Tuesday 5 July

2 Kings 10:1-11:21

Bloody.  That’s what these chapters are.  I’m not surprised the Lord began to reduce the size of the land of Israel - the few survivors of Jehu’s massacre-spree must have been rattling around the land like crumbs in a biscuit tin.  So thank the Lord for Jehoiada who took some initiative and started to sort out this shambles.  Interestingly, Jehoiada’s great trait was not his prayerfulness or his preaching or his holiness but his skill in administration.  He simply brought a bit of organisation to the temple.  Administration is described by Paul as being a gift of the Spirit and, based on this, you can see why.  It may not be sexy and it may not be exciting but it can cause the people of the land to rejoice and can bring peace to the city.  Thank God for the administrators among us!

Acts 24:1-27

It’s a bit funny, this last part of Acts.  It was so blazingly exciting back in those early chapters with tongues of fire, cripples walking and thousands coming to faith.  Now all we get to satisfy our palates is the inner workings of some Roman bureaucrat’s court.  I mean Luke has got some seriously twisted ideas about what makes a fascinating finale.  But, I think what is helpful for understanding Acts is to see the Roman Empire as the defining power network in the whole area.  With that in mind we can understand this interchange with Felix not as a rather verbose retelling of the same old message but rather as an injection of the grace of the Kingdom into the corridors of power.  Paul is taking the Kingdom of God into the heart of the Kingdom of Rome.  He is bringing the power of the True King Jesus to bear upon the empire of the Sham King Caesar, not to over-throw it or destroy it but to transform it from within.  You see Paul, and Luke, had this curious notion that the work of Jesus wasn’t a small thing.  They believed that the force unleashed upon the world through the resurrection of Jesus and the impartation of the Spirit was so big that it could, and should, claim every power base and every suggestion of authority in the land.  That is what they prayed for and that is what Paul gave his life to.  Seeing the message of King Jesus smuggled into the very centre of the Roman Empire so that it could be released there to work its transformative magic and then spread from there to the ends of the earth.  It’s time for the church to reclaim this big vision that so excited Paul and Luke.  It’s time for us to see this message infiltrating and transforming every power base and suggestion of authority in this land.  It’s time for us to think and dream and pray big.  Our God is worthy of nothing less.

Psalm 80:8-19

The image of Israel as a vine is a big one across the Old Testament and is crucial for understanding some of the parables Jesus told.  When you think of the sweat and time put into harvesting grapes for wine and the importance of a good harvest for a wine-grower, well, the image starts to feel pretty intoxicating.