The Cairngorms from Nethybridge, with Castle Roy in the foreground left and the old parish church of Abernethy in the middle distance.
At the reading the title of this post your first thought would no doubt be – “Have you not got the wrong chapter?” expecting it to be about one of the more famous chapters that are always quoted in the New Testament. But bear with me, in the middle of this chapter in verse 4 and 5 states:- “For this is what the Lord says: To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who chooses what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant- to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off.” So why is this important. Firstly, because priests were not allowed to be eunuchs because of the necessity of the heredity of the priestly line it would have been unthinkable to Isaiah’s original hearers. But come the start of the exile in Babylon this passage would have given hope to those taken into the service of Nebuchadnezzar and his descendants and successors. Daniel and his three friends would have had to become eunuchs in order to enter the king’s service. The rich food they declined to eat was meant as compensation for their loss. Daniel’s memorial, it could be argued, was to have a book of the Bible named after him. You can imagine him regarding these verses as a promise to which he clung to throughout his long life as an exile. The same could be applied to Nehemiah, for it is almost certain that as he held the position of cupbearer to the king that he was also a eunuch. Nehemiah was zealous during his period as governor in shutting the gates of Jerusalem during the Jewish Sabbaths. He was always saying “remember me” as if he was trying to remind God of His promise of a memorial. Having a book of the Bible after is a memorial that has lasted centuries.
David Rose, 2018.
Christianity has never existed in a vacuum but always in the context of social and cultural values. At times in the past Christianity has been able to influence popular culture but in more recent years the boot has been on the other foot. There have been times when Christians have loudly protested at times such as when Harry Potter novels became very popular, though that only surfaced in America when the large sum of money that J. K. Rowling was earning from the novels that patriotic Americans were objecting as much to the funds crossing the Atlantic as to the dangers of the occult which they were officially protesting about. At other times when popular culture attacks Christian values it is met with apathy, possibly because of the previous failures to turn the tide of secular thinking. In fact there are so many attacks from all directions that many Christians are often unaware of the more subtle ones.
Last week I bought a jigsaw that had a picture of the Mona Lisa on it. As I have been doing it I have been thinking of the similarities between solving jigsaw puzzles and theology. When you first start a jigsaw you are faced with a large number of pieces, most of which do not make a lot of sense as to where they fit in. Likewise when we become Christians we look at the Bible and it is easy to get confused with the different parts, trying to make sense of it all. One of the great dangers when you work at solving a puzzle is that you try and force a piece into the wrong place. At first, when it is only attached on one side, it might seem right but as you progress it begins to look wrong. If only because you cannot find any of the other pieces that fit in around it. However, just because the pieces do not fit in the way we want it to, does not mean that some of the pieces are missing. In fact you may have noticed that I have deliberately chosen a picture of the puzzle as a work in progress. This is because our theological understanding is a work in progress. I have even found out that some of the pieces shown in the picture were in the wrong positions. Too many Christians are making their theology fit their world view, instead of letting their world view be formed by their theology, i.e., Bible based and God centred. I have to admit that some of my theological opinions have changed over the years, though I am not talking about core doctrines here. The problem if we persist in the analogy of trying to force pieces in the wrong place we reject some of the pieces we have and look elsewhere for ones we hope will fit. That leads to many errors and false teachings. So beware.
Five years ago I noticed a splash of colour on my front lawn which consists of more moss than grass. On examination it was a flower I was unfamiliar with. I posted a couple of photos on Facebook and a friend suggested a type of orchid. Subsequently, I looked it up and found that it was a northern marsh orchid. By that time I had been living in the house for over a decade and had not seen it before. The following year another showed up in a different spot. A couple of years ago another appeared in a grassy part of my drive. But it did not flower last year though two new ones also appeared in the lawn. On examination I began to spot other orchids that had not come into flower, possibly because they were only in their first year. In total I counted 12 orchids. This year though spring was late there was a prolonged warm dry spell which brought the older more established orchids to develop earlier and begin to flower but a couple began to shrivel up before it rained again which brought most of the others on. However there was another dry spell so I began to water the orchids until it rained again. This year, apart from the two that only partially flowered, 12 flowered plus two more plants giving a total of sixteen. So these orchids are showing signs of fruitfulness.
cairngormmusings 