Looking back

When things become difficult, it's always tempting to look back to the "good old days".

Sometimes, like Lot's wife, we look back in regret. We compare the genuinely good things we've lost - the relationships, the comforts, the circumstances - with what we have now. It's easy then to become bitter, or to live mentally and emotionally in the past instead of the present. Unwilling to let go of what has gone, we resist moving forwards into the future. It's as if we become rigid and immobilised, a "pillar of salt".

At other times we become nostalgic for a past that looks far better in hindsight than it really was at the time. Out in the desert and feeling hungry, the people of Israel forgot the hardships they had endured as slaves in Egypt. They began to grumble and longed for the supposedly good things they had left behind - trivial things like leeks and onions.

Regret and nostalgia are seldom helpful. They prevent us from dealing with the reality in which we now live, and keep us from having hope for the future. Neither Lot's wife nor the people of Israel benefited from their backward-looking attitude. It only left them doubting God's faithfulness.

Yet the Bible does tell us to "remember". We're told to remember what God has done and the way that he has provided for us in the past. But rather than mourning for what we have lost, we are called to be thankful for the blessings we have received.  Remembering God's goodness to us in the past is a means of reminding us to live in hope that he will continue to provide what we need in the future.

We're also told to remember the way that God has been with us through difficult times. Instead of becoming nostalgic, we can live in the reality of the present, knowing that the same God is still with us now and will continue to be with us forever. Remembering will give us the strength to endure.

Jesus, are you the one?

Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”
And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”  Luke 7:2-6 (English Standard Version)

John the Baptist
 by Leonardo da Vinci

John the Baptist had staked his whole life on obeying God's call to be the forerunner, the herald, of the Messiah. He'd never shirked speaking the truth as God revealed it to him, whether to the despised local soldiers and tax collectors, or to the respectable and respected Pharisees, or to the powerful King Herod. He'd pointed repeatedly to Jesus as the coming Messiah, and humbly acknowledged his own inferior status. Now he sat in a dark, stinking cell in Herod's prison. It was unlikely that he'd ever leave that cell alive.

He could have followed his father into the temple service, an honorable and respectable occupation, with the opportunity to marry and have a family. Instead he'd gone off into the desert, living rough with only his disciples for company. While not making any claim himself that he was the expected Elijah, sent to call the people to repentance, he'd lived with the same fierce determination that Elijah had to do God's will and turn God's people back to him. He was a prophet like the prophets of old.

John the Baptist
by Guido Reni

Not long before his arrest, he'd met Jesus by the banks of the Jordan and recognised him as the one he'd been telling people about. Jesus had come to him and asked to be baptised. It must have been an awe-inspiring experience for John. What made him so certain, at that moment, that Jesus was the messiah? Did he receive some prompt from God? (John 1:32) He certainly appeared to be in no doubt that all that he had predicted about the one who was to come was fulfilled in this man Jesus.

Yet now, in the prison cell, he seems to have had a crisis of belief. He's heard rumours and reports about what Jesus is doing, but they don't seem to encourage him. He sends his disciples to Jesus to ask him "Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?"

Does the Old Testament demean women? (Reading the Old Testament part 7)

"The Old Testament is fundamentally a blokes' book, written by men, about men, and for men. Women are seldom mentioned, and when they are, it is usually as the property, whores or victims of men. Modern women will find little encouragement in reading such a chauvinistic, misogynist text."

Or so the commonly held theory goes. And let's face it, it's not an entirely untrue assessment of the Old Testament. As far as anyone can be sure, none of the books of the Old Testament were written by women. The society described (or should we say 'societies' since the Old Testament covers a period of over a thousand years) is decidedly patriarchal. The laws given in the books of the Pentateuch sometimes seem to treat women as second class citizens. The focus is frequently on political struggles, battles, wars, and rapine. Why would any woman want to read it?

Not-so-simple questions about the Old Testament (Reading the Old Testament part 6)

Asking “who, what, when” questions can be very helpful in understanding the Old Testament. But what about the “difficult” passages – the ones you hope your unbelieving friends won’t read (but they inevitably do, and then want you to explain why you would want them to read such a barbaric, sexist, racist book.) I’m thinking of texts such as Deuteronomy 20:10-18, Numbers 5:11-31, Judges 19, etc

The usual response to such questions is to attempt to explain away the difficulties those passages pose by appealing to cultural differences, poor translation of the text and/or the overwhelming sovereignty of God. Although many commentators frustratingly gloss over the difficulties, there are lots of books on the market that valiantly tackle them.

Some explanations are helpful. Others border on being rationalisations, or seem barely more acceptable than the passages they seek to explain. Many are just as culturally bound to the author’s time as the original texts were to theirs.

I’d like to suggest a different approach, one that doesn’t attempt to squeeze the Old Testament into our own comfort zone.

First, we need to recognise that there is nothing new about finding parts of the Old Testament objectionable. The Gnostic Bishop Marcion in the second century was so appalled by the Old Testament that he produced his own version of the Bible which excluded it (along with large chunks of the New Testament.) He was condemned as a heretic for his views, but he still had an audience.

Augustine of Hippo, who lived in the 4th century, was brought up in a Christian family. But as a young adult he dismissed the Old Testament as crude and barbaric compared to the writings of people like Cicero and the Manicheans. He later became one of the greatest theologians, and came to terms with the Old Testament. So Christianity hasn’t fallen apart because of these difficult passages, despite generations of struggling with them.

Second, we need to recognise that the Bible often leaves us to draw our own conclusions about the “rightness or wrongness” of a story. The fact that something happens in the Bible without comment doesn’t mean that it is therefore approved as God’s will. It could just as well be an example of human depravity. Wisdom is required.

Third, and more importantly, we have to deal with Jesus’ attitude towards the Old Testament. Most of our ‘modern’ objections to the apparent sexism, racism etc of the Old Testament are actually based on Jesus’ own teaching about loving our enemies, and Jesus’ example of treating all people with compassion and respect for their dignity. It would be ironic if we rejected the Old Testament while using the teaching of the one who inspired its writers and who appealed to it so often.

I'm not suggesting that Jesus  openly commended the passages we find so difficult. He didn't quote them or even allude to them as far as I'm aware. He sometimes added his own teaching to the words of scripture: “You have heard it said…but I say to you…”

But nowhere did he condemn the scriptures (the Old Testament of our Bible), though he often condemned its misuse (Matthew 23:4). He said that he had not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. (Matthew 5:17) He told his disciples that the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms spoke about him (Luke 24:41). We don’t have a mandate from Jesus to dump the Old Testament.

To be honest, I don’t know what to make of this in terms of how we should read the 'difficult' texts. But it says to me that if Jesus could live with the Old Testament as it was written, not as we’d like it to be, we should also be willing to live with it, even if we can’t explain everything in it. Jesus lived with the brutality and sexism and discrimination of the world around him, not accepting it, but not running from it or destroying it. He offered the world a new way to live, then died to redeem that world. Is there perhaps a sense in which Jesus also ‘redeemed’ the Old Testament?

We are people of the New Testament. We live by Christ’s standards and understand the world through his teachings and those of his disciples. More importantly we have the Spirit of Christ within us, who strives to show us the mind of Christ. It’s easy to throw up our hands and say “this is too much, I can’t stomach this” when we come across something unpalatable in the Old Testament. (I know, I've done it often.) Perhaps where we struggle with the text we should simply bring it to him and be content to wait for understanding. Then let's go on reading.

This post is part 6 of a series on reading the Old Testament:

Reading the Old Testament part 7 - Is the Old Testament misogynistic?
Reading the Old Testament part 6 - Not-so-simple questions about the Old Testament
Reading the Old Testament part 5 - A simple set of questions to use when reading the Old Testament 
Reading the Old Testament part 4 - The Old Testament wasn't written in a day
Reading the Old Testament part 3 - Remember the Old Testament is old
Reading the Old Testament part 2 - Getting an overview
Reading the Old Testament part 1 - Know your history

A simple set of questions to use when reading the Old Testament (Reading the Old Testament part 5)

The temptation when reading the Bible is to jump straight into the application and ask "What does this mean for me today?" But reading the text this way you are likely to miss a great deal that might have been helpful, not just today, but in the future. Part of the purpose of reading the Bible should be to absorb more and more of the richness of it's message so that it becomes part of your life and your understanding. Jumping to the immediate application too soon can leave you vulnerable to making false assumptions and being misled by words taken out of context.

To read without expecting any application to your own life would, of course, be little more than an academic exercise. We should read asking and expecting the Holy Spirit to show us what the text has to say to us personally. Many Christians have had the experience of reading a passage and one or two verses immediately seem to have great significance for their own situation. It's as if God has highlighted them. But generally we should expect the benefit of reading scripture to come from a regular, intelligent reading of the text and an understanding what the authors were saying, followed by obedience to it's truth. 

Whether you're reading a short passage of scripture or a whole book, it's helpful to have a framework for approaching the text. Here's a simple set of questions that can help in understanding what you're reading. You shouldn't need more than the notes in a study Bible or a single-volume Bible handbook to answer them. Often the text itself will provide the answers.

WHO - who wrote the text? Sometimes there's a lot of debate about this, and it's not worth getting side tracked by the arguments (unless perhaps you're a theology student doing an assignment.) But if it's clear who wrote it, that may provide a clue to the author's view point. We'd expect King David, composing psalms in Israel's heyday, to have a different point of view than Ezra the prophet writing after the exile, for instance.

WHEN - when was it written? A related question. Again there is often a lot of debate, but where it's obvious, we need to take this into account in understanding what's being said. Don't, for example, read New Testament ideas into an Old Testament text without first getting to grips with what the text meant at the time it was written. Once you have grappled with the original meaning, there will undoubtedly be New Testament themes to explore, and a grasp of the original meaning will often help to expand and enrich these. 

WHERE - where does the passage fit into the book, where does the book fit into the Bible as a whole? In other words, what is its context? Reading a whole book (if time allows) before looking at a particular passage is often very helpful in keeping the overall context clear.

WHICH - which genre is it?  Poetry, narrative, prophecy, law, teaching? What type of writing, in other words. This will often affect how we are to understand it. 

HOW - how is the text written? Are there any patterns in the structure, or repeated words or phrases? These might provide a clue to what is important. Is there an introduction somewhere earlier that tells you what the text is about? 

WHY - why was the author writing? What is the purpose of the passage or book? Is it addressed to a particular person or group of people? Why did he write what he wrote in this particular way?

WHAT - what does the text say? Try not to bring in what you've heard or read in the past, or what the commentaries say, until you've read the text several times. If there are verses that are difficult to understand, work on getting a sense of the meaning of the whole, then ask yourself "what could they mean, in the context of what I'm reading? And what couldn't they mean?" 

Once you've answered these questions, then it's time to look at how the text relates to what you know of the rest of Old Testament scripture, and the New Testament. Only then ask how it applies in your own life.

This post is part 5 of a series on reading the Old Testament:

Reading the Old Testament part 7 - Is the Old Testament misogynistic?
Reading the Old Testament part 6 - Not-so-simple questions about the Old Testament
Reading the Old Testament part 5 - A simple set of questions to use when reading the Old Testament 
Reading the Old Testament part 4 - The Old Testament wasn't written in a day
Reading the Old Testament part 3 - Remember the Old Testament is old
Reading the Old Testament part 2 - Getting an overview
Reading the Old Testament part 1 - Know your history

Reading the Old Testament - 4. The Old Testament wasn't written in a day

Unlike the books of the New Testament which were all written within 100 years of Jesus’ resurrection, the books of the Old Testament were written over many hundreds of years. This has a number of implications.

First, most of the human authors of the Old Testament books didn’t know each other. They didn’t collude together or work to a set agenda. They didn’t set out to write “The Old Testament”. It was only after the books were collected together, quite late in Jewish history, that the Old Testament came into being.

Second, each wrote for a particular group of people in a particular situation at a particular time. So although there is an amazing underlying unity to the Old Testament books that results from God’s faithfulness and purposes, each book has its own focus, its own style. At times this results in what may seem almost contradictory attitudes and ideas. For instance, the histories provided by the authors of the books of Kings and of Chronicles are not identical in detail or emphasis.

Third, the culture and faith of Israel changed over time and this is reflected in the Old Testament texts. The people who left Egypt and worshipped in a tent were very different people to those who were worshipping in the temple in Solomon’s reign, although obviously human nature being what it is, they shared some common longings and failings. The people who returned from exile had different experiences, different hopes and consequently different beliefs and practices to those who had gone into exile. Israel’s faith waxed and waned and struggled and matured over time. This is reflected in the text.

Fourthly, the later texts often make reference to earlier texts. So, for instance, Jeremiah assumes that his readers are aware of the contents of the book of Deuteronomy and alludes to it often. The Psalms refer back to Genesis, Exodus and other narratives. This can be helpful in working out when a book was written.

Fifth, there is a gradual unfolding of God’s plans. We read the texts as people who've jumped to the last chapter of the story and have read the ending. But the people in the story didn't always know where the plot was leading, so to speak. We shouldn't expect them to see things the way we do. They were faithful, mostly, to what had been revealed to them, but God revealed himself through the events of history as well as through personal revelation to the prophets.

This post is part 4 of a series on reading the Old Testament:

Reading the Old Testament part 7 - Is the Old Testament misogynistic?
Reading the Old Testament part 6 - Not-so-simple questions about the Old Testament
Reading the Old Testament part 5 - A simple set of questions to use when reading the Old Testament 
Reading the Old Testament part 4 - The Old Testament wasn't written in a day
Reading the Old Testament part 3 - Remember the Old Testament is old
Reading the Old Testament part 2 - Getting an overview
Reading the Old Testament part 1 - Know your history

Reading the Old Testament - 3. Remember the Old Testament is old

The Old Testament was written a long time ago. That's stating the obvious, but we don't always remember the obvious. We come to the text expecting it to be easy to read and immediately relevant to our daily lives. Why is that? Perhaps it's because we think of it as the 'living word of God' True, God is always up to date. He's as familiar with the Internet as he is with camels and the pyramids. The truth of his word is always new and relevant. But the actual text of the Old Testament is old - very old.

The last book in the Old Testament was written several hundred years before Jesus' birth. The earliest books were written at least eight centuries before Christ. (Much older dates are proposed by some scholars.) That would make them as old as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and hundreds of years older than books by Herodotus, Confucius, Plato and other 'ancient' authors. How many of us would pick up one of their books and expect to immediately understand everything we read?

Human nature hasn't changed. But human cultures change all the time. We see that happening in the Bible itself. Over the period covered by the Old Testament the culture of the Israelites and the people around them changed considerably. How much more have things changed since then.

We shouldn't expect the Old Testament to speak in a way that's in tune with our own culture, any more than we'd expect Homer's Iliad or Sophocles plays to be culturally familiar. That's not to say that the Old Testament has nothing relevant to say to us, but the cultural setting of any text needs to be remembered and wisdom used in understanding and applying it to our time. It's not 'cheating' to use Study Bible notes, commentaries, and other resources to help us understand the background and setting of what we're reading.

This post is part 3 of a series on reading the Old Testament:

Reading the Old Testament part 7 - Is the Old Testament misogynistic?
Reading the Old Testament part 6 - Not-so-simple questions about the Old Testament
Reading the Old Testament part 5 - A simple set of questions to use when reading the Old Testament 
Reading the Old Testament part 4 - The Old Testament wasn't written in a day
Reading the Old Testament part 3 - Remember the Old Testament is old
Reading the Old Testament part 2 - Getting an overview
Reading the Old Testament part 1 - Know your history

Reading the Old Testament – 2. Getting an overview

It’s important when reading the Old Testament (and the New Testament for that matter) to know the context of what you’re reading. The best way to do that is to read large chunks of it, before honing in on smaller portions. Ideally, everything you read in the Bible should be seen in the context of the surrounding chapters and verses, the book you are reading, the history of the period it describes, and that in which it was written, and the Bible as a whole.

If possible, read the whole of a book right through at least once before studying it verse by verse. Obviously that’s not usually possible with a book like Genesis or Isaiah, (although it makes a good project for a long journey or a weekend break.) But with shorter books it is well worth taking the time. Don’t get bogged down in genealogies and long lists of names and places, just skim over them on this first reading.

By reading a book right through you’ll get a sense of how the writer constructed the text, you’ll often start to see patterns in what is said, and you will have more sense of what the writer was trying to achieve. Then you can go back and look at the text in more detail.

Reading long sections of the Bible is like climbing to the top of a hill to get an overview of the landscape, before descending to follow the trail. It helps you to keep your bearings when you’re in rugged country and stops you losing sight of the forest for the trees.

This post is part 2 of a series on reading the Old Testament:

Reading the Old Testament part 7 - Is the Old Testament misogynistic?
Reading the Old Testament part 6 - Not-so-simple questions about the Old Testament
Reading the Old Testament part 5 - A simple set of questions to use when reading the Old Testament 
Reading the Old Testament part 4 - The Old Testament wasn't written in a day
Reading the Old Testament part 3 - Remember the Old Testament is old
Reading the Old Testament part 2 - Getting an overview
Reading the Old Testament part 1 - Know your history

Beyond a second exodus

(Monday musings)

Parallels between Jesus and Moses abound. Both of them spent time in the desert before they were called to lead God’s people. Both led their people in a great exodus from slavery – slavery in Egypt in Moses case, slavery to sin in Jesus case. Both took their people across a seemingly impassable barrier – the Sea of Reeds in Moses case, death itself in Jesus’ case. Both brought their people to the brink of a promised land, literally for Moses, more figuratively for Jesus. Both gave their people the teaching and commandments of God.

The New Testament writers make much of this parallel, although they are at pains to point out that Jesus is far greater than Moses. Jesus is not only the one who leads his people in exodus, but he himself is the lamb who was slain, whose blood marks out those who belong to him and spares them from the angel of death. In describing the meeting between Jesus, Moses and Elijah on the mount of transfiguration, Luke uses the Greek word for ‘exodus’ to describe Jesus’ death-defeating mission, although it is often translated as ‘departure’ in English. (Luke 9:31)

But in seeing the parallels between the salvation from sin and death won by Jesus and the exodus from slavery into the promised land led by Moses, we must not miss the vital differences. The exodus was the beginning of the fulfilment of the covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15) which was brought closer to completion at Sinai (Mt Horeb) in a new covenant between God and the people of Israel. But between the exodus and the books of the gospel lies another promised covenant.

We already see it foreshadowed at the end of Deuteronomy. In chapter 28 God speaks (through Moses) of the blessings associated with keeping faith with him and obeying his law, and the curses that will come about as a result of forsaking God and his commandments.

But at the beginning of chapter 30 God says “And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you…” (Deut 30:1, my italics). In other words, while the people are being offered a clear choice, God already forsees that they will not be able to keep faith. It’s not that the commandments themselves are hard to find, or obscure or difficult to understand (Deut 30.11-14). It’s the heart of the people that is the problem.

In Deuteronomy 30.6 comes a promise: “the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.” This promise is for a time after God brings the people back from exile (verse 5).

The same promise is picked up again by Jeremiah when writing to the exiles. “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Jer. 31:33). It’s repeated by Ezekiel, also writing at the time of the exile. “And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh” (Ez 11:19, see also Ez 36:26).

This promise of a new heart is fulfilled through the death and resurrection of Jesus and the sending of the Holy Spirit. If we miss its importance, we will think that we now stand in the same relationship to God as the people of Israel did as they prepared to cross the Jordan. We will think that we have been rescued from death and forgiven through the blood of the lamb, and now we are called to do our best to love God and to keep his commandments.

We have been rescued, and we are called to keep the commandments Jesus gave us. But as Paul describes in Romans 7, delighting in God’s law is one thing, doing it is another. Our spirits are willing, but our flesh, our human nature, is weak. If we are left to ourselves, we will fail, just as surely as the people of Israel did. Who will deliver us from this body of death? (Rom 7:24)

The answer is, God will, in Christ Jesus. “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Rom 8:3-4, my italics.)

It’s not just that what stood against us has been cancelled, and we are counted as righteous through Jesus death, (wonderful as that is). God has also provided a way in which “the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us.” He is making it possible for us to be righteous. How? Through “Christ in you”, through the Holy Spirit.

Conversion involves more than just changing our minds about the Lordship of Christ and accepting the forgiveness offered to us. It also means a change of heart. Our old lives are buried with Christ and in return we receive his life. To the extent that we allow him to live through us, we will find that the commandments are no longer a burden or a restriction on what we do. We will no longer even be focussed on what we should not do, but will find ourselves drawn into a more positive, proactive and loving way of life, the life of Christ.

Jesus is not simply the final fulfilment of the promises made to Abraham, but he fulfils all of the promises made in the Old Testament, including those of Jeremiah and Ezekiel.  The people who crossed the Jordan were the same people who left Egypt (albeit a generation older and wiser). But the disciples after Pentecost were not the same people who ate the last supper. The New Testament describes something radically new.

Reading the Old Testament - 1. Know your history

Before you begin reading the Old Testament it’s helpful to have an overview of Old Testament history.Then you’ll have some idea of where the text that you are reading fits into the overall story.

The books of the Old Testament are not arranged chronologically, although the narratives in the books from Genesis to Nehemiah do follow Jewish history fairly closely. Having a basic outline of the events of the Old Testament in mind when reading the Psalms, say, or the prophetic books, will help you to understand their context and purpose.

For instance, the book of Jeremiah opens by saying that Jeremiah was active in the time of Josiah, King of Judah, until the time when the people of Jerusalem were taken into exile. (Jer 1:1-3). You’ll understand a lot more of what Jeremiah had to say if you know something about this period.

This short video, written and narrated by Andrew Wilson, provides a useful and easy-to-remember summary of the whole Old Testament.



As the video makes clear, the narratives of the Old Testament are not just Jewish history but also theological history. That is, they are interested in what God was doing through the events as they happened, and what his purposes were.

The video also brings out the important connections between Old Testament history and the life of Jesus in the New Testament. Jesus is not only the ultimate end or goal of history, but all history points to him.

This post is part 1 of a series on reading the Old Testament:

Reading the Old Testament part 7 - Is the Old Testament misogynistic?
Reading the Old Testament part 6 - Not-so-simple questions about the Old Testament
Reading the Old Testament part 5 - A simple set of questions to use when reading the Old Testament 
Reading the Old Testament part 4 - The Old Testament wasn't written in a day
Reading the Old Testament part 3 - Remember the Old Testament is old
Reading the Old Testament part 2 - Getting an overview
Reading the Old Testament part 1 - Know your history

The illusions of the disillusioned

(Monday musings)

Something I learned rather late in life is that healing and wholeness never take place until we accept the truth, no matter how painful or sad the truth may be. I've seen it in my own life, as I've struggled with accepting my own failings and limitations and the limitations of people who are important to me. And I've seen it proved true many times in the lives of those I've counselled. Whether the healing required is emotional, physical or spiritual, the first bitter medicine that has to be applied is always the truth.

Most of us prefer to live with our illusions. We want to believe that our emotions are always appropriate, our motives are always pure, our bodies are strong and are going to last forever, no matter how we treat them.
We want to believe that athletes never use drugs, that politician from 'our' side of politics never lie, that religious leaders never feel or gratify lust, that businesses never sell us faulty or dangerous products.
When our illusions about ourselves are shattered, we feel sadness, shame and anxiety. It may take us a while to accept the truth, deal with reality, and start to change. When our illusions about others are destroyed, we feel betrayed and angry. We are 'dis-illusioned.'

At the moment we live in a very dis-illusioned society. Every day seems to bring more news of fallen heroes, guilty gods and godesses. The question is whether we will accept the truth, and recognise that our illusions were doing us more harm than good. Will we accept that we had put people on pedestals that couldn't support them. Or will we simply lash out at whoever comes within reach, until our anger subsides and we find some new illusions, some new idols.

It's not that we shouldn't have high expectations of those who are in positions of influence or power. Those who betray the trust society places in them should be called to account. But that needs to be done in a calm, legally-sanctioned manner, by the appropriate people. As a society we need to be careful that we are punishing the crimes or misdemeanors of which the offenders are guilty, not raging against their failure to be the perfect people we wanted them to be.

The rest of us need to ask what it was about ourselves that made us put such faith in mere human beings. Why did we cling to our illusions for so long? And how are we feeding the illusions of others who put us on pedestals and ask us to be their role models, their heroes, their ideals? We all need a regular dose of truth, but will we take it?

Working in the family business

Generally if someone says they are working for another person, we can assume one of two things. Either they are working with the expectation of some reward for their efforts, or they are working to pay off a debt owed to the other person.

If that's the case, what are we to make of phrases such as "he's working for God" or "she's doing God's work"? If we're working for God in the hope of some reward, we've missed the whole idea of grace. Everything we need has already been freely provided  in Christ. We don't need to earn it. And God owes us nothing. What can we possibly do that would make God indebted to us?

On the other hand, if we're working for God with the idea of "repaying our debts" to him, we've again misunderstood grace. We don't owe God anything except to love him and delight in what he has done for us. Good parents don't give gifts expecting their children to repay them in some way. Neither does God.

Christians who speak of 'working for God' tend to fall into the second error more often than the first. How many times have you heard "Since God has done so much for you, you should show your gratitude by working for his glory" or some similar sentiment? Sometimes it's a subtle call to dishonour the giver by offering payment for the gift.

I'm not suggesting that we should just take what God offers and go on our selfish way. Over and over we are called to labour and work with our best effort. But I think the New Testament emphasis is on 'working with God' rather than 'working for God.'

Having absorbed the amazing truth that through Christ we are now God's children, filled and empowered by his Spirit, and free of all debts except the debt to love, we are ready to co-operate with him in the work he is doing. We are sons and daughters working alongside our Father, learning from him to follow the family business. Where he succeeds, we share his success, but not vice versa.