God chose the short people in the world to shame the tall

Saul was taller than any of the people of Israel (1 Samuel 9:2).

Eliab (David's brother) was also tall and Samuel though that he must be God's chosen replacement for Saul, but God said 'do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him' (1 Samuel 16:7).

Goliath's 'height was six cubits and a span' (1 Samuel 17:4). When he called to Israel 'Give me a man, that we may fight together' he was probably looking for Saul to come forward and battle 'giant' to 'giant'. Instead David who was not big enough to wear Saul's armour stepped forward, won the victory, and shamed those who avoided the fight.

Christ won a more complete victory, though he too was 'esteemed not'. He leads a kingdom which seems as insignificant as a mustard seed and which is only made up of weak people. Nevertheless, as I learnt today: our God reigns.

The Church of England in 1551

Edward VI on the throne, Thomas Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury, and Martin Bucer as Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. The Church of England must have been pretty strong then... not like today...

an inspection of the diocese of Gloucester in 1551 revealed that 168 priests out of a total of 311 were unable to recite the Ten Commandments; 34 did not know who had formulated the Lord's Prayer, and 10 did not know it by heart.

(p.239, Martin Greschat, Martin Bucer: A Reformer and His Times)

... maybe not then.

Trusting God by stopping

Rest is something I keep on thinking about these days. Some people may say I think about it too much. Anyway one thing I keep coming back to is what I read many years ago by Scott Hafemann:

The Sabbath signifies something fundamental about God's relationship to his people: it is a weekly bulletin that God, as Creator of the world, not only can but also will meet Israel's needs, because she is his chosen people. God called Israel to keep the Sabbath because, of all the peoples of the world, God created Israel to be his people. The Sabbath thus stood firm as a divinely established memorial to the covenant commitment God had made to his people. For her part, Israel was to "rest on the Sabbath" as a reminder of what she should do every day in relationship to the Creator who is committed to be her Provider: "call upon him" to meet her needs. God "keeps the Sabbath" by working for his people; his people "keep the Sabbath" by trusting him to do so.

(p. 49, The God of Promise and the Life of Faith)

Have you ever thought that all your service may actually be an expression of unbelief? Mine often is. Sadly often my rest is just laziness though. Can't get away from sin!

Abstracting doctrine

As I read systematics I increasingly find that so much that contemporary biblical studies thinks it is 'discovering' in the bible was actually being batted around by systematic theologians a generation before. I'm not sure whether I should find this disturbing or not.

Anyway, a recent example of this was reading TF Torrance criticising the Reformed Catechisms:

None of them really gives us Christian doctrine in its inseparable relation to the whole history of redemption in Israel, to the whole life of the historical Jesus Christ, and to the Baptism of the Spirit at Pentecost and the founding of the Christian Church. Certain great moments of the Heilsgeshichte are singled out, the creation and fall of man, the giving of the Law, the birth of Jesus, His crucifixion and resurrection and ascension, but Christian doctrine cannot be abstracted from the whole course of God's intervention in Israel, and the whole course of teh life work of Christ, without alteration and misunderstanding.

(p.xx, The School of Faith)

I think I need to hear that again and again. I too often go abstract. I can almost hear Tom Wright in my head sometimes when I read Romans these days. He would agree passionately with Torrance's comment written in 1959!

The world judged by the Mosaic law

Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. (Romans 3:19)

There are two possible interpretations of how Paul comes to that verse as far as I can see (this may again be due to my lack of research).

1. Having established that Gentiles are condemned by natural law (as is clear by the blatant sinning of Gentiles displayed Romans 1) Paul then had to show that the religious Jews are also sinners. This he does in Romans 2-3:18. Therefore having dealt with both he can conclude that the whole world is sinful because everyone is either Gentile or Jew.
2. The law condemns Israel. Israel represents the world as a priestly and kingly nation. Therefore the rest of the world is condemned 'in Israel'.

I think 2. is the right interpretation. Therefore the whole world is judged by the same law but in an order - the Jew first, and then the Greek.

This post parallels my last in being a reflection of my continuing feeble attempts to understand Romans. I would love to hear criticism. I should also do more reading, but I am so constrained by time. Out of ignorance I make wild stabs hoping over time and continual reading something sticks.

God's righteous judgment is revealed

I have a theory, which could probably be shot down by someone who knows Greek and has read more books than me. Nevertheless I will be bold and share it.

I think the 'Righteousness of God' in Romans means something like 'God's righteous judgment' (ala Romans 2:5). I think this combines many of the strengths of the other interpretations being debated.

In what sense then is the the righteousness of God revealed? I think it is revealed in three ways (the colours tie into the senses in which God's righteous judgment is revealed in Romans 1-3 in the quotations below):

1. Present/visible
2. Future/final
3. In Christ's death and resurrection

When reading the OT you often feel that Israel is not the only party to the covenant who fails to keep to it. God says do this and you will live, fail to do this and you will destroyed (Deuteronomy 28; Galatians 3:10-12). However, Israel never fails to fail and yet God does not destroy them. He does reveal the righteous judgment and is not mocked but he always only partially reveals his judgment. This leads to Habakkuk, the Psalmists, Qoheleth, Job etc to be endlessly confused. Where is God's judgment?

Naturally this leads to a hope for a final judgment in which the law is fulfilled and God shows that he is righteous in judgment by punishing the wicked and acquitting the righteous (c.f. Leviticus 19:15; Deuteronomy 1:16).

Both of these judgments are according to the law, one is just the completion of the other. Paul in Romans 1 explains how God has been judging by 'giving over' people to their sinful desires. In Romans 2 he reminds everyone that this is only a partial judgment and there will be a final judgment at which everyone will be fully judged. But the law has shown (in its execution as well as its legislation) that all will be judged unfavourably on that day.

Thankfully though the final judgment has been brought forward and revealed for us in Jesus Christ. The curse of the law has been exhausted and displayed early in the public death of Jesus Christ. The law then has been fulfilled (fully executed) but apart from itself (in that it wasn't executed on who it was meant to be executed). But the judgment on Christ is two-fold: of condemnation in the cross; but also of justification in the resurrection. If we don't accept that condemnation as ours but instead look forward to being judged by ourselves, then we will not receive that justification which is joined to it.

Sorry that is not very polished, but I'm lacking in time. And although it is a conclusion that has been gradually forming in my mind it is still fairly nebulous and I'm aware that I probably need to make some serious changes. But I thought it was time I threw it out there for some comment.

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith."

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. [...]

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity [...]

For this reason God gave them up to dishonourable passions [...]

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done [...]

We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? [...] you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.

He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek [...]

on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus [...]

But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Animals that could be sacrificed in the OT

Peter Leithart (who is on good form at the moment) observes:

Biblical sacrifices were confined to clean animals, and, more specifically, to domesticated clean animals. No wild animal ever ascended to Yahweh's altar?

What does it say about Israel that it offered only domesticated animals? What does it say that Israel detached the cult from the hunt?

I don't know the answer to that question although I have ideas. These sort of questions are going round my head a lot while reading Leviticus at the moment. Would birds count as domesticated animals though?

One passage that includes all the animals that could be sacrificed in a slightly different context is Genesis 15:8-10 when God makes a covenant with Abram:

But he said, "O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?" He said to him, "Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon." And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half.

Of course there were non-animal offerings too (e.g. grain and wine) but I think that only cultivated crops were offered. A particularly interesting omission is fish.

Women in the Old Testament

Bruce Waltke in his lectures on Judges is asked:

• Please comment on the author's attitude to women in the book of judges.

This is his response.

In a word I would say: very, very favourably. In fact the whole Deuteronomist is very favourable to women.

Who do you know better, Deborah or Lappidoth? Deborah. You don't even know who Lappidoth is. That's her husband [Judges 4:4].

Who killed Sisera? Jael [Judges 4:21].

Who killed the wicked Abimelech? A woman of theives [Judges 9:38].

Whom did I say was smarter, Manoah or his wife? Who had the instruction to raise the boy, Manoah or his wife? His wife [Judges 13].

Who is greater Hannah or Elkanah, in the book of Samuel? Obviously Hannah.

Who is greater Abigail or Nabal? Abigail.

You see what I am driving at? This whole idea that the Old Testament puts women down is rubbish.

And that was just what he was able to rattle off from the top of his head. More could be added.

Luther recommends...

These are books that Luther himself recommends your read:

'by 1537, when he wrote to Wolfgang Capito that along with his catechism the treatment of bound choice was his best work: "none of my works is worth anything except" the catechism and De servo arbitrio [The Bondage of the Will], he said.' (p. 15, Robert Kolb, Bound Choice, Election and Wittenberg Theological Method)

'Luther was extremely critical when it came to judging the value of his own books. The commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (1531-35), the exposition of the Book of Deuteronomy (1523), and his sermons on four chapters of the Gospel of John (1528-29) he thought worth preserving because they were his only works really to contain theological teachings. He found the rest of his writings interesting solely from a historical point of view' (p. 168, Heiko Oberman, Luther: Man between God and the Devil).

'[Erasmus' arguments] have been refuted already so often by me, and beaten down and completely pulverized in Philip Melanchthon's Commonplaces [Loci Communes] - an unanswerable little book which in my judgment deserves not only to be immortalized but even canonized.' (p.102, Martin Luther, Introduction to The Bondage of the Will in Luther and Erasumus: Free Will and Salvation)

'It is a result of God's providence that the writings of Cato and Aesop have remained in the schools, for both are significant books. Cato contains the most useful sayings and precepts. Aesop contains the most delightful stories and descriptions. Moral teachings, if offered to young people, will contribute much to their edification. In short, next to the Bible, the writings of Cato and Aesop are in my opinion the best' (pp. 210–211, Martin Luther, "Table Talk Recorded by Anthony Lauterbach and Jerome Weller, 1536-1537" in Luther's Works, Volume 54: Table Talk, HT Tony Reinke)

These are books that Joachim Mörlin (1514-1571), the prominent early Lutheran theologian, and former student of Luther, suggested you read:

"Mörlin counseled beginning with the Small Catechism, for its three parts—law, gospel, and the table of responsibilities in the callings of daily life—summarize the entire Word of God. From the Small Catechism the reader should move to the Large Catechism and then to those works of Luther which summarize basic Christian teaching: the Schwabach Articles, the Confession Concerning Christ's Supper (1528), the Smalcald Articles, the Instruction for Visitors (1528), and the Augsburg Confession and its Apology, which Mörlin, like many of his contemporaries, counted among Luther's works as well as Melanchthon's. For learning the proper distinction of law and gospel the reader should turn to the Galatians commentary of 1535. Mörlin commended On the Last Words of David for its treatment of the 2nd article of the Creed, and On the Councils and the Church and Against Hanswurst for their treatment of the 3rd article. The Genesis commentary would summarize and complete the study of Luther's thought...

...The works of the earlier Luther, particularly the great trilogy of 1520—The Freedom of the Christian, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, and The Open Letter to the German Nobility—were not on the lists, although they do appear on most such lists today."

(pp. 192-193, Robert Kolb, Martin Luther as Prophet, Teacher, and Hero, HT Benjamin Mayes)

My real history

when we repeat the words, "I believe," which introduce the Creed, we affirm our participation in that history and we confess that we are figures drawn into involvement in that history. The history of Jesus Christ, precisely, that is my history! It is closer to me than the various events of my own life.

(p. 83, Karl Barth, The Faith of the Church)

Bruce Waltke had something similar to say as he embarks on a lecture series on Judges:

To a large extent your definition of yourself is your memory ... history is memory. It is our memory. Every sociological community has both a memory and a destiny for its own self-identification. Now there is something more important than your memory, and that is your spiritual commitment.... You and I have made a spiritual commitment to Jesus Christ. This memory of the Old Testament, is his memory. It shaped him. And when we were baptised into Christ we became Abraham's seed, and this whole history is our history. So this is your history you are going to be learning. It is skeletons in the closet for the most part; but it is a tremendous testimony to God's grace. And I am suggesting therefore to you that as a result of this course, and through this gift of memory, you will know yourself better as a Christian

(MP3 lecture, A01, Course Introduction, Light from the Dark Ages: An Exposition on Judges and Ruth)

Karl Barth points us to where we can have hope. If we look at ourselves and our own lives we often see little to be hopeful about. Death appears the end, and a justified end of a short brutish life. But if Jesus' history is ours then his resurrection and justification is ours too.

But even then you may have a nagging doubt. I may identify with Jesus, but if Jesus doesn't identify with me then the union on which all our hope rests breaks down. However, when Jesus makes Israel's history his own, and identifies with the representatives of humanity who again and again went away from him and 'did what was right in [their] own eyes' (Judges 17:6; 21:25), then our hope is a certain one.

Mike Reeves MP3s

Mike Reeves is the Theological Advisor for UCCF. Previously he was an associate minister at All Souls Church, Langham Place, London. He holds a doctorate in systematic theology from King's College, London. He has written The Unquenchable Flame: Introducing the Reformation and The Breeze of the Centuries: Introducing great theologians - From the Apostolic Fathers to Aquinas, On Giants' Shoulders: Introducing great theologians - From Luther to Barth, and contributed to Should Christians Embrace Evolution?.

• NWA 2011: Hebrews 1:8-19 (1 sermon to purchase) - NEW!
• NWA 2011: Matters of the Heart (4 MP3s - to purchase) - NEW!
• NWA 2009: Right with God? (4 MP3s - to purchase, BUT Free on the Theology Network site called Justification) - NEW!
• NWA 2008: Knowing the Triune God (4 MP3s - to purchase) - NEW!
• Forum North West 2010: Leviticus (4 MP3s) - NEW!
• UCCF South West Transformission 2010: The Love of God (3 MP3s) - NEW!
• John 17:17-23: The other Lord's Prayer (video) - NEW!
• 1 Corinthians 15:22,23: Secure in Christ (video) - NEW!
• Secure in the Saving God with Angus Moyes, UCCF Forum 2010 (3 MP3s) - NEW!
• John 20:19-23, UCCF Forum 2010
• Psalm 42: The Christian's Ode to Joy (video, overlap with talk on the External Word below)
• 9Marks Interview: Mike Reeves interviewed by Mark Dever on the Reformation - NEW!
• UCCF South West Transformission 2009: Union with Christ (3 MP3s, they can also be found here and here)
• The Doctrine of Revelation (4 MP3s)
• CU Leaders' Training Weekends on 1 Corinthians; 2008 version, London; 2009 version, Scotland; 2010 version, Midlands; (4 MP3s each)
• UCCF South West Transformission 2008 on The Word of God (3 MP3s)
• UCCF South West Transformission 2007 on the glory of the cross (3 MP3s)
• Christology and Revelation (6 MP3s)
• Depending on the Living God with Jo McKenzie (3 MP3s)
• DIY theology
• Introducing the Apostolic Fathers (2 MP3s)
• Introducing Justin Martyr
• Introducing Ireneaus
• Introducing Athanasius (2 MP3s)
• Introducing Augustine (2 MP3s)
• Introducing Anselm (3 MP3s)
• Introducing Thomas Aquinas (3 MP3s)
• Introducing Martin Luther (4 MP3s)
• Introducing John Calvin (3 MP3s)
• Introducing Jonathan Edwards (5 MP3s) - NEW!
• Eastern Orthodoxy - NEW!
• Sin and Evil (3 MP3s) - NEW!
• Eastern Orthodoxy - NEW!
• The Trinity and Mission - NEW!
• Where are we heading? Armageddon or Apocoalypse?
• Trinity 1, Trinity 2, Trinity 3, Trinity 4
• Table talk: Mike Reeves interviews various people about various things! - always new stuff
• OICCU 2011 Reps Conference on 'The Love of God': 1. The Beautiful Son; 2. The Heart-Melting Spirit - NEW!
• 4 sermons at CICCU
• 34 sermons at All Souls, Langham Place
• 'Fundamentalism, terror and faith: Is Christianity good for the world?', 28/03/10, Holy Trinity Eastborne (Evangelistic talk)
• Evangelism Podcast with Clive Parnell
• Why GO?, 2006, York University CU
• How the Atheists are Right, 2009, Bath University CU - NEW!
• Zechariah 5: Behold Your King Enthroned - NEW!
• Theology of Music (3 MP3s)

There are also some duplicates and clips on the Gospel Coalition site as well as the Theology Network site.

Please let me know of any that I've missed and I'll try and keep it up-to-date. I'm sorry that there is little order to the list.

Freedom!

Alister McGrath believes that Atheism as a living idea lived 200 years. He argues it was born in 1789 with the Storming of the Bastille and died in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall. What gave Atheism strength and life was the experience of the church as oppressive, and what killed it was the experience that Atheist institutions were no different.

That the church should be an enemy of freedom should shock us when we read the bible and discover that freedom is a important description of our salvation. In the Exodus we see literal freedom from slavery, and in the New Testament we learn of our freedom from sin and the law.

But when Christians say they are free who are they kidding? To many they seem to have willingly restricted their freedom. When we think of freedom we understand it as freedom-to-do-this-or-that. I have heard Christians sometimes uncritically take over the same understanding and so when they read that we are free from sin, they read that as we are free to sin or not to sin, where as previously we could only sin.

But if that is our understanding of freedom how can we say that another fall is impossible in the New Creation? Even more importantly how can we say God is free, when we say he cannot sin?

I have recently heard/read John Stott and Karl Barth both address freedom. They both define it positively, and both start from God's freedom and work out human freedom from that.

Karl Barth first of all, doing what he does best, starting from God:

God's freedom is not merely unlimited possibility or formal majesty and omnipotence, that is to say empty, naked sovereignty. Nor is this true of the God-given freedom of man. If we so misinterpret human freedom, it irreconcilably clashes with divine freedom and becomes the false freedom of sin, reducing man to a prisoner. God Himself, if conceived of as unconditioned power would be a demon and as such His own prisoner. In the light of His revelation, God is free in word and deed; He is the source and measure of all freedom, insofar as He is the Lord, choosing and determining Himself first of all. In His own freedom, as the source of human freedom, God above all willed and determined Himself to be the Father and the Son in the unity of the Spirit.

(p. 67, The Humanity of God)

From this foundational understanding of freedom as defined by God, Barth is 'bold to say' four things about human freedom:

(1) Human freedom as a gift of God does not allow for any vague choices between various possibilities....

(2) Human freedom is not realised in the solitary detachment of an individual in isolation from men. God is a se (for Himself), but He is pro nobis (for us). For us!...

(3) Human freedom is only secondarily freedom from limitations and threats. Primarily it is freedom for.

(4) Human freedom is not to be understood as freedom to assert, to preserve, to justify and save oneself. God is primarily free for; the Father is free for the Son, the Son for the Father in the unity of the Spirit. The one God is free for man as his Creator, as the Lord of the covenant, as the beginner and perfecter of his history, his Heilsgeschichte. God says "Yes." Only once this "Yes" is said, He also says "No." Thereby he reveals Himself to be free from all that is alien and hostile to His nature.

(italics original, pp.74-75, ibid)

I cannot help wondering whether John Stott had read this when a few years later he gave some addresses on freedom and said:

Christian freedom is fundamentally positive and not negative as a concept. That is to say, it has to be defined in terms of what we are free for, not in terms of what we are free from. True freedom is freedom to be one's true self. God alone, the Creator, enjoys perfect freedom, because he alone is invariably himself; he never denies himself. God's creatures are free only when they fulfil their Creator's purpose for them ....this Christian freedom (freedom for God as his children) presupposes freedom from all those tyrannies which prevent us from being what God made us and meant us to be.

(from MP3 address, "Freedom ... From the opinions of men", 1 Jan 1971)

Stott is particularly good at analysing how all the contemporary calls for freedom are calls for freedom for something, even when they are presented as being freedom from something. Calls for freedom from foreign colonial power was a call for freedom for nationhood. Calls for free press were calls for truth to be published without restriction. He quotes Malcolm X in his autobiography who calls for a free society in which black people would be free to be who they were - human beings:

Human rights! Respect as human beings! That’s what America's black masses want. That's the problem. The black masses want not to be shrunk from as though they are plague-ridden. They want not to be walled up in slums, in the ghettoes, like animals. They want to live in an open, free society where they can walk with their heads up, like men, like women!

Let's pray for the church to be seen as a place of freedom, and celebrate ourselves the freedom that we have to serve one another and worship God (not considering these things as burdens). After all, as Barth summarises it 'freedom is being joyful.'

Luther and Paul on experience

Luther refers to six things that makes a person a theologian, one of which is experience (p.17, Oswald Bayer, Martin Luther's Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation).

When Luther refers to "experience", he does not refer primarily to an actio but to a passio, not primarily to the experiences that I am in charge of, but in connection with that which I suffer. It is - to take it to the highest level - the experience that is mine in the agonizing struggle [Anfechtung] with the Word of God. This is the real point of Luther's famous statement: "sola experientia facit theologum" [only experience makes a theologian], which is admittedly most generally applied incorrectly, since it is not experience as such that makes one a theologian, but experience with the Holy Scripture.

(italics original, pp.21-22, ibid)

I read that yesterday and today we read Romans 15:4 in church:

whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Slightly different but connected. It reminds me of this John Newton hymn though.

Should we expect Christians to live differently?

Luther said that "Life is as evil among us as among the papists" (p. 57, Heiko Oberman, Luther: Man between God and the Devil).

Tim Keller who is deeply influenced by Luther's radical doctrine of grace often says the same kind of thing. e.g:

It is often the case that people whose lives have been harder and who are "lower on the character scale" are more likely to recognize their need for God and turn to Christianity. So we should expect that many Christians' lives would not compare well to those of the nonreligious (just as the health of people in the hospital is comparatively worse that people visiting museums).

(p.54, Reason for God)

In a similar vein Alister McGrath says that he sometimes would respond to comments that "Christianity cannot be true because I know X and he is a horrible person" by saying "just imagine how much more horrible X would be if he wasn't a Christian".

I don't quite understand how to hold this together with the teaching of 1 John and the like. I often feel the NT does lead us to expect that Christian's lives should compare well with non-Christians. But maybe my trouble is I'm confusing 'should' with 'will' instead of 'ought to'.

I 'should' read Luther on 1 John, but unfortunately it involves £20 outlay.

What we conquer are the small things

What we conquer are the small things,
and victory itself makes us small.
The Eternal and Un-commmon
does not want to be shaped by us.
This is the Angel who to the wrestlers
of the Old Testament appeared:
when the sinews of his adversaries
in the battle stretch metallically
he feels them under his fingers
like the strings of profound melodies.

Who was overcome by this Angel
who has oft from battle abstained,
he walks justified, upright
and proud out of that hard hand,
which as if molding, gently encloses him.
Victories are not inviting to him.
His gain is to be profoundly vanquished
by ever greater things.

(p. 318, Reiner Maria Rilke, quoted in Hieke A. Oberman, Luther: Man between God and the Devil)

Genesis 32 is a difficult passage for me to understand. I'm not sure that this German poem is correct as an interpretation of the passage, but nevertheless it contains some wonderfully expressed truth.

Using the imagination in apologetics

I've been listening to some lectures on apologetics by Alister McGrath. In them he explains how you can respond to the argument of Ludwig Feuerbach (and carried on by Marx, Freud and others) that 'when we think we are talking about God, we are in fact, just talking about ourselves... [that] just as a film projector throws images on to a blank screen, we project [our ideas] on to that ultimate reality and call them God' (p.5, Tom Smail, Like Father, Like Son).

McGrath explains that we can easily show the logical incoherency of this, but there are other ways of showing up the argument for what it is, and one of those is by employing our imagination and telling a story. He quotes CS Lewis' The Silver Chair where Scrub and the Prince are being held captive in an underground kingdom and arguing with the witch that is holding them that there is an overground world. She mocks them in their 'faith'.

"What is this sun that you all speak of? Do you mean anything by the word?"

"Yes, we jolly well do," said Scrubb.

"Can you tell me what it's like?" asked the Witch (thrum, thrum, thrum, went the strings).

"Please it your Grace," said the Prince, very coldly and politely. "You see that lamp. It is round and yellow and gives light to the whole room, and hangeth moreover from the roof. Now that thing which we call the sun is like the lamp, only far greater and brighter. It giveth light to the whole Overworld and hangeth in the sky."

"Hangeth from what, my lord?" asked the Witch; and then, while they were all still thinking how to answer her, she added, with another of her soft, silver laughs: "You see? When you try to think out clearly what this sun must be, you cannot tell me. You can only tell me it is like the lamp. Your sun is a dream; and there is nothing in that dream that was not copied from the lamp. The lamp is the real thing; the sun is but a tale, a children's story."

Luther's rules for studying theology

Luther's rules for studying theology, which he sees as almost synonymous with the study of the bible, may surprise you. They are:

1. Prayer, because you know that you cannot understand anything without the Holy Spirit enlightening you.
2. Meditation, by which he means 'not only in your heart, but externally' by talking, speaking, singing, hearing, and reading the same passage over and over again.
3. Anfechtung, by which he means the devil harrying and assaulting you.

[see "Preface to the Wittenberg Edition of Luther's German Writings" [1539] in Selected Writings of Martin Luther, Vol 1]

Travelling widely in our backyard

Mark Meynell quotes Eugene Peterson:

Henry David Thoreau, one of our canonized American sages, wrote of having "travelled a good deal in Concord" (the small New England village in which he spent his life). An item in the oral tradition that formed around Louis Agassiz, the celebrated Harvard biologist and professor, remembers that he returned to his classroom after the summer vacation and told his students that he had spent the summer travelling and made it halfway across his backyard. I want to hold out for travelling widely in Holy Scripture. For Scripture is the revelation of a world that is vast, far larger than the sin-stunted, self-constricted world that we construct for ourselves out of a garage-sale assemblage of texts.

(p.45, Eat This Book)

Isn't that beautiful? I want that too, but get easily distracted.

Martin Luther wanted us to do the same. He commented:

I would have been quite content to see my books, one and all remain in obscurity and go by the board. Among other reasons, I shudder to think of the example I am giving, for I am well aware how little the church has been profited since they have begun to collect many books and large libraries, in addition to and besides Holy Scriptures [...]

It was also our intention and hope, when we ourselves began to translate the Bible into German, that here should be less writing, and instead more studying and reading of the Scriptures. For all other writing is to lead the way into and point toward the Scriptures, as John the Baptist did toward Christ, saying, "He must increase, but I must decrease" [John 3:30], in order that each person may drink of the fresh spring himself [...]

My consolation is that, in time, my books will lie forgotten in the dust anyhow, especially if I (by God's grace) have written anything good.

(pp.7-8, "Preface to the Wittenberg Edition of Luther's German Writings" [1539] in Selected Writings of Martin Luther, Vol 1)

I've always found this a funny thing for such a voluminous writer to say. There are a few naiveties about the both Peterson and Luther describe things too (but they know that). Nevertheless, I want to be a person who drinks thirstily from the spring, even if that means I miss out on other things.

Tom Smail on The Holy Spirit

I have a whole host of posts in my head at the moment and I want to get them down before I forget them all. Unfortunately I'm also quite busy and so I'm going to be short on analysis and comment and long on quotes and notes.

I'm really enjoying Tom Smail's book Like Father Like Son, even when I don't fully agree with it. I use the word a lot but it really is thought-provoking.

A difficulty with talking about the Holy Spirit is in keeping two things in balance. We can so understand his personal-nature that we seperate him from the other members of the Trinity and describing him as working outside of or apart from the finished work of Jesus and the finished written word. On the other hand we can understand him as an impersonal force which just a tool of the Father and the Son and not in anyway distinguishable from him. I know I have often not kept things in balance, but I think Tom Smail does quite well:

"He will glorify me because he will take what is mine and declare it to you" (John 16:15). Pannenberg has fastened on this verse as a basis for understanding the Holy Spirit as a source of personal action distinct from the Son. The Spirit brings to the Son, from outside his own person, a new glory that he does not have within himself. Nevertheless, in the work of the Spirit it is the Son who is glorified. The focus of the work of the Spirit is the work of Jesus, not some work of his own that he accomplishes apart from or beyond Jesus. The Spirit is the one who unfolds all that is implicit in the work of the Son, applies it creatively and transformingly in the mission of the Church across the continents and down the centuries in an endlessly enthralling kaleidoscope of new creation in the men and women who, in the Spirit, are brought into the power of the love of the Father as it is savingly incarnate in the love of the Son.

(p.184, Like Father, Like Son: The Trinity Imaged in our Humanity)

Al Jazeera on Iraqi converts

HT Glen.

I suppose this shows how I am far from worldly-wise, but this video really surprised me. Not because there are Iraqis who become Christian - I am slowly starting to realise that God is doing far more than I could ever keep track off everywhere in the world. No, I found it surprising that such irrational suspicions could be propagated in such a coldly rational way, by clearly intelligent and educated people.

A review of The Gospel Centred Church

This is a short review/summary of The Gospel Centred Church by Steve Timmis and Tim Chester for students in my church.

Steve Timmis and Tim Chester are leaders in a network of house churches in Sheffield. They wrote this short 'workbook', which is published by the Good Book company, to help individuals and groups think through their church life. It is notable for not arguing for certain church structures or activities for pragmatic reasons but because of what the Gospel implies. The Gospel-Centred Church that the book wants to see is a church 'in which the whole of its life and activities are shaped by the content and imperatives of the gospel'. To help us evaluate whether we are being faithful in this calling it identifies 3 key priorities of the church:

1. The priority of mission
2. The priority of people
3. The priority of community

They assert that mission is the central purpose of the church in the world. Given that. they argue that every church member should be involved in mission and should do so confidently and daringly. We shouldn't stay hunkered down in our 'cosy, safe ghettos' but go out to the ends of the earth. You may question this and ask whether there are more central purposes of the church such as worship. After all as Andrew pointed out to me last night we will not be doing mission after the second coming of Christ. However, worship we all know is a whole of life thing and so mission and worship are not two opposing purposes we have to hold in balance but 'in the world' they are welded together. Mission should not be one of many activities we do but should be all that we do. We therefore worship as we go on mission.

So everything that we do as a church and as individuals should be measured by our faithfulness to this priority. Does the priority of mission shape the decisions you make about where you live and work? Does it shape your prayers and your meetings together as Christians? Does it effect the standard of living you expect?

But if mission is the central purpose of the church, what is the church? As we have been considering quite a lot recently the church is the people of God. As Timmis and Chester put it 'The church exists wherever believers are covenanted together under the authority of the word of God.'

This means that mission is not a question primarily of programmes or events. It does not require a building or paid staff. It is done by everyone because everyone is part of the church and it is often low-key and through long-term relationships.

Church leadership should then enable people to serve and not shape activity around 'things'. But the priority of people also means that the whole church has to be involved and active. The leadership are not the church but we all are. That means we cannot be passengers but must have our lives shaped by the priority of mission too.

But the priority of people could lead to lots of isolated individuals going off doing their own personal missions. This is not what God intended. He wanted the church to be doing mission and the church is a community of people. Hence the third priority is the priority of community.

This is a great comfort as we are not alone in our mission. It is not us up against the world. We can do mission in partnership, and in fact this is the best way to do it. Jesus prays in John 17:

'The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.'

Timmis and Chester put it like this: 'a Christian community is a persuasive apologetic for the gospel'. People who are not yet Christians are attracted to the community of self-giving love that the church should be. They may be initially attracted to that community itself but Jesus recognises that by seeing that community in action they come to know God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit who are united in a community of love which is imaged in the new humanity of the church. But like the Trinity our community should not be closed and exclusive but outward-looking, welcoming and inclusive. This means we should asking questions of ourselves such as whether when we meet together we can be understood by non-Christians present. Nobody should feel on the fringes.

So lets think about how we can reach friends, and those we have never even met yet through exposing them to the church which is shaped by the Gospel. Lets ask ourselves how how we we can build relationships as a community of people with those outside the church.

So that is my take on the book. It is well worth a read, but it is not a book you can passively read in a comfy armchair. It is a workbook. It is quite provocative and you may not agree with all of it. It is always (literally) asking questions of you, but also providing plenty of stimulating answers.

Pessimistic or Optimistic

In the pub today a friend related how he went to a couple of churches before he got married in order to fulfil the criteria to get married in a church building. One he said was fire and brimstone, the other more positive. He asked me which I would indentify with. I was able to steal a comment from John Stott in a sermon on Ephesians he preached in 1971.

I said I was deeply pessimistic about humanity, but very optimistic about the power and love of God. He liked that.... thank you John Stott.

Reigning in life

"because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ." (Romans 5:17)

John Stott comments on this verse:

It is not simply that the reign of death is superseded by a reign of life, for it is not life which reigns, but we who are said to 'reign in life'. Formerly death was our king. Death reigned over us and we were its subjects, slaves under its totalitarian tyranny. We do not now exchange death's kingdom for another kingdom, so that we remain slaves and subjects although in a different sense. No; once delivered from the rule of death we begin ourselves to rule over death and all the enemies of God. We cease to be subjects and become kings, sharing the Kingdom of Christ.

(p.27, Men Made New: An exposition of Romans 5-8)

They do joy

I don't like much about U2, and in the UK I'm not alone. However, my housemate likes them, especially their lyrics, so maybe I'm just a stick-in-the-mud. Sean O'Hagan comments in The Observer that U2 break the unwritten rules of British rock stardom because instead of angst they do joy. "And spiritual joy, to boot. This made them unfashionable in Britain, the irony capital of the world, where sincerity, especially sincerity tinged with spirituality, is seen, at best, as uncool, at worst as downright embarrassing." (HT Simon Mayo).

A world at peace?

The four horseman of Zechariah 1, return from patroling the earth with the report that: "all the earth remains at rest." The Angel of YHWH does not think this is good news and responds by crying out to YHWH: "how long will you have no mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, against which you have been angry these seventy years?"

We can often think that the world is at peace when it is actually under judgment. We also forget that God bringing the sword of judgment can be the merciful thing to do.

Jesus (the Angel of YHWH) is depicted as interceding for God's chosen people. God is bound to listen to his prayer and does act. This action of showing mercy to Jerusalem is necessarily* his action of judgment on the world apart from him.

However, this is not bad news for the world as a whole. God will "terrify" and "cast down" the nations who plundered Judah (v.21), but at the same time Jerusalem will not shut itself in while the world goes to hell. It will have no walls and will grow as nations flow to it and also become God's people (2:4-11).

So lets pray the imprecatory psalms knowing that the Son of God is praying them with us. But at the same time lets urgently invite and call people to God's dwelling place, God's place of undeserved mercy.

* Zechariah 1-2 indicates why judgment and mercy 'necessarily' go together. These chapters are dominated by God coming again to dwell with humanity. He promises to rebuild his house (1:16) he will again be in Jerusalem's midst (2:5, 10-11). This is cause for rejoicing for those who have been sanctified by blood, but a reason to fear for those who do not obey. Judgment and mercy are not two seperate acts but bound up in the one act of God coming close to us.