Letters to the Editor

Please send your letters to editor@plaintruth.co.uk
Our comments are highlighted in italics.

Having borrowed a copy of The Plain Truth (Winter 2010 / Spring 2011), I would like to receive it regularly.
Mr WPR, Ipswich

Glad you enjoyed it. We’ll add you to our growing list of subscribers.

Great stuff!

I always look forward to reading A View from the High Street by your regular contributor, Gethin Russell-Jones. But in the latest issue of The Plain Truth he has excelled himself with an additional, most thought-provoking article, Would You Adam and Eve It? Great stuff! And I would be most grateful if you will kindly pass on my sincere congratulations to him.
Mr RW, Horsham

Your encouraging comments have been passed to Gethin. And we hope you enjoy equally his article Happy Birthday King James starting on page 6 of this issue.

The ‘poor’

I read with interest the letter (page 5, Summer 2011) ‘No easy answers?’ and the editorial comments about it. I am a single person on a very low wage, with no entitlement to any benefits.

I tithe and God really makes my money stretch and I am very good at budgeting. Fortunately I’m not materialistic, and don’t yearn for expensive foreign holidays. Even so it’s a struggle and I am often frustrated when families here and abroad are referred to as ‘poor’. (Keep up the good work.)
Brenda, (via email)

Miraculous results

Thank you so much for your article Throwing down the gauntlet (page 6/8, Summer 2011) that you wrote about me and my passion to help the children of Chernobyl. Not only did I receive donations from Plain Truth readers totalling around £2,000 but the article had a profound effect on a friend of mine too. I gave her a copy of The Plain Truth, just to show what I did and the source of my inspiration and motivation. (She had dropped out of church some 17 years earlier and had become rather disillusioned with Christianity.)

Anyway, she read the article and was completely reduced to tears – so much so that she was awake most of the night just sobbing. (She read the rest of the magazine too.) The next day was a Sunday, and she felt so moved by her experience that it motivated her to go back to church and resolve to do something positive in her life. So thank you Plain Truth for enabling prayers to be answered, people’s hearts to be opened and the Gospel to be preached in a very practical way.
Gerrie Bayley, Prestatyn gerriebayleyccll@yahoo.co.uk

We feel both delighted and honoured that we have been able to play a part in inspiring and motivating your friend to ‘reconnect’ with her local church and move forward in her life. And the news of the £2,000 (that’s the cost of a trip of a lifetime for four Chernobyl Children to you Gerrie) is fantastic news. So thank you Plain Truth readers – because without your support of the magazine these things would not have been possible.

I believe

My belief is in that set of values which underpin Christians and have remained valid for over 2,000 years. The Church teaches these core values. I believe that such values are the ones that matter even more now.

To give service, to be useful in society without seeking reward is the very essence of what it is to volunteer. I know the present government calls it ‘The Big Society’ – but it’s not a clear-cut concept. This idea sounds good, but I feel that unless you have a Christian belief or ethic, a belief in God and all he gives us, then there’s no real sense of ‘love to your neighbour’ in my view. Although you do not have to be a Christian to be a really dedicated volunteer, I do feel it helps to hold these core values. They underpin and make life worth living!
Mr TM, Colwyn Bay

STAR LETTER

I was interested in your editorial letter of the Summer 2011 issue. I attended the National CRE at Sandown Park a few times – and it was there that I was introduced to The Plain Truth (and I’ve been happy to receive it regularly since then).

Obviously, much of the inspiration for writing in the magazine comes from the Bible. A problem that has constantly concerned me is how much relevance has the Bible today, bearing in mind it was written 2,000 years ago? Centuries ago, it was considered a blasphemy to suggest that the sun and the stars did not revolve around the Earth, whereas with scientific progress we now know the reverse to be true.

Much of the Bible was written by people who had little or no scientific understanding as we know it today, and they related events as they understood them at the time. By way of analogy, would you service your modern car with a pre-war car handbook? Parts of an old handbook, for example checking oil levels and tyre pressures, would still be relevant – whereas developing technology has superseded much of the old advice.

I do not wish to suggest that the Bible is totally irrelevant today. Indeed I have a firm belief in Philippians 4:8 ‘whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable…think about such things’ (NIV). My neighbours, however, don’t have a manservant or a maidservant, or an ox or donkey for me to covet (Exodus 20:17), nor would I wish to.

Are we to pick out relevant parts of the Bible – and if so, which? I have not found an answer to this question. Attendance at churches appears to be for the converted, fundamental questions are not answered and there does not appear to be a forum whereby statements can be challenged or questions raised. Religions other than Christianity view life differently to what is taught in the Bible, so who is right and who is wrong – or are they all compatible? And modern humanism surely has a high moral value.

I would be interested to learn the views of writers of The Plain Truth.
MR PJ, Surrey

We asked Rev Roy Lawrence to respond to Mr PJ’s letter. Here’s what Roy had to say:

I am grateful for your stimulating letter. You make some very telling points.
However, my own conviction remains that the Bible is relevant today – and vitally so.

There are two questions I often find myself asking about any specific Bible passage:

1. What did this mean when it was first written?

2. What is its meaning today? Since you quote the 10th commandment, let’s take that as a case in point. In early Biblical times wealth was often measured in terms of animals and slaves. These were likely to be the focus of any covetousness you felt. But scripture realizes that the person who covets will never feel truly satisfied, and this is as true today as it ever was, even if the focus of covetousness is now more likely to be someone’s fast car or up-to-date IT equipment or world cruise.

A rule which I have come to value in working out the relevance of scripture is that I must always look at the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament and the New Testament through the lens of Jesus himself – because for me Jesus represents the essence of truth and that essence can never be out of date.

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