The love of God is often talked about and preached about (especially on Valentine’s Day!) and it’s important that we do so, because as a rule, we find it immensely difficult to believe that God could possibly love us! We find it difficult to grasp His goodness and love, especially when we face difficulties and suffering, but Hebrews 12:4-13 reminds us of the important role of discipline in God’s love and in being a part of His family.

Most of us associate discipline simply with punishment, but discipline means sticking to the right paths. We speak of the discipline needed to succeed in sports or jobs such as the army, and discipline can certainly be a positive thing. Even when we are punished, we need to remember that God does this out of love, not to cast us out of His family or by withdrawing His love from us. God’s aim of discipline is to get us back on course, correcting us so that we learn the best way. (1 Cor 11:32) Discipline also has the aim of training us, educating us, developing and nurturing us (see Acts 7:22, Acts 22:23). God’s word is given to us to train and correct us. (2 Tim 3:16)

Our reactions to God’s discipline can vary. We can make light of it, treating it as inconsequential. We need to know that God is interested in the mundane and the everyday and that suffering for our faith is inevitable (John 15:18-19). Even Jesus learned obedience through what He suffered (Heb 5:8-9) and suffered temptation as we do (Heb 4:14-16). God can use everything He allows into our lives for good.

Our other reaction to God’s discipline is often to lose heart and to give up. God promises that trouble and suffering can refine us, knocking off our sharp edges and refining us like silver. (Ps 66:10-12) Whether we face the fire or the flood, God promises to be with us (Isaiah 43:1-2); we are shielded by God’s power, even as we suffer grief in all kinds of ways at present. (1 Pet 1:3-7) God is still in charge, no matter what we face, and His discipline has the goal of our wholeness, completeness and ultimately His glory!

Discipline is intended to help us grow and develop as God works with us and walks with us. It may not seem pleasant to us, but it’s a necessary part of being a child of God, and as such, we need to welcome it as a friend instead of treating it as an enemy.

Today is Valentine’s Day, the day when we celebrate love, especially romantic love. ‘Love’ can mean many different things in English, but the ultimate definition of love is found in 1 John 4:8,16 where we are told that ‘God is love.’

1 Cor 13:4-8 gives us a further explanation of what this love looks like:

It’s hard for us to comprehend the scope of these statements. We were created in God’s image (Gen 1:26-27) and because God is love, that means we were created in love and in order to love; we have the capacity to love as God does. Love became tainted through sin when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, but God, in His magnificence, did not forget us but chose to give His Son so that we can have everlasting life and not perish. (John 3:16) God cares for us so much that He wants us to enter into His total love, installing this perfect love in our lives and bearing this love as the fruit of His Spirit. (Gal 5:22-23)

Gal 2:20 reminds us that the life we now live is because the Son of God loved us and gave Himself for us. We are called to take hold of God’s love and let it be outworked in all our thoughts, words and deeds.

What is your raison d’être? The French phrase means ‘reason for being’ and could be said to summarise our purpose in life.

The book of Exodus is pivotal in understanding God’s purposes for His people. It’s the story of His intervention by miraculous means in the lives of His people, leading them out of slavery from Egypt. It’s a ‘type’ or ‘foreshadowing’ of the liberation from the slavery of sin which Jesus obtained for us on the cross, and the notion of freedom through sacrifice – in Exodus, through the sacrifice of the Passover lamb and in the New Testament, through the death of Jesus, our Passover Lamb, on the cross – is one of its main lessons.

Interestingly, however, the book of Exodus goes further than simply being the historical narrative of a nation’s escape from slavery. It points to our very raison d’être, to the whole purpose of life: worship of God. The whole thrust of Moses’s arguments to Pharaoh were based on the command from God, ‘Let my people go so that they may worship me in the wilderness.’ (Ex 7:16, see also Ex 8:1, 20; Ex 9:1, 13; Ex 10:3) Some have commented that the world may well understand our work for God, but they will never understand our worship. Letting a whole nation go to allow them to worship God seemed preposterous to Pharaoh. But worship of God is at the very core of our purpose and we need to ensure it is at the heart of all we do.

LIsten to ‘Made To Worship’ by Chris Tomlin here.

The debate between Paul and the Sanhedrin (Acts 23:1-11) does not go smoothly, with Paul effectively accused of blasphemy and further dispute between the Pharisees and Sadducees who made up the Sanhedrin over the issue of the resurrection (which Paul claims is at the heart of his arrest and which inevitably caused arguments because the Sadducees refused to believe in the possibility of resurrection.) The scene ends, as it did with the crowd, with chaos and the intervention of the Roman commanding officer. But, as Tom Wright comments, “the moment of crisis becomes the moment of vision” (‘Acts For Everyone Pt 2’, P 170), for the Lord appears to Paul in a vision and reassures him that as he has testified about Him in Jerusalem, so he must testify about Him in Rome. (Acts 23:11) This is reminiscent of his vision in Corinth (Acts 18:9-11) and is a feature of a life of faith. We may not talk about these visions much (perhaps because we fear other people’s reactions: after all, hearing voices that do not belong to people is a sign of madness, we are told), but God has always known how to encourage His people, and often, it is the direct word from God – which may come through Scripture, through other people, through visible signs in nature as well as through an audible voice or inescapable impression – which gives us the heart to continue through crises.

Paul might well have doubted that he was doing God’s will since his arrival in Jerusalem had done nothing but provoke opposition and persecution. This vision must have confirmed his sense of vocation, that he needed to go to Rome, that he was, in effect, ‘on the right track.’ Sometimes we doubt ourselves and we doubt that we have heard God properly; despite multiple evidence to the contrary, we still persist in the belief that if we are doing the will of God, this will mean an easy, comfortable ride with no problems or obstacles, and thus when those problems and obstacles occur, our hearts fail and niggling doubts arise (which the enemy is keen to fuel.) God knows that at such times we need His reassurance and encouragement, and so it is often at moments of crisis that God speaks clearly into our situations, lifting us up, giving us fresh vision and hope.

We can’t ‘manufacture’ these moments, but we can certainly be glad for the times when God steps in, reassures us and helps us to carry on by His grace.

‘Divide and conquer’ means gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into pieces that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy. Effectively, we are reminded that when people are united and work together, they can achieve far more than when they are divided and disunited (a principle first seen in Genesis 11 with the Tower of Babel.) This is perhaps one reason that unity is stressed so much in the Bible (see Ps 133, Eph 4:3).

In Acts 23:1-11, we see Paul dividing the Sanhedrin by speaking of being on trial for his belief in the resurrection of the dead (Acts 23:6), for the Sadducees were conservative in theology, adhering to the letter of the Pentateuch, while the Pharisees were progressives, ready to ‘modernise’ the law by their interpretations of it. It was, therefore, the Pharisees who were open to the idea of resurrection, a belief which is far from being clearly seen or taught in the Pentateuch. Jesus’ exposition of the law in this sense (Luke 20:37ff) was certainly a novelty to his hearers. Paul introduced this issue into the discussion by claiming that he was a Pharisee and what was really at stake was the question of belief in the resurrection. This, of course, led to the claim of the resurrection of Jesus, which put the Pharisees in a difficult position! (They believed in the resurrection but were not so keen on admitting that Jesus had been raised from the dead!) The dispute was fierce and eventually led to the commanding officer once more taking Paul away from the scene without really being any wiser about the source of the problem, since he did not understand these theological differences.

In this passage, we see how easy it is to divide people according to certain beliefs or practices. This has sadly continued in the Christian church, with denominations often being formed because of dispute over certain practices, which may well be important, but which do not need to divide. Paul wrote about the importance of unity and diversity, reminding us that unity is not the same as uniformity. (Rom 12:4-8, 1 Cor 12:12-31) We do well to remember this, and also to see how Paul focussed on the really essential matter in this passage. The resurrection of Jesus cannot be consigned to merely a debating point. Many matters of faith and doctrine may be important but not fundamental; the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, however, is at the heart of our faith and Paul was right to say that ‘I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.’ (Acts 23:6) The Roman officer may not have understood the significance of this statement, but this was at the heart of the dispute between Paul and the Jews. We do well when this is at the heart of our testimony, even if it does divide those who hear this message, because this is the cornerstone of our faith.

In Acts 23:1-11, we see Paul in dispute with the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council. The Roman officer who has intervened because Paul was in danger of being lynched by the crowds is still no further forward in discerning the root of the dispute between him and the Jews, and so he brings Paul before the Sanhedrin to try to understand something of the issues which have so aroused the ire of the Jews. At the start of this section, we see a dispute between Paul and the high priest Ananias in which tempers seem to run high (Acts 23:1-5); we see also something of the difficulties between respect for God-given structures and what happens if officers do not, by their actions, uphold God’s ways. Paul calls him a ‘whitewashed wall’ (see also Matt 23:27-28, Ezek 13:10-12), and although when rebuked for speaking against the high priest he does apologise, upholding the office, it is clear that his words carry something of a prophetic denouncement which is at the heart of political theology.

Political theology is a term which has been used in discussion of the ways in which theological concepts or ways of thinking relate to politics. The term political theology is often used to denote religious thought about political principled questions. Tom Wright says of Paul that he ‘manages to hold together two things which people often find difficult. On the one hand, he certainly will respect the office. Without that, chaos is come again. That is the long and the short of his famous passage in Romans 13:1-7. God wants the world to be governed, because he wants people to live in peace and justice, and if you don’t have structures of justice, then the bullies, the extortioners and the rest will always win. The problem of course, is when those structures become structures of injustice, but the present passage meets the question head on. The fact that you must respect the structures does not rule out, but rather actually includes, the duty to remind the people currently operating the structures what it is that they ought to be doing, and for that matter not doing.’ (Tom Wright, ‘Acts For Everyone Pt2’, (P 168)

This is always a topical question. In our current situation, politicians are legislating on matters to protect people during a pandemic, but there are always situations when we may feel they have overstepped the mark and are intervening in matters beyond their remit, limiting our freedoms in ways that are not helpful and may in actual fact be more harmful than the situation itself. Opposition to government measures has been excoriated; anyone who questions whether lockdowns are the most effective way of dealing with the present situation, for example, has been on the receiving end of fierce abuse. Paul shows us in this passage that we cannot live an a-political life; theology and politics will inevitably come into conflict with each other, and we need to be prepared to speak out against injustice and wrong, allowing our beliefs to inform our politics rather than simply allowing politics to dictate what we believe and how we act.