God votes: let’s create mistake-making creatures

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

A little note about these posts to anyone who drops by. I have often thought should I stop, after all blogging since the late 90s is quite a long time. Two aspects keep me going… I get an email / connection that says keep on going, and I also realise that most of it is for me. I call them ‘perspectives’ but they could well be entitled ‘personal pontifications and half baked thoughts’. They are essentially for me, they are my thoughts out in the public arena. I seldom ever re-read what I wrote, sometimes I have found someone saying to me, ‘your post this week on…’ and I have no idea what is in there. I am thankful for those who comment one way or another, and give me space.

A final comment on these posts is that a reader should not assume I am somehow ‘incarnating’ what I write about. They are thoughts, and some of the thinking is along the lines of ‘maybe when you grow up (mature) you might like to consider this, Martin’. Today’s post is like that.

One of God’s wonderful gifts to humanity is the ability to make mistakes. Yes we are in the image of God, but God is not in our image. What a creative idea – let’s make them like us, but let’s add to them this ability, which will need to become a reality for them, of making mistakes.

Getting it right is not all it’s cracked up to be. Nor is it the goal of Scripture. Even the eschaton (the end) is not the telos (end point, arrival point, like the train destination). End of ‘sin’, but maybe even not the end of ‘mistakes’.

When I was 46… Martin loves to repeat stories to endless boredom… I prayed ‘if you don’t mind I would like to live to 92, as I know I need to make a whole lot of more mistakes to learn something to be of a contribution to others’. Some people probably only need a few years and mature by the time they are mid-20s and then have a resource to give away. Others are slower learners. [Note to self re prayer: you might need to add a few more years to the request, 20 have already gone and not too much has been learnt.]

I really don’t cope well with making mistakes. I overcome that ‘not coping well’ with an unhealthy dose of denial. Hey, no comments please, it has got me thus far and I decided the other day that my closest friend is me, and Gayle overtakes that position every now and then. I think though I probably need to get on my bike and learn to make mistakes, learn a little from them and get on with life.

(If I embraced) the idea of making mistakes as a gift from heaven it would really lighten the load and open the door for an exploration. I could try stuff and then move on.

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Talk like a… child?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

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

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

Childish talk…

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

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

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

Childish talk does give way to adult speech.

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Prophetic algorithms

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

On my way home today God spoke to me I had this thought… I think there are prophetic algorithms. I was meditating on a zoom I have tomorrow and what I need to say to them, when I began to compare ‘what we hear’ to what we read on social media. Although I am innocent of being engaged on social media (I do post this to facebook but then that is as far as it goes, so apologies all who comment there), I note that if I look something up online I then note that adverts in some way related to my recent search pop up here there and everywhere. Social media and her algorithms. I am interested in / I believe that the politics of the right / left are harmful in the extreme, and lo and behold all the posts, tweets and articles for me to read confirm my perspective. The whole world agrees with me, cos I was always right. Frightening and takes away any real conversation.

I was walking today where I had the ‘cacophony of noise’ attack a few weeks back, and saw that our ears are bombarded by sounds, slogans, sound bites, even some stuff that might be coming from heaven but the result was that we could hear everything and therefore hear nothing. Competing sounds, and then we probably just about manage to pick out a phrase, an angle and that is enough for us. We conclude we have heard accurately.

I consider that much of the prophetic in the West has fallen into that trap. Like a prophetic algorithm. This is now what I am hearing… look everyone is saying the same thing… I listen / read and repeat… others repeat. Conclusion: this is the word of the Lord! I don’t think so.

Ah well just a thought. My head is still probably too high, I might have just picked up a slogan.

But if the thought is kinda OK it is time to disconnect from simply hearing the voices that we agree with, and agree with us.

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Tell or not?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

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

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

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

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

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

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I am a fan

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Reports

Probably better jump over the opening paragraph and photo… the real substance lies beyond!

Gayle’s family are (except for Helen – it is good to be different and to have one ‘s own ideas) fans of Liverpool. I tend to support the referee and in my dreams would love to be a referee, thinking I could cut out all the verbal dissent with a few red cards here and there… In my dreams… remember Pierluigi Collina? Now that is someone to look up to.

But beyond referees I am a fan of Authentic Lives and the work that Gayle is involved in. I am unbiased and so can objectively say she is brilliant at it… Even if there is a touch of subjectivity there the ‘testimonies’ back are awesome. All of this is to say that a face to face course is going to be put on in Ashburnham place, hosted by Gayle and Andrew. Here are the details:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/authentic-lives-registration-270884993307

If you are able to attend you will NOT be disappointed. The costs are for the accommodation, the course is delivered for free, any donation is of course welcomed.

Maybe I should put this in a separate post but I read the following this morning. Clever guy that Tom fella. I have added the emphasis, as that is my (extremely smart) contribution to the quote:

So when someone like Paul arrived in Thessalonica or Ephesus with his message about the one God and his crucified and risen son, he was not offering an alternative way of being religious in the sense of a private hobby, something to do in a few hours at the weekend. He was offering a heart transplant for an entire community and its culture.

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Anyone got any bread?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Prophetic Perspectives

Perspectives… that is normally all we have, or as Paul said ‘we see through a glass darkly’. I have been provoked by a number of zooms I have been involved in these past weeks to consider again some aspects of a prophetic word I received in 1999. The actual word is kinda incidental, but it has pushed me to think about Joseph, Egypt and the famine in Canaan. The story you will know well.

The pandemic has been a provocation for many people and deeply challenging. Adjustments will have to be made in many places, but recently I heard a report from a conference that the worry / complaints from the leaders present were that their numbers had gone down, they had ‘lost’ people. That made me think.

The ‘bread’ that has been (mainly) offered and consumed has been on growing the church, evangelism etc. As I wrote concerning the Acts 15 council I consider that there was a shift from a Jewish world view after the New Testament era, to adopting a Hellenistic (neo-Platonic in the main) world-view. Salvation became that of the ‘soul’ being saved so that we are able to go to heaven when we die, with the dear old world being left behind as it was destined to be burned up. I do not think that accords with a Jewish world-view. Meanwhile over centuries the Jewish calling became lost with a shift in meaning as to what the purpose of election was. Thank God for voices such as Jeremiah calling for them to embed in Babylon!

The bread on offer is running out. In Europe it is already diminishing in availability… in Brazil (where I do numerous Zooms) there is still a 15 year – or so – availability, the shelves are and will remain full.

There has to be, though, a realisation that the bread is running out, otherwise there will be severe rationing; the bread will be shared among fewer people.

Now the little twist that has been provoking me.

The bread for the future is in Egypt.

There is some kind of tie here to the post I wrote about Jesus being with the wild animals. The bread is located in the Imperial setting. (For those with discernment, Someone is doing a number on me!)

However, Joseph is problematic. We should not be too harsh on him, and if I read stuff aright here we are with his example and some 3,500+ years later we still seem to peddling the same old model. That model being – the bread will be in Egypt, we have the recipe how to make it and of course it will mean the enslavement of everyone, except for those at the top, for after all we need to be practical. Or in current language, we have to get into the world and get control so that we can change the world, and those of us who follow Jesus can be really happy that our people are at the top and all those ‘Egyptians’ deserve to be enslaved anyway cos they have some really nasty gods. Let’s capture the top 3% now!

After Joseph the Imperial power is stronger than before! All the land belongs to Pharaoh. Bread is provided but… at what cost?

In conclusion then.

Bread is running out. The bread that has been on offer. The new bread is different, it is made from a different recipe. It is – hey, my perspectives – not about individual salvation but about transformation of our world; it is the valuing of one and all; it is the end of hierarchy (one day I need to write about this and the gift of leadership); creation stewarding; signposts to the age to come expressed through the images that art, architecture can show us; the distribution of the ‘soul’ of the world into the world etc…

That bread is running out in Western Europe – hence the complaints about the pandemic from that angle, and the call to get back to ‘normal’. That bread is still in evidence in many parts of the world. (Not just now a perspective, but a total unashamed bias – it is for this reason I believe Europe is pointing the way forward… the way forward is not about church growth, but about being located inside Imperial domination.)

The new bread will only be found in Egypt.

We cannot do a Joseph, but have to be located where Joseph was located. To get there we should keep the complaints about being sold, of false accusation and imprisonment, to a minimum. That is the most likely pathway, as journeying to Egypt for many followers of Jesus will never happen without the help of a little betrayal, and some false accusations…

We cannot do a Joseph and strengthen the Imperial power. The land does not belong to Pharaoh. But to the meek.

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Acts 15… good decision?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Think we have got issues? Given that the fundamental nature of the Gospel is inclusion not exclusion we got a decent starting point to consider issues, but the early church had a big one. Not simply the inclusion of the Gentiles – that hope was always there – but on what basis. [An aside for the curious or more accurately an aside encouraging all readers to purchase ‘The LifeLine’ where I begin looking at the conflict between Peter and Paul, and take it further noting that Peter (!) came close to proclaiming another Gospel, and that Paul declared that pre-Damascus as a ‘blameless Jew as far as the law was concerned’ was actually a blasphemer!! Strong stuff, makes us all look a little sad when we get caught up in petty disagreements.]

I don’t think the solution in Acts 15 was to everyone’s satisfaction. I hear the grumbling that continued in the visit of Paul to Jerusalem when James asked him to get himself to the Temple with his mates and take some clear vows. Headquarters were certainly nervous when Paul was in town!

The good part of the solution is that Paul and Barnabas (later Silas) could continue with their apostolic work to the Gentiles. That aspect seems brilliant. Others (notably Peter) worked among the Jews. A clear division of work – maybe a compromise, but I think God loves to compromise, and when we do, when it is set in a redemptive / eschatological framework. The division was not absolute with some overlap in the middle; the relationships probably remained somewhat strained but they seemed to hold together, or at least make room for some interaction down the line. So good that what is recorded is not perfect… redemption is a bridge to what is here with an eye on what is eschatological – what is not yet here.

There have been those who argue that the Jerusalem Council cut the ties to the root of the plant, opening a separation between Jew and Gentile, and that the Council should in some way be reversed. Maybe though it did not go far enough? That is always the problem with compromises when they are understood as the conclusion rather than a step along the way.

The real separation (my little thought) is not at the Jerusalem Council, for I actually think it did not go far enough, but in the post-New Testament work among the Gentiles, with the adaptation of the earthy Jewish Gospel for an other-worldly Platonic gospel.

For me Acts 15 was a healthy compromise, not the finished product; post-New Testament then accelerated the divide. For those reasons I think the current perspective of Jesus as the Jewish prophet, the true Israel gives us real hope. It de-hellenises the Gospel so it is no longer about ‘going to heaven’ but about transformation of here (hence the need for a belief in the resurrection), and it pulls us back from a Zionism that looks for some restoration of the land (promised land? but Abraham was not promised the land according to Paul…) Maybe the gap can be closed, but until there will be compromises.

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One Thing

Out of context, but...

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead (Phil. 3:13).

Never take a verse out of context… but I do like to take this one in a direction that Paul did not intend, so for the purpose of this post here is my major out of context phrase:

This one thing I do.

Each year, simply because it is a convenient turning point for me I try to home in on what is the one thing I need to focus on and seek to put an effort in to fulfil that. Of course, a good retort is ‘one thing? how lazy are you Martin?’. Good question so my response…

I hope I manage to move 20+ things forward this year from where they are to a new level, but I think that if I try and move 20+ things forward they might move but only in a small way. I have found that if I find my priority in a season it seems to act like the front end of a wedge and opens the way for other things to be achieved. Once the ‘one thing’ gets some movement then I can seriously consider the other ‘things’, but until then I am not too interested in speculating too much as to what I should do with them.

I could go on to bore you with what the one thing is, how it is beginning to move, and the two aspects right behind that one thing that are beginning to come in to focus, but when have I ever bored anyone?!! So I leave it there, hope it resonate in some way – no ‘right way of moving things forward’, particularly as I butchered that verse, so apologies to Mr. P.

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Can’t believe I am open to this

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Prophetic Perspectives

I am just a tad obsessed. I believe we are called to participate in the transformation of this world and that call is not some kind of carrot before the donkey to keep us moving in that direction without ever seeing any change. I also believe that small acts are the key. The books I wrote last year, those best sellers on every book list (cough, cough, splutter), were not made available on Amazon as that company has exhibited the Imperial spirit. A choice that makes purchasing and downloading them a lot more difficult. By not making them available there I am sure the whole economics of that company is being threatened. OR NOT! However I think small choices do make a difference, nay I suggest the difference. The two coins in the temple treasury seems to have released the prophetic revelation and declaration that resulted in one of the most magnificent buildings of the New Testament era coming down.

[Sidenote confession not to be read: I of course close my eyes to the complicit nature of my behaviour and choices in keeping the system intact, and focus on the one or two things that don’t cost me, but make me feel good… Though I think amidst any hypocrisy I do seek to make conscious small choices.]

So what am I open to that shocks me? Let’s take a step back.

Animals were used to portray nations from a Jewish perspective in Scripture. Domesticated (= good / Israel) and wild animals (= bad / Gentile nations), and then by extraction Imperial powers were portrayed by animals that could not be tamed, often termed ‘beasts’. (One of the reasons I do not read Daniel into the lion’s den as literal… something stronger than facing a literal wild animal was at stake, and given that the latter part of Daniel is written in Greek it served as a very powerful stimulus to resist the Greek / beastly occupation of the land.)

Mark’s short Gospel seems to be written to get us from A to B as quickly as possible, hence the continual use of ‘and immediately’, which becomes so repetitive that the English translations tend to obscure it passing over it as such repetition does not read well. And into the breathlessness of Mark there are significant pauses when he adds detail, detail often omitted by the other writers. If detail is added it is certainly not insignificant. One such detail comes in the temptation narrative.

He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

He was with the wild beasts. Those beasts somehow had found a place in the shalom that Jesus brought – and of course an eschatological snapshot of the future referred to in such Scriptures as ‘the wolf will lie with the lamb’. The future was taking place in Jesus, in the resistance to the devil – this is why an ‘open heaven’ is much more complex than ‘I had 12 overcoming testimonies before breakfast’.

The picture does not seem to be one of opposition… it does not appear that the wild animals were eliminated… so if beasts (Daniel’s visions, Revelation and the sea / land beasts) represent Empires what are we to make of all this?

Part of what has provoked me in these past 6 months was the understanding that COVID was to give us a hard reset, and yet statistics show that the big corporations have simply steamed ahead, with the gaps between the wealthy and the not-wealthy having increased, so I have been asking what kind of reset have we seen?

As always being a believer in the priestly call of the body the real reset that I think we were to focus on was within the body. We, the small people, become the widow with the two coins to bring about a different future. I wonder if we have submitted / experienced the reset or are simply coming out the other side to return to singing our songs, while there is something much more significant that we can engage with (a kind of side-reference to my dream in 2010 of the façades opening up). I really hope we have and are ready to go through the doors that we can choose from that are in front of us.

Part of what will indicate we have gone through the reset will be a new wave of apostolic and prophetic presence at a foundational level where there is currently no building, no building that is somewhat reflective of that New Jerusalem.

It seems cos of our abuse of nature that pandemics will become something of the future landscape, but in spite of that I think it is now time to call ‘time up’ for this particular pandemic. Sufficient has taken place for the reset to be responded to by those who can / should respond… and the wild beasts continue.

Who is going to ride on the back of the wild beasts?

Revelation gives us an image of who rides on the back of the beast, and Jesus refused the offer of the ready made structure of the Roman Empire (the offer of the kingdoms of this oikoumene). In the light of that image and the clear refusal I can hardly believe what I might be open to consider.

Could it be that we are supposed to learn how to co-habit space with the beasts, so that the shalom we live in means they are not destructive?

I probably need to click publish real soon, before either deleting this post, or completely selling my soul.

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A whole lot of groaning

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

There are three connected ‘groans’ in Romans 8:

For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Rom. 8:15).

That’s a pretty clear cry, though it is childlike, not at all sophisticated, and a cry that comes from deep within.


We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies (Rom. 8:22, 23).

Two groans in these verses with creation and ‘we ourselves’ groaning. These two are placed together as they are deeply related.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words (Rom. 8:26).

Ever despaired as to how to pray? Sure, praying in tongues helps, and maybe Paul has that in mind here, but I think he is also pushing for something deeper than that, with a word used only once in the NT (alaletos, from a related word for ‘mute’ – alalos), maybe we could say with sighs / groans that are inarticulate, sounds without words.

Land / geography holds the corporate memory and so responds from that memory until either the memory is healed or new memories come in. New, as in new and different, do not occur naturally as memory locked in the geography draws yet more of the same kind of action to itself thus layering and re-enforcing earlier memories. (The rape of Dinah in Gen. 34 and the subjugation of the woman in John 4 seem related, being the same geography though separated by more than 1000 years. The pain from Genesis 4 is still present and manifesting in John 4.) Thus there has to be a healing for the memory locked in the land.

The land, responding as victim shouts with a voice of pain, that sound being one that is seeking recompense. Land does not by itself automatically release the pain through forgiveness. We have to hear the voice of the land, but we also have to help the land to articulate more than pain and to rise up so that ‘a better word than that of the blood of Abel’ is spoken; that original word coming up from the land being one that was requiring justice. If that voice is heard and responded to then the cycle will simply continue.

Back then to the Scriptures in Romans 8.

The Spirit within us groans with inarticulate sounds, sounds that cannot be put into words. We might not be able to articulate with words, but in yielding to the Spirit a sound is made, a groan is offered that will connect with creation.

This un-wordy groaning is for the future, for something different than that which is here now to manifest, something that is in line with liberation. The groaning calls for the future but springs from the past. The past of a simple understanding that we have been set free, that an unsophisticated, childlike cry of ‘Abba Father’, an expression of freedom is what we also desire for the land that is beyond us and yet present to us. Nothing smart there, something that could even be viewed as naive and childlike.

And in the same way creation has been groaning for liberation, a liberation akin to ours. Creation becomes our responsibility (nothing new there – consistent from the creation stories onwards).

We were in bondage, the Spirit comes and we receive a firstfruit, and respond with ‘Abba Father’.
Creation likewise is in bondage, but ‘sees’ our future and groans for the same. I suggest looking for our response. How do we respond, for we feel weak; the Spirit comes to align us toward the future, perhaps also we should expect that the land could receive her firstfruits, some measure of freedom, even if not the fullness.

I wonder also with this liberation of the family of God if we are not challenged to hear something from heaven that we can teach the land to speak forth. In 2 Cor. 12:4 Paul speaks of being

caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat.

Although he uses another (rarely used) word regarding what he heard, there seems something parallel to the Spirit’s help. ‘Inarticulate sounds’ and ‘sounds that are not to be put into words’. Could it be that to truly help the land we have to hear some sounds that cannot be put into words so that the land calls out beyond a cry for recompense but we teach the land to also groan without words?

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Perspectives