by
Nathan would come to pass.
What God has done, says Peter, is to raise Jesus from the dead after he was
crucified. David announced that God
was going to do this in Psalm 16 verses 8-11 in which he says:
I saw the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will rest in hope,
because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,
you will not let your holy one see decay.
You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence.’
As Peter points out, David cannot be talking about himself in these verses
because ‘David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day’ (Acts
chapter 2 verse 29). The person David is talking about is Jesus. He is the holy
one of God who was not abandoned in the realm of the dead and whose body did not
decay because God raised him up on the third day as the disciples are able to
testify because they have met with the resurrected Jesus and have been to his
tomb and found it empty.
Peter then goes on to note that in Psalm 110 verse 1 David says
The Lord said to my Lord:
Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet.
This verse uses pictorial language drawn from the practice of ancient royal
courts. To sit at someone’s right hand means to receive authority from them.
We still have an echo of this in modern English when we talk about someone being
somebody’s ‘right hand man.’ This means that are trusted by someone to act
with authority on their behalf. For your enemies to become your footstool meant
their accepting defeat and becoming subject to your authority. If you go to the
British
Museum
, for example, there are inscriptions which show kings with their feet on the
necks of their defeated enemies as a visible sign that these enemies are now
subject to them. In the Bible itself you find the same practice in the Old
Testament in Joshua chapter 10 verse 26 where the leaders of
Israel
put their feet on the necks of the defeated kings of the Amorites.
As Peter notes, once again David is not talking here about himself because he
did not ascend to heaven to receive authority from God. He died and remained in
his tomb. He is talking about Jesus who ascended to heaven forty days after his
resurrection and who as the ‘right hand man’ of God the Father received from
him the authority to reign over heaven and earth until all creation, including
those parts of it that are currently in rebellion against God, submits to his
rule, thus fulfilling the promise that one of David’s descendants would
possess an everlasting kingdom.
It is because Jesus has been given this authority, says Peter, that he has
been able to pour out the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost thereby enabling
the disciples to speak in many languages. Furthermore, David’s prophecy in
Psalm 110 points to the fact that by giving him authority over the nations God
has declared the crucified Jesus to be both Lord and Messiah.
Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God
has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah (verse 36).
Jesus is Lord in the sense of being the one who is able to exercise God’s
authority over creation because he shares God’s divine nature. He is also
Messiah in the sense of being the descendant of David who, by ruling over
creation on God’s behalf and defeating the forces of evil that are in
rebellion against God totally and permanently, will fulfil God’s promises of
an age of universal blessing in which sin and death will be no more.
What all this means for us is four things.
First, it points us to the fact that we need to learn to read the Old
Testament as a prophetic witness pointing forward to Jesus. We know from the
Gospels that this is how Jesus read the Old Testament (see for example Luke
chapter 24 verses 25-27 and 44-46) and he taught the disciples to read it in the
same way. We in our turn need to work through the New Testament seeing how the
New Testament writers read the Old Testament as referring to Jesus so that we
can learn to read it in the same way that Jesus and the disciples did. If we are
not reading it that way then we are not reading it properly.
Secondly, we need to recall that the most important thing we can do in life
is bear witness to Jesus. David was in his day a significant political ruler,
but for Peter that ultimately did not matter. What mattered was that David bore
witness in the Psalms to how Jesus would fulfil the promise made by God in 2
Samuel chapter 7. David’s greatness was that he was a faithful witness and
that needs to be our greatness too. What will ultimately matter about our lives
is whether like David, and like Peter on the day of Pentecost, we tell people
about Jesus. It doesn’t matter what else we do with our lives, if we fail to
bear witness to Jesus then we have failed in the one really important thing that
God wants us to do.
Thirdly, we need to remember that God keeps his promises. God promised to
David that his descendant would possess an everlasting kingdom. It happened. God
promised through David that Jesus would be raised from the dead and would reign
at God’s right hand. It happened. Whatever God says will happen takes place.
This means that those things in Scripture which have not yet taken place, the
final and complete defeat of all evil, the coming of Jesus in glory, the
resurrection of the dead, the final judgement and the life everlasting, will
also happen.
Because from our perspective God seems to be a bit slow in doing what he says
he is going to do, because two thousand years have passed and evil still appears
to flourish and Jesus has still not come in glory, it can be tempting to think
that it will never happen. However, as we saw when we looked at the example of
Abraham a fortnight ago we need to turn our attention away from outward
circumstances and focus on what God has said, God has promised that evil will be
defeated, that Jesus will come, that the dead will be raised, that judgement
will take place and that God’s people will share life with him for ever and
that is all that we need to know. That settles the matter.
Fourthly, it is because God has kept his promises given through David that we
can celebrate a baptism here at St Barnabas this morning. Because Jesus has been
raised from the dead those who are baptised can receive a new life that will
last for ever. Because Jesus has been exalted to God’s right hand and has
poured out the Holy Spirit those who are baptised can receive God’s power
through the Spirit to live as the people God made them to be.
So as we are all witnesses to the baptism here this morning let us give
thanks to the God who has spoken through David, the God who makes promises and
then keeps them. Let us put our hope in him and bear witness to him to those who
do not yet know him.
Questions for further reflection
1. In Acts chapter 2 verses 22-36 how do the witness of the Old Testament and
the experience of the disciples fit together to enable them to understand what
God has done?
2. Why does what David says in Psalm 16 verses 8-11 and Psalm 110 verse 1
apply to Jesus rather than to David himself?
3. How would you explain to someone what is meant in Psalm 110 verse 1 by the
terms ‘right hand of God’ and ‘make your enemies a footstool for your
feet’ ? Who do you think Jesus’
enemies are?
4. Why is it good news for us that Jesus has been exalted to heaven and rules
over the world? (see Romans chapter 8 verse 34, Hebrews chapter 4 verses 14-16
and John chapter 16 verses 5-11)
5. What steps can we take to learn to read the Old Testament as a witness to
Jesus?
6. Why do we often find it so hard to believe that God will keep those of his
promises that are yet to be fulfilled?
7. Why is bearing witness to Jesus the most significant thing we can do in
life and why do we often find it such a difficult thing to do?
M B Davie 25.9.11
