Reading the Bible

On Sunday 1st June our message subject was "The Church Jesus builds loves the Bible."  

We acknowledged most people feel like failures when it comes to reading the Bible and rather than trying to make us all feel bad enough so that we pull up our socks, I want us to actually think about how we might get more out of our experience with the Bible.

Forgetting the myth that every 'proper' Christian has an hour quiet time every morning, these were my tips for getting more out of the Bible when we read it:

• Read regularly - at least once a week
• Read deliberately - chose a book and work through it
• Read small chunks - quality not quantity and depth not length
• Read out loud - it slows you down and makes you think about what you're reading
• Put it into your own words - think about how you would explain it to someone else
• Stop reading when you have a question about the text - think and pray about it and try to understand what's going on
• Make notes - it helps you remember what you've learnt and marks where you've got up to

Those are just some suggestions that I've found useful.

What about you?  What have you found helpful or effective when reading the Bible?  Do you use a scheme or a website or a book?  What habits have you got into?  What time of day do you do it and how do you make time?

Post your comments and suggestions below.  Click on the Comments link below and you can add your thoughts.  If you don't have a Google/Blogger or Open ID, leave your name so we know who's saying what.  (If you want to read previous comments, click on the same link.)

Thanks

Comments won't be published immediately as I have to screen them to prevent hundreds of junk advertising ones, but they will be added within 24 hours - usually much sooner.

Blow The Whistle

Last Sunday we remembered our commitment to the Micah Challenge. If you were away then grab a postcard this Sunday to send to the Prime Minister. Also if you didn't sign the Micah Call petition last summer you can do it here.

This is a really good article about God's heart for the poor. Click here.

Understanding the Wonderful Majesty that is the Church

In our "Welcome to the Family" series we're running in our services at the moment we're trying to get a grasp on exactly what church is and why it's so much more than an activity we do on Sunday mornings.

The awesomeness of the church is something of a mystery to our human understanding, but if we want to grow in our knowledge, where better to start than "Songs of Praise"? The BBC programme has been running for 45 years, visiting church services week in and week out. Surely they know their stuff.

So here's a video clip from Songs of Praise with subtitles so we can fully understand the power of the song's words. Enjoy this as you prayerfully allow the potent words to sink in.

PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU ARE EXTREMELY, EXTREMELY EASILY OFFENDED, YOU MIGHT NOT WANT TO WATCH THIS.

Arthur's Links

It was great to have Arthur visit last Sunday.

During his talk he mentioned two websites and so here are links to them:

The Tomorrow Project

The Governments Statistics on Social Trends (3.8 mB pdf)

Hope you enjoy some light bedtime reading!

Jesus’ Yoke - The Missing Point

On Sunday we looked at the passage in Matthew 11:25-30. I don’t want to fall into the usual trap of repeating my talk – if you missed the talk and want to hear it you can download it from here.

Anyway, this passage can often be a textbook example of us interpreting the Bible with a self-centred approach. The NIV heads it with the title, “Rest For The Weary” and I’ve always centred on this, a nice promise of rest after a hard day’s work. A kind of spiritual lavender-bath-soak.

The more pressing impact of the passage is this revelation of who can follow Jesus and how we do it… (to be read in a Lion-o voice: “Must… resist… temptation… to repeat… talk…")

I didn’t cover the whole passage on Sunday and promised I’d make a final point on my blog, so here it is… It revolves around the last two verses:

“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

I always skip over this idea of Jesus’ yoke. I guess I’ve never really thought of it and anyway, it’s not very conducive to my spiritual lavender-bath-soak.

But what does it mean if we’re going to cast of a yoke of religious expectation, of having to perform to the standard of the best of the best of the best, and in exchange take on Jesus’ yoke. Can’t I just lay back and relax in my lavender bath?

This is how I understand it: When we start to follow Jesus our life changes and we find ourselves challenged in areas we were previously impervious to. Jesus’ yoke is to take on his heart, his concerns, his actions. We’re doing something wrong if our growing experience of Jesus doesn’t produce in us action to help others. As James said (and almost got chucked out of the Bible for) “faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”

There’s another verse we like to interpret for our own benefit. Psalm 37:4 says “Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

What a nice verse. I’ve always desired to be rich and famous! Wonderful, God will give it to me! What a great God!

But not so fast. God giving us the desires of our heart... does this mean he will give us the things we’ve always desired, even before we knew him? Or does it mean that as we get to know us he will take our self-centred desires away and replace them with his desires. Whether or not they will be fulfilled (this side of glory) is perhaps a different question.

This has been my experience. As I’ve spent these last 15 or so years following God, the things I desire to see happen, the prayers I pray, the effort I spend, the money I give has changed. Things I couldn’t have cared less about start to have an impact on my heart. I feel compassion for things that at one time would have left me unmoved.

This doesn’t always help me relax with my lavender-bath-soak. In fact sometimes I feel extremely frustrated (although somehow at these times I feel closer to God).

Taking Jesus’ yoke is a challenge. It’s part of our call to become a church that can truly call itself the Body of Christ – being his hands, his feet and his heart to a broken world.

“Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Matthew 10:39

Have Your Say...

Last week we had a feedback time at the end of the talk. We only had time for 3 people to share, but afterwards a number of people came up and said they wanted to say something.

So, thanks to modern technology, this is your opportunity to encourage everyone with your experiences or thoughts…

The questions I asked were:

• Have you ever felt intimidated by other Christians?


• Have you felt like you’re not a proper Christian somehow?


• Has some expectation been put on you in the past that you now realise has nothing to do with following God?


• Have we experienced times when we made a rule for others to follow God, only to realise God didn’t care about it?


• Has there been a time when someone has gone out of their way to accept you? What did it feel like?


• Have you experienced accepting someone who normally is rejected? What happened? Was it easy or difficult?

If you have something to say (anything, please! It would prove to me that someone reads this blog!) then click on the “Comments” or “Post a comment” link below. Please remember to put your name (choose “other”). You’re comment will appear after I’ve approved it (a necessary step to stop all the junk ones – sorry)
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God's Presence

Looking at the Bible as a journey from the garden in Genesis 2 to the city of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21 is a fascinating way to think of the Bible. The garden and the city both represent high points of mankind’s relationship with God. Everything in-between pales in comparison. I love the unfolding and expanding presence of God with mankind when you look at the big picture of history seen in the Bible.

Of course the Bible is about individuals, nations, wars, poetry, kings, prophets, mistakes, successes, wisdom, stupidity and so on. But from a broader perspective we see the increasing presence of God with mankind. There are ups and downs, high- and low-points in the story, but the general direction is God’s increasing closeness. And it’s something that should really excite us.

We leave the book of Exodus as God’s presence fills the Tabernacle. Israel become a nation distinguished by God’s presence inhabiting this mobile temple that stands in the centre of their camp. God is with them! It still doesn’t match the closeness of relationship that mankind enjoyed in the garden or what we will enjoy in the New Jerusalem, but it is a significant landmark.

As we hit the fast-forward button through 4,000-odd years of history we skip through the chapter marks. Highs and lows, good-times and bad. Then God’s presence fills the temple, an awesome display that prevents the priests from performing their rituals. More ups and downs over a long period that seems like a dark-age. Suddenly the next chapter. A baby is born under unusual circumstances, grows up noticeably different and then starts a public ministry like nothing seen before. It’s a slow realisation for those there at the time, but eventually they realise this is God’s presence in flesh and blood, walking with them, talking with them, eating, working, sleeping, relating, crying, laughing, dying.

Fast-forward while disciples wonder what on earth is going on – hitting the depths of despair as everything they hoped for seems to have been in vain. And then, early one morning, tongues of fire disrupt their get together and they spill onto the street to be jeered as drunkards. Pentecost! Again God’s presence is with mankind – but now actually with man, living inside their heart, energising them, inspiring them, empowering, emboldening, bring a deposit of the abundant life we were created to live.

Skip forward and these disciples, and the disciples of these disciples, scatter across the whole earth, sharing this good news that God is with mankind – actually with mankind. It starts a revolution, it turns the world on its head. God’s presence not limited to a few select people, to a limited geographic location. God’s presence everywhere, with all sorts of people!

This is the world where we live. A world saturated with God’s presence, yet with so much left to do. Our privilege of knowing God’s presence is also our responsibility to work to spread this good news.

This is a long preamble to my point (sorry – I get quite excited about this!) When I talk to people about God and why I believe I find I always approach it from a certain way – I talk about why I believe, the sense of it, and what it means to me. If the whole point is God’s presence, maybe this should be more important in helping people find God than my arguments and advice. I seem to fall into the trap of trying to do God’s job for him. I set myself up as “God Promotions Inc.” and handle the marketing of the supreme deity to the mass markets. “Become a Christian, you’ll like it lots!” I say, “God is really wonderful, take my word for it – you can trust me!”

Paul says (in Acts 17:27) “God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.”

I want to let God be God. If people want to find God I’m happy to answer their questions, because I had questions myself and I found other people’s answers really helpful. I can offer advice because perhaps they, like me, have no idea of how this faith-journey works. But if they want to find God – really there’s nothing I can do. “God is not far from each of us” and his desire is that we find him. My arguments need to finish with “Give it a go! Ask God to be with you, to help you find him… see what happens. It’s up to you.”

God spoke the universe into being, he has been present with mankind since the beginning and he offers a cast-iron promise of his presence with us in the end. He certainly doesn’t need my help in being present with people.

Giving From The Heart

Talking about giving money to a church is not easy. We live in a materialistic society, the ideology of which has often seeped into the church. The cultural stereotype of a greedy and manipulative televangelist is perhaps the worst manifestation of this.

With this cultural stink hanging in the air I don’t enjoy talking about money in church. I would hate for anyone to interpret anything I say as an effort to manipulative money out of their pocket. But there’s no avoiding that running a church costs money, doing outreach costs money and effective compassion costs money. Our giving is an opportunity to partner in God’s work as his co-worker and the best we can do is to ask God what he is calling us to do and then pray for the strength to do it, in our finances and in our whole life. No matter what teaching you may have heard that suggests otherwise, I am convinced that God blesses obedience, not financial contributions.

It seems to me our confusion in this issue often comes from our perception of what the Bible thinks about money. There are two extreme interpretations of the Bible and in my experience it seems that people are often polarised to one or the other (unless they take the third way, which is not thinking about this issue at all!)

The first glorifies poverty as the peak of the spiritual life. It exalts the ideas of suffering for the gospel and looks on our possessions as a sign of weakness. Anything that might distract us from God or reduce our dependence on him means we are hovering on the edge of idolatry! Of course, living a life free of materialistic concerns gives us a great moral pedestal from which we can self-righteously look down at everyone else!

The second is the opposite; where we see prosperity as a gift of God, a way of God blessing the faithful whom he loves. It says as children of the creator God we should not want for anything and have only the best. If the world drives BMWs, then the Christians should drive Mercedes! Living this way might not necessarily lead to self-righteous snobbery, but then it’s very easy to be laid back when you’re relaxing in your heated pool!

The vast majority of Christians want to please God. They want to do the best they can to follow him and live a life worthy of him. I think this is why people end up gravitating to these extremes – we want to do what is right and we hear these powerful arguments advocated from the front of church, backed up with Bible verses galore!

But I’d suggest it’s not so simple. Much as we’d like a set of rules to follow, the Bible constantly points us towards a relationship with God first and foremost. Jesus never neatly fits into our boxes and these polarised views don’t comfortably fit all situations.

Thinking quickly of off the top of my head, check out these contradictory ideas: Jesus talked a number of times about giving our money away to gain riches in heaven (Luke 12:33). Yet his disciples and him were supported by a number of wealthy women, who thankfully hadn’t given all their money away (Luke 8:3). Jesus may have had no place to lay his head (Luke 9:58), but when he was crucified his seamless garment was too good to tear into four pieces (John 19:23-24).

I’m the first to admit it’s not the most thorough examination of the theology of wealth, but the point I want to make is it’s not as easy as we’d like. There are no simple rules, we need to hear God’s voice and do what he leads – give away all our possessions to the poor or accumulate wealth so we can support God’s work. Free ourselves from dependence on our ‘stuff’ or enjoy good things with a thankful heart.

All of this is a relationship issue – will we allow God into our heart and then do what he says? This is the lesson we can learn from Exodus. By building the Tabernacle the Israelites have the opportunity to have the living God dwell right in their mist. They give to this work because their heart leads them to give, not because they were required to give a particular percentage.

Then the whole Israelite community withdrew from Moses' presence, and everyone who was willing and whose heart moved him came and brought an offering to the LORD for the work on the Tent of Meeting, for all its service, and for the sacred garments. – Exodus 35:20-21

Micah Sunday

This Sunday we, along with countless churches around the world, marked Micah Sunday – the launch of the Micah Challenge.  This is a movement of Christian individuals, churches and organisations united to do something about global poverty.

We’re asking that everyone in Exeter Vineyard signs the Micah call to be counted among those who want to see change.  In the coming months we will also be taking part in the campaigns organised by the Micah Challenge to highlight the cause.

Please follow this link and click on “Sign The Micah Call” to add your name.

As part of understanding this issue, it’s important we recognise that poverty isn’t something that exists "over-there" and is the sole responsibility of governments and international organisations.  Poverty exists because of the state of the human heart – our hearts.  As some of the richest people in the world (…even if we don’t feel very rich…) we have a responsibility.

The Bible says, "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.*"  How do we, as members of a rich developed nation start on our journey to becoming God’s agents for change?  Surely it means more than just signing a petition or opening our wallets.  How do  we escape from a materialistic mindset and become generous?  How do we see everything we have as belonging to God and just a temporary gift placed in our care?  How do we see the abundantly generous Kingdom of God start to overflow from our lives?

These are all vital questions and I’d be really interested in comments and thoughts.  I’ve started a discussion on the forum here.  If you haven’t registered, it only takes a minute and then you can contribute your thoughts.

Finally, this is an interesting quiz about world hunger on the BBC's website.  See how much you know - some of the facts are really shocking.

Letting God Build Our Character Through Work

I meant to read out this prayer on Sunday at the end of my talk, but I left the piece of paper at home!

This is a prayer by Richard Foster and it beautifully hits the nail on the head!

A Prayer at Mid-Day

The day has been breathless, Lord.
I stop now for a few moments and I wonder:
Is the signature of the holy over the rush of the day?
Or have I bolted ahead,
Anxiously trying to solve problems that do not belong to me?
Holy Spirit of God, please show me:
How to work relaxed
How to make each task an offering of faith
How to view interruptions as doors to service
How to see each person as my teacher in things eternal
In the name of him who always worked unhurried,
Amen.

Heading The Wrong Way?

Since my talk last week on Exodus 2 one aspect has kept coming back to me – so much so I’m starting to feel it’s a real encouragement from God to us in our situation right now.

I think I touched on it briefly in my talk – that this must have been a really confusing time for Moses. He had faith that God was going to use him to set the Israelites free from slavery in Egypt. So he starts his “freedom movement” by killing the Egyptian slave driver, but instead of the great uprising and resulting liberation he must have imagined, everything seems to head in the opposite direction.

He flees Egypt, on his own and without the Israelites, heading off to a foreign country in the opposite direction to the Promised Land. He isn’t the great national leader, instead he becomes a humble shepherd looking after a bunch of sheep, an occupation his Egyptian upbringing would have made him disdain.

It must have been a dark time for Moses. His dreams of being used by God to free his people must have seemed more like an overactive imagination. All the miraculous events of his early life must have seen like lucky coincidences, certainly nothing miraculous to pin his faith in God on.

In fact I suspect he may have even given up hope on his dream – he gets married, settles down, forgets his Jewish upbringing (he doesn’t circumcise his son) and gets on with 40-years of the business of surviving.

But what Moses can’t see is that this is the very time God is using to prepare him. Moses undergoes a transformation there in the wilderness, letting his plans, his strength, his dreams die – and somehow, behind his back, God is resurrecting them into something far more powerful. God’s plans, God’s strength, God’s dreams!

What I keep coming back to is how similar the situation is for us at this time. Before the summer we seemed to be motoring forward. We had some brilliant times of reaching into the community, seeing people join us and move from our fringe to connect with our vision for a great church. I just presumed we would continue after the summer – bigger and better, onwards and upwards!

But somehow it hasn’t worked out that way… We were moved out of our Sunday venue and found ourselves in a hall quarter the size (not to mention losing our lovely filter coffee and going back to instant!) Instead of the great expansion I’d planned for our smallgroups, they’ve changed and in some ways shrunk.

Yet despite this I’m encouraged. I look at this period in Moses life and see the principle that God is more interested in our true character, our heart, than he is in any outward signs. Like Moses, I believe God wants to use this time of frustration and unsettledness to shape our character. It’s only through this, through us becoming more like Jesus, that God is able to use us in his most effective plans, and more than anything I want us to be a church that truely brings good news to our communities.

So let’s use this time to allow God to work on our heart – to understand what is important and what is just shallow outward signs. Let’s commit ourselves to our vision, living by faith, not by sight and trusting God is doing more behind our backs than he ever does in front of our faces.

The Truth Will Out

Last week I spoke about the heart and proposed that the only way to experience God’s plan for our lives – that is, Abundant Life – is by living from the heart.

As I spent the week thinking about what I’d said something else struck me. As Christians we have a concrete hope in the future: One day everything will be put right, not by our best efforts, but by God – acting once and for all to restore the whole of the universe to the way it’s meant to work. The Bible describes it like this:

“Look! God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

How great will that be!?! None of this nonsense about sitting on a cloud playing the harp! Instead we’ll be experiencing creation the way it was meant to be enjoyed – knowing God fully, knowing each other fully, experiencing life in all it’s abundance – no more suffering, pain, injustice, illness, death, mourning…

This is our hope as Christians. And the good news is that it’s breaking in to our world right now. One day we’ll see it in full… today we can start to increasingly experience it in part.

I think one of the biggest attractions about Christianity is this offer of life, starting here and now and going on forever, always getting better. When I became a Christian at 17 my choice had very little to do with what would happen to me after I died, but was more about what would happen to me tomorrow, next week, that year. It’s really important to be aware of the bigger eternal picture, but not at the expense of our here-and-now life. You only have to read the gospels to see Jesus kept emphasising that the Kingdom of God was at hand, not some distant possibility.

If we live from the heart – that is from our true selves – by being honest and real, I think we’re on the way to discovering the Abundant Life. But if we don’t live from the heart, if we try to be someone that we’re not, then we exclude ourselves from properly receiving Abundant Life. There are loads of reasons we might avoid living from the heart – fear of rejection, insecurity, pride, pressure of other people’s expectations, the list is probably as long as the population of the planet…

It’s a brave decision to live from the heart and in my talk I suggested some signposts that might help us – four areas we need to address if we want to try to become more heart-centred. They were Honesty, Risk, Focus and Motives.

This week, and the reason I’m doing this blog entry, it occurred to me that we’re really living on borrowed time anyway. One day, on the day when the whole order of the cosmos will shift from what we know now to what is described in the Bible-passage above, everything will be made known. We could spend our lives coving up, wearing masks and being false to our true selves, but not only will we be missing out on the Abundant Life, it’s also a totally futile task. Because on that day the masks will be ripped away, everything we’re brushing under the carpet will be revealed and the cupboards will be opened to give our skeletons a good airing!

Since that’s going to happen anyway – and it has to happen to allow us to enter the fantastic new order – we might as well start now. There’s a phrase (which I always thought was in the Bible but actually it’s from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice) which sums this up perfectly: The truth will out.

And it will! In one way or another everything will be revealed, and it’s far better to do it because it’s our choice – a result of humbling ourselves – than because we’ve been exposed.

The Apostle Paul writes: “Judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God.” I always read this fearfully – how horrible to be found out for every selfish, hateful, lustful, mean-spirited and self-serving thought, motive, word and deed! But really this is mercy. We can’t know God except with our heart – our true selves. God isn’t interested in knowing a mask!

Even when our secrets get revealed and we’re caught out, it’s mercy. Hard to take and embarrassing, sure – but if we take it as a lesson for our heart, it’s a mercy all the same.

I would love us to be people who live from the heart – honest and true to God and each other. What a great church we would be, how attractive and welcoming to outsiders – who all have their own mess to deal with and are often totally turned off by church where everyone’s seemingly perfect.

The truth will out – how much better if we do it ourselves and what a reward! The adventurous journey of discovering the Abundant Life we were created to live.

If you have any comments or stories about this, I’d love to hear. Post a comment below.