I don’t look ahead at the next day’s readings, but in the middle of a conversation on the social media last night (in the context of a hostage situation in Sydney) I tweeted back to someone who had called me on missing his irony.

Hey I am a fundamentalist Christian. I am commanded to preach to and love those who are infidels, Muslims included. @LewSOS

— Chris Gale (@pukeko60) December 15, 2014

I have a high view of scripture. It is the word of God. It is not a clever myth. It is what men have been compelled to see and share. It is no metaphor, no drama, no source of catharsis. It is even not that spiritual, for it is not noble rhetoric designed to heighten our feelings of unity and motivate us to good, but plain speaking about the failure of the very men of God who were writing the text.

Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things.

For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

(2 Peter 1:12-21 ESV)

Peter is clearly aware that he will soon die. He is practical, and talking about what he wants us to do, how to act (which was the text for yesterday). But he now says that what happened, happened. He was not stoned. It was not some ecstatic vision. (If anything, from the gospel account, he was terrified). And he is stating that Christ is the fulfilment of the words of the prophets; which are valid.

So we need to take care. That we do not ask the apostles to check their privilege. That we do not discount the teaching of the Apostles, and Christ himself, as irrelevant. For human beings have not changed: we have not evolved into a new species, and we are no more intelligent than our forefathers. The correct position for any Christian is to take the scriptures as the word of life, for our very salvation depends on the promises held within.

Yes, we will struggle. Yes, we will find obeying the Spirit difficult. Yes, we will struggle with the world, for the memes of this world are the memes of destruction.

And yes, we are promised opposition, difficulties and suffering. We are not promised ease and prosperity. So let us not follow the heresies of this age that compromise either with the oppression of market forces in a false search for temporary wealth, nor with those who promise power and membership of the vanguard of progress if we worship the state alone.

Let us not discount scripture, even though the message we here is painful to our post-modern ears. Postmodernism is burning out, but the word of the LORD endures forever.