Theology – Perspectives

And the children

Posted on 3rd February, 2026
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Some 18 months ago Gayle had a very long and impactful dream that ended with her addressing ‘Mr. Banks’ pleading that he take off his banking clothes, his shoes and go play with the children in the grass. ‘If you can do this everything will follow.’

Everything will follow!

That is quite a statement. Navigating this world is not an easy task. We live in but not ‘of’ this world. The kingdom of Jesus is not of this world otherwise the methodology of this world would be employed. Living in the world requires compromise for it is how do we engage with an imperfect world. But compromise has to be that of redemptive compromise – taking less than perfect action as it at least stops the bigger picture sliding further backwards or at best leaves a better ‘after’ picture than the ‘before’ one.

God or mammon? The two that Jesus put in opposition to each other. Money is not mammon, but so much of the financial world has been colonised by mammon, and mammon is a source from which society can live. The voice of the Old Testament prophets can be reduced to challenging Israel over two issues: is God your Protector and is God your Provider. They rebuked Israel repeatedly over those two issues.

Child sacrifice was an abomination that was never to be part of the life of Israel. Understandably so. But what lay behind child sacrifice. The foundational belief was that of appeasement of the gods (why with certain views of the atonement NT Wright has described them as pagan). One sacrificed to get the gods to bless, and to get the gods to bless the harvest today, in this season, there was no greater sacrifice than to sacrifice the future. The next generation offered to the gods guaranteed blessing today.

Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “There will be peace and security in my days.”

Isaiah rebuked Hezekiah for his naive behaviour and said that he had messed things up for the next generation; Hezekiah’s response is that he was happy because things would go well in his lifetime. Happy… but the future sacrificed.

Great parts of money and the economic system has been colonised by this same spirit. And I would go as far as to suggest that a continual pattern of borrowing from the future for blessing today is of the same spirit as Hezekiah embodied, and is on the spectrum heading into Moloch (child sacrifice) territory. Whole financial structures are based on money as debt. Remove debt and the current financial world would collapse! Imagine running one’s own finances on that basis (leveraging).

I think this relates to Gayle’s dream. Play with the children in the grass. Get the dew of creation on your toes; be committed to the next generation on their terms. Play – their terms; their world.

Compromise… but redemptive compromise. Disengaging from the world and living the life of the hermit might be the call for some, but the call for the majority is to be present within; the call on all who follow Jesus is not to be ‘of’.

Compromise but moving toward, making signs of, a fresh economy that might or might not affect ‘money’ but has to break the alignment to mammon and refuse to sacrifice tomorrow for the desire for blessing today.

From:

buying and selling to giving and receiving.
reversing the ‘harvest before sowing’ to ‘seedtime and (then) harvest’.
refusing to set ‘profit’ as the bottom line.
refusing to maximise what can be earned / harvested.

This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease but did not aid the poor and needy.

‘Your sister Sodom’. The family DNA, hence in Revelation the city where the Lord was crucified was termed ‘Sodom’ and ‘Egypt’. The Reformers gave us justification by faith and for that we should be (and will be!) eternally grateful, however adding the word ‘alone’ (justification by faith alone) has not helped us and flies in the face of the one Scripture that explicitly uses that phrase: ‘You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone‘ (Jas. 2:24)!

A child will lead them (Isaiah 11):

The wolf shall live with the lamb;
    the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the lion will feed together,
    and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
    their young shall lie down together;
    and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
    and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
    on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
    as the waters cover the sea.

And he set a child in the midst:

He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me (Matt. 18:2-5).

But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things that he did and heard the children crying out in the temple and saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became angry and said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read,
‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies
you have prepared praise for yourself’?” (Matt. 21:15,16).
Out of the mouths of babes and infants
you have founded a bulwark because of your foes,
to silence the enemy and the avenger (Ps-. 8:2).

Take off your uniform / shoes and go play

In a world that calls us to conform find the crack where some redemptive seed can be sown… and make sure that it is about a better tomorrow than today. Do something to restore seedtime and harvest… even if ever so small. A movement where everything will follow.

Desiring blessing today at the cost of tomorrow finds its ultimate expression demonstrated at the cross. Judas is there with his money to be gained; the religious system makes it plain that the only way to keep the ‘blessing’ of Imperial favour was to sacrifice Jesus (‘If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation… You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed’ – John 11:48,50).

At the cross was the breaking of the power of mammon for even Judas threw back the money into the temple system; the ‘place’ and the ‘nation’ were destroyed, but a new way of life was released, with an invitation to follow.

Amidst crisis in the charismatic world where will the children be found? They will lead and ‘all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.’

Ethnic or faith

Posted on 26th January, 202620th January, 2026
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Israel is both bigger than we might suppose ‘Israel’ to be and also smaller! The name Israel is used for the covenant people because of the patriarch ‘Jacob’ whose name was changed to ‘Israel’. [Israel has three applications: the land of Israel; the whole 12 tribes; and the northern ‘10 tribes’ sometimes also called ‘Ephraim’. Jews, as we will see, are part of Israel, but are not ‘Israel’. They are those who are of the tribe of Judah (and Benjamin is included, along with some of Levi who were originally distributed throughout the land).] They are the covenant people who come from the line of ‘Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’. The twelve tribes we might assume are descended from the 12 sons of Jacob / Israel but that is only approximately true. Joseph’s two sons (Ephraim and Manasseh) are described either as two tribes or as half-tribes with the two together making up the tribe of Joseph. The bigger point though is one of ethnicity. The sons of Joseph are born in Egypt to the daughter of the priest of On; Asenath, Joseph’s Egyptian wife, gave birth to two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. They are not only included but give identity as tribes so much so that in later history ‘Ephraim’ can be given as an umbrella name for the 10 northern kingdom tribes. Ethnicity is not in view!

[There are various lists of the tribes; for example ‘Joseph’ is included in the blessing of Jacob over his sons prior to his death (Gen. 49: 3-27); in the census of the tribes (Num. 1:20-43) Ephraim and Manasseh are included (Joseph nor Levi are listed); and in Revelation 7:5-8 the list includes Manasseh, Levi and Joseph but drops Dan and Ephraim.]

At the time of the Exodus we read that not only those descended from Jacob’s immediate family exit the land but that an ‘alien’ who joined themselves to those of ‘Israel’ were to be considered as ‘natives of the land’ and as a result a ‘mixed multitude’ left Egypt (Exod. 12: 36-38). Those who enter the land are not all descended from Abraham. They are considered to be part of Israel though they are not ethnically descended from the patriarchs.

As they enter the land we read of Rahab and her household being added to the covenant people and later of Ruth (a Moabite) who becomes an ancestor of David. In the Rahab story Achan and his household (Israelites) are cut off from the people while she and her household are incorporated. Matthew in his Gospel that is very ‘Jewish’ lists both those women as part of the genealogy of Jesus.

Caleb (a great hero) was a Kennizite as was Othniel, the judge. The Kennizites were either a tribe in Canaan or descended from Kenaz, a grandson of Esau.At that level ‘Israel’ is not confined to those whose genealogies are ethnically off ‘Israel’, but includes a larger group whose allegiance is to the God of Israel,

[Y]our people shall be my people and your God my God (Ruth 1:16).

We can further add the challenges from the New Testament, such as John the Baptist’s statement that confronted the claim to ethnicity as the marker,

We have Abraham as our ancestor,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham (Matt. 3:8).

Or Paul’s pushback on ‘external’ factors as defining who is a ‘Jew’,

For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision something external and physical. Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not the written code. Such a person receives praise not from humans (Rom. 2:28,29).

In those passages we have both a widening of those who are of Israel and also a narrowing. Either way faith seems to take precedence over ethnicity.

‘Israel’ being smaller than ‘Israel’ is summed up in Paul’s words,

It is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all those descended from Israel are Israelites, and not all of Abraham’s children are his descendants (Rom. 9:6,7).

This was not unique to Paul, for within Judaism (Judaisms?) this ‘narrowing’ view is what fuelled the diverse sects. The stricter the sect the more they saw themselves as truly Israel and others as not being faithful to the ways of God. The ‘sinners’ we read about in the Gospels were those considered not to be part of the covenant people, even though ethnically they might have been pure.

‘Being cut off from this people’ meant in spite of ethnicity a failure to keep the covenant required those people to be excluded (Lev. 7:27, 18:29, 23:29); Peter uses the same understanding (now provocatively as he centres everything in on Jesus) with his entreaty to his audience to,

Save yourselves from this corrupt generation. (Acts 2:40)

Ethnicity is further challenged by Jesus in Matthew 21:43,

Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces its fruits.

The complexity of Israel being both larger and smaller than ‘Israel’ means we cannot simply draw (for example) a straight line from the Israel of the Bible to the state of Israel today.

And (all) Israel?

Posted on 22nd January, 202620th January, 2026
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

I am reading, not just some history, but material around the terms ‘Israel’ and ‘Jew’, hopefully ending up with around 10,000 words that I can put out as a pdf and then when I get back to Spain will look to host an open Zoom around the material. I thought in the process of writing as I get some material ready I will post it here and also hope that any comments will provoke me further. The final pdf might not follow the posts exactly…

All Israel will be saved (Ro. 11:26)

The verse is toward the end of Paul’s discourse that had begun in Ro. 9 and is a fitting conclusion to his statement in 9:6

It is not as though the word of God has failed.

In these chapters he is concerned to show his understanding of how God has been faithful to his promises to Israel, ending then with the fuller statement ‘And in this way all Israel will be saved’. He is focused primarily on how (‘this way’) not on a time-table (translating or reading καὶ οὕτως (kai houtōs) wrongly as ‘and then’).

In eschatology there is often a focus on the land of ‘Israel’ and events that can indicate what the time is on ‘God’s clock’. There are accusations of ‘replacement theology’ (church has replaced Israel) on the one side and of ‘Christian Zionism’ on the other, with the extreme being of two ways of ‘salvation’. This paper will suggest that we need to distinguish between two central descriptions, that of ‘Israel’ and of ‘Jews’. The central verse of Romans 11:26 (‘and all Israel will be saved’) has been taken as a statement about the future and understood to mean that in the ‘end-times’ or at the parousia there will be a wholesale turning to Jesus as Messiah. There are many difficulties with such a reading:

It does not use a temporal clause, such as ‘and then’ or ‘after this’.
It does not say ‘all Jews’ but ‘all Israel’.
With such a reading that proposes a future event, what about all those from Israel or all Jews who had lived prior to this future event – would this Scripture be limited to those alive at this future event? If it extends beyond this we would expect somehow that anyone ethnically of Abraham’s seed would have been ‘saved’ all along – something hard to align with the preaching in Acts (calling the audience to a response and at first the audience is only a Jewish one) or to the ‘conversion’ of Paul.

We will explore this Pauline statement, but for now I note that there is no temporal statement in this verse and to translate it as a ‘and then’ clause is simply in error. ‘In this way’ is the only valid way to translate καὶ οὕτως (kai houtōs) as it is not a temporal clause, but indicates an outcome or a result.

A second factor to consider is how the term ‘all Israel’ was used here by Paul. He has already stated that,

For not all those descended from Israel are Israelites, and not all of Abraham’s children are his descendants, but “it is through Isaac that descendants shall be named for you.” (Rom. 9:6,7).

We thus enter an interesting scenario: not all those descended from Abraham are considered to be ‘Israel’, and as we will explore, ‘Israel’ is bigger than those who are called ‘Jews’! (Smaller and larger!)

One final Scripture to add in this introduction is that of Paul’s statement before Agrippa,

And now I stand here on trial on account of my hope in the promise made by God to our ancestors, a promise that our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship day and night (Acts 26:6,7).

I get ahead of myself, but simply wanted to flag up one key direction that I will be taking, and that is the difference between the term ‘Jew’ and the bigger definition of Israel, or as Paul uses here the ‘twelve tribes’.

There are a number of aspects we need to keep in focus as we progress.

Jew to Gentile to Gentile to Israel

Posted on 18th January, 202618th January, 2026
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

OK still working on all of this (Rom. 9-11) and why Paul uses the term ‘Jew’ in most of his writings but then seldom uses ‘Jew’ (but uses Israel) in those chapters in Romans… leaning heavily on Jason Staples’ writings and hopefully will get a pdf out before we leave Sicily. In popular understanding ‘Jew ‘ and ‘Israel’ are synonymous and used simply for variation… however it does seem to stack up in ‘second temple’ writings nor in the NT. (This is my little break in the days from concentrating on the land here…) A lot to cover yet but before I get too deep into it all two Scriptures are with me ‘Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel‘ (not to us Jews) and then one of my ‘central’ verses from the Pauline writings,

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith (Gal 3: 12,14).

I think Paul does not go to penal substitution at any point in his writings and also we have to work with a Jew / Gentile progression (so common in Romans ‘to the Jew first then the Greeks). In these verses in Gal. 3 he presents the cross as the answer to a Jewish problem (and I use ‘Jew’ here not ‘Israel’ as his language in the previous chapter has been Jew / Gentile and then he follows in this chapter with ‘neither Jew nor Greek’. This is not to suggest that the cross is not universal in scope – it certainly is and has also to be coupled to the resurrection. Greek / Gentile I do think are more or less synonymous – the Graeco-Roman empire. Outside of the Roman world are the Barbarians, Scythians and the like!).

The curse is the curse of the law so Paul is tightly focused on the Jewish problem – he became a curse for us (usually in his tight arguments ‘us’ is us ‘Jews’. The redeeming nation is under a curse. Far from being blessed as Abraham’s seed and hence a blessing to the nations, thus they are unable to fulfil being who they were called to be for the ‘world’ / nations. Hence no hope for the world until deliverance is brought to the ‘chosen’ nation. Jesus is Israel’s Messiah. Hence it follows if ‘in Messiah’ they are the descendants of Abraham. ‘All’ who are in Messiah! Jews are not alone at being descendants of Abraham – we have to think ‘Israel’ (12 tribes, not 1), hence the change of language in Rom. 9-11.

‘Redeemed us’ so that Abraham’s blessings might not be locked up but flow to the gentiles (language ‘us’ and ‘gentiles / nations’). And then comes something that I have missed in the past as it seems to be even more tightly put… so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit (through faith). The ‘we’ language is used again. I understood that to be an inclusive ‘we’ (= ‘all’) but am being pushed to understand that Paul has in mind the promised Holy Spirit who will write the torah on the heart (OT hope particularly in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, with new covenant language applied to both the house of Israel and the house of Judah). This is for all the ‘us’ – wider than Jews but defined by who are descendants of Israel. indeed to ‘us’ (those of the house of Israel). I think this is what is expanded in Rom. 9-11.

Galatians ch. 4 (written to Gentiles, or if not exclusively to them, for them) is where Paul pulls together who are the children / descendants of Abraham. Beginning with the last verse of ch. 3: And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise. He then continues in ch. 4,

And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Gal. 4:6).
Now you, my brothers and sisters, are children of the promise, like Isaac (Gal.4:28).

Remove the curse, the blessings can flow beyond any former boundary, for within that flow the promise to Israel can be fulfilled. There is a sequence: death in Jerusalem to unlock / break the curse open resulting in (Abrahamic) blessings to the nations and within that flow Israel also receives all that was promised – not because of ethnicity, but through faith. Far from there being some ‘end-time’ timetable, the cross is the end and the beginning, and thus (to jump to where I will eventually get to when I write) in that way all Israel will be saved. A process has been under way since that first Easter as the invitation has gone out to respond in faith to Messiah. For there is no other name under heaven by which salvation comes. No patriarch, no other god – covering both ‘to the Jew first, also to the Greek’.

I appreciate this has been a little tight with a lot of ‘what on earth do you mean by / what about this Scripture etc’… I am in process but wanted to get some of this perspective in this form ere too long.

Ethics

Posted on 15th January, 202615th January, 2026
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Well that is a title! An ethics course all sorted in one short post – thus proving that miracles are for today. Cessationism has ceased as of now (had to look up how to spell that word… I always have difficulty with such words… also Calvinism or Reformed – just don’t know why).

How we should behave. That is important as our faith runs much deeper than what we believe and although the books like to separate justification from sanctification that is bit like dissecting the frog to see how it functions, but afterwards the frog just does not work.

The ethics of the NT are relational, eschatological, and redemptive. Or so I think.

Relational:

[S]o we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another (Rom. 12:5).
[Gifts] for the common good (1 Cor. 12).
So then, putting away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with your neighbor, for we are members of one another (Ephes. 4:25).

Strong words indeed. And the wording goes beyond ‘you are members of a body’ but ‘of one another’. This is not being added to an organisation and even goes beyond being added to a living fellowship where we have something in common. We are – whether we like it or not – intrinsically part of each other, and Paul suggests that we are Christ (clumsy language by the aforementioned apostle?). Well he is not at any level of confusion, no more than the one who spoke from heaven saying that Paul was persecuting him (he does not say why are you persecuting my followers). There is Jesus the resurrected Messiah but those who have responded are so ‘in Messiah’ that they are intrinsically connected to each other. This depth of relational bond is deep and seems to shape Paul’s ‘household code’ instructions. He does not resort to hierarchy (submit to the one above) but to mutual submission to one another ‘in the fear of Christ’ – a voluntary and reciprocal relationship to one another.

The ethics are eschatological: not based simply on a future event when we will be assessed but acknowledging that ‘new creation’ is here. It affects our sight of everyone, all former (‘fallen’ creation) categories are irrelevant and gone (2 Cor. 5:16). And the ‘new creation’ is one of openness, thus it is not a case of ‘not lying’ but of not leaving a falsehood (Eph. 4:25, as far as is possible, we cannot take responsibility for what a person hears but we can go a long way so as they receive a true picture).

The ethics of the kingdom do not bring things back to ‘neutral’ but go from the negative to the positive,

Those who steal must give up stealing; rather, let them labor, doing good work with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy (Ephes. 4:25).

To steal is to take what is not ours (the negative) and the response is to stop stealing (the neutral position) so as to give (giving what is theirs… thus a complete shift beyond the ‘stopping’ of an action.

Redemptive. There are times that ‘the lesser of two evils’ is used thus acknowledging that we live in a challenging world. I understand what that phrase means but I think we should reshape it to be ‘make the most redemptive choice possible’. I think God does this continually. When eggs are scrambled it is not possible to put them back in their shells and life can be like that. Messed up and no way to go ‘back’ to the pre-mess state. God is the God of the future… so where to from here. Redemptive choices are of that order. We find ourselves here, what can be done to move to a better place, acknowledging it is not going to be perfect place.

So there you have it my very inadequate ethics class!

A veritable company of saints

Posted on 12th January, 202612th January, 2026
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

I saw a video clip yesterday of an apologist being asked about Matt. 27:51-53. ‘Do you believe that is literal?’ was the question.

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. After his resurrection they came out of the tombs and entered the holy city and appeared to many.

He replied ‘maybe apocalyptic language, maybe literal – I don’t know’. He was then a bit on the back foot and was critiqued for having made an exhaustive enquiry and defence for the literal resurrection of Jesus, but claimed not to know what Matthew intended with these verses and the ‘resurrection’ of these saints. No problem with being agnostic over biblical texts – there are so many that I have not got a clue about!

The problem with the apocalyptic language answer is the context is not apocalyptic but the culmination of prophetic Scripture, with the list of ‘and… and…and’. If apocalyptic then maybe the crucifixion (not to mention the later resurrection) might also not be literal but simply a way of describing the impact of the life Jesus of Nazareth. So Matthew gives us a description of what literally took place – even though strange.

Back tracking for a moment. Between life as we experience it ending (living in the land of the dying) and the parousia the Scriptures can be read in different ways as to the ‘existence’ of those who have passed away. The consistent hope in Scripture is not that of ‘going to heaven when I die’ (very Platonic) but that at the ultimate great reversal those who have been judged righteous will be resurrected. Scripture does not answer our questions as it comes with a different world view. Belief in the resurrection of the dead becomes the prominent Jewish belief (not so for the Sadduccees) as it is the answer to the question about God’s faithfulness. If the renewal of all things is ‘here’ then those alive at that time would be rewarded… but a question remained: what about those not ‘here’ for they have died before that time? Answer – God will raise them up, and then the NT makes clear that those of us who are alive will not enter that time simply as we are but our bodies will be transformed. Resurrection and transformation then were the belief that answered the ‘problem’ of those who have died.

[It is hard to make out what is believed about the ‘interim state’ – Scriptures such as Paul’s ‘I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better’ could simply be that or pulling on a Jewish tradition of the reward for the martyrs (comes through also in Revelation 20 and the resurrection of the martyrs). Bottom line is that those who die in Christ are in Christ and I strongly lean to a non-resurrected, but conscious existence with Christ’].

One aspect that is often overlooked in the strange (and unique) passage in Matthew is that of verse 53: ‘after his resurrection’. They are not resurrected prior to Jesus – their tombs are opened at the hour of crucifixion (presumably the effect of the earthquake) – but the resurrection is after Jesus comes forth. Not metaphorical, nor apocalyptic for we then have the same historical language used of Jesus – they appeared to many.

Resurrection ‘ahead’ of the time-line! The resurrection of Jesus is intensely physical; it is not only far beyond ‘he is alive’ to ‘you cannot find his body’… but the effects of the resurrection are physical to such a level that this creation will be renewed and it has left an impress on time so that there can be inbreakings of ‘end-time / eschatological’ events out of expected time sequence. This aligns post resurrection-time (the time we live in) with incarnational time – now there is a thought!

When is something finished

Posted on 5th December, 2025
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Over a significant period of time I was involved along with many others in the area of what might be termed ‘strategic prayer’ (for want of a better term) and undergirding that was a focus on removing the effects of the past. The past cannot be changed, but when there are ongoing negative effects those can be addressed. The same way things operate at a personal level so they operate at a corporate level. We see how Scripture addresses both ‘cities’ and land as if they are personal.

A big part of seeking to respond to the past is that of identificational repentance, and it is wonderful when we see something go full circle with national apologies made where there has been national oppression – a recent example is that of Spain’s apology to Mexico.

There are many Old Testament examples of ‘we and our ancestors have sinned’ type of responses but for me the clearest NT example is that of the baptism of Jesus by John. It was a baptism for ‘the remission of sins’ and thus it is understandable that John did not agree to baptise Jesus until… He refuses for how can he baptise the ‘sinless one’? The response of Jesus is to talk about righteousness. That term is not simply right and wrong but a covenant term. Jesus is suggesting that righteousness had not been fulfilled thus begging the question of whose righteousness. God’s? Certainly not. But that of the covenant people. Jesus identifies with Israel and the confession of his mouth is not his sin but that of the people. From that point on he carried the sins all the way to the cross. (We could suggest that the sin / death proclamation from Eden is carried all the way to the cross.)

I appreciate that the last paragraph might be exploring new ground for some but it opens a whole new window on the cross.

Living in our world what do we do when we come across something along the lines of the various pagan temples that we visited yesterday. Kneel, pray and stand in identification? I have done that on many occasions, but yesterday other than proclaim there is one God, maker of heaven and earth who does not live in a temple made by hands we did not do any IR at any significant level. I wondered why (and also am aware that we are yet to go to Agrigento and the valley of temples – maybe that will be different).

Of course the idea that we will have answers and understand everything is a wonderful myth, but I think I grasped something yesterday. To finish something does not mean everything is necessarily done, but that nothing is left to prevent a move forward. That is key. The future (personal / corporate) can be locked up by the past and the important part is the unlocking of the past so that the future is not a repeat of what went before (and thus further locking it up).

Maybe what I have written is a bit of a fog and not too clear, but I think it is another level of understanding for the many people who continue to seek to remove the effects of the past. The conviction of God is key as to what to address.

I am currently slowly working on Israel (not the current state but the theology of Israel) and key to that is to distinguish ‘Israel’ from ‘Jew’ (hopefully in 3-4 months time I will write on that) so have been coming to the disciples question to Jesus as to whether he was at ‘this time (chronos) he was going to restore the kingdom to Israel’. He gives them a continual direction to move in (with 3 clear allusions to Isaianic texts), for (tying it to Paul) it will be in ‘this way’ that ‘all Israel (not all Jews!) will be saved’. Hang in there!!!

The death of Jesus unlocks the past so that the future can change (chronos – the literal time) as God aligns the future with what needs to happen (God sets the chronos and the kairos together – Acts 1:7).

The work of Jesus is finished – the past cannot hold back what is coming… and yet Paul says he wants to make up what is lacking in the afflictions of Jesus. There is work for us to do – not saving the world – but dealing with whatever has been afflicting the world so that there is no lock up but a release of the freedom of the cross.

I am aware that a whole lot more could be written to expand the above… but there it is for now.

Following Jesus?

Posted on 1st October, 20251st October, 2025
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

I recently heard someone I have known for a long time declare that ‘so and so loved Jesus’ in spite of the reality that the person they referred to often spoke hate of others. I am not able to make a judgement on this person’s life or another’s as the ‘judgement seat of Christ’ will not be vacated on that day for me to sit there. Such statements as ‘she / he loved Jesus’ is deeply complex as we can be in relationship with a Jesus of our own making – a Jesus in our image.

In the OT within the ten words we are warned against making an image of God and for sure we can continue to make many diverse images of God. I recently read of a book that explained the political vote for someone by Christians as being that they were the most God-like character – and by saying that they did not mean ‘the most loving’ nor ‘the most holy’ but the candidate was the best equipped to crush his opponents. Just like God????

The claim of the NT that is consistently expressed is that Jesus reveals who God is (the Jesus’ path is not a path to lead us to ‘god’, but to lead us to know the true God and who s/he is). ‘To the Father’ was the promise of those who travelled the Jesus’ path. Jesus is the express image of God. Most theologies start with ‘the doctrine of God’ and this assumes we know who this God is, from there Christology, Pneumatology etc is defined. I think Jesus turned that upside down – start with Jesus and you can get to God from him. The witness of the Gospels is to testify of Jesus. This is why they are so vital.

Paul captures this ongoing journey to know Jesus with the words uttered close to the end of his life ‘that I might know him’. No tick box, but an ongoing adventure… and ultimately the future experience for us is that ‘we will see him as he is’.

I love the Jesus I have read about; I love the Jesus that I have created from what I have read. Is my Jesus close to the one that is witnessed to by the Gospels? I love the Jesus I have encountered, but even there I am not ‘safe’. Jesus meets me where I am at. My mistake can be that therefore I assume that every encounter meets full approval. Israel asks for a king – Samuel has the inside take on this with the knowledge that they were not rejecting him but they were rejecting God. The people though saw God anoint the king – I wonder if they assumed the move to appoint a king was a good one, one approved of by God. Likewise with the building of the Temple.

I am not appointed to be judge and jury and for sure any inclusion is based on mercy and grace. Although I see no reason to believe in a future ‘antiChrist’ as John says there are many who embody that spirit (‘anti’ can mean ‘against / in opposition to’ or ‘alternative to / replacing’); I can certainly act in an antiChrist way, and perhaps others who totally claim to love Christ and to be ‘saved’ can do so too.

Even if it is deemed that I love Jesus there is no guarantee that all my actions and words are therefore covered by that. We do need to call out ‘hate speech’ and the like when it manifests among us.

From the first commandment to have no other God we come to the command not to make an image of God, and from there to not to bear (carry / display) the name of God in vain. Loving God, not creating an image of God and not reflecting a false image of God. All pretty central and why we need Jesus as the lens for Scripture, for humanity and for God. Otherwise we will not see clearly – even when we quote Scripture to defend ourselves.

The flotilla on the way to Gaza… if I put the Jesus lens there do I see God? I think I do. The true human went to Jerusalem to die for humanity, at some level the flotilla is on the same path. A mixed bunch of people on board for sure. Why this final paragraph on the flotilla? To see God we have to see Jesus, and to see Jesus we sometimes have to look to events in our world, some of which disturbs the status quo of what we consider we know from our Christian world. A living parable in our day.

Cause, purpose… or something different?

Posted on 30th September, 202530th September, 2025
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Definitely something different – from my perspective / objective truth (we all have the objective truth that can never be challenged, do we not?).

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work (Jn. 9:1-4).

Maybe what I write today is a little technical and of course is a push back against the Calvinist / Reformed view of ‘sovereignty’ (just amazed that I could spell the word ‘Calvinist’). I do think that what I propose is totally defensible and on the right track, but maybe the final sentence is what it is all about.

The disciples reflect a common view of the day. Serious infirmity such as the man born blind indicated someone had sinned. The man himself (but born blind, so when did he sin?!!!) or the parents, that is the option. Their view then is concerning ’cause’ – what caused this situation?

Jesus apparently responds with a ‘no’ to cause but seems to says it was for a reason… or so many of our translators and those of a certain theological perspective would have us understand (born blind so that God can heal). Blindness so that God’s works might be revealed. (One day I need to get into Rom. 9-11 where we can read Pharaoh is raised up in a certain way without choice – maybe if we took a trip as Jeremiah was instructed to do to go to the pottery we might read that a little differently.) From my perspective if ‘so that’ is what Jesus said I am not sure it is great step forward in understanding – this happened so that God’s work might be revealed (the reason why the man is blind). If one is a fan of trumpeting ‘sovereignty’ and hiding behind ‘mystery’ maybe it works – but I consider that this is an extreme view of hands-on sovereignty and all-but making life something we can never understand.

So is there an alternative?

In virtually all translations we have a variation of the above option as I quoted at the beginning of this post; the Message (an interpretive paraphrase) does give a much softer alternative:

You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do. We need to be energetically at work for the One who sent me here, working while the sun shines.

The Contemporary English version likewise is much softer:

But because of his blindness, you will see God work a miracle for him.

I want though to go further than the ‘softer’ interpretations. So a little Greek…

ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα φανερωθῇ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ (this is Jesus response with the first word being alla = a strong ‘but’ (reduced to all here as the next word is a vowel), and the first two words being ‘all hina’).

There is an acknowledgement that there are three uses of the word hina – as a cause or as an outcome; such as: ‘I worked so hard in order to pass my exam’ (purpose) or ‘I worked so hard and so passed my exam’ (result). This happened to the man (born blind) so that God might display his works is purpose, and the way many translations go; softer translations go along the lines of result – born blind, but the result is he is healed by God. I have mentioned two of the three uses – the third in a minority of cases is what is termed the ‘imperatival hina’ use – being used as a command. Still with me? Just read on we will get somewhere.

I lack a library here but as far as I can work out there are four other references to the two words (all hina) coming together in a clause in the NT: Mk.14:49; Jn. 13:18; Jn. 15:25 and 1 Jn. 2:19. (I use The Step Bible as the Greek text there and corresponding dictionary is very up-to-date.)

Day after day I was with you in the temple teaching, and you did not arrest me. But let (ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα) the scriptures be fulfilled (Mk.14:49). The translators have chosen the imperative use here (well done says Martin to the translators) – thus going beyond the idea that the Scriptures have predestined this to happen. (This is the interpretation that I will be pushing for in the text about the blind man.)

I am not speaking of all of you; I know whom I have chosen. But it is to (ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα) fulfill the scripture, ‘The one who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me’ (Jn. 13:18). Same phrase as Mark above but this time the translation is along the line of purpose. I would suggest this is better understood as an imperative so ‘but let the Scripture be fulfilled‘. Judas fulfilled the Scripture but not as if the Scripture was a prophecy – he and others have fulfilled that Scripture!

It was to fulfill (ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα) the word that is written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause’ (Jn. 15:25). Again I think better understood as ‘but let the word that is written in their law be fulfilled…

They went out from us, but they did not belong to us, for if they had belonged to us they would have remained with us. But by going out (ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα) they made it plain that none of them belongs to us (1 Jn. 2:19). Here translated as a result, but if it was an imperative we would read something along the lines of ‘but let them be revealed as not belonging to us’.

All the above personal research and I alone have understood this? No… if ever I had an original idea it would have died of loneliness within 5 minutes… I first came across this in the research of W.G. Morrice’s Greek grammar and the various responses to that; the nature of the clause is not simply that it is the normal ‘hina’ clause but it is preceded by ‘but’ – there is a big pushback to what has gone before.

Morrice says:

In his reply, Jesus indicated that this was a question that should never have been asked. It was neither the man’s sin nor his parents’ that had caused his blindness. The concern of the disciples should be to try and cure him. “Let God’s power be displayed in curing him!” Jesus proceeded to do exactly that. “The hypothesis of the imperatival iva, therefore, releases the text from the fatalism which had obsessed it, and dissolves the picture which had become familiar through all our English versions, a man destined from birth to suffer for the sole purpose of glorifying God when he was healed

(For anyone interested here is an article that is based on Morrice’s work.)

So back to the verse we started with, now with my translation:

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; but let the works of God be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.

Any discussion on who is to blame is knocked on the head and Jesus not only pushes past that or any related discussion to the responsibility of taking action for the intervention of God. I do think this is a consistent way to translate the phrase when we meet it in the NT and illustrative that philosophical / theological discussions are irrelevant – we have to work while it is day. Quit the discussion, get on with the redemptive work of heaven.

Reconciliation… a video & a date

Posted on 26th September, 202524th September, 2025
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

A short while ago I wrote a paper exploring Alienation and Reconciliation as a suitable (the best?) way to summarise the ‘problem’ and the work of God to deal with the problem. I suggested that as it is a relational framework, not a legal one.

I am proposing an Zoom discussion on the evening of Wednesday October 22nd, 7:30pm UK time. The Zoom link will be: Zoom Link for evening.

The paper is here:

Reconciliation in Four Directions

[If you wish to find other pdf’s and the one that precedes this volume go to: Extended Articles]

Here is a short video (17 minutes) seeking to summarise what I wrote and opening up the possibility that perhaps there is scope for someone who is not reconciled to God, but is journeying along the path of reconciliation to others, to our world and to self, that in some way they are being reconciled to the God of Creation / the God of redemption. To suggest so is to go ‘beyond’ Scripture but is it to go beyond the trajectory set out for us. I plan to host an open zoom evening on this and I guess that might be the part where there could be push back and also exploration. A date to follow! If and when I host that evening please read the paper / watch the video prior.

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