Author: Martin Scott

Another Scripture that does not fit?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

I recently was reading about Apollos and the part I have emboldened stood out:

Now there came to Ephesus a Jew named Apollos from Alexandria. He was an eloquent man, well-versed in the scriptures. He had been instructed in the Way of the Lord, and he spoke with burning enthusiasm and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him they took him aside and explained the Way of God to him more accurately. And when he wished to cross over to Achaia, the brothers and sisters encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. On his arrival he greatly helped those who through grace had become believers, for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the scriptures that the Messiah is Jesus (Acts 18:24-28).

The phrase ‘with burning enthusiasm’ is translated differently in other versions and it seems the reason is that we have a phrase that only comes twice in the New Testament. The other occasion is when Paul writes to the believers in Rome to ‘be ardent in spirit’. In this phrase in Romans it is assumed that the reference is to the Holy Spirit, something beyond ‘enthusiasm’. Translating the same phrase when related to Apollos – as per NRSV above – ‘enthusiasm’ is somehow I think a little attempt to get round things theologically – it cannot be ‘Spirit’ as capitalised so it is reduced to something related to human emotion (with burning enthusiasm, rather than ‘burning of the Spirit’). I don’t think that is justifiable as to reduce pneuma (spirit) in that way is not typical of Luke (I can’t think of any such occurrence) and further it says that Apollos spoke boldly in the synagogue, a verb that Luke associates with the Spirit’s anointing. So why the title concerning a Scripture that does not fit? Because Apollos, at this stage, is in a strange situation:

  • well versed in Scripture
  • instructed in the way of the Lord
  • teaching accurately about Jesus
  • but only knowing the baptism of John
  • needing to be instructed more accurately in the way of the Lord.

Yet he has the Spirit (Priscilla and Aquila do not pray for him to receive the Spirit but they instruct him more fully) and he does not have the Spirit simply in some ‘theological’ dimension but with the clear evidence (spoke boldly, speech being one of the marks in Luke of ‘receiving’ the Spirit) of being anointed. He does not fit the pattern of those to whom the Spirit is promised. It is for this reason the passage does not fit.

Just annoying to us who tie this Scripture with that and then have everything water-tight.

And it raises a much bigger question… are there other anomalies?

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Spirituality and Creativity

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by Simon Swift
Posted in Personal Perspectives

Another post from Simon Swift… his ‘January contribution’. I suspect Simon enjoys writing for many reasons but if he is like me (I suspect in this aspect he is) it is also a means of finding one ‘s own ideas being crystalised. And if that be true then as you read this piece I hope a few of your ideas also crystalise. OK… here it is.

Sometimes, when I am writing a poem, I find it starts to speak to me about how it wants to be written. Maybe it doesn’t like the structure or my approach to the subject. I know I’m the creative one but none the less I get this feeling that I should listen to the poem and let it direct me. Doesn’t always happen, but when it does, it’s definitely not me; it’s the poem. Once I listen then the poem starts to take shape.

This highlights what I believe is the spiritual nature of creativity. It gives a sense that ideas and inspiration are alive and trying to communicate with us. Wanting to be birthed by us into the physical world; we are merely a conduit for ideas to be realised.

In her book ‘Big Magic’ Elizabeth Gilbert talks about ideas in this way. She believes that ideas are energetic life forms that have a consciousness, wanting to communicate with us so they can be manifest. She believes that so much she insists that we should be polite to them even if we should decide that a particular idea is not for us – just in case word gets around about your rudeness and ideas start avoiding you.

Now you may think that is going a bit to far, even silly, and I admit that it’s probably not what’s really going on, at least scientifically, but it helps to think that way because spirituality and creativity are closely related to each other. It useful to use a language that helps us to understand our creative processes, to help speak and think about it. When scientists research the creative process the language used may not be very helpful to the average creative who needs to understand their way of interacting with the process of creativity and inspiration. Spiritual language comes in helpful here as it is related to experience and the relationship artists have with inspiration and ideas.

So what about the Christian faith, what has the bible to say about it. Well, in the book Exodus we find God giving instructions on how to build the tents, make the priestly cloths and all the utensil and the alter, even giving details about the size of things. Then God goes on to claim that a man named Bezalel has been given abilities and intelligence with knowledge and all craftsmanship along with Oholiab they are anointed as craftsmen. Could we then say that the holy spirit is often involved with us in giving us ideas and in having inspiration.

Now I do believe if we work hard enough and focused enough we can learn anything. However, how good we actually get at something often depends on our interest in it and if we pick it up easily. That is to say somethings we naturally seem to gravitate to and get quickly, usually something that gives us pleasure. I myself have learnt to play a few instruments at an elementary level. Yet I know people who can pick up an instrument they have never played before and within a few minutes they are playing it at a level that would take me weeks to match. So I do think we can have a bent towards a particular creative discipline. Does this then come from God that picks individuals out or is it more a case of being willing to listen to the spirit, to be receptive in a way similar to how Elizabeth believes, which is all about cooperation and being open.

Greeks talked about muses and Romans of having a genius. Today we talk of people being geniuses. The trouble is it can leads to arrogance and aloofness. We know God is creative and we too have that ability, it’s part of who we are as humans and that is all of us. We honour God when we use our creativity and so we should be humble and thankful, showing gratitude to God and possibly to the ideas themselves that we have been chosen to birth. We can reject an idea because it may not be the right time for us or some other issue is at hand and so we should do so graciously least we should offend and I think that keeps us grounded and stops egos taking over.

Our artistic creativity is a place where we can express our deep emotions. Through images, stories, and sound we can share something more than just facts, communicating in a way that connects us to others. Sometimes though, it is for just the fun of creating something that’s pretty. You see this with crafts like sowing and needle work. These crafts can fill a functional need, but can also be used to express our creativity and add something into the world that takes us beyond the mundane. For the artisan it gives them a sense of achievement and satisfaction.

Creativity is not just about fine art and crafts, there are many areas where we can apply our creative abilities; science and medicine, industry and business, technology and philosophy. Humanity has seen tremendous advancements in these areas. Unfortunately that same creative spark in us can be used for destructive purposes and there has been many a regime and political leadership that has done so, bringing misery, subjugation and death into the world. Nuclear technology is a prime example, being used to kill thousands of people while also being used to provide energy to keep our modern society, so dependant on electricity, going. Who knows what other ways we can advance though using our creative capacity. But there is one possible threat to our creative spark that is on the horizon.

Artificial Intelligence is here to stay, but at the moment it is difficult to see how this will impact our lives and what it means for not just the creatives in our world but for all of us. The UK Government has recently announced that it wants the UK to be at the for front of the technology. Yet it has already caused concern from the creatives fearful of their intellectual property rights being bypassed by the AI companies as they use web scrapping to collected such material for training AI machines. Will we become lazy and become content creator instead of artist? Will it cheapen such art if anyone with an idea can just get an AI machine to do the work for them, removing any need for skill, or is that a good thing?

If spirituality and creativity are closely connected then what does that mean if machines do all the creative stuff? Do we just end up with content creation and fail to do one of the most important parts of being human: expressing love, joy, pain, fear, and loss into a body of work that can move the emotions of those exposed to it. I’m sure there will be many benefits to AI, but what we must not do is allow it to steal from us one of the defining attributes that has been given to us by God: The ability to be creative and add something to this world that is meaningful, beautify and a blessing.

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Palestinian pastor from Bethlehem

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

Two peoples acting from trauma, cease-fires can only go so far as there has to be a deep healing of trauma for true shalom to come. Resolution does not come through violence as violence breeds violence; regardless of how one reads the Bible to call for co-habitation is anything but anti-Semitic and neither being in opposition to Zionism is to take an anti-Semitic stance. Munther Isaac is a pastor, a theologian from Bethlehem and with great grace speaks into the history and the current Gaza atrocity. (The link to the podcast / interview is below… Nomad Podcasts give a platform for voices to be heard that can open up fresh sight… recommended!)

Munther Isaac – Gaza, God and Genocide (N337)
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Humility… greater than it is cracked up to be!!

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

God is a short word but what we fill the word with makes a huge difference. Is ‘Allah’ God is a strange question for Allah means ‘God’. The bigger issue is whether my God is truly the God of Israel and the Father of our Lord Jesus, or in simpler and very relevant language – is my God a Christlike God? None of us have a perfect vision / understanding of God, for it is when ‘he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is’ (1 John 3:2). There is a ‘test’ we can apply (oooooffff it is a tough one) we are more like God the clearer I see God / Jesus. So I have a way to go!

What words do you immediately associate with God (as revealed in Jesus). Maybe all-powerful, loving, accepting, harsh, tough… One of the words I associate with God is that of humility. Jesus being in the form of God (NOT IN SPITE OF) humbled himself – Jesus takes the God path. In a parable he suggests that in the age to come the one throwing the party will get up from the table and serve; while alive he gave us the instruction not to lord it over others.

Genesis and the tower of Babel (same word as Babylon) presents a humanity on a different path to the God-path. ‘We will be great’ being the banner.

Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” (Genesis 11:4).

The next verse is full of irony. A tower that truly reached heaven would be visible to the one who inhabits heaven, but we read that the God who can see all things came down to see the tower – obviously so did not reach heaven!!

Humility is the cloak of invisibility to the Slanderer; it is deeply set in the Lord’s prayer with the request that we be not led into temptation.

Big years globally lie ahead. Many rough waters to be traversed; many times the Lord will come down to see. While reading Genesis I have also been reading Matthew and in chapter 25 we might well have a reflection on the nations in the immediate post-70 AD/CE scenario but the application probably goes beyond that and it is expressed as a judgement of the nations. In separating the goats from the sheep the response was the same from the two separate groups:

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’
Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?’ (Matt. 25: 37-39, 44).

How you treated / reacted to the least of those that Jesus identifies as ‘family’ was the response.

Humility. I have been too close to movements that have thought they are the movement that will change the world. No, I don’t think so… I should put that stronger – no you are not! If God has given us something we should live and act as if the world will be deeply impoverished (oppressed) if we do not fulfil what has been entrusted to us, but we also realise that it might be the smallest contribution to the future. I (probably!!) have less years left than I have already had but be they few or many I aspire that humility will be part of my clothing and there will be no attempt at, or participation in, building a tower that reaches heaven… but if I have ‘two coins’ that I will knowingly or even accidentally throw them so that the impressive edifices come down.

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Scripture and bad theology?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

I have never been a big fan of some of the OT though the stories are certainly interesting. I have just finished Genesis and the opening chapters of Job. So what is that about ‘the council of the gods’ complete with ‘the satan’ (the accuser / adversary) present and in dialogue with God. OK I know some people make that fit into their theology, but I think I will give that one a miss. We do read the internal conflict that seems to be present as their theology is developed; compare these two texts on the same incident:

Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go, count the people of Israel and Judah” (2 Sam. 24:1).

and the later reflection acquits God of this action and applies it directly to Satan:

Satan stood up against Israel and incited David to count the people of Israel. So David said to Joab and the commanders of the army, “Go, number Israel, from Beer-sheba to Dan, and bring me a report, so that I may know their number” (1 Chron. 21:1,2).

Maybe we can say that the later reflection is that Satan simply fulfils the will of God; all neat and tied up! Doesn’t cut it for me.

And in Genesis and again in Job we get some way dodgy theology. The brothers sold Joseph to Egypt and obviously are a tad worried once they later meet up and Joseph is the one who is second in command to the mighty Pharaoh. They fear he will take revenge, but he assures them that

Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today (Gen. 50:20).
So it was not you who sent me here but God (Gen. 45:8).

Joseph sees the hand of God throughout, but I think he does rather overstate it! Jumping forward to Job we get some well known verses that Job utters after he loses everything, including his own offspring:

[T]he Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1:21).

Yes we can take hold of such verses that help us understand that we won’t understand certain events / tragedies that take place… but the Lord taking away in that way? I don’t think so.

To simply endorse the above as ‘good theology’ as opposed to ‘good responses’ presents us with a God who does good and exercises evil as and when. That goes far beyond ‘I don’t have an answer’. The ‘sovereignty of God’ when stretched to that extent seems to badly portray God. Submission in the light of a lack of total sight is one thing, but to attribute activities such as that to God is something else.

It does help that Job seems to be a story that is set up to force a dialogue in the wisdom tradition – with Proverbs ‘do this and good happens, do that and bad happens’; Job with ‘a good geezer but bad things happened’; and Ecclesiastes with ‘the most fortunate human is a dead one for all is vanity’. That dialogue is still ongoing and those three books set it out for us.

We cannot simply lift a text here and there and then have our theology… the story of Scripture that points to the revelation of God in Jesus is the guiding narrative. Jesus might give us a different take on some OT events, for when he encountered the story of ‘judgement from God on a people’ he seemed to more put it down to ‘one of those things that happen’!

At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the other people living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish just as they did.” (Luke 13:1-5).

There is judgement against wrongdoing recorded in both testaments, but Jesus seemed to emphasise that for our own good we should dismount the high horse of knowing it all. In so doing we might end up also with some dodgy theology – maybe simply different to the dodgy beliefs that can be espoused when on the horse, but hopefully with more humility and without the need to resort to the strange ‘God is sovereign’ response. For sure when we pray ‘let your kingdom come’ it might come through a strange path but probably not as a result of an active plan worked out between God and the Satan with us trying to work out ‘did God do this’ or ‘it was the work of Satan’.

Still great to read the Old Testament… but so glad we got Jesus the image of God.

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Karen Ashton – in Baltimore

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Reports

Gayle showed me yesterday this post from Karen Ashton and I asked if I could republish here. Karen is wonderfully ordinary and wonderfully extraordinary. She has walked and walked and prayed and currently is in the USA on the East coast. Gayle and I met Karen in Romania and she is high up, way high up on those we respect and are provoked by to hunger after Jesus and the ways of the kingdom. If you have a few minutes read her post.

Greetings from Baltimore – Day 12 – Thursday 16th January 2025

So here I sit in Baltimore, it’s difficult to know what to say today … the places and days seem to pass so quickly (in such a blur of pushing through) … and yet so slowly (long, straight roads stretching ahead) … it’s hard to take it all in … and my head is tired (the cold seems to take another level of energy) … but I guess here is a safe place to process my ponderings …

… in so many ways everything here is so familiar (I’ve seen enough tv and movies to have ‘seen it all’) … and yet everything is so very, very different (“guns, loans, gold”, weird showers, no prices, no pavements … just touches the surface) … it feels a long way from home … and there is so much that the glossed over media version doesn’t even begin to touch on … the crumbling around the edges … 

… in many ways, after Philadelphia, the last few days have been easier … it can often take a while of walking in a new place for connections to ‘open up’ … (credit to those amazing people who were open enough to be found in the early days) … but connections started to come and I’ve been welcomed and loved and cared for by some incredible people (and had the precious covering of their prayers) … and walking the stretches in between cities can often be lighter … the open space between … 

… but as I walked further into this beautiful gateway city of Baltimore … with it’s row houses, vibrant neighbourhoods and glistening waterfront … the wind literally started blowing harder … (and it was an icy wind at that!) … this is a deeply historic city … with a complex past … a fierce, diverse, largely working class rooted community … that has proudly played a significant role in US history … but, some also claim it as the birth place of red-lining (a practice in which financial services are withheld from neighbourhoods that have significant numbers of racial and ethnic minorities) … and have deem it to be a “Tale of Two Cities” … and yet again the difference between neighbourhoods is stark … and as you walk between them, both sides of the ‘American dream’ clearly slap you in the face … 

… and as I marched and wandered into and around this city … praying for ancient gates to be opened (for the King of Glory to come in) … I finally found myself arriving at the McHenry fortress … to find the gates literally being shut in front of me (I guess even now, over 200 years later, they still don’t want to let the British in! 😉) … a fairly discouraging (though interesting) end to a long detour … 

… and in the face of it all, I wondered again why I’m here … what on earth am I doing here? … little Karen … who’s taken it upon herself to wander over from the edges of Europe … to a whole new continent, that I don’t really have the first clue about … I’ve come from little old Rochdale (the birthplace of Co-operation) … to a nation so recently founded in bloodshed (like most are I guess, if you go back far enough 🤷‍♀️) … where so many have died (in wars and wars and wars) … when you’re founded in a time of ‘kill or be killed’ … it’s perhaps not surprising that there seems to be so much fear here (and perhaps much to be feared?) … people seem to build their walls high here … and fiercely protect their independence … and their right to ‘defend themselves’ … 

…. and I wonder if maybe that’s part of what I’ve been asked to carry through these lands … the opposite spirit … vulnerability … defencelessness … interdependence … his kingdom ways … 

… to not be afraid to walk in dark places … not because I’m bigger and stronger and have a gun (I couldn’t be less so) … but because the light shines in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it … to know his love … his white hot, burning love … and to walk in the power of the knowledge of that love … knowing that perfect love drives out all fear … 

… I’ve been reminded a few times on this walk, of walking down from Romania through Turkey to Antioch … following a lot of the routes the early crusades took … armies marching to slaughter thousands, (in the name of Christ – how can we get it so wrong?!) … and being struck, at the time, by the significance of me walking those same routes in completely the opposite spirit … a lone woman … totally vulnerable and defenceless … without any kind of weapon (just a plastic knife to cut up my cheese 😉 ) … not by might, nor by power, but by his Spirit

… and so I guess here I come again … to fight that different kind of war … I come, like my King came, not with an entourage, on a big horse … but just as one little wanderer (with maybe a friend or two) … setting off tomorrow … walking towards Washington DC … the seat of power of a pretty dominant nation … acutely aware that I have nothing to offer, but the love of God … and the seed of his kingdom … a love that overcomes and overwhelms … a love that takes us into real freedom … brings us out from behind our walls, and into the wide open spaces of his kingdom life … a love that calls us not to greatness (in the eyes of this world) … but to humility … ‘that the first would be last’ … ‘that I would love my neighbour as myself’ … a love that calls us to sacrifice … to lay down our lives … a love that caused a King to lay down his life … that’s the kind of kingdom I want to live in … and that’s the kind of King I want to follow … 

… and so I pray again for a turning … a turning from the running and the rushing … the pushing forward … the drive to collect more and more to ourselves … the pressure to work and earn and consume … as we struggle to live under Empire … in this extreme, distorted version of capitalism … (where greed seems to go unchecked … and is even praised) … may our eyes be opened to see that our value is not in how much we can consume (despite what all the relentless adverts might tell us!) … may we find the stillness again … may we be still … and make room … find the open spaces … may we hear your still, small voice amongst the clamour … may a spirit of generosity rise up within us … may it not be about what we can get … but about what we can give … may we truly see that we are blessed to be a blessing … and as we choose to walk in that opposite spirit … to live counter-cultural lives … to lower our walls and make ourselves vulnerable … to give and give and give … to love and love and love … may the seeds of your kingdom be planted wherever we walk! 

Tomorrow, I’m aiming to walk towards the outskirts of Washington (and will travel to stay with friends in Arlington) … then Saturday we will walk into central DC together … many thanks again to all of you who ‘walk’ with me … I’m so very thankful for you 🙂 … for Christ and for his Kingdom x

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‘Open’ Zoom Date

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Updates

I have set the next Open Zoom date for Tuesday, February 4th, 19:30 UK Time and the focus will be on the direction of movement in eschatology. The centre being from heaven to earth and the goal being the restoration of all things (‘ta panta’, the ‘all things’ of creation).

If attending please either read the pdf that I have written or watch the video that I have recorded. (The pdf is in greater detail and includes a critique of the ‘secret rapture’ / Dispensationalism.) Please read / view one or other…or for the keenies both! Here are the respective links:

Eschatology_directionDownload

Love how the video captures me looking speechless – must have been something so clever I said that it blew me away?

If planning on attending the link for the Zoom meeting can be found here:

Open Zoom Feb. 4th

I hope we can focus at some level on what would be the practical application to life if we held to an expectation of ‘God/Jesus arriving’ rather than ‘we departing’.

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Eschatology: video ‘There to Here’

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

This video is around 12 minutes long and it sits alongside the pdf I wrote little while back. The link to that article is found at:

https://3generations.eu/PeediePress/media/documents/Eschatology_direction.pdf

I cover in that pdf some of the history of ‘the secret rapture’ and Dispensationalism with the main focus on the ‘restoration of all things’, the renewal of creation. The video simply summarises this aspect of movement from heaven to earth. I will set a Zoom meeting with an open invitation and in that session I will summarise the content, respond to feedback, and I hope we can explore the practical implications for all eschatology begs the question: ‘in the light of this how do we live?’ If you plan / hope to come to the Zoom session please either read the pdf or watch the video.

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Yes… but

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Biblical Observations

I am back to Genesis again in my readings as I have set up a plan how to read through the Bible in a year. Some parts later I will struggle with – all the ‘begats’ and the intricacies of the sacrifices and I am sure my mind will wander and I will not have ready every word. Today I was reading of Mr. Abraham and how it just drops in as normative comments about him and his brother that they have children ‘also to their concubine…’ Women come close to being owned, and there seems an absence of romance and commitment to the ‘one and only’. All who take the Bible seriously of course want to insist on following the trajectory of Scripture with a ‘yes that is there, but continue to read and see where this takes us’. In the case of marriage it takes us to a situation of exclusive committed relationships. Trajectory, follow the story.

Determining the trajectory is a challenge, such as we see in the history of the church. Slavery was one such challenge as it is not confronted head-on in the pages of Scripture. It seems that Bishop Lightfoot was one of the first scholars to posit that the gospel message itself refuted slavery even though there was not a specific text that did so. Thankfully no one seriously suggests that slavery should continue, though of course ‘modern slavery’ continues disguised and until consumerism (‘I saw, I took, I ate) is overturned there will always be a tendency to enslave others.

This concept of a trajectory is embraced by all – it is simply that we differ as to what issues are included. And as with the slavery debate when one adds a trajectory that goes beyond the pages of Scripture that the challenge grows. (In using the phrase ‘beyond the pages of Scripture’ I do not mean beyond the ‘story’ that unfolds, a story that culminates in a ‘new heaven and a new earth’ – i.e. a whole new, fulfilled, order.)

Pages / texts and story / trajectory – how do we determine our approach? Consider how Christians differ:

  • Violence and war… plenty of that within the pages.
  • Despotic / sovereign rulers who are endorsed by God.
  • Same-sex committed relationships.
  • Nationalism that protects borders.
  • and… and…

Thankfully at the same time as reading Genesis I am also reading the Gospels. There is a trajectory, and Jesus distorts many previously held norms; Paul then seems to suggest that we live within a fallen oppressive world system, but are not to live by the mythical story of empire, but by the story from the empty tomb that tells us there is One who is the first-born of all creation.

Probably the differences within the Christian community as to how we approach various issues can be used to provoke progression in understanding, rather than division. Anyway all goes to say, I am interested to see what fixed point I will see differently at the end of the year when I finish up in Revelation… will I see ‘a new heaven and a new earth’?

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Personal faith or ‘Personality faith’

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

I theoretically like all the personality tests and approaches, and one that I have been drawn to is that of the ‘Enneagram’. Like other similar approaches it does not box one in but helps one to see what box one is already within. I say I theoretically like it as I probably pay no attention to it when it comes to myself! But ever so useful for all other people on the planet. It helps / could help them to grow to maturity. Anyway that is enough self-disclosure for the year.

We love to think that our faith in God is ever so objective. There is God out and over there and we know exactly who HE is and we have a relationship with that person called God. We read in Galatians 4:9 how that perspective is somewhat skewed:

 Now, however, that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God (emphasis added).

I know the God who is the one I have created and as my faith strengthens so does my belief in that God, hence if I truly have some knowledge of God the image of God I have will change and develop. There will come a day when I know as I am known, but until then there will be a process that is incomplete. (I cheekily wrote in the paragraph above the word ‘he’ in capitals, though sadly it is not cheekily enough. There is an old joke about a preacher who was very clear on male headship (for headship read ‘top dog’) and an implicit underlying white-superiority belief and that they died and thus experienced a major shock post-death when they discovered that she was black.) I grew up with the ‘hell-fire’ belief and when I first met people who held to a view of unconditional immortality my ‘faith’ was given a knock as I thought ‘why then be a Christian’ if it is not to escape the wrath of God!!! It was not my belief in eternal punishing (side note: not the same as eternal punishment) that was shaken but my belief in ‘my’ God that was shaken – my belief in MY God.

Back to personality types and faith. I am not likely to end up with an expression of faith that includes genuine meditation and quietness. I am too busy trying to justify my being by activity for that (one could at this point say ‘too immature’ but my personality has a strong gift of denial within it so that observation would not stick). I will not drift that way simply because it is not ‘me’ as I present myself to the world.

In certain charismatic circles I have noted a combination of personality numbers 8s and 6s (enneagram number). The faith of the 8s in that setting are convinced the world is an evil place and we need to be vigilant and are in a state of war. Add to that their incredible knowledge of Scripture and they can teach where things are at and where it all goes. Then along come the 6s who have a strong sense of anxiety and know the world is not safe. The 8s confirm that their anxieties are based in reality and as their anxieties inevitably raise their level of concern over the future so they look for authority to help them find a safe place. Surprise, surprise the 8s end up as the anointed leaders and the 6s the wonderful followers, with any younger 8s among them on track to become the next generation of leaders. A marriage made in heaven… or something a little different to that!

The charismatic world is the Christian world I have inhabited for some 50 years so is the one I know best; other expressions probably could be viewed similarly using the same kind of lens. In other words our faith is not simply objective but is our faith, we connect to God (and to ‘god) through who we are, through our personality. That is how it always will be for it is not possible in that full sense for me to enter into God’s world, or to know God… wonderfully s/he enters my world, meets me.

One of the challenges regarding maturity is that we can mature in ‘our’ faith, but in reality the faith we have is simply being strengthened through greater knowledge, that then goes on to re-enforce our behaviour. That sadly is not a true reflection of maturity. A big part of maturity probably includes a measure of uncertainty. And given that I am certain of that…

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