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Heading further north we spent a morning walking the Sandstone Caves track in the Pilliga Forest, and the afternoon between Coonabarabran and Barradine.

Continuing the holiday trip we spent some time in the botanical gardens in Dubbo. The gardens are divided into a number of areas incuding Japanese, Indigenous, and an Adventure playground area.

On our recent holiday we visited the Japanese Gardens in Cowra. There is something of a link between the Japanese and the people of Cowra as a result of the breakout from the Cowra POW camp in 1944. Here is a selection of photos from the gardens. Sunshine appeared about half way through!

This is a copy of the first sermon I preached. The year was around 1992. I have done some very light editing. Reading back over this sermon thirty years after its appearing, I would be happy to preach it today. That can’t be said for all of my sermons!

Exodus 3:1-20 “What’s in a Name?”

Introduction

Read through the newspaper…

Watch the television…

Listen to the radio…

Within a short time you’ll discover (if you haven’t already) that Australia is in a recession¹ – the world is in a recession.

For the past nine months I’ve been the primary bread maker in the household. My standard recipe is a slightly modified version of Peter Reinhart’s light wheat bread from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice. My up-scaled recipe makes two ‘one pound’ loaves.

Ingredients

• 667 grams breadmaking flour
• 333 grams wholemeal flour
• 40 grams sugar
• 20 grams salt
• 60 grams milk powder
• 10 grams instant yeast
• 60 grams melted butter or olive oil
• 540 grams/mls tepid water (around a quarter recently boiled water, and the balance cool tap or filtered water)

My Method

1. Use the KitchenAid on its slowest setting using the dough hook.
2. Mix the dry ingredients together.
3. Add the butter and water whilst mixing.
4. Mix for around 5 minutes until the dough forms a ball. Add more water or flour as necessary.
5. Continue to mix for another 5-10 minutes until the dough passes the ‘window pane’ test.¹
6. Remove the dough ball from the bowl, add a small amount of olive oil to the bowl, return the dough to the bowl and spin it around to coat the ball in oil.
7. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave to ferment (called the preferment) for around an hour or two until it has doubled in size. Time depends on the ambient temperature and the temperature of the water used in the mixing. Mine would be an hour and a half on average.
8. Degas the dough in the bowl by ‘punching it down’, remove the dough from the bowl, divide it into two roughly equal pieces and form into a rough rectangle shape. Fold it in thirds in both directions and form the dough into loaf shapes approximately 20cm long and 7cm in diameter.
9. Place these dough cylinders in two bread pans, again cover with plastic and allow to proof for an additional hour or two.
10. They again will double in shape and should crest the top of the pans by a centimetre or two.
11. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees centigrade (fan-forced oven here).
12. Remove the plastic!
13. I sprinkle the loaves with some water and ensure the tops are slightly moist all over.
14. I then score the tops of the dough loaves with a razor blade. This can be down with two or three diagonal slices across the top or some other patterns. This scoring allows the bread to rise into the scores during baking.
15. I bake them next to each other in the middle-to-bottom area of the oven for 25 minutes. I then switch and turn both loaves and bake for another 10 minutes until golden brown.
16. To test I turn out one loaf, flip it onto it’s top and tap the bottom to ensure there is a hollow sound. Turn out both loaves and cool on a cooling rack.
17. One loaf is kept for bread. The other is sliced (after waiting a couple of hours for it to cool) and put in the freezer.

Around six years ago I bought a copy of The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers. It was on special–reduced by around $20. It contains something-like 40 books either on biblical topics, Bible books, or daily devotional readings.

I’ve dipped into the volume sporadically since–though not for several years now. Until that point the only book of Oswald’s that I had read was My Utmost For His Highest. The fascinating backstory is that Oswald didn’t write ‘My Utmost’. True, he spoke or taught the words that appear in it, but it was compiled by his wife (widow), Gertrude or ‘Biddy’ from her shorthand notes typed up of his sermons and talks taken verbatim during his time running the Bible Training College in London between 1911 and 1915, and later as a YMCA chaplain to British, Australian and New Zealand troops in Egypt between 1915 and 1917 during World War I.

In my previous post I discussed some of the rationale and methodology for writing in your Bible. I made reference to a method for making more extensive notes than will fit in the margin of a Bible. Several methods exist including two developed or certainly implemented by the New England pastor and teacher, Jonathan Edwards in the mid-1700s.

Firstly, Edwards had a Bible especially made comprising the Bible text on small pages interleaved with larger blank pages so he could make notes on pages that contained three times as much blank space as Bible text. Several publishers produce Bibles with wide margins, some even called journalling Bibles. One even produces a Bible with text on every second page.

On 6th January 2022 I recommenced something I hadn’t done in over 30 years–marking my Bible.

I used to make marks in Bibles–underlining or highlighting significant verses; very occasionally making a brief note next to a verse; making a copy of the ‘Bridge to Life’ diagram and verses in the back pages, etc.

I stopped making notes or underlining in my Bibles, as I said, something like 30 years ago¹. The reason I stopped was because I didn’t want to be distracted the next time I read a passage by something I had underlined or noted on a previous occasion. I wanted each time I opened my Bible to be an opportunity to see new, fresh things in the text.

I undertook a Bible ‘stocktake’ the other day to ascertain just how many paper Bibles I have. The predominant purpose was to see if I could donate some to a local op-shop.

The Bibles in my collection include:

1. Revised Standard Version pew edition
2. New Living Translation Bible Study for Men hardback
3. English Standard Version 2001 centre column reference hardback
4. English Standard Version 2011 Single column legacy trutone
5. New Revised Standard Version pew edition
6. New King James Version Thompson Chain Reference leather
7. New King James Version pew edition
8. New King James Version Spirit-filled Life Bible hardback
9. Christian Standard Bible pew edition
10. English Standard Version Study Bible trutone

Of these I have decided to donate the ESV centre column reference Bible and the NKJV pew edition to the op shop. My wife has contributed another ESV centre column reference Bible to donate as well.

In the middle of the evening Heidi Abigail arrived.

Well done Emma and Ben. All glory to God.