Every now and then you meet someone who leaves quite an impression on you. Padre Andy was one of those guys. Andy was here for treatment on a brain tumour and, being the cousin of my friend Cathy, spent a fair bit of time at the Christelow household. So, Andy became 'one of us' in our Bible study group.
It's very easy to become insular in a church setting. Churches have that horrible ability to develop a culture which ends up being about ways to behave, dress, speak and reverence for traditions. And so it morphs into some sort of correct Christian behaviour model that ends up being totally irrelevant to world in which we live and, as a result, makes God look weird and irrelevant to those who don't yet know him.
One of Andy's endearing qualities was that he a follower of Christ who connected easily with people who weren't church goers. He was politically incorrect from a Christian perspective yet, what is our role? Is it help people connect with our God who wanted reconciliation so badly that he chose to sacrifice his own son on a cross? Is it to help those in need and be there for them? If the answer to those questions is yes, then Andy was a great example of how to do that and not care what other more 'holy' people thought about him.
I didn't know Andy for all that long but I valued him as a friend. And he challenged me about how I carry out my role in life as a disciple of Jesus.
Enjoy your reward Padre!
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
Does God still have power?
I managed to get a doughnut for August - no blog postings at all. Almost 2 months between posts. Bit slack...
I'm not sure what day I'm supposed to be up to in the devotional booklet we were all given at church for our planned giving programme, but I was reading day 13 today. One part of scripture quoted was 2 Timothy 3: 1-5 and this bit particularly caught my eye "...having a form of godliness but denying its power."
I mentioned briefly when doing devotions at songster practice that my theology over time has become much more liberal in some areas but one of the downsides of that was that I somehow also lost a bit of belief in God to work miracles.
Some areas where I am a bit more liberal these days are regarding a 7 day creation and some of the Old Testament miracles. I very much believe in intelligent design but, whilst I think that God could easily have created the word in 7 literal days, and make it look millions of years old, I don't think he did.
Similarly, was Jonah swallowed by a big fish? Did some of those things that we read about Elijah and Elisha happen exactly as explained in the Bible?
These days I am comfortable that those questions don't threaten my faith. But reading "having a form of godliness but denying its power" challenges whether I am somehow making God smaller. The God who created life is no less powerful if he then let it evolve rather than create everything over a 7 day period.
The challenge in moving in a more liberal direction when it comes to theology is to not throw the baby out with the bath water - not to have a form of godliness but deny its power. God is still able to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants to do it. I need to remember that God is still the God of miracles and make sure that I don't make him small enough to fit into my very limited intellectual capacity.
I'm not sure what day I'm supposed to be up to in the devotional booklet we were all given at church for our planned giving programme, but I was reading day 13 today. One part of scripture quoted was 2 Timothy 3: 1-5 and this bit particularly caught my eye "...having a form of godliness but denying its power."
I mentioned briefly when doing devotions at songster practice that my theology over time has become much more liberal in some areas but one of the downsides of that was that I somehow also lost a bit of belief in God to work miracles.
Some areas where I am a bit more liberal these days are regarding a 7 day creation and some of the Old Testament miracles. I very much believe in intelligent design but, whilst I think that God could easily have created the word in 7 literal days, and make it look millions of years old, I don't think he did.
Similarly, was Jonah swallowed by a big fish? Did some of those things that we read about Elijah and Elisha happen exactly as explained in the Bible?
These days I am comfortable that those questions don't threaten my faith. But reading "having a form of godliness but denying its power" challenges whether I am somehow making God smaller. The God who created life is no less powerful if he then let it evolve rather than create everything over a 7 day period.
The challenge in moving in a more liberal direction when it comes to theology is to not throw the baby out with the bath water - not to have a form of godliness but deny its power. God is still able to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants to do it. I need to remember that God is still the God of miracles and make sure that I don't make him small enough to fit into my very limited intellectual capacity.
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