A new book

Today my husband bought me a new book. It is "The Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom, poetry, writtings"
I love it. Cant wait to get into it.

Do we trust God or try to manipulate him?

A Confrontation on Mount Carmel

…with their ecstatic behaviour they tried to cajole their gods to respond. 450 “prophets” shouting together, cutting themselves, dancing around the unburnt sacrifice (Altar). At noon Elijah taunts their behaviour…” Call out louder since he is a god…maybe his is on the loo, or travelling! Perhaps he is sleeping and you need to wake him!” (I Kings 18:27)
“ So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. “Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.” (NIV 1 kings 18: 28-29)
The narrator does not give us any insight into what Elijah is thinking or his manner of action. Instead we hear that Elijah repairs the altar of the Lord, which was in disrepair as people were sacrificing to the Ba’al’s and not God. He rebuilt the altar using twelve stone to represent the twelve tribes of Israel. Symbolically he was rebuilding the life and worship of the people of God. He built a trench around the sacrifice and had water poured, once, twice, three times over the sacrifice (about 15 litres in total?). Then we see the stark contrast, without any ecstatic behaviour he prays. “Answer me, O LORD, answer me, so these people will know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again."(vrs 35). There is a stark contrast between Elijah and the prophets of Baal. They believed that their sacrifice(cutting themselves, child sacrifice, screaming and shouting and dancing till they were exhausted etc) brought magical appeasement to the gods. And yet we see a very different response of faith…Elijah makes it clear that it is God who triumphs…it is not about Elijah or his behaviour. He prays…simply that God’s people will respond in faith. What does this say about our prayer…do we act like the ba’al worshipers with ecstatic behaviour trying to twist the arm of God self-flagellation, yelling, and deprivation of ourselves? Or do we respond with a stillness of faith knowing that the creator of the universe, our redeemer will listen and answer our prayer. Then are we willing to recognise that the answer may not be the one we are trying to exact from God. This doesn’t mean that people cannot be passionate in their prayers…I am an exuberant and passionate person and it would be untrue to my nature to be anything but, however in prayer I respond in faithful acceptance that God will bring about his will in a situation.

The noise of hundreds of people praying at once does not reflect the nature of God who brought order to chaos. Paul eludes to this idea of orderly worship in the letters to the Corinthians. While it might make us feel good hearing the buzz of lots of people praying at once…is it really edifying God or are we using manipulative techniques that distract from our faithful Lord? Isn’t this new trend in flashy prayers just a continuation of the sackcloth and ashes prayers of the Pharisees or even as I have alluded to before, the pagan form of worship of gods who don’t answer?

Conundrum: Where does feverant prayer end and lack of faith start?

A surprising week!

Yesterday Christopher gave me a kiss and said, “Happy Anniversary”. In the hustle & bustle of my week I had forgotten that it was 13 years since we were married.

Over these last 13 years I have learnt many things:
It’s good to laugh…and laugh a lot! (Don’t take myself to seriously)
I don’t always have to be right…(OK I am still learning that one)
Love is a choice as much as an emotion,
My husbands hair does not have to be longer than mine,

Children are a blessing to be treasured,
The Unexpected can be a gift to grow from,
Toilet seat up or down??? It just doesn’t matter.

…The list just keeps growing. The most important thing

that I have learnt is ...

God is love and where God is...there is love

THE SALVATION ARMY WELCOMES APOLOGY

The Salvation Army today welcomed the Federal Government’s apology to members of the Stolen Generations of Indigenous Australians.

In a Statement of Reconciliation in 2000, The Salvation Army recognised "that Australia’s Indigenous people have sustained grievous and unacceptable discrimination throughout these latter years of their vast history".

In the same statement the Army pledged "to listen to the voice of suffering, rejection, loss and despair, to acknowledge past failures, and to resolve to work together for the good of all Australians".

Speaking on behalf of The Salvation Army’s Australia Eastern Territory and Australia Southern Territory, Commissioner Les Strong and Commissioner James Knaggs said today that the Government’s apology opened the door for renewed hope for Australia, particularly for Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians walking and working together towards a much brighter future.
"The separation of Indigenous children from their families last century has been a source of great pain, long-term turmoil and loss of identity for many of our first Australians," said Commissioner Strong from Sydney. "The Salvation Army welcomes the bipartisan commitment of Australia’s Federal Parliament on this historic day."

In Indigenous culture, as in any culture, saying sorry means much more than admitting wrong. It helps restore respect and bring healing. It creates an environment for the building of relationship and friendship, and a commitment to relationship and friendship.
"Today is a very significant day in the life and history of Australia, and we congratulate Prime Minister Rudd," said Commissioner Knaggs from Melbourne. "It is The Salvation Army’s hope that this apology will result in practical and measurable outcomes."

The Salvation Army recognises the need for more opportunities for the Indigenous community in education, health, socio-economic equality and the celebration of culture. In places such as Moree, NSW, Alice Springs, NT, Swan Hill, Victoria, Ipswich, Queensland, and Murray Bridge, SA, the Army works with the local Indigenous community and its Elders in a range of mentoring and other social initiatives.

Taken from the Australia Southern Territory website.

For media inquiries, please contact:
SPOKESPERSON: Mr Adrian Kistan, Indigenous issues representative: 0418 243 502, (02) 6752 1623
MEDIA CONTACT: Captain Peter McGuigan, Communications Director: 0423 299 327, (02) 9266 9786

Running away...

Spencer started school this week! On picking him up from school on the second day, he promtply informed me that he would not be going to school tommorow. "Why?" I asked, "Don't you like school?"...what followed was a small saga.

The teacher had taken her preps to the playground and had stayed with them for ten minutes. Spencer would run and play with his friends then run back to the teacher, after doing this a few times he was heartbroken to discover that his teacher was no longer there. "I am lost" he said. He moved from sad to scared as he realised that he was in a big playground and his teacher wasn't there to look after him. Thankfully one of his little girlfriends came to the resuce and found another teacher, who took Spencer to the staff room to see his teacher eating her lunch...

He didn't like the feeling of being lost. It reminded me of how often can we be much like Spencer, running away from, and then back towards God till we get ourselves completely lost. However just as the teacher was easily found so too is God, if you seek Him with all your heart.

The comparing game...

I have just been on face book (A great thing to do on your day off??) and I discovered that I have 86 requests. (No reflections on the amount of friends I have had, but rather the lack of time I spend on face book!) As I was sifting through and pressing "ignore" I found an intriguing request. "Compare me", ordinarily I would have hit the ignore button except that it came from a friend of mine who I care about, so, ok...I hit the accept button. Then came the "game". Two friends were placed alongside each other and I had to chose which I thought..."Was a better friend", "was funnier", " I would rather hang out with"...you get the idea. Again and again through the questions I hit the "skip" button. How do I say to one friend I prefer another??? Again and again I thought, should I be playing this game and yet how often do we as Salvationists play the game of let's compare. Let's compare appointments, let's compare talents, let's compare looks, (Interestingly I don't often hear played the who is more prayerful game) let's compare who our friends are....let's compare!!!!! Not only does out faith and ministry become a competition but it takes our focus off following Christ. (Incidentally I think there have been times that the Salvation Army itself has played the comparing game with other churches and have forgotten our distinctive calling and ministry) Our eye's are no longer firmly fixed on Jesus, but instead of everyone else. It's no wonder that we wander off from the path of Christ...and he calls us to catch up and stop looking to the side. I have selected the "delete" on the compare game on face book, and it is my prayer that you(if anyone is reading this) will hit the delete button in their life of Comparing themselves to others...but Jesus

"Let's fix our eye's on Jesus the author and perfector of our faith!"

14But you must cling to the things which you have learnt and have been taught to believe, knowing who your teachers were, 15 and that from infancy you have known the sacred writings which are able to make you wise to obtain salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 Every Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for convincing, for correction of error, and for instruction in right doing; 17 so that the man of God may himself be complete and may be perfectly equipped for every good work.

I have been talking with a few people recently about their views on the reader response theories, and it is at that point I find that I depart from the traditional worldview of a Gen X’er and perhaps become a touch modernist? While I understand that we cannot help but bring our own experiences and context to the passage, and even this colours the questions that we ask of the text, to what point do we indulge this idea of meaning coming from the contemporary reader. (In school when looking at historical documents you are taught about the context it comes from, why then when it comes to scripture should we ignore this in preference to our own ideas?) One of the gifts of the bible is that we see the people of God growing in their understanding of who God is as He reveal’s himself. Are the reader response theories then, just an extension of the way in which we understand who God is, or are they merely anthrocentric (man-centered). If this is the case how do we deal with the reality of our fallen nature, and oftentimes our desire to read what we want to read? One of the amazing gifts of the bible is that through prayer and study I am challenged to change who I am. This is occurs through the work of God and my study of various Historical, contextual, literary, etc… criticism’s and what they have to say. (For the scholar who is pushing us forward in our thinking it is legitimate to isolate their use of the analytical tools, and thankfully since the discussions regarding bias or “context” of the scholar their presuppositions are more explicitly stated in their work.) What “controls” are in place to stop us from making the text say whatever we want. For the preacher and teacher it is dangerous to fall into one particular area of criticism and respond in mission, pastorally and preaching only out of this one framework. While I like Child’s canonical approach which seeks to reorient the critical tools in the context of biblical theology, I am hesitant to place too much emphasis on early church fathers interpretation of this. Which leaves me then, with the desire to engage with as many of the tools which seek to bring life to the passage being read, and not devise meaning for myself.

Is it enough that we acknowledge the context which colours and reading or should we then try to overcome our bias?