It’s 9pm, Bristol

A cigar tip glows red in the dusk
As a puff of smoke exhales
Into the trees -
Whisky in hand he watches
As the rough and aromatic
Scents disperse.

Above, the trees seem to
Breathe the wind, in, out
And send creatures to
Fill the cooling air:
First a lone wood pigeon
Maybe the last of its kind

It’s plaintive echoes
Receiving no reply
A solitary Robin, out late,
Like the next thought,
Unexpectedly lands
Closer than a brother

The biters arrive:
Invisible flesh nibblers
Then silent, swift, skilful
Insect-hungry bats swarm
The Battle of Britain
Renewed in the sky above.

The cigar stub
Damp and dulled
Calls time.
Inner contentment
Seeps in like the
Rasping warmth

Of the golden measure.
Fingers exploring familiar
Ridges of the cut-glass
Unconscious of the
Gift just given:

May the peace of the Lord
Be always with you.

Bluebells on the Beach

In a blue-violet trumpet, and,
From aeons past,
In each pebble
Is the thought that thought of you
Is the light that gave you light
Is the temporary
And the unchangeable
You

In the one;
Colour and light,
Swaying in the breeze, there
For one deceptive purpose:
Seduction.
Your honey sap
The future trap.

In the other, granite grey,
Hard yet smooth
In your palm
A missile in the hand
Of God
Picked up and launched
Through my defences

The bluebell on the beach
Swept there by tides and
The four winds
Nestled against each other
Trampled by strangers
The congruent parts
Of a woman
Of a man

English Literature and Cold Turkey…Report One.

My normal routine: get up, kettle on, R4 on, either a tea-bag or looseleaf tea in small pot and, cereal, R4 off, wander into lounge and Ahhhh! That first sip of a cuppa to remove the night and start the day.

 About 11 am, coffee beans ground to dust, cafetiere in operation, and…Relax…with coffee and maybe a slab of Cadbury’s plain. Perfect.

 A normal day consisted of one coffee and maybe 5 cups of tea.

 Until Saturday.

The centre-of-gravity of this story is my attempt to pass A-Level English Literature. In a few weeks’ time I shall be sat amongst impossibly talented 18-year-olds trying to control my thoughts, telling my pen-writing muscles not to cease up, and (for a 65-year-old, the greatest fear) not having to ask to be excused more than twice in the 3 hours of exam hall torture.

 So…preparations – apart from intense revision – include:

1.      Fasting the day before the exam (let the reader surmise the reason why)

2.      A break from tea and coffee…i.e. caffeine, tannin, and all other diuretics

 Sensible?

 So, I Googled the likely side effects, the ‘cold-turkey’ side-effects of giving up tea and coffee:

 The invisible addiction: is it time to give up caffeine? | Coffee | The Guardian

The scientists have spelled out, and I had duly noted, the predictable symptoms of caffeine withdrawal: headache, fatigue, lethargy, difficulty concentrating, decreased motivation, irritability, intense distress, loss of confidence and dysphoria. But beneath that deceptively mild rubric of “difficulty concentrating” hides nothing short of an existential threat to the work of the writer [Edit and exam reviser]. How can you possibly expect to write anything when you can’t concentrate?

Three days in and I can report, darn it, ALL of the above symptoms. I don’t know what dysphoria is but I’m not sure I care…the incessant headache, leg aches, lethargic waves that roll over one, and stranger periods of distress…darn it, it’s all true!

Three days in and I can report, darn it, ALL of the above symptoms

But I’m told this will ease after nine days…so…a week to go of hoping the benefits will outweigh the longing for that first taste of something better in the morning than the dried inside of one’s mouth and sour lips after a night’s sleep, snoring - and sneezing in the hay-fever season.

Meanwhile, it’s back to Othello, Jane Eyre, Post 1900 Poetry, Spies, Skirrid Hill, and Streetcar Named Desire and wading through critics of Patriarchal societies, literature as a Marxist class struggle, and attempting to view the above books through modern, post-modern, and meta-modern lenses.

The moral of this tale? Not enough energy to enter a debate about morals…until it’s over. The abstinence, that is.

Expect Report Two…when I feel human

Rabboni

Why come so vulnerable
Covered in straw?
You make everyone suffer
Your arrival took its toll
On Joseph, on Mary, and children
Extinguished by a king

 Why a mere carpenter’s son
Out of the way, up North
In Nazareth?
Why wait so long
An inert Messiah, watching
The blind lead the blind?

Jesus, why shun the limelight?
Why refuse the crown?
Those willing to honour the
King of glory?
Why relinquish riches, not knowing
Where to lay your head?

After all said and done
Why set your face to Jerusalem?
You stilled the storm, my storm,
Yet offered your wrists to nails
Your head to thorns
Your cheeks to spittle

And, risen, in dawn dark
Avoiding adulation
You dressed as a gardener
Trowel in hand,
Earth under your fingernails
And spoke my name

The beach…2 “Paddle Faster”

Closing my eyes I lift the paddle high
Above my head
A push sends me scuttling
Down the steep pebble incline
The sound like a waterfall
Hard round pebbles scraping the keel
Five seconds of acceleration and…
Into the wash
Into the lapping waves
Orange nose cutting through the surf
I paddle faster

Eyes open, blinking away the salt and Sun
Looking back at the hundred or so
Souls, large, small,
Young, old
Spiritual and secular
Clothed and almost unclothed
The distinct sound of a summer’s day
The beach, a playground for all…
Moments pass…then, turning
Away from the shore
I paddle faster

My fibre-glass capsule,
Skeg rope pulled tight
Water falling along the paddle
The only sound now, thumps
Of sides on wave, wave on sides
An exchange just beyond me
Not known
Until you permit yourself to be
Baptized in the ocean.
Paddling faster, deep and strong

Out here, away from voices,
One hears a Voice
Calling you onward, not back
Calling you home perhaps
‘Slip between the harbour arms’
The urgent voice, strong now,
‘Paddle faster!’
Has time come to lift my paddle
High above my head
To the light?

No. Not yet. It’s not time.
I’m headed East
With the tide and current
The wind making the sea alive
A fearsome fight
Five miles or so
Until, surfing, I ram into
Shingle, sand, and slopes
My interim home
Of a friend calling to me
‘Paddle faster!’

The Beach…i

Turquoise and white the waves roll in
crashing at shallow angles
along the shoreline.

Wandering among the shingle,
the seaweeds and beached wood,
a man, absent-mindedly,

smooth pebble in hand, is at home.
Quiet, lost in thought,
surrounded by the wet roar

Raiders of the Lost Ark…and the Three-in-One

The names we associate with the film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, are Harrison Ford, playing the archaeologist Indiana Jones, and Steven Spielberg the director, but it was Lawrence Kasdan who wrote Raiders (and co-wrote the Star Wars films The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, The Force Awakens and others).

 Spielberg and Kasdan, it may not be surprising to know, are Jewish.

 Grappling as they did with the deeply Jewish angst over the lost Ark of the Covenant, Spielberg and Kasdan introduced to the world the biblical account that the ark of the covenant contained a power greater than any earthly power. One that, in the film, our hero, Indiana Jones, managed to prevent the Nazis from acquiring.

 The Ark, in fact, was a fairly small acacia wooden box laid in the Holy of Holies in the Temple overlaid with gold, containing the stone tablets engraved with the Ten Commandments, a pot of manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded. It was lost when the First Temple was destroyed in 586 BC…although Ethiopian Orthodox Christians claim the Ark is located in the Church of St Mary of Zion, in Askum, several hundred miles north of Addis Abiba.

The action is in the Holy of Holies…the Spirit of God witnessing with our spirit that we are children of God.

 From the perspective of the New Covenant, the physical temple, important though it had been, was merely an earthly copy of the heavenly original. Each part of the temple, therefore, has a present-day eternal counterpart including the three courts: the outer court, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies, and, specifically, the ark and its contents held within the Holy of Holies, in the presence of the glory of God.

 If the acacia box represents the new spirit God has put in those whose faith is in Christ, the contents of the ark represent God Himself dwelling in each believer. In the New Covenant, the physical temple in Jerusalem has been replaced by believers: ‘temples of the Holy Spirit’ 1 Cor 6v19.

 If you had looked inside the box at the three objects, physically distinct and seemingly unrelated from each other, would have stared back, inert and unremarkable, however, the three objects represent three facets of God, a three-in-one reality.

1.      The tablets of the commandments – but in the New Covenant the engraves the law on our hearts (Jer 31 v31f). Paul wrote about the ‘law of the Spirit of life’. This is what is set loose in us, nothing short of God’s own life. And He doesn’t need an external written law (the tablets of stone) to know how to act!

2.      The pot of manna – representing the miraculous ‘daily bread’ or ‘bread of heaven’ given to the Jews as they made their way to the Promised Land from Egypt. Rather than praying for God’s word to come to us from outside, externally, God has Himself in our spirits and His word(s) shape our lives. It isn’t that we need His word for ‘our lives’; it is more that His word is our life. Jesus said ‘the words I speak to you are spirit and life’

3.      Aaron’s rod that budded – if the rod represents us in our humanity, like the acacia box made from dead wood, the miraculous life that comes from it is His life. True Christianity, true spirituality, starts when His life appears in us.

Attempting to live the Christian life – either as a believer or, maybe as a non-believer who admires the teachings or person of Christ – through your physical abilities (the outer court) or your soulish strengths (intellect, emotional passion, or sheer will-power), is missing the point.

The action is in the Holy of Holies…the Spirit of God witnessing with our spirit that we are children of God.

The Lord’s Prayer – with new eyes

I can’t shake off the version I was taught as a child:

Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
On earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
forever and ever. Amen.

I can’t, for example, say ‘forgive us our debts’ as some versions put it. Or replace ‘thine’ with ‘yours’ easily, it’s so ingrained. Not that the newer versions are inaccurate. There’s an interesting debate to be had over ‘trespasses’ or ‘debts’ in translating Greek and Aramaic…but that’s for others to argue over.

This post is about looking at the very familiar Lord’s Prayer but with new eyes…

We tend to think that this prayer is answered if we have faith when we pray, rather than know in ourselves that this prayer has already been answered and we are now to live it out in our lives.

This post is about looking at the very familiar Lord’s Prayer but with new eyes…

For example ‘give us this day our daily bread’. We might pray this as if it is our prayer that extracts from God our daily bread, whereas it has already been given. The challenge is for us to believe it has been given not that it lies in the present or near future…if we ask.

Jesus’ mission was to bring the Old Testament or Old Covenant to a close and inaugurate the New Testament or New Covenant as prophesied principally by Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

In the Old Covenant , the temple consisted of three parts. First the outer court for the people, then the Holy Place where the priests ministered, and then the Holy of Holies where the High Priest was permitted to go once a year, with the blood of a lamb, to make Atonement for Israel.

In the Holy of Holies, apart from God’s presence, there was the ‘ark of the covenant’, a wooden box overlaid with gold, with three items inside.

1. The tablets of stone on which the ten commandments had been carved

2. A pot of manna – the bread miraculously provided each day during the Exodus

3. Aaron’s rod – a dead piece of wood, a rod, which miraculously budded

In the New Covenant, each believer is a temple within which God abides by His Spirit. Jeremiah and Ezekiel gave us the details of the New Covenant:

The days are coming when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.
This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.
(Jeremiah 31 v 31f)

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes
(Ezekiel 36 v 36,37)

If our physical bodies relate to the outer court in the Old Testament temple, and the Holy Place relates to our souls (that precious part of us that gives us individuality, our minds, emotions, and will), our spirit is represented by the acacia box in the Holy of Holies.

When we believe and are born again, our old heart of stone is removed and we are given a new heart, a new spirit. Our ‘new’ spirit is joined with His Holy Spirit so that, just as in the Holy of Holies in the physical temple where God’s presence dwelt, so, now, the Holy Spirit dwells in us. Genuine Christianity turns out to be a spirit/Spirit operation.

‘Do you not know your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?’ 1 Cor 6 v19

Jeremiah and Ezekiel as prophets, both saw that the tablets of stone laid in the acacia box were really just figurative copies of the heavenly original, the Old Covenant foreshadowing the New Covenant in which we live. Now, in the New Covenant, the law of God is no longer external carved out in stone, it’s internalised; the Holy Spirit writes the law on our hearts and we learn a whole new way of living…just like Jesus. As C. S. Lewis said we have become like ‘mini-Christs’.

Equally, God has placed in us the heavenly reality of the pot of manna, the miraculous provision of ‘daily bread’, manna from heaven. The Lord’s Prayer has been answered in the New Covenant. Now, wherever we are, whatever our circumstances, we have the pot of manna in our spirit, and it pours out eternally the living word by the Holy Spirit. It is not something we need to pull down from heaven it has been given.

This post is not really about Aaron’s rod but when Jesus instructed his disciples to pray ‘deliver us from evil’ the bible tells us the last enemy is death. But now we have ‘rod that budded’ in us. Resurrection is our new normal.

Jesus was the first prototype of this new humanity of ‘living temples’, now in Christ, we have become like Him…not because of our goodness, holiness, or our religious performance, membership, or attendance of any church…but simply having faith that this is what God has made possible through Christ.

We are not a huge stone-built temple stuck in one location, in Jerusalem, but mobile temples, through whom God pours out His life.

Paris ‘24 - 19th March 2023

Once again it’s a Sunday. March 19th 2023. And once again I have returned to Bristol Harbourside for a chilly start to the morning.

Walking. Not running.

My hope in December to return to running a 10K by the end of January was put back in its box and the lid closed quite firmly. The right knee decided to be the next part of my Olympic Physique to complain at the rigorous pre-Olympics training schedule and went on strike.

One X-Ray later – no obvious signs of wear and tear – I decided to start walking instead of running and adopted the 10K a Day in March challenge minus one day off per week. I’ve skived two or three other days but will hope to make up the difference in kilometres by the close of March.

Routes thus far include:

1. Blaise – on my doorstep
2. Black Mountains above Crickhowell
3. Dorset – from Fontmell Magna
4. Henbury to Bristol Central Library

Snowdon, the Matterhorn, and the Pyrenees to come…?

So, progress towards Paris ’24 must be faced with a dollop of Gallic Shrug, a smidgen of hope, and a full tank of thankfulness for all the previous running injuries and recoveries, a miracle of healing thrown in, and a generous ladle of faith in God.

We press on.

Knocked down but not knocked out.

That is, of course, if Paris ’24 goes ahead. It seems the IOC is acting as an entity as powerful as a nation-state stating, quite firmly, that it will give its ruling on Russia’s participation independent from all other bodies. One wonders, if they rule that Russian athletes are to compete under their national flag, whether France will arouse herself from a Gallic shrug, and say ‘Non!’ and leave the IOC out in the cold.

A real-time blog: The Letter to the Hebrews – final post, VII, Aaron’s Rod

To summarise, the writer is addressing a problem that has occurred with the recipients of the letter, a group of Jewish believers who seem to have stopped growing. He reminds them of God’s dual purpose for them. Firstly that God is ‘bringing many sons to glory’ and, secondly, that they need to move on from milk to meat - to ‘move on to maturity’.

In the Old Testament the ‘glory’ was contained in the ark of the covenant held inside the Holy of Holies, the innermost room in the temple, this being an earthly copy of the heavenly original. The ‘ark’ was a wooden box (acacia wood) covered in gold. Inside the box were the Tablets of the Law, a pot of manna, and Aaron’s budding rod.

It is a picture of Christ and therefore of us, in Him.

Our bodies, souls, and our new human spirit given via the New Covenant, combine to make merely a container for His glory. We are overlaid not with gold – but the glory of God. And on our insides, in our spirit, are the Law, written not on stone but by the Spirit in our hearts, not a pot of mann but the bread of heaven, the word of God, and, like Aaron’s dead stick that budded, resurrection life.

We, who have become sons of God through Christ, are glory pots.

‘…we have this treasure in earthen vessels…’ 2 Cor 4 v 7

The glory residing in the most unlikely of containers. We have become mini temples with God dwelling inside:

‘Your body is the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you’ 1 Cor 3 v 17

There was only one occasion where He permitted a few of his disciples to see His normally invisible glory – the Transfiguration.

‘His clothes became shining, exceedingly white, like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them’ Mark 9 v3

But the truth is, most of the time the glory of God resided in Christ unnoticed: lying as a baby in a stable, or as a refugee fleeing from Herod, or facing hostility from the synagogue in Nazareth, or the Pharisees as they opposed Him, or being whipped and crucified, and later lying dead in the tomb.

But death could not hold Him. Aaron’s rod budded.

It will be similar for us. We suffer, and as we operate as sons of God in this world in Christ, we move on to maturity through obedience to the leading of the Spirit. We may or may not have occasional glimpses of the glory, but finally, like Jesus, we enter into the glory that has been ours all along.

‘I consider the present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us’ Rom 8v18

Aaron’s Rod

Winter’s lost its hold:
Yielding, exhausted,
Blackened branches held up
In wordless surrender.
Even death must sleep
Naked trees, stripped annually
Of leaves and blossom and fruit
Unable to hide far-off horizons
From prying eyes

The birds, though, know
A different story
Twigs, flying mission on mission,
Clamped and carried in beaks
Of hope
Nests appear before
The camouflage of Spring
Spares them, covers them
They know, the birds

Eruption from death
The first buds, a day away.
Like Aaron’s rod,
As unstoppable as unlikely,
Dead as we are Eden’s nightmare,
I am the Life, like a heavenly parasite,
Displaces our winters
With His orchards;
Trees of life once more.

A real-time blog: The Letter to the Hebrews - 6

Premiership football teams in trouble look for a new manager. Each one, José Mourinho, Ferguson, and now Pep Guardiola, Arteta and others transform their team…often backed up with a few dollars!

The writer to the Hebrews, searching a round for a suitable new manager for his flat-lining believers – ‘by this time you should be teachers, but I can only give you milk not solid food’ – lands on Melchizedek.

Melchizedek? Who? Chapter 7 explains all, I’ll summarise key points below:

‘Jesus has become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek’ Heb 6 v 20

Melchizedek (King of Righteousness) was King of Salem (Salem means ‘peace’) without genealogy, having neither beginning nor end, like the Son of God, he remains as a priest forever.

So, Jesus, King of Righteousness and King of Peace, the Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, is the true High Priest.

In the Old Testament, the High Priest entered the Most Holy Place, known as the Holy of Holies, in the temple once a year, which was only an earthly copy of the heavenly original (Heb 8 v5)

But Jesus, the true High Priest, carried his own blood as the Lamb of God into the true holiest place in Heaven to secure our salvation:

‘By one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified’ 10 v 12

Being ‘in Christ’ we have become like Him, united with Christ and we have become, as Peter wrote, ‘partakers of the divine nature’ or, as my friend Chris Welch puts it, ‘Melchizedek particles’, caught up as we are in the High Priest according to the eternal order of Melchizedek.

‘…having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus…having a High Priest over the house of God let us draw near with faith’ Heb 10 v19f

Unlike the previous ‘orders’, the Aaronic and Levitical priests, who only visited the Holiest, it has become where we abide. It is here that we ‘move on to maturity’ dependent entirely, as was our initial salvation, on Jesus’ High Priestly ministry, and not our effort or ‘dead works’.

The rest of Hebrews is written assuming that the recipients of the letter have woken up and realised that falling back under the old Levitical priesthood, temple worship, the Law of Moses will not make us like Christ.

The illustrations the writer employs from this point on in the letter all describe forward motion and the future:

Faith to run the race

Brotherly love to continue

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever

For here we have no enduring city but we seek the one to come

As ‘Melchizedek particles’ we are moving on. Like Jesus said, ‘The wind blows where it wishes…you cannot tell where it comes from or where it goes…so it is with those who are born of the Spirit’.

Next and final Hebrews blog: Glory is spelt strangely, not as we might imagine

Father Across the River

It is not for me to question
Your soul, encased in history
Put to the sword, not once,
Barely to survive.
Deep-set priestly eyes
And heavy Orthodox voices
Filling Cathedrals
With more than sound
Grieving over your sons
And daughters drift away,
Enticed like the Prodigal

It is not for me to question
Your soul; sad anger
Consuming many
But hear this song
Deep calling to deep:
Your son will return
If you let him go
If you let him inherit
If you let your enemy
Feed him scraps
Only to discard him

It is not for me to question
Your soul; precious to me
But turned inward
It rots.
Unburden yourself
Of all I have given you
Let the chanted Psalms
Run backwards through you
Or your sorrowful tears
Will drown many
In the Dnipro

A real-time blog: The Letter to the Hebrews - 5

The gospel writers provide us with a pitch-side view of individuals and their encounters with Jesus of Nazareth.

Jews at the time were deeply divided over Jesus. Some came to him humbly for teaching, or healing, or deliverance, or simply to follow him. Others were opposed. None of those who came humbly remained the same.

Once we encounter Christ, all is left behind, like the fishermen’s nets, and we start growing spiritually; like newborn babies, we need milk, then solid food.

‘Let us go on to maturity not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and faith toward God, the doctrine of baptisms, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgement. And this we will do if God permits.’

Repentance from dead works and faith toward God

This is not referring to the crisis at the time of conversion to Christ, it is addressed to believers. This is the John 15 father with the knife again, coming to us as a vinedresser, ready to cut out any dead branches. Dead works are not necessarily ‘sinful’ at all, they can appear to be very good…but they are not what the Spirit is witnessing in your spirit…and they must go. From now on it is faith toward God. It’s learning to respond to the voice of the Spirit in your spirit.

Baptisms

There are three main baptisms. The Father baptizes us into Christ. Jesus baptizes us in the Spirit, and the Spirit baptizes us into the church as the body of Christ. Our water baptism is a burial of a dead body. We have died to our former life and are open to the above three baptisms. Resisting any one of them is a contradiction of our water baptism.

Resurrection of the dead

There is a future and a present dimension to this. In the parable of the Prodigal son, the son was ‘dead but is alive again’. As far as God is concerned, we were dead but we were brought back to life when we are born again by the Spirit. God’s life is now in us; Christianity is a Spirit/spirit operation. And, of course, there is a future greater fulfilment of resurrection, the day of resurrection. ‘I tell you a mystery…in a moment, at the last trumpet…the dead will be raised incorruptible and this mortal will put on immortality’ 1 Cor 15 v51-54. But our resurrected life, fused with Christ, has begun.

Eternal judgement

This is a living word, alive 24/7 in us; it is not reserved exclusively for the future. God accurately discerns between good and evil and therefore makes sound judgements. If we are being ‘transformed’ or ‘growing up into all things into Christ’ we must learn to operate with the same ‘eternal judgement’. The writer of Hebrews expresses his frustration over the recipients’ lack of progress: ‘…but solid food belongs to those who are mature, those who by practice have their senses exercised to discern good from evil’. Just like Jesus who ‘knew what was in the heart of men’. We begin to discern what lies at the heart of an issue or a person as the Spirit witnesses with our spirit. It is not a ‘natural’ ability.

Next blog: Melchizedek…progress

A real-time blog: The Letter to the Hebrews - part 4

In the previous blog, we looked at the starting point on our journey to ‘glory’ and ‘spiritual maturity’ ‘ceasing from our own work’ and entering God’s rest or, Sabbath, as a continual place – called ‘Today’ if you look closely at Hebrews.

The Letter to the Hebrews challenges us to realise that we are caught up in the Father’s purpose ‘bringing many sons to glory’ and the need to ‘go on to maturity’.

The key verse:

‘By this time you should be teachers, but you need to be taught the first principles again…you need milk not solid food…let us go on to maturity not laying again the foundation of repentance of dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrines of baptisms, of the laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgement’ Heb 5v12-14; 6 v 1,2

The writer of Hebrews has reminded us that our Father in heaven wants to lead us to glory and spiritual maturity as sons.

The evangelical gospel will lead someone to Christ as Saviour and give them confidence in the Bible as the word of God, but so easily stop at the point of salvation, waiting for glory in heaven after you die. The Pentecostal/charismatic gospel rediscovered the Holy Spirit; many have received gifts of the Spirit evangelicals taught had died out with the apostles. But even the best charismatic churches often do not teach about glory or spiritual maturity.

Paul, when writing to the Corinthians made three important distinctions:

‘I could not speak to you as ‘spiritual’ but as ‘carnal’ as ‘babes in Christ’. I feed you with milk and not solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are not able, you are still ‘carnal’ – for where there is envy and strife and division, are you not ‘carnal’ and behaving like ‘mere men’?’ 1 Cor 3 v 1-3

We have three stages of growth: ‘mere men’, then ‘carnal’, then ‘spiritual’.

‘Mere men’ looks back to where we are before coming to Christ. ‘Carnal’ means ‘fleshly’. Carnal Christians are born again, and may well be baptised in the Spirit, but are still operating from their own resources, their souls: minds and thinking, or the emotions, or will, trying to live the Christian life, not operating from the Spirit witnessing with their spirit. ‘Spiritual’ Christians are those who have abandoned any thought of operating from their abilities and strengths. Like Jesus, they only do what they see the Father doing.

We need, as John has taught, to move on from being ‘little children’ to ‘young men’, and then ‘young men to fathers’ 1 John 2 v 12-14

Next blog: ‘moving on’ from the foundations, not abandoning them

A real-time blog on the Letter to the Hebrews - part III

A spiritual MOT. How’s your Sabbath observance? And I’m not talking about Sundays.

Here’s the key verse:

‘There remains, therefore, a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God from His’ 4v9,10

It may seem strange that the writer is making so much of the Sabbath…but it turns out to be vital if God is going to ‘bring many sons to glory’ or for us to push on to ‘maturity’ as chapter 6 urges.

One of the legacies of the disaster of Eden is the persistent belief that we are independent of God, expected to make our own decisions good or bad, wise or unwise. Like the prodigal son, cut off from his father who, when the son returns said to his elder son ‘Your brother was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found’. As far as God is concerned our attempts at living an independent life are considered as ‘death’ just as He said ‘in the day you eat it you shall die’, clearly not referring to biological but spiritual death.

But the truth is that:

‘it is not by might nor by power but by My Spirit’ (Zech 4 v6)

How easy it is to initially believe that salvation is a gift. And that we are ‘under grace’ only to drift away and yield to that insatiable appetite to ‘do something’. As the scripture says to enter God’s rest we ‘cease from our works’.

How easy it is to celebrate the Sabbath externally only (Seventh Day Adventists and many Messianic believers celebrate the Sabbath on Saturdays, most other denominations on Sundays) and miss the essential point, we cannot grow in the life God has given us in Christ if we insist on trying to live the Christian life from our own resources, our minds, or emotions, or will. It’s Spirit/spirit operation.

‘As many as are led by the Spirit, these are sons of God’

So, here’s the MOT. Or, to switch metaphors, consider the vinedresser, knife in hand, in John chapter 15. He’s advancing on the vine ready to lop off any branch that’s not bearing fruit AND to prune even those branches bearing fruit…for the sake of greater fruit.

Then, like Jesus, we are living the Sabbath life. ‘I only do what I see the Father doing’.

Next: On to maturity…I’m looking at a pruned apple tree, ready to grow some ripe fruit.

A real-time blog on the Letter to the Hebrews - 2

In present-day Israel, as in the whole of Israel’s history, there are opposing spiritual forces. On the one hand, Orthodox Jews call for the restoration of the Temple, the Priesthood, and the sacrificial system à la Law of Moses. On the other hand, in Israel, there are more churches full of Jewish believers in the Messiah Jesus than at any time. Many include Gentile as well as Jewish believers but there are some that are like the Jerusalem church in Acts – Jews only.

It was such a church that the Letter to the Hebrews was written.

The tug of war is understandable. To drift back to the Old Testament, to Moses, to Aaron, to the Levitical priesthood, to the temple, to the sacrifices and feasts is supremely relevant today, especially for Jews who believe in Jesus, wanting to retain connections with the past whilst pushing on to…on to what exactly?

And this is true for all believers. For all of us. On to what exactly? What is the purpose of God in Christianity?

‘It was fitting for Him…in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings’ Heb 2v10

This is the vision of true Christianity. First to make many sons from sinners and then for God to bring His sons to glory. I don’t know what that means. Not really. I know that John wrote ‘the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory’ looking back to the Transfiguration. I know that the other witness to the Transfiguration, Peter, wrote ‘Jesus, Messiah, who having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory’.

The New Testament teaches that God, through faith in His only begotten Son, Jesus, has made ‘many sons’ and we are ‘heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ’ Rom 8v17 and that ‘the whole of creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God’.

Poets, songwriters, and prophets have looked for words adequate enough to describe the indescribable…the best we can do is…glory.

Christianity is not about ‘going to church’ or ‘reading the Bible’ or ‘worship’ or ‘good works’ or ‘baptism’, or ‘communion’; all these things you may well do as a Christian but, firstly, it’s about God making you one of His sons inheriting everything with Christ. This is big. Poets, songwriters, and prophets have looked for words adequate enough to describe the indescribable…the best we can do is…glory.

Why abandon this to retreat back to Law, to regulations, to human effort, to self-improvement? Why drift?

And yet, many are drifting, neglecting their salvation. And not just individuals but whole churches and denominations and streams are departing from Christ, replacing Him with their human efforts to produce the kingdom on earth, or simply a good life, or a Christ-like life, and, in doing so, losing sight of the glory.

Blog 3 No more drift…let’s push on…oddly, to ‘rest’, to the true Sabbath

A real-time blog on the Letter to the Hebrews…part 1

Hebrews, I feel, suffers a little from being left out. If Romans is fighting for the Premiership title with Ephesians maybe, Hebrews is in a relegation battle, in need of a miracle manager to climb up the table. And they’ve just hired Melchizedek.

More of Melchizedek later. Romans and Ephesians have had a good run…

But if the Holy Spirit has given us this letter and we ignore its contents, we are denying the children their bread.

In fact, ‘neglect’ was a chief concern of the author.

‘lest we drift away…how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation…’ 2 v 3

The gospel had been preached to them and they had believed. The concern was that they, a group of Jewish believers, would ‘drift away’, not that they had disbelieved the gospel when they heard it.

‘At first (the gospel) was spoken to us by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him, God also bearing witness with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit’ 2 v 3,4

Countless ‘charismatic churches’ are attended by thousands who, when they heard the gospel, believed and then have seen the power of God at work in miracles and signs and wonders and yet are in danger of drifting away. And I’m not particularly writing about individual believers, but whole denominations and streams are in danger of drifting away. This Letter to the Hebrews is more relevant than we might think. When was the last time you read the letter? Or heard it taught carefully, chapter by chapter?

If we drift, we reduce Jesus

I can’t offer that. This is written more or less in real-time highlighting verses and themes that seem to stand out as I am writing, downloads from the past as well as the present.

The first three chapters remind the church of the pre-eminence of Jesus, the Messiah (Christ), who ‘tasted death now crowned with honour and glory’ 2v9; God’s Son 1v2, seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high; 1v3, higher than angels 1v4-14; and superior to Moses, chapter 3. Jesus is the Son in the house, the heir, and Moses is a servant in the house…a particularly dramatic and important distinction for the Jewish recipients of this letter.

If we drift, we reduce Jesus. He becomes a wonderful teacher, or a Jewish prophet, or Rabbi, he becomes a guru from Nazareth, a spiritual teacher, a Christ to be understood only in the historical or sociological context of the first century, rather than the ‘heir of all things’ and ‘the express image of His glory’ at whose name we bow and worship in all generations.

Blog 2 will deal with the purpose of the gospel: ‘bringing many sons to glory’ 2v10

Tides

Those watch-free zones
The coastal towns
Collections of people:
All ages who,
Glancing at the sea,
Or the cool inland breeze, or
The shadow on a summer’s day
Unerringly
Know the time

It’s early morning
Long shadows retreating
And wide busy crab-lands
The mud-flat home where
Lugworms, destined for
An angler’s hook, abide.
Seagulls black, and dawn pink,
Patrol like constables on a beat
Jabbing at the weaker shells

Or the evening low-tide
And children and trouser-rolled
Fathers and mothers
Grandparents, aunts,
The well and the unwell
Melded into one lump of joy:
Soft cool mud
Squelching between
Willing toes

And in the storms
The lashings at hightide
Seaweed cast up to the wind
And the same seagulls
Driven to a standstill
Eye-watering thundering
Gales ripping
At the tops of the waves
White horses galloping

And, all the while
The locals know the time
The harbour disgorging its hunters
On the tide
And gathering its children
Weighed down with catch
Escorted by
Inexhaustible seagulls and
Lamps swinging in the dusk

It’s a watch-free zone
The sloshing of an
Untethered will
Eruptions of romance
The collapse of wealth
Erosion of a coastline
And baptisms of
Overwhelming joy
The divine order of things

You and I

We’re all coastland people
You and I
We know the signs, the time
Sudden tide-turning breezes
Heralding a peristalsis
Of irreversible change
Storm time has caught us
Once again, we are unmoored
Blown by a fierce wild wind

Flamenco

Three wooden chairs
Backs to the rough-painted wall
Taut, like guitar strings
Ready to exhale their staccato notes
Far into the crossbeams
Frames now creaking with
Slow muscular sorrow
Resonating with each eruption
Shaken with each clap clap
The fiery vibrations coursing
Through the lignin; knots
Moved as they have never moved

Four legs thrown into confusion
By the stamping snorting bull
Boiling in terror at the whirling
Red dress and piercing stare
Forcing the wailing and weeping
Into the grain, along the grain
And across the entranced grain
The back of the chairs now
Pressed hard against the world

Three chairs made animate
With Promethean fire
The dancer, every pore of her
Exporting life, a reverse baptism
Deluging the transfixed onlookers
With the man’s plaintive tones
And the woman’s sinuous dance
Her black shoes invisible
In speed and the hot dust

There is no escape
We are all buried
The flamenco has ended
All individuality
And pooled the life of us all
Into its font
It is our complete selves
That was sung into one flame
Until that defiant shout of silence
Cools the three chairs
And we are returned to this world:

Where we were taken
No one will ever know.