Mulled Vine

Mark 11:24

“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

A work colleague has a young daughter with epilepsy and they are really struggling with it. She takes a pillow to school in case she fits. They have endless frustrating appointments with clueless specialists. It breaks my heart, particularly as I have two young daughters. I wanted to offer to pray but hesitated because God’s answers are sometimes a bit complicated, and my colleague, not being a believer and hence not versed in the extensive theology we wrap around prayer, might not be that impressed when “nothing” happens, i.e. she is not healed.

But my heart reminded me of the time my youngest daughter was cycling with her friends outside our house and the chain came off her friend’s bike. She said, “My dad can fix this!” and promptly came and got me. Fortunately I can do chains, but that’s another matter. The point is, her friend had a problem and she knew her dad could and would fix it!

So I offered to pray, despite the risk involved, and I would ask anyone reading this to pray with me that our loving Father would glorify His name in the lives of this family and heal this young girl of her epilepsy. Her name is Emma.

You’d think that with The Truth we Christians might have a bit more agreement amongst ourselves. This joke illustrates it nicely:

I was in San Fransisco once, walking along the Golden Gate Bridge, and I saw this guy on the bridge about to jump. I said to him, “Don’t do it. God loves you!” He said, “How do you know there’s a God?” I said, “Of course there’s a God. Do you think that billions of years ago a bunch of molecules floating around at random could someday have had the sense of humor to make you look like that?” He said, “I do believe in God.” I said, “Are you a Christian or a Jew?” He said, “A Christian.” I said, “Me too. Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me too! What franchise?” He says, “Baptist.” I said, “Me too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?” He says, “Northern Baptist.” I said, “Me too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?” He says, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I say, “Me too! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist or Northern Conservative Reform Baptist?” He says, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist.” I say, “Me too! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Eastern Region?” He says, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region.” I say, “Me too! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879 or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?” He says, “Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912.”

I said, “Die, heretic!” And I pushed him over!

I’ve heard of churches splitting over the matter of whether Communion should be with one cup or many! Now to me that seems completely daft but no doubt there are some out there who will not think so. We have great doctrinal camps based on what you believe about Predestination versus Free Will, what your view is on the End Times, whether the Creation story is literal or not, etc . Then we get to worship preferences – our church has 3 services every Sunday: a conservative one, a family-friendly one and a rock-on contempary one, and heaven forbid that the choir should sing in anything but the conservative service!

So what’s going on?

The first thing is that humans like to gather in to groups for varying reasons, and are deeply wary of people in other groups. This can be for reasons of race, religion, age and even bingo! This is very natural but must be resisted at all costs. “for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 5:27-28)

Secondly, although we are told to “speak the Truth and love” we generally fail to love as much as we like to beat each other with The Truth.

And speaking of The Truth. You may have the Word of God in your hand, but before you wield it like a Sword, remember this: you don’t have it in the original language, nor are you in the correct cultural setting to fully understand the intent, nor are you Mr or Mrs Hermeneutics, so a bit of humility please. There is scope for interpretation, and you may have got it wrong? Perhaps you just need to agree to disagree for unity’s sake?

I’m not advocating a Post-Modernist “we can’t know anything” stance. Each one us must have a line beyond which he or she cannot in good conscience move but I reckon this line is in the wrong place for most of us.