Thursday 7 July

2 Kings 14:23-15:38

The judgement is brutal. Menahem might have expected a few more reverential words to have been written about him.  After all, he had held the most prestigious position in the land for a whole decade.  But the bible doesn’t seem to care much for such things - it has very little to say about him except to dismiss him as an evil fool.  Looking so far back into history we get the benefit of seeing which things really matter to God, which things he looks for in his people, which things he judges us on.  Ripping open pregnant women is not a good start.  Extorting money from people, even if they are wealthy, does not seem to go down too well either.  But, the thing that really went down badly with the Lord, the thing that really got his goat was not Menahem’s abuse of his subjects - that was just seen as being symptomatic of the bigger sin.  The thing that Menahem did which defined him as being evil in the eyes of the Lord was his following of the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat.  Jeroboam son of Nebat was the one who established the golden calves at Bethel and Dan.  Jeroboam son of Nebat was the one who led people away from worship of Yahweh.  Menahem did evil in the eyes of the Lord because he led people away from worship of Yahweh.  When I think about this I I fear I have spent way too little of myself focusing on the priorities of the Lord.  I fear I have spent far too long fretting about things that wouldn’t even feature in God’s verdict on my life.  I don’t want to do that any more.  I want to give myself to the big thing in the eyes of the Lord.  I want to help people offer worship to Yahweh.

Acts 25:23-26:23

Oh how I would love just once to be described as arriving somewhere with great pomp.  I can’t see it happening while I’m scuffing around in my tatty shoes and stained T-shirts but it is nice to dream.  “Oh Tom”, they would say (I’m not sure who the ‘they’ would be, perhaps the esteemed journalists of the Kingston Guardian) “Oh Tom, you truly have made an entrance at this opening ceremony of the new shower wing of the Malden Centre. No, Tom, in fact I fear we have underplayed what you have done here.  I believe that in fact the only appropriate way to describe your arrival would be to say that you arrived with pomp, nay, even that is not enough.  Truly you have arrived with great pomp”.  If that happened, I would die a happy man.   But however people arrived to meet Paul, he seemed equally willing to tell them his story about how he came to realise that Jesus is real and that he brings light to all people.  This is now the third time we have heard Paul’s story.  Each time he slightly adapts it for the audience but each time it points to Jesus as being electric, attractive and accessible.  His stories are generous in letting people into the reality that Paul has been caught up into.  His stories are also provocative in suggesting that this Jesus stuff is not just some dusty confession but a real force that really impacts real people’s lives.  I believe we all have stories of how Jesus has impacted our lives, how he amazed us by his power, wooed us with his love and empowered us for his purposes.  I believe it is time for us to get as good at telling our stories as Paul was at telling his.

Proverbs 16:18-27

I love the winsome nature of this proverb - “There is a way that seems right to a man but in the end it leads to death”.  Tell us the way, man, tell us the way!!