The attractive holiness of loving.

The sour centre to a sugar coated gospel?

“And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ²“Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, you shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.”

Leviticus 19:1-2

As I discussed last time. the trinity is a doctrine which we tend to either try and ignore or ‘grin and bear it’.   Holiness is another of those and so maybe writing a blog post on both of those together is just going to put people off…  But as I discussed last time, the trinity is good news, and it makes God’s holiness good news too.

My Daddy is bigger than your daddy.

The reality of the Christian life

We often make the mistake do we not of thinking that the Christian life should be easy, as soon as we put our faith in God we expect Him to clear the way forward in front of us – to remove all the trouble and difficulties ahead of us.  The problem with this view is that it’s simply not true and sometimes when that idea is challenged we stumble because it’s so unexpected.  Maybe we confess with our mouths the existence of the devil, maybe we say that we expect persecution but really, deep down it comes as a shock.  And yet the Bible talks candidly about these things:

“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

1 Peter 5:8

“Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours”

John 15:20

Scary stuff.

But I’m not writing some sort of Christian horror story to scare people (although we do need to be woken up from our spiritual complacency) but rather to encourage and equip for those moments when our troubles seem too much to bear.  For all that prowling lion wants to eat us, and the world to break us, we have nothing to fear.

Why is that? Why is it that when supernatural forces are aligned against us, when the whole world stands opposed to us, yet we can stand there unafraid?  Let’s think about it, beginning with an assessment of the enemy, moving on to a playground argument and lastly seeking encouragement from the words of children.

Our Good God.

The Ineffability of the Trinity

If ever there was a topic for making anyone feel like an assistant pig-keeper it must be this, the doctrine of the Trinity.  Three, and yet one.  The Father, the Spirit and the Son.  All three fully God and yet this God is one God, not three.  The sheer impossibility of it defies our feeble mortal minds – how can there be three who are one?

Truly anyone who claims to fully understand the nature of the Trinity is either mad, foolishly arrogant or just lying.  Such a grasp is beyond the reach of human intellect, we can understand the nature of insects – how they function, how each part fits together to create the organism, what drives them and motivates them – because we are greater than insects.  They are simple and lowly compared to us.  Yet surely trying to understand the nature of the God who sits enthroned above the earth and to whom we look like little grasshoppers is madness.  To expect fallen human minds like our own to understand God is like expecting insects to understand us.

“⁸For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.

⁹For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Isaiah 55:8-9

Grasshoppers do not grasp the ways of men, nor do men ever fully understand the ways of God.

So surely then we should not even try to grasp the Trinity at all?  After all if it is an impossible truth about a God we could never understand then why bother?  Surely those who do are merely trying to ‘effor’ the ineffable?

I cannot hope to convey the intricacies of the Triune God in a way that could be understood, perhaps I’ll do a blog post on it when ‘The Good God’ comes out and I can more easily plagiarise the wisdom of Mike Reeves…   Until that day however, I just want to briefly consider some reasons why it’s worth grappling with this truth, why truly the doctrine of the Trinity is the most wonderful and beautiful doctrine that the Bible teaches.

Lest we forget.

A different Remembrance day

11/11/11.  93 years since the beacons were first lit, the nation stopped and silence fell to mark the anniversary of the end of the First World War.  No doubt all across the country people are writing about today, I was going to.  I was going to write about sacrifice and courage, about the nobility of these men and other great heroes.  However there is no doubt in my mind that many people will and that they will do it far greater justice than I ever could.  Also it occurred to me that maybe tales of great valour are not what everyone needs to hear.  On a day when people consider great men, and remember their heroism, let us consider them, and remember their humanity.  Turn with me now to Hebrews 11, the heroes of our faith and let us learn what manner of men (and women) these were.

God Bless Anders Breivik

 

Searching Tragedies

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock somewhere you will have heard by now of the tragedy in Norway of Anders Breivik killing over 90 innocent people as part of his ‘Christian’ crusade against what he saw as the Muslim takeover of Europe.  In a time like this there will be much mud-slinging, blame shifting and many condemnations of Breivik from various leaders and public figures, particularly from those in positions of leadership within the church.

I may not be a great Christian leader, but I hope to offer here what I think is the biblical response to this great tragedy.

Only Once.

A difficult question

There is a really old question that keeps on coming up: “Why do bad things happen to good people?”  It would be completely impossible to address this question fully in just one short post.  There are whole libraries of material written about the topic of suffering and pain which are written by far more experienced and more qualified people on this topic.  We will only attempt to unpack a few small things here which will hopefully be somewhat helpful.

Sunday

Easter

Thursday brought betrayal, grief and abandonment.  Friday brought the agony and darkness of the cross.  Saturday brought the cold silence of the tomb.  But Sunday brought hope.  Sunday brought life.  Sunday brought resurrection.

Sunday brought Easter.