Straight to the Heart

This blog is adapted from a chapter in Phil Moore’s new devotional commentary, “Straight to the Heart of Solomon”, published this month by Monarch Books.

THE STRONGEST MUSCLE

“The words of the reckless pierce like swords, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” (Proverbs 12:18)

Gerald Ratner was doing so well. He had started out in the jewellery trade at the tender age of seventeen and had worked like a slave for twenty-five years to turn his Ratner’s chain of jewellers into one of Britain’s most successful high street retailers. Hailed as the man with the Midas touch, he now travelled between his many luxury homes by helicopter or by classic Bentley. Then he accepted an invitation to dinner.

The leading company directors of London had recognised his success by inviting him to speak at their annual luncheon at a stunning venue on the same road as Buckingham Palace. Buoyed by the occasion, he joked in his speech that he sold jewellery at such fantastic prices “because it’s total crap … It’s cheaper than a Marks & Spencer prawn sandwich and it probably won’t last as long.” He was smiling as he said it but nobody else was laughing. When his speech was broadcast on the evening news, shocked customers boycotted his stores and turned his lunchtime meeting into the most expensive meal in modern history. The value of the Ratner’s chain of jewellers plummeted by £500 million and he was fired as its CEO. Warren Buffet later observed: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”[1]

Solomon was even smarter than Warren Buffet so he spends much of Proverbs warning us not to underestimate the massive power of the human tongue. Whatever the medical facts, the tongue is without a doubt the strongest muscle in the human body. “The tongue has the power of life and death,” he warns in 18:21. “Those who guard their mouths and their tongues keep themselves from calamity,” he adds in 21:23. In addition to littering the whole of Proverbs with warnings for us to guard how we use our tongues, Solomon gives us an entire chapter of teaching on the power of the tongue here in 12:6 to 13:3.

First, Solomon tells us to be honest. He told us in 6:16-19 that the Lord detests both liars and their lying tongues, and he repeats in 12:22 that “The Lord detests lying lips, but he delights in people who are trustworthy.” To tell the truth is to be wise and righteous, and it provokes the Lord to bless us. To tell lies is to be wicked and foolish and it provokes the Lord to judge us. Our lies may fool people in the short term (12:19), but God will soon expose the truth (12:9) so that we become the only people fooled by our fantasies (12:11). Solomon warns us that those who set out to deceive others will ultimately deceive their own hearts (12:20) like Arthur Dimmesdale, the lying clergyman in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic novel “The Scarlet Letter”, who mourns: “No man can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.”[2] Lying will bring us misery but truthfulness will bring us joy.

Next, Solomon tells us to be calm. Words spoken in anger may sound clever but they are very rarely wise. “Fools show their annoyance at once, but the prudent overlook an insult,” he explains in 12:16, and he follows this up even more strongly in 15:1 by telling us that “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” However trifling an angry riposte may seem at the time, it is “like a scorching fire” (16:27) and acts like the spark which starts a forest fire. “Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark,” James 3:5-6 exclaims as part of its New Testament echo of the book of Proverbs. “The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.” The way we use our tongues couldn’t be more important.

That’s why Solomon tells us to be thoughtful. Fools blurt out words without thinking and come to ruin in 12:23 and 13:3,[3] but the wise set up a security perimeter between their lips and their lives by thinking before they speak. Unlike most of the muscles in the human body, the tongue is only attached at one end, so we must fasten it at the other end to wisdom. “The words of the reckless pierce like swords,” Solomon warns in 12:18, and Gerald Ratner reflected thirteen years after his costly luncheon that this warning is true: “It was a total nightmare. One day I was on top of the world, Mr. Big Shot flying on the Concorde … The next, I was a complete laughingstock. It was such a seismic event. It’s like BC – before crap and afterwards.”

More positively, Solomon encourages us to be expectant. If the tongue has power to do great harm then it also has equal power to do great good. Our words can rescue the dying (12:6), make our lives fruitful (12:14 and 13:2), and bring healing to the hurting (12:18). They can bring joy to the Lord (12:22), hope to the helpless (12:25), and life to a dying world (12:28). Note the deliberate reference in 12:14 to God using our tongues to make us little trees of life. In case we miss it, Solomon tells us more explicitly in 15:4 that “The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life.” Careless words can be destructive but that is only half the story. The other half is a wonderful promise that God can use our tongues to change the world.

Jesus modelled the lesson of this chapter for us perfectly. The New Testament tells us that “Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats … For, ‘Whoever would love life and see good days must keep their tongue from evil and their lips from deceitful speech’” (1 Peter 2:21-23 & 3:10).

So let’s not gloss over Solomon’s instruction on how to use our tongues. Let’s not ignore his claim that how we speak reveals whether we are truly wise or foolish, truly righteous or wicked. Let’s not ignore the echo of these words in James 1:26 and 3:2 which warn that if we fail to keep our tongue in check then we may not be followers of Jesus after all, and which promise that if we can tame our tongues by Jesus’ strength then we will be able to follow him in every other area too. Let’s learn from Solomon that, if wisely used, our tongues are far more valuable than all of Gerald Ratner’s jewellery put together. He tells us in 25:11: “The right word at the right time is like precious gold set in silver.”

This blog is adapted from a chapter in Phil Moore’s new devotional commentary, “Straight to the Heart of Solomon”, published this month by Monarch Books. See www.philmoorebooks.com

This blog is adapted from a chapter in Phil Moore’s new devotional commentary, “Straight to the Heart of Psalms”, published this month by Monarch Books.

WHAT TO DO WHEN GOD SEEMS TO FAIL

“You made us retreat before the enemy, and our adversaries have plundered us.” (Psalm 44:10) 

I can’t even begin to imagine what it must have felt like for the disciples when Jesus died. Thomas was so disillusioned that he refused to believe in the resurrection. His friends were so disorientated that they locked their doors and hid in case the Jewish leaders came looking for them. Luke tells us they were miserable. It’s easy to see why.

The Sons of Korah clearly felt the same way. We don’t know when they wrote Psalm 44 – they may have done so under one of the later kings, but their statement that Israel has not been unfaithful to God’s covenant and has not committed idolatry (44:17 and 44:20-21) suggests they may have written it during one of the temporary setbacks which marked the end of David’s reign. What we know for sure is that they felt as though the Lord had failed them. Their hopes had been dashed, their faith was in tatters, and they responded in the only way that they knew how. They wrote a psalm of praise to God.

I find it very challenging that the Lord chose to include this song in the book of Psalms instead of a happier, more upbeat song written by one of their contemporaries who put a brave face on the problem and convinced himself that things were fine. God chose to include this song because the Sons of Korah had actually got the right perspective. Israel had been defeated. God’s promises hadn’t been fulfilled. And the Lord was looking for people who weren’t afraid to say so. Dan Allender observes that:

“Christians seldom sing in the minor key. We fear the sombre; we seem to hold sorrow in low esteem. We seem predisposed to fear lament as a quick slide into doubt and despair; failing to see that doubt and despair are the dark soil that is necessary to grow confidence and joy … To sing a lament against God in worship reveals far, far greater trust than to sing a jingle about how happy we are and how much we trust him … Lament cuts through insincerity, strips pretence, and reveals the raw nerve of trust that angrily approaches the throne of grace and then kneels in awed, robust wonder.”[1]

The Sons of Korah tell the Lord that they believe he kept his promises powerfully in the past (44:1-8). Then they tell him straight that in the present it looks as if he has rejected them, abandoned them, scattered them, disgraced them, put them to shame, and sold them over to their enemies (44:9-16). The Sons of Korah marked this as a maskîl or teaching psalm for congregational worship because we all need to pray this kind of honest prayer from time to time. In my country, the United Kingdom, in the past fifty years the percentage of people in their twenties who attend church regularly has nosedived from well over 50 percent to only 3 percent.[2] About a third of churches have no children and over half have no teenagers.[3] Whatever way we look at that, it’s an absolute disaster. God doesn’t want us to bury our heads in the sand and to sing chirpy choruses about better days to come. He wants us to sing psalms of lament like the Sons of Korah.

Some of our disasters are more personal. Many of us know terrible suffering in our lives. Psalm 37 promised us peace and prosperity, but many of us are tired of having to pretend that we are doing better than we are. Our business ventures fail. We get sick and aren’t healed. Horrible things happen to our loved ones. Some of them die. Is it any wonder that there are so many confused, disillusioned Christians when we very rarely sing psalms of lament when we gather together? Isn’t it obvious why God wanted Psalm 44 to be sung regularly by the worshippers at his Temple? Dan Allender continues:

“How much of the current counselling frenzy is due to an absence of opportunity to confess our hurt, anger and confusion to God in the presence of others of like mind? In many ways, one role of counselling is to legitimise pain and struggle and focus the questions of the heart towards God. How much better it would be if in concert with others we passionately cried out to God with the energy that is often expressed only in the privacy of the counselling office.”

Psalm 44 is an angry psalm. It blames God for our disasters – “you made us retreat” (44:10) – and it even accuses him of not being the good shepherd that we sang about in Psalm 23. The Sons of Korah liken him in 44:11 to a lazy shepherd who lets wolves eat his sheep while he is not looking. Worse, they liken him in 44:12 to a dim-witted shepherd who sends his sheep off to the abattoir and forgets to ask the butcher for any money in return. Far from feeling embarrassed by their anger, the New Testament tells us that this is how we ought to pray in times of trouble too, since Paul quotes from 44:22 in Romans 8:36 as a promise that when we go through hard times we can pray prayers such as this to lay hold of Jesus’ unfailing love. Not all anger towards God is good, but it can open up a dialogue which moves our hearts away from our confusion and towards God’s solution.

That is exactly what happens to the Sons of Korah as they write their song. They began by confessing that God is the true King of Israel and that they can do nothing without him, and they return to this realisation in 44:17-26. They protest that they haven’t worshipped idols or stopped believing in God’s covenant with Israel (44:17-21). They call the Lord to wake up and to stop forgetting them for a moment longer. The final word of the psalm is hêsêd or covenant mercy.[4] Because God hasn’t changed and nor has his Gospel, they end their song assured that all will be well.

I don’t know when you last had a chance to sing a song of lament with other believers in church on Sunday. If you lead worship, then you may need to reconsider the breadth of worship themes you use as you lead God’s People. If you are a church leader, then this kind of singing should certainly characterise many of your prayer meetings. Our churches can often be places where positive messages paste a wafer-thin veneer over the silent despair and confused cries and angry prayers which are just waiting to be sung. There is no need for us to be afraid of expressing the anger and emotion which runs throughout Psalm 44. When we dare to speak it out honestly, we will discover that it is music to God’s ears.

This blog is adapted from a chapter in Phil Moore’s new devotional commentary, “Straight to the Heart of Psalms”, published this month by Monarch Books. See www.philmoorebooks.com 

This blog is adapted from a chapter in Phil Moore’s new devotional commentary, “Straight to the Heart of Psalms”, published this month by Monarch Books.

WHY DOES GOD ALLOW SUFFERING?

“When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.” (Psalm 73:16-17)

You may think that you hate hypocrisy and playacting, but God wants you to know that he hates it even more. He can’t stand it when people pour out empty religious words which don’t reflect what they are truly feeling on the inside. Prayer is a two-way conversation in which we express our deepest feelings to the Lord and take time to listen to his reply. That’s why Book III of Psalms tells us to sing honestly about how we are really feeling. It tells us that God hates us lying. Even when we do it in church on Sunday.

Those who have understood Psalms best throughout Church history have always been surprised at how raw and honest the psalmists are. John Calvin described Psalms as “an anatomy of all the parts of the soul; for there is not an emotion of which anyone can be conscious that is not here represented as in a mirror.”[1] Athanasius observed that “Elsewhere in the Bible you read only that the Law commands this or that to be done, you listen to the Prophets to learn about the Saviour’s coming, or you turn to the historical books to learn the doings of the kings and holy men; but in the Psalter, besides all these things, you learn about yourself. You find depicted in it all the movements of your soul, all its changes, its ups and downs, its failures and recoveries.”[2] Only one of the seventeen psalms which make up Book III was written by David. All of the other ones were written by the worship leaders he appointed. It’s as if the editors of Psalms grouped these seventeen songs together in order to show us how ordinary men and women should express their ordinary feelings to the Lord.

But expressing our feelings to the Lord is not enough. The psalmists want to help us to be changed even as we pray. John Calvin continues by observing that “Genuine and earnest prayer proceeds first from a sense of our need, then from faith in the promises of God. It is by studying these inspired compositions that people will be best awakened to a sense of their maladies and, at the same time, instructed how to find remedies for their cure.” Athanasius adds that “Whatever your need or trouble, from this same book you can select a form of words to fit it, so that you do not merely hear and then pass on, but learn the way to remedy your ill.” Let’s therefore learn from these seventeen songs which were written by Asaph, Ethan and the Sons of Korah. Let’s sing to God about how we really feel and let him change us as we do so.

Asaph wrote the eleven psalms which form the first two thirds of Book III. He starts with one of the biggest questions which can trouble our hearts: Psalm 73 deals with the question, Why doesn’t God stop all the suffering in the world? He states the general principle in 73:1 that God is good and just, but then launches into thirteen verses of complaint about how he feels when he looks at the suffering all around him. Even though he is one of the main worship leaders at the Temple, he confesses that he almost lost his faith when he saw the wicked prospering (73:2-3) and supposing that God doesn’t see the wicked things they do (73:4-12). He confesses that he almost threw in the towel on his faith once and for all (73:13-14).[3] What is even more shocking than Asaph’s direct language is that the Lord seems rather pleased with his honesty in prayer. He calls Asaph a prophet in Matthew 13:35 and looks back fondly in Nehemiah 12:46 to the days when Asaph prayed prayers which were music to his ears!

Unless Asaph had been this honest, he would not have received an answer. The fourth-century theologian Ambrose described psalms like this one as “A gymnasium which is open for all souls to use, where the different psalms are like different exercises set out before him. In that gymnasium, in that stadium of virtue, he can choose the exercises that will train him best to win the victor’s crown.”[4] The first half of Asaph’s prayer is like a workout for his soul, and he reaps the benefit of his exercise in the second half of his prayer. He tells us that when he went into the Temple to meet with God, he started to grasp why he does not always appear to judge the wicked. He caught a big vision of God which made him realise how blinkered he had been (73:15-17). God will surely judge the wicked swiftly and suddenly (73:18-20), and Asaph felt as stupid as a donkey not to have seen this all along (73:21-22). He worships the Lord for the fact that ill-earned riches will not last, but that the righteous have the Lord as their portion, both in this life and forevermore (73:23-28). Like Job, Asaph discovers that when he shares his feelings honestly in prayer he receives an answer through a fresh revelation of the Lord which changes everything.

The big question which confronts us in Psalm 73 and the rest of Book III is Will we pray this way ourselves? Will we be as bold and honest as Asaph in prayer, or will we fall for the lie that God wants sweet platitudes which masquerade as prayer? When did you last speak to God with the same frank emotion as Asaph in this psalm? Unless you unburden your heart in prayer then you must not be surprised if your prayer life feels repetitive and lifeless. But if you pour out your heart like Asaph, you will discover that emptying your heart enables God to fill it with fresh faith and a fresh desire to worship him. When we express who we really are in prayer, the Lord responds by revealing to us who he really is.

If you are a church leader or a worship leader, then God wants to speak to you urgently through Book III. When was the last time you helped your congregation to express their deepest, darkest and most unspoken emotions to God? Let’s not short-change those we lead with upbeat songs and well-crafted sermons whilst forgetting that their real need is to be taught to pray.[5] Let’s teach them the message of Book III of Psalms. Let’s teach them to sing about the way they really feel.

This blog is adapted from a chapter in Phil Moore’s new devotional commentary, “Straight to the Heart of Psalms”, published this month by Monarch Books. See www.philmoorebooks.com

This blog is adapted from the introduction to Phil Moore’s new devotional commentary, “Straight to the Heart of Solomon”, published this month by Monarch Books.

LIFE WORKS GOD’S WAY

“Does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice? … ‘Those who find me find life and receive favour from the Lord.’” (Proverbs 8:1&35)

Very few people ever get to pilot an F-35 fighter jet. With a top speed of 1,200 miles per hour and enough onboard weaponry to destroy a small city, it’s probably just as well. Would-be pilots have to pass a gruelling set of physical, intellectual and psychological tests even to make it onto flight school, and only the very best graduates are ever trusted to handle a jet as powerful as the F-35. Air force commanders know that only a fool would try to pilot an F-35 without the proper training.

Solomon grasped this principle when he visited the Tabernacle at Mount Gibeon in 970BC. He sacrificed a thousand burnt offerings because he knew that he was in desperate need of God’s attention. The Lord responded by appearing to him that night in a dream with an incredible offer: “Ask for whatever you want me to give you” (1 Kings 3:5).

Solomon didn’t hesitate. If piloting an F-35 is difficult, then piloting life is even harder. It didn’t matter that his father David had assured him when he named him king of Israel that “You are a man of wisdom”; Solomon knew that he couldn’t pilot his life on his own. “I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties,” he pleaded. “So give your servant a discerning heart.” Solomon had seen the smoking wreckage caused by his father’s adulterous affair with his mother, and he had seen three of his older brothers wreck their own lives too by ignoring God’s shouts from the control tower. Amnon had copied his father’s sexual sin, Absalom had chased fame, and Adonijah had lusted after power. All three of them were dead and the new King Solomon was determined that he would not fly solo any more. “Give your servant a hearing heart,” he asked God literally in Hebrew. He asked to enrol in the Lord’s flight school because he had seen firsthand that life only works God’s way. 

The Lord was delighted with Solomon’s reply. Offered carte blanche, he hadn’t asked for women or worship or wealth, but for wisdom to handle the flight path of his life better than his father and his brothers. “I will do what you have asked,” the Lord promised. “I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be.” 1 Kings 4:29-34 tells us that God gave him such great wisdom that he outclassed the finest teachers of the world and received visitors from every nation who shared his passion to find out how to live life God’s way. It also tells us that he wrote 3,000 proverbs and over 1,000 songs to preserve his wisdom for anyone humble enough to ask God if they can enrol in his flight school too.

Although some modern scholars have questioned whether Solomon actually wrote the three Old Testament books which we know as Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs, the text of the three books seems to support the almost 3,000 years of consensus among Jews and Christians that he did so.  Proverbs 1:1 describes the book as “The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel”. Song of Songs 1:1 explains that it is “Solomon’s Song of Songs”, which is a Hebrew way of saying “Solomon’s Best Song.” Ecclesiastes 1:1 and 12 describe the author as “The Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem … king over Israel in Jerusalem,” which is something only Solomon could ever say since all subsequent kings of Jerusalem ruled over Judah but not Israel. We should therefore view these books as a description of the lessons which Solomon learned through the ups and downs of his life’s flight path. We should treat them as a warning that we need help to live life God’s way.

Solomon reigned for forty years from 970 to 930BC, and during the first half of his reign he succeeded in living life God’s way. 1 Kings 10:23 celebrates the fact that “King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart.” Not content with sharing his wisdom with visitors in his own generation, he devised a way that he could put succeeding generations of believers through God’s flight school too. He began to compile the book which we know as Proverbs, starting with lesson one in Proverbs 1-9, which is a call to Learn God’s Way. He created lesson two by picking 375 of his 3,000 proverbs to form the bulk of Proverbs 10-31 and spell out in detail what it means to Live God’s Way. If this longest lesson appears to jump from one theme to another, with little sense of thematic grouping, it is deliberate. Life is more complicated than flying an F-35, and it defies our attempts to compartmentalise its challenges. Since love is perhaps the most complicated aspect of them all, Solomon gave us Song of Songs as lesson three in order to teach us how to Love God’s Way.

Sadly, in the second half of his reign, Solomon failed to practise what he preached. The star student of God’s flight school, who had proved in his twenties and thirties that life works God’s way, attempted to fly solo and wrecked his life even more seriously than his father David had before him. He nosedived in his forties and fifties into the misery and despair which he describes in the book of Ecclesiastes and which serves as lesson four and as a warning that we need to Keep to God’s Way. Ecclesiastes charts his discovery that life makes no sense without God at the centre, and it describes his homeward path to a recommitment of his life to the Lord and to the fact that life only works God’s way.

So let’s enrol together in God’s flight school and go straight to the heart of the three Old Testament books which were written by Solomon. Let’s allow the wisest Old Testament writer to tell us how we can learn God’s way, live God’s way and love God’s way, just as he did. Let’s heed his warnings not to deviate from God’s flight path, as he did, but to keep to God’s way until we reach the landing lights at the end of our life’s journey.

Let’s ask the God who appeared to Solomon at the Tabernacle to give us wisdom too. Let’s ask him to teach us how to live life to the full in the world which he has made. Let’s surrender to Solomon’s ancient conclusion that life only works God’s way.

This blog is adapted from the introduction to Phil Moore’s new devotional commentary, “Straight to the Heart of Solomon”, published this month by Monarch Books. See www.philmoorebooks.com

This blog is adapted from the introduction to Phil Moore’s new devotional commentary, “Straight to the Heart of Psalms”, published this month by Monarch Books.

MUSIC TO GOD’S EARS

“Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him.” (Psalm 33:1) 

God wants to grab your attention. He could hardly have made it any clearer. He made Psalms the central book of the Bible. He made it contain the Bible’s middle chapter and middle verse. He made it by far the longest book of the Bible, with more than twice as many chapters as the next longest book. He made it contain the longest chapter in the Bible and then, for effect, he made it home to the shortest chapter too. He inspired the writers of the New Testament to quote more from Psalms than from any other book in the Old Testament – at least seventy-five times directly and many more times indirectly. So don’t miss the many ways that God is shouting for your attention. He has something vitally important to teach you through the book of Psalms. 

Psalms is a book which shows us how to relate to God. The fourth-century writer Athanasius observed that this book is unique because, whilst the rest of the Bible speaks to us, Psalms speaks for us. It teaches us how to relate to God as friends, which is why no other book in human history has been as loved, valued and memorised by so many people from so many different nations. The American president John Adams spoke for millions when he told Thomas Jefferson that “The Psalms of David, in sublimity, beauty, pathos, and originality, or in one word poetry, are superior to all the odes, hymns, and songs in any language.” God gave us these hundred and fifty worship songs because he wants to teach us how to pray the kind of prayers which are music to his ears.

Psalms makes it clear that God wants us to sing to him. Spiritual discussions and resolutions have their value, but they can never substitute for building a relationship with God through singing simple love songs. One of my friends discovered this when he started coming to some of the meetings at the church I lead. As a typically reserved Englishman, he was so appalled by our worship that he went home and googled “churches without singing.” Thankfully, he couldn’t find any, because he later shared at his baptism that it was the sight of hundreds of people singing out their love for God which melted his heart and turned him into a passionate worshipper too.

The Hebrews called Psalms tehillîm, which means songs of praise. The Greeks called it psalmoi, which means songs, and it is from this that we get our own name for this collection. In case we forget that a relationship with God always involves singing, Psalms tells us that God wants us to worship him “with stringed instruments” and on the “trumpet … harp and lyre … strings and pipe … with resounding cymbals.” Shortly after he triggered the greatest Christian revival Europe has ever seen, Martin Luther told his converts that “Music is a gift and grace of God, not an invention of men. Thus it drives out the devil … I would allow no man to preach or teach God’s people without a proper knowledge of the use and power of sacred song.” We discover this as we read the book of Psalms.

But don’t imagine that Psalms is like Julie Andrews in “The Sound of Music”, shutting her eyes to reality by singing about a few of her favourite things. The psalms teach us how to relate to God in the bad times, in the dark times, and in times so confusing that we want to throw in the towel on our faith altogether. The psalmists are shockingly honest with God about how they feel, because life isn’t always easy. They teach us to sing the blues as well as happy songs because how we worship in the difficult times is just as much music to God’s ears. The Christian writer Eugene Peterson confesses that without Psalms he would not know how to keep on worshipping at all:

“I need a language that is large enough to maintain continuities, supple enough to express nuances across a lifetime that brackets child and adult experiences, and courageous enough to explore all the countries of sin and salvation, mercy and grace, creation and covenant, anxiety and trust, unbelief and faith that comprise the continental human condition … Where will we acquire a language that is adequate for these intensities? Where else but in the Psalms? For men and women who are called to leadership in the community of faith, apprenticeship in the Psalms is not an option; it is a mandate.”[1]

Psalms took almost a thousand years to write – far longer than any other book in the Bible. Moses wrote Psalm 90 in about 1410BC and Psalm 137 appears to have been written in about 530BC. Some time after that, God inspired some of the worship leaders at the Temple in Jerusalem to compile a collection of a hundred and fifty of the best psalms from the several thousand which were then in circulation.[2] Some of the psalms they collated were already part of mini-collections,[3] but God inspired them to gather them into the five books which make up Psalms in order to teach us how to pray and worship.

Book I comprises Psalms 1-41 and it focuses on the character of God in order to teach us how to sing about who God is. Book II comprises Psalms 42-72 and it teaches us how to sing when times are hard. Book III comprises Psalms 73-89 and it models how God wants you to sing out how you really feel. Book IV comprises Psalms 90-106 and it charts the history of God’s dealings with the human race so that we can learn to sing about God’s plan. Book V comprises Psalms 107-150 and it ends the book of Psalms with a call for you to sing your response to God.

It’s very tempting to ignore the way that the Temple worship leaders structured Psalms and to study its contents by theme, but I am convinced that this structure is our God-given commentary on the meaning of these worship songs. Throughout this book we will therefore resist the urge to pluck a few favourite verses out of context, looking instead at each psalm or cluster of psalms as a unit which teaches us a particular lesson about how we are to worship God. As we do so, we will learn how we can get to know God deeply as our friend, as did the writers of the psalms.

Make no mistake about it: God wants to grab your attention. He wants to teach you how to grow in a relationship with him. He wants to teach you how to sing the kind of worship songs which have always been, in every generation, sweet music to God’s ears. 

This blog is adapted from the introduction to Phil Moore’s new devotional commentary, “Straight to the Heart of Psalms”, published this month by Monarch Books. Read more at www.philmoorebooks.com

“When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.” So reads the old Native American proverb. If we accept those criteria then Margaret Thatcher’s life was a great success and a great failure, all at the same time.

Very few people have polarised public opinion as massively as Margaret Thatcher. Even in death, she displayed her ability to excite both admiration and contempt in equal measure. By attending her funeral this week, Queen Elizabeth II effectively raised its status to that of a state funeral. By sending “Ding dong, the Witch is Dead” to number two in the charts, thousands of other people expressed a very different assessment of her legacy.

What I find interesting is that my Christian friends are just as divided over Margaret Thatcher’s legacy. Within minutes of news breaking of her death, one of my friends who leads a church in London had tweeted that she was a fine Christian woman whose politics saved Britain. A few minutes later, two other friends who are also church leaders posted on Facebook that she did more to promote evil and social injustice than any British leader since World War Two. It made me wonder what Solomon, the wisest ruler of the Old Testament, would want to tell us about her legacy. We aren’t left guessing because he uses three different words for “the poor” throughout the book of Proverbs which shed great light on the true legacy of Britain’s longest-serving prime minister of the twentieth century.

The first word which Solomon uses is “atsel”, which means “sluggard”. It supports Thatcher’s view that some people are poor because they refuse to do all they can to help themselves. The Bible won’t indulge naivety and over-simplistic answers to the issue of poverty. Thatcher opposed the view that big business is always bad and that state handouts are always good, claiming in her 1979 election campaign that this was why “Labour Isn’t Working”. She won the election because people agreed with her. So did Solomon when he writes that “The labourer’s appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on” (16:26) and that “One who is slack in his work is brother to the one who destroys” (18:9). Part of Margaret Thatcher’s legacy is a recognition that the poor need more than unquestioning welfare and unthinking charity.

But this isn’t the complete story. The second word which Solomon uses is “ani”, which means “oppressed” or “ravaged”. He uses it to make it clear that many of those who are in poverty are poor because of the actions of others - through unfair wages, high-interest loans, and an economic system which favours the rich at the expense of the poor. They need to be offered something more than the free market which accentuates their problems. Solomon doesn’t just call helping the poor an act of “mercy” (something magnanimous which we might choose to do). He calls it an act of “justice” (something which we owe to the poor because they have been made in God’s image). Some of the northern towns which celebrated Thatcher’s death did so because they felt that she forgot this. We haven’t grasped her legacy fully unless we recognise that we can all forget it too.

But by far the most common Hebrew word which Solomon uses for the poor is the neutral word “rush”. It is a word which doesn’t tell us whether they are deserving or undeserving. It doesn’t have to because God’s call for us to help the poor doesn’t depend on whether they deserve it but on whether HE deserves it. Solomon tells us that “Whoever oppresses the poor insults their Maker, but whoever is generous to the needy honours him” (14:31). When we help the poor regardless of whether we consider them deserving or undeserving, we express the same Gospel which Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 8:9 - “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich.” Jesus didn’t make distinctions when he shed his blood for the world. He died for all of us, even though none of us were truly deserving, and now he sends us into the world to demonstrate that belief in him is always “good news for the poor.”

So we can learn from Margaret Thatcher’s view that some people’s poverty is caused by the fact that they are sluggards and that their greatest need is a firm hand. We can also learn from her failure to do enough to help the oppressed, assuming that they could pull themselves up by their own boot straps. And we should be challenged that the poor are still with us today. Margaret Thatcher has now stood before her Maker. For those of us who live on, it is time to consider what our own life’s legacy will be.

Phil Moore leads Everyday Church in London (@philmoorelondon).
His latest book “Straight to the Heart of Solomon” was published this week by Monarch Books.

This article was originally produced for the Evangelical Alliance’s “Friday Night Theology” series - www.eauk.org

It’s only three days to go until Easter Sunday. If you live in Southwest London, that means it’s three days until Resurrection Sunday in more ways than one.

First and foremost, Easter Sunday marks the anniversary of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead 1,983 ago. This was such a turning point in human history that we still mark it with a four-day weekend and by giving one another chocolate eggs which speak of new life breaking out from inside a closed tomb.

But secondly, if you live in Southwest London, Easter Sunday marks the resurrection day for some of the area’s most historic churches.

In Kingston, the iconic eighteenth-century church building on Union Street will be reopened as Everyday Church Kingston. An ancient building which has stood at the heart of Kingston life for seven generations has been refurbished and is being relaunched with a new congregation who have plans to make an everyday difference to the community once again.

In Southfields, the Victorian church building directly opposite the Tube station will be reopened as Everyday Church Southfields. The refurbishment work has been completed and a new congregation are moving into the building to carry on the church’s history at the heart of Southfields. The months of death, closure and burial have been worth it. An amazing new chapter is about to start on Resurrection Sunday.

In Wimbledon, another great church will become known as Everyday Church Wimbledon. This church gathered ten per cent of Wimbledon’s entire population in Victorian times and it is still one of the largest and most influential churches in the area. It has changed its name from Queens Road Church, it has sent scores of church members to Kingston and Southfields, and it has dug deep into its pockets to finance what will happen on Resurrection Sunday.

Everyday Church will be one church with four services in three venues in three London boroughs. It will be a church with one vision: Loving Jesus and living his mission. It will be a church with one message: Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead 1,983 years ago and he still brings God’s resurrection power to those who surrender to his agenda in Southwest London.

You can find out all about the Easter Sunday services at Everyday Kingston, Everyday Southfields and Everyday Wimbledon by going to www.everyday.org.uk

So have a very happy Resurrection Sunday. Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead, and his resurrection power is breaking out in the communities across Southwest London!

“I had no idea, when the war came to an end, of the horrible massacres which had occurred; the millions and millions that have been slaughtered. That dawned on us gradually after the struggle was over.”These are the words which Winston Churchill spoke to a crowded House of Commons in the months immediately after the end of World War Two. The Allies had inadvertently thwarted a holocaust which had claimed the lives of over 6 million Jews.

Today, however, an even greater holocaust is taking place, and it is a holocaust which the governments of America, Britain and the other wartime allies have failed to do anything to prevent. In part this is because they are afraid of China which now holds the bank bonds upon which many Western economies depend. But it is also because these one-time holocaust fighters now have plenty of blood from this fresh holocaust on their own hands too.

Earlier this month the Chinese Health Ministry published its statistics for abortions in China since 1971. In just shy of 40 years, the Chinese government has confessed to the abortion of 336,000,000 foetuses. That’s equivalent to the entire population of the USA and Australia combined. Whether we are Democrat or Republican, Conservative or Liberal, pro-life or pro-choice, this ought to matter to us all.

It should matter if you believe in a woman’s right to choose. Between a third and a half of these abortions were carried out against the express wishes of the mother. Worried by soaring population growth, the Chinese government has enforced a ‘one-child policy’ for families during most of the past 40 years. Parents who conceived a second baby were forced to pay a heavy fine or, if too poor, to undergo a forced abortion. A conservative estimate puts the number of forced abortions in China at 137,000,000. That’s as many killings as the whole of World War One and World War Two put together. And it’s something which not a single voice in the United Nations has condemned.

It should matter to you if believe in the sanctity of human life. You don’t have to agree with the Bible’s statements that life begins at conception (Psalm 139:13-16) or that foetuses are real people (Luke 1:41-44). You simply have to agree that the rightness or wrongness of a culture is made most evident by the way it treats the weakest of the weak. Is it right that in the trial of Chris Huhne, the disgraced British politician, in February 2013, the media were more up in arms that he tried to force his wife to take his speeding fine than that he forced her to abort her now-18-year-old son? Is it right that the most dangerous place to be in a Western nation is inside your mother’s womb?

It should matter to you if you believe in American values. Barack Obama was right to point out in his second inauguration speech earlier this year that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness … Together we resolved that a great nation must care for the vulnerable, and protect its people from life’s worst hazards and misfortune.” Barack Obama was right but he wasn’t right enough. He didn’t put two add two together and confess that his generation had betrayed the founding fathers by aborting 55,000,000 of the most vulnerable Americans since the Roe vs Wade ruling in 1973.

It should matter to you if you believe in economics. Most Western nations are facing an economic crisis caused by their rapidly ageing populations. People are living longer and the birth rate hasn’t been high enough for the past 40 years to produce enough young workers to fund the cost of pensions and healthcare for the old. Mass immigration has masked the scale of the problem, but it has brought with it fresh problems of its own. No politician has so far dared to speak out the unpalatable truth: that the birth rate would have been 50% higher in nations like my own one, the UK, had it not been for the abortion of 200,000 foetuses each year. That’s a third of all human deaths each year in the UK combined.

It should matter to you if you hate all forms of racism. A recent paper published by the American anti-racism charity Protecting Black Life revealed that 79% of abortion facilities in the USA are located within walking distance of large African-American or Latino communities. A National Vital Statistics Report in June 2012 revealed that black women are five times more likely to have abortions than white women. It’s no wonder that many leaders within the black and Latino communities have started to question whether their Western abortion laws are in fact a legalised form of genocide.

It should matter to you if you believe in good medicine. We don’t have to delve back into history for the Hippocratic Oath in the fifth century BC which made ancient doctors pledge that “I will give no deadly drug to anyone if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to procure abortion.” All we need to do is go back to the Declaration of Geneva in 1948: “I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception.” If you have any doubt whether these statements about the practice of medicine, both ancient and modern, still apply, then take a look at some of the outstanding pictures of foetuses which modern medicine has furnished us with here: http://tinyurl.com/cw8h3wf

Last, but by no means least, it should matter to you if you care about the many women who undergo abortions. I have lost count of the number of women I have come into contact with who have expressed their deep sense of guilt and anger that abortion was presented to them by politicians and doctors as nothing more than a piece of minor surgery, and yet who have found their lives are scarred by a sense that they took the life of their unborn child. I help these women by taking them to King David’s experience when he caused the death of his own child: “I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me … Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord’ - and you forgave the guilt of my sin.” (Psalm 51:3 & Psalm 32:1-5). Many women have found great solace in those words, but we should all agree that it would be much better if politicians and doctors were honest up front about the trauma which abortion brings to mothers as well as to their children.

Note that although I have quoted from the Bible at times in this blog, I haven’t primarily relied on religious arguments at all. I have pointed out that every one of us - faith or no faith - should want this forgotten holocaust to end. For the sake of a woman’s right to choose as well as for the right of a foetus to live; for the sake of good economics as well as of good medicine; for the sake of Western values as well as for the sake of stamping out Western racism.

World War Two historian Donald L. Niewyk reminds us in his book “The Holocaust” that “the main features of the Jewish Holocaust are clearly visible to all but the wilfully blind.” The same is true of this new holocaust. It’s time we all agreed on this and started making plans as allied nations how we can bring it to an end.

Today it is exactly one month until Resurrection Sunday. It is only 31 days until Everyday Church becomes one church in three venues across three London boroughs.

I’m really excited with the way that things are coming together. The building projects are finishing, the new congregations are gathering, the leadership teams are forming, and the launch plans are finalising. But, above all this, I am excited that the whole church is uniting for 40 days of prayer and fasting for our church and city and nation. D.L. Moody famously said that “Every great move of God can be traced back to a kneeling figure.” That’s why I’m so excited about the many kneeling figures at Everyday Church.

In my down time from the busy activity of launch preparations, I have been taking time to walk with Charles Spurgeon who planted these venues well over 100 years ago. I have just finished reading his two-volume autobiography in order to discover the secrets behind the original launch of the churches which are becoming Everyday Kingston, Everyday Wimbledon and Everyday Southfields. Again and again, the same theme re-emerges. These were churches which were planted through prayer.

When Charles Spurgeon planted the church which is about to become Everyday Church Kingston, he wrote to the founding congregation in 1857, saying “Hold up [your ] hands in earnest prayer and may the Lord send a revival into your midst which shall be greater than even our largest desires can wish.” I believe that those prayers are being answered, even now, and I believe that our prayer and fasting as a church is preparing us to steward the great revival for which Charles Spurgeon prayed in the very early days. 

If you are part of Everyday Church or if you are simply a well-wishing onlooker who is willing to pray for us, then I would like to give you one short quote from Spurgeon during the period when he planted Everyday Kingston and Wimbledon. May it stir you to pray the kind of prayers which get an answer from heaven. May it encourage you to be all that God calls you to be at this crucial time in prayer:

“If we are to receive … a blessing … we must sincerely desire it, confidently expect it, and go straight to God and ask for it. There is no need for us to go beating about the bush …

I believe in business prayers. I mean, prayers in which you take to God one of the many precious promises which he has given us in his Word, and expect it to be fulfilled as certainly as we look for the money to be given to us when we go to the bank to cash a cheque or a note. We should not think of going there, lolling over the counter, chatting with the clerks upon every conceivable subject except the one thing for which we had gone to the bank, and then coming away without the coin we needed, but we should lay before the clerk the promise to pay the bearer a certain sum, tell him in what form we wished to take the amount, count the cash after him and then go our way to attend to other business.

That is just an illustration of the method in which we should draw supplies from the Bank of Heaven. We should seek out the promise which applies to that particular case, plead it before the Lord in faith, expect to have the blessing to which it relates, and then, having received it, let us proceed to the next duty devolving upon us.”

Let’s not just read Charles Spurgeon’s words. Let’s be like the man who planted 62 churches in just 11 years. Let’s pray business prayers which lay hold of God to bless Kingston, Southfields and Wimbledon. Let’s be specific about we want in our prayer and fasting, and let’s draw great supplies from the Bank of Heaven for Everyday Church. Let’s be kneeling figures who start a great movement of God.

If you aren’t sure what to pray, then download our prayer guide at www.everyday.org.uk/40days  If you know what to pray but find prayer hard, then come to our Wednesday lunchtime or Friday sunrise prayer meetings. If you can’t come to the prayer meetings then gather friends and family to start praying for a mighty work of God to accompany the launch of 3 Everyday venues in exactly one month’s time.

These three churches have an amazing history, but as they become the first three venues of Everyday Church they are going to open up a new and even more exciting chapter in God’s purposes. Through your prayers, we stand on the brink of an amazing adventure with God.

So it’s one month to go and counting - counting on your faithful prayers to usher in a mighty work of God.

If you were confused by what the Bible says about homosexuality before the start of this year, then the past six weeks can’t have made it any easier.

First, President Barack Obama referred back to the Bible when he announced in his inauguration speech that he is in favour of same-sex marriage because “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are createdequal, that they are endowed by their Creatorwith certain unalienable rights.” Next, Prime Minister David Cameron took an opposite view by admitting that his parliamentary bill to legalise same-sex marriage in the UK is a proposal which sets him at odds with many within Britain’s religious communities.  Finally, just to make the air of confusion even greater, one of the most influential British church leaders came out with his view that the Bible doesn’t oppose same-sex marriage at all. Confused yet? Well, if so you’re not alone.

There has never been a time when we have needed more clarity on what the Bible says on homosexuality than now, but there has never been a time when church leaders have been more afraid to give it. It’s easier to read about the intimidation which the early Christians suffered at the hands of the sexually permissive Roman Empire than it is to risk intimidation at the hands of our own similarly sexually permissive culture.

But so many honest people are searching for honest answers that in this blog I’m going to try to explain what Paul says in one of the most important chapters in the Bible on how God views homosexual sex and same-sex marriage. I’m going to explain what Paul means when he writes in Romans 1:26-27 that ”God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.” 

First, the cultural background. Writing to Rome to say that homosexuality was sinful was like writing to France to forbid the use of garlic in cooking. Gay relationships were simply part-and-parcel of Roman life. They had practically become a national institution.

When Paul wrote this letter to the Romans in 57AD, the city was as entrenched in homosexuality as ancient Greece before it, where the custom of pederasty made gay sex a rite of passage for boys, and where the poetess Sappho wrote so many love songs to the women of Lesbos that we still refer to her lifestyle as lesbianism. Tacitus laments that under Nero, “Promiscuity and degradation throve. Roman morals had long become impure, but never was there so favourable an environment for debauchery as among this filthy crowd” (Annals 14.15). He even tells us that Nero “went through a formal wedding ceremony with one of the perverts named Pythagoras. The emperor, in the presence of witnesses, put on the bridal veil. Dowry, marriage bed, wedding torches, all were there.” (Annals 15.37).

Suetonius gives a similar view of gay Rome: “Having tried to turn the boy Sporus into a girl by castration, Nero went through a wedding ceremony with him – dowry, bridal veil and all – took him to his palace with a great crowd in attendance, and treated him as a wife.” He adds a third story that Nero “was dispatched – shall we say? – by his freedman Doryphorus. Doryphorus now married him – just as he himself had married Sporus – and on the wedding night he imitated the screams and moans of a girl being deflowered” (Life of Nero, 28-29).

In light of this, Paul’s comments here about homosexuality were both controversial and dangerous. It begs the question why he chose to tackle this issue in particular, when he had even more reasons that we do to avoid it?

Paul makes this his focus because gay sex is sinful. That’s about as unpopular a sentence as any you could read in our culture, but it was just as unpopular in first-century Rome. Paul writes in these two verses that homosexuality is shameful, unnatural, indecent, and a perversion. He is so clear about this that the only way we can miss it is by having already made up our minds to disregard the things he says. Yet note that Paul does not insult gay people themselves. Instead, he states something even more controversial: he says that their actions are simply the outworking of a culture which has rejected God.

Paul makes this his focus because gay attraction is a symptom of a race which has rejected God. Note his argument: People know from creation what God is like but they deliberately resolve to suppress the truth about him. He responds by ‘darkening their hearts’ so that they begin to worship creatures, and by handing them over to reap what they have sown. Since they reject God the Father, Son and Spirit – different yet one – their blind eyes no longer recognise that “in the image of God … male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). They forget in verse 21 that sex is a way to glorify God and be thankful, because “refusing to know God, they soon didn’t know how to be human either” (this is a paraphrase of verse 26 in ‘The Message’ translation) Although Paul wasn’t part of the modern debate over whether gay attraction is a matter of nature or nurture, he answers the question by telling us they are neither. They are the natural expression of a culture which rejects God. Being gay actually feels right to homosexuals because they live in a culture which has suppressed God’s truth and been given over “to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.” Conservatives may feel an instinctive repulsion to this behaviour, but since they cannot articulate why they feel it, they quickly lose the cultural battle. Very soon they wake up in the world of verse 32, where people “not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practise them.”

Enough of Paul confronting Gentile homosexuality in Rome. Are you ready now for something even more surprising? Paul also makes this his focus because homophobia is sinful too. If you find yourself nodding at Paul’s teaching and revelling in his attack on homosexuality, then he also chose to highlight this as an issue because of you. He is laying a trap which he springs in 2:1 on the moralists who are guilty of first-century homophobia: “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself!” He knew that Jewish Christians quoted Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 to push gay people away as “detestable”. Therefore he lists it alongside envy and lying and hatred and gossip to demonstrate that it is simply one of many expressions of human rebellion. Was Nero worse in his homosexuality than when he raped a Vestal Virgin, committed incest with his mother, took a freedwoman as his mistress, or kicked his pregnant wife to death during an argument? Of course not. Paul focuses on homosexuality because it roots out moralisers, so that he can deal with them at the beginning of chapter 2.

But beyond all these things, Paul makes this his focus because Jesus saves both homosexuals and homophobes. If we pretend that gay pride isn’t sinful then we won’t ask him to deliver gay people, but if we rail against the gay community we will lead them to believe that church is the last place for them to find any deliverance. If we try to help them when they come by addressing their homosexuality as if it were the root issue, then we won’t manage to help them either. Yet if we treat it – like Paul in chapter 1 – as one of the fruits of rejecting God, whilst avoiding the judgmentalism he tackles in chapter 2, then we will truly build churches where gay people can be saved. We will be able to say along with Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11:

“Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” 

That’s why Paul got so excited when he wrote to gay Rome and began to share the Gospel by talking about homosexuality. He didn’t see the gay pride of Rome as a reason to keep quiet. He saw it as a reason to proclaim the Gospel even more confidently because it is God’s good news for gays.