CC Image from Patrick van IJzendoorn on Flickr

OK, I admit the last series of Downton Abbey wasn’t perfect. There were some awful lines: when Cora looked up from her newspaper and said: ‘Oh my, this Spanish flu news is awful,’ we knew that she, along with half the household, would be on their deathbeds by the next episode.

But who cares? The battle of the bustles was our Sunday night fix and I, for one, can’t wait till Christmas Day. Aside from the drama, suspense and gossip, I think we love Downton because we are all secretly obsessed with how other people live.

Downton represents a world where the toffs had it good. They were waited upon (dear Carson); cleaned up after; (inconvenient dead Turkish men); and lusted after (get down Branson, Sybil is too good for you). The downstairs lot, though, just had to get on with it. The family silver still shone – come war, unwanted pregnancies or murder trials. Servitude was their lot. They got on with because they knew their place.

Far from being an aberration, Edwardian values are pretty common in whatever period of history you choose to look. The New Testament is full of different groups of people who were either revered or loathed by others. The mutual distrust and loathing between Romans and Jews was what made Monty Python’s Life of Brian so funny.

The real story of Zacchaeus, in the gospel of Luke, shows us how utterly despised Jewish tax collectors were. They were seen as traitors working for the Roman Empire and yet Jesus calls this short and unpopular tax-collector down from a tree and tells him he is coming for tea.

Although people are horrified, Jesus couldn’t care less. In his eyes no one is untouchable – and that means lepers, prostitutes and Samaritans.

I suppose if Jesus appeared in the Christmas episode of Downton, he would marry Lady Sybil and Branson; take tea with Daisy; then tell the Dowager Countess that money and status count for nought – then again, I’m not sure even Jesus is that brave!

CC Picture from Lightmash on Flickr

The BBC reports that ‘the most coveted prize in particle physics – the Higgs boson – may have been glimpsed’.  In the media, this elusive particle has been nicknamed ‘the God particle’ – despite the fact that the physicists involved in the research intensely dislike the term (‘it has nothing to do with God’, one said).

Whilst some people would like to draw up some kind of clash between God and the Higgs boson, I actually think the long and expensive search for this immensely important and potentially valuable discovery is more like the sort of thing Jesus would use as material for one of his parables.

In his parables, Jesus draws on events and situations around him, things his audience would know about – just like the hunt for the Higgs boson is for many of us now.  And it’s a story of people searching for something precious, something hard to find, something that could change everything – just like several of Jesus’ parables.

Have a look at, say, the parable of the pearl of great value (Matthew 13.44-46), or the lost coin (Luke 15.8-10).  If Jesus had been born in 21st century Britain, rather than 1st century Palestine, don’t you think we might have had a ‘parable of the hunt for the Higgs boson’?

 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”

Picture cc from -Dreamflow- on Flickr

I gave in to the hype and bought Skyrim over the weekend.  I’m now thinking I might do a play-through where I try to abide by the 10 commandments.

As 21st century readers, I’d suggest we’re not always great at picturing/understanding how these sorts of biblical scenes would play out or what it would be like to receive those commandments in their original, ancient context.  Now, I’m not saying the world of Skyrim is anything like the world of Moses and the Israelites in Exodus, but it’d just be interesting to try and explore them in a different world than 21st century Britain and see how they play out.  Mind you, Skyrim – like Exodus – does seem to have plenty of stone tablets, idols and so on!

Has anyone done a 10 commandments setup already?  If you play the game, what ‘code’ does your character live by?  Who do you make the ‘authority’ in how you behave in-game?

UPDATE: I realised that one commandment in particular could cause serious difficulty in the game: ‘do not kill’. However, here’s one guy running a character with exactly that motto – he’s made it to level 9 without killing a single thing.

Picture cc from itspaulkelly on Flickr

From the write-up on the back of The Wire series 1 box set: ‘told from the points of view of both the police and their targets, the series captures a universe where easy distinctions between good and evil, and crime and punishment, are challenged at every turn’.

Now go read some of Jesus’ parables – like the good Samaritan, in Luke 10, or the shrewd manager, in Luke 16 – or things like the pronouncements in Isaiah 44 & 45 about God calling and equipping Cyrus, the king of Persia and not a Jew, and tell me the Bible doesn’t do the same thing of ‘challenging easy distinctions’.

Lewis Hamilton could have a big decision to make about his team for next season. Might he consult the Bible in making that decision? Photo from Oranje on Flickr.

With the British Grand Prix at Silverstone coming up, one story doing the rounds is about Lewis Hamilton possibly leaving McLaren for Red Bull; today, the BBC have an interview with Nigel Mansell where he argues that Hamilton should stay at McLaren.

Assuming the decision is there for Hamilton to make, how should he choose whether to stay or go?  What things should factor in his decision?  Is it a choice between loyalty and success?  Will he weigh up anything other than the money involved?

Well, Hamilton, who says he is a Christian who attends church regularly and whose faith is important in his racing, could well turn to his Bible when chewing over these decisions.  There are all sorts of stories, proverbs and bits of advice in there that he might consider; here’s just a handful of examples:

If you love money and wealth, you will never be satisfied with what you have. This doesn’t make sense either. The more you have, the more everyone expects from you. Your money won’t do you any good – others will just spend it for you. If you have to work hard for a living, you can rest well at night, even if you don’t have much to eat. But if you are rich, you can’t even sleep. Ecclesiastes 5.10–12 (CEV) – and there’s loads more in the rest of Ecclesiastes 5…

It is a disgrace to be greedy; poor people are better off than liars. Proverbs 19.22 (GNB)

If you do your job well, you will work for a ruler and never be a slave. Proverbs 22.29 (CEV)

Try your best to live quietly, to mind your own business, and to work hard, just as we taught you to do. Then you will be respected by people who are not followers of the Lord, and you won’t have to depend on anyone. 1 Thessalonians 4.11–12 (CEV)

Loyalty and faithfulness are big themes of the book of Ruth, like when Ruth says to her mother-in-law Naomi: ‘Please don’t tell me to leave you and return home! I will go where you go, I will live where you live; your people will be my people, your God will be my God’. Ruth 1.16 (CEV)

What do you reckon?  Might the Bible play a part in this decision?  Or  is it dumb to even think about looking to the Bible about such things?  If so, why?

Here’s a couple of ages-old stories about people going quickly from rags to riches; (they’re from the Bible’s Old Testament so they’ve been around for thousands of years):

1. Joseph goes from being thrown in an empty water hole and sold into slavery to being in charge of the whole land of Egypt, second-in-command only to the Pharaoh.  His story runs from Genesis 37 to 50 and it’s probably worth reading the whole thing – it doesn’t take long.
2. In Elisha’s time, things at one point got so bad that women were doing deals to cook and eat each other’s sons. He prophesied, though, that overnight food would become plentiful and cheap. Unbelievable as that seemed, a group of lepers shortly stumbled upon an enemy’s abandoned camp, full of food, drink and treasure.  Check out how the sudden turnaround in fortunes played out in 2 Kings 6 and 7.

Picture from technokitten on Flickr

The Bible also includes ‘wisdom’ and poetry books, and letters to churches – here’s a couple of one-liners (ish) in there about the newly-wealthy:

Be not afraid when a man becomes rich,
when the glory of his house increases.
For when he dies he will carry nothing away;
his glory will not go down after him. (Psalm 49.16–17, ESV)

Wealth gained hastily will dwindle,
but whoever gathers little by little will increase it. (Proverbs 13.11, ESV)

I have seen something terribly unfair. People get rich, but it does them no good. Suddenly they lose everything in a bad business deal, then have nothing to leave for their children. They came into this world naked, and when they die, they will be just as naked. They can’t take anything with them, and they won’t have anything to show for all their work. (Ecclesiastes 5.13–15, CEV)

Warn the rich people of this world not to be proud or to trust in wealth that is easily lost. Tell them to have faith in God, who is rich and blesses us with everything we need to enjoy life. Instruct them to do as many good deeds as they can and to help everyone. Remind the rich to be generous and share what they have. This will lay a solid foundation for the future, so that they will know what true life is like. (1 Timothy 6.17–19, CEV)

I’ll try not to spoil it in case you’re still waiting to watch it on iPlayer – but, in short, the challenge was to make as high a return as possible from an initial investment of £250 in fresh fruit and veg – and one of the teams got in trouble for not using all their available money (they only spent £170).

Photo from ....Tim on Flickr

Lord Sugar was none too impressed with this:

I did say I’ve given you £250 and I want you to go away and spend it and bring me back loads of money. If I’d wanted y0u to go and spend £170, I would have given you £170.

Check out the clip on iPlayer (you only need to watch a couple of minutes): http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b0113fwd/?t=38m16s

What do you think about this feedback from Lord Sugar?  Was he right to get angry with the team for holding back some of the money he’d given them?  Should they have spent it all, as per his instruction, or was it smart to try and hedge their bets a bit?

How about this: did you realise that this scene almost exactly mirrored someone else’s words from hundreds of years earlier?  From the teachings of Jesus, in fact.  According to Matthew 25 (CEV), he told this parable to describe something about what God is like:

The kingdom is also like what happened when a man went away and put his three servants in charge of all he owned. The man knew what each servant could do. So he handed five thousand coins to the first servant, two thousand to the second, and one thousand to the third. Then he left the country.

As soon as the man had gone, the servant with the five thousand coins used them to earn five thousand more. The servant who had two thousand coins did the same with his money and earned two thousand more. But the servant with one thousand coins dug a hole and hid his master’s money in the ground.

Some time later the master of those servants returned. He called them in and asked what they had done with his money. The servant who had been given five thousand coins brought them in with the five thousand that he had earned. He said, “Sir, you gave me five thousand coins, and I have earned five thousand more.”

“Wonderful!” his master replied. “You are a good and faithful servant. I left you in charge of only a little, but now I will put you in charge of much more. Come and share in my happiness!”

Next, the servant who had been given two thousand coins came in and said, “Sir, you gave me two thousand coins, and I have earned two thousand more.”

“Wonderful!” his master replied. “You are a good and faithful servant. I left you in charge of only a little, but now I will put you in charge of much more. Come and share in my happiness!”

The servant who had been given one thousand coins then came in and said, “Sir, I know that you are hard to get along with. You harvest what you don’t plant and gather crops where you haven’t scattered seed. I was frightened and went out and hid your money in the ground. Here is every single coin!”

The master of the servant told him, “You are lazy and good-for-nothing! You know that I harvest what I don’t plant and gather crops where I haven’t scattered seed. You could have at least put my money in the bank, so that I could have earned interest on it.”

Then the master said, “Now your money will be taken away and given to the servant with ten thousand coins! Everyone who has something will be given more, and they will have more than enough. But everything will be taken from those who don’t have anything. You are a worthless servant, and you will be thrown out into the dark where people will cry and grit their teeth in pain.”

Does that surprise you?  What do you think this story/behaviour tells you about the characters of Lord Sugar – and God?

LA Noire’s creators are keen to point out that, before this technology, a game couldn’t tell you enough to even have a gut reaction about whether people were telling the truth or not (imagine trying to get a ‘tell’ from little 8 bit Mario!)  There’s a lot of information communicated in the details of face and eye movements, they say – and so if you can’t see those details on your screen, you can’t even hazard a guess about a character’s intentions.

What would the next level up from this be, I wonder.  Can you get any more insight into what’s going on in someone’s head?  How do we make these judgements in real life?  Well, one thing’s for sure: we make them imperfectly.  Not even the best interrogator will see through someone’s cover story 100% of the time, right?  That thought reminded me of one of the recurring claims about God in the Bible.  Apparently, he can go at least one better than watching people’s faces to figure out what’s going on with them:

For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart (1 Sam 16.7, ESV)

some of the scribes said to themselves, ”This man is blaspheming.” But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, ”Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? (Matthew 9.3-5, ESV)

…you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind (1 Kings 8.39, ESV)

I know, my God, that you test the heart and have pleasure in uprightness (1 Chronicles 29.17, ESV)

If we had forgotten the name of our God
or spread out our hands to a foreign god,
would not God discover this?
For he knows the secrets of the heart. (Psalm 44.20-21, ESV)

I think the ‘are they lying?’ feature alone will make LA Noire a great new game – trying to gauge and react to what another person is thinking invariably holds a certain kind of fascination (see poker, Jeremy Kyle, any gumshoe detective novel).  Check out some of these intriguing (and perhaps surprising) stories of just that from the Bible:

• All of Jonah (it’s only short): God tells Jonah to go to a place called Nineveh and prophesy to the people there – but Jonah doesn’t fancy it and tries to run away from God, hiding below decks in a boat.  How do you think that plays out?
• 2 Samuel 11-12: King David wants to sleep with Bathsheba, so ‘sneakily’ arranges to have her husband killed.  Also, take a look at his prayer when he realises that God knows exactly what he’s done: Psalm 51.
• John 21.15-19: Simon was a fisherman.  Then Jesus told him he would be called Peter – meaning ‘rock – and ‘on this rock I will build my church’.  But then, when Jesus was facing trial and possible execution, Simon Peter denied he knew him at all.  Game over, right?  But no, in so many ways, that wasn’t the end of the story.  Check out the post-denial encounter between Peter and (the resurrected – but that’s another story) Jesus…