Do they really believe in climate change?

Climate change. The new orthodoxy. Fail to believe and you're damned as a heretic - not yet burned at the stake (using sustainable energy!), but certainly the modern equivalent: the BBC will ensure that you're ridiculed and the PM will publicly condemn you as a 'flat earther.'

So fervent are these believers in climate change that 15000 of them went to Copenhagen to forge a legally binding treaty which would limit global warming to 2 degrees.

And they believed their message so wholeheartetdly that 120 of the 193 countries went home before an agreement could be reached. And then 5 countries agreed a statement that, "deep cuts in emissions are required". So, that'll sort it out then, won't it?! They can all get back on their planes and fly home...

If we Christians really believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and Saviour, that his glory matters above all else, that salvation is found in no-one else, that those who reject him are heading for 'weeping and gnashing of teeth', then what will we do about it?

Try not to kick the cat? Join the church cleaning rota? Be nice to the man who parks across the drive in the hope that he'll ask about the 'reason for the hope that is in you?' Give £5 to the missionary gift day appeal?

Surely if we really believe that Jesus is Lord and Saviour, we will be giving all we can - time, money, skills, energy. We need Christians who will put the Climate Change believers to shame and put their money where their mouth is!


(PS I'm actually a climate change agnostic: I'm not sure if it's caused by man or a natural cycle.)

The God Confusion

If you've not yet heard about the joint convention in London on March 13, get it in your diary now!!

The day, entitled, 'The God Confusion' is for men & women to hear clear, accessible & passionate explanations of the gospel. So start thinking & praying about who you can invite.

For more info: http://www.christianconventions.org.uk/lmc/index.php

(Originally, the plan was to have one session for men, one for women and some children's work. But by popular demand this has been changed, and the whole day will be for men & women together, with no children's work).

Persuading men, pleasing God

Am I now persuading people or God? Or am I trying to please people? If I was still trying to please people I would not be a slave of Christ. (Galatians 1:10)

The task of the Christian is to persuade people and please God, not to persuade God and please people.

But this leads to some difficult moral predicaments. For Paul, it meant not insisting on circumcision and yet asking Timothy to be circumcised. He wouldn't insist on it because it wasn't needed to be right with God - he is the God of gace, not of religious works. And yet, because Timothy was working with Paul amongst Jews (Acts 16), it was better for him to be circumcised - not to please people, but to gain a hearing for the gospel and so persuade them about Christ.

But this meant Paul was open to the accusation of inconsistency. He was furious with the Galatians for forcing Christian men & boys to be circumcised. But at the same time, he himself asked Timothy to be circumcised. Isn't he being hypocritical?  No, because the Galatians were insisting on circumcision as a means to persuade God to be pleased with them., Paul was requesting it in order to persuade people.

We too face difficult decisions which may lay us open to accusations of hypocrisy. But the principle is clear - do what you need to do to gain a hearing for the gospel and persuad people about Jesus. But always and only do what pleases God. We're slaves of Christ and not of people.

Envy

I often start Sunday mornings with a Psalm, and this week it was 73.

Asaph, the author, begins, 'Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.' But then he realises that he's just had a close shave, 'But as for me, my feet had almost slipped... for I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.'

And he goes on to list the ways in which life is easy for the rich - they don't have struggles, they have health & strength. They're free from the burdens of others. They don't worry about what God thinks of them - they're carefree and their wealth just goes on increasing. Asaph wonders if he hasn't kept himself pure for nothing, foregoing the pleasure of wealth for no gain.

But then he entered 'the sanctuary of God'. Then he, 'understood their final destiny'. In God's presence (in the OT, the sanctuary was where you came near to God), his perspective changed. 'Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. How suddenly they are destroyed, completely swept away by terrors!' The rich are but 'fantasies' (dreams which disappear without trace). The rich cannot prolong life nor escape death and judgement.

But, realises Asaph, 'I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel and afterwards take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven besides you?'

When you're tempted to envy the rich - when they drive past in the Aston Martin DB9, when you see them arriving at the Neville Golf Club, when you can't afford to shop in Fenwicks or Hoopers - when you're tempted to envy, tell yourself, 'I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.'

What are you hoping for?

When we think of the new heavens and the new earth, we tend to think of Revelation 21 - no more tears, death, mourning, crying or pain. Or we might think of the banquet of Matt 22 - they're great things to be looking forward to, but Paul has an interesting take on this in Galatians 5:5:

By faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope.

Are you eagerly awaiting and hoping for righteousness?! That is, pure justice, unsullied goodness, absolute truth, unquestionable integrity and so on. All these things in you and me and everyone else.
And when we put it like that, of course we're all eagerly awaiting these things! And when we live by faith and in the Spirit, we begin to experience these things now - it's as if they come into the present from the future.


PS Do you like the photo?! (Thanks Caz!)

Experiencing the Spirit as conflict

If you were at the Bible study last night, this will be old news to you, but I'm still mulling over the fact that, in Galatians 5, Paul shows that the normal experience of the Holy Spirit is one of conflict.

This is so unlike the experience that is peddled by so many preachers and authors today. They talk of power, tears of joy, overwhelming sense of the love of God, speaking in tongues and so on. Now these things may happen to some people, but Galatians 5 tells us what all of us who are filled with the Spirit experience:

 ¹⁶So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. ¹⁷For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.

It's similar to Romans 7 - the idea that deep down we want to live God's way, but regularly fail. But this is the experience of the Holy Spirit - desiring to please God, to live to honour Christ is to live in step with the Spirit.

So if you struggle with sin, and desire to please Jesus, be encouraged! It's a sure sign that God is at work in you by his Spirit.

Nothing on tv again?

I'm 47 (just). I'm a grumpy old man. And few things make me grumpier than the rubbish served up on tv. There are three things worth watching: sport (by which I mean rugby, cricket & golf), serious documentaries and the news (once a day). But whenever I do sit down in front of the box, decent sport is rarer than a panda in the bamboo in the Vicarage garden.

But now there's Clayton TV . Here you can watch Phillip Jensen speaking from Sydney Cathedral, or a talk by Don Carson at New Word Alive, or one of the Keswick Convention speakers. You can see discussions (in the 'Chat Room') on multiculturalism, cloning, art & censorship, and many other topics. There are Sunday services from Jesmond Parish Church (much better than Songs of Praise).
So have a look at Clayton TV.

Stating the obvious

Aren't scientists clever? Take, for example, these two quotes from the Daily Telegraph today:

Dr Neville Owen of the University of Queensland suggests people should simply pay more attention to sitting less. Most of us apparently spend more than half our waking hours on what he describes as "sedentary activities". And the longer people sit, the more likely they are to become overweight, irrespective of the amount of food consumed. [Italics mine].

And all this time, I thought sitting still would help me get thin!

Or,

Some children are just born with ODD - Oppositional Defiance Disorder - a pattern of negative and hostile behaviour that is impervious to the strictest disciplinary sanctions.

Well of course children are born with 'Oppositional Defiance Disorder' - it's proper name is 'original sin'!

Stained glass

Have you ever looked at the stained glass window and reredos (painted panel behind the Communion Table) at St Peter's? If so, have you spotted the common theme?

The verse in the middle of the window is john 11:25f

I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?

The two repeated images in the window are grapes and wheat. On the right hand side of the reredos are the words, 'I am the true vine', and on the left, 'I am the bread of life'. So the words explain the pictures, and are linked by the theme of life (if you don't remain in the vine, you wither - John 15).

Then, either side of the words from John 11 is a tree. On the left, the fruit is ripe. On the right it's not. Is this the tree of life that stands either side of the river in Revelation 22 (cf Ezek 47:8-9, 12).

So there at the front of church is a window which proclaims life in the new heaven and new earth through Jesus.

The Old Testament for Christians

There's no doubt that how we, as Christians, are to read and apply the Old Testament (OT) is a difficult issue. Many Christians consider the 10 Commandments in Exodus 20 to be immediately applicable to us today, but they would not apply the laws about servants, personal injury or property in Exodus 21 in this way, and so their use of the OT is inconsistent.

The problem is our misunderstanding of the big picture of the Bible, and of God's plan for his people.
In Galatians, Paul shows us that there was only ever one gospel - the gospel of grace received by faith/trust in God's word of promise. So, 3:6-7,

⁶Consider Abraham: "He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." ⁷Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham.

So before the law was given, God gave a promise which had to be believed, or trusted, and as soon as Abraham trusted God's promise, he received the benefit of the promise, i.e. 'righteousness' or 'right-standing with God'. And nothing has changed in God's economy - whoever believes his word of promise inherits the blessings of that promise. Not to believe what God says is not to believe him, to insult him, and to reject the blessings he offers.


So what about the law? Why did God give so many pages & pages of instructions & laws? Paul says that no-one was ever justified (put right with God) by obeying the law because everyone fails to obey all the law. So what's it for?

Well, in Galatians 3:19 Paul asks this very question, and then answers it in v24:

²⁴So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.

The law is there to lead us to Christ. God gave the promise, and then gave the law as an interim measure until the promise was fulfilled in Jesus. So when I read about the Passover, I'm reminded that Jesus is the true Passover lamb. When I read about circumcision, I'm reminded that this was an outward sign of the inward reality that Jesus brings - membership of his people. When I read about the tabernacle, I'm reminded of heaven. And so on. Every OT law points to something Jesus has won for us, or something Jesus is to us. This is a consistent use of the OT. It's how the NT uses the OT.

But in Galatia, as in the church today, people could not see this and kept wanting to reinstate OT laws. For the Galatians, it was circumcision that was reinstated in order to ensure God's blessing. Today it's, "I'll be more acceptable to God, and he will really fill me with his Spirit, if I pray more, evangelise more, abstain from this or that, observe the Sabbath properly, keep the church building holy, read my Bible more." And having arrived at this belief for themselves, they try to persuade others that unless they too undergo this kind of discipline, they are not really very spiritual. In so doing they lead people into 'weak and miserable' religious slavery (Gal 4:9). But Paul is quite clear in v25:

²⁵Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law.

Yes, you read it correctly, 'We are no longer under the supervision of the law'. The OT no longer applies to us in the same way it applied to Israel.  It was an interim measure until Jesus came. In fact, Paul goes further in 3:10-11,

 ¹⁰All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law." ¹¹Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith."

You see, if we rely on keeping the Sabbath or reading the Bible or praying or any other religious activity to keep us right with God, we are cursed! Cursed because we will fail to keep the Sabbath perfectly, or read or pray enough or with our full attention and so on.

From the moment God made his first promise to Abraham, all he wanted was for us to believe his promise. When we trust God's word of promise, we receive all that God has promised. We don't have to earn it - God simply wants us to trust what he says, and therefore to trust him.

This truth was so important, so fundamental to our relationship with God, that Paul was prepared to rebuke Peter and the Galatians very, very firmly, "When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he was clearly in the wrong." (2:11); "You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?" (3:1). When he wrote to the Colossians, he made the same point, 'do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a new moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize.' (Col. 2:16f)

Christ is everything, and so a simple faith in Christ is everything. Trust him, and you receive every blessing of every promise he makes.

Who to please?

My quiet time this morning took me to Galatians 1:7-10

 ⁶I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— ⁷ not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. ⁸But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. ⁹As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received let him be accursed.
 ¹⁰For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Here's a question every preacher-teacher must ask himself - Am I distorting the gospel to suit my congregation? Now, I take it that 'distorting the gospel' can be safely applied to any part of God's word and that none of it is open to distortion in order to please men & women, and so when I was faced with preparing to preach from 1 Corinthians 14, and the section about women in church, it was initially very tempting to find a way around what the apostle teaches there. But when you look at the bigger context of the passage - at chapter 11, and the meaning of Christ's submission to the Father - then what appears to be a really big problem becomes a wonderful possibility for imitating Christ. Men are to be servant leaders - laying down their lives for their wives and for the church. Loving the church and their wives with no thought for themselves, but always and only seeking the good of others. And if men did this, would women find it so hard not to follow Christ's example of humility and accept loving, considerate, Christ-like leadership?

This is, of course, completely counter-cultural. We've been bombarded with some fairly extreme feminism for 50 years - feminism which, at times, has been filled with hatred to men and demeaning of men (though it has to be admitted, that the reaction against men's inappropriate subjugation of women was understandable - indeed right. It's just that the pendulum always swings too far in reactionary movements).

But then the whole of the gospel is counter-cultural. The world encourages us to elevate our self-worth and pride. The gospel says, 'humble yourself and admit your sinful rebellion'. The world offers no forgiveness, because it has no basis for moral right or wrong and no source of mercy to deal with guilt. The gospel offers infinite mercy and forgivenss from a loving heavenly Father and a self-sacrificing Son.

Since this gospel is such a glorious, life-giving, freeing, hope-filled, divine gospel, I know who I shall try to please!

praying together

I met with James Packman, Vicar of Frant, this morning to pray together. It was a great encouragement (he's a godly evangelical).
If you're not in a prayer triplet or pair, why not find someone to pray with?
Spend 10-15 mins sharing prayer needs, read a Psalm and pray for 20 mins or so: total 45 mins max.
A great start to the day!

Extremes

It's been a week of extremes:

• We're in the worst recession since the war, but bankers pay themselves £6bn of tax-payers' money in bonuses.
• Ed Tomlinson's (I can't call him 'Father') writes about modern funerals on his blog and it's reported on the World Service and the national press (I'd better be careful what I say!).
• Nick Griffin appears on Newsnight and people break in to the BBC to protests against him (fortunately he came across about as badly as he could have done - and is now complaining to the BBC - apparently it's all their fault!!).
• Royal Mail managers want modernisation and the postal workers go on strike in the run-up to Christmas.

What a messed-up world we live in!

Thank God we have the Bible to explain this crazy, wicked, mad, mad, mad, mad world. And thank God for his solution to such greed, selfishness, godlessness, racism and conflict - by which I mean the gospel and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.

If I had to live without these, I don't know how I'd cope. How does the world make any sense at all to a godless person? Surely the only escape is to pursue money and pleasure. And that's what everyone does. And the vicious circle goes round again...

Diocesan Synod

So, having finished 4 hours of lecturing for the Diocesan Reader & Pastoral Assistant training course on Saturday morning, I headed off to my first Rochester Diocesan Synod (the 'parliament' of the Church of England in N & W Kent & S E London).

There are 193 benefices (i.e. a church or a group of churches with a clergyman) in the Diocese, and, as I arrived at Synod, the Diocese was proposing a budget of £4.9m (an average of over £25k per benefice!). I detected a note of unrest at this - it seemed as though parishes had finally had enough of ever-increasing centralisation and its spiralling costs which are paid for by the parishes (and therefore by church members). I caught the end of the last two or three brief speeches and then the vote. It was a close vote. But I was delighted that my first vote in synod contributed to a narrow victory for common sense and the priority of the local church - the budget was defeated by 4 votes, and 2010 begins with the same budget as 2009.

Then business moved on to the green agenda. A motion was put to the Synod that every church & school in the diocese should use a green energy supplier, install micro-generation equipment and save energy. The lady from Church in Society (which has a budget of £255k) had a nice PowerPoint presentation which showed all the usual statistics, and then had some pretty pictures of windmills, solar panels, energy saving light bulbs & electric cars. The Archdeacon wanted to set up a committee to look at this further (another talking shop, another carbon footprint...). Experts said it was a waste of time, and that some of her ideas probably caused more polution than they saved.

Eventually common sense prevailed, and an heavily abbreviated and amended motion was passed. It's typical of the diocese - jumping on the popularist bandwagon, doing something countless other organisations are already doing, and expecting parishes to pay more. Why, oh why does the Diocese not get off our backs, stop foisting on us the cost of committees & courses we don't want, and support us in proclaiming Christ and him crucified?

Temptation

Christianity is not about obeying rules, but about following a person - the Lord Jesus. We know that, and yet, when we want to become 'better Christians' - i.e. more like Jesus - we say to ourselves, 'I must not do that again'; 'I must try harder'; 'I ought to do this'. We make ourselves rules to follow! And then, when we fail again, we feel guilty, useless, a failure, and we end up in a dark and depressing place.

And so, when we read about the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness (Mat 4; Luk 4), we remember that old sermon which concluded, 'If only you would read & learn your Bible, then you'd be able to quote it at the Devil and overcome temptation just like Jesus.' But we don't. And we know we never will. We fail. And we end up burdened by guilt.

But what if, rather than asking, 'What does this passage tell me to do/not to do?' we ask, 'What does this passage tell me about Jesus?' Well, it tells me that though he faced the same temptations I face, he did not succumb. He did not sin. He did what I cannot do. He did what Israel always failed to do. He is (Mat 4:2) God's faithful Son.

And so, having been crucified as an innocent man (Mat 27:19 & 23) he is raised by God from death. Because he resisted temptation, he is able to deal with our failure, our sin, our guilt when he dies on the cross and is raised to new life.

So the temptation of Jesus is not a stick to beat us with - 'You must learn you Bible' - but wonderful news about Jesus - 'He does what you cannot do, and frees you from your failure. He wins for you a new resurrection life.'

But still we want to make progress in godliness. We can't just carry on in our sin and say, 'Never mind Jesus died to forgive me.' So how do we make progress if it's not by obeying rules? We follow a person. Jesus, and when we fail, we thank God for Jesus. We praise him that there is an alternative to selfishness and sin. We remember that to follow Christ is pure joy, but to follow sin is destruction and death. We recall that we are resurrection people, filled with the Holy Spirit. We remember, 'Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.'

And then, with this gloriously positive vision before us, we make progress. Gratitude, praise, and remembrance. They are the tools to progress, not rules and guilt.

Mysticism

Someone asked me yesterday about mysticism (the use of candles, stones, icons, smells etc. to get closer to God) - what does the Bible say?

Well, I pointed her to Jim Packer's great chapter in 'Knowing God' which explains the Bible's teaching. And then, this morning, I read this in Hosea,

Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God.
Your sins have been your downfall!
Take words with you
and return to the LORD.
Say to him, 'Forgive all our sins
and receive us graciously
that we may offer the fruit of our lips.

God's word tells us to approach God with words! Words of sorrow and repentance. Words of praise ('the fruit of our lips').

And this is completely in tune with the rest of the Bible. We come to God through the cross of Christ always acknowledging our dependence on his grace and mercy - and we do this in words. So the prayer books are right when they dictate that our services should normally begin with a confession, and continue with praise.

The rest of Hosea 14 is a list of wonderful metaphors for the blessings we receive from God when we come to him with words of contrition:

I will be like the dew to Israel,
he will blossom like a lily.
Like a cedar of Lebanon he will send down his roots;
his young shoots will grow.
His splendour will be like an olive tree;
his fragrance like a cedar of Lebanon.
Men will dwell in his shade.
He will flourish like the corn.
He will blossom like a vine,
and his frame will be like the wine from Lebanon.

But does all this preclude the use of candles, icons etc? Well yes. In Hosea, one of God's main complaints is the way Israel constantly used idols. And idols are more subtle than we think. In Exodus, when Israel made the golden calf, Aaron said, 'This is your God, O Israel, who brought you out of Egypt... tomorrow there will be a festival to the LORD.' And they presented offerings to the calf. But notice - as far as they were concerned, they were worshipping the LORD. But the LORD himself did not take it that way. How insulting to represent Almighty God as a cow - even a gold cow!

In the same way, God has chosen to communicate with us by speaking through his word. It's not hard to pick up your Bible and read, hear God speak, and speak to him in response. Why do we think this is insufficient? Why do we also need candles and icons and incense? Generally it's because we want some kind of 'spiritual experience', but what greater experience of God is there than hearing him speak?

Wrath & mercy

One mention of God punishing mankind (let alone that four letter word H***) and people object, 'I thought God was supposed to be loving.'

Hosea 11 paints a delightful picture of God's wrath & mercy in perfect harmony:

¹ "When Israel was a child, I loved him,
and out of Egypt I called my son.

² But the more I called Israel,
the further they went from me. ...

³ It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,
taking them by the arms;
but they did not realize
it was I who healed them.

⁴ I led them with cords of human kindness,
with ties of love;
I lifted the yoke from their neck
and bent down to feed them....

⁷ My people are determined to turn from me. ...

⁸ "How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel? ...
My heart is changed within me;
all my compassion is aroused.

⁹ I will not carry out my fierce anger,
nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim.
For I am God, and not man—
the Holy One among you.
I will not come in wrath.

¹⁰ They will follow the LORD;
he will roar like a lion.
When he roars,
his children will come trembling from the west.

¹¹ They will come trembling
like birds from Egypt,
like doves from Assyria.
I will settle them in their homes,"
declares the LORD.

God simply cannot give up on his people - his son.

Ultimately, of course, v1 is applied to Jesus in Matthew 2:15. He is God's faithful, obedient Son. What Israel could not do, Jesus does. But not only is Jesus what we're not, he removes both our failure and God's wrath.

The cross is indeed the place where wrath and mercy meet.

Prosperity feeds idolatry

I've been reading Hosea in my quiet times, and today I read this:

As [Israel's] fruit increased
he built more altars;
as his land prospered,
he adorned his sacred stones.
Their heart is deceitful,
and now they must bear their guilt.
The LORD will demolish their altars
and destroy their sacred stones.

And then a thick, glossy catalogue arrived from a company supplying 'Ecclesiastical Furnishings & Garments'. Here I could buy anything from a perspex communion table for £2273, or a stations of the cross set for £47,150, to a wallet-sized hologram, 'Prayer to our Lady Fatima' for £1 (inc. VAT). Probably the worst item is a '12" resin infant Jesus with halo' for £70, though the fridge magnet of St Jude is really ugly (but 'only £5.50'). Sadly these aren't in their online catalogue, so I can't show you the pictures!

Now some of you might think I'm just a fundamentalist protestant taking a poke at the Catholics. Not so. I agonised long and hard about how much (if anything) we should spend on our new chairs at church. We must be able to justify every penny we spend because the danger is that the more we prosper, the more we spend on adorning 'sacred spaces'.

If we think such expenditure adorns the faith, we're sadly mistaken because the New Testament constantly reminds us that we don't need altars or temples - we have Jesus, and we're to adorn our lives with holiness and good works. This theme is especially prominent in 1 Peter, which is interesting since Paul had to argue with Peter not to impose Jewish customs on Christians. Clearly, by the time he wrote his first epistle, Peter understood how the OT had been completely transformed by Jesus, and he left us an absolute gem of a letter!

Money

Why, when, almost without exception, we have so much, is God's work so often limited by lack of money? Why do we find it so hard to live simply, and to enjoy giving sacrificially to the work of the kingdom?

Of course, there are the broad-brush answers about selfishness & sin - and I'm as guilty as the next person. But if we probe a little deeper, why do we feel the need to be selfish? Why, when we want to be generous, are we not?

Perhaps we're afraid of denying our children and spouses what others have, and so being thought of as mean - putting the needs of others before them.

Perhaps it's because, when the needs of gospel organisations are so great, we feel that our little bit won't make any difference, and we just keep hoping that God will send us a very wealthy person who'll be able to write a cheque for £100k and not even notice it's gone!

Perhaps we who teach the Bible simply aren't clear enough in our teaching, and don't lead with a good enough example.

I long for the day when I won't have to worry about income for Christian charities (NB I'm not just talking about St Peter's here!).

Diversity and unity

Last night, on the One Show, there was a piece about received pronunciation versus regional accents. Years ago, the BBC used people with received pronunciation to unite the country. Today, regional accents are used to emphasise and reflect the diversity in the country, and now this emphasis on diversity is manifesting itself in worrying ways - people are aligning themselves with very narrow single-issue pressure groups. So you have a fragmentation of the UK (and many other countries) into smaller regions, and pressure groups for all kinds of things: preferred sexuality, anti-vivisection, for every different ethnic group and so on.

In the church, we recognise our differences but are deeply united as one body.

So, in 1 Corinthians, we acknowledge that, as male & female we are different, but we are one as God the Father, Son & Holy Spirit is One. We are rich & poor, but we are one body of Christ. We have different gifts, but they are given by the one Spirit. We have different ministries, but serve one Lord Jesus. We do different tasks, but one God empowers us for them. (1 Cor 12:4-6).

All of this is a manifestation of God's nature - he is three and he is one. And our way of reflecting that should be a light to an increasingly divided nation.

People not programmes

Mike T ran a really good Passion for Life session last night, with some very helpful discussion about engaging with the community.

A number of things struck me:

• salt - Israel was meant to take the gospel to the nations, but failed. In Mat. 5, at the beginning of the Messiah's ministry, they're in danger of being thrown out of the Kingdom all together. No need to get distracted by all the historians' discussions on 1st century uses for salt - the OT always provides a better background!
  
• light - Israel was meant to be light to the world, but failed (Is 42:6, 49:6). Now Messiah Jesus has come as 'the light of the world' and we're to imitate him in that respect.
• building on what I wrote the other day here, it would be easy for us to focus on setting up programmes for outreach. But while there may be a place for these actually what we need to do is build relationships. The best programmes may help in this (e.g. Noah's Ark), but only because people are prepared to share their lives and get involved with others.
  
• we all need to work hard at being neighbourly - an old-fashioned word, but a good one. Let's invite neighbours round; make a point of going outside when the neighbours are out and talking to them; share plants; lend tools; have a neighbourhood BBQ; if you have Sky sports, use it to invite friends to watch their team... Shine your light from your home. Be salt in your own street.
  

The problem with laws

Would more regulation of the banks have prevented the financial crisis?
Will more CRB checks prevent child abuse?

The answer to both is, of course, no. Why not? Because we're all Pharisees at heart.

The Pharisees wrote laws so that everyone could be clear about how little they had to do to remain on the right side of God. That's what laws do - they say, 'If you do this much, you're OK'. So that's what the banks did - they ticked the box for each law they had obeyed, and did no more.

Moral decisions and obligations were replaced by legal requirements. Once the legal requirements were met, anything else was seen as OK.

This is increasingly true of all sectors of life. In schools and hospitals, in workplaces and voluntary organisations, people are ticking the boxes given to them by the government. Once that's done, anything goes.

The other side of this is the removal of a final moral authority - God. Jesus reserved his harshest criticism for the Pharisees because they limited people's freedom to do what was good and right. That's what much of the schools, child care, social care and child protection legislation has done: good nurseries, sports clubs, youth organisations etc. have closed because they failed to cross a 't' or dot an 'i', or because the burden of doing so was simply too great.

But more than that, it's removed a sense of duty, service, honour, trust, moral courage and responsibility from society. Surely, as Christians, we need to take a lead in demonstrating these attributes.

What to do in an evening off...

I'm not used to having evenings at home - and I know it won't last - so it's a chance to catch up on jobs at home. And boy was last night successful!

A new element fitted in the oven, and a printer & file sharing network set up for the girls! The latter was much harder than the former, but the sense of achievement was that much greater!

I even finished in time to watch most of the excellent Newsnight special on the economy. I was slightly surprised to see that Rowan Williams was one of the guests, and I've been very critical of Dr Williams in the past, but last night he spoke some really good biblical and common sense. Even Jeremy Paxman seemed impressed... until Dr Williams mentioned original sin...

Causes of climate change?

I've always been sceptical about the causes of climate change. My geography and geology A-levels taught me that the climate was warming and cooling in cycles long before the industrial revolution.

But perhaps I need to change my thinking.

Hosea 4:1b-3
There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgement of God in the land. There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Because of this the land mourns [or 'dries up'] and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea are dying.

On the basis of these verses various reports from Christian organisations have concluded that the Bible says that our actions have disrupted nature and caused global warming.

But is this a careful enough reading of the text?

This passage is written, not about the whole world, or even all of God's people, but about Israel (not even Judah, cf v15) and the Promised Land, 'Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites' (v1). It is true that their sin was affecting their land, but this was a specific punishment from God for their persistent idolatry - they were saying, 'I will go after my lovers who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.' (1:5). They were attributing God's provision to idols ('lovers'). So God removes his provision from them - their land dried up, their fish died etc.

So this is not a general statement about the causes of global warming. It's a specific warning for a specific sin at a specific time. Of course there may well be principles here that we must take to heart, but these must be discerned by reading the OT passage in the light of the coming of Jesus and the NT.

The NT equivalent of Israel is the Church, not the whole world. So we must ask, 'Is the church demonstrating faithlessness and lack of love? Is it failing to acknowledge God as the sustainer & provider of all we need?' If so, the NT warnings for us would include 1 Corinthians 6, Galatians 5, Hebrews 2 and James 2 - warnings that unfaithfulness, lack of love and disregard of God among those who appear and claim to be his people, will lead, not to a damaged and fruitless land, but to exclusion from the kingdom of God and eternity in a place of death, drought and disaster.

And as for my views on global warming? Well, I'll keep on looking & listening for the evidence.

Amazing love

Hosea, the Old Testament book named after the prophet, is a tale of astonishing love.

The book begins with God telling Hosea to take an adulterous wife - i.e. a woman who would commit adultery. This he does, and sure enough she commits adultery leaving Hosea with one child of his own and others who are not his. Eventually she leaves him for another man (perhaps a pimp for whom she works).

But then in chapter 3, God tells Hosea, 'Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the LORD loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and live the sacred raisin cakes.'

The point of all this is that it's a shocking illustration to Israel of the way she has treated her husband, the LORD God and the way he continues to love his people despite the fact that they have set their hearts on something as trivial and pathetic as 'raisin cakes'! They have abandoned the pleasure and joy of living with the Almighty Lord God of all things for the satisfaction of eating raisin cakes made for stone idols! Just as adultery is the greatest insult and humiliation to a loving spouse, so Israel's idolatry has insulted and humiliated the God of love.

And yet in an heroic act of love, Hosea buys his wife back, presumably paying off her lover-pimp. But she has to demonstrate her willingness to come back by abandoning her adulterous ways. And Hosea tells how this too is an acted parable of God's amazing love for his people.

And we can't help but be reminded that 'God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us' (Romans 5:8). While we were still in an adulterous relationship with the idols of this world, God demonstrated his love for us, making us his own people, 'which he bought with his own blood' (Acts 20:28).

If Hosea's love for his adulterous wife was heroic, how much more the love of God in Christ for us?

Help in temptation

In the Lord's prayer, we say, 'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever.'

I'd never paid much attention to the link between these two lines - that little word, 'for'. But it's very significant.

When we're led into temptation and evil, we're led away from the kingdom of God, away from the power & glory of the King and his kingdom. But because temptation seems so very enticing, we need to be reminded first that there is no glory in giving in to temptation (only shame) and second, that there is infinitely greater glory in the kingdom of God.

The point is made clearly if we remember that 'for' could also be translated 'because', in which case it reads, 'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, because the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever.'

Giving in to temptation results in momentary pleasure and long-lasting bad consequences. Following God results in experiencing the kingdom of God, its power & glory, 'now and forever.'

An interesting week

The other week, I was asked what I did all day. Well here's some of the things I've done in the past few days:

• Led a day-seminar for Oak Hill College to review its governance procedures & practice
• Prepared & preached a sermon on men, women & headship - most feedback was positive, though some weren't so sure!
• Dealt with two confidential and difficult pastoral situations
• Played for the Diocesan golf team(!)
• Chaired the Standing & Finance Team
• Prepared the memorial service for a lady who died at the age of 107
  
• Practiced playing my sax for the HAHA service
• Prepared for a wedding
• Spoke to a choir master about an evangelistic concert in 2010
  
• Met with the church administrator
• Prepared to preach at the HAHA service
  
• Decided on autumn Bible study series

And then there were the emails, phone calls, letters and casual conversations in the street.

But next week will be completely different: no golf (shame!), no S&F meeting, no memorial services or weddings, no HAHA service...

So what do I say when people ask me what I do all day?

Re-creation

This morning, as I ponder the perfect humanity of Jesus, I am brought face-to-face with my own imperfect and defaced humanity. Jesus loves and obeys all the way to the cross; I love and obey so long as it's not too inconvenient or unpleasant. He gives his all, I give what I think is sufficient and no more. His thoughts are centred on his Father - how he can glorify and honour him; my thoughts are on myself and how others think of me.
My humanity is distorted, broken, twisted. But praise God because Jesus' perfect humanity not only comes to my rescue by winning my forgiveness, but also begins to recreate, re-form and straighten me out.
This is one of the great themes of John's gospel: Jesus the Word who made all things in the beginning, comes into the dark and ignorant world to bring the new light of the knowledge of God (John 1), the new birth of the Spirit (John 3), and the water of new life (John 4). He comes to recreate, repair and straighten out people like me - and you, if you'll allow him in.

Sabbatical follow-up

You may remember that one of my aims on sabbatical was to help a theological college review its governance procedures and structures. I had spent a lot of time by myself and at meetings preparing this review, and today was the day to test it out with the governing body.
I was really quite anxious about how it would go, but it went better than I could possibly have hoped! There's a lot more work to do, but we've made very significant progress. All that preparation was time well-spent, and makes my sabbatical feel all the more worthwhile.

Christ neglect

We're all shocked at the recent stories of child neglect. And it's right that we're shocked - the day we're not shocked will be a terrible day.
But perhaps we should also be shocked at our neglect of Christ.
Since 'In him God has given me so much that heaven can give no more', my gratitude, my affection, my attention towards him should be complete. But it's not. I neglect him. And that's the essence of all my sin. If I gave Jesus my full and complete attention, I would not sin.
But the wonderful vision of Revelation is of Jesus being the focus of all attention because the curse of sin has been removed, 'No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.' From that day on Jesus will never again be neglected.
Fortunately, as we await that great and glorious day, we receive constant mercy and forgiveness from Jesus the Son; teaching and encouragement from the Spirit through the word; and the Father's tender care.

More to life?

I read this today:

In Christ you [God] have given me so much that heaven can give me no more.

But do I desire more?

If so, I've made an idol. An idol that cannot speak. Or hear. Or act.

Why would I be so stupid?

Practising what I preach

On Sunday, I said that in our quiet times we should follow the author of Psalm 119, and pray, 'Open my eyes that I might see wonderful things in your Law'. And I said that this meant reading about God's great wonders in the past and seeing how they applied to us today.

So, I've been reading Matthew 27:45-54:

And Jesus again cried out in a loud voice and gave up his spirit. Suddenly the temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth shook and the rocks were split apart and the tombs were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had died were raised, and the came out of the tombs after his resurrection, went into the holy city and appeared to many.

Why did Matthew include this? Surely it's to demonstrate that it's the death & resurrection of Jesus that brings about the resurrection of the 'saints' or 'holy ones', and if my eyes are open to 'wonderful things', I will see that this encourages me to trust that Jesus has power over life and death - my life and my death.

But why does Matthew say that those who were raised were, 'the saints' / 'the holy ones' / 'the sanctified'? Well, the tearing of the temple curtain shows that the old sacrificial system was replaced by the sacrificial death of Jesus. The 'saints' were those who had been 'made holy' under the old system - those who believed and kept God's covenant by confessing their sins and sacrificing an animal as a substitute for themselves - the animal died, they were free. Now, it's not those who sacrifice animals who are made holy, but those who come to Jesus - his is the final sacrifice, the one who brings full and final forgiveness, who makes us holy and enables us to be raised to life with him.

So today I'm encouraged to keep on believing that my hope beyond death is indeed in Jesus Christ. Resurrection isn't 'pie in the sky when you die', but a definite hope based on solid evidence!

Back preaching

I really enjoyed preaching again this morning - and what a great Psalm to start afresh with! I'm off to St John's this evening to preach it again; I haven't preached there for about 11 years, so it will be an odd experience (but they still use the lectern I chose!).

I thought that our new arrangements for the Lord's Supper went well this morning, and all the feedback was positive. So unless anyone has any ideas for improvements, we'll do the same next month.

[David P - I hope this post isn't too technical for you!!]

Schism

Michael Nazir-Ali, our bishop, has written a bold summary of the crisis in the Anglican Communion in the Washington Times (it's no longer on their website, so I've posted it in full). If you're not sure what it all the fuss is about, this is a concise summary.

Episcopal gay moves risk schism
the Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali
The Episcopal Church in the United States has done it again. Having marched out of step with the majority of the worldwide Anglican Communion, American Episcopalians have declared their intention to walk even further apart.
The world knows about the ordination of a bishop in a same-sex relationship and the ways in which that has torn the fabric of the communion, as the primates have said, at its deepest level. (This, by the way, is also a classic description of schism.) It also is widely known that people have their same-sex unions "blessed" in many parts of the Episcopal Church and such people also can be candidates for ordination.
All this continues despite the clear teaching of the 1998 Lambeth Conference that it should not.
So what is new? In passing Resolution DO25, the General Convention has openly stated that ordination should be open to those living in same-sex unions, which it also regards as exemplifying "holy love." In a further resolution, CO56, the Episcopal Church has agreed to bring liturgies for blessing same-sex relationships to the next General Convention, in 2012, for final approval.
Why are all of these developments important? Are they not simply a formalizing of what happens anyway, and is the church not just reflecting the culture in which it is set?
Let it be said, straightaway, that this issue is not a second- or lower-order one on which Christians can agree to disagree. It profoundly has to do with how men and women are created together in God's image and together given a common mission in the world. This mission they fulfill in ways that are both distinctive and complementary.
No Bible-believing Christian can say that "men are from Mars and women from Venus." They are not distinct species but have been made for each other in their distinctiveness and complement each other. This is the burden of the earliest chapters of Genesis that are strongly and unambiguously affirmed in the teaching of Jesus himself. As a whole, the Bible's teaching on human sexuality clearly affirms that the proper expression of our sexual nature is within the context of married love. The alternative, for those who have this gift, is dedicated singleness in the fulfillment of God's purposes.
In the pagan world, in which the Bible was written, such a view was vigorously countercultural. Many of Israel's neighbors tolerated both heterosexual and homosexual practices that are rejected by the Bible because they violate the holiness of God, the order of creation and respect for persons.
It is often the case that where the fundamental teaching of the Bible regarding marriage is not upheld, the status of women, in particular, suffers and they are reduced to being either a source for male self-gratification or chattel who maintain the home while men seek gratification elsewhere.
Today also, in the context of permissive cultures, the church has sometimes to take a countercultural stand so that the dignity of persons, made in God's image, is not debased.
As to same-sex attraction, there may be a predisposition toward it, even if we do not know all the reasons for it. That does not mean it must be gratified. Not every desire can or should be given active expression.
There may be relationship issues with a parent or a seeking of the man or the woman "I want to be" in others of the same sex. Those in such situations need to be cared for and to know that God loves them. They need to be helped so they can conform their lives to the stature of the fullness of Christ.
As they are welcomed to church and hear God's word, they will meet with Christ and be transformed by the renewal of their minds, spirits and bodies. They will be nurtured by word and sacrament but also by friendship.
Again and again, people say it is the affirmation of Christian friends, the role model of a wise, perhaps older Christian and the fellowship of the church family that have brought them to a new place in their discipleship.
None of this seems to bother the decision-makers in the Episcopal Church (though it may bother the faithful more than we think). They will have caused a schism despite repeated entreaties by the rest of the communion not to take unilateral action that contravenes the teaching of the Bible, the unanimous teaching of the church down the ages and the understanding of the vast majority of Christians today.
There can be little doubt that the latest moves in the Episcopal Church will further damage the fellowship among Anglicans. There will be more talk of the rupture, impairment of communion and the like. The moves also will further damage ecumenical relations with other churches, such as the Roman Catholic, the Orthodox and various evangelical and Pentecostal bodies. Interfaith dialogue, especially with Muslims, also has been adversely affected, with dialogue partners asking how what they have hitherto regarded as a "heavenly religion" can sanction a practice that most religions do not permit.
In all this, those who remain orthodox in faith and morals will need to remember that any disruption of fellowship is for the sake of discipline and the eventual restoration of those who have chosen to go their own way to the common faith and life of the church. It is for this that we must work and pray.

The Rt. Rev. Michael Nazir-Ali is Anglican bishop of Rochester in England. The bishop was born in Pakistan and ministered there as well as in Britain and elsewhere. He has both a Muslim and a Christian family background.

Renovation!

Let me know the need of renovation as well as of forgiveness,
in order to serve and enjoy thee for ever.

'Valley of Vision', p5.

A great day!

Yesterday (Sunday) was a great day!

It was so good to be back home with the St Peter's family after 4 months of sojourning at other churches. I was taken aback by the warmth of welcome and by the enthusiasm of the singing - and it's not as if the hymns were especially well-known.

When I got home, I was reminded of the difference between attending church and leading church. Throughout my sabbatical, I'd come home and get lunch or go out in the garden. But yesterday it was back to normal - I came home and just flopped down exhausted!

But I recuperated quickly, and after lunch laid a concrete base for the water butt (!) before heading off to Cath & Barry's for the footy. What a result! (in case you don't follow these things: Spurs 2 Liverpool 1). What's more there was a fabulous bbq and good conversations.
The latter began when I revealed I was a vicar.
'What do you do all day?'
'Well, I've just been on sabbatical.'
'What did you do?'
'I studied 2nd century Greek New Testament manuscripts.'
And the conversation turned to the evidence for Jesus.

Please, God, may this conversation one day lead to saving faith.

Back to work!

Well, it's nearly 8 am and I'm at my desk making a list of jobs for today: sermon prep., see Mary in the office, finish the autumn preaching rota, catch up on PCC business & write a Standing & Finance Committee agenda, phone Tom & Ros about their wedding, sort out HAHA service...

I'm glad that I'd always planned to save the beginning of the week to sort out emails, post and do some sermon prep. - it means the desk is not too cluttered this morning.

So... I'd beter get on!

Publication draws closer

I received an encouraging email from Tyndale House today. Dirk Jongkind has looked at my paper, suggested a handful of fairly minor amendments, and thinks we can get it published.

Of course today is the last day of my sabbatical (tomorrow will be a day off) - so I've rushed ahead with the changes, and we'll wait and see what happens.

God the all

Not surprisingly, I'm not the first person to quote this from prayer from "The Valley of Vision: a collection of puritan prayers & devotions":

O God whose will conquers all,
There is no comfort in anything
apart from enjoying thee
and being engaged in thy service;
Thou art All in all, and all enjoyments are what to me
thou makest them, and no more.
I am well pleased with thy will, whatever it is,
or should be in all respects,
And if thou bidst me decide for myself in any affair
I would choose to refer all to thee,
for thou art infinitely wise and cannot do amiss,
as I am in danger of doing.
I rejoice to think that all things are at thy disposal,
and it delights me to leave them there.
Then prayer turns wholly into praise,
and all I can do is to adore and bless thee.
What shall I give thee for all thy benefits?
I am in a strait betwixt two, knowing not what to do;
I long to make some return, but have nothing to offer,
and can only rejoice that thou doest all,
that none in heaven or on earth shares thy honour;
I can of myself do nothing to glorify thy blessed name,
but I can through grace cheerfully surrender soul and body to thee,
I know that thou art the author and finisher of faith,
that the whole work of redemption is thine alone,
that every good work or thought found in me
is the effect of thy power and grace,
that thy sole motive in working in me to will and to do
is for thy good pleasure.
O God, it is amazing that men can talk so much
about man's creaturely power and goodness,
when, if thou didst not hold us back every moment,
we should be devils incarnate.
This, by bitter experience, thou hast taught me concerning myself.

A couple of things:
Deep down, every Christian knows the truth that 'there is no comfort in anything apart from enjoying God and being engaged in his service'. I pray that God would give us the grace & power to make this a reality.

As far as decision making goes, the idea that God would 'decide for me in any affair' fills me with hope that it might be so. For, as Psalm 119 reminds us, 'Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the Lord. Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart.'

Finally, the emphasis on our total dependence on God's grace is typical of the puritans, and a wonderful source of assurance.

The Father loves the Son

John 5:16-30 is a remarkable passage. It is full of deep theology about the relationship between God the Father and God the Son - too much for a blog, but here's one thought for now:

In v26, Jesus says, "as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself." Now we know that God depends on no-one for his life. He is self-existent. But what about the Son? Because we are good credal Chrsitians, we naturally think and say that the Son is also self-existent - that he too has 'life-in-himself', and therefore depends on no-one for his own life.

And yet, Jesus says that the Father has 'granted' life to the Son - the Son is dependent on the Father granting him life.

But the Son's life is also 'life-in-himself' - it is not dependent on somone else, but inherent! How do we square this circle?

The answer must lie outside of time. The Father grants the Son 'life-in-himself' in eternity. So we can't even say that the Father has always and will always grant the Son life - that's using time to define what is outside time. Instead, we must say that the Son's life proceeds from the Father as part of the Trinity's very being - it's more about who God is than what he does.

If you find all this hard to understand, that's because 1) I'm not good at explaining it, and 2) neither you nor I are like the Son to whom God explains everything, 'For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does.'

Don Carson explains all this in a brilliant lecture series entitled 'The Spirituality of the Gospel of John'. Each of the 5 lectures is about an hour long, and is aimed at people with some theological education. But you might want to give it a go - if you're brave!

What's God entrusted to me?

It's a good question to be asking!

In the parable, the immediate answer seems to be money (v18). But I think it's fair to cast the net wider. Elsewhere, Jesus talks about giving up our lives to serve him (e.g Luke 9:23-26), so ultimately God has entrusted us with life itself. Our lives are a gift from God, and are therefore only properly used when used in his service.

But what exactly does it mean to serve God? Well, in the next section of Matthew 25, Jesus talks about how we should use our lives in caring for other (sometimes persecuted) Christians - feeding, clothing, being hospitable, caring when sick, visiting when imprisoned for the faith. When we do these things for fellow believers ('these brothers of mine' refers to Christians, not everyone), we do them for God himself. So serving one-another in the church family is serving God, and we all have the necessary 'talent' to do some of these very practical and simple things!

It's also true that we need to be willing to share our knowledge of Jesus in both word and deed - either one without the other is plain hypocrisy.

Talents

In the parable of the talents (Matt 25) a master, who is going away for a time, entrusts his 'talents' (i.e. money, v18) to three slaves; 5 talents to one, 2 to another and 1 to the final slave. The first two slaves put the money to work (we're not told how) and make 100% return (what wouldn't people give for that today?!!). The slave who had one talent did what was accepted practice in those days, and hid it - buried it. It was safe. Nothing wrong with that, Jesus' hearers would think.

But as ever, Jesus shocks them. He is a wicked and lazy slave. His excuse, that his master was harsh, is no excuse at all. He will be punished for his wickedness.

Now it's that last part - that the slave is punished for fearing his master - that so hard to understand. But the slave's excuse is just that - an excuse. The the other slaves, who have the same master, found ways of putting the talents to work - and they risked more than the final slave! And in any case, as Jesus says, the money could always have been deposited safely in the bank and earned interest without taking a risk(!) (Jews were not allowed to charge fellow Jews interest, but were allowed to charge Gentiles).

So you need to read between the lines a little with this parable to see why Jesus' verdict on the man is not harsh, but just. The slave was making excuses for his laziness. He buried what his master had entrusted to him, and got on with his own life, ignoring his master's wishes. And the final judgement is the final judgement. The first two slaves 'enter into their master's joy', while the final slave is 'cast out into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth'.

What are you doing with what God has entrusted to you?

A good day, but nothing profound

Today was a good day: First, I repotted some plants I bought very cheap yesterday, then we went for a family walk and picnic in Bedgebury Forest (watch out for the mink by the visitors' centre!). This afternoon, I revarnished the kitchen table, helped S to cut down a jasmine that was climbing everywhere, and transferred old videos of our wedding and the girls growing up onto hard drives and created DVDs - and we all laughed when we watched them.

So that's it. A good day, but nothing profound to say.

Encouragement

Yesterday, I went back to the church through which I was converted in my mid-teens. I hadn't been there for many years, but there were loads of people I knew. Some of my contemporaries looked much older, some had hardly changed since they were 18, and one I hardly recognised! Of course it was a slightly surreal experience - like stepping back 30 years - nothing had changed, and yet everything had changed: we now have children the same age we were when we met and hung around together, and yet all those years were as nothing when we talked.

But what was really encouraging was to see them still there - still faithfully serving the Lord and his church. It's the same when I go back to St John's - to be welcomed by people whom we ourselves welcomed into the church 15 years ago is just a wonderful experience.

And week-by-week, we must not under-estimate the value of just being together in church. The mere fact that you turn up every week is a great encouragement to others. And unless we're together week in, week out, we'll never build the relationships necessary to 'carry one another's burdens' (Gal 6:2), to share joys and sorrows (1 Cor 12:26) and build each other up (1 Thes 5:11).

And that's why the hardest part of being on sabbatical is being away from the St Peter's Church Family. Only a few more weeks to go!!

How can we help our children? Part 2

John Ware's second programme about respect was on late last night. He takes a while to get to the important points, but when he does, they're worth hearing. He again champions marriage, but this time challenges those who have, for the sake of political correctness, failed to speak the truth. You can see the programme here. (Because it includes interviews with young yobs, there is some foul language).

When the faithful are held in contempt

Sarah & I read this together this morning. It's a psalm that's not well known, but perhaps deserves more attention:

¹ I lift up my eyes to you,
to you whose throne is in heaven.

² As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the LORD our God,
till he shows us his mercy.

³ Have mercy on us, O LORD, have mercy on us,
for we have endured much contempt.

⁴ We have endured much ridicule from the proud,
much contempt from the arrogant.

The problem is the contempt in which God's true & faithful people are held by those who claim to be God's people.

Of course we all think that we're the ones who are faithful and true, and those others who are not. But history shows that the faithful are those who stick with the truths which have always been taught. The unfaithful are those who invent new things to believe, or believe and behave like those who don't even claim to be God's people.

So we hold fast to 'the faith once for all delivered to the saints', and are held in contempt by those who have abandoned the faith and morality of God's word. And in that situation, we 'look up to the Lord whose throne is in heaven', we look to him to provide and to guide. We look to him in humility for mercy.

For more, see Hebrews 12:1ff.

I read it in the paper so it must be true...

Well, not if you read about Codex Sinaiticus, which has been in the news a lot recently. Dan Wallace corrects a few of the (deliberate?) mistakes, especially from The Independent (which is about as independent as a Man Utd supporter!!).
See here.

How can we help our children?

I have been criticised on numerous occasions for saying that if we want a better society we must encourage stable family life - by which I mean marriage for life and fathers who take responsibility for their household. Of course that's what the Bible promotes, but the world (and much of the church!) won't listen to God's word. And yet, for many years, science has also shown that marriage (not cohabitation or single-parenting) and responsible fatherhood is best for children. And yet the intollerance of liberal thinking, policy-making and reporting has suppressed this truth in favour of the lie which says 'all sorts of families are equally good for children'.

Well finally, the BBC has allowed someone to say something different. In an excellent programme about the failure of society, John Ware reported on the uncomfortable truth that marriage is best for children and society. If you missed the programme, you can see it here on BBC i-player.

What your heart desires

This past week has again brought into sharp focus the stupidity of setting out hearts on things here and now...

Last week, E & R were both away, so for the first time in 16 years, Sarah & I could have a few days away by ourselves. We found an excellent deal on a good hotel, and off we went. But very quickly Sarah developed the worst cold she's had for years, the weather was miserable, and when we did get out for a walk round Cheddar Gorge, Sarah slipped and bashed her back!

We still had a good time, and I'm not complaining at all, but it was just another reminder that we must not set our hearts on holidays, or luxury goods or anything else in this life. Instead, 'blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart' (Ps 119:2).

Treasures in heaven

As I was walking past a very large, very smart house this afternoon, the bins were being brought in past two very expensive cars. Nothing remarkable in that, except that at this house, the maid or au pair brings them in. And there's not just one, or even two, but three rubbish bins.

And just as I was becoming envious ("They must buy so much to be able to throw away 3 bin fulls... I bet they can afford Sky Sports..."), I realised how foolish I was - the owners of that house will only enjoy those wonderful possessions for a few more years - 40 at most. But in the new heavens and the new earth, all of the very best things will be ours to enjoy forever - not just for a few short years. And I began to ponder the new creation. We'll enjoy the very best food and wine; we'll walk through a perfect city without litter or pollution, without sore feet or painful necks (I shouldn't have hit so many golf balls so hard - but it's fun!). Most of all, we'll enjoy simply being with Jesus and marvelling at his glory. "Come, Lord Jesus!"

Again, Tim Chester has some great things to say on this topic. I'll bulk buy some when I'm back, and get everyone reading it!

First draft done!

Hooray! I've emailed the first draft of my research on punctuation in papyrus P66 to my 'supervisor' in Cambridge! I'm sure he'll make loads of suggestions about how it could be improved, but I'm pleased to have got this far.

And my conclusions? Well, the major ones are: first there's a definate hierarchy of punctuation marks in this manuscript (a new line, then a double dot, then a single midpoint or an apostrophe. The chevrons (>) are not punctuation marks - though what they're for, I don't know!). Second, 99% of the marks make sense, but, third, because the scribe is inconsistent in his use of punctuation, the presence of a mark could be significant to the meaning of a sentence or phrase, but the absence of one is definitely not significant.

If that doesn't make sense, don't worry - this work has been in an obscure corner of an obscure field of study. Nevertheless, I've had an offer to publish it, and it might eventually be useful if others do similar studies in other manuscripts.

FCA

So I joined about 15oo others at the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans conference in London yesterday. Of course it got all the negative press you'd expect, and the reporters all enjoyed misrepresenting what it was all about, but what did we expect?

I can't say I enjoyed the day - not only because Methodist Central Hall is such a dreadful venue, with its small seats, lack of leg room, soaring temperature, and poor sound - but more because such a day should not be necessary. If anglican church leaders had done what they swore to do at their ordination there wouldn't have been any need for the day. But as it is, we have faithful ministers and churches that have been locked out of their buildings, sued, and excommunicated.

The FCA is NOT a schismatic, divisive, extreme organisation, despite what you may have heard or read. It is a home for those who have remained true to their promises and true to the Anglican Communion. As Archbishop Peter Jensen said in his address, it's a unifying, not a dividing, organisation.

But that doesn't stop people complaining, lying, exaggerating and misrepresenting.

"Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." (Matthew 5:11f).

Glory & blessing

In John's gospel, Jesus reveals his glory through the signs, 'This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He thus revealed his glory...' (John 2:11).

But the greatest revelation of his glory was still to come - at the cross, 'Jesus replied, 'The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.' (John 12:23).

'Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you...' (John 14:1).

Jesus' time of suffering is his time of greatest glory. Now think about Mark 8, 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.'

If suffering on the cross is Christ's time of greatest glory, and if we are to take up our cross as he did, is it not reasonable to think that our time of suffering is also our time of greatest glory?

And what does it mean to 'take up your cross'? Well back in John 13, Jesus shows his disciples what it means, 'Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. (John 13:1-5)

Taking up our cross means serving others. That's where we experience, share, enter into the very glory of Jesus.

But we spend our lives avoiding the cross, we make excuses for not serving - too busy, too tired, need time for myself, it's Eastenders... And then we wonder why we don't feel close to God! If you want to experience the glory of God - serve others!

"Ah", you say, "that's all very well for you on sabbatical!" Well, I had great expectations of experiencing God afresh on retreat & sabbatical, but you know what? I can't wait to get back to serving God's people, because it really is in doing that that I experience God's glory. It's good to read and study, but only because it will, by God's grace, help me serve better, and so experience his glory.

How do I love thee?

As promised, a great quote from John Owen, the 17th century pastor and theologian:

Jesus Christ is the beam of his Father's love and through him the Father's love reaches down and touches us.
It is God's will that he should always be seen as gentle, kind, tender, loving and unchangeable. It is his will that we see him as the Father, and the great fountain and reservoir of all grace and love... Believers learn that it was god's will and purpose to love them from everlasting to everlasting in Christ, and that all reasons for God to be angry with us and treat us as his enemies has been taken away. The believer, being brought by Christ into the bosom of the Father, rests in the full assurance of God's love and of never being separated from that love.
Many saints have no greater burden in their lives than that their hearts do not constantly delight and rejoice in God. There is still in them a resistance to walking close with God... So do this: set your thoughts on the eternal love of the Father and see if your heart is not aroused to delight in him. Sit down for a while at the delightful spring of living water and you will soon find its streams sweet and delightful. You who used to run from God will not now be able, even for a second, to keep at any distance from him.

As I mentioned in my last post, this is taken from Tim Chester's book, The Ordinary Hero. Buy it. Read it.

Christian confidence

In Tim Chester's new book, 'The Ordinary Hero', he suggests the following tests to see how much confidence we have before God (you'll notice the echoes of Romans 8):

• If you're angry for ill-defined reasons or often angry, it mat well be because you feel angry towards God (even if you don't think of it like that) because you view life as a contract in which God hasn't kept his side of the bargain.
• If you feel condemned by other people or judged by them, it may be because you feel condemned by God because you haven't embraced the wonderful truth that there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
• If you're indifferent towards people, it may be because you're indifferent towards God because you haven't had God's love poured out in your heart.
• If you're insecure, often worried about what people think, always keen to prove yourself, unwilling to let an argument go, then that's a good sign that you're desperate to prove yourself because you've not grasped God's grace to you: the no-condemnation of the gospel.

On the other hand [Chester continues]:

• If you're confident that God loves you, then you'll love other people.
• If you're confident that God's accepted you, then you'll accept other people.
• If you're confident that God died for you, then you'll lay down your life for other people.
• If you're confident that God loved you while you were still his enemy, then you'll not complain when other people let you down.
• If you're confident that God's gracious to you, then you'll be gracious to other people.

So, how confident are you?

If not very, then the remedy is to read Romans 8:31ff where you discover that since Christ is for us, no-one can ultimately be against us; that because we're justified by Jesus, justification can never be taken away from us (even by our own stupid behaviour!); because Christ died for us, no-one can condemn us; and so nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

He then has a wonderful quote from John Owen. But I'll save that for tomorrow (or Wednesday - I'm at a governance seminar in Brentwood all day tomorrow...).

The Ordinary Hero, Tim Chester, (IVP 2009).

Be Faithful!

The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) is being officially launched in the UK and Ireland in London on Monday, July 6th 2009 at Westminster Central Hall, 9.30 - 5.30.

Be Faithful! aims to encourage and envision Anglicans committed to the orthodox teachings of the Anglican Church and passionate about global and local mission.

This could be the start of something very significant for the Church of England, and I want to encourage as many as possible to come. Could you take a day off work? Could you arrange for someone to collect your children so you can be there? See here for details, or pick up a brochure from church.

Why pray?

Why do we pray to the God who has sovereign power over all things and who acts to bring about everything he has planned to achieve? Why ask him for anything when he will achieve everything anyway?
It's right that we have a high view of God's sovereignty. But that can lead to prayerlessness - I believe that God will do the right thing at the right time in the right way. So I just need to trust him.
This was the issue Don Carson was addressing at the Evangelical Ministry Assembly today (many hundreds of church ministers gathered at St Helen's, Bishopsgate to be taught & encouraged).
And the answer to this very real problem (for me, anyway) is to hold together, all at once, all of God's attributes. In other words, we must not allow God's sovereignty to overshadow the fact that he is relational. For all eternity, God has been the Trinity in which Father, Son and Holy Spirit love and communicate and enjoy each other. And now, having made us in his image, he loves us and communicates with us and enjoys us - and we are to love him and communicate back to him and enjoy him. And we do that in prayer. Prayer has been described as 'answering speech' - God speaks to us in Scripture and we talk back (I was going to write, 'we answer back', but that might be misunderstood!).
So when I'm tempted not to pray because I know God is sovereign, I will also remember that he is personal - relational - and this is every bit as much a part of him as his sovereign power.

More good stuff tomorrow, no doubt.

How long does it take...?

A few years ago, I contacted Kent County Council about a loose manhole cover outside our house which makes a dreadful noise every time a car goes over it. I contacted them again this week. Perhaps this time they'll get on with it.

Meanwhile, as I wait for KCC, I went to Tyndale House Library where I stumbled across an article in the 1928 edition of the Journal of Theological Studies which said that there was a need for studies of punctutation in individual manuscripts. So 81 years later, here I am doing just that!

I have to say that I've lost a little enthusiasm for the project because there just doesn't seem to be anything of real significance, but Dirk Jongkind, who's supervising the project, is really excited and wants to publish my findings in some obscure journal. So I'm now starting to write it all up before submitting a first draft to Dirk.

Yesterday I went over to St John's, where Giles was preaching on Acts 4 & 5; the frightening account of Ananias & Sapphira who tried to deceive God and his church by lying about what they were giving. I was particularly struck by Giles' comment that in communism, people wanted others to give them what they had. In the church, people want to give to others what they have. So, for example (and in contrast to Ananias & Sapphira), Barnabas sold a field and brought the proceeds to the apostles to use as they felt best.

But it occurred to me that it's not only communists who want what others have - who prefer to take than to give. We're all like that: we see what others have, and we want it. Jesus, however, though he was rich became poor for our sake. That's our model for generosity, for giving what we have to those who don't have. And it is, as Jesus said, 'more blessed to give than to receive.'

May God give us grace to give willingly, generously and joyfully.

I'm off to Cambridge tomorrow for a few days to do some work at Tyndale House Library on punctuation in P66, so I probably won't be blogging for a few days.

When bad things happen...

I've been reading John Calvin's great theological work, 'The Institutes of the Christian Religion', (1536 - 1560). In Book I, chapter xvii, he considers the difference between fatalism (the non-Christian attitude to the events of life) and the biblical teaching about God's almighty, sovereign, fatherly care, and how this affects us. I had to smile as I read his list of the dangers of life - what would the health and safety people say... (it's a long quote, but worth it:

Innumerable are the ills which beset human life, and present death in as many different forms. Not to go beyond ourselves, since the body is a receptacle, nay the nurse, of a thousand diseases, a man cannot move without carrying along with him many forms of destruction. His life is in a manner interwoven with death. For what else can be said where heat and cold bring equal danger? Then, in what direction soever you turn, all surrounding objects not only may do harm, but almost openly threaten and seem to present immediate death. Go on board a ship, you are but a plank's breadth from death. Mount a horse, the stumbling of a foot endangers your life. [I took Ruth riding yesterday!] Walk along the streets, every tile upon the roofs is a source of danger [our church roof...!]. If a sharp instrument is in your own hand, or that of a friend, the possible harm is manifest. All the savage beasts you see are so many beings armed for your destruction [dogs in Dunorlan?]. Even within a high walled garden, where everything ministers to delight, a serpent will sometimes lurk [Oh dear, we have snakes in our garden]. Your house, constantly exposed to fire, threatens you with poverty by day, with destruction by night. Your fields, subject to hail, mildew, drought, and other injuries, denounce barrenness, and thereby famine. I say nothing of poison, treachery, robbery, some of which beset us at home, others follow us abroad. Amid these perils, must not man be very miserable, as one who, more dead than alive, with difficulty draws an anxious and feeble breath, just as if a drawn sword were constantly suspended over his neck?

It may be said that these things happen seldom, at least not always, or to all, certainly never all at once. I admit it; but since we are reminded by the example of others, that they may also happen to us, and that our life is not an exception any more than theirs, it is impossible not to fear and dread as if they were to befall us. What can you imagine more grievous than such trepidation? Add that there is something like an insult to God when it is said, that man, the noblest of the creatures, stands exposed to every blind and random stroke of fortune. Here, however, we were only referring to the misery which man should feel, were he placed under the dominion of chance.

So no wonder the health and safety industry is flourishing! Everyone is scared of living in such a dangerous world. So what difference is there as a Christian? Calvin goes on:

Certainty about God's providence puts joyous trust toward God in our hearts

But when once the light of Divine Providence has illumined the believer's soul, he is relieved and set free, not only from the extreme fear and anxiety which formerly oppressed him, but from all care. For as he justly shudders at the idea of chance, so he can confidently commit himself to God. This, I say, is his comfort, that his heavenly Father so embraces all things under his power - so governs them at will by his nod - so regulates them by his wisdom, that nothing takes place save according to his appointment; that received into his favour, and entrusted to the care of his angels neither fire, nor water, nor sword, can do him harm, except in so far as God their master is pleased to permit. For thus sings the Psalm, "Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust; his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday" &c. (Ps. 91: 2-6.) Hence the exulting confidence of the saints, "The Lord is on my side; I will not fear: what can man do unto me? The Lord taketh my part with them that help me." "Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear." "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." (Ps. 118: 6; 27: 3; 23: 4.)

How comes it, I ask, that their confidence never fails, but just that while the world apparently revolves at random, they know that God is every where at work, and feel assured that his work will be their safety? When assailed by the devil and wicked men, were they not confirmed by remembering and meditating on Providence, they should, of necessity, forthwith despond. But when they call to mind that the devil, and the whole train of the ungodly, are, in all directions, held in by the hand of God as with a bridle, so that they can neither conceive any mischief, nor plan what they have conceived, nor how much soever they may have planned, move a single finger to perpetrate, unless in so far as he permits, nay, unless in so far as he commands; that they are not only bound by his fetters, but are even forced to do him service, - when the godly think of all these things they have ample sources of consolation.

Does that mean we Christians are passive in the face of danger, illness or wickedness? Absolutely not. Calvin shows that when God equips us with the means to avoid, treat or fight such things, we're to be ministers of that grace and use the gifts god gives us. But when we're unable to avoid danger, treat illness or fight evil, we rejoice that God is still in control and will not allow us to be snatched from his eternal care.

Great stuff! Let me know if you got to the end!!