Well, I’ve just signed up for the Coastal Cycle. I’ll be driving the team support vehicle. So, time to step up gents, the more people that finsh in front of me, the better I’ll make you look !

Enjoyed the article from Christianity Today. Have we emancipated ( big word ) Jesus, or do we just not realise what a Christian man is supposed to be. Would be interested to hear some thoughts on that one.One last thought, have to work on Saturday, but can stay til about 8.30. Is it bad form to eat and run ?

Don’t even know if I’m doing it right, but just wanted to show my virtual face. Now I have somewhere to go instead of surfing pointlessly for blogs and sites and then wondering if they are sound or misleading. I know these guys well enough to know how to question or support anything they say,and I know I’ll get honesty.Hope I manage to add something at some stage too.

At Saturday’s breakfast we considered the story of the feeding of the five thousand in John ch 6. We were all particularly struck by the comment in verse that the people wanted to come and make Jesus king by force. I’m not sure what that means or how that works. How do you insert someone as your king if that person doesn’t want it, or doesn’t want it that way.

And yet the church has insisted on doing this down through the ages, whether by the crusades, or forced conversions or at the point of a gun or, in more pietistic terms, by programmes and systems of evangelism and church growth. In NI in the next few weeks, some will try to make Jesus king by force in a series of big rallies in the Odyssey Arena. But Jesus will not have it this way….our way.

Instead, buried in same section of John’s Gospel is the hint of the Jesus way.

Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.
John 6:11

John in his account of the feeding of the 5,000 records these actions of Jesus as a conscious, but hidden, hint for those of us who are this side of the events of Holy Week. These words should call to mind for us the words of Jesus at the Last Supper before he moves out to Gethsemane and the subsequent events of his crucifixion.

If there is to be a king, that kingdom will be in inaugurated by self-sacrifice, by the washing of feet, by those who want to be first choosing the last place. It cannot be by force.

So this deceptively simple story lays out the stark choice, the two ways, and we must choose. The Way of force and might? Or, the Way of service and sacrifice? This is the choice we continually make. The choice the church continually makes.

One final thing. The sadness is that, in a sense, making him king by force is exactly what they did in the end. Pilate writes an inscription in three languages, Jesus the King of the Jews, only not the king anyone imagined.

Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek.
John 19:19,20

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previously posted on crookedshore

I have just finished reading Rob Bell’s 2005 book “Velvet
Elvis – Repainting the Christian Faith”, which is a little slow to get going
but is ultimately a fascinating and challenging read.

The section that has resonated most with me comes in Movement
Two: Yoke (oh yeah, it is arguably a little pretentious at times as well).
Here, Bell makes the point that all Biblical analysis is interpretation.
This, he points out, starts with the English translation we are using because,
since certain Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic words do not have an exact English
translation, the translator is forced to interpret the text in a way
that we might understand today.

Bell beautifully illustrates this with the example of the
word hell, which he tells us appears 12 of its 14 Biblical occurrences
in the teachings of Jesus. Bell explains that the word hell is an
English translation of the Greek word gehenna, which is a reference to
the Valley of Hinnom. This was a ravine on the south side of Jerusalem, which
had been the site of many violent deaths and was now the town dump, complete
with rubbish, wild animals fighting over scraps of food (gnashing their teeth)
and burning fires. So, while Jesus’ audience knew exactly what was meant by gehenna,
it was always going to be a major challenge for any translator to give the word
similar resonance hundreds of years later.

I must admit that this enlightenment helped me address my
discomfort with Amos Chapter 7. You see in my translations,
the crux of the Chapter is the rich imagery of God using a plumb line to
measure how far His people have veered from His guidance (the straight &
narrow so to speak). Now this image is something anyone who has every tried
wallpapering would understand (especially if they hadn’t used a plumb line!).
However, in this case, the translation is flawed.

H. Neil Richardson uses his piece the Four Visions of
Amos (see http://members.bib-arch.org),
to illustrate the problems of translation and the consequent importance of
looking at Biblical text from a variety of perspectives, including, if
possible, a knowledge of everyday life and culture in Biblical times.
Richardson tells us that traditional translations have struggled with Amos’
third vision, and settled on the translation plumb line or plumb bob. The
reason for their difficulty is that the Hebrew word ’anaµk, appears in
no other passage in the entire Hebrew Bible. But having explored other Semitic
languages, Richardson points out that in Akkadian the related word anaµku
means only “tin.” Thus, he points out, if we assume that what Amos saw
was tin, the vision could not have been a plumb line, as tin is obviously too
lightweight to be used for this purpose.

Richardson believes that that the translation has been
thrown by a scribing error and the more accurate meaning of the text can be
discovered by examining the Amos’ fourth vision (a basket of ripe fruit), with
which this vision is paired, and noting that the word for what Amos sees
reminds him of another word similar to it in sound, which conveys the meaning
of the vision. Assuming that Amos has done this in the third vision, then
Richardson concludes that the word for tin – ’anaµk – reminds Amos of a
word similar in sound: ’anaµh\aµh, meaning “a groan” and is predicting
that God is about to put a groan in the midst of the nation, i.e. when the
people start to suffer the consequences of their wrongdoing and begin to
realise that God is not going to pardon them.

Now as someone who had always assumed that the best way to
understand the Bible was with two translations and a good commentary, this was
something of a shock, not to mention a little disconcerting.

Lesson 1: churches need to create and stimulate an
environment whereby people study the bible in groups, preferably groups that
contain a mix of demographics, denominational background etc.

I didn’t rush into writing about THE EVENT of November because I wanted to take the time to reflect on what I had seen and heard. Not the
one in the Odyssey by the way, (breathtaking though it was – many thanks Glenn
& Bruce), this one was in the considerably more intimate Empire
Music Hall on 26th November.

First, I love the Empire. Never have seen a bad concert in it, it
seems to bring the best out in both the artist and the audience. It has
the acoustics, the ambience and the good ale (well Guinness but I was
on 5 "A"s in a row there!)and it just feels good to be in.

However, sometimes when you have been looking forward to something
for ages, you have a little sense of trepidation about whether it can
deliver as fully as you might have hoped. No worries there, young
Housty played a stormer. From the gorgeous solo version of "Matthew
Shepherd" to the rock out that was "Sugar Queen" (pardon the 1980s
Radio 1 language!), Brian played with enormous confidence and not a
little swagger.  I won’t deny being a little biased. As another child
of the 60s from the East Side of Belfast, I can identify with so much
of Brian’s writing – buying Vinyl from the independents (anyone
remember the name of the shop in Smithfield that sold a huge range of
Elvis Records?), going into Boots to look at the girls in the white
coats (you had to be there!) etc.

The band was really tight for a bunch of family/friends rather than
a regular touring band and my son was most impressed when I brought
home the drumsticks of Ireland’s best drummer (the paradiddling
pastor).

As the four damp friends ate chips in a car in Abbey Street in a
downpour (in case we got famished before supper) I was minded of the
words of that other great East Belfast poet and musician – "Wouldn’t it
be great if it was like this all the time?"

And then there was more. Destiny connected the two "troubadours"
again in the Bob Harris Saturday NIght show last week* when Brian
appeared to sing a couple of songs and regale us with the story that
connected Brian, Bob and Van and, indeed, "These Days", one of the 3
songs he played on the evening. Brian was warm, funny and, to
paraphrase old Bob himself, VERY EXCELLENT.

Sometimes you get a sense that someone’s time has come. If the email
responses to Brian’s set are anything to go by (not to mention a
similar response when he played Janice Long’s show several weeks ago)
Brian is headed to be (in his own words) "an overnight success after 14
years".

As they might have said in the ‘Yard – "Good on you son, we’re proud of you!"

* check out http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/shows/bobharris from 12:00 am on before it’s too late!

JUSTCOFFEEFORME

               
Men will always disappoint you, their pedestals are gonna fall,
If you ask God for a king that king will only lead your young men into war,
But if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbour as yourself,
You’ll find love is the greatest gift of all and in the end there can be nothing else.

Brian Houston, Everybody Needs a Healer, Jesus & Justice. 2005

Justcoffeeforme

 

I was painting my shed last Saturday
listening to the Jonathan Ross show. The final guest was Charlie Higson.
Charlie is a multi-talented bloke best known for The Fast Show and, more
recently, writing the “Young James Bond” books. However, he first came to
prominence in the early 1980s, as a member of the hip Norwich band “The
Higsons”, who enjoyed only minor commercial success but had a substantial
hardcore support and were the darlings of the NME, Sounds, John Peel etc.

Nonetheless, Charlie Higson quit music in 1986. The reason
he explained to Ross was that he was living a lie. His heart and soul were not
devoted to music like some of his contemporaries. He was faking it and it was
only a matter of time (he felt) before the fans would see through him.

In Amos Chapter 5 we find out that God had seen through the
Israelites a long time before, but their fate was going to be much, much worse
than an empty concert hall or their album being relegated to the “bargain bin”.
Israel, we find, will fall “never to rise again, deserted in her own land,
with no-one to lift her up”.

What had they done to deserve this? (to paraphrase the Pet
Shop Boys rather than the Higsons). Well to add to the litany of offences
listed in Chapters 3 & 4, we find in Chapter 5 that they “cast
righteousness to the ground”; despise the one who tells the truth”;
“oppress the righteous and take bribes”; and “deprive the poor of
justice in the courts”.

But it is not just the various sinful acts carried out by
the Israelites that offend God, it is their complete and blatant hypocrisy.
They continue to have religious feasts, bring their sacrifices and offerings to
God’s table and laud him with empty, insincere worship. Perhaps worst of all,
they long for the day of the Lord, having totally forgotten (or ignored) what
the day of the Lord will actually mean.

Two thoughts struck me about Amos Chapter 5. First, how
often do we offend God through our Sunday worship and communions? OK, we might
not come to church having trampled on the poor all week, but did we ever grow weary
of helping them? And we might not have deprived the poor of justice in the
courts, but did we ever let someone’s colour, faith, sexual orientation or
political beliefs influence our view of what they were saying?

The second thought brings out the positive in the Chapter.
For all their sinning, God repeatedly invites the Israelites to repent and be
forgiven. The same message he gives us today. As Paul tells us in Ephesians,
God’s gift of His Grace to us means that we can be saved through faith – an
invaluable straw for us all to cling to as the day of the Lord draws nearer.

The Higsons farewell album was a compilation called “It’s a
Wonderful Life”. If the Israelites thought they were having a wonderful life,
Amos certainly is giving them a rude awakening.

Justcoffeeforme

So here’s the thing, the breakfast crew are, in spiritual terms, a quite diverse group. Half the guys teach the Word, either through their careers or using the gifts God has granted them. The other half (which includes yours truly) wish they knew their Bibles as well as they knew their football! The great thing is that we, the unlearned, can still earn our bacon by asking the questions that the ordinary Christian in the street might ask, or making the simple layman’s observations on the text being studied. Add the various analyses and observations together, and you have got something which is (hopefully) interesting and worthwhile. And let’s face it, how many Old Testament Bible Commentaries cross-reference Emmerdale Farm and Thin Lizzy!

So what are the layman contingent to make of the Judgement on Israel (Amos Ch 2 V 6)? Perhaps this is one of the easier passages because it catalogues the horrendous moral and social decline of God’s people. Abusing the poor, abusing the temple, abusing the act of sex, force-feeding alcohol to those who have vowed abstinence (the Nazirites). It is also one of the saddest most upsetting passages, not just because of the realisation of what an ungrateful shower these Israelites had become, but also because we know what an ungrateful shower we have become. Were the Israelites’ abuses of the poor, faith, sex and the devout any worse than what we might find today? Most of us do not expect God to crush the West, the UK or Bangor because of hypocritical clergymen, a thriving porn industry and the Da Vinci code. Not yet anyway. So how are we Christians to handle such “norms” in our modern day lives?

Let’s hope Amos has a few answers!

Justcoffeeforme