I have been spending time trying to get my wife’s book ready – hopefully it will be available soon. We are excited as the proofs should arrive this coming week. I will write more about it in the coming days.
http://wellsforshepherds.com/2023/05/09/coming-in-print-and-epub/
I first wrote this over 10 years ago. Reflecting on it, I thought it was worth reposting.
Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. Rev 22:14 & 15
Every now and then as I am reading the Bible a phrase or word jumps out at me. It may be something that I hadn’t noticed or reflected on before. In our staff devotions at school Revelation 22 was read and I closed my eyes and listened. I have read or heard this passage on many occasions and reflected on it. However, this time, the phrase “everyone who loves and practices falsehood” made me sit up and take notice.
We live in a world of “spin”. Politicians, companies and celebrities hire “spin’ experts – people to put the “right” perspective on an issue or dilemma. “Spin” is the key to advertising and promotion. I think we could rightly say that “spin” is part of everyday life.
I remember, years ago, attending regular meetings of church leaders and we were called to report on our individual churches. Looking back in hindsight, there was a lot of “spin” happening. Despite issues in the churches, in this public forum we put ourselves in the best light. We do it as individuals as we try to make ourselves look good, knowing all the while, that in reality we are hiding the truth.
A friend once reflected, after a visit to Holland, where one can look into the front rooms of nearly every immaculately presented house, that it reflected his family. The front room, in this case the way his family appeared, was tidy and well kept, but in the back rooms there was chaos anger, lies and pain.
As a culture and society we have become very able practitioners of falsehood. As individuals and churches, we too have been, unthinkingly, drawn into these practices. Why does Jesus include falsehood with idolaters, murderers and sexual morality?
The child of God is the representative of truth. We are called to stand in direct opposition to the enemy, “the father of lies” (John 8:44). John writes “We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood. (1 John4:6)
The Church and the Christian can have no place for “spin” or subterfuge. The world needs to see what truthful lives look like. That also includes honesty when we have mucked things up. Seeking forgiveness is far more constructive (and painful) than spin. The media, quite rightly in my opinion, has highlighted the falsehood of the church. It can only do that when we have not been true to our God of Truth. Rather than blaming the media we should look carefully at ourselves.
For me, this is a tough call. I don’t like being found out. More important though, is my desire to be more like Jesus. The Word tells me that when I know Jesus I “… will know the truth, and the truth will set (me) free.” John 8:32
David
Below is a story by my wife that imagines what it was like when David was anointed as king of Israel. (1 Samuel 16)
The row of ants marched across the warm rock. The lead ant paused to take in the antics of a ladybug that the troop was about the pass. Every ant in the line momentarily stopped also, as it passed the bigger insect.
David mused, then he rolled over onto his back. He squinted at the bright afternoon light. He could see, far off near the eastern edge of a clear blue sky, the almost full moon. How far was it? David thought. How many days’ walk to reach the moon, if a boy could walk across the sky? What would that distance look like across the palm of Yahweh’s hand?
David sat up. He could hear someone calling his name. He stood and scanned the valley below. All his sheep – well, his father’s sheep – were grazing on the summer pasture. Beyond them a figure appeared and David recognised Abel, his family’s servant. He picked up the shepherds’ crook and his lyre and bounded off, past the sheep who momentarily stopped, not unlike the ants, to watch the boy rush between them.
“Abel, why have you come?” he asked the old man. “Has something happened at home?”
“Shalom” replied the servant. “Your father has sent for you. Go. I will stay with the flock until you return.”
David glanced at the crook and the lyre in his hands. He hesitated before handing the crook to Abel. Then he thrust the lyre towards the man as well. “Play for them. They love it.” Abel grinned.
The boy-shepherd turned and ran down to the homestead.
Before David got to his home another servant met him.
“Is my father ill?” he asked the man.
“No, he and your brothers are with the Prophet. They are making sacrifices to the LORD.”
“What has this to do with me?” asked David.
By now they were at the well in the courtyard.
“Wash your face and hands and put on these clean clothes.”
David’s mother then appeared. She took the cloth from the servant and began scrubbing at David’s neck, tutting about the grass and gravel smudges on his face and arms. Her son was taller than her now so she had to pull his head down to reach.
The boy tried to get out of her grasp.
“Mother, what is going on?” He pleaded.
But there was no time for answers. Soon enough David was escorted into Bethlehem and then to the place where his father and seven older brothers were standing. Another man was also there – the Prophet Samuel.
David could tell that his brothers were restless. Eliab, tall and strong, was the oldest, and he glowered when he saw the littlest of his brothers come tearing around the corner towards them. The boy-shepherd skidded to a halt a few yards from the group, took a deep breath, and calmly walked the final distance to stand before his father.
If I could run to the moon, he thought, I could get there sooner.
Jesse put his hands on David’s shoulders and forced him to pivot around to face Samuel. The Prophet seemed not to notice him; he was in a deep reverie.
“Your servant, David, Jesse’s son” David said, and he bowed. The Prophet was not physically tall. He was a full head-height shorter than the boy-shepherd. But David felt as if he was bowing before a someone of giant importance. He felt ant-sized.
Something – not his father’s hands this time- compelled David to kneel.
And then… and then, something amazing happened. The Prophet held a ram’s horn of oil above the head of Jesse’s youngest son, as the other seven sons looked on, and upturned the horn. Samuel proclaimed that David was the next King of Israel, anointed by Yahweh.
As the oil came first on his head and next dribbled down his neck and into his shirt, David took a sharp intake of breath. He held the air in his chest, unable to decide if there was something different about him. Unsure if this meant he should or could still be himself. Unsure if breathing was necessary.
His father and brothers came forward and, one by one, embraced him.
“Now let’s eat!” The Prophet declared loudly.
As the sun began to sink into the horizon, the shepherd-king tramped across the valley towards the sheepfold. Abel stood in the opening. “They’re all in there, present and accounted for,” he said. “And you’re right. They do love the music of the lyre.”
David drew his woollen cloak around himself and squatted in the opening as Abel started back in the direction that David had come. Some of the ewes nuzzled against him, sniffing at the strange scent of oil.
Not twenty yards away the old servant turned and shouted at him, lifting a thumb towards the sky:
“Full moon tonight!”
Here is a piece written by my wife Hetty reflecting on the church in our current time.
What happens when a church/ faith community/ group of believers, find themselves in the world of Covid 19?This is a question that I’ve been stewing on for 8 months. In March and April I kept my ears and eyes open for evidence that believers were mobilised to give assistance wherever the need was. I also wanted to see how churches were adapting their services to the challenges and opportunities of ‘online’.
At first I noticed the Sikh and Muslim communities making and delivering meals for tertiary students who had lost their income. I saw that churches were moving online but it was a poor attempt to replicate the service as close as possible, losing much of the sense of personal connection. Some church leaders tried bizarre stunts to continue certain practices.
Closer to home I heard of the work a group of Christians, which included my daughter, was doing to provide meals to the homeless and hungry. To change the sit-down meal they offered in the past with a takeaway one. Our local Christian school is using the produce from their horticulture unit to make meals and fresh food hampers for families who are having difficulty making ends meet.
Yesterday I stumbled across an article about the pandemics of the past. It explained the advancement of the early Christian church during and following the Antonine and the Cyprian plagues that occurred in the Roman Empire of A.D. 165 – 262. The combined pandemics’ mortality rate was anywhere from one-quarter to one-third of the empire’s population.
So what caused the baby Christian church to become a significant religion?Here’s a different way of asking this question: What was God doing in the hearts of the believers? How was He resourcing and equipping them?This is a quote from that article-
“Rodney Stark, in his seminal work “The Rise of Christianity,” argues that these two pandemics made Christianity a much more attractive belief system.While the disease was effectively incurable, rudimentary palliative care – the provision of food and water, for example – could spur recovery of those too weak to care for themselves. Motivated by Christian charity and an ethic of care for the sick – and enabled by the thick social and charitable networks around which the early church was organized – the empire’s Christian communities were willing and able to provide this sort of care.Pagan Romans, on the other hand, opted instead either to flee outbreaks of the plague or to self-isolate in the hope of being spared infection.”
Ah! There it is. Charity.
But where are the majority of today’s Christians to be found? Fleeing the outbreaks? Self-isolating? Pretending that nothing’s changed? Trying to get modern technology to ensure the congregation can continue to tithe? Demanding that the government leaders allow their churches to meet in person again?
Or living out the commandment of Jesus to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”(Luke 10:27)
I don’t want to search for this. I want it to be so, so patently obvious that a blind man couldn’t miss it. I want people to say “Christians? Yeah, there they are….. using their facilities to cook meals……..providing shelter………helping those struggling with anxiety………using their charitable networks to distribute aid.”
The twenty first century Christian has been equipped by God and He has given each of us a particular task that we must undertake where He has placed us.
Right now we find ourselves in a pandemic.
How has God been preparing the church, the people of God, for a time such as this? And what hints and leadings has He been giving us to be His active representatives on earth right now?
What opportunities has He created? These are all questions my wife has been challenging me with in recent times. Hetty has written the following.
In 2005 we went to live in the UK for 16 months. I found myself with a lot of time and looked about to find something to become involved with. Our local church put me in touch with Bridgebuilder, an organisation that worked with schools to teach children about the Christian faith.
This appealed to me because for 15 years I had been a volunteer teacher of Christian Religious Education in Australia. Every week I spent 30 minutes in each class, sharing Bible stories, and praying with the students. It was a government legislated privilege to be able to do this.
In the UK things were different. The best Christian churches could hope for was to be invited into schools for a few hours every year. Bridgebuilder developed programmes and presented them to a hundred students at a time. I felt appreciative of our Australian system but knew that there was a lot of opposition building against it in the secular community.
Fast forward 5 years and my fears were being realised. The CRE programme was under attack, the organisation overseeing it was scrambling to adapt to the pressures. If the Government removed its protective legislation how would its mission to school children continue?
This was the moment that I thought back to my time in the UK. Could God have given me this experience so that I could now see a way forward in my local situation? Had He been equipping me for a future I didn’t yet know?
Today the universal Church is part of a universal crisis. Alongside health, economics, education, transport, employment, and a hundred other areas of human life, the Church is wondering how it will survive in a Covid 19 world and how it can keep being Christ to that world.
Many Christians and churches are trying to tweak what we’ve always done – drive thru communion, services in the car park while parishioners stay in their cars, and the like. Generally we are hunkering down and looking after our own flock. Missions means going ‘out there’, but we’re being told to stay at home.
But my thought is that God has been preparing His people for a Covid 19 world. What He was doing in your life ten years ago, or five years ago, or last year, was ‘the equipping of the saints’. Cast your mind back.
Look around your immediate vicinity. What appearance does this new world have? How has it changed? Then go back to our marching orders. What is a Christian’s primary mission, and what equipment and training have we been given by God to carry it out?
One example is the scandal of child abuse that has rocked the Church. The Church has become a stench to the world, and often it is trying to make excuses for the actions of its own people, desperately trying to salvage its reputation. I cringe whenever this issue is raised. I want to hide in shame.
So how should we view the sequence of events in our time with the idea that God is using them to equip us? And how do we move forward into the future with this massive millstone around the neck of the Church?
I believe God can and will advance His kingdom in spite of the wickedness of mankind. Abusive churchmen and women cannot thwart His plans. Perhaps the Church needs to fall on its knees, confess, repent, and seek forgiveness from those it has harmed. Never seeking a lenient sentence, but accepting judgement, and giving all it owns (every last gold goblet!) in restitution and compensation. A broken and contrite heart. Personally, I am waiting for the leaders of our churches to start this process.
Then we can be used by God to …
The Battles of Advent
Preceding ‘gentle Jesus meek and mild’
The battle raged:
The snake in the garden,
The first murder,
The lies, deceit
And betrayal.
The Old Covenant sad stories
Reveal
The real struggle.
When David stood before Goliath
The real fight
Was in the heavenlies.
When David lusted after Bathsheba
The battle raged in places
Far beyond earth.
When the second Adam
Was nailed to a tree,
The Romans and Sanhedrin
Were not masters
But slaves.
When Christ arose,
The false Prince lost.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14
Haloes,
The sun’s brightest rays,
The seductive gleam of gold
Or the rich sparkle of diamonds
Are muted and dim
In the radiance of Your glory!
The vitriol against our bankers is reaching fever pitch. Even at the local gym my wife encountered patrons seething at the behaviour of the banks. This comes on top of the recent inquiry into child abuse. The churches, in particular, came out of that with their reputations badly damaged. There is another current inquiry into the behaviour of the managers of Aged Care Homes. The police are under scrutiny because of poor behaviour and our politicians have reached lows that has even left voters aghast that new lows are even possible.
The level of self righteous anger is seen on tv news shows, radio talk back, newspapers and blogs. Society is venting! The populace is restless and angry.
There is one segment of society left out – the rest of us – the ordinary punter. But are we really in a position to cast the first stone? Let me ask: Are our tax records spotless and our driving record immaculate? Have we always been honest and honourable with the boss, or spouse or colleagues? Have we used the cash economy to avoid tax? If there was a tv screen on our foreheads that broadcast our inner thoughts for everyone to see, would we have any friends? If we came across an easy way to make extra, illegal, money but wouldn’t be caught, how would we behave?
The problem is that each one of us, banker, politician, you and me – everyone – has a sinful nature. It is an unpopular concept in today’s society in which truth is considered relative. Today we are told that there are no longer clear wrongs and rights in the moral sphere and yet we are surprised when people “do wrong”. We ourselves do wrong but we justify it to ourselves – just, as I am sure, the bankers did, or the paedophile, or the manager of the home or …
Yes, we do need laws to protect children, bank depositors, old people and so on, but let us not pretend that we are innocent.
In the apostle Paul’s words, “We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Sinfulness is a problem we all need to deal with. The ultimate answer is not the laws that we have piled on year after year to try to control all sorts of behaviour but rather the real answer is an encounter with Jesus Christ and the the forgiveness and renewal that is freely available through him.
Yes the laws are important to order a civil society but even more important is a radical renewal of each person – politician, policeman, you and me.
Yet first, each of us has to acknowledge that we have a problem and we ourselves do not have the resources to deal with it but Jesus has. In Luke 19:10 Jesus says to the tax collector ( or banker, or business manager or you and me) “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Step one is to acknowledge that we are “lost.”
Melchior, Balthazar, and Caspar
(Picture from The Life of Jesus, painted by Paul Forsey)
It was a black night. Nothing lit our Eastern sky, nothing. The tiny pinpricks of starry light were almost blotted out by the inky darkness.
Nevertheless, our team was out there on the dunes, peering into our telescopes, occasionally lighting a small candle to jot notes and diagrams onto our parchments.
It was a still night, which was a good thing. Sand grit can be a problem if it’s blown into our equipment and ink. Caspar was sitting in the middle of a huge groundsheet, gazing across to the horizon. It was so quiet that, even though I had my back to him, I heard it when he stopped breathing. He wasn’t dead, just dead surprised.
I turned and said, “Cas?” and then looked where I thought he was looking.
I answered his unspoken question. “I think it is.”
“I’m going to make a light” he said, “you get Melchior.”
I set out over the dunes. With no illumination I stumbled along. Once I turned to look behind me and saw Caspar’s small candle. But behind him was a rising glow from near the horizon. I finally found Mel; actually I stumbled onto him. He cursed as I landed on him, causing his ‘scope to drop to the ground.
“Look” I said, and standing close behind him with my arm alongside his head, I pointed to the west. He moved slightly to follow my direction. “Yes…” he murmured.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking” I asked.
“I think I am, Balthazar!” he replied, and I heard the twinkle in his eyes.
We ran then, back to Caspar, who had been consulting the charts. He was fairly jumping out of his skin! And that’s not bad for an eighty year old astronomer.
This was the beginning of our journey westward. That little star, rising up into our world, had been predicted for centuries. But not as headline news in the Astronomers Of The East Gazette. No. It was hidden in the historical parchments of our discipline, to be discovered through intense cross referencing and study. A group of us were hoping and waiting for its appearance in our lifetime. And here it was!
The following days were a buzz of preparations and talking. Our colleagues agreed that Mel, Caspar and I should be the ones to meet the promised King. The King born somewhere to the west of us. The King whose star we had seen rising in the darkness.
And this King would be worshipped with gifts.
So a committee was formed to find appropriate gifts. The gift registrars. They consulted the astronomical charts too, for clues. Each gift would be fraught with meaning. Finally they came on the night before we were to set out. Three packages were presented to us.
“This one is the only gift we could give to a new King” they said. “It is the ultimate symbol of power and majesty.” Caspar stood beside me and whispered breathlessly “Gold!”
“This one” another registrar said, holding up a small box, “was a tricky one. Something in our research suggested this new King is also Godly. So in this box is the very precious frankincense.” He handed it to Melchior.
A third registrar stepped forward.
“Finally, our last gift.” A few of the other members of the committee shuffled uneasily and looked down, as if they weren’t too sure about this choice of a gift.
“Myrrh.” And it was offered to me.
An explanation was called for. The registrar continued. “It’s traditionally used as an embalming agent. The committee thought it appropriate as all kings eventually die, and this new King will deserve the very best of burials. Although” he added,
“this King is a God, so it should not be necessary. However, on the off chance…..” He was now clearly out of his depth so I stepped forward and took the package from him. He looked glad to be rid of it.
The journey continued. The next morning we were assisted onto our camels and the whole assembly of astronomers were there to see us off.
Our College president handed us the scrolls containing copies of the prophesies of the Hebrew Daniel, concerning the King we were seeking. And so we left our home in the East.
It was together boring and exhilarating to be travelling.
At night we pitched our tent, found our telescopes and studied the sky as we had always done. But we hardly needed the telescope to see that Star; it became larger and brighter every night. It was our signpost, our route map, our light for our path.
During the days I reread Daniel’s prophesy. He was an alien in our country, captured over 500 years ago and brought to Babylon as booty.
He wrote about his God and a plan to bring a saving Christ into the world. The ‘Son of Man coming from heaven’.
When we reached the region of Palestine we made our way straight to the city of Jerusalem. I was glad to stop there. Beyond this country was the Mare Nostrum sea and I didn’t like sailing much. I preferred the ships of the desert – camels, and the waves of bare sand.
At the palace the guards brought us before the ruler King Herod. He listened to the reason for our coming, and looked puzzled. “No new kings here!” he blustered.
“A new born King, a baby perhaps?” I suggested.
Now he looked positively scary. “No newborns around here!! “
Melchior offered another idea, “we believe him to be the king of the Jews.”
“What?!!” roared Herod. “I am the king of the Jews!”
And then “Send for my advisors, and those magicians I have!”
They came, and they confirmed what we had said. In the town of Bethlehem the Christ would be born.
Now Herod ordered us out of the room while he conferred with his advisors.
We sat in a tiny anteroom, cooling our heels. “I don’t like that man much,” said Caspar, “can’t we just go over to that town and check it out for ourselves?”
But then the door opened and we were called back in.
Herod’s plan went like this:
We were to go to Bethlehem, find the baby King, and then return to Herod and give him the precise location.
It was something about the way his moustache twitched when he spoke that made me wonder. His whole demeanour had changed since before, but that moustache was twitching! I didn’t trust him.
Well, we found Bethlehem, and we found the King. Our star continued to lead us until it stopped over an ordinary-looking house in a plain old street. No palace, no royal crib, no red carpet.
We felt a tiny bit overdressed for the occasion, and the gifts we brought seemed a tad too grand for such an ordinary child, but we knelt before him. His parents didn’t blink. It was as if they knew His importance, as if they understood Who he really was.
I bowed deeply.
I offered the jar of myrrh to the child’s mother.
In my heart I felt some flutter of recognition as I gazed upon the small boy sitting on his mother’s knee.
The star had brought me to Him. He was the end of my journey.
Hetty Stok,
Epiphany, 2019
We have spent the last two days in Madrid looking at the possibility of future “mission” work, either in a church or school or both. We have come to the conclusion that church attendance in Spain, as with most European countries, is very low. There is still a strong hold that Catholic traditions have on behaviour but this doesn’t translate into a gospel empowered lifestyle.
There are bright spots. There are Catholic priests who are trying to shake up the church. A version of the Alpha course in Spanish is being used. There are small groups of evangelicals trying to make a difference. But in a population of 47 million people these are only pin pricks of light.
One of those pinpricks is Life International School, currently housed in rooms previously used by doctors at the ground floor level of an apartment complex. The 14 students between 3 and 5 are taught in the English language from a Christian Worldview. Lives and families are being changed. There are plans to obtain land and build but even bigger dreams to equip teachers and inspire others to set up schools. There are hopes to engage local parents and other adults through English conversation classes with a clear Christian perspective.
The staff at this school come from the US, Canada and Russia. They are an amazing group of people who have responded to God’s call.
We have been inspired and humbled by what we have seen and heard. The commitment and sacrifice is genuinely amazing. Our challenge now is discern what God is saying to us
An interesting TGC article: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-gospel-in-spain/
Travels from Ur 