This week we begin our journey through the mass of Old Testament prophetic literature, starting with an oddball. For the remainder of the year we will engage the prophets in their oracles and premonitions, peppered by further narrative from The Chronicles and other smaller books such as Daniel and Nehemiah.

Jonah, an approximate contemporary of Amos (see Amos 1:1 with 2 Kgs 14:25), also serving under Jeroboam II in the northern Kingdom of Israel, provides the character basis for this story. A story that demonstrates very powerfully one of the new emerging themes: That Yahweh is not just the God of Israel, but of the whole world.

Finally, after six months, we have arrived at the penultimate stage of the Israelite story, and it is without doubt the lowest and saddest point in their journey. So much so, that we will spend the majority of the next six months reliving it. It is known by one simple, desolate word: Exile.

It is here that we realise what Kings has all been about. From Solomon, to Ahab to Josiah, the story has been relentlessly stampeding towards collapse. Even the great reformers could not turn Israel’s heart back to Yahweh. The Council for the Defence lies in tatters and the verdict is final. Israel has failed. It’s over.

With the final chapters of Acts, Luke hits the fast forward button. Having spent the first 15 chapters focusing on specific episodes covering just a few years, Luke now takes us on a whirlwind tour around Asia Minor following Paul. Snapshots and summaries are the order of the day – Paul spends six months here, a year there, plants a church, moves on, preaches the gospel, starts a riot.. There is a huge sense of energy and excitement. We get earthquakes, torture, riots, quarrels, courtroom drama. Great miracles happen, people are healed by shadows and handkerchiefs. All great stuff.

So why then am I left slightly weary? I think it is because there is an elephant running round the room which I am trying hard not to get trampled by. The elephant is not Paul himself but how we have used Paul as the exemplary Christian missionary, and in some senses the paradigmatic Christian.

With Solomon gone and the Kingdom divided, the central section of the Kings narrative follows the rise and fall of the dual monarchy: Israel, the far larger nation of the north and the smaller, but ultimately more significant, Judah, in the South.

The remainder of 1 Kings details the stories of Elijah the Prophet and the controversial King of Israel, Ahab. The latter, bent on ‘evil’, according to the text, does show signs of devotion to Yahweh, but for whatever reasons (almost certainly among them, a very dodgy wife and a distinct lack of guts) cannot seem to turn himself away from the cult of the Ba’al and its diverting ways.

This article was first posted in 2009

The summer sun is shining hot, we have one solitary strawberry growing on our veg patch and Wimbledon fever has taken over our house. And for once Britain has a genuine contender. God bless Tiger Tim with his pressed whites and embarrassingly limp fist pump, but Andy Murray looks like the real deal. I watched rapt for almost four hours yesterday as he fought Stan Stan the Swiss man to a standstill.

What I love about tennis, and especially grass court tennis, is that whole matches hinge on only a few points. A break of serve here, a double-fault there changes the course of whole matches. Therein lies the drama and the excitement.

I think of Acts 8-15.35 as a break point to win 10-8 in the fifth set of a final at Wimbledon. It is impossible to overstate how important these chapters are within the grand story of the bible. There are some decisions in life which have irreversible consequences, some do-or die moments which will affect everything which is to come. These chapters represent such a pivotal hinge, whose consequences have shaped the rest of Christian history, and, as such, world history.

This first sixteen chapters of 1 Kings provide us with an almost perfect snapshot of Israel’s ongoing Yahweh saga. One the one hand, greatness, and on the other, despair and ruin.

The narrative picks up where 2 Samuel left off. David dies and his son, Solomon, succeeds him as king. In what follows, Solomon is established as, without doubt, Israel’s mightiest sovereign. If you thought King David was impressive, you ain’t seen nothing! This is a Suzerain with increasing vassals, among them, the great Old-Assyrians Tyre and Sidon.

But there is one clear and penetrating reason why Solomon does not make number #1 in the Israelite League of Greatness: Women! Seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines to be precise.

Ibrahim was not only my friend but the best footballer I have ever seen. We met while working together digging a field, planting grass clump by clump for what would become a makeshift running track for the football team. After a day’s sweat in the field, we would lace up our boots and play for a couple of hours. And every night he would float around the pitch answering the laws of a different space and a different time. Always two seconds ahead, two yards too quick.

Ibrahim was a Muslim, albeit a slightly confused one. His father was the local imam, an important man. Over the course of many months where you could almost literally see the inner conflict, Ibrahim became a Christian. I vividly remember the moment when we prayed together for the first time in the middle of this huge dense scrubland, overlooking the shores of Lake Victoria. We prayed a faltering, formulaic believers prayer, the kind that would make me cringe nowadays. But somehow something happened and Ibrahim became a strong Christian. He believed and kept believing.

Another sidestep from the narrative this week as we look at the rest of the book of Proverbs. We read back in February of the book’s prologue, the ideological war between Lady Wisdom and the Harlot, Folly. Having established that Wisdom is the path to life and Folly, to death, these remaining chapters explore the best ‘pearls’ from Israel’s finest.

Proverbs is inspiring to its readers because it is real and down to earth. Life isn’t clear cut and the right path is rarely obvious, and Proverbs never pretends any different. This is the beauty of all the ‘Wisdom’ literature captured here in the Old Testament. Whether it’s Job, the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes or the Song of Songs, truth is ambiguous and depends on the situation at hand. Decisions aren’t straightforward and, in the vein of King David’s legacy, though doing the ‘right’ thing is important, when things are a bit hazy, it’s the direction of the ‘heart’ that counts.

In that sense, Proverbs is not a blueprint for life. It is simply an assortment of sayings. There are, naturally, some common themes: hard work will pay off; being lazy can make you poor; those who do right will end up better off; talking too much is not always good for you; money can ruin you; and so on. But the assumption that wisdom is not found in a set of universal rules, but must be sought in each specific situation, is a powerful counter-force to the thrust of the Torah.

I wonder what you think about the holy spirit. Or should that be the Holy Spirit? Or holy Ghost, or the 3rd person of the Trinity? Perhaps you think about miracles, perhaps about worship songs, perhaps even about creation and ecology. Or perhaps you feel slightly non-plussed and that the holy spirit is either an irrelevance or even a delusion.

I ask because as we take the plunge back into the world of Dr Luke, the Holy Spirit takes centre stage. While we have come to know Acts as the Acts of the Apostles, Acts is really all about the Acts of the Holy Spirit. Luke more than any other New Testament writer emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit. We didn’t have much time to look at this in Luke but just have a look back at Luke 1 – 2 and you will see the Holy Spirit everywhere. And as we move into Acts and its story which roves all over modern day Turkey and eventually into Europe and Rome, behind everything and everyone stands the Holy Spirit. So before getting going on Luke’s part travelogue, part history, part commentary, we would do well to spend a little time reflecting on the Holy Spirit.

The story continues this week as we look at all 24 chapters of 2 Samuel. Whoever split the book of Samuel in two did so to mark the end of Saul and let the 2nd book tell, undiminished, the story of Israel’s best-loved king.

While the conflict of 1 Samuel juxtaposes David against Saul - a bright light against a flailing has-been – 2 Samuel, without the baddy to make the goody look good, lets the enduring king’s halo slip down somewhat. And this is where the narrative truly gives us hope. Because we are not to be dazzled with a perfect sovereign, but with a normal man, who’s head is just as easily turned.