Category: Personal Perspectives

So he [Moses] stood at the entrance to the camp and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.” And all the Levites rallied to him. Then he said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’ ” The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the Lord today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.” (Exodus 32:26-29).

And so begins the Levites as the priestly line in Israel… though I do not think God ever intended there to be a priestly line, for the nation was to be a priesthood for the nations, and now begins the first step of reductionism, with a priestly tribe for Israel. Seems to lead all the way to ‘we have no king but Caesar’!

Passion for God is what the Levites exhibited.

Paul showed passion for God, righteousness and zealousness:

as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless (Phil. 3:6).

That is a pre-Jesus lens, and through that lens only one conclusion, to rid the nation (Israel) of the compromising and blasphemous claims that a crucified man was the Messiah. To claim Jesus as the Messiah was as outrageous a claim as the ones who proclaimed that the golden calf was an image of the ‘god’ who had rescued them from Egypt. Paul truly was standing in a good tradition.

The post-Jesus lens though gave quite a different perspective.

Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief (1 Tim. 1:13, emphasis added).

A blasphemer: this was the accusation against Jesus, for claiming that he and God were on the same level, that he represented God. Paul now understood that his zealousness for the law was simply a cover for a misrepresentation of God. And ironically the one who was taught the Law was ignorant! Same as those who crucified Jesus, for they needed forgiveness for they did not know what they were doing! Eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and end up ignorant, full of zeal, able to represent God, but be guilty of blasphemy!

We cannot justify, nor do I believe that God justifies the killing of those 3000. Maybe there was no alternative, for how does one keep a nation clean when we are all ignorant? I don’t know how to square it all up. God worked with them… but I don’t think there was any satisfaction in God that 3000 lost their lives that day. In the light of Jesus, the express image of God, we cannot say, ‘and this pleased God’.

Jesus poured out what we see and what we hear… and,

Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day (Acts 2:41).

This Jesus we crucified because we had to be zealous for God. Yes we have to critique biblical texts, for we have to critique our own hearts of the self-protectionism that is within them.

Quite a word that one! Who am I? Where am I going? And how do I get there? And an intrinsic fourth – who will go with me / who will I go with? ‘My Story – our Story – the Big Story’.

Those are the overarching questions / shape of Authentic Lives. As most readers of these posts know Gayle has been involved in courses, developing schools material, helping train facilitators etc., within Authentic Lives. And of course as one who is unbiased… she is quite brilliant at it all.

There are two courses coming up, one in person (Ashburnham Place) and one by Zoom.

https://www.ashburnham.org.uk/events/authentic-lives (Ashburnham: Tuesday 15th March 2022 4pm – Friday 18th March 2022 10am).

https://authenticlives.org/membership/authentic_lives_online_march_2022_uk1-002/ (Zoom beginning Thursday 31st March, 7.30pm).

Gayle and I are committed to Authentic for (as we see it) the next 20 years; Gayle from within and I will ponce around on the edge. I first met Andrew in passing in 2004, a ‘chance’ meeting as it was the one of the very few times (maybe the only time) that I ventured out into the public space in the Autumn of that year while Sue was undergoing cancer treatment. Andrew was living in Hong Kong, and was visiting London: I likewise ventured out to visit London. We then connected in person in January 2020. Two aspects immediately impacted me. The cleanness on money – and for this reason courses are not charged for – and the person-focused nature of the material (maybe this is the reason why I am not involved; I always wanted to pretend it was simply that the material was over my head).

I do believe we are (globally) at a major turning point. This year I have both written about the cumulative series of events that will destabilise our world and the opportunities to go through one of the ‘four’ doors before us – only visible if pointed in a forward direction. AL / AB is one aspect among many that I believe is pointed to the future. The old parameters, if held on to too tightly, will obscure the possibility, for there is a Cornelius / Peter time here. Conversions within the body of Christ. Choppy waters. Those like the wind, unpredictable – for that was the mark Jesus gave to those who were born again. He did not ascribe the ‘wind’ as a sign of the Spirit (though it is in Gen. 1 and Acts 2). We are happy with it applied to the Spirit, but apparently when the unpredictable Spirit blows it will always blow people in a predictable direction… I think not!

I have hosted a monthly ‘open zoom’ evening where we have explored some of the ‘so what’ questions. Tonight (7:30pm UK time) I want to explore a little more on ‘how do we engage with society with a view to contributing toward transformation’ – a succinct title if ever there was one!

(Zoom link will be at the end of this post.)

I have a paper that is in note form here that will be worth casting an eye over first:

In summary: the Gospel is about a ‘heart transplant’ being offered to society; ‘individual’ salvation is periphery in the sense of ‘saved from… saved to go to…’ but is an invite to join the advance party of those who experience a heart transplant and position themselves so that others (individual and corporate) can also receive such a new heart. And then how do we engage – two poles, get the top 3% and maybe even control the change, or the opposite, just the little small things we do… And I acknowledge that our leanings might be because of our personalities… if (I only put the word ‘if’ in there to soften the blow of reality to myself) one is intimidated by anyone different, better educated, know more, have more money, have a lot less money, are female, they’re younger and I have no idea how to relate to them even if they are grandkids, and then breathe a sigh of relief ‘at least I am not intimidated by those who are older’… until I realise why – oh yes I am the older one!! Yes we do have our own peculiar bias and not a few weaknesses that colour our beliefs.

Anyway feel free to join, just use the link below. Any questions at the end of the paper are simply ones by example, I hope we gather a few more in the evening.

Topic: Open Zoom Evening
Time: Mar 1, 2022 19:30 London

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5728039267?pwd=NEozVVM0Z1NJSDFKKzNwdG9KUDc5dz09

Meeting ID: 572 803 9267
Passcode: 5GkMTA

When I was young – not too long ago…, but I am talking about when I was really young – I had great difficulty in speaking. There was even some thought that I might be dumb (now I know that you probably think I don’t talk / write too clearly now, but I beseech you to keep your thoughts to yourselves). I think, now that I am an adult, it is related to some area of my brain that does not distiguish sounds too well. I was listening to a Spanish recording some while back and the person said ‘todas las veces’ (everytime) and for whatever reason I heard ‘todas las setas’ (all the mushrooms). So I stopped the recording, replayed, same phrase – all the mushrooms. Repeated it three times, then asked Gayle why are they saying ‘all the mushrooms’ it makes no sense. And yes she agreed, ‘that would make no sense!!!’ It is not too different in English. I was going to make some pancakes and was going to buy some bacon when Gayle asked ‘do we have any syrup’. I said ‘any suet?, why do we need that’. She repeated it three times, I got it on the third time. Childish talk…

Childish talk… My speech was probably almost indecipherable till I was 7+, due to (I think now) a defect in the sound discrimination area.

Childish talk…

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child (1 Cor. 13:11).

I think the heart of the Gospel is not ‘personal salvation’ (glad that is in there!!!) but a new world is here (better a new ‘creation’ is here). Each time we move forward with some sight on that, in my words ‘the transformation of this world’ we respond with childish talk. I think a lot of what is spoken and written about transformation of the world is child talk. Let’s be patient. The process to mature speech is slow.

It’s not unlike when people first get hold of prophecy. ‘I see a tremendous gift on you to bring down powers and transform the whole future of the world, I pronounce that the anointing that was on all the prophets of old has come upon you now, and because of that this is the greatest breakthrough time ever.’ Childish talk… Maybe it could have been ‘you do not carry too much, but throw the two coins you have into that abusive, oppressive temple treasure over there.’

Childish talk does give way to adult speech.

I think Paul is caught between knowing if he finally made a mistake in talking about his ‘third heaven’ experience. (All that follows is the result of some personal reflections and wrestling – maybe writing out loud.)

It is necessary to boast; nothing is to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows— was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat (2 Cor. 12: 1-4).

He suggests that the immaturity of the Corinthians forced him to become a ‘fool’ by sharing (in a not very well disguised way) that he had visited the third heaven. As I read the text I don’t think he is fully reconciled as to the wisdom of what he has shared. ‘If I must become a fool’, and maybe he thought after the manuscript had left that he was simply that.

Scripture has many crazy encounters, trances, visits, visitations and so on. Gnosticism (that sort of elusive term) had many crazy claims and it seemed so many are rooted in their inability to be at home with here, that which God had created.

Why do crazy experiences happen? For the sake of someone else. Not for the sake of a story. A visit to the third heaven is in order to be different for someone else, to have a resource that somehow one did not have before. Time to dial down the spectacular, the ‘I had this experience’ or even ‘I know someone who…’ No, no dialling down of expectation or the experience… just the mouth! A few maybe need to know, but the epistle to the Corinthians? Maybe, only maybe if they are really immature, but then I am not sure Paul made the right call.

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.