Boasting in the Sovereign Grace of God...

'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...

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

as quoted by Raymond Ortlund Jr.

FREE at Bath...

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!

Now for something different...

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.

Truth Claims are banned???

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.

The Wheels on the Bus are Falling Off...

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.

Living an Unwritten Doctrinal Basis...

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.

A good point...

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

Paul Clarke

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?

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.

Biblical Evangelism...

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.

Announcing the Kingdom!

It was really cool to spend nearly two hours today looking at the gospel, the Bible, and evangelistic preaching, and to find that all three are totally inter-linked (as one might imagine if one thought about it!).

The Good News of God, the gospel, is that the time has come - the kingdom is near - because the King is here to rule, and salvation is possible in his kingdom through forgiveness of sins. It seems the gospel, the good news about the King, cannot be taught unless the rule of Jesus is taught.

And, as we announce the King, we look for repentance and faith: people are to change their minds about who's in charge for they recognise Jesus is King, and trust his promise to forgive them, thus abandoning any idea of self-righteousness.

So in evangelistic preaching, we aim to present Jesus as Lord and also as Saviour. Of course both have to be told, for if he is Lord without Saviour then we have on our hands a religion of works, and if we omit his Lordship then we have a state of being where we can do whatever we like (anti-nomianism?) - though of course if there is no Lord, then really we needn't be saved anyway.

Similarly we can't substitute repentance or faith - if there is no faith then there is no real trusting God for mercy, so actually repentance will not have been understood. Likewise, an understanding of forgiveness will include being ushered graciously into the kingdom, of which of course there is a King and kingdom life.

Paul firmly believes in the gospel, not a gospel, and that is the apostolic gospel. Is it a big issue? Well, in Galatians 1.6,7 Paul says he wishes that those who twist the gospel of Christ be accursed. Yet when we unleash the true gospel, it is the power of God to save - in it the righteousness of God is revealed, the true character of God.