The Narrow Path

  Thursday, December 1, 2022 Psalm 74 Isaiah 3:13-4:6 Mark 5:21-43 Observance: First Thursday in Advent Daughter, your faith has saved you; go in peace, and be healed of your disease. If you are a student of history, you may have heard of a concept called the Halevy thesis. This is a social theory, that came about from comparing the societies of Britain and France during the revolutionary era. Where France rejected Jesus, vainly drafted several futile efforts to define Man as both autonomous and moral, subjected the people to the Terrors of riots and the guillotine, and spat out a man who crowned himself emperor by right of bloodshed and conquest, Britain did not. The thesis suggests that the reason for this is because during the same time, Britain went through a spiritual awakening in the form of the Methodist revival. Because people were more concerned for how God saw them than how they saw themselves, there was no need to engage in bloody revolution. Bo...

  Wednesday, November 30, 2022 Psalm 72 Isaiah 2:19-3:12 Mark 5:1-20 Observance: First Wednesday in Advent; Andrew, apostle and martyr Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you. The man in the boat, Jesus of Nazareth, the Word of God made flesh, has reached the other side of the lake. Having taught that the word He has to offer is the very power of God, and demonstrated that He is that Word incarnate by controlling the weather, He steps out into the region of the Gerasenes. These Gerasenes are not the dutiful Jews to whom He preached yesterday. Those Jews were arborists and wheat farmers. The Gerasenes are being naughty and keeping pigs, that unclean animal prohibited by the Law. When the Word of God, which brings everything into the light of truth, comes into contact with that which should not be so, there is always conflict of some sort and to some degree. There are many times in our ...

Tuesday, November 29, 2022 Psalm 69:1-16 Isaiah 2:1-18 Mark 4:21-41 Observance: First Tuesday in Advent Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? The first thing we notice about Mark’s gospel that distinguishes it from the other three is that it is so short. One can read the whole thing in under an hour. This means that when we get a nice big chunk of text, like this morning, it can feel like we have been bombarded with several different lessons that we could spend an entire week working through. But when we are interpreting the scriptures we should use the three rules of exegesis: context, context, context. Context within the verses surrounding the passage, context within the book, and context within the entire Bible (and we keep expanding the context until our time runs out). As we learnt yesterday, Jesus is standing on a boat and making a big speech, looking to teach an important lesson. He keeps returning to this image of a seed to make Hi...

  Monday, November 28, 2022 Psalm 71 Isaiah 1:18-31 Mark 4:1-20 Observance: First Monday of Advent To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God. While our lectionary is good for helping us structure our lives around daily reading of the Bible, it is a bit unfortunate that the change from the last church year to this left us on a bit of a cliff hanger. But as a pastor once said, God loves cliff hangers. Advent is a season in the church calendar which we describe as a “penitential” season. (Lent is the other.) We will spend the following weeks gearing up for Christmas, the most wonderful time of the year. This time is intended to be spent reflecting on repentance, which sounds scary and medieval, but is actually more like a chance to do a bit of spring-cleaning in our soul; like a season we spend in spiritual detox. In about a month’s time, we will be celebrating that most incredible miracle of God: the incarnation, where our soul’s Friend, the Lo...

  Saturday, November 26, 2022 Psalms 65; 70 Malachi 3:13-4:6 Revelation 13:11-18 The LORD took note and listened, and a book of remembrance was written before Him of those who revered the LORD and thought on His name. If you have never read the book of Revelation before, now you know the context for the infamous number 666. The beast of the land, which represents satan’s influence on religious institutions, points people towards the beast of the sea, which represents satan’s influence on political institutions. As this monstrous and horrifying syncretism of politics and religion play off each other, they remove all distinction and freedom not just between the religious life and the political world, but between individual human beings. The number “is that of a man”: people are fooled or scared into worshipping as God that which is material and worldly. Much fear and anxiety can result if this message is not put into context. There is much more to know about the...

  Friday, November 25, 2022 Psalms 62; 63 Malachi 2:17-3:12 Revelation 13:1-10 Observance: James Noble, first Indigenous Australian ordained (d. 1941) Then all nations will count you happy, for you will be a land of delight, says the LORD of hosts. Once we understood that John is recounting over and again the story of creation from fall to redemption, the book of Revelation began to make sense. But now, with monsters coming out of the sky, standing on the beach, coming out of the ocean, and so forth, it would be understandable for us to feel like we are losing the plot again. But so we can understand John, and understand this particular camera angle he is showing us, first recognise that the initial monster is satan. The sea represents political authority, while the land represents religious authority (these are Old Testament tropes which would have been obvious to the first readers of Revelation). The fact that satan is standing on the sand tells us that...

  Thursday, November 24, 2022 Psalms 56; 57 Malachi 2:1-16 Revelation 12:7-18 For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts. What is the difference between a priest and a lay Christian? It depends on who you ask. The Roman Catholic answer would involve something about the “ontological shift”, the change of view from before and after ordination. An Anglican would have to say something about being chosen out of the congregation to speak God’s word back to that congregation. Other denominations use different terms: pastor, minister and so on. Whatever the case, there is always a sense of separation. The job description we read today in Malachi might blur that line between priest and laity. Particularly when we read it in our own historical and geographical moment, where Christianity is more of a cultural memory than a consensus, with nothing being offered to replace...

  Wednesday, November 23, 2022 Psalms 54; 55:1-12 Malachi 1 Revelation 12:1-6 Observance: Clement of Rome, bishop and martyr (d. c. 100) A son honours his father, and servants their master. Every little mundane action we make in this life can, if done prayerfully, be an act of joyful praise to God and a vehicle for His blessing in creation. When the big things come about in our lives, we are usually a little more attentive to God’s presence, whether we are responding in thanksgiving, lament or questioning. Our lives are certainly improved the more we look to involve God in them. Malachi wants to push us even further. Once we have made the commitment to open ourselves to God’s desires, lets take the next step and work out how deeply we are ready for God to work in us. Malachi is prophesying to the priests of the Temple in Jerusalem. These priests certainly involve God in their lives, such as their role demands them to be constantly offering and making anima...

  Tuesday, November 22, 2022 Psalm 51 Zechariah 14:12-21 Revelation 11:15-19 And the cooking pots in the house of the LORD shall be as holy as the bowls in front of the altar. Francis Schaeffer does a good job in Escape from Reason in highlighting the fact that we have seemed to separate the sacred from the secular. One example is in politics, where politicians are expected to drop their religious beliefs once they enter Parliament and begin debating legislation, because they have entered a secular space. Pointing this out makes it sound absurd; but does it perhaps happen in our private lives as well? A good personal test would be to look at something completely mundane. Take, for example, our motivation to brush our teeth. Yes, it is a good habit to cultivate. Yes, it has positive results. Yes, it is common sense. But is the fundamental reason we brush our teeth because it is something that belongs to the secular world, or because God loves us, wants us to b...

  Monday, November 21, 2022 Psalm 50 Zechariah 14:1-11 Revelation 11:1-14 Our God comes and does not keep silence. “ Space”, said Douglas Adams, “is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.” The universe is very big. Going out past the city lights, taking a turn off the highway in the middle of the bush, waiting until nighttime, and then looking up, can really deliver the sense that, in the grand scheme of things, we humans are insignificant. Conceptualise past the enormity of space and consider how big then the God who made it must be. God’s mind for scale and creativity is awe-inspiring. Even if this universe was the absolute limit of God’s creative power, He would still be a Person far too distant from our minds for us to be able to consider. It is all very humbling, and it also suggests a vast distance between u...

  Saturday, November 19, 2022 Psalm 45 Zechariah 13 Revelation 10 On that day a fountain shall be opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity. What we have been reading in Revelation ever since we finished the letters of Jesus, and what has been happening all through Zechariah, has been around matters concerning what is called eschatology. Eschatology is the word used to describe anything related to the end times. What is fascinating about our Christian eschatology is that it sits in a funny place chronologically. While we can state with absolute certainty that there will be a day in which the Lord Jesus returns, evil is destroyed once and for all, and we enter into the new creation, much of how this is described in the Bible could also apply to the first Easter. That is, our eschatology is both now, and not yet. The story of this world does have a happy ending. But we don’t have to wait for that ...

  Friday, November 18, 2022 Psalms 41; 44:1-9 Zechariah 12 Revelation 9:13-21 On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. If you have been fortunate enough to ever read one of those digests for boys, those old hardcover books published 60-70 years ago that would have had adventure stories, survival skills and tales of ancient heroes, you may have picked up a good trick when playing hide-and-seek: people don’t tend to look up. You probably already know this without having read exciting stories about downed airmen hiding in trees from enemy soldiers; I think it is a pretty universal experience to have walked into something (or someone) by accident because our eyes were down. The human response to God’s holy justice, as we have read in the past few studies, has been to look down. Most notable would be the description of people hiding in caves, calling the mountains down on them. Today’s reading in Revelation gets pretty violent, yet the peo...

  Thursday, November 17, 2022 Psalm 40 Zechariah 11:4-17 Revelation 9:1-12 Observances: Hilda of Whitby, abbess (d. 680); Hugh, bishop of Lincoln (d. 1220) I waited patiently for the LORD; He inclined to me and heard my cry. A terrifying spectacle is presented before us today in the reading from Revelation: the army of demonic locusts, come not to harm the crops but to torture people, swarming out from the pit made by the fallen star. Zechariah is equally apocalyptic: the flock of sheep, rejecting their shepherd, are handed over to the “foolish” shepherd, who takes the broken staff and uses it as a club to beat the lambs. Indeed, we cannot help but sense some holy terror in God’s sovereign authority when we reflect on the fact that it is by His grace alone that we are saved by faith in Christ. But while in Revelation it seems to be those people have a physical mark on them that lets them know they belong to God, what is the spiritual mark we can identify i...

  Wednesday, November 16, 2022 Psalm 38 Zechariah 10:6-11:3 Revelation 8 Observance: Margaret of Scotland, queen, helper of the poor (d. 1093) When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. How long does it take for God to do something? The Psalm this morning, a Psalm to cry out in prayer when we are sick or injured, is an excellent example of how Christianity lives in the real world. Suffering happens; the Psalmist knows this better than most. But he ends with confidence that the Lord will rescue him. God will do something about it. The question is not if, but how long. We have now reached the last of the seals which made the scroll, the title deed to creation, official. Jesus is officially Owner of creation, and the final seal concludes this part of the spiritual history which the scroll has been describing. Our prayers, which the incense explicitly represents, are answered as the coals are let out from ...

  Tuesday, November 15, 2022 Psalm 37:1-17 Zechariah 9:11-10:5 Revelation 7:9-17 For like the jewels of a crown they shall shine on His land. What wonderful transformation the Lord Jesus works in us! We, who took His perfect creation and wielded the bow for evil. We, who wish death upon each other with murderous thoughts of anger, who have been given tongues and flash them as if they were forked, who cannot but help lose our patience and somehow have the capacity for anything other than love. Instead of judgement, we receive mercy. Instead of destruction, we receive resurrection. We should be feasting on the death we so seem to crave by our thoughts and deeds, and yet we are brought into the heavenly feast of life by our Good Shepherd. Through Zechariah, the Lord proclaims judgement upon those shepherds who would lead us to barren fields and brackish streams. In Revelation, He demonstrates His good intention for the role of shepherd, consistent with th...

  Monday, November 14, 2022 Psalm 34 Zechariah 9:1-10 Revelation 6:12-7:8 Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Today’s seal, the sixth, is beginning to get a bit sticky, try as we might to wring it out for meaning and application. Let’s try and ride this vehicle of interpretation we established last week, where the scroll is a title deed for creation, and the opening of which looks to be a spiritual history of creation. What we are having described to us today is the beginning of what the Old Testament prophets called “The Day of the LORD”. (Joel in particular is a good place to read about this.) John is giving us a definite relationship between this Day, and the events surrounding the first Easter and Jesus’ incarnation. In fact, at the first Pentecost, Peter quoted some lines from Joel about the Day and emphasised the importance of Jesus as the Messiah in light of what w...

  Saturday, November 12, 2022 Psalm 33 Susanna 34-64 Revelation 6:1-11 Observance: Charles Simeon, evangelist (d. 1836) Then I saw the Lamb open one of the seven seals… Having received our letters from Jesus, and being welcomed into the throne room of heaven, we now get to the real meat and potatoes of Revelation. Full of symbolism and imagery, John’s vision is consistent with many Old Testament visions of the same place and of the same themes: Daniel, Zechariah and Ezekiel are some of the famous names that come to mind in this scene. But what does it all mean? If there is one thing about this book, it is that the more we read it, and the more commentaries on it we study, we always find something new and different. The grand theme is always the same: Jesus is the conqueror who destroys the forces of evil and saves His people. In the details, however, we are always able to glean new snippets of hope and inspiration. Yesterday we noticed that this scr...

  Friday, November 11, 2022 Psalms 28; 29 Susanna 1-33 Revelation 5 Observance: Martin, bishop of Tours (d. c. 387) “ Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” John has finished his work as scribe for the Lord Jesus, and has now walked through the door of heaven. He has seen magnificent sights, heard magnificent sounds, and has now reached the place no mortal ever thought possible: the throne room of Almighty God. God is seated on His throne holding a scroll, and is looking for someone to give it to. No-one apparently is “worthy” to open this scroll: what is inside? Jesus is revealing things to John, who is writing them down for us, and for both John and us, we need this graphic imagery to understand the spiritual truths Jesus is teaching us. In this particular circumstance, the scroll is serving as something like a title deed for creation (ancient Roman and Greek ...

  Thursday, November 10, 2022 Psalm 25 Jonah 4 Revelation 4 Observance: Leo of Rome, bishop and teacher After this I looked, and there in heaven a door stood open! Studying theology can often feel like when one begins to dip their toes into philosophy: complicated words with far too many syllables are thrown around, and they only ever describe either something everyone already knows, or something far too ridiculous for any sensible person to conceive of themselves. Today’s five-dollar theological terms are apophatic and its opposite cataphatic. To boil them down to their absolute basics, apophatic theology suggests that God and humans are so wildly different that we cannot actually know anything for certain about God. Cataphatic is far more optimistic and describes God in terms of what God is (as opposed to the apophatic way which describes what God is not). It is fair to say that “natural revelation”, that is, what God tells us about Himself in t...

  Wednesday, November 9, 2022 Psalm 22 Jonah 3 Revelation 3:14-22 I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. If there is one claim we could honestly make about being a Christian, it is that it is not a comfortable life. Blessings of land, family, food and health are promised alongside exhortations to stand firm against the darkness and the trials. But for the Christian, the opposite of comfort is not discomfort: it is excitement. For us, comfort is synonymous with boredom. There is an old Celtic prayer which asks God to give the petitioner not so much poverty that they turn to sin and theft, but also not too much wealth so that they become comfortable. It is a good prayer, and it reflects the advice of Jesus to the church in Laodicea. He knows their works; they say they are rich, have prospered, and need nothing. Material comfort has descended upon this church like a fire blanket, smothering any spiritual life they might once have had, and choking them i...

  Tuesday, November 8, 2022 Psalms 20; 21 Jonah 2 Revelation 3:7-13 Observance: Saints, martyrs, missionaries and teachers of the Anglican Communion Now I know that the Lord will save His anointed: that He will answer him from His holy heaven with the victorious strength of His right hand. Philadelphia is home to another one of those churches of whom Jesus has nothing against. Though they have little power, their patient endurance holds them in good stead with the Holy One, the True One. They are also another church who is suffering under the “synagogue of Satan”: those who say that they are Jews, and are not, but are lying. Jonah’s suffering, on the other hand, is completely self-inflicted. He has disobeyed a direct commandment from God. Trying to run away from God is an exercise in futility, and God decided to chase Jonah down with a storm: the result for Jonah being tossed into the sea. Two types of suffering: one from God’s enemies, the other we ...

  Monday, November 7, 2022 Psalm 19 Jonah 1 Revelation 3:1-6 May the words of my lips and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight: O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. For those of us who worship in mainline denominations, Jesus’ letter to Sardis hits particularly close to home. Our Lord knows our works, and that we have a reputation for being alive: but we are dead. Our clergy are well looked after, and our congregations sponsor innumerable missionary and local outreach organisations. Jesus knows our works. But, He says, we are dead. Unhappy with this situation, Jesus proclaims in a loud voice the same thing He said to the little girl who lay dead: “Wake up!” That which brings us life He explains perfectly clearly: we must remember what we received and heard. Good works mean nothing to Jesus if they are not done in the spirit of faith, and our faith in Him is what He holds most precious. The Lord Jesus is to be raised up by all of us who...

  Saturday, November 5, 2022 Psalms 15; 16 Nehemiah 13:15-31 Revelation 2:18-29 To the one who conquers I will also give the morning star. We now come to the fourth church to whom Jesus writes: Thyatira. Little more than a military outpost to guard Pergamos, this city’s history was not as peaceful as Pergamum’s. Thyatira knew war, laying claim to the dubious honour of being originally populated by soldiers under Alexander the Great, and had been under Roman rule since c. 190 BC. With military obedience, the church has been praised by Jesus for its love, faith, service and patient endurance. But, like all our churches, false teachers had snuck in. Where Jesus talks about “Jezebel”, He is probably referring to the historic Jezebel of 1 Kings 21:25-26, who urged her husband, King Ahab, to do what was evil in the eyes of the LORD. In this letter, Jesus hints about some of the specifics of the crimes of this particular Jezebel, but the telling phrase is “the...

  Friday, November 4, 2022 Psalms 11; 12 Nehemiah 13:1-14 Revelation 2:12-17 Observance: Day for Anglicans and Roman Catholics to pray for one another I know where you are living, where Satan’s throne is. Yet you are holding fast to my name, and you did not deny your faith in me. Today we run into two old friends: the story of Balaam and Balak; and the mysterious Nicolaitans. I wonder what it says about God that 1) the story of Balaam and Balak was important enough for the Holy Spirit to inspire Moses to record; 2) that it was a big enough deal for Nehemiah to expel all the foreigners; 3 ) Peter thinks it is noteworthy enough to use it as a sermon illustration; 4 ) that Jesus in heaven would reference it too. Jesus is the One with the sharp, two-edged sword of His mouth, and in His victory parade on Palm Sunday, He rode a donkey. This paradox perhaps teaches us something about the power of staying true to Jesus: even a silly old donkey can, if speaking the truth...