Judge Not the Bible a Children's Book

Judge Not the Bible a Children’s Book 

Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatau katoa 

Picture this – five great houses. And yes, they were called houses. But let’s change their names to colours that we all recognise – red, green, orange, yellow and blue. Each of these houses wanted dominance in the world and they would do anything to get it. They wanted their leader to be a king of a global empire.  

Over the course of history, each house would try to dominate through a trade of their children and contracts written up through marriage and the guarantee of a son. This often meant that children were not seen as gifts but as commodities to be traded for global dominance. Within each house, corruption was widespread. 

Affairs, acts of sexual depravity, underhanded trading and indulgence to excess were everyday occurrences. 

But as history rode the course of time, impatience settled into each house and each started to plan for a war that would throw the world into a deep and dark winter. The House of Red played the first card for dominance by creating a Treaty of alliance with the House of Green. But the real card was played by the House of Orange. A loyal group set out on behalf of Orange and killed the leader of the House of Green in a brutal slaying on a public street. It didn’t take long for the House of Red to come to Green’s protection. And the House of Blue saw an opportunity to destroy the House of Yellow in the chaos that ensued.  

And this chaos would last for more than one winter. And only one House would survive – the House of Blue but the empire of that house would no longer look to it as a monarch ruling a global world. Instead, the monarch became a touring piece and a thing for gossip and mystery. But the House of Blue had a deep and dark secret. Its cousins were the House of Red – the bad guys in the story. So, the House of Blue had to find a way to hide that secret away. 

This story is not one of a popular television series. This story is our history. This is the story of a war that people thought would end all wars. This is the story of the first world war. The House of Blue. The House that would win, was the House of Saxon-Coberg and Gotha. But after the war, they changed their name to the House of Windsor because it sounds more English than the German Saxon-Coberg and Gotha. 

In the history of the Christianity, the First World War serves as a very valuable lesson. It shows us, humanity, in a brutal reality when we forget our true King God and we put ourselves in his place. War settles in. Not the war of children’s books, not the war of movies and television series. But the brutal reality of blood, broken bodies and the tears of grieving families. This hit my family earlier this year when we found a set of postcards kept by my grandfather. Four sons, one sister not pictured, a father and a mother waiting in Aussie for them to come home. Only one returned. And each card sent to a friend of my family tells of another never to be seen again. War settles in; chaos settles in when we try to take God out of the picture. 

What grieves me is this. As a Christian and as an academic, I am often asked, well to be honest, it is often demanded of me to give a response, to how our God, a God of love could allow the horrors of last century.  I get reminded that many wars, are wars of faith and religion. And I feel that if I don’t have a response then I am letting my God down. Now the easy response to last Century was that God was not in those wars. It is true that many Christians fought, many even objected, but the wars of last Century were not holy wars. They were wars of nations who wanted dominance, manmade technologies and scientific advancement.  

And it is no surprise, a famous philosopher Fredrich Nietzche declared in the late 1800s that God was dead. While we all agree here that God is very much alive, humanity with all its brains (or lack of them) and technology was set on a course of self-destruction. That is the story of our history and it remains the story of today. 

Our world is so broken, much of this I have spoken into before, we have the highest youth suicide rate in the world, which, within our country, is topped per capita by the suicide rate of our elderly people. We have horror statistics in sexual violence, child abuse and domestic violence. In our world, the space of Syria, where the first world war started, conflict continues. To be honest, the first world war for that nation never ended and its beginning stems back centuries. I can understand why the people are so broken. 

So when people come to me and ask – where is God in all this? You tell me, he is a God of love, but where is he? What does your Bible tell us about conflict, hate, violence, abuse, rape, suicide? Your holy book says nothing, they tell me. Your holy book is full of holes when it comes to understanding God and humanity. Maybe they are right, especially if I treat the stories of my Bible as Sunday School lessons for little children. Golden Books, like this, David and Goliath, where little David, a very Pakeha/European looking kid takes on Goliath who looks a little more mid-eastern, perhaps even more Jewish than David in the story.  David, whose clothes are perfectly clean and skin free from dust and dirt, kills Goliath without even drawing blood. There is no violence in this story. 

But our holy book is filled with stories of conflict. They are not there to teach us how to fight but to teach us about ourselves and our relationship with our God. They are there to show us in our brokenness. They are then to show us what happens when we shut God out of the picture and replace him with a superior belief in ourselves. 

So, when people come to me and ask – where is God in all this? I give them an answer rooted in a story of compassion and brokenness. I give them a response that shows how all of our brokenness points only to the need for the cross. I give them a response that acknowledges the power of our holy book to be used as mirror to our brokenness and a reflection of who we can become when we are in step with our creator.  

Like many of you, I love the Bible. But I must admit that I am a real nerd for the books we find in the Hebrew books. The part of the Bible that we call the Old Testament. I love it, because when we stop using it as a series of Sunday School stories we can begin to struggle with the stories of war, violence and the zealous God who remains the same today as he was yesterday and will be tomorrow. 

And one book that does this best is Judges. Judges has it all. It is full of war and violence of all kinds. If I want to know about the complexity of our relationship with our God in times of uncertainty; Judges is the place to go. It is probably the book that most of us would prefer to ignore – we see enough violence on the news at night so why choose to read about it in the Bible. Especially if it brings confusion into our understanding of who God is when God is ultimate and pure love. 

According to the commentary by Clinton McCann. Judges allows us to explore the following issues in a Biblical context: 

• Tension between rival groups 
• Land disputes 
• Uncertainty of gender roles 
• Power-crazy politicians/leaders 
• Abuse (domestic and child) 
• Senseless violence 
• Excessive self-interest 
• Moral confusion 
• Social chaos 

When I look at that list, I see society today. And I feel like we downplay the power of the Bible if we use Judges only for Sunday School stories or we ignore it and put it into the too hard-basket. In fact, Judges is my favourite book because it gives me four central lessons: 

1. Without a relationship with God we are broken 

2. We do not hold the solution to our brokenness no matter how good we are with our brains and with technology 

3. God is the solution 

4. God will hold on and wait for us to return even when we spiral more and more out of control 

The book of Judges is a deep and meaningful challenge to all of us. Believe it or not but Clinton McCann describes the challenge of Judges as a gospel challenge. The promise of the gospel for each of us is life – true beautiful ultimate life in a relationship with our creator. But, as in the garden, this relationship comes with an invitation, we must choose to accept life. The gospel truth is not imposed on us. It is given with open hands. We must take the gift of the gospel. When we don’t our actions of denial choose something else. This leads to death and destruction. You can choose life and you can choose death. Choose life or death – you can’t have both. 

The lesson of Judges for Israel and for the nations that Israel fought against in the promised land is painful one. In Chapter 2 verse 18-19 (DATA leave on until next highlight) 

Whenever the LORD raised up a judge for them, he was with the judge and saved them out of the hands of their enemies as long as the judge lived; for the LORD had compassion on them as they groaned under those who oppressed and afflicted them. But when the judge died, the people returned to ways even more corrupt than those of their fathers, following other gods and serving and worshiping them. They refused to give up their evil practices and stubborn ways. (Jdg 2:18-19) 

We can see this concept of a God of love amongst a broken people in these verses. We can also see the challenge of the people – are they prepared to walk in the life that God has determined for them. And if we were to look at the Hebrew translation all through these verses we would see that a concept of oppression is evident within words such as compassion, groaning, oppression and affliction. God desired to deliver them from their oppression. But then they turned back to it – in worse and worse ways. 

And this spiral of return is like a tornado, it is small at the bottom, but as it spirals round, the rings get wider and wider and wider. It is harder and harder for people to turn back to God. It is harder for people to trust God. In the end, God needs something else. But by the end of the book, the relationship between God and his people is so broken that only the bridge of the cross would ultimately allow for healing and that would start with David. 

Let us see this spiral in action. Here is the first judge – Othniel in Judges 3 verses 9 to 11. His story is told in a mere five verses and if you take the verses out on the corruption of Israel itself; you will find his story is really only two verses long. It is not enough to preach a sermon from and Bibles which give you character profiles will not cover lessons from his life. After all, aside from being the nephew of Caleb, what can we learn? Well there is a lesson, God called him and he acted. It is as simple as that. He did not need to test God, he did not doubt God, he did not need a woman doing what God called him to do. God called him, came upon him and Othniel acted. And then we see God’s desire, we do not serve a God of war. We do not serve a God that calls us to war. We serve a God of peace, because when God’s spirit is in relationship with his people, violence and depravity disappear: 

But when they cried out to the LORD, he raised up for them a deliverer, Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother, who saved them. The Spirit of the LORD came upon him, so that he became Israel's judge and went to war. The LORD gave Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram into the hands of Othniel, who overpowered him. So the land had peace for forty years, until Othniel son of Kenaz died. (Jdg 3:9-11) 

Then the next Judge Ehud use the gift of being left-handed to deceive and plunge a double-edged sword into the obese stomach of Eglon king of Moab. The story is graphic, and it is hard to garner spiritual truths, but the message is the same of Othniel, when the nation cries out from their oppression, God will act. But most of all the judges of this period, knew their God. They didn’t need persuading – they acted. The same story is evident for Shamgar, the third judge. 

And then in Chapter 4, we get to Deborah. Here we can begin to see that God is challenging gender stereotypes. Israel was a patriarchal world. Men were meant to lead it. In fact, if you read the story closely, Barak was meant to be doing the work of a judge. But he was too busy debating with Deborah as to the facts and even wanted her to accompany him.  There is no quick – Israel cries out for help, God calls a judge and He acts. We do have Israel crying out for help, but there is a domestic dispute going on between Barak and Deborah. In the end, Barak does act but another woman finishes the job with a tent peg. 

So here you can start to see the spiral of a close relationship between Israel and with each judge and God becomes more and more distant. Even when God sends his own angel to Gideon in Chapter 6, Gideon expresses doubt and asks for physical proof. The story is longer, yes. And, as such, many of us know the story of Gideon testing God with a fleece. But just because the story is longer doesn’t mean that Gideon had a better relationship with God than Othneil, Ehud and Shamgar. Rather what it demonstrates is how deeply broken the relationship between God and his people is getting. And this is not because of the choice of God, but the decision of his own people to not believe in the gospel message of life, peace and relationship. 

By the end of the story of Gideon, people are wanting a King. And we need to be clear here, they are not after a leader in a person. They want a King to worship. At this period of time, Kings were more than just an ambassador to a ruling god, they were the embodiment of the god of their nation. To call for a king is to call for a person to worship. It is no surprise, at the end of the story of Gideon and the beginning of the story of his tryant son Abimelech in chapter 9 that we learn that Gideon had another name – Jerub-Baal. This name means ‘Baal will contend’, even Gideon had lost his faith and Abimelech seized the moment to claim kingship, calling on the name of his father Jerub-Baal and murdering his 70 brothers so that he would have no competition.  

Abimelech would rule through terror. He was the Hitler of his time and God would come through, he would speak through people and, again, empower a woman to do the actions that others would be afraid to do at the end of Chapter 9.  

And all through Judges this cyclic theme continues. God desires his people to choose life, but they choose other gods. God allows his people to experience the results of their decision. After some time, they cry out, he delivers them out of love and compassion. After a while, they change their mind, and things get even worse. If this cycle started in Judges, no let’s get this earlier, if this is the cycle that started in the garden when Adam and Eve choose to be as a god rather than walk with God, and if this cycle gets wider and wider every time we as a people journey around it, then no wonder the world is so broken.  

And then we get to the last Judge, Samson. Samson is no Sunday school story. He starts dedicated to God. Again, thanks to a woman listening to God directly and a loving husband believing. It is a story of hope. In fact, all of Judges is a story of hope if you think about it. Any way, they give birth to a son – Samson. In Hebrew, his name means sunlight. In the darkness of this period of history, God would bring a new day. But Samson is a man driven by his hormones – physically and sexually. It is like you are reading a story of a teenager out of control. He is not like Gideon, a man who doubts God, but he is also not like the early judges, a man who trusts God. If anything he appears to manipulate God to get what he wants. But God twists the plot and Samson ends up doing God’s business and in response tells God – you owe me one now dude.  

Samson is the ultimate story of tragedy. And even in his death, he doesn’t see his true purpose as one chosen by God. He doesn’t ask God for vengeance on the Philistines for the oppression of God’s people or for the worship of false Gods. No, in Chapter 16, we still see the self-indulgence of Samson 

Then Samson prayed to the LORD, "O Sovereign LORD, remember me. O God, please strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes." (Jdg 16:28) 

And the beauty of this story, is the one of love that is present. Samson was a broken man, just as many of us are broken here today, but even in his brokenness God loved him and was with him. No matter how far this world spirals out of control, God has not given up. God will not give up. 

The final chapters of Judges are sickening. We learn of a nation becoming more and more self-interested and less and less compassionate. We read of whole tribes turning away from God to follow the gods of the land. Just as we might come to church each Sunday just to feel better, feel accepted, relieve feelings of guilt, make some business contacts, or connect with friends. We see a people of God, using their chosen position to get want they want. It is no longer about a relationship with God. It is about God’s people taking what they want out of the relationship.  

We learn of one tribe, Dan, taking land that was not included in the promised land. They took it because they wanted it. The conquest for Dan was no longer about a limited and very small piece of land being set aside for the people of Israel. The conquest for Dan was about empire building, it was colonisation in contemporary sense. Nations taking land because they want it, killing indigenous peoples and making excuses – like this is God’s own gift for us. It is no surprise that in the book of Revelation, Dan is written out of the list of 12 tribes in Revelation 7:4-8. 

And then we finish the story of Judges in complete brokenness. We read of a Levite, a concubine, rape, murder and disembodiment. It is a case of domestic violence at its worse, God’s chosen one, a levite abusing his station, allowing for the abuse of a woman and killing her in response then cutting her up and sending her body parts throughout Israel. This leads to all out civil war. The tribe of Benjamin is reduced to 600 men. Regret settles in, but Benjamin no longer has enough women to procreate and other hapu, the other subtribes of Israel swore an oath that prohibited them to give their daughters in marriage to Benjamin. No longer are the people turning to God, they did as they saw fit, and to fix the problem that had a big party and invited some girls. 

This is the story of Judges; I don’t know if you see it now, but it is the story of our time. And the lessons are simple, if we as a people, only come to God when we need him, we will see the cycle of grief in our life. The things that are slightly broken will be replaced with destroyed and decimated realities. You see Judges is a reflection. God gives us a choice. We only tend to come to him when we need him. He responds because he doesn’t want us in the broken place we have created for ourselves. You can see it here in Judges 10:14-16 

Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen. Let them save you when you are in trouble!" But the Israelites said to the LORD, "We have sinned. Do with us whatever you think best, but please rescue us now." Then they got rid of the foreign gods among them and served the LORD. And he could bear Israel's misery no longer. (Jdg 10:14-16) 

So what does this mean. Well it means this, if you want to look at the reason for the brokenness today in this world – look to Judges. It tells you the simple answer – choose God, choose life or choose something else. But like many of the Hebrew books it is also a book that points to something. The only reason why Judges stops abruptly in verse 25 of Chapter 21… 

In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw fit. (Jdg 21:25) 

… is because it wants to tell us something. There is hope. The circle can be broken. It will start with David. But it finishes on the cross. It finishes with God bearing our misery literally on his back. It finishes not in the sunlight of Samson, but in the light of his true son. And this is it, in order to understand our need for God and the actions of love beared strongly on the cross, we have to understand that first we are a broken people. I personally can only understand the events of the world today, through the story of Judges. I can only understand events that break people like colonisation, war, abuse and hate crimes, by seeing our brokenness. And I am so grateful that such books exist in the Bible. But most of all, like all good stories, I love how these books finish by leaving us hanging and, in that way, they point to the hope in the hanging Jesus on the cross who represents, through his resurrection, the opportunity for restoration. We don’t have to continue this cliff-hanger of a story, we can make the choice for life, and the choice for a relationship with God.  

No rei ra 

Tena koutou tena koutou tena tatou katoa

On May 14 2017 I had the honour of preaching to Wainuiomata Gospel Chapel. This is a special community church which is a place of rest for many including our Indian community. Here is the sermon - it is from 1 Thessalonians Chapter 1

We were one of the first

Tena koukou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa

I am here today to share from 1 Thessalonians Chapter One

From Paul, Silas, and Timothy--- To the people of the church in Thessalonica, who belong to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: May grace and peace be yours. We always thank God for you all and always mention you in our prayers. 

For we remember before our God and Father how you put your faith into practice, how your love made you work so hard, and how your hope in our Lord Jesus Christ is firm.  Our friends, we know that God loves you and has chosen you to be his own. For we brought the Good News to you, not with words only, but also with power and the Holy Spirit, and with complete conviction of its truth. You know how we lived when we were with you; it was for your own good. You imitated us and the Lord; and even though you suffered much, you received the message with the joy that comes from the Holy Spirit. So you became an example to all believers in Macedonia and Achaia. For not only did the message about the Lord go out from you throughout Macedonia and Achaia, but the news about your faith in God has gone everywhere.

There is nothing, then, that we need to say. All those people speak about how you received us when we visited you, and how you turned away from idols to God, to serve the true and living God and to wait for his Son to come from heaven---his Son Jesus, whom he raised from death and who rescues us from God's anger that is coming.

I want to take you back in time. To the beginning of the spread of the Gospel throughout the Greco-Roman world and the mission of Paul. I want to take you back to my day and my church. You see, I come to you today as a representative of the church of Thessalonica. I come to you as one of the women of the aristocracy who came to know Christ when Paul and Silas visited our gathering close to twenty years after the sacrifice of Christ. I would like to tell you about the letter he wrote to us and how much it meant to us. You see, it was one of his first letters. Ok, it is possible that the Galatians got their letter a little earlier. Time has since buried the winner of this competition, but both us here at Thessalonica and our brothers in Galatia agree upon two things – we were the first to receive letters from Paul and, while the Galatians received a telling-off, we received ultimate encouragement. So, what about us – the people of Thessalonica?

Well, you might think that Wellington is a rich commercial city, but you haven’t seen anything like the richness of my city Thessalonica. We were, and still are, a thriving commercial city on the shores of the Aegean Sea. Since 146 BC, Thessalonica was the Roman Capital of Macedonia. As a key port in the Roman Empire, we were allowed to keep our Greek identity. The Romans even let us keep our constitution and our gods. And talk about gods, the world is your oyster when it comes to who you can worship here. You get to choose your religion and if you have a lifestyle that is about wealth, fertility and drinking lots of alcohol then you are in the right city. We have all the gods and goddesses you can dream about. And, when you run out of them, you can worship Caesar.

But given that we accept all gods and religions, we also have the Jews and their synagogue. They worship only one God, who they consider to be the creator of all things and the provider of all things. Their God calls them to live a lifestyle that is set apart. They are called to follow this God and to not seek other gods that give them favour. For many of us, especially my friends and I in the aristocracy, this religion had something pure about it. There seemed to be something appealing about this Jewish God, who wanted a relationship with his people first. We wanted to fear this God and follow this God, but we didn’t want to change our status and become Jews. So, we put aside our worship of the gods of our city, and even our emperor and we started to explore our relationship with Yahweh by regular observance of all things Jewish.

And then, Paul and his friend Silas, who is also known as Silvanus, came. They told us of Christ and his death for us. They told us how Christ enabled all of us to be one in Yahweh. They told us that Christ would return for his people. They challenged us to put aside all of our thinking and follow this Christ. Many of us Gentiles did, which annoyed the Jews, and before long Paul got kicked out of our city. Luke has retold this story for you in Acts 17.

But we didn’t leave the God that Paul told us about when Paul departed. Instead, we began to assemble (your book says church, but, really, we didn’t have an official building as such), we just got together. We came together as one to worship the God Paul shared with us and the sacrifice of his son. We did this regularly, we prayed, we showed love to each other. We even engaged in acts of love to the outsiders who were not part of our assembly. We knew that if we put our faith into practice, God’s love would show and his Son might even return.

And then Timothy visited us to see how things were going. Apparently, Paul sent him. Paul was having a rough time and nearly gave up his whole mission. Timothy was wrapped at our faith and our outward display of love and our talk of hope. Timothy talked to us about how we pretty much were the gossip of the new world. Not gossip in the bad sense, but that everywhere Paul and he went, the stories of our church had gone before them. Timothy told us to keep the work going. He took our story back to Paul.

Paul then wrote his first letter to us. What blew us away was that our story gave encouragement to our teacher and he could continue his good work. For us, we learnt, that when you are going through a rough time, often the stories of the people precious to you can give you encouragement to keep strong. So yeah, this letter came.

It was written like any other letter you would receive in our time. The opening always starts from with the phrase X to Y. Then there is always some form of thanksgiving and/or prayer. Followed by the letter itself and finishing with a brief closing. But as Paul wrote more and more letters, we began to realise, Paul would break the rules to meet the purpose of the letter. If you look at his first two letters, the one to us and the one to the Galatians, you can see this already. In our letter, the thanksgiving that he gives starting in verse three of the first chapter goes on and on. In fact, some people of your era tell us that it could be possible that it goes for three chapters. I personally doubt it, but you can see just how encouraging our story was to Paul in his hour of need.

In contrast, in the letter to the Galatian assembly of Christians, Paul omits the thanksgiving altogether. Where he is meant to move to thanksgiving in verse 5, you read in The Message, Paul saying “I can’t believe your fickleness!”

But let’s stop comparing ourselves, while Galatia did have some things to address, we really were no better at times. What really matters is how personal the letter is to us. You see the letter is from Paul, Silas and Timothy. Three men who really knew us. Most of the letter is from Paul and it is really moving that he knows we recognise his leadership. We really did see his authority. So, it was encouraging to us that he didn’t see the need to call himself an apostle, disciple, follower of Christ as he did in other letters. He just called himself Paul. Seeing this straight away for us showed us that he knew that we would listen, he didn’t need to stamp his authority all over the letter. He already had it.

And then, straight away, he reminded us of our relationship; we are only together because of our relationship to God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. There is no other reason for us to assemble. Added to this, it is this relationship that brought us together with Paul, Silas and Timothy.  The reason that underpinned Paul writing this letter was that we all had a shared relationship with the one true God and his Son (our Lord). Paul, Silas and Timothy had no other reason to write this letter – they only knew us because of shared experience of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then the magic – the gift given to us from God – grace. Paul, Silas and Timothy wished grace to be upon us. They knew that we cannot experience real peace, without that grace first. This is so key. Years later, we would discover that all the letters of Paul have grace coming before peace. It is like he is sharing the gospel right there in his prayer and wish. May the grace of the cross come upon you now so that you can receive the true peace of a relationship with the father. Wow!

Paul, Silas and Timothy then tell us how they remember us. To hear this being read aloud was so encouraging. You probably know what it is like to have experienced an intense relationship with someone and then, suddenly, they leave you. You always want to know if they remember you, don’t you? Well, to hear that Paul, Silas and Timothy all remembered us. It was mind-blowing.

Further, they remembered us through our faith, love and hope. Now I know that latter Paul would tell the assembly at Corinth that love is the greatest gift. But he had intentional meaning in the ordering of the words for us.  He knew that we desired to live a life of outworking faith. He knew that we did not see such a faith as a path to salvation. We honesty saw works through faith as enabling God to be present in our broken city. This outpouring of faith could only happen through a labour of love. We knew that the love of God was seen on the cross. We knew that this love called us into relationship with God. We knew that such a love was always giving and it never held anything back. We knew that our true labour of love was to allow God to transform our lives so that others could see and turn to God themselves. He understood that all of this demonstrated an active patience. We chose as a people to understand that we had to prepare ourselves for the return of Christ in hope.

It was like we were gardeners. You would never sow your crop and sit back relaxing for the next few weeks waiting for the best harvest. No, you actively wait, you pull the weeds out, you trim back plants and thin out crops and you hope that this year is better than the last. If you are growing beetroot, you even pull out the new plants and replant them. Just as a gardener displays an active patience of hope, we demonstrated active patience in our faith and works of love. We weren’t prepared to wait for Christ sitting on our hands.

Because, as Paul knew, being a Christian in Thessalonica was not an easy thing to do. We became outsiders. People followed the gods of their commercial, personal and spiritual desires. Those of us who chose to follow the gospel brought to us from Paul, were considered down-right weird. We were hated by the Jews because we believed in the Messiah. We were hated by our community because we refused to acknowledge the idea that you could be fickle in your choice of god for the occasion.

Paul had taught us something. We had to turn from the gods that we followed. The Jews would call this repentance. We had to then serve the one true God. We did this through our faith, our labour of love and our patient hope. We then had to wait and to wait meant that we had to expect but also understand that true waiting acknowledges that the will of God is out of our hands, and control, completely. Christ will come in God’s time not our time, but we as an assembly need to be preparing the way. We need to actively be working in God’s love each day. This is want Paul taught us. This was his testimony to us. He lived this way day by day.

So, we followed him. We imitated him. And as such our lifestyle became a testimony to churches throughout Macedonia and Achaia. Can you believe that? Us, a little group of Christians, who simply followed what our teacher taught us became an example. Well to be honest, in the language of our day, we became a tupos. This word you would turn into the word type. But back in the day, it meant to leave a deep impression on something, like the dents of a stamp or the imprint of a seal. So, to be told that we were an example by our teacher, showed us that we were having a real impact – we were leaving an impression on all those we met.

And I wonder whether this is why, our letter, a personal letter from Paul to us. A letter that was really affirming our relationship with Paul, reinforcing the commitment we had to Christian living and addressing our simple questions still exists today. Perhaps our church, our little church can continue to make an impression on generations of Christians to come. And if that impression is anything to me today, it would be to encourage you to put your faith into practice, demonstrate a labour of love in your life and actively live in patient hope of Christ’s return. Allow God’s love to transform your life today, because tomorrow might be too late.

I know that you are going to be exploring the letter to my church even more. But I want to thank you so much for having me here today and hearing my story, the story of my church and why the letter was written. If you have any any questions I would be happy to answer them.

No rei ra, tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatou katoa