I'm fortunate in that I've grown up in a worshipping tradition which is quite rich musically (and music is very important to me) and has a wonderful resource of hymns from all sorts of different parts of the Church... and to go to church and be able to sing that stuff and listen to a Bach motet or indeed some charismatic choruses.

If you believe in the Bible, you've got to do business with it and not just screen it out.

We British say "to put the world to rights." I've discovered that that's not the way Americans say it and people scratch their heads and say, "Funny... what does he mean by that?" It means to fix the thing, to make it all better again.

We have to train ourselves to use words accurately. And there's so much loose Christian talk, for which I've no doubt been as guilty as any.

People often get upset when you teach them what is in the Bible rather than what they presume is in the Bible.

The only sure rule is to remember that the Bible is indeed God's gift to the church, to equip that church for its work in the world, and that serious study of it can and should become one of the places where, and the means by which, heaven and earth interlock and God's future purposes arrive in the present.

God has taken us utterly seriously. How can we not do the same with him?