This beautifully produced hardback pocket book is an invitation to us to spend a month with St Paul. Bishop Campbell offers us 31 meditations on selected passages from the Letters of St Paul, which give us glimpses of the apostle in various contexts, from the Road to Damascus, through the three missionary journeys, to martyrdom in Rome. In his day St Paul certainly did the fastest thing to get God's news of salvation for humanity to as many people as possible across international boundaries. He travelled tirelessly, faced dangers of all kinds and wrote letters that were to become cornerstones of Christian doctrine and practice. This book is a valuable gift to us as we celebrate the two-thousandth anniversary of the birth of St Paul. Thanks to Bishop Michael for writing this book, from which I shall cherish the quote: “Love is the calling of all of us, and on which we will ultimately be judged.” (Posted on 12/05/2009)

We are getting some good things as this Year of St Paul gets under way. Here is one of them. A really beautiful little book to hold and use, hardback, with a ribbon marker, offering a prayer and meditation for daily use.

We get a lot of teaching here, and on a wide range of topics: about baptism, about our relationship with Jewish people, about daily Christian living, about the great reality of a God who so loved us that he came to live among us and die for us.

It is a sign of good things in the Church that there is a return to the concept of a prayer-book that is meant to be used again and again - we have all grown tired of the leaflet, the photocopied sheet, the little pamphlet. Here is a sense of something valued, to be cherished. Each day has its own meditation, and there are 31 of them. Used month by month, this book would provide a really deep sense of unity with this long-ago apostle whose work and words are still living with us.

In this little book, we can meet the great preacher and teacher Paul who took Christ to so many people, changing their lives for ever with something dramatic and new. We can be among those people, hear his words, meditate on what he had to say, respond as those early people did, and help build up the Church. (Posted on 20/10/2008)