James's Weblog

On Tuesday, I posted some thoughts on why John records the miraculous catch of fish in John 21.

This Sunday I'm preaching on John 21:1-14, the miraculous catch of fish. I've been asking myself why this miracle is recorded in John's gospel. Here are some thoughts.

What's the Puzzle?

Here's why the question needs asking. The story is a miracle (the catch of fish), and a post-resurrection appearance (“Afterwards Jesus appeared again to his disciples. … This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead”).

Drupal sites contain a settings.php file with site-specific settings, that is based off default.settings.php at the time the site is installed. As Drupal evolves, default.settings.php will change. Sometimes, it's worth incorporating those changes into the settings.php file for an already-installed site. This post runs through a low-friction way to keep on top of this house-keeping.

cPanel offers users a shared hosting environment which could be thought to exclude running NodeJS (and therefore Node driven theming tools like Gulp and Grunt). In fact, this is easily overcome, as I explain here.

Christians need breadth as well as depth as we read the Bible. As we enter a new year, why not resolve to start the habit of reading right through the Bible - not just once this year, but as part of a routine that will feed and sustain you for the rest of your life. Here are 3 tools to help you do so, and a copy of the Bible reading plan I use personally.

As we look at the visit of the Magi in Matthew 2, the obvious lead human characters in the story are Herod, the Magi, and Jesus himself. These are the lead protagonists and antagonists.

Whilst the Jewish priests are more flat, functionary characters, we mustn't miss the contrast Matthew deliberately paints between them and the Magi.

In 1960, C S Lewis published a book entitled The Four Loves (paid link). It has become a classic. He explains that there are four different Greek words for our English word "love", and they have different meanings. There is the bond of love within a family, the love of friendship, erotic love, and charity.

This is one of those technology blog posts to solve a specific problem. It's unlikely to concern my regular readers, but in time it will be picked up by search engines and ask a question I was asking and in which I'm almost certainly not alone.

Intel Driver & Support Assistant

Intel have produced a free piece of software that you can install on a Windows computer called the Intel Driver & Support Assistant.

The antivirus marketplace for protecting Windows computers is crowded. Go back 15 years, and there were two or three well established players whose products were becoming increasing bloated and slow, and then a handful of new providers that were leaner but with varied effectiveness.

I was recently asked a great question that made me go away and think awhile.

The question is a simple one: Jesus tells us to love our enemies. The devil is our enemy. So does this mean we should love the devil?

Here's the answer I gave:

That’s a great question. Certainly the devil is called “our enemy” in 1 Peter 5:8.

Let me give several answers, starting with the simplest, getting progressively more involved.