Sweeter Than Honey

“Your word is sweeter than honey.”

The Jews impress the value of God’s Word, the Torah, on their kids minds.  As they began to teach children the law of God, they would give the kids a drop of honey to lick. The sweet taste was to remind them of how good God’s Word is. As prophet Ezekiel writes:

“…So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth. “ (Ezekiel 3:3)

Is sweet the first thing that comes to mind when you think about the Bible?

Too often us Christians know we should read the Word, after all,

‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God,’

but it’s more of a chore than sweetness on our lips.

All of us go through seasons in this. Perhaps two key things to practice are meditation and and submission.  Marinating in the Word of God, meditating on it, letting the words wash over you. And submitting, accepting the fact that God is great and all-knowing.  When we don’t understand something from our limited view, it doesn’t make God smaller or his word flawed, but we are the ones to be molded by the Word and not the other way around.

The truth is, the Word sustains our faith and keeps us growing. It is easy to wither spiritually if allow the Word lose its sweetness to us.

10 Commandments Revisited

I never think about the absolute moral code, the 10 Commandments. Once you’ve been a Christian for a while or having grown up in a Christian culture, you shrug and dismiss them by a” yeah, of course they’re good”-nod.

But maybe we should stop to meditate on those 10 basic laws for living well. We’re so busy looking at people’s obvious sins, that guy’s porn addiction, her adultery, his gay lifestyle and their atheism, that we might miss some obvious sins in our own lives.

I mean, how many of us good, nice Christians envy our neighbor’s fancy car/husband/wife/house/holiday? Or how many of us take keeping the Shabbat seriously and take real time with God? Or how many of us sing to the Lord on a Sunday about our love and commitment, only to live a completely reverse lifestyle on Monday?How many of us spread death with our critical words?

And how many of us keep serving other gods and withhold completely surrendering our lives to Jesus?

The Mystery of the Kingdom of God

It is like yeast mixed into a large amount of flour until it has worked itself through the dough.

It is like a man finding a treasure in a field, selling everything he owns, to buy the field.

It is like a mustard seed, that is the smallest of seeds, but when it is planted, it grows into a large tree and birds make nests on its branches.

The kingdom of God will advance in this world and it cannot be stopped.

The task might seem impossible, because it feels too insignificant in such a diverse world. Yet you need just a bit of yeast to work through the whole batch of dough.

It might feel like no one cares, but when you find it, you know it is worth more than any other thing. And you will be ready to lay down everything else for it.

It might feel like it is too small, but tiny seeds can grow into large trees.

That is the mystery of the Kingdom of God. It is here. Somehow. Working its way through our lives.

Church: The Great Gay Debate

Finland has been turned upside down and inside out by the great gay debate. Recently in a televised debate Christian politicians and a Lutheran bishop said that gays cannot marry in the Church and having gay relations is un-Biblical. People got ticked off and left the Church in roves. In two weeks about 35 000 people have left the Lutheran Church. In a nation of 5 million, where over 80% of the population are members of the Church, it is kind of a big deal.

The papers, the news, the kids, the Church – everyone is talking about the Church and gays. The surface question is whether, when, why and how the Church will bless the civil unions of gay couples. The deeper issue lies in the interpretation of the Bible and simply – faith.

The crisis the Western Church is facing has been building up for decades. We are now simply reaping the consequences. The same-sex-marriage-debate has been going on in churches in America, the UK, Sweden etc.  Several decades ago the Finnish faculty of Theology that trains Lutheran pastors, started operating on the basis of dissecting the Bible as “a scientist” would. No longer was it deemed as inerrant, but as a piece of ancient literature that is fitting for our day as we see fit, ie you can use history or culture to explain away the uncomfortable bits. Herein lies our problem today. Since science has become our Western religion, ultimate truth and authority on all things, the Bible is subordinate to that. (Which is ironic, because true science never contradicts the Bible, when it is subordinate to the Bible.)

Therefore when I want to do something that is not permissible according to the Bible, I am right and the Scriptures are dated. This point of view is understandable if you are a person who doesn’t believe in the Christian God of the Bible, but shocking if you are a clergyman or even a Bishop. Then you are like a salesman who doesn’t believe in the product he’s selling.

The crisis in the Church is whether we believe the Bible truly is inerrant and the Word of God or not. Based on the answer to this question the Church will decide what it is supposed to do about the gay issue among others.

Read Your Bible Because You Can

An African brother spoke at church today. African Christians can bring such fantastic passion and simplicity to our jaded and cynical Western minds. They have a lot to give. He spoke about the importance of reading the Bible.

Many of us (Finns) are over-educated on everything, but lazy at reading the Bible. He noted that we have this odd idea, that we become religious and ritualistic, if we come to church every week or if we read the Bible daily. We keep up with twitter and e-mail minute-by-minute, so why not so much more with God and his Word that feeds our souls?

He exhorted us to read the Bible because we can. He is doing his Master’s degree in Finland, but his own mother cannot read. The mother gets bits of Scripture from others and then asks his son to read them to her.

What a wonderful perspective and a point of view we never consider. Most of us don’t know anyone who couldn’t read.