The Philemon Question?

The book of Philemon in the Bible is a letter from Paul & Timothy sent to Philemon and others in his home and church. Paul asks Philemon to show kindness to his escaped and apparently pretty useless slave Onesimus. Whom Paul had led to faith and had become a much-loved brother to Paul and a very useful help to Paul and Timothy. Paul and Timothy asked Philemon to treat Onesimus as a valued brother and to allow Onesimus to return to Paul and Timothy to continue helping them. In the context of the times this was a big ask!

Roman society and economy were heavily reliant on slavery. As the Roman Empire expanded by conquest the defeated soldiers often become slaves, other people were sentenced to slavery as a punishment and in hard times people would sell their children into slavery. Escaped slaves would be hunted down and returned (often for a reward). If caught, fugitives could be punished by being whipped, burnt with iron, or killed. Those who lived were branded on the forehead with the letters FUG, for fugitive.

While this seems shocking to us, the society Philemon lived in fully expected him to either brutally execute or torture and brand Onesimus head with FUG. Paul in contrast asked and fully expected Philemon to show compassion and agree to his request to buck the overwhelming expectation of the society he lived in.

 If Paul was writing to you or me today, how would he be asking us to show compassion rather than act in conformity with society expectations and norms?

 

The 77 Habits of Highly Ineffective Christianity by Chris Fabry is a tongue-in-check book encouraging its readers to be effective Christians by pretending to promote bad Christian habits. I recently discovered a document I drafted in 2012 taking a similar look at some of my own bad habits. Read on to find out more...

 

The number one aim of an ineffective Christian should be to constrain God’s influence upon your life. God can be as small or as big as we allow him to be in our lives. Ineffective Christians ensure that God is as small as possible; in my personal experience the following habits have proved there worth in the pursuit of ineffectiveness.

We should never expect God to do any more than we have previously experienced. To ensure our ineffectiveness as a Christian we must base our assumptions about our future on our past experiences and at all costs avoid truths such as Eph:3.20 “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us”.

A brilliant habit to nurture ineffectiveness, and one which we can dress up to appear as spiritual wisdom is ‘preparation & planning’. Never set off on any adventure with God until he has revealed each step of the journey beforehand.  Rather than trusting an unknown future to a known God, revel in ineffectiveness and pass away the time waiting for God to reveal all, with endless planning meetings, strategy sessions, focus groups & training sessions.  A word of caution to my fellow students of ineffectiveness. The problem with this habit is its foolishness is easily seen when exposed to truths like 1 Corinthians 2:9 “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.”

 My personal favourite material to constrain Gods influence is to believe passionately that God has favourites and that I am not one of them! Believing this allows us to pin the blame for some of the difficulties we find ourselves in on not being a favourite, rather than because of our own unwise rebellious choices. The key to the effectiveness of this strategy is to avoid any examination of Gods character as revelled in verse such as Romans 2:11 “For God does not show favouritism” and Ephesians 6:9 “...All are equal before Him” or Galatians 6:7 “Don’t be misled – you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant”.

My inability to not sin (I keep doing and thinking wrong things, again and again) must mean God is terribly disappointed with me and has written me off until I get my act together. Habitually thinking in this way allows us to justify minimising our willingness to be used by God, as he would not want to use a sinner anyway. But be warned, the effectiveness of this approach is seriously undermined by Paul in his letter to the Romans when he writes, “But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When its sin verses grace, grace wins hands down” (Romans 5:20 Message version). In fact, to excel at ineffective Christianity I urge you to avoid reading the bible or giving any thought to how its contents apply to your life!

To all whom wish to excel at being highly ineffective as a Christian I can reassure you that the above habits have shackled my effectiveness and acted as a shield to minimise Gods influence in my life. The choice to embrace them or not is yours. 

 

Hemmed In!

 

The other week Helen and I went to the supermarket to do the Christmas food shop. Whilst there, with my face mask on and surrounded by busy people and noise I missed a call from someone dear to me who is experiencing a torrid time in their life and while trying to call that person back a call came from another person I also love who needed reassurance. Suddenly, I felt overwhelming anxiety flood through me, as if I was hemmed in from every direction and it swamped me and threatened my ability to cope. I could feel the panic rising in me and had a challenge controlling it. For me, the confident, cope with whatever is thrown at me character that I normally am this was a new, and thoroughly unpleasant feeling and one I hope I don’t experience again.

Over recent months I have been reflecting on Psalm 139, and I turned to it again this morning. It’s an amazing Psalm with so much within it which God has used to encouraged, provoke and inspired me – and this morning he did so again. Here are the first six verses:

Psalm 139:1 to 6. (NLT)

1 O Lord, you have examined my heart

    and know everything about me.

2 You know when I sit down or stand up.

    You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.

3 You see me when I travel

    and when I rest at home.

    You know everything I do.

4 You know what I am going to say

    even before I say it, Lord.

5 You go before me and follow me.

    You place your hand of blessing on my head.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,

    too great for me to understand!

Let’s look at verses one to four as this sets the context in which we can view verse five and six. God has examined my heart; he knows my deepest feelings and some of them are not pretty! He knows everything about me, good and bad. He knows my every physical act, and what I am thinking; wherever I am he knows everything I do; in fact, he knows me so well that he knows what I am going to say before I do. God knows each of us inside out, warts and all.

Now let’s jump to verse six. Its clear that the author of this Psalm considers something wonderful has been revelled to them in verse five. They can scarcely take in this wonderful knowledge; it’s blowing their mind. So, what’s so special about verse five?

“You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head.”

 The hand of blessing bit is for me already mind blowing amazing, but we will get to that later.

Over many generations the bible has been translated into several English versions from the original text, each trying to accurately reflect the original whilst translating it into the contemporary English of the day. The above is quoted from the New Living Translation. In the alternative New International Version (NIV) the first sentence of verse five is translated as “You hem me in behind and before.” This morning I read the NIV version of this Psalm, and to be be honest the idea of being hemmed in did not evoke warm fussy feelings for me! But the Psalm author seems to think it’s amazing, why?

The Psalm was originally written in Hebrew, and the term used for ‘hemmed in’ in the original text is ‘tsuwr’. Which also translates into English as “to confine, bind, besiege”. Being besieged sounds even worse than being hemmed in!  

To understand why the author of Psalm 139 was getting so excited we need to examine some other instance of the word ‘tsuwr’. Psalm 34:7 “The angel of the Lord (tsuwr) encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them”; Psalm 125:2 “As the mountains (tsuwr) surrounded Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people…”

And so, the light bulb switched on in me this morning; the experience the author of the Psalm 139 is relating to is an overwhelmingly positive experience - despite God knowing what I feel, think, do and say his response is not to abandon my, rather my loving Lord and God is protectively encircling me from front to back. That’s an experience of being hemmed in that  is comforting and wonderful :-)

But, that’s not all, the Psalmist also says about the Lord “You place your hand of blessing on my head”. Putting your hand on someone or something in the bible can signify a variety of different things, not all are good. The great news is that in this context the significance is lavishly positive! It’s a hand of blessing. In Genesis 48 we read of Jacob, the father of Joseph (Joseph was the the guy with the multi-coloured coat), meeting his two grandchildren for the first time. Embracing them and then reaching out and placing his hand upon their heads and blessing them, asking God to bless them and declaring that people in the future would aspire to be like them and would ask God for their children to emulate the successes of Josephs sons. If this is the outcome of Jacob laying his hands on his grandchildren and blessing them, how much more wonderful is the blessing of the Lord our God placing his hand on our heads!

And the mind-blowing bit, Jacob did not know his grandchildren and he blessed them. God fully knowing me, and my unsuitability hugs me and places his hand on my head and blesses me.

As the Psalmist says, this knowledge is to wonderful for me, and it blows my mind.

People Watching

Helen and I were sitting in a café, enjoying each other’s company and an afternoon tea. We could not help overhearing the conversation among half a dozen well-spoken ladies in their 50’s on the adjacent table. They were explaining to one of their number that at the parties they frequented that that if your handbag is on your left shoulder then you are ‘available’ that evening, and a bag on the right shoulder indicated you were not!

While I enjoy people watching when I am in a café, a more useful version of people watching is to try and understand the motivation and reason for people’s behavior in the bible. 

In the Book of John (in the bible) we read about Lazarus and his two sisters, Mary & Martha, who are good friends with Jesus. 

Mary & Martha send Jesus a message “Lord, your dear friend is very sick”. There are no mobile phones, so the message is carried by some people travelling to where Jesus is staying. It’s interesting that that the sisters inform Jesus of the problem, but don’t tell him the solution. When we bring our problems to Jesus, do we expect him to do things our way? Or do we recognize that his response will be inline with his Fathers good and perfect will? If we do recognize this, we can confidently leave the problem in his hands without subsequently worrying when the solution does not look like we thought it should.

After a delay of two days Jesus says to his disciples ‘lets go see Lazarus’. The disciples objected to this. What was motivating the disciple’s objection? Circumstances had, a few days before when Jesus and the disciples were in the area which Lazarus, Mary and Martha lived people had tried to kill Jesus. What’s Jesus motivation? He knew his Father wanted him to go back so that Lazarus sickness would end in bringing glory to God. How did Jesus know all this? I believe it's because he regularly spent time alone communicating with his Father God. Do you let yourself  be buffeted about by circumstances and other people’s opinions, or do you spend regular time alone in his presence so he can direct our steps?

When they arrive in the area of Lazarus home Lazarus had been dead for four days. When Jesus saw Mary crying and the people surrounding her wailing in sadness a deep anger welled up within Jesus. Why did Jesus get angry?

(1) The answer to this can be found if we consider that God, through the bible, uses anthropomorphisms to describe himself to us. He does this, because language drawn from our own personal life is the most accurate medium for communicating to us about himself.  (2) Anthropomorphism is describing or treating animals, objects or gods as if they are human in appearance, character or behavior. For example, a meme of Winnie the Poo and Piglet talking like humans. (3)When anthropomorphisms are used in the bible about God we need to remember that man is not a measure of God. Where the language of human personal life is used to describe God remember that he does not have the same limitations as we do.

Jesus anger is not an outburst of human anger resulting from pride, tiredness or irritability. It’s a reaction of holiness to sin.  

Jesus, the Son of God was angry at sin itself and the death, pain and sadness it causes. I have often heard people say, ‘if there is a God and he loves us then why does he let bad things happen?’ The reason bad things happen is a consequence of human’s sin, not because God let it happen. Gods loving responses to the pain and sadness we all suffer because of sin is a deep welling up of holy anger against sin and it’s  consequences. 

(1) & (3)  J.I. Packers book ‘Knowing God’, page's 188 & 189. ISBN 0 34019713 7.

(2) Cambridge Dictionary. 

 

^{When Someone else gets all the toys!}

Most of us have seen a toddler, and maybe even an adult having a tantrum because someone else has a toy they want.

I have (mostly) outgrown having tantrums. But sometimes my reaction when someone else gets something is not great. Like the jealously I felt when a friend got a fancy new car, or my frustration rearing its ugly head at my career plateau with the news my friend has a (well-deserved) promotion.   

Numbers chapter 7 is not the most exciting chapter in the bible. It’s a list of gifts given by the leaders and tribes of Israel to the Lord when the Tabernacle was being dedicated. The gifts included some wagons and oxen.

The tribe of Levi had the job of taking the tabernacle tent down and transporting it and its contents to the next location. Mosses distributed the wagons and oxen among the Levi families according to the work they had to do, carrying the tent poles etc. Out of all of them, one of the families, the Kohathite’s, didn’t get any of the wagons and oxen. The Kohathite’s were responsible for carrying the sacred objects of the Tabernacle. Unlike the tent poles & covering’s, the sacred objects could not be put into the wagons and had to be carried on the Kohathite’s shoulders.

I wonder if any of the Kohathite’s felt jealous because they didn’t get any wagons, maybe they felt left out, unappreciated and second best. As they trudged along carrying everything on their shoulders did the Kohathite’s feel frustrated that they were stuck carrying things while others used the wagons.

There was a good reason for carrying the sacred objects on their shoulders, rather than in wagons. God had told Mosses that if the Kohathite’s touch the sacred object they would die. So, carrying poles were slotted into the sacred objects, or there carrying frames. This allowed the objects to be carried without the Kohathite’s touching the sacred objects. In 2 Samuel chapter 6, we read that generations after Mosses had distributed the wagons, the Ark of the Covenant, a sacred object from the tabernacle, is carried in a cart. While going over rough ground the Oxon stumble and Uzzah reaches out to steady the Ark and he drops dead.

Whatever work God gives us, he equips us for, and does this at the time it’s needed. We don’t all have the same work, so we are not all going to get the same equipment (gifting's, skills etc.). Sometimes I get frustrated with Gods timing, why am I not getting the promotion yet, or think I need something to make the work I have been given easier or more effective. But God see’s the bigger picture, sometimes what or when I want something is not good for me.

 

Ugly made lovely

Four years ago I visited Bath for a one night break away from a busy life to meet a friend and spend some time  reflecting. Whilst waiting for my friend to arrive I made an unplanned visit to a church. Inside was a communion table made out of old broken and ugly bits of wood which a creative craftsmen had turned into a lovely table. At the time it reminded me that The Creator can take ugly brokenness and turn it into something of purpose and lovely to see.


Deuteronomy 23:5" But the Lord your God refused to listen to Balaam. He turned the intended curse into a blessing because the Lord your God loves you".

As I sat looking at that table I was in a period of my life when I was dealing with the ugliness of life and since then I have been broken by stress. But in both ugliness and brokenness, what was intended as a curse has been turned into a blessing by The Creator, my Lord God.

Wherever your at in life, there is hope.

 "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with Hope by the power of the Holy Spirit" .

Tears in a bottle

Do you ever find yourself in tough circumstances, under attack, people out to get you?

David took on Goliath the Philistine Giant with his slingshot and a stone and killed him, defeating the Philistine champion and causing the Philistine army to be defeated. He was the hero, on the up.

Roll forward maybe a couple of years and David is seized by a vengeful group of Philistines. David writes about this time in Psalm 56.

Many of us can relate to at least some of his experiance, being hounded, slandered, attacked, afraid, people twisting his words against him, plotting against him, being spied upon and watched closely for opportunities to harm him.

Despite the evidence of Davids situation appearing to say that God had forgotten him and did not care about what was happening to him this was not true for David and when we are in tough circumstances it is not true for us. God cares so much about our sorrow that he collects our tears in a bottle! Psalm 56:8 "You (God) keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book." Awsome!

What can we learn from David's response when people were out to get him?

Mercy - He asked God for Mercy, for God to respond to his situation in an unexpected and unmerited way.

Trust - He actively put his trust in God, trusting him to keep his promises even when his circumstances gave him reason to doubt.

Praise - He praised God for things promised even though they had not yet happened.

Compared wisely - Rather than compare the power of those out to get him against his own abilities he compared them to God's power.

Asked - He asked God to intervene. Do we actually ask God for his intervention or do we keep trying to get through on our own?

Afterwards - To often we let other things take first place in our lives once we are out of the tough times, rather than put God first. In his time of trouble David made promises to God, once the tough circumstances were over he recognised he needed to keep those promises and he sought to do life in God's presence.