John 3:4

"How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemas asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"

The supreme example of taking things too literally! This seems to have been a common failing with the Jews, yet Jesus was a a wonderful teacher in his use of metaphor and other figures of speech. Today many of our greatest scientists are of Jewish extraction. Is it a genetic thing, the ability to think logically in straight lines? Yet the Bible shows us that Jewish literature is filled with flights of fancy and invention. Perhaps it is just down to individuals, but Nicodemus is being obtuse here.

John 3:1

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council.

Leaders! Where would be without them? Our leaders have come in for a hammering in the past few days. Obama has still not managed to satisfy the 'birther zealots' and may have acted unlawfully in sanctioning the Osama 'hit'. The republicans have not exactly covered themselves with glory over the whole incident. Back home, Nick Clegg has taken a hammering in the elections, Cameron has only done alright, Milliband has been disappointing, especially in Scotland. The Israelis have suffered a setback as Hamas and Fatah seal a pact.

I have been reading about the First World War. 'Lions led by donkeys' they said. None of the leaders then could escape criticism. They say that all political careers end in failure and that is probably true. The Archbishop of Canterbury has come out with an equivocal statement about the bin Laden killing. Probably better to have said nothing like the Roman Catholic Church. Osama, himself, was a busted flush, holed up in a single room for five years, sidelined by his organization which was split, anyway.

The middle verse in the whole Bible is Psalm 118 v8: It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.

Careless hymns

There can be no doubt that the charismatic movement was responsible for a great proliferation of new Christian music. However, some of the new hymns were doctrinally doubtful. Take this one, for instance, written in 1976:

Father, we love You
We worship and adore You
Glorify Your name in all the earth
Glorify Your name
Glorify Your name
Glorify Your name in all the earth

Jesus, we love You
We worship and adore You
Glorify Your name in all the earth
Glorify Your name
Glorify Your name
Glorify Your name in all the earth

Spirit, we love You
We worship and adore You
Glorify Your name in all the earth
Glorify Your name
Glorify Your name
Glorify Your name in all the earth

Obviously, the Holy Spirit had been very neglected in Christian teaching prior to this time and this is an attempt to restore the Spirit to His full trinitarian position. I think the author fails in this, it sounds too much as if we are worshipping three separate Gods; just what the Muslims accuse us of. Worse than this in singing to the Spirit to glorify his name we do our utmost to embarrass him. The Spirit's role is glorify the name of Jesus; he is there to draw attention to Jesus, to make him known throughout the earth, not to glorify himself. In any case he is the Spirit of Jesus as well as the Spirit of the Father and as Jesus says, 'I and my Father are one'.

I remember that when we sang this in the seventies we changed the words of the third verse to Glorify his name in all the earth.