William Booth was born near Nottingham, England,  in 1829.  During his childhood his family became quite poor and he received relatively little formal education.  At the age of 15, however, he was  invited to attend Wesleyan chapel, where he was converted.  Booth then began to read extensively and trained himself in effective communication through writing and speaking.   Together with a friend, Booth began to preach to the poor in Nottingham. 

In 1849, Booth moved to London, where he joined the Methodist Reform Church and preached for them in a number of assignments.  But his pastoral duties meant he was unable to accept many requests to do evangelistic campaigns. Frustrated with this situation, in 1861 Booth resigned from the Methodist ministry and became an independent evangelist.  He began to draw crowds of listeners as he preached in the streets and commons of London, and in 1865 he was invited him to lead a series of meetings in a large tent in London’s impoverished East End  at which he brought the gospel to a great many of the poor and destitute. 

Booth realized this was his calling and  later that year he and his wife Catherine opened ‘The Christian Revival Society’ – later renamed ‘The Christian Mission’ for which they  held daily meetings attended by many of the poor and  homeless along with social outcasts such as alcoholics, petty criminals and prostitutes.   The need was vast and The Christian Mission was only  one of some 500 religious and charity groups working with the poor in the East End of London.  But a turning point occurred in 1878. Booth was dictating a letter and after saying “We are a volunteer army...” one of his sons objected  that  they were, in fact, “regulars”  and so the word "volunteer" was changed to “salvation.”  

Thus the “Salvation Army”  was born and, as it developed,  modelled after the military. Booth  became the Army’s “General” and his co-workers were made  "officers.”  Other members became “soldiers” and all wore the Army’s uniform for the missionary and charitable work they performed.  The success of the Salvation Army was profound and in the late 1880s it extended its humanitarian and religious work to the United States and several European countries,  eventually spreading throughout much of the world.  Booth travelled extensively and saw the Movement established in almost 60 countries and colonies in his own lifetime.  

But the Army’s success, and some of its positions, met with opposition from a number of quarters such as the alcohol industry, which realized that the work of the Movement would significantly cut drinking among the poor.  Groups were formed to oppose the Salvationists  and clashes led to the deaths of several  of them, with many others – including women and young teens - being injured. Much about the Army was misunderstood and misinterpreted and Booth was often personally criticized, insulted  and ridiculed. Yet even many of his detractors eventually came to see the good work he and his Salvation Army were undeniably doing. 

This was a clear example of letting one’s light shine and eventually the Press, the Church of England, and others who had been initially cautious about the movement came to accept it. When Booth died in 1912, some 40,000 people attended his funeral, including England’s Queen Mary.   Despite opposition and discouragement, William Booth had persisted in fulfilling his calling.  His work, continued in the Salvation Army he founded,  has brought hope and help to the lives of millions.  

The Thanksgiving holiday we celebrate in the United States is one in which we celebrate and hopefully give thanks for the abundance we have been given.  The Autumn “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” has “overbrimmed,” and we are conscious of the overflow of good things with which we have been blessed. 

A biblical verse often quoted in this context is that of the words of Christ regarding blessings: “Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you” (Luke 6:38).

Notice how four measures are used to describe the overflowing fullness of the blessings being spoken of:  Good measure – this is not a short-filling, but a filling to the brim. Pressed down – this is the first way we can get more into a container, by forcing even more in. Shaken together – we can also shake a container to make the contents settle to make room for more. Running over – finally, we can overfill till the container has an overflowing excess.

It would be hard to better describe the concept of the cornucopia – the horn of plenty spilling out abundant blessings that is so often used as a symbol of Thanksgiving! But let’s go back to the words of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke.  We should remind ourselves, of course, that Jesus spoke of being blessed to the extent we bless – gifted to the extent that we give.

But there is actually more to consider when we look at the preceding verse – which is less frequently quoted – and we grasp the whole context: “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Luke 6:37-38).

Reading these verses together shows us that Christ’s words regarding overflowing blessings were set in the context of not judging, not condemning, and forgiving, as well as giving.  In each of these cases the overflowing aspect of what we are given applies.  Jesus’ words stress that we must be willing to “overflow” in our not judging or condemning others, and in our forgiving them (Matthew 18:21-22).

So what does forgiveness have to do with Thanksgiving season? God’s word shows us that with blessings come responsibilities; God’s gifts are freely and abundantly given, but they come with expectations.  Jesus’ words remind us that we will be blessed (there is nothing in his words indicating that he was not talking about both physical and spiritual blessings) as we bless, and we will be forgiven as we forgive. In a season in which we focus on thankfulness for the blessings we receive, we should perhaps also focus on the blessings we give – the gifts of not judging or condemning and actively forgiving.  And the blessings we give should be “good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over.”

Our God is an abundantly generous God. In giving and in forgiving, may we strive to be the same.

In the English language a scandal refers, of course, to anything widely regarded as morally or legally wrong and that causes public censure or outrage such as “a bribery scandal.” But the word has an interesting origin. Our word scandal comes from the Greek word skandalon signifying a snare, trap or stumbling block.  

In the Old Testament, the term for a “stumbling block” is mikshol which was rendered as skandalon in the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. In addition to skandalon, the Greek language also had another word, proskomma, for “stumbling.”  Both these words are found in the Greek New Testament: for example in 1 Peter 2:8 where Peter speaks of both a “stone of stumbling” (using a form of the word proskomma) and also a “rock of offense” (using a form of skandalon).

The English King James Version translated both these word as “offense,” but almost all modern translations use “stumbling” or “stumbling block,” which are more accurate renditions in modern English. We can see the underlying literal meaning of the Hebrew word mikshol in Leviticus 19:14 which tells us not to place a stumbling block before the blind, and in the use of the Greek word skandalon in Romans 11:9 which quotes one of the psalms speaking of “a snare and a trap, a stumbling block.”   But both the Hebrew mikshol and Greek skandalon were also used figuratively of things that cause us to be ensnared or to stumble spiritually.

For example, skandalon can refer to God causing the wicked to stumble, to things that the ungodly do that cause believers to stumble, and even to things that believers themselves do that may cause others to trip and fall spiritually. It is vital that every Christian understand this last usage of skandalon, and we will consider four ways in which it can be applied:

Most obviously, our behavior can be “scandalous” by consciously or inadvertently enticing others to sin (Luke 17:1), but we can also become a stumbling block by offending a brother or sister through doing something we feel is fine, but of which they are unsure.  Paul speaks specifically of this in saying: “Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak” (1 Corinthians 8:9). Yet again, we can become a stumbling block to others by encouraging them not to do something positive they know they should do. This was the situation when Christ told Peter: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns” (Matthew 16:23). Finally, we can even be a stumbling block through our disapproval and rejection of others who do not understand a spiritual situation fully, or who feel they are doing the right thing when we feel they are not:  “Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister” (Romans 14:13).

All of these ways in which we might cause a brother or sister in the faith to stumble deserve our thought and meditation. Is there any way in which we might inadvertently be doing one of these things?  It is to the degree we think these possibilities through, with God’s help, that we can help rather than hinder our fellow believers with behavior that truly is not scandalous.

“When Jesus … saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick” (Matthew 14:14).

It’s easy to read right over simple verses like this in the New Testament and not notice things.

First, it’s easy to miss what is actually said  – that Jesus didn’t just have compassion on the sick in the multitude, he had compassion on the whole crowd which led to his intervening wherever there was a need.

That means that Jesus didn’t just see and have compassion on the noticeable members of the crowd – the blind, the lame and those clearly afflicted with diseases and problems. It means he had compassion on the ones who were helping carry the lame, lead the blind and support the weak. It means he had compassion on the ones we might not notice as readily in a crowd – the shy, the grieving, the lonely and the discouraged.

Second, it’s easy – of course – not to see what’s not said.  When we read the accounts of Jesus’ works we tend to read them in a vacuum, but we have to remember how much the Gospel writers are summarizing each incident.  When Jesus had compassion on the crowds we get only the highlights of the healings – a kind of Gospel triage in which the most important healings and significant signs were recorded.  But in having compassion on the crowds – not just the sick in the crowds – would Jesus not have noticed people with less obvious problems and had compassion on them also?

Surely Jesus saw the loneliness in the eyes of some and, having compassion, offered them a warm and accepting smile. Surely he saw the discouragement in the faces of others (Luke 18:24) and offered a few words of encouragement.  In every case in the New Testament where we are told Jesus had compassion on people, he followed it with action; and having compassion on the crowds doubtless meant he interacted with and helped many more than the few people on whom he performed miracles of  healing.

Perhaps we may feel we do not interact with crowds in the same way, but the totality of people we see and pass by as well as those we actually meet and with whom we interact in a day is often a small crowd, and for some of us a large one.  If we are followers of Jesus, do we have compassion on that daily “crowd”? Do we seek to encourage and to smile, to check that people are all right?  These may seem like small things and may seem hard to do in our over-crowded and impersonal world.  But following in Christ’s footsteps means doing the things he did to the extent we can.

We know that God pays attention and knows the hairs on our heads, though we don’t tend to think of that in perspective of the teeming world  of billions in which we live. But God does see every face in the crowd, and in his physical life the Son of God doubtless did his best to do so also.  We are not just a face in the crowd to God, and no one in the crowd should be just a face to us.

When it comes to forgiving others as we know we should (Matthew 6:12), we sometimes need to remind ourselves of advice the apostle Paul gave to the Corinthian Christians.  The church at Corinth apparently included an individual who had caused some problems for the brethren in that city. 

We don’t know exactly what the problems were, but we do know that once the matter was sorted out, Paul reminded the other believers of an extra step in the process of forgiveness that we often overlook.

When we forgive someone who has done something against us, we often jump from the act of forgiving in our own mind (which is difficult enough) to trying to “forget” the incident as well as we can (which can be just as hard – see the blog post on our sister site: “What Forgiving and Forgetting Really Means”).  But this jump overlooks a part of the process that Paul chose to stress. Notice what he told the Corinthian church regarding the one from whom they had become alienated: 

“If anyone has caused grief…The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him” (2 Corinthians 2:5-8).

Notice that Paul immediately follows the admonition to forgive the individual with one to “comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.”  This clearly indicates that the individual was already sorry for whatever it was he had done and Paul seeks to limit or to end the ongoing sorrow. But Paul doubly stresses this admonition to accept the forgiven individual by telling them to “reaffirm your love for him.” 

Forgiving someone a serious hurt can be difficult enough, and  we sometimes are tempted to feel satisfied if we do reach a point of sincere forgiveness. But Paul shows we must resist the temptation to then continue in a kind of hurt distancing of ourselves from the individual forgiven. The apostle shows that if the person does respond to our forgiveness, it is then our responsibility to reestablish an accepting relationship.

We can also see in Paul's following words that he meant this important principle as a firm admonition for us rather than just something he was offering as good advice:  “For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything” (2 Corinthians 2:9 ESV). Paul clearly equated his readers’ acceptance of this principle of reconciliation after forgiveness with spiritual obedience. 

Being as conscious as he was of his own need for God’s forgiveness and acceptance (Acts 9:4) (1 Timothy 1:15-16), Paul probably understood as well as anyone that the second step of forgiveness is just as important as the first. Having himself been fully accepted by Christ after his persecution of the Church, Paul reminds us that forgiveness without acceptance is meaningless and hollow. Only as forgiveness is followed by acceptance is it truly full forgiveness, and that acceptance in turn makes the final step of forgetting the incident, where possible, that much easier.