Martin Thomson was born in Bellshill, raised in Swinton on the east of Glasgow. Professed faith on his 16th birthday in Bargeddie Parish Church after coming to make personal the faith in which he had been reared. Left home at the age of 17 intending to pursue a career in science, reading Pure Mathematics at the University of St Andrews, where he became heavily involved in the Christian Union. Plans to continue postgraduate work unexpectedly fell through. Sensing that plans were being thwarted in order to divert him towards Christian service, Martin then enrolled as a postgraduate in the University of Edinburgh to take a Diploma in Education concurrently with a teacher training course at Moray House College. There then followed a return to Glasgow and a post in teaching, albeit with a growing conviction that this was to prove temporary. Martin was ordained to the eldership in Bargeddie. Having met Lorna in St Andrews, marriage took place in1983. As a call to the ministry grew under the teaching ministry of Alistair Malcolm in Bargeddie, Martin applied for and was accepted for the ministry of the Church of Scotland and studied in the University of Glasgow 1984-87. Lorna supported Martin through this time, whilst working as the Senior Development Officer in Springburn & Possilpark Housing Association. After serving as an assistant to Martin Allen in Chryston, a call was received from Kirkcowan & Wigtown and on 18th May 1988 Martin was ordained and inducted to this Charge, where he ministered until being called to Dalry Trinity on 10th November 2004. Lorna currently works as a Financial Adminisatrator, whilst Philip and Jonathan attend university, and Lewis is still at school.
Newsletters -- March 2010
The ‘if it works for you’ nonsense
Train journeys are unplanned opportunities to inadvertently eavesdrop on the conversation of strangers. Sitting in a busy carriage makes one an involuntary audience to the discussions going on nearby.
The topic under debate was a horoscope being read from a magazine. The details of this horoscope were of the usual vague nature: ‘Today you will have an opportunity you must not miss. Yellow is important to you’. The usual sort of twaddle. There then followed a good-natured disagreement about the merits of horoscopes. This disagreement was concluded with the comment, ‘Well, whatever works for you’, as if horoscopes could be a true and accurate and worthy guide to life for some people, should they so choose.
The ‘if it works for you’ outlook is one which implicitly denies the categories of truth and falsehood. Reality is reduced to nothing more than our interpretation, which (we are told) is as valid as any alternative explanation. Something can be ‘true for me’ but ‘not true for you’. Truth is reduced to a personal choice, rather than a feature of reality.
This must be nonsense.
Professor Alister McGrath provides an excellent illustration of why this is nonsense, and so let me simply quote him:
‘The chemical composition of water is H2O. How do we know this? By a series of experiments which have repeatedly demonstrated that a molecule of water consists of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. It does not matter whether these experiments are carried out by women or by men, or by Anglo-Saxons or by Asians. The chemical composition of water is independent of the gender, race and social status of the investigator.
This poses something of a problem to those who insist that all views are equally valid. The critic of the traditional view might argue that it rests upon an obsession with oppression and domination. It is, our imaginary critic might declare, outrageous that hydrogen should be dominated by oxygen in this way. In a more caring and equitable world, hydrogen and oxygen would exist together in harmony and equality. Therefore we need to reject the traditional formula for water as H2O as resting on outdated feudal assumptions and embrace the liberating idea of the absolute parity of hydrogen and oxygen in water. The chemical formula of water …. should instead be the more egalitarian H2O2.”
It is conceivable (as McGrath wryly suggests) that someone may insist that my belief that water has the formula H2O is just my perception, and that another viewpoint is entirely legitimate. Perhaps someone else would believe that water is really the psychic teardrops of tantric beings and does not have a chemical formula. If that is true for them then nobody has any right to disturb such beliefs.
Let me change the illustration. Will we be as keen on this idea that something can be ‘true for me’ and ‘not true for me’, if someone not only denies the Holocaust but perhaps actively suggests that it was a good thing to gas millions of people? Would we really prefer such a belief to pass unchallenged?
Recently, at our Midweek, we considered Psalm 5, with its candid declaration of God’s implacable opposition to evil
You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil; with you the wicked cannot dwell. The arrogant cannot stand in your presence; you hate all who do wrong. You destroy those who tell lies; bloodthirsty and deceitful men the LORD abhors. (Psalm 5:4-6)
For the believer in the midst of foes, the target of abuse and the victim of prejudice, these words are a great reassurance. God is opposed to the wicked. Yet, nowadays, one can hear the cry of ‘foul’ from those who prefer not to believe in ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. They tell us that these are categories of interpretation (at best) and of oppression (at worst). What is ‘good’ for one person may not be ‘good’ for another.
Yet, I think another way of saying what the Psalmist says is to affirm that God is our Father and, as our Father, He wants the best for us, and opposes (as any decent father would) anything that would seek to harm us. I am reasonably certain that the voices of those who insist ‘there is no such thing as evil’ would be somewhat muted if there was a threat to their child.
I have often made the point that what we believe is very important. Just because we believe something sincerely does not make that belief true. I once believed my yellow mini was safe to drive, until the fatal day I discovered the fault with its brakes. However sincerely I believed in the safety of that car, I was sincerely wrong; with potentially fatal consequences.
What we believe is important, of supreme importance, and it is vital that we should not allow ourselves to be befuddled by any attempt to muzzle the truth by dismissing it as merely that which ‘works for you.’
Let me finish with one last quote from McGrath. He explains that the great task of classical philosophy was to seek to conform the human mind to reality, by rigorously assessing any truth claims.
‘yet some today would dispute this, arguing that we are free to make any choice we like. ‘There are no facts, only interpretations’ (Friedrich Nietzsche). The idea that there is some ‘absolute’ that we are under obligation to discover and express is ridiculed. Yet, as Hitler’s extermination camps and Stalin’s liquidation programmes make dreadfully clear, to relatavize the absolute is merely to ‘absolutize’ the relative. Totalitarianism can only arise with the overthrow of its final and greatest opponent – a God who negates the absolute autonomy of humanity and who holds it accountable for its actions.”
The ‘if it works for you’ nonsense masquerades as tolerance, but leaves us powerless to oppose the unthinkable, and undermined in our moral convictions.
Yours thoughtfully,
Martin Thomson
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portunity to adopt a slightly different angle on things, by providing a larger Biblical framework. We need to consider the four great themes of revelation: Creation, Fall, Redemption and Consummation.
1. Looking back to Creation. The Bible begins by giving us an account of Creation. It is a wonderful insight into the original intentions of God, and we ought to be interested in understanding those original intentions. Interestingly, this is exactly what Jesus did. He was confronted by Pharisees who were obsessed with divorce and what had become a debate on how easy it should be to get rid of your wife. Instead of tackling that debate, Jesus turned them to first principles, and spoke of what God’s original intentions had been in Creation. Gen 2:24: For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Human relationships were to be guided and governed by this principle. Intimacy was to be between one man and one woman in a permanent monogamous union. Other arrangements, and there are many, are not envisaged. It is the divine institution of marriage between one man and one woman at Creation that reveals the divine intention, and provides the foundation for our morality in this regard. Recently, in our series in the Commandments we reached number 7: ‘You shall not commit adultery’. We noticed that this commandment would not have been a surprise to the people of God. There are several examples in the book of Genesis, long before the commandments were given, which indicate that the moral framework concerning the sanctity of marriage was widely acknowledged. Joseph refused to get involved with Potiphar’s wife (to his cost) and Abimelech refused to get involved with Sarah, once he discovered she was Abraham’s wife, to mention just two examples. We look back to the Creation and the institution of marriage as a permanent union between one man and one woman. All the particular texts and passages through the Bible should be understood in the light of this. Debates about what specific words mean in particular verses cannot detract from the original creative intention. 2. Looking inward to The Fall. If you ever read chapter 2 of Genesis, with its delightful description of innocence and unsullied joy between Adam and Eve and God, and then read chapter 4 with its murderous account of one brother taking the life of another, you would be forgiven for wondering what had gone wrong. Thankfully, we have chapter 3, and the account of human rebellion against God to explain things. It is the account of the Fall that helps us grasp how the flouting of God’s authority, and the rebellion into which it has plunged the human race, gives us answers that otherwise bring disillusionment to secular humanists who reject the Fall, and who don’t know why human beings behave as badly as they do. The effects of the Fall are felt in every aspect of our humanity, including our sexuality. This is true of every single one of us. We need to realise that our instinct for deep human intimacy can be distorted and cause havoc and unhappiness. The Fall has substituted lust for love, grab for give, confuses innocence with ignorance and treats sexual wants as if they were sexual needs. It was C.S. Lewis who said that it was ‘in the grandeur of Eros that seeds of danger are concealed’, and how true that is. A gift that in the right context (marriage) is a great joy and blessing, can be a terrible obsession and bring deep regrets in the wrong context, and damage relationships irreparably. 3. Thirdly we look upward to the principle of Redemption. The Fall is not the last word to be said about our human predicament. God has not left us without hope or without help. He calls us to a better way; a way by which we can rediscover our true humanity and do so in the midst of rewarding relationships. When we repent and believe we are given support and help and a new beginning in the context of a Christian fellowship. Think of the woman we read of in the gospels who was caught in adultery (John 8). Over against the hypocrisy and the double standards of the Pharisees and teachers of the law, who would stone the woman and have the man involved go free, Jesus offers a new beginning and a fresh start to the woman. There is always a new start on offer in the gospel, even when we go badly wrong.
In John 4 we read of the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. . The key question that opened up the sadness and brokenness of her life was when our Lord asked about her husband. John 4:17-18 "I have no husband," she replied. Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true." This was a woman who had died a thousand deaths in her life. She had made the tragic mistake that so many in our own communities are making every day. She was looking for fullness of life in the wrong place. She tried all the sources that the world tries to persuade us to try. She had gone from one man to another man to another man. She sought excitement in that kind of lifestyle, but her life had become an empty, black, stagnant pool. Jesus offers to this stagnant pool a life that would bubble up with excitement and fullness and wonder. This is the living water of eternal life. People who had been steeped in the immorality of the ancient world came to Christ and learned a better way. Those who got things wrong, found forgiveness and a new beginning with a new life. What a Christian fellowship ought to do is provide friendships and relationships of support. It is the Christian fellowship that ought to provide help to come alive again after the futile emptiness of an affair; help and support after a marriage is sadly ended; or understanding for those struggling with their sexuality. Christian fellowships ought to be places where we can rediscover the exhilaration of following Christ with others and find our deepest longings met in relationships between believers, and a readiness to accept the lordship of Christ over every aspect of our lives, including our sexuality. The knowledge of redemption in Christ brings with it the knowledge that we can be reinstated and helped, even when we have failed. When we repent, we can always hear Christ’s word of forgiveness and restoration. Christian fellowships are not places for the perfect, but for the forgiven.
4. The final point to make is about looking onward to the return of Christ and the principle of final accounting. The day will come when we all have to give to God an account for what we have done in this life. Knowledge that the end is coming and we will have to give account for our lives, that a new creation will be established and the Holy City of God founded with perfect security and harmony, helps us focus more clearly on the demands of our own calling, be that as single people or married people. The church is always caught in a tension between its prophetic responsibility to bear witness to God’s revealed standards (in this case the sanctity of marriage), and its pastoral responsibility to show compassion to those who have been unable to maintain those standards. This is our task. What we must not do is think that we achieve the latter by denying the former. Your minister and friend Martin Thomson ********************************* ********************************
1. Looking back to Creation. The Bible begins by giving us an account of Creation. It is a wonderful insight into the original intentions of God, and we ought to be interested in understanding those original intentions. Interestingly, this is exactly what Jesus did. He was confronted by Pharisees who were obsessed with divorce and what had become a debate on how easy it should be to get rid of your wife. Instead of tackling that debate, Jesus turned them to first principles, and spoke of what God’s original intentions had been in Creation. Gen 2:24:
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
Human relationships were to be guided and governed by this principle. Intimacy was to be between one man and one woman in a permanent monogamous union. Other arrangements, and there are many, are not envisaged. It is the divine institution of marriage between one man and one woman at Creation that reveals the divine intention, and provides the foundation for our morality in this regard.
Recently, in our series in the Commandments we reached number 7: ‘You shall not commit adultery’. We noticed that this commandment would not have been a surprise to the people of God. There are several examples in the book of Genesis, long before the commandments were given, which indicate that the moral framework concerning the sanctity of marriage was widely acknowledged. Joseph refused to get involved with Potiphar’s wife (to his cost) and Abimelech refused to get involved with Sarah, once he discovered she was Abraham’s wife, to mention just two examples.
We look back to the Creation and the institution of marriage as a permanent union between one man and one woman. All the particular texts and passages through the Bible should be understood in the light of this. Debates about what specific words mean in particular verses cannot detract from the original creative intention.
2. Looking inward to The Fall. If you ever read chapter 2 of Genesis, with its delightful description of innocence and unsullied joy between Adam and Eve and God, and then read chapter 4 with its murderous account of one brother taking the life of another, you would be forgiven for wondering what had gone wrong. Thankfully, we have chapter 3, and the account of human rebellion against God to explain things.
It is the account of the Fall that helps us grasp how the flouting of God’s authority, and the rebellion into which it has plunged the human race, gives us answers that otherwise bring disillusionment to secular humanists who reject the Fall, and who don’t know why human beings behave as badly as they do.
The effects of the Fall are felt in every aspect of our humanity, including our sexuality. This is true of every single one of us. We need to realise that our instinct for deep human intimacy can be distorted and cause havoc and unhappiness. The Fall has substituted lust for love, grab for give, confuses innocence with ignorance and treats sexual wants as if they were sexual needs.
It was C.S. Lewis who said that it was ‘in the grandeur of Eros that seeds of danger are concealed’, and how true that is. A gift that in the right context (marriage) is a great joy and blessing, can be a terrible obsession and bring deep regrets in the wrong context, and damage relationships irreparably.
3. Thirdly we look upward to the principle of Redemption. The Fall is not the last word to be said about our human predicament. God has not left us without hope or without help. He calls us to a better way; a way by which we can rediscover our true humanity and do so in the midst of rewarding relationships. When we repent and believe we are given support and help and a new beginning in the context of a Christian fellowship.
Think of the woman we read of in the gospels who was caught in adultery (John 8). Over against the hypocrisy and the double standards of the Pharisees and teachers of the law, who would stone the woman and have the man involved go free, Jesus offers a new beginning and a fresh start to the woman. There is always a new start on offer in the gospel, even when we go badly wrong.
In John 4 we read of the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. . The key question that opened up the sadness and brokenness of her life was when our Lord asked about her husband. John 4:17-18
"I have no husband," she replied. Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true."
This was a woman who had died a thousand deaths in her life. She had made the tragic mistake that so many in our own communities are making every day. She was looking for fullness of life in the wrong place. She tried all the sources that the world tries to persuade us to try. She had gone from one man to another man to another man. She sought excitement in that kind of lifestyle, but her life had become an empty, black, stagnant pool. Jesus offers to this stagnant pool a life that would bubble up with excitement and fullness and wonder. This is the living water of eternal life.
People who had been steeped in the immorality of the ancient world came to Christ and learned a better way. Those who got things wrong, found forgiveness and a new beginning with a new life.
What a Christian fellowship ought to do is provide friendships and relationships of support. It is the Christian fellowship that ought to provide help to come alive again after the futile emptiness of an affair; help and support after a marriage is sadly ended; or understanding for those struggling with their sexuality. Christian fellowships ought to be places where we can rediscover the exhilaration of following Christ with others and find our deepest longings met in relationships between believers, and a readiness to accept the lordship of Christ over every aspect of our lives, including our sexuality.
The knowledge of redemption in Christ brings with it the knowledge that we can be reinstated and helped, even when we have failed. When we repent, we can always hear Christ’s word of forgiveness and restoration. Christian fellowships are not places for the perfect, but for the forgiven.
4. The final point to make is about looking onward to the return of Christ and the principle of final accounting. The day will come when we all have to give to God an account for what we have done in this life. Knowledge that the end is coming and we will have to give account for our lives, that a new creation will be established and the Holy City of God founded with perfect security and harmony, helps us focus more clearly on the demands of our own calling, be that as single people or married people.
The church is always caught in a tension between its prophetic responsibility to bear witness to God’s revealed standards (in this case the sanctity of marriage), and its pastoral responsibility to show compassion to those who have been unable to maintain those standards. This is our task. What we must not do is think that we achieve the latter by denying the former.
Your minister and friend
Martin Thomson
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