Tag: Christianity

God became visible

One of the problems for faith is that God is not something or someone that you can see: he is Spirit, which means he is invisible. How can you prove the existence of someone who is invisible?

In the first 18 verses of the Gospel of John chapter 1, a biblical passage that is often read at Christmas time, an answer is given to this issue. Later in the Gospel (chapter 4.24) Jesus himself teaches that “God is spirit”, so Christianity does not try to hide the fact that God cannot be physically seen.
Indeed, John 1 verse 18 acknowledges that “No one has ever seen God”, but the apostle goes on to bring a clarification that is absolutely mind-boggling: “the only-begotten God, [i.e. Jesus] who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known”. The more modern New Living Translation renders this as: “the unique One, who is himself God, is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us”. Let’s unpack that profound sentence.

The verb “beget” signifies the fathering of a child. The mother “gives birth”, and the father begets. The biblical expression “only-begotten” implies the unique communicating of divine life from the Father to the Son, Jesus. So Jesus teaches in John 5.26, “As the Father has life in himself” [i.e. divine life], “so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself”. This is unique to Jesus – the “only-begotten Son”. He uses this word himself in John 3.16: “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”. 

So the “only-begotten God” is Jesus: he has made God the Father known. This is a major truth. The vital fact here stated is that: “Jesus has revealed God to us”. The word “revealed” brings us to a completely different level of reflexion on this difficult search for God. We have our ideas, (both small and confused and often far from correct) about God. But if God reveals himself – if the invisible becomes visible – we can have meaningful access to truth about him. This is indispensable if we are ever to know God. And this was one of Jesus’ essential roles in coming into the world.

Though we cannot see God in this life, he has shown himself in Jesus. That’s why Jesus could say, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14.9). In his sinless life of love, holiness, and compassion, Jesus showed forth the very nature of God. He lived among people who could realise that he was indeed “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1.15).

As we study the life of Jesus in the Gospels, we see God in human form. Or as Charles Wesley put it poetically: “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see / Hail the incarnate Deity / Pleased as man with man to dwell / Jesus our Emmanuel”. The biblical word Emmanuel means “God with us” (Matthew 1.23). That is who Jesus was – a totally unique incarnation of God. That’s why Christmas resonates with amazement and worship. For the only time in History, God entered the world as a small baby boy who grew up to live a sinless life, to teach about God as his Father, to do miraculous deeds, and when rejected and crucified, he rose triumphant from the dead and was seen and heard for forty days by hundreds of people before returning to heaven.

Nothing like that has ever happened elsewhere. God has revealed himself through Jesus. We do well to pay attention to his revelation.

Clive Every-Clayton

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The wonder of Christmas

Tis soon “the season to merry” – so the song goes, as Christmas approaches. But Christmas, let us not forget, is the Christians’ fête; it is the celebration of a miraculous event that sparked off the Christian faith. So behind all the buying and giving of presents, the big family meal, and all the musical songs that surround this fête, let us spend a few minutes in this blog post and in ones to come, looking into some of the profound expressions that properly honour this unique historic event. 

Here’s one from the pen of the apostle Paul, one-time persecutor of Christians, in one of the earliest New Testament writings:

“When the fulness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman” (Galatians 4.4).

This simple statement is rich in theological truth! It says essentially three things:

1.      God did something at the right time in history

2.      He sent his Son into the world

3.      His Son was born of a human woman

Christians believe in a God who is active; he is no mere philosophical ideal, a postulate put forward to start some kind of Christian reasoning. Not only does God act in history, but he acts at the right time. He had prophesied the coming of his Son, the Messiah, in the Old Testament, as some future blog posts will show. But here and now, writes Paul, this event that had been predicted by the prophets of old had recently come to pass.  

And what did God do? He sent his Son into the world. Think about that. God must be a Father if he has a Son. Here is an allusion to what Christians have discerned from the acts of God according to the Bible – that God is a mysterious divine Tri-unity. There is only one God: on that the Bible is clear. Yet in that one God there is the Father and there is the Son. They are distinct from each other (the Father sends the Son) yet they are united in the same divine nature. That’s why Jesus could say, “I and the Father are one” (John 10.30), and “I have come down from heaven… to do… the will of him who sent me” (John 6.38). He also said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14.9).

Jesus is also called, “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1.15). He came into the world in human form, and by the holy life he lived, he showed forth the holiness and the love of God his Father. We can know God’s character by considering the life of his Son, Jesus.

The third thing is that the Son of God, Jesus, was “born of a woman”. This does not mean that there was any sexual activity that brought about the incarnation of Christ. But it does mean that Jesus was brought into the world as a baby, formed by a miracle of God’s Holy Spirit in the womb of a virgin, Mary. Mary herself was neither divine nor should be honoured as having contributed to the incarnation of God’s Son. She agreed to God’s angelic messenger who announced to her that she would have this unique role. The fact that this text of Paul is the only allusion to Mary in all the didactic writings of the apostles in the New Testament should prevent us from glorifying Mary. She called herself the humble servant of the Lord. She was a godly woman and she brought up Jesus and other children after him.

So Jesus was truly divine – the Son of God, who became incarnate; and he was truly human, born the natural way, yet as an act of God surpassing anything else in time and history.

Clive Every-Clayton

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Atheism’s hollow response

Following on from the eight areas where Genesis 1.26-28 lays a positive basis for understanding various aspects of our human situation, it is interesting to see how the scientific materialist worldview compares. While it seems that the biblical worldview corresponds very well with our aspiration for human flourishing, what can be the result of taking an atheistic position as our starting point? Let’s take up the same eight points again.

  1. Does atheistic materialism honour our human capacity for rationality? C.S. Lewis saw with his clear rational thinking that you cannot value human reason on the basis of materialistic evolution. “Something beyond Nature operates whenever we reason”, he wrote. “When you are asked to believe in Reason coming from non-reason, you must cry ‘Halt!’, for if you don’t, all thought is discredited.” Rational thought cannot come from mindless, material, godless evolution.
  2. The question of man’s meaning has no answer if the haphazard evolutionary process is all that brought us into being. If we are here by the fortuitous activity of various chemicals, there can be no ultimate meaning for our existence.
  3. Our human value is also reduced to nothing if we are merely a conglomerate of various chemicals. C.E.M. Joad famously listed the chemicals composing our bodies and worked out the modest value of the phosphorus, potash, lime, magnesium, fat, iron, sugar and sulphur! Jesus taught that our value comes from our soul, though our bodies are also valued in Christian thought.
  4. If there is no divine mind behind the creation of humans, there can be no purpose to our existence. We are people who formulate purposes for our daily activity; how could such purposeful persons come forth from purposeless primeval slime? Forming a purpose is the activity of a person. If there is no personal creator, there is no purpose to our existence.
  5. The question of sexual mores, in the absence of revealed Divine wisdom, easily becomes a simple question of personal choice. There may be social pressures ordering our sexual decisions, but ultimately there is no reason why hedonism would not prevail, bringing with it its lot of sexually transmitted diseases and undecipherable feelings of guilt. Louise Perry brings wisdom to this question in her book, “The Case against the Sexual Revolution”.
  6. Our moral judgments can also have no absolute grounding if there is no Creator God. Again C.S. Lewis has some wisdom to share: “If we are to continue to make moral judgments (and we shall) we must believe that the conscience of man is not a product of Nature.” Moral judgment “can only be valid,” he affirms, “if it is an off-shoot of some absolute moral wisdom…which…is not a product of non-moral, non-rational Nature”.
  7. What place to give to God? The atheist, by definition, has no place for God. We are left to our own devices (or vices). All religion is then groundless nonsense. 
  8. What of the essence of religion, if it is not to be in relationship with God? In a godless universe, religious practice is a waste of time and effort, even if 90% of humans practice some kind of religion.

Let me pose two questions as I close. Which of the two worldviews appears the most fulfilling, the most fitting to our human reality? There is a choice to make here.

Then why do people choose atheism? The answer to that question is both simple and vital. “God is light”, says the Bible. Light symbolises truth and holiness. Human people, suffering the effects of man’s fall into sin, do not want to approach a holy God who may well be their judge. They don’t want to be bothered with commandments that limit their freedom to act according to their sinful propensities. Hence the real reason, though admittedly unconscious, why atheists reject God, is that they prefer to go their selfish way without being bothered by the divine requirements. Jesus – who said, “I am the light of the world” – unmasks their hidden motivation: “Light has come into the world,” he said, “and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed” (John 3.19-20).

Clive Every-Clayton

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Humanity’s supreme value (part 2)

We continue on the areas where the Genesis statement that God created man in his own image brilliantly illuminates our self-understanding. This key also reveals:

  1. The best arrangement for sex and family life. The verse just following the Creator’s word making man “male and female”, Genesis 1.28, says: “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply’”. He it was who gave humans their sexual appetites and capacity for procreation. He thus instituted the family by bringing Eve to meet Adam, enunciating the principle, “for this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” God created the body of the man and the counterpart body of the woman for the purposes of bringing into existence more human beings – in the image of their parents. Sex was God’s idea; he knows how best we should enjoy it – in the security of a committed, unique relationship of mutual love, with a view to founding a family and bringing up children. In the family we can even discern the reflection of the image of a triune God.
  2. The gaining of a due regard for moral truth. God’s holiness is reflected in our conscience. Whether we like it or not, moral truth is inscribed into our inner being, and the voice of conscience makes us aware of the evil of temptation, and the duty of following the good. No materialist explanation of our existence can properly account for this inherent reality we all experience. The biblical fact of being created in the image of a good and holy God alone justifies the supreme value of our conscience (even though it can be tarnished and downgraded by being unheeded). God’s creature works best when following the dictates of holiness that he communicated in his Word by the Holy Spirit.
  3. The understanding of the important place to be given to God. Coming from the hand of a Creator God means that our essential orientation is towards God. All our miseries are ultimately due to man’s turning away from God himself and spurning his wise commandments. The first two of the Ten Commandments insist that God be given the prior place that is his due in our thoughts, worship and behaviour. This is basic wisdom. We “work” best when we follow the Makers instructions. Ignorance of God’s wise and good commands is the way of folly and frustration, not human fulfilment.
  4. The essence of true religion: it lies in our human relationship with God. Man is lost and suffering if he is not in relationship with God – or rather, if that relationship is bad rather than harmonious. True blessedness comes from being loved. God loves his creation, but he detests human wickedness. So long as our hearts are set on selfish disobedience to God’s will, he is displeased with us and we suffer dysfunction. When in repentance we commit to doing his will, expressed in his commandments, we find that he welcomes us and leads us into the way of true happiness. So long as we wander far from God in the selfishness of our sin, our hearts are restless, disquieted, burdened, guilty. But when we see at what cost God seeks to bring us back into a good relationship with himself – when we see the gift of his Son, Jesus Christ, suffering on the cross as he bears our sin and expiates our guilt – and when we hear and heed his call to repent and believe in our Saviour, then we can start a new relationship with God. He forgives our past sins and gives us power to live a life that pleases him, that reflects afresh his holy character and brings us to fulfil the divine purpose and find true fulfilment.

Clive Every-Clayton

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Humanity’s supreme value (part 1)

God has given us a key to understanding ourselves and getting the true answers to all the key issues we are concerned about as human beings. That key is on page 1 of the Bible: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1.27). This fundamental fact has remained hidden from philosophers who pay no attention to the Word of God, and this is the cause of their failure to find adequate answers to our existential questions, and the deep reason for our feelings of confusion and lostness. 

To those however who receive this basic truth as wisdom revealed by God himself, this Bible verse proves to be the key to personal fulfilment that eludes atheists and agnostics. It is the essential guideline, the unique basis, for a wide-ranging, wise, beneficial assessment of our human reality in the following eight areas. 

The revelation that at the beginning man was made in God’s image is:

  1. The basis for the value and validity of man’s thinking. If we were the result of an age-long unguided process of chemical matter complexifying itself, there would be no way of fathoming how our physical brain could ever serve the cause of truth. Organic physical material cannot produce rationality. Neither can it create consciousness. The only rational basis for attributing value to our reason is to see our minds as created to reflect the mind of God. Atheistic materialism, if it seeks by reason to justify its philosophy, is obliged to acknowledge that philosophy cannot ground its own value: the value of reason requires the Christian, biblical basis, the revealed fact that we are made in the likeness of an intelligent Creator.
  2. The proper orientation for finding man’s meaning. Godless evolution cannot furnish us with any credible meaning to our existence. Chance can provide neither meaning nor purpose. If we feel that our existence is meaningless, it is because we have missed the essential starting point – we come from the hand of God. Our Creator knows the meaning of his creation.
  3. The proper orientation for our value. Why is a human of more value than a thistle? Both were created by God, but the human was made in God’s image. This gives him supreme value. If you damage a thistle, or kill a cow, no-one turns a hair, but if you kill a human, that’s serious! Man is the crown of God’s creation, the most glorious of all his creatures. The Creator himself attributes such value to man. Jesus said it like this: “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8.36).
  4. The proper orientation for finding man’s purpose. Chance is haphazard, purposeless. Only a person can formulate a purpose. The great Creator formulated his purpose for human beings when he said that he was creating them in his own image. Man was destined to be a reflection, at the human level, of the divine character – to exhibit God’s holiness and love. Whatever activity people might be engaged in, it is not the work itself that is the essence of their purpose, but the way they do that work. The New Testament calls believers to “do all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10.31). That means in all our human activities we are supposed to show forth something of the glory of God’s nature, his kindness, compassion, goodness, truthfulness and grace.

[Continued in next post]

Clive Every-Clayton

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Science points to the Creator

Atheism suffers from ignorance of the most important thing in the entire universe. There are numerous indications of God’s wisdom and power in creation, facts that science has uncovered that prove there must be a supreme Mind behind this amazing creation. Stephen Meyer in his book “Return of the God hypothesis” deals thoroughly with three scientific facts that require a divine Mind. Let me summarise his reasons in simple language.

First, the Big Bang requires Someone who began it: you cannot evoke matter to explain the origin of matter, he writes. The Creator must have been immaterial (spirit), powerful, eternal, and personal. Secondly, the mind-boggling numbers of the constants of physics are so extraordinarily precise that life would not be possible if they were altered even just a tiny bit. Explosions normally result in much disorder and confusion: how then did the Big Bang issue in a created world where order and scientific laws abound, to say nothing of the beauty and the immense number of life forms? Our minds may easily conclude that this must involve an infinite Mind at work. Thirdly, the DNA discovered in every cell of our bodies possesses information encoded in what resembles a language. Scientists realise that wherever we see a language we have to acknowledge the agency of persons. The Creator of DNA must possess personal characteristics.

These three relatively recent scientific discoveries form the basis of a case for the return of the God hypothesis. People are led to believe in God on the basis of scientific facts for which no better explanation can be found. Indeed, scientists who want to hold persistently to their atheism have a hard time refuting these claims that Stephen Meyer backs up with his profound scientific reasoning. 

Atheists cannot simply close their eyes to these discoveries of science and what they imply. Rejecting as a matter of course the very notion of God is to ignore the most important factor in the universe: on the other hand, opening up to the probability of God would open the way to the meaningful and vital answers we need. God our Creator knows those answers. We do well to listen to him. And even if you’re not convinced, it’s worth taking a serious look at the Bible to check it out. There is wisdom to be found on every page!   

It may surprise atheists to know that the Christian faith is evidence based. It is not in conflict with science: rather, modern science developed in the West in the 17th century because the generally accepted Christian faith had established a consensus that the Creator was wise and intelligent and therefore his creation would yield scientific knowledge to those who studied it carefully.

But scientific facts are not the only things that point to God. It is astonishing that so many intelligent people do not grasp the vital fact that the historic person of Jesus Christ was none other than an incarnation of God the Creator! All who take the time and trouble to read and to seriously consider what Jesus said about himself in chapters 5 to 8 of John’s Gospel must admit he made divine claims. And a reading of his life and deeds in the Gospels also reveals his miraculous divine power, his unique sinless holiness and his brilliant teaching on all sorts of things we need to know. God sent his Son into the world to tell us truth we need to understand. Just consider what Jesus said before Pontius Pilate: “For this reason I was born and for this reason I came into the world, to testify to the truth” (John 18.37).

Clive Every-Clayton

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Answers? The basics

As people look for answers to our existential questions, the options are fairly easily categorised: there are basically two. 

The answers may come from human beings, or may be given by God. Centuries of human intellectual pursuit have failed to provide the answers that our hearts crave – answers that both clearly correspond to reality and that provide meaning and purpose to our existence. 

God may give answers. Indeed, if he is our creator, he would have the infinite wisdom to know why he created us the way we are; as any human inventor or creator, he would have a purpose in mind for his creation. If he created us with the capacity of communicating, he would logically have the ability to communicate also. So he could get a message through to us, answering our many queries.

But it would seem there are many gods with many conflicting messages about how we are to find fulfilment. How to be sure we have the real God?

Very few religions teach that God is our Creator. It is on the first page of the Jewish Bible; it is repeated in the Christian New Testament; it is alluded to in the Koran. What makes the difference  between these three? The fact that in Christianity alone, we have God becoming incarnate – coming down into our world in human form in the extraordinary person of Jesus. Both Jews and Muslims deny this; the Christian New Testament affirms, however, that the Lord Jesus Christ was himself the creator: He is presented as “the Word” who one day “became flesh and dwelt among us”; and he, “the Word” was the Creator, because “All things were made by him, and without him nothing was made that was made” (John’s Gospel, chapter 1, verses 1-18). “By him all things were created”, the New Testament repeats; “in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1.16-19).

As “the Word”, the Lord Jesus Christ had the divine wisdom of the Creator, and was able to communicate God’s will and truth to us human beings. He himself lived a sinless human life, taught profound truths about God and human goodness and, when he was rejected and crucified, he demonstrated his divine nature by rising alive from the dead three days later.

“I have come,” he said to the people, “that they might have life, and have it abundantly” (John’s Gospel 10.10). “For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world – to bear witness to the truth” he declared (John 18.37). He therefore communicates truth we need to know in order to have abundant life. In other words, he brings the answers we need to our existential questions. 

By the historic life of Jesus, we can finally have access to the unique source of true answers; all we have to do is read and understand what he taught in the New Testament Gospels which, written by his close disciples, record his words of wisdom and truth. 

Speaking of Jesus, the New Testament explains, “all things were created by him and for him” (Colossians 1.16). Think about that for a moment: all things – including you and me – were created not only by Christ, but for Christ. We find fulfilment therefore, when we find Christ – for we were made for him. Our human confusion is that we are cut off from the only one – Christ – who can love us, forgive us, cleanse us, make us right with God and even dwell within us when we pray to him and ask him to come and save us from our sins. He is alive; he is divine; he can hear and answer our prayer as we call upon him. This is the way we will find the fulfilment our heart craves.

Clive Every-Clayton

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Your walking group

I’m a member of a local walking group; each week about ten of us take to the woods around our village, chatting as we go. It does us good both physically and socially. “Physical exercise has some value”, the Bible tells us (1 Timothy 4.8); but there is also value in spiritual exercises. We can do such exercises like praying and meditating on the Bible by ourselves, but God has instituted a spiritual “walking group” to help us on our way.

That walking group is also called the “church” – by which term the Bible does not mean a building built for worship, but rather the local group of people who have put their trust in Jesus, and who gather together to worship the Lord. In all probability, we are not the only ones in our locality who are called to follow Jesus.

Since we trusted Christ, we are now in God’s family, his sons and daughters, and we find encouragement by talking with those who are older in the faith than we are. Taking part in a spiritual “walking group” means benefitting from attending a church fellowship where we can learn from our brothers and sisters in Christ. This is good for your spiritual health. The church gathers together week by week not only to worship God and sing his praises, but also to encourage one another in the faith by hearing God’s Word preached and by praying together. 

God knew that we would have a social need of spiritual encouragement as we grow in faith: the walking group is there to accompany us on our journey, to share our difficulties and pray for us, and to guide us in our lives as disciples of Jesus.

If you are not already involved in a church, find out where the nearest and best one is. They come in all shapes and sizes. It may be wise to try out a few by visiting them just once – if you have the privilege to have several in your area. Then you may choose to affiliate yourself by attending regularly the church you feel is most helpful to you.

That church should be one that respects the value of the Bible as the source of our faith, and treats it as the sure and reliable guide for our life in Christ. The church leaders should explain the Bible’s teachings clearly, establishing your faith on the truth of what God has revealed in his Word, the Bible. Your faith will be encouraged, clarified, and nourished and will grow in wisdom and understanding. This will happen as you learn to treat the Bible as the ultimate source of authoritative truth for knowing God. It is, in fact, a revelation from God, given by inspiration through men of God in Bible times, God’s prophets and Christ’s apostles. This revelation gives you truth from God that our own thinking cannot discover by ourselves.

In your local church fellowship you will find pastoral help with any difficulties you may have: the walking group may know the way better than you and will gladly share their experiences to help you. Jesus commanded his disciples to “love one another” (John 15.12), so connecting with other believers should be a positive experience. And you will be glad to associate with those who share your faith; you will find a spiritual family who love Jesus as you do and who will be helpful to you in many ways. And you can also help them as you develop opportunities to serve the Lord according to the way he has gifted you.

Clive Every-Clayton

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How should I read the Bible?

Normally you begin a book at page one and read it through to the end. Of course there is sense in reading the Bible like that, but it would take quite a long time to get to the central message. It is, however, very useful to read the early chapters of Genesis, (the first of the 66 books contained within the Bible) for they lay the foundation of all that will be developed through the many pages to come. Genesis also introduces Abraham, called by God to become the father of a numerous posterity, the Jewish people.

The Bible is a book of history, and recounts the development of God’s people throughout numerous generations. The second book, Exodus, tells of the escape of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, and how God gave them the Ten Commandments. Succeeding books reveal God’s dealings with his people through the centuries.

The central message of the Bible becomes clearer in the New Testament, where the four Gospels relate the life, teaching, miracles, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and this is the heart of the Bible’s message, so it is quite acceptable to move quickly into that. One way of reading the Bible is to read each day a chapter both of the Old Testament and of the New Testament. 

Different parts of the Bible have differing emphases and usefulness. For example, the Psalms are prayers of God’s people in a large number of diverse situations; they express their need of God in various ways, and uplift the spirit by their expressions of praise to God. The Book of Proverbs contains short adages of practical advice; the Book of Ecclesiastes illuminates the human dilemma, life seemingly meaningless without God. In the later prophetic books, we see God speaking to the Israelites words of reproach and warnings of judgment as well as promises of mercy and predictions of blessing when they repent. 

In the New Testament one of the Gospel writers, Luke, wrote a second book, the “Acts of the Apostles” which continues the history of the disciples of Jesus from AD 30 to AD 62. It shows how the early church began, what the apostles preached, and how they dealt with various issues as the Gospel went further out into the Roman Empire. This is a fascinating historical read.

What is very helpful for the believer are the letters written by the apostles, Paul, Peter, James, John, and Jude to the first believers. They contain eternal truths that all believers hold, especially developing the way God saves sinners through Christ. They also give numerous exhortations about living as Christian disciples in the world. These letters speak directly to the believer of today and are extremely helpful for our spiritual growth. Some are more complicated than others, for God’s truth is very deep and requires our serious study.

But how should one read? It is good to start by praying that God will speak to you through his Word and enable you to understand it. Then read with an open spirit, attentive to what God might say to you through the passage you read. The Bible is a living book: God still speaks through its pages to the hearts of believers today. 

Don’t rush your reading; take the time to think through what it means. It has been well said, “It is better to read little and think much than to read much and think little”. And as you think – or meditate – on the Bible’s message, you can also have a notebook and pen handy, to jot down any particular thought that inspires you or is applicable to your life. It does no harm to underline in the Bible those verses that speak to you. 

There are some helpful “Study Bibles” for sale that have notes assisting the reader to understand those passages that may seem unclear. Most of them are excellent and you may want to invest in purchasing one. Conversely, you may find it helpful to have a pocket New Testament that you can carry around with you, or download a Bible on your smartphone. That way, if you have time spare before your next activity, you can nourish your faith by a quick Bible reading.

Bible reading is meant not only to inform you, but to change you more into the likeness of Jesus. So don’t let your reading be merely to gain head knowledge – useful though that is. Keep asking yourself, what does this mean in my life? How should I apply this statement or this promise or this commandment in my life today? Reading the Bible with an open heart, submissive to God’s teaching, will enable you to grow in faith, love, and commitment to your Saviour.

Clive Every-Clayton

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Why the Bible?

There are all kinds of religious works penned by sages and prophets in various countries: what’s so particular about the Bible that makes it stand out above all the rest as the world’s best-seller? What makes it so unique?

First of all, its note of divine authority. By its often used expression, “Thus says the Lord”, it communicates that the almighty Creator himself is speaking to mankind. About 2,000 times in the Old Testament expressions occur such as, “Hear the word of the Lord”, “The Lord spoke to … saying…”, “God said”, “The Word of the Lord came to …”, “the Lord commanded” etc. This means that 2,000 times the Bible claims to bring the actual words of God himself. This is either true or constitutes 2,000 lies about the Almighty.

Secondly, the high call to holiness that is expressed throughout the Bible. Nowhere else can one find such a high and holy mandate for human behaviour. All sin is fully condemned and all kinds of virtues are required. The moral teaching of Jesus, and in particular his Sermon on the Mount, are acknowledged to be of such purity and so demanding as would convince an honest seeker that this must come from the high and holy Creator of humankind.

A third element in the Bible, attested in the Pensées of Blaise Pascal, is the phenomenon of prophecy whose fulfilment has been confirmed. God alone can know the future, and the Bible contains a number of clear predictions that were subsequently fulfilled. The most striking is the 53rd chapter of the book of the prophet Isaiah which depicts the sufferings and death of the Christ. Jesus himself predicted his own resurrection from the dead. He foretold the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles which occurred seven weeks after he had left this earth and gave birth to the Christian church. 

Another element of this is the promises that God gave – for example to Abraham that he would have a son and innumerable descendants, when he was old and his wife was barren. The existence of the Jewish people attests to the fact that God makes and keeps promises, for they are the fruit of God’s “impossible” prediction.

The profundity of biblical thought is another indication of the Bible’s divine origin. The eternal plan of the Creator is progressively revealed in its pages – a plan that no human mind could have invented, for it included the divine incarnation, death and resurrection in history of Jesus, the Son of God.

Together with that, the Bible unfolds a true and realistic account of who we are, both in our intrinsic value as persons made in God’s image, and in our grievous lack of real goodness; it informs us of why we exist, how we should live, and where we go after death.

The most convincing of all is that the Bible promises not only to forgive the sinner, but to radically change his or her whole life; and this promise can be put to the test by anyone who reads the Bible and takes it as true. By believing in the Jesus who is revealed in the Bible, by following his instructions to repent and obey, anyone – you included – can discover for themselves that this book comes from a God who stands by his word and fulfills his promises: the profound change in the life of those who put their trust in the Saviour is testable personal proof. Millions have found this to be true in their experience, and this proof is open to anyone who, like the immoral philosopher become great theologian, St Augustine, heeds the call to “take up read” this extraordinary book, the Bible.

Clive Every-Clayton

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