I created a new word cloud based on the book of philippians this morning. What do you think?

Had a little bit of time this morning and thought I would do some tweeting. I have read (rather quickly) Luke's gospel and have reduced each chapter to a tweet. I shall be transposing them soon but there was one thing I hadn't noticed before. In Luke 17 ten are healed of leprosy and only one says thanks. He was a Samaritan

Well, I have been thinking about Lent. It is fast approaching and I am having the usual difficulty in choosing something to give up. More than that, I have been thinking about the time Jesus spent in the desert before he began his ministry. They are another part of the gospels that we all know so well. It sometimes seems to pas us by. Inspired by Nick Page’s The Wrong Messiah, I have decided to write a few things about the temptations Jesus faced in the hope that it can help me understand those temptations that I have to go through. Firstly the setting of the scene. This is something that is important to note. Who is this being tempted? Of course it is Jesus, that much is obvious but for the Jews who would have been reading the gospels he was also Elijah spending time in the wilderness and Moses in the desert trying to follow the word of God. An interesting point here is that both of these two key figures were followed in their ministry by someone with the same name. The names Elisha and Joshua have the same root. The same word gives another name; Jesus. This time before the ministry of Jesus is almost like him going through what Moses and Elijah went through in order to become their successor. The first temptation is an obvious one. Christ must have been hungry. Who wouldn’t be after days in the desert? The devil appears to him and tells him that he can simply order the stones to turn to bread and they will. He is cunning. He twists the words of scripture to fix this point in Jesus’ mind. (As an aside here, this is something that quite often happens, those who dislike the Bible and what it says are often the most literal and picky in quoting from it). Christ also knows scripture (he did write it after all) and uses it to reach the right conclusion. It must have been difficult though. There may be more to it though. Bread is an important symbol. Messianic tradition had it that when the Messiah came to save the Jews he would feed the hungry. When we look at the feeding of the five thousand we see that the Jews tried to make Christ king after this. They knew what the miracle meant. He who could provide bread in the desert was the Messiah. The devil may have been asking Jesus to prove he was who people wanted him to be. On the other hand, Jesis was probably very very hungry. The second temptation was very different. If the first was about meeting the needs of Christ, this one is all about politics. Satan takes Christ to the top of a hill and shows him all the kingdoms of the world. If he would only worship the devil, he could have control of these kingdoms. They have been given over to Satan and are his to dispose of. What on earth does that mean? Are the governments of the world controlled by a Satanic conspiracy? Perhaps they are but I think that the gospels are saying that the human world can easily be manipulated by Satan and that as tempting as this may seem, giving into worldly desires for power and influence is something that ultimately leads us away from God. Christ then, deals well with the first two temptations. He shows a sound knowledge of how to understand and apply scripture and shows a remarkable degree of self-restraint. The wilderness experience is working well for him. And then he leaves the desert. We are not exactly sure where the first two temptations take place. Some tradition gives the location as the mount of temptation but we simply don’t know. We do know where the third one takes place. Or at least we think we do … Before we move on to the next temptation, here is a little diversion … I hope you enjoyed it. It is one of the funniest scenes in one of the funniest films ever. It doesn’t really have any bearing on the temptations but I thought I’d like to include it anyway. The third temptation seems to be similar to the first one. It is about showing off your powers and getting God to do what you want. In my interpretation, every time I hear this I see Christ being taken by magic, through the air to the very roof of the temple. Here the devil tells him to throw himself off the top and to see if the angels of God will save him. Christ of course says no and the devil then leaves him alone. Did he fly there? Possibly but he could easily have walked to the temple in Jerusalem. Just because he can, it doesn’t mean he always did. Matthew 5:4 tells us that he was taken to the ‘pinnacle of the temple’ (NIV) and I have always thought of this as the roof. Not so. It was in fact the highest point of the temple complex which was the south-eastern corner of the wall. It was covered by a portico called Solomon’s Colonnade. If we look at what the devil asked him to do, we can see that it could have been done on the same high spot as the previous one. The devil must have had a reason for choosing the temple. This point, is the point where, traditionally, blasphemers were thrown from prior to being stoned to death. This is seen in Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History when he tells us that this is what happened to James in AD62. He was thrown down and then beaten. We see in Luke 4:29 that the locals wanted to throw Jesus off a cliff for his blasphemy. This is what happened at a stoning, not the image shown in the video a little further back! In John’s gospel Christ is twice threatened with stoning at the temple and in one of these it happened in Solomon’s Colonnade (John 10:23). So perhaps the devil was tempting Jesus to change the ending. He knew (as did Jesus) that eventually the Jews would reject him and kill him. He could stop it says the devil. It doesn’t have to be this way he whispers. You could change it. It is something that is repeated in the cruel mocking words at the cross. “Come down and save yourself” the people cry. It is repeated later in Matthew’s gospel when Peter tells Jesus that he won’t die. Christ even calls him Satan which is quite a harsh insult (Matthew 16:23) for such a devoted disciple. It is the constant refrain of Satan in his dealings with Jesus. ‘You don’t have to do it this way’, ‘You could do something different, God won’t let you be hurt, just ask him and He can stop it’. Christ resisted this temptation on all the occasions it rose up before him. He knew that this path, the path of ‘blasphemy’ and rejection, was the only path that would accomplish what God needed and wanted. I for one am grateful that he did.

I have been settling in to our new home in the Highlands. It certainly is a beautiful place. Even in the harsh wind and rain it is beautiful. One of the best vistas is one that is from the local Free Church building. We have been there only twice but it is a lovely church. I have been thinking about the first time we went. The teaching there was on a passage from Mark chapter 10. The passage where Jesus predicts his death for the 3rd time and where James and John ask for the places at Christ’s right hand in heaven. This triggered off a few things in my head and I thought I would write them down. What follows is an outline of the notes I took during the talk and a few thoughts of my own. The passage talks about how Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. Here he knows that he is going to die. He will be handed over and he will be killed. He isn’t scared. The disciples are not pulling him towards Jerusalem, he is leading the way. What makes this difficult for Jesus is that he also knows who will betray him. He knows that one of the twelve men who have been so devoted to him and his constant companions for nearly three years will sell him out. In his knowledge of the events to come, we see that he knows why. This is the ultimate service he does for his friends. He has eaten with them, he has saved their lives in storms. He has shown them miracles and he has taught them wonderful lessons. He will shortly wash their feet, the ultimate in humility. Yet, beyond all of this is the heart of the servant. Here is the suffering servant going willingly to his gruesome death. This path that Jesus is treading is a servant path. The Christian life is said to be one where we must follow Jesus. We should follow him in the path that he has trodden. I don’t know about you but this is something that scares me. I don’t want to go to Jerusalem and be betrayed. I don’t want to be forsaken by God and my friends. Thankfully, that won’t happen. I don’t have to be crucified, Jesus has done that for me. However, we are sometimes called to walk a long and dangerous path. Jesus never promises that the Christian life will be easy. It will always be difficult but the journey is worth the effort. The passage we read was taken from the Gospel of St. Mark. This is a breathless gospel. Taking us from one miracle to another, from one teaching to another. It is almost as if a child is telling a story (and here I do not want to denigrate the sublime writing of St Mark) about an exciting day ‘And then we… then we… then this happened… then we did … and then … and then … straight after…’. Straight after Jesus has predicted his death and shown the way to go, James and John come to him asking him to give them special places in Heaven. One to sit at his right and one to sit at his left. These are the honoured places. Interestingly, Jesus doesn’t start out by saying no. He asks if they are prepared to do what he must do. Can they drink from the cup he drinks from? This is a reference to drinking the punishment of God. They would have known this. They would have had their minds and hearts drawn to Isaiah 53 and particularly to verse 10 where we see what the servant must go through. Likewise with baptism. Jesus may be referring to the death and resurrection aspects of baptism here. Can the sons of thunder honestly say they are prepared to go through what Jesus must? Sometimes, reading the Bible is a difficult thing. We cannot hear the tone nor see the face that those who are speaking would have had. I imagine that when he speaks to them again, Jesus is using a gentle tone and a face filled with compassion and concern. He knows what suffering these two will undergo and he knows how wonderfully they will serve God and others. He doesn’t want to disappoint them but he has an obligation to say that their request is invalid. He knows that nobody but God the father knows who will be sitting in those places. After all, it may be those two, we will find out one day. Why did they do it? This is something that is easy to spot. They did it because they are human. They wanted something from Jesus. They knew that he was a servant, they just wanted him to serve them in some way. Even when the other disciples get annoyed, one suspects it is because they asked first not that they asked at all. How often have we, even in our saved state, asked Christ to do this or that for us? Making those little bargains with God is sometimes all that our prayer life comes to I find. Christ’s teaching on this is revolutionary. Truly he turns everything around. The world in First Century Palestine was the same as it is now. The world judges success by what you have and what you get. Those at the top of society are the most successful. Society is a perfect model of the theory of survival of the fittest. The rich, the powerful, the famous and the talented are those most lauded by society. Christ takes this and says that is not what God wants. It is not, never has been and never will be the plan for mankind. He says that it is in serving others that greatness is bestowed. Stopping down to help the poor, the weak, the injured and the lonely is what is needed. James and John may indeed one day be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven but not before the become the least among the disciples. I remember spending some time in Israel after University working for a church charity. I had such a great time and such wonderful fellowship and teaching. However, there was one person there who rubbed me up the wrong way. Her name was Hannah. She was from South Africa and considerably older than me. Her ideas were different from mine in several ways but we argued over healing. A silly thing to argue over but we did. It was my turn one morning to lead the morning devotions and God put it in my mind to apologise and to seek forgiveness. I shouldn’t consider myself greater than her He told me and thankfully I listened. A few days later it was her turn to lead the devotions and as we were approaching Easter she led us through the passage where Christ washes the feet of the disciple. Despite having had a difficult time with me and despite it being difficult for her to kneel on the floor, she came and washed my feet. Never had I seen such humility and servanthood. That day, I understood what it meant to Jesus to be able to do this for his friends. So, James and John have to learn this lesson like the rest of us. If you have read more of my blog, you will know how much I love John as a model for living. I think it is safe to say that John learned this lesson well. As I was thinking about this, I had a thought that I knew this story in a different version. I thought that it was their mother who asked for this favour. I was correct, there is that version elsewhere in the Bible. It comes from Matthew 20:20-21. Here, the mother of James and John kneels before Christ and asks for her sons. She is a remarkable woman who is mentioned elsewhere in Matthew’s gospel. She is one of the few who is at the cross as Christ dies. Only a little while after this very request, she witnesses first hand what the cup of suffering her sons will go through is. Here is a remarkable character. If only we knew a little bit more about her we may be able to understand why she made this request. Come with me to the scene at the foot of the cross. Who was there? Mark records it thus ‘Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and Joses, and Salome’ (Mark 15:40). Matthew says this; ‘Many women were there, watching from a distance. They had followed Jesus from Galilee to care for his needs. Among them were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee’ (Matthew 27:55-56). Now, it is not too much of a leap to assume that Salome is the mother of the sons of James and John the sons of Zebedee. Matthew is probably just giving her a title to help believers identify her. Luke doesn’t name names (unusually for him but there you go) but John does. John says ‘Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene’ (John 19:25). John may have introduced two new women here but I don’t think so. I think that ‘his mother’s sister’ was Salome, the mother of the sons of Zebedee. Jesus and John were cousins. This helps explain why Jesus was asked by the mother of James and John for this special favour. They were related. This may be speculation but it adds another dimension to the story. Jesus doesn’t act in the way of kings of this world. For them, family was all important. Christ is a different sort of king. His is a meritocracy. People must earn their places in it and they must do so in a very different way. All in all, this is a most inspiring passage from the gospel for me. It contains many things that I have done. I have been selfish, I have assumed that Jesus was there to serve me in his capacity as a spiritual tool box and I have got angry because others asked for things before I did. It also contains things I want to do. I want to be the servant of others. I want to be like Christ and I want to follow his path. I know it is a difficult path and one which I may stumble on but as I said right at the start, Christ is leading. The light of the world is in front of me, it shouldn’t be that hard to see the path …

The Good Samaritan



 If I were to ask someone to sum up the Christian faith who wasn’t a Christian or maybe ask someone what a religion should be like I think the most common answer would be something like this: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. Two things here; firstly I do so love the use of the KJV language and the fact that people pick up on this and they forget the bit that goes before it. The passage in the gospel that this is drawn from sees a teacher of the law testing Jesus. He asks a question and Jesus asks him what he thinks. He says that to inherit eternal life one must ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart … and love your neighbour as you love yourself’ Far too many people conveniently forget the first part of that phrase. Loving God is as important as loving your neighbour. It’s actually in several places and stated in different ways but perhaps it’s easier to think about the parable that talks about this topic. We all know it.It is the parable of the Good Samaritan. This is one of the most well known of Christ’s parables and has had a massive impact on our culture and the way our faith is viewed across the world. It is a wonderful story and one that we all know well. I would argue that perhaps we know it too well. Perhaps we have heard it preached about or discussed so often that we may have gotten a little complacent about it. Some people would argue that familiarity breeds contempt. Is this the case with the Good Samaritan? Have we heard about it too often in church to really be able to understand it? Let us have a look at it. Well, as with all passages in the Bible, the context is something that is important.It comes after a period of remarkable successes. In Luke 10 we have seen the 72 come back and report the things that they had seen and done on their journeys. Christ has rejoiced and given praise to God and we approach the parable in a good mood. In the NIV the word used is test but I think that the Good News Bible has it slightly better when it uses the word trap. A so called expert in the law has stood up (presumably Jesus had been engaging in a little light teaching and had an appreciative audience) to trap Jesus. I am not sure what he wanted to trap Jesus into but I am sure it wasn’t for a nice reason. Perhaps they were trying to see if his teaching was right and this is something that we are supposed to do. Testing what we have been taught is scriptural after all. However I don’t think this is what the expert in the law was trying to do. I think that he was being a lot more vicious and malicious than this. I think that there was an element of trying to make Jesus out to be a poor teacher or worse, a blasphemer. So we have a context. Jesus is being tested and Jesus isn’t stupid. He knows what is happening and this is something that we need to think about. We are constantly being tested by people. There are those who want to ask us questions to force us into saying things that society deems wrong. There are those who ask us questions because they genuinely want to know what we think as well but we have to address them all. With that in mind, we can find no better place to look than this parable to see the way we should address the questions that are put to us in order to test us. What did Jesus do? Many people will say that Jesus had a simple way to do this, he always turned the question back on the questioner. This is true, here is a fine example, this is a case where he turns the question right back on the questioner. However, people who think this (and I certainly used to include myself in this group) miss something important. Jesus doesn’t just turn the question round and make the asker give the answer. He also gives his own interpretation and it is important to remember this. However, there is more to it. Once the correct answer has been given by the teacher of the law and agreed by Jesus he wants to know more. He wants Jesus to define the parameters of the law for him. I suspect that the teacher of the law had some parameters in mind but the answer Jesus gave must have blown them away. It blows most people away. So, what about the answer that he gave? Well, it is a very well known story but there are several themes that can be drawn out of it. Firstly, we see a man who is living in a dangerous place at a dangerous time. The road to Jericho was well known for bandit activity and it seems that this man had traveled on his own. A loner in a dangerous place is attacked. As he lies there, two men go past. One is a priest. Here is a servant of God who should be looking out for his fellow Jews. Here is a man who should have gone to help but he didn’t. We can only guess why. Perhaps he was scared about what would happen to him. This is a justifiable fear and sometimes we are scared of going to help someone else because we do not know what we are going to face. Perhaps the priest was not concerned because he didn’t see the man as his sort of problem. This is less justifiable but I suspect no less common today. How often have we looked upon a situation and thought that it was nothing to do with us? That man being beaten in Iran, nothing to do with us. The poor farmers of the Horn of Africa, nothing to do with us. Whatever the reason, the priest should have done more. He didn’t. A second man should have done more as well. The Levite was probably a man similar to the one who asked the question. He was not a priest but was certainly a part of the establishment. This man was part of the religious government system (and in First Century Palestine the religious government was most of the government). He was someone who helped out and who was responsible for the running of the temple and it’s system. He was, if you will, the church-warden. Again this man just walked on and he should not have done. So we reach the hero of the story. The Samaritan. The Jews and the Samaritan hated each other. It was a visceral hatred which went to the heart of the religious divide between the two nations. The Jews saw the Samaritans (descendants of those who had stayed in Israel when Israel had been exiled) as collaborators and traitors to their faith. The Samaritans saw the Jews as demanding, overbearing and snobbish (and quite probably a lot worse). Here we reach the first problem with Jesus’ story. He must have made a mistake. No Samaritan should have been traveling down that road. There may have been reasons for a Samaritan to be in Jerusalem but these were few and far between. There would not have been a reason for this Samaritan man to be traveling to Jericho, it was the wrong way if you were heading back to Samaria. Yet, here the man was and here we see what happens. The man sees someone in trouble and without fear and without thought of prejudice, he crosses the road and helps the man in his hour of need. He also uses his own precious resources and time and takes him to a place where he can get better attention. The story doesn’t end there though. This man who hated Jews yet rescued one gives money to ensure his future care and promises to meet all of the costs. The moral of the story is simple, it doesn’t matter who is in need, you must help. The whole world is your neighbour and you need to love your neighbour as you love yourself. Here ends the lesson, the man is chastised enough to know that perhaps his parameters need shifting and Jesus has taught a valuable lesson. No. It doesn’t end there. There is something that we have forgotten. Jesus had an audience and the story was told to them. They would have understood all of the details, even the subtle ones that we missed. I said a little while ago that there was no reason for a Samaritan to be in that part of the world but I wasn’t quite correct. There was one. Samaria and Judea were under the control of the Roman Empire and there were Roman troops all over both provinces. A common misconception is that the Roman army was made of completely of men from Rome. This was not the case. They made much use of local troops known as auxiliaries. In Judea, Jews were excused military service so the garrison there probably came from the nearest province, Samaria. The Good Samaritan was probably a Roman soldier. This explains why he was traveling through Judea. It explains his having a mount and different resources as well as the authority to speak to the innkeeper as he did. This changes a lot about what the story means. We now have someone who not only should hate the person that he helps, he would have been hated by the person as well. It was supposed to be a reciprocated hatred. This Good Samaritan did something that would have been inconceivable to the people listening to Jesus. They would have guessed what sort of person it was and would have thought he would probably give another kick instead of helping. It also adds to the embarrassment of the priest and Levite. They left a fellow Jew to probably die and this traitor twice over did what they should have done. Imagine how this would have felt. I think that there is something else that we can learn too. If we are being charitable, we might say that the Priest and Levite didn’t act because they were scared. This Samaritan, if he were a Roman auxiliary had nothing to fear. He had the training and he had the authority and he had the backing of the most mighty force in the land. We have this too. We have been or can be trained to go out into many different situations. God has given us talents and strengths and resources we can use. We have the authority. Jesus has commanded us to go out and share with the world and to do what we can to help. Moreover, God will be with us. Joshua 1:9, Deuteronomy 30:11 and Matthew 28:20 all tell us that God will be with us. So, Jesus turned to the man asking the question and told him: go and do likewise. The story has a moral which does say ‘love your neigbour as you love yourself’ but I think we can add some more to it. Love your neighbour even if they hate you as much as you hate them. Love your neighbour even if it means getting outside your Christian bubble into a very uncomfortable place. Love your neighbour without fear! We have the authority and the support. The Good Samaritan had the right heart, the right equipment and the right authority to help someone that he had no reason to help. We need to go and do likewise.

Taken from Luke Chapter 10, the NIV puts it like this: On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” 27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’[c]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[d]” 28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” 29 But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30 In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii[e] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ 36 “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” 37 The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

It has been an interesting couple of weeks. One particular thorn in my side still but this post isn't about that. We seem to have found a lovely place to live but have a massive dilemma. Too many wonderful churches to choose from. Each has their own pros and cons and each is lovely. As we are no longer in England, the local Church of England church is out of the question! There is an equivalent but I'm not so sure. Today, we went for the second time to the local Free Church of Scotland church. It has truly breathtaking views down the loch. Enough to make you want to get to your knees and praise God. I haven't done that yet, given the fact that it is so wet at the minute but you never know. Services are a little different though. No music really. My charismatic innards are struggling with the inability to raise my hands in worship. I know I could do it if I wanted to but it isn't really something that seems to accompany Psalms sung in plainsong. Lots of good prayer in the service and some excellent teaching. Coffee (or rather tea for me of course and a cold drink for my lovely wife) is excellent and the company wonderful. It is a little tiring to be in such a small community that as soon as you point out that you only moved in recently (still less that a month for us)they immediately know who you are and what your job is. I think we will make this one our home for a little while. It will be good to see what God has in mind for us to do. I would love to do some more preaching (having only done it a handful of times, I do enjoy it) and teaching but it is up to God. Rarely in my life have I known so surely that the place I am in is the place God had in mind for me. His hand has been on everything we have done in terms of the move and settling in etc. Praise the Lord. Proverbs 4:5 Get wisdom, get understanding; do not forget my words or turn away from them.