The Pre-Existent Christ

I know I haven't updated for a while but my depression has been been dragging me down and sapping my energy.

Anyway what I wanted to say was that I have just finished reading one of my son's college text books "The Pre-existent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark and Luke" - snappy little title isn't it! Why did I read it? Because it looked interesting. Did I understand it all? No way but I did get the general gist of it.

The central argument of the book hinges around Jesus saying "I have come to..." (or occasionally demons asking why her has come) which is a phrase that supposes purpose in coming from one place to another. By using this phrase Jesus makes plain that he has come to earth from heaven therefore he must have existed prior to His incarnation. This pre-existence is, of course, made plain in John's Gospel and in Paul's writing. From what I understand there was no need to spell this out in the earlier Gospels because it would have been already understood by the readers but by the time John wrote his Gospel it had to be said plainly to stop the church wandering into heresy.

What fascinates me wasn't in the book at all. If Christ existed before the incarnation it means that He was in the Godhead during the act of creation. But God is beyond time so in the act of creation He knew that He would have to enter creation and suffer and die. Despite this He still did it because He loves each and every one of us that much.

I feel that I should leave the light reading behind now so the next book I'm going to read is "The Gospel According to the "Simpsons": The Spiritual Life of the World's Most Animated Family"

God bless you all.

A New Asthma Treatment?

I have just entered my Peak Flow (lung function test) figures for November into the 2010 spreadsheet and I noticed something about the annual graph:




Apart from the fact that I haven't entered the December figures it starts rising in July which is when I started taking fluoxetine for my depression. Does this mean that fluoxetine helps treat asthma or that fluoxetine relaxes me so that the stress is no longer an asthma trigger?

Any views?

Prayer Meditation 3 - Authority

Daniel 7:13-14
"In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Authority?
No one tells me what to do!
Even if we don’t say it we think it.
We reject earthly authority if we don’t like it.

But all creation is meant to be under your authority
And that means us.
Every hidden little bit of us
Should be under your authority
To bring glory and honour to your name
And not ours.

Lord help us to submit to your authority
So that we may live in ways that glorify you and you alone.

Why Life Is Grey 2

One of the bugbears in my life is people, and particularly Christians, who try to see everything in terms of a rigid right and wrong morality instead of recognising that life is mainly about grey areas and not just black and white. To illustrate this here is a photo from which I have removed the grey shades to leave it only black and white:


Not very good is it?


Can you tell what it is?


Here is the same photo with the greys all added back in:



Now you can see it's a picture of my son with his wonderful fiancee (plus a woman in the background).

Life isn't black and white but it's mainly grey or, as I put it before, grey areas are where dogma and love clash and it is important to let love win. Alternatively 'My Karma just ran over my Dogma.'

For those who missed it here is a link to 'Why Life Is Grey'

http://brainatthedoor.blogspot.com/2010/06/why-life-is-grey.html

Prayer Mediation 2 - The Fellowship of the Believers

Acts 2:42-47
The Fellowship of the Believers
They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

The disciples were together
How often are we together?
We meet on Sunday mornings
And some in the evening
But are we together?

They sold property to look after the needy.
Are we prepared to do that?
Give up our comfortable lifestyles
To help anyone in need?
Do we even know the needs within our own church?
Let alone those outside our fellowship.

Lord help us to fully enter into fellowship with each other
So that your name, and your name alone, may be glorified.

Prayer Meditations 1

As I mentioned in my previous blog there are some serious problems at the church I attend and while there has been a lot of destructive behaviour there has, so far, been one positive - the church has gathered for 2 prayer meetings to pray about the issues facing us. 'The church has gathered' may be over stating it as there weren't as many people present as I would have liked to see but it was a start.

My wife and I were asked to lead the first meeting and then led the second as well, recycling a lot of the material, using Bible passages followed by a short meditation / prayer. Rather than let the material sit on my hard drive I thought it would be a good idea to share them here on my blog.

Colossians 1:15-20

The Supremacy of the Son of God

¹⁵ The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶ For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸ And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. ¹⁹ For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Lord how often do I call this place my church?

How often do we call it our church?

We try to take ownership

To do things our way

Because this is our church!

But Lord it isn’t our church.

It’s your church.

Your body here on earth

And we should be doing your will

Not our own.

Lord help us in this time

To surrender our will and ideas

So that this may truly be your church

Your body here on earth.

Update

It has been a while since I updated mainly because a bit too much has been going on and I don't want to air some of it in a public forum.

Firstly I am now retired. There was an offer to take Voluntary Early Retirement at work and, despite it leaving me with little money for just over 3 years until another pension starts paying, we (my wife and I) decided that given my physical and mental health it was the best thing to do. I haven't decided whether to take another job in the interim or what else to do as I need time to get myself back in working order.

Secondly we had a wonderful week in Venice. This was a special holiday to celebrate our being married for 30 years and my wife having a significant birthday the following day at the end of August. This was our third trip to Venice and, finance permitting, I don't think it will be our last; there is just so much to see. The lack of traffic seems to help my chest so I'm going to ask my GP whether the NHS will pay for me to move there!

Thirdly we came back to news of some serious problems at our church. I'm not going to go into details here as I don't think it would be right or helpful but when you find a church that you have attended all your life in danger of tearing itself apart it is very painful.

To finish on a more cheerful note here is a picture that captures a tiny part of the beauty of Venice.