Crossing Cultures

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

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...

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!

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...

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...

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!

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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!

"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...

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.