Who eats the tithe?

Some facts about Tithing that might make for an awkward sermon.

 Read this...from Moses, given as part of the law in Deut 14 - i think this is the first time (chronologically) that tithing is mentioned, although it was perhaps a common cultural practice. Anyone got comments. But check out the bits in red: 

Tithes

^{Deut 14: 22} Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. ²³ Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and olive oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of theLord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always. ²⁴ But if that place is too distant and you have been blessed by the Lord your God and cannot carry your tithe (because the place where the Lord will choose to put his Name is so far away), ²⁵ then exchange your tithe for silver, and take the silver with you and go to the place the Lord your God will choose. ²⁶ Use the silver to buy whatever you like: cattle, sheep, wine or other fermented drink, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice. ²⁷ And do not neglect the Levites living in your towns, for they have no allotment or inheritance of their own.

²⁸ At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, ²⁹ so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.

Pretty much YOU are to comsume your tithe with your family as an act of worship. I think the implication is that the firstfruits should be enjoyed by you and your family and you should use them to remember the Lord and worship him.

At what point did we turn this into "you should pay your church leaders?"

I think there is a VERY strong argument for supporting the church financially as a central way to do the bits in blue above....sometimes this might mean paying salaries - i get that. BUT it's very important we don't slip into this priestly model of paying someone to be the man close to God, on our behalf. This, i think undercuts the personal relationship God invites us in to.

PLEASE tell me your thoughts - i think i need help on this one.

Quantum outside

Observation is creative... The act of looking changes things.

Looking into someone creates in them, be careful how you look.

Evolution vs Christianity

Bad title, i know.

Here are my briefest of thoughts on this, as a recovering atheist, a scientist and someone trying to follow Jesus.

The Genesis account of creation was never intended to be read as a literal text.


Evangelical tradition holds that Genesis was written by Moses....Jesus calls the first 5 books of the bible the law of Moses. However, scholars recognise multiple authors/or editors based on stylistic differences through the account of creation. The context of the authorship is perhaps what is most interesting.  It was written by Moses (or others) before the Israelites entered the promised land on their journey from escaping slavery in Egypt. The promised land was Canaan, and the people who lived their, the Canaanites, worshipped various violent gods, notably El. The purpose in writing the creation account was to set the God is Israel, YAHWEH, apart from the gods of the region, which it does in a number of ways. It is here that there begins a theology of monotheism:

• God created ex nihilo, from nothing, (a view supported by Hebrews and various Psalms); all the other gods used stuff, for example body parts of a rival god, to create the world. Gen 1:1-2.  
• The word created is the word bara, a verb which can only have God as its subject. Other available words were yasa- to form or mold, and 'asah which means "do or make".  Both later verbs require pre existent material to use. 
• 'elohim, the word used for God is a standard word for a god at the time, but with an interesting "im" ending, which denotes masculine plural, perhaps a hint at the doctrine of the trinity.
•  God speaks to create.

The point is that Moses wasn't writing for the benefit of post-enlightenment, modern or post modern thinkers.  It was for the benefit of his people, to teach them about their God.  If you are to just read the text in the same way you would read a recipe book, or a newspaper or a scientific textbook, you would come to all the wrong conclusions. 

Consider how there are two accounts of creation within Genesis, in which the order of when things were created is different.  If the author was intending to write a "scientific" account this would have been the biggest, most obvious mistake ever. We have to try to see it through a different lens. 

In this way there is no conflict with Evolution. It was never the intention of Genesis to detail HOW the earth and we were created, but to speak about the nature of God and our relationship with him.  No one knows exactly how it all happened and we probably never will.

Should we trust the scientific narrative of how we came to be on Earth? Good science looks at evidence to find patterns and predict future outcomes.  The science behind your mobile phone works, right?  We are all comfortable using our phones.  Why then would we not trust the science behind evolution?  If we trust doctors to cut us open and pull out the right bits and sew up the right bits, why wouldn't we trust their evolution narrative?

There is an interesting bit of philosophy that comes in helpfully here called the genetic fallacy.  This simply states that knowing where something comes from, or how something comes to be, does not mean that you understand WHY something is or comes to be. Understanding the process of evolution, does not mean you understand the WHY of how it happened.  

I think, at the moment, that God created the universe ex nihilo (a view supported by the Big Bang theory) and used evolution to make us, lowly humans.  I believe he thinks we are "very good", not just "good" like all the other animals.  I believe he called us to rule and reign over the Earth and that he loves us in a special way...I believe lots more stuff too, but i think i can stop there for now.

For the raving loonies who hear from God out there, like myself...I prayed about this issue of evolution once, because i was getting a lot of stick from some Christians for believing in it.  I got a picture, as i prayed, in my head of me diving below this massive tanker ship.  I was fiddling around with those magnetic words you can make poems from on your fridge and i was trying to get the word EVOLUTION to stick to the ship.  It wouldn't stick.

I felt like God was saying that i was trying to put a human word on to something that He had done, and it wasn't going to stick.  He said something to the effect that the word evolution doesn't begin to capture how amazing a thing it was for me to create the world.

So there....that shut me up.

Please help.

I'm trying to start a revolution. And right now, you are the most important person in that revolution.

check out this TED talk and you'll understand why...

5 year gap

Can you do it? Are you allowed?  Can you just not write in a blog for 5 years and then all of a sudden pick up a pen (or your laptop) and suddenly start writing again?

Evidently you can! How wonderful.  I've missed you all!

Brief check list...
Are you still in Edinburgh?  yes
Have you had a child?  yes, i have actually, thanks for noticing, the wonderful Ella Rose.

This is her on the day she was born.
Where do you work? At a museum.
How's Lucia? She is more wonderful than ever.

What are you going to write about in this time of pausing in Edinburgh?  Not sure to be honest.  I'm trying to take a more holistic approach to life now that i am 30 and don't care what anyone thinks because i am now on the merciless slide towards obscurity.

Stardom and changing dress sense

I now work for the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, which is an address not an organisation. I actually work for the government in one of the ill-reputed quangos.

Part of my job is taking and inflatable observatory to Primary Schools to tell them all about the stars. Fun? Yes. Weird? A bit.

I have an office too now, which is a first and am required to wear clothes bought in Marks and Spencer that invariably say Chino on them. I was surprised to find out that dressing nicely costs considerably less than the jeans and hoody combo I've been wearing up until now.

Learning curves

Today I watched an eighteen year old hack into someone's email account, change their password and adopt it as their own. Along the way he had a brief chat to someone called Rodreigo in Krakow, Poland and bought his friend an ipod using this poor person's amazon account. He managed to get into that through a password stored in one of their old emails.

This was all in the fifteen minutes we were waiting for the teacher to turn up to class. Scribing.. what a job. Afcab didn't turn up again, so i left shortly after the teacher arrived. He turned up for the next class, but then felt sick after about 45mins and i have another afternoon to myself.

Notes written today = 0
Total notes written to date = 1 x A4 side (two large diagrams of where to place the address on a formal letter)

My first day at school

You don't really want to forget your timetable and your phone so you can't find out your timetable. You don't really want to get lost a few times. You definately don't want to get a copy of the time table to find out that it was the wrong one and you're 45mins late for the most important class.

You especially wouldn't want all this to happen if you were actually there, not for yourself, but to assist Afcab a deaf student.

But actually all these things did happen. My first day working for Afcab, was totally one of those nightmare experiences that should only happen when you are asleep, so the blow is cushioned over all by your incedibly comfortable bed. It was when i got to somewhere in the building where every door seemed to say on it, "To enter here, you must wear protective clothing," that the panic pot started to boil over. I couldn't even find a pay phone to phone Lucia to find out the room number.

Gosh. But weirdly and incedibly, although it was quite awful, it wasn't terrible. Does that make sense?

Afcab didn't even turn up for his first class and i sat there with the sixteen to eighteen year olds and learned how to write a formal letter. I eventually did find him later on and it all worked out...kind of.

The college is a bit of a joke, it's mostly about going on MSN and playing those games where you run around and shoot people form the perspective of the guy holding the gun. Somehow it made me want to be a teacher.

Religious Tourism

I met a woman the other day who described herself as a religious tourist. She's the half Lebonese half Scottish daughter of a strick Muslim, who can't seem to get away from Born Again Christians. She says they turn up everywhere she goes. Some of them have become good friends of hers. She affectionately refers to them as HER Christians. It was with the glee of a seven year old boy who'd won a chocolate bar in drawing competition that i told her that I too was a Born Again Christian. She said I'd slipped under her radar. I took that, somehow, as a compliment.

It was Jesus who made up the phrase Born Again. It was us who took it and capitalised it. Now, in America especially, it has all these political connetations I'm pretty certain Jesus never intended. I think he meant: It's a big deal to follow me. You become my child and it's permanent.

Lucia and I have been engaging in religious tourism of our own. Church shopping. Swooping in collecting welcome packs and friendly strangers as we go. Singing the same songs with different people. Everyone loving Jesus in their own particualr way. It's kind of fascinating and a bit horrifying. Lucia said she felt like you shouldn't be allowed to choose your church. It's like trying to choose your family. Imagine you held some sort of Pop Idol auditions for your prospective family. They had to succeed in categories such as: Style of singing, age, sex, background and of course theological persuasion. It would be a farce.