Walking free from Prison

 

Photos courtesy of Unsplash

What a moment it must be for a prisoner when, at last, the penalty for his or her crime has been paid in full, and he or she can walk free and enjoy liberty that has been rightly denied him or her for months or years! To feel the fresh breezes of freedom and know that not another moment will be spent behind bars!

Conversely, what a horrendous moment it must be when, after examining the evidence presented, a verdict is reached, guilt is established, and the sentence is passed! It may mean a long term in prison, deprived of freedom, or in some countries, the death penalty may be the fearful price to pay. Even in our lax society, where standards have dropped alarmingly, it is recognised that certain crimes merit severe punishment.

Faith & Children

 

All photos courtesy of Unsplash

Many young people plan careers to do with children as teachers or similar. Well, to Jesus, children were important, first in what they were and secondly in what they represented.

 

Talking about children, let me give you my favourite illustration of what faith is. I often stand a few steps down the stairs at home, and my youngest granddaughter stands at the top of the stairs. I open my arms, and she jumps into my arms. She knows nothing about the laws of gravity or about the dynamics of bone breakage, but she still jumps. Faith is like that; it doesn’t know everything that can be known, but, as a child, it trusts in its object of trust. In this case, that’s me! In the same way, to be a person of faith in Christ, one has to be childlike but, of course, not childish. 

 

The most mature people were urged by Jesus, the Son of God, to be childlike. There are two particular child-related reported incidents in His life when His disciples did not end up looking good. Each of these incidents is recorded by the gospel writers Matthew, Mark and Luke, but each from his own particular perspective. 

 

In the first reported incident, the disciples came to Jesus, and asked, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’  Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, and said to his disciples, truly except you be converted [turn right around – do a U-turn], and become as little children, you shall not even enter into the kingdom of heaven. Then He went on to say that whoever is prepared to humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. The picture presented by this necessary conversion is that of turning round in a road and facing the other way. 

 

In the second incident, some little children were brought to Jesus in order that he should put his hands on them, and pray, seeking a blessing for them; however, the disciples scolded the children and tried to send them away. But Jesus told them to allow the little children to come to Him, and not to stop them coming to me because He said ‘of such is the kingdom of heaven’, and as requested, He laid his hands on them. 

 

In the parallels given in the gospels, we have some interesting personal touches in telling us what Jesus did and how He felt:

 

·      ‘Jesus was much displeased’

·      ‘Jesus called the children to him' and 

·      ‘Jesus took them up in his arms’ 

 

The sort of people who make up God’s kingdom are childlike and trusting. Child-like faith in Christ as your Saviour gets you into the kingdom of heaven, and child-like behaviour thereafter, i.e., humility and selfless service, gives you true spiritual importance. 

 

Never underestimate the importance of children; Jesus didn’t.  

Written for FTMP by a Guest Blogger

Faith and Evidence

 

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In many fields today, people are coming to the conclusion that decisions must be evidence-based. That is to say, they think that using intuition isn’t good enough and the fact that something seems a good idea is an insufficient reason for making important decisions that influence people’s lives or livelihoods. On the contrary, many people are keen that ours should be an evidence-based society. One of the best examples of progress in this area is in medicine. A full definition of evidence-based medicine has been offered as ‘the use of mathematical estimates of the risk of benefit and harm, derived from high-quality research on population samples, to inform clinical decision-making in the diagnosis, investigation or management of individual patients’. That’s pretty heavy, but an everyday definition might be ‘the use of the best evidence available’ in making any decisions. This then governs choices ranging from building hospitals to prescribing treatments or medicines for individual patients. 

 

Decisions made using these ideas of ‘best evidence’ might be different from conventional wisdom - the ideas or explanations generally accepted as true by the general public. Brave souls might stick to their guns and press for ‘evidence-based decisions’, believing that in the long run, they will be shown to be correct.