What Matters

Majesty (February 29)

Read: Job 38-39 

Key text: “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?  Tell me if you understand.” (Job 38:4)

Reflection: This is an awesome text, not least because in it we don’t question God (a favorite pastime) but God questions us.  Job is a righteous man who endures terrible suffering, is lectured by his friends and who unsurprisingly shakes his fist at God in defiant despair.  Life, and it seems, God, is unfair.  Job is not the first or indeed the last person to make this accusation.

After 37 chapters of suffering and questioning, a seemingly silent God now speaks out of the storm.  God answers Job’s challenges with a challenge of his own.  Verse after verse, phrase after phrase, God reminds Job of the majesty of Creation and the supreme Majesty of its Creator.  The discourse covers cosmology (the stars), meteorology (the wind, the rain) and especially zoology (the wild animals).   In poetically describing the wild and free nature of the lion, mountain goat, deer, hawk and eagle – God is reminding Job and us that while we have dominion over creation, we do not control or sustain it.  God alone does.  Job’s perspective on life is re-orientated by a beautiful reminder of the sovereignty and power of God the Creator and Sustainer of all things. 

In Psalm 8 David speaks of a rightful place in Creation, and Gods, beyond it.  God’s name is majestic in all the earth.  Compared with such an awesome God, who are we that God is mindful of us?  Before God and his Creation we become profoundly aware of our smallness.  Though we are small, still we are significant, being place a little lower than the angels.  It is in this paradox that Job and we find our true identity. 

Question: Where and/or when have you been awe-struck by Creation?  How did this experience impact your view of God and your relationship with him?

Watch: Noted writer, speaker and Oxford academic John Lennox answer the question, ‘Who created God?’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIknACeeS0g

Imago Dei (February 28)

Read: Genesis 2:4-25

Key text: The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.  (Genesis 2:7)

Reflection: The Bible speaks of Creation in two ways; as an event and as a process.  Creation is an event – the primordial origination of the world, the beginning of history’.  (DofB)  This is ‘creatio ex nihilio’, or creation out of nothing.  But in the scriptures Creation is also an ongoing, unfolding process (creation continua), for example, Psalm 33. 

In the first two chapters of Genesis we have two separate accounts of Creation as event.  The accounts are not contradictory; rather they illustrate different truths about the same event.  In contrast to all other ancient accounts, Genesis 1 is the poetic narration of a peaceful Creation of the world and all that is in it.  By contrast, in the ancient Babylonian account of Creation (Enuma elish), the world emerged out of divine combat and struggle between the gods.  In Genesis one, God surveys all he has peacefully made and declares it ‘very good.’ (Genesis 1:31)

In Genesis 2, we move from poetry to prose as man is formed from the dust just as a potter shapes clay. Here we discover the deeply relational nature of Creation.  God recognizes that man’s identity can only be fully realized in relation to others (Genesis 2:18), and so woman is formed to complete humankind.  The first humans are then given dominion over Creation as with God’s blessing they name the animals.  This dominion is consistent with the assertion in Genesis 1 that man (male and female) is created in the image of God.  Human beings are not animals – we are God’s image bearers, and as such have worth over and above the great worth of other beings.

Question: What does it mean for you to be fearfully and wonderfully made? (Psalm 139:14)

Watch: A video clip from Louie Giglio’s ‘How Great is our God’ message:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRiIWL04po8&feature=related

Creed Sermons (Week One)

This week Graham Leo kicked off our series exploring the Apostles' Creed as he unpacked the opening line, 'I believe in God the Father, maker of heaven and earth.'  You can listen to Graham's message here: Download Creed _ I Believe in God the Father Almighty _ Wk1

G_d (February 27)

Read: Exodus 3 

Key text: God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.  This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’’ (Exodus 3:14)

Reflection: I feel sorry for Moses. Desperately trying to run from his past, hiding in the sparsely populated Midian desert, Moses had every reason to believe he had started over, even marrying into a new family.  But a burning bush interrupts everything.  (Perhaps God could be called, amongst other things, the Great Interrupter?)  God’s mission for Moses is clear, and Moses’ intention to find an excuse to refuse his commission clearer still.  Moses asks for a name he could give to the slave-bound Israelites – every god has a name after all.  Egypt herself has Isis and Ra, to name just two.

God’s response is breathtaking.  ‘I AM’ is the answer to Moses’ question.  It is not so much a name as it is a primitive Hebrew word that is transliterated as ‘hayah’, which means ‘existed’ or ‘was’ or ‘I shall be that I shall be.’  God is beyond the capacity of a name to even begin to describe his divine character, nature and timelessness.  God is wholly other.

The bible details many different names for God, each seeking to capture one or more of the infinite number of Divine attributes.  The most common name in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) are Yahweh (6639 times, usually written as LORD) and Elohim (2750 times, written as god). Many Jewish believers to this day believe in the sacredness of God’s name such that they will not write it in full (often recording it as G_d).  This tradition is traced back to the third of the Ten Commandments not to take or speak the name of God in vain (Exodus 20:7).  Such reverence for the Name(s) of God stands in stark contrast with our irreverent culture that truncates God’s name into a SMS abbreviation ‘OMG!’

Question: What name do you use to address God most often in prayer (e.g. Father, Lord, Jesus etc.)  Why? 

Further Reading: An exercise in praying the names of God from Navigators: http://www.navigators.org/us/resources/items/Thirty%20Days%20of%20Praying%20the%20Names%20and%20Attributes%20of%20God

The Beginning (February 26)

Read: Genesis 1

Key text: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

Reflection: Every story has a beginning, middle and an end.  The story of the Bible is nothing less than the grand narrative – the story of our universe.  Right at the beginning, in the very first verse we are introduced to the hero of the story and the character that strides every page of the scriptures and of history – God.  History is in the end his-story.  God existed before the story began (In the beginning God…)

Estimates vary, but somewhere around 85% of the world’s population believes in some concept of God, whether impersonal (deism) or personal (theism), one God (monotheism) or many gods (pantheism).   While the so-called new atheism has made a noisy splash in the western world over the last decade, belief in some concept of God has remained robust and widespread.

Perhaps the greatest of Christian theologians after the Apostle Paul was Thomas Aquinas.  In his magnificent Summa Theologica, Aquinas offered five ways or proofs that persuasively argue the existence of God.  The third of the five ways is the argument from contingency, which is summarized as follows: 

• Many things in the universe may either exist or not exist. Such things are called contingent beings.
• It is impossible for everything in the universe to be contingent, for then there would be a time when nothing existed, and so nothing would exist now, since there would be nothing to bring anything into existence, which is clearly false.
• Therefore, there must be a necessary being whose existence is not contingent on any other being or beings.
• This being is whom we call God.

This was Aquinas giving philosophical voice for the first and most important assertion of the bible, ‘In the beginning, God…’

Question:  When you close your eyes, what image comes into your mind when you reflect on the word ‘God’?  What does this picture tell you about your concept of God?

Further Reading: The Five Ways: Thomas Aquinas - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinque_viae

A Sad End

In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit.  (Judges 21:25)

This is one of the saddest ends to any of the 66 books that form our bible.  Through the period of the Judges, Israel has descended into political, religious and social anarchy.  Thousands have died and one tribe has been decimated.  God has become an afterthought rather than Israel's first thought.  In these last chapters of Judges it has become uncomfortable to say the least to read of, and reflect on Israel's depravity.  But even in the midst of this misery there are things for us to learn, even by way of warning. 

Israel has retained a wafer-thin veneer of religious respectability.  The surviving 11 tribes of Israel are understandably heartbroken at Benjamin's fate and their part in it.  Israel is 12 tribes, not 11 and a bit.  The nation has lost something of its soul.  In their grief they want to extend a helping hand to the surviving men of Benjamin so that the tribe can survive.  But they have made a rash vow not to allow any of their daughters to marry a Benjamite.  They invoke another rash vow and wreak genocidal fury on the population of Jabesh Gilead, killing every living thing other than 400 virgins who they 'give' to the Benjamites.  More innocent people die as a result of Israel's depravity.  They compound the horror by then not giving the remaining 200 men wives, but allowing them to kidnap women from a festival - turning a blind eye to this disgrace.  What a truly awful and sad end to a very confronting chapter in Israel's history.

So, as the story of Judges comes to an ignominious end, we are left with many questions - the biggest of which perhaps is 'Where is God?'  The God who led Israel into the Promised Land appears to have all but disappeared.  But not quite.  Israel has forgotten God.  There is no authority in Israel; only anarchy.  Everyone does what they want.  There is no king; everyone is in effect their own king - their own authority.  Sin is reaping its own awful rewards in unimaginable suffering.  Israel has forgotten God; but God has not and will not forget his people.  Again and again God has rescued and sustained a faithless, gutless and deceptive people.  God's grace protects Israel through one of the darkest periods of its history.  Truly amazing.

Civil War

The men of Israel went back to Benjamin and put all the towns to the sword, including the animals and everything else they found. All the towns they came across they set on fire. (Judges 20:48) A national tragedy is playing out. Following the horror that unfolded in Gibeah, the aggrieved Levite priest summons eleven of the twelve tribes of Israel to reclaim his (doubtful) honor. The Benjamites refuse to hand over their fellow tribesmen. Civil war breaks out in tragic slow motion. Thousands of Israelites die by the sword of their fellow countrymen. At first, despite the overwhelming numbers they face, the Benjamites have the upper hand. The Israelites are aware of the terrible circumstances they find themselves in as they prepare to take up arms against their fellow countrymen, and for the first time for a long period inquire after God (v.28). God's response makes clear that Israel will be a means through which God's justice will be delivered to the tribe of Benjamin. And so it unfolds, with victory eventually won by the eleven tribes of Israel against the one. But no one, not one, is a winner here. Everyone pays a terrible price. Tens of thousands if Israelite soldiers die and all of Benjamin is routed other than 600 fleeing soldiers. All of Benjamin is destroyed - property, livestock, crops - everything. Benjamin receives similar punishment assigned to the tribe of Canaan generations before when Joshua first entered the Promised Land with the wandering Israelites. The sorry and tragic saga if the season of Judges is almost complete. In the midst of Israel's depravity and apostacy, God has almost disappeared from the story. Almost, but not quite. Even though Israel has all but abandoned God - God has not abandoned Israel. As Melissa shared at our Ash Wednesday service a couple of days ago, there is more grace in God then there is sin in Israel/us. Thank God.

Anarchy

When he reached home, he took a knife and cut up his concubine, limb by limb, into twelve parts and sent them into all the areas of Israel.  (Judges 19:29)

The story is becoming truly and unremittingly awful.  The 30 verses of Judges 19 are marked by rape, murder, callous indifference and post-mortem mutilation.  God is absent and leadership non-existent (v.1).  Israel has descended into depraved anarchy where the rule of law, respect for the sanctity of life and the honoring of God in any way is a distant memory.  Strikingly, the name of God is not called on or invoked in any way in this chapter.

In the first ten verses of the chapter the narrator painstakingly details the elaborate hospitality offered to the travelling Levite priest by his foreign Father-in-law.  It all seems over the top to our modern eyes, but reflect the middle-eastern custom to honor guests with almost overwhelming hospitality. This hospitality stands in stark contrast with the hostility rather than hospitality that the Levite receives at Gibeah from his fellow Israelites.  There, he and his party are left out in the town square to fend for themselves, even though they would be no financial burden to any prospective host.  The extent of the offence of this lack of hospitality is difficult for us to comprehend, but with it, what happens next does demonstrate the depths of Israel's depravity.

The men of Gibeah demand the Levite me made available to them for sex.  He is an object to be dominated and humiliated.  Instead, his concubine is offered up.  Again it is a woman who suffers the most.  She is gang-raped and left for dead.  But even in her death she is used - now by her husband as he mutilates her body and sends pieces of her to the twelve tribes of Israel as a macabre call to arms against the people of Gibeah.  Awful - truly awful.

What could pssibly be a word from God for us in this passage?  Perhaps the only thing that this passage offers us is a terrible reminder that the wages of sin is death.  Continuous and habitual sin will lead a person and community into an ever accelerating descent into God-forgetting anarchy.  Israel without God is hope-less.  And so are we.

Vision Sunday

God has called Newlife to be a church that lives with adventurous faith (Hebrews 11-12).  In 2012 he is calling us to move deeper into his word, further in mission and stronger in our commitment. We have so much to look forward to!  Listen in here: Download Vision_Sunday_MOVE  Or read it here: Download Vision Sunday 2012

Fish stink from the head down

He replied, “You took the gods I made, and my priest, and went away. What else do I have? How can you ask, ‘What’s the matter with you?’ ” (Judges 18:24) Dan is perhaps the least of the twelve tribes of Israel. Generations after Joshua led the people into the promised land, Dan still has not found and possessed a tribal home. It is homeless. And so five spies are sent out to bring back intelligence, reminiscent of the spies sent by Moses to bring back reports on the Promised Land (Numbers 14). Later, the tribe of Dan 'lingered by the ships' when Deborah and Barak won a decisive victory over the Canaanites (Judges 5:17). Dan were perhaps the least of the tribes of Israel because they were the most faith-less. This vignette seems to bear this out. The spies return with a report of an unconquered and remote region that is vulnerable to attack. What is more, they return with the 'blessings' of Jonathon, Micah's private priest. When the spies return to Micah's house they do so in force and steal Micah's religious pariphanalia and bribe away his priest Jonathon. Micah has been shamed and humiliated and Dan has been led deeper into apostasy. Micah's words of protest are revealing. Dan has stolen the gods HE made, and HIS priest. The offense his against hm and not Yahweh. It is his god and his priests tha have failed to protec and show loyalty to him. Micah's story began with his betrayal of his own mother and ends with him beng betrayed with his own priest. Micah truly reaped what he had sown. Meanwhile, Dan finally takes a tribal home, by force and with no acknowledgement or memory of the God who has led them into Canaan. Dan, by God's grace slone, receive what they do not deserve. Meanwhile, slowly but surely disappearing from the pages of Judges, and certainly from Israel's mind. In this chapter we see how the perversion of true religion pioneered by Micah and Jonathon leads a whole tribe astray. What a leader does in private will eventually bleed into the public arena. A fish stinks from the head down! In the later chapters of the book of Judges we get case studies in how not to lead. But we also receive testimonies to the grace and faithfulness of God.