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August 31, 2014 4:07 pm

That you may believe

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by    in Bible,Evangelism

A traditional view of the Bible: Jesus performed miracles. They are proof of His power and divinity. The ultimate such proof is His resurrection. The apostles then performed miracles of their own. They are proof of their authority.

Now additionally to this, each miracle recorded in the Gospels has its own story, and each of them has its own, distinctive nugget of wisdom for us. Arguably, the variation between these nuggets is not about Christ or His divinity (which would be established from the very first miracle). Still, we would be wrong to consider the miracles in the Gospels as nothing more than an anthology on human condition.

The core of each miracle is the mystery of the Incarnation; and it is magnified by those words, used to describe the entirety of the miracles: “that you may believe“.

believe

Photo: Flickr user Al, reused under CC license

The traditional view, which I outlined at the start of this post, would be to say that what we are to believe is that Christ is, simply, God. Yet they also show Christ’s humanity. If your friend gets married and runs out of wine, wouldn’t you try and procure that wine for them? If you see a sick person and have it in your power to heal them, isn’t it the one thing you would want to do? And isn’t it the pinnacle of human condition to be overcome with grief or anger?

If all that the miracles were meant to prove was Christ’s divinity, well, then a few smitings would have done the trick. But this is not the only thing that they show. They show Christ displaying at the same time both divinity and humanity.

That we may believe then turns from a conversion power-trip to a statement of love. What we are to believe changes from factual information (that Christ is God) to deeply personal knowledge: that the divine meets the human in the person of Christ. And that is immensely beautiful.

This is the face our own evangelism should adorn. Not one that convinces others for the sake of “winning people over to Christ”. Not one that is simply grounded in the truth of the divinity of Christ; yet rather one that is grounded in the meeting place between  His divinity and humanity; and thereby in a love for all that knows no bounds and no fear. This love cannot be ours to hold on to or to merely dispense. Showing love in evangelism is not merely being nice and caring to others, for this is but a pale image of the love of God. No, the love we display in evangelism needs to see us be mere tools, channels of Christ’s love for others.

Once we realise this, evangelism will, I’m sure, look beautiful rather than dutiful to us.

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February 23, 2014 7:23 pm

11 ways the Bible is like the Tube

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by    in Bible,Lists

London Underground is a major part of British culture – so I was bound to write a silly analogy post at some point! As there are 11 lines, here are 11 ways in which the Bible is like the Tube.

tube

Photo: Elliott Brown, re-used under CC license

1. Some stations have better accessibility than others. Some have more stairs than others to struggle up and down – especially if you’re carrying luggage. But just because you struggled at one point does not mean you cannot take the Tube as a whole! And stations are slowly being made accessible – be on the lookout for study guides!

2. Some stations are less used, and less famous than others. Nearly everybody knows of Monument, far fewer will know of Roding Valley. This does not mean that Roding Valley is useless – or even that it is generally less useful than Monument. To the person who lives or works in the vicinity of Roding Valley, on the contrary, it will be the most useful station.

3. It is the cause for far more anger and resentment than it deserves (link contains rude language) – because we tend to forget the times it’s been useful every time that it seems to make us stumble.

4. It is deeply embedded in the culture of all, even those who do not use it – and in ways that promote self-sacrifice too.

5. Its users make up a very cosmopolitan, and extremely friendly community, which has its own codes and jokes, which might be lost on non-users.

6. There are interconnections. Many of them. So a map – or instructions – can be helpful to navigate it at first, but you soon get so used to it you don’t even look at the map.

7. Some lines are really, extremely short (I’m looking at you, Waterloo & City). Others are so long that people have argued they should be considered as separate lines.

8. You can try to move about in the real, above-ground world without using the Tube, but chances are you’ll get lost, especially in those parts you’re not too familiar to! So if you want to find yourself again, best seek a Tube station!

9. Equally, there is no point simply sticking to the Tube, or just going around in circles and leaving the network at the exact same station. Taking the Tube is supposed to move you from one point to another.

10. Individual stations have their own organisation and feel – some of them are even decorated according to a theme (for instance, Baker Street has Sherlock Holmes) – which does not detract from their overall unity, or from their belonging to a single structure.

11. There is some debate as to whether the Overground line should be considered part of the Underground network or not. Now, nobody tries to argue that the Overground is the same as the Underground; it’s just a question of whether they should stand side by side on underground maps or not.

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October 13, 2013 5:05 pm

A life lost for a life gained

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by    in Bible,Identity

Some passages in the Bible are downright obscure. Some others are understood readily enough, but stop making sense when you start poking them around. But generally, that poking around is worth it because those verses point to deeper truths relevant to larger swathes of our identity. In Luke 17, we find such a passage:

Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.

Luke 17:33 (NIV)

newlife

Photo: Pepsiline, under CC License

Once you’ve got your head around the apparent contradiction that keeping implies not keeping and conversely, it seems easy enough – especially in the context of the story of Lot: it is impossible to hold on to our earthly selves, we do not have the strength to do so ourselves, etc.

All this is true, but it only covers the first part of that verse. If we try to keep our life, we will lose it, probably by chasing after too many idols. But what about the second part?

Whoever  loses their life will preserve it.

The easy answer is to say that in dying to our old selves, we are new creations and gain eternal life. This spiritual death and rebirth, surely, is what Jesus is talking about. It is true that we are new creations, dead to our previous selves. But here, Jesus makes a bolder claim. He doesn’t say that “Whoever loses their life will have eternal life” or that “Whoever loses their life will gain a new life”, he says that the same life that we had will remain ours.

How can that be so? How can we be new creations and preserve our life? The  story told earlier in the chapter illustrates this. Jesus is at the border between Samaria and Galilee and sees ten lepers – that’s the only way in which they are described. Leprosy is uncleanness; sinfulness even. Then Jesus heals them, and only one of them comes back and we hear at that stage only that he was a Samaritan.

Rid of the uncleanness, rid of the sinfulness, the Samaritan’s true identity can live and breathe. The other ones who did not come back to thank Jesus are probably considered simply ex-lepers, seen as what they are not. Their identity is defined by their sin, albeit negatively.

Let us grasp this: the new creation that we become when we stop trying to grasp our identity is the continuity of our identity. Rid of the uncleanness, but still deeply and fundamentally us. The difference between Greek and Jew, or between any other identities we had before turning to Christ, is worth nothing because we are in Christ: we have lost our drive to grasp it; but those identities are still part of us. Only sin is gone.

This means that the new creations that we are should not discard or reject the old selves, because they are part of who we are. On the contrary, we should accept them as part of our identities, rejecting only the leprosy. Born again, yes, but the new  life is in the continuity of the old life.

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September 29, 2013 8:51 pm

When is a sermon not a sermon?

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by    in Bible,Leadership

“That wasn’t a sermon” – that’s a criticism I’ve heard about sermons a few times (including my own). We all have ideas about what a sermon should be. Why? What makes a sermon sermon-like?

The Oxford English Dictionary gives some ideas: it is, for our context, a talk on Christianity. In written form, it could then, be this blog. But this blog is not a collection of sermons – with the exception of two posts. Let’s read a bit further: it suggests sermons are long and tedious.

sermon

Image: Wikipedia (Public domain)

Maybe we shouldn’t complain, then, when we don’t hear a sermon. More seriously, though, there is one thing that makes a sermon a sermon: that it is given as part of  a church service. In other words, that it has the label “sermon” all over it (after all, podcasts of sermons are still sermons). So if you heard it at church, it is a sermon. The thing is, a church service is a full and well crafted (hopefully) set of parts, whose aim is worship and edification. A church service is not simply a sermon with some padding around it, nor is it some liturgy with a homily thrown in the middle: it is a dynamic set with a purpose. So a sermon should fit into that set and lead the audience (and the preacher!) to be imitators of Christ, rekindle in them a passion for God and open their hearts. If that’s missing, then it might as well be a secular talk!

Bible based?

That a sermon is not “Bible based” is the big argument of those who say “That is not a (good) sermon”. As if being Bible-based were the only hallmark of a good sermon! Matthew Henry’s commentary is Bible-based – very much so, indeed – but it’s not a sermon. Because it is looking at the Bible as an object to be studied, rather than as a source that  talks to us. Those last two word are important, because this is where we remember that a sermon takes place with an audience.

The most useful tip I’ve heard so far for sermon-writing is this: “Can you tell me in one sentence what you are trying to achieve with this sermon?” It’s not about what point we might be driving through the sermon, it is about recognising the transformative nature of a relationship with Christ and mediating that to the congregation, as best as we can.

Sometimes, that goes through close exegesis. Sometimes that goes through less Biblical sources – talking, say, about the Internet is hard to do when you’re Bible-bound. And so, as long as the aim remains firmly to get people’s hearts turned towards God, then I don’t think being Bible-based is a necessity for a sermon. In most cases, it helps. In some cases, it is even necessary because the sermon will be the only time in the week the congregation touches the Bible. Still, as a hard-and-fast rule, it detracts and leads to cherry-picking some verses to “make a sermon Bible-based”, when all the sermon does is drive a pre-determined point. And when that happens, well, it’s a bit of a scam.

So remember: a sermon takes place in a specific context. It is by that context that it can be judged – not independently of it. And sometimes, the surprise of a new type of sermon might do just what a sermon should do: refresh our love for God.

 

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February 24, 2013 9:12 pm

10 myths about the Bible

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by    in Bible,Lists

The Bible is, together with prayer, the way to learn about God and connect with Him. But its role is sometimes misunderstood. Here’s a short list of things I’ve heard about the Bible which quite frankly upset me – some because I think they don’t do justice to the Bible; others because I think they stop people from accessing it.

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1. The Bible is just a reference book. One that we might look at if we want to decide whether getting a tattoo is wrong, or to find out about the life of Christ. If that’s the only way in which the Bible were to be read – simply as an authority – then a rulebook might have served better. Talking of which: isn’t that the Old Covenant approach? The Bible is the living word of God. It inspires us, it teaches us, it moves us and, essentially, transforms us.

2. There’s only one way to read the Bible. Of course not! There’s many ways to read the Bible. I’m not talking here about literal vs figurative interpretation; nor about how to take the cultural context into account. These debates are important, yes – but better left to others; and taking sides in this debate, to me, feels like turning the Bible into just a reference book. What I’m talking about is ways to let the Bible transform you. And for that, there’s plenty of ways. Tease out the general meaning of a passage – its direction, its structure, its rhythm; when it’s a story, identify with different persons in turn (yes, including Jesus) and feel what they’re feeling; etc. etc.

3. The Bible is boring. If you really think that, you haven’t read the whole Bible. Seriously, there’s bits of 2 Chronicles which are far more gripping, even from a storytelling perspective alone, than Game of Thrones’s most gripping. And these bits aren’t an exception – most of the Bible is just as gripping.

4. The Bible is exciting throughout; this myth can be followed with: “and if you don’t agree, you’re missing the point of whatever you don’t find exciting.” I personally don’t find the whole Bible exciting. Sometimes, it’s a drag because it’s boring. Sometimes it’s a drag because it’s depressing. Seriously, though, if you manage to get the first ten chapters of 1 Chronicles to look as exciting as John 15, then (a) you really have a heart for genealogies and (b) please share that excitement with us in the comments. Yes, most, if not all the Bible, points to Christ and is exciting for that reason. But just like any other book, there are bits that are a drag to read.

5. Bible verses can be used as ammunition to shut down an argument. This myth is also known as “Cos the Bible says so”, a phrase which has become one of my pet hates. If the Bible is the living word, then let’s treat it as such. Imagine you have an argument about the theory of relativity, and somehow you have Einstein or Eddington at your disposal. Do you simply get them to come and stand behind you, or do you let them speak? The Bible, as the living word, opens up conversations – it does NOT shut them down.

6. Reading the Bible is an easy habit to take on. This is not true. Like I said before, it can be a drag. And if on top of that, you live in an environment that only considers the reference book aspects of the Bible, you lack the motivation to do so – after all, not many people just take up a textbook regularly. Being reminded that it is a book that transforms us is far, far better a motivation to read it! But there are ways to help: I personally find reading plans extremely helpful; but I also find that once I have the dynamic going, it’s a pleasure. And yes, sometimes I lose that dynamic and it’s a drag again to get back into it. I’ll admit – I’m currently about a week behind on my plan and it’s not the easiest to get back into the daily reading habit.

7. If you don’t have a reading plan, you’ll burn in hell. Also known as “read your Bible every day or perish”. Folks, don’t read the Bible out of a sense of ought-ness, that’ll get you nowhere. Get started out of a sense of ought-ness, maybe – because otherwise you might never start. But don’t let that be your sole motivation:

8. Only the KJV is valid for reproof, teaching etc. Yes, some people do believe that. I remember reading on a forum a while back someone claiming that Hallelujah was an English word that had been stolen by the Hebraic language. So, to clarify: the KJV is not the original text. It’s not even the earliest English-language version! Yes, I’m being flippant here; but have you ever looked down on others for the translation they use? Why would “KJV+NIV+ESV+NRSV” be the only valid set of translations?

9. Protestants know the Bible off by heart. We don’t. We know some verses, but definitely not all of them.

10. Catholics don’t read their Bible. Seriously, I’ve heard that a few times, and it annoys me to no end; so let’s make it clear: Catholics read their Bible just as much as Protestants do. And kudos to them for that – after all, they do have more to read ;-)

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