In need of encouragement?

Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. Hebrews 3:13

I need encouragement, don’t you? In fact, after the basic necessities of life – food and drink, work, rest, leisure and so on – I can’t think of anything much I need more.

The Bible has much to say about it. I think it’s rather wonderful that in the early church the apostles gave somebody the nickname “Mr Encouragement” (literally, “son of encouragement”). Joseph Barnabas, whatever his faults and weaknesses might have been, was obviously the kind of person who gave others a lift; as I like to put it, he was a picker-upper rather than a puller-downer (Acts 4:36).

The word most commonly used in the New Testament for “encourage” has a wide range of possible connotations, everything from “comfort”, to “cheer”, to “help”, to “support”, to “exhort”, to “urge”, even, perhaps, to “gee up”. In John’s Gospel Jesus uses it to describe the promised Holy Spirit, where the NIV translates “advocate” (14:16, 14:26, 15:26, 16:27), describing somebody who stands by you and speaks up for you in a court of law.

Whoever wrote the Letter to the Hebrews obviously felt the members of the church he was writing to needed encouragement on a regular basis: “Encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today...” Don’t put it off! If you sense that somebody needs a bit of a boost, then the time they need it is now, not tomorrow or next week or next year; any of those might be too late.

Encouragement, then, is like sunshine after rain. This doesn’t mean, of course, that there is never a time when something a bit sharper or a bit more challenging is needed. The New Testament also tells us there are times we need to correct, warn or “admonish” one another. This can be hard! – but done in a spirit of love and humility it may be the very type of encouragement somebody needs: an act, indeed, of love.

It’s striking how the writer of Hebrews finishes that verse (3:13): we are to “encourage one another daily… so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness”. He is obviously very concerned: to be “hardened by sin’s deceitfulness” is no joke – but why does he speak in such serious terms?

The answer is that a Christian who is losing their way just a little – going off the rails, as we sometimes put it – is likely only to carry on on that track if somebody doesn’t “do a Barnabas” for them. Sin and error can be massively deceptive: what at first seems harmless and innocent enough can gradually become ingrained as an ever-growing bad habit. It is the action of a loving Christian brother or sister to take a deep breath and – well, say what needs to be said. (And we must always remember, of course, that no-one is immune to the danger. As Paul puts it in Galatians 6:1: “if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted”.)

I knew somebody once who was asked to leave the church she belonged to; to say she wasn’t happy would be a major understatement. But some years later she told me about it and said, “Looking back now I see it as one of the best things that has ever happened to me”. It had the effect of kick-starting her spiritual life.

Another danger we need to avoid is being so keen to give support that we slip into insincere, shallow encouragement. May God preserve us from both unctuous gushing on the one hand, and what is really a scold with a smile on its face on the other. Most people can spot a false manner or words a mile off anyway (it’s called hypocrisy), and it is no part of Christian love to offer it. Encouragement – yes; flattery  - NO!

One of the greatest things about encouragement is that any of us can provide it. You don’t need a degree in theology or counselling, you don’t need your grasp of doctrine all polished and correct – a kind word or phone call or message, perhaps just a smile, may be enough. I remember somebody once who got really excited because a relative stranger had “remembered my name!”

A fact: tiny things like this can change someone’s day, perhaps even their life. Somebody was lamenting, “I just don’t know what to say to our new neighbours – they don’t really speak English!” and was given the wise advice: “Have you tried ‘Hello’?” That may be all that encouragement means in such a situation.

I started by saying that I need encouragement. Some people who know me may be surprised by that, but I suspect it’s true of even the most self-confident-seeming people: oh yes, we try to project an image of confidence and competence, but stick a tiny pin in our egos and we putter out like a deflated balloon.

Encouragement is, in essence, a part of love. And love is the greatest thing of all, without which we all wither and die. Lord, help me to remember that next time I feel inclined to criticise, correct or find fault!

Forgive me, Father, for the times I dent somebody else’s confidence through unwise or inappropriate words. Just as I delight to be encouraged myself, so help me to be an encourager of others. Amen.

The dark mystery of sin (2)

Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Psalm 51:5

I broke off last time intending to share a couple of personal experiences which have a bearing on the mystery of “original sin”, how it can seem baffling and even unjust.

First, a conversation with a fine, committed Christian whose life had turned out hard; she had shed many tears. Hearing her share her sorrows I tried – no doubt very clumsily – to offer some sort of comfort: she had at least received the gift of life, and there had been some times of joy and happiness, that sort of thing. To which she replied, not bitterly or angrily, but in a purely matter-of-fact way: “Yes, but to be honest I think that if I had been given the choice, I would have said No, thank you”.

It wasn’t easy to respond to that! It certainly wasn’t a time for a lecture on the sin of ingratitude! (Or so I felt, anyway – you may think differently.) She was, after all, only doing what Job did when he “cursed the day of his birth” (Job 3:1), but in a far gentler way. She was simply daring to say, “I just can’t see the justice of God in the way the world is, and in the way my own life in particular has panned out”.

Second, a conversation with an older man who was explaining his decision not to become a Christian: “If God knows all things, then he must have known that it would all go wrong! So why did he persevere with his plan? It has led to so much pain and sorrow…”

Again, it wasn’t easy to know how to respond (I was still a teenager at the time, and had only been a Christian a matter of months). As I got to know the Bible a little in the coming years I came across passages like Romans 9:19-21, words written by Paul (admittedly in a rather different context): “Who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this…?”

In other words… God is God. He only does what is good and right, however hard it is for us to understand. There are those who accuse Paul of offering not an explanation but, putting it bluntly, a cop-out in those verses. Well, that may be their choice. But what can we do, ultimately, but tremble and bow the knee? – and cling by faith to the hope that one day we will see it all clearly (as, of course, Job did)?

Those two stories don’t prove anything. But they do illustrate how, even in our own modern world, the question of “original sin” remains a mystery, whether to a Christian or a non-Christian.

So let’s go back to the question: Am I a sinner because I sin, or do I sin because I am a sinner?

My friend Peter, who posed the question, felt that we have to say Yes to both parts. And that, surely, is right. Our consciences, even before we become Christians, produce in us a sense of guilt when we think, say or do something wrong. But it’s also a plain fact that we are born into the world with that tendency to do wrong which is our inheritance from Adam and Eve.

We can, if we like, shake our fists at God (he can take it) or tie ourselves in knots trying to work it all out; but ultimately we will be wasting time and energy. Better by far to recognise Satan, the enemy within, as a sinister reality, and to do battle with him day by day. Explanations can wait until that day when “God will wipe every tear from their eyes”, when “there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things (yes, including sin!) has passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

Above all, let’s not forget the greatest truth of all: a human being has been born into this world who lived and died victorious over all sin. Jesus wasn’t sinless because his mother had been preserved from sin; Mary was a sinner like every other woman and man. No, he was sinless because, where Adam had yielded, he prevailed. When Satan came to do to him, the “last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45), what he had originally done to the first Adam, he was sent on his way.

That’s the main thrust of the second part, the rather tricky part, of Romans 5. Yes, the curse of sin is something we inherit from birth – each of us, if you like, becomes our own Adam or Eve, and we become responsible. But that curse is lifted by the second Adam, and we are made free.

By faith we have entered into his victory, and the day will come when that victory will be completed by final resurrection. It was said of Jesus’ encounter with Satan that “the devil left him, and angels came and attended him” (Matthew 4:11).

And that’s exactly what one day they will do for us too!

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them? For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen. Romans 11:33-36

The dark mystery of sin

Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Psalm 51:5

Am I a sinner because I sin, or do I sin because I am a sinner?

This intriguing question was tossed in my direction recently by a friend (thank you, Peter!). I use the word “intriguing”, though possibly “baffling and incomprehensible” might be more appropriate! You may be wondering what the point is: it seems a bit like a theological version of “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?”

In essence, it’s a way of approaching the mystery of what the church has traditionally called “original sin” – how to explain the fact that we human beings seem to have a warp in our make-up that leads us to act in ways we instinctively know are wrong. The Bible has many mentions of “sin”; but where did it originally come from? And in what sense are we individually to blame?

Obviously, all of us who try to be honest will recognise that we do wrong in various ways; we may sum those ways up in the traditional trio: “in thought, word and deed”. That seems reasonable. And if we are Christians, we will then accept the description “sinner” as a result: we are sinners because we sin. No problem.

But what about the second part of the question? If I sin “because I am a sinner”, that smuggles into my mind the thought that I am, so to speak, “pre-programmed” to sin; that in turn suggests that I am not alone responsible for my sin; and that in turn suggests that an injustice has been done to me, that “it’s not my fault!”.

Which raises the question, So who precisely has done me that injustice? To which ultimately there can only be one answer: God, for is he not the maker of all things and the lord of all creation?

In short… if I say that “I sin because I am a sinner”, aren’t I in effect accusing God of being the ultimate author of sin? Which, of course, it is impossible for a Christian to do, believing as we do that God is not only all-powerful and all-knowing, but also perfectly pure and holy.

I don’t know if Peter had been thinking about Psalm 51 when he asked the question, but it is certainly a standard “proof text” for the idea of original sin - that the corruption of sin is something we have inherited  from Adam, our first ancestor, something that has been passed down the generations. Something unavoidable…

“I was sinful at birth”. But how could that be so? How can a new-born baby be guilty of sin? I had never yet entertained a thought, or spoken a word, or done a deed!

“Sinful from the time my mother conceived me”? But how can an embryo be regarded as sinful? How can there be any sense of guilt if I wasn’t even a conscious being? Yet the writer seems to be saying that that is so – and the psalm as a whole certainly is full of that sense of guilt.

It could be that the psalm, traditionally thought to be by David, is applicable just to him personally, and is not intended to apply to the whole human race. But the Bible, once again taken as a whole, makes it clear that sin is a universal feature of every man and woman, so that seems unlikely. Paul makes much of this in Romans 5:12-21.

My own feeling is that the psalmist is essentially using “hyperbole”, a figure of speech which means deliberate exaggeration that the reader will immediately recognise as such – no intention to deceive, but an attempt to press home a particular point – and in this case the point is the sheer inescapability of sin.

Putting it in down to earth terms, we as human beings come into this troubled world as “damaged goods”. There is a fatal flaw in our nature which lays us open to what the Bible calls “sin”. The origin of this is described in the Adam and Eve story in Genesis 3, and it traces it back to an “enemy” or “adversary” pictured as a snake, or “Satan”. Whether we like it or not – and no doubt we don’t! - this enemy is something we are destined to grapple with every day of our earthly lives.

That seems to me a reasonable explanation of original sin, and a reasonable understanding of passages such as Psalm 51. But it still leaves open the big question: “Is it fair?” We didn’t, after all, ask to be born, did we?

I would like to share two stories from my own experience which, more or less directly, touch on this question (even if they don’t provide satisfactory answers).

But I’ve run out of space, so they’ll have to wait until next time…

Our Father and our God, we live every day with the reality of sin and temptation. We know our transgressions, and our sin is ever before us. Help us never to make excuses or to treat sin lightly. But thank you that Jesus came to be our sin-bearer on the cross, and that in him we can find forgiveness, purity, hope and victory. So bring us to that day when sin shall be no more, and we will be perfectly like him. Amen. 

A man of destiny (2)

In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfil the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing:

This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:

“The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and may their God be with them…”.  Ezra1:1-3

Last time we saw how God’s people Israel received a wonderful surprise when, against all expectations, they were released from slavery in the land of Babylon. The Persians had become the new superpower after the defeat of the Babylonians in 559 BC, and their king, Cyrus, encouraged them to go back home to Judah, and to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem.

To talk of this remarkable turn of events as a “miracle” is hardly an exaggeration – though of course something like it had been foretold by the prophet Jeremiah.

Various truths are suggested by this event.

1 First, and most obvious: God is the ruler of history and the lord of all people. Quite simply, there is no other God beside him, and he ultimately will bring all the affairs of this troubled, fallen world to a triumphant climax. Empires come and empires go – and yes, that includes America, Russia, China and the rest (wasn’t there once a British empire?), but the kingdom of God will last for ever. We as Christians are happy to trot out this truth – but do we really believe it?

2 This suggests, second, that as Christians we should take a prayerful interest in what we see on our televisions or read in our newspapers. Paul, in the New Testament, tells his readers to pray for leaders and rulers (1 Timothy 2:1-6), and also to be good citizens of the nations in which they live, even if their rulers, like Cyrus, know nothing of God (Romans 13:1-7). After all, imperfect government is better than no government at all, as we wait for the day when that perfect kingdom is ushered in.

Jesus was no revolutionary in a political sense – he told his followers to “render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” (that is, taxes and other civic duties) as well as to God what belongs to him (that is, the glad obedience of our hearts).

But he also taught them in his own special prayer to ask that God’s kingdom “will come on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). Those are not just empty words! If we are sincere in praying them, we had better mean business about living them into reality in our daily lives! Are we good citizens, demonstrating the sacrificial love of Jesus in the way we live?

Some Christian groups tend to retreat into their own little bubbles and almost cut themselves off from the world around them. But Jesus likens the kingdom of God to yeast which is mixed with flour until it is “worked all through the dough” (Matthew 13:33). As Christians we are called to be silent witnesses for Christ, active in our communities, as well as proclaimers of the gospel message.

3 Third, the story of Cyrus raises the mystery of how human wills interact with God’s. Was Cyrus nothing more than a puppet in the hands of God? He obviously didn’t think so himself! – judging by the sense of self-importance we get from his words in Ezra 1:2. Yet the Bible is very clear that his political decisions sprang ultimately from the will of God: “the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus…” (1:1).

Reading this brings to mind another biblical situation – sadly, a very negative one - from some 500 years earlier: not Cyrus and Persia, but Pharaoh and Egypt.

According to Exodus 9:16 Pharaoh was “raised up by God” in effect as an example of his divine judgment. Elsewhere in Exodus it is said both that Pharaoh “hardened his heart” towards God, and also that God “hardened Pharaoh’s heart”.

Well, which was it? That is a question – in essence the enigma of divine predestination as against human free will - that Christian thinkers have wrestled with over the centuries, and to which there is no satisfactory answer. The wise Christian will be wary of those who are too dogmatic, who think they have such mysteries neatly buttoned up! The Bible assumes that all of us have to carry responsibility for our decisions and actions – but it also assumes the supreme sovereignty of God.

If we fail to maintain the balance between those two seemingly contradictory things we end up either making God weak (subject to our whims) or tyrannical (imposing his will upon us, regardless of our freedom): and neither of those conclusions is in tune with scripture as a whole.

These are difficult depths to swim in! Perhaps it’s enough to affirm our faith in the perfect justice, mercy and love of God, and simply let it be…

4 Oh yes, before I finish… the Cyrus story affords a vital fourth lesson too: Christian, expect the unexpected! We never know what God might have up his sleeve! Christian, pray with expectation!

Father God, thank you that you are Lord of all creation and Lord of all history, the one on whom we can fully rely and in whom we can completely trust. Until the day comes when your kingdom is established on earth as it is in heaven, help me to live daily in such a way as to bring that about. Amen.

A man of destiny

In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfil the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing:

This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:

“The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and may their God be with them…”.  Ezra1:1-3

Fancy a bit of a history lesson? If your answer to that is No then please feel free to log off and save yourself a few minutes’ boredom: history, especially ancient history, isn’t everybody’s thing.

But the Bible is full of history, and we can learn much by digging into it. That’s especially the case when it comes to key figures such as Cyrus, king of Persia. He crops up here in Ezra 1 (which repeats the end of 2 Chronicles 36), and also, quite briefly, in Isaiah 44 and 45 (please take a few moments to read those passages).

If anyone was a “man of destiny” it was Cyrus. Strictly he was Cyrus II, or “Cyrus the Great”. He came to power in 559 BC and died in 530; almost 30 years. During this period Israel was in exile in Babylon (from 587 BC), cruelly removed from Judah, Jerusalem and their ancestral homeland. The prophet Jeremiah predicted that they would be restored from exile after 70 years, but things looked pretty grim - especially given that King Solomon’s magnificent temple had been destroyed and lay in ruins. Things were bad!

All of which makes Ezra 1:1-3 truly remarkable.

Make no mistake, Cyrus was a pagan. In 1879 an Iraqi archaeologist called Hormuzd Rassam dug up a barrel-shaped clay tablet in the ruins of ancient Babylon which became known as the “Cyrus Cylinder” (you can see it today in the British Museum – assuming nobody has stolen it recently along with all those other items!). Its engraved writing has a lot to say about Cyrus’s greatness, and includes a prayer to the Babylonian god he worshipped, Marduk.

Yet… according to Ezra, he declares that “the Lord, the God of heaven… has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah…”

This raises the intriguing question: Why would this king, who knew nothing of the one true God, do any such thing?

Read right through Ezra 1, and you find that Cyrus simply seems to ooze generosity and good will. Not only are the Israelites to be allowed to go free (as per Jeremiah’s prophecy), but they are to be unmolested, and supplied with everything they need for the building project which lies before them. Even the precious temple articles (5,400 of them of gold and silver alone!), which had been looted by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon when he destroyed the temple, are sent back.

From a human perspective Cyrus’s enlightened policy might not be quite all it seems. The Cyrus Cylinder makes it clear that it wasn’t only Israel who received this preferential treatment – other subservient nations and their gods did likewise. Most experts think that Cyrus was operating a policy of “enlightened self-interest” – based on the idea that subject peoples are easier to control if they are treated in a reasonably civilised way. But, even if that is right, Cyrus would no doubt have been happy to take the credit.

Whatever, the writer of the Book of Ezra was in no doubt at all who was really behind all this: “… the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm…” (1:1). Perhaps Cyrus was indeed a generous-hearted ruler by the standards of the time, but, don’t worry, God’s people knew there was a lot more to it than that!

But there’s something still more remarkable. For this we have to go to Isaiah 44 and 45.

In 44:24-28 we read that God “says of Cyrus, ‘He is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please; he will say of Jerusalem, Let it be rebuilt, and of the temple, Let its foundations be laid”. Cyrus is, in God’s eyes, “my shepherd”: that is, his appointed one, the one he has chosen to use.

Even more, in 45:1 he is described as God’s “anointed”, the word for “messiah” (in Hebrew) or “christ” (in Greek), the very word we associate, of course, as a name and title (with capital letters) with Jesus himself. We read that God has hold of Cyrus’s “right hand” - and in verses 1-7 his awesome powers are spelled out in impressive detail “though you have not acknowledged me” (verse 5). Yes, even though he knows nothing of the God of Israel.

Let’s sum up these remarkable events…

The exile of Israel in Babylon was one of the darkest, most traumatic events in the history of God’s people – on a par with the earlier captivity in Egypt in the days of Moses. But when deliverance came, as Jeremiah said it would, it came not through another Moses; no, but through God’s choice of a pagan emperor, the current super-power in the then-known world: in a word, an enemy.

We might say, “Well, that’s great! But… so what?”

Well, as I said at the beginning, there’s a lot we can learn from this event. But, sorry, our history lesson has left me short of space, so please do join me again next time…

Father God, thank you that however troubling and confusing the affairs of our world often seem to be, you are Lord over all and will bring all things to an end. Please help me to have faith and patience until that day comes, and to serve you with courage and compassion. Amen.