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.