Only the best!

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

I’ve never been too keen on vigorous physical exercise. When I was at school we played football in the winter and cricket in the summer, and that was about it. As an adult I have belonged to both a table-tennis club and a badminton club, though never much good at either, and even taught myself to sort-of swim. But as for an hour in a gym, or serious jogging – er, no thanks.

But I certainly respect people who keep fit by putting their bodies under extreme pressure: the kind of people Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 9 who “compete in the games” and who “go into strict training” in order to succeed.

In the Roman world, of course, there was no football or cricket or the many other sports and athletic activities that we take for granted; but there certainly was “the games”. Exactly what they consisted of I don’t really know – my knowledge is based purely on films or books, in which they generally look pretty cruel and bloody – but from what Paul says it seems as if running and boxing were staple ingredients. (I wonder if Paul actually attended the games himself. Can you picture him sitting in the crowds? If he did it enables us to see him – this great missionary, preacher, teacher, letter-writer - in an interesting new light, I think.)

His purpose in these verses is simple. He is tossing to the Christians of Corinth a challenge about how seriously they take their living out of this wonderful Christian life. Are they prepared, as we might say today, to bust a gut in order to succeed; or are they content to stroll along with a minimum of effort?

It’s a challenge we all need to direct at ourselves from time to time, so let me spell it out: just how serious am I about following Jesus? The young man who led me to faith as a 15-year old used to speak of being “on fire for Christ”, a description which certainly fitted him, though I doubt if he would lay claim to it. That’s the kind of person, in my mind’s eye, that Paul is talking about.

Various questions come to mind…

First: why should I be serious about my walk with God?

The most basic answer is that anything that is worthwhile in this life is worth taking seriously. You might have a gift for tiddlywinks and long for its inclusion in the Olympics so that you can one day win a medal. Well, good for you - though rather you than me! But you won’t make any progress if you don’t devote hours every day to tiddlywinks practice. As for playing the piano or writing books or gaining a job qualification – well, no comment is necessary.

There are people who devote themselves whole-heartedly to things which, in the context of eternity, are trivial, like accumulating large sums of money (you can’t take it with you when you die, after all), or gaining positions of power (what will you do with it when you get it?), or getting access to every conceivable pleasure under the sun (what happens when it all goes stale and no longer yields satisfaction?).

Just comparing our allegiance to Jesus with such examples is well-nigh blasphemous. But it makes the point. He is the epitome of love, compassion and power. He gave his very life for us by dying an agonising death. What aspiration in this earthly life could be higher or greater than the desire to be like him? Who or what could be worth more? We only live on this earth once, so what emptiness it must mean to get near the end and look back shaking our heads and thinking “What a waste!”

Second: What does Paul mean in practice by these athletic-like exertions? It all seems very hard work!

I’m sure professional athletes gain real satisfaction from a training session satisfactorily completed – but they won’t necessarily have enjoyed every minute. And the same thing is true for our building of the Christian life. Much of what is involved – and required – seems like pretty bread-and-butter stuff - commitment to, and involvement in, an ordinary local church; nourishing our spiritual appetite day by day on the reading of scripture and the practice of prayer; offering such gifts and talents as we have to some form of social service or even Christian ministry.

Sometimes that kind of commitment can seem like sheer slog. Times when the last thing we feel like doing is praying or reading that next chapter of Leviticus. And when going to church on Sunday holds little or no appeal. What at first seemed exciting and fresh every day seems to have palled and lost its appeal.

Is this because we have taken our eyes off Jesus and lost our way spiritually? Well, yes, it may be so  – and our task then is to search our hearts with complete honesty and start again. But not necessarily: even the finest Christians testify to “dry times” when spiritual realities, and even God himself, seem far, far away.

This is when that note of discipline comes to our rescue. All right, we might read the Bible out of duty, but who ever said that was wrong? We may pray from a list of known needs that has slowly built up over many years, rather than spontaneously, but who ever said that was wrong? Let’s just ensure that our duty is a loving, willing duty.

We need to remind ourselves that duties undertaken with little relish can, in time, wonderfully blossom into joys.

Father, forgive me for those times when I fail you and settle for second or third best, or even worse. Please help me to be ruthless with sin and to show my love for Jesus through glad and whole-hearted devotion. Amen.

Lord, my heart’s desire unto Thine is bent./ I aspire to a full consent. Amen. George Herbert (1593-1633)

In praise of compromise?

Jesus said, No-one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other… Matthew 6:24

You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity with God? James 4:4

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common?... 2 Corinthians 6:14

We often think of “compromise” as a largely negative word. It conjures up ideas of weakness, lack of principle, spinelessness. We usually know instinctively what’s right and what’s wrong, so when we fail to live up to it, we are left with a vaguely troubled conscience which we hope will fade with time. And so indeed it may; but deep down we are not really happy. We know we have compromised.

The word itself doesn’t figure in the NIV Bible, but the idea is often found. And in reality it isn’t quite as simple as we might think. In a word, to compromise may sometimes be the right thing to do, not wrong at all. The Bible gives us examples of both right and wrong.

First, when compromise is wrong…

The obvious example, as the Bible verses above make clear, is denying or watering down our allegiance to Jesus. Do you ever find yourself “taking the line of least resistance” or “keeping my head under the parapet” – and then feeling bad about it? That suggests you’ve compromised; pangs of conscience are a pretty clear pointer.

That’s when we need to remember Simon Peter. At the trial of Jesus, he denied three times that he knew him (Matthw 26:69-75): that’s even worse than mere compromise, isn’t it? He lost his head completely, it would seem, even “calling down curses” and swearing “I don’t know the man”. But it didn’t take him long to feel guilty – when the cock crowed, as predicted by Jesus, “he went outside and wept bitterly”. Can you see him?

The story of Peter is wonderfully heartening, for we know from John 21:15-19 that after Jesus was raised from the dead he restored him and even gave him a key role in the life of the infant church. And in Acts 2 we see him – this poor, pathetic, sobbing failure of a man – powerfully preaching the first “Christian” sermon. True, on later occasions he could rather lose his way (Galatians 2:11-21 for example), but there is no suggestion that he sinned himself out of the grace of God.

Is this a reassurance you need today? As long as our regret is heart-felt we can be assured of God’s loving hand upon us. Yes, compromise in this most basic of senses is a serious thing. But it is not unforgivable.

Second, When may compromise be right, indeed necessary and good?

This may be where we find ourselves swimming in rather murky waters. The same Paul we have quoted about “not being yoked together with unbelievers” sounds like an arch compromiser in 1 Corinthians 9, especially verse 22: “I have become all things to all people…”. (That sounds almost like a defence of hypocrisy!) In 2 Corinthians 8 he talks about “food sacrificed to idols”, and whether or not Christians should eat it. Apparently different options are possible for Christians, depending on circumstances. In Romans 14, especially verses 19-23, he is concerned about the need for the mature but sensitive Christian to moderate his or her behaviour for the sake of the less confident believer. Compromise? Well, yes. But surely justified.

Perhaps his key statement is Romans 14:1, about the mistake of  quarrelling over disputable matters”. Ah! – so there are such things as “disputable matters” (what today we might call “grey areas”).

At risk of exaggeration you could say that one of the tragedies of Christian history is that too often we have kept our mouths shut when we should have opened them, for the heart of the gospel is at stake - but then gone tooth and nail at one another over “disputable matters”.

This can apply to matters of doctrine. Does it really matter whether you’re a premillennialist, a postmillennialist or even (gasp!) an amillennialist? Is the exact meaning of “baptism in the Holy Spirit” something to fall out over? Oh yes, be as convinced as you can by all means of the rightness of your view; but aren’t such questions matters for healthy compromise, for respectful discussion, not for tearing one another apart?

The point where things can get decidedly tricky may not be strictly “doctrinal”. What if you have a child you really love, and in their teenage years they come to tell you that they are gay? Do you turn them out of the home? If, in time, they enter a same-sex relationship and invite you to the “wedding”, do you go?

Something less acute but real nonetheless… You’re invited to the office Christmas party and you really would prefer not to go, knowing that the atmosphere will get unpleasant with drunkenness and ugly behaviour. Is it a wrong type of compromise to decide that “at least I can show my face for an hour”? Or would that be an example of mature discipleship?

And what about “assisted dying”? Many Christians instinctively recoil against the idea – but others are more open to it. Is one entirely right and the other entirely wrong?

I could go on; the possible examples are limitless, and not every situation is reflected clearly in the Bible. Given certain possible scenarios, how do I know when I’m “standing firmly for the truth” (no compromise!) and when I’ve tippled over into sheer bigotry (oh no, failed again!)?

Christians in disagreement sometimes get impatient with reasoned discussion: “All I want is a simple answer to a simple question!” they cry. But… what if there is no “simple” answer? What then?

It may seem rather unsatisfactory, but if it teaches us to discuss with one another thoughtfully and respectfully, actually listening to one another rather than talking past one another or shouting each other down, well, that at least is something, isn’t it? Let’s at least learn to disagree agreeably. Or is that asking too much?

Father, my desire is to be rock-solid in my allegiance to Jesus, but also infinitely adaptable when it comes to disputed grey areas. Please help me not only to know the difference, but also to live daily in the light of it! Amen.

Faith without expectancy?

It was about this time that King Herod arrested some who belonged to the church, intending to persecute them. ² He had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. ³ When he saw that this met with approval among the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. This happened during the Festival of Unleavened Bread. ⁴ After arresting him, he put him in prison, handing him over to be guarded by four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring him out for public trial after the Passover.

⁵ So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.

⁶ The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries stood guard at the entrance. ⁷ Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. “Quick, get up!” he said, and the chains fell off Peter’s wrists…

¹² When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. ¹³ Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door. ¹⁴ When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, “Peter is at the door!”

¹⁵ “You’re out of your mind,” they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.”

¹⁶ But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished… Acts 12:1-15

There aren’t many passages in the Bible that raise a smile. That’s no criticism, of course, just a fact. But I think Acts 12 does just that.

The story summed up…

Simon Peter has been imprisoned by King Herod. The believers “pray earnestly” for him, whereupon he is miraculously set free by an angel. He goes to the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where “many people had gathered and were praying”. A servant girl called Rhoda comes to answer his knocking at the door, but on hearing his voice she is so discombobulated that instead of opening it she runs back inside and  – guess what? – they don’t believe her: “You’re out of your mind” they tell her. When she insists, they change their minds: “It must be his angel”. (Meanwhile poor Peter is still outside in the cold, wondering what’s going on…)

Not very funny for Peter. But hopefully we can see the comical side, if only because – let’s be honest – we see a little too much of ourselves in that group of praying Christians. They were, I am sure, very strong in their faith, “praying earnestly for him”, and confident that God could, and sometimes did, work extraordinary miracles. Yet when they were told by Rhoda that Peter was knocking on the door they simply didn’t believe her (did some of them roll their eyes and shake their heads, muttering, “That silly girl Rhoda”?). They have been praying for the very thing Rhoda announces! How could they be so foolish?

But are we any better? Our prayers can become dutiful and formulaic, so much so that if we had today what we might call a “Rhoda moment” we would be as sceptical as that group gathered in the home of John Mark’s mother.

It’s possible, it seems, to have genuine faith - but also to lack expectation.

I find this, in a back to front kind of way, quite encouraging. These people, after all, were living in the near-aftermath of Christ’s resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit. We’re not! I won’t say that miracles were a daily event in their experience – that would be going too far - but certainly they seem to have happened on a pretty regular basis: Luke tells us, for example, that “The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people” (Acts 5:12). Given that it seems the meeting had gathered for the precise purpose of praying for Peter, might we not feel entitled to expect something a bit better than plain unbelief! So when we are inclined (as I often am) to accuse myself of lack of expectation, is it wrong of me to console myself with the thought “Well, apparently the first believers were no better!”?

Still more: I know we mustn’t make excuses for ourselves for lack of expectation, but it’s a fact that much of our praying is likely to be what you might call “long-term” praying, where we rightly emphasise the need for perseverance in our prayers, whereas the praying we read about in this passage is red-hot up to date.

Jesus tells his people in Matthew 7:7-8 to “ask (and go on asking), seek (and go on seeking), knock (and go on knocking) and the door will be opened to you”. I heard this described once as “soaking” prayer, and while, yes, there may be times when we feel that God has given us a “No” answer, and therefore stop praying for a particular topic or person (see Paul’s experience in 2 Corinthians 12:8-9), the “norm” is simply to keep persevering.

If you’ve been a Christian for any length of time I wouldn’t be surprised if there are people and situations for whom you have been praying regularly for years. And under those circumstances it’s virtually impossible to maintain that red-hot expectation with which we began – while trusting, of course, that God is, if I may put it so, “on the case” in ways we cannot see.

The point being… If we are talking about “excuses” for lack of expectation in prayer (which of course we’re not), are we not in a better situation than those people so long ago in Jerusalem whose need was indeed red-hot? Their need that day was fresh and urgent; ours, usually, is unavoidably routine to the point of seeming humdrum. (And, of course, there must be no attempt to artificially whip the emotions up!)

Where does this lead us? Perhaps to some such prayer as this…

Dear Father, please keep my faith strong, positive and expectant. But at those times when prayer seems dull and repetitive, please keep me strong in sheer trusting perseverance. Amen. 

The God who turns bad to good

¹² Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. ¹³ As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. ¹⁴ And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear.

¹⁵ It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. ¹⁶ The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defence of the gospel. ¹⁷ The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. ¹⁸ But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice. Philippians 1:12-18

I have recently had an experience which I found troubling.

There is a well-known evangelical Christian writer whose writings I have always found helpful, and whom I have recommended to others. But he has now confessed to a long-standing extramarital relationship and declared that his ministry is over.

It’s not the relationship itself that particularly troubles me – though of course it does – for this kind of thing seems to be increasingly common; no, it’s the uncertainty about the view we should take of his books and articles. One friend in particular to whom I had given one of his books – should he now be warned, something like “This writer should be avoided because he has blotted his copy-book”? Should Christian booksellers be expected to withdraw his books from their shelves as “no longer approved of”? Of course it’s reassuring that he has shown regret by (as I understand it) voluntarily stepping down from his ministry. But his writings are still there, and they are not going to change.

Well, I was chatting recently about this to a group of friends, including the one who I had lent the book to, and was reassured by their response. It basically boiled down to: “Well, if what he wrote was true and helpful when he wrote it, it’s still true and helpful now, isn’t it?” Nobody attempted to excuse his failure; and presumably Christian publishers from now on will be inclined to touch him, if requested, only with the proverbial barge-pole. But truth is truth: and truth, while it might be added to or refined, doesn’t change, does it?

So… sad, certainly, yes, sad, sad, sad. But let it rest there; for surely my friends were right. Let our priority now be to pray for this man as he surveys the wreckage of his life. We have no reason to doubt the sincerity of his faith, after all – and don’t we all fail and sin in various ways? Pray even more, of course, for his wife and family.

And then, as it happened, I found myself reading Paul’s letter to the Philippians, especially the verses I have quoted above: chapter I:12-18. I felt it offered us a parallel. This parallel is by no means exact, true, but I think it throws some light on the dilemma I had found myself troubled by.

Fact: Paul had enemies – or should we say “opponents”? – in the church (the Corinth letters in particular make this clear). This shouldn’t really surprise us, since while as Christians we are saved sinners, we are still sinners, and perhaps prone to fall out with one another! When he wrote his letter to the Philippians he was in prison - we don’t know definitely where, but Philippians 1:12-14 suggests an important city of the Roman empire, possibly Rome itself.

According to this passage he feels his imprisonment has served as a challenge and inspiration to others, a blessing in disguise, if you like. But then he perhaps rather surprises us by mentioning other Christians “who…(wait for it)…preach Christ out of envy and rivalry… out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing they can stir up trouble for me while I am I chains…”.

Oh! That’s a pretty severe criticism, isn’t it? In a word, Paul feels he is being opposed by deliberate, wilful trouble-makers who, as the saying goes, have it in for him. Who these people were we can’t be absolutely sure (and, of course, we only get Paul’s slant on things) but certainly they professed to be Christians, and God alone fully knew their hearts.

The key thing for our purposes is what comes next. The first two Greek words of verse 18 are translated in the NIV “But what does it matter”? That could be translated: “But so what?” or “Who cares?” or even “What the heck?” And Paul then goes on to add the key words: “The important thing is that in very way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice”.

You see the parallel with the writer who has fallen into sin? Anyone who happens to pick up one of his books, blissfully unaware of his fall, may receive blessing and light, just as anyone who heard a Christ-centred sermon by one of Paul’s opponents may have been brought to faith. What matters is the word, not the messenger. Which, when you stop to think about it, is just as well, isn’t it? For when has there ever been a perfect preacher, or a perfect writer?

We must be careful, of course. The way we live and act matters enormously: Jesus tells us that we are to be “perfect, as our Father in heaven is perfect” and there must be no hint of “Oh well, God will forgive; that’s his business”. Holiness is a serious business.

The Victorian preacher C H Spurgeon, talking about the tragedy of the preacher who falls into sin, said (I quote from memory): “Such a preacher should be restored to ministry only when his repentance is as famous as his downfall was notorious”. Wise words, I think.

But the main thing to take away from Paul’s words here is the great truth of the gospel: that God’s love and grace in Jesus far outweigh even the worst of our sins, and far outshine even the weakest of our preaching. Thanks be to God!

Father in heaven, please help me to emulate the “What does it matter?” of your servant Paul, as long as your love revealed in Jesus is clearly displayed. Amen.