The Christmas Spirit

Christmas does something quite crazy to television, and other media oriented presentations. Suddenly "Peace on Earth, and good will to all Men" doesn't sound so outdated; the amount of 'Christmas Specials' that appear to jump on the moral extremes. Mainly of the overly reconciling kind. Secretly, as people sit down on a cold Christmassy evening, they want to sit in front of the glowing box of magic, and have tingles of joy sent down their spine by a feel-good episode of 'The Royle Family' or Wallace and Gromit, or House M.D.

It was during the various episodes of Seasonal Jollity I realised the odd combination of enjoyment people get from watching other peoples lives. The usual depressing nature of Eastenders, however, managed to cut through the evening's schedule of Christmas day, like an icicle stabbed into the heart of a young child. Though perhaps a bit graphic, we mustn't forget that in the time of the first Christmas there was a massacre of all children under 3 years of age, in an attempt to keep the King of the time without worry. Of course if there is any threat at all to your place of power, the best thing to do is to get rid of the competition. And what better time to dispose of it than when they are powerless?

The general rule does apply, however, that if you're going to take time out from your family, or simply make yourself feel like you belong to someone else's for a while, the best method is to watch another repeat of the Christmas Spirit with different characters, and a slightly modified dilemma. What happens to TV the rest of the year?

Well, my moral compass has become stronger and stronger as I've walked into situation after situation of evil. I've heard of more marriage break-ups closer in relation to me that I'd like, and people dying left, right, and centre, doesn't add to my coping mechanism. It's a horrible state of play we are in, where children are deprived of their fathers, parents have lost their children, escape isn't somewhere else, but something else, like drugs or alcohol, or someone else, like the next door neighbour. Increasing are the professing homosexuals, who choose that as their religion. Gone are the professing Christians, who would rather sit in closed buildings complaining about the rest of the world, than attempt to heal it like they are chosen to do. And I and my small community are stuck in the middle, being blamed for the state of London because we don't recycle.

I am the first to put my hand up and say I am a hypocrite of massive proportions. Living under grace raises the stakes. My only joy is that Jesus makes it possible to bear the evil in this world, because He has already done it. He bore mine as much as everyone else's and my only hope is that the more people who turn to Him to bear their evil first before pointing their finger into the cold night, watching the fog fall to reduce your vision, unable to see over the road at the abusive fathers who lead their young daughters to prostitution and worse, would run out and rescue these people in a vulnerable state, knowing Jesus was that child who was rescued by His parents in his young state. Ultimately God, in Jesus, came to earth to be weak and powerless, that we may be strong enough to see this world transformed.

150th Post Special - Interactive

I don't have anything that special to say, actually. In light of some recent musings around my personal spirituality and it's effect with others, I've been thinking a lot about the link that has been separated between the spiritual and the physical. There are other terms known as 'natural' and 'supernatural', or such ridiculous removals from the real world. The main idea that is communicated in this modernistic world, with clear objections from post-modernism yet silence from Christianity, is that we have life, and this world, and that's about it. When you die you're dead. Christianity has this extra bit, when you die, you're probably not dead. Of course I'm not talking about True Christianity, but about Traditional Christianity. The kind that when you say it there stirs a certain recoiling, and you think that it's a bad thing.

True Christianity has the opposite opinion of the world. Most people are dead, yet breathing. This has been coined as spiritually dead, but I want to take it further. If, when people meet Jesus they become born again, and new creations, then it's not enough to think that it's a work that is seperate from the body. The line cannot be drawn between spiritual and non-spiritual. The term natural, as I think about the Christian world view, cannot be separated from spiritual, because spirituality is natural, as is eating. It is more natural, in fact, for people to experience God personally, than for them to never have a life without at least one experience that doesn't fit with the physical laws laid out in science. I don't deny these laws, but I don't find them sufficient to account for answers that are being and have been searched for millenia. They answer the perceivable world (by the 5 traditional senses) and all it's questions. They don't answer origin, or justice, or imagination, or creativity. They don't answer the why questions, when we look at the human race. Why was fire so important to discover? Why was the wheel? Why do people need to invent things to do things that could be done by other things already?

I haven't communicated my conclusions very well because they're not there yet, but I would ask that there be some discussion. Help me to clarify things in my head by involving yourself in a discussion about spirituality and life.

Of course you could just lie in wait for an unsuspecting simpleton to say something you can jump on. But I'm hoping if discussion begins, you will be courteous.

Definition of ponce

Being French.

For example translating 'A Little Serenade' as 'Une Petite Musique de Nuit'

N.B. True definition not this.

Making History

I've just returned from a conference of challenge and encouragement. I met some awesome people, some hilarious people, some challenging people, and some people that will remain friends for life. There were guys who were so passionate about the message they had received their end goal was for everyone to not only hear that, but also commit to it. There were those who were prayer ninjas. Some were entertainers. All of them were looking beyond their own mission and looking to God.

God was moving powerfully through the week. We were standing in the centre of the British Isles learning about going beyond our limits and looking to God. As I meditated on Psalm 139 one morning Jesus gave me revelation over how He was going to accomplish more through us because of our vision.

The final 2 verses of Psalm 139 say:

Search me, O God, and know my heart!

Try me and know my thoughts!

And see if there be any grievous way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting!

He showed me how the people that go further for Him and achieve more than is possible are those who look to God for their purpose and motivation, rather than themselves. Why is this? Well, the 'way everlasting' needs to be contrasted with a way that finishes. All the other paths (i.e. those not ordained by God) reach a dead end. Those walking on those paths get to the end and then stop. They've done all they can. It's attainable by ourself and we just do it. God's way is so much bigger. He asks us to look beyond ourselves and what we can accomplish, and towards Him and what He can accomplish (which is everything beyond what we could ask or even imagine).

When the apostle Paul wrote Romans, he was writing to set up a missions base in Rome to then head out to Spain. His chunk of theology was almost a simple foundational section so that when he arrived he knew they would be on the same page so they could send him. What's interesting is there is no hard historical evidence that Paul ever made it to Spain. He knew God was leading him there and was being obedient to set-up the possibility of going, but he never got there. If Paul had known he wouldn't make it to Spain he probably would have never written Romans, which is now considered the most important book in the New Testament.

If we aim for what we can do, we will attain only a small amount. If we aim for what God wants, looking beyond our limitations, we will attain far more than we can ask or imagine. And the work will continue into the everlasting. That's making History.

Missing

I'd like to say I've been busy, but I haven't. In the grand scheme at least life is pretty dull. I'm still without a job, and it leaves me at a loss for activity. The trouble is that without routine, disciplines like letting everyone know what's going on in my mind via this blog becomes a sideline to other less productive things. Even loading the dishwasher has become a chore. I have been thinking about a lot though. You shouldn't worry about that.

Jacob was a schemer. He tricked his older brother into signing over his inheritance for a bowl of stew. Then tricked his dad into giving him a blessing that his older brother deserved by being hairy for his blind father. Then he schemed to marry a girl called Rachel. The trouble is, Rachel's father was also a schemer. He asked Jacob to work 7 years in order for permission to marry her. Jacob was obviously smitten, and it lasted because he worked those 7 years and then attended a marriage. It was his own, but unfortunately not with Rachel. It was with Rachel's sister. That meant a little anger, but he sat down with his new father-in-law and agreed to work another 7 years in order to finally marry Rachel. This was true commitment. In the meantime, he began to collect sheep. What I mean is, he decided to create himself some of his own resources so sifted sheep from all the various flocks he was taking care of and created himself a nice little pension scheme.

After finally marrying Rachel, having a few kids with his first wife and one with his second, he left his father-in-law's land (with a lot of stolen sheep, cattle, and a few of his own servants) and hesitantly went back to his father's land. Predicting his brother's wrath he sent waves of gifts to placate his brother's potential pay back. With nothing left he finally met his brother. He expected quite a harsh reception and sent his brother away quickly with the deposit of his family. And then he waited in the wilderness.

He met a man, with no face and no name. This man wrestled with him. They wrestled all night. Dusk 'til dawn you could say. Contorted figures silhouettes to lone travelers traveling at the cool of night. Even though there was a clear winner so early, the faceless man had advantage over Jacob before they started, Jacob strived, kept going, and held on. As the sun gave it's first hint at light, the faceless man said to Jacob, "I must go now." Jacob began to see something new about his fighter friend.

He was fighting with purpose. This wrestling wasn't some kind of domination tactic to win as much stuff off anyone he came across in the wilderness. Jacob had nothing. He had sent everything ahead of him. Jacob realised this man, this faceless, nameless human figure, wasn't fighting for anything Jacob had, he was fighting for Jacob himself. Jacob became in awe as he realised he was wrestling with his God. The God who had given life to his grandfather's barren wife's womb, to his father's wife's womb, and was now coming down to give Jacob.... something.

He wasn't sure what, so held on. Knowing full well that God could just disappear if He so chose. Jacob braved words that had come out of his mouth once before as he had deceived his father many years previous. "Bless me."

He became stronger. "I won't let go until you bless me."

This stranger Jacob was convinced was God in 'some-kind-of-flesh' seemed to be satisfied with the response he was getting from the contorted figure that held onto Him so tight. "I will bless you," He said, then proceeded to press His finger into Jacob's hip, leaving Jacob crippled. The faceless man disappeared.

Jacob was motionless for a while then he stood. And now he walked, limping back his father's land, back to his family, with a clear message in his side that he was blessed by One that would fight for him. Always limping, and always praising.

Jacob - He strives.

I've been reading Ezra

Ezra is a bit of a crazy book. It falls in a place in the Bible that is pretty hard to find, and he's not in it that much anyway. What it does lay out is a great theology of church and state working closely together. The king of Babylon, which had, as a nation, taken the whole of Israel away from their land to make them assimilate with the Babylonians, finally decided to send them back. There was a mixture of them causing trouble, and God prompting the king (by revealing that this God, YHWH, had given all the nations to Cyrus, the king, and God needed a house) to send His people home. The focus of their (the Jews') mission, the second they stepped through their home city gates, was simple: Rebuild the Temple. The Temple was the focal point of this community of God-Fearing Jews. The Babylonians had destroyed in their general pillaging, so the nation of Israel entreated the king at the time, Cyrus, to provide resources to undo Babylon's unhelpful way of doing things. Between the Jews and the kings of Babylon, the Temple is restored.

I noticed a few things in the opening chapters of the book of Ezra that struck me as odd and/or profound. (I have a friend who is profound - i.e. anti-lost.) The first thing to take away is as soon as the Jews found evidence of the original place of the Temple (namely, the cornerstone) they worshipped God extravagantly. There were sacrifices and singing and shouting. There was mourning for their absence from the land for so long, there was excitement at the prospect of the Temple being restored, there was engagement with God as they knew it was Him that had brought them home. It was a great time. They made so much noise the surrounding countries heard some of the raucous behaviour.

This leads me to think of a true reaction when something is about to happen, not something has happened. But they've hardly opened their toolbox when they stop everything and worship God for who He is. He's done stuff up to this point, but we also know He's going to do a lot more. God's pretty darn awesome. This worship was sacrificial. It cost them a fair chunk of their livelihood as livestock was being killed left, right and centre. But it was because He is amazing, not because He will give it back. It doesn't really matter if He will, actually. Just as long as we honour Him for His brilliance.

The second part is the confusion brought about by some enemies of the state wanting to help them out. This happens after the LOUD NOISES from Israel's people. Why would these enemies offer to help? Well, they claim to have the same God. It's true. They were know as Samaritans that were converts but in a twisted way. Instead of getting rid of their idols, they added God onto their list of gods to placate. The worship of this God of Israel wasn't the issue. The Jews don't really say anything on the matter. But why wold they accept and even rejoice in the help that comes from the king of Babylon, but refuse help from those semi-related to them (most Jews referred to Samaritans as half breeds, or mongrels...)? The point is in method. I will open this up more fully next time.

For a different approach to this book take a look at my older brother's study on liveasif.org. Do a search for "Thoughts of a Saint and Slave"

My Gospel keeps getting shrunk

Ask me about it...

What to do with culture...

Don Miller, author of books like 'Blue Like Jazz' and 'Searching for God Knows What', started a blog a while ago. His most recent post tackles the issue of what American politicians refer to as 'The Culture War'.

I responded to his questions...

1. Do you believe you are in a cultural war?

I think war is a strong word. And, if your terminology of war is correct (which I think it is - compliments to the writer), I don’t think destroying culture is even possible, so why try.

2. How do you feel (and respond) to attempts from the left and right to recruit you into a cultural war?

“Change” is word thrown around like it means something. The only thing it means to whoever is recruiting is making more and more people think they are right, and the other person isn’t. That isn’t change; that’s accentuating the SAME.

3. If war involves killing, and if a metaphorical war involves metaphorical killing, what does killing look like in this cultural war?

Killing is removing people/ideas that would otherwise remove you/your ideas. So it’s selfish arrogance that there is superior living, and it is achieved by me, all others must submit.

4. If you were to move beyond a cultural war, a step that might involve compromise, do you feel like you would be “giving in” to an enemy in any way?

I think I agree that cultural war isn’t good terminology for what happens when two different belief systems collide on a culture. If you don’t agree with something in culture do you allow compromise? Compromise must, probably, be defined as acceptance that it happens, rather than trying really for it not to. So, if abortion is the issue, we must accept that abortion happens. Whether it happens safely in a clinic, or possibly life-threatening-ly on the streets, is the response of society. That isn’t what I would call a bad thing. Facilitating abortion to the point of convenience and making it a necessary topic of discussion doesn’t help culture in it’s struggle with it.

Culture isn’t something to ‘give in’ to, but respond to. The response is the action leading to people believing in acceptance, rejection, or a mixture of both. Compromise leads to resenting something that isn’t bad until it is responded to. The response mustn’t feel like it’s giving in. It should feel like something we do as part of bettering (not battering) people. Jesus liked to respond to things, or tell stories to help people respond to him. It wasn’t really attacking culture, but the people thinking culture was the great thing we own.

5. What does peace negotiation (an important part of any war) look like in the cultural war?

I don’t know.

As a Christian community, there is a general mis-communication that makes people believe that culture is wrong. I'm sure I've posted on this enough times, but the idea of removing ourselves from culture is as equally absurd as deciding that culture itself dictates what we should believe. In fact, there needs to be an application of what I would call the Gospel, to redeem corrupted parts of culture to what they're frustrated trying to be, and a praise and strengthening of the parts of culture that bring the improvement of people. It is all in the worldview, brought about by the resurrection of Jesus, and the future hope of New Creation started by Him.

The idea that we war against cutlure is more like a struggle for middle ground. Church leaders are the ones who incorporate Christian culture into churches, and this increases relevance in the culture they find themselves. It isn't seperate, rather complimentary. There are different things, but styles of worship, communion, baptism (in the sea? only if there's any sea), preaching, is all part of keeping the Gospel applied to culture. It isn't seperate from the society it finds itself, because it always relevant. People always need forgiveness, and part of finding relationship with God is found in every section. It may be considered a little or a lot. It may be manifested in great and monstrous miracles, or through families putting the past behind them. But it is always possible because of the life, death, and Resurrection, the Faithfulness, of Jesus.

The question to answer is how to engage.

1. How should a church engage with the society it finds itself?

2. How should the two communities co-exist?

3. Where is the separation, and interaction?

4. Where does compromise for the majority come in?

Thought for the day

A good way to look at your relationship with God...

The word usually translated pursue in Ancient Greek, literally means 'to systematically harass, or oppress'.

Paul told Timothy in a letter to "systematically harass/oppress righteousness, faith, love, peace, and people doing the same as you"

See what happens.

Hard Times

I'm writing a post, which interestingly coincides with what went on tonight. It will be published tomorrow lunchtime. Suffering is an interesting topic and this study I am publishing will come back to it again and again as I go deeper into the frustration that has seen the 'prototype of Hope'.

The little broadcasting some of us get branded with...

I've been watching God TV. I confess. It is pretty awful. When every preacher looks at the screen and yells at you to sort your life out it's not a great resource for societal improvement. However, it did get me thinking. The type of programming on this channel is a mix of weird Australian presenters talking loosely about some kind of 'Glory' that floats around, in reach if you pray for enough hours of your day; televangelists with no message worth laying claim to; liars telling you that the Gospel of Jesus Christ found in the Bible isn't quite right, unless you have everything sorted (or the other way round, that the Gospel is supposed to get you sorted in 48 hours of believing, contrary to these texts here, here, and here); and women giving profoundly foolish advice to lower-middle class people about how they could where trouser suits just like her.

It's not got anything worth watching. Todd Bentley was almost getting to a point where people might have invited him to their house for tea, only to see the strain of not taking a Sabbath (which many people learn is a dumb move) put strains on his family. It removes the people following one man, but it's not the best way to see that happen. I saw a trailer the other day to buy a cloth that (for only €50) would heal you every time you touched it. I came to the conclusion that this channel should not carry the name it does, unless it decides to shape up and get rid of the preaching people want to hear, and put in place preaching people need to hear.

This isn't their first criticism and it won't be their last. It makes me mad that people who don't know Jesus might watch this. It's a load of rubbish, and it's only good purpose is to practice discernment. I turn it on and ask myself, "How is this wrong?" It doesn't take me long to find out, and it's upsetting that that's what it's come to.

Enough about that, because on the other side of this chasm is a Channel 4 show called 'Make Me A Christian.' It's brilliant, and based in Leeds (my old home City), so it just makes it that little bit better than the average Channel 4 documentaries. It's not in the same league as Celebrity Wife Swap, but it is very good. There is a small issue I had with an Evangelical (I think) Catholic priest who tried to convince one family to have a picture of the latest pope over their fireplace. But the methods of the 4 church leaders are astonishing. One guy was in a relationship for 2 years, but still spent Thursday nights (Lads' night) going out, picking up girls, and sleeping with them. An unhealthy amount of one night stands (i.e. more than none). A Pastor decided the only way for him to come face-to-face with his blatantly absurd actions was to take him to an STI clinic, and get him tested for sexually transmitted infections. The man in question couldn't go through with it, but I think he got the message.

Another girl was so obsessed with her image she had had plastic surgery in a lot of different places to make herself feel better. She was so materialistic with her outward appearance she was in debt by £15,000. Not good. Another pastor went to her house, asked her a few questions, then realised what her issue was and quoted this from the Bible:

Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God. (1 Peter 3:3-4)

The power of these words led her to tears, and she wept for a considerable amount of time. Coming face-to-face with idolatry is a terrible thing, but it showed her, and the guy mentioned earlier, that there is something about Christianity that cannot just be an outward thing. It finds itself outwardly expressing itself in the faith of a believer. But what is ultimately important is what is in the heart. I didn't see any more of the documentaries, but could see the methods: Bring them face-to-face with their way of living to show them just how broken they really are. If someone is brought into a place of brokenness Jesus is a True and Great Hope that no one can turn down.

Returning to routine

As usual, the Summer months dictate over a month between posts. There's been plenty happening that I could have reacted to, or even in my own study there's been plenty to inform you of insight I have seen, read, heard, experienced, in the past few weeks. But I'm looking forward more. I finally bagged myself a room in a house that is far more permanent, and feels like my own. That means an easier discipline, rather than feeling like you're intruding everywhere you tread. Job applications, I've realised, are depressing; especially when you send of 50 CV's a day to various companies, and get 3 phone calls a week as a response. That says to me 'you may be far better skilled than some people, but there is always someone else far more skilled than you.' Thanks.

As far as churches go, there are a far too many to mention in the little hamlet of London. The conference at Brighton, put on by New Frontiers, and featuring Mark Driscoll as guest speaker, finally had a focus I could engage with: mission. The trouble with the conference as a whole was it's formulaic essence. Driscoll was an incredibly insightful and engaging preacher, pushing all challenges beyond the usual 'make sure you keep yourself clean, and tell someone you're a Christian at least once a week.' However, the worship band leading the thousands of delegates played for 30 minutes without fail, even if you could sense the need to wrap up early, or continue for an hour or so more. The prophetic, of which has been recognised as something New Frontiers is strong on, was equally basic. You'd imagine, at a place filled with 7000 spirit-filled, prophetic Christians, there would be encouragement, and vision from engaging with God, but it was quite bland compared with the past. Maybe the visions set by previous years asked for something that could not be given in the same measure as we stopped changing season and started living in it.

London was targeted as a strategic city in the world, and I moved there three weeks ago. Since then, my girlfriend and I visited 2 and a half churches, and stuck with the second one. Our local New Frontiers church gave the impression it didn't want any new people, so we left them to themselves, and found a church plant in Dulwich (South of the river) called Beacon Church. That's about where I'm at. The church has quickly integrated us, and we feel part of the vision.

I've also been writing some comments through 1 and 2 Peter, which I'm writing in a more legible form at my new blog Theological Meanderings. Maybe I'll move over there for a while, we'll see.

SYIAB! (See You In A Bit)

The Pain of Forgiveness

Just to clarify on my last post. I think I made it sound like condemnation is a natural feeling you have to just get over by yourself. I made it sound like, if you're aware you're a sinner then deal with it. Jesus has done the job so get on with real life, man. Well, I really just wanted to get across this immense feeling that forgiveness is not telling you it's ok, and it's not telling you that all is forgotten. The last thing God does is forgive and forget. He forgives you, but that is a pain borne by Christ that makes reconciliation possible. If He forgot you ever did anything wrong, He wouldn't be loving, He'd be utterly dumb.

Jesus knows you're screwed up. He was tempted in every way but didn't sin. It means He knows the struggles faced, so we have someone who can sympathise with us. Sin is bigger than you, but Jesus is bigger than that. If God is in you, which He is because the Holy Spirit indwells all those who believe in His glorious Gospel, then you can beat sin. That's something to have immense peace about. When Paul says don't sin, he knows it's not as easy as ABC, but, to quote the controversial man of the time, Todd Bentley, "I don't think about sinning when I'm singing spirit-filled songs of praise to God."

I have to agree with Todd on that one. That may cause a rift between some Evangelicals, because if a man is slightly wrong on one thing we shouldn't listen to him at all. But I am a firm believer of seperating the wheat from the chaff.

Interesting to feel like I'm side-tracking when in fact this fits right in; God takes your good, that is in you by His grace, and increases it. What is rubbish, worthless, offensive, etc. He burns away with His Holy fire. The pain of forgiveness is like a burning, but it was either Him or you, right? And Jesus took that pain so you didn't have to. So the sin is considered as dealt with, and you can feel free to be burned in a furnace to get rid of the crap, and refine your very self into what God wants you to be.

That's enough clarification for one day.

What God isn't...

The amount of times I go to God, go to Jesus and hope he'll tell me it's okay is beyond the point in counting. I offend God, or sin against Him regularly, every day. It's not something I enjoy doing, but something I have to continue to evaluate. But I still want to go to Him, tell Him I'm very sorry for being a nit-wit, and hope that Jesus will turn to me and tell me it will be okay.

The fact is, it isn't okay. God's never happy about any of the stupid stuff I do. I never hear Him say, it's okay. I learnt a long time ago that saying 'okay' is one of the most ridiculous things to say. My dad would tell me off for lying, or cheating, or breaking something, and then I would say to him, 'okay.' In my ten-year-old way of pretending I'm taking the discipline.

He would say back to me, 'it's not okay, though.' And it would get me every time. Until I started to say sorry instead. It made me think about what I'd actually done, rather than react to what was being said to me afterwards. And when I turn to God everyday, for forgiveness, He tells me it's not okay. It's not okay that I do the things I do that offend Him, or say the things I say that offend Him, it just not okay.

But, and this is a great big but, Jesus is risen! 1 Corinthians 15, in it's mystical power, explains the extent of the resurrection to the point that if it's not true all Christians are to be pitied. I think sometimes I live in a way that is not pitiful if my faith isn't true. But, in that resurrection, I find strength (because God also likes to give that if you go to Him) to live a life that is worthy of the Gospel. It's not profound. It's much more than that. It goes beyond a simple, 'okay, I'll change.' It goes to the extreme that if what is truly on offer explained in that letter to the Corinthians, then it is better to live, leaving behind sinful practices, than, 'eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die!'

Jesus loves to offer new life. I need it every day.

Forgiven Much

The forgiveness of God continues to go far beyond what we can think, or imagine. I find it fascinating to look back at that day 2000 years ago and realise more happened than I thought had done yesterday. There are those people (I sometimes fall into this category) that when you become a Christian, God stops being a loving pursuing God, and starts being an angry perfectionist God. "Now you're in my family," I can imagine Him saying, "you go by my rules. My house, my rules."

There are other interesting personalities that get projected onto God, especially when it comes to trying to understand the Trinity. The Trinity is not, although it would be easier if it was, like stuffing three pillows into one pillow case. You look at the pillow and it's one pillow, but it's three pillows. Funny word is pillow.

So the personality is like the angry Father who thirsts for blood at every opportunity, then there's the loving Son who, wanting His Father to stop wanting to kill people (but Dad is being very self-controlled), comes down out of heaven so His Dad can look at Him, kill Him and then, when the Son is back in heaven, every time Dad gets angry the Son says, 'No, look at me instead!" And there's the Holy Spirit who floats around making everyone feel warm and fuzzy because Dad can't hold Him back because the Son is distracting His gaze.

Again, that's wrong.

Actually, Jesus dying was for a purpose, and His rising again was more than a receipt. It's always good to go back to basics, and I've said it before, but the idea of being forgiven a lot is so profound I can't really get my head around it. If believers in the Gospel of Jesus Christ (that Jesus is the Jewish saviour and King of the whole earth) can't forgive others then they don't grasp it's implications. Obedience comes in the realisation of Jesus as King. Forgiveness comes from the implications of acceptance through Jesus' blood. It's all a bit complicated, but it's as basic as I was forgiven so I will forgive.

What we really need is a bigger, better picture of God, who will pay whatever is necessary to show that He is God. Anyone who leaves Jesus out when talking about God has missed Him. 

Nothing Hidden

Would it be a revelation to say change doesn't happen apart from God?

You can be different and never change. There's something significant about the difference between knowing something and knowing someone. We can have books and books about a person, but never know who they are. And it's the same with ourselves. How do we know about ourselves, though, unless we take a step back?

The idea of worship hits a nerve with quite a few people. If you call anyone an idolater these days you can usually get into a bit of trouble. I see worship like breathing. If you're not breathing oxygen (and various other gases found in our atmosphere today) you're breathing something else. You can't breathe nothing. If you're drowning you end up trying to breathe water. If you're in a vacuum you try breathing anyway. To remove the atmosphere and replace it with something else doesn't mean we would stop breathing, it just means we start breathing something else.

Worship's like that. If you're not worshipping one thing you're worshipping another. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Our bodies were designed to worship. Our souls were designed to worship. To refer to nothing hidden in the title is no mere act of an aim to confuse whoever I can. Nothing hidden is an attitude toward God. God wants us to worship Him, that is how he designed our relationship with Him. The trouble is we have ruined our relationship with Him. Jesus didn't die and rise to help us have a relationship with God, we already had a relationship with Him, just it was rubbish and irreconcilable, we have done some terrible things. I've done some terrible things.

Jesus has done this restoration work, meaning He presents us to His Father, and if we believe Our Father, and we can start seeing Him for who He is and worshipping Him so.

We become what we worship. So the challenge comes when we want to worship God, but there's stuff in the way. Jesus dealt with it, but it must be let out to be dealt with. We must come to God entirely transparent. David's greatest prayers were his arguments with God. "Why am I suffering and my enemies living in abundance?" he would complain to God. Then he would go into the inner sanctuary, go to the presence of the Most High God, and everything would be at peace with his soul. Without the (first) frustration we can't have the (second) peace.

I suppose I'm coming to my conclusion, that we as worshippers must worship in spirit and truth. That means coming through Truth (Jesus) and having or spirits put in tune with God. As a community we must have a transparent, "nothing hidden" attitude, and allow God to shape our lives.

Funny

Vatican says aliens could exist

Oh dear...

One of those email things, that have turned into facebook note things...

I did this just over a year ago...

This is for your entire life:

(X) Smoked a cigarette
(X) Drank so much you threw up HAVEN'T WE ALL yes....but into a pint
glass, or a bin, or over the steps of a posh wine bar in London :(
() Crashed in a friend's car
() Stolen a car
(X) Been in love
(X) Been dumped
() Been laid off/fired
(X) Quit your job
() Been in a fist fight
() Sneaked out of your parent's house
(X) Had feelings for someone who didn't have them back
(X) Gone on a blind date - that's a funny story
(X) Lied to a friend
(X) Skipped school....
() Skipped an entire semester - Not exactly but it does feel like it at the moment
() Seen someone die
(X) Been to Canada
() Been to Mexico
(X) Been on a plane
(X) Been lost
(X) Been on the opposite side of the country
() Gone to Washington , DC
() Swam in the ocean
(X) Felt like dying - I have also felt like death
() Cried yourself to sleep
(X) Played cops and robbers - emabarrassing home video and all
() Recently coloured with crayons
(X) Sang karaoke (Badly!!!)
(X) Paid for a meal with only coins - ohh the shame
(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't
() Made prank phone calls
(X) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose
(X) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
(X) Made a snow angel
(X) Danced in the rain -
(X) Written a letter to Santa Claus
(X) Been kissed under the mistletoe
() Watched the sunrise with someone you care about
(X) Blown Bubbles
() Made a bonfire on the beach
(X) Crashed a party
() Gone roller skating
(X) Gone ice skating

OK, here are the questions:

What are you afraid of?
I don't exactly know

Most recent movie you have seen in the theater?
Nearly 300...but actually it was 'Bridge to Terabithia' in Canada

Seen a ghost?
Nope

Where were you born?
Sheffield

Ever Been to Alaska ?
No

Loved someone so much it made you cry?
How about something?

Favorite day of the week?
Probably Wednesday, it's the most fun to spell

Favourite Restaurant?
That one in Mark's basement that time

Favourite Ice Cream?
That's a bit silly. I don't have a massive flare for ice creams. Although I used to like those 'Feast' things.

Favourite Shake flavour at a fast food restaurant?
Well...it's Banania.

Favourite food at a fast food restaurant?
KFC...something from KFC

What color is your bedroom carpet?
Brownish...it's not been cleaned in a while

What is your favorite alcoholic drink?
That's a toughy. Red wine? Bordeaux '94 perhaps?

Favourite non-alcoholic drink?
I had an apple pie milkshake once...but it wasn't very good, so not that.

Tattoos?
On me? No

Body piercing?
For a hobby? Never really thought of it.

What is your favorite vacation spot?
I don't think I can answer that

Ever steal any traffic signs?
Did I? I don't remember

Favourite Salad Dressing?
Basic stuff

Favourite Holiday?
Canada was pretty awesome. It shouldn't have been a holiday.

------------

What do you do to relax? Eat. Or walk somewhere a bit picturesque.

Favorite sound? Waterfalls

How do you see yourself in 10 years? Hopefully as trim and thin as i am now.

Furthest place you will send this? I don't know.

How many times did you fail your driver's test? Nonce. That's quite a negative question.

From whom did you get your last e-mail? Why? Not really something timelessly funny to post.

What do you do when you are bored? Find something funny on youtyoob, which usually takes about an hour, and then I'm late for work or something.

Bedtime? Not yet, thankfully.

Favorite TV show? Hard to say, but I have been enjoying That 70s Show, you know, the one with Ashton Kutcher. But I think I'll have to stick with Arrested Development.

What are you listening to right now? The A/C

How many pets do you have? I went from 0-2-4-5-4-3-2-1-0, death sucks.

The chicken or the egg? Chicken (roast)

What would you like to accomplish before you die? Be the first person to climb Mount Everest. Not going to happen though.

I find that incredibly frustrating...

I sit there, drinking my Starbucks, looking out over the shoppers, arguing and loving each other, wandering through town enjoying the sunshine, or avoiding the sunshine, or avoiding the rain, I think: nothing's changed. In the past 4000 years nothing has changed. But it's hidden very well by the word "progress" that things might have gotten a little better. So then we wonder to what "things" refers to. We look at achievements, merits, goals reached, wealth attained (or lost), and with those in mind we look for the evolution of society, when that never lies in the "visible first, satisfaction second" idea of such "progress".

An interesting question I've thought of asking Western society in general is"What's more important, experience or knowledge?" One of my friends answered a question I asked in an interesting way that made me doubt whether I really was fortunate to be born here. I had asked, "What's Britain's main crop?" Simon answered, "Information."

Information. The entity that, thanks to the internet, practically doubles every day. And this society has grabbed hold of it and made it cheap. The trouble with this is when we listen closely to those influential thinkers, like Billy Joe, who claim "Talk is cheap, but lies are expensive."

I know too much. Or maybe I just like saying that.

Just some thoughts on society at the moment. Maybe things will change.

How much further should we go?

After posting two blogs on a possible reason for God and then a blog on why we don't need to do that I'm just taking a few steps back. My friend, Pete, sent me an interesting answer to the question I asked; how would you describe the God you do or don't believe in?

He said that "God would be a totalitarian dictator representing the purest form of totalitarianism."

For a while I walked around saying Christianity in a Kingdom or Empire sense was a dictatorship. God has complete sovereignty, and He does what brings Him the most glory, and brings most glory to Himself through the work He does in all kinds of situations. I thought it fascinating for Pete, who claims to be an atheist, to describe God in a very similar way. Of course since saying Christianity was a dictatorship, my father corrected me to say it was more commonly known as a theocracy. Still, that doesn't make me any less convinced of Jesus ruling my life.

The trouble with calling God a dictator is the implications it has based on the modern history we have of people like Hitler and Stalin. Both decided they would be the (and correct me if I'm wrong) ultimate authority in their empires and oppressed people left, right, and centre. That makes us think of God, if a dictator, as an oppressive baboon with only His own interests in mind. But the we look to the end of Pete's definition and see that he does describe it as the "purest form of totalitarianism." That makes me think I can redeem God as dictator (if that's even allowed) by saying that God truly is the purest dictator the world could possibly have. He is utterly sovereign, and considers His glory as highest in importance. However, unlike His human copy-cats, He does things in the most loving way possible. He knows that obedience comes from willingness, and He created a way for all to be willing to serve Him through sending His Son, Jesus, to die in our place, and raise from the dead, to defeat death, show complete love, and give new life to all who want it. That means that anyone following Jesus are under God's rule, and it is a purely loving rule. He deals with His creation in a way that overpowers anything because He loves, not because He has a lot of rebels in His kingdom.

Imagine this; a man owes another man, who he works for incidentally, a whole heap of cash. Something in the region of a few million, and he has no hope of attaining to that kind of wealth. His boss comes to him and asks for the money back, but he can't pay it, and it would take him approximately 500 years to work the money back, making it practically impossible. His boss decides, because he does love his employees, that he will cancel the debt. Just right it off. Nothing doing. This makes the man who owed a lot so joyful that he goes around telling everyone how wonderful his boss is, and does everything that he says and encourages other people to do the same, and treats other people in the same way as his boss treated him. He had been shown so much mercy it flowed forth into his own ministry of mercy to all manner of people. He'd got himself into an awful position but the redemption he experienced changed his whole outlook on life.

Unless there is that kind of experience with someone in authority over you, you will only ever resent them for not showing you any kind of favour, and if you keep doing what they ask you to the only reward will be more work because they know you are good at following orders. But Jesus said Himself that the people who are healthy don't need a doctor. It's the sick. He didn't come to save the 'righteous' - those who can follow orders - but save 'sinners' - those who know for a fact that they haven't kept up to the standard that their authority expected.

In light of this, God, The Authority of the World, who can be described as acting the purest form of totalitarianism, is the one who knows that true obedience comes from loving Him first. We obey Him because we love Him, and we love Him because He first Loved us. It all works out in the end.

If that doesn't make any kind of sense, then I hope you experience His love.


Like this Authority Duck ->

GO for a Drive

I'm finding recently that Christianity is less of a way to think and more as a driving force. There is a tendency to beat yourself up so easily if you consider yourself as someone trying to follow Jesus but not thinking about him enough. Unless you continue remember that you're a damned sinner saved entirely by grace, you think, there is no chance I can live such a good enough life to model who I'm suppose to be following. And because you're not thinking about it enough you feel completely condemned and even more of a sinner. So it kind of works.

The trouble with the whole idea that you have to remember things about this, Truth and all that, is that in the end you're bound to forget so much of the time. The first thing you think about when you wake up is yourself. That's mainly because you are a major part of your life. If you didn't think about yourself how would know where to go, for example? The interesting paradox to this is the famous summing up of the Gospel by Tim Keller:

“The Christian gospel is that I am so flawed that Jesus had to die for me, yet I am so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. It undermines both swaggering and sniveling. I cannot feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone. I do not think more of myself nor less of myself. Instead, I think of myself less.”

— Timothy Keller, The Reason For God, New York, NY: Dutton, 2008, p. 181.

Where do I go from here? Well, the ultimate point I get to is when you stop trying to win intellectual arguments about whether God exists or not. The fact is there are people out there in the world who can prove that He doesn't exist, and there are other people out there who can prove that He does. But it means the argument stops being about whether or not God exists and becomes a competition about who is the cleverest. Someone would denote stupidity to believe in something invisible, only to be told they are closed minded and shallow for not believing in something unless they can see it. It leads to attacks on each other rather than being about what it's supposed to be about. The arguments about God finished a long time ago, and the people who really care, leave other people to write books and make movies, so they can live their lives in peace.

Belief is knowledge moved six inches downward. It moves from something else to put on the list of things worth knowing, and placed into a heart issue. A driving force that lets people live their lives. The basic premise of the Christian gospel comes down to a deep set knowing that you are loved so deeply it cost everything to have you. This sits in your heart and lets you live your life in confidence, as Keller says, thinking of yourself less and less. Jesus becomes ever more real as He reveals Himself to you, and you seek a relationship with a living God. This unchanging God has always been wanting relationship, and it comes to a head when you can see community after community transformed from people seeking God rather than their own success. Their heart has been transformed.

My heart has been transformed. I finally realised I don't need to be thinking about God 24/7 to know that He loves me. What I need to know is live with the confidence I have nothing to prove, and just work, silently, for the God who loved the whole world He sent His son into it. He's not a detached God, He never was.

There is always more to the Most High

Being sympathetic to the emerging/emergent (I'm not sure which is what) church has become one of my little things, recently. I became tired of listening to the attacks against the community a long time ago, when thought it better to have their view in line with hundreds of years of tradition instead of allowing things to change their mind. I don't say this because I agree with everything this "new" church is saying, most of I think is ridiculous, but they are trying to understand God, and seeking Him with Jesus in mind, rather than a general "sincere faith" so many want to cling to.

Sympathetic has to be the right word, because they are trying to be heard so they can find out how people respond, but they are being trampled by BIG names, like John Piper and Mark Driscoll, who made a decision that they weren't doing things right, and ex-communicated them from their social network. Of course I'm making sweeping generalisations so you can hear my point, instead of trying to keep things inoffensive to some readers.

Most evangelical Christians, I've noticed, have two major characteristics: first, they are obsessed with the death of Jesus in such a profound way, even though He did rise from the dead (which is the important bit of the growth of the church), and they like to claim Jesus enjoyed the cross, when Hebrews definitely says He "endured the cross for the joy set forth before Him" and that joy before Him wasn't the cross it was us. Secondly, if they can't have ideas of God boxed up into nice sections (although these will sound quite silly), like omnipresence, omnipotence, the trinity, holiness, glorious-ness, then they get a bit upset. Doctrines seem to be very important.

Israel, after much winging and moaning, finally enter the promised land, or before that are freed into the wilderness, or before that are miraculously provided for by a brother who happens to be prime minister of Egypt, or before that have a family miraculously born out of a barren woman. They live their whole national life as a life full of experiences of God. They live in faith of that. Wandering through the wilderness they have food fall out of the sky every day for 40 years, and have a pillar of smoke during the day to shade them from the hot hot Egyptian sun, and have a pillar of fire by night to keep them warm in the cold cold Egyptian desert. They experience God entering the promised land, with miraculous victories over great people groups who worship foreign gods. They experience God in exile, when one man refuses to bow to anyone but YHWH and gets thrown to the lions, only to be casually asked the morning after "Did your God save you?" and He had.

God interferes with Israel at various stages of their disobedience, but it is because God wants them to experience Him. His main interference is through prophets, and that voice crying out is only that powerful message that God cares far more than you know, and will use His people to speak to His people. Even in the 400 years of silence from the end of Malachi to the arrival of John the Baptist, there was an expectation of God breaking in, because 400 years is the longest God has ever gone with being silent. By the time Jesus had done what He'd come to do, ascended into glory, and left His Spirit to empower His New People to do greater things that He had done, there are more and more accounts of God being experienced, and that changing lives. With God, there is never a dull moment. Experiencing Him is something He is hungry for us to do, and He wants us to be pursuing Him to do great and mighty things.

The Psalms are filled of praise of the work God does on earth, in equal measure to the characteristic of God which aren't simply titles, but demonstrated among His people. The Israelites didn't have doctrine they had experience calling to mind the wonders of God. Why should we decide knowing about God is the real way to meet with Him? Isn't that the arrogance of man to say, "you've done enough, God, leave us to summarise You in our own words."?!

I'm hungry for, maybe even craving, some of this spiritual milk, this tasting of the goodness of Jesus in profound new ways in our churches. I get the feeling He wants to break in more powerfully than we ever allow when He meets with us in our meetings together. Community should be more than enjoying a personal comfort, it should be God turning lives around, making miracles an everyday occurrence, and seeing churches grow through the wonderment of this Great God: Jesus Christ.

Let me reason with you

It's not enough to argue a creator based on morality. If there is a God, He has surely revealed Himself through this creation, it would resemble part of Himself, just as I can't write something objectively. There are always reflections of ourselves in our creations. I think that mentioning beauty and ugliness in my previous post briefly should have caught your attention, although, again, I'm not going to elaborate any further than that.

To draw onto all of the 'religions' in the loosest sense of the word and look at their concepts of creation, they all resemble a 'Big Bang' of some kind far more than the Christian account. By this I mean that they all describe as the world coming together out of chaos, whether it be a war between 2 gods where on wins and the others destruction is used to create life, or the more classic and (apparently most widely accepted fact among scientists) convincing idea of 'The Big Bang Theory' where something verytinyindeed exploded for no obvious reason at the exact speed needed to have everything neatly form after everything has been colliding for billions of years.

The Christian idea of creation is, unfortunately for some, best described by Genesis, where the world comes together in sections, an order that is all good and made to be the place where everything works together. This is the only, I repeat ONLY, account of the creation of the universe where everything comes out of harmony, love, and peace. So, if we are to reason my last post into this post, morality (or at least the sense of the good, the bad, and the ugly) must come from a starting of harmony, rather than a starting of chaos. We want the world to become better, which would come from it once being that very thing, rather than wanting and willing it to get worse, which is what the motivation would be if that is where we had come from and where we were headed. (We are not headed for total annihilation as I believe, at least, see this post.)

There's not much more I can say to flesh this out. The bones are there and it's up to you to really decide if what I am saying is good enough to explore Jesus further. The fact is, if we were not from this ordered creation, our sense of morality wouldn't be as it is. Our very nature points to an ordered and loving God. Our frustration with the world matches His. The release that comes from knowing there is a hope is the great sense that Jesus death bore the pain forgiveness brings, and His life brought to life the hope needed to carry this life through to completion. His life, a prototype for ours, has moved forward to show in many ways how our need to improve the world is grounded, perfectly, in an eschatology (eschatology literally means the study of the last days, but I really just mean the certainty of our future) that brings to birth a new heavens and new earth. The old earth is burned up by fire, destroying what is perishable, the evil, and ugly, and all the things that have come from the frustration of the whole world; and leaving only what is imperishable; the things God called good in the beginning, and those works and motivations that brought the hope closer, working with Jesus on His great project. This brings renewal and the future of God's people is carried on. (More on God's people next time.)

Who is this God of which I speak?

I received a book in the post recently that has a commentary on Romans; a book of the Bible that I studied about 18 months ago. One of the verses in the first chapter says something along the lines of "they know God exists but reject that knowledge." It's interesting that I've also been reading another book by a guy, Tim Keller, who recently released his book "The Reason for God; Belief in an age of skepticism." He spends the first half of the book answering common objections to Christianity, and the second half of the book on the offensive, showing how Christianity is the set of beliefs that makes the most sense. I have a few things to say on one of his chapters, chapter 9 'The Knowledge of God.'

It all, and always, boils down to morality. In the past 200 years the foundational assumption of God has been steadily removed from society and state as a whole, leaving an unfounded moral principle that avoids God. The fact is, morality is based on a higher set of principles that can then be filtered down to application in society. I am, of course, referring to human rights. Laws of the road only have as much to do with God as to say anyone who drives badly probably shouldn't have a fish on the back of their car. Human rights assumes the dignity of all beings, and it appears to have been most fully recognised, although I can't say that with absolute certainty, in Western culture, where "freedom" of speech, religion, etc. equal rights, and discouragement of segragation is, on the whole, established and held to. The trouble with it is that this freedom, especially of religion, says that there is a clear need to keep your faith in whatever it is we can't see in your private home and don't bring it to work thank-you-very-much, when, as a driving force of one's life, it is practically impossible to do.

So, then, the comments on Tony Blair's decision to start going back to church on a more committed basis after his term as PM makes us wonder where he was getting his ideas from before that. Maybe there is an element where we, as the English, think ourselves better than the US because they like to have their religion stated next to their name. It makes me wonder why, if our human rights realisations are good and right, why we would then try and make them universal when there are a number of cultures where even murder is socially acceptable if it's used to save face. What is our trouble with morality, on the one hand, and God, on the other, that makes us avoid so much of communication between the two, when the only explanation for either of them is the other one. For reasons sake the two ideas (morality and God) support each other.

Where am I going with this?

The underlying problem with morality is that it exists, but if God does not exist it actually shouldn't. I am talking more of a moral awareness (of right and wrong, good and evil, ugly and beautiful - just to throw another idea in the mix) than of a set of legal standards. The simple fact is that we have shelves and shelves of books outlining laws for this that and the other, but we don't know where it comes from. It's as if a decision is made and it agrees with everyone, but if anyone were asked why, they wouldn't have the slightest idea what just happened.

At this point I have been talking about God as the idea (a greater more substantial force that at least started this whole life thing, even if he didn't sit there and decide what colour a fox would be, and how many stomachs a cow should have.) The reasoning, however, cannot end there.

I wonder. If there were one question I were to ask the world, it would be this.

How would you describe the God that you do or don't believe in?

Answer? That's up to you.

The Bible has a lot to say

The thing I find fascinating about Jesus is His interaction with Peter more than anything else. Peter is probably the most disappointing disciple in the pack, next to Judas. And Judas seems to have his title of disciple put into question fairly frequently, so Peter quickly takes the bottom peg again. When Jesus first called Peter, Peter was a fisher man and Jesus wanted to turn Peter into a fisher-of-men. I'm not sure how that would look in the Greek so it was either a clever word play, or just another kind of job.

After Jesus rises from the dead (yay, Easter!) He goes back to Peter and says, "Peter feed my sheep." That is a big difference. That's not collect men, that's lead them and sustain them. That's a call from a fisher out on the water, to a shepherd on the fields. That is in harms way, and responsible, and all kinds of things. Now, Jesus had gotten His identity from the Old Testament, and lived out of that. He had told people things as explanations for what He was doing, and people followed Him. But what I like best about everything Jesus said, is that His explanations were victorious ones; or Good News.

The difference between News and advice is simple. News demands a reaction, advice asks for action. So the difference between Jesus' message, at the time, and everyone else's was that people needed to make decisions as to what they would do next, instead of make decisions on whether they would do something or not. Jesus, when He called Peter and commissioned Peter, was giving Peter the needed reaction from who He was. He already had seen the News and it was time to act on it in the right way.

The thing I find greatest about the Bible as a hole is that it's not a list of moral principles to weigh up and act out. The Old Testament looks like it, but it's basically a massive set-up anyway, Peter wrote about that himself. The Bible is, in fact, a massive story with bits of everything put in there; journal entries, letters, history books, hero stories, romance, poetry, all-sorts. And it acts a premise of victory. Jesus explained Himself in a context of Victory. He told people who were stuck in patterns of sin to "go and sin no more" and they went away not sinning anymore.

The Gospel is the Good News (metaphorically) of a victorious King coming home to His city, and His people hear of His victory in a battle and ready the city for celebration and everyone loves the King. All other kinds of moral codes from other religions as I have observed, is good advice of a defeated king coming home to his city sending word to the city to ready it's defences for an oncoming attack. The difference in attitude between the two cities is obvious; one is a victorious reaction to a King who has won a battle for them, the other is action of advice to some possible onslaught, and fear.

I suppose Good News demands a reaction, bad news needs advice. The news today on TV communicates bad news so we all know what a rubbish situation we're in, making any action excuse worthy. If the news showed good news people wouldn't know how to act because it demands a reaction rather than getting advice for action.

at the garden's edge beneath a speechless sky
as his friends all slept
Jesus wept- and no wonder
and now you say you wanna be set free??
and wanna set me free???
well I'm told that can only come from
a union with the One who never dies

The Power of Poverty

There's a power in poverty that breaks principalities
And brings the authority's down to their knees
There's a brewing frustration and ageless temptation
To fight for control by some manipulation

But the God of the kingdoms and the God of the Nations
The God of creation sends his revelation
Through the homeless and penniless Jesus the son
The poor will inherit the Kingdom to come

Where will we turn when our world falls apart
And all of the treasures we've stored in our barns
Can't buy the Kingdom of God?
Who will we praise when we've praised all our lives
men who build Kingdoms and men who build fame
What will we fear when all that remains
Is God on His throne, with a child in his arms,
and love in his eyes
And the sound of his heart cry

Coke solves all the worlds problems

On belonging (continued)

To draw out some kind of application from my previous post, these is much to see as good and bad from deciding we don’t belong. What is important, I’ve seen, is that the exiles described in Jeremiah 29 had a different view told to them. They had been removed from their land, and were being forced to live and abide by the culture of the city of Babylon. I have posted on the city before. There are excellent things about living in a city. If someone lives in a city, but lives like they are waiting for their escape, it’s not use to anyone, especially not themselves. On top of that, escape is not our goal. We will inherit the earth in all it’s fulness. This earth will be renewed, not destroyed. To abandon it would be a foolish thing to do, and I know I’d feel a bit stupid if I’d thought I was escaping somewhere I end up living in for the rest of my life.

In my study of Philippians, I wrote a simple statement: dual citizenship (see previous post) means an embracing of two cultures where one take precedent over the other. Jeremiah 29 is God speaking to the exiles in Babylon saying “seek the welfare of the city, because it’s welfare is your welfare.” This wouldn’t really have been popular, because they were a chosen nation and wanted to be different on their own terms. There were 2 alternatives in joining a city of ‘pagans’. The first would be tribalism. Tribalism is what was encouraged by a lot of the leaders in Israel. It was a structure of living to stay apart from the city and stay different. They would live their own way and not engage with culture. This is partly how some churches operate today.

The second reaction, which is what was preferred by the Babylonians particularly, was to go into the city, engage with it, and become like them. Adopt their ways, receive their education, and leave your old people behind. By that I don’t mean leave your grandparents at home, I mean leave your nation at the city gates and become a ‘new person’. This is another equally useless operation of some churches today.

The reaction God suggests is to go into the city and stay different. As a people go into the city and increase in number, be the best politicians, doctors, teachers, bankers, and tradesmen you can be. And be the best in line with being different and belong to God, not the city. Be a people of God in the city, as part of the city. The Babylonians at best wanted peoples to come into their city and decrease in number, so the descendants would be assimilated into their culture. God’s way is the polar opposite. It is an increasing in number and in consequence would transform the city.

This is the responsibility of dual citizenship: to seek the welfare of the city, for it’s welfare is your welfare. As citizens of somewhere else I we should be the best citizens here, because we live here. At the right time the work here will be part and parcel of the transformation of the place we live into a place that reflects the place we belong. Excellent!

On belonging nowhere you can see

I recently did a study on Philippians 3. I didn't realise how much effect the preparation was having on me, until I went back to reading 1 Peter. What you have to realise is I spend a lot of time just browsing around the bible and seeing if there is something good I should write down somewhere. For the record I am never disappointed, but I don't always have a pen. There are similarities between the people of Philippi, to whom Paul writes, and the recipients of Peter's first letter. It's not just that they believe in Jesus, there is something even more significant.

The Philippians were a colony of Roman citizens. They were mainly veterans of the Roman Empire, shipped off to somewhere else because they were retired soldiers and had a habit of causing trouble. With a colony built on the background of Roman veterans, the majority of the inhabitants of Philippi considered themselves better Romans than people in Rome. It was like Rome away from Rome. Paul wrote to the church there, and wanted to shift their thinking a bit. If you're writing to a church that is already an experience of dual citizenship, it's worth getting them more accurately thinking of their citizenship. Paul tells them in chapter 1 verse 27 that they should "live a citizens worthy of the Gospel." This would have perhaps caught them off-guard, but probably also helped them to realise they were living as Romans not in Rome, so should probably live as followers of Jesus, though not with Jesus at that time.

On the other side of the proverbial river, was Peter writing to a scattering of Christians, from all over the known world. He refers to them as "elect exiles" and pushes them to think, not of where they were from and where they are now, but actually what they had been born into (verse 4 chapter 1 of first Peter) and what they can look forward to. They have an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, because of the power of Jesus' resurrection. That is, then, the premise of a life of rejoicing in all circumstances. The premise by which this whole section rests, however, is an exclamation of such power: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!"

Paul in Philippians chapter 3 complains about these "mutilators of the flesh" who were in basic terms performing ritual racism. They were wandering around telling all the men that if they were really to belong to this new "people" (i.e. the Christian community) they should get circumcised. What that said to the congregation was what the Jews of the New Testament and Old had been guilty of all along; their nation was the chosen nation and superior to all others. They had to belong to this specific people group. It would be like telling a black man they had to have skin grafts so they would be white and fit into the church. However, Paul's whole point by the end of the chapter is obvious: "...our citizenship is in Heaven, and from it we await a saviour..." i.e. We belong in Heaven and as we are already seated in heavenly places we can await the coming again of Jesus, living in the perspective of our transformation, that great inheritance promised to us by the God-Man Himself, Christ Jesus out Lord.

These two distinct and precise ideas have been floating through my mind as I've wandered around, really noticing a difference that Jesus has made in my life, and others, and realising I belong to Him and to them, and not to anything I can set my eyes on on earth. There is a transition that can be seen as people trust fully in Jesus. It's incredible. The real challenge is living as a citizen worthy of the Gospel. But my reaction to living somewhere I don't really belong came out in a poem I wrote last night. I hope you like it; it made me laugh when I read it.

Exile

I don't belong here
I don't really fit
There's not a neat space
Why isn't the world like a kids toy?


The picture is called "I don't belong here" from explodingdog.com

An Aphoristic book...

The Bible has been given a reputation as one of the most quoted books in history. This blog is guilty of helping that along a little. My trouble with the quoting of it, however, is not a standard argument. The Bible says a lot of great things. It also says a lot of confusing and sometimes worrying things. What my concern with where I see a whole bunch of people are going is quite straight-forward. People have view points and find Bible verses to back it up. As an example, the Gospel of Mark is 16 chapters long with 678 verses, only one of which gives us an "atonement" theology of the passion narrative. That verse is Mark 10:45, when Jesus is telling his disciples how they should live in an upside-down world. That tells me that that book isn't really about "atonement" but about Jesus as a revolutionary, living an alternative "right-way-up" life and upsetting the people he had come to "save."

Wouldn't it be better if people stopped quoting scripture that supported their action plans, and started reading the Bible for it to inspire their action plans? That has been the trouble with so many church movements of the past, that decide "it's how it's always been done" and change is a word used for your own private spirituality happening at home, not an intrusive word you "new" churches seem to be discussing. It's the trouble with a lot of established churches, and even church movements, that when they are told that, perhaps, Martin Luther (the man responsible for the split of Catholic and Protestant) wasn't completely infallible. When he translated "salvation by faith" in Romans, he added "alone" so he could clarify what he was trying to argue in a Catholic run society. And down the line, that means confusion when the Bible doesn't say that explicitly.

My annoyance isn't with salvation, though. Salvation is a wonderful thing, and we are saved by grace anyway, not faith, so that's fine. What is my pet-peeve, is that reading the Bible gives you one kind of theology that can never be totally clear cut, is always malleable, and it continues to tell you that Jesus is bigger than that anyway. I think I noticed my annoyance the most when I was given "The Doctrine of Scripture" as a lovely clear-cut manual. The paper/lecture involved a man quoting this verse out-of-context, followed by that verse out-of-context, and then jump between these two other verses out-of-context, with this man saying this about this man (out-of-context) and another man saying this about the Bible itself (apparently), and that was out-of-context too. My point being that in all of that I thought it would be much simpler for someone to say "I'm not convinced of the idea that the Bible is all God's word," to which the defense would simply ask "have you read it? You should. If you have keep reading it and it will change your life. If you haven't start as soon as you can for your own sake." I'm more convinced of the Bible's authority from reading it than from someone else telling me, and reasoning with me.

The word Aphorism means, basically, a proverb. As much as the Bible is full of the wonderful stuff from God, I've never been up for memorising scripture. I have one reason. I hate being told I'm wrong out-of-context. We can draw "atonement" theology from one verse in Mark, without realising Jesus' point was much more important than telling everyone he was going to die as a ransom. In fact, his dying as a ransom was a message that was illustrating his point from the argument it's a part of. Not many people know that because they jump to his insight into that cross without realising he probably only said it for readers a few thousand years later to have something to hold on, when he was saying something much greater to his disciples.

I come to my conclusion. I've gone off topical preaching, because all I've just described happens, and we don't get anywhere. We get stuck like a broken record on our vision and values, we get stuck in our own self-help Gospel, without reading a book as it's been written. We get bored of hearing the same things because no one tells us that the Bible is bigger than "20 Christian Basics" and we're left in the rubble of preaching through a book of the Bible because it's the "right thing to do" when we look for our topics in the Bible and leave the text where it always has been; black and white on a crumpled page. The church that makes assumptions of the body is the one that takes doctrines and topics in suitcases that they fail to unpack but merely throw around with corners catching people in odd places bruising all sorts of people. We need to realise that as a unified body, working together, to deal with the Bible is to share in it's story from creation to new creation, wrestle with it, dwell in it, live in it, and enjoy it as it's authority is found in Jesus, not in the words itself.

Multi-coloured Wisdom

I wonder what multi-coloured wisdom looks like. I'm actually making an extra special effort to post a blog on the 29th of February because, of course, there's at least 4 times less opportunity to post on such a wonderful day as today, than any other day. I'm fortunate enough to have had some thoughts today that tie together wonderfully, and think it's good to post about something positive when you want a quick thought list on the web.

Although I am annoyed spell-check wants me to spell colour without a 'u'.

In Ephesians (a book of the bible found in the New Testament) there is this phrase which got me thinking a lot about the church and today's culture and society.

Chapter 3v10-11 says: [The] intent [is] that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.

It's good to have the whole sentence there for less confusion, even though there is a lot in there. I wanted to focus on one word. That's how much I value the Word of God.

πολυποίκιλος - polypoikilos

1) much variegated, marked with a great variety of colours
a) of cloth or a painting
2) much varied, manifold

I like the term 'multi-coloured wisdom.' It adds something different. I think it adds something extra to what the agent it is referring to, namely the church. And can you imagine a multi-coloured church? Wouldn't it surely be a nightmare? Well I know, and you know, I'm not saying that. The whole idea of God's church, God's people, is that it represents perfectly God's heart. It does that because God loves all sorts of people. Everyone to be precise. It sounds wishy washy and vague, but it's true.

The greatest sign of God's love is the Cross of Christ, which can't be fully understood, but it is that while we were far off from God He came near and saved us. I especially was far off, because I'm not a Jew. Jesus came as a Jew to open up the promise or covenant of God's people to be for all nations, as it always had been, but not under the Mosaic law (the law of Moses) under the grace of God and love of God shown through Jesus Christ's death. His resurrection causes all "rulers and authorities" to bow before Him. How is it shown? Through the multi-coloured church. It's one of those funny things I can't get my head around, but the wisdom of God is foolishness because He shows that people, who shouldn't work together, can.

There's more, and I think I got a bit carried away there. The multi-coloured wisdom of God can be seen in the church. And the church is far more than some spiritual anomaly of a wisdom that looks like foolishness. When I say "people who shouldn't work together can" I don't just mean working class working with upper class, managers working with bin men, artists working with salesmen, men working with women, there is a crossover that will happen through the Spirit of Christ which shows far more of God's wisdom than that.

The whole point of the Jewish mission was to go 'forth' and tell the nations of the One and Only God of the world, the creator of heaven & earth. Jonah (prime example) went to a foreign city to tell them God wasn't happy with them. There are numerous occasions in the Old Testament where God blesses 'foreigners' or 'aliens' who please God because they act in faith that this God is the true God. Jesus' death and resurrection opened up the blessing of being a covenant people to fall on all who believe that Jesus is King, not just those who have been circumcised; which is excellent news to men in general.

In fact, there was a certain amount of rebuking done by an early follower of Jesus, named Paul, who was against the circumcision of new believers because it could send the message that there is still only one nation that belongs to God. The multi-coloured wisdom of God can be seen by the multi-coloured believers in the world. A multi-coloured church, representing many nations, languages, colours, and so on has the capacity to proclaim to rulers and authorities that Jesus is Lord and they aren't (church or state). God's blessing of all nations comes when the Gospel is shown to give the potential of a rainbow-coloured church.

And so my final point. The rainbow. I know this is something of a leap, but I think there is something in the multi-coloured nature of God's communication with His image-bearing creation. In Genesis 9 (the first book of the bible) the end of the story of the flood with Noah as God's agent is described. A dialogue happens between these two characters (God & Noah) which has instructions and promises, both to be kept by each other.

“I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
“When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds,
“I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.
“When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

YHWH (God) has a habit of repeating Himself. I'm jumping to this conclusion, but I think God has decided to create a new rainbow on earth as it is in the heavens that when we come together as an all sorts church, as a church that consists of all kinds of colours, nationalities, backgrounds, languages, job-titles, family sizes, God is reminded of His covenant that he will not only 'remember His covenant' so that 'the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh' but, in fact, look to His son, who died on behalf of all flesh, so that the world would be blessed by His own covenant people. God looks at the church with adoration, because it is the body of His only Son, and He wants to use it with the intent that "now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord."

I hope that made sense.

I don't get politics but...

I was listening to a lecture by some guy called John Piper. He quoted some Bible that says "Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says "Jesus is accursed!" and no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except in the Holy Spirit." It's from 1 Corinthians 12, if you're interested.

What I found most intriguing was that what John Piper started to explain was the meaning of the passage, was not at all what I expected him to say. The reason I say this is because Piper is one of those good bible teachers that you trust most things he says. One thing I also know is that 1 Corinthians was not a letter written to Bethlehem Baptist Church (of which Piper is a preacher). If it was it would called something like 'Paul's first Epistle to that future church of Bethlehem (not in Israel) of the denomination Baptist (no relation to John the Baptist)' At least I'm pretty sure.

What Piper said as a nice explanation of the verse, regardless of the fact that he was using it to illustrate a different point to the text itself - it talking about gifts of the spirit and the nature of that Spirit. He decided a good way to explain this text by applying it an actor on stage.
'An actor,' this is a paraphrase of what he was saying, 'can perfectly easily say "Jesus is Lord" without having that Spirit. That's not the point of the text. Basically the text is really saying that no one can claim Jesus is Lord of their life and really mean it.'
Before I start to really lay into old John, I'm not saying he's wrong. He's right. It just struck me there is a much greater and easier explanation of the verse.

In the context of the letter, obviously, this pagan non-Jewish collection of Christians were a little confused and their church was going a bit wacky. On top of that, it was a city situated in the depths of the Roman Empire, and as much as Christianity was growing through any means possible, the fastest growing cult of the day was the 'Caesar cult.' The majority of citizens in the Roman Empire believed Caesar was descended from the gods, he was a son of god and was the Lord of the world. So many people believed this that there was a danger to even consider that someone else could be 'Lord.' I hope you know where I'm going.

A truly dangerous thing to do would be to claim that someone other than Caesar is Lord. Jesus for example. In fact, the implications of saying Jesus is Lord, is to inadvertently draw on the assumption that therefore Caesar isn't. So an encouragement would be to tell people who are bringing immense judgment on themselves actually have the Spirit of Jesus in them.

And what an encouragement all the more that if you're saying this and trying to live a life where some man deluded by power isn't dictating your life, but Jesus son of the Living God, who is risen from the dead is ruling you life, then there are some great gifts on offer for you?! Well. I'd say enough said, but I might just follow through a little more. Paul has written:

"Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says "Jesus is accursed!" and no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except in the Holy Spirit.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone."

So he says on this subject of gifts of the Spirit, just remember who you were first. You were led astray by all manner of distractions. Don't be ignorant in this. There are gifts on offer if you'd just pay some attention (key word is gift brothers). You should have full assurance that if you're claiming Jesus is Lord and therefore Caesar isn't then you have the Holy Spirit living in you. Does that make you feel good or what?

This spirit gives you loads of different gifts, and there are different things you can do as a Christian because of this one Lord, you're stuck with doing one thing. But whether there is some kind of special work of the spirit by a gift that builds the church's spirit, or a gift of service that you do empowered by that same Lord that builds the church's body, either way, it's the God, the God of Israel, that empowers these acts in everyone.

I have to be honest that sits right with me. In today's society, obviously, we don't have a massive empire, claiming to be immortal, with a dictator who is convinced he is a son of god - though there are some pretty crazy people in power; there always are, I guess. It takes a bit of work to get that to fit with the Western culture, but the understanding fits with the writing in a much truer way.

Be encouraged then, if you stand on your faith even though it brings persecution, that should serve as a reminder that the gift of the Holy Spirit, and all His gifts remain on offer. Is Jesus King in your life? Then be encouraged that every act of service you do, or any point where you allow God to work through you, you are a true channel of the Spirit of Jesus.

Well done!