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!!