Sometimes I have a problem with Bible verses. That’s a strange thing for a pastor to say, but it’s true. In particular I have a problem with verses that are dislocated from their context. These appear scattered over cards and calendars, bookmarks and billboards. For some verses it doesn’t matter, for they are self-contained nuggets—take the very famous John 3:16:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

That’s more or less self-contained—it tells you all you need to know. Other verses, when dislocated from their context, start to sound like fortune cookie promises, for example:

“God is love” – does that mean he won’t punish sin? Is he only love, or is he also Holy?

“With God all things are possible” – For whom? What sort of ‘all things’?

Such verses are part of an organic whole; they cannot be wrenched from their place and expected to have a life of their own. We need to know who the promise applies to, and what conditions are attached.

This month’s verse is like that:

“The eternal God is your refuge” Deuteronomy 33:27

Who doesn’t want a refuge? This world is a place of storms; storms of doubt, fear, illness, tragedy, heartbreak and many other storms. We need a place of refuge—one that outlasts all those storms, including that great final storm of death and of judgment. So it is a great relief to find that this particular refuge is eternal, for it is found with the eternal God. That also means that the refuge is a personal one, not a case of finding a cold dark cave to shelter in, but rather a warm and tender father to stand guard over you—always.

That sounds fantastic, and it is—if it applies to you.

As it turns out, when we look at the surrounding verses, this isn’t a blanket promise to all, but rather a specific promise to God’s people. This wonderfully comforting statement of eternal refuge is true, but it needs you to first ask God to make you one of his people through Jesus. In fact, that’s what John 3:16 is saying—he perished so you could have an eternal refuge, once you put your trust in him. Once Jesus is your saviour, you will find God a refuge from life’s storms.

Last Wednesday, US Federal judge, Justice Vaughn R. Walker struck down California’s ruling that marriage is between a man and a woman, rather than same-sex couples. He radically redefined marriage saying that, “Gender no longer forms an essential part of marriage”.
What are we to make of all this?

Proposition 8 had been voted into law by a clear majority of voters. But in one audacious act of judicial foot-stamping, California’s voters were told that they had no right to express their opinion. A single unelected judge nullified the will of the voters of California as expressed through the electoral process. In a series of startling ‘findings’ the judge arbitrarily, without counter-argument, swept aside the arguments of centuries and cultures, as well as the evidence of secular research which demonstrates that both children and society suffer when marriage is redefined. Apparently the judge knew better.

Defending the judicial overriding of the people, the New York Times argued that “there are times when legal opinions help lead public opinions.” In other words, there are times when people aren’t sufficiently informed to know what is good for them, and it takes the wiser heads of the law to help and guide. I would agree. We only differ on whose legal opinion counts.

Is it the opinion of a fallible judge, swayed by internal bias and the pressure of lobbies, or is it the opinion of the Creator God who made us, knows how we are made to operate, and who legislates for what is best?

In a single moment, Justice Walker, both grasped and failed to grasp the point. He grasped that a judge sometimes has to overrule the desires people, but he forgot which Judge. At the end of the day we will not stand before Justice Walker to give an account of how we lived our lives, but before the great Judge of all the earth—and it will be no defence to say “I didn’t like your laws”.

The issue always comes back to “What do we base our opinions on?”—on popular opinion, personal preference, ‘the media says’—often choosing whatever one best suits our purpose. Or do we choose the fixed and timeless standard of God’s word, which has both the power to confirm us and challenge us, not simply saying what we want it to say.

The reality is that the civil partnership legislation both here and in California is a thumbing of the nose at God, and is a damaging path for any society in the long-term.

Some churches have a dearth of men—their pews are populated by women and children, giving the impression that Christianity is only for such. In some churches the men are present in body, but not in mind—you can tell by the vacant look in their eye. They are there perhaps because they have to be, or perhaps in order to protect some vague notion they have of their cultural identity.

In other churches men are present in equal measure to women and children, with their heads switched on, and anticipation in their faces.

So what makes the difference?

I could answer it in one word—Jesus—but I need to unpack what I mean.

Men like heroes, manly men who do great deeds. Too often Jesus is portrayed as a slightly effeminate hippy with long hair and deep soulful eyes—all languid and limp. I don’t know where this comes from, for it certainly doesn’t come from the Bible. As a middle-eastern man he would likely have been short and stocky, with swarthy skin. Long hair was forbidden, and “he had no beauty to attract us to him” (Isaiah 53:2). He was gentle and kind, but his bravery, courage and passion are often left out. The Jesus of popular culture is a victim accidentally crushed by the vicissitudes of a cruel world. Who wants to follow such a figure?

Such a figure rightly gathers the pitying focus of soft and tender souls. But do men want to sit around and pour out pity? Is this what following Jesus is?

This is not the Jesus of the Bible. The Jesus of the Bible out-manned every man that has ever lived. His death was not accidental, but a deliberate act of self-sacrifice in order to provide rescue for everyone (man, woman and child) who would put their trust in him.

Not only so, but he rose triumphant out of the grave, like the warrior king that he is, having defeated death itself. The Bible tells us that this great King calls men and women to follow him into the new Kingdom that he has made theirs through his life, death and resurrection. He is not looking for your pity but for your allegiance.

That’s the sort of man that is worth finding out about and following.

Why is it that men hate going to church? Because too often they don’t meet the Jesus of the Bible. They are presented with an object of pity, and pity will not motivate men to follow—but the real Jesus does.

The sound of silence, rather than the throaty roar of engines and the screech of tyres, settled over Donegal a couple of weekends ago. The final stages of the rally were cancelled as a mark of respect following the tragic death of Thomas Maguire from Co Meath, on the Knockalla stage on the Saturday.

That was the right and proper decision, I applaud the organisers for again having the decency to put respect for life before the spectacle of the event, and my sympathies go out to the Maguire family.

That Sunday evening in our fellowship we were considering the Bible’s teaching that God has given us Sunday, or the Lord’s Day, as a day to be set aside for him. He gives us that command for our physical and spiritual welfare. Since he made us, he knows best how we should live, and he knows that our ultimate joy is to be found in relationship with him. That’s why he calls us to set aside a day for spending time with him. It allows us to refocus and to recalibrate our thinking from the events of this world, with its passing joys, to the ultimate joy of knowing God, the maker of all joy.

As such, God is not attempting to be a spoilsport when he calls us to give one day to him, instead his concern is for our happiness.

Whenever Adam and Eve rebelled against God they broke this relationship for all of us. It took the intervention of Jesus, his death on the cross, to restore the possibility of this ultimate peace and joy to mankind. And because of his great triumph, although the Jews had been commanded to keep the seventh day sacred, the focus shifted to the first day, the day of Jesus’ resurrection, to help us remember his death and victory.

Something in us knows that in the face of tragedy, a rest from the regular activity is appropriate, as the events of the rally demonstrate. We rest to honour and to commemorate the person and their life. How much more is it appropriate then to rest when the person is not just human, but divine, and his life was lost in order that we might live, and his greatest goal in giving his life was that we might enjoy a right relationship with God. And if the earthly pinnacle of that relationship is found in giving a day to specifically enjoy this relationship with God, what are we saying to Jesus when we just continue with our own pleasure instead?

The rally organisers didn’t trample the memory of Thomas Maguire, but too often we trample over the very day given to remember Jesus and what his life, death and resurrection mean.

It’s finally here. The moment men all over the country have been waiting for. The 2010 World Cup is about to kick off. Football fans across the world eagerly hope that their country will triumph. Girlfriends and wives worldwide resign themselves, once again, to being relegated to second place throughout the competition. Economists expect that each English goal after the group stage will benefit the economy by £126 million, and if they make it to the final, a whopping £2 billion.

As if there wasn’t a high enough burden of expectation on the poor boys’ shoulders, they have to save the economy too!

It will be interesting to watch how the drive for World Cup success will impact players and fans. I’m old enough to remember the ’82 finals and desperate Algerian fans waving money at German and Austrian players who played a mockery of a final group game, ensuring that they both went through and Algeria went out. Sportsmanship will be sacrificed. Players previously regarded for their skill or honesty will throw it aside because winning means more—we all remember Thierry Henry and Diego Maradona for the wrong reasons. We’ll see players dive, fall over, and roll around crying in a manner that would embarrass most girls, in an effort to gain penalties and free kicks.

All in the pursuit of success.

Perhaps too, you remember the tragic case of Andrés Escobar, a Colombian player, who was shot and killed after his own goal in ’94, which caused gambling losses to several powerful drug lords.

All in the name of the Cup.

Of course it would be all too easy to point the finger at these overpaid, over-groomed stars of the ‘world’s greatest game’. For something drives each one of us—it’s just a question of what. It might be success, decency, reputation or standing in our community, it might be money, security, relationships, love, sex, power, acceptance, influence—the list is endless.

We all live in the pursuit of something—very often self. We may not go out and shoot those who get in our way, or who mess up our plans, but how do you react when something gets in the way of your dreams? Or to what lengths are you prepared to go to pursue your dreams?

We need to ask ourselves, does what we pursue make us better people? Or does it cultivate pride, deceit, anger, resentment, fear, or anxiety? They are indicators that we have a wrong primary goal. We are made to pursue something, but unless God takes the first place, then ultimately our desires will either defeat us, disappoint us or dissatisfy us. And en-route we will find some of the above character traits growing in our own lives. When be put God first and live for him, all other things find their rightful place, and he will not disappoint, defeat, or dissatisfy us. And as we follow him, he will change us for good.

What are you living for?

June’s Verse
I remember hearing of an elderly lady who heard some great learned man lecturing; afterwards she greeted him enthusiastically, “That was wonderful, I didn’t understand a word of it”!

It’s easy to do—to listen to something that’s over our heads, to feel inadequate, and to assume that it must therefore be wonderful. Sometimes it may well be, sometimes it isn’t and yet we can assume that the fault lies with us, since they must know what they’re talking about.

Perhaps you’ve read stuff from some of the new age variety talking about balancing energies with the universe, or the self-help books advocating claiming your own inner peace, eg. “When I claim my personal power then I can be at peace. When I am at peace I have the strength to claim my power”, or perhaps it’s from religious writers or preachers, and you’ve been left wondering, “I didn’t understand the half of that, but it must have been good”.

It doesn’t just happen when we don’t know much about a subject either. Prof. Scott Armstrong, of Pennsylvania University, did an experiment in which an actor posed as Dr. Myron R. Fox and delivered a lecture of ‘double talk’. He used material from a Scientific American article, mashed together with contradictory statements, things which didn’t follow logically, and an assortment of jokes and meaningless references to unrelated topics. The audience of professionals reported (through anonymous feedback) that “they found the lecture clear and stimulating.”

Why is it we do that? Why do we assume that if it is to be true or helpful it must be beyond our understanding?

There are issues about which it doesn’t really matter, but the issue where we often listen to unclear or even contradictory messages is that of eternal life—how does a person get to Heaven?

This month’s verse from the calendar answers this question in part. Many followers were abandoning Jesus, and he asks his disciples if they are going to go too, they reply:

“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” – John 6:68

These men knew that there was one place to get the answer; they knew that it was from Jesus. They knew that listening to his words, understanding them and trusting them was the key to eternal life. It’s not something to sub-contract out to preachers or gurus of whatever stripe, we need to go to Jesus, and to his words. Perhaps that’s why God has given us four accounts of Jesus’ life and words in the Bible. Let me encourage you to read them. It is to him that we must go, not to people who may impress us with their many words.