this blog contains the most recent articles from this web site.

basically a collection of opinionated but hopefully helpful, challenging articles to build you up.

Books on Amazon

We have recently published two e-books on Amazon. To read them you will need a kindle, or a kindle app for an iPad or other mobile device. You can also get kindle (for free) for Windows and Mac.

Both the books are 99c. That is the lowest price you can set on Amazon. And they take 66c of that to cover their own costs.

 

		Basic Christianity is a collection of basic teaching for new Christians which comes from some of the articles on this web site. This basic level of teaching is what the apostle Paul refers to as spiritual milk. It’s a bit easier to “digest” than some of the meatier, more advanced teaching that you might be hearing in other places. But as a spiritual baby it’s good for you to just have some milk for a while until you get more used to it. Then you will have a good foundation for when you grow up and you are ready to study deeper things.
		Some of the teaching in the Bible is pretty straightforward and there are often one or two verses which spell it out in black and white. Some other things though only take shape when you start to put the whole thing together. When you step back from a verse by verse theology and you look at the bigger picture. The Bigger Picture examines some of those doctrines. Doctrines which are by their nature more fundamental in their impact on how we live out our Christianity. These are doctrines which will help you make sense of a lot of the smaller ideas, and which will give you a context in which to place other teachings.

 

 

How's Your Soil?

My wife and I rent our home, so we don't have any long term control about the garden. We pretty much inherit a new garden each time we move. When we moved here there was a quite overgrown courtyard. Recently we decided to try planting a few things there, chilli, tomato, pumpkin. All easy to grow stuff.

Of course we were very excited to see the first little tomatoes growing, and recently we got our first pumpkin which survived the local wildlife (mostly kangaroos and rabbits).

But then we went to visit some of our friends. They showed us their vegetable garden. Our tomato plants that we were so proud of were absolutely dwarfed by their massive plants. Our crop of four little tomatoes was just embarrassing next to their crop of fifty big juicy ones. Our solitary pumpkin on a spindly vine about 2 meters long was kind of a no show compared to their twenty big pumpkins on a vine that filled the entire area of more than ten square meters.

So what's the difference? Why was their garden so productive and ours was so bad? We look after ours, we water it every day if it hasn't rained. We give it as much loving care as they do. We bought good quality seedlings.

The difference is the soil. Ours is dry hard clay. It's never been treated with anything. Seriously, in summer it's almost like rock.
We put a thin layer of plant material on the top to help it along. But our friends got good quality top soil. Rich soil that smells like it's alive. They added manure and fertilizer. They dug it all through. They spent a lot of effort preparing the soil first. And the difference in the crop is, as you have seen, staggering.

 

Jesus mentioned something similar in the parable of the sower. The same quality seed was scattered by the same sower, but there were four quite different outcomes. And each time the difference was because of the quality of the soil the seed landed in.

When the soil was beaten down into a path with constant traffic, to the point that it was so hard and dry that the rain runs off it... the seed had no chance. It didn't even germinate. The birds ate it.
When the soil was rocky... the seed tried to grow, but it couldn't survive the heat of the day. It had no root, it had no water. It withered and died.
When the soil was full of weeds... the seed also started out OK, but it was soon choked out by the weeds and it also died off.
But when the soil was good. Well prepared. Ploughed. Rock free. Manured and fertilized. The seed flourished and yielded a massive crop. Thirty, sixty, even a hundred times what was sown.

 

So, how about you? What kind of soil have you got?

Jesus said that the seed in the parable was the message of God. What kind of soil is the message of God landing in when you hear it?

Are you so downtrodden by the traffic of the world that you don't even hear the message? Do you hear it, but you dismiss it so fast that it was wasted on you? Do you refuse to acknowledge that it even came from God?
Seriously, when you think about it... You, a mere man have received a personal message from God. The God. Creator of the universe. And you stick your fingers in your ears and make noises with your tongue to pretend that you never heard it.
You're an idiot.

Is your soil full of rocks? Do you have any soil at all? Do you think you're doing well because at least there is some soil between your rocks, so you're better than those people who are just a downtrodden path.
You're kidding yourself. Your soil is so bad that it's worse than a path. You're pretending you have soil when you don't. At least seed on a path can be picked up and resown elsewhere. With you it's completely wasted. It starts to grow but you are so shallow that it can't take root. You give up as soon as times get tough.
If only you were willing to accept some pain and suffering. God could turn those rocks into soil. He could push those roots through the cracks in the rocks to the soil below and your life would flourish. But you are a coward. Afraid of even a little discomfort.

Are you choked out with weeds? Jesus said the weeds are the worries of life. The love of money, or power. Worries about your career, or your image. Thinking that you need to be one of the cool crowd, and that stopping to listen to what God is saying will prevent you from doing that.
Jesus said you cannot serve both God and money. Cannot. Don't even try. You need to choose.
Choose wisely.

Hopefully your soil is alive. It isn't fun when God brings the plough to rip through your heart in preparation. But if you have the courage and faith for it, this is when your soil will be made good. It isn't pleasant when you feel like a pile of manure has been dumped on your life. But turning to God when things like that happen is how you turn dirt into life giving soil.
If you have good soil, then you have probably been through some tough times. But you did it by relying on God and trusting him that he knows best. Trusting that he loves you.

If your soil is bad, then the message of God will have little impact on your life.
That is not what you want.
Ask God to prepare your soil. Ask him to bring rain, and manure, and the plough.
Offer your heart to him so he can prepare the soil. And then when his message comes to you it will burst into life.
It will flourish and prosper and produce a crop, thirty, sixty, even a hundred times as much as was sown.

Law or Grace

A few days ago I saw a live performance of "Les Miserables". It is a great story. After being imprisoned for 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving child, Jean Valjean is released on parole. Javert is the policeman he must report to.

But society does not welcome him back and at his lowest point he meets Bishop Myriel. The bishop who is not well off himself gives him food and shelter. But he repays him by stealing the silverware. Of course he is caught and returned to the bishop by the police. But with Jean Valjean's life in his hands the bishop explains to the police that this man is his friend, and in his rush to leave he forgot the candlesticks which he then gives to him. The police release him, and Jean Valjean is forever changed.

He becomes a good man and even becomes mayor of the town.

Fontine is a single mother, a widow, and works in Jean Valjean's factory from which she is unfairly dismissed by his foreman. In her desperation she turns to prostitution to provide for her child, Cosette.
When he hears what happened to her Jean Valjean rescues her from prostitution and on her deathbed promises to take care of Cosette. And he does, raising her as his own daughter.

The second half revolves around the revolution. Jean Valjean supports the masses in their uprising. And when Javert is captured as a spy Jean Valjean is permitted to execute him. But he allowes Javert to go free. To the great distress of Javert who cannot understand this response and suicides because he cannot face the revelation that he has spent his whole life pursuing a man who is actually a good person.

Later Jean Valjean also risks his own life to save the life of Marius, (Cosette's fiance).

That is not the whole the story, and there are other "sub plots" within the play. But it's enough to make a challenging point about grace and law.

Javert represents "Law" and despite his constant effort over many years he is unable to change Jean Valjean. In fact the efforts of the Law actually make him a worse person. Initially he very reluctantly stole a loaf of bread. But after 19 years under the Law he willingly stole the silverware from the one person who had shown him any compassion at all.

Javert continued to pursue Jean Valjean for his entire life. Desperately trying to prove what a bad person he was and to condemn him for whatever he could prove that he had done wrong. All the Law wants is to convict people of their mistakes and punish them for them. It has no positive effect on them at all. If there is any change it only makes them worse.

On the other hand, Bishop Myriel represents "Grace". He interacted with Jean Valjean for only one night. But in that one brief interaction Jean Valjean was permanently changed for the good. He instantly wanted to become a better person. And he did. Becoming mayor, rescuing Fontine, raising Cosette as his own daughter, saving her fiance after the revolution, and giving Javert back his life. Grace wants to overlook the wrong which has been done and to do something to bless the wrongdoer.

The Law is relentless, it never gives up. But Grace needs only one opportunity.

So what? What does that mean for us?

We see the same thing in the Bible. The Law (the Old Testament) convicts us of sin. It doesn't help us to change. (At first it looks like it will, but it is powerless to do so). The Law just makes us feel worse. The Law makes us guilty. But even more, Paul says that the law actually makes us want to break it. And we do.

But the free gift of grace (the New Testament) which comes from God through Jesus - changes us. You cannot become a Christian and remain unchanged.

Look at Paul for example. As for following the Law he was "perfect", but it made him ruthless, unloving, cold, legalistic. It made him a murderer! But after he was touched by grace he became loving, forgiving, self sacrificing.
A life of following the Law almost destroyed him, but grace changed him from the inside out after one encounter.

But Paul is just typical of all of us. God could rightfully encounter all of us with law. But because of Jesus he is able to encounter us with grace. None of us could possibly stand if he used law. We are all guilty. We are all condemned.

But God is not the god of law, he is the god of grace. And in his grace he has accepted us. And it makes us want to change. It makes us want to be better people. It makes us want to live lives which please him.

So how about us? What do people encounter when they encounter us? Especially if they sin against us. Grace or Law?

Do we legalistically point out their flaws and their failings and reject them? Or do we overlook their failings. Do we forgive them? Do we assume the worst or do we struggle to find one possible positive interpretation of their behaviour? Do we presume innocence or do we presume guilt?

Most of us hope the guy speeding past us on the road meets a cop just around the corner. Most of us don't want people to get away with doing the wrong thing. (Unless of course the person doing the wrong thing is us!). Most of us are upset when some young guy who blatantly broke a serious law doesn't go to jail.

That is law. But what if we were people of grace instead of people of law.

How incredible would it be if everytime someone sinned against us we responded with grace and they were permanently changed for the better. What if the story of your life was a trail of grace? What if everyone who encountered you could trace their new life back to that moment? What if thousands of people celebrating their new lives gave credit to you for that moment of grace. For that instant where you could have choosen law or grace and you chose grace. When you could have justifiably responded with law and condemned them for their wrong doing, (but would have destroyed their life by doing so), but instead you chose grace.

Just like God did when he encountered you.

Traditions

I have to be up front and say right from the beginning that when it comes to the church, tradition for the sake of tradition annoys me like nothing else. I like some traditions. I really like Thanksgiving for example. And when my kids were growing up I really liked the annual "Baba's Challenge" where I would set my kids 10 tasks to achieve within the year. Tasks which would stretch them a bit and develop their character. But in church we need to make sure that any tradition that we adopt is still consistent with the truth.

Take the whole Christmas/nativity thing for example.

The tradition is that three wise men (aka kings) came to visit baby Jesus and his parents in a manger. Sadly that's not what the Bible says.

Nowhere does it mention three of them. But it is plural, so at least two. The word it uses to describe them magos is usually used to refer to priests of Zoroaster, and elsewhere in the New Testament it is translated as sorcerer. (Elymas and Simon were both sorcerers in the book of Acts). But we want to make it nicer, so we call them "wise men".

When they saw Jesus they bowed down to him. The Greek word used to describe him was paidion which means a little child. It was not theladzo (meaning newborn baby) or nepios (infant). Jesus was no longer a baby.
After their visit Herod killed all the children 2 years and under (based on when they told him they had first seen the star). It seems pretty likely that by the time they visited Jesus was about 2 years old. And if that is correct it also seems pretty unlikely that they were still living in the manger. (But they could have been).

So two or more magicians from the east came to visit Jesus when he was about two years old.

And the whole Christmas thing anyway. It's incredibly unlikely that Jesus was born in December. There is no instruction to celebrate Christmas in the Bible. In fact, as far as we can tell it was started hundreds of years later by the catholics because everyone was running off to have fun at Saturnalia (the end of year celebration to the god Saturn), and the church adopted Christmas as a way of bringing them back.

Why, for example do we give gifts to each other?
In the Bible story the gifts were all given to Jesus. Why don't we all give a gift to Jesus every Christmas?

Would it surprise you to hear that part of Saturnalia was giving gifts to each other?

Quite often I hear the argument that if we didn't have Christmas and Easter them non-Christians would never come to church. So what? Are they supposed to? I thought the church was supposed to be going to them?

You might think that this is all no big deal. But I think it is. From what I see, we have accepted the tradition instead of the truth and it damages our perceptions. And it damages the world's perceptions about Jesus.

 

In fact there never was anyone called Jesus in the Bible! Seriously. Jesus is a made up Latin name, created by the catholic church to differentiate him from Joshua.

The person we call Jesus was really called Joshua. Yeshua if you want to really transliterate it from Hebrew. Yeshua means "God saves". In Greek they transliterated that name as Iesous. And in Acts 7 and Hebrews 4 you can find this name, but it is talking about the Old Testament Yeshua who led the Israelites into the promised land. (Which interestingly is kind of what the New Testament Yeshua did for us! hmmm.)

So, to avoid confusion the catholics renamed Yeshua (the one who saved us) to Jesus.

Again, it's now a tradition and again you might think it's no big deal. But I still think it is. God didn't call him Jesus. God called him Yeshua. Why? Was he trying to tell us something?
And again we have accepted the tradition instead of the truth.

 

Now in the Bible there were some people who really valued tradition. The Pharisees.

In Matthew 15 you can read how Yeshua told them off because they broke the commands of God for the sake of their traditions! God had commanded them to honour their parents. But their tradition said that if you have given money to the temple then you don't need to give any to your parents.

They were also obsessed with washing their hands, and their bowls in a special ceremony before they eat. But these were just empty ceremonies and they weren't really washing anything at all. Yeshua said it straight... how come you wash the outside of the bowl and not the inside? Seriously, when you think about it that is completely the wrong way around. If the inside of the bowl is clean you don't even really need to wash the outside. In Mark's account of this story we hear that they had many things like this.

Paul says that these traditions which are handed down take you captive through hollow and deceptive philosopy. And that most of them actually come from the world.

The Pharisees held the traditions of men above the commands of God. They were slaves to their traditions. And in many ways this is what blocked them from recognising Yeshua as the true son of God.

Do we put tradition above God? Are we slaves to tradition? What truth is it blocked us from seeing?
(Actually if you want to find out if you're a slave to a tradition, try not doing it and see how you go.
I find that most Christians can't eat a meal without praying first. Try it. See if you're a slave.
And if you're really worried, then give thanks afterwards. Even in the tradition there is no reason it has to be first.)

 

In Galatians Paul is lamenting that people are observing special days, and months, and years. He worries that he has wasted his time on them, and that they will be enslaved again to those things. Now he is mostly concerned there about Jewish festivals, but the same arguments apply.

At best traditions are just shadows of the truth, but in most cases they are not even that.
Christianity should go beyond traditions. We have the truth. We have the spirit of God.
We really don't need to be continuing any traditions which are working against that.

 

Why do we need to celebrate Christmas? or Easter? Why do we need to have some little token of prayer before we eat?

What other traditions do we have? What are they blocking?
What about you, and your church? What traditions are you following?

 Please, at least examine your traditions and see if they are based on truth.

 

Sunday School

 

So how do you think it would go if you stood up next week and demanded that your church close down it's Sunday School? What kind of reaction would you get? Would you be asked to leave or would you just be carried out?

How would you feel if someone else did that?
How would you feel if your church decided that this was indeed the right course of action and they were going to close the Sunday School?

Sunday School is part of how we do church. It's part of who we are. You cannot have church without having Sunday School because Jesus cares about children. And on top of that, almost all our conversions come through Sunday School, so if we close them down our churches will eventually die.

Really?

Sunday school originally started in Britain in the 1780's. But it's original purpose was to provide actual school - reading, writing and arithmetic, for poor children who couldn't go to any kind of regular school. Once that need was satisified elsewhere (by the government run school system) it was no longer needed and Sunday School morphed into what we have today.
So I guess you can have church without Sunday School... at least we did for almost 1800 years. But since then it has become an institution and it is very rare to find a church without one.

I wonder how they kept the children quiet before that?

Sunday School has become such an integral part of our church life that we can't imagine church without it. And it is true, we do most of our evangelism through Sunday School. But is that right?
We deliberately teach these children to believe something fundamentally opposite to what their own parents believe. With good intentions of course. And with the hope that their parents will eventually believe it too.
But in between we have divided the family and undermined the parents. Is that a good thing?
How would you feel if someone did that to your kids and undermined your position as their parents?

What if we had Sunday School for parents? And then when they became Christians we could help them teach their own children the truths of the Bible. Wouldn't that be better?
In Deuteronomy 6 we read of God's plan for spiritual education... teach them to your children as you walk along, when you sit down, when you stand up... Basically God's way is that parents should be teaching their children as they go through life together. Taking the opportunities as they come along to discuss spiritual things.
God should be part of your everyday life and you should show and teach that to your children too. (By the way, your children should be part of your everyday life too).
Wouldn't it be better to reach the parents, and then help them, and the parents who are already in our church, to teach their own children? Apart from actually doing it God's way, this would also reinforce the family structure and build and strengthen the parent-child relationships. Wouldn't that be a good thing?

If closing your Sunday School will kill your church, then I would guess in most cases that it is already dying.

If all your conversions are coming through Sunday School then I would also be asking is that because that is the only place you are doing any evangelism? Why aren't you out there trying to reach the parents directly?
Is it just because it's easier? The kids come to you. You don't have to go to them. You can stay in your safe church comfort zone and talk about stuff you know about. Sing a few songs, play a few games, do some activity and a short bible talk and that's it. Evangelism done for another week. Easy.
Evangelising adults is much harder. They argue back. Usually you have to go to them, and that might mean to some places which are not "nice". You might see sex and drugs. You will almost certainly hear some language you don't usually find in Sunday School. You might find some aggressive people who don't want to hear your message. You won't usually get to sing nice Christian songs and play games.
Not so easy.

Now, before I go too much further let me make it clear that I am not against Sunday School per se. Some Sunday Schools are great. Some Sunday School teachers are fantastic. In fact the famous preacher D.L. Moody was introduced to Jesus by a Sunday School teacher... Edward Kimball and that makes him a hero in my book. And having someone in your church who loves God and who loves your children and is prepared to give up time every week to help you nurture them is a real blessing.
But I am concerned about our reliance on Sunday School to do what the whole church should be doing every day of the week. If you have Sunday School as part of a balanced church life, and there is a definite need for it (to suppliment the teaching of church children which is already being done by their own parents), then that wouldn't concern me at all. But if your Sunday School is your only outreach to the community, or if you are persevering with Sunday School when it is clearly not working in your church or in your community... then I think we have a problem.

The other thing that worries me about Sunday School is that it is a given. We just assume that we have to have one.
Jesus said (in John 5) that the son only does what he sees the father doing. I think church should be thinking like that too. We should only do what we see God doing. If we see that God is reaching out in a special way to the children of our community then we should do something for them too. Perhaps Sunday School. Perhaps something else.
But if we don't. If we see God reaching out to the drug addicts in our community, then we should jump on board that and focus on that. Perhaps there are no children in our community. Perhaps we are an inner city church that meets in a pub on Sunday night... (That church probably won't have a huge outreach potential for 6 year olds... yet.)
Deciding to have a Sunday School should be a very conscious decision, backed by a lot of prayer. And that should be reviewed if circumstances change. And I really think the focus should be on building up the children of the church, not just reaching out to the children of the community.

I know this is a controversial topic. And I'm actually pretty happy if you read this far.
But as hard as it might be. Would you at least consider praying about it? Ask God to show you what he thinks of Sunday School. In particular of your Sunday School. And ask him whether that is something he is doing in your community. Ask him to show you what else he is doing there.
Let's just ask Jesus. After all, it's his church not ours. We are his body. It's not up to us to make assumptions ... we should be doing as the head directs. And only as the head directs.

What if he is trying to get us to go in a new direction?
What if Sunday School has had it's day?
What if we're stuck on one idea and that is stopping the church from moving where Jesus needs it to go?

 

The Commercialisation of Christianity

Jesus got pretty upset that people were making a profit from the "business" of the temple of God. (John 2, Matthew 21, Mark 11, Luke 19).

In fact, it reads to me like that was the one thing that got him more upset than at any other time of his earthly ministry.

 

The temple was supposed to be a house of prayer. And these guys were charging entry fees and making a profit from selling animals and exchanging currencies. All of these were legitimate businesses in any other context. But not in the temple of God.

 

How would Jesus react if he walked into some of our modern churches?

Churches where we sell copies of the sermon. Where we pass a plate (which carries a certain stigma if you don't put anything in doesn't it!) instead of having a box at the back where we can give to God if we feel burdened to do so. Where we sell music DVD's of worship songs. Songs which the authors are presenting to the church as glorifying God. Songs which they would claim the Holy Spirit helped them write. (If he didn't then we shouldn't be singing them should we).

But if the Holy Spirit helped them to write the songs, then that is his ministry isn't it? Just as if he helps me to know what to pray for you, or what advice to give you regarding your marriage, or your addiction. We haven't gone so far as to start charging for prayer, but I guess that is the next step.

We charge for music which we openly say was co-authored by the Holy Spirit.

How is that different from what Simon was thinking in Acts 8? He wanted to buy the gift of being able to give the Holy Spirit. But that ability is a gift from God, not to be bought or sold.

And yet we want to profit from music which we received freely from him. Music which was written using our music gift which came freely from God.

What are we thinking?

 

And it's the same with books. How dare we charge for Christian books? Either they are also the work of the Holy Spirit and so they should be free, or they are the work of a person and therefore pointless even reading.

 

And I guess the latest is movies. Churches produce movies like "Fireproof" and "Courageous". Both very good movies. But if they are "from God" they should be free.

And they don't just charge a hefty price for the DVD ($25 where I live), if you want to show it at your church you have to pay even more. $100 if there are less than 100 people, way more if you have a bigger audience.

So a small church that wants to use the movie as a way of outreaching to the community has to pay $25 to buy the DVD and then $100 every time they want to show it. They (the small church of less than 100 people) have to pay another church (a big church with thousands of people) to be allowed to use something the big church is claiming is "from God". Even if the small church is only using it for evangelism.

 

I get the whole, "we need to recover our expenses" crap. Yes CRAP. But that is worldly thinking. That is business thinking. If it is from God then God will cover the expenses. They are not recovering expenses they are making a profit.

 

If you are a musician, an author, a playwright, a movie director, an actor, or anything like that. And you have something from God which will be a benefit to his church. Then I challenge you to give it away for free and trust God to meet your expenses. (If he doesn't then maybe it's not from God or he doesn't want his church to have it).

I challenge you to earn your reward in heaven, not on earth.

 

If you are just an ordinary Christian, then I would ask you to forgive these brothers and sisters of ours who are profiting from their spiritual gifts. Pray for them. And ask God to give you new ministers (small m) who have hearts after his own. Ministers who have the heart of Jesus. Who are appalled that the house of God has become a den of thieves.

 

Jesus said very clearly that you cannot serve both God and money. It is time to choose.

 

It is time to be angry. It is time to speak out. Time to do something.

Don't just sit there, letting it go by unchallenged. At least change it in your church. At least stop being a part of it.

 

Homosexuality

I don't particularly like the idea of singling out one particular group, but because of the Western acceptance of the gay lifestyle and the current push for gay marriage, this has become a growing issue in the church.

 

So let's make sure we're on the same page right from the start. God loves homosexuals.

Unlike us, God loves everyone. God loves straight people, thieves, murderers, gossips, the greedy rich, the poor, even paedophiles.

 

So let's make a clear distinction between homosexuals and homosexuality.

There is no doubt whatsoever that God loves homosexuals. His son died to save their souls just like he did for everyone else. And churches around the world should be reaching out to help and love homosexuals just as they would any other person.

 

But this article is about homosexuality, the actual act of homosexual sex and it's associated lifestyle.

What does God say about that?

 

Oh, and before I get into it. This is about what God says about homosexuality. It is about how Christians should behave. It has nothing to do with legal issues within the society. Obviously I believe society would be better off if it lived the way God says we should live, but if my only argument is "God says such and such" then no-one who doesn't believe in God will accept that, any more than I would accept your argument against my lifestyle if you said, "Buddha says such and such".

This is an article for Christians who want to know what God's point of view is. Not a general article for non-Christians.

 

Now, to start I feel it is important to remind you that Christians are not under the Law. Jesus removed those fences when he died on the cross. We are free to do anything. So just because some old Jewish law says something doesn't mean that it necessarily applies to us. Whether it is about eating pork or about our sexual preference.

 

But with that freedom comes the responsibility to use it wisely and to choose our actions carefully to reflect God's holiness. So we do need to keep that in mind as we make our conclusions.

 

So what does that old Jewish law say?

In Leviticus 18 Moses records what God said to him...

"Do not lie with a man the way one lies with a woman."

In the same section God tells us not to have sex with animals, or our sister, or our father's wife, or any close relative.

Why? Because these things defile you. They have defiled the nations around you and they will defile Israel if you tolerate them. And if you defile the land, God will throw you out of it.

Later in Leviticus 20 God defines the punishment for doing these things - death.

 

That's pretty heavy if it still applies. The punishment for the person should be death, and God will kick us all out of our country if we allow these things. He did then. (Israel came in and took over and the nations behaving that way were expelled). He will now. It's serious stuff.

 

The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are a prime example in the Old Testament of God's tolerance reaching a limit and him unleashing judgement on them. When God sent angels (in the form of men) to Sodom to rescue Abraham's nephew Lot, (Genesis 19), the men of that city were so far depraved that they wanted them brought out so they could have sex with them. Because of their depravity God completely destroyed these two cities.

 

The Old Testament is pretty clear. Men having sex with men is a sin. A very serious sin.

 

But, we are not under the law. Paul tells us that all things are permissible for Christians.

 

But he also warns us that not all things are beneficial. And he asks, (in Romans 6), "Shall we sin because we are not under the law?". His answer is a resounding "NO". Jesus removed the fences of the law. But we still have the responsibility to live good, righteous lives. Lives as untainted by sin as we can possibly make them.

Our aim should be to be blameless. Not in a legalistic, obey some kind of law way, but by going beyond that to always be trying to do the right thing - regardless if it used to be outside some legal fence or not.

 

In the sermon on the Mount Jesus made it clear that God's standard was way above the rules laid out in "The Law". The Law said, "Do not murder", but Jesus said God wants us to not even hate our brother. The Law said, "Do not commit adultery", but Jesus said that God wants us to not even think lustful thoughts.

These things are clearly inside the old fence, but they are also clearly beyond God's standard of righteousness.

 

We cannot ever earn our own righteousness, (we couldn't even do it when all we had to do was keep The Law). And praise God we don't have to. We have our righteousness for free, a gift from Jesus. But we have a responsibility not to use our freedom to indulge our sinful desires. We have freedom... but it is freedom to become blameless.

 

 

In Romans 1 Paul also tells us that if people reject God then he will hand them over to their own sinful desires. He even mentions homosexuality specifically.

So homosexuality was still clearly regarded by Paul as a wrong choice. A wrong use of our freedom.

And it is also part of that spiral in Romans 1 which starts with the rejection of the knowledge of God and ends in total depravity.

The rise of homosexuality in the West is, to me, a clear indication that we are in that spiral. That the western world has rejected God and is rapidly working it's way towards total depravity, (and the destruction which will follow).

Clearly the Bible tells us that while loving homosexuals, we must not tolerate the sin of homosexuality among us.

 

 

The biggest non-Biblical arguments for accepting homosexuality seem to be "We were born this way" and "We love each other".

Both of those may well be true.

 

But as we have seen, homosexuality is a sin. And over the years I have talked with many people about their sin, and faced some issues with my own. One thing I have found is that each of us seems to have a predisposition to a particular type of sin. For some it is lust, coming out in pornography or affairs, for some it's greed, often coming out in risky business deals that are shady at best and just plain gambling, or dishonest at worst. But each one of us has a particular one toward which we just seem predisposed.

 

Being "born that way" just means to me that homosexuality is your predisposition. The sin you are most attracted to. And whether or not it is fair for me to tell you that you should not indulge it... You should not indulge it. Any more than I should indulge mine.

 

The other argument I have against the "born that way/we love each other" argument is that paedophiles can say the same thing. They can also claim that they were born this way. That their love is natural and beautiful. And the children (in their innocence) might also say they love the paedophile.

I don't think I have met any normal, sane adult who wants to legalise paedophilia. Certainly none that would entertain the idea that their pre-pubescent child could be "dating" an adult paedophile. That is a horrendous thought.

But he was born that way. His love is pure. ...

Allowing this as an argument for homosexual marriage opens a very ugly box.

 

 

So, to summarise. God loves homosexuals, but homosexuality is a sin.

So the church should be loving and accepting towards them but without compromising our position that their behaviour is sinful. Just as we should be towards those addicted to pornography, or thieves, or murderers, or even those who seem squeaky clean on the outside, but who are steaming inside with greed and pride.

 

We need to love homosexuals, but we should make it clear to Christians that homosexual behaviour is sinful and not to be tolerated among the people of God.

 

We very definitely should not be accepting of gay marriage within the church.

I doubt that we have the political power to stop gay marriage in our society, but if we don't then our nation will continue down the spiral until we are finally removed from our land.

 

We should also not accept gay clergy. (One who is actively gay, not someone who is trying like all of us to fight against his predisposition). The Bible has high standards for our leaders (1 Timothy 3, Titus 1). And our leaders should be shining examples of the Christian life. But if they are openly flaunting their sin instead of trying to deal with it then the do not qualify. Whether that sin is homosexuality, or addiction to drugs or alcohol, or even if it is that they are given to violence and anger, or even greed.

 

We (the church) need to be known for our love, not for our judgement. We need to find ways to stand strongly for our position, but in a loving way.

The way out of the spiral is to turn back to God.

More than "You must not allow gay marriage because some god you don't believe in says so", they need to hear, "Even though you don't believe in him, God loves you. And his own son died so that you could receive forgiveness for all your sins".

 

As the church, as God's people, let us show his love to the world. But let us do it without compromising his high standards for his children.

 

 

 

PS:

If homosexuality is your predisposition, do not lose hope. God loves you deeply.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 says that homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God. (It says the same for alcoholics, and the greedy too, to name a couple of others). But read on. Verse 11 says, "That is what some of you were".

Were.

Past tense.

Becoming a Christian wipes all that away.

 

Identify With Jesus

Hebrews 13 has a section in the middle telling us how Jesus endured suffering outside the city gate in order to make his people holy.

Outside the gate was a place of shame. That's where lepers were sent. That's where unclean things were burned. Being sent outside the gate to die was a declaration of shame and disgrace.

But Jesus did it. For us.

 

So Hebrews 13:13 is full on then... "Now then, let us go out to him, outside the camp, bearing his reproach."

 

Let us go outside the gate and identify ourselves with Jesus. Even though by doing so we are identifying with his reproach. Identifying with his shame and humiliation.

Even so. Let us go.

 

I find an interesting parallel in modern society. Those who live in the city are the "cool" people, they are the "in" crowd. Those who live outside it are the rejects, the losers.

There is a lot of social pressure on us today to be part of the in crowd. To be cool. In fact churches even try hard to be "cool" so they are more attractive to the worldly. (Funny, the Bible says the gospel is offensive to them, but we do all we can to not be offensive).

A lot of Christians spend a lot of time and money maintaining their connection to the in crowd. We walk like them. We talk like them. And sadly, we think like them.

 

Here is a challenge...

 

Are you willing to walk outside the city gate, in full view of everyone, and to walk up to where Jesus is suffering and declare to everyone watching, "I'm with him"?

Why not? Do you love the world more than you love Jesus?

 

Are you willing for everyone to think of you as a loser? Weird? A freak? A reject? An enemy? Persona non grata?

 

If you are, then praise God. Push open that gate, walk out to the boos and hisses of the crowd. And stand proudly with Jesus.

 

But if you're not willing, then how do you think that makes Jesus feel? After everything he sacrificed for you. Can you imagine him looking at you standing in the crowd, not willing to step out. While he suffers.

Can you see his face? His eyes staring at you. His heart breaking with disappointment.

 

You know the really weird thing... even then Jesus loves you.

This is why he died for you. Even though you know that and you still won't step out.

 

 

Husbands - Are You Sacrificing Yourself?

 

Ephesians 5 and 1 Peter 3 spell out the roles of husband and wife pretty clearly for us.

The man is the head and the woman is the body. Just like Jesus and the church. The two become one, each fulfilling different roles but working together as a unit.

 

Now, over the years I've heard quite a bit of teaching about how wives should submit to their husbands. And I think that's correct, they should submit. The husband has the responsibility to make the final decision, after considering his wife's needs and desires. And the wife should make sure she has communicated those clearly to him. But in the end, the husband has the responsibility to make the decision, and the wife has the responsibility to submit whether she likes it or not. (it's not really submitting if you only submit when he's "right").

But...

Ephesians 5 also makes it very clear that the husband should be sacrificing himself for his wife in the same way that Jesus sacrificed himself for the church. Not necessarily by dying on a cross, but in essence, dying to his own desires for the benefit of his wife.

Husbands should be putting their wives first. Always. In everything.

Everything.

There is no point at which Jesus would put himself before the church. There is no point at which a husband should put himself before his wife.

Every decision has to be for her benefit.

Even the little ones. In fact, especially the little ones. What movie to watch? The romantic comedy or the war movie? It depends on the wife of course, and if she would prefer the war movie then that's fine. But most women I know would prefer the romantic comedy. It's a no brainer. There is no decision to make. She must come first.

There is no compromise, "this time we'll watch the girlie movie, but next time we'll watch the war movie"... There should be sacrifice, not compromise. "this time we'll watch the girlie movie, but next time we'll watch two of them!"

Always.

If there are two sweets to choose from what do you do? Let her choose first? You know she likes strawberry right... but she knows you do too, so she chooses the caramel... Such a lovely wife. You're a lucky man. But give her the strawberry.

It's actually a trick question. What do you do? You tell her she can have them both.

This is not rocket science.

Sacrifice is painful. You know when you're sacrificing. And you know when you're not.

If you are a husband you need to be sacrificing all the time.

Always making decisions which are the best for her, which put her needs and desires first. And doing it quietly, whether she is aware of it or not.

This is a huge challenge for any husband. It's not easy. But it is God's way for husbands.

Do you want to be the best husband you can possibly be? Sacrifice yourself for her. Always.

 

You is Plural

No my grasp of grammar hasn't left me. In fact quite the opposite.

One thing which has stood out for me as I have translated the New Testament is that mostly, when Jesus says, "you" it is in the plural form.

In English you is the same whether I mean "you, the one person I'm pointing at", or "you, all the people here listening to me". In Greek they are different. And not even similar... It's not a separate word like it is in English, you can tell from the verb ending. But its "eis" vs "ete". Very clearly one or the other.

 

But so what.

 

In the Bible we are much more treated as if we were a body of people, not individuals. We bear responsibility for each other's actions. We share each other's rewards. We have a responsibility to the group.

 

Modern Christianity seems to be very much about my relationship with God. It is very much individual Christianity. And in our modern mind set when we read "you" we usually think "me", not "us".

But this is not the Christianity I see in the Bible.

Christians are not independent. From the moment we become Christians we become part of the body of Christ. We are no longer individuals, but different parts of the same body.

 

"You (pl) are the light of the world." Not me, not you, but us. Together. Together we are the light of the world.

"You (pl) are the salt of the earth" .Not me, not you, but us. Together. Together we are the salt of the earth.

"As you (pl) go, make disciples of all nations." This is something we should be doing together. As a team.

"You (pl) are the body of Christ." All of us. Together. We need each other.

 

How different would your church be if everybody lived like that?

How different would your life be if you lived like that?

 

Let's make it happen. Together.

Why Doesn't God Do Something?

 

You hear this question a lot from non Christians, and sometimes from Christians too. Why doesn't God do something about all the suffering and evil in the world?

 

Recently in Australia there has been a lot of outrage over video showing the bad treatment of animals, (in particular cattle), which had been shipped as live meat exports from Australia to Indonesia. The video of how badly the animals were treated in some of the Indonesian abattoirs has a lot of Australians asking, "Why doesn't the government do something about this?"

 

Of course the government could just ban the live animal trade all together. That would stop it.

But that would have some heavy consequences for the farmers here who had been growing their business and employing people, if it was suddenly stopped in a day. And it wasn't them doing the mistreating of animals.

And I presume there would be a meat shortage in Indonesia, at least in the short term until they found another source.

So just stopping the trade wouldn't actually solve the problem, it would just be that they were no longer Australian animals which were being mistreated.

 

So the government wants to make sure they don't just do some knee jerk response but they take careful, well thought out, decisive action which will actually solve the problem.

The long term solution will probably include education of the workers involved along all the stages of the processing chain. It may also involve certification of plants and workers. It may involve restrictions on which processing plants can be used for processing Australian live cattle exports.

But implementing all this will take a long time. Years. In the end it should be the right solution, but it could take at least two or three years, and possibly even four or five.

In between, while we're waiting for the plan to be implemented, a lot of animals will continue to suffer. A lot of people, especially animal rights activists, will be very distressed at the slow response of the government and they will be demanding a solution NOW.

But it will be rolled out one stage at a time. And it will not be rushed because it must be done properly in order for it to succeed.

 

And I think it is like this with God intervening to solve the world's problems. He wants the proper solution, and the proper solution takes time.

In fact, God is doing something. He's been doing something since the beginning.

He could have intervened the day Adam first sinned (about 6,000 years ago). But that was not the proper solution.

The proper solution involved God's own son, Jesus, sacrificing himself after having lived a perfect life.

That also had to be done at a particular time. 2,000 years ago, 4,000 years after Adam sinned.

I don't know why it had to wait so long, but clearly it did. Part of the plan involved God giving us "The Law" and giving us time to prove that we couldn't obey it. Then Jesus did what nobody else could do. (He fulfilled the Law).

 

And the next stage of the solution is about to happen. Perhaps even this year.

Again, I don't know when, and I don't know why it has been 2,000 years. But God knows. And God has a plan.

God has no plan B. His plan A will work, and it will be perfectly timed.

Sometime soon Jesus will return and shortly afterwards he will reign on Earth for a thousand years. And then the plan will finally be completed. No more suffering. No more pain. No more death. No more crying. Ever.

 

Of course, just like with the animals, some people are impatient during the wait, because they hate the suffering. (So does God by the way).

But in the end, the solution will come. In the end we will all understand God's perfect timing.

In the end we will say how awesome God is for bringing about such an amazingly perfect solution to all our problems. How incredibly wise he was to think of it, and how far superior his plan turned out to be than anything we came up with ourselves.

 

Unity or Uniformity

Before you read any further, stop and look at these two images. And tell me what you see.

 

 

 

I'm guessing that you said something like, "The boy's hat is gone. The girl is looking the other way. The bucket and spade are the other way around."

Oh, that's right... and the umbrella has rotated around too.

 

Let me tell you what I see.

It's two pictures of the same boy and the same girl building the same sandcastle on the same beach near the same umbrella.

 

Do you get my point?

 

It is very easy to see differences. It comes naturally to us.

It's not so easy to see similarities, to see the things which unify us. It's not easy to see the 99% we have in common with each other, but it's incredibly easy to see the 1% we have that's different. And when it comes to church... we not only see the 1% difference, we divide ourselves because of it.

 

Sadly this is nothing new. It has always been a problem.

Paul said in 1 Corinthians:

"Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly – mere infants in the Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere men?
What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe – as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building."

 

We are so quick to divide.

 

I think it's because we're obsessed with being right. With being right and being seen to be right.

But who cares who's right! I seriously challenge you to find a Bible passage where God teaches that we must be right.

 

But I can find some where he says, regardless of who is right and wrong... love one another.

 for example... "The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?"

 

The question God would ask, is not "Who is right?" He would ask, "Who is loving?"

 

1 Corinthians 12 is all about how we are different but part of one body. In fact, we are designed to all be slightly different. You are a hand, I'm a foot, someone else is an eye. But we are all needed. We are all part of the same body. We are not a cloud, and a hammer, and a tree, things with nothing in common. We are all parts of a body.

And how ridiculous it would be if the eyes said that the other parts were no longer parts of the body because they were not eyes! We are all the same, with little differences to make us more useful.

 

1 Peter 2 tells us that we are a building of living stones. Stones. Not bricks. We are not all identical. But we are all the same. Get it?

Rocks are all rocks. Each one looks a little different, but they are still all rocks. They are all part of the same building. Bricks are all exactly the same. If we were a building of bricks, that would be uniformity. But we're meant to be different, (and yet the same), a building of stones is unity, not uniformity.

 

We need to focus on the bits that are the same, not on the bits that are different. We are all living stones.

That's incredible! Have you ever seen a living stone before?

And yet, instead of greeting other Christians with, "Wow. Another living stone. How awesome to meet you." We greet them with, ... "You're different. You're not welcome."

 

So, how about you?

Are you focused on similarities or differences?

Are you looking for unity? or uniformity?

Are you loving? Or are you just "right"?