“Settle it down in your mind as an established rule, that, whether you feel it at
the moment or not, you are inhaling spiritual health by reading your Bible, and
insensibly becoming more strong.”ⁱ
Rev. J.C. Ryle

I really enjoy spending time with my family, which is probably a good thing with a wife and five children. Outside my wife, Leah, I would go as far as to count my 13-year-old son, Ewan Jr., as my best friend and I know, if asked, he would say the same. Attending football, playing pool and watching films together are common pastimes, as are raw and honest man-to-man chats about adolescence, puberty and sex. As time goes on, I realise how increasingly uncommon this is for young men who crave leadership in this day.

However, I am notjust Ewan’s friend. He knows with absolute clarity that, in my home, I am his father as well as the leader and overseer of our family’s culture. The late Edgar Schein defined culture as an interwoven web of behaviours, beliefs and valuesⁱⁱ. This is no less true in the home and any good parent knows culture must be carefully curated and strategically shaped. Godly leaders have historically shaped culture by starting within the home and by orienting their families toward God via ancient traditions such as family worship, prayer and catechism.

The Critical Importance of Vision

In my 40 years, God has blessed me with the privilege of helping set up over 60 charities in 28 of Scotland’s 32 local authorities. One thing most of them had in common was a shared vision – a future for which a small group of people were willing to unite together to create. It is unusual in my world to set out on a mission without a roadmap. Why? How can one pursue a destination they cannot foresee or emulate something they have not watched being enacted? Vision is as critical in importance as life and death – ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish.’ⁱⁱⁱ

So, I break tradition here by writing retrospectively. However, if someone were to ask what major theme I drew from reading the Bible in 2025 by contrast to previous years, two words would come to mind – communion and commission. The Bible is God’s story concerning how He sought to enter into relationship with His creation to then send them out with a life-altering message. Wherever they were and whatever mess they were in, He appeared and appealed to them concerning how they could clean up their act and return to their original calling.

What is the Vision Here?

I tend to walk a lot, sometimes over 15,000 steps a day. It is a therapeutic act and I often use the time to think, reflect and pray. In 2024, my entrepreneurial son was talking to me about earning a crust. This appetite became a prayerful focus. At the same time, I was teaching a group of children and young adults every Monday in Dundee about our Reformation heritage. Taking seriously the paternal call in Ephesians 6 to bring children “… up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord…”^iv, my eldest son and two daughters were among that number.

We learnt that Scotland is the land of Patrick Hamilton and George Wishart, men whose blood soils this land. It is home to John Knox and the Covenanters, people who inspired global education and biblical literacy. This nation is among God’s greatest gifts to the world. As I continued to pray, I wondered why there was no Scottish podcast seeking to increase biblical literacy and do so with the emerging generation. This became our why – the Scottish Bible Podcast envisions a Scotland full, once again, with biblically-literate men, women and children.

What Has 2025 Taught Us?

The writer of Hebrews declares: “… the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged word…”^v These words contain no less power now than upon their first utterance. Indeed, in a 21st-century Scotland which worships the death of the infirm and unborn, His word is living and active. In a Scotland where education produces hollow minds and weak leaders, His word cuts deeper than the sharpest blade. God’s word is, and has always been, a blaze of light in the day of darkness and an antidote for the ailment afflicting every human heart.

I talked earlier about calling. God, in Genesis 12, sought to make Abraham a vessel for global blessing and Jesus, in Matthew 28, reaffirmed that mission. Christians were created for shaping culture and internal governance always ricochets out from the home and into the external world around us. A broken society is, after all, but a magnification of a broken home. Yet, among the ashes of a burnt-out land and people, Ewan Jr. and I travelled in 2025 and saw golden embers flicker in several of God’s outposts in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Dundee, Glasgow and elsewhere.

Oh, Lord, would you breathe upon those embers again in 2026 and let your word set us ablaze?

Ewan Gurr Sr. | 31/12/2025

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ⁱ Ryle, J.C. 1970. Practical Religion. Available at: https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/ryle/Practical%20Religion%20-Ryle.pdf (Accessed: 31 December 2025)

ⁱⁱ Schein, E. 2004. Organisational Culture and Leadership. Third edition. San Francisco, CA. Jossey-Bass. (p. 6)

ⁱⁱⁱ The Bible: Authorized King James Version (2025). Available at: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs%2029%3A18&version=KJV (Accessed: 31 December 2025)

^iv The Bible: New International Version (2025). Available at: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians%206%3A4&version=NIV (Accessed: 31 December 2025)

^v The Bible: New International Version (2025). Available at: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Hebrews%204%3A12&version=ESV (Accessed: 31 December 2025)