The Incorrigible Amateur

Blog closed

2009-11-02T17:30:00.000Z

Well, no one read it; I hardly used it; so let's close it. Apparently, if I delete it, spammers might pick it up and misuse it, and obviously I don't want to risk that. Goodbye!

The BNP and the C of E, and dog whistles.

2009-05-26T15:50:00.004+01:00

For those who have not seen the British National Party poster in question, it's at the beginning of the video on the BBC news page here. The quote is interesting: John 15:20. It's worth looking at in context, and it's in the context of the Gospel reading for Pentecost, which is currently on my desk. However, I must give credit to my brother, himself no Christian, for pointing out some of what I am about to discuss.
The poster points out that C of E employees may not belong to the BNP and that it is pursued by both the press and the police: which it is. As the same happened to Jesus, which is the basic meaning of the quote, the BNP essentially claims that it is being treated as Jesus was, therefore the BNP is in the place of Jesus. Which makes the BNP Christian.
There's a lot we could say to that.
Firstly, the logic, as is obvious from the above, is quite tortuous.
Secondly, if the BNP wants to appeal to Christian voters, why this quote? They'd be better off ripping Acts 17:26 out of context, wouldn't they?
Thirdly, the C of E ban has its reasons throughout the Scriptures. The Bible takes no view on economic systems, assuming one of trade and slavery as that was the system at the time and modelling how it should operate in a just fashion, a model we need to apply with wisdom to whatever system we adopt. However, on questions of race the Bible is very clear, whether you start from creation (Gen 1:26-29) or redemption (Gal 3:28). The Church ought be careful about being party political, but some things are beyond the pale.
Fourthly, the press pursues the BNP because the press pursues everyone - that's it's job.
Fifthly, the police pursues the BNP because the BNP faces repeated allegations of incitement to hatred and the police has a legal duty to pursue allegations in order to see if charges are to be brought.
In other words, the BNP is persecuted not without cause, quite unlike Jesus (John 15:25).
But here's a thought: this quote is from the Farewell Discourse. The immediate persecutors of Jesus were the Jewish authorities, about to hand Him over to Rome; John's readers may well have experienced rejection by their local Jewish communities. Is this dog-whistle politics? Well done to my brother for suggesting it. I wonder if the BNP are smart enough, let alone their voters, but hey, if a BNP person turns up and says "we are smart enough", we know that the anti-Semitic whistle has been blown. Anti-Semitism has been documented as being on the rise, primarily as a result of rise of more combative forms of Islam in the UK, but to see the return of anti-Semitism into our political system would be, sadly, not as surprising as I thought when I started writing this sentence and remembered the activities of Le Pen and Mölleman and some of the things they said in our near neighbours.

The Gospel and Lifestyle - how one vindicates the other

2009-04-07T15:22:00.002+01:00

When I start blogging, it's because I'm preparing a sermon, and bits of prep sort of fall of my desk and into my blog.
Evangelicals love to find ways of compelling a godly life out of themselves, and one is that a godly life vindicates the gospel. We speak the gospel and then show that it is true by the transformed life that we lead.
I've just come to the conclusion that such an argument is backwards (I'm an amateur, I'm slow!) Rather, the process works the other way round. I hope in the gospel, which has lifestyle implications. This hope that is in me arouses questions (1 Peter 3:15) and so I explain how my hope is vindicated by the gospel. The psalmist in Psalm 102:12-15 looks forward to his and others hope (v14) in the eternal God (v12) being vindicated by His restoring Zion (v13), a vindication of hope that will lead to the nations turning to God. The vindication of their hope was future: but to us that same event is past - it is the incarnation, atonement, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ.
That has wonderful implications. Firstly, it means I can sin. No, not in the sense that I'll be lazy about holiness. But when I do sin, I won't think that my evangelism is dead. Rather, the fact that my hope is not destroyed by my sin will raise the question, "what can vindicate such a hope?" Answer: Christ. Secondly, it means I can pursue holiness in freedom. My heavenly citizenship is secure, because of Christ, a hope vindicated by the events of His ministry. So in that assurance I live my new citizenship. What vindicates living differently to others? Answer: Christ. Suddenly the gospel is about Jesus again.

Why does Hebrews 1 quote Psalm 102?

2009-04-05T19:46:00.002+01:00

Here's a thought I had: comments?

In Psalm 102:25-27, the exile is speaking in faith of his God, that his God is the everlasting, unchanging Creator God; in Hebrews 1:8-12, in which this verse is applied to the Son, the Father is speaking. So what is the writer to the Hebrews doing?
In order to believe in his situation that Zion really can be restored, the exile needs to believe that his God is the unchanging, faithful, everlasting Creator God, fully able and fully faithful. In order to believe that His Messiah can really achieve the mission for which He has appointed Him, that of second Adam and therefore restorer of Eden itself, of Zion, the City of God with men, then God Himself must be able to express similar faith in the Messiah! What the writer to the Hebrews therefore implies is that his readers may have full faith in the Lord Jesus because He is the one of whom God the Father may speak precisely those words of faith that they have been speaking of God since the exile.

The Gospel is foolishness to many who think they are being saved

2009-02-03T15:32:00.003Z

I teach Christianity to pupils of various faiths and various attitudes to the Christian gospel. But one thing really disturbs me, and that is this: unbelievers understand the Bible better than believers in my classroom. On one level that's not true - I'm not talking about spiritual receptiveness. But their conceptual understanding of the awesome nature of God ("if there is a God, then if I was standing before him, I'd be scared out of my mind"), holiness and sin ("why doesn't God just spit on us?") and the transcendence of God and its impact on the likeliness, and therefore graciousness, of divine intervention for us ("if there is a God, then why does he bother with tiny little insignificant human beings?") beats the conceptual grasp of many churchgoers, whose God is thoroughly domesticated. No wonder I have two Christian pupils who regard church as stupid: the semi-Christian Christless Christianity they are, by their account of it, receiving probably is.

Why red letter Bibles are a joke

2009-02-03T15:24:00.002Z

Here's John 12:27-28 in the red letter ESV: "Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name." Then a voice came from heaven: "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again." It's the same in the other red letter Bibles I own (for some reason, red letter Bibles are cheaper.)
So let's put the word of Christ in red, because they are special, but the direct words of God the Father don't deserve special mention. It just goes to prove how silly red letter Bibles are - and as theologically useful in terms of prioritising words as the multicoloured creations of the Jesus Seminar.

Romans 11:25-32

2009-01-26T19:49:00.003Z

Here's my text I preached on Romans 11: although I didn't deliver it word for word.
Someone might ask: where the application? The application runs through it: this God can be trusted, and He is very merciful. Is that woolly application? My soul needs to feed on that Sunday by Sunday more than anything else.

Our Merciful Sovereign – Romans 11:25-32
If Christmas hadn't intervened, this would be sermon three on Romans 11 in a row. And Romans 11 is about the Jews. I don't suppose many here are Jewish. I don't suppose many have an interest in the once hot debates concerning the relationship between Jews and non-Jews, that is, Gentiles, in the church. Why should we care less about this stuff? The reason is simple. What's at stake here is God's very character. Will He stick to plan A or have events forced Him to plan B? Can He keep His promises long ago made to the Jewish founding fathers? Does He have a clear purpose in this world? Israel in Paul's day rejected Jesus Christ, their Messiah. Still today, the majority of Jews reject Him. So has God changed plan, abandoned His promises? Is that the kind of God He is? Let me answer that question with three points.

God's ancient plan will be executed
Let's read again verses 25 to 32: I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. God has a plan, and it is in verse 26: All Israel will be saved. What does Paul mean by all Israel? I think there is room for disagreement among Christians on the meaning here. But two options make no sense and I want to exclude them. Firstly, Israel here must refer to the Jewish people. It is always used in contrast to Gentiles – that is, non-Jews. God has big plans to bring faith in Messiah Jesus to the Jews. He can even say of those plans all Israel will be saved. But secondly, the Bible insists again and again on faith in Messiah as the mark of God's people. Paul does not mean that all Jews in every generation will be saved. Jesus Himself called Jewish leaders in His own day children of Satan, and said they did not belong to His flock. Clearly He did not believe them to belong to God's people. I think personally that the old Reformation position on this question is right. Paul expected, and we are to expect, a great turning to God among the Jews before the end of history. And so in that day, all Israel will be saved. God's plan will be executed.
This plan is ancient. It stretches back into the Old Testament, hundreds of years before Jesus. So Paul quotes Isaiah 59:20-21, continuing in verse 26: As it is written: The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins. God's plan to send Jesus is clear in the Old Testament. Jesus comes to the ancient people of Israel. He is of the line of David, the king who founded Zion. And He has a mission to end the godlessness of the people of Israel. Isaiah records for us again and again how Israel turned away from God. They decided they didn't really want Him to be their God. They didn't really want to be His people. Because being God's people means having God as God in all their lives. That's what godlessness is. It's not having God as God – as the ruler, the decision maker – in every part of our lives. Jesus came to put an end to godlessness. And a key part of that was that He offered the sacrifice that sealed a new deal – a new covenant it is called in verse 27 – between God and men. That sacrifice was of course His own body and blood on the Cross. At that Cross He did, in the words of verse 27, take away sins. There can't be a successful arrangement or deal – a successful covenant – between God and men where there is sin, that is, godlessness. So at the heart of God's covenant, verse 27, is that He takes away our sins. Now that plan is not some emergency plan. It's not like God thought, “aargh, Israel is being godless. “I need a new plan to deal with this one.” No, His plan was always, from the creation, to send a deliverer and to take away sins. Now reading between the lines of Romans 11, some of the non-Jewish people may have been saying something like this: “The Jews blew it. They simply became godless. So God turned away from them and sent the message about Jesus to us.” No, says Paul. Rather, this hardening of Israel and the conversion of the Gentiles all serves the big picture, that all Israel will be saved. Gentile self-righteous conceit won't do. In fact, Paul strikes a hammer blow at such thinking. The full number of the Gentiles will come in, verse 25, and so by that all Israel will be saved. As Paul puts it back in verse 11 of this chapter, second half of the verse. Salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. The very purpose of non-Jews being saved has a Jewish focus. That should humble any pride among non-Jews. God didn't give up on the Jews as a bad job and then turn to us hoping we're better. No, our very salvation serves His plan for the Jews. A point very humbling for the Jews: it takes getting the rest of the world to turn to Messiah before they recognise Him. God has an ancient plan and He will execute it. All Israel will be saved. That is God's plan, and He executes it. That has a key implication.

God's ancient promises will be kept
Let's read on, verses 28 and 29: As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable. The key phrase here is in verse 30. God's gifts and his call are irrevocable. There is a balance in Paul's words here lacking in much Christian discussion today of Israel. Firstly, Paul is a realist, first half of verse 28. As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account. Jews were opposing the gospel. Paul himself was persecuted dreadfully by his own countrymen. Not for him the “Israel is right whatever she does” of some. But neither do we find here the creeping anti-Semitism of too many both without and within the church. He carries on in verse 28: But as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs. God made massive promises to the patriarchs. That word refers to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the first three generations of the family from whom all those whom we today call Jews can claim descent. Our verse tells us that as God works to draw people to His Son the Lord Jesus Christ, He pays particular attention to the Jews. He has a particular settled love for them. Because they are special? By no means! After all, the first half of the verse says they are enemies of the gospel! They oppose the message that Jesus has come as their King and taken away sins. No, God pays special attention to them, loves them with a settled love, because when God promises, He keeps His promise. Verse 30 speaks of His irrevocable gifts and calling. He called them to be His people. He gave them great gifts: promises of blessing, promises of being a great nation, numerous and a blessing to the rest of us, promises of a land. Supremely, He promised them a King, a King who would secure their relationship with Him by defeating their enemies and turning them from godlessness. When God promises, He keeps His promise.

Let's pause there a moment.
We've reflected on the implications of these passages for Israel. Interesting. But what has this talk of God's plan for and promises to Israel got to do with us? Let me give two answers.
Firstly, it shows that God's work in our world may be hidden.
Whatever you may think of the policies of the State of Israel, whatever you may think of the Middle East situation, or even of the situation of Jews elsewhere in the world, one thing is obvious. If God's plan is to turn godlessness from Israel, it doesn't seem to be making great progress. But as soon as we say that, if God's Spirit is at work in us, He taps us on the shoulder and says, “turning godlessness from you isn't making rapid progress either.” Similarly, if God has made all these promises to Israel, why aren't there more Jewish Christians? Why aren't they the people of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? Where is God's saving love for them? The answer is that often God's work is hidden. It is, as Paul called it at the beginning of verse 25, a mystery. The same is true for our own lives. The God whose big picture is saving Israel is our God. He has a plan to turn godlessness from us. He has made promises to us in Christ about never leaving us, about being our God, hearing our prayers and giving us life to the full. Yet so often it doesn't seem that way. He seems slow, even absent. That's because His work in and for us too is often hidden.
Secondly, Israel is a test case.
If God did give up on Israel, then God could not be trusted. Admittedly, His work is hidden. But by the time all His work is revealed, on the day of judgement, He must have saved all Israel. We must see how that promise has been kept. If Paul had to tell us that God had given up on Israel, what security would we have that He wouldn't give up on us? Just as Israel failed in the desert after leaving Egypt, failed again at the foot of Sinai, failed again in the wilderness of Kadesh, failed before, during and after entering the promised land, failed again and again through the period of the judges, failed despite and even because of the kings – in other words, for those not familiar with the details of the Old Testament – kept failing, so I keep failing. If the point comes when He says, “I've had it up to here with Israel, I'm going to find another people,” then why wouldn't He do that to me? Oh, just as Israel has experienced periods of great trial and difficulty, so do we. And ours are not so testing. But Israel is a test case. A God willing to give up on them is one willing to give up on me. And that is a dreadful thought. God doesn't give up. No.

God's eternal purpose will be fulfilled
Let's read again verses 30 to 32: Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you. For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. God's plans and promises are ancient. They are as ancient, more ancient, than creation itself. I've called the purpose of God eternal not because God's purpose is older than His plans and promises. That's not possible. His purpose, plans and promises were all set before time began. Rather, by switching from ancient to eternal I want to make a different point. The purpose of God is deeper, more part of God's character, more rooted in God's very person than His plans and promises. God makes His plans and His promises because of who He is. But His purpose is who He is. His purpose is verse 32: For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. And most important in verse 32 are the words: so that he may have mercy. God's purpose is to have mercy. Because that's who He is. One who has mercy. On verses 30 and 31 I will simply quote C K Barrett: "For Jew and Gentile alike, the end of the road is God's mercy; and for each the road leads through disobedience." Jew and Gentile alike knows disobedience. But the road that leads through disobedience leads to mercy. So why do Jews and Gentiles go these roads of disobedience and mercy? Verse 32 again: For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. Note first how this verse begins: For God. We are not talking about random circumstances. Our disobedience is not like a train crash that God stumbles across and takes as an opportunity to show heroism. No, even our disobedience has its place in His purpose. God is the great actor in verse 32. He has bound all men. He does that so that He may have mercy. He's been the great actor in all this reading. Verse 27: it's God's covenant and He takes away sins. Verse 29: God has called and God has given gifts and God won't go back on it. In fact, God is the great actor in all of Romans. God has acted in Jesus Christ to justify us, that is, to make us right with Himself, free of accusation before His own court, by transferring the guilt and punishment of our sins to Christ and crediting to our account the very perfect obedience of Christ. For God – this verse is about God acting. What does He do? Two things.
Firstly, God has bound all men over to disobedience
We are responsible for our disobedience. This verse in no sense excuses us. But God binds us up in it. In Romans 1, we saw that He hands us over to sin. We choose sin and He abandons us to it. He lets us fall under its sway. But that's not all. He then gives us the Law. The Law does two things. Firstly, it condemns us. It shows us our objective guilt in God's court. It shows us that we deserve only God's punishment. But secondly, the Law eggs on sin. Remember how in Romans 7, the Law shows sin how to sin. Paul gives the example of the sin of coveting. Sin seizes the opportunity of the Law to show God how much it hates Him by breaking that commandment. And so the Law which condemns us as sinners also sends us spiralling deeper and deeper into sin. And what we need to understand is the sheer magnitude of our problem. We have disobeyed God. We are condemned under His Law. And yet in us is the death wish of sin. Even a man-made sign saying “keep off the grass” makes us want to trample all over it. God's Law really gets us going. God has bound us over to disobedience. He has trapped us in it, let it rule us. He has not mitigated our disobedience but lets it swallow us. Why? Second half of the verse.
So that he may have mercy.
I don't know how good you are at going to the doctor's. I hate it. And it's time out of my busy schedule. I'll only go if I'm utterly convinced of the need. If we take seriously the first half of Romans 11:32, as I've explained it in the light of all that Paul has said previously in the letter, we can see we and all humanity has a great need. And that gives God the opportunity to show mercy. God doesn't show leniency – that is, letting us off because generally we're alright. We're bound in disobedience. From His perspective, we're not generally alright. We are pitifully lost, trapped in and swallowed up by disobedience. And that's what opens the door to mercy. As our situation is so dreadful, He can show mercy. He can show the full extent of His mercy – just how merciful He really is. Our situation could not be worse. So He can show exactly how far He is willing to go for us. To a poor, cold stable. To 33 years as an outsider. To rejection. To a show trial, mockery, beatings. To a Cross. To receiving Himself the punishment that He rightly ought mete out to us. To hell. God executes His ancient plan and keeps His ancient promises. He never gives up on Israel – He's made His promises to them. That assures us He is a faithful God able to do what He says He will. But plans and promises serve a purpose. That purpose is to have mercy. Mercy on the disobedient.

Romans 11

2009-01-18T19:29:00.003Z

There is no better time to be preaching through Romans 11 than during a Middle East crisis - NOT! There are always Christians whose focus is too much on the 1948 state when you say "Israel", although they to my mind often merely balance the outrageous bias the other way of others. Neither those in Hamas who happily force children into martyrdom (what can a seven year old do with 72 virgins anyway?) nor those in Israel who accept the temptation to cause such (oh hateful phrase) "collateral damage" are to be condoned, nor can we sympathise greatly with anyone except the suffering, although empathy (which is different - check your dictionary) with tiny Israel surrounded by hostile powers does not seem unreasonable to my mind.
But the great thing about Romans 11 is that is simply off topic. I don't need to preach Israel next Sunday. Here's something that got my spiritual juices flowing as I prepared the text using e-sword (which explains some font failure for Greek and Hebrew quotes.) Feel free to correct errors - you have until Friday, when I write the sermon!

For I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, that you might not be understanding to yourselves, that hardening in part has come to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, and so all Israel will be saved, as is written,
Out of Zion comes the Deliverer,
He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob
And this to them the covenant I have made,
When I forgive their sins.
These three theologically packed verses hang on the correct interpretation of the word "Israel". A quick search on the use of "Israel" in Romans shows that it is used frequently in opposition to the elect or to the Gentiles in Romans 9-11 and only in Rom_9:6 is it used in any other sense, being used here to distinguish Israel, the descendants of the patriarchs from Israel from Israel the elect line counted descendants of Abraham and so receivers of the promise (note the parallelism in Rom_9:6-7).
Therefore the bringing in of the Gentiles serves the purpose of bringing in Israel! All Israel will be saved because in fact the mission to the Gentiles will make the Jews jealous of the nations who serve their Messiah (Rom_11:13-14).
Paul does not want the Romans to be ignorant of the mystery he is about to reveal because the alternative to revelation is παρ᾿ ἑαυτοῖς φρόνιμοι, that is, speculation, literally, being insightful or understanding to or for ourselves, rather than turning to God for insight and understanding. These words stand out as a clear call to revelation based theology. Where we speculate, we are being exactly that which the NIV and ESV accuse us of being - conceited. For the danger with speculation is that as soon as we arrogate to ourselves the right to do theology rather than listen to it, we then end up with a theology that glorifies us rather than glorifying God.
Israel's hardening is to be put in the context of a plan, a plan conceived in heaven, in which the bringing in of the fullness of the Gentiles not only works out God's purpose to save from among the nations, it being too little for Messiah only to save Israel (Isa_49:6), but in which His very calling the Gentiles serves His Israel plan. In this sense, the Gentile plan serves the Israel plan: Gentiles are brought to God in order to bring in Israel.
That naturally has implications for mission to the Jews: firstly, the clear teaching here that God's plan has two distinctive parts tells us that Jewish mission must be part of the ministry of God's people, yet secondly all mission serves the aim of Jewish evangelism, for whatever we do to bring in the fullness of the Gentiles serves the purpose of bringing in Israel.
The Isaiah quote underlines the Jewishness of the saving work of God: from Zion, to turn ungodliness from Jacob, according to the covenant. Romans has unpacked the gospel of the forgiveness of sins by way of the justification of the ungodly by Jesus Christ. To expect this gospel not to be fully effective for the ancient covenant purposes of God would be most strange. This new David, from David's city, must surely not just rule the nations but save Israel and bring them to godliness.
The phrase ἡ παρ᾿ ἐμοῦ διαθήκη is quite striking, as Paul has not chosen the simpler ἡ διαθήκη ἐμοῦ. The genitive attribute παρ᾿ ἐμοῦ underlines the active nature of God in this covenant (see Bauer on παρά I4a). It accurately reflects the LXX of Isa 59:20-21, which translates presumably the extra emphasis of אני in the Hebrew. The passage is insistent on the activeness of God: He is the saving covenant actor.
Hence overall in these verses we here the voice of the Sovereign God challenging us: who gets to decide our theology? Who gets to decide who gets saved how (one thinks further of Isa_45:1-13 and particularly God's response to those who challenge the use of a pagan king to save; but we could also consider the Gentiles who don't like seeing their salvation as in any sense secondary)? The answer is found in the answer to this question: who is the author and executor of the covenant? He decides.

Magnificat 2.0

2009-01-02T20:16:00.005Z

The first time I preached the Magnificat, it was a traditional English Carol Service, with a chance to pitch the message at the congregation in just 15 minutes. This time I had double that, even more if I'd wanted, and I was preaching at a congregation that would generally want more depth. What I've tried to here is preach the gospel to the converted - that is, give depth and clarity that will strengthen the believer and clarify their understanding of the gospel.
At the same service the song was sung that I posted around this time last year in my first Magnificat post. It was a joy to serve God's people in this double fashion.
I also think that this sermon show the progress that God is making in granting me a proper understanding of the gospel: just how much it centres on Him and His ways.
The text below is scarcely edited and is clearly a script to be spoken.

Magnificat – Luke 1:46-55

Before we look at these famous words together, I want to read them from the English Standard Version.
And Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for He has looked on the humble estate of His servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His Name. And His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent empty away. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy, as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever."
On Wednesday, an atheist in my Philosophy of Religion class raised the big question. We're reading Descartes. Descartes describes God as “infinite, eternal, unchangeable, independent, supremely intelligent, supremely powerful, which created myself and anything else which may exist.” “There may be such a being, but I don't accept Christianity, God being Jesus, born in a manger and dying on a cross. If there is such a being, why would He bother with tiny little insignificant human beings.” I don't suppose Descartes would have made much sense to Mary. But I suspect had she been with us on Wednesday morning, she would have agreed. That student is right. If there is such a being as God, why would He bother with tiny little insignificant human beings? It makes no sense. But she knew something he doesn't. There is such a being as God. And He has bothered. We don't find Mary pondering the implications of her pregnancy for philosophy of religion. She sings. Down in verse 46: My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour. Mary's words are not the result of human reflection on the divine. They are the response of a soul that has met God and is inspired by the Holy Spirit. And what has she discovered? That God does bother. God bothered with her. She discovered the mercy of God. The word is in verses 50 and 54. I want to consider these famous words under three headings. Mercy is a blessing. Mercy is for the Needy. Mercy implies Sacrifice.

Mercy is a Blessing.
Let's read verses 46 to 49 again. I'll read them out as you have it in the NIV. My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for He has been mindful of the humble state of His servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me – Holy is His Name. Why does Mary say we shall call her blessed? Her answer is clear: beginning of verse 49. For the Mighty One has done great things for me. That's her explanation. She is blessed because He has done great things for her. God is the cause of her being blessed. The cause of the cake on the tables over there is someone baking. The cause of Mary's being blessed is God doing great things for her. Why did He do great things for her? She can't answer that. She just blurts out praise, and I think the NIV is great here with the dash – can you see that dash in verse 49? For the Mighty One has done great things for me
Why? I can't think. Oh! Dash. Blurt of praise Holy is His Name. In other words, He's done great things for me because that's the unique, utterly different way of doing things of God. She doesn't get it. It's just His wonderful way of doing things. So what is this great blessing He has poured out on her? What is this great thing He has done. Verse 48, first half. He has been mindful of the humble state of His servant. The ESV is better here: He has looked on the humble estate of His servant. If we look at the Old Testament reading, we'll find more of what Mary means. Psalm 113, verses 4 to 9. The Lord is exalted over all the nations, His glory is above the heavens. Who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, Who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth? He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; He seats them with princes, with the princes of their people. He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Praise the Lord. You can see the parallel to Mary's song. I want to draw particular attention to verses 5 and 6. Who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, Who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth? To stoop is to dive down, like an eagle diving from its flight high above the earth down to the rabbit on the field below. To find Mary, God has stooped down – stooped down low. But when God stoops, He stoops in mercy to be with us. Look back to Luke, our reading in chapter 1, verse 48. She declares herself of humble state – she's no one special. Luther translates here in his exposition of the Magnificat er hat die Nichtigkeit seiner Magd angesehen. She's nothing, insignificant. We'll see more of what she means in a moment. But for now, we are to see God stooping down, stooping down low to meet her. And that is exactly what He did when He came among us in the person of Christ. God stooped, stooped down low. Stooped down to an occupied and oft vilified people. Stooped down to a family from the backwater of Nazareth. Stooped down to a human body, to being born a baby. Stooped down to a manger and no proper bed. Mercy is God stooping down, coming down from His heavenly height to be with us. That makes it a blessing. It's not something we earn. The language of God in the height is a powerful metaphor. It shows us just how far away God in His holiness is. How do we get to God? Do we climb up or does He climb down to get us? Is heaven for spiritual climbers, full of good works? The answer lay in Bethlehem's manger. God stooped down to come and get us.So who does He stoop down to?

Mercy is for the Needy.
Let's read verses 50 to 53 again. As I read, spot the pairs of opposites. His mercy extends to those who fear Him, from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with His arm; He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. Did you spot the pairs? These are the people God stoops to: Verse 50: those who fear Him. Verse 52: the humble. Verse 53: the hungry. Others find Him most unwelcoming. Verse 51: those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. Verse 52: rulers. Verse 53: the rich. How shall we understand these contrasts? My first point is very simple: these are statements of how God works. Mary is praising the God whom she has experienced. The words the humble at the end of verse 52 is the same word as she uses of herself in verse 48 when she says the humble state of His servant. Note that humble does not here refer to character. It refers to status. It the opposite of rulers. The rulers are the top of society. The humble here are the insignificant mass of ordinary people. The way God has dealt with her is His normal way of doing things. After all, the words we read in Psalm 113 make a similar point. He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap;He seats them with princes, with the princes of their people. He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children. What shall we make of this? Is God simply on the side of the poor and underprivileged? Well, the contrasts between the rich and the hungry and between rulers and the humble seem to make that point. But remember the first contrast, between those who fear God and those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. That's not a contrast between the poor and the rich. Throughout Luke's Gospel, we see Mary's point made again and again. It's the peasants, fishermen and farmers of Galilee who follow Jesus, not the priests and princes of Jerusalem. It's the lepers, the blind, the deaf, those with bleeding, those about to bury their dead come to Jesus, not those for whom all is well. It's the tax collectors and prostitutes who follow Jesus, not the Pharisees. Remember the parable of the Pharisees and the tax collector? Who was proud in his inmost thoughts like the Pharisee? God, I thank you that I am not like other men – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get. Who feared God – knew his terrible need before the Holy One – like the tax collector? God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Have mercy on me – stoop down to me. The tax collector in the parable was needy. And mercy is for the needy. Let's consider another contrast: the rich and hungry. Look carefully at what Mary says: both come to God. But they get treated differently. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. Let's go meet them in Luke chapter 21 verses 1 to 4. As He looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. “I tell you the truth,” He said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All the others gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” Both the rich and the widow come to God in His temple. But Jesus dismisses the rich and accepts the widow. The rich no doubt thought themselves great benefactors – without them, God would not have such a wonderful and well-maintained temple. But she came, gave all she had – and where would her next meal come from? Only God knows the answer to that question. And she was certain as the coins rang in the treasury that His plan was good. The rich gave to do God a favour. The widow gave confident in God's favour to her. On this evidence, I think we can synthesise what Mary means with her contrasts. Let me illustrate her point this way. Imagine you are stooping down with God as He comes to show mercy. As you look on human society, what do you see? You can't see the faces of the proud, the rulers and the rich: they are looking down on others. If they are looking your way, they seem to expect God to be grateful for their assistance. Those faces are ugly with pride. Other faces are looking up: the hungry and the humble. Remember, the humble here are simply the ordinary, socially insignificant people. Many are looking up at the rich and rulers. They want their riches and their status. Their faces are twisted by jealousy, even hate. But they aren't looking up to God. Yet there are faces looking up to God. They are the hungry and humble who fear God. Their faces are open, pleading, dependent on God. As you descend, it is those faces God heads for. Mercy is for them. Mercy is for the needy.

Mercy implies Sacrifice.
Back in Luke 1, verses 54 and 55. He has helped His servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants for ever even as He said to our fathers. Why does God show mercy? Mary has answered that question. Holy is His Name! That's the startling truth about God. He's so unlike us in our sinfulness. And in His Holiness, He promised Abraham that He would show mercy to him and to his descendants for ever. This holy mercy is not simply bolt from the blue. God doesn't stoop down without telling us. He promises it. That promise, from the High and Holy King to humble, hungry, God-fearing people is His covenant. The King has promised and committed Himself to mercy. That's that. But there's an implication to that. When Habakkuk pleads with God to keep His covenant promises, he prays: In your wrath remember mercy. Here Mary says that He is remembering mercy – verse 54. But that does not mean He's forgotten His wrath. In mercy, God does not forget His wrath. Consider the first time God stooped in mercy. He had just scattered the proud of the Tower of Babel. Then he stooped down to Abraham. He promised Abraham a great land and a great nation of descendants. That mercy began to be shown when Abraham was miraculously given a son. What mercy, to stoop to an ageing nomad and his wife and give them a son. But then what happens? God requires that Isaac be sacrificed. And whenever we hear of sacrifice in the Bible, we are to think of God's anger. God's anger against our sin. That is, our living in His world as if it were ours, as if He wasn't there. Being proud in our inmost thoughts. Being our own rulers. Considering ourselves capable of making ourselves rich. And in all that forgetting the hungry and humble. And supremely not fearing Him, honouring Him as God. God cannot overlook the sin of the family of Abraham. So Isaac the first-born son must die. Abraham takes him up the mountain of Moriah. And we know the story. The ram takes the place of Isaac. In His mercy to Abraham, God does not forget His wrath. But He turns it aside onto the ram. Again, God remembered His covenant and mercy when He saw Israel enslaved in Egypt. But He did not forget His wrath. His anger was again to fall on the first-born son. But not in Israel. Once again, there was one to take the place of the son. This time, a lamb. Again, when God had brought Israel to the bottom of Sinai to make them His covenant people, what happens? He provides a whole system of sacrifice. As long as He shows mercy to Israel, from Exodus to Exile, there is a tabernacle or a temple where sacrifice is offered. Because in His mercy, God does not forget His wrath. Rather, he turns it aside to the sacrifice. So now, as we read of God remembering to be merciful, we ask, where is the sacrifice? Famous words of the Lord Jesus from Luke 22. He's speaking 24 hours before His death, sharing the Passover meal with His closest followers. He takes the cup of wine and says: This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. Here is mercy indeed. God stoops, stoops low. And becomes Himself, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, the sacrifice. Once again wrath is not forgotten. Once again the first-born, in fact all God's people are free to know God's mercy. At the price of the blood of God the Son. As He poured out His blood on that cross, Jesus bore the wrath of God against our sin. Wrath has not been forgotten. It has turned from us to one who takes our place. There has been a sacrifice. We receive only mercy.

As we close, let's consider where we stand.
What shall we make of Mary's song? She has sung of the mercy of the God who stoops. He stoops low to the hungry, the humble, those who fear God. How can we know this mercy? The wrong answer is this: be a Mary. Or be humble. Or be hungry. Or fear God. This song is not about what we do or are. It is about who God is and what He has done. Mary is not a role model here to strive to emulate. Mary is not a role model –she is a realist. We are not to look up to her, put her on a pedestal. Rather, we are to realise she stands right here with us. Because before this Holy and Merciful God, we don't need to become hungry, or become humble. We are of humble state – nothing, insignificant, even sinful. We have no status or anything before God. We are hungry – hungry for mercy, hungry for Him to stoop to us – whether we realise it or not. That's why Jesus put a table in our churches. Whenever we gather around it He testifies to our hunger and His ability to fill us with good things. And we fear God. Oh, we may suppress that truth. But we are all totally dependent on Him every second. His word decides our fate every moment of our lives. One glimpse of His majesty would break us. Mary is not the super spiritual one over there we try to emulate. No, she stands among us, singing. She sings of our true state, that we might recognise it. Her song calls us to sees things as they really are. We are hungry, of humble state, God is to be feared. But supremely she sings of sweet mercy. Of the sweet mercy that stoops low to lift us. Of the sweet mercy that invites us to His table to fill us. Of the sweet mercy that never fails those who fear Him. Of the sweet mercy that was born among us and died for us.

"What's hell like and who's going there?"

2008-12-13T19:01:00.003Z

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."

A British Obama?

2008-11-22T21:07:00.002Z

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.

What is the BBC playing at (2)?

2008-10-28T19:44:00.002Z

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 is the BBC playing at (1)?

2008-10-28T19:26:00.003Z

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).

Our Two Intercessors

2008-09-27T16:59:00.002+01:00

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!

Groaning in Romans 8

2008-09-24T12:01:00.004+01:00

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.

Islamism, Secularism, Persecution or Stupidity.

2008-09-21T17:16:00.002+01:00

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.

He is the best of Tory and the worst of Tory

2008-09-21T17:08:00.002+01:00

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.

Late Capitalism and Late Democracy

2008-09-16T19:04:00.003+01:00

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.

Learning style and conservative Evangelicalism

2008-09-13T20:33:00.002+01:00

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.

Why Pietism offers little hope

2008-08-29T21:48:00.002+01:00

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.

On Russian Imperialism

2008-08-29T21:26:00.002+01:00

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?

Rights and Responsibilities

2008-07-05T15:24:00.003+01:00

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.

Prince of Egypt

2008-07-02T19:37:00.002+01:00

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!

Cynical spinning

2008-06-15T22:02:00.003+01:00

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.

Romans 2:1-16

2008-06-15T21:50:00.003+01:00

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 21^st 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.

Dear Mr Cameron

2008-06-12T19:11:00.003+01:00

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

Enough said

2008-06-08T20:19:00.003+01:00

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.

Why religious tolerance comes first

2008-06-07T17:14:00.002+01:00

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".

The Early Music Show

2008-06-07T16:51:00.005+01:00

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.

Music matters

2008-06-07T16:27:00.002+01:00

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.

At my most amateurish

2008-05-29T14:45:00.005+01:00

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.

Romans 5

2008-05-29T14:30:00.002+01:00

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.

Progress?

2008-05-20T18:09:00.003+01:00

"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.

So, you don't like long readings?

2008-05-13T17:28:00.002+01:00

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.

Getting it wrong on the White Horse Inn

2008-05-04T22:37:00.003+01:00

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.

Quiet times in Psalm 119

2008-05-04T19:23:00.003+01:00

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.

Abraham believed what?

2008-05-04T19:07:00.003+01:00

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.

Dumbing Down

2008-04-30T19:05:00.002+01:00

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?"

Tears and the Truth

2008-04-29T19:15:00.003+01:00

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!

Romans, Preaching, and, er, Facebook?

2008-04-18T10:28:00.003+01:00

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?

Sansom, "Revelation"

2008-04-10T18:08:00.002+01:00

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).

Truly Unexpected Largely Intuited Poetry (TULIP)

2008-04-10T18:03:00.002+01:00

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

Geddit?

Freedom of Speech

2008-04-07T17:04:00.002+01:00

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?

J. Gresham Machen

2008-04-04T20:42:00.004+01:00

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?

2008-04-04T20:36:00.003+01:00

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?

London Mens' Convention

2008-03-31T21:55:00.003+01:00

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.

No guts before glory?

2008-03-23T21:59:00.002Z

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?

The end of capitalism?

2008-03-19T10:32:00.003Z

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.

So, what is a sacrament after all?

2008-03-16T17:15:00.002Z

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.

The roots of Heresy

2008-03-09T17:47:00.004Z

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

Cessationism and Baptism

2008-03-03T19:50:00.003Z

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?

Reasons for blogging

2008-03-01T10:57:00.002Z

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

2008-03-01T10:52:00.003Z

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?

Those disciples again

2008-02-24T19:16:00.002Z

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

2008-02-24T18:44:00.002Z

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.

Moses and Elijah

2008-02-20T12:29:00.002Z

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?

Peter gets a lecture

2008-02-20T11:59:00.002Z

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).

The Bad Guys in Mark's Gospel ...

2008-02-19T22:08:00.003Z

... 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.

Exegeting Mark 9:14-10:51 - a journey

2008-02-17T19:16:00.003Z

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:

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!

Little Greek Words and Long Roads into the OT

2008-02-12T18:20:00.000Z

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?

Comments

2008-02-11T20:14:00.000Z

I've made it possible for more people to comment on the blog. Please do say if you find anything useful, or if you'd like to offer stimulus for further reflection.

Ontological, Moral or Forensic?

2008-02-10T12:52:00.000Z

Last week I led children's work on Mark 7 (see previous post) and in the light of vv21-23 described the human heart as a "mudspring" - for out of it flows all that makes us unclean. Any solution we could dream up would only keep it clean for a second or two, as we're always creating new mud/sin.
Our minister has four children, of whom three were in that class, and the message got through. So in today's family service, he picked up on the language to present Jesus as the one who makes us clean from Mark 7:24-end.
It got me thinking about a category mistake.
What is sin? And what is uncleanness?
Sin is something we not merely do - it has to do with what we are. Sin flows out of our hearts and it is fundamental to understanding our place in the universe. As something that flows out of our hearts, it has ontological value - it has to do with the ousia anthropou, the being of man. But as fundamental to our place in the universe, a place defined by our status vis-a-vis God, it has moral and forensic value, being essentially about our standing before a holy God and our guilt before a judging God. Sin is therefore a complex category.
Unclean is not. Therein lies my category mistake.
I foolishly so equated mud with sin that I gave the impression that God is essentially someone who can't stand hoovering so doesn't let any dirt in the house. Which is understandable - I sometimes do have attacks of "I must get this place clean". But unclean is not like that. It is a status declared by the priest over persons, food, buildings and other items as representative of a holy and judging God.
So we don't need a good scrub. We need a change of status. We don't need washing through, as ultimately Catholic theology implies. We need a change of status, as Luther and Calvin taught. We need someone to cause our status to be holy, done in the Old Testament by sacrifice; we need someone to give us a right standing before God, a work that can only be done by a good defence lawyer and someone to pay the fine. Now read 1 John 1:5-2:2.

My Heart's One Desire is to be ... ?

2008-02-02T21:01:00.000Z

Are we good or are we bad? What's the state of the human heart? I'm fed up with Christians suggesting goodness of heart, that "God will look on our hearts" as if that were a good thing.

I put this together whilst preparing children's work on Mark 7:1-23.

In summary, there are 16 mentions of the heart in the ESV, of which 14 reflect a use of the Greek kardia. Of those 14, three set the high standard of heart-faith or heart-love Jesus expects, and all the rest are negative comments on the state of the human heart (although one of these 11 negative comments comes in the probably non-Markan conclusion). The heart is a well of sinfulness (Mark 7) and hardened against the Gospel (most mentions in Mark).

Here are all the mentions:

(Mar 2:6)
Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts,
(Mar 2:8)
And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, "Why do you question these things in your hearts?

A practical example of hardness of heart.

(Mar 3:5)
And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.

Another practical example of the hardness of human heart.

(Mar 6:50)
for they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, "Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid."

A positive encouragement, but the word "heart" does not appear here in the Greek.

(Mar 6:52)
for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

Another practical example, and again, hardness.

(Mar 7:6)
And he said to them, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, "'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;

Jesus is expositing Scripture, but applies this text as a description of the reality of the Pharisaic heart.

(Mar 7:19)
since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?" (Thus he declared all foods clean.)
(Mar 7:21)
For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,

Jesus explains the condition of the human heart. It is not affected by such externals as food. No rather evil wells up inside it.

(Mar 8:17)
And Jesus, aware of this, said to them, "Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened?

Jesus asks concerning the state of the disciples' hearts, saying that they seem to be hardened.

(Mar 10:5)
And Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment.

Jesus describes the state of Pharisaic hearts, yet also the hearts of all those for whom Moses wrote the law in question in Mark 10: hard.

(Mar 10:49)
And Jesus stopped and said, "Call him." And they called the blind man, saying to him, "Take heart. Get up; he is calling you."

Although the ESV uses the word "heart", it does not appear in the Greek.

(Mar 11:23)
Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.

Jesus challenges us to heartfelt faith: this verse does not describe a person present in the discussion, except possibly by implication Himself, rather it sets a standard.

(Mar 12:30)
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'
(Mar 12:33)
And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices."

These two verses belong together in the same conversation, and indicate the high standard Jesus sets.

(Mar 16:14)
Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen.

Even if we do not regard these verses as part of the original Gospel of Mark, they show what its first readers thought would be an appropriate ending to what they thought an incomplete Gospel: a rebuke to the hardness of the hearts of the disciples. After all, it is a repeated theme.

Not bothering with the best

2008-01-30T22:04:00.000Z

If under the Christmas tree were a huge present with your name on it, you wouldn't leave it under the tree. Would you? Yet the Christian church does that. There's a present marked "Gospel" left unopened and uninvestigated.
I see it everywhere. Here's a few examples:
I was discussing Christian work with a minister and saying I felt we needed to teach people grace until they got it. He said that many people in churches don't, so we shouldn't get hung up on teaching grace and teach other things too.
Bible studies on Mark I've been to focusing life applications rather than on "trust this Jesus."
Christians who see Christ as a role model offering solutions and who get upset when I talk of Him as a Saviour and not a solution.
The majority of children I teach are Arians (don't believe that Jesus is God) and Pelagians (we get ourselves to heaven with good works) and yet they call themselves Christians. But they have a Jesus incapable of saving, because He is not God, and they don't think they need it, because they think they can save themselves.
Lord, have mercy on us, for though You are gracious, we won't have it. Be overwhelmingly gracious and bring even sinners like us, who spurn Your mercies, into Your Kingdom.

Children of Adam

2008-01-26T16:40:00.001Z

Modern poetry doesn't have to rhyme or anything, as far as I can see. So when my metre, lack of rhythm and general amateurishness, from which I cannot be redeemed, get in the way of my poetic instinct, I don't care. This is my attempt to write as many verses as Paul Gerhardt, from 2005.

Children of Adam

We are born children of Adam

All enslaved into sin

Condemned to die a lonely death

Without a hope of heaven.

We brought this fate upon ourselves

By turning our backs on God

We wanted to run things our way

We rebelled against the Lord.

He was born as the Son of God

Born without sin

But He died for us our lonely death

To get us into heaven.

He took our fate upon Himself

Submitting perfectly to God

“Not my will but Yours” He said

He called His Father Lord.

He died abandoned by God

For us He was made sin

That we might be righteousness

Fitted for heaven

He died our death for us

That in Him we might live

And the One who gave His Son for us

His Spirit too will give.

Born again as sons through Jesus

Freed from slavery to sin

We may all lead new lives

Shaped by the ways of heaven.

God gave this future to us

To show the fullness of His grace

Because His love is limitless

To win our eternal praise.

Consider Christ who died for you

Have you ever seen such love?

Friend, will this not move your heart

To seek the King above.

Throw off all the sin that stops you

Turn to Him with all your soul.

You lose nothing however much you lose

For He can make you whole.

When we're sons of God in heaven

Bright shining as the sun

Will we remember any price we paid

To make it to our home?

We'll rejoice in God our Saviour

Delight in Christ our Friend

Sing in the fullness of the Spirit:

“Here is love without end”

Sing in the fullness of the Spirit:

“Here is love without end”

"...YHWH being merciful to him ..."

2008-01-26T16:19:00.000Z

A few thoughts on Genesis 18:16-19:38 have been on my mind since I started writing this blog: in fact, finding a place to publish them is one reason I started. The passage concerns Sodom and Gomorrah, and in all the fuss about what all the sin of Sodom was and all the postmodern reaction to fire and brimstone (19:24), I guess others have like me missed that the passage is, like all of the story of Abraham, about the God who saves.
It kicks off with Abraham's intercession. God's chosen one has special access to God, that he might intercede for others and their salvation: Abraham is here a type of Christ - he shows us the work of Christ foreshadowed.
In Abraham's intercession, he prays on the basis that the righteousness of some is not just sufficient to find some way of getting them out of the city, but is sufficient grounds to save the whole city: again we see Christ foreshadowed, who, by virtue of His righteousness delivers the entire church of all ages - the righteousness of One delivering a great people, not of ten delivering a city.
Then there's the escape of Lot. Notice how he's dragged out of the city? C S Lewis recounts similarly being dragged into salvation by God. Free will? Praise God - He loves us too much.
God's mercy to Lot is again quite dramatic: it extends to delivering the town of Zoar too. So committed is God to saving Lot that His deliverance is extended to others - that's what I call a wideness in God's mercy.
Finally, the story ends with the strange story of Lot becoming the father of his daughters' sons. We assume the sin of Sodom is that of homosexuality, first called a sin in Leviticus 18:22. Lot and his daughters commit sins listed in Leviticus 18:5-17, the same chapter but, by virtue of their positioning in the chapter, worse sins. If the traditional assumption is right, then the final story speaks a powerful message to all, but particularly those who single out sexual sins as particularly bad: our God saves sinners, even the ones we consider the worst (cf 1 Timothy 1:15).

Why the blog?

2008-01-21T19:07:00.001Z

Someone told me via Facebook my posts were a little long, and my wife agreed. I guess there's truth in that, but I'm not just logging my life. I'm publishing material I hope friends and, Deo volente, others will find encouraging.
So: there's an explanation and then the material. Skip the bits that don't interest you. But if you do benefit, do say.
That was short!

The Magnificat

2008-01-18T19:23:00.001Z

Three posts on day one! Well, there is some material I've pondered on making public for a while, and since my wife has blogged for a few days, I've decided to use this method to publish it. I'll slow down once I've emptied the back catalogue, but until then, hang on to your hat, my friend!

The books that matter most to you are the ones you read at the right time. I read Luther's Magnificat at the right time, in Summer 2005. My close friends will know the events of the time; suffice it in public to say that people with a certain authority were making judgements about me I felt unfair and quite unkind. Luther was my comfort. I read and reflected on the Magnificat (Mary's Song in Luke 1 for the uninitiated) quite a bit. Here's the short sermon and the song that came out of those reflections. I'll put the song first, as I think it's the more important, more profound and more personal reflection. The sermon is short and pitched evangelistically.

A song meditating on Luther's use of the word “Nichtigkeit” in his Magnificat.

When my future plans all seem to stall,

I thought I could run but I stumble and fall.

When my best efforts prove nothing at all,

My progress in life slows to a crawl,

Teach me, O Lord, Mary's song:

Magnify, O my soul, | glorify the Lord!

My spirit, rejoice! | in God my Saviour!

He has been mindful | of His lowly servant,

Holy is His Name!

His mercy extends| to all who fear Him!

His arm has performed | mighty deeds!

He's humbled the rich, | lifted up the humble!

Israel's Faithful One!

When my heart is full, overwhelmed with self-doubt,

When my life's going nowhere and there's no way out,

Afraid of the future, regretting the past,

When the progress I make never seems to last,

Teach me, O Lord, Mary's song:

Magnify, O my soul, | glorify the Lord! ...

In weakness,

In poverty,

In meekness,

And humility,

You chose her,

Though she was nothing at all,

For you raise the humble and the proud, they fall.

Teach me, O Lord, Mary's song:

Magnify, O my soul, | glorify the Lord! ...

Not in our strength or in the things we take pride,

But with a thorn in the flesh and a spear in the side,

God does not use the great and the good,

But those who cling to Calvary's wood,

For they have learnt Mary's song:

Magnify, O my soul, | glorify the Lord! ...

The Magnificat – A Carol Service Sermon

I was twenty-three or twenty-four when I finally figured out Hark the Herald Angels Sing. I really struggled to grasp it beforehand. There's that line: veiled in flesh the Godhead see. I had lots of problems with that. What's a Godhead – does it look like a human head? Well, when I became a Christian in my late teens, I found out about the Trinity. That problem solved. But then there was the word “see” at the end. Surely we should sing, “veiled in flesh the Godhead sees”.Now it's got flesh, the Godhead can see, I thought. Finally, as I say, about four, five years ago, I figured it out. The word “see” is the writer's encouragement to us. He means “see God come in human flesh among us.” You see, the meaning of the carol had been lost on me all those years. I wonder the same is true for us when it comes to Luke 1 verses 46-55.

These famous verses have come to be known as the Magnificat. For hundreds of years, millions of people have used these words. I don't doubt there are people here who can recite these words in Latin, German and English not for reasons of Christian commitment but because they love choral music. But I wonder if the meaning has been lost on us. These words flowed from a heart full of praise. Mary had met with God, experienced God. And it moved her. I've three point to clarify the meaning of the Magnificat. The first is this:

Mary's own experience

That where her praise begins. She herself has met with God, and she cannot hold it in: My soul glorifies the Lord

And my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour

For He has been mindful of the humble state of His servant.

From now on all generations will call me blessed,

For the Mighty One has done great things for me -

Holy is His Name.

She cannot believe He's taken an interest in her. The reason comes in verse 48.

She speaks of the humble state of His servant. She was nothing. She was probably still a teenager. She lived in a village at the wrong end of the country, a total backwater. She wasn't the poorest of the poor – she was engaged to the carpenter. But she wasn't anything special either. We all know that Mary's husband was called Joseph. But who knew his surname – that he was Joe Ordinary? God has stepped into her very ordinary life. She has absolutely no sense of deserving that. The language in that sentence is drawn from Psalm 113. That psalm speaks of God looking down on the earth from beyond creation's heights. And who does He see? The poor and needy, those who are nothing in the world's eyes. Mary puts herself alongside them, at the bottom of the pile, nothing special. But for reasons that she cannot grasp, God saw her. For reasons hidden in the heart of God, He has done great things for her, calling her to Himself, to be His special servant. So she knows herself blessed – given happiness and benefits she did not earn. And she cries out that His Name is holy – that there is none like Him. Mary's experience is model Christian experience. To be a Christian involves having a similar experience. Firstly, there is the realisation of our humble state. A Christian has realised they deserve nothing from God, that they're at the bottom of the pile. Perhaps not socially or economically, but certainly spiritually. True faith begins with the sense of being spiritually bankrupt. We know we owe God so much, having lived in His world without a word of thanks, showing His good laws disrespect, and turning our backs on Him. Secondly, there is the overwhelming sense of God having seen us. What that means is a sense of God's mercy, that He is willing to take our part even though we rejected Him. He doesn't look away, but in mercy is concerned for us. Finally, there is a grasp of the mighty things He has done for us. Supremely, He has sent Jesus into this world. That's what we celebrate at Christmas. Jesus is the great thing that God has done for everyone. Because Jesus has shown us fully what God is like. And because Jesus has paid in full the debt spiritually bankrupt people owe to God. He paid the price of ingratitude, disrespect and outright rebellion towards God when He died on the cross. And a debt, once paid, cannot again be demanded. God, in His mercy, has sent His Son to pay my debt, so I may come back to Him.

My soul glorifies the Lord

And my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour

But there's a second thing Mary sings about.

The world's split experience.

Mary knows her experience is not unique. But she also knows it is not universal. In verses 50 to 53, we meet three paired groups. In each pair, there is a split experience of God. One group shares Mary's experience, the other doesn't.

His mercy extends to those who fear Him, from generation to generation.

He has performed mighty deeds with His arm; He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thought.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.

Did you spot the pairs? There were those who fear Him, and those proud in their inmost thoughts. There were those of humble estate, like Mary, and the rulers. There were those hungry, and the rich. Mercy, deliverance and satisfaction was for the one. For the other, scattering, bringing down and denial. Let's look at each pair in turn.

His mercy extends to those who fear Him, from generation to generation.

He has performed mighty deeds with His arm; He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thought.

What does it mean to fear God? Well, the opposite is pride in our inmost thoughts. To fear God is to put Him on the throne in our lives. Many today fear money. After all, money provides security today and a pension tomorrow. If you let financial concerns set your priorities, everything else will sort itself out. Jesus says Seek first God's kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. If we are proud in our inmost thoughts, we trust in our own ideas, schemes, and wisdom. Self-reliance, self-confidence and self-determination characterise us. A great Bible proverb says Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Those who look to Him in this spirit of fear – as we have seen, of trust, dependence, reliance, letting Him take first place in our lives – will find Him merciful. But those who go their own way will ultimately find themselves and their plans scattered.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble.

The rulers are those who would fix their own and others place in this world. Whether of national or merely household authority, they choose their own fate and that of others. But finally, our fate lies in God's hands. Those who try to choose their own fate will find their self-exaltation exposed. But the humble look to God. And He will exalt them – exalt them to a high place in His Son's Kingdom. If we are those determined to choose our place in the world, we'll lose it. But those who look to God to give them a place in the new world His Son is establishing will find that He grants them that place.

He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.

The rich are those who seek to provide for themselves. They look to their own wealth or business acumen find their fill. They seek to be independent of all, even God. And one day, He will enforce that independence and send them away empty. The hungry come to Him with their begging bowl, whether spiritual or physical. They are looking to His mercy alone, utterly dependent and reliant on Him, yet trusting Him to provide. He fills them. Do you see how actually each pair is very similar. There are those who humbly, trustingly, in dependence and reliance look to God. There are those who proudly look to themselves, exalt self, rely on what they have. The real issue is therefore, who is on the throne? Who is King in my life? Will I let God be my wisdom, let Him exalt or humble me, let Him satisify me? Or must I be in charge, with my own wisdom, my own power, my own riches? The world's experience of God will be a split one. For some it will be mercy and satisfaction – those who will have God as God. For others it will be scattering and emptiness – those who won't. But our final point is good news:

Israel's open experience

Mary finishes this way:

He has helped His servant Israel, remembering to be merciful

To Abraham and his descendants for ever

Even as He said to our fathers.

You see that word merciful again? Mary cannot get away from it. Like Mary's, Israel's experience is one of mercy. God's remembered to be merciful. That just means He's being Himself. He's being merciful. And it's working out in the experience of help. Psalm 103 verses 10-12 portray that mercy at work:

God does not treat us as our sins deserve

Or repay us according to our iniquities.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

So great is His love for those who fear Him.

As far as the east is from the west,

So far has He taken our sins from us.

These verses ultimately speak of Jesus' death. We are not repaid as our sins deserve. Jesus was. Sin is the inner pride and outward self-reliance that keeps people from God. It's that turning from God that means the world has a split experience of God. Jesus paid the price of that turning from God in His death. There He took our sins as far from us as they can be taken. The result: we may go free before God. That's the experience of God's people. That's the help He offers them. It's an experience of mercy. I called it an open experience. Why? The reason is somewhat hidden in the English, but very clear in Luke's own words. These final words tell us God helps Israel for the sake of Abraham and his children. Isn't Luke just repeating Himself? Aren't the people of Israel the people descended from Abraham? Well, yes. But also no. The Old Testament again and again looks forward to a day when Abraham's children will be a larger group than just Israel. There will be people who are children of Abraham by faith. That could be anyone. Anyone who trusts in God's promises. Anyone who like Mary will accept their lowliness, who like Israel will receive God's help, who will turn to Jesus. The experience of God's mercy is an open one. It is open to anyone. Mary was so taken by it she sang this song. I wonder where this mercy finds us?

What's the point of preaching?

2008-01-18T17:44:00.000Z

Crumbs - only his second post and the Amateur is off on one!
But the Amateur claims a certain expertise, even if only within the well-defined limits of amateurism as defined in the header of this blog.
God be praised for the work of the gentlemen at the White Horse Inn and Modern Reformation! I can't say I have grasped all that I have learnt from them, but I listen with care and know I agree. That's unsurprising, as I am a British evangelical: in the tradition of Stott, Packer and Lucas, three Englishmen well received on their programme.
Essentially, I think preaching is about three things:
Glorifying Christ
Applying redemption to sinners
Pointing to the Lord's Table.
That spells GAP, which proves what a preacher I must be, because I did that by accident!
I recently had the great joy of preaching on Micah 4. It was a communion Sunday, and I think you'll see how I worked towards my three aims: it's at the end of this post.
So where's the Christian life in all that?
Friends: isn't the law written by nature on all our hearts? Isn't that conscience? Come on, we all know non-Christians more godly in their behaviour than ourselves. Being a Christian isn't about being superior in our behaviour; being a Christian is about realising that for all our apparent show of goodness, we are sinners in need of a Saviour. All week long, our consciences, which, as Christians, are being remade, preach the law at us, and doesn't Satan megaphone it at us, to condemn us? I want the Gospel, Sunday after Sunday after Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. I want the Sacrament of Christ's Passion, receiving the blessings of His death and resurrection Sunday after Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. I want to know just how glorious a Saviour He is Sunday after Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. That's what'll energise me to keep going during the week and to bring my life into line with Scripture.

Here's Micah 4:

Advent 1: All Nations Will Come

Introduction

What do you want for Christmas? Even as adults, we have wishes. I'd quite like some time to go running and to read. But there are bigger things. The angels sing, “peace on earth”, and we want it. Because in Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, Congo, Pakistan, Burma there is no peace. Or perhaps we are less ambitious. We just want peace in our neighbourhood. Perhaps we just want the family back together. In Bible language, what we want is the Ten Commandments lived out. We want an end to the killing and the stealing. We want marriage upheld and parents honoured. We want the ideal world established that would exist if all obeyed God's commands. That's what our passage is all about. It's about peace and the renewal of the world according to God's commands. To see how,we need to understand a big Bible theme. It's about:

Two Mountains

Two passages in the New Testament explore the theme of two mountains. We had Hebrews 12 verses 18-25 read. The other is Galatians 4:21-31. Both speak of two mountains: Sinai and Zion. Both Hebrews and Galatians contrast these two mountains. I've summarised the contrast on the OHT. Sinai is on the left. We meet Sinai in the book of Exodus. After rescuing His people from slavery in Egypt, God brings them to Sinai. It's at Sinai that God declares the Ten Commandments. It is the mountain of God's Law. At Sinai, staying God's people depends on conditions. On the right is Zion. Zion is quite different. Three stories help us understand Zion. One is Genesis 22, the story of the sacrifice of Isaac. God tests Abraham's faith and tells him to offer Isaac, his only son, in sacrifice. It's a doubly strange request. Firstly, God is against human sacrifice. But secondly, God had promised that through Isaac Abraham would have a great family. Now God calls Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. How can dead Isaac have a family? Once on the mountain, God stops Abraham. He points out a ram and Abraham offers the ram in Isaac's place. So Genesis 22 verse 14 says:

So Abraham called that place YHWH will provide. And to this day it is said, “on the mountain of YHWH it will be provided.”

On His Mount Zion, God will provide a sacrifice to save the children of Abraham. The second story is in 2 Samuel 5. There David conquers Zion and makes it his royal city: the City of David. So Mount Zion is also the mountain of the King. It's the place where God's chosen One rules, who delivers God's people from their enemies. The last story is 1 Kings 8. In 1 Kings 8 the temple is built on Mount Zion, the temple that stands for God's willingness to dwell among His people. When he inaugurates the temple, Solomon asks God to hear prayer to Him in Zion and forgive anyone who prays to Him there. So Mount Zion is the place of God's presence and His willingness to forgive. So Zion is quite different to Sinai. Sinai is a place of God's Law, of His demands on His people. Zion is a place of deliverance and grace. It is a place of God saving His people by sacrifice and by the rule of a King. It is where God is willing to dwell in the midst of His people.

The big question in the Old Testament is: which one is superior. If Sinai is superior, then if God's Law is broken He'll judge them and send them packing into exile out of the land. But if Zion is superior, then what God does for His people is unconditional: even though they sin, He'll save them. So what does Micah have to say about this? At the end of Micah 3 it's looking pretty bad. It looks like Sinai is superior. Micah says of himself in Micah 3 verse 8:

I am filled with power, with the Spirit of YHWH, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression, to Israel his sin.

And he does. He proclaims their sin to them and speaks of coming judgement. He applies the standards of Sinai and warns of the coming wrath of God. So what will become of the promises, of grace, of Zion and all that it means? Micah 3 verse 12.

Because of you, Zion will be ploughed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets.

In Micah 3, Sinai trumps Zion. So God's grace, God's deliverance, God's King, God's presence, are gone. Judgement wipes out God's people and every vestige of hope. That's why it's absolutely vital to understand our reading, Micah 4:1-8.

The triumph of Zion over Sinai, of Grace over Law

Micah chapter 3 ends with Zion wiped out. Israel is judged by the standards of God's Law and is found wanting. So even the City of the King, the Presence of God with His people and the guarantee of the preservation of Abraham's children is laid low in Micah 3:12. But in Micah 4 verse 1 we find hope.

In the last days the mountain of YHWH's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised up above the hills, and many peoples will stream to it.

Here we see the restoration of God's dwelling with His people. Zion is no longer a ploughed field, as in chapter 3 verse 12. Zion is the mountain of YHWH's temple, and even more glorious than ever before, as the nations recognise the supremacy of YHWH. This restoration happens in the last days. That's the way the prophets talk about the final period in history, in which God mightily and finally saves His people.

Micah was simply saying this. In that moment in Israel's history, Sinai trumped Zion and judgement came over God's people. But ultimately God's promises and grace cannot be destroyed. Zion triumphs over Sinai. Grace triumphs over Law. The New Testament says that what Micah saw as a distant future is our present. We live in the last days. So what happens when Zion trumps Sinai, when grace triumphs over law, when God acts without taking account of our law-breaking?

Four wonderful points:

God is present with His people

Micah 4:1 again:

In the last days the mountain of YHWH's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised up above the hills, and many peoples will stream to it.

And Micah 4:7, second half.

YHWH will rule over them in Mount Zion from that day and for ever.

God is with His people, dwelling in their midst. He is their Ruler and will be so for ever. Those last six words of verse 7 are crucial. From that day and for ever. How can He say that? Won't they sin again, forcing Him to judge them again? Well they might sin. But Zion has trumped Sinai. This age is the age of Grace. God doesn't take account of sin any more. So He can say He will be with His people from that day and for ever. Their sin will not bring God's judgement on God's people.

God's King reigns

Micah 4 verse 8:

As for you, O watchtower of the flock, O stronghold of the Daughter of Zion, the former dominion will be restored to you; kingship will come to the daughter of Jerusalem.

Dominion belonged to the house of David. Kingship in Jerusalem was David's kingship. That means this verse is addressed to the line of David. It tells us that once again there will be a king in the line of David. Note how the line of David is described. It is the watchtower of the flock. The king is appointed to watch over the people and guard them. When danger comes, the king is to see it far off and ride out to meet it. Secondly, the line of David is the stronghold of the Daughter of Zion. The king is the safe place. If you want to be safe, run to the king. God's king in the line of David is Jesus. And the Bible teaches that He did see our danger and ride out to meet it. He saw that our biggest danger is from Sinai and its law. The law can only condemn us and bring judgement upon us. But Jesus came and bore our punishment for us on the cross. The Bible also teaches that Jesus is a safe place. When the day of judgement comes, those who are found with Jesus will be safe. He will declare that He has already taken their punishment and they will be safe from the wrath of God against sin. That's how great a King Jesus is. Remember what we heard in our Gospel reading.

For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Moses brought the law of Sinai. Jesus is greater, for He has brought us the blessings of Zion, of grace and of the full truth about how great and how good our God is. That's all great news. But we mustn't stop there. Micah has more.

God's people are transformed

Some people will say, “why do you always preach about the Cross? “Why is God's grace always at the heart of your messages? “Christians are to obey, you know.”

True. But obedience itself flows not from the mountain of law but from the mountain of grace. Look at the end of verse 2.

The law will go out from Zion, the word of YHWH from Jerusalem.

Once the law went out from Sinai. It came with darkness, gloom and storm, a sight so terrifying that even Moses said, “I am trembling with fear”, as we heard in the epistle from Hebrews 12. And it was not obeyed. Even the Israelites turned from that law: and that before they'd even left the foot of the mountain. As we'll see under our next point, when it goes out from Zion, the Law wins the world. When the law goes out from Zion, from the place of God's grace, then God's people can speak verse 5:

All the nations may walk in the name of their gods; we will walk in the name of YHWH our God for ever and ever.

How come? They didn't manage it before. The answer is a work of God, verses 6 and 7.

I will gather the lame; I will assemble the exiles and those I have brought to grief. I will make the lame a remnant, those driven away a strong nation.

God gathers the lame. He makes the lame His remnant. How can the spiritually lame walk in the name of YHWH? He heals them. Friends, when God's people obey God's law, when they delight in it and not only delight in it but do it, that's not their own doing. Read Romans 7 and 8. By nature we are such spiritual cripples that we cannot walk in God's ways. But God makes the spiritually lame to walk in His name. From the mountain of grace comes a work of God that heals us and enables us to obey. It is by the grace that flows from Zion that the law from Sinai is upheld.

God's world is won

What a wonderful picture of the age of God's work we have seen. God dwelling in the midst of His people. God's King on the throne. God transforming His people so that they can walk in His ways. God, God, God. It's a picture of God at work in accordance with His grace. It's God establishing Zion as the place of His presence under the saving rule of His King to ensure the preservation of His people. When the world sees that, they stand up and take notice, verse 2:

Many nations will come and say, “come, let us go up to the mountain of YHWH, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways, so that we may walk in His paths.”

It is when grace – the mountain of YHWH's temple, verse 1 – is exalted that people notice God. All the religions have laws, and many are very sensible laws, even Biblical. But grace exalts the God of Jacob and makes Him attractive to the nations. Then they will want to come under His rule, even obey His laws, because they've seen His grace. It's when the law goes out from Zion, the place of grace, that the world is transformed. As people submit to the judgements of God, they don't fight for their own rights any more, and warfare ceases. Then the nations come to the gracious God of Jacob, peace comes to the world. That has a simple application. If we want world peace, we must support world mission. If we want world peace, we must support the proclamation of the distinctive saving work of God in Jesus Christ. Forgetting our differences in multi-faith forums won't bring peace. All we have in common with the other religions is our laws – and the way of law only brings judgement, because the law exposes sin. It is the message of God's grace in Jesus Christ that will bring the nations to God and peace to the world.

Let's conclude. I've one key question for everyone today.

Where do you stand?

Which mountain is each one of us standing on? Two questions will show our answers.

Obedience

Why do we obey God? If our answer is to seek His favour, we're standing on Sinai. We are seeking blessing from a God who establishes conditions. If our answer is that we're worried we might lose His favour, we standing on Sinai. If that's you, I plead with you, come to Zion. Seek the grace of God. God dwells with His people now in the person of Jesus, who is the King who has ridden out to rescue us from God's wrath and who makes us safe. On Zion, as the writer to the Hebrews put it in our epistle, there is a sprinkled blood that speaks a better word, namely that your sins have been paid for. There is no need to fear losing God's favour here.

Communion

Why do we come to the Lord's table today? If we come thinking we especially please God by coming, we're trusting in our own actions. We're on Sinai. If we come to secure our salvation or to make sure of our place in heaven, we're standing on Sinai, hoping our actions will save us. But we approach this table not trusting in our own righteousness, but in God's manifold mercies. We trust that it is Christ's table, at which we commemorate and celebrate all that He has done for us. This table is spread for us on Zion. It is covered with the blessings of God. God is present here to bless us. God speaks here of His King, and how His King died to save us. Here God declares that on His mountain He has provided for us, who share the faith of Abraham, the faith in God that God will preserve His people. He has provided His Son to die for us. And by these tokens He would remind us once again of all He has done for us, and He would have us by faith receive it all not because of anything we have done but purely because He is gracious.

Where do you stand? Sinai or Zion? Law or Grace? God's demands or God's generosity? Come, let us come up to the table of the Lord and receive all He has done for us.

Who would be Job?

2008-01-18T17:24:00.000Z

I don't know what you make of "'Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott", Luther's glorious rewriting of the 46th Psalm. I confess every word of it with my lips, but it does raise the question, "who would be Job?" I wouldn't. Check out the last verse (in English, I'm afraid, as this is an English blog):

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

Absolutely spot on, Martin. And he and others in the brutal days of the Reformation and on into the conflicts that culminated in the the 30 Years War had to believe it. They did, in many cases, lose much, and had to trust that so long as the Heavenly City is open, so they had every blessing.

But I feel differently. I am a materialistic European at the beginning of the 21st century coming to terms withe the realities of trusting Christ. Having recently read Job 1-2 in my devotional time one morning, I penned these words:

Where shall I find the faith of Job,
Faith in the fire of trouble and distress?
Faith that stands under Satan's worst,
Faith that passes the hardest test?

Though he was fully in Satan's hand,
Lost all his goods and all he had,
Though sons and daughters perished also,
Still of God he said nothing bad.

I have a wife, a son, a home,
Food as I need and clothes to wear.
Yet take from me but the least of this,
And I know not how I would fare.

I would not stand, I have not the strength
To suffer loss as great as Job did then.
But You are God, Your Spirit mighty,
Out of faith's babes You make faith's men.

So grant to me eyes fixed on Christ's Cross,
For my High Priest has suffered too.
When I can't go on, my soul has failed,
By Your Spirit let me cry to You.