David's Pen

20  “You must not testify falsely against your neighbour. The first commandment that we looked at warned us not to make false images of God because t he law (Deuteronomy 19:15-21) specified that the testimony of one witness was not sufficient to prove a case, however, the testimony of two or three witnesses was conclusive. There was no CSI, no Inspector Morse, no ‘Silent Witness’, no jury. The investigation of a case was limited to the credibility of the witnesses – and if two or three agreed, that was enough to convict. Clearly, those motivated by malice could conspire to testify against someone: John and Jane, having a grudge against Fred, might drag him before the judge saying: “We saw Fred steal that fruit” Provided their individual testimonies agreed and the witnesses were therefore credible, poor Fred would be found guilty. To mitigate this risk, the law instituted the famous ‘eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth’ clause. If the witnesses are shown to be bearing fa...

8  “You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind, or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea.   9  You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the  Lord  your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me.   10  But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands. What is God like, how are we to know Him? It’s a fundamental question that has been asked down the ages and still is. When Moses went up the mountain, it is what the people waited to discover – Moses was going to meet with God and find out what He was like on their behalf. When it looked like he had died in the process, they had Aaron make an image of God. One way or another, they wanted something tangible to see – ...

“Hear O Israel, The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the  Lord  your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. ” This passage, from Deuteronomy 6 is known as the Shema (from the Hebrew “to hear”.) It comes after the commandments themselves and acts as a summary. Indeed, when asked what the greatest commandment was, rather than picking one of the ten, Jesus quotes from the Shema, arguing that all the commandments flow from this. So, what does it tell us, what context does it provide? ‘Hear O Israel’ As Moses reminded them, they went into Egypt as seventy persons, but by now outnumber the stars in the sky. Israel had become a vast multitude, yet God was addressing them as one nation. From the disunity of twelve tribes had come the community of one people. ‘The Lord our God, the Lord is one’ In the same way, God, who had begun to reveal Himself as three persons through the ‘First Book of Moses (Genesis), is nonet...

We know that God is just, we know too that in God’s Kingdom, mercy triumphs over judgment, that His grace means that we don’t receive what justice alone might demand. Yet there seems to be something ingrained that leads us to presume that punishment is part of God’s plan. When someone is caught in criminal activity, they receive a punishment that society has deemed appropriate. Once the culprit has served their time or paid the fine, we often speak of the ‘slate being wiped clean’ – after all, they have paid their debt to society. It becomes a transaction: I did x, society inflicted y, we are all square. Of course, nothing has changed as a result of the transaction. The punishment might well make the perpetrator more reluctant to be caught, but that might as easily result in more circumspect crime than in reformed behaviour. In truth, there is very little evidence that even the most disproportionate of punishments has much impact on the level of crime. (Perhaps as a perceptio...

In this blog, I'm responding to the recent thesis that young people, who might otherwise want to engage with church, are put off because they don’t know which bits of the Bible to interpret literally and which metaphorically. In particular, they are taught to dismiss a 6 day creation by the science that they are taught and then wonder which bits of the Bible might also be untrustworthy. The argument then goes that we need to insist on a literal interpretation of all scripture to guard against this reason why young people are leaving the Church.  A simple observation that most children continue to trust their parents after the devastating revelation that Santa isn’t real might be sufficient rebuttal for many, but for those who want a more detailed response, read on: In my experience, the perceived irrelevance of the Church isn’t to do with a lack of literal Biblical interpretation, but to the implacable unwillingness to engage with anything that even hints at something oth...

Here’s what shepherds do: They stay out on the hillside in the dark and cold whilst everyone else is snuggled up, cosy and safe at home. They place themselves in harms way so that predators have to first deal with the shepherd before they can get to the sheep. They identify with the sheep; they wear sheep-skin to look and smell like the sheep, they get to know the sheep individually – and in so doing, become ostracised by the rest of humanity. They plot the route to the next pasture and go ahead to test the ground and create as smooth a path as possible. They remain alert to dangers and fight off predators, risking their own safety for the well-being of the flock. They come alongside the reluctant sheep, they prod and urge-on the slow sheep and they go looking for the lost sheep, carrying them back when they find them. It’s a broadly thankless task; when everything goes well, the sheep barely acknowledge the shepherd. When things go wrong, they are the first to complain. It i...

Our wonderful and majestic God dreamed of a place in which we could enjoy His love and the love of one another. Yet no sooner was the plan begun than the forces of evil ran amok, creating chaos out of the good things that God had begun to create. So, He stretched out His mighty arm and in the picture language so familiar to those first hearers, He pushed back the waters into the heavens and under the earth – holding back the evil that sin had permitted. And then, He swept the waters that were left aside to create dry land – space for a paradise in which we could begin. But that same sin that Satan had introduced contaminated that place too as mankind chose allegiance to the Father of lies rather than loving relationship with the Father of lights. In so doing, we exiled ourselves from that wonderful place, moving outside of the protective canopy of God’s safety and into the maelstrom of Satan’s fury. Nevertheless, God continued to extend His hand and not only protected us from the...