"For people who interpret every part of the Bible literally except for The Sermon On The Mount, we pray.@unvirtuousabbey"
It struck a chord because no matter how much time I spend (and how many essays I write) on working out the best best way to interpret various bits of the Bible, how different stories were originally intended and understood, what 'literal' and 'historical' and 'mythical' even mean - it's still so easy to ignore its call and its challenge. It's easy to study the words of the Bible and not listen to God's Word. Even when I do remember that I'm meant to be living it out in my every day life, it's still tempting to get wrapped up in the difficulties, the controversy, and claim it's difficult to know exactly how to live without getting Paul to write me a personal epistle about my personal situation.
And then I remembered the Sermon on the Mount. Never let me say that I don't know what God wants me to do with my life until you're convinced that I'm putting into practice everything in Matthew chapters 5 to 7. Perhaps the most captivating part of the whole Bible, the most revolutionary manifesto, the clearest teaching we have from Jesus, and yet the most ignored by Christians who claim to take the Bible most seriously. Myself included.
So I made a resolution (shortly after New Year but I reckon it still counts) to work through the Sermon on the Mount in my time with God each morning, however slowly I need to, asking him to show me what it would look like for me to start living according to these three short chapters. And then I'm going to pray for the grace to do start doing it. There might be a few blog posts about it along the way...
In the mean time, here's a song (specially the second verse) which captures for me something of the excitement and the possibility of living out what it means to be part of God's kingdom and to want to see it in our every day contexts.
And then I remembered the Sermon on the Mount. Never let me say that I don't know what God wants me to do with my life until you're convinced that I'm putting into practice everything in Matthew chapters 5 to 7. Perhaps the most captivating part of the whole Bible, the most revolutionary manifesto, the clearest teaching we have from Jesus, and yet the most ignored by Christians who claim to take the Bible most seriously. Myself included.
So I made a resolution (shortly after New Year but I reckon it still counts) to work through the Sermon on the Mount in my time with God each morning, however slowly I need to, asking him to show me what it would look like for me to start living according to these three short chapters. And then I'm going to pray for the grace to do start doing it. There might be a few blog posts about it along the way...
In the mean time, here's a song (specially the second verse) which captures for me something of the excitement and the possibility of living out what it means to be part of God's kingdom and to want to see it in our every day contexts.
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