… to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary … For nothing is impossible for God. (Luke 1:27,37)

Imagine the most excellent Theophilus talking with other men of rank and status in his Roman world. Someone asks him about the parentage of this ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ and all this ‘nonsense about a virgin having given him birth’. Was Theophilus tempted to ask Luke to gloss over it and not include any such detail resulting from his careful research? Why make it harder than it already was for people to believe? I don’t believe that either Luke or Theophilus were gullible and Luke had no credible reason to make it up.

Thinking more widely, I don’t expect to be able to understand everything about God. If I did, then God would be no bigger than my brain and not worthy of anyone’s worship. In fact, I fully expect there to be things about God that I simply don’t get. But I accept them as true e.g. the Trinity. This applies, of course, other areas of life as well, like maths or special relativity. (Just because I don’t understand E=mc² and all its implications, doesn’t mean that I have to reject it).

The Nativity reminds us that God specialises in the humanly impossible. We celebrate a God who is able to ‘do abundantly more than all we can ask or imagine, according to his power at work within us.’ (Ephesians 3:20) Mary believed it. Christmas invites us to do the same.
Prayer Heavenly Father, thank you that you did the impossible in sending Jesus. Help us to believe that you can still do the impossible through us as your power is at work today. Amen.

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, (Luke 1:26)

Angels play rather prominent supporting roles in the Nativity story and they, together with shepherds, have provided the flexibility for any number of children to be included in school and church nativity plays. (Unfair on the wise men, as Matthew doesn’t specify how many there were!) The author of Hebrews describes angels as “ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14). I have from time to time asked the Lord for angelic help and I believe those prayers were answered.
Elsewhere in Scripture angels are described as possessing great strength and authority and can appear to be quite magnificent. But here’s the thing: They’re not created in the image and likeness of God. Redeemed human beings are thus higher-ranking creatures and the day is coming when the full glory of being human having been realised, we shall exercise authority over them (1 Corinthians 6:3).

So when we sing our carols that refer to angels etc. ponder afresh the glory of our future. And in the meantime, thank God that they continue, in many unseen ways, to serve our needs.
Prayer: I thank you Lord, for all those times, known and unknown, when you have commanded angels to care for me and mine. Over this Christmas and New Year period, may that continue as the pandemic takes a new and sinister turn. Amen.

And so, on our Advent journey we come to Mary, the mother of Jesus, who declares in verse 46 “My soul glorifies the Lord.”

Luke wrote his gospel primarily as a discipleship manual for Theophilus, a high-ranking Roman official. His hard-nosed Roman worldview would have been challenged by Luke’s gospel in many ways, especially by its strong emphasis on God’s concern for the poor and needy, people he might have held to be of little or no consequence. Can you imagine his eyebrows rising in surprise as he read that God sent a delegation of angels to announce the birth of his Son to shepherds of all people!

But before Theophilus got to the story of the shepherds, Luke has recorded Mary’s song of praise (1:46-55). It was thought to be both beneath the dignity of and a waste of time for a Rabbi to teach a woman. And the patriarchal Roman world wasn’t much better! Yet here we find a young (teenage) woman who is not only ‘highly favoured by the Lord’ (1:18) but who clearly has an insightful grasp of Scripture – a fact which becomes evident when you compare her song with Hannah’s (1 Samuel 2). Theophilus would have had to take note that the worship of this young woman was as valued by God as that from any man and that his attitude to them might have to change?

Matthew, in his own way, made the same point when he included the names of four women in his genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:1-18). Given that he wrote his gospel in order to convince fellow Jews that Jesus of Nazareth was God’s Messiah, he risked turning some of his traditional male readers off in his opening paragraphs! So here’s a thought: What pre-conceptions and cultural prejudices have I grown up with that are challenged, not only by elements of the Nativity story itself, but by the gospel as a whole? It would be telling were I to draw a blank, don’t you think?

Prayer Gracious Lord, open my eyes to what I can’t see, and then seeing, empower me to change. Amen.

How many times have I read an instruction leaflet for something or other and concluded that the original set of instructions must have been written in another language and the translators haven’t quite got it right? The result can be quite amusing. Things can get lost in translation.

In practically all English translations of Romans 10:14 a little word is inserted that Paul didn’t write. It usually ends up like this: ‘How can they believe in the one OF whom (or ABOUT whom) they have not heard?’ But Paul didn’t write ‘of’ or ‘about’.

An accurate translation is
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?

Preaching, when it is truly preaching, is not speaking about the Lord (in whom we must believe), but it is the Lord himself speaking. When preaching is truly preaching, the voice that is heard is that of the Lord. There is a world of difference between giving a ‘talk’ or a ‘lecture’ or whatever else it might be called, and preaching. Preaching is in a class of its own and is a supernatural gift of the Spirit. Thinking it through, this means that Alan Bailyes can’t preach to save his life, let alone anyone else’s! Only God can take what I say and turn it into preaching so that when people hear it, they hear not my thoughts, but the voice of God. (All of this, of course, assumes a faithful exposition and application of the Scriptures).

This is one of the reasons why I’ve always asked my congregations whether or not they have done their sermon preparation during the week: Have they prayed for the preacher?

Reading church history, I note that whenever there has been a revival, there has been a revival in preaching through which people hear the Lord and call on his name for salvation. Will you join me in praying that the Lord will raise up a new generation of preachers – people who don’t just speak about Jesus but through whom Christ the Lord speaks with saving power!
Prayer: In this day and age, O Lord, we pray that you would raise up faithful preachers of the Word, anointed in power by the Spirit of Truth, so that those lost in their sin might be moved to call on the name of the Lord and so be saved. Amen.

These examples of things getting ‘lost in translation’ made me chuckle
‘In case of fire, please do your utmost to alarm the hall porter’ (in an Austrian hotel)
HELP ONESELF TERMINATING MACHINE (on a cash machine in China)
‘Measles not included in room charge’ (in a hotel in South Korea)
CUSTOMERS WHO FIND OUR WAITRESSES RUDE OUGHT TO SEE THE MANAGER (in a Nairobi restaurant)

It’s simple, but I hope not simplistic. I think of our Christian Mission to the world (with alliteration’s artful aid) in terms of three ‘P’s.

1. Presence: This, if you like, is the ‘silent witness’ of Christian lives as we do the good works ‘prepared in advance for us to do’ (Ephesians 2:10). Our presence in the community lays the foundation for and authenticates the words that explain the works.

2. Proclamation: This is our ‘spoken witness’. Having earned the right to be heard by our works, the words carry greater weight. ‘Actions speak louder than words’ is true but it’s not the whole truth. How about ‘Words speak louder when backed up by actions’?

Illustrating the above, I think in terms of Street Pastors whose sacrificial care for those in need often results in the question ’Why do you do this?’  And then there’s Christians Against Poverty. Many have come to faith off the back of CAP’s combination of presence and proclamation.

My third and final ‘P’ is persuasion. I have never successfully persuaded anyone to become a Christian. The only One who can do this is the Holy Spirit. Only he can open the human heart to respond positively to the Gospel, just as he did with Lydia in our verse for today.
One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to Paul’s message. (Acts 16:4)

Actually there’s a fourth ‘P’. Prayer. The persuasive work of the Spirit in opening someone’s heart is mysteriously linked in with our prayers for them. Having prayed for opportunities to Talk Jesus (backed up by the witness of our ‘works’), we must then pray that God will do what only God can do and grant the gift of saving faith (Ephesians 2:8).

Prayer: Thank you Lord for the gracious gift of saving faith imparted to me. I pray now for those whose hearts I long to see opened so that they too might believe. Amen

P.S. for a Biblical justification for saying three when it turns out to be four, see Proverbs 30:15, 18, 21 & 29  😉

Laughing at my younger self. You know how children don’t always hear things correctly? I remember feeling a bit sorry for ‘good king Wenceslas’, thinking that he must have caught a dreadful (and fatal) chill after going forth together with his page to help the peasant who lived a good league hence … by St. Agnes’ fountain. In my mind the words were ‘Good king Wences last looked out …’ I have been to Prague a few times and each time I have been in Wenceslas Square looking up at the statue of the good king, I have chuckled to myself!

And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. (Colossians 4:3)

The situation was not ideal. Paul had planned to arrive in Rome as a free man on his way to Spain (Romans 15:23,24). But things didn’t work out that way and when he did eventually arrive in Rome it was as a prisoner awaiting trial before the Emperor. He wasn’t free to spread the Word, but he didn’t give up and we know from his letter to the church in Philippi (written at about the same time as his letter to the Colossians) that his being chained 24/7 to a Roman soldier meant that the Gospel was reaching places it might not otherwise have got if he’d been a free man (see Philippians 1:12-13).

Over the course of the last few months I have found myself reflecting from time to time (especially when I’ve felt a bit down about it all) on the fact that when I accepted the call to become the minister of Worle Baptist Church, I expected the situation to be far different from how it’s turned out. I’ve not been free to do the things I was planning on doing. But just as God knew how things would turn out for Paul, so I remind myself that God knew all about the coming pandemic which has opened alternative avenues of service. Unexpected and unforeseen circumstances do not mean that we shut down and just wait for the crisis to blow over. Paul prayed for opportunities to witness to his faith in the circumstances he would rather not have been in. And so should we, don’t you think? Advent too reminds us that the sure prophecies of God weren’t fulfilled in ways that were expected. How true it is that his thoughts are not our thoughts, neither our ways, his ways (Isaiah 55:8)!

Prayer: Lord of the unexpected, as new opportunities present themselves, open our eyes to the possibilities and prosper your word as churches across the UK proclaim the Good News of Christmas in ways no-one had seen coming. Amen

“Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.” I have heard (or read) this quoted many times, and it is usually attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. There is, however, no credible evidence that he ever said or wrote it, and given that he was, by all accounts, quite the preacher, it seems unlikely that he would have agreed with the sentiment. While the witness of ‘works’ is necessary to authenticate the gospel, they cannot replace words of proclamation and explanation.

But the apostle Peter in our verse for today does envisage a context when this (infamous) quote may just be appropriate. Specifically, he has in mind a believing wife and an unbelieving husband:
Wives, in the same way defer to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behaviour of their wives (1 Peter 3:1)

Nagging a husband into believing is, in Peter’s book, a flawed strategy.
But godly behaviour may well lead to the sort of opportunity to ‘give a reason for the hope’ a wife has that we reflected on in yesterday’s verse (1 Peter 3:15). All this may well be applicable to our witness to close family and friends over Christmas and the New Year. Think ‘believing parents’ and ‘unbelieving children’ or vice versa, or whatever your close familial relationships may be.

Prayer: Loving Lord, may our behaviour play its part in winning over those closest to us in the days ahead, opening the door to the necessary use of words (and an invitation to Alpha?). Amen.

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, (1 Peter 3:15)

I used to be a Cub Scout and then a Scout and so the motto ‘Be Prepared’ was drummed into me and I still like to think that my tool box is equipped for practically any DIY eventuality! Peter also wants me to be prepared if someone asks me about my faith. One of the ways I’ve tried to do that over the years is have an outline of the Good News in my head, and I think it’s especially relevant at this time of the year. See what you think.

1. Christmas tells me that I’m more special than I could ever have known – God could take on human flesh without compromising being God. Being human is to be special to God.
2. But it also reminds me that I need saving from sin. I am more guilty than I could have realised. Mary’s baby was named Jesus because he came to save me from my sin.
3. It tells me that I am more loved than I could ever have dreamt. Christmas leads to Easter and in his death for me the full extent of God’s love for me was shown.
4. I therefore have a future more glorious than I could ever have imagined.

Well, that’s one of the ways I try to keep myself prepared. How about you? But however we prepare ourselves, it’s not so much about winning arguments with people, it’s about being winsome as a person – that’s the gentleness and respect bit.
Prayer: Lord of our hearts, as opportunities present themselves to Talk Jesus, fill us with your Spirit as we seek to answer with gentleness and respect. Amen.

He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, (Luke 1:14)

We’ve reached half-way in our Advent journey and today we think of John the Baptist. Luke records an angel of the Lord appearing to John’s father, Zechariah, who tells him, among other things, that his son born to him and his wife Elizabeth in their old age would be a joy and delight to them. Nick Fawcett has used his imagination in writing what he calls a ‘Meditation of Zechariah.’ It works best listened to rather than read, so can I encourage you to click on this YouTube link?

And that done, here’s today’s prayer: Sovereign God,, we thank you for all those who have borne witness to your coming in Christ, all who have shared their faith so that others might come to know him and experience his love for themselves. We thank you for those from whom we first heard the gospel, and all those who have nurtured and encouraged us in the years following. Help us, now, to pay our part in that continuing ministry, sharing what Christ means with those around us, and making known the way he has worked in our lives. Send us out in his name, to his glory. Amen.

For nearly thirteen years I regularly took assemblies at Tonypandy Primary school. The gathered children were probably the most responsive congregation I’ve ever known! One morning I turned up unkempt and a bit scruffy. As I walked through the playground to the school building, the children already waiting for first bell looked at me in stunned silence followed by loud whispers of “Look at Pastor Bailyes!”

The headteacher was a bit bemused when she saw me as well. I winked at her, smiling broadly hoping thereby to reassure her that I knew what I was doing. I hid in the staff room until all year groups were assembled and then made my dishevelled entrance and stood before them all. Silence reigned! I then opened my Bible and read James 1:22-24 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.

I asked them why they were so quiet and were looking at me so strangely. A couple of hands slowly and unsurely went up. I nodded in their direction and encouraged them to speak up and they stumbled out words that commented on my appearance. I’ll leave you to fill in a few blanks, but eventually I protested that I had looked in the mirror before I had left the house, “but, now you mention it, I don’t remember taking much notice.” I had seen what I looked like but had failed to do anything about it.

But enough nostalgic reminiscence on my part and back to today! I hope that you have renewed your love affair with your Bible. The next question is this: What are you doing about it?

Prayer: Forgive us , Lord, when having read your Word, we’ve then failed to do anything about it. Enable us in the power of your Spirit to put into action, either by stopping doing something, or by doing what we know we should. Amen.