What makes for greatness?

Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns any people. Proverbs 14:34 (NIV)

Righteousness makes a nation great; sin is a disgrace to any nation. Proverbs 14:34 (GNB)

We are well used by now to President Trump’s slogan: “Make America great again”. Just last week I saw it highjacked by some people in Britain who, I think, are pretty much on the same wave-length as him; they were carrying banners with the words, “Make Britain great again”.

Well, I suppose you can’t blame anyone for wanting the nation to which they belong to be great.

But that triggers the question: What is greatness? How do you define it? Is it material prosperity? Or influence throughout the world? Or a leading role in science and the arts? Or a particular form of government? Or what?

The Old Testament Book of Proverbs is in no doubt: to use the wording of the Good News Bible: “Righteousness makes a nation great”. As the NIV puts it, “Righteousness exalts a nation”.

But then you have to ask: What is righteousness? It’s a big word that can be defined in many ways. At the most basic level, to be righteous means to be right and to do right. But that leads immediately to yet another question: How do we know what “right” is? Who decides what is right? - and, by implication, also what is wrong?

Ultimately, the answer has to be: God alone. Who but he, the creator and sustainer of all things, who alone is perfect, pure and holy, can pronounce on matters of right and wrong? And if we measure ourselves, either individually or as nations, by his standard, which of us can possibly claim to be righteous?

In the Bible human righteousness is never seen as simply a matter of obeying laws or observing rules, important though that may be. No, at its heart is the idea of relationship: for only those who are in a relationship with God can have the slightest hope of loving righteousness and therefore displaying it. Relationship is key.

This is why, way back in Old Testament days, God called one particular nation - Israel - to enter into a covenant relationship with him, a relationship you could compare to a spiritual marriage. This was so that Israel could show to the world what God’s righteousness looks like in practice. In his law he taught them how he wanted them to live; and he sent them teachers and prophets to make the meaning clear.

But they failed in this great calling. By turning away from God’s law they got sucked into the unrighteousness of the world around them.

It was into this tragic situation that Jesus was born at the first Christmas. In his holy life the perfect righteousness of God was demonstrated - and the gospel message is just this: anyone who chooses to trust, love and follow him enters into and receives his righteousness as their own.

This is exactly what it means to be a “Christian” - a Christ-person. We can never be righteous of ourselves, however hard we strain and try. But by being gathered up, so to speak, into Jesus, his righteousness becomes ours.

And what is the righteousness like that we see in Jesus? Answer: just those qualities I hinted at earlier - holiness, purity, goodness, compassion, love. (Not to mention humility. Why else was he born as a human baby to nobody-parents and laid in a cattle-trough?) To be righteous, in the end, is to be Godlike, Christlike. It is to learn to love and humble ourselves before his cross, and to rejoice at his resurrection.

And what that means is this: If a nation - America, Britain, Russia, China, whoever - really wants to be “great”, then the place to start is by looking at the crucified and risen Jesus. All other greatness is, ultimately, hollow and empty, brittle and breakable, cheap and tawdry, vulgar and soiled. And destined one day to pass away. Just look at the ruins of once great empires scattered across the centuries of history: Rome, Greece, Britain... America?

We personally can’t make whatever nation we belong to “great again”. But what we can do - and what we must do - is to make known to those around us, by the way we live, by the people that we are, and by the good news that we proclaim, the true righteousness which has become ours in Jesus. (He himself referred to this as being “salt” and “light” in the world.) Let’s not forget that if it’s righteousness that makes a nation great, it’s also righteousness that makes a person great!

Is this the heart-beat of your life? Is this your consuming passion?

Thank you, Father, for the gift of your righteousness which has become mine in Jesus. Help me to live it out in my daily life, so that, small though I am, I can be a challenge and a hope to the nation in which you have placed me. Amen.

Always the same - and always changing

... lead us not into temptation... Matthew 6:13 (KJV)

... do not bring us to the time of trial... Matthew 6:13 (NRSV)

... do not bring us to hard testing... Matthew 6:13 (GNB)

... do not bring us to the test... Matthew 6:13 (NEB)

The Pope has recently authorised a change in the wording of this part of the Lord’s Prayer. He has accepted that the old version, using the word “temptation”, is misleading. If “temptation” means “enticement to sin”, why would a good and holy God even think of doing that?

So an alternative wording, which speaks of “trial” or “testing” rather than “temptation”, is now acceptable in Roman Catholic churches.

This change has been accepted for many years in many churches. (My copy of the NEB (New English Bible), from which I have quoted above, was published in 1970, nearly fifty years ago.)

So there is nothing very controversial about the Pope’s pronouncement.

But the fact that it has been in the news has raised the whole issue of Bible translation, and it might be useful to focus on this, because I think many Christians have only very hazy ideas about why new translations come out from time to time. Some, in fact, feel quite uneasy about it.

One reason for this uneasiness is that the KJV (King James Version) used to be called “the Authorised Version” - and many people took this to mean that it was authorised by God.
But this is simply mistaken. In fact that word “authorised” applied not to God but to King James VI, who decided that the church needed a new Bible translation. This is why the title “King James Version” is far better than “Authorised Version”.

But the big question is: why does the church need new Bible translations anyway?

Two main reasons. First, because language changes. Words that meant one thing at one time might well have come to mean something very different just a decade or so later (try asking a 70-year old and a 7-year old what the word “mouse” means... you might get a surprise.)

Second, because experts in the field of ancient languages make discoveries that throw new light on what words might have meant in the original.

Both of these factors must be taken into account if a Bible translation is to be good.

To demonstrate how very difficult the art of translation - any translation, not just Bible translation - is, let me suggest an example...

You go into a French restaurant and order a meal. The waiter places your plate before you and says, “Bon appétit, monsieur/ madame”. Now, how do you translate “Bon appétit” into English? Well, it’s easy, isn’t it? “Bon” means “good” and “appétit” means “appetite”. Wahay! Sorted! “Good appetite.” What could be simpler?

Just one problem: “Good appetite” would in fact be a totally rubbish translation for the very simple reason that in English we just don’t say “Good appetite”, do we?

A good translation would depend on the kind of establishment you happen to be in. If it’s a fairly civilised place the waiter might say “Enjoy your meal” (or, these days, just “Enjoy” - urgh...). If you’re in yer local greasy spoon “Dig in” or “Grub’s up” might be more appropriate. But none of these seem remotely like “Bon appétit”. Probably you can think of other possibilities.

Go back to the Lord’s Prayer. It has come to us in the New Testament in a form of Greek which the experts call “Hellenistic” Greek, and which no-one speaks today. Likewise, the Old Testament has come to us in ancient Hebrew (with a smidgeon of another language called Aramaic).

This means that no-one - no, not me and not you - is qualified to pass an opinion on a modern Bible translation unless we have a mastery of these languages. Which certainly counts me out! - and probably you too.

And this in turn means that, whether we like it or not, we depend on those who have made these ancient languages their life-time study. Most such scholars are, of course, sincere Christians themselves, so we have every reason to trust their expertise, even though their translations will never be perfect.
In Matthew 6:13 the key Greek word is peirasmos (pay-raz-mos). Like many words in every language peirasmos is ambiguous - it can mean more than one thing. Did Jesus mean “temptation”, in the sense of being “enticed into sin”? Or did he mean “testing” in the sense of “trial”?

Ultimately, we simply cannot be sure - but for the reasons I mentioned at the beginning the weight of opinion has come down on the side of the latter alternative. Hence the Pope’s statement.

Forgive me if all this is old hat to you - but I hope there are some who might find it helpful. What matters is that the Bible is the word of God, and we are to treat it as such. But it didn’t descend fully formed from heaven in any fixed form!

So I suggest we make it our business to pray for those whose calling it is to study these things and to give us Bibles we can trust, use - and obey!

Father, thank you for your word in scripture. Please bless and give great wisdom to all those whose calling it is to put it into language which is both accurate and understandable. And please help me to read, mark, learn, inwardly digest - and above all, to obey. Amen.

A big bad "But"...

In the twentieth year of King Jeroboam of Israel, Asa began to reign over Judah; he reigned for forty-one years in Jerusalem... Asa did what was right in the sight of the Lord... But the high places were not taken away. Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was true to the Lord all his days. 1 Kings 15:9-14

Do you know Robert Louis Stevenson’s story Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde? It’s about a man who, for reasons we needn’t bother with here, has two totally distinct personalities, one polite, courteous and essentially good, the other demonically evil.

Even people who have never read the book (or seen any of the films made of it) will know what you mean if you talk about someone with a “Jekyll and Hyde personality”: it’s a person who is an incompatible mixture of light and darkness, someone who is a walking civil war.

Well, the truth is that we are all a bit like that, even those of us who sincerely want to follow Jesus. Outwardly we are probably all sweetness and light; but inwardly... ah, that, sadly, is a different story.

King Asa of Judah reminds me of Jekyll and Hyde. If you read the short account of him in 1 Kings 15 your heart warms to him straight away. He started a vigorous reform in Judah to do away with false worship and false gods. He even stood against his own mother because of her idolatry. His heart, we are told, “was true to the Lord all his days”.

But go then to 2 Chronicles 14-16. Here you get a much longer account of King Asa - and one which shows him up in far less rosy terms. (This, by the way, highlights the importance of not just picking bits out of the Bible, as we were thinking last time: we need, in the case of Asa, both 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles.)

Towards the end of his long reign it seems Asa badly lost his way. Instead of trusting whole-heartedly in God he makes an alliance with the pagan King Ben-hadad of Aram in order to gain victory in battle. When he is taken to task by the prophet Hanani he gets into a rage and “puts him in the stocks, in prison”. Even worse, “Asa inflicted cruelties on some of the people” (2 Chronicles 16:10). A sorry story.

Probably the comparison with Jekyll and Hyde isn’t really accurate, for you get the impression that Asa was fundamentally good at heart, but as he grew older it all went wrong. I suspect that by the end of his life he was a tormented soul, still knowing deep down what was right and good, and still wanting to do it, but unable to maintain his earlier trust in God and God alone.

I think there may be a tiny but very significant clue to his tragedy in 1 Kings 15:14: the little word “but” - “But the high places were not taken away.” In spite of all the good things he did, something vital was missing. (The “high places” were sites dotted round Judah where people went to offer prayer and sacrifices. That may sound fine; but because they were not under the supervision of the God-appointed priests in Jerusalem they easily became places of false, corrupt worship; which is exactly what happened.)

The question arises, “Why weren’t the high places taken away?” You might answer, “Well, there was lot to be done, and with the best will in the world Asa just never quite got round to it”. But wait a minute - Asa reigned for forty-one years! Did he really lack time?

I suspect that it wasn’t time that he lacked, but thoroughness. His heart was sound, all right; but, for whatever reason, he simply lacked the drive to carry through everything he knew he should. 

And, I have to admit, that’s where his story strikes uncomfortably at my heart... Yours too, perhaps. As you search your heart and examine your life, do you see there a big, ugly “But”? Yes, you’re a genuine, sincere Christian. Yes, you want to please and serve God. Yes, you are happy to worship, pray and evangelise. But... 

If we fail to deal with that “but”, I’m not suggesting that we will lose our salvation. But there are, I think, two things we will lose.

First, our peace of mind. Like Paul in Romans 7:14-25 we will feel ourselves to be “wretched” because we are torn in two.

And second, we will lose our effectiveness for God. Putting it another way, our cutting edge will be blunted.

I’ve focussed on Jekyll and Hyde. But perhaps the idea of an “Achilles’ heel” fits even better. Never mind the origin of this expression; what it means is “a weakness in spite of overall strength, which can lead to downfall” (to quote one dictionary). 

I think that fits Asa almost perfectly. And the question is: Does it fit you and me too?

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Amen.

How not to read the Bible

Then the devil took him [Jesus] to the holy city and set him on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: ‘He will command his angels concerning you...’ ” Matthew 4:6

I wrote last time about the way the Bible can be misused - using the example of the woman who disagreed with her minister’s sermon by quoting Matthew 7:1: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged”. She took this one Bible verse as trumping, so to speak, anything else the Bible might say on the matter of judging.

Our theme was judging; but the story raises also the much wider issue of exactly how we should read the Bible. Or, more to the point, how we shouldn’t read it.

You may know the corny old story of the man who was desperate to get guidance from God on a decision he had to make. Believing the Bible to be the word of God, he decided to let it lead him. So he said a prayer, closed his eyes, opened his Bible, and put his finger on the page. When he opened his eyes he read “Judas went out and hanged himself.” He felt this wasn’t quite right for him, so he decided to try again. This time: “Go and do likewise”. Oh dear! So he tried a third time. And - ? “What you do, do quickly”. (He didn’t make a fourth attempt.)

I don’t vouch for the truth of that story. But it makes the point. God has not given us the Bible to be a kind of lucky (or, in this case, unlucky) dip. That just isn’t the kind of book it is. Even the devil can, as Shakespeare put it, “cite scripture for his purpose” - a reference, I imagine, to our passage today, where the devil tempts Jesus with the perfectly true words “It is written...” (quoting Psalm 91).

As Christians we believe that the Bible is God’s divinely inspired word. No problem. But it is also human words, for God has chosen to speak through human authors. And it is important that those words, seen in their human character, should be understood and interpreted accordingly.
So where does this lead us? I suggest three things to keep in mind...

1. Don’t wrench Bible verses out of context!

Whenever we read a Bible passage we should aim to understand it, initially, on its own terms. At what point in Bible history was it written? Who is the human writer and who is he addressing? What is the background against which the words are spoken? Seeing Bible passages in their overall context is vital if we are to understand them correctly.

Certainly, there may be times when God, by his Spirit, gives us, out of the blue, a Bible verse which is just perfect for us. And that’s great. But that is for God, in his wisdom, to do; it is not for us to presume upon.

2. Ask the question: What sort of writing is this?

Is it poetry? history? letters? proverbs? doctrine? prophecy? Remember, different kinds of literature must be read in different ways. Would you read a car maintenance manual the same way you would read a book of poetry? Or a novel the same way you read a cook book? No? But they’re all books, aren’t they!

In the same way you would be very foolish to read 1 Samuel in the same way you read the Book of Revelation, or Job in the same way you read Mark’s Gospel.

3. Always read out of the Bible, not into it.

By which I mean: Don’t come to a Bible text or passage with your own preconceived idea of what it says, and then try and shoe-horn that idea into the passage. No; let the passage say what it wants to say, not what you want it to say. We can sometimes be guilty of finding our favourite doctrines in passages that in fact have nothing to do with them.

In short, read the Bible passage in question in its most natural sense; run a mile from anything that comes across as contrived or artificial.

Learning to read like this isn’t necessarily easy. If we mean business with God’s word it’s a good idea to get hold of reliable Bible commentaries and other books which fill in the background for us.

It’s a sad fact that many individual lives have been ruined because of a sincere but misguided understanding of a single Bible verse. (An extreme example is the early church leader who was tormented by lustful thoughts. He decided to deal with this by taking Matthew 5:27-30 strictly literally. I’ll leave you to guess what part of his anatomy he removed...)

So... Value the Bible! Cherish it! Look to it to receive the word of God! But be wary too. Satan too can use it - and he loves to deceive...

Lord God, thank you for giving us your word in scripture. Please help me to value and appreciate it - and, by your Spirit, to understand it and apply it correctly. Amen.

Is it ever right to judge?

Jesus said, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged”. Matthew 7:1

The minister stood at the church door to greet people after the service. The sermon hadn’t been an easy one to preach. He had spoken about sexual morality, and had stressed particularly the biblical ideal of marriage - one man and one woman, for life - and he knew that not everyone would take it kindly. 

(He knew too, of course, that the ideal is exactly that: an ideal. And that God is compassionate and forgiving towards those who may have failed to achieve it.)

One woman had just a very brief comment to make: “I prefer to live my life according to Matthew 7:1. Goodbye.” By which she meant, of course: “I believe in not making judgments on the way other people live their lives.”

Was her frosty comment right? 

In one sense, of course, yes. We should not judge others in the sense of condemning them. We are all sinners, so the sins we should take most seriously are... our own. Jesus goes on to make this clear in his words about the speck of sawdust and the plank: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?... You hypocrite...” Point taken!  Ultimately, God alone is qualified to judge.

But in another sense she was wrong. Taking Matthew 7:1 as a stand-alone text - treating it as if it says everything that needs to be said - simply creates chaos. 

Somebody has calculated that the Bible as a whole contains 31,102 verses (depending on which version you use), so if that minister had had the chance he could well have replied to the woman, “Er, yes, of course, Matthew 7:1 is great verse - but what about the Bible’s other 31,101 verses? What about verses that put a different angle on the matter - shouldn’t they be taken into account as well?”

For if you take Matthew 7:1 as the only word on the subject of judging, it implies that there are no rights and wrongs at all. Somebody commits murder? Oh dear, that’s bad - but, of course, Jesus says I mustn’t judge them. Somebody operates an internet scam and robs people of millions of pounds? Mmm, that sounds pretty dodgy as well. But of course Jesus says I mustn’t judge them... 

Fact: some things are right and some things are wrong. And we shouldn’t shy away from saying so.

Jesus himself wasn’t afraid to point this out: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!” (Matthew 23:13) Not exactly non-judgmental, that, eh?

In the early days of the church Simon Peter had to deal with a case of gross dishonesty by a couple called Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11). So what did he say: “Ananias and Sapphira, you have done a seriously bad thing - but of course I am forbidden by the Lord Jesus to judge you”? Er, no. No: he spoke some quite frightening words: “... how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit...?” Non-judgmental?

A little later Saul (before he became known as Paul) was confronted on the island of Cyprus by “a sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus” (Acts 13:6-12). This man comes in for similar rough treatment: “You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right!” Again, non-judgmental?

The fact is that when we see evil and wickedness, whether in others or mainly in ourselves, something is wrong if we don’t recognise it as such. 

But, having said that, shouldn’t our main reaction be one of sorrow?

This, I think, is what Jesus meant in the Sermon on the Mount when he said, “Blessed are those who mourn” (Matthew 5:4). He wasn’t talking about bereaved people or people attending a funeral; he was talking about people who shake their heads in sadness as they look into the darkness in their own hearts, and as they survey the sorry state of our world - the lies, the corruption, the greed, the vice and immorality, the violence.

Such people aren’t self-righteous or “holier-than-thou”; no, they are people who have looked a little into the heart of God, who have been moved by the beauty and purity they have seen there, and who long for things to be different. They are people who pray, as Jesus taught us: “May your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10) - and who add “including in my heart”.

Is that a prayer you can pray with sincerity? If it is, I think that means you can stand up for what is right, and denounce what is wrong, without being guilty of judging others where you shouldn’t.

Lord God, save me from fault-finding, criticising and condemning others. Help me to see clearly my own sins and failings - but at the same time not to be afraid to uphold what is good, right and true. Amen.

(This topic raises another important issue - how easy it is, like that woman at the church door, to misuse the Bible. I think it might be helpful to have a think about that next - so hopefully I’ll see you next Wednesday!)

The God who loves to forget

Who is a God like you, who pardons the sins and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry for ever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. Micah 7:18-19

Did you hear the sad story of the mother pleading with the police to wipe out a “sexting incident” from the permanent record of her 14-year old son?

I don’t know either the details of his offence (nor do I want to) or whether his mother was successful with her challenge. But that’s not the point. 

It’s a reminder of the danger of social media. How tragically easy it is, in a moment of stupidity, drunkenness, bravado, or whatever, to do something you can never, ever get rid of. For the rest of your life you know that somebody somewhere could turn up that text and cause you intense embarrassment or worse. And if you’re just a teenage boy... well, that’s a lot to live with.

Of course it doesn’t only apply to stuff we put on the internet. Speaking personally, I’m well aware that there are people around who could embarrass me by dredging up out of their memories things I did or said which I’m now thoroughly ashamed of.

I think too of letters I might have written (yes, letters with a handwritten address on the envelope and a postage stamp in the top corner! - remember them?) in disappointment, frustration or just plain anger. How I hope they have long since been destroyed.

What a joy it must be, then, to know that all our follies, mistakes and sins have been utterly and completely forgotten, never again to have any kind of hold over us.

Well, that is a joy which can be known by anyone who comes humbly to God. The prophet Micah says that God “will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19).

I love those dramatic images, don’t you? I picture God himself in big hobnail boots stomping away energetically until every last shred of my sins is ground to dust. I picture him on a boat in the middle of the deepest ocean with a bowl full of my stupidities and flinging them over the water until they are sunk and gone for ever.

When Micah first spoke these beautiful words he was addressing not individual men and women but the small remaining group of God’s people Israel - the “remnant of his inheritance”. It was about 700 years before Jesus, and at a time when God’s people had sunk into a state which one writer describes as “moral rot”.

But there is no reason why words originally addressed to a group of people shouldn’t also apply to us as individuals. For what Micah is wanting to do is to tell us just what kind of God God is. 

In verse 18 he asks the question “Who is a God like you...?” (which, as it happens, is pretty much what his name “Micah” means). And he answers his own question with these words: a God “who pardons sins and forgives... transgression...” He is a God “who does not stay angry for ever” but “delights to show mercy.”

Is that how you think of God? Or do you think of him as harsh and taking pleasure in punishing sinners? 

True, God is a holy God and must therefore judge sin. But his deepest desire is to forgive and restore those who know their sin. Why else did he, seven hundred years later, send his Son Jesus? Remember what John says: “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:17). If that isn’t “gospel” - good news - then I don’t know what is.

I certainly feel for that teenage boy and for his mother. I feel too for all those people, even those who may have committed gross offences, for whom past deeds are like a heavy millstone round their necks - even though perhaps they have paid the penalty for their crimes. I feel for every person who is troubled by conscience (and that, I suspect, includes you and me).

But whoever we are, there is good news. Amazingly, where this corrupt and fallen world, sadly, chooses to remember, almighty God, in his mercy, loves to forget.

Is this a message you need to digest? I invite you to take a cue from the prophet Micah and to picture God himself treading your sins underfoot and hurling your iniquities into the depths of the sea.

I invite you to reflect on Paul’s simple statement: “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). 

And you know what? - “no condemnation” really does mean... no condemnation.

Lord God, help me to truly understand that though I am indeed a sinner, I am a forgiven sinner, and to rejoice in the fact that, as far as you are concerned, all my many sins are gone for ever. Amen.