Relationships and Work

I have been working my way through a series on relationships and work over the past 4 weeks at church. It has been tough but very rewarding. One of the great things about doing this is seeing the way in which the two topics overlap.

Firstly, we established that relationships are other person centred as we looked at how the Trinity relates to each other. Broughton-Knox's book 'The Everlasting God' was an enormous help for this section.
Secondly, we saw that work is sharing God's good gifts to promote communities that care for each other.

Work then became another opportunity for expressing our relationship. Work is an other person centred activity. Our work is an opportunity to contribute to society. There is not the sphere of our lives called relationships and another called work, they overlap and interlock with each other - we can't compartmentalise these two big topics.

Marriage and the Christian life

Marriage is about leaving and cleaving. As Gen 2:24 says...
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

We leave behind our previous family unit and be united in one flesh to our spouse. Paul reveals in Eph 5 that this passage was ultimately talking about Christ and the church.
For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body. 31 "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh." 32 This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

As Christians we are part of the church, we are betrothed to Christ and await his return as the groom awaits his loving bride to come down the altar. But, I wonder whether this idea of being 'married' to Christ, that is cleaving to him, can also translate to the leaving part of the marriage idea. What is that we leave behind? Jesus' reassuring words to Peter when he wonders who then can be saved in Mk 10 say,
I tell you the truth, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters of mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in the present age and in the age to come, eternal life.

For some, the calling of the gospel will mean leaving behind some family and cleaving to Christ.

For others it is leaving behind the pursuit of wealth (as the previous bit in Mk 10 says to the rich young ruler) and cleaving to Christ.

For others it is leaving behind promising careers and cleaving to Christ.

For others it is leaving behind destructive lifestyles and cleaving to Christ.

For others it is leaving behind unfulfilled sporting dreams and cleaving to Christ.

This profound mystery of being 'one flesh' with Christ incorporates both leaving and cleaving. It is a verse for all Christians not just the married ones. And just like marriage relationships have an exclusive nature so it is with Christ, we are to remain faithful to him and not commit adultery.

I'm sure there is more that could be said about this typological relationship between Christ and the Church and marriage and singleness. Over to you......

Daylight Savings

What better way to spend my extra hour then to have a whinge about an extra hour.....

I am almost sure that Daylight Savings was not an issue in the Garden of Eden. God did not create us to mess around with time. I implore all of us to write to the Government to stop this great and grievous sin!

OK that may not work, here is another suggestion. Children should be programmed like my mobile phone - to automatically change with daylight savings.

Your choice, either is fine with me.......

Does ALL Scripture points to Christ???

I have been having a discussion with a friend about Luke 24 & John 5 about whether we can truly say that these popular passages are actually a mandate to take every passage of Scripture to Christ. There aren't many, if any, commentaries that actually see these passages saying that all Scripture points to Christ. It has been an interesting discussion! I have grown up thinking that to do Biblical Theology correctly passages need to be applied to Christ before being applied to us - however is this the case?

I have been encouraged to think about 2Tim 2:16-17 which says:
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

The Scriptures that Paul is referring to is the OT. Paul thought it could be applied directly to us.

What are your thoughts? Can we apply the OT directly to us?

Fooled...

Thanks to Luke for pointing out that to me that the article that got under my skin was an April Fool Joke....got me and got me good!!!

DOH!

Getting under my skin.......

John Sandeman's article on sydneyanglicans.net has got under my skin! You can read it here - http://http://your.sydneyanglicans.net/indepth/articles/our_april_column/

I believe he is trying to get us to see a blind spot in our community amongst the rich - and I agree that this is a blind spot and yes the rich are hard to reach, but he should have stopped at that point!

He goes onto to make two massive understatements in my view about university ministry and private schools ministry.

Firstly, this is what he says about universities:
“Charles Simeon is a great example, a founder of the evangelical movement,” says one desperate parish nominator. “He did not just concentrate on visiting the poor and obscure villages. He also preached to the University as well. I wish we could get someone to do that, I am sure if someone tried we could plant a small church near one of the campuses”.

John, we are doing this!!! Planting churches alongside the great work of AFES ministry in universities is a strategy that has been going on for some years now. Think about Crossroads church in Canberra (linked with ANU), Hunter Bible Church in Newcaste (linked with Newcastle Uni), Matthias (linked with UNSW), Barnies at Broadway (and its historic link with Uni of Syd), Cumberland Unichurch (linked with Lidcombe campus of Uni of Syd). And this is just in Sydney and off the top of my head but it is a pattern that is repeated across the nation.

Secondly, he then moves onto private schools:
Here’s an idea: why don’t we start a youth ministry especially targeting the private schools? Too radical you say. But I am a dreamer.

John, we are doing this!! Crusaders ministry has been around for at least 70 years. It has significant ministry in a lot of private schools. Your not a dreamer, but you could try being a researcher! What do you want the diocese to do John? It seems that stuff is happening

As I said, he got under my skin..........