Visiting yet another great church

I visited Longton Community Church on holiday recently. I had a great time worshiping to some familiar songs. I think they must have been Hillsongs or Jesus Culture or David Crowder because I recognized them from my iTunes worship collections but had not had the chance before to worship publicly with them. Brilliant.

The Preach was on Holy Moments, looking at the blind man and the mud (John 9:6), and Moses and the burning bush (Ex 3). The main points that I took home were that holy moments are:

1) hard at the front end (having mud smeared on your eyes, being asked to challenge Pharaoh).

2) involve a call to go (go to the pool and wash off the mud, go to Pharaoh and say...).

3) require trust ie knowing God in a way that allows us to walk into the unknown.

I want to approach the next difficulty that comes my way with an expectation of it being a holy moment. Not with the feeling of walking into a mine field but exploring a diamond mine.  

The people were very friendly and  made us feel very welcome plus the youth had just been at a great event were they had obviously had lots of fun. The meeting ended with well over 30 of them doing a fun dance. Then back home to relatives house for Sunday lunch. mmmm 

Timelines for Dummies

When I go on holiday I like to take a number of books with me but usually end up focusing on only one. I never know which that is going to be when I'm packing, it all depends on how I feel when I get there, so 5 or 6 books end up being transported around the country or across the world without ever being opened. On my last holiday I took Bruce Ware's "God's Greater Glory", "Forgotten God" by Francis Chan, "Supernatural Lifestyle" by Kris Vallotton, "The Dancing Hand of God" by James Maloney and "The Bible for Dummies". Which do you think turned out to be "the one"? It was the last one, "The Bible for Dummies". I actually really like this book. Reading it gives away that I don't know as much as I should. I may swallow my pride and recommend it to the students at the UEA CU in a couple of months time when I talk about "How to read the bible". It may just be me but I find it gives a really helpful overview of the whole bible in a way that is clear, interesting and informative. I'll share here my notes from what I read.

The first things that captured my attention was the chapter about the major prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. (They are called major prophets simply because their books are bigger than the minor prophets in the Bible).

Isaiah prophesies to the southern kingdom between 742 BC and 700 BC during which time the Northern Kingdom was conquered by the Assyrians in 721 BC. In 701 BC Hezekiah was persuaded by Isaiah to repent and an angel of the Lord killed 185,000 of Sennacherib's soldiers who were besieging Jerusalem.

Jeremiah prophesied between 626 BC and 580 BC during which time the southern kingdom was carried off into exile by the Babylonians (first wave in 605BC) and the temple and Jerusalem was destroyed (586 BC). Ezekiel was carried off to Babylon in the first wave 10 years before the destruction of Jerusalem and was the prophet to the exiles there. After 25 years in exile he sees an elaborate vision of the temple being rebuilt and the nation of Israel reunited (573BC). 

The second chapter I read was about was the events surrounding the rebuilding of Jerusalem. In 538 BC, after almost 70 years of exile, Cyrus, the great Persian King, overthrew the Babylonians and encouraged people to return to their own homelands. In Ezra 1:24 he says that "the LORD, the God of heaven...has charged me to build him a house in Jerusalem..whoever is among you of all his people...let him go to Jerusalem.. and rebuild the house of the LORD." Some Israelites go but many choose to stay (the Babylonian Jews later wrote the Babylonian Talmud, a important collection of Jewish laws and stories, in the 3rd-5th century BC).

Sheshbazzar leads the first wave of Jews back to Jerusalem and they start rebuilding the foundations of what is termed "the second temple". For some reason they don't complete it and 18 years later, in 520 BC, Zerubbabel leads another band of Israelites in finishing the alter and then the foundations. Some are happy, while others weep as it's not a big as Solomon's first glorious temple.

The Samaritans get the hump because they aren't allowed to help rebuild the temple and persuade the local Persian authorities that the Jews will rebel. After looking into it and confirming that the Jews do in fact have a habit of doing just that, they order the work to stop.

God sends Zachariah and Haggai to encourage the Jews to start again. Zachariah takes the role of "good cop" giving encouraging prophecies of the future while Haggai takes the role of "bad cop" telling the people off for sorting out their own homes while neglecting God's house.

When the Israelites start building again, the local authorities check the situation with Darius, the new Persian king, who upholds Cyrus' decree and provides money to make it happen.

In 515 BC the temple is completed and the Passover is celebrated with sacrifices for the first time in 70 years. 

In 458BC Another Persian king Artaxerxes (According to the Rose Book of Bible and Christian History Time Lines, the order of Kings is Cyrus the great 559-530, Cambysees 529-522, Darius I 522-486, Pericles 500-429, Xerxes I (Ahasuerus) 485-465), Artaxerxes I 464-424, Darius II 423-405, Artaxerxes II 404-359, Artaxerxes III 358-337) sends an expert in Jewish law, called Ezra, with money to see how things are progressing in Jerusalem and help them along. Ezra leads the people, ushering in a long period of priestly rule that was still in place in Jesus' day. Ezra gets the Israelites to divorce their foreign wives.

In 445 BC Nehemiah, the cupbearer (the royal official in charge of food preparation) to the Persian king Artaxerxes learns that the walls of Jerusalem are in ruins. The King grants him permission to go to Jerusalem and sends him off with protection and resources to rebuild the walls. (These Persian kings seem really determined to rebuild Jerusalem. I am reminded of Proverb 21:1: The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will.).     

Nehemiah organizes people to work on the walls near their own homes. The Samaritans are out to cause trouble again but the Jews finish the wall with a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other in 52 days (Neh 6:15).

Ezra then reads the law to the people while others walk about helping them to understand it. The next day they discover its the holiday of Booths or Sukkot so they pitch tents and celebrate the desert wanderings.  

So if I can summaries all that on a short time line:

742 BC            Isaiah start to prophecy to Judah

721BC             Northern Kingdom was conquered by the Assyrians

701 BC            Hezekiah repents and Angel wipes out Assyrians besieging Jerusalem

700 BC            Isaiah stops prophesying BC.

626 BC            Jeremiah starts prophesying

605BC             First wave of Jews carried off into Babylonians exile inc. Ezekiel

586 BC            Temple and Jerusalem destroyed

580 BC            Jeremiah stops prophesying

573BC             Ezekiel's vision of the temple being rebuilt and nation reunited. 

538 BC            Cyrus overthrows the Babylonians and decrees Jews can return home and rebuild. Sheshbazzar leads the first wave of Jews back to Jerusalem to start

520 BC            Zerubbable leads another band of Israelites back and finish the altar and then the foundations. It's a bitter sweet time.  

The Samaritans get the hump and persuade the local Persian authorities to stop building.

Zachariah and Haggai encourage Jews to start again.

Persian King Darius who upholds Cyrus' decree and provides more money

515 BC            Temple completed and Passover celebrated with sacrifices

458BC             Artaxerxes sends Ezra, with money to continue rebuilding homeland.

                        Ezra gets the Israelites to divorce their foreign wives.

445 BC            Nehemiah sent by Artaxerxes to rebuild the walls who takes 52 days to do it.

Ezra the reads the law and they celebrate Booths.


And my first attempt at it in picture form:

All in all a very informative holiday.

"We all end up in diapers"

In the holiday cottage we stayed at recently there was a DVD collection so we took the opportunity to watch a couple of films. The first was The Strange Case of Benjamin Button. The film starts and ends in a residential home for old people, a place where time is marked by the passing away of one person after another. One night a newborn baby is left at the door step to the home. Its father left him there because although he is the size of a normal baby his body is that of a 90 year old man. A care worker in the home nurses the baby who gets younger as it grows bigger.

It’s a great concept to highlight the issues of life and ageing and death. As the baby gets younger through the movie the fact that everyone else gets older is accentuated. It's like two trains passing each other from opposite directions create the illusion of twice the speed. It also allows you to see the symmetry of the ageing process. A great quote from the film is “We all end up in diapers!”. How true. In all likelihood I will end up being cared for by others - totally reliant on those around me. I’m around the half way mark now which really puts things into perspective!

I was talking with friends the other day about how when you are young you feel like you will live forever. Death can be obscured by all the living there is to do. Now I’m older I can see the light at the end of the tunnel (and thanks to Jesus it is a light and not utter darkness!). There must be lots of people facing the same situation but without knowing what to expect on the other side of death. I wonder what that feels like.

I want to give my strength to God now even as I feel it ebbing away. I want to get to know him now so when my strength fails I’ll still have a rich and rewarding relationship with my father, and my saviour and my helper. 

Eccles. 12:1 (NIV) 

    Remember your Creator

        in the days of your youth,

    before the days of trouble come

        and the years approach when you will say,

        "I find no pleasure in them"

Craft, craft and more craft

We had a great holiday recently. We did some walking, visited various attractions and made lots of craft type things. Plays, books, games, playgrounds etc etc. Here is a book we did (ok I did). It's very informative I think you'll agree.

And here is some of the girls' stuff. We filmed a play and made lots more books: 

We also made some top trump flower card:

"The Gist" - A brand new bible translation

Just read a guardian article http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/22/bible-twitter-makeover

that put me on to some great bible twitterers. @biblesummary, @FakeBible and

@janariess (Twible).

Biblesummary is summarising the bible one tweet per chapter per day. So far it has got to Gen 15 (a little ahead of where I am in my bible blog http://marcusbible.blogspot.com/).

Gen15: The Lord promised Abram an heir and many descendants. Abram believed. He was told that they would be enslaved but would then return.

Gen14: The kings went to war and took Lot captive. Abram rescued Lot. Melchizedek blessed Abram and Abram gave him a tenth of everything.

Gen13: Abram journeyed with his nephew Lot. Their servants argued, so Lot went to Sodom, Abram to Canaan. The LORD promised Abram the land.

Gen12: God told Abram, "Go. I will make you a great nation. You will be a blessing." In Egypt Abram lied about Sarai and Pharaoh was cursed.

Gen11: They began building a great tower for themselves, but the Lord confused their language. Shem's line included Abram who married Sarai.

Gen10: Japheth's line lived in the coastlands; Ham's included Nimrod and the Canaanites; Shem's lived in the East. These formed the nations.

Gen9: God blessed Noah and set the rainbow as a sign that he would never flood the earth again. Noah got drunk and cursed Ham's son Canaan.

Gen8: The flood abated. Noah sent out a raven and two doves. When the earth was dry God called them all out of the ark. Noah built an altar.

Gen7: Noah and his family went into the ark with two of each creature. It rained for forty days and forty nights and the earth was covered.

Gen6: Humankind corrupted the earth with evil. God decided to destroy them. He told Noah to build an ark to be saved from the flood.

Gen5: Adam's line was: Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech and Noah. Noah's sons were Shem, Ham and Japheth.

Gen4: Eve's sons made offerings to God. Only Abel's was acceptable, so Cain killed him. Abel's blood cried out and God sent Cain away.

Gen3: The serpent deceived the woman; she and Adam ate from the tree. The earth became cursed, and God sent Adam and Eve out of the garden.

Gen2: God formed a man and gave him the garden in Eden, except for the tree of knowledge. Adam was alone so God made a woman as his partner.

Gen1: God created the heavens, the earth and everything that lives. He made humankind in his image, and gave them charge over the earth.

FakeBible are doing each verse as a tweet in an informal twitter style:

  

Ex10:29 "Okay, you won't ever s-see me again," said Moses. And it was true, except for in a lifetime of Pharaoh's nightmares.

Ex10:28 "GET OUT OF MY SIGHT! IF YOU SEE ME AGAIN I'LL FLIPPIN' KILL YOU!" It was a strange threat to make after the plague of darkness.

Ex10:27 Pharaoh: "FFS! DO YOU THINK I'M AN IDIOT? YOU DON'T WANT THREE DAYS, YOU WANT TO GO AND NEVER COME BACK!" What a hard-hearted bigot.

Ex10:25-26 Moses: "We all have to make sac-sacrifices! I.e., sacrifice our cattle. To G-God. B-better take ALL the cattle, just in c-case."

 

Ex10:24 Pharaoh summoned Moses. "Go. Take your women and children. But leave your cattle as collateral. Fair? Fair. Good talk."

Twible paraphrased the whole of the Book of Leviticus in one tweet: "Don't eat this. Don't screw that. Don't touch this. Don't DO that. Thus saith the Lord.". Actually it usually does a couple of tweets per chapter and a couple of tweets per day.

1 Kgs 22: Great Jehoshaphat! Kings of S & N join forces to fight Syrians. 1 Kgs ends on happy note of unity & peace. Won’t last.

1 Kgs 22: Great Jehoshaphat! Kings of S & N join forces to fight Syrians. 1 Kgs

1 Kgs 21: Queen Jezebel uses eminent domain to seize Naboth’s vineyard; has the guy stoned. (Don’t worry. She’ll soon be Pupperoni.) 

1 Kgs 21: Queen Jezebel uses eminent domain to seize Naboth’s vineyard; has the guy stoned. (Don’t worry. She’ll soon be Pupperoni.)

1 Kgs 20: Gleeful Syrians threaten to take Israel’s gold, wives, & kids. Like a country music song! Isr trounces em . . . this time.

1 Kgs 19: Elij crashes from theo high; now in deep funk sans Celexa. Wants to die, but G won’t hear of it. Bakes him a cake instead. 

1 Kgs 19: Elij crashes from theo high; now in deep funk sans Celexa. Wants to die, but G won’t hear of it. Bakes him a cake instead.

1 Kgs 18: Theology throwdown; Elij dares 850 pagan prophets to duel. Elij: “Ha! Is that all you’ve got? LMAO @ your girly-man gods.” 

 

If you didn't like "the message" then you'll not get along with these "versions" but I think they are a great resource. I view the bible as inspired at all levels, from an individual word to "the gist". If that wasn't the case then at what point does a translation stop being a helpful bible? The English versions we have are already a long way from reading the original manuscripts in their original language. Missing the gist can be as bad as missing the detail. Those that emphasise the importance of each word would be quick no doubt to emphasise context, and context is just another word for the gist. So we have had "the message", now it's time for a new groundbreaking  bible version called "The Gist". I'm actually quite serious. The book would contain several versions of the bible at different levels of detail. In recognition that a summary necessarily needs to be done from a particular perspective with certain presuppositions and aims in mind (just like any bible translation) each level would be done in a number of "takes". Anyone want to be the new Eugene Peterson?

  

Fighting Cancer

Just read Hitchen's Vanity Fair article in which he describes his first raw reactions to being "stricken" with cancer. http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/09/hitchens-201009

Even though he is still stoically anti-anything-God, it's hard not to warm to him. He is an amazing thinker and writer and speaks with an openness and frankness that serves up some tasty food for thought. He is also very quotable:

"I have been ....knowingly burning the candle at both ends and finding that it often gives a lovely light."

"In whatever kind of a “race” life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist."

"I love the imagery of struggle....Allow me to inform you, though, that when you sit in a room with a set of other finalists, and kindly people bring a huge transparent bag of poison and plug it into your arm, and you either read or don’t read a book while the venom sack gradually empties itself into your system, the image of the ardent soldier or revolutionary is the very last one that will occur to you. You feel swamped with passivity and impotence: dissolving in powerlessness like a sugar lump in water."

Great writing but a terribly sad situation. It brings home to me again the importance of fighting against sickness, not just with drugs but with supernatural power. Those like myself who are relatively well need to take up the fight for those who are sick. It's unthinkable to me that, according to Christopher, some people are actually praying for him to stay ill. Jesus never did that! Encouragingly though, most of the correspondence he has got is from people who are praying for him to make a full and swift recovery. While people in Christopher's situation battle though the side effects of powerful drugs we need to call upon God to release power from heaven to heal the sick.

I am currently half way through a year-long series on healing (it's actually not as long as it sounds as I've only done 5 preaches so far) and I am thinking about what to speak on this term. Do I continue in Matthews gospel chapters 7-10 and talk about Jesus sending out the disciples to heal the sick or do I start the second half of the series in Acts? I think I need to finish the Matthew series well but there is a lot of overlap. Acts is really the outworking of the instructions Jesus gives his disciples in Matthew 10.

I am determined to believe for break through in healing despite all the other commitments and responsibilities I have. In the next couple of months I am going to two conferences where the guys from Bethel will be speaking. It will mean several days away from home and getting back in the early hours of Sunday morning to preach at church but I cannot let this go. I can't let life's busyness deflect me from launching a strategic attack on sickness. If I have to burn the candle at both ends for a couple of months then so be it! I want the "lovely light" of healing in Jesus name to shine brightly from the church. I want to break the tape at the end of my race having drawn on heavens recourses and exhausted my own. I want to be bent double before Jesus gasping for breath, having given it 100%. I'll have all eternity to recover so what's a few late nights.

It's been great the last few week praying for people and seeing small improvements. Back aches instantly going and headaches being lifted in Jesus name. I rejoice over these things and they are spurring me on but I long to see cancer go and people freed from the clutched of MS. LORD please stretch out your hand to heal in the name of Jesus.  

Cheese drills, rugby scrums and faith

A friend came round recently to drill a hole in the outside wall of my house to get a cable through. The drill looked like a gun from some sci-fi movie - the drill bit was almost 2 feet long! He had been prompted to come over and help me with a bit of DIY after I preached on drill bits at our morning meeting.

I had asked people to imagine a drill bit that could only cut through soft things like butter or, with the wind behind it, a piece of cheese. Although this "butter bit" looks sharp and strong it would go blunt and bend the minute it's pressed onto something hard. The reason why B&Q do not sell such a thing is that it would be totally useless. You don't need a drill bit to cut through soft dairy products! Anything can do that.

There is an apparent faith that is nothing more than wishful thinking, or going along with the crowd, or being naturally persuaded by how things currently look. It can look like the real thing, all hard and shiny, but when it hits resistance it goes blunt and bends. True faith is like a steel diamond tipped drill bit. It will stay straight and keeps it's point even when pressed into granite. True faith says "this will change!, we will go through".   

By coincidence I read this, this morning

Prov 24:10  If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.

That's saying the same thing. What is the point of strength that fails when something is hard?

            Prov 24:16  the righteous falls seven times and rises again,

Or in the words of the Tubthumping song:

            I get knocked down, but I get up again
            You never gonna keep me down

That's what faith is like.

I used to be play rugby a long time ago. I was on the edge of the scrum. Again, how ridiculous it would be to give up and walk away from the scrum the minute you experienced resistance. The whole point of the scrum is meeting resistance and pushing through. A scrum stands still for a while or perhaps moves sideways a bit as the two powers lock together. But then there is a moment when your side moves forward a fraction and senses the other side flagging. That's the moment to roar and press through your advantage. That's like faith when it hears testimonies of what God has done. True faith doesn't give up when nothing happens, but it grows through testimonies of what God is doing. The rugby scrum analogy is also helpful as it's a team thing. When one might be tempted to flag or give up they are locked together with others around them. Even if your will or body weakens for a bit you can re-engage and push as the others move forward.  

The psalms are full of testimonies, the gospel is a testimony, in fact the bible is one big testimony. Hearing and reading about people getting healed builds faith.

God give me a diamond tipped drill bit of faith, a huge stubborn deep heat smelling faith, locked in with others, that doesn't give up when it meets resistance but roars and pushes home the advantage when it sees you at work.

How can a good God allow evil?

Just heard a helpful reply to this very difficult question. It was by Ravi Zacharias:

It is a very difficult question to answer, not just the fact of evil, but the size of it, the volume of it. You know people think we don't actually think about these things as Christian apologists. The first thing I would say is that the question does not actually dislodge God. If anything it should prove that God actually exists, otherwise value and the question disintegrates. You don't ask the question unless you believe in an absolute moral law. And you don't believe in absolute moral law unless there is an absolute moral lawgiver. So God is in the paradigm not outside of the paradigm.

Ravi Zacharias

The second thing I would say is that the ultimate ethic in life is love. That is the supreme ethic. There is no ethic more supreme than love. But necessary to love is the component of the will. You cannot have love without the freedom to not love. Otherwise you have conformity, compliance; you really don't have love. So if love is the supreme ethic and the freedom of the will is indispensable to love and the question must keep God in the paradigm then what I would say is the greatest gift of God is the gift of the freedom of our will in order that we can love, but with the greatest gift comes the greatest possible calamity when you violate that love, the entailments actually follow, and so both good is real and evil is real and the human heart must be able to recognise this and choose that which is good otherwise you live in a world of non-concrete expressions where you can choose bad with no consequences. Nobody would believe bad is bad if there were no consequences to it. So in the supreme effort of God to bring you, me to himself he gives us the example of love. He has made us for himself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in him.

One other footnote. If I were to take a life something tragic has happened because I cannot restore that life. But if God allows that to happen he can still restore that life, and the component of eternity does spell the possibility of an explanation. Without eternity the problem of evil remains totally unsolved. In fact the question remains indefensible. So God is able to restore life, eternity is able to bring ultimate justice and we leave those two components in his hands.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it7mhQ8fEq0&feature=related

If you are hungry for more clear thinking then here is Ravi's reply to a Wall Street Journal article by atheist Richard Dawkins and comparative religion scholar Karen Armstrong:

Dawkins says: "What is so special about life? It never violates the laws of physics." Let's grant him that for the moment. But the fact of physics is that however you section physical concrete reality, you end up with a state that does not explain its own existence. Moreover, since the universe does have a beginning and nothing physical can explain its own existence, is it that irrational a position to think that the first cause would have to be something non-physical?

More can be said, but for the sake of brevity may I ask one more question?

The position that both Armstrong and Dawkins would be compelled to concede is that moral categories do exist for us as persons. It is implicit in their writings. So I ask, if personhood is of value and if our personal questions on moral values are of value, then must we not also concede that the value-laden question about intrinsic value for humanity can only be meaningful if humanity is the creation of a person who is of infinite worth to bequeath that value to us as persons?

In other words, our assumptions about our worth and the worthiness of our questions of good and evil cannot be the offspring of Naturalism. 

But these are the gaps atheists conveniently ignore. They value their Physics but devalue their Physicist. They are quick to blame a person for evil but are loathe to attribute goodness to the ultimate person. 
That is, either our questions are rooted in personal worth or not. If they are, then God must exist. If they are not, then our questions are self-defeating. 

That is why G.K. Chesterton said: When belief in God becomes difficult, the tendency is to turn away from him. But in heaven's name to what? Dawkins and Armstrong are brilliant examples of making something out of nothing but it shows they are borrowing from something that they deny exists. 

A spiritual, moral first cause is a reasonable position much more than the questions that smuggle in such realities without admitting it. 

Maybe that's why two brilliant minds, Anthony Flew and more recently A.N. Wilson*, left the atheistic fold. They saw the hollow word-games that flew in the face of reality as we also intuitively know it. 

http://www.rzim.org/usa/rzimnews/tabid/599/articleid/10395/cbmoduleid/1452/default.aspx

* a very interesting double conversion story http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2009/04/conversion-experience-atheism

Inception : live the dream!

As the cinema attendant stamped my car parking ticket she declared that Inception was the best film she had ever seen. It was pretty good. In fact the idea is genius: Putting yourself in dreams to get information from people, or, as the title intimates, to place an idea deep in someone's subconscious.

An "architect" imagines a dream world that runs inside a sleeping subjects head. The sleeper dreams they are in the world but others can enter the dream too. BTW if you don't want to know any more about the film stop reading now. Two extra factors take this idea to a higher level of weirdness. The first is that time goes slower in the dream due to your mind running faster, so five minutes of sleep time is about an hour of dream time. The second concept is that you can have dreams within dreams within dreams. How do you wake up? If you are one level down then just a firm jolt in the level above will do but at the deeper levels the sedation is such that you need to die in the dream to wake up in the level above. Do this a lot and you start to wonder what is a dream and what is reality.

The idea a bit matrixy but the time thing and the levels makes it better. There are some striking similarities between  the ideas in inception and the Christian life which impacted me as I watched. Of course my life now is real. It is not a dream. But it is in a sense a sub level of a more foundational reality. I am a citizen of heaven. That's where I belong. I am seated with Christ in heavenly places. My life now needs to be lived out with a knowledge of the eternal reality. There are great moments in the film when dreamers realise they are dreaming - that their current experience isn't the sum total of reality. Well, that's the Christians experience. Suddenly I realise that I don't live for this world or this reality. I live for an eternal reality. I need to know why I'm here, what my purpose is on this earth.

One day I will die and wake up with Jesus in paradise. Martyrs must have the same feeling that Leonardo and his wife had when they died to get out of the deep dream levels. As they were tied to the stake or put their head on the block they must have been thinking "I am here as a witness to the truth, this is not the end, I will wake up in paradise, mission completed". There will be a new heaven and a new earth and it's there that my "real" life will be lived out. My life here is a vapour in comparison. Again I need to stress that I'm not saying life here and now is a dream, or isn't real. It is and will have eternal consequences, but even in the film what happens in the dream has a massive effect in the real world above. The reason for going into someones dream in the film is to bring secrets back into the real world. The dream ends but the effects of what took place in the dream have massive ongoing impact. For the Christian, the point of being this side of the grave is to see people come to know Jesus. Every time someone puts their faith Jesus as their Lord and Saviour their eternal destiny is secured.    

Most of the time I think I carry on my life as if heaven is the dream. I slip into moments of heavenly perspective but live my life, much of the time, from an earthly perspective. Let's make it more concrete. In an mp3 I am currently listening to Bill Johnson has just talked about some amazing miracles;

• Muscles appearing and growing.
• A 3 year old boy Chris was healed of club feet. (They have it on video apparently. He looks into the camera and says "I can run!"). As he shared the testimony another woman's son was healed of club feet too.
• He talks about tumours falling off people.
• A 40 year old woman born deaf is knocked down by the power of God and gets up able to hear.
• An inner ear destroyed by a nail 37 years ago gets recreated and the man can hear again in an instant.
• A woman in a Lutheran church with cancer in her lower body who didn't believe in miracles was healed the day before her treatment was due.

This is the stuff that dreams are made of isn't it? Or is it heavens reality breaking in to our dream now?

Satan works in the realm of lies. Unreality. How much of our current experience of the world is a lie? Unreal. Is God the architect of our thinking and perceiving or is God? Of course there is a real material world. We are real too. It's not all an illusion but we can exist in the real physical world while at the same time living in a dream world in our mind. The closest thing I can think of is sleep walking. We are in a dream but operating in the material world too.

For example, thinking that God does not exist is unreality. If I think God doesn't exist I am living an illusion. My view of the world at a very basic level does not conform to reality. I will look at those who do think God exists and think they are the ones dreaming. In the film Leonardo has a gyroscope that he spins. He knows how it feels and how it behaves in the real world so he can tell if he is in a dream or not. In a dream it spins forever. In the real world it eventually rocks and falls. We all need to work out if this world, our current experience, is the ultimate reality. How can you tell? What is your gyroscope? What is truth?  

One day I will die in this world and wake up in another. I will find myself eternally to be where I really am, in heavenly places with Christ. I don't want to be thinking then "if only I'd known." Do I live on earth and poke my head up into heaven occasionally or do I live in heaven and reach down to earth? I am here on a mission. To bring God's kingdom in. To build the church. To preach the gospel. To wake people up to the fact that this is not the ultimate reality. This world, like a dream, will pass away and we will all wake up one day and stand before the judgment seat of God.

I left the film with a deep conviction and determination to "live the dream". In a dream, when you release you are dreaming, everything changes. You are free to do things you would never do, try things you would never dare to try knowing that there is another greater reality than this. In my dreams people get well from cancer and paralysis and MS. The deaf hear and the blind see. It's a dream that really will come true.  

"A very reasonable guy" (healing debate part 3)

Here are my notes on the last part of a very warm and friendly debate between Michael Shermer and Adrian Holloway about healing miracles. Michael is a sceptic and Adrian is a church leader.

So, if Michael saw a limb grow would it really be evidence of a supernatural God? Michael says "that is an interesting point and that we are on the cusp of doing this ourselves. If it happened he would like to know how God did it so we could understand it for ourselves and do it." I think he is saying that in a way it would not be a miracle as we would be able to see how it happened. This is an interesting point. If you zoomed in on a miracle at what point, if any, would you see something supernatural? Would it all look normal until you got to a statistical quantum level? If so that would mean you could never identify a miracle under the microscope as you would never see anything impossible. At all times the laws of physics would be operating normally. A new limb would grow, not by molecules appearing out of a supernatural ether but by cell division. It would still be truth that God would be sovereignly behind the events, as he is behind all events in history, working things out according to his will and plan. In such a view a miracle is really in the eye of the beholders. It's essence is in the effect of its happening on the observers. Another view is a "miracles of the gaps" theory that expect miracles to be in direct contradiction to the laws of nature. Under a microscope the cells of a leg would suddenly appear "ex nihilo", out of nothing.        

What would it take for Michael to believe in God? He quotes Woody Allen's reply to the same question "a large cache deposit in a Swiss bank account in his name!". "About 10 million dollars would do it!"

Adrian points out that it is harder to get to atheism as you have to rule out, beyond your experience, the possibility of God existing. Agnosticism would be more attractive. Michael says technically he is an agnostic but behaviourally he is an atheist as he acts on the assumption that there is no God. "What you do is more important than what you believe. An all powerful God would care more about what you did that what you believe. Love people etc". Adrian agrees that people will be judged on the basis of their actions so Michael quips there may be hope for him yet. I guess he doesn't realise that it's not a case of weighing good against bad, but being judged for every bad thing you have done. We have all done things wrong and so all need to be forgiven. When you go into a court room to be tried for murder would you expect to be let off because you saved someone's life a few years earlier?  

Michael asked Adrian about Jews: "They believe in everything Christians believe except Jesus so what happens about them?" Adrian has asked three Jewish people, including one very senior medical  academic, if they have read the NT but none had. So he has not had much first hand experience of talking things through with Jews who have seen the evidence. He says he is very happy to talk about Jewish evangelism it's just he is not that strong on it. Isn't it getting away from the topic of miracles? Michael says it is connected as the Jews obviously look at the same evidence but reject it and say Jesus didn't rise from the dead. Adrian says all he can do is look at it from his perspective as he isn't Jewish. He has a history degree and when he looks at the evidence, treating the sources the same as other historical literature, he concludes that it looks like Jesus did rise. Of course you have to go along with the possibility of miracles or it may be that no amount of evidence will be enough to persuade you.

Michael thinks that C S Lewis (whose fiction and non-fiction he likes) missed out an option in his Lord, liar, or lunatic trilemma ie that people were simply mistaken in what they saw or remembered. He also says that people like David Koresh go to their deaths for believing they have heard God but didn't.

Adrian says that the NT records are too early to have been Chinese whispers. Also think how the game works. If I whisper to one person "Jesus is really super and great" and they whisper to the next person and so on round the room and we get out at the end "Jesus is God" then I will laugh and say "no, that's not what I said". That's how the game works. Everyone gets to see the mistake because the first person, the source, is still in the room. Even though some of the NT could have been written 30-50 years after the crucifixion, the  eye witnesses are still in the room! They are still alive and could have said "No, you've got it all wrong, Jesus was just a good man"! He points to 1 Cor 15:1-8 as a record of a very early statement perhaps even within 24 months of the events.

Adrian mentions a lady who had significant hearing loss and now after prayer in the name of Jesus has normal hearing. She even has the before and after test results. She gave back her two hearing aids. Abbey Coles had several allergies (fruit and rubber latex) and was entirely healed. Previously she had to stay with her mum and within 20 minutes of a hospital. She was healed, was able to move away and live independently, and can now live a normal life. A woman was in a wheel chair for 8 years with encephalitis and all the doctors could do was control the pain. She had a stair lift in her house. She was instantly healed when prayed for in the name of Jesus and a picture of her lifting her wheel chair appeared in the Daily Mail shortly afterwards. Her doctor said this had never happened to him before. She had trouble giving back her benefits because people don't get well of these things. Adrian concludes "it's worth praying for people because of the results even though some are not healed the more I pray for people the more people are healed."

Michael points to the fact that most people who are ill get prayed for but still die. We only hear about the ones that get well - the anomalies. He talks about his girlfriend who was paralysed in a car accident. He was a Christian then and prayed and prayed and prayed but nothing happened. She is still paraplegic. I wonder how much that affected his thinking rather than the location reason he gave at the start. If so I can understand where he is coming from a lot more. Michael asks why healing is the exception, why does God withhold healing to most people? I think that's a very good question!

Adrian says it is a good objection and why for most of his Christian life he didn't pray for the sick. Wouldn't it be better not to raise expectations, play safe and not raise hopes? But that doesn't help those who actually are healed and that is an increasing number in his experience. He now thinks it's worth it for the few (sometimes as much as 50%) that do get healed. I am very struck by the pragmatic way Adrian reasons. It's very helpful in conducting the conversation in a realm where the other person can engage and dialogue. There is some merit in saying "because the bible says so" but it can be a bit of a conversation stopper.  

For Michael though, people would probably still have got better even without prayer. That is why you need controlled experiments he says. It's no different from approving a drug. You need clinical trials, it's standard procedure. Why is the prayer things different?

And so the debate comes to an end. As the moderator is wrapping it up Michael interjects and says that "this was a very thoughtful conversation and Adrian you seem like such a reasonable guy". Adrian reciprocates, and I agree. It really was a pleasure to listen to and probably shed more light on the matter for there being less heat. I wonder how often Michael finds himself interacting with people who are slightly more hostile and aggressive to him and his position. I have learned a lot from listening to the gracious way Adrian spoke in this debate and also, as Michael opened up about his experiences as a Christian,  saw something of the genuine challenges that people have to believing in a God who heals.     

Does God heal today? (healing debate part 2)

http://www.premierradio.org.uk/listen/ondemand.aspx?mediaid={8B4B875D-57DD-42B3-BC5F-29D9FDD4AA38}

I am writing up my thoughts on the Premier Christian Radio debate "does God heal today?" between Michael Shermer and Adrian Holloway. Both men come across really well, are respectful to one another, and it was a real pleasure to listen to.

Michael says of supposed miracles:

"What's more likely, that the claim of a miracle is the truth, or that the person making the claim is mistaken, or deceptive or self deceived? There are lots of experiences where that turns out to be the case and no experiences of miraculous events, so in all cases the most likely explanation is that it is a hoax."

He says when miracles seem to happen it's just a coincidence. You were doing something and your body happened to heal itself and you assume that the healing is connected with what you were doing at the time.  He points out that cancers go into remission sometimes but growing a new limb never happens so if it did it would be a miracle. If God heals cancers and things like that why can't he heal amputees? "None of the Christian guys in Afghanistan who lose their limbs get new ones. Salamanders can grow them so it can't be too hard for God to grow them back".

 Adrian asks if Michael thinks there is any benefit to praying for people who are unwell. Adrian knows of friends who got prayed for and got out of wheel chairs. They would be glad that someone prayed for them!  He gives an example:

Edith (Edee) Nun, who was in a wheel chair for many years with multiple scleroses and her condition deteriorated during that time. She couldn't walk or read properly and her coordination was virtually non existent. She had 24 hour professional care and she couldn't speak unaided. She was prayed for on a particular day, was totally healed, went in for tests and her doctor, a man called John Crossley, who was her doctor from 1978-1988 and has been her doctor again since, wrote this: Miss Edith Nun had proven and severe MS with extreme weakness in her arms and legs and visual and speech problems. The original diagnosis was made in 1971 and there was no doubt in the opinion of several neurologists that she had the disease. From 1976 onwards there was a slow but steady deterioration in her condition. Her prognoses was poor when I last saw her in 1988 and from her notes it seems that the doctor who was seeing her in 1992 felt that this was still the situation. When I met her again in March 1994, (which was after her healing) I was astonished at her recovery which appears to be full and unexplained."

From this Adrian simply argues that if people are prayed for and get well "that is a good thing not a bad thing". Michael is of course not against people getting well and points to lots of other new age medicines and practices that make the same claims. "This crystal or this chant", etc. "From a scientific perspective you need to test these claims to see if they are statistically significant and rule out things like the placebo effect. This has been done in the case of heart patients (controlled experiments in praying for one group and not for the other etc) and it has been shown that prayer has no statistically significant effect". He goes on "that's the only way to really tell. Anecdotes are a sample of one which tell us nothing."

But can you put God under the microscope? Adrian says you need to distinguish between different religions. "Christianity says Jesus didn't do many miracles in Nazareth because of people's lack of faith. So faith is going to be a very big variable in a scientific study." This is an interesting point. I have often wondered to what extent the scientific method is suited to investigating miracles. How does God react to testing him in this way? What does he think about us cordoning off a group of people and not praying for them while praying for others? Can you "walk by the Spirit" and "do what you see the Father" doing in a double blind trial where everything is fixed and planned in detail?  

Michael brings up the amputee thing again. That would not be fuzzy. He reckons recovery from MS could be a bit fuzzy. Did Edith have it in the first place? His experience of healing meetings is that people are emotionally high and so it's no surprise that they make various excited claims to being healed. He basically says "show me a leg reappearing! That would be something to take seriously".

One point I would make is that the healing meetings I have been to have been very low key with little or no hype. Sometimes people are prayed for before anyone has preached. Bill Johnson is certainly very laid back. When asked if he is Charismatic, Adrian says he is kind of reluctant to embrace the term because of the associations that come with it, particularly in the States. What is often seen and termed charismatic on Christian TV is a million miles away from what he would be comfortable with. He would rather see himself as a Christian who believes that God heals people today.  Going back to Michael's earlier statements Adrian says it is an extraordinarily bold claim to say that every recorded case of healing is psychosomatic or placebo or misdiagnoses. In the case of Edith is would be a bold claim to say that the doctors got it wrong.

Michael says why "attribute it to a deity? Why not say I don't know what happened"?

Adrian would be happy to say that if 100 people were prayed for in the name of Jesus that in a percentage the placebo effect might play a part. "However there are clear cases where someone has zero medical prospects but they recover." Michael is not happy that any doctors would every say there is zero percent. He presses his view that some things are just unknown anomalies. We just need to say "I don't know, sometimes things just happen".

Adrian says there is certainly the possibility of divine intervention, and there are enough claims that seem to be in line with that.  "The assertion of the absolute is very hard to sustain. Saying there will never be any miracles means you have to prove every apparent case is false. How do you do that? You are ruling it out ahead of time."

Michael says that science assumes that everything has a natural explanation. Supernatural explanations are no explanations at all. He reckons the word miracle is a linguistic placeholder for "we don't know what happened yet".

Adrian says he tends to back off using the world miracle and would rather talk about things he has seen and experienced, like people getting better or healed when prayed for in the name of Jesus. He says in the Christian world view God hasn't made it blatantly obvious that he exists although there is evidence. There is something dignifying about us being able to make a choice for God or not. He goes on "when Jesus raised someone form the dead far from everyone believing in him some decided that they had to kill him. Judas saw all the miracles and yet decided to betray Jesus." It seems we are not as open minded as we might think. Adrian admits "If I was a committed atheist I would find it very hard to dismantle my position and become a Christian."