Distinguo

One exception

2010-09-04T12:18:00.003+01:00

I know, I'm not blogging at the moment.

But I just found a lovely quote which I wanted to share, and it's in the midst of sermon prep, so not time-wasting.

Derek Kidner on Psalm 110 mentions in a footnote those who dispute Davidic authorship:

The majority of present critics dissent more moderately from the New Testament
view of the psalm by seeing it as an enthronement oracle for either David or one
of his successors, spoken to him by an anonymous cultic official. Our Lord and
the apostles, it is understood, were denied this insight.

Wonderful!

Goodbye for now

2010-01-02T14:05:00.002Z

Don't come by in 2010. I shall neither post nor read blogs this year.

I don't post often, or indeed say anything particularly interesting, so no-one will miss this.

I will miss other blogs, which often give food for thought, exegetical nuggets, careful reflections on events etc. But, on balance, I think I will gain even more from giving time I would spend blogging to reading and proper thought.

I also have more books to review and articles to write (which take considerably more time than blogging) for Ecclesia Reformanda, a superb journal of British Reformed theology, which had a fantastic first year in 2009, and looks for an even better one this year. So if you want to keep up with what I'm thinking and reading, subscribe!

Bargain Calvin

2009-11-25T09:09:00.002Z

If you don't already own Calvin's Commentaries, you should. Shop here before Sunday and you get a free copy of the Institutes as well (sadly the Beveridge translation), all for $100. Can't say fairer than that!

No means Yes, and Yes means Yes

2009-10-03T11:55:00.003+01:00

Counting is underway in the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty for a new EU Constitution (I know they claim it's just a tidying-up exercise - like Hercules and the Augean Stables was just a spring-clean).

Of course, 18 months ago, the people of Ireland said No to the treaty, by 53.4% to 46.6%. But that wasn't what the government, opposition, business or the rest of the EU wanted to hear, so they just asked the question again.

Can we assume that if the answer is yes this time, there'll be another one in 18 months to check people haven't changed their minds? I think not.

It's rather like the Church of England's General Synod. If you want to see women ordained, just keep asking the question. Eventually people will say yes, but then funnily enough, the question doesn't get asked again.

It looks like the Irish will say yes this time. Not because they've really changed their minds, but because when you're suffering economic hardship you don't bite the hand that feeds. but if they don't, will the government just ask again in another year, and keep asking until they get the answer they want.

I must confess, we sometimes try the same tactic with our toddler - just keep asking until he gives the answer we want. Perhaps that says something about Governments' attitudes to their people - they're fickle children, but nanny knows best!

The government can...

2009-08-28T10:32:00.001+01:00

Wonderful musical satire of over-reaching government. HT: Pete Jackson

Wonder what Tim Hawkins would make of the British government?!

Playing with fire

2009-08-27T09:10:00.002+01:00

This is scary.

Usually my disagreements with the climate warriors are to do with the fact that:

It is still not at all obvious that climate chaange is man-caused, or carbon-caused.
The tyrannical attempts of the climate warriors to silence their opponents (like having them expelled from the Royal Academy)
The call to give overbearing powers to governments and the UN to enforce this hypothesis.

However, the idea of "geo-engineering" artificial trees and reflecting sunlight back into space with mirrored roofing rings alarm bells.

I am not a scientist, at all. But I do recall lots of situations where previous generations of scientists have 'solved' one problem by creating a new one. In 1935, 102 cane toads were released into Queensland to control beetles who were destroying the sugar cane crop. It failed, and the beetles are still wrecking crops. However, the cane toad succeeded in becoming massively widespread, but it is so poisonous it kills both its prey and its predators, even crocodiles, and has almost wiped out many of Australia's endangered species.

Of course, each generation of scientists thinks they're so much better informed now that they wouldn't have made the same mistake. But if we really could reflect a significant quantity of sunlight back into space, who's to say we won't overdo it. We're always being warned that doing the wrong thing vis-a-vis our climate could have apocalyptic consequences. I hope the climate warriors listen to their own warnings.

Sometimes the cure is worse than the problem.

Perhaps my scientific readers may care to comment (not you Marc!)?

Happy Birthday Calvin

2009-07-09T16:42:00.001+01:00

Celebrating John Calvin's 500th birthday, The Theologian has a special Calvin edition.

Blowing global warming out of the bath

2009-07-03T15:53:00.002+01:00

The link in the previous post to the Telegraph alerted me to the Manhattan Declaration, issued last year by almost 800 distinguished scientists of climate and related fields, arguing:

Hereby declare:
That current plans to restrict anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a dangerous
misallocation of intellectual capital and resources that should be dedicated to
solving humanity’s real and serious problems.
That there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern
industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause
catastrophic climate change.
That attempts by governments to inflict taxes and costly regulations on
industry and individual citizens with the aim of reducing emissions of CO2 will
pointlessly curtail the prosperity of the West and progress of developing
nations without affecting climate.
That adaptation as needed is massively more cost-effective than any
attempted mitigation, and that a focus on such mitigation will divert the
attention and resources of governments away from addressing the real problems of
their peoples.
That human-caused climate change is not a global crisis.

Now, therefore, we recommend –
That world leaders reject the views expressed by the United Nations
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as popular, but misguided
works such as “An Inconvenient Truth”.
That all taxes, regulations, and other
interventions intended to reduce emissions of CO2 be abandoned forthwith.

Why had I not heard about this before? Surely not a global political and media conspiracy to silence the 'unhelpful' voices?

Silencing the dissenting expert

2009-07-03T15:49:00.002+01:00

Apparently, regardless of how expert you are in any science, you're not welcome if you cast doubt on anthropogenic climate change.

HT: Tim Ambrose

Call the Spirit "She"?

2009-06-16T12:36:00.002+01:00

No doubt many evangelicals will be rejoicing over the appointment of 'yet another evangelical bishop'. The Rev'd Dr Graham Kings was appointed a few weeks ago as suffragan Bishop of Sherborne. Unfortunately he also wrote a recent Pentecost piece for Fulcrum addressing the Holy Spirit as "She".

Dyslexic Politics

2009-06-08T09:21:00.003+01:00

I've heard that one of the downsides of dyslexia is a tendency to confuse left and right. Well, I've been hearing that all morning on the news with the description of the British National Party as a "far-right" party.

Let me say immediately I think they're pretty unpleasant, and dishonest. Their claim not be racist is pretty quickly undone by reading the manifesto, and I would not advise anyone to vote for them.

However, I am not convinced the description "far-right" is accurate. If anything, I'd say the BNP is further left-wing than it is right. [Jam Cary has digested some careful and perceptive thoughts on left-right confusion here, here and here.]

Let's look at the manifesto.

In what ways is the BNP clearly right-wing?
It supports capital punishment and corporal punishment for certain crimes, and seems to uphold retribution/desert as the key principle of punishment, rather than deterrence or rehabilitation.
It advocates the devolution of power to the most local level possible.
It promotes full withdrawal from the European Union.

However, it seems to me that on far more policies the BNP is a left-wing party, in the sense of a party of state intervention:
They advocate trade protectionism, placing tariffs on foreign goods entering the British market.
They advocate the restoration of the economy and land to British ownership, though without specifying how. Presumably some state action will be necessary, violating the property rights and freely-entered-into contracts of foreign parties in the UK.
They advocate state-enforced preference to 'native' workers in the job market.
They advocate state-enforced brek-up of commercial monopolies.
They advocate workers' co-operatives, primed with public money.
They support government involvement in education, and the promotion of healthy living.
They would spend govt money on agricultural self-sufficiency.
They oppose rail privatisation, and would invest substantial govt spending on transport infrastructure projects.
They would enforce by law minimum environmental standards on companies and individuals.
Savings made from EU withdrawal (£43million a day it costs us to be members) would not be returned to taxpayers but would be spent on govt projects.

Ultimately, the BNP is a high tax, high-spend, govt-controls-your-life party, a bit like Labour, and the Lib Dems, and increasingly the Tories.

People forget the Nazi Party was a Socialist party. I've heard people say that at the extremes, Left and Right are actually very close together, and the example used is Stalin and Hitler. But the point that is overlooked is that Hitler wasn't a right-winger, he was on the far-left!

So, it's not really surprising that the increase in the BNP vote is in historically Labour areas. Except for the nasty racism and EUphobia, there isn't really a great distance between them.

By all means, bemoan the BNP. But let's be honest (unlike them), and stop calling them "far-right".

Protestant division

2009-06-03T09:44:00.002+01:00

John Richardson has a fantastic series of posts on the danger of schism and the primacy of self in Protestantism, here, here, here, and here. Go and read.

It's out

2009-06-03T09:40:00.002+01:00

Ecclesia Reformanda 1.1 has arrived. Articles and reviews are superb.

Ros has some pretty pictures of it to go with her pretty blog.
You can read the first editorial free online.
You can subscribe here. I still have 11 copies left, though if there's sufficient demand we can always print more.

Go on, you know you want to...

The Episcopal Church excels itself

2009-04-04T10:22:00.002+01:00

The Episcopal Church in the United States seems determined to make itself as abhorrent as possible to the majority of Christians around the world. If it wasn't so tragic and wicked, sometimes it would appear like an episode of Yes Prime Minister.

Their latest triumph, reported in this week's Church of England Newspaper is to appoint the Rev'd Dr Katharine Ragsdale as Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School in Massachusetts. She is openly homosexual, though that's no surprise, as it's becoming a prerequisite for high office in TEC. The horror is her comments on abortion. Again, the fact that she's pro-abortion is sad but not surprising. She spent 17 years on the board of Religions Coalition for Reproductive Choice, including 8 years as Chair.

Here are some comments from a 2007 sermon, quoted in CEN:

"Abortion is a blessing."
"Abortionists are engaged in holy work."

“When a woman becomes pregnant within a loving, supportive, respectful relationship; has every option open to her; decides she does not wish to bear a child; and has access to a safe, affordable abortion - there is not a tragedy in sight — only blessing. The ability to enjoy God’s good gift of sexuality without compromising one’s education, life’s work, or ability to put to use God’s gifts and call is simply blessing,”

She concluded the sermon with some audience participation:
"Let me hear you say it: abortion is a blessing and our work is not done.”

I would hope that even the most ardent 'pro-choicer' would be horrified by such comments. Even if you think it's legitimate and necessary, surely everyone can see the great sadness involved in the termination of a foetus?

It seems to me that the comment about enjoying God's gift of sexuality gets ot the heart of TEC spirituality. Everything always seems to come back to sex. For TEC, your sex life seems to be the key thing that identifies you and gives your life meaning. How shallow!

Ants and Grasshoppers

2009-04-01T19:37:00.003+01:00

I was provoked by a comment in Time magazine this week about the need for our wealth-creators to stop being grasshoppers and become ants. So I've fished out this old story:

The Ant & The Grasshopper

Version 1 – the Classic Version
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
The End

Version 2 – The British Version [we might now title it the G20 fiscal stimulus version]
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like him, are cold and starving. The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home in Hampstead with a table laden with food.
The British are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so much while others have plenty. The Liberal Party, the Respect Party, the Transvestites With Starving Babies Party, the Single Lesbian One Eyed Mothers Party and the Coalition Against Poverty demonstrate in front of the ant's house. The BBC, interrupting a Rastafarian cultural festival special from Grimsby with breaking news, broadcasts them singing ‘We Shall Overcome.’
Ken Livingstone laments in an interview with Panorama that the ant has got rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his ‘fair share’. In response, the Labour Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant’s taxes are reassessed, and he is also fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as helpers.
Without enough money to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by Camden Council. The ant moves to France, and starts a successful AgriBiz company with the help of EU funding (although within weeks his business is threatened with compulsory purchase by the state unless he marries a French ant).
The BBC later shows the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last of the ant's food, though Spring is still months away, while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain it. Inadequate government funding is blamed, Diane Abbot is appointed to head a commission of enquiry that will cost £?0,000,000.
The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose. The Guardian blames it on the obvious failure of the Government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity. The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders, praised by the government for enriching Britain’s multicultural diversity, who promptly set up a marijuana-growing operation and terrorize the community.
The End

And what the G20 are planning this week is to fleece all the ants (and their children, grandchildren and subsequent generations) to within an inch of bankruptcy, to look after all the grasshoppers.

A wonderful new publication

2009-02-19T09:08:00.002Z

I'm delighted to announce the launch of Ecclesia Reformanda: British Reformed Theology.

It's an exciting new journal for pastors, theological students, and scholars, that seeks to serve the Church in its ongoing reformation according to God's Word.

Ecclesia Reformanda is distinctively Reformed, with a contemporary cutting edge. It presents some of the best in British Reformed thinking and writing to serve the Church, her teachers, and her Lord.

The journal covers all of the theological subdisciplines, and early issues will include articles on intertextuality in Romans 2, poetry in James, the place of children in the new covenant according to Jeremiah 32, Jim Jordan's hermeneutics, Herman Bavinck's theological method, and John Owen's doctrine of justification. Future editions will contain articles on ethics, public theology, and pastoral counselling.

Editorial Board: Matthew Mason, Ros Clarke, me, and David Field

As Managing Editor, I'm obviously biased, but I think it should be a valuable addition to the world of theology resources.

Please subscribe: www.ecclesiareformanda.org.uk

Don't leave the children out

2009-02-12T14:11:00.002Z

A wonderful story from Pete Jackson explaining infant baptism with some emotional pull. Don't worry though, Pete has all the necessary theological underpinning as well.

I can't make it but...

2009-01-12T09:25:00.002Z

You'd be mad to miss Roy Attwood and Douglas Wilson in London in February

We will be blessed with a mission team from the Cornhill Training Course that week, so unfortunately I won't be in London. Your excuse needs to be at least as good!

OUP goes PC

2008-12-08T12:38:00.000Z

I am horrified by the words removed from and added to OUP's new Junior Dictionary.

Biting the Obama bullet

2008-11-05T09:07:00.001Z

This is a very funny story.

(HT: Jam Cary)

The New Economy

2008-10-28T15:01:00.003Z

Also from The Week's Wit & Wisdom, courtesy of Bob Battle in the Washington Times:

If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you will
have $49 today. If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you
will have $33. If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers, you
will have $0. But if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank
all the beer, then turned in the aluminium cans for a
recycling refund, you
would have $214.

And you would have drunk a lot of beer into the bargain. Brilliant!

Libertarianism in a sentence

2008-10-28T14:59:00.003Z

I don't always read the Wit & Wisdom in The Week, but I'm glad I did this week.

There was a wonderful quote from PJ O'Rourke, which beautifully sums up a lot of libertarianism:

A government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough
to take it all away.

Quis custodes custodiet?

2008-10-16T13:26:00.001+01:00

Or who guards the guards? In the current financial crisis, this is just too funny!

Freudian Slip

2008-09-20T15:08:00.002+01:00

I just saw this advert in the reduced section of Christianbook.com:

Is It Okay to Call God Mother? Considering the Feminine Face of God - Slightly Imperfect

You said it, though perhaps slightly is underplaying it.

The Dictatorship of Katharine Jefferts Schori

2008-09-20T11:16:00.002+01:00

The Church of England Newspaper this week ran a story that the Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church has brought a motion to depose the Bishop of Pittsburgh.

What caught my eye is the extent of control KJS either has or thinks she has over her House of Bishops and denomination. Some extracts from CEN:

While Bishop Schori conceded that Bishop Duncan's diocese had not yet voted to
withdraw from the Episcopal Church, it was her contention that his statements
that such a move was possible offended canon law. She also stated she would
reject readings of church law that did not conform to her own, adding that "any
ambiguity in the canon" should be resolved in her favour.

For the vote
[to depose] to be blocked, a point of order must be raised and seconded. Bishop
Schori will be asked to rule whether her [own] actions consitute a breach of
order. If she rules against the protesting bishops, an appeal may be taken which
requires a two-thirds vote to sustain her ruling.

So, judge, jury and executioner then.

Religious discrimination

2008-09-17T13:00:00.002+01:00

Having referred to the House of Commons (Removal of Clergy Disqualification) Act 2001 below, I was wondering how someone like the Rev'd Ian Paisley came to be in the House of Commons before this Act.

It turns out that clergy disqualification applied only to clergy who had been episcopally ordained (Anglican, Roman or otherwise), and not to others.

Perhaps we could argue mischievously that proves Parliament considers non-episcopal ordination not to count!

Though Parliament's track record wrt theological understanding leaves something to be desired (with the honourable exception of the 1928 Prayer Book).

Could I really vote Lib Dem?

2008-09-17T11:53:00.003+01:00

That got your attention!

The Liberal Democrats have been saying some surprisingly sensible things at their conference:

replacing the National Curriculum in schools with a significantly slimmed-down version
getting rid of at least 2 Whitehall departments, including the elegantly-titled Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform
cutting £20 billion from public spending
taking 4p off the basic rate of income tax

OK, there's still a long way to go. But it just looks as though they might be the most committed of the 3 main parties to small government (except for their continued baffling Euro-enthusiasm).

Also Nick Clegg has said he will not rule out sending his children to private schools, which shows he considers his children's welfare to be more important than his own career and electoral success.

He's still a little bit too much like David Cameron, who's a bit too much like Tony Blair, but let's go one step at a time.

Are you sure, Father David?

2008-09-17T11:42:00.002+01:00

Yesterday, David Cairns, a previously anonymous Scottish Office minister, resigned, because he wants a Labour leadership contest. Big deal?

What was interesting was that Mr Cairns used to be Father David Cairns, a Roman Catholic priest, who came into Parliament after the House of Commons (Removal of Clergy Disqualification) Act 2001. Despite his resignation, Mr Cairns commented that "For me it is an article of faith that the worst day of a Labour government is better than the best day of a Tory or SNP one."

Would that be the same Labour government which since 1997 has pursued the most aggressive legislative campaign in history for the normalisation of homosexuality? Or, to take another random worst day in Labour government history, the legalisation of abortion in 1967? Whatever your views on these subjects, it seems surprising that a good Roman Catholic could think those days would be better than the best day of a Tory or SNP administration.

Are we stumbling again upon the well-worn sacred/secular split, or perhaps the "my faith won't affect my politics" mantra?

Neither brave nor free

2008-09-17T11:18:00.002+01:00

We're used to thinking of the United States as the home of libertarianism and small government, at least compared to the rest of the world, and within America, of the Republican Party as being particularly concerned with this restriction of government interference.

Yet, in the last week we have seen the Bush Administration effectively nationalising Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (much more interesting names than Halifax or Nationwide), to the potential tune of $200 billion. Combined, they guarantee mortgages of $5.3 trillion. Can any of us possibly comprehend these sums of money?

And yesterday, the government announced they would take an 80% stake in the major insurers, AIG, in return for an $85 billion loan.

Now, $285 billion is a lot of taxpayers' money. In fact, assuming we're talking American billions (9 0s), and assuming the US tax-paying population to be 170 million (which is probably on the large side), that's $1675 per person.

Yes, the collapse of Fannie and Freddie would have been horrendous, particularly for Americans, but also for the global economy, but why AIG and not Lehman Brothers.

Further, many people have observed the absurdity of the following argument: governments shouldn't punish financiers for massive bonuses because they're in a risky business where they can make massive losses as well. It seems that, provided you ensure your losses are really really massive, then there is no risk because the government will bail you out.

We're now seeing calls from Democrats for more regulatory intervention. And of course, if the government's going to bail companies out, then why shouldn't it poke its nose in the rest of the time.

Giles Fraser (don't worry, I shall never quote him approvingly again) pointed out the inconsistency of all this in the Church Times, noting that even the most ardent capitalists become state-loving socialists when their own jobs are at risk!

It just goes to show that, for all the talk of small government from Republicans, and from Tories and Lib Dems in the UK recently, no politicians really have the courage of their convictions. Ultimately, the problem is that all politicians really do believe that the State is the Saviour. And it isn't.

Is Hell in the presence of God?

2008-09-10T14:28:00.002+01:00

I'm preaching this Sunday on 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10.

In ESV, v. 9 reads "they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might." Most translations follow the same idea.

But "away from" is simply apo in Greek. Apo can mean all sorts of things. It can mean away from in the sense of separation. Indeed BDAG, the main lexicon, gives this sense for 2 Thess 1:9. It can also mean from in the sense of source or origin, thus God is the agent of this destruction. It could even have a causal sense. Apo prosopou might then indicate that it is the presence of God which actually causes the destruction: "from the face of God."

As evangelicals, we're used to saying that Hell or our punishment is to be shut out of God's presence, completely and finally, so losing every good thing of common grace - love, friendship, food, happiness etc.

Yet, Jonathan Edwards suggested some 250 years ago that eternity for both believers and unbelievers will be "in the immediate presence and sight of God." Indeed, it is the presence of God which makes Hell Hell. He is so hated by unbelievers, and his glory and holiness so unbearable, that it is in the presence of God that they find the greatest torment.

Any thoughts?

Understanding Rowan Williams

2008-09-09T18:04:00.003+01:00

Is it possible?

This was another gem from John Richardson at Lowestoft Living Word.

It's a major struggle for most Anglicans to understand why Rowan Williams is handling the Anglican crisis as he is. Liberals say he is being dishonest, hiding what he truly believes. Conservatives, while grateful for the small mercy that he isn't pursuing his personal position on homosexuality, also see an element of hypocrisy, and ultimate futility for someone to try to distinguish private and public belief.

No-one can understand how the Archbishop thinks the Communion will ever find a resolution, when the two sides are not just Christians in disagreement, but seem to follow two completely different religions.

Into this fray John Richardson stepped, suggesting that it is Rowan Williams' understanding of salvation which drives him in this, and that he is being utterly consistent with his own belief. I think I'd heard it before, but not so clearly.

Rowan Williams believes that Jesus, on the cross, is not bearing the penal wrath of His Father against sin, standing as a substitute for his elect. Rather God is rejecting rejection. Mankind rejects God, but on the cross, God rejects our rejection (stick with it...). God never rejects or judges anyone, but simply rejects rejection. Therefore salvation is found in rejecting rejection, it is embracing those who reject you, and rejecting their rejection.

Hence, salvation for Peter Akinola, is found in rejecting the rejection of those who reject him. But the same is true for Katharine Jefferts Schori. So, Rowan Williams is not being inconsistent or hypocritical in not siding with either side. Rather, as long as Akinola and Jefferts Schori are at the table together, rejecting each other's rejection, they are moving towards salvation.

Of course, in a sense, that's even more worrying, because it suggests that Rowan will never reach a place where things can no longer be held together. We may even guess that the stronger the resentment and rejection gets between the two sides, the more he will want to hold it together (a perverse version of "shall we sin then, so grace may abound?").

So, Rowan Williams, not hypocritical or inconsistent, just barking!

John Richardson on Eschatology 4

2008-09-08T14:30:00.002+01:00

Finally,

John treated us to an in-depth, in some ways standard, Bible overview. However, there were many treats along the way.

At the outset, John denied the Rapture using 2 Thess 2. Much as I agree there is no rapture, I am undecided on 2 Thess 2, and have heard arguments that it may refer to AD70, not the Second Coming.

John showed:

that throughout the Bible Sabbath is always the carrot ahead of us.
The irony of Abram's name meaning Mighty Father.
Our astonishment at Solomon's failure should be ever greater than it is. There is no prophet active in Israel from Solomon's anointing to Jeroboam's anointing. John suggested that is because Solomon is so unbelievably close to God. Even David had to go through Nathan the prophet. God appeared directly to Solomon and Solomon needed no prophet. Thus our hope of the fulfilment of 2 Sam 7 is even greater, surely this King is God's Son. But he's not, so our hopes crash from an even greater height, and our expectation of God's true Son climb even higher.
Pentecost picks up the story of God's blessing to the whole world from Genesis 11. Since Babel, blessing has always had to be mediated through Israel.

John concluded with the question, why does God do it this way? The answer from Eph 1 is because he wants to create a body to be united to his Son, which is a simply staggering proposition. How wonderful is the mind of God that he would conceive that whole story to make a redeemed people of all nations, who would be a body and bride for his Head/bridegroom Son?

In an earlier talk John noted an application I had not thought of from Christ's body in Psalm 110. If God's plan is to place Christ's enemies under his feet (Ps 110:1), what is his feet (sic)? Christ is the Head, and feet are not heads, so Ps 110 with Eph 1 is saying that God's plan is to place Christ's enemies under his church.

Wow!

Thank you John Richardson for a thought-provoking and heart-warming week.

JR on eschatology 3

2008-09-08T14:06:00.002+01:00

...
Thirdly, the Christian obscession with signs of the end is rather unhealthy. John pointed out that the two marks on the forehead of Rev 7 and 13 come from Ezekiel 9, in which they are part of Ezekiel's vision. John commented that he's never ome across anyone who expects to see a visible mark of the Lamb, or has wanted to make a film about it, but endless 666 films and theories. Why do our end-times fascinations always dwell on the dark side?

We spent most of our time in Mark 13, and you can see more of John's thoughts on his own blog.

[John had a number of background observations which were superb and eye-opening.

Temple translates the Hebrew "house" and "palace", so we see in Ex 25, for example, that the Temple is God's house to live in the midst of his people, and his palace from which he rules over them. The Temple is also the dwelling from which God's rule extends to fill and subdue creation.
In Gen 4 God puts a mark on Cain to preserve him as he wanders through the earth,which is remarkably similar to the mark of God in Ezek. 9
After the expulsion from the garden Israel is never again able to enter God's presence. When the glory-cloud descends in Ex 40 on the Tabernacle, and 1 Kings 8 on the Temple, Moses and the priests have to leave.]

Back to Mark 13, much of that was background to show that the question from the disciples Jesus is answering is about when the glory cloud presence of God will return to his Temple, a la Malachi 3:1. At this stage John was very positive about NT Wright's work on this. We could add Dick France's excellent NIGTC commentary on Mark.

Jesus' answer is that it won't be as quick or smooth as the disciples hope. The lord's return will be preceded by a time of division, deception, proclamation and Israel will be found unready and unworthy. The abomination will render the Temple spiritually inoperable, and so it will not be this Temple the Lord comes to.

The coming of the Son of Man then in v. 26 cannot be the Second Coming. Also of course because of the this generation prediction in v. 30, which John said used to tie him up in knots until he realised it didn't have to be the Second Coming, an experience many of us have shared at times.

The coming of the Son of Man, Daniel 7, should be understood in the light of Mk 14:62. So John suggests that the resurrection and ascension and subsequent events, possibly up to AD70, are in view, those things whhich the High Priest and his cronies would have seen and experienced.

This coming of the Son of Man is his coming to the real Temple, that is the glory-cloud presence of his Father, the Ancient of Days in the heavenly places, which happens at the Ascension. This tallies with Acts 2:32-34 where Jesus is enthroned before the Gentile mission, the reference to angel/messengers in Mk 13:27.

Thank you John for a tour de force. I'd like to add that when I use to think this was about the Second Coming, I couldn't get past the language of apocalyptic disturbance in 24-25. Dick France has shown that this language is used in OT of judgement against Babylon (Is 13:10) and Edom and other nations (Is 34:4), son doesn't need to be understood of physical cosmic upheaval. In support of John Richardson, I would also add the contrast between Jesus' level of knowledge about those days, those days, those days (all the same time frame, vv. 17, 19, 24), and his ignorance [not getting into that now] about THAT DAY (v. 32).

JR on eschatology 2

2008-09-08T13:57:00.002+01:00

...
Secondly, John took us to Rev 21 for a vision of the future.

I think I must have been slightly sleepy as I'm not sure I followed everything, but here's what I got.

Our life maps tend to be individualistic: where is the end of the world in relation to me.
The Bible's map is a map of the whole of creation, not of my life: where the world has got to, with me in it.

John wonderfully expressed this as, creation is not the stage on which the play is set, rather creation is one of the characters in the drama, which makes so much more sense, in my view, of Romans 8 etc.

John then looked at a biblical theology of Sabbath and rest, seeing that Sabbath is not rest from work, rather it is the work creation was aiming for in the first place.

Ultimately that future Sabbath is finally fulfilled in the reunion of heaven and earth. John combined this with a view of the future of the church as being the marriage-supper of the Lamb.

This vision complemented John's 2 lunchtime talks in which the big theme seemed to be that Christ-shaped-ness of creation and the future. Here John made a number of helpful observations:
1. Jesus is not a plan B, indeed salvation is not a plan B. Using marriage as the obvious example, John showed that creation is shaped with Christ in mind. Marriage was designed in order to show Christ's relationship with his church, not that Christ's relationship with the church was shaped to reflect marriage. In the mind of God, his Son always comes first, and creation is designed to reflect Him, not vice versa.
2. Protology (the study of the first things) and eschatology (the study of the last things) mutually inform one another. They cannot be divorced, precisely because God designed the creation in the first place to mirror his final goal of Christ the King with his redeemed people ruling the physical glorious creation.

Absolutely.

Lessons from John Richardson on Eschatology 1

2008-09-08T13:40:00.004+01:00

Last week John Richardson spoke at the Lowestoft Living Word Convention.

John preached for 4 evenings and 2 lunchtimes on the subject of eschatology, broadly, a Christian view of the future.

In the interests of short posts (which I like) let's go talk by talk.

First, we looked at Paul's speech to the Areopagus in Athens. John gave a helpful introduction to eschatology, and why it should concern us. As in church, so in life generally, if we have no view of the future, then we have no direction for the present. John suggested an absence of eschatology leads to an exclusively present focus, and an incoherence in our life and ministry.

John's main point from Acts 17 and the NT prominence of the Resurrection is that the big Christian hope is not "I go to heaven when I die" (John later affirmed that he does believe this, simply it is not the final destination) but rather "heaven is coming to earth when Christ returns". John observed that Tom Wright has been particularly helpful on this big idea, though many might disagree with his applications to cancelling 3rd World debt.

The Resurrection also affirms that matter matters. John said physicality is not bad. Where the Greek philosophers' future was a release from the burden of the physical, the Bible's future is bodily resurrection and a physical new heaven and new earth.

I couldn't agree more with John. It was a clear and helpful corrective to a faulty view of the physical which is all too common.

The challenges were: how often is our preaching shaped by the world's question, what happens when I die, rather than the Bible's emphasis on the general resurrection and its concern with the future of the world and the race. [In passing, John did show from Phil 1:21-24, we might add Luke 23:43, that the Bible does also talk sometimes about Christian experience between death and the resurrection.] Also, how do we view the physical? With suspicion and negativity and resignation, or positively and with hope and joy?

What are the Rules?

2008-06-24T11:09:00.002+01:00

The Church of England has two different types of 'rules', which we might call Legislation and Quasi-legislation. The first has legal force (in theory), the second has only 'moral' force (and it's often arguable whether it has that.

Legislation:

Acts of Parliament
Measures (of Church Assembly or General Synod, which require Royal Assent and, since 1919 Enabling Act, have the same force as Actos of Parlt)
Canons (these also require Royal Assent, but are subordinate in status to Measures)
General Constitutional Principles (39 Articles, BCP and the Ordering of Bps, Priests and Deacons - the fact that the current Declaration of Assent is weaker than the old one apparently does not change the legal status of the ancient formularies in the CofE)
Judicial Decisions (the decisions of Diocesan Chancellors do not bind other Chancellors, but if the Court of Arches, CofE's appeal court, or the Privy Council rules, its decisions bind all the Diocesan Chancellors)
Doctrinal and liturgical statements (the only example we were given of these would be the rubrics of the BCP)
Pre-Reformation canons (this is largely theoretical. Canon B29 makes ref to a Proviso to Canon 113 of the Code of 1603, which concerns the seal of the confessional. Canon Parrott thought it would not stand up in court if set against the Children Act.)

Quasi legislation:

Diocesan Handbooks (some of the contents will be form Canon Law, some will be the Bishop's or Diocese's interpretation of the law)
Regulations
Codes of Practice
Ad Clerum letters/Pastoral Statements
Guidelines (central or diocesan)

From this we were told that the only canonical obedience a Bishop can demand is where he is given the authority under a piece of genuine legislation (though Canon Parrott thinks the moral obligation of the oath goes far beyond that).

Thus, commenting on the recent 'gay marriage' in London, Canon Parrott thought that, even if Richard Chartres wanted to do something, there is nothing he can do except a slap on the wrist.

Essential Canon Law Reading List

2008-06-24T11:02:00.002+01:00

Brilliant CME day last Saturday (really!)

Everything CME should be - entertaining, informative, telling you those things about the CofE that only the experts know. It was called "Help! I'm a Church Lawyer" and was led by Canon David Parrott, CME officer for Chelmsford Diocese, Education Officer of the Ecclesiastical Law Society, and self-confessed canon law anorak with an MA in Canon Law Studies from Cardiff!

This is what he told us we must have on our shelves if we ever become incumbents (also useful for Curates):

Anglican Marriage in England and Wales: A Guide to the Law for Clergy (from the Faculty Office, Westminster)

Suggestions for the Guidcance of the Clergy with regard to the Marriage and Registration Acts (possibly available from local Registrar)

A Guide to Liturgical Copyright (download from CofE website)

The Charities Act and the PCC, 3rd ed. (download from CofE website)

Church Representation Rules (always buy latest edition, currently 2006)

Canons of the Church of England (free download from CofE website)

Practical Church Management by James Behrens

soon to be published by David Parrott himself, Your Church and the Law: A simple explanation and guide

Enjoy!

Good Friday reflections

2008-06-12T11:42:00.002+01:00

Don't know why I've only just thought of this now, but here's my Good Friday meditation on Matthew 27:

It is such a vivid story, such that you can almost picture yourself there. And inevitably, our attention is drawn to that man hanging there on the cross, at the end. But to look only there would miss out so many features and themes and details and messages of this story. A few days ago, at an assembly at the Denes, I explained that the message of Good Friday, why it is good, is that Jesus is the substitute for men and women as he dies to bear the full force of God’s anger. And when you have to reduce the message of Good Friday into one sentence, that is it. But there is so much more.

So this morning, we’re going to do something a bit different. We’re going to look at some themes which weave their way through this episode, and through Matthew’s Gospel, which we sadly miss much of the time in the crucifixion story, two in particular. The themes are the overthrow of old Jerusalem and old Israel in preparation for the new Jeruslaem and new Israel, and the dramatic rule of Jesus Christ, the king of kings, in every instance of this event.

First, let’s think about the calamitous failure and judgement of the old Jeruslaem and old Israel.

We saw last week on Palm Sunday that wonderful moment where Jesus is acclaimed by the crowds as he approaches Jerusalem. We saw the crowds going before him, the pilgrims heading up to Jerusalem for Passover, proclaiming their king. But the residents of Jerusalem, the people of the city of God, don’t recognise him. Imagine the Queen in her golden coach on the way to the State Opening of Parliament, with the crowds waving and shouting and praising her. But when she enters Parliament itself, the servants and security staff, the cooks and administrators, the MPs and Lords, they turn their backs and deny her. Those who should be most aware, most exultant, most obedient are instead the most rebellious and disobedient and murderous.

While the crowd outside Jerusalem cheered Jesus, the crowd inside Jerusalem in v. 22 shout “Crucify Him, Crucify Him!”

While Pilate, the ignorant Gentile governor, is amazed at Jesus in v. 14, and sees he is innocent in v. 18, 19, 23, 24, the chief priests and the elders, the men of God, the leaders with knowledge and wisdom, they accuse Jesus, they incite the crowd to murder, they mock the Son of God.

Verse 25 is particularly chilling. Throughout recent chapters, Matthew has talked of the crowd, different groups of people, mobs gathered around various leaders. Here he consciously changes. “All the people answered.” This isn’t just for variety. Matthew is saying, this group represents the whole of Jerusalem, the whole of Israel. Here are the chief priests, the elders, the teachers of the law, and the ordinary people. The people of God, and their leaders, in the city of God, are demanding the death of the Son of God. And what do they cry?

“Let his blood be on us and on our children!” Pilate says, this is nothing to do with me (rather unconvincingly – he is after all sentencing a man he knows is innocent to death). He says, this is not my responsibility, and the people of God eagerly claim responsibility. No, this is our doing, and we’re proud of it.

Of course, it is true, the guilt of Jesus’ blood is on them. As Peter speaks on the Day of Pentecost he says “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” The guilt of Jesus’ blood also does fall on their children. It is their children’s generation which suffers the catastrophic final invasion and destruction of Jerusalem in AD70, as the Romans sweep through the city, murdering all they can, and raze the Temple to the ground.

Jesus himself has anticipated this. In 23:35 he promises “And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Barakiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation.” There is no blood more righteous than that of Jesus, and the people embrace the responsibility for his death.

Then, as Jesus hangs on the cross, the people and the leaders mock him. In v. 40, they say “You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself!” Little do they realise that this is imminent. As Jesus dies, the curtain in the Temple is destroyed, and with it all that the old Temple order stood for, while Jesus’ body, the new Temple, is built in his resurrection.

And God’s judgement on old Jerusalem, his sentencing of the old Israelite order comes at this point. People observe that darkness in the middle of the day is a sign of God’s judgement, his anger outpoured. But where is that judgement directed? Yes, God’s anger is poured out on Jesus on the cross, his anger at our wrongdoing exhausted upon the one who stands in our place. But is that all? The darkness is not just over Jesus. The darkness comes over “all the land.” What land? The land around about Jerusalem, Israel. Amos 8:8-10 promises that God’s own people, his own land, is ripe for judgement, that that judgement will be like the judgement that fell on Egypt in the Exodus, that that judgement will be marked by darkness in the daytime and an earthquake.

So, at the time of the Passover, when the people are remembering God’s judgement falling on the land of Egypt, a judgement marked by a plague of darkness, so that same darkness, accompanied by an earthquake in v. 51, falls upon Jerusalem. God’s judgement is falling on the innocent Jesus in our place, but his judgement is also being poured out on rebellious, disobedient Jerusalem. The tearing of the curtain is a foretaste of what is to come. God’s final judgement of Jerusalem and the old order is delayed until the Roman destruction 40 years later. We could liken it to the judgement and sentencing in a law court. God’s verdict of guilt on old Jerusalem is passed at the crucifixion, but the sentence isn’t carried out until AD 70.

This overthrow of Jerusalem of course carries good news and some warnings for us today.

The tearing of the curtain and the destruction of the Temple in AD70 points us to the new Jerusalem, the heavenly city. We no longer need to look to the old physical Jerusalem. Some Christians think the earthly Jerusalem still has some special claim n Christians: it doesn’t. It has been judged and abandoned by God. Now we look to the greater Jerusalem, the true city of God. The end of the Temple and its sacrifices, its no entry barriers brings in a time of free access to God. Jesus is the true Temple, and through Him we come to God the Father. We need no human priest, Jesus is our priest, we need no animal sacrifice, Jesus is our sacrifice. We can bring our prayers and thanksgivings to God at any time, in any place.

But the fate of Jerusalem also warns us. In v. 18, Pilate understands that the motivation for the priests’ opposition to Jesus was not religious zeal but envy. Jesus was attracting listeners and followers who should have been hanging on the priests’ words. Jesus made them look foolish in debate despite his lack of theological training. Jesus was threatening the positions of power and wealth and authority they had. Many of us have religious authority, be we clergy, churchwardens, small group leaders, Sunday school teachers. And it is easy to be more concerned with protecting our position than submitting to the challenges Jesus poses. Perhaps we are afraid to admit we got something wrong. Maybe we can’t face the fact that someone else with less training, less experience, less position, got something right. Maybe when a brother challenges our conduct we feel, who are you to correct me? Beware the protection of our position.

The other theme which we can miss is the astonishing kingship of Jesus. In the resurrection or the transfiguration, or as he is teaching, it’s easy to see Jesus’ authority. Less so, as he hangs on the cross, but it is clearer than ever there.

It comes throughout the story. First, his control of all that is happening. In v. 14, Pilate is amazed at Jesus. The judge is taken aback, stopped in his tracks, by the accused. Who is really in control of this trial? In v. 19, Pilate’s wife tells him not to have anything to do with that innocent man. She has been troubled in a dream. A Gentile woman understands that Jesus is innocent.

Back in 20:19 Jesus predicted that he would be “condemned to death, mocked, flogged and crucified” having been handed over to the Gentiles by the chief priests and teachers of the law. In 27:2, the chief priests hand him over; 27:26, he is condemned, and flogged; 27:29, he is mocked, and in 27:35 he is crucified. This didn’t come as a surprise to Jesus. He knew every little detail of what would happen to him before the chief priests or the Romans or the crowd knew it.

And finally, he is in control at the time of his death. Most crucifixion victims would be delirious or unconscious by the time death came round, but Jesus can speak lucidly, in v. 46, and has the breath to cry out in a loud voice in v. 50. Finally, he gave up his spirit, perhaps suggesting that he retained control of deciding the exact moment he would die.

In the midst of suffering and humiliation and imprisonment and death, it is easy to think that the cross was some terrible mistake, or that it was the moment of Satan’s triumph, which God was just powerful enough to trump with the resurrection. But, we see here that Jesus is in complete control throughout his trial and execution.

Secondly, there is Jesus’ depiction as a king. The charge against him is his kingship of the Jews, not his radical teaching, not his miraculous healings, not even his alleged Sabbath-breaking. The charge against him is that he claimed to be King of the Jews. And he does not deny this. Then, much of the focus on Jesus’ humiliation is to do with kingship. It is interesting that there is actually comparatively little space spent here in describing Jesus’ physical suffering. The focus is much more on his mock enthronement. In v. 28 they dress him wth robe, crown and sceptre and pay mock homage to him. In v. 37, his title, King of the Jews, is displayed for all to see. The final irony is the mocking of the chief priests in v. 42.

“He saved others but he can’t save himself! He’s the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.”

But of course it is precisely by dying on the cross, by not saving himself, that he saves others. And it is because he is the King of Israel that he is being crucified, because his kingship was a threat to those same chief priests. The cross, if you like, is his throne.

Thirdly, Jesus’s kingship is seen in his subversive threat to the power of Rome. Sadly, this is something that people often miss. First of all, look at Jesus’ parallel with Barabbas. From Mark’s gospel, we know that Barabbas was not just a petty criminal, but that he had led an insurrection against Roman government. He was a political prisoner. And Jesus takes the place of this political prisoner, indirectly he saves Barabbas’ life. Despite his reluctance, Pilate is willing to let a freedom fighter go free – he himself knows Jesus is a threat to Rome. In v. 38, the word Matthew uses to describe the two men crucified with Jesus is often used to describe rebels against Rome. So we have this picture of Jesus, with the title, King of the Jews, above his head, in the centre of two political prisoners. To many bystanders, the execution would have looked very political, defending Roman political authority against subversion. And finally, there is the cry of the Roman soldiers in v. 54.

These are the same men who mocked Jesus a few verses earlier. These are the same men who paid fake homage to the king. Yet here, as Jesus dies, they see with new eyes.

“When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, Surely he was the Son of God!”

I don’t think we are meant to understand that these Gentile soldiers had suddenly fully gasped Jesus’ identity, though certainly Matthew expects us to listen, to see they spoke better than they knew perhaps. But the title Son of God was a political one. The Roman emperor himself was titled Son of the God… These soldiers see someone on the cross, they see something in the way Jesus dies, that has supreme authority, at least on a par with their own emperor, the greatest authority in the world. And they were right. Jesus was a threat to Rome, to the emperor. Jesus’ gospel is inescapably political. Because Jesus Christ is the King of Kings, and he claims authority over all the kings of the earth.

Certainly Jesus did not come to cause a political rebellion. He told his disciples to put their swords away. He had not come to throw the Romans out of Jerusalem. But Jesus did not just come to be the king of our hearts. We cannot relegate him to some spiritual-only realm. As Jesus hangs on the cross, there is no sacred-secular split. He is the king of the whole world, which was why he was a threat to Rome, not because he would overthrow Rome, but because he claimed a higher authority and a higher allegiance from others than the Emperor could claim.

Christ crucified, the judge of faithless Jerusalem, and the king above all kings.

Why don't you waste your own money?

2008-06-12T09:52:00.002+01:00

It appears that the Home Office has spent £29 million on an asylum detention centre which was never built.

I'm sorry, but I find this sickening. This is what happens when you have big government with big tax revenues and big public spending. No-one keeps track of the waste, no-one is held accountable for it, and worst of all, they know that if they go 'bankrupt', they can just force the taxpayer to bail them out.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: ordinary people work out what their income is, and then decide how they're going to spend it and stay within their budget. Governments seem to decide what they want to spend, and then think how they're going to get it.

If your ordinary Joe consistently overspends he will lose his house, go bankrupt and have all his assets taken away and his right to a bank account suspended - there are sanctions that follow from irresponsible economics. If a government consistently overspends, they just raise taxes.

Something not right.

What do you do with your hands?

2008-06-12T09:44:00.004+01:00

We had lots of guidance last night on hand movements, some of which, particularly the eucharistic manual acts I find highly objectionable.

But, there were some interesting reasons provided for different gestures, which might challenge the anti-liturgist (or should I say unconscious liturgist - we all have a liturgy, it's just that some people don't realise it).

In corporate prayer there are two different gestures. When the minister is praying with the people, he holds his hands together in the traditional prayer gesture we always teach children.

When he prays on behalf of the people, he holds his hands in the orans gesture, which is a relaxed and open position with the hands held out either side of the body, arms pointing upwards from the elbow. The Precentor suggested this was an ancient position for prayer which is found in wall paintings in the ancient Christian catacombs, which led me to think, is that what Paul means by lifting up holy hands in prayer (1Tim 2:8).

Worth pondering perhaps.

Where's the epiclesis?

2008-06-12T09:29:00.003+01:00

A common cry down our way.

This came back to me again last night at our Eucharist training. In the eucharistic prayer at the Lord's Supper, where is the epiclesis, and what does it mean?

Epiclesis is the liturgical anorak's term for the calling down of the Holy Spirit, and it happens in all the Church of England's eucharistic prayers, back to the BCP.

In Common Worship's prayers (A to H), there are basically two options. In some, the epiclesis is clearly on the elements. So, we pray that God would send his Holy Spirit to do something to the bread and the wine.

In others, the epiclesis is clearly on the people. So, we pray that God would send his Holy Spirit to do something to us.

In others, it's unclear (more yummy Anglican fudge), and in Prayer B you have a double epiclesis, on elements and people.

I don't think most evangelicals have any comprehension of the signifcance of this. The general response to Common Worship was, how lovely to have some variety, because of course you wouldn't want to repeat the same words too often in case they become meaningless would you? After all, you wouldn't want to tell your wife "I love you" too often in case it becomes meaningless. But of course, what the variety has smuggled in is Roman sacramental theology.

My advice, stick to Prayer C, which is basically Cranmer's BCP prayer. If you insist on variety, it seems to me Prayer D also has a clear epiclesis on the people rather than the elements.

I absolve you, or do I?

2008-06-12T09:11:00.003+01:00

Yesterday evening we had a session at the Cathedral on Presiding at the Eucharist, led by the Canon Precentor. Inevitably, one didn't quite agree with everything. But there were some very interesting snippets from a man who knows his liturgical history.

Following confession in most Anglican services, the minister's absolution/assurance of forgiveness has two forms - Lord have mercy upon you, or upon us. Which to use?

In most of the evangelical churches I've been in, us is preferred. It shows the minister includes himself with the congregation as a sinner in need of forgiveness. And the assumption is that they you form is a bit too Catholic.

How ironic then, to discover last night, that the us form is an innovation the Church of England has borrowed from Rome!

In the 1960s (isn't it always?), the Vatican introduced the us form. They were concerned that the number of penitents attending confession was falling, and they wanted to make clear that the "absolution" offered in corporate worship was of a lesser order than the real absolution given by the priest in the sacrament of penance.

Now, of course we don't believe in the sacrament of penance, nor that the presbyter has that sort of power of absolution. However, the Reformed have always believed in the power of the keys - that the ordained ministers of the church are given the authority to declare Christ's forgiveness to the people. So it would be perfectly in order, and not at all Roman, for an evangelical minister to pronounce after corporate confession,

The Lord have mercy upon YOU.

Pot calling the kettle...

2008-06-06T13:26:00.002+01:00

The Church of England Newspaper and Church Times are both reporting a leaked Ministry Division report that a third of bishops feel that up to half the parochial clergy are not equipped to cope with the demands of ministry.

Now aside from the fact that I might actually agree (for very different reasons), here's a few questions:

Who ordained these people?
Given that many clergy do (amazingly) look to their bishop for support, leadership and a model of ministry, why are they struggling to cope?
How would they know? 12 of the current diocesan bishops have no experience of being a parish incumbent. And 3 of those (Canterbury - yes the big man!, Europe and Durham - sorry NTW) have no experience at all of ordinary parochial ministry. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Or as the famous Chinese proverb says - he who points finger, finds three pointing back at himself.

Government-sponsored swimming

2008-06-06T09:11:00.003+01:00

I appreciate that there are some good reasons why people think the civil government should be responsible for health, education etc.

But whoever thought the State should concern itself with sport (except Communist dictators of course, who in East Germany, the Soviet Union and China, have always been keen on that sort of thing)?

New Labour: a despotic government?

2008-06-02T10:58:00.002+01:00

Sir William Harcourt (Liberal Home Secretary and Chancellor under Gladstone) speaking in 1873:

Liberty does not consist in making others do what you think right. The difference between a free Government and a Government which is not free is principally this—that a Government which is not free interferes with everything it can, and a free Government interferes with nothing except what it must. A despotic Government tries to make everybody do what it wishes, a Liberal Government tries, so far as the safety of society will permit, to allow everybody to do what he wishes. It has been the function of the Liberal Party consistently to maintain the doctrine of individual liberty. It is because they have done so that England is the country where people can do more what they please than in any country in the world.

Not any more it isn't.

Eye-opening

2008-05-28T19:24:00.002+01:00

That is what Jim Jordan's work tends to be (hence Through New Eyes).

Thanks to God for Jordan, via Matthew Mason for this on Mark 4:35-41.

How does a preterist understand Colossians 1:24?

2008-05-28T09:31:00.003+01:00

Up until yesterday, I have accepted PT O'Brien's reading of Col. 1:24 as the least unsatisfactory one, and it has been my working theses for the verse.

O'Brien suggests that what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions denotes the apocalyptic expectation of a certain amount of suffering Christ's body will experience before his climactic return. I've always felt uneasy with that, but thought it's better than anything else I could come up with.

Unfortunately, all O'Brien's refs for this expectation are to verses that I no longer think are about his final return in judgement, but are about his parousia-judgement on Jerusalem in AD 70 (eg, Mark 13).

So, am I now to think:

1. O'Brien is half-right but the coming in view is AD70, not the big-E end?

2. O'Brien is completely right, and there are other Scriptural refs which make the point, which aren't about AD70?

3. O'Brien isn't right and I still don't understand Col. 1:24?

Answers on a postcard please (or in the comments box)

Should I wear a dog collar?

2008-05-22T15:49:00.002+01:00

At the moment on Sundays I wear a jacket (or suit) and tie.

I am shortly to be ordained a presbyter in the Church of God (priest in the Church of England to be more specific). If I am going to change to wearing a dog collar regularly at Christ Church in the next 3 years, this is probably the convenient moment to do it.

Please give me all your reasons why I should or should not wear one for Lord's Day worship.

Jeremiah 31 doesn't actually say that

2008-05-22T15:24:00.002+01:00

Wonderful day yesterday at Oak Hill School of Theology. Lots of nuggets of gold from Professor Tom Schreiner on the warnings in the NT, perseverance, faith and assurance.

It was a shame that we had to stop just as the interesting questions were coming out.

I'm afraid I have to disagree with my (vastly more learned, more clearly thought-through, more humble, more mature, elder) brother on his reading of Jeremiah 31 though.

Unsurprisingly, as a Baptist, he thinks Jeremiah's new covenant promise means every member of the New Covenant will be big-R regenerate by the Spirit (therefore showing they are big-E elect), because they will all know the Lord. I do not think that "all" is an all-without-exception (every individual). I think it is an all-without-distinction (every type of person). Why:

1. Don Carson (a Baptist), in Schreiner's own book, Still Sovereign, notes that what is in view is a time when there will be "no mediating teachers, no mediators, whose very office ensures them that they have an endowment not enjoyed by others." (p. 257-8) So the concern is with the extension of the frachise of the knowledge of the Lord to all sorts of people.

2. The least to the greatest phrase seems highly likely to me to refer to the full range of ages. While it can mean rank or social standing or wealth, in many places age is in view. Even within Jeremiah, 6:13, 16:6, and 44:12 certainly refer to age, while there are other possible occurrences. At least one major commentator (Holladay) agress with me that the reference in 31:34 is to age - thus the new covenant covers all from infants to the elderly.

Thus in the new covenant, all types of people, old-young, male-female, slave-free, rich-poor, priest-lay, will know the Lord, but there will be individuals in the new covenant who do not.

On this similar theme, I think the unbreakability of the New Covenant in Jer 31:32 is corporate not individual. The breakability of the old is directly contrasted with the unbreakability of the new, so the two must parallel one another. How was the Old Covenant broken? Corporately. I assume there were faithful Israelites in the OT who kept the covenant. But the people as a whole broke it. So, the people of God in the New Covenant will not be able to break it, but individuals will.

So we come back to the fact that covenant and election, even in the new covenant, are not the same thing in Scripture. Go and search David Field for more.

What then is my assurance?

2008-05-22T15:20:00.004+01:00

If the trajectory of my last post is correct, then the question arises: what is my personal assurance?

Actually, I don't think the Reformed would ever have answered, "God will keep his elect". I think the answer has always been two fold (thanks Garry);

1. objectively, the finished work of Christ has done all that is necessary for salvation (because the atonement actually worked).

2. subjectively, the work of the Spirit in my life producing fruit testifies to my faith.

1 is obviously far more important and reliable than 2.

Might we add 3. objectively, the Church testifies to my faith by baptising, feeding and not excommunicating me?

For what and whom is election a comfort?

2008-05-22T15:10:00.005+01:00

Isn't it typical that when you decide to stop blogging you suddenly have some thoughts. Well, it is almost the end of May.

Here's a question which has germinated recently from a number of sources.

I believe in the doctrine of election, viz., that God has eternally decreed there will be a people populating the new heavens and the new earth, glorifying his Son, and that he has also decreed eternally (before the creation of the world in Ephesians' more temporal language) the individuals who will make up that elect people (contra Barth et al.), simply according to his sovereign mercy, not on the basis of any good works, foreseen faith etc.

I am accustomed to thinking that a function of this doctrine is to comfort me that God will keep me persevering to the end, so I will not fall away (and that the warnings of apostasy are one means he uses to keep me - thank you Prof. Schreiner). Indeed I think Calvin says something similar.

However, is that right (this function, not the doctrine itself - I know that's right)? Where in Scripture is election meant to comfort me personally that if I am big-E elect, I will not fall?

Is the comfort not rather that God's plan cannot fail, that His Church cannot fail, that his new heavens and new earth cannot fail, which is great news. Obviously, if I am big-E elect, that certainty will cause me to rejoice, regardless of whether I have the personal assurance that God will keep me.

Have I gone mad?

Update:
Thank you to those who've pointed out John 10 - a good place to start.

Goodbye for now...

2008-04-23T09:17:00.002+01:00

Rather than leave you all (both?) hanging for the next post, I'm going to take a break until the end of May.

I spend too much time reading blogs, and not enough reading Leithart, Schenck, Schreiner/Wright, Wikner, Wilson and Poythress.

If I'm to make any progress on my Jeremiah 32 article and Ecclesia Reformanda (let the reader understand), alongside preaching, pastoral ministry, Younger Ministers' Conference and preparing for my next ordination, then I can probably do without blogging for a while.

Christian Financial Planning

2008-03-18T10:52:00.002Z

Thanks to Mark J-P, I just came across this guide to Biblical principles of financial planning.

I might want to say a few more things, but if your whole congregation took note of this, that would be a good thing.

What happens when you cross...

2008-02-13T19:15:00.001Z

a comedian and a theologian who thinks about the way the world is?

This

Consistent inconsistency

2008-01-24T09:42:00.000Z

2 stories from recent days:

The government's latest plan to save Northern Rock is to convert the £25 billion loan into bonds which will be guaranteed by the government, and then to try to get Northern Rock sold to a private investor.

So, the government (sorry, the taxpayer; as if the government would do that with their own money!) takes all the risk if it fails, gets none of the benefit if it succeeds, and the private investor can't lose.

Second is capital gains tax. As I understand it, if you buy an asset (property etc.), keep it for a while and then sell it for a profit, you pay tax on the profit (the capital gain).

So, the individual or business takes the risk of investing (the asset could appreciate or depreciate), bearing all the downsides of any loss; but woe betide you if you make a profit, you wicked capitalist - the government takes its cut.

Oh well, at least the inconsistency swings both ways!

Try these spectacles

2008-01-02T15:31:00.000Z

Following my previous post, I also reflect how my own understanding of Malachi has changed as I have studied it.

This is a good example of how much your system affects your reading of a particular text.

As I have appreciated more postmillenialism, paedofaith, the Reformed view of the Law, so I see things in Malachi that I didn't see before:

the hope of 1:5, 1:11, 1:14 etc.
the expectation of godly offspring in marriage, 2:15
the contemporary relevance of the tithing challenge in 3:8-10
the possibility of material blessing in 3:10-12, without falling into a prosperity gospel.

The point of this post is not to argue for those things, but to emphasise how important it is to be aware of your own system. My current view of Malachi is the result of an interplay between my closer study of the text itself and my evolving systematic outlook. I must be cautious not to read my system into everything I see, in order that particular texts can still challenge my inconsistencies and errors.

The answer is not some supposed zone of neutrality or coming to the texts without preconceptions: that is dishonest and impossible. The more clearly I can articulate my system to myself and others, the more aware I will be of the danger points where system overrides text.

There's an argument for spending time on systematic theology.

God seeks godly offspring from marriage

2008-01-02T15:10:00.000Z

Over the last few years, Malachi has been my book of choice to work on: a series of talks for a sixth-form houseparty, some undergraduate Bible studies on camp, and now all the home groups at Christ Church.

One of the things that has most struck me every time is Malachi 2:10-16. Aside from the very difficult Hebrew of vv. 15-16, it has a fascinating train of thought.

1. The people are criticised for marrying outside the covenant community (v. 11), and divorcing wives within the covenant community (v. 14).
[I think this is literal intermarriage, not a metaphor for unfaithfulness to God because:
a) In v. 14, Yahweh is the witness between you and the wife of your youth. He is a judicial third party, not one of the two parties in the marriage.
b) While marriage is a common OT picture of Yahweh’s relationship with Israel, he is (always?) the husband, Israel the wife. Here Judah is the husband.
c) There is no other indication in Malachi that formal idolatry is a problem, eg., Baal-worship in the monarchy. Rather the problem is empty formalism.
d) Pagan intermarriage is a major contemporary problem in Ezra 9-10 and Nehemiah 13:23ff.

2. Other than the biblical theology problem that divorce misrepresents Jesus' steadfast love for his church, the main problem with this intermarriage and divorce is that the purpose of marriage is to seek godly offspring (v. 15). So, at least in Malachi, it's not about companionship, or refraining from sexual immorality, but about populating the land with godly children. There is an implicit assumption here that the children of covenant members will themselves be godly.

3. The point of godly offspring, istm, is to contribute to God's program of 1:5, 1:11, 1:14, 3:12, 3:17-18. The hope of Malachi is that a repentant, godly, chosen people in the land will make the nations sit up and take notice, see how wonderful it is to serve Yahweh, and how awful it is to despise him, and so

"My name will be great among the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun. In every place incense and pure offerings will be brought to my name, because my name will be great among the nations ... For I am a great king ... and my name is to be feared among the nations." 1:11, 14.

Malachi too was postmill!

The Death of Common Sense

2007-12-15T10:47:00.000Z

I just received this by e-mail, from a friend:

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as: Knowing when to come in out of the rain; why the early bird gets the worm; Life isn't always fair; and maybe it was my fault. Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place: Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an Elastoplast to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband; churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realise that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim. Not many attended his funeral because so few realised he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.
I have removed what originally followed here. If you have read it, you may wish to read this. On a more positive note, we may observe that, whatever the many failings of our elected representatives, the residual grace of generations of gospel exposure may be one cause of the significantly lower levels of political corruption in the UK, compared to, for example, France or Italy.

You couldn't caricature it

2007-12-12T08:38:00.000Z

Oh goody, the government is to introduce a "national play strategy" for children.

Am I meant to laugh or cry?

Another Triumph for St John's

2007-12-10T15:45:00.000Z

I'm delighted to note in my alumni magazine

that a study of noise pollution across Britain has discovered that [Canterbury Quad, at St John's College, Oxford, where I lived from 1998-9] is the quietest place in the country. Sound levels there ... were measured as less than [sic] 50 decibels, as quiet as the hum of a refrigerator.

St John's has also recently installed a new organ, costing about £175,000, built by Bernard Aubertin, the first French (as opposed to imitation-French) organ in an Oxbridge college.

Barth's mixed bag

2007-11-26T11:07:00.000Z

I'm not an expert, but from what I've read on Karl Barth he said some excellent stuff, and an awful lot of rubbish. He has also been one of the biggest modern influences on evangelical theology.

Though I haven't read it yet, this book will help us all to distinguish the good from the bad. Don't take my word for it, take Doug Wilson's, David Field's, Matthew Mason's, Ros Clarke's, etc.

Sermon on World Poverty

2007-11-19T17:08:00.000Z

Our aim this morning, from the Bible, is to look at the causes of poverty and what we can do about it.

First, let’s define poverty.

It’s difficult to find a verse or passage in the Bible which does this, but the laws to help the poor in Scripture seem to assume that poverty is “being unable to provide food, shelter and clothing for you and your family.”

Much as modern Britain might consider a television to be a basic essential, not being able to afford a TV doesn’t make you poor.

What, then, are the causes of poverty?

Our Bible reading has given us some of them, though there are a few others.

1. Oppression
Proverbs 28:3, 8.

Oppression is the abuse of power, political, legal, military, financial, social, to the advantage of yourself and the disadvantage of another. It can take all sorts of forms, and consistently in the Bible, the poor are the most vulnerable to it. It is both a cause and a result of poverty. It is a vicious spiral, the more oppressed you are, the poorer you become; the poorer you are, the more open to oppression you are.

2. Theft
Proverbs 28:24

It’s not particularly a theme in this chapter, but theft and dishonest trading (which is, of course, theft) is a cause of poverty. Here it’s doubly shocking that anyone would rob their parents. The repeated criticism in the prophets of those who use false weights and measures would apply here. If you give someone 2 lbs of potatoes (I don’t know what that is in metric – how un-European!), but charge them for 3 ½ that is theft.

3. Greed
Proverbs 28:8, 20, 22

Notice the twist in each of these. It’s not that greed causes poverty in someone else, rather that greed causes poverty in the greedy person. It’s the stingy man seeking riches who is heading for poverty.

And we’ve seen that to be true in our world. Mike Tyson famously earned $300 million from one of the mosrt successful boxing careers in history. So how come 4 years ago he had to file for bankruptcy, being $27 million in debt? How could Michael Jackson, at his peak earning £30 million A YEAR be an estimated £156 million in debt?

4. Laziness
This is rather more controversial. It’s pretty un-PC to say that some people are poor because they’re just lazy.

Proverbs 28:19. And I found at least another 12 verses in Proverbs which say the same thing. Proverbs is full of the theme of the sluggard, the lazy man who will not work and comes to nothing. Or 2 Thess 3:10,

“For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: ‘If a man will not work, he shall not eat.’”

Much as people don’t like it, we must say it. This isn’t a one-off verse. If God thinks we need to be warned repeartedly against idleness, we may fairly think that some of the world’s poverty is caused by laziness.

There are other causes of poverty which don’t particularly feature in Proverbs 28 – natural disaster can bring poverty on whole communities and nations; ill health can bring poverty; war brings poverty.

What this shows us is that poverty is very complicated. Some poverty is self-inflicted, some poverty is the result of others’ sin, while still other poverty is simply the result of living in a fallen world.

I think there are two mistaken extremes we can fall into as we look at poverty.

One is to dismiss all the poor as worthless scroungers, bone idle, the undeserving. Get on your bike and look for work! We’ve seen that the Bible expects that much poverty will not be self-inflicted. There are godly, faithful, hard-working people who are in abject poverty. Only the ignorant or the very cruel would dismiss the poor out of hand.

The other mistake is the opposite. It is not right to assume that all of the poor are unfortunate victims, the exploited, the oppressed. Many are, but Proverbs would tell us, some of them are just downright lazy.

Proverbs 28:27 tells us,

“He who gives to the poor will lack nothing, but he who closes his eyes to them receives many curses.”

We must hear this. Poor relief is not optional, for the church as a whole, or for the individual. Close your eyes to the poor, and expect God’s curse to fall on you. We must help the poor. But that does not mean we must help every poor person. 2 Thess 3:6 commands the church “to keep away from every brother who is idle.”

So we must be discerning in the way we help the poor. There are some who are poor who should not be helped, or perhaps should be helped provisionally, on the basis that they will do some work. But there are many still whom we must help.

One way of doing this is supporting Christian agencies and charities who understand this. There are many secular charities, and indeed some who claim to be Christian, who do not believe that man is basically sinful. Without that, you will not believe that some poverty is self-inflicted. Truly Christian charities, who believe that mankind is sinful, will be discerning.

Another way of doing this is trying to give as directly as possible. It’s great that Tearfund, for example, is moving more and more to linking up local churches in the West, with local churches in the developing world. A local church knows its people, its community. It knows local needs and local failings. If we can give money direct to local churches for poverty relief, we can have much more confidence that it will be used carefully, efficiently and with discernment.

Personally, I’d love to be really specific, and give you a checklist of how to discern who should be helped and who not. But it’s really difficult. Every person is different. We will need to decide on a case-by-case basis. Often, it won’t be obvious one way or the other. We will need to pray and consider, and pray again. Experience will help, so the more you help the poor, the more discerning you will become. I personally would not give money to people on the streets. On a few occasions, when I’ve had the time, I’ve taken them to McDonalds, bought them something and listened to their story, but be aware of your personal safety, particularly if you are a woman. The principle is, I think, very clear in Scripture. The practice is very hard.

The causes of poverty: there are many, they are complex, we must help the poor, we must be discerning.

How then can we address poverty?

The first thing to say is that we are not alone in addressing poverty. Someone else has gone before us. 2 Cor 8:9

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”

Jesus is the richest person imaginable. He is the king of kings and lord of lords. He created all things and sustains all things. Everything in the whole world belongs to him, fossil fuels, energy resources, barrels of oil, precious gems, all of De Beers’ diamonds, every piece of land, and ocean, and sky. He has landlord’s rights to everything and everywhere. Talk about the Midas touch. Sure, King Midas could turn anything into gold, but there had to be something there first. Jesus makes gold out of nothing. Jesus made us out of nothing.

Yet he gave up his visible majesty, his obvious glory in heaven, his throne, his comfort, and became a man. Not only that, he became poor, truly poor – the only place that could be found for his birth was a feeding trough in a filthy stable. I think that counts as poverty, don’t you? And he did it willingly, for our sakes. And see what else it says. It’s not so that he could empathise or sympathise, so he could stand alongside us in our poverty, and strengthen us (though that is true). No, he became poor so that through his poverty we might be rich.

That is the gospel of our salvation. That is what believe. That is how we were rescued. But more than rescuing me or you, Christ’s poverty, his death and resurrection have also set in train the abolition of poverty. There will be no poverty in the new heavens and the new earth, no lack of food, shelter, clothing. There will be an abundance for all of redeemed humanity. More than that, as the spread of the gospel and the triumph of the church and the renewal of the world progresses, so poverty will shrink and diminish. But, it will not disappear completely until the new heavens and new earth. As Jesus famously said in Matthew 26:11, “The poor you will always have with you.”

As well as being our salvation, Christ is also an example for us. Paul told the Philippians to have Christ’s attitude. So he tells the Corinthians here that Christ is their example in their financial giving. Give freely, willingly, joyfully, to help those who are poor.

So how do we address poverty?

3 principles first, then some specifics.

1. It must be willing.
That’s already come out of 2 Cor 8. Giving to the poor is voluntary, it is willing. That doesn’t mean it’s optional. The Christian should help the poor, but it is an obligation from God, which we obey. So it is not enforced by other agencies, be that the church or the state or a charity. Paul writes further in 2 Cor 9:7,

“Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”

Addressing world poverty is a willing, joyful, voluntary task.

2. It must be just.
Leviticus 19:15.

So Robin Hood was wrong then. Robbing from the rich is not justified by the fact you’re going to give it to the poor. Justice is justice, regardless of your bank balance. So we do not favour the rich because they are rich. And, we do not favour the poor, just because they are poor. If we address world poverty unjustly, whether that injustice is to poor or rich, we are doomed to failure. Poverty may be caused by injustice, but it should not be relieved with further injustice. Two wrongs do not make a right.

3. It must be in the right place.
In that story in Matthew 26 where Jesus is anointed with really expensive perfume, and the disciples complain, specifically because it could have been sold and the money given to the poor, Jesus says they are wrong. The woman has done a beautiful thing to Jesus. Her action has proclaimed something of the gospel, preparing Jesus for his death. This is an example for us that relieving poverty, while important, is not always to be our number one priority. There are other things which may be more important, such as opportunities to proclaim something of the gospel.

As before, the principle is clear, but the practice is very hard. How high up your list of priorities is giving to relieve world poverty? It could depend on your stage of life, your finances, your family situation, the opportunities and situations open around you. By now, you’re getting frustrated with my vagueness in application. So am I! But this is a complicated subject.

Let’s have some specifics then.

Look after your family. I realise that’s not world poverty, but that is one of our highest responsibilities. 1 Tim 5:4-8

Failing to provide for your family, your whole family, but especially your immediate family, if you are able, is worse than being an unbeliever. Look after your aging parents, your destitute sister, your grown-up child who is unable to work through ill health.

Give generously, willingly, joyfully, sacrificially to those in need. In a church I was in previously, one response to the Asian tsunami was to find a Bible-believing church in Aceh in Indonesia, and to give money directly to them to use in their community as they saw fit. Perhaps we should do the same here.

Share the gospel. You’re thinking, how on earth does he get evangelism out of a sermon on world poverty? Well, maybe I’m a pessimist, but as a non-Christian I don’t see why I should help the poor. As a Christian, with the Spirit of God at work in me, with the Bible exhorting me to generosity, with the Lord Jesus as my model, I have many reasons to help the poor. The more Christians there are in the world, the less poverty there will be.

If you’re a Fairtrade buyer, then get your stuff from Mick and Grace Dobney at church, don’t get it from the supermarket. I was shocked this week to discover some statistics about the supermarkets’ abuse of Fairtrade. In one supermarket, of the £1 extra charged for FT bananas over ordinary ones, only 4p goes to the banana producer. In another, the supermarket makes 160% pure profit on FT brands of coffee, which is more than they make on their own non-FT premium brand. Starbucks sell their FT coffee for 10 times the premium the producer gets paid. If you buy your FT goods from Mick and Grace, a lot more of the money will go to the producers.

More controversially, think before you boycott. Let me read you this introduction to an article written a year ago.

In a forthcoming article in the Journal of Labor Research Ben Powell and David Skarbek present the results of a survey of "sweatshops" in eleven Third World countries. In nine of the eleven countries, "sweatshop" wages in foreign factories located there were higher than the average. In Honduras, where almost half the working population lives on $2/day, "sweatshops" pay $13.10/day. "Sweatshop" wages are more than double the national average in Cambodia, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Honduras. In the conclusion of the journal article, Sweatshops and Third World Living Standards: Are the Jobs Worth the Sweat? the authors write, “We find that most sweatshop jobs provide an above average standard of living for their workers.”

Obviously we don’t want to support enforced child labour, or abuses like that, but we must think clearly. Things that we in the West would call sweatshops can be in their local context one of the best jobs available to many people. Wayne Grudem has recently written “The only long-term solution to world poverty is business."

Finally, let me address a couple of political issues. To address world poverty I think we must campaign for the abolition of international trade tariffs and government subsidies, but against the use of government to government aid. Let’s take those two in turn.

Tariffs and subsidies in the West prevent developing economies selling their goods at competitive prices in the West. This means that profits, wages and the standard of living in these countries are artificially held back. It means that Western governments, while claiming to be working to make poverty history, are actually creating and sustaining poverty. Whenever the opportunity presents itself, we should campaign for an end to these tariffs and subsidies.

Having created this poverty by preventing free trade, Western governments then try to address it by giving money to other governments. This is not right. First, it fails two of our principles – it is not willing and therefore it is not just. Tax is money taken by force (legal force – the Bible says we should pay our taxes). But it is compelled, it is not voluntary giving. So it is not just, it does not treat rich and poor the same. It is effectively a Robin Hood solution. To take a crude illustration, if a thief took £100 from you at gunpoint at a cash machine, and then gave £20 of it away to a needy person, he would not be praised for his generous charity. I believe it is no coincidence that the United States, which is criticised for giving the least government aid per head of population, also gives the most voluntary charitable giving per head of population. Second, it is inefficient and wide open to corruption. Recent British and American government estimates are that over half of all aid to Afghanistan has been pocketed by corrupt officials and politicians.

To sum up. Poverty is sometimes self-inflicted, sometimes caused by others’ sin, sometimes a result of living in a fallen world. Christians must help the poor, but with discernment. Jesus has provided the ultimate solution to poverty, and in the meantime we follow his example. Addressing world poverty, while important, will not always be our no. 1 priority. Generous, voluntary, sacrificial giving, free trade and the creation and sharing of wealth through business will all be important parts of relieving world poverty.

When's the referendum?

2007-11-19T17:01:00.000Z

Extracts from The Week (17 Nov) [with my editorial comment]:

The European Court of Auditors (ECA) has rejected the EU's accounts for the
13th year [you read that correctly] in a row. ... serious errors across the board ... audit failings in nearly 80% of the 106 billion Euro annual budget [don't commercial firms get prosecuted or shut down for things like this?!]. ... The ECA found that cases of deliberate fraud were rare [that's OK then, after all, incompetence isn't so bad
is it?]

'Nuff said!

Shaming our Silence

2007-11-19T16:59:00.000Z

Yet again the Roman Catholics speak when the Anglicans don't.
Praise God for the grace he has left in Rome.

Who pays whom?

2007-11-10T13:33:00.000Z

Two stories that leave me with so many questions:

The Metropolitan Police are fined £175,000, with £385,000 costs over the "Health and Safety" failings in the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes.

Who pays? The taxpayer.

Who is paid? I haven't found an answer yet. I don't think it's the grieving relatives. In which case it's the government (admittedly a different branch).

Who pays the costs? The taxpayer.

Who is paid the costs? The government (courts, government-employed lawyers, Health & Safety Executive).

Why didn't the government cotton on to this money-making wheeze earlier? What a brilliant way to get money from the taxpayer without having to show any useful return (not that the taxpayer actually expects any real return on their hard-earned cash anyway)! Expect to see lots more of the government fining itself our money.

HM Treasury, via the Bank of England, has already paid £20.6 BILLION of (you got it) taxpayers' money to Northern Rock, to sort them out. That's the same as a 10% increase in income tax.

Where's it going to come from? Cuts in public spending? Not this government; why stop spending when it's not your money! More income tax? Haven't got the guts. More stealth taxes? Nice one. More 'public' borrowing? Of course. I'd borrow money if I knew it wasn't me paying it back.

Something funny going on here. I can't quite put my finger on it.

Global warming con?

2007-11-05T10:14:00.000Z

Another fantastic article, telling me what I want to hear!

(HT - David Field)

Sermon on Abortion

2007-11-05T10:11:00.000Z

I wouldn't usually blog sermons (don't like long blog posts) but as a few people have asked, here is yesterday morning's on abortion.

[Biggest shock in my research was to discover Marie Stopes' horrific eugenic tendencies. Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised.]

Last Saturday, there was a march of 2000 people past Parliament to protest on the 40th anniversary of the 1967 legalisation of abortion in the UK. This week the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee issued two reports. One report, from the majority of the members, argued for the liberalisation of current abortion laws. The other, issued separately by two members of the committee, said the main report was misleading.

The issue of the sanctity of life needs little introduction. Many would say the right to life is the most basic human right. And the more it is discussed, the more issues it affects: abortion, euthanasia, infertility, contraception, murder and the death penalty, and so on.

These are also very emotive issues. This is about life and death. It is deeply affecting. Almost all of us will have been affected by one or more of these issues. What I hope to do this morning is to outline some principles from Psalm 139 with which we can approach these questions, and then to consider abortion, partly because it is the 40th anniversary of legalisation, partly because it is the great guilt of the church in this country that we have been silent for too long.

Inevitably, there will be things said this morning which will be difficult for some of us to hear, indeed which may be painful or make us angry. Please listen carefully, do question me afterwards. If you need to talk to someone, Matthew and I are available, but there are others here at Christ Church who can help, if you’d rather not talk to us. Do ask, and we’ll put you in contact with the right person.

Together, we want to work out what the Bible says is right and wrong. None of us is perfect, all of us, me included, have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God. God alone is the Judge of all. And he is also the Saviour who offers forgiveness.

Let’s look at Psalm 139. The important verses for our purposes are 13-16.

First we see that God is the Creator of all life, so all life belongs to Him.

Verse 13 speaks of both spiritual and physical life. The word for inmost being here is literally kidney. But in Hebrew thinking, the kidney, as an organ hidden away in the depths of your being, symbolises your life force, your drive, your instinct and will.

We see that in a newborn baby. There is a will to live – if he is hungry or cold, or too hot, or tired, he cries, as if to say, “somebody, do something about this please.” God doesn’t just create a body, he makes a soul, a person. Elsewhere the Bible also speaks of spiritual life even in the womb. Psalm 51:5 says that a baby in the womb is sinful. More positively, Psalm 22:10 says that a child in the womb can have a relationship with God.

God knits together this child in the womb. This is the language of clothing and covering. God physically forms and produces the baby. That union of flesh and spirit, body and soul, that we call a human being, a person, is made by God. Not just made, but, in v. 14, fearfully and wonderfully made. That is, when you look at a human being, whether a baby or an adult, you see something extraordinary.

The best adverts, on TV or in print, have great punchlines. A few years ago, BUPA, the healthcare company, ran a series of adverts. Each one would feature an element of the human body. For example, the human eye has a definition of 81 megapixels, where the most powerful digital camera on sale today would be just over 11 megapixels. The would come the killer line: “You’re amazing. At BUPA, we want you to stay that way.” The other even simpler one, for the ladies, is L’oreal: “Because you’re worth it.”

The human body is fearfully and wonderfully made. So, very obviously, life is precious, because God is the Creator. The existence of any life is not random or meaningless, as Richard Dawkins and others would have us believe. The existence of any life is God-given, God-planned, God-purposed. We are entirely dependent on God for our own life, and any other lives we desire, whether by ordinary reproduction, or through fertility treatment.

And so we must remember, no human life belongs ultimately to another human being. Yes, husbands and parents and pastors and civil governments all bear responsibility for aspects of others’ lives, but all life belongs to its creator. God is the owner of all human life.

As well as being the creator, God is the Director of all life, so our lives are in his hands.

He knows us. He knows every thought and emotion and instinct. That’s in v. 15 – nothing is hidden from God, but also the point of the whole psalm. V. 2, he perceives our thoughts; v. 4, he knows what we will say before we say it; v. 7-12, there is nowhere we can go to escape God, physically or mentally.

But it is more than just a comprehensive knowledge. In v. 16, it is direction and determination as well. In v. 16, we are told, your eyes saw my unformed body. That is a very specific word in Hebrew, the word for embryo. It is an unusual word, different from the word normally used for a child in the womb. It suggests an embryo at the earliest stage of development, when it is unformed, before it displays any recognisably human features. In modern scientific language, we could argue it is a fertilised embryo before it is even implanted in the lining of the womb. And God sees and knows this person. He is the Director of all life.

“All, the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Job 14:5 makes the same point: “Man’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.”

God directs all life. Before we are even born, he has determined how and when we will die. That should be immensely humbling for us. We cannot extend our life by one moment beyond what God has decreed. Equally, it is not up to us to shorten our lives artificially. It is not up to me when I die, whether sooner or later.

God is the creator of all life, so all life belongs to him. God is the director of all life, so our lives are in his hands.

There are so many things we could talk about today, but not enough time. If you want to think about contraception, there’s this excellent little pamphlet in the Christ Church lending library called Contraception: a pro-life guide.

I’m not going to talk about different types of fertility treatment. Do ask your doctor about pro-life options, and please talk to someone here.

I’m afraid I won’t talk about euthanasia either. It is agonising to watch a loved one suffer, particularly when there is little prospect of relief, or an end in sight. All I can say now is that ethically, there is a world of difference between withdrawing treatments and allowing someone to die naturally, and intervening actively to bring about death. Do talk to me afterwards, if this is an issue for you.

If you are interested in the death penalty, I have left some copies of a one-page summary of a Christian argument in favour of the death penalty at the back.

With all of these, please do not suffer in silence. Talk to someone you can trust. WE are here to talk and will respect your confidence.

Let us then think about abortion.

Abortion is the deliberate ending of the life of an embryo or foetus in the womb for a variety of reasons.

How should we view abortion?

First, we have seen that life, both physical and spiritual, begins at conception, not at birth, or at some indeterminate point between the two. We have seen already in Psalm 51:5 that David saw himself as a person with spiritual and moral value from the time he was conceived. That life is full human personhood, not a sub-human existence. Abortion is the ending of a human life.

Second, the child is made in the image of God. In Genesis 9:6 we read, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.” The reason no man should kill another is because we are made in the image of God, and that image should not be assaulted. Abortion is an attack onone bearing the image of God.

Third, the child in the womb is not the property ultimately of the parents, or even of the mother. The child belongs to God. So, we must reject the argument of a woman’s right over her own body. It is not simply her own body, it is also the life of a child. Even if we viewed the child simply as part of the mother’s body, God still places limits on the individual’s rights over their own body. We are not to harm ourselves intentionally, except in purposeful self-sacrifice, to save the life or wellbeing of others.

Each of these suggests we should view abortion as nothing less than murder. I realise that is an emotive word, and I have thought long and hard about whether to use it, but it is important. The world around us has long made abortion sound acceptable by using words like termination, clean, clinical, neutral words. We must not collude with this veneer of acceptability. Abortion is murder, and since 1967, in Britain we have murdered 6.7 million children. That is more than the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust, and yet one is seen as the greatest crime of the 20th Century, while the other is hardly noticed. In the last 40 years, many British doctors have overseen a silent Holocaust. According to recent statistics, one in five pregnancies in England and Wales now ends in abortion.

But let us also remember the good news of Jesus Christ. Many women, and indeed men, carry through their lives unbearable guilt because of abortion. Often, after it has been done, they know it’s wrong, and it is inescapable. Perhaps, some sitting here this morning feel overwhelmed and angry. But listen to the good news of forgiveness in 1 Corinthians 6:9:

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Writing to a church, a group of Christians, forgiven people, the apostle Paul says wicked people will not come into the kingdom of God. But they used to be wicked people, they had been guilty. But Jesus has made them clean, has forgiven them. As with them then, so also for us now. Yes abortion is wrong, yes it is murder, but like every sin, it can be forgiven, our slate can be wiped clean, our guilt taken away, by Jesus Christ. Heaven will be full of people who have had abortions, just as it will be full of liars, murderers, thieves, people who have broken up marriages, bullies, the proud and arrogant, the greedy, those who exploit others. But all of whom have turned away from these things, and turned to Christ. There is nothing that Jesus cannot forgive.

Are there situations, though, in which abortion is morally acceptable? Let’s look at them in turn.

1. What if the child may be handicapped?

First there is the question of certainty. It is rare that doctors can be absolutely sure that a child will be handicapped. Surely we cannot take the life of a child who may end up perfectly healthy?

Second, even if it was certain, what are we saying about disability? Is a handicapped life not worth living? Is a handicapped person not fully human? Of course they are. It seems to me, followed to its logical conclusion, abortion because of possible, or even certain, disability in the child, says some pretty shocking things about our approach to other disabled people. In a culture which so rightly protects and promotes the rights of the disabled, it is astonishing that disability is still given as a reason to proceed with an abortion.

Third, who is to define disability? With recent advances in genetics, and some clinics offering the ability to select hair colour, intelligence, physical build, who is to say that things we do not currently consider disabilities will not be classed as disabilities in 20 years’ time?

Now, I am not denying that the care of physically, and mentally-handicapped children and adults is difficult. It entails physical, emotional and financial costs for parents and other family members. It can put enormous strains on marriages and siblings. It means, above all, sacrifice. As a church, and as individual Christians, we should do all we can to help, financially and in other ways. But abortion is not the answer. In any case, of the 6.7 million British abortions in the last 40 years, only 1.3% were because of possible fetal abnormality.

2. What if the mother’s life is at risk?

This is the most difficult question to answer. First, only 0.4% of those 6.7 million abortions were because of a risk to the mother’s life. This is agonising when it happens, but it is very rare.

Second, it is worth noting that a 13-year study from 1987-2000 found that the number of deaths caused by abortion is almost 3 times higher than the rate of death in childbirth in many developed Western countries. In many cases therefore, if the life of the mother is at risk in childbearing, abortion is unlikely to be a sensible answer.

Third, as with disability, there is the question of certainty. We are weighing up the possible risk to the mother with the certain death of the child. There is no easy answer. To take the most extreme case, an operation to deal with an ectopic pregnancy is technically an abortion – the termination of a fertilised embryo. However, no-one would dispute that this is the correct course of action. Where the child’s death is certain, and the mother’s likely, an abortion must be the only option. As the possibility of life for the child increases, and the possibility of physical harm to the mother decreases, the situation becomes much less clear.

I can only say that I remain uncertain, as do most Christian theologians, about the rightness or wrongness of abortion in these difficult cases. We must proceed with prayer, love, realism about our own motives, and a willingness to be taught anew from Scripture.

3. 98.1% of those abortions have been for what are described as social reasons: it’s not convenient now; we don’t want a baby; we can’t afford it. I hope the answer is obvious. Children are hard work. I know that now. They are also an enormous blessing from God. How can anyone take away a child’s life because it’s not convenient?

All this being said then, what can we as Christians do?

The church in Britain has been rightly criticised on two fronts in my opinion.

One, we have been largely silent. For 40 years, the church has failed to speak out over abortion. Occasionally, a church leader will speak out, from time to time there will be a march. But largely, we have tut-tutted in private, or even just gone along with it. Our brothers and sisters across the pond put us to shame. Abortion has remained a massive issue in American politics and life generally, because the church has spoken out and has not grown cold and tired. Unfortunately, some Americans have sinned terribly in this. Bombing the clinics, homes and cars of abortion practitioners is a disgrace. How can someone claim to defend the sanctity of life by murdering others? We must condemn such folly.

But we must make abortion an issue. We should be lobbying MPs, writing to them, ensuring that abortion will be one of the issues that determines our vote in elections. We should be talking to hospitals. Where I used to live in London, one of the local hospitals refused to carry out any abortions for social reasons, because the local community had spoken out and the hospital had listened. Within the next year, Parliament is likely to vote on a bill changing the abortion law. Are we ready?

Two, we have been criticised for not understanding the needs and pain of those considering abortion, for speaking the truth without any love. I think it is a fair criticism. British churches, on the whole, have not lifted a finger to help those who can see no other way out. We underestimate the difficulties people face. A young woman, whose partner isn’t interested and whose parents would refuse to help. Where can she turn? A poor family with too many mouths to feed, who don’t know where the next pay cheque is coming from. Some turn to abortion, not because they want one, but because there is nowhere else to go, and that is the advice of the clinic or doctor or helath authority.

What will we do about it? Will we offer practical and financial support to women and to couples who need it to go through with a pregnancy? Will we step forward to be foster and adoptive parents to unwanted children? It’s not easy. We have people in this church who could tell you how difficult dealing with social services can be. Will we lobby health authorities and doctors to give people information about the dangers and downsides of abortion, let alone the ethical problems, and to offer people other options?

In short, will we say abortion is wrong, and the welfare state should jolly well do something about it? Or will we say, abortion is wrong, and we’re ready to help you?

God is the Creator of all life, so life belongs to him.
God is the Director of all life, so our lives are in his hands.

Together, as forgiven sinners, let us offer help and hope to those facing this terrible decision.

Pray for our Holiday Club

2007-10-22T14:09:00.000+01:00

Tuesday-Friday 10-12:15

5-11 years of age

Joseph in Egypt.

Thank you!

Why Government should not be involved in Education

2007-10-11T09:40:00.000+01:00

I mean any government, not just Stalinists masquerading as 'social democrats'.

http://www.lambdassociates.org/blog/decline.htm

This is terrifying. I think it's probably true as well. 2 examples:

1) A friend of mine lectures in Classics at the University of Exeter, which is, according to the government, one of the top classics institutions in the country. He says he has final year students, who will get 2:1s or even Firsts, to whom he would not even give an O-Level pass if it was up to him.

2) I compare my two degree courses. I read History at Oxford, and was awarded an academic scholarship. I also read Theology at Oak Hill Theological College (an associate college of Middlesex University).
If I told you that for one of these degrees I did approximately 18 hours work a week, which I could have done in my sleep, and for the other, I did about 40 hours a week, much of which was mind-bendingly tough, you would probably guess the wrong way round.
Guess which institution has the least government involvement?

Of course it all stands to reason. If 50 years of state education has produced such hopelessly-equipped school leavers, it's not fair to punish them for governments' failings. Obviously, universities must be dumbed down too.

Anyone for Fudge?

2007-09-26T10:01:00.000+01:00

That's right. The US House of Bishops has spoken, and what a clever bunch they are.

See here for their statement.

Here for Church Society's response.

Here for more links.

Markan Son Sandwich

2007-09-24T13:09:00.000+01:00

Preparing a study on Mark 1:1-13.

Helpful stuff from the Revd Matthew Mason on John's dress and diet.

In vv. 9-13 it looks like we have a sandwich, one of Mark's favourite items of food.

In v. 9, Jesus is baptised. Strange! This is a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (v. 4), so Jesus doesn't need that. Perhaps he is identifying with Israel from the off. He is becoming Israel, and in bearing Israel's sin, he needs this baptism.

In v. 12 he is driven out into the wilderness for 40 days to be tempted by Satan. Sounds familiar! Jesus is again Israel, but whereas they succumbed to temptation in 40 years of wilderness, Jesus is faithful in 40 days.

In the middle, the Father announces, "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased." A parallel and contrast to Ex 4:22, Israel God's firstborn son, who turns out not to be terribly pleasing.

This goes with the quotes from Mal 3 and Isa 40 in Mark 1:2 to portray Jesus as the faithful Israel restored from exile.

As requested

2007-09-20T09:06:00.001+01:00

As Michael has requested in response to the last post, the best I can do at the moment is to direct you to David Field's various links and posts. Many are deliberately provocative, and I suspect some (including Michael) will not appreciate the tone, but the substance is, I find, persuasive.

Welfare is all part of my forthcoming posts on taxation and the place of the state (after October half-term), though Jam has some useful starters.

Michael, thank you for your patience, as you endure my passing remarks without yet seeing my full rationale.

Chuffed...

2007-09-17T12:08:00.001+01:00

Yes, just 3 months into ministry and I've got my first letter published in the Church Times!

Sadly you need to be a subscriber to view it online. It was a response to a scurrilous attack by Stephen Bates against Christian Reconstructionism (and lots of other people he doesn't like).

A couple at church yesterday morning mentioned they'd seen my letter "in Jezebel's Trumpet". Nice!

After advice from my esteemed colleagues, here it is:

Sir,

Having enjoyed William Whyte’s review of The Expansion of Evangelicalism, it was ironic then to read Stephen Bates on the Religious Right. Whyte observes that “Evangelicalism was not homogenous.” Mr. Bates then proceeds to lump together Christian Reconstructionism, tele-evangelists, the Republican Party, unfortunate examples of evangelical hypocrisy, and Evangelicals generally.

To consider just one of these, even within Christian Reconstructionism, there is diversity. There are different attitudes to the legal status of other faiths. There are different applications of Old Testament Law to the judicial system. No Reconstructionist expects this to happen in 20 years, as Mr. Bates seems to suggest. Postmillenial in outlook, Reconstructionists expect this sort of state to be possibly centuries in the making. Further, the growing movement of ecclesial rather than political Reconstructionists expect this will take place as a result of large-scale Christian conversion, within the democratic process, not to be enforced by some coup d’etat.

Finally, Mr. Bates attacks the focus on homosexuality rather than divorce or poverty. If he would read the work of Jordan, Leithart, Wilson, Bahnsen et al., he would find that fidelity in marriage, love for your wife, care for your family, takes up considerably more space than any discussions of homosexuality.

He would also find that the opposition of the Institute for Christian Economics and others to state intervention, welfare and ‘fair’ trade, which he may mistake for unconcern for the poor, is prompted by a thoroughgoing desire to follow biblical (and therefore truly effective) means for the alleviation of poverty.

Yours faithfully,
Neil Jeffers

So much to read...

2007-09-13T17:01:00.000+01:00

How in parish ministry can one keep reading a good range of books, which aren't directly related to sermon study?

One way might be to set myself a ridiculously ambitious target. So here's a list of books I'm aiming to read/re-read in the next, what shall we say, two years (grouped for convenience):

Biblical Studies
J. B. Jordan, Through New Eyes

Covenant Theology
O. P. Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants

H. Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants Between God and Man

Ecclesiology
T. Bradshaw, The Olive Branch

E. P. Clowney, The Church

P. J. Leithart, The Kingdom and the Power

J. M. Frame, Worship in Spirit and Truth

J. J. Meyers, The Lord’s Service

Soteriology
J. Edwards, The Freedom of the Will

R. B. Gaffin, Resurrection and Redemption

J. Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied

J. Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ

Preaching
R. Bewes, Speaking in Public Effectively

S. Greidanus, The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text

J. Hughes, Expository Preaching with Word Pictures

H. W. Robinson, Expository Preaching

Ethics
G. L. Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics

W. G. Strickland ed., Five Views on Law and Gospel

O. M. T. O’Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order

O. M. T. O’Donovan, The Desire of the Nations

V. S. Poythress, The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses

J. M. Frame, Medical Ethics

Family
D. Wilson, For a Glory and a Covering

R. K. &. B. Hughes, Disciplines of a Godly Family

N. Piper, Treasuring God in our Traditions

D. Wilson, Future Men

Counselling
J. Adams, Competent to Counsel

Wish me luck!

If I hear one more person say...

2007-09-11T12:27:00.000+01:00

... that the Jubilee is about political economy and the redistribution of wealth, I shall point them very forcefully to this excellent comment and indeed to everything Ros has ever written to do with the land (or anything else, as Ros's work is always insightful, heart-warming and, of course, carefully distinguished).

Poetic justice

2007-09-06T13:03:00.000+01:00

Preaching on Exodus 12 this Sunday as the first in a series on penal substitution in the OT (contra Steve Chalke et al.).

How beautiful the justice of the Passover is.

In Exodus 1:16, the Egyptians have sought the death of every son born to Israel.

In 4:22, we discover that the Israel Pharaoh has been oppressing is God's "firstborn son". We also have a forewarning of the Passover in 4:23.

In the Passover, every house in Egypt loses its firstborn son, while the firstborn sons of the firstborn son (Israel) are delivered by God's provision of a blood substitute.

Notice the mercy as well. In retribution for 1:16, God could quite fairly have killed every son of Egypt. He chose only to kill the firstborn.

What a just and merciful God we serve!

Pre-Holiday Rant

2007-08-21T09:00:00.001+01:00

Off on holiday to take James to the land of his fathers (Ulster).

No posting until September.

So let me just get this off my chest.

John Redwood, in the process of defending his proposals for abolishing inheritance tax (hurrah!) argued that he wants to "tax the rich more as well." What he meant was: free people from silly taxes which disincentivise productivity (like inheritance tax), let them produce more wealth, and then of course they will pay more income tax.

Whatever one thinks of the detail, why the nasty rhetoric. Modern political consensus is that the rich must be bled dry. Why? Do they receive a higher level of service for their greater contribution? No. Do they receive thanks and the plaudits of society for their generous (enforced) giving? No. Do they have a covenantal/familial duty to provide for the rest of the population of their nation-state? No.

Two possibilities:

Christians read 1 Tim 6:18 and wrongly arrogate that to the state. No. If the rich are miserly and trust in their wealth, God will call them to account. Not every sin is a crime.
The politics of envy. You're rich, I'm not. It's not fair (Rubbish. It's not equal - equality and fairness are not the same thing). You must have come by your wealth by some shady means. You must be punished for being rich.

Neither is right. So, politicians, lay off the wealth-producing, job-creating, service-providing, non-welfare-dependent rich for a bit, why don't you?

Predestination and Human Choice

2007-08-16T12:34:00.000+01:00

So many (both opponents and supporters of predestination) struggle to maintain both God's complete sovereignty and man's complete responsibility.

Part of the problem is that it is treated as a zero-sum game. If God's got 100% of the control, then man has nothing left.

J. K. S. Reid, who is by no means infallible (he is worryingly Barthian in many places), makes this devastatingly brilliant observation in his Introduction to his translation of Calvin's Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God. Read it frequently and carefully - it is dense and complicated, but brilliant.

Philosophically, when we deal with the relation of a finite magnitude to a greater but also finite magnitude, the independence of the one is conserved only at the expense of the other; when we deal with a really infinite magnitude and its relation to a finite magnitude, this is no longer the case. Theologically, God is not simply the magnification of man, and His qualities are not simply the qualities of man increased to the power of n. If this were true of Him, then predetermination would be merely determination on a greater, grander scale, and there would be even less hope of securing the independence of the finite magnitude which man is. But just because He is really infinite, the Predestination of which He is the author does not rob man of his independence and therefore of his responsibility.

The Unmerciful Servant

2007-08-16T09:35:00.000+01:00

I have found Don Carson's EBC Commentary on Matthew to be variable in quality, largely I think due to the limits of the series. However, on the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant in Matt 18, it is full of insight.

Note:

Jesus' hyperbole (humour?). The first slave owes 10,000 talents, possibly around 1 billion dollars in contemporary value. Clearly, no master would allow a servant to run up this sort of debt, even if the servant was a "high-ranking imperial civil servant." The story is not meant to be 'realistic.' It demonstrates the incomparable magnitude of man's debt to God.
The second servant owes a significant debt. 100 denarii was probably 100 days' wages for a soldier or labourer. In one sense, the first servant might be rightly angry at not being paid back, if he himself had not just been forgiven a ridiculously sized debt.
The first servant abuses his position. "Even an inexpensive slave sold for five hundred denarii, and it was illegal to sell a man for a sum greater than his debt." Yet this is what happens.
In v. 34, the first servant is handed over not to the jailers (NIV), but to torturers, until he pays back what he owes. We've already seen that he will never be able to do that. Let the reader understand, he is being handed over to be tortured for ever.

Thank you, Don. Now I just have to put it into a sermon!

Thank you Father for such astonishing love; thank you Jesus for accomplishing such forgiveness; thank you Holy Spirit for calling me to receive it.

All off to Heathrow?

2007-08-13T10:04:00.000+01:00

NB: I am not a scientist!

As a balanced response to this, take a look at a variety of links, thoughts and articles from David Field.

Is the Church of England hierarchy really anti-evangelical?

2007-08-09T14:51:00.000+01:00

Answer: Yes.

To see the disturbing results of the survey conducted by the Association of Ordinands and Candidates of Ministry (AOCM) during my Chairmanship, click http://www.aocm.org.uk/ and click on the link at the bottom of the page.

Is darkness neutral?

2007-08-07T14:36:00.000+01:00

Last week on camp we did Bible studies in Genesis 1-3 and Revelation 22.

Following my previous post, let me highlight that this is a tentative suggestion.

For the first time I noticed the disruption in the pattern "And God saw that it was good." Usually, this phrase summarises God's judgement on a whole series of creative acts (1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25).

In 1:3, if it anticipated the other instances we might expect, "God called the light 'day', and the darkness he called 'night'. And God saw that it was good." But, the phrase comes earlier. Specifically, we are told that light is good, but we are told nothing evaluative about darkness. What do we make of this?

Is it the case that darkness is bad? Can anything in God's original creation be bad? I doubt we would be comfortable saying this.

Is darkness neutral? Is anything morally neutral? Again, I feel uncomfortable with this.

Is darkness less good? Perhaps. In 1:2, we have darkness and no light. I assume, though we're not told, that creation is good even in its formless and dark state. But the clear message of Genesis 1-2 is that order and form and fullness are better than disorder and emptiness. Just as creation without man is good, but with man, it is very good, perhaps we may say, creation with light is better, more good, than without?

Of course, the new creation has no darkness at all (Rev 22:5).

In biblical theology, darkness (John 3:19) comes to be wicked, through association with sin and contrast with light. Must that mean darkness is bad in the beginning?

Thoughts please?

Disciplines of a Godly Blogger

2007-08-07T14:21:00.000+01:00

You may be familiar with Kent and Barbara Hughes' terrifying books:

Disciplines of a Godly Man
Disciplines of a Godly Woman
Disciplines of a Godly Family

They are immensely challenging, and helpfully highlight that true freedom and true discipline are companions rather than opponents.

As I embark on the blog, I thought it would be helpful to me to lay down some blogging disciplines, most of which are plain, Spirit-wrought Christian virtues (in no particular order).

Aim to edify believers and/or evangelise unbelievers with every post.
Assume everyone is reading. Tim Keller says of church services that they should speak to the Christian, assuming that the unbeliever is listening in. So a blog may address a particular audience, but with the awareness that anyone can and may read it.
Avoid personal attacks. If they are justified on rare occasions, don't say what you wouldn't say to someone's face.
Don't criticise someone or something you wouldn't criticise elsewhere.
A blog post is not a journal article or doctoral thesis. Therefore, ideas which are not fully-researched are legitimate. However, speculative, uncertain thoughts should be flagged as such to the reader.

That'll do for now.

Distingu-what?

2007-08-07T10:21:00.000+01:00

An odd name to launch on the blogosphere. Where does it come from?

Dorothy L. Sayers, in her 1947 lecture in Oxford, "The Lost Tools of Learning" comments on the oft-mocked question of how many archangels could dance on the point of a needle:

Scorn in plenty has been poured out upon the mediaeval passion for hair-splitting; but when we look at the shameless abuse made, in print and on the platform, of controversial expressions with shifting and ambiguous connotations, we may feel it in our hearts to wish that every reader and hearer had been so defensively armored [sic] by his education as to be able to cry: "Distinguo."

[HT: David Field]

Distinguo is simply the Latin for "I distinguish." More than anything, my training at Oak Hill taught me that many questions could be answered, many controversies reconciled, and many heresies avoided, if only we approached questions with careful distinctions. This is true of the whole of life, not just theology (though, of course, theology properly understood is the whole of life).

I hope my posts, and readers' comments (yes, all three of you), will always cry "Distinguo."