Yesterday, I shared the first half of my most viewed posts of 2025 running from number 10 to number 6. Today, I am going to share with you the the five most read posts of this year.

Again, it gives me an opportunity to say thank you for reading. I am grateful to everyone who has interacted with what I have written here. Whether you agree or you don’t, thank you for taking the time to read.

I am also grateful to those of you who comment. Your comments serve me in two helpful ways. First, they cause me to think more about what I have written. This sometimes means I need to change my mind or that I need to say more. All comments – whether agreeing or disagreeing – are usually helpful in this regard. Second, you provide me with more blog fodder. The hardest thing about blogging is content creation and knowing what to write so it is always helpful when people disagree because it usually means there is something more to write on the same subject, either because it wasn’t covered or there has been a misunderstanding. So please, if you are willing and able, do keep commenting here – it is particularly helpful to me.

So, to the matter at hand: the five most viewed Building Jerusalem blog posts of 2025:

5. Three reasons Russell Brand should not be baptising anybody

At number 5, you will be aware that Russell Brand made a public confession of faith. Jury is out on whether that is genuine or not; plenty of people have weighed in on both sides of that and I am content to say I simply don’t know. What I do know, however, is that Russell Brand ought not to be publicly baptising anybody right now. This blog post goes into the various reasons as to why.

4. Why I have a burner phone

This one explains why I – a reputable pastor of a local church – run two separate mobile phones. It is nothing to do with county lines and I can assure you I am not caught up in any illicit affairs. So why do I have one? This one explains and goes further, encouraging most pastors to think about getting a burner phone too.

3. Pastors should preach less

In at number 3, a clickbaity title perhaps, certainly one that would make most reformed types sit up and wince, but get into it and you’ll understand what is actually being said. There are some good reformed reasons why (some) local church pastors should definitely preach less and why a lots of them might need to think about whether they should be preaching a bit less. The headlines: you need to think about legacy, sustainability and pastoral necessity.

2. Six things the Bible says about mental health disorders

The second most read post of the year is a rehashed talk I was asked to give, first at another church and then, subsequently, to a group of church planters. I said pretty much the same thing in both settings. My brief was go and speak about what the bible says about mental health. This one looked at six things the bible would say to us that relate to how we might understand mental health issues broadly. It certainly doesn’t say everything but it does give us a bit of a framework to work with.

1. 10 times Jesus is explicitly called God in the Bible

The most read post on this blog this year is perhaps one of the most simple. It is little more than a list. A list of 10 verses in which Jesus is explicitly called God. There are people who continue to insist not only that Jesus is not God, but that the Bible never says it is so either. There are plenty of examples that make it virtually impossible to the honest exegete to deny that is what Jesus is saying, even though he doesn’t quite use those exact words. However, beyond those, there are at least 10 examples of the Bible explicitly referring to Jesus as God. This one lists them for you.