Encountering Jesus

Part 3 | Glimpses of characterization in the gospel of John

Time for a change - but does it take?
by Bruce Power

By anyone’s measure thirty-eight years is a long time. As Jesus is traveling through the city of Jerusalem on his way to a festival, he passes by a site filled with numerous sick persons. Out of the crowd who live their lives around this pool associated with occasional occurrences of healing, Jesus singles out an individual man. John tells us he has been an invalid for thirty-eight years. Does this represent his whole life? Has he been here since childhood? Or was his life tragically impacted and a normal existence transformed to this waiting and hoping, but finally losing all hope?

Jesus learns he has been there for a long time and asks the question, the central question in this moment: “Do you want to get well?” It seems a simple enough question, but time and circumstance take a toll on the human spirit, and we can get to the place that the present circumstances, no matter how horrific are at least known. We understand that we can somehow cope with this, but the unknown represents an equation we cannot calculate, a potential danger that may take us beyond the breaking point. The man does not answer the question. Perhaps he does not know if he wants to get well.

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Encountering Jesus

Part 2 | Glimpses of characterization in the gospel of John

Jesus’ encounters in unexpected places
by Bruce Power

When Jesus passes through Samaria he decides to stop at a site with historic and practical significance - Jacob’s well. The well symbolized a unity of the people of God that had once been, when all the elements of the people of Israel had lived in community and anticipated the work of God in their future. But as Jesus stops at the well, John notes times have changed, in his day “Jews do not associate with Samaritans” (4:9). This seems an unlikely place for a life-changing encounter. After all, the dialogue with Nicodemus had not gone well, and he was a leader among his people, yet somehow unable or unwilling to discuss spiritual values.

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Encountering Jesus

Part 1 | Glimpses of characterization in the gospel of John

Jesus, Nicodemus and a bucketful of ambiguity
by Bruce Power

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his short series will briefly examine a major feature of John’s story concerning the life and teaching of Jesus - the manner in which individuals come into contact with Jesus and make decisions about the direction a future relationship will take.

John’s gospel presents the story of Jesus in a manner quite different from what we read in the synoptic tradition (Matthew, Mark and Luke). An important aspect of this presentation involves protracted accounts of Jesus’ meetings with individual figures. These become paradigms for the overall concern of the account which is, what will the reader decide about Jesus?

The familiarity of these stories to many of us can make them difficult to see with fresh eyes. We have to look beyond what we think the stories say, and what we’ve heard they are about to what the text actually states.

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The sacrament of the Good Samaritan

Jason Davies-Kildea asks: an identity crisis?

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t seems that The Salvation Army is currently experiencing a serious identity crisis.  We are no longer sure of who we are and what we should be doing in the world.  Some of the symptoms of this crisis are evident in tensions about worship styles and uniform, but the most significant divide appears to be between our evangelical and social work.  How can we re-unite the dual mission of The Salvation Army?  Any way forward needs to be faithful to our history, without simply idealising the past.  It also needs to be biblically sound and relevant to our contemporary context.  Perhaps it’s time to reclaim the sacrament of the Good Samaritan?

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The revolution is over

by Amy Reardon

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n the USA Western Territory, as in some others, an annual theme for Youth Councils and the Territorial Youth Institute is chosen and used by all.  These themes are voted upon by all the divisional youth leaders.  Some of the themes we’ve had over the last few years include “Revolution” and “I’ll Fight!”

I’ve grown increasingly concerned over these themes.  Year after year they’ve prompted us to focus on winning others to the Kingdom, fighting injustice, changing the world.  All good things.  All crucial things.  But it seems that many of the young people who’ve been getting inspired to go out and make a difference are in need of some gospel themselves. I don’t mean that these kids are unsaved. But they’re still too early in the process of understanding the complete healing power of the gospel and applying it to their own lives.

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The welcome table

Heeding the call for social justice

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ono, the lead singer of U2, tells this story: “Before I had kids, I visited an Ethiopian camp/feeding station. A man came up to me with his little boy, a beautiful boy, and proud of his son, the man begged me to take his son home and through the translator he just repeated over and over, ‘You take him with you.  If he stays here, he will surely die.’ The rules of the camp are that you can’t take children home with you, you can’t adopt them. But in some strange way that day, I did take that little boy home with me. That interface with extreme poverty that day has driven me to call people of influence, power and wealth to account for what they are doing or not doing for their poor brothers and sisters around the world.”
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Religious worldview

by John Norton

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n a Short History of Progress, by Ronald Wright, the Rapanui people of Easter Island are examined as a microcosm of how religious worldviews dictate and direct all aspects of life. A religious worldview shapes culture, gives meaning to life and death and can determine the success or demise of an entire civilization.

According to Progress, the Rapanui people arrived on Easter Island in the sixth century on enormous catamarans. They were likely attempting to travel between known distant islands but were blown off course by a large storm and taken much farther afield, landing by chance on the Easter Island, which is just 64 acres in size.

Archaeologists have concluded that the Rapanui fished the abundant schools surrounding the outer banks of the island. They used their catamarans and built canoes with which to fish. With the abundant fish supply, the Rapanui’s population swelled to around 10,000. › Continue reading

Heaven and manipulation

by John Norton

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eaven is often made into the image of whatever is convenient for the teller. History is replete with descriptions and “revelations” about heaven that conveniently meet the interests of those in power.

The Bible is so vague about heaven: streets of gold, many mansions and a great banquet. In sum, the Bible largely speaks about heaven using unclear metaphoric language. It is the type of information that pretty much any of us could think up ourselves. The Bible doesn’t shed any light on the mystery. It doesn’t add anything I wouldn’t already imagine heaven to be myself.

Many progressive thinking Christians have trouble believing in hell, at least the fire and brimstone kind with eternal punishment as its goal. Instead, they adopt some kind of annihilationist theory or consider hell a metaphor for death. But my problem these days is with heaven and how it has been a tool of manipulation. I just find heaven has been too often used by those in power for their own purposes.

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Love Revolution

Mahatma K. Gandhi: Where there is love there is life.

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n his latest album It Is Time for a Love Revolution, Lenny Kravitz sings: “There ain’t nothing you can give me, I’m already there. I got love. I got love love. I got love love love.” It was released this year to mixed reviews.

Love. Many recording artists have written and sung about it; William Shakespeare and Danielle Steele have written about it; filmmakers have created beautiful love stories over the years; and many men, women and children around the world have professed their love for someone or something, somewhere.

I love my wife, Nancy. I love my daughter, Hannah. I love family and friends. I love God and the church family I’m a part of. I love the NFL. I love NHL, NBA, and MLB playoffs. I love movies. I love playing sports. I love reading. I love Jesus Christ. I love music. I love chocolate milk.

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On inerrancy

by John Norton

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cannot accept that the Bible is inerrant, by any plain meaning of that word. I take inerrant to mean “without error.” The Bible cannot be said to be inerrant, either in its original or copied or translated form.

This is not to say that the Bible is uninspired. The Bible was inspired (enthused, stimulated, stirred, moved, motivated) in its creation. It continues to be inspired and inspire as it is read by faithful readers today.

I am not a biblical scholar but it became obvious to me as a young adult that the Bible is full of contradictions, internal problems or errors. Therefore it is not inerrant.

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