kids talks on love

I'm helping out with kids talks in church this term.

The grown ups are looking at 1 Corinthians (up to the 2nd half) so we thought the kids could learn about love, which will kind of work in pretty well. We'll get up to the love is patient, love is kind bit around the same time they hit chapter 13.

But the framework we're taking isn't based around 1 Cor 13. It's based around 1 John 3:16. This is how we know what love is - Jesus Christ lay down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another.

For the first few weeks we're looking at God's love for us. After that, how we lay down our lives for one another. In the second bit we'll get to 1 Cor 13:4 etc. We lay down our lives by being patient, kind, not self seeking etc.

For the first 4 weeks our stories will be told using our puppet Lenny Cool.

Week 1 - Introduction. Jesus loves us. [Song - Jesus Loves Me This I Know]

Week 2 - Jesus doesn't love me because I'm good. [Song - He Overflows With Love.]

Week 3 - Jesus shows what love is by laying down his life for me. [Song - So Great Is Jesus' Love]

Week 4 - We copy Jesus and lay down our lives for one another. [Song - So Great Is Jesus' Love]

We've got heaps of ESL kids and so are trying to keep the talks really simple. Our kids feel like it's preschool stuff compared to what they've had before, but that's okay, it's not about them.

I thought I'd post up the talks in case anyone's interested. I know what it's like on a Saturday night to be cruising around the internet looking for inspiration... [Click here for talks 1 and 2. I've not written 3 and 4 yet!]

Philip Jensen on church

I enjoyed this article What is Church for?


It's a challenging read. Our thoughts on church growth etc are so much compromised by ego for those of us in ministry (or married to ministers). 


You should read it. A couple of things that have come out of it for me:


Belonging vs believing.
PDJ argues that the current church growth theories that tell us to get people into church first, let them belong first, and then believe later, are wrong. The church doesn’t give us the gospel; the gospel gives us the church. The church is built by people coming to faith.


This was certainly my experience. I came to faith in Christ (through a SU camp) and immediately felt I was part of the church. So I set out to find a congregation to attend and be a part of. It was natural - and things like size and musical style didn't matter. I was looking for people who believed to learn the bible and pray with.


In the last ten years I think I've had much too much a focus on getting people into (my) church. Belonging has been what I've been aiming at, hoping that believing would follow. And there's been quite a few people who have come along. How it's generally worked (with exceptions) is that they've come along for a while (a year or two even). People have tried to make them feel welcome but eventually they've drifted out. And I've beaten myself up because I mustn't have made enough effort to integrate them. But there was no hunger for God's word there. They were not part of the church because there was no faith in Christ.


I need to do better with this.


Our church uses a connect, grow, serve model for how things are meant to work. It's tidy but flawed. Conversion is hinted at and hoped for somewhere between connect and grow. And also, what did we train for at theological college? To be socially lubricating people who can build a group of people around ourselves? 


Of course there's nothing new here. But I need to refocus.


Church planting
"There’s any number of people who are very keen to plant churches, but they’re not actually planting churches; what they’re doing is founding their own church, which they are going to stay in for the rest of their life as it grows bigger and bigger into a megachurch."


Ungenerous? Truthful? What do you think?


Building my church vs building the church
Accordingly, we shouldn’t be too concerned about which local or earthly gathering is ‘built’ by our efforts. If I evangelize someone and (by God’s Spirit) he is gathered into Christ’s heavenly assembly, it doesn’t really matter which earthly assembly he ends up in (so long as it is one in which he will continue to be built). Or if I pour time into someone to help them grow and develop and mature, and they take their gifts and do their building work somewhere else (not in my church), what does it matter?


Yeah. I think that this is where a ministry like AFES is at advantage to us in suburban churches. With uni ministry you only expect to keep  people for a few years. We expect to keep them and so our desire to see God's kingdom increase is muddied with our desire to see our church increase. Teaching RE is good for me in this. It's a ministry that I can pour myself into, praying for increase in God's kingdom without having any expectation of short term increase in my own church.


Did you read it? Any thoughts?

envy

I listened to an excellent talk on envy today. I wonder if this is the big sin of our age. I want stuff, not so much for the sake of the stuff, but for the sake of having as much or more than others. Joseph's brothers didn't feel the need for a colourful coat until their brother got one. I'm perfectly content with my house until I visit my wealthy friends' houses. I am satisfied with my 3 kids until I hear that a friend is expecting her fourth. [Then I have to remind myself that I don't want another and to feel that twinge of unease (I'm no longer winning!) is silly and wrong.]

It really is a good talk. Put it on while you're washing the dishes or doing the ironing.

sacred vs secular

I read something the other day that divided up things women might do with their time into 'sacred' and 'secular'. Paid work was in the secular zone, but voluntary work in the community, church stuff and raising kids were classed as sacred. I think this a false and fundamentally unhelpful distinction. I don't think we can elevate certain things we do to a higher spiritual category than other things. Reading to our kids, changing nappies, going to bible study, performing a life-saving operation, teaching a year 5 class, sitting in a lunch room, sending emails, being on the tuckshop roster, writing a book, marking exams, operating a check-out... Things we do may be ordinary or impressive but in Christ they are all transformed into something glorious if I do them in faith, serving God.

I like this statement from Mitchelton Presbyterian Church's 'DNA':

8. We believe everywhere is sacred
We’re not dualists. We don’t want to separate reality into ‘the sacred and the secular’ because the Bible says ‘the earth and everything in it belongs to the Lord.” And because Jesus took on real flesh and became very much part of our world, and because God ‘so loved the world,’ we think it’s a mistake to draw too firm a line between ‘church’ and ‘life’, or ‘Sunday’ and ‘the rest of the week’. So when we’re in church we act and talk like ordinary people who follow Jesus, and in every other part of life we do the same. Our worship isn’t reserved for Sunday services… God is worth serving full time, all the time. So for us, everything we do, and everywhere we do it, is sacred – it belongs to God.

Commentary on John's Gospel?

I'm planning to look closely at John's gospel for the rest of this year. I'm writing some kids church material next year and any women's events I'm invited to speak at, I'll speak from John.

So I'm after a decent commentary. My greek is limited and rusty. I get excited by big picture structural stuff.

Any suggestions?

give up adjectives for Lent

Go on. Do it.

Today I'm listening to Gary Millar speak at QTC.

Right now I'm in a lecture on preaching OT narrative. Gary says that we need to make people feel the story. Okay folks. Listen up. If you want to make people feel a story, don't throw adjectives at them. Tell them the story well, then they won't be able to help but feel it.

That's all.

how I imagine romans 8:18-21

 ¹⁸I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. ¹⁹The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. ²⁰For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope ²¹that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

Here's how I imagine it. Think of a fairy tale kingdom. There is a bad royal family. They are mean and nasty and corrupt and horrible. The whole kingdom groans under their rule. No one is happy. People are jailed for no reason. Everyone has to work far too hard. Farms don't produce properly because the rulers skimp on fertilizer and equipment. Taxes are really high. No services are provided. There is no freedom. Nothing is fun.

Then, from within the kingdom, a new royal families arises. A good king. (Perhaps like Prince Caspian.) Suddenly, things change. People start smiling again. Everything brightens. Even the animals are happy now.

We are the kings of the world. Humanity. Because of our corruption, the earth is a mess. But one day a new humanity will be revealed. The Sons of God will rise and be seen in all their glory (they were there all along, mixed in with the others and didn't seem to be anything special) and freedom and happy times will follow.

It will be good.

I'm fed up with gender debates

Okay. Rant time.

I'm fed up with all of this

Why all the emphasis on gender? It's a big fat side track. Yes, I know it's got to do with the authority of scripture and all of that, but I'm over it dominating every newspapers article about the church, every girl blog (including mine), every women's conferences, every mega-church sermon etc etc etc etc. The gospel is about Jesus and the forgiveness of sins. Life in Christ is about faith and love and hope. Gender issues are way secondary. But we seem to be talking about them all the time.

Let me put a few things out there.

1. I don't think that the problem with most marriages is that women don't submit to men and men don't lead. I think it's more basic ungodliness. Pornography, unfaithfulness, impatience, pride, greed, envy, hatred, laziness, selfishness. We need to work on these things, but they almost never get spoken about because we are so hung up on gender stuff. And quieter guys who are pretty godly start feeling like failures because they're not the macho assertive leadership types.

2. I don't think we need to imprison ourselves in our genders. We are humans, people! We don't need to assess everything we do against some vague (or stringent) male/female code. "I'd like to cross the road. What is an appropriate way for a woman to cross the road, showing proper respect and deference to her husband???" Blah blah blah. Quit the analysis and get on with it!

3. I think this gender nervousness makes women overly precious (idolatrous?) with motherhood. Hang it, it's all we've got! Every other sphere of life seems to belong to men. Conservative women look at each other suspiciously if they seem to be finding satisfaction in career or ministry or recreation ... so we become obsessively focussed on our children and ... housework! This seems silly.

4. I believe whole heartedly that we should be obedient to Paul's words in 1 Timothy 2 and Ephesians 5. But let's not make these couple of verses the lens through which we see our whole existence.

Okay. Tell me I'm wrong.

10 thoughts on sexual sin from 2 Samuel 11-12

1. Idleness and boredom can lead to trouble.

2. Lust can be particular. David had many women with whom he could have legitimately had sex. He wanted Bathsheba.

3. David's sin in 2 Samuel 11 mirrors Eve's sin in the garden.  Both saw the fruit/woman, considered it/her delightful, took it/her, and then ate/had sex. In both cases, God confronts the sinner with their sin and the consequences.  The difference in 2 Samuel is that David repents.  Adam and Eve blame each other.

4. One sin leads to many more.

5. A friend who will unquestioningly help you cover you tracks is a bad friend to have.

6. We all have our weaknesses.  David had two: the habit of using women for his own purposes (cf. Michal in 2 Sam 3) and the inability to bring about justice in his own home and among his friends. These two weaknesses caused major issues.

7. It is interesting that what God speaks to David about is not his sexual ethics but his mercilessness. In the previous 2 chapters, David has been commended for showing the love and compassion (hesed) of God.  God was gracious to him, and he responded in graciousness to others.  It is his un-hesed like behaviour towards Uriah that he is rebuked for in chapter 12.  I am not wanting to trivialise sexual sin (it is not trivial), but it is not the act of having unwed sex that David is punished for.  It is his mercilessness to Uriah (in taking his one wife and having him killed) and lack of gratitude to God for all his blessings.

8. From #7, I wonder if rather than getting all worked up over the sin of lust, we would do better to combat it by working to have the love and compassion of God influence all areas of our lives.  Something like.... "You struggle with lust? Yeah, me too, but I'm not going to act on it because God has showed so much love to me and in response I'm going to show love to x,y, and z. Entertaining lustful thoughts won't help me do that."

9. If life is boring cause you've stayed home when you should have gone off to war (or work), you should busy yourself with thoughts of how you can be merciful to others.  This is what David did in chapters 9 and 10 and it kept him out of trouble. (Kind of.)

10.  God is gracious.  From the beginning, David deserved nothing from God.  God gave him so much and would have given him more if he had asked.  After the Bathsheba/Uriah incident, David deserved nothing but judgement.  (How many commandments did he break in chapter 11?)  But God forgave him as soon as he began to repent!  Bathsheba (who we have to assume is complicit in the whole sordid affair) was given another child - Solomon - who is particularly loved by God, incredibly gifted, and part of the family line of Jesus.  What other God would do that?

new thoughts on 2 Samuel 9-12

New for me anyway.  In list form because they aren't coherent yet.

1.  2 Samuel 9-12 is a discreet section.  2 Sam 8:15-18 reads like a conclusion to the previous section.  The Ammonites are are Israel's enemy in this section.  The battles against them begin in chapter 10 and they were finally defeated at the end of chapter 12.

2.  2 Sam 9 and 10 both contain very favourable accounts of David.  David shows kindness (hesed) to Mephibosheth (9:1) and Hanun (10:1).  The kindness that the Lord has shown to David (7:15, 9:3) is overflowing from David to others.  Mephibosheth's reaction to this kindness ("What is your servant that you should regard a dead dog like me?" (9:8)) is similar to David's reaction to God's kindness ("Who am I O Lord ..." (7:18))  Hanun's reaction of suspicion and anger is quite the opposite and leads to the war against Ammon.

3.  A good sign of whether we really understand the kindness that God has shown to us (in Jesus) is whether or not we pass it on to others.  In chapters 9-10, David shows that he gets it.  We need to accept God's kindness to us and show we understand it by passing it on to others.

4.  Rejecting the kindness of God's king is dangerous.  Hanun experienced the consequences of this.

5.  In the whole sorry story of David and Bathsheba (2 Sam 11-12), David's sexual ethics are not the primary problem.  The main problem is David's lack of kindness to Uriah.  The lamb parable that Nathan tells shows that it is David's mercilessness that he is being judged for.  God has given him so much, but David is no longer passing kindness on, he is taking from others.  This is bad and stands in contrast to the last couple of chapters.

An epiphany

I had an epiphany last night.  Let me tell you about it.

Men have 1,185 chapters of the bible.  Women, it often seems, have about 4.  (If I was to be generous, I could count Esther or Ruth and stretch it to 10.)

In the last few years I have been getting increasingly frustrated with books and articles and talks directed at women.  Last year I wanted to give up going to ministry wives events.  Every time I've heard or read the words 'Biblical Womanhood' I've felt my mind and body shake almost as if I'm angry.  I gear myself up for yet another guilt or boredom inducing re-run through Genesis 2, Titus 2, 1 Timothy 3 or Proverbs 31.

I've been asking myself why I react so strongly to the mere mention of these passages.  Is it because I don't think they are God's word?  No.  Is it because I don't want to hear what God has to say to me?  There may be a little bit of this, but I think it's something else.  Is it because I don't agree with the writer or speaker's interpretation of these passages?  Sometimes, maybe, but it's more than this.  Is it because I'm discontent with my lot as a woman?  No. I have a husband and kids that I love, friends, a great job, a great church, writing hobbies, the gym and you, dear blog reader!  I wouldn't swap my lot with anyone!

So why the extreme reaction to talks and articles on Biblical Womanhood?

Last night I worked it out.

It is because they often seem to be written assuming that the reader isn't already doing the things that they are talking about.  Or at least I read them and feel that I'm being accused of not doing the things that I should be doing.  I know that this is not the author or speaker's intent, yet I am left feeling flat and discouraged (or angry).  When I can't fit anything more into my life, I'm presented with a whole list of stuff that's yet to be done.  The task is overwhelming. I cannot accomplish it, and no-one can, because the things on the list are not the kind of things that can (or should be) ticked off.

A standard list from such a seminar, article or book might look something like this: 
We should be:

• being hospitable
• making meals for people at church
• playing with our kids
• having lots of sex with our husbands
• feeding our families
• helping out in soup kitchens
• re-organising our pantries and getting the house under control
• making family budgets
• helping other mums with their kids
• doing bible study with other women
• being the family CEO from our kitchen-office
• teaching younger women how to sew and cook

Many of these things will never be finished.  If I help out in a soup kitchen one week, there's probably 15 vacant spots with no-one to fill them next week.  While I'm rearranging my pantry, the kids are collaging all the empty boxes to the walls in their bedroom and so I'm no further ahead in getting the house under control.  I play with my kids for half an hour after school and then I feel bad because I don't have the time (or inclination) to play with them for longer.  For every one woman I spend time with at church, there are another ten who I feel I should be investing in.  I had sex with my husband this morning and now...

So I'm left with a choice.  I can:

• Be angry.  Rant about how I hate these talks and seminars and books and articles and sound like raving feminist.
• Take my flat and angry feelings to God in some kind of repentance.  Say I'm sorry for not being what I ought to be.  And then feel like there's still something wrong because I'm repenting of ... I'm not sure what.  Being a human with limitations?  Being a woman who likes to blog and work a couple of days a week? Or?
• Talk myself out of guilty feelings by listing all the ways that I have fulfilled the list.  In the last week I have made more food for others than for my own family.  I have taught the bible in various ways to over 300 children.  I have had many people through my home.  I've kept my house tidy and my children fed....    All this is true but it's a pretty unhelpful exercise.  I like to not notice the things that I do.  I do them because I want to do them, not in order to fulfill some sort of requirement or impress myself!

So what's the answer?

When we were at Moore College, the most encouraging women's fellowship evening was one in which Peter and Christine Jensen spoke to us.  They started off by telling us the ways in which they could see that God was working in our lives, the things about our community that were evidence of the growth of the gospel among us.  Our care for eachother.  How we were gentle in how we spoke.  How we went to church each week, whether we felt like it or not.  Yes, there were things we struggled with, but largely, we needed to quit all the analysis and just get on and do them.

I think it's the same with this kind of stuff.  An occasional 'well done, you are doing okay, keep going' would be heaps more encouraging than books telling me all the things that I need to be doing.  Of course, some people probably do need a kick in the pants, but when I look at my bible study group, the women in it are all doing fantastic jobs of serving their families and our church.  One woman who's youngest child has just started school, looks after another mum's 4 kids one day a week so the mum can go out and do all the jobs she needs to.  Another with a six month old baby manages to do the admin for our Sunday school as well as loads of other jobs.  Another mum who sometimes struggles being at home looking after her own toddler is an endless stream of encouragement to other women in a similar position.  Our bible study group is fantastic, and I suspect it's not all that unusual.

Making women feel guilty is easy.  But guilt is a dreadful motivator.  Encourage us to keep going at the things we are doing well and we will do them more and serve joyfully.

End of rant.

Song of Songs

Gary Millar is a fantastic guy - humble, interesting, funny, and passionate about the same OT books as me. How could you not like him? His talks on the Song of Songs were good. I appreciated his approach but wasn't convinced by a few things.

Millar's approach to the Song rests on his reading of chapter 8. Solomon is the author and the book is a critique of his own ... experience...  in matters of love and marriage.  This is Solomon's wisdom on the topic.  He realises that contentment, peace, shalom, lie in exclusive, committed relationships like the characters in this book enjoy and not in his own ridiculously polygamous lifestyle.  Millar deduces this from 8:11-12.

The woman says:
Solomon had a vineyard in Baal Hamon;
he let out his vineyard to tenants.
Each was to bring for its fruit
a thousand shekels of silver.

But my own vineyard is mine to give;
the thousand shekels are for you, O Solomon,
and two hundred are for those who tend its fruit. (8:11-12 NIV)


Solomon's vineyard is his harem and the tennants are his harem staff.

I don't mind Millar's approach, but I think it's made stronger if you imagine it is the lover (male) speaking in 8:11-12 (the text doesn't specify).  Miller thinks the speaker is female on the basis of the vineyard reference from 1:6 ('my own vineyard I have neglected').  I disagree.  In 8:12, I think the vineyard may well be referring to the woman's body (as in 1:6) - but the point is that her body is his to enjoy.  Another translation renders it this way:

King Solomon had a vineyard
on the hill of plenty
He gave that vineyard to watchmen
and each would earn for tis fruit
one thousand pieces of silver.

My vineyard is all my own.
Keep your thousand, Solomon! And pay
two hundred to those
who must guard the fruit.

I'm no Hebrew scholar so I don't know if its a good translation, but it works for me poetically.  The lover is comparing his lot to Solomon's and concluding that he has it better.  It is better to be an ordinary man in love with one woman than to be a king married to 1000.

Millar pointed out that the Song is much vaguer than some big-time speakers would have us think.  The images are suggestive and enticing but not explicit.  They mostly cannot be tied down to particular things.  Furthermore, many specific application points that have been made in talks on the Song of Songs come more from the speaker's head than from the text!  This was refreshing to hear.

It was interesting to hear Millar say the Song is more about love than sex.  In this context, the two are hard to separate.  But worth considering.

His ideas about how to take a talk on the Song to Jesus are what I think might be his most tenuous - though in the big scheme of things, not unhelpful.  NASB has the Lord appearing in 8:6


    ⁶"Put me like a seal over your heart,
         Like a seal on your arm
         For love is as strong as death,
         Jealousy is as severe as Sheol;
         Its flashes are flashes of fire,
         The very flame of the LORD. 

From this, Millar argues that the strength of our love is a reflection of the Lord's.

Trouble is, the -Yah in verse 8 could just be an emphatic -yah, rather than a reference to Yahweh.  NIV renders it that way:  "It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame."  I'm not a Hebrew scholar, so I don't know.  And I'm not a preacher, so I don't care.

It was an interesting evening.  If you are in Brisbane you should get along and hear Gary speak on Deuteronony at QTC in the next couple of days.  I'll be there if I don't have to work (which is unlikely because it's raining.).

Athaliah

I made this for the kids talk in church this morning.  It was the warm-up/background to the lesson on King Joash (aka Jehoash) from 2 Kings 12.  [Joash is an interesting character.  Like Samuel, he was raised in the temple.  He was brought up by Jehoiada the priest and taught well.  2 Kings tells us that he did good ... all the days that Jehoiada instructed him... but leaves it at that.  Chronicles tells us what happened after Jehoiada died - and it isn't pretty.]

Enjoy.  There is no sound.  If I was clever I'd have recorded the narration over the top... but I didn't think of making it till 8.30 last night and I was pretty tired.  It's a bit boring because of the long gaps left to make room for the narration.

Athaliah had always been powerful. She was the daughter of evil King Ahab of Israel and had grown up as a princess. She liked wearing a crown and she liked being able to tell people what to do.

Now in those days, the northern kingdom of Israel and the Southern kingdom of Judah were friendly with eachother.

When Athaliah was old enough she was looking for someone to marry. Hmm. Who should she choose? She couldn't marry a common man. If she did, she wouldn't get to wear her crown any more. No. It would have to be a king, or a prince at least! Ah! How about King Jehoram of Judah? Perfect. Not too far from home and very powerful! An excellent idea.

So that's what Athaliah did. She married the King of God's people. But should he have married her?

No. Like her father Ahab, Athaliah had no time for God. So the king of Judah shouldn't have married her. But King Jehoram had no time for God either. So they were a pretty good match.

Queen Athaliah and King Jehoram lived together for years. Together they bossed people around, worshipped idols and did all kinds of evil in the sight of the Lord. When God had had enough of this zero out of ten king, he died and Athaliah was left alone and no longer a queen.

Do you think she liked that? Not being a queen any more? No. She didn't.

But she cheered up a little when her son Ahaziah became King. Being the mother of the King gave you a little bit of power... not so much as being queen, but still some.

Ahaziah wasn't king for very long. Just one year. He was up visiting relatives up in Israel when he was killed. And that was the end of him.

So where did that leave Athaliah. Not a princess anymore. Not a queen. Not even the mother of the king. Likely one of Ahaziah's sons, one of her grand-sons would become king. And she would just be the... grandmother of the king?

No way. Athaliah didn't like that idea. She would have no power at all.

So she came up with a plan. A cunning and horrible plan. Athaliah looked at all her grandchildren around her. To get the power all back for herself, all she had to do was to get them out of the way. Then she could take the crown back and rule Judah herself. She would be queen!

It was a terrible plan. But Athaliah was a terrible woman. Remember King Ahab? He was her father and she was exactly like him. She didn't care at all about what God thought and she had no regard for people either. Quickly and quietly she disposed of all of her grandchildren ...

Well, not quite all of them. See this one left over? That's little prince Joash. But he was just a baby and his clever aunty whisked him out of the way and hid him carefully

… and then she made herself Queen of Judah.

So Athaliah got what she wanted. Queen, boss, ruler of Judah. And she got to enjoy it for 7 years.

But then it was found out that little Joash was still alive and all Athaliah's muderous plotting caught up with her. She was put to death – which is exactly what she deserved – and the boy Joash became king.

But what sort of king would Joash be?

as for the foreigner

It is a strange thing that I, a 21st century Australian woman, should be reading the scriptures of the Jewish people.  What have the historic records of this Hebrew people to do with me?

I'm a christian and all of it is mine in Christ.  This is wonderful.

But every now and again I come across a verse which is mine - not just in Christ - but mine in all my un-regenerate gentileness.  These verses make my heart sing and realise anew that God does indeed want me to seek and know him.

Here's one I came across today.  Read and feel your heart warm.

Solomon prays: "As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your name-- for men will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm— when he comes and prays toward this temple, then hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name."  1 Kings 8:41-43

5 annoying things that people do when preaching on the OT

I rarely preach, and when I do it's pretty much never on the Old Testament.  So I'm well qualified to offer advice to others who do!  Here are 5 annoying things that I've noticed about many OT sermons.  If your sermons are online, I could be talking directly to you here!  They are all linked.

1. Gold mining.  This is when the preachers just picks out a few verses that he/she likes and preaches on these rather than preaching on the entire passage in its context.
2. A-narrative preaching.  Preaching on a passage without placing it in it's narrative context.  What was happening in Israel/Judah at the time this prophet spoke?  How would the original hearers have understood his words?
3. Testament leaping.  Jumping to the New Testament as a short cut for understanding an Old Testament passage.  Look properly at the passage before you, then you will be better able to take it to the New Testament.
4. Stock-Standard application.   Like the cheesey smiles if the istock photo family, pre-packaged general points of application will rarely cut through.  I switch off when I hear the familiar platitudes beginning...
5. Genre-deaf preaching.  Preaching a passage without adequately considering the genre in which it is written.  eg. Preaching the psalms as if they were epistles, the proverbs as if they were law or Song of Songs as if it were narrative.  Bad things happen when genre is ignored.

rev 1:8

A few of us are writing sunday school material at the moment. Collaboration is good. Mostly. Just a bit tricky when you don't agree on the meaning of key verses.

Like our memory verse from Revelation 1.

"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." Rev 1:8

I think that the Lord God in this verse is Jesus.

People who know stuff... am I right?

quote

"The Christian life for both men and women is about service - service of God and service of others. The bible is amazingly non-prescriptive about the specifics of what that looks like. How we serve will depend on the situations in which we are placed, our gifts, our personalities, our frailties... As women, it is likely that throughout our lives, we will serve in many different ways. My service may take quite a different shape than yours does, and that is to be expected." sar

This will go on some NTE strand material. What do you think? Do I sound liberal? Conservative? Fundy? Biblical?

thoughts

I had an email from a friend yesterday who is writing a seminar on women and work and wanted feedback.

His material was good and has got me thinking.

A frustration that I feel whenever a 'women's issue' is addressed is that we always have to have Genesis 1-2 as our primary text. It makes me yawn.

Is this because:

• I'm ungodly and don't want to hear what God wants me to hear! Do I feel discontented in my female-ness? (This is quite possible! If true, I need to repent.)
• I've heard it too many times and am bored with it. It's okay, I agree with the content, but play me a different tune for a while... (If boredom is the issue, I need to suck it up and listen to the Gen 1-2 arguments for the sake of those who haven't heard them a million times before.)
• I don't like female-ness being the defining thing about me. It makes me feel 'imprisoned in my gender' (see Blocher quote below)
  

The emphasis on the co-humanity [of the man and the woman] relativizes the differentiation as such. ʻMale and femaleʼ will never be anything more than a second truth about man and woman. History shows an ever-recurring tendency to imprison woman in her femininity, to the detriment of her participating quite simply in human life. By underlining the likeness, Genesis provides protection against the course machismo of the Mediterranean male, but also against the suspect cult of an Eternal Feminine, and against the Romantic speculations which make the masculine and feminine, like yin and yang, the
ultimate principles, the two poles of being.
(Henri Blocher, In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis, (Leicester: IVP, 1984), p. 100, emphasis mine)

It's most likely a mix of all three. Some repentance is probably needed, some patience, and some reveling in the fact that I, just like my brothers, am a human being living in God's world.

'like' function

You know how facebook has that little 'like' function you can click on? It lets you acknowledge someone's status update (or photo or whatever) without having to have anything profound to say about it. You can simply 'like' it - which is fantastic*.

I think blogger needs a 'like' function. A 'like' option would help lure the lurkers from the shadows and get more conversation happening. It would also stop the phenomenon that Nathan has documented where the most original and insightful posts get no comments at all.

Has anyone come across a blog 'like' widget?

* 'Unlike' is also a great. I often need to undo thoughtless 'liking'. eg. "Tom's grandfather died today" - I want to acknowledge that I've read this, so I click 'like' then realise that it seems a bit heartless...

luke7:36-50 questions

[Read the passage here.]

1. Why did the pharisee view the woman with distaste? Was it because:

• she was ceremonially unclean
• she was riff-raff
• she was guilty of sin
  
• there was social pressure on him to exclude her
• she was behaving inappropriately and he was embarrassed.
  

2. Why was the woman sinful? I assume it was because she was a prostitute. In which case:

• how did the Pharisee know she was a prostitute?
• She mustn't have looked obviously like a prostitute - the pharisee thought a prophet would know her to be one, but not a non-prophet...

3. Why did the woman do what she did? I assume she had heard about Jesus and had the faith to know that she needed him... But

• was this in any way a normal first century response?
• tears and hair don't seem the most effective foot washing materials. Perfume is good - but get the feet clean first! Why didn't she find a bucket of water?
• Was the hair and tears bit premeditated or spur of the moment?
• The perfume bit was premeditated. Had the jar always been in her family? Had she gone out and bought it with her earnings? What does perfume symbolise at this early stage of Luke's gospel (I'm thinking it's probably not burial annointing.)
  

4. Jesus interprets her actions as love. What kind of love are we talking here?

• are their sexual overtones?
  

• does it matter if there are?
  

If this woman were a prostitute, I think it's likely that there would have been sexual overtones in all of her dealings with men - consciously or unconsciously. And her repentance and love for Jesus may have needed to be expressed in a bodily way - touching and kissing. Likely all of her feelings for and interactions with men were somewhat confused in their motives and expressions. But notice how kind and gentle Jesus is with her. He meets her where she's at, unembarrassed.

When we cry out to God, we do so from the mess of our sin. We can't help it - so entwined we are. Our manner of confessing and our motives will be mixed. But cry out we must or we'll be out in the cold with the hypocritical pharisee who stayed respectfully silent (and little forgiven.)