MISUSING THE WORD

I listened to a podcast this morning, on which a minister was using a scripture to endorse absolute submission to church leaders. ‘If your pastor says it, obey it’ he demanded, quoting a verse from Hebrews, ‘Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority’ (Heb. 13:17). He couldn’t be more wrong. There are countless casualties from abusive church leadership. Religious bullies usually weaponise the Bible, lifting random texts out of context to justify their control of God’s people.

2 Timothy 2:1-15

Nahum 3:1-19

FOCUS

Do your best to please God. Be a worker who doesn’t need to be ashamed. Teach the message of truth correctly.

2 Timothy 2:15

It’s possible that Jonah’s nationalistic blindness was partly caused by his misunderstanding of the word of the Lord spoken earlier by the prophet Nahum. Denouncing Nineveh with furious promises of judgement from God, Nahum had been filled with righteous anger because of their atrocities. So for Jonah, there would be no good reason to go to that city with an offer of grace and forgiveness. Not only did it make no sense theologically, but if the people of Nineveh did repent, there was a risk that Nahum would be tagged as a false prophet. As such, Jonah might have been able to use Nahum’s words to justify his own hatred for the Assyrians. But if he did, he overlooked one element of Nahum’s prophecy: ‘The Lord is slow to get angry. He is very powerful’ (Nahum 1:3).

Let’s be careful about how we ‘use’ Scripture. We believe it is the inspired Word of God – but our conclusions about it are not, especially when we read it out of context.

Prayer: Your Word is powerful, Lord. May I approach it with maturity and wisdom. Amen.

TUES 11 JUL

God Speaks

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Jonah 1:1

Matthew 3:13-17

Focus

Jonah 1:1

GOING

Deeper

God speaks. The phrase ‘a message from the Lord’ is mentioned seven times in the book of Jonah. It is the only book in the Bible that begins with this phrase, which appears just over one hundred times in the Old Testament. Just as creation and history were birthed by God speaking – and the ministry of Jesus began at His baptism with the sound of the Father’s voice – so in the story of Jonah, everything that unfolds begins with God’s voice. We’re not told how the word came; sometimes God speaks through dreams, or through a whirlwind, (Job 38). As we feed on the authoritative words of Scripture, God speaks. But His voice is not limited to the printed pages of the Bible: He can speak to us in a ‘still, small voice’ (1 Kings 19:9-13).

Over the last four decades of ministry, I’ve heard Christians say ‘God told me’ so many times. Often later events revealed the Lord had not spoken at all, which was embarrassing, and undermined God’s reputation. Perhaps due to my cynicism or lack of expectation, God has often seemed rather quiet. But recently I’ve been more intentional about listening, and have sensed the voice of the Holy Spirit again. In all this, I’ve wondered: why does ‘the word of the Lord’ often come in a whisper? And perhaps this is the reason: when someone whispers to us, they invite us to come close and concentrate, so we might hear them. By faith today, let’s draw near to God, and be those who have ears to hear Him.

Prayer: Speak to me, Lord. I want to be sensitive to Your whisper, and quick to respond. Amen.

During a recent conversation with two friends, we got onto the subject of faith. One shared that he was a nominal churchgoer, for whom occasional church attendance is really about tradition. The other, a professed atheist, challenged him. ‘What do you mean, nominal?’, she said. ‘If there’s a God, you have to either be all in with Him, or not. At least I’m being honest and consistent with my convictions.’

All In

Read

Jonah 1:1-2

John 14:15-31

God spoke to Jonah in a firm, commanding tone. Suddenly he hears, ‘Go’ – in the Hebrew, literally, ‘Get up and go’. Both Elijah and Jeremiah heard exactly the same command (1 Kings 17:9, Jer. 13:6). No explanation for the instruction was offered, no promise of a particular outcome: Jonah was expected to simply respond in obedient trust. And the same is true of us. Faith is not just about feelings, or singing worship songs, or a mere belief system. Jesus put it clearly, even bluntly: ‘If you love me, you will obey what I command’ (John 14:15).

Focus

The Lord said, ‘Go…’

Jonah 1:2 settling. I deliberately place myself under Your direction again today. Use me. Amen.

There have been times in my own faith journey when obedience to God’s way made little sense, naturally speaking. When we made one of our transatlantic relocations, we had two young children, a place to rent for six months, and no guarantee of an income beyond a promise of £4000 per year, at a time when interest rates were rocketing. But we felt so strongly that we were responding to a command from the Lord, and that He would take care of us. And He has, wonderfully. Let’s trust and obey, and be ‘all in’.

Prayer: Lord, save me from

GO: MISSION

Recently I watched my friend George Verwer, the founder of Operation Mobilisation, give his final blog. He used most of his five-minute message to appeal for yet more funds for global mission, the cause to which he gave his life. He died two days later.

Yesterday we saw that God commissioned Jonah to go. Infamously, he refused. But perhaps we can also resist God’s call. A recent report in Premier’s Christianity magazine revealed that around half of evangelical believers in the UK no longer think sharing their faith is important. But there is a divine imperative at the heart of mission: the ‘Go’ of God. As we will see, He is passionate about His world and every single person in it.

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Luke 24:36-49

Romans 10:13-15

I’ve written about this elsewhere, but often preachers and teachers (including me, regrettably) have misquoted Francis of Assisi, when we allege that he said, ‘By all means preach the gospel. If necessary, use words.’ In fact, this is a serious distortion. Francis was concerned that Franciscans, the order of monks that he founded, should practice what they preached, but he also used plenty of words, often visiting two or three villages in a day to share the good news of Christ.

FOCUS

People from every nation will hear it, beginning at Jerusalem.

Luke 24:47

Ultimately, we are called to share the gospel with others, not because we want our churches to get bigger, but because the God we love and serve calls us to live out and speak up the good news. And His command is rooted in His heart of compassion, as we’ll see tomorrow.

Prayer: Through a life lived in Your power, may I declare Your truth with my life and words. Amen.

God Weeps

As I mentioned earlier, the last few years have been very difficult for us all. As a minister, I was allowed to go into a hospital to be with a member of our congregation who was dying of Covid. One of the saddest days of my life was officiating at the double funeral for him and his wife.

When life becomes a dark trudge, we can be tempted to believe that God is detached from it all, watching on but not really caring. But He is still passionately involved, as He was here, seeing the suffering, wickedness, and injustice in Nineveh. It was why He called Jonah in the first place. God is not some megalomaniac general, who shunts soldiers around the world map like a calculating chess player. A better translation of the word 'preach’ in Jonah 1:2 is ‘cry to’.

READ

Jonah 1:1-2

John 11:1-44

Focus

The Lord said, 'Go to the great city of Nineveh. Preach against it. The sins of its people have come to my attention.’

Jonah 1:2b

The missionary God cries for his world. In the very last verse of the book of Jonah, God poses the question, ‘Shouldn’t I show concern for that great city?’ (Jonah 4:11). The word ‘concern’ means literally, ‘to have tears in one’s eyes’. We come across this startling portrait of the weeping God again and again in the pages of the New Testament, as Jesus weeps over the city of Jerusalem (Matt. 23:3739), and empathises with Mary’s pain over her dead brother Lazarus.

God agonises over His world and suffers with our suffering: Hosea prophesied about a God whose heart ‘was stirred inside him’ over His people (Hosea 11). God calls because He cries. Let’s ask Him to make our hearts like His.

Prayer: Lord, help me to sense Your tears when I find myself weeping over injustice and pain. Weep through me. Amen.

GREAT CITY, GREATER GOD

The story of Jonah is fairly well known: it is perhaps the most familiar book in the Old Testament. But when asked what the story is about, most people will immediately start talking about a fish (usually a whale, although the text doesn’t say that). As we’ve seen, the story of Jonah is so misunderstood, because the main character in this story is not a fish, or even Jonah himself, but God. The book of Jonah is quite simply an epic celebration of the big God we serve. He is the main focus all the way through, from beginning to end.

READ

Psalm 145:1-21

Jonah 1:1-2

Going Deeper

lifewithlucas.co.uk/ goingdeeper

The writer of this book enjoys using the word ‘great’, and it appears 14 times. It describes a great city, a great fish, a great wind, great fear, and great anger. But as we pan back from the story for a moment, we see the greatness of God, and, as we celebrated yesterday, His involvement in the small details of life. In Jonah, God speaks and calls; He sees, hears and grieves; He acts in power, sending a storm; He is involved in the details of the sailors casting lots. God is the Creator who sustains everything. And Jonah makes an almost creedal statement as he affirms God as the universal Creator.

In the 48 verses of the book, God is mentioned in 39 of them – as ‘Yahweh’ 22 times, as ‘God’ 13 times, and as ‘Yahweh God of Heaven’ four times. God is great, and He is involved. May that truth be more to us than a statement of faith, but a foundation for our Mondays as well as our Sundays.

To ponder: What do we mean when we affirm that God is great?

Another Life

In the poignant film American Beauty, the lead character, a telesales operative, becomes disillusioned with his existence, overwhelmed with tedium, and begins to hunger for fresh excitement in his life. One line of dialogue reveals the profound sorrow in his soul. ‘In a year I’ll be dead. But in a way, I’m dead already.’ Our video game/entertainment/leisure culture flourishes because of our hankering to get away, even into totally unreality. Many marriages break down, not because of cataclysmic conflict, but as a result of the devastating erosion that boredom brings. Exciting fresh pastures beckon, and the grass looks greener.

Jonah 1:3

Romans 1:18-32

Get a life – or so the saying goes. Perhaps there are times when we’d like to do just that –trade in our current existence and get another life. We can be tempted to daydream about escaping the daily grind, fleeing the familiar landmarks. We even think about getting away from God, from the moral and spiritual demands of being Christian, even though the truth has been revealed to us: ‘God has made it plain’ (Rom. 1:19).

Focus

But Jonah ran away from the Lord.

Jonah 1:3a

Jonah actually did run from his previous life. Unwilling to prophesy to the hated Assyrians, he declared open rebellion against God, and hotfooted to Joppa – 1500 miles in the exact opposite direction of Nineveh. Commanded to go northeast, he went southwest. It results in chaos.

Perhaps some of us are considering taking a similar trip. Let’s think again before we run.

Prayer: Lord, help me to dream, without getting into unhelpful fantasy. Thank You for the reality of today and that You are with me. Amen.