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I have a rule of thumb when listening to a sermon. If the pastor or minister starts talking about how the original Greek of a passage says something other than what our translation says, then he does not know what he is talking about!

Before I completely offend everyone who has ever delivered a sermon before, perhaps I should go into some more detail.

My point is that one often hears sermons in which the preacher digresses into a discussion of why one Greek word was used over another. I think such digressions are always questionable, and often completely wrong. At best, I will look up the passage in a good commentary later to see what others have said about the subject, but often I ignore such points made.

But what if the different versions of the Bible translate differently? A case in point might be 1 Corinthians 7, where my RSV and other literal translations say “it is good for a man not to touch a woman”, but the NIV jumps to “it is good for a man not to marry”, and other versions say “it is good for a man not to have sexual relations”. What do we make of this jumble of interpretations?

I think we can note several things:

Firstly, the difficulty of the passage is demonstrated by the disagreement of Bible translators on the point. We can see the disagreement from the English translations. No need for Greek yet.

Secondly, if the translators cannot agree, then a basic competance in Greek is probably not going to help much. Appeal to the Greek text in this case reveals that the literal translations (KJV, RSV, NASB etc.) are indeed translating literally. The passage does indeed say “it is good for a man not to touch a woman”.

Now a commentary can be of great assistance here, because appeal to a commentary will show that the term “to touch a woman” was a first century idiom that referred to sexual relations. When learning a language, one must learn many idioms before one can gain fluency in the language (One of my favourites is the Welsh “dros ben llestri”, which is idiomatic for “over the top” - although literally it is translated as “over the head of the dishes”!).

Armed with this information about the idiom (the Greek one now, not the Welsh one!), we are able to do an exegesis of the passage, without appeal to the Greek words used.

However, I can envisage examples where one might wish to quote what the commentators say about the original Greek. In such circumstances, I think the quote should be properly referenced.

If a preacher says “the original Greek actually suggests this…” I will assume the preacher is working on their own knowledge (and probably out of their depth). If they say “Barret tells us, in his commentary on 1 Corinthians, that the original Greek form used was an idiom for this…” then I can evaluate the quality of the source of the information, and even check it out for myself later - an important stage in the process of critical appraisal of the information we receive.

So I am not actually saying we can never preach on what the original Greek says - but as most preachers are not experts in Koine Greek, we must acknowledge our sources and alternative interpretations when we do so.

Warren Wierbse says in his introduction to “The Best of A. W. Tozer,”

He was not afraid to tell us what was wrong. Nor was he hesitant to tell us how God could make it right. If a sermon can be compared to light, then A. W. Tozer released a laser beam from the pulpit, a beam that penetrated your heart, seared your conscience, exposed sin, and left you crying, “What must I do to be saved?” The answer was always the same: surrender to Christ; get to know God personally; grow to become like Him

Tozer also said to an acquaintance:

“I have preached myself off of every Bible Conference platform in the country!”

Because the popular crowds do not rush to hear a man whose convictions make them uncomfortable.

So when somebody said to me:

It’s just too bad that the author of Born After Midnight and The Root of The Righteous [i.e. Tozer] never took Galatians 5:22-23 to heart and asked the Lord to develop the fruit of the Spirit in them. Their writings would reflected it.

I think the point is that Tozer did indeed take Galatians 5:22,23 to heart. Instead of using it as a balm for a guilty conscience he understood the underlying message as written: Those who have the Spirit of God will demonstrate the fact with deeds worthy of repentance. Christians are called to bring forth fruit, and we know what Jesus said of the tree that brought forth no fruit.

Tozer’s writings are a wake up call on a par with those of Leonard Ravenhill. His book “Keys to the Deeper Life” should be compulsory reading for all Christians (it is only about thirty pages long after all).

Again the point is that so much that passes for modern day Christianity would be disowned by our forefathers as carnal and ungodly. Believers take other believers to court. Believers live in immorality but are allowed to arrive each week at the communion table [or whatever your church calls it]. Christians step on each other in their rush to “the top”. Christians ignore justice and mercy, and reflect in so many ways the attitude of the world around them.

To repeat Tozer’s quote:

We modern Christians are long on talk and short on conduct

We love to talk and debate, but how many of us are doing things practically in our own situations? How many of us are making a difference in our own communities, for no reward but to know that we serve our LORD?

We can talk much of working out our salvation, but our Christian faith is no academic exercise, but a practical walk. This site is meant to be about "practical Christian life" and the reason is that a Christian life that is not practical is also not alive.

Faith without works is dead, being alone.

So let us examine ourselves and consider how we could better serve God in the family of the Church. Don’t talk about it. Do it!

It is trendy these days to wear fashion accessories with the letters WWJD written on them. The letters stand for “What Would Jesus Do”?

This question is a pertinent one. In any situation, we should ask, what would Jesus believe was the correct course of action? If we follow him, then we need to know what he would do, so that we too can do it.

But I would like to add some extra letters: DWRHAC - “Do we really have a clue”? Have we any idea what Jesus would do about the illegal and immoral detention of people in Guantanamo bay? Do we know what Christ would say about going to war to secure oil supplies in Iraq? Do we know what his view would be on the destruction of our environment? Do we know what he would say about mortgage debt? Social security? Health care? People using the asylum system to escape economic deprivation? The EU and U.S. trade rules and dumping of food that keep Africa poor so that we can stay rich?

How do we know what Jesus would say on an issue? Only by studying the message of the Bible and studying the situation. Even then there is often room for doubt, which is why Christians can disagree. We have the Holy Spirit as our guide and the Bible to teach us, but what would Jesus do about Guantanamo bay (where no doubt the prisoners are being tortured too)? I have no idea.

But one thing I know - he would not do nothing. It was not within him to turn his back on injustice, and that is the Christ I would follow.

Have you ever wondered where we get the term “freelancer”?

In the fifteenth century, warfare was changing. The arrival of gunpowder, and especially of cannon, had changed everything. The fall of the great city of Constantinople in 1453 - the final destruction of the Roman empire - served as a demonstration of how cannon could achieve what no army had ever managed - to breach Constantine’s massive fortifications.

Before this final siege, defenders had always held the advantage in a siege situation. Attacking armies were in the field, exposed to counter attack and at the end of long supply trains. But now with cannon the tables were turning. It was now possible to breach the mightiest of defensive walls.

European warfare had also, over the centuries, concentrated on cavalry. Knights, who could ride and fight atop horses, were drawn from the aristocracy, and were a warrior elite that had held sway in a time when there was no money for standing armies. Peasants could be archers, and these were important, but with the return of sufficient currency in europe to pay for them, another important force arose - infantry.

Swiss infantry quickly became some of the most sought after - mercenary armies of infantry who would fight for anyone with sufficient silver to pay their wages, and throughout Europe wars were now won or lost by infantry, and not cavalry.

The reason for this was easy to see. These infantrymen, with their long pikes and spears, if they stood their ground, were nearly impregnable. No cavalry could force their horses to throw themselves on those pikes, and so the cavalry charge was blunted. The independent infantry - the free lancers - were what every army needed.

But there was an important proviso here. The infantry had to stand together. If they lost their nerve - even just a few of them - and broke ranks, then the formation would collapse, the defense would be lost, and the infantrymen could be picked off one by one on the field of battle.

Every free lancer knew what it was to entrust his life to his comrades. The same was true in the defeat of the highlander charge at the battle of Culloden. The charge was defeated because each rifle man was tought to put his bayonet not in the man running at him, but the man immediately next to him. Thus the bayonet could bypass the highlander’s shield. But every infantry man on the field had to entrust his life to his neighbour. This took courage, but also an exemplary level of trust.

So how much do we trust our peers? More to the point, how much can they trust us? Could we be faithful in such situations?

Peter said he would stand by Jesus, but when the soldiers came, he departed and denied his Lord. But never again. Peter later stood firm in his testimony and he died for his trust in the Lord who would save him. Indeed, nearly all the disciples of Christ were eventually martyred for their faith in him. That was trust.

John Wesley was approached by the customs and revenue officer, raising taxes. He was asked what silver he had that he might be assessed for taxation. As a clergyman, it was expected he had reasonable wealth. Wesley replied that he had a teaspoon.

Like so many other Christians, Wesley trusted in God to provide for his needs, and saw no profit in hoarding wealth. He knew where true wealth lay, and did not need the crutch of materialism. That too was trust.

History is replete with examples of people who trusted God to meet their needs, because they understood what trust was.

When we speak of fighting the good fight, do we have any vision of what it would be like to be a free lancer, having the tide of battle wash over us, trusting in those around us to stand firm with us?

An enjoyable childhood in which children are encouraged to play is not necessarily a bad thing. Children are designed to learn through play, and imaginitive play is a very important part of this. Of course, if we just buy all the latest toys, where does the imagination go? Hannah loves being pushed around in the laundry basket, and both girls like to climb onto a blanket and “fly away” to exotic places. We don’t need a filght simulator to make that work!

Video games are also an issue because of the time they waste, and the sedentry lifestyle they encourage. But I don’t think we need to ban video games - we just need to keep the balance right. The same for television and just about everything else.

But where I think our society is going wrong is in the whole notion of “youth culture” as something different from our current culture. The reason these young people are not growing up, and are learning to behave like debauched idiots is because they are associating only with other young people. They disdain contact with more mature adults, and nothing in our society really forces them to associate with adults any more.

Now it is basic human nature that we conform to our societal norms, because (in the absence of Christ at least) we derive our sense of significance from our standing in whatever group or society we inhabit. So if you get groups of young people, they derive significance and a sense of self worth from one another by behaving in a manner that idolises what sets their group apart (their youth). And so they act more like immature people - because they need the sense of self worth that this brings them.

So how do we change it?

In our churches we have “youth work”, which is important. But youth work that separates the youth from the Church and never attempts to integrate them into the larger body is counter productive. It becomes increasingly secular and often embarrassing. It dishonours God.

So bring the youth work back into the life of the Church. Involve the pastor and everyone else. Have joint events, and fund raising by young people working with or for the older people.

Any other ideas? Please add them in the comments.

We know that scripture does not contain all prophecy. Scripture tells us of people who prophesied but whose prophecy is not recorded.

It seems to me (and I derive my view from, I think primarily, Wayne Grudem [see: Systematic Theology, Grudem, IVP] ) That New Testament prophecy differed from Old Testament prophecy. The Old Testament prophets had a specific role in bringing us the special revelation of God. They tell us of his character, his workings in the life of man, and particularly they point to the incarnation as the focal point of history. The time when our saviour would come and usher in the kingdom of God. They knew that Jesus would be our salvation, and they pointed to him over and over until John the Baptist, the last “Old Testament” prophet came to prepare the way of the LORD.

Jesus has now come, and we live in his kindom already. The Kingdom of God is both hear, and yet it is to come. We are already living in the kingdom and yet it is not here (the so-called eschatological hope).

What this means for prophecy is that it is no longer required (at least, there was a requirement in the 1st century for prophecy specifically relating to the work of Christ, but that prophecy is given - the task of it was given to the apostles). The view is usually stated: “we have the scriptures, we do not need further infallible revelation”.

This is quite true, but I would suggest that New Testamant prophets were not the same as OT prophets. Note the Apostles gave us the NT scriptures, not the people who prophesied.

So what did they prophesy?

Literally prophecy is the telling forth of God’s word. It is a forthtelling, not a foretelling. There may be occasional prohecies that appear to be foretellings. Charismatics would usually call these “words of knowledge”. Whether the label is correct is not too important, as it is possible to preach the word of God straight from the Bible “prophetically”. The prophecy comes in the action of the Holy Spirit in applying the infallible scriptures to a situation and a specific people. It is a telling forth of God’s word that will indeed not return void.

Again, prophecy is not infallible revelation at all. It is a forth telling of the very words of God into a situation.

It is a widely held belief amongst pentecostals and charismatics that one can receive the gift of tongues and a prophetic interpretation of those tongues.

Tongues are a contentious issue in the modern Church. Indeed they always have been. Our largest problem with modern day tongues speaking is that we cannot be absolutely certain how people spoke in tongues in the days of the apsotles. Thus we must be careful that we do not claim passages to support our practises that actually mean something slightly different.

I am of the view that tongues probably did sound much like the tongues we hear today, but we ascertain from scripture that the use of tongues was primarily as a prayer language (1 Cor 14:14). When someone speaks in a tongue they speak to God. They are praying. It is not God speaking to them but them speaking to Him.

We should not be surprised that prayer formed a part of corporate worship, but notice what was happening in Corinth. People were puffed up with pride in their spirituality. They came together and spoke in tongues together so that no one could say the “amen” to their prayers. They were showing off. This sinful and proud use of this gift was of no benefit to anyone. There was no one who understood the prayer and could say “amen” to it.

What does Paul say? That he would pray with his spirit and his mind also. He tells the congregation that any tongue must be interpreted before the congregation can move on. There is no point meeting together and all speaking in tongues so that no one can understand, because no one is edified. They might as well all sit in their own prayer closets and pray in private. Why did they meet together in this way at all? Won’t an unbeliever on seeing it say “they are all mad!”?

So tongues are prayers from the spirit of the man to God, enabled through the Holy Spirit. The interpretation is just a making known of the prayer, so that we can say “amen” to it.

The question is asked, why did Paul call this prophecy? The answer being that he did not. 1 Cor 14:5 simply says that prophecy is greater than tongues unless there is an interpretation. Paul never says that the interpretation makes the tongue prophecy. He merely says that the value of tongues is increased enormously by the interpretation, putting it on a par with prophecy.

I see no reason why heartfelt and Spirit inspired prayer to God should be thought to be less important than prophecy, and Paul seems to agree.

‘We do not seek peace in order to be at war, but we go to war that we may have peace. Be peaceful, therefore, in warring, so that you may vanquish those whom you war against, and bring them to the prosperity of peace.’

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, vol. 3 (quoting St. Augustine)

Augustine’s Just War theory still is at the heart of ethical justification of many of our wars, but is the teory sufficient? Augustine argued that Christians should rather suffer loss than go to war, but did not make the same case for the head of a Christian state. Rather, the head of state may declare war in the interests of maintaining peace. If our peace is threatened, or if we have suffered grave loss, then our head of state may declare war.

I am not particularly happy with the just war theory, and part of my objection lies in this statement, made by a friend:

A pretty standard observation is that non-combatants get killed in wars of any “stripe”. That is often said as if it were a surprise. The important question, it seems to me, is whether fewer civilians get killed in a Just War than would be killed if there were no war.

There is an issue of responsibility here, and we should note that humans are not like beans that can be counted and weighed one against another. If there is a room full of unconcious people who are about to die in a fire, and I throw them from a window so that half of them survive, whereas half of them die from the fall, then I have indeed saved half of them, and my actions - it seems to me - are ethical (assuming there was no better means to save them available to me!).

But now consider this same room, and I decide I will save these people by releasing a flood from some water tanks that will quench the fire. I do so knowing I will drown several other people in another room. Is it now ethical for me to spend the lives of other people to save these?

If one volunteers for action then one says that their life is available to be laid down for the cause for which the action is prosecuted. But what of those who do not volunteer for this action and do not want it? What right have we to lay their lives down for the sake of others?

This is the kind of messy ethical situation one finds oneself in when attempts at a peaceful resolution to a festering problem are abandonded for the economic, logistical and political expediency for war.

I think it is a mistake to try and shoehorn our actions into Augustine’s Just War theory - we may manage to do so, or we may not, but the danger is that in uncritically accepting a theory from another age, whose underlying ethics we have not investigated, we may attempt to abdicate our responisbilities as Christians to consider the issues carefully for ourselves in the light of a fundamental biblically derived Christian ethic. In the case of the invasion of Iraq, such a Christian ethic would need to examine everything from our current lifestyle, our culture and its assumptions as well as the morality of both the Iraqi and western regimes.

Saddam Hussain wore his immorality on his sleave, and a reading of Amnesty International reports is terrifying, but let us not fall into the trap of imputing some overarching morality on our own nations - many of Saddam’s atrocities were perpetrated with western backing, and using western weaponry. The massacre he was executed for was perpetrated under the noses of the US army, and with their permission given to Saddam to breach the no fly zones to perpetrate the massacre.

In the continued illegal US detentions at Guantanamo bay, we see an administration that continues to flout international law, human rights and its alleged commitment to truth and justice for the sake of some fuzzy expedient predicated on the spurious grounds that an administration can declare war on a concept. This is clearly a serious departure from any moral underpinnings one might perceive.

When I make statements like these, someone often replies:

I’m relieved that those who are sworn to kill us and other innocent people are being held somewhere. But their desire and efforts to kill us probably has something to do with it.

The fallacy of this argument is in the assumption that these people are guilty.

It is uncontentious that evil people be locked away, where they can do no harm. Few people would have much difficulty with such an opinion (and indeed, I do not).

But the false belief here that brings the argument for continued detention crashing down is that someone can be validly considered evil and a menace to one and all, simply because some politician dictates that it is so.

No one in Guantanamo bay can now ever be successfully and fairly prosecuted for a crime - the illegal detention has seen to that, so legal doctrine tells us they are all innocent.

But more than that, the vast majority really are innocent. If there were evidence of a crime then they would surely have been prosecuted by now. Some are simply victims of mistaken identity, and others were in the wrong place at the wrong time. But one way or another, they are innocent, and so the case for locking them up comes tumbling down.

Another argument:

In WWII both sides took prisoners, with America and it’s allies keeping most of theirs alive.

As, indeed, did the Germans.

The intention being that removing combatants from the battlefield would hasten the end of the conflict.

But the “war on terrorism” is not war. I believe in the war on want. Shall I kidnap everyone who runs a business, has a share portfolio, owns a house or runs a car with an engine larger that 1 litre, and lock them all away in…ooh, shall we say… Merthyr Tydfil, until such a time as we have won the war?

Terrorists are criminals. If we capture a terrorist we should prosecute them according to our established legal systems and doctrines. If we cannot prosecute them, because we have no actual evidence that they really are terrorists, then they are free to go.

That is what it means to live in a free(ish) society.

Christians like to ask, what would Jesus do? Would he lock people away in Guantanamo bay, leave them to rot, with no legal representation, nor contact with their families, allowing them to be tortured and abused?

Is that what Christ said we should do with our enemies?

Should Christians listen to secular rock music? Someone said to me:

The Bible says ‘to prove all things and hold fast to that which is good’ Have you proved secular Rock Music and do you think it is good?

Some of it is very good.

But the serious answer is “yes”. I apply the same criterion to rock music as to books. There is a great deal of rock music I would never purchase, nor willingly listen to. There is also a great deal that I do listen to. In some cases, I find the message in the music is a powerful one. Occasionally I will use a song in order to make a spiritual point to teenagers.

Non Christians have things to say too!

The answer this comment drew was:

No kidding! I notice they have a lot to say on just about everything. Some of them are under the delusion that they are the answer to the world’s problems (their ability to make money that is); but I fail to see any image of God in them,

I think this is a core problem. If you do not see God’s image in our fellow humans then it is all to easy to lack compassion for them Every one of us bears God’s image. The image may be diminished and marred, especially so in the lives of an evil and adulterous generation, but it is still true that every one of us is an image bearer of the living God.

We need to be less judgemental of our fellow image bearers, and scratch beneath the surface. A singer is just another flawed human being, loved by God, just like every one of us.

The cult of fame and fortune in our society blinds us sometimes to the humanity of those we idolise or envy, but when all is said and done, these people are still worth listening to (if anyone is worth listening to).