Category: Jesus

Who am I? What do I do?

We have a character and a nature as well as a lifetime of learning and practice based on those things. My behaviour, and your behaviour (what we do) is based on our characters and our experiences (who we are).

A steel girder structure

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A steel girder structure (Click images to enlarge)

We’ve thought now about the foundations of church and we’ve considered things that are often seen as foundational, yet are not. These are important distinctions. This time we’ll start to consider what follows from this.

The most import thing that follows is recognising we are not here to tell one another what to do or how to go about it. I do what he calls me to do, and you do what he calls you to do. There are no hierarchies in church life. We all have a place and a function, but we don’t tell one another what to do, or when, or how. This doesn’t mean we can’t talk about it, encourager is a ministry gift and we’d struggle without it sometimes. But there are no people managers in church life, or rather, there is only one and his name is Jesus.

First I need to explain what I mean by ‘who we are’ on the one hand, and ‘what we do’ on the other. Basically, all people can be defined by who they are and by what they do. But to me, being is fundamental, doing much less so; I believe that’s true for all people because what we do springs ultimately from who we are.

If you want an example, look no further than Donald Trump. He bullies people and nations, he often seems to act or speak before thinking things through, and he’s always looking for ‘a deal’ that will benefit him, or the USA in some way. Why does he behave like this? Because it’s in his nature, and his lived experience is based on his nature as well, so what he does is natural but is also amplified and reinforced by a long life of living that way. Think about Claude Monet, Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Isambard Kingdom Brunel or Charles Dickens; their actions sprang from their personalities and natures; they began with character and their behaviour found its source there.

We’re all fundamentally like that. We have a character and a nature as well as a lifetime of learning and practice based on those things. My behaviour, and yours (what we do) is based on our characters and our experiences (who we are). I might be better than you at creating websites or conducting biological experiments. You will undoubtedly be better than me in other areas of life and ability, our abilities and actions spring from our natures and characters. What we do, and indeed what we can do comes from who we are, supported by much practice.

Who am I and what do I do in church?

Am I defined by what I do or by who I am? What makes me significant in church life? It’s no different than any other aspect of my life. I am defined by who I am.

I’m a child of my Father in heaven, I’m a brother (or a sister) of Jesus, I’ve been filled with his Spirit. I’m much more now than just a biological specimen in an organic body that will eventually fail. This is why I’m significant. If I matter to Papa, and to Jesus, and contain their Holy Spirit, and will live eternally in them and without the necessity of a physical body, what can I add to that by what I do?

So let’s look at the detail; what do I do? I continue for a little while longer in this frail, physical body. I read and study the Bible, I write blog posts that I hope may open up a new world for some of my readers, I care about my daughters and their families, I try to be a blessing and a guide and a help to my friends, to the people I meet as I live my life, I do my best to be kind and helpful to others. Is my significance in any of these things, or even all of it taken together? No, I don’t think it is. I do these things because of the significance I have in Christ. He is my source and my destination. He is the first and the last, the beginning and the end, I can do all things in him (Phil 4:13), and apart from him I can do nothing whatsoever (John 15:5).

Just as in the rest of life I’m defined by who I am, not by what I do. But over the two millennia between Jesus walking this Earth and my doing so, something fundamental has shifted. Jesus always taught that we’re defined by who we are. So did Paul, so did the other apostles. Paul wrote that he was laying foundations and that the only possible foundation is Christ (1 Cor 3:11). None of them said anything about studying the Bible, reading it every day, having clearly defined leaders, meeting in special buildings, or celebrating special days; all of that was invented by people who thought what we do matters and that right activity should be the guiding principle. But the people who had met with Jesus and been deeply changed by those encounters knew better! ‘I’m a son, a daughter, a much-loved child of Papa in Heaven. That’s the only thing that truly matters. That’s who I am, and I’ve been filled with the Spirit for my daily guidance, the Spirit of Christ is in me. Every day the Holy Spirit turns me to point in the right direction, and all I have to do is take a step. Tomorrow he’ll adjust the direction and I’ll take another step. I don’t need more detail than that, I don’t have to plan (though he does), but I just step out daily in faith.

Writing things down can clarify our thinking, it can be helpful and satisfying. That’s what’s happened here for me, I think. I’ve been making a conscious effort over the last few weeks to dig as deep as I can into this topic and try to come up with observations and understanding that will help me (and my readers) stand on the only foundation (Jesus) that is strong enough to provide his people with everything they need to grow and thrive and live in newness and freshness every single day. What we do can never support us in this, the best we can do will never be enough. we’re going to need the best that Jesus offers. Then, and only then, can church function as he intends it to. This, for me, is a statement of faith, I’ll go on standing on the only foundation worth choosing, that is… Jesus and when I finally leave this world, I will still stand on him and continue to draw from his strength and direction.

I don’t want to live my life according to tasks that need to be done (though there are always plenty of those!) I want to live my life out of Who I am in Christ. Isn’t that why John writes that ‘without Christ I can do … nothing’? And also Paul, that ‘I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me’?

I really do feel that this is essential for all my brothers and sisters also, but that it’s somehow been squeezed out of much of the teaching of the churches almost everywhere because doing the right things seems more important and more fundamental; in truth what we do is empty, it’s only as good as our own abilities and strengths and choices. I am not interested in programmes because I know that when I’m walking with Jesus, programmes are unhelpful. I believe, deep down, I’ve been called to recognise the difference between being and doing and share it whenever possible (not necessarily with words but perhaps more by behaviour). And I feel that as believers we are called to community so that we can listen to Jesus and the Spirit together and share what we are hearing and seeing day by day. And for that reason I greatly miss meetings where there are no leaders, and everyone present is waiting to hear what Jesus has to say about things and speak, sing, dance in whatever way will express what he is saying to his gathered body. Without us he is just a head, we are his body turning his thoughts and purposes into action. What future does a headless body have? None at all! No sense of direction, no sense of purpose, and quite unable to grow in the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fidelity (or faithfulness), gentleness, and self control.

So for the next few weeks I plan to continue digging into this stuff as deeply as I can, sticking close to Jesus along the way. I’m going to live in the presence as fully as possible and make notes on anything I hear or see so I can revisit them later. Will you join me in standing on the one, true foundation who is Jesus? We can live this adventure together in him!

I pray for abundant grace and peace to all my readers here on Journeys of Heart and Mind. And I urge you all to pay more attention to who you are, and a whole lot less on your activities. You just need to know that there is someone in charge and that you are part of a team, you don’t need to understand the overall strategy, you do need to let yourself be turned to the right direction and then step out for today. And you need a very simple faith that expects the one in charge to adjust your direction again tomorrow so that you can take one more step. You don’t need to plan, you don’t need to understand, you don’t need to be aware of your role or the big picture.

A question

Ask yourself, ‘Who am I?’ (Don’t ask, ‘What am I doing?’) Also, ask Jesus, ‘Who am I?’ He knows the answer better than you. If you ask him, ‘What should I be doing?’ he’ll say , ‘Don’t worry about that, Papa will make sure you know when the time comes. Meanwhile you are my sister, my brother, we have the same Father. He guides me with a little nudge here and a word there. You know what it’s like when you listen to a piece of music on Spotify or iTunes. You click Start or press the button and nothing happens – until it does! There’s an opening chord, a drumbeat, and the melody begins. And you recognise it instantly and join in singing at the top of your voice. It’s the old, old song of love, joy and peace, patience, kindness, overwelming goodness and faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, the great and familiar song you remember so well from Galatians 5:22-23! You were not being asked to do something difficult or learn something new! You are learning, quite simply, to be obedient.

A dream?

One night a few weeks ago I had a dream, I rarely wake up remembering a dream, but this was an exception. I was living in Cirencester during the Second World War (I’m not that old, but in the dream it was during the war). I was working with a construction crew on a specialised site of some kind, we were building several structures out of steel girders according to a plan we’d been given. We had no idea what they were for. When these objects were finished we had to move them to Stamford in Lincolnshire.

I don’t know how well you know Stamford, but Donna and I had friends there when we lived in St Neots so we know the town well. It’s like a Cotswold town in many ways as it lies on the same band of oolitic limestone that is so familiar here in the Cotswolds. I have no idea how we moved these building-sized steel structures from Cirencester to Stamford! But it didn’t seem to be a problem in the dream.

But when we arrived we found a site already prepared where they were a perfect fit and a team of workers who were expecting them to arrive and knew exactly what to do with them. That was all we needed to know and we just travelled back to Cirencester understanding that there was a designer somewhere who’d done the planning and had made all the necessary arrangements.

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If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!

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The higher you look, the less you see
Trump, Vance and fruit
Community spirit
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Wrong foundations

He’s the alpha and omega, first and last, top and bottom; the church begins in him and ends in him. He saves us and now supports us but he also commands us; we are complete in him, but without him we are – nothing.

Don’t build here!

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Don’t build here! (Click images to enlarge)

In the last part, we looked at the foundations of church, and the purpose of those foundations. We paid some attention to Paul’s teaching about Christ himself being the only possible and dependable foundation, this time we’ll look at some alternatives that have been tried over the last couple of thousand years, and why they haven’t worked.

Two thousand years ago

It’s worth noting, in passing, that although we don’t have precise dates, it’s now almost exactly 2000 years since Jesus began calling his first disciples from among the families of fishermen along the shores of Galilee. 2028, 2029 and 2030 will likely be 2000 years since he was walking in Galilee or Judea with his twelve closest followers, healing the sick, teaching the crowds, and dining with tax collectors or pharisees. What a thought!

Six months ago I wrote about the apostolic gift and how one of the main tasks and gifts of an apostle is to go out into the world to tell people about Jesus, explain his nature and character, call them to follow him, and show them how to meet together as a church and how to relate to church in other places. It’s a call to create networks of people following Jesus and communicating from group to group within the network. The foundation and the building standing on it are intimately connected; the church is structurally and functionally part of Christ.

Other possible foundations?

Paul tells us Christ is the only possible foundation, so the foundation can’t be anything that’s not a person. it cannot be faith, for example. it can’t be the bible. it can’t be doctrine, or teaching. Jesus himself is the way, the truth and the life, so these are also attributes of the foundation and therefore of church. Yet faith, doctrine and teaching have often been regarded as foundational. Well, they are not.

Nor can we regard praise or worship or prayer as the foundations of church. they are essential parts of what church does, but they don’t sustain us or provide us with any sort of support. No kind of activity can replace Christ, not bible reading or study, not the apostolic gift, not prophecy, not mission, not the work of a shepherd or of a teacher. All of these are useful, indeed I’d say essential, but they are not the foundation of church, merely useful outcomes and practices that will be found to be present wherever church is standing solidly on Christ.

Love, faith, and hope remain, so these are the only plausible candidates. but the greatest of these is love. Of these, only one is a person. We are told ‘God is love’. But Jesus and the father are one. Jesus said, ‘If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the father’. so Jesus is the foundation, or Papa is, take your pick. Or the spirit is the foundation because he’s the spirit of Christ. Build on any other foundation at your peril! Anything else is merely shifting sand, not solid, reliable, load-bearing rock.

Think also about the foundation stone, the cornerstone. having laid a foundation first, the corner stone is large, heavy and sets the position and direction of all the other stones or bricks. all of these must sit centrally on the foundation, anything that veers off line will not be supported properly and will fail eventually. The cornerstone marks the position of the corner itself and the direction of two of the sides. It remains visible when the foundations themselves become hidden underground. And the cornerstone may have a carved inscription saying when it was laid and by whom. What are the words on the cornerstone of the church? Probably they would be along the lines of:

This stone was laid at the death and resurrection of Yahshua ha-Mashiach*. It stands upon the corner of the foundation and is the first visible evidence of the church being built from the living stones of his people. It will stand for all time.

*Yahshua ha-Mashiach, usually written Jeshua ha-Mashiach is Hebrew and translates into English as Jesus the Messiah or Jesus Christ or Jesus the Anointed One. The names Yahoshua (Hebrew) or Jeshua (Aramaic) literally mean Yahweh saves or Jehovah saves. Jesus is far more than just the foundation, he’s also the head of the body, head of the church. He’s the alpha and omega, first and last, top and bottom; the church begins in him and ends in him. He saves us and now supports us but he also commands us; we are complete in him, but without him we are – nothing.

Over the two millennia since Jesus’ time in a human body, church has repeatedly turned away from him and attempted to stand on almost anything else. How he must long for us to stop doing that!

Nor is church built on leadership of any kind other than that of Jesus himself. Yes, there have been great leaders in church history, but they have always pointed to Christ first and last; there is no room for emperors or kings, no need for governors or great statesmen.

Truly, as Paul taught, there is only one possible foundation – Jesus the anointed one. The only person who has ever been fully human yet at the same time also fully God.

Please note, I am not suggesting that Bible study or the gift of evangelist or various kinds of leaders are not useful, or unhelpful or wrong; I’m simply arguing that they are not in themselves foundational. If we use these things as foundations, the structure of church will crumble and everything we build will fall. And that is precisely as it ought to be.

Chain blog or a series?

I’m still hoping other writers will join me here in sharing their thoughts on What does Jesus mean to me and how do I respond to him? This is my third contribution and I’m not sure what to do for the best. Perhaps I’ll invite a further batch of possible contributors, perhaps I’ll also spin off my three contributions as a series on the topic Church foundations or something similar. Meanwhile don’t be shy, read the chain blog instructions and just start writing. You’ll help me out enormously! Thanks.

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If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!

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The higher you look, the less you see
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Becoming like the foundation

In the process of standing on Christ we will see a revelation of who we are, because who we are matters far more than we sometimes think … There are no ifs and buts here. We live because he lives, we love because he first loved us.

Rubble foundation (Wikimedia)

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Rubble foundation (Click images to enlarge)

My previous post was intended to be the first part of a chain blog, but also sparked off this new series. Six months ago I wrote about the apostolic gift and how one of the main giftings of an apostle was to go out into the world to tell people about Jesus, teach them about his nature and character, call them to follow Jesus, and show them how to meet together as a church and how to relate to church in other places. It’s a call to create networks of people following Jesus and communicating from group to group within the network. Paul is one of the finest examples we have of an apostle at work in this way, but the best example of all is, of course, Jesus himself. He travelled much further than Paul to start his building work. He came all the way from sitting beside his Father in heaven, to call, teach and eventually die here on this little planet called Earth. Then he returned in order to send his spirit, his Holy Spirit, back here to be with his followers. The Holy Spirit began working in and through the disciples in Jerusalem, and a little later made himself known to Paul as he was travelling to Damascus. He called Paul as an apostle to go on spreading the message about Jesus further and further around the Mediterranean.

Paul not only took out the message about Jesus, he also understood much about being an apostle and how apostolic people are all called to continue this work. And Paul also understood a lot more about church life and the gifts of prophet, evangelist, shepherd and teacher and how these different giftings work together. He also understood clearly that the first part of building something involves foundations. A lot of his letters are about this work of church building, guiding people in the difficult work of getting along together, discovering their giftings, and allowing the Holy Spirit to draw them deeper and further in works of service. All of this was important then – but it’s just as important today in the places we live our lives.

I want to look at this process in much more detail. We are not Jesus, we are not even Paul, is this something we dare to attempt? Is there any chance of success for you or me if we’re called to embark on this process? If you are called to reveal people to Christ, then yes, there’s every chance of success, if you are called to some other ministry gift then you’d be barking up the wrong tree! We must all do whatever we are called to do. But there is not one single Christian alive today who has no work to do and not a single one of us lacking the gifting with which to do it. Unfortunately, because of the way we tend to build church today, we rarely think about foundations and it’s not hard to find people who do not feel or act as if they have work to do and the gifting necessary to accomplish it. For such people, church may feel like a social group, a place for study, or a weekly sing-along. But it’s not supposed to be like that. It is supposed to be a building site where something very special is being raised up on an even more special foundation. It should be a place busy with cement mixers, cranes for heavy lifting, and skilled workers well practised in all the necessary skills.

I might come back to the topic of callings and giftings later, but I feel I should address the idea of foundations first, so the rest of this post will be devoted to that topic. So what is a foundation for?

The purpose of foundations

When we talk about foundations, we are talking about digging holes in the ground and filling them with somethig solid and capable of bearing a heavy load without shifting or giving way.

Modern foundations are dug by a powered excavator and filled with freshly mixed concrete. But in Roman times, the trenches were dug by hand and for massive structures like temples and amphitheatres large blocks of stone were placed in the trench to support the structure that would be built on top. For smaller houses and shops, rubble foundations would suffice (like those in the photo). The foundation stones were normally larger than the stones that would be used for the building as it rose above the ground surface. It wasn’t much of an issue if the walls were built of smaller material, but if the foundation layer shifted during or after construction the building might collapse. A foundation needs to be seriously strong, deep and firm – unyielding.

There’s an old hymn that I remember from childhood, it was sometimes used during school assembly, but was also used on Sunday services at church. Here’s the first verse.

The church's one foundation
Is Jesus Christ her Lord;
She is his new creation
By water and the Word:
From heav'n he came and sought her
To be his holy bride;
With his own blood he bought her,
And for her life he died.

You can hear this grand old hymn sung with all the words on YouTube if you wish:

The first two lines are straight from Paul.

In 1 Corinthians 3:10-11 he tells us clearly that the only foundation is Jesus and in verses 12 to 14 he warns us to use only the best materials if we are called to build. The build quality will be tested by fire. And in verses 16 and 17 he says we ourselves are Yahweh’s Temple, a holy place. Another way to put this is that we ourselves are the church, it’s not a structure of mere bricks, but a structure of living stones – his people. We are bonded together like the stonework of any strong building and we stand together on the strong foundation of Christ himself. Read the whole chapter (it’s quite short), try to apply what Paul is saying to your own life, imagine sitting down with him over a coffee and discussing it.

We are to be built up together in love for we are to be like Jesus who is in turn like the Father. What is the substance of the church? It is love. the Father is love at its source, at its root. Jesus is love sent from heaven and expressed in his life. Read any of the gospels and you’ll find him loving his followers and the crowds who gathered in very real and practical ways. We are to continue his work, building in love, loving one another and loving the other people around us in this world. Nothing else matters more than this!

Another way of saying that we are living stones would be to say we are loving stones. We should be fervent lovers of Papa, of Jesus, of one another, of the worldly people around us, and even fervent lovers of our enemies. That is the only way of sharing Jesus; to be taken seriously we must be like him in every way. I, you, we, must all become accurate impersonators of Jesus. If we have no love, we have…nothing!

Until we begin living this new life we’ve been granted, loving everyone we meet, we’ll remain failed imitators of Christ and church will remain just an inorganic structure – rigid, cold, hard, unyielding and utterly unattractive to people in our communities who need to be loved. So let’s get to it! What are we waiting for?

But remember, it starts with the foundation of a loving Saviour, Jesus himself. Let’s stand on him, feel his love for us individually and together, and share his love for the confused, the unloved and the unlovable. Then, and only then, will we begin to see real growth. This will be growth of our own character, growth of the living stones around us, and growth of the church as others are drawn in by a love they have never previously seen or expected.

Do you see why foundations are so important? We become like the foundation we stand upon. If we don’t stand on Jesus we cannot expect to stand at all. In the process of standing on Christ we will see a revelation of who we are, because who we are matters far more than we sometimes think. If you’re a chip off the block of Jesus you’ll find yourself loving as he loves, building as he builds, dying as he died, yet living eternally as he lives. There are no ifs and buts here. We live because he lives, we love because he first loved us.

Who are you? Who am I? We are little pieces of him – that’s what ‘Christian’ means; it was a derogatory term applied to followers of Christ by the Greek and Roman pagans in the early years of the church. We are ‘little Christs’, no more, no less. This is our future, our inheritance, to be like the Master. Everything else comes out of who I am, who you are.

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If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!

You might also like:

The higher you look, the less you see
JDMC study guide

What does Jesus mean to me and how do I respond to him?

Text of an early Greek New Testament (Wikimedia)

Chain index – Chain instructions
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To answer those two simple questions I need to be be honest with myself and also be honest with you, my readers.

NOTE: This article led me to write more material, not part of the chain blog. You might like to take a look (follow the Activating index above to do so).

What does Jesus mean to me?

He means the world to me. In all seriousness I have to say he is my source, my inspiration, my guide and teacher, and the essence of all I want to be. Jesus once said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life’; for me that sums him up extremely well.

Text of an early Greek New Testament (Wikimedia)

Jesus is someone we must all make up our own minds about. He’s an historical person, not only is his life and death described in the four gospels in all versions of the Bible, and by his teachings presented throughout the New Testament, he is attested by Roman, Jewish, and Muslim authors as well. Josephus writes about him in his famous history of the Roman war against Judea and the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 AD. The apostle Paul writes about him too and was mightily influenced by him although they never met, though Paul did experience Jesus in spiritual ways. And the Roman authors Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny the Younger all wrote about him; so did Mohammed, and Jesus (Isa) is mentioned in the Koran and in other Muslim books and teachings and is regarded as an important prophet.

But for me, and many other followers of Jesus, he is far more than a figure from history and far more than an apostle, a prophet, an evangelist, a shepherd, and a teacher (though he was all of those things). Jesus taught his followers about his spiritual Father, Yahweh, the God of Israel, about the Holy Spirit who would come and rest upon them and live within them, the Spirit he would send to guide them after he, the Son, returned to be with the Father again. I have received this Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, myself. I’ve been changed, I cannot deny that.

How do I respond to him?

In the late 1960s and early 1970s I began following him as best I could, learning more and more about him and what he wanted of me along the way. I’m writing about this in another series of articles that is not yet finished.

I’ve gradually discovered along the way that he wants me to follow him, to grow in my understanding of how foundational he is, who he is and how he leads and guides me. So my response is as full and complete as I can manage. I make mistakes along the way, I’m still learning at 77-years-old, I’ll never know him fully in this life, but I am still making progress. One of the things I do is write articles like this one, hoping a little of his light will shine out in my life and help to reach those around me every day. I try to listen, both in my reading of the Bible and many other books written about Jesus down the ages. I can see glimpses of him in other people who followed him in past times (St Patrick, for example).

In the time remaining to me (it will be far shorter than the 77 years I’ve already had, unless I make it to 155-years-old which seems highly implausible. Ha!) In those final years of my life on this planet I want to get to know him even better and learn to serve and follow him ever more fully. Jesus is love in person, so the better I get at loving those around me, the more like him I will become. So that is my ultimate goal – to serve him by becoming more and more like him. That, I think, is the only sensible way to respond to him.

I could go into the practicalities in endless detail, but I could never do better (or even half as well) as Henry Drummond. Do leave your thoughts below, and any questions you might have. I’ll try to respond to all your reactions in my replies. This article was intended to start the chain blog, but also sparked a new series of posts which continues with Becoming like the foundation.

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Arresting Jesus

John knew Peter well, they’d been around the entire time of Jesus’ teaching of the twelve, and perhaps they’d known one another for years before Jesus came on the scene, both families lived by fishing on Galilee, they were both called by Jesus to follow.

Greek commentary on John’s gospel dated 1190-1200 (Bodleian Library)

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Cruising the gospel – John 18:1-40

Bible text – Read it yourself (opens in a new tab)

Arresting Jesus

A fragment of John’s gospel
(Wikimedia)

18:1-14 – Jesus and his disciples left the upper room and walked out of the city, presumably by a southern gate. They crossed the Kidron Valley and entered the garden of Gethsemene (from ‘gath’ meaning a press, and ‘Shemanim’ meaning oils). It was a place where olive trees grew and where the harvested olives were pressed to release the oil. ‘Garden’ does not imply decorative plants and flowers as we would think of a garden today. It was just the term for an enclosed agricultural space, a ‘garth’ or ‘gard’ with a wall around it to ‘guard’ it. Jesus and his followers often met here, and Judas was well aware of that fact.

Judas arrived outside the enclosure, followed by a group of soldiers (presumably Romans) as well as a group of Pharisees and some staff of the High Priest. Jesus left the walled enclosure and asked them who they were looking for, and they answered ‘Jesus of Nazareth’.

Jesus told them, ‘I am he’. And they stepped back and fell to the ground. ‘I am’ in Hebrew and in Aramaic sounds rather like ‘Yahweh’, the Holy Name that nobody was allowed to utter. This would have profoundly shocked the Pharisees and the High Priest’s staff. He asked them again, ‘Who are you looking for?’ Again they answered, ‘Jesus of Nazareth’. And he told them again, ‘I am he, so let these others leave’. Peter had a sword and struck out at Malthus, the High Priest’s servant, cutting off his ear lobe. Jesus told Peter to put the sword away. The Roman soldiers under their commander, and the Jewish officials accompanying them, arrested Jesus and tied his arms, probably behind his back, then took him to Annas, once High Priest, father-in-law of Caiaphas, the current High Priest. Annas asked questions about Jesus’ followers and about doctrinal matters and then sent him on to Caiaphas.

Peter’s denials

18:15-26 – Peter and one other disciple followed Jesus and the group who’d arrested him (bravely under the circumstances). There’s been some debate about the ‘other’ disciple. It might have been John, or Nicodemus, or Joseph of Arimathea, or possibly even the traitor, Judas. (Read some aspects of the debate for yourself.)

This other disciple made it possible for Peter to enter the home of Annas where there were some questions being asked of Jesus. So which of those characters mentioned above would most want Peter to hear that questioning and Jesus’ answers? Think about that for a moment. John knew Peter well, they’d been around the entire time of Jesus’ teaching of the twelve, and perhaps they’d known one another for years before Jesus came on the scene, both families lived by fishing on Galilee, they were both called by Jesus to follow. Peter was a man of action, he’d proved it once again by using his sword that very evening!

Annas questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching (verse 19). Jesus often taught to crowds (you can’t get more public than that) and replied that he always taught in public in synagogues, or even the Temple courts. He didn’t teach in secret. Annas could learn about Jesus’ teaching from any of his many listeners. That remark drew an abusive slap in the face from one of the Jewish officials. Peter and the other disciple heard and saw all this. At this point Annas sent Jesus, still tied up, to Caiaphas.

And Peter denied being one of Jesus’ disciples for the second and third times. How did all this affect Peter? I’d suggest seeing and hearing the interrogation and the angry slap and recognising his own failure in denying he was a disciple all helped to stir Peter up and ready him for action. Frustration, helplessness, anger and guilt are a heady mix for anyone with a habit of activity. And I submit that John, knowing Peter as he did, would have expected that. I think John also understood that a time for action was coming very soon.

With Caiaphas

Although John doesn’t record the interaction between Jesus and Caiaphas, we can fill the gap a little from other sources, read Matthew 26 for example.

After the resurrection of Lazarus, Caiaphas had told the Sanhedrin that it would be better for one man to die for the people, than that the whole nation should perish. He was worried that the Romans would lose patience and intervene militarily.

And during Jesus trial before the Sanhedrin, Caiaphas directly questioned Jesus, demanding a clear answer on his identity: ‘I demand you tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God’. Jesus did not give a direct answer, but what he said was regarded as blasphemy and the Sanhedrin condemned him.

The Roman governor, Marcus Pontius Pilatus

Caiaphas and the Sanhedrin wanted the death penalty for Jesus, but only the Roman governor could provide such a sentence, so Caiaphas sent him on for a third hearing.

Pilate was not interested in religion, only in politics, so his first question was about Jesus’ kingship. Jesus explained that he hadn’t come to rule, but to testify to the truth. Pilate’s concern was not truth, either, but still only politics, so he went back outside to the waiting Jewish delegation and told them he didn’t find Jesus guilty of anything. But the custom is that at Passover time I release someone from captivity for you. I can release Jesus for you if you wish. ‘No’, they shouted back, ‘Not Jesus, release the agitator and rebel, Bar Abbas. This Aramaic name means, quite literally, ‘Son of the father’. This is striking indeed as Jesus is the true ‘Son of the Father’. Jesus was known in Galilee as ‘Yeshua bar Yoseph’, Jesus son of Joseph, but he was truly ‘Yeshua bar Abba’, Jesus son of the Father. The Jewish leaders were choosing the wrong man, but also the Wrong Father!

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John 14:22-31 – Not to the world?

Praying for the glory

If Jesus is in John and is glorified, John shares in that glory too! Even if John doesn’t fully grasp what exactly the glory is, he certainly grasps that through Jesus that glory is already in him.

Greek commentary on John’s gospel dated 1190-1200 (Bodleian Library)

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Cruising the gospel – John 17:24-26

Bible text – Read it yourself (opens in a new tab)

Sharing what he wants

A fragment of John’s gospel
(Wikimedia)

17:24-26 – If these verses do not astound you, you need to pay closer attention to what Jesus is saying. Let’s break the material down to consider it carefully. The first thing to note is that Jesus is not conversing with his followers here, he’s speaking with his Father. He’s not asking for strength during his coming ordeal on the cross, instead he’s just telling his heavenly Dad what he wants. And the first thing that comes to mind is that he wants his followers to be with him where he is and to see his glory. Well, they are with him, he’s in the upper room in Jerusalem and so are they.

Seeing the glory

But do they see his glory? No, I don’t think they do – not yet, not fully. Peter, James and John had been with Jesus on the mountain and had seen and heard what happened there. But they didn’t understand what was really going on. Peter, always the practical doer, was going to build three shelters. James might have had more intuition about it, but I imagine John would have got closer than the other two. John was the disciple ‘Jesus loved’, he viewed things from a more spiritual dimension, it was his nature to dwell on spiritual truth and look for hidden depths of meaning.

I think John is already aware that Jesus thinks of himself as Yahweh’s Son, he’s referred to himself as the Son, and he often talks about ‘My Father’. And I suspect John understood that was an eternal relationship. Jesus spells it out again here in the Garden as he prays to his Father. The Father loved him before the world was created and loves him still. And I imagine for John it was not too great a leap to see that this love is eternal and will remain even after the end of time itself. And in verse 26 Jesus says to his Father that he has made his followers aware that the Father has sent him (Jesus), that he’ll continue to show them that so the Father’s love will be in them and so that Jesus himself will be in them too.

Does this take us back to Jesus in glory on the mountain? Yes, I think it does! And John must have understood that if Jesus is in him, that he too must have been gloriously transformed on the mountain, so that he, John, can also talk freely with Moses concerning law and with Elijah concerning prophecy. If Jesus is in John and is glorified, John shares in that glory too! Even if John doesn’t fully grasp what exactly the glory is, he certainly grasps that through Jesus that glory is already in him and raises him to the giddy heights of the law and the prophetic.

And this is where we all stand if Christ is in us. We just need to see, as John did, that the glory arrives when Jesus does, that we share in him and in his glory permanently. So when my body dies (as it must) I continue to live gloriously because Jesus is in me. I’m sure Peter and James came to understand this too, certainly at Pentecost if not before. That was the moment when Jesus’ glory was fully revealed to the entire church, not just in theory but in full experience.

This was a moment they had been told to wait for, but when it came it was far beyond what they had imagined or expected.

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Living in the presence
A glorious sunset
The city on the hill

Tree shading

Put an upturned bucket over a patch of grass in your garden. Lift the bucket every day and take a look, then re-cover the patch… How long does it take for the grass to die?

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Image of the day – 178

What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.

Click to enlarge

Trees provide shade, most welcome on a hot day, and they provide shelter when it rains (though this may be unwise during thunderstorms).

But notice the absence of grass beneath these conifers. Shade and shelter are exactly what other plants don’t need; they depend on plenty of light and water to enable them to grow. Light is essential as it provides the energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, and water is essential as the raw material for this process. The oxygen is released into the atmosphere, while the hydrogen is bonded with carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to make energy-storing sugars for use at night and to build cellulose, the main support molecule that gives stems, branches and tree trunks their strength.

The lack of light and water under tree canopies creates a kind of local desert. You can see this clearly in the photo from the presence and absence of grass. So how do the trees survive? That’s a great question! Their roots spread out widely and deep, far enough to reach moist soil and deep ground water. In persistent rain, water drips from the drenched leaves above. And root, trunk and branch all contain stores of water so a tree can cope with a long, dry summer far better than the grass can.

Light

Here’s an experiment anyone can do. Put an upturned bucket over a patch of grass in your garden. Lift the bucket every day and take a look, then re-cover the patch. See how long it takes for the grass to turn yellow. How long does it take for the grass to die?

For plants, light is essential. There are some animals that live in dark caves or underground, with no light. Earthworms are a good example, but like all animals they get their food by consuming plants and other animals. But for most creatures, including us humans, light is essential nonetheless. Whether we are plant eaters (like cows and sheep) or meat eaters (like lions and wolves) or omnivores eating either or both (like humans and rats) we still need light to see in order to find and identify the things we must eat to stay alive.

Water

For plants, water is part of their ‘food’, it’s needed to make sugars. For animals water is of no value as food, but it’s essential to prevent dangerous dehydration. All animals know when they’re thirsty and they’ll find water and drink to keep themselves alive. Think of a man lost in a desert, the cartoons have him croaking out, ‘Water.. Water..’ Imagine someone unable to find water, they’d die of thirst long, long before they died of hunger. Most of us would be in danger after a few days without drinking, but we could live for several weeks with nothing to eat. And of course, if you are a fish too little water would mean you couldn’t breathe, and if you were a land animal too much would mean you would drown.

Spiritual (not religious)

The idea of essentials has been carried over into spiritual ideas too. Light and water (and food) are so clearly necessary for life that they make good analogies and illustrations. What did Jesus mean when he said, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’? Or when he explained to the Samaritan woman at the well that he would provide water that never runs out, or when he told his followers, ‘I am the bread of life’ or ‘I am the light of the world’?

He was simply saying, I am essential, you can’t live without me. I’m necessary for life. Just as in the physical world, how would it feel to live in the dark, without water and without sustenance? How long would you last? How long would I last?

Many people today feel sure there is no spiritual aspect to life at all, it’s just about living your life in the here and now and then dying from accident, illness, or just old age. Others think there’s much more to life than that. At the very least there are moral and philosophical truths to consider. We should care for one another, help one another, and cooperate in helpful and kind ways.

Food for thought. Let me know below how you think about the essentials of life. Do you have any thoughts to share on this?

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Image of the day – 20
Churn flooding
Image of the day – 38

Another great post

Chrisopher Dryden’s website

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On the web – 1

CD Post

Christopher Dryden, who writes at Life with CD always creates great posts, closely focusing on sharing, expanding on and interpreting Biblical themes and passages.

His work is always worth reading. He calls us back to the truth at its deepest heart. Do take a look.

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A moving experience

From my longer perspective today at seventy-seven years old I can see that what seemed a minor difference between me and the Open Door elders is in truth a yawning gulf. It’s not just that I took a misstep, but that the entire edifice of following Jesus (Church almost everywhere and throughout history) took an enormous misstep.

Part of a Small Group meeting

5 – developing faith

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Click images to enlarge

Yatton to St Neots

Donna and I were married in 1998 and Tony was my best man; Donna’s best friend, Jane, was her chief bridesmaid. Donna had taken a new job with Unilever Research at their research site a little north of Bedford. She bought a cottage in the village of Tilbrook and when we were married I moved into the cottage with her and Unilever offered me a job on their intranet web team, initially to create a website that could be duplicated for each of their research sites – two in the UK, one in the USA and one in the Netherlands.

Donna was keen to find a church in the nearby town of St Neots, or if necessary in Bedford.

We soon found the cottage was far too small, and moved to a four-bedroom property in Eaton Ford, part of St Neots. The internet had barely hit its stride in the late ’90s, so it wasn’t nearly as easy to find a church (or anything else) as it would be today.

One weekend before we were married, I was visiting Donna , and on the Sunday I said, ‘Come on , let’s drive into St Neots and see what we can find’. She said, ‘No, you’ll never find anything that way’. But we jumped into the car and I prayed very briefly to be shown where to go – and off we went. We drove through the middle of the town and out towards Eynesbury but saw nothing of interest, then I turned right and down a couple of streets and coming to a secondary school we spotted an A-board welcoming people to ‘Open Door Church’. We followed the sign, parked the car, and made our way into ‘Ernulf School’ and there we were – Open Door Church! It turned out to be a lively, welcoming place, just what Donna was looking for. Over the next week or so she got to know some of the people and was invited to join a cell group run by Rob and Jean and a couple from France who were planning to return home in a few weeks time. And that was that! By the time I was working at Unilever and had moved into the cottage full time, Donna was well-established at Open Door, the French couple had moved back to France, and Rob and Jean were running the cell group on their own. They quickly became good friends, we even had a holiday in Scotland with them one year.

A wrong step

How easily we do this! Wanting to support Donna, I was happy to go along to the Sunday meetings at Open Door and, far more to my taste, join in with the weekly cell meetings every Wednesday or Thursday. But there was a fly in the church ointment. It was expected that people taking part regularly would ‘join’ the church and sign the membership book. This also involved promising to give your allegiance to Open Door. That was something I found hard – a step too far, a very big ask. My allegiance was to Jesus and him alone. But I did want to support Donna in her new membership of Open Door and it seemed to be something couples were expected to do together. So I put my doubts to one side and signed up – that was a major wrong step!

Trying to right the wrong

What’s the best thing to do if you take a wrong turning? Usually the best thing is to retrace your steps to the point of the mistake and take a different path. As the weeks went by it became clearer and clearer to me that I was in a bad place. I had agreed to be guided by the leaders of Open Door Church but knew that my only guidance should come through Jesus and his Spirit working in me and in my brothers and sisters.

So I wrote to the elders, explaining my mistake and asking to be released from membership and the promise of allegiance I had made. Nothing like this had happened before and they really had no idea what to do. They invited me to visit the lead elder’s (Tony’s) house, and when I went along he had also invited another elder, Brian. They asked me to explain what I meant. I told them, as gently as I could, that in my view all followers of Jesus should follow him alone. I added that this did not mean I wanted to leave Open Door. The reaction surprised me, almost as if I had decided to follow Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism. They were cold, even a bit frosty, and it was very clear that they felt I was rejecting their authority in some rather dangerous way. It was as if they felt that following Jesus implied following the elders. I was left feeling, ‘Hang on, this is my life in which I can follow anyone I wish, and I’ve chosen Jesus. Do you think he will lead me to cause problems for you?’

They wanted to talk again the following week, and this time told me that they’d heard my point of view and now wanted me to hear the conditions under which I might continue to come to Open Door meetings. The main point was that they wanted to be assured that if I said or did anything in a meeting that they objected to, and they asked me to stop, that I would do so. And so, on those terms, I was allowed to continue to meet with them on Sunday mornings and for weekday cell group meetings.

Meeting again with other friends

Although I continued to meet at Open Door for some time, I felt unable to contribute freely on Sunday mornings. Sometimes I would share something prophetic, or a vision, but I didn’t want to upset Tony or the elders so I was always quite careful. And now and again I’d sing in the Spirit and others would join in, or I’d speak in a tongue and someone would interpret and that always felt safe enough because the interpretation was not through me! Or I’d dance, usually near the back of the room.

Rob and Jean, however, were personal friends and also seemed to have no issues over anything I said or did either on Sundays or at cell group sessions, but rather welcomed the input. Over the years the group leaders were changed repeatedly but I was still allowed the same freedom almost all of the time we lived in St Neots.

Meeting at home

All of this left me feeling that life in St Neots was poorer in some ways than life in Yatton. I missed my friends, but above all I missed the spiritual depth and intensity of meeting completely freely, guided by the Holy Spirit alone and allowing him to speak to each one through the way he was using all the others. I missed the kind of community I’d experienced in Yatton. I knew it didn’t depend on particular people being involved, but instead, what it required was that all those present intended to rely only on Jesus. ‘I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me’ (Philippians 4:13) and ‘Without Christ I can do nothing’ (John 15:5).

Where was I to find these people? I can’t be sure of the details at this point – who was involved first or how we got started. But my sister Rachael was involved very early on, as were various St Neots friends, my friends Jody and Peter from Unilever, and eventually many more from a wide area in Cambridgeshire, Northhamptonshire and Bedfordshire.

For eleven years I kept a list of meetings and now I can refer to that list to pick out the first time we met at each new location, and that will give a feeling for how the meetings spread and grew. There were rarely more than 10 people at a meeting, but I knew how these small gatherings worked (from long experience in Yatton). There were no rules, but we encouraged everyone to feel free to contribute in any way providing they felt it was from the Spirit and aligned with the way Jesus would contribute. So there was usually a sense of openness and freedom. Almost always there would be tongues with interpretation, Bible readings or at least a few quotes, prayer for guidance and for any needs expressed by those present, prophecy, and plenty of peaceful silence for thought and processing of what others had contributed. The meetings were never boring, and more often than not we could identify a theme that had come together little by little as we met. Most times we’d begin with coffee and a chat.

  • Dec 2002 – Eaton Ford
  • May 2006 – Rugby
  • Nov 2006 – Eaton Socon
  • Mar 2007 – Great Doddington
  • Feb 2008 – Little Paxton
  • May 2010 – Brampton
  • Jun 2010 – Hinchingbrooke
  • Jul 2010 – Letchworth
  • Jul 2010 – Eynesbury
  • Aug 2010 – Cornerstone, St Neots
  • Sep 2010 – Watton-at-Stone
  • Oct 2010 – Corby
  • Feb 2011 – Offord d’Arcy
  • Apr 2011 – Moggerhanger
  • Apr 2011 – Costa, St Neots
  • Nov 2011 – Earls Barton
  • May 2012 – Oundle

As you can see, things got under way slowly but spread in an accelerating manner. And in addition to these meetings all around the area, some of us were involved in other things, we had larger celebration meetings when we’d invite other friends along and there’d be music, singing, dancing and the praise and worship would be free and enthusisastic. For me these little meetings were encouraging and exciting – just as in Yatton there was a feeling that Father was pouring his nature and character out amongst us. Jesus was with us.

Donna meanwhile continued with Open Door and the cell group meetings (later renamed Small Group). I drifted away from Open Door’s Sunday meetings as I found it difficult to contribute and disagreed with a fair proportion of the teaching on offer. There was far more freedom in the Small Group environment.

The Eatons

Some time in the past, St Neots Evangelical Church had planted an offshoot called ‘The Eatons’ in Eaton Ford and Eaton Socon (once Bedfordshire villages but by this time absorbed as districts of the growing town of St Neots). Over time, the number of people meeting each week had fallen significantly and only a handful remained. I don’t recall how I heard about this situation, but I felt the Holy Spirit nudging me to go along one Sunday morning to meet them, and specifically to encourage them.

So I began to meet with them every Sunday morning and they were encouraged. I explained why I was there, and that encouraged them too. A turning point for me was that some of the members would go into another room to pray with whoever had been chosen to speak that morning. Sometimes there would be a visiting speaker, other times it would be one or two of the group. One day, only one person, Jim, went out to pray so I followed him out and joined in the prayer. He was touched by this I think, and we struck up a friendship which has lasted right up to the present day.

The Eatons reminded me very much of Zetland Road Church and Horsecastle Chapel (see part 2 of this series), they were just the same kind of traditional, independent, evangelical gathering. The Eatons had made a bargain with Jesus, they had ‘laid out a fleece’. They had stated that if two or three new families joined them by the end of the current year they would continue, but if not they would close down the meetings and wrap up the finances and the organisation. They counted my appearance as a step in the right direction, but I explained gently that I was not a permanent feature but had been told to come and encourage them. I was even invited to speak to them one Sunday morning which I did, though I’m not a great public speaker – far from it! I don’t recall what I spoke about but it was politely and kindly received. In due course The Eatons did close down but I had made some new friends. Not just Jim and his wife Pam, but some others too including Sean. Jim and Sean became involved in some of the home meetings mentioned earlier.

A longer perspective

From my longer perspective today at seventy-seven years old I can see that what seemed a minor difference between me and the Open Door elders is in truth a yawning gulf. It’s not just that I took a misstep, but that the entire edifice of following Jesus (Church almost everywhere and throughout history) took an enormous misstep at some point in its past development. Do we follow Jesus and Jesus alone? Or do we follow people who have structured what began as a simple community into a series of organisations that often disagree with one another on the details of what to think, what to believe, and how to behave?

The change may have been kickstarted by the Roman Empire making Christianity the official religion of the Empire in the 300s CE. Or it may go back even before that. But whatever the origins, it’s a misinterpretation and misrepresentation of what Jesus and the early church intended and practised. That all are equal under one head (Jesus), that all are filled with and empowered by his Spirit, and structures of stone or of management are not required or permitted. Church is community, a structure of children, women and men organised and motivated by the Same Holy Spirit and following only one master – Jesus!

See also:

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Useful? Interesting?

If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!

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Leadership and the New Testament
Last words from JDMC