Category: scripture

conversation starter

wonderfulexchange3 Comments

I’ve been preparing tonight’s topic for Deepening:  ‘What do we mean when we say God inspires scripture?’.   We’re starting (and perhaps ending) with a True/ False game.  I offer it here for your use or amusement.

The idea is to do this in pairs — some some of the words are deliberately ambiguous in order to stir debate.

True/ False?

  1. scripture is inspired by God
  2. all the words of scripture are inspired by God
  3. God dictated the words of scripture
  4. scripture is the word of God
  5. scripture contains God’s words
  6. scripture is the only place we can read God’s word
  7. the bible tells us what we must believe
  8. the bible tells us what me must do
  9. the bible gives us stories about God that shape what we believe and do
  10. the bible offers us a framework for understanding God, ourselves and the world Continue reading “conversation starter” →

righteous peace, godly glory

wonderfulexchange1 Comment

Each Friday in Advent, we’re taking time to reflect on some of the themes of the season and prepare something to put in the church.

This arose out of a desire named by several people in the congregation to ‘show that something was happen’ during Advent, that made it clear to those  who moved from the Christmas-lit town, to the Advent-stark  church that we were on a different journey, and not simply ignoring the fact that Christmas was fast approaching.

And of course it is a good excuse to gather, talk, and create something together.

So, this week it was Baruch:

Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem,
and put on for ever the beauty of the glory from God.
Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God;
put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting;
for God will show your splendour everywhere under heaven.
For God will give you evermore the name,
‘Righteous Peace, Godly Glory’.
Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height;
look towards the east,
and see your children gathered from west and east
at the word of the Holy One,
rejoicing that God has remembered them.
For they went out from you on foot,
led away by their enemies;
but God will bring them back to you,
carried in glory, as on a royal throne.
For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low
and the valleys filled up, to make level ground,
so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God.
The woods and every fragrant tree
have shaded Israel at God’s command.
For God will lead Israel with joy,
in the light of his glory,
with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.

I suspect the more complex the theology, the more abstract the result.   But it’s all there if you look closely.