Sunday 31 July

1 Chronicles 9:1b-10:14

David said he’d rather be a door-keeper in the house of his God than to dwell in the tents of the wicked (Psalm 84).  I always imagined this was David’s secret longing to be a bouncer; his yearning to wear a black suit and an ear-piece and to glare menacingly at every individual who deigned to walk through his door.  It seemed a strange thing to desire but, then again, when the alternative is sharing canvas with deranged maniacs, anything could sound attractive.  But this passage shows that a door-keeper was not primarily a bouncer.  They did have responsibility for protection but being big and muscly was not their defining physical characteristic - it was bags under their eyes.  A door-keeper / gate-keeper would spend all night guarding the temple and its articles and then they would open the door for the people in the morning before keeping an eye on the articles and treasuries during the day.  Their timetable did not allow much sleep.  Their calling did not allow much sleep.  I love sleep and I imagine the wicked did too.  But David preferred to be sleep-deprived in obedience to Jesus than well-rested and doing whatever he wanted.  So I wonder, would I really rather be a door-keeper?  Do I really think Jesus is worth that much?

Romans 14:1-18

We come back to that old chestnut of identity.  Paul never does much without coming back to it.  So I suppose we shouldn’t either.  We belong to the Lord.  Christ died so we might belong to him.  This is like a double fist-pump to the solar plexus of my self-centered life.  The first fist thumps into my arrogance - how I often take too far the idea that we Christians belong to each other (as we saw a couple of days ago).  I often find myself thinking that I am the plumb-line by which others should live.  How pathetic is that?  Jesus is the plumb-line and he always will be.  We do have obligations to one another but that obligation is to point one another more and more towards Jesus, not to our own particular practice of our faith.  I wonder how often I give advice or direction that leaves another person grateful to me rather than grateful to their Lord, that leaves them thinking about me rather than thinking about Jesus?  The second fist soon follows.  This one assaults my insecurities.  I often find myself looking around at others - at how they live - and feeling threatened by what they do.  I get insecure.  I start to resent them and then start to resent myself.  But Jesus died and returned to life so that he might be my Lord.  He has given me my value.  He has already called out my worth.  And I don’t need to try to get affirmation from others or to be assured by them thinking or acting like me.  Jesus is the one I should be looking at.  He died and returned to life for me so that he could be foremost in my sight.  How many of my issues would suddenly fade into the background if I just dwelt on this thought - that Jesus died and returned to life so that he could be my Lord?  Living this way will bring righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.  Living this way is pleasing to God and, in a nice ironic finale, is also approved by men.

Proverbs 18:17-19:2

“The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him.”  The danger of our “soundbite culture” - does another ever get a chance to come forward and question?

Saturday 30 July

1 Chronicles 7:1-9:1a

How did this writer EVER get this book published?  It’s been 8 chapters now - 8 chapters!! - without anything interesting happening at all.  

Romans 13:1-14

Jesus said to Herod “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above” and the early church applied that to each and every human being.  They could have looked at their bosses and their governors and they could, very easily, have pointed out all the ways in which they didn’t live up the the calling of God and chosen to dismiss them as heretics or imbeciles.  They could have plotted revolutions like their Jewish counter-parts would do.  They could have retreated and separated themselves off from the culture and authority structure into which they had been placed, claiming to trust instead in God’s power and God’s provision.  They could have done all those things and felt like they were honouring Jesus.  Indeed people today advocate all of these things in Jesus name.  But the early church knew that is not what Jesus himself did.  So that is not what they did.  They paid their taxes, they gave their government respect.  And they did not just see this submission to authorities as a begrudging toleration of the government.  They went further than that.  They actively sought to view their political superiors as servants of God.  They chose to see them as God’s gift to themselves.  That must have been tricky.  These “servants of God” had crucified God himself and they would go on to savagely assault the early church.  These “servants of God” were incredibly corrupt and advocated all sorts of destructive and degrading practices.  But Paul and his fellow apostles never flinched in their commitment.  They believed God is sovereign and all his gifts are good, even when they come at you with a sword.  So we embrace and are thankful for David Cameron.  We embrace and are thankful for the NHS and the Inland Revenue and Social Services and Traffic Wardens.  We believe they are God’s good gifts to us.  

Psalm 89:38-45

We have a mantle of shame in our household.  At least we have a mantlepiece of my shame.  I could have sworn that spirit level said it was straight...

Friday 29 July

1 Chronicles 6:1-81

It’s interesting that the first task listed for any of the Levites is that of the temple musicians.  Music has always been central to the corporate worship of God.  

Romans 11:33-12:21

I could dwell on that doxology for a long, long time.  It has always been one of my favourite bits of the bible.  But reading this passage today I was slapped round the chops by the little phrase hidden in the depths of paragraph 2 - “each member belongs to all the others”.  Wow.  That goes well beyond attending church when you haven’t got something else going on.  That goes well beyond giving your money or even fulfilling the requirements for membership (attending, giving, serving and actively engaging in a small group).  It goes beyond all types of activity or practice.  People often say that chapter 12 is where the practical applications are found - and they are - but that overlooks the fact that this phrase is pure theology.  This phrase is a momentous claim about each and every Christian’s identity.  It’s not about what we should do - it is about who we now are.  Christians are no longer individuals.  Christians are part of something bigger than ourselves and we cannot any longer just think about ourselves in isolation.  We belong to each other.  Like a nose belongs to a face.  This is so at odds with our culture, where individualism is worshipped and where all advise is for us to choose for us what suits us best.  But we don’t get a choice.  We are obligated to give of ourselves to the others in our local church.  God’s word calls us to live in unbreakable commitment to them.  God’s word calls us to rejoice with them even when we are fed up and to mourn with them even when we’re having a busy day.  That is the amazing privilege that God has given to us.  It is his ingenious way of us overcoming evil with good.

Psalm 89:30-37

He will not take his love from us.

Thursday 28 July

1 Chronicles 4:9-5:26

I assumed today’s reading would be pretty dull.  But I feel like I’ve stumbled upon something quite startling, and it’s nothing to do with Jabez.  In 5:2 it says that the first-born rights of Jacob were passed to Joseph.  I don’t think we’ve been told that before now (if we have please can you let me know).  On our long pilgrimage from Genesis 37 to now, I have not noticed any signs flagging up this truth.  You could say “so what” but I actually think it is quite exciting.  I knew that Reuben’s roaming eye had cost him his birth-right but I had rather assumed Simeon had been the beneficiary.  But God doesn’t follow human conventions.  God rides roughshod over our perception of our rights.  God pretty much chose the runt of the litter to bless as if he were the oldest and the boldest.  And God didn’t even do the Hollywood thing of choosing the really weedy, tiny one - he passed over Benjamin and went to Joseph instead.  I can’t think of any reason why he would have done it.  I can’t think of any reason why I would choose the 11th of the 12th to be the 1st.  But God did it this way.  He chooses his own way.  He asserts his rights as our boss.  We can’t get this thing through logic and good organisation.  We can’t work out God’s plan through the application of complex formulae.  God will often baffle us.  That is his prerogative.  Our role is to always look at what he is doing, always be open to the Spirit, always ready to submit our will to his.  His way will lead to life and peace, even if we can’t understand it.

Romans 11:11-32

There is a lot of controversy about this passage; over whether Paul uses the term Israel to refer to Jews (to put it crudely) or to the church (including Messianic Jews and Gentiles).  He definitely uses it in the latter sense at the end of Galatians (6:16) so I think he probably does here.  This sense also fits better with the run of Paul’s argument.  Paul is advocating on behalf of the faithfulness of God and, in doing so, turns the onus back on the Roman church, calling them to get on board with God’s desire to graft branches from all over the world into the Olive Tree of the Sons of Abraham.  But we must never let the debate over Israel to distract us from the fact that this is a missional passage.  God desires people to be saved - both Jews and non-Jews.  God deeply yearns for this to occur, and Paul mirrors him in that yearning.  Paul goes to great lengths to expose the full extent of God’s desperate longing for people as this is the driving rationale for all of chapters 12-16.  Paul will call the Romans to offer themselves as spiritual sacrifices so that people will see them and be convinced by them of the reality of Jesus’ reign.  Bringing new people to faith is Jesus is the unshakeable consequence of all that has been written to this point and it is the driving mandate for the organisation of church practices and of Christians’ lives.  God wants to have mercy on the world - and his chosen instrument for doing that is the church.  His chosen instrument for that is us.

Psalm 89:19-29

“No enemy will subject him to tribute; no wicked man will oppress him”.  Erm, that didn’t quite turn out like the Psalmist expected.

Wednesday 27 July

1 Chronicles 2:18-4:8

Didn’t read any of that again today.

Romans 10:5-11:10

“How can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent?”  Paul spins the whole thing on its axis.  The Roman church were sniping at God’s faithfulness.  They were asking whether God could really be trusted.  So Paul blasted that out of the park.  But he didn’t stop there.  Next he fronted up to the Romans and pointed the finger back at them.  The question the church should be asking is not whether God has been faithful but whether they have been.  Who among them is preaching the word?  Who among them has been sent?  If they aren’t seeing God working then the fault does not lie with God.  God’s faithfulness is unquestionable -  like a tanker-full of milk being emptied into a glass, God has overflowed our cup with grace and love far beyond our ability to take it.  But what are we doing?  Are we sending people to preach the word?  Are we equipping people to do the stuff are we calling and then empowering people to see their friends come to faith?  We have the sweetest gift to pass on to people - even our sweaty, dusty feet are made beautiful by the liberating power of our words and yet we often hold it to ourself.  If we want to see Israel growing, if we want to see God keeping his word, if we want to see the power of God being revealed in our midst then we can simply speak the word.  That’s the joy of it.  God will richly bless all who call on him and all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Proverbs 18:7-16

“He who answers before listening - that is his folly and shame”.  Oh.  Now I feel pretty dumb. 

Tuesday 26 July (apologies it is late)

1 Chronicles 1:1-2:17

Didn’t read any of that - as I said before, I find genealogies pretty tedious.  Maybe when I reach the higher echelons of the faith I may find some nuggets in them but I think that for now I’ve got enough to be getting along with in the main body of the narrative.

Romans 9:22-:10:4

What does Paul mean when he says Israel pursued righteousness not by faith but by works?  What is righteousness?  I think righteousness is best understood as faithfulness to the conditions of the covenant between Yahweh and his people.  So pursuing righteousness is to strip all the “I am the LORD your God” statements out of the Torah and to turn it into a dry instruction manual for how to offer sacrifices.  All through the history books of Samuel and Kings and in both Amos and Hosea we have seen that Israel did not remain faithful to the covenant.  Israel went off all over the place setting up shrines to idols and seeking to live like the people around them.  And yet they thought that their identity as Israel was safe - that the covenant between them and God was safe - as long as there was a temple that offered some kind of sacrifice and the words “we acknowledge Yahweh” were regularly being spoken.  But this was not right.  The covenant was never about carrying out temple sacrifices.  They were just the trimmings.  The core was the deep love-bond between Eternal God and broken people.  The covenant was meant to be about relationship.  The relationship was meant to be about faith.  Israel’s problem was not thinking that they could earn their salvation.  Israel’s problem was being complacent about their identity.  In their pride they thought they could stick two fingers up at God and he wouldn’t mind as long their other hand was slaying an ox.  We can’t just go through the motions.  This thing is all about relationship.

Psalm 89:14-18

I can’t believe it.  Someone’s got and taken my shield - my favourite, precious piece of armour and they have written some other blokes name on it.  

Monday 25 July

Hosea 11:12-14:9

Return has been a repeat theme in Hosea.  As this remarkable prophet closes he exposes the extent of that intrigue for one last time.  Israel’s crime has been to return to Egypt.  God miraculously freed Israel from subjection and slavery, from hopelessness and helplessness.  But now Israel are willingly sliding back to their former task-master.  Israel have literally made an approach to Egypt but they have also metaphorically done so.  Every idol Israel has constructed and every god that they have put their hope in have been like requests to return to their pre-Red Sea state.  But Hosea trumps that return.  He miraculously speaks of God’s desire to overcome their return to captivity with an offer of a return to God.  ‘Come, let us return to the Lord’ is the refrain of this book.  And where the return to Egypt yielded lies and violence, the return to God will yield care and fruitfulness.  Life is always defined by returns.  It just depends where we choose to direct our return.  Will we return to our oppression or will we return to our God?  Hosea makes clear that a return to God is always option, no matter how compromised we are.  And yet that is not the some total of returns that are offered in this book.  In these closing chapters Hosea opens a remarkable final opportunity - a return from the grave.  Could he have sensed what that actually meant?  Could he have perceived Christ’s empty tomb?  I don’t know.  But this final return is the most potent of the lot.  It’s a return to the pre-Fall state of mankind.  A return to an insignificance for death.  That’s where Hosea points us - to return from our sins, to return to God and to trust that he will return us to Eden.  Now that is a prophecy worth giving.

Romans 9:1-21

Often chapters 9-11 are considered to be a slightly odd, slightly tedious aside from the life-changing truth of chapters 1-8 and the life-enhancing application of chapters 12-15.  But I don’t think that is right.  As I said at the start I think Romans is essentially an exposition of Paul’s statement that he is “not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes... those who by faith have been made righteous, shall live”.  Paul has talked about how those who, by faith, have been made righteous shall live.  Now he climaxes his argument by showing that God is faithful and he has power to save everyone who believes.  Some may have suggested that Paul’s gospel showed God was not faithful.  Some may have suggested that Paul’s gospel showed God rejecting promises to Israel and therefore proving himself false.  And if God has broken his word once, what is to stop him doing it again?  This idea could undercut all the glorious truths of chapters 1-8.  So, Paul goes to war against the idea.  He begins to show that God is resolutely and unflinchingly faithful.  This thing has never been about natural descendants.  Anyone who sought to define Israel purely by family trees has always been wrong.  Israel, as in the true chosen people of God, has always been a different set of people from that.  Ruth the Moabite was part of Israel.  So was Rahab the prostitute.  Manassah was king of the 10 tribes but his gross rejection of all of God’s word was proof that he was not a proper Israelite.  God has always remained true to his people.  God has always remained true to his word.  I think many of us today in our heart of hearts doubt God’s faithfulness.  I think many of us today in our heart of hearts doubt the faithfulness of God’s word.  We need to grapple with this idea.  We can’t just skip on to chapter 12.  Chapters 9-11 are where the battle of faith is fought and won.

Psalm 89:9-13

Your arm is endued with power.

Sunday 24 July

Hosea 10:1-11:11

He is God, and not a man.  I for one am quite relieved about that.  I would have needlessly wasted quite a few Sunday morning lie-in opportunities if the verse had been the other way around.  But its interesting here that the evidence for Yahweh’s divine nature, or at least the implication of it, is that he chooses to arouse his compassion.  There is something divine about choosing to show mercy.  There is something extra special about choosing to act with love.  We are called to imitate God and that means a whole multitude of things.  But one of the calls of that verse is to look at people grotesquely consumed in sin and try to arouse within us a desire to show them love.  It’s refusing to give up on people even when they have failed and failed again.  Acting like God means conjuring up ideas for how to benefit people who have wounded us.  The ultimate proof of the divine was the cross.  God roused up a fair bit of compassion for that one.  He chose to offer us mercy.  The call of the church is to do the same for the world.

Romans 8:18-39

Like a half-tonne steak this one’s going to take some chewing.  We could gnaw on this one well beyond closing time and there’d still be a plate’s worth for the waiter.  How can we possibly digest the assertion that God will give us all things (v32).  This isn’t just about restoring us to wholeness.  It goes beyond living in complete purity.  It even extends beyond deep and enriching relationship with God.  We now venture into the territory of physical inheritance.  We will reclaim our role as masters of Eden, but we will surpass Adam’s task of naming the animals and stewarding them.  Now we will rule them.  And not just them but the whole cosmos as well.  Everything is eagerly expecting that day.  Creation is groaning for our leadership and our co-reigning with Christ.  That is what we were saved for.  Not to keep the chairs warm at Elliott school or even to run ministries or give sermons or bring people to faith.  Those are essential staging posts on the way - utterly essential steps on our journey.  But the result of our faith, the final resting point of all who call on the name of Jesus is collaborative reigning over every animal, every rock, every waterfall, every piece of art and work of music and over every single other thing in the whole expanse of this creation.  The most important, most significant and most eternal job role that could ever been imagined has been given to us.  And nothing could separate it from us.  That is the achievement of Jesus for us.  That is the extent of his grace.

Psalm 89:1-8

He is more awesome that all who surround him.

Saturday 23 July

Hosea 8:1-9:17

God is not that bothered about what we say.  Not, at least, compared to what we sow.  Israel cried out “O our God, we acknowledge you!” but God was not impressed - he could see the Israelites sowing wind.  Their lips were belied by their hands.  They said they were committed to Yahweh but their fingers were constructing calfs.  They said they were the house of the Lord but their arms were serving other god.  So God let them reap the whirlwind.  God caught them out in their deceit.  I don’t know whether the Israelites knew they were being deceptive or whether they really thought they were acknowledging God.  I suspect they thought they were doing OK, they may have thought they were giving God his due.  But they were spending time, money and effort pursuing all sorts of other desires, giving themselves to agendas that hadn’t been written by the Lord.  God hasn’t got much time for syncretism.  He doesn’t fancy being one of our gods among many.  He wants to be the apple of our eye.  He wants to be the single greatest priority in our lives.  He wants us to spent our time, money and effort on him, not scatter it hither and thither like a blustering wind.  If we bring him genuine worship then he will lavish us with joy.  But if we don’t, well, then he will whirlwind us around all over the place.  God will not be mocked; he will let us reap exactly what we sow.

Romans 8:1-17

Wowzers.  This heady passage is one of the richest in the whole New Testament.  We’ve been slogging our way up the mountain and now a dazzling vista opens up before us.  Eye-lid smacking beauty assaults us from every side.  We saw we were all in a dire predicament.  We saw death was the only way out.  But we saw that through faith we could die without dying and live again in the presence of our Lord.  We saw that in this new life we are declared righteous, that we are forever pure and blameless in God’s sight.  But now we press on.  Now Paul leads us to the sparkling conclusion of his argument.  Now we see the even greater wealth of the inheritance of this life.  God does not just declare us righteous - he makes us so.  He doesn’t just tell us to act like slaves of righteousness - he equips and empowers us to do so.  And he doesn’t just equip and empower us from the sidelines.  He’s not just a great cheer-leader or a smiling, helpful manager.  He hoiks up his tunic, he whips off his ephod and he whisks himself right up into the core of us.  He sets up home in our beings.  We have him.  Helping us.  Giving us life.  This is the same Spirit who tapped a corpse on the shoulder, slipped inside the decaying cells and the sprung him out of the guarded tomb.  This is the same Spirit who wasn’t remotely impeded by a body 2-days-in-the-grave.  This is the same Spirit who took the most remarkable human who had ever lived, a human who had pulled immense crowds from all over his nation and all the surrounding lands, a human who had spoken sublime words and performed inexplicable deeds and - to put it crudely - had made him better than he was.  This Spirit took Jesus beyond just restoration to life.  He filled him with a fuller life, a life that enabled him to walk through walls.  This Spirit took Jesus beyond being just human to being a child of the Kingdom of God.  And this Spirit will do the same for us.  The Spirit will make us of that breed - the breed of the kingdom.

Proverbs 17:25-18:6

“Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent”.  Oh.  Now I’m starting to regret doing this blog.

Friday 22 July

Hosea 6:1-7:16

“On the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence.”  More than nearly any other prophet - certainly more that Amos - Hosea speaks, nay he embodies, the desire of God to draw wretched fools into repentance.  He pleads for the rebellious and the unfaithful to come back into relationship with him.  If we know we are with sin, if we know we are guilty, if we know we are unclean, then his desire is to restore us, his desire is to heal us, his desire is to come to us like the spring rains that water the earth.  Come, let us return unto the Lord.  He doesn’t want us to linger.  He doesn’t want us to give him some space.  If we are in the wrong then we should come and return to him.  This isn’t a promise of consequence-free living - oh no, the wounds of our rebellion will not magically disappear.  But he will heal them.  The Lord will bind them with his love.  He will revive us in his presence.  We will know forgiveness.  No matter how many times this has happened before, the invitation remains as strong and as keen - that we would come and turn ourselves again to the Most High.  On the third day he showed us that.  On the third day, while we were still in our sins, Christ died for us.  He did it to draw us to himself.  He did it that we might acknowledge the Lord.  He did it that we might press on, and press on again to acknowledge his love.  And to watch him appear to us like the sun rises in the sky.  Come, let us return unto the Lord.

Romans 7:7-25

I know this passage is a tricky one (is Paul talking about life as a Spirit-filled Christian or as a non-Spirit-filled Jew?) but I think it is fascinating how far Paul goes to try to spare any blushes on behalf of the Law.  Paul loves the Torah. Paul thanks God for giving Israel Torah (even including Leviticus!!).  Paul doesn’t denigrate Judaism, rather he celebrates the way that it pointed Israel to her need for rescue by Jesus.  I think this is a major point.  Post Luther and post the reformation there is a danger that we slip into a very non-Jewish idea that Law + human effort = bad, while grace + faith = good.  We need to uphold the latter - grace and faith are indeed very, very good - but steer clear of the former - Paul as a Christian Jew saw that the Law was good in the role it played and he continually stressed the importance of effort as the appropriate response to grace.  What Paul got narky about (which we’ll cover in Galatians so won’t go into it too much here) was when people tried to mis-apply the Law by trying to impose it on people who had already understood their need of rescue by Jesus and, indeed, had already been rescued by Jesus.  Paul got tetchy when people tried to turn a sign-post to Jesus into an instruction manual that took people’s eyes off Jesus.  And quite right too.  So in terms of what we do with this today?  I guess we need to embrace our Jewish heritage, not by adopting Jewish practices but by appreciating that the mind-sets and world-views of the Old Testament are the foundations for our faith.  And by embracing Paul’s, and Judaism’s, conviction that faith leads to effort and obedience.  We have an obligation to strain after - that we would be led by the Spirit of God.

Psalm 88:9b-18

“Do those who are dead rise up and praise you?”.  What answer is he expecting here?  I think Heman might be in for a shock.

Thursday 21 July

Hosea 3:1-5:15

You’ve got to watch out for those raisin cakes.  The raisin cakes represented the kick-backs the Israelites got from giving their allegiance to idols rather to than their God.  And the Lord hated them.  He compares them to the pleasures of a prostitute.  He saw them as the deceptive sweeteners to a life of gross and disgraceful adultery.  We can all nod our head and agree.  How terrible of them to have bowed down to wooden images.  But what could this mean today?  Surely Hosea isn’t telling us we have to place an embargo upon the produce of Greggs the Bakers?  I think the raisin cakes still remain but they no longer have many raisins, and they don’t look much like cakes.  Maybe they are the praise of colleagues when we stay at work rather than cut away on time to get to house group.  Maybe they are the extra minutes of sleep we get rather than starting the day praying to our God.  Maybe it is the extra bit of cash we have from not tything or giving money to His cause.  Praise from others, greater comfort for ourselves, more insurance for our future.  All things that can be good and fun and enjoyable - who after all doesn’t like raisin cakes? (I guess quite a few people won’t but you get my general point) - but all things that can obliterate the purity of our worship.  Woe to those who love the most important seats in the synagogue. We can’t worship God and money.  Woe to the rich fools with the bigger barns.  The Lord is coming to show us his love once again, let’s admit our guilt, seek his face and earnestly seek him.

Romans 6:15-7:6

We belong to him who was raised from the dead.  That is pretty cracking news.  It’s good reason to open a new pack of biscuits.  But that’s not the end of it.  Our comfort and pleasure are not the end-game.  There is more yet to come.  Now, most people would think twice about including the word ‘slave’ as one of the primary benefits of anything at all but not old Paul.  He puts it right up there as the pinnacle of our salvation.    The ultimate pay-out to us for our faith in Christ is becoming slaves to righteousness.  Or, to put it another way, becoming holy.  Or, to put it yet another way, bearing fruit to God.  It seems remarkable to me how rarely we actually hear about this concept in mainstream Christian culture.  We talk about worship a lot, and healing a lot more.  We might talk about discipleship and evangelism every now and them.  But bigger than all these activities, bigger than any programs or structures or events is the question of our identity.  Who actually are we now?  Paul seems to talk about this a lot.  And his thrust seems to be that we are not volunteers.  We are not people who can choose how much of an involvement we want in this church-melarky-business.  We are recruits.  We have been conscripted into the people of God and our commander is laying out his battle-plan.  Our role in actually doing stuff is not only vital; it is also expected.  God has given us the gift of grace but that gift carries bounds of its own.  We have been given the generous gift of service; service in the new way of the Spirit.

Psalm 88:1-9a

"I feel like a man without strength."  You've got some cheek Heman.  How could you dare to reference me like that in your psalm?

Wednesday 20 July

Hosea 1:1-2:23

In Hosea’s day, there was only one thing you led someone into the desert for, and it wasn’t building sand castles.  Hosea goes to the shockingly inappropriate fringes of everyday conversation in order to communicate the intensity of the Lord’s passion for his people.  He wants to be a husband to us, he wants to honeymoon with us, he wants to make love to us.  That was what the desert trip was all about.  When a nomadic man allured you and led you into the desert you came back with a smile on your face and sand in your hair.  This isn’t just about obeying the law of Moses, this isn’t even just about performing the justice of Amos.  This is about tenderness, this is about intimacy, this is about two beings becoming one flesh.  To suggest such a thing between the LORD Almighty and his people borders on the sacrilegious.  But it’s what Hosea does, and it is what Jesus does with his bride and bridegroom imagery and its what Paul does in Ephesians 5:32.  It should make us squirm a bit.  But hopefully it also inspires us into worship.  It inspires us into exposing ourselves to God.  It inspires us into breathlessly yearning for him and reaching out to him with the full and ready expectation that he’ll receive us.  For Hosea tells us that He was wooing us first.  He was the one leading us into the desert; it wasn’t the other way around.  He has pressed us up alongside himself.  Oh, what a thing that we can call him our husband.

Romans 6:1-14

“Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus”.  It’s an important word that ‘count’.  Paul has walked us through the mechanics of our salvation.  We were living in Sin’s house, chained and constrained, unable to prize open any door or find any means of escape.  Death was our only way out.  But then Jesus took a wrecking ball to that stronghold.  He smashed open the way to freedom, to living right and to eternal life.  He broke the chains on our wrists and led us into the light.  So we stand in a resplendent plain of grace.  Our loving, empowering and restoring Father God is looking us in the eyes, willing us to embrace him.  Our choice and our conduct should be obvious.  But Paul knows the tale of the sin of Adam.  Paul knows of the wife of Lot.  He knows the twisted nature of mankind that prompts us to turn away from the gaze of the divine and to go back and pick over the disgusting and debilitating remains of Sin’s lair.  He knows our perverse propensity to try back on the ball and chain that held us captive in that domain.  Paul knows that all to well.  So ‘count yourselves dead to sin’ he pleads.  No longer regard that prison as your home.  That was a different being who lived there - it was not you - that one has died!  No, rather look around at this resplendent land.  Soak up the sun and feel the Father’s embrace.  Accept that this is where you were born.  This is the country of your birth and you have no allegiance to another place.  And then offer yourself as an ambassador for this place; live out the grace that is rightfully yours.

Psalm 87:1-7

What an amazing hope - that all the nations would say they were born in Zion.  Let that be the prayer of our church again today.

Tuesday 19 July

Amos 8:1-9:15

The southern showman finishes as he started- with a flourish and with a twist.  The big message of Amos is undeniably the Lord’s uncompromising stance on justice.  The Sovereign LORD loves the needy; he won’t tolerate them being sold for a fashionable piece of footwear.  We have to take an interest in the lot of others.  We have to see beyond ourselves to a world full of people loved by God.  It’s just not right to sell the sweepings with the wheat.  If we claim to love God, or rather, if God has put his claim on us then we can’t see justice as an optional extra.  We have to pursue it.  This isn’t a trendy App that we could choose to download to our phone if we want to.  Justice is the phone battery, or the screen, or the sim card.  If we ain’t got justice in our faith then to the scrap heap we will go.  That seems to be this prophet’s final word at any rate.  But as I said, there is a twist.  This sublime performer had to finish with a twist.  “Days of abundance are coming” he says.  There is a coming hope.  For some, for a remnant, there will be restoration and repair.  Sure, God yearns for justice and he will ensure it comes to pass but he couldn’t end things on a scrap heap.  He is too fixated with redemption to finish things there.  He’s got too much new wine not to have it flow from all the hills.  Amos has really scalded the people.  He has properly tanned their hides but even here, even among this sinful kingdom, we find that mercy triumphs over judgement.  The new age of Jesus is prophetically foretold.

Romans 5:12-21

Eh?  Say that again me old mucca.  I sort of lost you at ‘therefore’.  It seems like Paul never actually finishes the first sentence in this passage.  He gets so carried away with the glorious comparison of Jesus and Adam that he slightly loses his original train of thought.  So, while you’ve got to admire the apostle’s enthusiasm it does make it slightly tricky to work out exactly what he was on about.  Basically I think he is saying something like “You know how bad the world is, yeah?  It’s really really bad isn’t it?  You know all this death stuff that happens to everyone?  It really sucks.  Adam was a right spanner for getting us all into this mess.  But, as bad as all this stuff is that Adam gave us, well, what Jesus has done totally, totally makes up for it.  What Jesus has done blasts all this death stuff out of the park.  It’s not just that we can no longer die; we can also now live a richer fuller version of life for ever and ever.  That is what Jesus has done.  That is how amazing he is.”  For any one of us, this passage has got to make us think.  Even the small amount of it we do get is so epic that it changes all we know about the world.  I find many of the concepts so grand that my brain tries to shrink them down into smaller, blander ideas.  But I mustn't let it.  Do I believe that Jesus has really overcome death?  Do I really believe God's provision is the answer to all woes?  If I did I don't think I'd be living quite like this.  I think I'd be doing more worship.  I think I'd be telling more people about this grace.  I think I'd be more utterly overwhelmed by the unspeakable privilege in which I stand.

Proverbs 17:15-24

“A brother is born for adversity”.

Monday 18 July

Amos 6:1-7:17

If there is one thing that gets the Lord all riled up then it has to be pride.  It makes him mega-angry.  It leads him to say things like “your wife will become a prostitute”.  That is never a good thing to hear the Lord say, even if you are a woman.  More than nearly anything else, pride is a spitwad in the face of God.  Pride is seeing oneself as a notable man.  It’s walking around with a sense of privilege.  It’s spending money on fine furniture, fine food, fine music, fine wine and fine lotions while giving nothing to the starving and crumbling communities around you.  Pride is regarding yourself as part of a great house and believing your conquests - your promotions or successes or wealth - are down to you own abilities alone.  And so pride gives birth to the bastard child of complacency.  And that offspring will squander all your funds, destroy your character, smash up your property and lead you into ruin.  That child needs to be taken outside the camp and stoned as soon as physically possible.  Instead, let us follow the way of Amos.  “I am not a prophet, nor a prophet’s son” is his cry.  I’m a tiny man.  I don’t have a status or any rights or any particular prestige.  I used to look after sycamore-fig trees.  If you want some horticultural advise then I’m your man.  But, if it is life advice you are after then you and I together better get on our knees before the LORD.  He is the only one who can make running in this game.  He is the only one with the strength and authority to see change come.  He is the Lord God Almighty.

Romans 4:16-5:11

Aargh! So much to say! Up to this point Paul has majored on the gospel’s astonishing provision of forgiveness - we were guilty and wicked but now we are clean and pure.  That in itself would blast away most of our troubles and worries in life.  But he goes further.  He goes on to speak of peace.  He goes on to speak of hope.  We know we stand in grace, and I think we may grasp some of what that means.  But grace is not just like a car wash - it doesn’t just have cleansing properties.  Grace also waxes our bodywork, it re-upholsters our seats, it gives us an oil change and hangs a delicious smelling Magic Tree Car Air Fresheners on our rear view mirror.  In short, grace pimps our ride.  Grace brings a positive and enriching and revitalising sense of peace to us.  We could think on that for some time.  We could enjoy that truth for several years to come.  But then, just when we begin to comprehend what a glorious transformation we have known, the door of the car opens and the Holy Spirit steps in.  This is not just about forgiveness.  This is not just about peace.  This is about reconciliation.  This is about the love of God being poured into our hearts.  This is about Christ bringing us into rejoicing.  This is about Jesus bringing into friendship with the Father.  We knew we were no longer dirty.  We knew we were no longer troubled.  Now we are no longer alone.  The Father has demonstrated his love for us and now he reassures us of it moment after moment, second after second.  When we were complete losers, when we were screwed, when we were rebellious Jesus chose to die for us.  Now the cross has gone to work in our lives, now we have been forgiven and given peace, how much more should we have hope for our future?  That is what we get onto tomorrow.

Psalm 86:11-17

This one is a corker.  Give me an undivided heart O God.  Let my heart only be pointed in one direction.  And please let that direction not be chocolate.

Sunday 17 July

Amos 5:1-27

This is where Amos starts to sound like an Irish rock star except with slightly superior lyrics.  “Let justice roll!” he shouts out.  “Let righteousness be like a never failing stream!”.  “Seek good... hate evil”.  “I cannot stand your assemblies”  We have seen all throughout the Torah (the first 5 books of the bible) a demand for Israel to live well in community but here that demand has fermented into a truly toxic brew.  God hates exploitation.  And he can’t see it in isolation from the rest of life.  If we trample on the poor, if we seek to suppress the truth to keep ourselves ahead, if we take bribes or deprive others of a fair chance in life then our whole being is sullied.  If we are not living right with our brothers then we best put down our guitars and switch off our projectors.  This is not a call to ‘make poverty history’, no matter how virtuous that aim.  It is a call rather to refuse to do anything that will press down others.  Amos is not telling his listeners to sell all they have and give the money to the poor - although I think I have heard that somewhere before - but rather he is telling them that they cannot advance themselves at the expense of others.  Where do we invest our money?  Does the interest rate dictate our choice or do we check the use to which our money will be put?  What stuff do we buy?  Do we care how the production chain was treated, or is it the best price that wins?  Are these valid questions?  Is it possible to oppress the poor by proxy?  If we are benefitting from another person’s (or company’s) unjust actions does that mean we are trampling the poor with someone else’s feet?  We can’t just let these questions slide.  We must decide, then we must act.  God has made that much clear, and he is the one who made Pleiades and Orion.

Romans 4:1-15

Paul showed yesterday - to immense relief - that God is in the redemption business.  Now he shows what causes Him to act.  How is redemption gained?  And how can we make it available to others?  Paul is conscious of his Jewish audience so he frames his argument in a way that will appeal to them but I think we can pretty much sum it up like this: accept you are screwed, accept only God can help you, do what He says.  There are no exceptions to this rule.  It doesn’t matter what you have done with your willy.  All that matters is that you are willing to cast yourself upon the mercies of God.  All that matters is that you believe you need to be redeemed.  A concern I have about the church today is that redemption is no longer a felt need.  Our language is more about our brokenness and our wounds, rather than our sin and our wickedness.  That can make us feel like we are victims who deserve sympathy from God, not perpetrators who deserve destruction by God.  That can make us feel that what we really need is for our current being to be fixed, not taken away and replaced with a clean, pure and good one.    That can make us feel like our ultimate need is healing, not redemption.  If we go that way it would be a complete tragedy.  If we go that way we are bailing out on our inheritance from Abraham.  We are wandering away from the path marked out by Paul.  Having righteousness credited to us, being reckoned to have kept our covenant with God is the most precious, precious gift that anyone could ever give to us.  Let’s not marginalise it.  Let’s not lose sight of the immense grace that God has shown us.

Psalm 86:1-10

“All the nations you have made will come and worship before you”.  Preach it brother.

Saturday 16 July

Amos 3:1-4:13

“Yet you have not returned to me” declares the LORD.  KABOOM.  There’s a pile of stuff in that line just there, let alone the rest of the passage.  Why would the LORD - who treads the high places of the earth - be whining like a schoolboy.  Why would the LORD - the creator of the wind - be giving anyone a second chance?  He formed the mountains, he turns the dawn to darkness, why doesn’t he just cluster-bomb the Israelites back into the dust from which he made them?  Because he loves them - that’s why.  He chose them and he loves them and he wants them to come back to him.  He has sent this ostentatious country-boy to woo his people back to him.  The driving, surging motive behind the words and actions of our God is love.  Love for us.  Longing to be close to us, to have us call on him and listen to him, to act for him and advocate for him.  Today we might call it being ‘in relationship’ with God.  When hardship comes we should hear in it the beckoning voice of our king.  When shortage hits we should see through it the open arms of our Father.  He wants us.  He wants us to speak with him and share our emotions with him.  He wants us to listen to him and be moulded by him.  He is the Lord God Almighty and he reveals his thoughts to men.  Each and every thought is a thought of love.

Romans 3:9-31

Oooh.  It would be silly to rush past this passage.  It would be folly indeed to let this one slide by in the half-glazed reading of the dawn.  In this is riches beyond measure.  In this is nitro-glycerin in purest form.  “Justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus”.  Justified freely by his grace.  Now that could liberate a man.  That could set one free from every kind of doubt and self-alarm.  Justified freely by his grace.  Well that could loose us from every bond.  Where is the need for further recognition?  Where is the need for greater respect?  He has given us it all.  Where is the need for deeper cleansing?  Where is the call for yet another clean start?  Nothing can hold us now.  Not in the realm of God.  Not where it really counts.  We are completely and utterly free.  We are completely and utterly pure.  We are completely and utterly blameless.  And yet we struggle to accept this.  Our minds recoil at such a thought.  And, in truth, it is so vast a concept it is no wonder that it takes some time.  So we read on to see how this miracle could be worked.  We press in to fathom the unfathomable depths of Jesus’ grace.  Show us more O Spirit, convince us again O God, let us really taste this redemption from your Son.

Psalm 85:8-13

“Surely his salvation is near those who fear him.”  But what does it mean to fear him??

Friday 15 July

Amos 1:1-2:16

Amos was a showman.  A country boy from the southern hills who had found his way up to the northern kingdom.  Maybe he had chased his sheep up there.  Maybe he was doing a summer Wandering Minstrel Tour.  Maybe he was even headlining at Glastonbethel.  However he got there, when he did get there he certainly knew how to draw a crowd.  “The LORD roars from Zion” he bellowed and the folks slanted their ears.  He pointed to the distant hills and with brilliant and cutting poetry he announced a coming judgement upon the hated neighbours of Israel.  As each neighbouring tribe is lambasted I have no doubt that the crowd cheered, high fives were smacked out and torn up paper was thrown in the air.  What a show!  What a great message!  God coming to wreak havoc on these corrupt infidel heathens.  Woo ha!  And then, the grand finale, the sweetest message yet!  Amos turns on his own people, those arrogant stuck-up Judeans, those sanctimonious inhabitants of Jerusalem, those people who the 10 tribes would have resented more than anyone else.  Amos turns on Judah and predicts a coming fire.  I guess the standing ovation would have lasted a long, long time.  People would have loved the show.  What a way to present the message of God.  And then, as the crowd would have started to disperse, as they would have turned to pick up their jumpers, Amos would have surprised them with an encore.  “For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not turn back my wrath”.  No-one’s cheering now.  The high-fives are noticeably absent.  This is where the word of God starts to bite.  Amos points to his audience and unleashes God’s harshest judgements yet.  God does not let anyone go unexamined.  His justice knows no bounds. He is ultimately not about entertaining us.  He demands every one of us to obey.

Romans 2:17-3:8

Wow, having Romans split up like this makes it pretty tricky to bring something uplifting out of these opening sections.  I think this passage only really makes proper sense if it is allowed to run up to 3:20 where we finally get the devastating conclusion to the argument that Paul has been making.  “No-one is righteous, not even one.... no-one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin”.  This is a massive claim.  Paul is re-writing the rule-book of Judaism.  The whole of Exodus 20 through to Leviticus is now suddenly put in a completely different context.  The sacrificial and life-style obligations that Moses laid out to the people were never going to get the people right with God.  Human actions, even rigorous human obedience to God’s word, will never bring people to the fullness of life God has for them.  We are incapable of living right.  Our throats can’t help but make us unclean, our feet can’t help but walk us into ruin.  What Paul is saying is that the only appropriate and acceptable starting point for faith is on our knees begging for a divine act of mercy.  Something supernatural, something entirely beyond any human capability, has to happen to us for us to even begin to live right.  Faith has to be defined by fear.  Faith has to be birthed in repentance.  We need to spend some serious amount of time on our knees.

Proverbs 17:5-14

“A rebuke impresses a man of discernment”.  If only I could become more discerning I think I would be very regularly impressed.

Thursday 14 July

Jonah 1:1-4:11

Hehehe.  Old grumpy-pants Jonah reminds me a little bit of Jack Dee.  Apart from his prayer from the belly of the fish he barely says a word that isn’t laced with miserableness.  But I thank God for this.  I’m pleased that all my northern brothers and sisters can be reassured that God is still willing to use someone even if they are grumpy ;-)  (Am I going to regret that one??)

I suspect most of us know the Jonah story, even if it is primarily the whale bit that sticks in our mind.  It must have been completely shocking though to the Israelites who heard it.  Abraham wasn’t from Nineveh.  The Lord hadn’t made a covenant with any Ninevan bloke.  Nineveh was full of uncircumcised heathens. So what the heck was God doing going and frolicking around with those who weren’t his?  What the heck was Jonah doing waltzing into the Assyrian capital and offering them a word from the Lord?  Going AWOL for the sake of mercy, that’s what.  Going AWOL for the sake of compassion.  The book of Jonah stretches our understanding of the recklessness of God’s grace.  The book of Jonah challenges us deeply about the weight of love that God has for all of his creation.  We knew that God abounded in love, but did we know he abounded quite this far??  We knew that God relented in sending calamity, but did we know that he relented in sending it on his enemies as well as his friends?  He really is a gracious and compassionate God.  So much so, that it can sometimes be a little bit irritating.

Romans 2:1-16

“He is going to give to each person according to what he has done,”  Oh bummer.  That doesn’t really make me look forward to That Day.  I mean calling it The Day of God’s Wrath had already put me a little bit on edge but now I’m just totally depressed.  If I’m lucky I might come out of it with a Kinder Egg-sized reward but, more likely, I think I’ll probably need some body armour.  No, actually body armour will definitely be required.  And perhaps some flame-retardant clothing.  I wish I’d spent a bit more time seeking glory, honour and immortality rather than trying to complete that tricky level on Angry Birds: Rio.  But, now I come to think of it, I’m not sure I ever could have cut it.  I’m not sure I ever could have made the grade.  I’ve sinned too many times, too deliberately and too repeatedly to ever be able to stand up to the scrutiny of my conscience.  There is just something inside of me that likes to judge others, that likes to ignore the words of God, that likes to reflect upon the glorious extent of my prowess.  I wish there was another way.  I wish there was a way of escaping this judgement.  Surely it can’t just be all about my efforts?

Psalm 85:1-7

“Grant us your salvation” - Have these Sons of Korah also been reading Romans 2?

Wednesday 13 July

2 Kings 24:8-25:30

Game over.  God had promised the land to Abraham.  The land was one of the big three blessings from God.  And it pretty much carried with it the other two; the blessing of relationship with God relied upon the temple in Jerusalem to make it happen and the blessing of many descendants needed the territories for them to inhabit and cultivate.  So the fall of Jerusalem really is game over.  Over the last six months we’ve followed the rollercoaster ride of human decline and then divine regeneration and then human decline and then divine regeneration.  But now that is over.  And it has ended in a deeply depressing way.  Israel was just not up to it.  Israel just could not, or would not, keep the covenant.  So the Lord thrust them from his presence.  The promise to Abraham is effectively dead.  Israel is effectively dead.  The curses of Deuteronomy 29 are all that stand over her now.  Like a movie shut down by a studio before it is finished, God’s redemption narrative has had its plug pulled.  Surely there is no hope for this broken world now.  Let’s zip up the body bag and wait for rigor mortis to set in.  I’d like to say it was fun while it lasted but I’m not sure Leviticus could really be described as fun.  The only thing I’m wondering is what on earth they’ll have us read tomorrow.  Surely there can’t be anything more to say can there?  Surely the corpse of this promise couldn’t start to twitch?  Surely life couldn’t come out of this grave?  Could it...?

Romans 1:18-32

Wrath.  Why would anyone start a letter by talking about wrath?  It’s like Paul has hacked up a huge ball of phlegm and spat it on our feet.  We just want to find a towel as quickly as possible and wipe ourselves down.  But in our dash toward cleanliness, perhaps we miss something significant.  In our rush to make things more pleasant maybe we miss something important.  After all, why would anyone start a letter by talking about wrath?  There must be an answer to this, and one that would still permit Paul to describe his letter as good news.  Maybe the answer lies in the word wrath itself.  God’s wrath is not about an aggressive, vindictive mood swing.  God’s wrath is his lack of ambivalence.  God’s wrath is his commitment to breaking down injustice.  Across his letters Paul describes 3 different aspects of God’s wrath - 1) God’s righteous judgement on the last day when God gives to everyone what they deserve for what they have done, 2) God’s punishment of criminals and law-breakers through the government, the police and the law courts and 3) God’s punishment of people by letting them face the full weight of the consequences of their actions. In this passage we mainly get an explanation of aspect 3) of wrath.  [Incidentally all the stuff that is happening to the News of the World at the moment is quite a clear revelation of aspects 2) and 3) of God’s wrath.  Hopefully they will sort themselves out and deeply repent before they have to face aspect 1)!].  So Paul starts his letter by talking about wrath because he is giving his readers an interpretation of what they are ALREADY seeing.  This isn’t a ‘turn or burn’ warning about some future event (although Paul does use that technique in Ch2) but rather an advocation of the gospel based on the fact that evidence for it can already be seen in the world.  Evidence for God is all over the place - the depth of people’s depravity points, in a perverse way, to God.  It points towards a God who is highlighting the foolishness of rejecting him.  It points to a God who just won't let bad things go on unchecked.  It points to a God who is good and just and right and who is working a plan to bring people into his love.

Psalm 84:8-12

I just love seeing God’s presence at work in his church.  I’ll happily be his door-keeper any day.

Tuesday 12 July

Josiah 23:1-24:7

Holiness is spelt C-O-M-F-O-R-T-A-B-L-E.  Oh, no, that’s not what I meant to say.  Don’t know what came over me.  Let’s try again; holiness is spelt C-O-N-F-R-O-N-T-A-T-I-O-N.  Josiah was a paragon of holiness but, if we’re honest, he couldn’t have smashed up more things if he’d spent the whole day playing Grand Theft Auto.  And, along with the high places, the altars, the shrines and the household gods he also put a wrecking ball through my quaint little idea of what holiness looks like.  I thought holiness was sweet and beautiful and serene.  And, maybe it is.  But sanctification - the trek towards that beautiful state - isn’t like that at all.  Sanctification assaults things.  Sanctification smashes stuff up.  Sanctification tears things down.  So if we pray for God to make us holy then we better be willing to do some confrontation.  Confronting others - telling us when they have hurt us or confessing when we have sinned against them.  Confronting ourselves - taking captive every thought, rigorously training our bodies in righteousness.  Confronting God - repenting of our wickedness, begging him to cleanse us, screaming at him to bring purity to our world.  All this confrontation is done in love, but we can’t deny the fact that it is confrontation nonetheless.  Holiness is spelt C-O-N-F-R-O-N-T-A-T-I-O-N.  If we haven’t confronted anyone recently I would really wonder whether we have moved much closer towards holiness.

Romans 1:1-17

When the translators said Paul was bound to Greeks and non-Greeks they made a hash of it.  That’s my humble opinion anyway.  What Paul actually said was that he was in debt to Greeks and non-Greeks.  I don’t think that was because he liked to take a punt on the horses - not unless that his thorn in the flesh...  I don’t even think this debt was an appreciation of how much he had received from their knowledge and understanding and their culture.  This debt was of an entirely different order.  There are two ways that I can be in debt to you.  One is where you lend me £10 and I need to give it back to you.  The other is where your mate gives me £10 and asks me to pass it on to you.  This is the kind of debt that Paul had.  God had given Paul fabulous riches but they weren’t for Paul to enjoy - they were for him to pass on to other people.  God does not want us to force our own views onto our friends, neighbours and acquaintances.  He just wants us to give our friends, neighbours and acquaintances the treasures that are rightfully theirs.  God has put things in us that will massively enrich the lives of those around us.  That’s not arrogant, it’s just the role we have been given.  It’s not only true for some of us, it’s true for every single person who has accepted that Jesus is Lord.  We have all been made priests of the living God.  I believe that accepting this is at the core of really being used by God.  I believe it was the conviction that undergirded the whole ministry of Paul.  God is the treasure-giver.  We are just his conduits.

Psalm 84:1-7

Your soul years does it, eh, you Sons of Korah?  I can’t believe your cheek.  How could you  so blatantly plagarise the latest Vineyard UK worship album?  I'll see you pay for this.

Monday 11 July

2 Kings 21:1-22:20

It’s no wonder that Huldah issued such an apocalyptic prophecy against Jerusalem (22:15-17) - I don’t think being known as the wife of the grandson of the keeper of the wardrobe would have put me in much of a good mood either.  “I’m a person in my own right!!” you can hear her seething through clenched teeth. Hilkiah, I imagine would have smiled “That’s right, dear, of course you are.  Oh, and can you ask your husband’s grandfather to send me over a fresh ephod, this one is so last season....”

Scholars’ best guess is that the book of the law found in the temple was pretty close to our book of Deuteronomy so to receive all the curses found in that book would have been a pretty savage punishment (see Deut 28:15-68).  It would have been so simple for Israel to have avoided them.  How on earth could they ever have let such a precious book get lost?  I wonder if it started by people recoiling against what they saw as the legalism of having the read the book every day.  I wonder if they just grew a little bit complacent.  And then, in their complacency, maybe the preciousness of the book faded in their minds.  Maybe they lost sight of the vitality and direction that they could find in the book and just regarded it as something their grandparents used to look at when they didn’t know the freedom and the liberty that we know today.  And then, maybe, they forgot about it altogether to dire and disastrous consequences.  We mustn’t let that happen in our day.  We mustn’t get pulled away from the Book.  We mustn’t let it’s words concerning us be lost from our ears. We mustn’t let its preciousness be sullied in our sight.  That way leads to curses and exile and tearing of clothes.  O Lord, keep us from needing to tear our clothes.  Help us always to treasure your book.

Acts 28:17-31

Mission accomplished?  On one level, clearly not.  On one level you could read this final passage of Acts and figure that Luke had simply got a bit bored and just decided to cut the thing short.  But on another level Luke shows Paul has well and truly hit a home run.  He has established a robust and flourishing mission base right in the centre of the most important city in the world.  It’s like a businessman who started selling stuff out the boot of his car but now is doing a brisk trade from a premium premises on Oxford Street.  The Way is no longer a marginal sect struggling to gain traction on the fringes of the Mediterranean; it has made it!  It is influencing life and culture all across the Roman Empire.  All across the Roman Empire people of every ilk and circumstance can find life in the glorious message of God’s grace.  So is that it?  Is that the end?  No!  You don’t get a premises on Oxford Street so you can settle down and congratulate yourself on your journey.  You trade.  You welcome anyone who comes to see you and boldly and without hindrance you preach the kingdom of God.  That’s what we should be doing at SWLV.  That is what it means to be church.  Set up shop, welcome absolutely everyone and preach like crazy.  Some will not believe but others will be convinced.  And for those who are convinced, well, they can become part of the most incredible business venture that anyone has every conceived.

Proverbs 16:28-17:4

Grey hair is a crown of splendour.  That’s funny, I have never seen that on the hair dye stuff that Lesley uses...