Category Archives: Culture

Arts, Christianity, Culture

Free drink for life

NEW TESTAMENT

– A narrative on John’s Gospel 4:1-26; cf. 7:37-39

WATER is a precious commodity throughout the Near East, and today some Arab countries survive only because of desalination plants which pour life into the parched desert. Bible readers in temperate climates take water for granted and may miss the impact of the biblical imagery.

The “water of life” is used in both testaments as an image of God’s renewing, life-giving presence. It is like a stream in the desert, transforming barren terrain into lush forest where animals can play, and people can find food (Isaiah 35:1-7). Therefore, the spiritually “dry” can find satisfying refreshment from God’s bottomless spring of life (Isaiah 55:1-3).

John uses the wordplay between Jesus and the woman at Sychar to show what is this new life that God offers. For the woman, “living water” was a running stream which never stopped flowing, unlike many of the wadis near her home which flowed only in the rainy season.

To Jesus, it was the life of the Spirit (cf. 7:37-39), always present, always flowing on (just as the wind of the Spirit is always blowing, 3:8). The thirst it quenches is the human desire for “something more” than material life and what relationships can bring – the innate thirst for God himself.

However, it is not true to say the thirst ceases when a person becomes a Christian. There is always more of God to discover and so the “stream” keeps flowing and never stops to become a stagnant pool.

John is complementing the other Gospels. The lifestyle of the Sermon on the Mount, when practised spontaneously, is the visible emergence of the bubbling stream from God’s people.

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Arts, Christianity, Culture

Freedom is a relative value

NEW TESTAMENT

– A narrative on Paul’s letter to the Galatians 3:23-4:7; 5  

We all remember the day we left school. Freedom! No more petty rules; you felt grown-up. Paul says that the person who trusts Christ is like someone who has left school. (“Put in charge”, 3:24, means literally a schoolteacher, or guardian.)

He also says it’s like a Jewish boy who’s come of age. There were no teenagers in the ancient world. You were either a child or a member of the adult Jewish community at the age of 13. Through faith in Christ, we have become spiritual adults. We can make God-honouring decisions without the discipline of the nursery.

Faith in Christ frees us from the prison of legalism (3:22,23), the impossible attempt to please (or bribe) God by keeping rules and regulations. John Wesley said of his conversion that he exchanged the faith of a slave for that of a son. He could serve God out of love, not out of fear.

The Galatian legalism had specific Jewish connotations, but we can become slaves too: to superstitions, fear of failure, and specific sins. Faith in Christ offers freedom and the dynamic to live wholeheartedly for God.

But there’s another side to it. “Freedom” was a watchword of the hippie sixties, when people tuned in and dropped out, abandoned taboos, and did their own thing. Echoes of that lifestyle remain. While the pull back to “slavery” is strong, so is the pull towards “lawlessness”.

Freedom in Christ does not give us the right to please ourselves and ignore the wishes of God and other people (5:13-15). We should not impose our “freedom” in such a way that makes others slaves to our whims and desires.

The message of Galatians is clear for today: we should let the Bible be our guide, we should trust Christ and not any of our own works for salvation, and we should live by allowing the Spirit to make us “fruitful”. Paul’s letter also encourages Christians to use their freedom in Christ responsibly.

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Arts, Christianity, Culture

The Books of Samuel: Real lives and frank confessions

OLD TESTAMENT

THE books of Samuel (originally one document) bring today’s reader into familiar territory. There are stories about people, which enable us to see them as flesh and blood, fallible and real, with ample opportunity to reflect on their actions.

The narrative starts at the end of the judges’ period. The story of decline, oppression, rescue and recovery continues. Samuel, the last of the judges, and a prophet, pilots Israel’s tribal confederacy into calmer waters. In his old age, he is asked to appoint a king.

This is a watershed event in the Bible. Samuel, after much soul-searching, appoints Saul. But as the prophet warned, Saul abuses his power, becomes mentally unstable, and falls from grace. David is secretly anointed as heir apparent.

Saul becomes paranoid (and seethes with envy) of the young giant-killer and David spends the next decade an outlaw on the run, becoming a role model for future Robin Hoods. Eventually, when Saul dies, David is accepted as king.

Later to be hailed as the model for the Messiah, David nonetheless has feet of clay. Apart from his celebrated affair with Bathsheba and contract killing of her husband, he has a shambolic home life and for a while is forced into exile by his rebellious son Absalom.

But for all that, he loves God, and gives the nation a solid foundation on which his son Solomon built a never-to-be-repeated “golden age” of prosperity and peace (which is recounted in 1 Kings).

It is an absorbing story, written as a prophetic overview of a formative part of Israel’s development. Behind the exposed lives we see a righteous God who remains reliable and who continues to be his people’s rescuer.

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