Monday 22 August

2 Chronicles 16:1-18:27

Would the Lord really send a lying spirit to trick the prophets into getting the king killed?  Well, first up, I guess we have to acknowledge that any human attempt to describe the heavenly realm will by definition be inadequate.  The limitations of language - not to say anything about those of us who try to use it and understand it - mean that our descriptions of God and his Council will always come up short.  So, we have to beware an overly ‘literal’ understanding of these things.  Perhaps it is a bit like a toddler describing an aeroplane as “a massive flying car”.  It’s not that they are wrong - it conveys the right sort of meaning - but it would just be a little inadequate as a design description for the Boeing construction team to work off.  So we approach this passage acknowledging that we are here looking for meaning, not for clinical descriptions about the design of the heavenly council.  And the meaning is manifestly clear; if you do as Ahab did and intentionally stifle the word of God, then God will see you as his enemy.  If you set up false prophets and charge them with muffling God’s voice and replacing it with human pronouncements, then the Lord will be against you.  God will decree disaster for you but, crucially, he will do everything he can to warn you of this.  He will send Micaiah’s to challenge you and lure you towards repentance.  God is great and he will not be mocked or ignored.  But he also won’t pass up a chance to show us mercy, we need to be alert to the rebukes of our Micaiahs.

1 Corinthians 15:1-34

This passage has more zing than a whole tanker full of orangeade.  And it could put more fizz in your soul than 20,000 soda pops.  Its nub - the source of its tanginess - is the arresting idea of Jesus as first-fruits.  First-fruits by definition carry a promise.  They promise that more of the same is coming.  One has been raised from the dead, not as an exception, not as a freak event, but as a sign of exactly what is going to happen to all the others who carry His name.  We also will be raised and, as it were, eat broiled fish for breakfast on the beach.  This is the defining hope of our faith.  Not just that we are forgiven, not just that we live in relationship with God, but that we will journey right through death and out the other side into a richer and fuller and purer way of being alive.  Who cares what we get now.  Who cares if we die every day.  We are not to be pitied, we are not to be depressed - for our greatest days are yet to come.  Our finest hour is on its way.  We know it, and we can be utterly convinced of it, because Jesus has shown us the way.  We are following him out of the empty tomb and into the kingdom of his God.  And there perhaps is the most shocking thing of all in this passage.  There, perhaps, is the bit where the fuzz surges even through our nose - when we realise that we, as fruit, are to be a rich source of delight for our God.  That we, as fruit, are being looked forward to by Him.  He’s still enjoying the first fruit - as Jesus sits on the throne to his right - but he just can’t wait to be all in all.

Psalm 102:1-11

“I forget to eat my food”.  What??  Now that is one bit of the bible I just cannot relate to.