Perspectives – Page 28 – blogs, comments & discussion hosted by Martin Scott

Beni Johnson

Posted on 14th July, 2022
by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

Many of you will know Beni Johnson, married to Bill, where with many others they have dedicated themselves to a ‘culture of honour’ amidst a pursuit of the miraculous. Yesterday, Beni, passed away having battled with cancer in recent times.

I first met the Johnson family in April 1998 as they graciously invited me to address the church on a Sunday evening. Flowing on from that I had many visits there and had many private conversations with Bill. A public figure, and as such will always attract criticism; I think though there is never a higher accolade than ‘what a person is in public that is what they are in private’. He never promoted himself, and held to a line based on his convictions when many others would have deviated.

Of course there will be many questions and insinuations that will now come their way. I wrote to Kris, at Bethel, earlier this year that since March 2021 I had been praying for them, as a number of attacks were being set up against them. There are ‘days of evil’ or ‘opportune times’; not all of life moves forward at an even pace.

The global body of Christ. The multiplicity amidst diversity. I honour the partnership that I have observed close up as well as at a distance. They held to a true line. 2009 was my last visit (with Gayle) to Bethel. We had to personally dig into our new geography and be more hidden than before. The occasional communication has taken place, but nothing face to face.

A few years back I had a tattoo placed on my spine. It simply reads ‘TRUE NORTH’ with an arrow and a compass for the ‘O’. I sometimes wish it was more visible for me to see, but up my spine it has to be.

I honour what I have seen in the Johnson family, holding to their true north.

Beni has entered her rest. We will all follow. In the in-between time we too must hold to the line of our convictions.

Boundaries and inheritance

Posted on 13th July, 202213th July, 2022
by Martin Scott
Posted in Biblical Observations

A number of years ago I was in Sacramento, maybe some 20 years ago and I was with a group of people who were looking at the ‘Church beyond the congregation’ (Thank you Mr. Jim T). At one point the person hosting asked someone to share her story. She worked in a Credit Union and was part of the department that had to follow through with people whose debt was a significant problem, making contact by phone. The sharp end for some unpleasant conversations. She explained that she began to realise that she could not view being in work as simply so that she could earn some money. After all God was her Provider. She then came across Ps. 16:6,

The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
I have a goodly heritage (NRSV).

The boundary line so have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance. (NIV)

The clear implication is that within the boundary lines there is an inheritance. She began to thank God for her boundary lines at work, and began to ask for the inheritance within those boundaries. She went on to explain (humbly) that recently they had had in-house training for her department, and at the end of the session the trainer said, ‘But if truth be out, and you really want to work well here, talk to Rose (not her real name) for we have so many commendations from our clients about her work.’

She had called people as they were planning their suicide and averted that giving them hope, she had contacted people and had been able to share wisdom that had saved them from yet more debt; the bank had received calls and letters saying what a credit she was to them and how much she had helped them.

That story has stuck with me. First, a move to acknowledge the boundary as coming from heaven, then seeking to uncover the inheritance there, that inheritance always will involve what we can be for someone else, how we can at some level become a ‘life-giving spirit’.

Our boundaries will always be challenged. I suggest two of the main ways is through jealousy or through intimidation. Jealousy will always seek to displace us, to dislocate us (and one of the reasons why a percentage of joint issues are rooted in jealousy that has been unleashed against us, Proverbs informing us that though anger is cruel, jealousy is at another level and asks if we can even stand against it). Jealousy results in an encroachement on our boundaries, that piece of land that is indeed ours. This encroachement is warned against:

Do not remove the ancient landmark that your ancestors set up (Prov 22:28).

Do not remove an ancient landmark or encroach on the fields of orphans, for their redeemer is strong;
he will plead their cause against you (Prov 23:10,11).
You must not move your neighbor’s boundary marker, set up by former generations, on the property that will be allotted to you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess (Deut. 19:14).
Cursed be anyone who moves a neighbor’s boundary marker.” All the people shall say, “Amen!” (Deut 27:17).
The princes of Judah have become like those who remove the landmark; on them I will pour out my wrath like water (Hos. 5:10).

God does not take too kindly to it when we get involved in boundary moving and seek to encroach on another’s sphere. It was there in the original plan for the land, and thankfully even when there was bad stewardship the boundaries were to be restored in the year of Jubilee.

Jealousy and also intimidation to push someone back from their allotted place.

We can stand, even if Proverbs says ‘who can stand’. And stand we must, being the one central instruction in the ‘spiritual warfare’ (for this read ‘life’) passage. When the day of evil comes, stand, stand firm, withstand… That is important as the demonic (opposition in life) has a limitation on it location / territorial wise and time-wise. If we hold our boundaries then we restrict the location aspect and if we hold in the time frame will change.

In the middle of the passage on Gideon’s army we come across a statement that, ‘While each person held their position around the camp, all the Midianites ran, crying out as they fled’. Their position. No comparison, no competition, no jealousy, no intimidation, no inordinate fear of inadequacy, no seeking to comply to someone else’s view of us, etc… Just here are my boundaries (one day they might increase) and in them I am something for someone else as I have an inheritance here.

Mount of Olives

Posted on 7th July, 20229th July, 2022
by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

I am pretty convinced that most of us will be somewhat surprised if we hang on too tight to our convictions about the parousia of the Lord (literally meaning ‘presence’, and used in the Graeco-Roman world for the arrival / presence of the emperor upon visiting the city, so the opposite of ‘absence’). If the expectations among Jews at the time of Jesus was diverse – one Messiah, a kingly one, a priestly one, two Messiahs, no Messiah – not to mention how do we bring in the kingdom – hence the sects, the debates as to who was Israel, and the classification of ‘the sinners’ was not as a result of a quoting of Rom. 3:23 evangelistic style, but a classification that ‘birth certificate says Jewish’ but cos you don’t fit with our approach, you are not viewed as ‘a true Jew’ but a ‘sinner’. OK point of that convulting sentence was that the ideas and practices surrounding Jewish expectations regarding the kingdom of God was varied. Turned out none of them were right… hence ‘repent’ was the first requirement, a change your mind, not a repeat after me ‘I am a guilty sinner and a very bad person’.

The likelihood is none of us have it all right either. There are some views that just seem so untenable, others such as mine that I don’t think distort Scripture, but who knows? Anyway been thinking about an OT Scriture so want to put a spin on it today. OT Scritures relating to the future are so challenging, for once they are read through the NT lens the meaning they seemed to have carried gets significantly changed (yes I am in Ezekiel in my readings this morning… wow not even sure where to begin with a NT lens at times on that one!).

Jesus is coming back to the MOunt of Olives, the mountain splits… blah, blah, millennial rule from Jerusalem etc:

On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives, which lies before Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley; so that one half of the Mount shall withdraw northward, and the other half southward (Zech. 14:4).

The kingdom… future, past, ongoing? Or to put it another way how many horizons are there in reality? For me some big ones: the Incarnation through to Ascension; the outpouring of the Spirit; the Jewish wars of 66-70AD; some final parousia and maybe a few smaller horizons in between and among all of those when the kingdom comes in some way, where we ‘see the Son of Man coming in the clouds’.

At Passover time Jerusalem became ever so crowded, those with money and connections and got in there early could get accommodation in the city, but a sizeable number, certainly in the thousands made camp on the Mount of Olives and slept there overnight. This is why the authorities needed Judas to guide them to Jesus as his group was one of many on the Mount, as it would have been an incredible task to find someone amidst that number.

So ‘on that day’ his feet did indeed stand on the Mount of Olives, and the thousands of Jews there were split (and split representatively of the nation as a whole) as a result of the ensuing events, some for Jesus, a crucified Messiah (getting over the offence of such an idea), and others who could only see such a figure as a blasphemer who was judged by Rome, Jewish Torah obedience and ultimately by God.

I throw this concept out there. Might not be right but I think (if we are looking for a ‘fulfilment’) fits much better than the idea of Jesus descending to the Middle East at some future time.

Roe v Wade: all simple?

Posted on 1st July, 20221st July, 2022
by Martin Scott
Posted in Prophetic Perspectives

Roe v Wade – so many rejoicing… and personally knowing some of those who have prayed over years it must be amazing. On this site many of you will have met Michele Perry, a friend of Gayle and mine for years. We first met the end of 2011 in Cádiz when she came to stay with us, five flights later we met her in Jerez airport. In those days we had no car and so had to run to catch the train… running… I had asked Michele ‘how will we recognise you in the airport?’ She laughed, ‘I think I will be the only woman of 4’6″ with one leg in the airport’. True to her word she was, and then we ran for the train, followed by an all but 2km walk back along cobble streets in the wet.

That is a small insight into her bravery. Before coming to us, she lived in a literal war zone, pioneering mission work in South Sudan. Brave is an understatement… and other understatements are ‘sharp’ and ‘always willing to pioneer’.

She is ‘pro-life’. Please read her article in response to Roe v Wade being overturned. Here is simply one quote:

I came to see the Pro-Life Movement in the United States wasn’t about the preservation of life as I once thought. It was about preserving political power

What a complex world we live in. Michele said to me ‘I will probably get in trouble for what I have written’. Well that won’t be the last time for sure.

Why I Believe the Pro-Life Movement Isn’t Actually About Life at All

Poem #2 by Joanna

Posted on 30th June, 202228th June, 2022
by Joanna McCullagh
Posted in Poetry

In this poem I was trying to understand some of the meaning of ‘blessed are the poor in spirit’. I can’t say I got to the bottom of what it truly means as it is a great mystery and impossible to fully grasp, yet a great comfort. It came out of my own suffering knowing that Jesus is near to me in spite of, but also because of it.

King

Lonely wanderer
Still your troubled brow
Take a moment to sink
Into the easy embrace
Of the warm lamb man
Who comforts those who mourn
And bears the marks of thorns and nails

The bright blessed flawless ones
Walk on heads held high
Striding forward into the glorious heights

But he lifts up the broken, and the weary
And they get taken to his sanctuary
To the intimate place
Where healing and union happen
He binds up the wounds
And washes the feet
Of the unwashed and the weak
So faint from suffering
They cannot lift their heads
Cradled in his arms
Rags put off and robes put on
Laid down beside the river
That gently meanders through the meadow
The sound that soothes the soul
He sits, just sits right there
Never leaves and when ready
The dove breathes
The poor and weak revived.

I am Joanna. A mother of a 22 year old daughter, Katie and a wife of Derek. During 2007-2010 I experienced a real awakening and experienced a powerful move of the Spirit through various ministries and at my church. I prayed for many people and it was powerful sometimes. However in May 2010 when I was 42 years old my life changed forever when I experienced a small but devastating Cerebellar stroke. It affected my balance and has caused me perpetual vertigo ever since mainly a rocking sensation and is an unseen disability which greatly limits my life. I had to give up my job working in a university library which I loved mainly because of the friends I made there and our wonderful relationships. So I have lived 12 years in the desert effectively and suffered a great deal at the hands of my illness which has led to trauma and anxiety. It has caused me to at times be in deep despair and to question my faith and whether I even have a place in this world. However, it’s as the disciples said to Jesus when he asked them if they still wanted to follow him ‘where else would I go’. I have known him in the valley and on the mountaintops in the past and he is ever present in both places though I experience him differently now than I did. It is more of the still small voice than the waves of his presence and experience of glory etc.than I felt in the past. I would love to be healed but have learned to accept things to some extent and wait to see if things may ever change? I do my best to be ‘salt’ and ‘light’ where I find myself but fail I’m sure on many occasions. I am always searching for answers and understanding though which is partly why I have written poetry and other reflections on issues affecting our world.

Poem #1 by Joanna

Posted on 29th June, 202228th June, 2022
by Joanna McCullagh
Posted in Poetry

Joanna sent me a couple of poems on reflections that I asked if I could post here. She has been on a number of Zooms with me, like us all with questions (are there really more questions that answers, or am I simply discovering that I am not as smart as I once was / thought I was?). Below is the first one followed by her ‘bio’ in her words. I will publish the second one tomorrow.

In this poem I think I was inspired by a variety of themes. I was talking about the presence of God in the mountaintop experience and in the valley. Psalm 139 came into it – where can I go from your presence etc.? My own inability to rescue myself. Also reflecting on the divisions in society and political polarisation (particularly at the time when Brexit and Trump were big issues) and the weakness of selfishness and hate. Also descent of love in the person of Jesus into the abyss and the ultimate triumph of love over all experience,resurrection. God is love…

Love

Beneath the pinnacles
Of high ecstatic bliss
Beneath the oracles
Of wisdom unending
I stand, I sit, I lie
Searching for the inerrant truth
For the utter heights
Of giddy redemption
Of everlasting light

Boxed into my shadowy dwelling
Beneath the grassy earthen roof
By unharmonious voices
I push against the absolute
Against the harsh wall
Of implacable certainty
Human thought may vary
Violent, utter, hard
But love speaks louder
But love has the first word, the last word

Swimming against the flow of the false positive
She transcends the dead work of human slant
She swipes at death
Her beauty soars swiftly
Up, up into the heavens and beyond
And bathes creation in her rainbow glow
Cradling all the broken fragments of humanity
In her tender arms
Kissing the earth
With a mother’s mouth

Sight will clarify

Posted on 23rd June, 202220th June, 2022
by Martin Scott
Posted in Prophetic Perspectives

There is a pattern in the earlier chapters of the book of Revelation that is about ‘hearing’ being clarified by ‘sight’. The latter chapters are sight, sight, sight… and not a few strange sights at that: apocalyptic literature in its fullness!

Here are some examples in the early chapters:

1:10 I heard voice like a trumpet…
1:12 I turned to see (saw lampstands) then came clear one standing in the midst of the lampstands
4:1 heard a voice…
4:1 come up here and I will show you… then description of sight 5:1 saw, 5:5 saw, 5:11 Looked, 6:1 saw
6:1 heard leads to 6:2 looked, followed by that pattern being repeated
7:4 I heard… leads to 7:9 After this I looked

And in the midst of the Rev. 5 passage, John hears a well known Scriptural image – the Lion of the Tribe of Judah… he turns and he sees a Lamb slain.

The last example is very key. Scriptural imagery that we can recite, but greatly re-interpreted. Without that re-interpretation it is not possible to ‘see’ the book of Revelation, those chapters and that sight re-shaping what was understood being so central.

At a wider level, we hear so much, we can repeat so much that we have heard, we rely on what we have heard / been taught. The hearing interprets what we see. But Revelation has a significant pattern of what we see interpreting what we have heard. This can be at a transcendent level. We receive revelation that challenges the past; or at an imminent level and what we see does not fit what we have heard.

Sight might come in an instant, or it might come in stages (John – lampstands –> one walking in the midst of the lampstands)… or it might come as we persist and refuse to let go of the dissonance between what we have heard and what we see.

Fresh sight is to break. That was one of the emphases that John Robinson had about our understanding of Scriture. (Robinson was the ‘pastor’ to the pilgrims who travelled to the Americas).

I am verily persuaded the Lord hath more truth yet to break forth out of His Holy Word.

I wrote to someone this morning after he sent me an article on Artificial Intelligence. OH my are we challenged, and what will the future hold, and what about my book Humanising the Divine?! We have also had some correspondence regarding those who are holding to the same line as the Reformers on virtually every approach (cross, predestination, election, hell etc.). They might be right (did I write that? Surely not!) but an insistence on that momentous era of the Reformation being the, more or less, end of our understanding is troublesome. We are so clearly at the end of an era… The biggest financial crisis is on us, food crises, fossil fuels, climate etc. Could we simply be at an end, or could we be at the beginning?

I don’t know how we respond to the AI direction. All accept a chip and become super-human? Resist it and find that we repeat the errors of how progress has been resisted in the past? Yes there is Babylon / Babel in there, but wonderfully we know that Babylon is never a finished work.

In it all, I have no idea how we respond… but surely there are aspects in this new time that we as believers can press into. Jesus at the centre, but maybe what he is bringing will have a surprise or three. I am thankful (yes, even for so much of the Reformation, and for the early church writers) for the past… but there is a new era here.

Never came to pass

Now that is embarrassing

Posted on 21st June, 202221st June, 2022
by Martin Scott
Posted in Prophetic Perspectives

Getting it wrong can happen for some of the reasons I have flagged up for example, projectionism (if I were God I would say…), this is what I want to happen, prophesying from one own’s bias etc. In this post I am going to look at a final area one that I have no category for!

I owe these examples to John Goldingay in his Old Testament Theology.

Jeremiah says that Jehoiakim would die without honour, with his body dragged around and thrown outside the city gates, and then no descendent would sit on his throne (Jer. 22:18-19; 36:30). BUT… he received a propher burial and his son succeeded him (2 Kings 24:6).

I do like Jeremiah – I read a few days ago when he said ‘Ok I know you do all things well, but if I could just talk to you I do have a complaint about what you do and how you do it (my paraphrase). And Jeremiah prophesied to Zedekiah that he would not die by the sword but peacefully with people mourning for him (Jer. 34:4-5). Continue reading and Zedekiah is captured, has his eyes pulled out and then dies in prison. A fulfilment?

In Ezekiel chapters 26-28 we have the prophecy that Nebuchadnezzar (Babylon) will defeat Tyre, kill its inhabitants, plunder the wealth and bring the walls down flat. Indeed the text suggests that Tyre will disappear and never be found again. In due course Nebuchadnezzar did come against the city, but the effect was nothing like was prophesied (a few hundred years later one might be able to suggest that Alexander the Great came close to fulfilling that). What is also interesting is that it seems that there is a further word to Nebuchadnezzar along the lines of – well that did not work out but you will attack Egypt (Ezek. 29:17-20)… that one did not work out either!

OUCH!!!

I have no idea what category to put those in, and these are not some prophecies on some super powerful internet web site, but inside the covers of our Bible. Maybe there was some repentance that went on that changed things? Maybe there is far more human interaction that affects the outcome than a simple ‘God said’ factor?

Mistakes are to be avoided. Mistakes that flow from our spiritual defects are likely, or very likely if we do not approach things humbly with the only focus of expressing God’s care and love. And when all is said and done and we enter the realm of the Jeremiah’s and Ezekiel’s of the prophetic world we will have to be able to live with ‘can’t explain that… and yes it is embarrassing!’ One thing is for sure we can never close the door to being criticised.

[Footnote. A view that has become widespread (and popular in charismatic circles) that sems to originate from the work of Wayne Grudem is that the Old Testament prophets spoke the ‘very words of God’, the NT prophets did not, but the apostles did indeed speak such words does not seem to be sustainable in the light of the above non-fulfilments. I actually consider that the belief is probably more motivated to uphold a view of Scripture that is tied to a belief in inerrancy. I remember in my days from long ago sitting listening to lectures on the NT by Dr. Donald Guthrie where he sought to prove at lengths that each of the NT books were ‘apostolic’, written by, or for, or at least under the clear and direct influence of one of those original apostles. I have never understood why we try to put on the Bible what it does not seem to claim for itself. What a book we have… and I think if we let it be what it is we will be pointed to Jesus while responding to the internal invite to disagree with some of what we read. Come on, reader, do you agree with all you read there? Really?]

Not fulfilled – not contending

Posted on 20th June, 202220th June, 2022
by Martin Scott
Posted in Prophetic Perspectives

Prophecy… prohesy in part… prophecy not inevitable… prophecy not future-telling… prophecy inhabits the world of promise.

Promises. That is the world of the bible, and of course being that I lean heavily into the ‘future is not fixed’ promise is just a wonderful category. What mght be? Oh careful you might get into the realm of imagination… yes and then I might just connect with the God who answers above what we think or imagine.

And…

Then contend for fulfilment.

Elisha was suffering from a sickness. Later he would die from it. Jehoash, the king of Israel, went down to see him. He sobbed over him. “My father!” he cried. “You are like a father to me! You are the true chariots and horsemen of Israel!”
Elisha said to Jehoash, “Get a bow and some arrows.” So he did.
“Hold the bow in your hands,” Elisha said to the king of Israel. So Jehoash took hold of the bow. Then Elisha put his hands on the king’s hands.
“Open the east window,” Elisha said. So he did. “Shoot!” Elisha said. So he shot.
“That’s the Lord’s arrow!” Elisha announced. “It means you will win the battle over Aram! You will completely destroy the men of Aram at Aphek.” (2 Kings 13:14-19).

Good word Elisha! Now Jehoash pick up the arrows and strike the ground. ‘Not enough, I will have to change the word I gave you… no longer completely’, but

But now you will win only three battles over them.

Repentance can change the outcome (Jonah); lack of persistence can change the outcome; expectations / fantasy can change the outcome / making ‘part’ the whole can change the outcome; adding the next word to the others we have received in some sort of collection can change the outcome.

I have benefitted from prophecy, am thankful for responses to prophetic words I have given… but am so aware that for many reasons we might not fully benefit from what has been said.

Not fulfilled – repentance

Posted on 19th June, 202216th June, 2022
by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

Jonah, you old false prophet you, where is the destruction you prophesied? Although I don’t think there is any reason to think Jonah was literal (and I am not sure if Jesus thought he was literal… OK just a rattling of the cages in those totally aside, probably irrelevant comments), there is so much to learn.

Jonah did have some internal issues. And those were not dealt with after getting on with the job. He came to the city of Nineveh that never took three days to walk across(!) but probably did symbolically. Three days of being in the place of death, covered in whale vomit, is the only way to walk across any city. And certainly there is no way a city can be walked across and words of judgement be brought without carrying the vomit of one’s own failures with us.

When we do that we think we do well… until it does not turn out right. Yes, we all deserve judgement, but I have repented… so still show up and expose this city as evil. God doesn’t do it and then plays a game with Jonah. Up grows this shade, this protection only for it to go again. The shade of our repentance hiding the bigger issue of not understanding the mercy of heaven. God’s mercy is extended… even because in the city are many cattle! God’s respect for and love for creation, his sight of cattle is bigger and more merciful than all of us who have been so repentant and humble. That is just a cover for when the shade goes it is exposed. ‘I have gone through this and that…’ get’s exposed with and ‘I still don’t understand the love and mercy of God’.

Prophecy is not automatic. I love when we get warnings. Gayle hates it. She is the ‘glass is half full’ and never wants anything that changes that opinion. I need her cos I am ‘look the glass is half-empty’. In my glass half-empty scenario the real issue is to find how we can fill it right up or at least as close to the top as possible. For me warnings help! When we hear this is before you, set out for your destruction, I think OK now what are we to do as none of that is ‘predestined’.

Thank God for unfulfilled prophecies. For what can be turned.

So to the negative people, those who see demons here there and everywhere (OK simply writing to me in this paragraph)… you see some of that cos of internal issues. Getting swallowed by the whale was not enough. You do stink with the vomit, but there are deeper issues. Issues about understanding how God sees cattle!

But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.” Then the Lord said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals (cattle)?

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