Category: Through the Bible in a Year

Through the Bible in a Year – July 6

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The scheme for July and August can be found here

Prov 24-25; Matt 19; Psalm 84-85

The Kingdom of God is one of great reversals – Blessed are those who to our eyes do not appear to be blessed. The least, the children, to them belongs the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus, the Living Gospel, reverses all that we hold to be true. To be rich is no blessing – to have nothing is to inherit the earth – the first shall be last and the last first.

The parallel between the children and the rich young man is stark, but we often do not hear them in the juxtaposition which the evangelists present us with. Here the metaphor of reversal is made absolutely clear. In the eyes of the world the rich male has it all. Of course, we might argue that it is all a matter of degrees, that ‘perfection’ is not required of us – but this ‘perfection’ is commanded. ‘Be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect’.

It will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven – this is Jesus’ plain teaching. For it is not that we have possessions, but that they have us. We may well say – they mean nothing to me, but when the demands of the Kingdom stare us in the face, in the face of one who has nothing, a child, a hungry person, a homeless person . . . all of a sudden they mean much to us.

All too readily we sink back into a form of Christianity which denies the plain teaching of Jesus. And miss out on Life.

This life is revealed in Peter’s outburst. they have left what seems to be much, but they have inherited far far more. Whatever we leave behind to follow Jesus, is as nothing compared with that which we find. There is no gold or palace or indeed bond of kinship which is not rendered invisible in comparison with the treasure of Life in the Kingdom.

Our problem is that we do not believe this

 

Through the Bible in a Year – July 5

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The scheme for July and August can be found here

Prov 22-23; Matt 18; Psalm 83

Matthew 18 puts together the themes of the dread full nature of sin, the absolute requirement of forgiveness and how this discipline it to be exercised in the community of faith. [None of the gospel makes any sense outside of this community – it is the place where the Gospel is enacted ‘You are the Light of the World’]

Firstly we read of the nature of the disciple – they are children, and thus they are to be treated with utmost care. This is the root of church discipline – of Life Together – every member is a precious child of God.

So it is literally a Terrible thing even to tempt another to sin – so calamatous for us is sin. I suggest that we all too often forget this.

But sin – must not have the last word – so if one of the little ones strays – they MUST be sought – they must be brought back to the fold.

Jesus explains how this is to happen in practical terms. It has been said before, but it is worth repeating, that how we handle sin in church is almost always the exact opposite of this. Jesus commands that the one who has sinned is to be approached privately – then if must be, with two witnesses – then if must be, before the whole congregation. How often does one sinned against howl with indignation to the whole church? How infrequently are the words of Jesus acted on? This is a sign that we are far far more concerned about the temporary damage sin has done to us, than we are about the possibly eternal damage sinning has done to the perpetrator.

Which is also why the command to forgive sticks in our craw – for we will not lay down our life for the brethren.

But that being the case – we find ourselves outside of the forgiveness of God.

This is no small matter

Through the Bible in a Year – June 30

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

Pr 10-11; Mat 13:36-end; Psalm 78:1-31

Many in our age even in the church are at best uncertain about deeds of power in the church today. We treat reports of the dead being raised with great scepticism – for we have not seen such things

In a sense we discern why in our reading from Matthew’s gospel today. Jesus is unable to do a deed of power because of the unbelief of the people of Nazareth. Perhaps here is a word for the contemporary church? ‘Prophets are not without honour except in their own country and in their own house.’

We have been thinking recently about repentance and obedience. These are the acts on our part which open the door to the Life of Jesus. Could it be that we do not live repentant lives, and thus his life and these deeds of power are rare amongst us? This repentance as I have said is concrete acts of love towards the neighbour. Yesterday we thought briefly about Cornelius and how Repentance wasn’t necessary for him – in his generous giving of arms, his heart was open to his neighbour. So when The Neighbour, in the guise of Christ comes to Him – His Life is immediately released.

I wonder if we know the Treasure of the Kingdom? I wonder whether we have gone to seek it out – giving up all we have for it?

It is instructive to note how so often in the Scriptures, our actions PRECEDE the outpouring of God’s Grace. ‘Give . . . and it will be given to you’ – ‘Forgive . . . and you will be forgiven’. The preparation of our hearts through simple obedience to the Great Commandment – Devotion to God and neighbour – opens our hearts to the Treasure – the very Life of Jesus Christ . . . and the world to his deeds of power.

Through the Bible in a Year – June 29

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

Pr 7-9; Mat 13:1-35; Psalm 77

The parable of the Sower is to be found in all three of the synoptic gospels. It’s message is pretty unambiguous, yet it  constantly needs to be heard afresh – as the Gospel always does.

It reveals four ways in which we respond to God’s word of Life, the seed. For some, it is in one ear and out of the other – for another it is as it were a mos wonderful thing and we are for a season excited about it. But, it has fallen on rocky ground. The heart is not prepared to receive it. Soon enough another thing will capture our attention and we will be receiving that ‘with joy’. Surely as we consider the many many who ‘responded to the gospel’ at mass crusades, given the fall away rate (about 95%), we find many who are in this category.

But what of us? We who call ourselves Christians – who worship regularly etc.etc.? It seems to me that we fall into the latter two categories. The fruit bearers, and those for whom ‘all the demands of life’ get in the way of Life. This following Jesus takes determination. Many are the distractions, many the avenues in which life overloads us, squeezing the joy of the gospel from us. Chief amongst those is of course money, which so demands our attention – and how much more so in our age than in first century Palestine. Then there is family, which Jesus often warns us turns us from following him – why the call of the kingdom must even be allowed to keep us from the funeral of our parents . . . and so on

As many have noted, the difference in the reception of the word depends on the soil.

Good soil is that heart which has repented towards God – somewhat like that of Cornelius in Acts 10. To our way of thinking, he sounds as if he is already converted He was a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God. But in reality to use the language of the New testament, he lived Repentantly. He feared God, he was generous with all he had for the good of those who went without, and he prayed. Thus his soil was ready. Note that there is no ‘Repentance’ in the account of Cornelius – he is already living towards God – he is thus ready for the seed of the life of God to be sown. And when it does – his life bears much fruit – Although we only know about Cornelius incipient faith – his life is the gateway to life for all who live with him.

Above all, we should give thanks to God – for his word Always bears fruit somewhere, and the fruit it bears vastly outdoes the ‘lost grains’

Glory to God!

 

Through the Bible in a Year – June 28

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

Pr 5-6; Mat 12; Psalm 76

There are many places we might stop and pause in the 12th chapter of Matthew’s gospel. The intriguing mention of the Sabbath and the Temple. Is Jesus here pointing to the disciples as the new priestly caste – within the new creation announced by the Lord of the Sabbath?

Certainly he takes legalistic notions of Sabbath and demolishes them – this ‘Sabbath breaking’ is consistently portrayed as a key episode in the conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees. Clearly there is far more to the Sabbath than perhaps we comprehend.

Again Jesus’ words contradict what we might call ‘easy believeism’. The Life of Christ is expected to be evidenced n the life of the believer. Jesus reminds his hearers that ‘every careless word you utter’ will have to be accounted for. This saying following on from the issue of blasphemy against the Spirit, locates those careless words in the realm of speaking of God.

And once more we are reminded of the new people of God, the new ‘family’ – those who do the will of my Father in heaven.

Jesus’ words here as so often are unambiguous. uncomfortably so. How is it that we have so often designed a faith that fits us and requires nothing of us in terms of doing the will of God?

Through the Bible in a Year – June 27

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

Pr 3-4; Mat 11; Psalm 75

Perhaps the struggle we all face in following Christ is that he just doesn’t fit the bill as a Saviour – so weened are we on violence – on coercion, even be it ‘the will of the people’

Yet ‘wisdom is vindicated by her deeds’

However against the grain of our lives the commands of Jesus seem – God will vindicate his Christ. Now is the day of Salvation  Now is the day to follow him, laying down our own picture of what a Saviour should be – following him in humble obedience

Through the Bible in a Year – June 26

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

Pr 1-2; Mat 10; Psalm 74

Often we hear from certain parts of the church a clarion call about ‘family values’ – meaning the Huge significance we are meant to place upon the health of the (implicitly nuclear) family. Failing marriages – prodigal children – lack of harmony in ‘the home’, are all seen as contrary to God’s plan in the sense that ‘God’s plan is for healthy families.

Someone doesn’t seem to have told Jesus . . .

We have already seen how the Gospel breaking into the world is breaking down what to the Jew was the most sacred of boundaries – betwixt Jew and Gentile – yet Jesus goes far far further even than this. He is forming a new people – expressed in the 12 apostles – where blood and race in effect, count for nothing. Now ‘family’ means those who are following Jesus. The ‘family’ that we are so fond of or long for is understood as a barrier to the Kingdom.

We see this worked out in all but the rarest of church settings. Endless courses given on marriage and family life – single people finding themselves on the fringe – pastors with families sought after, for they set before us an image we dearly want to cling to – but we cannot. We have to let go of this. Jesus demands our total allegiance.

Jesus then establishes something far more life giving, the community of faith where every act of hospitality is an act of hospitality to him.

Such talk seems extreme to us, but our perceptions of the significance of ‘family life’ and marriage owe far far more to Christendom, to the world in which we live in which such structures are understood to be at the root of strong community – ironically this very strength immunises us against the gospel. It also locks out the other.

This is the life we have to lose to discover a far richer and fuller life in Him.

Through the Bible in a Year – June 25

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Ki 9-11; Mat 9 Psalm 73

‘I desire mercy . . .’

It would be good to reflect on this saying. We are told it is the merciful who will receive mercy [ just as those who give will receive in all aspects of the life of the Kingdom – ‘forgive us as we forgive’, God opens the door to us in Christ – we have to step through to receive the blessings of the Kingdom.]

And so we might ask ‘Am I merciful as my Father in heaven is merciful?’ bearing in mind that we reveal the nature of our parents in this more than in anything else. Plainly much of contemporary church life is far from merciful. Yes we say we are, but THIS!! or THAT!!! cannot be the subject of mercy. We still set our own bounds

Through the Bible in a Year – June 24

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Ki 8; Mat 8; Psalm 72

Immediately following the Sermon on the Mount, the theme of obedience of lack of it is highlighted in the healing of the centurion’s servant.

The gospel of Matthew is the one most clearly directed towards an audience which has a Jewish background. Law is a key theme and the gospel is shaped in a five-fold pattern, echoing the five books of Torah. This background is important in understanding Jesus response to the gentile centurion, for there is a key element of the gospel summed up in Chapter 10:5 where Jesus commands ‘Go nowhere amongst the gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, bit go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and proclaim the good news “The kingdom of heaven has come near” ‘.

In the incident with the Centurion, Jesus is amazed for the key element of his conflict is with the disobedience of God’s people. We might well see the focus of the faith of the centurion as key – but there is another important element here. Those under the authority of the Centurion do what they are commanded – as we have already seen, the same cannot be said of the people of God, and yet who has the higher claim to authority? The Son of the most high God, or a mere military functionary?

Put like that we may well spend a moment considering: firstly how our inherently self centered culture in the West responds poorly to any authority except that of the Self; secondly how do we respond to the question when it is put in terms of a miltary leader who commands in the last resort, by penalty of death, compared with Jesus’ authority as a teacher of truth; and thirdly how well our own response to Jesus, freely given compares with that of the servants etc. to the command of the centurion – let alone the response of the disease to the presence of Christ?

Through the Bible in a Year – June 23

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Ki 7; Mat 7; Psalm 70-71

Perhaps it is in Matthew 7 that the sermon becomes its sharpest. Who for example even desires to avoid judging others? Jesus famous joke about the mote and the beam illustrates beautifully our human predicament. We are tuned to see the flaws in others whilst we are blind to our own faults and failings. We see someone choking on a gnat whilst we are trying to swallow the proverbial camel.

Jesus story tells us that we have far more work to do on our own hearts than any assistance we might usefully render to others. Truly it is a narrow gate, the gate of wholehearted obedience to the primary command of Jesus – follow me. Our lives are meant to bear fruit – to bear witness to the Life of Christ in us.

Jesus then closes out the sermon with the clearest expression of what we have been thinking on these past days. ‘Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of m father in heaven’. To Know Jesus is to be identified wholly with him – living as he lived purely for the Kingdom of God.

When we begin to grasp the fullness of that Kingdom, we will know that it is such a huge realm, that our lives are readily swallowed up in it. Perhaps our problem with disobedience is that we think so little of the Kingdom of God?

‘Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them . . .’