Category: Through the Bible in a Year

Through the Bible in a Year – March 30

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The Scheme for March – April can be found here

Num 27-28; Gal 6; Psalm 109

St Paul here condenses the Gospel in a single phrase – ‘bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the Law of Christ’

To some no doubt, this will sound the very antithesis of the gospel, that we have to fulfill a law, were it not the command of the Apostle. Yet is this not the fulness of Life, to enter into the very Life of the One who bears us all upon the Cross, the one who sets us free to love one another as He has loved us – it is the Law of the Spirit of Life.

Through the Bible in a Year – March 29

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The Scheme for March – April can be found here

Num 26; Gal 5; Psalm 108

‘Freedom’ is something widely misunderstood in the Christian life – it is not at all the same thing as the idolatrous notion of Freedom so prevalent in western Society, ‘Freedom from . . .’ an unrestricted life.

Those looking in Paul’s letter to the Galatians for such a notion of ‘Freedom’ will find themselves puzzled if not disappointed. Thus far Paul has spoken of their re-adoption of the Jewish Law, especially with respect of Purity, as a Slavery. The imagery he uses is that they are in effect offspring of Hagar, the ‘bond-woman’. but then he goes on in Chapter 5 to explain the nature of Christian Freedom – not freedom to Self indulgence. Thus Not the Freedom as we are taught to think of it. Put another way, OUR problem is that we understand the Christian virtues in isolation. IF Freedom is sucha virtue, then it cannot be so understood, for if Freedom were to self indulgence, it would contravene the Key Christian virtues of humility and Pride. Put another way it is slavery to self, masquerading as Freedom

No, Freedom as understood Christianly is Freedom to do what is right. We are not set ‘free from’, so much as we are set ‘free for’. Set Free from the effects of Sin, which are always and everywhere to turn us in ourselves, and set Free for Love.

Put another way, we are set free to reveal what we are in Essence, to reveal our true nature, Children of the One who Is Love. Thus Paul’s command to walk by the Spirit, is no more nor less than saying, now you are free to be who you really are, children born of the free woman, of the one who says ‘yes’ to God . . .

Through the Bible in a Year – March 28

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The Scheme for March – April can be found here

Num 23-25; Gal 4; Psalm 107:23-end

Yesterday we first encountered the story of the prophet Balaam and of course the famous talking donkey . . . a day later than the text it would be well to think of those who appear to be standing in our way,  blocking a path we are set on. Perhaps because they unlike we see the angel of the Lord?

Following on we read of the encounter of the prophet with the King of Moab, who has called on the prophet to curse Israel. In the comedic sense written deep into the Hebrew mindset, we read of Balaam’s Blessing Israel over and over again.

In a sense both elements of this tail speak to us of the lack of our sight and how ridiculous we must often appear to God. God is intent on blessing – our sight is so narrow often we think to curse is only right and proper. Were not the whole business of Blessing and Curse be at its most fundamental level a matter of Life or Death, indeed we might laugh and see ourselves as ignorant infants or foolish sheep. Sadly we are foolish sheep who know not what we do – indulgent laughter cannot be an appropriate response.

Better perhaps to recognise that when the Boanerges ask Jesus, should they, like Elijah call down fire from heaven (hubris in the extreme – who IS like Elijah??), Jesus rebukes them. What must it be like to hear the rebuke of Jesus? It is not something of which we are called to think often, if at all. Before we curse, it might be well to imagine that rebuke.

Through the Bible in a Year – March 27

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The Scheme for March – April can be found here

Num 21-22; Gal 3; Psalm 107:1-22

‘Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard?’

St Paul’s letter to the Galatians is famously his least pastoral letter. There is no prayer for the congregation and Paul moves directly from his greeting to his astonishment at what is happening amongst the Galatian Christians.

Having believed and received new Life in Christ, they are now resorting to works of the Law, especially as we have seen the ritual purity laws directed towards preserving Jewish identity. We know that things have come to a terrible place for Peter has been refusing to eat with Gentile Christians. This is the primary meaning of ‘Works of the Law’ is indisputibly in this context.

Now, of course we may well say that we do not have the same sort of issues in our day, but of course a moments thought does perhaps give us pause, in that we might separate ourselves from our fellow believers for any number of reasons. I argue elsewhere that Schism is The sin against the Holy Spirit and it is interesting that Paul opens his argument in Chapter 3 in terms of reception of the Spirit, reception of the very life of God.

For a moment I just want to focus in on this . . . ‘Did you receive the Spirit . . .’ not as a question addressed to the reader, but rather a rememberance of the extraordinary nature of what is born in us as we believe in the name of Jesus. It is usually around this time of year that we approach Easter, and a question I have constantly laid before myself is – ‘What is the impact on my daily life of the Cross and the Ressurection of Jesus?’ Do I live my life in terms of the radical transformation of Reality brought about that first Holy Week and Easter? Do I live a life free from fear, free to serve, to obey, to go where I am called, knowing that Christ has paid the full price for me and now that the life that I live, I live by faith, Indeed that my Life now is His Life in me.

The Resurrection of Christ changes everything – it announces God’s New Creation – When I received the Holy Spirit, I became part of that Creation, the Life that is Eternal. After the initial glow of our conversion wears off, do we like the Gentiles go back to the old ways, as if nothing had happened?

The disciples of course do this, Jesus finds them back on the lake fishing.He calls them back to a life of total dependency on Him. He calls us also. Life beckons. Do we hear?

Through the Bible in a Year – March 26

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The Scheme for March – April can be found here

Num 19-20; Gal 1-2; Psalm 106:24-end

Once more we wonder at the unity of the Scriptures – sometimes not so clear, sometimes all too clear – as when Moses holds before the Israelites the brass serpent that they might be healed – so the Son of MAn must be lifted up, that all who believe in him may not die but have eternal life.

In Christ, in some strange way we see our own death, and thus are set free from death – his death is also paradoxically our healing. And here we have one of the deeper meanings of Sin and Death – and why Jesus links suffering and sin. That at heart we are Sin sick – the distortion of sin is not some mere breaking a moral code – rather it is a fundamental fracturing of the Good which God has declared in Creation.

It is wrong to turn the Cross into some mere transaction, in the Cross we see the healing of all of Creation – all that is needed is that we turn to face it and believe.

Thus Peter and Paul find themselves at loggerheads and Paul challenges Peter – for one of the Key fractures of Sin is that between Jew and Gentile. The Galatians are primarily rebuked because they have succumbed to the message of some of the early Jewish converts, that life was to be found in the moral purity of not associating with Gentiles. Jesus in his ministry and in welcoming the thief upon the cross into Paradise broke down this wall of hostility. It is this which Paul addresses in Galatians as they try once more to be ‘pure’ by acts of separation from the Gentiles as Peter displays by withdrawing from table fellowship, an action which Paul challenges as antithetical to the gospel – and undoing of the work of the Cross, by which the two have become one in Christ.

In all our refusals to associate, for whatever reason, we do the same

Through the Bible in a Year – March 25

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The Scheme for March – April can be found here

Num 17-18; 2 Cor 12-13; Psalm 106:1-23

Paul goes further to elucidate the mystery of the triumph of the way of weakness – that in weakness the Power of Christ may more fully reside.

Again we are confronted with our own emphases on our talents and gifts and abilities. It is hardly surprising we pray so poorly in the church in the West, we are so talented and gifted, there is no need!

Hard as it is for us to hear – it is in our need, our emptiness, our weakness that Christ deigns to dwell – as he himself is revealed as the one who triumphs through the ‘weak’ way of Love – the one who empties himself for our sake – the one who comes to us to seek somewhere to lay his head.

Paul’s boasting in werakness, is in fact nothing more than his identification with Christ

Through the Bible in a Year – March 24

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The Scheme for March – April can be found here

Num 16; 2 Cor 11; Psalm 105 vs 26-end

‘If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness’

Paul as we know is not interested in glorifying himself – there is no whisper of ‘my ministry’ here. In doing so he sets an example of humility which is perhaps the cardinal virtue of faith.

But boasting in weakness is a wonderful gospel ploy – for if we boast of that which is nothing, then all that can be seen must be of God – that Christ may be all, in all

Also it is interesting to note that we do not take Paul’s example all that seriously in the contemporary church, with our eyes all too often set on the glittering array of seminary qualifications – all the things which Paul has put behind him. What is more Paul speaks not of his glittering acheivements in his faithfulness to the gospel, all he will speak of is his afflictions.

He himself has known little comfort in the world – he has known little but tribulation, but finds his peace in the one who himself, ‘made himself nothing’, the one who has overcome the world.

Paul, like the Lord he serves knows in his flesh that the way of Life is the Cross.

Through the Bible in a Year – March 23

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The Scheme for March – April can be found here

Num 14-15; 2 Cor 9-10; Psalm 105 vs 1-25

One of the key signifiers of the Truth of scripture, is its Overwhelmingly unflinching honesty about the people of God. As someone once said, ‘it is hard to sit under scripture each week, for insofar as we are the subject of scripture we are not in any sense photoshopped!’

From Moses and the Israelites, to the disciples of Jesus, to the Corinthian Christians, there is little to give us any sense of Pride over the issue of Election, indeed as a moments survey of the canyons of our own moral landscape quickly ratifies – ‘we are those of unclean lips and live amongst those of unclean lips’

Thus the wisdom of the Eastern prayer prayed without ceasing, ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on me a sinner’

Through the Bible in a Year – March 22

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The Scheme for March – April can be found here

Num 12-13; 2 Cor 7-8; Psalm 104

Paul despite eschewing what is falsely called ‘wisdom’, leaves no rhetorical technique unused as he goads, exhorts and strains to call froth the Life of Faith from his Corinthian brothers and sisters. And here he has his work cut out, for centuries of faith have proved without demur, that the poor are far more generous than the rich.

That it is far easier for the poor to enter the kingdom, than the wealthy

However much it may stick in our craw to think in these terms, it is only what Jesus has told us.

If we are comfortable with life as it is, we will do little to enter by the narrow gate. Indeed in a world of relative comfort, even the narrow gate is transformed into ‘asking Jesus into your heart’ – a call which has no scriptural warrant as it is used in contemporary church life. All is a life of ease.

Yet here in the sharpest point, where Mammon in exposed for the false god it is, where the simple sign of repentance, sharing that which we have with those who do not have is laid before us (Luke 3:11), we rationalise our way around the clear command of Jesus as effectively as the wealthy Corinthians do.

Sadly we do not recognise that this invitation to share is an invitation into the very life of God. The invitation to life in the kingdom is rejected.

Through the Bible in a Year – March 21

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The Scheme for March – April can be found here

Num 10-11; 2 Cor 5-6; Psalm 103

Once more a brief pause to consider a Psalm

This time, 103, one of those often committed to memory and it would be a good practise so to do.

Christian faith, as we have noted, is all too easily turned in on itself – we have ‘a faith’ which secures us. The beginning and end of our faith is our salvation, either in the here, or the hereafter. Whereas the Biblical witness is that the End, the Purpose of faith is the Glory of God.

Thus meditation on Psalm 103, with its total focus on the attributes of God is a useful medicine for the incurvatus soul. It will not let us turn in on ourselves, rather it opens us to God. And so the Psalmist both begins and ends the Psalm with true words of faith – Bless the Lord O my soul, and all that is within me Bless His holy name.

For surely the end of our faith is to Bless God