Posted in February 2008 …

Feb 29 2008
Bible, Books, Church, Comedy, Faith, Friends, Jesus, Prayer, Religion, TV, Uncategorized

The wisdom of crowds?

The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations, was written by James Surowiecki to argue that decisions are often better made by a group than could have been made by any single member of the group (the whole group is smarter than even the smartest person in it). He does go on to say that it matters how the group is made up, that people in it should be allowed independence, diversity of opinion etc., rather than just advocating crowd psychology as the answer to everything. These democratic wiki days attribute a great deal of prestige to wisdom of the many, but I have to ask – is it at the expense of the individual?

What if the crowd is wrong? What if there’s just a trend, or a panic, or pressure to conform? The Bible says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world.”

I love that bit on Life of Brian when he shouts at the crowd, ‘You’re all individuals!’ Check out the response.

I’d take issue with Brian about not having to follow anyone, and we all follow someone – even if it’s the prevailing viewpoint. Just make sure who you’re following is going the right way!

This morning I was reading with my Friday morning men’s group through the beginning of Luke’s gospel. It seems Jesus had some issues with crowds.

The home crowd liked him at first, when he was preaching good. But then he said the good news was not just for the Jewish people, but for everyone, everywhere. Suddenly the same crowd that loved his sermon hated the application and then tried to chuck him off the nearest cliff! Now that’s what I call a reaction! I’ll never moan about a letter from ‘distressed, 3rd pew back’ again.

You can spend a lot of money on a trip to Israel to walk ‘in the steps of Jesus,’ but it’s really interesting to look through the gospels and notice the STOPS of Jesus. How often he’d see not a crowd, but a person. One life at a time. A leper who’d been left on the margin by the crowd perhaps, or a bunch of fishermen and a tax collector who would not have been welcomed by the religious elite crowd, the in crowd. Very often you notice it’s the crowd that would keep a blind man sitting quiet and unhealed at the roadside, or stop a paralysed man’s friends from bringing him to Jesus.

The only crowd Jesus was happy to sit with (and vice versa) was what you’d call the wrong crowd. The comment by the righteous observers was that he hung around with ‘scum,’ as my friend Justin’s Bible version rendered this morning.

I love what Zacchaeus did when Jesus came to his town. He got above the crowd – to see Jesus! The crowd would have kept him (and his sort) away, but Jesus saw him and said, “I’m coming to your house!”

Don’t go along with the crowd, get above – look out for Jesus – and then follow him.

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Feb 25 2008
Bible, Books, Church, Faith, Friends, Jesus, Prayer, Quotes, Religion

Wrong about everything

Sometimes I read a book or hear a talk that makes me think just about everything else I’ve ever read or heard about it is wrong.

If the subject is something trivial like, say, what’s the best car on the market, or how to bake a souffle – who cares.

But when the book is about what you have devoted the greatest part of your adult life to, and which you intend to devote the rest of your life to, that’s either infuriating, exciting, terrifying or shattering. Or all of the above.

Yesterday I read a book that nearly did that, I read it in one sitting:

Gary Bishop’s book Darkest England and the way back in is phenomenal and very challenging, but left me with some, “Yes but hows” personally. I cried a couple of times reading it, was challenged by the terrible injustices of a nation like Britain where the poor are desperate to hear the gospel but hardly anyone goes with it, while we encourage consumerist Christianity that has a form of religion but denies its power. I manfully managed to shake the Holy Spirit off for a while enough to just watch a bit of TV before bed time. I can do that with a lot of books, even excellent ones.

This morning though, I picked up the book that is really doing it. That, “This is Jesus talking and I’ve come to screw you up” thing.

When you never want to just go and watch telly or just try to get on doing what you were doing anymore because now there’s an opportunity to do something greater than anything else and you’re invited to partake. I bought the the book a few weeks back, started it, then started something else. The time wasn’t right then, but now I feel like God’s talking off every page. I’m at 104 and can quite believe that by the time I’m finished, I will have to reassess everything in the light of this teaching.

What’s the book? Organic Church by Neil Cole.

BUY IT!

A mutual friend of his wrote the foreword, I’m going to get in touch with Neil Cole direct if I can and talk to him about this. One constant: Everything’s changing.

One quote is all I have time for, then I’m getting back to reading this!

If any one Christian alive today were to lead just one person to Christ every year and disciple that person so that he or she would, in turn, do the same next year, it would take only about thirty five years to reach the entire world for Christ! Suddenly world transformation seems within our grasp. But it could be even closer than that. If every Christian alive today were to reproduce in the same way, the world would be won to Christ in the next two to four years. What if all of us decided to put everything else aside and focus on truly discipling another for just the next few years in a manner that multiplies? We could finish the Great Commission in just a few years.

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Feb 21 2008
3 Comments
Books, Church, Friends, history, justice, Quotes, Religion

There but for the grace of God goes Anthony Delaney

They say everyone has a double. To have a double and a namesake appear on the same page of a paper is quite disconcerting! A number of friends have been kind enough to point me to various news sites featuring another Anthony Delaney, also 43 years of age – I know I don’t look it :)

My homeless namesake was living at Gatwick Airport for months, until magistrates found him in breach of his ASBO and brought it to an end. If you follow the link you’ll even see that they picture Tom Hanks from his overly cute 2004 film The Terminal . I was told by a nurse years ago that I look a bit like Tom Hanks, those of you who know me may agree or disagree? Let me know.

Do you know what came to mind as I read the other Mr Delaney’s sad story – knowing that if Jesus hadn’t put his hand on me and called me to follow him, I could well have ended up in as sorry a state or worse?

‘There but for the grace of God, go I.”

That well worn phrase was coined by my fellow Mancunian the C16th Protestant reformer John Bradford.

bradford.jpg

Bradford was imprisoned for his faith for many years in the Tower of London (sharing a cell at times with such luminaries as Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer). Whenever he saw a criminal going to be hanged for his crimes, he said, “There but for the grace of God goes John Bradford.”

Bradford himself was eventually burnt at Smithfield. He had been shown in a dream the night before that this would happen. He kissed the wood beforehand, and the stake, before lifting his eyes to heaven and he cried, “O England, England, repent thee of thy sins.”

He told the man dying alongside him, “Be of good comfort, brother, for we shall have a merry supper with the Lord this night.’

Unlike the other Delaney, I’m not sleeping rough tonight, thank God.

Reading about Bradford reminds me I have so much to grow in, in terms of godliness, prayerfulness and faithfulness.

Both men’s lives remind me, the grace of God really is amazing.

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Feb 15 2008
Uncategorized

HECKLERS

I’m reading a book about stand up comedy.

Really very good, it’s helping me think about how to connect better with those I’m speaking to, especially in church. I was thinking I might even try out at an ‘open mike’ session somewhere, some time.

One good section was about hecklers, and various ways comedians deal with them. My favourite approach is Harry Hill’s, who says ‘he found suitably surreal ways of answering hecklers, like telling them, “You heckle me now, but I’m safe in the knowledge that when I get home, I’ve got a nice chicken in the oven.”‘

Made me laugh anyway.

I don’t get ‘heckled’ much when I’m speaking, unless it’s street preaching where I’ve had a few people swear at me and shout out to put me off. At my home church up North we used to have a disturbed lady who’s undress in the middle of sermons (not mine). Reading through the gospels it’s interesting that we think of Jesus as a teacher, yet much of what he did was not didactic ‘sermon on the mount’ preaching, but often came out of interaction and even interruption by the people around him. Read the beginning of Mark 2 - and how Jesus handled what others might have considered a rude interruption.

Feb 14 2008
3 Comments
Bible, Faith, Friends, Heaven, Jesus, Prayer, Quotes, Religion

What’s so special about Jesus?

…except that a few good friends of mine this week committed themselves, on their knees, to follow him?

More than 2000 years on, Jesus is still the Son of God – still changing lives!

But would Jesus agree that he really was all that – and more? Would be be rolling in his grave to think that a religion based on him even existed? Wasn’t he just a teacher? A good man? Could he actually be God?

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Well what kind of God would you want God to be, to be called God? Theologians talk about various ATTRIBUTES of God, for God to really be called God, he’d have to fit the bill.

God would have to be immutable (unchanging). The Bible says, Jesus is the same, yesterday, today and forever.

You would think God – to be worthy of the epithet – would be eternal: he’d have no beginning and no end. Read the beginning of John’s gospel – Jesus fits that bill!

 

Surely you’d want him omniscient - all knowing? Jesus certainly ‘grew in wisdom and stature,’ but he met with people like Zacchaeus and the woman at the well in John 4 knew all about them, the good, the bad and the ugly. He knew the past of people with a past to be ashamed of, but he didn’t let that put him off. He gave wisdom and teaching that cannot be surpassed. He knew what other people were thinking. He knew and predicted that he’d go to Jerusalem and be rejected, condemned, tortured, die on a cross –and rise again on the third day. He knew the future of the Jewish people and described it. Those closest to him said, “You know all things…” I suppose that can be a great comfort or a great problem for you, depending, for instance, on your internet history. Nobody else knows… but Jesus knows.

We’d expect God to be omnipresent. Jesus said, “I am with you always. To the very end of the age.” He said, “Wherever two or three gather in my name, I’m there with them.” Where you are now, Jesus wants you to know he’ll be with you – a prayer away.

We’d want God to be omnipotent: Jesus walked on water, healed every kind of disease, set people free from dark spiritual powers that bound them. He said, “all authority on heaven and earth have been given to me.” Lord Acton said, ‘power corrupts – and absolute power corrupts absolutely,’ but those who knew him best knew Jesus was HUMBLY omnipotent. Jesus can do anything!

Jesus really was a carpenter’s son, who grew up in a dusty village. He experienced the full range of human emotions, sweated, ate and got tired – he led no army, He was fully man, but from the very first he was worshipped as being fully God too! God – in a bod!

Colossians 2;9 For in Him the whole fullness of Deity (the Godhead) continues to dwell in bodily form

From his birth – he shared and received the glory and honour due to God and never tried to stop anyone who gave that to him. Throughout his life he expected not just to be respected as a rabbi, a prophet, a holy man, but to be worshipped and adored by all people and even the angels as the Lord, the only God. For all eternity He said that all should honour him, the Son, as they honoured the Father! (John 5:23) That would be an OUTRAGEOUS claim for a human being!

He said that he always did what God the Father wanted him to do (Talk about perfection?)! He said our eternal destinies hang on how we respond to him – because he has the power of life and death.

He said, ‘I am the door, I am the bread of life, I am the resurrection…

I wonder – do you know how special He is?

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Feb 08 2008
Faith, Friends, Prayer, Religion, sport

Punctures

Went out on my bike this morning, had all the stuff with me for if there was minor disaster, but ended up with a major blow-out and the whole tyre needing to be replaced (the one thing I didn’t have with me!).

As God would have it, just at that ‘oh what a nightmare’ moment, the local police officer – who I happen to know, just happened to appear! He gave me and the bike a lift all the way home, and was able to warn me about a spate of burglaries locally as well as have a good chat generally, with him and another officer.

I had been thinking earlier in the day that I need to start to redefine myself as a missionary to western culture rather than a church leader, in order to help people in our church and Christians with whom I come into contact to see a model. A great place for me to be able to befriend people and have contact for the gospel is through these police contacts, as the newly appointed chaplain for the local police I can relate well to police officers because I can talk their language, which removes some boundaries.

What’s your mission field?

Feb 05 2008
1 Comment
Bible, Church, Faith, Heaven, Prayer, Religion, Uncategorized

Exclusive Christianity?

We have this course going at the mo called ‘Big Buts.’ Tonight I’m speaking on “But what about all the other religions?”

If I was slicing the pie, I’d cut it a lot thinner…

Jesus said, “I am the way the truth and the life, nobody comes to the Father but by me.” (John 14:6). Isn’t that very exclusive and intolerant? How can Christians believe that in a world where their adherents make up at best a third of the population (most of them nominal, see the pie up above? I’d slice it a lot thinner)?

Some thoughts on that then. Firstly, Christianity is not the only religion that makes claims which are exclusive. 1.5 billion Muslims claim exclusivity, in a linguistic fashion for starters – the means of salvation is available through study of the Qur’an, for which you’d need a sophisticated understanding of Arabic.

Buddhism was borne out of a rejection of the truth claims of Hinduism. Sikhism came as a challenge to both Hinduism and Buddhism.

Of course there are atheists who believe (sic) there is no God, some of whom are keen to exclude the truth claims of everybody who doesn’t believe the same. The great and wise Richard Dawkin’s recent comment on Nadia Eweida, the lady who wore her cross to work at BA and caused a storm as a result?

“I saw a picture of this woman. She had one of the most stupid faces I’ve ever seen.” Oh, to be intelligent like him. No wonder he’s worshipped.

As for tolerance, I know of no Christianised country where your life is in danger because you are from another faith, but today there are many countries in the world such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and many parts of India including parts I have visited where to become a follower of Christ is to put your neck on the line. Look at the Barnabas Fund’s ‘The Other Nine’ campaign for details on that.

The fact is, truth is exclusive. If truth does not exclude untruths then it’s not true – just an opinion. Any time you make a truth claim it’s putting something true next to what is false, and calling for a choice. Truth excludes its opposite.

I’ve been told things like, “I think all religions will get there in the end – God would not reject anybody if they were sincere about what they believed.“ At face value that seems like a perfectly reasonable statement. It’s attractive to us because it credits God with being generous and tolerant, and at the same time it means people don’t have to work hard themselves to discover any evidence or discover any truth. You don’t have to commit, accept or reject. You don’t need a ticket to get on board this plane, dress how you like for this party…, “People can believe whatever they want – as long as they are sincere.“

Sorry, but sincerity is not enough. There is right and wrong in the area of beliefs. Hitler was completely sincere when he wanted to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth and create a super-race. Having visited Auschwitz twice, I’m forever reminded that he was wrong. Years ago people sincerely believed the world was flat, you might sincerely believe that the moon is made of green cheese. The White Star Company who owned the Titanic sincerely believed it was unsinkable. What about those like the Heaven’s Gate cult who believed they had to commit suicide when teh comet flew over? They were sincere.

It’s really important when it comes to matters of religious belief whether you believe rightly or wrongly, because like it or not Jesus Christ says your personal destiny is at stake. You could miss out on real fulfilment now and life with God forever after when you die. What we want desperately is not a sincere view of God, but an accurate one.

 

 

 

 

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