The Cows of Winscombe 13th September: Cows three days running? Really?

Another unexpectedly sunny morning.

Boots on and with various disturbances in my innermost being (otherwise known as ‘things on my mind’), I set off intending to retrace a walk past the surgery and across fields to Shipham Lane. I’d even spent time searching for my glasses so I could see enough detail on an OS map to know where to find a particular footpath.

In the event my feet took me to a longer route, through Sidcot and up to the radio mast before descending to King’s Wood and on to the Strawberry Line to return home, 90 minutes later.

I did not expect to see cows.

I’ve walked this route a few times and only walked past sheep and lambs in the Spring. So it made me smile when I found some cows happily munching grass far enough away not to notice me gazing at them. The thought went through my head ‘that means I won’t be able to resist a third Cows in Winscombe blogpost’ and here we are.

Two of the uppermost ‘things on my mind’ I could name in specific terms. Better, though, to reflect on the bass notes. Most music is recognisable by its melody, the top notes, and the right hand on the piano. The left hand, which plays the bass notes, plays a background role. Without them, something’s missing, but it’s difficult to recognise the piece or the track simply from the bass alone. Two bands that buck that trend are The Police and Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

I digress.

So, it is tempting to comment on Charlie Kirk’s assassination, which was on my mind, probably like yours? And Exeter University. Also bothering me. But I won’t.

On Charlie Kirk, I will leave the floor to Barack Obama, who tweeted (if that’s still a verb?) on X:

We don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy. Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie’s family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children.

On Exeter University, all I need to say in detail is that I’m looking forward, even though daunted, sitting at the feet of expert lecturers. It (an MA in Creative Writing) starts next week…and I still have some hoops to jump through.

What I will attempt to comment on re: Exeter is the difference between modes of communication and actual communication; the harmful drift from simplicity to false sophistication.

And, continuing a heavy theme, to articulate my concerns about suppression via polarisation as the background to Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

Well? How many of you have taken yourself off for a long walk because you’re carrying some bothersome thoughts that need some time to settle, or to emerge from the brain fog?

Hopefully, I won’t forget the cows and the countryside by the time I finish this. It was a beautiful walk. Another title I considered for this piece was ‘Beauty’. I hope I can link the above to beauty.

In recent years, the term ‘polarisation’ has become a popular term expressing deep concerns about the glue that holds societies together. In the UK, our recent flirtations with polarisation have been, I would argue, over whether to Remain or Leave the EU, and in the last two years over Israel/Gaza. In the States, the antagonism between MAGA and Antifa supporters (rarely reported in the UK) and similar left-right extremist groups and the two main political parties continues to be extremely unsettling.

Why deep concerns? Here’s my interim answer: polarisation leads to suppression.

In the UK, depending on whose company you were keeping, it was wise to keep schtum about your Brexit or Remain views, or your support for Brexit champion Boris or Remainer Cameron, or you’d be shouted down, shunned, ostracised, and vilified. (Even in churches, Christians were nervous about showing support for either side, depending on the political profile of their church, for fear of an unseemly row).

Fear of speaking out was palpable. Wisdom triumphed over Courage. The result: Suppression.

In the campaign to join the EU in 1972, arguments were put forcefully by both sides, but without rancour spilling over into societal unrest or an erosion in civil dialogue.

The glue that holds a democratic society together is free speech, freedom of association, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and the right to a fair trial.

In conclusion, as much as I defend Charlie Kirk’s exercise of freedom of speech, I look to America to ensure that the man arrested for his assassination is given a fair trial.

Really, what is on trial is whether we want to live in a democracy or whether we will slip into fascism, either to the right or to the left. Since Mussolini, who coined the word ‘fascism’, and Hitler, we have associated ‘fascism’ with the far right, but it can be equally associated with the far left. The characteristics of fascism include dictatorial leadership, forcible suppression of opposition, and subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race.

Why deep concerns? Here’s my interim answer: polarisation leads to suppression

Tragically, we have witnessed democracies tumble into the fascism of Hitler’s far-right National Socialism, and then the far-left version in Communist East Germany in post-war Europe. Dictatorships that ruthlessly silenced all opposition and free speech.

Beauty? The freedoms we have taken for granted in the UK – and the West in general - are as beautiful as the air we breathe, the blue sky above, and the sweet smell of autumn. The bible says we should think on these things. It’s good advice.

Let’s just say that my experience of joining Exeter University with its sophisticated e-management of umpteen Apps, email log-ons, an avalanche of communication, and, with less than a week to go before I sit in a lecture theatre here, are the things I don’t know:

1. My timetable

2. Who my lecturers are

3. Where to go

4. The number of days per week I need to be on campus

5. Access to a personal tutor

Here’s my point.

The avalanche of communication with well-designed webpages, links to opportunities, and so on, has relegated the essential information, as above, to a lower league. I have the impression of busyness; an overworked admin staff desperately trying to keep this complex show of e-communication on the road so that, heaven forbid, it never falls beneath the presentational standards of competing institutions.

Meanwhile, I need to know the above. Really, that’s all I need to know.

This disease is not Exeter University-specific. It’s widespread. Sophistication has replaced Simplicity, with the result that priorities are obscured and lost.

Sometimes progress is an inversion of the meaning of the word.

In 1975, if I wanted a doctor’s appointment, I would travel to the surgery, take a board with a number from a hook, and wait until my number came up. Simple. No forms to fill in, no website to log on, no admin staff needed, no telephone calls. During the night, a doctor was on call. Every day. Local. Reached by a landline telephone call.

It wasn’t perfect, of course, and had to expand as Whitstable’s population grew, but simplicity has been replaced by false sophistication.

The beauty of simplicity is that it is democratic; everyone, young and old, understands how to access the information they need. False sophistication leads to a divided and unequal society where those who can navigate the sophistication become a mobile e-elite and those who struggle are discriminated against and, all too easily, fall through the cracks.

St Paul wrote the following words:

‘Finally, brothers, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue, and if there is anything praiseworthy – meditate on these things.’

The walk in the beautiful countryside near Winscombe this morning allowed me to meditate on the type of society I hope we can maintain. Personally, I hope the walk has helped me from getting too drawn into commenting on the awful assassination of Charlie Kirk, or the specific frustrations surrounding starting a Master’s at Exeter. I hope I have been able to reflect on how good and wholesome a society can be if it upholds the above-mentioned freedoms; freedoms I have more or less taken for granted, and that I want my grandchildren to enjoy without fear.

He Took Me There

At my age, I’ll shed this skin
By Christmas
Honestly, when you look at me
Over the bread sauce
I’ll not be the man I used to be
A strange twist of newness
The replacement looking
Older by the day

Some parts are famously temporary
Wobbly teeth hanging by death threads
Nails, already not really us
Our breath, a sojourner at best
But the real you and me,
Living amalgams of all that has passed
Organic unions with our brokenness,
Our crimes, our guilt, our shame
Jealousies, pride, lust
Ambition, our hurt lockers
Can these death notes
Be peeled away like the teeth
To leave us new again?

Sunday by Sunday
The priests intone
O Lamb of God
Who takest away the sin of the world
Have mercy on us
Did the Lamb of God excise
Our sufferings and put them in
A divine supermarket trolley?
Removing our grief and sorrows
Far away, leaving us innocent?

Hauntingly we sing
Were you there
When they crucified my Lord?
Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble
No more so than now
When I can offer the only answer
Looking out at His mother
At Magdalene, at the soldiers
At those gathered, and beyond
Through His eyes
Yes, I was there
He took me there

Not just my sufferings
Separated from me, no,
The Suffering One,
He took me there

It is finished, I am finished
Now, at Christmas
When I look at you
I’ll be peering from inside
The resurrection and the life
Ah, don’t you worry about my aging skin
It’s the oldest trick in the book
Just you wait

The Cows of Winscombe 12th September: Running in the Light

I hadn’t written yesterday’s Cows of Winscombe post with any intention to turn it into a series, but that may be what’s transpiring.

The day so far.

At approximately 7 a.m. I donned my ear buds and headed to The Strawberry Line, a disused railway line, for an early morning run. In fact, 7 a.m. for me is quite a late start, but I woke up later than usual.

The forecast was for rain, so I was mentally prepared for a soaking. Not a drop of rain fell. Clouds were moving slowly across the sky from the SW, but the sun shone.

Normally, I listen to a podcast to accompany my sweaty efforts; this morning, I listened to Pete Grieg addressing NC25, a Christian Conference, speaking about the Quiet Revival that has hit the headlines in recent months. It was excellent, funny (naked in a glass-sided shopping centre lift made me laugh out loud), informative, and an appropriate ‘wake-up’ message for an early morning run.

But that’s not what I want to write about.

I moved here approximately 6 months ago, and I realised I was surprised to find myself running in the same soft morning light as in March/April. Not as funny as Pete Grieg’s mishap in the lift, but it made me chuckle. ‘Of course! Doh!’ was how I reacted.

The Earth looked at ease with itself. All was well. It was like an unexpected gift

April 1st Sunrise: 6.36

October 1st Sunrise: 7.01

It doesn’t match perfectly, due to the alignment of the planet with respect to the Sun and the equator, but it’s near enough. And gorgeous.

And, as you can see, I ran past more cows. Today’s cows were illuminated in those soft sunrise rays. I felt calm. They looked calm. The Earth looked at ease with itself. All was well. It was like an unexpected gift, remember, I was expecting to be soaked through, this was like darkness into light, defeat into victory, turmoil into peace…poetically speaking.

If that’s a tad melodramatic, so be it, but I enjoyed the run, stopping every so often to pick a succulent blackberry or take a photo of the light falling on cows, a bridge, and a disused, rusting farm trailer.

For those reading this of a spiritual disposition, you will understand why this morning’s run in the light reminded me of David’s Psalm 30v5

Weeping may last for the night,
But a shout of joy comes in the morning

The Cows of Winscombe 11th September: between a bull and a field of cows

One of my normal early morning running and walking routes across fields and footpaths has an in-built risk of encountering the cows of Winscombe.

Last week, my route was blocked by four or five large Friesians standing guard by the fence, so I couldn’t clamber over…nor did I particularly want to. Or, taking a shortcut, I found myself in a field I thought was cow-empty, only to find a small group of about fifteen Guernsey cows (I think), three of whom were headbutting each other.

With about fifty yards to the exit, they started to take more of an interest in me than each other or the grass and started running in my direction, making a din, mooing and bellows. A friendly morning greeting?

This morning, upon reaching a concrete block over a stream and a standard aluminium gate, I was faced with a field with another fifteen or so cows with heavily laden udders munching their way in my direction. They seemed to be quite peaceful – no headbutting – but to get to the gate on the other side of the field would mean walking through the middle of the small herd.

I was about to turn back when I heard a very loud snort and bellow. A large bull had entered the field in which I was standing.

So, one bull behind and fifteen cows ahead. What to do?

I’d been standing at the gate watching the cows for a few minutes. One had wandered over to me to say hello and moved off peacefully, so off I went walking slowly. The fact that I’m writing this suggests, correctly, that these cows were more interested in snaffling the dewy grass and nettles from the field than bothering with me, and I made it to the gate without any trouble.

Cows are rather strange and lovely animals. There’s a mournful, ‘I’m too heavy’, look about them, a resigned acceptance of their lot, and a peculiar combination of bony outcrops and massive flesh. Joy seems to be on hold. They engage a sense of sympathy in me; I hope they get milked soon. It all looks a tad uncomfortable lolloping around with udders fit to burst, cloven hooves standing in wet, muddy fields, loaded with excessive heaviness.

I didn’t study the bull for too long.

In contrast, each cell in the bull’s body seems to be a world saturated with a longing to do something dreadful or drastic, even if it is servicing every cow within sight and over the horizon, or reminding me of my puny humanity.

The matador in me seems to have flown the country.

Why am I concerned about the BBC?

1. The BBC failed to describe the October 7th 2023 attack against unarmed civilians by Hamas as a terrorist attack, even though Hamas planned, targeted, and murdered 1,195 unarmed civilians at the Nova Music Festival and in the Be’eri kibbutz, and took 251 hostages to Gaza. When reporting the July 7/7 bombings in England, the BBC called the attackers terrorists: ‘On 7 July 2005, four terrorists bombed London's transport network, killing 52 people and injuring hundreds more’. [London 7/7 bombings: Returning to the capital 20 years on - BBC News]. And reporting 9/11; ‘On 11 September 2001, four passenger planes were hijacked by radical Islamist terrorists’ [The people who think 9/11 may have been an 'inside job' - BBC News]. This double standard has undermined the credibility of the BBC’s editorial judgement. I am concerned.

2. The BBC seeks to uphold standards of journalistic excellence. One of the foundational requisites of professional journalism is to report using reliable sources; however, the BBC has consistently reported information about the suffering in Gaza using Hamas-run Health Ministry statistics. It is inconceivable that the BBC would have entertained reporting statistics from an equivalent Nazi source in the Second World War. I am concerned that the daily diet of information passed on to the public in this manner, directly from Hamas, is influencing our ability to form a sound judgment concerning matters such as food-aid supplies, and death and injury statistics. By continuing to report Hamas’s statistics, the BBC has weakened its journalistic credibility, and I am concerned.

3. The BBC has an enviable reputation for reporting impartially and objectively – a reputation hard-won over many years. The combined effect of the above two points with respect to the terrible war between Israel and Hamas is, however, to undermine this reputation and to contribute to the public shift away from support for Israel and towards Hamas. The BBC’s double standards and use of Hamas as a reliable source are surely cause for grave concern about its editorial integrity, and it is a matter that should be investigated fully.

It just doesn’t feel right. Doesn’t feel like the BBC of old. Something serious has gone wrong at the editorial level. And it needs to be brought into the light and put right.

Adam 2025

4099

Phone numbers from a different land

The feel of a finger pressing into the circle

Of metal, a dial shone

By decades of callers

And turned clockwise

‘Til the gently curved barrier

Puts a stop to all that

3752

It’s 7pm, maybe 8

My heart is pounding

I’ve glanced at the phone box

Red, passive aggressive,

Silent and terribly still

Daring me to risk all

I pull the heavy door

Inhaling a familiar odour

The dialling tone ceases

And I listen to her father’s inquisition

I’m out of depth

01392

Gone are the telephonists

The plug and socket exchanges

People replaced by machines

SDT the Acronym Age has begun

Metal holes replaced by plastic

Plastic holes by buttons

Romance and risk by automation

Reverse charges

A good trick if your pocket

Is devoid of a 10p

Occasional victories from a phone box

And one hollers and fist pumps

As if the Crown Jewels are yours

How sweet it is to outflank the system

Truth is, no one fist-pumped until

The new millennium

Mobliles, Cell Phones, Smart watches, Implants, Ear buds

Flat black screens

Sensitive to the touch of a finger

Have we arrived at where we began?

Eve. What did you feel, when you

Held the fruit, so appealing to the eyes?

Eyes, yes, of course

But how did it feel?

Soft, hard, hairy, smooth

Did it smell of a telephone box?

Or petrol, or the earth?

Text me

My number is…

07…

A distinctive odour…like old rain and decaying leather

Time was

Time ain’t so linear, Sir
See the east wind?
Outrunning the sun’s shadow
Time hopping to what was
Plunging us before time
Into what was tomorrow

Cram time into a box
I tell you
Doors and windows will pop open
Put a mind in that room
And watch it pull things up
Barnacled shipwrecks from the seabed
Or talk of things that are not
As if they are

No, Sir, time ain’t so linear
It doesn’t sit neatly on a ruler
Or a clockface
Between the tick and the tock
A sweet dream will carry you
Into a world full of soliloquies
And shadows selling a different hour

Know what I think, Sir?
No, not really
I am.
Ain’t so far out
That’s what I think

I’ll wear your crown

You don’t know me as I know me
I’ve lusted and lied
Died and risen, risen and died
Jon-ah, what’s the difference?
Been swallowed by a fish
I’ve learnt how to hide

Driven roundabouts
Right to left, not left to right
Got away with it
So I thought
But in here
In here, I’m parched, bereft
Thirsting for…mercy
To bask in the light
To swim in righteousness
Eye salve to my hindsight

I’ve lusted and lied
Died and risen; risen and died
Jon-ah, what’s the difference?
Been swallowed by a fish
I learnt how to hide

But through it all,
You waited for me to come
To cry out
‘Enough of dark mirrors’
Scared, with fears laid down
Under a morning shower
Cascading light
Too strong for shadows
No strength to fight

I yield, I’ll wear your crown

The Punchy Epistle – James (iii) Dessert: Elijah

This is not a scholarly look at the Epistle of James. It’s not an investigation into authorship, manuscripts, historicity, debates over canonicity, or a re-hash of Luther’s famous dislike of its contents.

What I have in mind is a four-course meal, or more accurately, a three-course meal, with two starters.

If the Starters were Abraham and Rahab, and Mains were Job, Pud is Elijah

‘The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain…and he prayed again, and it rained, and the earth produced its fruit’

The context of this section is supernatural miraculous healing of the sick by God through the laying on of hands of the elders ‘and the prayer of faith will raise him up’. I was an elder in a local church for a few years. On one occasion, I was asked to visit a home with a mother and her son, the son was suffering from an inoperable growth on his neck as removing it surgically would have severed many facial nerves.

Two of us, as elders, went to the house. As I walked in, James’s instructions for confession of sins before prayer for healing came to mind. The boy and his mother confessed their sins to each other, including anger; they’d argued earlier that day. It was a sweet moment. We prayed and left. News circulated a week or so later that the growth had disappeared.

The reason I mention that is to make sure we’re dealing with the living God and not an intellectual approach to scripture – vitally important, though, that we do.

James’s first and very important point is that Elijah had a nature just like ours. This great hero of faith, the prophet who called down fire from heaven and who stopped and started the rain, who raised a widow’s dead son, and so on…had a nature just like ours, yours. He was just a man. He had so special powers. It was God working through Elijah. Therefore, God through us can do…well…anything He wants to do!

James’s second point is dynamite to many prayer meetings, huddled around various layers of man-made pretence of faith, or the language of politeness, or religious gobbledygook and jargon. James uses three words to punch a hole in our dreadful, woeful substitution for real biblical prayer: Effective. Fervent. Earnestly.

James’s third point is to use the example of Elijah seemingly controlling the weather with a word. It is SO important to realise that Elijah was a man just like you or me. Nothing special.

The clue to Elijah’s rain miracles is tucked away in the Old Testament, in 1 Kings chapters 17 - 19, the longer version of events that James summarises in his letter.

‘Elijah said to (King) Ahab ‘…there shall not be dew or rain for years except at my word’ 17v1.

A drought followed. Sometime later, Elijah prayed seven times before seeing a ‘cloud the size of man’s fist’ and told the King, Ahab, ‘Get your chariot ready and leave before the rain stops you’ 18v44.

‘…the sky became black with clouds and wind, and there was heavy rain’ v 45

How was Elijah able to do this? Is prayer a form of twisting God’s arm? Making Him bend to our will and desires? The clue is hidden midway through one verse, 1 Kings 18v15.

‘Then Elijah said, “As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, I will surely present myself to Ahab today’’’

Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, an ordinary man, but he spent time ‘standing before the Lord’. It was in communion with the Lord of hosts that he heard the Lord and presented his prayers.

In verse 2 of chapter 17, just after Elijah had told King Ahab about how the drought would start and end ‘at my word’ we read ‘Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah’.

Jesus said, ‘My sheep know My voice’.

So, this is the punch. Effectual fervent earnest prayer is not a pretence of faith; it is, initially, standing before the Lord, often with nothing except a desire to pray. There is no revelation, no ‘word’ from God. We should pray earnestly until we receive revelation or a word from God, then we can pray, ‘Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven’.

On the occasion above, I heard the Lord remind me about these verses in James, and the boy’s healing followed on. I have also prayed for someone who is sick, without any sense of the word of God, and healing has not occurred. Once, I was a small group leader, and out of a sense of duty, I asked the group to pray for a woman with cysts on her ovary that were preventing her from conceiving. Weeks and months passed, and she was no better.

The Lord convicted me that I should go back and apologise to the group for giving the impression that I had faith for her healing, and asked the group to pray again. I confessed my lack of faith, but we prayed. One member of the group heard the word of the Lord and said very simply to the woman ‘you will be healed by Christmas’ which was a few months away. There was a sense of peace in the room. And that is what happened, no cysts by Christmas, and she went on to have children.

Finally, let’s put James’s first point in reverse. We have a nature just like Elijah. We are men and women with no supernatural power of our own. But we can ‘stand before the Lord’ and pray effectually, fervently (and, yes, you might do odd un-British things in your fervency, like shout, or, like Elijah, bend down and put your head between your knees, or lie prostrate, or kneel), and earnestly. Whilst we are there, in communion with God, through Christ, and in the Spirit, we may hear Him speak. Everything follows on from that.

ps I have been writing this since reading these verses yesterday and the day before, and I am also feeling the ‘punch’ of ‘before Whom I stand’. That is the word of the Lord to me. A renewed call to do just that. Probably, to start with anyway, to take it literally, and stand up, though I acknowledge it’s not physical standing that Elijah is alluding to, but going into the presence of the Lord as you would before a king or a queen. But I will be standing.

The Punchy Epistle – James (ii) Main Course: Job

This is not a scholarly look at the Epistle of James. It’s not an investigation into authorship, manuscripts, historicity, debates over canonicity, or a re-hash of Luther’s famous dislike of its contents.

What I have in mind is a four-course meal, or more accurately, a three-course meal, with two starters.

If the Starters were Abraham and Rahab, the Main course is Job

‘…take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord as an example of suffering and patience - indeed, we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord – that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful.’

In the previous verse, James had indulged in some straight talking,

‘Do not grumble and moan against one another lest you be condemned – Behold the judge is standing at the door!’

Earlier still, he had urged them to do the opposite,

‘If you really fulfill the royal law ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’, you do well’

It is useful to remember the context of the letter. He wrote his epistle to the ‘twelve tribes scattered abroad’; Jewish believers who had been persecuted and scattered as the Jewish authorities tried to stamp out what they considered to be a subversive threat to the state and their own privileged positions within that political system.

In addition to the normal run-of-the-mill reasons we all encounter in life, that cause us to be grumpy, complaining, or angry, even, these Christians were being hounded, arrested, excluded from the synagogue, work, and family life. If anyone had reason to grumble and moan, they had.

Their particular dose of suffering came from external circumstances that had turned against them – like Job.

In both cases, the spiritual foundation of the suffering was satanic. In Job’s case, Satan had asked permission from God to cause Job to suffer, and Satan’s request was granted. Job loses his oxen and donkeys, his sheep, his camels, and his children.

However, the Lord blessed the latter part of Job's life more than he lost. Later, he had ten thousand sheep, had seven sons and three daughters, and lived to be a hundred and forty.

James’s meditation on Job’s life is that the Lord is ‘very compassionate and merciful’ and urges his readers to consider the purpose of Job’s suffering, that somehow it led to blessing and that however satanic was the origin of the suffering, God’s blessings were greater.

Equally, when the church (i.e. the early Jewish believers James was writing to) was harassed and scattered, suffering the loss and deprivation, it looked as if their enemies had the upper hand, but God’s plan included an encounter with Saul en route to arrest Christians in Damascus. God called Saul/Paul to be an apostle to the Gentiles…and here we are, billions of believers later, twenty-one centuries later.

The Punch turns out to be a double punch. First the suffering, then the blessing.

The question James poses us, however, is one that can only be answered in our hearts. In the middle of suffering, how is your heart? Is it singing? Is it singing that ‘the Lord is very compassionate and merciful’ even if you’re singing with tears pouring down your face. Is your confession still that the Lord is good…to you. Or have you resorted to filling your days blaming others, especially brothers and sisters in Christ, ‘…don’t grumble against one another…’

In the aftermath of 9/11, Matt Redman wrote the song Blessed Be Your Name based on Job’s experience. It coincided with a particularly dark time for me. Still to this day, I can barely get the words out. Not because of the darkness, but for His goodness in it and since.

There are many versions on YouTube. This one was performed during Covid. Apt, I think.

Bing Videos

Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name
Blessed Be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name
Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still, I will say
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name
Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's 'all as it should be'
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name
Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say
Blessed be the name of the Lord

Looking Down

‘Like a ton of bricks’
Overstates that dull sense, the
Mild dent of disappointment

No sooner, it seems
I mourned the passing
Of July

Than it’s Friday
The twenty-second
Of August

And I’m walking
Alongside sunrises
And sunsets

The days shortening
The temperature dropping
Crisp leaves turning

Tomorrow has come
It crept in, craftily,
Like a morning mist

Falling golden leaves
Apples beaming red
Soil smelling sweet

There’s a lot
To be said for
Looking down

The Punchy Epistle – James (i) Starters: Abraham and Rahab

This is not a scholarly look at the Epistle of James. It’s not an investigation into authorship, manuscripts, historicity, debates over canonicity, or a re-hash of Luther’s famous dislike of its contents.

What I have in mind is a four-course meal, or more accurately, a three-course meal, with two starters.

Whenever we read the NT or OT scriptures it’s worth bearing in mind the following verse from Hebrews:

‘…the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith…’ 4v2

The scholarly approach to scripture is vital. We need literary and linguistic experts to build upon our knowledge of the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic languages to enhance the accuracy of bible translations to give the correct meaning of the text. But none of that will ‘profit’ the scholar unless he or she has faith to believe the translated word.

James may have been one of Jesus’s brothers; we don’t know. What we may safely assume is that he was Jewish and was writing to Jewish believers. He refers to Abraham as ‘our father’ 2v21 and states that his intended audience was the ‘twelve tribes scattered abroad’ 1v1. We know from Acts that Jewish Christians were hounded and persecuted by Saul/Paul and others, and ‘scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria’ Acts 8v1 and that the persecution extended as far as Damascus and then pursued Paul and others around the Jewish diaspora from Jerusalem to Rome.

The author, evidently, was steeped in the scriptures - what we call the Old Testament.

Our 3-course meal comes from the OT. James refers to Abraham and Rahab - our two starters; Job as our main; Elijah as our dessert.

Starters: Abraham and Rahab

We seem to be past masters at consigning just about everything into separate categories.

From an early age, it is by learning the differences between objects and feelings, that we make sense of the world. The Sun and the Moon. An ant and a giraffe. And so on. Then it becomes more subtle: the yoke and the white of the egg, and the shell. Distinct yet not truly separate. What James is describing here is a deeper connection between two words, faith and works, and arguing against the false notion that they belong to different categories.

James is contradicting someone who has mentally separated ‘faith’ from ‘works’.

What is faith? James doesn’t offer us a dictionary definition; he illustrates his answer with Abraham, the patriarch, then Rahab, the prostitute.

God spoke to Abraham on two occasions about two different events. The first occasion was a call to leave his father’s house and go into a land that God would show him. Secondly, that he and Sarah would have a son, despite their respective ages; Abraham was 100 and Sarah, 90.

His faith in God’s word to leave his father’s house led him to get up and start walking. Then we have the birth of Isaac. The bible does not teach us that this was due to an ‘immaculate conception’. The implications are clear enough.

Rahab was a prostitute who took in Joshua’s spies. She believed two things. Firstly, that her salvation and the salvation of her family would not be secured by the wisdom of the city elders, who had decided to close the gates to the city and wait out the coming storm of the invading Israelis. She saw that her salvation lay with the ‘enemy’, with Israel. Her faith led her to hide Joshua’s two spies and then escape with Joshua’s help.

Again, her faith and her actions, or ‘works’, as James puts it, were inseparable, or as he concludes, ‘faith by itself if it does not have works, is dead’ and ‘as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also’.

The Punch

Final point. Everything I have written up to this point may satisfy us intellectually, but James doesn’t let us off the hook.

‘If a brother is naked or destitute of daily food and you say ‘depart in peace, be warmed, and filled’ but do not give them what they need, what good is that!’

This echoes John’s statement: ‘whoever has this world’s good but sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word…but in deed and in truth’.

If we truly have faith, our lives will be a demonstration of that faith. Neither Abraham nor Rahab was perfect. Abraham tried to do God’s will and produce the promised son via Sarah’s maid, Hagar, and Ishmael was born. The bible is disarmingly honest. None of its heroes get it right all the time, with the exception of Jesus.

We don’t know the circumstances that led Rahab into prostitution, but what we do know is that God delivered her not only from Jericho but into a new life, free of prostitution, in Israel, and she became the great-great-grandmother of David.

The News w/b Sunday 17th August: Three Card Trick – Hiroshima, Hamas, Hurricane Erin

If I were a magician, I’d be saying ‘pick a card’, but I’m not, so it’s three paragraphs on the above The Three Hs that have been astride the media in the past few days.

Hiroshima Genbaku Dome - somehow survived the blast directly below the explosion

1. Hiroshima

On August 6th, 1945, the Enola Gay, a B29 bomber released the ‘Little Boy’, an atom bomb, exploding at a height of 1900 ft above Hiroshima, instantly killing 70,000, some of whom were school children on their way to school. I’ve been listening to BBC R4’s John Hersey’s Hiroshima to mark the 80th Anniversary of the bombing (of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and the consequent surrender of the Japanese to bring the war to a close. My parents lived through WWII. My father was a colonel in the US Army, and my mother, English, worked for the US Army. (Yes, you can put two and two together). Little was said about the war in the Far East; their involvement was restricted to serving the Allies’ defeat of Nazi Germany. Wisdom, the bible says, is known by its fruit. So, constructing an ethical lens to peer into the past to form a sound judgement about the rights and wrongs of using such destructive force calls on skills that I don’t believe I possess. If the fruit was ending the war, all I can offer is that this must be brought into the weighing scales of whatever ethical lens you are using to judge Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

2. Hamas

Jerusalem - still longing to fulfil its name ‘city of peace’. The bible urges us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. No more so than now.

I have written a few times about Hamas. To my mind, they are no better than Hitler’s Nazi thugs. Hamas have long since disregarded any value in the sanctity of life and consider their sworn enemies – the Jews in Israel – with the same irrational hatred that Hitler employed against the Jews…vermin that need to be eradicated. Hamas’s murderous attack on October 7th 2023 against unarmed civilians in kibbutzim villages and at the Nova music festival, was beneath contempt. Whatever their grievances, justified or not, that led to stooping so low cannot be employed in justifying such a barbaric assault. They have brought upon their own heads, and the lives of Gazans they were elected to serve, such utter horror - and still they refuse to surrender and hand over the hostages that were taken by their armed gangs in order to end the war and the endless suffering of Gazans. Their violations of basic human rights, disregard of international law, war crimes, and their vows to destroy the State of Israel make them undigestible. In the same way as we worry, ethically, about the Enola Gay operation to end WWII in Japan, we wring our hands at Israel’s military operation to remove Hamas and liberate the hostages. And we should. At least in Israel, the proof, almost, of a healthy society, is that Jews in their tens of thousands are permitted to protest against Netanyahu’s military campaign without fear of reprisal, whereas, across the border in Gaza, anti-Hamas protests by Gazans are ruthlessly suppressed.

3. Hurricane Erin

‘A 600 mile wall of rain’ and other dramatic headlines are a welcome break from reports from war-torn Gaza and Ukraine, as journalists seek out other news in August and spend an inordinate amount of time blue-sky thinking (yes, I know), trying to come up with the most eye-catching headlines. For me, ‘A 600 mile wall of rain’ wins hands down! Alas, all the tabloids seem to be carrying this phrase, so, sadly, I cannot award the trophy to any one journalist. Hurricane Erin, a tropical storm at the moment on the other side of the Atlantic, is likely to be great disappointment to those who are desperate for dramatic weather, but that is no defence against the newspaper proprietors' need to sell print, albeit electronic print these days. As Mark Twain said ‘Never let truth get in the way of a good story’ especially in pre-autumnal August. We press on.

Hebrews - Back to the Burning Bush Report #8 Do Christians go to Church? Well…yes and no.

The account of Moses’s distraction by a bush that appeared to be burning but never consumed is well known. The initial distraction quickly transformed into a holy encounter with God, Moses removed his shoes and walked barefoot on holy ground.

This is as typical as it is unique. Something gets our attention and before we know it, we’re grappling with a depth of thought that carries us towards God…or God comes close to us.

I’m reading through Hebrews in the New Testament (my money is on Paul as the author, but the authorship isn’t known).

This series is like a journalist reporting on scenes he’s been sent to comment on.

Report #7 – Do Christians go to Church?

‘…you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to….angels…to God…’ Hebrews 12 v22,23

It’s Sunday morning, 8.28 to be precise, and I’m intending to ‘go to church’. The service starts at 10.30 and will last approximately an hour after which there might be tea/coffee/cakes and convivial conversation.

You know the drill.

At the time of writing Hebrews, it is unlikely that this Jewish community of believers would have met in a ‘church building’ and we have no knowledge of how they would have passed the time when they had gathered. It’s unlikely it would have been a Sunday – that was a working day in most of the Roman Empire.

All the paraphernalia we associate too easily with the word ‘church’ may well have been noticeably absent. Congregational singing, hymns, songs, a ‘worship band’, a variety of instruments, amplification, a dress code, notices, collections, liturgy, regular preaching…the list goes on. It took centuries for our present version of ‘church’ to settle into its traditions.

A Christian is someone in whom God the Holy Spirit has taken up residence.

‘If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His’ Rom 8 v 9

So, when Christians ‘go to church’ it is a meeting of individuals in whom God the Holy Spirit is indwelling. Perhaps picture each Christian as a light bulb switched on. So, when Christians gather, the light becomes greater.

The essence of verses 22,23 shatters any notion of ‘going to church’ being a man-led event. It is a meeting with God, the living God.

Is God capable of leading the meeting? Wel…erm…yes. Leaders, whether our tradition calls them pastors, Vicars, priests, elders, or ministers, should be believers who know what it is to be ‘led by the Spirit’ so they can model to the congregation what being ‘led by the Spirit’ means in life and when the church gathers together.

Does this mean we have to abandon all structure, pull down our buildings, disrupt all plans, and disband any form of leadership?

It’s subtle and yet sharp. You may have read of when Uzzah put his hand out to steady the cart:

‘Then the anger of the LORD was aroused against Uzza, and He struck him because he put his hand to the ark; and he died there before God’ 1 Chronicles 13:10

The priests learnt that their task was to carry the presence of the Lord, not use their strength and abilities.

All of us, as the book of Hebrews has taught us, are priests of the order of Melchizedek – carrying the presence of the power of an endless life. When we meet, therefore, we should be carrying the presence of God into the meeting. No one can predict what God will do amongst His people when they meet.

But the Spirit can be grieved by leaders who, like Uzzah, put their hand out to steady the ark. Death follows. Life disappears from the meeting. You are left with the husk, not the grain, or, as the New Testament puts it ‘the outward form of godliness but denying the power’.

There is only one solution. Like a grain of wheat, we must be willing to go into the ground and die to any notion that we are in control or have any role in ‘keeping the show on the road’. This is the risk of true faith. What that looks like precisely no one can know. But you’ll know. Switching fuel tanks from you to God is deeply personal. You’ll know.

When I eventually ‘go to church’ this morning, it will be with this mentality. Carrying the presence of God like this is not dependent on our circumstances. We weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who are rejoicing. Jesus was ‘anointed with gladness above his companions’, but also a ‘man of sorrows acquainted with grief’, but whatever condition He was in, He carried the presence of God.

He had peace. On occasions, he had healing to give away. Sometimes a parable to share. When he was physically shattered, He met a woman at a well, and God showed Him personal details of her life, the fruit of which was the conversion of a Samaritan village.

To conclude. Do Christians go to church? If you’re a believer, reading this, and about to go to church this morning, whether a leader or not, let us be careful not to be like Uzzah, rather die to any notion that ‘we’ are in control of events. Let us lay down our ‘roles’, if we have any, and as the verse above says, lift our eyes up to God…and be expectant. And if we have no particular role, to ‘see’ that we are here, just like any of those who are more prominently ‘leaders’ to worship the living God.

We are on holy ground. Let us take off our shoes.

Rosa Pendulina and me, John

Sat inside now
Listening to a neighbour’s
Mower thrash through the straw
I wonder why?
This is not a summer for grass,
Green belongs to a bygone age

Came in when my flesh
Resembled melted lard
And when the supply
Of dark chocolate slabs
Had run low, the chapter
Abandoned, unfinished

And after I’d felt guilty for
Finger flicking an
Appealing shield bug
From my knee
And after the coffee-swimming
Wasp had stopped its writhing

Despite the mini summer drama
Of the previous fifteen minutes
I could not walk past Rosa
Her red cheeks and green dress
Catapulted me from the Iowa
Of the book to the here and now

The shield bug may not
Even have landed
When time escaped its boundary
And the needs of the day
Were found relegated.
Pendulina had swung me

From the temporal to the eternal
From the imaginary to the image
From my paltry love
To the all-consuming fire
The burning that is judgement
And mercy upon mercy

That found its mark
In a life laid down:
The ‘Nevertheless’ man
The ‘Woman, behold your son’ man
The ‘Son, behold your mother’ man
A man named John

Hebrews - Back to the Burning Bush Report #7 The Awful Truth – biblical heroes are satanically flawed…and yet

The account of Moses’s distraction by a bush that appeared to be burning but never consumed is well known. The initial distraction quickly transformed into a holy encounter with God, Moses removed his shoes and walked barefoot on holy ground.

This is as typical as it is unique. Something gets our attention and before we know it, we’re grappling with a depth of thought that carries us towards God…or God comes close to us.

I’m reading through Hebrews in the New Testament (my money is on Paul as the author, but the authorship isn’t known).

This series is like a journalist reporting on scenes he’s been sent to comment on.

Report #7 – The Awful Truth

‘…godless…Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright…afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected…he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.’ 12v16,17

When I was challenged to examine the evidence for the existence of Jesus and the resurrection and to read the New Testament, I was shocked by what I found. Apart from Jesus, none of his followers, especially Peter, were written up favourably. There was no airbrushing. Pride, fear, arrogance, lying, betrayal, cowardice, bitterness…you name it, it’s writ large in the ‘saints’ of the Old and New Testaments.

In Hebrews, we find reference to the sorry tale of Esau.

In the Old testament God is referred to as ‘The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’.

Isaac’s firstborn son was Esau, who, therefore, was in line to inherit the promises and blessings of God to Abraham of the formation of a new nation. But Jacob (later renamed Israel), his twin brother, who had been born moments after Esau, usurped him…twice. First to give up his birthright and then, when Isaac was dying, out of his inheritance and blessings.

The real criminals in this story are Jacob and his mother Rebekah. The bible reveals both as conniving deceivers.

Genesis 25 records that after the twins were born ‘the boys grew. Esau was a skilful hunter. Jacob was mild. Isaac loved Esau but Rebekah loved Jacob’. That love for Jacob, twisted itself into rebellion, deceit, and selfish ambition.

Family life was not harmonious: ‘When Esau was forty…he took wives…and they were a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebekah’ 26v34,35

Into that set of circumstances, Rebekah saw an opportunity and struck. ‘Rebekah took the choice clothes of her elder son, Esau, and put them on Jacob’, who wore them into his old father’s presence, deceived his father into thinking he was Esau, and received the blessing that should have been given to Esau.

For a bowl of stew, Esau gave up his birthright

The course of history was changed in those moments. The nation promised to Abraham should have come from Esau not Jacob, but Rebekah actions were as devious and cunning as the serpent had been in the Graden of Eden.

‘Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field’ Gen 3v1

‘So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and would make one wise, she took of the fruit and ate’ v6

If we are shocked to find that our bible heroes, including Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…and Rebekah, were so deeply – and satanically - flawed, we should not be. They acted out their fallen natures just like the serpent and then Adam and Eve.

Paul, writing to the church in Ephesus, wrote, ‘And you were dead in trespasses and sins…you once walked according to the…prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience…and were children of wrath’ 2v2v1,2

This is the awful truth of spiritual condition of mankind and every man and woman. It is the reason why we cannot effect our own salvation. Every political and philosophical model of utopia has failed to reform human nature; Capitalism and Communism are powerless to control greed. The need to be saved, rescued, delivered, set free…and brought back into a right relationship with God, our neighbours and ourselves is real.

Remarkably, God was able to work out his purposes through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…due to their faith, not their nature, the hints and clues are already there in the story of their failures to suggest that God had something planned that would spring us from that ‘In-Adam-sin-prison’ that Charles Wesley famously wrote:

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray—
I woke, the dung.eon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee

Even in Rebekah’s scheming, she couldn’t help but tell the story prophetically of what has been made real for us now if we have believed and been transferred from Adam to Christ.

‘Rebekah took the choice clothes of her elder son, Esau, and put them on Jacob’

In Isaac’s eyes, Jacob had become Esau, the elder son, the inheritor…just we have, in God’s eyes, been clothed with Christ (Gal 3v27) and have become heirs of God, joint-heirs with the Son (Rom 8 v17).

In the new covenant we are given a new heart, a new spirit, and the Holy Spirit (Ez 36v26). We become new creations, the old has gone and the new has come (2Cor5v17).

Learning to operate in this world clothed with Christ is our calling, learning to walk just as Jesus walked (1John 2v6). Learning what it is to ‘only do what we see the Father doing’, learning to ‘walk in the Spirit’. St Peter wrote that we have become ‘participators in the divine nature’ (2Pet 1v4).

We are on holy ground.

Jacob, whose name means supplanter, after years of self-centred living, found himself on holy ground, at the brook of Jabbok, wrestling with the angel of God, leaving that place with a limp, and his name changed to Israel, Prince with God. He had spent years as a satanically flawed individual. From that point on he lived as the Prince of God he was named to be.

His story is our story, if we want it to be.

_____________________________

A book recommendation: Lance Lambert’s book ‘Jacob I Have Loved’ is excellent and has far more to say about Jacob’s transformation to Israel and its relevance for us.

Hebrews - Back to the Burning Bush Report #6 The Faith of Rahab: Climbing Over Our Cultural Walls

The account of Moses’s distraction by a bush that appeared to be burning but never consumed is well known. The initial distraction quickly transformed into a holy encounter with God, Moses removed his shoes and walked barefoot on holy ground.

This is as typical as it is unique. Something gets our attention and before we know it, we’re grappling with a depth of thought that carries us towards God…or God comes close to us.

I’m reading through Hebrews in the New Testament (my money is on Paul as the author, but the authorship isn’t known).

This series is like a journalist reporting on scenes he’s been sent to comment on.

Report 4 – The Faith of Rahab

‘By faith, the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe’ 11v31

I’ll get to summarising the story of Rahab in a minute. But I feel I need to issue a health warning. I’m going to relate this report to the horror of the Hamas/Israel conflict, to the suffering of Gaza and Israel. Or try to.

Of course, you may well have at the back of your mind that the two territories in question, Gaza and Israel, are not a million miles away from the older conflict referred to in these Old Testament verses that occurred when the Israeli army encircled Jericho, now situated on the West Bank.

You can read the account of Rahab hiding Joshua’s spies in Joshua chapter 2.

Israel, by that time, amounting to maybe 2 million on the move, had amassed a reputation as an overwhelming invading force, having seen off two kings just the other side of the Jordan and the river, their last line of defence, had dried up allowing them to pass on and confront the city of Jericho; their reputation had preceded them.

‘As soon as we heard these things our hearts melted, neither did there remain any courage in anyone…because of the Lord your God’ 2v11

‘Jericho was securely shut up because of the children of Israel; none went out and none came in’ 6v11

Even in these two simple verses, we see a crucial difference. Rahab, a prostitute, didn’t see Israel as an overwhelming human tsunami coming their way, her focus was on the spiritual reality behind their astonishing victories, and the River Jordan drying up, stating to the spies that this was ‘because of the Lord your God’.

That led to a radically different response to the leaders of the city. Instead of trying to preserve her identity, her culture, her way of life, her familiar surroundings, and her livelihood, she climbed over the mental and cultural wall the city leaders had imposed on the inhabitants of Jericho by closing the gates, securely.

She implored the spies,

‘Now therefore, I beg you, swear to me by the Lord…you will…spare my father, mother, my brother, my sister, all that I have and deliver our lives from death’ 2 v12,13

If you know how the story unfolds, you’ll know that Rahab and her family were saved and Jericho with all its inhabitants perished.

‘By faith, Rahab…’

Along with the rest of Jericho’s masses Rahab had reacted initially with fear, but when the spies arrived and told her their story of all that God had done for Israel, she ‘heard’ the word which created ‘faith’ in her and so her world changed…at first invisibly on the inside and then, extraordinarily, in her actions, her rescue, and her legacy of faith.

She had climbed over the wall of her own people’s limited thinking bound up with fear. How things would have fared is only they had believed and acted differently. Faith is life or death.

Gaza. And Israel. Then us.

Whatever the legitimacy of the claims of injustice at the hands of Israel in Gaza, the West Bank, and territories in Palestine previously held by Palestinians before 1948 the word of God cannot be clearer,

‘I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you’ Gen 12v3

The choice that the leadership of Hamas and similar groups have made are quite different to the leaders in Jericho. Rather than be imprisoned by fear, they are engaged in opposing Israel by foul means or fair. Well, foul, not fair, in fact.

Incredibly, though, despite all that has happened and continues to happen in Gaza there are those, like Rahab, who view the events in the world quite differently and whose hearts are ready to bless, not curse.

Equally true in Israel. There are those who are able to climb over the walls of fear and hatred and are ready to bless not curse.

As with everything to do with God and His world, what we believe is vital. Jesus said much the same thing ‘bless those who persecute you’. The victory over hate and fear occurs deep within the heart. Whether it’s action or attitude that comes first, these are only symptoms of the deeper work…of faith…of what we believe.

How easy it is to comment on macropolitics. How much harder when it comes to our own cultural boundaries, safe spaces, comfort zones, and traditions that serve to separate us from those God calls our neighbours.

I look back on times when I have been more like Lot’s wife, a pillar of salt, or ‘petrified’ and paralysed by fear instead of having faith in God and confronting elephants in the room. And I can look upon other times when the word of God created faith in my heart, enabling me to risk vulnerability, unlike Jericho, remaining all locked up and seemingly safe. It’s a false safety.

We have a lot to learn from the ‘harlot Rahab’.

p.s. For those interested, Rahab’s legacy was not simply to be recorded in the Old and New Testaments, but to be included in the royal line of King David. She was David’s great-great-grandmother.

Lesson from a cider orchard

Early morning. Felt like autumn.
August, still revving her engines
But the air was nipping and
Something like frost coated the grass
Between the careless brook
And ripening trees.
The dawn sun rose to contradict
The air. My shoulders wore warm.

Trees held in orchard rows
Unaware of the benevolence
Ruling their lives;
Even their sensation of breezes
Of dark nights, and scorching days
Of thunder, and gentle rain
Of the inner strain,
The compulsion to swell

Twinkling eyes cast
To their neighbours
Luxuriating in the
On-rush of beauty
Green bullets learning to
Blush and sway in the wind
Looking down with
Scorn on the fallen

Grounded in degrees of decay
Telltale brown, soft
With a fermented scent
Rising with the dew-frost.
Here, not up there,
Is rapture, dark seeds
Falling to the ground
To die, to escape

Hebrews - Back to the Burning Bush Report #5 Invisibility of faith

The account of Moses’s distraction by a bush that appeared to be burning but never consumed is well known. The initial distraction quickly transformed into a holy encounter with God, Moses removed his shoes and walked barefoot on holy ground.

This is as typical as it is unique. Something gets our attention and before we know it, we’re grappling with a depth of thought that carries us towards God…or God comes close to us.

I’m reading through Hebrews in the New Testament (my money is on Paul as the author, but the authorship isn’t known).

This series is like a journalist reporting on scenes he’s been sent to comment on.

Report 4 – Invisibility of faith

‘Faith is…the evidence of things unseen…the worlds were framed by the word of God so that the things that are seen were not made of things that are visible’ Heb 11v1,2

Where are we with science? With Physics? On the macro level, we have the mysteries of the Big Bang and black holes, where matter and energy are intimately connected. And on the microscopic level, we have subatomic particles popping in and out of quantum fields. So, even in Physics, the relationship between the visible and the invisible isn’t dissimilar to the author of Hebrews’ assertion about the origin of ‘stuff’.

Poets, of course, have been swimming in these waters from time immemorial.

The question that confronts us in terms of biblical revelation, as opposed to a scientific or poetic exploration, is ‘is it true?’

Jesus, quoting Deuteronomy 8v3, said ‘Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’ Mt 4v4

Do you? Do I?

Before reading the opening verses in Hebrews 11 the other day, I had always seen the references to the ‘word of God framing the worlds’ and ‘things seen being made from things unseen’ in v1 and v2 as referring to creation and disconnected from the fairly chronological list of individuals showing great faith from v3 onwards.

Better, I propose, to see verses 1 and 2 as foundational understanding of how reality works and the list from v3 as evidence that the revolutionary thinking of the Bible about faith is true…not just philosophically, theologically, or intellectually but in the very stuff of day-to-day living.

The biblical worldview is the world is shaped when the word of God is revealed to an individual who hears it, believes it, and then builds their life around it, so that what was invisible (no one can ‘see’ or ‘touch’ the word of God originally spoken), creates a real space-time event in human history.

And that this is normal. And we are called to live this way. This is how to live as a fully human being in connection, in relationship with the living God.

‘Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen …was moved with godly fear and prepared an ark’ v7

‘Abraham…was called to go to a place he would receive as an inheritance…and he went out not knowing where he was going’ v8

No one could see the warning given to Noah or the word spoken to Abraham. But the visible world and its history have been shaped by their responses to the invisible word that created invisible faith in each individual.

It is exactly the same now.

We are duped when we think ‘faith’ is something we ‘should have’ and act as if we have it. I’ll give two examples from my own experience to illustrate how this works – and doesn’t!

During a worship service, a man asked me to pray for him. He was quite young, in his 20s, and his hair had fallen out. I prayed for him. A few years later, I saw him, still bald. I had made a schoolboy error. I agreed to pray for him at best from compassion, at worst from politeness…after all, I’m British and it would have been rude to refuse!

On another occasion, as a leader of a small group, I led the group in prayer for a young woman who had been diagnosed with cysts on her ovary, preventing her from becoming pregnant. Months passed, and there was no change.

The same schoolboy error.

I went back to the group and confessed that I had led the group to pray on the pretence that I had faith. I felt it was my duty as the leader to have faith. But I had none. Only a vague hope. I said to the group, ‘Let’s start again’. During the time we set apart for prayer, one member heard from God that the woman would be healed by Christmas. She was. And went on to have children.

As Paul taught, ‘faith comes from hearing, and hearing from the word of God’.

Or, as Jesus quoted from Deuteronomy ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’

If we want faith, we should ask to hear the word of God. Maybe then, like Noah, we’ll be moved by godly fear and build something visible in the world from the invisibility of our faith.

Hebrews - Back to the Burning Bush Report #4 Melchizedek

The account of Moses’s distraction by a bush that appeared to be burning but never consumed is well known. The initial distraction quickly transformed into a holy encounter with God, Moses removed his shoes and walked barefoot on holy ground.

This is as typical as it is unique. Something gets our attention and before we know it, we’re grappling with a depth of thought that carries us towards God…or God comes close to us.

I’m reading through Hebrews in the New Testament (my money is on Paul as the author, but the authorship isn’t known).

This series is like a journalist reporting on scenes he’s been sent to comment on.

Report 4 – Melchizedek

‘In the likeness of Melchizedek…another priest has come, not according to the law…but according to the power of an endless life’ 7v15,16

Hebrews 7 and subsequent chapters are a Old Testament bible study led by the unknown author of the letter. It’s fascinating to follow his interpretation the Old Testament scriptures concerning Melchizedek.

Please, go ahead, dive in, and enjoy it to the full. Better still, perhaps read Romans and Hebrews in tandem and become so immersed in both that you end up letting the gospel bind you forever to the freedom it offers.

The purpose of this post, though, is not to summarise the bible study carried out by the author, but to fix our attention on the purpose of the letter.

The author is urging his Jewish brothers and sisters in Christ to push on, and push on specifically in Christ to maturity, sometimes translated as perfection, and not to fall back into the hands of the Law of Moses and re-embrace Judaism, but to keep their faith alive in the Messiah risen from the dead.

He asserts in 7v11 that maturity/perfection cannot be attained under or through the law, ‘If perfection were through the Levitical priesthood under which the people received the Law, what need would there be for the priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek?’

David had prophesied in Ps110v4 ‘The Lord has sworn and will not relent, You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek’ referring to the coming Messiah who would replace the Levitical priesthood with his own Melchizedek order priesthood.

The key phrase in this Report #4 is ‘the power of an endless life’, we could, in fact, reduce that further to ‘endless life’.

Every Christian believer in Christ is baptised into this endless life. It is our source of hope, and it is true whatever our circumstances. Endless life is far, far more than simply lasting forever as if time were the preoccupation of the Messiah.

He has the power to bring us to maturity, body, mind, and spirit.

Jesus modelled this for us:

‘And the child (Jesus) grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom and the grace of God was upon Him’ Luke 2v40

‘And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men’ v52

Later, of course, this would be amended to include opposition from other men, and ultimately his arrest, interrogation, torture, crucifixion, and death.

Dark days, weakness, sin, Satan – we continue to experience the reality of all these things, but none of them undermine or even touch the reality of being included in the Melchizedek order as priests in Christ, not powered by our own abilities and efforts but by the power of His endless life.

In fact, it is often by overcoming our weaknesses, setbacks, disappointments, shortcomings, and sufferings through Christ that we prove to be the stepping stones we needed.

Once again, we are standing on holy ground. Reading on from chapter 7 we learn that Jesus is standing in the true holy of holies, in heaven, and that we have been placed in Him…in His holiness.

When we have our eyes opened to see where we truly are, in the holy of holies in Christ, our response is to remove our shoes…removing anything that has become a barrier to His holiness. We are to walk here in contact with His holiness and let His holiness rub along the soles of our feet.

True Christianity is born in this intimacy. What we do in this world must, like with Moses, find its origin here, on holy ground.