Judgmentalism

This is my response to someone saying about the Bible being used in hate talk.

I am really very sorry. I do apologise for the rudeness and thoughtlessness of some people who claim to be christians. I can assure you that Jesus himself never behaved like that. He did get into big trouble with religious authorities for accepting dinner invitations from anyone, absolutely anyone who invited him.

In the bible in the new testament the traveling teacher Paul wrote a letter to a church he'd had a close association with in Corinth, Greece. He challenged them on a number of issues where their behaviour was not matching up to their claims as christians (the famous chapter 13 'love is patient, love is kind' passage is a summing up of the issues he's talked about in the rest of the letter). One thing was that there was a publicly known case of incest going on and no one was doing anything about it. However, having told them off about tolerating behaviour amongst themselves that even 'pagans' wouldn't tolerate he did then warn them about judgmentalism, weed out 'sinful' behaviour within the church family, but don't start on those outside the church.

"I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world. But now I am writing to you that you must not associate with anyone who claims to be a brother or sister but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or slanderer, a drunkard or swindler. Do not even eat with such people. What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside." (1 Corinthians 5 v 9-13
New International Version (NIV)) 
 
 Still in the context of the Bible being used to hate - which if we are honest has been done and is still being done. :

In the biographies of Jesus, the 'gospels', it becomes pretty obvious when you start reading : Jesus only talks about hell or punishment when he's talking with 'religious' people, who he pulls to pieces for putting huge religious burdens on people that they can't possibly live up to and in fact he points out that the religious people are not even keeping their own noses clean to boot (hypocrisy) - they might be trying to keep bits of the law, but they'd lost sight of the whole point of the law - love, to treat your neighbour like you'd want to be treated yourself.

However when he talks to 'the man in the street' he tells them encouraging things about what God is like, stories and images using day to day things they would understand and identify with. He avoids religious words. He uses a lot of agricultural pictures, but he also talks about businessmen, managers, treasure hunters, parties, weddings and more. In my reading of this he assumes that most people don't need to be told they are 'sinners' ie having missed the mark when it comes to God's glory (from the word synne a word in archery meaning when your arrow does a belly flop in front of the target, it was as popular as football in those days, everyone would know what it meant) they know it, and are left in no doubt about it by the people who think they're religious, but they do need reassuring that God is for them.

The famous, if not infamous quotes that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" and "the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life" are both from the letter Paul wrote to the Jewish christians in Rome who were saying the christians from a pagan background couldn't be real christians if they didn't become Jews. Paul writes to them and says that it's not their Jewishness that saves them, they start off on the same level playing field as everyone else ie at the bottom. To apply these words just to the general public out of context is to my mind criminal.
 
 
 Here are some examples of some things Jesus said on the subject of judgmental attitudes :

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you.... For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.(Luke 6 v 37-42)

"Now the tax collectors [officials who were collaborators with the invading Romans and who lined their own pockets too] and 'sinners' ['off-side'] were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Then Jesus told them this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine 'righteous' persons who do not need to repent." (Luke 15v1-7) [some people told Shepherd jokes at the time like we tell Irish jokes, this shepherd is daft as a brush but incredibly kind]

"To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (Luke 18 v9-14)

All quotes from the NIV translation of the Bible

Romance ?

My comment on this blog post.  http://tanyamarlow.com/when-jesus-wont-be-your-boyfriend-guest-post/#comment-71299


I think that expecting romance all the time is a very nineteenth century escapist dream. It's a nice extra, but for most relationships in most parts of the world through most of history it's a luxury.  Notice it's the man who has to love his wife, and even there the word isn't eros or even a word that means romance but the very pragmatic agape which is the love expected of all christians. Many women have to think first about ensuring themselves a stable future in cultures where women don't get paid for their work.

Many of us don't feel that much. Others feel an awful lot. There has to be a place for all of us. Maybe we can gain some measure of freedom of feelings and some people definitely need to get all that under control !

However I think in the Bible God does introduce the idea of romance in how he speaks to us. It comes in the song of songs of course, but also in the prophets which is pretty ironic. They've been a chosen people behaving badly and are about to get violently chucked out of the promised land - and lo and behold there are these lovely romantic bits in Isaiah and Zephenaiah - reminding us that's how he thinks about us all along and we got hung up on law - well, not doing it, and the rituals.

I think the same happened in protestantism a bit. We got a bit hung up on being right, truth, hard work and the movement to bring romance into worship has had a prophetic feel to it. BUT it's only part of the story and to make it the whole story is to get into and equal unbalance the other way. I was part of that generation who were thrilled to get a little bit of freedom and feeling in worship but I didn't want it to pendulum swing to the opposite !

I got caught on something similar but on the other end of the pendulum swing. I came under condemnation because I don't read the Bible every day. I just don't manage it. I can't cope with a new idea every day. Until there were the Jeff Lucas daily notes I couldn't bear them either. But when I do read it I read a whole lot, study it and then think it through - which can take months. There has to be a place for both. Diversity of approaches should be seen as a strength in protestantism instead of clamping down on it.

Condemnation is not a sign of the Holy Spirit at work.

Thank you for so honestly sharing Jenn.

bible reading

this isn't a carefully thought through talk, it's a very personal reaction to this fb post by a lovely christian who is being real and very helpful by sharing.

"The Bible is a instruction manual on how to live our lives. It is also a book on survival and a 'What to do' book in a crisis. I don't know about you but I really struggle to pick up and read this book, I start to read then after a while I don't pick it up again... but I really should read it because it is my lifeline."

we leave jeff lucas in the toilet and pick him up and read him when we're in there. he's so down to earth he's the first bible teacher i don't get irritated with for being too airy fairy or giving too religious answers. i'm a bit wary like that - once i was telling someone, a lovely lady, about my daughter being ill and she said, well i'd have prayed about it if that had been me !! like we hadn't prayed night and day ! what i really needed was a hug.

 i'm no good at reading bible every day and never have been, but then i don't read anything like that. i read chunks. if i start a novel please don't ask me to talk sense or attempt anything useful till i've got to the end. that's how i started reading the bible when i was a new christian - to find out what happened next. :-)

i failed completely with romans cos of trying to understand each bit - it's full of so many great quotes i couldn't see through to the point. my brain isn't like preacher's brains. i have to have something to hang my thoughts on - sort of - how does it work ? show me, let me have a go. one day i was sitting in a very incredibly dull meeting and the guy was talking about romans very long, dull and he was shouting. i disagreed with him too, well i wasn't too sure anyway. so i decided to read what it actually said; so i skim read all the way through romans while he went on and on. awesome. it's all about an argument - some of it about food i think from ch 12. paul had to take the gospel to pieces and explain how each side really could be christians. i could imagine the people then and picture him banging their heads together and have made more sense of it since tho i wouldn't claim to have understood everything there is to understand in romans !

but that's one example of how i cope with it. another is to ask myself questions. once i was stuck what to pray for people so i said to my self, well what did paul actually say when he said i pray for you .... that was very interesting.

i use biblegateway.com a lot to look up words. i sort of think i understand things then i think - do i really understand that or do i know just one verse ? i look up the word in the search bar and it turns up all the verses where that verse is used. one of the ones i did recently was the word anger. it was worrying me about the prophets in the old testament talking about God being cross enough to punish people and i wondered how he could be like that. i ended up looking through the prophets and making a note each time there was a 'because' verse and what it was about - 'because you've done ... what ever'. i ended up incredibly reassured. the things that upset God are about people getting hurt. he's not a big meanie. 

i'm also a very slow learner. i can be months or years with the same themes cropping up or thinking through and issue or what ever. i can't cope with lots of new stuff every day, at least not in depth.

i'm making it sound like i find it easy being like this. in reality it's taken years for me to come to terms with me being me and doing things my way and i came under a lot of condemnation from being told i ought to do this and i ought to do that. that's not an excuse to do nothing, just i realised that God can speak to me his way. when i was really poorly i went nearly 10 years without hardly opening the cover of the bible (tho i had read it through a few times before hand). i hardly prayed either. but there wasn't a day went by without knowing God looking after me and loving him. now i have a few more cognitive abilities back i'm reading it again like totally fresh and exciting, and worrying and big and challenging, and not at all what some people make it out to be, and not at all politically correct - but that's life. that's my god. dynamic. much bigger than the box.

we teach the "spiritual disciplines" for new christians, and i think they're basically good. like teaching kids to mind their manners and not play with their food. but there comes an age when just like a person no longer should expect food to appear from no where ready to eat. we have to learn to earn a living to pay for it, we have to learn to grow it and cook it. that's all part of growing up. same with finding out about what God likes and how to do it, and getting on with doing it, but i have to do it as an adult choice and in my way not just how we're socially programmed we OUGHT to function. we need to learn discipline. everyone does. it's how we apply ourselves in the best way that brings out our strengths and helps us (and others) cope with our weaknesses :-)

Listening to dreams.

some thoughts following on from reading this link on exploring dreaming by paul wood.

i think ignoring dreaming would be as silly as ignoring any other part of our lives. it's just a question of knowing ourselves so we can know when a dream is saying something helpful.

brains seem to do lots of tidying up in the night, and can be completely random too. i've found that on the whole if it feels like normal dreaming (normal for me) not to worry about any of it, nor take any of it too seriously. just enjoy - or not, as the case may be. 

like with learning about hearing God's voice in other areas i've found that it's important to learn to recognise other voices so i can filter them out, or in, if that's what's needed. and learning the reflex to ask God about it rather than just puzzling over it myself.
 
so like learning to listen to my emotions. that's me, saying something to me, from me. if i have a knee jerk reaction to something said by an absolute stranger it's odds on it's not the stranger's fault, i need to listen to where i'm coming from. not to obey any old emotion that comes in my head or even analyse it every time, just to recognise that it's me.i'm very bad at listening to my own emotions. my instinct is to cope, put on a brave face, just not even let them near enough the surface to find out what they should be sometimes. God has released me to dream and this has been a vital way for me to find out about myself and my reactions. if it recurs or is distressing i've made a little book to write it down as fast as poss before it's gone, who was involved and how i was feeling, then i invite God in to speak to me, heal me, help me forgive, etc dreaming was a really important way of me coming to terms with a very difficult relationship where i was being emotionally abused but was trying so hard to be nice and care for the person i was just feeding the unhealthy side of the relationship. i had a repeated dream about planning that person's funeral which frightened me that i was committing murder in my heart. i did lots of repenting (which is never wasted) and God broke through to help me understand that my mind and heart had come to the limits of what i could cope with and that it was now right to rupture the relationship.

ditto with my imagination. if i get to recognise my own imagination's voice i can filter it out when i'm trying to work out if something is from God. it's good to imagining. lots of it. like brain storming, problem solving, day dreaming, story telling, hoping, searching, solution finding, enjoying, fantasising. i need to recognise when i'm doing it and to identify that that's what i'm doing.  for my personal integrity i need to be honest that that's what's going on. God may well use it of course but i mustn't confuse my dreams about skating, walking or leading worship as prophetic unless there's a clear other guidance that it's significant.

and my memory. i've occasionally thought something was a word of knowledge when in fact a while later i realised i'd picked up a detail in how someone looked or something they'd half said. it doesn't make what i said less valid but i need to be careful how i word it in order to have proper personal integrity. so the same in interpreting something i dreamed that includes someone. also a person coming to mind either in a dream or in the day i decided following hearing suzette hatting to not read too much into anything at first, just pray for them, which is never wasted and ask God if he wants us to do anything else after.  i remember a very vivid dream where a certain person came into it and somehow i ended up laying hands on her to pray at which point i woke up and was starting to think i wonder why, but stopped myself and carried on praying. yes i did later find out from another source that that had been a bad patch for her and she'd come through it.  i realised after too that it was really probably best i didn't phone her that time she probably didn't feel free to confide in anyone yet.

and my health. of course there's the ever ready too much spicy or rich food just before bed. all dreams following that are to be ignored ! also when we're over tired everything can take on a slightly more dramatic feel, even in dreams. pain comes through too. my daughter had a series of dreams about being the victim of a land mine. i was worried she had a victim mentality till we worked out that her leg was "going to sleep" getting numb and paralysed ( we now know it's a common symptom in our illness)and her brain was trying to make sense of what was going on. same with some extraordinary dreams someone i knew was having - really psychedelic and very vivid and he wondered if God was speaking to him. we prayed and then realised that all of them included the sensation of vertigo - including climbing a rubber lamp post and riding a bike with peculiar  wheels, and in fact it was part of a growing problem of vertigo which incidentally he was over riding during the day using his eyes to balance him up and getting head aches and exhaustion from that. God's advice following having asked him about it was to go to the dr and have time off work !

my social networks and outer social pressures - good and bad.  i'm from a particular family in a particular neighbourhood in a particular country, have had particular friends and other influences. I may want to please them or to battle against them, but i need to recognise they're there and are a very important part of how i interpret what goes on inside me. especially important are reactions against things and people that we pick up from others esp racism, classism etc and the pressure to conform. i think social interaction is a vital part of how we function and just the simple fact of having some social pressures inhibits the anarchy where sin and selfishness and bullying can grow freely. social contacts feed me and i feed others. encouragement, mirroring, all the rest so it's vital it comes out in dreams too. God can use those dreams but i need to identify whose voice is speaking that's all.

my desires. not what i'm against now, but what do i actively want. this can come up a lot in dreams where we want to comfort ourselves, give ourselves pleasure and so on. dreaming about a particular bloke is not a sign i should marry him :-) dreaming about blokes often could be linked to being lonely or feeling lack of appreciation. none of it wrong, just mustn't interpret it as God's guiding just cos it was nice !

then there's the wonderful way we're designed by God to have healing dreams. it seems i'm not the first person to have had a dream where my teeth become pearls and i woke up with a big part of my fear of dentists being healed. (the other part was when i had a tooth abscess starting but went ahead with leading worship at a ladies day as i was the only musician available. they prayed for healing. i was certain, just certain God had done something but i still ended up having to go to an emergency out of hours visit to the dentist to get it lanced. it was only a few days later i realised that the healing God had done was to actually look forward to getting to the dentists and being grateful for his fingers in my mouth - taking away the fear was a much bigger healing and the abscess was dealt with anyway PTL. just for the story young woman was very distressed at seeing my face swell up as the day went on and become deformed - she was prayed for, her fear of disability went and she ended up working with the handicapped !)

this voice should have been first but i'm putting last cos it's what makes it worth while making all the other voices shut up, or at least keep in their place,  cos it's so precious.  recognising Jesus' voice. my sheep know my voice and they follow me. the more i'm familiar with listening to his voice in my waking life, the better i'll recognise it in my dream life. as usual there's the three way spirit level, word, word and word. is it consistent with what God says and has been written down, the scriptures, graphos ? Is it is consistent with the life of Jesus, the logos, the spoken out loud verb of God ? Is it consistent with what the Spirit of God is saying at the moment to me, prophetically or in other ways - rhema ? am i familiar with listening to God in those ways so i recognise when it's him speaking through what ever source, including my dreams ?

Calvinism

Calvin was talking in a particular time and context. His approach was prophetic for a depraved, self indulgent, lazy, superstitious, idolatrous church in the Geneva of the time. He really laid it on thick. He needed to. (It worked - look at the effects on Geneva how many generations on !) Like Finney had to in the particular context he was speaking into. Like Jesus did to the Pharisees in that context. But to generalise from that teaching into everyone's situation is, in my opinion, more than unhelpful. Jesus would never say to the man in the street (or the field more like) you brood of vipers. He didn't talk to them about hell, only to the disciples and pharisees. He told them stories about a farmer with amazing quality seed, the employer who made sure no family starved, lost things and so on. As I saw in a recent study on Amos, God's wrath is for the spiritually complacent who take the letter of the law when it suits them but who crushed the poor, weak, foreigners etc. thus neglecting the heart of the law. So I think this way of looking at literal interpretation is very important. I think reading the Bible is so important it's worth doing properly. How many times have the seeds of revival been sown by those who are Bible translators - so called theological nerds who go back and find out what it actually says, now, in my language, understanding their language. Not just looking at what the words seem to say from their current meanings which was the mistake the well meaning Fundamentalists made.

The church is older than the bible how true is this? Moot

The church is older than the bible how true is this? Moot

(note to self, need to check some dates and some details in this reply)

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  Liz Figures The earliest written parts of the Bible date back to the Bronze Age, at least 2000 BC and the parts in at the beginning of Genesis date back to an oral record and folk memory dating much further back. It says when there's the first written bit at the beginning of the first list of ancestors. That same genealogy also mentions the first metal workers in that clan - maybe at the beginning of the bronze age which would make it all much older than 2000 BC. Then of course different bits were added at different times. No one ever thought of it as 'a book' cos it's a collection of very ancient documents. The last document in the Old Testament was spoken and probably written down by a scribe about 400 years before Christ was born.

To compare, the Ancient Greek philosophers were writing largely from about 500 BC onwards. A lot of the Old Testament is in the context of Mediterranean and middle eastern politics. There was one great power base after another including the Egyptians (the Jews were there during the building of one of the great pyramids in about 1250 BC), Assyrians, Persians, Babylonians. When Israel had been bullying the weak in it's community and gone away from God they got handed over to who ever was the biggest bully around at the time till they'd learned their lesson. There are lots of archeological treasures being found from these times so we know even what the enemies looked like (or what they wanted to think they looked like!), what cups they drank out of and what their armour looked like.

The first of the eye witness accounts in the New Testament (those written down by Matthew and Mark) started to be written down very soon after the death of Christ in the AD 30s), probably before the first martyrdoms (James and Steven) or else they might have been mentioned - they do get mentioned in Acts. Then Dr Luke is sent in from the outside by a benefactor with a Greek name, Theophilus, and interviews all the key eye witnesses and writes that down, followed by the stories of what happened next in Acts. You can tell when he finished the other interviews and went to join Paul in Acts 17 where he changes from saying they did this and that to we went ...  The gospel written by John came last and is made up of the other bits that everyone else remembered and wanted put in, as well as his own memories. Remember all the disciples became the apostles and they had all known each other for at least the 3 years when they traveled round with Jesus and most if not all stayed in touch after until they dispersed to go to reach the world.

The first church was in Jerusalem, then they started to form all round the Mediterranean area. All the letters to the new churches and the prophecy from John were all written down before AD 70 when the Roman forces sacked Jerusalem. interestingly the prophecy that has sometimes been used by end times preachers in Mark was a clear warning about the Roman invasion and told them what signs to look for. Mark was being well circulated by at least the mid 60sAD. Some people believe that Revelation was a warning about the same thing. When the Roman armies arrived in AD 70 the Christians heeded the signs and did what they were told - run for the hills which was really counter intuitive. It's the opposite of what you should do if there's an invasion - people from the villages run for the walled city for protection, which is what the Jews did. The Christians begged them to leave too but they wouldn't. Huge numbers of Jews were massacred. There's no record of any Christian dying on that occasion. A very awful event but something that clearly dates the publishing of all the new testament before it happened or it would have been mentioned.

So the church started just as the Bible documents were being finished. After the Romans ransacked Jerusalem, even taking the newly finished temple to pieces again - lifting down the huge stones, all the Christians had fled. They went first to the outlying hills for safety then gradually spread out as far as they could travel sharing their amazing news about Jesus as they went. The word we use for church is a greek word used for a public meeting or gathering. The other word we sometimes translate as church is the word for fellowship - ie partnership/friendship. I hope what we experience today includes both aspects.

Churches gradually developed, sometimes meeting in secret when there was persecution, often meeting in houses - the central courtyard or centre of a sort of family compound.

The Church as an institution only gradually happened. It suddenly went public big way when in AD 350ish the Roman Emperor Constantine decided that the whole Empire was to become christian. This was brilliant in one way, it stopped the persecution and a number of other unpleasant things done by Romans and others. Suddenly wealthy people were donating money and wanting to build temples to appease the new God (and impress everyone)  so there is a sudden increase in christian art and architecture which in one way is great but in another it took the emphasis off giving to the poor and needy and put it into public appearance. Then the church in Rome started to take over, rules were made about standardising teaching - which was good and bad too - good cos there was some big differences of opinion which needed sorting out, bad cos it was the church in Rome that decided what everyone should believe and enforced it using force :-(

The Bible was accessible as documents that were passed from group to group who'd make a copy and pass it on. People relied on public readings and memorising.

Gradually languages change. We don't speak the same language as our grandparents. World power languages change. The Bible documents need re-translating regularly for the people to understand it. There have been special times in history of the church when the Bible has been lost into decaying language then gets rediscovered when it gets translated. The big reform movement in Europe came when the Bible was being translated into modern language and suddenly, it was just like when Ezra found the scrolls of the law which had been lost. he gathered everyone together and started to read. people began to sob cos they found out they'd offended God which began a period of revival. all over Europe and beyond there was revival. Sometimes this offends the established churches - they are the ones who were doing the bizz, where have all these outsiders come from messing up our nice tidy services ! But God still speaks now using his written word if we're willing to move with him and use the language that means something to the man on the street.

The new testament is one of the worlds most simple documents in some respects. It only uses about 4000 basic vocabulary words. Most school children know that many words when they are only 6 or 7 even. Children who speak a different language at home than at school may know a lot more words. We  ruin the Bible by letting it lapse into archaic language and by speaking a religious jargon.

How can you guess that I'm passionate about the Bible, well, not just the Bible, about having a God who wants to talk to us. He wants to communicate that he sends it in writing, then he sends his representatives and finally he sent his son, the fulfillment of all the Father wants to say to us, The Word of God in person !! Wow !!

 PS I don't want you to think I'm against modern day Roman Catholics. They're not to blame for what their ancestors did. I have difficulties with the role of The Vatican politically but there are many fellow believers in all sorts of church situations including them. Equally, to be fair, some of the churches started through the reform or other revival movements have become stagnant or worse. We all need to learn to move on with God, no one can claim to be best mates with God just  cos they can quote the bible like a pharisee. It all boils down to loving the Lord our god with all our hearts, minds, souls and strength and loving our neighbours as ourselves. lest we be like the foolish man who heard the word of God but didn't do it and built on sand.

Is God angry with us ?

I don't think the right balance will be brought by just preaching the opposite extreme. Some how it's one of those mysteries that we are all created in God's image and so all of value and all have some of his characteristics, but we are also spoiled by sin and alienated from God. I have grown to like the verse that used to give me the creeps - for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I'm given to understand that the word sin comes from ye olde english to illustrate falling short. It seems it's an archery word for when the arrow not only doesn't hit the target but it comes out wobbly from the bow and does a belly flop on the ground before even getting that far (and everyone watching the competition laughs or jeers I suspect). It helps me to remember that without God I'm part of that belly flop even tho I try to be a nice person, even if I haven't broken one of the ten commandments this week. I hope that makes me less patronising with those who've not yet turned to Jesus, but also keeps in mind that we do need what Jesus did. Love the sinner, hate the sin is the old cliché but I think it's very valid.

I've read some interesting stuff lately about God's anger/not. I'm still thinking it through.

I must say I have been very put off by images of a grumpy god turning his back on mankind and I think it is an over balance of what was once a healthy teaching to challenge complacent church members to repentance - the ministries of people like Finney and others. I associate it with the Fundamentalist movement too with their rather particular approach to the final judgement, hell and so on. I must say that in my opinion it's a pretty aggressive approach and not one I'm totally at home with. For example I don't think Jesus talked about hell with the ordinary people, only with the religious.And I think we've got our end times interpretations of some scriptures a bit knotted up.  I think Jesus approach is amazingly compassionate and loving and thoughtful when he's with ordinary folks. Brood of vipers is saved for the religious.

Having said that, as part of my current pilgrimage reconciling me to certain bits of the bible, I had to face up the the wrath passages in the minor prophets so I set my face and did a study to find out what actually makes God mad. I worked through the first half of Isaiah and all of Amos for starters and found a list that shouldn't have surprised me but it did. Of course there is the drunkenness, apostacy, foreign gods, idols, false prophecy etc but a really large part of God's gripe seems to have been how they treat the poor, needy, defenceless women and children, aliens/foreigners, false weights and measures, rigged trials,  denying proper legal rights to people, etc And it seems to me that the ultimate punishment for this sort of bullying and theft is to hand them over to even bigger bullies and thieves until they get a taste of their own medecine with the invasion and exile in Babylon. The actual poor themselves get left behind in the land to make out on their own !

So basically God goes lary about the things I wish I got more angry about too ! And as a disabled woman, on my own, with sick kids, in a foreign land, struggling with the economic crisis caused by the greedy, resulting in cuts to services I can identify with a lot of the people that God is sticking up for ! I don't mind him getting cross about how people like me get treated - and I've not had a bad ride compared to many, I'm one of the relatively rich in the world.

It seems to be yet another of those mysteries where the answers must be somewhere in not either/or but both. Some how I need to hold in my head the two images of God - so angry about wrong and injustice, yet so loving and merciful towards us. I'm not too fond of the old ying and yang thing, but I can see that it has some element of comprehension of this wonderful paradox.

a collection of some thoughts about the bible

some thoughts about the bible


my own personal view point
 

i'm coming at "the bible" from a new point of view for me. i've read it believed it and acted on it for years. but it's been turned upside down, put back to front. this period of my life if feel i've been experiencing things and am now finding them in "the bible".
i'm coming at "the bible" from the perspective of having spent nearly a decade 1996 to 2006, not being able to read it much. i was too poorly. but during those years someone walked very close with me and gave me an utter conviction of his presence with me. despite old fashioned loneliness amongst other things he was always there and while everything i have done and am has been called into question in one way or another he was a simple accepting reassuring strengthening presence. i was very socially isolated in practice nursing my sick kids and bipolar husband, trying to keep up work and church membership. and a lot of misunderstandings made me even more lonely. but i remember him feeling so close that i could almost touch him. i could barely formulate "prayers". in fact i felt God told me to stop trying to.
i've only been to church a few times since 2003 cos i cant get our much and i did manage to get thrown out of 2 churches and a mission agency cos of the misunderstandings. but tho i am grateful for all the years i had of fellowship and teaching i'm also enjoying the opportunity to come at things afresh. my view of God has got bigger not smaller. i'm enjoying asking questions and exploring ideas. in this context looking at the bible from new is proving a fascinating experience. i cant see it as chapter and verses any more either. for the moment i cant handle words that have had religious ideas strapped on to them either.
i've been gripped by the people in it. i've been moved by the vivid accounts of clinical depression of naomi, chronic illness of job. i've been touched by a law system that repeats so often that it is available for the foreigner, the weak, the poor, the fatherless, and woe betide those who oppress them. letter after letter that emphasise, even more than theology, the practical outworking of loving God and loving loving others. generosity. and honesty. my giddy aunt we dont know the half of it. i've been moved by my own understanding of myself as a sinner based not on doing bad things but my concept of God's holiness being ever less like a sterilised hospital and more like freshly driven snow. sparkling, light, luminous, exciting, inviting, with a hint of danger. despite me basically being a "nice" person, and liking "niceness" it seems empty compared with that dazzling life giving power. the dynamic of the holy spirit. the God who "talks". who" talks" through his writings too, and "talks" in person. it comes to me over and over as i'm reading it in hungry gulps - if ever anyone was so in earnest to try to communicate, if ever his hearers so thick ....
and through it all the person of Jesus walks through the page and i recognise that presence with me. the one who touched people and noticed them and accepted meal invitations where no "decent christian" would be at ease is the one who i have had walk by my side, whispering in my weary heart and clumsy mind - "do not fear for i am with you". that same word over and again, along with a conviction of being held like a baby bird in the palm of a large workman's hand. i've been moved by the utter dedication of Jesus to people, not in a dry "ought to" sort of way but in the way of someone who has genuine care and genuine authority. i'm not discouraged by my pathetic little efforts, everyone has to start somewhere, but inspired by the profoundness of his understanding of how we tick and what we are really.
i'm such a beginnner. i feel i've got everything to learn.
i feel i've been pretty ham fisted in learning to express myself but i hope i'm learning. i hope my clumsiness hasn't put you off. it's mainly over excitedness. i'll calm down eventually. or maybe i wont. i'm an enthusiast.

i find it very hard to think about "the bible" as just one concept these days. it isn't a book, its such a hodge podge of a collection of documents that i think each needs looking at in it's own right, or at least within it's grouping. i don't know why the letter of james wasn't included. i don't have a problem when people see Jesus from a variety of perspectives.
i think some of the critics of "the bible" have a point because we've made claims that "the bible" cant realistically live up to. i think some find that christians stick in their craw for other reasons, and knocking the bible is a good way to upset them and put them on the defensive.
i do have a big problem with the more dogmatic churches that say you have to interpret this, this way, especially those with fundamentalist tendancies. i have problems with how they speak to those who dont agree with them too. thats why the creation evolution debate sends me batty. i think the science fundamentalists are just as rude and patronising as the so called creationists. i freely admit i have personal issues with fundamentalists whose negativity and rigidity and emphasis on the trivial while missing out on the the essentials did a lot of damage in my family (tho wonderfully there is a thread of faith that continues like a river that's gone underground). i have issues with people having to be proved right and having to put others down in order to do so. i've had to back off some words that are trigger words - like "evangelical" "bible" "gospel" - not that i don't believe them but they have come to have such negative connotations.
here in france the way many people talk on the radio they really believe that if you believe any of the bible you have to be a cretin. they get really angry about creation of any sort being taught in schools in the us. the concepts of bible have got caught up with images of george w bush and his gung-ho attitude to war and god, and his resemblance to a monkey when he smiles. and with black gospel music. many catholics, even nominal ones still wouldn't touch the bible with a barge pole - they've been taught it's too dangerous and only a priest should look at it. they really believe it. people in the 21st century still believe that.
as usual i want the best of both worlds. i think the polarisation of these debates make for stupidity. i think the documents of the bible, as originally written, are probably a pretty accurate account of what they are an account of but they don't claim to be a world history and i don't think they are.

i read the daily bible notes by jeff lucas, lucas on life every day and he's said more than once that there are bits of the bible he has problems with, not cos he doesnt believe that they're true, more cos he's worried they might be. and he freely admits that there are also large bits he doesnt begin to understand. his main point is to apply what we can believe and trust which comes back to other issues like how you see God etc i think that's the nearest i can get to where i'm at. pressure to believe and act on things you're not sure about can be very damaging long term even if it ensures a bit of short term orthodoxy. believing things that are wrong can also be very damaging.

we need to be consistent and scientific about these things - what sort of source documents etc are we willing to accept to make them "authentic" history ? which news paper account would we accept as valid of current news ? if we're going to accept for example that homer's accounts of the trojan wars are accurate with no other corroboration, or the earliest reports on the sayings of confuscious which date a good 500 years after he died, or the accounts of the life and battles of julius ceasar written by julius ceasar starring julius ceasar ... ? in comparison the sayings of socrates written down by plato who modified them to fit with his own teachings is pretty good evidence cos at least we know the author's motives and we know there was a direct link with the original person.

 

 why i accept the bible as evidence about itself.

 

* as far as i can tell even opponents will now admit that they are def the best historical records around as historical records go, by historians standards, according to my sister who worked in an archeology  lab for a while. even if you don't want to live your life by what's in them it seems likely that they do say what they say and a lot of what they say may well have happened, or the way the story is told is an accurate representation of the point of view of the particular people group who is telling the story.

* 4 accounts, written within the life time of many of the first hand witnesses is a pretty strong hand. one of those accounts seems to be written by an independent researcher, sponsored by a non-jew, who interviewed eyewitnesses himself, even the socially outcast, even women, beggars, prostitutes, collaborators with enemy powers, is really quite a coup. the descriptions of the romans for example are consistent with all the other things we know about the romans. all the other writers knew each other. they were related or had been disciples together. as far as i know only luke set out to write the complete biography or Jesus and the early "church". all the other documents and letters fill in each other, fill in for where there are gaps in teaching. james is not going to double up the teachings of paul or peter. they worked together, stayed accountable to each other.

 
* the alternative is believing popes ect i'm sorry i don't trust a pope as far as i could throw one, however much i might admire individual ones.
* i think the archeology backs up a lot of the bible not the popes. where there is no archelology - (and that is a good bit of the early part of the bible), this is typical of many nomadic, low ecological foot print people groups. much of what we know about groups like tuaregs and bushmen etc is based on their own memories and that is not called into question. in order to make a lasting impact on the land scape you either have to do the same thing in the same place for a very long time leaving field, road, dwelling, cultural patterns etc that we can guess from OR you have to have a lot of power and money to be able to build a monument. stonehenge couldn't have been built by a nice little village community sharing and being kind to each other any more than the pyramids were.
* i think if a theology still has to be expressed in latin it's probably dodgy.
* i think some "fundamentalist" teachings are as arrogant and pompous and erroneous as the popes. based on out of date translations of the bible and applied with ignorant and bigoted blinkered rigidity. so called "literal" application appalls me cos it's not what it claims to be. they apply one interpretation of one "verse" as it suits them without even looking at it's own context let alone its historical context. how could the teachings about race have become so prevalent amongst those groups based on a very vague misinterpretation of one verse in genesis when the whole law reiterates over and again that foreigners are to have more or less the same legal rights and obligations as natives, let alone all the teaching about equality in the NT.
* the evangelicals didn't actually break away from this rot till in the 40s and it took much longer to root it out of groups that call themselves evangelical or pentecostal. i'm an evangelical in the sense that luther invented the word - someone who has responded to the good news off my own bat not cos a church has told me i've got to go via it as an intermediary.
* what does the bible actually claim about itself ? - nothing like what the people who try to use it as incantations and spells claim. nor what some groups who use bits of it to justify their own politics. as far as i can see "word of God" is an expression that means several things not just the written collection of documents. for goodness sake why do have to use the words in latin. scripture just means written down. ok, lets say writings so it doesn't have religious overtones. bible - greek for collection or library. why are we so superstitious about it ?
* it claims to be a true account of what happened. as it was originally written that seems quite likely. where there's a difference there's often the alternative present too - eg the "chronicles" are the account of national events kept by the priests, an expurgated version of history. but the two volumes referred to as "kings" are a much fuller version, no holds barred, no taboos account of all the kings' faults as well as their strengths. as it is, it's all a much more coherent account of a nation's history than anything we have in britain so far back, so who do we think we are to pull it to pieces ? some of it is written down from an older oral record , that's no guess work, it actually says when things start to be from a written record in genesis . (it also mentions when the bronze age arrived to their peoples.)
words used in the bible to describe itself : 



1)  "the scriptures" - always referring to the old testament. they didn't even necessarily see the OT as a whole - sometimes the prophetic books are referred to separately from the historical and devotional documents : the law, and the prophets.
2) "the good news of Jesus" . gospel, ev-angel - latin and greek for good news - a common expression at the time - lots of wars - people would wait for an angel - messenger , to announce the progress in the latest international conflict. if the news was good he was called a herald of good news : angel + ev . which would be announced or proclaimed - the word we translate by preach, in a public place. this tradition was carried on in britain with the town cryer and we now call it a news bulletin, still communicated by an announcer (who wasn't present) or a reporter (who was).
3) "the teaching of the apostles". which is what it says.

how we use the bible, and what it is not.

* it's not a book of sayings. There's only 2 documents in the whole  bible collection that are - proverbs and ecclesiastes. anywhere else we can't expect to just dip in and make full sense of any extract without bothering to read the rest. things are written in the context of a family saga, or a biography, a royal dynasty, a national crisis, a personal letter, a systematic explanation, a letter resolving a dispute or correcting error. so we can't use quoting a bible verse like a magic spell in a situation. we have to quote it intelligently

* not expecting everything in our current translation to make complete sense. The bible should, in my opinion be treated with the same circumspect respect as any historical documents.  I would not like to lay odds as to whether the word translated "day" in my Bible means 24 hours, or general time period in the original ? it changes nothing about the fact that comes up all through the Bible - that God created the heavens and the earth, so why get our knickers in a twist about it ? did they thread camel thread (like threading the silk, or cotton into your needle) with difficulty or was it an actual camel through a small gate ?. these are things that are not central to salvation and i can hold on an open hand.

* People talk about details in the bible being inconsistent, but they're not being consistent themselves. the same ppl might accept hieroglyphics, or julius ceasar's writings to be a reliable account even though they're open to a huge amount of interpretation, and may have had elements of political propaganda too in their own day.

Is God Speaking ?

Question :

Hi liz How do you know the voice if god when he speaks to u and differentiate it from your own thoughts ive started journaling and find i can get into a flow but then doubts creep in as to weather ive been hearing gods voice or my own thoughts x

part 1

this is a really good question that has caused much debate for centuries :-)

i did a little study once on "the word of God"

so how does God speak to us ?

well first of all he speaks, he doesn't hint. there's no point going reading things into circumstances the majority of the time. same with finding obscure verses and reading something into them that they're not really saying. we still have superstitious practices that hang around even in christian circles that we don't notice cos that's how our society sees things.

things that are referred to as the word of God in the bible -

first and foremost is the person of Jesus. Jesus is God talking to us - john ch1 - and the word was make flesh and dwelt among us. hebrews 1 "in the past God spoke through the prophets, now he has spoken to us through his son." .therefore we need to copy how he behaved and obeying things he said is the one way to be dead certain you're in God's will. 

* read the eye witness accounts about him - the gospels (literally -good news, greek evangel) 

* mull over his advice and his example. beware over spiritualised interpretations that take things to mean something they don't mean in context. 

* DO IT ! jesus told a story about two building constructors - one set his house in a difficult place to build cos it was on rock, another chose a nice flat area that had a sand base but was probably the flood plain of the river. the storms came, as they do sometimes even if it's only once in every 100 years, and the house built on the sand was washed away. jesus interpreted this story saying that the one who builds on rock is someone who hears jeus's words AND DOES THEM. the other guy heared too but didn't put into practice what he heard. his life was saved but all his life achievements were wasted.

'the bible' is referred to as God speaking. well, lets qualify that statement. the word the bible does not exist in the bible. it means library or a collection of documents in latin and talks about the full collection - old and new. it wasn't used till years after the final documents were written, when people were trying to gather together all the letters and biographies that had been written for the early church. what it is refered to is as the scriptures (latin for writings) is also called the law and the prophets. in hebrews ch 1 it says "in the past God spoke through the prophets, now he has spoken to us through his son." Jesus speaks about everything written in the law and the prophets being fulfilled in him. Jesus treats the ot writings as God talking. in the nt they refer to the teaching of the apostles. at the time it was probably in person at first and passed on as an oral record, but very quickly things were written down and letters would be copied out and passed on from church to church, though they would be too expensive for individuals to own mostly - it was going to be well over a thousand years before the arrival of paper and the printing press.

* we're told to be like a reliable workman in studying and applying it.
* jesus only had the Old Testament, but he learned that very carefully. The quotes he uses when he was tempted by Satan in the desert was probably a "Sunday School" lesson he memorised.

you have to get the bible teachings in place to be able to really work out what is God's general guidelines - no point praying about something and expecting an individual word when in fact it's already more than clear in the bible ( tho read it for yourself - don't just base it on one teaching on one verse) if in the slightest doubt about what the bible is saying about something go and ask Don Fortune. he's read the bible all through each year since he became a christian and he has a careful and balanced approach to things.

if you are feeding yourself with bible and having an attitude of worship and respect to God some of your thoughts will come in line with God's way of seeing things and be naturally more in line with his.

*however you define the word of God it's described in ephesians as a sharp two edged sword, hebrews adds that it can cut between bone and marrow  - that's a scalpel in my language, so don't treat it as empty words ie you have been warned !!! 

thirdly there is god speaking through the holy spirit usually explaining, encouraging, guiding, leading and so on. this is called prophecy when it's another person speaking on behalf of God, or it may be another prompting like a word of knowledge or of wisdom, the interpretation of a message given in an unknown language, a gift of faith to have a certainty about some thing that God is going to do that we can't really know. we'll go on to hearing god speak for yourself next.



part 2

one factor in learning about god speaking is finding out the difference between hearing God speaking and your own imagination.

first practice using your imagination. God gave it to you. we are told to love the lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind and all your strength and love your neighbour as you love yourself; there's nothing wrong with thinking through.


try reading a passages in the bible and imagine it with real people. ask what happens if ...

get used to what your imagination sounds like. enjoy using it. then you wont pretend it's God speaking cos you'll recognise it, and you'll recognise that it's a really useful tool that God can use to help you understand things, and to therefore speak to you through it.



part 3
 
recognising God's voice - my sheep recognise my voice and follow me - jesus in the good shepherd passage.

what about noting down all the times you ca think of when you were dead certain it was God who spoke to you and it was proved right. would you recognise that voice again.? it is unlikely it was a voice in your ear, more likely in your spirit. did you act on it ? you get familiar with god's voice - but that doesn't exclude ever getting it wrong. you build in confidence.

what was the fruit of hearing what ever it was ? usually when i hear God i feel relieved, or peaceful. 

here's an example : over and over again he's given me the words "do not fear for i am with you". sometimes i have felt fed up - that's not a very exciting message. i had it for the first time at my baptism and its come through all sorts of people over the years. i thought it was cos i can be a frightened person - little lizzymouse. i never guessed that it would mean i was going to be in all sorts of scary situations. God knew that I would need reassuring that the fact that things were bad wasn't a sign that i'd done something wrong, far from it because he had promised he would be with me. we were skint for years and years and years but God provided everything that we needed (tho not always what we fancied) but he wanted us living amongst others in need and living like them. we even lived a few blocks away from an al quaeda terrorist cell for a while - blokes from the same mosque as them came and threatened our kids and their friends and wrecked our car. having a mysterious illness, well, now diagnosed as ME/fibro (whatever that is), is pretty scary too - but knowing with such certainty He is with me has helped me to cope through any number of crises, and especially the loneliness.

i don't begin to pretend that "God speaks to me" every day. but i can be aware of his presence every day, i can learn every day, i can be open to him every day. i can be wary about not listening to other voices every day.


another example of hearing God speak : i was once at a worship conference in lincoln. i had got to know another woman a bit at table. during the extended worship session i felt i had to stand with her and say that God had said she wasn't to be left on her own. i did. i felt a right nit. she said she was fine; i just stood nearby feeling a bit of a dope. then there was an appeal, i listened vaguely but i didn't particularly feel i should go , it was for people in leadership, leading worship, pastors and pastors wives. i stopped listening cos this woman was sobbing her eyes out. i just put my hand on my shoulder and prayed gently in tongues. i didn't know what to say and she didn't look like chatting. they i gave her a hanky, she dried her eyes and said, i'm fine now. thanks. and i went back to my seat. much later, as i was leaving i met her chatting with someone and she said - do you know anything about me? and i said - no, we only chatted briefly at lunch. it turned out she was recently separated - her husband, the pastor, had gone off with the secretary. she'd had to go to another church - so along with the loss of her husband was a lot of loss of status too. no more leading worship or being a pastor's wife, so she felt very miserable and left out not being able to go to the front for that appeal. she was astonished and thrilled that god had provided for her to not be alone and it confirmed he was looking after her.

it was a familiar prompting that sent me to her, but some times i've have got it wrong too. however i don't think a prompting to do a simple act of kindness is ever wrong - unless it's being nebby and nosey or something, even if it's just you being moved by sympathy - that's the fruit of the spirit at work in you. 
i used to worry about if a name of someone came to mind should i pray for them or not. i now automatically pray for them - sometimes it's God prompting me and other times - well it's just their lucky day isn't it.

i find most times God speaks it's rarely guidance about the future (tho that does happen)- it's usually about dealing with something in the present. and often points to something in his character and something in my character. this builds something long term not just a superficial what shall I do next.

i find there are times when im' hasty and should have listened first - when someone asks for prayer, or in prayer for healing, or a miracle i find it's wisest to listen a bit first rather than just crash in with the usual catch phrases that could actually be unhelpful to the person being prayed for.

be careful not to make the wrong claims about something. for example a lot of times it looks like i had a word of knowledge, but i'm naturally curious and i might have noticed the slightest hint or remembered that that person said something that no one noticed at the time. that doesn't make it less God speaking to that person through me but i must be careful what i call it. i don't always remember what triggered it till after - but that's ok - if God chose to use it.

you're not at this stage but some people become so familiar with a churchy way of thinking and talking that this gets muddled in their head with what is actually God. they will bring out their thoughts but present it as God speaking. they're rarely being deliberately naughty, more often well meaning, but there's a thin line between what is harmless and what can be misleading, thoughtless or downright dangerous. in the ot they were called false prophets. the problem was that people liked them cos they said things they wanted to hear, and they looked to all intents and purposes like they were the real deal on the surface. this is why it's important that those who are familiar with prophesying should weigh up any prophecy that is given to check. hence being a little bit careful about prophecy given with no other witness present. always best to check.


part 4

i have found a useful way of checking back is this God speaking is to use a 3 way spirit level (lizzy joke ha ha).

the story : i was watching this bloke building a wall. he wasn't young. he was building a garden wall, and by the way he used his tools and the fluidity of his movements he'd done this lots of times before. what struck me was that at every stage he kept fiddling with his bit of string with a weight on it - you know a plumb line - to check the wall was straight up, and every new row he fixed a bit of string to check he was making it straight. he worked so easily i'm sure he could have done it by eye, but he knew himself and walls well enough to be wise enough to keep checking.


this got me thinking about - we can get so in the habit of making "christian" decisions or the atmosphere in christian meetings, that we maybe aren't always thorough about checking back that it is God speaking and not just our ambitions or hopes or just how our culture sees things. i thought about some of the ways to check we're on the right lines. like the bloke out the back building his wall we need to keep checking ourselves. a good workman makes it a habit like a nurse thinking to wash her hands.

Word of God - Jesus in person. what would Jesus do? is it the sort of thing he'd say. (greek logos - someone speaking something)

Word of God - the bible/scriptures/the law and the prophets/the apostles' teaching - does it fit with the general teaching on that subject in the bible (not just the interpretation of one verse) (greek graphos - something writen down - latin - scriptus ->scripture)

Word of God - prophecy - it it what God's saying at the moment? prophecy should be confirmed by others known to use prophetic gifts if there is any doubt. never hesitate to go and ask someone wise to check out a private word that's been given to you. (greek rhema - the specific message that someone is giving)
 
* beware, i've heard some superstitious rubbish with a bit of truth in it for good measure spoken on this subject. 

* be wary of anyone who thinks God only speaks through them and who is upset if you want to check it. 

* be wary of anyone wanting you to respond without letting you think about it. be wary of anything that leaves you feeling condemned. if it's the conviction of the holy spirit he always gives you something to do about it. and true repentance always brings release - remorse makes you feel better for a bit, but doesn't solve anything really. 

* beware of anyone making you feel you can't hear God properly cos you're young in the faith. parents talk to kids at any age so your heavenly father is very likely to talk to you.



part 5
knowing the difference between God talking and your feelings.

same as with your imagination, find out about your feelings. face them. they're not wrong, even if your reactions to them can be. get used to your own inner voice so you can recognise when you're talking to yourself; a healthy adult does it a lot of the time. if we always block out our thoughts with tv music etc it's not really helpful, same as the opposite extreme of being preoccupied with your own belly button and only listening to your thoughts :-)

you were talking about a journal. it might be that someone has suggested you write down what God says to you. i think that's a good idea. but i think it's helpful to keep a wider journal than that. write down things you're thinking about, event that have happened. put a ? - i wonder if God is speaking to me. come back to it later and re-read it - things may well have become clearer. don't be frightened to think things through. you may laugh when you come back to it in a couple of years time, or you may think - did i really write that - that's a bit wise :-) why didn't i act on it then ?

you got me started on a huge subject. i hope you find some of this helpful - it's by no means a complete study but some of my thoughts.
xx Liz xx