Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path. – Psalm 119.105

Welcome to the Fellowship

Welcome to my blog, which is designed to enlighten and encourage through the inspiration of Holy Scripture, to convey the love of God through the life, ministry and atoning death of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The blog is conservative in ethos but it is not presented from any particular Christian tradition or church denomination. The daily readings are drawn from my own selection.

Colin Markham, Hythe, Kent, England.

Quotations from Scripture are from the Jerusalem Bible unless otherwise stated.

*** Recommended websites for current affairs and Bible prophecy ***

Phyllis Nissila on For Such a Time as This (USA) – evangelical Christian
Dr. Steve Turley on YouTube (USA) – conservative libertarian
LifeSite News (Canada) – traditionalist Roman Catholic
Michael Matt on Remnant TV (USA) – traditionalist Roman Catholic
The James Delingpole Channel (UK) – conservative libertarian
Simon Webb on History Debunked (UK) – putting the record straight
New Culture Forum (UK) – populist analysis of culture and politics
Neil Oliver’s World (UK) – history, society and culture dissected
UnHerd (UK) – alternative voice on politics and culture
John Haller on Fellowship Bible Chapel (USA) – world events and prophecy
Together Declaration (UK) – upholding fundamental rights and freedoms
Firstpost (India) – running commentary on world news

_________________________________________________________

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep, and God’s spirit hovered over the water. – Genesis 1.1-2

The Word was made flesh

In the beginning was the Word: the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things came to be, not one thing had its being but through him. All that came to be had life in him and that life was the light of men, a light that shines in the dark, a light that darkness could not overpower. – John 1.1-5

Read: John 1.1-18

The complete fullness of the divine plan of salvation is spread out before us in the powerful prologue to John’s Gospel. To be sure we find within the story the witness who, as forerunner, points to that which is greatest, but what is greatest is the entry into the world of the One who was with God at the beginning before the whole world and who, as God, created, brought to life and enlightened everything in the world. Christmas is not an event within history but is rather the invasion of time by eternity. So too Easter is not merely an event within history but is the Resurrected One’s exodus from history into eternity.

The law given through Moses was within history; but as a whole it too pointed ahead to the true expositor of God, to “the only Son, who is nearest to the Father’s heart”, the One who has “made known” God exactly as he is (v. 18), namely as “grace and truth” (v. 17). Truth means “God is like that!” and grace means “God is pure love freely given.” Christ came into the world, into his own world, the world he created. Even if many do not recognize and receive him, those of us who do believe and love have been given the grace to receive him and, through him, in him, and with him, “to become children of God” (v. 12).

Hans Urs von Balthasar, 1905-1988. Swiss theologian. From his Light of the Word: brief reflections on the Sunday readings. Ignatius Press, 1993.

At various times in the past and in various different ways, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our own time, the last days, he has spoken to us through his Son, the Son that he has appointed to inherit everything and through whom he made everything there is. He is the radiant light of God’s glory and the perfect copy of his nature, sustaining the universe by his powerful command…. – Hebrews 1.1-3

____________________________________________________________

Friday 2nd June:
Acts 28.1-10 / Psalm 33.13-15, 18-22 / Luke 24.1-12

Saturday 3rd June:
Acts 28.11-31 / Psalm 22.22-23, 27-31 / Luke 24.13-53

Daily readings for Week 23

Trinity Sunday, 4th June:
Proverbs 8.22-31 / Psalm 145.1-17 / John 1.1-18

Monday 5th June:
Romans 1.1-17 / Psalm 145.8-13a / Matthew 3.1-17

Tuesday 6th June:
Romans 1.18-32 / Psalm 92.1-2, 7-12 / Matthew 4.1.1-11

Wednesday 7th June:
Romans 2.1-29 / Psalm 62.1-2, 8-12 / Matthew 4.12-17

Thursday 8th June:
Romans 3.1-20 / Psalm 14.1-end / Matthew 4.18-25

Friday 9th June:
Romans 3.21-31 / Psalm 96.1-6 / Matthew 5.1-12

Saturday 10th June:
Romans 4.1-25 / Psalm 36.5-9 / Matthew 5.13-16

Faith and the justice of God

God’s justice that was made known through the Law and the Prophets has now been revealed outside the Law, since it is the same justice of God that comes through faith to everyone….who believes in Jesus Christ. –
Romans 3.21-22

Read: Romans 3.21-31

Paul is speaking from the perspective of the perfected Word of God, from the perspective of the Cross, Easter, and Pentecost. This complete and indivisible Word must be listened to if we really want to understand what God says to us. He tells us that we must, above all, accept his free grace, the grace that Jesus’ redemptive work has earned for us with the blood he shed. There is no way to evade this if one is to be righteous before God. God alone prepares the way that we can and must travel to him. Paul can even say that the law itself points us to the pre-eminence of the free grace of God (v. 21). To this the Gospel adds that no charism, however marvellous, can replace or guarantee obedience to the word of Christ – not prophecy, or deliverance from demons, or miracle-working. Paul confirms this emphatically: “If I have all the eloquence of men or of angels…. if I have the gift of prophecy, understanding all the mysteries there are, and knowing everything…. if I give away all I possess and if I even let them take my body to burn it, but am without love, it will do me no good whatever” (cf. 1 Cor 13.1-3). It is the response to his love, which, in its revelation, encompasses all that God has done for us in Christ.

Hans Urs von Balthasar

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. – 2 Corinthians 13.13

____________________________________________________________

The purpose of the Fellowship of St. Peter is to promote Christian faith and spirituality. 
The central focus is on the person and work of
Jesus Christ.

Christianity in the modern world

As the number of churchgoers dwindle in the western world, Bible-believing Christians need to overcome their differences and consider a form of unity that recognises their common purpose.  It’s time for the faithful remnant to act as a creative minority and voice a unified response. In an atmosphere that is increasingly hostile to Christianity, the goal must be to preserve the orthodoxy of the faith in the face of continuing erosion of religious liberty.

The Fellowship extends a hand of friendship to those who have withdrawn from churches which have aligned themselves with secularism and liberal values, thus fatally compromising the integrity of a faith that is essentially counter-cultural.

We must read the signs of the times.  The era is drawing to a close.  It is time to stand up and be counted as the people of God.  Do not be afraid.  The gathering darkness will not enshroud the light of faith nor quench the flame of truth.  These will remain, along with all those whose steadfast faith shields them in the coming storm.

And Jesus said, ‘behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’ (Matthew 28.20).

The word of God

The word of God is a powerful force for enlightenment, a necessary counterweight to secular humanism.  The Fellowship seeks to recapture something of the simplicity and vitality of the church in apostolic times, before the purity of the Christian message was corrupted by spurious doctrines.  The emphasis is on spirituality that supports the life and ministry of Christians everywhere who believe in the power and dynamism of the word of God.

The Bible speaks to the world.  All Christians have something of interest and value to share through their witness.  The aim of the Fellowship is to promote prayer, Bible study and spiritual reflection which will bear fruit in daily lives.  These disciplines can form the basis of a way of life that requires a strategic withdrawal from the mainstream.

Let the word of God fill your hearts and minds, let it guide and inspire you and refresh you like a clear mountain stream.  Be still with God in prayer.  Be an instrument of his loving purposes, a purveyor of peace, and let your peace rest on all those you encounter. For those in need of compassion and healing, heed their cares and bind their wounds.  Live in uprightness and modesty and exercise restraint in your material needs.  Guard your tongue, practise discernment, speak only words of counsel and encouragement, the words of Christ.

Your eyes, hands and impulses should be those of Christ.  Pray always for strength and enlightenment.  Praise and thank God and place into his care your needs and those of others.

Bible.  Prayer.  Witness.  These are the three principles on which the Fellowship is founded.

By his divine power, he has given us all the things that we need for life and for true devotion, bringing us to know God himself, who has called us by his own glory and goodness. In making these gifts, he has given us the guarantee of something very great and wonderful to come: through them you will be able to share the divine nature and to escape corruption in a world that is sunk in vice. But to attain this, you will have to do your utmost yourselves, adding goodness to the faith that you have, understanding to your goodness, self-control to your understanding, patience to your self-control, true devotion to your patience, kindness towards your fellow men to your devotion, and, to this kindness, love. If you have a generous supply of these, they will not leave you ineffectual or unproductive: they will bring you to a real knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But without them a man is blind or else short-sighted; he has forgotten how his past sins were washed away. Brothers, you have been called and chosen: work all the harder to justify it. If you do all these things there is no danger that you will ever fall away. In this way you will be granted admittance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ.  (2 Peter 1.3-11).

Why Peter?

Peter represents Everyman in all his frailty, vulnerability and confusion.  He was headstrong yet inspired, well-meaning but impetuous.  His heart was in the right place but he didn’t always live up to his own rhetoric.  He triumphed over his weaknesses by the grace of God and saw the perfect vision of Christ and what that vision meant for the church and the world.

Peter was a leading figure during Christ’s walk on earth.  He occupied a position of seniority amongst the disciples.  He was there at all the major events during Christ’s ministry and in the final days leading up to the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension into heaven.  It was to Peter and his fellow apostles that Jesus entrusted the legacy of truth enshrined in his teachings, the keys of the kingdom.  After Pentecost Peter and his companions went out to the world to proclaim the Gospel.

Acts of the Apostles.  Peter became a leading light in the early days of the church, the apostle to the Jews living in the diaspora.  His authority in the nascent Christian community has to be viewed against the ascendancy of Paul as apostle to the Gentiles, a position that gave Paul equal authority in the direction of missionary work.

In terms of Peter’s primacy of leadership, however, “….one should not look in Peter or in the primitive church for the developed conception of the primacy which appears no earlier than the third century.  The development of power possessed by the church and by Peter into monarchical leadership lies outside of biblical theology.” (John McKenzie, Dictionary of the Bible)

The Gospel of Mark.  The church historian Eusebius (d. ca. 339) wrote: “Mark, who became Peter’s interpreter, wrote accurately, though not in order, all that he remembered of the things said and done by the Lord.  For he had neither heard the Lord nor been one of his followers, but afterwards followed Peter, who used to compose his discourses with a view to the needs of his hearers.”

1 and 2 Peter.  Of the two letters that bear Peter’s name, the first seeks to encourage and strengthen early Christian communities suffering persecution, reminding them of their heritage.  The second has more to do with the dangers of heresy and how Christians can have confidence in the truth of Scripture.  These encouragements and warnings resonate with us living in times of moral decline and religious indifference.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.  (1 Peter 1.3-5).

Peter was martyred in Rome during the Neronian persecutions, probably in the year 64.

Jerusalem Cross

There are various interpretations of the symbolism.  The four smaller crosses are thought to denote either the four gospels or the way the Gospel spread to the four corners of the earth.  In terms of God’s revelation and world history, the city of Jerusalem is of huge political, religious and symbolic importance.  The focus is highlighted in the gospels and in the emergence of the first Christian communities described in the Acts of the Apostles.  It was from Jerusalem that the apostles scattered to proclaim Christ.

Scripture translations used

Scripture quotations marked ‘JB’ are taken from the Jerusalem Bible, copyright 1966, 1967 and 1968 by Darton, Longman & Todd, and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. (In this translation ‘Yahweh’ is expressed as ‘Lord’ by kind permission of the publishers).

Scripture quotations marked ‘NJB’ are taken from the New Jerusalem Bible, copyright 1985 by Darton, Longman & Todd, and Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. (In this translation ‘Yahweh’ is expressed as ‘Lord’ by kind permission of the publishers).

Scripture quotations marked ‘ESV’ are taken from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, published by HarperCollins Publishers, copyright 2001 Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The spiritual life

We must keep the Bible open before us.  It is our enlightenment, our source of consolation, our prayer book.  It contains the revelation of God’s purposes in salvation history.  It is the well-spring of all the truth, goodness and wisdom that God wishes to transmit to human beings who he ordained to administer the complexities of the natural world and to carry forward knowledge of salvation history with its outcome in the incarnation of Christ.

The Lord guides and strengthens us, keeping us firmly rooted in the faith. Throughout all the trials we endure in this troubled world, Christ is with us.  The word of God inspires us in various ways, and through the Holy Spirit we gain knowledge, wisdom and discernment, maturing in the faith as citizens of the Kingdom of God.

Remain within the confines of God’s kingdom.  Stay on the straight and narrow path that leads to salvation.  Do not look with longing towards the sunlit hills at every temptation. Too many have trodden the path to destruction, too many have fallen by the wayside.

The Christian life is about being transformed by Christ, being absorbed by him so that his teachings and his very presence guide our every motivation and action.  Christ’s love is mediated through us in the power of the Holy Spirit.  We follow the leadings of the Spirit in order to renew and deepen our faith.

There is a wonderful symmetry involved in the divine-human relationship.  Christ, the sinless one, is the embodiment of human perfection.  Through his very nature as Son of God he brought mankind nearer to the Father.  Through Christ, God shared in our humanity and he also made it possible for us to share in his divinity.  Christ underwent the ultimate sacrifice to reconcile man to his creator, making it possible for God’s plan of salvation to be brought to completion, inaugurating a New Covenant with mankind.  We need to keep before us the astounding truth of his victory over evil on the Cross, through which mankind gained forgiveness and the freedom to live the gospel life infused with selfless love (cf 1 Corinthians 13.1-13).

Christ established a new reality, that to be justified by faith is a sacred identity.  We are identified as Christians when we accept and appropriate the fullness of Christ.  This requires a heroic response from human beings because it runs counter to human pride, the instinct for autonomy.  The response must be underpinned by contrition and humility and it is brought to perfection by obedience.  Once we take hold of Christ we become his disciples.  Discipleship is a life-long commitment, a transforming friendship with Jesus. (Luke 9.23-26; John 15.14-17).

Christ’s death and resurrection brings to mankind redemption and salvation to eternal life.  Christ has opened the way for us to follow him to the perfect vision, far superior to the limitations and imperfections of our earthly existence.  To consolidate the New Covenant with man, the Father has sent us the power to sustain us on our journey through the snares and pitfalls of this troubled world.  This power is the Holy Spirit (John 14.16, 26).  Christ’s presence is manifested in the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit reminds us of his teachings, works in our conscience when we fail, grants us perception when we read Holy Scripture, inspires us in our prayers and meditations, whispers to us in our silent spaces, strengthens us in times of adversity and provides us with prophetic speech.  The Spirit empowers us in our various ministries and impels us to rise above the banalities and temptations of a world that is hostile to our sacred calling.  (Mark 13.5-13; Romans 12.3-9; 1 Corinthians 12.4-11; Ephesians 4.7-13; James 1.16-18, 3.13-18; 1 Peter 3.13-17, 4.7-19).

The worldwide community of faith

Christians across the world have a common purpose: striving to live the Gospel life in the face of both widespread indifference and open hostility to the teachings of Christ.  The Christian faith is essentially counter-cultural yet many churches are now aligned with secular humanism, thus inflicting upon themselves the fatal wound of apostasy. The enemy is no longer at the gates, he is within the citadel.

For our Spirit-filled life to succeed we are to distance ourselves from the corrupt influences of modern culture (1 John 2.15-17, 5.18-20).  There are to be no half measures, no compromise with evil in any of its forms, no accommodation with other religions.  This detachment is crucially important to safeguard the integrity of the Christian faith.  These are perilous times.  Christianity is under assault from atheistic humanism, the dominant force in social and political culture.  Faced with this threat there is to be no weakening on our part.  We are to profess the faith and demonstrate in our lives the true destiny of humankind, the freedom to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and with all our strength, and to love our neighbour as ourselves.  There is no higher ideal for man to attain (cf Mark 12.28-34; Romans 13.8-10).

Discipleship

The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) appears to portray Christ as the new Moses, but he far exceeds all the prophets and patriarchs of old by his uniquely divine provenance and his destiny as Saviour of the world.  He is not only the promised Messiah, he is also Priest, Prophet and King.  His teachings lead us into the Kingdom of God, into a realm of love, creating a priesthood of believers (1 Peter 2.1-10).  We yearn for the promised homeland above where our labours will be rewarded by eternal peace (2 Peter 3.8-14).

The Beatitudes (Matthew 5.1-12) are a concise presentation of the Christian ethos, describing the blessed virtues essential to life in the Spirit.  They are the supreme ethical and moral guide to Christian life and discipleship, illuminating our path in the human maze.  They set out the Christian way of life, lived in response to Christ through faith.  We strive to uphold values intrinsic to human dignity, stable family life and the maintenance of social order: humility, gentleness, compassion, justice, peace, integrity, courage and witness.  All the blessings of the kingdom are encapsulated in the Beatitudes.

Christ came to fulfil the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 5.17-19).  The validity of the Ten Commandments remains (Exodus 20.1-17) and in the Beatitudes Christ describes the spirit in which the Commandments are to be lived out in both church and society.  They exemplify Christian discipleship.  They are echoes of the divine, revealing Christ in his perfection.  They define the inward motivations of integrity and love that characterise discipleship, as well as the blessed rewards of faithful service in Christ’s name.  Our acts of charity and mercy spring from a heart filled with selfless love founded on the teachings of Christ and energised by the Holy Spirit.

The teachings of Christ are uncompromisingly radical.  They are employed to combat philosophies that erode the dignity of man: consumerism (money and possessions bring happiness); relativism (there is no absolute truth); secularism (a world view without God); existentialism (life has no purpose).  In the midst of these evils the Gospel shines like a beacon of truth.  And through it all we persevere in the name of Christ, despite the difficulties we encounter on our journey of faith (1 Peter 4.12-19).  God will restore, confirm, strengthen and establish us in times of adversity (1 Peter 5.10-11).

Our faith is a wonderful gift to possess and convey to others, and discipleship places on us a sacred responsibility.  It is a joy and a holy privilege to walk with Jesus, to be in his loving presence in a life of Christian service (Luke 10.23-24; John 15.1-17; Ephesians 4.7-16).

Further reading

Steve Chalke & Alan Mann   Different eyes: the art of living beautifully.  Zondervan, 2010.

Rod Dreher   The Benedict option: a strategy for Christians in a post-Christian nation. Sentinel, 2017.

Mark Hitchcock The prophecy collection: three works in one – The end times survival guide; The coming apostasy; Russia rising. Tyndale Momentum, 2021.

Cameron Lee    Unexpected blessing: living the countercultural reality of the Beatitudes. IVP, 2004.

Simon Ponsonby More: how you can have more of the Spirit when you already have everything in Christ. David Cook, 2009.