Sunday 7 August

1 Chronicles 24:1-26:19

There is a lot of gristle in this but I find it interesting that positions were chosen by lot.  Actually, I guess it is more correct to say that the final decision was made by lot as the criteria of being a Levite had already been used to screen the majority of Israel out.  Drawing lots was an ingenious way of making sure that bribery, bias and bigotry did not factor in the appointment of leaders.  It cut out all the human factors that might lend people to choose certain people over others and left the decision squarely in the hands of God.  We don’t cast lots these days.  Which makes it really tricky to ensure that we are truly following the desires of God and not just our own whim or pre-disposition.  But I don’t hanker for those ways of old.  It is in the leaning into the Spirit, it is in inclining our ears to his whispers that we find intimacy, and we all become better leaders than we would have been.

1 Corinthians 3:1-23

He certainly knows how to get you reaching into your wardrobe for a spare pair of underpants.  “The fire will test the quality of each man’s work”??  “His work will be shown for what it is”??!!  “As one escaping through the flames”??  Were these meant to be words of encouragement?  Were they meant to make us feel good about our faith?  Well I think they were actually meant to be words of rebuke to a people who had got all tied up with the appearance of things.  The Corinthians had got fixated on the status they thought they derived from whichever particular denomination they thought they were part of.  Some thought Paul-followers would receive the richer rewards at the end of the age, some thought it would be the Apollos-followers who would be most favoured.  Paul wanted to slap them back into a real recognition of things - we don’t get status in the kingdom or riches in heaven based on a particular teaching we follow or a particular flag we wave.  What matters is what we do for God, not who we listen to.  This wasn’t warning people that they had to work harder in order to keep their salvation - it was warning them that they should focus on bearing fruit for God, not getting one-up on their fellow believers.  There are a lot of flags waving in the church today.  Lots of conferences we can attend or teachings we can listen to.  God can probably be found at all of them.  But they are worse that useless if people do not leave them to go and build more and better for Jesus.  If we go to these things and come back more critical of church and more dispirited with the believers around us then we should just stop going.  We are of Christ.  We are part of his holy workmanship.  We were saved, and are called to work.  To co-labour with Christ in building the kingdom.  That is far more exciting that any piece of merchandise.  It is far more life-giving than any 3-day retreat.

Psalm 92:1-15

“They will still bear fruit in old age”.  There is little I find more exciting that an old fogie still doing great stuff for Jesus.