Bible reading programme (2)

Part 2 of our Bible reading programme at WCF, that will take us from April to the end of June, is now avaiable online here, if you're interested....

Church, but not as we know it....

Well, we're now into a week of readings in the book of Acts, giving us a snapshot of life in the early church. There is clearly a gap between the picture of church life presented in Acts and what most of us experience now. What I find fascinating is how different Christians define that gap.

For some, the gap is all about our experience of the supernatural, the work of the Holy Spirit. Linked to that (but not always), for others, the gap is all about evangelistic effectiveness and boldness in witness. Equally, for others it's all about the common life of the early church, their commitment to narrowing the gap between rich and poor. Or it's about their willingness to break out of their comfort zones and take the gospel cross-culturally.

The point is that we tend to read our own priorities back into the New Testament, here as in so many places. It seems to me that when we take the lenses of our own preferences off, it's about all these things and more besides. What we need more and more to learn to do is to let our reading of Scripture shape our preferences and not the other way round.

A dirty word...

Going through Mark's gospel in our Bible reading programme, one of the things that comes out from very early on is Jesus' authority; authority to teach, authority over sickness and the demonic, over the weather and the natural world, authority to call people to follow Him.

Even as you come into the final week of Jesus' life, whether in cleansing the Temple, or even in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is so often the one in charge, rebuking the one who struck off the ear of the High Priest's servant. Authority is a bit of a dirty word nowadays; it's there to be kicked against, rebelled against. And frankly, more often than not, my sympathies lie with the rebel, the one who stands up to authority rather than with those who exercise it. I guess it's what comes of having been born post-1960!

The thing about Jesus' authority is that it is authority of relationship, not of status as such. And it comes out of His submission - to His Father's will in Gethsemane, and to His understanding of the Scriptures (see eg Mark 14:49). The fact is, we all desire to have more authority; maybe not status as such, but the ability to take control of our circumstances, for instance. The irony seems to be that authority of that kind comes out of submitting to a higher authority - the highest authority, God's. To reign you have to submit, to gain control you have to let go.

Inside out: the challenge....

Well, we're now in Mark's gospel in our Bible reading programme. And there's nothing like a good healthy dose of Jesus' teaching to set us right in our views of human beings and how they work....and of ourselves and how we work. In fact in yesterday's readings in Mark 6:34, Jesus teaches us this stuff as an outworking of his compassion for us. However uncomfortable some of it is, we need to hear it.

And some of it is uncomfortable. Today's passage in Mark 7:1-23, while at first sight seeming to be simply about ancient Jewish regulations, in fact strikes at the heart of our favourite contemporary excuses for ourselves. How we act, Jesus says, is very simply a product of who we are inside...there's no use blaming external circustances, what has happened to us, social influences etc. No doubt these all shape us in a variety of ways. But when all is said and done, it's not what goes into us that makes us 'unclean' but what comes out from us. Ouch!

Profiting from the prophets

Well this week in our Bible reading programme, we've been with Isaiah. And it's been interesting getting feedback, and realising that some people struggle sometimes with reading the prophets, while others seem to love it. There are all sorts of reasons for that, and all sorts of pitfalls when reading the Old Testament prophetic literature. (Eg, what should apply to us now, what applied to God's people in specific historic circumstances, does some of it apply to modern day Israel?). And there's no doubt that lengthy denunciations of sin can seem hard to digest after a while - though perhaps for precisely that reason we should let them do us good.

For me, the key to profiting from the prophets is to recognise that so much of their writing takes the form of poetry; and poetry is heart language. What we see above all in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Habbakuk, Hosea and their fellow prophets is God's heart. Often it is God's breaking heart because of the sin of His people. but even when there is apparent punishment being declared, the purpose so often is to cause the people of God to rediscover Him again, to turn from idolatry, immorality and injustice and rely on God again, to love Him in response to His love. The prophetic books are in many ways love letters - often sadly the letters of a lover who has been jilted - from God to His people, expressions of His heart. And as such they address us in a deep way, even when our external circumstances are vastly different to those of the original hearers and readers.

Fighting talk

Well, now we're on to the life of David in our Bible reading programme. And it's a bit of a whistle stop tour. But one of the interesting things about David is that he has a clear promise of what God is going to do, from when Samuel anoints him as King; but getting there is long, drawn out, dangerous and at times looks highly unlikely.

And when you come to 2 Samuel 5 it still takes 7 years for the full promise to be realised. And David has to fight for it. Last week, as Moses and the people of Israel came out of Egypt they were told, "The LORD will fight for you, you need only to be still" (Exodus 14:14). Now David has to take the initiative and fight himself to see what God has promised come to pass. Conclusion: you can't read one bit of the Bible and draw a "simple" principle from it that will apply in every situation. Conclusion (2): God deals with us as individuals and expects us to work through with Him how to handle the specifics of the situations we face. In other words, we mustn't treat the Bible as if it's a book of off-the-shelf answers for all situations. God's Word is far more bespoke and made to measure....more costly to us, perhaps, and requiring more patience, but vastly more precious too.

Eyes wide open?

What do Moses and Abraham have in common? That's not the opening to a slightly obscure, embarrassing attempt at a joke (honest); rather a quick reflection on what's come out of the readings on the lives of these two Old Testament giants. In both cases - for Abraham in Genesis 18 (with the three visitors), and Moses in Exodus 3 (with the burning bush) - it would have been easy for them to have been so absorbed in what they were doing, in their priorities, that they missed God seeking to get their attention. Fortunately, hospitality in one case and curiosity in the other, meant that God did get their attention.

But when we're in our daily/weekly routine, I wonder if there's much time and space for hospitality or curiosity sometimes. And I wonder what we miss because of that. At our Biblefresh group this week I was amazed that 4 out of 11 people present could testify to having heard the audible voice of God at some point in their lives. Even so, that's far from the norm. Maybe we just need to keep our eyes peeled (grim phrase, I've always thought) a bit more for the ways that God is trying to get our attention. At least I do.

Last thoughts on Abraham

Well, just as we've moved on to Moses in our Bible readings, some final reflections on Abraham.

I was struck by Aeon's comment yesterday (you can listen here) about how Abraham invariably pitched his tents under trees (eg Genesis 12:6, 13:18), and that the shade of trees was considered a holy place where you could meet with God. And then of course, there is the observation that wherever he goes Abraham builds an altar (eg Genesis 12:7)....

Taking these two together I think gives an insight into what sustained Abraham, as he journeyed around, not sure where he was going to end up, and trying to hold on to promises from God that must have seemed more and more unrealistic as time went on. Basically, in the middle of all that, he put himself in places where he would be likely to meet with God. Surely, that speaks to us - in an often hostile environment, where we too struggle at times to hold on to God, we need to be those who deliberately put ourselves in places where we are likely to meet with God; in personal prayer, worship and Bible reading, and in corporate worship and around the communion table. Not exactly rocket science, maybe. But true all the same.

How to read the Bible for all it's worth....?

I came across this quote from C.H. Spurgeon, one of the figures from Church history I can't help but admire. It certainly challenges the way I read the Bible:

He [Christ] leans over me, he puts his finger along the lines, I can see his pierced hand: I will read it as in his presence. I will read it, knowing that he is the substance of it, - that he is the proof of this book as well as the writer of it; the sum of this Scripture as well as the author of it.....You will get at the soul of Scripture when you can keep Jesus with you while you are reading.

Questions, questions

I continue to be encouraged by the number of people who are taking copies of the Bible reading programme that we are following at WCF. And by what I'm hearing from people who are obviously using it to read their Bibles, and then asking me all kinds of questions on the back of it. (While I'm here, I'll just mention in passing that there are all kinds of other Bible related initiatives at the moment, and give a plug for an old friend of mine who has just started a blog as he reads through the Bible in chronological order this year. You can find it here.)

One of the things that strikes me, especially as we're going through Genesis is that lots of people are faced with all kinds of questions in what they read. Now, you'll probably know that I'm all for asking questions, and not just taking things at face value. But sometimes it seems to me that the questions can also become distractions, red herrings. Things that will actually create distance between God's Word and us, so that we can't hear what it says to us. So, how do we handle this? This is by no means the final word on this - any suggestions you've got, please leave as a comment - but here are a few guidelines that might help with this:

• What is the main point of these verses I've read? Do I need to know the answer to this question before I can take that on board?
• Does the question relate to some aspect of what we can believe about God, or how we live the Christian life - or is it a question of detail, of history?
• Am I trying to read this as if it were a modern day newspaper rather than an ancient, human document - that in ways we'll never fully grasp is also the always relevant word of God?
• How can I get nearer to an answer...who can I ask, what resources can I access? Surely it's better to do a little research rather than remain stuck on something. In particular, try & find out how Christians through the ages have answered the question. Let's face it after 2000 years it's unlikely that we'll be the first ones to ask something.
• Above all, and I know this might sound simplistic, but why not talk it over with the Lord. If you get stuck on something it could even be that you're meant to take a bit more time over it, thinking and praying because God wants to speak to you through it.

I guess to sum it up - where possible, let your questions be springboards to relationship with God, rather than barriers. Of course, that's not always easy; but that's why we're encouraging small groups to discuss these readings together. Any thoughts?

Start at the Beginning

Well, here's the first post connected to our Bible reading programme...if you're following it, you'll know that we've started with the early chapters of Genesis. So often these passages become footballs of controversy, kicked around by Christians who seem to have lost sight of the fact that they are playing for the same side, and that most of the goals that they celebrate scoring are in fact in their own net. It seems to me that these opening sections of the whole Bible are hugely significant, not so much for the insights they do or don't give into how we got here, but for what they tell us about God, and why He put us here; and why things are the mess they sometimes seem to be.

That's why the focus in Sunday's message (you can listen to it here if you missed it) was on what God wants to say to us at the start of 2011, rather than on a prolonged discussion of creation and evolution. If all Scripture is God-breathed and "useful...for training in righteousness", then we need to be trained by these verses, not simply informed by them. And I pray that will be true for all the rest of the portions of Scripture we look at too.