My mind - junk room or treasure trove?

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2

Have you ever wondered how it is that centipedes never suffer from nervous breakdowns (not that we know of, anyway)? After all, they have 100 legs, so how on earth do they make up their minds which ones to move next? They must live with constant strain.

Probably you haven’t. But the reason for their ease of mind is straightforward: getting their legs to move in the right rhythm is something they’re “programmed” to do from birth. They just do “what comes naturally”, so they don’t have to think or worry about it.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we humans were like that? – no worries, just confident that we will only ever do what’s right.

Well, no actually.

For while human beings are animals in one sense, the fact is that we are also a whole lot more, and many of the most important things we now do without thinking are things we had to learn to do.

Certainly, we didn’t have to learn to laugh when we were amused or to cry when we were distressed. But think… driving a car, or changing a nappy, or playing a musical instrument, or reading a book, or cooking a meal, or a million and one other things. For such activities or duties we needed to be “programmed”, to use that same word again, and that can be anything but easy. The programming is what we call teaching and training.

To live lives that please God is the same. Even if we would genuinely like to do it, it is way, way beyond us; the best we can achieve is paltry, and far short of anything approaching the perfection of God.

The apostle Paul focusses on this dilemma in Romans 12:2. Speaking to people who are genuine Christians - people who have put their trust in Christ and so found peace with God - he tells them that they are “not to CONform to the pattern of this world…”, but to “be TRANSformed by the renewing of your mind”. They are saved by God’s grace, no doubt about that: but that doesn’t mean they don’t have hard work to do! Verse 2 is worth taking apart…

First, Do not conform to the pattern of this world.

In other words, don’t just go with the flow. By “the pattern of this world” Paul means the prevailing customs and fleeting fashions of the age we happen to be born into. The Message puts this well: Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.

How easily we do just that! Not that absolutely everything about our culture is bad – of course not – but, well, a lot is, and if we follow Jesus we should have nothing to do with it. Not prudes – but prudent; not self-righteous – but Christlike; not holier-than-thou – but simply holy.

Such denial is hard, for cultural practices suck us into their grip like spiders into a web, without us even realising it’s happening. Remember the two roads of which Jesus spoke: the broad way that leads to destruction, and the narrow way that leads to life (Matthew 7:13-14). The broad road is for human centipedes...

Second, … but be transformed…

The people Jesus calls to follow him are called to become, not nice people, or religious people, or well-behaved and law-abiding people – but transformed people: nothing less! People fit for heaven; people who not only have the Holy Spirit living in them, but who allow the Holy Spirit to shape their opinions, habits and behaviour; people who are becoming daily more like Jesus.

Third, … by the renewing of your mind…

How can such a transformation take place? By some kind of intense religious experience? No. By gaining a verse-by-verse mastery of the Bible? No. By extravagant acts of mercy and generosity, or breath-taking risks of faith? No. It requires the submission of the mind to God. We learn to think again, rather than trot out what we happened to read in the paper or picked up on television or on line.

Over the years our minds, unguarded, become dumping grounds for all manner of worthless nonsense, and a major clear-out is needed.

Go back to the centipedes. They have that wonderful walking skill because they are programmed in advance to do it. And God calls us to re-programme our minds, and that is a steady, day-to-day activity for which we are personally responsible, and for which the Holy Spirit is our helper and the Bible our guide.

The challenge, therefore, is: What is the state of my mind? Discerning? questioning? challenging? expanding in wisdom? always willing to change?

Some years ago an American pilot performed what many experts considered a miracle: he landed a falling plane on a narrow stretch of river, thus saving many lives. People were in awe at his skill. But when they asked him how he did it, he replied that he had simply drawn on many years of training and experience to do something he had never before been required to do, but which had been steadily and thoroughly absorbed through all those years.

To change the image, you could say that he had put regular deposits into the bank of faith in his mind, so that when an urgent one-off need arose there was plenty for him to draw on.

Never mind those clever centipedes: how much wisdom and faith are we steadily storing up in those mysterious things we call our minds?

Lord Jesus, help me to look to you every minute of every day and so to avoid the corruption of this fallen world and become more fitted for the world to come. Amen.

A time to be silent, and a time to speak

When Job’s three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite, heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was. Job 2:11-13

Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. Romans 12:15

There is a time for everything… a time to be silent and a time to speak… Ecclesiastes 3:1,7

When did things start to go badly wrong for “Job’s three friends” – his supposed “comforters”? Answer: When they opened their mouths and started to talk.

Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar have come in for plenty of criticism over the centuries, and no doubt rightly so (God himself wasn’t exactly soft on them!). But when tragedy after tragedy began to tumble in upon the head of their friend Job – let’s give them credit – they did exactly the right thing: they agreed together to visit him to give him comfort. According to the verses above, this was a costly and sacrificial thing to do: an act of true friendship.

When they first saw him they “sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights” (imagine that!) and “no-one said a word to him (imagine that!), because they saw how great his suffering was”. That was wisdom! That was sensitivity! That was love!

But… Once Job started to speak - self-pitying and, implicitly, questioning the goodness of God - they literally couldn’t keep their mouths shut; they felt it their duty to defend the justice of God. And they didn’t make a very good job of it, as the next nearly forty chapters of the Bible make clear.

They meant well, no doubt, so let’s not be too critical of them (nor, indeed, should we be too critical of Job, who felt the need to give vent to his misery; can we really blame him?). But the long debate did no good, and simply piled confusion on confusion.

Where are we going with this?

Nearly eight years ago my wife and I moved, in our retirement, to Nottingham. Never have we regretted this decision, for we have found the natives to be friendly (so to speak!), and the city as a whole to be welcoming. So you can imagine how we felt when, earlier this week, our adopted city was top of the headlines for the horrible killings of three people. There’s a solemn sense of sadness, shock and sheer disbelief over the city – and the real “locals”, of course, feel it even more acutely than we relative newcomers.

Making sense of such an event is no more possible than was the attempt of Job’s friends to make sense of his sufferings. They were not privy to what went on behind the scenes in chapters 1 and 2, and neither are we privy to the mind of God regarding this tragic event in Nottingham. So it really would be an act of folly to try and come up with some kind of explanation.

Yet… somehow we Christians often feel that we are under an obligation to say something. We torment ourselves with “I just didn’t know what to say” or “How can you comfort people in such shocking misery?”. To which the only “right” answer is the straight one: You don’t have to say anything. And you have no words of comfort to offer.

Romans 12:9-21 is a wonderful little passage. It has no doctrine or theology (nothing against doctrine or theology, of course, in their proper place), but is purely about how we as Christians should conduct ourselves in this suffering, weeping world. And the key verse is 15: “Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep”.

In other words, says Paul, do what Job’s friends originally did, and don’t attempt to say anything until the right moment comes – the Holy Spirit will make clear when that is. Just be there. Offer any practical support we can, of course. But shallow words of comfort, or clumsy attempts at explanation, are likely to do far more harm than good.

What’s called for is – guess what? – love, compassion, deep sympathy. And these characteristics are radiant and self-evident. The time for words will come – and yes, it must come, for as Christians our faith does equip us to offer a making sense of life and death. But it’s not now, in the time of rawest pain.

The novelist E M Forster was no friend of Christianity. One of his most famous quotations has a character referring to “poor little talkative Christianity”. Ouch! Is there rather too much truth for comfort in that? We stuff our services with words, some intelligible, some perhaps not, forgetting that our words are hollow if they are simply a cover for lack of Christ-like love. We are nervous of silence, of allowing people time to reflect and meditate, just to soak up the presence of God. Should we sometimes take a leaf out of the book of Job’s friends? – before they made the mistake of opening their mouths.

It looks to me, here in Nottingham, that Christian people, both as churches and as individuals, are attempting to demonstrate the love of Jesus to those who are presently in deep pain and confusion. What ultimate “good” it may do is known to God alone, and when and how he chooses to answer our prayers. But our business is simply to persevere in prayer and compassion. Lord, give us aching hearts!

Soften my heart, Lord, soften my heart./ From all indifference set me apart./ To feel your compassion, to weep with your tears./ Come, soften my heart, Lord, soften my heart. Amen. Graham Kendrick

How not to read the Bible (2)

Love is as strong as death… Song of Songs 8:6

It doesn’t happen often, but I am always pleased when I get feedback on a blog I have published. This happened more than usually with the recent post on the Song of Songs; thank you if you took the trouble to write. Most of the responses were in agreement, I’m glad to say, though I did also receive a bit of a telling off (a friendly telling-off, I think) for daring to question the assumption that this little book is all about Jesus and the church.

Having said that, it later occurred to me that I might well have received some such message as this: “All right, Smarty-pants, you’ve told us what the Song of Songs isn’t about. That’s the easy bit. Now how about tackling the difficult part – tell us what it is about! What is it doing in the Bible at all, given that the Bible is God’s inspired Word?”

Such a message didn’t come; but if it had I don’t think I would have had any right to complain. So – fair’s fair, I thought; and I’ve returned to it, re-read it right through, and rummaged around in various commentaries and other books by respected Bible scholars. I certainly haven’t come up with any clear-cut, easy answers. But here’s a summary of what I have come up with.

First… It’s quite obvious that the book is centred on a story – a love story – of a man and a woman. And certainly, in both Testaments, the relationship between God and his people is sometimes depicted in this way.

In the Old Testament the prophets often portray Israel as, at best, a wayward wife (Hosea is the key example), and at worst a prostitute (as in Ezekiel 16).

Likewise, in the New Testament, Paul instructs husbands to “love your wives, just as Christ loved the church…” (Ephesians 5:22-32). And in Revelation the church is portrayed as “the bride of the Lamb” (19:7), beautiful in her purity, in stark contrast to “Babylon the Great, the mother of prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth” (17:5).

So it’s understandable that Christians (and Jews before us) should choose to read the Song in this allegorical way.

But, second, having said that, the book is frankly sexual and erotic – so much so that there are parts that I suspect only very rarely get read in church, if at all. The raptures and ecstasies of love are portrayed; so are some of the distresses and pains. Shakespeare wrote that “the course of true love never did run smooth”, and the Song certainly bears that out.

What sometimes stretches belief is when commentators insist on applying every little detail to Christ. Is he (to take just one example) really “like a gazelle or young stag” (2:9)? A classic case, surely, of reading something into the passage rather than just accepting it as it is – in effect, off foisting an alien meaning onto it.

A general kind of parallel is one thing: yes, human love provides a metaphor for God and his people. But to focus on “his locks… his eyes… his cheeks… his belly.. his legs… his countenance…” and so on is to go too far, making the text yield a meaning which simply isn’t there.

Third, it’s worth noticing that modern Bible translators add headings in order to indicate who is speaking at any given point – “He”, “She”, “Friends” and so on.

This is certainly helpful in giving a shape to the narrative. But we need to keep in mind that such headings are not part of the original text; they are simply intelligent guesses added by the translators or editors. So we can’t be sure they are correct – and in fact the various translations don’t always agree on them anyway. And even with these helps it isn’t always by any means clear what is actually going on. Anything but. On any showing this is not a simple book: let nobody pretend it is!

In fact, it’s not unreasonable to ask if this book is in fact a “story” at all. Isn’t it more like a sequence of love poems strung together?

In which case, isn’t the most likely reason the Holy Spirit caused it to be included in the Bible simply in order to recognise without embarrassment that human love, including sexual love, is part of God’s good creation? And, as long as it is enjoyed properly (a vital proviso, that, of course), is to be treasured and delighted in?

Isn’t this a message we desperately need in these days of pornographic films and books, where sex is vulgarised and horribly cheapened?

I’m sure there’s a whole lot more that could be said, and needs to be said, but my little blog isn’t the place to say it.

But one of the more thoughtful responses I received to the original blog finished like this:

“I think I veer towards it being an inspired poetical work: the glorifying of God through acknowledging Creation, and how sacrificial love in marriage can mirror the love God has for us and, ideally, we for Him.”

Ultimately, I’m not sure that I can do much better than that.

I can only remind myself, and you who are kind enough to read this, that we must respect the views of those who see it differently from ourselves. The Song of Songs is to be approached with reverence and respect, like the rest of God’s word - whatever its precise meaning, one thing is sure: we dishonour God’s word if we turn it into a battleground.

Dear Father, I pray that my understanding of the Song of Songs, as with the whole Bible, will grow and deepen as I read it and re-read it. Help me to grow in my appreciation of love in all its many forms, including the physical and sexual, and to honour Christ by always seeking to maintain its purity. Amen.

How not to read the Bible

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth – for your love is more delightful than wine. Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes; your name is like perfume poured out. No wonder the young women love you! Take me away with you – let us hurry! Let the king bring me into his chambers. Song of Songs 1:2-4

I was lent a book recently and asked what I thought of it. It’s not as if I’m any sort of expert, of course, but, being a minister, I think it was felt that I might have a “professional” opinion. It was in effect a small commentary on the Old Testament “Song of Songs”.

Well, that’s fair enough, I thought. The Song is famous for its difficulty and I’m always keen to learn. Then I noticed the subtitle: “A Devotional Study of some Portraits of Christ in the Song of Solomon”. I thought, “Hang on a minute! – portraits of Christ? Surely not! How can Christ be found in The Song?” It’s hard to follow the thread of the story as it is, but it reads very like a love poem – starting with a young woman longing to be kissed by her lover, and to be “taken away” by him “into his chambers”.

I knew that such interpretations of this book were quite common a hundred or so years ago, but I had no idea that there were people today who still propose them.

I’m sure the author is a delightful Christian man and, glancing through his book, there’s no doubt he has succeeded in culling together all sorts of truths and lessons about Jesus.

But the question can’t be avoided: do those truths and lessons lie naturally on the surface of the text, or are they – if I may use a blunt word – in fact foisted on it? Putting the question another way: Is the book meant to be interpreted in this way? Is it really about Jesus?

Reading the blurb on the cover, I came across what I suspected was a give-away sign: the author’s aim, apparently, was to discover “Christ in all the scriptures”. This is an expression we find in the story of the walk to Emmaus (Luke 24:27). The risen Jesus, the mysterious stranger, explains to his companions on the road how the words of Old Testament scripture point towards him.

I’m sure all Christians will gladly accept that: the Old Testament scriptures, as a whole, do indeed lead up to Christ; and the New Testament scriptures lead on from him. But… and this is the big “but” – does that mean that every single verse of the Bible is about Jesus? Including the Song of Songs? Surely not!

I started this blog with some words from the Song of Songs; but that’s not really what I’m concerned about. Really, it’s about the much bigger picture of Bible interpretation as a whole. When we hold the Bible we have in our hands a whole library of books, some long, some short, some straightforward, some mysterious, some factual, some poetic, some simple, some complex. And the key is to read them according to their kinds, recognising that the Bible is humanly written as well as divinely inspired.

Read the New Testament letters the same way you read Kings and Chronicles and you are going to come unstuck. Read the psalms the same way you read the book of Revelation, and likewise… You wouldn’t read a thriller the same way you read a car maintenance manual because, while they’re both books, that’s pretty much all you can say. And it’s no different with the books of the Bible.

I’ve used the Song of Songs as an extreme example of how fine Christian people can get, as I believe, into a muddle because they are determined to find certain things in a text, even though those certain things simply aren’t there. I may be wrong, that goes without saying. But once an interpreter starts forcing an unnatural meaning onto a text, I think we’re wise to be a bit suspicious.

Here’s a simpler example…

I can’t remember when I first really noticed Psalm 1, but I expect it was before I was twenty (I became a Christian at fifteen). It’s been a favourite ever since: short, easy to understand, and with that lovely picture of “the tree planted by streams of water” and “yielding its fruit in season”.

I was talking to a friend about it, and commented how glad I was that in the first line of the NIV Bible the “man” who walks in step with God has become the “one” who does so, thus allowing it to be a woman as well as a man. (The word “man”, after all, can mean “a member of the human race”, male or female, not a male as opposed to a female.)

But my friend was unconvinced. He felt that the word “man” should have been kept, “because, of course, it’s really about Jesus”.

At first I thought I hadn’t heard him right. I had been a Christian some sixty years, and I had always taken that little psalm at face value – as a pen-portrait of a “righteous” person. To be told that it was “really” about Jesus seemed well-nigh incredible.

The lesson learned? When we read the Bible, let’s read what is there – not what we think ought to be there, or what we would like to be there, or what some impressive preacher or teacher tells us is there. The natural interpretation is likely to be the right one.

Putting it another way… When we read the Bible, our business is to read out of it what’s there, not to read into it what isn’t.

Simple!

Father, I thank you that you that your word is often so beautifully simple and clear. But I have to confess that often I find it difficult to understand, and even obscure. Please help me to read it right, to find and make use of skilled teachers and interpreters, and so to live in the light of its truth day by day. Amen.

Jesus' continuing work

Jesus said, “John baptised with water, but in a few days you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit… ” The two men dressed in white said, “This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven”. Acts 1:4-11

Christ Jesus who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of the Father and is also interceding for us. Romans 8:34

Therefore Jesus is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. Hebrews 7:25

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Ascension Day, remembering the extraordinary occasion when Jesus left his disciples and returned to his heavenly home to be with his Father (Acts 1:10-11).

Does that mean that his engagement with planet earth, and with the human race, was finished? You might think so, for from that day to this he has never again been seen on earth. But that would be a mistake, for the New Testament makes clear that he still had three great ministries to exercise.

 The first and most obvious was the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the infant church in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2), just ten days after the Ascension .

Realising how sad they were to know he would be leaving them, he reassured them: “But… it is for your good that I go away. Unless I go away, the advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you…, and you will receive power” (John 16:6-7, Acts 1:8). That’s what I focussed on in that earlier blog, but I ran out of space, so today I want to return to the topic and to highlight the other two areas of ministry…

Second, there is his work of intercession.

In some ways this seems a slightly strange idea. After all, if God is our loving heavenly Father, and if he knows everything about us, what need is there of more prayer in heaven? Perhaps that’s one of those mysteries that it’s not for us to ask. (It’s interesting that in Romans 8:26 Paul attributes the same ministry to the Holy Spirit rather than to Christ, but then attributes it again to Christ in Romans 8:34! Clearly the three Persons of the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – have not a scrap of rivalry between them, but work together in perfect harmony for all eternity.)

But the key point is that, though we cannot see him, Jesus hasn’t, so to speak, washed his hands of us. He remains our Saviour and our Friend. In partnership with the Father and the Holy Spirit, he continues to care for us and love us.

Is this a mystery some of us specially need to be reminded of today? Our problems are mountainous; God seems far off; our prayers seem to bounce of the ceiling… We feel discouraged, confused and, perhaps, simply afraid.

Well, let’s spend a few minutes reflecting on this strange but wonderful truth… in heaven Jesus constantly intercedes on our behalf.

So… The first ministry the ascended Christ performed was a one-off event: the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The second is ongoing: never-ending prayer for us. 

The third, of course, is another one-off event: his ultimate return in glory.

Those mysterious “two men dressed in white” (Acts 1:10-12) stated very clearly: “This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven”.

If the truth concerning Jesus’ never-ending ministry of prayer for us is only sparsely mentioned in the New Testament, the truth concerning his eventual return in glory couldn’t be more different – it’s easy to find in the Gospels, Acts, the letters and, of course, the Book of Revelation. Jesus is coming back!

The state of our world may sometimes tempt us to despair – wars and rumours of wars; climate change; desperate people willing to risk their lives to find a new home; poverty and starvation; disease; and so we could go on. “Will it ever end?” we might ask.

A good question – and it has a clear answer. For when Jesus returns, all these horrors and miseries will be brought to an end, and the kingdom of God will at last be established “on earth as it is in heaven”, as Jesus taught us to pray.

So we mustn’t lose heart. Our duty as Christians is two-fold: first, to live in expectation of that day; and second, to live such Christlike lives that through our day-to-day presence a little aroma of heaven is spread wherever we go.

Live in the present; but look to the future!

Lord Jesus, thank you that after returning to heaven at the Ascension you poured out the power of the Holy Spirit upon the church. Thank you too that until you return at the end of time you will be praying for us as we seek to walk with you. Please help me to live in daily expectation of that momentous day. Amen.