I’ve just cycled home with my wheel on fire. Well, almost. I have a pair of bright red lights attached to my spokes which, when turning at speed, make a truly impressive circle of fire. They’re seriously cool – and seriously safe too, as I battle the city traffic. But I know they’re only this bright because I put new batteries in yesterday. In a couple of weeks they’ll start to fade back to an anaemic pink.
But above my head this evening was an even cooler pair of lights. It’s a busy time for the planets this week, with Venus and Jupiter meeting up for a chat. Two bright lights, hanging in the sky, beckoning me onwards. I get really excited when I recognise planets – seeing things that are such a l-o-ng way away. But like my spoke lights, these will soon fade – they’re only going to be paired up like this for a few more days.
But planets always remind me of my favourite throwaway line in the Bible. It’s from Genesis 1 v 16: “He also made the stars.” God is the perfect Creator the stars point to. His power never runs out. His radiance never fades. And we know that, if we have put our trust in His Son, then we will see Him – not just for a few fleeting days like Jupiter and Venus – but for eternity in His perfect new creation – where it “does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp“ (Revelation 21 v 23).
That’s the coolest pair of lights of all!
We've just finished this season's round of Growing Young Disciples training events with a day in Rugby. It was a great day, filled with biblical insight (thank you Andrew Sach), wisdom (thank you everyone who led seminars and workshops) and encouragement (thank you Jonty Allcock). But what struck me most was how many hands went up when I asked if this was the first formal training they had done for the ministry they are involved in.
Over half the room of 230 or so put their hands up.
One of Andrew Sach's illustrations from his opening talk springs to mind. He tells the story of Ray the plumber from Peckham, who came to fix a dripping tap and a lavatory that wouldn't stop flushing. Of course, Ray turned out to be a bit of a cowboy, and 5 minutes after collecting his cash, the tap was still dripping, and the loo wouldn't flush at all.
Andrew shared his recurrent nightmare that he's in hospital for some major heart surgery, and just as he slips under from the anasthaetic, he looks up at the surgeon and sees the beaming face of Ray with a scalpel in his hand.
And the point is that Christian ministry, and especially Youth and Children's ministry, is far more dangerous and deadly than physical heart surgery. A botched op from an untrained surgeon may leave me crippled or dead. But a botch job of Bible teaching and ministry over the years we have children and young people in our groups may end up with people who are spiritually crippled, or lost for eternity.
Of course the great news is that the job is not ours alone. When the Bible is opened, and we do even our humble untrained best, God loves to use that. His Holy Spirit will work in their lives despite our weakness and ineptitude.
But it has renewed my passion for the training we are involved in at this level. How vital it is for us to convince those who may often feel they are just "minding the children" that they are doing a vital task in growing children to maturity in Christ. How important to help them to see how the foundations they are laying at age 2 and 3 is something that can shape the spiritual outlook of someone for their whole lives. What a privilege to help leaders and teachers understand how they can make the gospel of grace shine through the legalism which is the instinctive position of the human heart.
So we're planning the next round of training days, and the Youthwork residential next year, not with a heavy heart but with renewed enthusiasm that the task is both vital and needed. Bring it on!
And if, in the mean time, you are keen to stimulate your thinking in this area, the Open Bible Institute offers a distance-learning package on Youth and Children's work as well as lots of other training opportunities.
The arrest of two priests in Eastbourne on Tuesday highlights a growing issue for the place of the Gospel in public life.
Many Christians will have applauded the Cardinal Keith O'Brien's statement about Marriage over the weekend. But scroll down the responses to online articles, and you will find a huge amount of hostility. And not just the usual, and often orchestrated, response from gay lobby groups. There is a growing groundswell of opinion that the Church has lost all its moral authority to comment on these things because of the rank hypocrisy it has displayed over child sex abuse in recent years.
Admittedly, the Anglican church has reacted better to revelations of scandal than the Roman Church, whose cover ups have been its undoing in the US and Ireland in particular. The Anglican hierarchy has had the sense and courage to deal more openly and decisively when these things have come to the fore. Let us pray that they do the same with this developing story.
Scandals of ministers involved in immorality will be with us all the time. They will always be shocking. They will always be unexpected. They will always leave us thinking : "How could this have happened?" And they will continue happening despite all our best efforts to be CRB'd, mentored and accountable to each other. Because, as the proverb says, it is the human heart that is deceitful and wicked above all things. It will find ways of wriggling through the cracks of the barriers we put in the way.
Scandals like this, in God's goodness, should spur us on to renew our efforts at getting our structures accountable. But it should also spur us on to examine our own hearts afresh, and to ask how we are contributing to the growing view that the church is just "a bunch of hypocrites".
Academics, some based in the UK, have argued it is not morally wrong to kill newborn babies if they are disabled. Here’s a chilling line from the Guardian’s report—it’s worth quoting the whole paragraph:
“What they preferred to call "after-birth abortion" rather than infanticide should be allowed not only for babies with abnormalities, such as Down's syndrome, which had not been detected during the pregnancy, but also newborns whose parents would have been granted an abortion because they felt they could not psychologically or materially cope with a child.”
We want to say that they are wrong...
But it is worth noting that, within the ethical framework most people in the UK operate, they are, logically, being consistent (please don't panic - bear with me…).
They argue that a baby is a non-person because they have no sense of their own existence, or of the fact that their existence is valuable. “The moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus”. And it’s that sentence that is going to be a problem for people who don’t think abortion is wrong—so it’s that sentence which perhaps helps us to talk to friends about this issue.
In terms of value, there’s no intrinsic difference between a baby in the womb and a baby in the cradle. If one isn’t a person, neither is the other. If I say abortion is morally justifiable, I can’t really oppose infanticide (though these academics prefer to call it “after-birth abortion”). If, on the other hand, I understand that humans, made in God’s image (Genesis 1 v 26-28), have intrinsic value as His image-bearers (whether or not they have a sense of this great value), then I will oppose infanticide. And so I will oppose abortion as well.
Sadly, though not surprisingly, their views have led to threats being made against them—and that’s what some newspapers led with, rather than the substance of their argument. But justice is not ours to mete out, however horrific the opinion or the action: “’I will repay,’ says the Lord” (Romans 12 v 19). Our part is to love those who hate God and His standards—to pray for them and seek to tell them of judgment to come and forgiveness to enjoy. Wouldn’t it be great if their inboxes were filled up with assurances that they are being prayed for?
The story about doctors giving abortions on the basis of gender, “no questions asked”, must be one of the saddest news items of recent years. Let’s be thankful it has come to light, and is being dealt with.
But there’s something illogical about the outcry, too. If an unborn baby girl has the right to life, then surely surely any unborn baby does—whether the sex is known or not, whether the baby is a girl or a boy.
It seems strange to accept you can terminate because you are upset at the prospect of having a baby—but not because you are upset at the prospect of having a baby who happens to be a girl.
And just another thought… in the UK you can opt to find out the gender of your child when he/she is 20 weeks old. You can opt to terminate a pregnancy up to 24 weeks. Which means you can easily abort a girl you don’t want—you simply have to say it’s for social reasons, not sexist ones.
Let’s pray that this news story means no baby loses their life ever again in the UK simply because they’re of an unwanted gender. But let’s also pray that no baby loses their life again in the UK for any other reason. And let’s pray that women, and men, who find themselves in difficult, unplanned situations receive the help and love they need—and that women, and men, who look back at difficult decisions they wouldn’t take now accept and appreciate the forgiveness that Jesus offers all of us.
For some more in depth biblical reflection on the issue of abortion, scroll down a few blogs and see last week's series ...
There will be many Christians with very full stomachs this evening. A significant number of frying pans with burn marks. And more than a few ceilings sporting the odd stalactite of half-cooked batter, casualties of the inevitable over-enthusiastic pancake-toss. But once the eating and cleaning has been completed, many believers will be turning their minds to a highly tricky question: what on earth should we do about Lent?
Evangelicals have a strange relationship with these 40 or so days of the Christian calendar. It's not that we object to the concepts of sacrifice or fasting or repentance. Nor that we mind giving up a few things. But many of us worry about the half-hearted candy-related resolutions that all too often get made at this time of year just out of tradition. While giving up chocolate might have benefits for some people's waistline, and if the money saved is given to charity then good work in the world can result, is this really what God wants of us? Isn't it true that an outward show of sacrifice, if not accompanied by an inner change of heart, is quite frankly very far from God's will for his people? So how to respond?
Isaiah had this to say to believers who were involved in tokenism in their fasting:
"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice, and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free, and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter - when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?" Is 58:6-7
We live in a world where millions are in physical bondage to tyrants and spiritual bondage to the devil; a world where many have no idea where their next meal is coming from and are ignorant of the awesome gift of the bread of life; a world where countless numbers have no roof over their head and no understanding of the eternal God, the ultimate rock and refuge for those who turn to him. Spending Lent prayerfully and proactively addressing some of those needs might just make the post-pancake period of 2012 rather more gospel-centred than it might otherwise be.
Christians wanting to follow Biblical principles when they clash with UK law are like Muslims wanting to live under Sharia law. That's what Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has said.
Is he right? Yes ... and no!
His assumption is that the legal system of a country defines what "right" and "wrong" is—and every single religious principle has to give way to it. And in a democracy like Britain's, that sounds very persuasive. After all, the law reflects the will of the people who elect their representatives to Parliament to make the laws. But the trouble is, that's what happened in Genesis 3. God had said "Don't eat from the one tree". But the will of the people (by a unanimous decision) was: "We think it's right to eat from the tree". Right and wrong, when decided on by humans who then tell God when and where he will be obeyed, is called sin.
Mr Phillips has hit upon one important point, however — sometimes Biblical commands, Koranic/sharia laws, and our increasingly-secular legal system, clash. They can't just rub along together.
So the question becomes: who knows best? If it's Allah, let's go for sharia, quickly and uncompromisingly. If it's the British people (who, bear in mind, once thought Sven Goran Eriksson was a good manager, and more seriously once thought slavery was a good idea), then let's do as Mr Phillips asks and leave our Christian principles "at the door of the temple" (presumably by temple he means "building where a church meets").
If, though, Jesus has risen and so is the creating, reigning, all-knowing God… then we must live under His loving, perfect rule. That means obeying the law of the land, even when we disagree personally with it or it annoys us (speed limits included), because His word tells us to (Romans 13 v 1-7). But it also means that when there is a clash between Jesus' command and the state's, we obey Jesus—whatever the cost.
Throughout history, God's people have had to "choose between their religion and obeying the law". Around the world, our brothers and sisters are being physically persecuted for choosing their religion when God's word opposes their country's law. Let's thank God for them; for men like Peter and John (Acts 4) and Daniel (Daniel 5).
And let's ask God to make us like them. It looks like there are going to be more and more opportunities to be people who "suffer according to God's will … commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good" (1 Peter 4 v 19).
It was when I was doing a Youthwork training series called "Head, Heart, Hands" that I first came to grips with the peculiar case of the shifting emotions.
You see, like everyone else, I grew up thinking that when you love something or someone, then it's the pounding thing in your chest that is the centre and source of that thing we call love. Makes sense. After all, didn't it start to thump alarmingly when I first set eyes on on my dearly beloved? Didn't it race away when I turned and saw a vision of loveliness walking up the aisle to say "Yes" to be being with me for the rest of our earthly lives?
But it seems it wasn't always that way. For Hebrews and Greeks, the seat of the emotion was slightly further south than that. Whereas we might say: "I love you with all my heart", the proper rendering of Paul's declaration of love for the Philippian believers (1:8) is literally:
"For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ." (AV)
So rather than loving someone with all their hearts, they loved them with their icky plumbing. And that makes equal sense too. People who have fallen profoundly in love often describe it as being like a kick in the guts, or having a deep, visceral feeling of yearning to be with someone.
I doubt there will be many Valentine's Day cards sent and received today, or even heart-shaped balloons that are actually really heart shaped - we prefer a symmetrical, sanitised version of the heart for these kind of expressions of affection.
But it does make you wonder what a Hebrew or Greek Valentine's Day card might have looked like doesn't it!
Click the link - if you dare - to see a mock up of what Hosea, Samson, or Isaac might have sent to Gomer, Delilah or Rebekah.
It’s February 13th and all is not calm. Two heartfelt questions are looming large in minds around the globe:
Such questions involve pain. And the issues behind them should not be minimised. But I suspect the original Valentine would be quite surprised that his legacy induced such feelings. His life, or more accurately, his death, poses us a question far more profound than those associated with the temporary struggles of singleness and relationships.
We don’t know much about him but as an early Christian martyr, we can be sure his priorities had little to do with roses, cards or chocolate hearts and everything to do with unswerving faithfulness to Christ. His example leaves us with just one key question that probes deep into the affections of our hearts this Valentine’s Day Eve: Are we willing to give up anything and everything for Jesus?
