Today's news - centuries ago!

In my personal devotions, I have just commenced reading through the Letter from the apostle Paul to the fledgling church in Rome.  Of course, this is not the first, or even the second, time that I have read through that most theological of the letters.  But one of the wonderful things about the living Word of the living God is that, regardless of how often we have read a particular passage, there is something new that jumps out at us as we read that passage again!

This morning, I read Rom.1:24-32.  Here it is:

"Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct. They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God's decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them."

Perhaps you should read those words again!  Remember that they were written almost 2000 years ago - but they are as up-to-date as tomorrow's newspaper!  Paul is describing, quite simply, a society that has abandoned God!  Lest anyone be deceived into thinking that this was no more than the ranting of a Pharisaically-minded religious nut-case, I refer you to the works of men such as Petronius, Seneca, Juvenal, and Seutonius.  These are not familiar names to most of us, but they were all Roman  philosophers, historians, poets, and/or satirists (Seneca was actually born in Spain, but raised in Rome) who lived at the same time, or shortly after, the apostle.  Each of them, in his extant writings, fully supports Paul's grim description.

The words are a warning to all people, and all ages - but they seem to apply, particularly, to our own generation.  Whether it is the sexual immorality that has become so acceptable in so much of the western, "developed" (!) world; or the heartless ruthlessness of the so-called Islamic State and its associated groups; we see, around us, a world that seems to be dashing headlong into moral, social, and spiritual, decay and destruction.

So what can anyone do?  The answer, of course, is already provided for us.  Paul writes, further on in the same letter: "But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in  Whom God put forward as an expiation by His blood, to be received by faith." (Rom 3:21-25).Christ Jesus,

You and I may not indulge in the excesses to which Paul has already referred.  But that does not make any one of us sinless - and we know it!  However, Father God has paid the penalty for your sin, and mine, in the Persona (see "Great Words" above!) of the Son.  The price is paid, and I may go free.  The prison door is open, and I may walk out.  However, I may also remain in my sin - and face His judgement!

What will you do?  I encourage you to: "Come to Him , to that Living Stone, rejected by men but in God's sight chosen and precious; and, like living stones, be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." (I Peter 2:4-5).

As always, if I may be of any assistance at a more personal level, please feel free to contact me using the e-mail address at the top of the page.

A "secular" Bible!

There I was, casually listening to the closing minutes of this morning's "Today" programme on BBC Radio 4.  Suddenly, my ears pricked up as John Humphrys, the presenter, announced that the well-known atheist, and humanist philosopher, A.C.Grayling had just had published a "secular Bible".  That sounded like an oxymoron, and my attention was guaranteed.

It's true! The official title of the volume is "The Good Book: A Secular Bible".  Mr Humprys (himself, at best, an agnostic) read a few verses from the King James (Authorised) Version of the real Bible, and Mr Grayling then read the "equivalent" passage from his own book.  Both of them had the good grace to agree that the language of the KJV was much more majestic.

However, it's not the language of any particular version of the Bible that is important - it's the message; and it never changes.  Dr Giles Fraser, a regular contributor to the daily "Thought for the Day", and Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral was at hand to debate with Mr Grayling.  However, I was rather disappointed as he seemed to think that humour was the best defence of the written Word of God!

Mr Grayling's book, according to Bloomsbury, the publishers, draws "... on the wisdom of 2,500 years of contemplative non-religious writing on all that it means to be human – from the origins of the universe to small matters of courtesy and kindness in everyday life – A. C. Grayling, Britain’s most popular and widely read philosopher, has created a secular bible.  Designed to be read as narrative and also to be dipped into for inspiration, encouragement and consolation, The Good Book offers a thoughtful, non-religious alternative to the many people who do not follow one of the world’s great religions. Instead, going back to traditions older than Christianity, and far richer and more various, including the non-theistic philosophical and literary schools of the great civilisations of both West and East, from the Greek philosophy of classical antiquity and its contemporaneous Confucian, Mencian and Mohist schools in China, down through classical Rome, the flourishing of Indian and Arab worlds, the European Renaissance and Enlightenment, the worldwide scientific discoveries of the 19th and 20th centuries to the present, Grayling collects, edits, rearranges and organises the collective secular wisdom of the world in one highly readable volume.
Contents: Genesis; Proverbs; Histories; Songs; Wisdom; Acts; The Lawgiver; Lamentations; Concord; Consolations; Sages; The Good; Parables." 

However, what Mr Grayling apparently fails utterly to do is to deal with the condition of mankind.  I was so disappointed that Dr Fraser failed to make any mention of the root problem of mankind - that which we call sin!  Sin, according to my memory of the Shorter Catechism, "... is any transgression of, or want of conformity to, the Law of God."  That covers both sins of commission, and of omission.  Of course we may learn from the great philosophers of the past.  One of Mr Grayling's favourites would appear to be the Greek, Seneca - a contemporary of the apostle Paul.  I recall, as an undergraduate, doing some essay work on Seneca  - and discovering that his thinking was so close to that of the New Testament, that I wondered if he had, in fact, like Paul, become a follower of the Way (Who is Jesus)!  Perhaps Mr Grayling should do some deeper research into Seneca's writings!

This newly-published volume may have been named "the Good Book" - but it will not explain the sinfulness of mankind; it will not point me to the only sufficient remedy for sin; it will not show me a God Who loves me so much that, in the Persona of the Son, He was willing to suffer death for me. 

I don't believe that it was mere coincidence that, when I went up to my study for my time of private devotions, the little book that I am currently using had, for today "The Wisdom in God's Word"!  Here is the opening paragraph: "We treasure Scripture.  It's God's inspired Word, and it teaches us the way to true life in this world, and eternal life in the world to come.  Indeed, it is the source of a wisdom that goes beyond that of the wisest philosophers (I Corinthians 1:20).  Bu this fact is rarely acknowledged in pour culture." 

"... a wisdom that goes beyond that of the wisest philosophers."  And that even includes A.C.Grayling.  I think that I'll stick with the original Bible - not just the "Good Book", but the "Best"!