Monday, 7 March 2011
The One Year Bible - Day 66
There is a phrase used frequently in the OT with regard to the Israelites and it was "cut off". People were cut-off if they disrespected the festivals of God. I wondered if some Christians are cut-off in that they are only Christian by name but whose lives have little or no spiritual significance to the Kingdom! This would be people who only go through the motions or perhaps have had several chances to obey God and have consistently ignored them until they have "gone to sleep". Controversial but a good debate!
The One Year Bible - Day 65
There are a whole load of verses today about being a Nazirite. It all seems pretty formal and slightly complicated but still amazing to be able to say, "I dedicate myself to God". In the interests of being great rather than simply good Christians, this should be a general attitude but it would be interesting if we considered this something a bit like lent where we give certain things up for a period of time and consecrate ourselves to the Lord. I guess people do this sometimes but it is not known as one thing but several: prayer, fasting etc.
The One Year Bible - Day 64
It has been said that Bible verses often have several meanings. There is the obvious physical meaning - something happened at a certain time like God told the Israelites something. Then there are perhaps general principle meanings such as the parable of the talents referring to us using what God has given us, then there are any number of Spiritual meanings that might relate to Israel, the Church or both. The tricky thing and that which requires prayer and study is what meanings are present in what verses.
The verses about purity in the camp are a good example. There were perhaps physical reasons for these laws, something that God did to protect the Israelites from poor health or death but yet at the same time, God is often very strong when he gives these laws and could, presumably, easily have said, "you should do these to avoid illness". Perhaps God knows us too well and realises that if He simply said, "you should do it" then loads of people would think that it would be OK, the human principle of, "what does God know?" so it is easier to promote punishment as a way of people keeping good health. But for us today, there are lots of lessons we can learn about our own purity which is spiritual fundamentally and which teaches us that impurity is infectious and requires direct action to deal with. I'm not sure whether each type of infection mentioned relates to a certain specific issue (i.e. semen discharge relates to sexual impurity) but it is worth studying these things.
The verses about purity in the camp are a good example. There were perhaps physical reasons for these laws, something that God did to protect the Israelites from poor health or death but yet at the same time, God is often very strong when he gives these laws and could, presumably, easily have said, "you should do these to avoid illness". Perhaps God knows us too well and realises that if He simply said, "you should do it" then loads of people would think that it would be OK, the human principle of, "what does God know?" so it is easier to promote punishment as a way of people keeping good health. But for us today, there are lots of lessons we can learn about our own purity which is spiritual fundamentally and which teaches us that impurity is infectious and requires direct action to deal with. I'm not sure whether each type of infection mentioned relates to a certain specific issue (i.e. semen discharge relates to sexual impurity) but it is worth studying these things.
The One Year Bible - Day 63
In Numbers 2, we have a passage that is easy to pass over but none of this is accidentally in the Bible, we still need to keep asking what this means for me. A couple of things that I noticed were 1) The need for everyone to have a part in the Kingdom. Although roles were different, everyone needed to do something, it was not enough to simply be part of the community, you had to be involved. 2) God is a God of organisation and strategy. Sadly, churches are too often so fluffy and abstract in their thinking that practical matters are often given short thrift. If we were more organised, we could assign people to look after practical things without interference and power games and have other people to concentrate on Spiritual issues and then along with other churches, we could strategically take on areas of our towns and cities. Sadly we are still FAR too partisan with such things!
Thursday, 3 March 2011
The One Year Bible - Day 62
We are told that the Levites are not numbered amongst the army because their role is to look after the tabernacle which represents God's presence. You could argue that this supports the idea of paid church workers (whether ordained or not). However, the NT tells us that all Christians are priests, we are all ordained and we would not all expect to be paid to work for the church since we are the ones giving money to pay them. Does this mean that no-one should be paid by the church (except expenses)? Obviously with larger churches, there is a large amount of operational work to perform ignoring any pastoral work but again this presupposes that large churches are correct and scriptural when in fact if we managed to exist as a network of smaller churches (perhaps up to 200 people) then not only would we be able to handle support work in our spare time rather than be paid, but it would be easier for believers to exercise their gifts. We have a lot of baggage and tradition in the western church including large and expensive buildings and high running costs when at the same time, only a tiny percentage is given to global mission, the most pressing need for the modern church.
Anyone here dare to be different and challenge these things or do we just accept that it is the way it is?
Anyone here dare to be different and challenge these things or do we just accept that it is the way it is?
The One Year Bible - Day 61
Today there are a load of verses concerning blessing and punishment. It is interesting to note the active voice in these, "I will...". This is presumably good material for a PhD because God is generous and gracious regardless of our conduct, so why is it that we read about a God who rewards good people and punishes bad people? Doesn't he forgive sins? Is it a case of good things naturally happening when we place ourselves in God's will or literally that he notices the obedience and rewards us?
I think this is perhaps a more useful lesson for whole communities or countries as they consider their corporate response to God. Places where a good number of people have chosen to follow Christ have indeed experience amazing blessing, both physically and spiritually. I will leave the complexities of this discussion to somebody more qualified!
I think this is perhaps a more useful lesson for whole communities or countries as they consider their corporate response to God. Places where a good number of people have chosen to follow Christ have indeed experience amazing blessing, both physically and spiritually. I will leave the complexities of this discussion to somebody more qualified!
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
The One Year Bible - Day 60
Today is some real hardcore OT teaching, a few things that we would find hard to accept but which is a challenge that God is who He is and it is our job to find out about this and not to decide that God didn't say that or God doesn't do that any more!
Firstly something that is interesting with regards to property and this idea that Israel worked on a rolling Leasehold program. You buy property or land depending on how long it is until the next Jubilee which happened every 50 years and then when it got to that point, the land or property reverted to its original owner. This is something a lot of us would have an issue with since we like to consider things our property but this rule reminds us that it all belongs to God anyway. Not sure how it would work in the West today although I guess a fair number of people have 99 or 999 year leases.
Leviticus 24 and we see another example of God's holiness and standard for living. A man curses God and is arrested. God's punishment is to have the man stoned for doing what the Israelites were told not to i.e. to take the name of the Lord in vain. We often struggle with this idea that God in any way condones capital punishment because we believe He is loving and "He wouldn't do that" but for this view you either need to completely disregard the OT teaching, assume that God has changed - something that is un-Biblical or we have to decide that this was only for the Israelites, again, something I find hard to justify when we read of the way God dealt with non-Israelites. But it puts us in an awkward position since we are humanly uncomfortable with capital punishment, perhaps because we are afraid of death ourselves and project our fear onto our theology? Anyway, fear of punishment is part of the point of it.
If we consider that God's love is for the whole world, not for any particular person then we can see why God would want to dissuade people from committing certain sins which would infect the society and become common place if left un-checked. We are reminded of a Holy God who says that if people blaspheme God, they should be executed to show that this is not acceptable ever. Because God is insecure and vindictive? No because He knows that un-controlled blasphemy gives our ego too much power and ego is the enemy of the Spirit.
You can disagree but hopefully you will consider this issue and not simply ignore it because it is difficult.
Firstly something that is interesting with regards to property and this idea that Israel worked on a rolling Leasehold program. You buy property or land depending on how long it is until the next Jubilee which happened every 50 years and then when it got to that point, the land or property reverted to its original owner. This is something a lot of us would have an issue with since we like to consider things our property but this rule reminds us that it all belongs to God anyway. Not sure how it would work in the West today although I guess a fair number of people have 99 or 999 year leases.
Leviticus 24 and we see another example of God's holiness and standard for living. A man curses God and is arrested. God's punishment is to have the man stoned for doing what the Israelites were told not to i.e. to take the name of the Lord in vain. We often struggle with this idea that God in any way condones capital punishment because we believe He is loving and "He wouldn't do that" but for this view you either need to completely disregard the OT teaching, assume that God has changed - something that is un-Biblical or we have to decide that this was only for the Israelites, again, something I find hard to justify when we read of the way God dealt with non-Israelites. But it puts us in an awkward position since we are humanly uncomfortable with capital punishment, perhaps because we are afraid of death ourselves and project our fear onto our theology? Anyway, fear of punishment is part of the point of it.
If we consider that God's love is for the whole world, not for any particular person then we can see why God would want to dissuade people from committing certain sins which would infect the society and become common place if left un-checked. We are reminded of a Holy God who says that if people blaspheme God, they should be executed to show that this is not acceptable ever. Because God is insecure and vindictive? No because He knows that un-controlled blasphemy gives our ego too much power and ego is the enemy of the Spirit.
You can disagree but hopefully you will consider this issue and not simply ignore it because it is difficult.
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