Couldn't Help Noticing

John Donne, Holy Sonnets

15

Wilt thou love God, as he thee? then digest,
My soul, this wholesome meditation,
How God the Spirit, by angels waited on
In heaven, doth make his temple in thy breast.
The Father having begot a Son most blest,
And still begetting (for he ne'er begun),
Hath deign'd to choose thee by adoption,
Coheir to his glory, and Sabbath's endless rest;
And as a robb'd man, which by search doth find
His stol'n stuff sold, must lose or buy it again:
The Son of glory came down, and was slain,
Us whom he had made, and Satan stol'n, to unbind.
'Twas much, that man was made like God before,
But, that God should be made like man, much more.

Sound of silence

Noticed this in 1 Kings 19 (ESV). The only time I've heard this passage taught, it was a sermon with an application like “Since God speaks in a small voice, you have to make sure you listen really hard to hear him when he talks to you.” Presumably this would happen after a spate of localized natural disasters.

However, the handy ESV footnote says that “the sound of a low whisper” in verse 12 could also be translated into “a sound, a thin silence”. So perhaps an alternative explanation could be that God does not feel he needs to add to the word that he has already spoken. It is sufficient. The silence is deafening.

If so, how much less should we feel today, that we need God to speak in a voice of any volume, to add to the word that has given us life?

A (really) open mind

My Bible study group has been working through 1 Corinthians over the last few months. The other night, our passage was 1 Corinthians 14:26-40. We spent quite a while discussing the meaning of the following verses:

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. If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. (1 Cor 14:33b-35)

As we discussed various options about what this could mean for our church practice today, I realised that the one option we were most reluctant to discuss was this: that it means exactly what it says.

But if we are to approach the Bible minus our own prejudices, biases and cultural blinkers, then we must entertain the possibility that it could mean exactly what it says. If we cannot include that as a possibility (let alone the most likely meaning), then we don't stand a chance of being able to work out what it really does mean. Instead, we will spend our time finding reasons for why the passage doesn't mean what we don't want it to mean.

Is it time to make you a saint?

Because if you're not, you've got big problems. Being a saint is the same as being ‘sanctified’, and both come from the same Greek word, along with the word ‘holy’.

Some see sanctification as a future state, one that we will reach after great struggle in the Christian life, so that when we get to heaven we will finally be without sin. Indeed, this is pretty much the Reformed Puritan view, and it is a useful way to think about making spiritual progress.

But the Bible uses the word ‘sanctification’ quite differently. As a matter of fact, in 1 Corinthians 6:11, Paul declares that “you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of God”. That is, sanctification is something that has already happened to anyone who trusts in Jesus' death—or to put it another way, has received the Holy Spirit by believing the gospel of grace.

It's because of this trust on the part of the Corinthians that Paul can even refer to them as ‘saints’ (1 Cor 1:2)—this despite their obvious and continuing immorality, including all sorts of gross sexual sin, immorality, hatred, bitterness, and jealousy (Interestingly, the practise of homosexuality is mentioned as one of those sins from which the Corinthians have been cleansed in 1 Cor 6:9).

Paul's point is not that they (or we) should become saints, once we have trusted in Jesus. His point is that we already are saints—we have trusted Jesus, we have given our lives to him—and so, we should start behaving accordingly.

But if you haven't trusted Jesus, why not do it now and become a saint today? Jesus' canonization process is considerably quicker and more effective (though it came at a greater cost to him)?than that of any college of cardinals.

100 minutes, or the rest of your life?

The red pen of (Tony) Payne is rightly to be feared. He trains all of us editorial types to wield our pens like katanas, slicing potential articles up until they are but a shadow of their former selves. “This one's 1500 words”, he'll say, “cut it down to 50! And this one? Just pick a word or two and we'll publish that. This one? Rubbish: just pick your favourite letter...”

I may be slightly overstating the case for our own editorial procedure, but something similar has happened with the release of The 100 Minute Bible (as pointed out by a CHN reader).

The 100 Minute Bible is an edition that aims to suit the “hurried and harried” generation, that can be read cover to cover in under two hours. To do this, they've wielded the editing pen with ferocity. Out go the genealogy and the law books! Four gospels? That all tell the same story? Stick them all together and cut it into a quarter! 150 Psalms? When they all say the same thing?! Just pick the best two.

(One somewhat cheekily wonders if the 100 Minute Bible manuscript of 2 Timothy looked something like this: ‘All sScripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness.’)

If we are to be trained in the knowledge and love of God: we need more of the Bible in our lives, for the rest of our lives. A rough outline might be all well and good for giving someone a vague grasp of God's plan of salvation, but as the unedited version of 2 Peter goes:

We have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

(2 Peter 1:19-21)