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Monday, 27 November 2006
Sunday, 26 November 2006
1 Timothy 4:6-16 - Sermon from OCC
Well Good Morning and welcome to Onslow Community Church.
This morning we are going to look at 1 Timothy. So if you have your bibles, now is a good time to flick to this letter.
1 Timothy is easy to find. It is in the New Testament and it is part of the section of “T’s”. I just flick through the NT, from the back, until I hit a “T” and I’m sweet ‘cause I know it is somewhere there.
Anyway… let’s get a bit of perspective on this letter of 1 Timothy.
Basically this is a letter from Paul to Timothy. Paul… after his possum-in-the-headlights-of-heaven experience on the road to Damascus… had been wandering around the eastern Mediterranean Sea area preaching to the people there, starting churches with all the people who had believed in Jesus and moving on.
It seems that Paul visited a city on his first missions trip called Lystra, which is in modern day Turkey. There a young man Timothy became a Christian.
On Paul’s second trip, he stopped in on Lystra again. This is written about in Acts 16:1-5. He found that Timothy had grown in his faith. Timothy’s fellow believers thought very highly of him so Paul invited Timothy to join his mission.
We also see in these verses that Timothy must have been VERY keen to join Paul’s mission because he had a significant… how do we put it… barrier to overcome. Notice all the guys moving slightly in your seats. ☺
Now I should point out that circumcision is not a requirement to be a missionary or Christian. What was going on here was that not being circumcised would have limited Timothy’s ability to work with Jewish believers so he seems to have decided that if this will help introduce Jesus to more people… bring on the scissors!!!
So Timothy joined up with Paul and onwards they went on his second missions trip.
Timothy must have been a very gifted and impressive young man because almost straight away Paul is prepared to entrust churches to Timothy when Paul gets booted out of a city.
By Paul’s third missionary trip he is sending Timothy off left right and centre. He is sent to the Corinthians (1 Cor 4:17), Philippians (Phil 2:19), Thessalonians (1 Thes 3:2), to name a few.
We find Timothy in Ephesus when 1 Timothy is penned.
This letter is unlike a lot of Paul’s letter. In many ways we are eavesdropping on a personal letter. Other letters are to churches or to everyone. This is a personal letter to Paul’s young charge. So it is dealing with issues that are specific to Timothy and the ministry he was doing in Ephesus.
The letter deals with a good number of subjects including:
1. False teachers
2. Faith and perseverance
3. Worship services
4. Selecting church leaders
5. Relationships between church people
Many of these subjects are very useful for us as a family of believers, hence why this letter is in the Bible.
This morning I want to focus on what I see as the pivotal section of the letter…
1 Timothy 4:6-16
[Read out loud]
6 If you explain these things to the brothers and sisters, Timothy, you will be a worthy servant of Christ Jesus, one who is nourished by the message of faith and the good teaching you have followed. 7 Do not waste time arguing over godless ideas and old wives’ tales. Instead, train yourself to be godly. 8 “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.” 9 This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it. 10 This is why we work hard and continue to struggle, for our hope is in the living God, who is the Savior of all people and particularly of all believers.
11 Teach these things and insist that everyone learn them. 12 Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity. 13 Until I get there, focus on reading the Scriptures to the church, encouraging the believers, and teaching them.
14 Do not neglect the spiritual gift you received through the prophecy spoken over you when the elders of the church laid their hands on you. 15 Give your complete attention to these matters. Throw yourself into your tasks so that everyone will see your progress. 16 Keep a close watch on how you live and on your teaching. Stay true to what is right for the sake of your own salvation and the salvation of those who hear you.
These verses are the key to the letter. They are fatherly advice to Timothy and they connect all the other sections within the letter.
This section gives us ten short lessons to take onboard so we will work our way through these verses.
1. We need to explain things to our church family
6 If you explain these things to the brothers and sisters, Timothy, you will be a worthy servant of Christ Jesus, one who is nourished by the message of faith and the good teaching you have followed.
Verse 6 essentially says that everything that I, Paul, have written above should be explained by Timothy to the church he was pastoring in Ephesus. Things like:
• Beware of false teachers
• This is how you should worship
• This is how leaders should behave and be selected
• And so on.
The modern day implication for us is that we should teach what the Bible says. We should explain it so that everyone understands what was written and what it means. When we do this we are following good teaching and we are being a worthy servant.
So as a church we have a responsibility to explain what the Bible says. At OCC we do this primarily as part of these Sunday morning services and through homegroups. However if there are questions you have… big deep theological issues… there are people in our church family who will help you understand what the bible says about these things. Just ask!
2. Don’t waste time with old wives tales
7 Do not waste time arguing over godless ideas and old wives’ tales…
Oh how we love to do this. This is almost a cultural pastime for our generation. We love to discuss new theories and old theories and bits of trivia and just a whole pile of stuff. Information, ideas… knowing more has almost become a god for our generation.
Yet the more we know the more we realise we don’t know. The more we argue through philosophies, the more we realise that all this other stuff is pointing out the hopelessness of life without Jesus.
I was watching a very interesting series of videos on evolution. This genetic scientist was explaining how as he understood more about cells and how they work and reproduce, the more questions he had about the theory of evolution. When he asked his colleagues how to answer these questions there were no answers.
Eventually all his studies on evolution, a godless idea, pointed him to a creator/designer… Jesus.
Now what I am about to say is pretty politically incorrect in today’s world… but I will step forward and take one on the chin…
You don’t need to know a lot to have a successful life. You need to know Jesus is God and He created all things and He loves you. Its good to know a little bible. And that is about it.
Now I am not saying education is bad… hey I knocked out 6 years of uni, a bachelors and a masters in economics… but really a lot of what we study is only useful so we can participate in this world. It is important to participate in the world but nowhere near as important as participating in the Kingdom of God.
For instance… if you can get your mind around the wholeness of the cross and explain it simply and clearly – then you are a lot more valuable than say an economist to the people around you
As I said, not a PC view… but think about it!
3. Training
…Instead, train yourself to be godly. 8 “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.”…
So if arguing about and discussing godless ideas isn’t that valuable, then what is?
Well Paul answers this. He says “…Instead, train yourself to be godly.”
And he gives an example of physical training being good… but says that “…training for godliness is much better…”
What does this mean?
I don’t think he is talking about “training” ourselves to believe in Jesus because that is a gracious gift from God. It is not dependent on us so we can’t “train” ourselves in this.
Perhaps what he is meaning are things like what we find in Galatians 5:22…
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Perhaps it is to be disciplined… another not very PC word… in prayer and reading the Bible and surrendering decisions to Jesus BEFORE they are made.
Perhaps it is being disciplined in spending a few hours preparing for homegroup rather than doing a 12 hour day at work.
Perhaps it is to see what Jesus did and try it.
Many of these things grow or develop through practice, trial, training… whatever you want to term it.
And these things are a million times more valuable than a couple of degrees.
4. Trustworthy sayings
8 “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.” 9 This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it.
In verse 9 Paul says this is a trustworthy saying and we should accept it. Now there is a bit of argument about whether verse 8 is the trustworthy saying or verse 10. The NLT translation, which we are using, suggests that it is verse 8.
The question is… why does Paul say that something is a “trustworthy saying”?
Well first of all we should note that Paul uses this phrase three times in 1 Timothy.
a. …“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” – and I am the worst of them all. (1 Tim 1:15)
b. …”If someone aspires to be an elder, he desires an honorable position.” (1 Tim 3:1)
c. “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.” (1 Tim 4:8)
When we look at these trustworthy sayings they seem to me to be a little like the sayings in Proverbs. They are not rhyming or structured like a proverb but they are a little snippet of wisdom that is worth remembering.
So I think we have a little bit of wisdom captured here and Paul is highlighting it.
5. Our hope is in Jesus
10 This is why we work hard and continue to struggle, for our hope is in the living God, who is the Savior of all people and particularly of all believers.
We have hope in Jesus and this is what drives us to struggle. Pure and simple.
This verse however does introduce an idea that is troubling.
Jesus is “…the Savior of all people and particularly of all believers.”
All people??? How does that work, you might ask? Doesn’t Jesus only save those who believe in Him?
There is a doctrine… I would suggest a false doctrine… called universalism. Basically it says that Jesus saves (in an eternal sense) everyone… those who follow Him… and those who don’t. It doesn’t matter if you believe… He saves you.
I don’t believe this! This interpretation doesn’t fit with a large number of other verses and teachings in the Bible.
This can degenerate into quite a complex issue but basically what we believe is that many people will reject Jesus and they will spend eternity separated from Him – in hell. (John 3:36) We then go on to debate a little over whether we are chosen or whether we chose… but generally we agree that it is through the grace of God.
Anyway…
There is another doctrine called common grace. This basically says that Jesus’ sacrifice has benefits for all people but special extra benefits only for Jesus followers. These extra benefits revolve around eternity but are also in the present.
For instance, people in general are restrained by their conscience. This is a benefit for all of society. But only believers receive eternal life and have the Holy Spirit working in them, guiding them through our earthly life.
This is a very simple skim over this issue. It is a big doctrinal debate. Just type “1 Tim 4:10” into Google and you get 82 pages of links. There is a serious amount of discussion about it.
The key point to take on board here is that Jesus is our hope… AND regardless of whether you believe in Him or not… He is the only real hope for all.
6. It is ok to be young
11 Teach these things and insist that everyone learn them. 12 Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young.
Timothy was a young man. But he was also a gifted, key leader.
Some of you will have found at times that when you are young and you are responsible for people who are older than you, your youth can be a tension. In many cases authority comes with age and experience. But this is not always the case. Sometimes older people struggle to deal with this situation. Sometimes younger people struggle with the situation as well.
Paul tells Timothy not to “…let anyone think less of…” him because he is young.
Age has nothing to do with God given authority. If God has given you a gift of leadership… if He has called you to be a teacher… off you go. This is what Paul is telling Timothy.
However this is not an invitation for all you young guys to rock up and say to mum and dad… “Paul says you are not to think less of me because I am young… so I am off to my mates to make pipe-bombs… I’ll be back late… don’t wait up”. Because that would not be respecting your parents. Also, experience and maturity are a benefit and when we are young we do some pretty silly, thoughtless things because we sometimes don’t see the whole picture.
Paul connects this thought of “it is ok to be young” with the next lesson which is to live a life of example to all.
Before we jump onto that however… for us somewhat older folks (commonly called ‘old fogies’)… there is an application here. Sometimes we are guilty of undervaluing the contributions or potential contributions of younger people. Yes… young people don’t necessarily have the experience we do. Sometimes that can be a good thing. Sometimes we get a bit set in our ways. And our ways may not be the right ways.
I feel Paul giving us a prod to be a bit more cognisant of what young people are thinking.
7. Be an example
Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity.
Great wisdom here. And this is wisdom applicable to young, old, average, male, female…
Be an example to everyone else in our:
a. Speech
b. Life
c. Love
d. Faith
e. Purity
Great, wise advice. It doesn’t matter who you are, if you reflect well in these five areas… if you are an example to others in these five areas… people will overlook your age, gender, race, class, wealth, poverty… whatever. People will think well of you.
8. Church
13 Until I get there, focus on reading the Scriptures to the church, encouraging the believers, and teaching them.
Paul tells Timothy to focus on reading the Bible to the church he is pastoring, to encouraging them and to teaching them. This is the definition of what a pastor should do.
If you go to a church that does not have the Bible read, that does not have people encouraging one another and are not being taught what the Bible says… then maybe you should look elsewhere. Because this is a lot of what church is about.
When we think about our church family here at OCC, we need to be reading the Bible together. On Sunday morning and in our homegroups. It is important that we ground ourselves in what God has said.
We need to be encouraging each other to step out in faith… trying new things… new ministries. We need to be hearing stories of what has happened and how Jesus showed up.
For example… the other day at Friday prayer meeting we prayed for a whole pile of things and God answered them. Not all but heaps.
• Rachel was about to have her end of year recital and said she was having issues with it. It went well.
• Heather was having blood pressure issues. This got sorted.
• Claire was having a pregnancy scan. The two previous low grade scans showed stuff. After we prayed… the high grade scan showed it was gone.
Awesome observable ‘God-moments’. We need to hear these stories because they encourage one another.
We need to be being taught what the Bible says and how that affects us here and now.
• How does Jesus feeding 5,000 people impact me?
• How does Stephen being stoned to death affect me?
• How does Jesus challenging people to cast the first stone if they are innocent affect me?
• How does Jesus’ commandment to go to the ends of the earth to spread His message affect me?
• And so on…
So we need to see these things happening in our church. When they are not, we need to ask why. And when we have a part to play in these activities, we should. It is so valuable because it is building up our church family.
9. Make use of your gift
14 Do not neglect the spiritual gift you received through the prophecy spoken over you when the elders of the church laid their hands on you.
Gifts… TNT are doing a 7 week study on these at the moment. It is really interesting.
Spiritual gifts are given to all believers by the Holy Spirit (Rom 12:6), not by people. In this case Timothy was made aware of his gift through the elders of his church prophesising about it.
This is important to know, as sometimes you will see people on TV “giving out” spiritual gifts to people. These ‘gift-giving’ people tend to wear white suits, cry a lot and turn up in private jets. A southern American or slightly ethnic accent also helps. I’m not sure why. And something about money always seems to come up…
Anyway… the Bible gives us three lists of gifts. They are…
Romans 12
• Prophesy
• Serving
• Teacher
• Encouragement
• Giving
• Leadership
• Showing kindness
1 Corinthians 12-14
• Wisdom
• Special Knowledge
• Faith
• Healing
• Miracles
• Prophecy
• Discernment
• Speak in tongues
• Interpret tongues
• Leadership
Ephesians 4
• Apostles
• Prophets
• Evangelists
• Pastors
• Teachers
I suspect these are not exhaustive lists but they give a pretty good start.
Now… we believe Timothy had the gifts of being a pastor and teaching. This is why Paul found him so useful for sending to various churches.
In this verse Paul is reminding Timothy… actually he is encouraging Timothy… to keep using his gift. The Ephesians appear to have been a pretty trying lot. So Paul is basically saying…
Dude… you are really good at pastoring this church… God chose you to do this work so it will turn out amazingly cool… so keep on at it!!!
Now isn’t that something we should be saying a lot more to one another?
10. Do all this with vigour
15 Give your complete attention to these matters. Throw yourself into your tasks so that everyone will see your progress. 16 Keep a close watch on how you live and on your teaching. Stay true to what is right for the sake of your own salvation and the salvation of those who hear you.
Finally, Paul says that Timothy should do all these things with vigour… not half heartedly… but for the sake of Jesus… Really give it 100%!
And why…
Because people are watching and their salvation depends on it.
And this is what it… life… everything we do… is really all about… isn’t it?
I mean, our goal is to see others come to salvation… come to know Jesus… and then grow!!!
This morning I don’t really have a single silver bullet… a single concluding, thought provoking, life changing point. We have looked at ten very valuable lessons out of these verses. I imagine that only one… two at the most… would have connected with each of you.
For me… I am challenged to avoid godless arguments and discussions. This is something that is a constant fight for me personally.
Over the last couple of years I have also been more and more challenged by verse 10… the importance of reading the Bible, encouraging people and discipling people. This has come out of our times in Siberia.
The question this morning, as we go through these passages, is… what is Jesus saying to me?
Maybe this is something you can ask Jesus as we come into a time of communion.
Communion is a time where we are advised to examine ourselves. We can ask Jesus to show us what we should change and a time for us to surrender our sin to Him for forgiveness.
AND… It is also a time to remember and to celebrate the life giving, sin cleansing action of Jesus on the cross… represented by the bread and the grape juice.
AND… It is also an excellent time to call out to Jesus if you don’t know Him. ‘Cause ultimately, all this… our worship, what we teach, our church family, our own families and ourselves… it is all to His glory!
This morning we are going to look at 1 Timothy. So if you have your bibles, now is a good time to flick to this letter.
1 Timothy is easy to find. It is in the New Testament and it is part of the section of “T’s”. I just flick through the NT, from the back, until I hit a “T” and I’m sweet ‘cause I know it is somewhere there.
Anyway… let’s get a bit of perspective on this letter of 1 Timothy.
Basically this is a letter from Paul to Timothy. Paul… after his possum-in-the-headlights-of-heaven experience on the road to Damascus… had been wandering around the eastern Mediterranean Sea area preaching to the people there, starting churches with all the people who had believed in Jesus and moving on.
It seems that Paul visited a city on his first missions trip called Lystra, which is in modern day Turkey. There a young man Timothy became a Christian.
On Paul’s second trip, he stopped in on Lystra again. This is written about in Acts 16:1-5. He found that Timothy had grown in his faith. Timothy’s fellow believers thought very highly of him so Paul invited Timothy to join his mission.
We also see in these verses that Timothy must have been VERY keen to join Paul’s mission because he had a significant… how do we put it… barrier to overcome. Notice all the guys moving slightly in your seats. ☺
Now I should point out that circumcision is not a requirement to be a missionary or Christian. What was going on here was that not being circumcised would have limited Timothy’s ability to work with Jewish believers so he seems to have decided that if this will help introduce Jesus to more people… bring on the scissors!!!
So Timothy joined up with Paul and onwards they went on his second missions trip.
Timothy must have been a very gifted and impressive young man because almost straight away Paul is prepared to entrust churches to Timothy when Paul gets booted out of a city.
By Paul’s third missionary trip he is sending Timothy off left right and centre. He is sent to the Corinthians (1 Cor 4:17), Philippians (Phil 2:19), Thessalonians (1 Thes 3:2), to name a few.
We find Timothy in Ephesus when 1 Timothy is penned.
This letter is unlike a lot of Paul’s letter. In many ways we are eavesdropping on a personal letter. Other letters are to churches or to everyone. This is a personal letter to Paul’s young charge. So it is dealing with issues that are specific to Timothy and the ministry he was doing in Ephesus.
The letter deals with a good number of subjects including:
1. False teachers
2. Faith and perseverance
3. Worship services
4. Selecting church leaders
5. Relationships between church people
Many of these subjects are very useful for us as a family of believers, hence why this letter is in the Bible.
This morning I want to focus on what I see as the pivotal section of the letter…
1 Timothy 4:6-16
[Read out loud]
6 If you explain these things to the brothers and sisters, Timothy, you will be a worthy servant of Christ Jesus, one who is nourished by the message of faith and the good teaching you have followed. 7 Do not waste time arguing over godless ideas and old wives’ tales. Instead, train yourself to be godly. 8 “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.” 9 This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it. 10 This is why we work hard and continue to struggle, for our hope is in the living God, who is the Savior of all people and particularly of all believers.
11 Teach these things and insist that everyone learn them. 12 Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity. 13 Until I get there, focus on reading the Scriptures to the church, encouraging the believers, and teaching them.
14 Do not neglect the spiritual gift you received through the prophecy spoken over you when the elders of the church laid their hands on you. 15 Give your complete attention to these matters. Throw yourself into your tasks so that everyone will see your progress. 16 Keep a close watch on how you live and on your teaching. Stay true to what is right for the sake of your own salvation and the salvation of those who hear you.
These verses are the key to the letter. They are fatherly advice to Timothy and they connect all the other sections within the letter.
This section gives us ten short lessons to take onboard so we will work our way through these verses.
1. We need to explain things to our church family
6 If you explain these things to the brothers and sisters, Timothy, you will be a worthy servant of Christ Jesus, one who is nourished by the message of faith and the good teaching you have followed.
Verse 6 essentially says that everything that I, Paul, have written above should be explained by Timothy to the church he was pastoring in Ephesus. Things like:
• Beware of false teachers
• This is how you should worship
• This is how leaders should behave and be selected
• And so on.
The modern day implication for us is that we should teach what the Bible says. We should explain it so that everyone understands what was written and what it means. When we do this we are following good teaching and we are being a worthy servant.
So as a church we have a responsibility to explain what the Bible says. At OCC we do this primarily as part of these Sunday morning services and through homegroups. However if there are questions you have… big deep theological issues… there are people in our church family who will help you understand what the bible says about these things. Just ask!
2. Don’t waste time with old wives tales
7 Do not waste time arguing over godless ideas and old wives’ tales…
Oh how we love to do this. This is almost a cultural pastime for our generation. We love to discuss new theories and old theories and bits of trivia and just a whole pile of stuff. Information, ideas… knowing more has almost become a god for our generation.
Yet the more we know the more we realise we don’t know. The more we argue through philosophies, the more we realise that all this other stuff is pointing out the hopelessness of life without Jesus.
I was watching a very interesting series of videos on evolution. This genetic scientist was explaining how as he understood more about cells and how they work and reproduce, the more questions he had about the theory of evolution. When he asked his colleagues how to answer these questions there were no answers.
Eventually all his studies on evolution, a godless idea, pointed him to a creator/designer… Jesus.
Now what I am about to say is pretty politically incorrect in today’s world… but I will step forward and take one on the chin…
You don’t need to know a lot to have a successful life. You need to know Jesus is God and He created all things and He loves you. Its good to know a little bible. And that is about it.
Now I am not saying education is bad… hey I knocked out 6 years of uni, a bachelors and a masters in economics… but really a lot of what we study is only useful so we can participate in this world. It is important to participate in the world but nowhere near as important as participating in the Kingdom of God.
For instance… if you can get your mind around the wholeness of the cross and explain it simply and clearly – then you are a lot more valuable than say an economist to the people around you
As I said, not a PC view… but think about it!
3. Training
…Instead, train yourself to be godly. 8 “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.”…
So if arguing about and discussing godless ideas isn’t that valuable, then what is?
Well Paul answers this. He says “…Instead, train yourself to be godly.”
And he gives an example of physical training being good… but says that “…training for godliness is much better…”
What does this mean?
I don’t think he is talking about “training” ourselves to believe in Jesus because that is a gracious gift from God. It is not dependent on us so we can’t “train” ourselves in this.
Perhaps what he is meaning are things like what we find in Galatians 5:22…
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Perhaps it is to be disciplined… another not very PC word… in prayer and reading the Bible and surrendering decisions to Jesus BEFORE they are made.
Perhaps it is being disciplined in spending a few hours preparing for homegroup rather than doing a 12 hour day at work.
Perhaps it is to see what Jesus did and try it.
Many of these things grow or develop through practice, trial, training… whatever you want to term it.
And these things are a million times more valuable than a couple of degrees.
4. Trustworthy sayings
8 “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.” 9 This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it.
In verse 9 Paul says this is a trustworthy saying and we should accept it. Now there is a bit of argument about whether verse 8 is the trustworthy saying or verse 10. The NLT translation, which we are using, suggests that it is verse 8.
The question is… why does Paul say that something is a “trustworthy saying”?
Well first of all we should note that Paul uses this phrase three times in 1 Timothy.
a. …“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” – and I am the worst of them all. (1 Tim 1:15)
b. …”If someone aspires to be an elder, he desires an honorable position.” (1 Tim 3:1)
c. “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.” (1 Tim 4:8)
When we look at these trustworthy sayings they seem to me to be a little like the sayings in Proverbs. They are not rhyming or structured like a proverb but they are a little snippet of wisdom that is worth remembering.
So I think we have a little bit of wisdom captured here and Paul is highlighting it.
5. Our hope is in Jesus
10 This is why we work hard and continue to struggle, for our hope is in the living God, who is the Savior of all people and particularly of all believers.
We have hope in Jesus and this is what drives us to struggle. Pure and simple.
This verse however does introduce an idea that is troubling.
Jesus is “…the Savior of all people and particularly of all believers.”
All people??? How does that work, you might ask? Doesn’t Jesus only save those who believe in Him?
There is a doctrine… I would suggest a false doctrine… called universalism. Basically it says that Jesus saves (in an eternal sense) everyone… those who follow Him… and those who don’t. It doesn’t matter if you believe… He saves you.
I don’t believe this! This interpretation doesn’t fit with a large number of other verses and teachings in the Bible.
This can degenerate into quite a complex issue but basically what we believe is that many people will reject Jesus and they will spend eternity separated from Him – in hell. (John 3:36) We then go on to debate a little over whether we are chosen or whether we chose… but generally we agree that it is through the grace of God.
Anyway…
There is another doctrine called common grace. This basically says that Jesus’ sacrifice has benefits for all people but special extra benefits only for Jesus followers. These extra benefits revolve around eternity but are also in the present.
For instance, people in general are restrained by their conscience. This is a benefit for all of society. But only believers receive eternal life and have the Holy Spirit working in them, guiding them through our earthly life.
This is a very simple skim over this issue. It is a big doctrinal debate. Just type “1 Tim 4:10” into Google and you get 82 pages of links. There is a serious amount of discussion about it.
The key point to take on board here is that Jesus is our hope… AND regardless of whether you believe in Him or not… He is the only real hope for all.
6. It is ok to be young
11 Teach these things and insist that everyone learn them. 12 Don’t let anyone think less of you because you are young.
Timothy was a young man. But he was also a gifted, key leader.
Some of you will have found at times that when you are young and you are responsible for people who are older than you, your youth can be a tension. In many cases authority comes with age and experience. But this is not always the case. Sometimes older people struggle to deal with this situation. Sometimes younger people struggle with the situation as well.
Paul tells Timothy not to “…let anyone think less of…” him because he is young.
Age has nothing to do with God given authority. If God has given you a gift of leadership… if He has called you to be a teacher… off you go. This is what Paul is telling Timothy.
However this is not an invitation for all you young guys to rock up and say to mum and dad… “Paul says you are not to think less of me because I am young… so I am off to my mates to make pipe-bombs… I’ll be back late… don’t wait up”. Because that would not be respecting your parents. Also, experience and maturity are a benefit and when we are young we do some pretty silly, thoughtless things because we sometimes don’t see the whole picture.
Paul connects this thought of “it is ok to be young” with the next lesson which is to live a life of example to all.
Before we jump onto that however… for us somewhat older folks (commonly called ‘old fogies’)… there is an application here. Sometimes we are guilty of undervaluing the contributions or potential contributions of younger people. Yes… young people don’t necessarily have the experience we do. Sometimes that can be a good thing. Sometimes we get a bit set in our ways. And our ways may not be the right ways.
I feel Paul giving us a prod to be a bit more cognisant of what young people are thinking.
7. Be an example
Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity.
Great wisdom here. And this is wisdom applicable to young, old, average, male, female…
Be an example to everyone else in our:
a. Speech
b. Life
c. Love
d. Faith
e. Purity
Great, wise advice. It doesn’t matter who you are, if you reflect well in these five areas… if you are an example to others in these five areas… people will overlook your age, gender, race, class, wealth, poverty… whatever. People will think well of you.
8. Church
13 Until I get there, focus on reading the Scriptures to the church, encouraging the believers, and teaching them.
Paul tells Timothy to focus on reading the Bible to the church he is pastoring, to encouraging them and to teaching them. This is the definition of what a pastor should do.
If you go to a church that does not have the Bible read, that does not have people encouraging one another and are not being taught what the Bible says… then maybe you should look elsewhere. Because this is a lot of what church is about.
When we think about our church family here at OCC, we need to be reading the Bible together. On Sunday morning and in our homegroups. It is important that we ground ourselves in what God has said.
We need to be encouraging each other to step out in faith… trying new things… new ministries. We need to be hearing stories of what has happened and how Jesus showed up.
For example… the other day at Friday prayer meeting we prayed for a whole pile of things and God answered them. Not all but heaps.
• Rachel was about to have her end of year recital and said she was having issues with it. It went well.
• Heather was having blood pressure issues. This got sorted.
• Claire was having a pregnancy scan. The two previous low grade scans showed stuff. After we prayed… the high grade scan showed it was gone.
Awesome observable ‘God-moments’. We need to hear these stories because they encourage one another.
We need to be being taught what the Bible says and how that affects us here and now.
• How does Jesus feeding 5,000 people impact me?
• How does Stephen being stoned to death affect me?
• How does Jesus challenging people to cast the first stone if they are innocent affect me?
• How does Jesus’ commandment to go to the ends of the earth to spread His message affect me?
• And so on…
So we need to see these things happening in our church. When they are not, we need to ask why. And when we have a part to play in these activities, we should. It is so valuable because it is building up our church family.
9. Make use of your gift
14 Do not neglect the spiritual gift you received through the prophecy spoken over you when the elders of the church laid their hands on you.
Gifts… TNT are doing a 7 week study on these at the moment. It is really interesting.
Spiritual gifts are given to all believers by the Holy Spirit (Rom 12:6), not by people. In this case Timothy was made aware of his gift through the elders of his church prophesising about it.
This is important to know, as sometimes you will see people on TV “giving out” spiritual gifts to people. These ‘gift-giving’ people tend to wear white suits, cry a lot and turn up in private jets. A southern American or slightly ethnic accent also helps. I’m not sure why. And something about money always seems to come up…
Anyway… the Bible gives us three lists of gifts. They are…
Romans 12
• Prophesy
• Serving
• Teacher
• Encouragement
• Giving
• Leadership
• Showing kindness
1 Corinthians 12-14
• Wisdom
• Special Knowledge
• Faith
• Healing
• Miracles
• Prophecy
• Discernment
• Speak in tongues
• Interpret tongues
• Leadership
Ephesians 4
• Apostles
• Prophets
• Evangelists
• Pastors
• Teachers
I suspect these are not exhaustive lists but they give a pretty good start.
Now… we believe Timothy had the gifts of being a pastor and teaching. This is why Paul found him so useful for sending to various churches.
In this verse Paul is reminding Timothy… actually he is encouraging Timothy… to keep using his gift. The Ephesians appear to have been a pretty trying lot. So Paul is basically saying…
Dude… you are really good at pastoring this church… God chose you to do this work so it will turn out amazingly cool… so keep on at it!!!
Now isn’t that something we should be saying a lot more to one another?
10. Do all this with vigour
15 Give your complete attention to these matters. Throw yourself into your tasks so that everyone will see your progress. 16 Keep a close watch on how you live and on your teaching. Stay true to what is right for the sake of your own salvation and the salvation of those who hear you.
Finally, Paul says that Timothy should do all these things with vigour… not half heartedly… but for the sake of Jesus… Really give it 100%!
And why…
Because people are watching and their salvation depends on it.
And this is what it… life… everything we do… is really all about… isn’t it?
I mean, our goal is to see others come to salvation… come to know Jesus… and then grow!!!
This morning I don’t really have a single silver bullet… a single concluding, thought provoking, life changing point. We have looked at ten very valuable lessons out of these verses. I imagine that only one… two at the most… would have connected with each of you.
For me… I am challenged to avoid godless arguments and discussions. This is something that is a constant fight for me personally.
Over the last couple of years I have also been more and more challenged by verse 10… the importance of reading the Bible, encouraging people and discipling people. This has come out of our times in Siberia.
The question this morning, as we go through these passages, is… what is Jesus saying to me?
Maybe this is something you can ask Jesus as we come into a time of communion.
Communion is a time where we are advised to examine ourselves. We can ask Jesus to show us what we should change and a time for us to surrender our sin to Him for forgiveness.
AND… It is also a time to remember and to celebrate the life giving, sin cleansing action of Jesus on the cross… represented by the bread and the grape juice.
AND… It is also an excellent time to call out to Jesus if you don’t know Him. ‘Cause ultimately, all this… our worship, what we teach, our church family, our own families and ourselves… it is all to His glory!
Saturday, 25 November 2006
Wednesday, 22 November 2006
Brickbat for Telstraclear
We use Telstraclear for our telecommunication services. They provide a very good service normally to us. Our house location means we can not get TV or even satellite TV so their cable service is great. Their internet service is much much better than any other provider in our area.
HOWEVER even organisations like this have their moments.
Here is an e-mail sent to us...
>>>>>>>
From: The team at TelstraClear
Reply-To:
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 21:46:58 +0000 (GMT)
To: xxxxxx
Subject: Important: Cable Modem Outage Notification
Dear Customer
We are making changes to our cable network in the Christchurch region.
To carry out the required work, we must impose a brief outage of your cable modem service.
The outage will occur at the following time:
The morning of Tuesday the 21th of November 2006 between 00.01am and 6am.
The actual impact on your individual service will be for approximately 15mins within this time. Normal service will resume by 6am.
We apologise for this disruption to service and any inconvenience this may cause you.
If you have any questions regarding this notice, please contact us on 0800 467 272.
NOTE: You may need to turn your modem off and on again at the wall to re-establish connection after the outage.
The TelstraClear Team
>>>>>
There are two things to note.
1. The e-mail was sent at 21:47 on the 21st Nov.
2. The outage was between 01:00 and 06:00 on the 21st Nov.
They sent the e-mail after the outage.
Also... they note you may need to restart your modem after this outage. Nice but if your modem was down because of this outage you wouldn't get the e-mail because your modem was stuffed!!!
So well done! Congratulations! An example of complete and utter brilliance.
HOWEVER even organisations like this have their moments.
Here is an e-mail sent to us...
>>>>>>>
From: The team at TelstraClear
Reply-To:
Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2006 21:46:58 +0000 (GMT)
To: xxxxxx
Subject: Important: Cable Modem Outage Notification
Dear Customer
We are making changes to our cable network in the Christchurch region.
To carry out the required work, we must impose a brief outage of your cable modem service.
The outage will occur at the following time:
The morning of Tuesday the 21th of November 2006 between 00.01am and 6am.
The actual impact on your individual service will be for approximately 15mins within this time. Normal service will resume by 6am.
We apologise for this disruption to service and any inconvenience this may cause you.
If you have any questions regarding this notice, please contact us on 0800 467 272.
NOTE: You may need to turn your modem off and on again at the wall to re-establish connection after the outage.
The TelstraClear Team
>>>>>
There are two things to note.
1. The e-mail was sent at 21:47 on the 21st Nov.
2. The outage was between 01:00 and 06:00 on the 21st Nov.
They sent the e-mail after the outage.
Also... they note you may need to restart your modem after this outage. Nice but if your modem was down because of this outage you wouldn't get the e-mail because your modem was stuffed!!!
So well done! Congratulations! An example of complete and utter brilliance.
Tuesday, 21 November 2006
A corrution free parliament???
NZ has consistently been rated one of the least corrupt countries in the world. I fear this will not be the case in the next round of ratings.
Here is an article from stuff.co...
Peters says staff destroyed emails
21 November 2006
By MARTIN KAY
NZ First leader Winston Peters says his staff destroyed leaked emails from National Party leader Don Brash after Dr Brash asked police to investigate how his personal correspondence was distributed.
Mr Peters said yesterday that emails to and from Dr Brash - which Mr Peters had boasted were "the most damaging information" in the Western World - were destroyed in September, when police were asked to investigate leaks from Dr Brash's office.
He said the destruction was decided by staff in his absence, and he had no problem with the move.
But Dr Brash said last night the revelation was staggering and he found it "hard to believe" Mr Peters played no part in the decision.
"Remember, this is material that Mr Peters said would `blow their heads off'. He repeatedly made extravagant claims about the contents of the emails. Yet today, he appears to be saying that his staff didn't bother to consult him before destroying material that their leader had bragged about over a number of months. That is just incredible, and Mr Peters needs to come clean."
He said Mr Peters' staff had destroyed evidence that was subject to a police inquiry, but Mr Peters said the claim was "nonsense".
"The police have all the information about the emails - what they want to know is who leaked it. That's the offence which was brought to their attention.
"Don Brash knows that person. He should just tell you."
Mr Peters revealed the emails' destruction after he was asked to comment on the High Court injunction won by Dr Brash on Friday to prevent the distribution and publication of his personal correspondence.
In a rare move, the order was issued against "John and Jane Doe" - meaning anyone later found to have the emails - and was sought after rumours they were being made into a book.
Mr Peters has made no secret of having some emails from Dr Brash, and in December he mimicked American actor Clint Eastwood's gun-toting Dirty Harry character as he taunted National about the damage they would do.
"Oh, I know what those members are thinking: they are wondering whether I have one telephone book full of those emails, or 10. Well, I have to tell those members that, in all this excitement, I myself clean forgot to count them. But given that this is the most damaging information seen in the Western World, and could blow their political heads clean off, they have to ask themselves this question: Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya, punks?"
Mr Peters said last night he did not know who sent him the emails, which arrived in hard copy form.
Police said Dr Brash's complaint was still being investigated.
... What is fascinating about this situation is that we have a senior Minister in government saying that when the Police took an interest in some documents, his staff destroyed them... BUT I didn't know about it because they were only "...the most damaging information seen in the Western World...".
There are two phrases that come to mind...
Perverting the course of justice and unbelievable!
If anyone else admitted to destroying evidence because the Police started sniffing around, they would be charged. However the Police HQ have shown a complete lack of spine to do their job in the face of political pressure from this current corrupt government. Paintagate. Speedgate. Tenisball-gate. Give-me-a-visa-and-I'll-tile-your-house-gate.
It is now time for the National Party to make it clear to top civil servants... who should be neutral and do their jobs... that they will be fired for these past inactions once the Labour Party is turfed. I realise this is a slippery slope but we are already on it. It is too late.
The first to go needs to be the Police HQ. The second the Labour Dept. The third Health.
Here is an article from stuff.co...
Peters says staff destroyed emails
21 November 2006
By MARTIN KAY
NZ First leader Winston Peters says his staff destroyed leaked emails from National Party leader Don Brash after Dr Brash asked police to investigate how his personal correspondence was distributed.
Mr Peters said yesterday that emails to and from Dr Brash - which Mr Peters had boasted were "the most damaging information" in the Western World - were destroyed in September, when police were asked to investigate leaks from Dr Brash's office.
He said the destruction was decided by staff in his absence, and he had no problem with the move.
But Dr Brash said last night the revelation was staggering and he found it "hard to believe" Mr Peters played no part in the decision.
"Remember, this is material that Mr Peters said would `blow their heads off'. He repeatedly made extravagant claims about the contents of the emails. Yet today, he appears to be saying that his staff didn't bother to consult him before destroying material that their leader had bragged about over a number of months. That is just incredible, and Mr Peters needs to come clean."
He said Mr Peters' staff had destroyed evidence that was subject to a police inquiry, but Mr Peters said the claim was "nonsense".
"The police have all the information about the emails - what they want to know is who leaked it. That's the offence which was brought to their attention.
"Don Brash knows that person. He should just tell you."
Mr Peters revealed the emails' destruction after he was asked to comment on the High Court injunction won by Dr Brash on Friday to prevent the distribution and publication of his personal correspondence.
In a rare move, the order was issued against "John and Jane Doe" - meaning anyone later found to have the emails - and was sought after rumours they were being made into a book.
Mr Peters has made no secret of having some emails from Dr Brash, and in December he mimicked American actor Clint Eastwood's gun-toting Dirty Harry character as he taunted National about the damage they would do.
"Oh, I know what those members are thinking: they are wondering whether I have one telephone book full of those emails, or 10. Well, I have to tell those members that, in all this excitement, I myself clean forgot to count them. But given that this is the most damaging information seen in the Western World, and could blow their political heads clean off, they have to ask themselves this question: Do you feel lucky? Well, do ya, punks?"
Mr Peters said last night he did not know who sent him the emails, which arrived in hard copy form.
Police said Dr Brash's complaint was still being investigated.
... What is fascinating about this situation is that we have a senior Minister in government saying that when the Police took an interest in some documents, his staff destroyed them... BUT I didn't know about it because they were only "...the most damaging information seen in the Western World...".
There are two phrases that come to mind...
Perverting the course of justice and unbelievable!
If anyone else admitted to destroying evidence because the Police started sniffing around, they would be charged. However the Police HQ have shown a complete lack of spine to do their job in the face of political pressure from this current corrupt government. Paintagate. Speedgate. Tenisball-gate. Give-me-a-visa-and-I'll-tile-your-house-gate.
It is now time for the National Party to make it clear to top civil servants... who should be neutral and do their jobs... that they will be fired for these past inactions once the Labour Party is turfed. I realise this is a slippery slope but we are already on it. It is too late.
The first to go needs to be the Police HQ. The second the Labour Dept. The third Health.
Monday, 20 November 2006
Africa needed
If you have a look at the bottom of this page you will find a SITEMETER icon. This provides monitoring of who looks at my blog.
So far I have had people look at it from all continents but Africa. So... SOMEONE FROM AFRICA... please visit my blog!!!
:-)
So far I have had people look at it from all continents but Africa. So... SOMEONE FROM AFRICA... please visit my blog!!!
:-)
Nooma 14: Breathe
The latest Nooma DVD is very good. I find it a personal challenge about God being in every single breath... every single aspect of what we do and who we are.
It is highly recommended.
Who is Jesus? - Sermon from OCC 19th Nov
This morning I would like to explore one of the most important questions we face… Who is Jesus? Our answer to this question has big and eternal consequences.
Many people see Jesus with only one eye.
You’ve probably heard people say “Jesus was a good man”. This is true. But He is so much more.
You’ve probably heard people describe Him as a “wise teacher” or as Moslems describe Him… “a prophet”. Again, this is true. But He is so much more.
You may have even heard people go as far as describing Him as “their saviour”. This is very true. But He is so much more.
There are a million and one different views of Jesus. In many cases they are true. But in many cases they only paint part of the picture.
This morning I would like to outline the bare minimum of who Jesus is. I intentionally say “bare minimum” because I want to recognise that Jesus grabs hold of our lives in different ways.
I have two reasons for doing this.
1. For those of you who do not know Jesus… I want you to meet Jesus. So this morning is going to be like when a friend of yours introduces you to a friend of theirs. Your friend will tell you about this person you are about to meet so you already have a bit of a foundation to start a friendship on. So this is what we are going to do.
2. For those of you who do know Jesus… I want us to gain a fresh and invigorated passion for just how amazing Jesus is. As the video highlighted, sometimes we lose the sense of just how amazing Jesus’ ministry and example was. And sometimes we forget that Jesus is both our saviour AND our God. Other times we forget that Jesus walked the same road we are walking.
So… Who is Jesus?
There are five core descriptors of who Jesus is…
1. Firstly, He was Mary’s son and He grew up to be a man.
2. Secondly, He is the greatest, wisest teacher ever.
3. Thirdly, He is the perfect example of how we should live in harmony with the will of God.
4. Fourthly, He is our saviour – through His redemptive work, saving us from the penalty for our sin and giving us a new hope.
5. And finally, He is God – sovereign and reigning over all creation.
We will have a look at what the Bible says about each of these. Before we do, I should point out that not many people argue about one to three. There is solid historical evidence that Jesus lived. There is also very strong collaborative and logical evidence that the biblical story of Jesus is true.
What people do argue a lot about is four and five which are in affect the implications of the biblical story being true.
So with that context… let’s have a look at…
Jesus the man
Jesus was a man. In John 1:14 the Bible says that “…the Word…”, meaning God, “…became human and made His home among us…”.
One of the really important theological concepts to grasp is that God came into human history as a man for a period of time. Jesus was NOT a man who became God because He was good. It is very clear that because of our sinful nature, humans are not able to be ‘good enough’ to become God.
This is actually a big differentiating issue between what we as Christians say and what all other religions say. And I think, when you really get honest with yourself, that it makes sense.
We get a reasonable sense from the Gospels, particularly Luke 2, of Jesus as a man.
Growing up, Jesus was very much like other young Jewish boys of that time. He was circumcised. He was named. He was presented to the Lord at the Temple. He grew up strong and healthy.
Later we see Jesus taking part in a wedding feast (John 2:1-12), sharing a meal with people (Luke 19:1-8), sleeping (Luke 8:23), being tempted (Matthew 4:1-11)… and eventually dying (Luke 23:46).
Jesus, being fully human, took part in all of the human experience… except sin.
In John 1:14 Jesus is described as “…full…” - not half full or full most of the time – but “… full of unfailing love and faithfulness.”. In other words, though He was tempted, He DID NOT SIN. We see in Matthew 4 Jesus being tempted with power and hunger – representing for all you Maslow-philes both His base needs and His affirmation needs. Yet He DID NOT SIN.
In fact when the Roman centurion oversaw Jesus being crucified, he said “…Surely this man was innocent…” (Luke 23:47).
No one could honestly point to anything with which to accuse Jesus – accept that He claimed to be God – which as it happened, is true!
So… it is really important to understand that Jesus was a man… human like us. We can identify with Him. We can be confident that He knows what it is like to be human.
Jesus our teacher
Jesus was the great teacher. This fact is pretty universally recognised.
Actually just this week Elton John… of all people… said that “…he admired the teachings of Jesus…”. And then with the next breath announced that he wanted to ban all religion because it bred hatred of his homosexual lifestyle.
In His day, even Jesus’ opponents recognised Him as a great teacher. In Matt 22:15-22 the Pharisees try to trap Jesus but instead they came away amazed by what they hear.
The general public recognised Jesus as a great teacher. “The people were amazed at his teaching, for he taught with real authority – quite unlike the teachers of religious law” (Mark 1:22).
Jesus taught about a large array of issues. You can divide these into four areas:
1. Repent! Basically this means recognise your sinfulness, turn away from it and place your faith in Him.
2. He explained what the law really meant in the context of the Kingdom of God.
3. He showed people what the Kingdom of God is like and how to start establishing it.
4. He prophesised about what would happen to Him.
If you want to personally discover how much Jesus still teaches us, read a chapter of Matthew each day for a month.
The last point is interesting. Jesus prophesised about His death and resurrection. He was bang on the money.
Jesus was a great teacher and He still teaches us today.
Jesus our example
Jesus is our example. Jesus’ life, as recorded by those around Him, was and still is, a walking, living, breathing example for us to follow.
Let’s quickly run through just some of the characteristics Jesus demonstrated to us…
• (Matt 14:14) Compassion –
• (Luke 19:1-8) Reaching out to the social ‘underbelly’ of society –
• (Luke 20:1-8) Humility –
• (Luke 19:45-48) Social Justice –
• (Luke 20:20-26) Respect for Authorities –
• (Mark 10:13-16) Blessing others –
• (Luke 11:1-13) How to pray –
• (Luke 10:30-37) Caring –
• (Luke 11:37-54) Criticising hypocrisy –
• (Luke 13:31-35) Grief over this world –
• (John 13:1-17) Being a servant –
Probably the characteristic that stands out the most – by virtual of it is the hardest for us to follow – is that of being totally surrendered to the will of God.
In Luke 22:42 Jesus prayed… “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine”.
This prayer was a reflection of Jesus’ life. He was totally surrendered to doing what God wanted Him to be doing.
As we try to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, this I think is the hardest thing to do. Too often our own will overrides what God would have us do.
One of the things to note about these many characteristics that Jesus demonstrated was that they were quite opposite to the way that many of the religious leaders of the day thought. For instance most of the nation thought that the Kingdom of God would be ushered in with a powerful ruler who would blow away anyone, like the Romans, who got in His way.
Yet Jesus was the antithesis of the religious leaders view... which explains why they found it so hard to see who Jesus was.
So Jesus provided us the example of how to live our lives in harmony with God’s will.
Jesus our saviour
Jesus is our saviour. In some ways this is part of His example to us. By being resurrected from the dead, He shows us that we will be too.
But what does it really mean to be “our saviour”? There are a number of aspects to this. Paul sets this out clearly in Ephesians 2:4-7:
4 But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, 5 that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) 6 For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. 7 So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.
So what can we pull out from these verses:
1. Our salvation is because of God’s rich mercy… His grace.
2. Our salvation is because God loves us
3. We were dead because of our sin
4. We are raised from the dead… the spiritually dead… into life through Jesus
5. Because we are united by faith with Jesus we will join Him in heaven
6. Why… so God can point to us as examples of His grace and kindness
This is what it means to be saved. Death has no hold on us… just as it had no hold on Jesus. We are freed to live life now. And we will be with Him in heaven.
Now this descriptor of Jesus – Jesus is our saviour - is probably the most argued about. This is because as Christians we believe the role of saviour is exclusive to Jesus. We believe there is NO other way to be saved except through being united with Jesus. This causes great offence to those who believe other things because we are basically saying they are either blind or a fool.
If you don’t have a belief about your eternity, then you are blind. If you believe some other religion, we say you are being fooled.
Now there are a couple of arguments against Jesus being the saviour that I want to look at.
Firstly… “surely there are other ways for ‘good’ people to enter eternity”. There are two countering arguments against this…
1. No one is good enough to enter heaven off their own efforts.
2. Jesus said. In John 14:6 Jesus says “…I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” He doesn’t say “I am a way”… He claims to be exclusive. And just to clarify the point, He then says “…No one can come to the Father except through me”.
The second argument goes… “prove Jesus rose from the grave”. Well you can’t conclusively. What you can say is that:
1. The biblical account points to many people seeing Jesus after He was crucified. In one case over 500 at one time. It is pretty difficult to get 500 people to fake something and not spill the beans.
2. The New Testament authors challenged people who did not believe this claim to go and talk to those who saw Jesus after He was crucified. At the time these texts were written there were plenty of people alive who had seen Jesus – both before and after His crucifixion. There seem to be no fear of people investigating.
3. Roughly a third of the world’s population identifies themselves as followers of Jesus. Why on earth would a third of the world follow a dead man – a liar – a lie? If this is a con then it is a con of biblical scale – excuse the pun.
4. And finally, there are a truckload of people in this very room who will testify to how Jesus came into their life, turned it upside down and now they live for Him. How can Jesus do this if He is still dead?
Despite the arguments that people have about Jesus, it is important to know that what Jesus claimed, he delivered on. If you have faith in Him then you are united with Him and hence you will pass through death… you will spend eternity with Him. You can be sure of that.
Jesus our God
Jesus is our God. John Chapter One makes this very explicit.
1 In the beginning the Word already existed.
The Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
2 He existed in the beginning with God.
3 God created everything through him,
and nothing was created except through him.
4 The Word gave life to everything that was created,[a]
and his life brought light to everyone.
5 The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness can never extinguish it.[b]
6 God sent a man, John the Baptist,[c] 7 to tell about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. 8 John himself was not the light; he was simply a witness to tell about the light. 9 The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
10 He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. 11 He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. 12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. 13 They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.
14 So the Word became human[d] and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.[e] And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.
15 John testified about him when he shouted to the crowds, “This is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘Someone is coming after me who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before me.’”
16 From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another.[f] 17 For the law was given through Moses, but God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God,[g] is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us.
“The Word” is Jesus.
In Mark 15:39, as Jesus died, his Roman executioner exclaims “…This man truly was the Son of God”. This is a non-believing Roman with so much blood on his hands. Yet he recognises who Jesus is.
The demons recognised Jesus as God… having the power to cast them into hell.
Jesus repeatedly demonstrated His sovereignty… His control… His authority… over all things. Jesus brought people back to life… multiple times. He healed so many people they lost count. He feed thousands of people with food that was really only enough for one person. He vanished. He calmed a storm. He walked on water.
These are amazing demonstrations. I mean, if you ever have delusions of grandeur… if you ever think you are a really powerful dude… just try crossing the Cook Strait by foot. Let me know how you get on.
Doing all these things didn’t make Him God… but they showed He has power and authority that is only really explainable by Him being God.
Conclusion
So let’s bring this all together.
Who is Jesus?
1. He was a man
2. He is our teacher
3. He is our example
4. He is our saviour
5. He is God
This is what Jesus claimed. This is what the Old Testament prophets predicted. This is what the writers of the New Testament testified to. This is what other historical accounts corroborate.
For many people Jesus is more. However I am not sure the biblical account clearly includes more. Some people suggest that Jesus was a friend to His disciples. Many people describe their relationship with Jesus as “friends”. I guess I wonder whether Peter felt Jesus was his friend when Jesus called him Satan? (Mark 8:31-33)
That said, it seems to me that Jesus does reach into voids in His followers lives and fills them. To the fatherless He becomes their father… and so on. I think this is very much on a relationship basis however.
So why have we been talking about these five descriptors? I want to suggest this morning that we frequently focus on one or two and then proceed to lose perspective on just who Jesus is… just how amazing He is.
I just mentioned an example of where this happened. Mark 8:31-33
Then Jesus began to tell them that the Son of Man[a] must suffer many terrible things and be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but three days later he would rise from the dead. 32 As he talked about this openly with his disciples, Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. 33 Jesus turned around and looked at his disciples, then reprimanded Peter. “Get away from me, Satan!” he said. “You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”
Peter forgot that Jesus is his God. Peter forgot that Jesus was his teacher. Peter just saw Jesus as a man. You might get the impression from this text that Jesus was not terribly happy about Peter reprimanding Him.
Many Christians see Jesus just as their saviour… their ticket into heaven. The term “fire insurance” is often used. We sometimes rest on the surety of our salvation and do not surrender our lives to Jesus. Or we “hide” bits of our lives – as if we could really hide from Jesus?
When we do this I think we are denying who Jesus is.
This is a really really important point… so I am going to repeat it…
When we lose perspective on just who Jesus is, we end up denying who Jesus is.
So…
If you don’t know Jesus, I hope this morning you have caught a glimpse of who He is. My prayer is that you might be interested in getting to know Him.
If you already know Jesus, then I have a challenge for you. This week think about who Jesus is to you. Maybe you could ask these questions:
• Do I know that Jesus has walked an even tougher path than me and made it?
• Do I recognise that what Jesus taught is applicable to me?
• Do I long to follow in Jesus’ footsteps?
• Do I know that Jesus died and was raised… and what does this mean to me?
• Is Jesus my God - Lord over all aspects of my life?
My prayer this morning is that each of us individually would know Jesus… the man, the teacher, the example, the saviour… our God.
Many people see Jesus with only one eye.
You’ve probably heard people say “Jesus was a good man”. This is true. But He is so much more.
You’ve probably heard people describe Him as a “wise teacher” or as Moslems describe Him… “a prophet”. Again, this is true. But He is so much more.
You may have even heard people go as far as describing Him as “their saviour”. This is very true. But He is so much more.
There are a million and one different views of Jesus. In many cases they are true. But in many cases they only paint part of the picture.
This morning I would like to outline the bare minimum of who Jesus is. I intentionally say “bare minimum” because I want to recognise that Jesus grabs hold of our lives in different ways.
I have two reasons for doing this.
1. For those of you who do not know Jesus… I want you to meet Jesus. So this morning is going to be like when a friend of yours introduces you to a friend of theirs. Your friend will tell you about this person you are about to meet so you already have a bit of a foundation to start a friendship on. So this is what we are going to do.
2. For those of you who do know Jesus… I want us to gain a fresh and invigorated passion for just how amazing Jesus is. As the video highlighted, sometimes we lose the sense of just how amazing Jesus’ ministry and example was. And sometimes we forget that Jesus is both our saviour AND our God. Other times we forget that Jesus walked the same road we are walking.
So… Who is Jesus?
There are five core descriptors of who Jesus is…
1. Firstly, He was Mary’s son and He grew up to be a man.
2. Secondly, He is the greatest, wisest teacher ever.
3. Thirdly, He is the perfect example of how we should live in harmony with the will of God.
4. Fourthly, He is our saviour – through His redemptive work, saving us from the penalty for our sin and giving us a new hope.
5. And finally, He is God – sovereign and reigning over all creation.
We will have a look at what the Bible says about each of these. Before we do, I should point out that not many people argue about one to three. There is solid historical evidence that Jesus lived. There is also very strong collaborative and logical evidence that the biblical story of Jesus is true.
What people do argue a lot about is four and five which are in affect the implications of the biblical story being true.
So with that context… let’s have a look at…
Jesus the man
Jesus was a man. In John 1:14 the Bible says that “…the Word…”, meaning God, “…became human and made His home among us…”.
One of the really important theological concepts to grasp is that God came into human history as a man for a period of time. Jesus was NOT a man who became God because He was good. It is very clear that because of our sinful nature, humans are not able to be ‘good enough’ to become God.
This is actually a big differentiating issue between what we as Christians say and what all other religions say. And I think, when you really get honest with yourself, that it makes sense.
We get a reasonable sense from the Gospels, particularly Luke 2, of Jesus as a man.
Growing up, Jesus was very much like other young Jewish boys of that time. He was circumcised. He was named. He was presented to the Lord at the Temple. He grew up strong and healthy.
Later we see Jesus taking part in a wedding feast (John 2:1-12), sharing a meal with people (Luke 19:1-8), sleeping (Luke 8:23), being tempted (Matthew 4:1-11)… and eventually dying (Luke 23:46).
Jesus, being fully human, took part in all of the human experience… except sin.
In John 1:14 Jesus is described as “…full…” - not half full or full most of the time – but “… full of unfailing love and faithfulness.”. In other words, though He was tempted, He DID NOT SIN. We see in Matthew 4 Jesus being tempted with power and hunger – representing for all you Maslow-philes both His base needs and His affirmation needs. Yet He DID NOT SIN.
In fact when the Roman centurion oversaw Jesus being crucified, he said “…Surely this man was innocent…” (Luke 23:47).
No one could honestly point to anything with which to accuse Jesus – accept that He claimed to be God – which as it happened, is true!
So… it is really important to understand that Jesus was a man… human like us. We can identify with Him. We can be confident that He knows what it is like to be human.
Jesus our teacher
Jesus was the great teacher. This fact is pretty universally recognised.
Actually just this week Elton John… of all people… said that “…he admired the teachings of Jesus…”. And then with the next breath announced that he wanted to ban all religion because it bred hatred of his homosexual lifestyle.
In His day, even Jesus’ opponents recognised Him as a great teacher. In Matt 22:15-22 the Pharisees try to trap Jesus but instead they came away amazed by what they hear.
The general public recognised Jesus as a great teacher. “The people were amazed at his teaching, for he taught with real authority – quite unlike the teachers of religious law” (Mark 1:22).
Jesus taught about a large array of issues. You can divide these into four areas:
1. Repent! Basically this means recognise your sinfulness, turn away from it and place your faith in Him.
2. He explained what the law really meant in the context of the Kingdom of God.
3. He showed people what the Kingdom of God is like and how to start establishing it.
4. He prophesised about what would happen to Him.
If you want to personally discover how much Jesus still teaches us, read a chapter of Matthew each day for a month.
The last point is interesting. Jesus prophesised about His death and resurrection. He was bang on the money.
Jesus was a great teacher and He still teaches us today.
Jesus our example
Jesus is our example. Jesus’ life, as recorded by those around Him, was and still is, a walking, living, breathing example for us to follow.
Let’s quickly run through just some of the characteristics Jesus demonstrated to us…
• (Matt 14:14) Compassion –
• (Luke 19:1-8) Reaching out to the social ‘underbelly’ of society –
• (Luke 20:1-8) Humility –
• (Luke 19:45-48) Social Justice –
• (Luke 20:20-26) Respect for Authorities –
• (Mark 10:13-16) Blessing others –
• (Luke 11:1-13) How to pray –
• (Luke 10:30-37) Caring –
• (Luke 11:37-54) Criticising hypocrisy –
• (Luke 13:31-35) Grief over this world –
• (John 13:1-17) Being a servant –
Probably the characteristic that stands out the most – by virtual of it is the hardest for us to follow – is that of being totally surrendered to the will of God.
In Luke 22:42 Jesus prayed… “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine”.
This prayer was a reflection of Jesus’ life. He was totally surrendered to doing what God wanted Him to be doing.
As we try to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, this I think is the hardest thing to do. Too often our own will overrides what God would have us do.
One of the things to note about these many characteristics that Jesus demonstrated was that they were quite opposite to the way that many of the religious leaders of the day thought. For instance most of the nation thought that the Kingdom of God would be ushered in with a powerful ruler who would blow away anyone, like the Romans, who got in His way.
Yet Jesus was the antithesis of the religious leaders view... which explains why they found it so hard to see who Jesus was.
So Jesus provided us the example of how to live our lives in harmony with God’s will.
Jesus our saviour
Jesus is our saviour. In some ways this is part of His example to us. By being resurrected from the dead, He shows us that we will be too.
But what does it really mean to be “our saviour”? There are a number of aspects to this. Paul sets this out clearly in Ephesians 2:4-7:
4 But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, 5 that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) 6 For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. 7 So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.
So what can we pull out from these verses:
1. Our salvation is because of God’s rich mercy… His grace.
2. Our salvation is because God loves us
3. We were dead because of our sin
4. We are raised from the dead… the spiritually dead… into life through Jesus
5. Because we are united by faith with Jesus we will join Him in heaven
6. Why… so God can point to us as examples of His grace and kindness
This is what it means to be saved. Death has no hold on us… just as it had no hold on Jesus. We are freed to live life now. And we will be with Him in heaven.
Now this descriptor of Jesus – Jesus is our saviour - is probably the most argued about. This is because as Christians we believe the role of saviour is exclusive to Jesus. We believe there is NO other way to be saved except through being united with Jesus. This causes great offence to those who believe other things because we are basically saying they are either blind or a fool.
If you don’t have a belief about your eternity, then you are blind. If you believe some other religion, we say you are being fooled.
Now there are a couple of arguments against Jesus being the saviour that I want to look at.
Firstly… “surely there are other ways for ‘good’ people to enter eternity”. There are two countering arguments against this…
1. No one is good enough to enter heaven off their own efforts.
2. Jesus said. In John 14:6 Jesus says “…I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” He doesn’t say “I am a way”… He claims to be exclusive. And just to clarify the point, He then says “…No one can come to the Father except through me”.
The second argument goes… “prove Jesus rose from the grave”. Well you can’t conclusively. What you can say is that:
1. The biblical account points to many people seeing Jesus after He was crucified. In one case over 500 at one time. It is pretty difficult to get 500 people to fake something and not spill the beans.
2. The New Testament authors challenged people who did not believe this claim to go and talk to those who saw Jesus after He was crucified. At the time these texts were written there were plenty of people alive who had seen Jesus – both before and after His crucifixion. There seem to be no fear of people investigating.
3. Roughly a third of the world’s population identifies themselves as followers of Jesus. Why on earth would a third of the world follow a dead man – a liar – a lie? If this is a con then it is a con of biblical scale – excuse the pun.
4. And finally, there are a truckload of people in this very room who will testify to how Jesus came into their life, turned it upside down and now they live for Him. How can Jesus do this if He is still dead?
Despite the arguments that people have about Jesus, it is important to know that what Jesus claimed, he delivered on. If you have faith in Him then you are united with Him and hence you will pass through death… you will spend eternity with Him. You can be sure of that.
Jesus our God
Jesus is our God. John Chapter One makes this very explicit.
1 In the beginning the Word already existed.
The Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
2 He existed in the beginning with God.
3 God created everything through him,
and nothing was created except through him.
4 The Word gave life to everything that was created,[a]
and his life brought light to everyone.
5 The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness can never extinguish it.[b]
6 God sent a man, John the Baptist,[c] 7 to tell about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. 8 John himself was not the light; he was simply a witness to tell about the light. 9 The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
10 He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. 11 He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. 12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. 13 They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God.
14 So the Word became human[d] and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness.[e] And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.
15 John testified about him when he shouted to the crowds, “This is the one I was talking about when I said, ‘Someone is coming after me who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before me.’”
16 From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another.[f] 17 For the law was given through Moses, but God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. But the unique One, who is himself God,[g] is near to the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us.
“The Word” is Jesus.
In Mark 15:39, as Jesus died, his Roman executioner exclaims “…This man truly was the Son of God”. This is a non-believing Roman with so much blood on his hands. Yet he recognises who Jesus is.
The demons recognised Jesus as God… having the power to cast them into hell.
Jesus repeatedly demonstrated His sovereignty… His control… His authority… over all things. Jesus brought people back to life… multiple times. He healed so many people they lost count. He feed thousands of people with food that was really only enough for one person. He vanished. He calmed a storm. He walked on water.
These are amazing demonstrations. I mean, if you ever have delusions of grandeur… if you ever think you are a really powerful dude… just try crossing the Cook Strait by foot. Let me know how you get on.
Doing all these things didn’t make Him God… but they showed He has power and authority that is only really explainable by Him being God.
Conclusion
So let’s bring this all together.
Who is Jesus?
1. He was a man
2. He is our teacher
3. He is our example
4. He is our saviour
5. He is God
This is what Jesus claimed. This is what the Old Testament prophets predicted. This is what the writers of the New Testament testified to. This is what other historical accounts corroborate.
For many people Jesus is more. However I am not sure the biblical account clearly includes more. Some people suggest that Jesus was a friend to His disciples. Many people describe their relationship with Jesus as “friends”. I guess I wonder whether Peter felt Jesus was his friend when Jesus called him Satan? (Mark 8:31-33)
That said, it seems to me that Jesus does reach into voids in His followers lives and fills them. To the fatherless He becomes their father… and so on. I think this is very much on a relationship basis however.
So why have we been talking about these five descriptors? I want to suggest this morning that we frequently focus on one or two and then proceed to lose perspective on just who Jesus is… just how amazing He is.
I just mentioned an example of where this happened. Mark 8:31-33
Then Jesus began to tell them that the Son of Man[a] must suffer many terrible things and be rejected by the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but three days later he would rise from the dead. 32 As he talked about this openly with his disciples, Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. 33 Jesus turned around and looked at his disciples, then reprimanded Peter. “Get away from me, Satan!” he said. “You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”
Peter forgot that Jesus is his God. Peter forgot that Jesus was his teacher. Peter just saw Jesus as a man. You might get the impression from this text that Jesus was not terribly happy about Peter reprimanding Him.
Many Christians see Jesus just as their saviour… their ticket into heaven. The term “fire insurance” is often used. We sometimes rest on the surety of our salvation and do not surrender our lives to Jesus. Or we “hide” bits of our lives – as if we could really hide from Jesus?
When we do this I think we are denying who Jesus is.
This is a really really important point… so I am going to repeat it…
When we lose perspective on just who Jesus is, we end up denying who Jesus is.
So…
If you don’t know Jesus, I hope this morning you have caught a glimpse of who He is. My prayer is that you might be interested in getting to know Him.
If you already know Jesus, then I have a challenge for you. This week think about who Jesus is to you. Maybe you could ask these questions:
• Do I know that Jesus has walked an even tougher path than me and made it?
• Do I recognise that what Jesus taught is applicable to me?
• Do I long to follow in Jesus’ footsteps?
• Do I know that Jesus died and was raised… and what does this mean to me?
• Is Jesus my God - Lord over all aspects of my life?
My prayer this morning is that each of us individually would know Jesus… the man, the teacher, the example, the saviour… our God.
Sunday, 19 November 2006
Bad Wellington Weather
We are now well into November and the rotten weather has continued.
Here is a photo of what the view from our house is normally.
And here is what it has been like most of the last 6 months!!!
I now understand why my parents moved to Hawkes Bay after living in Wellington.
Here is a photo of what the view from our house is normally.
And here is what it has been like most of the last 6 months!!!
I now understand why my parents moved to Hawkes Bay after living in Wellington.
Saturday, 18 November 2006
Taser Trials
This is a recent article from the NZ Herald...
Constable zaps himself and innocent teen with Taser
Saturday November 18, 2006
By Patrick Gower
A constable who took a Taser to a central Auckland domestic dispute wound up shocking himself and a 16-year-old and later pepper-spraying an innocent 21-year-old woman.
The constable accidentally blasted himself with the Taser's 50,000 volts as he reloaded the weapon while trying to stun a man at the centre of the domestic incident on October 1. One shot accidentally struck the man's teenage son.
After five attempts to hit the man, the officer eventually used pepper spray. This hit the man's 21-year-old daughter, also an unintended target.
The man eventually gave himself up. The constable, who had had Taser training, was not injured.
The weapon is the police's much-vaunted alternative to firearms and is being tested by 170 frontline police in Auckland and Wellington.
Police revealed details of the incident after Weekend Herald inquiries.
Detective Inspector Bernie Hollewand of Auckland City police confirmed that the constable fired the Taser five times - three times loaded with cartridges and twice in "contact" mode, where it is used like a cattle prod. The first shot hit the son.
Mr Hollewand said the officer claimed that just as the red laser sight was on the man's chest, he pulled his son across him.
It is believed that at one point the officer received a jolt after putting his hand in the Taser.
"The constable did remove one of the cartridges before a five-second discharge cycle was complete and he did feel in his hand that the device was arcing 50,000 volts."
But an official police update of the Taser trial, published on October 17, makes no mention of the constable firing five times, or missing his target, zapping himself or hitting the boy. It simply says a man was contained after the Taser was fired.
Police Commissioner Howard Broad also did not mention the incident when he appeared before a parliamentary committee, saying frontline officers supported the introduction of the weapon, and yesterday National Party police spokesman Simon Power wanted to know why.
Police media officer Jon Neilson said the fact a Taser had been fired more than once in a single incident was not "relevant".
... Normally I would find this very funny. A cop who has fire shots and nails everyone BUT the person he was aiming at. Questions like... what does DIT stand for (Drunk Incharge of a Taser) come to mind.
However instead it makes me some what concerned. What is concerning is that people are going to rely on the ongoing reporting of the Taser trial to decide whether these guns are going to be introduced. And what we find out is that the reporting is just lies (called spin in the business).
Let's be honest. This does not sound like a wholly successful operation of the gun. The cop shot himself and an innocent person, pepper sprayed another innocent... and this was marked down as a successful use of the weapon. Hmmm. I feel the concept of accurate reporting has been missed.
In case you think I am an anti-Taser nutter... I actually support their introduction. I would much rather pepper spray and Tasers than pistols. I would like to see Tasers replace pistols and fire arms being restricted to special units. I would also like to see a 20% penalty on sentence for Police Officers who abuse their position. If a cop assaults a person, say with a Taser, and the normal sentence would be 2 years... they should have an additional 146 days added to their sentence.
We give the Police the ability to use force... we should expect this power to be used carefully and any misuse of it to be penalised heavily.
Constable zaps himself and innocent teen with Taser
Saturday November 18, 2006
By Patrick Gower
A constable who took a Taser to a central Auckland domestic dispute wound up shocking himself and a 16-year-old and later pepper-spraying an innocent 21-year-old woman.
The constable accidentally blasted himself with the Taser's 50,000 volts as he reloaded the weapon while trying to stun a man at the centre of the domestic incident on October 1. One shot accidentally struck the man's teenage son.
After five attempts to hit the man, the officer eventually used pepper spray. This hit the man's 21-year-old daughter, also an unintended target.
The man eventually gave himself up. The constable, who had had Taser training, was not injured.
The weapon is the police's much-vaunted alternative to firearms and is being tested by 170 frontline police in Auckland and Wellington.
Police revealed details of the incident after Weekend Herald inquiries.
Detective Inspector Bernie Hollewand of Auckland City police confirmed that the constable fired the Taser five times - three times loaded with cartridges and twice in "contact" mode, where it is used like a cattle prod. The first shot hit the son.
Mr Hollewand said the officer claimed that just as the red laser sight was on the man's chest, he pulled his son across him.
It is believed that at one point the officer received a jolt after putting his hand in the Taser.
"The constable did remove one of the cartridges before a five-second discharge cycle was complete and he did feel in his hand that the device was arcing 50,000 volts."
But an official police update of the Taser trial, published on October 17, makes no mention of the constable firing five times, or missing his target, zapping himself or hitting the boy. It simply says a man was contained after the Taser was fired.
Police Commissioner Howard Broad also did not mention the incident when he appeared before a parliamentary committee, saying frontline officers supported the introduction of the weapon, and yesterday National Party police spokesman Simon Power wanted to know why.
Police media officer Jon Neilson said the fact a Taser had been fired more than once in a single incident was not "relevant".
... Normally I would find this very funny. A cop who has fire shots and nails everyone BUT the person he was aiming at. Questions like... what does DIT stand for (Drunk Incharge of a Taser) come to mind.
However instead it makes me some what concerned. What is concerning is that people are going to rely on the ongoing reporting of the Taser trial to decide whether these guns are going to be introduced. And what we find out is that the reporting is just lies (called spin in the business).
Let's be honest. This does not sound like a wholly successful operation of the gun. The cop shot himself and an innocent person, pepper sprayed another innocent... and this was marked down as a successful use of the weapon. Hmmm. I feel the concept of accurate reporting has been missed.
In case you think I am an anti-Taser nutter... I actually support their introduction. I would much rather pepper spray and Tasers than pistols. I would like to see Tasers replace pistols and fire arms being restricted to special units. I would also like to see a 20% penalty on sentence for Police Officers who abuse their position. If a cop assaults a person, say with a Taser, and the normal sentence would be 2 years... they should have an additional 146 days added to their sentence.
We give the Police the ability to use force... we should expect this power to be used carefully and any misuse of it to be penalised heavily.
Friday, 17 November 2006
Tonga
In the last few days there have been pro-democracy protests in Tonga. The citizens of this country want to throw off the King structure of government (called a dictatorship in any other country).
Isn't it funny that New Zealand is now looking to send troops to Tonga? I find it a very funny way to show our support for democracy (and more importantly, support for the people of Tonga).
Isn't it funny that New Zealand is now looking to send troops to Tonga? I find it a very funny way to show our support for democracy (and more importantly, support for the people of Tonga).
Wednesday, 15 November 2006
Wednesday, 8 November 2006
A sisterly visit
Claire's sister, Mandy, came to visit. As you can see we are not far off having an addition to the family. Due date is 14th Dec.
Friday, 3 November 2006
A thought on Christians and Politics
This is not a fully constructed and argued thought. It is not meant to be. It is just something that I have been pondering lately.
It has occurred to me that maybe it is best for Christians not to be involved in moral politics. By moral politics I mean arguing for legislative restrictions on things we regard as sins. There are a number of reasons for this:
1) It doesn't seem to work
2) It never seems to present Jesus and the church in a good light
3) It doesn't seem to me (just my take on it) that Jesus is into creating laws for people to follow. In fact it seems like he is much more focused on where people's heart focus is.
In a funny way if the world turns into a darker place, it just makes the church shine all that more brightly.
On the other side though, maybe Christians should be getting involved into social justice issues. Where the weak and the oppressed are kicked, maybe this would be a better place to put our energies. And maybe instead of jumping up and down about how it is unfair, just maybe we should focus on doing something about it.
Now wouldn't that be a nice bright light to the community/nation/world?
It has occurred to me that maybe it is best for Christians not to be involved in moral politics. By moral politics I mean arguing for legislative restrictions on things we regard as sins. There are a number of reasons for this:
1) It doesn't seem to work
2) It never seems to present Jesus and the church in a good light
3) It doesn't seem to me (just my take on it) that Jesus is into creating laws for people to follow. In fact it seems like he is much more focused on where people's heart focus is.
In a funny way if the world turns into a darker place, it just makes the church shine all that more brightly.
On the other side though, maybe Christians should be getting involved into social justice issues. Where the weak and the oppressed are kicked, maybe this would be a better place to put our energies. And maybe instead of jumping up and down about how it is unfair, just maybe we should focus on doing something about it.
Now wouldn't that be a nice bright light to the community/nation/world?
It once was a soft blue...
If you have ever wondered what a nice soft blue cheese looks like after it is two and a half years past its due date...
Well look no further. It fully stunk!!!
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