Author: Martin Scott

Mistakes… learning… perfect

The making mistakes gift

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

‘In the image of God’… perfect? No, but good. Humanity was never ‘created’ perfect (aside: nor ‘given’ an immortal soul). Such ideas are not formed from the earthy theology of the Bible, but the ‘ideal’ world of the Greeks. The theology that looks for a way out; God is always searching for a way in.

The incarnation. Jesus is sinless, but not ‘perfect’. Or, at least, he is not intrinsically perfect in the sense the word is used of humans in Scripture, the sense of ‘mature’. To arrive at maturity is a process. And it was a process also for Jesus.

It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings (Heb. 2:10).

Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him (Heb. 4:8,9).

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favour (Luke 2:52).

A growth in wisdom, a path toward maturity. True humanity, that which Jesus exhibited, is not ‘perfection’ as suggested to us from our infected-by-Hellenistic-philosophy theology, but it is one that embraces mistakes, of holding to a position that has to be later abandoned, and moved on from it. We are all influenced by our culture, the wider cultures and the closer culture of the faith we have embraced.

Jesus learned.

Perfection is not the measure of true humanness, but learning, adapting, changing is the measure.

We know the classic example of Jesus learning from the Syro-Phoenician woman’s response; or when we consider the ‘who knew better?’ question related to Jesus or his mother in John 2! Or maybe the washing of feet of the disciples (John 13) was provoked by the washing of his feet by Mary of Bethany earlier (John 12).

Did Jesus learn in those situations? I reply with a resounding ‘for sure’. For sure, not simply because I wish to affirm his humanity, but because I wish to affirm his (sinless) true humanness.

This post might only be for me… To learn to embrace mistakes, not to see them as ‘sin’, as ‘failure’ but as the door provided to enable me to mature.

One of God’s good gifts to humanity is the ability to make mistakes.

God is God, and sadly we project on to God our humanity. ‘Anger’, ‘slow to forgive without proper repayment and forgiveness’; we tend to make God in our image, or the ‘idealised’ image of humanity (with all our imperfections). The two above examples are classic: wrath, but never are the anger of humans and the anger of God compared… and forgiveness… hence we end up with a transactional cross and a divided Trinity. Then we tend to make Jesus, as human, into ‘our’ God as human, so true humanness becomes something that provokes us to become even less human than we are! As if!!!

In the Garden we were tempted to become ‘as God’… the problem has always been a desire to become like the ‘God’ we perceive! Hence the purification we go through to act with power. The theology that sanctifies getting to the ‘top’.

It is all cut down when God becomes like us, the incarnation. Here is the image of God; here indeed is God.

(And the get to the top ideology is somewhat mocked in the tower of Babel story. The tower will reach heaven… God in heaven has to come ‘down’ to see it. Not so high after all. Hence, all the centres of power are not what they seem, they will all be unfinished, they will not reach the heights they proclaim. The small stone is always more effective than the great image that is created.)

The incarnation. And God in human form learns.

Long live mistakes. (Again written for me.) I guess it is not likely I hit the bulls eye today.

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Shame… follow up

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

When I posted the interview with Michele I forgot to put a link to her writings at ‘Reflections from the unpaved road’.

https://dmperry.com/2021/07/14/closets/

(https://dmperry.com/2021/07/14/closets/).

Her regular blog will connect not just for those interested in the ‘shame’ area, but beyond. Michele, Gayle and I count as a friend, and particularly because of her honesty, transparency and hard-worked out wisdom. Check out her posts.

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Re-populating Earth

Heaven's vision

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

In writing an email this morning in response to a question I mentioned that the work of the demonic is to dehumanise people. It is part of a bigger framework of seeing that the heart of sin is to act in a not-truly human way (to fall short of the glory of God); then I wrote that Jesus (truly human) and his redemptive work is to re-populate the earth with those who are truly human. It provoked to come up with the phrase that I have put in the title:

Re-populating the earth.
I think it has mileage (kilometrage?).

Future…

Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure (1 John 3:2,3).

I guess the more we see the true Jesus (not simply ‘my’ Jesus that I construct) the more we become truly human – like him, changed from glory to glory (failing short of the glory of God being ‘sin’; glory revealed in and through the human Jesus). So there is a future element that awaits the parousia – the one that will happen or maybe even one of our speculative ones!!! At that time God will be with humanity – in line with all the movement in Scripture being heaven to earth, the other direction being temporary, until.

But we cannot simply push everything away to the future. There is a present element… Acts being a record of what Jesus is continuing to do and to teach (Acts 1:1,2); ekklesia being the representative company of those on earth to be the means by which heaven is to come to earth; the apostolic life that fills up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ (Col. 1:24); etc. Jesus is present now.

Re-populating earth! That is a mission that we can be concerned about. We are never going to be the ones that can decide eternal destinies… we can though, and are instructed to, live in a way that represents heaven, that opens ‘channels’ from that dimension to this one.

In virtually all of Paul’s letters we have theology in the first part and then ethics in the latter part. This is what has been done, this is what has taken place in your life, now here is the path. And I do not think the ethics are tied to rights and wrongs, but to a relational and eschatological pathway. Relational – ‘do good to all (especially to the household of faith)’ for we are ‘members of one another’ etc. How we relate to the others of faith is important, for they are family and this family is called (as per the family of Abraham, and of course we are the family of Abraham) for the sake of the world. When we meet those that we share faith with (the root of the word koinonia, fellowship) we have a strong obligation to be there for them, not simply to pat them on the back and sing a song together, but to provoke them to live out their part of the story related to this re-population process. When we meet those that do not share that same faith, but with whom we are family by creation, we have an obligation to reveal as far as possible how heaven has touched us, how they are valued, loved etc. And to encourage them on the path also of re-population… Not sure on some things (I hear you say ‘most’ but I quickly deny that) but it is clear Paul had friends who had not experienced that personal shift to faith in Jesus; the New Jerusalem’s gates are always open with people outside of the gates(!) – that being imagery apparently related to post ‘new heavens and new earth’ – so prior to that the open gate imagery has to kick in also, maybe in a greater way! (There are more wonderful ‘grey’ lines – Jesus the Saviour of all, especially those who believe… Especially, does not exclude, but does not obliterate a distinction.)

Eschatological, because the time has changed now. The future has arrived, there are two time-zones running concurrently. In the new time-zone the light is different, sight as a result is different.

Anyway enough for now. Is my space being repopulated… which is the overriding time zone that manifests here?

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Let’s continue to speculate

Create the road as we travel

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

This is a bit of a follow up to the post on ‘pure speculation’. Not a post full of answers – go elsewhere for that – to people who are smarter than I am… and maybe to some who are not as smart as I am, though they know much more than I do. A few headlines first why I do not consider the Bible lays out ‘the future’.

  1. Understanding ‘predictions’ are not easy. We generally say that the Jews of Jesus time did not expect a Messiah who looked like Jesus. If they ‘missed it’ we are probably likely to also have expectations that will prove to have been wrongly shaped when we read and project forward.
  2. Predictions in the Old Testament did not always come to pass, and that ‘not come to pass’ is not limited to ‘they repented’ (Nineveh) and so God relented.
  3. Predictions and promise are not in the same category. Promise allows for ‘predictions’ to fall away, be expanded, to be incorporated in a new way.
  4. The reading of the predictions that we have (‘not one stone will remain upon another’; ‘man of lawlessness’ etc.) can be seen to be fulfilled in the AD66-70 era of the Jewish Wars / the year of the four emperors (AD69). For this reason I see no need (indeed, I am compelled not to) project into our future scenarios that we pick up from such predictions in Scripture.
  5. There has always been a ‘love God… live in line with the narrative (Scripture)…’ and work it out as you go aspect that was planted in our faith from the beginning. Witness the instructions concerning the kingdom of God that Jesus gave post-resurrection to the disciples. Clearly there were whole aspects that he did not cover, the big one being the inclusion of the Gentiles. They had to work it out when they faced that scenario, and did not have a notebook filled with a set of Jesus’instructed points as to what to do.
  6. The history of interpretation that sees the world (as perceived) and then reads Scripture and sees that world being described there does not have a good history! I suggest that the same method is employed by those who read Nostradamus as a foretelling prophet. Even in the short period of time since ‘The Late Great Planet Earth’ (1970) to ‘Countdown to Armageddon’ (1980) to… How it all changes. Here is a summary of Countdown to Armageddon:
    The premise of this book is based upon Hal Lindsey’s prophecies that the anti-Christ is already here on earth and will come forth during the 1980s. In a nutshell, the author predicts that Russia will attack Iran in order to gain control of the world’s oil resources. Then China is going to jump into the fray and spread the war around the world, during which every major city is levelled and more than 1/2 of the world’s population dies. This scenario concludes with the re-emergence of the Roman Empire, consisting of a 10-nation confederacy. At that juncture, a world political leader (an uber-persuasive brain-child who resolves of all of the world’s problems, such as hunger and oil for everyone), will rise to power within this new world government. No one can resist this guy, who ultimately reveals that he is the Anti-Christ and, along with Satan, leads humanity to utter destruction.
    Makes for good reading (though not sure about that) but does not make for a good guide to the future!
    Anyway my point is that this method of interpretation does not have a good history – not in recent decades, nor in the previous centuries.
  7. The imagery of Revelation is imagery. Apocalyptic imagery that made sense in the first Century. I might try some:
    I saw a huge crowd that no-one could number waving white flags with crosses on it; they came as an irrepressible army, never diverting to the left nor the right; they came singing but in the day of battle the heavens closed in, the earth shook and in disarray they left the battlefield weeping.
    (OK pretty weak there but Italy won the Euros – well done Italy, just a better team all round!)
    Someone coming to my little weak attempt in the far distant future seeking to interpret the ‘vision’ in their context would be likely to be so far off the mark that we would be shocked by what they might come up with.
  8. The hope of Revelation is alive today (after all it is the hope of Scripture) that the day will come, even as a thief in the night, and that which has raised its tower to the heavens will be exposed as both empty and oppressive, will collapse. The kingdoms of this world, the kingdoms that are gathered under Babylon’s directive, will give way and another kingdom will be revealed.
  9. The hope is of the parousia, the appearance, the (literal) presence / arrival of Jesus. Given point (1) above what will that look like? He will come in the same way as he went… is that a literal descent from heaven that is being referred to, or is there something deeper being referred to?

I probably could go on. I am actually quite ‘conservative’ about my hope of the parousia (minus some elements that some might consider ‘conservative’) but my points above are simply to say that my last post might be a little speculative, but a) provided we live within the narrative of Scripture and b) that we are sowing now for the future we hope for and believe in; if we adhere to that I suggest our speculation might be healthier than being guided by some of the books we can read that have it all sown up!

Preparing to go to heaven and leaving behind a planet destined to be destroyed certainly seems to me far less biblical than living now in a way that will create a better possibility for heaven to come to earth (our prayer?) and for it to be a place where the arrival / presence of Jesus might be a good fit seems to me to be the better option. Certainly seems that this was the driving mission of Paul as he criss-crossed the oikomene that was the home to the one world government of his day, the very thing that Jesus refused to inherit. He was not interested in a ‘one world Christian-government’. Hence our ideas of your ‘kingdom’ coming cannot be shaped by that which we know of ‘kingdom’ where ‘every knee bowed’ and acknowledged that ‘Caesar was lord’.

Shaped by what we know. Or shaped by experiencing the devastating love of the Triune God. I am not sure if we should say ‘S/he has a plan for this world’ (which I believe is true), or ‘S/he has a great burning passion for this world’ and that together (humanity and God together) ‘We have plans together for this world’. Come let us work for a future…. might be an appropriate new Scripture!!?? (it might be a new text but I think is not too far from being a summary of Scripture as a whole.) The future is open (real or perceived) – now what vision do we carry? That vision will involve speculation, we might not get it right, but we will travel together, sometimes with strange travelling companions, we will make a path as we go… why create a path toward multiple ‘armageddons’ as if that is inevitable, when there are wonderful alternatives.

Change is constant, but change does not take place a constant rate. At a time of accelerated change (renaissance – reformation – enlightenment, for example… and the end of the 1990s through the first decades of the 21st Century, our context) input into the time of accelerated change has more effect on the future than at other times. There are very real historic before and afters. So I do not intend to make the path to ‘armageddon’ but to…

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Speculation all the way

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

OK so this post will have a little speculation thrown in (unlike all my other posts?), and it might well be pure speculation, but what better kind than ‘pure’ can there be?

Let’s start with we are in trouble… the planet and our future. At a personal level we have lived where we are 8 summers, and even in that time it is noticeable that the temperatures are rising. Ask those who have lived here 70 years and they will say it was never like this in the old days. At current levels of increase some parts of Spain will not be habitable in the next 30 or so years. The sea level is rising, it is more acidic than ever… We read of heat waves in different parts of the world. I am not a scientist, so of course am aware that there are scientists who would argue against me… however, a few years back I met a creditable climate scientist and asked him if there were genuinely creditable scientists (i.e. not simply ones who had PhD’s in science but whose specialist was climate issues) who deny climate change. He said there was one above all others, who was a believer, and who through a theophany claimed he was commissioned to rebutt the science that believes in climate change. So my proviso is… I am no expert, but as the title is ‘speculation all the way’.

To round this part off here is a quote from an article I read a few days ago:

One of the hardest parts of writing about the history of the climate crisis was stumbling across warnings from the 1950s, 60s and 70s, musing about how things might get bad sometime after the year 2000 if no one did anything about fossil fuels. They still had hope back then. Reading that hope today hurts.
We are now living our ancestors’ nightmares, and it didn’t have to be this way. If we are looking to apportion blame, it is those who deliberately peddled doubt that should be first in line.

Jumping from climate issues to another area where I lack expertise (and when I look at the experts and how they disagree with one another in most fields it makes one wonder if there truly are experts!!). So here we jump to the world of theology and ‘end of world’ scenarios, or better put ‘parousia scenarios’ (return of Christ, in popular language).

Cards on table… no I don’t believe that a future antiChrist is prophesied… It is possible to put some Scriptures that are not addressing the same thing and end up with a future antiChrist. I think though it takes the same kind of hermeneutic that is used to have Nostradamus accurately predicting the future! (Think I am wrong… just read Hal Lindsay’s books as they progress over the decades… same hermeneutic at play but the predictions progress, fitting with real time not biblical text!!!!!!) There might, of course, be a future antiChrist, for in a biblical sense there always has been a one-world government – that which opposes the kingdom of God (i.e. the pejorative use of ‘world’ in for example John’s Gospel). If one were to arise they would certainly fulfil what we read in Scripture – but if so that does NOT make a case at all for the Bible told us there would be one. (We can compare this to the Scriptures quoted concerning Judas Iscariot – no prediction in sight but he fulfilled a whole set of texts…) The only time the world has been under a one-world government is the world of the New Testament, and in line with the tower of Babel / Babylon it was not the finished, complete, absolute example. Babel / Babylon shows us that will not exist.

I see the years of 66-70, with the year of the four emperors right in the midst of the Jewish Wars as the sign of the Son of Man coming with the clouds. Why? Because that seems to me be in line with Daniel’s reference to ‘one coming as a son of man to the Ancient of Days’ – the coming is by the Son of Man to God, not a parousia to the earth; understanding it this way it also reconciles all the times Jesus promised that those alive while he was on earth would see that event. Jesus was not mistaken!! But proved to be very accurate indeed. The sign was visible, the end of an era and the sign that new creation, and only new creation counted from the death of Jesus onwards.

In other words, I see almost nothing in the Bible beyond the horizon of the fall of Jerusalem (AD70). Revelation, book of, I date later and find it to be the most devastating and relevant critique of Imperial power.

Anyway enough of my lack of expertise… back to speculation.

We could be a generation, or two away from the end of either the human race, or the way the human race has developed, the end of a phase of human existence. If so I am so optimistic that:

either,

  • we could see a generation reached with the presence of God in ways beyond our imagination (and it will have to go beyond our imagination – what we can see);

or,

  • we could see a generation reached who turn this whole thing around and there is a major reversal to the direction of humanity that has been governed by ‘we will be like God’ (and who have consequently have ‘moved every boundary marker’ to achieve and demonstrate this).

The end of the human race but the presence (parousia? for that is the core meaning of the word) of God / Jesus saturating that people. A final generation. Or a generation that marks the finality to the pursuit of godlessness, and opening the way for generations beyond them to embrace the transcendent presence of heaven – a new heavens and a new earth?

So beyond the speculation comes the optimism. If either of the two possibilities of a ‘final’ generation, in the sense of there can be no more, or a final one in the sense of ‘enough of this madness’, I am looking for something that goes beyond our imagination. Beyond what we can see, for God is able to do above and beyond what we ask or imagine… according to the power at work among us… perhaps we could translate that as in proportion to the power that is at work among us, in proportion… but way beyond.

I actually think we are at the beginning of a stage where the Spirit is touching those who are afar off, touching them where they are. If we do not connect we will never know. It does not make the church redundant, but certainly shoots a warning across the bow of those who claim that they are doing church as the Bible teaches. They might be trying to do church as they think Paul was doing it (I doubt that – unless they are as crazy as he was with his ekklesia language)… and even if we were truly doing it as he was doing it, we would not be doing it as he would be doing it today!!

The Spirit’s presence… and there has to be, as always, a recognition that the Spirit of God is the Spirit of Jesus. That was an issue for the Jewish world. Laying on one side the challenging doctrine of the Trinity, the Jews accepted that the divine Spirit was indeed present (in theory) among them; the Christian gospel was that ‘from on high’ Jesus had poured out the Spirit… the Spirit was none other than the Spirit of Jesus. There lies our challenge. Converting people to come join us? No, first being converted to join them, so that what is happening in their midst they can discover is nothing less than the Spirit of Jesus, the firstborn of all creation.

Climate change, global crisis, the earth crying out… the scene is set. I speculate, but optimism rises.

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Moira Scott (1949-2021)

Their voice still speaks

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

Moira, Ivan’s wife and mother to 4 (adult) children passed away in the early hours of yesterday. She was my sister-in-law, and an example of the generosity of the love of God to and for many. Ivan and Moira modelled a care and an acceptance of one and all. We remain in the land of the dying with the provocation that our voice might continue to speak after we depart this world. Moira leaves more than a memory in people’s minds. Her values and priorities continue to influence… her voice continues to speak.

Jonathan, one of her sons, posted on FaceBook, what I now re-post here with his permission.

Mum passed away peacefully last night, just 7 weeks after this picture was taken, where we celebrated the 30 years of extra life modern medicine bought us. She had a mercifully short battle with lymphoma, an ironic long-term consequence of the transplant medication that had kept her alive all these years.

She leaves behind our dad, the 4 of us, her 6 amazing grandchildren and her 6 siblings. She also leaves behind the countless thousands of people she has touched over the years, some in large ways, some in small ways, and most in ways we’ll never know. she provided food and shelter to folks as they got back on their feet again, encouraged people in their darkest hours with a prayer, an encouraging word, or just a hug, and was always available with a cup of tea and a song, which seemed to make anything better. Her home, wherever she made it, was always a place of peace, warmth and welcome.

Her life’s work was not about material gain; it was about strengthening her family and faith and doing what she could to bring wholeness and fulfilment to people, families and communities.

In her final days, she spoke with me about how her life had been an exciting journey of self-discovery, and how she had grown to understand that life is not black and white, nor governed by rigid rules or institutions as we’d once been led believe; instead, she saw it as a kaleidoscope of colors, where apparent conflicts and contradictions hang together, somehow in harmony. She also accepted this might be her time and was not afraid of death, even though it felt too soon.

We were lucky to have us. We will miss her. I will miss her. But what an example she set.

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Twenty Three

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

I made a small comment in the first post of interviews with Matheus about the significance of 23 years old / 23 years ago, so here is a short follow up.

Many years ago – I know it was many years ago because I was 46 years old, I got up in the night as I had something burning on my heart. The first part was not burning and did not take much time to offload. It was a simple prayer… ‘if you feel OK about this I would like to live another 46 years. I have not lived long enough yet to make enough mistakes to learn too much so maybe another 46 years will help on that account.’

Well I might have another 46 years, another 46 months, another 4 hours… whatever. So not too important a prayer that part.

The second took longer. Lord help us see 23 year olds rise up who have the maturity that a 46 year might have, without fear, full of insight and with humility, blah, blah blah.

Coincidental ages of course, but I think the point remains. It was, and remains, a very significant moment in my spiritual journey.

I have been amazed at the ‘coincidental’ connections since. Phoning someone years ago, and as part of the background sharing the above experience. At the end of sharing it (and it was the only time we ever conversed by phone) he said to me ‘you know what day it is?’. I had no idea what the question meant… until he said I had phoned him on his 23rd birthday.

23 years ago I left what I was involved in, entered a borrowed vehicle with a team and drove up the motorway to Leeds. Maybe my life was already being changed before I left, but that first journey and the many that followed certainly saw so many internal changes. There was a before and an after at a personal level 23 years ago.

Gayle, likewise is reconnecting with events of 23 years ago. Her world is being turned upside down, as she enters a major phase of what she has been born for.

We are embracing these days, yet travelling as slow as we can, as we are committed to the next 23 years (or 46, or….).

23 and 46 (and 92) were arbitrary numbers… but I suspect that there is something that, for many of us, is rising that somehow taps into an era from the late 90s, that is resurfacing in a new way. Seed that is in the ground does not come up the same as it went in the ground, but it does come up.

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