Paradigm – the witness challenge

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by Martin Scott
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We are called to witness not evangelise

Careful!! I am not saying do not evangelise, but I am challenging the core of what we are called to be. I also promised to write a little tersely so do not want to nuance what I write too much. I do write though with a conviction that we are first called to be witnesses, and in particular witnesses to another world, or maybe we could say to the true calling of this world. Summed up in 2 Corinthians 5: 16-19 (emphasis added):

From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

Good verses to read while also looking in a mirror… Everything is new, not will become new, and not simply the born again person has become a ‘new creature’ but there is a whole new creation. What a challenge to live bearing witness to the new creation. Talk about a tension that affects all of life. We often say, for example, ‘money is rubbish’ yet we, like our neighbours buy our food, pay our bills through the rubbish that money is. How do we live having to use it, but to live in such a way that we bear witness to a different world?

Evangelism is challenging. When to say something, and how many times have we all kicked ourselves afterwards when we missed an opportunity. Yet evangelism can become an excuse not to live the life of witness, and even worse it can treat people as objects, thus effectively demonising the image of God. Evangelism in the sense of sharing the realities of sin, Jesus death on the cross, forgiveness etc. fits into the context of witnessing, but witnessing cannot be reduced to evangelism. It is a much bigger concept, and a much more demanding one. Come follow me as I follow Christ is much more demanding than ‘do not look at me but let me tell you the facts I have distilled from the Bible’.

The need for witnesses of the new creation is so needed, and if we took it more seriously would affect so much of what is taught and practised.

The body of Christ as royal priesthood

This has been a strong theme for us over the past few years but I do not apologise for the repetition. Losing sight of this is what caused Israel to lose her way, and is probably behind what gave rise to the synagogue life. In Babylonic exile because of sin can both be seen as a punishment and an opportunity. The opportunity being to live in the context of alienship within a strange land, but deeply connected to that strange land to help it move forward.

I grew up with only a pejorative understanding of the word ‘world’. It was not simply fallen but essentially evil and to be avoided. However, reading the Gospels it is evident that Jesus embraced that world. His work in Israel was both to bear the sin of Israel and to get the calling of the redeemed people back on track, restoring ‘witness to the nations’ as royal priesthood.

There are two ways in which a community of people, or a defined society / group can be seen. They can be seen as a community that is shaped by a concept of being there for one another. That clearly is an emphasis in Scripture concerning the church. Some 30 or so times we read in the Pauline letters the phrase ‘one another’ (love, encourage, rebuke, care for etc.). The other way of understanding a defined group is that their core raison d’être is as a movement. A movement is not in existence primarily for one another, but is motivated with a vision for the society beyond the movement, the society of which they are a part. MLK’s ‘I have a dream’ speech is a very clear articulation of a movement’s inner core. The dream is not that the Civil Rights movement will pat each other on the back but that they will catalyse a future day that is in line with the movement’s core convictions. A movement lives and acts to see the wider community transformed, and once the vision is fulfilled the movement no longer has a reason to exist. Community in the sense of being there for one another is present within Scripture but is subsidiary to that of movement. Israel was a community but had a calling that gave their ‘one another’ element a context. They were not to be a ‘I’ll pat you on the back’ kind of people but were to carry the Creator’s image into the whole world. The idea that an embassy in Jerusalem is fulfilling prophecy seems so sadly missing the point of prophecy… embassies of heaven in every locality, not found in a building with a plaque on the wall but living stones thorough whom the presence and values of Christ are shown. Buildings might be present but the real issue is the spiritual building fit for God’s presence.

If we grasp the royal priesthood call of God’s-through-redemption-people we will see that God has commissioned such a people to impact the world of God’s-through-creation-people. God is not coming to condemn the world but to redeem the world, the church and all that is in it is not the sum total of God’s belongings, the Scriptures pronounce that the earth and all its fullness is God’s.

God is at work in the church so that he can be at work in the world. This was the call of Israel all along as a special chosen people, chosen to be uniquely aligned with God so that the world might come into her destiny, so that the nations (Gentiles, not ‘nations’ in the narrow and modern sense of nation-state) might live out their destiny. We have to work out what means, the same as ancient Israel was to work it out. Were the nations to become subsumed under Israel, were they to live out all the same laws, even the ones that instructed them to avoid mixing the materials that their clothes were made from! Likewise we have to work it out, and I don’t think the direction is toward a ‘Christian nation’, but to enabling a nation to fulfil her destiny. Destiny seems always to be defined by something outward, hence a nation reaching her destiny can only be measured by the level to which they serve others, others outside its borders and all others within its borders.

The church in the land then has to serve in such a way as to limit the influence of the dominant principalities that resist the true destiny of a nation manifesting. In that sense the church will never make a good state religion! But is there to enable the nation to serve and facilitate values that are Jesus-values.

We could also write that God is involved in the world and there are areas where the church has to get her skates on and catch up, and in catching up get on board with some Jesus-values also.

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Paradigms – there to here

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

In a few hours I pick up a new set of glasses, Gayle insisting that I get a new pair, saying that it is time to see things differently post our time in Prague. (Maybe given that the current pair lenses are scratched meaning I have to take them off to read small print might also be a factor?) It is certainly good to get one’s sight checked up and get any prescription upgraded from time to time, and just as with physical sight so with spiritual. The lenses that we see things through and what we see as central change over the years. In a few posts that follow I reflect on what I think should be more central in our focus. It does not necessarily mean that is all we see but what else we see will be in the light of what we consider central. I will seek to write tersely and pointedly as I realise my own perceptions have changed when I have become uncomfortable, and often after a defensive reaction.

Heaven and earth not heaven and hell

If we ran a simple experiment of giving the Scriptures to someone to read who had never read them and then did a word association asking what word would they put with ‘heaven and…’ I am convinced they would put the word ‘earth’. There might also be a contrast between heaven and hell in Scripture, but I think we only get there by suggesting many of the narratives, prophetic Scriptures or apocalyptic imagery are referring to heaven and that the ‘fire, wailing and gnashing of teeth’ references are to something akin to Dante’s inferno. Regardless of how we understand life after death, or life post-parousia the primary comparison and contrast in Scripture to heaven is earth. Land issues are not a periphery topic with the very term used some 1200 times. Many references are to the land of Israel but those also can point beyond those boundaries as Paul makes clear that God’s promise to Abraham’s seed was the whole earth.

‘This world is not my home I’m just a passing through’ is an understandable song sung by those caught in the evils of slavery, but the lyrics are not easy to root in the pages of our holy book.

If we make the ‘heaven and earth’ the primary way of seeing and not ‘heaven and hell’ this will have immense ramifications. We can add to this the Scripture that affirms that the heavens belong to God, but the earth he has given to humanity. Here becomes our responsibility, ours to pray that your kingdom come… your will done here as in heaven.

Movement is from heaven to earth

Right from the creation narratives onward all (permanent) movement is from heaven to earth. The creation narratives have three elements – the heavens, the waters and the earth. What is in heaven has to come to earth, with the language suggesting that creation is some sort of cosmic temple. The last element placed in the ancient temples being the image of the deity. The task for this image (humanity), is not only to represent but to act on behalf of the deity, cultivating the land so that what is in heaven is on earth. The waters can be seen as a divide between heaven and earth, that which resists the coming of heaven to earth, that which has to be subdued in order for heaven to manifest. In John’s final visions he sees all things renewed, ‘a new heaven and a new earth…’ but no waters. That unruly, resistant element has gone.

There is some movement from earth to heaven in Scripture but this seems to be a temporary movement. Even with the resurrected Jesus, we are told that the ‘heavens receive him until’, The most astounding part of the eschaton is that God moves his location. It is not the end of ‘heaven’ but it again expresses that God-movement is from heaven to earth.

Death is a reality, and there is a rest that comes with it, but in this expression of earthly life before-death we are making a contribution to the coming of the age when there is no more death. Life after death does seem to be a NT expression, but it is peripheral, with the real hope being resurrection from the dead enabling earthly life to be expressed post-parousia. It seems humanity’s task is to get all things ready now for then, and to prepare those things so that there can be a transformation here.

[‘Caught up to meet him in the air’ and such language is every day Imperial culture language and I do not believe can ever be used to suggest what J.N. Darby and others taught. Such an emphasis has been very damaging to the task of the church, resulting in a damnation of creation, non-humanising salvation, and demeaning all earthly activity.]

What happens here and what happens now is vital. In one sense more important than what happens then – in the sense that what is now prepares for then, Then is dependent on now, hence Jesus did something here as a human in the midst of history in order to transform the final outcome. In the same way as the Father sent Jesus so he sends us, and the final words of Matthew’s Gospel being familiar temple language. The ‘Great Commission’ to go into all the world is with the message of this world’s destiny, that the world is indeed a cosmic temple.

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Forty Years – personal and political

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by Martin Scott
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Always interesting how God does things, and I guess pretty individually tailored too. Certainly for Gayle and I our personal lives and circumstances have often mirrored what we have focused on. The last two days have been historic with the sitting PM being ousted through a no-confidence vote. The first time such a motion has been ‘successful’.

I have reflected before the occasion when a professional banker sitting at her desk told us in no uncertain terms that we should forget any dream of seeing levels of corruption change. ‘This is how it is in Spain, and this is how it will always be.’ Really? Forty years ago Spain put in place the constitution that stands to this day. It marked some amazing changes from the Civil War and its aftermath, and many in public office did exceptionally well, but the levels of corruption have remained. Increasingly political problems are transmuted into legal issues. The constitution does stipulate that any referendum (as per Catalonia) is illegal, but the response to the situation has been to strongly police the situation rather than handle it with political mercy and dialogue. So we have set ourselves to pray into the constitution, and have been focused on that for some 3 years, and this has led us to push into prayer for the judiciary.

Back to signs and personal circumstances. Our apartment also is, more or less, 40 years old. Forty years on and the sewage pipe could no longer function. Crap is a fact of life, getting it flushed out is our task. Our entry to Madrid is (apparently) up a sewer pipe and against the flow. And yesterday, maybe the first signs that the sewer pipe is beginning to function. This is not about raising one political party above another, but of noting the signs. And what a sign we witnessed in January 2015 in fulfilment to the vision of the square filled with 100,000 people, the empty platform one end with the people waiting for the ‘word of the Lord’. That word was ‘tick tock, tick tock, the clock is ticking in Spain…’ Just a few days ago we returned from Prague and the symbol of the metronome on the hill where we began each day, the metronome that simply marks a rhythm but does not indicate that time has moved on, was very strong. We prayed for the clock to move forward, for there to be acceleration across Europe. We have certainly seen that! Just after we returned Gayle said ‘Thursday, we have to watch for a clear sign’. She thought the sign would be in Prague (and maybe it has been) but Thursday was historic here in Spain, a clear sign.

Will we see corruption out of Spain? Probably not. But I think all we need is to make sure the sewage pipe is functioning.

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A shock to unlock the future

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by Martin Scott
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(Image sourced at: 20minutos.es.) When in Prague one of the things that struck us was the ‘sign’ of the metronome, a tool not to measure time but to repetitively maintain a rhythm, I suggested that truth (and that always has to mean ‘my understanding of truth’) can anchor is to the past. There is of course great value in that and the alternative of being blown by every wind that comes is far from a viable alternative. However, there has to come moments when the we move from simply being anchored to the past to embracing the future. This is done when the imagination kicks in , often in the context of a shock to the system.

Yesterday the Spanish parliament was in session all day debating a no-confidence motion against the president, following on from one one of the biggest cases that exposed huge financial irregularities and illegal payments in his (PP / conservative) party. Rajoy (current president) put up a strong fight in the morning, then was absent for the remainder of the day. After a few hours it was discovered that he was in a nearby restaurant, where he remained for some 7 hours! Headlines said ‘bunkered in’ which we found very interesting as these are the very words we have been using when praying with regard to getting the institutional injustices exposed.

A common word used throughout the day yesterday was ‘shock’. A shock to the system indicates the possible break of the institutional memory and default behaviour. We are on the verge of something new opening up, though at any time of change unless there is sufficient true vision to fill the vacuum there is only one possibility and that is a change of faces but no real change. This now is where we are at. The best part of yesterday was a measure of reconciliatory language toward the Basque and Catalan communities.

We are optimistic… and ever so watchful. A shock is where it begins. It can also sadly be where it ends.

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Home after 17 days!!

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by Martin Scott
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We arrived home late last night from Prague, having been away from our home for 17 days. Not our intention, but the sewage pipe in our block of apartments had broken (gladly now fixed), so we were without water, toilets, showers etc, so no real choice… off we went. I appreciate that in the heady days of the Latter Rain movement there was even some who suggested such issues as body odour would not exist, but we did not quite have the faith to buy into that level of over-realized eschatology, and I cannot find any writings that suggested faith to end all toilet needs… so left us no option but to leave for the past days. There is so much to say about these days, re Madrid and apartments, Prague and four ever so significant days there, and also some apologies for not replying to emails etc., while without normal computers, internet and the like.

I will now try and catch up these next few days, before we head off again for two weeks in Scotland (Orkney – first time there in 8 years, and just over 10 years since Gayle and I were engaged there) to partner with ORCAS – a group working together across Orkney, Caithness and Shetland. We will also be in the UK. But back to the sewage!!!

We were sent an impression / image from Adrian Lowe who has been a faithful friend over 12+ years that our entry to Madrid was up the inside of a sewer pipe. It bore witness with us, and all-but immediately the sewage pipe here evicted us from this home. When we (finally!!) obtain the apartment in Madrid, assuming we have the time and energy, we will seek to put down our journey to get in there (we have been aiming to get there since 2011, and intensely since 2015), but we have been so close on different occasions only to have what would seem to be a massive flushing of the toilets above us over our heads (do not imagine this!). Back to square one… but we also have seen the flushing out of issues that need to be exposed each time. We have seen some firsts, such as resignations of key people who formerly would have just ridden through the scandals. Currently there are 12 of 14 from the cabinet of a former government being indicted. And when the toilets flush in such a way there is a mess that lands on people. Rap singers put in prison (as well as political prisoners), another singer being arrested yesterday for his lyrics: the same lyrics in his songs for 40 years. Free speech is being clamped down on. But the sign is that there is a flushing out of corruption.

So home to catch up, to prepare, but to be glad that all we had was some inconvenience to our pattern of life, and that our personal experience was an image of our spiritual journey at this time. The inconvenience was nothing compared to those who have been uprooted permanently from their lands.

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PS: Infant Jesus?

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Strategic Prayer

We have just completed our final day in Prague… A whole load to process and try to put down on paper some time soon. Gayle and I with Annie Bullen had a little PS to the prayer with a trip to the ‘Church of Our Lady Victorious’ where a statue of the infant Jesus is stored behind bullet proof glass. It began life somewhere in Spain and was brought over to Prague by Spanish nobility, and has been venerated here in this church and subsequently in many places throughout the world. Thankfully a lot of prayer has gone into this before, and necessary prayer. Those who had been taken on the issue of the ‘Lady of Guadaloupe’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Guadalupe) around 10 years ago came to Prague as they discerned that the actual power behind the Guadaloupe situation was the ‘infant Jesus of Prague’. No small issue then!!

Our ‘commission’ was a simple one. Go in and cut off the Spanish roots. If that can be cut then we would expect there to be a draining of power. As we approached the statue we were so aware that so much of the power had already gone… So quietly we positioned ourselves in the middle aisle, and began to pray while there was some measure of buzz around. There was no loud praying, for sure… A priest / monk with a small tour group walked past and said ‘Shhh!’ Then spoke first in Italian (I am pretty sure) then English – where are you from? I replied ‘De España’. He then said: ‘Podaís hablar en Español, pero no en francés ni en ningún otro idioma!’ (You can speak in Spanish, but not in French nor any other language!!!) Unreal… first a confirmation that the authority relating to the statue was Spanish and we took it that we had authority to go for the Spanish roots.

Not a bad PS!

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Wednesday, May 23

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by Martin Scott
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A date in the calendar in Prague. The second ‘defenestration’ of Prague took place on this day (and date) 400 years ago. We were there today beneath the window where it took place on the same day and date, just separated by some 400 years. A small event when protestants took into their own hands dealing with ‘justice’ and throwing the three Catholic lords out of the window. Unbelievably all three survived, put down to the luck of falling on manure that broke the fall (the protestant version) or saved by the virgin Mary (Catholic version). This event is what sparked something much bigger, the outbreak of the devastating and continent-shaping thirty years war. This has been our focus for today.

A focus on the past is so important to deal with, and getting the focus ‘right’ between past and future is perhaps more important and also extremely challenging. In Prague there is a real sense that the city and nation should be setting the right time for Europe. We began today, and will on each successive morning, by meeting at the metronome on the hill overlooking the city. Marking a rhythm this large metronome replaced where the statue of Stalin was previously, and only placed there temporarily until they knew what to put there. If ever something spoke and cried out for something to fill it… and that is the issue, what will fill this space, where time is being marked?

That is the question for Europe. Leave it empty and there can only be a reversion to what has been before, so there is the necessity to call for the future reality to press in and fill the gap. This is a pressing issue for us in these days, as Prague is a clock for Europe, and it is some hours behind.

In Prague there is a gift / a pride / a knowing who they are of valuing truth. Both from a Christian point of view with the heritage of Jan Hus and others who held on to truth, and at a national level they too see themselves as founded on truth. But yesterday’s truth only gets us so far. Our last place to pray this morning was in a strategically placed jewellery shop whose owner is a believer. It was as we stood in the shop I saw that:

  • Truth can anchor us in to what we have inherited, but
  • only the imagination can open up the future.

Truth is important. It stimulates us but does not by itself lead to the future. It can anchor us but to move beyond, it is the imagination that has to be engaged. Truth says ‘do not let go of this’, but the imagination has to see a new community, a new way of living, a new value system. Once the fresh future is seen truth that we once held has to adapt, for we only ever see and believe in part. Fresh revelation is always waiting to break forth, and having held on to truth that both anchored us and got as far as we are now, we then find that that element of truth was (only) ‘truth as we understood it’. Fresh understanding has to update our truth. We can never update the Truth (a Person) but we can certainly update our understanding of truth.

Artists, the artistic community, the arts are vital for this to happen. They help the imagination grasp other possibilities, even other realities. If that can happen then not only what we once held on to so strongly gets adjusted, but there is the potential in the community to shift values that have been attached to things, to products and the like. There can be a revaluation. So a two-fold shout. Come on San Lorenzo! Come on you artists!

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He is everywhere

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Personal Perspectives

Someone once said to me ‘Omnipresence is not all it is cracked up to be. Imagine Sunday morning worldwide… you have a choice, but God has to be present week after week… That’s the downside of omnipresence.’

Probably not the joke that is about to win the Edinburgh Festival best joke award, and pretty irrelevant to this post anyway, so moving on quickly. God’s presence and the evidence of it is a strange phenomenon, and by that I mean the places where he shows up. Not looking to offend anyone, but assuming most of the readers of this blog are not full out and out Catholics who regularly pray for the pope, we have this strange aspect where (I guess) most of us do not have a firm theological conviction that he is indeed the spiritual descendent of Peter and that unique representative of Christ on the earth. Yet most of us see him as so representing God, and appointed by him. I think we have a way of handling that without too much difficulty. God is present with him, present in the system, yet the system is not ordained by and therefore ‘of God’.

Maybe though we do not do the same thing with ourselves. Someone is healed, thus God is with us and approving of us, what we do and how we do it. God’s presence and his activity does not endorse who he is active with or the context in which his activity manifests. A very clear example of this is with the appointment of the king. The context and choice made by Israel is a rejection of God, yet God shows up to anoint the king. It does not go well, but rather than command Israel to abandon the cray (Pharaonic) idea he promptly sends Samuel out to find another king.

I write this post while in Prague. Been great today to walk in the city and see such a beautiful city, but also to think of its history. Walk past churches that perhaps have at times not represented God too well, which normally happens whenever we become complicit with power, but maybe at times they have been the means of grace and people finding a future and hope.

We are ever so grateful for everyone who seeks to serve God in whatever capacity and in whatever context. God is a real compromiser, entering into situations that we are ready to be critical of (‘wouldn’t touch that with a barge pole’ kind of response!). That is grace.

I don’t think God is looking for the perfect, the NT based community in order to work. He is more likely going to call people into situations that are not perfect, to wrestle with what is compromised within those situations, but in that to imperfectly align with God so that God’s presence might manifest.

Walking around Prague today we asked each other, what would one do if one were living here to facilitate people finding faith. (An interesting thought given that the Czech Republic seems to come bottom of the statistical pile in Europe for a lack of interest in faith among younger people.) I am sure there are models of church that could come in here and see some quite impressive growth. The temptation would be to assume if that were to happen that indicates God’s approval. Maybe and maybe not. (The real issue of change of course is not to simply look within four walls, but in the context of the wider city and location.)

We do not have easy answers, but remain convinced that the way ahead is through a multiplicity of small actions, within imperfect situations, by imperfect people. None of us have the approval of God in the sense of what we are involved in being a total reflection of heaven’s activities. That should not condemn us, but encourage us to give it our best shot, and to be very uncritical of others who are doing it so differently and in a different context to us.

Glad God is omnipresence, not in the theological sense but in the grace sense of him showing up in all situations. I think omnipresence is everything it is cracked up to be – and a whole load more.

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Ephesus – remarkable Asiarchs

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by Martin Scott
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The riot is in full swing and Paul is being blamed for the downturn in business. There is a untied protest of ‘No’ to Paul’s influence from the artisans whose profits are being threatened:

A certain silversmith, Demetrius, conducted a brisk trade in the manufacture of shrines to the goddess Artemis, employing a number of artisans in his business. He rounded up his workers and others similarly employed and said, “Men, you well know that we have a good thing going here—and you’ve seen how Paul has barged in and discredited what we’re doing by telling people that there’s no such thing as a god made with hands. A lot of people are going along with him, not only here in Ephesus but all through Asia province. Not only is our little business in danger of falling apart, but the temple of our famous goddess Artemis will certainly end up a pile of rubble as her glorious reputation fades to nothing. And this is no mere local matter—the whole world worships our Artemis!”

Paul, being who he is, takes it on himself to sort it out and says he will go in to the midst of the riot and calm things down. Whether this was a faith, or simply a personality, response we don’t know but his optimism was not shared by his merry band, who strongly insisted he did not risk his life. We read that their response is to strongly oppose him:

the disciples would not let him.

Thus far understandable, then comes the amazing part which Luke precedes his description with the word ‘even’ indicating that what we are about to read is a surprise:

even some officials of the province of Asia, who were friendly to him [Paul], sent him a message urging him not to venture into the theater.

I moved away from quoting the Message which translates the term ‘Asiarchs’ as religious leaders. They did have responsibilities connected to religion, but their involvement in that was because they were in positions of influence over the city (polis, hence political) and region. I note that Luke does not include them as ‘disciples’ but as friends of Paul. These are non-believers whose city is in turmoil because of Paul’s message. Further, his message is undermining of their position, so they do not have vested interest in Paul’s survival, the one who has come to town and upset the well-ordered apple cart. They have potentially a lot to lose if Paul continues with his Gospel / political (‘polis’ re-orientating) message.

These Asiarchs have not got hold of the ‘through Jesus you need to get saved’ part of Paul’s message, or if they have they have not accepted that part, but somehow they have seen or heard enough to realise that Paul’s message contained the hope for the future. However good the city was now, they somehow had grasped that the implications of Paul’s Gospel would so impact society that it would bring about positive outcomes, even if maintaining their own position was put in jeopardy.

This indicates some incredible challenges for us as 21st century believers:

  • The gospel that Paul proclaimed had serious implications for the ordering of society.
  • He articulated that part sufficiently to make an impact on political / social leaders.
  • His message was centred on Jesus, though not all grasped the need for ‘personal salvation’.
  • He was friends with those in society. They were not simply there as fodder for an evangelistic course.
  • I extrapolate (and this is consistent with the call of Israel / the call of the church as royal priesthood for the world) that the church was present in the city to facilitate those finding space who needed it. It was not about the church being the highest mountain, nor about there being mountains of influence, but the church taking the servant role to ensure a re-orientation toward the low parts being raised up… and the mountains brought down.

Ironically a turning point in a city is when there are those who don’t get the message but get the message!! Now we have to work out what the message would be that they need to get. This is why it seems there is such a push toward re-grasping and re-framing the Gospel message, that has been imprisoned within piety and / or law court language (i.e. privatised faith that draws simple in/out lines).

A final footnote… The town clerk stands up and his final words to Demetrius and his rioting friends are:

If there is anything further you want to know, it must be settled in the regular assembly.

Or in the words of the Message (with my emphasis in bold):

If anything else is bothering you, bring it to the regularly scheduled town meeting and let it be settled there.

Or to pull out the Greek text:

Bring it TO THE EKKLESIA.

The regular word used for the city council, the ekklesia of the city. To suggest that NT language is not political (city related) is to miss so much of what is going on.

I suggest Ephesus is a strong paradigm to understand the implications and application of the Gospel. Ecomonics, riots, friends who are not believers but have grasped the political element. Disciples who see the world as God’s world, and the ekklesia in Jesus there for the sake of the future re-orientation of the polis.

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Ephesus – powers and money

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by Martin Scott
Posted in Theology

Spiritual powers – what are they? are they territorial? how to address / not address them? And the answers come back across a great spectrum. They are personal, highly organised and hierarchical… to they don’t exist or they are simply the inner nature of exterior structures. I try and hold some kind of composite view concerning the powers and because I see a strong connection of what has / is repeated in history as shaping the spiritual nature of a geography, whether the terminology could be better or not, I subscribe to the reality of the powers expressing themselves territorially. Experience also seems to suggest this, with specific expression of issues being present in one geography that are not present in another. The above might be theoretical, but the issues we face are practical. Theory gets us so far, and our theories might be wrong, and at one level I am less concerned about the theory, and much more concerned about what we do practically to get a shift.

For example there are theories about ‘ley-lines’. When we first moved to Spain we lived in a somewhat challenging apartment. We moved in on Jan. 1, 2009. Jan 2nd, at 8.00am a knock came to the door. It was the agent through whom we had rented the apartment. ‘I cannot leave you here. I have not slept well and I will find you another place.’ We though were convinced that it was the right place, so re-assured him that we were happy. It was not too long before we recognised a straight line of some 8 obvious troublesome symbols or places that crossed right through our apartment. I am happy to call that a ‘ley-line’. The language is not so important, getting a shift is important. Within 6 months the first (to our knowledge) in Spain of a monument honouring Francoist assassins was removed. It was on that line and about 800 metres from our apartment. It was quickly followed by the removal of Francoist symbols from the next monument (500 metres from the apartment). We had some sleepless nights, but for sure it was the right place.

What did we do to get a shift? I am sure that research, prayer and all of that made a difference. Maybe, and always there is a ‘of course’, it would have happened anyway. And a big help was another statue right on the same line, a statue of an upside-down church building, which the sculptor had named as ‘the device to root out evil’. As far as we understand it the sculptor was neither making a positive nor negative statement about faith, but chose the church as the symbol in society as a powerful in your face image of how society has to be upturned to shift history from repeating itself and toward releasing a new future. For us it was incredibly symbolic. Let God embed the church in the ground for the world, let a worldly way of structuring things be turned on its head and then let’s see how much shifts in society.

Anyway back to Ephesus. There are territorial parallels there. Artemis worshipped across Asia Minor (Acts 19:27); the word of the Lord being heard by all in the same territory (Acts 19:10). I suggest that in some way Artemis had been bound across that region thus releasing to the same region the message of the Gospel. (By ‘bind’ I consider that the biblical understanding is along the lines of restriction, not of elimination.) The resistance had been broken and a release came as a result. So what did Paul and his merry band of ‘about 12’ plus others do? One of the genius elements of Scripture is its silence. It is not a book of instruction on what to do, otherwise we would likely do what it says and completely miss what it was saying. Instruction has to come from heaven in accord with Scripture rather than simply from words on a page. In short we don’t know what Paul did! Maybe he found the highest point in Ephesus and addressed the power directly. Maybe he taught for days on how such an approach only leads to casualties and this was entering into forbidden / unwise territory. Point is – we have to work out what we do and when…

Something though shifted. Maybe we have made claims of something shifting when nothing really has changed, but in the case in Ephesus something had shifted. Miracles, hearing, burning of occult literature – all those suggest something had shifted. But for me the biggest evidence was the turmoil over economics. I consider the biggest shift is when there is a shift to the economy. IT IS THE ECONOMY, STUPID, might be a political shorthand phrase to indicate how and why people vote, but it is also a phrase indicating that there has been a shift spiritually.

A ‘prospering’ economy is not a sign of the advance of the kingdom, but an economy where there is a flow of resources to where it needs to go is a sign of righteousness. Ranging from the 8th century prophets who used such phrases as ‘cows of Bashan’ to critique the inequalities that had developed in Israel over the previous 200 years, to the awesome critique in Revelation of the one-directional flow of wealth to the elite, seems to be the constant beat of Scripture.

Acts 19 and Ephesus is a strong paradigm for anywhere, and yet almost totally absent of a ’10 steps to success’ program to be followed. I simply suggest that we seek to follow what the Lord shows us (or our discernment of it) without too much concern that we get it right. That we will find something close to home that is the ‘leverage point’ to shift something much bigger. Interestingly as we seek to move the politics of Spain (and again do not think ‘political party’ when the word politics is used) and gain an entrance to Madrid, it will be important where we locate and the size of the place… As we seek this entry a word we have been given is ‘I see you both and you are climbing up a sewage pipe into Madrid, against the flow of the sewage… sorry messy but has to be done.’ Guess what happens soon after? The sewage pipe in our block of apartments has gone, and we are out of our apartment as we have no water, no toilets, no showers… Coincidence? Maybe, but this so often happens where a sign of what needs to change occurs close to home. That is the leverage point needed. Temporarily not in ‘our’ home (and what does ‘our’ mean?), and the sewage, and smell of it has to be shifted out of the apartment / society. God bless the upside down sculptures.

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