Church - a Healing Place?

Paul penned his letter to the Roman Church around AD 57. The Church in Rome was largely Gentile with a minority of Jewish believers. After his opening remarks in verse 18 he turns his attention to the nature of fallen humanity. Although they had no excuse for doing so as the Creation gives witness to God, people had turned away from Him to worship idols. Consequently God had left them alone to follow their own desires, including the pursuit of homosexual practices. The picture he paints is not a pretty one:

Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. (Rom.1:29-31).

The Jews of the day considered homosexuality a Gentile sin. When Paul wrote the Roman elite had been influenced by the Greeks. As it was generally, but not exclusively, practiced male homosexuality was more akin to what we call paedophilia. Probably because of a shortage of women owing to the practice of abandoning girls at birth adult men engaged in sex with pubescent and adolescent boys - the latter being considered adult. Most Greek men married around the age of 30 by which time their numbers had been thinned by death to girls around the age of 18. Same sex marriage was considered an absurdity because of the need to produce heirs. Lesbianism, although practiced, was no where near as common.

Listening to the first chapter I can almost see the congregation nodding their heads in agreement and even pronouncing an amen or two. After all, Paul was speaking about those unbelievers and their objectionable behaviour wasn’t he?

In chapter two he turns up the heat on the believers. Who are you, he says, when you go around thinking you are better than everyone else. You’re ‘just as bad, and you have no excuse!’ (v.1). Just because you claim to be a Christian means nothing if you go around judging others when you do what they do.

Now here’s the point. Christians may take pride in their knowledge of the Law, but if they break it they are still sinners. And that puts us all in the same boat. Do we take pride in our law-keeping, our knowledge of Scripture, our Christian way of living? Are we like the Pharisee who stood in the Temple and prayed ‘I thank you, God, that I am not like other people—cheaters, sinners, adulterers. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income’? Or do we bow with the tax collector and pray ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner’? (Luke 18:9-14)

There are ‘sinners’ in this world who do not have the knowledge of the Bible that you and I have. These include those who have been hurt by Christians or turned away from the Church by the way they see us behaving. We may see some of them as being rough, perhaps uncouth. Yet when they act with compassion for others, go the extra mile to help someone in need, they do as God’s Law requires. Some of them may shame us in the way they behave. Perhaps they are closer to God than we are in many ways, even if they are ‘living in sin’, straight or gay.

We come to the Cross as sinners, not saints. And, I suggest, that is what the world needs to see. Not good, moral people, but sinners admitting their need and supporting one another to  grow together in our understanding of God and of what it means to live with Him.

Inside the Garrison Church, Sydney

The Church has been likened to a hospital. It is a good analogy, yet it can only be a place of healing if it admits people in need of healing. Alcoholics, gamblers, straight, gay, abused, the foul-mouthed, the spiritually proud and more. More than anything else we need acceptance, and for many of us acceptance is a greater need than forgiveness, for it will only be when we understand we are loved and accepted as we are that we will truly understand we can be forgiven.

Bible Translation: New Living Translation.

Acknowledgement

I acknowledge the NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible regarding homosexuality.

You Must Prophesy Again

Revelation excites me like no other book in the Bible. Saying this, I do not detract from the Gospels or any other Bible book. Through its lens the prophetic voice of the Old Testament comes alive to the political, economic and environmental conditions of the world I live in, challenges my views on these, and points me to Jesus as the answer to the problems of the day.

That which I find so compelling is they way its rich imagery is drawn from the Old Testament. The rainbow, the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant, the language of judgement, and the judgements that fall under the seven trumpets and seven seals reminiscent of the Old Testament covenant curses. Then there are those ancient cities and countries - Sodom, Egypt, Babylon, and Jerusalem.

The Sea Beast of Chapter 11 reminds us of the four beasts of Daniel’s dream in Daniel 7:4-6. The serpent who leads Adam and Eve astray in Genesis 3 appears in Revelation 11 as Satan or the Devil, the enemy of God who is cast out of heaven and wars against God’s people on earth. When Adam and Eve sinned they were barred access to the Tree of Life. Those faithful to God regain access to the Tree in Revelation 22.

As one reads Revelation it is obvious it is universal in scope. It encompasses heaven and earth, the sea and land, and people and tribes from all nations. On the other hand, the Old Testament primarily focused in Israel and the nations surrounding it.

The Old Testament is the ethical underpinning of the New. Its specific, cultural and economic rules reveal principles of justice, fairness and compassion. Israel and her neighbours are continually rebuked for their cruelty, injustice, exploitation of the weak and marginalised, and idolatry. One thing that stands out is the clear association between environmental degradation and the idolatry and injustices practiced.  

When I reflect on the promises God made to Israel I know they could only be kept by a supernatural power, one Christians believe in. This leads me to believe the calamities that fell on Israel and her neighbours were the result of God withdrawing His supernatural protection. It is clear the resultant curses were meant to cause reflection and give opportunity for repentance.

I see Revelation in much the same way as the OT. God's promises require a response. If we disobey we reap the results. If we obey, He blesses and protects. In fact, in the OT God states He will not bring harm if the evil repent, or good if the good turn away (see Ezekiel 18). Obviously there are things in there that are unconditional, such as the return of Jesus to usher in the reign of everlasting righteousness. There is also the call to come apart from all that is exploitative, destructive and evil, to follow God’s way and not Satan’s. So we must conclude there is opportunity for universal repentance, for accepting God’s forgiveness, and avoiding the consequences of our rebellion.

God does not change (Malachi 3:6). He always has, and always will, require us ‘to do what is right, to love mercy, and walk humbly with God’ (Micah 6:8).

I believe the symbolism of Revelation is meant to cause us to reflect on those Old Testament themes it reflects. It allows, or even mandates, us to recast the Old Testament prophetic call to all the world. Surely God wants the world to see the sharp contrast between that which He intended and that which we have created by walking away from Him.

It was God’s intent that Israel would be the model for the world, the nation through which the supremacy of His way stood out. We see this in Deuteronomy 4:5-8:

Look, I now teach you these decrees and regulations just as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may obey them in the land you are about to enter and occupy.  Obey them completely, and you will display your wisdom and intelligence among the surrounding nations. When they hear all these decrees, they will exclaim, ‘How wise and prudent are the people of this great nation!’  For what great nation has a god as near to them as the Lord our God is near to us whenever we call on him? And what great nation has decrees and regulations as righteous and fair as this body of instructions that I am giving you today?

Has the time come for the the Church, the people of God, to ‘prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages, and kings’ (Rev.10:11)?

Quotes from the New Living Translation