It may or may not interest you to hear a bit about what I’ve been up to lately. Either way, I enjoy remembering and writing these things, so it’s not an entirely pointless exercise.

On Saturday 11th March, with most people having finished their exams apart from a few over-worked medics, Cardiff Christian Union had its end-of-year beach party, ably organised by Becky Lamb. We met at 10am and bundled into a coach to head to a beach on the Gower. By the way, here’s the ultimate proof I’m dedicated to the CU and its members: I missed that week’s Doctor Who episode to be on the beach all day! (Don’t worry, I saw a repeat on BBC3 the following Friday).

Although it was initially rather cloudy, the sun came out and we were able to have a great time chatting, going in the sea (which was very cold rather than lovely when you got in, but still great fun), playing various sports and generally having a chilled-out time.

We had a sand modelling competition, and I was enlisted to help build a Viking longboat from sand! I did most of the worked on sculpting the head of a dragon as a figurehead, while Ian, Tom and the rest of the team did a great job of the body and tail of the boat. They built in seats for us to sit on so that when the time came for the models to be judged, we could sit in our boat and wave our swords and shields (well, baseball bats and frisbees!) menacingly.

There was stiff competition from the other teams, such as the sand Loch Ness Monster (shown eating a miniature version of our longboat!) and also some not-so-stiff competition, such as the half-built and tatty sandcastle that was supposed to be a “ruined castle”. Despite this, our efforts were rewarded and our boat was deemed the winner! There were also some other awards. Andrew, who I know from the Debating Competition, was very miffed that the sand Coliseum he and Emma had made, which was the first sand model, was awarded the “Dullest Model Award”.

We also had a talk about the Christian message from UCCF worker James Sercombe, who’d brought his two children down to the beach. I know him from when he came to preach at my church, Bala Evangelical Church, and from when he’s come to the Welsh CU, so it was nice to have a chat and catch up with him.

Some people disappeared a bit earlier to get back to Cardiff in time for the Students’ Union end of year ball. Not my cup of tea, and not something I’d pay £35 to go to. A barbecue on the beach is much more to my liking!

On arriving back in Cardiff, after donating some of my leftover food to the inhabitants of 14 Cwmdare Street and saying some goodbyes, I got as much as possible packed up ready for an early start the next morning, because on the Sunday I would be catching the train to go off on my Next Exciting Adventure…

Well, I’m home. And not just for a flying visit but back for the summer. It’s great seeing family and friends once more. I’ve just got back from my church’s midweek meeting, where we were hearing from Hywel Meredith about the work of Tearfund in Rwanda and Uganda, which was really interesting. It was lovely to see the dear folks of the church again, and it’s nice being back with my family. I’m even pleased to see my sisters again!The last week or so has been very busy, though, and in the last twelve days or so I’ve probably spent the equivalent of an entire waking day travelling, mostly by train. I’ve had a great time, but it’s been pretty tiring. The CU beach party, Navs conference, Contagious training day and time spent with friends in London has been really fun, exciting and challenging and I’ll tell all soon. Well, edited highlights, anyway!Today I went in for induction at Somerfield, where I’ll be starting work tomorrow. I was shown the introductory video and made to fill out various forms, and I start tomorrow. I’m not looking forward to it particularly, and I’m disappointed that I probably won’t be able to go on beach mission because I’m tied down by it, but I need to earn some money. It’s a pain, but I have to live with it, and I pray that God will give me a right attitude so that I’ll work hard and enjoy it as much as possible. Anyway, I need to get off to bed, but hopefully I’ll have time to write more tomorrow evening.

Well, Mum and Dad came to pick all my stuff up from halls yesterday, and I leave Cardiff for the summer tomorrow morning. Today I’m going to the Christian Union beach party, which should be good – hopefully the weather will brighten up.

So where am I going? First of all, up to Scotland to a conference of the Navigators (a Christian group rather than anything to do with orienteering!). That’s from Sunday evening to Friday morning. Friday afternoon, I’m travelling down to London, and I’ll stay with Steve, a friend from the Christian youth conference Contagious, because the training day for Contagious is on Saturday. I’m on the Taskforce team, which is basically those who are getting too old to keep coming as punters carrying on coming as helpers to the leaders. And on Monday 20th, I’ll be heading all the way back up to Dolgellau. So it’s a busy 10 days or so ahead of me!

As far as I know, I won’t have Internet access for most of that time, so don’t expect any blog entries for a while. Toodle pip!

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: doesn’t time go quick?

Yesterday the Cardiff Navigators group, of which I am a member, had our end of year beach party down at Rest Bay, Porthcawl. It was a beautiful day – some of us went down at lunchtime, and went in the sea (well, those of us who weren’t put off by the temperature!), played games like cricket and so on all afternoon. The tide was rapidly advancing by the evening, though, so we relocated to a sheltered spot in the sun overlooking the beach in time for our barbecue. Lots of people who couldn’t spare the time to laze around on the beach all day came for the barbecue, and we had lots of food, even if our skills at cooking it left something to be desired!

Sadly it’s time to say goodbye to some people, who will be sorely missed – such as Susanna, who’s off to Liverpool after spending a year as a Navs student worker. It’s a funny time, the end of the academic year, and it put me in something of a funny mood – slightly melancholic, so I was annoyed at myself for not relaxing and enjoying the evening as fully as I otherwise might have.

Navigators is a Christian organisation. One of the things it does is student work – weekly Bible study groups. This is what I’ve been going along to each Tuesday evening this academic year, and I’ve found it really good. Bible studies can sometimes seem rather awkward and twee, or not really get into the Bible in a meaningful way, but it’s been really good. I get on well with those in my group, and we seem to have gelled well together, and I’ve found the studies really good for getting into the Bible and having good discussions of our Christian lives. Great people – Phil, Tom, Kerry, Dan and Dave (and a couple of others who are less regular and I can’t say I know as much). This afternoon I met with some of the others on the Navs committee, which basically is for the specifically student side of things such as dealing with the Students’ Union, and we were discussing plans for Freshers’ Week and the like – let’s hope we can get some more people coming along!

Continuing my reposting of my notes from studying Revelation, which I started doing a year and a half ago. I’ve just started reading a book on the Apocalyptic genre, which started by saying basically much the same as what I said in my previous post. More on this later…

Revelation 2:1-7 – Letter to the Church in Ephesus

So, the letters to the churches, or more specifically, to the angels of the churches. I don’t know whether this refers to there being angels with responsibility for each church, or just means “messanger” and is stressing that the church is God’s messanger to the world, or something else, or more than these, but knowing this isn’t terribly important, so I won’t get hung up on speculating about this.

What it does seem to show though is that God takes an interest in churches, and not just the individual Christians or the entire body of Christ. One of the things that has stood out to me lately is how that we are supposed to be distinctive as a community. It’s something I remember from beach mission, that “by this shall all men know that you are my disciples, that you have love one for another”, and it came up in the sermon this morning and again in my Bible study now. Perhaps I’m being dropped a hint here!

It’s probably also significant that there are 7 churches. Seven is, so I have been told and have read in various places, symbolic of perfection, completeness and holiness. I don’t personally know how this is known, but it’s similar to the way 13 is associated with unluckiness in our current culture, for example. So the seven churches suggests this is for the entire Church as a whole, not just those it was originally written for. Also, in v7 it says “he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches”, so that’s pretty much everyone! (At least, I hope none of you are missing said body parts!)

Jesus says he holds the seven stars and walks among the seven lampstands – which we were told in 1:20 represent the church. So Jesus is taking care of the Church and is working in it. Also, the churches have their strengths and weaknesses, so it’s time for a bit of constructive criticism from on high…

So Jesus praises them for their hard work and endurance, as well as keeping to what is true and pure. All top-notch stuff in which to follow their example. It’s interesting that they are praised for that they “cannot tolerate wicked men” – this totally goes against the grain of modern politically-correct thinking! It’d probably be a good idea for me to refer back to Paul’s writing on the subject here, but I think this refers to within the church rather than persecuting those outside it (which is obviously wrong!). As the church, we are ambassadors for Jesus Christ, so when someone does wrong whilst claiming to be a follower of Christ, it is a terrible thing.

But despite all this good work, there is a criticism: the Church has lost its first love. It seems that the church is too busy doing things to actually be loving. A Christian friend recently commented how many Christians, if they saw while travelling to church someone broken down on the side of the road, would not stop and help them so as not to miss the church meeting. But it’s stupid to be going to church to hear the things you should be doing rather than actually doing those things! It’s a danger to become so involved that we don’t stop to relate to people and demonstrate God’s love in our lives. I know that I sometimes get so caught up in trying to put an “event” on in the CU
at college, I miss out on time to actually talk to and spend time with friends, when building those relationships would probably be far more profitable to the Gospel than trying to design snazzier posters, or whatever.

What does Jesus command? Remember and repent. I know that I, as a young Christian, did some things in my enthusiasm that although enthusiastic, weren’t really very good ways of proclaiming the gospel – singing “Yes, Jesus loves you” in the middle of a school playground isn’t a good way of making friends and influencing people, let alone winning them to Christ! But as we become (hopefully) wiser, it’s easy to lose that enthusiasm to tell people the great news of the Bible. So we need to remember this and return to that passion for Christ.

And it finishes with a promise – isn’t God wonderful? “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God”. Sounds good, doesn’t it? It’s probably a good idea to have a bash at this overcoming lark then, don’t you think?

Yesterday evening, Mackintosh began a series on the Book of Revelation. Unfortunately I disagreed with virtually every point of the preacher’s interpretation of Revelation (pretribulation premillenial dispensationalism, to get technical about it). Which isn’t terribly surprising given how controversial a book it is, or necessarily anything bad. What did bother me though was that we were just told this timeline of End Time events (the Rapture leading into the seven year Great Tribulation and so on – just like those awful Left Behind books, which are the The Da Vinci Code of Christian literature) rather than having it explained to us from scripture, which I think you’d be rather hard-pressed to do.

I wouldn’t have minded a well-argued exegesis of scripture which I disagreed with, but the sermon wasn’t that, and I was a bit disappointed with it. When the preacher was talking about the implications of the second coming for us – urgency in evangelism, making sure we’re prepared and so on, he was fine, but I’d have much preferred it if he’d talked about that rather than trying to construct a rather dubious timeline of events at the end of the world. There wasn’t any argument made for his interpretive framework other than “This is what I think is right”.

It seems to me that among many Christians, especially those in America, there is a folk-mythology of the End Times. It’s a power story and drama, and some superficial proof-texting can seem to support it. But coming to the Bible without these preconceptions, I find it hard to see where many of the ideas dear to the likes of the Left Behind books can be found. For example, I don’t see any grounds for seperating “the Rapture” – believers being taken to be with Christ – from the rest of the Second Coming. It’s something that can be read into the text if you’re looking for it, but isn’t there if you try and faithfully understand it.

Another problem is that many people misunderstand the genre that the book of Revelation is written in, that of apocalyptic literature. Tim LaHay and Jerry Jenkins, writers of the Left Behind books, proudly claim that their view, “is the most literal interpretation of passages from Daniel and Revelation”, with the implication that it is therefore the best interpretation. This betrays a deep misunderstanding of the genre. Apocalyptic literature isn’t supposed to be taken literally, any more than poetry. Literal interpretations of Revelation are as mistaken as interpreting Psalm 18 as meaning that God is literally a rock, shield and horn, and so must be shapeshift into these physical objects! Since apocalyptic has fallen out of fashion as a genre (though stylistic elements still remain in our culture – The Lord of the Rings films, for example), it’s rather more understandable that people make this mistake, but still just as mistaken.

Well, rather than just gripe about what someone else has said about Revelation, I’ll start reposting my notes from studying Revelation which I sent to the ContagiousReunion mailing list. Contagious is the Christian youth conference I go on each year (it’s really great! If you’re in your teens, come along – great fun and great Bible teaching. But be warned, it is not a holiday – it is a Bible boot camp!). In 2003, we looked at the Book of Revelation and afterwards I started going back over the book chapter-by-chapter myself, and typed up my notes and sent them to the mailing list for other Contagiousites to read and comment on.

Here are my notes on Revelation Chapter One:

What Revelation tells us about itself:

• v1-2. This is God’s word! It’s been sent down to us through God, Jesus, the angel, John and now to us. We can trust this!
• v3 The book of Revelation is supposed to bless us, not befuddle us. We need to read, hear and obey. It’s not a mere puzzle-box, but teaching that is supposed to change our lives.

What it tells us about God:

• He is the beginning and end, exists in the past, present and future. God is eternal! (v4,8)
  Jesus is the “faithful witness” – he shows us what the Father is like; “the firstborn from the dead” – he came back to life, as will we his followers; “the ruler of the kings of the earth” – he is ruling and in control now!
• v12-20. Ahh! Into the strange imagery. So, who is this person “like a son of man”? This refers back to Daniel 7 and the one appointed by the Ancient of Days to have an everlasting dominion over all peoples. Jesus’ description here in Revelation matches that in Daniel describing the Ancient of Days. The description in v17 relates to v4 and 8, showing that he is God, and v18 clearly refers to Jesus’ death and resurrection.
• v17 – Jesus has conquered death and is ruler over it!
• Thankfully, v20 explains some of the imagery for us. Jesus is working in his church and looks after it – has it in the palm of his hand, so to speak.
• So, let’s go through some of the imagery. White hair and head – shows purity and victory. Robe, golden sash – royalty, kingship. Sword from mouth – his word is powerful (see also Hebrews 4:12). And other stuff, basically showing Jesus’ power, authority, purity and awesomeness.
• But he says “Do not be afraid”! (v17) – mighty God cares for us. Amazing.

What it tells us about the Christian life:

• v5 – Jesus loves us, has freed us by his blood, has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve God. So being in his Kingdom, we must obey our King, and we have all the benefits and priviledges of being in the kingdom of God. We are priests – we can come to God. it also means that we are to bring others to God, be the means of communication – a call to evangelize.
• – v9 – “…the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus…” So three important things to remember that we have (or should have) as Christians. We should expect suffering – the Christian life is tough. However, we are in the kingdom – we have the priviledges of the kingdom, including a relationship with King Jesus, ruler of the world, who we also must obey. Therefore we should patiently endure the sufferings we experience, through the strength that our King gives us.

Application for me:
I think the thing that stands out to me is that I should take this seriously. Our God is mighty, able to care for us, and worthy of our worship. I cannot take him lightly – he is the King and I must obey him. And yet he loves us! Amazing, mind-boggling stuff.

Next: Chapter 2:1-7 – The letter to the Church in Ephesus.

I’ll post the rest in installments, and also outline the interpretive principles I’m working by and my reasons for them, at a later date. I don’t like to be too dogmatic about Revelation, because it’s so complicated, multi-layered and full of meaning that there’s bound to be much more than what I notice, but the Left Behind school of thought on it strikes me as just plain daft.

It’s funny, the day before my last exam is the day I seem to have really got into the rhythm of revision properly. Mind you, if I didn’t have my exam tomorrow, I’d probably still be faffing around pretending to revise while.

The latest edition of Quench magazine discussed blogging in its editorial (a thinly veiled excuse to plug the Gair Rhydd blog, in part, but I didn’t know that the student paper had a blog before, so I didn’t mind). It discussed the comments of one newspaper columnist which dismissed blogging as “media commentary on media commentary”. So that article was media commentary on media commentary on media commentary, and so I’m now making media commentary on media commentary on media commentary on media commentary. Hmmm… is there any way for blogging to break out of this vicious cycle and produce something genuinely insightful and original? Well, it’s quite a challenge but I’d like to try and improve the quality of my blogging, so hopefully once my exams are over I’ll stop whinging about revising and start writing some stuff of worth. Of course, a lot of my writing energies have gone into writing for Gair Rhydd. If you’re in Cardiff, then watch out for my article on Big Brother, opinions and freedom of speech in the next issue, plus my response to the letter attacking my article attacking Astrology, in next week’s edition – well, subject the whims of the editors, anyway!

I had more strange dreams last night, but they’ve slipped my mind. I remember dreaming the other night that I discovered whales are very intelligent, and that whale-song is them singing their praises to God as they swim happily around the sea. I hope I remember what I dreamed last night, because I remember remembering last night’s dreams and finding them interesting, but they’ve slipped my mind…

Yesterday evening, I’d been talking in Navigators about some of the ways I wish Christianity and the church showed more depth and reality, would really work out the implications of Jesus’ radical teaching rather than merely living a sanitised version of the way everyone else lives. (See my rant Revolutionary Christianity.)

Those thoughts seemed to filter over into my dreams last night. I dreamt I was in a big shopping centre (it was rather like Queen’s Street) and I’d arrived there with Doctor Who. I said something about how I was sad about the way the world is, and the Doctor said to me “Well, why don’t you tell them that?” So I stepped out of a shop, and onto this big pillar that had for some reason appeared. I made this big speech, ringing out across the shopping centre. I told everyone how the world was stupid, how there’s so much injustice and sadness. How consumerism is such a daft idea, and that happiness doesn’t lie in the abundance of our wealth. I went on – delivering this speech that was a mix of the Sermon on the Mount, my article on Consumerism and Christopher Eccleston’s “Stupid, stupid people!” big speech in The Second Coming. And everyone listened, and heard, and agreed, and were down on their knees with sadness and repentence.

Then Peter Davison’s incarnation of Doctor Who turned up to tell me off for mucking up the time-stream by changing history with my speech.

Anyway, that was pretty bizarre. If only it were that easy… I think I’d better keep an eye on that Messiah complex there! I need to remember that changing the world starts with myself. One of the problems is that it’s hard to live differently without support from others, but then we all tend to wait for someone else to make the first move. I hope that through prayer and discussion of how to live the Christian life, we will be able to encourage each other to live radically and distinctively Christian lives.