What are you noticing?

The other bit of Mike Cosper's review of Radiohead's album I noticed was this:

I have a friend who’s a pastoral counselor. In almost any situation, when he puts on his "counseling" hat, he opens the conversation by asking, "What are you noticing?" and follows that line of questioning with, "How are you processing that?" I think these are great questions to ask when we look at art in the wider world: What are the artist noticing, and how are they processing it?

Very good questions for all of life.

Pausing in the dark places

Mike Cosper has a great review of the latest Radiohead album.

He explains part of their appeal:

There’s a kind of alarm bell being sound by Radiohead. They want us to see how deeply trapped we are in the milieu. They offer no solutions, though they hint at the idea of community and connection....It’s a fairly hopeless perspective, but their fans aren’t listening to them for solutions. They listen for solidarity. Someone else feels lost. Someone else feels like everything is too big, too fake, too plastic.

We are used to observing the longing of our culture and our friends for something more than they know. We also know from experience that only Christ can truly satisfy, and if you ask he will give you that living water.

But I wonder if in our various ministries we run too quickly to the good news? (Can I say that?!) Before people want answers and hope, they want to hear "solidarity" - someone else that feels thirsty.

One of the strengths of law-Gospel preaching is that it does just that. It doesn't rush to the Gospel, although that is its goal. It recognises that these feelings do not just belong to those who are not yet Christians, but are known by all Christians as they are continually moving from death to life until the final resurrection of the dead. Having identified with people in the lostness of their broken dreams, destructive relationships, painful experiences, guilt and shame it then carries them with it, out of the tomb into the glorious dawn of Sunday morning.

The reason for hope in relationships

Does the challenge and mess of relationships leave you discouraged? Does the biblical honesty about human community shock you? Are you feeling overwhelmed by the hard work relationships require? If so, you are ready for this last fact: The shattered relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit at the cross provides the basis of our reconciliation. No other relationship ever suffered more than what Father, Son and Holy Spirit endured when Jesus hung on the cross and cried, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46). Jesus was willing to be the rejected Son so that our families would know reconciliation. Jesus was willing to become the forsaken friend so that we could have loving friendships. Jesus was willing to be rejected Lord so that we could live in loving submission to one another.

(p.13, Timothy S. Lane & Paul David Tripp, Relationships: A mess worth making)

Sibbes: What is it to preach Christ?

This is essentially for Dave Bish, a great lover of Richard Sibbes. It is an except from The Fountain Opened, an exposition of 1 Tim 3:16, pp.505-509 of Volume 5, Complete Works.

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To preach is to open the mystery of Christ, to open whatsoever is in Christ ; to break open the box that the savour may be perceived of all. To open Christ's natures and person what it is ; to open the offices of Christ : first, he was a prophet to teach, wherefore he came into the world ; then he was a priest, offering the sacrifice of himself ; and then after he had offered his sacrifice as a priest, then he was a king. He was more publicly and gloriously known to be a king, to rule. After he had gained a people by his priesthood and offering, then he was to be a king to govern them. But his prophetical office is before the rest. He was all at the same time, but I speak in regard of manifestation. Now 'to preach Christ' is to lay open these things.

And likewise the states wherein he executed his office. First, the state of humiliation. Christ was first abased, and then glorified. The flesh he took upon him was first sanctified and then abased, and then he made it glorious flesh. He could not work our salvation but in a state of abasement ; he could not apply it to us but in a state of exaltation and glory. To open the merits of Christ, what he hath wrought to his Father for us; to open his efficacy, as the spiritual Head of his church ; what wonders he works in his children, by altering and raising of them, by fitting and preparing them for heaven : likewise to open all the promises in Christ, they are but Christ dished and parcelled out. 'All the promises in Christ are yea and amen,' 2 Cor. i. 20. They are made for Christ's sake, and performed for Christ's sake ; they are all but Christ severed into so many particular gracious blessings. 'To preach Christ' is to lay open all this, which is the inheritance of God's people.

But it is not sufficient to preach Christ, to lay open all this in the view of others ; but in the opening of them, there must be application of them to the use of God's people, that they may see their interest in them; and there must be an alluring of them, for to preach is to woo. The preachers are paranymphi the friends of the bridegroom, that are to procure the marriage between Christ and his church; therefore, they are not only to lay open the riches of the husband, Christ, but likewise to entreat for a marriage, and to use all the gifts and parts that God hath given them, to bring Christ and his church together.

And because people are in a contrary state to Christ, 'to preach Christ,' is even to begin with the law, to discover to people their estate by nature. A man can never preach the gospel that makes not way for the gospel, by shewing and convincing people what they are out of Christ. Who will marry with Christ, but those that know their own beggary and misery out of Christ? That he must be had of necessity, or else they die in debts eternally; he must be had, or else they are eternally miserable. Now, when people are convinced of this, then they make out of themselves to Christ. This therefore must be done, because it is in order, that which makes way to the preaching of Christ ; for 'the full stomach despiseth an honeycomb,' Prov. xxvii. 7. Who cares for balm that is not sick? Who cares for Christ, that sees not the necessity of Christ ? Therefore we see John Baptist came before Christ, to make way for Christ, to level the mountains, to cast down whatsoever exalts itself in man. He that is to preach must discern what mountains there be between men's hearts and Christ; and he must labour to discover themselves to themselves, and lay flat all the pride of men in the dust ; for ' the word of God is forcible to pull down strongholds and imaginations and to bring all into subjection to Christ,' 2 Cor. x. 4. And indeed, though a man should not preach the law, yet by way of implication, all these things are wrapped in the gospel. What need a Saviour, unless we were lost ? What need Christ to be wisdom to us, if we were not fools in ourselves ? What need Christ be sanctification to us, if we were not denied in ourselves ? What need he be redemption, if we were not lost and sold in ourselves to Satan, and under his bondage? Therefore all is to make way for Christ, not only to open the mysteries of Christ, but in the opening and application to let us see the necessity of the gospel Christ is preached with sweet alluring. 'I beseech you, brethren,' and ' We as ambassadors beseech you, as if Christ by us did beseech you,' &c., 2 Cor. v. 20. This is the manner of the dispensation in the gospel, even to beg of people that they would be good to their own souls. Christ, as it were, became a beggar himself, and the great God of heaven and earth begs our love, that we would so care for our own souls that we would be reconciled unto him. It was fitter, indeed, that we should beg of him. It was fit we should seek to be reconciled to him, but God so stoops in the dispensation and ministry of the gospel, that he becomes a beggar and suitor to us to be good to our souls. As if he had offended us, he desires us to be reconciled. The wrong is done on our part, yet he so far transcends the doubtings of man's nature, that he would have nothing to cause man's heart to misgive, no doubts or scruples to arise. He himself becomes a beseecher of reconciliation, as if he were the party that had Christ. In a word, being to bring Christ and the church together, our aim must be, to persuade people to come out of their estate they are in, to come and take Christ. Whatsoever makes for this, that course we must use, though it be with never so much abasing of ourselves. Therefore the gospel is promulgated in a sweet manner. 'I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God,' &c. The law comes with 'Cursed, cursed;' but now in the gospel Christ is preached with sweet alluring. 'I beseech you, brethren,' and 'We as ambassadors beseech you, as if Christ by us did beseech you,' &c., 2 Cor. v. 20. This is the manner of the dispensation in the gospel, even to beg of people that they would be good to their own souls. Christ, as it were, became a beggar himself, and the great God of heaven and earth begs our love, that we would so care for our own souls that we would be reconciled unto him. It was fitter, indeed, that we should beg of him. It was fit we should seek to be reconciled to him, but God so stoops in the dispensation and ministry of the gospel, that he becomes a beggar and suitor to us to be good to our souls. As if he had offended us, he desires us to be reconciled. The wrong is done on our part, yet he so far transcends the doubtings of man's nature, that he would have nothing to cause man's heart to misgive, no doubts or scruples to arise. He himself becomes a beseecher of reconciliation, as if he were the party that had offended. This is the manner of the publication of the gospel.

[...]

Quest. But must nothing be preached but Christ ?

Ans. I answer, Nothing but Christ, or that that tends to Christ. If we preach threatenings, it is to cast men down, that we may build them up. If a physician purge, it is that he may give cordials. Whatsoever is done in preaching to humble men, it is to raise them up again in Christ; all makes way for Christ. When men are dejected by the law, we must not leave them there, but raise them up again. Whatever we preach, it is reductive to Christ, that men may walk worthy of Christ. When men have been taught Christ, they must be taught to walk worthy of Christ, and of their calling,' Col. i. 10, that they may carry themselves fruitfully, and holily, and constantly, every way suitable for so glorious a profession as the profession of Christian religion is. The foundation of all these duties must be from Christ. The graces for these duties must be fetched from Christ; and the reasons and motives of a Christian's conversation must be from Christ, and from the state that Christ hath advanced us unto. The prevailing reasons of an holy life are fetched from Christ. The grace of God hath appeared' saith St Paul, 'it hath shined gloriously' 'teaching us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, and righteously, and holily, in this present evil world,' Titus ii. 12. So that Christ is the main object of preaching. This made St Paul, when he was among the Corinthians, to profess no knowledge of anything but of 'Christ, and him crucified ;' to esteem and value nothing else. He had arts and tongues and parts. He was a man excellently qualified, but he made show of nothing in his preaching, and in his value and esteem, but of Christ, and the good things we have by Christ.

Now Christ must be preached wholly and only.

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PS. Dave may also be interested to note that Sibbes uses the phrase "the sunshine of the Gospel" a few pages later, where Sibbes notices how the Gospel began in the East and has moved over the land going West, presumably to the New World. If you like what you read you may enjoy Dave Bish's modernisation of Sibbes.

PPS I wonder what people feel about the answer that we should preach "Nothing but Christ, or that that tends to Christ" and then discusses the use of the law. I really should post about the use of the law in preaching, although I don't think I'm enough of a preacher to comment too much. I wonder if we have reacted against a simplistic preaching of 'law'->Gospel and chosen to just preach the Gospel. I think part of why Tim Keller is such a great preacher because he does preach the law as well as the Gospel - although he preaches it almost completely as the 'unrecognised demand'. Any thoughts?

Decisions about giving and all that jazz

In a comment on my review to God So Loved He Gave, Steve asked if Kapic and Borger discussed how we give. I think this says something about their approach:

On a practical level, what does it actually mean to imitate Jesus in our personal giving?

...We must also be careful before trying to specify certain behavioral norms since even the most devout and thoughtful Christians can differ widely over such details, and our individual callings and particular situations will inevitably impact the way Christ's cross takes shape in our lives...

This important word of caution does not mean, however, that the call to imitate Jesus lacks any clear implications for our lives. There is freedom within Jesus' example, but there is also a basic form. Thus, the challenge we face is always the challenge of knowing Jesus more so that we can discerningly apply his example more and more freely within form - like a jazz soloist who is able to improvise long rifts because he is so intimately familiar with the basic beat of the song

(p. 158, Kelly M. Kapic, with Justin L. Borger, God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity)

He then identifies two particular aspects of this "basic beat". Firstly, giving up your rights, and secondly, giving up resources.

Much Western aid, and interpersonal giving can be marked by a desire to retain control. Because of that the gift goes sour and it is ineffective. The mistake of communism and Victorian do-gooders?

But we should not just give away power but material resources as well. It is not enough to give 'freedom of opportunity', there has to be actual transfer of wealth too.

Romans 1

A few textual notes on Romans 1 (with a lot of help from AJ):

• God's "power" is "declared"/"revealed" in three places:
1. Jesus: The declaration of Christ to be the Son of God in the resurrection of Jesus (v.4)
2. The Church: The Gospel which brings salvation (v.16)
3. Creation: In the things that are made (v.20)
• God's power creates life in all three instances
• Paul longs to see the Christians in Rome because he is "eager" to preach the Gospel to them. Do we have that same passion?
• "from faith for faith" could mirror the "Jew first and also to the Greek" in the previous verse. In which case faith is from the Jews for the sake of the world. That mixture of mission and Jew/Gentile relationship would fit with the theme of the letter as a whole.
• In verses 23-25 we are told that men "exchanged...God" for created things, and so God "gave them up". In verses 26-27 we are told that women "exchanged natural relations for those contrary to nature...and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women". Sensitive thing to speculate about, but the parallel would seem to be deliberate. The patterns of our relationship with God are replayed on the smaller scale of human relationships.
• Verses 18-32 goes through 3 cycles of denying God->sin. In the first two cycles the sin is sexual immorality, in the third cycle Paul widens the fallout to all kinds of (mainly horizontal) sin. Why? Perhaps to build up to 2:1. We all get busy judging those committing those sexual sins which are markers of a world in rebellion, then in the third cycle our sins are equated with them and the condemnation which we've applauded suddenly falls on us and Paul declares "Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things." The rhetoric is quite powerful, but also deeply theological. He knows exactly what he's doing.

'God So Loved He Gave': A review

God So Loved, He Gave: Entering the Movement of Divine Generosity by Kelly M. Kapic with Justin Borger, Zondervan.

We might expect a book about giving to be a guilt-trip and focused on our wallet. This book is neither of these.

It begins “Let me tell you a story...the story about God.”

That tells you a lot about this book. It is not a long book, although its 200 pages are closely typed and it is tightly written. Nevertheless, it a big book in other ways. The book sweeps from creation, through the fall to redemption with God himself as the centre of the story. As the main actor in this drama God is thoughtfully and beautifully shown to be God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And the story’s major theme is God giving himself in the Son and the Spirit to a people who never deserved such grace.

With this as the big picture the application becomes refreshingly different to many exhortations to generosity you may have heard.

• It is saturated in grace – we are reminded to give because we have first received.
• It is God-centred – you are inspired to grow in generosity, but wonder and thankfulness for the Triune God is the dominant melody.
• It is inviting rather than pushy - as the subtitle suggests, we are invited into God’s story and into the relationship between the three persons of the Trinity.

But this God of grace takes you to quite dizzying heights, and things look a bit different from his perspective. Just as God invites you in to join him, he invites you to join him going out in self-giving. Kapic and Berger show that it is the grace of the Triune God which will make generosity so much more radical than it would be otherwise. E.g.

• God didn’t just give things, but his person - so how can we respond by just giving a percentage rather than our whole person?
• We are rich because we have received so much - so how can we not give lavishly?

Personally the most memorable theme was that of belonging. We belong to God because he created us. This was perfect freedom but we rejected belonging to God and chose bondage to sin. God reclaimed us by giving (!) so we can experience the gift of being his slaves.

This book is so rich that I could spend a long time trying to describe its content but I would struggle to do it justice.

If you are wondering about the form: It is theological but I was pleasantly surprised how expositional it was. It would probably be enjoyed by any regular reader of Christian books but may be too demanding for an occasional reader. Finally, it is distinctly Reformed Evangelical in its theology but (in-keeping with the theme) Kapic is generous in drawing on a wide range of thinkers.

God So Loved He Gave is one of the very best books I’ve read in several years. It engaged me on every level (mind, heart and will) and there are not very many books you can say that about. I highly recommend this beautiful book.

[A detailed overview of the contents/headings/sub-headings and more on Kelly Kapic.]

Responding to confession

Good headings from Stephen Altrogge, with my thoughts afterwards:

• Do Respond Humbly
• Requires you to know yourself a sinner
• Do Identify With Their Struggle
• Requires you to know yourself to struggle with similar, if different, sins
• Don't Act Shocked
• Requires you to know them, and all humanity. Sin is not a surprise, even in a Christian.
• Don't Blow It Off
• The initial, very strong, temptation. Count to ten, let the sinfulness of sin sink in. They know the sinfulness of sin so show that you know it as well.
• Do Follow Up Later
• Change is slow, and until we die temptations will probably recur. Even if not, the devil's accusations about past sin can eat away at assurance.
• Do Remember the Gospel
• The most important. Absolution should overshadow all confession. The announcement of their forgiveness. Also talk about the promise of freedom in Christ and our future hope.

Always open to more thoughts if people have them.

Glory

• The Father is glorified in Jesus (John 13:31)
• Jesus is glorified in the church (John 17:10)
• The church is glorified in other churches (1 Thessalonians 2:19-20)

So, in other words:

• The Father's glory is his Son
• The Son's glory is the church
• The church's glory is the growth of other congregations

Giving and receiving in John

The Father gives to his Son:

• His testimony that Jesus is his Son (5:36)
• all things into his hand (3:35, 13:3)
• "all judgment" and "authority to execute judgment" (5:22-27, 17:2)
• works to accomplish which testify about him (5:36)
• the church (6:37-39, 10:29, 17:2, 6, 9-12, 18:9)
• "a commandment—what to say and what to speak" (12:49)
• words (17:8)
• glory (8:54, 17:22)
• the cup [of wrath] (18:11)
• works to do (17:4)

The Father gives to the church/world:

• His Son (1:12, 3:16)
• life (5:21)
• true bread from heaven (6:32)
• whatever you ask (11:22, 15:16, 16:23)
• another Helper (the Holy Spirit, 14:16)

The Son gives to the church/world:

• The results of all the signs (wine, sight, healing, bread, life from the dead) and the testimony they contain.
• the right to become children of God (1:12)
• grace upon grace (1:16)
• The Spirit without measure (3:34), the Spirit of truth (14:17), the Holy Spirit (20:22)
• Living water (chapter 4)
• "[eternal] life" (5:21, 6:33, 9:24, 10:28, 17:2, 17:24)
• "bread for life" or "his flesh" (himself, 6:27,6:51-52)
• "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another." (13:34)
• his peace (14:27)
• the word he has been given by the Father (17:8, 17:14)
• the glory he has been given by the Father (17:22)
• His testimony (3:11, 32)

The Spirit gives to the church/world:

• life (6:63)

Interesting points:

• Jesus says he does not receive glory from people (5:41)
• Jews receive glory from one another but not God (5:44)
• It is the Pharisees who encourage the blind man to "give glory to God"(chap 9)
• Moses gives to the church/world
• the law (1:17; 7:19)
• bread from heaven (or so the Jews thought, 6:32)
• circumcision (7:22)

What strikes me is that everything that the Father gives to his Son he gives to us - the Spirit, life, words, authority, even the work of giving up our lives for the sake of others. The great commission of the Gospel of John really is "As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you" (20:21).

Faith is the goal and not the condition of the gift

Derrida’s well known thesis that every counter-gift—especially every expected counter-gift—turns a gift into an exchange, and thereby retrospectively annuls it as pure gift. For Paul Gerhardt, as for every Christian and theologian, the Creator, as the unconditioned and unobligated Giver, wills to have a counter-gift, the response of faith. Gerhardt would contest with all his energy the claim that this counter-gift changes the nature of the gift or annuls it. The gift calls for a counter-gift, a response, and empowers the giving of it. This orientation and expectation of the gift cannot and need not be understood as a condition attached to it: it need not be understood as its causa finalis. Goal-directedness is not necessarily a condition.

The question does not arise, then, whether every imaginable counter-gift encroaches upon the character of a pure gift as gift, or even goes so far as to destroy it. It is rather a matter of asking which counter-gift is commensurate and corresponds to the gift in such a way that the latter is comprehended in its essence, apprehended, acknowledged in its truth.

(Oswald Bayer, The Ethics of Gift, LQ Vol XXIV (2010))

What I understand Bayer's laboured prose to be saying is that:

• When we give a gift we expect it to be received (by faith)
• When we call something we give to someone 'a gift' we implicitly call on the recipient to receive it
• Receipt (faith) is the goal of the giving - but it is not a condition attached to the giving
• In fact, by God's grace and power, in the act of giving his Son he also provides the faith which is the goal. In Christ, representing God and Man, is both the giving and the receiving done for us - and that is applied to us by his Spirit which he pours out on us [not all that is in Bayer].
• If we treat it as an exchange our response is not the goal of the gift but means we lose out, the gift is dirtied, and the giver is dishonoured.

As an aside, Derrida's thesis was not well known to me, but his way of thinking is very familiar to me from my heart and the days we live in where we are suspicious of all authority. Perhaps it is a generalisation, but I wonder if Modernists trusted certain classes of people too much, and others too little. But Post-modernists distrust everyone - including God.

Faith is...

• receiving the gift
• NOT a condition for receiving the gift.

What's so hard about that?

Coming and going in John

Two big questions in John's Gospel: Where did Jesus come from? Will you come to him?

He come from the Father and you will come if he calls you and the Father gives you to him.

As John the Baptist waited eagerly for the first advent, we are to wait eagerly for the second, crying "Come, Lord Jesus! All the while we testify to others that he has already come and inviting people to come to him

• Christ "came to that which was his own" (1:11)
• He "came from the Father" (1:14, 13:3, 16:28)
• Jesus invited John two disciple of John to "come...and...see" where he was staying (1:39) and invited Philip to follow him (1:43)
• Philip found Nathanael and invited him to "Come and see" whether Jesus was the one promised (1:46)
• Jesus explained that as light he had "come into the world", but that some people would not "come into the light" (3:19-20, 12:46)
• John the Baptist had been waiting eagerly for the Christ to come from heaven (3:27ff)
• The Samaritan woman knew that the Christ was "coming", but Jesus explained that he was already here. She went back to her town and invited the people there to "Come, see a man" (4:25-29)
• Great crowds come to Jesus (6:5) and he feeds them miraculously so that they become convinced that he is "the Prophet who [was] to come" (6:14)
• Jesus explains that he is the bread that "comes from heaven" and that "He who comes to me will never go hungry" or thirsty (6:33, 35; 7:37). He then explains that it is those that his Father gives to him who will come to him, and that he will never turn away any who come (6:37, 44, 65)
• Jesus starts explaining he is going where the disciples cannot come (7:34)
• Some people wonder how the Christ can "come from Galilee" (7:41-52), just as Philip had wondered if anything "good can come from" Nazareth (1:46)
• The Pharisees say they don't know where Jesus came from, although the blind man who had been given sight thinks it is obvious he is from God (9:29ff).
• Jesus warns that night is coming (9:5) as he later warns that the "ruler of this world is coming" (14:30)
• Jesus is invited to come to Lazarus's tomb, he comes and then calls to Lazarus to "come out!" Lazarus obeys, just as the all those will obey when he calls everyone from their tombs on the last day (5:28f).
• Jesus promises that when he is lifted up he will draw all people to himself (12:32)
• Again, he explains he will be going away, but that he will come back (14:28). In the meantime he will send the Holy Spirit (15:26).
• He finally sends the church to go into the world like he did (20:21).

Random thoughts on the tragedy of those that haven't heard

God's providence is incredible. On Thursday, after a week of Rob Bell posts hogging Google Reader, out of the blue I had a weighty conversation with someone really wrestling with this issue.

All the musing that I had been doing in relative leisure was put to use, but I finished realising the utter insufficiency of myself, my thoughts and my words for the task. For the last 2 days my mind has wandered back to the subject again and again. Here are some random reflections.

• I can't see how people who have not heard can be saved in the present because:
• Creation tells us about God's grace in giving us life, but not of forgiveness for us destroying that life.
• If salvation is a personal relationship, knowing God in Christ, then we can't be 'anonymous Christians'
• Any salvation without hearing ends up being legalistic, because it ceases to be reception of a gift and becomes a test to be good enough
• The Holy Spirit is found wherever the Son is found and the Son as Redeemer is found wherever the cross is preached. So there can be no regeneration without preaching.
• In principle I can see no problem with post-mortem repentance and faith in response to a revelation of the grace of God in Christ after death, for example through some kind of purgatory. The thing is that the whole NT and historic church says that Christ will "come again to judge the living and the dead" (Apostles Creed). In his first advent he did not come to condemn the world, but in his second advent he will come to condemn. That puts fear in my heart, as it did in Paul's (2 Cor 5:10-11), but it is unavoidable that "it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment" (Heb 9:27)
• Isn't it crazy... just plain crazy...that God has made the salvation of people dependant on them being told by the church? That's people like me! But "the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men", so although I can't imagine why he has left things to jars of clay, he is wiser than me in doing it.
• Any kind of inclusivist view on the salvation of those who haven't heard tends to cut out the church. Perhaps it is the lack of a strong ecclesiology and an emphasis on the "personal relationship" (by which we mean "individual relationship") with Jesus that has meant that we have forgotten why to have God as our Father we must have the Church as our mother (Cyprian).
• I really do not deserve to have heard when others haven't! This week, for the first time in years I've been shaken by something that begins to approach the thinking of war veterans on TV who ask "why did I get to live and they didn't?"
• The problem of the seeming unfairness of people being condemned for the sin of rejecting God the Creator only, when they never had chance to accept or reject God the Redeemer, is no greater than that of the seeming unfairness that God chose only some of those who did hear to have new hearts. It is a problem we cannot solve.
• The revelation of God's love is full. There is no more loving act that we can know than Jesus carrying the cross to Calvary and dying there. Yet people watched and hated him all the more for his love. Paul testifies to the same division as a result of his "ministry of reconciliation". Adam and Eve knew nothing but love and walked out on that relationship. No demonstration of God's love post-mortem is going to be more powerful than Christ on the cross.
• Have I ever really understood mission to my neighbour and the world as anything other than a superfluous "nice to have" even though it is essential and desperately needed? Suddenly reading John and Romans the need to invite and to to proclaim seems to be behind almost everything John and Paul are saying.

Tears of the Saints from AsiaLink HistoryMaker on Vimeo.

Wisdom on reading well (part 4): Rico Tice

During a Christianity Explored training session, Rico Tice explained that we learn best if we are being taught in four different contexts:

• From the front;
• In small groups;
• One-to-one; and
• On your own.

I think it is obvious what the unique qualities of each context are. I am convinced that we should be reading the Bible and exploring what it means in all four contexts if we want it to seep deep into our hearts and lives.

I think this not only because this is a good principle for all learning (although I think it is, and it is striking how the College of Law balances all apart from one-to-one), but because it is particularly the case for the Gospel which is a proclamation of news but is already known and experienced by all Christians, and which is shared by a community but is also personal to each individual.

For the last 2 years I've been deliberately trying to balance all four in my life, and I am increasingly convinced of the worth of keeping that balance.

I should probably write a long post about the strengths and weaknesses of each, and describe how doing all four prevents the harm which would be caused by too much weight on one or the other. Its too late though so I'll leave you to think it through on your own!

What about a loving follower of another religion?

Imagine a husband who gives gifts to his wife out of love for her. How should the wife respond?

What if she praises and thanks a male colleague at work for giving her the gifts, even though he had nothing to do with them?

Imagine she goes further and has an affair with this man. A man who has never given her anything, but is only taking advantage of her 'availability'. There may be loads of good things about how she relates to this man, thankfulness, love and respect are all admirable qualities, but she is giving them to entirely the wrong person.

Before long reality will hit home for her. She will be miserable in this relationship that offers her nothing and her husband will be justifiably angry for her behaviour.

But imagine the husband offers to take her back. You would marvel at the depth and quality of the love willing to overlook what has happened.

Dinner invitations

The history of the world in the Bible is framed by two invitations to eat food ready prepared, sandwiching a history of humanity working to put food on the table.

• God creates a garden already planted and bearing fruit and invites Adam and Eve to "eat of every tree of the garden" (Genesis 2:16)
• When they choose to eat food which he had not prepared for them at that time he expels them from the garden and leaves them to feed themselves by hard work and painful toil (3:17-19)
• But he chooses a nation and brings them to a land flowing with milk and honey prepared by him and not by them ("the Lord your God brings you into the land...with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant — and [you will] eat and [be] full", Deuteronomy 6:10-11) But this land was just a shadow because it was still hard work maintaining the land.
• In these end times he says to his messengers "Tell those who are invited, See, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast" (Matthew 22:4). Week by week we enjoy the tasters provided at the Lord's Supper even as we hunger to enjoy the full meal.

In, with, and under the gift the Giver gives himself

Worth the effort of reading carefully...

It is to be emphasized that the triune God not only gives ... "something" but as a "someone" he gives himself. In, with, and under the gift the Giver gives himself and communicates himself with his power. The gift can in no way be isolated from the Giver—that would be a reifying misunderstanding. The Formula of Concord thus rightly rejects the opinion that, "not God himself, but only the gifts of God dwell in believers." The converse is likewise valid: that the Giver may not be isolated from his gift—that would be a personalistic misunderstanding. God does not give himself, without giving something—without giving himself together with our fellow-creatures: "the Father gives us himself with [!] heaven and earth, together [!] with all creatures," [Luther, Confession Concerning Christ's Supper] through which he addresses us; creation is speech and gift to the creature through the creature.

(bold = me, the "[!]" belong to Bayer, p. 456, Oswald Bayer, The Ethics of Gift, LQ Vol XXIV (2010))

God is the Gospel, resurrection is the Gospel and new Creation is the Gospel.

God with the life he brings, together with the church and all creation is the Gospel.

[NB for those readers not up on Lutheran theology, the formula "In, with and under" is Luther's classic way of describing the Christ's presence in the Lord's Supper]

Which 'I' are you talking about?

Listening to: The NA Band: Looked Upon

After my last post on a radical anthropology, you may be wondering what that looks like in practice. An anecdote from Gerhard Forde may help (from my vague memory).

Forde was approached by a young man who had read his book Free to Be. The young man was a bit shocked by the unconditional forgiveness he had read about and asked "does this mean I can do whatever I want?"

Forde answered, "which 'I' are you talking about?"

As Christians we are free to do whatever the new 'I', "created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness" and "led by the Spirit", desires.

The old 'I' is under the law and so it is not free to do what it desires. But actually it never has been, and never can be, because it has always been enslaved to Sin, the Devil, other people, etc. Even if we think the old 'I' was free we are just being blind to how other people's opinions, self-love, sexual desires, etc have always controlled us.

The law (climaxing in Jesus as example) was a postcard of the Lake District sent to captives so that they could see that they had been living in a concentration camp all their life. The Gospel (climaxing in Jesus as Christ our Saviour) is Jesus Christ throwing open the gates.

The need for a clean break anthropology

The radical gospel of justification by faith alone simply does not fit, cannot be accepted by, and will not work with an anthropology which sees the human being as a continuously existing subject... The radical gospel is the end of that being and the beginning of a new being in faith and hope...

Virtually all the failures and shortcomings of Lutheranism [and any other Christian teaching] can be seen in the hesitancy to proclaim the gospel in uncompromising, unconditional fashion, to proclaim as though we were about the business of summoning the dead to life, calling new beings into existence. Most generally, it seems, the gospel is preached as though it were a repair job on old beings, a 'new patch on an old garment.' It is preached to old beings instead of for new beings.

(Gerhard Forde, "Radical Lutheranism", LQ Vol I (1987))

Why so many people become Christians at University

I was one of those people, and I'm aware that was purely down to God's grace. I'm not thankful enough.

But the human reasons I most often hear for the remarkable number of people who become Christians at uni is that students have been taken out of their old social structures and/or students are particularly intellectually open.

I have another idea based on my experience over last few years (and the Bible!).

There is one main way that we see God bringing people to himself and it is the main reason why so many people become Christians at university:

Passionate Christians living life in public.

There are plenty of passionate Christians of all ages; they are not limited to university. But post-university almost all of them do nothing other than work in the company of non-Christians. They spend their social time with other Christians and they only live with Christians (their spouse or housemates).

This is a personal observation for me because in a few months I may have to move from my house with my two wonderful Christian housemates. I'm really struggling at the moment to decide whether I should choose to live with Christians or non-Christians if I do move. I know how good it has been for my Spiritual growth that I have lived with the guys I have lived with. It has also been almost hassle-free. To live with non-Christians will be hard in comparison, but I can't avoid what I have observed and learnt about how the Gospel is spread. It is a challenge to seriously think and pray about. Although there are other ways of living life in public, a good example is having an particularly open home and sharing meals.

The rhythm of life is a powerful beat

"The Word of God enters history both as judgement and as power of renewal. This two-beat rhythm is characteristic." (p. 120, CH Dodd, The Bible Today)

The Bible is a book with two main characters. The Actor and the Acted-upon. God is the ultimate Actor although he works through his creation, and particularly his image-bearers. Creation, and particularly Humanity are then the Acted-upon.

God (and those he works through) act in two main ways toward the Acted-upon: judgement and grace, destruction and creation, law and Gospel, or death and life.

The Actor and Acted-upon are present in all of life and all the Bible. The Act itself is always either death or life.

Jesus Christ unites in one person Creator/creation, Actor/Acted-upon. This is an incredible act of loving condescension and it is done to change the rhythm of his Action.

With Jesus there is a change in the natural rhythm of Creation post-fall. When THE Actor becomes the Acted-upon his power explodes the Act and starts something new. Whereas before the rhythm was always: life->death, life->death, life->death. He makes it death->life!

OT teachers often point to the fact that the 10 commandments start with a record of God's grace in saving his people from Egypt. Or they point out that God's grace is shown in our very creation. Grace is the foundational context and beginning of all God's dealings with us. So many argue, like Karl Barth, that we should really talk about Gospel and law, not Law and Gospel. That is fair enough in some ways, and actually it reflects human experience.

We are given life and given a wonderful law to live by, but then we sin and die. That is the rhythm of life as we know it. But the Gospel is more than the gift of life and relationship with God, it is the gift of new life and restored relationship with God through death. There was life in the old rhythm, and there is life in the new rhythm. But the new rhythm is the one we really want to grasp. It is the new rhythm that we want to see start weaving its way into our lives.

The new rhythm is jarring, and hard to get the hang of because it is so alien. We may even think that it sounds almost perverse. But that rhythm is going to take over from the old completely because the act of Jesus Christ's death and resurrection was utterly comprehensive in its scope:

• It is an individual moral thing: we put to death sin and putting on righteousness (Col 3)
• It is an individual physical thing: our body dies to be raised to new life (2 Cor 5:1-4)
• It is a corporate thing: we die to ourselves to bring life to others (2 Cor 4:11-12)
• It is a cosmic thing: the old heavens and earth will be burnt up and a new heavens and earth will replace it (2 Pet 3:10-13)

"If the witch understood the true meaning of sacrifice, she might have interpreted the Deep Magic differently, for when a willing victim who has committed no treachery, dies in a traitor’s stead, the stone table will crack and even death itself will turn backwards" (CS Lewis, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe)

The OT is ALL prophecy

Listening to: Regina Spektor: Soviet Kitsch

You can read the OT as purely the religious literature of the Ancient Israelites. In that way it may have parallels, and be compared and contrasted with the NT message of Jesus Christ. It also may provide case studies of experiences of God from which similarities and differences to our experiences can be observed. In this way it can provide important lessons for us.

I suggest that this is how the OT is often read. It's audience is assumed dead, and the situation it spoke into is entirely past. In that sense it is now a "word spoken into empty space". Having considered the original situation the reader and preacher then moves onto "stage 2: application". Application is then done by taking the second step of imagining what the different word spoken by the same God would be to us in our situation. God is no longer speaking to us directly, but we try and work out what he would say to us if he were speaking now.

An alternative way of reading the Bible is to understand it as prophecy. That this is the fullest way of understanding the Bible was seen by the Jews who included even historical books within "the Prophets", and by Jesus and the NT writers who understood all the books of the OT (inc law, Psalms, history etc) as "fulfilled" in their day.

What is the content of this prophecy? In the first instance it is prophecy about Jesus. Jesus says all the Bible is about him, not just those that we see as odd prophecies of the Messiah.

But, as the likes of Richard Hays have noticed, Paul (and the other NT writers) interpret the OT ecclesiocentrically as often as they interpret it Christocentrically. They can do both because the church is "in Christ" his body. The one is not opposed to the other.

As an example you could consider the story of David and Goliath.

Many would say that this was a story which provides an example of the person of faith. We could say that there are similarities between the "giants" David faced and our battles, and notice how we also have to exercise faith. Of course we would also note that there are also differences so we can't draw too close a parallel. The problem is that the awareness of the differences so blunts the force that we wouldn't be able to really grasp it as a promise to us. Christ would simultaneously be sidelined at the same time as his church is. We are left on the sidelines looking at God's word to and about someone other than Christ or us.

In contrast, Christocentrically we could note that actually this is prophesying the coming of the greater Davidic King Jesus. We would also see that the fulfilment of the death of one man representing a sinful people was Jesus Christ too. But seeing it as prophecy we would not say that this is a 'spiritual meaning' or 'additional meaning' but the primary reading of the text.

Ecclesiocentrically we can see that the story of David and Goliath is prophesying that we as Gentile mockers will be put to death. But we will also see that anointed by the Holy Spirit we are also going to be victorious over the enemies of God, including our sin and death, so the grave will hold us no stronger than it held Christ.

[This is a rather rushed attempt to explain to Steve what I have got out of Wingren's quotation. I may try to do better sometime]

Planning a funeral

A friend's mum has died. Her brother is a pastor and a blogger. In a very beautiful and moving post he has five thoughts on planning her funeral (in my words):

1. It need not follow the pattern of a usual public worship service.
2. It should remember and acknowledge the immediate reality of her sad death.
3. It should remember all her past life, personality and individuality.
4. It should be infused with the joy and sweetness of God's salvation.
5. It should look to the future, the last day and her resurrection.

Please read the post and pray a quick prayer for the family.

Love and hell

Hell is a horrible subject to talk about particularly if you have loved ones who you fear may be there or who are walking the road which leads there*. It is also terribly humbling, because you know that it is where you belong too, often more than they.

But if I was talking about it there are a few things I would want to say about God's love in relation to it:

1. Love for the lovely

The love of the three persons of the Trinity for each other’s glory is the primary reason for the existence of hell. God will punish and destroy all who dishonour his name.

The love of God for the beautiful world and significant creatures is the secondary reason for the existence of hell. God will punish and destroy all who have harmed his creation, especially as they will continue to if allowed to live unchanged.

2. Love for the unlovely

The love of God means that he warns us of hell and gives us time to repent. God does not desire the death of the wicked, which is why Jesus warns of hell more than any other person in the Bible.

The love of Jesus means he will go through hell in our place. All of us have rebelled against God, and all of us hurt one another and the world. The only person who hasn’t stepped into our shoes and showed us the full depths of devotion to God and to us when he was forsaken on the cross.

* I accept that talking about hell as a 'place' may not be very accurate, but I have yet to see better, and it was good enough for Jesus.

Know yourself

Listening to: Beethoven: String Quartet No.10

I know my body's of so frail a kind
   As force without, fevers within, can kill;
   I know the heavenly nature of my mind,
   But 'tis corrupted both in wit and will;

I know my soul hath power to know all things,
   Yet is she blind and ignorant of all;
   I know I am one of nature's little kings,
   Yet to the least and vilest things am thrall.

I know my life's a pain and but a span,
   I know my sense is mocked with everything;
   And to conclude, I know myself a man,
   Which is a proud and yet a wretched thing.

From the poem 'Nosce Teipsum' ['know yourself'] by Sir John Davies (1569-1626).

I'm not a poetry reader but saw part of this poem in a newspaper at St Pancras station the other day and noted down the details so I could read the whole thing later.

The whole poem is a powerful description of the fall, although the newspaper didn't acknowledge that Christian belief underlying it. It describes how a desire for knowledge led to the fall, but the result of that was that we can no longer bare to look at ourselves in the mirror, however suffering forces us to examine ourselves and see who we really are.

Sir John Davies was the Attorney General of Ireland under James I when not writing poetry.

The Holy Spirit: Love, power and life

The Spirit is the love which binds the Father to the Son, and the Son to the church, and the church together. Division in the church grieves him (Eph 4:30), and when he is given up by Jesus on the cross so is the Father's love.

The Spirit is the power by which the Father enables the Son to fight the powers of the Devil, Sin and death, the Son gives to the church, and the church shares with one another by the laying on of hands etc.

The Spirit is the life which the Father gives to the Son in his earthly ministry and in his resurrection, and it is shared by the Son with the church, and the church shares it with one another.

Some musings on love

• The Father loves his Son and so loves the Bride the Son sets his heart on. He loves the church because she joins him in his love of his Son. However, he is also angry when his Son's love is abused by the Bride running after others.
• The Son loves the church so much that he wants to possess her and not share her with another. He will be saddened and mourned if she refuses his advances.
• The Spirit is the love of the Father for the Son, and the love of the Son for his Bride. He is grieved when division between any comes up, and will empower all to destroy those who will try and harm the beloved.

So far the exclusivity of Christ is understandable. So is hell if we reject Christ.

What is not understandable is that:

• Because the Father loves the Son so much, and wants him to have the Bride he desires, he kills his Son on the cross!
• Because the Son loves the Bride so much he will chase after her into the pits of hell, even though in that hell he will not be with her but will be utterly alone and separated from the disciples and Father he loves.

Now its getting bizarre. How can it be loving that the Father abandons the Son he loves, and the Son abandons his church (John 16)?

What makes it more incomprehensible is that the ultimate finality of death and judgement is not the final word, but that "bursting forth in glorious day, up from the grave [Love] rose again". And when Love rose again he looked so different that people couldn't recognise him immediately, and he brought with him a new Bride, with a new heart that beats only for him. This new Bride you may also struggle to recognise as the same people as the old Bride. He loved the Bride so much that although he accepted her just as she was, he wasn't content to leave her in that state, but by his love transformed her (see Sebastian Faulks on Mr Darcy and Miss Bennett, and Powlison on why God's love is "better than unconditional")

[Post prompted by the excellent lessons I've been taught by Ray Ortlund's MP3s, Glen Scrivener and Dave Bish's posts, the sad teaching of Rob Bell, and the joyful privilege of being best man at my housemate's wedding this weekend]