A friend is giving a short five min talk to a group of 11-13 years old on the topic of the crucifiction with the title “The Substitution” and having run out of time to prepare asked me to help him a write a talk. Here is what we came up with:
The Substitute
You’re out late one evening walking home from a mate’s house. You're just going along the street when you knock into someone, and he loses it big time; he starts shouting at you, telling you he is going to give you a kicking. This guy is nasty.
You respond as any mature and sensible person would do.
You spit in his face.
It doesn’t take long for things to get real nasty, and for him to decide that he is going to teach you a lesson you will never forget.
So you both arrange to meet up the next night in an old hall in a quiet part of your town where hardly anyone lives.
You’re a bit scared of this guy because of how aggressive he was to you to the night before, so you take your best mate along for some back up.
However, when you get there you find the place is full of people, and while you have brought your best mate, this other guy has brought lots of mates and one of his is seriously big!
A huge ring is in the middle of the hall and you are set up for a tag team fight, WWF style. Except this is real and you're not much of a wrestler.
You enter the ring and look at the person you have got to fight. It’s one of the guy's mates and he is the biggest person you have ever seen. He is huge. He has muscles in places you didn’t know people could even have muscles.
There is no doubt in your mind that you are going to get pummelled; there is no hope, no chance that you are going to beat this guy and you can't even run because the doors are blocked by all the people.
In your fear you look round to your mate. He is the other side of the ropes, but he is stretching his hand out. Your take him up on his offer and tag him in.
He comes into the ring and you're thankful to be out of it.
Although your friend is not the biggest bloke in the world, he is hard; he has got the moves, he knows every martial art you have ever heard of - if anyone can win this fight its him. He walks into the middle of the ring and.......... just stands there.
The other guy just starts hitting him; he hits him with every bit of force he can muster; the sound of your friend's jaw breaking echoes around the now silent hall.
You scream at your friend to fight back! But he just stands there. He is kicked to the floor and then kicked again and again in the side. As the crowd shout and jeer the opponent takes a running jump, landing on your friend's head. The sound of his neck snapping runs through every part of your body and again the crowd falls silent.
Someone takes his pulse, but it’s too late. Nothing can be done for him; its all over, he’s dead.
Your opponent starts parading around the ring, calling you every name under the sun, as you sit on the floor in tears. You know it's not over yet, even with your friend laying dead on the ground, laying where you should be, you know this guy isn’t going to stop until he has torn you apart, but you know there is no way you are ever going to beat him, so you sit there shaking, tears just pouring down your face waiting for him to do his worse to you. All hope is gone, there is no way out.
Out of the corner of your eye you see some movement. Your friend's hand is twitching. Then it feels like someone has pressed the slow motion button and you see your friend stand up and dust himself off. He walks over to you and tells you that it's okay, and to stand up. You can’t believe it; he was dead, you saw it with your own eyes, but here he is, alive! Your opponent, who a moment ago was parading around the ring, has gone white with fear. He stands for a few moments, frozen to the spot, and then just runs, he runs and runs and doesn’t look back.
Your friend raises your arm in the air in victory, and you know that’s it, you have won; not because of anything you have done, but because of the beating your friend took for you, and because of his victory over death.
We can not win against sin on our own. It’s just not possible. We can never be good enough to get in the ring and win on our own. When Jesus died on the cross he took the beating for us, he took the consequences of everything we have ever done, and he died in our place, and then he won.
The good news, the good news of the Bible, is that Jesus took the beating that we had coming to us, that everything we have ever done wrong has been paid for in full on the cross, and at the end of it all Jesus stands beside us and says not “the victory is mine” but “the victory is ours”.
Thursday, 31 July 2008
A Note on Comments
Mostly I write my blog during lunch breaks or in the few free minutes in a day and as my spelling is terrible I then tend to send them to my wife who posts them for me. This means that I don’t always get a chance to respond to comments straight away – even though it looks like I have been online. If I take a while to respond to comments please don’t be offended, its not because i don’t care, its just because I don’t always have time to get back to them straight away.
Wednesday, 30 July 2008
Hospital
Yesterday morning my wife phoned me and told me that she was taking the day of as she was projectile vomiting. Having done the mad rushes to hospitals in the past I suggested she went straight down to the doctors to put her mind at ease that everything was as okay as it can be when you are feeling sick. As the day wore on I tried to call her a number of times but no reply. Finally at 12 I got hold of her sounding very sorry for herself, and having decided she would indeed head for the doctors as she was now really scared and felt like she might black out.
My work is piled up at present and I have deadlines I have to meet. I was pretty sure that this was not something too serious – yet if I am feeling unwell, of course I want a hand to hold. I can not afford time off work, however, not an issue of money – although this is always an issue – but rather an issue of time. The deadline does not stop because I do for a few hours. What if, however, I don’t go? What if they say that actually something is seriously wrong and I am not there with her to support her? I decide that I will pop home on my lunch break and see how she is.
Come lunch time, the doctor has advised her to go to the maternity hospital just for a check up. Both my wife and I feel that this is completely unnecessary. She was aware of the baby moving and was sure it wasn’t pregnancy related – what scared her was the possibility of fainting alone at home. I suspect it was the doctor covering her back. Nonetheless I drive home, pick up my wife and head for hospital. By now my wife is feeling much better. A two hour wait and we are seen by our lovely midwife who is able to confirm everything is fine, and is just as confused as we are about why we are there!
I pick up a coffee and head back to work – with the plan being that my wife will then take the car home with her and pick us up a few hours later from work (“us” being me, and my assistant who I drive into work).
By this time I am very keen to get back to my deadlines, and am perhaps driving slightly faster than I should be. My wife says to me “40” and I assume she is pointing out that there is a speed camera coming up, so begin to slow down, realising too late that I have just passed a speed camera – the ticket and the fine will be on its way. I am now feeling pretty miserable. Of course, this means I am not paying proper attention to the road and nearly plow into the back of someone a few metres up the road. As I am drinking a coffee at the time I manage to cover myself with it, as I slam on the brakes (I never said I should be allowed to drive a car!).
I finally get back to work at 4pm covered in coffee and feeling sorry for myself. My wife picks my and assistant up at 6.45pm. We had arranged to pick up a chair from freecycle (check it out for getting rid of old junk and getting stuff for free!!) so I had borrowed a work van. We now had to drive for 20 mins, pick up the seat, drive 30mins back to ours, 30 mins back to work, drop the van back at work so it can be used at 7am today, pick up my car and drive home again. We still needed to fit in eating, and helping the assistant prepare a talk for a youth camp he is going on in a few days time.
I finally crawled into bed at quarter past silly o’clock and should have been feeling pretty miserable…and would have been…if it wasn’t for the fact that now dominating my bedroom is a glorious beaten up chesterfield arm chair. ;o)
Yours as ever
The Broken Man
My work is piled up at present and I have deadlines I have to meet. I was pretty sure that this was not something too serious – yet if I am feeling unwell, of course I want a hand to hold. I can not afford time off work, however, not an issue of money – although this is always an issue – but rather an issue of time. The deadline does not stop because I do for a few hours. What if, however, I don’t go? What if they say that actually something is seriously wrong and I am not there with her to support her? I decide that I will pop home on my lunch break and see how she is.
Come lunch time, the doctor has advised her to go to the maternity hospital just for a check up. Both my wife and I feel that this is completely unnecessary. She was aware of the baby moving and was sure it wasn’t pregnancy related – what scared her was the possibility of fainting alone at home. I suspect it was the doctor covering her back. Nonetheless I drive home, pick up my wife and head for hospital. By now my wife is feeling much better. A two hour wait and we are seen by our lovely midwife who is able to confirm everything is fine, and is just as confused as we are about why we are there!
I pick up a coffee and head back to work – with the plan being that my wife will then take the car home with her and pick us up a few hours later from work (“us” being me, and my assistant who I drive into work).
By this time I am very keen to get back to my deadlines, and am perhaps driving slightly faster than I should be. My wife says to me “40” and I assume she is pointing out that there is a speed camera coming up, so begin to slow down, realising too late that I have just passed a speed camera – the ticket and the fine will be on its way. I am now feeling pretty miserable. Of course, this means I am not paying proper attention to the road and nearly plow into the back of someone a few metres up the road. As I am drinking a coffee at the time I manage to cover myself with it, as I slam on the brakes (I never said I should be allowed to drive a car!).
I finally get back to work at 4pm covered in coffee and feeling sorry for myself. My wife picks my and assistant up at 6.45pm. We had arranged to pick up a chair from freecycle (check it out for getting rid of old junk and getting stuff for free!!) so I had borrowed a work van. We now had to drive for 20 mins, pick up the seat, drive 30mins back to ours, 30 mins back to work, drop the van back at work so it can be used at 7am today, pick up my car and drive home again. We still needed to fit in eating, and helping the assistant prepare a talk for a youth camp he is going on in a few days time.
I finally crawled into bed at quarter past silly o’clock and should have been feeling pretty miserable…and would have been…if it wasn’t for the fact that now dominating my bedroom is a glorious beaten up chesterfield arm chair. ;o)
Yours as ever
The Broken Man
Tuesday, 29 July 2008
Now I Lay Me Down.
A blog I was reading the other day (sorry, I can't remember which) talked about “Now I lay me down to Sleep”. The group is one made up of volunteer photographers who provide free professional photographs for parents whose babies die shortly after birth. The system allows parents to call in photographers to provide some lasting images of babies who have either already died, or who are soon to die.
I have got in touch with the organisation and feel completely overwhelmed by the whole thing. Its incredible. I am a photographer and feel I should offer my time. In honesty, I don’t know if I will be good enough, or if I will cope with it, but I feel I have to offer. I am tempted to wait until my baby is born, so that I can get used to photographing babies, as while I do a wide range of photo work, I don’t do a lot of photographing babies. I feel so close to tears just writing about it. Please do check out the organisation; I think they really are something incredibly special.
http://www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org/start.php
There was also a piece about them on the MSNBC show http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23481435#23481435. Okay, the background music is all a bit much, but bear with it!
I have got in touch with the organisation and feel completely overwhelmed by the whole thing. Its incredible. I am a photographer and feel I should offer my time. In honesty, I don’t know if I will be good enough, or if I will cope with it, but I feel I have to offer. I am tempted to wait until my baby is born, so that I can get used to photographing babies, as while I do a wide range of photo work, I don’t do a lot of photographing babies. I feel so close to tears just writing about it. Please do check out the organisation; I think they really are something incredibly special.
http://www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org/start.php
There was also a piece about them on the MSNBC show http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23481435#23481435. Okay, the background music is all a bit much, but bear with it!
Monday, 28 July 2008
Poo
Having posted my smug "babies don’t cost much" post, I have started to look at the price of nappies. WOW, that hurts! To make things fun and with a nod to the landfill site issue, we thought it would be good to go down the reusable road so I thought I would have a quick google see which is best and get some. Not really so easy though is it? Do you want a nappy made out of bamboo, or out of goose feathers; do you want it attached to the baby with zips, velcro, poppers, a nail gun, string..and the cost of them – let me just mention that again – this is not a choice you can afford to get wrong.
I am one for experimenting; I will happily try different types of most things, but excuse me if I don’t feel to excited about picking a type that is poorly-fitting and results in me and my furniture getting covered in baby poo. It's also all very well saying "oh, we will try samples from different places", but that can mean lots of costs to different places. After the baby is actually born I will need to have a nappy there and then. If possible, I would like to have worked out how to operate it, so that, when it comes to putting nappies on the baby, instead of looking confused, bemused and generally incompetent I will have the appearance of a skilled competent (and rather dashing) father who makes mothers of other babies catch their breath as they wish that their husbands / life partners / significant others were such a master nappy putter-onners themselves.
What I don’t want is to be looking confused, befudled and slightly dumbfounded as I try and work out which way up the baby goes and how to get baby poo of my white shirt.
HELP! Please note – I do not want to be told that lots of good brands are out there etc, I want solid advice on “this is the best one, get it and your life will be better”! I can then get hold of some before baby is born and practice putting them on to a soft toy whilst wearing a blind fold.
Yours as ever
The Broken Man.
I am one for experimenting; I will happily try different types of most things, but excuse me if I don’t feel to excited about picking a type that is poorly-fitting and results in me and my furniture getting covered in baby poo. It's also all very well saying "oh, we will try samples from different places", but that can mean lots of costs to different places. After the baby is actually born I will need to have a nappy there and then. If possible, I would like to have worked out how to operate it, so that, when it comes to putting nappies on the baby, instead of looking confused, bemused and generally incompetent I will have the appearance of a skilled competent (and rather dashing) father who makes mothers of other babies catch their breath as they wish that their husbands / life partners / significant others were such a master nappy putter-onners themselves.
What I don’t want is to be looking confused, befudled and slightly dumbfounded as I try and work out which way up the baby goes and how to get baby poo of my white shirt.
HELP! Please note – I do not want to be told that lots of good brands are out there etc, I want solid advice on “this is the best one, get it and your life will be better”! I can then get hold of some before baby is born and practice putting them on to a soft toy whilst wearing a blind fold.
Yours as ever
The Broken Man.
Saturday, 26 July 2008
The Theologian and the Samaritan (part 1)
A study of Luke 10:34-37
Luke 10:24
When Jesus and his disciples were on their way to Jerusalem, an expert in the Law of Moses went up and tested Jesus with a question: "Teacher, what deed must I do to have eternal life?"
The person asking the question is an expert in the law of Moses, he probably teaches in the law of Moses, and has spent much of his life studying the oral law, and debating the meaning of scripture. This man is a theologian.
Why is this person asking Jesus this question?
We see in the next few verses that the “expert” already knew the answer to the question. We are also told that he was testing Jesus. If you are an expert in a subject and hear someone else talking on it, you might want to find out if they really know what they are talking about. You might even be offended that they would consider themselves qualified to teach on the subject! The theologian picks a question that he feels he knows the answer to, and asks Jesus to see if agrees with him.
Luke 10:25-28
Jesus answered, "What does the Law of Moses say? How do you understand it?" The expert replied, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all of your mind,' and also, 'Love your neighbour as much as you love yourself.'" Jesus said to him, "You have given the right answer. Keep doing this and you will live."
Jesus’ response results in the person answering his own question.
The answer that he gives is a quote from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18, and is one that was taught by Hillel, one of the leading Torah scholars of his day (and arguably one of the most influential on Judaism to this day). Jesus agreed with the answer, and, in telling the theologian that he was right, turned the tables. Instead of being the person tested, he put himself into the role of teacher. Jesus then tells the man that he should live out this understanding of the Torah.
Jesus’s statement of “keep doing this and you will live” provides an incredible challenge to the theologian. If the theologian knows what he should be doing, surely he is already living the life he should? In which case all he has to do is carry on behaving as he knows he should.
Is it easier to work out what the right thing to do is or do what you think is right?
There are some issues where it’s incredibly difficult to work out what the right thing to do is. The debate on subjects like euthanasia, animal testing, and genetic modification of food all show how difficult the moral dilemmas we face can be, but the majority of the time we struggle not with knowing the difference between right and wrong, but in actually doing the right thing.
Jesus’s telling the theologian to carry on doing the things he knows are right challenges everything about the theologian’s beliefs and life. Spending a life time studying the most complex passages of scripture is not a replacement for living out the simple gospel message. Study is wonderful, getting a fuller understanding of the bible is very worth while, but without action it is completely meaningless.
Luke 10:29
But the expert wanted to justify himself, so asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbour?"
The start of the passage told us that the theologian wanted to test Jesus. Now we are told he wants to justify himself.
What does this suggest about the way the theologian has lived up to this point?
Jesus has not said anything to the theologian that is an accusation, yet he feels a need to justify himself, to defend his position. That seems to suggest that Jesus’s statement has challenged him, that he knows he is not living up to his own beliefs.
There are three responses we can make when we realise we are not living our lives as we should:
With God’s help change
Justify our own actions
Pretend it doesn’t matter and ignore it.
The theologian could have said, “I know I should love people, but I really struggle with it I just can’t stand Romans”, or “I find it really hard to love Samaritans.” Instead of asking for help, he tries to find an exemption clause in the rule. He asks the question who is my neighbour? The fewer people that are included in the phrase neighbour the easier it is to love them.
Luke is written in Greek, but the law quoted in Luke 10:28 was written in Hebrew, so although the Greek word for neighbour πλησίον (plēsion) is used in this passage, it’s the Hebrew word we need to understand to see the significance of this question. The Hebrew word translated as neighbour is רע (rea`) is used 188 times in the Hebrew Bible. As well as being used in Lev 19:18 (love your neighbour as yourself) it appears as part of a number of other laws including the prohibition against bearing false witness against your neighbour (Exd 20:16) and forbidding defraud your neighbour (Lev 19:13), as such the exact meaning of this word is very significant then.
Orthodox Judaism understands the word rea` to mean a fellow Jew, as such Judaism reads Lev 19:18 as: “love other Jews as much as you love yourself”. Debate on the meaning of this word existed in the time of Jesus, and it is this debate that Jesus enters into with the story that he tells.
Luke 10:30a
Jesus answered with a story: A man was going down the mountain road from Jerusalem to Jericho….
Note in verse 24 we where told that Jesus was walking along a road to Jerusalem, Jesus adapts his answers to the people and situation he finds himself in. It probably would have been easier for Jesus just to have answered the question and said “a neighbour is..”, however giving an answer in this form would be less likely to stick in the mind of his listeners. By providing a practical example of the law, Jesus brings it to life, and asks his listeners to provide their own answers. When discussing points of law, the Rabbis of Jesus’s time often provided stories as examples of how the law should be applied.
Luke 10:30b
…and he was attacked by a gang of robbers who stripped him of everything, beat him up, and ran off, leaving him half-dead
While this is just a story used to illustrate a point, it is one that the listeners could relate to. The road between Jerusalem and Jericho goes downhill for 17 miles long and was noted by a Jewish historian of the period as being used by Arabian robbers.
The man is described as being half-dead. This means that anyone seeing his body might have assumed either that he was already dead, or that he might die while they were looking after him. In addition to this would be the fear that the robbers might still be nearby and attack anyone approaching to help the man.
Within the Hebrew Bible, the prescience of a dead body is a source of ritual impurity. As such someone who enters the same dwelling as a dead body become ritually impure. The process of cleansing from this impurity takes seven days and ends with washing hands in Ash (from a red heifer) mixed with water (Num 19:2-21)
Thats enough for one day! We will carry on next week
Luke 10:24
When Jesus and his disciples were on their way to Jerusalem, an expert in the Law of Moses went up and tested Jesus with a question: "Teacher, what deed must I do to have eternal life?"
The person asking the question is an expert in the law of Moses, he probably teaches in the law of Moses, and has spent much of his life studying the oral law, and debating the meaning of scripture. This man is a theologian.
Why is this person asking Jesus this question?
We see in the next few verses that the “expert” already knew the answer to the question. We are also told that he was testing Jesus. If you are an expert in a subject and hear someone else talking on it, you might want to find out if they really know what they are talking about. You might even be offended that they would consider themselves qualified to teach on the subject! The theologian picks a question that he feels he knows the answer to, and asks Jesus to see if agrees with him.
Luke 10:25-28
Jesus answered, "What does the Law of Moses say? How do you understand it?" The expert replied, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all of your mind,' and also, 'Love your neighbour as much as you love yourself.'" Jesus said to him, "You have given the right answer. Keep doing this and you will live."
Jesus’ response results in the person answering his own question.
The answer that he gives is a quote from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18, and is one that was taught by Hillel, one of the leading Torah scholars of his day (and arguably one of the most influential on Judaism to this day). Jesus agreed with the answer, and, in telling the theologian that he was right, turned the tables. Instead of being the person tested, he put himself into the role of teacher. Jesus then tells the man that he should live out this understanding of the Torah.
Jesus’s statement of “keep doing this and you will live” provides an incredible challenge to the theologian. If the theologian knows what he should be doing, surely he is already living the life he should? In which case all he has to do is carry on behaving as he knows he should.
Is it easier to work out what the right thing to do is or do what you think is right?
There are some issues where it’s incredibly difficult to work out what the right thing to do is. The debate on subjects like euthanasia, animal testing, and genetic modification of food all show how difficult the moral dilemmas we face can be, but the majority of the time we struggle not with knowing the difference between right and wrong, but in actually doing the right thing.
Jesus’s telling the theologian to carry on doing the things he knows are right challenges everything about the theologian’s beliefs and life. Spending a life time studying the most complex passages of scripture is not a replacement for living out the simple gospel message. Study is wonderful, getting a fuller understanding of the bible is very worth while, but without action it is completely meaningless.
Luke 10:29
But the expert wanted to justify himself, so asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbour?"
The start of the passage told us that the theologian wanted to test Jesus. Now we are told he wants to justify himself.
What does this suggest about the way the theologian has lived up to this point?
Jesus has not said anything to the theologian that is an accusation, yet he feels a need to justify himself, to defend his position. That seems to suggest that Jesus’s statement has challenged him, that he knows he is not living up to his own beliefs.
There are three responses we can make when we realise we are not living our lives as we should:
With God’s help change
Justify our own actions
Pretend it doesn’t matter and ignore it.
The theologian could have said, “I know I should love people, but I really struggle with it I just can’t stand Romans”, or “I find it really hard to love Samaritans.” Instead of asking for help, he tries to find an exemption clause in the rule. He asks the question who is my neighbour? The fewer people that are included in the phrase neighbour the easier it is to love them.
Luke is written in Greek, but the law quoted in Luke 10:28 was written in Hebrew, so although the Greek word for neighbour πλησίον (plēsion) is used in this passage, it’s the Hebrew word we need to understand to see the significance of this question. The Hebrew word translated as neighbour is רע (rea`) is used 188 times in the Hebrew Bible. As well as being used in Lev 19:18 (love your neighbour as yourself) it appears as part of a number of other laws including the prohibition against bearing false witness against your neighbour (Exd 20:16) and forbidding defraud your neighbour (Lev 19:13), as such the exact meaning of this word is very significant then.
Orthodox Judaism understands the word rea` to mean a fellow Jew, as such Judaism reads Lev 19:18 as: “love other Jews as much as you love yourself”. Debate on the meaning of this word existed in the time of Jesus, and it is this debate that Jesus enters into with the story that he tells.
Luke 10:30a
Jesus answered with a story: A man was going down the mountain road from Jerusalem to Jericho….
Note in verse 24 we where told that Jesus was walking along a road to Jerusalem, Jesus adapts his answers to the people and situation he finds himself in. It probably would have been easier for Jesus just to have answered the question and said “a neighbour is..”, however giving an answer in this form would be less likely to stick in the mind of his listeners. By providing a practical example of the law, Jesus brings it to life, and asks his listeners to provide their own answers. When discussing points of law, the Rabbis of Jesus’s time often provided stories as examples of how the law should be applied.
Luke 10:30b
…and he was attacked by a gang of robbers who stripped him of everything, beat him up, and ran off, leaving him half-dead
While this is just a story used to illustrate a point, it is one that the listeners could relate to. The road between Jerusalem and Jericho goes downhill for 17 miles long and was noted by a Jewish historian of the period as being used by Arabian robbers.
The man is described as being half-dead. This means that anyone seeing his body might have assumed either that he was already dead, or that he might die while they were looking after him. In addition to this would be the fear that the robbers might still be nearby and attack anyone approaching to help the man.
Within the Hebrew Bible, the prescience of a dead body is a source of ritual impurity. As such someone who enters the same dwelling as a dead body become ritually impure. The process of cleansing from this impurity takes seven days and ends with washing hands in Ash (from a red heifer) mixed with water (Num 19:2-21)
Thats enough for one day! We will carry on next week
Friday, 25 July 2008
The Proof in the Pudding
“J” has kindly posted a comment to my post on “All that Glistens isn’t Gold”, and as it raised some interesting issues I thought I would try and respond in a full blog entry instead of just posting a reply to my comments page. J wrote:
"When it comes down to it, we won't be judged on our theology, or need correct theology in order for God to empower us for miracles. Look at Peter, God used him to heal people when he still believed that you had to follow The Law to be saved.
We will also not be judged on our personality, and whether we shout BAM when we pray for people. Samson was a most disagreeable fellow, but is listed as a Hero of Faith in Hebrews 11.
We will be judged on our character, and "the deeds done in the body, whether good or bad" (2Cor5;10), and that will be the proof of the pudding when it comes to Todd 'BAM' Bentley.
“If God is in this, then I want a slice. If God is pouring out healings, then I want a part. I can leave the ranting, the tattoos, the dodgy theology, the shouting, but if God wants to perform a miracle, then that is what I want to.” J
I really don’t want to get into a specific look at Todd Bentley’s ministry, there are lots of websites that have done so, and there are lots of videos on YouTube which show him in action. I think there are some general principles we can apply to looking at and assessing ministries, and deciding if it’s something we want to be a part of.
Some comment is required, I think, on whether we will be judged on our personality – J points out that Samson was a disagreeable fellow but is listed as a Hero of Faith. I am not sure that I agree that Samson was a disagreeable fellow; I assume that the bit of him which J considers to be disagreeable is him slaying people who were, at the time, considered enemies of God and were oppressing Israel. I think we get into a dangerous game if we use this as the measure for someone being disagreeable!
The issue of Peter is an interesting one. First of all, I do not think that Peter believed you needed to follow the law to be saved. That isn’t really a Jewish belief; the belief was far more along the lines of; “having been saved, we should follow the law as God has commanded us to”, in the same way that today Christians don’t believe that they follow Jesus teaching in order to be saved, but because we are saved. The debate that followed was, “should gentile Christians take on the requirements of the Jewish law?” I think that this doctrinal difference is very different from someone who teaches things which are in conflict with the Bible.
Doctrine does matter and can be an issue of salvation. 1 Timothy 4:16 reads “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers". This seems to suggest that if you do not watch them closely you will not save yourself and your hearers.
I agree with J that if God wants to perform a miracle then I want to be part of it, but I think it’s worth taking time out to decide what we are chasing after, before we go in search of the miracle workers.
So my question is, how do we assess a miracle, or a miracle worker? Sometimes we want to believe so much that we suspend disbelief and call it faith, yet we don’t want to become people who refuse to acknowledge and see when God is working.
The first difficulty, as I see it, is that when something that seems miraculous appearing to happen, as good Christians, we can say either “this is God” or “this is the Devil”. As we see these as the only two options open to us when something unexplained happens we try and shoe horn it into one of these two boxes.
MAGIC, MIRACLE, OR DECEPTION?
I am an illusionist. This means that among other things I can make it look as if I am floating off the floor. Some years ago, when a certain American illusionist was becoming a big thing and using this trick a lot, I demonstrated how easy it was to give the appearance that you can float to a couple of friends while having coffee after Church. Two other people saw this, and were deeply concerned that they had seen me levitate. Okay, this was a stupid thing for me to do, but putting that aside for a moment, they went to the leadership of the church and expressed deep concern that I was involved in the occult and, as such, was able to levitate.
I showed the elders how the trick was done and it was all cleared up. My point is that just because something looks like “magic” or a “miracle”, it doesn’t follow that it is a miracle, or from the devil. On some occasions we believe things because we want to, or because we cannot think of any other logical explanation for how they could have happened. So, when looking at anything “unexplained”, I think a good starting point is trying to work out whether there are any other possible explanations for what has happened.
MAGIC OR MIRACLE?
If we have got to a stage where we can absolutely rule out illusion, misdirection or “flim flam” and are sure that something has happened that is not of this world, then we do need to work if this is from God or another source. J points out that the proof is in the pudding, that we can to a degree assess something by the results of it; does it look and taste good? I would like to ring a few alarm bells here. If I got a whole bunch of 7 year olds over to my house, and set them up baking puddings, with ingredients I had stolen, if I beat them and made them work 16 hours a day, and then presented you with an incredible tasting pudding, you might say to me, while tasting it and looking at it, “I can tell that this is something that is good”. No. The final item on display does not necessarily indicate that the process is a good thing that we want to involve ourselves in; when looking at whether the pudding is good, we need to not just look at its final appearance, but the process that was used to make it.
In Matt 7:22-23, Jesus said; “Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'
When looking at an event which is claiming to be miraculous I want to know whether it points to God, whether it draws people to the cross. Is it coming from a good place, and leading to a good place. When 1000s flock to see a particular speaker who is said to be able to perform miracles but has theology that is “dodgy” then is it God who is glorified or the speaker? Are we chasing after speakers who have a gift, or after the God who gives?
THEOLOGY MATTERS
We are told that “even if we or an angel from heaven preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned” (Gal. 1:8,9)
I don’t think we can ignore “dodgy” doctrine on the basis that the person concerned appears to be displaying miracles; in fact if things which are apparently miraculous are happening, then this is a time where I believe it’s even more important for this to be underpinned by sound doctrine.
A good site to look at on this issue is http://pastors.crossmap.com/article/why-we-need-doctrine/item321.htm, where it’s pointed out that Paul tells us that we need to keep to a pattern of sound teaching with faith and love in Jesus Christ (2 Tim 1:13) that we need to hold firmly to the trustworthy message and encourage others by sound doctrine (Titus 1:9) and that we need to teach what is in accord with sound doctrine (Titus 2:1). Christ’s ministry, the apostle’s ministry and the early churches’ ministries all revolved around sound doctrine (Matt 7:28-29; Acts 5:28; Acts 2:42).
"When it comes down to it, we won't be judged on our theology, or need correct theology in order for God to empower us for miracles. Look at Peter, God used him to heal people when he still believed that you had to follow The Law to be saved.
We will also not be judged on our personality, and whether we shout BAM when we pray for people. Samson was a most disagreeable fellow, but is listed as a Hero of Faith in Hebrews 11.
We will be judged on our character, and "the deeds done in the body, whether good or bad" (2Cor5;10), and that will be the proof of the pudding when it comes to Todd 'BAM' Bentley.
“If God is in this, then I want a slice. If God is pouring out healings, then I want a part. I can leave the ranting, the tattoos, the dodgy theology, the shouting, but if God wants to perform a miracle, then that is what I want to.” J
I really don’t want to get into a specific look at Todd Bentley’s ministry, there are lots of websites that have done so, and there are lots of videos on YouTube which show him in action. I think there are some general principles we can apply to looking at and assessing ministries, and deciding if it’s something we want to be a part of.
Some comment is required, I think, on whether we will be judged on our personality – J points out that Samson was a disagreeable fellow but is listed as a Hero of Faith. I am not sure that I agree that Samson was a disagreeable fellow; I assume that the bit of him which J considers to be disagreeable is him slaying people who were, at the time, considered enemies of God and were oppressing Israel. I think we get into a dangerous game if we use this as the measure for someone being disagreeable!
The issue of Peter is an interesting one. First of all, I do not think that Peter believed you needed to follow the law to be saved. That isn’t really a Jewish belief; the belief was far more along the lines of; “having been saved, we should follow the law as God has commanded us to”, in the same way that today Christians don’t believe that they follow Jesus teaching in order to be saved, but because we are saved. The debate that followed was, “should gentile Christians take on the requirements of the Jewish law?” I think that this doctrinal difference is very different from someone who teaches things which are in conflict with the Bible.
Doctrine does matter and can be an issue of salvation. 1 Timothy 4:16 reads “Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers". This seems to suggest that if you do not watch them closely you will not save yourself and your hearers.
I agree with J that if God wants to perform a miracle then I want to be part of it, but I think it’s worth taking time out to decide what we are chasing after, before we go in search of the miracle workers.
So my question is, how do we assess a miracle, or a miracle worker? Sometimes we want to believe so much that we suspend disbelief and call it faith, yet we don’t want to become people who refuse to acknowledge and see when God is working.
The first difficulty, as I see it, is that when something that seems miraculous appearing to happen, as good Christians, we can say either “this is God” or “this is the Devil”. As we see these as the only two options open to us when something unexplained happens we try and shoe horn it into one of these two boxes.
MAGIC, MIRACLE, OR DECEPTION?
I am an illusionist. This means that among other things I can make it look as if I am floating off the floor. Some years ago, when a certain American illusionist was becoming a big thing and using this trick a lot, I demonstrated how easy it was to give the appearance that you can float to a couple of friends while having coffee after Church. Two other people saw this, and were deeply concerned that they had seen me levitate. Okay, this was a stupid thing for me to do, but putting that aside for a moment, they went to the leadership of the church and expressed deep concern that I was involved in the occult and, as such, was able to levitate.
I showed the elders how the trick was done and it was all cleared up. My point is that just because something looks like “magic” or a “miracle”, it doesn’t follow that it is a miracle, or from the devil. On some occasions we believe things because we want to, or because we cannot think of any other logical explanation for how they could have happened. So, when looking at anything “unexplained”, I think a good starting point is trying to work out whether there are any other possible explanations for what has happened.
MAGIC OR MIRACLE?
If we have got to a stage where we can absolutely rule out illusion, misdirection or “flim flam” and are sure that something has happened that is not of this world, then we do need to work if this is from God or another source. J points out that the proof is in the pudding, that we can to a degree assess something by the results of it; does it look and taste good? I would like to ring a few alarm bells here. If I got a whole bunch of 7 year olds over to my house, and set them up baking puddings, with ingredients I had stolen, if I beat them and made them work 16 hours a day, and then presented you with an incredible tasting pudding, you might say to me, while tasting it and looking at it, “I can tell that this is something that is good”. No. The final item on display does not necessarily indicate that the process is a good thing that we want to involve ourselves in; when looking at whether the pudding is good, we need to not just look at its final appearance, but the process that was used to make it.
In Matt 7:22-23, Jesus said; “Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'
When looking at an event which is claiming to be miraculous I want to know whether it points to God, whether it draws people to the cross. Is it coming from a good place, and leading to a good place. When 1000s flock to see a particular speaker who is said to be able to perform miracles but has theology that is “dodgy” then is it God who is glorified or the speaker? Are we chasing after speakers who have a gift, or after the God who gives?
THEOLOGY MATTERS
We are told that “even if we or an angel from heaven preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned” (Gal. 1:8,9)
I don’t think we can ignore “dodgy” doctrine on the basis that the person concerned appears to be displaying miracles; in fact if things which are apparently miraculous are happening, then this is a time where I believe it’s even more important for this to be underpinned by sound doctrine.
A good site to look at on this issue is http://pastors.crossmap.com/article/why-we-need-doctrine/item321.htm, where it’s pointed out that Paul tells us that we need to keep to a pattern of sound teaching with faith and love in Jesus Christ (2 Tim 1:13) that we need to hold firmly to the trustworthy message and encourage others by sound doctrine (Titus 1:9) and that we need to teach what is in accord with sound doctrine (Titus 2:1). Christ’s ministry, the apostle’s ministry and the early churches’ ministries all revolved around sound doctrine (Matt 7:28-29; Acts 5:28; Acts 2:42).
The Ordinal
I've picked up at a charity shop for the princely sum of £1.50 a copy of “The Ordinal” inscribed to ‘Glyn, Lord Bishop of Swansea and Brecon’.
A bit of digging has identified the owner of the book as William Glyn Hughes Simon (1903-1972) who after being Bishop of Swansea and Brecon became Bishop of Llandaff and then the Archbishop of Wales for 3 years before his retirement in 1971 and death in 1972.
Perhaps this should not impress me, but owning a book that was once owned by the Archbishop of Wales seems to me to be something very special indeed. Within Judaism the prohibition against destroying the name of God means that a page containing God’s name can not simply be thrown away, it must be treated with respect and so when requiring disposal it will be buried. We talk about some churches as having an atmosphere about them, as places with walls that have been soaked in prayers. For me, without getting to mystical, books have much of the same characteristics. A prayer book, a book of liturgy, a Bible once owned by a devout person are, for me, incredible things.
With the introduction of a new prayer book in Reform Judaism, the question arose as to what to do with the old books? After much discussion it was agreed to use them as insulation for a school. The idea that, as they study, the children will be surrounded by the books, albeit in the walls, that a generation have used to call upon God, is, for me, a very special image. I find such thought and profound concern for respecting the things of God very humbling.
Back to the Ordinal; for those who don’t know, the ordinal is the liturgy, (the words used) when ordaining a Deacon, Priest, or Bishop. The standard Ordinal comes from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which was a revision of the 1552 text. Since then, new orders of service have been introduced, with the Alternative Service Book (1980) and then Common Worship. Despite these updates, the 1662 text is still “on the statute book” as it were. I hadn’t intended this to be a history lesson – especially not such a dull one, so back to my point, or rather getting to my point.
Reading the text from the Ordinal I am just astounded by the strength and weight of the liturgy, and it brought me back to the current disputes within the church:
“From all blindness of heart; from pride, vain-glory, and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred, and malice, and all inheritableness, Good Lord, Deliver us.
From fornication, and all other deadly sin; and from all the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil, Good Lord deliver us.
From all sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion; from all false doctrine, heresy, and schism; from hardness of heart, and contempt of thy Word and Commandment, God Lord deliver us.”
As the church faces schism, separation, and in-fighting, I can only hope that these prayers will ring in the ears of all of us involved.
Yours as always,
The Broken Man
A bit of digging has identified the owner of the book as William Glyn Hughes Simon (1903-1972) who after being Bishop of Swansea and Brecon became Bishop of Llandaff and then the Archbishop of Wales for 3 years before his retirement in 1971 and death in 1972.
Perhaps this should not impress me, but owning a book that was once owned by the Archbishop of Wales seems to me to be something very special indeed. Within Judaism the prohibition against destroying the name of God means that a page containing God’s name can not simply be thrown away, it must be treated with respect and so when requiring disposal it will be buried. We talk about some churches as having an atmosphere about them, as places with walls that have been soaked in prayers. For me, without getting to mystical, books have much of the same characteristics. A prayer book, a book of liturgy, a Bible once owned by a devout person are, for me, incredible things.
With the introduction of a new prayer book in Reform Judaism, the question arose as to what to do with the old books? After much discussion it was agreed to use them as insulation for a school. The idea that, as they study, the children will be surrounded by the books, albeit in the walls, that a generation have used to call upon God, is, for me, a very special image. I find such thought and profound concern for respecting the things of God very humbling.
Back to the Ordinal; for those who don’t know, the ordinal is the liturgy, (the words used) when ordaining a Deacon, Priest, or Bishop. The standard Ordinal comes from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which was a revision of the 1552 text. Since then, new orders of service have been introduced, with the Alternative Service Book (1980) and then Common Worship. Despite these updates, the 1662 text is still “on the statute book” as it were. I hadn’t intended this to be a history lesson – especially not such a dull one, so back to my point, or rather getting to my point.
Reading the text from the Ordinal I am just astounded by the strength and weight of the liturgy, and it brought me back to the current disputes within the church:
“From all blindness of heart; from pride, vain-glory, and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred, and malice, and all inheritableness, Good Lord, Deliver us.
From fornication, and all other deadly sin; and from all the deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil, Good Lord deliver us.
From all sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion; from all false doctrine, heresy, and schism; from hardness of heart, and contempt of thy Word and Commandment, God Lord deliver us.”
As the church faces schism, separation, and in-fighting, I can only hope that these prayers will ring in the ears of all of us involved.
Yours as always,
The Broken Man
Thursday, 24 July 2008
A Bumpy Ride
I got home the other day to find my wife in tears as she had seen herself in a full length mirror and come to the conclusion that she looked terrible. She believed that the bump was not a neat little bump, but a huge ugly bump, that her bum is increasing in size at an alarming rate too and that the dress she picked up from a discount store looks like a tent.
I think my wife looks incredible. When I look at her and see the “bump” my thoughts are mostly “WOW, my baby is in there” (okay, I know I should think “our” baby but I don’t, my thoughts are self centred!).
My wife looks incredible – I just really wish people would tell her that, instead of saying “WOW, that bump’s big - sure it’s not twins?”. Yes, we are sure it’s not twins, yes the bump is big, as she has a small frame.
I should mention that my wife suffered from anorexia for a long time; she still, many years on, only eats at meal times. Having found a system that works and keeps her healthy, she sticks with it. A rapidly changing body shape was never going to be easy for her, but I just want to slap people (with a brick) who try and make funny comments about her expanding stomach.
Yours as ever,
The Broken Man
I think my wife looks incredible. When I look at her and see the “bump” my thoughts are mostly “WOW, my baby is in there” (okay, I know I should think “our” baby but I don’t, my thoughts are self centred!).
My wife looks incredible – I just really wish people would tell her that, instead of saying “WOW, that bump’s big - sure it’s not twins?”. Yes, we are sure it’s not twins, yes the bump is big, as she has a small frame.
I should mention that my wife suffered from anorexia for a long time; she still, many years on, only eats at meal times. Having found a system that works and keeps her healthy, she sticks with it. A rapidly changing body shape was never going to be easy for her, but I just want to slap people (with a brick) who try and make funny comments about her expanding stomach.
Yours as ever,
The Broken Man
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
The Theology of a Broken Man
Just to let you all know, I have started a second blog so I can post complete bible studies and theology ramblings in their origional formats as I think they are easier to read like that. I dont want to post them to this blog as "Jpegs" just now as they take up loads of pages and I am not sure if I want to stick with it. The set up is that you click on the images and it becomes full size. I might abandon this idea again, so all comments welcome.
I will still be posting my attempts at theology to this blog as well on Saturdays.
This kind of house keeping post is horrible and very dull so I will go and hide again.
I will still be posting my attempts at theology to this blog as well on Saturdays.
This kind of house keeping post is horrible and very dull so I will go and hide again.
Babies - they're expensive?
People have told me that having a baby is a very expensive thing indeed – that the costs soon pile up. So, I thought it would be worthwhile looking at the costs that I anticipate facing:
Baby Sling - £25
Baby clothes – Hand me downs
Pushchair – don’t need one but have been given one
Baby seat for car – My mother is buying one
Baby bath – not sure I need one – surely I will just take the baby in the bath with me? However, someone has given me one.
Cot – Don’t need one as co-sleeping but a friend has offered us a Moses basket.
Nappies – okay, these are going to cost – and we could even go down the whole changing mat route, going for eco friendly nappies.
Food – My long suffering wife will serve as a drink dispenser.
That’s it…I really can’t think of anything else I need...Am I missing something? Is there a huge shopping list of baby related products that I should be panicking about getting before baby arrives?
A note on breast feeding here – IT’S INCREDIBLE! I mean, wow, that stuff is clever! I know you will already know this stuff, but it came as news to me. Apparently when a mum kisses her baby she picks up their germs, her body then creates the antibodies to deal with them, and dispenses these anti-bodies when she breast feeds! Breast milk is designer baby medicine.
Some comment needs to be made here about breasts, however. Currently the people who see my wife’s breasts are my wife, and me. That’s it. The idea of my wife getting her breasts out in public does trouble me rather. Don’t get me wrong here, I know, breastfeeding is natural, it’s great, I’m all for it, it’s wonderful. But, and here is the big but, that for me is on the stipulation that other people are not looking at her breasts.
Women out there may now be saying to themselves, “people don’t look when you are breast feeding, you can be discrete” etc. Believe me – people are looking. Me. I am sorry, I know it’s natural and all the rest of it, but generally speaking, my experience of breasts has been objects of sexual desire. However grown up I want to be about it, I can’t help thinking to myself: “BOOBS”. This is particularly difficult if, while talking to someone, they start breastfeeding - so I know, I know people are looking. And I don’t want them to. But I do want my wife to breastfeed, I believe in it. Just be warned. If I catch you staring in anything but a medically curious or the “wonders of nature” kind of way, we will be having words!
Baby Sling - £25
Baby clothes – Hand me downs
Pushchair – don’t need one but have been given one
Baby seat for car – My mother is buying one
Baby bath – not sure I need one – surely I will just take the baby in the bath with me? However, someone has given me one.
Cot – Don’t need one as co-sleeping but a friend has offered us a Moses basket.
Nappies – okay, these are going to cost – and we could even go down the whole changing mat route, going for eco friendly nappies.
Food – My long suffering wife will serve as a drink dispenser.
That’s it…I really can’t think of anything else I need...Am I missing something? Is there a huge shopping list of baby related products that I should be panicking about getting before baby arrives?
A note on breast feeding here – IT’S INCREDIBLE! I mean, wow, that stuff is clever! I know you will already know this stuff, but it came as news to me. Apparently when a mum kisses her baby she picks up their germs, her body then creates the antibodies to deal with them, and dispenses these anti-bodies when she breast feeds! Breast milk is designer baby medicine.
Some comment needs to be made here about breasts, however. Currently the people who see my wife’s breasts are my wife, and me. That’s it. The idea of my wife getting her breasts out in public does trouble me rather. Don’t get me wrong here, I know, breastfeeding is natural, it’s great, I’m all for it, it’s wonderful. But, and here is the big but, that for me is on the stipulation that other people are not looking at her breasts.
Women out there may now be saying to themselves, “people don’t look when you are breast feeding, you can be discrete” etc. Believe me – people are looking. Me. I am sorry, I know it’s natural and all the rest of it, but generally speaking, my experience of breasts has been objects of sexual desire. However grown up I want to be about it, I can’t help thinking to myself: “BOOBS”. This is particularly difficult if, while talking to someone, they start breastfeeding - so I know, I know people are looking. And I don’t want them to. But I do want my wife to breastfeed, I believe in it. Just be warned. If I catch you staring in anything but a medically curious or the “wonders of nature” kind of way, we will be having words!
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
All that Glistens isn’t Gold
I have hesitated in writing this blog entry, and for that I apologise; I realise I was concerned about offending, but I feel that I would be doing a disservice to you if I didn’t bring this up..
Todd Bentley has come to the UK and has set up shop. For those who don’t know, he is an American preacher, who among other things, claims to have meet with an Angel called Emma, and to have spoken with St Paul. I am not going to specifically address his teaching as many have already done to. With his work in the UK has come again the claim that people have received gold teeth from God. This has made the front page of some local newspapers, and so it is this area I want to talk about.
I am a Charismatic Christian; by this I mean that I believe that the Holy Spirit is at work in the world today, and miracles happen today, and did not come to an end with the close of the New Testament.
I am also a sceptic. In my younger years I was involved in a wide variety of religions, and was a palm reader. I am also an illusionist. This combination has made me acutely aware of the way in which people can be made to believe something that is not true.
We are all susceptible to deception, to the influences of a good sales patter at our local retail store, to a convincing sob story from a con man. When we are told that God is doing something incredible we desperately want to believe it, to be a part of it, and so when people hear that God is giving people gold fillings, some suspend disbelief. To doubt seems to be showing a lack of faith, and so sometimes we don’t always ask the questions we should.
So, what is my problem with God providing people with gold fillings? My first difficulty lays in my knowledge of my own mouth. I have no idea how many fillings I have got. I have had a fair few, but couldn’t tell which teeth they are on, and I haven’t spent any time at all staring at my fillings.
This means that if someone told me tomorrow that God had given me a filling I would have difficulty in knowing whether this was the case, or whether it was a pre-existing filling. The next difficult I have is that most torches use bulbs that have a yellow light. If I was to shine one into my mouth, a silver coloured filling could easily look gold. If, however, knowing I have a number of fillings, I was to shine a torch into my mouth and find that I had no fillings at all, and my teeth were in perfect health, this would be astounding.
As I look at the biblical accounts of healings I find, for example, Jesus healing a lame man, or a blind man – in each case of a healing I find that God has repaired the body.
I can not find an example of God healing someone by providing a prosthetic limb. I find it hard to believe that the blind man was given metal eyes. For me it just wouldn’t make sense. If God, in designing humans, felt that we should have gold teeth, surely we would have been created with them? If, then, God heals someone who needs a filling, surely that healing would take the form of the cavity being replaced by the type of teeth we were designed with, not with a gold implant? If we were asked to believe that someone had been healed by being given a metal, or, for that matter, a wooden arm, we would struggle to see this as a miracle carried out by God, so why are people so ready to believe that God is providing people with fillings, gold or otherwise?
For me, the focus on such things removes our focus from God. I believe the most incredible, miraculous, mind blowing thing is that we have a God who loves us, that we are created beings and that we are invited to enter into a relationship with God. I find it amazing that, through Jesus, we can approach God. That is mind blowing. Gold teeth? Sorry, it just doesn’t get me excited.
Todd Bentley has come to the UK and has set up shop. For those who don’t know, he is an American preacher, who among other things, claims to have meet with an Angel called Emma, and to have spoken with St Paul. I am not going to specifically address his teaching as many have already done to. With his work in the UK has come again the claim that people have received gold teeth from God. This has made the front page of some local newspapers, and so it is this area I want to talk about.
I am a Charismatic Christian; by this I mean that I believe that the Holy Spirit is at work in the world today, and miracles happen today, and did not come to an end with the close of the New Testament.
I am also a sceptic. In my younger years I was involved in a wide variety of religions, and was a palm reader. I am also an illusionist. This combination has made me acutely aware of the way in which people can be made to believe something that is not true.
We are all susceptible to deception, to the influences of a good sales patter at our local retail store, to a convincing sob story from a con man. When we are told that God is doing something incredible we desperately want to believe it, to be a part of it, and so when people hear that God is giving people gold fillings, some suspend disbelief. To doubt seems to be showing a lack of faith, and so sometimes we don’t always ask the questions we should.
So, what is my problem with God providing people with gold fillings? My first difficulty lays in my knowledge of my own mouth. I have no idea how many fillings I have got. I have had a fair few, but couldn’t tell which teeth they are on, and I haven’t spent any time at all staring at my fillings.
This means that if someone told me tomorrow that God had given me a filling I would have difficulty in knowing whether this was the case, or whether it was a pre-existing filling. The next difficult I have is that most torches use bulbs that have a yellow light. If I was to shine one into my mouth, a silver coloured filling could easily look gold. If, however, knowing I have a number of fillings, I was to shine a torch into my mouth and find that I had no fillings at all, and my teeth were in perfect health, this would be astounding.
As I look at the biblical accounts of healings I find, for example, Jesus healing a lame man, or a blind man – in each case of a healing I find that God has repaired the body.
I can not find an example of God healing someone by providing a prosthetic limb. I find it hard to believe that the blind man was given metal eyes. For me it just wouldn’t make sense. If God, in designing humans, felt that we should have gold teeth, surely we would have been created with them? If, then, God heals someone who needs a filling, surely that healing would take the form of the cavity being replaced by the type of teeth we were designed with, not with a gold implant? If we were asked to believe that someone had been healed by being given a metal, or, for that matter, a wooden arm, we would struggle to see this as a miracle carried out by God, so why are people so ready to believe that God is providing people with fillings, gold or otherwise?
For me, the focus on such things removes our focus from God. I believe the most incredible, miraculous, mind blowing thing is that we have a God who loves us, that we are created beings and that we are invited to enter into a relationship with God. I find it amazing that, through Jesus, we can approach God. That is mind blowing. Gold teeth? Sorry, it just doesn’t get me excited.
Monday, 21 July 2008
My wife – she’s pregnant, she is...
I realise by now, dear readers (both of you), that you have come to terms with my wife’s pregnancy. That makes it sound like a terrible illness or affliction, which I know its not, and I am very pleased. It was just that, sitting on the bed the other day and talking with my wife as she got ready for bed (still after six years marriage to her I find it incredible that I can *try* to hold a normal conversation as she takes her clothes of!) a thought suddenly occurred to me. “WOW, look at the bump!!! You’re pregnant, you are.”
I mean, seriously! She has a baby inside her; more to the point, my baby. There is a human growing inside her stomach. It’s getting bigger. Of course, I try and remain casual about this, show that I am someone who takes these things in my stride. I drop the internal “WOW” and just say “You, you’re pregnant, you are”. Eloquently put, I think you will agree, displaying all my hopes, my dreams, and my deep love all in that simple statement.
Clearly, my wife, with a gift for interpretation, was able to get all this from that one sentence, as she responded with a little sigh (of joy at being married to such a wonderful man, I suspect), “Yes dear, I am pregnant. Do you want a cup of tea?” Clearly, a sentence which conveys the sentiment, “I am so pleased you love me, and yes I share those hopes and dreams, I love you so much and am so pleased we are having this child.”
Yours ever.
The Broken Man
I mean, seriously! She has a baby inside her; more to the point, my baby. There is a human growing inside her stomach. It’s getting bigger. Of course, I try and remain casual about this, show that I am someone who takes these things in my stride. I drop the internal “WOW” and just say “You, you’re pregnant, you are”. Eloquently put, I think you will agree, displaying all my hopes, my dreams, and my deep love all in that simple statement.
Clearly, my wife, with a gift for interpretation, was able to get all this from that one sentence, as she responded with a little sigh (of joy at being married to such a wonderful man, I suspect), “Yes dear, I am pregnant. Do you want a cup of tea?” Clearly, a sentence which conveys the sentiment, “I am so pleased you love me, and yes I share those hopes and dreams, I love you so much and am so pleased we are having this child.”
Yours ever.
The Broken Man
Sunday, 20 July 2008
Saturday, 19 July 2008
Jonah 4
1. But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry
The Hebrew word translated here as angry literally means “hot” and carries with it meanings of grief. This gives a real picture of Jonah returning to full on drama queen mode. Jonah does not want to see God forgiving the people of Nineveh, he wants to see bolts of lighting from the sky, he wants to see them destroyed from the face of the earth. He has told them God is going to wipe them out, and now he is going to have to tell them that God has forgiven them. Despite what has happened in Jonah’s own life, and how much God has forgiven him, he finds it hard to forgive other people, or to see them forgiven.
Has been forgiven by God made it easier for you to forgive others?
2. He prayed to the Lord, “O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.
3. Now, O Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
Jonah is saying here that he knew God would show mercy; that he knew that the people would repent, but instead of celebrating, instead of being pleased that this people have now turned to God, that he is so distressed by it that he wishes he was dead! The people of Nineveh have made Israelite lives a misery, and instead of being the instrument of their destruction, Jonah has effectively saved them from God’s anger by being the person to tell them that God is not happy and will judge them.
4. But the Lord replied, “Have you any right to be angry?”
The word “angry” here can also be translated as “grieved”. God has already forgiven Jonah for ignoring his original call to go to Nineveh, and as someone who has been forgiven by God; it seems that Jonah has little right to be angry when God shows mercy to someone else.
5. Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city.
6. Then the Lord God provided a vine [kikaion] and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine.
Although Jonah knows that God has relented, that he has forgiven the people of Nineveh he still sits a distance away from the town and watches in case God does bring destruction on it. Maybe Jonah hopes to see the place brought to ruin; we get the feeling in verse 5 of someone going to watch a public execution, and trying to arrive early so they can get a good seat. It is as though Jonah has not believed the news that there has been a reprieve, or maybe he believes that God will destroy Nineveh just because Jonah was not happy with God’s decision!
These two verses seem to contradict each other. Jonah built a shelter and then sat in its shade, so what use to him is additional shade from the “kikaion”. The only possible explanation is that Jonah’s best attempts to provide himself with shade had in some way failed, that as much as he had tried to provide for his comfort by building a shelter the sun was still hitting his head! The “kikaion”, translated by the NIV as a vine, is a gourd that grows rapidly to between eight and ten feet and fades quickly if injured.
7. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered.
Certain types of small worm are able to do substantial damage to the root of gourds, resulting in them withering.
8. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.” But God said to Jonah, “Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?” “I do,” he said. “I am angry enough to die.” 10. But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight.
This whole section gives us a vivid picture of losing perspective. Jonah is sitting where he is, in the heat of the sun, for one reason only; he is hoping to see some one else get destroyed. Jonah’s only reason for being there is that he wants to watch a people destroyed, and instead of worrying about the potential destruction of a huge number of people Jonah is worrying that he is too hot and his shade has gone. He could have dealt with the situation by walking away; instead of sitting in the desert watching this city in the hoping of seeing some one else get in trouble, he could have just left, but instead he sits there getting more and more depressed. Not only is the city not destroyed, but his shade is gone.
What things do you lose perspective about?
Living in the western world it can be very difficult to keep perspective and only worry about the things that really matter.
Do famines and disasters in other countries influence the way in which you view things that happen in your day-to-day life?
11. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?”
God tries to put things in perspective for Jonah by pointing out that if Nineveh was destroyed 120,000 people who don’t know their right hand from their left hand would die, and that livestock would die. It is possible that the reference to people who don’t know their left from their right is to people who have had no education, but it is more likely that this is a reference to children who are not old enough to know the difference between right and wrong. God is trying to wake up in Jonah the compassion He himself feels. If Jonah can not understand that he has chosen to forgive a repentant people, then maybe he can not be so bloodthirsty when he thinks about the children or animals that would die if God brought his judgment on the city. God uses the animals as a contrast between Jonahs concern for the plant, which Jonah is actually only concerned about because it gave some benefit to him.
The story of Jonah ends abruptly; we are left without ever known what becomes of Jonah. Does he acknowledge that God is right to be merciful, does he return to Jerusalem and to the Temple to praise God, or does he spend the rest of his days sitting on the outskirts of a city which has turned to God, failing to ever do so himself? By leaving the story here, we are left sitting with Jonah with the question: Given the choice, would you rather see people who do evil destroyed or come to God? We know that God’s answer is that he would rather show mercy, and that he wants us to make his Name known throughout all the nations.
FINAL THOUGHTS
As with all the books of the Bible, Jonah contains multiple messages. There was a message to the people of Israel at the time of Jonah, in that the story of God’s mercy for the people of Ninevites and their rapid repentance was probably in part intended to shame the people of Israel, as they had after many prophets, continued to sin. There is a message about God hearing the cries of people who are suffering as a result of our actions and the action of others; that God does respond to these cries, and that, with repentance, God responds with forgiveness. We can also apply the message of Jonah to the time of Jesus, and can view it in this setting as an analogy for the relationship between Israel and Gentiles. Many messengers were sent to Israel but often they were ignored; when the message went to the Gentile world the repentance and change was quick and, as such, God responded to it. Within Judaism, the story of Jonah is read at Yom Kippur, a time when people repent of things they have done in the past year. Jonah is a reminder that God calls us to turn around our lives. We have a choice; we either change and turn back to God or face Judgment. Finally, we can consider that, if applying this story today, does the Church represent the people of Israel or the people of Nineveh? The Church has, like Israel, received teaching from God, knows the difference between right and wrong, and is in a relationship with God - does this result in us repenting quickly, or have we become used to our sin, and more slow to turn from evil than Gentiles when they are given the message of God?
The Hebrew word translated here as angry literally means “hot” and carries with it meanings of grief. This gives a real picture of Jonah returning to full on drama queen mode. Jonah does not want to see God forgiving the people of Nineveh, he wants to see bolts of lighting from the sky, he wants to see them destroyed from the face of the earth. He has told them God is going to wipe them out, and now he is going to have to tell them that God has forgiven them. Despite what has happened in Jonah’s own life, and how much God has forgiven him, he finds it hard to forgive other people, or to see them forgiven.
Has been forgiven by God made it easier for you to forgive others?
2. He prayed to the Lord, “O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.
3. Now, O Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
Jonah is saying here that he knew God would show mercy; that he knew that the people would repent, but instead of celebrating, instead of being pleased that this people have now turned to God, that he is so distressed by it that he wishes he was dead! The people of Nineveh have made Israelite lives a misery, and instead of being the instrument of their destruction, Jonah has effectively saved them from God’s anger by being the person to tell them that God is not happy and will judge them.
4. But the Lord replied, “Have you any right to be angry?”
The word “angry” here can also be translated as “grieved”. God has already forgiven Jonah for ignoring his original call to go to Nineveh, and as someone who has been forgiven by God; it seems that Jonah has little right to be angry when God shows mercy to someone else.
5. Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city.
6. Then the Lord God provided a vine [kikaion] and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine.
Although Jonah knows that God has relented, that he has forgiven the people of Nineveh he still sits a distance away from the town and watches in case God does bring destruction on it. Maybe Jonah hopes to see the place brought to ruin; we get the feeling in verse 5 of someone going to watch a public execution, and trying to arrive early so they can get a good seat. It is as though Jonah has not believed the news that there has been a reprieve, or maybe he believes that God will destroy Nineveh just because Jonah was not happy with God’s decision!
These two verses seem to contradict each other. Jonah built a shelter and then sat in its shade, so what use to him is additional shade from the “kikaion”. The only possible explanation is that Jonah’s best attempts to provide himself with shade had in some way failed, that as much as he had tried to provide for his comfort by building a shelter the sun was still hitting his head! The “kikaion”, translated by the NIV as a vine, is a gourd that grows rapidly to between eight and ten feet and fades quickly if injured.
7. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered.
Certain types of small worm are able to do substantial damage to the root of gourds, resulting in them withering.
8. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.” But God said to Jonah, “Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?” “I do,” he said. “I am angry enough to die.” 10. But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight.
This whole section gives us a vivid picture of losing perspective. Jonah is sitting where he is, in the heat of the sun, for one reason only; he is hoping to see some one else get destroyed. Jonah’s only reason for being there is that he wants to watch a people destroyed, and instead of worrying about the potential destruction of a huge number of people Jonah is worrying that he is too hot and his shade has gone. He could have dealt with the situation by walking away; instead of sitting in the desert watching this city in the hoping of seeing some one else get in trouble, he could have just left, but instead he sits there getting more and more depressed. Not only is the city not destroyed, but his shade is gone.
What things do you lose perspective about?
Living in the western world it can be very difficult to keep perspective and only worry about the things that really matter.
Do famines and disasters in other countries influence the way in which you view things that happen in your day-to-day life?
11. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?”
God tries to put things in perspective for Jonah by pointing out that if Nineveh was destroyed 120,000 people who don’t know their right hand from their left hand would die, and that livestock would die. It is possible that the reference to people who don’t know their left from their right is to people who have had no education, but it is more likely that this is a reference to children who are not old enough to know the difference between right and wrong. God is trying to wake up in Jonah the compassion He himself feels. If Jonah can not understand that he has chosen to forgive a repentant people, then maybe he can not be so bloodthirsty when he thinks about the children or animals that would die if God brought his judgment on the city. God uses the animals as a contrast between Jonahs concern for the plant, which Jonah is actually only concerned about because it gave some benefit to him.
The story of Jonah ends abruptly; we are left without ever known what becomes of Jonah. Does he acknowledge that God is right to be merciful, does he return to Jerusalem and to the Temple to praise God, or does he spend the rest of his days sitting on the outskirts of a city which has turned to God, failing to ever do so himself? By leaving the story here, we are left sitting with Jonah with the question: Given the choice, would you rather see people who do evil destroyed or come to God? We know that God’s answer is that he would rather show mercy, and that he wants us to make his Name known throughout all the nations.
FINAL THOUGHTS
As with all the books of the Bible, Jonah contains multiple messages. There was a message to the people of Israel at the time of Jonah, in that the story of God’s mercy for the people of Ninevites and their rapid repentance was probably in part intended to shame the people of Israel, as they had after many prophets, continued to sin. There is a message about God hearing the cries of people who are suffering as a result of our actions and the action of others; that God does respond to these cries, and that, with repentance, God responds with forgiveness. We can also apply the message of Jonah to the time of Jesus, and can view it in this setting as an analogy for the relationship between Israel and Gentiles. Many messengers were sent to Israel but often they were ignored; when the message went to the Gentile world the repentance and change was quick and, as such, God responded to it. Within Judaism, the story of Jonah is read at Yom Kippur, a time when people repent of things they have done in the past year. Jonah is a reminder that God calls us to turn around our lives. We have a choice; we either change and turn back to God or face Judgment. Finally, we can consider that, if applying this story today, does the Church represent the people of Israel or the people of Nineveh? The Church has, like Israel, received teaching from God, knows the difference between right and wrong, and is in a relationship with God - does this result in us repenting quickly, or have we become used to our sin, and more slow to turn from evil than Gentiles when they are given the message of God?
Friday, 18 July 2008
Christmas - In A Box
I am a reasonable man. Really I am. Some might, at a push, describe me as someone who is reasonably in tune with women. I know that the best cure for a broken heart is chocolate. I know accessories matter. I am not insensitive to these things. Yet, having spent another evening in a stifling hot loft trying to pack up boxes and mark them with whether they will be needed in the next three years or not, I found myself truly stumped by a conversation I had with my wife:
Wife – What are you doing with those Christmas Decorations?
Me - I am putting them all into one box.
Wife – They don’t go in one box.
Me - They haven’t in the past, no, but we are trying to minimise the amount of boxes we have.
Wife – The decorations are different colours and we rotate them. They need to be in different boxes so they don’t get muddled up.
Me - Surely if the decorations are different colours, it will be easy to identify which ones go with which colour scheme?
Wife – If they are in the same box we might be tempted to use them together and mess up the scheme.
Me – But you decorate the tree, and you won’t be tempted to use the two colour schemes together so there wont be a problem…
Wife – They go in different boxes…
Me – We also appear to have six sets of Christmas fairy lights; which ones do you want to keep?
Dear reader, I am sure you can imagine how the rest of the conversation went. It seems in two areas my wife is obsessional – Christmas tree decorations (with the attached insistence on a real tree that will drop pine needles around the entire house by magic - I swear I found one on top of a wardrobe last week!) and wrapping presents. I am certain that my wife spends more money each year on wrapping paper than I do on gifts. It’s my brothers birthday – I will get him a bottle of wine, on the way to his flat, three weeks after his birthday. My wife’s sister’s birthday will involve a three month scouring of the shops followed by a further two weeks searching for suitable wrapping paper, followed by an afternoon of careful wrapping and tying of bows.
Really, I try to understand, but I struggle; the wrapping doesn’t matter, surely it doesn’t...
As I write that line for a moment my mind drifts to (avert your eyes, bashful reader) my wife’s lingerie, and some of the, quite frankly, stunning “wrappings” she has covered herself in…hmmm…okay I can see that the wrapping can be worthwhile, I will let that one slide for now…but surely the Christmas tree decorations thing is a sign of mental instability?
Yours as ever,
The Broken Man
Wife – What are you doing with those Christmas Decorations?
Me - I am putting them all into one box.
Wife – They don’t go in one box.
Me - They haven’t in the past, no, but we are trying to minimise the amount of boxes we have.
Wife – The decorations are different colours and we rotate them. They need to be in different boxes so they don’t get muddled up.
Me - Surely if the decorations are different colours, it will be easy to identify which ones go with which colour scheme?
Wife – If they are in the same box we might be tempted to use them together and mess up the scheme.
Me – But you decorate the tree, and you won’t be tempted to use the two colour schemes together so there wont be a problem…
Wife – They go in different boxes…
Me – We also appear to have six sets of Christmas fairy lights; which ones do you want to keep?
Dear reader, I am sure you can imagine how the rest of the conversation went. It seems in two areas my wife is obsessional – Christmas tree decorations (with the attached insistence on a real tree that will drop pine needles around the entire house by magic - I swear I found one on top of a wardrobe last week!) and wrapping presents. I am certain that my wife spends more money each year on wrapping paper than I do on gifts. It’s my brothers birthday – I will get him a bottle of wine, on the way to his flat, three weeks after his birthday. My wife’s sister’s birthday will involve a three month scouring of the shops followed by a further two weeks searching for suitable wrapping paper, followed by an afternoon of careful wrapping and tying of bows.
Really, I try to understand, but I struggle; the wrapping doesn’t matter, surely it doesn’t...
As I write that line for a moment my mind drifts to (avert your eyes, bashful reader) my wife’s lingerie, and some of the, quite frankly, stunning “wrappings” she has covered herself in…hmmm…okay I can see that the wrapping can be worthwhile, I will let that one slide for now…but surely the Christmas tree decorations thing is a sign of mental instability?
Yours as ever,
The Broken Man
Thursday, 17 July 2008
The Past
I realise some of my readers are from America, and so, perhaps with a prejudiced view of American theology, I have been a little remise in discussing my past. Now, I know you might think, “well, we have been told about your past, that’s fine” – but there is more, much more, and I want to write at least a little about it so that when the desire to make passing references to things in the past comes up, I know you already have the background.
I feel I need to give this some kind of an introduction, which possibly displays my nervousness. If people live a terrible life before they become Christians, then have a miraculous conversion, we rush them to the front of the church to give testimony. There seems to be nothing we love more than a good transformation story. In my life things have not been so simple. I relate better to Paul saying “the good I want to do, that I don’t do! The bad I don’t want to do, that I do.”
In my early life; well, from the age of 16,I had a lot of sexual partners, sometimes at the same time. Some of them were already involved with other people. At 18 I got married, and continued to engage in sexual activity with other people, even with groups of people, as did my wife. I was by this time already a Christian, in the sense that I had made a commitment to God, albeit a shaky one that, for the most part, I did not put into practice. Three years into my marriage I got a phone call from someone I had been seeing telling me that they were pregnant with my child.
I woke my wife and told her, and the following day she attempted to take her own life, before leaving me and moving to London. It was at this point that my life really turned around. I might go into more details at some later point, but suffice to say that a light went on in my life, and changes began to take place. A few months later she moved back in and we started trying to rebuild our marriage. My wife asked that I had nothing to do with my child; something that broke my heart in two.
Fast forward three years, and I was still on “the straight and narrow” but my brother had just died of a heroin overdose and my wife left me for another man.
I realise that I am only giving you snap shots, snippets; but I can’t bring myself to go into all the detail right now.
With my marriage over I was able to have some brief contact with my daughter, but my child’s mother got into another new relationship and again said she didn’t want me involved in my child’s life.
My current marriage is my second marriage.
Fast forward to six months ago: My 10 years old daughter has finally been told that I am her father, and I can, at last, have access. Fast forward another 3 months and a DNA test reveals she is not my daughter after all.
For some my past disqualifies me from ministry; the biblical passage that says a leader should have “but one wife” is often not taken (as I take it) as a reference to polygamy, but as a bar from those who have been divorced and remarried entering into a position of leadership.
I am not proud of my past, and while there is much I wish I could undo, I can not change it. The experiences I have had have formed me, and broken me in more ways than I can begin to describe. I share them here in the hope that you will understand a little of where I have come from. I believe that my past is forgiven, that on the cross, the person I have been was dealt with, paid for in full. So, why bring it up now? Well, as I have noticed that this blog has attracted a few more readers since it started, it occurred to me that some of you may have issues with my past, and I don’t want us to go too far down this road together, and me to then say something which lets out a bit of my past, and for you to feel I have been stringing you along; that if you had know my past you would not have wanted to know me and that you feel as if I have hoodwinked you. So there it is.
Yours as ever,
The Broken Man
I feel I need to give this some kind of an introduction, which possibly displays my nervousness. If people live a terrible life before they become Christians, then have a miraculous conversion, we rush them to the front of the church to give testimony. There seems to be nothing we love more than a good transformation story. In my life things have not been so simple. I relate better to Paul saying “the good I want to do, that I don’t do! The bad I don’t want to do, that I do.”
In my early life; well, from the age of 16,I had a lot of sexual partners, sometimes at the same time. Some of them were already involved with other people. At 18 I got married, and continued to engage in sexual activity with other people, even with groups of people, as did my wife. I was by this time already a Christian, in the sense that I had made a commitment to God, albeit a shaky one that, for the most part, I did not put into practice. Three years into my marriage I got a phone call from someone I had been seeing telling me that they were pregnant with my child.
I woke my wife and told her, and the following day she attempted to take her own life, before leaving me and moving to London. It was at this point that my life really turned around. I might go into more details at some later point, but suffice to say that a light went on in my life, and changes began to take place. A few months later she moved back in and we started trying to rebuild our marriage. My wife asked that I had nothing to do with my child; something that broke my heart in two.
Fast forward three years, and I was still on “the straight and narrow” but my brother had just died of a heroin overdose and my wife left me for another man.
I realise that I am only giving you snap shots, snippets; but I can’t bring myself to go into all the detail right now.
With my marriage over I was able to have some brief contact with my daughter, but my child’s mother got into another new relationship and again said she didn’t want me involved in my child’s life.
My current marriage is my second marriage.
Fast forward to six months ago: My 10 years old daughter has finally been told that I am her father, and I can, at last, have access. Fast forward another 3 months and a DNA test reveals she is not my daughter after all.
For some my past disqualifies me from ministry; the biblical passage that says a leader should have “but one wife” is often not taken (as I take it) as a reference to polygamy, but as a bar from those who have been divorced and remarried entering into a position of leadership.
I am not proud of my past, and while there is much I wish I could undo, I can not change it. The experiences I have had have formed me, and broken me in more ways than I can begin to describe. I share them here in the hope that you will understand a little of where I have come from. I believe that my past is forgiven, that on the cross, the person I have been was dealt with, paid for in full. So, why bring it up now? Well, as I have noticed that this blog has attracted a few more readers since it started, it occurred to me that some of you may have issues with my past, and I don’t want us to go too far down this road together, and me to then say something which lets out a bit of my past, and for you to feel I have been stringing you along; that if you had know my past you would not have wanted to know me and that you feel as if I have hoodwinked you. So there it is.
Yours as ever,
The Broken Man
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
Push Me Around
I have just received from a colleague at work a fab 3 wheeler pushchair. The colleague no longer needs it as his next baby due in 3 months is going to be a girl, and the pushchair is blue. Words fail me! The pushchair is a forward facing, three wheeler type. My wife has made it clear to me that if we do have a pushchair at all it would need to be rear facing – and that "not at all" seems more likely – but dear reader…its lovely in all the ways things shouldn’t be as the "eco father-to-be". It's chrome and shiney and synthetic – and I love it!!
Last night I watched the programme "Goodnight Sweetheart". For those not familiar with the series, it involves someone who has a portal between modern day and war torn Britain during the Second World War; this results in him meeting his son in the 20th (it's quite an old series!) Century, who is by now older than he is, and a down-on-his-luck alcoholic. He is racked with guilt about how his son's life could have turned out this way; how he could have failed him as a father. He goes back through the time rift and sets up a trust fund for his son. On returning to the 20th Century that afternoon, his son appears in his shop, this time wearing a suit, married with children and having made a success of his life, which he puts down to the start his dad gave him in life with his trust fund.
As I watched it I, of course, being over-emotional, found myself in tears. I know its not that easy, that it’s a huge simplification of things, that money doesn’t buy happiness etc, but I am so scared that I will fail my child.
When I look at my own past, and I think of the impact actions on my part or the part of others had, the ramifications of them still echo today. When I was 15 years old I was expelled from school for drug dealing. Unable to get into any other school I sat at home all day on my own, my mother at work. My parents were already divorced. My father died within a year, my grandfather had died a few weeks before. My life was, at that young age, already in tatters. Don’t get me wrong I came out the other side of it, I survived and, by the grace of God, I escaped the early grave that my older brother ended up in. With God it is possible to rewrite the future if not the past..but I turn my thoughts to my child-to-be; will I be a better parent than my parents were to me all those years ago?
When you carry a child or when you push a child in a pushchair, it is your hand that determines the direction they travel in. Yes, they may veer off course, there may be bumps in the road, and eventually they will walk on their own, but for at least a while it will be you – it will be me and my wife who set the direction for our child.
Will I be able to support my baby, help give the foundation that will stop him/her going off the rails, show love which will they will know is unconditional? I am so so scared that I will mess it all up; I wouldn’t wish the life I have led on anyone. In my youth I thought that having a child was the most selfish thing in the world to do – bringing someone into this world to live and die and suffer was the ultimate selfish act. Yet, we are designed to want to have children, and God created humanity aware of the suffering that would be experienced, but deciding that the suffering is worth the joy.
Lord God, let the joy outweigh the suffering, the good times outweigh the bad, help me be the father I should be, put your hand on my wife and baby, look on them with favour, not because I am a faithful servant, but in spite of who I am and the things I have done.
Yours as ever,
The Broken Man
Last night I watched the programme "Goodnight Sweetheart". For those not familiar with the series, it involves someone who has a portal between modern day and war torn Britain during the Second World War; this results in him meeting his son in the 20th (it's quite an old series!) Century, who is by now older than he is, and a down-on-his-luck alcoholic. He is racked with guilt about how his son's life could have turned out this way; how he could have failed him as a father. He goes back through the time rift and sets up a trust fund for his son. On returning to the 20th Century that afternoon, his son appears in his shop, this time wearing a suit, married with children and having made a success of his life, which he puts down to the start his dad gave him in life with his trust fund.
As I watched it I, of course, being over-emotional, found myself in tears. I know its not that easy, that it’s a huge simplification of things, that money doesn’t buy happiness etc, but I am so scared that I will fail my child.
When I look at my own past, and I think of the impact actions on my part or the part of others had, the ramifications of them still echo today. When I was 15 years old I was expelled from school for drug dealing. Unable to get into any other school I sat at home all day on my own, my mother at work. My parents were already divorced. My father died within a year, my grandfather had died a few weeks before. My life was, at that young age, already in tatters. Don’t get me wrong I came out the other side of it, I survived and, by the grace of God, I escaped the early grave that my older brother ended up in. With God it is possible to rewrite the future if not the past..but I turn my thoughts to my child-to-be; will I be a better parent than my parents were to me all those years ago?
When you carry a child or when you push a child in a pushchair, it is your hand that determines the direction they travel in. Yes, they may veer off course, there may be bumps in the road, and eventually they will walk on their own, but for at least a while it will be you – it will be me and my wife who set the direction for our child.
Will I be able to support my baby, help give the foundation that will stop him/her going off the rails, show love which will they will know is unconditional? I am so so scared that I will mess it all up; I wouldn’t wish the life I have led on anyone. In my youth I thought that having a child was the most selfish thing in the world to do – bringing someone into this world to live and die and suffer was the ultimate selfish act. Yet, we are designed to want to have children, and God created humanity aware of the suffering that would be experienced, but deciding that the suffering is worth the joy.
Lord God, let the joy outweigh the suffering, the good times outweigh the bad, help me be the father I should be, put your hand on my wife and baby, look on them with favour, not because I am a faithful servant, but in spite of who I am and the things I have done.
Yours as ever,
The Broken Man
Tuesday, 15 July 2008
Diversity
Some seven years ago my wife got a job as a youth worker for a church and asked me if I would run a discussion group for teenagers. At the time there were 4 teenagers who played paper hockey and other games on a Sunday night with no spiritual input beyond a prayer at the start of the group. I said that if they wanted a discussion group I would happily run it but I had no interest in being involved in the group as it was.
The following week I meet with the group and told them what the discussion group would be like and asked them if they were interested. They said “no” and as far as I was concerned that was that. Two weeks later they were short of a leader for the Sunday evening meeting and my long suffering wife asked me to step in. An informal discussion followed with one of the members on freewill and determinism (they never picked easy topics!), and I said we could get together and talk about it on the following Monday with pizza at our flat. This group developed and grew into the discussion group, and with time membership increased.
Seven years later, and the group has had 19 members. The members now just get together in the University holidays and are mostly 20+ years of age. Many of them came to the group without a faith and developed one through the group; four joined us just for a short while, and left fairly quickly.
Now one of those “young people” is working for me during the summer holidays as my assistant. On the way to work we discuss theology, and he will be a Godparent to my child. The relationship changed with time, as did the group, moving from a discussion group led by us to one led by a different member of the group each week, and taking on the form of a “co-learners” group. The young man who is working with me now in his second year at theological college, another studying Philosophy and Ethics, one of the group training as a paramedic, another is manager of Waitrose. Several have completed or are currently on gap years working with children who don’t have the same benefits they have had. The development we have seen in them over the time the group has been running is huge.
I don’t want this to sound like we have shaped these young people – I’m not trying to blow my own trumpet. All we have done is been around, offered opportunities to meet with God and offered a little guidance, lots of encouragement and the occasional dose of reality! They have developed the strong bonds between themselves, the commitment to the various churches they attend, the love for God that each of them share and the concern for the wider world. We are just proud and privileged to have had the opportunity to be part of their lives (and surprised that this time has lasted for so long!)
The biggest challenge has been in making sure that we don’t imprint our particular brand of theology or belief on the group’s members, but allow each of them to meet with God in the way they need to. We have Conservative Evangelicals, Charismatics, Liberals, and members who are most comfortable finding God on a starry night or a rainy afternoon, yet week after week they sit together and discuss the Bible, abortion, adoption, war, criminal justice, and everything in between. They share their hopes, their fears, their wishes for the future and their struggles.
As I think of this little band, I consider the Anglican church in its current crisis; a situation where people of different opinions and traditions struggle to sit around the same table and recognise that they each worship the same God; that each of their faiths are real and worthwhile. We don’t always agree in our group, and when we don’t we tell each other, and explain why, but never is a voice raised, never is a person put down or insulted. During the week, members of the group socialise together, and we are expecting at least one marriage in the next few years. The group has discussed homosexuality at a time when one of the group members was questioning their own sexuality. We discussed women in leadership when one of the young women began exploring working as an Army Chaplain and many other sensitive issues which group members were experiencing. In all these cases there have been some for and some against, but I believe each person has felt respected, valued and loved. They have always been able to separate the issue from the individual.
So, maybe in the lead up to the Lambeth Conference, we should invite the Bishops to come, join us and study the Bible with us, as diverse as we are; maybe our young people could offer them an example of how to live together as a Christian community, with widely differing opinions, but “one faith, one church, one Lord”.
The following week I meet with the group and told them what the discussion group would be like and asked them if they were interested. They said “no” and as far as I was concerned that was that. Two weeks later they were short of a leader for the Sunday evening meeting and my long suffering wife asked me to step in. An informal discussion followed with one of the members on freewill and determinism (they never picked easy topics!), and I said we could get together and talk about it on the following Monday with pizza at our flat. This group developed and grew into the discussion group, and with time membership increased.
Seven years later, and the group has had 19 members. The members now just get together in the University holidays and are mostly 20+ years of age. Many of them came to the group without a faith and developed one through the group; four joined us just for a short while, and left fairly quickly.
Now one of those “young people” is working for me during the summer holidays as my assistant. On the way to work we discuss theology, and he will be a Godparent to my child. The relationship changed with time, as did the group, moving from a discussion group led by us to one led by a different member of the group each week, and taking on the form of a “co-learners” group. The young man who is working with me now in his second year at theological college, another studying Philosophy and Ethics, one of the group training as a paramedic, another is manager of Waitrose. Several have completed or are currently on gap years working with children who don’t have the same benefits they have had. The development we have seen in them over the time the group has been running is huge.
I don’t want this to sound like we have shaped these young people – I’m not trying to blow my own trumpet. All we have done is been around, offered opportunities to meet with God and offered a little guidance, lots of encouragement and the occasional dose of reality! They have developed the strong bonds between themselves, the commitment to the various churches they attend, the love for God that each of them share and the concern for the wider world. We are just proud and privileged to have had the opportunity to be part of their lives (and surprised that this time has lasted for so long!)
The biggest challenge has been in making sure that we don’t imprint our particular brand of theology or belief on the group’s members, but allow each of them to meet with God in the way they need to. We have Conservative Evangelicals, Charismatics, Liberals, and members who are most comfortable finding God on a starry night or a rainy afternoon, yet week after week they sit together and discuss the Bible, abortion, adoption, war, criminal justice, and everything in between. They share their hopes, their fears, their wishes for the future and their struggles.
As I think of this little band, I consider the Anglican church in its current crisis; a situation where people of different opinions and traditions struggle to sit around the same table and recognise that they each worship the same God; that each of their faiths are real and worthwhile. We don’t always agree in our group, and when we don’t we tell each other, and explain why, but never is a voice raised, never is a person put down or insulted. During the week, members of the group socialise together, and we are expecting at least one marriage in the next few years. The group has discussed homosexuality at a time when one of the group members was questioning their own sexuality. We discussed women in leadership when one of the young women began exploring working as an Army Chaplain and many other sensitive issues which group members were experiencing. In all these cases there have been some for and some against, but I believe each person has felt respected, valued and loved. They have always been able to separate the issue from the individual.
So, maybe in the lead up to the Lambeth Conference, we should invite the Bishops to come, join us and study the Bible with us, as diverse as we are; maybe our young people could offer them an example of how to live together as a Christian community, with widely differing opinions, but “one faith, one church, one Lord”.
Monday, 14 July 2008
DON'T PANIC
I had a very busy day ahead of me with a big project needing to get out the door tomorrow morning; it was going to be solid work from the moment I got in. As I stepped into my office my phone rang. My wife told me in tears that she was bleeding. I told her to keep calm, phone the maternity hospital, and that I was on my way. The journey home is 30mins. As I drove I begged God that my wife and the baby would be okay. I felt angry; God better not dare let anything happen to them...I think if you are going to try and get aggressive with someone it might as well be a being who is a lot bigger than you and owes you nothing! As I drove my prayer changed, and I asked not that my wife and baby would be okay, but that at least my wife would survive, that I couldn’t bear to lose them both.
12mins later I pulled up to find her standing outside in tears. She got in the car and we headed to the hospital. By now I was as white as her and asked her to tell me exactly what was happening...and she told me she had had some spotting. My sense of relief was incredible. When she had said bleeding, through her tears, I thought the worse. Spotting is normal. By now we were on the way to the hospital and, as we went, I tried to calm her, my driving now returning to a normal speed. When we got to the hospital she was given an examination, we listened to the baby’s heartbeat and breathed a sigh of relief. After she had calmed down a bit I dropped her home, and went back to work. By now it was 11am and I had lost a big chunk of my day. By 5pm I was frantic about the work that wasn’t going to be ready and that I was going to need to work till 7.30pm when the building is locked up. I then received a call saying the client was not collecting the manuals I was working on until Friday, so was able to sit down catch my breath and then go home.
It’s easy for me to think about the scare, the fear, the uncertainty, all the emotions that I went through, but perhaps I should be focusing instead on my healthy wife, healthy baby, and a deadline that I can now meet without killing myself.
Yours as ever,
The Broken Man
12mins later I pulled up to find her standing outside in tears. She got in the car and we headed to the hospital. By now I was as white as her and asked her to tell me exactly what was happening...and she told me she had had some spotting. My sense of relief was incredible. When she had said bleeding, through her tears, I thought the worse. Spotting is normal. By now we were on the way to the hospital and, as we went, I tried to calm her, my driving now returning to a normal speed. When we got to the hospital she was given an examination, we listened to the baby’s heartbeat and breathed a sigh of relief. After she had calmed down a bit I dropped her home, and went back to work. By now it was 11am and I had lost a big chunk of my day. By 5pm I was frantic about the work that wasn’t going to be ready and that I was going to need to work till 7.30pm when the building is locked up. I then received a call saying the client was not collecting the manuals I was working on until Friday, so was able to sit down catch my breath and then go home.
It’s easy for me to think about the scare, the fear, the uncertainty, all the emotions that I went through, but perhaps I should be focusing instead on my healthy wife, healthy baby, and a deadline that I can now meet without killing myself.
Yours as ever,
The Broken Man
Saturday, 12 July 2008
Jonah 3
1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”
Where the NIV puts “proclaim to it the message” the Hebrew is more literally translated “proclaim the proclamation”. This is a God telling it as it is; after all this messing about he says to Jonah, "proclaim the proclamation". You can't really do very much else with it, it's use is when it's told, do with it what it was designed for.
How should this simple message influence the way we think about “telling the good news”?
What is the Good News?
3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city—a visit required three days.
Jonah has become the perfect person to go to Nineveh, he is someone who has faced God’s anger, has repented, and has been shown mercy. What better person could there be to take a message to Nineveh that God was not going to put up with their behaviour anymore! Jonah is living testimony of the mercy of God.
4 On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.”
Nineveh is told it has forty days before God's judgment comes on them. This number is a significant one in terms of overcoming sin.
Where else do we come across the Number 40 in the Bible?
Gen. 7:12 Rains fell for 40 days and nights in the time of Noah
Exd. 16:35 The children of Israel ate manna in the wilderness for 40 years
Exd 24.18 Moses was on the mount with God for 40 days and 40 nights when the law was given.
1 Kin 19:8 Elijah fasted for 40 days and nights
Mark 1:13 Jesus fasted for 40 days and nights
5 The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust.
The Ninevites did not take much convincing that their actions were leading to trouble. All they needed in order to change was someone to come and tell them that they needed to do so.
Are you put off from working with people who seem particularly bad in there behaviour for fear of how they will react to the Gospel?
“Sat down in the dust” could be better translated sat down in ashes. The people of Nineveh fasted and put on sackcloth but the King went one stage further, he got up off his throne, took off his royal robes, symbols of his authority, and sat down in ashes. In doing so he recognised how far above him God is as a King. Nineveh’s kingship is nothing in comparison to God’s.
Sackcloth and Ashes are symbols of despair, of repentance, of mourning.
The King led his people by example, before he told anyone to do anything; he did it himself. He didn’t just tell his people to sort out their lives, and to repent, he repented himself.
Do you respect leaders more who lead by example? What modern or historical leaders follow this model?
7 Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh:
“By the decree of the king and his nobles:
Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink.
The inclusion of the animals in the mourning process is as a result of the effect that sin has on everything, on all of creation. While the animals did not have a choice, that does not mean that they, and everything else were not tainted by the sin of the Ninevites (Rom 8:20, 22). In including even the animals in the mourning, the Ninevites show that the change they want to bring about is not just one on the surface or at the edges of their life, but is rather a complete transformation.
8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence
The process described here for repentance is three stages:
· Show that you are sorry
· Cry out to God asking for forgiveness
· Give up the past behaviour
Carrying out stages 1-2 without changing our behaviour is meaningless. For our prayer asking for forgiveness to have meaning our behaviour must change.
9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”
The Ninevites did not know God, they did not know that he has a merciful character, that he is a God that forgives, yet even without that knowledge, even with only the vaguest possibility that he might show mercy to them the people of Nineveh turned around their lives.
Do you think our knowledge of Gods mercy results in us taking it for granted that he will forgive us, and so take sin less seriously?
10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.
When God sent Jonah to the Ninevites he did so with a message saying "its all over, you are living lives that are so evil, that are hurting so many people that the only option I have is to destroy you." When the Ninevites changed their behaviour, the relationship God had with them also changed, the change of their behaviour in response to fear of God's judgement, opened the door for Gods mercy.
When a Christian stands before God, we do so with the judgement of God having already taken place. Jesus has already died for the sins we have committed. In becoming a Christian we, like the people of Nineveh, say sorry for the things we have done wrong, we cry out to God for forgiveness and with the help of the Holy Spirit set about changing the way we live our lives in the future. As Jesus has already died for things we have done wrong in our lives, we are assured of God’s forgiveness, unlike the Ninevites who had just the vaguest of hopes of God's forgiveness we have the certainty of it.
Where the NIV puts “proclaim to it the message” the Hebrew is more literally translated “proclaim the proclamation”. This is a God telling it as it is; after all this messing about he says to Jonah, "proclaim the proclamation". You can't really do very much else with it, it's use is when it's told, do with it what it was designed for.
How should this simple message influence the way we think about “telling the good news”?
What is the Good News?
3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city—a visit required three days.
Jonah has become the perfect person to go to Nineveh, he is someone who has faced God’s anger, has repented, and has been shown mercy. What better person could there be to take a message to Nineveh that God was not going to put up with their behaviour anymore! Jonah is living testimony of the mercy of God.
4 On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.”
Nineveh is told it has forty days before God's judgment comes on them. This number is a significant one in terms of overcoming sin.
Where else do we come across the Number 40 in the Bible?
Gen. 7:12 Rains fell for 40 days and nights in the time of Noah
Exd. 16:35 The children of Israel ate manna in the wilderness for 40 years
Exd 24.18 Moses was on the mount with God for 40 days and 40 nights when the law was given.
1 Kin 19:8 Elijah fasted for 40 days and nights
Mark 1:13 Jesus fasted for 40 days and nights
5 The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust.
The Ninevites did not take much convincing that their actions were leading to trouble. All they needed in order to change was someone to come and tell them that they needed to do so.
Are you put off from working with people who seem particularly bad in there behaviour for fear of how they will react to the Gospel?
“Sat down in the dust” could be better translated sat down in ashes. The people of Nineveh fasted and put on sackcloth but the King went one stage further, he got up off his throne, took off his royal robes, symbols of his authority, and sat down in ashes. In doing so he recognised how far above him God is as a King. Nineveh’s kingship is nothing in comparison to God’s.
Sackcloth and Ashes are symbols of despair, of repentance, of mourning.
The King led his people by example, before he told anyone to do anything; he did it himself. He didn’t just tell his people to sort out their lives, and to repent, he repented himself.
Do you respect leaders more who lead by example? What modern or historical leaders follow this model?
7 Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh:
“By the decree of the king and his nobles:
Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink.
The inclusion of the animals in the mourning process is as a result of the effect that sin has on everything, on all of creation. While the animals did not have a choice, that does not mean that they, and everything else were not tainted by the sin of the Ninevites (Rom 8:20, 22). In including even the animals in the mourning, the Ninevites show that the change they want to bring about is not just one on the surface or at the edges of their life, but is rather a complete transformation.
8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence
The process described here for repentance is three stages:
· Show that you are sorry
· Cry out to God asking for forgiveness
· Give up the past behaviour
Carrying out stages 1-2 without changing our behaviour is meaningless. For our prayer asking for forgiveness to have meaning our behaviour must change.
9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”
The Ninevites did not know God, they did not know that he has a merciful character, that he is a God that forgives, yet even without that knowledge, even with only the vaguest possibility that he might show mercy to them the people of Nineveh turned around their lives.
Do you think our knowledge of Gods mercy results in us taking it for granted that he will forgive us, and so take sin less seriously?
10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.
When God sent Jonah to the Ninevites he did so with a message saying "its all over, you are living lives that are so evil, that are hurting so many people that the only option I have is to destroy you." When the Ninevites changed their behaviour, the relationship God had with them also changed, the change of their behaviour in response to fear of God's judgement, opened the door for Gods mercy.
When a Christian stands before God, we do so with the judgement of God having already taken place. Jesus has already died for the sins we have committed. In becoming a Christian we, like the people of Nineveh, say sorry for the things we have done wrong, we cry out to God for forgiveness and with the help of the Holy Spirit set about changing the way we live our lives in the future. As Jesus has already died for things we have done wrong in our lives, we are assured of God’s forgiveness, unlike the Ninevites who had just the vaguest of hopes of God's forgiveness we have the certainty of it.
Friday, 11 July 2008
Sling Low, Sweet Chariot
The long suffering wife and I have begun the long discussions about baby transportation devices. Any men out there reading this will immediately have a certain picture in their minds – an all terrain buggy, with alloy wheels, suspension, and, if possible, a turbo button. This is like buying a car, just very slightly cheaper. Of course, being of a financially limited disposition actually this is more a matter of what pushchairs other friends have brought and are now prepared to give us…until, of course, slings were mentioned.......
Apparently the “king” of slings is the Didymus sling and this allows close contact between mother and baby etc. Well, okay, that’s fine, and I can wear it too and that’s all good. So £20? £30? No. £70 for a piece of fabric. Don’t get me wrong, a piece of fabric with buckles, with clever attachments, I could understand, but no, this is just a pice of fabric with instructions on how to tie it (apparently a table cloth is NOT the same thing - I fail to understand why!).
Dear reader I am not the most co-ordinated of people. I change my shirt a couple of times a day having spilt food down it. The idea of strapping a child to my front seems a little foolhardy at best. To make matters worse, you have to tie the sling thing. The knot slips and the baby's a goner! After much persuasion, and the concession that I can have a preformed sling thing, it has been agreed, no pushchair. Well, at least I can be involved in choosing a cot…well, no, actually…co-sleeping. Now I was not a fan of this idea at all. The likelihood of me rolling over onto and crushing it seems high! However, 15 journal articles later and it seems that this is indeed the best way to go…
So thoughts and experiences of it…and men out there having gone through this game?
Yours as Always,
The Broken Man
Apparently the “king” of slings is the Didymus sling and this allows close contact between mother and baby etc. Well, okay, that’s fine, and I can wear it too and that’s all good. So £20? £30? No. £70 for a piece of fabric. Don’t get me wrong, a piece of fabric with buckles, with clever attachments, I could understand, but no, this is just a pice of fabric with instructions on how to tie it (apparently a table cloth is NOT the same thing - I fail to understand why!).
Dear reader I am not the most co-ordinated of people. I change my shirt a couple of times a day having spilt food down it. The idea of strapping a child to my front seems a little foolhardy at best. To make matters worse, you have to tie the sling thing. The knot slips and the baby's a goner! After much persuasion, and the concession that I can have a preformed sling thing, it has been agreed, no pushchair. Well, at least I can be involved in choosing a cot…well, no, actually…co-sleeping. Now I was not a fan of this idea at all. The likelihood of me rolling over onto and crushing it seems high! However, 15 journal articles later and it seems that this is indeed the best way to go…
So thoughts and experiences of it…and men out there having gone through this game?
Yours as Always,
The Broken Man
Thursday, 10 July 2008
In Love With God
Dear God,
I have no doubt that you know how I feel about you; after all you know everything, yet, of late, I have doubted my own feelings a little. The problem started when I heard the way some other people talk about you. They talked with such passion about how in love they are, and they sang a song that said we should recapture our first love, that we should go back to how things were right at the start.
I have given it some thought, really I have, please don’t think I have made this decision lightly, but if its okay with you, I would prefer not to go back to our early days together. They were exciting! I will give you that; you know how to knock a gent of his feet. When I first encountered you I think I went into shock, and for a while, every time I came close to you, I lost my breath, I could hardly speak. There seemed so much to find out about you, and I wanted to know it all right now, and I took a lot of reassuring that you cared, and you provided it at every step of the way.
When we got married, in a low key service I had such high hopes; I was so excited, but in honesty I thought it would be easier than it has been. Married life has been hard work, I have had to change, far more than I belived would ever be possible. I had to give up some things which had been a big part of my life, I had to reorder my diary and make sure we had time to spend together. I don’t regret a single day of it though, and, as we have got closer, I think I have become a better person bit by bit. Now, that first flush of wild passion has gone, but what has replaced it is a real deep down knowledge that you care. Yes, sometimes you still take my breath away, but also I have found that love for you has been far more about all the little things; that while the thunder and lighting are incredible, while the earth shaking is amazing, you are mostly found in the whisper, in just sitting together, in the day-to-day conversations about the mundane.
I know I don’t bring you flowers every night, but ask anyone who knows me, and they will let you know that I have only positive things to say about you. I don’t spend every day raving about you, telling everyone I meet every detail about you (in honesty I think they would get bored) but every one knows we are together and that I think you are wonderful, and I am always very pleased to introduce you to my friends. I try to show how I feel about you in the day-to-day things, in the things I do around the house, in the way I behave with other people. Just to let you know, though I know you know it already, I don’t need big gestures from you. I don’t need you to constantly remind me that you care, I know how you feel, you made that very clear in a manner that I will never ever forget. Once you have given your life for someone, there can be very little debate about how much you care. I see your care for me in all the day-to-day things; the cloud formations, the job I know I wouldn’t have got without your support, the wife who is just right for me.
I know you don’t take offence easily and that it's hard to get you angry, so I feel safe in saying all this to you. I know normally I would just talk, just say what I feel, but I wanted it down on paper, so that when people tell me I should be more in love, when they talk of that wonderful flush of first love, that excitement of knowing you are around, I can show them this letter, and maybe they will see that for me, the way things are between us works just fine. I think the way they relate to you is incredible, but I am also very happy with how things work between us.
Yours, as ever,
The broken man
I have no doubt that you know how I feel about you; after all you know everything, yet, of late, I have doubted my own feelings a little. The problem started when I heard the way some other people talk about you. They talked with such passion about how in love they are, and they sang a song that said we should recapture our first love, that we should go back to how things were right at the start.
I have given it some thought, really I have, please don’t think I have made this decision lightly, but if its okay with you, I would prefer not to go back to our early days together. They were exciting! I will give you that; you know how to knock a gent of his feet. When I first encountered you I think I went into shock, and for a while, every time I came close to you, I lost my breath, I could hardly speak. There seemed so much to find out about you, and I wanted to know it all right now, and I took a lot of reassuring that you cared, and you provided it at every step of the way.
When we got married, in a low key service I had such high hopes; I was so excited, but in honesty I thought it would be easier than it has been. Married life has been hard work, I have had to change, far more than I belived would ever be possible. I had to give up some things which had been a big part of my life, I had to reorder my diary and make sure we had time to spend together. I don’t regret a single day of it though, and, as we have got closer, I think I have become a better person bit by bit. Now, that first flush of wild passion has gone, but what has replaced it is a real deep down knowledge that you care. Yes, sometimes you still take my breath away, but also I have found that love for you has been far more about all the little things; that while the thunder and lighting are incredible, while the earth shaking is amazing, you are mostly found in the whisper, in just sitting together, in the day-to-day conversations about the mundane.
I know I don’t bring you flowers every night, but ask anyone who knows me, and they will let you know that I have only positive things to say about you. I don’t spend every day raving about you, telling everyone I meet every detail about you (in honesty I think they would get bored) but every one knows we are together and that I think you are wonderful, and I am always very pleased to introduce you to my friends. I try to show how I feel about you in the day-to-day things, in the things I do around the house, in the way I behave with other people. Just to let you know, though I know you know it already, I don’t need big gestures from you. I don’t need you to constantly remind me that you care, I know how you feel, you made that very clear in a manner that I will never ever forget. Once you have given your life for someone, there can be very little debate about how much you care. I see your care for me in all the day-to-day things; the cloud formations, the job I know I wouldn’t have got without your support, the wife who is just right for me.
I know you don’t take offence easily and that it's hard to get you angry, so I feel safe in saying all this to you. I know normally I would just talk, just say what I feel, but I wanted it down on paper, so that when people tell me I should be more in love, when they talk of that wonderful flush of first love, that excitement of knowing you are around, I can show them this letter, and maybe they will see that for me, the way things are between us works just fine. I think the way they relate to you is incredible, but I am also very happy with how things work between us.
Yours, as ever,
The broken man
Wednesday, 9 July 2008
It Moves!
It is incomprehensible to me that there is a baby inside my wife. I mean, come on, lets be honest…its just not natural! Well, okay, that is not completely true, okay, I accept some people would say that it’s the most natural thing in the world, but it’s a person growing in another person – surely that can't be right?
Yesterday, my wife called me over and placed my hand on her bump, and I felt it move. Seeing the baby on the scan made it all seem incredibly real to me, but actually feeling it move was deeply bizarre. The correct reaction should have been to cry with joy, but I couldn’t help but think "its trying to get out!" It just doesn’t seem right!
In other baby news, I think my wife is beginning to get a little frustrated with me (I know, it seems impossible) Every time she has the slightest trip I cant help but look with great concern....at her stomach. It seems to me that carrying a child should be a male job. Something I am sure a lot of women would agree on! I feel like I should be busy protecting the baby, which is very difficult when it's in someone elses stomach. In honesty, I also feel rather jealous. After the baby is born I will have to go back to work; I cant afford to take paternity leave. My wife will breast feed, spend the day carrying the baby in a sling, bond with it. I will visit between work and sleep. I would love to be at home looking after it, and desperately want that closeness. People tell me that lots of men feel jealous of babies when they are born, feeling the loss of their wife’s attention. Me, I feel jealous of my wife, who will be able to spend more time with the baby than I will.
Yours as always,
An expectant and broken man
Yesterday, my wife called me over and placed my hand on her bump, and I felt it move. Seeing the baby on the scan made it all seem incredibly real to me, but actually feeling it move was deeply bizarre. The correct reaction should have been to cry with joy, but I couldn’t help but think "its trying to get out!" It just doesn’t seem right!
In other baby news, I think my wife is beginning to get a little frustrated with me (I know, it seems impossible) Every time she has the slightest trip I cant help but look with great concern....at her stomach. It seems to me that carrying a child should be a male job. Something I am sure a lot of women would agree on! I feel like I should be busy protecting the baby, which is very difficult when it's in someone elses stomach. In honesty, I also feel rather jealous. After the baby is born I will have to go back to work; I cant afford to take paternity leave. My wife will breast feed, spend the day carrying the baby in a sling, bond with it. I will visit between work and sleep. I would love to be at home looking after it, and desperately want that closeness. People tell me that lots of men feel jealous of babies when they are born, feeling the loss of their wife’s attention. Me, I feel jealous of my wife, who will be able to spend more time with the baby than I will.
Yours as always,
An expectant and broken man
Tuesday, 8 July 2008
Christians In The News
A lot of the time I am ashamed to be a Christian. I know that is a shocking statement to make, as someone who is hoping to be a priest one day, but let me explain. When I speak to people about God they have an impression of the church as being full of hypocrites, as a place where the most judgmental people in society gather. They see Christians as irrelevant, as worshiping a long since dead god. I believe in a God who is transforming, who is loving, who is so incredibly powerful and Holy that we can’t begin to comprehend it.
A sense of dread grips me every time I see a Christian on TV. Are they going to say something ridiculous? Are they going to do yet more damage to how people see God? So I sat uncomfortably in my seat last night when a vicar appeared on my TV screen to talk about problem they had in Birmingham when a new Mosque had opened, and how lots of people had objected violently. I thought; “here is a Vicar who is going to add fuel to the fire”, but I was wrong. She spoke calmly, she spoke about the fears that people have of Muslim terrorism, and that the desire of a group of people to pray should be supported. Nothing she said compromised the Gospel; she did not say that she believed that Islamic beliefs are correct, but she did say that we should show love to everyone. Hearing her speak made me cry; cry that there are people out there who are displaying Christ’s love, who care passionately about justice and who care about people of every faith and none.
May God bless her and her work.
The Broken Man
A sense of dread grips me every time I see a Christian on TV. Are they going to say something ridiculous? Are they going to do yet more damage to how people see God? So I sat uncomfortably in my seat last night when a vicar appeared on my TV screen to talk about problem they had in Birmingham when a new Mosque had opened, and how lots of people had objected violently. I thought; “here is a Vicar who is going to add fuel to the fire”, but I was wrong. She spoke calmly, she spoke about the fears that people have of Muslim terrorism, and that the desire of a group of people to pray should be supported. Nothing she said compromised the Gospel; she did not say that she believed that Islamic beliefs are correct, but she did say that we should show love to everyone. Hearing her speak made me cry; cry that there are people out there who are displaying Christ’s love, who care passionately about justice and who care about people of every faith and none.
May God bless her and her work.
The Broken Man
Monday, 7 July 2008
Lists
The attempt to get the flat ready for sale has begun to feel like a battle which will never be won. The flat needs painting, glossing, and de-cluttering, everything possible needs to be boxed up, and the carpets need to be sorted out. This process is one which I am not well suited to; I live surrounded by stacks of paper and things which just might come in useful one day if only I can find them. In an attempt to organise things, my long suffering wife has created a “To Do” list, where each task can be ticked off one at a time, hopefully allowing us some sense that we are moving forward.
All this housework, along with hours spent studying, is beginning to take a toll on the time we spend just relaxing, and this isn’t doing any favours to my wife’s self-esteem. As her body changes shape she worries that I have gone off her, that I am losing interest in her. This is not the case at all. For me it makes her more attractive, and makes me fall ever deeper in love. Sometimes though, feeling loved is not enough, we all want to feel desirable, yet my head is spinning - I am, as always, in a panic about money, I work long hours, I get home and spend my time clearing and cleaning, and by the time I slump in my bed all I want to do is sleep.
So, dear reader, the list is a plan; a blue-print to freedom. When the tasks on the list for any given day are done I will stop and carve out some time for cuddling on the sofa and some early nights. For any female readers out there – please believe me, in all likelihood your husband hasn’t gone off you because you are carrying his child – he is just likely to be stressed up to the eyeballs.
The stress that accompanies the forthcoming birth of a new child is not because I don’t want a child – I want to make that clear, but up to now I have been able to just go with the flow – now all the questions of what type of a parent I will make, what kind of a priest I will be, how we will survive financially; all these things jostle for place as they have compete for my attention and time.
In this, I have lost my way a little – and neglected to spend the time I should cherishing my wife. I have failed to be the husband I should. It seems ridiculous that it should take an effort, mad that I have reached a stage where I need to talk about reprioritising to make sure that I have time to spend with my wife, but I will build a wall around us, brick by brick if I must, I will find a way to carve out time from the middle of all this busyness, in which, behind closed doors, we can have some time for just us.
*hangs do not disturb sign on door*
Yours as always,
A Broken Man
All this housework, along with hours spent studying, is beginning to take a toll on the time we spend just relaxing, and this isn’t doing any favours to my wife’s self-esteem. As her body changes shape she worries that I have gone off her, that I am losing interest in her. This is not the case at all. For me it makes her more attractive, and makes me fall ever deeper in love. Sometimes though, feeling loved is not enough, we all want to feel desirable, yet my head is spinning - I am, as always, in a panic about money, I work long hours, I get home and spend my time clearing and cleaning, and by the time I slump in my bed all I want to do is sleep.
So, dear reader, the list is a plan; a blue-print to freedom. When the tasks on the list for any given day are done I will stop and carve out some time for cuddling on the sofa and some early nights. For any female readers out there – please believe me, in all likelihood your husband hasn’t gone off you because you are carrying his child – he is just likely to be stressed up to the eyeballs.
The stress that accompanies the forthcoming birth of a new child is not because I don’t want a child – I want to make that clear, but up to now I have been able to just go with the flow – now all the questions of what type of a parent I will make, what kind of a priest I will be, how we will survive financially; all these things jostle for place as they have compete for my attention and time.
In this, I have lost my way a little – and neglected to spend the time I should cherishing my wife. I have failed to be the husband I should. It seems ridiculous that it should take an effort, mad that I have reached a stage where I need to talk about reprioritising to make sure that I have time to spend with my wife, but I will build a wall around us, brick by brick if I must, I will find a way to carve out time from the middle of all this busyness, in which, behind closed doors, we can have some time for just us.
*hangs do not disturb sign on door*
Yours as always,
A Broken Man
Saturday, 5 July 2008
JONAH 2
1 From inside the fish[1] Jonah prayed to the Lord his God.
Note that despite everything that has happened no matter what the relationship between Jonah and God, he remains “his” God.
The following prayer is made up from a lot of different prayers found in the Psalms. These are shown as footnotes.
Do you find it useful using set prayers?
Do you find that you incorporate the words of biblical prayers in your own prayers?
2 He said:
“In my distress I called to the Lord,
and he answered me.[2]
From the depths of the grave[3] I called for help,
and you listened to my cry.[4]
3 You hurled me into the deep,
into the very heart of the seas,
and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
swept over me.[5]
Jonah recognises that God hurled him into the deep, this was not just chance, it wasn’t just that it was a bad day to be in a boat. We find similar descriptions of God’s involvement in the things that happen in Job.1:21; 2:10 and 2 Sa.16:5-11.
Why do bad things happen? Is it always God? Always chance? A combination of the two?
4 I said, ‘I have been banished
from your sight;
yet I will look again
toward your holy temple.’[6]
Jonah is not saying that God can literately not see him now, but that he no longer views him positively. Its interesting that Jonah says he will look again to the Holy Temple, this is the direction which prayers where said in, and a place that Jonah had turned his back on. The statement that he wants to look on this temple again is a statement that he wants to be part of God’s community again and wants to stop running.
5 The engulfing waters threatened me,[7]
the deep surrounded me;
seaweed was wrapped around my head.[8]
6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you brought my life up from the pit,
O Lord my God.
The phrase “the earth beneath barred me in forever” may be a play on the earth as the home of the living, and Jonah facing death.
“But you brought my life up from the pit” Heizekiah adopts these words in Isa 38.17, as Jonah adopted the words of the psalms.
7 “When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered you, Lord,
and my prayer rose to you,
to your holy temple.[9]
Do we remember God more when things are going well or when things are going badly?
Here we see that Jonah prays to “your holy temple” again, and in so doing he is praying again in the direction that he had turned is back on.
8 “Those who cling to worthless idols
forfeit the grace that could be theirs.[10]
Jonah had fled from the Land of God, in the direction of a land populated by heathens, in a boat full of heathen sailors (who showed there character to be somewhat better than Jonahs!) Jonah is now saying how worthless the idols that people like the sailors cling to, and in this he is acknowledging that they he had been putting himself in the hands of people who did not have God’s grace. He may also be making a reference to Nineveh here, in saying that God’s grace could be there’s if only they will turn to God. In part it feels like Jonah is trying to put some distance between himself and the mistake he made by saying that he no longer wants these things!
Do you find that when you come before God you find yourself saying “At least I am not like them?”. How do you think God see such prayers?
9 But I, with a song of thanksgiving,
will sacrifice to you.[11]
What I have vowed I will make good.
Salvation comes from the Lord.”
Do you think that Jonah is thanking God for saving him in advance of it happening? Or is he just generally giving him thanks?
There is a biblical precedent for praising God before he saves us on the assumption that he will see 2Ch. 20:21.
10 And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
Within the order of this pray we see him being saved just after he has thanked God for saving him!
Do you think this is significant? What if any influence should this have on the way we pray?
[1] The Hebrew is a little uncertain here, it could be translated as “when (delivered) out of the fishes belly”
[2] Psa.120:1
[3] Hebrew Sheol
[4] Psa. 30:3-4
[5] Psa.42:71
[6] Psa.31:22
[7] Or waters were at my throat
[8] Psa.69: 1
[9] Psa.142: 3; 18:6
[10] Psa.31:6
[11] Psa.116:17, 18 and 3:8
Note that despite everything that has happened no matter what the relationship between Jonah and God, he remains “his” God.
The following prayer is made up from a lot of different prayers found in the Psalms. These are shown as footnotes.
Do you find it useful using set prayers?
Do you find that you incorporate the words of biblical prayers in your own prayers?
2 He said:
“In my distress I called to the Lord,
and he answered me.[2]
From the depths of the grave[3] I called for help,
and you listened to my cry.[4]
3 You hurled me into the deep,
into the very heart of the seas,
and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
swept over me.[5]
Jonah recognises that God hurled him into the deep, this was not just chance, it wasn’t just that it was a bad day to be in a boat. We find similar descriptions of God’s involvement in the things that happen in Job.1:21; 2:10 and 2 Sa.16:5-11.
Why do bad things happen? Is it always God? Always chance? A combination of the two?
4 I said, ‘I have been banished
from your sight;
yet I will look again
toward your holy temple.’[6]
Jonah is not saying that God can literately not see him now, but that he no longer views him positively. Its interesting that Jonah says he will look again to the Holy Temple, this is the direction which prayers where said in, and a place that Jonah had turned his back on. The statement that he wants to look on this temple again is a statement that he wants to be part of God’s community again and wants to stop running.
5 The engulfing waters threatened me,[7]
the deep surrounded me;
seaweed was wrapped around my head.[8]
6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you brought my life up from the pit,
O Lord my God.
The phrase “the earth beneath barred me in forever” may be a play on the earth as the home of the living, and Jonah facing death.
“But you brought my life up from the pit” Heizekiah adopts these words in Isa 38.17, as Jonah adopted the words of the psalms.
7 “When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered you, Lord,
and my prayer rose to you,
to your holy temple.[9]
Do we remember God more when things are going well or when things are going badly?
Here we see that Jonah prays to “your holy temple” again, and in so doing he is praying again in the direction that he had turned is back on.
8 “Those who cling to worthless idols
forfeit the grace that could be theirs.[10]
Jonah had fled from the Land of God, in the direction of a land populated by heathens, in a boat full of heathen sailors (who showed there character to be somewhat better than Jonahs!) Jonah is now saying how worthless the idols that people like the sailors cling to, and in this he is acknowledging that they he had been putting himself in the hands of people who did not have God’s grace. He may also be making a reference to Nineveh here, in saying that God’s grace could be there’s if only they will turn to God. In part it feels like Jonah is trying to put some distance between himself and the mistake he made by saying that he no longer wants these things!
Do you find that when you come before God you find yourself saying “At least I am not like them?”. How do you think God see such prayers?
9 But I, with a song of thanksgiving,
will sacrifice to you.[11]
What I have vowed I will make good.
Salvation comes from the Lord.”
Do you think that Jonah is thanking God for saving him in advance of it happening? Or is he just generally giving him thanks?
There is a biblical precedent for praising God before he saves us on the assumption that he will see 2Ch. 20:21.
10 And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
Within the order of this pray we see him being saved just after he has thanked God for saving him!
Do you think this is significant? What if any influence should this have on the way we pray?
[1] The Hebrew is a little uncertain here, it could be translated as “when (delivered) out of the fishes belly”
[2] Psa.120:1
[3] Hebrew Sheol
[4] Psa. 30:3-4
[5] Psa.42:71
[6] Psa.31:22
[7] Or waters were at my throat
[8] Psa.69: 1
[9] Psa.142: 3; 18:6
[10] Psa.31:6
[11] Psa.116:17, 18 and 3:8
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