An intense season

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Prophetic Perspectives

Yesterday I put out one of our ‘irregular newsletters’ to bring those interested more up to date with where we are at and what we are up to. Inevitably there were some perspectives in there that are personal viewpoints on the wider context, the wider context of both the ‘church’ and the world. Any such viewpoints are ‘in part’, never the whole picture.

It is always possible to say ‘it is a new day’ as the Lord makes all things new on a VERY regular basis, but it is also easy to assume that a new day will give us what we were longing for yesterday. Perhaps it is a new day, but I consider it might be better to look at the season that is here. Seasons can be broken down into smaller units, but it appears to me that there is a prolonged season here currently, one that probably spans 20 years, from 2020 to 2040. 2020, helpfully suggested that it would be a year of sight, and sight is not seen by all for Jesus said ‘let those who have eyes see’. We can proclaim sight and be accurate about that, but then fail to see it. We can have a mouth but not have eyes. (Now I am in danger of assuming I have sight,as Jesus advised the Pharisees that it might be better not to claim to have sight – otherwise ‘our guilt remains’…)

2020 was indeed a year of great sight… the pandemic changed so much and was globally visible.

Now the intensity is ramping up, with hierarchical leadership being chopped down. Many years ago I heard Tom Marshall say that when truth flows in one direction and is responded to with honour and respect flowing in the opposite direction we have a problem. The labelling of any challenging perspective as ‘fake news’ is the response we have seen… what is sown by the body is reaped beyond. There is a huge move toward authoritarian leadership in many so-called democratic scenarios… and after all Rome moved from a sort-of democratically republic to an Imperial context. Many antiChrists have come said one much wiser than I numerous centuries ago, those who set themselves as an authority to be a substitute for Christ (anti: in the sense of replacing) pave the way for what is set in opposition to (anti: in the sense of opposing). 1 John 2 neither affirms nor denies an antiChrist (‘you have heard that antiChrist is coming’) in the sense that popular eschatology wants to teach it, and I take the same position, that of agnostic… but I want to be alert to the trajectory. Unchecked we are on a trajectory of an antiChrist, whether global or personal to my situation.

The trajectory has to be arrested, hence I see 18 months of trauma with self-appointed headship and self-affirming tellers of truth experiencing great pressure and under pressure there are leaks and exposures.

The last two nights have not been great nights of sleep as I have wrestled with the sense of whole movements being shaken top to bottom. Not everything to be exposed will be accurate, nor will the attempt to cover everything be successful.

The far east will become an ever more present reality in the world, and the geography from where many re-alignments will take place. I have long held the view that Jesus dies in Jerusalem for no prophet could die outside of Jerusalem (Lk. 13:33) for religion in whatever form is opposed to the prophetic; Jesus’ death puts an end to that necessity, and launched Paul as one who had to go to the centre that flows from Jerusalem – to Rome. Religion to the powers that shape the oikoumene / the empire. I am grateful to those who focused on ‘rolling up the Roman road’ in the early 2000s and deeply incarnated in the (literal) walk to Rome arriving there on 21st December 2005 (thanks Steve Lowton and companions). However, in these past months I have been contemplating that Scripture covers those two geographies and proclaims that the gospel had been proclaimed throughout the whole oikoumene / world. But… the far east? Maybe we have both become accustomed to the powers that rule over the west, perhaps we have both accommodated them and resisted them… but the powers manifesting in the far east?

These next years will force us to consider the powers that have to be ‘exorcised’ there, and of course they are already beginning to confuse us as they have been busily eating the west, thus strengthening themselves through hiding behind what we consider we already know. As cyclical time (east) meets linear time (west) we can be in danger of being losing sight of the times and seasons but can also be provoked to gain sight of a longer horizon… the day gets longer post December 21.

If we allow the Lord of the harvest to do the sowing, and we resist the temptation to pull up what we think are weeds… we might just have a wonderful set of years, a ‘new’ season that goes beyond Scripture on the trajectory to harvest… beyond Scripture in the sense of catapulted forward from the last word in the book that records Paul’s presence and gospel was in Rome… akolutos – unhindered.

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Well out of order person (to come?)

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Biblical Observations

I am currently seeking to slowly (and I mean way slow) put together material on eschatology, a) insisting that a) no one agrees with me, b) stating that I am agnostic on certain aspects, c) holding to a considerable amount is past (both in terms of the first Easter Events and also the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD), and d) that all eschatology is deeply practical asking us to respond to the question ‘in the light of this how am I to live?’.

An area where I am agnostic is over a future ‘one-world-leader’ known as ‘the antichrist’. I observed something quite amusing the other day while perusing what is on YouTube that might interest me – videos on a certain former president of the USA as being ordained and anointed from on high (God looking down in 1946 and seeing this child as the one of destiny to save the nation) and videos presenting evidence why he is the antichrist that has been prophesied!! To save time I will give you my discernment – neither of the above. The fascination with the antichrist is of course something that has been around for a long period of time, with so many people put forward as ‘definitely the one – we need not look for another’.

To get to a fixed view on the antichrist one has to fit together Scriptures that are then claimed to speak of the same person although they use different language. In this post I am simply going to pick up on Paul’s language in 2 Thessalonians concerning the ‘man of lawlessness’. I cover this with some extra detail in an extended pdf article: Second Horizon.pdf.

I will simply pick up on what I consider is a translation error in this post, the part related to the text that I have emboldened below – see what you think.

Let no one deceive you in any way, for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one destined for destruction.  He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, declaring himself to be God. Do you not remember that I told you these things when I was still with you? And you know what is now restraining him, so that he may be revealed when his time comes. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but only until the one who now restrains it is removed. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath of his mouth, annihilating him by the manifestation of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is apparent in the working of Satan, who uses all power, signs, lying wonders, and every kind of wicked deception for those who are perishing because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion, leading them to believe what is false, so that all who have not believed the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness will be condemned (2 Thess. 2:3-12).

First the reference is future – future for the readers, but now past for us. Future for the readers – into the ‘second horizon’ of the fall of Jerusalem and what Jesus termed the ‘abomination that causes desolation’, something that the ‘pagan’ Romans effected with their pollution of the Temple.

As for the translation bit – virtually every version has two ‘comings’ (parousia – often referring to the ‘second coming’ of Jesus, the word meaning presence or arrival and in the Roman context of the arrival of the emperor or imperial presence). By making it two ‘parousias’ it pushes the event to the future – our future.

A little bit of Greek in vv. 8,9, jump over and refer back:

ὃν ὁ κύριος Ἰησοῦς ἀνελεῖ τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ καὶ καταργήσει τῇ ἐπιφανείᾳ τῆς παρουσίας αὐτοῦ, οὗ ἐστιν ἡ παρουσία κατ᾽ ἐνέργειαν τοῦ Σατανᾶ ἐν πάσῃ δυνάμει καὶ σημείοις καὶ τέρασιν ψεύδους

Parousia occurs twice (παρουσία), the first one is often translated as being the parousia of Jesus who destroys ‘antichrist’ with the manifestation of his (Jesus’) coming, and the second one translated concerning the ‘coming’ (παρουσία) of antichrist who comes with the work of Satan….

However, and there is a HUGE however, the second parousia if translated ‘normally’ qualifies and describes the first parousia (supposedly the coming of Jesus…!!!!) so we would read the manifestation of his coming (τῇ ἐπιφανείᾳ τῆς παρουσίας αὐτοῦ), which is the coming according to the works of Satan (οὗ ἐστιν ἡ παρουσία κατ᾽ ἐνέργειαν τοῦ Σατανᾶ)!! Hardly a reference to the coming of Jesus. No, no and no! The manifestation of the ‘man of lawlessness’ is that which comes according to the working of Satan

What we have is one coming – the coming of ‘the man of lawlessness’ who Jesus will destroy in the time or context of the manifestation of his parousia in the temple, that parousia that was in accordance to the working of Satan.

All the above a little technical, but I am pretty convinced about this being the only valid way to translate this section, and the change being only made because of a prevailing concept that this is future for us. Another example of assuming Scripture is somehow written to us. It was written in early 50s and fulfilled in their lifetime.

Whatever we make of a future one-world-ruler I do not believe at any level this passage can be pulled in to defend that view. Paul lived in the time of ‘the one world ruler’, Caesar in Rome who claimed to be ‘king of kings’… that rule manifested in 70AD with the desolation brought to the Temple. All indicating Caesar’s conquest according to what was visible, indeed a decade after the conquest an arch is erected in Rome to mark the deification of Titus (who conquered Jerusalem) and to mark the conquest over the Temple. The end of an era… and for those with eyes to see the breath of Jesus marked the end of that era and the continuance of another era, the one who is the ‘king of kings’.

I find so much eschatology twists Scripture to fit a system, but that is not my main objection (for I could be guilty of the same) but that it leaves us with speculation always looking to the immediate future with it always remaining future. I think – even if I am wrong with this passage – better that we seek to align with the breath of Jesus in a way that my breath also seeks to annul everything that opposes God and exalts itself. Otherwise I too might be deluded – even if I can prove I know the truth!

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A community that eats

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

I heard recently that the ‘magic’ of Jesus was ‘meals and miracles’. And yesterday I gave a cursory glance at the 72 being sent out – meals and miracles were to go hand in hand. Today this text:

For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here in a good place, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit by my footstool,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor person. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into the courts? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?

What comes to mind? If you are like me then for many years I kinda imagined a ‘church’ setting with formal or even informal seating but that a notable person comes in and everyone makes sure that they have a decent seat. However… that necessitates a building of some sort and fails to grasp that the context of the meal was huge in the first Century. Huge in both the Graeco-Roman and the Jewish world, and where people were seated at the meals was a big deal, based on a hierarchy. Maybe the nearest we have in our culture is something like a wedding reception – to some extent where people are seated is important. In the culture we are engaging with in the New Testament hierarchy was ever-so-present in these settings. Think about the words of Jesus:

When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host, and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Lk. 14:7-11).

The banquet is set out hierarchically – the place of honour. Jesus then follows this on to describe how meals were to operate with his followers:

He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers and sisters or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” (Lk. 14:12-14).

In the world of that day the concept was to invite those who were important then give them a place of honour and guess what – they would repay you the honour. The instructions of Jesus over meal invitations was nothing short of a political resistance to the status quo and a turning of the world upside down! The meal table, and for sure Jesus was as much in trouble for his meal table practice as he was for his teaching. The whole aspect played out in the wider non-Jewish world with meals that honoured Caesar and the gods, look after those who carried power and influence and you too could climb the ladder socially and be successful.

This again plays out in the meal that honoured the Lord. I appreciate that there are now traditions such as mass, eucharist, or more lower church terminology such as communion, but the NT setting (‘tradition’ could be a Pauline word for this) was of a meal. It might be termed the agape meal, it was based on the Passover meal, but also sat totally within the wider meal context of that era. At the Lord’s table no place of honour was to be reserved for the rich and famous, everything was equalised. In that setting each person brought what they could for the communal meal and of course the wealthy could bring the wine and finer cuts, the poorer among them (many from the slave class) by contrast could not bring too much. But it was all presented and declared to be the ‘Lord’s table’ then all were invited to eat and drink. In Corinthians this demonstration of equality was not present, so he simply said that ‘when you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper’. The old divisions were maintained, those who had much consumed much while ignoring the others – and surely this must division, this failure to see the wonderful equalisation through the cross, has to be at the heart of ‘whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner’.

What a community Jesus imagined. This is the gift to the world. Meals, or whatever might carry a similar meaning in our setting, being the gift. And miracles – for in the absence of this egalitarian demonstration in Corinth Paul indicated that ‘for this reason many of you are weak and ill, and some have died’. Sobering words, and the opposite would bring words of hope and healing.

The magic of Jesus – meals and miracles. The lamb with the wolf. The gift to society – a Jesus’ people who do not offer the best seat to the one who is categorised as important; a people who live in a new creation and see no one according to any category, other than the creational / new creational description of ‘image and likeness’. A Jesus people who might not rise to the places of influence, but as our first quoted Scripture above says ‘Is it not the rich who oppress you?’ Not simply the individual rich person, but the system that rewards a pattern of living and that is not the pattern that is to be among us.

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Wolves and lambs

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Biblical Observations

Not exactly friends together… an invitation to partake in a picnic given to both of these animals would probably leave the lamb a little nervous – certainly if the lamb asked ‘who else is invited?’. Yet… Jesus said to his followers:

The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. Go on your way; I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves (Lk. 10:2,3).

Quite an instruction!!! I wonder if the two animals that Jesus chose was based on his meditations in Isaiah:

The wolf and the lamb shall feed together (Is. 65:25)

The context of Isaiah is of a vision of the Messianic / eschatological age when shalom will be the environment that pervades, all things brought to a place of relational wholeness, which will include all of creation. Jesus is certainly highlighting the age-old prophetic critique of not trusting God for protection (hence why are you relying on Egypt etc. OT type critique) but perhaps he is also pushing those he sends out to be consciously living out the reality of the coming Messianic age – I think that when he goes on to speak about eating together (‘eating and drinking whatever they provide’) further suggests this is in Jesus’ mind when he gives the instructions. Those sent out are not hoping for a new age, they are living in it, an age when lambs and wolves do picnic together!

Maybe the ‘other’ remains a wolf, but our vision changes. We can eat with them and as we go in carrying shalom that shalom will rest on them:

And if a person of peace is there, your peace will rest on that person, but if not, it will return to you.

We have experienced shalom, that has to be what we carry self-consciously, we can meet those who are (perhaps) not as far along the journey but are already people of peace / shalom – they are ready to welcome a new environment, a new reality. We (lambs) eat with those who could turn out to be wolves, but as we find those who long for a new reality of extensive shalom the context of eating together (initiative taken by the lambs, the risk of vulnerability being their challenge, the provision for the picnic coming from the wolves…) the signs that the kingdom has indeed come near is manifest with ‘and cure the sick who are there’.

The instruction to those sent out has far reaching effects socially. It has to, for essentially we have all been formerly wolves, the mark of which is we ‘devour one another’ to satisfy our own appetites.

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A reminder… Zoom tonight

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Updates

There is an open zoom – all welcome. It is the second Zoom on eschatology, with a focus on Matthew 24 (Luke 21; Mark 13 parallels). It will be helpful if you plan on coming if you have either read a pdf that I wrote covering this chapter with also Paul’s cryptic comment on ‘the man of lawlessness’:

The pdf is here:

The Second Horizon

or watch a video (interview):

The Zoom link is:

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

ID: 572 803 9267
Passcode: 5GkMTA

And the time is 7:30 UK time.

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Posse non or non posse

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

Nothing to do with cowboys and sherrifs with their gathered together posse, but a bit of Latin: posse non pecare or non posse pecare – mainly a question regarding the human life of Jesus: able not to sin or not able to sin. If Jesus was not able to sin then in what sense did he willingly submit to the divine purposes? Anyway quite a discussion back in the day and one that extended to the four states of humanity. Ah well!!

So what about me? By that I don’t mean something like ‘can I make sinless perfection?’ but what about the REAL me? 1 John can make a seemingly set of contrasting statements:

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8).
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin (2:1).
No one who abides in him sins (3:6).
Those who have been born of God do not sin because God’s seed abides in them (3:9).
We know that those who are born of God do not sin, but the one who was born of God protects them, and the evil one does not touch them (5:18).

So which is it? ‘I do not sin’ is my statement (the hypothetical ‘me’, just for clarification) and I am deceived; or I read this letter so that I may not sin and if (and only ‘if’) I sin I can at least get back on course. And of course claiming to be born of God it is self evident that I do not sin!!!

I am sure the writer is making a few points considerably deeper than I can grasp but I think at the heart of it is what (who) I can see. In the midst of the letter we read:

What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. (3:2).

‘See him as he is’. I am sure that when I claim ‘I know God’ it is in part true, and in part carries a little bit of self deception. Maybe that is why Paul corrects himself in Gal. 4:9:

Now, however, that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God

Do I really ‘know’ God; do I truly see God as s/he is? And as Jesus is the revelation of God (see me, see the Father) if I see Jesus as he is then I can truly claim to know God, and if I truly see Jesus then I will be like him. In truth non posse pecare, not able to sin. Not because of some pre-ordained inner nature but because of being captivated and thus motivated by love. I think Jesus was posse non pecare (not to sin being a choice, otherwise he was not like us in every way) and also non posse pecare (not able to sin) as the choice was made. Love, eternal love, permeated his being, reflected through him to us so in that sense he was not able to sin – the love makes no room for sin.

Anyway, some of all this Latin can swing around speculative discussions but what remains is my sight of Jesus, not my trying harder will help me keep on course. We see in part… one day we will see him as he is.

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2020 – the year of sight

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

I do realise that today’s date is 16 February 2024 and I have not made a mistake in the title.

I was talking to someone recently who reflected that 2020 (perfect vision) was to be the year of sight and that perhaps we were only entering that this year. My response is 2020 was indeed the year of sight – maybe there is grace to re-enter the grace of sight this year.

Jesus spoke about ears and eyes:

The reason I speak to them in parables is that ‘seeing they do not perceive, and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand’… But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.

So we can have eyes (and ears) and yet not see (nor hear). Sight is a strange thing, what we see depends on what we are looking at, and two people can even look at the same thing and see something very different. Take those who are asking the hard questions that will take them to a deeper place of faith; they might be nervous and unsure about their journey but they are pursuing a future that they see can take them beyond where they are; to others who are observing the journey they see someone who is on a journey to ‘lose their faith’.

When reflecting back on 2020 and the severity of the lockdown, the controversy over vaccines, and the devastation brought about through COVID seldom has there been something that has affected life globally at that level. Surely it was there to be SEEN. But did we have eyes to see what was ‘blidingly obvious’ or did we see it as an incovenience and we had to get back to normal asap.

Gayle and I have just returned from an extended time in the UK, beyond what we anticipated. We arrived home on Tuesday after 2 days of driving. As we drove home we passed numerous vehicles on a 15 kilometer stretch all with the sign on them ‘Overcoming Obstacles’. Then we hit the farmer’s strike with tractors blocking the main highway. Detour through single track roads and dirt tracks and meeting trucks coming the other way. Not the fastest drive and highly inconvenient. Can you read the signs?

We get home Tuesday and Gayle has to get a visa for China, leaving next Friday, a week today. Visa? That took a day to fill in the forms, get all the documents ready followed by a 7:00am train and a journey to Madrid (round trip of some 8 hours today) and the Chinese embassy, to discover that the letter of invite was in English and not acceptable. Chinese office is 8 hours ahead, those who can send the invite in Chinese are out of the office… Overcoming obstacles. Just a few minutes ago all submitted successfully, for a return trip to be made next Tuesday – another 8 hours – overcoming obstacles. Two words: obstacles which we all hate!! and overcoming – a good promise there if we have ears to hear and eyes to see.

So I consider 2020 was the year of global sight, and sight that will frame the following 20 years.

Maybe we are in a year where we can see what was there to be seen in 2020… It is certainly going to be a pivotal year, and seemingly a year when obstacles will be many, and grace to overcome will be abundant, if we engage with the obstacles.

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A video on the ‘Second Horizon’

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

I recorded an interview that Steve Watters did with me a few days back and it is now uploaded to YouTube. I have also an expanded written piece (10000 words) that go with it. The pdf article is in more detail, the video picks up why I believe Matt. 24 (maybe famous for such statements as ‘wars and rumours of wars’) is not written addressing our future but the future of those who were the immediate recipients of the words of Jesus. He made it clear that all the signs he gave would be fulfilled within the lifetime of ‘this generation’. In the pdf I also give my take on Paul’s rather cryptic reference to ‘the man of lawlessness’, again a fulfilment in the period 66-70AD seems to fit this best. The pdf is found here – read or download:

Eschatology: The Second Horizon

I will set some dates soon when for those interested I will give a short reflection on the material related to Matt. 24 and then – well who knows where the discussion will go – hopefully not to ‘wars and rumours of wars’!!!

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