The Bible, being gay, right and wrong

Being gay (LGBT) and christian is a minefield of conflicting views.

Essentially, it all comes down to interpreting the bible. There are six passages in the bible that seem to address the issue and there is a mountain of studies, articles, books and videos that directly address these passages (often referred to as the "clobber" verses, simply because they are used to clobber gay people into submission).

Many of the theological discussions are well researched, thorough and irrefutable. Others are ambiguous, but enough to allow serious questioning. I applaud the scholarly work that has been done in this area, that has tirelessly explored the ancient cultures - their social structures, cultural paradigms, the way they used language including colloquialisms, analogy and metaphor, the influence of other cultures etc, all to bring a clearer exegesis to the scriptures.

These works have been crucial to my own journey out of the unbearable burden that christianity has placed on LGBT people.

But a much larger issue needs to be looked at in light of all this. And its not just for LGBT people - it's an issue that faces every single person who claims to be a christian.

The bible!

I've written quite a bit over the last year or so  about my views on the bible and its role. It's also something that many others are questioning as we look deeper into its history and influence.

The real issue however, is our deep need to have an unambiguous set of rules that clearly define right from wrong, good from bad. A book that says "this is how you live" - that if you don't follow the instructions exactly you'll be in trouble, possibly really big trouble.

We really like to have clearly defined boundaries. It gives us security and allows us to point to something outside ourselves as the source of authority. We love laws! In fact, I wonder if the metaphor in the Garden of Eden myth, is actually about our wanting "the knowledge of good and evil" simply so we don't have to live from a place of love - a place that requires thoughtfulness, empathy and compassion, responsibility, time and energy. The knowledge of good and evil, especially once it's formalised and written down, removes all personal responsibility because its already sorted - look it up in the book - end of story.

But we were never created for that. We were created for and from love, intimate unity with God and each other. The bible itself hints at this so often (in the New Testament at least).

But our obsession for the ultimate rule book is our Achilles heel. We simply cannot agree on what this authoritative book actually says - we never have! Thousands of different groups of christians all arguing about it. We are desperate for love and unity but keep trying to obtain it by deferring to a rigid rule book out of fear. Fear that we could be wrong. Fear from wanting to know good and evil and yet never sure if we have chosen the right thing. Fear of having to take responsibility for our own hearts. Fear of some eternal consequence. Fear of disobeying (knowingly or ignorantly) a God who is just as fearful as he is loving.

We have abdicated our intrinsic humanity. We have refused to live in and from love - outside of the concepts of law, right and wrong, good and evil.

The bible has some wonderful stories, and many object lessons, but it is the most abused and misinterpreted set of documents in history, simply because we have made it something it isn't.

Our first and only priority is to love - even the bible says this, lol!! Love, from beginning to end. That's it.

But what about...!? People need to....! But if we don't have guidelines...! - all excuses for not wanting to live with the personal responsibility of love.

Sure, have faith in Jesus, be christian, but the bible is not your reference book. It's not where you go to find right from wrong. God IN YOU is where we find love that shapes all we are and do. We all know what love is, and we can wrestle with the application of it, but we all know, really we do.

Live loved - go on - try it!

We have to.

We want to be so sure.
We can't bear to think that there is no black and white.
There must be clear moral standards. There must be laws.
There must be the knowledge of good and evil.
We must know how to treat each other - how to treat ourselves.
We must be told what love is.
There must be certainty.
We have to know our eternal destiny.
There must be rewards and punishment.
We have to know who is good and who is bad.
We must define sin.
There has to be defined qualities for "in" or "out".
We have to be able to judge correctly.

Without a clear moral guideline, without a set of rules and procedures that describe how we are to believe and behave, without a clear picture of eternal principles, without knowing exactly who God is and what is required to be accepted by it, without all we need to know being laid out in minute detail
- how do we know if we are right or wrong?
- how can we tell who is speaking truth?
- what do we have?
- what will we do?
- how shall we behave?
- what do we believe?


Simple.

I AM

We already know - every single one of us.

Father vs Lover

This is a tricky subject, and can't say I've ever quite got to the bottom of it. Since letting go of religion and the obsession of assuming the bible is the answer to everything, I've come to some interesting conclusions that work for me - so far!

The concept of God as our father is well grounded in scripture, particularly by Jesus. There's no disputing the image of a perfect father who loves us unconditionally, and will bring every person to the knowledge of their completion in him.

But there is also the concept of God as a lover woven through scripture as well. It's more subtle but is intrinsic to the concept of the "bride of Christ".

These days I don't quote verses to prove a point. I might dig around to get a feel for a subject, but Christ in me is my guide. So here's the thing that has gurgled around the back of my brain for some time. A perfect father is awesome, can't argue with that so I'm not dissing that aspect of God at all. But I am taking it a step further.

I think the idea of the Bride hints at a level of union and oneness with God that goes way beyond any Father/child relationship. Our personal romantic relationships go way deeper than parental ones. There is a softness, romance, mutual adoration and intimacy that supersedes all other relationships. We leave our parental relationships to unite with another person in way that is impossible with our parents.

Even though Jesus talked about his father, and there are things like the prodigal son, which are beautiful metaphors, he hinted at something deeper many times as well - the father and I are one etc.

Paul and John talked a lot more about an intimacy that you would never describe as fatherly. In fact, father implies separation - sure, a loving father who is besotted with his children, but never the less, separate.

Now that we are one with God in every sense, that father/mother model has been outgrown. We are now old enough, as it were, to be lovers. To enter a whole new realm of love. A unity and oneness with all he is and all he has created (and expressed toward each other) that surpasses the need for the type self deprecation we associate with an authority figure (no matter how benign they may be).

The implications of this have been creeping up on me and creating a whole new sense of who God is and how I was created to relate to him. We are equals!! Of course, he is completely "omni" everything and I'm not like him in that sense, but he wants me as an equal, like a lover, no secrets, everything shared, neither lording it over the other. Just a beautiful oneness built on God's initiated passion that has drawn me into his arms.

Dare I also suggest that this surpasses all concepts of gender, God being completely female and completely male, thus completing us on every level no matter what our gender/sexuality is (although this is another huge topic!).

Perhaps the whole concept of lover is really what Jesus meant by "sending the Holy Spirit to live in us". There is a huge realm opening up for me that transcends culture/religion/scripture/tradition and all the bondage those things create, and frees me to to embrace Holy Spirit.

I've always thought that addressing God as Father just never really expressed it right. I'd try Jesus or Spirit or Lord or whatever, but nothing does the job. I'm tempted to call him Lover! No more "Father God I beseech you to pour out your blessings, blah, blah". Now its just "Hey Lover, what are you doing, can I help, or do you just want to hang out, maybe we could make love!!"

Who was Jesus talking to?

Matt 15:24 says "...I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

Oh, OK, that's interesting! 

So Jesus apparently, was just on earth for the Jews. Hmmm...

That means that every thing he did and spoke was just for the Jews and doesn't apply to us!! That really is heresy! I mean, to think that all the stuff recorded in the gospels was only relevant to the Jews is kind of disturbing - especially if we've been living by the "what would Jesus do?" mindset.

But the implications are even more disturbing if we really think it through. Jesus only spoke to Jews in relation to the old covenant setup (his odd interaction with gentiles was only in terms of their faith in God). He talked about the law, its bondage, the death it brings etc, in relation to the Jews. The gentiles had no idea about any of that stuff, so his words would have been meaningless to them anyway.

Paul was a Jew, who brought a different revelation than Jesus did. Sure, there's some commonality, but Paul was trying to communicate to gentiles through his Jewish paradigm. He struggled! He knew in his heart the extravagant inclusiveness of God's love and acceptance of ALL mankind, but he constantly had to wrestle with the Jews and his own cultural mindset. You can clearly see the battles he fought with himself and the original Jewish followers of Jesus.

Soooo, I'm a gentile. And most of us probably are as well. In fact, even if you are of Jewish heritage, the old covenant is long gone, so you may as well be a gentile! That means that the words of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John aren't relevant to me - I can ignore them?? Well, yes, I guess that's true. I can ignore them, in the sense that they have no bearing on my relationship with God.

I can, however, get a lot better sense of God's nature and relationship with us from Paul. But even then, he struggled with the full implications of the gospel because of his Jewish heritage.

This only leaves us with one reliable option - the only option that Jesus gave us all just before he was killed. He said the Holy Spirit was going to come for everyone and he was going to be the source of all comfort and truth.

That's rather unnerving really, because it means we don't have a book of instructions to follow, only some intangible wafty spirit thing. Unless that spirit is far more real, and far more intrinsically part of us than we ever imagined!

Just imagine if we really are ONE with God right now! Just imagine if God really IS love and that love is already intrinsically part of who we are. Imagine if all we have to do is act on that reality! 

We would do well to remember that what Jesus did was established "before the foundations of the world", which implies a heck of a lot more than what he presented to the Jews.

Scary stuff indeed!!

Jim's Gospel

Things in Christendom are coming undone. 

The fundies are waging war (or should that be raging war) against anything that defiles literalistic dogma. Doctrines, denominations, cults abound in ever greater numbers. People are discovering we have been ripped off by centuries of misinterpretations, political/religious manipulation, power struggles, incorrect translations, you name it. And the temptation to hang on to traditional christian thought is like grabbing at the rope as the anchor slips over the side - you'll get rope burns, or dragged overboard with the anchor.

Sifting through the morass of what's left of Christianity is daunting. Those who have taken the time to attempt to understand some of the issues are often tempted to only go so far, for fear of losing faith completely. Many threads of thought will lead to slippery slopes that by their very nature will fly in the face of the mainstream church.

Many people are being "zapped" with new understanding of how awesome God really is and how we so completely misunderstood his nature and plans for humans. Great stirrings through every stream and denomination. More divisions, arguments. A huge slow rumble that will erupt in the greatest earthquake the church has seen - not some "revival" of holiness, healing and bible bashing, but a change in the very core of Christianity.

So, what about my gospel? Glad you asked!

We all have a basic idea of what the gospel is, don't we! I mean, you ask anyone, even non-christians (well, in the western world at least), and they will probably be able to spout something. Good christians will have a good biblical answer, and you can get a range of brochures that will outline it for you in simple to follow instructions so you can "get saved" by applying the aforementioned gospel.

But in reality the gospel is getting a bit cloudy. At the very least there is Jesus' gospel and Paul's gospel, and heaps of arguments about that! And lots of discussions about what being saved really is, and being born again, and eternity, and God's perfect will, and free will, and well, just about everything that colours how you interpret the gospel - to yourself, let alone others.

So I began to realise that no matter what we think or claim about it all, our deep understanding of what God has done to make everything right for us all is uniquely personal. Most of us will parrot what we think the bible says or what our favorite teacher says, but our hearts have their own understanding. Our hearts intrinsically know what the gospel SHOULD be. Yes it can be twisted and mutilated and wrapped in conditions, fears, but deep down we know that if God really was as good as we hoped for, the gospel would be the most freeing wonderful thing the world could ever imagine. God would be all that our hearts could ever desire - perfect unconditional love and acceptance!

I began to strip away everything except the most basic thing that a child can understand without scripture - yes, that's right, especially without scripture!

Its Gospel 101! Ready?

God is Love - He loves me!

What about Jesus? He was God demonstrating His intrinsic involvement in humanity and solving the problem of "sin" - all sin for all time, for all people, whether they know it or not. To know that God is Love and we are loved by Him, IS to accept what Jesus has done anyway. We don't have to "know" about him, he sorted all that before he even made us, he confirmed it by his physical appearance to those that a physical appearance would be most significant to (the Jews), and then confirmed the whole thing by opening our eyes to our unity with him.

Theology is fun! Gives me hours of thought provoking entertainment and lively discussion. Our minds are made to explore the deeper meanings of life the universe and everything. BUT, when it comes to life and death, I'm starting to hold those ideas lightly now - it matters less everyday. I only care about it if the fruit of someone's ideas is bad. And we all know bad fruit, and we all know good fruit.

So YOUR gospel can really look like anything! It can be Jesus' gospel or Paul's gospel but mostly it's your gospel, the one that Holy Spirit speaks to your heart - the one that says "God is love and He loves me!" And we live from that place - we live loved!

Its so easy and yet so hard. Its expansive in its freedom but the narrowest road we could walk. Jesus is the centre of everything, whether we recognise it now or later. We "preach" the kingdom of God here and now in all of us, and that kingdom is the best thing unknown to mankind!

LIVE LOVED (and only use words if necessary)

All roads lead to Rome

Now that's a title that's bound to get some interest! Jim's lost the plot and headed for the fires of hell, yet again.

Well, I'm not broaching the subject of other religions, I'll save that for some time down the line... But I am talking about doctrines, denominations, theology, paradigms, blah, blah.

I had a run in with someone about "sound doctrine" and if you don't have it you're headed for damnation and need to repent immediately! It was their job to publicly determine who was "sound" and who was a heretic. It doesn't take much to imagine what my response would have been, but I was nice about it!

Sooo, let's take a couple of the most currently contentious doctrines floating around, say, "all are in Christ" and maybe "Universal Reconciliation", "Inclusionists" perhaps, subjective vs objective reconciliation, all that sort of stuff. Its a huge battle as people throw scriptures around trying to prove their points. Books and countless articles, videos and posts about it all. Now you probably know my personal views on some of this stuff, but that's not really the issue.

The point is we need to encourage each other to go for it! Yes, that's right, support and help each other in our quest for truth!

We can trust God in us to guide us, its really that simple. All we need is the integrity and honesty about our journey and the humility to be wrong and the willingness to be stretched. He has given us intelligence, reason, common sense, curiosity, passion and a desire for truth. We need to use these faculties to their fullest. And the best part is He's right there with us in that journey.

Now I can hear some of you saying, "well that's fine as long as its based in scripture, otherwise we'll just drift off into spiritual anarchy and deception". Well, I kinda think God's a little bigger than that. If we are truly living in the integrity I described above, then we can totally trust God to guide us.

The thing is, His grace leads us to intimacy with Him - that's the whole purpose of it. In that place, doctrines become a non-issue, its all about Jesus and us, living loved and all that entails. And from that place we have the permission and the ability to freely pursue all that we put our minds to. His universe (physical and spiritual) is so enormously huge that even the bible is quite a limited document.

That's got a few of you going too, I would guess, but I've covered that in a few previous blogs. Suffice it to say, the bible is awesome and definitely something He left for us to cross reference our life in the Holy Spirit with, but its also been the fuel for the worst atrocities in history.

We are made in His image and we are in union with Him. We are free to use all our God given capabilities and character to pursue His truth, in complete trust that He will guide us. Jesus WILL lead us into all truth.

So my original point? All these doctrines aren't either/or, they are expression of God's heart through us, and we have nothing to fear by pursuing these ideas. Lets help each other in this exciting journey into the enormity of Daddy's heart!!

Singing in the spirit

While writing some content for my book, I was thinking about the first time I heard "singing in the spirit" in a charismatic church in the 70s.

It was an incredible experience. I couldn't really hear much, sitting up the back, and the songs were all a bit tacky, but then they started this “singing in the spirit” thing. This was the most amazing sound I had ever heard as waves of random harmonies

went sweeping over the auditorium. I couldn't believe that this could be so wonderful and spontaneous! I'm not sure if it was just because it was the first time I heard it, but nothing else ever came close. It tweaked my musical creativity and my spirit simultaneously – truly awesome.

As I moved into charismatic/pentecostal worship leading this became common place and was something you did to bring the "anointing". I learned all the tricks, but I could also just feel what to do, how the dynamics worked, and found it was easy to bring that elusive anointing.

There is a unique dynamic that goes on in community singing - in ALL cultures. People are united by singing together about common themes, which can be spiritual or social. When you listen to and watch these other cultures there is the same freedom to express joy and admiration as christians feel, and there is the same sensitivity to the dynamic. From wild happy celebration to mystical solemn song and chanting. Now some would say its a demonic copy of the Holy Spirit. But I would say its something built into our nature.

The music and rhythms can touch subliminal thoughts and emotions, so in a christian context we have Jesus as our common focus. The sounds are culturally based however, so what would bring a state of ecstasy for Mongolians would probably send your average Texan running from the room screaming.

I would now dare to hazard that its nothing to do with "anointings" but with our innate ability to find a state of joy, strength, unity and ecstasy through culturally applicable, focused, community singing.

Now this doesn't negate our "praise and worship" times, but it takes away the illusion that we have to do it right for God to anoint it and for some reason think He suddenly turns up when it "feels" right or some appropriate climax is reached.

God is always 100% there, in us and with us, so He ain't going to turn up any more than He is already. But its our focus and unity we feel when we sing about Him together. We switch off everything else and allow our spirit and emotions to express themselves in the music. This is the same for all cultures and has nothing to do with Christian doctrine as such, we are just tapping into a common human experience and using it for enhancing our experience and relationship with God.

This is actually great news because we can relax, without any expectation of some mystical experience determining whether the "worship and praise" was anointed or not. We are free to accept Gods presence in and with us all the time, and that our singing together is for us, its for our benefit, it makes us feel good, and makes us feel good about God. Its natural and wonderful without any need for hype and super spirituality.

So back to the singing in the spirit... Its like mystical chanting in many cultures. It can drift and swirl with rhythm and harmony relevant to the culture. A uniting expression that unites spirits and focuses emotions. And its beautiful, freeing, and its something we can use to enhance our intimacy with God and each other.

I'll continue to work through this and comment more on the spiritual side another time,

Paradox

Which is better - to stand by scripture and endlessly battle through paradox, or to stand with integrity in your heart?

Are these things mutually exclusive?

What do I mean?

The bible talks a lot about what God does, tells his people to do, describes His character, His relationship with His creation etc. And heaps of it is contradictory. Now before you jump on me and say that His character and ways are so far beyond ours that we could never understand, lets talk about that a little.

There are very clear contradictions about his requirements for love, justice, ethics, anger, fear and many other traits. Most of them are between the old and new covenants, so we happily say the new covenant is a whole new era of His unconditional love poured out on His creation, and the old was about a legal standing and requirements. But that still doesn't cover the problem with the basic character of God which is supposed to be unchanging.

This is basic stuff in some ways, but we either completely ignore it or create very complex theology to get around it, or just throw up our hands and say God is God and its not our place to understand.

But its still there... The God of the Old covenant was pretty bad, His standards were outrageously demanding, but worst were the many things he told the Jews to do, murder of pregnant mothers and children,  genocide, so many things that by our standards are absolutely unthinkable, in fact, not too dissimilar to Hitler and other tyrant despots! Any person doing these things today would be stopped by the UN and tried in an international court with crimes against humanity.

So how do we deal with this logic? Is it enough to say our logic is futile compared to His? There's many places in scripture where He lays out in no uncertain terms the nature of love, 1cor 13 being the most obvious. The obvious conclusion is if that's His standard for us then His own standard must be at least the same if not higher. So has that standard of unconditional love always been His standard? He is unchangeable after all!

I have read endless stuff on the subject of Gods immutable character over my life as a christian and know all the theology that tries to reconcile this. But either it's just me, or none of it actually works. I have yet to hear any explanation that really says "YES" to my heart. So I think the problem is either the bible itself, or how I understand it. Perhaps its neither though, or both. I am only left with being able to rely on Holy Spirit in me - the comforter/councilor that Jesus said could only come when He had finished His work on earth. He reveals all truth to us, not any written words, no matter how "holy" we have declared them to be.

I know beyond any doubt that if I'm created in His image, it means that the way I think, process, feel; the way the deepest parts of me understand the truth of unconditional love; the way our hearts yearn for justice based on compassion and understanding, are the same as His. They have to be, or there is nothing left that we can say is "in His image".

What then are the implications of God being nothing but love? That all He is and does comes from that heart? This fact undermines every religious understanding of scripture and our demented acceptance of a tyrant God who we dare not question and blindly accept as unpredictable, unknowable and prone to getting offended big time.

All those great christians who we love and respect the most through history are those who loved the most, who poured out Father's heart of love and compassion. God is in all, holding everything together - there is nowhere in all of creation that He is not. He is love, we are held together by love, the darkness is even filled with his love.

I hope that makes you concerned about what you believe, even about what I believe, that it makes you think just for a minute about God's true nature, and how we respond to that.

More on The Word...

Well here's where I'm probably going to go up a rung or two in the heresy ladder!

I have been having ongoing discussions with a friend about many issues relating to grace, leading into the ideas around Ultimate Reconciliation. Although we have agreed to disagree, I thought I might share my final communication by way of relating my current stance - my theology as of this week, next week may be different, lol!! I've mentioned many of the points in previous posts and blogs, but this sort of came out as a summary...

After all our discussion I realise I don't view scripture as the word of God. Jesus is, has always been and will always be the Word of God. Scripture is scripture, nothing more and nothing less. It is subject to the Holy Spirit. It is a collection of letters and documents written by men like you and I, full of the same emotions, fears, and joys. It is full of errors, contradictions and emotions.

But here's the thing. It is exactly what God wanted, for then and now. It describes God's heart, man's heart, their interactions, adventures, loves and hates, the whole gamut of of who we are and our relationship with him. If he had laid out a totally unambiguous user manual, then there would be no heart to heart search, no longing for truth that drives us to him, instead of a book. The bible is invaluable, because it leads us to him, its NOT him. This is where the intellectual/scholar thing turns to custard on every level. He can never be expressed through a book, and never wanted to be. His wonderful grace as expressed through the new covenant, caused us to be totally reliant upon Holy Spirit in us and to trust him in everyone else. Yes there is the Law, which was for the Jews, and the wonderful passionate poetry of Psalms, and the Prophets, all so beneficial to our walk with Him! But they are not Him, nor are they to be taken as literal truths. He is soooo much bigger!

Paul had amazing revelations and expressed brilliant truths, but he was all over the place too, often contradicting himself and throwing in his personal opinions. With all his letters we only see his side of the story, we can only assume what he is responding to. But that's fine, because God wants us to listen to Holy Spirit first. Its scary because we have to trust him, something not many people are even willing to consider, saying its license to do whatever we want, but of course it isn't, that's absurd. Its license to find our union with him free from sin/law/religion, and He's more than happy to take the risk that we'll blow it.

I've been looking at the Preterist viewpoint. Not saying I totally agree with it, but there is so much that is obviously right. And its the same with many other ideas - if we get stuck in our paradigms we spiral into fundamentalist dogma that leads to bondage, not freedom, and completely cuts across our ability to have pure intimacy with God.

The kingdom and the gospel, the work of Jesus and the love of God are so much bigger than we ever imagined or could be explained in a few words penned by fragile humans like us, that God had to present it in all its warts and shortcomings. But we still bury our heads in the words thinking that truth lies there, when its in front of us and in us right now, the words of scripture confirming what is in our hearts.

Jesus was the fulfilment and the end of the law, he had to be familiar with every last bit of it so he could complete his "mission". Yes, scripture is beneficial, but it isn't the source of all truth. Its is totally inspired by God, but not because its indisputable truth, but for the opposite reason - it causes us to turn to him for truth and clarity and to make sense of life. We have been taught to worship the bible rather than Him, and the implications of that are huge.

Our journey with God is meant to be totally unique to each of us, enabled by the finished work of Jesus when he died and resurrected. The scriptures are a wonderful guide to that unique journey, but they will never supersede our unity with the fullness of God right now, and the amazing intimacy that brings every moment of our lives!

What does intimacy look like??

There's a lot of talk about intimacy these days. It's almost a catch phrase in many circles and is thrown around a bit glibly in discussions. But as I look at what "christianity" is all about, it becomes very clear that intimacy is the central issue. Yes, the work of Jesus is central in terms of the mechanics and logistics, but in terms of its purpose, its about intimacy with God, what we were created for, no more and no less. He created us for relationship with him, that's our starting point, everything in our lives comes from that place.

But what does that look like, I mean, how do we "do" it? Ask 20 christians and you may get 20 different answers. Most of us equate intimacy with God with knowing him. That's sort of OK, but intimacy implies a lot more. I know a lot of people, I have many friends I know well - even "intimate" details of their lives. But its very few people who I have shared myself with down to the most private details, bonded with my heart, shared physically and emotionally all that we are together.

That level of intimacy requires commitment, vulnerability, trust, all that stuff... but there is one factor that enables all that - communication! We have to talk, look each other in the eyes, touch each other, listen and be listened to.

Most of us tend to think we will be intimate with God by endlessly reading the bible until it becomes part of us, because its The Word, the complete revelation of God. But of course, that's absurd. If there was a detailed book of my life (heaven forbid) that you could read, you would end up knowing a lot about me, but of course you wouldn't be intimate with me. How could you? You never met me, talked to me, spent time sharing our hearts.

So to have that level of intimacy with God, it requires the same thing. Now he's in us already, in fullness - we can't get any more of him, no bigger anointing, no greater outpouring, and although he sometimes reveals something of himself in huge "whacks" and revelations we still need to renew our minds to his presence and let him build the type of relationship he wants.

He starts by talking to us. Not through the scriptures (although he can reveal truths to us that way), and not through other people (see above). He TALKS to us, that still small voice. Now scripture says its still and small, but its a voice none the less, and Jesus said his sheep know his voice. If you are a sheep, then you can hear and know his voice. Its that simple. We don't have to fast and pray, spend hours studying scripture and endless "quiet times". We just have to shut up long enough and simply trust the small voice we hear in response to our own thoughts. 

We know he loves us to bits and there is no condemnation in Christ, so if that small voice says you've been bad and God is angry, you know its not him. If he just says words of love and encouragement - that's him. If he gives ideas and suggestions about how to fix up the messes we make - that's him.

We trust that voice, Holy Spirit in us. We have "changed our minds" (metanoia) about who we are and who Jesus is, our old nature died with him, and we have a new spirit in us that's uniquely joined with the fullness of God in us. The only thing that gets in the way of hearing his voice clearly is our thought patterns - the old lies left behind that just need to be renewed. The enemy loves to tell us its a battle between the old and the new, but its really simple - really, really simple (remember, like little children). We ARE a new creation, free to run to our Dad, rest in his arms and talk with him.

He loves hearing our stories, our heart breaks, our victories, our shopping list, our funny jokes, our hopes and dreams. He loves having a glass of wine with us (or a beer), eating with us, shopping, driving, cleaning, mowing. And best of all, He chats to us all the time, so simple and natural, we miss it, looking for some powerful "holy" moment when we will have incredible revelations and fall on the floor in awe.

He talks with us, not at us. He listens, and loves. We find our security and identity and live loved, and that overflows into all around us. 

I feel like I've only scratched the surface on how important this is!! I may continue on this subject...

Why can't we get it right?

I'm still working on how we are supposed to view scripture and utilise it. If you've been following my blogs you'll notice its been something of a theme lately.

So what's wrong with the bible, you may ask? Nothing at all! Its totally inspired by God and preserved for us as a reference - everything God intended for us to have as a written record is in it! No problem there.

But here's the problem, as I have expressed from different angles before. If God wanted pure unified doctrines and theologies that would have held His church together, to stand in unity, grow into full maturity etc, how come  he didn't spell it out in black and white, unambiguously, no room for interpretation. Well, you may say, the original languages have changed and we don't know a lot of the original context - all that sort of stuff. But didn't God know that? Didn't he realise that over 2000 years language and culture would change so radically that we would loose the plot? Why didn't He take that into account? After all, He is sovereign, and nothing is impossible for Him.

But wait - there's more! Even in the first church, they couldn't get it right. All Paul's letters are addressing various errors, and there were divisions from the word go. So if all the New Testament is so perfect, what are we missing?

Now don't get me wrong, I'm still saying its completely inspired by God and is exactly what He wanted to be recorded for us. But if we keep struggling to agree on so much stuff (and that's big issues, not just little things that don't matter) we have to start thinking that maybe this is what God planned all along. Maybe he actually didn't want a completely unambiguous set of instructions that we could hold up, and no one could possibly misinterpret. He could have done that if He wanted - He's God!

Maybe He left us this jumble of documents in the hope that we would rely on Him for truth, and maybe we could rely on each other. Maybe His plan is that we trust Holy Spirit in each other. And maybe, just maybe, He's not that fussed if our doctrines are wrong. He could be interested in relationship above all else. Maybe all He is really interested about is Love, after all, that's what He is. Perhaps He purposely allowed the confusion and errors and arguments so we could see that its not about following a set of instructions, that its all about Him. Our restored relationship. About Jesus and what He did to reconcile all mankind.

Maybe the whole purpose of the bible is to bring us to the end of ourselves, so that we just fall into His arms and let His love envelop us and reveal the unbelievable unity we now have with Him, even better than Adam and Eve had!

And maybe when we read it from that perspective we will see His words in a whole new light. God in us, united by the presence of Holy Spirit in every one of us, filling us with His love.

Maybe I'm a dreamer, but who gave us the capacity to dream?
(I'll keep expanding on this theme as its probably the core issue for many of us now, as we argue things like the validity of scripture and battle with fundamentalism.)

Words for Thought

I posted this in Facebook but thought I might put it here as well for the odd passerby!

So Jesus rose from the dead, the disciples split up and spread the gospel with amazing passion, Paul got zapped, and things got even more outrageous - spreading like wildfire for years with no written doctrines, handbooks, tracts, Torah, just a simple powerful gospel that was the love of a passionate Father wanting to pour that love out on his children.

So they started to get the odd letter tossed around when one of the apostles found something not going to plan. We really aren't too sure about what they were responding to, we can only surmise that from the letters themselves. There were some accounts of Jesus life from a few different viewpoints floating around. Some of the letters were details on the work of Jesus and all its implications. All had a purpose and an intended audience, but they were all over the place. No one used them as doctrinal statements, but over time they began to be venerated until a couple of hundred years later it was decided for the sake of unification and sorting out who was in and who was out, as well as defining orthodoxy, the church fathers of the day decided to pick the best of them and bundle them up together.

So the first church had no bible. Some of the Jewish converts still liked their Torah, but nothing at all for those Gentiles. Seems they had to rely on the Holy Spirit. Maybe they knew something we didn't? Maybe there was a depth to their faith that we have lost? Maybe the whole revelation of Jesus death and resurrection, unity with God and trusting that relationship was all they needed - gulp! treading in thin ice here!

Of course our wonderful Father inspired those amazing documents we now have - they contain descriptions of the depth of his passion and how that was made real in us. But maybe he never intended them to come first? Maybe they were meant to be supportive to the life of the indwelling Christ, the words that confirmed what we should already know in our hearts, the touchstone of the simple truths of the gospel.Is it possible we've got it round the wrong way? Could it be we are trying to figure out this awesome life in Him by a handful of letters rather than using those letters to bear witness to the Holy Spirit in us? Maybe we are so scared of the personal responsibility that would bring, that it outweighs the freedom? And possibly we just can't handle the thought that its not our problem to "guard the faith" - maybe God can do that better without our help?

Hmmm, can't help wondering...