Give me a title

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

By default we are so accustomed to describe biblical writers as (e.g.) ‘the apostle Paul’ thus both giving him a title and therefore authority. Jesus in critiquing the scribes and Pharisees stating that they ‘take the seat of Moses’ (position of authority above others) says that in contrast those who follow his path are to be careful to shun titles that support hierarchies.

But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers and sisters. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father, the one in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted (Matt. 23:8-12).

In Luke’s Gospel he describes himself as ‘one among you’:

But he said to them, “The kings of the gentiles lord it over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather, the greatest among you must become like the youngest and the leader like one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves (Luke 22:25-27).

Shaped by the age to come… living within this age… the tension is present, but we have to live from the age that has been inaugurated by Jesus. Titles… They have to be pushed away; hierarchies have to be resisted; gifts and callings respected – but they cannot be allowed to obscure ‘you are all brothers and sisters’ and we have to be ‘among’ one another.

Paul: an apostle. He was clear as to who he was called to be. In prison he does not write as ‘Paul, a prisoner, apostolic call temporarily on hold till I get out of here and demonstrate my authority’. If he was the apostle Paul he would be above everyone and the title would give him authority, but because he was an apostle he now was accountable to live up to that calling.That would place him under authority/ the authority of heaven, the accountability to heaven.

When pushed to tell a story of his heavenly encounter (2 Cor. 12) he uses less-than-veiled language that makes it clear that he is writing about himself. How does he describe himself?

I know a person in Christ.

A person in Christ! This is why he ends in some measure of internal conflict. He defends himself and claims he is not lesser than the ‘super-apostles’. As I read it he seems to be unclear if he has done the right thing in describing his experience, but what remains clear is he is (simply) a person in Christ. No title can replace or improve that description.

To be in Christ, to be among and alongside others who are in Christ; to be Christ to one another.

There is coming a revolution. There always has been a revolution, for the democratisation of the Spirit at Pentecost has effected that revolution (‘all flesh’ and particularly the margins mark Pentecost) so that all can hear the voice of heaven in their language. The Spirit and the democratic revolution; our resistance exemplified by the pedestals that we create. The revolution is picking up speed and momentum. Discrediting is here and will cast a wider net resulting in babies thrown out with bath water. The revolution will increase and ‘these signs’ will follow. Yes, perhaps, those who are living the life of ‘an apostle’ might need to be present at times (Dorcas is raised from the dead by Peter though she died in a community that was acquainted with the miraculous) to keep the bar raised high, but if they come with their title, let’s not be surprised when we are disappointed.

The titles, and the positions – and by positions I also mean our self positioning with respect to others – let them go; ‘persons in Christ’, let us connect with the revolution.

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Try this for an approach

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Biblical Observations

I entitle this web site ‘Perspectives’ as we often develop when we see something from a different angle. I recently read an article from Keith Giles (https://www.patheos.com/blogs/keithgiles/) with the opening paragraphs as below. And thought – need to read those a few times more. A perspective…

The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden is a metaphor. I don’t believe it actually happened, but I do believe it gives us way of understanding how and why we sometimes struggle with this simple truth of Oneness and Connection with God and one another.
Here’s what I mean: The first people – Adam and Eve – were created in an original innocence where they experienced absolute Oneness with God and each other. Eve was even pulled out of Adam, which suggests that the two of them were once both inhabiting the same body before experiencing that separation process.
The ultimate separation for them came when they ate of the Tree of Good and Evil. This is a metaphor of duality. Once they eat from it they experience a form of spiritual death where they can only see and reason from a place of good/bad, right/wrong, us/them, etc. This is what shatters their ability to see and experience their original Oneness with God and each other.
This story is the perfect metaphor for our own personal experience as human beings. We are born with an original awareness of our Oneness with God and humanity. But, at some point early on in our development, we begin to observe how the world around us operates on this system of good and evil, right and wrong, us and them; the illusion of separation seeps into our consciousness and we are suddenly cast out from the Garden when we lose that original awareness of connection with all things.

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Library of Two Shelves

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by Simon Swift
Posted in Personal Perspectives

Another article by Simon Swift – wonderful thoughts and perspectives shaped by his own journey. And I am sure very helpful in your (and my) journey. A journey that will not end… Enjoy!

There’s this library contained in one book, known as the Holy Bible, it has just two shelves. The first, is full of poetry, historical accounts, prophetic writings, and some self-help books. The second, is newer and contains eye witness accounts of the life and times of a man known as of Jesus, along with apocalyptic writings, the history of the early movement that came about because Jesus and a bunch of letters written by leaders of the Jesus movement. At the centre of these assorted texts is the story of a people and their god.

But there is a problem, it seems there are two gods. One for the first shelf and another one for the second. It has, when people have claimed as much, caused controversy. The majority of those that use this library for their spiritual life generally don’t agree with the idea of two gods. Yet they can still find it difficult to reconcile the differences that seem to be in the descriptions of God. So what are the different perceptions and is it irreconcilable?

On the first shelf we have accounts of the early history of the people we call the Hebrews or Jews. They came about because of promises by God to a man called Abraham, who is considered the father of their nation. These promises form an ongoing relationship, that include curses should the people fail to be faithful to that relationship. When they fail, bad things happen including removal from the land they were promised. It’s not surprising then that we can view their god as an authoritarian god of power able to crush empires. If you obey, you are rewarded. If you cross him, you are punished. The enemies of the Hebrews will be crushed by the god of empire power.

On the second shelf we begin to find not only a new description but a new relationship possible with God. The first four books are an account of a teacher, prophet, and Messiah called Jesus, he describes God as Father and in turn he is described as God’s son. His message is: we should not live in fear of God, but run to him with open arms as a child. We are to see him as provider and a redeemer wanting to set us free from authoritarian power. God on this shelf is the god of love power.

Look closely on the first shelf, at the stories of God and his interaction with humans you might just find that it is the same god that you read about in the books on the second shelf. In the very first book, the book of beginnings, we find that he creates man and woman, called Adam and Eve, and we find them living in a garden. In that garden there is a fruit tree of good and evil. If you eat its fruit you will have your eyes open. God warns them not to eat it; but of course being human they do. And on the surface as we read the story it seems that God does punish them with eviction from the garden and a few curses to boot. However, one of the first thing God does is to help the hapless couple, who on eating the fruit realise they are naked and become frightened, feeling ashamed for the first time. So what does God Do? He makes them clothes. Is that the act of an authoritarian god or a father’s reaction to the needs of his children?

Adam and Eve are children who must mature to be able to judge between good and evil. To do that they must set out from their sanctuary, to learn how to deal with this new knowledge. They need wisdom; Knowledge on its own if not enough. You have to experience love, and that comes from relationships. So we need the father of love not the one of control.

What other books on this first shelf have examples of God the father? What about the exodus and the need for food. Here we find God providing manna each morning. How does he deal with the pregnant Hagar when she fleas from her mistress into the wilderness? What other places does God act and advise that are more relational than authoritarian?

As we move to the second shelf we find books of a different nature and in particular the stories of Jesus who is called God’s son. We find Jesus looks to show the love of the father and the parable of the prodigal son is one of the best descriptions of God as father. His treatment of the people who are in need speak of compassion and care. He calls people back in to the family of Abraham. But he has condemnation for those in authority whose only desire is to exploit.

Later after his death and resurrection, new communities begin to be created. When it comes to Paul of Tarsus we are often given the picture of man in authority of the communities he is planting. Yet look closely at his urging and advice; you will see him passionately encouraging his people to mature in wisdom. This means understanding their new status as sons (and daughters) of an inheritance, that they now belong in the kingdom of Heaven where love is the ultimate power.

On the first shelf, In the stories of the Hebrews entering into their promised land it is shocking to read of the amount of violence and ethnic cleansing that goes on. Is this the god of empire? It seems that many nations and tribes have over the centuries opted for such a god. Even Christendom reflects such a position despite its claims of allegiance to Christ. If we can look closer even on this shelf we can find a different god, one who reflects the god Jesus calls God the Father. A god of relationships who wishes to reach out to us.

Through the blood of Jesus we have been brought into a relationship with God. This is where justice is served, in a new covenant. His act of going to the cross for us is the final critic of empire and its power. It is where love defeats death and gives us hope.

So when we read the books on the first shelf let us be influenced by Jesus’ revelation of who God is. Let it temper our reading of the first shelf lest we fall into the trap of hating those not like us or simply do not fit in with our world view. At this time in our history we need the God who’s power is Love.

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Asiarchs on board

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

I came across this verse about the ‘Asiarchs’ – or maybe it came across me – about a decade ago. It had always been there but it jumped out of the page.

Paul wished to go into the crowd, but the disciples would not let him; even some officials of the province of Asia who were friendly to him sent him a message urging him not to venture into the theater (Acts 19:30,31).

So backing up a little… Paul’s time in Ephesus was quite remarkable. Two years of lectures in the hall of Tyrannus with the message getting out far and wide – to the whole region of the Roman province of ‘Asia’ and to both Jews and Gentiles; handkerchiefs being taken to those who needed healing; burning of books that were steeped in occult (Ephesus has been shown to be a major centre for occult with many ‘magic papyri’ having been discovered) and a turning away from occult with ‘the word of the Lord growing mightily and prevailing’ (Acts 19:20).

And major objections that centre around two elements, the economy and religion (what has changed with that!). So a riot begins. [Those two elements – mammon (and the previous post on ‘Moloch’ has a tie to this) and religion will always come to the fore when there is a clear advance of something genuine coming from heaven to a region or culture.]

So Paul decides to be superman and calm down the crowd and he aims to go into the (open air) theatre. The disciples resisted him doing this. Understandably so as they value his life. However it is the next response that stands out with some of the ‘Asiarchs’ (they are not disciples, and Luke indicate that this response was of some of the Asiarchs) who were friends of Paul who also did not want him to risk his life. Here is a description of who the Asiarchs were:

An official of the province of Asia, Asiarch, a wealthy and influential man, probably connected with the Imperial cult; an Asiarch, an officer in the province of Asia, as in other eastern provinces of the Roman empire, selected, with others, from the more opulent citizens, to preside over the things pertaining to religious worship, and to exhibit annual public games at their own expense in honor of the gods, in the manner of the aediles at Rome

They were the representatives of the imperial cult, commissioned to maintain the order that would hold in place Roman Imperial customs, culture and religious affiliation. Paul’s message ‘Another Caesar’; Paul’s denial that Rome brought peace; that Caesar was not ‘king of kings’ nor ‘lord of lords’; that the good news did not come from the centre of the world but from the unique crucified one… his message was not one that was ‘good news’ to Asiarchs. It was a message that they had to be opposed to and in the current situation what an opportunity to rid themselves of the messenger who was nothing but a thorn in their flesh.

We have reduced the message to something ‘spiritual’ and private and due to our blindness to the context (a huge Imperial rule) and language (even words such as ekklesia, gospel, peace carried strong political connotations) we have failed to see that ‘sins forgiven’ was one element in the proclamation. We don’t know what the contents of Paul’s lectures were, but I suspect they must have covered a whole range of topics, and given the wider message of his gospel huge elements must have challenged the Asiarchs and their vision. Paul – Paul as the messenger of the God who raised the Jewish Messiah from the dead – had a vision for a different world. A different economics, a different society; something that had not been seen before. Something very down to earth and only utopian in the sense it had not yet been manifest anywhere.

Asiarchs who were not (as we would say) ‘Christians’, and among them some were taken by the vision of the future. [An aside that could be explored – were they followers of Jesus but not ‘Christian’… and are all ‘Christians’ followers of Jesus?] The dynamic in Ephesus was not of getting ‘Christians’ to the top of the ladder so that they had the power to bring about change – I think the book of Revelation would shout loud at that point ‘deception’; neither was it ‘we got to get all those influential people saved’. Maybe it was more let us discover the hope that is in us, a hope for this world, so that it permeates us and we can articulate our hope for a different world / society; let us be open to one and all so that there is a genuine friendship bond; and if there is enough authenticity about us maybe some of the Asiarchs will pull for that same new world that we have articulated.

Years ago Steve Lowton said to me ‘Scotty you have not changed’ with a sideways reference back to the wonderful crazy days of prayer for city transformation. I hope what he said is true. It is not about ‘Christians’, ‘believers’, ‘the church’ being at the centre of change as if we are the ones, but it is about those who have been touched by the powers of a different age taking responsibility for our world so that Asiarchs are not colonised, controlled, nor even converted to serve our narrow agenda, but are envisioned to put their own reputation, careers on the line because they have seen a new tomorrow that has never been manifest before.

I honestly think the ‘Gospel’ proclamation is crazy. But I believe it to be true. It is based on the resurrection – you cannot find the body is to make a crazy claim… but I believe it to be true. He is the firstborn of all creation.

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How complex is ‘Moloch’

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

The foreign deity ‘Moloch’ was one that required child sacrifice as part of the ritual. Crazy as it sounds, imagine for a moment the ‘Moloch’ evangelist coming to town (evangelist = proclaimer of good news so a rather large oxymoron there!). Presentation of the advantages of acknowledging the deity, and then comes the requirements – sacrifice your child, preferably your first-born. And amazingly the deity has takers. What is going on here?

There is a very sobering account of the sacrifice of a first-born by the king of Moab:

When the king of Moab saw that the battle was going against him, he took with him seven hundred swordsmen to break through opposite the king of Edom, but they could not. Then he took his firstborn son who was to succeed him and offered him as a burnt offering on the wall. And great wrath came upon Israel, so they withdrew from him and returned to their own land (2 Kings 3:26,27).

Sacrifice tomorrow to obtain something today is at the heart of all this. How do we get prosperity today – the sacrifice of tomorrow will appease the ‘gods’. Favour will come for us once we sacrifice the future… the next and future generations.

We see this in motion with climate change such as in this recent report:
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/climate-set-warm-by-31-c-without-greater-action-un-report-warns-2024-10-24/
Our behaviour today and our willingness to bury our head in the sand means rather than storing something good for the next generation(s) we are, at the minimum, making it harder for them to do well, and perhaps actively annihilating the human race in the process. Of course we can hide behind it is all going to burn up anyway, ignoring that is NOT what the good book says and our requirement to steward what is here from one generation to the next.

We see the sacrifice of tomorrow for current blessing in the mouths of so many politicians with their appeal to go back to some apparent good old day… where is the imagination among them for the future? Oh, I guess if that imagination is not there in the hearts of those who follow the God who raised Jesus from the dead as the ‘firstborn of all creation’ why should we expect it to be in the heart of politicians – so the reverse of the Pauline trajectory where the ‘Asiarchs’ were not even settling for maintaining the prosperity of Rome but were fascinated by Paul’s future political vision.

So in summary ‘Moloch’ might not manifest as a big bad deity demanding blood… but probably is too visible in other forms, particularly in the agreement with mammon.

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Right and wrong?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Oh my we do get ourselves into all kinds of jiggery pokeries when we try to work out what is right and what is wrong.

Thou shalt not kill / murder (Exod. 20:13)

Seemed appropriate to use the thee / thous there as it just adds such a weight to it all!!! Then down the centuries the ‘just war theory’ has developed; an ‘ah yes but…’ response to not killing. (Attributed to Augustine of Hippo but within many ancient cultures prior to Augustine – in Egypt, Greece, Rome and beyond.) Then to make it all a bit harder for us all killing an animal for food in the wrong way was counted as bloodshed in ancient Israel,

If anyone of the house of Israel slaughters an ox or a lamb or a goat in the camp or slaughters it outside the camp and does not bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting, to present it as an offering to the Lord before the tabernacle of the Lord, he shall be held guilty of bloodshed; he has shed blood, and he shall be cut off from the people (Lev. 17:3,4).

And given nothing can atone for the shedding of blood,

You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no expiation can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it (Num. 35:33).

the person ‘murdering’ an animal was expelled from the covenant people.

Discerning what is right and wrong is not so easy at times, and not so easy as the law was a gift to Israel and cannot be divided into moral, ceremonial and civil law… it was one whole package to regulate life and practice in Israel. Legalism pulls us back to the tree of knowledge of good and evil, so if we are pursuing the tree of life what might be some of the considerations? Here I present 3 guiding principles that might be considered. See what you think – relational, eschatological and redemptive.

Relational

So then, putting away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with your neighbor, for we are members of one another.

Put away falsehood – so much stronger than ‘don’t lie’. It is possible not to lie but to leave a false impression, defending ourselves with ‘I never said that’. Speech is central but there is something deeper going on here. ‘Falsehood’ is also translated as ‘deception’, so there is a deep call to live transparently where the gap between what is private and what is public is increasingly getting smaller. It has to include self-deception, for any level of self-deception / lack of self-honesty will be reflected in how we present to others.

For we are members of one another. Not even ‘we are fellow members of a group’ but inter-connected to others. There is a relational dynamic at the heart of this requirement. It amazes me how many times we do not connect the dots. We can complain about the lack of honesty in our world but have opportunity to be transparent and pass it up. When Gayle and I first moved to Oliva we had a knock on the door. A neighbour…. after the initial ‘hola, estamos vecinos…’ came ‘how much did you pay for the apartment?’ What an opportunity. So I started with figures. He stopped me and left to come back two minutes later with pen and paper so he could write everything down. Price paid, tax to government, renovations made etc. Totalled it and looked at his wife with first a finger indicating Gayle and I then a hand on his chest indicating them. ‘They are rich, we are poor.’ I said ‘correct’. They had two cars, we had been without a car for 5 years; we had one apartment, they had 5 properties. We were truly rich and they poor (as perceived within themselves) and we are rich in the global scene. I chose to give them all the details as our intention was how can we live here transparently… if ever they and other neighbours are to share our faith they have to see our lives – the good, the bad and the ugly.

Eschatological

We are to give an answer for the hope that is in us… how then are we to live in the light of the coming of the Lord… we will all be judged by what we have done… masters treat your slaves well for you have a master in heaven… Eschatology might be the study of the end but the resurrection and outpoured Spirit means what is to come is being tasted now. We live as aliens in this world as we belong now to another (a new) creation. This is not a mandate to believe this ‘world is not my home I am just a passing through’ but to live from that coming – and what has already come – age in the here and now. What do we see of that coming age, for that has to shape our responses now. No outsiders; always a fresh opportunity; no tears; destruction; devastation… and so we can add to those descriptions. If it does not exist in the age to come we cannot justify it in this age as being something we accept. This was the driving element in the abolition of slavery, the freedom of the genders… and of course in our current scene something that has to be central in any consideration regarding discussions on same-sex relationships. Beyond Scripture is the call of Scripture!! [Please don’t read contra-Scripture into that statement.]

This eschatological aspect is why we have to go so far beyond the goal of getting people over a line, so that they are ‘born again’. Living in an old creation or in a new creation is surely the marker, and we can so easily slip back into what we think is ‘the world we live in’.

Redemptive

Can we always do what is right, in the sense of what is ‘perfect’? That is like asking can we unscramble eggs and put them back in the egg-shell. Thank God for redemption, not for perfection. Life goes wrong; circumstances come along that are far from ideal. Our choice as we get involved is to try and find the most redemptive way forward. That is nearly always what nurtures the relationship, amidst the mess that cannot be neatly resolved. If we do not do this we lose relationship on the basis of ‘we are holding to a principle that we know is right’. We see this right from the beginning, (though myth it might be, but so strong in theology) when Adam and Eve left the garden God left with them and became visible on the road to Emmaus; the sentence of death something that God carried with them… and moving forward to Cain, rather than God pronounce the law over Cain for murder God covered and protected Cain (another reason why we cannot look the law as an absolute).

If we stop asking what is the right thing but what is the most redemptive way forward we will be acting eschatologically and relationally… I consider that is more closely aligned to the tree of life and will enable us to stop looking at the fruit that looks good to eat, that fruit that will make us like ‘god’… and perhaps as we do that we will become slightly more god-like ‘accidentally’!

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Christian nation(-state): oxymoron

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Reports

Pete Enns’ material is full of up-to-date simply explained scholarship and he also interviews various writers. This episode was Lee C. Camp, and although it is slanted toward America (their context) the frightening ramifications of falsely putting together of the adjective ‘Christian’ with the noun ‘nation’ is explored. It is applicable way beyond the geographical context of their context.

One quotable quote (among many):

Nationalism, as I see it, is a move to attach a sort of messianic role to a nation-state. And it leads to a sort of exceptionalism for that nation, that it thereby isn’t subject to the normal rules we expect everybody else to be subject to, because it has a sort of presumed messianic role in saving the world. And when you think about nationalism in those terms, then we quickly see that the evangelicals did not invent this

Episode 47: Lee C. Camp – America Can Never Be a Christian Nation
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For or against?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

There are many statements in Scripture that are difficult to work out what they mean and how they should be applied (an understatement!). Sometimes there are contradictions and they can cause great puzzlement or push us to dig a little deeper, and by deeper I think it is often into the dialogue of Scripture (as the important aspect is ‘how are you, Martin, going to live?’). Luke records two contradictory statements of Jesus:

John answered, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he does not follow with us.” But Jesus said to him, “Do not stop him, for whoever is not against you is for you” (Luke 9:49,50).

and then,

Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters (Luke 11:23).

Both statements are interestingly placed in the context of setting people free from (demonic) bondage and so perhaps we could widen the application to the work of liberation. (Liberation Theology essentially ties the experience of salvation into the extent that we are liberated and are involved in bringing liberation to others.) So let me widen the application into the challenging area of a ‘heaven-inspired-vision’ that takes responsibility to contribute to the transformation of our world. Surely after all that is the Gospel – the good news that Jesus is the ‘firstborn of (new-)creation / creation as it is meant to be’, with the whole creation itself groaning to enter its liberation.

I found the two statements very straightening when talking into two business situations recently. The core / the DNA is so important with issues of hierarchy and mammon being so important to eradicate at the core. ‘People, planet, profit’ might be a slick alliterated slogan but they hold something so central. If people find their true liberation (and not merely ‘souls saved’) there is hope for the planet. Romans 8 drawing on the story of the bondage in Egypt is very telling… Pharaoh and those who served him enslaved the Israelites, and now (in Rom. 8) humanity has enslaved the planet. True liberation alters the relationship to all around (Genesis 3 being a catalogue of alienationed relationships; Gen. 4-11 outlining the fruit of those alienations. Jesus chose 12 to be with him… Not chosen primarily to be taught but to catch something – he chose them to be with him – then to proclaim and be involved in the liberating work (Mk. 3:14,15). Jesus did not include all, neither did he include all who were mature, but (I guess) he chose those into whom he sensed could embrace his DNA… and of course in the midst of it all was one who would betray him, all for some money(!) and a vision of how to do things successfully.

They were with him… if the ‘wrong’ people were drawn with their own agenda (that does not mean their own gift, calling, vision as it is not about silent clones) there is a danger that the DNA will not be carried through.

Then there were those who were not with Jesus and that band and some of them were copying the methodology and activity of the Jesus and disciple group. Don’t stop them, Jesus said, don’t worry too much about their DNA… if they are pulling in the same direction they are not against us.

Same direction? The betterment of humanity? I think so. Same direction, maybe not exactly the same path. This is how I like to think ‘the two hands of God’ (Irenaeus, 2nd Century)… Inclusive of all, the Spirit is present everywhere, and the Son through whom redemption comes.

An inner core who had better be sorted out on the big things: religion, mammon and ego – or at least works that are clearly in process… and an inner core who knew how not to be in opposition to those who were not against them. My oft-harked about verse concerning the ‘Asiarchs’ seems to fit this pattern to.

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A very big paradigm shift

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Maybe one of the biggest paradigm changes to consider would be as I try to describe below…

In our evangelical world there are some paradigms that are shifting such as a very helpful and necessary move away from this world is dispensable and salvation is a ticket to heaven with some kind of eternal celestial spiritual life at death / parousia to that of thinking of the fulfilment of the Genesis story being that of a ‘new heaven and new earth’, the restoration of creation. The former view is very Hellenistic (influenced by Greek philosophy) and lends itself to language such as ‘saving souls’, or ‘soul winning’.

If we push the shift even further to where the ekklesia, those in Christ through a conscious response to the Jesus of history, are more to be the redeeming community rather than the redeemed community where might that take us? Or to make that clearer rather than the task of the ‘church’ to be that of ‘saving souls’ but to work in the direction of the redemption / rebirth of the world. If that be the only emphasis we could well lose the wonderful aspect of how it is within community that we find healing for our ‘souls’, but without the shift of emphasis that I propose I think we will continue to move far away from the call of Abraham – the father of faith for us all – and thus the call for the nations of the earth to be blessed.

I consider that there is a major shift taking place and where the soil will settle after this shaking of all things is hard to see with all the current dust and debris. We cannot simply carry on as is and if we take the disciples’ prayer seriously then our eyes have to shift to the here and now so that it moves toward the there and then.

I am deeply grateful for the path I have come along. Yesterday a person brought me an article I wrote some 35+ years ago. I cringe when I read it – how to shape Christian community. Ever so clear but filled with a world view of opposition to the world with a drive of our task being to get ‘them’ in ‘here’! I am grateful for the path but the landscape changes as one travels. What one saw then is not what one sees later on the path, and the future will open new horizons and the future will give us sight beyond belief.

Ekklesia is being taught to embrace the world and be embedded in the world; we are being encouraged to stop trying (emphasis on trying) to save souls and be a witness (so what is different in my household to next door?) so that people see / hear Jesus and can respond. As they do the redeeming community can recognise and support their creational context and gifting.

A mess partly results. But maybe if my Hebrew was better (existed at all!) we might then consider something akin to the opening words of Scripture – when God (the redeeming community) began to create (participate in the work of the values of heaven being expressed on the earth) the whole thing was chaotic, without any real shape or content.

The above is not a theoretical paradigm shift but one that is being forced upon us (in the Western world). Christendom is over and I meet many people who quote to me how intellectuals are expressing how the Western world has been shaped by Judeo-Christian values and then hold forth hope for a return to that context. (I think I might adjust the viewpoint to ‘some Judeo-Christian values’ while ignoring others.) Regardless the challenge of faith is to be shaped by the future not by the past, and the next couple of decades will be the context for the transference of those of faith into the ‘field’ which is the world so that wheat and weeds can grow together for harvest.

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Forgive! Hey, slow down

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

You got to forgive… so often so true as holding on to a grievance is not smart, and as is said bitterness is to drink of the poison one wants someone else to be drinking. But been thinking a bit lately – always dangerous I know!

I have been looking at the three big words that are used to describe the catch-all word ‘sin’ and the one I have focused on is ‘trespass’. Crossing boundaries, overstepping a line – that kind of meaning. Immediately after Matthew’s account of the disciples’ prayer he records Jesus as saying,

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matt.6;14,15).

How do we trespass? There are the obvious ways – crossing a boundary that we should not… the ‘original’ sin is described by Paul in Rom. 8 as a trespass (paraptoma). Our ancestors crossed a boundary, ‘do not eat from the one forbidden tree’ – a critique of global history in that prohibition. We cross boundaries every time we seek to control / manipulate someone else, and there are many warnings in Scripture about moving boundary markers.

And the non-obvious ways, when we are being ever so good and our ‘kindness’ and ‘love’, so wanting the best for someone (cos we really know what is the best for them) we simply go too far. Paul said live at peace (and being a Jew he is thinking ‘shalom’) with all as far as is possible – sometimes the other party draws a line, with a ‘so far but no further’. To go beyond the line they draw – maybe that is a trespass?

I came back the other day to say to Gayle that I am challenged about a situation I am praying into, in that maybe I should stop praying about it and simply trust God that s/he is right in there and does not need any prayers that simply help settle any anxieties I have. Maybe to be prayerful I need to pray less about it. So easy to cross boundaries without realising it.

Forgive us our trespasses. Forgiveness. I like one of the uses of the word ‘forgive’. It was used in ancient Greek of the release of a boat to its journey. How about applying that to situations. Untie the situation / person and release them (thank God that s/he travels with them – after all s/he left the ‘garden’ with our ancestors). We can hold on too tight, not always to a wrong done to us, but to the ‘I am so important and vital and know what is best’ scenario.

Living a godly life seems not to be so much about being good as being made well.

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