Mark 1 40-45 Jesus Heals a Man With Leprosy 40 A man with leprosy[h] came to him and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.” 41 Jesus was indignant.[i] He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” 42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed. 43 Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: 44 “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” 45 Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.
This was the passage that the guest speaker was preaching about on Sunday. It was an interesting passage and one that I don’t recall having much teaching on in the past. Truth be told (on a christian blog, what else eh!) I would probably have thought remarkable and moved on leaving it as just another example of the miracles Christ did.
However, the preacher did an awful lot more than that. He started with a particularly graphic description of leprosy and the effects of that dreadful disease. I for one am glad that he did because all too often, I see the little text note in the NIV which says that he word probably meant several skin complaints and think that leprosy was probably not that bad. Maybe in my mind, it was similar to eczema. It isn’t. Two things stood out from the description of leprosy that he shared. Both come from a doctor who used to treat it. Firstly, they used to prescribe those with leprosy a cat. This cat would help keep the rats who would gnaw off fingers and toes under control. Secondly, he went on to describe how the lonliest of all the lepers were the blind ones. These were, he said, not only lepers but denied the comfort that fingers give to the blind because they could not feel. They are truly alone.
That is leprosy today. 2000 years ago, the were cast out of the camp (cue long discussion of some passages in Leviticus) with the dirt and the dung and the dead. It was a horrid life and here was a leper going up to Jesus and begging for a cure.
I took the NIV to church even though they use the ESV there and I love the word indignant. It makes you think of anger but upon investigation, it more closely relates to full of compassion. Here was this desperate man who says that if Christ is willing he can heal him of leprosy. Christ is filled with compassion and he heals him.
There was a little aside about healing that I thought was handled very well. Healing is difficult for the modern church. I often find that when people are not healed, we rush to find excuses. Here we see that it is completely up to God and only when He is wlling is there healing. Nobody knows the mind of God (1 Cor 2:11?) so nobody knows why people are not healed.
There is a wonderful piece of love from Christ here. We know he can heal at a word. He doesn’t have to touch anyone to heal them yet he touches this leper. He reaches out his hand and he touches the leper. This man, who had had no contact with anyone for years, is touched by Christ and he is healed. His main application point was this - who are the modern lepers? Who are we avoiding? Who is outside our camp? These are the people who we need to think about. The drunk, the weirdo, the criminal. This is something that I do need to think about a lot.
As with all good teaching in church, he points to Christ. As it says in Hebrews chapter 11 11 The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. 12 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. Christ was crucified outside the camp. He was assigned a place with the dirt, the dung and the death. All in all, some excellent teaching and I was very pleased to have heard it.

Things have been tough with church recently. Our little one is having her nap at the very time church is on and she has been tired and ratty with us at church. This make me ratty and my saintly wife have to suffer. We want to go to church as a family and we do love doing so but neither my wife nor I are getting what we need from church as one or other of us is not in and the other stresses. So, what we are doing from next Sunday onwards is taking turns to go to church. I will go one week, my wife the next and the three of us will go the week after that (taking every third week in turns to stay out with her if she needs us). This will allow us to spend more time actually in the sanctuary listening to the teaching (which reminds me, I shall attempt to blog a little later about what I heard in the teaching on Sunday just gone) and we can also occasionally use our weeks alone to visit other churches. The teaching that we get at our church really is phenomenal. Biblically sound and relevant to both modern life and to our own particular situations. Sadly, both my wife and I miss the charismatic elements of the churches that we are used to. I love losing myself in sung worship, worship where I feel comfortable. Psalms are great to sing but I do like a bit of music in my worship sometimes! There is a very good baptist church in town, I think that will be my first port of call when I go to church on my own.

Today, not only on a Sunday but during the football(!) we had another visit from the JWs. This time, they wanted to have us visit Glasgow to go to a conference that they were inviting everyone to. I was quite annoyed really. I didn't debate with them and I didn't waste too much time (we were only one up at that point and I wasn't too sure we would win). I had read earlier in the day a verse which made me think more about them Romans 9:5 Romans 9:5 New International Version (NIV) 5 Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised![a] Amen. Romans 9:5 New Century Version (NCV) 5 They are the descendants of our great ancestors, and they are the earthly family into which Christ was born, who is God over all. Praise him forever![a] Amen. I wonder what the heretical New World Translation would say. I shall have to ask them when they inevitably come back to our door ...

I had a chat with some JWs today. It was the first time that I have had a chance to do so. I was a little nervous at first but thankfully I did have a Bible near the door. I started off by saying that I was a Christian and they said that they were too (!).

There were two or three main points of discussion. Firstly, they insisted that the Trinity wasn't mentioned in the Bible. Therefore, Jesus cannot be God. I asked if they thought that Jesus left the tomb and they agreed that he did. I then pointed out that if the absence of the word Trinity meant Christ was not God then the resurrection wasn't true because nowhere does it say empty tomb. I felt good giving a defence of the deity of Jesus. I don't know what impact it had but I will pray it did have some impact.

We talked about the translation of the Bible they used. Why are there no translators listed like there are in the NIV? What were the qualifications they had (a little bit of research tells you that they don't have any qualifications) and could their translation be trusted? The focus was on John 1 and particularly verse 1. Practically every English version says that 'and the word was God' but the NWT says 'a god'. They tried to make out that theirs was the correct version but I didn't accept that and told them I would never do so until they could tell me more about the translators. Sadly they couldn't ...

There were also lots of words about Revelation and who would be in heaven. They insisted that only 144000 would be. They let themselves dowm somewhat by insisting that the 144000 were symbolic Jews but that the verse should be taken literally. I pointed out thay Rev. 7:9 clearly places an awful lot more in heaven. They wouldn't have it. We also talked through several other passages but I had lost the will to really debate with them.

Disfellowship was discussed and they flatly denied it. They also denied thay their church taught the world would end in 1975. They clearly said that Christ has come back invisibly (ignoring that the Bible says everybody will be able to see!). These were the silliest points they raised.

Now, I noticed a couple of things. I know that travelling in twos is good for the safety of those going around but it puts the person at the door at a disadvantage. Who answers the door with someone else? I don't. Not every Christian would feel comforable with this situation and I don't think it's totally fair.

Secondly, they do like to pick and choose their verses. Admittedly, they were ok with me using the NIV and choosing passages and verses but I felt that had I not been so sure of my Bible (and the concordance it has at the back), I would have felt quite uncomfortable.

I shall do some writing over the next few days to look at how to refute their tactics and their teachings. Maybe a pamphlet or something to keep by the door to help me out next time. Although, I may be on a list of doors to avoid now ...

Later on tonight I hope to post about Ramadan and the implications for Christians.

It has been a while since I got a new phone. I got one yesterday and it was rubbish so this is a less advanced one but I am enjoying it. I hope to write more later. Particularly about a lovely experience at Housegroup on Wednesday.

This is the first post for a while. I would like to say that this is something down to my laziness but I don't think it is completely down to that this time. I have been under attack. Life is still great and God is still with us but I haven't been able to get to church for ages. Every time we get to go, something goes wrong. Leak under the sink this Sunday, baby banged her head last. Couldn't get to church the Sunday before etc. It sounds dramatic to claim that the enemy is attacking us but I genuinely think he is. I am pleased that he is doing so in a way, I suppose it shows that we are getting to him and we are doing the right thing. Something that I have done today is enter a competition to have a photograph on a calendar being made by the Bible Society. I sent in a couple of photos related to a Bible verse.

The verse I feel this goes well with is 2 Samuel 22:2 He said: “The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; Sometimes, I forget this but here it is! Thank you Lord