Wednesday 16 November

Ezekiel 30:1-31:18

Can I be honest?  I’m growing slightly bored of these laments for the other nations.  Is that really naughty?  Is God disappointed with me because of that?  I don’t think so.  I suspect He was quite bored of having to give them.  Like a parent having to get up for the 10th time in the night to put the dummy back in their baby’s mouth, I think God was probably slightly frustrated that he had to keep doing this same thing over and over, and yet he would never do anything else.  God would never stop telling people that hope is found in Him.  God kept on warning people against trusting other nations - even though he had said the same thing hundreds of times before.  His commitment to us is that strong. So I don’t mind being bored when I read the bible.  I take it as an incredible reassurance - God is willing to bore himself for my good. His commitment to us really is that strong.  

Hebrews 13:1-25

We saw yesterday how, when it comes to lifestyle issues, the writer to the Hebrews runs a slightly different form of argument to Paul.  I love the diversity this exposes - Paul was the apostle to the gentiles and this writer (who I personally suspect might have been Apollos but who really cares) was focused on Messianic Jews.  They both wrote in different ways with different vocabulary and with differing emphases.  And yet among their diversity they had so much in common.  They were both mates with Timothy and were happy to use him as their representative.  They both celebrated love, they both called their churches to show hospitality, they both strongly warned against sexual immorality, they both advocated the formalised expression of church, they both fixed so much of their attention on the kingdom to come, they both waxed lyrical about Jesus.  And that is the beauty of the early church that we peer at through these apostolic writings - they were a huge range of people; rich and poor, educated and uneducated, Jewish and Roman and Turkish and Greek and Greek-Jewish and Roman-Greek and every blend under the sun.  They were male and female and young and old and new converts from paganism and life-long observant Jews who had found their Messiah.  And they all hung out together.  They all fixed eyes on Jesus together.  They all were united on an incredible range of issues.  Because they all knew that Jesus was the same yesterday, today and forever.  I love the diversity of SWLV.  And I love how much ground we have in common.  It is the beautiful mystery and witness of the church - we are vastly different and yet strangely the same.  That is the work of the grace of God.  That is the work of His peace.

Proverbs 27:23-28:6

“The righteous are as bold as a lion.”  I wish I was more righteous.  I’d like to be like a lion.