Read the world’s bestselling book

The Times newspaper recently published an in-depth survey of the attitudes and opinions of ‘Generation Z’, people born between 1997 and 2013. Interestingly, the younger generation seems to be more attuned to the spiritual side of life. According to The Times, “62 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds identified as either ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ spiritual.”

Allied to this is a new interest in the Bible among GenZers. Publishers report that between 2019-24 there was an 87 per cent increase in Bible sales. People are evidently searching for a something that will make sense of their lives and give them hope.

So, what's the Bible all about? First and foremost it's a book about God. According to the Good Book, he's a God of sovereign purpose, boundless love, awesome power and spotless purity. The one true and living God eternally exists in three glorious Persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Bible teaches that human beings are made in the image of God. But sin has ruined our relationship with God. We are made for him and nothing less than knowing God can satisfy the human heart. The Son of God, Jesus Christ became man in order to die on the cross that we might be put right with God.

But Jesus did not stay dead. God raised him from the grave and exalted him to heaven. In Jesus Christ, God offers us a relationship with himself that is real and satisfying by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Bible says that one day we will all have to give an account to God for the way we have lived our lives. Jesus died in our place of so that we might not be condemned but have everlasting life.

According to Guinness World Records, the best-selling book of all time is the Christian Bible. The 'Good Book' has something to say to people of all generations. Why not give it a read yourself? A wide variety of English translations are available for free on BibleGateway.com, or you can get a hard copy in most bookshops. The Gospel According to John in the New Testament would be a good place to start. Attending a church where the Bible is explained and applied will also help you get to grips with the message of God's Word. 

* For various local magazines 

Artificial Intelligence

My wife, our grown-up children and I once discussed which of us would soon find ourselves out of work due to the advance of Artificial Intelligence. As a pastor I was pretty confident that no AI-enabled robot could do my job. My son promptly asked ChatGPT to write a Baptist style sermon on a passage from Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians. It completed the task in seconds. The sermon took the form of a typical Baptist message and helpfully explained the text. Would have taken me hours to do that. No, I haven’t been tempted to take AI shortcuts in my sermon prep. Honest.

Apparently, many Uni students don’t have such qualms. ChatGPT and other AI platforms are being used to write essays to save budding scholars the bother. Lecturers complain that the attention span of today’s students has been addled by their use of social media. They have difficulty reading the requisite number of books and then deploy AI to write essays on A Tale of Two Cities, or whatever. The trouble is that that AI platforms sometimes make mistakes. No less a journal than the Chicago Sun-Times recently published an AI-authored summer reading list for 2025. The list helpfully included a brief blurb for each title recommended. However, alert readers quickly pointed out that some of the books were fake. Rather embarrassing for the paper.

 AI no doubt has its uses, but it can’t be left to get on with things without our involvement. Just ask the red-faced editor of the Chicago Sun-Times. There is no substitute for human ingenuity in the arts, science, and literature. We cannot delegate ethical decisions to algorithms. Besides, we will always need the human touch. Have you ever tried to sort out a customer service problem using an AI Chat facility? ‘Artificial’, certainly. ‘Intelligence’, not so much. Even exchanges with other people using texts, email, or social media can’t replicate face-to-face communication.

One of the most profound statements in the Bible is found in the opening chapter of the Gospel of John, ‘And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us’. Christians believe that in Jesus God entered our world to speak to us in person. We can read his words as recorded in the Gospel accounts of the New Testament. Jesus did more than speak to us about the love of God. He came to show us God’s love for humanity by laying down his life for our sins upon the cross. The risen Jesus in present in the lives of his people by the power of the Holy Spirit. When the Lord returns his people will see his face and share his glory.

Flaws and glitches notwithstanding, Artificial Intelligence may be able to do things that put our capabilities in the shade. But the most sophisticated computer has nothing on human beings, whom God created in his own image. Like all technological revolutions AI brings with it opportunities as well as threats. Some jobs may well be lost, but new ones will no doubt be developed. Reassuringly, members of my congregation didn't seem too enamoured at the prospect of me being replaced by a cyber-pastor. 

*For various local magazines 

On Time

 

Relax if you are given to tardiness. This isn’t a piece on the importance of punctuality. Rather, I want to reflect on our relationship to time itself. Although it has to be said that time isn’t an easy thing to define. Early Christian thinker Augustine of Hippo puzzled over the question ‘What is time?’ saying,  ‘If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks me, I do not know.’ All he could say is that some events lie behind us in the past and some lie ahead of us in the future. If nothing at all existed there would be no present.

 Augustine proposed that God did not make the universe in time, but with time. God is eternal, existing outside of time. He didn’t wait around for ages before creating the world. The clock only started ticking as it were at the beginning of creation. Modern cosmology tends to agree on that point. Anyway, the thing is that we exist in time. Our lives are constantly moving from the past, through the present and into the future.

The trouble is that these days people only seem interested in the present. The past isn’t worth thinking about. People did bad stuff back then. Slavery and that. The future will have to look after itself. In 2010 Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg dismissed the idea of building more nuclear power stations as they wouldn’t be good to go for another ten years. I mean, who cares what happens in the 2020s? Maybe it’s apt that after a career in politics Clegg went to work for Facebook/Meta.

Social media tends to make us focus on the present moment, rather than the past or the future. What’s going on now captivates out attention, no matter how trivial. This is an age of momentary celebrity and throwaway fashion. Why bother with the time-consuming process of saving for major purchases? Much easier to take out instant credit to buy on a whim something that flashed before our eyes in an online ad.

There’s no escaping time, however. We are all products of our past experiences. What we decide in the present will impact on how we fare in the future. But our history need not be our destiny. God entered our world of time and space in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He came to die on the cross that our past sins and failings may be forgiven. He rose from the dead that those who believe in him may have the hope of everlasting life. God gives us time to seek him while he may be found and call upon him while he is near. 

*For various local magazines 

'Time for Judgement: God’s judgement and ours in times of crisis' by Paul Yeulett

Day One Publications, 2024, 432pp, pbk

‘May you live in interesting times’, says the old Chinese curse. Well, we have certainly been living though ‘interesting times’. The coronavirus pandemic engulfed much of the world in 2020-21. Then in 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine. That conflict caused a global spike in utility bills, triggering a cost-of-living crisis. Added to that is a sense that having turned its back upon the Christian faith, much of Western culture is in bondage to idolatrous forces. 

For a good part of this period the reviewer was preaching though the Book of Jeremiah. The prophet’s warning of the Lord’s judgements upon Israel and the nations seemed uncannily up-to-date. Jeremiah spoke repeatedly of, ‘pestilence, sword, famine and captivity’ (Jermiah 15:2). But is it appropriate to apply the words of Old Testament prophets to the church and wider world today?

We are certainly not in the same position as Jeremiah whose writings were inspired by Spirit. He could say, ‘Thus says the Lord… I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babylon.’ (Jeremiah 20:4).  We need to be a little more circumspect as we seek to pronounce on what the Lord is doing in our day. None the less, God has given us the Holy Scriptures which bear witness to the judgements of the Lord in history. Mindful of that, Paul Yeulett helps us to understand recent upheavals in the light of God’s Word.  

Like the men of Issachar, we need to be people who have ‘understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do’ (2 Chronicles 12:32). The writer’s analysis of the period through which we are living may not command the reader’s agreement in every respect, but his work helps us discern the hand of the Lord in contemporary events. He also endeavours to show how the church should respond to the challenges of the hour. In an age of ‘pestilence, sword, famine and captivity’ we are called to authentic godly living and passionate gospel preaching. 

Love so amazing

 

The crucifixion of Jesus was the supreme manifestation of human malice and hatred. Those who plotted his demise knew he hadn’t done anything to deserve being executed upon a cross. Jesus proclaimed a message of love and showed that love in action by healing the sick and feeding the hungry. The ordinary people flocked to hear Jesus’ preaching. That was the problem. The Jewish religious establishment were afraid that if this Jesus movement took off, they would lose their position in society. Innocent though he was, Jesus had to go.

 

There was only room for one king in the Roman Empire. It was on that basis the religious leaders manipulated the governor of Judea, Pontus Pilate into having Jesus put to death. “If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend.” They cried, “Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.” Sure enough, Pilate handed over Jesus to be crucified. It was customary to attach a charge sheet to the cross of a crucified man. Jesus’ read, ‘The King of the Jews’.

 

We could see this simply as one of countless miscarriages of justice that have happened over the course of history to this day. What makes the crucifixion of Jesus unique is that this condemned man was the Son of God. The miracles he performed were signposts to his divine power. Why did Christ not use the power by which he healed the sick and raised the dead to extricate himself from being crucified? Jesus described his God-given mission to his followers in these words: “Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

 

Jesus died for our sins that we may be forgiven and be put right with God. Yes, the cross of Jesus was an act of vile hatred on the part of his enemies. But more profoundly, it was a stunning revelation of the love of God. Paul could reflect, “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

 

Isaac Watts’s hymn When I survey the wondrous cross is often sung in church services at Eastertime. The hymn concludes on a note of wonder at the love of Jesus for his people:

 

Love so amazing, so divine,

demands my soul, my life, my all.

*For Easter edition of various local parish magazines  

 

Snowdrops

Snowdrops, Mells 

A galanthophile is a person who loves snowdrops. Apparently, there are around 500 different varieties of delicate white petalled plant. A true galanthophile will be able to tell a ‘Ding Dong’ from a ‘Heffalump’. Don’t ask me, though. I just like the things. It’s always a joy to see multitudes of them in bloom along the banks of the B3098 on the way to West Lavington. 

A favourite winter walk for the wife and me is through the Somerset village of Mells. You can pick up a path alongside the Mells Stream that will take you past the ruins of Fussell’s Iron Works. Around this time of year, you will find snowdrops a-plenty springing up in front of the old furnaces that loom high over the path.

Snowdrops are an early promise that the arid deadness of winter will pass. Soon there will be daffodils and tulips. Spring will have sprung. In the meantime, the humble snowdrop is a little reminder of the beauty of creation. We don’t simply live in a world that provides us with the bare necessities of life (as Baloo might put it), but a world that fills us with delight. After all, you can’t eat snowdrops, which are poisonous to human beings. But who would be without them?

The Christian faith teaches us that God created our world to display his wisdom, power and goodness. The snowdrop is a wonderful example of his handywork. Yes, we live in a fallen world that is twisted and broken, but there is still much that is beautiful for us to behold. The purity of the snowdrop stands in contrast with the grubbiness of human greed, hatred and cruelty. 

None of us is free from the taint of sin. The goodness of God hinted at in Ding Dongs and Heffalumps is revealed most wonderfully in that he sent his Son, Jesus Christ to die in our place to cleanse us from sin. As Isaiah the prophet almost said,

“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord:

though your sins are like scarlet,

    they shall be as white as [a] snow[drop]."

* For various local parish magazines