Pure Christianity

Pure Christianity

Pure Christianity By Paul

Hildreth

Copyright P. Hildreth, 2006, 2008 First Edition, 2008 Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

** My deepest gratitude goes to the late Rev Alan Tovey, for introducing me to Biblical Christianity. Never before, or since, have I heard better expositions of Biblical passages and their relevance to us today. He will be sadly missed.

** This book is compiled using extracts from my book ‘Look into a Mirror’, published on Lulu.com

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Contents Chapter

Page

Introduction

3

Peace of Mind

6

Stressed Out

11

So What?

14

Way Down Inside

19

The Diagnosis

23

So, What About You?

27

Has Anyone Told us What We Are Like?

34

My Story

39

More About the Bible

43

What Does the Bible Teach us about ourselves? Is Sin Old-Fashioned?

49

What is Love Anyway?

59

The Answer

62

At Last. The Good News

69

How Will Your Life Change?

76

What about Hell and the Devil?

82

What about Suffering?

86

What about Miracles?

89

What if I am not told?

94

Conclusion: How do I become a Christian?

100

Postscript: A Note on Faith

103

Appendix

105

Select Bibliography

106

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Introduction No one’s life is free of stress. It’s how we cope with it that matters. We say that we have lots of reasons to be stressed and worried these days. What about our parents, grandparents and all before them? They would have had many reasons to be stressed, but life did not end. We are here as a result of their managing to make it through life. Their lives could easily be said to have been much more stressful than ours, but in different ways. We sometimes speak and complain about it as if stress was only a twenty first century problem. I would imagine that those who went through the two World Wars and the worldwide economic depression in the twentieth century would gladly have replaced them with our worries about high mortgages, credit cards, commuting, and plastic surgery. Yes, we can be stressed. But we can also be happy. It depends on our approach to life. If you were asked to make a list of things that give you stress, I’m sure you could just as easily make a longer list of the beautiful things in life if you really thought about it. What are we faced with today? Perhaps your worry or stress results from one (or maybe all) of the following: Personal: • Broken relationships and divorces. • Lack of love and attention. • Depression • Low self esteem • Dysfunctional families. • Absentee fathers (or mothers) • Loneliness • Money problems. • Redundancy • Stressful job. • Selfishness • Arguments. • Teenage pregnancy. • Child abuse. • Domestic violence. • Drug abuse. • Alcohol abuse. • Alienation from society. • Obesity.

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• •

Illness. Bereavement.

Society: • Violence and crime • High cost of living • Commuting to work • Traffic congestion • Poor public transport • A struggling National Health Service. • Failing schools • Property prices • Unruly teenagers • Violence • Vandalism • Paedophiles • Binge drinking • Road Rage • Bureaucracy (‘red tape’) • Lack of respect for authority • Poor service and high prices. • Bad neighbours • The sheer pace of life. Worldwide: • Terrorism • Inequality • Global Warming • Wars • Nuclear Weapons • Natural disasters • Famines and starvation • Diseases. • Loss of the rain forests • Extinction of rare animals, birds and plants. That’s quite a list. Increasingly, many people are finding the strain harder to bear. You may be like this. You cannot see the good things in life, because they are hidden by the bad. If so, this book is for you. It is for those who are seeking an answer to life’s problems and stresses.

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You may have tried one of the many ‘self help’ methodologies that are available. Sometimes, these are like a scratch to an itch. The itch goes away for a while, but has a tendency to come back, even stronger. Being a Christian is more than this. It is truly for life. If it ever appears to fade, it is always there for you to return to. God is always there for you, welcoming you back, because you, with all of your problems and imperfections, are special in God’s eyes. Christianity can be your answer. This book is not intended for those who start with many objections, disbeliefs and criticisms of Christianity and the Bible. These can easily become excuses for ignoring or avoiding the subject. There are a multitude of these objections. If you start with these, then the path to peace and joy in life is not impossible to find, but might well be longer and far more tortuous. If you are one of those people with many objections to, and criticisms of Christianity, I would like to direct you to my book, ‘No Delusion: A Challenge to an Atheist’. If you needed a reminder of the problems caused by human nature, then I could recommend my book ‘Mad World’. Both are published on Lulu.com. This book hopes to set out exactly ‘what it says on the tin’. It contains pure Christianity, without the trappings of Church organisations and rituals. It is about a way of life. My dearest wish is that you would find in it the answer to your own problems, and that you would find the true peace and joy that Jesus can bring you.

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Peace of Mind

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other. Mother Teresa

‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. ……… Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid’. Jesus speaking, in the Bible, John Chapter 14, verse 27

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•

• • • • • •

‘Who needs the church nowadays? It’s old fashioned, irrelevant, dull and boring, full of small minded old fuddy-duddies, quaint eccentrics, crazy fanatics, do-gooders who think they are better than us, hypocrites and fools. It interferes where it is not wanted, and when it is wanted for ‘hatches, matches and dispatches’, it has the cheek to complain that people don’t believe in what they are doing! Surely people can’t believe that sort of thing nowadays, can they? Anyway, if God loves us so much, why do we suffer? Let them go on believing whatever they want, as long as they don’t try to force it on us when we don’t want to know. OK, there might be a God, and there might be an after-life, but nobody can say for sure, can they? Why is the world like it is? What does it all matter anyway?

I would imagine that somewhere in the above is a statement or question that many people have made or asked at one time or another. More often than not, they follow these thoughts by forgetting about it all and getting on with their lives. Sometimes, though, the thoughts keep coming back, don’t they? Come on. Admit it. This is because as humans, we seem to have an inbuilt need to look for something to explain why we are here. We seek something to explain life. Some rely on science and unproven theories. Some turn to philosophy and religious faith. What are you looking for in life, and how are you looking for it? Have you truly got peace of mind? How can science can give anyone peace of mind? Science attempts to answer the question ‘How?’ but cannot answer the question ‘Why?’ It is science that has given us the capability of destroying the world. I know that there are literally hundreds of objections, criticisms, misunderstandings and complaints voiced in opposition to belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and against the Christians that represent him (imperfectly) on this earth. These are not new. They have been there from the beginning. Think about it. Something that has encountered so much opposition from so many people over the centuries must surely have something going for it to have survived to this day. Yes, it has. Jesus can give you the peace and joy that you seek amidst the turmoil of life. **

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Do you want a better, more peaceful life? Life certainly throws a lot at us. Some of us are better at coping than others. The stress of modern life can become very hard to bear, so we look to just enjoy ourselves while we can. We take every day as it comes. We ‘go with the flow’. We don’t worry about the things we can’t change. We say we are happy, but there is still something missing, somewhere. Is this all that there is? Is it always the best of philosophies, to look to simply maximise pleasure? Doesn’t this play into the hands of the wealthy minority, making their billions from wants they have created for us? Does it all satisfy us? Why, then, do we always seem to want more? For all our relative affluence, are we, deep down, full of joy and peace? No, but it is what we long for. We are always looking for that elusive ‘something’. We are told that the pursuit of pleasure is the way of finding happiness. Hedonism is a way of life. It’s the pursuit of pleasure for pleasure’s sake. This is nothing new. The writer of Ecclesiastes, in the Bible, said ‘There is nothing new under the sun’ Ancient Greek philosophers defined ‘the good’ as the maximum happiness, and anything that increased happiness was considered ‘good’. Sounds OK? Sounds like a good way to be? It’s natural that it sounds good, because it’s how we are conditioned to think nowadays. How often do you hear the following? •

‘Enjoy yourselves, that’s the main thing’

•

‘Life’s too short to be miserable. Have a good time!’ 8

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•

‘It doesn’t matter what you do as long as you don’t hurt anyone else.’

•

‘Live for today. Let tomorrow take care of itself. That’s my philosophy!’

•

‘Live for the moment’

And, of course, there is nothing wrong with pleasure. I am not wanting, by any means, to be a killjoy, believe me. I enjoy pleasurable things as much as anyone. But we should not confuse the pursuit of pleasure for pleasure’s sake with true satisfaction and peace of mind. Pleasure should be the means of travel, not the destination. Pleasure is found in the oases along life’s way. Our society does not have to concern itself with the basic needs of life. We don’t have to wonder where our water is going to come from. Food, shelter, warmth, and physical security are all taken for granted We can concentrate on what we believe to be the ‘finer’ things in life. The problem is that we seem to have lost our way when we try to say what these finer things are. ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs’ attempts to show that human beings are motivated by unsatisfied needs, and as each level is satisfied, we move on to the next.. • • • • •

First come the physiological needs: air, water, food and sleep. Next are the safety needs: shelter, safe environment, job and finance. Then comes the Social needs: friendship, love, and group membership Next is Esteem: self respect, achievement, attention, reputation and recognition. Finally is ‘Self-Actualisation’. This is the search for truth, justice, wisdom and meaning in life.

We are a supposedly advanced society, but we have not even moved completely beyond the second on the list. We have homeless people, job insecurity, and financial insecurity for many people. We are also beginning to feel physically insecure, our lives at threat from terrorism. All of these cause the breakdown or lack of development of essential social needs, and lack of esteem. The reason we don’t progress is that our ‘consumer society’ leaves us never satisfied with the basic needs. We create more and more ‘needs’ for goods that are not essential. They are intended to make up for our failure to fulfil needs that are higher up the scale. ‘Comfort shopping’ is a good example of this.

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We spend all our time and resources trying to get hold of these things. But they never satisfy us. Little wonder that we have no time to progress properly up the scale. Little wonder, too, that depressive illnesses are on the increase. How on earth, under the circumstances, could we expect people to even think about the final needs on the list, and look for some sort of meaning in life? Why are we surprised that drug taking is on the increase? Drugs (including alcohol) can make us temporarily forget our troubles, and fool us into thinking that our higher needs are being fulfilled. ** What is the peace that we are seeking? The Hebrew word ‘Shalom’ means the kind of deep down peace we are looking for. As a greeting, it is wishing you this inner peace. It is not just a freedom from conflict or war, but a deep inner peace, joy and satisfaction with life. How many of us really have this?

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Stressed out

Stress is not what happens to us. It's our response to what happens. And response is something we can choose. Maureen Killoran

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If you think about it, much of the stress we get is as a result of working hard to maximise our leisure and pleasure. What do we then say that leisure and pleasure is good for? We say it relieves our stress. A bit of a waste of time and energy, don’t you think? There are many simple pleasures in life that cannot be bought. What about love, or the smile of a child, or a beautiful sunset? These things are often taken for granted. Unfortunately, pleasure, as we define it, more often than not involves money. Money, for most of us, is not easy to come by. It involves money because ownership of wealth is recognised as a principal measure of success. We are conditioned to think that success and wealth equate to happiness and pleasure. This is all very convenient for those that are at the top of the wealth creation pyramid. It guarantees that they stay there, making lots of money from our greed for more. Much of the rest of the stress we get is caused by interaction with other people. Just think, then, if you were the only person in the world and had everything you ever wanted, then surely you would be blissfully happy. You might think so at first. I don’t think so. Do you? Do you really? It seems that we can’t live in total harmony with other people, and yet we can’t live without them. Don’t you ever ask the following questions? •

Why are people like they are sometimes?

•

Why is life like it is?

•

Why is the world like it is?

•

Do you think it can change?

I apologise if I’m starting to sound like a Jehovah’s Witness with a foot in your doorway. I’m not a Jehovah’s Witness. I’m not a Mormon, either. I like my coffee and tea too much. I’m also not a peddler of some kind of New Age cure-all self-help plans or meditation techniques. Follow these sort of techniques, and you might be calm and coping, but what about everybody else?

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As I said in the introduction to this book, self improvement plans and meditative techniques are like a scratch to an itch. They are very useful and successful at hiding the symptoms from you, and making you feel more comfortable. But the basic problem remains unacknowledged and untreated, and, like an itch, has a habit of resurfacing. You are still a human being, saddled with that unfortunate baggage that is your human nature.

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So What?

Question: What’s the difference between ignorance and apathy? Answer: I don’t know, and I don’t care.

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So, what am I going to say? I can just hear you. You are saying that you have had enough of people trying to push their beliefs onto you. If you really wanted to find out about Christianity, you would go to a library or a church. But who does this? Who bothers asking or reading about it? It’s a boring subject. Not exciting at all, is it? And yet, it’s surprising what subjects people will read, if the approach used is one that attracts their attention. This usually means that it has to be ‘sensationalised’. The popular press serialises sensationalism. In the nineteen-sixties there were Eric von Daniken’s theories of God as a spaceman, and Desmond Morris’s ‘The Naked Ape’. Both served, along with Bishop Robinson’s ‘Honest to God’ and many others, to confirm, for much of the public, the collapse of religious belief and the victory of science and evolution over religion. It was all the culmination of a century of criticism of religion, and helped to finally succeed in convincing the public that religion was false and dying. The theories were lapped up, because they released us from interference in our lives by something outside us. Someone was telling us what we wanted to hear. Recent books denouncing religion or criticising Christianity have sold by the million, regularly appearing on best-seller listings (for example, ‘The God Delusion’ by Richard Dawkins, and ‘The Da Vinci Code’ by Dan Brown). With these there is no longer a God to be answered to. They are easy to believe. Any efforts at the logical defence of religion are virtually ignored. They are boring. When do you see Christian books on the best-seller listings? It’s no surprise that the moral decline we have witnessed in our society stems from the 1960s decline of popular religion. The trend was started well before this. Nietsche, a nineteenth century philosopher, declared the death of God. I once saw some graffiti on a toilet wall. It said: ‘God is dead: Nietsche’ Underneath, someone had written: ‘Nietsche died in 1900. Who has the last laugh now? Below that it was signed ‘God’.

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** If the life of Christ was serialised in a newspaper or on film, oh what a bore it could be. We wouldn’t want to know. The press or the producers would have to graphically portray the horror of the crucifixion to grab attention, and each further portrayal would need to be more shocking than the last. Give us enough sensation or horror, and we might think about it. It’s the same with world news. We need sensationalism; we need shocks, before we are prodded into action. It was sensational press and TV coverage of the 1980s famine in Ethiopia that led to ‘Band Aid’, but as the years go by we are less and less shocked by similar tragedies. Do the media give us enough coverage of the real reasons for the state of today’s world? Do they tell us what really causes poverty, the death of the rainforests, mass extinctions of species and global warming? If not, why not? Strange, isn’t it? Why no widespread condemnation of the causes? It was easier to say things like ‘How can there be a God, if He let’s this happen? Many of us think that we just don’t have the time or the inclination to think about these things. It’s too depressing, too intense, and, anyway, what can we do about it all? Why not just get on with life and enjoy it? We can’t change human nature, can we? Life is too short to worry about things you can’t control, isn’t it? We’d rather talk about the weather or the latest celebrity gossip. What your favourite celebrity is doing in their private life is much more interesting, isn’t it? We are like Nero. We fiddle whilst Rome burns. The more thoughtful of us do like to know what makes us like we are, and why the world is like it is. Everyone is capable of this thought process. Anyone with children, or who is planning children, owes it to them, at least, to understand what sort of world they are being introduced into. It would be irresponsible and selfish not to. If we are thoughtful and care about these things, we start to look at ourselves too.

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‘Charity begins at home’, as people often say. Take care of your own. The problem with this concept is that it does not guarantee that you are a good person. I’m sure that even Adolf Hitler took care of his own family! The problem we have is that most people are blissfully unaware of the reality of the situation. They don’t know how bad things are, or simply just don’t want to know. There might be an item of news about global warming one day, and another about famine and poverty on the next, then another about the oil crisis, then another about Iraq. Each story evokes a reaction, and then we forget it and get on with more ‘interesting’ things. We might vaguely link them together, but we never seem to think of the ‘big picture’ We are diverted away from the real issues, and captivated by matters that tickle our fancy, and are either of no importance, or purely of personal importance. We are subject to a constant barrage of trivia, a sort of mental junk food. We are conditioned to think that this trivia is important to us, so we don’t recognise or take notice of the truly important matters. What does it matter if the England football manager is having relationship problems? What does it really matter whether we holiday in Spain or Greece or Thailand this year, or if our next car has a sun roof or not? We don’t care about the state of the world unless we are directly affected. We leave the big issues to the politicians. Knowing what we do about the apparent incapability of politicians to apply even the most basic of common sense, we are not just foolish, we are stupid. We say things like ‘Well, standards of living can fall for someone else, but not me. Not if I can help it. Why should I lose out when there are so many people a lot better off than me? Take it from them!’ Did you know that if you earn, say £25,000 per year, probably an average income for this country, you are in the top 2% richest people in the world? There are between five and six billion people poorer than you. Is there a good reason we don’t think about the overall situation? Do we just hope it will go away? Can’t we be bothered? Is it that we are never encouraged to think, because somebody, somewhere, wants to keep us in ignorance? ** Yes, it would be nice if things could change. That is, as long as it doesn’t affect us too much. Fine, if it does not change our lives, or challenge us. And therein sits the problem.

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Most approaches to the problems of the world highlight the symptoms and the visible manifestations. The usual solutions are like drugs or therapy to treat symptoms and ease the situation, but never get to the root cause of the disease. The patient still dies prematurely: it’s just that their last days are made more tolerable.

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Way Down Inside

The man who does not like self examination may be pretty certain that things need examining. C.H.Spurgeon

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Try to get deep down inside you, to the real reason why human nature is like it is. You, I think I can safely assume, are a human being, so this means your human nature too. You are not perfect. As we are often told, nobody is. What do you really need? What can make you realize that you are very much less than perfect? What can reassure you that this is only to be expected, because it is part of your makeup as a human being? What can make you truly satisfied with what you have, stop you striving for more, and release you from slavery to your selfish wants? What can give you a better, less stressful, more peaceful and joyful life? What can give you the power to totally change your outlook, and also the potential to help to change the world for the better? You can find it if you want. At the same time, you might help to show others that there is a better way, and, bit by bit, the world might be changed. Or, maybe not, you say. Maybe it doesn’t work that way It’s not that easy. But if it does, and it is, then this change must start with you! Look at yourself. What is wrong with us? There has to be something wrong. Why are human beings capable of the heights of love, understanding and compassion, and also the depths of cold, uncaring selfishness? Is it really just a stage of evolution that we have arrived at, a sort of mixture of sharing instincts and greed instincts, pulling against each other, with the greed winning because it is stronger? I don’t know about you, but I would despair if that’s all we are. Evolutionary theory implies that the greed will always win through because it is stronger. What a horrible prospect for the human race!

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There has to be more, because our minds tell us so. We reason and look for answers. Why would we be able to do this if there were none? We are different. Animals don’t do this. ‘What can we do about it all anyway?’ you ask. Nobody is perfect, no matter how good they think they are. A little bit of soul searching and self honesty will expose this to you for yourself, warts and all. What can we do about it? This is the standard question. I’m sure you’ve all heard it, if not asked it yourselves. Very, very difficult, isn’t it. On a daily basis, we contribute to the ills of the world just by buying the things we need to live. We don’t pay a fair price for many of them, and we don’t seem to care what we put poor people through to get them, as long as we have our cheap food, clothes and raw materials. It’s as simple as that. ‘It’s the Government’s responsibility to do something, not ours’, you say. Not a hope. There are too many vested interests. Anyway, who would vote for a party that said we needed to decrease our living standards by, say, 10 percent to help the rest of the world catch up, or to help to save the environment? No, we prefer to believe those who say global warming is not a reality, or that it is not us that cause it. We prefer to forget or ignore the history that tells us that our countries have become wealthy largely by exploiting other poorer countries, and that they are still suffering from that exploitation. And we prefer to believe those who say that organisations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund exist to help poorer countries, rather than enrich the richer countries. Someone else is doing it. Someone else is taking the responsibility. ‘There are plenty of charities, aren’t there? I gave a tenner to Band Aid, for God’s sake! What more do you want me to do? All the time, we convince ourselves that we are basically good people. ‘It’s not me that causes it, so how can I do anything about it? I don’t harm anybody. I keep myself to myself. You know, the ’Golden Rule’. ‘Do unto others as you would have them do to you’. I only treat people how I would expect them to treat me, and I think I’m pretty good, really’. The ‘Golden Rule’ was stipulated by Jesus as the ideal, but how many of us really, truly apply it to everything we do? Are we are simply saying that other people should

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follow our own personal ideas of morals and behaviour? Are we judging people by our own standards, something Jesus told us not to do? If you really think about it, to claim that you truly follow the ‘Golden Rule’ one hundred percent of the time, for everybody that would be influenced by your actions, is the biggest ‘buck passing’ exercise that there could ever be. It can lead directly to comfortable self righteousness. Why do we think this way? It’s because it is easier to believe what we want to believe. We are lied to by the people who want to keep things as they are, and we are lied to by ourselves. The lies make us comfortable. It’s not our fault, is it? Now and then our conscience is pricked by pictures of starving children. We might then give a little to a charity appeal, or buy a few ‘Fair Trade’ products, and we have ‘done our bit’. We can’t do anything else, after all, can we? So, what is wrong with us?

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The Diagnosis.

No man begins to be good till he sees himself to be bad. Thomas Brooks

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You could have been born anywhere. You could have been anything from a desperately poor African farmer to the privileged child of a multi-billionaire. Are you thankful that you were born in our country, and not, for example, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia or Niger? Who or what have you got to thank that you were born in an affluent country? Good fortune? Your parents? God? Compared to such poorer countries, we don’t have to be rich in our country to be rich in comparison with them. The poorest people in our country are richer by far than countless millions in poorer countries. So, what is ‘rich’? ‘It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God’. Does this mean it is impossible? It must, at least, be Jesus’ way of stressing that it is very, very difficult. If a rich man realises that he is rich at the expense of the poor, the right thing to do would be to relinquish his riches, to surrender them to God’s use. If not, where would be his sincere belief in a need to change his life? This is why it is so difficult. How many of us could do this easily? Jesus is trying to tell us what we are like. We would have great difficulty giving it all away. If you are rich you may well be very satisfied with life and yourself. Whatever you are, try to imagine for a moment that you had a different lifestyle. You might have built up your own business by hard work, good judgement and not a little good luck, and you are worth a fortune. You might have a God-given sporting skill, and earn millions, at the top of your game. You might be a talented musician who has been in the right place at the right time, and been rocketed to stardom. Come to think of it, you might have no musical talent at all, and find yourself in the same position. You might have been brought up in luxury, never wanting for anything. You holidayed on your parents’ yacht, flew around the world in a private jet, and received a very expensive education, grooming you to take over the reins of the family’s business concerns. How easy would it be for you to give it all away to charity and live more simply? Straight away, some of you may say ‘no chance’, and I would be justified in saying that I ‘rest my case’. Some of you might be more conscientious and consider it a possibility. If so, I would ask you to please be honest with yourself.

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If you had doubts about giving away your riches, how easy would it be for you to justify them to yourself by saying that you held a responsible position as a ‘captain of industry’, giving lots of people employment, and helping to contribute to the growth of the economy? Or that you were entertaining people, giving pleasure to millions? This is the same principle that gave rise to the ‘White Man’s Burden’. We were ‘civilising’ our Empire, so we deserved our riches. After all, you work very hard, don’t you, so you too deserve your riches. Don’t you? Be honest. Wouldn’t it be easy for you to convince yourself that your wealth was justified? To put it another way, you might be realising that big business does have a lot to answer for. Yes, sport may be more of a business than a pleasure. Yes, the music companies might be exploiting you. But if you were a major shareholder or the chairman or owner of a big business, if you were a ‘fat cat’ or a famous celebrity, would you want to give up your lifestyle? And I don’t mean because of disillusionment or stresses and pressures. That would be for your needs too. I mean because you see that you are privileged when much of the world is starving. Would you really give it all up? Does this not make you the same as they are? A desperately poor farmer in Africa will certainly work very hard. They may have to walk miles for water each day. With that in mind, can you truly say that you deserve the disproportionate rewards of your particular kind of ‘hard work’? But you would, wouldn’t you? You are ‘creating employment’ and ‘creating wealth’, or ‘entertaining people’, aren’t you? We can see these justifications of inequality every day within our own society. Unemployed people are always lazy, never just unfortunate. Successful people have always worked harder than them. Your lifestyle is justified, and so is their relative poverty. Easy, isn’t it, to convince yourself? It’s never that you happened to be fortunate sometimes, that you were in the ‘right place at the right time’. It’s always that you worked hard, so you deserve it. It’s never that the poor have been unfortunate, have been in the ‘wrong place at the wrong time’, or are poor because of your exploitation of them. They could all be like you if they ‘got their finger out’ or ‘got on their bikes’. Could you really, really believe that this applies to every case? But for all practical purposes, there is a social stigma attached to unemployment. This very often makes the initial assumption that an unemployed person is lazy. There is, of course, another side to this. Some poorer people convince themselves that they are always the victims. There are those that blame everything on society, taking no responsibility for themselves, and expecting that the state owes them a living.

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These are the ones that give the rich their excuses. They abuse the system, causing genuine cases to suffer. There are a lot of them. Sometimes those who fight for the rights of the poor can present people with ammunition for the excuse to be indolent. I appreciate that a lot of my statements could be used as excuses by those of the poor that are simply lazy. There are two attitudes: • Un-caring rich people saying the poor are just lazy and have not worked as hard as they have. • Unscrupulous and indolent poor people saying that it is not their fault, and using this as an excuse for being lazy. The point to make is that both of these attitudes are the symptoms of the same disease. In some ways, both attitudes have the expectation of almost a God-given right to a certain standard of living. Both attitudes express the characteristics of our human nature. •

Our Greed

•

Our Selfishness

•

Our Thoughtlessness.

•

Our lack of care for others

•

Our lack of love

This is the diagnosis. It’s the only diagnosis there can be. We suffer from the sickness of human nature. Every one of us. Why else would a world economy that is based on greed and selfishness succeed, when an economic system based on equality (Socialism) is failing miserably?

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So, what about you?

An unexamined life is not worth living. Socrates

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Do you think that you are a ‘good’ person? What, then, is your standard for ‘good’? Have you never done any of the following? • • • • • • • • • • • • •

lied for selfish reasons lost your temper unnecessarily for selfish reasons stolen from an employer (time, pencils, paper etc.) been jealous of someone else cursed or criticised someone else put yourself first thoughtlessly disregarded someone else’s feelings wished punishment on someone else taken someone for granted Sworn or blasphemed had lustful thoughts about someone else when you are in a relationship been lazy, not doing what you should when you should do it. been tired or unwell, and taken it out on those closest to you?

If you say you have not done any of these things, I believe that you are already committing the first of them. You are a liar. Or you are self deluded, or, worse, utterly self righteous. Many people say that they never break the Bible’s Ten Commandments. If they are aware of them at all, that is. When they say this, they are usually just thinking about murder, theft or adultery. The Ten Commandments are as follows (taken from the Bible, Exodus Chapter 20) 1. You shall have no other gods before me. 2. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them 3. You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God, for the LORD will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. 4. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 5. Honour your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you. 6. You shall not murder. 7. You shall not commit adultery. 8. You shall not steal.

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9. You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour. 10. You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour."

These commandments cover the following subjects: •

Acknowledgement that there is only one God.

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The forbidding of the creation and worship of images of God or gods.

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Blasphemy.

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The keeping of the Sabbath day.

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Respect for authority, starting with parental authority.

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Murder

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Adultery

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Stealing

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Telling lies or gossiping

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Envy.

The first four relate to God, although the Sabbath could be justified simply as a necessary and sensible ‘time out’. The next four relate to relationships between human beings and the basic behaviour required for a stable society. The last two cover misdemeanours that have a tendency to be the ‘thin end of the wedge’, and can lead to the contravention of the previous four. The Bible has a lot to say about the power of the tongue, and damage a few words can do. Stealing can start with envy. Adultery more than likely starts with lies and deceit, followed by the usual statement that it ‘just happened’. Be honest. How can such a thing ‘just happen’? It requires conscious thought and decision, and can be resisted.

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It ‘just happened’ that you got close enough together to kiss, did it? Would you have me believe that your clothes take themselves off, too? Two people might realize there is a mutual attraction between them. They can stop it from going beyond that. If they do cross the threshold between attraction and action, they are not being manipulated by something beyond their control. They are doing it consciously, because they want to. The Ten Commandments is quite a comprehensive list, really. Well, you’d expect nothing less if the instructions were coming from the creator of the universe. Can anyone truly say that they are free from any contravention of any of them? You might say that those relating to God are irrelevant or unimportant. You might say you respect authority, have not killed anybody, have not stolen anything and been very faithful to a life-long partner. But what about the last two? Then, when you consider that Jesus Christ claimed that adultery is committed just by thinking lustfully about another person, you will see that the issues are not so clear cut. You might think this is ridiculous, but there are people who say that if you are really in love, these thoughts should even not cross your mind. This is just another way of saying what Jesus said. Thinking about committing a sin is also the first step on the slippery slope towards actually doing it. It recognises that, deep-down inside you, there may be a possibility that you are capable of doing it, given sufficient provocation or pressure. If not, the thought would not be there. The capability is in you. I don’t want to be accused of stretching credibility too much, but loss of temper can also be considered as the first step towards violence and murder. A loss of self control is certainly less than perfection. Who on this earth can truthfully say that they have never had a hateful, greedy, lustful or ignorant thought? The difference between stealing some time from an employer and stealing a country to control its resources is only a matter of degree. You can also convince yourself that they are both justified. They are both stealing. The first is relatively harmless: the second involves the death of many innocent people. Who are you to say that you would not steal, or kill others, if it meant your survival in a desperate situation? You can steal time from an employer and justify it by saying that you deserve it.

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You could be the leader of a powerful country looking to invade a country to be able to control its oil resources, and justify it by using the deposition of an evil dictatorship as the reason. You might even convince yourself too. If you say OK, you are not perfect, but you are better than some, then who are you to judge them? If you say that nobody is perfect, do you realise that you are merely stating God’s definition of human nature? Does anyone deny that they could, given the right (or wrong) circumstances and enough pressure, be selfish, greedy or thoughtless? What if you were starving? Would you share your last crumbs with a stranger, if it was a threat to your survival or the survival of your children? OK. If you are not any of these things, would you voluntarily live in poverty to prove it? There have been countless hermits, ascetics, and monastics throughout history that have lived in poverty, renouncing the world’s pleasures. Usually, this is not to prove how good they are, but simply because they believe that they should. Religious people are always being looked at as though they think they are better than others. People think that they are trying to demonstrate what good people they are. This misses the point. They should know they are not good people: otherwise they would not need their religion. Of course, one slip up and people say ‘There you are. Told you so. They’re worse than us, the hypocrites’. It’s like the complaint sometimes made by men about women, that you can get 99% right for them, but it is the 1% that you do wrong that they pick up on, because they considered it to be the most important. Christians should know that the 1% they get wrong could be the most important thing to get right, and in God’s eyes or in other people’s eyes, it could outweigh the other 99%. They therefore know that they are not good enough. They are not perfect. Any good works they do should be a demonstration of God’s goodness, not the Christian’s. If they believe that they are good people and that by their own efforts they can earn ‘Brownie Points’ with their God, this is not true religion, just egotistical self delusion. Unfortunately, I’m sure that some ‘religious’ people are like this. If they were trying to demonstrate how good they were, we would no doubt call them ‘self righteous do-gooders’, and say that they think they are better than us.

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In any case, using people like that as an example wouldn’t hide the deficiencies that you have yourself: neither should it condemn all religious people as hypocrites. Any Christian would be convicted of ‘breaking their own rules’ if the right area is chosen with which to criticise them. They can then be written off as hypocrites, but this is to miss the point. They should actually be convicting themselves of the same failings, if they really search their hearts, and then should be striving to correct the situation. It is easy to criticise, then remain safe in a belief that there is no absolute morality with which to criticise yourself. You would simply be reacting to your own standards of morality; however you wish to make them. Certainly, as a Christian, all aspects of your life should be transformed for the better. But you are still a human being, you are not perfect, and can make mistakes. A sincere Christian was once asked if there was such a thing as a perfect church. They replied by saying that ‘If there is, don’t send me to it. I would spoil it’. *** Can anyone give me a different description of human nature? Can anyone really prove to me that I am wrong, and that humans are inherently good, not bad? If we were all inherently good, but just misguided, I would be happier. We all would. There would really be the hope and the chance that we could change the world. ** The lack of diversity in our gene pool suggests almost conclusively that the billions of humans alive today are all the product of very few ancestors, as the Bible tells us. In short, we are all related, however distantly, and whatever the colour of our skin. We are truly the ‘Family of Humankind’. Why, then, from time immemorial, have we fought, killed, enslaved and exploited one another? Some people give primitive societies as examples of the best in human nature, the ‘noble savage’. They say it is civilisation that has corrupted us. They talk of the Native Americans as an example. They shared everything. They did not steal from one another. They did not kill indiscriminately or unnecessarily. They respected the environment. But this respect was not their natural state. It was learned over a long period of time as a way of ensuring survival. Native Americans had to learn to conserve the buffalo herds. They could well afford to share when there was more than enough to go around. Until the ‘white man’ arrived, there was. However, they did steal, from other tribes when they needed to. If they were short of livestock they stole it. No matter how much this was accepted as a way of life, it would have caused other tribes hardships. They did sometimes kill if they had to, in wars with other tribes. However much it was dressed up as noble death in battle, there would have been sadness and mourning.

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The coming of the white man turned their world upside down. They may have been ‘noble savages’, but after the coming of the white man, many betrayed their people for the offer of material comforts. Many resorted to desperate measures to defend themselves, and atrocities were committed by natives too. They too were human, after all. We should have one great thing to learn from the Native Americans. This is a respect for nature and our environment. In their early history, they learned to conserve the resources that gave them their life, for example, not to kill too many buffalo. We still have not learned this lesson. ** Have you ever seen a family that has had no disagreements, selfish quarrels and thoughtless actions? Why? Don’t we love our families? But ‘Familiarity breeds contempt’, and ‘You always hurt the one you love’. Why? ** I just can’t escape from the truth. It is in us. We are simply, and very unfortunately, corrupted by our human nature. Every single one of us. If I look deeply enough into myself, I know that it is true. So will you. Be honest. Can you truly say that there is nothing in these pages you have read that you can relate to? Are you really perfect?

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Has anyone told us what we are like?

Worst of all my foes, I fear the enemy within. John Wesley (founder of Methodism)

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Is this diagnosis of the problem of human nature new? Have we suddenly realised that humans are, well, human? Is this conclusion the gradual result of thousands of years of philosophical speculation and scientific discovery? No. Would it surprise you to know that the problem of human nature was explained thoroughly and honestly, once and for all, nearly two thousand years ago? ‘But they were simple, superstitious people then’, you will say. They would believe anything. That is just not so, and is part of the lie that modern science has all the answers. Intelligence and wisdom has not suddenly improved simply because of scientific progress. If it has, how come we are destroying the world? The thinkers of those days confronted exactly the same human problems as we have, and responded with philosophies that stand as examples to us to this day. Sadly, there is so much widespread ignorance of this. We are indoctrinated with the belief that science will solve everything. Modern science is only a few hundred years old, but it follows that anything before then was just superstitious nonsense believed by gullible people. That is absolute rubbish. In one ignorant assumption, it confines to oblivion many of the greatest thinkers the world has ever known. It would completely disregard the Buddha, Confucius, Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Augustine, Aquinas, Maimonides, Descartes, Hobbes, Pascal, Locke and countless others, not to mention Jesus Christ. It would make their thoughts and ideas irrelevant. It is the people holding this view that are un-intelligent and gullible. Where was this definition of human nature that I am talking about? It was in the writings that contributed to the Bible. These also include a warning to be careful when considering human attempts at explaining the world. “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the traditions of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.” Colossians 2: 8 I mention the Bible, and I sense a brick wall. Let’s spend some time talking about the Bible. 35

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Why do you instantly put up a barrier when the Bible is mentioned? Have you ever wondered why you react like you do? Far fewer households in the UK now own Bibles than was the case fifty years ago. In 1954 90 per cent of all adults owned a Bible, a figure now reduced to 65 per cent. Including households with children the decline is from 98 per cent to 62 per cent. (ICM Research, quoted on BBC News Web site, November 2004) I am slightly surprised that it is still so high. Perhaps the survey should have asked how many people read and understand the copy they have got. Why is there so much hostility towards the Bible? What other book in modern times has been subject to such scrutiny and attack? Whole libraries could be filled with the literature aimed at discrediting the Bible. Do the critics really want to prevent gullible people from believing a lie, or are they striving desperately to justify their own unbelief? Either way, nothing they have said has succeeded in providing irrefutable proof that the Bible is nothing less than what it is claimed to be by believers. Any contradictions and apparent inaccuracies that have been quoted repeatedly by critics over the last two hundred years can all be shown to be non-critical to the main beliefs. If the Bible had been edited or invented by the Church, as is claimed by critics, they would surely not have left in any contradictions at all. No, they had more sense, and accepted that different accounts of the same event by different people should be expected to have minor, inconsequential differences. John Chrysostom (AD 374-407) regarded discrepancies in the Bible as really valuable as proofs of independence on the part of the sacred writers. I believe that the weight of documentary and archaeological evidence is in favour of the truth of the New Testament’s version of events. I am not alone. Others have found that when they investigate, they can change their opinion. JB Phillips, when translating the Bible into modern language, found that he believed it to have the ‘Ring of Truth’, hence his book by that name. Lew Wallace, the author of Ben Hur, was sceptical but then believed after considering the evidence in his research for the book. The archaeologist and historian Sir William Ramsey was originally sceptical of the historical truth of the New Testament. He looked at the book of Acts. This was written by a physician, Luke, who also wrote the Gospel named after him. Ramsey excavated hundreds of sites in Asia Minor and discovered that Luke was accurate in naming 32 countries, 54 cities, and 9 islands without a single error. Ramsey later became a Christian, and said "I began with a mind unfavourable to it … but more recently I found myself brought into contact with the Book of Acts as an authority for the topography, antiquities, and society of Asia Minor. It was gradually borne upon me that in various details the narrative showed marvellous truth “ And still the critics look to disprove it all.

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They seem desperate to find the crucial discrepancy that would prove their point. They have never succeeded. Most people have no idea that the Bible might be a book to be believed in. They just seem to assume that it is a concoction of fairy tales and lies, because this is what the critics have told them. Yet they don’t bother finding out the truth. Are you about to call me a ‘Bible-Basher? Would I be a ‘Quran-Basher’ if I was a Moslem quoting the Quran? Anyway, isn’t the Bible just a book like any other? Yes, it is great literature, Yes, it is an amazing collection of ancient books and manuscripts. No, it’s not just all ‘thees and ‘thous’ and ‘begats’. There are many versions available in good contemporary language. Why do people say that the King James Version of the Bible (written in the early seventeenth century) should not be replaced? Do they believe that God speaks in seventeenth century English? What did you say? You started to read the Bible once, got half way through Genesis, and got bored? Well, it’s not a Catherine Cookson novel. Think of it more as a reference book. Would you read the Encyclopaedia Britannica from the beginning to the end? You would get half way through ‘A’ and be bored. What does it refer to, then? Does it tell us anything about ourselves? It certainly does. It tells us the truth about human nature. That’s why you shy away from it. You don’t want to be told what you are like. When it says ‘All have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory’ (Romans Chapter 3 verse 23) That includes you. ‘All’ means everybody. But you don’t want to be told that you are included. The cheek of it!

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The Bible is God’s communication to us, sent via the human writers. It is a God’s Word to us. The Greeks had a word for it, ‘Logos’. This means the Word, or the Eternal Wisdom. It is the Wisdom of God. ‘The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us’ (John Chapter 1 verse 14) This says that Jesus is also the Word, and the Eternal Wisdom of God. The Bible is about Jesus, from beginning to end. It enshrines the life of Jesus as the central, pivotal time in the whole of the world’s history. The Old Testament points the way to Jesus, and the New Testament shows the way forward from the events of His life. It is without doubt the most amazing book the world has known, but who bothers to read and understand it any more? JB Phillips in ‘Ring of Truth’ said ‘...it is not as though the evidence had been examined and found unconvincing; it had simply never been examined.’

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My Story

To be aware that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge Anonymous

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When I was about thirty years old, I found myself wondering what sort of world I was bringing children into. I had started to ask myself questions for which I did not know the answer. I read profusely, trying to discover reasons why. How could we see so much hatred where there should be so much love? After all, the Age of Aquarius was coming, wasn’t it? ‘All you need is love’, isn’t it? I read philosophy, sociology, economics, politics, history, religion, in fact anything I could get my hands on that might explain it to me. I had rejected all religions as the vain creations of man. I was not a strict atheist at that time, but agreed with many of the arguments made by professing atheists. I probably believed in a God, but had not formed any real concept of what or who God was. Do you see this in yourself? Looking back, this was an incredibly short sighted attitude. God was there if I needed Him (or Her, or It). It was a sort of cosmic insurance policy, a kind of ‘God on tap’. If I knew I was going to die I would probably pray. Meantime, there was no need to think about God at all. I just got on with my vain, ambitious, self seeking life. How could there be a God when there is so much suffering? I was probably really hopelessly agnostic (another way of saying that I was totally mixed up, or just hadn’t tried to form a real conclusion). But now I had started looking. I was reasoning. My mind was being opened. Who or what is God? Is He (or it) a force or a person, or part of all of us? People didn’t think there was an old man with a long white beard, somewhere up above the clouds, did they? I then realised that this was one excuse people employed to be able to safely ignore God. Some people really thought that this was the average Christian’s idea of God. The image of the old man with a beard was an early representation of God that fitted well with the pre-Christian image of a supreme god, Jupiter or Zeus. Unfortunately, it seems to have stuck. There is no wonder that Christians are sometimes looked at as though they have just escaped from the local mental hospital. My agnosticism (by this I mean that I was not sure whether God existed) had accommodated the acceptance of the ‘Christening’ of my first three children. In the church we used, it was a sort of assembly line ceremony. It seemed to be carried out either for tradition, for show, for ‘cosmic insurance’, or probably a combination of all three. Now it was the turn of my fourth child. Near us lived a friend of the family who was the pastor of a local independent church. I asked him if he would ‘Christen’ my son. He replied that his church only baptised the children of believers. It was a bit of a shock, after having been used to the production line methods of the Anglican church we had used. (Yes, I know that not all Anglican churches are like this).

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It was even more of a shock when he explained that they did not believe in baptism for infants anyway. Their ceremony was simply a sort of initiation, an introduction to the church and a confession of faith on the part of the parents or parent. I suppose it made sense. How could a baby decide for themselves, and unless the baptism conferred some sort of magical protection or commitment for the baby, then it was, after all, a bit pointless. So, to avoid appearing to be totally un-interested, I decided to see what else they had to say. I looked in the Bible. I suddenly realised that it was strange that I had tried to study Christianity without going to the Bible. How stupid could I be? I had looked at the Quran (or Koran), and scriptures from other religions. Why had I neglected the Bible? Had it been kept from me? Then an amazing thing happened. I opened the Bible at a book called ‘Ecclesiastes’. It said ‘Meaningless! Meaningless! says the Teacher. Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless’ and ‘What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun’. When the writer said meaningless, he (it is said to have been King Solomon) was referring to a world without God. All man made philosophies and riches were meaningless without God as a reference point. He said that there is nothing new. Mankind has always been like this. This hit me like a bolt from the sky. It was as near to a ‘seeing the light’ experience as you can get. Here was something written between to and three thousand years ago, just saying it all in a couple of lines. I am not saying that I expect you to get the same from this passage. It just happened to be my ‘Damascus Road experience’, my way in. (The great first century evangelist Paul received his revelation of Christ on the road to Damascus). Yours will be completely different. This part of the Bible made sense to me, so what of the rest of it, I asked myself I looked further, and saw that the people in the Bible had the same problems as us. They had the same arguments over how best to govern society, they had wars for survival, jealousies, envy, greed, exploitation of the poor by the rich, divorces, family problems, cruelty, and arguments and violence over religion Some people write off the Bible, saying that if it is from God, it would not include such terrible things. Why not? It simply ‘tells it like it is’. Human beings don’t change. Amidst all of this imperfection, God was in action, delivering His people, preserving them, despite their faults. Here was a story of weak,

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selfish human nature. There was unbelief and lack of faith, and yet God was there to forgive if they turned to Him. I saw that this was the same message in the Old and New Testaments. The God of the Old and New was the same God with the same message. Remarkable! Don’t listen to the arguments that it was a different God. ‘The Old Testament God was vengeful. An eye for and eye, and all that. The NewTestament God was forgiving.’ An eye for an eye teaches us the basic lesson that justice is required. We all want to see justice. The God of the Old Testament was still a forgiving God. If not, the nation of Israel would have been wiped off the face of the earth well before the time of Jesus, let alone surviving to this day. The Old Testament from beginning to end is a story of our unworthiness before God. His special people, with so many advantages and divine deliverances, could not keep God’s Law. It is a tale of human failure and attempts to come to atonement with God, but never succeeding, and always pointing the way to the Messiah as the answer, through God’s Grace and mercy. For this reason, the Bible should be interpreted by this constant theme. The New Testament God also requires justice for humanity’s sins. The important question it answers is who it is that takes the punishment and pays the price that justice requires. Old Testament instructions for the sacrifice of a lamb without blemish, as a payment for sins, were given to help us understand what was to come. It taught us the vicarious suffering of an innocent, dying for us. (This was not cruelty. The lambs were eaten. Most of us eat animals, including lambs). Why emphasise their innocence, and its sacrifice in expiation of our sins? Without what followed, it could simply be blind cruelty and the exploitation of innocents to ease our consciences, as it is said to be by uncomprehending critics. But it is no longer needed. Think. Who is referred to as the ‘Lamb of God’? A major difference between Christianity and Islam is that Islam ignores the self giving aspect of God, as revealed in the New Testament. With Islam, the relationship of God and mankind is not a love relationship, but that of master and servant. Islam accepts the Old Testament as a holy book. But the Old Testament points the way to the New Testament, by way of countless prophecies, speaking of the coming of the ‘Messiah’. In the following prophecy, written hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus, He is called ‘Mighty God’. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah, Chapter 9, verse 6. The Messiah was to be God Himself.

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More about the Bible

The Bible is like a telescope. If a man looks through his telescope, then he sees the worlds beyond; but if he looks at his telescope, then he does not see anything but that. The Bible is a thing to be looked through, to see that which is beyond; but most people only look at it; and so they see only the dead letter. Phillip Brooks

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The Bible tells the truth in the sense that it is God’s truth about the world and human nature. It is in this way the Word of God to us, I have no doubt about that. As such, it should always be considered as a higher authority than human-made church traditions, hierarchies and rules. Sadly, in some churches this is not the case. Human interpretation of the Bible can always be flawed, from both the fundamentalist and liberal extremes, because our interpretation can be influenced by our personal wants and needs. I dislike extremes. I am always suspicious of them. We need leaders and teachers to guide us, but we should also be allowed to use our own rational judgement. All we need to know about human nature is set out clearly in the pages of the Bible. The Bible is a collection of 66 pieces of literature, by a variety of authors ranging from paupers to kings. It was written over a period of almost two thousand years. If the reality ever dawns on you that this ancient collection of historical records, poems, songs, prophecies and letters actually contains a completely consistent message about the state of human nature and the role of Jesus as saviour from it, your way of looking at the world just has to be turned upside down. It is unavoidable. You would then compare its analysis with the world you look at today, and could not help but come to the conclusion that it must be the truth1. As with any author striving to get across a message, it is the overall message that needs to be seen as consistent. Criticising words and sentences, means used to achieve ends, pre-scientific creation stories and more than one version of the same events can never disprove a consistent basic message, nor deny that it could come from God, no more than you could take any author’s work apart in this way. The words are the vehicle by which the delivery of the goods is made. They are not the goods themselves. Any supposed ‘inconsistencies’ can reasonably be harmonised and reconciled. What many people don’t realise is that the survival of the Bible in its present form, over the past fifteen hundred years or so, is an amazing story in itself. They just make glib statements that it was somehow concocted by a power-mad church as a way of controlling people. A major criterion used for the inclusion of a piece of literature in the ‘canon’ of Holy Scripture was whether it could be verified as authentic. This is why, over the years, some books have been added and taken out at various times and by various branches of the church. The doubtful books have been the ones that could most easily be either classed as unauthentic, or simply added to justify a particular belief. In modern versions of the Bible, footnotes mention where a reading did not appear in the earliest known manuscripts. None of these extra or alternative readings are critical, affect the basic message, or cannot be found elsewhere in its pages. There are other references elsewhere in the Bible to the truths of all of the verses that are in dispute. They used to be used as a way of discrediting the Bible. There were 1

If you want to see my analysis of today’s world, see my book ‘Mad World’, or my wider ranging book, ‘Look into a Mirror’ (from which much of this present book is taken). Both are available on Lulu.com.

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accusations of ‘dishonesty’, and ‘intellectual suicide.’ Now, because they are shown and seen not to be critical, they are an asset, demonstrating honesty. Honesty seems to really be the best policy. So, no one sat down and said, ‘Right. This is our view of human nature. Let’s find something that agrees with it’. No one said, ‘Right, let’s lay down some rules to keep these peasants in their place’. It might at times have been used in this way by worldly, unscrupulous church leaders, but so could anything that attempted to lay down a certain way to live. If church leaders ‘edited’ the Bible to suit their interests, they did not do a very good job. Why would they leave in passages that, if interpreted wrongly, lead to grave doubts and discrepancies? There are many of these, often quoted by sceptics. Critics say that the disciple John was not the author of the Gospel in his name. But if not, why would he refer to John the Baptist simply as ‘John’? Because people knew that he was not referring to himself, and did not need a distinction. If it was another writer, they would have to have made it clear that they were referring to the Baptist as opposed to the disciple. This is a little detail that makes it ‘ring true’ that John was the author. The doubters also invent possible alternative lives for Jesus, based on writings that were written much later, possibly to discredit the Christians. One of the alternative lives that had been proposed for Jesus is that he married Mary Magdalene and had children with her, the descendants of whom are with us somewhere today. It’s like making a statement that Mohammed was gay, based on documents we had found that were written centuries after his death (I must stress here, before I offend our Moslem friends, that this is totally hypothetical). Moslems would immediately say that they were written by an enemy of Islam, and they would be right. If we made the claim that Mohammed was gay, we would, no doubt, be the target of fanatical Moslems and have to hide away to save our lives. No one threatens those who claim alternative lives for Jesus. No, they believe them because they are looking for excuses not to believe in Him, and anyway, it doesn’t matter because it’s only Christians that we are offending. Think. Why on earth give four different versions of Jesus’ life, when one consistent version would have avoided much criticism? Discrepancies between Gospel accounts are often highlighted by doubters. None of them are really crucial or detract from the basic message. The gospels are more like four independent descriptions should be. They give the same message using different descriptions, or from a different viewpoint, just like four different versions of any great event would be expected to be, or, for that matter, four different descriptions of a car accident. From a legal point of view, the Biblical narratives could be said to exhibit 'substantial agreement with circumstantial variation'. This would be acceptable to a court of law. If the evidence of four different people agreed in every word and detail, the court would suspect conspiracy, or one single source that could be unreliable. So if there were no circumstantial variations in the Biblical narratives, it could (and would, no doubt), be sensible to suggest that they were fabricated. This is a 'no win' situation' for

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the defenders of the Bible if someone wishes to criticise (and, of course, many love to criticise because it makes them feel comfortable in their unbelief). The criticism can come from both angles. The inconsistencies in Biblical narratives do not prove that the Bible is true. The point is that they do not prove that it is untrue, as is alleged by the critics. Why should inconsistencies that do not refute a basic message have to ‘prove’ that the Bible was not divinely inspired? ** Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) said: 'There is light enough for those whose main wish is to see, and darkness enough for those of an opposite disposition' **

Another excuse for unbelief in the Bible is that there is no other historical evidence for Jesus or the miracles he performed. Not so. 'On the eve of Passover they hanged Yeshu [= Jesus]. And an announcer went out in front of him for forty days, saying: 'He is going to be stoned, because he practised sorcery and enticed and led Israel astray. Anyone who knows anything in his favour, let him come and plead in his behalf.' But not having found anything in his favour, they hanged him on the eve of Passover'. (Italics mine) Babylonian Talmud (Jewish), 6th Century. The Christians . . . worship a man to this day--the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account. . . . [It] was impressed on them by their original lawgiver that they are all brothers, from the moment that they are converted, and deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage, and live after his laws. Lucian of Samosata, a second century Greek satirist They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food--but food of an ordinary and innocent kind Pliny the Younger, Roman historian Nero fastened the guilt . . . on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of . . . Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome. . . Tacitus, Roman historian

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'About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, for he was a performer of wonderful deeds, a teacher of such men as are happy to accept the truth. He won over many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. When Pilate, at the suggestion of the leading men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him at the first did not forsake him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct to this day.' (Italics mine) Josephus, Jewish historian, born 37 AD The Jewish Talmud said that Jesus was a false Messiah and that His power came from Satan. They did not deny that he had the power. If they believed he had not existed, or not really performed miracles, they would surely be saying just that. It is just as pointless to argue that the Gospels were not written using the testimony of eye- witnesses, or were written too far after the events to be reliable. There is more, and earlier, documentary evidence for the authenticity of the New Testament than there is for any other literature from that period. The minds of the people of the middle and near east were known to be extraordinarily retentive, with stories passed down word for word from generation to generation, unchanged, so even if it was accepted that they were written some time after the events from different sources, there is no reason to assume that they were like ‘Chinese whispers’, changing as they were passed on. There is, for the same reason, no need to assume that they had to be written down straight away to be accurate. Verbal communication of facts was reliable. It is also fruitless to discuss whether the gospels were actually written by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and whether some were based on one common source, or they were simply written down from the recollections of the apostles. What does it really matter whether they were written by eye witnesses or reliable historians reporting from eye witnesses? We would have no real reason to doubt a historian’s report from an eye witness of, say, Second World War events, sixty years on. It is sometimes said that the low life expectancy in Roman times means that letters and gospel sources written in the late first century could not have been by eye witnesses. However, it is probable that nearly a fifth of the population were over fifty, and many lived into at least their eighties, with some reaching the age of 100. Someone born in, say the year 5, would be in their twenties when Jesus was crucified, and 75 in the year 80. If someone said they had seen a ghost and you didn’t believe them, it is not their experience that is in dispute, it is your belief in ghosts. Much criticism of the New Testament tries to say that the experiences never actually happened. This is like calling the person who really experienced what they saw as a ghost a liar, just because you do not believe in ghosts. This is true dogmatic bigotry, and it is ironic that this is what Christianity is accused of by those very same critics. The dispute should not be not over whether the New Testament documents are genuine historical documents, but over the implications of belief in their content. It is generally agreed that it was the apostle Paul who wrote most of the pastoral letters in the New Testament (the letters to young churches, giving them guidance).

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Paul lived at the same time as Jesus, although he was not an eye witness of the events. He had originally persecuted Christians, but was then converted to the faith some time after Jesus’ death and Resurrection, and became a great missionary, covering much of the Mediterranean and then dying for his faith. Why would he write what he did and do what he did if the gospel stories were a later fabrication or exaggeration? Why would Paul risk his life? How did he convince Jews that Jesus was not just their Messiah, intended to release them from Roman rule, but he was for all of the world? How did he, at the same time, convince Greeks and Romans to embrace a Jewish based faith? But some Jews did believe, and Greeks and Romans joined them. A bit difficult, don’t you think, unless something very special had happened? If Jesus had just been another one amongst the many false Messiahs that appeared at that time, if He had simply died as a failure, how could this have been achieved? ** The writing and compilation of the Bible was a process carried out by untold numbers of people over a very long period of time. So, for a consistent message about the human condition to appear as a result, was nothing short of a miracle. Christians believe that the Bible is God’s Word to us. Writers were divinely inspired to put down God’s truth for us, and the Church was divinely inspired to compile the books into the form we know today. The truth is inspired; the words are just the vehicles of the truth. If so, it is definitely a miracle!

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What does the Bible teach us about ourselves?

While other books inform, and some few reform, this one book transforms A.T. Pearson

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness The Bible, Second letter to Timothy, Chapter 3 verse 16

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The Bible says that, by our very nature, we rebel against all of God’s instructions for our lives. Or, more simply, we rebel against God. We have ignored our maker’s instructions, so we should not be surprised to see what we do see in our world. We should not be surprised to see wars, starvation, greed, corruption, depravity, suffering, sadness, grief and stress. We should no more wonder why the world is like it is than wonder why our washing machine is broken if we ignored the maker’s operating instructions. God’s rules are good for us. Follow them, and we have harmony. Break them and we have what we see all around us. Why should we complain? We should expect people to be like they are. I complain, but shouldn’t. I should not be at all surprised at the state of the world if I know why people are like they are. I could almost make the mistake of excusing them. I should not excuse them, but should be able to forgive them, because they don’t know what they are doing. Does that sound familiar? ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing’ were some of Jesus’ words as He hung on the cross. We can forgive, but not make excuses. They have freedom of choice. They have personal responsibility. They cannot just say, ‘Well, that’s what I’m like and I can’t help it.’ The very realisation that we are like this should lead to thought and action. It’s like a criminal blaming his upbringing or society, but then not being willing to try to change. So, why does God let bad things happen? How can God be called good? I think you can now try to answer this for yourself. I should not have to explain. Try answering it yourself before reading on. If we had been created as perfect beings with nothing bad in our lives, how would we know that it was good to be perfect? We would have no concept of whether this state was ‘better’ for us because we would not know what was ‘worse’. What freedom would there be in that? If God controlled us, you would say that it was tyrannical, if not pointless. We would be robots, devoid of emotion and free will. You do want to have free will to choose, don’t you? Atheists might say that we should have freedom to choose, and then use this freedom we have as a justification for saying there is no God, because God would not allow bad things to happen. This is self justifying nonsense. To prevent evil, God would have to prevent freedom of choice. If we are free to choose less than perfection, our actions can be less than perfect, and result in the consequences that convict us. How much more evidence do we need of the mistakes we make, and of our corrupt natures? There is a word that is used in the Bible to describe the manifestation of corrupt human nature. It’s a word that brings the same reaction as does a mention of the Bible. Another barrier goes up. There is an in-built aversion to the word.

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It is SIN. It’s the breaking of the rules for living that God has given us. Then again, how many times have you heard someone call you a sinner recently? Not many, I would guess. It has a sort of ‘cringe factor’ to it, doesn’t it? It’s no longer ‘politically correct’. So, would something like ‘breaker of God’s rules’ be better? I don’t think so. Or ‘under achiever in holiness’, maybe? No, maybe not. You may be more likely to hear the word ‘sin’ nowadays from someone preaching on a street corner, a person you might then politely refer to as ‘cerebrally challenged’, than from inside some of today’s more liberal churches. But the word remains. It may sound old fashioned. It may remind you of insincere American TV evangelists. ‘You are a sinner! Repent and be saved. Praise the Lord! And don’t forget to give us your money.’ Despite all of this, it still stands as the most suitable word to describe our condition. William Golding examined human nature in his book ‘Lord of the Flies’. He showed that we need to look for the root of the disease instead of just describing the symptoms. When we see this unattractive picture of ourselves, we explain it away by talking of complexes, inhibitions, and temperament, always looking for psychological explanations. We do not like the word sin. If you really think about it, sin is also the only real explanation for human nature. It sums up exactly how we are, and why we do what we do. So, what exactly is sin? It is a lack of love. With perfect love, you would not break the rules. It is lack of love for God, and lack of love for your ‘neighbour’. Perfect love is unconditional. It is giving and obeying without the expectation of anything in return. Anything less and the self interferes. Even if we are giving love and all we expect is love in return, then selfish interest comes into it. How many of us can give unconditional love one hundred percent of the time? How many can love God and our fellow human beings with all of our heart, soul and mind, all of the time, without expecting anything in return for ourselves? Why should we, when people are not the same to us in return? We start to think about ourselves and

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what we want, and the manifestations of sin begin to come out. We see the origin of all of the problems that we have in the world. So, we are all sinners. Can you really give me a better explanation for human nature? Can you? Bertrand Russell, the great twentieth century philosopher, said ''This outlook makes an appeal for which the reasons lie very deep in human nature and human circumstances. By self interest man has become gregarious, but in instinct he has remained to a great extent solitary" He does not have an answer to this paradox. We can’t live with one another, but we can’t live without one another. Why should there be no answer? Russell was an atheist, so clearly could not accept the Christian answer. Many times I have read this sort of statement, written from the point of view of striving for an explanation or a reason why. Every time I say to myself that we have been told the answer if we will only believe it. ** You still tell me that you don’t believe that you are selfish at all. Do you give yourself to others one hundred percent of the time, expecting nothing in return, not even thanks? Do you never wish for even a word of recognition? Do you want people to think you are a good person? Are you doing it to gain God’s favour? Do you just want to have a clear conscience? Why? Do you spend every bit of time you have helping others, or is some of your time your own? Do you share or give away everything you own, and leave yourself with no personal possessions? Have you been like this all your life? ‘Don’t be ridiculous’, I hear you say.’ Surely that is taking it to unrealistic extremes. We all deserve something left for ourselves. We need to live too. Exactly But how do you define how much? That’s the point. It is you who decide how much to keep back for yourself. So, you are not totally disinterested in self, are you? How much you keep for yourself can be heavily influenced by how much others are seen to have, or, putting it another way, by the society you live in. What can you do about it anyway? You could give many of your possessions away, so that you lived as if you were getting only your fair share of the world’s resources, but who would define what that is?

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But you won’t do it anyway, will you? Why should you give everything? Why can’t ‘they’ give more, they can afford it. Why should my standard of living fall? But you never ask why it should rise. You expect it to rise. Why should other people’s rise and not yours? I wonder what the standard of living would be if everything in the world was shared out equally. You can be sure that billions more people would gain than would lose. You just don’t want to be one of the losers, do you? So you don’t really love other people enough. You lack love. Sin is a lack of love. So, I guess that makes you a sinner. I rest my case. God rests His case, too. ** How easy do you find it to fall ‘in love’? The world seems to be a wonderful place when you are in love, doesn’t it? If their love is so great, why do people find it so easy to let it fade? Was it really love in the first place? Love is really love when you can ‘love the unlovely’. If you can throw love away easily when you start to disagree, were you really giving love in the first place, or was the relationship just fulfilling your own needs? Be honest with yourself.

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Is Sin Old-Fashioned?

Sin is a little word with only three letters, but the biggest is ‘I’. Arthur Skevington Wood

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Many people today say that sin is a totally outdated and discredited concept. We are exhorted to ‘get real’, or ‘come into the 21st century’. Just because something is an old concept, why should it be assumed that it is wrong, or not needed any more? Conversely, just because something is ‘modern’, why should it follow that it is right? Why is it, that change is always assumed to be for the better? There is a simple answer to this. A change is usually made with the intention of making something better, but what is defined as ‘better’ is usually according to the definition given by the authority making the change. This is also the case with a process of change that happens naturally. It is not resisted if it is assumed to be for the better. Whether something is better is a matter of judgement, and may only benefit some, not all, and usually the more powerful ones. These are the ones imposing or encouraging the change in the first place. If something is easy to accept, and appears to make our lives less subject to discipline or control from outside, it will soon be accepted as correct and true, because it is easier. Where self discipline is concerned, it is much easier to go downhill than uphill. If the downhill path becomes an acceptable route, we will choose it and justify it for ourselves. If anyone argues otherwise, they are old fashioned ‘killjoys’, they just don’t have a sense of direction, or they just like to make life harder for themselves. The same thing is said by Jesus, using gates and roads as the illustration. It is easier to use broad gates and roads than narrow ones. ‘Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it’. Matthew Chapter 7, verses 13 and 14 The effect of this choice of the easiest option is cumulative, especially where morals are concerned. Change becomes faster. As you go downhill, speed increases. More and more barriers fall, or are avoided, and more and more things that were unacceptable become normal practice. •

Abortion.

•

Divorce.

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Euthanasia.

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•

Infanticide

All have become, or are becoming acceptable and more easily available. Even infanticide. This is widely practised in India and China today. Female children are not wanted. Some of the methods of disposing of an unwanted baby so as not to arouse suspicion are grotesque. One involves putting the baby under a pedestal fan at full blast until they are asphyxiated. In our country, if a handicapped child manages to be born at all, how long is it before it will be acceptable to let them die? Is it already happening? How long before elderly people are allowed to quietly expire for the only reason that they are a drain on our resources? Is this already happening? Commenting on the ‘Pensions Crisis’, a letter to the ‘Metro’ newspaper (October 2004) asked whether it was significant that the government had recently cancelled the licence of a company producing anti-flu vaccine. More old people would die. How’s that for a conspiracy theory? Ridiculous, wildly speculative, simply jocular or not, the speculation or the joke would not exist if the situation did not exist. Whilst we are on the subject, how many people in our ‘Christian’ society are willing to look after their elderly relatives in their own home? We are certainly embarrassed in this respect by the Asian culture. *** Why, when someone calls you a sinner, does it still have the power to prompt a reaction inside you? This feeling might only be cringing embarrassment or disbelief, but it is still a reaction. You may get angry. This is not just because you wish that the lunatic waving a Bible at you would just go away. Your anger is a natural response to what you see as un-deserved criticism. You are not a sinner, you say. Are you? So why don’t you get annoyed if a scientist tells you that, as a human being, you are subject to the same instincts as everyone else. If you are weak, your gene pool will die out, if you are strong, it will continue. You are not exempt from this principle, they will say. You are no different to anyone else. Why then, if you are told that there is a God and He says that you have the same, less than perfect, human nature as everybody else, are you annoyed?

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But surely, you are not saying that you are perfect? Perfection is 100% Unfortunately, if getting to Heaven required an exam, then as far as we are concerned God’s ‘pass mark’ would be 100%. All I know is that Heaven WILL be perfect by definition. I am not going to begin in this book to attempt to discuss where the Kingdom of Heaven is, whether it involves a new earth or is a completely different spiritual environment. All I know is that it will be perfect. That is enough to know. What is perfection? There will be no imperfections in Heaven. If you went there in your present condition, you would spoil it! So, that leaves us with a bit of a problem, doesn’t it? Don’t worry. Read on. With imperfections, Heaven would be just like our world. Our world is definitely not Heaven. More like Hell. Hell. That’s another subject that would require a book in itself to do it justice. ** Our world is a place where small imperfections creep up on us and become big problems. This could not be allowed in Heaven. In Heaven there would be no more sadness, crying or suffering. There would be perfect sharing and perfect love. All will be giving, so all will also be receiving. C.S. Lewis asked us to think of two banquets. At one, all of the people have knives and forks that are so long that they can pick up food, but can’t get it into their mouths. The food is there before them, but they can’t eat it. They all starve. This is Hell. At the other banquet the food is the same, the knives and forks are the same, but the people are picking the food up and putting it into each other’s mouths, across the table. This is Heaven. If we can think of Heaven and picture it as an ideal, then it can be a reality. If it can be conceived as possible, it must be possible in reality, but never on this earth. So, doesn’t that leave all of us with a teensy-weensy bit of a problem? How could any of us go to Heaven? You might ask whether there have not been any truly great people who deserve heaven on the basis of their achievements.

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There have been many human beings who can, in various ways be described as having been ‘great’. But they could never be described as being perfect. We are all imperfect. We are all sinners.

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What is Love, anyway?

It is possible to give without loving, but it is impossible to love without giving Richard Braunstein

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Good question. The Greeks knew about love. They had four different words for it. The New Testament was written in Greek. Have you ever heard anyone say that ‘it’s a different kind of love’, or ‘I don’t love you in that way’? We use the same word, just ‘love’, so we often confuse one with another. The Greeks did not. They had • • • •

Philia Eros Storge Agape

Philia is ‘friendship’ love, or ‘brotherly love’ Eros is sexual love Storge is familial love, like mother for child. Agape is perfect love. …..if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians, verse 2 to 8 and verse 13 I have defined sin as a lack of love. So I suppose we could say: Sin is impatient, sin is unkind. It envies, it boasts, it is proud and arrogant. It is rude, it is self seeking, it is easily angered, it has a good memory for wrongs. Sin delights in evil and rejoices in untruth. It always protects number one, always hopes for self, never waits. Sin always fails. Perfect love (Agape) means that the lover and the beloved are one, such that all actions taken are in the interest of the beloved, unconditionally given. With perfect love, one is at one time the lover and the beloved, the giver and the receiver, because both are considering the other before themselves. Human beings with human nature can never love perfectly, totally unconditionally. Even if the condition they require is simply a recognition of their efforts (a sort of 'need love'), this is still a condition of their love. No matter how much we love, there always seems to be a need there for something in return. It can be a need or 60

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expectation for love to be returned to us, a recognition of our love, or just self satisfaction. God is Love. God is Agape, and loves perfectly, totally unconditionally. Forgiveness and reconciliation always remain available from God’s direction. God does not expect us to love in return. We have to work that out for ourselves. In Islam, the Quran says ‘God loves those that love him, and does not love unbelievers’ (Sura 3:29) To me, this is a God that is too much like us. God hates sin, but can still love the sinner. God loves us all, warts and all. We cannot love perfectly, and can therefore never, by our own efforts, be reconciled to God and perfect love. God loves perfectly. We need reconciliation with God. We need to atone. We need to be at one with God. We need ‘at-one-ment’. What can reconcile the two, what voluntary act on God's part and voluntary act on our part can justify the creation of our perfection and bring atonement, or reconciliation with God? What can pay the price?

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The Answer

The recognition of sin is the beginning of salvation Martin Luther

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I refer to this as the answer, not the cure, because there is not a ‘cure’ for the disease of human nature. Not on this earth, anyway. At best, we can hold down the symptoms and mitigate the effects of the disease. To retain this medical analogy, we can dispense ‘palliative’ medicine only. However, palliative medicine does produce improvements in quality of life. We could change our lives and change the world, given the right treatment, and the right help from the right place. To accept the treatment, however, we have first to accept that we are ‘ill’. Yes, it’s very hard to admit that, as human beings, we are personally and collectively responsible for our own selfish human nature, and the problems of the world. That means every one of us. But this is exactly what we need to do. We are ALL sinners. As it says in the Bible: ‘All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ And ‘If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us’. ** Do you still say that you are not responsible? It’s others, not you. Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Matthew Chapter 19, verse 21 Have you done this? Would you be able to do it? This is what Jesus was saying. He knows you find difficulty doing it. He knows that you will never be perfect. ** ‘What about children?’ You ask. ‘What about innocent children? Surely, they can’t be said to sin. But you say we are born sinners. That does not make sense. Don’t’ we learn to sin as we get older?’ Have you had children? They are self centred. Innocent, yes, because they have to learn what are the right and wrong things to do, and have not yet learned how to apply their nature to more serious, ‘grown-up’ misdemeanours. But if one definition of sin is self centeredness, then they are sinners. A child wants the world to revolve around them, always wanting to be the centre of attention. To some extent they have an in-

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built sense of right and wrong (we all have, it is in our conscience), but they have to be taught how to apply it, and how to do the right things. We do not learn to be sinners. Sin is in us from birth. ** So, if you believe in God, then I suppose you might agree with me that He might not be too pleased with us, as we are. ** You might have finally admitted that you too are subject to the flaws in human nature. Granted, you might not be as bad as some, but you are still not perfect by any means. It takes a lot of character to really admit this to yourself that something is lacking, that you too are a sinner in God’s eyes. Take as an example a mental illness. Psychiatrists will insist that it is an illness, but that before one can be properly treated, there has to be an acceptance on the part of the patient that they have a problem. Let me make a parallel of this kind of illness with the 'illness' of human nature. Humanists say that humans can get better. This would seem to suggest that self responsibility would mean that the faults in human nature could be totally self treated, having once realised that there is something wrong with us. But if something is an innate, pathological condition that someone is suffering from, and not just a temporary psychosomatic or psychological state, then outside help in partnership with self help is needed. Self responsibility is applied, bringing realisation that there is a problem, and that help is needed. Given that help, and enough self support, the illness can be controlled, but very rarely completely cured. We have free will to choose whether to accept help for a mental condition, and the same applies to Christianity. We must want to be cured. To cure a mental illness requires a fairly close relationship with the Psychiatrist or Psychologist, because they understand the problem. To mitigate the effects of the illness of human nature requires a close relationship with the creator of that nature. What if you had a limp, didn't use the crutch that was freely available, then after a time could not walk at all? Would you not be foolish? When a 'crutch' is mentioned, it is usually taken to signify surrender to a weakness. But I see it as strength, not a weakness, to admit a failing and realise that you can't cure yourself. Think of how many times men are criticised for not going to the Doctors when they should. On one occasion, if my wife had not persuaded me to go to the doctors when I

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did, a condition I had could easily have developed into something much nastier, and I might not be here to write these words. Of course, we don’t need help, there is nothing wrong with us, and don't need a doctor, let alone God, do we? But there is more character and strength in admitting defeat. Pride and stubbornness are powerful things. Humility is hard. **

You might then say ‘If what you say is right about sin, then how could we ever please God? One thing is for sure. We can’t work our way into God’s pleasure with good deeds alone. If there are celestial ‘weigh-scales’ on which our good deeds are compared with our bad ones, they are not the sole determinant of our fate. This is a common misconception. ‘Be good and you will go to heaven’ If a child was told this, and then asked you ‘But what is good?’ could you answer? The answer would be based on your own definition of what is good. Sadly, much of the Church has worked on this basis for two thousand years. They devised man-made definitions of ‘good’, and dispensed their salvation on this basis. God’s definition is in the Bible, summed up as ‘Love God with all your heart and soul and mind, and love others like yourself.’ Would you agree with God’s definition? Have you got a better one? Could you ever meet up to God’s standard? Do you spend every single moment of every day for the benefit of God and other people, never once thinking of yourself? This is the requirement, but it seems impossible. You might try doing ‘good things’. The problem is that God also says that no amount of good works could ever wipe away our sins. Doing good should be our duty, expecting no return. We should want

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to do good things. It should not be a way of easing our conscience, or be an attempt to buy God’s pleasure. Think of a man who tries to appease his partner’s anger by bringing flowers. It is just not genuine. Good works without faith are useless. You can never do enough. But, also, faith is dead without good works. Jesus said that Christians should be the ‘Salt of the earth’. Salt purifies and preserves. Christians should help to purify and preserve the world. Any good works they perform should be as an example of how to do this, not simply as a way of satisfying God. Good works alone are not the way to Heaven. If they were, in order to be sure that we had done enough, we would need to know exactly how much of each good deed we would have to do. Life would be constricted and legalistic. We would have to keep a detailed points score of good and bad, to constantly weigh one against the other, to ensure that we have done enough for our place in Heaven. So, to be 51% good is enough, is it? How could you know, and, in any case, this means that you are 49% bad! Not too good at all, really, is it? Just a minute. ‘I think I am at least 75% good!’ you say. ‘Those at 51% have just scraped in. So I’m better than them, aren’t I?. Do I get more rewards?’ How ridiculous this would be, yet this is what some people would have us believe, or they think that is what Christians believe. So we could never really know if we have done enough. This is the position that Moslems are in, never sure of salvation until God makes his judgement of them. They can work hard fulfilling all of the tenets of Islam, but in this life they can never be really sure if God is satisfied with them. This is one reason why, when they are offered a certain route to paradise, by dying in a ‘Holy War’, there are so many willing volunteers, including those willing to commit suicide by blowing themselves up. This is certainly not the freedom from slavery and blind submission to the ‘Law’ that Jesus promised us. One of the root meanings of the word ‘Islam’ is ‘submission’, and this is just what it is. A ‘Moslem’ is ‘one who submits’. But surely, our compliance with God’s rules should be voluntary, not an Islamic style submission, governed by fear of punishment. Submission to God’s Will or regular church attendance are worthy aims, As Islam rightly says, God’s way should be the way we all should want to live in order to create harmony. But to be forced to live according to God’s will by imposition of a set of rules, with the threat of punishment if we disobey, is not God’s way. The Biblical God is not a tyrant.

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As I have said before, as far as we are concerned, or as far as we know, God’s pass mark is 100 percent. Perfection. Anything less is failure ‘Impossible!’ you say. ‘Precisely’ I answer. But God would not set a level any lower; it would be too complex and legalistic to live by. For example, what would be worse? Stealing £1000 from a shop, or committing a £1000 financial fraud? Legal systems cannot keep up with this sort of thing. In Jesus’ day the Pharisees attempted such a detailed system, and it became so ridiculous that to pick a few ears of corn on the Sabbath Day was a crime, because it was classed as ‘work’. The established Church has sometimes made the same mistake. To be given a detailed set of responses in order to wipe away particular sins you have confessed is in the spirit of the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, and not at all in the spirit of Jesus’ teachings. At the same time, no mortal, even a priest, can forgive us our sins. The priest should be the first to agree. Only God can do that. True Christianity says that you cannot please God or achieve your religious goal by your own efforts at good works. This gives it a realism and credibility that distinguishes it from other religious approaches. Look at yourself closely, and you will see that this is the only view of human nature that makes sense. With most religions, mankind is looking for God. With Christianity, God is looking for mankind, and wanting us to reach out for Him. We have committed sins (yes, you too, no matter what you say!), and these sins have led to consequences that cannot be changed. All actions lead to consequences, bad or good, by cause and effect. Some consequences we can see, some we will never see. Have you made moral judgements against anybody? Where do you stand against your own standards? We want to see justice, a fair settlement for the consequences of our and other people’s actions. We never like to think about anyone ‘getting away with’ what they have done, so why should we consider that we could avoid justice ourselves? We want God to be a just God. We want God to be merciful. And we need God’s forgiveness. We can be forgiven, but in order to have justice, a price still has to be paid. A genuinely repentant criminal should appreciate that they have to pay a price for their crime, and this needs to be a price that satisfies the wronged party. God is the wronged party, so God needs a payment. God does not want any of us to suffer and have to pay for it personally, but He requires justice. A victim of crime could forgive the criminal, not ask for punishment, and then the criminal could happily continue with a life of crime. That would not be justice, so in the same way, we could not expect God just to forgive us and forget it. We could, and probably would, carry on regardless.

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A punishment is required, something to make us sit up and act to change our lives. A cosmos without ultimate justice would not be governed by a just God. Heaven would not be Heaven. There is a price to pay for sin. If the price to pay is not good works and church attendance, then what is it? You might be saying ‘So, no matter what we do, we can’t please God, is that it? A bit hopeless then, isn’t it? We do not want to live in fear for our eternal destiny. There has to be a way to give us assurance that we will not be rejected by God, but one that also radically changes our approach to this life.

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At last. The Good News

Gospel: Middle English, from Old English godspel (ultimately a translation of Greek euangelion): god,good; see good + spel, news Free Online Dictionary

If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself. Saint Augustine

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There is some Good News for you. It’s not called ‘Good News of great joy for all mankind’ for nothing. The Gospel means ‘God speak’. God has spoken Good News. We can be forgiven. As if a judge was to convict us, then pay the fine for us in a court of law, Jesus has taken the punishment that our sins deserved. God’s justice is satisfied. Jesus died for us. All of us. Why do people find this difficult to accept or understand? God needed something really momentous to pay the price. He needed the most momentous event the world has ever known. This was the death and then the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. For anyone who doubts the Resurrection, consider this. What could have turned a handful of frightened, disillusioned followers of Jesus into a religion that is still with us today, unless it was something so amazing that they would risk their lives to spread the news? So, Jesus was not simply a great teacher as some people claim. Jesus was God as a human being. To show His love for us, God did it Himself. Any other sacrifice would not have been enough, and not convincing enough. The Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jesus was Michael the Archangel, a creation of God. That is not God making a sacrifice. It’s like sacrificing your best friend instead of yourself. Surely, that is not enough. You see, Jesus is the Son of God, and became the incarnation of God as a human being on this world. This is not in the Father/Son sense that we know, but it is the best way human language and understanding can find of describing the relationship between God and another part of Himself, the part that became a man and walked amongst us. Jesus was fully God and fully man. If you wished someone to get to know you, you would first make yourself known to them. So, if God is a personal being and wishes us to get to know him, surely He will make Himself known to us in a personal way. What better way, then, than to become one of us? This is therefore how the following verse should surely be interpreted:

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No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known. John 1:18 God has revealed Himself to us. So, God himself suffered and died for us, and was then resurrected to show us how our future could be. God has paid the price himself and is fully satisfied with that payment. Justice is done. The Resurrection showed us that Jesus conquered death. You ask why, if Jesus was God, did he cry out on the cross, saying 'Father, why have you forsaken me?' As a human being, Jesus could not do anything supernatural without the help of God the Father. All miracles were performed by asking the Father, and using God the Spirit. This does not imply separateness or superiority of any kind, it just emphasises the truth of miracles as interruptions into the created world, and the existence of complementary facets of God as He operates in that reality, and which facets of His existence are employed in each part of the reality. Jesus was fully God, a perfect being with not a trace of fault. He was also fully human, with the physical frailties, limitations, temptations, emotions, pain and suffering that go with it. Otherwise, what sort of sacrifice by God would it have been? 'Why have you forsaken me?' is a genuine demonstration of human pain and suffering. Without it, all would have been a sham. If it had not occurred, I suppose the argument against Christians would have been that Jesus was God, wasn't he, so he did not really suffer after all, did he? The Moslems say that God would not even have let a great prophet die, let alone Himself, so Jesus did not really die on the cross. They say that someone else was substituted in His place. God experienced our life. He did die for us. How much more momentous could you get? ** If you were God, and you had done this, how would you feel if you saw that people would not even take time to think properly about whether you exist, let alone about what you have done for them? You have tried to give them enough evidence.

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You have given them the universe, amazing and seemingly infinite, to wonder at. You have given them the grandeur and beauty of the natural world. The only truly ugly things in the world are those created by humans. God’s creation is beautiful. Think. If humans did not exist, there would be no-one to admire the world all with the level of appreciation that our minds are capable of. What would be the reason for it to exist? Where would the words be to describe its wonders? You have given them a conscience, the ‘still, small voice’ through which you talk to them, but they do not always listen to it. Their conscience tells them what is right and wrong. You let them speak to you in prayer when they wish to. Because prayer is not automatically answered with ‘yes’, they think it is a lie. The answer can be yes, no, or it might be ‘Have patience’. ‘Wait’. The prayers should not be selfish. How could you answer yes to both of two conflicting requests? Doubters don’t think of that. The best prayers are for others, asking only that your will be done. The trouble is that people want their will to be done, and expect God to do it for them. You have allowed them free will to choose, and a reasoning, thinking mind with which to work it all out for themselves. You have even communicated to them in ways they can understand. You have given them your Word, the Bible, to light the way to the truth about themselves and the world. You might give them special, personal signs, and they just say they are ‘coincidences’, or ‘fate’, or ‘luck’, or dreams and hallucinations. Finally, you gave them yourself, or your Son, or however our limited minds want to describe how you came down to the world as one of us. You suffered incredible torture and died for us, and you were then resurrected, to show us the way to the future we can have. What do your creatures do? They don’t believe it, or don’t want to believe it. They can’t even be bothered to use the mind you gave them to work out why you did it. If you were God, you would be very disappointed with them. ** It’s as if God is telling us: ‘I know you are not perfect, and know you never can be. I’m still not happy with you. It’s not good enough, but just believe me that you will be alright if you trust me’. This is God’s Grace. ‘It is by Grace that we are saved’, as Paul said. God is offering us a gracious gift. He is saying:

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‘If you say you trust me, you must therefore believe me when I tell you what I have done for you. If you don’t believe it, then you won’t know that I am telling the truth when I say that you will be alright. You will never be sure. You will not trust me’ And yet God says that is all we need to do. Believe Him. Trust him. Have faith in Him, and what He has done for us, and you will know that you are going to Heaven. The rest of your life will be peaceful and joyful. Simple, isn’t it? Well, that’s nearly all you need to do. If we really, truly believe what God has done for us and how momentous it is, then we will try to do what He wants us to do. We will try our best to change our lives. This change in our lives is called repentance. The word means to turn around. Christians will want to turn around. The good works that everyone associates with Christianity are a product of their conversion and salvation, not a requirement for it. They are saved by the Grace of God, not by their own efforts. This is where many people get it wrong. The misunderstanding of this is what misleads many who refuse to believe. They are told they ‘have to be good to go to Heaven’. Deep down, they know they are not good enough, so they refuse to accept that there is a God who will judge them. They say it is rubbish. If you are a Christian, the fact that you want to produce good things is a proof to yourself (and hopefully others) of the sincerity of your conversion. It is not easy to repent. You will find it hard to change your life. You will struggle to go against the grain of human nature. You will fail regularly. You will need help. God gives you help. He sends you the third part of his being, His Spirit. The Holy Spirit, so you can call on God’s Spirit inside you to strengthen and guide you. So, God has three parts to His being. This is called the Trinity, or the Holy Trinity. Why do people find it hard to understand the Trinity, that is, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit? They are three aspects of the same God. The Trinity makes a mockery of all of the criticisms made like ‘How could God come down here as a man, and still rule the universe at the same time? and ‘How can God be ‘inside us’ and still ‘up there’?’.

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The word ‘Trinity’ does not appear in the Bible, but the Bible refers to all three, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, each as the one God. Just because it does not give the Trinity a name, does not mean the Bible has not revealed it to us. What is hard about understanding this? We all have three aspects of our being: a body, mind and spirit. We were also given reasoning minds. It’s not so hard to come to the conclusion that God can have three aspects of existence. Tri-Unity. Three-in-one. One God, three ‘persons’. ** God does not force Himself on you. You ask. But you will want to ask. You will want to invite Him into your life. There is a famous painting called ‘The light of the world’ by William Holman Hunt, painted about 1853. Jesus stands outside the door, knocking and holding a lighted lantern. He is waiting for you to ask him to come in. He is waiting for you to let light come into your world. ** The Bible says that to a non believer the Gospel is nonsense. If that is the case, how do we become believers? Does a crisis in our lives prompt us to believe? Sometimes. But we also have to be told about the Gospel. Overall, though, people will not start to think about Christianity in particular because it challenges their self reliance. Anything that says that you should surrender your life to someone or something else is just not on. This is yet another illustration of human nature as defined in the Bible. There is also, of course, the thought of alienation from friends and family in this respect. Jesus did say that to follow him would bring this alienation, even from family, so we should not be surprised. I can't begin to comprehend how difficult it must be for Moslems to convert to Christianity, but there continue to be lots of them (not too heavily publicised, you might note). How then, does anyone start to think seriously about religion? Firstly, in some way or other they have to be told, so whether we like it or not, Christianity (any religion, come to that) has to be preached or demonstrated by clear example and lifestyle (this is the aspect that sadly tends not to be very successful). Christians are commanded to do both of these. The first is a nuisance to others, the second leaves one open to criticism on many counts, on many occasions justifiable, but also many times very unfair. Criticising Christians in this way is used as a 'get out clause' by people who do not want to believe. It is selfish human nature that causes the taboo. People do not like the idea of surrendering control of their lives. The answer to it all is that God is always knocking at the door, but people choose not to listen. Mankind has continually looked for God in various man made ways, but all the time, God is seeking mankind, and has reached

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down, waiting for a response. Mankind resists because they would lose control of their lives, or they make their own religious rules to keep, that satisfy them that they are pleasing God. *** God’s message in the Bible is so essentially simple that it can be given in a few minutes, even a few words. ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life’ John Chapter 3 verse 16. This is the Gospel ‘in a nutshell’. But to accept it, you have to see that there is a need for you to accept it. You live in an environment where there is no reason for ignorance of Christianity, because there is ample information available to you with which to consider it, if you so wish. But you first have to be told about the need for it. It is wrong to say that people in this country have rejected Christianity. They just have not had enough of it explained to be able to make a reasoned judgement. This is mostly because they just don’t want to know, but, sadly, much of the church is at fault here. Not enough time is spent explaining to people the rational grounds for belief. Much of the Church has failed people. The public sees different Christian organisations arguing amongst themselves, and spending time disputing issues like the ordination of women (this might well, of course, be considered very important if you are a woman!). People scoff at the human failings of priests that are somehow expected to be super-human. The real message is submerged in the morass. Thankfully, there are true Christians in all denominations of Christianity, but this is all too often despite the institution they belong to, not because of it. The churches that are growing are those that proclaim the Gospel, pure and simple. But in many churches, the Gospel, the true message of Christianity, has been sidelined. It has been denied its place, because it has been too challenging. Other, ‘easier’ approaches have been tried. The Gospel is in the ‘sin-bin’, you might say. I hope that this little book has gone some way towards putting it back into the field of play.

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How will your life change?

I feel like a tiny bird with a big song! Jerry Van Amerongen, Ballard Street

I define joy as a sustained sense of well-being and internal peace – a connection to what matters Oprah Winfrey, in O Magazine

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Peace, Love and Joy If you were a Christian, you would learn the real meaning of love. Self sacrificing, unconditional love. You would learn that you, with all your faults, are special to God. He is interested in you, warts and all. You would fail God many times and make many mistakes. You would fall, but He would lift you up again, like the parent that He is. His forgiveness is limitless. In a good congregation with a good pastor and teacher, you would feel the peace, joy and togetherness of Christian fellowship, a foretaste (albeit an imperfect one) of heaven. Your life would know ‘Shalom’. Peace. It will be true peace and joy, permeating all of your being. You will know true, indescribable joy. This is not just ‘happiness’. It is joy in life, joy in being, and joy in worshipping God. This does not mean you will never be sad again, sadness is a part of life. Just know that you will have a deep well to draw from to quench the thirst of your sadness. And it is a well that will never go dry. •

Think of the feelings you have when you are watching your children play.

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Think of the warmth of real love.

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Think of how you feel when you are cradling your baby on your lap.

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Think of the bonds of friendship.

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Think of songs or movies that make you happy or sad.

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Think of your childhood and the carefree laughter.

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Think of a sunset, and the beauty of nature.

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Think of relaxing, ‘crashing out’ without a care in the world.

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Think of anything that makes you deeply happy and at peace with yourself and the world.

These are all imperfect representations of the joy we are capable of experiencing as a Christian, and the joy we can experience on this world is an imperfect foretaste of the joys we will experience in Heaven. Think of having this peace and joy in your heart whenever you want it. Amidst all of the worries, stresses, conflict and sadness of this world, you can have this peace. 77

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It’s ‘the peace of God, which transcends all understanding’, as Paul put it. *** When you become a Christian, you do not suddenly become a perfect person. You are just asked to try your best. If a Christian gives you the impression that they think they are better than others, then either you or they are missing the point. They should actually be people who realise how bad they are, and that they need God’s help. You will make many mistakes. I certainly have. God will help you put them right if you ask Him. Sometimes I’ve not asked when I should, and I’ve struggled. I have sometimes slipped back into old ways, but God is always there to pick me up, but only if I want Him to, and ask Him to. ** God’s Spirit gives you the ‘New Birth’. You start a new life, and the old one is dead. This is part of the symbolism used in baptism by immersion. You arise from the water into a new life. You are ‘born again’. You are dead to your old life and starting a new one. It is wrong to use the label ‘Born Again Christian’, as some people do, just to distinguish a particular type of Christian believer. All true Christians are ‘born again’. Your old life dies, and a new life starts. If this is not recognised by a professing Christian, then I would doubt either their sincerity or their understanding of what should happen to them. The same applies to the label ‘evangelical’. All Christians should be evangelical in the sense of its definition from its Greek roots, and this relates to spreading the Gospel of Christ. Christians were instructed by Jesus to do this. The word has been linked with a particular 19th Century movement, and has since become wrongly associated in the popular mind with a strict fundamentalist puritanical fanaticism. Christianity has to be a life-changing experience. Some may just be ‘nominal’ Christians, going through the motions of church attendance. This can happen within a traditional ‘Christian’ environment. You can be brought up as a regular churchgoer, but never really understand the need to be born again. As we have seen in recent times, when there are many more ‘worldly’ entertainments to pursue on Sundays, this is a sure-fire recipe for church decline. This is nothing new. Churches have declined before. Well before we had Christianity on a large scale in this country there were thriving churches in China, Arabia and India. The decline of a worldly, liberal and ‘nominal’ church is not a sign that Christianity itself is dying. In reality, good churches are growing, and growing fast. Youth is the fastest growing age group. Their gatherings are not the cold, stuffy rituals that discourage many

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people. They celebrate with modern music and new technology. How many people realise this? Please don’t be fooled by the typical impressions you have of the Church and Christianity. Don’t use them as an excuse. ** When you become a Christian, you will want to celebrate your new life with other Christians. You will want to worship God and thank Him. This is why it is pointless saying that you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian. It is more relevant to say that going to a church by itself does not make you a Christian; no more than going to a garage makes you a mechanic. No, you don’t have to go to church, if, by that, you mean attending a building that is a place of worship. Jesus spoke about two or three people being enough to give His presence amongst them in worship. He does not mention buildings, or big organisations. But you will more than likely want to gather with other Christians. It just happens that the most familiar form of gathering is in a building that we refer to as a ‘church’. Some Christian groups meet for worship in their homes, something that very early Christians would have done. They had no church buildings. You will want to go to meetings of other Christians. The Church is not a building or a specific organisation; it is a body of people. The visible ‘church’ that people see is a mixture of different sized human organisations, all seeming to disagree with one another. Some teach that church traditions developed over the centuries are just as much an authority as the Bible. Some say that their leaders are the heirs of Jesus’ disciples and apostles. Some are independent of large organisations, and are localised bodies of believers, who see that theirs follow the pattern of the very first Christian churches. The existence of a council to which disputes between early congregations were referred, at Jerusalem in the early days of Christianity, does not tell us that the Church should be ruled by a central organisation that knows all of the truth and the rules to follow. What right does anybody have to take on the authority that the very first Christians had, by virtue of their witnessing of Jesus’ life and Resurrection? We have the New Testament. It is their witness and their authority, in writing, for each believer to refer to. There is no wonder that unbelievers find it difficult to see the truth, but at the heart of all churches should be the basic message. Members of some churches are not Christians because of the organisation they belong to, but despite it. You can also be sure that if you try to ‘go it alone’, you will slip, and ‘backslide’. You will need encouragement, because it is not easy. Your ‘yoke will be heavy, but your burden will be light’. It is light because you share it with others

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It is not easy, but, after all, what good things are really worth it unless you can look back at the effort or sacrifice you made to reach them? You will want to worship, celebrate, pray, learn and grow. You will hunger for spiritual food. You will look for a type of worship that suits you the most. Some may want a ‘traditional’ approach, others a more ‘modern’ form of worship. Either way, you will soon know whether the congregation is ‘alive’ to worship, and whether the teaching is true to the Bible2. Unfortunately, some are not. Some are ‘religious’ in the literal sense of the word, meaning something done regularly, almost just as a habit. Many people say they are ‘religious’ and say they are Christians, but this does not necessarily mean they are Christians in the way that the Bible describes a Christian. They are ‘nominal’ Christians. Many churches have modern ‘liberal’ ideas, and cherry pick the parts of the Bible they like, but ignore those that challenge their ‘modern’ views. Unfortunately, some of these churches are the ones that seem to be most visible to a sceptical public looking for excuses. They are the churches that are losing members. They can be the ones that, in popular opinion, give the impression that the church and Christianity is in terminal decline. They are the ‘hats and handbags’ congregations of the popular imagination, with Aunt Betty snoozing through a boring sermon, tea and cakes with the vicar, and pews full of elderly people looking for a safety net in their old age. They are sometimes not much more than sanctimonious social clubs. The media do not help. Have you noticed that, in dramas and soaps for example, the Christian is usually stereotyped into one of a few characters? • • • •

The Roman Catholic, who is a Roman Catholic by upbringing and can’t help it. They are grudgingly accepted. The weird religious ‘nutter’. They are shunned. The older, fussy, hypocritical type. They are tolerated. The old, genuinely nice type who attends beetle drives and jumble sales. They are patronised.

I could be wrong, but there has probably never been the portrayal of someone who explains their genuine Christian conviction, with all of the difficulties that it brings for them, but also the ultimate joy in life that it gives them. Church Ministers are portrayed as Derek Nimmo look-alikes (and speak-alikes), with ‘posh’ accents. ‘Anyone for tea and scones?’ ‘More tea, vicar?’ Then there are the raving American preachers, or the Paedophile Catholic priests, or occasionally there are very 'normal' vicars that never mention Christ, as if it needs to be demonstrated that a vicar is still a human being. 2

A Christian’s authority should be primarily the Bible and the guidance of God’s Spirit, with secondary help gained from the following: • Teaching, opinions and advice from two thousand years of Christian knowledge and writing • Other Christians

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Church pastors.

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But have you ever seen a devout Moslem portrayed as a quaint oddity or an object of amusement recently? Why is Christianity targeted in this way? The safest way of avoiding a challenging subject is to poke fun at it, to laugh at it. The subject of religion is taboo, unless it's Christmas, or the Moslem fundamentalists or Jews are in the news, or some celebrity or other is touted as being a Buddhist, or Scientologist or something. At least Buddhism can be seen in this way as being 'trendy'. Buddhism seems to be easier for people to have a 'live and let live' attitude (there is no direct threat). We say 'If it works for them, maybe people should try it. Then again, let's leave them to it', as if saying that a film star or top sportsman can't be misled or mentally disturbed, but a regular person like yourself or me must be mad. But then, the pressures of stardom mean that they need it more than we do, don't they? How often do people then try to understand what it means? Why, also, when people like Jonathan Edwards or Cliff Richard profess Christianity, are they looked on as being odd, or sometimes accused of being gay? And why, when you profess Christianity or Buddhism, or any religion, and it clearly improves your lifestyle, do people think you are strange? I know that Christianity has its share of eccentricities and a decidedly cringe-worthy side in some cases, but why is the subject taboo? One Christmas Day, my wife’s mother (who knows my beliefs) was criticising the idea of Mary's virginity, and said that she believed and followed everything the man Jesus taught, but could not believe in the miraculous side of it. She then suggested the theory about a Roman soldier sleeping with Mary, and that Mary was avoiding scandal, etc. My mother-in-law was unaware that Nazareth was not under Roman rule at the time. She also seems to imply that Joseph was an idiot. Without being totally convinced of the truth of Mary’s story, there is no way that a Jew would have stayed with her. My wife’s mother totally ignored Joseph’s initial adverse reaction to Mary’s pregnancy, as if he was supposed to have swallowed her story ‘hook, line and sinker’. I could have got into a long, detailed conversation about how much my mother-in-law, or any other person, for that matter, did not and could not follow all of Christ's teachings, but that would have taken too long. All I said was that if she believed in God, was she saying that God could not do what doctors are now capable of doing? I added that she seemed to be re-cycling some out of date nineteenth century criticism based on the assumption that, at that time, science had all the answers. All she said was 'It depends what you mean by God' I then saw that there would then be three hours of discussion ahead of us if I got into that subject, and other family members had that 'Oh no, not this subject' look on their faces. Someone changed the subject. Before that though, even her grandson had criticised her, saying that she was taking out of the Bible only the parts she accepted, and rejecting the rest. Take it all, or none of it, he said. And he was not a committed Christian believer either. Christians simply wish that people would commit just some of their grey matter to a few logical thoughts about what they really believe.

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What about Hell and the Devil?

The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul John Calvin

Hell is truth seen too late H.G. Adams

When all the world dissolves, and every creature shall be purified, all places shall be hell that are not heaven Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus

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I have grave difficulty when I seem to be told by some Christians that my loved ones who die without belief in Jesus Christ as Saviour are separated from God. Surely they don’t deserve it. See, I have difficulty even calling it Hell. You see, I cannot believe that I would be full of joy in Heaven when I knew that they were in Hell. Yet God promises to wipe away all tears, and promises me eternal joy. The Mormons hold services for the dead, and concentrate on family genealogy for that purpose. The Roman Catholic Church has purgatory, and the intercession of the saints, masses for the dead, and indulgences. These are attempts to solve the problem, but are imperfect human attempts, based on Church tradition or a particular Biblical interpretation. Some believe in a ‘final death’ of the wicked when this earth is destroyed by fire, and that this is Hell. Therefore, they do not suffer eternal punishment, but their fate is eternal death. This can be convincingly argued from the Bible. What about universal salvation, the idea that God accepts everybody? If God saved everyone without question, and we knew that for certain, why bother at all with this life? In any case, there would certainly not be a lot to restrain the worst effects of human nature. We would be free to do what we want, knowing that there was no eternal payback. There would be no eternal justice. But if you believe in eternal justice, surely there has to be some sort of punishment in order for it to be enforced. Where would our legal system be without punishment of offenders? We could forgive, but forgiveness can only come from the wronged party. When breaking God’s rules for living, it is God we offend the most. The question of who takes God’s punishment is answered by Christianity. God Himself takes the punishment, offering us forgiveness and a pardon if we accept what He has done. He is like a judge convicting us and then paying our fine. Is this so difficult to understand? The question remains. How can God can be said to love us when there is so much suffering and so much badness in the world? The Crucifixion and Resurrection give you the answer. With these we can have total assurance that we will be saved from God’s punishment. We want to do the best we can, we are not threatened that if we do not, we will be punished. This is God’s gift of love to us, and we learn what God’s love means. In the absence of universal salvation, and given that there is an eternal justice, there has to be a punishment for some. This punishment, however we define it, is the permanent separation from God that the wicked are subject to. It is an eternal death. This is Hell.

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** ‘Why would a good God send anyone to Hell?’ I hear people ask. This is one of the reasons many use for disbelief. But God does not send anyone to Hell. They choose it. In effect, they accept Hell in this world already. They accept separation from God. Although it is a sincerely held belief by many, it could certainly be that the threat of burning forever in Hell has been used by the Church as either a means of control over the masses, or for the compelling of belief through fear of eternal torture. Think about it. You can threaten eternal, conscious, horrible punishment, or say that the end of the world is within our lifetime and the wicked will be annihilated (the Jehovah’s Witnesses view). Both might be over zealous ways of ‘saving souls’, and might put ‘bums on seats’, but does God really want believers who have come to faith through fear and threats? ** A closer study and a bit of reasoning can suggest that harsh statements about eternal punishment are sometimes not as clear cut as they appear. A more acceptable interpretation of what the Bible says about Hell is that it is the destruction of the world and the wicked by fire at the day of judgement, after the dead (good and bad) have been resurrected and judged. In the meantime, between now and ‘judgement day’, the dead are just dead (again, the good and the bad). The resurrection of the dead takes place when this present world ends. After judgement, the wicked then die a second death. It is the second death that lasts forever, and this is the eternal punishment. They are never again resurrected. They are not tormented eternally, they are simply finally dead, for ever. The righteous go on to eternal life in a different place referred to as Heaven, or Paradise. What if Hell was an eternity of existence on a world like ours, separated from God? For me, that would really be pure Hell. I would certainly wail and ‘gnash’ my teeth, as it says in the Bible, and it would feel like a fire that would not go out. What is certainly true, whatever one interprets the Bible’s view of Hell to be, is that there is a state of permanent separation from God that we can find ourselves in, by neglect or deliberate choice. Hell is the realisation that you were wrong, and to have that hanging over you for however long you have left (whether it is until your final death or for eternity) is, well, it is simply hell. God might forgive you, but you will know you rejected Him. If you were asked who convicts you, you would have to answer, ‘Me’. We also have to seriously consider those who believe that Hell is only a temporary punishment, because the word translated ‘eternal’ could also mean ‘age long’. Also, what about the belief that we are reincarnated over and over again until we ‘see the light’? But then we would need to be conscious that we were the same creature through all lives.

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The Bible speaks of the dead ‘falling asleep’. I believe that it is reasonable to say that when we die, we are no longer in time and space, and when the judgement comes, it can happen at the same time for everyone who has ever died. If so, there is no waiting. What about ‘the Devil’? Do you believe in the devil? He has many names. Satan, the Evil One, Lucifer and Beelzebub are but a few. He (or, let’s be fair, she or it) is the personification of our selfish human nature. If you wondered where the lies that I spoke about come from, remember that the devil is sometimes called ‘the father of all lies’, and also as ‘the prince of this world’. You don’t have to believe in the devil to be subject to him If you were the devil, would you seriously consider shouting your presence from the rooftops, allowing people to shun you? Would you make them frightened of you, so that they might turn to God for safety? You would be a bit foolish to do so. Wouldn’t you rather use more subtle methods, so that people don’t even know that you are there, let alone that you are in control of them? The devil’s strategy is a story of classic covert infiltration, achieving a purpose by convincing people that they are doing the right thing, and getting them to work for you. This is what the devil does. By nature, you belong to the devil. The Evil One does not have to do anything to have your soul. You simply have to believe the lies. The devil does not need pyrotechnics and special effects, such as those that we see in the ‘movies’. Your soul is already his. He would probably consider the need for spectacular demonstrations of his power as beneath his dignity. He praises himself on his ability to fool us all. As long as people picture him in a red suit carrying a pitchfork, having horns and a pointed tail, who could take him seriously? And they don’t. Think of Halloween costumes. The devil’s world is one that praises evil as a virtue. It praises self interest as the way to be, because that is his nature. He is the archetypal selfish creature, basking and wallowing in sin and defiance of God. He had a choice like ours, to accept or reject God. He rejected, and was left to himself for eternity. It’s as if he is trying to prove that he is right and God is wrong. We all do that. Mankind is constantly trying to become ‘the measure of all things’, but will always fail. The devil is also a creature of God, just as we are, and like us all, will one day sit before God, asking for mercy.

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What about suffering?

Suffering and joy teach us, if we allow them, how to make the leap of empathy, which transports us into the soul and heart of another person. ln those transparent moments we know other people's joys and sorrows, and we care about their concerns as if they were our own Fritz Williams.

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What about suffering? Why do children die if there is a God? Why are there so many natural disasters? Surely God would not permit such suffering? Why do so many wars seem to be caused by religion? When you more look closely at wars throughout history, the religion is mis-used as an excuse or a justification for other very human reasons, such as the gaining of territory, economic and social disputes, dynastic claims or the control of natural resources. Likewise, Many ‘natural’ disasters, when looked at more closely, can be seen to have been caused or made worse by human greed. Given that we all die one day, this must have to be in many different ways, some more horrible than others. Should there be a kind of death that is not allowed unless the person deserves it? What would be the standard by which that is judged? How would you know if you were good enough to avoid a horrible death? Would you want to be able to say ‘I’m a good person, so I can take risks.' I won’t get killed’. That’s absurd. Do you want us all to be able to say ‘Right. I’m going to pop off now. No problem. Goodbye’? What standard should be used to say which way of dying is acceptable? Are we asking God to tell us that we will all die quietly in our sleep? That’s just not logical. We would all be wondering, every time we go to sleep, whether we were going to wake up again in the morning. Every night. In December 2004 there was the worst natural disaster for many, many years, the Indian Ocean Tsunami. The death toll was nearly 300,000. Rather than blame God, it should be a time to throw ourselves on His mercy, because it really does illustrate how helpless we are, and that we are not the masters of nature that we sometimes think we are. There is also a human element to the number of deaths. A warning system could have been installed, but it was too expensive in relation to the estimated chances of such a disaster. The power of the earth’s natural forces was underestimated. It always is. We all have to die some day; it is the only certainty in life. We just don’t know how it will happen, and surely that’s how it should be. Similarly, how could there be an age, before which you would not die, because you are a child? Say it was the age of fifteen. When you neared that age, to say that you and your parents would be worried would be the understatement of the year. Can’t you see how illogical it is to argue that God should not let children die? Take note. I know that you expected the usual answer that ‘God has a purpose that we don’t understand. There is a reason for it’, didn’t you?

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But yes, it is also true that God does have a purpose, and that we cannot hope to understand it. That is also a sensible thing to say. How could we hope to understand? ** What we do know is that we have free will. We can choose between good and bad. God is like parents who give their children the opportunity to learn from mistakes. To ask why God allows suffering is sometimes like saying that God does not exist because we are allowed to be ourselves. It seems that to believe in God people would prefer one who controls their every thought, word and deed. If God was like that, we would not be having this discussion, and even if we were, you might be saying that you could not believe in a God who did something as pointless as to create humans, only to make them automatons. They would not be humans. You would then seem to want to ‘have your cake and eat it.’ How do we know what ‘good’ is if we cannot experience ‘bad’? Without evil, how would we know that good was better? Where is the freedom in that? Some are likely to say that freedom to choose is a basic human right, but they then imply that the fact that we have the freedom to choose means there cannot be a God. So, if there was a God, He should deny us basic rights, should He?

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What about Miracles?

Miracles, in the sense of phenomena we cannot explain, surround us on every hand: life itself is the miracle of miracles. George Bernard Shaw There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. Richard Crashaw

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What about miracles? Why do people find them so hard to believe? Three hundred years ago, electric lighting would have been a miracle. We just didn’t know enough, and we still don’t. If there is a supreme mind that is behind the universe, are we really saying that He (God) could not temporarily suspend, speed up, reverse or slow down the so called ‘laws’ of nature? The miracles in the New Testament are based on natural processes and phenomena, and there is nothing so fantastic as to be impossible, if we accept the ’laws’ of nature can be manipulated by God. In the Bible, the really fantastic, outlandish happenings are in dreams and visions. A miracle is a natural process that we do not yet understand. For example, water can be turned into wine by adding ingredients and time. The miracle was the speeding up of a natural process. "Miracles are not contrary to nature but only contrary to what we know about nature." Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430) You see, you thought that in those days they were all gullible, naively believing in miracles without question, didn’t you? When I was a teenager I watched a TV programme called ‘Catweazle’ He was an eleventh Century magician thrown forward into the 1970s. He called a telephone a ‘telling bone’, and assumed it was sorcery. He was just not aware of the science and technology involved. Healing is a good example of a process we don’t know enough about yet. We seem to be capable in some cases of healing ourselves by the power of positive thought, so, if God is a supreme mind or intelligence, how can we deny that God can do the same for us? There is one example of a miracle in the Bible where the use of modern scientific knowledge strongly suggests that it is true. 'And He came to Bethsaida. And they brought a blind man to Him and begged Him to touch him. And He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when He had spat on his eyes and had put His hands on him, He asked Him if he saw anything. And he looked up and said, 'I see men as trees, walking'. And after that He put His hands again on his eyes and made him look up. And he was restored and saw all clearly' (Mark 8:22-25). This is the only time in the gospels that Jesus heals in two steps. Why? What does the man mean by 'I see men as trees walking'? There is a book called 'An Anthropologist on Mars.' by Oliver Sacks, Professor of Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York. The book tells a true story of a man called Virgil. He was blind from birth. He had a cataract removed and a lens implanted in one eye in 1991 and he was able to see. He could not make sense of what he saw. His brain could not make sense of what he was seeing, and objects and colours were all mixed up.

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If you are born blind miss you miss the learning of shapes, colours, movement and forms. If you are then healed later in life, you are like a new born baby, learning afresh. Virgil had difficulty identifying objects and movements. He had a particular problem with trees. The condition is known as 'agnosia'. Jesus healed the man in two steps. The first one gave him back his sight, and the second one cured the agnosia: 'And he was restored and saw all clearly'. In the first century it would have been a very, very rare event for sight to be restored in later life. There were no cataract operations in the first century, and no known cure for blindness. They would have known little or nothing of the symptoms of Agnosia. Mark’s description can’t be just a coincidence. Why would he put this in it if did not happen? He would have had no idea of the medical explanation. Even if he did, how many other people at that time would have? How many people are aware of Agnosia even today? How effective would this have been at the time if he was cleverly using it to justify something that did not happen? The most reasonable explanation is that it actually happened. What about the virgin birth? You say it was impossible. How can a child borne by a girl who has never had sexual intercourse be impossible? Are we saying that God cannot do what a gynaecologist could do today? Yet the virgin birth of Jesus to Mary is used by people as a reason not to believe. Bringing back the dead is hard to believe, but if there is a God, why can’t He do it? It’s a reversal of a natural process. Time and space are relative concepts. To a God outside time and space, surely these things are not impossible. And we are still not one hundred percent in agreement at which point life ends, and when someone can be certified dead. We also don’t fully understand the relationships between time and space. What about the Resurrection of Jesus? Look at the possible explanations offered by non-believers: •

The Jews removed the body to stop the veneration of Jesus’ remains. Why? The production of the dead body of Jesus by Caiphas the High Priest would have stopped any possibility of claiming a resurrection, and killed Christianity before it started. This was not done.

•

The disciples went to the wrong grave. 92

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Unlikely, to say the least. •

The sightings of the risen Jesus were hallucinations. Have you read the Bible descriptions, and seen the diversity of witnesses, at different times and places?

•

The guards fell asleep or were bribed, Jesus wasn’t really dead, and he sneaked away during the night. Why wasn’t this explanation proved at the time and given widespread publicity? Why doesn’t it appear in later Jewish writings as a way of denying the Resurrection? Have you ever read anything of Roman military discipline, and the penalties for laxity? When Paul and Silas escaped from prison (Acts 16), the guard killed himself. He knew what was coming.

•

The disciples stole the body. Why? Many died for their belief that Jesus had risen. Would they die for what they knew was a lie?

•

Grave robbers took the body. So they would steal a body and leave behind precious spices?

•

Jesus did not really die. Roman law put the death penalty on anyone bungling a crucifixion. There were four executioners present to ensure no laxity. To prove death, a soldier pierced Jesus’ side with a spear. They did this to test for death. If pericardial fluid and blood came out, the victim was dead. Witnesses described ‘blood and water’ pouring out. Combined with the whippings prior to the hanging, and the soldiers’ thoroughness, no one could survive a Roman crucifixion.

According to the Bible, there were hundreds of witnesses to Jesus’ Resurrection, many of whom were still alive when Paul wrote his letters that form part of the New Testament. So, He really died, and was seen alive later by hundreds of people. You believe it, or you don’t. Some people don’t believe in God, so it must be impossible. Like many, they look for the other explanations. I believe in God, so it must be possible. Still, I suppose that when even some church leaders can start to rationalise the Resurrection, describing it as just a story to give us hope of a spiritual regeneration, then how can we expect people to believe it? As I see it there are only two possibilities: •

God exists, so miracles are possible.

•

God does not exist, so there are no miracles performed by God. There may be natural phenomena that cannot yet be explained.

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Either way, phenomena classed as miracles can happen, so we cannot say •

Miracles do not exist. The Bible talks of miracles, so the Bible is wrong. So what the Bible says about God can also be wrong. So, I am justified in my belief that God does not exist.

But this is what some people do say to themselves, as an excuse not to believe. If miracles are natural phenomena that cannot be explained yet, the explanation that God is behind them cannot be discounted.

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What if I am not told?

The idea of preaching the gospel to all nations alike, regardless of nationality, of internal divisions as to rank and colour, complexion and religion, constituted the beginning of a new era in history. You cannot preach the gospel in its purity over the world, without proclaiming the doctrine of civil and religious liberty,--without overthrowing the barriers reared between nations and clans and classes of men,--without ultimately undermining the thrones of despots, and breaking off the shackles of slavery,--without making men everywhere free. Albert Barnes

Evangelism3 is one beggar telling another beggar where to get bread D.T. Niles

3

Zealous preaching and dissemination of the gospel, as through missionary work (Free online dictionary)

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The gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, can indeed change the world. The gospel is for everyone, but what about those who do not hear it? I find it terribly difficult to accept that God will send people that could be considered to be good, to an eternity of damnation just because they misunderstood or were not even told properly about Jesus. So, what about people in this country who have not had real Christianity explained to them? What about isolated societies that Christianity has not reached? What about children who cannot understand? What about sincere believers in other religions? What about people who insist they don’t want to know? Should we try to tell them? Christians were given a commission by Jesus. ‘He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation”’. Mark, chapter 16, verse 15. Some people ask me, if this is what Jesus wanted, wouldn’t it have been better to wait until global communications technology was available? Why did it happen in Israel two thousand years ago? Today, the mass media could instantly show the happenings in Israel to the world. We could witness miracles, but who would believe them? Technology also allows us the possibility of tricks and manipulation. Israel two thousand years ago was at the hub of civilisation, a meeting point of east and west. The Greeks had spread a common language from Europe across to India, and the Romans had developed a system of roads connecting every point in their empire, from the middle-east to northern Britain. What better place to create a religion that fused eastern and western beliefs and gave it an opportunity to spread? In the fourth century, when the emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, its success was assured. Constantine had acted under pressure of numbers. It is unsure whether he had a sincere conversion, but it is probably unlikely. The decision was political. Christianity was growing into the largest religion. The Romans leaders had always grudgingly accepted the many religions of their subjects, knowing that to maintain control they could use the religions to keep the people happy. To then link the largest religion with the state, and create a strict hierarchical structure enabled this. Institutional Christianity was born. ** So, what if Christians fail to tell people?

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For God does not show favouritism (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) .Romans Chapter 2: v11 and v 14-15 This is saying that those who have never heard or understood God’s law as it is set out in the Bible will be judged according to the law that is written in their hearts, and their conscience. Those who have not heard can be judged fairly. This would, of course, include children, who are too young to understand. There is also no reason why it cannot be applied to sincere believers in other religions. If this is so, why tell people anyway? It is because, although we know the difference between right and wrong, we all too often choose wrong, and we look for man made ways of satisfying our consciences, or appeasing God’s displeasure with us. God is offering us His way. God gives us a chance to understand. He helps us along. Since humans first walked the earth, we have had God’s rules for us, given through various religions and ‘written on the heart and conscience’. We have no real excuse for not knowing what is right and what is wrong. To leave it at this, we are in the position of the Moslems. We are not sure of salvation until God judges us. We may think we are good enough, but we might not be. We cannot really know. God also knows that we will fail, so we have a way out that we can take advantage of, to know we are sure of salvation. Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me John chapter 14, verse 6 This means that Jesus will judge us all. No one gets past him. All have to go through his judgement. It says that everyone has to go through Jesus to God the Father. It is not followed by the negative statement that if you do not believe in Jesus in this life, you are damned. To interpret this verse, as some do, to say that if you do not follow Jesus in this life you are automatically damned, is, I believe, not the intention when you put it with passages like Romans Chapter 2. That would also suggest that God is being unfair. What if you have not been told or are incapable of understanding? That is not the sort of God that I could worship.

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The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household." Acts Chapter 16 verses 29 to 31 This not only says what needs to be done to confirm salvation, but also touches on the vicarious effect you can have on your loved ones. Your faith could save them too. Paul says elsewhere that it is possible for a believer’s spouse to be saved in this way. All of this does not tell me that we are definitely damned if we do not believe in Jesus, or if we are not members of a particular church or do not fulfil particular rituals, or, for that matter, if we follow another religion. But whether we are to have complete confidence that we will be accepted by God at the day of judgement is up to us, and this complete confidence is found in Christianity. If we do know this, what a better, more peaceful, joyful life we must then have. How much easier we will find it to be better human beings. What a better place the world could be. It is this aspect of being a Christian that should be emphasised, not the threats of a ‘fire and brimstone’ God who condemns people even if they have not had a chance to hear about Jesus or have not been told properly. When some isolated societies have understood the message, they have often said that it is what they were waiting for. It was their release from legalistic religion. Their religions had told them to appease God or the gods, or ‘nature’ with sacrifices or gifts. All they could do was to give offerings and hope. But they were never sure of God’s or nature’s favour. They had thought that natural disasters told them that they had displeased God, and good health and prosperity said God was pleased with them. It is a difficult question to ask. Do we evangelise them or leave them alone? It is very unfortunate that at many times in the past western ‘civilisation’ has partnered missionary work. It does not have to. Knowledge of Jesus does not have to destroy cultures, and the more enlightened missionaries today appreciate this and put it into practice. It is human greed that has destroyed cultures and ‘westernised’ them. It has done this for centuries, sometimes in the name of Christ. Many times, economic exploitation has followed the trail blazed by missionaries, as in Africa. Even David Livingstone promoted the ‘three Cs’: Christianity, Commerce and Civilisation. They made the mistake of assuming that the people were poor savages and needed to become ‘civilised’. Our countries would not be like they are today if this had not happened to our ancestors too. **

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For believers in God, Christianity takes away any doubt, giving you real assurance over your eternal future. God is saying that He does not require our sacrifices or our rituals. They may be worthy efforts at satisfying Him, but He no longer wants them. He does not want us to be slaves. It is strange that atheists can see the futility of religious slavery, but some believers in God seem to have more difficulty. Why? ‘Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free’ John, Chapter 8, verse 32 Christ releases you from slavery to religious rules, or any doubts about your ultimate destiny. You know you are saved. You are set free, from yourself. Your life, and the world, must change for the better as a result, and your self will is easier to overcome. You will know Jesus. You will be able to say that Jesus is LORD. You will have a personal relationship with God. When you die, God will transform you into a perfect creature, fit for eternal life in a perfect heaven. You will leave your imperfect self behind. You will learn the true meaning of love. Why else would we have this life? Whatever the outcome for you in eternity, when you face the judgement seat of Jesus, you will understand. So much better that you learn it in this life, then. So much better that you are told here and now. Do you still wonder why Christians are instructed to give the message? God’s love is so real because we are given the chance to deny or refuse it. God’s love is so great because it is God who has been humbled to show it to us. Surely, nothing else would be good enough. This is why Christianity makes sense. ** With other religions there is more insecurity and a greater struggle with self will. Their believers are still subject to ‘the law’. One example of this came to mind when a senior Moslem cleric called for Moslem women to stop wearing religious head and face covering, to prevent abuse in the wake of the London bombings of July 2005. An organisation supporting the traditional costume was outraged. It is a religious duty, they say. Fine, some may actually want to 99

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wear it voluntarily, but why should they have to? Would God really be so strict under the circumstances? Do they feel that by keeping to strict religious rules, they are submitting to God’s will and pleasing God? Their scriptures may lay down the rules, and God tells us that we should dress modestly, yes, but there are different ways of doing so, ways that we can voluntarily choose for ourselves and gladly do it. Laying down clearly defined rules of dress is slavery to strict legalism, and, in the case of the Moslems, seems to be unfairly weighted against women. ** Even for atheists, there has to be an element of doubt and insecurity in their beliefs, no matter what they say. Atheism is as much a faith belief as any of the major religions.

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Conclusion: How do I become a Christian?

Assurance of hope is more than life. It is health, strength, power, vigour, activity, energy, manliness, beauty. J.C.Ryle (with apologies to the politically correct)

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As a Christian, God has given me a real assurance of my eternal future, here and now. He has acted in such a way that I cannot fail to believe Him. This is not an unfair God. This God is not a demanding tyrant. He wants us to know that the instructions He gives are best for us, and wants us to follow them voluntarily. Do you want to have a taste of Heaven amongst the hell of this earth? Do you want to have assurance that you will then spend eternity in Heaven with God? God is giving you that opportunity. It is an offer, a gift from God. You don’t really deserve it, do you? But God loves the unlovely. This is real love. God is love. This God I can understand. His actions make sense. Is this not what you would do for your children if you had to and you could? This is the God I can worship. ** So, when God asks you, ‘Did you hear?’ you cannot avoid the answer ‘Yes’. When He asks ‘Did you try to listen?’ you will have no excuses. You are not in an isolated, primitive society that has not heard. You are not, I assume, mentally unable to understand, or a child, below the age at which you can be expected to make responsible decisions about these things. “Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important” (C.S. Lewis). Ask yourself, if you can be bothered to find out, what most closely describes your human nature, or the human condition, and the hopelessness of trying to make a real change without God’s help. If you believe in God, there can only be one answer. If you are looking for salvation, remember what you are being saved from. You are being saved from yourself. Go for it! You will never regret it, neither here nor in eternity.

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*** These are the steps you will go through when you become a Christian. One follows the other, as sure as night follows day. Conviction of Sin. You realise that you are not acceptable to God as you are Action: Pray, and tell God. Ask for forgiveness. Belief. This is trust and faith in Jesus Christ as your Saviour. It’s the knowledge that you are forgiven because of Jesus. Action: Pray, and ask God to come into your life. He will not refuse. Repentance. A turning around of your life Action: Pray, and ask God for help. He will not refuse. You will be given the help of God’s Spirit whenever you need it. A hunger for growth. You are starting a new life, and, like a child, will look for knowledge and never stop learning and growing. Action: There are many good introductory Bible study guides. Use them. Listen to other Christians. Listen to or read a good Christian minister’s teaching. Above all, listen to God. A need for fellowship. A sharing of your life with other Christians in a bond of love and mutual support. Action: Find a good congregation A need to pray and study the Bible. The Bible is God’s Word to us. We will want to hear what He is saying to us. Action: Study the Bible and pray for guidance. Use study aids like the many daily devotional booklets that are available. *************************

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Postscript: A note

on Faith

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. The Bible, letter to the Hebrews, Chapter 11, verse 1

Faith can place a candle in the darkest night Margaret E Sangster

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I cannot hope to fully understand God. No-one can. This does not mean that faith is blind. Faith is not a blind faith, but often it says that ‘God exists, but how come I don't I understand?’ You will try to understand by the reasoning mind that God has given you, and with God’s help. Meantime you will accept by faith, secure in the knowledge that, just as some problems have been solved for you, those remaining will be too. You do not know everything there is to know about God, and never will. Who could? You are still learning. This is your faith. You are sure of what you hope for, and certain of what you do not see. One thing is certain. If you have faith in the Jesus of the Bible, you can be totally confident of salvation, and it is the only thing in the world that offers you this total confidence. You can ignore God altogether. If you bother to think about the implications of a universe without a God, life can be nothing but a meaningless struggle for existence, a product of the interaction of impersonal forces and matter. And you don’t matter. You can continue to try to please God or your conscience with religious rituals and rules, but have a continuous struggle with self, with no certain outcome. Or, you can believe God, who has revealed all to you. Your overcoming of self becomes a pleasure, and your hopes become a certainty. Are you certain of your hope? ********************************************************************

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Appendix The following is a table that shows the development of the ‘Canon’ of Holy Scripture from the year AD200 onwards. New Testament used at Rome AD 200

New Testament used by Origen AD 250

New Testament used by Eusebius AD 300

Four gospels Acts Romans 1 & 2 Corinthians Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians 1 & 2 Timothy 1 & 2 Thessalonians Titus Philemon

Four gospels Acts Romans 1 & 2 Corinthians Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians 1 & 2 Timothy 1 & 2 Thessalonians Titus Philemon

Four gospels Acts Romans 1 & 2 Corinthians Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians 1 & 2 Timothy 1 & 2 Thessalonians Titus Philemon

1 Peter 1 John

1 Peter 1 John

Revelation of John

Revelation of John (authorship in doubt)

James 1 & 2 John Jude Revelation of John Revelation of Peter Wisdom of Solomon Others under consideration The Shepherd of Hermas

New Testament fixed for the Western Church by the Council of Carthage AD 400 Four gospels Acts Romans 1 & 2 Corinthians Galatians Ephesians Philippians Colossians 1 & 2 Timothy 1 & 2 Thessalonians Titus Philemon Hebrews James 1 & 2 Peter 1, 2 & 3 John Jude Revelation

Others under consideration Hebrews

Others under consideration James

James 2 Peter 2 & 3 John Jude The Shepherd of Hermas Letter of Barnabas Teaching of the Twelve Apostles Gospel of the Hebrews

2 Peter 2 & 3 John Jude

The New Testament as we know it was fixed by the Council of Carthage in AD 400, but had largely been established two hundred years before that date.

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Select Bibliography This is not intended to be an exhaustive list. It is a small selection of books I have found to be helpful. Title

Author

Publisher

‘Mere Christianity’

C.S. Lewis

Collins Fount

‘The Problem of Pain’

C.S. Lewis

Macmillan

‘The Screwtape Letters’

C S Lewis

Collins Fount

‘Miracles’

C.S. Lewis

Collins Fount

‘Whatever Happened to the Human Race?’

Marshalls

‘The God Who is there’

Francis Schaeffer and C Everritt Koop Francis Schaeffer

‘The Day Comes’

Clifford Hill

Fount

‘The New Trestament Documents: Are they Reliable?’ ‘The Clockwork image’

F.F. Bruce

Eerdmans

Donald Mackay

Inter Varsity Press

‘Ring of Truth’

J.B. Phillips

Hodder & Stoughton

‘The Bible: Myth or Message?’

Michael Penny

Triangle

‘One Volume Bible Commentary’

William Neil

Hodder & Stoughton

‘Know the truth: A Handbook of Christian Belief’

Bruce Milne

Inter Varsity Press

‘Issues Facing Christians Today’

John Stott

‘The Pocket Handbook of Christian Living’

Derek Williams Robert Hicks

107

and

Hodder & Stoughton

Scripture Union