Posted by Gareth Matthews | Posted on 21-02-2006
Category : Bible
Ok – so bare with me on this one I promise I’m not going mad – but this idea has got my thought juices flowing, so thought I would post it here
I’ve been reading 1 Peter recently; a top book by all accounts. However, one part of it has really intrigued me and that is the passage in 1 Peter 3:18-22:
For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in prison who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. continued…
I was reading this passage in my NIV study bible and they had some interesting ideas about the interpretation of this passage. There are three viewpoints described here:
- This passage is meaning that the pre-incarnate Christ went and preached through Noah to the wiked generation of that time.
- This passage is meaning that Christ went to the place of the dead in the time between his death and resurrection and preached to spirits of Noah’s wiked contemporaries.
- This passgage is meaning that Christ went to the place where fallen angels are incarcerated in the time between his death and resurrection and preached to the angels who left their proper state and married human women in Genesis 6.
Hold the phone – angels can do that?
So I followed the trail into Genesis 6 to find the following verses:
When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.
The interesting phrase used here is ‘sons of God’ in verse 2. Some believe that this does indeed refer to angels as the same phrase is used in Job 1:6 and Job 2:1. However some people believe that the intermarriage is just impossible if it implies angels and this is backed up by the term ‘sons of God’ being used to refer to humans in other passages such as Deuteronomy 14:1 or 1 John 3:1-2. ‘Sons of God’ could simply imply godly men, i.e. not born from the wiked line of Cain.
To me, the most plausible explanation is that the godly men (and by this we probably mean decendants of Abel) started marrying ‘any of them’ and this proabably does not refer to angels. However, there is no way for us to really know this – especially as our huge God often does the last thing you expect. So I’m probably interpretting this in the most simple way possible and am open to correction… For now I am content with my limited understanding – does anyone else have any thoughts on the matter?
Posted by Gareth Matthews | Posted on 09-02-2006
Category : Society
Last night saw the results of
The Grammy awards in the US last night and
U2 picked up a staggering five awards including best album and best song to name but a few.
As someone who has only recently really began to dig in and appreciate the music of U2 I find this all a bit odd really. It is clear to me that the songs they sing are overtly Christian, they are about God and the church but yet they get as much airplay as any other song and are arguably, after last nights result, more popular than most. And all this in a society where other Christian bands such as Delirious are actually actively banned from radio airplay.
So what is going on here? Is it just that U2′s music is so good? (I know some on this blog would agree with that ) I am not sure that it is – when compared with Delirious I actually think that they are quite similar. So it leaves me down to the common denominator of the whole situation: God.
In a world where it’s what you can get out of life, it’s what you can accomplish it can put us under a lot of pressure to perform. I think as Christians we have to remember that it is God who put the stars in the sky, who created us and gives us life each and every day. In whatever we do in life, if God chooses for us to become world famous through doing it, great – take that job responsibly. If God chooses for no one to ever notice what you do, great – and take that job responsibly as well. If we spend our lives chasing after fame purely for the sake of being famous then we have our eyes on the wrong things – and it may be tricky for God to open our eyes up to what His plan is for our lives.
So why does God choose U2 rather than an artist like Delirious? The Lord knows I am sure – but that is not for me to question. I think I can look up to both artists and see God working in ways which I desire for my own life too – but I believe God wants us to be people who are content with all that God gives – and He gives us so, so much every day.
So huge congratulations to U2 on their award success, and huge congratulations to Delirious for getting nothing. I pray that both keep striving after what God wants for them, not looking at what the world says they should be looking for.
Posted by Gareth Matthews | Posted on 23-01-2006
Category : Bible
I heard a great talk this weekend by the pastor of my church which concerned a little known character buried near the start of
1 Chronicles. Amongst the lists of family trees,
Jabez pops up and is singled out by the writer along with his two sentence prayer and God’s approval of it.
So what is so special about Jabez? His prayer goes something like this…
Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, “Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain.” And God granted his request.
I find praying prayers like this really hard – I think because I would often rather the attention be on someone else rather than me, even when talking to God. But I think there is something here that I need to get hold of. As a worship leader I believe that it is pretty hard to lead people in worship if worship is something I don’t know anything about. In the same way I think it is pretty hard to be a blessing to others if we do not ask for and experience God’s blessing on our lives.
Now when I talk about asking God to bless us I do not mean it in the ‘pray for it and God will give it to you’, name it and claim it style. How God blesses us is completely up to Him – and to be honest that is His department and I’d rather leave Him to it. However I think this is a whole attitude thing – if we really are serious about blessing other people then we need to ask God for His blessing on our lives. I believe it is an active part of being spitiually healthy – which is a great gift we can give to the people around us.
I think the main point I am trying to convey is that it is not selfish or wrong to prayer for blessing on our lives when the motive for it is to bless other people from it. A little bit of Jabez in my prayer life? I’ll let you know how it goes…
As an aside – does anyone actually know where Jabez comes from? If you read 1 Chronicles 4, Jabez is first mentioned in verse 9 quite separately from the family tree lists! I am sure he must be related to someone in 1 Chronicles 4 – have I just missed it?
