Don’t forget the Macmillan Coffee Morning which will be on Saturday 26th September from 10 a.m. until 12 noon at church. Apart from the usual hot and cold drinks, there will be buns and cakes to eat and a variety of competitions and things to buy to help raise money for this worthwhile charity. Come along on Saturday to support this event – all money will be sent to Macmillan.

The ‘Churches Together’ meeting scheduled for 10th October has unfortunately had to be postponed. The next ‘Churches Together’ will now be the carol/ Christmas service on Friday 11th December at 7 p.m. at the Salvation Army. Please note this is on a Friday, not the usual Saturday meeting day for these events. Come along to celebrate Jesus with other churches!

The ‘baby shower’ will now be on Saturday 17th October from 12 noon until 3 p.m. at church, so we hope to see people there to prepare for new births! We’ll be decorating baby clothes and other activities; all welcome.

If we understand the Bible simply as a rule book, we’ve missed the heart of what God wants to communicate to us through this amazing book, all of which is God-breathed (see Heb 4:12, 2 Tim 3:16-17). Rules are not there as  an ABC ladder to climb, with God as the Z of our destination. We will never, by our own strength, be able to reach God, to live a righteous life in our own strength. In the book of Romans, Paul explains how the law was given so that people would be aware of sin and would be able to recognise the difference between their way of living and God’s. He says ‘I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law.’ (Rom 7:7) Rules act as boundary fences, showing us the way God wants us to live, demonstrating His absolute purity and ‘otherness’, showing us that we cannot simply approach Him in any haphazard fashion, but must come to Him on His terms. They also highlight our inability to live holy lives by ourselves. ‘The law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.’ (Gal 3:24) The laws and rules of the Old Testament point out to us, in case we thought otherwise, that we cannot reach God on our own, but that we need to receive His salvation by faith. Paul tells the Romans ‘no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.’ (Rom 3:20) God has given us rules not only to guide us, but also to awaken our consciences, to reveal to us the inadequacy of our own strategies and methods for reaching Him.

We tend to either feel utterly condemned by our inability to keep rules perfectly or smug because we think we are doing very well in regard to rule keeping. The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector (Luke 18:9-14) shows us that self-righteousness will never lead us to God’s forgiveness and justification. The Bible reminds us that God’s way of working is completely contrary to our expectations and desires; those who humble themselves will be exalted, but those who exalt themselves will be humbled. (Luke 18:14) Let’s not ignore God’s rules, but let’s also realise we need to come humbly before Him in penitence and receive all He has for us by faith.

The Bible constantly stresses the importance and value of people and helps us to see the prime importance of relationships – our relationship with God (after all, as the Westminster Catechism reminds us, ‘the chief end of man is to worship God and enjoy Him forever’) and our relationships with other people.

In the book of Genesis, we find the story of God’s relationship with mankind and how even though this relationship is broken through man’s disobedience and sin, God has a plan to restore everything and make everything new in its time. Larry Crabb, whose book ’66 Love Letters’ traces the key love story which runs through every book of the Bible, says that God in Genesis is in essence saying ‘I have a plan and you are invited to my party.’ (’66 Love Letters’, Larry Crabb, P 2) God’s relationship with Noah and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, not to mention Joseph, all emphasise this plan of redemption and restoration, showing us how even though people may fail God and let Him down, all He is looking for is people who will trust and obey Him, walking in daily relationship with Him. Each Old Testament book shows us more of God’s love and faithfulness: Exodus shows God doing whatever is necessary to carry out His plans, not being thwarted or daunted by the greatest world power of the day (Egypt); Leviticus shows us how holiness has to be a key part of our relationship with God (for He is holy, so we too have to be holy (Lev. 11:44, 45; 19:2)); Numbers shows us that relationships must learn to withstand trials and tests; Deuteronomy reminds us that even when we fail and are faithless, God remains faithful (see 2 Tim 2:13). These five books of the Law, known as the Pentateuch, with the Law being known as the Torah in Judaism, give us much information about the history of Israel, but primarily, they show us that God’s story involves a relationship between God and people and that God is working all things together for good.

The Old Testament tells the story of God’s chosen people, Israel, and emphasises the importance of this relationship with God above everything else. The history books (Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles) give us glimpses of how this relationship looked at different periods of history: how Israel prospered whenever she followed God’s commandments and lived in humble trust before Him, worshipping Him only, and how often she fell away through rebellion, disobedience and open sin. The books of the Prophets show us God calling His people back, yearning for that intimate relationship to be restored. Books like Hosea and Song of Songs in particular highlight the love relationship between God and His people, epitomised in the image of God as the Bridegroom and Israel (and later the church) His bride. At times, the prophets use the vivid imagery of adultery or prostitution (see Jer 3:1, Ezekiel 16 & 23) to emphasise the deeply personal nature of sin and how this spoils the relationship of love and trust which is God’s plan for every one of us.

Other Old Testament books are deeply personal: Ruth tells the story of deep loyalty and faithfulness in relationships; Esther shows us how one person acting with courage and determination can save a nation. The whole of the Old Testament shows us the value of relationships: Proverbs, for example, gives us good advice on how to get on with people in life, looking at family relationships, relationships with neighbours, relationships with employers and rulers and how to treat God. Psalms is a prayer book demonstrating personal communication between people and God.

When we get to the New Testament, we find that God’s plan of redemption and salvation is set out in 4 gospels (accounts of ‘good news’), each showing us different facets of God’s love and how salvation was worked out through the person of Jesus Christ, God’s own Son.The Acts of the Apostles and the New Testament letters continue to teach us more of God’s love, mercy and grace and how He is working everything out in conformity with the purpose of His will (Eph 1:11), a fulfilment finally seen in the book of Revelation. Relationships really do dominate every book of the Bible!

The Bible constantly tells us there is ‘so much more’ to life than what we can experience only on a material level. It paints vivid pictures of this unseen reality, especially in the Prophets, using all kinds of imagery: pictures of dragons and angels (Rev 12), chariots of fire (2 Kings 2:11), bizarre creatures with four faces and four wings and moving wheels (Ezekiel 1)… all of which can seem challenging and frankly strange to us, but there is clearly so much more to life than we can see with our senses, and the Bible challenges us to discover God’s reality as the backdrop for our lives. In fact, it challenges us to see God’s reality as the ultimate reality. In 1 John 5:14 in the Message version of the Bible, we read ‘My purpose in writing is simply this: that you who believe in God’s Son will know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you have eternal life, the reality and not the illusion.’ The purpose of the book of Proverbs is described as ‘a manual for living, for learning what’s right and just and fair; to teach the inexperienced the ropes and give our young people a grasp on reality.’ (Prov 1:1-6) Eccl 7:18 says ‘A person who fears God deals responsibly with all of reality, not just a piece of it’ and that’s our challenge too, dealing with all of reality – the invisible, eternal, spiritual sides of reality as well as the visible, temporal and physical sides, dealing with all of it and not just a piece of it. So much of the Bible challenges our shallow view of reality, like Isaiah crying out to all those who worship idols instead of the true God: ‘Make them face God-reality!’ (Is 44:11) The Bible reveals to us God-reality, which is really just another way of saying that God is the ultimate authority on life, the master on reality because He created everything that we see (John 1:1-3).

If we want to know how to get somewhere, we consult a map.

If we want to know how to put together a piece of flat pack furniture, we consult the instructions.

If we want to wire a house, we hire an electrician.

We go to the experts on these things or read their advice because we know that we can’t manage to do those things on our own. In the same way, if we want to know how to live well, we have to consult God’s manual and we have to accept that the Maker’s take on reality is going to be wiser than our understanding. In our Bible studies on 1 Corinthians, we’ve been exploring the differences between God’s wisdom and human wisdom (see 1 Cor 1:18-31, 1 Cor 2), seeing that our whole way of thinking has to be transformed because God’s foolishness is wiser than man’s wisdom and His weakness is more powerful than our strength. God’s reality is way, way beyond ours: as Paul cries out to the Romans, ‘Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!’ (Rom 11:33)

Last night’s service started by listening to some theme tunes from films: it was surprising how quickly people could identify a film title from just a few notes of a famous theme tune, such as Jaws or Indiana Jones. Musical themes are a kind of ‘shorthand’, plugging us in to the mood and atmosphere of a film, instantly helping us to identify with the theme of the film (the menace of Jaws or the swashbuckling action of Indiana Jones, for example.)

In our quest to answer questions about ‘The Bigger Picture’ of life and to understand how the Bible helps us to understand God’s story, we looked at some of the key themes of the Bible, identifying these as the ‘Three Rs’ (not the school ones of reading, writing and ‘rithmetic), but:

1. Reality
2. Relationships
3. Rules

Reality

Reality is defined as ‘the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.’ What’s real? What’s not real? Philosophers have debated these things for centuries, but the Bible deals with God’s reality as well as man’s. Most people in the Western world define reality as anything they can determine with their five senses, but the Bible insists that there is so much more to life than simply the material and physical. It contrasts the visible and the invisible, the temporal and the eternal, the physical and the spiritual. It tells us of a Creator God who is without beginning or end (Hebrews 7:3), a God who has always existed and who always will (see Genesis 1:1, Revelation 1:8, Deut 33:27), a God who is transcendent, wholly independent of the material universe, beyond all physical laws. It tells us of a reality which involves angels and demons, a reality where the heavenly realms are as real as the seas, mountains, lakes, volcanoes and terra firma of the earth. It tells us of life and death, not only in the physical realms we see, but in the spiritual realms we can’t see, showing us that God’s plan for His creation is for us to be with Him always: He’s set eternity in the human heart (Eccl 3:11) and has made us for an ongoing relationship with Him. The Bible challenges us to see a reality that is invisible to the naked eye, a reality that can only be perceived by faith.

Relationships

The Bible has been described as the ‘greatest love story ever told’, and it’s important that we understand that relationships are at the heart of this book. One of the key points of God’s reality is that relationships matter, that people matter, that God loves people and wants to be in a relationship with them. The love story of the Bible shows us that God loves us with an everlasting love (Jer 31:3) and has done everything possible required to make it possible for us to be in a right relationship with Him, restoring us when sin spoilt that relationship. It shows us God’s unfailing love (Ps 13:5, Ps 33:5, Ps 130:7),how His faithfulness and love are the bedrock of all relationships (Deut 7:9, Ps 36:5, Ps 57:10) and gives us insight into how all relationships are at the heart of life.

Right at the start of the Creation story, we read that after God created Adam, He said ‘It is not good for the man to be alone’ (Gen 2:18) and the rest of the Bible is in some respects a development of that theme, a development of the crucial fact, often forgotten in today’s society which relies so much on mechanical things and which prizes individualism so much, that people matter and that relationships are a key part of being human, with our relationship with God the essential ‘missing ingredient’ of life.

Rules

Most people think of the Bible as a book of rules, such as the Ten Commandments in Exodus, the ‘Golden Rule’ in Matthew 7:12, all the lists in Leviticus, with its prohibitions about what to wear, what to eat, who to marry, what to do if you have an infectious skin disease and so on, the rules given in Proverbs about how to live with your neighbours and conduct business. Few of us like rules, which can explain our dismissal of the Bible! However, when we’re learning about rules in the Bible, we can’t divorce these from what we’ve learnt about God’s reality or about God’s love and His desire for relationships; we need God’s Spirit to bring life to His Word so that we understand God’s heart, not just the actual words (see 2 Cor 3:6). God’s rules are not meant to bind us but to lead us to holiness and freedom and to show us, above all, that we cannot reach God on our own simply by following rules. Rules give us boundaries; they also clearly explain to us what is right and what is wrong, but they also point us to a Saviour who is the only sinless one (see Gal 3:19, Rom 7:7, 19, Rom 3:20-24).

Ultimately, the rules in the Bible show us God’s purity and holiness and our unworthiness, but they also point to the One who freely offers us holiness and righteousness (2 Cor 5:20-21). Without these rules, we would not know how God is to be approached; these rules are for our highest good to lead us back to that relationship with God which is all-important.

CPD (continual professional development) is the buzzword in many workplaces these days, reminding us that we never stop learning. It’s easy to take a test and then sit back, having passed, and proceed to forget all we have learned. Many jobs nowadays are aware of the need to keep on learning and provide regular opportunities for development.

Heb 10:23 reminds us that we must hold unswervingly to the faith we profess and this idea of navigating a ship, holding it on course, reminds us that we have a responsibility to develop in our faith, keeping true to God. Phil 2:12 tells us we must continue to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. So often, we think of faith as the ‘finished product,’ but just as all the recent wedding preparations were works in progress until the wedding day, so too we are works in progress. 1 Cor 3:1-2 reminds us of the need to mature from spiritual infancy to adulthood, being prepared to change and learn from every opportunity to grow which God sends our way (often disguised as trials!) 1 Cor 3:10-15 reminds us that the only lasting foundation for our lives is Christ, but we are to build with care. Often, bad habits can creep in and we are unaware of the problems, but 1 Tim 1:18-20 reminds us that our faith can be shipwrecked – which happens when we steer off course – if we do not align ourselves constantly with God’s Word.

SatNavs often chide us with the phrase ‘Turn around when possible’ when we have deviated from their routes. Ps 119:59-60 reminds us that we must turn back to God’s statutes when we have strayed. Many of the psalms are prayers asking God to search us and test us (see Ps 26:2, Ps 139:23-24, for example). We need more than a superficial glance; we need God to look deep within our hearts, even as an MOT on a car requires thorough testing. God’s purpose in testing us is restoration, but we need to be willing to hear the voice of the Spirit and return always to our first love.