Time to reconsider the Sabbath?

‘Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labour and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.’

I have noticed a massive decline in observance of the Sabbath by evangelicals in the last 20 years. I think this is a great tragedy. I want to encourage Christians to rediscover the Sabbath and be blessed in doing so. Let’s be straight. Observing the Sabbath is not one of those peripheral topics like baptism or styles of worship where the scripture is unclear and we therefore have some latitude in how we practice it. Nor is it like the sacrificial laws which have been fulfilled in Christ. It’s right there in the Ten Commandments. Whilst the ceremonial law had a limited life-span the Ten Commandments, containing God’s blueprint for our relationship with him and with our fellow human beings, are the permanent, eternal and immutable will of God. God will remain as opposed to idolatry, adultery and murder in eternity as he did at the beginning of time, because the Ten Commandments express the very essence of God’s nature. We would surely agree that the command not to murder, for example, is absolute - so why do we not view the Sabbath in the same way?

But let’s not take on a negative view of the Sabbath because it is a commandment. The Sabbath is God’s gift to us – he instituted it for our blessing. Here are some positive reasons to observe the Sabbath:

·         By observing the Sabbath we are replicating the behaviour of God himself. The Sabbath gets right to the heart of God; it is all about creating and enjoying, about meaningful activity, about working and resting, about balance, about joy

·         God also gave it as a blessing to all who fall under our protection – our children, our employees, even our animals!

·         The Sabbath is good for your body! It’s a time when you can set aside work without feeling guilty, switch off completely from the responsibilities and stresses of work, travelling or physical labour and be refreshed.

·         The Sabbath is good for your soul! Do you complain that you don’t have enough time to read the Bible, to pray, to study Christian books or to deepen your relationship with God? God has given you a whole day a week to do those things. If you really set your mind to using the Sabbath in that way, you will be abundantly blessed by it.

·         The Sabbath is good for families. In today’s frantic, 24 hour society there can be precious few opportunities to be together as a family. Sunday gives us chance to worship, eat and relax together. More of this in a later post.

·         The Sabbath is good for others, a time for giving hospitality – especially to lonely or needy people who may not have families of their own to be with on a Sunday. Not only will you bless them, but you may be blessed too! ‘Do not forget to entertain strangers because by so doing some have entertained angels unawares.’ Hebrews 13:2

Are we tired and stressed? Is our spiritual life lacklustre? Does our family feel like a lot of strangers living in the same house? Could it be that perhaps this is because we are neglecting God’s generous gift to us for our refreshment, spiritual growth and building up of communities and families?

Jesus Christ - the best attorney in town?

Although I don’t watch a lot of TV, I do like detective dramas. When someone is caught ‘red handed’ and the evidence is so overwhelmingly stacked against them, the police will sometimes say that the offender will need ‘the best lawyer money can buy’.  As we stand before God, we all have to confess that we are completely guilty and have no hope of getting off the charges. We have nothing to plead in mitigation. God saw everything and knows everything. And the stakes could not be higher, for the offence is of the gravest kind and the sentence is death. If ever anyone needed a crack lawyer it is us, but what human advocate could possibly get us off God’s charge against us?

But a human representative is exactly what we have, for 1 John 2:1  tells us that we have an Advocate who represents us before God - Jesus Christ himself. When we need it most, Jesus Christ is the best representative we could possibly get. But he is not a clever lawyer who will trip up God’s case against us and get us off on a technicality. Jesus knows our guilt better than we do. But he is absolutely guaranteed to succeed in his defence. How could that be? 100%  of his clients are guilty, yet 100% get off scot-free?

Well, it’s because Jesus Christ is a highly unusual kind of legal representative who pays his clients’ penalties himself. Imagine, if such a thing were possible, a barrister who got his clients off by paying the fines himself and serving their custodial sentences. But this illustration isn’t quite sufficient, because unlike such a barrister, Jesus has already paid our penalties in advance – once for all, one sacrifice for all the sin of mankind.

That is why, if we do fall into sin's trap, we can be absolutely confident of the effectiveness of our Advocate. When he stands before God to speak in our defence he presents his pierced hands as evidence that our crime has been paid for. That is a defence that no-one can argue with.

‘My dear children, I write these things to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one. 1 John 2:1’

2 Corinthians 'wordle'

This is a 'wordle' I've created of 2 Corinthians. If you haven't come across a wordle, the size of the font represents the number of times a word is used in a piece of text. So this is a simple way of giving you an idea of some of the recurring themes in Paul's writing. It would be interesting to do a comparison one with 1 Corinthians - perhaps I will try that some time.

Speaking out

First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me

And there was

no one left

To speak out for me.

Poem by Pastor Martin Niemoller

How long O Lord?

Do you need a reason to pray for the world around you? Here three news stories from recent weeks should make you weep for God to have mercy on our nation.

This week it was confirmed that the majority of children would be born out of marriage by 2016. Now the majority of children will grow up with the anxiety and uncertainty of knowing whether Mum and Dad will stay together. Even more children will go through the trauma of relationship breakdown and have to cope with the conflicts of relating to 'step' parents and siblings from other relationships. Children of unmarried parents are at 10 times the risk of suffering sexual abuse and their mothers are significantly more likely to be subject to domestic violence. They will be exposed to greater economic insecurity as marriage also provides a level of economic security to women and children not matched by co-habiting relationships. The demise of marriage is also linked to the absence of fathers from the home and the BBC recently reported on 'A million children growing up without fathers'. Surely all of this is going to have tragic consequences for the psychological and social development of the next generation.

When I read Romans 1 it almost seems that Paul must have lived in the 21st century as he describes a catalogue of things which will result when people increasingly turn their backs on God. And not being satisfied to indulge in all the forms of evil around them, Paul says that they will 'invent ways of doing evil'. In the news recently it was reported that live streaming of child sex abuse was becoming a growing threat showing that men have done just that. What depths mankind will plunge to when God withdraws his restraining hand.

How long, O LORD, how long?

Singing the Psalms

In the last few years, I've worshipped a number of times at Free Churches in the Highlands. The practice in the Free Churches and related denominations is for singing only unaccompanied psalms in public worship. Not wishing to dismiss anything out of hand without first hearing the justification for it, I've spent time reading and thinking about what is termed 'Exclusive Psalmody'. Whilst I remain unpersuaded about singing only psalms, I think there are aspects of the argument for exclusive psalm singing which ought to challenge those of us from a broader tradition.

Free church theologians would point to the inspired nature of the Psalms and the fact that these would have been the only hymnal of the Jews. Our Lord and his apostles would have sung the Psalms in the synagogue each Sabbath. We in other churches would agree with all of this and would insist that we do not ascribe the same value or authority to our hymns that we do to the Psalms - so why is it that psalms are sung so infrequently in Evangelical churches nowadays? The status we claim to ascribe to the Psalms seems to be contradicted by our actual practice.

Many Christians, perhaps too used to intellectually and spiritually undemanding 'me-centred' worship songs, seem to view the Psalms as boring and dull. Setting aside other considerations for a moment, I would take issue straight away with the mindset that judges the value of worship material by how it makes 'me' feel. Whatever else we say about the Psalms-only tradition, it is clearly God-centred and its adherents' sole concern is to offer in worship what God himself desires and not what we have decided we should include. We in other Evangelical churches may disagree regarding interpretations of what God has inf fact commanded us to use in worship, but we could certainly learn much from the God-centredness of thinking about public worship in the Free Churches.

I would suggest that the Psalms perhaps only seem dull and boring to those who are spiritually mature or unaccustomed to having to exert mental effort in worship. I do feel, however, that the use of old versions of the metrical psalms has much to answer for, with their impenetrably archaic language, clunky, mediocre poetry and 'one-size-fits-all' common metre tunes which rarely suit the psalms they are used with. I am not sure whether it is the persistent use of these versions which has been partly responsible for the demise of psalm-singing or whether the reverse is actually true - the decline of psalm-singing in certain denominations over the last century meaning there was no demand for newer versions to be written. Whichever is the case, the chances of a revival of psalm-singing would be greatly enhanced by the production of versions in modern English set to beautiful tunes which set off the words well and make it sound, when sung, as if the Psalms really are the most precious items in our hymnals. Whilst the appearance of new editions like 'Sing Psalms' is a step in the right direction , I still find the poetry of many of the versions in it clunky and forced and I personally believe (having something of an interest in hymnwriting and music) that it would often be better to abandon metre altogether and preserve the simple beauty of the original text by setting them  to music verbatim.

In the meantime there are quite enough good versions of the Psalms and other parts of scripture for churches to begin to incorporate more inspired song into their worship. I would suggest that those who are inclined to be disparaging and dismissive of the psalms-only tradition need to be careful that they are not ejecting the baby with the proverbial bath-water, and should stop and consider whether our brethren north of the border might not have something to teach them.

The gospel, plain and simple

I'm in the process of writing a talk for an outreach event our church is holding. In preparing it, I was very struck by a quote I read from Martin Luther:

'No-one can be a good preacher to the people who is not willing to preach in a manner that seems childish and vulgar to some.'

It reminded me that our aim in doing anything like this should be solely to present the gospel as faithfully, in a way that ensures everyone who hears can understand it. We must set aside any desires to be thought well of for our our skills as a speaker, our theological grasp or erudition, and use whatever means to win souls. Our simple, earthy illustrations and plain language without theological terminology might not earn us a reputation as a great speaker, but who cares? Augustine said that 'A wooden key is not so beautiful as a golden one, but if it can open the door when the golden one cannot, it is far more useful.'  This is what Paul meant by 'becoming all things to all men'. He did not care a jot about what others thought of him or his preaching, but only for the glory of his heavenly Father and the benefit of his hearers.

Communion: what happens at the Lord's table?

I had a good-natured debate with a Anglo-Catholic friend a while ago about the nature of the Eucharist. His assertion was that Protestants, by insisting on the purely symbolic nature of the Lord’s Supper, had deprived the Eucharist of any spiritual power or dynamic between God and participant. As he understood it, Evangelicals viewed Communion was simply and solely a commemoration of an event in history. He contrasted this with the Catholic Mass where, as he saw it, God mysteriously and powerfully interacted with communicants.

It made me realise that we need to be so careful about how with think out and communicate what we believe about the Lord’s Supper. For although we Evangelicals do affirm that the bread and wine are only symbolic reminders of the body and blood, the Lord’s Supper is most certainly not simply an act of commemoration comparable to, let’s say, Martin Luther King Day in America or the two minutes silence for the Armistice.

Evangelicals, rather than using the term sacrament, tend to describe the Lord’s Supper or baptism as ‘a means of grace’. I think that is a term which can help us not to underestimate what is happening at the communion table. When believers come to the table to recieve those symbolic elements of the bread and wine in faith, God meets with them in a special and powerful way. Through this act instituted by the Lord himself, God communicates his grace to every heart assembled there, applying the work of Christ on the Cross to our hearts and ministering individually to every believers need. Whether through fresh assurance of forgiveness, renewed perseverance, rebuke for coldness, chastening for lovelessness, comfort in grief and pain, reminding us of our eternal hope or a myriad other ways, the Holy Spirit sustains us by imparting to us that fountain of blessings that flows from Christ’s work on the cross. This is where the true power of the Eucharist lies, and why we impoverish ourselves if we stay away from the table. At the communion table we meet with God as at no other time, which of course is why we call it communion - because we are communing with God himself.

Therefore I would suggest that mysterious ideas of the elements turning into the actual flesh and blood of Christ are not prerequisites for a high view of the Eucharist. The Lord’s Supper is a profoundly powerful, spiritual interaction without invoking ideas of Christ being resacrificed each time we celebrate it. So, let's stop and think before we describe Communion as ‘purely symbolic’ lest we strip the Lord’s Supper of its true spiritual power – a power which derives not from superstitious ideas about the bread and wine but from the mighty work of Holy Spirit applying to every believer present the glorious completed work of God’s son, now seated at the right hand of God on high.

Bible Coffee Club

I recently came across this very thought-provoking blog. http://bibleandcoffee.blogspot.co.uk/  Several of the contributors are people I hold in very high regard and I like the eclectic mix of stimulating topics. I only wish this was a real Bible coffee club rather than a virtual one so that we could further the discussion! Whilst you may not agree with everything written here, you will find yourself stretched and challenged to rethink important areas of life and faith from a Biblical perspective.

Giving freely

‘All that we have comes from you Lord, and of your own do we give you…’

God’s people are constantly encouraged to give ‘generously’ or ‘freely’ (e.g. Deut 15:10-14, Ps 37:21, Ps 112:9, Romans 12:8, Matt 10:8).  In saying this, I don’t believe that God is just concerned about quantity but more with the attitude in which we give. There is a freeness in giving which has nothing to do with quantity.

As a general principle, I believe that when we give money to the Lord’s work we should give without strings attached – with no stipulations as to how the money should be used and not expecting anything in return. I’ve heard people in churches say things like ‘We must be careful not to upset person X because he’s one of the church’s main financial supporters’ and I’ve known people give money with stipulations with the intention of influencing the direction the church is moving in. These are practices we have learnt from the world, where money speaks and where he who has money has influence, but they haves no place in God’s church.

I’ve also seen Christian organisations hamstrung by gifts ringfenced (no doubt with good intentions) for specific ministries. I know of charities that have become unable to meet the needs of those they served despite having large amounts of money in some accounts because the money could not be touched because it had been ringfenced for areas where there was now little need and could not be transferred to areas where there needs were pressing. This is another reason why I believe we should generally make gifts without making strict stipulations as to their use.

Some feel justified in using their money to gain influence, when the objective is to direct the church towards a particular theological position or what they believe to be God’s will, for example giving the church money earmarked for Bibles of their preferred translation or using a gift to ensure the continuance of an activity where we disagree with the church over its continuance. To me this still seems very dangerous because we are essentially using our money to impose our will on the church, thereby placing ourselves outside the authority of the church.  If in our churches the wealthier members of the church sometimes have influence over its life not possessed by those with limited means, there is something wrong – but many churches fall into this trap at times.

The words at the top of this post are a paraphrase of 1 Chron 29:14 spoken at the offertory in the Anglican church. This reminder that we are just stewards will help us to keep the right attitude to giving: We should not expect our gifts to carry any personal influence simply because the money is not ultimately ours to give. An honest steward would not derive any personal benefit from money he administered but was expected to make the best possible use of it solely for the profit of his master. The profit our Master seeks is his glory and the advancement of his gospel. Therefore, we give our offerings in faith, trusting to God how it will ultimately be used. We need not be disturbed if the church collection is stolen, our church does not seem to use our money as we would have wished or church finances are taken (such as, in some recently examples, when congregations have to leave a denomination that no longer upholds the Word of God or perhaps in the future by the state) because it was not our money but Gods. He is sovereign and will ensure his resources achieve the ends that he desires., in spite of human frailty, theft and the enemies of the Gospel. 

Is God really our Father?

‘For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom all fatherhood derives its name.’ Ephesians 3:15

I find there is a danger when thinking about God as our Father that we view this as simply the Bible’s way of telling us something about his qualities; i.e. that we are supposed to extrapolate back from our experience of our ‘real’ fathers and thereby understand something about God. But as the text above says, all fatherhood derives from God and not the other way around. Lets be clear about this: God is not some kind of metaphorical father. God is more truly our Father than our human fathers will ever be. As Christians, we are first of all children of God and then children of our human fathers. Our human fathers are just the reflection of the reality which is the fatherhood of God. Their God-given role is to reflect or re-enact God’s fatherhood to us in the way that they treat us. In loving, giving, protecting, feeding, disciplining and so many other things, they reflect what God does for us. They do so imperfectly - some are very precious pointers to God; others barely seem to reflect God’s character at all. The Bible is under no illusions about the imperfections of our human fathers, but it wants those imperfections to make us desire the reality of God’s fatherhood all the more, rather than use them as an excuse to reject God’s fatherhood.

Think about it: God brought us into existence more truly than ever our human parents did. He designed our bodies and created the awesome processes by which we came into existence through our human parents. He knows every aspect of our physical and spiritual being and understands our deepest needs in a way that even the best human parents can never do. He knows our most intimate thoughts and feelings. He disciplines us with absolute fairness and wisdom. He is always willing to give us good things and able to do  for us ‘more than all we can ask or imagine', if we will but ask. He has demonstrated the unquenchable nature of his love in the cross of Christ – a love that is unconditional, for he sent Jesus when we were still God’s sworn enemies. As Paul recounts in Romans 8, God has a profound jealousy for our preservation that will not allow anything to threaten our welfare or separate us from his love.

 

Will you be my Facebook friend?

If you use Facebook or other social networks even a little bit, then I strongly recommend you read this this terrific little book  by Tim Chester.  We're discussing it this week in our women's book group. At 48 pages, it won't take you long! Despite the size of the book I could quote many helpful passages but I’ll confine myself to these 12 guidelines for social networking with which the author closes the book:

1.       Don’t say anything on line that you wouldn’t say were the people concerned in the room

2.       Don’t say anything on line that you wouldn’t share publicly with your Christian community

3.       Ensure your online world is visible to your offline Christian community

4.       Challenge one another if you think someone’s online self reflects a self-created identity rather than identity in Christ

5.       Challenge one another if you think someone’s online self doesn’t match their offline self

6.       Use social networking to enhance offline relationships, not replace them

7.       Don’t let children have unsupervised internet access or accept as online friends people you don’t know offline

8.       Set limits for the time you spend online and ask someone to hold you accountable to these

9.       Set aside a day a week as a technology ‘Sabbath’ or fast.

10.   Avoid alerts (emails, tweets, texts and so on) that interrupt other activities, especially reading, praying, worshipping and relating

11.   Ban mobiles from the meal table and the bedroom

12.   Look for opportunities to replace disembodied (online or phone) communication with embodied (face-to-face) communication

Does self-denial equal self-hatred?

For many years as a young Christian I struggled terribly with the idea of self-denial. My warped understanding of what the Bible was teaching led to years of great unhappiness, frustration, introspection and an increasingly bitter, fearful attitude to God. If you find yourself having the same struggle, please read on. I hope and pray that  these reflections will help liberate souls from this dark, unproductive prison.  

It seemed to me from what I read in the scriptures that self-denial equalled self-hatred. Worked out, this meant that my own desires, whatever their end, were to be denied. Conversely, whatever I most disliked or feared seemed most likely to be God’s will for me. Not surprisingly I found it very difficult to feel love God as a result. It seemed God did not love it seemed did not in fact love me at all but wanted to wipe out all trace of me as an individual. Of course, such thoughts only served to increase my sense of guilt that I felt so negatively towards God.

It was only after a long, depressing struggle that God finally broke through to me with the light of his love and helped me to understand the kind of self-denial he desired. Nowhere in the scriptures are we commanded to hate ourselves, nor simply to deny our own desires or needs as if the denial of them were an end in themselves. Denying ourselves is always linked to affirming someone else (the Lord), and the denial of our own desires to some alternative, positive action. Jesus had commanded in Matt 16:24 when he said that ‘if anyone would come after me he must ‘deny himself, take up his cross and follow me’ (Matt 16:24) and this is what Peter tells Jesus he and the disciples have done in Matt 19:26: ‘We have left everything to follow you!’ Jesus himself, the ultimate example of self-denial, did not simply deny himself for its own sake, but ‘…for your sakes became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich’ (2 Cor 8:9)  and ‘…for the joy set before him endured the cross’ (Heb 12:2).

What I believe the Bible is commanding is an attitude of joyful, liberated self-forgetfulness that comes from being entirely secure in our knowledge of who we are in Christ and of God’s love for us, overwhelmed by what God has done for us and sure of our future in heaven. Such a person simply doesn’t need to keep thinking about themselves. Such a person will be willing to put their own desires and needs second when the glory of God or the needs of others demand it. The Bible teaches us such self-denial for the sake of others, but never teaches a blanket denial of all our desires nor makes denial of our desires a spiritual end in itself, except those desires that are inherently sinful. In fact, in Colossians 2 Paul criticises such teachings because they delude people that they are doing the right thing and do nothing to curb true sinfulness.

Striving to hate ourselves only serves to focus our attention on ourselves more than ever, embitters us against a good and loving God and traps us in endless introspection. A self-forgetful person has their attention and affections taken up with Christ. Instead of producing miserable, dutiful Christians such a mindset produces Christians who are winsome, joyful and effective.

The length of grace

God is so good to us. When we've strayed from him and just begin to step just a few feet back towards him, like the father of the Prodigal Son he is watching out and runs miles to meet us. Yet so often in our own relationships we are only prepared to meet people half way, and even then have got the tape measure out to make sure the other person isn’t a few inches short of the mark. How truly amazing is God’s grace – where would we be if it were not for his mercy?

'The preacher was rubbish...'

A visitor - a young man - stepped into an Essex church one Sunday morning. He was a seeker and he’d been to several of the churches in town recently, looking for answers. The church was in an obscure neighbourhood, in a back street. The general consensus was that the folks who went there were a bit weird. They were given a wide berth by people who went to the local churches.  The man sat down at the back of the freezing chapel. By the time the service was due to start, there were still only a handful of people there. There was no organ or music group, just singing. At the start of the service there was a commotion as apparently minister had been detained and was unable to lead the service; eventually a wiry little man volunteered to speak. He really wasn’t a clever fellow, barely able to read the text and speaking in broad Essex.  His ‘message’ consisted mostly of repeating his text because he had very little else to say. By ten minutes in he had run out of things to say. As if things weren’t bad enough, the speaker then decided to single out the visitor from the whole congregation and said to him, ‘Young man, you look really miserable! – and you will always feel miserable if you don’t obey my text.’

No doubt the rest of the congregation thought to themselves, ‘Why didn’t God send this visitor on a different week when the pastor was here? He is an excellent preacher!’ Perhaps they rued the decision not to cancel the service altogether. The preacher’s efforts were really so dreadful - it was bound to have put this visitor off.

And yet it did not put the newcomer off. In fact the man’s simple appeal to his text of ‘Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth…’ struck right to the heart of this man and he trusted Christ there and then in that service. The newcomer’s name was Charles Spurgeon, who went on to become one of the greatest preachers of the gospel this country has ever know and through whose ministry God brought tens of thousands to faith in himself. You can read Spurgeon’s own record of the man’s simple message and how it spoke to his need here. http://www.banneroftruth.co.uk/pages/articles/article_detail.php?1385

Next time you are tempted to write a preacher off, bear this story in mind. Whether just chewing over the morning’s sermon at the Sunday dinner table, discussing the latest conference speaker or considering a candidate for a new minister, we would do well to examine the criteria we judge by. So often we still think as the world does.  We want our preachers to be eloquent speakers with engaging personalities, able to move people’s emotions, educated,  conversant with contemporary culture and  masters of theological matters, but this story reminds us that the work of conversion is all of God and the effectiveness of a preacher's ministry is not determined by his gifts but by the working of the Spirit of God.

Not my sin? How to pray for a nation on the brink

In Hosea 4, where God sets out his case against Israel, it is clear he is speaking to a society that is rotten to the very core. Israel’s idolatry has not remained an isolated problem but has bred a society characterised by corruption, bloodshed, prostitution and murder. When Hosea says that ‘bloodshed follows bloodshed’ and that their sins ‘know no bounds’ he describes a situation where there were not merely sporadic outbreaks but where these sins had become endemic, woven into the very fabric of society.  Everyone from the top to the bottom of society was involved, and all would be punished together. Even the tiny righteous remnant would go into exile with the others, sharing in the punishment of their community.

After the Second World War, some German Christians devoted themselves to a ministry of repentance and intercession for the sins of the German nation, even though they personally had not been involved in the atrocities perpetrated by the regime. The prayers of the Old Testament prophets reveal a similar view of their relationship to their community and its sin. We are not just accountable to God for our personal sins, but do at times share in the guilt of our community and also in its consequences.

When we consider our own society, we can surely only conclude that it is as rotten as the society of Hosea’s day.  It is not reports of horrific murders, child abuse or parliamentary corruption that lead me to that conclusion but the things I witness every day –  the loss of sense of responsibility for elderly family members, decline in attitudes of young people to parents, teachers and other adults in their communities,  the sea-change in attitudes to drunkenness, sexual promiscuity, etc.

But who of us as Christians can say we have been entirely detached from this state of affairs? Examination of our own attitudes often reveals that we have imbibed the world’s values more than we care to admit. And with iniquity vaunted and temptation advertised all around us, many Christians are falling into the same sins that are affecting wider society.  A generation ago divorce was almost unheard of between believers but sadly today we all know of many cases of marital breakdown, adultery and other sexual sins, including amongst ministers of the gospel. The church is struggling to know how to respond to issues like cohabitation, internet pornography, child abuse, gambling addiction and drug misuse – not only in the outside world but among its own members.

It is time for us to come to God with prayers of repentance for the sin of our society.  Let’s not pray arrogantly.  We must plead with God, not as outsiders looking on, but as part of our society and part of its sin. Surely we also need to repent and plead for God’s mercy for the state of our churches, afflicted by so many things that ought not to be and falling so far short of what the community of God’s people should be like.  When God has purified his churches, they can serve their function of being preserving ‘salt and light’ in British society. Perhaps our society may then be turned back from the brink, and we will not have to share in its punishment.

Divers and dolphins: clues to our role in God's world

This week there was a remarkable film in the news of an injured dolphin apparently deliberately seeking out human help and waiting patiently whilst a diver gave it assistance. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21176914 For a lifelong wildlife fanatic like me, it was fascinating footage but it also seemed to me to give a brief glimpse of how things might have been between man and beast, had it not been for the Fall.

As the chief among God’s creatures, man was not only the pinnacle of God’s creative achievements  but was also set apart by being given a conscious mind, vastly superior intelligence and spiritual awareness – being ‘made in the image’ of God. The Genesis account portrays the role God had in mind for man as manager or steward - to ‘subdue’ the earth and make it fruitful, for the glory of God and the blessing of all man’s fellow creatures.

Instead, man has used his gifts to exploit his fellow creatures and abuse the earth’s resources. Far from making the world fruitful, man’s selfishness has resulted in famine, drought, species loss and desertification.  The vast majority of animal species regard man as a threat and either flee or respond aggressively to his presence.

I don’t go for the gaudy, sentimental pictures of man and beasts together in Eden that you sometimes see. Even before the Fall, I suspect man’s role as manager of God’s creation would have required all the strength, mental ingenuity and spiritual wisdom with which God had endowed him.  Personally I do not picture Adam spending his days in sleepy idleness with a lion on his lap, as some of these images suggest! But I do believe the relationship would have been very different, with animals viewing man as a benevolent authority figure rather than a threat, and man in turn treating God’s creatiures in a responsible way.

Although creation will now never be as God intended until he ‘makes all things new’, (Revelation 21:5)  Christians can still make an impact today by taking this ‘steward’ role seriously. Only this week I was reading about ‘integral mission’ projects which use principles from the Bible about looking after the earth, crop management and community relations to help poor communities develop, at the same time as proclaiming the gospel to them. As Evangelicals, I fear we have been prone to make an artificial distinction between ‘the Gospel’ and the rest of life, forgetting that God has given us a framework of glorious principles that speak to every aspect of our communal life. We have left the platform entirely to a largely atheist environmental lobby, the new pagans, liberal ‘Christian’ organisations and secular humanitarian organisations and I have no doubt this has been to the ultimate dishonour of our Creator God and the obscuring of his Gospel.

{NB – in the above post, my use of ‘man’/’he’/’his’ is deliberate as,  although  in many senses we are talking about the roles and responsibilities of all human beings, this stewardship role was specifically laid on Adam, the man, and therefore substitution of gender-free terms like ‘humankind’ does not sufficiently reflect the Biblical nuances involved. Very happy to discuss further  in ‘Comments’! }

The hand that smites is the hand that heals

Like children disciplined by a parent, we can be tempted to flee from God when we feel his hand of discipline upon us. But there is no restoration for the child until he returns to mummy with words of repentance, and then there are words of love, forgiveness, happy tears and cuddles all round. In the same way, J.A.Motyer says:

 'When the LORD is offended, and his anger and wrath loom and his arrows begin to fly, it is to the same Lord that we appeal for his presence, nearness, help and salvation. Only the Lord's favour can deliver us from the Lord's disfavour.'

 

(J.A. Motyer, Psalm 38, New Bible Commentary, my italics)