Tag Archives: New Testament

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

New Testament: Master picture for jigsaw puzzlers

MARK’S GOSPEL

– A narrative on Mark 8:27-9:37

THE wonder and delicacy of the ecological balance has only started dawning on the human race. In Panama, for example, the habitat depends on a fig wasp which germinates fruit trees, which support animals, which spread seeds to propagate more trees. No wasp, no forest.

Just as we cannot often see these links clearly, so Peter, James and John can’t yet see how all Jesus’ teaching fits together (8:32 and 9:32). But the transfiguration provides them with the big picture into which they could fit Jesus’ teaching about his forthcoming death.

It is like a resurrection appearance in advance. It is literally a taste of heaven that Peter understandably wants to prolong; just as anyone would wish to remain for ever in some idyllic holiday spot (9:5).

The brilliance of Jesus’ appearance (“No laundry could do anything like it” is C.S. Lewis’s way of correctly interpreting the whiteness of his clothes) speaks of his purity and perfection. His conversation reveals he is also superior to both Moses (the bringer of the law) and Elijah (the prototype prophet) both of whom were revered in Judaism.

So Peter’s confession (8:29) was spot on, but the Christ has an unexpected role; he is to die and rise again. Therefore, instead of prattling or protesting, they should simply listen to Jesus (9:7). The advice, if taken by successive generations, might have saved the church from a few conflicts.

Brought down to earth with a bump by the failure of the other nine apostles to heal the disturbed boy, they are reminded of Jesus’ simple assertion of the primacy of prayer in any ministry (9:29) that they must draw on heaven’s power and glory in order to do God’s will on earth.

The transfiguration suggests a whole new way of seeing things, in which fresh connections make greater sense. Faith is the ability to live with apparent incompatibilities, trusting that when heaven’s windows are opened the light which streams out will reveal a delicate and wonderful balance of otherwise inexplicable events.

Love and trust the LORD.

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Arts, Christianity, Culture

What is being ‘born again’?

NEW TESTAMENT

THE term “born again” is used only four times in the New Testament. We encounter it, for example by Paul in Titus 3:5 and by Peter in 1 Peter 1:3 and 23. It never features in the apostolic preaching.

It is not unique to Christianity. The first-century mystery religions offered “new birth” into a higher life, often through bizarre rituals. The rabbis thought of the baptised proselyte (convert from another race) as a new-born child, too.

The idea of a fresh start runs through the New Testament, usually described by theologians as “regeneration”. It is a description of the injection of God’s living presence into a person’s daily life. It is illustrated by images such as passing from death into life (Ephesians 2:4,5) and from darkness into light (Ephesians 5:8-11). Christians are also “raised with Christ” (Ephesians 2:6) and the life of the kingdom to come is available to them (Romans 8:11).

However, the new nature isn’t yet second nature. We must “put it on” (and take off the old) constantly, Paul says in Ephesians 4:22-24 and Colossians 3:5-10. The “sanctification” which follows “regeneration” is a life-long process.

God is not a machine, operating in our lives according to set formulae which we can define. He deals with people individually, so there is no biblical justification for claiming a decisive “moment of commitment” or a certain kind of “conversion” experience. Nicodemus’s lack was not so much “experience” as “insight”; he couldn’t see how to relate to God in a personal rather than a mechanical way.

The New Testament test of faith which brings eternal life is not, “Have you said or done certain things?”, but “Are you trusting the LORD now?” (1 John 5:12). The past process is not important; the present reality is. The Bible is clear on this.

However, it is possible to believe the truth of Christianity and to serve, and yet still lack the transforming dynamic of Christ’s energy in one’s inner life. Whether that is a lack of “new birth” or of the fullness of the Holy Spirit, or the “dark night of the soul”, and what effect this has on a person’s eternal destiny, is never speculated upon. Human beings cannot judge the state of someone else’s heart.

What is required of each individual is to ask, am I firing from a distance, or am I embracing the target? If the former, an acknowledgement of guilt and a request to know and trust Christ personally will initiate a closer encounter. But even if the answer points to the latter there is no room for complacency. New birth is not an insurance policy but the launch pad for an often bumpy journey moving forward.

Love and serve the LORD.

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