To preach or not to preach?

When is it an appropriate time to preach the gospel, and when is it not? Is it possible to be too forceful in our presentation of the gospel to people? Is there a time to not preach the gospel?

Even as I ask these questions I hear a myriad of responses from people who will likely not agree with me. I will try to answer some of these, but know that people will want to throw more at me.

The first and most important thing to remember is some of the ways that we are actually exhorted to preach the gospel. A couple of examples come to mind. Peter says that we should always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us. (1 Peter 3:15) That is be ready, but this does not mean, always preach. Another is when Paul tells Timothy to "be prepared in season and out of season". Again, this is about preparation and readiness, but does not mean to always preach regardless of the season. (2 Timothy 4:2).

Paul also teaches that people can not believe unless they have heard. (Romans 10:14) There is a strong implication here that the gospel must be taken to everyone. But are we actually required to take the gospel to every individual, or is our individualistic world view an obstruction to the gospel? Jesus teaches that the gospel must be preached to all nations. In fact there really is an approach to the gospel in scripture that is more centred on nations than on individuals. This could be unpacked quite extensively.

When Peter tells people to be ready to share the gospel, he tells them to do it with gentleness and respect. I would argue that this is something that often gets left out. In fact many Evangelicals often take the approach that their only job is to preach, often without any love at all, and that once they have "preached" their responsibility is done. Often such people are very quick to damn someone to hell if they do not listen to a forceful presentation.

Therefore, I want to challenge the evangelical presupposition that we should preach the gospel to every individual and propose that we should only do so when someone is ready to listen. (I am sure this sounds heretical to some, and at least highly controversial to others.) Let me present from scripture why I believe this to be so.

A key concept in understanding the preaching of the gospel is how Jesus did it. Jesus did not in fact preach to everyone. John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus. A key part of this was the baptism for the repentance of sins. A maxim is used to refer to how many received this baptism- all of Judea, minus the rebellious pharisees. So for starters, Jesus was not actually too interested in preaching to rebellious pharisees. Most of his conversations with the pharisees saw Jesus answering the pharisees attacks, but doing so in ways to cryptically throw them off their attacks. Other times when the masses followed Jesus, Jesus preached in such a way as to again be cryptic, telling parables so that people would be "ever hearing, but not understanding", so that only those who were really hungry would seek the truth. (Mark 4:12, Matthew 13:14, Acts 28:26, Isaiah 6:9). This is consistent with other things Jesus taught- "blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness" (Matthew 5:6)  and "whoever seeks the truth will find it" (Matthew 7:8).

A lot of that description of Jesus' method sounds a little reactive. That is, so many were flocking to him because of his miracles that he was forced to react in how he preached the truth. He wanted to make sure that he was actually preaching to those who wanted to listen and were not just seeking the fireworks show. A common argument might be, "well, we can't actually compare ourselves to Jesus, we need to do things differently."  But, Jesus was deliberate in actually telling us how to go about preaching the gospel. He was not only reactive, he was proactive.

Jesus did have a plan for spreading the gospel (i.e his message, the truth) to people. He actually outlines this plan very clearly twice in the gospels, in Matthew 10 and Luke 10. Jesus sent out his disciples two by two. Let's have a look at what he told them to do.
1) Jesus told the pairs (among the 72, not just 12, which included women who were among his closest followers) firstly to go into the harvest. (Luke 10:2) That is, the harvest was ready to be collected.* (More on this a bit later).
2) Jesus told them to take nothing with them. In a first century middle east context they could easily go from village to village. The commonality in a 21st century Siberian context is that we should approach a village or other context in need, depending on hospitality.
3) Jesus told his disciples to greet someone's home with "May the peace of God be on your home." If this was received, then it was a key indicator that this person was ready to listen.  If the host did not receive the peace of God, Jesus intended for his disciples to move on, that is not to persist with a person who was not ready or willing to listen.
4) When received, Jesus then wanted his disciples to (a) receive the hospitality offered to them (b) heal the sick and (c) preach the Kingdom of God.
5) When not received in an entire town or location, Jesus basically tells the disciples to move on and not waste their energy on stubborn people.

There is some context worth looking at in the above example. First century Jewish villages had all of God's word and law. They were in no ways naive about what they were rejecting if they chose to reject God's peace and kingdom. When going to an unreached context this needs to be approached a little differently, taking the time to patiently and contextually explain the truth. Unreached people however are not as big a stranger to God's law as we might think, and there is still a time for not preaching even in such an unreached context. Where Jesus told his disciples to shake the dust off their feet in a Jewish context, this could mean going away and praying and waiting to come back in the future in a different context.

Jesus' method is deliberate and proactive. He wants us as his disciples to seek out those who are ready to listen. A good way to refer to such a person is a "person of peace". This method is employed by Jesus many times in his ministry. Jesus seeking out the woman at the well in Samaria is a classic example. He found a specific person who was ready to listen, and through her the doors opened to an entire community where he stayed for a couple days teaching about the Kingdom of God. He actually does the same thing with the man named legion, who he heals from demon possession. That man opened the doors to an entire community when Jesus later returned there. If we are to be deliberate about following Jesus' proactive example, this is the best way to preach the gospel- find a person of peace who is ready to listen and reach an entire community through them. It could even be argued that it is counter productive to do otherwise. We end up spending so much time and energy convincing ones and twos and removing them from their community, where as God has a plan to transform entire communities and see rapid multiplication of the gospel.

The argument needs to come back to the idea of whether we are obligated to share the gospel with every person we meet. Firstly I would say that Jesus' name and truth should always be on our lips. We should not hide our light under a table, we should put it high on a stand for all to see. But, and this is a big BUT, we need to be ready in gentleness and respect to stop when people do not want to listen. This can be very hard for us to do at times. We tend to take it upon ourselves that if we do not give someone a full gospel presentation that they may never have another chance to hear and seem to think we could be personally cosigning them to hell. Surely if we had done more we could have prevented this! Or could we have? Or should we?

I will go on record as saying I am not a calvinist. I really do believe in free choice, given by God. I know my ideas seem inconsistent with this. Perhaps the biggest question we should ask is, who is better at preaching the truth, us or God? Let's have a look at where God does preach to people.

In Psalm 19 we learn:
The heavens proclaim the glory of God
The skies display his craftsmanship
Day after day they continue to speak
Night after night they make him known
There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard
Their message has gone throughout the earth
And their words to all the world

Those are some amazing facts! There is not a language where the voice of God's glory has not been heard. This message has gone to all the world! That is a little staggering to realise, if we think the responsibility is all ours. This means that all ethnicities, all people groups have already been hearing something from God. Our part as disciples is to be obedient, not to question God's methods. He tells us to preach the Kingdom of God, but there is a proactive way we should do this, and a way we should avoid.

Often in theology we reduce God's preaching to a patronising "general revelation". As if to say, "well God can only give some vague message to people himself, and it is up to us to fill in the gaps". Have a look further at the context of Psalm 19. The rest of the Psalm goes on to say what the heavens, the skies are preaching about. Verse 7 and 8 tell us that they are giving us the instructions and commands of the Lord. What? That doesn't make sense surely? Surely God went to great efforts to give us his law, and then to even greater efforts to come as Jesus, the Word made flesh. But Psalm 19 is telling us that God is even teaching us his instructions and commands through his glory being revealed in the skies. Again, our part is to play obedience and bring people to Jesus so they can be disciples and follow Jesus' commands closely. But still, we are not allowed to say that God doesn't do more than simply make people aware of his existence, he preaches so much more to them.

Of course the Romans scripture can not be ignored.
Ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities- his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. 
This verse (Romans 1:20) actually sounds remarkably similar to Psalm 19, that people can know God from what he has taught us in the sky. This also lines up with Genesis 1, day 4, that God created the stars to bring light on the earth. So we can see from scripture that people in all parts of the world should know something of who God is, something of his glory and even something of his instructions and commands. In fact Paul goes even further in chapter 2 (verses 14-15).
Even Gentiles, who do not have God's written law, show that they know his law when they instinctively obey it, even without having heard it. They demonstrate that God's law is written in their hearts, for their own conscience and thoughts accuse them or tell them they are doing right.
Really, this is quite a lot of scriptural evidence to let us know that God most definitely speaks to all peoples before we ever turn up on the scene.

What this all means is, if someone rejects the peace of God when we bring it, they are cognisant of their actions. This doesn't give us permission to communicate the gospel in a culturally insensitive manner (gentleness and respect = cultural sensitivity), but it does give us permission, in fact even requires us to pull back when people reject God.

We have to consider our actions. So often we can come in with a lot of pride and force and insist that people listen to our entire presentation. This approach is not loving. In fact it's not even wise, not what Jesus asks us to do. Jesus asks us to seek out people who are ready to listen, people who have noticed his glory in creation, people who have God's law in their hearts. When we are obedient to Jesus this way, doors will be opened wide into entire communities or people groups.

This should give us a lot of relief. God is in control. We should not be preaching to everyone the entire gospel presentation. We should be opening our mouths and speaking out God's glory, and when people show their curiosity we have a perfect opportunity to go further.
I can think of times in my own life when I believed that I had to push through and convince someone to listen to me. I can think of times here in Russia where other workers here have sat in taxis or trucks with me and pushed through, handed out tracts when the driver has indicated that they do not want to hear. I can even think of a time, when having told my believing brother that this was insensitive, it lead to a big argument and falling out, because he believed he had to preach the full gospel to everyone he met.

Be ready, be prepared, in season and out of season. Always speak the name of Jesus, do so in love with gentleness and respect. Seek out people of peace who are ready to listen. Remember that God has already been preaching to people. Remember that in obedience our job is to go into the harvest and collect the harvest* that God has already prepared. When people do not want to listen, don't push them. You are not letting them down if you don't give them a "full presentation". God is far better at preaching and revealing his glory to people than we are. Often we can get in the way of God getting through to a person. By our backing off, we give God the chance to keep speaking in his own way. Then when someone is ready our job is to be ready to give the reason for the hope that is within us and hopefully even collect a harvest!

How the spirits were born and rebelled

On the fourth day of creation, the Lord God created the sun, moon and stars. The sun to have authority over the day, the moon to have authority over the night and the stars to give light on the earth, to send God's messages.
After the Lord God had created the stars they began to dance and sing and worship him as he completed the rest of creation, the sea creatures, the birds, the animals, insects and then finally people. The people were made in God's image.
A little while later after God had finished his creation, one of the stars who was very beautiful said to himself, "I am very, very beautiful, all of the stars worship God, but if I was to sit higher than God, then they would worship me. After all I am very, very beautiful and they should worship me." This star, called the Son of the Morning was filled with pride in his heart, he set himself up against God, so the Lord God cast Son of the Morning Star out of heaven.
Son of the Morning fell down to earth and took on the form of a snake. The snake went to the garden that God had made for the man and the woman, the garden of Eden, in the east. There the snake tempted the woman named Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The woman listened to the snake's deception, she ate the fruit, and so did her husband Adam. The Lord God sent Adam and Eve out of the garden, so that they would not be trapped in evil for ever. The snake slithered away.
Later, after Cain had killed his brother Abel, Adam and Eve had more children. Some of these children decided to worship the Lord God and some did not. Many generations later there was a man named Enoch. Enoch worshiped the Lord God and walked closely with God. When Enoch was 365, God took him up in to heaven.
In the days of Enoch, Son of the Morning Star had another plan to try to destroy God's creation. The Star decided he wanted to take a daughter of man, to be his wife. This was something God had forbidden the stars to do. Their job was to send God's messages to earth and to worship the creator. Son of the Morning Star thought about his plan, he knew he would make God very angry. Instead of doing this by himself, he decided he would convince some other stars to do this with him.
Son of the Morning Star took on the form of a dragon. The dragon flew up to heaven to convince the stars of his plan. When he arrived, the Lord God sent his archangel Michael to war against the dragon. Michael, also a star won this war in heaven on behalf of God. But before the war was finished the dragon had convinced one third of the stars to carry out his evil plan with him. The dragon took his long tail and swept a third of the stars out of the sky. The dragon set out on his plan to torment the nations.
The stars fell down to earth. They took on the form of man this time. These rebellious stars, now looking like men took women for themselves as wives. They had children by these women. These children were known as the Nephilim, they became very powerful. These powerful Nephilim were giants, they were also the gods and legends of the nations around the world. The fallen stars taught the Nephilim magic, and in turn the Nephilim taught the people of earth magic and many other evil things. The people of earth became very, very evil. They were evil all of the time, and no longer worshiped God as their ancestors had.
The Lord God became very said that the earth had become such an evil place. He needed to put a stop to the terrible situation that had happened in his world.

References for this story:
Genesis chapters 1-6; Job 38; Isaiah 14; Revelation 12.

The genetic history and future of the human race: Africa the key to our salvation.

It sometimes takes me a long time to develop my seed thoughts.

Reading and writing (literacy) is approximately 5000-6000 years old. Civilisation is approximately 5000-6000 years old. There are many people (young earth subscribers) who are deeply influenced by their literal/ literate/ literacy based world view. They find it hard to believe in a world before reading and writing existed. They find it hard to believe in a world before civilisation existed. They find it hard to believe in a world before the Bible was written down on paper. They are therefore limited in their view of the world to come up with statements such as "the world is 6000 years old". I consider it no small coincidence that their calculation of the age of the world is the same period as that of civilisation and literacy. If we can expand our thinking beyond a world of civilisation and literacy then the possibilities of explaining history broaden greatly.

With that preface I would like the permission from you the reader to speak of dates much older than 6000 years ago. I hope this does not offend you. Just remember, I interpret every word of scripture as true, but I do this in an oral sense. That is I know that many of the stories were constructed orally. For example, when the Spirit of God hovered over the waters, I am happy and comfortable to know that the Spirit of God hovered over the hydrogen gases. Hydrogen, being the first and most basic element, is the element from which all other elements come. All stars are made of Hydrogen. "We are all made of stars" has some truth to it. So, since the word "waters" at the start of Genesis can be used to refer to Hydrogen (and still be true, correct) this then helps explain how oral stories must be understood. When the oral story of creation was first told, there was no such word for Hydrogen, so water was the best word to describe Hydrogen, even though the story tellers had no idea what Hydrogen actually was. And in fact the word Hydrogen comes from the Greek Hydro for water. The two words are closely related. Water is made up of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. In such a context it is easy to see how a day need not be 24 hours. I don't want to enter deeply into that debate, except to say that a literal  interpretation is not called for but an oral one is, especially since the story is many thousands of years older than writing itself.

I will now enter into the topic of the genetic origins of humanity. A while back we watched a documentary series from the BBC that spoke of the origins of humanity. There are still many questions in this field from a scientific perspective. It is true that the documentary series treated the ideas as fact instead of hypothesis, but there are still some interesting points to ponder.

My approximate take on the facts are as follows. Humanity itself is about 50 000 years old. Why? Scientifically it is postulated that speech is about 50 000 years old. Many linguists, psychologists and also philosophers argue that language creates identity and without language there is no identity. That makes a person who has no concept of language at all.... well... I don't believe such a person exists in the world, even Helen Keller had language.

At some point in our genetic past there is an important genetic dichotomy at play. Before getting to that I want to comment on the existence of "Mitochondrial Eve" a single human being from whom all modern humans are descended. Where ever in history this person is placed (up to 150 000 years ago) this is a very interesting fact. The existence of "Y Chromosome Adam" is also a very interesting fact. The fact that these two people are separated by millennia is unimportant when we consider the hypothesis that Noah could actually be the "Y Chromosome Adam". The stories of the Garden of Eden and Noah are likely separated by many thousands of years in true history.

Another interesting oral story has a genetic picture to highlight. The Y chromosome has a stick missing. From this stick comes another X chromosome. When God put Adam into a deep sleep he broke off a stick from Adam's one X chromosome and left behind a Y chromosome. From this chromosome stick he created Eve. That is, the "rib" in the Genesis story (the story of Gene-(tics)-is) actually a chromosome, not  a literal rib. This is because oral people from many thousands of years ago did not have a word for "chromosome" but only understood such words as bones and ribs, as they understood the story that God gave them. The word "rib" in the Genesis story is an oral representation of the scientific "chromosome". This means the word "rib" is no less true, but a literal rendering of the word "rib" is actually incorrect. An oral rendering is required.

The genetic dichotomy I was referring to earlier? Some where in the genetic history of humanity there is a dichotomy between the people living in Africa and the people living elsewhere in the world. I personally think the location of Eden was either in Eastern Africa (possibly Ethiopia) or even off the coast into the now Indian Ocean. So this makes it easy to consider the "out of Africa" hypothesis. Everyone in the human race who is not African is descended from a small genetic pool. All of the people who are African are from a much more diverse set of genetic pools. I am satisfied that this is a genetic fact. DNA research has shown this theory to be sound. It in no way threatens the integrity of scripture what so ever. But it of course does threaten the (young earth) narrow approach.

This brings me to a very interesting set of new hypotheses. Since we (non-Africans) are genetically less diverse than Africans, it follows that marriage between an African and non-African will always produce a stronger genetic outcome than marriage between two non-Africans. That is, if every non-African married an African from now on, then their offspring would have much stronger immune systems. My hypothesis is that this increased immunity would go a long way to combatting disease in the world. Therefore, Africa is a key to medical security and the future integrity of the human race. We need Africa. Africa needs us.

A spiritual hypothesis can also be drawn from this. If Africa is the hope for the world on a genetic level, then wiping out Africa would be very dangerous for the world. Yet it seems that Africa is always under the most attack in the world. I personally think that the devil would like nothing more than to wipe out Africa, because by doing so there is a much better chance of wiping out the entire human race. So the intensity of the spiritual battle is centred on Africa. There are always more wars, famines and troubles in Africa than anywhere else in the world. The spiritual battles between the growth of the Body of Christ in Africa and the intensity of Black Magic is always at its strongest in Africa. The metaphorical (sometimes spilling over into literal battles) battle between the advance of Islam and the advance of Christianity in Africa is also more intense there than anywhere else in the world.

Africa is where it is at. Africa is key to the world's future. The twenty first century belongs to China and to a lesser extent India, on an economic level. But I think there will come a day when Africa will develop too. This may be a century away still. Perhaps the twenty second century will be the century of Africa in the world.

Hypotheses are fun. An oral understanding of the world opens up our thinking to many new hypotheses.

And so my seed thoughts continue to develop.

When was the world created?

I have always been afraid to post about this topic on my blog, because I am afraid of getting in trouble with a lot of Christians I know for believing something different to them. It's not a major doctrinal point in my opinion. But recently I noticed a fellow blogger post on it, so I got some courage up. He's even quite a conservative evangelical (the kind I am afraid of getting in trouble with), so what the heck?

Here's what I had to post on his blog. I wonder if anyone will bother to respond to my thoughts, I'd love to start a discussion on it:

I am tired of people saying that they read Geneis "literally". It is not a literal text, it is in an oral text. As such it is full of oral devices and ancient oral world view. For us to force our literal world view upon an oral text is very bad analysis of a text indeed.
We can be guaranteed that when the stories of creation were composed the date of creation was not in the slightest bit part of the topic.

In our oral telling of these stories to some Sakha people here in Siberia, we actually started with the creation story of the garden, Adam and Eve. We then moved on to the next story in the garden, when they disobeyed and ate the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. Later we went back to the creation song in Genesis 1, where "everything God made was good." It was quite a surprise to our friends that everything was good, as the world we live in is not good at all. They found the second two stories easier to understand.

By the time we got round to the creation song about everything being good, they were ready to interact with this, as the other two stories had made sense to them. This is certainly what Genesis 1 is all about, contrasting the good and perfect Creator God from all the evil gods in the world around. (Not about when the universe was created.)

(Qualifier, "oral" still means true, just a different filter, a different part of the brain, a different way of viewing and describing the world.)

A subtle error: idolatry in the camp of Protestants?

[Before I give my opinion on the topic of Evangelicalism vs Charismatism, I should give full disclosure of myself. (Full disclosure allows people to filter any biases that I have.) I invite you to read the full disclosure before or after my essay. It can be found at the end.]

I first joined an organisation with strong evangelical roots in 2000. I was a member of the Church of Christ at the time. Later in 2004 my wife joined with me, and we were evangelical Anglicans at the time.

The statement of faith of this particular organisation does something that many other evangelical bodies do. It lists its first item as:

WE BELIEVE that the Holy Scriptures, consisting of Old and New Testaments, were originally given by God, divinely inspired, without error, infallible, and are entirely trustworthy and the supreme authority in all matters of faith and practice.

I have no problems with the wording of this item as such, but I do have a problem with it coming before the Triune God in the statement of faith. This distinction is subtle, but very important.

Evangelicalism was born in the age of the modernist enlightenment. In the context of atheists arguing with logic that God could not possibly exist, protestants began to formulate their logical arguments of response. Christianity descended to these quarters, from something of mystery (God's ways and thoughts are not our ways; the Spirit blows where it pleases (John 3); no mind has conceived of the mysteries of the gospel (1 Corinthians 2)... etc), to logical systematic theology, ending up with such simple notions of "four spiritual laws" and the sinner's prayer.

Modern evangelicalism sought to explain all matters of faith. It sought to build a logical framework that could not be disputed. Step by step, the bible was dissected into easily understood and irrefutable logic. A point was reached where modern evangelicals could easily explain all things about God, as they understood the Bible in entirety. There was no room left for the Spirit to blow where he pleases. In modern evangelicalism the Spirit is only allowed to blow according to the strict formulas that are logically understood by a mathematical deduction of theology. In short, God was caught in a box, he had been captured, never again to be released.

I have often wondered why Evangelicals are so afraid of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps it is because rampant pentecostalism has exploited the Holy Spirit for its own materialistic gains, and hyper abusive spirituality. Or perhaps that is just an excuse on the part of evangelicals. Perhaps they are afraid of the Holy Spirit, because they don't want God to escape from the box, where he can easily be controlled. Evangelicals often don't seem to believe in the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, even though this is frequently evident in Acts. They claim that conversion (at the point of the sinner's prayer) brings the Holy Spirit. Even in Acts there were believers who had not yet received the Holy Spirit, such as Apollos. (See my earlier post.)

I have had my times to examine how the evangelical culture of my organisation operates. This has most often been in the context of international conferences. The first of these times was in Europe in 2007. A speaker attended the conference to educate people living in Europe on how to relate to post modernism. People were asking questions such as "how can we communicate the gospel to these post modernists", while I just sat there and thought "hello, I'm sitting right here, I am already a post modern Christian." At the end of the question and comment time a brave man stood up and said something that shocked the whole room at the conference. He said, "we need to go the God beyond the scriptures."  There was a collective gasp across the room. How dare he question the Evangelical God contained within scripture? (Sarcastic emphasis, my own.)  In reality this man was not for a moment saying that he did not believe scripture, he was just saying that God is bigger than scripture, and that God still has freedom to move outside of scripture. Evidently he had struck an evangelical sacred cow.

I sat there cheering this man along as he spoke. Later he was made to apologise before the conference for his errant statements. I participated in a discussion with him and some other leaders of the organisation after the session ended. The argument was made that we can only know who God is from scripture. I disagreed. I argued that we can know God in the following ways:

 1) Through the witness of God in creation.

For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities- his eternal power and divine nature- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. (The Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans.)

I.e- not only is it possible to believe in God from looking at creation, it is also possible to recognise his eternal power and divine nature, and worship him accordingly. I would argue that this is the first witness that every human being receives, not scripture. As the Christian Astronomer Hugh Ross says "God's book of creation, and God's book of scripture will never disagree with one another."  But it is very important to acknowledge that God has another "book" apart from the scriptures.

In the ensuing discussion I threw forth the question- "which Bible did Abraham read when he came to faith?"  This is also a very important question. God taught Abraham how to have faith, and so forth he taught his descendants (of which we are a part).

I would argue that Abraham had God's book of creation, as well as the oral stories that make up the first 11 chapters of Genesis- the prehistory of the the Bible. This was indeed a lot. In fact we see from Genesis that Melchizidek had this same faith and so did Job who lived in the era of the patriarchs. But most of all Abraham had an active living relationship with the Living God. They related back and forth. Dare I say that he even had a relationship with the Holy Spirit.

2) Through the witness of the saints. This may be a bit scary for some evangelicals. It may even sound a bit Catholic or Orthodox. But think about it for a moment. Early believers in the Old Testament all talked about their belief in "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."  It was the witness of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, by which they believed, not by a huge body of scripture that we have today. Think about how you came to faith yourself. My guess is that you received the testimony of another believer. This testimony was then confirmed by the Holy Spirit speaking to you, prompting you and then convicting you of sin and righteousness. I know that I came to faith this way myself. It was only much later that I began to understand about the Bible, and how it is useful for teaching and discipleship (2 Timothy). Even Paul, in the context of saying that Christ's death and resurrection are spoken of in the scriptures (he is referring to Old Testament prophecies) goes on to list the testimony of 500 witnesses who saw the risen Christ. (1 Corinthians 15). This witness of the 500 is paramount in establishing his claim for the validity of the entire Christian faith. "Without the resurrection of Christ, we are all fools." So Paul argues that we can be sure that Christ rose because of the witness of the saints. And to add a little fuel to the fire the writer to the Hebrews lists the Heroes of the faith who are our "cloud of witnesses" in chapters 11 and 12.

3) The witness of scripture. In reality, scripture becomes a good way to underline and confirm the witness of creation and the witness of the saints. Also, scripture is a collection full of the testimony of the saints, recorded for all time. Just as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, words spoken without love are as a clashing cymbal; in the same way words on a page do not impact the lives of others without the embodiment of the love of Christ. The words of scripture are as often used to falsely condemn others as they are to point to Jesus' love. This does not mean the words of scripture are somehow bad, it just means that when people do not act in love they have a way of twisting the words of scripture to their own ends. Jesus exhorts us that the world would know that we are his disciples by our love for one another. So even when we use the words of scripture, the testimony of the saints remains imperative.

When it comes to the Bible and God, which came first? It is nonsense to say that we believe in God because the Bible tells us so. This is circular reasoning (and even according to an evangelical framework of logic, must fail the test). The Bible is God's word spoken to us, for sure, but it is like a photo negative that needs to have light come through it for people to see it. The words of scripture are understood under the illumination of the Holy Spirit. We believe in God because of his witness to us through his creation. Later we believe in the Bible because it came to us from God, via the testimony of his saints through the ages. The Bible is a sure and reliable testimony because of the the first two witnesses. God spoke through the prophets. The prophets wrote the words on to the page. Through out the ages, and even today God continues to work through the Holy Spirit and though people. I believe in the Bible because it comes from God. I don't believe in God because it comes from the Bible.

These ideas become controversial in evangelical circles. An evangelical is usually comfortable with the words on the page, but becomes uncomfortable when asked to trust the Holy Spirit while closing the book. But God will never contradict himself, so it is possible for the evangelical to come back to scripture at a later time and find out that the things the Holy Spirit has said remain in the same vain. But we need to learn to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said "my sheep know my voice." Sometimes we don't have time to open up the book, and we need to respond to the voice of the Holy Spirit immediately in our lives.

Another moment at an international conference came recently. Sadly the speaker said something classically evangelical, and classically in error. He wanted to encourage evangelicals to seek the Holy Spirit more. But as his talk unfolded, this was not what he did. He pulled out two scriptures as his proof texts, and then put them through an evangelical filter:

Colossians 3:15-16  Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.

Ephesians 5:18-19 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord.

The speaker then went on to explain that these two scriptures are so similar that they are essentially the same, and that therefore "the word of Christ" (which he explained is the Word of God; which is the Bible) fills us with the Holy Spirit in our lives. He used the texts to explain to us that reading the Bible more would fill us with the Holy Spirit. He went on to subtly twist these words and make people feel guilty for not having good enough "quiet times". Following his talk there were people in tears, repenting for not reading their Bibles enough. He had successfully condemned them through proof texting an evangelical maxim, that God can only be known through the Bible, and that if you are not reading it (as much as him) then you are not filled with the Holy Spirit. In my opinion his talk was nothing short of spiritual abuse. Pentecostals have been (rightly) accused of spiritual abuse. They have used their position of "touch not the Lord's anointed" to say what ever they please and exert power over people. But this was the evangelical equivalent of spiritual abuse. This man, because he was a "learned bible scholar" and speaking from the pulpit was not to be questioned. His interpretation of the Bible was the "correct" one, and with it he wielded great power. I was saddened and shocked. He had spent an entire sermon, with other proof texts too, telling people that the Bible is essentially the Holy Spirit. This fits into the evangelical trinity: Father, Son and Holy Book.

It is a subtle but grave error that evangelicals can often make. The Bible contains the words of God given to us via his saints. (Yes they are all true- I am not detracting from that for one moment.) But when the Holy Spirit is pushed aside and replaced by a book, this is nothing short of idolatry. This may be hard for people to see. But ask anyone- who is greater, God or the Bible?- the answer must surely be God.

Allow me to offer a different interpretation of the scriptures given. (Admittedly I also have my biases, but I surely hope that I am allowing the scriptures to speak instead of forcing them as my own proof texts.) At the time that Paul wrote his letters, the "scriptures" were what we now know as the Old Testament. When he exhorted believers to let the "word of Christ" dwell richly in them, what could he have meant? I would argue that he was not referring to words on the page. Many of those early believers would not have had words on the page. They would have had stories yes. But until Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote them down, they did not have access to many of those particular words of Christ. But they were not lost. They had the Holy Spirit! In fact, this was the whole point. Jesus told the disciples not to worry when he was leaving, because he would send the Holy Spirit to them who would lead them into all truth. Was this just for the disciples so they could then later write the stories down? No! It was for all believers, the Holy Spirit was abundantly made available to all flesh at Pentecost in Acts 2.

So this scripture is referring to the believers all getting together as priests, all sharing a word of wisdom with one another, all keeping one another accountable, all bringing songs to worship the King, all bringing words of prophecy to glorify the Lord and encourage one another. When they all did this together it brought a full, wholistic and broad body contextual representation of the body of Christ, with Jesus as their head. This was the actual Word of Christ. Just as John teaches us that Jesus is the Word made flesh, the full participation of all priests in the royal priesthood of all believers brings about the Word of Christ, Jesus incarnate, this time not as flesh walking but as the Spirit blowing amongst us. The Holy Spirit is the Word!  The Bible is not the Holy Spirit. It is all a question of priority and sequence.

To remove any confusion, it comes down to our definition of the phrase "the word of God."  The Word of God is a person. John teaches us this. The Word of God is not the  Bible. The Bible is the words of God, but not The Word, that must be reserved for Jesus and the Holy Spirit.


DISCLOSURE:

I was raised in the Lutheran church. The Lutheran church is a liturgical church that recites the Nicene creed every Sunday. One of the things I like about the Nicene creed is that it declares faith in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, while only mentioning briefly the scriptures in the context of Jesus raising from the dead. It also mentions that the Holy Spirit spoke through the prophets (a reference to the scriptures). But the scriptures are never placed in priority before the Triune God.

My family flirted with charismatism and pentecostalism when I was a child. There was a charismatic renewal movement in the Lutheran church. This mostly happened outside of Sunday services in home groups and at retreat style camps. Over the years it did creep into some congregations. This happened more successfully in South Australia and Queensland. In Victoria the Lutheran church carried out a campaign against the charismatic renewal. Over a period of about 20 years they successfully "assassinated" all sources of what they believed to be heresy. This resulted in a lot of people being hurt and abused, including my parents. I left the Lutheran church at the age of 16 in this environment.

My teenage years included membership in a more rampant form of pentecostalism under the banner of the Assembly of God. I was actively involved in the youth group and Sunday evening services. It was in this time that I experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit and took on the concept of boldness for Jesus in my faith. In those years I erred on the side of boldness but lacked gentleness and respect. Over the years I learnt the importance of gentleness and respect for someone, when sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. Never in my experience though have I rejected my pentecostal experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It is still very much a part of who I am. 

For some years I did subscribe to the notions of the prosperity gospel that are regularly preached in the pentecostal church, under the likes of Kenneth Copeland and many others. I now consider those doctrines to be in error.

In late teenage years I became involved with an independent charismatic church. It had a lot less hype than the Assembly of God. This church was on a devolving journey away from institutionalised religion. Over the years the pastor stopped calling himself a pastor, and simply became an elder, along with other elders in the fellowship. The building we met in evolved from hard chairs and rows, to couches and soft chairs in a circle. The style of worship evolved from one priest led to open participatory worship. People began reading books with titles such as "The Open Church".  As a fellowship we began relating to an itinerant Apostle.

I was eclectic in my worship experience. For all the years that I went to the devolving open fellowship, I also continued to associate with hard core pentecostals at a church my sister attended. In those years I also experienced the "laughter phenomenon" that came from the Holy Spirit via the Toronto Blessing. While such experiences have not been normative in my journey- they continue to line up with my relationship with the Holy Spirit as a person who is gentle and loving, yet also extraordinarily powerful.

In my early twenties I left behind both the hard core pentecostal circles and the open church circles, and landed in an extremely post modern embryonic emmergent church. It was called South Melbourne Restoration Community, and was a member of the Australian Churches of Christ (a protestant denomination- not the Boston movement). This fellowship was led by the now famous Alan Hirsch and his wife Debra Hirsch, along with other leaders who are no where near famous, but desired after the heart of God also. My six years in that context led me through a lot of post modern questioning that has been very helpful in my faith. It enabled me to find synergy in all of my previous Christian experiences.

I still look back fondly on my years in South Melbourne Restoration Community. I consider them to be formative, but not conclusive in who I am as a Christian. Alan Hirsch used to talk about "simplicity before complexity" and "simplicity after complexity."  We were all exhorted to wrestle with our faith, to go through the complexity and come out the other side into a deeper and purer simplicity. That is, a simplicity that is grounded in the Eternal God and an active relationship- having tested the truth, but not a naive simplicity that is founded in dogmatism- i.e accepting something as true just because other people say it is, and should never be argued with.

After my time in the post modern emmergent church, I moved to live in Saskatchewan, Canada, where I married my wife. At the time there were no such concepts in Saskatchewan. I sought out a Vineyard fellowship, which advertise themselves as holding the tension of the "radical middle." The Vineyard of course are far from perfect, still being an institutional church. We even currently attend a Vineyard fellowship in our city of residence. It often disappoints for its shallowness.

During this season in the Vineyard in Canada the actual fellowship began to implode under crises of personality in leadership. (A problem that should not exist if everyone is allowed to participate in ministering- but often exists when personalities compete for leadership.) My wife and I again became eclectic, attending the Vineyard sometimes and also the childhood church of my wife, the Anglican church. At first I resisted the Anglican church, because I had come to dislike the stuffiness of a liturgical church. But at such a small country side fellowship it became easier to slot in and appreciate the good things.

Upon returning to Australia, my wife and I sought out an Evangelical style Anglican church in Melbourne. This is the closest that I have come to being Evangelical. Many of the attitudes of people are quite evangelical, but not the same as the Baptist evangelicalism of America. The Anglican church in Australia is still a liturgical church, that recites the Nicene creed (even if the evangelical variety no longer do this every service).

Things we can learn from the creation stories (creation of spirits, hydrogen).

We have been sharing some oral bible stories with some of the friends we have been making. With one friend we have been looking at some stories about Elijah the prophet. That's appropriate for his life. With another friend and some of her friends too, we have been looking at the early stories in Genesis.

Each of these stories have been oral. Nothing is read. The stories are followed up by discussion and questions. (1) What did you like or not like about the story?  (2) What can you learn about God from the story? (3) What can you learn about people from the story?  Recently we added another question as it is appropriate- (4) What can you learn about spirits from the story?

I decided that the first story we would share would be the creation story from Genesis 2. There is actually more than one creation story in the Bible. Some people get freaked out by this idea. It doesn't mean that the stories contradict each other. It just needs to be remembered that they come from the ancient world and a different perspective than our own. The creation story in Genesis one has God speaking the divine word, that is creation by word. The creation story in Genesis two has God creating by action. God plants a garden, God forms the man from the ground and then breathes life into the man. God opens the man up and takes out part of his side, closes him up and forms the woman from part of the man. The story in Genesis two has people actively in the story and is a little easier to relate to as a first contact story. 

Following Genesis two, we actually shared the story of the tree of good and evil on the next occasion with our friends. It was fun to listen to many of their insights- God is generous. This is our common story. We all blame each other like that in our own lives. Who was the snake? These insights and questions were prompted by the story and nothing else.

Before moving further into the "pre-history" stories of Genesis, such as Cain and Abel, I decided that it is probably important to tell the creation story of Genesis 1.

Over New Years we had some friends stay with us who live among an animist people. I handed a book to our friend called "Making disciples of oral learners." It made for some good conversation, and explains well what we are trying to do ourselves. A question came up during the reading of the book- someone in Nigeria was asking when the spirits were created. Apparently the people there then told an oral story from the Bible that addressed this issue.

The spirits are very important to animistic peoples. The spirits are very real every where in the world, but many western people doubt their existence and write it off as superstition. Many Christians can be included in holding this perspective. So I began to wonder how important it was to address this question before moving ahead with stories in Genesis.

When were the spirits created? I began scouring the bible and looking up what other people thought about the topic. Nobody gave a clear answer. Various scriptures can be found that show that God did actually create the spirits (such as in Colossians). So there is no doubt on this issue. But there just didn't seem to be a definitive scripture that showed when it happened. Some argue that Job 38 shows that they were already there at the foundation of the world:

Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?

Tell me if you understand.

Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!

Who stretched a measuring line across it?

On what were its footings set?

Or who laid its cornerstone?

While the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?

I don't think this shows that the angels were there at the actual foundation of the earth, but only during the process. This becomes a little clearer in the Genesis 1 story.

I had always thought that the spirits were created before the world. But there is no scripture to show this at all. In fact I think the devil wants people to believe he is special enough to have been created before the world. Consider for a moment some other stories in the Bible that refer to the devil or fallen spirits. Two that come to mind off the top of my head are Isaiah 14 and Revelation 12. In Isaiah 14 the devil is referred to as having been the "Morning Star" before his fall from heaven. In Revelation 12 he is called a dragon, but it is mentioned that this is the same as the "ancient serpent" from Genesis 3. We tend to think that since Genesis 3 is so early in the story that the devil must therefore have fallen before the creation of the world. In the Revelation 12 story, the dragon (who St. John confirms for us is the ancient serpent from Genesis 3) sweeps a third of the stars from heaven down to earth, after a war in heaven against Michael the archangel. These stars are of course the fallen angels.

A consistent fact that we can learn from each of these stories is that spirits or angels are synonymously referred to as stars at times in scripture. Even in the Job 38 story the morning stars are singing for joy. Why are they are called morning stars? Perhaps because they are born at the dawn of the world. People are born some time later.

I read the first creation story closely. Something jumped out at me. In Genesis 2:1, the NIV says that "God created the heavens and the earth and their vast array." I think they have actually left something out in the translation. Other versions say "God created the heavens and the earth, and the hosts there of." The word "hosts" is a little archaic in this context. But the word is translating a Hebrew concept that actually refer to an army or armies. Elsewhere in scripture the word is used in the context of "angelic hosts" or "starry hosts". Again there is a level of synonymity between "angel" and "star". So, it becomes clear that there is at least a reference to the creation of spirits or angels in the creation story.

When taking bible translation studies at SIL we learnt that it is ok to make something that is implicit in the text explicit, so long as it is in the text. I determined that the word hosts sufficiently explained angels in creation, and that there is enough else where in scripture to support this. So I explicitly expanded the line to say "God created the heaves and the spirits (hosts) that inhabit them and he created the earth and the creatures that inhabit it, he created them completely." I almost left it at that.

This seemed to be a good enough explanation. It satisfied me that there is at least a reference to the spirits being created in Genesis 1. It never bothered me that the serpent's cover is not fully blown in Genesis 3. The serpent is clearly a lying spirit, but it really didn't matter which spirit it was. The point of the story was not to give focus to this lying spirit but to show what happened in relationship between God and people. But of course the lying spirit still plays a big role.

One of the mistakes we make as westerners is to ignore the spiritual world. So often we just don't even see its existence. It can be right under our nose and we can still miss it. This is a big and common mistake that happens when westerners try to take the gospel into animistic cultures. Paul Hiebert called it "the flaw of the excluded middle." That is, there are three levels to be considered in the animistic world (1) God, (2) the spirits, (3) people. Often as westerners we only think about God and people and completely forget that the spirits exist, or at very least think they are not important and at worst think they don't even exist. (Every animistic person knows how real the spirits are.)

I had been reading the creation story and excluding the middle. But my eyes were beginning to open. Just as chapter 2 verse 1 showed me that the spirits are actually in the story, I started to look further.

Here are some of the things that became apparent to me as I read the story and prepared it for oral rendition. Aspects of a spiritual world view and a scientific world view.

* "The spirit of God hovered over the waters." The word waters seems to be inept to explain what happened at the start of creation. But is it really? This is an ancient story, carried orally for thousands of years before writing even existed. Water was the most basic element in the ancient world view. What is water made up of chemically? Two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. Hydrogen is the most basic element as we understand the universe today. Stars are all made of hydrogen. All elements come from hydrogen. So in reality "The Spirit of God hovered over the hydrogen mass". Amazing as it may be, this ancient story still holds up to scientific scrutiny for those that want to see it.

* God separated the waters below from the waters above.  Once again waters can broadly refer to all space matter. In this case, God is separating the hydrogen masses to form stars and planets. Yes, stars as we know them are created on day two, not day four as we think the story says. It is also on this day that the solar system and earth are formed. I am not bound by six 24 hour periods. The phrase "there was evening and there was morning" serves to delineate between the periods of creation and to show completion to God's task; i.e God did everything he intended to do that day and he did not forget anything.

Day four is the day that confused everybody. How could God make the sun and moon and the stars after he had already made plants in day 3? Our western intellects fail us here. We can only understand "literal" texts. We fail to understand ancient oral texts and the word imagery that is being used. This does not make them any less true, we just need to travel back in time X thousand years to when the oral story originated and wear glasses from that ancient world view to understand it. This is the day when seasons, days and years are marked. This is the day when the constellations were set in place. Constellations in the ancient world represented gods or spirits. Yes, this is the day when the spirits were created. Just as many other bible texts use the word star to be synonymous with spirit, so is the case in the Genesis 1 story. What was the purpose of the spirits/ angels/ stars? To give light on earth; i.e to be God's messengers of light, God's light bearers.

Keep in mind that everything that happens in the creation story in Genesis 1 is good. The spirits God created in Genesis 1 were good, they had not fallen yet. Things that happen in the spiritual realm may not be on a time line the same way that we understand. This is clear from Revelation 12 when the war in heaven happens after Jesus is born.

I contend from this story that no spirits fell before or during creation. Spirits were created on day 4 and then sang for joy (Job 38), their purpose being to bring light on earth. It is only in Genesis 3 that we see a spirit doing something sinful. At this point it is fair to say that the events in Isaiah 14 may have happened shortly before the serpent tempted Eve. Or it is equally possible the Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 are simply renderings in the spiritual realm of what was happening simultaneously in the physical realm.

The next chapter in the story of the spirits happens in Genesis 6. I may write on that topic when we get to that in our oral story telling.

Let the nations fill the LORD's temple

I have been reflecting on Isaiah recently. I think I'd like to do some more of it. Isaiah excites me as a prophet. It's stunning to realise how much prophetic insight the LORD gave him. He saw some things that the other prophets just didn't.

The Lord revealed to him in chapter 14 how the devil fell from heaven. The Lord revealed in great depth that the Messiah would suffer. This wasn't exactly what many Israelites expected. But then again many Israelites were far too busy worshipping pagan gods to be interested in what the Lord actually had to say to them.

The Lord revealed some down right controversial things to Isaiah. So controversial in fact that it got him sawed in half. How about this excerpt from chapter 66.

And they will bring all your brothers, from all the nations, to my holy mountain in Jerusalem.... And I will select some of them also to be priests and Levites," says the LORD.

Levites from other nations? How can that even be possible. Aren't they supposed to be from the tribe of Levi. It just goes to show how serious the Lord is about people from all nations worshiping him in his kingdom is.

The chapter starts out with this piece of poetry.

This is what the LORD says:
"Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool.
Where is the house you will build for me?
Where will my resting place be?

Has not my hand made all these things,
and so they came into being?"
declares the LORD.

I had always thought of these verses along the lines, "we will build a temple for you Lord through our praises." It sounds nice, but this is not what the verses are talking about. The questions are rhetorical questions. The LORD is saying, "could you possibly build a temple good enough to glorify me?" Follow this up with God denouncing their sacrifices and you would have to say that he is tired of their false worship in Jerusalem. Could he even tire when we worship him falsely? What are our motivations?

The LORD is saying, "look, I'm sitting here in the heavens on my throne, and I'm so big that my feet are sitting down there on the earth. You couldn't possibly build a temple good enough to glorify me, but I have. I have already built the temple, it's all of my creation." If the LORD has built a temple the size of the universe then it needs to be filled with his glory. As it says in Habakkuk...

For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD,
as the waters cover the sea.

The whole temple needs to be filled. Who is supposed to fill this temple that God has made? Isaiah goes on to answer this question later in chapter 66, well the LORD does through Isaiah's words.

"I will set a sign among them, and I will send some of those who survive to the nations—to Tarshish, to the Libyans and Lydians (famous as archers), to Tubal and Greece, and to the distant islands that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory. They will proclaim my glory among the nations. And they will bring all your brothers, from all the nations, to my holy mountain in Jerusalem as an offering to the LORD -on horses, in chariots and wagons, and on mules and camels," says the LORD. "They will bring them, as the Israelites bring their grain offerings, to the temple of the LORD in ceremonially clean vessels. And I will select some of them also to be priests and Levites," says the LORD.

People from all nations, will come and worship at Jerusalem. Possibly this is a picture of the new Jerusalem prophesied in Revelation. What ever the case, the temple is not full until people from all nations are worshiping the LORD in it.

I like this spin on the verses at the start of chapter 66, I think it is a more accurate interpretation, and when you think of it, it's a far more exciting one, to think of all nations worshiping the LORD.

There's still over 4000 unreached people groups or nations in the world today. Let's fill the LORD's temple with his glory, with the praises of thousands and thousands of nations, peoples, tribes and languages. This is what mission is all about. I hope it excites you. It sure excites me.

National Day of Mourning- Australia, a nation found wanting (Black Saturday bush fire tragedy)

For the last two weeks I have been grieving for the loss of life and suffering here in Victoria, due to the tragic bushfires that struck on February 7th, known as Black Saturday. 209 people have officially died in the fires, although it is thought that the final death count will be well above 300 people.

Many have grieved in this time. Many would ask about God's role in all of this suffering. I know without a doubt that God has been grieving too in this time. God is well acquainted with suffering. God entered this world in a very real and human way. He became a human in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus died a very cruel death, and faced much suffering in the lead up to his death. He suffered for our sake to pay the price for our sin.

God has not been absent in this time of suffering for Victoria. Every time that people have called out a desparate prayer in the last two weeks, he has been near and acting to answer people's prayers. But why did God allow such suffering then? At once this is a complex and simple question. Complex, because suffering is always so hard to understand. It is even hard to understand how Jesus' suffering could be effectual for us, but it is. Simple because there is an explanation, even if it is not pretty. I see the simple explanation as this: Long ago people sinned, and God could not allow sin in his presence; this sin brought decay and death into the world; the planet earth is sick as a result, not all is as it should be. Tragedies and natural disasters occur because the world is sick, it has a disease, suffering is inevitable. This does not mean that God does not care. God does care and has indeed intervened for there to be an end to suffering. That is a complete story in itself, that I have only alluded to here.

But I want to draw the attention to Australia as a nation. There can be no doubting that Australia is a post-Christian country and is far from God. I have a thesis however that Australia (the quintessential working class, descended from the convict spirit Australia) has never really heard the gospel. The church has always been known as a distant authoritarian structure of the upper and eventually some of the middle class. The church has never been something that working class Australia has been able to relate to, nor has the church ever taken the time to relate to working class Australia. So in a sense it is not strange that much of Australia does not have a good relationship with God. In the words of Kenny (recent Australian comedy movie) "if God shows up mate, I will give him my full attention." This could easily be extrapolated that the evangelical church in Australia has taken little time to show up in the culture of working class Australia. There is certainly a large cultural divide there.

It would have been my hope that people would turn to God through the tragedy of the horrifying bush fires that struck two weeks ago. The response of Australian society though has been that "we can and we will rebuild." Don't get me wrong, yes it is good and right to rebuild, but it is not good to have the pride to think we can do this all by ourselves.

I attended the memorial service at the Rod Laver arena yesterday. It was an important opportunity for Australia as a nation to grieve the loss of so many lives. However, there was almost less grieving and pausing than there were affirmations of human strength and our ability to rise above any adversity that strikes us. If we stop for a moment though, we have to remember that some of these fires could not be stopped. We did not have the human strength to stop fires leaping 30 kms in 6 minutes. We were exposed as vulnerable and fragile. We are weak on this planet, and do not have the strength to face every danger.

My heart has been grieving for the last two weeks for the loss of so many lives, and the pain of so many families. God has been grieving too. But yesterday my heart grieved on a deeper level, for a nation without God. God was given only cursory mentions yesterday. No mention was made of the fact that he too has suffered. No mention was made of the fact that he shares our pain in this time. In short, God was not allowed to fully participate and show his love and compassion for us as a nation. God was censored yesterday. But it goes deeper than that.

My wife turned to me during the service and said "what does it take for a nation to turn to God?" What does it take for people to admit that we are weak and that we can not do it without God's help. The over riding religious paradigm yesterday was that we as humans can triumph without God's help. The presence of various religions were there, but they were ALL impotent. None of them actually offered a voice of true hope in God's love. They were found wanting. I found it particularly embarrassing that neither the Catholic or Anglican Archbishops could not actually offer a message of hope. Kevin Rudd himself actually had more positive things to say than them. Of course I expected nothing of the Uniting Church moderator who could not even bother to take the time to mention the name of Jesus (surely their realisation as a humanist liberal religion has come), nor a Buddhist abbess who neither had a message of hope.



I don't actually expect that the nation of Australia would somehow have miraculously fallen on its knees and worshipped God with abandon yesterday. But surely a simple cry of "help!" would have been enough. I actually think that if as a nation yesterday some leaders (any leader, please) had taken the time to simply ask God for help in getting us through this crisis, that something special would have happened. A simple cry of help from the Prime Minister or one of the Archsbishops (even the Buddhist, but that wouldn't be possible as Buddhists are atheists) would have started a transaction with God that would have opened a new day for our nation.

We are found wanting as a nation. Kevin Rudd says that we passed the test, because we have pulled together in unity. But that unity can never be complete until we ask God for help. If we think we can go it alone, then we are found wanting.



The most telling moment for me was an eerie one. In the thick midst of pluralism a young man was called forward to play the Jewish Shofar. A watered down description was given, platitudes about the Jewish new year and a call to prayer were given as an explanation of its purpose. This is inaccurate. The Jewish Shofar is used as a call to Worship. I have played a Jewish Shofar before, and I have gotten a sound from it. It fills the room, with an all encompassing trumpet call that speaks to the deepest depths of our souls. When the young man stood yesterday to blow the Shofar, he tried at least ten times to get a sound from it, but nothing but sputters came. Now I am sure that they would not have asked someone to play it that was unable. At first I thought it was embarrassing that he could not play it. But nobody in the arena (well very few) would have known that he failed to make the Shofar play. I then realised what was happening. The Shofar is a call to worship the LORD. As a nation it would have been a call to worship. It would have been the beginning of the transation of which I spoke. If we had have called on God as a nation for help, then he would have responded by calling on us to worship Him. But we could not call out for help. Sadly, (but I completely understand why) God would not call us to worship either. I fully believe that God did not allow the Shofar to blow. It was eerie. Most people in the arena would have had no idea.

God is not punishing our nation. I don't believe that his time for judgment is now. There will be a time for judgement, but I actually think that God reserves this for the end of our lives. Hebrews 9:27 explains this simply : "Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgement." God is waiting for our nation to call to Him. He loves us and has compassion for us in our suffering, but he will not force himself upon us, he will wait patiently. Again the question remains, "what will it take for us to turn to God as a nation?" Perhaps war, or economic depression?

Last evening we had a time of prayer and worship back at Kangaroo Ground with some of the other students. We took some time to pray for Australia, a nation without God. As my wife prayed, she admitted that she would like to pray for rain, but that she had a sense that God is even more concerned that Australia would turn to him. There is a very telling promise in scripture, that I think is timely for Australia. It comes from 2 Chronicles 7:14 "If my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." This is a promise of good things, not of punishment. But it will first take humility from Australia, not pride as we have been showing recently. God is waiting and will act when we turn to him.

We have now had 12 years of drought in Victoria. Our water reserves in Victoria are below 30%. The fires have furthered damaged our water catchment areas. We are facing a dire time, of potential water shortage. Water is the essence of physical life. Our spiritual lives as a nation, at least in Victoria are progressively void. In a symbiotic kind of way, the sicker we get spiritually as a nation, the sicker the land gets.

How long will we wait before we turn to God? I hope not too long. The land is getting sicker. What will it take for us to turn to God as a nation? I hope that it will not take more suffering for us to wake up. But I fear we are quite deaf, and that worse tragedies are yet to come, be that economic depression or even war (that seems to follow such trends).

Australia I call on you, turn to your God.