A SELECTION OF SHORT ARTICLES

What a Waste!

Carl Meachem - January 2008

By now the refuse collections and a visit to the tip have cleared the remnants of Christmas! We moaned at the voluminous packaging, food the children didn’t eat and the bin that was too small for the rubbish! There’s even a gadget available to squash it down. It would be far better if we did not produce so much waste.

The Bible teaches the principle of responsible use of resources. This principle relates to much more than packaging and bin filling. We only have so much time to live and we only have a certain number of opportunities in life.

We all know these are serious points but how we waste time and miss opportunities. We could, for example, read a book, go for a walk, learn at college, but instead, we spend precious hours with the TV. Has this New Year started with a wise use of your limited resources of time and opportunity? Some opportunities do come round again like the recycling of certain waste. Some opportunities never come back and disappear into the land fill of ‘What If’.

The Bible tells us that God is grieved at waste of life. This includes murder and cruel oppression of vulnerable lives. This also includes the waste of life in the sense of missing the things that really count and wasting golden opportunities. Ultimately life is wasted when we live it without faith in or reference to God. An ancient king, Solomon had wealth, knowledge, power and pleasure. Yet even he concluded that life in this world without faith in God is meaningless. "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Everything is meaningless!"

There is cruel oppression in our world that goes on despite real efforts to make a difference. Without faith in God who will bring ultimate justice, it is an utter hopeless waste. Riches and wealth are hard to gain and easily lost. We cannot guarantee we’ll have health to enjoy them! We can’t take them with us when we die! People wear themselves out to have modern comforts and luxuries and can still find that they have missed what really brings meaningful life. Whether we have little or luxury, life without relationship with God, as Solomon taught, is ultimately wasteful.

Some waste can be composted and I’m a keen composter! It’s great to see waste fruit and vegetables transformed into a useful and nourishing substance for the garden. If we’re feeling that lack of meaning as 2008 has got under way, there is a great opportunity. We can’t compost our lives! But we can have our lives transformed and discover the missing peace and purpose. Jesus came to give His life so that through faith in Him we can have life to the full. That’s real hope for what lies beyond this life and a relationship with God here and now which gives meaning and a purpose. That’s not a promise of an easier life, but it is a promise of a life that will not be wasted.

Intolerant Tolerance

Carl Meachem - November 2007

Sometimes people with firm beliefs are accused of being intolerant. Yet it can also be the case that people with strong beliefs strongly believe that we need to respect others even if they strongly disagree! We must not confuse disagreement with intolerance nor assume strong belief as unreasonable. In fact we have a strange and dangerous new intolerance emerging in our society dressed up as tolerance! It criticises those who do have clear beliefs and tries to shut them up calling them intolerant! We have extreme political correctness that refuses to call a spade a spade or to acknowledge the plain nose in front of its face! Christian Union groups have been refused rooms to meet on university campuses by a number of Student Union bodies. Those who say, “I firmly believe”, are written off as bigots. The hypocrisy is that those who try to silence strong believers obviously have strong beliefs themselves!

Strong beliefs that are based on good and reasonable evidence can stand debate. The key is the pursuit of truth and the willingness to be honest with the facts. This is why openness and honesty in government and media is so important. How can people form balanced and fair opinions if they are not told the truth or feel they are not told the truth?

People must be allowed to speak freely and in turn be willing to have their opinions tested in the light of available evidence. In the 19th Century a scholarly movement began in Germany which took the Bible to task. The so called ‘Higher Criticism’ asked searching questions dissecting and criticising the Bible from cover to cover. Much of the negative result of this research has been overthrown as new textual and archaeological evidence has since come to light. The overall effect of these searching questions is that the veracity, historicity and reliability of the Bible is even more clear and many Christians today have a renewed confidence in the Bible.

In my office there’s a world map and a list of 50 countries where persecution against Christians is worst. In some nations there are laws against people converting to Christianity and even against Christians talking to others about their faith. The worldwide picture is of increasing persecution, often motivated by an ignorant fear. This was true of the Pharaoh at the time of Moses, who feared the Hebrew tribes and ordered the slaughter of baby boys. The Romans justified their persecution of Christians with reference to hearsay rather than facts. Modern states have also painted Christianity as a threat to the order of society to justify persecution. Yet the Bible tells Christians to be good citizens, hard workers and caring people! The Bible never teaches that Christians should seek a ‘Christian state’ which excludes other beliefs. Instead it teaches Christians to be like ‘salt’ within the community.

A healthy society has freedom of speech and the desire to pursue truth and a willingness to change in the light of it.

THE HARDEST WORD TO REALLY MEAN

Carl Meachem

One key word that parents try to teach their children is ‘sorry’. Maybe we can remember our own parents trying to get us to apologise for hitting our brother/ sister or for breaking the window, or whatever!

Can you remember that battle within you as you knew what you should say, but pride and stubbornness made this small word the hardest word to say!

The next stage for parents is when their child has got the hang of saying the word, ‘sorry’, but they then have to teach them to really mean it!  If we’re honest, we’ve all been in situations where we’ve been at least tempted to say ‘sorry’, just to get off the hook! I know I have.

If I really believe that what I have done is wrong, then my sorry will mean far more. And that raises two questions: Are there clear rights and wrongs, and if so, am I willing to take responsibility for my actions? If there are clear rights and wrongs, then logically, when I do or say something not right, I must genuinely apologise and take steps to avoid doing or saying it again.

Jesus clearly believed in rights and wrongs. He believed in a standard that is higher than human opinion - God’s standard. Let’s face it, if rights and wrongs are just down to human opinions, then you could end up justifying a mass murderer - “Oh well, he thought it was OK!” 

Even the fact that most people now would regard murder as wrong, isn’t that secure. There have been many occasions in history where communities have been persuaded that even genocide was acceptable.

The Bible teaches that God’s standard is far reaching, dealing not just with our visible behaviour, but also the very attitudes of our hearts. So, for example, murder is wrong, but so is the festering hatred in the heart.

It appears that a major problem in our society today is the erosion of a serious sense of right and wrong: at least, our view of wrong isn’t serious enough. It follows then, that we don’t take real responsibility for our behaviour, and respect for each other is eroded too. 

The Bible teaches that rights and wrongs and personal responsibility need to be taken seriously. This raises some more questions: after sincerely apologising to whoever I’ve hurt, how do I get the record straight with God whom I’ve also offended, and how can I find the strength to be different?

The great news is that Jesus came to pay the price to put our record right with God. Getting right with God is a fully paid-for gift! It’s a gift we receive as we trust in Jesus Christ - committing our lives to him. The other fantastic news, is that the Spirit of God will give us the power, bit by bit, to change for the better.

Now in the case of our society, as well as our individual salvation, where does it all begin?  It all starts with learning to say, and to truly mean, that hardest of words: ‘Sorry’!

WHAT IS AN ‘EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN’?

Carl Meachem

This is not a promotion for my own church, which bears the word ‘evangelical’ in its title! Evangelical is not a separate denomination. There is no Evangelical HQ which tells affiliated churches what to believe. Evangelical properly refers to a movement which runs through a range of mainstream Christian denominations.

My thesaurus tells me that evangelical is defined as to do ‘with missionaries or their work’. This rightly describes one characteristic of an evangelical Christian: They believe there’s  good news and have a desire to share it. The word evangelical itself comes from the Greek word meaning ‘good news’. Yet this in itself isn’t exclusively a Christian activity. In advertising, for example, a company may be evangelical in the promotion of its products!

This leads us on to another characteristic of an evangelical Christian, which is to do with the basis of belief. Evangelicals are characterised by a belief that the Bible is God inspired. They believe that the New Testament was written by or at least approved by, the Apostles. “What does the Bible say?”, is a key question to an evangelical. So where philosophies or church traditions conflict with Bible teaching, the Bible wins!    

This then raises the question of interpretation of the Bible. It also raises the accusation that evangelical Christians are ‘dogmatic literalists’! Evangelicals say with the Apostle Peter that some parts of the Bible are harder to understand! They are not literalistic about the Bible, because they recognise that there’s a range of genre including poetic symbolism and that some parts need very careful interpretation. However, they believe that all the Bible is reliable and that when the Bible claims to be telling clear facts of history or giving direct teaching, then they need to take that directly to heart.

I personally have friends in Anglican, Baptist, Methodist and Pentecostal circles who would all describe themselves as evangelical Christians. As a testimony to the clarity of the core message of the Bible, the styles of the churches just mentioned would differ widely, but the heart of the teaching would be the same. Evangelicals therefore take the Bible seriously. Many of our modern charities and reform movements owe their origin to  Christians who took the Bible seriously. 

It has been said that evangelical Christianity is a strange new phenomenon. One test is to listen to what is taught today and compare it with the message that the Apostles preached in the New Testament. When you do so, you should see that at its heart, the message of evangelical Christianity is what the Apostles Peter and Paul preached in middle of the 1st Century AD.  Arguably, therefore, evangelical Christianity is very old with roots even back in Old Testament Judaism. The essence of the Apostles’ preaching was the historical death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and that through personal faith in Him, God grants forgiveness. This brings peace, purpose and hope leading to the transformation of lives.  Evangelicalism has a very old message, yet it remains freshly relevant.

THE KNOWNS AND THE UNKNOWNS

Carl Meachem, December 2004

When US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said “... there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns...” many people, with furrowed brows, struggled to make sense!

But as we try to peer round the edge of the year into 2005, what hopes can we have for the future? We live in a world of many unknowns. Who knows what events will be round the corner of the year? Will there be a major terrorist attack? On a personal level, will we have to face illness or unemployment? On a brighter note, maybe there’ll be new cures for dreaded diseases. Maybe there will be greater peace and stability in the world. Maybe...but we just don’t know.

Christians are no different from anyone else, in that we all wrestle with the unknown. Yes, we know that suffering in general is connected with human rebellion against God. It’s also obvious that when people do not love and respect each other, as instructed by God, that suffering and pain is the result. Many people without Christian belief have commented, that if we all tried to follow the example of Jesus, the world would be a far better place.  Yet even though we can see human responsibility for the sufferings in the world, we still wrestle with the unknown: Why me? When will it stop? Where will it all end up?

So we have the unknowns, but Christians believe that we have a number of knowns which mean we can look to the future with hope.

God has kept His promises in the past: There are many, many examples but thinking of Christmas, here’s a promise made over 700 years before Christ was born, predicting His birth in Bethlehem,  "But you, Bethlehem... out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." Micah 5:2

God has clearly demonstrated His love. We all go through experiences where we may feel unloved - however true or not - that’s how we feel! In a world with so much pain, how can we know that God loves us? God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

These examples of knowns for the Christian, don’t answer every question, but they give us a solid basis for trusting God, even in the face of the unknowns. From the Bible we see that God has promised a day ahead when justice will finally be demonstrated. At that time all the frustrating unknowns will be swallowed up in a glorious new start!

There’s a dear elderly lady in our congregation who is suffering from terminal cancer. There are unknowns ahead for her. Yet her confidence and joy is due to her reliance upon the knowns: that God keeps his promises; that God has demonstrated his love to her and for her - and for you!

Whether you live in the town, in the countryside around, or are visiting the area, you will be made welcome. We would love to see you.

Newark Evangelical Church
Corner of Portland Street and Pelham Street,
Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire. England
Phone:  01636-676560

© 2006,2007, Newark Evangelical Church