Tuesday 1 July 2014

Bible lecture 3 With you wherever you go to the end of the age

Bible Lecture 3
With us on the way to the end of the age
Matthew 5:3-12 and 43-48


It had been a long night … but what a night!

They thought they had known their Bible.  They had been so sure Jesus was the One, another Joshua, a prophet mighty in deed and word to overthrow the Romans and to set Israel free.  And with his death their hopes had been dashed.

They had heard him countless times before, they had seen him at work, they knew deep down in their hearts he was the One.  And yet they had not got it.

The conversations he had with them, all he said as they walked the long walk home had been wonderful, their hearts were burning within them as they walked and talked on the road –

Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

It’s not just what’s written there … it’s what you read there … and the heart of the matter Love for God, Love for neighbour – and no limits to who your neighbour is!

It had been so memorable; an approach that opened what had been a closed book to them before – he had indeed opened the Scriptures to them.

And then in the breaking of bread they knew it was him, Jesus, risen – his reading of the Scriptures vindicated.

It had been so exciting the walk back to Jerusalem took no time at all, but the evening was not over.

Peace be with you – he was there with them – not just bread this time, but a piece of broiled fish.  And more of the same, so much more – this time with all the others too.

“These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you – that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.

They could see it now – a whole new way of looking at the world - and it’s there in the Prophets – As Prophets speak truth to power and Kings endeavour to rule – this is what it takes to rule in God’s way, to be King in the Kingdom of heaven –

Bring good news to the oppressed,
Bind up the broken-hearted,
Liberty to the captives,
Release to the prisoners

With righteousness, with justice he shall judge the poor
And decide with equity for the meek of the earth
Righteousness, justice shall be the belt around his waist.

It was wonderful the way he opened their minds to understand the scriptures.

All of the Scriptures!

Everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled!



Something happened that was very special on that resurrection day.  It’s something that shaped the way those people read the Scriptures.   Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.  And that way of understanding the Scriptures, their Bible, what we think of as the Old Testament shaped the way those people went on to read the Scriptures we think of as the Old Testament.

Read on into Acts and the Letters and you will find the preaching and the teaching of those very people and their close friends recorded – the way it draws on a particular way of reading the Hebrew Scriptures bears the imprint of Jesus.  Read back into the Gospels and again you will find that they have a way of reading the Scriptures that’s not simply the inspiration of the first followers of Jesus, the Gospel writers and so on but owes so much to the insights of Jesus as well.

How do we read the Old Testament?

To read the Scriptures of the Old Testament how important it is for us to seek out the strategy Jesus adopted in reading those Scriptures.

Think back to our first Bible Lecture.  Remember the questions Jesus asked of the expert in the Law.

What is written in the Law?

What do you read there?

Remember the response Jesus accepted.

Love God

Love your neighbour

Remember the Midrash Jesus gave on what is written in the law, the story we think of as the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and we must realise that we can put no limits on who our neighbour is!

Think back to our second Bible Study and the way we asked those same two questions this time of the Prophets …

What is written in the Prophets?

What do you read there?

Remember the prophets hold the powers that be to account and show what it takes to rule in God’s way in God’s kingdom –righteousness and justice, good news to the poor, release to the captive.

As Pentecost people who are called to take on the mantle of that prophetic role Jesus fulfilled we have the presence within us, guiding and enriching us of the very Spirit that was the inspiration of those first followers of Jesus, the writers of the Scriptures.  We need to cultivate the art not just of studying all that is written there, but actively seeking the guidance of Jesus and the inspiration of the Spirit that inspired those first writers in seeking out what we read there – what the nub of the matter is.

From Luke and Mark, today we turn to Matthew.

Pause for a moment and ask people to turn to the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:3-10, 43-45, 7:12 and what this is saying to us.

The Hebrew Scriptures are known as the Tanakh – that’s simply an acronymn

T stands for Torah – the Law
N stands for Nevi’im  - the Prophets
K stands for Ketuvim – the Writings

There are influences at play in the teachings of Jesus and the Gospels in the third part of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Writings.

Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles and in the style of apocalyptic writing Daniel too address questions of identity.

God so loved the world that he gave his only son that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life is itself almost a commentary on Ezra and Nehemiah and 1 and 2 Chronicles

When Jesus says the Son of Man came note to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many, you cannot help but feel he has partly in mind Daniel’s talk of a Son of Man.

There’s great poetry and wisdom in the writings too.

Read through the Sermon on the Mount and it has the feel of the poetry and the wisdom of the third part of the Hebrew Scriptures, the Writings – Job, Psalms, ProverbsProverbs, Ecclesiastes

There’s the feel of the poetry of the psalms

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

‘Ask, and it will be given to you;
seek, and you will find;
knock, and the door will be opened for you.

For everyone who asks receives,
and everyone who searches finds,
and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

There’s the wisdom of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job –

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.

So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own.
Today’s trouble is enough for today.

There’s the prayerfulness of the Psalms – even in that moment of agony –

My God, My God why have you forsaken me?     Psalm 22.

How do you get from Psalm 22 and its desolation to the glory of Psalm 24 –

The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it,
The world and those who live in it

Who is the king of glory?
The Lord of Hosts,
He is the King of glory

You have to pass through Psalm 23   

The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures
He leadeth me beside the still waters,
He restoreth my soul
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness / justice for his name’s sake
Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
I will fear no evil for thou art with me
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me

How that imagery of the shepherd resonates through the teaching of Jesus, the Good Shepherd.

There’s a real sense of form in the writings that make up this final part of the Hebrew Scriptures

There are five books of Psalms – look carefully and each book ends with a wonderful acclamation of praise and glory to God, a doxology

1-41                 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel!
42-72               Blessed be his glorious name forever
73-89               Blessed be the Lord forever.
90-106             Blessed be the Lord God of Israel
107-150           Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!  Praise the Lord!

There are five books in the Megilloth, the five little books that are read by Jewish people at the great festivals of the Jewish year

Ruth                            Pentecost
Song of Solomon        Passover
Ecclesiastes                 Feast of Tabernacles
Lamentations              Commemoration of the destruction of Jerusalem
Esther                          Feast of Purim

The craft of Hebrew Poetry is nowhere seen more clearly than in the Book of Lamentations.

Five chapters –

Chapter 1 22 verses
Chapter 2 22 verses
Chapter 3 66 verses
Chapter 4 22 verses
Chapter 5 22 verses

Why 22 verses?   There are 22 verses in the Hebrew alphabet.  It is structured around the acrostic – each verse starting with consecutive letters of the Hebrew alphabet.



Bleak, awful – lament at destruction

It follows a pattern used in the Middle East.

Whereas our western way of thinking tends to think logically – the argument works through from point 1 to 4 and reaches its conclusion at 5 – and that is the point of it all.

In the Middle East there is a pattern – called chiasmus.

Whereby the middle part is most important.

In all the bleakness of Lamentations look to the middle chapter.



Chapter 3

And then to the middle bits of that chapter and what do you find?

19 The thought of my affliction and my homelessness
   is wormwood and gall!
20 My soul continually thinks of it
   and is bowed down within me.
21 But this I call to mind,
   and therefore I have hope:

[25]      22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
   his mercies never come to an end;
23 they are new every morning;
   great is your faithfulness.
24 ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul,
   ‘therefore I will hope in him.’

The inspiration of one of the greatest hymns – Great is thy faithfulness –

What tremendous hope.

And what do you find in Matthew’s gospel?

That same sense of structure.



The clue to Matthew is at the very end as Jesus commissions the disciples …

Make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.

How can you do that?  You need a compendium of the teaching of Jesus.  And that’s what Matthew collates together.

His gospel is structured around five sets of teaching

5-7       The Sermon on the mount beginning with those great blessings and ending with three parables of choice
23,25   Jesus’ final sermon – beginning with woes and ending with three parables of choice

            Commissioning of the twelve
18        What it takes to be the church

And in the middle 13 – a chapter of parables – teaching on the Kingdom of heaven – the heart of that message taken up by John the Baptist

Repent, have a whole new way of looking at the world, for the kingdom of heaven has come near

The very message of Jesus

Repent – have a whole new way of looking at the world – for the kingdom of heaven has come near.


So what is this kingdom of heaven like?

That’s what the whole book is about, not least the Sermon on the Mount.

It starts not so much with words of comfort as with a call to action.

Elias Chacour is a Christian a leader of the church in the Holy Land – he is an Arab – and he makes the observation that in the language of Jesus, Aramaic, which has come down through the centuries the word that is translated here as blessed is a much more pro-active word – he suggests translating it …. Get up, go ahead, do something, move.  Try it and the Beatitudes become a call to action in the work of the kingdom!



Get up, go ahead, do something, move, you who are hungry and thirsty for justice,
for you shall be satisfied.

Get up, go ahead, do something, move, you peacemakers,
for you shall be called children of God.

The whole sermon on the Mount finishes with a rousing call to action – we must not only hear the words of Jesus but act on them and be like that wise man who built his house on the rock.

Here, right at the heart of the Sermon on the Mount, those two questions are more than hinted at.

You can almost hearing him asking, those two questions What is written in the Law, the Prophets and the writings?

He makes it absolutely clear that he values all that is written there …

17 ‘Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. 18For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.

But equally, he makes it clear that what’s important is what you read there and so you can almost hear him asking the second of those two questions: what do you read there?  In chapter 5 it is as if he unpacks what it means to Love your Neighbour.

Six times Jesus says, You have heard that it was said … but I say to you.

In Chapter 6 through to the first part of chapter 7 Jesus explores what it takes to Love God.

And then he comes to the point at which he wants to sum up what you read in the Law and the Prophets, and by implication in the writings, in the whole of the Scriptures …

Chapter 7 verse 12 says it all.

In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.

Just the same thought we have met before.

What is written in the law and the prophets takes up 947 pages in my Bible.

What do you read there amounts to this – in everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.

Bearing this remarkable insight in mind I want to introduce a tool I have found really useful in reading the Old Testament

The time cone.

It is based on the ‘double cone’ which has been used to describe the relationship of space and time.  The central point where the two cones meet is the present moment in one place.  All that comes into the left hand cone is the past which leads up to that moment; all that is in the right hand cone is the future which is affected by that moment.



Outside the cone are events which cannot affect or be affected by the present moment – that is, other things which happen at exactly the same time.

As we meet together in this hall – where the two cones meet is this moment, now.

To the left is all that’s past – all that has happened to make you the person you are today.

This is a precious moment -

We don’t know all that’s to come – but we can be sure all that is past, this moment too will help to shape what’s to come.

You could think of a significant moment in your life – think of a joyous moment – a day when something special happened –

Think of that moment at the point of intersection – and then think of the things that led up to that moment – and then think of the things you can put into the right hand cone that have been shaped by that moment.

You might think of this moment in the story of the NACCC the whole history of Congregationalism is past, the more recent history through the 50's and 60's, the most recent period of planning for change, the decisions taken this weekend: all now in the past.  And then think of what's to come.

And in a year time the intersection, the 'now' will be a year on - see how much has come to pass!

For Bible study we are going to put the life, death and resurrection of Jesus at the point at which the two cones intersect.

In a sense beyond the scale to the left is Creation – in the beginning.  And to the right beyond the scale is Glory – the new heaven and the new earth.

We are located over here

The Law – the Prophets – the writings – make up are over here – and all went to shape Jesus.

The Gospels, Acts, Letters Revelation – came afterwards then you can see 2000 years of history – and then it’s us – and then the future goes on.



There is an immediacy about the Bible which means it can often speak to us in wonderful ways immediately.

But often the Bible is a puzzle.

At that point get the time cone out!

A gospel quote – has behind it Christ – and the whole of the Law, the Prophets and the Writings.

A quote from Joshua, Judges – remember all that has come since, especially remember Jesus – and take him into account.

How has Jesus brought all that that passage is a part of to the point of fulfilment – and now what must I be doing in the light of what has happened since as well?

Let me take one example.

I want to go back to the second Sunday in September a number of years ago.

We were following some lectionary readings.

In our evening service we read together a Psalm

The Psalms are in the Writings and so, using the time cone we need to locate the Psalm – [click click]

The Psalm of the day was Psalm 139.  It is one of my all time favourite Psalms.

I grew up chanting Psalms at church – so many a song and a hymn and a sermon inspired by these wonderful words.

But the hymn book I grew up with had edited the Psalm down.

We have the Good News Bible – people read the Psalm from the Bible.

Wonderful – verses

Psalm 139

1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
   you discern my thoughts from far away.
3 You search out my path and my lying down,
   and are acquainted with all my ways.


7 Where can I go from your spirit?
   Or where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
   if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning
   and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
   and your right hand shall hold me fast.

13 For it was you who formed my inward parts;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Then we get to these verses.

19 O that you would kill the wicked, O God,
   and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—
20 those who speak of you maliciously,
   and lift themselves up against you for evil!
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
   And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with perfect hatred;
   I count them my enemies.

Hateful verses

What should I do about getting the congregation to read these verses?

I couldn’t ask them to do that.

Then, remembering the time cone,  I noticed the NT reading for that day was from Matthew 5 – the very end – You have heard it said –

 ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be children of your Father in heaven;

I decided to read alternate sections – the Congregation the first paragraph, I the next.  I arranged it so I would be the one to read those words – and in reading them I pointed towards the text in Matthew 5:6 – however we feel, we must remember those words.

And then the whole congregation read the final verses

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
   test me and know my thoughts.
24 See if there is any wicked way in me,
   and lead me in the way everlasting.






It was moving.  A most wonderful prayer.

It made sense.

And then that Tuesday something happened.

I was driving home when I heard it on the radio.

It was 9/11

We finish our time with you here with a couple of days in New York – just after the museum and memorial at the World Trade Centre has been completed.

As has become so much more apparent in the recent revelations,  Cheltenham in the UK has very close links with the USA.  Cheltenham is home to the UK’s Government Communications Head Quarters, GCHQ and that has close links with your National Security Agency – people from GCHQ regularly go to the NSA and people from the NSA are over with us.

I knew that afternoon one of our folk would be on their own, far from home – I called round to see them simply to be with them.

That evening we had a planning meeting for a mission and outreach initiative we were involved in – the Alpha Course –

What do you do?

I invited another group meeting in the church at that time to join us in a time of prayer in the church.

What do you say?

I felt it was an occasion when I couldn’t choose an appropriate passage or appropriate words.

I returned to the passages from the lectionary we had read that Sunday evening.

And I invited people to share the words of Psalm 139 in the same way as we had done.

The opening words were wonderfully comforting speaking into this situation.

We alternated paragraph by paragraph.

It fell to me to read those hateful words.

And for the first time in my life I could understand how it was that you could utter such words.  They expressed how so many were feeling, I felt it too.

But then I paused – and brought to mind, very deliberately pulling into our consciousness those words of Jesus – from the Beatitudes from the end of Matthew chapter 5


4 ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

6 ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

9 ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

10 ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” 44But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be children of your Father in heaven;

We then paused for a moment of thought … and then together we read those last verses of the Psalm …

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
   test me and know my thoughts.
24 See if there is any wicked way in me,
   and lead me in the way everlasting.

It was one of those most moving of moments, when God’s word spoke from the words of Scripture in a way that no one had planned and yet was so real.

Shortly after we learned that one of the main church leaders in the UK, Rowan Williams who was then the Archbishop of the Church in Wales and later became the Archbishop of Canterbury was at a conference in a neighbouring tower block.  He had to flee for his life as he was engulfed in the cloud of dust.



The next morning he had a phone call from the Welsh-speaking radio channel back home – the journalist spoke in Welsh and asked him for a comment.

Rowan Williams recalled later how he had paused for a moment.

What flashed through his mind was that if he replied in Welsh then his comment would be broadcast simply to the Welsh speaking members of his church.  If, on the other hand, he replied in English then his thoughts would be broadcast to all the English speakers as well and further afield.  He replied in English.

He told of that moment in a very moving little book he published.  He called it Writing in the Sand, a title inspired by the account of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery when Jesus is challenged to keep to what is written in the law and stone the woman to death.   John’s account describes the way he takes time to think, pauses and for a moment writes in the sand.

At such a moment as this, Rowan Williams, wrote in 2011, but also at any like moment, we might add, how important it is that we take time to pause a moment, that we think through.  That we move beyond the moment.

Maybe it is good to get the hate out – to shout it at God in prayer.  He can take it.

But then we need to pause.  We need to hear again the words of Jesus.  We need to reply to atrocities in another, a different language.

And we need to pray.

In reading the Old Testament, I find the time cone one of the most useful tools.  It helps us as Christians to put Jesus at the centre of our reading of the Bible.

How important that we ask both those questions Jesus posed to the expert in the law


What is written in the Bible?

What do you read there?

We must go beyond what is written to what we read in the Scriptures.

We must use the eyes of Christ to help  us in our reading and constantly seek not just a sense of the presence of God with us … but a sense of the presence of Christ with us too.

And what do we read there?

Love God, love your neighbour

What do we read there?

In everything do to others as you would have them do and the prophets.

to you; for this is the law

It’s not just the Lord your God is with you wherever you go – wonderfully inspiring though that though is

But in your reading of the Scripture always remember that the Lord Jesus Christ is with you to the end of the age, he is with you with you wherever you go







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