²⁷ “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. ²⁹ If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. ³⁰ Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. ³¹ Do to others as you would have them do to you.

   ³² “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. ³³ And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. ³⁴ And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. ³⁵ But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. ³⁶ Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Having read this, the enormous weight of my impending failure is now sitting heavily across my shoulders.  At first reading, I am heavy of heart because I know myself, and I know that I’m just not going to manage to obey Jesus!  Some things, I’m ok with, and many of these things I see the logical value of.  For example, where verse 27 talks of doing good to those who hate me.  I’m ok with that.  I know it’s difficult, but I want to try my best to do it because if someone hates me, then it’s more their problem than mine and I can see that my hating them in return will make matters worse, and my hating them will always do me more harm than them.  And I can also see that the more good I do to someone who hates me, the more chance there is that they’ll stop hating me!  The same reasoning goes for verse 28.  I’m fine with those parts.

But then comes verse 29.  If someone hits me, I don’t want them to hit me again!  And as for not stopping someone from taking my shirt if they’ve just taken my coat – my initial response is “Forget that! I’m going to stop them taking my coat in the first place!”  Verse 30 tells me to give to everyone who asks me.  Now, I don’t get that many people asking me for things, but my sinful attitude tells me that once people find out that I’m giving to everyone who asks, more and more people will ask, and then I’ll have nothing left!  And then Jesus says that if anyone takes what belongs to me, I shouldn’t ask for it back – surely that’s just not fair!

Verses 32-34 put it in some perspective, and I’m fine with this bit, too.  It’s normal for people to love those who love them in return – but as followers of Jesus we should be setting an example that goes way beyond that: Loving our enemies.  It’s difficult, but it’s what Jesus commands us to do.  So we should love even those people who don’t love us; we should do good to even those people who would never do good to us; and we should lend to even those people who aren’t likely to ever pay us back.

Jesus’ words here aren’t nice, and lovely, and fluffy.  They’re massively challenging!  And as I read them, I know that I’m going to fail to obey them.  I agree with the principles of all of these things – it’s the practical outworkings that I just know I’m going to struggle with fail completely!

But then I re-read verses 35-36, and suddenly it hits me.  I get it.  Yes, these things are incredibly hard to do.  I’m never going to manage it fully.  People can do some fairly bad stuff to us, and when they do it’s hard to love them and do good to them.  But then Jesus says that if we do these things, we ‘will be children of the Most High, because He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.’  Why does it say we will be his ‘children’?  Because children learn from their parents and mimic them.  If we do this, then we are a reflection of God – the one who truly achieves these things. 

‘He is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.’  The weight of Jesus’ words hit me like a train.  The ‘ungrateful and wicked’ that I so often, in my arrogance, assume to be other people - non-Christians, those who are not yet saved – Jesus is talking about me!  I am the one who is constantly ungrateful and wicked.  And yet God is kind to me and has shown me mercy.

So Jesus has two points in his words here.  Firstly, he does want us to do all of these things for our enemies.  But secondly, Jesus is showing us exactly how much love and mercy God has shown us.  In my sinful arrogance as I read these words the first time, I was thinking ‘But surely that’s just not fair to allow people to do these things to me all of the time!’  But that’s the point!  Jesus is showing me the extent of God’s mercy and grace.   I’ve done all of these things to God time and time again, and yet He still loves me.

What an amazing God.

It seems to me that when God answers prayers like these, he does so very accurately – so that we can be in no doubt whatsoever about who it is that’s provided.  We asked God for enough money to pay Abi’s fees for her MSc, and he gave us the perfect amount – covering her fees, and enough for a meal for two to celebrate! 

(In case you were wondering, she passed her MSc with Distinction.  God is indeed good!)

But why is that?  Why shouldn’t I continue to write these kind of reflections?  I’m going to continue with them, and make posting on my blog a regular thing for once!

Not because I’m a big geek and want to continue to write essays still now I’m finished at ICC.  But simply for the reason that I find it useful as a way in helping me to express and structure my thoughts and reflections.  And they’ll also be there for me to read back at a later date to see how I’ve developed; how my youth work has developed; and how God is both using me and answering my prayers.

So that’s settled: I’ll make an effort to blog vaguely regularly, and I’ll use it to look back on my journey through life and youth ministry and see what God does!

(At least that way at least one person will read it!)

Anyway, I’ve been thinking this evening.  (Yes thanks, I’m fine.)  I’m convinced that a significant number of Christians don’t know how to read their Bible.  I mean properly read their Bible, study it, learn from it and apply it to their lives.  For myself, I would say that I only really learned to do this by being involved in regular Bible studies at university.  And because of this observation of my own experience (and pretty much the experience of anyone else I’ve asked about it), I’m fairly confident that there are many Christians who don’t have the fortune to be involved in regular Bible studies.  So where are Christians supposed to develop the skills to read, study and understand the Bible for themselves, if we don’t teach and practise it in churches?

I’ve been thinking about this all evening, and come to realise that as a Christian youth worker, I have a massive responsibility in this.  I think that so often in youth work we want to see our young people grow in their faith, so we’re willing to spoon-feed them the answers to the questions we’re asking.  I know I’m guilty of this in a lot of the things I do with the young people I work with – I write a session, work out what it is I want the young people to have learned by the end of it, and then work out what discussion questions I can ask that will lead to me having the opportunity to give them the answers, and a number of Bible verses to back myself up.

The problem with this approach is that the Bible verses that we so often use, as brilliant and relevant as they may be, are plucked out of their context when we read out just one or two verses to our young people.  This means that they can have no understanding of what it means to read a verse or passage in its context!

For example, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?  You are not your own; you were bought with a price.  Therefore honour God with your body.”  These are the last couple of verses in a passage about sexual immorality.  Why is it, then, that all too often we hear the words “your body is a temple” quoted as justification for teaching on healthy eating and exercise, as well as things like smoking, alcohol and drug abuse, and a number of other issues unrelated to sexual immorality?

What these verses mean is that since as Christians we have God living in us (the temple being the dwelling place of God in the Old Testament, so if our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit lives within us), we should live in a way as to avoid sexual immorality so that we honour God with our body.  Now, I’m not saying these verses aren’t appropriate or relevant when talking about things like smoking or substance abuse, because the call to honour God with our body absolutely applies to these things too.  What I’m saying is that when we talk about smoking or substance abuse, or even sex (to use the passage in its original context) with young people, we simply say “don’t do it, because the Bible says ‘your body is a temple’.”  This is not enough.

Is it any wonder that people don’t learn to really study the Bible for themselves when they’re spoon-fed verses in this way in what are often their most formative years?  What’s wrong with sitting down with a group of young people and showing them the entire passage surrounding this verse, and going on a ‘journey of exploration’ with them to find the meaning of the verses?

If we can use this approach in our youth work in churches, then I am convinced that we will raise up a generation of people who read the Bible for themselves, question its meaning, and dig deeper in their own understanding of God’s Word to us, and inevitably of God himself.  One of the biggest criticisms on Christian youth work is that young people are ‘brainwashed’, told what to believe, and/or manipulated.  Surely we have a responsibility as older, more (spiritually) mature Christians to encourage young people to think for themselves?  Then we not only respect them as people by encouraging their own thought processes and questions, but we will, in the long run, develop more grounded and secure Christians who possess the skills to read and understand the Bible for themselves.

http://christiananswers.net/dinosaurs/j-ark1.html

It claims that since the Bible tells us that “Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark” (Genesis 7:15), then dinosaurs “must” have been included.  The author of the website also goes on to explain (for those of us who haven’t yet thought this through, obviously) that Noah probably took young dinosaurs, since it would have been foolish of him to waste space on the ark with fully grown adult dinosaurs.  And of course, Noah probably only took a carefully selected species of each main dinosaur type, which is probably why dinosaurs didn’t get back to the same kind of numbers they had experienced before the flood. 

In fact, why let my paraphrasing cause you to miss out on this valuable educational information…here’s a direct quote from the website:

“Perhaps God just included the basic types of dinosaurs He first created; not every variety that had developed since Creation. Young dinosaurs would be small and easier to care for and would use less food. It would have been foolish to fill up space on the Ark with the oldest, biggest adults.”

The website also goes on to talk about man’s sinful nature and the fact that the final few dinosaurs were probably made extinct because of humans hunting them either for meat or for sport.

So, he says, his groundbreaking realisation calls for serious changes to the world’s erratic teaching in schools about the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Hmmm…

(I don’t come across as skeptical, do I?)

Actually, I’m all for this recycling lark – making the world a cleaner place, and all that…

No, this post is more an observation of the facts…I keep forgetting to put out our bins.  Gutted.

Anyway, that wasn’t the point I was going to make.  For my placement, I finally found Granton Youth Centre. It’s half an hour’s drive (in good traffic) across the other side of Edinburgh, but I’ve spent 2 days there and what I’ve seen has been brilliant!  To say that Granton is a deprived part of the world is an understatement (if also a little non-PC these days.  Apparently people don’t like to use the word “deprived” any more in this sense).  However, the work of Granton Youth Centre  (GYC) that I’ve seen so far is a shining light in what is mainly a very dark world for the young people of Granton.  I volunteer with them as my placement on Thursday mornings, from 7-8:30am helping with their P7-S1 breakfast club (yes, 7am which – for those of you who haven’t made the connection – means being out of the house by 6:30am at the latest), and then from 9:30am-12 helping in their EmployAbility Unit for 16+ ages.

They hire a bus from a local community project every weekday morning, and drive around Granton picking up a selection of 10-12 yr olds who have been referred to them by the local school.  These are some of the most vulnerable young people in the school – those who are potentially the most prone to bullying, etc.  The staff and volunteers at GYC commit to picking them up every schoolday at 7am, bringing them into the centre where they provide them with breakfast, and also with a toothbrush, toothpaste and deodorant, spend some time building positive relationships with them (which builds their self-confidence and self-esteem), and drop them off at school on time.  It’s actually such a small thing, and an easy thing to do (once you’re used to the early mornings!) but I can’t begin to imagine the benefit it is having in the lives of these young people.

Then the rest of the morning at GYC is spent dedicated to young people age 16+ helping them in the most practical ways.  They hold workshops on money management, creating a CV, finding vocations that match their personalities and abilities, among other things.  Some of the young people they get coming regularly to these workshops have left school with no qualifications and face a future of unemployment and a real possibility of homelessness.  But the staff at GYC help to train, advise and encourage these young people to make their own way out of this situation, into jobs and relative financial security, whilst building relationships and having fun in the process.

The advantage for me volunteering at both of these sessions on a Thursday morning, apart from seeing the amazing work that’s done at GYC and learning from the staff there, is that both of these sessions start by providing breakfast for the young people that come in.

…bonus!

Abi was in hospital yesterday to have her remaining 3 wisdom teeth removed.  Having wisdom teeth removed doesn’t sound particularly bad, but it was a pretty traumatic experience.

She’s had one wisdom tooth removed in the past, which was in her upper jaw, so they could just pull it out while she was under local anaesthetic.  However, lower-jaw wisdom teeth can sometimes have their roots caught round the nerves that run along the jaw, which causes significant problems.  And since Abi’s wisdom teeth hadn’t actually come through completely, she had to be put to sleep while her teeth were cut out. 

Fair enough, it still sounds like a pretty minor surgery when compared to life-saving operations.  But getting wisdom teeth removed is one thing I hope never has to be done to me.  She was put to sleep while they cut open her gums and extracted her teeth.  And because all the surgery was taking place around her face, the increased blood flow to her head and face meant she woke up with a headache I can’t even imagine.

They asked us to be in for 8am, so just to make sure we got there by 7:30am.  She was taken through to be anaesthetised at 2pm.  (Yes, that’s right: 6 and a half hours of waiting.  Nothing but waiting. And contracting MRSA.)  While she was in theatre I found a local retail park and got myself a KFC (in case you were wondering) for lunch.  She came back out around 3:30pm, and we were able to leave the hospital at 7:30pm.

So after 12 hours in a hospital, where they’re supposed to fix you up and make you all better, Abi came out feeling much morse than when she went in (albeit better off in the long run), and even I now have a sore throat and headache that I didn’t have before!  Admittedly MRSA’s significantly worse than a sore throat and a headache, but my point still stands…

…whatever it was…

So you can see my frustration, right?  Or perhaps you just think I’m odd? Hmm…

I’m also in the middle of preparing a Bible study on Romans chapter 4, and have just been struck by the last section – verses 18-25.  Paul’s writing to the church in Rome, and speaking to a mixture of Jewish and Gentile believers.  He’s just been arguing that whether you’re Jewish or not makes no difference to how you are made righteous.  Using Abraham as the example (being the man to whom God gives circimcision, the sign of being Jewish; but also being the man of whom the Bible says “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness”),  Paul explains that whether you’re Jewish or Gentile, salvation comes from believing God and receiving God’s gift of mercy and grace.

Paul’s argument includes an explanation of exactly what Abraham believed God for: Abraham was 99 years old, and his wife was 89 and barren when God promised them numerous descendents.  Paul says that “without weakening in his faith, he faced [these facts].  Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God…”

Abraham saw that the circumstances were stacked against him and his wife, but he trusted God’s provision over his own circumstances, and from God’s promise came the whole Jewish nation, through whom God carried out his salvation plan for the whole of humanity.

…which is an encouraging thought given today’s news.