Why you should take care in choosing songs for worship

Funny quote from Stanley Hauerwas:

One reason why we Christians argue so much about which hymn to sing, which liturgy to follow, which way to worship is that the commandments teach us to believe that bad liturgy eventually leads to bad ethics. You begin by singing some sappy, sentimental hymn, then you pray some pointless prayer, and the next thing you know you have murdered your best friend. (HT John Halton)

It seems hard to see how that could come about, but when it is your best friend who has chosen that insipid meaningless chorus for the twentieth time this year then perhaps you'd understand that it is probably for the best that he was prevented from making the same mistake again.

More random thoughts, this time on fear

Listening to: Antony and the Johnsons: I Am a Bird Now

Stream of conciousness blogging...

When Martin Luther expounded the 10 commandments in his Small Catechism he began every explanation with "We should fear and love God....". Fear and love/Law and Gospel/Repentance and faith etc. The two sides the Christian life are fundamental to Lutheran spirituality, and I think to the Bible too. But the language of fear is something that I really struggle with. I've been thinking about it a bit recently as I've come across things all over the place which have challenged me to think.

For example, Mark 4:35-5:20 which describes Jesus performing two miracles. In the first he stills a storm. In the second he casts out demons into some pigs. In both the reaction of the people is fear. The disciples fear him, but keep following him. The second group fear him, and ask him to depart from their region.... Is the first a good fear and the second a bad fear? In which case what is it about the fear which is good/bad? Is it what it leads to... i.e. pushing Jesus away, or clinging to him?

Perhaps, but what about Luke 5:1-10? Again Jesus performs a miracle and people are afraid. Peter falls on his knees and says "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord". He is pushing Jesus away, and Jesus responds by telling him "Do not be afraid".

Is that good fear or bad fear? Presumably good, but Jesus doesn't think it is appropriate!

But maybe that is because fear is the beginning of wisdom, but not the end. Fear is good at pushing us into the arms of love, but then be left behind. Verses could be multiplied to show this is not the case, but one striking example was brought up by Richard Coekin in the A Passion for Life DVDs the men in our church are watching. Looking at 2 Corinthians 5-6 he helpfully drew out four motivations for evangelism:

1. The fear of Christ (5:11)
2. The love of Christ (5:14)
3. The commission of Christ (5:20)
4. The day of Christ (6:1-2)

Surely the fear of Christ which motivates us to evangelism is fear for the sake of those who don't believe? Well, 2 Corinthians 5 doesn't seem to say that. Christians will appear before the judgment seat of Christ (5:10) "therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others" (5:11). It is fear for ourselves that motivates us!

Discussing the Richard Coekin video at church this morning a friend said that he understood the fear of God, but not the love. I think he meant experientially rather than intellectually. I think I understand both experientially to some degree, but I really don't understand fear intellectually. In my heart I felt that he had too much of the fear of death and condemnation that we have been freed from (Romans 8:1-17; Hebrews 2:15). But I'm not sure that I was right. I do feel that we too often take the freedom described to mean that 'fear of God' for Christians is an insipid 'respect' or 'reverence' without any fear of punishment. This doesn't seem to be what the Bible describes, and besides it all just seems too neat. Fear isn't so easily packaged as Melachthon commented:

when will a terrified conscience, especially in those serious, genuine, and great terrors that are described in the Psalms and the Prophets and certainly experienced by those who are truly converted, be able to determine whether it fears God on account of himself or in fear is fleeing eternal punishments? These two great impulses can be distinguished on paper, but they cannot be separated in real life, as these slick sophists dream. (p.189, Apology to the Augsburg Confession, Article XII: Repentance, BOC)

Sorry for the mess that is this post. It reflects the mess my mind is in on this issue! But at least nobody can accuse me of being a "slick sophist"!

Any thoughts?

Obey the gospel - send missionaries

Listening to: JS Bach, Mass in B Minor - I'm going to nick Dan Hames' habit and start doing this. Sometimes its hard to keep quiet about stuff you're loving, so this gives me an additional excuse to vent. Plus you may find out something about me!

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!" 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?" 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

18 But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for

"Their voice has gone out to all the earth,
and their words to the ends of the world."

19 But I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says,

"I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation;
with a foolish nation I will make you angry."

20 Then Isaiah is so bold as to say,

"I have been found by those who did not seek me;
I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me."

21 But of Israel he says, "All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people."

(Romans 10:14-21)

Glen has provoked me to make sense of the flow of this passage. I think I now have, thanks mainly to the insights of my learned housemate with whom I had a good session thrashing over it this evening. I think it taught us:

• to support for world mission
• to be humble because the whole world is disobedient
• to be happy that this means that all missionaries are forgiven sinners and so preach a message which is not 'be like me and be good' but 'be forgiven like me'
• to witness to Christ in a way which makes it clear we are sinners, not standing over non-Christians in judgment
• to be amazed at the complexity and non-instinctual way in which God achieves his purposes.
• God gets the glory, not us.

Briefly, this is what I think is going on.

vv.14-15a: is a pretty easy to understand chain of how people are saved. People call on God because they have heard the gospel, because someone preached to them, because someone sent that missionary to them.

15b: missionary activity is a beautiful thing. Get with the program! Specifically Paul's program for his mission to Spain.

16a: the Jews have not got with the program. They have not been missionaries to the world. When Paul says they did not obey the gospel, he does not mean they did not believe it for their own salvation. The gospel is usually something that we believe, accept or confess for our salvation. We obey it in obeying its implicit call to spread it. We obey the gospel by supporting God's mission to the world.

16b: is a quotation from Isaiah 53:1a. The reasons the Jews are not sending out missionaries declaring the coming of the Messiah is that Jews did not believe that the suffering Jesus hung on a cross, was the promised Messiah.

17: Summarising vv.14-16.

18: Psalm 19 has already been told to the Jews so they should know about God's universal purposes. They should know about general revelation, and so should realise that God plans salvation for all people. He has been speaking to all people through creation, so the Jews should follow his lead and take the gospel to all people.

19: Even the beginning of the bible ('first Moses') tells the Jews of God's purposes for the gentiles, although it also says that they will be jealous of them.

20: Isaiah much later ('then') says the same thing and says that God has purposes for the gentiles to, although again points out that the Jews won't like it.

21: The Jews have not listened to their vocation but instead been disobedient.

Challenge to the Romans and to us: be obedient, see God's universal purposes. Support mission, and marvel at God's universal love.

Brief thoughts. Feedback appreciated. All responsibility for any mistakes belongs to my housemate.

Thoughts on Job 33

Job believes two things:

1. He is 'pure', he has 'done no wrong', he is 'clean and free from sin' (33:9); and
2. Despite that God unjustly considers him 'his enemy' (33:10; cf 34:5)

Elihu contends that Job is not right. This is his human reasoning, and God is greater than human imagining.

God does speak and reveal himself and he does this 'now one way, now another' (33:14):

1. To those who are slumbering soundly in bed God speaks 'in their ears and terrif[ies] them with warnings' (33:16)
2. To those with 'constant distress in their bones' (33:19) he sends a angel who 'is gracious to them and says to God':

"Spare them from going down to the pit;
I have found a ransom for them—
let their flesh be renewed like a child's;
let them be restored as in the days of their youth'—
then they can pray to God and find favour with him,
they will see God's face and shout for joy;
he will restore them to full well-being." (33:24-26)

What will those who hear these two words say:

1. 'We have sinned, we have perverted what is right'
2. 'we did not get what we deserved. God has delivered us from going down to the pit, and we shall live to enjoy the light of life'

It seems cruel or irrational that God would say these two contradictory words to people. Why does God say both these things to human beings? The answer is that both are to bring them us to life (33:18,28-30), and the chances are that God will have to speak these words repeatedly to us over our lives in order to save us (33:29).

Elihu was angry with Job because he was 'justifying himself rather than God' (32:2) and YHWH isn't too happy about that either (40:8). But actually Elihu admits that he wants to justify Job (33:32) and YHWH does so in the end too (42:7). Job is justified through YHWH's own justification. Only when YHWH is allowed to be just in a way above human comprehension, can we too be justified. If we seek YHWH to be just according to our own standards we will be righteous and God will seem unjust and our enemy.

Natural theology, law and Gospel

Glen has been interacting with some thoughts on truth and goodness in pagan philosophers. I agree with him entirely and he says things much better than I could. I just think he could do with a dash of law and Gospel!

I've talked about this more here and here, where you can see how much I'm relying on Oswald Bayer. I came across another Bayer gem that explains what I mean the other day:

"The effect that the law creates is not surprising. One has no trouble understanding what it means to rely on oneself and on one's own deeds; the action-consequences relationship has its own logic. But the gospel is absolutely, completely incomprehensible. That God rescues one from, and brings one safely through, the deserved judgment is a miracle. Law and gospel cannot be plausibly intertwined together; their existence is hard and fast in opposition to each other. The gospel is literally a paradox; it stands against that which the sinner can reasonably expect; it stands against damnation"

(p.228, Martin Luther's Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation)

I think that makes clear how there can be good and true things in what pagan philosophers say (which, Glen, I think you could be clearer on), while also proclaiming the foolishness of the Gospel. They teach the good and true law, but cannot teach the Gospel. They never completely teach the law (that actually can only be done by teaching the cross), but they cannot even partially teach the Gospel. To me that makes sense of Psalm 19, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, Job, Romans 1, 1 Corinthians 1-3 etc

It also makes sense of my experience. For example, I watch a fair number of films and attempt to do this from a Christian perspective. I tend to feel they are often great at showing our plight, but never offer anything but false solutions.

Now there is an interesting question which I haven't really addressed, and that is where does Christ fit into this? I have talked about law and Gospel and Glen has talked about Christ. Does Christ=the Gospel, which is what Luther and Mark 1:1 (granting my discussion with Chris about different meanings of 'gospel') seem to do? But isn't Christ the one shown to be the one who will judge the world (Acts 17:31), and isn't the cross the ultimate proclamation of the law (as PT Forsyth argues)? Can't Paul even say that 'according to [his] gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus' (Rom 2:16)?

Sorry but I don't have time to pick up those threads!... just thought I'd tease you!

BTW I'm sorry if all I do is talk about Oswald Bayer, Glen Scrivener and law and Gospel at the moment. As you can probably tell by the rushed off nature of this post I'm not getting much time at the moment.

I see law and Gospel everywhere!

Cole Sear: I see dead people law and Gospel.

Malcolm Crowe: In your dreams?

[Cole shakes his head no]

Malcolm Crowe: While you're awake?

[Cole nods...]

Malcolm Crowe: How often do you see them?

Cole Sear: All the time. They're everywhere.

It is starting to feel that way....

This evening at church the preacher argued that there were two essential attitudes for prayer:

1. helplessness
2. faith

Law and Gospel, I thought. You can view everything through that lens!

More important than the existence of God?

Glen has a few thoughts on Dawkins.

I read Oswald Bayer last night and he made the rather provocative statement that:

"The question about justification is more important than the question about the existence of God."

(pp. 138f, Martin Luther's Theology)

Put that in your theological pipe and smoke it... as Don Carson might say.

I'm not sure I 100% understand him, but an earlier comment throws some light:

"certainty comes to exist in a concrete way. It takes place through the use of certain performative statements of Christian proclamation of the type used in the promise of the forgiveness of sins. Nothing can be abstracted from this concrete activity to concoct a statement that supposedly has general applicability, that would provide a place of refuge in a phenomenological, religious sense, that would have some overarching validity wherein all religions could find commonality. For Luther it follows that atheism is the high point among religions, which is most clearly seen in the religion of self-actualization, in which the human being seeks to make himself reliant simply on himself. [footnote: "Luther emphasizes this in a clearly blunt manner when he puts the Muslims on the same level with the papacy and the Enthusiasts. He does not distinguish between religions and confessions, but only between true and false faith. Everyone who attempts to justify himself apart from Christ is caught up in unbelief, no matter what form it takes."]"

(p.137, ibid)

Luther on changing nappies

"If natural reason looks thus at married life, which is what the heathen follow, at the point where they want to be the smartest, then it turns up the nose and says: Ah, do I have to rock the baby, wash the diapers, make beds, smell stink, stay awake during the night, care for it when it cries, treat its rashes and sores, afterward take care of the wife, support her, work, have cares here, cares there, do that, do this, suffer that, suffer this, and all of what else the marriage estate teaches about what is disgusting and wearying. Oh, should I get caught like that? Oh, you miserable, poor man, if you have taken a wife, phooey, phooey, with the misery and messiness. It is better to remain unattached and, without troubles, to lead a peaceable life....

But what does the Christian faith have to say about this? It opens his eyes and sees all these small, insignificant, and despised works through the Spirit and is most sure that they are all decorated with godly pleasure as with costly gold and precious stones and says: Ah, oh God, since I am sure that you have created me as a human being and have produced this child through my body, I thus know for sure, as well, that it pleases you best of all, and I confess to you that I am not worthy to rock the little one, to wash his diapers, and to care for his mother. How have I come to be worthy of this without merit, that I have become sure of how I can serve your creature and your loving will? Oh, how gladly I will do such things, even such things as could be less important yet and more despised. Therefore neither frost nor heat, no amount of effort or work will grieve me, since I am sure that such work is pleasing to you."

(The Estate of Marriage, LW 45:39-40)

James Denney on the incarnation (x7)

Here are a whole load of quotes from James Denney's The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation in which he attacks an understanding of the incarnation which gives the sinful state of our humanity a back seat.

When I hear about the incarnation it is often described as primarily a metaphysical or epistemological event. Consequently salvation is then seen as similarly metaphysical or epistemological. In contrast the Bible sees it primarily as a act of reconciliation to deal with our moral alienation from God.

-------------------------------

"It is not too much to say that the metaphysical incarnation which was the vital centre of Athanasius' thought - his sacramental union of the divine and the human in the incarnate Word - had dulled his sense of an ethical union and communion of man with God, and of the powers by which such a union and communion can be impaired and destroyed, or perfected. [footnote: "It is significant that he only mentions the forgiveness of sins once, and then only in connection with Christ's work as seeking and saving the lost during his life on earth (14.2)] The same holds of Greek theology generally, and of the type of piety akin to it. It is too much out of relation to the world in which moral creatures, conscious of their estrangement from God, and needing and longing for reconciliation to Him, live and move and have their being." (pp.42-43)

"Christ had no reason for coming into the world but to save sinners. This is the true experimental and Biblical ground on which to stand. Attractive as it may appear to speculative minds, the idea that Christ would have come apart from this redemptive purpose - to complete creation, or give humanity a Head - departs from the line of religious and especially of Christian interest. It finds the motive of the incarnation in some speculative or metaphysical fitness, and not where Scripture and experience put it, in love." (p. 59)

"God became man because only thus could sin be dealt with for man's salvation, and God's end in the creation of man secured. In other words, the rationale of the incarnation is in the atonement. It is through the atonement that the incarnation is seen to be rationally necessary and therefore credible." (p. 65)

"He must be man that He may be entitled to act for the sinful race, and He must be God that He may be able to offer to God the immeasurable satisfaction which shall be equal to the necessities of the case. Hence the need for the incarnation or the God-man. It is the necessity of making satisfaction for sin, in order that men who have sinned may nevertheless attain the destiny of blessedness in eternal life with God, which explains the one dogma of the Christian faith - namely, the incarnation. As it has already been expressed, the rationale of the incarnation lies in the atonement. Were it not for the atonement, no one could say that the incarnation had any necessity in it which appealed to reason." (p.71)

"Nothing is commoner, for instance, than for those who conceive the incarnation as the taking up of human nature into union with the divine, to say that the incarnation is itself the atonement; in the person of the God-man humanity as such is reconciled to God. To the writer such expressions are as good as meaningless, and neither for the evangelist nor the theologian can he see that they have any value. But looking at the actual life and death of Jesus as the proper definition of the term incarnation - the sum of reality apart from which incarnation is an empty sound - he would have no difficulty in saying that the incarnation and the atonement, or the incarnation and the work of reconciling man to God, were all one. The traditional dogmatic conception of the incarnation, with which the idea of an incarnation independent of sin, and designed to consummate creation, is usually connected, does not lift us into a region of eternal or ideal truth; it does not enlighten our minds in the knowledge of Christ; it only lifts us out of the region of historical and moral reality. We have the practical interest of Christianity as well as the broad sense of the New Testament with us when we stand by the view that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." (pp. 183-184)

"The only incarnation of which the New Testament knows anything is the appearance of Christ in the race and lot of sinful men, and His endurance in it to the end. Apart from sharing our experience, that sharing of our nature, which is sometimes supposed to be what is meant by incarnation, is a abstraction and a figment. But everything in that sharing our experience is essential." (p.242)

Wheels in motion

Charles Simeon on Calvinist v. Arminian systems in Scripture:

"The author is disposed to think that the Scripture system is a of a broader and more comprehensive character than some very dogmatical theologians are inclined to allow; and that, as wheels in a complicated machine may move in opposite directions and yet subserve one common end, so may truths apparently opposite be perfectly reconcilable with each other and equally subserve the purpose of God in the accomplishment of man's salvation. The author feels it impossible to avow too distinctly that it is an invariable rule with him to endeavour to give to every portion of the Word of God its full and proper force, without considering what scheme if favours, or whose system it is likely to advance."

(p.79, cited in HCG Moule, Charles Simeon)

I'm not sure how helpful the machine analogy is for Calvinism v. Arminian interpretations of the bible. But it is a very helpful way of thinking about how Scripture works more generally. In particular how it works as law and Gospel. Law and Gospel in Scripture work against each other in some ways, but as part of the whole work together for a common end. If we try and force one of the cogs to work in the same way as the other cogs the whole machine will malfunction.

Another reason I like the analogy is because it is a description of Scripture which is full of movement. I think that the Bible is a book full of movement from one truth to another. From one feeling to another.

Snowed under in September

Hi everyone,

I thought I'd give you all an explanation of why the blog has been a little quiet recently, and how it is likely to get even quieter for a while.

Last month I purposely had a break from reading theology books and tried (largely unsuccessfully) to spend more time reading fiction and the bible itself. This month I have started a two-year part-time course at the College of Law, as part of my never-ending quest to be a solicitor one day. Having now seen my timetable and the teaching methods it is clear that I'm not going to have much time to do anything other than study and earn the money to live off. Consequently blogging and reading theology is going to be much lower down my to-do list. I'm sure you will all live, but at least you now know I'm not ill or something.

In case you care, when I do get time to read I'll be aiming to read:

• Till We Have Faces (CS Lewis)
• Gilead (Marilynne Robinson)
• The Christian Doctrine of God (TF Torrance)
• War of Words (Paul Tripp)

And I'm reading most of those because I've been told to!

While I'm here though I'll also let you know how much I've been enjoying listening to a bit of Dick Lucas recently. I heard an American introduce him before one of his sermons by saying that he had been told by a British pastor that 'John Stott taught our generation what to preach, Dick Lucas taught us how to preach'. At first you struggle to see how he came to have so much influence. But soon you realise it is his absolute confidence that it is the bible, and not his ideas or rhetoric which has power to change people. In contrast to Dick Lucas you wonder how much you, and many preachers, really believe that the bible speaks today.

Here are a couple of series I've enjoyed:

• Romans 8 Re-Examined at St Helen's Bishopgate (5 talks)
• The Charles Simeon Sermon series (2007) at Taylor University (5 talks)