Author: Martin Scott

I am a fan

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Reports

Probably better jump over the opening paragraph and photo… the real substance lies beyond!

Gayle’s family are (except for Helen – it is good to be different and to have one ‘s own ideas) fans of Liverpool. I tend to support the referee and in my dreams would love to be a referee, thinking I could cut out all the verbal dissent with a few red cards here and there… In my dreams… remember Pierluigi Collina? Now that is someone to look up to.

But beyond referees I am a fan of Authentic Lives and the work that Gayle is involved in. I am unbiased and so can objectively say she is brilliant at it… Even if there is a touch of subjectivity there the ‘testimonies’ back are awesome. All of this is to say that a face to face course is going to be put on in Ashburnham place, hosted by Gayle and Andrew. Here are the details:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/authentic-lives-registration-270884993307

If you are able to attend you will NOT be disappointed. The costs are for the accommodation, the course is delivered for free, any donation is of course welcomed.

Maybe I should put this in a separate post but I read the following this morning. Clever guy that Tom fella. I have added the emphasis, as that is my (extremely smart) contribution to the quote:

So when someone like Paul arrived in Thessalonica or Ephesus with his message about the one God and his crucified and risen son, he was not offering an alternative way of being religious in the sense of a private hobby, something to do in a few hours at the weekend. He was offering a heart transplant for an entire community and its culture.

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Anyone got any bread?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Prophetic Perspectives

Perspectives… that is normally all we have, or as Paul said ‘we see through a glass darkly’. I have been provoked by a number of zooms I have been involved in these past weeks to consider again some aspects of a prophetic word I received in 1999. The actual word is kinda incidental, but it has pushed me to think about Joseph, Egypt and the famine in Canaan. The story you will know well.

The pandemic has been a provocation for many people and deeply challenging. Adjustments will have to be made in many places, but recently I heard a report from a conference that the worry / complaints from the leaders present were that their numbers had gone down, they had ‘lost’ people. That made me think.

The ‘bread’ that has been (mainly) offered and consumed has been on growing the church, evangelism etc. As I wrote concerning the Acts 15 council I consider that there was a shift from a Jewish world view after the New Testament era, to adopting a Hellenistic (neo-Platonic in the main) world-view. Salvation became that of the ‘soul’ being saved so that we are able to go to heaven when we die, with the dear old world being left behind as it was destined to be burned up. I do not think that accords with a Jewish world-view. Meanwhile over centuries the Jewish calling became lost with a shift in meaning as to what the purpose of election was. Thank God for voices such as Jeremiah calling for them to embed in Babylon!

The bread on offer is running out. In Europe it is already diminishing in availability… in Brazil (where I do numerous Zooms) there is still a 15 year – or so – availability, the shelves are and will remain full.

There has to be, though, a realisation that the bread is running out, otherwise there will be severe rationing; the bread will be shared among fewer people.

Now the little twist that has been provoking me.

The bread for the future is in Egypt.

There is some kind of tie here to the post I wrote about Jesus being with the wild animals. The bread is located in the Imperial setting. (For those with discernment, Someone is doing a number on me!)

However, Joseph is problematic. We should not be too harsh on him, and if I read stuff aright here we are with his example and some 3,500+ years later we still seem to peddling the same old model. That model being – the bread will be in Egypt, we have the recipe how to make it and of course it will mean the enslavement of everyone, except for those at the top, for after all we need to be practical. Or in current language, we have to get into the world and get control so that we can change the world, and those of us who follow Jesus can be really happy that our people are at the top and all those ‘Egyptians’ deserve to be enslaved anyway cos they have some really nasty gods. Let’s capture the top 3% now!

After Joseph the Imperial power is stronger than before! All the land belongs to Pharaoh. Bread is provided but… at what cost?

In conclusion then.

Bread is running out. The bread that has been on offer. The new bread is different, it is made from a different recipe. It is – hey, my perspectives – not about individual salvation but about transformation of our world; it is the valuing of one and all; it is the end of hierarchy (one day I need to write about this and the gift of leadership); creation stewarding; signposts to the age to come expressed through the images that art, architecture can show us; the distribution of the ‘soul’ of the world into the world etc…

That bread is running out in Western Europe – hence the complaints about the pandemic from that angle, and the call to get back to ‘normal’. That bread is still in evidence in many parts of the world. (Not just now a perspective, but a total unashamed bias – it is for this reason I believe Europe is pointing the way forward… the way forward is not about church growth, but about being located inside Imperial domination.)

The new bread will only be found in Egypt.

We cannot do a Joseph, but have to be located where Joseph was located. To get there we should keep the complaints about being sold, of false accusation and imprisonment, to a minimum. That is the most likely pathway, as journeying to Egypt for many followers of Jesus will never happen without the help of a little betrayal, and some false accusations…

We cannot do a Joseph and strengthen the Imperial power. The land does not belong to Pharaoh. But to the meek.

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Acts 15… good decision?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Think we have got issues? Given that the fundamental nature of the Gospel is inclusion not exclusion we got a decent starting point to consider issues, but the early church had a big one. Not simply the inclusion of the Gentiles – that hope was always there – but on what basis. [An aside for the curious or more accurately an aside encouraging all readers to purchase ‘The LifeLine’ where I begin looking at the conflict between Peter and Paul, and take it further noting that Peter (!) came close to proclaiming another Gospel, and that Paul declared that pre-Damascus as a ‘blameless Jew as far as the law was concerned’ was actually a blasphemer!! Strong stuff, makes us all look a little sad when we get caught up in petty disagreements.]

I don’t think the solution in Acts 15 was to everyone’s satisfaction. I hear the grumbling that continued in the visit of Paul to Jerusalem when James asked him to get himself to the Temple with his mates and take some clear vows. Headquarters were certainly nervous when Paul was in town!

The good part of the solution is that Paul and Barnabas (later Silas) could continue with their apostolic work to the Gentiles. That aspect seems brilliant. Others (notably Peter) worked among the Jews. A clear division of work – maybe a compromise, but I think God loves to compromise, and when we do, when it is set in a redemptive / eschatological framework. The division was not absolute with some overlap in the middle; the relationships probably remained somewhat strained but they seemed to hold together, or at least make room for some interaction down the line. So good that what is recorded is not perfect… redemption is a bridge to what is here with an eye on what is eschatological – what is not yet here.

There have been those who argue that the Jerusalem Council cut the ties to the root of the plant, opening a separation between Jew and Gentile, and that the Council should in some way be reversed. Maybe though it did not go far enough? That is always the problem with compromises when they are understood as the conclusion rather than a step along the way.

The real separation (my little thought) is not at the Jerusalem Council, for I actually think it did not go far enough, but in the post-New Testament work among the Gentiles, with the adaptation of the earthy Jewish Gospel for an other-worldly Platonic gospel.

For me Acts 15 was a healthy compromise, not the finished product; post-New Testament then accelerated the divide. For those reasons I think the current perspective of Jesus as the Jewish prophet, the true Israel gives us real hope. It de-hellenises the Gospel so it is no longer about ‘going to heaven’ but about transformation of here (hence the need for a belief in the resurrection), and it pulls us back from a Zionism that looks for some restoration of the land (promised land? but Abraham was not promised the land according to Paul…) Maybe the gap can be closed, but until there will be compromises.

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One Thing

Out of context, but...

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead (Phil. 3:13).

Never take a verse out of context… but I do like to take this one in a direction that Paul did not intend, so for the purpose of this post here is my major out of context phrase:

This one thing I do.

Each year, simply because it is a convenient turning point for me I try to home in on what is the one thing I need to focus on and seek to put an effort in to fulfil that. Of course, a good retort is ‘one thing? how lazy are you Martin?’. Good question so my response…

I hope I manage to move 20+ things forward this year from where they are to a new level, but I think that if I try and move 20+ things forward they might move but only in a small way. I have found that if I find my priority in a season it seems to act like the front end of a wedge and opens the way for other things to be achieved. Once the ‘one thing’ gets some movement then I can seriously consider the other ‘things’, but until then I am not too interested in speculating too much as to what I should do with them.

I could go on to bore you with what the one thing is, how it is beginning to move, and the two aspects right behind that one thing that are beginning to come in to focus, but when have I ever bored anyone?!! So I leave it there, hope it resonate in some way – no ‘right way of moving things forward’, particularly as I butchered that verse, so apologies to Mr. P.

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Can’t believe I am open to this

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Prophetic Perspectives

I am just a tad obsessed. I believe we are called to participate in the transformation of this world and that call is not some kind of carrot before the donkey to keep us moving in that direction without ever seeing any change. I also believe that small acts are the key. The books I wrote last year, those best sellers on every book list (cough, cough, splutter), were not made available on Amazon as that company has exhibited the Imperial spirit. A choice that makes purchasing and downloading them a lot more difficult. By not making them available there I am sure the whole economics of that company is being threatened. OR NOT! However I think small choices do make a difference, nay I suggest the difference. The two coins in the temple treasury seems to have released the prophetic revelation and declaration that resulted in one of the most magnificent buildings of the New Testament era coming down.

[Sidenote confession not to be read: I of course close my eyes to the complicit nature of my behaviour and choices in keeping the system intact, and focus on the one or two things that don’t cost me, but make me feel good… Though I think amidst any hypocrisy I do seek to make conscious small choices.]

So what am I open to that shocks me? Let’s take a step back.

Animals were used to portray nations from a Jewish perspective in Scripture. Domesticated (= good / Israel) and wild animals (= bad / Gentile nations), and then by extraction Imperial powers were portrayed by animals that could not be tamed, often termed ‘beasts’. (One of the reasons I do not read Daniel into the lion’s den as literal… something stronger than facing a literal wild animal was at stake, and given that the latter part of Daniel is written in Greek it served as a very powerful stimulus to resist the Greek / beastly occupation of the land.)

Mark’s short Gospel seems to be written to get us from A to B as quickly as possible, hence the continual use of ‘and immediately’, which becomes so repetitive that the English translations tend to obscure it passing over it as such repetition does not read well. And into the breathlessness of Mark there are significant pauses when he adds detail, detail often omitted by the other writers. If detail is added it is certainly not insignificant. One such detail comes in the temptation narrative.

He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

He was with the wild beasts. Those beasts somehow had found a place in the shalom that Jesus brought – and of course an eschatological snapshot of the future referred to in such Scriptures as ‘the wolf will lie with the lamb’. The future was taking place in Jesus, in the resistance to the devil – this is why an ‘open heaven’ is much more complex than ‘I had 12 overcoming testimonies before breakfast’.

The picture does not seem to be one of opposition… it does not appear that the wild animals were eliminated… so if beasts (Daniel’s visions, Revelation and the sea / land beasts) represent Empires what are we to make of all this?

Part of what has provoked me in these past 6 months was the understanding that COVID was to give us a hard reset, and yet statistics show that the big corporations have simply steamed ahead, with the gaps between the wealthy and the not-wealthy having increased, so I have been asking what kind of reset have we seen?

As always being a believer in the priestly call of the body the real reset that I think we were to focus on was within the body. We, the small people, become the widow with the two coins to bring about a different future. I wonder if we have submitted / experienced the reset or are simply coming out the other side to return to singing our songs, while there is something much more significant that we can engage with (a kind of side-reference to my dream in 2010 of the façades opening up). I really hope we have and are ready to go through the doors that we can choose from that are in front of us.

Part of what will indicate we have gone through the reset will be a new wave of apostolic and prophetic presence at a foundational level where there is currently no building, no building that is somewhat reflective of that New Jerusalem.

It seems cos of our abuse of nature that pandemics will become something of the future landscape, but in spite of that I think it is now time to call ‘time up’ for this particular pandemic. Sufficient has taken place for the reset to be responded to by those who can / should respond… and the wild beasts continue.

Who is going to ride on the back of the wild beasts?

Revelation gives us an image of who rides on the back of the beast, and Jesus refused the offer of the ready made structure of the Roman Empire (the offer of the kingdoms of this oikoumene). In the light of that image and the clear refusal I can hardly believe what I might be open to consider.

Could it be that we are supposed to learn how to co-habit space with the beasts, so that the shalom we live in means they are not destructive?

I probably need to click publish real soon, before either deleting this post, or completely selling my soul.

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A whole lot of groaning

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

There are three connected ‘groans’ in Romans 8:

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Rom. 8:15).

That’s a pretty clear cry, though it is childlike, not at all sophisticated, and a cry that comes from deep within.


We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies (Rom. 8:22, 23).

Two groans in these verses with creation and ‘we ourselves’ groaning. These two are placed together as they are deeply related.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words (Rom. 8:26).

Ever despaired as to how to pray? Sure, praying in tongues helps, and maybe Paul has that in mind here, but I think he is also pushing for something deeper than that, with a word used only once in the NT (alaletos, from a related word for ‘mute’ – alalos), maybe we could say with sighs / groans that are inarticulate, sounds without words.

Land / geography holds the corporate memory and so responds from that memory until either the memory is healed or new memories come in. New, as in new and different, do not occur naturally as memory locked in the geography draws yet more of the same kind of action to itself thus layering and re-enforcing earlier memories. (The rape of Dinah in Gen. 34 and the subjugation of the woman in John 4 seem related, being the same geography though separated by more than 1000 years. The pain from Genesis 4 is still present and manifesting in John 4.) Thus there has to be a healing for the memory locked in the land.

The land, responding as victim shouts with a voice of pain, that sound being one that is seeking recompense. Land does not by itself automatically release the pain through forgiveness. We have to hear the voice of the land, but we also have to help the land to articulate more than pain and to rise up so that ‘a better word than that of the blood of Abel’ is spoken; that original word coming up from the land being one that was requiring justice. If that voice is heard and responded to then the cycle will simply continue.

Back then to the Scriptures in Romans 8.

The Spirit within us groans with inarticulate sounds, sounds that cannot be put into words. We might not be able to articulate with words, but in yielding to the Spirit a sound is made, a groan is offered that will connect with creation.

This un-wordy groaning is for the future, for something different than that which is here now to manifest, something that is in line with liberation. The groaning calls for the future but springs from the past. The past of a simple understanding that we have been set free, that an unsophisticated, childlike cry of ‘Abba Father’, an expression of freedom is what we also desire for the land that is beyond us and yet present to us. Nothing smart there, something that could even be viewed as naive and childlike.

And in the same way creation has been groaning for liberation, a liberation akin to ours. Creation becomes our responsibility (nothing new there – consistent from the creation stories onwards).

We were in bondage, the Spirit comes and we receive a firstfruit, and respond with ‘Abba Father’.
Creation likewise is in bondage, but ‘sees’ our future and groans for the same. I suggest looking for our response. How do we respond, for we feel weak; the Spirit comes to align us toward the future, perhaps also we should expect that the land could receive her firstfruits, some measure of freedom, even if not the fullness.

I wonder also with this liberation of the family of God if we are not challenged to hear something from heaven that we can teach the land to speak forth. In 2 Cor. 12:4 Paul speaks of being

caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat.

Although he uses another (rarely used) word regarding what he heard, there seems something parallel to the Spirit’s help. ‘Inarticulate sounds’ and ‘sounds that are not to be put into words’. Could it be that to truly help the land we have to hear some sounds that cannot be put into words so that the land calls out beyond a cry for recompense but we teach the land to also groan without words?

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The importance of story

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Stories

Stories… I have just completed two interviews with Steve Lowton and Michele Perry on the nature, power, relevance of stories. Would have loved to have gone for a few hours – fascinating responses from them both… Hopefully in this and the next video there is enough to stimulate your own thoughts.

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Let’s speculate

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Could there be double meanings, meanings that go beyond that of the author’s original intended meaning? Well possible. We have simple examples – one being ‘a virgin will be with a child’, was not originally a prophetic word about the coming of Jesus, and yet it is quoted as fulfilment in Jesus. The double meaning is more significant, and the impact of that meaning is universal in terms of time and place; the original meaning was time- and location-bound.

In Acts 1:11 the angels said to the disciples,

Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.

So the obvious level is these disciples are staring into the sky as Jesus disappears from sight and in some way will come in reverse direction at some future date. However, the ‘return’ seems to be considerably more dramatic than the departure. Seen by a few, observed to be going up until a cloud obscured him from sight. At least, the return is not simply a reversal of direction. We have angels, trumpets, the sea going up its dead. ‘In the same way’ has to be primarily focused on ‘this’ Jesus. The one to return is not different to the one who left. The one who came was the revelation of God, leaving the disciples a mandate to proclaim the ‘gospel’ universally. That gospel proclamation was not centred in on ‘universal sin, death by Jesus in our place, repent and receive your ticket’ but on the total transformation of the universe through the death of ‘this’ Jesus in an obscure province of the one-world government situation. I am not diminishing all the ‘personal’ aspects that have impacted us, simply seeking to suggest they do not occupy centre-stage in the NT.

Let’s add a few more things… the disciples are looking into (not toward) heaven. They saw, or were trying to see into heaven (is that a double meaning, beyond that of the sky?) and they saw him go – two different verbs for ‘see’ are used, the second can carry the sense of ‘with discernment’.

Interlude… we are pushing into speculation, so a little freedom!

Could there be a double meaning of the more you see Jesus into the heavens the more you will see him come in the same way? If not in this verse, I am sure there is validity in that perspective. If we see that this Jesus has Ascended, it is this Jesus that is in the heavens, the Jesus who empties himself is the one in heaven, the one who receives the right to break open the scroll of human destiny (Rev. 4); if we see this Jesus we are going to be shaped by that. If we are shaped by that then this Jesus will be manifest in us, he will come, his kingdom will come, his will done on earth… more today than yesterday.

Why do you stand looking into heaven?

If the answer is ‘we want to know where he has gone’ we need to think again. If it is we want insight into the true nature of heaven as the place from which all things are shaped, so that our mouths and lives are a request for heaven to come, then Jesus will indeed come. We need a return of Jesus! A return of ‘this’ Jesus manifest among us. The one who walked among us, moved into our neighbourhood.

Let’s lay on one side for a moment the idea of a parousia, we need a presence, that presence was mediated through the ‘comforter of the same kind’, the Holy Spirit. Salvation is through Christ alone (particularism) but presence is universal (the two hands of God that some early church fathers wrote about). Presence… the more we look INTO the heavens and see that THIS Jesus has ascended there the more the universal presence (parousia) of God will come.

I understand how some can get to the place of ‘all is past’ with regard to fulfilment in AD70, but it would have to be added to with a crazy passion for the total transformation of the world through the spirit of ‘this’ Jesus not through the domination of ‘we will tell you what to do cos we have God on our side’.

I have no idea if a non-physical-parousia has any traction, but I think we should look for great revelations / appearances of Jesus before any physical in-person appearance. To do so we will need to get on board with an appropriate apostolic vision. The ekklesia was to be an outpost in a locality (or space) that was a mirror of what was in heaven.

Let this same Jesus come in the same manner.

It will affect every aspect of society. Let’s just touch one – economy (is it a little ironic that this is from the word oikoumene? True economy is not tied to empire, to moving as many boundaries as we can so that our (market) share is increased. Trade became ‘buying and selling’, but it was at one time barter. I give you this for that which you have. At best a sharing. But push it one step further back and we have gift. The NT view of gift seems to be that which is given without strings attached to someone else, another situation, so that that person / situation can take a step toward their destiny, and without the gift they will stay at their current level or even lose that. How about we gaze into heaven and see this Jesus, the Jesus of gift, not of trade and transaction. Then make space for this same Jesus to come. We might be involved in the world of commerce. We might have our hands tied by certain rules and expectations. After all we do live in the ‘(un-)real world’. But in that world we can make space for something reflective of this Jesus.

In concluding these set of posts I am not claiming I am right, and far more important than being right is the realisation that nothing is meant to be theory or something that gives me the inside track. My beliefs are to shape me and I am not too unhappy if my beliefs were wrong at certain points, but I was shaped by heaven and helped others find a shape suitable for themselves.

I do see a future ‘return’ of Jesus, but also pull for incredible irruptions of Jesus in the here and now. That could increase, not because the Bible says it will, but because we give space for it. To do so means we will have to go beyond the boundaries that convention has set for us. What is from heaven has to find a shape on earth, look just like what is here already, but in the interactions demonstrate the humanisation (and creationisation) of all things. The incarnation past, has to connect to the incarnation present that is shaped by the revelation / appearing / presence of this same Jesus.

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A Quick Q & A

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Yes very artificial – I set the questions and I give my answer. Oh to have sat exams like this in the past! I will give some real quick answers here to where I am at. Are the answers correct? Probably not all are, but they are a true representation of where I am at.

Do you believe in a personal return of Jesus?
Yes. There is a whole element of a movement from heaven to earth (New Jerusalem, heaven holding Jesus until, dead coming with Jesus etc.).

Do you believe in a millennial rule from Jerusalem?
No.

Do you believe that there will be A future antiChrist?
Maybe but I do not see that as something prophesied in Scripture.

Do you believe that everything can be transformed without the parousia… a kind of optimistic post-millennialism?
No, but I am very optimistic.

And a tribulation?
The ‘great tribulation’ was in the years 66-70AD and has been repeated in different places / times since. Tribulation is also related to our location, standing in the squeeze (literal meaning) between what is and what we long for.

Do you believe that those who die (in Christ) go to heaven?
I do, tentatively. I do not wish to emphasise that as the resurrection of the dead is the central hope, and is so strong that (almost) nothing else gets a look in.

What about eternal destinies?
It is pretty impossible to know what Jesus believed about ‘hell’, although he mentions the word numerous times, but always in a context that is different to the one that we commonly use it. I settle on ‘eternal punishment’, not eternal punishing, and a very generous inclusion of as many as possible in the age to come.

What about ‘all Israel’ being saved?
Two responses to that one. There is not a temporal clause in the verse, it is not ‘and then all Israel will be saved’ but ‘in this way all Israel will be saved’ (kai houtos). ‘All Israel’ was a rabbinic term and then they went on to say who were not included, and the ‘who’ were the Jews by race who disqualified themselves, so the term is not a term that meant anyone descended from Abraham. (In Rom. 11:31 Paul writes of Jews receiving mercy NOW, not then at some future time.) Secondly, we need to go back to re-define the term ‘saved’. It is a saved from the falling short of the glory of God (not being human) to be saved for a reason. That reason is to be a channel and means by which the presence of God can be expressed within the world. So I do not see this Scripture as something that Paul is saying will happen before or at the end. It was his hope within his lifetime.

I am sure there are a thousand other important questions, but as these are simply my responses they are probably not worth asking. They do illustrate though that I am very conservative in my approach. The next post (maybe posts) will focus on being a little more speculative, realising that with their Scriptures in hand many Jews could not see how Jesus could be the Messiah. In the light of that it is not unreasonable to suggest that any attitude that says ‘I’ve got that one nailed’ could well be wrong.

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Perspectives