I loved Latin as a subject both in school and when studying history at Queen Mary College London. It’s proved so helpful over the years. Some phrases have stuck in my mind too, none more than Virgil’s acute observation ‘tempus fugit’ (time flies). How right he was: and the older you get the faster it seems to go.

I can hardly believe it but if my records are correct, this is my 600th weekly ‘Pause for Thought’ and I have to admit it has proved to be one of the most enriching and stimulating aspects of my ministry. Little did I realise when I contacted the editor all those years ago that I would be given so much opportunity to share some of the things that rattle around in my ‘little grey cells’. I remember it well. The request had come to share some historical thoughts, but as appealing as that was given my background as a history teacher, I dared to suggest that I would find it more stimulating to reflect on contemporary issues in the light of the Christian story, or the Christian ‘worldview’ as others might put it.

Don’t get me wrong: I love all things historical, but I am passionately committed to showing those who live in our increasingly non-Christian culture that the Christian faith is not ‘a thing of the past’. It is a ‘living truth’ that makes sense of ‘life the universe and everything’ as well as being something that can transform your life for ever.

I don’t know how well I have done it, but I have tried to take pressing issues, sometimes some very contentious issues, and shed some Biblical light on them. We spent a little time in our weekly Bible study last week reminding ourselves that we can’t live our lives in separate compartments – the religious and the secular. The God who created the world and gave us our lives sees everything we do and wants us to live in ways that please Him not because He wants to cramp our style but because He knows what will make us happy and fulfilled, both as individuals and as communities. We were talking about our attitude to possessions at the time, but this is a truth that applies to the whole of our lives, whether it be the way we react to those who have hurt us or the way in which we react to the state and the laws it decides to pass.

I have truly been amazed by and thankful for the freedom I have been given to express my views not least because they seem to be increasingly at odds with the way people think today. I don’t find that surprising though because God thinks very differently to us. The problem is so many of us think we know better than Him!

I often find it helpful to revisit John Stott’s marvellous study of the Sermon on the Mount. He entitled it ‘Christian Counter-culture’ and rightly so. As he wrote ‘If the church realistically accepted His standards and values …. and lived by them it would be the alternative society He always intended it to be’. That’s quite a challenge because it means that the church can and should be a shining example of what life can be like when Christians live as God intended, and in so doing provide tangible proof of what life on earth will ultimately be like. Put simply ‘The best is yet to be’. Having said that, we can enjoy a little taste of it now if we want it.