Religion

A Perplexing Silence – part 2

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

In part one of this post, I considered how we seem to be living in momentous times.  The very foundations of western society are facing an all-out attack that threatens to completely transform the world as we know it.  Solzhenitsyn famously wrote, “The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie.  One word of truth outweighs the world.”  He released Live Not By Lies on the day he was arrested and then exiled to the West.  It was written to a people worn down by decades of Communist rule who felt so helpless and lacking the strength to stand and fight the system. 

Today we are not decades into a totalitarian regime, but we may be on the front porch.  Too many are already silently complying with the moral demands of the mob that seeks to rule and transform our society.  There are voices who are speaking truth, fighting evil, and taking unpopular stands.  But as we come to the end of 2022, I am wondering why there are not as many Christian voices as we might expect.

So why are we often so silent?  Here are some possible reasons:

1. Some are unaware. We live in an age with more information available than ever before. Still, it seems easier than ever to switch off current news or at least to switch off some perspectives on current news. It is emotionally draining to try and take in all that is going on. There is wisdom in choosing how much we expose our hearts to difficult news. Deliberately or accidentally, some of us are unaware of the seismic shift occurring under and in western society.

In his Warning to the West, Solzhenitsyn wrote provocatively about the ignorance he saw in that era, “It is astonishing that Communism has been writing about itself in the most open way, in black and white, for 125 years, and even more openly, more candidly in the beginning.  The book [The Communist Manifesto], for instance, which everyone knows by name and which almost no one takes the trouble to read, contains even more terrible things than what has actually been done.  It is perfectly amazing.  The whole world can read, everyone is literate, yet somehow no one wants to understand.  Humanity acts as if it does not understand what Communism is, as if it does not want to understand, is not capable of understanding.” 

The kind of societal transformation agendas I am concerned about today are published online and in print.  They do not get called out for what they are by the media, but they do not hide.  And yet, so many remain unaware.

Furthermore, as Solzhenitsyn wrote, “All Communist Parties, upon attaining power, have become completely merciless.  But at the stage before they achieve power, it is necessary to use disguises.” Some thinly disguised versions of communist-like totalitarianism still fool many these days.

2.  Some are unconcerned.  Most Christians are worried about specific issues when mentioned in conversation.  However, many seem unconcerned that the news and social media keep them in the dark about such matters.  It is genuinely bizarre that people seem content to have information proactively silenced, suppressed, or hidden.  I can only hope they are unaware of the extent of the narrative control rather than truly satisfied with it.

I remember hearing about a Christian ministry seeking permission to sell books in a one-religion country some years ago.  They were given permission but told not to sell Bibles to people of that religion.  When they asked how to know whether someone was from that religion or not, they received simple instructions.  They had to put the Bibles behind a curtain with a sign that read, “Not for people of religion X.” They readily agreed, and the Bible was the bestseller, of course!  We all know human nature causes us to ask questions when we are not allowed to see something.  But human nature seems to have morphed in the last few years.  Now it seems that people are happy to have everything pre-filtered by unknown ideologues with undisclosed guidelines sitting at a keyboard somewhere. 

Underneath a relaxed attitude to censorship, there lies complacency.  Since we cannot imagine foreign troops marching on our streets, we believe our society is immune to any takeover.  Solzhenitsyn wrote in The Gulag Archipelago, “There is always this fallacious belief: ‘It would not be the same here; here such things are impossible.’ Alas, all the evil of the twentieth century is possible everywhere on earth.”

Perhaps we should be more concerned about living in a controlled and crafted narrative.

3.  Some are overwhelmed.  It does not take long to find enough information to overwhelm your heart.  There is a heaviness to living through history.  As I read the Gulag Archipelago, my heart breaks for what so many suffered while the West remained unaware.  That weight only increases when you think of the people who have experienced Communism and are now issuing warnings to us in the West.  History is heavy.  History being repackaged and repeated is heavier still.

Solzhenitsyn in his commencement address to Harvard: “Humanism which has lost its Christian heritage cannot prevail in this competition.  Thus during the past centuries and especially in recent decades, as the process became more acute, the alignment of forces was as follows: Liberalism was inevitably pushed aside by radicalism, radicalism had to surrender to socialism, and socialism could not stand up to Communism.”

In Part three I will conclude this list with two more, perhaps the two most important, reasons for this relative and frankly, perplexing, silence.

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I would recommend reading Live Not By Lies, by Solzhenitsyn.  It is a quick read, but it is gold.  https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/live-not-by-lies

A Perplexing Silence

/ Peter Mead / 5 Comments

As we come to the end of 2022, I want to share a series of three posts with you.  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s writings have been swirling in my mind, as has a single tweet from a few weeks ago.  A massive body of work and a lengthy sentence separated by a few decades yet resonating together.

As you may have noticed, there is always something going on in the news.  Of course, not every story is genuinely momentous.  Perhaps you can remember the end of 1989? The Tiananmen Square protest and massacre had happened earlier in the year.  As the end of the year approached, Hungary proclaimed the end of communist rule, the Berlin Wall came down, and Bulgaria’s long-serving leader resigned.  Apartheid rules were changing in South Africa.  Student demonstrations in Prague started the velvet revolution.  President Bush (senior) and Gorbachev declared the cold war over. Romanian dictator Ceausescu was ousted and then executed on Christmas Day.  The news was fascinating, and everyone knew we were watching history unfold.

How will we look back on our current time?  There have always been news stories, but some news cycles feel more significant. We live in a season of swirling stories – some are featured and polished for maximum coverage.  In contrast, others seem to be painstakingly discounted, twisted or buried.  For instance, and in no particular order:

  • The Ukraine war is stirring the threatening language of Armageddon from global leaders.  At the same time, celebrities fly into Kyiv for photoshoots with the president.
  • Many social media platforms restrict free speech.  However, the media dismiss new revelations of illegal government influence on Twitter as irrelevant.
  • Critical Race Theory is fundamentally shifting every academic discipline, business practice and even whole Christian denominations.
  • Excess deaths remain way above the pre-covid five-year average, or even the pandemic year, when daily and total death counts were constantly before our eyes.  And yet, asking why this is happening seems to be socially unacceptable.
  • Protests and legal wrangling over possible election fraud rumble away in various countries.  Reporting suspicious behaviour results in being labelled an election denier and a threat to democracy.
  • “Fourth Industrial Revolution” ideas derided as conspiracy theories only two years ago are explicitly promoted by proponents today.
  • One western government is confiscating thousands of farms because of the climate crisis.  And we are all required to pay the bill for Net Zero plans that may or may not make any difference to the projected catastrophe.  Again, don’t question it, or you will be labelled a denier!
  • There is a push for digital id and digital currency, a checkpoint society with a Chinese-style social credit system that will replace fundamental freedoms with earned privileges.
  • In another western country, Euthanasia is being promoted, celebrated and normalised with increasingly ineffective controls.
  • Children are being sexualised and offered life-changing surgery and puberty blockers. At the same time, parents are increasingly pushed out of the conversation.
  • And in the last few days, a woman was arrested and questioned by police about whether she was silently praying in a particular location here in England.  

There are many swirling issues, but we must step back and ask about underlying issues. We are living through a fundamental reshaping of the ethical foundations and the nature of the society built on them.  In the past, there was rebellion against the generally accepted Judeo-Christian ethic underlying western civilisation (e.g. think of the sexual liberation movement of the 60s/70s).  Today we see the replacement of that ethic with an entirely new moral code.  We also observe the culture militantly enforcing compliance so that everyone is required to not only tolerate but also proactively participate in and promote the new moral order.  A dictator enforces their will by sheer power, but a totalitarian tyranny seeks to control everything, even what subjects think.

Solzhenitsyn is both enlightening and provocative.  He warned the students of Harvard in 1978: “There are telltale symptoms by which history gives warning to a threatened or perishing society.  Such are, for instance, a decline of the arts or a lack of great statesmen.” I am no art critic, but I suspect many would agree that we are experiencing something of a decline.  And when did we last see a political leader in that category?  We live in a threatened, perhaps even perishing society.

I mentioned a tweet at the start of this post.  On November 18th, Owen Strachan wrote, “Christian men: it’s not Tucker Carlson, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Joe Rogan, Elon Musk or other conservative (or just not super-left) voices who should be known for speaking the hard truths, fighting what is evil, taking unpopular stands, and promoting what is good. It’s us.” (We might add a few more names in the UK, like Calvin Robinson, Neil Oliver, Douglas Murray, etc.)

I’ve been pondering that tweet.  I know one of these men I added is a clergyman, but the point is well made.  I also know that merely stating any of these names will cause some to react negatively to this post.  That shows society’s shift from yesteryear, when people used to think and discuss provocative ideas, to today’s hair-trigger dismissal and antagonism.  I might disagree with soundbites from all of these people because of their content or tone. Still, I must be willing actually to hear the points they are making and engage thoughtfully. 

Honestly, I find myself regularly prompted to think, investigate, pray and take action based on monologues by Neil Oliver, interviews by Joe Rogan, books by Douglas Murray, and tweets from Jordan Peterson.  But then, when I look at my feed of Christian leaders?  Honestly, with some exceptions, it can often feel disengaged, out of touch and sometimes eerily silent on contemporary concerns.  It makes me think of that famous quote from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, “The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie.  One word of truth outweighs the world.”  Yes, there is plenty of biblical truth in the social media voices of Christian leaders that I follow.  But I fear our silence on some matters might mean we are inadvertently starting to take part in the lie.

In part two I will share some reasons for this perplexing silence.

Learning from a Different World

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Travel can be transformational. By travel, I don’t mean layovers in airports en route to somewhere else (I’ve unsuccessfully visited some significant countries this way!)  No, I mean genuinely visiting.

Let me share two examples and then make my point for us.

A “Third World Country” – How often have you heard people return from a missions trip and say that the local people taught them so much? It is a consistent message! I remember visiting an East African country and experiencing a completely different life. 

There was the food, the wildlife, the weather, and the transport. The cultural differences hindered my teaching, but then again, they also supported it. There was that more remote tribe where the children could pick out their friends in a picture on my camera. And yet they could not recognise themselves because they had never seen a good reflection before. And there was much to learn from the simple lifestyle, not to mention the sacrificial hospitality. It was like stepping into a different world, and I came home changed by my visit.

A “Second World Country” – I visited an Eastern European country some years ago. We walked past the jail where political prisoners, including pastors, used to be held and tortured. Communism never has room for dissenters, free thinkers or any God except the state. Therefore church leaders and Christians are always a threat. 

I remember asking a man driving me to a meeting what it was like to live under communism. He spoke of how some things worked, but nobody was free. He gave me two examples. He described living in a world where one in three people worked for the government as an informer. It meant that you would never speak openly about politics or religion. You never knew who would inform and lead to your arrest and the suffering that might also come to your family. And he described how everyone would dutifully buy the newspaper, signalling that they were good citizens. But they would never read it because everyone knew it was all government-controlled lies.

I have thought a lot about that conversation over the years. It was like a haunting warning from another country at another time. I often think about how our culture is moving towards that kind of community spying. We now live around people ready to call out anyone who breaks the brand new moral codes related to gender, sexuality and race. And we have technology constantly monitoring every click of the mouse, message from our keyboard or even word uttered by our mouth. And perhaps most concerning is the number of people who digest the messaging disseminated through our news media but don’t realise how controlled the messaging is. It is not hard to imagine our world morphing into another iteration of communism with millions of people naively celebrating such a sinister transformation of society! After all, it always comes out of a crisis for the good of the people.

The bottom line – Travelling to a different culture and meeting people who’ve lived in other times can hugely impact us. It should have a significant impact on us. Insightful lessons that will enrich our lives. Haunting warnings to protect us. If we have the privilege of travelling and go eager to learn, it will change us.

So, what do we do as Christians when we open our Bibles? What happens when we preach the Bible to others? We get to travel to a different world.

1. A different world geographically & culturally – Good bible study and biblical preaching will take our imaginations to the battlefields of ancient Israel, the throne rooms of ancient kings, the living rooms of ancient peasants, and the discussion forum of ancient philosophers. We will visit the Sinai peninsula’s wilderness, the fishing villages of Galilee, the arid hills around Jerusalem, the stormy Mediterranean sea, and strategic cities around one section of the Roman empire.

2. A different world educationally – Good bible study and biblical preaching will take our hearts right into the crowd hearing Moses preach. Or we might join the crowd hearing an Old Testament prophet proclaim God’s message. We might sit on the grass and hear Jesus teach. Or perhaps overhear the apostles announcing the resurrection. We will spend time being mentored by the experience of a young shepherd fighting for his nation, a want-away prophet running from his calling, or a height-challenged tax collector hiding in a tree. Wonderful enrichment for life and haunting warnings await us if we just travel into the Bible with our hearts open and ready to learn.

3. A different world entirely – Good bible study and biblical preaching take us to faraway lands and insightful mentors and, beyond that, give us a glimpse into another world. The Bible is not an old travelogue. We are earthbound and tend to think very “down here” kinds of thoughts. But heaven has broken into our world, and we can hear from the world of love where God is forever reigning, without caveat or coup. We might pray, “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” In the Bible, we get not only those words to pray but also the life-changing revelation of what that all means. 

Every day we have the privilege of travel with all its life enrichment, haunting warnings and unique mentoring opportunities. Open your Bible with an open heart. And every time we share our biblical travels with others in conversation or preaching, we can take them with us. Don’t shortchange yourself or others by simply grabbing for an applicational point or a quick anecdote. 

Too many of us visit the world of the Bible like a traveller in transit through an airport. We might pick up a local bar of chocolate in a kiosk, but we haven’t truly been to the country, and our lives show no evidence of impact. What would it look like to really go? To meaningfully visit? To spend time with the people, to see the sights, to be lastingly changed? 

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By the way, after going through the Psalms in 2022 on YouTube, I am planning to spend the next months offering short videos related to the subject of studying and enjoying our Bibles. Please let me know, at any time, if you have an idea that would help that playlist become more useful to you or your church!

The Incarnation is Not Just for Christmas

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

We all say it every year. Where did this year go? Before we know it, the year has slid past, the temperatures have dropped, and the shops swell with Christmas sights, sounds, and shoppers. In church, we are busy preparing for the nativity play and dusting off the carols for their annual airing. We will hear the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke, a briefer reading from Isaiah’s Immanuel section, or Micah chapter 5, and soon Christmas will be all over.

But the Incarnation is not just for Christmas.

The Incarnation is critical to the Christian faith. At some point during these weeks, someone will point out that Easter is the reason for the season. They are not wrong. Jesus had to be born to live the perfect life and then die in our place. But that is not the whole story. The Son of God became one of us for several reasons, including God’s great rescue mission.

I have introduced three more reasons that the Incarnation is not just for Christmas. To read the article, please click this link and then check out all the other great resources on the Union website!

Work To Really Know a Passage – 7 Thoughts

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

This might seem like a really obvious thing to say, but I think it needs to be said. We have to really work hard in order to really know a passage before we preach it.

It is very easy to assume we know a passage. It is very hard to recognize how much we don’t know. But learning to think clearly about your own thinking is a critical skill for the preacher.

Here are some thoughts to consider:

1. Knowing a passage involves more than knowing some highlights or landmarks in it. After reading a passage and spending some time in study, you may be able to identify some key features of the passage. You might be able to say that there is the truth in verse 3, and the truth in verse 5 and then the conclusion in verse 9. Do you know the passage? No, you are aware of some highlights in the passage.

2. Knowing a passage involves more than being able to launch preaching points from phrases in it. You might feel ready to preach because verse 3 mentions justification (and you have some things to say about justification), and then verse 5 mentions hope (and you have a nice illustration you want to share about hope), etc. Are you ready to preach the passage if you have some good preaching points ready to launch? No.

3. Knowing a passage involves more than being able to talk about each phrase with theological truth. But what if your preaching content is not illustrations, but rich theological truths? Maybe you have a whole theology of justification that you can launch in verse 3, and then you can make a presentation on sanctification because of a key word that appears later in the passage? Surely if it is rich theological truth, then you are ready to preach? No. Not if the passage is not saying what you are planning to say. Just because wind appears in John 3 does not mean that I should preach about God’s view of changing weather patterns from it.

4. Knowing a passage involves more than reading some commentaries about the passage. It is not a bad idea to have some conversation partners in your study. Other live humans can be super helpful. As can published ones. But even if I can quote from impressive commentaries, it does not mean that I really understand the passage yet. By all means use the best resources you can access, but remember the goal is still for you to understand the passage, not just to have studied things written about it.

5. Knowing a passage involves understanding the details as they work together in a coherent whole. This is where many preachers seem to stumble. They do reasonably well with the details. They speak theological truth. They associate that truth with the wording in the passage. But if they don’t recognize how the details are working together in the passage, they don’t know the passage. Remember, your goal is not to study a passage in order to find a sermon. Your first goal is to study it in order to understand it.

6. Knowing a passage involves understanding the flow of thought in the passage, with an awareness of context. A passage sits in a book, as part of the whole. If you don’t understand how the passage works in the book, how can you really grasp what the passage itself means? So we need to study each passage in its whole book, as well as whole Bible, context. The point is, each passage was written to communicate something specific, and we need to figure that out. Our job is not to generate meaning by creativity, but to find meaning by dogged humble persistence.

7. Knowing a passage means being able to explain it so that the original author would affirm your grasp of its essential meaning. That sounds like a bold goal. It is. That is why we can’t just study until we feel a message emerging. As preachers we can generate messages out of nothing. But God has given us something very specific. And unless we grow in our confidence that it is possible to communicate the essential meaning of a passage to a level where the original author would affirm our explanation, then we will not put in the work necessary to be ready to preach.

Implication? The big implication of this post is simple. Don’t be so confident that you know the meaning of a passage. Study more. Study longer. Study humble. Study persistently. Make it your goal to know the passage better than you ever have before, to be able to handle questions about specific aspects of the passage, and be willing to explain the meaning of the text even to the original author himself…and then start thinking about how you will preach it!

Prepared (1 Thessalonians – part 3)

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The letter of 1 Thessalonians is like a little manual for ministry. Chapter 1 presents the reverberating impact of the Gospel. Chapter 2 lays bare the motives and manner of Paul’s ministry in the city. Now let’s look at chapter 3.

1. Young believers need to be prepared for suffering. Paul understood their context. They were in a city and a society that would react antagonistically to their newfound faith. So Paul had prepared them for suffering, and as time passed, Paul knew that they needed to be supported in their struggle. He knew the enemy would be on the attack against these new believers. Maybe we need 3:1-5 to direct our path more in our ministry? Do we understand our context? Our believers are in a culture that is increasingly antagonistic to their faith. The enemy is very much prowling around today seeking to pick off vulnerable believers. As much as ever, and perhaps more than ever, we need to prepare believers for suffering. There is the immediate and usually subtle antagonism of our time. And surely we can’t be so naive as to think that our cultures can undergo such radical shifts as we have seen in recent years, and yet remain essentially unchanged in the coming years? Are our people prepared for living in a society that may bear more resemblance to countries we used to pray for than the countries we used to live in?

2. Don’t just let vulnerable believers drift. Paul’s team adjusted to offer support to the Thessalonian believers. Timothy was sent back and returned with an encouraging report. Let Paul’s statement bounce around your heart for a moment, “For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord.” (3:8) For now we live . . . I wonder how often I hold back from this kind of concern for the sheep under my care? It is true that life change is God’s business and I can’t force it; and it is true that sometimes people need to drift in order to become sensitized to their need for Jesus; and it is true that with limited ministerial resources we will inevitably prioritize the sheep that are leaning in to be fed and cared for, etc. However, with all the practical wisdom of real-life ministry acknowledged, let us never grow calloused and comfortable with people drifting away from Christ.

3. Is there a more important ministry than prayer? Remember Acts 6:4 – the apostles didn’t want to get dragged into serving tables (which included negotiating inter-racial tensions within the new church: a significant and important role!) But what did they not want to be dragged away from? The ministry of the Word and prayer. And prayer! Is there a more important ministry than prayer? For many in ministry, it can appear that the priorities are preaching and leadership. Or preaching and organisation. Or preaching and publishing. May we all gain a secret reputation before God for the priority of prayer in our ministry. And somehow, let’s also encourage our whole church to be prayerful. Look at the Paul-team and how they prayed in 3:10-13. “Most earnestly night and day” and, “may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all,” and “that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God…” Earnest prayer for growing love and established holiness. What believer would not want to be the beneficiary of that kind of concern?

What would you add from chapter 3?

Reverberations (1 Thessalonians – part 1)

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

I have been enjoying 1 Thessalonians recently and thought I would share a few highlights for us as preachers. Paul was in Thessalonica for a relatively short visit in Acts 17:1-10, but the gospel hit home. As I look at chapter 1, I wonder if my expectations might be too low in preaching the Gospel today.

1. The Gospel establishes churches. Notice how Paul mentions their work of faith, labour of love, and steadfastness of hope (1:3). He may have only been there for three sabbaths plus whatever amount of time before he was chased out of town, but these new believers were already bearing fruit. At the very foundation, they were people who knew they were loved by God (1:4). The preaching of the Gospel establishes churches. We should preach the truth that can change lives as if it will change lives.

2. The Gospel is not just words. Notice how Paul describes the coming of the Gospel to these people in 1:5 – the Gospel came “not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.” When we preach the message of Jesus we are just one part of a team, and the other players are impressive! There is the message itself, focusing on Jesus. There is the Holy Spirit actively driving that message home. By extension, we know that the Father’s plans and purposes are being worked out. When we preach the message of Jesus we ourselves are still part of the team. We see in 1 Thessalonians that how Paul and his colleagues were amongst the new believers was really significant. We are part of a trinitarian team when we preach, and even though we are incomparably small compared to the other team members, our part matters nonetheless.

3. The Gospel impact reverberates globally. It is easy to think of my little sermon to my little congregation in this little insignificant corner of the world. Actually, when the Gospel lands in a life it can reverberate around the world. These new young believers in Thessalonica became an example in Macedonia and Achaia (1:7) and everywhere! (1:8) When the Gospel sounded in their lives they turned from idols, to serve God, and to wait for Jesus (1:9-10). And what is more, people heard about it!

It is easy for us to think small thoughts when we preach the Gospel. This Sunday is coming. Think about the impact of the Gospel in Thessalonica – a brief visit, with much tension, and affliction for the preacher and the listeners, as well as the preacher chased out of town entirely too soon from a human perspective. Even against such odds, the Gospel impact was huge, it changed lives and that impact reverberated globally. Let’s preach in light of 1 Thessalonians 1 and dare to believe that we are participating in the transformation of lives for eternity!

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FYI – I am coming to the end of this playlist of videos on the Psalms of Ascent:

Satan Hates Him

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

Some years ago, I wrote about a blind spot in contemporary theology. In our church, we have just enjoyed a series about the Holy Spirit. In preaching this series, my mind has returned to this apparent blind spot. Yes, we know that Satan hates Jesus, marriage, and evangelism. But perhaps we should also consider his hatred for the Holy Spirit.

There is a logically obvious connection here. Satan hates God. The Holy Spirit is God, so therefore, Satan must hate the Holy Spirit. But it will be helpful to move past the obvious and ponder the specific reasons.

In the World

We see the enemy’s work as we look at the world around us. For example, we see cults, and we see secular society. In the cults, there is always an undermining of the biblical doctrine of the Trinity. So, God gets twisted from a gloriously loving tri-unity into a solitary and monadic power broker. As portrayed by the cults, God can even seem devilish and antagonistic. Thus, the Holy Spirit becomes just an impersonal force.

In secular society, the idea of God is also twisted into a perversion and caricature of reality. As society bombards the population with elevated notions of personal autonomy and a corrupted morality, the convicting work of the Spirit is directly opposed. People are coached not to feel guilty for sin, yet many are convinced they should feel hopelessly guilty for who they are.

In the Church

We also see the enemy’s work as we look within the church. It would be nice to imagine that his attack would lose energy once people become followers of Jesus. Reality reminds us that this is never the case. Does the enemy stop attacking marriage once people know Jesus? Are we no longer tempted to sin once we are believers? Of course not. We must then assume the enemy’s antagonism to the Holy Spirit will also continue within the church setting.

What is the enemy’s strategy to undermine the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives?

Christians seem to feel a pull in one of two directions — both of which are away from the reality of the Spirit’s work. Both directions negate that the Holy Spirit is a divine person rather they portray him as a mere impersonal force. Both distract believers from a beautiful and central element of the Christian life.

The first pull is to restrict the Holy Spirit into a power-focused force. The Spirit becomes the fuel for Christian living and sometimes the power for spectacular displays of personal anointing. Undoubtedly, there is truth in the mix here. Still, the corruption seems to come with respect to the focus’s emphasis and direction. The power, or lack thereof, tends to become the emphasis in Christian life and ministry. People caught up with a power caricature of the Spirit tend to focus either on the Spirit or themselves.

The second pull is to turn the Holy Spirit into a silent and benign figure. The Spirit is assumed to be at work in the ordinary things of church life through various means. There is truth in the mix here as well. He is indeed at work as we read the Bible, hear preaching, etc., but the problem seems to follow this focus’s emphasis and direction. The emphasis on Christian life and ministry can quickly shift to my habits and personal commitments. People buying into a means caricature of the Spirit may focus on themselves and their diligence.

The Work of the Spirit

The pre-eminent role of the Spirit is that of a communicator, specifically relational communication between the Father and the Son, God and us, and believers in the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit is primarily concerned with the power of love, not some love of power. He pours God’s love into our hearts and baptises us into Christ. The fruit of the Spirit is a continual growth in Christ-like character. He gifts us to build up the body of Christ so that we might point each other to the head, who is Christ.

This is the critical issue with the Spirit — he wants to lift the eyes of our hearts to Christ. That is why Satan so despises the work of the Spirit. By forcing the focus onto us or the Spirit himself, the enemy seeks to undermine the Christ-ward gaze of true Holy Spirituality.

The Holy Spirit seems to be a blind spot for many. Where the Spirit is relegated or twisted in some way, the bottom line will always drift towards an autonomous and self-driven “spirituality” (which was The Lie back in Genesis 3, of course).

Perhaps, we would do well to ponder the spiritual attack against the Holy Spirit. I suspect that we would find our hearts drawn to Christ in the process. After all, this is the goal of the Holy Spirit, not to mention the great fear of the enemy!

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This year’s journey through the Psalms has reached the Psalms of Ascent:

Something to Ponder

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

The book of Psalms tends to become a favourite for people who have faced some challenges in life. Perhaps you have experienced grief over the loss of a loved one, discouragement during a dark season of life, or any other challenges that set the Psalms into vivid colour in our hearts. Once we know of the soul food kept in that storehouse, we tend to find ourselves returning again and again.

Sometimes the Psalm writer has found words for the ache in my heart. Other times the psalmist points my heart to where it needs to be looking. The book of Psalms is a real treasure – a refreshing spring for the weary times we all have to endure.

The book of Psalms sits at the centre of our Bibles for the times we are just reading through. Maybe there is no experienced crisis that leads us to this vast collection of Hebrew poetry. Sometimes, we will find ourselves reading it simply because it comes next in our Bible reading. It can be a great experience to read it through with fresh eyes and notice the uniqueness of each Psalm and the recurring themes.

Let’s look at the first Psalm of book five – Psalm 107. This Psalm sets the tone for the section that will follow. It begins as you might expect, with a call to thank our good God for his enduring, steadfast love. This call goes out to all who have been redeemed and rescued by God (v1-3).

Then we find ourselves walking through four examples of challenging circumstances from which God rescues his people:

First, we read of the weary wilderness wanderers failing to find a place of sanctuary (v4-9). They cried to the LORD, and he delivered them. (Those words will come up again.) So, with stomachs full and souls satisfied, the psalmist encourages them to thank the LORD for his steadfast love. 

Second, we read of the helpless prisoners, tired and broken by hard labour (v10-16). They cried to the LORD, and he delivered them. With their bonds broken and bodies set free, they are called to thank the LORD for his steadfast love.

Third, we read of the afflicted starving to death, suffering for their sin and facing their demise (v17-22). They cried to the LORD, and he delivered them. With healed bodies and joyful hearts, they are invited to thank the LORD for his steadfast love.

Fourth, we read of the fear-filled seafarers, tossed to and fro by the raging seas, despairing and at their wit’s end (v23-32). This example gives more vivid detail, but again, they cried to the LORD, and he delivered them (see v 6, 13, 19 and 28). With the storm stilled and safely brought back to the fellowship of humans on shore, they are encouraged to thank the LORD for his steadfast love (see v8, 15, 21, 31)

The final section of the Psalm underlines some of the points made throughout. God is in charge. Just as he can bring about change in nature (v33-38), he can reverse his people’s fortunes (v39-42). And so, the final verse ensures we have not missed the point. If we are wise, we will ponder what this Psalm says. Indeed, if we are wise, we will ponder, contemplate, consider and meditate on the steadfast love of the LORD (v43).

The Psalm begins and ends with the spotlight on the steadfast love of God. The Psalm invites us to consider four examples of people in dire straits who called out to God and discovered why they should thank God for that steadfast love.

Perhaps Psalm 107 is the food for thought that we need. It could be that we feel like we are close to death or tossed in every direction and despairing of life itself. Or it could be that we are calmly moving through the second half of 2022, thankful for God’s blessing and a season of tranquillity and peace. Whatever may be going on around us, Psalm 107 suggests what should be happening inside us. We should be considering the steadfast love of God. Honestly, it is hard to think of a wiser thing to do.

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