Lives that make a difference

One more story to tell - Portraits of Jesus

2008-03-20T23:27:00.002Z

It is not just the words themselves that have so much to say about hope in a despairing world.

What makes the words of the New Testament so powerful is that they arise from real life as real people grapple with what it means to follow Jesus in the real world.

It is not possible to identify who exactly wrote the words of the New Testament. What is apparent, however, that they were people who shared their faith in the life of the church. And they were real people. From a very early time the writings that have been collected in the New Testament have been linked with named people in the communities that made up the very first churches. Tell their stories, get a feel for the lives they lived and the struggles they had and the words of the New Testament start to come alive in sometimes unexpected ways.

These are people of faith, whose faith found its focus in Jesus Christ.

These are people who came together in a love for one another that bound them together in the life of the church, often in spite of the very real differences they had.

These are people who through the faith they professed and the love they shared discovered grounds for hope in an often despairing world.

These are the people behind the New Testament.

These are the ‘lives that make a difference’.

The hope they discovered can make a difference in our lives as we share their faith and seek to build all we do on the love that was so important to them.

There is, however, one more story to tell.

All these lives made a difference because these people recognised that there was one Life that had made all the difference to them and would make all the difference to the world as a whole. That life is the life of Jesus.

Portraits in a Picture Gallery

It is not always that sermons stick in the mind. One series of sermons I listened to has stuck in my mind ever since. It was a series of eight sermons preached in Mansfield College chapel, Oxford by George Caird, Principal of Mansfield and Dean Ireland’s Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture in the University of Oxford.

For a whole year he had been lecturing twice a week on New Testament theology. He brought the New Testament alive in his lectures by inviting us to imagine that we were attending a conference at which the main speakers would be the Apostles.

One would be invited to read a paper. Imaginatively George Caird would then explore a New Testament theme presented, for example, by John. He would then invited other apostolic writers from the New Testament to comment on John’s paper.

In that way he brought to life the community of apostolic writers who were behind the New Testament.

In the sermons that accompanied the lecture series he invited us into a Portrait Gallery. In that gallery were eight quite different portraits. AT first sight they were so different that they appeared to be of different people. Closer examination, however, revealed that they were eight portraits painted by different people of the same person.

Each sermon invited us to stand in front of the portrait painted by that writer of the New Testament.

In the course of eight weeks, George Caird built up a wonderful picture of the One whose Life had made such a difference to the lives behind the New Testament, Jesus.

Portraits of Jesus

As our course comes to an end that’s what I want to try to build up. Each of the writers we have looked at has presented us with a pen-portrait of Jesus. Each portrait is quite different. Yet, taken together the portraits present a wonderful picture of the One whose life can make such a difference to us all.

Peter – hope that’s rocky looks to Jesus, the living stone

In his speeches and in his letters Peter homes in on the cross and resurrection of Jesus. So often things went wrong for Peter. Impetuosity, thinking he knew better than Jesus about
what lay in store, denials, flight, abandonment. Peter had a rocky ride! Yet, each time Jesus gave Peter a new start. Three opportunities to respond to the denials by affirming his love of Jesus. In Peter’s story there is always something more beyond his failure to understand.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead …” 1 Peter 1:3

There is one superb picture of Jesus that meant so much to the one Jesus nick-named ‘the rock’: “Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by people yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifies acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 2:4-5.

Mark – down to earth hope looks to Jesus the man alongside us

In Mark, do we touch Peter’s reminiscences of the life of Jesus? Was he the one who ran away naked into the night in the Garden of Gethsemane? Was he the one in whose house the followers of Jesus meet to pray? Was he the one who let Paul down but was given a second chance in his missionary travels?

In Mark’s Gospel Jesus is a man of action. Few parables are included by Mark outside of Chapter 4. There is a breath-taking pace to the unfolding story of Jesus from the very beginning with that day in the life of the Jesus where the words ‘and’ and ‘immediately’ are so important!

A passion narrative with a prologue, the cross in Mark’s gospel is very much a gibbet. The place of the skull is very much the place of abandonment where Jesus touches humanity at its lowest point and cries out … ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Mark 15:34

Resurrection is hinted at … but it is left for us to live out that resurrection in our own lives as Jesus becomes real for us. For this is but ‘the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the son of God’. Mark 1.1

James – hope through actions looks to Jesus the greatest example of all

James had little time for his brother Jesus during his life time. But his resurrection made all the difference. It was not long before he became a leader of the church in Jerusalem. What counted in Jesus for him more than anything else was putting the teaching into practice.

It’s no good having faith unless you put your faith into action. “Faith, by itself, if it has no works is dead.” James 2:17.

James echoes the sermon on the mount and takes seriously the challenge of Jesus at the end. Jesus said, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and acrts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.”

Indeed the wise man of the Old Testament who had built a house for God on the rock was Solomon. Now the presence of God was located not in a geographical location in Jersusalem but wherever people heard those words of Jesus and put them into practice.

This was the essence of it for James, the brother of Jesus. Put your faith into action and you let the presence of Jesus loose in the world.

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” James 1:27.

Hebrews – the way to hope looks to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of faith

The letter to the Hebrews is written to followers of Jesus whose roots are in Judaism, or for Christians who want to make sense of the Jewish roots of Jesus in the Hebrew Scriptures. He explores some of the great themes of the Hebrew Scriptures: God, priesthood, the temple, faith. And he finds the focus of all of those themes in Jesus.

Jesus is the great High Priest … but “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” Hebrews 4:15

That’s the point for the writer to the Hebrews! Jesus is just like us! That’s what makes us able to relate to him so closely. If that’s the case we need to do something about it … “Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:16.

Jesus is the one who has opened up a new way into the very presence of God … and it is away all of us can follow!

“since we have confidence to enter [the very presence of God] … by the new and living way … let us approach with faith, hold fast to our hope, and provoke one another to love.” Hebrews 10: 19-25.

Jesus is ‘the pioneer’ who has blazed a way into the presence of God. We can ‘run the race that is set before us … looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” Hebrews 12:1-2.

Matthew – a handbook of hope for would-be disciples looks to Jesus the Teacher who is yet more than a Teacher who knows temptation and triumphs over it

Knowing the difference Jesus had made to him, a tax-collector, Matthew was all too aware of the way of life that Jesus mapped out for his followers to take. He brought together the teaching of Jesus outlining

what it takes to ‘live under God’s rule’ in the sermon on the mount (5-7),
the missionary challenge to ‘take God’s rule into the world’ (10),
what this ‘rule of God’ is like (13)
what it takes to live by this rule in the church (18)
what it takes to live under God’s rule to the very end (23-25)

Jesus is the Teacher who teaches with authority. “You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times … but I say to you …” Matthew 5. This is the teaching that the followers of Jesus are to hand on as they ‘teach people to obey all that Jesus has commanded them (Matthew 28:18-20)

He is the teacher who is more than a teacher, who yet knows what it is like to be tempted.

The cross in Matthew is more than a place of execution. It is the place of the final temptation. “If you are the son of God …” had not only been the temptation Jesus faced at the start of the ministry (Matthew 4:1-11), it was also the temptation Jesus faced on the cross from ‘those who passed by’ from ‘the chief priests, the scribes and the elders’ and from the bandits crucified with him (Matthew 27:38-44)

It is for Matthew at the moment of his death that the ‘new and living way’ of Hebrews is opened up by Jesus. The one tempted as we are, resists temptation to the end, and gains access for us to the glory of God.

Paul – hope through suffering, hope for a better world looks to Jesus as Lord and Saviour

It was in meeting the risen Christ that Saul of Tarsus found new life for himself. That new life was nothing less than a new creation for him. A Jew and a Roman citizen his roots were firmly in Judaism and in the Gentile world of the Roman Empire.

What counted for him was that all who follow in the footsteps of Jesus were ‘in Christ Jesus’. Jesus shares with us in our sufferings and enables us to share with him in his glory. “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith active in love.”

He was convinced that ‘nothing in all creation could separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8: 37-39.

He was convinced, “Jesus is Lord” and we are ‘the body of Christ’. That means that all distinctions disappear: “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28)

More than a theory – that’s something Paul expects the churches and individuals to whom he writes to take to heart.

It is the God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 2 Corinthians 4:6

Luke – a healing hope looks to Jesus, Forgiver

Travelling companion of Paul, the beloved physician, Luke very much takes this picture of Jesus to heart.

Jesus is very much the healer who not only heals people who are sick but also heals people’s relationships too.

The cross is for Luke a place of healing where relationships are restored.

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:34

John – Hope through Love looks to Jesus the Word of God, the Son of Man who means so much to us all

Word of God, Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, Teacher (Rabbi), Christ (Messiah) the one about whom Moses in the Law and whom the Prophets also wrote about, Son of God, King of Israel, Son of Man. By the end of chapter 1 there can be very little doubt that in the presence of Jesus we are in the presence of someone who is one of us and yet one with God – with his feet firmly on the ground but his head in the glory of heaven!

The great I AM is the bread of life, the light of the world, the one who bears witness concerning himself, the one from above, the gate, the good shepherd, the resurrection and the life, the way, the truth and the life, the true vine.

In Jesus we touch God, the God who is love (1 John 4:16), the God ‘who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16

That love is seen supremely on the cross where Jesus sees his mother and the beloved disciple, “Woman, here is your son.” “Here is your mother.” John 19:26-27. The cross for John is the place where Jesus’ humanity is seen, “I am thirsty” John 19:28, and where all is brought to its conclusion and all is accomplished as Jesus says, “It is finished” John 19:30.

This is the hour at which ‘The Son of Man’ is glorified (John 12:23 see also John 1:51)

Revelation – hope against hope looks to Jesus the first and the last

In the face of all adversity, John the divine, is sure that Jesus will never let any of us go. He is the One who is there at the beginning. He is the One who is there to the very end. He is the One who says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega” the One “who is, and who who as and who is to come. Revelation 1:8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

We can be sure therefore, that whatever the end, and whenever it should come, God is with us in Jesus Christ. He will usher in a new heaven and a new earth, he will wipe every tear from our eyes. Death will be no more for the first things have passed away! Revelation 21:4.

Another John - Hope against Hope - The Book of Revelation

2008-03-09T19:56:00.003Z

It’s very easy to hope when everything is going well.But when everything goes pear-shaped what do you do then? Who do you turn to? Where can you go? One place people go to is the Bible.Surprising as it may seem it’s a book about people who as often as not struggled with hope.

Lives that make a difference

Peter let Jesus down so much; yet Jesus never stopped showing him his love and so he found hope.

Mark ran away in the garden, fell out with Paul and yet kept at it. Paul made things up, he was able to serve Peter: his hope was in a very down to earth Jesus, whose actions spoke louder than his words.

James couldn’t see what others saw in his brother Jesus … until the resurrection. It was in the risen Christ he found a very real hope that simply had to be put into action.

That anonymous writer to the Hebrews grappled with the Hebrew Scriptures and felt sure that Jesus had opened up a way to hope that anyone could follow.

Matthew felt the key to hope lay in the teaching of Jesus and he provided would-be disciples with what amounted to a handbook of hope.

It was in his encounter with the risen Christ that Paul found hope and that sense of hope grew stronger through all the sufferings he experienced. He had

He shared that sense of hope with Luke: it was the healing Jesus brought into the lives of hurting people that gave him grounds for hope.

There was something special for John in the presence of Christ and the love he embodied, a love that was of the very essence of God; that was the basis for hope in his experience.

We have sensed the way in which the books of the New Testaement have emerged from the life of the early church. The people behind the New Testament lived troubled lives and grappled with their faith. Through that struggle they discovered the reality of hope.

In their lives they faced immense pressures from what could be a very hostile world. That hostility erupted into outright persecution on many occasions.

We can be conscious of the hostility of the world around us to the faith we hold dear. That hostility can express itself in the apathy we are very conscious of in our own society. It can express itself in the persecution that we see only too frequently in the Middle East, in some parts of Africa, and in the Far East and China.

How can you retain your faith in the face of such hostility? How can you love when everything seems to be falling apart? What are the grounds for any kind of hope?

Grounds for Hope in a Hostile World – Revelation

The earliest Christian communities faced hostility … from the persecution of the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem at the very outset to the Neronian persecution in Rome and beyond, followers of Jesus Christ had to come to terms with the hostility of a world which could be harshly antagonistic to the way of Jesus Christ. One New Testament book was written in the face of that hostility, to shake those who belonged to the Christian community out of their lethargy and to give them heart and strength to face the difficult times they were experiencing.

It is the one book to have been given a very precise date less than a hundred years after it was reputedly written. Irenaeus, himself from Asia Minor and the friend of a friend of the John who wrote Revelation, says quite categorically that it was written during the persecution of Christians instigated by Domitian in about AD 95. There have been moments when critics have suggested a much later date, but for the most part, most introductions to the New Testament will date Revelation to the final decade of the first Century.

In his under-valued but fascinating exercise in historical detective work, J.A.T.Robinson argues very persuasively for a much earlier date during the Neronian persecution of the mid ‘60’s. The opening and the closing of the Book of Revelation make it clear that it is written from a particular situation of hardship by one who is exiled in Patmos - the seven letters to the churches of Asia Minor reflect knowledge of the particular circumstances, geographical location and customs of those different churches. Whether the letters are for the specific churches, or whether the book of Revelation is aimed at that group of churches, or whether the sevenfold churches are symbolic of the whole church wherever it faces difficulty and hostility, is difficult to be sure about. What is clear is the way in which the whole book provides a means of responding to hostility by the re-discovery of hope. The response is threefold …

· people belonging to a Christian community facing hostility need to strengthen their faith and be true to their calling as Christian people. The seven letters range over the whole spectrum of encouragement and challenge … taken together they are a call to Christian service and commitment in the face of hostility and complacency.

· people belonging to a Christian community need to look continually to the One who is head of the Church, to Jesus Christ. The Book of Revelation is a statement of a remarkable vision of Jesus Christ - as the book opens and as it unfolds the majesty of Jesus, his triumph over all manner of evil, and his ultimate glory provides people facing hostility with the surest possible grounds of hope.

· people belonging to a Christian community facing hostility need to feel sure of the presence of God in the present and the continuing presence of God with them in the future too … the completeness of God’s triumph over all that is evil is conveyed in visionary writing that defies precise understanding yet communicates the wonder of a faith that can withstand the horrors of a hostile world.

Interpreting Revelation

That John was writing to a specific situation is clear. That that specific situation is no longer apparent is also clear. That has led some to see the Book of Revelation as a literal prediction of events in the future; others have reacted against such a crude literalism to see it as essentially symbolic. Since the Twelfth Century writer, Joachim of Fiore, people have sought to interpret the whole sweep of history in the light of the Book of Revelation. “At various times people have seen Revelation as a veiled history of the world or of the church, placing themselves at the penultimate moment and identifying beast and harlot with current bogeys, whether emperor or pope, church or sect.” John Sweet in the Oxford Companion to the Bible concludes that “it is now clear that John wrote for a past situation and that to look for literal fulfilments in the events of our day is misguided.”
There have been almost as many interpretations of Revelation as there have been interpreters … in one sense this makes the book daunting. And it is no small surprise that even some of the greatest commentators like John Calvin have fought shy of tackling it!

An older generation of commentators doubted whether John’s claim to be a visionary could really be taken seriously. They believed that … apocalyptic was an artificial and purely literary affair …. Visions would not spontaneously arrange themselves in elaborately balanced groups of seven, nor would angelic choirs quote extensively from the Old Testament. In any case, many of the things John claims to have seen … are incapable of being visualised…. These objections will appear less impressive to a generation which has accepted surrealist art and has become familiar with the kaleidoscopic quality of dream imagery. G.B.Caird in his commentary on Revelation.

John Sweet notices a variety of structural patterns that have been discerned in the book … influenced by astrology, numerology, the world of drama (noticing that each of the seven cities had its theatre), the world of liturgy. He suggests, however, a structure that is determined by the text itself. “The clearest structural element is the four series of seven (letters, seals, trumpets, bowls). The background for this structure is the apocalyptic discourse of Jesus on the Mount of Olives (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21,) of which John’s apocalypse may be seen as updating.

1-3 Seven letters warning against deception and lawlessness
Matthew 24:4,5,9-12

4-7 Seven seals on a heavenly scroll, opened by the Lamb
6 War, famine, plague
7 God’s servants sealed, 144,000
Matthew 24:6-8
birthpangs of a new age

8-14 Seven trumpets of warning
8-9 Disasters modelled on the plagues of Egypt
10-11 Counterpoint of witness - the little scroll
12-13 Victory in Heaven, disaster for earth - Antichrist and false prophets
14 144,000 over against worshippers of the beast. Judgement

Exodus 7-11
Matthew 24:15-24

15-22 Seven bowls of God’s final wrath
16 Disasters for the beast’s worshippers and city
17-18 Destruction of the whore - Babylon
19-20 Coming of Christ, the millennium, and the last judgment
21 Descent of the bride, New Jerusalem, in counterpoint with the fall of Babylon
22 The river of the water of life and the leaves of the tree for the healing of the nations

Exodus 7-11 again
Matthew 24:27-31
Genesis 1-3

A Christ-centred Reading of Revelation

One of the great insights of the Reformers in their interpretation of the Scriptures was the value of seeing Jesus Christ at the centre of the Scriptures. Not for them, however, an easy approach to the book of Revelation. Their fondness for the literal, historical interpretation of the Scriptures made it difficult to interpret Revelation. None the less, their emphasis on the centrality of Christ is perhaps a useful key to a reading of Revelation.

The opening words give the book its traditional title: “The revelation of Jesus Christ” - this Jesus is one who is filled with the glory of God and awesome (1:12-17) … yet at the same time he has a gentleness in his love for all people which allays all fear.

Jesus Christ who was dead but is now alive has the key to life itself - he can unlock its mystery, open its secret and enable those who follow him to have life themselves. (1:18-20) And he speaks to Church communities words of challenge, words of comfort and words of encouragement.

The completeness of God’s Spirit reaches out to the whole spectrum of church communities - it is a sevenfold Spirit for the seven churches - a comprehensive Spirit for the whole Church. The letters to the seven churches in 2 and 3 clearly reflect the situation of each of the churches - local knowledge leaps off the page. They range over the need of all churches - and they bring the word of Christ close to the heart of the churches.

We began our course seeing the way in which the Church community came into being in a particular place, in Jerusalem, and how the leaders of the church there had a message to proclaim which centred on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Here the Word of Christ is declared to the Churches and is no less powerful.
Don’t imagine that you have to understand every last detail of the visions that follow. Such a task would be impossible. The point of the writing is that the visions give a glimpse of a God whose glory is beyond all we can understand.

The vision opens in chapter 4 with a glimpse of the Glory of God … not so much a glimpse of the hereafter, more a glimpse of God as he really is. And that is not possible to describe - try painting an emerald rainbow! It’s a contradiction in terms! Here we sense the glory, and it is a remarkable glory.

Having caught a glimpse of the glory, John in his vision longs to see the meaning of it all … and there is a scroll which contains the secret to the universe, to life and to everything else (!). But there is no one there to open it. What tears John sheds at that realisation! They are tears that anyone who has struggled with the complexities of life will appreciate.

Then comes that wonderful message, that indeed the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David has conquered and is now able to open the scroll and reveal the secret.

He looks and what does he see? Not the mightiest of beasts, but the gentlest, a Lamb standing as if it had been slain - yet this is the one who is able to hand over the scroll and to open its seals. What rejoicing there is as the tears of despair become the cries of triumph!

The imagery is poetry at its most imaginative - filled with imagery that defies precise definition. This is the kind of writing that inspired C.S.Lewis to create a whole world for the Lion to live in, a Lion which at unexpected moments could become a lamb. Indeed one way to approach Revelation and appreciate the power of its imagery is to go through the door of the Wardrobe and enter into the Land of Narnia once more.

Always winter and never Christmas!

Aslan stood in the centre of a crowd of creatures who had grouped themselves round him in the shape of a half-moon.…. People who have not been in Narnia sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time. If the children had ever thought so, they were cured of it now. For when they tried to look at Aslan’s face they just caught a glimpse of the golden mane and the great, royal, solemn, overwhelming eyes; and then they found they couldn’t look at him and went all trembly.

I expect you have seen someone put a lighted match to a bit of newspaper which is propped up in a grate against an unlit fire. And for a second nothing seems to have happened; and then you notice a tiny streak of flame creeping along the edge of the newspaper. It was like that now. For a second after Aslan had breathed upon him the stone lion looked just the same. Then a tiny streak of gold began to run along his white marble back - then it spread - then the colour seemed to lick all over him as the flame licks all over a bit of paper - then while his hindquarters were still obviously stone, the lion shook his mane and all the heavy, stone folds rippled into living hair.

As they went on they got the strangest impression that here at last the sky did really come down and join the earth - a blue wall, very bright, but real and solid: more like glass than anything else…. But between them and the foot of the sky there was something so white on the green grass that even with their eagles’ eyes they could hardly look at it They came on and saw that it was a Lamb.

“Come and have breakfast,” said the Lamb in its sweet milky voice.

Then they noticed for the first time that there was a fire lit on the grass and fish roasting on It. They sat down and ate the fish, hungry now for the first time for many days. And it was the most delicious food they had ever tasted.

“Please, Lamb, said Lucy, “is this the way to Aslan’s country?”

“Not for you,” said the Lamb. “For you the door into Aslan’s country is from your own world….There is a way into my country from all the worlds,” said the Lamb; but as he spoke his snowy white flushed into tawny gold and his size changed and he was Aslan himself, towering above them and scattering light from his mane.

C.S.Lewis, the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Here in Revelation we meet with the reality of a living Christ who has overcome death and opened up a way to understanding the world which takes seriously the victory of God over all manner of evil.

The visions continue, confronting the evils of the world until they reach their climax in chapters 21 and 22 with the vision of a new heaven and a new earth. Christ comes not just to bring individual salvation to individual believers, but also to transform and renew the whole world, the whole of God’s creation. Such is the community of people who belong to Jesus Christ, this ‘new Jerusalem’ that it reaches out into all the corners of the earth and draws people of all nations in.

There is no temple in this city. For now the presence of God is not located in a particular place but let loose in the new heaven and the new earth.

The water of life that courses through that community of God’s people is what sustains the tree of life as it bears fruit and as its leaves are for the healing of the nations.

Just as the water flows through the city of God, so too we need to allow the imagery of Revelation to flow over us, and bring us back time and time again to the one who is
at the heart of our faith, Jesus Christ himself. What an invitation it is to come to Christ and to discover life itself. “Let everyone who hears say, ‘Come’. And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.”

One Life that makes a Difference

On our journey through the New Testament we have seen the way in which particular communities of the people of Christ have come into being and discovered themselves to be the People of God. They have shared the message of the faith and it has come alive in many different ways in many different communities. We have seen the Jewishness of the roots of the Christian faith, and we have visited the Gentile soil where the faith came to life and grew. Jewishness and Gentileness come together in Christ and in a Christian faith which binds the followers of Jesus into the people of God. It is one message, one Christ that is proclaimed at the heart of the whole New Testament. And that is the message and the Christ who is right at the very heart of the Book of Revelation. There is an urgency and an immediacy about the message the writer of that book leaves with us - and it is one that brings us back to Christ himself and to the reality of God with us that gives us grounds for hope in a world of hostility.

Another John – Hope against Hope – the Book of Revelation

Grace and Peace is what it’s all about.

From the One who is and was and is to come, from the all-ranging, all complete unseen power, the Holy Spirit, and from Jesus Christ. He will open up the fullest picture possible of God. His resurrection has opened up a whole new world of possibilities for us all. He is the ruler of the kings of the earth. He loves us, he frees us, he wipes away our sins ... And he enables us to reign with God in heaven. One of us, he is greater than all of us, towering over the mists of time. To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever.

His message is for churches right across the spectrum from the weakest to the strongest, via the lukewarm on the way. But beware! Better to be hot or cold than to be lukewarm!

There must be a secret to the meaning of life in this troubled world of ours. If only we could find the secret.

There is one who has found the secret, and has given his life for it.

More than that, he gives life in all its fullness to all who come to him and through him discover the secret.

At that moment when all seemed lost and the one so many had thought to be a Lion of a King turned out to be no more than a lamb, a lamb that was slain, at that moment all heaven broke out in endless praise. Here was one who was worthy to receive glory and honour and power.

It is through the sacrifice of a life given freely and the subsequent victory over death and all the powers of evil that a new life opens up for all of us to share. It is a new life that only becomes apparent after a great deal of struggle, not least against the powers of this age and its darkness.
But the victory is assured. Grasp the secret of this immense and mysterious act of love and we too can share in that remarkable victory.

We can look to a new heaven and a new earth where there will be no more pain, no more suffering, no more tears, no more mourning. It’s not just that we shall share life in all its fullness at some time in the distant future. As we know for sure that we are heading for the fulfillment of life in all its glory we can live that life out to the full here and now.

Think of that life as a river ... the river of the water of life flowing out into the world. And each side of the river a remarkable tree that bears fruit all the year round. And then picture if you can the leaves of the tree. When you realise those leaves are for the healing of the nations ... Then you will have begun to grasp that secret we all long to know, the secret of life itself.

Look to the Lion that is King and see the Lamb that was slain, and know the victory is assured, life in all its fullness is for you to share. That life is not just for your own good: it is for the good of others. Once we know the secret then we have a task to devote the whole of our life to. The task is hiding in the leaves of the tree. In anticipation of the life to come, our task is here and now to bring healing into a hurting world. For the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

A Note to Accompany our Quick Read of Revelation

Revelation is arguably the most difficult book of the Bible. Agonise over every last detail in a search for its precise meaning and you will miss the point. Revel in the mystery of its imagery of the Lion that becomes a Lamb, of the victory over all evil that is ultimately ours to share, and you will be on the way towards getting the message! Look again at the Minister’s Memo: one way to get the hang of Revelation is to read the Narnia Chronicles at the same time. Why not give it a go? An even better way, is to take seriously its challenge. At a Church Meeting a few years ago we re-created the Tree of Life of Revelation 22 and invited everyone to think of the leaves that are for the healing of the nations. Think of Highbury as one trunk among many of the Tree of Life. The branches of our tree are our work of mission. And the leaves represent the specific things we do to bring healing into our hurting world.

John - hope through love

2008-03-05T21:25:00.002Z

Behind the New Testament are people whose lives connect with each other in the most wonderful of ways. The books that make up the New Testament spring from the life of the very first community of Christian people. They didn’t have an easy time of it. They faced all sorts of questions. They experienced all sorts of conflict. But through it all they were people of Hope.

Peter’s hope may have been rocky at times …but he held on to it and passed it on through his preaching, his letters and the reminiscences he shared with Mark. What a down-to-earth hope Mark had. He knew how much Jesus was a man of action. Jesus’ brother, James, found it difficult at first to take Jesus’ teaching to heart: but something changed all that as the risen Christ became a reality in his life. Leading the church family in Jerusalem he was convinced that hope comes through actions as Christian people put their faith into action.

Faith, hope and love underpinned the experience of the writer of the letter to the Hebrews as he affirmed the Jewishness of the roots of the Christian faith and mapped out the way to hope. Maybe coming from the same Christian community in Antioch where the followers of Jesus first came to be called ‘Christians’, Matthew brought together all the teaching of Jesus in a hand-book of hope for would be disciples.

Paul it was who bridged the Jewish and the non-Jewish worlds. A Jew who had studied at the feet of Gamaliel, he was at the same time a Roman Citizen by birth. His Jewishness and his ‘Roman-ness’ placed him in a good position to share a Christian hope even through the suffering he knew only too well.

He passed on that tremendous commitment to faith, hope and love to his travelling companion, the doctor Luke who in Gospel and Acts shared a healing hope that would make a difference to people individually and collectively too.

Writing from prison Paul shared his hope for a better world, continually coming back to the challenge for Christian people to live by love.

That’s the love that underpinned the writings of another of apostles.

The Disciple Jesus Loved

It is in John’s Gospel that the one who appears to be the youngest of the twelve apostles plays a particularly significant role. He is linked with Peter and over the years has been identified with John, the son of Zebedee.

As Jesus shared the last supper with his closest friends they were troubled when Jesus began to speak of one who would betray him.

21 After Jesus had said this, he was deeply troubled and declared openly, “I am telling you the truth: one of you is going to betray me.”
22 The disciples looked at one another, completely puzzled about whom he meant. 23 One of the disciples, the one whom Jesus loved, was sitting next to Jesus. 24 Simon Peter motioned to him and said, “Ask him whom he is talking about.”
25 So that disciple moved closer to Jesus' side and asked, “Who is it, Lord?” (John 13:22-25)

Later that night when Jesus is arrested it is John’s gospel that informs us that Simon Peter and another disciple followed the captured Jesus to Annas, the High Priest. John explains a connection this other disciple had with the High Priest …

15 Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus. That other disciple was well known to the High Priest, so he went with Jesus into the courtyard of the High Priest's house, 16 while Peter stayed outside by the gate. Then the other disciple went back out, spoke to the girl at the gate, and brought Peter inside. (John 18:15-16)

Some have called in question whether John, the Son of Zebedee, could have been known to the High Priest, others have pointed out that Zebedee seems to have been a person of some standing: indeed John’s mother is very anxious about issues of status for her sons. (Matthew 20:20-28). It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that John was well known to the High Priest.

Everyone else may have deserted Jesus at the cross. But not this disciple. It is in John’s Gospel alone that we hear Jesus bringing together the disciple he loved and his mother:

25 Standing close to Jesus' cross were his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 Jesus saw his mother and the disciple he loved standing there; so he said to his mother, “He is your son.” (John 19:25-26)

On the day of resurrection when Mary Magdalene fears that the body of Jesus has been taken from the tomb it is to Simon Peter and the disciple Jesus loved that she goes with a message that prompts them to race to the tomb. It is the disciple Jesus loved who reaches the tomb first …

1 Early on Sunday morning, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been taken away from the entrance. 2 She went running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and told them, “They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!”
3 Then Peter and the other disciple went to the tomb. 4 The two of them were running, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and saw the linen wrappings, but he did not go in. (John 20:1-5)

It is some time later that the apostles have returned to Galilee and have spent the night fishing to no avail. A stranger on the shore suggests they try one more time. It is the disciple Jesus loved who recognises the stranger …

The disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Peter heard that it was the Lord, he wrapped his outer garment round him (for he had taken his clothes off) and jumped into the water. John 20:7

After a meal of bread and fish, cooked by Jesus on a charcoal fire, Jesus has a remarkable conversation with Peter during which he asks him three times, ‘Do you love me?’. The conversation over, Peter turns round … his eye falls on the disciple Jesus loved.

Peter turned round and saw behind him that other disciple, whom Jesus loved — the one who had leaned close to Jesus at the meal and had asked, “Lord, who is going to betray you?”
21 When Peter saw him, he asked Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?”
22 Jesus answered him, “If I want him to live until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!”
23 So a report spread among the followers of Jesus that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he said, “If I want him to live until I come, what is that to you?” (John 21:20-23)

Who could this disciple be?

He tells us in the next verse.

24 He is the disciple who spoke of these things, the one who also wrote them down; and we know that what he said is true. (John 21:24)

What a climax to the story John tells!

Then comes an almost wistful comment he makes at the very end of his Gospel.

Now, there are many other things that Jesus did. If they were all written down one by one, I suppose that the whole world could not hold the books that would be written. (John 21:25)

What is the Purpose of John’s Gospel?

John is quite clear about the purpose of his Gospel. It is written, not just to tell the story of Jesus, but to bring people to faith in Jesus, to change people’s lives, to give people the life that Jesus alone can give.

30 In his disciples' presence Jesus performed many other miracles which are not written down in this book. 31 But these have been written in order that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through your faith in him you may have life. (John 20:30-31)

What is John’s Gospel like?

Written in the simplest language, it is filled with the most profound thinking. Anyone starting to learn New Testament Greek will begin with John’s Gospel. Anyone wishing to explore the depths of the very essence of Jesus Christ must build up to John’s Gospel and maybe give him the last word.

How does it relate to the other three Gospels?

Very little of John’s Gospel appears in the other three gospels and there are not the same parallel passages at all. The other three can be looked at side by side and so have come to be known as ‘the Synoptic Gospels’. John is quite different.

At first sight it can seem to be very ‘Greek’. The opening words of the Gospel have the feel of Greek philosophising …

1 In the beginning the Word already existed; the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 From the very beginning the Word was with God. 3 Through him God made all things; not one thing in all creation was made without him. 4 The Word was the source of life, and this life brought light to humanity. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out. (John 1:1-5)

Look more closely and you will find that John’s gospel is shot through with Jewish thinking as well. Indeed, talk of the Word of God at the very beginning with God in the creation is an echo of thinking about the Wisdom of God in Proverbs 8 and in the Wisdom of Jesus Ben Sirach, Ecclesiasticus.

Maybe it’s no coincidence that the parts of the Old Testament that seem to underlie John’s Gospel are in the Writings and the Apocrypha and have to do with ‘Wisdom’. These come into their own in the period when Jewish people are mixing with the Greek world of thought as well.

John has roots in the Jewishness of the Hebrew Scriptures and in the Greek world too.

It is not inappropriate to arrive at John’s Gospel after reading through Paul’s letters.

History or Philosophy?

Jesus is portrayed quite differently in John’s Gospel from the other three Gospels, and yet he is recognisably the same person. Only the feeding of the 5000 occurs in all four Gospels, and yet read it in John 6 and you will find it has quite a different feel. Following on from the miracle, called by John ‘a sign’, Jesus goes on to teach the disciples at great length about the ‘significance’ of the bread of life. There are overtones and echoes of the Last Supper.

Only seven incidents are recorded in John’s Gospel: each one seems to be accompanied by teaching from Jesus that has quite a different feel to it from the much more practical teaching you encounter in the other three Gospels. Here Jesus is portrayed in very reflective, almost philosophical mode.

The other three Gospels lead up to Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem in the last week of his life. Jesus enters into Jerusalem and cleanses the temple right at the beginning of John’s gospel. He goes in and out of Jerusalem a number of times, often linked to the great festivals of the Jewish year.

Like Luke, it looks very much as if John has put a structure on to the telling of the story of Jesus that brings out the message of Christ as powerfully as possible. He holds light to chronology.

But that is not to say that he is not interested in history. As you come to the end of the Gospel you feel that the writer is convinced. These things happened in the view of the writer of the fourth Gospel.

Whereas the strength of the other three gospels is that you can see the way they handle their material, the strength of John’s Gospel is that it gives us access to a separate line of thinking and tradition that goes back to the story of Jesus.

What is John’s Picture of Jesus?

John’s Gospel has a clear structure. It is made up of three parts:

Who is this Jesus? The Introduction. (1)
What does this Jesus mean for us? The Book of the Signs. (2-12)
The Greatest Sign of All. (13-21)

The Introduction leaves the reader in no doubt as to the identify of Jesus.

But where does the Prologue begin and end. Is it John 1:1-14? Or is it John 1:1-18?

Or is it John 1:1-51?

1) Who is this Jesus? The Introduction – John 1:1-51

In the very first chapter John leaves us in no doubt as to the identify of Jesus.

He is …

The Word. The source of Life. The Light of the World. The Only Son who makes God the Father known. (John 1:1-18)

Jesus, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, the Son of God. (1:29-34)

Teacher (Rabbi), Christ (Messiah – anointed one of God) (35-42)

The one whom Moses wrote about in the book of the Law, and whom the prophets also wrote about. Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth. A true Israelite in whom there is nothing false.

Teacher, Son of God, King of Israel (43-50)

As chapter 1 begins with a most powerful image of The Word made Flesh, so it finishes with an equally powerful picture of ‘heaven open and God’s angels going up and coming down on the Son of Man.”

John 1:51 brings together the story of Jacob at Bethel and the image of the Son of Man in Daniel and Ezekiel. In his vision Jacob sees a ladder going from earth to heaven and angels going up and coming down. When Jesus speaks of people seeing heaven open and God’s angels going up and coming down on the Son of Man, how does that tie in with the story of Jacob. Is he, as Son of Man, like Jacob and the angels go up from him into God’s presence and come down from God on him?

No, that’s not the picture.

Instead, the Son of Man is like the ladder.

Just as the ‘Word of God’ that is with God ‘in the beginning’ and becomes flesh is a massive, larger than life images that touches heaven and earth, God and creation and brings them together, so too the Son of Man spans earth and heaven, us and God.

It is as if Christ in John’s Gospel has his head in heaven and his feet on earth and he is the one who links earth and heaven, us and God in the most wonderful of ways.

The ‘I am’ Sayings of John’s Gospel

It is in John’s Gospel that Jesus speaks of himself in a sequence of sayings that have come to be known as the ‘I am’ sayings.

In Greek there is a single, simple word that means ‘I am’ - eimi. Very occasionally the pronoun ‘I’ can be put in front of that word for emphasis. However, that’s not a very comfortable way of saying ‘I am’. The purists, grammatically, would not really like it!!

In each of these sayings, Jesus uses that expression. Ego eimi I am.

Why?

Hiding behind a seemingly straightforward expression is a reference back to one of the most mysterious and significant moments in the Hebrew Scriptures.

It is when God discloses his name to Moses in the burning bush in Exodus

13 But Moses replied, “When I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors sent me to you,’ they will ask me, ‘What is his name?’ So what can I tell them?” 14 God said, “I am who I am. This is what you must say to them: ‘The one who is called I AM has sent me to you.’ 15 Tell the Israelites that I, the Lord, the God of their ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, have sent you to them. This is my name for ever; this is what all future generations are to call me.

A footnote explains the significance of ‘I AM’ as a name for God.

3.14 I am who I am...I AM; or I will be who I will be...I WILL BE. “I am” sounds like the Hebrew name Yahweh, traditionally transliterated as Jehovah. This name is represented in this translation by “the Lord” in capital letters, following a usage which is widespread in English versions.

Is there a deliberate link between the unusual use of the words I AM in these sayings and the mysterious name for God disclosed to Moses in the burning bush?

Together, the I AM sayings build up into a wonderful picture of Jesus …

I AM the bread of life 6:35
I AM the light of the world 8:12
I AM the one who bears witness concerning himself 8:18
I AM the one from above 8:23
Before Abraham was I AM 8:58
I AM the gate 10:7,9
I AM the good shepherd 10:11,14
I AM the resurrection and the life 11.25
I AM the way, the truth and the life 14:6
I AM the true vine 15:1,5

2) What does this Jesus mean for us? The Book of Signs 2-12

John homes in on a small number of events in the life of Jesus, each of which is accompanied by conversations Jesus has. The events are considered by John to be ‘signs’. The conversations bring out ‘the significance’ of those signs.

The First Sign – a New Beginning (2-4:45)
Events: New Wine
New Temple
Conversations: A Conversation at Night
A Conversation by a Well

The Second Sign – New Life (4:46 – 5)
Events: A boy is healed
A man who cannot walk is healed
Conversation New life

The Third Sign – The Bread of Life (6)
Events: The feeding of the five thousand
Conversations: Living Bread

The Fourth Sign – Light and Life – Yes or No? (7-8)
Events: Jesus goes up to the feast
Conversations Who is Jesus – the light of the world

The Fifth Sign – Judgment by the light (9-10)
Events: A blind man sees
Conversations: Many points of view
The Shepherd and his sheep

The Sixth Sign – The Victory of Life over Death (11)
Events: The death and raising of Lazarus
Conversations: With Mary and Martha on resurrection
The authorities plot the death of Jesus

The Seventh Sign: Life through Death – the meaning of the cross (12)
Events: The anointing at Bethany
Jesus rides into the City
Conversations: Foreigners, Greeks and Gentiles meet Jesus

Conclusion to the Book of Signs – Light of the World (12:44-50)

3) What has this Jesus done for us? – the Greatest Sign of All! (13-21)

In the final part of John’s Gospel the order is reversed. First, come the conversations at the Last Supper and then the greatest Sign of all – the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Conversations at the Last Supper (13-16)

The Prayer of Jesus (17)

The Death of Jesus (18-19)

The Resurrection of Jesus (20-21)

Love made Real

The greatest sign of all is sealed by the death and resurrection of Jesus. Sometimes John has been known as the most spiritual of all the Gospels.

It is at the same time the most physical.

Read through the account of the resurrection and you will find each of the senses used to establish the reality of what happened.

Mary hears Jesus call her by name.

Peter and John see the empty tomb.

Mary sees Jesus.

Peter, John and the other disciples see Jesus in the upper room. All except Thomas.

Thomas touches Jesus and believes.

The disciples smell Jesus’ cooking on the shore and taste the meal with him.
The Gospel message of John is rooted in reality. But it is written for those who have not seen.

29 Jesus said to him, “Do you believe because you see me? How happy are those who believe without seeing me!” John 20:29

We have come right back to where we started when Peter expressed that wonderful hope in his letters. He had seen and therefore believed. He, like John, was writing for those who had not seen and yet could also believe:

Although you have not seen him you love him; and even though you do not now see him, you believe in you rejoice with a glorious and indescribably joy for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

A Covering Letter

This is exactly the point taken up by John in a letter that’s written in just the same style as the Gospel, uses the same kind of language and expresses the same kind of thinking. 1 John is almost like a covering letter to accompany the Gospel.

It begins where the Gospel left off with the reality of all that John has found in Jesus.

We write to you about the Word of life, which has existed from the very beginning. We have heard it, and we have seen it with our eyes; yes, we have seen it, and our hands have touched it. 2 When this life became visible, we saw it; so we speak of it and tell you about the eternal life which was with the Father and was made known to us. 3 What we have seen and heard we announce to you also, so that you will join with us in the fellowship that we have with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 We write this in order that our joy may be complete.

William Barclay recalls an age old story of the church. Tradition has it that John wrote his Gospel and his letters when he was an old man. Later, when he could scarcely walk, let alone talk, he was carried in to preach one last time. He had three things to say. God is love. God is love. God is love.

The culmination of the Gospel had been in the new command Jesus gave his disciples ‘ to love one another as I have loved you for by this shall everyone know you are my disciples, if you love one another.

In his letter he now appeals to all who would follow Jesus to love one another for this is the essence of the Chrsitian faith. More than that it is the essence of God.

What is the essence of God? 1 John 4

Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Whoever loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 And God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him. 10 This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven.
11 Dear friends, if this is how God loved us, then we should love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in union with us, and his love is made perfect in us. 13 We are sure that we live in union with God and that he lives in union with us, because he has given us his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and tell others that the Father sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world. 15 If anyone declares that Jesus is the Son of God, he lives in union with God and God lives in union with him. 16 And we ourselves know and believe the love which God has for us.
God is love, and those who live in love live in union with God and God lives in union with them. 17 Love is made perfect in us in order that we may have courage on Judgement Day; and we will have it because our life in this world is the same as Christ's. 18 There is no fear in love; perfect love drives out all fear.

The Last Word is … Love

We must give the last word to John … or is it to Jesus? One verse more than any other captures the grounds of our hope, the essence of our faith … it is John 3:16

For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life

John’s Gospel – Hope through Love

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son of the Father. Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, the teacher from Nazareth who came to be seen as Son of God, King of kings. With his feet firmly on the ground and his head in heaven this Jesus is the one who links heaven and earth as no one else has ever done.

The old rituals have had their day, no longer is God’s presence located in a Temple. It is let loose in the world …and finds new birth in anyone who is prepared to make a new start, begin all over again, believing in Jesus, the one given by God to the whole world in love.

To those spiritually thirsty he gives the water of life, and to those spiritually hungry the bread of heaven. No wonder he came to be seen as the Light of the World, the Good Shepherd prepared even to lay down his life for the sheep, the doorway to something new and lasting, the way, the truth, the life. Not even death itself could stand its ground against him for those who believed in him he was nothing less than the resurrection and the life.

As he came to the end of his life he promised not to leave his followers on their own. Jesus was convinced that the unseen, yet very real power of God would be alongside his followers, and deep within them, to give them strength at the moment of their utmost weakness. How important it was for his followers to love one another – for that’s the way everyone will know that they are followers of Jesus, if they have love for one another. The kind of love that makes for a wonderful unity.

Taken out to be crucified, his execution in a strange way marked the point at which he could say, It is finished. It was as if his task had been completed. But his death was not the end. Sight, sound, touch and smell … all convinced his followers that he had risen from the dead. They saw and believed. How much more blessings are in store for those who did not have the opportunity to see with their own eyes but have nonetheless come to believe!

Jesus did many more signs than the ones that are recorded in John’s Gospel. These are recorded so that you might believe that Jesus is the one everyone’s been waiting for, the Son of God … and that through believing you might have life in all its fullness, life here and now and forever!

John’s First Letter – Hope through Love

It’s not just theory. It’s rooted in reality. It’s something that’s been there from the beginning of time and before. We’re talking about nothing less than the very mind of God, the word of God if you like. It’s something that’s not just of interest: it’s life transforming, life enhancing: it’s all about life in all its fullness. This life that was with God from the beginning, and is the very essence of all creation, has been revealed in the flesh-and-blood world of every day reality. At one moment in history it was there in all its fullness. And we have heard it with our own ears, seen it with our own eyes, touched it with our own hands. And this is what we are writing about. Act on what we say and you will find that you enter into a remarkable relationship not just with us and with other people who have discovered this life: you will enter into the closest possible relationship with the God who has created the world.

The One who makes all that possible is none other than Jesus Christ. He is nothing less than the true God and eternal life!

This is something that will bring joy into a world of despair, light into a world of darkness and love into a world of hatred. This is something for everyone: young and old, male and female, black and white. It is something unique. Nothing else quite matches up to it.

It all boils down to one thing and one thing only. Love.

No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love finds its fulfilment in us.

God is love. To be in tune with God, and to have the very life of God coursing through our veins we need to be filled with love. And when our love runs dry, and we feel as if we’ve let other people down, let ourselves down and let God down because we haven’t loved enough we need to look again at Jesus Christ. This is the love that really counts. It is not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to the means by which our sins are forgiven. What a remarkable love: so great that it takes away our greatest fears!

Love God. Love other people. And discover a faith that will conquer the world.

Paul - Hope for a better world (Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, Ephesians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus)

2008-02-26T21:53:00.002Z

Letters from Prison - Philippians, Colossians and Philemon, and Ephesians
Pastoral Letters - 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus

Paul’s story began with a concern for the poor, in particular those in the Christian community in Jerusalem who were experiencing famine. Still known as Saul, he joined Barnabas in taking a collection from the church in Antioch to Jerusalem. (Acts 11:19-30)

Paul’s story in Acts reaches a dramatic climax as he insists on returning to Jerusalem to hand over in person another collection taken for the same reason. He had written at length to the church in Corinth, one of those churches he had been collecting from about the need for generous giving from those according to their means to those according to their need (2 Corinthians 8).

Throughout his life he took seriously the charge he recalled being given when Peter, James and John, the pillars of the church in Jerusalem had recognised the grace of God at work within him, extended to him the right hand of fellowship, given him the task of taking the gospel to the Gentiles and challenged him to remember the poor. (Galatians 2:9-10)

He was determined to hand the money over in person.

To Jerusalem for the Poor!

Luke and other friends of his tried to persuade him not to go in person to Jerusalem. It was too dangerous. The authorities were after his blood.

He took no notice of the advice, made the journey to Jerusalem.

It is not without significance that it is within the Temple that he is arrested. Taken to the fort, the Roman commander is surprised that Paul can speak Greek.

His response goes to the heart of an understanding of Paul and his message.

“I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of an important city.” (Acts 12:39).

The New Testament straddles two worlds. In the company of Peter, Mark, the writer to the Hebrews, James and Matthew we are firmly in the Jewish world, but a Jewish world that has discovered Christ, has a commitment to the Gentiles and wants to make sense of the hope that comes from that Jewish world for the good of the rest of the world.

In Paul we encounter someone whose roots are in both worlds. A Jewish scholar who studied under Gamaliel he is at the same time a Roman citizen.

As the Gentile Doctor, Luke, tells Paul’s story he is all too aware of the way in which Paul can speak with authority in both worlds.

This is a key to our understanding of Paul.

Arrested

Paul is allowed to speak to the people and tells of his conversion. He is brought before the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem who work under the over-all command of Rome. Tension rises and Paul is taken into what amounts to protective custody. (Acts 23).

A plot is hatched to assassinate Paul. The son of Paul’s sister hears about the plot and warns the Roman authorities. Under heavy armed guard Paul is taken from Jerusalem to the headquarters of the Roman authorities in Caesarea where he gives an account of himself to Felix (24). It is at this point that he exercises his right as a Roman citizen and appeals to the Emperor. He makes another defence of himself to King Agrippa and Queen Bernice, almost persuading them of the truth of his faith. Had he not appealed to the Emperor he could have been released.

To Rome and Four Letters from Prison

Under armed guard the Paul and Luke set sail for Rome. The account of the voyage and the shipwreck on Malta in Acts 27 is the best such account in all classical literature. Miraculously, no one is lost in the shipwreck, and Paul escapes injury from the bite of a viper. So it is that the final journey is made by Paul and Luke to Rome. And Luke leaves his account in Acts with Paul under house arrest, “preaching about the Kingdom of God, teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ and speaking with all boldness and freedom.” (Acts 28)
Not only does Paul teach and preach, he also keeps in touch with the people and places he has visited on his missionary travels and with the churches he has established.

Four of those letters from prison are in the New Testament.

Philippians, Colossians and Philemon, and Ephesians.

The letter Paul writes to the church in Philippi is the most joyful of all Paul’s letters. It is full of a spirit of thanksgiving. You can imagine Lydia, the slave girl Paul had healed, the Philippian Gaoler and his family and all the other people in the church in Philippi eagerly awaiting news of their friend, Paul.

It was with anxiety that they heard he was in prison, but with joy that they received his message. It was the same Paul they had always known!

Philippians

Paul and his young friend, Timothy, who delight in serving Christ Jesus together, write to those who have pastoral oversight, the deacons and all of God’s people in the Christian community in Philippi. They write from prison.

“I thank God for the love you showed me, not least when I was beaten and faced imprisonment in your city. My prayer is simply this: that your love may overflow more and more. But love on its own is not enough. I pray that with that deep down love will go an awareness and an insight that will enable you to do your very best in the service of Christ Jesus. That’s the key: live a life that really is worthy of the gospel of Christ.

“What does that involve? The best thing to do is to model your way of life on the way of life that Jesus led. More than anything else he was prepared to humble himself, and treat other people in such a way as to make them know that they mattered the world to him. Lord of all, he humbled himself to the lowest point of God-forsaken suffering on the cross. Just as he was raised up to the glory of God, so we too can share with him in that resurrection victory.

“Don’t think you can do this on your own. You need a strength from beyond yourselves to reach out to others with this kind of humble love. The wonderful news is that in the living presence of the risen Christ you can find that strength.

“It’s worth giving up the all-too-natural inclination we all of us have to cling on to the past and old ways of generating some kind of sense of purpose in life. Much better is to look to the future, and press on to the goal of glory in Christ’s risen presence.

“We belong to a kingdom that’s not of this world, and so we need to put ourselves under the rule of God in our own hearts, in our homes and in the world at large. Do that and we shall find grounds for a remarkable joy in our hearts.

“This is the key to a deep down joy that will enable us to live life to the full – in this world and beyond. Put the worries that so often get you down to one side, turn to God in prayer, and discover a strength that will surround you and uphold you in a love of God that can never be defeated. I would even go so far as to say that in that strength you will be able to do things you never dreamed you were capable of.”

“More than anything, I pray that you will have in your innermost being the kind of grace that comes alone from Jesus Christ.”

Letter writing

Paul’s letters are typical of the letters of the ancient world. The remarkable letters of Vindalanda, discovered in the fort of that name on Hadrian’s Wall and on display in the British Museum date from only 30 to 40 years after Paul’s letters from Rome. As with Paul’s letters these have travelled many hundreds of miles. They too were often dictated to a scribe. They bear the same structure.

Starting with a greetings
and an identification of the author,
proceeding to thanks
and the message,
finishing with personal greetings in the hand of the sender.

That’s exactly the structure of Paul’s letters, not least in Colossians.

At the very end Paul writes a greeting ‘in his own hand’. 4:18.

The letter contains much the same kind of message as Philippians but Paul has greater cause for anxiety as there are tensions in the church in Colossae arising from a teaching that is sending the church in the wrong direction. There are other, more personal tensions there that he is all too aware of as well.

The letter is sent by a courier who is named as Tychicus (4:7-9). Someone else accompanies Tychicus by the name of Onesimus.

Who in that church in Colossae would Tychicus have delivered the letter to?

In all likelihood it would be the person in whose house the church met.

As a house-owner he would have been comparatively wealthy, owning a house large enough to accommodate, probably in its courtyard, a gathering of the church. One can imagine the church gathering together in the courtyard of the villa he owned eagerly to hear the letter.

The owner’s household would have been fairly large and would have included a number of slaves.

It had not always been a happy household. One of those slaves had run away. The owner of the house felt let down. Punishment would be severe if ever the runaway returned.

Imagine his shock, therefore, to see with Tychicus someone he recognised, by the name of Onesimus.

To his consternation the owner of the house saw that Tychicus had another letter in his pouch from Paul. It was a personal letter. It would have to wait while Philemon read the letter to the Colossians to the gathered church.

Colossians

It is wonderful to give thanks for the love that we share in the church family. It is a love that means we can have hope for the future no matter what circumstances we are in. [Paul wrote to the Christian community at Colossae when he himself was in prison facing a very uncertain future in the company of a good friend, Timothy.] How important it is to pray for wisdom and the kind of understanding that we all of us need if we are to follow a Christian way of life in an increasingly troubled world. It’s often a way of life we cannot follow in our own strength. Let’s pray for a strength from beyond ourselves that will see us through. That’s precisely the kind of strength on offer from Jesus Christ.

Following him is like stepping out of the darkness into the light. We need to look at Jesus and through him see the God of creation. More than anything else it is the love of God in all its fullness that we can see in Jesus. It is a love of God that seeks to bring all things together in a spirit of reconciliation and harmony. In a church community that looks beyond itself to the love of God in Christ we can get a foretaste of all that God intends for his world. It is as if it’s all there in microcosm.

As we have received the fullness of God’s love in Jesus Christ, we need to continue to live in him. It is important not to be side-tracked by the petty-mindedness of some who would be overly ‘religious’ or by the wrong-headedness of some who are way off beam. We need to put away the shabby old clothes of petty jealousies, slanderous talk, untruths and hurtful things. In their place we need to put on a wonderful new set of clothes: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. How important it is to bear with one another, to forgive one another. Above all else we need to clothe ourselves in love – that’s what binds everything else together. With God’s word in our hearts, his praise on our lips, we need to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. If there’s any uncertainty about what we should do, we need to ask ourselves whether we can do it in the name of the Jesus who is filled with all the fullness of God’s reconciling love. If we can’t then we must not do it!

At home, at work in every part of our lives we need to have a mutual respect for one another. More than anything else, we need to pray. Prayer is what will see us through individually and together as a church.

A Personal Concern

The letter reading over, Phlemon would have excused himself and withdrawn into one of the rooms of the villa that was home to the church in Colossae. He took the letter, a little uncertain what to make of it and began to read.

Philemon

From Paul, a prisoner for the sake of Christ Jesus, and from our brother Timothy —
To our friend and fellow-worker Philemon, and the church that meets in your house, and our sister Apphia, and our fellow-soldier Archippus: May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.

Brother Philemon, every time I pray, I mention you and give thanks to my God. For I hear of your love for all God's people and the faith you have in the Lord Jesus. My prayer is that our fellowship with you as believers will bring about a deeper understanding of every blessing which we have in our life in union with Christ. Your love, dear brother, has brought me great joy and much encouragement! You have cheered the hearts of all God's people.

For this reason I could be bold enough, as your brother in Christ, to order you to do what should be done. 9 But because I love you, I make a request instead. I do this even though I am Paul, the ambassador of Christ Jesus, and at present also a prisoner for his sake.

So I make a request to you on behalf of Onesimus, who is my own son in Christ; for while in prison I have become his spiritual father. At one time he was of no use to you, but now he is useful both to you and to me. (The Greek name Onesimus means “useful”.)

I am sending him back to you now, and with him goes my heart. I would like to keep him here with me, while I am in prison for the gospel's sake, so that he could help me in your place. However, I do not want to force you to help me; rather, I would like you to do it of your own free will. So I will not do anything unless you agree.

It may be that Onesimus was away from you for a short time so that you might have him back for all time. And now he is not just a slave, but much more than a slave: he is a dear brother in Christ. How much he means to me! And how much more he will mean to you, both as a slave and as a brother in the Lord!

So, if you think of me as your partner, welcome him back just as you would welcome me. If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to my account. Here, I will write this with my own hand: I, Paul, will pay you back. (I should not have to remind you, of course, that you owe your very self to me.) So, my brother, please do me this favour for the Lord's sake; as a brother in Christ, cheer me up!

I am sure, as I write this, that you will do what I ask — in fact I know that you will do even more. At the same time, get a room ready for me, because I hope that God will answer the prayers of all of you and give me back to you.

Epaphras, who is in prison with me for the sake of Christ Jesus, sends you his greetings, and so do my fellow-workers Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

One more letter is attributed to Paul from prison. Ephesians. Some have wondered whether it was written by a follower of Paul. It seems, however, to bring together the threads of all these letters and of Paul’s considered thinking.

Ephesians

What a thrill it is to recognise that Jesus is Lord. There’s a very real sense that belonging to a church involves us in belonging to something much bigger … as big as the God of the Universe. It is as if he has known us and loved us from the beginning of time, and that love will be with us until the end of time and beyond. With the fullness of God’s love comes a freedom and a forgiveness that is life-transforming.

Let’s pray for a spirit of wisdom and understanding as we sense the reality of God’s love coming deep within us and slowly filling us up with his peace.

Let’s pray that that peace will bind us together in love for one another, in such a way that barriers inside our church and between churches may be torn down.

Let’s pray that we can all share in serving God with such love that we can stand up to the powers of this world and make God’s peace a reality in our own lives, in our church life and in our world.

Let’s pray that we can be rooted and grounded in the love of Christ, a love that knows no bounds.

Whichever way we turn, however far we go, whatever despair we experience, whatever joy is ours, his love is greater and will ever be deep within us.

With a humble spirit let’s serve each other with whatever gifts we have so that we can build each other up in the love of God. There can be no time for anger, bitterness, jealousy and argumentativeness; instead let’s make real the love Christ wants us to share. Let’s make that real in our homes, in our relationships, in the work place.

Let’s draw on the strength of God to stand up to the evils of the world around us and more than anything else let’s pray. In the power of God, let’s take our stand on the things that count more than anything else: truth, justice and peace. Let’s hold firm to our faith, hold fast to the salvation that is ours to share, and in God’s word find guidelines for living our lives in an often hostile world.

Peace be to the whole family of God’s people, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

What happened next?

Luke doesn’t tell us. No one really knows. Maybe Paul was released from that imprisonment in Rome and made it to Spain. If he did, tradition has it that he was imprisoned again and this time executed.

Some suggest that the three so-called Pastoral Letters were written by Paul in this late period. Some think they were written earlier. Some think they too reflect a follower of Paul.

Keeping to that earlier tradition, there is a wonderful personal touch as Paul hands the baton on to the younger Timothy and to Titus as well.

Paul’s life may be coming to an end. His work is not!

Paul’s first letter to Timothy

How good it is to pass on from one generation to the next insights about living the Christian life! Even better is for one generation to commend to the next the grace, mercy and peace that comes alone from God.

Don’t get side tracked with the latest thinking just because it’s new. Come back to the free, forgiving love of Jesus Christ and reflect that love into the lives of other people around you. Keep in mind the fundamental aim of all Christian teaching: a love that’s not just on the surface but in its sincerity springs from deep down in our innermost being. Look after that conscience of yours: never let it lose its cutting edge!

Such a way of love has to be underpinned by prayer, not by angry argument. Those in pastoral oversight and those who serve in leadership within the church need to reflect that love in their own personal lives. And in everything it needs always to be a reflection of the all embracing love of Jesus Christ.

Don’t get side-tracked with issues of no lasting importance. Focus on the essence of Christ’s teaching and set your sights on his way of living in God’s world. Live out the faith you profess! Be concerned for one another. And wherever there is need in the community around you, seek to meet that need.

Don’t be absorbed with things that don’t really matter. It’s not the outward appearance that matters so much as the inner person! Don’t forever seek after greater wealth for the love of money is the root of all evil!

Keep at that faith of yours. Don’t give up! Fight the good fight, take hold of eternal life! And model all that you do on the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. And then realise that you too share in his victory over death and the wonderful promise of eternal life!

A Second Letter of Paul to Timothy

How good it is to pass on from one generation to the next insights about living the Christian life! Even better is for one generation to commend to the next the grace, mercy and peace that comes alone from God.

Think of those who passed the faith on to you: maybe your own parents, maybe your grandparents, maybe someone who gave you a particular task to do in the church … and always remember them with a deep gratitude in your heart. Keep alive the gifts God gave you through these wonderful people: there is a power in the love God has shared in this way.
That may mean having a difficult path to follow that involves more than seems to be your fair share of suffering. Hold on to all you have learned. The thing that counts more than anything else is a faith shot through with love.

Think of your Christian life as a campaign fought against the powers of darkness, as a race run by an athlete whose eye is fixed on the prize, as the steady round of a farmer’s year as he moves quickly from harvest once more to seed-time. And always remember Jesus Christ and the resurrection victory we all can share.

Work at it! Keep the world’s values at bay, live by the values of God’s rule in your heart! Remember those who passed the faith on to you … and live by that faith! Remember the very first time the Bible was read to you – that book and its stories shaped your early years, let it shape the rest of your days. It contains the very God-given breath of life: that’s what makes it so fundamentally important for teaching, for setting things right, for mapping out God’s just way in the world. Take that seriously and it will make the world of difference!

We have a wonderful message to share! It is an even more wonderful life to live! Let’s live it to the full and give the glory to God! He’s with us for the rest of our lives … and beyond

Paul’s Letter to Titus

Faith, truth, godliness, hope, eternal life: this is what the Good News of Jesus Christ is all about. Share it and you too will receive grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Saviour.

How important it is for those with pastoral oversight to be worthy of the care that is entrusted to them, and for those who speak out about the Christian faith to be true to the faith they profess. Sometimes it is important to stand and be counted in a world that has very different values from the values Jesus Christ came to share with us.

Life-style makes such a difference. Avoid an extravagant life-style that can be destructive for personal health and damage relationships; instead cultivate a simple life-style that’s true to the love of others that Christ would have us share.

God’s love through Jesus Christ makes such a difference as it takes root in people’s hearts. That’s the way it will spread out into other people’s lives and into the world at large.

If we are honest with ourselves we all have fallen short of the kind of values that the Christian faith is all about. That’s the wonderful thing about Christian faith. It is precisely at the point at which we are most conscious of all our failures and inadequacies that God, in Jesus Christ, by the power of his unseen Spirit reaches out to touch us with his forgiving love and fill us with his renewing love.

The key to Christian faith is to put it into practice. We all need to live out our faith in love for one another. After all, the free gift of God’s love is ours to keep only if we share it!

May that grace fill your life and mine!

Luke - a Healing Hope

2008-02-17T21:44:00.001Z

In the shortest and most intimate of all Paul’s letters, Paul finishes by sending greetings from some of his closest friends and fellow workers.

Epaphras, who is in prison with me for the sake of Christ Jesus, sends you his greetings, and so do my fellow-workers Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Philemon 23-25

Alongside that personal letter, Paul also sent a letter to the church that met in Colossae in Philemon’s house. Again, as he comes to an end he sends greetings from two of those friends. This time, he identifies Luke even more specifically.

Luke, our dear doctor, and Demas send you their greetings Colossians 4:14

On one more occasion Paul refers to those two friends. He feels let down by Demas and has only one friend with him …

Demas fell in love with this present world and has deserted me, going off to Thessalonica. Crescens went to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me 2 Timothy 4:10-11

Who is Luke?

From those three references we learn a lot about someone called Luke: a doctor, he is a faithful friend and co-worker of Paul.

At first sight it is curious that no one by that name appears in the account of Paul’s missionary work in Acts. Look more closely and something rather interesting happens as the story is told.

As Paul enters into the second phase of his work of mission something changes in the way the story is told:

They travelled through the region of Phrygia and Galatia because the Holy Spirit did not let them preach the message in the province of Asia. 7 When they reached the border of Mysia, they tried to go into the province of Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. 8 So they travelled right on through ysia and went to Troas. 9 That night Paul had a vision in which he saw a Macedonian standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us!” 10 As soon as Paul had this vision, we got ready to leave for Macedonia, because we decided that God had called us to preach the Good News to the people there. Acts 16:6-10

Up until that point in Paul’s missionary travels the story is told in the third person – ‘they went here, they did this …’. From this point on a change happens in the way the story is told. It’s told for the most part in the first person – ‘we went here, we did this …’

Was it that the writer of Acts was drawing on a first hand record of someone who had accompanied Paul, or, was it that the writer joined Paul at this moment. Could he have been ‘the man of Macedonia’ Paul saw in his vision?

Some of the descriptions that follow on from that point are very vivid. Indeed, the account of the shipwreck is the longest account of a ship wreck in all Classical literature and is remarkably informative about shipping customs in the Mediterranean. Are they so vivid because the writer could say, “I was there!”

Interestingly the ‘we’ passages of Acts continue right through to the very end of the book:

After three months we sailed away on a ship from Alexandria, called “The Twin Gods”, which had spent the winter in the island. 12 We arrived in the city of Syracuse and stayed there for three days. 13 From there we sailed on and arrived in the city of Rhegium. The next day a wind began to blow from the south, and in two days we came to the town of Puteoli. 14 We found some believers there who asked us to stay with them a week. And so we came to Rome. 15 The believers in Rome heard about us and came as far as the towns of Market of Appius and Three Inns to meet us. When Paul saw them, he thanked God and was greatly encouraged.

16 When we arrived in Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself with a soldier guarding him. Acts 28:11-16

That’s interesting! The writer of Acts was with Paul as he was in prison. Two of the four letters Paul wrote from Prison, Colossians and Philemon both make mention of Luke. The only other person to be mentioned in the personal greetings of both letters was Demas. We know Demas drifted away from Paul at a later date. That leaves Luke.

So it is that tradition has suggested that Luke is the writer of Acts.

Luke, the writer of Acts and the third Gospel

But not only Acts!

The length of Acts is almost identical to the length of Luke’s Gospel. The opening words of Acts make it quite clear that it is the second volume of a two volume work addressed to the same person, Theophilus. Maybe, a Roman, maybe a generic addressee – Theo – philus literally means ‘a friend of God’.

Dear Theophilus:
In my first book I wrote about all the things that Jesus did and taught from the time he began his work 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven.

Luke’s gospel begins in a very similar way and is addressed to the same person.

Dear Theophilus:
Many people have done their best to write a report of the things that have taken place among us. 2 They wrote what we have been told by those who saw these things from the beginning and who proclaimed the message. 3 And so, your Excellency, because I have carefully studied all these matters from their beginning, I thought it would be good to write an orderly account for you. 4 I do this so that you will know the full truth about everything which you have been taught.

When you read the Bible in a single translation like the Good News Bible, the New Revised Standard Version or the Message, it all seems to be in the same style.

The original Greek books of the New Testament are written in quite different styles. They are all written in a kind of colloquial, everyday Greek that is known as ‘Koine Greek’ or ‘Common Greek’. It is quite different from ‘Classical Greek’.

But each writer has his own style. Paul writes in a complex way with long, long sentences. Mark is very down to earth and much easier to read. John is the easiest Greek to read and is written in short sentences. The Greek of Luke and Acts is the nearest the New Testament comes to the much more refined, ‘Classical Greek’. It is considerably more difficult to read than John, but not as complex as Paul.

That suggests it is written by an educated person. Some commentators have suggested that often in accounts of healing miracles the writer of Luke and of Acts uses language that is closer to the technical language you would expect of a doctor.

It all seems to fit together.

Luke and Acts – a Two Volume Work

Luke and Acts are written by Luke, the fellow-traveller, co-worker of Paul whose company and support Paul valued so much.

In Luke and Acts we have crossed over from the Jewish world of the first followers of Jesus to the Gentile world of a Greek-speaking, cultured Doctor. Doctors were well educated and well respected in the ancient world of the Roman empire. One of the things to look out for in almost any Roman museum is a collection of medical instruments. They look startlingly modern as if they could be cleaned up and put into a Doctor’s bag today!

How does Luke work?

From the opening of Luke we can learn a great deal about the way in which he works. There is a thoroughness to his approach to re-constructing the story of Jesus and all that went before the point at which he became a part of the story which you would expect of an educated Doctor.

Look again at Luke 1:1-4 and you learn a great deal.

Many people have done their best to write a report of the things that have taken place among us.

By the time Luke took pen to paper (or should we say, papyrus?) other accounts of the story of Jesus and the beginnings of the church were already circulating.

2 They wrote what we have been told by those who saw these things from the beginning and who proclaimed the message.

Luke had had the opportunity not only to read their accounts, but also to test them out in conversation with those who had been eye-witnesses and with those who had first preached the Good News of Jesus Christ.

3 And so, your Excellency, because I have carefully studied all these matters from their beginning,

Luke has made a careful study of the story they tell.

I thought it would be good to write an orderly account for you.

He claims to have put all his researches into order so that he could put together an ‘orderly account’ for the benefit of either the real person, Theophilus who as a cultured Greek speaking Roman wants to hear an authentic, trustworthy, orderly account of all every thing about Jesus and his followers, or the generic ‘God-lover’ who wants just such an account.

4 I do this so that you will know the full truth about everything which you have been taught.

Though he writes from a well-researched position, he is quite unashamed in having an agenda in what he writes. Whoever it is he is writing to, he assumes some prior knowledge of the story of Jesus and his followers. He then wants to go on and write in a persuasive and convincing way.

What’s fascinating is that a careful examination of the structure of Luke bears out all the claims he makes in these opening verses.

Luke’s Method

In a chart that sets Matthew, Mark and Luke side by side a number of things are apparent:

· Luke has used Mark faithfully in alternating chunks, keeping closely to the wording of the original source he is using.
· Luke has followed Mark’s order clearly giving great respect to Mark
· Luke has ‘slotted’ in sayings of Jesus that are common with Matthew and may well have come from a ‘sayings source’, Q. Again he does so in a way that keeps to the wording. Now, however, the order can differ significantly from Matthew, suggesting the source contained an anthology of sayings.
· Luke incorporates distinctive material of his own and does so again in chunks. Most noticeably, there is a long passage from Luke 9:51 in which Jesus makes a journey to Jerusalem.

The fulfilment of the Hebrew Scriptures in a Christ for All People

Writing for a Gentile readership Luke still wants to establish the roots of the Jesus Movement (his favourite description of the church is The Way) in the Hebrew Scriptures. He does that in his own way. With a skilful use of language his Gospel opens with an account of the birth of John the Baptist and of Jesus. Those two chapters are written in the style of the Hebrew Scriptures; they include three wonderful ‘Psalms’ written in the style of classical Hebrew Poetry. A skilful story teller introduces all the significant features of the link between the Hebrew Scriptures and Jesus in a way that is immediately accessible for the non Jewish reader. His stories draw you into the temple and all it means, to the prophets and all they stood for, to the expectations of a Messiah and all that meant.

From the very beginning of the Gospel one of Luke’s main features becomes apparent. He has taken to heart his friend, Paul’s, conviction that a new kind of relationship has broken into society as a whole in the coming of Jesus Christ. There is now no Jew or Gentile, no slave or master, no man nor woman for all are one in Christ Jesus.

Nowhere in the New Testament is the barrier between rich and poor broken down more powerfully than in the words of Mary’s song, the Magnificat.

The fact that Mary, Elizabeth and Anna all play such a prominent role as women in this story is no coincidence either. Throughout Luke and Acts women play a more prominent role than in any of the other gospel accounts.

Luke sets the scene for the coming of Jesus with a much fuller account of all that John the Baptist stood for in chapter 3. And it really does capture the commitment of the ancient prophets to justice and righteousness.

Luke, a good friend of Paul, accompanying him to Rome knows full well the significance of the claim that Jesus, not the Roman Emperor, is the Son of God. As soon as Jesus is identified in that way at his baptism Luke gives his credentials. The family tree does the work of an Emperor’s genealogy and links Jesus to David, King of Israel.

But Luke is working on a bigger scale altogether. Luke takes the family tree right back to Adam. For Luke, Jesus is much more than the fulfilment of the Hebrew Scriptures, he is the universal saviour.

All that Jesus did and taught in his ministry and through his followers

Read through from the start of Jesus’ ministry in Luke 4 to the point at which he sets out on his journey to Jerusalem in 9:54 and two things are clear about Jesus. He has come with a message, proclaiming God’s rule in people’s hearts, in their homes and in the world at large. He has come to bring healing into a hurting world.

Nowhere is that more clearly put than in the quotation from Isaiah 61 that Jesus preaches on in the synagogue in his home town of Nazareth:

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

All that Jesus did and taught are contained in those few words.

As the journey begins it becomes apparent that this task is fulfilled not by Jesus alone, but by Jesus and his followers.

Jesus draws first the twelve (9:1ff) and then the seventy-two (10:1ff) into this task of preaching the message of God’s rule and bringing healing into a hurting world Jesus. What they do as they are sent out is precisely what Jesus did. He equips them for the task by telling wonderful stories. Many of the favourite ‘story-like’ parables are only found ‘on the journey’ in Luke 9-18.

That becomes even more apparent in Luke’s second volume. The first book had described ‘all the things that Jesus did and taught’. That’s a very telling summary of the two dimensions of Luke’s telling of the story of Jesus.

The second volume continues to tell the same story. But now Jesus has been ‘taken up to heaven’ what he does and what he teaches is done and taught by his followers.

They really are, to use a favourite expression of Luke’s friend, Paul, the body of Christ.

The Holy Spirit

The first volume of Luke’s Gospel begins time and again with references to the Holy Spirit.

Acts begins in the same way. Just as the Holy Spirit was on Christ from his birth to the start of his ministry and beyond, so too the Holy Spirit is on the followers of Jesus.

Read through Acts and the same two things stand out. Those followers of Jesus do as Jesus did: they bring healing into a hurting world. They teach as Jesus taught and they preach the rule of God in people’s home, in their hearts and in their world.

Acts displays the same attention to detail as Luke’s Gospel. There is a framework to the many speeches Luke records that sees the actions and the teaching of Jesus as the culmination of all that the Hebrew Scriptures stood for but of life-changing value for all the world.

You can think of Luke and Acts as two parts of the same story – the story of what Jesus did and taught himself and through all those followers who made up ‘the body of Christ’.

A Tale of Two Journeys

There’s more that holds the two books together.

Luke’s Gospel is structured around a journey.

So too is Acts.

Acts 1:8 stands out. On the one hand it establishes the absolute significance of the Holy Spirit for Luke. Acts could well be called ‘The Acts of the Holy Spirit’. On the other hand, it provides the framework for the whole book.

But when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be filled with power, and you will be witnesses for me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth

It starts in Jerusalem, then follows the followers of Jesus as they move out into Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth. The followers of Jesus are always on the move in Acts. Just as Jesus is on the move in Luke.

You could think of the two books as ‘A Tale of Two Journeys’

As soon as that thought comes to mind, another one comes too!

A Tale of Two Cities

You could think of the two books as ‘A Tale of Two Cities’.

The Gospel leads us up to Jerusalem and then finishes with the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem on the threshold of something new. It is wonderful writing that leaves you wanting to read the sequel and find out where it will take you!

50 Then he led them out of the city as far as Bethany, where he raised his hands and blessed them.51 As he was blessing them, he departed from them and was taken up into heaven.52 They worshipped him and went back into Jerusalem, filled with great joy, 53 and spent all their time in the Temple giving thanks to God. Luke 24:52-53

Just as the Gospel had begun in Jerusalem and the Temple with all that meant. So it ended in Jerusalem and the Temple.

If Jesus were nothing more than the fulfilment of the Hebrew Scriptures that would be a wonderfully appropriate place to finish.

But he is much more than that.

We must get hold of the sequel and read on.

Acts takes us as far as any Theophilus in the Roman Empire was concerned to the ‘ends of the earth’, to the capital of the Roman Empire, to Rome itself. And it leaves us there.

It is quite mistaken to think of Acts as primarily telling the story of Paul. It is very much a continuation of the story of Jesus and it leaves the reader in the knowledge that the Jesus story is for the Jewish people and has taken us to Jerusalem and the Temple, and much more it is for all people as it takes us to the heart of the Roman Empire.

For Luke that is not a contradiction. It is, rather, a wonderful fulfilment.

Just as Paul reaches the point when he sums up his thinking in a letter to the Romans that leaves space for the Jewish people’s place in salvation, so too Luke’s account of the arrival of the Good News in Rome has not forgotten the Jewish people. It is easy to read these words dismissively of the Jewish people – and some manuscripts reinforce that feeling in a spirit of anti-semitism. The oldest manuscripts suggest, quite differently that some among the Jewish hearers of Paul did believe.

30 For two years Paul lived in a place he rented for himself, and there he welcomed all who came to see him. 31 He preached about the Kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking with all boldness and freedom

Luke – hope through healing

1) Taking Jesus to Jerusalem - Luke's Gospel

For every enquirer who is open to God and wants to know all about Jesus in an ordered and reliable way. It all began with the news that there was to be one more prophetic figure who would pave the way for the coming of the One who more than any other would bring God’s love into a broken world. That One would bring down the powerful and raise up the down trodden, feed the hungry and send the rich empty away. It was the poor and the excluded who first heard the message of the angels, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace. They were the ones who first saw that One in the most unexpected of places, a squalid feeding trough usually used by animals. Given the name ‘Jesus’ when he was only eight days old those wise beyond their years could see he truly would be saviour of the world.

A man for all the world, he faced up to the world’s temptations and stood his ground. He burst on to the world’s consciousness with the recognition and the support of the last of the prophets, and so began his life’s work. He taught of the way the rule of God was breaking into the world and changing people’s lives. He brought healing to hurting people. And he did not do that alone. First, he sent out six pairs of his followers to teach people of the rule of God and to heal hurting lives. And then for each pair of those followers he sent out another six pairs. And so his love for all the world began to spread into that world. It was a love not just for the religious but for those who had never heard of God. It was a love for all people regardless of their gender or their race. It was a love that made a difference.

But it was a love many could not abide. With resolution he determined to face those who would oppose him. They thought they had the better of him as they subjected him to cruel torture and the horror of execution. But in the midst of the pain he spoke words of loving forgiveness, Father, forgive them. They were words that people would not forget.

They had every reason to remember. For within three days, he showed that the powers that be who thought they could prevail against him could not hold him down. One by one those friends of his whose lives had been shattered met him, even though they knew he had died. And in that meeting they knew he would be with them for evermore. And they resolved to go out into the world with the message of God’s rule in love breaking into people’s lives; and they determined to bring healing into hurting people’s lives too!

2) Taking Jesus to Rome and the World - The Acts of the Apostles

For every enquirer who is open to God and wants to know what happened next after the death and resurrection of Jesus. It all began with a challenge from the risen Jesus for his followers to begin where they were and then to spread out into all the world with the love that Jesus embodied. But they could not do that on their own. They had to wait. That’s exactly what they did in a spirit of prayer. On the fiftieth day after the day of resurrection it happened. The unseen yet very real power of God was let loose into their lives and they had the strength to do as Jesus had bidden them to do.

They began where they were in Jerusalem. Their task was simple. To teach people of the rule of God and to heal hurting lives. And so God’s love in Jesus for all the world began to spread into that world. But it was a love many could not abide. The authorities hounded them out of their own town. Those who faced death faced it with forgiveness in their hearts and on their lips.

At first they did not realise it. But soon it dawned on them. This love was a love not just for the religious but for those who had never heard of God. It was a love for all people regardless of their gender or their race. It was a love that made a difference.

In ever increasing circles they took the message of this love that makes a difference out into a world filled with need. Peter, Philip, James and the others were joined by Stephen and then by Paul and many others who carried the message with them wherever they went.

Until at last the message of God’s love reached Rome itself and the heart of the Roman empire. With resolution Paul was determined to face those who would oppose him. They thought they had the better of him as they arrested him and held him prisoner. But he held on to the faith that meant so much to him.

He too had met with the risen Jesus Christ and in that meeting he also knew Jesus would be with him for evermore. So it was that he toured the Roman Empire and arrived at Rome itself with the message of God’s rule in love breaking into people’s lives; and with the determination to bring healing into hurting people’s lives too!

Paul - Hope through Suffering - Galatians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Corinthians and Romans

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Peter, Mark, James, the writer to the Hebrews, Matthew … all looked to Jesus as the basis for a hope that served them well in a troubled world. The roots of their faith are unmistakeably in the Jewish world of the Hebrew Scriptures. The hope they shared was rooted in the fulfilment of the Law, the Prophets and the Writings of those Hebrew Scriptures. The love they shared encompassed the Jewish people and reached out to the whole world, Jew and Gentile alike.

It would be a mistake to imagine that in Paul we break away from that Jewish world and introduce something revolutionary and new.

Paul is Jewish through and through and remains a Jew to the very end: it is as someone who is Jewish that he recognises in Jesus the Messiah, the anointed one of God, the Son of God. As he reaches out beyond the Jewish world to the heart of the Gentile world he is entirely in accord with the Jewish thinking that is reflected in the second part if Isaiah. Just as he had seen a remarkable light on the Road to Damascus, so he was convinced that in Christ was a light for the nations.

Paul’s story is told at length by Luke, a good friend and travelling companion of Paul’s who was also a doctor. Although the details are sometimes difficult to be sure of, especially in the early years Paul’s letters come to life if they are set against the backdrop of the story told in Acts.

Saul of Tarsus - A Jewish Scholar and a Roman Citizen

Bearing the name of the first Jewish King, Saul grew up in Tarsus part of a family of tentmakers, who at some point had been granted the status of ‘Roman Citizen’.

There’s nothing surprising about that. It was part of the genius of the Roman Empire. First, they would conquer a locality and set up an all-powerful military base, subduing the local peoples. Then they would establish peace and with the creation of a city ordered on the basis of Rome they would invite local people to become Roman Citizens with the rights and the responsibilities that went with that citizenship. Thus they established a Pax Romana.

It is no coincidence that it was in Philippi, a Colonia of Rome, that Paul when arrested laid claim to his Roman Citizenship and elicited an apology from the Magistrates for falsely imprisoning him. Even as Paul was making his case the Roman armies were conquering islands on the western extremity of their nation. At the time Paul was in Philippi, the colonia, the Roman armies reached what we now know as Gloucester. They conquered it, set up a military base, subdued the local people and forty years later designated it a Colonia. Within its walls citizens of Rome by birth and by invitation had all the rights and responibilities as if they were in Rome itself.

But Paul as he was by now known did not forget his Jewish roots. When on trial in Jerusalem, at the very end of the story that is narrated in the New Testament, he is proud to lay claim to his Jewishness, and to his scholarship.

NRS Acts 22:3 "I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, educated strictly according to our ancestral law, being zealous for God, just as all of you are today.

Throughout his writings Paul’s Jewish scholarship is apparent. At the same time he has a deep understanding of the world of the Roman empire too.

Seeing the Light

Vigorous in his persecution of the Christian community in Jerusalem, he had a life transforming experience of the risen Jesus Christ as he was traveling to Damascus in pursuit of followers of Jesus who were fleeing his persecution. The story is told as it happened in Acts 9 and then twice more as Paul recalls it as he is put on trial.

He experiences ‘a light from heaven’ Acts 9.3
He hears a voice: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
He asks a question, “Who are you, Lord?”
He receives an answer: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”
He is instructed what to do – to go into the city and await instruction.

That experience shapes much of his thinking later. To persecute the body of followers of Jesus was to persecute Jesus himself. Paul came to think of the church as the Body of Christ.

He was sure. It was the risen Jesus he had encountered. He considered himself to have seen the risen Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:1ff). In his encounter with Jesus he knew him to be ‘Lord’. This is the basic statement of faith that he later comes to ask of those who would follow Jesus: that they recocnise, Jesus is Lord.

He is commissioned directly by Jesus. He considers himself ‘sent’ by Jesus, the word ‘apostle’ means ‘one who is sent’.

He had seen the light. It is fascinating to track through references to ‘light’ in the letters and read them ‘in the light of’ that encounter on the Road to Damascus. Nowhere is that more powerfully put than in 2 Corinthians 4:5-6

For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. 6For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

From the Damascus Road to Antioch and on to Jerusalem

It is difficult to be precise about the sequence of events that followed on from the encounter with the risen Christ Paul had on the road to Damascus. Paul describes it himself in what many consider to be his first letter, Galatians; Luke describes the same events in Acts. It is difficult to fit the two accounts together with precision. This is as John Drane re-constructs it in his Introduction to the New Testament.

Paul’s conversion (Acts 9:3-19, 22:6-16; 26:9-18; Galatians 1:11-17)
A brief stay in Damascus (Acts 9:19b)
A visit to ‘Arabia’ (Galatians 1:17-18)
Work in Damascus for something like three years (Galatians 1:17; possibly Acts 9:20-22)
Paul’s first visit to Jerusalem after his conversion (Acts 9:26-30; Galatians 1:18-20)
Paul’s stay in Tarsus (Acts 9:30; 11:25; Galatians 1:21)
Paul joins the Christian movement among the Gentiles in Antioch (Acts 11:20-24)
Paul joins Barnabas in Antioch (Acts 11:25-26)
Paul and Barnabas visit Jerusalem with famine relief for the church there, fourteen years after Paul’s conversion (Acts 11:29-30; 12:25; Galatians 2:1-10)

Reaching out with the Gospel to the whole world – the first phase

From Antioch Paul journeys over to Cyprus and then to mainland Asia Minor traveling through another Anioch in Pisidia and on to Iconium, Lystra and Derbe before retracing their steps and returning to Antioch in Syria.

On their travels they visit Jewish synagogues in towns that they visit and speak also to the Gentiles, establishing churches that are then re-visited.

John Drane suggests that it is sometime after Paul’s return to Antioch and subsequent visit to Jerusalem with famine relief for the followers of Jesus there that the letter to the Galatians is written. Galatia is a province in what is nowadays North Western Turkey but there are grounds for supposing that the word can be used to describe a wider area sometimes associated with the Celts and going as far south as Derbe and Lystra. In that case Galatians may well have been written to those churches.

Galatians

Paul addresses the issue of a ‘Judaising’ element within the church that wants those who follow Jesus first to abide by the Jewish way of life. The first couple of chapters are very auto-biographical as Paul roots his understanding of Christian faith in his own experience. The next couple of chapters explore the story of Abraham and are drawn from his own extensive knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures.

He argues closely from his own experience and from a study of the story of Abraham leading up to his conclusion that Christ sets us free. Chapter 5 is a key chapter and it gets to the heart of what Paul found so liberating in his encounter with Jesus.

1For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

He goes on to say that the important thing is not that people new to following Christ go through such a rite as circumcision, but rather that they have the kind of faith that is put into action in love.

6For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working* through love.

The kind of freedom Paul envisages is not the kind of freedom that says ‘anything goes’. It is the kind of freedom that sets people free to live out a life of love for one another.

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters;* only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence,* but through love become slaves to one another. 14For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ 15If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

It is not that we can generate such a way of living simply by our own efforts. It is, rather, that God will give us that unseen, yet very real strength of the Holy Spirit and produce within us the very characteristics we associate with ‘the Christian way of life’.

22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23gentleness, and self-control.

The one who follows Christ is called to live by the Spirit

25If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. 2

Reaching out with the Gospel to the whole world – the second phase

After that key meeting in Jersualem, Paul returns to Antioch in Syria and sets off on the second phase of his missionary travels revisiting those churches in Lystra, Derbe, Iconium and Pisidian Antioch before setting off across the centre of Turkey in a north westerly direction.

His travels, facilitated by the trade routes and straight roads of the Roman Empire take him to Troas where he sees a vision of a man from Macedonia beckoning him across the water to what we think of nowadays as Europe.

So it was he visited first Philippi. The story is told in Acts 15:36 to 18:23.

It is in the Roman Colonia, in the Roman Province of Macedonia, that Paul exercises his rights as a Roman citizen. He worships outside the city wall as you would expect of a Roman Colonia with a group of women, among whom is Lydia and then stays in her home. He heals a slave girl, falls foul of her owners, men who abuse her, and is thrown into gaol. An earthquake, still a frequent occurrence in that part of the world, aroused the fears of the gaoler who, with his family, is baptised when he sees the deep faith of Paul and Silas.

Moving on from Philippi paul visits the nearby city of Thessalonca.

His travels then take him on to Corinth and further to Athens. A key city in the ancient world, it is fascinating to see the way in which Paul responds to the people he is addressing. With a Jewish audience in a Synagogue he draws on the Hebrew Scriptures and his extensive knowledge of them. With a Gentile audience of philosophers and thinkers he draws on his inside experience of Roman Citizenship and his apparent knowledge of the ancient Greeka and Roman world. He starts where people are at … and comes back each time to the one at the heart of his faith, the risen one whom he had met, Jesus.

It would seem to be while on his travels through Corinth to Athens that he wrote the next two letters to the Christian Community in Thessalonica. He was concerned at news of problems in the church of Thessalonica to do with

It is fascinating to see the way in which Paul not only plants churches but he nurtures them in their growth, re-visiting them, keeping in touch by letter.

1 and 2 Thessalonians

Paul writes out of concern for the church in Thessalonica. He begins as ever with personal greetings, goes on to give thanks not just for their faith but also for the way of life they led. Above all, he focuses on their love for one another (3:11-4:12)

They have a concern … what’s going to happen to those who have died already? Paul shares with them an assurance that Jesus will come, though no one knows the time of his coming. Then he shares with them his insight into what happens after death. It is a wonderful thought that goes to the heart of the Christian hope not in a life that simply goes on after death, nor in a life for the soul, but in the resurrection. Tom Wright speaks of the Christian believing in life after life after death. At death it is as if we go to sleep. As in sleep, time passes in an instant, so too seemingly in an instant we are raised at the resurrection of the dead. And that we can be sure of as we look to the resurrection of Jesus. (4:13-18)

The second of his letters addresses similar issues, and finishes with words of encouragement.

Paul’s letters follow the pattern of ancient letter writing, to be seen not least in the wonderful letters of Vindalanda. Personal greetings, followed by thanks, then the substance of the letter – for Paul that usually follows a pattern – doctrinal thinking followed by practical application;, then final greetings. And here, as in the Vindalanda letters a greeting in his own hand.

Reaching out with the Gospel to the whole world – the third phase

What is often known as the third of Paul’s missionary journeys follows as Paul re-visits Ephesus, Corinth and Athens, supporting the churches on the way.

Having visited the Corinthian church in that second phased of his travels he hears bad news about problems in the church – to do with divisions among the leadership, questions of morality, what happens when they meet for the Lord’s Supper, and the conduct of their worship.

1 Corinthians

On hearing the bad news he writes 1 Corinthians. In it he addresses those various issues, coming to a wonderful climax with an appeal to the love that should be at the heart of the Christian faith and its living. 1 Corinthians 13 with its celebration of love is one of the great chapters of the New Testament.

Paul then visits Corinth during this third phase of his missionary work.

2 Corinthians – a second and a third letter from Paul

After leaving Corinth Paul crosses over to Ephesus where he writes once again a second letter. It is quite stern, and some suggest that it is contained in 2 Corinthians 10-13.

That second letter finishes with a prayer that has come to be one we use so often we can easily miss its significance … not least for a church that has had major problems.

It is a prayer that goes to the heart of what is important for Paul. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ – that’s where it all starts, and you have to come back to it. If church is not built on that free gift of forgiving love that is poured out by Christ it’s worth nothing. … the love of God that’s at the heart of church, at the heart of Christianity, at the heart of Paul’s gospel, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit – fellowship is a wonderfully powerful word, it is what marks the recognition of grace and the recognition of belonging in Galatians 2:10, the right hand of fellowship, it is one way of thinking of the Lord’s Supper, communion, it is a wonderful Greek word that means so much, koinonia, it is the mark of being church.

Subsequently, Paul hears much better news from Corinth. They have heeded his words and so he writes a third letter to them. That is contained in 2 Corinthians 1-9.

At its heart Paul’s declaration of the Gospel and all it means for him …

For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. 6For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

7 But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. 8We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. 11For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. 12So death is at work in us, but life in you.

13 But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture—‘I believed, and so I spoke’—we also believe, and so we speak, 14because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence. 15Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

16 So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. 17For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, 18because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4)

Reaching out with the Gospel into the whole world – a planned 4th phase

During the third phase of his missionary endeavour Paul had been collecting money for the church back in Jerusalem. As he was making his way back towards Jerusalem he had plans for a fourth phase, taking the Gospel to Rome and beyond to Spain.

There was already a Christian community in Rome and so Paul wrote a letter, preparing the way for his visit to them.

Romans brings together all the great theological themes of the letters to the Galatians and to the church in Corinth, and takes in some of the themes of the letters to Thessalonica too.

When you consider Nero was by now Emperor in Rome, the opening words of the letter are charged with powerful meaning. They tell you what Paul thought of his own calling, the message he had to share and the one who is at the heart of that message. Go on to Southgate Street in Gloucester, ancient Glevum, and you will see the son of God in all his splendour, riding a horse. It is the Emperor Nerva who gave Glevum the status of a Colonia in AD 95, only 30 or so years after Paul was writing to the Romans. Nerva, as were the emperors before him was regarded as ‘deified’, as ‘the son of God’. The credentials were established by genealory and appointment. That’s how Paul establishes Jesus’ credentials

Romans – How Christians Know God – 1-8

He is Son of God by human descent from King David, but also by resurrection of the dead. And as Son of God he demands the allegiance of all. This is powerful, disturbing stuff. After all, the Emperor was considered to be the 'Son of God'. You can see a 'Son of God' on Southgate Street in Gloucester! Nerva was the Emperor who gave Glevum the status of a 'Colonia' in AD 95. The sculpture was put up to mark the 1900th anniversary of the occasion. Nerva is identified as divine in an inscription from a fort, North of Hadrian's Wall, to be found in the Museum of antiquities in Newcastle University. It is an inscription that provides a supposed genealogy establishing the right of Septimus Severius to be Emperor a hundred and twenty years after Nerva. 1Paul, a servant* of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, 2which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, 3the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh 4and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit* of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, 5through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, 6including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,
7 To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

It’s not long before he goes to the heart of the Gospel in Romans 1:16, 17

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘The one who is righteous will live by faith.’

After analysing all that is wrong in Nero’s Rome, he reaches the point at which he identifies all that Jesus has accomplished – it is as if through his death and resurrection he has set us right in a law court, set us free in a slave market, and done more than all that can be achieved through sacrifices in a temple! Romans 3:21-26.

For the follower of Jesus this amounts to nothing less than a resurrection to a new life.

But even then, the Christian is all too aware that in his own strength he can so easily succumb to all that is wrong. The good that I would I do not, the evil that I would not, that I do. Romans 7:14 has to be quoted for all its power in Tyndale’s masterful use of single syllable words for all but the weightiest and scariest!

So how can the Christian hope to know God? It is only by the power of the Spirit. Hardly mentioned in chapters 1-7 in chapter 8 Paul comes to a climax in his exposition of what it means to know God as repeatedly he comes back to the unseen yet very real power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 8).

His exploration comes to an end with a stirring statement of faith …

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36As it is written,37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Israel and Salvation – 9-11

Paul might be writing to Rome, but he is still aware of those Jewish roots. So Romans 9-11 explores the place of Israel in God’s plan for salvation.

It finishes on a note of mystery.

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable his ways! 34‘For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor?’ 35‘Or who has given a gift to him, to receive a gift in return?’ 36For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory for ever. Amen. *

But that for Paul is by no means the end of the story.

How Christians Should Behave – 12-16

The little word ‘Therefore …’ at the beginning of chapter 12 leads him on to a stirring appeal to every follower of Jesus to live out the Christian life.

We are called to be, in Martin Luther King’s take on Romans 12, ‘transformed nonconformists’. In Romans 12 is a wonderful statement of what it takes to be a follower of Jesus that is shot through with the thinking of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

More practical guidelines follow before Paul finishes in chapter 16 with greetings to all the people he knows personally in the church in Rome and to others too.

The Best Laid Plans

Friends advise Paul not to take the collection back to Jerusalem personally. He ignores their advice, goes to Jerusalem is arrested and all his plans are spoiled … or are they?

Matthew - a handbook of hope for would-be disciples

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Peter, nick-named ‘the rock’ yet whose hold on hope was more than a little ‘rocky’ at times …

Mark, maybe passing on Peter’s recollections of Jesus, maybe a very young man at the time of Jesus’ arrest, whose mother hosted a church gathering in Jerusalem, with a very down-to-earth hold on hope …

James, the brother of Jesus, leader of the Jerusalem church, with a very practical kind of hope …

An anonymous writer steeped in Hebrew thinking, writing ‘to the Hebrews’, with a conviction that Jesus had opened up a way of hope for all to follow …

One thing we cannot escape as we draw towards the halfway mark, in looking at the people behind the New Testament and lives that make such a difference, is that the people behind the New Testament who made up the community of the first church were steeped in Jewish ways of thinking and in the Jewish faith.

We must not under-estimate the ‘Jewishness’ of the New Testament. It is the greatest tragedy of Church history that Christian people have neglected this and succumbed at times to the most dreadful form of anti-semitism.

There is a Jewish feel to the Gospel According to St Matthew

A Jewish Christian Community in Antioch, Syria?

Ignatius had the ‘pastoral oversight’ of the church in Antioch and wrote a number of letters which are dated at the beginning of the second Century. They include references to a star appearing at the birth of Jesus and to the response Jesus made to John the Baptist when he was baptised and to a number of sayings of Jesus that are recorded only in Matthew (12:33, 15:13, 19:12). J.C.Fenton in the Pelican Gospel Commentary on St Matthew concludes from that evidence that Matthew’s gospel was already in circulation by the time Ignatius wrote his letters and that Ignatius knew the Gospel. (See, eg J.C.Fenton, the Pelican Gospel Commentary).

Maybe the writer of the Gospel came from the community of believers in Antioch who were the first to get the nick-name ‘Christians’.

Who was he?

Matthew and his Sources

Look at Matthew, Mark and Luke side by side, and a number of things immediately become apparent.

Practically all of Mark appears also in Matthew and Luke. We shouldn’t be surprised at that as Luke tells us in Luke 1:1-4 that he had used a number of sources. It looks very much as if Mark was one of them.

Matthew and Luke both follow Mark’s order.

While Matthew and Mark sometimes differ from Luke and Luke and Mark sometimes differ from Matthew, Matthew and Luke do not differ from Mark when it comes to the order of events.

A substantial amount of material is common to Matthew and Luke and does not appear in Mark – practically all of that material is made up of sayings of Jesus. Those sayings often appear in different contexts in Matthew and Luke

That has led many to suppose that Matthew’s Gospel makes use of Mark as a basic source and follows its order. In addition Matthew uses a collection of sayings of Jesus that is also used by Luke – this common ‘source’ is often referred to as ‘Q’ from the German word for source, ‘Quelle’. Finally, Matthew has material that is unique to him, that he has acquired from his own source.

Who was the author of Matthew?

Mark tells the story of the call of one of the apostles who is a tax collector in chapter 2:13-17. There the tax-collector apostle is described as ‘Levi’. When the writer of Matthew’s Gospel tells the same story he gives that apostle a different name … ‘Matthew’ – chapter 9 verse 9. Mark includes a ‘Matthew’ in the list of twelve apostles he gives at chapter 3:13-19, but he does not say what ‘Matthew’ is. When the writer of Matthew’s gospel lists the twelve he refers to ‘Matthew’ as a ‘tax-collector’.

That is the basis for the suggestion that Matthew, the tax-collector Apostle, wrote the Gospel that bears his name.

Some have suggested that the quality of the writing, the Jewish thinking of the Gospel, and the feel of the Gospel suggests that the tax-collector is unlikely to have been its author. Maybe he was involved in that Christian community in Antioch and influenced the writing of the Gospel.

Matthew roots the Gospel of Jesus in the Hebrew Scriptures

Matthew’s gospel opens with what is in effect a summing up of the story of Jesus. At first sight, chapter 1 verses 1-16 is simply a genealogy of Jesus, tracing his lineage through Joseph, the husband of Mary.

Look a little more closely and there’s more to it.

The very first first gives a hint. “An account of the genealogy of jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the Son of Abraham.”

The genealogy will establish Jesus’ identity as Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One of God. In doing that it will show Jesus’ link with David, the great King of the Kingdom of Israel, and with Abraham the great father figure, or Patriarch of the people of Israel.

Look a little more closely and you will find that the genealogy is divided into three equal parts of fourteen generations.

It begins with Abraham up to David (verses 2-6a), that’s the period up to the establishment of the monarchy. It then continues from David to the time of the deportation and exile to Babylon (verses 6b – 11) – that’s the whole history of the Monarchy. It then finishes with the period from the exile to the time of Jesus (verses 12-16), the post-exilic period when the people of Israel had returned home physically, but were not yet at home in God’s Kingdom.

Effectively, the gospel begins with a very concise summary of the whole history of the Jewish people and their expectation of a Messiah.

Look even more carefully and there are some surprises, not least the inclusion of four women, Tamar, Rahab (a prostitute), Ruth (a Moabitess and non-Jew) and of course Mary.

The genealogy of David provided in 1 Chronicles 2:11ff makes no mention of Ruth. The Old Testament story Matthew tells has something different about it. It is as if Jesus fulfils that strand of dissent in the Hebrew Scriptures that refuses to see racial purity as the marker that counts for the people of God.

What’s the Purpose of this Gospel?

There’s a clue to the purpose of the Gospel in the final verses of chapter 28. Although, supposed by some to be a later addition to the Gospel, they point towards something that is at the very heart of the whole Gospel.

Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. 17When they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted. 18And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’* Matthew 28:16-20

If the task Jesus gave to the eleven was to go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that Jesus had commanded them … they would need a handbook to help them undertake that task.

A Handbook of Hope for would- be Disciples

Look carefully at Matthew’s Gospel and it quickly becomes apparent that it provides just such a handbook.

Here in Matthew’s gospel you will find the teaching of Jesus brought together into five major sections.

Each carries a marker at the very end:

5-7 The Sermon on the Mount finishes with the words, ‘Now when Jesus had finished saying these things …’ 7:28

10 The Commission to the Twelve finishes with the words, ‘Now when Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples …’ 11:1

13 The Parables of the Kingdom finishes with the words, “When Jesus had finished these parables, he left that place…” 13:53

18 What it means to be the Church finishes with the words, “When Jesus had finished sayint these things …” 19:1

23-25 The Rule of God to the End finishes with the words, “When Jesus had finished saying all these things …” 26:1

The Sermon on the Mount finishes with three choices, effectively three parables. The final block of teaching also finishes with three parables in chapter 25, the middle block of teaching contains a series of parables of the Kingdom. If you are looking for parables in Mathew look there!

If you are looking for teaching of Jesus, the kind of teaching you don’t associate with John, look in one of those passages!

A New Torah for the People of God

Is this another way that the Gospel of Matthew links Jesus with the Hebrew Scriptures. For Jewish people the Torah is all important, not just as ‘the Law’ but because it maps out the Way of Life the People of God are called to follow.

It is as if Jesus is a new Moses, offering a new Torah, which when taken together offers the people of God a Way of Life to follow.

If the task of the apostles is to teach people all that Jesus commanded, then Matthew provides his readers with a handbook of discipleship that does precisely that.

The Presence of God
… touches earth wherever people hear Christ’s word and act on it

The Sermon on the Mount doesn’t fininsh with a nice little children’s story about a couple of builders in the rain!

Matthew’s readers, steeped as they would have been in the Hebrew Scriptures would have recognised allusions to the founder of the temple. The Book of Proverbs contrasts the wise and the foolish; the parable contrasts the wise and the foolish. Whereas the Book of Proverbs speaks of the wise woman, the parable speaks of the Wise Man. Proverbs was linked with Solomon who was considered the Wise Man of the Old Testament. He it was who built a house for the Lord on the rock in Jerusalem. The Wise man who built his house on the rock immediately sets the reader thinking of the temple.

The temple is where the presence of God touches earth and is grounded in the down-to-earth world. But now Jesus is making a big claim. Wherever people, ie those who become disciples and follow all that he ahs commanded, hear his words and act on them, that’s where God’s presence will be felt – for they will be like the Wise man who built a house on the rock – they will be like the temple, the place of God’s presence!

Memorable Teaching

It has within it a wonderful symmetry, drawing on a device used in Hebrew poetry. There is a structure to the five blocks of teaching that is symmetrical – it can be described as a ‘chiasmus’ and represented with lettering – A – B – C – B – A

Chapters 5-7 give a glimpse of what it’s like under the rule of God. That’s balanced at the end with 23-25 that gives a similar glimpse. The first begins with the ‘Blessings’ of the beatitudes, the last begins with the ‘woes’. The first ends with a challenging parable about listening to Jesus’ words and acting on what you hear thus releasing the presence of God into the world – the parable of the Wise Builder who built his house on the rock. And the last finishes with the parable of the sheep and the goats, ‘in as much as you do it to the least of these my brothers and sisters you do it to me.’

The second block of teaching is Jesus’ commissioning of the twelve and the fourth balances it with teaching on what it means to belong to the community of Jesus, the church.

The central block, in a sense the pinnacle of the teaching is a set of parables giving a glimpse of what Matthew is careful to describe as ‘the kingdom of heaven’. Jewish people revered the name of God and often used other words than God’s name to describe him. Whereas, the other gospel writers have Jesus speak of ‘the kingdom of God’, Matthew tends to have Jesus speak of ‘the kingdom of heaven’ – it means the same thing!

Heaven is not the place you go to after death. It is rather the God-dimension in all of life, this side of dying as well as the other – it is supremely the God-dimension where God rules!

Matthew – a Handbook of Hope for would-be Disciples

He was the One they had all been waiting for. You could tell that simply by looking at his family tree. And as for what happened when he was born, you could simply tell he really was the One. Not that he had an easy time of it! A refugee before he was a year old, it was tough. Very tough. He knew exactly what it was like to be tempted – he felt pretty exposed. Vulnerable is the best word to describe it. But he was someone of vision who knew where he was going … and who he needed to help him.

He wasn’t going to go it alone. He had a task to do and he needed people around him to take him seriously and be willing to give their all in following him. The message he had to share was clear – it turned so many things people had always taken for granted on their head. Yet it caught the imagination. The non-stop pursuit of happiness, prosperity and victory at all costs? Not a bit of it: blessings come the way of those who are mourn and are comforted, those who make peace and work at it, those who have a real hunger and thirst for justice. It’s not just about loving God and loving your neighbour, important though that is. It’s about loving your enemy too. It’s about bringing healing into people’s lives.

The task of bringing that message and that healing into the world was precisely the task he wanted to share. It amounted to nothing less than bringing the rule of God into the world. And it began wherever he was present: and he would be present wherever two or three met together in his name, and wherever people were willing to help hurting people.

Mind you, it took him to a very cruel death on the cross. But on the third day he rose again from the dead. And now the task is for all of us to share. A message for a perplexed world and healing for a hurting world. And as we share all that we are not alone: for He, this living Jesus, will be with us always to the end of the age.

Our task is to “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that Jesus has commanded us.”

This is a guide to everything Jesus has commanded us:

Living under God’s Rule – The Sermon on the Mount (5-7)

5:1-16 give a glimpse of what it’s like living under God’s rule

This is the fulfilment of the law and the prophets (5:17-20)

Love your neighbour – 5:21-47. Keep at it until you come to the point at which you can say ‘it is finished’, it is ‘perfected’ 5:48

Love God – 6:1 – 7:11

In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets. 7:12

Choose the narrow gate and choose to be like the good tree for everyone who hears these words of Jesus and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock – that’s to say, they will be the place where God’s presence touches earth!

Taking God’s Rule into the World – The Commissioning of the Twelve (10)

Proclaim the Good news and bring healing into a hurting world (10:5-15)

Stand your ground for God will be with you and the Spirit guide you (10:16-25)

Do not be afraid – God cares for you no matter what the cost (10:26-39)

To welcome the followers of Jesus is to welcome Jesus – and to share a cup of water with someone in need is what it’s all about!

What’s this rule of God like? – Parables of the Kingdom (13)

… it’s like a sower who went out to sow (13:1-9 and 18-23)

… it’s like someone who sowed good seed in the ground but an enemy sowed weeds as well (13:24-30 and 34-43)

… it’s like a mustard seed, that grows to a tree so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches (13:31-32)

… it’s like yeast that woman took (13:33)

… it’s like a treasure hidden in a field (13:44)

… it’s like a merchant in search of pearls (13:45-46)

… it’s like a net thrown into the sea catching fish of all kinds (13:47-50)

Taking God’s rule into the church – what it means to be the church (18)

Change and become like little children in humility and service (18:1-5)

Don’t put temptation or stumbling blocks in the way of others (18:6-9)

Do not despise even the littlest of ones – remember the lost sheep! (18:10-14)

Follow a code of good practice in discipline (18:15-20)

Know that Christ is present even where two or three gather together (‘synagogue’) in his name (18:20)

Forgive one another – 70 times seven times and more! (18:21-22)

Remember the parable of the unforgiving servant! (18:23-35

Living under God’s rule to the end – (23-25)

Woe to those whose religion is empty. (23:1-36) Of the seven woes the middle ones goes to the heart of what Jesus calls ‘the weightier matters of the law’: ‘justice and mercy and faith’ (23-24)

Looking to the end (23:37 – 24:51)

Choices to make (25) – the wise and foolish bridesmaids (25:1-13), the good and trustworthy slaves with the five and two talents (25:14-30) and the sheep and the goats: “Truly, just as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters you did it to me.

Hebrews - A Way to Hope

2008-01-26T13:47:00.000Z

Hebrews is tough, not least for modern Christian readers.

It needs grappling with!

But it’s worth it!

Jerusalem and Judea – roots in the Hebrew Scriptures

“You will be my witnesses,” said Jesus to the discipiles in Acts 1:8, “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.”

Most of the people behind the New Testament have their roots in one way or another in Jerusalem and Judea, in the Jewish faith and in the Hebrew Scriptures.

We first met Peter on the Day of Pentecost, and joined him towards the end of his life as he reflected on all the faith had meant to him. In more ways than one, his was a a rocky hope! We then joined Mark, maybe the young follower of Jesus whose mother hosted a church in her house, who accompanied Paul and ended up in Rome taking down Peter’s reminiscences of Jesus. His was a very down-to-earth hope. And then we joined James, the brother of Jesus and leader of the church in Jerusalem, who has no time for the theory of the Christian faith but sees hope coming alive in action.

These, like so many of the people behind the New Testament were steeped in their Jewishness and in the Hebrew Scriptures.

For the most part, we are not like that!

Hard but important for Christians who do not know their Hebrew Scriptures!

Most Christians are at home in the New Testament but find the Old Testament difficult to get to grips with.

If you are like that you will find Hebrews hard! Very hard!

The clue to understanding the book and the person behind it lies in its title. ‘Hebrews’. We very often think of the Christian Bible as made up of the Old Testament and the New Testament. We can lose sight of the fact that for the people who wrote the books and letters of the New Testament there was no New Testament and there was no Old Testament as such. They had their Scriptures. And their Scriptures were the books that make up our Old Tesatment. But for them they were simply the Hebrew Scriptures. The Scriptures of the Jewish people.

An Anonymous Writer making sense for Christians of the Hebrew Scriptures

Hebrews is written from a Christian standpoint in order to make sense of the great themes of the Hebrew Scriptures. It is of great value to those who are steeped in the Hebrew Scriptures. But it can also be of great value to those who are ignorant of the Hebrew Scriptures, as it provides sign-posts to help you as a Christian find your way round the great themes of the ‘Hebrew Scriptures’.

The Authorised Version identifies Hebrews as one of Paul’s letters. No modern translations do that … for the simple reason that Paul is not mentioned in the letter at all. The last few verses of chapter 13 refer to Timothy and seem to have to do with Rome: that’s what led people to surmise the letter is by Paul.

The earliest traditions in the second century suggested otherwise. Tertulllian, (2nd Century, North Africa) linked Hebrews with Barnabas. Clement of Alexandria (late 2nd Century) linked it with Luke or Clement of Rome, suggesting a possible link with Paul. In the 3rd Century, Origen summed up the consensus of the time by saying that ‘God knows’ who actually wrote it. (See the Oxford Commentary on the Bible)

This is an anonymous letter. But it finds its roots in that part of the church that is very aware of its rootedness in Judaism, or in that part of the church that needs to be aware of the roots Christianity has in Judaism.

That makes it important for us! What kind of a book is it?

A Word of Exhortation – A Whole Way of Life

The answer to that question lies at the very end … whether or not you agree with the writer that he has written briefly, you can be pretty sure that it is a ‘word of exhortation’. See Hebrews 13:22.

You can see Hebrews as a sequence of mini sermons. Each sermon is made up of two parts.

1. First, there is a theological exploration of a theme from the Hebrew Scriptures that finds its fulfilment in the coming of Jesus.

2. Second, there is then a practical application of that theme to the way Christians should lead their lives.

In each sermon those two sections are linked by the use of the word ‘Therefore’. Look carefully for the linking word, ‘therefore’ and you will spot the moment of transition in the middle of each ‘sermon’.

At the heart of the Jewish Scriptures is ‘the Torah’ – for those who are Jews their faith has to do with the whole of their lives. Christians who take seriously the Jewish roots of their faith must realise too that words are matched by actions, and the faith we profess is a Way of Life.

For Hebrews ‘Hope’ is a whole way of life. The letter offers us ‘A Way to Hope’.

The sequence of sermons opens with a wonderful statement establishing who Jesus is.

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, 2but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son,* whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. 3He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains* all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

It draws to a close with an equally remarkable statement:

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever. (13:8)

In between Jesus is seen to be greater than the angels, one with God, and yet at the same time one with us in our human frailty and weakness, albeit without sinning. A great bridge-builder or High Priest, he draws us into the very presence of God. And that he does by faith. We need to keep our eyes on Jesus and run the race that is set before us, sure of our faith, certain of a wonderful hope, committed to a selfless love for one another.

A Hebrew – the Way to Hope

But what are you going to do about it! It’s one thing to think through what is at the heart of the Christian faith, quite another to do something about it! That’s exactly what the anonymous letter to the Hebrews is all about. Against the background of the Hebrew Scriptures, what we think of as the Old Testament, the writer explores some of the basic things at the heart of the Christian Faith and then challenges the reader of the letter to do something about it!

1. All that the prophets looked forward has come to pass in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ who is one with God in all his glory. (1:1-14)

Therefore, we need to pay attention to what we have heard from Jesus Christ and act on it! (2:1-4)

2. In Jesus God came alongside us, confronted the evil of the world and overcame it, giving us the opportunity to share in that victory and know the rich and wonderful love of God for ourselves. (2:5-18)

Therefore, as we belong to the family of God we must give Jesus the honour due to his name and look to him as the head of the household! We need to be worthy members of his family, sharing with each other a love that is real. That way we shall enter into the peace of God’s presence. (3:1 – 4:13)

3. Jesus really did come alongside us and experience humanity at its worst. He experienced all the trials and tribulations of this world, and its temptations too! The wonderful thing about Jesus was that he didn’t succumb to temptation! (4:14 – 5:14)

Therefore we need to follow him along the pathway of life he has mapped out for us: standing firm against the evils of the world, seeking to resist temptation when it omes. (6:1-12)

4. This Jesus is a remarkable bridge-builder. Sometimes it can feel as if there is a chasm between us in all our weakness and God in all his glory. Jesus bridges that gap. One with God in all his love, he comes alongside us in all our weakness. 6:13-10:18)

Therefore, that means we need to come to Jesus confident that through Jesus we can enter into the wonderful love of God. We need to come with the assurance of faith, holding fast to the hope we profess, committed to love in action. (10:19-39)

5. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen: from time immemorial it is what has prompted people to recognise that the world we live in is the world of God’s creation. Down through the ages it is what has kept people going through the most troubled of times. (11:1-40)

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, the One upon whom our faith depends from start to finish. For the sake of the joy set before him, he endured the cross, disregarded its shame and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. (12:1-2)

6. The life death and resurrection of Jesus is an event that’s all important. (12:3-11)

Therefore, we must not lose heart: instead we must pursue peace with everyone and the holiness of God. We must welcome any who need our help: that’s the way to give hospitality to strangers. Above all, love is what counts more than anything else. (12:12 – 13:6)

7. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. (13:8)

Therefore, we need to remember our leaders, those who spoke the Word of God to us; we need to consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. (13:7 and 9-17)

One final prayer: (13:18-25) May the God of peace who brought about the resurrection of our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, and brought us into the closest of all relationships with Him by the death and resurrection of Jesus ... May the God of peace make us rounded people, in whom the goodness of God dwells in all its fullness. Then may we put our faith into action in love for all around us, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

James - Hope in Action

2008-01-20T20:47:00.000Z

We began to read through the New Testament with Peter, who on the Day of Pentecost, was the first to proclaim the Good News on the Streets of Jerusalem. We reflected on his passionate conviction that hope is what the Christian faith is all about in the letters he shared with the world-wide church in his later years.

We went on to take a look at the Gospel According to St Mark, an action packed Gospel, in which Peter doesn’t always appear in a good light, that from as early as the second century has been linked with Peter and more recently has been regarded as the earliest of the Gospels.

The Church in Jerusalem

Let’s go back to join Peter on that day of Pentecost and stay for a moment with the church in Jerusalem. On that Day of Pentecost we are told that the very first disciples of Jesus were joined by 3000 more who became followers of Jesus. Peter and John and the other followers of Jesus continued to value the prayers and worship they shared with others in the Temple.

At the same time they met in each other’s homes and “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” One of those homes belonged to John Mark’s mother. It was there many met to pray when Peter was imprisoned.

That Jerusalem based church faced difficulties as from the very beginning of Paul’s mission work to its very end they experienced times when food was scarce. There were divisions as they neglected to care for those who were widows adequately and divisions occurred between those with Jewish roots and those with Greek roots. They also face times of persecution and Stephen becomes the first Martyr. Shortly before the last imprisonment of Peter that is recorded in Acts 12 James, the brother of John, and one of the twelve was executed.

Pillars of the Church in Jerusalem

Tradition has it that another James became the leader of the church in Jerusalem. James the brother of John dies at Acts 12:2. By Acts 12:17 Peter wants the church gathered together in John Mark’s mother’s house to go and tell about his release to “James and to the believers.”

That other James figures large in the discussions about the equal terms that people with Jewish roots and Gentile roots should enjoy in the church family in Acts 15. It is this other James who sums up the views of the gathering of the church in Jerusalem in Acts 15:13.

In Galatians 2:9 Paul speaks of a ‘James’ as one of the three ‘pillars of the church’ in Jerusalem on one of his very first visits to the Jerusalem church.

This is an important passage for us in a Congregational church as it is one we use to model our welcome of people into church membership.

Paul, earlier known as Saul, had been very involved in the persecution of the Christian community in Jerusalem. It’s no wonder that as he writes in his letter to the Galatians they are dubious about welcoming him. The three leaders of the church, described here by Paul as pillars of the church, James, Cephas (another name for Peter) and John, ‘recognised the grace that had been given to Paul’, and then gave to Barnabas and to Paul the right hand of fellowship. James, Cephas and John then agreed with Barnabas and paul that they should go to the Gentiles, while Peter and the other focused on those with Jewish roots in Jerusalem. The one thing they were all to do was to remember the poor. See Galatians 2:9-10

In Baptism we celebrate the wonderful gift of grace, that free gift of God’s love that is given to us before ever we know anything about it. For the free gift of God’s grace in jesus Christ to make a difference to us we need to make it our own, and that grace will then be seen in our lives.

At the point when the infant grows up and begins making decisions for themselves we ‘confirm’ as it were the gift of grace that is at work within them. We get to know that young person and as we recognise the grace at work within them we welcome them into the church family as we ‘extend the right hand of fellowship to them’.

Other who have made their profession of faith before we welcome by a renewal of that commitment … again it is as we see the grace of God at work that we extend the right hand of fellowship and welcome them into the church family They will have a job to do … and a commitment to the poor. The Gospel imperative!

So who is this James?

Paul gives us a clue earlier in Galatians 1 verse 19. He tells us that he did not see any other apostle except James, the Lord’s brother.

That’s interesting.

Is the James who is one of the pillars of the church in Jerusalem, a brother to Jesus?

Jesus’ brothers are first mentioned in Mark 6:3 and Matthew 13:55. On his travels Jesus has returned to his home town where he teaches in the Synagogue much to the amazement of his friends and neighbours … “Is not this the carpenter,” they said, “the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him.”

Brothers fall out!

It wasn’t just the townspeople of Nazareth who took offence at Jesus. What’s fascinating is that all the references to Jesus’ brothers and his family prior to the crucifixion suggest that his brothers didn’t take to him either!

After calling together the twelve disciples in Mark 4:13ff he went home. The crowd came together to such an extent that they couldn’t eat. “When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him …”

Luke tells us that on one occasion when Jesus was teaching in parables, indeed, telling the story of the Sower and the Seeds, his mother and his brother came to him (Luke 8:19), but they could not reach him because of the crowd. Jesus was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.” You might have thought Jesus would have been delighted and welcoming towards them. Not a bit of it. His response was quite unexpected, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.”

That’s quite something.

No wonder his brothers didn’t get on too well with Jesus!

Matthew’s account of what probably was the same incident is even more telling, disturbing and challenging …

Matthew 12:46-50 While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him. 47 Someone told him, "Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you." 48 But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" 49 And pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! 50 For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."

The most remarkable reference of all, however, comes in John 7 verse 5. John seems to draw on an independent strand of tradition in telling the story of Jesus. And yet the picture he draws is of the same person and the same kind of circumstances.

John is describing a visit Jesus made to Jerusalem at one of the great Jewish festivals. He is teaching at some length. His brothers seem to miss the point of what he is saying. John then explains why!

John 7:5 5 (For not even his brothers believed in him.)

Something remarkable happens to change everything!

Something happens to James, Joses, Judas and Simon, all the brothers of Jesus. It seems to happen around the resurrection.

By the time we reach Acts 1:14 a very different picture emerges.

The period of Jesus’ actual resurrection appearances is over. He has gone once more to be with his Father in heaven. The disciples return to Jerusalem and to the upper room where Jesus had appeared to them first on the day of Resurrection.

Acts 1:14 All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.

That’s telling. By now the brothers of Jesus are part of that circle of his closest friends, followers and disciples.

What has happened?

For a clue we have to return to what some suggest is actually the first written account of the Resurection in the New Testament. It is not in the Gospels, but in the first of the letters Paul wrote to the Christian community in Corinth.

It’s a wonderful passage worth quoting at length.

1 Corinthians 15:1-8 Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, 2 through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you-- unless you have come to believe in vain. 3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

The James Paul refers to here does not sound like the James who was one of the 12 whose execution is described in Acts 12. Much more likely he is the James who is the brother of the Lord.

This is the James Paul goes on to recognize as one of the Pillars of the Church in Jerusalem.

And it is this James who crops up at the end of the New Testament.

The Letter of James

James 1:1 James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings.

Tradition has it that James is written by this pillar of the Jerusalem church, the brother of Jesus. Who knows?

Look at the letter of James and something strikes you about it.

There’s no theory about who Jesus is. Indeed Jesus is not mentioned in the Letter at all explicitly. That prompted Martin Luther to relegate James to a second tier of New Testament books and describe it as ‘a right strawy epistle’!

But while no mention is made of Jesus the whole letter is shot through with the teaching of Jesus. The practical teaching of Jesus at that.

It is possible to detect parallels between James and the Sermon on the Mount in particular.

It is here more than anywhere else in the New Testament that practical Christianity is spelled out.

James and Jesus … the Letter and the Sermon on the Mount

James 1:1-8 speaks of prayer and takes up the invitation of Matthew 6:6 to pray in secret.

James 1:9-18 rejects the pursuit of wealth and echoes Matthew 6:24 where Jesus says quite bluntly ‘You cannot serve God and money’.

James 1:19-27 speaks of the importance of listening, echoing Matthew 7:24 where Jesus likens the person who hears his word and acts on it to the wise man who built his house on the rock.

James 2:1-13 speaks of welcoming all, especially the ‘unlovely’ and putting faith into action, Jesus as Jesus pleads with us in Matthew 5:45-46 not to love only the people who love you.

James 2:14-26 speaks of a 24/7 faith that has to put into action for ‘faith without actions is dead’. Jesus is quite stark when he says that not everyone who calls me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do what my Father in heaven wants them to do. (Matthew 7:21)

James 3:1-12 puts paid to the false notion that while sticks and stones may break your bones words can never hurt you, reflecting on the fearful damage the tongue can do. What we say counts! And Jesus knew it: “Your light must shine before other people, so that they will see the good things you do and praise your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:16)

James 3:13-18 speaks of the wisdom that comes from humility – he might have been speaking of Jesus: Help the needy, but do it in secret and with humility says Jesus in Matthew 6:3.

James 4:1-10 gives direction to life with the priorities spelled out by Jesus in Matthew 6:33: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.”

James 4:11-17 rejects competitiveness and judgemntalism just as Jesus says in Matthew 7:1-2 Do not judge others, so that God will not judge you.” Matthew 7:1-2

James 5:1-6 returns to riches and the love of money as the root of all evil. A theme close to the heart of Jesus who urged us not to store up for ourselves treasures on ear earth where moths and rust destroy and robbers break in and steal. Instead store up riches for yourselves in heaven … for your heart will always be where your riches are. Matthew 6:19-21

James 5:7-11 Though important, patience cannot be used as an excuse for inaction. How important patience is …”Do not worry about tomorrow: it will have enough worries of its own,” says Jesus in Matthew 6:34.

James 5:12-20 All of this has to do with our health and well being as Matthew says in 6:22-23 The eyes are like a lamp for the body. If your eyes are sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eyes are no good your body will be in darkness. So if the light in you is darkness, how terribly dark it will be! (Matthew 6:22-23) and how vital the healing and wholeness so dear to the heart of James!

Whether or not you accept those ancient traditions about the identity of James as the brother of Jesus, here in this down to earth, practical letter we touch the essence of Jesus’ teaching.

The hope at the heart of the Christian faith comes as we put our faith into action. And James should know – it took a long time to come round but in meeting the risen Christ his life was changed and he became a wonderful follower of his brother and Lord, Jesus.

Incidentally, the letter of Jude is linked with another of those brothers of Jesus too!

James – Hope through Actions

I write, not as a leader but as a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. When you feel the world’s against you, keep true to your faith. Pray for wisdom from God so that you can know what is the right thing to do. It’s no good simply listening to fine readings of God’s word … and then doing nothing about it. Act on what you hear. Real religion is about caring for the weakest and the most vulnerable in society. Don’t give pride of place to the great and the good: God’s chosen the world’s poor to be the heirs of the kingdom! So, line yourselves up with the poor.

If you see someone in need and you do nothing about it what good is that? Faith, by itself, if it has no works is dead. Faith needs to be put into action!

Watch your words! Unkind words can do immense harm! Guard your thoughts. Don’t give house-room to envy, jealousy, greedy ambition. Cultivate a mind bent on peace, a heart that’s gentle, and a life that bears really good fruit. Away with prejudice and hypocrisy. Stand up and be counted! When necessary stand out from the world and what other people do. But take great care not to be judgmental. The biggest danger you face is your own love of money and your desire to stay in the world’s comfort zone!

Be patient! If anyone is suffering for any reason, remember to pray. It makes all the difference. Get others from church to come and pray with you … more than that, ask them to pray for you. You may even find it helpful to ask them to put a little oil on your forehead as they pray for you – it’s something that in a strange way can be really helpful. Be prepared to acknowledge when you’ve gone wrong. It makes a world of difference to all sorts of relationships if you simply say sorry and start all over again! Learn from each other. And remember … prayer is so very powerful. It makes all the difference! So … pray!

Mark - Down to Earth Hope

2008-01-12T17:56:00.000Z

As you get to the very end of Peter’s first letter there’s an intriguing reference to someone important to Peter called Mark. ‘Babylon’ is a kind of code word for the city of Rome. It looks as if Peter is writing from there, and someone very close he regards as his son joins him in sending greetings.

1 Peter 5:12-14 12 Through Silvanus, whom I consider a faithful brother, I have written this short letter to encourage you and to testify that this is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it. 13 Your sister church in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you greetings; and so does my son Mark. 14 Greet one another with a kiss of love. Peace to all of you who are in Christ.

That’s not the first time in the New Testament that someone called Mark has been associated with Peter.

As Peter makes his final breakthrough to recognise that God shows no partiality his story begins to interweave with someone by the name of Mark.

Acts 10:34-35 34 Then Peter began to speak to them: "I truly understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

As Peter draws on his vision and the wonderful experience he has with Cornelius the Roman Centurion, one time Saul of Tarsus, Paul is beginning his life calling, taking the Gospel to the Gentile world. He is drawn to Anitoch by Barnabas, whose name means ‘son of encouragement’ and it is there in Antioch that the followers of Jesus are first called ‘Christians’. News of impending famine in Judea prompts Barnabas to take Paul, still at this point known as ‘Saul’ back to Jerusalem.

Acts 11:29 - 12:1 29 The disciples determined that according to their ability, each would send relief to the believers living in Judea; 30 this they did, sending it to the elders by Barnabas and Saul.

It is there in Jerusalem that Peter faces imprisonment. The Church community meet together to pray for him and much to their surprise Peter is released. Free from prison he goes to the house where the Christian community is deep in prayer.

Acts 12:12 12 As soon as he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many had gathered and were praying.

Peter goes on his way … Herod is angry and meets a sticky end.

As Barnabas and Saul complete their mission they return to Jerusalem, bringing Mark with them.

Acts 12:25 25 Then after completing their mission Barnabas and Saul returned to Jerusalem and brought with them John, whose other name was Mark.

It looks very much as if when Paul and Barnabas set off on their first great missionary journey they take Mark with them … but sadly there is a falling-out in Pamphylia.

On a subsequent journey, Barnabas wants to take Mark with them again … but Paul refuses.

Acts 15:37-40 37 Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. 38 But Paul decided not to take with them one who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not accompanied them in the work. 39 The disagreement became so sharp that they parted company; Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. 40 But Paul chose Silas and set out, the believers commending him to the grace of the Lord.

Mark’s story goes quiet until we find Paul in prison, possibly in Rome. He writes a couple of letters to the Christian community in Colossae. One is addressed to the church, Colossians. The other is addressed to the person in whose house the church meets, Philemon. In both those letters Paul sends greetings from Mark, who is sharing his experience in prison.

Colossians 4:10 10 Aristarchus my fellow prisoner greets you, as does Mark the cousin of Barnabas, concerning whom you have received instructions-- if he comes to you, welcome him.

Philemon 1:23-24 3 Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends greetings to you, 24 and so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my fellow workers.

Shortly after that imprisonment Paul writes to Timothy and at the end of that letter requests the company of Mark.

2 Timothy 4:9-13 9 Do your best to come to me soon, 10 for Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica; Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. 11 Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful in my ministry. 12 I have sent Tychicus to Ephesus. 13 When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments

The New Testament story seems to link Peter with someone called Mark and locate their association first in Jerusalem and later in Rome. This link was taken up by some of the very first historians of the early church.

www.earlychristianwritings.com
Eusebius quotes from Papias on the Gospel of Mark in Hist. Eccl. iii. 39 as follows:
For information on these points, we can merely refer our readers to the books themselves; but now, to the extracts already made, we shall add, as being a matter of primary importance, a tradition regarding Mark who wrote the Gospel, which he [Papias] has given in the following words: "And the presbyter said this. Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities [of his hearers], but with no intention of giving a regular narrative of the Lord's sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictitious into the statements." This is what is related by Papias regarding Mark.

Irenaeus wrote (Against Heresies 3.1.1): "After their departure [of Peter and Paul from earth], Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter." Note that Irenaeus had read Papias, and thus Irenaeus doesn't provide any independent confirmation of the statement made by the earlier author.

However, there are two other pieces of external evidence that may confirm that the author of the Gospel of Mark was a disciple of Peter. Justin Martyr quotes from Mark as being the memoirs of Peter (Dial. 106.3). In Acts 10:34-40, Peter's speech serves as a good summary of the Gospel of Mark, "beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached." Finally, there was not an extremely strong motivation for the early church to attribute the second gospel to one obscure Mark, the disciple of Peter, instead of directly to an apostle. Thus, the tradition of Markan authorship is to be taken seriously.

Who knows how true these traditions are! It fits with the way the New Testament hangs together. It accords with the picture of Peter: it’s not a very flattering one in Mark! It gives us a glimpse of the person behind what seems to have been the first of the Gospels to have been written.

Almost all of Mark is used by Matthew and Luke in one way or another. There are very few verses that are not used by those later writers. It looks very much as if they regarded Mark as a reliable source in telling the story of Jesus. Maybe he had been around as Jesus arrived in Jerusalem. There’s one intriguing verse towards the end of the Gospel that doesn’t appear in any of the other Gospels. Was it there because the writer could say, ‘I should know. I was there. That was me!’

Mark 14:51-52 51 A certain young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They caught hold of him, 52 but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked.

The Gospel beings and ends curiously.

The opening words might be the beginning of the story. Or they might be the title of the book.

Mark 1:1 The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

The oldest manuscripts end in the middle of things

Mark 16:8 8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Was it that this whole story was only the beginning of something very special that was going to change people’s lives? But we must supply the end to the story!

There’s an urgency about the way the story is told. ‘And immediately’ is a favourite phrase. The gospel is full of action. Teaching is primarily through parables and those are mainly in chapter 4. There’s a pace that drives us to the mid-point of the Gospel when the disciples make their confession of faith and see Jesus for who he is.

To that point Jesus’ identify is something of a secret. Just as blind men have their eyes opened on more than one occasion, so the eyes of the reader are slowly opened to the identify of Jesus. He is the Messiah, the Son of God.

That becomes apparent as the action of the Gospel after that mid-point rushes towards the final week of Jesus’ life and to his cruficixion. So much of the Gospel is devoted to that final week that it is sometimes known as a Passion Narrative with a Prologue.

In Mark the cross is a place of execution, a place of desolation, where Jesus’ only words are words of dereliction. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And yet as Jesus goes to his death there is a sense of triumph through that suffering and with a sense of fear and trepidation of what lies ahead we are left on the threshold of resurrection, to experience the risen Christ for ourselves.

Mark – Down to Earth Hope

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Greeted and baptised by his cousin John as the One everyone had been waiting for Jesus was sorely tempted to give it all up before it had even begun. But he didn’t. Starting in the country region in the North of what is now Israel he had a simple message. ‘Now’s the time. Not tomorrow. Not the day after. Now’s the time God’s rule is breaking into your heart, your home and your world. Now’s the time to decide. Not tomorrow or the day after. Now. Make a fresh start with the whole of your life and believe in the good news.

What a message he had to share – and he backed it up by bringing healing into the lives of many people who were hurting in all sorts of different ways. He broke down all sorts of barriers, touching the untouchable and bringing healing even to those who were disturbed and disturbing, even to those suffering from leprosy and other awful diseases. Crowds found his message captivating and he enlisted the support of a mixed bag of twelve no-hopers who travelled the countryside with him.

The stories he had to tell were down to earth – all he asked from his followers was faith the size of a grain of mustard seed. But he wanted them to make their own minds up. ‘Never mind what other people say: who do you say that I am?’ was the burning question he put to even his closest friends. You’re the One to bring in the Rule of God in our lives – Peter was certain of it. But he couldn’t believe that that would take Jesus on a pathway that would take him through the deepest darkness of the valley of the shadow of death. Not Jesus.

How wrong Peter turned out to be. His teachings brought him into conflict with the religious authorities and even more so with the occupying Roman power. When he made his way into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, a king who stood for peace and not war, the end was inevitable. And it came all too quickly.

What agony Jesus experienced on the cross. “My God, my God why have you forsaken me.” The end was a bitter experience for all who witnessed it. But it wasn’t the end after all. On the third day the tomb was empty. The message was there for those women to hear – he is risen … and he’s going ahead of you. Wherever you go he’ll meet you there.

They were amazed … and filled with fright …

At this point Mark’s story breaks off … maybe the scroll he had written it on has been torn and his ending has been lost. Maybe, there is no ending to his story for the promise is to us as well – He is risen … and he’s going ahead of us. Wherever we go he’ll meet us there. Maybe this really is just the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ the Son of God!

Peter - Hope that's Rocky

2008-01-04T11:08:00.000Z

Peter’s Story

Being a Christian does not mean that everything is plain sailing! Far from it! Peter knew that only too well. One of those first fishermen to be called by Jesus he did not have an easy time of it at all. It’s not just that hope eluded him from time to time, things happened that called in question his commitment to following Jesus … and that troubled him. Indeed, Peter doesn’t fit into any stereotype of what it means to be a Christian. The very uncertainties that surround Peter’s story make that story a very good place to start in reading the New Testament. That’s specially the case if you are the kind of person who finds that faith is sometimes called into question and hope seems hard to come by.

Was there every a point when Peter could say, “I’ve got it right! That’s it! Now I’ve really got it”?

Was it when Jesus said to the fisherman by the Sea of Galilee, Follow me? Mark 1:16-18.

Or when Jesus healed his mother-in-law? Mark 1:29-31

Or when Jesus outlined all that he stood for in the Sermon on the Mount ? Matthew 5-7

It certainly looks as if he’d got it by then!

And yet, and yet! Confronted with a storm at sea Peter thought his faith was big enough to enable him to walk on water. When he found it wasn’t Jesus could say to him, “O you of little faith …” (Matthew 14:28-33)

He though he’d got it a little while later. After all when Jesus asked his twelve closest followers who do you say that I am, Peter was the one who said with confidence, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God” Matthew 16:16 Read the story just in Matthew’s Gospel and you really get the feeling he’s made it. “Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah!” Jesus says to him, “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church …” Matthew 16:17-19

And yet, not all is as it seems. It is at that moment Mark tells us that Jesus adopted a very stern attitude to Peter and the others. Jesus spoke of the suffering that would come his way and of his death and of resurrection beyond. Such talk of suffering and death Peter could not stomach. That was not what would happen to the Messiah. And he told Jesus so. To which Jesus replied, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things!”

That’s some indictment of Peter … an un-nerving one at that!

Was everything put right by the time Peter witnessed the glory of God in the face of Jesus in that wonderful mountain top experience related in Mark 9:2ff.

You might have thought so! Did Peter stand aloof from the arguments on the way to Jerusalem about who should be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. Did he have a quiet faith that would see him through by this time. It would seem so. He has a remarkable confidence at the Last Supper Jesus shared with his disciples: “Even though all become deserters, I will not.” It is at that point, however, that Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, this day, this very night, before the cock crows twice, you will deny me three times.” (Mark 14:26-31)

And that night he did deny Jesus three times. And Peter broke down in tears and wept. (Mark 14:72)

He couldn’t stick it out at the cross and with the others stood at a distance.

Was everything put right when on the day of resurrection he ran to the tomb? When later he saw Jesus in the upper room and heard him say, ‘Peace be with you, do not be afraid.” (John 20). Or was it a little after that, when the risen Jesus sat down for one more meal on the shore. Three times he called in question Peter’s love for him. Peter had to declare his love for Christ three times.

Fear kept Peter and the others behind locked doors in Jerusalem.

Maybe it all fell into place when the Holy Spirit was released into his heart. After all on the Day of Pentecost it was Peter who spoke up for all the others in a speech that was to become typical of the preaching of the first followers of Jesus.

It had confidence. The expectations of Israel’s prophets were fulfilled in the coming of the Spirit of God (Acts 2:14-21); he told of the life, the death and the resurrection of Jesus, showing how that was the fulfilment of the prophets of old (Acts 2:22-28). He spoke with such confidence because he was a witness of the resurrection, knew that Jesus reigned with God, and that the unseen yet very real power of God in the Holy Spirit was let loose in his life (Acts 2:29-36)

Peter knew what people had to do. And this was open to all people.

“Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, so that your sins may be forgiven, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” (Acts 2:27-42).

This is a wonderful faith. Confident. Full of Hope.

Peter lived it to the full. Healing, preaching, praying.

It was the kind of confident faith that took him to prison and made him sure that come what may God would be with him. Acts 3-4. His story is taken up again in Acts 9:32.

But still he hadn’t got it! Peter had a major hang up. He couldn’t bring himself to believe that this good news was really for everyone. It took a vision on a rooftop to convince him. Then it was that he met up with Cornelius, a centurion. Not only did he cross that divide and reach out to the Gentile centurion, but he also challenged the church in Jerusalem to be more inclusive.

“I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” Acts 10:34-35

This is the climax of the story of Peter. When one of the twelve is executed, Peter finds himself in prison again. On his release he stands by his faith ‘left and went to another place’. (Acts 12:17). And on that note Peter’s story is finished.

But Peter’s presence and his contribution to the New Testament is not over.

It is not insignificant that the letters that are linked to Peter are among that group of seven letters at the end of the New Testament that are sometimes called the Catholic Epistles. That doesn’t have anything to do with modern denominational labels! The word ‘catholic’ simply means for everyone, for the whole world. That’s who Peter writes for.

His letters have a confidence about them. They are written for Christians everywhere and in every age.

And yet out of his ‘rocky’ experience, Peter recognises that following in the footsteps of Jesus will be tough. It is out of that experience that he is able to say that come way may God will always be there.

Peter’s First Letter

This is for everyone … everywhere who knows they’re part a family with God as Father. It’s for everyone … everywhere who feels the unseen yet very real presence of God as Spirit making a difference in their lives. It’s for everyone … everywhere who seeks to be obedient to the call of Jesus, falls down on the job and then looks to the cross and knows for sure they are forgiven. And with it comes all the grace and all the peace you will ever need!

Hope? It’s down to the loving forgiveness of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And it’s alive! A living hope rooted in nothing less than the resurrection of Jesus.

We’ve seen it for ourselves – and it has made all the difference. Even though you’ve not seen it for yourselves you are as much part of it as we are. Jesus rose from the dead. And we can all have a share in that resurrection victory! What a difference that makes. In the face of all the world can hurl at us, we have a hope that will never let us down.

That needs to make a difference to the way we all lead our lives. A life rooted in faith, the kind of faith that means we have hope will be a life of action. Money and all the troubles that come with it are not the be all and end all. There’s no place for deceit: you can’t say you believe one thing and then behave as if you didn’t believe anything at all! We can live our lives in such a way that other people can see in us the love God has for them … and so share the hope! We need to be prepared to explain the hope that is within us when people put us on the spot and ask questions of us!

The most important thing is to follow in the footsteps of Christ and take his way of love seriously … even if it means putting yourself last and other people first. Do that and you will find that you are a good citizen, you will get your family relationships right, and you will be in a position to hand on the wonderful gifts of God’s creation that were handed on to you.

Being part of God’s people, letting his rule come into your hearts, your home and your world is no easy task – you will be up against it at times. Look after each other, be honest about your own inadequacies accept some discipline in your spiritual life and then take a stand against all the evil there is in the world around.

Jesus thought of Peter the writer of this letter as a rock in spite of all his inadequacies – who knows if we take his advice seriously we’ll be the living stones that make up the living house of God on earth. It’s worth a try!

Peter’s Second Letter

You may not have been there and seen for yourselves but your faith is as precious as ours, writes apostle and Servant of Jesus, Simon Peter in his second letter. In all that you know about God and of Jesus our Lord what’s most important is that you have the free gift of God’s love in your heart and his peace in your innermost being.

Following Jesus it is as if we become part of God and God becomes part of us. But faith on its own is not enough. To faith add goodness. To goodness add knowledge. To knowledge add self-control. To self-control add stickability. To stickability. add godliness. To godliness add mutual affection. And to mutual affection add love.

Follow this kind of path and it lead into the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. My writings are designed to help you keep all that has been passed on to you about Jesus.
After all I saw him in all his glory with my own eyes. That’s the message I have passed on to you so that the light of Christ’s presence may dawn in your lives.

What you read in Scripture has a ring of truth to it as those who have written the Scriptures were moved by the Holy Spirit and spoke from God.

Beware those who would lead you away from the path set out by Jesus Christ.

Whether it be injustice, self-centred greed or destructive immorality it will result in all that is good being torn apart. Hold fast to the truths of Christ and walk in the light of his way.

Just as it had a beginning so the world has an end. Just as the beginning of God’s creation was in God’s hands so the end of that creation will be in God’s hands. No one knows when that end will come. But in each generation there will be plenty of things around in the suffering of the world that will remind you of the possibility that one day it will come to an end. Let that always be a prompt to you to follow in the way Jesus has mapped out for us to follow.

As we follow in the footsteps of Jesus we sense the presence of his love and look to the glory that is to come. We wait for nothing less than new heavens and a new earth where righteousness is at home!

Meantime, the key thing is peace. That’s the wholeness that Jesus Christ brings into our lives. That’s what all of Paul’s letters are about as well!

We need to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

Lives that make a difference

2008-01-04T09:23:00.000Z

The New Year is the time to enjoy those new Christmas books ... and maybe even to spend some of those Christmas book tokens.

They say the Bible is still the best selling book of all time ... sadly, it is all too often the least read!

Our Course, on Tuesday evenings from 8th January, is going to open up the New Testament by looking at the people behind the book who brought its message of hope alive.

Do join us if you can!