October 18th

Exodus 21:1-22:31, Mark 2:18-3:30, Proverbs 5:1-14

Some people question the idea that the Bible is still relevant today. When you look at this reading from Exodus, a huge chunk of these rules and regulations, spoken by God and written thousands of years ago, are still applied in our laws today. Murder, compensation, health and safety, personal injury and more … The Bible is the timeless word of God that reaches into and touches our lives right to this very minute.

Andy is spot on talking about God’s rules being about creating a community of love where people respected each other and didn’t harm one another. The majority of the rules today are about not hurting people, it seems as though without the rules, they would not be bothered about the pain they would cause. I wonder, a couple of days after someone drove a car through a crowd of people, whether we live in a community that is marked by love or whether, as a society, we sometimes fail to stop and think whether we are hurting others in what we do.

Jesus is fed up with the fact that rules have replaced love as he speaks against the strictness of the Sabbath. Jesus is the epitome of love, he is love in human form and he came because of God’s love for us. And he drew huge communities around him, just look at all the crowds mentioned today. People need love, they thrive on love and when it is not the centre of our society, we tend to find that we move away from what God envisaged in the people of Israel.

As we go about the business of today let us model the love of Christ. They say that when we smile at someone, we can spread that smile. When we show love, even in the simplest form, then we can spread that love and create a society that is marked by love. And it can start with us.