Colossians 1:15 – Today with the help of the UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, we look at what it means for Christ to be the firstborn over all creation. Can a Hindu accept this?
Coffee and Colossians 26 – The Image of the Invisible God
The Blog of David Robertson
Sunak didn’t need to believe what he was reading any more than an actor would. He was simply fulfilling part of his role as PM. I look forward to your podcast. Some Facebook friends in Scotland saw only the positive and I’d appreciate your help in responding. I fear my APC friends have so overreacted to the narrowness of the FPs that they see only the good in others.
Rishi Sunak was headboy at Winchester College. Reading scripture would be part of the role – ‘what one does’. The clarity and correct emphases was all a part of doing things ‘properly’. I had a 2yr stint teaching RS at a public school. It had (has!) a Christian foundation and Muslim, Sikh and Hindu families had this explained and that the RS programme was, essentially, Christian. Teaching in the lower school the Muslim boys were, for the most part, enthusiastic and diligent. Having worked in a Muslim country, for the most part, Islam was not so much a faith commitment but about cultural indentity – until mullahs from Saudi moved in on things. In comparison for actual offence, I found Boris Johnson reading scripture far more repugnant. I look forward to the podcast on the coronation – my cavil was the AOC’s interpretation of the Cross as example rather than atonement.
David.., Yes Yeshua, Jesus is the King of Kings of all time, Kronos and Kairos time , outside and inside of Heaven (Kairos- where a day can be a thousand years, and vice versa.., which is a tough concept to grasp from our simple human.., however God given minds…)
With respect.., Rishi Sunak (Practising Hindu with perhaps a million or more so-called deities) reading the KJ Bible was actually an amazing tradition to do .., and God knows who this reading from Colossians will have resonated with not only with the multi-faiths.., and none.., in attendance at Westminster Abbey and the many millions watching from around the world, God’s word of Truth will touch them.., for sure..!
On another note David, and with big apols for the pedanticism….Can you kindly pronounce your ‘T’s properly..? You know that the ‘Queen’s or King’s’ English is properly spoken (with the vowels and syllables correctly pronounced .., between Inverness and Elgin…) as opposed to BBC Oxford English…, and as such you sometimes sound like a ‘Landaner Cockney’, or an Essex guy.., in terms of not properly pronouncing your ‘T’s’ …Merci beaucoup, Gordon George…
A hymn derived from Colossians 1:15-20:-
All things were created by him
both in heaven and on earth.
See the Unseen God’s own Image
in his work and at his birth,
Whether kingdoms or dominions,
principalities or powers,
matter, dark or luminescent;
his, their room and his, their hours.
All things were created through him;
for him everything persists;
universes strung behind him;
in him everything consists.
In the end, he’s the beginning;
we’re his Body, he, our Head;
now the Firstborn of creation
is the Firstborn from the dead.
All things give the first place to him;
in him all the Fullness dwells;
springing from the Father’s pleasure,
praise of men and angels swells,
for on earth the peace of heaven
— lost to sight in Adam’s loss —
in the blood of Christ’s Atonement,
reconciles us on the Cross.
I don’t believe I could read a passage celebrating another deity. I find the question of what is legitimate in ‘public duties’ difficult to answer… a little bowing down in the house of Rimmin.
Thanks for that David. I don’t know what impact the reading had on Rushi Sunak, who knows what impact it may have had or may yet have on him, but it had a powerful effect on me, because it is such a clear and authoritative declaration of who Christ Jesus is. God is well able to use it to bring about Rishi’s salvation in due time, and for the Holy Spirit to speak to others through the Word which is sharper than any two-edged sword.
There is certainly precedent in scripture of Gods revealing himself, or things that are yet to come, to even the most heathen of Babylonian kings. In Nebuchadnezzar case he needed Daniel to recall both the dream and its meaning. So let’s pray for Rishi, as scripture instructs us to do.
I would appreciate your thoughts on another significant moment in the ceremony. What do you think is achieved, or signified, by the anointing of the monarch who, so far as we can tell, is not a man of faith. Is it an irrelevance, or does it confer upon him God’s authority and blessing for his reign. If so what does this say about the future of the institution and its purpose, if any, in God’s dealing with the nation.
I am not by any means clear myself about it, so would appreciate any insight you may have, if any.
No pressure.
I don’t believe in a ‘sacral’ monarchy so I don’t think the anointing has any significance if he is not a believer. But I still pray for him – and for Rishi!
It’s good to ask JW’s (or Muslims) about their human father’s existence, and then to inquire what the link between them and their father was: being human possibly. It’s a hard line of question to evade sometimes!
Here’s a Scotsman’s song which will accord with having foreign Muslims ( tautologically speaking ) in SNP control of adjusting infidel Scots’ morals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpvpJSZRoKg