A question posed to the Archbishop of Canterbury at a pub in Cardiff - see more here. His answer: "Hell is being by yourself for ever. Who's going there? God knows."
Well, if Psalm 88 portrays a vision of hell - which is my view of the text, then verse 8 tells us that the ABC is spot on. This is a good news story about our Archbishop.
Only God knows who's going there? Yes, again, that's true. But His knowledge takes nothing away from our responsibility. The entire point of this season is that God took to Himself in the person of the Second of the Trinity a body, a body He sacrificed on the Cross, that He might say to all who by their rebellion against His rule march steadily toward hell:
"Over My Son's dead body."
Saturday 13 December 2008
Saturday 22 November 2008
A British Obama?
I'm not thinking about the question posed in the media, concerning whether we'll see in Britain or any European country a black leader soon (note - the German Greens have elected a man of Turkish origin to their dual leadership - but that's the nearest we have right now).
It's the hype thing. Could a political leader ever be so hyped, ever have so much hope associated with him, ever be such a rhetorical star turn in Europe?
Well, yes.
He was elected in 1997 in Britain.
Look where that got us.
It's the hype thing. Could a political leader ever be so hyped, ever have so much hope associated with him, ever be such a rhetorical star turn in Europe?
Well, yes.
He was elected in 1997 in Britain.
Look where that got us.
Tuesday 28 October 2008
What is the BBC playing at (2)?
When the BBC does stuff like the Brand-Ross prank call, you know that rock bottom has been hit.
What was most interesting in the coverage I've seen is that although there have been thus far 10 000 complaints, the younger generation phoning in to Radio 1 seem generally supportive.
The answer as to what is going on is all too simple. Brand and Ross know exactly to whom they are appealing: the generation that happy-slaps. For that is exactly what it was: it was public, on air happy-slapping. They are appealing to the generation that thinks nothing of dropping litter and beating up policemen who ask for it to be picked up: for Brand's defending himself by saying it was funny indicates that he clearly thinks he did nothing wrong, and it's the rest of us who are being pompous by standing by common standards of decency.
Common standards of decency brings us ultimately to the point: common standards of decency flow ultimately from shared convictions concerning right and wrong. And whether it's Roger Bolton (see previous post) or Brand and Ross, common standards of decency and their religious underpinning are what is under attack.
If either Mr Brand or Mr Ross finds themselves on the receiving end of youth violence, we must all feel sorry for them. Because as decent people, we are on the side of the victim. They however must not push for prosecutions. They must laugh it off, extend a hand to their tormentors and say, "funny one, guys."
What was most interesting in the coverage I've seen is that although there have been thus far 10 000 complaints, the younger generation phoning in to Radio 1 seem generally supportive.
The answer as to what is going on is all too simple. Brand and Ross know exactly to whom they are appealing: the generation that happy-slaps. For that is exactly what it was: it was public, on air happy-slapping. They are appealing to the generation that thinks nothing of dropping litter and beating up policemen who ask for it to be picked up: for Brand's defending himself by saying it was funny indicates that he clearly thinks he did nothing wrong, and it's the rest of us who are being pompous by standing by common standards of decency.
Common standards of decency brings us ultimately to the point: common standards of decency flow ultimately from shared convictions concerning right and wrong. And whether it's Roger Bolton (see previous post) or Brand and Ross, common standards of decency and their religious underpinning are what is under attack.
If either Mr Brand or Mr Ross finds themselves on the receiving end of youth violence, we must all feel sorry for them. Because as decent people, we are on the side of the victim. They however must not push for prosecutions. They must laugh it off, extend a hand to their tormentors and say, "funny one, guys."
What is the BBC playing at (1)?
Roger Bolton's piece on the BBC News website, no doubt linked to the radio show he presented, is a classic example of low-grade journalism and bias dressed up as research. It is excellent that the Codex Sinaiticus is being digitised and put online: the Christian Church has always been scholarly and willing to learn at its best, and it is to be welcomed.
The problems start here:
"For those who believe the Bible is the inerrant, unaltered word of God, there will be some very uncomfortable questions to answer. It shows there have been thousands of alterations to today's bible."
No there won't. Or at least, there are no new questions, as Codex Sinaiticus brought to the attention of the academic community in 1844 by Count Tischendorf, a Leipzig-based adventurer-scholar (let's not think Indiana Jones, though). A basic summary of what you need to know can be found at the website of the digitisation project here, including the unusual story of how he got it out of the monastery at Sinai, more details of which can be found in a fairly good article on Wikipedia, from what I can judge.
The simple fact is, Mr Bolton, that the scholarly community simply won't make the fuss you did. Because to us, Codex Sinaiticus is nothing new. I have a critical edition of the NT (GNT 4th ed., the type face of which I prefer over Nestle-Aland 27), and am perfectly aware of transmission issues and the differences between the texts. Whereby your thousands needs to be relativised by pointing out that the overwhelming majority are easily recognised copying errors, some of which have been corrected even in the manuscripts themselves (see intro to N-A 27 or GNT 4th ed.)
So why write the article? Very simple, I'm afraid. Bias, and a willingness to distort and misrepresent the state of research for the sake of bias. It's a classic case of a media cheap-shot at religious believers, intellectually on a par with what Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross did to Andrew Sachs (see next post).
The problems start here:
"For those who believe the Bible is the inerrant, unaltered word of God, there will be some very uncomfortable questions to answer. It shows there have been thousands of alterations to today's bible."
No there won't. Or at least, there are no new questions, as Codex Sinaiticus brought to the attention of the academic community in 1844 by Count Tischendorf, a Leipzig-based adventurer-scholar (let's not think Indiana Jones, though). A basic summary of what you need to know can be found at the website of the digitisation project here, including the unusual story of how he got it out of the monastery at Sinai, more details of which can be found in a fairly good article on Wikipedia, from what I can judge.
The simple fact is, Mr Bolton, that the scholarly community simply won't make the fuss you did. Because to us, Codex Sinaiticus is nothing new. I have a critical edition of the NT (GNT 4th ed., the type face of which I prefer over Nestle-Aland 27), and am perfectly aware of transmission issues and the differences between the texts. Whereby your thousands needs to be relativised by pointing out that the overwhelming majority are easily recognised copying errors, some of which have been corrected even in the manuscripts themselves (see intro to N-A 27 or GNT 4th ed.)
So why write the article? Very simple, I'm afraid. Bias, and a willingness to distort and misrepresent the state of research for the sake of bias. It's a classic case of a media cheap-shot at religious believers, intellectually on a par with what Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross did to Andrew Sachs (see next post).
Saturday 27 September 2008
Our Two Intercessors
Continuing reflection on Romans 8 and particularly the intercession of the Spirit.
Romans 8 is a passage about eschatological tension, and our groaning flows out of looking forward to the glorious hope of the revelation of the sons of God.
The groans of the Spirit are an acceptable prayer to the Father, because they express our eschatological yearning, for Christ to return, for our adoption, for our freedom and for our redeemed bodies. It is a forward looking prayer, concerning ultimately the work of the Spirit Himself, namely our uniting to Christ, our sanctification and the renewal of all things. It is a prayer from earth, because the Spirit is with and in us.
Contrast that with the heavenly intercession of Christ: not on earth, but before heaven's throne. Although I can't find where John Owen gets it from, he argues that it is also unspeaking, the showing of His Calvary wounds; that would be an interesting half-similarity, half-difference to the Spirit's groans. Christ's intercession is also not forward, but backward-looking, looking back to Calvary, to redemption not future but past and complete. And like the Spirit's intercession concerned the Spirit's work, so Christ's intercession concerns His own work.
In this intercession we see therefore the communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, each in their common cause and in their genuine trialogue concerned for their own ministry to bring glory to the unity. And we see how dependent we are on a sovereign Trinity to save us: for without Christ's intercession, why should we benefit from His Cross, and given that we don't know how to pray in line with God's will (Romans 8:26), without the Spirit's intercession, how would we make any progress in the Christian life?
Praise God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, our saving Trinity, for their pursuit of their own glory in the demonstration of their saving grace and power!
Romans 8 is a passage about eschatological tension, and our groaning flows out of looking forward to the glorious hope of the revelation of the sons of God.
The groans of the Spirit are an acceptable prayer to the Father, because they express our eschatological yearning, for Christ to return, for our adoption, for our freedom and for our redeemed bodies. It is a forward looking prayer, concerning ultimately the work of the Spirit Himself, namely our uniting to Christ, our sanctification and the renewal of all things. It is a prayer from earth, because the Spirit is with and in us.
Contrast that with the heavenly intercession of Christ: not on earth, but before heaven's throne. Although I can't find where John Owen gets it from, he argues that it is also unspeaking, the showing of His Calvary wounds; that would be an interesting half-similarity, half-difference to the Spirit's groans. Christ's intercession is also not forward, but backward-looking, looking back to Calvary, to redemption not future but past and complete. And like the Spirit's intercession concerned the Spirit's work, so Christ's intercession concerns His own work.
In this intercession we see therefore the communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, each in their common cause and in their genuine trialogue concerned for their own ministry to bring glory to the unity. And we see how dependent we are on a sovereign Trinity to save us: for without Christ's intercession, why should we benefit from His Cross, and given that we don't know how to pray in line with God's will (Romans 8:26), without the Spirit's intercession, how would we make any progress in the Christian life?
Praise God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, our saving Trinity, for their pursuit of their own glory in the demonstration of their saving grace and power!
Wednesday 24 September 2008
Groaning in Romans 8
There's nothing like doing all age talks on Romans. I've done Romans 2:17-29, on this coming Sunday I'm doing Romans 8:18-30, and in November I'm doing Romans 11:1-10.
That's one cause for groaning in Romans 8: how do you present it to the full range from 4 to 84 in church?
But I was very encouraged to reconsider the passage, and particularly when Anders Nygren confirmed my reading. The Spirit groans in sympathy with creation and with Christians. His prayer of groaning is acceptable because that is exactly the right thing to pray as we long for the redemption of our bodies, the end of the battle with indwelling sin. Which leads to a striking application: if the Spirit's prayer for us, fully conformed to God's will for us, is to groan with us, then we ought to groan more in prayer. I'm going to groan more: that would suit my situation.
Another thing about the groaning. The groan of creation in 8:22 is sympathetic - check out the Greek. It is not the groans of a mother in childbirth, rather it is the husband alongside, sharing but contributing directly to the process, because of love and the desire to see the revelation of the child. In one sense that matters because it cleans some English translations from the charge of pantheism; but it also points to the labour of God, for it is He who is doing the life-bringing-forth work that creation groans to see the fruit of.
That's one cause for groaning in Romans 8: how do you present it to the full range from 4 to 84 in church?
But I was very encouraged to reconsider the passage, and particularly when Anders Nygren confirmed my reading. The Spirit groans in sympathy with creation and with Christians. His prayer of groaning is acceptable because that is exactly the right thing to pray as we long for the redemption of our bodies, the end of the battle with indwelling sin. Which leads to a striking application: if the Spirit's prayer for us, fully conformed to God's will for us, is to groan with us, then we ought to groan more in prayer. I'm going to groan more: that would suit my situation.
Another thing about the groaning. The groan of creation in 8:22 is sympathetic - check out the Greek. It is not the groans of a mother in childbirth, rather it is the husband alongside, sharing but contributing directly to the process, because of love and the desire to see the revelation of the child. In one sense that matters because it cleans some English translations from the charge of pantheism; but it also points to the labour of God, for it is He who is doing the life-bringing-forth work that creation groans to see the fruit of.
Sunday 21 September 2008
Islamism, Secularism, Persecution or Stupidity.
The Christian Institute has reported that Tower Hamlets borough council (that's the local authority governing parts of London east of the Tower of London) doesn't allow its Christmas party to be called so, but is requiring councillors not to eat during daylight hours during Ramadan at town hall, and asking them generally to support the fast.
How can we interpret this?
It could be a first step to the imposition of Islam as state religion in Tower Hamlets. Other religions are driven out of the public sphere and only Islam is recognised, with all wanting to play a full role in civil society being required to be practising Muslims.
It could be that rather strange mix of secularism and racism one sometimes hears, whereby Christianity, the white man's religion, is driven out of the public sphere by secularism, but the same secularism has a rather patronising attitude to non-whites, feeling the need to give full recognition to their religions to avoid racism. In fact, such an attitude is a form of racism, because it says that the poor foreigners of different skin colour can't help their religious foibles, but white men ought to grow up.
It could be simply persecution of Christians. Christianity is being driven out of Tower Hamlets just because the people on the council don't like it. One way of doing that is say everyone ought to follow a variety of religious practices and then accuse those who won't of being intolerant and so unfit to work for the council.
Of course, the first is exceptionally unlikely. The second and third options are possible. Britain doesn't do philosophy (Russell and Ayer thought they were smart for confusing epistemological difficulties for ontological answers). So we are incapable of the radical secularism of, say, France, which simply declares a plague on all religious houses: we don't think that deeply. And we do have a somewhat colonial attitude to uncivilised Johnnie Foreigner's religions.
But personally, I don't think there's a thought through ideology at work here, be it Islamism, Secularism or Persecution of Christians. There may be a bit of all of these, but in Britain, I suspect the best explanation is stupidity.
How can we interpret this?
It could be a first step to the imposition of Islam as state religion in Tower Hamlets. Other religions are driven out of the public sphere and only Islam is recognised, with all wanting to play a full role in civil society being required to be practising Muslims.
It could be that rather strange mix of secularism and racism one sometimes hears, whereby Christianity, the white man's religion, is driven out of the public sphere by secularism, but the same secularism has a rather patronising attitude to non-whites, feeling the need to give full recognition to their religions to avoid racism. In fact, such an attitude is a form of racism, because it says that the poor foreigners of different skin colour can't help their religious foibles, but white men ought to grow up.
It could be simply persecution of Christians. Christianity is being driven out of Tower Hamlets just because the people on the council don't like it. One way of doing that is say everyone ought to follow a variety of religious practices and then accuse those who won't of being intolerant and so unfit to work for the council.
Of course, the first is exceptionally unlikely. The second and third options are possible. Britain doesn't do philosophy (Russell and Ayer thought they were smart for confusing epistemological difficulties for ontological answers). So we are incapable of the radical secularism of, say, France, which simply declares a plague on all religious houses: we don't think that deeply. And we do have a somewhat colonial attitude to uncivilised Johnnie Foreigner's religions.
But personally, I don't think there's a thought through ideology at work here, be it Islamism, Secularism or Persecution of Christians. There may be a bit of all of these, but in Britain, I suspect the best explanation is stupidity.
He is the best of Tory and the worst of Tory
The first report I heard was that Bozza, Mayor of London, wanted to close Heathrow. Hurray! What an intelligent policy! Close that dreadful planning error and sell off the land to fund a high-speed rail link straight to Brussels and through to Frankfurt, I thought. Then we wouldn't need it anyway.
Then I read the truth. Firstly, he only wants to prevent its further growth. Secondly, his scheme is to build an island in the middle of the Thames as an alternative!
Okay, Bozza, you've started off alright. Close Heathrow. Then sell that extremely lucrative real estate. Oh, it belongs to BAA? Sod them - after all, they're a nasty polluting monopoly.
Use the money for the above mentioned highspeed link. There are daily armies of flights between London and Frankfurt. None are necessary - make the train preferable.
Thirdly, if we must have an airport, simply put a station on the high speed link at Kent International (the old RAF Manston).
Problem solved.
Then I read the truth. Firstly, he only wants to prevent its further growth. Secondly, his scheme is to build an island in the middle of the Thames as an alternative!
Okay, Bozza, you've started off alright. Close Heathrow. Then sell that extremely lucrative real estate. Oh, it belongs to BAA? Sod them - after all, they're a nasty polluting monopoly.
Use the money for the above mentioned highspeed link. There are daily armies of flights between London and Frankfurt. None are necessary - make the train preferable.
Thirdly, if we must have an airport, simply put a station on the high speed link at Kent International (the old RAF Manston).
Problem solved.
Tuesday 16 September 2008
Late Capitalism and Late Democracy
What shall we make of the collapse of Lehmann Brothers and the impending doom of AIG? If AIG is not supported by the US Government, despite its greater importance to the wider US economy, particularly the housing market so famously propped up by the nationalisation of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, then why?
Alisdair Darling of course let the cat out of the bag: we're in the worst place we've been since the end of WWII. Bear Stearns was saved; Lehmann Brothers wasn't. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were saved; AIG won't be. The pattern is clear: an initial intervention is attempted, and then the Government realises that further such interventions are then hoped for and expected. That simply cannot be afforded. Lehmann Brothers had to die: it was sacrificed for the sake of the wider economy, to say that the Government couldn't be relied on to save everything.
Behind this lies a bigger issue. Put simply, capitalism and democracy are less compatible than thought. In a democratic society, particularly what we may soon call late democracy (as per Marx's late capitalism), the population expects the government to act to save the day. So banks do too. They trade irresponsibly to gain the maximum upside during a boom, and expect the government to save them when they go bust, because they expect the government to bail out the depositers, who are also voters.
It's time to decide: who will pay the price? The banks, whose bosses ought to be sued by the governments and not propped up, or Joe Ordinary, who then effectively finances corporate bonuses through the tax system.
But another thought springs to mind. Didn't Joseph Schumpeter, in "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy", argue that late capitalism tends to oligopoly, which lends itself to oligarchy? Look at Russia.
Never has it been clearer that Fukayama was wrong: history is not over. Money is in the hands of anti-democratic powers possessing raw material wealth. After Chelsea and Manchester City, so perhaps more serious institutions. Russia increasingly exercises geopolitical power through the gas pipeline; OPEC has spoken of trying to reestablish the $100 barrel; sovereign wealth funds are increasingly the only remaining wealthy people.
In late democracy, the tensions between oligopolistic late capitalism and populist late democracy grow. The question is, which will go.
Alisdair Darling of course let the cat out of the bag: we're in the worst place we've been since the end of WWII. Bear Stearns was saved; Lehmann Brothers wasn't. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were saved; AIG won't be. The pattern is clear: an initial intervention is attempted, and then the Government realises that further such interventions are then hoped for and expected. That simply cannot be afforded. Lehmann Brothers had to die: it was sacrificed for the sake of the wider economy, to say that the Government couldn't be relied on to save everything.
Behind this lies a bigger issue. Put simply, capitalism and democracy are less compatible than thought. In a democratic society, particularly what we may soon call late democracy (as per Marx's late capitalism), the population expects the government to act to save the day. So banks do too. They trade irresponsibly to gain the maximum upside during a boom, and expect the government to save them when they go bust, because they expect the government to bail out the depositers, who are also voters.
It's time to decide: who will pay the price? The banks, whose bosses ought to be sued by the governments and not propped up, or Joe Ordinary, who then effectively finances corporate bonuses through the tax system.
But another thought springs to mind. Didn't Joseph Schumpeter, in "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy", argue that late capitalism tends to oligopoly, which lends itself to oligarchy? Look at Russia.
Never has it been clearer that Fukayama was wrong: history is not over. Money is in the hands of anti-democratic powers possessing raw material wealth. After Chelsea and Manchester City, so perhaps more serious institutions. Russia increasingly exercises geopolitical power through the gas pipeline; OPEC has spoken of trying to reestablish the $100 barrel; sovereign wealth funds are increasingly the only remaining wealthy people.
In late democracy, the tensions between oligopolistic late capitalism and populist late democracy grow. The question is, which will go.
Saturday 13 September 2008
Learning style and conservative Evangelicalism
As a teacher, I have to be aware that different pupils have different learning styles: they might learn by listening, by seeing or by doing.
The British conservative evangelical emphasis on preaching is wonderful for auditory learners, who tend to be those for whom university was more accessible, and for whom in the past the whole education system was accessible.
What about the visual learners and the kinaesthetic learners?
We need to recover the sacraments, I say.
The British conservative evangelical emphasis on preaching is wonderful for auditory learners, who tend to be those for whom university was more accessible, and for whom in the past the whole education system was accessible.
What about the visual learners and the kinaesthetic learners?
We need to recover the sacraments, I say.
Friday 29 August 2008
Why Pietism offers little hope
I have been told by friends in Germany that the best, most biblical denomination is the Bund Freier Evangelische Gemeinden (FeG). If my experience on holiday in Kassel is any measure, then God help Germany!
The sermon was on John 10:27-30. The initial introduction set the text in its immediate context: what Jesus was claiming in claiming to be the Good Shepherd and God's equal was clear enough to His then listeners. So they picked up stones to stone Him.
Then we were taken through the text step by step:
"My sheep"
We were informed how valuable the sheep were to a shepherd, and how much he would do for them if he was both shepherd and owner, since they were his precious property. So we too are precious in the eyes of Jesus, because we are His sheep.
True, in fact, Jesus makes the point Himself really well in verses 11 to 15 of the same chapter (always take your Bible to church - you can preach to yourself the bits the minister leaves out!), by talking about the Cross. "I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep." Jesus even makes the point the preacher made about hired hands and shepherds! So why didn't the preacher make Jesus' point Jesus' way?
"My sheep listen to My voice"
Listening to Jesus' voice is not a matter of technique, we were informed. It's not about sitting quietly and calming oneself. Absolutely correct - we must knock this New Age or Eastern or Gnostic mysticism on the head when it gets into the church. But having started so well, the preacher lost it.
Firstly, he fully legitimated this Gnostic approach to listening to Jesus as one alternative. Then he said that this verse was a promise that all Jesus' sheep would hear His voice. But it's not a promise - it's a statement of a fact that comes as a sharp rebuke to the Jewish scribes questioning Him, as the context in verses 22 to 26 make clear. Thirdly, he suggested that there were other ways of hearing Jesus' voice, such as reading a good book or "wenn man etwas aus der Bibel ableitet". God's voice is not Scripture, according to this man, but whatever I take away from it. Good! Richard Dawkins, Chris Hitchens et al. has taken away the last four words of Psalm 14 verse 1a! Fourthly, he said we need to listen; he contrasted that to the German student tradition of Bibelarbeit - literally, "Bible work", working away at the text to understand it.
Now he's fully moved to the mystic position, which says that God works exclusively through non-natural means. I consider myself Reformed in my theology, and the Reformed position is that man is essentially good, but by consequence of the Fall totally depraved. Having made humans, God looks on the world and says it is "very good". We are essentially, that is, according to what is essential to what we are, good. That is how we are made. But that is shot through with fallenness, such that all of what was created good is corrupted by sin.
One consequence is that God pours out His Holy Spirit, who was there in Creation (Genesis 1:2), to make us what we are by creation. The natural means God has created are not inferior, but "very good". Now God has given us His word in a book. So we are to read it as a book. The work of the Holy Spirit is to make us better readers and believing and obeying readers, that is, to help us understand the book and respond appropriately, as we naturally would do if it were not for sin.
Having been denied hearing the Gospel of Christ crucified and having heard such dangerous mystic-leaning ideas on Scripture, I half switched off. He was orthodox on verse 28, but uninterestingly so. But I was not surprised at his comment on verse 29 "Wir sollen das nicht theologisieren" - we should theologise this. Just hear the confidence you can have in Jesus, that He won't lose you. But what does that mean, that He won't lose me? Help me understand that, speak to me a word about God, a logos about the theos, a theology!
Perhaps it was the emnity to theology that led to the earlier mistakes too.
If that's the best Germany has to offer, then Lord Jesus Christ, please raise up harvest workers, preachers who love Your word and proudly preach Your Cross, that Your people might not starve, but be led onto good pasture (John 10:9) across that nation.
The sermon was on John 10:27-30. The initial introduction set the text in its immediate context: what Jesus was claiming in claiming to be the Good Shepherd and God's equal was clear enough to His then listeners. So they picked up stones to stone Him.
Then we were taken through the text step by step:
"My sheep"
We were informed how valuable the sheep were to a shepherd, and how much he would do for them if he was both shepherd and owner, since they were his precious property. So we too are precious in the eyes of Jesus, because we are His sheep.
True, in fact, Jesus makes the point Himself really well in verses 11 to 15 of the same chapter (always take your Bible to church - you can preach to yourself the bits the minister leaves out!), by talking about the Cross. "I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep." Jesus even makes the point the preacher made about hired hands and shepherds! So why didn't the preacher make Jesus' point Jesus' way?
"My sheep listen to My voice"
Listening to Jesus' voice is not a matter of technique, we were informed. It's not about sitting quietly and calming oneself. Absolutely correct - we must knock this New Age or Eastern or Gnostic mysticism on the head when it gets into the church. But having started so well, the preacher lost it.
Firstly, he fully legitimated this Gnostic approach to listening to Jesus as one alternative. Then he said that this verse was a promise that all Jesus' sheep would hear His voice. But it's not a promise - it's a statement of a fact that comes as a sharp rebuke to the Jewish scribes questioning Him, as the context in verses 22 to 26 make clear. Thirdly, he suggested that there were other ways of hearing Jesus' voice, such as reading a good book or "wenn man etwas aus der Bibel ableitet". God's voice is not Scripture, according to this man, but whatever I take away from it. Good! Richard Dawkins, Chris Hitchens et al. has taken away the last four words of Psalm 14 verse 1a! Fourthly, he said we need to listen; he contrasted that to the German student tradition of Bibelarbeit - literally, "Bible work", working away at the text to understand it.
Now he's fully moved to the mystic position, which says that God works exclusively through non-natural means. I consider myself Reformed in my theology, and the Reformed position is that man is essentially good, but by consequence of the Fall totally depraved. Having made humans, God looks on the world and says it is "very good". We are essentially, that is, according to what is essential to what we are, good. That is how we are made. But that is shot through with fallenness, such that all of what was created good is corrupted by sin.
One consequence is that God pours out His Holy Spirit, who was there in Creation (Genesis 1:2), to make us what we are by creation. The natural means God has created are not inferior, but "very good". Now God has given us His word in a book. So we are to read it as a book. The work of the Holy Spirit is to make us better readers and believing and obeying readers, that is, to help us understand the book and respond appropriately, as we naturally would do if it were not for sin.
Having been denied hearing the Gospel of Christ crucified and having heard such dangerous mystic-leaning ideas on Scripture, I half switched off. He was orthodox on verse 28, but uninterestingly so. But I was not surprised at his comment on verse 29 "Wir sollen das nicht theologisieren" - we should theologise this. Just hear the confidence you can have in Jesus, that He won't lose you. But what does that mean, that He won't lose me? Help me understand that, speak to me a word about God, a logos about the theos, a theology!
Perhaps it was the emnity to theology that led to the earlier mistakes too.
If that's the best Germany has to offer, then Lord Jesus Christ, please raise up harvest workers, preachers who love Your word and proudly preach Your Cross, that Your people might not starve, but be led onto good pasture (John 10:9) across that nation.
On Russian Imperialism
I returned from holiday in Germany armed with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Zeit and the Independent courtesy of Lufthansa, and with a copy of Spiegel. There was plenty to read, and plenty to be concerned about.
Back in 1999, as Belgrade was being bombed by NATO, I told a friend that I thought that we'd be at war with Russia in ten years. I had forgotten that prediction completely until yesterday. Now it comes back to me.
Kosovo has clearly provided the Russians, surrounded as they are by Russian speaking minorities that are to a greater or lesser extent disadvantaged, with the perfect pretext for imperial ambitions. Russia is already gas provider number one; control of the Caucusus would put them on target to be oil power number one; the sheer vastness of their territory makes it likely that overall in mineral terms that they can be number one. China and India have people, have a love of learning and large educated middle-classes. In military terms both are powerful. But they too will need Russia.
Russia's military decline is well-documented, but easily overstated. None of its neighbours west of China is a serious military force.
But here is something to consider. Spiegel not only documented this week the Russian ambitions in military terms. It also documented the significance of former DDR, even Stasi men, in the German branch of Gazprom, which now supplies a third of the German market, and will be Europe's number one supplier, especially as the North Sea runs out. At the same time, former DDR men, including plenty with Stasi connections, run what is rapidly becoming Germany's third political force (Oskar Lafontaine excused, but his interview with Spiegel is rankest populism of the Soviet apologist kind). The significance of the KGB in the Putin regime is again documented.
So how's about this? Germany, Europe's most strategic bit of territory, is being softened up. Russian power is being projected across the former Soviet Union, with a clear willingness to take by force what is wanted. The panellists on Any Questions this evening in the UK sounded to a man like Chamberlainites - Georgia and Ukraine are far off countries of which we know little, and the Russians have legitimate interests there.
The year? Are we back in 1936, watching the Saarland plebiscite? Or are we in 1937, early 1938, preparing the way to Munich?
Or is the year 1973? Is a small country about to be attacked, whilst the energy supplies are switched off from its allies?
Or are we back in the Great Game?
And does this all put a new spin on the War on Terror? After all, with bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with the Iranian missile threat providing a perfect excuse for missile defence systems, was in fact the US/UK war aim all along not in fact concerned with containing Russia. Were perhaps Bush and Blair not considering, like me, not so much Islamic terrorism as Russian imperialism, considering not just the bombing of New York and Washington but of Belgrade, when their war aims mysteriously switched from Afghanistan to Iraq? But if so, then why not take Saudi Arabia - a much easier, and in the light of the 9/11 bombers, more plausible target?
Back in 1999, as Belgrade was being bombed by NATO, I told a friend that I thought that we'd be at war with Russia in ten years. I had forgotten that prediction completely until yesterday. Now it comes back to me.
Kosovo has clearly provided the Russians, surrounded as they are by Russian speaking minorities that are to a greater or lesser extent disadvantaged, with the perfect pretext for imperial ambitions. Russia is already gas provider number one; control of the Caucusus would put them on target to be oil power number one; the sheer vastness of their territory makes it likely that overall in mineral terms that they can be number one. China and India have people, have a love of learning and large educated middle-classes. In military terms both are powerful. But they too will need Russia.
Russia's military decline is well-documented, but easily overstated. None of its neighbours west of China is a serious military force.
But here is something to consider. Spiegel not only documented this week the Russian ambitions in military terms. It also documented the significance of former DDR, even Stasi men, in the German branch of Gazprom, which now supplies a third of the German market, and will be Europe's number one supplier, especially as the North Sea runs out. At the same time, former DDR men, including plenty with Stasi connections, run what is rapidly becoming Germany's third political force (Oskar Lafontaine excused, but his interview with Spiegel is rankest populism of the Soviet apologist kind). The significance of the KGB in the Putin regime is again documented.
So how's about this? Germany, Europe's most strategic bit of territory, is being softened up. Russian power is being projected across the former Soviet Union, with a clear willingness to take by force what is wanted. The panellists on Any Questions this evening in the UK sounded to a man like Chamberlainites - Georgia and Ukraine are far off countries of which we know little, and the Russians have legitimate interests there.
The year? Are we back in 1936, watching the Saarland plebiscite? Or are we in 1937, early 1938, preparing the way to Munich?
Or is the year 1973? Is a small country about to be attacked, whilst the energy supplies are switched off from its allies?
Or are we back in the Great Game?
And does this all put a new spin on the War on Terror? After all, with bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with the Iranian missile threat providing a perfect excuse for missile defence systems, was in fact the US/UK war aim all along not in fact concerned with containing Russia. Were perhaps Bush and Blair not considering, like me, not so much Islamic terrorism as Russian imperialism, considering not just the bombing of New York and Washington but of Belgrade, when their war aims mysteriously switched from Afghanistan to Iraq? But if so, then why not take Saudi Arabia - a much easier, and in the light of the 9/11 bombers, more plausible target?
Saturday 5 July 2008
Rights and Responsibilities
Ben Bradshaw thought he had David Davis on the ropes on Any Questions. Davis went onto the attack on Labour's record on liberties and Bradshaw fired back on Davis' record on homosexuals' rights. Davis had voted against homosexuals in the military, against the right of homosexuals to adopt, and against civil partnerships. Davis corrected him on the last point, pointing out that he was absent from the chamber on the last issue, leaving the Tory lead on the issue to be taken by Alan Duncan.
Has Bradshaw exposed Davis the Liberty Man?
Let's start with the easy one. Should homosexual men be allowed in the military? Essentially the case against was what they might get up to. But then again, ask the family of the Danish woman raped and murdered in Cyprus what heterosexual British squaddies get up to. The sad fact is that sex does lead to ill-discipline in the military - regardless of sexuality. But again, regardless of sexuality, it shouldn't.
Bradshaw 1-0 Davis
Adoption. The very association of the word "rights" with adoption is a complete failure on Bradshaw's part. No one has the right to adopt. The very concept ought to fill any decent person with horror. If there is a right to adopt, then anyone could seek to exercise that right through the courts. Adoption is a privilege to be granted with care, a responsibility to be exercised only by the most able. The question is not "do homosexuals have a right to adopt?" It is "what forms of relationship are an appropriate matrix for the development of a child?" On religious, scientific or sociological grounds, Parliament needs to provide proper statutory guidance on that question. So the debate cannot be about Parliament granting people an inherent right (rights normally inhering to people by virtue of some metaphysical consideration, such as human dignity or divine image bearing), it's about the appropriateness of relationship matrices. Bradshaw could claim Davis suffered from prejudices on this issue, but it's not a rights issue; others might point out the desperate need for more adoptive parents, but that's not about rights either. Own goal.
Bradshaw 1-1 Davis
Civil partnerships is far more complex, because the key issue is the relationship between such a partnership and marriage. The media, both for and against civil partnerships, have characterised it as "marriage"; the Government sought not to until a recent case in which spinster sisters living together sought to protect themselves from the inheritance tax due should one of them die. They wanted a civil partnership, which would recognise the contribution each made to the welfare of the other, the love that was there, and the difficulties the death of one would pose for the other. Then Harriet Harman came out to the effect that civil partnerships were to afford a legal framework equivalent to marriage for homosexual couples. So the media were right.
So the question comes down to what you think marriage is. It is a question of rights depending on how you define marriage and its spiritual, sociological and relational function.
You score the game.
Then factor in the rest of the Labour record: at least before Labour campaigners could turn up in Parliament Square without registering, at least 1 million innocent people weren't on a DNA register, at least before Labour there was not a threat of identity cards, at least thought was not policed, as it now is on a variety of questions of religion and sexuality ...
Good try, Mr Bradshaw: I hadn't thought of that one, and you were right to raise it. But I don't think it's enough, even if you win this set (which to my mind you don't, because I take a Bible-rooted view of marriage), to win the match.
Two footnotes.
Firstly, I've used "homosexual" not "gay". I understand "homosexual" as the opposite of "heterosexual", describing a sexual orientation. I understand "gay" as an identity-political label, associated with a political and lifestyle choice to emphasise sexual orientation as a marker of identity beyond any other. So gay belongs in the same category as feminist, Muslim, Christian, Marxist or any other identity label that claims overriding precedence in a person's make-up.
Secondly, I know Ben Bradshaw is homosexual. So? The issue is about rights here.
Has Bradshaw exposed Davis the Liberty Man?
Let's start with the easy one. Should homosexual men be allowed in the military? Essentially the case against was what they might get up to. But then again, ask the family of the Danish woman raped and murdered in Cyprus what heterosexual British squaddies get up to. The sad fact is that sex does lead to ill-discipline in the military - regardless of sexuality. But again, regardless of sexuality, it shouldn't.
Bradshaw 1-0 Davis
Adoption. The very association of the word "rights" with adoption is a complete failure on Bradshaw's part. No one has the right to adopt. The very concept ought to fill any decent person with horror. If there is a right to adopt, then anyone could seek to exercise that right through the courts. Adoption is a privilege to be granted with care, a responsibility to be exercised only by the most able. The question is not "do homosexuals have a right to adopt?" It is "what forms of relationship are an appropriate matrix for the development of a child?" On religious, scientific or sociological grounds, Parliament needs to provide proper statutory guidance on that question. So the debate cannot be about Parliament granting people an inherent right (rights normally inhering to people by virtue of some metaphysical consideration, such as human dignity or divine image bearing), it's about the appropriateness of relationship matrices. Bradshaw could claim Davis suffered from prejudices on this issue, but it's not a rights issue; others might point out the desperate need for more adoptive parents, but that's not about rights either. Own goal.
Bradshaw 1-1 Davis
Civil partnerships is far more complex, because the key issue is the relationship between such a partnership and marriage. The media, both for and against civil partnerships, have characterised it as "marriage"; the Government sought not to until a recent case in which spinster sisters living together sought to protect themselves from the inheritance tax due should one of them die. They wanted a civil partnership, which would recognise the contribution each made to the welfare of the other, the love that was there, and the difficulties the death of one would pose for the other. Then Harriet Harman came out to the effect that civil partnerships were to afford a legal framework equivalent to marriage for homosexual couples. So the media were right.
So the question comes down to what you think marriage is. It is a question of rights depending on how you define marriage and its spiritual, sociological and relational function.
You score the game.
Then factor in the rest of the Labour record: at least before Labour campaigners could turn up in Parliament Square without registering, at least 1 million innocent people weren't on a DNA register, at least before Labour there was not a threat of identity cards, at least thought was not policed, as it now is on a variety of questions of religion and sexuality ...
Good try, Mr Bradshaw: I hadn't thought of that one, and you were right to raise it. But I don't think it's enough, even if you win this set (which to my mind you don't, because I take a Bible-rooted view of marriage), to win the match.
Two footnotes.
Firstly, I've used "homosexual" not "gay". I understand "homosexual" as the opposite of "heterosexual", describing a sexual orientation. I understand "gay" as an identity-political label, associated with a political and lifestyle choice to emphasise sexual orientation as a marker of identity beyond any other. So gay belongs in the same category as feminist, Muslim, Christian, Marxist or any other identity label that claims overriding precedence in a person's make-up.
Secondly, I know Ben Bradshaw is homosexual. So? The issue is about rights here.
Wednesday 2 July 2008
Prince of Egypt
There are few things that bring tears to my eyes like films; on that score, there are few films like Prince of Egypt. I don't even own a copy! I use short extracts for lessons, but I first saw it when unwell a few years ago. Back then I was considering a call to ministry and newly married. The scene in which Moses speaks to Zippora of his calling brought me to tears then. This time it was the scene in which Jocabed puts baby Moses into the Nile. He's sooo the age of my own son! I was almost in tears in front of year 7.
Why do I mention this on what is generally quite a high-minded blog? Because particularly in the songs, but also in the wonderful portrayal of the tenth plague, the filmmakers get the "drama of the doctrine". Okay, you might think Whitney Houston's "There may be miracles when you believe" is a bit short on Reformed Theology - and you'd be right. But in so far as Prince of Egypt is teaching doctrines, they are dramatic and dramatised, even dramaticised.
Yet Christians have been delivered not from earthly slavery into a land, but from darkness into His wonderful light (1st Peter 2:10). That is a far bigger drama! Yet do we see it that way? Rejoice in being swept up into the biggest movement of history, the greatest show in the world? I felt history was being made, like I was "glad to be alive" when the Berlin Wall fell: I rejoiced to be a human being - and I was only 12 and it wasn't happening to me. But here I am, a thinking 30 year old, and I really am part of the greatest story ever told, and that by no virtue of my own but purely by those of Him whose story it is. Wow!
Why do I mention this on what is generally quite a high-minded blog? Because particularly in the songs, but also in the wonderful portrayal of the tenth plague, the filmmakers get the "drama of the doctrine". Okay, you might think Whitney Houston's "There may be miracles when you believe" is a bit short on Reformed Theology - and you'd be right. But in so far as Prince of Egypt is teaching doctrines, they are dramatic and dramatised, even dramaticised.
Yet Christians have been delivered not from earthly slavery into a land, but from darkness into His wonderful light (1st Peter 2:10). That is a far bigger drama! Yet do we see it that way? Rejoice in being swept up into the biggest movement of history, the greatest show in the world? I felt history was being made, like I was "glad to be alive" when the Berlin Wall fell: I rejoiced to be a human being - and I was only 12 and it wasn't happening to me. But here I am, a thinking 30 year old, and I really am part of the greatest story ever told, and that by no virtue of my own but purely by those of Him whose story it is. Wow!
Sunday 15 June 2008
Cynical spinning
The media response to David Davis is full of the most rampant cynicism, but as today's Observer pointed out, much of the public is having none of it. Like me, the public has done the calculation and figured out they think Mr Davis means it. Apparently, again according to the Observer, the rest of the blogosphere agrees.
I stand by my open letter to Mr Cameron. Now is the opportunity to put clear blue water between the Conservatives and Labour, yet at the same time force people on the Left, such as myself, seriously to consider voting Conservative. He should see the opportunity to portray Mr Brown as a threat to our liberties and welcome Mr Davis back, as I recommended.
But the media won't have it. On the Today programme on Friday morning, some idiot hack was saying that there was still no better explanation than that Mr Davis meant it. It ain't rocket science, unless you're a cynical idiot hack. As for Eddie Mair on PM on the day, he should be fired for the interview with Dominic Reave. The interview was nothing more than a brazen attempt to spin the story as Tory splits and Cameron losing control. It was partisan, biased and incompetent: when Mr Reave gave simple and straight answers, Mr Mair read stuff into it that was simply not there.
In fact, if you were a conspiracy theorist, and apparently there are plenty of you out there (unfortunately, I suspect you don't read my blog, unless people other than my Mum and a few friends are reading it and just haven't said so), here's one to try. The media is run by liberals like Mr Mair, and they are fighting a rearguard action to prevent the incoming Conservative administration through organs such as the Independent, BBC News, the News Quiz (apparently, someone complained about them!) and the like. There is the legislative curtailing of our freedoms, then there is the attempt to hook our kids to the media (those stupid Government targets for toddlers and ICT - I shall endeavour not to subject my children to the child abuse that would be meeting them), and then there is the above manipulation of the media.
Unfortunately, as I am neither paranoid and gullible, I cannot believe it; and my satirical skills prevent me setting up the appropriate scaremongering blog as a fake. Someone else can do it - I've given you the pointers. Only thank me if you're a satirist - I guarantee my reading your work, if it's funny.
I stand by my open letter to Mr Cameron. Now is the opportunity to put clear blue water between the Conservatives and Labour, yet at the same time force people on the Left, such as myself, seriously to consider voting Conservative. He should see the opportunity to portray Mr Brown as a threat to our liberties and welcome Mr Davis back, as I recommended.
But the media won't have it. On the Today programme on Friday morning, some idiot hack was saying that there was still no better explanation than that Mr Davis meant it. It ain't rocket science, unless you're a cynical idiot hack. As for Eddie Mair on PM on the day, he should be fired for the interview with Dominic Reave. The interview was nothing more than a brazen attempt to spin the story as Tory splits and Cameron losing control. It was partisan, biased and incompetent: when Mr Reave gave simple and straight answers, Mr Mair read stuff into it that was simply not there.
In fact, if you were a conspiracy theorist, and apparently there are plenty of you out there (unfortunately, I suspect you don't read my blog, unless people other than my Mum and a few friends are reading it and just haven't said so), here's one to try. The media is run by liberals like Mr Mair, and they are fighting a rearguard action to prevent the incoming Conservative administration through organs such as the Independent, BBC News, the News Quiz (apparently, someone complained about them!) and the like. There is the legislative curtailing of our freedoms, then there is the attempt to hook our kids to the media (those stupid Government targets for toddlers and ICT - I shall endeavour not to subject my children to the child abuse that would be meeting them), and then there is the above manipulation of the media.
Unfortunately, as I am neither paranoid and gullible, I cannot believe it; and my satirical skills prevent me setting up the appropriate scaremongering blog as a fake. Someone else can do it - I've given you the pointers. Only thank me if you're a satirist - I guarantee my reading your work, if it's funny.
Romans 2:1-16
Most of my talks in church have been all-age of late, but I preached a sermon to the adults only today, and as they work in written form, here it is:
Romans 2:1-16 – No Leniency for the Law-Abiding
Chapters 1 and 2 of Romans are not easy. They speak of the state of human beings without Christ. Guilty before God. Caught in the power of sin. No excuses. Paul showed that in Romans 1 for the unbelieving world. He showed that they had no excuse for not knowing God. Creation gives them sufficient knowledge of God. But they suppress it because they don't want to glorify God and thank Him. So God hands them over to the power of sin. They have a knowledge of God's righteous decree. They ignore it. And so they are guilty. You can imagine the situation in Rome as the letter is read. Someone stands up. “Here, here, Paul. You tell it like it is. It's dreadful what's going on out there. Praise God that we have His laws and know the way to go.”
Paul answers back in verse 1 of chapter 2.
You therefore have no excuse, you who pass judgement on some else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgement do the same things.
The language of this section and the discussion of the law in verses 12 to 16 persuade me that Paul has a very specific audience in mind for these words. He's talking to the synagogue. Many of Rome's Christians will have come from synagogues. Synagogue thinking was in their bloodstream. In the synagogue there were two groups of people. There were the Jews, to whom he will speak specifically in verses 17 to 29. But in this first half of the chapter, he's not just speaking to them. He's speaking to a second group as well. Those Gentiles, non-Jews, who had found in the synagogue a refreshing change from Gentile society. They realised that the Jewish Law offered a superior lifestyle. They found the God of Israel plausible. These so-called God-fearers are also being addressed here. Paul's speaking to all who, verse 13, hear the law, that is, the Law of God. He's speaking to all who, verse 2, share his basic view of God's judgement. He's speaking in his own day to the synagogue. He's speaking in the 21st century to all who hear God's Law. He's speaking to all who call themselves Christians. And his message is stark. Some parts of this passage sound a little tricky. But the main argument is simple and devastating. If you came to church to be patted on the head today, you'll leave disappointed. If you came today thinking you're the kind of person God wants around, forget it. Until we despair of such things, we won't hear God's real good news. That's where Paul is taking us today: to the point where we despair of our own righteousness.
Righteousness is a key word in Romans. To be righteous is match up to the standards of God's Law. The righteous person is found innocent and worthy of eternal life in God's court. People in the synagogue thought themselves righteous. They thought they would be fine on the last day. Paul has a shock in store for them and us. He has two main points: God judges deeds by the highest standard. God's kindness and patience will come to a terrible end.
Here's the major point.
God judges deeds by the highest standard.
Let's read some verses together – follow along as I read them out: Verse 1 again:
You therefore have no excuse, you who pass judgement on some else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgement do the same things.
Verse 6:
God “will give to each person according to what he has done.”
Verses 9 and 10:
There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew and then for the Gentile; but glory, honour and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew and then for the Gentile.
Verse 13:
For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.
Judgement is all about what you do. Hearing the law, verse 13, won't do. Judging others by the law, so agreeing with its standards, verse 1, won't do. Those in the synagogue listened to the law. They agreed with its judgement on the outside world. They nodded sagely in agreement with its standards and condemnations. They knew something of God. But the judgement is by deeds. God doesn't make people His favourites because they know about Him. God does not show favouritism, verse 11. Which means verse 12:
All those who sin apart from law will also perish apart from the law, and all those who sin under the law will be judged by the law.
If a person sins not knowing God's standard, they die. As we saw two weeks ago, they're without excuse – they have the message of creation. But if we sin knowing God's standard, then we'll be judged by it. And the standard is high. In fact, it couldn't be higher. Verses 7 and 8:
To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honour and immortality, He will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.
What kind of doing good wins glory, honour and immortality? Persistent doing good. No mistakes, nor errors, nor slip-ups. The words Paul uses mean unwavering, unfailing, without fault. The standard is unchanging perfection. If we want to be righteous, that's the mark we have to hit. But self-seeking, being motivated by what we can get for ourselves, will kill us. As soon as we pursue our own agendas, so reject God's truth and follow evil, that's it. Our English Bible here has done very well with “self-seeking”. Some, verse 7, seek glory, honour and immortality. They seek God – for these things are of God. Others, verse 8, are self-seeking. Again and again their deeds are besmirched by ambition and selfishness. There are the God-seeking and the self-seeking. And as soon as self-seeking slips in, we belong to that group. Isn't that all of us? If we are measured by the standards of the Law, are we not lost? If all we have is knowledge of God and His laws, we have nothing. All we have on the last day is the very Law that exposes and condemns us. And that day is coming. Paul's second devastating point:
God's kindness and patience will come to a terrible end.
Paul has shown us that when God judges, He judges by works and His standard is perfection. And Paul has said that there is no favouritism. But there is one hope surely? What about God's kindness, tolerance and patience? Won't He forgive His people their sins?
Paul has said to his audience that their best will never do. So they start to hope that God will overlook their sins. They want God to be lenient. Let me say that this is common thinking in Christian circles today. It is increasingly common to think of God as lenient. That precious word forgiveness has been used to support this view.
Firstly, some Christians think that God grades on a curve. It's as if heaven is for those who get 60% or more on the being good exam. God is forgiving. Get your 60% and He'll forgive the rest. But essentially heaven is for good people. And that viewpoint quickly leads people to a second. It doesn't really matter what you believe. It matters how you live. We talk about deeds mattering more than creeds. Or we see the beautiful character and lifestyle of a non-Christian and think, “oh, God will surely let them in.” In conservative, Bible-believing circles a similar view has found respect. People say, “God welcomes you into the church because of Jesus. Your sins are forgiven. You have a wonderful relationship with God. But you need to work at that relationship. God gives you His Spirit so that you can. But you need to keep that relationship going and growing. Because on the last day, God will judge whether you've fully lived that relationship.”
I've myself said things pretty close to that. But, again, human effort is required. This time, God begins the process and we finish it up. But again, our deeds will be judged. Without our deeds, no heaven. We have to contribute something, we have to be good, do the right things. It boils down to something like this: God is gracious to people who are good. Or: Do your best and God will forgive the rest. Perhaps more subtly: God forgives people who live for Him.
So, like the people Paul was writing to, Christians hope that God in His kindness, tolerance and patience will be lenient towards their failings. We hope that He will be lenient because we're doing enough to win His leniency. Paul's answer to that thought is a massive blow. Look at verse 4:
Do you show contempt for the riches of God's kindness, tolerance and patience, not realising that God's patience leads you towards repentance?
God won't accept they've done their best and then forgive the rest. His patience with them now is so they get their lives sorted out, up to scratch. God is patient with people now not because He's lenient. He wants people to repent. And when people don't repent, His patience means this, verse 5:
You are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath.
Notice how Paul repeats that word “wrath” for good effect? God is kind and patient to everyone at the moment. He hasn't come in His full wrath fully to reveal His righteous judgement on all. But one day that kindness and patience will end. And anyone who does not get themselves sorted out, who does not repent and match up to God's standards is going to find wrath stored up against them.
The hope of Jew and God-fearing Gentile in the synagogue was that God would acknowledge their listening to and approving the law, even keeping much. They hoped that God would then forgive their failings. But Paul says “no”. God judges deeds, and judges them by the highest standard. God's kindness and patience will come to a terrible end. The only option is repentance. And we're only in Romans 2. Paul hasn't told us about Jesus yet. That repentance is a turning away from sin to perfection. Our only hope in Romans 2 is to reach the standard of God's judgement. And that is no hope at all. There is no good news in our passage. The reason for that is simple. This passage is here to drive us away from any last trace of trust in our own righteousness. Every moment in which we are unrepentant concerning our sins stores up wrath. Oh, we may be hearers of the law, but verse 13 tells us we must do the Law. We may approve God's judgement of outsiders, but verses 1 and 3 tell us that we judge ourselves and our own sins when we do that. No, we are no better off than unbelievers. As verse 14 points out, they too sometimes do what the Law requires. And we see that every day. As verse 15 points out, they have crises of conscience. They have thoughts accusing them as well as thoughts defending them. You don't need to be a God person to be a good person.
It may even be that our sins are very secret. But look at verse 16.
This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets.
Even our secret sins will be found out. We can't hide our secrets from God. Verse 16 puts an end to every hope that we can trust in our own righteousness. Let me ask you this question. If I put on a video of edited lowlights from your thoughts this week, would you stay? Would you ever come again? I wouldn't. My secrets condemn me. They reveal how I am part of humanity under sin. Even going half and half with God won't do. Verse 16 surely ends our hope. Our righteousness is in tatters. However good we are, we'll never meet the standard. And God simply is not lenient. Hope is gone. Or is it? Verse 16 again:
This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.
When Paul proclaimed his gospel of Jesus Christ, he proclaimed this judgement. This message prepares us to accept what comes next: The good news. God's judgement is by the highest standard. But there was One who, in the words of verse 7, sought glory, honour and immortality, to whom God has given eternal life. Jesus Christ.
Our hope is not that we'll reach the standard or God will be lenient. Our hope is Jesus Christ. He reached the standard for us. And God the Father has given Him glory, honour and immortality. That glory includes being the Saviour of sinners. It reveals just how perfect, righteous and obedient Christ was that God declares Him Saviour of sinners.
We're celebrating Communion, so let me explain what I'm saying using Communion as an illustration. And as you receive, consider each step as acting out the drama of your salvation. We're going to use the Prayer of Humble Access. Look at it on the service sheet. Look how we say that we come “trusting not in our own righteousness.” We declare ourselves unworthy. Then we look away from ourselves to Christ, to His death. We ask for cleansing through His death.
Then, the meal having been consecrated, we come. We kneel – in heart, even if our bodies can't manage it. We are not worthy. Who are we? We are those who have not matched the standard. We have no hope of leniency. But what do we receive? We receive Christ. We receive tokens of that righteous body that died a sinner's death. We receive tokens of that righteous blood that was shed. We receive by faith the Righteous One. And so, one with Him, the Righteous One, we meet the standard, because He met the standard for us and we have received Him by faith. And receiving Him means receiving His righteousness. So we need no leniency from God. We need no leniency because God has shown us something better. He has shown us His grace.
Thursday 12 June 2008
Dear Mr Cameron
I've been meaning to write for a while. The very thought of writing to a Conservative Party leader fills me with a sense of self-loathing: I was brought up on the Left, I rejoiced with tears in 1997, I consider the privatisations of the 1980s and 1990s insanity and as far as I am concerned, much of the economics of Thatcherism, for which I consider you to stand, is morally neutral to the point of immoral.
But I am disillusioned. I was under the illusion that the current Administration would be a panacea for the ills of post-Thatcherite Britain. Oh, the work of Chancellor Brown on child poverty, pensioner poverty, Third World debt poverty and the like were of vital importance: these are the unsung songs of British political achievement. When I read "Servants of the People" and found listed the unspun success of Labour, I wept. But then we went into Iraq: oh, you voted for it, and some would consider that unforgivable, but I voted for it (well, not really, because I'm not an MP). I honestly could not believe Mr Tony Blair would commit our troops without the best and highest of motives, without being convinced that it truly and undubitably was the right thing to do.
But I am writing today because of Mr Davis. I have always liked his style, even if his policies were on occasion too strident, and was not surprised when someone worked out he was Britain's most straight-talking politician. Maybe I am being duped again, but I believe in his resignation: it seems personal folly and political folly, even party folly. But he is right. Our fundamental freedoms are at issue here. And I find myself believing that actually I believe in political freedom and personal liberty from the State before I believe in the reduction of poverty. We were not made to be comfortable slaves.
There is now the possibility of a deeply plausible conservative narrative: Conservatism loves Britain, and now Britain is under threat. It is under threat from the environmental catastrophe, it is under threat from authoritarian government, it is under threat from political apathy caused by over-centralisation and the concentration of power in Westminster and Whitehall. Britain, Britain as a temperate nation of rain and green grass, of civil liberties and gentle but real civic concern, the Britain of Mr Major's foolish yet true aphorism, needs conserving.
Could I vote for you? It would pain me greatly: I would look at the cross on the ballot paper and consider myself a traitor. But perhaps the point has been reached where political discourse will be restructured, and Conservatism can recast itself as the party of the environment, local decision-making and traditional freedoms, being therefore truly conservative of this country.
When Mr Davis is returned to Parliament, re-appoint him Shadow Home Secretary, or Shadow Attorney-General; commit to repealing 42 days and give him a remit to restore our freedoms. Put someone serious in charge of the environment and nick Liberal Democrat policies concerning switching the burden of tax on wealth creation onto pollution. Finally, get someone of Mr Straw's calibre onto constitutional questions so far as Parliamentary powers and the powers of local government are concerned: strengthen the Houses and commit to devolving power down. Whatever the outcome, it will be good for our country, whether it sharpens our government or puts a (genuinely - we don't want to be let down, like we were post-1997) reforming administration in their place.
There are tears in my eyes.
The Incorrigible Amateur
But I am disillusioned. I was under the illusion that the current Administration would be a panacea for the ills of post-Thatcherite Britain. Oh, the work of Chancellor Brown on child poverty, pensioner poverty, Third World debt poverty and the like were of vital importance: these are the unsung songs of British political achievement. When I read "Servants of the People" and found listed the unspun success of Labour, I wept. But then we went into Iraq: oh, you voted for it, and some would consider that unforgivable, but I voted for it (well, not really, because I'm not an MP). I honestly could not believe Mr Tony Blair would commit our troops without the best and highest of motives, without being convinced that it truly and undubitably was the right thing to do.
But I am writing today because of Mr Davis. I have always liked his style, even if his policies were on occasion too strident, and was not surprised when someone worked out he was Britain's most straight-talking politician. Maybe I am being duped again, but I believe in his resignation: it seems personal folly and political folly, even party folly. But he is right. Our fundamental freedoms are at issue here. And I find myself believing that actually I believe in political freedom and personal liberty from the State before I believe in the reduction of poverty. We were not made to be comfortable slaves.
There is now the possibility of a deeply plausible conservative narrative: Conservatism loves Britain, and now Britain is under threat. It is under threat from the environmental catastrophe, it is under threat from authoritarian government, it is under threat from political apathy caused by over-centralisation and the concentration of power in Westminster and Whitehall. Britain, Britain as a temperate nation of rain and green grass, of civil liberties and gentle but real civic concern, the Britain of Mr Major's foolish yet true aphorism, needs conserving.
Could I vote for you? It would pain me greatly: I would look at the cross on the ballot paper and consider myself a traitor. But perhaps the point has been reached where political discourse will be restructured, and Conservatism can recast itself as the party of the environment, local decision-making and traditional freedoms, being therefore truly conservative of this country.
When Mr Davis is returned to Parliament, re-appoint him Shadow Home Secretary, or Shadow Attorney-General; commit to repealing 42 days and give him a remit to restore our freedoms. Put someone serious in charge of the environment and nick Liberal Democrat policies concerning switching the burden of tax on wealth creation onto pollution. Finally, get someone of Mr Straw's calibre onto constitutional questions so far as Parliamentary powers and the powers of local government are concerned: strengthen the Houses and commit to devolving power down. Whatever the outcome, it will be good for our country, whether it sharpens our government or puts a (genuinely - we don't want to be let down, like we were post-1997) reforming administration in their place.
There are tears in my eyes.
The Incorrigible Amateur
Sunday 8 June 2008
Enough said
What's wrong in the Church today? Why do churches shrink, or end up having little to say? Why do people die, face up to their Maker and wonder why their church-going didn't get them right with God? Want to find out my fundamental criticism of too much of even the British, well-founded evangelical ministry I experience? CLICK HERE.
Saturday 7 June 2008
Why religious tolerance comes first
I've been sitting on this thought for a while, but now it's time to try it out. Religious tolerance is the most important one.
Let me begin with John Stuart Mill:
"Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs [to be] protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them ..." (On Liberty, Chapter I Introductory)
Well, we are at a point in Britain that Mill in Victorian England could not have imagined. In On Liberty, Mill begins his main argument in Chapter II with a discussion of "Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion", assuming that the argument for freedom of the press has been won and arguing that freedom of opinion is a necessary and healthy right. In Chapter III onwards, he argues concerning Individuality - essentially, free action.
In the UK today, the majority opinion, certainly in the elite, would not argue with Mill on the freedom of action to be secured to all men, to develop their individuality as they wish, within certain liberal constraints (I will not enter the debate on Mill's harm principle here, and remain intentionally vague).
But freedom of thought is not secure in the UK, and freedom to develop as an individual is secured firstly by freedom of thought. Now the magistrate is being used by the "prevailing opinion and feeling" to fight against against all who will argue that any action of man within those constraints could still be morally wrong.
In that context I believe religious freedom is the biggest challenge facing us. Religion is under double attack from the "prevailing opinion and feeling". Firstly, it is being privatised: "that's your opinion, what you believe, fine." Secondly, where it expresses opinions on questions in the public square, it is condemned as backwards (issues in medical ethics) or as verging on the illegal (particularly homosexuality). I remember hearing Sir Iqbal Sacrani very carefully state the Muslim position on homosexuality on Radio 4 and knew that he would be accused by someone of a hate crime simply for doing so. He did not encourage attacks on homosexuals, he did not say that they were lesser human beings because of their sexual orientation or even for their acts, which he did say were wrong. He merely said that the acts were wrong. Yet he was accused of stirring up hatred. Why? Because what is really wanted is the rendering of the opinion illegal. Thought policing.
I will grant that for the Britain of the 20th century, the tests of liberalism were questions of racism, sexism and homophobia, and at the street level they remain huge issues. I face and challenge all three on a regular basis at school. As a Evangelical Christian, combatting these forms of intolerance is about whether all people are in the image of God or not, which they are. But for the liberal elite, tempted to thought policing, the challenge is religious tolerance: they need to put it first. Let people say what they want on ethical, social and family questions, from whatever religious or atheistic viewpoint they want. The only rules ought be no ad hominem arguments and no calling on people to act violently against others for their beliefs or actions.
After all, once the liberal destruction of the family is complete and children live in completely unstable homes and go on to live completely unstable lives, someone will be wanting to find the truth that counters the "prevailing opinion and feeling".
Let me begin with John Stuart Mill:
"Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs [to be] protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them ..." (On Liberty, Chapter I Introductory)
Well, we are at a point in Britain that Mill in Victorian England could not have imagined. In On Liberty, Mill begins his main argument in Chapter II with a discussion of "Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion", assuming that the argument for freedom of the press has been won and arguing that freedom of opinion is a necessary and healthy right. In Chapter III onwards, he argues concerning Individuality - essentially, free action.
In the UK today, the majority opinion, certainly in the elite, would not argue with Mill on the freedom of action to be secured to all men, to develop their individuality as they wish, within certain liberal constraints (I will not enter the debate on Mill's harm principle here, and remain intentionally vague).
But freedom of thought is not secure in the UK, and freedom to develop as an individual is secured firstly by freedom of thought. Now the magistrate is being used by the "prevailing opinion and feeling" to fight against against all who will argue that any action of man within those constraints could still be morally wrong.
In that context I believe religious freedom is the biggest challenge facing us. Religion is under double attack from the "prevailing opinion and feeling". Firstly, it is being privatised: "that's your opinion, what you believe, fine." Secondly, where it expresses opinions on questions in the public square, it is condemned as backwards (issues in medical ethics) or as verging on the illegal (particularly homosexuality). I remember hearing Sir Iqbal Sacrani very carefully state the Muslim position on homosexuality on Radio 4 and knew that he would be accused by someone of a hate crime simply for doing so. He did not encourage attacks on homosexuals, he did not say that they were lesser human beings because of their sexual orientation or even for their acts, which he did say were wrong. He merely said that the acts were wrong. Yet he was accused of stirring up hatred. Why? Because what is really wanted is the rendering of the opinion illegal. Thought policing.
I will grant that for the Britain of the 20th century, the tests of liberalism were questions of racism, sexism and homophobia, and at the street level they remain huge issues. I face and challenge all three on a regular basis at school. As a Evangelical Christian, combatting these forms of intolerance is about whether all people are in the image of God or not, which they are. But for the liberal elite, tempted to thought policing, the challenge is religious tolerance: they need to put it first. Let people say what they want on ethical, social and family questions, from whatever religious or atheistic viewpoint they want. The only rules ought be no ad hominem arguments and no calling on people to act violently against others for their beliefs or actions.
After all, once the liberal destruction of the family is complete and children live in completely unstable homes and go on to live completely unstable lives, someone will be wanting to find the truth that counters the "prevailing opinion and feeling".
The Early Music Show
There's something disturbingly middle-class and aging about having post titles that reflect the BBC Radio 3 Saturday lunchtime line up!
Why is the Early Music Show so called? Why was the label Das Alte Werk so called? After all, the history of music-playing culture stretches back as far as our knowledge of civilisation, and that must be thousands of years! Most people have held in their hands books that contain songs thousands of years old, whether the Psalms of the Bible or songs in Hindu or Buddhist works; and if the Guru Granth Sahib contains Hindu hymns, which it does, perhaps there are works thousands of years old there too. Mesopotamia, India, China and South America can look back over thousands of years and so have music that really is early. Yet the Early Music Show is essentially about the Baroque period of European music: Bach, Handel, Vivaldi - yet they were around only 300 years ago. Das Alte Werk produced recordings of these and composers of a similar period. If you get all the way back to Tallis, then you are getting into musical prehistory on that basis, and he was around under Henry VIII, from whom at school we dated the Early Modern Period!
I am not so worried by the Eurocentricism of that, not because Eurocentricism isn't wrong, but because there are plenty of other people bothered about that online, and they no doubt have commented interestingly. My problem is the underlying assumption in terms of history. Everything pre-Bach, pre-1750, can be called early and covered in that context. Only the most recent deserves any more careful differentiation. We assume the superiority of the contemporary, that everything else is just old, even early, but have you listened to Bach and compared him to Britney? Exactly, no, you haven't. It would be an insult to Bach's quality even to consider making the comparison. And I apologise.
But this one goes deeper. We assume that what is modern renders the wisdom of the past obsolete. However, what we in fact find is that there is nothing new under the sun, that humanity's big issues have already been faced up to, and, if Romans 1:30 is right, that much of progress is inventing evil. We fail to listen to the past at our peril; we exalt the contemporary to the point of idolatry; and we dismiss those who disagree with the Zeitgeist - shutting them up with laws dressed up in the language of tolerance - at the cost, potentially, if J S Mill, that great Victorian liberal, was right, of progressive thought itself.
Why is the Early Music Show so called? Why was the label Das Alte Werk so called? After all, the history of music-playing culture stretches back as far as our knowledge of civilisation, and that must be thousands of years! Most people have held in their hands books that contain songs thousands of years old, whether the Psalms of the Bible or songs in Hindu or Buddhist works; and if the Guru Granth Sahib contains Hindu hymns, which it does, perhaps there are works thousands of years old there too. Mesopotamia, India, China and South America can look back over thousands of years and so have music that really is early. Yet the Early Music Show is essentially about the Baroque period of European music: Bach, Handel, Vivaldi - yet they were around only 300 years ago. Das Alte Werk produced recordings of these and composers of a similar period. If you get all the way back to Tallis, then you are getting into musical prehistory on that basis, and he was around under Henry VIII, from whom at school we dated the Early Modern Period!
I am not so worried by the Eurocentricism of that, not because Eurocentricism isn't wrong, but because there are plenty of other people bothered about that online, and they no doubt have commented interestingly. My problem is the underlying assumption in terms of history. Everything pre-Bach, pre-1750, can be called early and covered in that context. Only the most recent deserves any more careful differentiation. We assume the superiority of the contemporary, that everything else is just old, even early, but have you listened to Bach and compared him to Britney? Exactly, no, you haven't. It would be an insult to Bach's quality even to consider making the comparison. And I apologise.
But this one goes deeper. We assume that what is modern renders the wisdom of the past obsolete. However, what we in fact find is that there is nothing new under the sun, that humanity's big issues have already been faced up to, and, if Romans 1:30 is right, that much of progress is inventing evil. We fail to listen to the past at our peril; we exalt the contemporary to the point of idolatry; and we dismiss those who disagree with the Zeitgeist - shutting them up with laws dressed up in the language of tolerance - at the cost, potentially, if J S Mill, that great Victorian liberal, was right, of progressive thought itself.
Music matters
Perhaps I should demand payment from Bose, the soundsystem manufacturers. My parents bought one after hearing mine, and now I'm going to write a very positive blog.
In fact, the very fact we now have a competent - even excellent - sound system means I listen to less music. Having a proper system leaves little room for lazy listening, such as whilst marking (I teach, remember) or other activities. Suddenly music is a completely multi-layered experience, full of depth, genuine bass and subtle structure.
My favourite moment in music is in Bach's Matthäuspassion. You can find the order of the movements at http://www.bach.de/werk/bwv/244b.html, and the full lyric rather awkwardly laid out at http://www.musikaltnikolai.de/dmat2-20.html. I'm looking at 47-51 here. You have Pilate's question, "what evil has he done", and the soprano recit of all his good, followed by "Aus Liebe will mein Heiland sterben" - an explanation of Christ' fundamental driving motivation - out of love to die for his people, that "eternal destruction and the punishment of the judgement may not remain on my soul". Then the crowd returns with violence to sing: crucify him. The juxtaposition in both lyrical and musical terms is gut-wrenching.
In fact, the very fact we now have a competent - even excellent - sound system means I listen to less music. Having a proper system leaves little room for lazy listening, such as whilst marking (I teach, remember) or other activities. Suddenly music is a completely multi-layered experience, full of depth, genuine bass and subtle structure.
My favourite moment in music is in Bach's Matthäuspassion. You can find the order of the movements at http://www.bach.de/werk/bwv/244b.html, and the full lyric rather awkwardly laid out at http://www.musikaltnikolai.de/dmat2-20.html. I'm looking at 47-51 here. You have Pilate's question, "what evil has he done", and the soprano recit of all his good, followed by "Aus Liebe will mein Heiland sterben" - an explanation of Christ' fundamental driving motivation - out of love to die for his people, that "eternal destruction and the punishment of the judgement may not remain on my soul". Then the crowd returns with violence to sing: crucify him. The juxtaposition in both lyrical and musical terms is gut-wrenching.
Thursday 29 May 2008
At my most amateurish
The Amateur is most amateurish when he gets to philosophy, but here goes.
The Enlightenment seems to me the intellectual reaction to the Wars of Religion, particularly the evils of the 30 Years' War - note how figures like Lessing and Kant were German. Deism and then Kantianism ( I would like to distinguish them) reject the transcendental God of theism, because such a God would require revelation to be knowable, giving authority to bearers of revelation, the Church, which carries the can for the Wars of Religion. Kant, by destroying the proofs for God (sorry, I haven't read Kritik der reinen Vernunft - but I'm told so by reliable sources) that Aquinas erected, I would propose does away even with the Watchmaker God of deism.
Kant then wants us to be good. He wants us to submit to categorical imperatives, things that are right simply because they are right, rooted in the twin thoughts of humans as ends (never use anyone) and autonomous (write your own laws). The Kantian then makes such laws as he would want others to live by, and, hey presto, we come up with duties all will accept as right and do.
Is all this a bit A-Level, not university? Spot on! I'm teaching A-Level philosophy of religion.
Problem is, Kant is realistic enough to know that deontological ethics convince no one. So he proves God morally to give us a teleological reason to obey: Kant's God exists for the same reason as the Bogeyman - to get us to bed on time. But the Bogeyman doesn't exist.
But if God is dead, why shouldn't I treat equally random collections of molecules as I want? I am a random collection of molecules, so are you. What gives another being moral value? There is nothing between me and doing what I want other than slave-moralities designed to hold me back in my pursuit of imposing on the world my own will.
London is an atheistic city. 14 youths have been knifed to death in 2008 already, putting us on course for a record. In South-East London in the last month, there have been four knife attacks gaining nationwide publicity.
Just all random coincidences, I'm sure.
The Enlightenment seems to me the intellectual reaction to the Wars of Religion, particularly the evils of the 30 Years' War - note how figures like Lessing and Kant were German. Deism and then Kantianism ( I would like to distinguish them) reject the transcendental God of theism, because such a God would require revelation to be knowable, giving authority to bearers of revelation, the Church, which carries the can for the Wars of Religion. Kant, by destroying the proofs for God (sorry, I haven't read Kritik der reinen Vernunft - but I'm told so by reliable sources) that Aquinas erected, I would propose does away even with the Watchmaker God of deism.
Kant then wants us to be good. He wants us to submit to categorical imperatives, things that are right simply because they are right, rooted in the twin thoughts of humans as ends (never use anyone) and autonomous (write your own laws). The Kantian then makes such laws as he would want others to live by, and, hey presto, we come up with duties all will accept as right and do.
Is all this a bit A-Level, not university? Spot on! I'm teaching A-Level philosophy of religion.
Problem is, Kant is realistic enough to know that deontological ethics convince no one. So he proves God morally to give us a teleological reason to obey: Kant's God exists for the same reason as the Bogeyman - to get us to bed on time. But the Bogeyman doesn't exist.
But if God is dead, why shouldn't I treat equally random collections of molecules as I want? I am a random collection of molecules, so are you. What gives another being moral value? There is nothing between me and doing what I want other than slave-moralities designed to hold me back in my pursuit of imposing on the world my own will.
London is an atheistic city. 14 youths have been knifed to death in 2008 already, putting us on course for a record. In South-East London in the last month, there have been four knife attacks gaining nationwide publicity.
Just all random coincidences, I'm sure.
Romans 5
I was interested to note that according to Anders Nygren (Commentary on Romans), Romans 5 is seen as an aside, a parenthesis, by many commentators.
That doesn't make sense to me. Romans 1:18-3:20 portrays humanity as under God's wrath, under the power of sin, condemned by the law, and not helped by it but rather driven further into sin by it, and doomed to die. Romans 3:21-5:11 explains what God has done outside of me, portraying the righteousness that is from God and is appropriated by faith.
Something has been done for me, that assures me of eternal hope, God's love and final salvation from wrath. But one more step needs to be made in the argument, or Romans 6ff won't make sense. I need to be shown that I am not just saved from things happening to me by something happening for me, but that something has happened to me: I have come under something new. I am not under wrath, sin, law and death, but under Christ and righteousness. Justification is not simply a legal deal outside of me, but it impacts on my relationship with everything that I was under, because I have been shifted out of the old humanity and into the new one. Neither the symbolism of baptism and its impact on my sinning (Romans 6:1-14) nor the tyranny of the law and its ending (Romans 7:1-6) makes any sense without understanding my transfer explained in Romans 5. Does it?
I'm beginning to think Romans 5:12-21 is the key to Romans, even if Romans 8 is the high point and Romans 9 the point at which the monergism of the book is driven home.
Anyway, I prayed very differently this morning, praying that I would live the life of one baptised into Christ and free from law's tyranny, as appropriate to one under Christ and not in Adam, and as I did so, it was so obvious sin just doesn't fit with who I am by grace in Christ.
That doesn't make sense to me. Romans 1:18-3:20 portrays humanity as under God's wrath, under the power of sin, condemned by the law, and not helped by it but rather driven further into sin by it, and doomed to die. Romans 3:21-5:11 explains what God has done outside of me, portraying the righteousness that is from God and is appropriated by faith.
Something has been done for me, that assures me of eternal hope, God's love and final salvation from wrath. But one more step needs to be made in the argument, or Romans 6ff won't make sense. I need to be shown that I am not just saved from things happening to me by something happening for me, but that something has happened to me: I have come under something new. I am not under wrath, sin, law and death, but under Christ and righteousness. Justification is not simply a legal deal outside of me, but it impacts on my relationship with everything that I was under, because I have been shifted out of the old humanity and into the new one. Neither the symbolism of baptism and its impact on my sinning (Romans 6:1-14) nor the tyranny of the law and its ending (Romans 7:1-6) makes any sense without understanding my transfer explained in Romans 5. Does it?
I'm beginning to think Romans 5:12-21 is the key to Romans, even if Romans 8 is the high point and Romans 9 the point at which the monergism of the book is driven home.
Anyway, I prayed very differently this morning, praying that I would live the life of one baptised into Christ and free from law's tyranny, as appropriate to one under Christ and not in Adam, and as I did so, it was so obvious sin just doesn't fit with who I am by grace in Christ.
Tuesday 20 May 2008
Progress?
"So often common sense means prejudice and not being in the 21st century" - so the Labour member, approximately, just quoted on the 6pm BBC Radio 4 bulletin. She was talking about the objection made by former Conservative leader Iain Duncan-Smith to the possibility that IVP would be offered where there would be no father.
Any cursory look at this blog will indicate the importance attached by this writer to the Christian conception of the family.
I want to make three other points.
1. Common sense is a term we do not want to undermine. If what Duncan-Smith was saying is wrong, inaccurate or faulty, then attack it as such. If it truly is a prejudice, give the evidence. As a teacher, I see daily evidence, admittedly not quantifiable, of the importance of proper, balanced, two-partner, male and female parenting. My brain synthesises the data available and comes to a conclusion. That is the exercise of common sense. Call my sense faulty - I have no objection to that. But don't undermine the concept of common sense, that we humans are capable of making evidence-based judgements useful for daily living across a variety of life questions. Common sense thinking will always submit to data.
2. Almost contradictorially to the previous point, no human can, if we believe Scripture, claim to be an effective judge in any lifestyle issue. Sin affects all that we are: deeds, thoughts, words, intellect, political thinking.
3. What is so great about our century and its intellectual progress? Why do we assume we've made progress in everything? That's a foolish assumption. Each claim to progress needs to be tested.
Any cursory look at this blog will indicate the importance attached by this writer to the Christian conception of the family.
I want to make three other points.
1. Common sense is a term we do not want to undermine. If what Duncan-Smith was saying is wrong, inaccurate or faulty, then attack it as such. If it truly is a prejudice, give the evidence. As a teacher, I see daily evidence, admittedly not quantifiable, of the importance of proper, balanced, two-partner, male and female parenting. My brain synthesises the data available and comes to a conclusion. That is the exercise of common sense. Call my sense faulty - I have no objection to that. But don't undermine the concept of common sense, that we humans are capable of making evidence-based judgements useful for daily living across a variety of life questions. Common sense thinking will always submit to data.
2. Almost contradictorially to the previous point, no human can, if we believe Scripture, claim to be an effective judge in any lifestyle issue. Sin affects all that we are: deeds, thoughts, words, intellect, political thinking.
3. What is so great about our century and its intellectual progress? Why do we assume we've made progress in everything? That's a foolish assumption. Each claim to progress needs to be tested.
Tuesday 13 May 2008
So, you don't like long readings?
On Sunday evening, I wanted to help my son to calm down and go to sleep. And I wanted to start getting ready for studying Romans at church. So I read him Romans 1-3. Three chapters. So who says one year olds can't concentrate? And it didn't send him to sleep at all. So next time, it'll be 4-6, or even to 8. By which time I'll have thorough spiritual indigestion on such rich fare.
Sunday 4 May 2008
Getting it wrong on the White Horse Inn
The Amateur ought not really dare to argue with the professionals, but sometimes it's hard to avoid questioning certain perspectives.
You can hear the White Horse Inn by visiting their website. Even over here in Europe I feel it makes sense, as Europe is battered by every wave of doctrine that sweeps over the Atlantic. WHI acts as an early warning system. But at its best, it is truly an education in the doctrines of the faith.
So what got to me today?
Firstly, I didn't see the fundamental difference between the two sets of ministers interviewed: why did the second lot get so much stick, even from Revd Jones, normally the voice of reason, aware of the other side of the story (including in this broadcast.)
Secondly, why are they so critical of the Willow Creek idea of people being "self-feeders"? Maybe I'm missing something here, but I only go to church on Sunday, and on Tuesday I attend a midweek, lay-led Bible group. What am I to do the other five days? Starve? Perhaps Willow Creek wants to convert people and then pack them off to survive without church, but I can't believe that. They'll need to explain their critique of "self-feeding" a bit here. I need breakfast every day, and I need to know how to prepare it, even if I only get a full-on, chef-prepared hot dinner on Sunday.
Finally, I thought the second question was wrong. That question should have been third. First, the ministers interviewed were asked how important doctrine was in their ministry, and the answers were high: 8 or 10 out of 10. Then they were asked to estimate the knowledge of doctrinal terminology in their congregations. Many spoke of their wanting to communicate the content without the "seminary language".
Now I agree with the WHI guys that we need to teach people the language of the Scripture - although part of that agreement must surely be to help people be self-feeders, able to read Scripture on their own. But I also see that we must make those terms fully accessible, with good analogy and using Scripture to explain Scriptures - both methods - as they also said. I understood all the interviewed ministers as making that point, but also making a third: that conceptual content is more important than the label.
We're about to do Romans at church. If I get the high privilege of doing Romans 3:21-26, then of course I will be explaining terms like justification, propitiation, redemption and righteousness. How I would do that in the short slot we get on Sundays I don't know. But although I'd be delighted if everyone left knowing those words and their meanings, I'd rather they left remembering the meanings than the words, if it were one or the other.
So the second question should have been when those guys last worked through Romans or Galatians or the start of Ephesians. If all of them genuinely meant what they said, then had they worked through one of these books, they would have been involved in defining the terms Paul uses clearly and simply. And if they love their people, they will have been worried first to communicate Paul's ideas, and worrying only secondarily if the appropriate syllable collection sticks.
Which means that whatever we think about theological language, if we preach all of Scripture, we'll end up teaching the ideas and at least presenting all the key words. The answer to being interesting, dramatic, doctrinal and relevant is simple: preach the Word, book by book, chapter by chapter, week in, week out, year after year. Reminding us of that would have helped us all.
You can hear the White Horse Inn by visiting their website. Even over here in Europe I feel it makes sense, as Europe is battered by every wave of doctrine that sweeps over the Atlantic. WHI acts as an early warning system. But at its best, it is truly an education in the doctrines of the faith.
So what got to me today?
Firstly, I didn't see the fundamental difference between the two sets of ministers interviewed: why did the second lot get so much stick, even from Revd Jones, normally the voice of reason, aware of the other side of the story (including in this broadcast.)
Secondly, why are they so critical of the Willow Creek idea of people being "self-feeders"? Maybe I'm missing something here, but I only go to church on Sunday, and on Tuesday I attend a midweek, lay-led Bible group. What am I to do the other five days? Starve? Perhaps Willow Creek wants to convert people and then pack them off to survive without church, but I can't believe that. They'll need to explain their critique of "self-feeding" a bit here. I need breakfast every day, and I need to know how to prepare it, even if I only get a full-on, chef-prepared hot dinner on Sunday.
Finally, I thought the second question was wrong. That question should have been third. First, the ministers interviewed were asked how important doctrine was in their ministry, and the answers were high: 8 or 10 out of 10. Then they were asked to estimate the knowledge of doctrinal terminology in their congregations. Many spoke of their wanting to communicate the content without the "seminary language".
Now I agree with the WHI guys that we need to teach people the language of the Scripture - although part of that agreement must surely be to help people be self-feeders, able to read Scripture on their own. But I also see that we must make those terms fully accessible, with good analogy and using Scripture to explain Scriptures - both methods - as they also said. I understood all the interviewed ministers as making that point, but also making a third: that conceptual content is more important than the label.
We're about to do Romans at church. If I get the high privilege of doing Romans 3:21-26, then of course I will be explaining terms like justification, propitiation, redemption and righteousness. How I would do that in the short slot we get on Sundays I don't know. But although I'd be delighted if everyone left knowing those words and their meanings, I'd rather they left remembering the meanings than the words, if it were one or the other.
So the second question should have been when those guys last worked through Romans or Galatians or the start of Ephesians. If all of them genuinely meant what they said, then had they worked through one of these books, they would have been involved in defining the terms Paul uses clearly and simply. And if they love their people, they will have been worried first to communicate Paul's ideas, and worrying only secondarily if the appropriate syllable collection sticks.
Which means that whatever we think about theological language, if we preach all of Scripture, we'll end up teaching the ideas and at least presenting all the key words. The answer to being interesting, dramatic, doctrinal and relevant is simple: preach the Word, book by book, chapter by chapter, week in, week out, year after year. Reminding us of that would have helped us all.
Quiet times in Psalm 119
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. (Psalm 119:105)
The reader might find it hard to grasp, but the spiral-bound notebooks that accompany me in my daily devotionals read like this blog: expositions, preachy bits, language that reads like commentary, homily or just plain appeal from the heart, poetry, songs, one liners, verses copied out. Whatever comes to me as I meditate on the Scriptures.
Here's what I wrote on Psalm 119:105-112 yesterday (Saturday) morning:
I walk in darkness
My path errs and strays
Folly and foolishness
Mark much of my ways
O Lord, light the way up
Lord, let me see
All you have done Lord
And all you command me
Open the Scripture, Lord
Your word is a lamp to my feet
Your word is a light to my path
Gathered all together
Lord, let us hear
Through the mouth of your preacher
Your word loud and clear
Who has lived 119:105-112 like Christ? Christ our Righteousness!
For I can do 119:112!!
The first bit is a congregational song, starting with my own feelings as I responded to the Psalm, but looking for God's ordained instrument to bring light.
If the second bit makes no sense, you may well not understand the Christian message.
The reader might find it hard to grasp, but the spiral-bound notebooks that accompany me in my daily devotionals read like this blog: expositions, preachy bits, language that reads like commentary, homily or just plain appeal from the heart, poetry, songs, one liners, verses copied out. Whatever comes to me as I meditate on the Scriptures.
Here's what I wrote on Psalm 119:105-112 yesterday (Saturday) morning:
I walk in darkness
My path errs and strays
Folly and foolishness
Mark much of my ways
O Lord, light the way up
Lord, let me see
All you have done Lord
And all you command me
Open the Scripture, Lord
Your word is a lamp to my feet
Your word is a light to my path
Gathered all together
Lord, let us hear
Through the mouth of your preacher
Your word loud and clear
Who has lived 119:105-112 like Christ? Christ our Righteousness!
For I can do 119:112!!
The first bit is a congregational song, starting with my own feelings as I responded to the Psalm, but looking for God's ordained instrument to bring light.
If the second bit makes no sense, you may well not understand the Christian message.
Abraham believed what?
Genesis 22 is a test of Abraham's faith, right? Nothing simpler than that, is there!
Sorry. Wrong.
Perhaps parenthood makes a passage like the offering of Isaac harder, but I think attention to detail sometimes forces a more careful consideration of the passage, and given that the Amateur is an amateur, sometimes the way is blocked.
Here's some mysteries in Genesis 22:
1. Why is Abraham so convinced that he'll get Isaac back (v5 and v8 - see also Hebrews 11), yet he goes all the way to placing Isaac on the altar?
2. Why does God test Abraham in this way? I'm afraid the "it's seeing how much Abraham will give for God" simply won't do for me anymore. Firstly, I am convinced that the God of Genesis 22 is the God of the entire Old Testament, a God who very clearly condemns all child-killing and especially child-sacrifice. Why does God seem to go against His own very clear standards. Again, don't tell me that the Law had not been given at that stage. God's opinion on moral questions cannot change, otherwise we'd end up with a God who is not perfect in wisdom. Secondly, God is actually asking Abraham to destroy the covenant - the fulfilment and blessings of which have been explicitly tied to Isaac(17:19,21 and 21:12). If Isaac is lost, then so is the covenant.
Here's my solution, for what it's worth. I think Abraham's faith is being tested in two ways, a surface way and a deeper way. On the surface is the basic test, Abraham's passing of which is acknowledged in 22:12. Abraham was willing to do whatever was commanded. But on a much deeper level it is actually the faith of verses 5 and 8 which is commended, the faith that God keeps His promises, the faith that knows God is not the child-killer that the pagan gods were, the faith which said whatever might happen on the mountain the Lord would show him, God wasn't going to lose Isaac. You see, we are called to be people of visible faith, faith that obeys; yet it is the faith that knows God and trusts His promises that is the faith for which Abraham is commended in Genesis 15, and which is commended in Romans 4 and Galatians 3, then unpacked and related to this passage in James 2. That faith is the one to which we are actually called here.
Sorry. Wrong.
Perhaps parenthood makes a passage like the offering of Isaac harder, but I think attention to detail sometimes forces a more careful consideration of the passage, and given that the Amateur is an amateur, sometimes the way is blocked.
Here's some mysteries in Genesis 22:
1. Why is Abraham so convinced that he'll get Isaac back (v5 and v8 - see also Hebrews 11), yet he goes all the way to placing Isaac on the altar?
2. Why does God test Abraham in this way? I'm afraid the "it's seeing how much Abraham will give for God" simply won't do for me anymore. Firstly, I am convinced that the God of Genesis 22 is the God of the entire Old Testament, a God who very clearly condemns all child-killing and especially child-sacrifice. Why does God seem to go against His own very clear standards. Again, don't tell me that the Law had not been given at that stage. God's opinion on moral questions cannot change, otherwise we'd end up with a God who is not perfect in wisdom. Secondly, God is actually asking Abraham to destroy the covenant - the fulfilment and blessings of which have been explicitly tied to Isaac(17:19,21 and 21:12). If Isaac is lost, then so is the covenant.
Here's my solution, for what it's worth. I think Abraham's faith is being tested in two ways, a surface way and a deeper way. On the surface is the basic test, Abraham's passing of which is acknowledged in 22:12. Abraham was willing to do whatever was commanded. But on a much deeper level it is actually the faith of verses 5 and 8 which is commended, the faith that God keeps His promises, the faith that knows God is not the child-killer that the pagan gods were, the faith which said whatever might happen on the mountain the Lord would show him, God wasn't going to lose Isaac. You see, we are called to be people of visible faith, faith that obeys; yet it is the faith that knows God and trusts His promises that is the faith for which Abraham is commended in Genesis 15, and which is commended in Romans 4 and Galatians 3, then unpacked and related to this passage in James 2. That faith is the one to which we are actually called here.
Wednesday 30 April 2008
Dumbing Down
If you've listened to the track from YouTube mentioned in the previous post, you'll know why the following question from a pupil really sent me into despair:
"Sir, can you tell me what to think?"
"Sir, can you tell me what to think?"
Tuesday 29 April 2008
Tears and the Truth
I was listening to the White Horse Inn this week, and they played this song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr4DBnB7aNQ . It was absolutely mind-blowing when I then looked it up on YouTube and listened to it. I was listening to it and crying - I just burst into tears. The song parodied, but in a serious tone, the religiosity of many Americans - oh, and Europeans, and Africans, and wherever, I guess. The sadness of the song expresses perfectly the terrible thought that God's people live under such slavery. Oh God, oh God, oh God, my heart breaks for people suffering such slavery! Give me a pulpit!
Friday 18 April 2008
Romans, Preaching, and, er, Facebook?
I can still remember the first time I didn't just listen to a sermon, but experienced "preaching". It was MR-W on Romans 12. We'd looked at it together: I thought I had a handle on the passage. But I hadn't heard it preached - only as the word came through the ordained instrument of preacher did it have its full effect. Hence my rather funny wording in the post on the London Mens' Convention. Preaching is something more: the fact that it is indicates the power with which the Spirit invests it.
By the way, what's MR-W doing on Facebook?
By the way, what's MR-W doing on Facebook?
Thursday 10 April 2008
Sansom, "Revelation"
The latest offering from C J Sansom is "Revelation". Matthew Shardlake, the Tudor lawyer/sleuth, pursues a killer around London.
The book is fourth in a series. The first, Dissolution, now looks like a slow start, when one compares it with its successors; Sansom does appear to have just done his own version of Name of the Rose in order to show us the inside of the dissolution of the monasteries. The next two, Dark Fire and Sovereign, used the vehicle of the detective genre to unpack for us genuine mysteries of Tudor England: why the sudden fall of Cromwell at that moment, and why the speculation concerning the lineage of the Tudors? The genre exposits the material: Sansom goes beyond mere detective fiction, opening up (largely fictional, admittedly) new vistas on how history might/might have been.
You'll note I read Sansom as a historian-novelist, and not just a pure novelist.
"Revelation" involves a series of killings driven by a reading of Revelation 15-17. As a Christian, evangelical at that, I might be expected to moan: Revelation is terribly misread by all the characters, and Sansom in his historical note. But the misreadings are historically plausible, and
the character of Cranmer, even that of the King's coroner, never let us see the book as anti-Christian. I would in fact take major issue with brethren objecting to the book.
Finally, Sansom needs to be read as a more serious novelist here: the three mad characters stand for the religious world (make of that what you will). There are those driven to evil by their faith, there are those driven to despair, but then there are those, often overlooked, who quietly love others. Perhaps Swift's dictum should come to mind: "we know enough religion to hate others, but not enough to love" (or something like that).
The book is fourth in a series. The first, Dissolution, now looks like a slow start, when one compares it with its successors; Sansom does appear to have just done his own version of Name of the Rose in order to show us the inside of the dissolution of the monasteries. The next two, Dark Fire and Sovereign, used the vehicle of the detective genre to unpack for us genuine mysteries of Tudor England: why the sudden fall of Cromwell at that moment, and why the speculation concerning the lineage of the Tudors? The genre exposits the material: Sansom goes beyond mere detective fiction, opening up (largely fictional, admittedly) new vistas on how history might/might have been.
You'll note I read Sansom as a historian-novelist, and not just a pure novelist.
"Revelation" involves a series of killings driven by a reading of Revelation 15-17. As a Christian, evangelical at that, I might be expected to moan: Revelation is terribly misread by all the characters, and Sansom in his historical note. But the misreadings are historically plausible, and
the character of Cranmer, even that of the King's coroner, never let us see the book as anti-Christian. I would in fact take major issue with brethren objecting to the book.
Finally, Sansom needs to be read as a more serious novelist here: the three mad characters stand for the religious world (make of that what you will). There are those driven to evil by their faith, there are those driven to despair, but then there are those, often overlooked, who quietly love others. Perhaps Swift's dictum should come to mind: "we know enough religion to hate others, but not enough to love" (or something like that).
Truly Unexpected Largely Intuited Poetry (TULIP)
Turned away
Truly I have turned away
Totally rejected You
Traitor to Your righteous rule
Unmerited
Unsought is Your great love for me
Utterly the product of
Unending steadfast love
Lovingly
Leaving heaven far behind
Lost redeeming by a cross
Lord You gave Your life for me
In Your good time
Irresistibly Your Spirit came
Into Your arms to draw my soul
Invisibly my heart to transform
Perfectly
Perseverance won by Christ
Pulled out of every danger now
Perfected in heaven to be
Truly I have turned away
Totally rejected You
Traitor to Your righteous rule
Unmerited
Unsought is Your great love for me
Utterly the product of
Unending steadfast love
Lovingly
Leaving heaven far behind
Lost redeeming by a cross
Lord You gave Your life for me
In Your good time
Irresistibly Your Spirit came
Into Your arms to draw my soul
Invisibly my heart to transform
Perfectly
Perseverance won by Christ
Pulled out of every danger now
Perfected in heaven to be
Geddit?
Monday 7 April 2008
Freedom of Speech
Isn't it ironic that both in London and in Paris, huge numbers of police, including in Paris at least riot police, had to be put on the streets to limit the demonstrations against Chinese policy in Tibet, and - I hope, although I haven't noticed it in the media - their other human rights abuses. In other words, our police forces, put in an impossible position by the folly of granting the Olympic Games to China, have had to limit free demonstration in our own countries for the sake of a vicious dictatorship. We are so concerned not to upset China that we have compromised our own values. Good on those who today extinguished the Olympic flame: it's long been in principle extinguished by the Chinese.
BTW, I've been looking at the latest issue of Modern Reformation, on Dawkins, Hitchens et al. I wonder which religion it is that poisons China so greatly? Presumably these gentlemen blame the Chinese house churches and Falun Gong for their own oppression and for poisoning an otherwise pleasant atheist society?
BTW, I've been looking at the latest issue of Modern Reformation, on Dawkins, Hitchens et al. I wonder which religion it is that poisons China so greatly? Presumably these gentlemen blame the Chinese house churches and Falun Gong for their own oppression and for poisoning an otherwise pleasant atheist society?
Friday 4 April 2008
J. Gresham Machen
Need a good read? Not much money? Want something out of copyright, but in relatively modern English? Has it got to be relevant, intellectually challenging, yet able to stand the test of time? I've just started "Christianity and Liberalism" by J Gresham Machen. I'd recommend it to anyone, Christian or not Christian, wanting to understand Christianity, the Church today or the nature of religion over and against secularism. And I've only started reading! What are you reading?
A heart for the lost?
It's obvious to most careful Bible readers that the parables of Luke 15 - the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost Son (often called "prodigal") - are spoken to critical Pharisees(v1).
So in the Lost Son, the key contrast is between the father and the elder son, for these two characters represent the main protagonists in the debate: namely, the One Jesus represents, His Father, and the Pharisees.
The father has a passionate heart for his lost son; so God also is passionately concerned for the lost. The elder son cares nothing for the lost, only for advantage won by his loyalty; so to the Pharisee cared nothing for the lost, but only that his piety bring spiritual privilege.
I was left wondering, as I finished reading these familiar words, two things:
1. When will I actually finish mining the treasure of Scripture?
2. When will I have a heart so concerned for the lost that I am not a Pharisee?
So in the Lost Son, the key contrast is between the father and the elder son, for these two characters represent the main protagonists in the debate: namely, the One Jesus represents, His Father, and the Pharisees.
The father has a passionate heart for his lost son; so God also is passionately concerned for the lost. The elder son cares nothing for the lost, only for advantage won by his loyalty; so to the Pharisee cared nothing for the lost, but only that his piety bring spiritual privilege.
I was left wondering, as I finished reading these familiar words, two things:
1. When will I actually finish mining the treasure of Scripture?
2. When will I have a heart so concerned for the lost that I am not a Pharisee?
Monday 31 March 2008
London Mens' Convention
I am glad I went this year, but I can't say it was a barrel of laughs! If you know anyone who went, then get your hands on the talks.
Vaughan Roberts was clear on the content of the message, but offered few surprises. If you'd asked someone what a clear-minded evangelical would put in the talk, it was there.
Al Stewart on heaven and hell was disturbingly clear, challenging to all complacency and very sobering. Stuart Townend's musical support for the heaven talk was outstanding, doctrinally and emotionally underlining and developing the talk, linking heaven to the resurrection, giving us chance to sing the doctrines Stewart had taught, and opening our lips to sing appropriate responsive praise.
The hell talk brought us up short.
Rico Tice then came out with some simple practical challenges. Get to bed so you can get up to pray for friends, and "live so that your life raises questions and speak so that you answer them" - or something of that meaning.
I was once again struck though by the importance of preaching: you could read, I guess, everything that was said. And I don't think there was a lot new for me. But someone preached it: it came through that sacramental means of the prophetically declared, authoritatively spoken proclamation. The Spirit definitely uses this means to hammer home to the heart what the head accepts - or what both know they should accept but fear to do so.
Vaughan Roberts was clear on the content of the message, but offered few surprises. If you'd asked someone what a clear-minded evangelical would put in the talk, it was there.
Al Stewart on heaven and hell was disturbingly clear, challenging to all complacency and very sobering. Stuart Townend's musical support for the heaven talk was outstanding, doctrinally and emotionally underlining and developing the talk, linking heaven to the resurrection, giving us chance to sing the doctrines Stewart had taught, and opening our lips to sing appropriate responsive praise.
The hell talk brought us up short.
Rico Tice then came out with some simple practical challenges. Get to bed so you can get up to pray for friends, and "live so that your life raises questions and speak so that you answer them" - or something of that meaning.
I was once again struck though by the importance of preaching: you could read, I guess, everything that was said. And I don't think there was a lot new for me. But someone preached it: it came through that sacramental means of the prophetically declared, authoritatively spoken proclamation. The Spirit definitely uses this means to hammer home to the heart what the head accepts - or what both know they should accept but fear to do so.
Sunday 23 March 2008
No guts before glory?
I just finished Kim Riddlebarger's "A Case for Amillennialism", an introduction to the Christian understanding of the end of the world particularly focusing on the issue of how we should interpret the "thousand years" of Revelation 20. I would highly recommend it.
But as I read it, something struck me that Dr Riddlebarger did not address.
What struck me is this: advocates of both pre- and postmillennialism both get to avoid tribulation. Dispensationalist premillennialists get whisked off to glory before there's serious suffering; postmillennialists believe that the world will be thoroughly Christianised, meaning it never really gets bad.
1. Isn't that a desire for glory and ease now? I love the idea that the Bible tells me I will never suffer for my faith, but it does in fact say that.
2. What does that mean about the Christians in the Islamic world whose faith is suppressed, or, if they are converts from Islam, liable to severe punishment? What about the 20+ pastors the Chinese have locked up as they try to crush the House Churches pre-Olympics? What about the Christians mistreated by Hindu militants across India whilst the police do nothing?
If believers need anything from the Bible now, it is an explanation of why being a Christian is, in external and material terms, pretty awful; only us relatively few Western Christians could ever dream up millennialistic fantasies, surely?
But as I read it, something struck me that Dr Riddlebarger did not address.
What struck me is this: advocates of both pre- and postmillennialism both get to avoid tribulation. Dispensationalist premillennialists get whisked off to glory before there's serious suffering; postmillennialists believe that the world will be thoroughly Christianised, meaning it never really gets bad.
1. Isn't that a desire for glory and ease now? I love the idea that the Bible tells me I will never suffer for my faith, but it does in fact say that.
2. What does that mean about the Christians in the Islamic world whose faith is suppressed, or, if they are converts from Islam, liable to severe punishment? What about the 20+ pastors the Chinese have locked up as they try to crush the House Churches pre-Olympics? What about the Christians mistreated by Hindu militants across India whilst the police do nothing?
If believers need anything from the Bible now, it is an explanation of why being a Christian is, in external and material terms, pretty awful; only us relatively few Western Christians could ever dream up millennialistic fantasies, surely?
Wednesday 19 March 2008
The end of capitalism?
Before dabbling in theology, the Amateur did a degree, in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Recent events on the markets have provoked me to actually use the tools acquired.
Essentially the issue is, is there enough cash out there to keep the economy operating?
Banks need cash to meet the demands of their savers.
Companies need cash advanced to invest.
Financial institutions in general need cash to invest and earn interest.
Of course, money then multiplies through the wonders of the system: so M0, the measure of notes and coins, is tiny compared to a money supply figure such as M4.
But if there's not enough liquid cash out there to meet demands for "my money back", it all falls apart.
Now what would happen if the wheels came off? Despite yesterday's good day, what if a series of financial institutions, and therefore the entire supply of credit (which is fake money - we loan it even though it belongs to other people and the cash is elsewhere - that's the multipliers for you) falls apart?
Is it the end of world capitalism?
No - look at the prices of raw materials, both minerals and oil. Sovereign wealth funds have piles of cash just waiting. So what would happen if share prices fell? These funds could move in a buy swathes of the Western capitalist system at a knock down price.
That would be the most dramatic shift of economic power ever. Suddenly economic power would no longer be mainly in the hands of western, liberal, Judaeo-Christian-influenced societies. It would be in the hands of states often supportive of political and religious philosophies inimical to such societies, such as Saudi Arabia.
I have no problem with the dictatorship of the proletariat at home. It's the possibility that capitalism might be rescued by other forces abroad that worries me.
Let's pray that recent jitters were just that.
Essentially the issue is, is there enough cash out there to keep the economy operating?
Banks need cash to meet the demands of their savers.
Companies need cash advanced to invest.
Financial institutions in general need cash to invest and earn interest.
Of course, money then multiplies through the wonders of the system: so M0, the measure of notes and coins, is tiny compared to a money supply figure such as M4.
But if there's not enough liquid cash out there to meet demands for "my money back", it all falls apart.
Now what would happen if the wheels came off? Despite yesterday's good day, what if a series of financial institutions, and therefore the entire supply of credit (which is fake money - we loan it even though it belongs to other people and the cash is elsewhere - that's the multipliers for you) falls apart?
Is it the end of world capitalism?
No - look at the prices of raw materials, both minerals and oil. Sovereign wealth funds have piles of cash just waiting. So what would happen if share prices fell? These funds could move in a buy swathes of the Western capitalist system at a knock down price.
That would be the most dramatic shift of economic power ever. Suddenly economic power would no longer be mainly in the hands of western, liberal, Judaeo-Christian-influenced societies. It would be in the hands of states often supportive of political and religious philosophies inimical to such societies, such as Saudi Arabia.
I have no problem with the dictatorship of the proletariat at home. It's the possibility that capitalism might be rescued by other forces abroad that worries me.
Let's pray that recent jitters were just that.
Sunday 16 March 2008
So, what is a sacrament after all?
Dear me, not figured it out yet? After all, I am an amateur. There is a huge difference between an amateur and a professional. Primarily that thinking is a luxury for me for which I seldom have time.
When earlier in the year I was reading Genesis, I was struck by the sacramental nature of covenant relationship. Noah gets a rainbow, Abraham gets a sighting of the land, gets circumcision, gets that ritual with God walking through the cut animals, and Jacob gets his ladder. Each time God acts, He provides a sign of that of which He has spoken, which is symbolic, that is, it is itself illustrative of the promise, and which is also a seal, a guarantee of that of which God has spoken. When the patriarchs acts in faith, they find God truly faithful to these promises.
Here's my problem: the idea of a seal. Faithlessness delays divine action, but He works out His purpose in the end. So here's the big issue: are baptism and Communion given to the church, signs symbolic of His work among us which all visible members receive (fine, happy so far) and seals that He does so act among us. Or are they seals to the individual as well? If so, what is the role of faith? "Do those without faith also receive the signified?" - the great Reformational debate - still ought be discussed after you've dismissed substantial interpretations of sacraments (Roman, Lutheran and Zwinglian) for covenantal ones (Reformed). I hope that the book I'm reading at the moment, by Leonard Vander Zee, clears that one up for me.
When earlier in the year I was reading Genesis, I was struck by the sacramental nature of covenant relationship. Noah gets a rainbow, Abraham gets a sighting of the land, gets circumcision, gets that ritual with God walking through the cut animals, and Jacob gets his ladder. Each time God acts, He provides a sign of that of which He has spoken, which is symbolic, that is, it is itself illustrative of the promise, and which is also a seal, a guarantee of that of which God has spoken. When the patriarchs acts in faith, they find God truly faithful to these promises.
Here's my problem: the idea of a seal. Faithlessness delays divine action, but He works out His purpose in the end. So here's the big issue: are baptism and Communion given to the church, signs symbolic of His work among us which all visible members receive (fine, happy so far) and seals that He does so act among us. Or are they seals to the individual as well? If so, what is the role of faith? "Do those without faith also receive the signified?" - the great Reformational debate - still ought be discussed after you've dismissed substantial interpretations of sacraments (Roman, Lutheran and Zwinglian) for covenantal ones (Reformed). I hope that the book I'm reading at the moment, by Leonard Vander Zee, clears that one up for me.
Sunday 9 March 2008
The roots of Heresy
The shock of my life flew out of 2 Peter 2 yesterday. The roots of heresy are greed and being overwhelmed by one's physical desires (v2). Anyone struggling with those can tip over into heresy, denying Christ and His cross (v1). The solution? Authority (v10). We need an outside authority to set us right. Which is why heresy always attacks the Bible, I guess. Anyway, I was sobered. How close am I then, a western materialist, to denying my Lord every minute?
Oh, and Scripture has a lot to say about the tongue and self-control, particularly in Proverbs, doesn't it! Ouch!
Who will save me from this body of death? --> Romans 8
Oh, and Scripture has a lot to say about the tongue and self-control, particularly in Proverbs, doesn't it! Ouch!
Who will save me from this body of death? --> Romans 8
Monday 3 March 2008
Cessationism and Baptism
Huh? What's this going to be about.
Last night I became a cessationist. Cessationism is normally associated with the idea that one believes that certain works of the Holy Spirit are no longer seen in the church, but that's not my cessationism. Mine is that the apostolic era is over: there are no more apostles. So the character and purpose of the work of the Holy Spirit is different: there are no miracles of confirmation of ministry, or any need to provide particular wisdom concerning Christ because it's all there in the Scriptures. So He carries on doing much, including many miracles, but they are different in character and purpose: healing for the sake of a sick person, rather than frequent, public and dramatic healing to draw attention to the apostle in whose words and person the ministry of Christ is continued.
You see, my acceptance of cessationism came from a new understanding of what it means.
Baptism?
Baptism is an outward sign of those actions God purposes covenantally to pursue with an individual, placing them under obligations vis-a-vis Himself. I was caught up in the fear of either a Catholic or Zwinglian view, partly because I hadn't got the covenantal element of Reformed thinking. Yes, the invisible church is constituted by new birth, but neither the old or the new covenant visible community is co-extensive with the invisible true body of the elect. Rather, the sign of the covenant is applied to show that someone is entering a community that lives under that covenant. Can babies receive it? Well, if their parents are bringing them up in full awareness of the covenant, why might they not receive the sign of that?
Again, a new understanding brings a new view, here on paedobaptism.
Help! I'm thinking aloud and online! Any advice?
Last night I became a cessationist. Cessationism is normally associated with the idea that one believes that certain works of the Holy Spirit are no longer seen in the church, but that's not my cessationism. Mine is that the apostolic era is over: there are no more apostles. So the character and purpose of the work of the Holy Spirit is different: there are no miracles of confirmation of ministry, or any need to provide particular wisdom concerning Christ because it's all there in the Scriptures. So He carries on doing much, including many miracles, but they are different in character and purpose: healing for the sake of a sick person, rather than frequent, public and dramatic healing to draw attention to the apostle in whose words and person the ministry of Christ is continued.
You see, my acceptance of cessationism came from a new understanding of what it means.
Baptism?
Baptism is an outward sign of those actions God purposes covenantally to pursue with an individual, placing them under obligations vis-a-vis Himself. I was caught up in the fear of either a Catholic or Zwinglian view, partly because I hadn't got the covenantal element of Reformed thinking. Yes, the invisible church is constituted by new birth, but neither the old or the new covenant visible community is co-extensive with the invisible true body of the elect. Rather, the sign of the covenant is applied to show that someone is entering a community that lives under that covenant. Can babies receive it? Well, if their parents are bringing them up in full awareness of the covenant, why might they not receive the sign of that?
Again, a new understanding brings a new view, here on paedobaptism.
Help! I'm thinking aloud and online! Any advice?
Saturday 1 March 2008
Reasons for blogging
It creates a fantastic online archive, should my computer explode and my house burn down, of anything interesting I've ever thought.
Goats' hair, rams' hides and goats' hides
So why is the Tabernacle covered in this stuff (Exodus 26)? It's so normal, nothing royal or divine about it. Then again, why did God clothe Himself in human flesh (John 1:14)? Or is that the point?
It seems to me that God dwells in humility as one of us among us, although under that normal tent or human flesh dwells the Creator and King.
But surely the teaching of Genesis 1-2 or Psalm 8 makes human flesh the ideal clothing for God?
There's a lot of questions - anyone out there interested in answering?
It seems to me that God dwells in humility as one of us among us, although under that normal tent or human flesh dwells the Creator and King.
But surely the teaching of Genesis 1-2 or Psalm 8 makes human flesh the ideal clothing for God?
There's a lot of questions - anyone out there interested in answering?
Sunday 24 February 2008
Those disciples again
One thing I really will have to think through is the sheer hammering the disciples get in Mark 8:27-10:52. Three incidents particularly stand out:
- 8:27-9:1 As already blogged, Peter gets a hammering for not accepting Jesus' conception of His ministry and trying to correct Him. Jesus is going to offer Himself as the ransom as no man can give anything in exchange for his life (37), even if he had the whole world (36), so Peter's shame at His words is deadly (38), because although some may not taste death before the Kingdom comes (9:1), Jesus will.
- 9:33-50 The disciples argue about who's greatest and Jesus gives them a simple illustration of greatness - a child, welcoming children, and accepting the ministry of children. John responds to this illustration, perhaps because he feels guilty, or perhaps because he foolishly thinks he can prove he does the right thing, by talking about having stopped some man who was "not following us". Even the "us" gives him away. Then Jesus says, "wrong call - those not against us are for us". Then in vv41-42 He gives two "whoever" teachings. The first is aimed at the surface level mistake John made, although it cuts deeper by teaching the priority of Christ's own Name over "us". But v42 hits deeper, putting the giver of water and the man driving out demons into the category of little ones illustrated by the child of v36: cause one of these to fall away and you're better off dead. But John just did.
- 10:35-45 Here we go again - but dinner's ready. All I'll say is this: isn't v39 gracious on Jesus' part? Though the brothers arrogance and spiritual blindness is stunning, though they haven't got the servant nature of the kingdom (none of the 12 have, v41), Jesus speaks of their future discipleship - which is, like His Messiahship, death. But they will be - they, like us, can be saved.
Seeing Bartimaeus
Reading closely through Mark 8:27-10:45 sets up 10:46-52 wonderfully. The Bartimaeus pericope is the perfect ending to this section.
Firstly, Bartimaeus is in no doubt who Jesus is. When the crowds say that Jesus the Nazarene is passing, Bartimaeus cries out, "Son of David, Jesus, have mercy on me." Note the word order, not always preserved in English translations.
Secondly, note the contrast between the crowd and Bartimaeus. Mark skilfully sweeps his camera over Jesus, His disciples and the crowd, giving us in the brief mention of Jericho a sense of pace, then settles with telling detail on the solitary blind beggar. The crowds are caught up in the drama of the King's march to glory: they have not figured out that He is the Servant King (10:45). Jesus however makes Himself Bartimaeus' servant (10:51).
Thirdly, and this blew me away, Bartimaeus casts aside his cloak. That cloak was the item he might pledge, but would have returned to him at night according to Old Testament law. It was, as something that could be pledged, of worth, but Bartimaeus casts it aside to rise quickly and follow Jesus. Contrast that with the rich man of 10:22.
Fourthly, note the rebuke of the crowds yet Jesus' insistence they call Bartimaeus. We are back into 10:13-16. Bartimaeus, with his simple request, does receive the Kingdom as a child; but there was no learning from 10:13-16 that Jesus works that way.
Finally, although Jesus freely grants Bartimaeus his request, Bartimaeus follows. Those freely saved by grace, though technically free to go, always in fact follow, a road we know from the use of the verb in this section of Mark in Jesus' mouth, is a road that begins with a death - our own (8:34). So Mark clears us up on that: His death freely saves and that is that. Discipleship flows out of that. Our death to self is not meritorious, even if it is the keeping of the first four commandments (implicit in 10:21). It cannot save us; rather, we must first, like Bartimaeus, be saved and put into a state of salvation (Greek perfect) to become disciples. We must be raised (Greek in 10:49 can't be unintentional) to life by His call before we can then die.
Firstly, Bartimaeus is in no doubt who Jesus is. When the crowds say that Jesus the Nazarene is passing, Bartimaeus cries out, "Son of David, Jesus, have mercy on me." Note the word order, not always preserved in English translations.
Secondly, note the contrast between the crowd and Bartimaeus. Mark skilfully sweeps his camera over Jesus, His disciples and the crowd, giving us in the brief mention of Jericho a sense of pace, then settles with telling detail on the solitary blind beggar. The crowds are caught up in the drama of the King's march to glory: they have not figured out that He is the Servant King (10:45). Jesus however makes Himself Bartimaeus' servant (10:51).
Thirdly, and this blew me away, Bartimaeus casts aside his cloak. That cloak was the item he might pledge, but would have returned to him at night according to Old Testament law. It was, as something that could be pledged, of worth, but Bartimaeus casts it aside to rise quickly and follow Jesus. Contrast that with the rich man of 10:22.
Fourthly, note the rebuke of the crowds yet Jesus' insistence they call Bartimaeus. We are back into 10:13-16. Bartimaeus, with his simple request, does receive the Kingdom as a child; but there was no learning from 10:13-16 that Jesus works that way.
Finally, although Jesus freely grants Bartimaeus his request, Bartimaeus follows. Those freely saved by grace, though technically free to go, always in fact follow, a road we know from the use of the verb in this section of Mark in Jesus' mouth, is a road that begins with a death - our own (8:34). So Mark clears us up on that: His death freely saves and that is that. Discipleship flows out of that. Our death to self is not meritorious, even if it is the keeping of the first four commandments (implicit in 10:21). It cannot save us; rather, we must first, like Bartimaeus, be saved and put into a state of salvation (Greek perfect) to become disciples. We must be raised (Greek in 10:49 can't be unintentional) to life by His call before we can then die.
Wednesday 20 February 2008
Moses and Elijah
Still working through Mark, now into the Transfiguration.
Why Moses and Elijah?
Here's a thought.
Last time Moses met God on a mountain, the big question was how the sin of the golden calf could be atoned for: now God reveals the answer.
Last time Elijah met God on a mountain, the big question was whether there was a remnant: and Jesus has brought some prime examples of the remnant.
If those last words sound loaded with irony, they are. Then again, you and I aren't any better, are we?
Why Moses and Elijah?
Here's a thought.
Last time Moses met God on a mountain, the big question was how the sin of the golden calf could be atoned for: now God reveals the answer.
Last time Elijah met God on a mountain, the big question was whether there was a remnant: and Jesus has brought some prime examples of the remnant.
If those last words sound loaded with irony, they are. Then again, you and I aren't any better, are we?
Peter gets a lecture
In preparing Mark 9:14-10:52, I've really got to start at 8:27 and work to 10:52. In fact, I've really got to get an overview of the gospel.
So I've been in what I thought was familiar territory: Mark 8:27-9:1.
Familiar? I've never even looked at the map.
The whole section 8:33-9:1 now reads as a lecture to Peter. Three times Mark uses epitimao, to impress, insist on or rebuke. Jesus insists that the disciples don't speak of His Messiahship (8:30), then Peter insists Jesus is wrong (8:32) and finally Jesus insists to Peter that he is talking Satanic rubbish (8:33). Note how Jesus begins teaching about His sufferings, and that they "must" happen - they are essential to His mission. We can assume He was discoursing at length. Which means Peter decided to discourse at length in 8:32, where he begins.
What I find shocking is how Jesus notices the other disciples, turning from Peter, and rebukes him. Then Jesus calls the crowd and makes an invitation to discipleship, Peter presumably still in the position of rejection behind Him. Peter is rebuked and rejected and Jesus seeks new disciples.
At the heart of the invitation is the question, "how will you ransom your life." Each verse is explanatory of the last in 8:34-38. In simple terms, it goes like this: die and become My disciple (v34) because only dying will save your life (v35) because even the whole world is no gain compared to your own life (v36) because there is nothing you can give as ransom for your own life (v37 - antallagma). So don't be ashamed of Me and My words - because they are about the ransom God will give (10:45). Verse 38 comes over Jesus' shoulder to the shocked Peter as further rebuke, to be compounded, I think, in 9:1. Some will still be alive and see the Kingdom come in power, but that implies some won't be - supremely Jesus, who must die for it to come. Die to your worldly mindset, your worldly ambitions for power and public glory, those Satanic temptations once set before Me (Matt. 4:1-11), says Jesus to Peter. Die and lose everything you value for me and this Gospel of My necessary death as ransom: for how else shall price be found for you (cf Psalm 49:7-8).
So I've been in what I thought was familiar territory: Mark 8:27-9:1.
Familiar? I've never even looked at the map.
The whole section 8:33-9:1 now reads as a lecture to Peter. Three times Mark uses epitimao, to impress, insist on or rebuke. Jesus insists that the disciples don't speak of His Messiahship (8:30), then Peter insists Jesus is wrong (8:32) and finally Jesus insists to Peter that he is talking Satanic rubbish (8:33). Note how Jesus begins teaching about His sufferings, and that they "must" happen - they are essential to His mission. We can assume He was discoursing at length. Which means Peter decided to discourse at length in 8:32, where he begins.
What I find shocking is how Jesus notices the other disciples, turning from Peter, and rebukes him. Then Jesus calls the crowd and makes an invitation to discipleship, Peter presumably still in the position of rejection behind Him. Peter is rebuked and rejected and Jesus seeks new disciples.
At the heart of the invitation is the question, "how will you ransom your life." Each verse is explanatory of the last in 8:34-38. In simple terms, it goes like this: die and become My disciple (v34) because only dying will save your life (v35) because even the whole world is no gain compared to your own life (v36) because there is nothing you can give as ransom for your own life (v37 - antallagma). So don't be ashamed of Me and My words - because they are about the ransom God will give (10:45). Verse 38 comes over Jesus' shoulder to the shocked Peter as further rebuke, to be compounded, I think, in 9:1. Some will still be alive and see the Kingdom come in power, but that implies some won't be - supremely Jesus, who must die for it to come. Die to your worldly mindset, your worldly ambitions for power and public glory, those Satanic temptations once set before Me (Matt. 4:1-11), says Jesus to Peter. Die and lose everything you value for me and this Gospel of My necessary death as ransom: for how else shall price be found for you (cf Psalm 49:7-8).
Tuesday 19 February 2008
The Bad Guys in Mark's Gospel ...
... are the disciples.
Whoa.
What do you think of that?
We've just reached as a homegroup Mark 8:1-26, as we approach the section I'll be leading the teaching on in a few weeks time. We focused today on how sinful the disciples are. But I've been noticing it everywhere. Twice they feed large crowds and twice they don't understand about the loaves (6:52; 8:21), they try to stop other people from being involved in the mission of Jesus (9:38-41), they won't let children come to Jesus (10:13-16), they argue about who's greatest, try and bagsy the best places in heaven and eventually they all abandon Him before the cross, Peter nosediving spectacularly from "have-a-go hero" to being petrified (pun completely intended).
But right now I am blown away by Mark 8:18: "having eyes do you not see and having ears do you not hear?" Compare that with Mark 4:11-12, in which Jesus says that the secrets of the kingdom have been revealed to them but the parables are for the outsiders who ever seeing do not perceive and ever hearing do not understand. The disciples, for all the time Jesus has spent with them and invested in them, are too hard of heart (8:17). If you combine Jesus' critique of the heart in 7:20-23 and His experience of the hearts of the disciples, carefully brought together in chapters 6 to 8 of Mark alongside healing miracles among the unclean Gentiles, you have as clear a narrative case for the doctrines of total depravity and of regeneration (need of) as you could ever get.
Whoa.
What do you think of that?
We've just reached as a homegroup Mark 8:1-26, as we approach the section I'll be leading the teaching on in a few weeks time. We focused today on how sinful the disciples are. But I've been noticing it everywhere. Twice they feed large crowds and twice they don't understand about the loaves (6:52; 8:21), they try to stop other people from being involved in the mission of Jesus (9:38-41), they won't let children come to Jesus (10:13-16), they argue about who's greatest, try and bagsy the best places in heaven and eventually they all abandon Him before the cross, Peter nosediving spectacularly from "have-a-go hero" to being petrified (pun completely intended).
But right now I am blown away by Mark 8:18: "having eyes do you not see and having ears do you not hear?" Compare that with Mark 4:11-12, in which Jesus says that the secrets of the kingdom have been revealed to them but the parables are for the outsiders who ever seeing do not perceive and ever hearing do not understand. The disciples, for all the time Jesus has spent with them and invested in them, are too hard of heart (8:17). If you combine Jesus' critique of the heart in 7:20-23 and His experience of the hearts of the disciples, carefully brought together in chapters 6 to 8 of Mark alongside healing miracles among the unclean Gentiles, you have as clear a narrative case for the doctrines of total depravity and of regeneration (need of) as you could ever get.
Sunday 17 February 2008
Exegeting Mark 9:14-10:51 - a journey
Over the next few days I'll be preparing a couple of talks, one a Sunday all-age talk and the other a midweek seminar for Christians wanting in-depth study, on Mark 9:14-10:51. The Sunday talk just focuses on the rich young ruler, but I want to cover over the days I work at the passage the different elements to my study.
I sat down this afternoon and read the section in the ESV. I was actually supposed to stop at 10:31, but I couldn't, as I started to note in the sections I was reading echoes of the section afterwards. This is my conclusion:
Now what do I do? Feel free to help!
I sat down this afternoon and read the section in the ESV. I was actually supposed to stop at 10:31, but I couldn't, as I started to note in the sections I was reading echoes of the section afterwards. This is my conclusion:
9:14-29 Miracle associated with faith
9:30-32 Announcement of sufferings
9:33-37 Argument over who is greatest/"servant of all"
9:38-50 Disciples try to stop something and Jesus rebukes them
10:1-9 Argument with Pharisees over law
10:10-12 conversation continues with disciples
10:13-16 Disciples try to stop something and Jesus rebukes them
10:17-22 Discussion with rich young man over law
10:23-31 conversations continues with disciples
10:32-34 Announcement of sufferings
10:35-45 Argument over places in heaven/"servant of all"
10:46-51 Miracle associated with faith
Now what do I do? Feel free to help!
Tuesday 12 February 2008
Little Greek Words and Long Roads into the OT
Last week I led children's work on Mark 7:1-23 and this week I'm leading homegroup on Mark 7:24-37, preached last Sunday (see last two posts).
Having written the last post, I've looked at the Greek for the passages last week and this. Aaargh!
If you have a resource like that, use it - it is worse that Amateurish to do otherwise.
In 7:1-23, the koinoo word group is used for defiled or unclean, meaning basically "common". In 7:25, the spirit is akathartos, "uncleansed". Something that is akathartos renders things holy and common equally akathartos.
What does that mean for the reading that 7:24-30 presents a solution for 7:1-23? I don't think it raises a problem, but some scepticism is required. Firstly, the word akathartos describes all spirits in Mark. Secondly, we're entering a new section in the Gospel, a journey outside Jewish territory.
Equally, the fact we leave Jewish territory, Jesus having just abolished the food laws and redefined uncleanness can't be coincidental.
I think the point is that we are not fit for God's presence. The drumbeat of Leviticus is "Be holy" (qds word group); it isn't "be common" (a call the Amateur's snobby side would find hard.) But we are always outside of the holy by virtue of our hearts. Jesus however is well-equipped to deal with the root cause of our not being holy, as He demonstrates by driving out the demon.
And the last post? What about the moral and forensic nature of uncleanness. He might be able to deal with the cause, but can He deal with the consequence, namely our lack of holiness and our guilt before God? I refer you to the solution discussed there.
By the way - have you noticed how Jesus helps the helpless? He deals with people with thoroughly broken bodies or under terrible spiritual oppression. Isn't that because we're all in that boat because of the state of our hearts: helpless and oppressed?
Having written the last post, I've looked at the Greek for the passages last week and this. Aaargh!
If you have a resource like that, use it - it is worse that Amateurish to do otherwise.
In 7:1-23, the koinoo word group is used for defiled or unclean, meaning basically "common". In 7:25, the spirit is akathartos, "uncleansed". Something that is akathartos renders things holy and common equally akathartos.
What does that mean for the reading that 7:24-30 presents a solution for 7:1-23? I don't think it raises a problem, but some scepticism is required. Firstly, the word akathartos describes all spirits in Mark. Secondly, we're entering a new section in the Gospel, a journey outside Jewish territory.
Equally, the fact we leave Jewish territory, Jesus having just abolished the food laws and redefined uncleanness can't be coincidental.
I think the point is that we are not fit for God's presence. The drumbeat of Leviticus is "Be holy" (qds word group); it isn't "be common" (a call the Amateur's snobby side would find hard.) But we are always outside of the holy by virtue of our hearts. Jesus however is well-equipped to deal with the root cause of our not being holy, as He demonstrates by driving out the demon.
And the last post? What about the moral and forensic nature of uncleanness. He might be able to deal with the cause, but can He deal with the consequence, namely our lack of holiness and our guilt before God? I refer you to the solution discussed there.
By the way - have you noticed how Jesus helps the helpless? He deals with people with thoroughly broken bodies or under terrible spiritual oppression. Isn't that because we're all in that boat because of the state of our hearts: helpless and oppressed?
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