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Pray constantly

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Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God

(RSV) 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18.

I have to admit, this verse always confused and confounded me. Other than priests and monks how could anyone pray constantly? Even the second part seemed strange – give thanks in all circumstances – certainly you couldn’t give thanks if you are struck by a drunk driver, locked away from loved ones because of COVID, or newly destitute because of a job loss or other financial reasons. Paul had to be nuts to write this…or was he?

I’m not going to cover the second part in this post (maybe another time), but praying constantly is not as bizarre a concept as it may sound, and is not as difficult once you understand how it can be done.

In the Eastern Church the monks taught (lessons from Seraphim of Sarov) that by praying a short mantra continuously it would become so ingrained into your psyche that you would find yourself repeating it without even being aware of it. In essence, your soul would begin praying it without any conscious knowledge on your part. The pray they teach is not only brief, but encapsulated the entire teaching of the Church:

Lord Jesus Christ,
Son of God,
Be merciful to me,
A sinner.

They taught that you would repeat this, at first, aloud, whenever you were not involved in any work or conversation. Next was to continue repeating it while doing your work. Finally, and the most difficult, was to try repeating it even while conversing. It would be difficult at first, but with time and patience you would find that you could hold an entire conversation while still praying. At this point it would become so ingrained that you would wake up from sleep only to discover that your soul was still praying.

It was a nice concept, and probably doable for the clergy, but hardly practical for the average person. What I have discovered over the years is a different method that can be done by those of us who work in the “real world”.

Have you ever done something that, to your surprise, you succeeded at even though you never thought you would? Did you give thanks to the Lord for helping you through it?

Did you ever have a really good time with friends or colleagues? Something where, afterwards, you were really happy that you participated in? Did you give thanks to the Lord for the opportunity?

After you get home from work, after an especially grueling day or commute, did you give thanks to the Lord for seeing you through it?

Each of these events are times to give the Lord thanks. I’m not talking about getting down on your knees and saying a few Our Father’s. I’m talking about a simple look into the Heavens and just saying “Thanks!”

That is what I started doing a few years ago. After everything I do I just look up and do a quick “Thanks!”. (I will do it after finishing this post, as I did when I was given the idea for the post) I got the idea after noticing how many people would exasperate “Thank god!” after something, without really meaning to give thanks.

I now find myself not just thanking God at the end of a task, but also asking for help before it begins. Asking for help as it proceeds, and thanking when I get past an especially tough part.

I enjoy walking and hiking, and will spend the time just talking to God about what is going on in my life, about the beauty of the trails, admiring the flora and fauna that He created. Then thanking Him for the opportunity to enjoy the wilds, and for the ability to do so.

This is all prayer. Prayer, at its very basics, is just talking to God. It doesn’t have to be anything grandiose. It doesn’t have to occur in a church, temple, or synagogue. God didn’t create any of these buildings, man did. Jesus went out into the wilderness, into gardens, onto mountains to pray, in fact it was Jesus who told us:

The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father…true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such the Father seeks to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

(RSV) John 4:19-24

God is everywhere, in everything; prayer can occur anywhere and at any time. God seeks a personal relationship with us, and that means breaking beyond the repetition of fixed prayers (Lord’s Prayer, etc.) and just learning to talk to God as a friend, companion, confidant. Talk to Him about whatever is on you mind; understand that you can feel free to question Him, to get angry with Him (you can’t have a personal relationship with someone if you can’t be honest about your feelings), to tell Him you are sorry.

So, can we, as Paul states, “Pray constantly”? Yes, if we understand that anytime that we talk with God is prayer. The dictionary defines prayer as:

an address to God in word or thought

Merriam-Webster-Webster

So, what are you waiting for? Start praying to God now, thank Him for finding/reading this post. Thank Him for the day you are having, or complain to Him if things are going wrong. Ask for His help, thank Him for giving it to you, question Him if you don’t like the help you received.

“Good night, and may God bless.” – Red Skelton

Easter is irrelevant

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That was a piece of a conversation I overheard while in line at a local dollar store. At first I was irritated at the cashier making the comment to a customer, then I heard the rest of his remarks and found myself agreeing with him.

“Easter is irrelevant. No one buys much of anything anymore for Easter, other than candy and plastic eggs. Stores aren’t closed. People go to work just like any other day. More people are eating out than at home, not just at restaurants, but fast food too. Grocery stores are open, WalMart, Home Depot, even Starbucks. It’s just not a real holiday anymore.”

I found myself agreeing with his statement, and there is no one to blame but Christians. From corporate CEO’s and management, to employees themselves, American greed is rampant. Now, I’m not talking the lowly cashier who has no choice in working (work or be fired), but lower level management where work hours and personnel are scheduled.

When I was young (back when Moses was still floating around the Nile) everything closed (Blue Laws). Since the early 1990’s businesses have been chipping away against forced closure on Sunday’s and holidays. Corporate greed wins just about every time, and many of those challenging the closures are “Christians” themselves, who sit nice and comfortably in their homes enjoying the day off while they force their employees to work.

However, corporate American doesn’t share the burden of blame alone, employees share some of that honor as well. Yes, many people need to work every hour possible just to pay for the necessities of living (food, clothing, shelter, transportation), but there are plenty for whom the money is more important than God. They “need” that bigger TV screen, the new car, the latest iPhone, the “right” clothes. And, of course, if you are giving these things to yourself how can you deny little Johnny his ATV, or little Jane that iPhone 13 to keep in touch with her friends when she goes to the 3rd grade next year?

Yes, greed (the 3rd of the 7 Deadly Sins) has replace God in our lives. “Things” are more important than honoring the one who gave up his life for us. But we are still “Good Christians”, just ask anyone.

“But, there’s nothing we can do about it. “They” tell us we have to work!”

If anything COVID has shown us just how wrong that statement is. People have bonded together to demand better pay, better working conditions, some are even pushing for a 4-day work week (Sunday still included) as a way to get more leisure time for some, and to open more jobs up for others (by filling in those other 3-days with new employees). People will come together to fight for what is important – clearly that is not God. Easter is irrelevant.

It is what it is

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“It is what it is.”

Said John as he teased another thread from the mess of threads.

“But it’s not fair!”

Said Bill as he flung the whole mess across the room.

“It is what it is.”

Said John as he quietly collected the bundle and teased another thread from it.

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“Two more years of THIS”, Jnana’s Red Barn

 

A lovely gentle reflective post which prompted that thought and this post.

Thank you Jnana.

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The Gospels come to mind.   This fella Jesus we love to read about, pore over, study every word, every inflection … This fella we love to teach and preach about …  I wonder if his teachings can be summed as: “It is what it is.”  This fella who needed only three letters … “I Am”.

That’s all.

Right now, there is much wailing and sorrow.  But not from those grieving the death of a loved one – the noise is from those saying we are fed-up, we want to be free, we cannot handle being told to behave like an adult …  Those who still think “me” rather than “we” … And who chant in every possible variant:

“It’s not fair!”

The Gospels come to mind.  This fella Jesus again.  Who plopped into a time and place when “fair” wasn’t part of any common currency.  When might was right and death was cheap.  When “it is what it is” was exactly how things were.   Just the same as today – just the same as always: it is what it is.  And yet he seemed to make the best of it.  He walked in his safe place wherever he walked.  He talked from his safe place with and to everyone.  AND he avoided the obvious dangers of those who wished him harm – he journeyed away from danger in his safe place.

And all the while he lived the life he found – the life of it is what it is.

Right now we can all walk in our own safe place.  A place we can choose to carry with us – to be us – to be at peace with all around.  A place that avoids the obvious dangers not out of fear but out of love for ourselves and others.

A place that is of we rather than me.

And should that last another two years then it will still be what it is.  And we can still choose to live in our safe place – or we can choose to call out how unfair this all is …  How we should be free but are not – how we should be able to but are prevented from – how the government or the state should or shouldn’t – how we need a haircut – a restaurant dinner – our gym to keep fit – a coffee shop for our poison addiction – a club in which to dance …

All that “stuff” we can’t live without.

The Gospels come to mind.  That fella Jesus.  He had nothing.  Yet WE make him the perfect role model.  The one who died for OUR sins.  The one who is grace FREELY given.  The one who meets US where WE are.  The one who set US free for all eternity.  The one without whom WE are all screwed (for all eternity).

Yet this fella Jesus had none of this “stuff” we shout about – he shunned all the “stuff” we cannot live without … All the “stuff” we want back – all the “stuff” we cry has been taken from us … All this noise about how it’s all so unfair!

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Doesn’t that strike anyone else as odd?

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Love is allowed … wow!

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This weekend will be the first weekend of enforced (or voluntary) isolation.  For many still working (remotely, on-site, or any other way) these two days are when we “do stuff”.   Stuff usually outside the home – stuff together – the stuff of getting-together and being together.

Usually.

This week has been frantic!  A week of work trying to find assistance for the temp-team we pay week after week after week.  Who were told there is no more work as London offices shut their doors (literally).  A bunch of wonderful (and skilled) human beings whose contracts are for “services provided” rather than for “employment”.  And so are left without any financial aid.

As they have watched those who ARE employed OR self-employed being helped.

These are real people we “employ” in all but contract.  Whose tax we sort out, whose sickness we sort out, whose work problems we sort out, whose names we know, and whose lives we are part of.  People who look to us to “fix this” for them as we fix things every week.  People we know as colleagues, friends, and superstars.  People we have seen grow in their “temp career”.  And yet all we could do was work feverishly behind the scenes trying to bring their plight to the notice of those who can offer aid.

We were not alone in that.

Temp workers (with contracts “for services provided”) number many thousands.  Yet “our temps” are not numbers.  Every “temp” is a person who knows us as we know them.  What a privilege that is!  What a compliment to be more than a source of income.  What an honour to be part of their lives in a personal relationship.  And – in times like this – what a responsibility to provide more than “our doors are now closed”.

>>> On Thursday we called every client to find out how they were coping.  I came away humbled.

Every organisation has done we have done: dispersed its staff to their own homes with the equipment and connectivity to carry-on.  Almost every organisation is “business as usual” – just without any confidence things will stay this way.  Expecting and receiving the trust that – even though now “out of sight” – each person continues to bring the same commitment – that people were expected to do the right thing and are.

None of that has made the news.  Just as no organisation has bitched at the cost of money, time and energy to make THIS happen.   And THAT is unprecedented – that is GOOD NEWS – that should be recognised because that is ALSO each of us helping each other.

These five days have seemed a month.  But yesterday we were told our temps would be supported the same as the employed and self-employed.  So the next five will be as frantic making that happen for these real people.

THIS is not about making a profit (although it soon will be).  This is about helping each other survive and perhaps even thrive (in “non-balance-sheet” ways).

This week I have walked our dog to the applause of strangers on their doorsteps acknowledging the human beings of our National Health Service.  I have witnessed queues an hour-long of “socially distanced” human beings waiting patiently for their turn (and beginning to find shops fully stocked again).  I have seen billions (of every currency) committed to supporting almost every sector of society.  I have walked under skies free of the usual vapour trails down streets quietened of their usual traffic through parks where we each say hello (as we keep our distance).

And I read of death coming ever closer to our front door.
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I wonder if this is a time for faith rather than a time for love. 

Because I see love in every sector of society … “#clapforcarers” spread from Europe just as this pandemic spreads … recognition that THIS is about all of us is spreading FASTER than any pandemic … Love is being displayed in so many ways!  So if I have faith and you different or none …

Does THAT really matter? 

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I look out and see so much kindness being ALLOWED!   

By street and community … by country and continent … by this culture and that …

Kindness is being allowed … LOVE is being allowed!  

And, whilst I have nothing against “faith” (and live-streamed services and fellowship), isn’t THIS bigger than THAT?  Isn’t THIS when “the greatest of these” CAN be unleashed AS the greatest of these (just without the usual small-print)?

Some see the end-times.  Some see gathering in church to be immune.  Some believe immunity because of faith.

I see Love.

I see Jesus seeing Love as I see Love everywhere right now.  I see the bible as inviting each of us to pick up Love in preference for our comfort-blanket of faith.  I see this not as the end-times but as a time where Love is Allowed.

Death will always be us.  And I am taking all the precautions I can to be of Life.

Life that sees video calls allowing a new silence.  Where filling the silence is irrelevant.  Where hide-and-seek with a wee one can be played by pointing the lens at a wall before “suddenly” appearing with a “BOOH!”   Where “being” is becoming fashionable again.  Where “virtual-being” is becoming the same as “face-to-face being” … gentle and unhurried.

I am learning how to be the me I want to be even in these new and changing times.

And that is a precious gift!

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paulfg

Wrong shape, wrong, size, wrong “something”

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I can think of a handful of people who changed me.  Outside of immediate family that is.  People I met.  People I hadn’t known before or knew after.  Who came into me life and left leaving me changed.  Family I think of – in this context – as the soil, the air, the sun and rain.  But those who enter and leave again – they are sowers of seed.

Jesus is a sower of seed.  The bible is a seed.  Church and church life, all the fellowship, community, programmes and “service” are the environment.

Those people who changed me didn’t know they had or did.  Sowers of seed don’t start with that expectation.  They live with hope.  Hope that something good might come of what they sow.  Hope that some might allow that seed.  Allow a personal fermentation and sprouting.  Because a seed can live for years in a sterile environment.  An environment that keeps a seed a “seed”.  Never taking root, never dying as a seed to become something greater.

Sowers of seed cannot dictate the environment that seed finds.

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I think that is where we struggle with church life and “religion”.  We confuse seeds with environment.  We think we can grow crops, we think we can modify seeds to produce greater fruit, we think we can count the seeds we offered as plants that we grew.  But no one has ever “grown” a seed in me.  I do that.  I am the environment in which a seed lands.  I am a sterile environment or not.  And sometimes seeds can rest within me for years untouched and unnoticed.  Until I am the right place and time for that one small and tiny seed.

For me the bible is a seed.  And when I try and live in that “seed” I confine both myself and the seed.  When I live for the bible and of the bible I don’t become the great big tree in which others live – I become tiny like the seed itself.  Scared of change.  Scared of becoming something bigger than I think I could or should.  Scared of being something that looks different, that smells different, that thinks differently – that is different from the seed.  That must be different if the seed is to be anything other than a “seed”.

I see that same confusion with the coronavirus.  We are scared of change.  Scared of the unknown.  Even when the unknown is not that different to the known: that those who live with less health and greater age live a more precarious life (despite medical science and miracles).  But our usual repressed fear sprouts in such times.  We are scared we might be without.  Scared we might not have all the comforts we regard as essentials.  We remain seeds scared of what might “get us” – scared of all that is outside our comfort zones.  So we withdraw (prep and panic buy) and isolate ourselves (literally in some cases).  We pull-in and focus on “me me me” even more than usual.

That has comparisons with the church life and religion I have known all my life.  Because against all the taught “advice” of a lifetime … the more I don’t read the bible – the more I know the bible.  Just as the more I don’t read all the panic news about coronavirus – the more I know the virus (and I am one with “underlying issues” and “age category” against me).

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Just as against all the taught advice of a cultural-Christian lifetime, the more I don’t go to church the freer I am.

Free of the constrictions of guilt.  The guilt of am I doing enough – am I a good Christian … ?  Free of the constriction of faith – a constriction of believing the same as others  … do I fit-in (so that I can make a difference) … ?  Free of the need for compromise between family-who-won’t/don’t and church-life-that-does/must … How much do I give and to whom and how and when … ?  Free of a diary always being double-booked and massaged …  Free to allow “seeds” to grow as big (and as weirdly) as they allow.

As I allow.

I read that @ 30% of farm produce never makes it off the farm and into our shops.  Wrong shape, wrong, size, wrong “something” … all because it won’t look the same as “proper shaped and correct size” stuff (we do see on the shelves). 

I find that horrifying. 

That we talk about saving the planet and climate change and plastic … yet 30% of the very fuel of life we keep out of sight and discard.   And yet that 30% comes from the same seeds as the “proper and correct” ones.

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The seeds I have allowed make me who I am.

I have no idea if I am of the 30% (wrong) of 70% (correct and proper).  But why is that even relevant?  I am who I am.  And more and more I find the moment to be seeded with all I need. 

For that is where Love lives and growth happens.

If I allow.

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Holiness and Christian Hygiene

Little Monk Uncategorized

The closer you get to Jesus, the more everything else seems so unimportant.

To truly love Christ is not only to desire to be more like him, but to honor him in duty and character. My God is HOLY ♥

Yes, God is LOVE, and that is so integral to understand, but HIS Holiness is of equal if not more importance. HOLINESS looks like something, HOLINESS acts HOLY, HOLINESS loves with a HEAVENLY love, HOLINESS lives a life that honors GOD, and furthermore HOLINESS does not turn on and off, it is there in the dark and in the light, it is there at home, on the street, and church, and on social media, or Snapchat. HOLINESS honors their elders, and treats the house of God with reverence. HOLINESS holds onto the things that are important to GOD.

It is not an exploitation, a ticket to popularity, or self-exaltation. HOLINESS is always HUMBLING.

My brothers and my sisters, it is that HOLINESS that sets us apart. When we seek the face of God there should always be a pulling to separate ourselves from the things that don’t look like him! The more I know him, the more I love him, that much MORE am I aware of my unholiness, Lord let us be more like you!

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A friend recently ran across this in a Facebook post from a neighborhood church, sent it on to me, and asked what I thought of it. She said there was something about it that didn’t sit right with her, although she didn’t disagree with anything specific in the words.

I could not agree more with all of this. Even a brief look at Isaiah 6 fills the soul with this tremendous sense of reverence at the intimate unmediated presence of the HOLY.

Jesus preached constantly of the HOLY. Of the immediate presence of the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven. Lots of the people around Him thought they understood what HOLY meant. Obviously… HOLY means wearing the proper godly clothes, carrying oneself in the proper righteous manner, associating only with those religiously and morally acceptable, vilifying those who were unclean, irreverent, unholy, or sinful, and certainly behaving properly in/at the Temple… respectful of her customs and leadership.

Here Jesus came… not only talking… but WALKING a lifestyle that appeared (to those who were the most expert in godly holiness) entirely UNholy… associating with fallen women, embracing sin riddled lepers, freeing demoniacs from their bondage, healing or telling others to carry forbidden things on the Sabbath, even discussing sacred things with pagans and women, defending the morally irredeemable like fornicators and adultresses.

And yet… scripture makes clear… HOLINESS does, indeed, have an appearance. The Father is utterly HOLY. But only ONE knows what that looks like… “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me. Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father.” [John 6:45b-46] Jesus, in fact, NEVER ONCE uses the word “Holy” as a descriptor of the Father. This word HOLY, (ἅγιος, -ία, -ιον), appears only 40 times in the Gospels, Twice referring to the City of Jerusalem, once describing what is not to be given to dogs, once describing a location for the Abomination of Desolation, once uttered by a demon addressing Jesus, once describing John the Baptist in the knowledge of Herod, twice describing angels, once as an angel describes Jesus, once describing the prophets of old, once describing the covenant of the law, once declaring the firstborn male of all species to be holy, and once referring to God in Luke’s rendition of the Lord’s Prayer. Matthew’s rendition uses the word “hallowed” (ἁγιάζω), more often translated “sanctified” or “rendered holy”. Every other Gospel referent to the word “Holy”, primarily spoken by Jesus, is as part of the phrase we translate “Holy Spirit”, (hagios pneuma – ἅγιος πνεῦμα).

So what? Why take so much time to look carefully at what Jesus, the Gospels, and the Bible have to say about Holy and God? Simply that humanity has a tendency to think we know better than God. That God can say something simple, like Jesus’ and John’s revelations that God IS LOVE, and that we will be known as Christians not by our apparent self-righteousness or image of holiness, but by our love for one another. [CF 1 John 3:10-5:3; John 13:34-35] Frail and foolish humanity, all too often deceived by the “appearance” and “status-driven” appetites of power, politics, economics, and social esteem, tend to look upon the “appearance” of the self-righteous and holy-sounding, without seeing the heart as God sees people.

Jesus was both grieved and sickened by such hypocrisy. One day, the religious leaders (whose job they felt it was to defend the Holy at all costs), pointed out the sinful way Jesus and his disciples were eating, having neglected to wash properly, thus disrespecting what they called the “tradition of the elders”. Jesus names them outright, “hypocrites”, quoting Isaiah’s excoriation of them and stating, “Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men… You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition. For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’;, and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, is to be put to death’; but you say, ‘If a man says to his father or his mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban (that is to say, given to God); you no longer permit him to do anything for his father and mother; thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many such things as that.” [Mark 7:6-13]

Those consumed with religiosity and theology, tend to succumb to the arrogance that they can “define” such words as “righteousness” or “holiness” as things in themselves… free standing concepts apart from the character and nature of God Himself. The problem is, such concepts have true meaning only WITHIN the character and nature of God Himself.

Both Jesus and John assure us that LOVE is not simply a “characteristic”, or an “accidental or subsequent descriptor” of God. Love is not just “one among many features” of God. Love is an essential NAME of God. And SO is HOLY, by the way. And so is RIGHTEOUSNESS. None of these words, these concepts, these names, have meaning or can reflect Truth, without being grounded in one another.

That is… without Love, there is no Holiness. Holiness is one expression of Perfect Love. And Love is one expression of Perfect Holiness. Righteousness is an expression of Love, and Love always expresses itself Righteously… never by corruption or exploitation or cruelty.

I agree wholeheartedly with the initial thesis of this post… but it seems incumbent upon any careful scriptural scholar to hasten to point out that just as God is Himself Indivisible, so too is His Nature and are His Names.

Fortunately, for those of us who diligently seek to know, love, and see the face of God…

Philip shared that passion. “Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” [John 14:8-15]

An Ultimate Definition of HOLINESS Perhaps?

Holiness is patient, Holiness is kind and is not jealous; Holiness does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Holiness never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. [CF I Cor 13:4-10]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Binary choices

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I was taught that computers work in binary – 1 or 0
I was taught computers can do stuff but not like we can
I was taught we are far superior to computers in so much
I was taught computers do the bean-counting

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Yet the more I see, hear, and feel
The more I think it is not that
The more I see, hear and feel the more
I think we choose to become computers

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We love binary.
We love either 1 or 0
We love black and white
We love a yes or no “issue”

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We are either right or wrong
Correct or incorrect, false or true,
Saved or unsaved, lost or found,
Good or bad, church or unchurched.

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We have stopped saying “I Don’t Know”
We have a problem with saying “Sorry”
We reject the in-human-ity of computers
Yet copy so much of what we program.

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And if it be true that we become what we think …
I think we fearfully choose to become

Artificial (1) 

Intelligence (0) 

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Letting the rest “rest”

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What might Christianity look like if the Gospels had become ink before the Epistles?  … “The Good News” – Andrew Blair

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I have heard many “let’s go back to The Early Church” exhortations.   I have thought it myself.    Seems to me that replacing much of the “Temple Industry” practices/preferences still endemic in religion today with a “pure” faith (like what Jesus taught) to be an exceedingly good idea.

Except at what point do we drop the flagpole of The Early Church … ?

Before or after The Cross … Before or after Paul … ?  If before The Cross where would the “The Big Reveal” of evangelising be?  And if after … would that be before or after The Ascension – and if after how much after – and if before … why?

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What might Christianity look like if the Gospels had become ink before the Epistles?

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What a profound question from my blog partner!

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For The Early Church was riddled with as much dissent as we have now – just that we prefer to paper over the cracks as we do today.  The Early Church writings have as many tellings-off and “scandals” as today.   The same “role model” churches as today.   As much missionary work as today.   A Head Office structure just like today.   And – just like today – it was (and remains) a numbers game …

“How many have you brought me?”

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I think it another good reason for going bible-blind.  For being selective not in finding proof-verses that kill debate, but in finding the essence of the bible and letting the rest “rest”.

We are addicted to bible study, bible teaching, bible preaching.  We have created an academic-theological language more complex than the most difficult of The Difficult Verses.  We have idolised the verses of burden and sacrifice and hardship and persecution – idolised the verses of soul-saving-counting – made it all such hard work!

We have gone bible-blind in the same way as we have gone Love-blind –  we read the bible and prefer to see darkly – we cannot live without sin and choose to Love sparingly.  And we have that wonderful mantra written on the hearts of every believer:

“We are all but sinners saved”

Which is the get-out-of-jail-free-card used again and again as an excusing of our own weaknesses (or addictions) – along with the superstition at the end of almost every prayer “… in the name of Jesus we ask, amen”.  Or else we won’t get what we ask for!

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What might Christianity look like if the Gospels had become ink before the Epistles?

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I think worth thinking about.

Thank you, Andrew.

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