That Happy Certainty

Keep on keeping on...

2011-05-26T20:44:00.000+01:00

Hey all,
Just a few comments to give you a chance to think through what we looked at last night at Growth Groups. As you'll know we were in Hebrews 10:19-12:4. It may be that you spend a few mornings this week looking at different parts of the passage, praying it through. As I'm sure you'll remember from NWA, it's a massive passage showing us what it looks like to live the Christian life, as we take on board these huge promises we've seen over the last few weeks.

10:19-39 - Take on board Jesus' finished work and keep on taking hold of it with both hands!

As you read through these verses, feel the tone in which it's written. Hear the loving heart of the guy who's writing as he begs these Christians to appreciate all that Jesus has done for us (v19-24), and to keep on going, to keep on holding fast to the hope to which God has promised us we'll get (v23).
The writer clearly sees there's a danger (v26) - the danger of forgetting what Jesus has done, of effectively trampling over Jesus and all he has done to save us (v29). And the way you do that is by giving up on Jesus, of throwing away our confidence in Jesus, of not enduring (v36), and instead 'shrinking back' (v38-39); basically giving up.

11:1-40 - Faith is not some fluffy, blind, abstract thing; it's taking God at his word, trusting in his promises even when we can't see what's been promised yet - that's what faith is!

Verse 1 gives us a really helpful definition of faith. Faith is trusting God's promise, even when what we hope for can't yet be seen. (Please, note that hope = our certain future 'hope', the new creation, rather than a vague 'I hope tomorrow will be sunny'). We then a massive list of men and women from the Old Testament who themselves exercised this kind of faith. The writer's saying, 'Look, this kind of faith has always been what God's wanted!' And it's pretty amazing, crazy stuff. Take Abraham for example, v8! He was told to leave his land and go to a new place where God would bless him; he'd never been there before, yet he trusted God's promise and left - he acted on the promise. It looks crazy (see Noah, v7... "building a booooat!! - how barmy would that have looked!
Why not spend some time looking at different people listed, thinking over how they demonstrate true faith, taking God at his word.
And yet have a read of v13, 16 and v39-40 - these guys we're looking forward to something even better that had been promised by God - the new creation!

12:1-4 - So let's fix our eyes on Jesus, the one's guaranteed us our future, and shows us true endurance; get ready for a marathon!

So if trusting God's promises with our eyes on the future is what the Christian life's all about, then we should make sure absolutely nothing stops us from doing that. He tells us in these verses to get rid of any sin or distraction that's gonna hinder us, and fix our eyes on Jesus. Not only is he the author of our faith, the one who guarantees our future. He's also shows us what it looks like to endure and keep going.

We chatted about what kind of things would stop us from keeping going in the Christian life - some things we came up with were general weariness, going through suffering which makes us think God's no longer real or with us, the attractions of this world - maybe a relationship, career, etc. What do you think?

The writer also stresses the real need we have to help each other keep going - have a look at 10v24-25 - keeping going as a Christian is a community project!

Hope that provides some fuel for your prayers and encourages you!

Twin sisters, twin faiths?

2010-11-09T12:36:00.005+01:00

Fascinating programme on Radio 4 this morning, here; Anna Scott Brown bringing us the tale of identical twin sisters, one who has become a Christian, the other a Muslim, and how they are dealing with the terminal illness and imminent death of their (initially atheist) mother.

Its striking first because it cuts through the mushed-together presentation of religion that we so often get in the media; two sisters clear on the 'fundamental differences' between what they believe, so much so that they have each chosen in their will that the other will not look after their child in the case of each of their deaths.

Second, the huge difference that therefore follows in the assurance each of them holds. The near death of their mother is clearly focusing the issues. The Muslim sister is clear that 'Muslims will never say anyone is saved, it's between God and our hearts... and on the day of judgment God will judge and he is just.' Whereas the Christian sister is humbly confident, 'I believe I will go to heaven, and I want that for my Mum, but I don't know if she will, and that's really hard.' She goes on, essentially trusting that 'God has already made it better between you and God.'

And then thirdly, striking in the emotional trauma of a family going through suffering together. Close to her death the mother has a 'religious experience', believing she has met God, and bringing about a visible turnaround in her beliefs about life. Interestingly the Muslim sister is clear that this experience essentially hasn't been about Jesus and so shouldn't be classed as a 'Christian experience'. Credit to Radio 4 for bringing us real life stories that do highlight the differences between Christianity and Islam and for not portraying either as religious wackos.

Let's talk about Porn...

2010-03-22T14:59:00.003+01:00

Tim Chester on his latest book, 'Captured by a better vision', with free download of the passionate introduction and second chapter, tackling the issue of porn head-on.

Here.

What difference does the gospel make?

2010-03-22T14:42:00.003+01:00

Calvin's musings:

Without the gospel everything is useless and vain; without the gospel we are not Christians; without the gospel all riches is poverty, all wisdom folly before God; strength is weakness, and all the justice of man is under the condemnation of God.

But by the knowledge of the gospel we are made children of God, brothers of Jesus Christ, fellow townsmen with the saints, citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, heirs of God with Jesus Christ, by whom the poor are made rich, the weak strong, the fools wise, the sinner justified, the desolate comforted, the doubting sure, and slaves free. It is the power of God for the salvation of all those who believe.

It follows that every good thing we could think or desire is to be found in this same Jesus Christ alone. For, he was sold, to buy us back; captive, to deliver us; condemned, to absolve us; he was made a curse for our blessing, sin offering for our righteousness; marred that we may be made fair; he died for our life; so that by him fury is made gentle, wrath appeased, darkness turned into light, fear reassured, despisal despised, debt canceled, labor lightened, sadness made merry, misfortune made fortunate, difficulty easy, disorder ordered, division united, ignominy ennobled, rebellion subjected, intimidation intimidated, ambush uncovered, assaults assailed, force forced back, combat combated, war warred against, vengeance avenged, torment tormented, damnation damned, the abyss sunk into the abyss, hell transfixed, death dead, mortality made immortal. In short, mercy has swallowed up all misery, and goodness all misfortune.

For all these things which were to be the weapons of the devil in his battle against us, and the sting of death to pierce us, are turned for us into exercises which we can turn to our profit. If we are able to boast with the apostle, saying, O hell, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? it is because by the Spirit of Christ promised to the elect, we live no longer, but Christ lives in us; and we are by the same Spirit seated among those who are in heaven, so that for us the world is no more, even while our conversation [life] is in it; but we are content in all things, whether country, place, condition, clothing, meat, and all such things. And we are comforted in tribulation, joyful in sorrow, glorying under vituperation [verbal abuse], abounding in poverty, warmed in our nakedness, patient amongst evils, living in death.

This is what we should in short seek in the whole of Scripture: truly to know Jesus Christ, and the infinite riches that are comprised in him and are offered to us by him from God the Father.

HT: Challies

Why Election is not a dry page of a systematic theology tome...

2010-02-05T13:57:00.005+01:00

Piper on 7 reasons why teaching election is precious to him and why he believes God has pleasure in it...

1. This truth is biblical. That is, biblical not only in being found once in Scripture, but found throughout it, from God's election of Israel to electing individuals to be saved through Christ.

2. This truth humbles sinners and exalts the glory of God. Whitefield called it the truth that 'shall most debase man and exalt the Lord Jesus'.

3. This truth tends to preserve the church from slipping towards false philosophies of life. It seems historically it often guards us from moving towards universalism.

4. This truth is the good news of a salvation that is not just offered but effected. God actually saves me; electing, predestining, calling, justifying, glorifying. It actually works.

5. This truth enables us to own up to the demands for holiness and yet have assurance of salvation. Knowing I am to be holy does not cripple me but spurs me, knowing too it is God's desire and active plan that he will achieve through me.

6. This truth opens us to the overwhelming experience of being loved personally with the unbreakable electing love of God. More satisfying than an offer, knowing securely I am his is deep joy.

7. This truth gives hope for effective evangelism and guarantees the triumph of Christ's mission in the end. As was a spur for Paul, David Livingstone and Peter Cameron Scott, founder of AIM, 'other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring.'

Taken from Piper's 'The Pleasures of God', where every footnote is a feast.

Boasting in the Sovereign Grace of God...

2009-03-04T16:19:00.003+01:00

'We violate the order of human thought and trespass the boundary between God's prerogative and man's when the truth of God's sovereign counsel constrains despair or abandonment of concern for the eternal interests of men.'

John Murray on Romans 9-11

A thought...

2009-03-02T13:07:00.001+01:00

'In our world it's cool to search for God, but uncool to find him.'

as quoted by Raymond Ortlund Jr.

Where is Home?

2009-02-24T00:50:00.003+01:00

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was quizzed by Andrew Marr (check out 0.24s into the clip) on his Sunday morning show over the cufuffal regarding her expenses for her 'second home'. His first question went straight to the heart of the issue, and also happens to be at the heart of the back end of Philippians 3:

"Where is home?"

Potentially the perfect illustration?! But just a few hours too late to make it into my talk. Marr's point was simple: you can't have two homes. And that seems to be Paul's reminder to the Philippians as he calls them to stand firm in Christ: 'but our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ...' (3v20), in stark opposition with those whos minds are set on earthly things (3v19). Where is home?

Passports stamped 'Heaven'...

2009-02-20T17:14:00.003+01:00

'Each successive generation of the church has the privilege of living as though it were the generation that will greet the returning Christ.'

I enjoyed this quote from the late, great F. F. Bruce on Philippians 3v21; it brings home the reality I think Paul is trying to convince the church in Philippi of. He is quite bluntly reminding them that their citizenship is in heaven; that is where they belong, that is where they are going, and therefore their lives should be heavenbound-shaped.

Philippians chapter 3 seems to be a crucial lesson in standing firm (4.1), and one of the ways you stand firm is by having a clear understanding of where, as a Christian, you're headed. His model of discipleship is one of straining forward, every muscle and fibre working towards the goal of heaven. The danger of Philippians 3 seems to be mindsets that are in opposition to that: both a kind of religious perfectionism highlighted by his strong negatives in 3.12 & 13, and a wordly here-and-now grab-it-all approach seen in those whom he calls 'enemies of the cross of Christ' (3.18).

The solution is remembering your citizenship is in heaven - not of Philippi or Rome, London or Earth. We await a Saviour, who will transform our bodies of humiliation to be bodies of glory, for He is the name above all names to whom everyone will one day bow. Because that is our destination we can live Christ-minded sacrificial, neck-on-the-line striving for the gospel lives that Paul advocates in the rest of the letter.

I'm challenged by this. We often talk about living in light of eternity, but for Paul this means a very practical change in our priorities and goals here and now. One of the striking things about his letter to the Philippians is that, whilst soaked in the language of Christian love, joy, and delight, Paul sees this happening in the face of cross-shaped living: standing up for the gospel, facing hardships, and foregoing 'rights'.

A Post of Two Songs...

2009-02-17T01:22:00.003+01:00

One of the hymns we were playing around with tonight is this classic. I love the language of the first verse, and I think his fifth verse, also below and often missed out of hymnals, is a gem too.

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

Lyrics: Robert Robinson

And for something completeley different:

"Instead she likes tulips, cos they're approved by John Calvin...
I think my wifes a Calvinist, she only reads an ESV...
I only catch her reading Romans 8.28 through 30,
and reading Wayne Grudum's theology...
But that's ok, I didn't choose her - she chose me"

HT: Justin Taylor

FREE at Bath...

2009-02-14T23:07:00.002+01:00

Last night I got back from a week with Bath CU, helping out with their FREE week. Amazing to see God's grace at work, getting to know some of the guys stuck in to being God's mission team on the campus and seeing the fruit of God's work through them.

It was fantastic to see the FREE Mark gospels being used and students being exposed to Jesus: people reading the gospels with mates, talks preaching Christ from Mark, turning to the word to answer hard questions...

All the usuals of campus life: student union coffees, lots of curry-from-a-jar-with-rice meals, but the deep joy of knowing that life is being offered to a desperate world, of seeing brothers and sisters going all out for the cause of Jesus... thank you Bath CU, thank you LORD!

Berridge and Romans 7...

2009-01-20T01:37:00.003+01:00

“Run, John, run,” the law commands
But gives me neither feet nor hands.
Yet better news the gospel brings;
It bids me fly and gives me wings.

- After John Berridge (1716-1793)

Also:

A complaint was lodged against him, and the bishop sent for him and reproved him for preaching "at all hours and on all days." "My lord," said he, modestly, "I preach only at two seasons." "Which are they, Mr. Berridge?" "In season and out of season, my lord." [taken from biog here]

Now for something different...

2008-12-07T23:51:00.002+01:00

I think this is brilliant! Created to dispel the Dan Brown-esque myths that overshadow too many UK opinions about Jesus and the historicity of the birth narratives, I think it does a great job. Spread the word.

That's Christmas! from andy pearce on Vimeo.

Remember, Remember...

2008-11-18T00:00:00.009+01:00

They say an elephant never forgets, and I've not got much evidence to prove them wrong, but one thing I do know is that it is very easy for a Christian to forget.

I was chatting with some mates over lunch last Sunday. They were girly types, let me say by that I mean they were actually girls, and being girls some of them kept 'memory boxes', aka shoeboxes (or in one case a suitcase!) full of bits and pieces from their life to date. Now I'm not against tucking away the odd ticket or wedding programme to remind me of good times, but these guys had taken that to the extreme: school shoes, drawings, journals, you name it they stored it in their attic. The difference between them was that one of them had been advised by an older friend to get rid of all that stuff on the basis that 'its all gonna burn', whereas the other one was all for keeping items that pointed her back to moments of knowing God's goodness.

As part of our training on the Associate Scheme we've been reading through the Old Testament, and it's been pretty striking how regularly Israel is called upon to 'remember', or worse still are rebuked for 'forgetting'. The big event that they often seem to forget is how God rescued them from Egypt, an event that completely defines them as a people. But more than that, it seems the idea of remembering God's work in their lives is engrained into the very being of their world. Joshua is told to build a pile of stones to remind Israel of God's provision in crossing a river, and even the very naming of places and people seems to promote a constant looking back to God's activity in their history.

Now, I see that as you move forward to the NT you see the apostles constantly drawing us back to the cross of Jesus as the defining moment in history where God rescued his people. But my question is whether we're still pretty poor at recalling God's 'everyday' grace in our lives, and not just last week's blessings but that moment 20 years ago too.

To caveat all that, I guess we wanna be protective against the danger of not spotlighting the ultimate moment where we were united to Christ as we repented and believed. And we wanna have a good biblical theology that understands how God blesses his people, i.e. we don't wanna promote a drift into the stuff of the prosperity gospel.

But if we truly believe 'it's all by grace', then wouldn't we be able to look back at our lives and be able to say exactly that, rather than in a general vague sense? To look back on answered prayers, particular moments when it was hard to trust God but we kept on anyway, times where rejoicing in suffering was a very real experience, the surprising joy of unexpected provision, God's sovereign hand in bringing together certain events, incidents where we could really testify to the beauty of the church working to care for its members.

Truth Claims are banned???

2008-11-13T01:48:00.005+01:00

Halfway through the KCLMS CU's week of events, and we're facing upto having been told by college authorities to change the name of our lunchtime talks on all publicity, so that they no longer make truth claims.

It strikes us all as a little odd that a truth claim can be so threatening that a univeristy society made up of around forty students in a college full of thousands is required to turn objective statements to fence-sitting questions.

It was nearly two years ago now, but this letter from Richard Cunningham, Director of UCCF, to the Guardian newspaper, is well worth a read on the importance of freedom of speech meaning exactly that, whether your chosen belief is a subjective haphazard approach to the world or whether you have an actual opinion. All the more stunning given we're dealing with the context of the university.

Seven...

2008-11-10T19:31:00.004+01:00

A not even vaguely original idea from Bish and Ed, but still a good way of learning to count my blessings and give Him due praise! Seven blessings from the last seven days.

1. Dialogue Suppers: Really good times with Marcus, Nat, Matt & Josh. Stereotypes broken down. Christians getting together to put on events. Fajitas. Being forced to think.
2. Housetime: Time with the boys. And a few hours spent painting a seven metre long banner, all in the name of...
3. ...Marriage: Joel got down on one knee to ask Naomi to marry him. She said yes! And our 'Will you marry me?' banner got unfurled along the cliffs of the Kent coast. A pleasure to see mates meet and plan to marry.
4. Romans 3.21-26: Time to sit down with the guys at RML and see Jesus' cross in all its glory - the perfect solution to a massive problem. God Propitiated. I'm Redeemed and Justified.
5. Being at Home: Good to get the train up to Wirral, chill out and see the folks and be together, as well as missed merciless banter with JR and Conners.
6. Real Ale and a good chat: Talking through the challenges and opportunites of being a Christian in the workplace over a sweet pint with Phil. Is there a better way to end a busy day?
7. The Essential Mix: the clue was in the name. Lots of Bond-related banter, tourist-manipulating missions, and a brilliant time with Gwilym Davies getting us to think about what it means for us to be God's new creation people.

Wise Thoughts for a Busy Week...

2008-11-07T13:25:00.002+01:00

'The great cheat by means of which the devil and antichrist delude the world, is to make them continue in the form of any duty, the form of preaching, or hearing, or of praying. These are they that have 'a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof; from such turn away' (2 Tim 3.5).'

John Bunyan, Praying in the Spirit

Bless God?!

2008-10-30T01:28:00.002+01:00

A few weeks ago my housemate built me a bed from scratch. It’s amazing - a bed 5 ft off the ground, with sliding shirt hangers underneath, and all from a few blocks of wood and some hardboard from a skip. I was seriously chuffed and the week after he made it I couldn’t stop banging on about it.

So there you go - it’s not that I’m not a praising kind of person. It might not be Tottenham that does it for me, but give me a new bed or three points to the Hammers and I’ll be waxing lyrical. But the challenge of Sunday's sermon on Ephesians 1.1-10 was whether or not we ‘bless God’. Hmm. Do I? I’d even estimate 90% of the time I sing praise songs in church I’m not actually mindfully thankful.

I was chatting the other night with a friend and we quickly reached the conclusion we’re both really unthankful to God when it comes to day-to-day life. So today I’ve been trying to think about my day with the reality-specs on, knowing that God has given me every good thing in it and therefore being thankful to God for the great time with a friend, the pleasure of the Mars Bar milkshake, a productive morning at work. The ‘what are you thankful to God for?’ question is one we’ll definitely start asking each other. But Sachy showed us Ephesians 1 is about more than just that; Paul grounds his praises to God with the reasoning that he ‘has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing’. And then it’s bam-bam-bam.

On Monday morning I thought about some of the particular blessings Paul says God has lavished upon us… all of them are blessings – they’re things that God has given to us because we are included in Jesus, because we’re Christians. We talk about ‘not deserving them’, but I realized how easily I pass over the reality of that in my emotions. The whole shebang of Paul’s super-sentence (1v3-14) is the heart and soul of being a Christian. And it’s all stuff that I don’t and can’t have any natural claim on – being chosen, being made God’s child, forgiveness of sin… it’s all complete unmerited gift. And so I found the refrain in v6 and v14 a really great way to anchor my prayers and prompt me to being glad – ‘to the praise of his glorious grace’. To complement that I’ve found a few songs all about praising God to ‘sing’ along to on the old mp3 player as I walk to work, keeping in mind God’s gracious inclusion of me in his plan.

This has started to help me bridge the gap between knowing logically it’s a good thing to be ‘in Christ’, or articulating the goodness of the gospel when I’m chatting to someone who’s not a believer, and then actually knowing these blessings and realizing the goodness of being included in this plan so that I’m actively praising God. Its gonna take lots of adjusting my eyes to the Ephesians 1 planetarium and its gonna take questions from my Christian mates, but I’m praying that my thankfulness for all that I have in Jesus will remain long after the novelty of a new bed has faded.

The original post from In the Shadow of the Gherkin can be found here.

The Wheels on the Bus are Falling Off...

2008-10-21T17:47:00.008+01:00

A friend pointed me in the direction of this. It's an article announcing the launch of a new bus-advertising campaign from the British Humanist Association, inspired by an article by online Guardian writer Ariane Sherine. Its all in response to a campaign featuring Bible verses on London buses and underground over the last few months, followed by Alpha's bus campaign 'If you could ask God one question'.

Sherine's point is that there needs to be a counter-view expressed, so that those 'vulnerable' to religious advertisting are not fooled into believing there is a God, and specifically for her a God who is angry and has power to cast into a Hell.

The comments left in response to the article are worth a read. Lots of people unhappy with being told there is a judgment. Lots of people complaining God's validity is questioned by him not having recently put in an appearance. Yet also lots of people unhappy with 'atheist proselytizing' . Overall not much concern with whether or not the BHA have much ground for their claim, or likewise the reliability of the truth of the original campaign calling for faith in Jesus.

Ironically the advert uses the word 'probably' (amusingly it's the way to avoid being sued, a la Carlsberg). But surely if anything 'probably' should cause you to realise you can't in fact 'stop worrying and enjoy your life' until you work out whether or not you'd put your money, make that your life, on the strength of that probably. It just smacks of carefree-I-don't-care-if-I-sit-on-the-fence middleclass culture - that's the world we live in at the moment.

Happy Where You Are...

2008-10-11T10:17:00.006+01:00

Been spending some time munching through Jeremiah Burroughs' The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment at the moment, and thoroughly enjoying it. Burroughs was a Puritan knocking about during the first half of the seventeenth century and ended up preaching not too far down the road from me in Stepney.

'It may be said of one who is contented in a Christian way that he is the most contented man in the world, and yet the most unsatisfied man in the world'.

Being content has connotations of being happy with second-best, but that's not what Burroughs is on about. Contentment is bound up with knowing God is in control, and so one can be contented 'if he has but bread and water'. Yet at the same time there is a sense in which we are to be dissatisfied in the world; 'that is, those things that will satisfy the world, will not satisfy him.'

That's a brilliant observation I reckon: the two sides of contentment, finding a satisfaction in any situation, yet not being satisfied with it alone, for only God will satisfy. Another helpful thing Burroughs points out is that Christian contentment 'is not opposed to all lawful seeking for help in different circumstances, not to endeavouring simply to be delivered out of present afflictions by the use of lawful means'. That is, in situations of suffering it is not ungodly to ask God to deliver us from them and to keep in mind that he may well do that. He says that's what marks true Christian contentment out from glib stupidity.

I reckon that's something of what Paul is talking about in Philippians - being content in every situation, yet still a striving forward, a longing for the inheritance of God.

The Importance of Listening...

2008-10-07T17:37:00.003+01:00

The lovely people in our evening meeting have kicked off a blog to encourage us to be thinking about applying God's word long-term. We were talking today about the danger of not listening well as we hear God's word preached and its been brilliant to be forced to actually confront the deafness that so quickly springs up within us. It seems that a sermon can be so transient - you hear it on a Sunday, I pray it through on a Monday, but then... where does the word go?

Encountering God can't be a momentary thing - it must change, transform, hit... That's what 'applying the word' is all about of course, but I don't really think about application like that. What has God been teaching me over the last few weeks? How has he changed me recently? Not just did I understand that passage on Sunday, or even be wowed by the God in it, but whether I am encountering God. Long-term transformation. How has reading Romans changed me over the last 3 weeks? As I've seen Jesus call me to sit at his feet in Luke and challenge my view of discipleship, have I responded?

Hearing that ends in doing. It's not rocket-science, but I find it easy to forget.

I felt I was being picked on and bullied on a daily basis and that there was no respect whatsoever for my religious beliefs.

2008-05-20T23:17:00.006+01:00

With all the column inches and TV coverage given to the abortion debate in the Commons this week, this nearly slipped me by.

Lillian Ladele, 47, a marriage registrar for Islington Council, was threatened with the sack after refusing to preside over gay marriages on the grounds of her Christian faith.

"I am a Christian and I hold the orthodox Christian view that marriage is the union of one man and one woman for life to the exclusion of all others and that this is the God-ordained place for sexual relations.
"A civil partnership is marriage in all but name. Regardless of my feelings for the participants, I feel unable to directly facilitate the formation of a union that I sincerely believe is contrary to God's law.
"My beliefs do not mean I wish people who are homosexual to receive detrimental treatment. My God does not love anyone any less because of their sexual orientation.

"But the Bible explains that sin cannot be ignored, and it creates a problem for any Christian if they are expected to do or to condone something that they see as sinful.

"I cannot reconcile my faith with taking an active part enabling same sex unions to be formed as I believe this is contrary to God's instruction that sexual relations belong exclusively between a man and a woman within marriage."
"The council knows that if I am required to choose between my conscience and their desire that all registrars must undertake civil partnership duties, then I will have to honour my faith and face unemployment."

The Daily Mail gives it some treatment here. It seems to me that this could be seen as an example of my last post; no doubt there have been much accusations thrown at Ms Ladele of gay-bashing, despite her seeming to explain her position clearly.

But more than that, it's surely the denial of a Christian's right to hold beliefs that actually affect their life. Doctors not being able to refuse to take abortions and nurses forced to practice euthanasia are two other examples that have probably come up or will come up. But aside from the debate about whether you can hold a job in which your beliefs greatly affect your capacity to complete the job, this does seem to highlight the de-Christianizing of our society, and specifically what it will look like for a Christian involved in that society.

Living an Unwritten Doctrinal Basis...

2008-05-18T16:05:00.008+01:00

Some formed up thought from chatting with a friend the other day about how we talk about what we do as Christians. We were chatting to his unbelieving mates and their big questions about God were stuff like 'Does God hate it when you swear?' and 'If I say f*#@ will God condemn me?'

Now in my head I'm thinking well, actually we're all screwed because we've all rejected God - that's the heartbeat of the second half of Romans 1, right? But how do I convey that to someone who's view of a Christian is made up of a list of things you can't do. If my student housemates are munching hash cakes, why shouldn't I have a slice? If I do, does it show I'm free. If I don't, does it reinforce the rule-based definition of what a Christian is in their heads?

We reckoned that a really important way to helpfully portray the Christian life is by encouraging people to see that our 'faith' is not a merely spiritual-realm-thing but actually a physical thing - it affects your day-to-day actions. That seems to be what was going on in 1 Corinthians, with the Christians reckoning that it was the spiritual that mattered, therefore they could do what they like with their bodies (including major incest for one).

But Paul's response was to remind them their bodies were the Lord's. It was my experience that it's very easy to explain to your mate on the football social that the reason you don't want to get hammered at the bar is "because you're a Christian", but really that contains no sense of what Christianity is. You may as well say you're not getting wasted because you're a Muslim, or because you're against the abuse of underpaid Chinese alcopop bottlers... or something.

But actually we're in relationship with the living God - we know our King Jesus, and we want to live for him both in thankfulness and to please Him. Surely, that is what we want to convey, and before we convey anything, what we want to be thinking as we live each day.

Because people still die for Jesus...

2008-05-13T17:17:00.002+01:00

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God...
(2 Tim 1.8)

"This is to let you know the sad news that David Mohamed Ali, a Somali Christian evangelist and a long-standing member of St Matthew's, was shot dead last week by two Islamist terrorists in Badoia, Somalia, because of his Christian faith. He had been sent to Badoia by Ethiopian and Somali border police, for reasons that are not clear.
David was an intelligent and gifted evangelist who thought deeply about hisfaith. For a while he ran a website for Christian Somalis. I had recently given him a reference to do a Degree in Theology at ETC (EvangelicalTheological College), Addis Ababa. He was single man, aged about 35, who was based in Addis Ababa but travelled widely sharing his faith.
We thank God for his life and courageous witness, and pray for his mother,sister and other members of his family. We also pray for the SomaliChristian community, that they may be comforted and strengthened at this time when Christians are under great pressure in Somalia.
David's death comes just two weeks after four Christian teachers (2 BritishSomalis and 2 Kenyans) were killed in Beledwayne, Somalia."

HT: Michael Jensen

Free Song...

2008-05-08T14:23:00.005+01:00

Click here to download for free I Have A Shelter, a great song from the the lovely people at Sovereign Grace Music. It's taken from their new album Come Weary Saints, which I can totally recommend. I particularly love the album because...

1. It's BIG on God's sovereignty.
2. It portrays the Christian life as it really is; cross-shaped.

3. There are some brilliant songs on there.

Which, you have to say, are a cracking combination, with the first two being wonderful things to write brilliant music about.

I have a shelter in the storm

When troubles pour upon me

Though fears are rising like a flood

My soul can rest securely

O Jesus, I will hide in You

My place of peace and solace

No trial is deeper than Your love

That comforts all my sorrows

I have a shelter in the storm

When all my sins accuse me

Though justice charges me with guilt

Your grace will not refuse me

O Jesus, I will hide in You

Who bore my condemnation

I find my refuge in Your wounds

For there I find salvation

I have a shelter in the storm

When constant winds would break me

For in my weakness, I have learned

Your strength will not forsake me

O Jesus, I will hide in You

The One who bears my burdens

With faithful hands that cannot fail

You’ll bring me home to heaven

Ever feel guilty writing a prayer letter?

2008-05-05T15:55:00.007+01:00

I first started sending an email round to friends with a bit of news and some prayer points when I did six months of my gap year in South Africa with SU. A lot of the people recieving it were families who'd hired me to cook dinner parties for them, allowing me to raise a bit of cash to fund my trip. Once I hit Durham I'd send an email once a term or so, with a bit of info about what I was upto, some encouragements from CU and church, and prayer points, both general and specific, for the term ahead. A remotely funny anecdote never went down badly either.

Now that I've passed from student to that well-worn category of 'full-time paid [but yet not actually paid] Christian ministry', I'm reliant on a base of supporters to fund my living costs. Obviously it makes sense and follows biblical principle that those supporters don't just write me a cheque now and again, but are actually involved in what I'm doing. One of the best and most precious ways of that partnership being fleshed out is in much needed prayer, and so I send out an email every couple of months with detailed stuff to give thanks for, and points for prayer. This also goes to a group of mates who offered to pray for me this year. All well and good so far.

However, nearly a year after graudating, out of all the friends who send me prayer letters/updates all but one are involved in some sort of Christian training scheme/church position. Obviously it's great to be praying for people in those kind of positions, but at the same time it could indicate a potentially unhealthy focus on what 'Christian ministry' is. I was chatting with my friend James about this a few weeks back. From nine-to-five he's dealing with invoices for a rail-delivery company, but he keeps friends far flung updated with a little email now and again containing prayer and praise points.

There's a number of caveats to bring to the table. Maybe it's just I'm not that great at keeping in contact with friends. Maybe our culture is such that people are more likely to have one or two pals who they keep in touch with for prayer. I suppose in reality you are going to be praying for those you are close to, so its clearly unrealistic to expect everyone to be exchanging prayer news with everyone. Also those who are still part of the same church should be in a position where they can pray for each other regularly, and I guess there's a good argument for the local church being the place where people recieve most prayer support. And we wouldn't ever want to say you can only pray for people whom you are 'up-to-date-with'.

All that said, this doesn't remove the fact that it seems prayer letters are the norm for church workers, whilst those involved in full-time Christian ministry at the office, in the classroom, at home, etc, are less likely to send them, or are less likely to be encouraged to send them. I'm pretty sure it's symptomatic of an unbalanced focus on church positions in some sense - i.e. if you're going-for-it-keen then you'll work for a church and therefore are entitled to send out prayer letters. I guess it could also indicate a prayerlessness within Christian friendships? I've certainly been convicted, as I've been thinking, about how badly I care for friends far flung. We're all busy people but an unwillingness to keep in touch and to pray in an informed way for each other can't simply be something that being busy is allowed to create.

So what to do? Encourage a few mates in different walks of life to send round a monthly email updating each other on the ministry they are involved in? I was reading in From Cambridge to the World (incidentally a brilliantly written and non-triumphalist book detailing the work of the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union) how back in the day graduated CU members would send round an annual letter reporting what they were up to and how they could pray for each other. I have a mate who, in this vein, set-up a password-protected blog for his mates so they could regularly load up their prayer points.

...thoughts?

This Made Me Laugh...

2008-05-02T16:15:00.005+01:00

Book plugs are always one of the tough gigs to do in the student world, at CU, church, conferences, etc.
Don't want to trivialise the book; do want to make the book sound attractive without being too geeky; don't want it to sound like the book-plug they heard last week; do want to look like I'm not just reading out the blurb on the back.
This video, one of the highlights from the student stream at New Word Alive, takes up the challenge with hilarious results.

HT: Bish

Who's your Daddy?

2008-04-18T00:36:00.003+01:00

Reading Ephesians 5 with Steve on Wednesday. I often find myself cruising through these back-end sections of Paul's epistles as if they're some after thought sticky-taped on. No doubt I'm governed by some misguided approach where I tell myself I'm in need for some 'real theology' not just some 'do this and don't do that'.

Of course that's all rubbish - everything Paul says is completely rooted in what God has done for his people. We're called to be 'imitators of God as beloved children' (5v1). Paul's not whacking Christians over the head with a load of 'to-do' lists, rather he's getting right into the heart of the relationship between Christian theology and Christian living.

The call to imitate God is not some wishful thinking on Paul's behalf, but rather its based on the wonderful reality that we are now God's beloved children, and children imitate their parents. This pattern pops up again and again in the back end of Ephesians - reason for action is everything, and for Paul the reason is knowing who we are. In v3 our identity as 'saints' means certain stuff isn't even to be named among us. In v4 it isn't that filthiness and crude chat is bad that should stop us from doing it, but that it's 'out of place'. Again, in v7-8, 'do not associate with them; for one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light...'.

Christian ethics, that is how you live as a believer in Jesus, is always worked out and motivated by taking note of who you are. It's what fits. Of course if there's no knowledge, if there's no awareness of who we are, then we're either gonna forget and worse head elsewhere for our sense of identity, or we're gonna drift into a stuffy moralism that has lost sight of reasons and truth and thinks of Christianity as actions alone.

That's why simply remembering my identity, as a child of God, a joint of Christ's body, a member of the household of God, is such a precious and cruical thing to do each day. It rams home the importance of a book like Ephesians in stopping us in our tracks and giving us a reality check. This is reality.

Furniture demolition, cups of tea, and being church...

2008-04-06T13:32:00.006+01:00

I spent a couple of hours yesterday morning joining a mate as he helped clean out a flat lived in by one of his distant elderly relatives. The old lady in question is suffering from dementia and had been moved out of this top-floor flat in west London to live with family up in Scotland.

As we attacked old beds with saws to make them fit down the stairs, lugged 60's design chairs down four flights, and then shifted it all into a minibus, we realised the reality is we were stripping an apartment of a lifetime's worth of collected possessions. Old hoovers and chairs and pans off to the dump, pictures and books and crockery to the charity shop; it was a pretty sad moment really.

I would hardly have said there was much there that was in anyway unnecessary - it didn't make me suddenly want to streamline my material existence (although, that wouldn't be a bad thing for me to do!). But it did ram home the realisation that at the end of the day all these bits will be left behind. Whether it's being mowed down by a bus in my mid-twenties, signing out at seventy-five, or just being carted out of my home to somewhere, where for a few years, they'll sit me in front of a TV for most of the day and feed me my meals; we will leave this stuff behind us.

Yet it wasn't just furniture being left behind. As we chatted over cups of tea made in very retro china cups there were stories. Stories of a battleaxe of a Christian lady. Stories of the many gatherings in the flat as she opened up her home in loving hospitality. Stories of a woman who loves playing her part in God's body. And as the day went on two things happened: the flat got barer and barer, but also more and more people turned up to help out. Again and again, "Hi I'm a friend from her church" was the opening line. No sermons, no singing, but definitely church in action.

This One's For Hugo...

2008-03-14T17:06:00.007+01:00

Term's winding to a close here in London, so there's a little more time for brain consolidation and trying something new.

One of the big things exciting me at the moment is the recently launched Theology Network website, courtesy of Mike Reeves, Dan Hames, and those kind people at UCCF. It's the kind of resource that I'd have loved to have had at my fingertips when I began my degree, but the brilliant thing is it's all about theology being for all, not just those who are studying it for their degree at Uni. Theology is simply knowing God better - not something confined to turning through dusty textbooks and debating abstract concepts. There's a decent stack of articles and mp3 lectures on everything from church history to engaging with world religions.

I'm currently enjoying Reeves' fantastic series on the Trinity which seems to have snowballed since he first gave the talks a while back. The very title 'Trinity' is normally enough to put the majority of us off - but that lack of clarity and occurence regarding the subject in our Christian lives and churches is exactly what he addresses. Part 1 is ready for your digestion here. Enjoy!

Lessons from Mark #01...

2007-10-09T10:20:00.000+01:00

To follow is to leave.

(Mark 1.16-20)

Theses on the megachurch door...

2007-10-04T12:18:00.000+01:00

This post by Jared Wilson, a teaching minister at a church in Nashville, TN, got me thinking. It's 27 theses to post on your brand-spanking-new glass doors at church. Here's three that struck me.

3. Honest Christians will differ on what constitutes a “biblical church,” and while disagreement is understandable and okay, beware of any church that says, explicitly or implicitly, “we do it right” or “we do it better” than the church down the street.

12. Church leaders don’t really need to choose between fidelity to the Gospel and engaging the culture. They just need to make sure they put them in order. First things go first and inform secondary things. Fidelity to the Gospel should inform your cultural engagement, and not vice versa. If your first aim is to please man, you will please some god, but it won’t be the God you want to please. But if your first aim is to please God, you will please some men.

14. Decide if you’d rather give people what they want to hear or what they need to know. People need to know they are sinners in need of a Savior. People want to hear that deep down they’re okay and their good buddy J.C. affirms them in their okay-ness, which is b.s. that helps nobody.

A good point...

2007-10-03T00:07:00.000+01:00

"A church's understanding of evangelism will flow from its understanding of conversion and its understanding of mission."

Paul Clarke

Last Nun Standing (a Reality Check)...

2007-10-02T10:25:00.000+01:00

The most popular news story on bbc.co.uk at the moment is this one - a pretty comic tale of a three-woman strong convent that has now been reduced to one remaining member after the other two attacked her. I suppose the reason that it's heavily clicked on is because it's funny, unusual, and pretty ironic.

The article dubs the nuns as from 'the most austere order of the Roman Catholic Church, devoted to a life of prayer, penance and quiet contemplation.' The theory of a special sacred life may look nice and spiritual but the practice, three nuns not being able to get on without physically attacking one another, kind of shows up what life, and even the Christian life, really looks like. You can live in a convent for 44 years but you can't escape the flesh, the world, and the devil.

I reckon the temptation's there for all of us - especially with blogs - I want to point out the sacredness of my routine, the holiness of my actions, but in reality I'm only kidding myself. I might not use the garble of 'devoted to a life of prayer, penance, and quiet contemplation', but I'm equally as likely to spin on about how often I'm captivated by God, ham up the prayerletter to make my exploits look extra devout. Maybe the balance is hard to strike - we are pressing on towards the goal, trying to let go of every hinderance, and we are living in hope that day by day we are being changed by God, and made more like his Son. But with that comes the brutal truth that we are sinners crying out for rescue.

Back to the nuns' story... now the local Archbishop has got involved and written to the Pope to get his permission to call the bailiffs in to force the last nun to take down the barricades. The remaining nun's response? "She has written to the Pope telling him she will only leave when God decides it is time to go." Can't leave this story without questioning the seeming madness of that comment (if the press quotation is accurate).

She's nailed the issue in one sense; God is sovereign and when He decides it's time to go, then it definitely will be (and that could be in the shape of the local authorities banging on the door and forcing her out!). But the manner in which she seems to be using that phrase gives me the creeps. Maybe I'm taking her out of context, but I reckon it's symptomatic of what Christianity looks like all too often in our culture - all too easily reckoning God's will is this or that without giving much time to what God has declared his will to be in his written word. We have to rescue the foundational truth that God has ordained what pleases him and what doesn't. Without even getting into whether or not being a nun is a good thing to do, the point in question seems to be whether I can defend my actions on the basis of what God has said to me personally, with little thought to what's he's spoken in Scripture.

So, what's the gospel?

2007-09-18T22:22:00.000+01:00

It's been about three months since I last whacked some thoughts up on the blogosphere. So, what's brought me back from the cold? I wanted to take a look at some thoughts on Brian McLaren's soon-to-be-released book Everything Must Change.

Every few weeks I get some circular emails from a couple of Christian bookshops and it seems stuff by McLaren, Rob Bell and others that are often put under the 'emerging church' label, is ever-present. If these are the books and DVDs that an increasing number of people in the UK church are buying (and that makes sense if that's what the likes of Wesley Owen are heavily plugging), then we need to be pretty clear as to what's at the heart of them.

So, Tim Challies gives us an insight here as to how McLaren sees his gospel, his good news. And if we want to be gospel-guarders, as Paul desperately desperately urges us to be, then it would be good to give it a read.

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

2 Tim. 4.1-5

Men Behind the Book...

2007-06-07T14:55:00.000+01:00

Great interview with Sach and Jeffrey, writers of Pierced For Our Transgressions, over here. Normal Christian people contending for the faith. It's what it's all about.

“You’re supposed to be helping him, ‘getting him off the streets’…”

2007-05-28T22:48:00.000+01:00

Here's a refreshingly unacademic post worth a read from the blog of Frog and Amy Orr-Ewing; it's a piece written by Rachel Hughes, a youthworker in Peckham, and speaks of the realities involved in reaching unchurched young people with the gospel - always an exciting thing! It's a conversation between Rachel and two young people at one of the youth clubs she runs, and it rings true with what is fairly normal outside middle-class Britain I guess. I'm always indebted to having the camera zoom-out and being reminded that there is more to Christian ministry than student work.

Something For The Weekend...

2007-05-27T00:20:00.000+01:00

'Humility is not a mere ornament of a Christian, but an essential part of the new creature.'

Richard Baxter

Elsewhere:
Bish has a great post here on the soaring and sobbing of the doctrine of election as we read Romans 9-11.
Al Mohler has some interesting observations on the increasingly popular (yet as yet absent from my bookshelf) The Dangerous Book for Boys here.
HT: Ed

Music in a CU context...

2007-05-24T08:57:00.000+01:00

At Focus tonight we're looking at Romans 14, as Paul shows how the gospel affects how we relate to brothers and sisters who have different views on disputable matters (in the passage it's food and special days). Where often such differences can quickly end-up causing frustration and friction, Paul calls all to seek the edification of others, following Christ's example. As Paul has shown since the start of Romans 12, the gospel brings about sober-minded selfless thinking with enemies, with authorities, and here across individual churches.

In the context of Christian Unions, student mission teams dedicated to speaking the gospel of Jesus Christ across campuses and colleges, often secondary issues can hamper such critical primary aims. One of these issues is often music/worship; does the way we concieve of music at our CU meetings hamper whether our brothers and sisters feel held back, restricted, left out, relegated, ignored in the work of the CU? The great thing about Romans 14-15 is that everyone is addressed and called to be selfless, which like the marriage in 1 Cor 7.1-4, is the result of gospel-thinking in the believer.

Mark Stone, a UCCF staff worker in the north-east, did a really practical seminar session on the topic of leading music in a CU context, up here in Durham in November. You can download the two files here (1) and here (2).

Bits and Bobs...

2007-05-22T13:01:00.000+01:00

Martin Downes hosts an interview with Carl Trueman here who has some important things to say about humility. The internet is a unique portal, where words can be seen by all and brought up long after they were issued. We had a quotation on our bathroom door back home that read 'Keep your words tender, for tomorrow you may have to eat them'. It's true; the bathroom quote page rarely lies.

HT: The Bish

Also, the latest press release from UCCF on the Word Alive issue can be found here.

The definite lack of original content on the blog in recent weeks has been due to the fact that revision is well underway for finals (finishing June 1st). However, I have posted two pics of my own handcrafted dinner-for-one from Saturday night. On the left we have leftovers of my homemade lemon ice-cream, and on the right we have a fish-finger, peas, and lettuce sandwich, with added mayo.

A Year Ago: At church we were looking at God's sovereignty and suffering; where the rubber hits the road and theology is shown to be truly practical.

It Makes Sense...

2007-05-18T12:21:00.000+01:00

We are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it... Disregard the study of God and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfold, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul.

J. I. Packer, Knowing God.

The skill of humility...

2007-05-15T20:12:00.000+01:00

Yep, that was intentionally ironic. Five suggestions from Michael Ramsey, former Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of Durham, on staying humble...

1. Thankfulness... 'Thankfulness is a soil on which pride does not easily grow'.
2. Confession... be honest about your sin; criticise yourself in God's presence.
3. Accept humiliations... however hard that may be.
4. Don't worry about any status you have apart from how you are in God's sight.
5. Use your sense of humour:

'Laugh about things. Laugh at the absurdities of life. Laugh at yourself. Laugh at your own absurdities. We are, all of us, infinitisimally small and ludicrous creatures within God's universe. You have to be serious, but never be solemn, because if you are solemn about anything there is the risk of becoming solemn about yourself.

Ramsey's words as quoted by John Stott.

Creation waits with eager longing...

2007-05-15T20:04:00.000+01:00

BBC Washington correspondent Matt Frei has an interesting article and film on how climate change is dividing evangelicalism in America here.

Packer on the Word...

2007-05-14T20:46:00.000+01:00

Mark Driscoll blogs on a lecture he observed from Jim Packer (or 'J.I.', if you know him well) here. Reading Knowing God again has made me realise how brilliantly rich Packer's writings are. You just long to keep devouring the pages as he throws his flashlight on the glorious God of the gospel, inviting us to grasp something of who God is, and marvel and change. Driscoll writes that Packer's address ended with three exhortations, which I'll quote here:

The hope of our glory must always lie beyond this world and to nurture that hope a reading of the Puritan Bunyan's book Pilgrim's Progress is essential.
Total and continual immersion in the Psalms is exceedingly good for the soul and too infrequently practiced.
Studying the lives of those who faithfully handled God's Word is helpful and Charles Haddon Spurgeon and Martyn Lloyd-Jones must be included at the top of that list.

HT: The Resurgence

Gardeners' Questiontime

2007-05-09T22:40:00.000+01:00

Reading Genesis 3 again this evening with pizza and brothers.

It simply sums up in narrative form the absolute arrogance of human rebellion, the casting aside of the Creator God and the willed decision to become gods ourselves. Sin is in essence an act of revolution: to replace God with myself.

The woman, knowing that the serpent had outlined that eating the fruit will make them 'like God', still chooses to eat of the forbidden tree. That's despite both the implications laid out by the serpent and it being an act of straight-forward disobedience to God. The narrative also picks out the subtle exchange of authority from what God has said, to what humanity judges to be right; the woman sees the fruit looks good, 'a delight to the eyes' (3.6) and that it is able to make one wise, and it is this that takes preference over obeying God's word.

The clear difference between the actual command God gives in 2.16-17 and the woman's version of what God said (3.3) is peculiar (the lack of 'neither shall you touch it' in the original). Sure, woman hadn't been created when the command was given, suggesting man had passed the command on, but either he'd got it wrong, or she'd not paid enough attention to it. Either way, God's words are not as familiar to the couple as they need to be, considering they are the very words of the God who created them, the very words that previously spoke life into nothingness. Consequently the serpent is able to cause mass confusion by first questioning God's word (3.1: 'Did God actually say...') and then casting doubt on the reality of God's judgement (3.4: 'You will not surely die...').

He's made God out to be incoherent, twisted in intention, and a liar. To read this passage is to see graphicly in a snapshot moment how sin works. And it's easy to point the finger and throw our hands up at this evil anonymous passerby, whom we call 'sin'. But in reality it is us, our hearts, it is me who does this. And then I remember that moment this afternoon when I doubted whether the real world actually needs the gospel. Or that time yesterday when I was reluctant to believe God's desire that I be sanctified was true, rather fancying my own will for myself. Or when I questioned whether the Bible was clear in what it said.

I love that closing line from Chris Tomlin's song 'Indescribable', it speaks so simply of the wonder of Jesus' death for sinners, sinners like Adam, and sinners like me.

'You see the depths of my heart and you love me the same; you are amazing God'

Goldsworthy and the Bible...

2007-05-08T21:32:00.000+01:00

Having spent most of the last few weeks trying to submerge myself in the writings of Graeme Goldsworthy for my dissertation, I'm now a massive fan of his work. He's passionate about understanding the Bible as a whole, and a whole that points to Jesus Christ, which is what he calls biblical theology.

Justin Buzzard interviews Goldsworthy on his blog here and it really brings out Graeme's heart for biblical theology to be pastoral, that every Christian might long to see how the Scriptures testify to Jesus Christ.

Faithful workman...

2007-05-06T22:40:00.000+01:00

John Stott announced his retirement this last week, at the age of 86. Imagine spending a lifetime devoted to pointing to someone else. A life well spent.

“If He is not who he said He was, and if He did not do what He said He had come to do, the whole superstructure of Christianity crumbles in ruin to the ground.”

Stott, Basic Christianity

Probem solving...

2007-05-03T11:44:00.000+01:00

"The greater the problem, the greater the gospel.
The smaller the problem, the smaller the gospel.

"We need to be very clear on the problem, and its magnitude, to understand and be thrilled by the gospel that solves it... many heresies stem from having the gospel without a problem. To have a Jesus who is the ultimate answer, but to not understand the problem, means we come up a problem resembling whatever we think the world's greatest problem is."

Michael You

Being Fishers of Men...

2007-05-02T11:00:00.000+01:00

I like Mark Driscoll. He's a thirty-six year old pastor of Mars Hill church (not to be confused with Rob Bell's Mars Hill Bible Church...) in Seattle, Washington. For those of you who like the labels, he describes himself as first Christian, second evangelical, third missional, and fourth reformed. Apart from that you really need to listen to him to see what he's like.

He's big into church planting. A good thing. And he's big into reaching the totally unchurched. Those for whom church is another world. Church planting for the unchurched. Bigtime. To blow away those cobwebs, take a look at an eight-minute video he made for a church-planting conference here. He also said this:

So the question is if you want to be innovative: How do you get young men? All this nonsense on how to grow the church. One issue: young men. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. They’re going to get married, make money, make babies, build companies, buy real estate. They’re going to make the culture of the future. If you get the young men you win the war, you get everything. You get the families, the women, the children, the money, the business, you get everything. If you don’t get the young men you get nothing. You get nothing.

He's got a point, and he's doing everything he can in response to it.

The Morning I Heard God Speak...

2007-04-17T22:01:00.000+01:00

Cracking article by John Piper here. Read and marvel.

HT: Nathan

From Times Eternal...

2007-04-16T13:10:00.000+01:00

Uploaded some very basic demos of three songs I recorded with the help of my friends Vicky and Gary last week. You can listen and grab the lyrics to them here - I repeat: very basic stuff, but it was great fun to do. Here's the words to one of them, From Times Eternal. It's pretty much the back end of Romans 8, a chapter I've grown to take great delight in since we did it at Focus a few months back. I've noticed that too often the rock solid assurance God has given us, rooted in God's faithful character, displayed in his gracious act of predestining his own, and centred on the cross of Christ, is missing from the pulpits, songbooks, and generally, the churches of our land.

It's no reason for pride, that's clear. It's total grace. And yet without it, without being bathed in the plan of God, without taking time to grasp God's acted-upon will for us (as Romans 8 tells us) we rob ourselves and others of the comfort, security, refuge that the Psalmist loved to sing of. Anyway, here's the song:

From times eternal you have chosen me
Fixed by your counsel secured by your will
I see your purpose in saving me
I marvel at such undeserved mercy

No condemnation in Christ,
No separation from the love of God,
I can claim assurance tonight,
It is your work; it is your will

Your word tells me of my destiny
Planned long before my first breath
And it's destined through all history
The king of love; that he should die for me

Neither death nor life, neither depth nor height,
Can separate me from the Love of God in Christ

To know your working through everything,
That is my good, that is your will.
To make me more like Christ
To bring him glory, to be his family

Word Alive and the Atonement...

2007-04-07T16:44:00.000+01:00

Hundreds of students are returning from Word Alive, and Dan Hames reports here from the event with news of the doctrine of the atonement being brought to the fore, as it should be. Consequently, the student Word Alive track will be departing from the Spring Harvest weeks into a new Bible-focused family holiday week, with a student section running alongside it. The current site for the new week is up here.

Pierced for our Transgressions, the new book on the doctrine of penal substitution from Sach, Jeffrey, and Ovey, is already out of stock at publishers IVP having only been on sale for a month. Beginning with Moses are offering a special discount on it - it will be one of those books you'll still appreciate having on your shelf in thirty years, I'm sure. If you haven't checked out the site, or you're not really sure why so much of a big fuss is being made out of what happened on the cross, then do click here. It's packed full of info, downloadable sermons, and even some free song downloads.

HT: Dan

Boundless...

2007-04-04T22:01:00.000+01:00

Just discovered Boundless, which is a site full of Christian articles, aimed at 'those in their college years'. There's heaps of stuff to look at on everything from relationships and how you use your time, to encouraging you to form a Biblical worldview. Why there aren't similar sites this side of the Atlantic, I don't know... maybe there are and I haven't found them... or maybe us Brits have trouble dealing with the cheese factor. Boundless is run by Focus on the Family, so its search engine taps into a vast network of documents, book reviews, etc... Worth taking a look at.

'One in 10' attend church weekly...

2007-04-03T10:52:00.000+01:00

Christian charity Tearfund has polled 7,000 people, actually not that big a number, and found that '1 in 10' attend church weekly, and '1 in 7' monthly. That actually struck me as quite a high figure. Two-thirds of those polled had not been to church in the last year, except for baptisms, weddings or funerals - the results put the UK among Europe's four 'least observant countries'.

Tearfund said 53% of people identified themselves as Christian, compared with almost three-quarters who had in the last census in 2001. But it said that its survey indicated that three million people who had stopped going to church, or who had never been in their lives, would consider attending "given the right invitation". This could be a personal invite, the chance to accompany a relative or friend, or the offer of help during difficult personal circumstances, it said.

This is encouraging news - that both the term 'Christian' seems to be being abandoned by those who ten years ago would have used it to classify anyone white and British, and that still many are open to 'considering church'. People draw graphs and pie charts and try to work out what 'the church' will look like in 10 years, but so what? The Bible teaches and shows that God is faithful and will keep his church from falling, and then on the last day the true church will be revealed as those who are saved by the name of Jesus Christ, for 'there is salvation in no one else' (Acts 4.12).

If, as many say, it becomes increasingly harder to proclaim his name, and remain on the right side of UK law, then surely many will leave gospel-believing churches, and yet, as has always been the case, people will hear the word of life and believe, for it is God who will gather his elect. As Joel spoke of our day, 'it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved'. Great hope, despite whatever trials and tribulations may - no, make that will - lie ahead.

Tearfund's president, Elaine Storkey, told BBC Radio Five Live that a lot of people would be unsure what to expect if they did visit. "The church for a lot of people is a very strange place these days. They're not familiar with what's going on inside the building, with the form of service, with the way people gather, with what they say, how they pray. "So the first thing they have really got to wake up to is that there is this big cultural gap between churched and non-churched." I've no doubt all of that is true. UK churches must seem incredibly weird to someone who hasn't grown up in that environment. Paul was concerned for the non-believer in the church gathering in 1 Cor 14, and so should we be. We should be only boasting in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; there is the foolishness.

Calvin and Avocado...

2007-03-29T13:06:00.000+01:00

Thus it is that we may patiently pass through this life with its misery, hunger, cold, contempt, reproaches, and other troubles - content with this one thing: that our King will never leave us destitute, but will provide for our needs until, our warfare ended, we are called to triumph.

John Calvin, Institutes II. xv. 4.

Enjoying life's small pleasures: Baby moorhens taking their first steps among the rushes of the local park's pond; Avocado spread thickly on toast with a little pepper and vinegar.

Lust is a dissatisfaction with God...

2007-03-28T11:34:00.000+01:00

Listening to Joshua Harris' series on Purity at the moment. Really good stuff.

I remember reading his first book I Kissed Dating Goodbye when I was 17, and being appalled at his hardcore attitude to relationships. It didn't help that one of my guy mates gave it to the girl I was 'dating' at the time. However, five years later I'm convinced he's the bomb. If you've never digged into his books (Boy Meets Girl, Sex isn't the probem (Lust is), and Stop Dating the Church) they're well worth getting your hands on. A married friend recently told me Boy Meets Girl has been the most helpful book he's read on the issue of relationships. It's worth bearing in mind before you read your first one that he is an American (cue scary music), and, surprise surprise, his books are American too. Don't be put off by the fact that he's clearly addressing an American audience - the truth is his priorities, principles and attitudes will pack a punch in whatever culture you're in. Be aware of the ease and danger of using the Americanisms as an excuse for not applying the Biblical truths to your life, like I did five years ago!

Anyway, the series on Purity is a collection of six sermons he gave at Covenant Life church, which he pastors in Gaithersberg, Maryland. They're available free here, are each about 45 mins long, and he sits right under God's word, preaching grace and repentance. Purity 2 is the only sermon on lust I've ever heard and is absolute gospel-centred gold-dust, and a brilliant summary of his latest book. Listen to it with your friends. He quotes Piper partway through, saying 'Lust (/Sin) is the dissatisfaction with God'. Really got me thinking. We choose to sin because we think it will satisfy, and thus because we think it'll satisfy more than God (we're dissatisfied with Him). We're wrong, and time and time again we're left feeling empty. Surely then, we need to fight to find our satisfaction in Him. Discuss.

Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.
Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing.
Psalm 34.8-9

Once let him see his sin and he must see his Saviour...

2007-03-27T15:04:00.000+01:00

First day back home, after a few days out in the sticks with my fellow two muskateers, and then church's annual Mid-Year Conference for students in the Lakes. Much to 'mull over' from the time away, and no doubt much to blog too.

A seminar on unity was really thought-provoking... how clear are we on the essentials of the gospel that has saved us, the gospel that unites God's church... what truths would we fight for? What would we want to hold fast to when everyone else has deserted?

The doctrine of sin has to be one of those things. Was watching The Simpsons last night with my sister and it was the episode where Bart and the family travel to the Itchy & Scratch World amusement park. The theme was all about whether or not violence on kids' TV actually caused children to be more violent - it made me think about our society: we're so quick to point to this or that as the cause for society's 'downfall'. Our communities aren't like they used to be surely? Things have changed, right?

J. C. Ryle didn't think so. Writing about the church in the nineteenth century, he stated that one its chief wants 'has been, and is, clearer, fuller teaching about sin.' That is, sin, 'doing, saying, thinking, or imagining anything that is not in perfect conformity with the mind and law of God.'

And from where does this vile offence against God come?

'Let us, then, have it fixed down in our minds that the sinfulness of man does not begin from without, but from within. It is not the result of bad training in early years. It is not picked up from bad companions and bad examples, as some weak Christians are too fond of saying. No! It is a family disease, which we all inherit from our first parents, Adam and Eve, and with which we are born.
...
'Search the globe from east to west and from pole to pole; search every nation of every climate in the four quarters of the earth; search every rank and class in our own country from the highest to the lowest—and under every circumstance and condition, the report will be always the same. The remotest islands in the Pacific Ocean, completely separate from Europe, Asia, Africa and America, beyond the reach alike of Oriental luxury and Western arts and literature, islands inhabited by people ignorant of books, money, steam and gunpowder, uncontaminated by the vices of modern civilization, these very islands have always been found, when first discovered, the abode of the vilest forms of lust, cruelty, deceit and superstition. If the inhabitants have known nothing else, they have always known how to sin! Everywhere the human heart is naturally "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked" (Jer. 17:9). For my part, I know no stronger proof of the inspiration of Genesis and the Mosaic account of the origin of man, than the power, extent and universality of sin.

John 3.6; Ephesians 2.3; Romans 8.7; Mark 7.21.

The practical applications of such a doctrine:
a) one of the best antidotes to the 'that vague, dim, misty, hazy theology which is so painfully current in the present age.'
b) one of the best antidotes to the 'extravagantly broad and liberal theology which is much in vogue at the present time'.
c) one of the best antidotes to that 'sensuous, ceremonial, formal kind of Christianity...'
d) one of the best antidotes to 'the overstrained threories of Perfection, of which we hear much in these times...'
e) an admirable antidote to the low views of personal holiness which are so painfully prevalent in these last days of the Church.

'Once let him see his sin and he must see his Saviour... We must sit down humbly in the presence of God, look the whole subject in the face, examine clearly what the Lord Jesus calls sin, and what the Lord Jesus calls doing His will. We must then try to realize that it is terribly possible to live a careless, easy–going, half–worldly life, and yet at the same time to maintain evangelical principles and call ourselves evangelical people! Once we see that sin is far viler and far nearer to us and sticks more closely to us than we supposed, we will be led, I trust and believe, to get nearer to Christ. Once drawn nearer to Christ, we will drink more deeply out of His fullness and learn more thoroughly to "live the life of faith" in Him, as St. Paul did. Once taught to live the life of faith in Jesus, and abiding in Him, we will bear more fruit, will find ourselves more strong for duty, more patient in trial, more watchful over our poor weak hearts, and more like our Master in all our little daily ways.

All quotes from Holiness by J. C. Ryle.

Marvelling at sovereignty...

2007-03-15T15:43:00.000+01:00

Been reading Romans 9 in prep for tonight's study... it's pretty hectic as the South Africans would say.
Logically I'm finding it one of the most easiest strands of Paul's argument to understand, but theologically it's a brain-twister, and not just brain but heart too. Just the way Paul brings up the issue of the Jews brings his true colours to light, 'I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers...' (9.2-3).

I love reading Paul, because just when you're wrapped up in understanding his doctrine, his theology, his understanding of how it all works, you're smacked in the face by the way he takes it as the reality it is. It's not simply textbook theory, for actually that's not theology, it's heart, mind, and soul, engaged, enwrapped, involved. What a big rebuke to thinking it's possible to get a grip on God's election without it twisting your heart. Does it make us concerned? Am I gonna stand up and speak the 'truth in Christ' and feel anguish? Not anguish that the word of God has failed, but anguish that so many don't seem to be children of promise (8.9), that so many have rejected the only one who can be their sacrifice for sins (Heb 10.26-27).

The mercy of God, absolutely free, totally unwarranted. Choosing Isaac not Ishmael, Jacob not Esau. Forgiving a people who turned to building a golden calf just hours after recieving the law. Blinding grace. Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! And yet we are chosen, as vessels of mercy, prepared beforehand for glory, to make known the riches of his glory.

"I've lost many arguments, I've never lost a re-run..."

2007-03-13T14:35:00.000+01:00

Last night was the CU's Easter Celebration Service. It marked the final event of the One.Hope

Today's been a real encouragement. This morning we had the monthly church student prayer meeting, a great way to begin the day, being reminded from Hebrews 4.14-16 that we can approach the throne of grace, and bring our prayers to a High Priest who sympathizes with our day-to-day weaknesses. Also, been trying to nail my final essay of term, looking at the use of the Psalms in the NT to interpret the passion of the Lord Jesus. main event. I'll blog about that later this week.

Walking here and there I've been listening over some Carson on Ezekiel 37 & Romans 8. Great to go over some of the truths we've been sinking our minds into at Focus, and see the OT groundings for the desperate need for the Spirit to bring life from death. Carson's a joy to listen to and really hammered home the fact that for Paul it's absolutely nonsensical for a Christian to still be living according to the flesh, i.e. always wanting to be number one. 'Thinking apart from God. Goals and ambitions apart from God. Desires apart from God. Desperately sad and utterly hopeless.'

Instead we're called to set our minds on the things of the Spirit. To have the mindset of Christ, as Carson said, 'someone so touched by the Spirit of God that you can't deny the effects.' He had some really practical applications for how we view conversion, sanctification and revival...

Firstly, Biblical conversion has to be life-transforming. It is. Yes, there is a decision. Yes, there is growth by grace. But, from a biblical point of view conversion without life-transformation is a contradiction of terms. The Spirit makes us ashamed and fearful in the presence of a holy God. It makes us love what was previosuly unattractive. It is God's work. Not pressing a cheap-decision, where one things one has done God a favour. It is the work of the Spirit of God.

Secondly, Biblical ethics turns on keeping in step with the Spirit. God changes your mindset, now work it out. You can't wander away! It's unthinkable to strive to be number one - that's fleshly thinking. It's theologically ridiculous. It's biblically ridiculous.

And thirdly, revival is nothing other than a fresh out-pouring of Spirit. Every conversion is the work of the Spirit. Every step in sanctification is the work of the Spirit. When God's Spirit comes on his people by powerful display, the cheap and the dirty is percieved for what it really is, i.e. it is viewed from God's perspective. From the Spirit's perspective, and so we'll be ashamed. 'Stop asking stupid questions betraying our desire to know what we can get away with'. Real guilt. God have mercy on me, as a sinner. There is revival. You cannot organise it, you cannot ape it or whip it up. And biblical revival is achieved by the transforming power of proclamation of the Word empowered by the Spirit.

Servants, Builders, and Fools...

2007-03-12T15:21:00.000+01:00

Church hosted a 9:38 lunch on Sunday with Pete Gaskell, who works for Gloddaeth Holidays. Pete looked at how Paul describes his ministry in 1 Corinthians.

Christian workers are servants (3.5-9)
Paul couldn't be clearer to the Corinthians: it doesn't matter who does the ministry, whether Paul or Apollos, for they are both servants (5). It's so easy to fix our eyes on the minister, the famed teacher, the top cat in the big evangelical ministry. But actually they're all servants. Servants. That is how we are to think of ourselves (cf. 4.1). Crops are for one thing: growth, so we're to put our eyes on the only one who gives growth, and to remember our place in gospel ministry.

Christian workers are builders (3.10-15)
We're called to build on Jesus Christ in gospel ministry - he is the only foundation (11). And Paul says we're to build well, for how we build will be shown to be what it is on the last day (12-13). What is the quality of our work, what's the state of our efforts, what's the reality to the gospel ministy we're doing? Am I doing a ministry of gold, am I cutting corners, am I struggling hard to understand the Bible; being vigorous as I submit my life to it? Shoddy work will one day be shown to be what it is, and the warning is real: 'if anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire' (15), whilst if anyone who has work built on the foundation that survives testing by fire 'he will recieve a reward'.

Christian workers are fools (4.8-13)
These are striking words - words that cut deep as we examine our own lives and attitudes to ourselves. Paul says that he is like the man sentenced to death at the end of the amphitheatre procession... gospel ministy requires you to be a fool, 'a spectacle to the world...' (9). Becoming the 'scum of the earth, the refuse of all things' (13). Hated, despised, mocked, not taken seriously. It has to be part of my thinking - I'm a fool. There is no room for pride, for puffed-up reputation. I remember in SA, a friend told me that in some communities the sign of being a pastor was driving a Mercedes. That's not gospel-ministry according to Paul: 'we are fools for Christ's sake...'.

I must have this view of myself... God's word is so sharp and active... change your thinking now!
Paul may have been going place to place, as apostle to the Gentiles, but like him I too am called to be a servant, a good workman, a fool, here and now.
A servant of Christ, a builder on Christ, a fool for Christ. Am I that?
To extract every ounce of pride and to remember I am serving the Lord Jesus. To see my actions in light of the last day, doing a ministry of gold on the foundation of Christ. To consider myself as a fool, ready to be seen as nothing in the eyes of the world. To not be concerned with how I'm being compared with others, but instead to fix my eyes on Him who grows His crop. Change me!

Depression and the body...

2007-03-09T23:50:00.000+01:00

This the second of two posts of a few jumbled up notes from a seminar on depression. This section looks at the medical side of things, and was given by a Christian GP.

This GP said around 80% of her patients were stress/emotion/anxiety related cases. Now, stress is needed in balance. Too little and we're lazy, slack. The right amount and we perform well and stay alert. Stress often comes in the form of adjustment reactions, which can be caused by any loss or change. Depression is often multi-factorial, i.e. it's not simply caused by just one thing. There may be a history of it, genetics, triggers. We've all felt sadness and lowness, not feeling great about ourselves, depression is just different in volume and length of time. Often it's typified as 2 weeks of persistent low-mood.

What do you feel/think?
Sleep disturbance; early waking; appetite disturbance; being 'so tired'; lack of energy; not making an effort on appearance; how we treat ourselves; very negative thinking: 'I'm no good'; lack of concentration...

Often if we're physically unwell it will effect how we feel, and vice-versa.

Healthy habits...
Exercise (endorphins); eating good food; rest/sleep ('sleep hygiene': waking up at same time every day but only going to bed when feeling tired); expressing emotion; support/family/friends; achieving things; being creative; being outside (1o mins outside - 3hrs uplifted!); knowing it's ok to laugh/cry.

Negative habits...
Social isolation; alchohol; drugs; spending £££; deliberate self-harm (although this is often a logical progression from wanting to feel physically the distress you feel inside); guilt...

Remember, life is full of little pleasures! Here's an example to get you thinking and delighting in small things.

Getting better...
Support and love - it's important to feel safe. We need 20 strokes a day! Hug, touch, physical support, feeling loved. Counselling - talking through things. Realigning your thinking (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), i.e. helping people to look at their negative thinking. Medication... we don't say you shouldn't put a plaster on when you get cut, yet we seem to think medication for depression is wrong. Why!? Medication will stimulate the brain to make more of what it needs, and maintained treatment (usually 6 months min.) allows body to get used to it thus acting as a safety net.

Walking with Jesus (or Reading with Matthew)...

2007-03-09T10:37:00.000+01:00

Over the last week or so I have realised I am very unfamiliar with the gospel accounts of Jesus' life. I read through Mark in second year, and I've got a bit of a grasp of John, but as for Matthew and Luke, I'm pretty clueless. And the consequence of that is I don't know Jesus very well.

If he is my King, my Saviour, the one for whom my salvation will bring glory to (as we learnt in Romans 8.29 last night), the one who will return to bring about my glorification and the new creation I'm longing for, the one who makes God known and makes him knowable... then if all that is the case which I'm sure it is, then I want to spend more time studying the gospels, delighting in who Jesus is, changing my thinking so I'm crystal clear what he said, what he did, why he did it (not just what Paul said, etc).

So I'm spending some time, however long it will take, reading Matthew's gospel account and feasting on what I find. Here goes...

Matthew 1 is awesome! It's flashing with big bright lights: 'He's here! He's awesome!'. 'The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.' A mouthful and a half for any Jew to read. Literally, in the Greek, 'the genesis', the new beginning... of Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, the Anointed One, God's chosen King! The son of David... the king of 2 Samuel 7, the son of Abraham, the promised offspring blessing the world of Genesis 12. I've just been knocked off my synagogue pew (or whatever seating you have in such places). 'Wake up guys, he's arrived!', is Matthew's message. And just when you were catching your breath it continues: 'Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob', Jacob, Judah, Perez, Tamar, Hezron... Boaz, Ruth, Jesse, David! David? 'David the king'. Oh, that David.

David, Solomon... and on and on, all the way to the exile to Babylon. Then what? The end of the line? No: Jechoniah, Shealtiel, Zerubbabel (big sirens going off... Haggai 2.23... shaking the heavens and the earth, overthrowing kingdoms), all the way down to Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.

With child from the Holy Spirit (1.18, 20), adopted by Joseph into the Davidic line, and named Jesus because... 'he will save his people from their sins' (1.21, 25). Well, there we go. Day 1. In fact not even Day 1, he hasn't been born, and yet his mission is as clear-cut as they come: he will save his people from their sins. He came preaching love, to help us love each other, to understand ourselves, teaching mercy to the world? He will save his people from their sins. Understanding Jesus is about understanding his message of peace, we can all be one in Christ.... true, but because he will save his people from their sins.

And if child of promise, chosen king, saviour, wasn't enough. Immanuel: God with us. The promised immanuel of Isaiah 7-9. This is the start of something massive.

The Bible and Depression...

2007-03-08T23:21:00.000+01:00

Here are some rough notes from a seminar on Depression. They're disjointed notes, but there's some helpful stuff in there I feel. This isn't an A-Z of depression, and it doesn't touch on the role of the fall, and it doesn't point forward to the new creation, and I would be interested to hear of any other Christian resources available.

The Bible addresses negative emotions a lot; the implication is they are part of life. Jesus was anxious in Gethsemane... it's not a sin. In fact the capacity to cry is a reasoned creation, just like the capacity to laugh.

Unhelpful worldview ideas...

'Good things happen to good people & bad things happen to bad people'... this may sound absolutely stupid to us, but the reality is all too often it creeps into our thinking: 'why is this happening to me?!'

Positive Confession Theology ('Name it & Claim it')... this teaching says that if we have enough faith then we'll get what we ask for, so healing has been made available through the cross and Jesus dealt with human illness and all we need for healing is to ask for it. This is close to truth, because Jesus' death has beaten death, but the blessings of that are not all this side of his return, and this theology often leads to a 'if I'm not healed then I can't have enough faith' guilt.
It all stems from our self-gratification culture that says if someone prayed for me then we should immediately be better... this just wasn't the case a few decades ago. Job & Jeremiah are long books... yet our culture wants instant effect.

We are permitted to express negative emotions to God (cf. John the Baptist in prison, Mary & Martha after Lazarus' death, Abraham, Hannah)... no point hiding it... do we think God doesn't know? Often we, as the caring friend, are distressed about their pain, and we want to fix it right here right now, and it is good to want people to feel better, but not just because we can't cope. In Cor 12.26 we're called to 'mourn with those who mourn'.

The Psalms are all about modelling honesty and not pretence... in fact one of the most powerful points of counselling is in getting the emotion out there. There's power in prayer... get people to pray with and for you, notice in the gospels Jesus prays a lot! Prayer reorientates our perspective, as we understand who God is.

Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, and the Bible...

2007-03-08T13:44:00.000+01:00

Rob Bell's book Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith has seemed to have the marmite effect as it's spread through the US, and now folk are starting to talk about it here in the UK too. You may have seen his short thought-provoking NOOMA dvds which are available in most Christian bookshops. He's very much a major player in the Emerging Church movement stateside. Here's a review worth reading that highlights some of the concerns Velvet Elvis has caused.

McGrath on Dawkins...

2007-03-07T01:23:00.000+01:00

On Tuesday night I went along to a public lecture given by Oxford Prof. and General-Wise-Theologian Alister McGrath. His subject was a brief look at some of the big ideas in Richard Dawkins' work, and particularly those of his latest book The God Delusion (on which McGrath's latest offering, The Dawkins' Delusion is a critique). McGrath was articulate and stimulating as he identified and rebutted four of Dawkins' key ideas:

1. Faith is delusional... Dawkins' bills faith as 'non-thinking' or a 'refusal to engage with evidence', but McGrath showed that actually faith does think, see Lewis, Swindoll, Plantinga. There are plenty of worldviews in which faith makes sense, and which explain our world. To look at the world and remark that it can be interpreted in an atheistic way holds no more ground than to say the same about a theistic approach.

2. Science disproves God and/or illuminates the conceptual space God once occupied... In short McGrath said this view is riduculous as there are plenty of scientists who in no way see their faith as irreconcilable with their scientific background. In fact there are limits to scientific evidence, especially in the area of metaphysics and religion; 'the ultimate questions' as Karl Popper called them. Of course science may lead to atheism, and science may be interpreted with an already present atheistic worldview, but neither are the only option.

3. Origins of religions can be explained naturally/scientifically... The cry of the 1960's was that religion was on it's way out, and yet now it is evident everywhere. Dawkins summarised goes something like this: There is no God, yet people believe there is, so therefore they have to offer an interpretation. Obviously, wishing something to be true does not make something true, yet wishing something to be true does not also mean it cannot be true. Dawkins' tries to explain religion by describing it as a virus, and also bringing up the meme theory. However both these ideas are merely exactly that, ideas for which the evidence is not at all great, and both can be turned around at pointed at to explain atheism.

4. Religion leads to evil... Empathising with most people's thoughts no doubt, McGrath was quick to point out that there is no doubt that religion has and will cause violence, but this capacity is also present in anti-religion, races, politics. Noting that Dawkins' was motivated to write the God Delusion after the suicide terrorism of 9/11, McGrath quoted Robert A. Pape who has written extensively on suicide-bomber-mentality. Pape writes that religion is neither necessary or a sufficient cause for suicide attacks, with it often bottling down to a group of minority people faced with a vastly suppressive enemy and no access to a military voice.

McGrath pointed also to the life and death of Jesus, who suffered great violence against him yet no violence came from him, and he noted that Dawkins' discussion of Jesus in his work is 'tantalizingly inadequate'. Sure, violence is evil, and religion can lead to violence, but it is not typical. A thoughtful pointer to the Amish community in Pennsylvania that last year faced the murder of a handful of school-children, showed that violence can be met with forgiveness. McGrath also asked for evidence: 'if religion is destructive, the evidence must show that, but it doesn't'.

So, overall all then, McGrath's message to the Christian was:
a) there is nothing to fear from Dawkins' book, and
b) think about your faith. This was certainly a big challenge to me, and is part of the reason why I blog, to become more skilled at articulating what I believe.

His word to the atheist was that actually Dawkins' isn't the great example of atheism that pop-culture makes him out to be, and consequently much of the secular left in America has distanced itself from Dawkins.

A couple of things that struck me during the lecture and the question-time...

i) Actually often Christianity is billed as wishful thinking, 'simply choosing the worldview you like'. Now, I love the fact that I'm adopted by God, a c0-heir with Christ, destined for the glory of God, so in one sense Christianity is a worldview I like. Yet there are many aspects that I wouldn't naturally seek to choose from a world view: self-sacrifice, hardship, unpopularity, rejection, not living for my worldy happiness.

ii) McGrath's lecture seemed to spend much time, particularly in his fourth point, discussing 'religion' without any distinction made between religions. Now this may work on some levels as a rebuttal to Dawkins' work, but surely it is a major mistake to classify all religions as equal, especially when weighing up whether 'religion is destructive', for anything must be destructive ultimately if it is not about the Lord Jesus.

iii) McGrath was an engaging speaker and performed well within his remit (a critique of Dawkins), yet I wonder what the role is for the Christian theologian in such a context, after spending forty minutes knocking down the false-idols, is there not a duty to then point people to Jesus Christ. McGrath had little time to mention the reasonableness of Christianity specifically, and did touch on his own conversion as a student ('I had to work out what is the best way of making sense of the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth'), but it seemed many may have left the lecture with no sense of urgency to bow before the one name under heaven by which men may be saved!

Dave has some more thoughts on Dawkins' here.

A groaning hope...

2007-03-01T15:18:00.000+01:00

Just been trying to get to a grip on Romans 8.17-27 for Biblestudy tonight. I've found this the hardest part of Romans to logically grasp so far.
Paul makes it clear in 8.17 that sharing in Christ's glory, being heirs of God, requires us to share in his suffering, so the big questions are, as we begin 18-30, 'Is it worth it?' and 'How do I know I'll make it through the suffering?'

He kicks off straight away with his reckoning, that the sufferings of this present time, that is the believer's battle, are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us (NIV: 'in us'). The glory to come is far greater than the battle of 7.14-8.17. What is to come is incomparable with life now.

Creation Groans (19-22)
In fact it's so awesome that creation too is waiting for it, creation is groaning in hope of our glory. Subjected to emptiness and purposelessness back in Genesis 3, creation has been suffering knowing one day it will be liberated.

Christians Groan (23-25)
And we're groaning too, for we have the firstfruits of the Spirit (i.e. the firstfruits are the Spirit). We're groaning inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. It's like we have the adoption papers signed and sealed, but we're still waiting to be shown off at the family gathering.

We have the Spirit, the firstfruits, but are waiting for the full harvest... (23a)
We are battling, groaning, therefore we have the Spirit... (23b)
We are waiting eagerly for adoption to be complete, and our new bodies revealed... (23c)
We have already been saved... (24a)
We are waiting patiently for we cannot grasp it yet... (25b)

This is the hope in which we were saved, adoption, redemption, justification... And of course hope that is seen is not hope, rather we hope for what we do not see. Our hope is not here yet! But it's coming, and we're groaning for it, for even creation is longing for it. Why hope for things that are now?! We hope for what do not see... patiently... knowing we have the firstfruits, rejoicing in hope of the glory of God (5.2) and rejoicing in these sufferings knowing they bring us hope, and hope does not put us to shame (5.3)!

The Spirit Groans (26-27)
And so creation grows, we too groan, but how do we know we will not give up in our weakness? Can we have assurance that we won't give up? Because our groans depend upon God and not upon ourselves! We walk according to the Spirit, having it in us, it killing sin in us, being led by it, having recieved it for sonship, and now... it groans for us. We are weak. We do fail. But the Spirit cries out for us on the battlefield... it is the true first-fruit... ensuring what is to come!

There must be suffering now, for without it we wouldn't hope. The glory's going to be far greater than this battle, than this life now, for even creation is groaning for it. We too groan, for we have the Spirit, as we eagerly await adoption as sons, for it is in this hope we were saved. We're hoping for something more than this battle with our sin, and the fact that we're hoping, groaning, waiting, is evidence that we are changed and have the Spirit and are saved!

I've found Jesus...

2007-02-27T23:55:00.000+01:00

Making the news over the last few days has been James Cameron's (yes, the man behind Titanic) new documentary The Lost Tomb of Jesus. I guess the Da Vinci Code has kind of fizzled out now, with just enough momentum to mean that this new film/documentary/archeological finding gets big press around the world. Mary offers some thought here, but surprisingly the actual findings at the bottom of all the fuss don't really offer much warrant to believe that it is Jesus of Nazareth's tomb/DNA/child's burial place (delete as applicable).

Grace questions...

2007-02-26T22:00:00.000+01:00

Grace nurtures souls. Grace saturates hearts with joy. Grace is not about grudging obligation.

"Knowing and experiencing the grace of the Lord is the bedrock of absolutely everything else in the Christian life and in the church. It is the heart of the gospel.

When our hearts overflow with the knowledge of his goodness to us and the experience of his favour, then we do all these ['good Christian things'] and many more, expecting to know more grace as we step out in his service."

Living by grace in Galatians...

1. Know your identity in Christ (Gal 3.26-4.7)
2. Live out your identity in Christ (Gal 4.30-5.1)
3. Eagerly look forward to the new creation (Gal 5.5)

If I really understood the impact and goodness of God's grace, would I not be constantly asking for more? To grasp the gospel more, to be more convicted of my sin, to be more assured of forgiveness, to have a greater desire to grow, to have more fruitfulness?
Do I desire the work of the Holy Spirit in my life? Am I eager to live by the Spirit, displacing the desires of my sinful nature? Do I long for God to take hold of my character and shape it to be like his? Am I desperate for the fruit of the Spirit? Today have I counted myself dead to sin and alive to Jesus? Have I realised my uselessness before grace in my minute-to-minute thinking?

Deserting the gospel of grace...

2007-02-25T23:49:00.000+01:00

A few friends and I are reading Marcus Honeysett's Finding Joy this term. I read it over the summer and its focus on the gospel of grace as the means for finding joy is really refreshing, but am really valueing being able to give it a second read. Tonight I read his second chapter, The Terrible Tale of Legalism in Galatia; these will be a few thoughts to help me taste and begin to digest.

People pleasing is something I suffer from greatly. And in short it says a lot about how much I've really understood grace. But judging myself through meeting people's standards is not Christian growth. And one of Honeysett's points is that although we're tricked into thinking meeting people's targets is growth, actually those are the very things that will inhibit our Christian growth. There's no joy in seeking to please others. Like any other false idol, there's momentary satisfaction at the raised smile, pat on the back, or the brother who's been fooled by your biblical spiel, but it's hollow. We're ensnared by the expectation of others.

According to Paul, we're justified, not by working for salvation, but by trusting God and putting faith in him. Trusting him means we don't think we have to pay back. And life as a Christian, growing in holiness is no different. Saved by grace, live by grace. (Can I caveat here and say Honeysett does acknowledge the emphasis in the NT on working out one's salvation, but picks this up later in the book and says it's still a reliance on God's power).

Honeysett draws on the false teaching recalled in Galatians, with Christians being told that fullness of Christian living came from obeying the law of Moses. But measuring our performance of good works alienates us from Christ, and encourages us to forget about grace and trust ourselves. We're thus robbed of assurance and the Holy Spirit's power to sanctify us.

Grace is criticial for joy: when we realise there is nothing we can do to make ourselves holy, then we recieve God's grace with complete and utter joy. Grace stops us being people pleasers. Remembering grace means that we don't see a need to people please. People pleasing misleads, and it undermines the good news of grace. Neglecting grace saps power from the Christian life: when we bank our hopes on other things, we're distracted from the place where real righteousness if found: Jesus Christ.

I think it's terribly difficult to identify how the legalism of Galatia translates into 21st century evangelical Christianity. In fact the very process sort of becomes a legalistic ticklist. It could come under anything: judging yourself on how much you've read the Bible this week, doing something simply to look good, hiding sin to appear more godly. There are tonnes of great things to be doing as Christians, which arise naturally out of a desire to serve each other and to serve our Father in Heaven, but a quick intention slip can transform them into legalistic pitfalls where we're simply feeding to expectations of our Christian subculture. I guess we just need to stay close to the message of the cross, the gospel of grace, the word of life. For in view of Jesus Christ we will be humbled and realise once again that it is by grace that God works in us.

Pierced for our transgressions...

2007-02-25T16:21:00.000+01:00

This book is making quite a buzz across the country at the moment. Released next month, it looks set to become the must-read as we see how the wonder of the cross has become sidelined and shamed over the last few years particularly in Christianity.

Steve Chalke's comments in The Lost Message of Jesus are probably but the visible tip of a mammoth iceberg that is subtlely undermining Scripture's rich but clear revelation about what God was doing at Calvary 2000 years ago. Garry Williams has written a few articles recently that I found very useful when defending the penal and substitutionary nature of Jesus' death in a Theology essay last year, and Jim Packer's RTSF monologue What did the Cross achieve? is a classic work of recent years. But I can't think of such a systematic study of the biblical texts, the history of the doctrine, and the common ways in which penal substitution is called into question that has been quite so extensive. I hope in fifty years, God willing, I'll have a well-worn and much-prized copy of this on my bookshelf.

You can read John Piper's foreword on the book's site here, but here's a snippet that caught my eye:

There was only one hope for me – that the infinite wisdom of God might make a way for the love of God to satisfy the wrath of God so that I might become a son of God.

This is exactly what happened, and I will sing of it forever. After saying that I was by nature a child of wrath, Paul says, ‘But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ’ (Eph. 2:4-5 ESV). What a grievous blindness when a teacher in the church writes that the term ‘children of wrath’ cannot mean ‘actual objects of God’s wrath . . . [because] in the same breath they are described as at the same time objects of God’s love’. On the contrary. This is the very triumph of the love of God. This is the love of God – the ‘great love with which he loved us’. It rescued me from his wrath and adopted me into sonship.

Crossing Cultures

2007-02-24T23:19:00.000+01:00

It's been a quality couple of days. Dinner with good friends yesterday evening: lemon chicken, white chocolate cheesecake, and truffles all came out of the archives to work their magic once again.

This morning a few of us took the short train journey up to Newcastle, and then the metro to Jesmond, to hear Chris Wright from Langham Partnership International, and Vijay Menon from St. Helen's speak at Crossing Cultures, an event put on by Friends International. It was a great day, and a great chance to have my eyes opened to the massive plans God has for the whole world, and to see those plans being unravelled before my very eyes.

Chris' work on reading the whole Bible in relation to Mission was really insightful, with the big point being actually mission is more than our 'mission' activity, for actually God's committed to his mission. Interesting interlocking with my reading on Goldsworthy over the last few weeks: Wright says that the Bible points to Christ, for the Messiah is God's 'anointed agent' to fulfil the mission of Israel, which was to bring God's blessing to the nations. It helped me to see how Israel fits into God's plan, as well as looking at Jesus' role within that plan, and then our role as the church.

5 tips for reading the whole Bible for Mission:

Reading it in light of:
1. God's purpose for the whole creation (guilty of rarely bringing this into focus)
2. God's purpose for all human life (not really thought-through this before)
3. The election and role of Israel in God's purposes for the nations (have barely considered this, apart from a glance at Romans 2-3)
4. The messianic identity of Jesus (often don't see this so tangibly)
5. The mission of the church to the nations (very often don't see the church like this)

Vijay spoke about Hinduism, which is something I've never encountered, and also reminded us of the importance of prayer (Mark 10.27) and the word of God (John 6.63) in witnessing to the nations. Why is it that golddust is so often disregarded and left in one's pocket?

Pancakes and 1 Peter

2007-02-20T23:47:00.000+01:00

Pancake day! Pancakes with mince-and-onion-and-peas-and sweetcorn, and pancakes with lemon-and-sugar-and-genuine-canadian-maple-syrup. And parents too. Good times around the eateries of Durham, lastly at 10 George St for the best egg, flour, and milk can offer.

Elsewhere today:
Some Psalms essay prep on the use of the psalms in interpreting the passion of Jesus in the NT.
Some reading on the history of typology in Biblical interpretation for the dissertation.
And polishing off a report on sociological approaches to the household codes in 1 Peter.

My Dad asked us last night if we'd change our degree courses looking back at two and a half years of 'study'. I don't think I would exchange reading Theology for any other subject. It's hard to judge where Theology has indirectly affected my thinking, and even more so where it has shaped my living (and I would not want to be so ignorant as to say that there has never been any connection, especially a negative one, for the subtle hardening of the heart to God's word will affect one's life). Yet Scripture should always make sense. Not in a sensible worldy sense, but in a as-logical-as-the-cross-can-be sense.

I mean looking at these household codes in 1 Peter, the argument went that actually all they are is the writer using a standard form of writing (the household code) to get across the message that the Christian sect should assimilate to the pagan way of life to keep the pagans happy and to ease persecution. And it looked like a convincing line.

But actually, give the Scripture some space and it'll tell you what's really going on. 1 Peter isn't about assimilation at all - sure there are times when the Christian is to act in a way that could easily look like a pagan (general obedience to the governor), but at the same time there is a distinctness that is attached to the fact that the Christian community are living for a different value, a living hope.

The gospel calls people to live differently, and that's the same 1900 years ago. And you can see that as you sociologically, historically, psychologically pummel away at these documents. They make sense, because they're real. They happened. They're living proof that the gospel changes people and makes history, and they're changing people and making history today.

The first-fruits point to a sure harvest...

2007-02-20T00:33:00.000+01:00

Just been reading an article for the dissertation here by Richard Gaffin on the significance of Jesus' resurrection for our redemption. Quite often we talk about the resurrection as 'proof that Jesus was God', or the clinching piece of evidence that 'it's all true'. Which is all very well and good, but Gaffin argues that actually having a good theology of the resurrection is key to understanding our lives now and our lives in the future.

1 Corinthians 15.20 is a key verse in Paul's argument in that chapter:

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

Christ is the firstfruits of a resurrection harvest that includes US (v23). It is a guarantee of future bodily resurrection. The way in which the NT describes the event has that now-but-not-yet vibe, as we're described as already being raised, yet still await a future resurrection.

Gaffin goes on to talk about how we do tend to polarise justification and sanctification, with the latter often just being our response of gratitude for the former. He writes that actually Jesus' resurrection teaches us that we should give intense attention to the eschatological nature of sanctification, and the present work of the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Spirit is Christ, the life-giving Spirit himself, and his enduring work is manifest in fruits (Gal 5.22,23). So, it is in these fruits that we get a preview of the new creation, not in some suped-up experience. And in case we stray into an over-realised new creation living now, Paul makes it clear that the resurrection life on this earth now is cross-shaped...

'...that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his suffering, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.'

But what marvellous truth... Christ is raised! We too will be raised! Don't forget it, wander from it, cover it up. You're in the process of being sanctified... work hard at it... Christ is the first-fruits! It's nearly harvest time.

Make Every Effort!

2007-02-16T09:33:00.000+01:00

On Sunday evenings at church we're going through 2 Peter. Exciting stuff so far. Here's some notes, thoughts, and passage break-down.

1.3-4
We have been GRANTED by HIS DIVINE POWER...
... all things that pertain to life and godliness...
...through the KNOWLEDGE of HIM who CALLED US to his own glory and excellence...
...BY WHICH he has GRANTED TO US his precious and very great PROMISES...
...SO THAT through them you may become partakers of the DIVINE NATURE...
...having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

Everything we need to live the full Christian life is given to us in our knowledge of him - do I believe it? Do I feel incomplete, like I need something more? He's already given me everything I need for life and godliness, a.k.a. the godly life. The fear of Peter is that I don't grasp the full wonder of what I already have. We know God - it is this knowledge that holds the power for the Christian life.

1.5-9
For THIS VERY REASON, make EVERY effort to supplement your faith with...
...Virtue, and virtue with...
...Knowledge, and knowledge with...
...Self-Control, and self-control with...
...Steadfastness, and steadfastness with...
...Godliness, and godliness with...
...Brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with...
...Love.
For if these are yours, and are INCREASING, they keep you from being INEFFECTIVE or UNFRUITFUL in the KNOWELDGE of our Lord Jesus Christ.
But if you lack these qualities, you're so SHORT-SIGHTED that you're BLIND, having FORGOTTEN you were CLEANSED from your former sins.

This knowledge needs to be put into practise, and it's striking that this takes the form of MAKING EVERY EFFORT to add to our faith. Often knowing and experiencing God is seen as a passive experience, 'let go and let God'. Not here. Trust God and get going! Peter lists seven key fruits on the tree of faith: Faith expresses itself in action (virtue), and this experience deepens our knowledge of ourselves, highlighting the need for self-control in all areas of our life, which will lead to steafastness as we keep on keeping on, never giving up in the battle, and that will lead to godliness as we become aware of him and a need for reverence in all areas of our life, which will ultimately take the shape of brotherly affection, loving people as we accept, care, carry people, which is love, the 'crown of Christian advance'.
Two ways to live... increasing in these areas, with sleeves rolled up, working hard...
...OR with stunted growth - 'blind' - forgetting the cross, forgetting God, forgetting the call to godliness (4).

1.10-11
THEREFORE...
Be all the more DILIGENT to make your calling and election SURE,
for if you PRACTISE these things you will never fall (away).
For, there will be richly PROVIDED FOR YOU, an entrance into the ETERNAL KINGDOM of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The point of 10-11 isn't to make your pharisaically ponder whether or not actually you are chosen, called, elected... the point is to make you work hard! How do you know if you are chosen? By living the life of a chosen person, for if you do these you will never fall away but will recieve the rich and glorious reward of Him. Don't cruise along passively hoping to grow in godliness - that is short-sighted. Rather, knowing you have all you need, go full throttle and add to your faith.

Something to spend three hours on...

2007-02-16T00:43:00.000+01:00

Phillip Jensen, Dean of St. Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney, has been speaking at a number of gospel partnerships around the UK this last month, on the area of growing and planting gospel-centred churches.

I first heard Jensen last Summer in the form of a couple of tapes from his last big trip to the UK in the 1980's. The talks were a haunting wake-up call to the reality of the state of the UK church back then. He's a man who has been gifted with brutal honesty, razor-sharp perception, and he's a delight and a discomfort to hear.

These new talks (2 lectures and an exposition on Matthew 5-7) are well worth listening to. Yorkshire Gospel Partnership have done us all a massive favour by uploading them, and you can check the three talks out here.

Steak Pie and a Dissertation...

2007-02-14T23:08:00.000+01:00

Dinner this evening was the aforementioned Steak Pie. It had been billed as something special over the last few months, and finally my housemate came up with the goods. It was impressive. There's some English expression about biting off more than you can chew, which is my subtle link from steak pie to how I currently feel about my dissertation. I picked up some cheap book from Oxfam today, Writing Your Dissertation in Fifteen Minutes a Day. It's a catchy title and, fair play, it did the trick and I handed over my money. It's fairly interesting so far, pretty light, unlike my dissertation which is currently of microscopic proportions.

Apparently it's no coincidence that today is Valentine's Day, as 'writing a dissertation is very much like being in a long-term relationship: there are likely to be some very good times and some perfectly dreadful ones, and it's a big help if you like what you've chosen.' Very nice. Also worked out that dissertations don't buy you chocolates on Feb 14th.

Thankfully I'm not regretting what I've chosen, it's just I wish I'd treated her better over the last few months. Roughly speaking I'm comparing the nature of biblical interpretation in the writings of John Calvin and Graeme Goldsworthy. Calvin, you'll probably be aware, was a sixteenth-century French Reformer, and Goldsworthy is still alive, Australian, and has written a handful of quality books on how the Bible fits together. I could think of much worse things to spend 12,000 words and goodness knows how many hours on. I've got until April to put in some serious hours reading and writing, so today's a wake-up-and-smell-the-steak-pie day.

Oh, Wretched Man!

2007-02-13T18:47:00.000+01:00

Some notes from Packer's Appendix in Keeping in Step with the Spirit, on the identity of the 'I' in Romans 7.14-25. Packer picks up the hotly contested debate as, facing the premise that the law is evil (see 5.20; 7.5), Paul raises the question, his third one in quick succession (see 6.1, 15), and defiantly answers it: 'by no means!' Packer summarises Paul's argument as follows:

1. The effect of the law is to give men knowledge of sin as a dynamic reality within themselves, of rebellion against God, and of disobedience to his commands (7.7, 13).

2. The method by which the law gives this knowledge is by declaring God's prohibitions and commands, which goad men into rebellion and make men more aware of specific transgression into which sin has led them (7.8, 19, 23)

3. The law gives no ability to anyone to perform the good which it prescribes, nor can it deliver from the power of sin (7.9-11, 22-24).

It seems there are two sections, each starting with a summary statement of the thesis which is then explained in the following verses:

7.7-13 - Past tense, and naturally autobiographical. Thesis: 'I had not known sin, except through the law' (7.7).
7.14-25 - Present tense, which would suggest Paul's current experience, but seems a depressing read. Thesis: 'I am of the flesh, sold under sin' (7.14).

But who, given Paul in Romans 8 declaring 'the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death' (8.2), is the wretched man? Is he Paul, or an ideal, and if he is Paul, is it Paul the Christian or Paul the unconverted Jew?

Is the 'wretched man' Paul?

Paul's switch to the singular (7.14) from the plural (7.5-7), the emphatic 'I' of (7.14, 17, 24, 25), and the spontaneous cry of 'Wretched man that I am!' all point towards this being an experience that is personal to him.

Paul of the past?

Some hold that Paul of v14-25 is the same unconverted Paul as in v7-13, with it being simply a comment on the events of 7-13. The argument goes that the tense is present to create vividness, as Paul looks back (e.g. Bultmann). The logic follows that the wretchedness is thus the failure of Paul's religious self-effort, after seeking righteousness by works and not finding it. The answer is the gospel of grace of 8.1-4, and thus the praise of v25 is proclaming past or present deliverance.

Paul of the present?

a) In the present tense as it is a present state: A remarkable change from aorist to present tense in 7.14. Unnatural in the middle of a sentence dealing with a single unit of experience and an experience supposedly in the past. If there is no recognised linguistic idiom to explain it, then surely Paul's readers would have understood a shift in timeframe. Would Paul wantonly obscure his own meaning to allow misunderstanding?

b) Praise makes little sense for a step backward: The praise of 25a appears somewhat peculiar if it is followed by 25b, and comes as a major anticlimex. That is, if one assumes 25a is celebrating the past/present deliverance. Yet to still have to face 25b is surely a step-backward for this view of 14-25.

c) An optimistic, thus contradictory, view of unregenerate man: How can an unregenerate man approve of the law (7.16), delight in it (7.22), be willing to fulfill it (7.15, 18-21), and serve it (7.22), if elsewhere the heart and mind of unregenerate Adam is blind, corrupt, lawless and at enmity with God? Compare this especially with 8.5. Surely this is not a man in Adam, but a man in Christ.

d) Making sense of his current state: The cry of 24 - 'who will deliver me from this body of death?' - is the cry for deliverance from mortal bodies, for a time when 'the mortal puts on immortality' (1 Cor 15.54), a consumnation backed by 8.23. And so the praise of 25a must be for future deliverance, and so 25b ceases to be problem as that is the present reality still, the conclusion of the current state of affairs. He serves the law of God with his mind in wanting and willing to keep it perfectly, yet with the flesh serves the law of sin, seen in never being able to keep the law.

Ramsden on Conversational Apologetics...

2007-02-12T17:52:00.000+01:00

Michael Ramsden sets out with the aim of making Christians think about sharing the gospel in a culturally relevant conversational way here, but below are some notes I made...

Apologetics is not for philosophical experts... when Peter writes his letters he writes them to the church (1 Peter 3.15,16): - 1. Set apart Christ as Lord; 2. Be prepared to give a reason for the hope you have. Not a complex specialist talk, but a command to the church: You must be prepared and ready, to give an answer, an apologia for the hope you have. Not an increase in profoundness to make more confusion, but to add profundity to clear confusion.

1 Peter 3... Well, what if people aren't asking... well the quality of our lives should be prompting questions, for surely that's the context of 1 Peter 3. It is a spiritual discipline for the mind. 2 Cor 10.5 - 'we demolish arguments... and take every thought captive to obey Christ'. It's not an intellectual struggle, but what is being assumed in 1 Peter and taught in 2 Cor is that the spiritual battle involves the mind.

Our reason for hope is JESUS!
It is more than giving 'answers'... there's more to apologetics than giving answers to questions, but also asking questions of other people's answers or even asking questions of the questions themselves.

Asking questions allows people to open up within their cultural assumptions...
Luke 20.22... should we pay our taxes... our answer is automatically 'yes'. Why doesn't Jesus use 'yes'? Because it's a cultural trap (v20) - asking questions exposes their trap - the Jews knows they are God's chosen people oppressed by Romans - paying taxes finances oppression of God's people thus moral compromise, but if you refuse to pay taxes you're breaking the law...
Jesus answers their question... pay your taxes, but paying your taxes is not a compromise, for holiness is giving to God what is God's. To say 'yes' is to not communicate to culture...
E.g. 'is abortion wrong?'... now, you want to say 'yes'. But if you say 'yes', they'll think you're narrow-minded, hate women. In the world's eyes it's a choice situation - dictators get rid of choice, so you're showing God as a dictator. A cultural assumption asks the wrong question... it assumes 'do you think its ok to eliminate people's choices by force if necessary?'. 'Is this a human life?' is the real question: 'when is it right to kill a human person?' Giving the right answer to the wrong questions is always wrong. Jesus is defining the issue. 'Supposing I thought life began at conception, what would abortion make me?' - you've communicated.
'Does your mother know you are stupid?' - a faulty dilemma... artificially limiting options. You have to introduce another option...
20.41 - won't morally compromise: who's authority?

Asking questions makes people think... you think and work out the answer yourself. Saying I am a person of faith... tells people you have leapt into the dark... when is that used in Scripture. I'm not sure if it's true or real. Faith is a gift but not a gift to believe in something unreal! Faith in the OT... is nowhere! In Hab 2.4, it is a verb - a process of putting weight and trust in something true and real. In Gk, 2 words for faith: pistis (from verb 'to be persuaded' - so, noun carries connotations of persuaded of its truth and reality) and nomisto (to describe belief with no specific basis, e.g. in their own Gk gods).
In the English language upto middle-english period, faith was a verb. Putting trust in something, sure of its reality. But now, it means something different. The more you are convinced of God's reality and truth, the more you will lean on him! Only response to a God who is true and real! How can asking questions be a problem.
'Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life...' believe in me? Why doesn't Jesus say that? Didn't he understand the gospel? If there is a heaven, how would you get there? 'Be good!' - 'How can you condemn all these good people?' If you don't get where they're coming from, they'll disagree - shows you haven't nailed it. We're dealing with people. Luke 10 & 18 - the same question, different answers.

Asking questions exposes people's motives...
Luke 20.2-4 - 'we don't know' - that's not true, you're not being honest, neither will I answer you... Exposing motives is very helpful, and how they respond is instructive. Recover the courage to ask people how they'll respond to the claims of Christ. 'If I asked you to become a Christian now, what would be holding you back?' Giving an apologetic is giving a reason for the hope we have - it must flow from the cross, for that is where our hope stems from. Any apologetic that doesn't take us to the gospel isn't an apologetic... it may be initially useful, but we can't leave them there saying we've given an apologetic. The answer for the reason for the hope we have must be Christ!

Schaeffer: 'The greatest problem we have as a church is that we don't understand what the questions are, let alone the answers'. The goal must be the cross, in any conversation, situation.

Ramsden: 'If I were to answer your question adequately, would you give your life to Christ?'
Person: 'No'.
Ramsden: 'Then what is this issue?'.

Mission is for life, not just for Mission Week...

2007-02-11T16:15:00.000+01:00

It has been an exhausting week, but last night saw the final event of One Hope week as Graham Daniels spoke from John 10 on Jesus' claim to be the Good Shepherd. Just like when Jesus spoke back then, the response has been divided. There's been joy in hearing of students turning to Jesus, as well as students rejecting Jesus' claims.

It's been a real privilege to witness Danno's sincerity, his respect for the listener, his gracious tone and words, doing everything he can to make the gospel clear and easy to listen to. We were also joined by a large team of Christian Union guests from around the country who all gave up a week to serve in Durham this week. It was great to be able to chat to them, and be encouraged and enthused from their wisdom.

'Truth claims are power claims and we're annoyed Jesus is making power claims on our lives. Jesus calls us to turn our lives around, not to make a hobby.'
Graham Daniels

Christianity Explored kicks off this coming week, as we pray students will come along and think through Jesus' words over a coffee in small groups. It's exciting seeing a kingdom grow, seeing revolutionaries come together around a symbol of folly.

All the talks are now available for download here.

Mission in Durham...

2007-02-07T12:18:00.000+01:00

It's nearly half-way point in the DICCU's One Hope week, and it is physically and emotionally a draining experience. Last night Graham Daniels spoke from John 1.14 and 20.31 to kick off our evening events, all based on John's gospel, and yesterday lunchtime Peter Williams from Aberdeen Divinity Dept. spoke at a lunchbar on the reliability of the Bible.

It's been a joy to be joined by Christian Union guests from all over the country who've come up to spend the week in colleges, meeting up with students, and speaking at events - grace means people serve.
It's been great to read in Jonah of the grace of God - salvation belongs to Him - and this is the salvation we hold out this week - what purpose there is to evangelism, the saving of souls, and the glory of God.

Pray we'd be sustained, and stay close to Jesus.

Motivations for good theology...

2007-01-30T18:24:00.000+01:00

God has filled my mind with zeal to spread his Kingdom and to further the public good.... I have had no other purpose than to benefit the church by maintaining the pure doctrine of godliness... Moreover, it has been my purpose in this labor to prepare and instruct candidates in sacred theology for the reading of the divine Word, in order that they may be able both to have easy access to it and to advance in it without stumbling.

John Calvin, To the Reader (Institutes)
1559

A Safe Stronghold Our God is Still...

2007-01-29T11:06:00.000+01:00

And though they take our life,
Goods, honour, children, wife
Yet is their profit small;
These things shall vanish all
The city of God remaineth.

Martin Luther

Spending time in Hebrews 11 & 12 this morning, with the call to endurance, of eyes fixed on the one whom completes our faith, who makes faith possible, who we have faith in as the completer of the promises. The significance of being promise-aware people is unmistakable - the great roll-call of faith 'heroes' in ch11 are those who had faith in the promises despite their present situations. Yet the truth of 12.1-13 is that our Father is disciplining us as we endure, that the situations we go through are forming us, 'that we may share his holiness', yielding the 'peaceful fruit of righteousness'.

The command to lay aside every weight, every constraining factor and unhelpful distraction, and to throw off every sin that clings so closely. Reading Justin Taylor & Kelly Kapic's foreword to their edited version of John Owen's 'Overcoming Sin & Temptation', with Owen's tagline ringing in my ears: 'Be killing sin, or it'll be killing you'. Know your enemy, examine yourself, outside and within, so that you are aware of your weakness, of the areas where the creepers are growing up. But they are fleeting pleasures... the blame of Christ will always be of greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt. Father, help me to believe it!

Are we lying to God when we sing...

2007-01-26T17:46:00.000+01:00

Bob Kauflin, a staff member of Sovereign Grace ministries, helpfully writes here in response to the question often raised about the fact that many of the songs we sing in our churches are bold declaratory statements of commitment to God. Given the reality of our battle to be faithful, and the struggles with the flesh, is it wrong to sing 'I will worship you alone'? Have we misunderstood the extent of our sinfulness? I have a tendency to be weary of those big statements knowing that tomorrow I'll be about to make an idol of something else - is this the right attitude? Or am I giving too little time to God's grace at work in my life teaching me to worship him alone?

Not Peace, but a Sword...

2007-01-22T18:16:00.000+01:00

At church last night we finished our mini-series on relating rightly to parents by looking at how the gospel calls us to prioritise Jesus as king, above and beyond everything else. Jesus' words in Matt 10 (e.g. v.34-42) are straight to the point, they're blunt, they're sharp, and they pierce right at the heart of what matters to us.

It was a wake-up call again to the real blessing it is to grow up in a Christian home, with parents who know and love the Lord Jesus. It is often the case that kids from Christian homes come to resent their upbringing, but actually that is completely the wrong attitude. To be able to go home and be encouraged, to be able to read the Bible, to meet with friends around the word in the family home, to recieve no condemnation when you go to church... what a joy it is!

God calls us to honour parents - it's the first commandment with a promise attached (Ex 20.12) - and I know I'm very guilty of not practicing that command. Wonderful to hear God's teaching on an issue that too often is side-lined for more 'hip' talks on sex, money, and all the rest of it. God sovereignly chose them to bring us into the world.

Thank you Mum & Dad!

Let us...

2007-01-19T19:37:00.000+01:00

Loving reading Hebrews at the moment... the most beastly section on how Jesus is...
> the superior High Priest, by the power of an indestructible life (7.16) continuing forever so able to save at all times those who draw near to him, holy and blameless, who offered a sacrifice once for all (7.27).
> so he has a more excellent ministry than the old covenant as he mediates a new covenant which deals with the last one's fault: the fact that we sin!
> But Jesus entered once for all, his own blood securing an eternal redemption, once for all (!), in a body prepared for him, choosing to do his Father's will (10.9).
> And he's the only high priest who SITS DOWN! Job done! It is Finished!

And so, the writer finishes the section with some application... and isn't it great!

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God,
> let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
> Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.
> And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.

Hanging out with the pre-exilic prophets...

2007-01-17T19:04:00.000+01:00

At Digging Deeper today we looked at the books of Jonah and Nahum - it is amazing that we can hear God speak to us through his Word. Jonah has a lot to say about the Lord God's vast love for his enemies, and is a big lesson in humility for us who are Christian. Remember grace! Nahum, on the other hand, was a big fat reminder that God is just and his judgement is real. We have a jealous God and an avenging God who will save his people and give them refuge as he deals with his enemies with great anger.

We're studying these books in our CU groups this term, so it'll be a pleasure to get to know them better and to hear God, and see his Spirit change lives. I'm excited!

Back in the 'ham...

2007-01-10T22:45:00.000+01:00

Another term begins in Durham... my penultimate one in fact. A new year and a new term mean things like resolutions and whatnot are buzzing around the top of my brain. It feels like a new start, another go, a chance to do things differently... of course, it is and it isn't.

Particularly grateful to an article on friendship by the Bish. Looking back at the last term, friendships are amongst the things I count highest. True friendship is built around the cross of Christ.

We chatted about this over breakfast & Psalm 119 with the boys over the hols - we need to be real people, people who are friends in view of the cross, and in light of the Lord Jesus' return. I hope that I may be that kind of friend this year.

Back to the future, back to reality...

2007-01-03T00:29:00.000+01:00

Today was a bonanza day for gospel fellowship. Coffee and croissants with the boys as we listened to Chris Ash expounding Psalm 119 (on mp3 may I add... available from here); sharing news, passion, and Jesus with the Drewmeister, and being blessed by the word explained again in the evening with a handful of young people from church. This time it was Rico Tice on 2 Cor 4.1-6 (again, on mp3... available from here).

It is the word of God that brings a foretaste of the glorious future into present Christian experience. So often I am won over as I search for 'little rescues', whereas the word of God pulls my longings for the future. A joy to read the promises of 119.150-151, with the nearness of suffering and persecution, yet the closer reality of our covenant God.

It doesn't matter how many 'i-words' we use: inerrant, infallible... unless
we delight in the Word of God, we are practical liberals.
Christopher Ash

Great to get real with the boys and talk about how we relate to each other as Christians longing for the new creation: genuine concern for the battle, leaving room for reality, killing superficial 'care', encouraging heaven-mindedness.

Humbled again by the closing words of the Psalmist:

I have strayed like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I have not
forgotten your commands.
Psalm 119.176

We are nothing but lost sheep, we fall so short. As Rico said, 'If our friends knew what God knew about us, they'd never entrust us with anything like what God does'. Life dependent on grace; ministry dependent on grace. It must be a year dependent on grace.

New Year!

2007-01-01T14:25:00.000+01:00

"Without the Word, there is nothing left for us but darkness."

from John Calvin's commentary on 2 Peter 1.19

Over the last week or so it's been a joy to discover the life of Hudson Taylor in his biography, A Man in Christ, by Roger Steer. I'm barely a third of the way through, but the faith a man so young shows is a real wake-up call.

He seems to have such great dependence on God to provide, on his sovereign hand, on the power of his gospel to bring the Chinese to faith. I do hope 2007 is year marked by living by faith.

Taylor's willingness to drop everything to put the needs of the Chinese first are a real stark prod at my, and I'm sure many Western Christians, comfort with 'the way things are'. I was reading an article on Calvin for my dissertation, and he showed a similar readiness to abandon his own priorities once the call of God was clear. Calling is a mysterious word - we can use to defend ourselves as comfy Christians - and yet the call to 'Go and make disciples' is there - we've been called by grace into the kingdom of light. The only viable response, to share that same kingdom call, is what we're all called to. I hope that this year would be one where I do 'Abandon it all, for the sake of the call'.

Back home...

2006-12-23T18:48:00.000+01:00

Enjoying getting a better understanding of who Jesus is, as I read Hebrews 1 & 2 and John 1. Christmas truly is a celebration of an amazing event... The Word became flesh! Being encouraged to get a much bigger view of the Lord Jesus Christ - creator, sustainer, redeemer. GOD! Eternal. Life-giver. Know Jesus! These are times when we need to be clear on who he is!

Great to spend a few hours in Don Vegas as The Gentlemen played at St. Mary's Wheatley, and Maz told of the bad news and the good news.

Mike showed his legendary status is well-deserved as he drove the choon-machine all the way to the 'ham, and we enjoyed a full english before driving down to Donny with a big red sun belting through the mist. There's something unique about night-driving. Post-gig we headed back to the north-west with Nancy, another former Durham-er, and it was great to be encouraged by hearing about gospel-work amongst the youth of Liverpool, as well as general post-uni life.

Word Up in the Peak District...

2006-12-19T00:27:00.000+01:00

A great time was had this last weekend up at Ravenstor Youth Hostel, on the outskirts of Derbyshire, enjoying a weekend with forty or so students from across the country. The Peak District is beautiful - almost felt like I was in Pride & Prejudice. Bleak horizons with sparse trees standing dark against low-sun winter sunsets. No lakes to clamber out of dripping wet though.

Some more highlights:

- Seeing old faces from camp this last summer, and how grace has been poured out!
- Quality gameage, both old and new... a personal return for the sofa-game, for the first time since SA. Mafia with 25 people was intense, and the animal games never fails to bring everyone to hysterics... "I'm a dog!"
- Brilliant food, including roast chicken and Christmas pud for lunch today
- Being able to osmosize whilst listening to older wiser Christians converse.
- Getting to know some Durham faces a lot better.

On top of all that...
Bible Teaching on the 10 Commandments, and Faith, Hope, & Love were immense.
How the law brings us to our knees - standard and standard not reached, so to have a Law-Keeper! What an amazing thing! So we press on with faith and hope and love - all key as we live for Him.
Also challenged greatly on integrity and encouraged by assurance! Enthused by the gospel as I face tomorrow!

There is A River...

2006-12-15T15:11:00.000+01:00

Listening to Jars of Clay's new record, Good Monsters. Here's a snippet:

There is a river that washes you clean
There is a tree that marks the places you've been
Blood that was spilt, although not your own
For all of these things, love will atone

The Necessity of the Atonement...

2006-12-14T18:42:00.000+01:00

Reading John Murray's Redemption Accomplished and Applied, which is Christmas reading. Chapter 1 focuses on the necessity of the atonement.

"No treatment of the atonement can be properly orientated that does not trace its source to the free and sovereign love of God." Easy-to-overlook, but totally mega!

And this love is distinguishing: he predestinates (Rom 8.29) and chooses (Eph 1.4,5). It is the determinate purpose of this love that the atonement secures. God is love, truly. Yet the nature of electing love means that God is under no necessity to set his love upon undesirable and hell-deserving objects.

"The atonement does not win or constrain the love of God ... It must be regarded, therefore, as a settled datum that the love of God is the cause or source of the atonement."

But why the necessity of the atonement? Why was the means of accomplishing love's determinate purpose, the atonement? Murray points to two schools of thought: hypothetical necessity and consequent absolute necessity. The former claims there was a way of forgiving sin and saving the elect without atonement or satisfaction, it's just God chose in wisdom to use this 'way'. The latter claims, sure salvation was the good pleasure of God and of no necessity to God, but once God has selected some to everlasting life out of grace, he is under necessity to accomplish this through the atonement.

Is it impossible for him to save sinners without vicarious sacrifice? To help me digest Murray's argument I've made brief notes as below:

1. Hebrews 2.10, 17 :: Implies that salvation should be accomplished through a captain of salvation who would be made perfect through sufferings, and this entailed he be made in all things like his brethren.

2. John 3.14-16 :: This verses suggest the alternative to the giving of God's son are the eternal perdition of the lost.

3. Hebrews 1.1-3; 2.9-18; 9.9-14, 22-28 :: There is a necessity that can be met by nothing less than the blood of Jesus, as he is Son and partaker of flesh and blood. This is due to the gravity of sin, and the required sacrifice to deal with sin.

4. Salvation comprises of justification to those previously condemned, thus a righteousness is necessary. The only such righteousness available is that of Christ.

5. Can the cross be held aloft as the supreme demonstration of the love of God if there another way of achieving salvation, and thus such costliness were not necessary?

6. Sin is such that salvation from sin without expiation and propitiation is inconcievable. Christ was a propitiation to declare God's righteousness.

"The more we emphasize the inflexible demands of justice and holiness the more marvellous become the love of God and its provisions."

Why did Augustine write about grace so much...

2006-12-06T16:06:00.000+01:00

"First and foremost because no subject gives me greater pleasure. For what ought to be more attractive to us sick men, than grace, grace by which we are healed; for us lazy men, than grace, grace by which we are stirred up; for us men longing to act, than grace, by which we are helped?"

Letter to Paulinus

Looking forward to marriage and the present reality of love...

2006-12-05T12:23:00.000+01:00

Yesterday 10GS hosted a surprise Engagement Celebration for my housemate Jenny and her fiancee Simon (I can never remember which term has the accented 'e') - it was wonderful to see a number of our good friends in Durham joining with them as we celebrated their forthcoming marriage (1st Sep?).

There's great pressure in student Christian culture to idolise relationships, and I think this arises particularly out of the want to be loved. But human affection isn't bound to the sexually attracted, for the church is a place of costly, sacrificial love, as Jason Clarke explained from John 15.9-17 at BEC on Sunday.

There is a incredible diversity, yet there is a common acknowledgement of sin, and a common acknowledgement of extravagent forgiveness. The one redmedy for failed human love is to know you are loved, and that is Jesus' is claim: 'As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you' (15.9). We can know we are loved, as Paul says in Romans 5.8, not in the words of novel, but in the sacrifice of history. It was whilst we were still sinners - it was then - that Christ died for us!

And this, only this, is the true motivation to love others, 'this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you' (15.12). It is our duty and our joy to love, in obedience to the one who first loved us. Real love is to real people, and is really hard! But it's not to be without heart, for it completes our joy (15.11) and it bears fruit, attracting others the love of God.

It is hard, but it is best. It is a command, but it is a response.

Biblical Evangelism...

2006-12-03T22:43:00.000+01:00

Great weekend spent at The Dyke House in Herefordshire on UCCF's Biblical Evangelism Conference.
Really great to think about why the Bible is so important in evangelism and to challenge idle thinking: is what I 'believe' about evangelism based on the company I keep or the convictions I have? I think this weekend has done a lot in shaping my thinking about all of the above. Great too to meet guys and girls from across the UK all excited about seeing the Bible explained to those who are yet Christian, as well as hang out with folk from the 'ham and have some good encouraging chat.

Will post more BEC in the next few days, if I have a spare minute.

Who are you TRUSTING in?

2006-11-30T11:26:00.000+01:00

The last few weeks I've been trying to read Jeremiah and sometimes it's clearer than others how I'm meant to respond to the word. But today Jeremiah was pretty clear: there are two ways two live...

"Cursed is the man who trusts in man" (17.5-6)
> he makes flesh his strength
> whose heart turns away from the LORD
> like a desert shrub, he will not see any good come

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD" (17.7-8)
> whose trust is the LORD
> he is like a tree planted by water
> that does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green
> is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit

Who you trust is who you put your trust in - and this results in blessing or curse.

To have my roots in the LORD, the fountain of living water (17.13) - to understand the world as the Bible shows me it, to know I am 'ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven'. To not get depressed when my plans fail, to not buy into the materialist dream, to remove self from the driving seat, to know I'm worthy because I'm loved and not try and be loved by being worthy.

Keep me trusting who God is!

(Also, check this video out!)

St Aidan and Mission...

2006-11-30T00:13:00.000+01:00

Tonight dined on delicious roast lamb up at college courtesy of our college chaplain, before hearing Gavin Wakefield from Cranmer speak about Aidan, after whom my college was named, and mission. In Bible language Aidan was a saint, just like you and me, but he wasn't an apostle, despite Bishop Lightfoot of Durham once calling him the 'Apostle to the English'.

Nevertheless it was really interesting to learn a little about a man who probably played quite a big role in God's plan of taking the gospel to all nations, namely north England. One of the characteristics of Aidan that Wakefield highlighted was his 'passion for God', and I suppose it is this that has a domino-effect on everything else. He left Ireland and spent the second half of his life, in the seventh-century, wandering round Northumbria encouraging Christians, and calling on pagans to get baptised.

It made me realise how little I know of post-early-church, pre-Reformation church history, particularly in the UK. There must be so many men and women of faith who'll be in the new creation that played their part in God's plan. I hope some day to be counted with them, for his glory's sake!

One other thing about Aidan that stuck out was his humility and equality in viewing other humans - Wakefield made a great deal of his character. Often I can get worried about my doctrine, how this or that works, how we do evangelism, etc, I long for my character to be shaped.

Also: chats about the C of E, life as an ordinand, and limited atonement...

What the fisherman saw...

2006-11-29T16:58:00.000+01:00

We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

[2 Peter 1.16]

Thanks Peter!

Wholesome talk...

2006-11-29T01:13:00.000+01:00

Today was a good day for wholesome talk...

Talking with Rob and Tom kept grace at the core.
Talking with Benj reminded me that I don't need to play by the rules.
Talking with Steve pointed me to the call for holiness in every area our lives, including transforming inside-out even our most miniscule ounces of selfishness.

I thank God for these blessings. I thank God too that he destined me to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. I belong to the day! Oh, for salvation!

Struck at Impact again by 1 Thessalonians 5.3 - "There is peace and security...": the cry of most Durham students? Yet on it's way is inescapable sudden destruction! Give me more of heart for those who walk in darkness and obliviousness and ignorance.

Also, had fun hanging out with Tom and a video camera around Durham Cathedral.