Brotherhood

Introduction

It is a poorly kept secret that I have, for some considerable time, viewed “men’s ministry” with somewhat of a jaded eye. I have not been greatly inclined to engage in breakfasts, lunch meetings or studies supposedly targeted towards making better Christian men - and for a very good reason. They are for the most part an ineffective event. By that I don’t mean that what is being talked about at these meetings is necessarily bad or incorrect (although I do reserve the right to use the word “tedious”), nor do I suggest for a single moment that there is not at least a modicum of benefit from Christian men gathering to have fellowship with one another. But if one were to measure the usefulness and/or effectiveness of the ministry in terms of developing spiritual maturity and lasting benefit to either the men involved or the church in general, you might be enticed to draw a similar conclusion to that which I have so boldly stated.

My view is that men’s ministry cannot be a special monthly event, or a weekly program – it is potentially even more than the more intense activity of discipleship. I think that men’s ministry is a “cultural” thing, and the development of men in the church requires “cultural change” – it has to be ingrained into the very nature of our church. It is a committed push towards developing true spiritual men (i.e. men that are full of and controlled by the Spirit of God).

If there was a true commitment to seeing men act as true men of God, and were being trained from their youth to develop strong spiritual character, the church would be defined by characteristics such as strength, purpose, effect, stability, authority and integrity. These characteristics would be manifested through the men in the church – setting an example to follow. If you agree with me on this proposal, then it follows that we as men have an obligation to lead but not as authoritarians - as a group of men that takes responsibility.

That said, and despite what appears to be the overt cynicism that I initially brought to the subject, I have begun to see that there is some benefit in a form of men’s ministry, but it takes a form that is considerably different to that which has traditionally been touted.
It is to that end that I write this discussion paper on the concept of men’s ministry built around the philosophy of what I will for the moment term “brotherhood”, and why this could potentially provide the impetus (or at least a genesis) for creating effective men’s ministry.

Disclaimer

Much of what I have written may give the appearance that I am being overtly critical of the church in general. However I do not write from a position of strength – rather, I write with a sober realisation of my own shortcomings with respect to the standards and demands that God has established. Any criticism is first and foremost directed at myself, and I certainly in a poor position to “pass judgement” on no one.

Biblical basis

A little background is in order so you get a feel for why I started writing about this subject…and perhaps the circuitous route that I’ve taken. The background is important – it might help to explain why I have seen this subject as important, and perhaps some of the questions that arose in my mind as I studied it.

I had for some time been looking into the ministry gifts, which Paul defines in Ephesians and again in 1 Corinthians. The ministry gifts are referred to in other areas as well but these are the major sections. These gifts include pastors, teachers, evangelists, prophets and apostles. This is all good stuff, and clearly necessary for the church to grow (according to Paul, who laid it out for the Ephesians).



As you can see from the attached graphic, there is quite a range of ministry gifts – and each has a particular purpose. These ministry gifts will, in the future, prove to be the “anchor points” for the church (more on that later).

Ephesians seemed to be a good place to start when thinking about how to develop a strong church. Paul writes that the people fulfilling these ministries are there to create a specific effect – let me spell it out in terms of how the bible refers to them:

• The work these ministry gifts accomplish results in the perfecting and the full equipping of God’s people (i.e. the aim is for us to reach the full level of maturity that God has for us individually and corporately)
• God’s people then do the work of ministering toward building up Christ's body (i.e. we have the responsibility to bring about this level of maturity that God has planned for the church)
• As they do this, the church develops until we all attain oneness in the faith and in the comprehension of the knowledge of the Son of God (i.e. we move from being bound together by physical factors and start to be interconnected spiritual beings – connected to one another and with God)
• This results in us achieving really mature manhood - completeness of our spiritual personality

The language that Paul uses when talking about these gifts may sound a bit “spiritual” but there is some real practicality contained in these words that needs to be teased out. Stay with me!

I have had ongoing debates with various friends about the potential for us to become perfect here on earth – I won’t burden you with that discussion (but it rages on, much to my delight). Sufficed to say though that Paul is talking about a capacity for the church to build up to a point where we can achieve what he terms “really mature manhood”.

It’s this concept that led me to conclude that, unless the ministry gifts are operating effectively, we as a church are not going anywhere! Unless we have true pastors, teachers, etc operating in the church and doing their job, we are going to see the opposite of what Paul was talking about. A church without the ministry gifts is a church characterised by ill-equipped saints, who have no capacity and potentially no interest in ministering to and building up the church. There will be division in the church (a lack of “oneness in the faith”) characterised by opposing views and potentially outright conflict. The church will in effect be a collection of children, not exhibiting the real maturity of which Paul speaks.

Disturbingly, there is evidence to support the view that the church has indeed infantilised itself by failing to place appropriate focus on the ministry gifts, and I specifically use the word “appropriate”. There’s a lot of talk about these ministries, and many are lionised as being holders of these positions, yet the lawyer in me is persuaded by the strong circumstantial case that these people are either not who they say they are, or they are not fulfilling the role to which they have been called.

It’s probably more correct to say that the church has not taken the appropriate steps to initiate an environment in which people can begin to grow into these roles. Perhaps there is a lot of focus on the gifts, but no real action in the background to develop people into these roles. Part of the problem we have experienced to date has been that there is a focus on fitting people into ministry roles without the precursor steps of growing people in their capacity to take on responsibility.

One of the reasons that I think that this subject is so important is that we are at somewhat of a watershed moment in the history of the church. I am convinced that God wishes to see the model that He revealed through Paul brought to life. This is going to require some pioneering work, and perhaps even a few mistakes, but it is to that end that I think that this discussion about brotherhood has some merit – it creates the environment for bringing these ministry gifts into being, and the “hard men” that are ready to step into the roles.

Hidden dangers

This paper is not a discussion on how the ministry gifts operate, but I do want to point out a particular aspect of the gifts of which we should perhaps be aware.

There is great power and authority to attaches to these ministries. Like nuclear power they have great potential for good, whilst at the same time they can have a devastating effect if not undertaken with care and circumspection. An incredible level of responsibility attaches to the ministry gifts – probably more so than is generally spoken of.


There is a specific order to the gifts, starting with those that speak in unknown tongues, moving all the way up to the apostles. Each carries with it a level of power, responsibility, and authority. As one moves up the hierarchy of gifts, we see increasing levels of authority, but contemporaneously the level of responsibility changes. For instance, administrators attract a relatively low (but in no way insignificant) level of responsibility, and apostles attract the highest level of responsibility.

What I am suggesting is that one of the reasons that some of the gifts are not being seen is because God is still looking for people whom He can trust, who will act selflessly, and who understand the spiritual concept of “taking responsibility”.

I would venture to say that we see, in some quarters, the role of the teacher being undertaken. It is interesting to note that Paul said that the church of his time did not lack for teachers – back in his time (and I suspect in today’s age) plenty of people would take on that level of responsibility, and exhibit sufficient spiritual maturity to be entrusted with that position. However, the greater roles require a level of commitment and I suspect God finds it increasingly difficult to identify people who can take on those roles. It is as if there is a “ministry threshold” that exists.

Paul creates a dilemma for us – whilst proposing that we need these high responsibility ministry gifts operating in the church, he also says that we should be very careful about aspiring to those ministries. With responsibility, authority and power comes accountability and a requirement to meet a higher standard – and the potential for condemnation and severe repercussions for failure.

Yet it remains that, without having each of these ministry gifts working together, we have a church akin to a high performance engine with some critical components removed. The potential for remarkable performance exists, yet this will never be achieved whilst we’ve only got half the engine operating.

The “shape” of the curve on the graph is important – you’ll note that responsibility/selflessness are not directly proportional to power/authority. I don’t at this time propose that my reasoning is entirely correct, but at least intuitively I suspect that our level of selflessness needs to grow at a faster rate in comparison to the power and authority that would accompany us. Why? Primarily because of the inherent risks that attach to receiving God’s power – and there are risks. I said previously that we are talking about power and authority here that is far more potent than anything that we can at this time imagine, and given our predisposition towards selfishness there is always the risk that we could allow our own desires and pride corrupt and usurp God’s work through us. Unless selflessness outstrips authority, corruption could most certainly creep in.

The Dilemma

Having been convinced that there was a requirement for these ministry gifts, and that God needs these ministry gifts to be operating effectively before anything else can really progress, I then began to wonder why we don’t see people fulfilling these functions. Let me be more specific (and put the pressure back on myself for a moment) – why do I have such limited “drive” to meet the requirements of responsibility and selflessness to be positioned for higher levels of ministry (forgetting the labels for the moment).

I’m working from what I believe to be the strong premise that God is ready, willing, and able to create some rather remarkable and amazing things happen in our lifetimes. His nature is inherently creative and imaginative, and if we mix that with what we have learned of His desire to have a close relationship with us, these things combine with the potential for staggering results.

What I’m proposing (and I reiterate that these are proposals only) is that God’s capacity to do all these remarkable things is stymied by one or more of these three things:

• The lack of need for these roles to be filled right at this time; and/or
• The lack of people willing to step up into these roles; and/or
• The failure on God’s part to appoint people to these roles.

I think that all of these options are worth considering. God may perhaps be holding off on “formally” appointing people to these roles for the very reason that people are unwilling to step up. Or maybe He doesn’t require the roles to be fulfilled right now – maybe they are designed for another time and place. Maybe it’s the case that there are people who are fulfilling these functions, but they are not recognised (or “labelled”) according to the schema proposed by Paul. Any one of these scenarios is a possibility.

I would hazard to say that were it the case that these appointments as prevalent as God intends, we would not see the dysfunctional state of the church that we now see.

One thing I do recognise though is that I have seen people appointed to these roles by the church into one of these ministry areas, only to fail to meet what are the biblical expectations of that role. People that claim to be prophets who fail to speak with authority or wisdom. Pastors that fail to take care of their congregations. Teachers who handle the Word carelessly. There has historically been a “failure to deliver” from people who supposedly have been entrusted with these ministry gifts. Sure, they’ve been willing to undertake the role, but there are question marks over whether they are truly stepping up into the role (which I’ll discuss) and more importantly there are questions surrounds whether they have actually been gifted in the ministry they so boldly undertake.

The church can only handle so much responsibility at the present time. The church “hangs” on the ministers along the curve…kind of like a curtain hangs by hooks along a curtain rail.
Given that there are a lot of missing “hooks”, what we end up with is a “sardine effect” in the church – we are all packed together down one end of the Responsibility/Authority Curve because there are no hooks to allow the church to expand outwards towards greater maturity.
The attached graphic gives an example. If the most mature level of ministry in the church is the “helper” then there is nothing for the church to “hang on” beyond that ministry gift” The result is like a shower curtain that is drawn aside and bunched up down one end of the curtain rail (the shaded area).

Now I need to make something abundantly clear here – just because we cant see people exhibiting higher gifts does not give us an excuse to maintain our current level of maturity. This whole paper is about trying to create impetus for us to “slide along” the rail and become those “hooks” that God needs. Forget the labels on the graph at the moment – God will appoint people when and where He sees fit – but the precursor is for us to create an environment where this can happen (the pioneering work I mentioned earlier).

When we start to talk about building God’s kingdom, what we are talking about an environment where we have God’s power and authority evident, which requires all the “offices of government” to be assigned. All of the hooks are available for the kingdom to hang together.

Stepping up

I think that the genesis of the problem we are seeing in the church stems from this failure to step up, and so it’s worthwhile looking at what this actually means, particularly since I am placing the responsibility for this problem back on the men of the church, and thus the need for men’s ministry to be geared towards this little problem.
I need to take a short detour here for moment to talk about the concept of love, with a view to setting the scene for some more “tough stuff”.

Don’t zone out of me, OK? One of the problems that I have had when people start to talk about God’s love, or God being love, is that it tends to go straight through me. I totally agree that “God is love” – I’ve all been taught this since forever. However, what this phrase actually means and implies necessitates a far greater understanding of God’s character – the concept of love is an incredibly large and complex subject. Sadly, it has become a “throw away line” that has lost significance…probably due in part to the fact that our concept of love has become rather tainted.

I don’t intend to write a huge diatribe on love – rather, I want to make particular note that one of the defining characteristics of “perfected” love is complete selflessness.

Paul gives a pretty comprehensive rundown of how love manifests and how it is characterised. It is God’s character we are talking about here – these are the character traits that God exhibits consistently, and that motivate His every thought and action. You will note that selflessness features heavily in the definition proffered by Paul. Try this as an experiment – wherever you read the word “love” in the bible, replace it with the word “selflessness” – you’ll see why I see selflessness as arguably God’s most dominant character trait.

I previously proposed that every ministry gifts requires a person to have at least some of God’s character active within them. The higher ministry gifts require a person to have adopted God’s character and values to an even greater extent.

That being the case, it could be suggested that the church is notably devoid of ministry gifts because it lacks love. This is rather bold statement to make; however you would think it likely that the church that effectively adopted God’s characteristics and values (all wrapped up under the general banner of “love”) would be a spiritually vibrant and highly influential organism (and note that I have steered away from the word “organisation”). A church that displays spiritual maturity, comprehensively exhibiting all levels of ministry.

The ministry gifts (and the spiritual gifts in general) provide a good indication on the health of the church. God ‘s gifts must be operated in love (otherwise the whole Chernobyl thing I was talking about earlier). The people that are “stepping up” are those within which God will choose to invest His gifts.

Where we as individual parts of the church are focussed on our own lives to one extent or the other, we inevitably create levels of insulation - we are separated from one another.
This is controversial in that it could be argued that we all have responsibilities in life that we need to respond to that preclude us from connecting – we simply don’t have enough time, energy or capacity to be selfless. I’ll talk about that shortly, leaning heavily on some of the things that Paul wrote about…which shows that this is not a new issue for the church!

Setting a foundation of values

I have previously written extensively about the fact that we are tripartite beings i.e. we are made up of three distinct parts – body, mind and spirit. Our body is the part of us that interacts with this physical world – pretty straightforward. Our mind contains our emotions and our attitudes…this results in the behaviours that we exhibit. It is also the part of us that contains our free will (which is another massive subject that will have to be left for another time).

Our spirit doesn’t really get a good “look in” because it seems to sit behind the scenes – we know that we have one but realistically it seems to be the “passive” element of our make-up. Yet, nothing could be further from the truth.

This could be controversial; however it is my view that it is our spirit within which our values are seated – our concepts of good and bad, right and wrong, driving the way in which we live our lives.
The main reason that I come to this conclusion is actually quite simply. God is a spiritual Being, and I would propose that God is not a Person that is driven by His emotions. He has always been motivated by His values. God’s values must be embodied within His Spirit…after all, where else could these values be contained?

As I said, values are the things that direct our attitudes and behaviours. Our values drive our attitudes. Our attitudes drive our behaviours.

It makes a certain amount of sense, doesn’t it?

OK, the reason that I am talking about this issue is that selflessness is an attitude that stems from the value of love, and I am proposing that the attitude of selflessness is key to what God wants to do in the church at the present time. To bring it back on topic, I believe that men’s ministry has become inwardly focussed, encouraging men to look at themselves and their own issues, rather than encouraging men to look outside themselves and selflessly expend themselves).

Love has connotations of being “soft” or “weak”, yet careful revision of I Corinthians 13 should modify your thinking – exhibiting the behaviours that spring from the attitudes that love creates within us requires considerable selflessness – in fact, it requires an exercise of self-control and self-discipline of great proportions. To go one step further, it requires a “hard man” to be able to manifest love the way that Paul lays it out in 1 Corinthians 13.

God’s Spirit was given to us not simply so that we had His presence with us at all times, nor did the Spirit come just so that we could have power and special gifts (and in saying all that I do not in any way seek to diminish the value of the aforementioned). One of the key purposes for the Spirit being given us to live within us was to create a “value change” – a capacity to develop and “socialise” the values of God. When we do that, our attitudes and behaviours will change. We have no capacity within ourselves to be selfless. We are predisposed towards self-preservation – it is hard-wired into our natural core.

Much more could be written here, but imagine if you will a group of men each of whom acted towards one another with selfless, putting the value and importance of their “brothers” ahead of their own. Men that were motivated by God’s Spirit at all times. What would be the outcome? How “tight” would this group of men be? This leads into the idea of “connectedness”.

How “connected” should we be?

I keep reminding you that this manifesto is about brotherhood. Brotherhood itself is part, a subset if you like, of the larger concept of Christian unity and the way in which we, as spiritual beings, need to be strongly connected to one another.

Unity is kind of a scarce commodity in church circles – factions and cliques abound. Some of the factions within the church are rather passive in nature – people with particular interests or at a particular place in life. A generalisation of course, but reasonably accurate. For instance, married couples with young families gravitate towards one another. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Similarly, young people will tend to move within their own circles, sharing similar life experiences. Again, this is not altogether a bad thing. Musicians, artists, lawyers, doctors – churches contain all the various “subcultures” that we see in society at large.

However, there is the risk of exclusivity creeping into the church. It starts small, building up over time. In fact, it becomes part of the character of the church.

It is not unusual that there are so many churches that break down or split. Satan is a patient being, and he is quite happy to let the fissures and factions build slowly. I don’t think it is Satan’s preferred option that churches break down and split apart in a spectacular fashion - a factionalised church has far greater potential for ongoing negative influence (generational influence in fact). However, I also have no doubt that Satan takes some considerable pleasure in seeing churches fall apart.

The church is cognisant at some level of the need to create unity and connectedness, and to that end we see a plethora of programs and events that are designed to connect people with one another. The issue here is not with the programs themselves – I am sure that there is much benefit to be gained – but rather that there is no true spiritual unity that underpins these programs and events.

Unity is not something “man made”, and in fact any attempt to create unity through natural means results in a house of cards, liable to fall at any time. Society is characterised by what social scientists have called “contracted relationships” – which basically refers to relationships that exists whilst the individuals involved see that there is some personal benefit in being in the relationship. I see no reason to believe that the church and its programs would not suffer from this, and indeed there are some hard questions to be asked about the large numbers of people that leave a church when they are personally dissatisfied (rather than because of God’s direction). The church is at fault in these circumstances – it is upon the church that rests the responsibility to proactively develop spiritual unity.

Unity is not a mutual thing – there is nothing “equal” about unity. It would be nice if it were mutual, because this would mean that each part of the church is contributing equally to the unity of the body. Yet this doesn’t seem to be the case, and neither does the bible suggest that we could expect this to ever happen.

The creation, development, and maintenance of unity is, by it’s very nature, against the laws of nature. Our natural tendency is towards disharmony, a proposal that many may argue with, but we see it both as a scriptural principle and in the world around us.
Because it is such a hard thing to bring about, the responsibility for unity absolutely falls to the stronger members of the body. It is incumbent upon the more mature Christians to act as the “reinforced concrete” that provides strength and flexibility to the body.

It’s a funny thing about reinforced concrete. Concrete on its own is very strong, but it suffers from being brittle and having an inability to stand up under unusual stresses and loads. Putting rods of steel through the concrete allows it to flex and take on those unusual loads.
We are in a position of strength as Christians, but unfortunately we cannot be “loaded” - we can bear our own weight (most days), but problems arise when you start loading on anything else! To carry the analogy forward, God is looking for mature “load bearing” Christians that not only have the strength of character that is required (i.e. they hold to and are driven by God’s values) but also embody the flexibility that is required (i.e. they are selfless and exhibit the full gambit of attitudes that fall out of having God’s love).

Again, I am of the opinion that this starts with men of God displaying these ideals, and this invariably will involve sacrifice. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the concept of brotherhood is heavily characterised by sacrifice – it costs us something in order to be a true brother.

It is the case that we have various rights prima facie that we could lean on if we wanted to. We see that Jesus had rights when He was here on earth (because He was God after all), but the bible says that He did not “leverage” those rights. Jesus understood what it meant to be a “brother” rather than demanding respect and obeisance to His authority.
The idea of sacrifice is sort of tempered by the fact that we are motivated by love, and the selflessness that attaches to that.

Paul talks a bit about this in Corinthians, and we see how even he as an apostle was willing to sacrifice and flex where required in order to create unity and be useful to the people with whom he came in contact.

Breaking the insularity

In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul writes quite extensively about the issue of marriage, and this scripture has probably received some bad press over the years. Paul was an unmarried man, and in his letter to the Corinthians he proposes that a person is better off remaining single than to seek to be married. He makes various allowances on that matter, recognising the difficulties that we all have as human beings, yet he also makes it clear that there are problems that attach to being married.

However, to simply look at this scripture as Paul’s “jaded” views on marriage is short-sighted and desperately ignorant. Understanding that every scripture was written to teach us something of a spiritual nature and with a view of developing our spiritual maturity and relationship with God we should look behind what Paul was saying to understand his motivation for writing this stuff.

In the preceding chapters of Corinthians, Paul gives the church a flogging. Firstly, he berates them for being unable to sort out their own internal disputes (and instead were they were taking each other to court….good for lawyers, not so much for church unity). The chapter before that he rakes them over the coals concerning their lack of purity. Jump back one more chapter and Paul actually sounds a bit sarcastic, saying that the Corinthians were behaving as if they “had their act together” (and this is also the chapter that speaks about having many teachers but very few fathers).

Paul hits 1 Corinthians 7 in full flight, having laid a foundation in the preceding chapters wherein he saw fit to audit the health of the church (which was his prerogative as an apostle)– with damning results:

• The church had become self-important (because they were after all a pretty good church);
• The church was complacent (and were quite effectively justifying that complacency);
• The church was focussed on personal desires and needs (many of which you would not prima facie consider inappropriate).

It’s within that paradigm that Paul is telling them to think very carefully about the lifestyle that they desired, because (as he said in 1 Corinthians 4) the church had hit the ministry threshold – their capacity to build and strengthen the church had topped out at the level of teachers. Exceeding that threshold required them to break the insularity that they had built up.

Higher ministry gifts, as we discussed, carry higher levels of responsibility, authority and power, and along with that is a requirement to become more selfless. Insularity and self-focus has little place in the life of a highly gifted minister.

Making it happen

This whole thing becomes an interesting academic exercise unless we move from theory to practice, and I was determined to propose some ideas or options for moving us along the curtain rail I mentioned earlier.

In saying that, I also have a strong recognition that God works with each of us differently, and it would be inherently dangerous to propose that my journey is the way for everyone. The most effective means of avoiding this risk, I believe, is to ensure that any proposal has a “watertight” scriptural basis.

To that end I am only going to propose one idea upon which God might then build something. Again, I think Paul nailed it, and for the sake of the exercise I have noted the entire passage that I want to refer to and use as my modest foundation.

Galatians 6:1-5 (Amplified Version)

BRETHREN, IF any person is overtaken in misconduct or sin of any sort, you who are spiritual [who are responsive to and controlled by the Spirit] should set him right and restore and reinstate him, without any sense of superiority and with all gentleness, keeping an attentive eye on yourself, lest you should be tempted also.

Bear (endure, carry) one another's burdens and troublesome moral faults, and in this way fulfill and observe perfectly the law of Christ (the Messiah) and complete what is lacking [in your obedience to it].

For if any person thinks himself to be somebody [too important to condescend to shoulder another's load] when he is nobody [of superiority except in his own estimation], he deceives and deludes and cheats himself.

But let every person carefully scrutinize and examine and test his own conduct and his own work. He can then have the personal satisfaction and joy of doing something commendable in itself alone] without [resorting to] boastful comparison with his neighbour.
For every person will have to bear (be equal to understanding and calmly receive) his own [little] load [of oppressive faults].

Let him who receives instruction in the Word [of God] share all good things with his teacher [contributing to his support].

The cunning plan that I want to present to you as a starting point for moving forward pretty much focuses entirely on what Paul wrote to the Galatian church. This was an important letter that Paul was writing here – in fact, whilst it suggested that Paul often dictated his letters to others to write for him, Paul says in Galatians 6:11 that he was writing this letter himself (noting that his handwriting was quite distinct) – it was significant that Paul didn’t use a “middle man” for this letter, and that what went on paper came straight from his heart.

Note also that the Galatians were a pretty strong church, but something had caused them to “top out” and stop progressing. They had started out very strong, but had got sidetracked somehow. I would encourage you to go back and read Galatians before enduring any more of what I have to write, and to read it with a recognition that this was a real church with the same kinds of problems that we experience today. They weren’t stupid people – in fact, in many ways, their church far outstripped our own. Yet they seemed to reach a ministry threshold, and Paul writes with a desire that they break through that self-imposed ceiling.
OK, assuming you’ve read Galatians, I want to crack the passage in chapter 6 and present my case for the “go forward”.

There seems to be 5 primary things that we need to get to grips with:

1. There were some people in the Galatian church that were “spiritual” i.e. that were responsive to and controlled by the Spirit. Clearly this was a church in which there were people committed to a strong relationship with God, and a relationship that meant that they had high spiritual sensitivity. With that kind of character, these people would have undoubtedly taken on the challenge of replacing their own selfish values and desires with God’s values.
2. It was this group of people that had developed a high sense of sensitivity to the Spirit that Paul charged to act very selflessly – although they may perhaps have had grounds to consider themselves superior because of their maturity in God, Paul tells them to act with gentleness and to take responsibility. This group needed to be “load bearing” or, to use a previous analogy, to be the “reinforced concrete” in the church that could provide strength and flexibility. They provided the hooks upon which the church could hang. Whilst “mutuality” is implied (“bearing with one another’s burdens”) it’s clear that Paul isn’t suggesting that it was “quid pro quo”. Taking responsibility means picking up the load without an expectation that the person you’re helping will return the favour!
3. Paul focussed this group on the people for whom they needed to be responsible i.e. people that were both inside and outside the church (but particularly those inside). Being spiritually aware as they were, it would be a safe assumption that this core group knew who they should be responsible for, and what they were supposed to say or do in the situation…they would be alert for the opportunities.
4. Paul encouraged this core group to be self-reflective, and realise that there were high risks attached to the responsibility and authority that they embodied (the most prevalent risk being that they would consider themselves too good to be “load bearing” Christians, and that they had transcended the need to be involve themselves in “lesser duties”). Paul leaves them in no doubt that they were not perfect, and that there are always things that even this mature group of “stabilisers” needed to be careful of. They had their own faults – potential “cracks in the concrete”. Paul doesn’t try and tell these people what they should do (they were, after all, controlled by the Spirit) but rather he focussed on the fact that they needed to work on their selflessness and “step up”.
5. Whilst the core group bears the load of those that are not necessarily as mature, it is also the case that they have a responsibility towards the higher level “hooks” – a need to share and encourage those that have greater burdens of responsibility and authority. The people that constitute these higher hooks have their own faults and problems, and Paul’s words establish some “expectation management”. Because someone is placed in a higher ministry position does not provide a basis for judging that person – they are not perfect! Rather, Paul encourages the core group to stabilise the both those “below” and “above” them on the ministry curve.

How does all this give us a practical approach? Importantly, how does this relate to Christian men? Let me propose a way forward:

Proposal #1
We need to spend more time developing a practical relationship with God, and by that I mean that do three things:

• We recognise God’s presence with us at all times, and take active steps to acknowledge that;
• We maintain a constant expectation that God will communicate with us (in some way, shape or form); and
• We develop a increasing obedience to the guidance and teaching that God gives us (either in the moment or as we study the Word).

Proposal #2
We should recognise that our character is inherently selfish – left to our own devices, we will invariably take a path that is at least partly selfish. It is not within our own ability to act selflessly – the behaviour of true spiritual selflessness can only originate from a person that is controlled by and responsive to the Spirit. Sure, we may act selflessly (in the eyes of others) but if this doesn’t originate from God’s motivating power then it’s pointless, fruitless, and in fact selfish! For that reason, we need to be constantly self-evaluating, and indeed we should be quite aggressive in this task, thinking carefully about what we are doing and why we’re doing it. Put bluntly, are we acting from Spiritual motivation and Godly values?

Proposal #3
We need to understand that God has made us “hooks” for one or more people in our environment, which encompasses both the church and those outside the church. Even with our relatively limited stature as “spiritual” men, we have to recognise that we sit at least somewhere on the ministry curve, and that means we’ve got a responsibility right now to stabilise our environment and become “load bearing”. It is a worthy exercise, I believe, to commit to paper those people for whom God has made us responsible, and I challenge you to suggest that there is not at least one person on that list. Those people are, for all intents and purposes, the most important people in your world. You will be held accountable for them.

Proposal #4
We should further recognise that a special responsibility is placed on men to be the first to step up. Paul’s writings may appear anti-feminist; in fact, he is capturing on paper God’s design for men to exhibit the values and characteristics of God. Paul writes that God is the authority over a man, and man over a woman. The implication is enormous. God is the epitome of selfless. Men should therefore act more selflessly than women. I propose that men have this special demand placed upon them.

Proposal #5
We as men need to disengage from the doctrine of mutuality and embrace the doctrine of unity. Practically, this means that we are not looking for an equal and “balanced” response from those for whom we are responsible – in fact, we should resolve ourselves to the fact that there will be apparent inequality because we are load-bearing. Acting in brotherhood means a recognition that we are carrying our spiritually “younger” and “older” brothers and sisters (Christian and non-Christian). The concept of “balance” and “mutuality” is not biblical and is in fact selfish – it will kill our capacity to be selfless.

When to begin

I should be quite overt about defining the group to which I believe that this approach applies, and to that end I want to start by highlighting a problem.

We focus our men’s ministry on men in a demographic of around 18 years old and upward. Cutting to the chase, my view is that we’re pretty much shutting the gate after the horse has bolted by focussing our attention here. Trying to change the culture of a person once their values and personal culture is set in place and well established is an incredibly difficult and time-consuming exercise. King Solomon captured this concept in Proverbs, recognising the need to begin instilling values at a young age.

I have no intention of developing this particular tranche further, other than to say that fathers have a particular responsibility to begin to instil the ideal of selflessness and responsibility in their sons from an early age. This is predicated on the assumption that men are in fact setting an example to their families and those around them – it’s pointless preaching something for which there is no example. It is unsurprising that Paul writes about the need for those who are the “hooks” in the church to have their act together when it comes to presenting an example worth imitating.

Conclusion

I am somewhat embarrassed at the rather clumsy fashion in which I have presented some of these principles, and have a strong recognition that there are elements of this subject that are important but have not been touched upon. Undoubtedly as you consider the matters I have raised, my inexperience will be exposed!

That said, I am personally concerned to preserve the ideal that the church requires selfless men to break apart the ministry threshold with which are currently burdened. Whilst at some points I paint a rather indifferent portrait of the current state of affairs, I trust that we might be enticed to consider that God has a desire at this time to “hook up” his church on strong anchor points, that we have been placed at this juncture in history for a particular purpose, and that we have a part to play.

Healing misrepresented

Introduction

I struggle with blind acceptance of biblical principles, and by that I don’t mean that I don’t believe the bible whole-heartedly. What I mean is that it is inherently dangerous to read something in the bible and base a belief on it without understanding what God’s intention was and the principles that surround the particular promise or commandment.

One of the principles of the bible that has been taught to us since we were children is that of God’s capacity to heal. I have never questioned the fact that God has this capacity (and I still don’t) yet a quick straw poll of a few close Christian friends indicates to me that God doesn’t seem to be doing much healing.

This created somewhat of a concern for me – if there is a biblical principle there that says that God will heal us, and He isn’t doing so, there must be a problem. Healing is presented to us in the bible as a promise – something that can be relied upon. In the legal world, this is called a contract, and in fact it’s the case that contract law has developed around the centuries old principles of the promiser (the person giving the promise) and promisee (the person receiving it).

I thought that it might be useful to approach this issue from a rather legalistic perspective in the first instance, and doing this I don’t intend any disrespect – it is simply a vehicle to bash out the issues.

So let’s assume that God is being sued! God will be the Defendant in this matter, and the Christians will be the plaintiffs (the people bringing the complaint).

Let’s pretend for a moment that this is a real case – that Christians are suing God for failing to deliver on His promise of healing. When lawyers a preparing to go to court and fight a case, what we do is develop a case theory – basically, a summary of the arguments and the evidence that will be used to support those arguments.

The plaintiffs’ case really pivots on a few simple issues:

• God claims to be ready, willing, and able to heal;
• God has put in writing His intentions regarding healing;
• God does not deliver on this stated intention, or alternatively, God only delivers on this intention at His sole discretion;
• As a result, the promise that God has given is unreliable or uncertain;
• The bible contains many stories of God’s healing power in action, but these stories misrepresent God’s actual intentions for Christians today;
• The “contract” says that the reason that Christians don’t receive from God is because they ask with “selfish motive”, and given that the request for healing could conceivably be classed as “selfish”, God has created a contract that is entirely “unenforceable” – that is, there is no way that Christians can possibly “force” God to deliver on His promise; and
• We have suffered damage as a result of the God’s failure to deliver on His promise.

Reasonably straightforward case I would have thought. I believe that, had I been briefed to appear for the Christians in this class action against God, I would be in a reasonably strong position.

An outline of the submissions has been prepared by the legal team for the Christian, summarising the arguments they intend to make to the court at the trial. The document is a little bit “legalistic” but you’ll get my drift as you read (and potentially re-read) the submissions. Hopefully, you’ll see from the outline of submissions the crux of the arguments that is being made.

______________________________________________________________________________

IN THE SUPREME COURT

Applicants: CHRISTIANS

And

First Defendant: GOD

OUTLINE OF SUBMISSIONS
ON BEHALF OF THE PLAINTIFFS

Background

• This is a class action commenced by the Plaintiff against the Respondent with respect to a breach of contract;
• The Defendant has specified in the Contract that the Defendant would heal the Plainifffs (hereafter referred to as “the Service”);
• The Plaintiffs maintains that the Respondent has breached an essential term of an expressed and implied unilateral contract by failing to provide the contracted Service;
• Alternatively, the Plaintiffs submit that the Respondent has displayed a willingness to provide the Service; however the Respondents has acted in a discriminatory nature and only agreed to provide the Service at the discretion of the Defendant;
• The Plaintiff seeks damages and compensation from the Defendant.

Essential Terms & Conditions Precedent

• The unilateral contract in question was made by the Respondent on various dates between 1445BC and 80AD in which the Respondent made two (2) specific representations, namely:
• To forgive the plaintiffs of all their sins; and
• To heal the plaintiff of all their diseases
  

• The Contract is considered unilateral as said Contract was constructed without the requirement for a mutual promise, that is, that there was no requirement for the Plaintiffs to provide consideration for the creation of the Contract;
• The offer to provide the Service contained within the subject Contract did not require the Plaintiffs to accept the offer;
• The Plaintiffs concede that certain expressed and implied obligations (constituting consideration on the part of the Plaintiffs) attach to the provision of the Service, those being:
• that the Plaintiff must ask;
• that the act of asking must be accompanied by faith;
• that the motive for asking must not be from selfish motive.
  

Representations

• It is submitted that the Contract was represented to the Plaintiffs by the Defendant on the basis that:
• The Defendant had an intention to create a legally binding Contract;
• The Defendant had the requisite capacity to provide the Service;
  

• The Plaintiffs have relied upon these representations, and presumed reasonably that said representations were provided in good faith;
• It is conceded that this Honourable Court may look to external standards, which are either mentioned explicitly in the Contract or implied by common practice in the subject field;
• It is respectfully submitted that the Defendant had represented His capacity and capability to provide the Service by communicating the Defendant’s previous record of Contract compliance, with primary reference to the practices of Jesus Christ on various dates between 0 BC and 3 AD;
• The Defendant further communicated His capacity and capability to provide the Service by reference to the activities of various authorized agents, namely:
• His appointed executive officers (traditionally referred to as “the twelve (12) apostles”); and
• Various and subsequently appointed agents (and in particular the agent commonly referred to as “the apostle Paul”)

Time to Completion

• It is submitted that the Contract implicitly indicates that the healing to be provided by the Defendant would occur contemporaneously with the request for said healing;
• It is submitted that no provision, either explicitly or implicitly, has been made within the terms and conditions of the Contract for said healing to be delayed; however despite the fact that the Plaintiffs concede that time is not of the essence it remains that:
• The Defendant should complete the Service within a reasonable time; and
• The Defendant has represented that the Service would be provided immediately;
  

Unreasonable Conditions

• It is submitted that the Defendant has unilaterally and unreasonably relied upon two (2) clauses within the Contract in order to avoid provision of the Service, namely:
• That the Defendant has unilaterally required that the Plaintiffs understand His intentions and will prior to asking for the Service; and
• The Defendant has required that the Plaintiffs exercise faith, without providing any reasonable facility to evaluate whether sufficient faith has been exercised by the Plaintiffs
  

• Accordingly, it is submitted that these terms should be considered by this Honourable Court to be severable on the grounds of uncertainty;

Breach of Contract

• It is submitted that the Defendant has failed to heal the Plaintiffs of their diseases:
• The Plaintiffs complied with all conditions precedent to said completion;
• The Plaintiffs, in accordance with the Contract, made reasonable requests of the Defendant for healing;
• As a result of the Respondent’s failure to complete the contract, the Plaintiffs have suffered loss and damage.

Damages

• The specific damages that the Plaintiffs have suffered are as follows:
• Ongoing physical ailments, including physical pain and discomfort; and
• Ongoing mental ailments, including depression, anxiety and fear; and
• Interest pursuant to section 47 of the Supreme Court Act
• Costs
  

___________________________________________________________________________________

Defence case

I would think that God’s legal team is going to address the case fairly aggressively – after all, there’s quite a bit at stake here. God’s whole character and reputation is built on the premise that He is reliable, trustworthy, truthful, and powerful. This case is questioning some of these claims.
God’s lawyers are defending the claim on the following basis:

• The representations that are made are reliable;
• Healing is available to everyone;
• God has a proven track record of healing;
• Christians are expecting healing without fulfilling their obligations;
• Christians have an incorrect understanding of the contract, which provides God with grounds not to provide healing.

Defence is going to argue their case, and attempt to prove that God is ready, willing and able to heal the Christians, on three main bases:

• that the Plaintiff must ask;
• that the act of asking must be accompanied by faith;
• that the motive for asking must not be from selfish motive.

Let’s get into court and see what happens!

The trial commences

In any trial, there are going to be a number of things that the parties don’t see eye to eye on – that’s the reason that we’re in court! However, there will usually be things that the parties do agree on, and the judge generally wants to know right up front what the “agreed facts” are.

Agreed facts

The judge in this matter has been informed of the following “undisputed facts”:

• Firstly, that the parties agree God has the power to heal – that’s not in issue – everyone agrees that God is powerful and capable healing;
• Secondly, that God has a track record of healing – the parties don’t dispute the fact that God has healed in the past and that the bible contains a truthful account of God’s activities when it comes to healing;
• Thirdly, it is not disputed that God hears Christians when they pray to Him;
• Fourthly, it is no disputed that Christians are actually asking for healing;

Issues to be decided

Given these agreed facts, the judge is being asked by the plaintiffs to focus on deciding two main issues:

• Has God reasonably withheld healing because the Christians have failed to ask in faith; and
• Has God reasonably withheld healing because the Christians have asked with a selfish motive.

These are fairly reasonable grounds for the defence, and given the rather eclectic and perhaps “fuzzy” nature of the conditions it seems that God has created a contract that gives Him a good “escape clause” if and when He decided not to heal someone.

Escape Clauses

• How do you measure empirically whether a person has the faith to be healed – there is no scientific measure of faith, and no evidence that could be put before the court to prove that a person has faith or how much faith a person may have?
• What about the selfishness piece? It would be reasonably easy for the defence team to prove that, when we are asking for healing, we are asking with ourselves in mind. We want the healing for ourselves. We want it for our own benefit. That would quite reasonably constitute a “selfish motive”.

A lawyer, advising the Christians as to their prospects of success at trial, would be considering these issues and considering the matter from the perspective of the judge. And taking that tack, I would say that the plaintiff lawyers are suggesting to their Christian clients that they “settle out of court”.

But these Christians are a litigious and stubborn bunch, and they want to bat on because “it’s the principle of the thing”...words that are music to the ears of any lawyer, and the reason that so many of them drive luxury cars and drink expensive wine in penthouse apartments all around the city. When clients say “principles” a lawyer hears “money”. So, despite the odds, the trial is going to go ahead. Game on!

Argument #1 - Faith

Consideration of faith

We said that there are effectively three conditions for God to fulfil the contract – asking, faith, and lack of selfishness. Having established that the “asking” is not in issue (because everyone agrees that the Christians are asking), we need to deal with the other two issues. The first point to be argued is faith.

The defence team will argue that Christians lack faith, and that’s one of the reasons that God doesn’t heal them. There are good grounds for this argument – the bible makes particular mention of men and women that had faith, as well as those that did not.

The judge in this matter needs some certainty about what the parties are talking about when they use the word faith, and the judge calls for some definitions and discussions (fully expecting that there are some strong arguments to be had).

The plaintiffs argue that faith is a characteristic – its something that you develop, and it would be unreasonable for God to expect us to have faith in Him unless He did something that gave us reason to trust Him. The plaintiffs make a “chicken and egg” argument – they want faith so that God will do something for them, but God won’t do something for them unless they have faith….and around and around it goes. This is the classic “Unreasonable God” argument, where the Defendant has seemingly established a circular dependency that cannot be broken into or out of.

The defence readily concede that the concept of faith is a difficult one (and the plaintiff lawyers turn to one another and congratulate themselves on how clever they are). However the defence team’s position and counter-argument proves to be quite interesting, and causes the plaintiff team to scratch their heads and stop congratulating one another. The defence makes a rather novel argument, submitting that faith is not something that Christians can develop within themselves – faith is not something that the Christian can directly generate – and in fact the plaintiffs have incorrectly defined faith as a characteristic that God wants Christians to exhibit. The defence argument is that faith is in fact a lifestyle, not a characteristic.

Taking that then one step further, defence argues that the act of “asking in faith” does not mean asking whilst exhibiting the characteristic of faith – what it means is asking whilst living a life of faith.
A rather confused look crosses the face of the judge at this juncture, and the judge starts asking questions…

________________________________________________________________________________________

(Judge) - “Let me ensure that I understand your position – you are saying that faith is not a characteristic - or perhaps to put it another way, you’re saying that faith is not a character trait?”

(Defence) - “That’s so, Your Honour”

(Judge) - “And you are saying that when your Client talks about faith, what He is talking about is a lifestyle?”

(Defence) - “Yes your Honour, that’s our position.”

(Judge) - “What you also propose is that faith is not something that the plaintiff can develop of their own volition?”

(Defence) - “Yes, your Honour, it’s our position that faith is not something that a human being can develop themselves directly, and furthermore because it’s not actually a ‘thing’ per se.”

(Judge) - “You realise, Counsel, that you’re skating on incredibly thin ice, don’t you?

(Defence) - "It may appear so at first blush, Your Honour, but that’s our position nonetheless".

(Judge) - "Can you give me some kind of analogy that might assist me in understanding exactly what you mean?”

(Defence) - "It may appear to be a fairly rough example, but perhaps we could compare it to physical fitness. One cannot simply have the characteristic of fitness – it requires a considerable number of lifestyle choices. Fitness may finally be classed as a characteristic of a person, but primarily it relates to the lifestyle of the person".

(Judge) - "So, if I understand where your argument is going, and I don’t mean to put words in your mouth, what you are proposing is that the plaintiffs may potentially not be asking in faith because they are not living the lifestyle that your Client has established for them – is that a reasonable summary?”

(Defence) - "Your Honour has indeed summarised our position most eloquently.”

__________________________________________________________________________

The concept of anticipation

I haven’t quite got this next concept all sorted out in my mind at this stage; however let me give you what I’ve got and what my current understanding is.

I have indicated in previous documents that the concept of faith can be looked at a number of different ways, and I’m about to add another to the list. For the purposes of this paper, I define faith from two perspectives:

Firstly, reiterating what I’ve said already, faith is a lifestyle rather than simply a characteristic. I’m not saying that it is not a characteristic, but for the Christian it is should be considered as such.

Secondly, and again considering faith from a lifestyle perspective, living by faith means living in such a way that you are actively making space for God. How we each do tis will be different, and God requires different things of all of us. Sufficed to say that by putting our own desires, thoughts, biases, etc to one side and allowing God to take that space, we give God some “elbow room” to work in and around our life.

Thirdly, and this is the new concept, faith is a state of spiritual anticipation. By that I mean that faith actually results from the Holy Spirit living in us, and as a result of that we begin to sense what God’s intentions at any given time and in any given situation. That “sense” then results in a spiritual anticipation.
Ok, now that I have kind of packaged together some fairly simplistic view on faith (I hope), now I want to take it one step further.

Activating faith

Let me give you a scripture that most of you will have read a million times before:

James 2

17 So also faith, if it does not have works (deeds and actions of obedience to back it up), by itself is destitute of power (inoperative, dead).

18 But someone will say [to you then], You [say you] have faith, and I have [good] works. Now you show me your [alleged] faith apart from any [good] works [if you can], and I by [good] works [of obedience] will show you my faith.
…
26 For as the human body apart from the spirit is lifeless, so faith apart from [its] works of obedience is also dead.

This scripture sound familiar? I have always been taught (and thus I have always believed) that this scripture means that you cant say you have faith if you’re not using it to do something for God. Indeed, it has been a “helpful” scripture for many a church to get their congregations engaged in doing something, or as a motivational tool to get people out of their seats and get into “exercising their faith”.

I’d like to propose a slightly different take on this scripture.

Whilst I agree that there is a need for us to be active Christians. One of the “activities” that we might typically be involved with is to pray for healing for someone (just to keep the whole thing topical). Some might say that this is “faith with works”. But I need to give you another scripture.

In Mark 9, we see the disciples praying for a boy that was possessed by a demon that caused him to be unable to speak. Not only that, the demon would force the child into water and fire with the intention of killing the child. The demon refused to budge until Jesus cast the demon out. Read this scripture – it was a pretty traumatic event.

In verse 28, the disciples asked Jesus privately why they could not drive the demon out? Jesus says that this kind could not be driven out by anything but prayer and fasting.

My point is that the disciples didn’t lack faith – they had a spiritual anticipation and expectation. They even had a track record of being able to drive out demons. I think what was happening here (as with most of what Jesus did in front of the disciples) was that Jesus was both teaching a spiritual principle and demanding that the disciples rise to their next level of spiritual maturity. The disciples were being asked to focus on their preparation and discipline. Jesus was pointing the disciples at the need to spend time in prayer and fasting to prepare for the situations that they would encounter. Faith without preparation and discipline results in a Christian simply talking a “big game” – lots of noise, plenty of excitement, high levels of expectation…but no result.

Lifestyle change

So basically I’m asking myself this question – what would compel me to change my lifestyle from the one that I live now to one where faith is central (rather than peripheral)? More than that, how can I make the lifestyle “stick” rather than it being like the gym membership that I signed up for that never really took off?
The answer is not simple (sorry about that!)

Stay tuned - there's more to come on this!

Adjournment

A brief adjournment has been called to the case as the defence team wish to do some research into this issue of faith.

There are a bunch of scriptures that comes to mind when we think of faith, and it is generally thought of a belief and confidence in God to do something. That definition isn’t entirely incorrect; however, it is an incredible over-simplification of what faith is.

The classic scripture that comes to mind when thinking about faith is this one…

Hebrews 11:1 NOW FAITH is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].

This scripture gives us a good starting point, because it really makes it clear that faith is a big concept.
Firstly, faith is more than just belief in what God can do. I would suggest that faith is more about “enlightened perception” – seeing things the way that God sees them.

It goes a step beyond this though - faith actually brings together several important concepts:

• The fact that God is actually capable of doing the impossible, and He is ready to do so;
• The fact that God’s character is such that He only does the impossible;
• The fact that our “situations” are not coincidental – that God’s purpose for our lives is so comprehensive that it can be defined on a minute by minute basis;
• The fact that we have the capacity to understand God’s purpose on that “minute by minute” basis – we are not puppets, nor is it God’s intention that we live our lives in the dark.
• The fact that God has a desire to be involved in our day-to-day situations – He has not only defined the purpose, but wants to be involved in bringing it to fruition – and furthermore that we have confidence in the fact that He will become involved;

It’s worth “soaking” in these ideas for a couple of minutes, rather than simply agreeing with them (or disagreeing!). I would think that few Christians would have any problem with these proposals – so why don’t we feel that God is responding to our faith in the same way that He did with the people we read about in the bible? Dangerous territory, I will concede; however we might as well ask the hard questions!

“Starting Faith”

I said earlier that our spirit is switched on 24x7, but “active” does not mean “perceptive”.

I mentioned above that being faithful is a three-part exercise in seeing things the way that God sees them, understanding the purpose that God has in the situation, and having a level of confidence in God’s intention to get involved (as we give Him space to do so).

The encouraging thing is that there is at least some faith in all of us – if we totally lacked the ability to see things the way that God sees them, then we would never have turned to God in the first place.

The bible talks about having faith the size of a mustard seed – a tiny seed about 1mm across and virtually weightless – so small in fact that it’s hard to pick up with your fingers. Mustard is an annual plant that grows so fast that it is the type of seed that most farmers would not deliberately sow in their fields - a single mustard plant may grow to about 4 meters (15 feet) high in just weeks & sprout many leafy branches that overshadow other slower growing plants.

I refer to this small amount of faith as “starting faith” – the faith that we all have. The amazing thing is that even this small amount of faith can really make a difference. The disciples were talking to Jesus one day, and wanted to have bigger, more effective faith. Look at what Jesus says.

Luke 17:5-6 The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" He (Jesus) replied, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you.

Interestingly, Jesus talks about this again after the disciples could not drive a demon from a boy. Jesus explains to the disciples why they had failed…

Matthew 17:20 He said to them, Because of the littleness of your faith [that is, your lack of firmly relying trust]. For truly I say to you, if you have faith [that is living] like a grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, Move from here to yonder place, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.

Jesus then goes to say that the demon that He cast out could only be dealt with through prayer and fasting – time spent with God, and time spent focussed on “relocating”. Starting faith is great, but we’ve go to take some action to “plant” that seed firmly. And that’s where the Spirit comes to our assistance…

Faith and the Spirit

This scripture is going to make a regular appearance, but I’m going to keep reprinting it anyway:

2 Peter 1:5-8 For this very reason, adding your diligence [to the divine promises], employ every effort in exercising your faith to develop virtue (excellence, resolution, Christian energy), and in [exercising] virtue [develop] knowledge (intelligence)

And in [exercising] knowledge [develop] self-control, and in [exercising] self-control [develop] steadfastness (patience, endurance), and in [exercising] steadfastness [develop] godliness (piety),
And in [exercising] godliness [develop] brotherly affection, and in [exercising] brotherly affection [develop] Christian love.

For as these qualities are yours and increasingly abound in you, they will keep [you] from being idle or unfruitful unto the [full personal] knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).

It’s verse 9 that follows the “fruits” verses that I want to highlight:

For whoever lacks these qualities is blind, [spiritually] shortsighted, seeing only what is near to him, and has become oblivious [to the fact] that he was cleansed from his old sins.

So, winding this passage of scripture back a bit, we are blind if we don’t have faith – we will lack God’s perception of situations, we will fail to understand God’s purposes, and we will lack confidence that God actually intends to get engaged in the situation.

And because faith is a quality or fruit of the Spirit, we will be “blind mice” if we don’t allow the Spirit to truly be with us and working through us on a consistent basis.

Taking it just one step further – if we choose not to relocate into the spiritual realm that we’ve been talking about, we are making a positive choice to be blind…or to put it the way the bible puts it, we are being “wilfully blind” (Eph. 4:18).

Argument #2 - Selfish motive

The defence “curve ball”

One of the most stressful things about trial work is the unpredictability of what can and will happen in court. It is also one of the things that makes trial advocacy interesting and exciting – it’s a kind of “full contact sport” where you pit your skills against an opponent in a highly charged tactical game.

Almost inevitably, at some stage in the trial, your opponent throws you a “curve ball” – something that you were not really expecting. Usually, if you’ve done your preparation and have looked at all the angles, these curve balls don’t cause you too much damage. However, from time to time, there is an argument that is raised by your opponent that can really cause you some difficulties.

The defence team have kept their powder dry and are now ready to release a curve ball that may well cause the whole trial to come to an abrupt end. And here it is…let’s hear the transcript of the submissions made by the defence lawyer:

“Your Honour, my learned colleagues for the Christians maintains that my Client will not provide the healing that they have asked for pursuant to the promises made by my Client.

It is my respectful submission, however, that the Christians have failed to understand what, in fact, my Client has promised to deliver – that is, that the Christians have a fundamental misunderstanding of what “healing” actually means, and I will address this momentarily.

Firstly, I submit that my Client has been prepared from the outset to provide healing, and in fact what has happened is that the Christians have refused to accept the healing that has been presented to them.”

(There is a brief break in proceedings at this juncture whilst the judge tells the plaintiff lawyers to bring their clients under control – the Christians are apparently a little upset at this submission by the defence team, and have started making some rather uncomplimentary remarks. Order now having been restored, the defence lawyer continues.)

“The fundamental misunderstanding that I eluded to is this – the Christians have identified what they perceive as an illness, disease, complaint or ailment – and they have sought to have my Client restore them to health. It is my Client’s position that this was never His intention.”

(Again, the plaintiff lawyers clap one another on the back and light cigars in the court room at this admission by the defence…they quickly put out the cigars though as defence continues with their “curve ball”).

“What my Client intended, has always intended, and with respect to this intention presents with a proven history, is that His healing would have a transformative effect rather than simply a restorative effect on the lives of the Christians. Moreover, this intention by my Client extends beyond Christians and applies just as readily to the non-Christian.”

“The problem is, from our viewpoint, that Christians do not want to be transformed – they just want to be restored to the position that they were in. If they have a physical injury or ailment, they want the physical healing. Our Client wants to do far more than that – the healing that He provides goes against the laws of the natural world and is intended to focus people on God in such a way that the person that is healed AND the people that see the healing are affected in a transformative way".

Stay tuned - more to come....




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