Last Sunday, I had the enormous privilege of preaching again. Preaching has become something that I really really enjoy. At first, as you can see from some of the posts here, I wrote it all out and read it through as the talk. Recently, taking some advice from the pastor, I have been a little more relaxed.

What I am doing now is writing out several different mind-maps and working through them. I stop to change things as the Spirit dictates and I enjoy doing just that. The Sunday just gone, I felt that I should preach on Matthew 10

Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. 2 These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3 Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; 4 Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. 5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. 6 Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. 7 As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy,[a] drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give. 9 “Do not get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts— 10 no bag for the journey or extra shirt or sandals or a staff, for the worker is worth his keep. 11 Whatever town or village you enter, search there for some worthy person and stay at their house until you leave. 12 As you enter the home, give it your greeting. 13 If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you. 14 If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. 15 Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. 16 “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. 17 Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues. 18 On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. 19 But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, 20 for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. 21 “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. 22 You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. 23 When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. Truly I tell you, you will not finish going through the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes. 24 “The student is not above the teacher, nor a servant above his master. 25 It is enough for students to be like their teachers, and servants like their masters. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household! 26 “So do not be afraid of them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. 27 What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. 28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.[b] 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. 32 “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. 33 But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven. 34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn “‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— 36 a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’[c] 37 “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. 40 “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41 Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. 42 And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”

There were two or three different things that came out of the passage for me upon deeper reflection. Firstly, the first bit is for the First Century. It is one of those passages in Scripture that is meant to be for the people at the time. Yes, there are lessons to be learned but we needn't worry about taking no shoes and no staff! Yes, God has a specific place he wants us but I firmly believe that it is where we are right now. Yes, God may have somewhere else in mind for us but we have a mission now. The second part of the passage, from verse 16 to verse 23 is definitely for us. And it is a scary passage as well. We are being sent out among wolves. We will be brought before powers and flogged. Ok, maybe we will not be physically flogged but we are in danger of ridicule and punishment. Take the man arrested for preaching in the street from Leviticus. Now that passage is banned in England effectively and Christians can be guilty of a hate crime (as opposed to one of those I really really really like you crimes) if they preach from Holy Scripture. Then there is the Ulster preacher in trouble because of comments he made about Islam. Apparently you cannot really claim that Jesus is the only way to God these days.

A little aside here for one moment if you please -

'I am the way and the truth and the life. Nobody comes to the father except through me' John 14:6 Only Jesus will get you to heaven. All other religions are wrong and I do not care who knows it. I believe it with all my heart

You see, that is something else that comes out of the passage. We are told (three times in this chapter alone) that we need not worry. God will give us the words we need.
Finally, the chapter makes it clear. It will be tough and we will be hated by people. Maybe our family will hate us. Society certainly will. Doesn't matter, what's the worst that could happen?

You see, they can kill the body but not the soul. God is more important. Fearing him is more important. I think this part means respect rather than be scared but it makes no difference. He is stronger, more important and a better judge of what is happening. He has told us some news and we need to share it, we need to shout it from the rooftops. People are going to go to hell if they done respond to the message. It might be the people who hate us but we need to love them!

Incidentally, this passage contains the verse about Jesus not coming to bring peace. It seems to be the go to verse of a friend of mine who is a devout atheist. Interesting that this week I preached on it.

Incidentally, ever since Sunday there have been a lot of things pointing to Matthew 10...

So Sunday went well. Leading. Sorting worship. Preaching. Organising communion. All of it was me. I was a little nervous but it went off well. Coming only two weeks after my last time of preaching I don't think that the talk was as good as it could have been but it was ok.

I preached on Matthew 10 and it  contains that beautiful verse about not worrying what to say because God will send his Spirit to speak through you. I cannot tell you how many times I have thought about that verse! It is a powerful verse.

I hope to write a bit more later

Preaching went well last Sunday. Was good fun and what a message from Hebrews 12. Preaching again next week. No idea what yet though. Plus I am leading and there's  no worship leader! Wow. Need God to help eh

This was meant to be a post about how the new phone might help with blogging. Well, it crashed!

Just as I was really getting into it as well!

It is an Interesting  day  today thanks to the SCOTUS. They have said that gay marriage should be legal all through the USA. Of course, evangelicals are getting  their theological knickers in a twist about it. My question is though; why? Yes scripture is clear about marriage but the bible also says that God loves us enough to allow us to make our own choices. There is nothing that we can really do about it now. Acting with such bad grace is not Christian and is not right.

There are other things that are more important at the minute and we need to focus on them. The poor and needy. Sharing the gospel. Serving Jesus.

Nobody is being forced to marry anyone. Nobody yet anyway. There are far worse persecutions  of believers out there.

Those animals of ISIS again attacked today. Killing in the name of their religion. Their lies will find them out and they are heading for destruction  but we need to pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters.

Preaching again on Sunday. And again in a couple of weeks. This week's sermon has been different in terms of preparation from the others. Firstly, we have been following a theme this month. The book of Hebrews. An amazing book. Each of the regular preachers at church has been looking at a different section. This week, I get to preach on Hebrews 12. It is a tough passage (more on it shortly) but I am looking forward to it. Secondly, there has been less time to prepare. I had to wait until last Sunday to see what I was preaching on. I thought it would be difficult but I have fundamentally finished it. I will read it through tomorrow, maybe make a few changes but I think it is done. Some parts of the passage leaped out at me. I know it talks about discipline and that is a hard topic to talk about but that is only because God loves us. he is the ultimate parent. It also talks about the differences between Sinai and Sion. We are citizens of Sion already. Any joy in our worship and in our prayer is a reflection of our position in the throne-room of the Lord Almighty. But, how can we, mere mortals and sinful ones at that, possibly enter the throne-room? That's the message of Hebrews. We can't but we can. We can because of the sacrifice of Jesus. His death and resurrection have opened the way. His new role as the Great High Priest lets us into the Holy of Holies. This is a really powerful passage and I hope to write more on it later.

One thing that has been vexing me a little lately is the issue of gender and God. There has been a good deal of stuff from supposed Christians who argue that t is ok to call God She rather than He. Now, I don't really have a major issue with it. God certainly doesn't. He has been called a lot worse after all but it has annoyed me for two reasons.

Firstly; much of it is coming from prominent Christians and they are setting a bad example. One piece in particular found its way into my sphere of attention this week. It comes from the chaplain to the Bishop of Rochester (the last bishop to have any authority over me).

Here is a quote for you to muse on

But how we talk affects how we think. Centuries of keeping women linguistically out of the picture has helped keep them out of the picture politically, financially and legally – what the tongue doesn’t mention, the eye needn’t see. Keeping silent about the feminine aspect of God, helps keep our theology androcentric, keeps us thinking, at some level, that God is male, that male images of God are somehow more accurate ... To talk about God as ‘her’ - not all the time, but often - widens our concept of the divine. God ceases to be an old man in the sky, but becomes someone ‘bigger’ than can be described by just one pronoun. She becomes a God of wind and fire and smoke and silence. We can stop crowbarring the Holy Spirit into some sort of false-feminine aspect, but allow the whole Trinity to be ‘she’ from time to time. God becomes the Queen of Heaven, Holy Wisdom, Divine Comforter, still robustly personal, but also more, also beyond us and above us: the Unknowable Incarnate.

The whole piece can be found here - 

God is a she

The thing is, these people get a lot of attention for their ideas. Not a bad thing in and of itself one might argue but what are their aims? The aim of a Christian must surely be to seek and save the poor, lonely, disadvantaged and lost. To preach the gospel of Christ's crucifixion, death and resurrection. Sadly though, all too often these people are more concerned with righting a wrong rather than sharing the gospel. Their all encompassing desire for full social equality ignores the real social inequalities on the streets and in the houses of Britain.

Moreover, there seems to be a desire to liberalize the church. Take on trendy ideas and you will make your church more appealing. Sorry, I disagree (as I will show in a little bit). These important people in the Anglican church need to stop sharing trendy ideas and start sharing the gospel a little more.

Secondly; there is a similar desire to do away with gender in scripture. More and more bibles are removing obviously male language and replacing it with gender neutral language. In some cases this is fine. It makes sense and it has no bearing on doctrine. The problem is though, that sometimes it does have a bearing. One verse in particular, Hebrews 2:6, often sees the phrase 'son of man' removed and swapped with various collective nouns for humans.

Removing the son of man? Why is that even necessary? Surely it misses a vital link with the Son of Man.

Overall, as I said earlier, it doesn't really matter to God. He has no gender. He does indeed have both feminine and masculine aspects but it is important to remember that one part of the Trinity does, actually, have a gender. Jesus was born a man, lived as a man (or as one particularly pedantic friend of mine would say - as a cis-gendered man!), died as a man and rose from the grave as a man. Would this affect me, were I a woman? Did Christ die more for me because we share the same gender? The answer to that is surely no.

It is interesting to note that those denominations who are sticking to Scripture and to the real message of the Gospel are thriving. Look at the Free Church of Scotland or the church I go to. Whereas, those like the C of E and the Church of Scotland, those who water down the gospel and change the saving message of Christ in line with societal trends, they are dying on their feet. The Anglican church is a generation away from irrelevancy. I will mourn its loss but will not follow its lead anymore.

If it helps you to understand God more, do play up his motherly tendencies. Don't however change scripture to suit your ideas. The gospel is bigger than your ideas or mine and should remain the focus. Do this and it will all be ok

Nehemiah 4. Wonderful chapter. It was the part that I was looking for and now I can truly understand why the Mrs chose the name she did. Here are some ordinary people who are doing ordinary things for God and they are threatened by a powerful force. What do they do? They stand in that wall and are prepared to fight and die for what God wants them to do. Definitely a new favourite chapter for me.

As for Acts 9. This contains one of the funniest as well as most important parts of Scripture. For the funny - Ananias is told by God to go and talk to Saul. Imagine his face! He turns to God and says 'are you sure?' I truly love that exchange.

Important- the birth of Paul and look at what he did ...