The evangelist, the charlatan, and the convert (3)

Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is rightly called the Great Power of God.” They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his sorcery. But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw. Acts 8:9-13

Every now and then you come across people who have got drawn into a cult or sect, usually - in Britain at any rate - the Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons. But sometimes it’s rather more exotic, probably something you read about rather than experience directly.

Just a few days ago in the Times newspaper I read about a decidedly suspect guru in India who has grown a massive following, including what almost seems like a harem of female disciples. “Oh well, you don’t get that sort of thing in Britain”, I thought – only then to read about something rather similar… in, if I remember, Coventry. This one had grown out of a Christian church.

The fact is that strange religious movements are rife throughout the world, though most of them probably don’t hit the headlines.

This shouldn’t surprise us, for both the Bible and Christian history are full of it, and full of warnings against it. And here in Acts 8 we come across a perfect example in the person of “Simon the Magician”, or Simon Magus as he is often known. Verses 9-24 describe quite an exciting episode.

Three questions can help us to get to know him a little…

1.   Who was Simon?

Luke tells us that he was the local religious celebrity. He “had practised sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria” (verse 9). It seems he really did have some kind of supernatural powers – in this he reminds me of the Egyptian sorcerers who were able to replicate what Moses did by the power of God (Exodus 7:8-13).

This reminds us that such gurus and cult-leaders are to be taken seriously: the things they do may be real, though by demonic rather than God-given powers.

But as well as these powers, Simon also made great claims for himself – so much so that “the people… exclaimed ‘This man is rightly called the Great Power of God’” (verse10). There’s no way of knowing exactly what that meant, but it certainly seems as if Simon saw himself as some kind of divine presence on earth. And (this is the point) the Samaritan people lapped it up.

The lesson? There is no limit to people’s gullibility. Never be surprised at how easily they can be taken in!

2.   What did Simon get right?

Answer: he accepted the message preached by Philip: “Simon himself believed and was baptised…” (verse 13).

There’s no reason to doubt the sincerity of Simon’s faith. Later events make clear how shallow and untaught it was; he seems to have been dazzled by the miraculous deeds Philip did more than changed by the message Philip preached. But given that all this was fresh and new, he can hardly be blamed for that.

The lesson? The moment of anyone’s “conversion” is of course very important. But it’s only the starting-point. It needs to be followed up by careful teaching and pastoral oversight. Jesus, after all, told his followers to “Go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19) – not just converts.

3.   What did Simon get wrong?

This sad part of the story is told in verses 18-24.

The apostles back in Jerusalem heard about the events in Samaria and decided to send Peter and John to find out exactly what was going on. (It’s rather beautiful, by the way, that the same John who had earlier wanted to “call down fire from heaven to destroy” a Samaritan village (Luke 9:54) is now shown calling down… the Holy Spirit!)

For reasons it’s not easy to understand, Peter and John saw that though big crowds of people believed in Philip’s message, the Holy Spirit had not been given to them, as on the Day of Pentecost. So they “placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit” (verse 17). (Presumably this was confirmed by the gift of speaking in tongues.)

This is where Simon went badly wrong. When he saw the power that Peter and John exercised through the laying on of their hands, he “offered them money” to be given the same power.

It’s as if he is saying, “Look we belong to the same profession, we three; we’re in the magic business, aren’t we? Now, I’m pretty well off financially. So how much would you want to give me this particular trick?” (verses 18-19).

To which Peter replies (translating verse 20 fairly loosely) “To hell with you and your money!”. And in verses 20-23 he gives him a ferocious telling off. Though he has only just been baptised, he informs him that he is still “full of bitterness and captive to sin”.

In verse 24 Simon gives the impression of being truly sorry – or was he just scared out of his wits? We aren’t told what happened. But the warning is pretty clear. The love of God is all about grace, which means it’s completely free to those who ask. Once the preaching of the Christian faith gets mixed up with money and even becomes a means of getting rich, beware!

We don’t know what became of Simon Magus, though all sorts of stories sprang up in the first few centuries of the church. But he has the doubtful privilege of giving his name to a sin which has often blighted the church: “simony” is defined as “the act of selling church offices and roles or sacred things”.

Corruption; rottenness!

Mind you, given the way the story is left hanging, I wouldn’t abandon hope of meeting Simon Magus in heaven, would you?

Father, we recognise how easily corruption can take root even in your church and even among genuine believers in Jesus. Help us to be completely pure when it comes to matters of money, power, popularity and influence. Amen.

The evangelist, the charlatan, and the convert (2)

Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there. When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said. For with shrieks, impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was great joy in that city. Acts 8:4-8

So… what do we know about Philip, the man at the heart of this remarkable revival in Samaria?

We saw last time that this isn’t the Philip who’s one of the twelve apostles, but the Philip chosen by the early church as one of the seven “deacons” (Acts 6:1-6). Taking Acts 8 as a whole there’s a lot we can learn from him – and a lot to admire…

First, he is a man of several parts.

Those verses in Acts 6 tell us that he and his colleagues were chosen “to wait on tables” (verse 2) - which probably covers various jobs to do with practical matters, administration and money - leaving “the Twelve” to concentrate on “the ministry of the word of God”. The apostles had their priorities right.

Yet here in chapter 8 we find him preaching the gospel and leading a dramatic spiritual revival. (And where we meet him again in chapter 21 he is described as “Philip the evangelist, one of the Seven”.)

The point being that whatever else he was, he was far more than simply a “waiter on tables” (wishing no respect here to waiters!).

In some churches a division is made between the “spiritual” leaders (perhaps called “elders”?) and the “practical” leaders (“deacons”?), with the implication that the nuts and bolts people don’t have to be as “spiritual” as the eldership. But Philip (and Stephen, come to that) make it clear that this is wrong.

The basic principle is simple: anyone shouldering responsibility in church life should be of the highest spiritual character: to borrow the words of Acts 6:3, “full of the Spirit and wisdom”.

So… No two-tier leadership!

Second, he is open to God’s leading.

In chapter 8 Philip does quite a bit of moving around. In verse 5 he moves from Jerusalem to Samaria. In verse 26 he is told by an angel to leave Samaria and head for “the desert road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza”. In verse 29 he is told by the Spirit to “go to that chariot and stay near it”. And in verse 40 he “appears at Azotus” and preaches the gospel “in all the towns until he until he reaches Caesarea”.

You can look at a Bible dictionary if you want to find out where those places are. But the point is this: if God said go, Philip went. The original journey to Samaria seems to have been dictated by circumstances – the scattering after Stephen’s death – but then it’s “an angel” who directs him (why did God choose to use an angel, we wonder?), then “the Spirit” (verse 29), and, to finish off, some unspecified but possibly miraculous mode of transport (verse 39).

Most Christians find that being sure of God’s guidance can be difficult (the occasional angel would come in handy!). But still, our Father God is a God who guides and directs his people. Our business is to follow his direction, even in the rather more routine circumstances of our lives.

Do we, like Philip, have the spiritual antennae to pick up, through prayer or conversation – or simply through circumstances – what he wants us to do?

This is the secret of a useful and satisfying life – to pray simply “Father, what do you want me to do and where do you want me to go?” and then to respond accordingly. It may be to go to some distant part of the world. Or to pop across the road to see a neighbour. But remaining fairly and squarely within the will of God is key.

So… Walk with God day by day!

Third, he knew his Bible.

Philip “proclaimed the Messiah” in Samaria (verse 5). And then, in a complete change of gear, he explained the scriptures one-to-one to the Ethiopian (verse 35). He didn’t, of course, have the whole Bible, as we do. But it’s clear that he was knowledgeable enough to convince both large crowds and an audience of one.

God doesn’t expect us all to be theologians or preachers. But being useful to him does require a working knowledge of the Bible. And there is no short cut to that: it requires patient, careful, disciplined reading day by day.

So… Is that part of the pattern of our lives?

Fourth, God gifted him with spiritual power.

Let’s leave Philip where we first met him, in Samaria (verses 4-8). Luke tells us about “the signs he performed” as well as the gospel he preached. There were dramatic healings and alarming exorcisms – all sufficient to set a whole city on fire.

We probably don’t expect that kind of result when the gospel is preached in our day – and, let’s be honest, we possibly wouldn’t entirely welcome it if it happened! But often we settle for something far less: a bland and innocuous teaching of God’s word, accompanied by a vague prayer that God will use it. (I’m very much speaking to myself here.)

Have we lost any expectation of the power of the Holy Spirit to work among us? True, we can’t have the Spirit to order. But we can pray and prepare in such a way as to make his coming possible. This is one of the greatest needs of the modern church. Power!

Jesus’ earthly ministry was accompanied by great displays of power. So were the events of the day of Pentecost. So were the Philip-led events in those remarkable days in Samaria.

So… Why not now? Why not where you and I live?

Thank you, Father, for your servant Philip the evangelist and the unknown numbers of Christians who, like him, have served you faithfully both in the glare of publicity and in personal relationships. Help me to be like him. Amen.

the evangelist, the charlatan, and the convert (1)

Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there. When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said. For with shrieks, impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was great joy in that city. Acts 8:4-8

God can bring good things out of bad.

That’s a great truth that many generations of Christians have proved in their own experience: sickness, unemployment, persecution, poverty, failure, bereavement, you name them – however distressing and painful they may be at the time, God can and does bring great good out of them.

The tragic death of Stephen (Acts 7) is a good example. Probably still a relatively young man, no doubt with a wife and children, he is stoned to death for a message he preached to the Jewish council shortly after the day of Pentecost. Luke tells us that “godly men buried him and mourned deeply for him” (Acts 8:2). They were unashamed of their grief.

To make matters worse, fear that the same thing might happen to them drove many of the early Jesus-followers to flee Jerusalem and look for safety elsewhere. With the result… well, look at the verses above. A Pentecost-like revival broke out in Samaria and “there was great joy in that city”.

At the heart of the spiritual revival in Samaria was Philip. This wasn’t the Philip who was one of Jesus’ original twelve. No: he was one of the seven men (Stephen was another) chosen by the church to serve as “deacons” (that’s the title they have often been given in church history) according to Act 6:1-7. We don’t read anything more about him in the New Testament, though he pops up again in Acts 21:8 as “Philip the evangelist”.

Philip is the central actor in the drama of Acts 8, and he is well worth focussing on. The other main characters are Simon Magus (verses 9-24) – a “sorcerer” or magician; we might call him a charlatan – and the Ethiopian eunuch (verses 26-40). I want to devote the next three blogs to each of these men in turn, under the general heading “The evangelist, the charlatan and the convert”.

But first, today, a comment on the main theme of chapter 8: that is, evangelism.

Evangelism, of course, basically means bringing people to faith in Christ. It’s what Jesus told his disciples to do after he ascended into heaven: “Go and make disciples” (Matthew 28:16-20). What is particularly interesting about Acts 8 is that it shows us two completely different types of evangelism.

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Verses 4-25 are all about what today might be called “mass evangelism”, the preaching of the gospel to crowds of people. Looking back over church history perhaps the most famous examples are John Wesley and George Whitfield in the eighteenth century, and Billy Graham in the twentieth.

This type of evangelism goes right back to John the Baptist and Jesus, of course. The Gospels make it clear that often when Jesus preached in even quite remote places, enormous numbers of people flocked to hear him. With him it was all unplanned and spontaneous, whereas today, in the western world at least, it is far more likely to be well-organised.

But whatever, the basic intention is that many people should hear the gospel at the same time, and the aim and expectation is that some at least will become followers of Jesus.

That certainly happened in Samaria! “When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs that he did, they all paid close attention to him” (verse 6). As in the ministry of Jesus, remarkable miracles accompanied the preaching of God’s word.

This is not something we often see in the western world today; but there are reports of it from Africa, Latin America and elsewhere. It is open to criticism sometimes for being over-emotional and even manipulative of impressionable people. And yes, no doubt there are times when criticism is due – especially when the evangelists involved seem overly concerned with getting people to part with their money.

But we shouldn’t be too cynical or sceptical. Personally, I would welcome a modern-day Philip, wouldn’t you? Why not? – as long as the people involved were humble, truly called, and gifted by God, and everything was soaked in the Holy Spirit.

Is this something we should be more keen to pray for?

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But this must never displace the second type of evangelism we find in Acts 8: personal evangelism. Here, again, Philip is the person to focus on.

We can picture him revelling in the success of his ministry in Samaria; every new day must have brought new challenges and excitement. And then, remarkably, this: “An angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Go south to the road – the desert road – that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza’. So he started out…” (verses 26-27).

What strange things God sometimes does! Why pluck Philip out of his breath-taking ministry and send him into the desert! Answer, because he wanted him to meet just one single individual.

But we’ll come back to that next time…

For now, let’s simply mull over the question: Evangelism, of whatever kind… do I take it seriously?

Lord Jesus, you are the greatest good news this world has ever received. Please help me not to keep you to myself! Help me to be an evangelist! Amen.

Thank you, Robin Hood

Everyone must die once… Hebrews 9:27 (Good News Bible)

I had a very welcome letter the other day from Robin Hood. (In case you don’t know, Robin Hood is the name of the company that runs the buses in Nottingham, where we live; forget that chap with the bows and arrows.) They had sent me my right to continuing “free concessionary travel” – otherwise known as my new bus pass. There was my name, my mugshot – and then the information: Expiry date:13 June 2027.

Ah. When I read that part I couldn’t help muttering under my breath “that’s assuming I don’t ‘expire’ first!”. On the 13 June 2027 – assuming I make it that far – I’ll be eighty. And we mustn’t take anything for granted, must we?

All of us know from early years that (unless we belong to the last generation before Christ’s return) we are going to die. We live with that knowledge and, for most of our lives, probably just try to push it to the back of our minds. And then, as when I opened that letter, and courtesy of Robin Hood, we get a sharp reminder…

Well, we had a bit of a laugh, my wife and I. And why not? At the heart of the Christian faith lies the truth of Christ crucified and risen from the dead. Jesus really died, and really rose again.

The Bible contains many passages which are non-literal – they are truths presented in metaphors or other figures of speech. But this isn’t one of them. The four Gospel-writers, all telling the same factual story, meant that story to be taken as sober history. This actually happened! This man Jesus overcame death! And the promise is that his victory is given to anyone who puts their trust in him. Which means, among other things: just as he rose, so will we.

Paul spells it out as clearly as you could want: “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:5). (Note that “if”, of course.)

You might say “Well, it’s all very well for a couple in their retirement to treat death light-heartedly, but what about those who ‘go before their time’?”, and you’d be perfectly entitled to do so, with a frown on your face.

I don’t mean to make light of it – it’s just the way it was when that letter arrived. Of course, we all shrink from death. And the same Bible that triumphantly declares the miracle of the resurrection also calls death “the last enemy” – the last enemy, it’s true: but still an enemy.

God has treated my wife and me (she’s a few years behind me, by the way) with great – and, of course, completely undeserved – gentleness. We enjoy retirement: reasonably comfortably off; reasonable health (though experiencing ever greater creakiness); children grown up and launched upon the world; grandchildren who bring us great joy.

And we are very well aware that it just isn’t like that for everyone, Christian or not. Our hearts sink every time we hear of someone twenty, thirty or forty years younger than us being taken, or even just threatened, by death. No; it’s no joking matter.

I have known Christians who refuse to recognise the sheer sadness of “early” deaths. Instead of looking it fair and square in the face they rejoice in a way that comes across as forced and artificial. I always want to point them to Acts 7, the story of the stoning of Stephen, the first Jesus-follower (there were no “Christians” at that time) to die after Pentecost.

Of course, we don’t know anything about Stephen’s age: he might have been well on in years. But somehow the impression we get is of a vigorous man still in the prime of life. Did he have a wife, children? Very likely.

Whatever, I am always grateful for what Luke tells us in Acts 8:2: “Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him”. I don’t think those godly men would have had the slightest doubt that Stephen had gone to share in Christ’s resurrection. But that didn’t stop them from giving vent to great grief.

Sadness and sorrow are part of our lot in life. Job 5:7 tells us that “man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upwards”, where that image of sparks flying off the fire, or perhaps off the anvil, graphically conveys the inevitability of trouble, pain and tears.

But then at the end of the Bible John has his extraordinary vision of what is to come: “God will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain…” (Revelation 21:4). The tears are real, and they may be bitter; but God has a tissue big enough for them all.

Thanks be to God for his lordship over death!

Dear Father, Thank you that because of Jesus we can look death fairly and squarely in the face. May that great truth both bring us comfort, and also prompt us to live to the full all the days you give us on this earth. Amen.

The power of faith

 

Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honour except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith. Mark 6:4-6

He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him: “Lord, don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, “I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.” Luke 7:6-9

Did you know that there are just two occasions in the Gospels where Jesus is said to be “amazed” or to “marvel”? You didn’t? Well, neither did I until the other day as I happened to be reading a commentary.

You might say, So what?

Well, it’s fascinating to notice what it is in particular that caused him to be amazed…

In Mark 6:4-6 he is preaching to his own townspeople, that is to fellow-Jews – only to find that “they took offence at him” (verse 3). And so Mark tells us that “he was amazed at their lack of faith”. His amazement took the form of dismay and disappointment.

And then in Luke 7:1-10 he has an encounter with a soldier, a centurion serving in the Roman army. This man is desperately concerned for a sick servant, and not only is he humble enough to plead with Jesus for healing but he also has a simple, almost childlike faith that Jesus can do it. Whereupon Luke tells us that Jesus “was amazed at him… ‘I tell you… I have not found such great faith even in Israel’”. This is amazement in the form of delight.

Very different. But in both cases it’s all about faith. In one, he is amazed not to find it where he thinks he should, among his fellow-Jews; in the other he is amazed to find it where he obviously doesn’t expect it, among the gentiles, in a pagan soldier.

The centurion is worth focussing on. In fact, in the Gospels and Acts centurions in general are worth focussing on. The other famous example is Cornelius, whose story we read in Acts 10. Yes, another Roman soldier, but “he and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need, and prayed to God regularly” (Acts 10:2).

If you were a Jew in Capernaum that day described in Luke 7 and saw the centurion walking down the street in his uniform and hob-nailed sandals, with his sword strapped on, your reaction would probably be one of hatred and fear. He was one of the occupying force, noted for their brutality and cruelty.

But if you were a local resident you may have seen him differently, for it seems he had been based in Capernaum for some time and was noted for his friendliness towards the people he had to control. It was said of him (verse 5) that “he loves our nation” and had even “built our synagogue” (how surprising is that!). It seems he was a rich man, even to the extent of financing a major building operation for the Jewish population.

The more you read Luke’s account of this incident, the more impressive this man appears. He is compassionate, loving the servant who is sick and dying. He is humble, prepared to approach the wandering preacher Jesus and to plead with him. Above all, he had the kind of faith which took Jesus’ breath away.

A simple point emerges: we never know what is going on in the heart of another person. Appearances can be very deceptive.

There’s no reason to think that things are any different today. There may be somebody in your circle – a neighbour, perhaps, or a work colleague – whom you have never remotely suspected of being a Christian. Indeed, they may not be a “Christian” at all, in the sense of having a declared faith in Jesus. But who knows what goes on in the depths of their soul? Who knows if indeed they pray with greater faith and humility than… you or me?

We tend to divide people into two clear-cut categories, the “saved” and the “unsaved”. And Jesus indeed gives some encouragement for this in several of his parables (for example the sheep and the goats). But let’s never forget that God alone knows which category each person fits into.

The Gospels never encourage us to speculate on another person’s status before God. And the New Testament as a whole suggests that we should be very careful before making up our minds about someone else’s eternal destiny. No: our job is simply to love and care and to present Christ as best we can.

Of the unnamed centurion the astounded Jesus declared “I have not found such great faith even in Israel”. In other words, “In the very place where I ought to be able to expect faith, I don’t find it. But in the very place where I don’t expect faith, there it is, leaving me shaking my head in amazement”.

Could it be that there is some person in your life, as yet unconverted, of whom Jesus might say “I see more faith in him/her than in those people turning up regularly at that church down the road?”

Remember, the New Testament tells us that we are “justified by faith”, something the centurion had in spades, not that we are justified by believing in justification by faith. Get the difference?

Lord God, you alone know the heart of every man and woman on this earth. Please help me not to jump to conclusions, but to leave judgment to you - and not be surprised if you spring some surprises! Amen.

Little people in a big world

When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!” Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” Jesus said, “Have the people sit down”… John 6:5-10

If you surveyed a group of Christians to find out their favourite Bible stories I suspect the boy with the loaves and fishes would be well up there.

There’s a simplicity about the story which gives it a charm. The central figure is a child whose name we are not told: he could be anybody. So he could even be you or me.

Somehow he has spotted that the disciples have a problem: how are they to feed a big crowd in a remote place? Presumably he comes forward with the rather touching offer of his packed lunch. Whereupon…  the whole crowd is fed, with plenty left over.

The boy is a nobody; his offering is next-to-nothing; but Jesus takes it, prays over it - and turns it into a miracle.

Most of us, like that boy, are very little people in a very big world. We might once have had dreams of achieving something really significant in the world’s eyes, but that only happens to a tiny minority. We have to settle for sheer, down-to-earth ordinariness. Yet in God’s eyes there is no such thing as an ordinary person.

This has been brought home to my wife and me especially recently. For one thing, we are retired, after having both had busy full-time jobs. But we have kept ourselves active, determined to make some kind of contribution in our little world. And that has seemed fine for several years now.

But just last week we both tested positive with covid. Nothing too serious, fortunately, just like a nasty cold. But of course it meant that life became even more shrunk as we tucked ourselves away. And we have found ourselves feeling – well, actually, a bit bored! After all, there’s only so many books you can read, or chess games you can play, or tv programmes you can watch, or jobs you can find to do – or even, dare I say it, praying you can do. To come to this at this stage of our lives is a bit of a shock.

Don’t worry, I’m not looking for sympathy, certainly not. We’re only too aware how fortunate we are in the overall scheme of things. Life remains good! And no doubt it’s a good thing to swallow a healthy dose of humility in the form of a reminder of our own insignificance.

The lesson God seems to have been teaching us is the very basic one that he loves to use insignificant people to carry out his purposes. Think of Mary, the Palestinian peasant-girl. Think of David, last in a line of big strapping brothers.

The other morning we were reading in 1 Corinthians 1:26-29. What great words these are! I invite you to soak them up…

Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. 

When God chooses, he knows what he is doing.

And today it was the boy with the loaves and fishes.

The lesson seems very simple: when you really can’t do much, well, don’t go agonising about it, just get on and do what very little you can do. My wife is particularly strong when it comes to making contact by various means. And I dare to hope that my little blogs might be of encouragement to somebody, even if I never meet them.

Little people in a big world: that’s most of us. But by the grace and power of God we can in fact be big people in our own little worlds. Whatever you’re doing today, can I encourage you to think “I can achieve something today! I can make a difference to someone today! It may be forgotten tomorrow; but it will be remembered on the Last Day”.

I wonder what the boy in the story told his mother when he got home on that memorable day?...

“You know the pack-up you gave me this morning?” “Yes, of course”. “Well, I gave it away”. “You gave it away!” “Yes: you see, Jesus seemed to need it”. “What! Was he hungry?” “No, but he did something very wonderful with it…” “Tell me about it!”

Let’s leave mother and son together – mother looking at her son in wonder as she digests what has happened that day. I wonder what became of them, little people, yes; but with a big place in God’s world…

O use me, Lord, use even me,/ Just as Thou wilt, and when, and where,/ Until Thy blessed face I see,/ Thy rest, Thy joy, Thy glory share. Amen. F R Havergal (1836-1879)

Living word - or dead letter?

Look, says the teacher, this is what I have discovered: Adding one thing to another to discover the scheme of things – while I was still searching but not finding – I found one upright man among a thousand, but not one upright woman among them all. Ecclesiastes 7:27-28

Imagine a non-Christian friend – a woman – taking you to task over Ecclesiastes 7:27-28.

You have been encouraging her to read the Bible because it is, you tell her, “the word of God”, and she does precisely that. But you are a little taken aback by the heat of her response: “That’s downright sexism! How do you expect a modern woman – or man, come to that – to react to that sort of ignorant prejudice!”

How do you respond? How should you respond?

Tradition traces the Book of Ecclesiastes back to King Solomon, but it’s unlikely that he personally wrote it. And even if he did, his own personal marital record (a little matter of seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines: 1 Kings 11:3) doesn’t exactly inspire your confidence in his opinion of women.

Whatever, however shocked you may be as a Christian by your friend’s reaction, it’s hard to deny that she has a point, to put it mildly…

I’m not in fact wanting to write about one particular awkward verse in the Bible (I’ve just picked one out of many that I could have chosen), and certainly not wanting to suggest a glib answer to your friend’s question. No: but her response raises a far bigger question: What kind of book exactly is the Bible? When we speak of it – as I’m sure we should – as “the word of God”, what does that mean in practice?

Of course it isn’t strictly “a book” at all: it’s a collection of books, sixty-six of them, written and gathered together over the course of several centuries. (And some of the individual “books” amount to just a single page, if that.)

These ancient documents were written in different languages: the Old Testament almost entirely in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek. Which means that if we want to gain as full an understanding as possible we need people who are experts in these languages. We rely on them to make sure that translations are accurate and that commentaries and other explanatory material are correct.

So, though of course there are passages whose meanings are pretty straightforward, the Bible as a whole isn’t a book anyone can just pick up and read and immediately understand.

More to the point, the Bible isn’t some kind of God-given compendium or encyclopaedia which enables us to read off God’s truth on any particular topic if only we know where to look. That would be to treat it like magic – and that is, one suspects, exactly how many Christians do treat it.

Going back to Ecclesiastes 7 to see if you can pacify your friend, you could of course point out that the writer explicitly states that he made his very negative observation about women at a time “while I was still searching but not finding”. Well, we can certainly agree with him there! (And his assessment of his fellow-men isn’t a lot more positive, is it? – one in a thousand is hardly impressive!)

You could also point out that in 9:9 he recommends “enjoying life with your wife, whom you love”, which suggests a far less cynical attitude towards women than the verse we’re thinking about. And what about Proverbs 31? – had the “Solomon” who wrote Ecclesiastes ever read this description of a truly “upright” woman?

A basic principle of Bible interpretation emerges from these thoughts: we must never pluck a single verse out of its context and build upon it some abiding truth which applies in every situation: to turn it, in effect, into “doctrine”. To do so is to misuse scripture and to lead ourselves into error. (While we’re in Ecclesiastes, why not take a look at 9:8? I met a man once who felt this was indeed a divine command for all time; well, it certainly made him stand out of the crowd on a Sunday morning…)

In a word: The books of the Bible need to be understood according to their kinds, having respect for their individual human voices.

Certainly, there are passages of teaching, especially in the New Testament letters, which essentially address the mind and are the raw material of doctrine.

But there’s a whole lot more besides… prophecy, sometimes angry, sometimes comforting, sometimes puzzling; narrative, whether in the history books of the Old Testament, or the Gospels and Acts of the New; prayers, as in the Psalms; visions and revelations, as in Ezekiel, Daniel or Revelation; strange stories, as in Job; strange poems, as in Song of Songs.

And, coming back to where we started, there’s also wisdom, as in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. These are books of reflection and observation, their individual verses intended as thought-provokers or discussion-starters, not to be nailed down as eternal truths. To point this out to your angry friend is surely the best response. (Dare I suggest that Ecclesiastes 7:28 could even be a typically corny male joke?)

Let scripture be scripture! Let’s read it in all its wonderful variety - and not squeeze it into a mould that was never intended for it!

Father, thank you for the wonderful variety of your inspired word, the Bible. Please help me, by your Holy Spirit, to interpret it on its own terms, and not to force it into a strait-jacket of my own making. Amen.

Fads and fashions

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching… Ephesians 4:14

I vaguely remember a song from many years ago about someone who was “a dedicated follower of fashion”. I think it was back in “the swinging sixties”, and that it mocked the tendency of many people to latch onto whatever was the latest thing in clothes, music, hair styles or whatever. How shallow people were! (Perhaps still are.)

Exactly the same thing can be true of religion – and that includes Christianity.

And it’s nothing new – Ephesians 4:14 makes it clear that it happened even in the earliest days of the church. Paul is urging his readers to grow up, to mature in their faith, and he uses a dynamic illustration to describe what will happen to them if they don’t: they will be “blown here and there by every wind of teaching”.

There are Christians, he implies, who are fickle, unstable and far too easily taken in by the latest plausible spiritual fad – people who jump on spiritual bandwagons. Just think of autumn leaves in a strong, gusty wind: that’s you! he says.

This is where getting old can offer many examples.

My conversion at 15 virtually coincided with the birth of what became known as the charismatic movement (ancient history today!). At first it was seriously bewildering – all those weird Pentecostal practices seemed to have broken their bounds and come flooding into the “mainstream” churches. It took us – well, me anyway – some years to digest what was going on and to come to some kind of assessment. When I did that, I was humbled to learn that while there was indeed much that was damaging and simply wrong, there was perhaps even more that was thoroughly scriptural and much needed for the enrichment and enlivening of tired, stale churches.

Since those days we have had a steady succession of movements… “heavy shepherding” - churches controlled by leaders who were very likely self-appointed; the “prosperity gospel” - if you’re a Christian you can expect to be wealthy and successful in everything you do; the “new Calvinism” - which places a distorted emphasis on the great truths of the Reformation; “deliverance ministry” – which sometimes seems, in practice, to be obsessed with the devil and all things demonic; the “ministry of healing” - with an admirable but sometimes naïve faith in the availability of physical and mental healing; “Christian Zionism” - which very likely places an unscriptural emphasis on the nation of Israel.

I could go on…

What can be confusing, of course, is that there are likely to be elements of both good and bad in all such trends. So the key question is: how can I tell the difference between a mere fad and a genuine movement of the Holy Spirit? God is sovereign, after all, and he is quite capable of doing something new. Christians whose minds are firmly bolted and barred against any possibility of “a new thing” are just as harmful as the dedicated follower of spiritual fashions. Cynicism can be just as deadening as gullibility is deceptive.

The apostle John tells us not to “believe every spirit, but to test every spirit to see whether they are from God” (1 John 4:1). In a word, we are to nurture the gift of discernment – the ability to probe and ask thoughtful questions so that we are not misled.

But how do we do this? That question may need a whole blog to itself (perhaps next time). But at the very least a good grasp of the Bible is needed, and wise, mature, reliable Christians to guide us. Not everybody is a scholar, and that’s fine, and many Christians are not natural readers (remember that probably the majority of the early Christians could neither read nor write), and that’s fine too. But the Bible is a very complex book, and it’s silly to pretend otherwise. So we need all the help we can get.

An obvious but perhaps overlooked safeguard against being deceived is, quite simply, time. Yesterday’s exciting novelty may well turn out to be tomorrow’s stale innovation, so we need to pause, not get too excited, and look at things in the cold light of day.

If we embrace new ideas too readily there is a danger that we turn our churches from being – well, simply churches, that is, communities of followers of Jesus, and turn them in effect into spiritual clubs for the like-minded. I can think of churches I have known which seem almost more like sects or even cults.

If we do find ourselves sometimes a little confused by the bewildering array of options available to us as we look around the churches, here’s a three-point plan that I would suggest…

(1)  Love Jesus. He and he alone is to be the focal point of our lives. And remember that loving him also means obeying him (John 14:23). 

(2)  Trust Jesus. He and he alone is worthy of our simple, childlike faith.

(3)  Serve Jesus. He and he alone deserves our glad and sacrificial service until the day we die.

Stick with these simple guidelines and you won’t go far wrong. 

Father, our world is awash with new ideas, some of which are clearly outside the mainstream of the Christian faith while others may represent the moving of your Spirit. Please give me the wisdom and humility to know the difference! Amen.