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]

Sing songs

1. Sing songs from the historic church.
• Because the foot cannot say "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body" (1 Cor 12:15)
2. Sing songs from the contemporary church.
• Because we are ourselves and don't live in the past but the present and should sing new songs, in our language (musical as well as spoken).


3. Sing familiar songs
• Because the Gospel, and "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and forever" (Hebrews 13:8).
4. Sing unfamiliar songs
• Because his mercies are new every morning and we always have fresh petitions and praises (Lam 3:23).


5. Sing songs to God
• Because "great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised" (Psalm 96:4)
6. Sing songs to the church
• Because we should be edifying one another by "addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs" (Eph 5:19)
7. Sing songs to the world
• Because we should be seeking to "become all things to all people, that by all means [we] might save some" we should ensure that it is understandable/contextualised as much as possible (1 Cor 9:22; 14:23) calling them to join us in praising God (Ps 117:1)


8. Sing songs of lament and reflection
• Because sin, death and the devil are real and horrible we should be honest about it.
9. Sing songs that of joy and celebration
• Because nothing is better than the Gospel - "Rejoice in the Lord always" (Phil 4:4)!

[First thoughts and not very polished. Improvements welcome.]

Longing for an advocate

How many times do we speak to people who are not yet Christians about how they long to be loved, and point out how that longing can be satisfied in God?

But I was struck by the passing comment in this video, that we all have a longing not just to be loved and told that we're loved, but for the person who loves us to tell the world that they love us.

Jesus is our great advocate to his Father and he is also our great advocate to the world when he comes again to reveal us to be the Father's beloved sons and to declare us to be his beloved bride.

Incidentally this shows that justification is at the heart of the Gospel of relational love - it is not just a one metaphor among many.

The Son of God in Luke 1-4

Listening to: The Creation (Haydn - no really I am)

The first four chapters of Luke seem to constantly be asking the question "whose son is Jesus?" There is barely an episode involving Jesus where that question isn't asked.

Luke 1:32-35: The angel declares to Mary that she will bare a son who will be called the "Son of God"

Luke 2:41-52: The family visits the Temple and they lose Jesus. When they find him Mary tells Jesus "Son...your father and I have been searching for you". He responds by explaining that he must be in his "Father's house". They don't realise whose Son he really is. But he doesn't grasp at his sonship to the Father but is "submissive" to them. Perhaps you could say that although he is the Son of God, he is willing to count himself "Son of Man" (although that title has Daniel-vision-of-glory-connections it is also regularly linked to suffering in the Gospel).

Luke 3:22: The Father declares from heaven that Jesus is his "beloved Son".

Luke 3:23: The very next verse Luke begins his backwards genealogy by noting that many people "supposed" Jesus to be the Son of Joseph.

Luke 3:37: After running back through the line of sons Luke concludes that Adam was "the son of God".

Luke 4:3, 9: The very next episode after this declaration is the the temptation of Jesus where Satan says "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." With his third and final temptation Satan again challenges Jesus "if you are the Son of God..." Unlike Adam, Jesus resists the temptation.

Luke 4:22: The next episode in the Gospel recounts Jesus preaching the good news of his coming, and people question "Is not this Joseph's son?" and drive him out of time. They don't think he is the Son of God.

Luke 4:41: Jesus heals casts out some demons the first of whom confesses him to be "the Holy One of God" and the other "demons also came out of many, crying, 'You are the Son of God!'"

A few refections:

• It now makes perfect sense that Luke's genealogy is not at the beginning of the book as in Matthew. If you ignore the section headings and chapter numbers it is crystal clear that in functions as a link between the Father's declaration of Jesus' Sonship with him being the perfect Son of God that Adam never was when tempted by Satan.
• No humans confess Jesus to be the Son of God. Angels do, the Father does, and demons do. Impliedly even the devil does. Why can humans not see it? (perhaps 9:35 + 10:22 provide a hint)
• Perhaps Luke's genealogy is not meant to be Jesus' genealogy at all, except as he takes it upon himself. This would solve the problem of harmonising it with Matthew's geneology. He assumes the inheritance of death that comes from Adam, even though he is a new Adam who obeys his Father in heaven.

This post is prompted by a facebook comment from Chris and is the fruit of barely any thought on my part. Please contribute any reflections you may have, particularly about the temptation (although in the other Gospels I see it more as a "new Israel" than a "new Adam" episode, it is clear that Luke sees the link primarily with Adam).

A few random thoughts on God's Word

God's word is personal:

• The speaker is a person - the Father
• The content is a person - the Son
• The hearers are people - the church past and present

It is tempting to forget who is addressing us, and treat it merely as the opinion of another human.

It is tempting to forget that it is all about Christ, his person and work. We can think that it is all about me and meeting my felt needs, a rule-book, or about an irrelevant religion of a dead people.

It is tempting to forget that it is meant to be spoken to people. If it is not applied to individuals then it is not doing what it is meant to.

God's word is an arrow:

• It has a target: God's Word is addressed to us
• It will impact: God's Word is powerful and does what it says

It is tempting to treat God's Word as an object to be 'engaged' with. It is, but it is also a moving object that is 'engaging' us.

It is also tempting to treat God's Word as for someone else (either the sinner sat next to me in church who needs rebuking, the saint who we think deserves to be loved by God, or an ancient nation long past). It is for them, but it is also for us.

Woe betide this become a church leadership blog

... especially when I wouldn't class myself a church leader (OK I co-lead a home group but that is all). But I think John Conoley, Chief Executive of Psion, sums up a lot of what I think leadership in any context is about:

"culture eats strategy for breakfast" (BBC)

For all my other thinking on church leadership then simply read the stunningly good (in a "of course, that's obvious" way) The Trellis and the Vine. I don't have many sophisticated thoughts of my own.

Oh, and while I'm here... this is probably as good a time as any other to share another quote on leadership that I've been meaning to write down for ages before I forget it:

Young men tend to overestimate what they can accomplish in the short term and underestimate what they can accomplish in the long term

Tony Reinke says Mark Dever has this on his desktop. Wise common grace advice.

God's great symphony resolving disharmony

Why is it that [Mozart] is so incomparable? ... He has heard, and causes those with ears to hear, even today, what we shall not see until the end of time-the whole context of providence. As though in the light of this end, he heard the harmony of creation to which the shadow belongs but in which the shadow is not darkness, deficiency is not defeat, sadness cannot become despair, trouble cannot degenerate into tragedy and infinite melancholy is not ultimately forced to claim undisputed sway ... Mozart causes us to hear that even on the latter side, and therefore in its totality, creation praises its master and is therefore perfect.

(Karl Barth, cited in pp.348-349, Colin Gunton, "Mozart the Theologian", Theology, (1991) 94)

Which is a bit like one of the points Jeremy Begbie makes in this interesting little video a friend sent to me:

At about 5min he explains that in playing the piano, as in life:

Once you've made the mistake there is no going back...

You can't delete that mistake.

What you can do is turn it into a passing note.

A passing note is a note that doesn't fit with the underlying harmony that can be made to fit, can be woven into, the context.

I suppose that is one of the most extraordinary things about being a Christian, that God can take your worst mistakes and turn them into his passing notes.

Wisdom on reading well (part 3): Gustaf Wingren

Continuing my little series. We've heard from Torrance and Reeves. I hope we'll hear from Calvin and Lewis as well shortly, but for now here is Gustaf Wingren:

In the Bible men, as hearers, are not additions to the naked Word spoken into empty space. That, however, is just the presupposition when division into objective and subjective is made [...]

The scarlet thread that runs through the Bible is God and his people. As A. Fridrichsen has expressed it, 'God is the one pole in the power circuit, his people are the other.' [...] To think of the Bible, and not to think at the same time of Israel and the Church, is to omit from the Bible its character as message. The Bible does not acquire that character because we preach its Word, but already possesses it as a historic fact, and having that character it preaches. Our preaching, then, is just the Bible's own preaching [...]

There are, of course, sermons were men are not present from the first because there are bad sermons, sermons which do not set forth the Word. The main point which must be driven home is that the weakness of such bad sermons lies in the fact that the passage is never given its rightful place; the weakness is not that while the passage is correctly expounded the exposition is 'lifeless', 'uninspiring', etc. etc. If the passage is clearly and fully expounded the preaching is good. When the Bible lies open on the preacher's desk and the preparation of the sermon is about to begin, the worshippers have already come in; the passage contains these people since it is God's Word to his people."

(pp.25-26, Gustaf Wingren, The Living Word)

The relevance of Jewish law to Gentiles

Martin Downes insightfully comments that:

If you deny that law has any reference to Gentiles, are you not forced to conclude that Jesus neither kept it for their sake, nor is his obedience imputed to them for their justification?

I've been aware on in my recent posts on the law that while (I feel) I haven't neglected eschatology, I have neglected the fact that it was given to the nation of Israel. Not unconnected to that, I've focused on the Ten Commandments. But I still think what I have said holds because the relevance of the law is more fundamentally a question of the age, or creation, we live in than whether we are Jew or Gentile.

I would argue that as Adam represented humanity in the Garden, so Israel represented the nations in the land. They were priests to the world showcasing what life in close relationship to God looked like.

Israel were to keep the OT law on behalf of the world, and if they kept it then through them the world could be blessed. However, if they broke God's law then they would be judged first, and then the rest of the world through them.

The line of the seed is the line of representatives of the old humanity:

• Adam
• Noah
• Abraham
• Isaac
• Jacob/Israel
• David
• Jesus Christ

The specific commands (as part of their covenants) to each were slightly different, each building on the one before. However, they all were representing the world before God.

The line of the seed is also a line of shadow-representatives of the new humanity, each with their own promises which were slightly different building on the one before. The Seed who is representative of the true new humanity where all the promises are 'yes' is singular and not a family tree because one king will rule on that throne forever:

• Jesus Christ

Perhaps that needs some fine-tuning, but that would be the outline of where I'd go.

PS In case you're wondering why I'm obsessing about the 10 commandments at the moment it is because our pastor is doing a series on them entitled "10 ways to love", I'm reading Ed Clowney's book alongside that, and lots of conversations are happening with church members. However, what I should be obsessing about is property and criminal law because I have exams in a week, so don't expect to hear from me too much for a while.

Ed Clowney on the Ten Commandments

Ed Clowney's last book on the 10 commandments is quite odd but always Christ-centred and often insightful. This is from the conclusion and summarises much of the book:

"Christ fulfills the law, not by diminishing it, but by deepening and widening it. In every one of the Ten Commandments we see not only the negative commands but their positive requirements.

1. Having no other gods implies loving God will all our heart, soul, strength, and mind.
2. Not bowing to idols means honoring and revering God as Creator and Redeemer in our every thought, capturing all our thoughts to Christ.
3. Not misusing God's name means honoring that name in every moment of our lives, and confessing it in witness by both our words and our actions.
4. Remembering the Sabbath means finding our joy and rest in laboring for God and his kingdom not only one day a week, but all seven.
5. Honoring our parents means accepting and promoting those family values that God set into creation and honoring all God's family members.
6. Avoiding murder implies loving and protecting life and the image of God in man.
7. Avoiding adultery means keeping our hearts pure from lust and from twisting sexuality to suit our appetites. It also implies placing love for God above all other loves.
8. Ceasing to steal is insufficient to obey God's command, which demands that we work hard to earn enough money to be lavish and extravagant in graciously giving it away to those in need.
9. Not bearing false witness implies that in every situation we must honor the reputations of those around us, refusing to allow any shadow of dishonor to fall across their reputations because of our words. It also means that our words are to bear testimony to the truth of God and to the person of Christ.
10. Refusing to covet means that our hearts must be completely sold out to the good of the kingdom and thoroughly careless about the material implications of that passion.

How impossible to keep the commandments!... Praise God that the Ten Commandments not only have been intensified by Christ, but also have been transformed and fulfilled in his righteousness. The law is transformed in the full measure of the love of Christ. The love that fulfills the law is the love

• by which Christ gave himself to redeem those given him by the Father, and
• by which the Father gave his one and only Son [and]
• [by which] we live by the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead [and] can do what the law had no power to help us accomplish."

(formatting mine, pp.153, Edmund P. Clowney, How Jesus Transforms the Ten Commandments)

Jesus and the 10 commandments

• Jesus reveals their intensity - e.g. not just condemning destroying marriage (adultery) but weakening marriage (lusting), and implying the positive command to strengthen marriage
• Jesus transforms them (making them 'Christian' by giving the fullest content to the name 'God' and the fullest example to imitate):
• he is our God, who created and saved us from a bondage greater than Egypt
• he is the image we worship of the invisible God, excluding any other representation of who God is
• he is the name of God which we are given to bear as Christians in a way which gives him the honour he is due,
• he is the Lord of the Sabbath who commands us to enter his rest,
• he is our brother who obeyed his father perfectly and by whom we are adopted into a new family to love and given a new Father to honour
• he is the life-giver who not only gave life to humanity, but bought it back by identifying himself with humans, so how can we kill those made in his image and redeemed by his blood?
• he is the husband of the ugliest and most adulterous woman, who shows that to love our wife is to lay down our life for her, and that wives should submit to their husband as the church does to Christ - recognising that even more important than our earthly marriage is our marriage to him
• he is the owner of all the cattle on the hills and every star in the sky, but he gave all that he had to those who had already stole from him,
• he is the perfect witness to (and embodiment of) the truth about God and about our sin even though it cost him his life
• he is the lover of neighbour who didn't begrudge all that we have, but loved us so much he wanted to give us more
• Jesus obeyed them fully even though he was the one to whom obedience was due
• Jesus was condemned by them as a sinner because he identified with us

Therefore

• the law ends (terminates) with the death of the people to whom it was given in the cross (Rom 7:4)

but then

• the law reaches its end (telos/purpose/fulfilment) in the resurrection new lives of the saints against which there is no law but which flawlessly reflect the same God who gave the law (Rom 10:4, 13:10; Gal 5:14)

For us the cross and resurrection are not just past events, but part of our lives now, and only fully realised in our lives when Christ returns. So for us the law is "becoming obsolete and growing old [and] ready to vanish away" (Heb 8:13), but not yet fully gone.