I’m always amazed (and also amused) by the number of people who make new year’s resolutions. More so when Christians make them, because it really doesn’t seem to make sense from the Christian understanding of our own will power that we could actually see them through.
I have no problem with a secular culture making such resolutions, especially one like ours which is so governed by the intellect and the (wrong) belief that we can think our way into improving ourselves. This is an expression of the religion of the irreligious who still have that innate need to reflect, confess, repent and be made new again.

But just because we resolve to do something and make a pseudo-pronouncement on the 1st January doesn’t mean we are any more or less likely to see it through.
I’ve been there! My gym membership card from 2003 still sits there in the same place gathering dust after I resolved to go to the gym 3 times a week to get fit, like when I was 18. I think I managed to go the whole of January, but then the cold and wet – oh and the darkness – got in the way, and well you know how it is…

I find it interesting that Lent this year starts as early as February 13th and is a time when the Church has traditionally entered into a 40-day period of personal reflection, confession and repentance. Perhaps whoever was putting the Christian calendar together had insight into the fact that it will probably only take 6 weeks before our new year’s resolutions fail and we find ourselves repenting again!
(The geeks amongst you will know that the Church calendar actually starts at the beginning of Advent, not 1st January)

Even a cursory reading of the New Testament, and especially Paul’s letters, leads us to the conclusion that we simply don’t have the strength of will to make such determinations and then actually see them through.
Paul sums up much of this when he says,
“For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.”
(Romans 7:18-19 ESV)

Paul is not alone. In fact he is perhaps better positioned than any of us to actually do what is right. As a “Pharisee of Pharisees” Paul’s life was about rule, discipline, focus and determination. And yet here he’s making it plain: he just can’t do it.

So what should we make of this?
Is it wrong to make a new year’s resolution? No, but it’s not a guarantee of anything either and certainly not a good plan to effect actual change.
Is it right to see what isn’t right in our lives and want to change it? Yes, of course it is, and you don’t need to get ‘super spiritual’ to see it.
A friend of mine told me that he’d decided his new year’s resolution was going to be to lose weight and so he ate as much as possible over Christmas and right up until 31st December before the new regime kicked in!
Losing weight will be a good move for my friend for a number of reasons, most of which are physiological, but his approach points to another area which could do with some help as well. The truth is that he and I both know that his resolution isn’t worth the paper it (isn’t) written on. We even joked about it, and he’s not deluded about that part, so why is he still using this idea of a resolution to try and provide the impetus or trigger to make something happen? A Tuesday in any given year is totally neutral and inert when it comes to affecting our behaviour as a lifestyle change. My friend knows it, I know it and Paul knows it.

So what should we do?
If we really want to change our behaviour then we have to understand our habits. Knowing why we do what we do is the key to understanding how to change what we do. But we don’t need to enter into any kind of psychoanalysis or cognitive behavioural therapy to change many of the things in our lives we might want to change.
We can simply start good habits and stop bad ones. This requires practise, not ‘overnight success’, or ‘lose 200lbs in just 4 days!’, and we have to confront the truth that more often than not we can’t do this on our own.
We need some kind of motivation and support to make these changes.

The basic idea of following Jesus is not to match his footsteps but to mimic him. Mimicking Jesus includes being entirely yourself and not trying to be someone you’re not and at the same time includes patterns of behaving and relating which are good for all of us.
If we look to Jesus and read in the gospels about his life amongst us, his encounters and exchanges, his passion and compassion, his righteousness and peace etc. then we have in him the perfect life coach or personal trainer or spiritual director or whatever it is you think you need to give you that support.
More than that, we have the body of Christ, the Church. Fellowship with other followers of Jesus who are also trying to figure things out, change their behaviour from bad to good, increase in compassion and mercy, worshipping together to put God before all other things etc. is the best ‘club’ we could join to actually help us achieve effective change. Better than a gym or Weightwatchers or counselling.

The Church exists to provide that fellowship for us. It is a safe place for reflecting, confessing, repenting and being renewed (or at least it should be!).
It is within the body of Christ that we can come close to the Master through each other and as the Holy Spirit dwells within and amongst us to bring truth and love.
Jesus has shown us in his death and resurrection that he has the power and the will to effect what he resolves to do. He offers us that same power because he intends that we live the same life.

So if you’re going to make a new year’s resolution this year then make it this one from Paul and a second one from the letter to the Hebrews:
“For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:2 NIV) (emphasis mine)

“Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”
(Hebrews 10:25 NIV) (emphasis mine)

Happy new – unresolved – year!

The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.
John 1:35-40 ESV

I’ve always had a soft spot for Andrew for two reasons: he was one of the first to find Jesus and follow Him, but then he hardly features in the rest of the four gospels. He’s instrumental in introducing Peter to Jesus who features massively in God’s plans for the whole world and yet doesn’t feature much in the stories himself. What a legend!

But there’s another side to this story which also intrigues me, and one which speaks to a kind of situation we can all find ourselves in at different times in our lives.

Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist which means he followed him, listened to him, learned from him and tried to be like him. He saw in John a man who spoke truth and who was somehow connected to God in a powerful, meaningful and transcendent way. But Andrew wasn’t looking to John alone. He was looking for God. He believed in the prophecies about the Messiah and when John announced that He was coming imminently – indeed that He was already in the world – Andrew must have figured that hanging around John was the best way to find the Messiah.

The most striking thing for me about this passage of scripture is the speed and suddenness of how Andrew drops John to follow Jesus. John says, pointing at Jesus, “there’s the Messiah, right there”, and Andrew turns to look and walks away from John towards Jesus, never to look back or go back. We know that John retained disciples and not all of his disciples dumped him for Jesus. But Andrew did, and we can determine from John’s own words, “I must decrease that He might increase”, that he would have been more than ok with that.

Andrew demonstrates something which is in each one of us. There’s a deep longing for purpose, for direction, for the truth, or on a more mundane and basic level, a search to know, “what do I want, and what is the purpose of my life?”
We seek for the answer to these questions in people we look up to. People we see something of God in, who when they speak, or teach, or by their actions show something of the nature of God. We are drawn to people like that because deep in our beings we are drawn to God.
We can, like Andrew, move from one person to another in the pursuit of satisfying this deep longing, but sometimes we’re drifting from one flickering light in the darkness to another without ever really knowing if we’ve found the light which is the source of all light.
Not all the people we look to for direction are like John either. Some hold us close and don’t send us away in the direction of the true light. They prefer to show you the light as they display it, rather than point you to the Original light.
We can all be like that for each other from time to time too.
John knew better. He’d seen the Original and heard the Father’s voice speak blessing over His Son, and he knew that his own life purpose was to point people to the Original light. The question deep in his own being was settled and he was living out of his life’s purpose.

Andrew was looking for meaning and purpose and only Jesus could reveal this to him. The same is true of us, which is why Jesus’ first words are stunning: “What are you seeking?”
He speaks directly to the heart of Andrew’s quest. He speaks directly to our own hearts.

If you are in that place of searching, looking, yearning for purpose, for direction, for “what should I do with my life?”, then may Andrew inspire us that as we seek, so we will find, and when we find Jesus we will discover that He is more interested in asking us what it is we want than telling us what we want.

May you search your heart and find God there in the deep, and may His ‘deep’ call to your ‘deep’ and bring you into light.
May you know that in the searching and in the following you will find the questions that bring answers, and the purpose that brings others into His light.

The Anglican Church, and more specifically the Church of England, has rejected the ordination of women as bishops.

As a non-Anglican I’ve watched with interest both the process and the reactions to the outcome. If you looked at this whole situation and knew nothing of the views and arguments involved you would still be able to clearly see that this issue has caused deep pain in the Church of England. And that’s not good for anyone. Not good for women, not good for men, not good for the Church of England and not good for Jesus who is the Church’s head.

Whatever people think or feel there are no winners in this. That is, there are no winners unless this leads into a way of grace and a deeper union with Jesus through the pain and struggle that Anglicans are feeling right now. 
One of the first things to go when we experience pain – especially if we feel it has been inflicted on us – is grace. Wounds can blind us to the path into healing, which is through grace offered and received.

But this reflection isn’t primarily about that. It’s really a way of getting my thoughts down on this issue because sitting on the fence on this issue doesn’t address it, and ignores the reality that it means a lot to a lot of people, on any and all sides of the discussion.

It seems that there are two overarching themes which hold within them a number of points of issue.
One is the matter of equality.
One is the matter of Biblical interpretation.

In listening to some of the pithy ‘sound bites’ which were used by several people in several TV interviews, each ‘side’ has tried to encapsulate their bias as to which of these themes matters most by including a nod to the other one. In other words, “It is all about my preferred theme, but I accept that your theme does have a place, albeit a small and insignificant one.” This may seem a bit too general, and even a harsh assessment, but it’s not intended to be. It’s what I’ve distilled from hearing repetitious, well-rehearsed arguments prepared as a sound bite.

The interesting question I’ve been asking is, “what would Jesus make of this?” After all it’s His Church, and He is the head of it whether we like it or not. No synod gets to decide that! No. Jesus has invited us into Himself, to become a part of His body. He hasn’t invited us into a system or organisation that would lead to division and pain.
If my premise is true then we should ask ourselves whether the divisions and pain are a product of man’s approach to Church or Jesus’ approach?

I don’t think Jesus has (or will) take a ‘side’ on this. If, like the Pharisees and Scribes, we pressed Jesus for a direct answer to a direct question I think we’d either get an unexpected answer or an unexpected question in return.
If there’s anything we can lean on with any degree of certainty in reading the scriptures it’s that Jesus won’t play our games and will more than likely surprise us with His response. If he constantly and continually did so with His closest disciples then we should expect that He will do so with us.
And if you’re unsure as to whether Jesus’ preferred mode of teaching is ‘the unexpected’ then consider all the post-resurrection eyewitness accounts and ask yourself whether what they were expecting is what they actually experienced.

But just because Jesus may not take a side doesn’t mean He doesn’t have a view. But we should tread carefully before taking what we perceive to be Jesus’ view and turning it into a cosh with which we can hit someone over the head if they hold a different view.

Jesus was very clear: “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” John 3:17 (ESV)
What follows in John’s gospel are a series of encounters and exchanges which clearly demonstrate this truth. Jesus shows us that He’s not in the condemnation business but in the salvation and redemption business. And His business is our business so we should avoid condemnation and look instead to how Jesus will bring salvation and redemption to His Church as He brings it to the whole world.

What is fascinating to 1st Century observers/readers, and should be to us in the 21st Century is just how much women feature in Jesus’ life and ministry, and the uniquely special role they play in a world dominated by men.
It seems to me that Jesus had more time for women than most men do, and that includes Christian men. It’s clear that Jesus’ own disciples were surprised, and at times shocked by the way Jesus related to women and the unnerving way He would go out of His way to meet them that He might bless them and release them into ministry.

Jesus created an evangelist – a public preacher – out of a sinful, adulterous woman whom He met at a well:
“28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.” John 4:28-30
What is most shocking about this? That she was sinful? That she was adulterous? That she was a woman preaching?
In the current debate on women bishops it seems that this last item is where she ‘crossed the line’! And yet Jesus freed her and empowered her to be just that.

There are many other examples and my own reflection of the scriptures is that God is always doing that. He’s always empowering and releasing people regardless of gender – or even trans-gender if you include eunuchs – to be His disciples AND His apostles (one who is sent with authority).

But I don’t think Jesus’ agenda here is ‘equality’. I don’t think He’s rocking the established order in order to establish a more equitable situation for women. I think He’s showing us that He has a purpose and a life for everyone and so He calls men AND women. He’s as passionate about liberating women from all forms of enslavement and subjugation as He is about liberating men of the same.
He even calls children to Him when everyone else is disregarding them. On this issue BOTH men and women in our culture bear responsibility in how we eschew children in our community of faith as ‘leaders’ and ‘signs’ to us, even though Jesus as a baby, wrapped in swaddling cloths and laid in a manger was a “sign” to us that a great leader had arrived (Luke 2:12).

It’s in this light of ‘the God who empowers and releases men and women to minister’ that I think we should interpret scripture.
It’s clear that St. Paul expressed a clear instruction that women shouldn’t teach men and that women should be silent in church, learning with submission. Or is it clear?
If you read it as is, in English, then it’s very clear. It’s almost impossible to argue with a verse that says, “As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says.” (1 Cor 14:33-34 ESV)
Not being an expert in Greek I am not in a position to get into technical arguments about what words mean and how they should be translated.
What I am clear on is that scripture should be interpreted (different to ‘translated’) with context and other scriptures in mind. Otherwise we struggle to reconcile the God of the OT with the God of the NT and end up with some par-boiled nonsense which doesn’t even come close to describing YAHWEH.
We also come unstuck in all manner of ways where reality is constantly colliding with what we perceive to be the meaning of particular scriptures.
I am personally relaxed with the idea that scripture may collide with itself and reality, and the Talmud is proof that this is no stranger to the Jewish mindset of how to understand scripture. Jesus, in answering the question, “which is the greatest commandment?” elevated one scripture over another. Surely ALL God’s commandments are the greatest and ALL God’s revelation? Yet Jesus goes right ahead and elevates two of them over the rest.

We ought to be careful when we read St Paul that we don’t deify Paul as we seek to hear God through his inspired writings. We know that Paul was a mysterious character with some traits which made him somewhat abrasive and harsh. Yet we see the same Paul as being incredibly vulnerable and tender in some of his other writings. Is there a contradiction in Paul? “By no means”, as Paul himself would say. The lack of contradiction lies in the reality that Paul is a man with a complex being, just like you and me, not that he is always consistent in his attitudes or behaviours. He can insist you are kicked out of your church one year, and insist you are allowed back the next.

So when he urges Timothy to remember the authoritative teaching of his mother and grandmother (2 Tim 1:5 & 2 Tim 3:15) is he contradicting himself where he does not ‘permit’ a woman to teach a man?
Or is it ok for a woman to teach a man if she’s his mother, or grandmother, and only until a certain age (unspecified) and then it can only be men from then on?
Or what would Paul make of Jesus – God incarnate – being placed entirely under Mary’s authority (sorry Joseph, but thanks for looking after Him and teaching Him carpentry), and then placing His beloved John under her motherhood as He died on the cross? I’m glad Jesus was under Mary’s authority in the way He was as it’s the best proof that Jesus loves a party with flowing wine – and only the finest quality wine at that!
I cite these examples simply to highlight that it’s far from clear cut and only a very brave man (or woman) would stake such rock solid faith on these verses being elevated over the vast number of others which present the gospel as one which empowers and commissions women for ministry, including authority and leadership over men in some cases.

It seems that the fear of women having authority over men is rooted in Eve leading Adam astray (citing 1 Tim 2:14).
“Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.”
But then Paul goes on to say that women “will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.”
Let me see if I’ve got this straight: women shouldn’t have authority over men because Eve was deceived, but don’t worry… if she has children she’ll be saved.
Forgive me for being a bit thick but that doesn’t read in a way that makes any sense to me. And it seems like really bad news for women who don’t have children!! Yet I’m totally confident that it made sense to the original hearers in their context and they would have known what to do with it.
So context matters, otherwise we’re going to have to find incredibly complex ways of explaining what Paul is technically saying and risk missing what he’s actually saying.
I have no doubt that Paul didn’t want women teaching in church and he didn’t want them chattering away whilst teaching was happening, or whilst the Holy Spirit was bringing a prophecy, just as I’m confident he didn’t want women wearing braids or jewellery, just like the shrine prostitutes next door.
I am not confident that Paul would say the same today. I don’t think Paul was pointing us to a ‘once for all’ commandment which was about the role of men and women – my experience is that sensible men and women instinctively know our limitations, strengths and weaknesses – but to an awareness and sensitivity to culture and more importantly to God.
Likewise when Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.” (Matthew 5:38-41 ESV).
Is Jesus changing a law here which was in THREE of the five books of the Law? Or is He bringing new revelation of God’s unfolding plan which at one time required an eye for an eye, but now requires non-violent confrontation and blessed peacemakers?

I recoil at the idea that ‘we have to keep pace with the times’ as a basis for interpreting or understanding God’s word.
(Great article here on this subject).
But it flies in the face of the whole of scripture, and the practise of the Church throughout the centuries to suggest that all scripture is locked down indefinitely and that it sets out immovable rules that we must abide by. That is both the reasoning and practise of the Pharisee. God is not threatened if we question Him and His word. Abraham did it and was called ‘the friend of God’!
The story of scripture reveals the God behind the words, the stories, the lives, and we discover Him at work in the most unexpected place and people, of all creeds, colours, tribes and tongues.
True, not one jot will pass away, but scripture is not God, and Jesus was the most unconventional, counter-cultural person in all of scriptures and He is alive today to keep doing what He does and being unconventional in our churches and cultures, breaking in with the Kingdom of God which doesn’t bend to our culture but transforms it as we pray and usher it in.
That would be perfectly consistent with an inerrant, unchanging body of scripture. Scripture doesn’t change because it doesn’t need to because it transcends all time and culture, but at the same time remains directly relevant to any and all times and cultures.
So as culture changes we do injury to God’s word to apply it as if we were 1st Century near-Eastern citizens of a global Roman empire, when God’s word is alive and consistent today for today’s culture as it was then, even if we acknowledge Paul’s approach then and take a different one now.

Just one final thought… the ‘qualifications’ of a bishop/overseer/episkopos which Paul gives twice in two separate letters have remarkable parallels with Proverbs 31 which is all about the leadership and wisdom of a WOMAN. Any married man who has his head screwed on knows that his wife has wisdom, leadership and grace which he doesn’t have and which he can only access through her. And of course it’s true the other way around as well.
The Church needs fathers AND mothers, just like any one of us. If that was good enough for Jesus then it’s good enough for us. It’s no good for the Church to look at the rest of society and highlight the issues that have arisen because of children being denied access to both parents in a stable marriage when within the Church we deny the leadership of spiritual fathers AND mothers. Whether we’re male or female, old or not so old, there’s always a child in us that needs nurturing through the spiritual fatherhood and motherhood of others.

So if, as a woman, you believe Jesus is calling you into ministry as a bishop then I pray for you and pray for the Church of England that they might release you as Jesus is releasing you.

But if your agenda is ‘equality’ then learn Jesus’ lesson:
“6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Phil 2:6-11
It may be that through this path of humility that Jesus might indeed elevate you to the ‘highest place’ and confirm you as a bishop in the CofE, but it won’t be for the sake of ‘equality’.

Mary herself proclaimed in ‘The Magnificat’ that, “he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate” (Luke 1:52 ESV)
What I am confident of is that Jesus is less interested in doctrine that divides and more interested in you being empowered and released to proclaim the kingdom of God at whatever level God raises you to, and He is in the business of raising up those whom the world pushes down.

Pithy Pearls Oct 17 2012
Study on 1 John 5:13-21

So John ends his letter to the Church.
How would you end a letter which carries the importance and significance of being regarded as Divine revelation, and authoritative in the Church for all time?

John ends his in true John style.
He takes us out of this time and space and drops us in eternity, where God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – 3 in 1 – dwell as the I Am.

His gospel starts similarly, showing us what was going on in the beginning, and revealing to us the eternality of God, not only as I AM singular, but as I AM triune. (Incidentally the word in Genesis 1 which we see as ‘God’ is ‘Elohim’ and is a plural word, even though it is understood as referring to a singular One God, so it’s been there… well, since the beginning!)

And to finish off his letter to the Church – his letter to us – he connects us with that eternal reality.
“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.” 1 John 5:13

The tense here is all-important. He does NOT say “you will have eternal life”, he says “you have eternal life”.
John sets us up as believers to believe that we already have it. It’s a done deal. You can’t have eternal life if it isn’t forever, right? That would have been temporary life you had.
John is making a profound promise of assurance to us. More than that, he makes it clear that his purpose in writing to the believers is precisely for that reason; that we may know that we have eternal life.

But then John does another John-classic.
He throws a curve ball at us and starts talking about sins which can be forgiven and sins that lead to death. Or does he?

Why would John set out to make it clear that we have eternal life, fully assured, and then suggest that it’s at risk from “sin that leads to death”? 1 John 5:16-17
If he’s telling us the God-honest Truth, that we have eternal life, then what is he up to by talking about sin that leads to death?

The answer is in the verses that follow:
“We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” 1 John 5:18-19

John is not actually revealing something here for the first time in his letter. He has already told us that those who are born of God do not practise sinning.
“No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.” 1 John 3:9-10

If we are born of God then Jesus protects us from the power of sin in our lives, and we stop practising sinning and start seeing it, hating it, and moving away from it.
If we stumble in a sin as a child of God, it’s an eternity away from practising sinning as a sinner not born of God.
Believing in Jesus, and knowing Him as God, and hating sin are all assurances that you are one of the ‘known knowns’. You can have assurance because you know that you know Jesus. Perhaps you can’t articulate it brilliantly, or provide concrete evidence, but in your spirit you just know.
If this is you then you have eternal life.

The known unknowns
So John hasn’t included these verses about sin that leads to death for our sake – if we are born of God then we have eternal life, and it will be for eternity.

Who, then, is in view in these verses?
Clearly John is speaking about people for whom these verses would be relevant, and also about people for whom those in the Church would pray for.
Who are these people?

To get a hold of this I think we have to go back to an earlier part of his letter.
“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.” 
1 John 2:19

As John is writing to the Church he is aware of the feelings of disappointment and confusion about those who were so ‘on fire’ in the church, but have now left.
He’s addressing the rumbling questions like, “He was such a bold Christian, and now he wants nothing to do with the church – can I too lose my salvation?”
Or, “He prays amazing prayers, and has spiritual gifts, but he sleeps around and gets drunk every night – is this the power of Jesus to transform our lives? Am I that vulnerable?”

These are the kinds of questions that still get asked today.
“Can I lose my salvation?” is almost always in the top 3 ‘unanswered’ or badly-answered theological questions that true Christians have. And they ask it because they care about those they see slipping away, and because they want to know if they too are vulnerable.

I think John nails it down for us when he points to the underlying, unseen reality of those who ‘lose their faith’, or walk away from Christ.
He says, “they were not of us.”
More than that he says that their leaving is the confirmation that they are not of us;
“But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.”

It’s simultaneously true that Jesus protects his own from sin, and that those who practise sinning and walk away are not his own.
And you get BOTH in the Church.

I believe that 1 John 5:16-17 are referring to these people; the ones who walked away.
Within this group there will be some who were, are and will remain spiritually dead and never be born of God.
But there will also likely be those in the group who have simply wandered away like wayward sheep, perhaps because they were influenced in their immature faith by a more ‘mature’ churchman who since left and persuaded him that it’s all bunkum.
I’ve seen the latter. I believe that people very close to me are precisely in that category and so verse 16 speaks to me about how I should pray for them:
“If anyone sees his brother committing a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life—to those who commit sins that do not lead to death. There is sin that leads to death; I do not say that one should pray for that.” 1 John 5:16

When we see someone leave the church we might be able to rightly assume that they ‘were not of us’.
But we might do better to see them instead as one of the ‘known unknowns’ – that maybe they’ve just wandered away for a while and the Lord will bring them back.

God does not make it our business to know what the outcome of ‘their’ life will be. John shows us that at the very end of his gospel when Jesus essentially tells Peter to mind his own business when it comes to John.
God makes it our business to know what the outcome of ‘our own’ life will be. And He wants us to know that if we love Him, and we can see that we love others, and stop practising sinning as fruits of that love, then we can know that we have eternal life.

And in that respect verse 16 also applies to us.
We know that we will sin. Indeed John makes it clear that if we say we have no sin then we are a liar!
But he doesn’t want us to think that those sins will lead to us forfeiting our eternal life, because they won’t, and we can be confident of this for two reasons:
1) we will experience conviction of that sin by the Holy Spirit.
2) we will repent of it and ask forgiveness and receive forgiveness.

There is sin that leads to death. Jesus makes it clear that there is one sin that is unforgivable – blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. (Matt 12:31, Mark 3:29, Luke 12:10)
But John also makes it clear that Jesus protects us from sinning, and if we have eternal life, then Jesus is protecting us from that sin.
In fact Paul says that we can’t truly say, “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:3), so it’s not possible for us to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, and at the same time have Him indwelling that we might proclaim ‘Jesus is Lord!’

So John finishes his letter by assuring us, then re-assuring us, that if we are born of God then we have eternal life.
Looking forward to spending it with you!

JC
PS – I deal with 1 John 5:14-15 in this separate blog – “Who’s asking?”, as we spent a lot of time on this too.

The prevailing view in our modern Western society is that sport is good.

In many ways it is, but in one major way sport isn’t good.
What I’m talking about is the way sport clashes with church.
Most children’s sports, especially, have their fixtures on a Sunday morning, presumably to avoid clashing with professional fixtures on Saturday afternoon, and because access to facilities and adult helpers is easiest on Sunday.

Why is this a problem?
Well I think it’s a problem for two key reasons:
1) It is setting up a straight choice between sport and church.
2) It results in physical training trumping spiritual training.

The impact of our children NOT doing physical training, and especially the dynamic of doing it as part of a team, in a ‘safe’ competitive environment is easy to see.
Childhood obesity, a lack of respect for rules and authority, a poor sense of facing challenges and opposition and finding ways to overcome them, and more… these are all easy to see.

The impact of our children NOT doing spiritual training, and especially the dynamic of doing it as part of a church, in a ‘safe’ spiritual environment is NOT so easy to see.

If we read the Bible we can see very clearly that physical training and exercise is vitally important. We were made with bodies that require constant activity to stay useful and functional. We were made to interact socially and to challenge each other into healthy growth (not compete to defeat each other). Physical training makes us better at doing any number of useful things.

But we can also see very clearly that spiritual training is also vitally important, and if anything it is more important than physical training.

This is what Paul says to Timothy:
“while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”
1 Timothy 4:8

Through physical training we are mindful of the needs of this present life, but in spiritual training we are mindful of BOTH this present life AND the next one.

It’s difficult when we can’t immediately see the impact of not having spiritual training through regularly and routinely attending church each Sunday morning, but it’s so essential that we do; both for this life and the next!

So, if you are currently choosing sport over church on a Sunday morning, let me exhort you to swap them around and find another time to do sport.
And if you are a parent with a child who plays fixtures on a Sunday morning (or wants to), let me exhort you to put church first for your child, and do sport another time, because your child will be significantly healthier as a result, BOTH in this life AND the next.

All of us, without exception, experience an urge deep in our souls to be loved.

So powerful is this urge that we will do all manner of crazy, random, weird, even unhealthy things to secure love.
Depending on our experience of whether we feel loved much or little, the outcome of our lives can take on all sorts of behavioural patterns, because ultimately we will do whatever it takes to satisfy that urge and feel loved.
The tragedy is that most of our behavioural patterns are destructive and self-serving, and therefore, ironically, not love at all.
As with pretty much everything (maybe everything) love has its counterfeits.
One of them is ‘acceptance’. The problem with acceptance is that we only accept people we like, and even then only when they please us and aren’t annoying us. It’s surely true that acceptance doesn’t extend to our enemies, especially if it doesn’t extend to our neighbour.

So we are always treading on eggshells because we must be acceptable to be accepted, and we use acceptance ourselves as currency, accepting more vigorously those we want to accept us, and refusing to accept those we don’t feel we need to be accepted by.

But that’s not love.
Paul sets up a definition of love for us that is hard to deny, even as it is hard to receive into our ‘accepting’ hearts.

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

If we examine our hearts we can all too often find that our hearts aren’t oriented towards these things. We realise that our hearts paint the exact opposite picture to the one Paul is showing us.

But as bad as that may be, or seem to us, Paul is not defining the essence of love but the characteristics of it.
For each of us, our essence – or personality/personhood – and our characteristics are not the same thing.
Who we are is who God made us to be.
Our character is the persona we play out in and around the person God made us to be, like an actor in a play.
Our character can never escape the person, but if we don’t know who we really are then we will look to our character to try and tell us who we are.
This would be fine if, like God, we were perfect. Our character and person would be perfectly united so that one perfectly follows from the other and my characteristics would tell the story of my real personhood.
But we’re not like God, we are sinners who have been separated from God by our sin. Our rebellion has left us out in the cold and now we’re like wretched lost sheep without a shepherd, desperately trying to copy other sheep in the hope that it will lead us to back to the shepherd.

This is the pitiful nature of our love without God.
We have a need to love God deep in our hearts but we’ve rejected Him, and so we place ourselves there, and we simply don’t fit the space.
This affects ALL of our love relationships. Our self-inflected love struggles to express itself outwards to others without first establishing what benefit will come back in return. It is a selfish – not selfless – love.

God’s love is perfect. It is perfect because He is perfect.
God loves Himself first, because He is BOTH the most loving person there is, AND the most loveable person there is. That’s why He is triune; Father, Son and Spirit in perfect relationship within whom perfect love is both given and received, perfectly.

Without this love and this love relationship we wouldn’t exist, because it was out of a desire to share this perfect love with us that God created mankind in the first place.
You exist because God is love; perfect love.
And He made you for that love relationship. He made you to receive and be received, as a continual and perpetual relationship of love between you and He.

What happens when we reject God in our hearts is that this love dynamic gets short-circuited and it just keeps looping in on itself driving us more and more into love of self, fuelled by pride.
And this can take on different extremes in how it is lived out.
The one who is overtly arrogant and vain may display it more obviously, but someone who hates themselves and rejects the very basis of their intrinsic value is still saying, in their pride, “I know the real truth of who I am, and I’m worthless”, when in fact God has made them in His image and placed an innate and irreplaceable value on their life.

When we receive God – when we stop rebelling and stop rejecting Him – God’s love is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5).
More than that… when we are born again we BECOME children of God. We have a total spiritual rebirth, and move from being dead in our sins to being alive in Christ. The change is total. We are no longer orphans but children of God. It’s a status thing, and an actual reality thing.
But even though God has poured His love into our hearts, we haven’t necessarily received it. We have everything we need to love as God loves; we have His love poured into our hearts.
And yet with our hearts full of His love, we still live as though we are not loved. We display all the same insecurities, and we crave acceptance in the same ways, because the love issue must be settled.

Unless, and until it is settled we will have God’s love in our hearts and it will just sit there.
We must receive God’s love. He has poured it out, but we still have to receive it.
Receiving God’s love means we have to receive Him. God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, not as a tangible ‘object’, but in Him as an expression of a heart which is towards us, and for us.
The Holy Spirit indwells as God’s love.
The Bible teaches us that we are perfected in love.
The Bible also teaches us that we are perfected by the Holy Spirit.
These are not conflicting statements, and they’re not saying two different things.
The first statement is the dynamic of how we are perfected; it is in the context and language of love.
The second statement tells us whom the person is who makes it possible, because love is entirely relational.
It cannot exist apart from a relationship.

If we receive God’s love then we have it.
If we receive God then we have Him.
This is a glorious, inseparable reality, with massive implications for our lives.

If you know you’re loved – if you know you’re fully and entirely a child of God – then you know you are free, and you know you are safe… ALWAYS!

Regardless of what external input you’re receiving about whether you’re loved or not, in your heart the love issue is settled.
This is the freedom necessary to love anyone.
Love God, love yourself rightly, love your spouse, children, family, friends, strangers… even enemies.

Jesus exercised this freedom perfectly.
Whilst we were still far off and enemies of God, Jesus dies for us to make us friends, brothers, sons, lovers.
There wasn’t then, and isn’t now, anything lacking in the love that the Father has for the Son, and vice versa, so Jesus didn’t die for us to fill a gap, or make up for something that was missing. He died for us because He had, and has, God’s perfect love and for Him the love issue is settled.
He knows He is loved when He rises from the waters of His baptism.
He knows He is loved when He is gloriously transfigured atop a mountain.
He knows He is loved when the Father offers Him the cup of suffering in the garden.
He knows He is loved when He is nailed to a cross and dying there with our sins – all of them – killing Him and crushing Him.

If you know you are loved then you know you are safe whatever is going on.
If you know you are loved then you are truly free to respond to the Father’s invitation to do life-giving and self-sacrificing acts of salvation for others.

The love issue must be settled.

For me the love issue was settled one afternoon at work when, for reasons I cannot now recall, I was in deep turmoil.
It was a downward spiral and I was truly overwhelmed, like I was drowning in waves too big for me.
In that moment, as I called out to the Father, He spoke these words into my spirit.

I am dearly loved.
I am intimately known.
I am valued beyond price.
I am precious.

Although the Father was speaking them into my being, they came in the first person, and so I was able to receive His word for me and pray His prayer for me.
In that moment the love issue was settled.

The love issue is settled for me – period.