Yesterday was, among other things, World Leprosy Day and we had been counting our blessings during the previous week using the TLM prayer sheet as guidance. The extent of our blessings is self evident in that we raised over £500 in response.  How great is the love and decadent generosity of our God that we should have so much, and how encouraging that we can respond with our own generosity of giving.  Blessings given from blessings received.

I'm still mildly amused that TLM "charged" me £3 for not having any pets whilst those with pets "paid" £1 per animal (good job no-one keeps stick insects!) and to discover just who is the self-confessed 'Imelda' of our church (evidently owning about 18 pairs of shoes).  It was fun and it was thought-provoking, which seems a good balance to me.

Does anyone, honestly, understand Colossians 1:24?  Last night's joint service took the form of an interactive Bible study looking at the first chapter of this letter and one of the avenues of exploration was this problematic verse:

Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. (NIV)

Undoubtedly scholars spend hours pondering nuances of Greek, preachers offer their own hypotheses or, more likely, just skip over it (which I have to confess would be a strong temptation) but what does it reallly mean?  Does anyone, other the author (another debated topic), actually know what it means?  Answers in plain English on a postcard to the usual address....