Social security numbers and preaching

A social security number is something like an ID number that every US citizen has to help identify them and track things like credit history when applying for bank accounts. I actually think they're a great idea... except for when you don't have one. When the very helpful lady at the Bank of America found that out, she went into what can only be described as a blind panic. Not having one of these numbers basically means that as far as banks and other major corporations are concerned, i don't really exist. Still within about an our it was all sorted out, and she was very polite. People are very polite over here. She even made me feel as if my lack of social number was her problem rather than mine!

The weather is getting hotter and hotter. It peaked in the mid nineties today and next week is going to be mostly in the hundreds. I've never known humidity and heat like it. It really is like walking around in an oven. I've started to get used to it though. Anything below about 85 and i need to put some trousers on.

Wednesday night is our prayer meeting at church. This involves about forty minutes of singing and praying, and then twenty of preaching, at the moment from Titus. last night i preached from chapter 1:8-9. or that was the plan anyway. I was speaking more or less 'extemporaneously' as Spurgeon would have it. I had my notes in front of me but i felt i knew my material well enough to just go for it. I think it worked well, but it was the quickest twenty minutes of my life. I was just about two thirds of the way though when i had to stop and round up at the end of verse eight. I'll go back to verse nine in a couple of weeks. I was really, really struck by how high the calling the holiness is for the Elder. How the Elder is to be the magnification of everything thats good about the Christian. How vastly important inward holiness is in the Bible. This challenged me, and i haven't even got to 'exhort and convince the gainsayer' yet. I love how the Bible is full of challenge, how Jesus is on every page. This sunday i'm teaching on the life of Jephthah in sunday school, and at the end of the month i'm in Matthew 16:24-27 for our service at the Twin Lakes camping ground.

This week i moved into my apartment, and i'm enjoying Matthew's Gospel, Joshua and Aitken's biography of John Newton. All is well...