First Advent Podcast

WordLive normally gives you a podcast for each weekday. But for a treat, as we enter Advent, we've got something special for you. For the next four weeks, on Saturday and Sunday there will be a specially recorded Advent podcast. You can download this or listen to it at WordLive, but that isn't all.

To go with the audio podcast we have created an enhanced version. This can be found at WordLive but is also available at the WordLive channel on YouTube. And because we love you so much it is also below...

Bible Illuminated The Book. The New Testament in magazine style

You can find out all about a new, glossy, magazine-style New Testament by following the link below. Whilst the article is very interesting and well worth a read (thanks Mr T), it is the comments that I find most enlightening.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7750842.stm

Prepared for Action

We are in a financial crisis. A common feature of the ongoing arguments about how the current crisis might best be resolved is criticism of the Government for not being better prepared for the global economic downturn. Why, opposition parties ask, was money not set aside in the good times for a time such as this? Meanwhile, as the political debate drags on, we must all prepare for tough times ahead. We must watch the pennies all the more closely when the pound can’t look after itself. And it happens that we must do so even as we prepare for Christmas, until now a celebration increasingly characterised by financial excess as opposed to restraint.

Looking ahead to the New Year, workers at Honda’s factory in Swindon must prepare to find something else to do with their time for the two months when it will close down due to the drop in demand. And rail users must prepare themselves for yet another significant increase in the price of their fares.

The repeated emphasis in our readings this week is the need to be prepared for the second coming of Christ. Put differently, our adherence to a biblical worldview, wherein it is certain that Christ will one day come again, has implications for the way we live now. And they are practical implications. True, we’ll hear Jesus telling us to ‘keep watch’ for his coming, but – as his parable of the talents and teaching about the final judgement using the imagery of a shepherd separating sheep and goats makes clear – that’s far from a summons to complacency and inactivity. On the contrary, our confidence in Christ for our salvation, and our certainty that he will return is to provoke us to bold, imaginative transformative action.

If we are prepared at all for the future coming of Christ, it will be demonstrated in our willingness to act in his name in the here and now.

Nigel Hopper

Accountability

As details of the appalling suffering of Baby P emerged in recent days, shock and disbelief gave rise to questions of accountability. Quite rightly, no one doubts that the men who inflicted such horrific injuries on the 17-month-old caused his death, but could social services have acted to prevent it? Could the government have acted to address alleged failings in Haringey social services’ child protection?

It’s in order to answer these kinds of questions that various inquiries into the tragedy have been launched. ‘If there are failures,’ commented children’s minister Ed Balls, ‘then there’s got to be accountability.’

Similarly, we might view the suspension of Jersey’s police chief as the natural consequence of his being accountable for the now discredited investigation into alleged abuses in the Haut de la Garenne children’s home. Elsewhere, Chelsea’s Didier Drogba has been informed that he must account to both the police and the FA for his altercation with members of the crowd at a recent match.

This week’s readings see Jesus hold the teachers of the law and Pharisees accountable for their pastoral failings of God’s people. As we’ll discover, Jesus doesn’t mince his words – a biblical precedent for taking issues of accountability seriously.

Several times over, Jesus labels their failings as hypocrisy – a charge often levelled at Christians today. Hypocrisy is play-acting – an outward charade that consciously and deliberately masks the inner reality. This is what Christ so savagely condemns.

Doubtless we can be guilty of hypocrisy, and these readings might well give us cause to repent. We need to be careful, however, that we don’t allow misjudged accusations to cause us to interpret as hypocrisy the honest mistakes that are inevitable as we journey and grow in faith.

Like us, Jesus’ first disciples were far from perfect, yet our readings this week close with Jesus assuring them that those who persevere in the faith will be saved.

Nigel Hopper

Back and running

In case you hadn't noticed, WordLive is back up and running again. The essential maintenance has been carried out and been completed. We're back.

WordLive interruption

There is a bit of work happening on the WordLive server tomorrow (actually it is the big daddy Scripture Union server) and unfortunately that means WordLive will be offline for a while. So for a hopefully short time on 11th November we'll be offline.

The power and the glory - topical thoughts

Power is wielded by all sorts of people in all sorts of ways for all sorts of reasons in our world.

• The American people have exercised the power of their votes to send Barack Obama to the White House.
• The defeated John McCain has exercised his power as a politician and media figure to call his country to unite behind the President-elect.
• In DR Congo, government troops, rebels and UN Peacekeeping forces are all caught up in a power struggle, with disastrous consequences.

Closer to home, in a dramatic bid to kick-start our floundering economy, the Bank of England has exercised its power to cut interest rates. And a jury has exercised its power to judge Corporal Daniel James guilty of abusing the power entrusted to him in his role as a translator for a British General in Afghanistan by spying for Iran.

Whilst the exercise of power for good or ill in our world is always everywhere in the news, the all-powerful God revealed in the Bible is seemingly nowhere. Our culture shapers and storytellers just don’t ‘do God’.

The book of Joshua, however, does – and what a God it does! This week’s readings remind us that God has the power to control nature, sustain life, is sovereign over the land, establishes justice and acts mightily on behalf of his people.

This God is our God. He may not make the headlines, but according to the Bible, he continues to work out his purposes through history. As God’s people, we should view the affairs of this world and the events in our lives through the eyes of faith, alert to the reality of God’s involvement in all things.

Such was the perspective of Joshua, who prepared to relinquish his God-given power as Israel’s leader by renewing the covenant, calling them to unity and obedience to God, whose saving initiative defined their national history. This radical perspective is sorely needed in our times, suffering as we are from the consequences of our idolatrous pretensions to God’s throne.

Nigel Hopper

Follow Joshua this week at WordLive