Saviour

Paul refers, at the beginning of 1 Timothy to God our Saviour and Christ Jesus our hope. Saviour God was a title the Roman Emperors used for themselves. The Christians adopted it for their God. Here the Father rather than the Son is called Saviour, as is more usual; the Son is our future hope. By combining the two titles he underlines his belief that Jesus is God. God our Saviour is a little unusual in Paul’s writings. Perhaps we tend to think of the Son first as Saviour. However, it is fully in line with Pauline theology and especially Old Testament teaching. God was Paul’s Saviour and Timothy’s. He is the only Saviour.

Coveting and Advertisements

I was walking through London once many years ago and I saw a poster that said ‘Everyone should own at least one Bob Marley Album’. Now that can’t possibly be right. What good would millions and millions of these things do? No, what happened was that this line grabbed me and I liked the idea. It sort of crystallised things for me. And so I bought Legend: The best of Bob Marley. Now I don’t think it was wrong to buy it and it has given me a lot of pleasure. I’m sure though that most of you haven’t got one and maybe most of you wouldn't agree with the advertiser. It would be nice for me then to blame my purchase on the advertisers but in fact it was me. I suppose I knew at the time what they were saying wasn’t true but it suited me to believe it.

We may imagine life would be easier without advertising, certainly at the level it is today, but the main problem is with us. As one writer puts it, we must remember who is the king and who is the court jester. The customer is king, the advertiser is the court jester. I saw a little joke I liked it. That’s fine but if I see on the tube tomorrow ‘Everyone should own at least one Lamborghini’ or ‘Eat cream cakes - they're good for you’ for various reasons I’ll not be biting.