Ed Goode - Delighted

Oh! I love typology

2009-10-26T12:45:00.002-04:00

Have a look at this, from Tim Keller, reproduced on Jared Wilson's blog (you should buy his book)

* Jesus is the true and better Adam, who passed the test in the garden and whose obedience is imputed to us.
* Jesus is the true and better Abel, who, though innocently slain, has blood now that cries out not for our condemnation, but for our acquittal.
* Jesus is the true and better Abraham who answered the call of God to leave all the comfortable and familiar, and go out into the void, not knowing whither he went, to create a new people of God.
* Jesus is the true and better Isaac, who was not just offered up by his Father on the mount,but was truly sacrificed for us. And when God said to Abraham, “now I know you love me, because you did not withhold your son, your only son whom you love from me, now we can look at God, taking his son up the mountain and sacrificing Him, and say,” now we know that you love us, because you did not withhold your son, your only son whom you love from us.”
* Jesus is the true and better Jacob who wrestled and took the blow of justice we deserve, so we, like Jacob, only receive the wounds of grace to wake us up and discipline us.
* Jesus is the true and better Joseph, who at the right hand of the king, forgives those who betrayed and sold Him, and uses His new power to save them.
* Jesus is the true and better Moses, who stands in the gap between the people and the Lord and who mediates a new covenant.
* Jesus is the true and better rock of Moses who was struck with the rod of God’s justice, and now gives us water in the desert.
* Jesus is the true and better Job, the truly innocent sufferer who then intercedes for and saves his stupid friends.
* Jesus is the true and better David, whose victory becomes his people’s victory though they never lifted a stone to accomplish it themselves.
* Jesus is the true and better Esther, who didn’t just risk losing an earthly palace, but lost the ultimate and heavenly one, who didn’t just risk his life, but gave his life to save his people.
* Jesus is the true and better Jonah, who was cast out into the storm so we could be brought in.
* He is the real passover lamb, innocent, perfect, helpless, slain so that the angel of death would pass over us

Now did that make your heart leap? Did it make you want to dive into the Old Testament? I hope so.

I don't know whether it's instinctive or mechanical or both, or whether staring at the glory of God for long enough should make the mechanical academics instinctive...i don't know. I'm just glad it is, and it's true.

Satisfaction through substitution

2009-07-07T11:46:00.003-04:00

We strongly reject, therefore, every explanation of the death of Christ which does not have at it's centre 'satisfaction through substitution' indeed divine self satisfaction through divine self substitution. The cross was not a commercial bargain with the devil, let alone one which tricked and trapped him, nor an exact equivalent, a quid pro quo to satisfy a code of honour or technical point of law, nor a compulsory submission to God to some moral authority above Him from which He could not otherwise escape, nor a punishment of a meek Christ through a harsh and punitive Father, nor a procurement of salvation by a loving Christ from a mean and reluctant Father, nor an action by which the Father bypassed Christ as mediator.

Instead the righteous, loving Father humbled Himself to become in and through His only Son, flesh, sin and a curse for us, in order to redeem us without compromising His own character. The theological words 'satisfaction' and 'substitution' need to be carefully defined and safeguarded, but they can not, under any circumstances by given up. The Biblical Gospel of atonement is of God satisfying Himself by substituting Himself for us.

John Stott, The Cross Of Christ, Pp 159-160

If you've not yet read 'The Cross of Christ' run, don't walk to your nearest bookshop and grab a copy. It's clear, it's helpful, it's heart warming. It may be the most vital book you'll ever read. Increasingly as i go through it, and as i read the Bible, i think that a defective view of the atonement leads to a defective view of God, and vice versa. If Christ death was about bearing our pain, or offering a perfect confession of our sin, we've lost the holiness of God. A holy God demands satisfaction for our sin, not someone to suffer so we know how bad it is. In and through Jesus, God became just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Christ.

Secondly, it may be fed by a poor Biblical Theology, a poor understanding of how the Old Testament is a Christian book. Read Leviticus...why are those sheep being killed? So they can empathise with us? To show us the worst excess of our sin? By way of example? They are being killed, like Christ our passover lamb was, to show that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin, that God, rightly, demands a bloody sacrifice to pay for our sins. This is not a primitive, base understanding of crime and punishment, this is not an pagan idea grafted onto Christianity...this is justice, humbling, sacrificial substitutional justice, which is probably why we dislike it so much...

Trials in James

2009-07-06T11:52:00.002-04:00

One of my least favourite Christian ideas is the teaching that says 'when you become a Christian, nothing bad will ever happen to you again.' Kind of a prosperity Gospel lite, the idea if we behave ourselves and don't sin, y'know, too badly, God will bless us and we'll have a happy life, a great family and a good job.

Aside from being hundreds of miles away from the experience of the majority of Christians in the last two thousand years who were faithful witness of the Gospel, but have suffered terribly, it also makes not only Paul, but Jesus (!) and inadequate Christian. Was Jesus faithful to God? Yes, the only man who ever truly was. Did He suffer?

Paul was obedient, trusting, faithful, passionate and active, and yet he had danger on all sides: robbers, his own people, Gentiles, in the city, in the wilderness, at sea, from false brothers and toil and hardship. He suffered many a hungry, cold, sleepless night. This 'Gospel' is self evidently untrue.

Christians do face trials, of varying degrees probably every day. So how do we deal with them? James 1:1-11 has three answers:

We count it all as joy: 2-4
These trials produce inner strength, they produce the deep faith of a mature Christian. James says trials will make people 'perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.' Trials will make us wiser and stronger, they will deepen our dependence on Christ, they will enlarge our heart towards Him. So in them we rejoice.

We pray: 5-8
Suffering through prolonged and difficult times requires help, requires an extra dose of wisdom from God. How do we get that wisdom? Ask for it! God is good and generous. Christ loves His bride and will give her wisdom without fail, without grumbling, and without measure. Do you trust God? Then act like it and ask Him for wisdom without doubt. And He will give it to you, and you will persevere.

We focus on Christ: 9-11
This section might seem a bit random when we first read it. If James is 'the Proverbs of the New Testament,' perhaps we might wish he'd arranged his thoughts a bit clearer instead of going of on a financial tangent when he should be talking about trials. Unless, dealing with money is one of the greatest trials Christians face. Whether we are rich or poor, James has an answer for us. Focus on Christ. If you're poor, exalt, because your life doesn't equal stuff, because you have all you need in Christ, and because one day you will feast with Him, face to face. And if you're rich? Be humble, focus on Christ and remember that nothing you have now will make a difference the moment you die, remember that your pursuits can kill you, and that all you have is passing away. Poor man, rich man, focus on Jesus, who is all we need, and never fades away.

The humility to read

2009-06-09T10:45:00.002-04:00

'The Disappearance of God' by Albert Mohler Jr recently came through my door from Monergism Books. Both cheaper and faster than amazon to the US mainland, but anyway. With it came a rather lovely looking pamphlet: 'A reader's guide to the Christian life' filled with ideas about what to read and why to read it. As well as that was a brief, unattributed article: 'The humility to read' which went like this:

I am one person in one place at one time. My experiences and perceptions are limited and coloured by the environment in which i live. Therefore, it would be profoundly arrogant of me to think that i can best grow in the knowledge of God through scripture by myself.

Certainly the Holy Spirit is graciously given to God's children to enable us to comprehend and be conformed to the truths of the Bible. Nevertheless, one of the primary means of grace God uses in the process of our transformation is the universal-historical community of believers. Within that community, God graciously provides leaders of few and leaders of many to equip the saints for the work of ministry.

It is a humbling thing for me to read a book. Most books take at least several hours of combined time to process and i have to forsake other distractions in order to focus and benefit from what i am reading. Most of all, i can't talk back. I am just forced to listen, patiently follow and receive, to think another mans thoughts after him.

One of the new desires placed into the heart of a believer is to think God's thoughts after Him. Let's pursue humility by receiving the thoughts of those who have led us and spoken the word of God to us in the most enduring of all earthly mediums: the book.

Love the Church

2009-06-08T14:33:00.000-04:00

I don't know what your plans are for June 20th, but if you're anywhere near Reading, and not on your honeymoon, please cancal them and go to this instead. It'll be stellar.

Blogging every day in June: and other things i haven't done

2009-06-07T07:18:00.002-04:00

There's two things you immediately notice when you walk into my dad's office. On one wall he must have about thirty or forty fishing rods, dating back to about his teenage years...i don't think he's ever thrown one away. On another wall there is shelf after shelf of A 4 diary books. These are his fishing diaries. One of the earliest memories i have is of my dad on a sunday night writing up his weeks fishing from his notebook to his diary. If you want to know where he was and what he caught on March 18th 1983, he'll be able to tell you without much trouble. Thats cool to me.

Inspired by this i thought i'd try to write at least something every day in the month before i got married. Since, in some ways at least, having something online is safer than having it on paper (harder to lose) it seemed like a great idea. Except then...well it didn't happen did it! But thats ok. Sometimes you've got it, sometimes you don't. But on the Sunday before i get married on Friday, two days before the arrival of as many English people to set foot in North Carolina since it was, well, English, it seemed good to at least record something. Maybe i'll be bitten by the bug this week. Maybe my list of to dos is already growing the other side of town at wedding HQ.

Am i excited? Yes. Will i be more excited when Canon in D starts and i know Rachel's making her way down the aisle behind me? Goodness me, but a million times yes. I'm getting butterflies just thinking about it. Am i stressed about everything thats got to happen between now and then? A little bit. But not really.

A couple of unconnected things. Losing to Holland in the T20 World Cup is about as irrelevant to this summer's cricket as it can get. There's one main event in 2009, The Ashes are the only thing that matter. This whole summer so far has been ridiculous. If beating the West Indies was like training for a marathon by walking the dog, this is like training for a marathon by carrying a heavy tray of drinks up a flight of stairs. There's too much cricket. If Twenty20 is the way forward then we ought to get rid of the 50 over game completely. Play more Twenty20 to fill the gap if you want, double headers, four games in five days, whatever. In Major League Baseball each of the thirty teams play 140 (!) regular season games and no one complains. The four and five day version of the game is more important, but i can't see Twenty20 going away.

I've been reading 'Sealed with an oath' the NSBT on covenant. It's real good. It starts off talking about why there was no covenant with Adam (because creation supersedes covenant, because covenant serves God's creative purpose of international blessing rather than the other way around) and then goes on to talk about the covenants with Noah, Abraham, Israel and David before two chapters on the New Covenant. It's really helping me to read the Bible as one book, and anything that does that is worth the admission...

It's summer

2009-06-01T13:51:00.002-04:00

My Facebook newsfeed is clogged with pictures of the Jazz Club in Reading. Sweaty undergrads and Graduands with mouths open and fingers pointing. It's not a pretty sight, but it makes me happy. But it does mean one serious thing. Summer is here. Summer, rolling meadows, endless days filled with idle distractions, getting a summer job, getting a real job, finding your tent for Forum. Summer is a wonderful time. There is nowhere better than the Chiltern Hills in June and July. I can't wait to show my wife.

Summer is dangerous though, and so without much apology, and only some editing, here's something i wrote just over two years ago... don't waste your summer, use it for Jesus:

John Piper writes this about summer:

Don’t let summer make your soul shrivel. God made summer as a foretaste of heaven, not a substitute. If the mailman brings you a love letter from your fiancé, don’t fall in love with the mailman. That’s what summer is: God’s messenger with a sun-soaked, tree-green, flower-blooming, lake-glistening letter of love to show us what he is planning for us in the age to come—“things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man, God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). Don’t fall in love with the video preview, and find yourself unable to love the coming reality.

What can we do this summer to set our minds, and keep our minds on the things above?

Keep reading the Bible.
I know this sounds like an obvious point, but once there is little work to be done, there is little routine to be kept to...and i need routine to keep me reading the Bible. last year my Graduand period (the bit in between finishing your finals and getting to wear a mortarboard) passed in a haze of barbeques, football and bucky 'o hare. And none of that is bad in itself, we need refreshing after working hard, but to seek refreshment away from the Bible, away from Christ is only to turn your back on what will refresh you. Sit in the sun, read slowly, read lots, read Galatians over and over again. Enjoy the birdsong, enjoy the Word.

Read good books.
I don't think i'm ever going to have as much time on my hands as i did last summer. What a great opportunity to read and read well. Reading Christian books must never become a substitute for reading the Bible, and it must never start to become a dry intellectual fact collecting exercise. But good books can make you long for more of Christ in your life, drive you back to the Bible to bathe in things you hadn't noticed before. Good books can strengthen your faith and your love for the Lord. Take time to read them and think about them and apply them.

Make the most of time with your friends.
especially if you're graduating, and all being flung across the four corners of the country. Spend time with people, enjoy time with people, sit in a beer garden, lie on the grass outside mojos. enjoy the fellowship of your Christian mates, but seek out and don't waste time with your non Christian mates. Use this time to explode for Christ in your house or hall. Use this time to be braver than you've been before. Use this time to live with your non Christian friends to demonstrate that Christ is the greatest, best and most fulfilling reality there is. Pray for them lots.

Prepare for whats next.
Leaving uni is really hard. Going back home for a long time is really hard. Starting a job, even one that you love is really hard. So get ready for it. Pray into it. Think about how you're going to work for Christ next year, or study even better for Christ next year, and delight in Christ with your family. Don't waste time wishing you were back at uni, enjoy the time you've got the prepare for what's happening next...doing the other things in this list should help a bit.

It's terribly easy to waste summer. When the sun comes out i really struggle to remember the eternal battle we're all in, to keep my eyes focused on Heaven and not on the earthly pleasures summer brings us. Use free time wisely for Christ...don't waste your summer.

There are a few reasons i'm not on twitter

2009-05-29T11:02:00.002-04:00

I don't really understand how it works, it's impossible to sound like a man whilst saying 'i tweeted that' and i'd be forever writing things like 'Ed is at________ for dinner. Glad he ate first.' It's just too much bother. I am in a bit of a minority though so here's some excellent stuff on Christians using twitter:

Gethin Jones
iMonk
Josh Harris (this reminds me of something that Craig Mackay said to be once: 'we're all lead worshippers.' very, very wise)
John Piper

Ruth 3-4: A step too far?

2009-05-28T10:47:00.003-04:00

I've been following this discussion with interest. How Jesus is revealed in the Old Testament, the contents of the Luke 24 Bible study is surely one of the most, if not the most important question when it comes to reading the Old Testament Christianly. I've been thinking about this as i've been preaching through Ruth in Teen Church. Here are some thoughts on Ruth 3-4, is it a step too far?

First, I love the book of Ruth. Don't you? It's mixture of the obvious and the subtle, the tragic and the magnificent, the love the flows through it, the grace which drenches it. The fact it's so obviously the Gospel.

Chapter 3 is a great example of all of these things. It looks awful on a first reading: 'Ruth, make yourself look beautiful and go creep up on Boaz in the middle of the night when his heart is merry and no one can see you. But it's beautiful. Spread your wings over me, says Ruth, basically i want you to ask me to marry you. I want you to do for me what God does for Israel, spread your wings over me. Protect me, provide for me, lead me and guide me. Ruth comes to Boaz for redemption with nothing, just like we come to Jesus with nothing.

There are problems for Ruth and Boaz, just like there are problems for us and Jesus. Boaz wants to marry Ruth because he loves her, not because he's legally bound to. He's only a redeemer in the loosest sense of the word, redeemers were brothers of a dead husband, Boaz was an uncle or a cousin at best. He has no legal need to marry her. He wants to marry her because he loves her. This other 'redeemer' might not. That's their problem. Our problem is different, but it's still a problem. Our sin is what separates us from Jesus. Your sin, my sin, our rebellion stops us from being in relationship with the Father through the Son. That needs an answer, just like Boaz and Ruth need an answer.

Jesus is our glorious Boaz. Jesus and Boaz deal with these problems. Jesus dies on the cross, Boaz gets the other redeemer out of the way. Because Jesus loves us, because Boaz loved Ruth. not because they had to.

And then what? A marriage! Revelation 21:1-5 sees the holy city descend from God like a bride prepared for her husband. Jesus has dealt with every problem to prepare us for the Wedding of weddings. Boaz has dealt with every problem to prepare Ruth for their wedding. How Ruth must've loved and trusted in Boaz, and wanted to give her life to him, what else then can we do, but give our life, in faith, trust and joy, to Jesus.

The fall of Rome

2009-05-26T19:18:00.003-04:00

Shaeffer's very excellent book 'how should we then live?' traces the development and decline of western thought from the Roman Empire to now. It's great, instructive, helpful and not always encouraging. Towards the end he quotes from Edward Gibbon's decline and fall of the Roman Empire, about the five steps that marked the end of the empire.

1) An increasing love of show and luxury.

2) A widening gap between the very rich and very poor, either in the individual sense or from country to country.

3) An obsession with sex.

4) A freakishness in the arts masquerading as originality and enthusiasms pretending to be creativity.

5) An increasing desire to live off the state.

Given Gibbons wrote this book between 1776 and 1788 and Shaeffer wrote his book in 1976, it could be viewed as an incredible piece of prophecy of what happens when God is left out of the equation...

Trinity is community on mission (Terry Virgo on the Church)

2009-05-23T15:11:00.001-04:00

Listen to the new Theology Network Tabletalk, Mike Reeves interviews Terry Virgo on the Church.

Narrow, Schismatic and Conservative

2009-05-22T11:28:00.002-04:00

Richard Cunningham's talk at Word Alive 07 ranks as one of my highlights as a Relay Worker. He was so confident in the Gospel, so sure that the decision to break with Spring Harvest was right, and so keen to make sure we knew why. It was excellent.

New Word Alive and UCCF were accused of all sorts of things during the weeks and months that followed, one of which was that we were being too 'narrow, schismatic and conservative.' Concerns Richard answers wonderfully:

It’s only as narrow theologically as the gospel demands, but as culturally broad and generous as the gospel permits.

You can watch the whole video interview here

Three more blogs

2009-05-20T21:38:00.003-04:00

I've often considered Reading the centre of the student blogosphere...today i can present your with further proof:

Josh John has just finished his second year at Reading. He's a top boy, and probably the only person to ever turn up to a Reading Family Church prayer meeting with a can of lager.

Josh Betts is RUCU events co-ordinator. We spent a great few weeks at the end of last year studying Galatians together. He once died his hair pink to raise money for a missions trip to India

Tim Hilton is probably ten or fifteen times cleverer than i am. He's studying for a degree in robotics and can juggle five balls at once. He also might be my great-great grandson, but i'm not 100% about that.

***update: it occurred to me this morning that i should have called this 'I like Reading blogs' but never mind.***

Psalm 38

2009-05-20T13:17:00.002-04:00

I wonder how close you feel to God today. Whether you're on the mountain top or i the valley. Whether you had a really good quiet time and drove to lunch in the sunshine listening to Christian music, or whether you're fresh out of an argument, haven't read the Bible in days and keep tripping over the same sin habit.

I think judging our 'closeness' to God in the way we feel is probably one of the Devil's best weapons. Our feelings betray us and let us down. They rob us of joy in life, courage in prayer and passion in worship. Never mind robbing us of courage in prayer, they probably stop us praying all together. How...HOW can i speak to God, how can i approach God after what i've just said, what i've just done. I said it would never happen again, and it did. How can He want to hear from me now?

We can approach with confidence by Christ's blood, our righteousness is sat at the Father's right hand never to be moved...so does that minimise our sin, does that mean that when we pray we can gloss over it? Not according to Psalm 38.

David is searingly honest in this Psalm. He feels like arrows have sunk into him, like the very hand of God Himself is upon him in wrath. His flesh has no soundness, his burden is too heavy, his wounds sink and fester, he is bowed down, he's filled with burning, he is feeble and crushed. Why? Verse 3 tells us...David tells us it was because of his sin. Because of David's sin he felt like this. Maybe this was when he was on the run from Absalom, maybe shortly after he'd sinned with Bathsheba, but whatever it was, he knew why he felt this way. His sin. That might have been the end of the matter, no one can pray when they feel like that can they? How can God listen to David when he has sinned and felt like this about it? Why does David even think he could?

Verse 9 reminds us that God knows anyway, 'all my longing is before you, my sighing is not hidden from you,' and it probably wasn't a surprise to Him in the first place? So why does David pray? He knows that the Lord will answer, He knows that as he waits, God will answer him. He knows that his only hope, God's grace is his only hope. His hope is not found in glossing over his sin, it's found in waiting a while and hoping that God will cool off before he goes to Him in prayer. He knows his prayers depends on God's never ending steadfast love, they rely on God's grace. Not on hiding away, not on waiting, but on God. God who never changes.

David repents and asks for help against his foes. This time human foes who sought after him because of his sin, these friends who had left him and let him down. But he remembers one thing. He remembers God. He remembers God's steadfast love, he remembers that the law speaks of God's grace, he remembers that as vile as his sin is, God's substitutionary love is greater, deeper. He remembered that, in a way, he probably didn't understand, his sin would sit on his throne forever.

So how close do you feel to God today? I'm not sure it matters. What matters is the Gospel. The Gospel which tells us that your righteousness is safe in Heaven, which tells us that yes, our sin is awful, but yes God's steadfast love can be relied upon. It's great to know that we can come to God with our hands up and say 'yes God, my sin is awful, but i run to you because i know you are my only hope.' How close are we to God? Through Jesus, as close as opening our mouths and speaking.

Researching wedding music

2009-05-18T19:00:00.002-04:00

I don't think this version of Canon in D will make the final cut!

Ruth 4:18-22 (or, my favourite genealogy)

2009-05-18T15:57:00.005-04:00

I get the feeling that i'll end up coming back to Ruth again and again. I'm currently working through it for Wednesday night teen church, and loving it once more. I guess one of the reasons it works so well is that ion the face of it the book looks like a simple provincial love story, woman meets man, man likes woman, man and woman get married. But underneath that, there's so much more going on.

Mark Driscoll says there are small h heroes in the Bible, who all point to the big H Hero of the Bible, Jesus. Boaz is one of these small h heroes, who redeems Ruth, provides for her and protects her, and is on that level a pretty clear picture of Jesus work for us. But if Ruth and Boaz are the main characters, why do we end with Naomi and Obed? Why do we end with David?

My answers based around an assumption, but i think it's a fair assumption. I think Samuel wrote Judges, Ruth and at least some of the books actually named after him. I think Judges is his pamphlet against human kings, his continual illustration that human leaders do not work, and that for any hope we need to turn to God. I also think he would have known, from reading the Pentateuch that one day Israel would have a human King. I also think he knew that the scepter of this King would not depart from Judah. The King would have to come from the line of Judah.

So all those assumptions being made, Ruth becomes 'this is where Kings come from.' It was written to show disbelieving, humanistic Israel who their King should be. Not Saul the Benjaminite, but David, from Judah.

That's why this genealogy isn't just a weird footnote, it's the point of the whole book! Where do Kings come from Israel? They come from Judah, they're called David, they're chosen by God. Ruth would have shown the original readers the importance of choosing God's King, not any old king. It would have shown them the humble and difficult background of their great shepherd king. And for us? This genealogy takes Ruth from the provincial, rural back waters and puts her at the centre of the universe. It shows that in the darkest of times God is at work to do greater things than we can possibly imagine, not just by providing Ruth (and Naomi) a son, but by continuing His line, His seed, quietly, simply, eternally.

Shaeffer: The Lord's work in the Lord's way

2009-05-16T12:06:00.002-04:00

Yesterday marked 25 years of Crossway. Lane T.Dennis, President of Crossway posted this excellent article reflecting on the last twenty five years, and a link to this, 'The Lord's work in the Lord's way' an article by Francis Shaeffer, which has driven the philosophy of Crossway for the last twenty five years...

A storm is coming (1 Chronicles 1-9)

2009-05-16T11:34:00.002-04:00

It looms over you like a dark storm cloud...in the days leading up to it you feel like you're driving towards a city that you can tell is being battered by some seriously bad weather. In short, you just don't want ot go there. But then, when you get there, it's not like you can leave right away. You might be there for days, even a week, depending on your reading plan. I'm talking, of course, about the first eight chapters of 1 Chronicles.

All those names...pages after pages of lists. I thought the Bible was supposed to me about me? This isn't going to give me any practical tips for dealing with my life today...what's it doing here? Bish has been writing about genealogies, and since i'm reading 1 Chronicles at the moment, i thought i'd explore what the opening chapters are doing there.

Chronicles covers about the time from the beginning of 2 Samuel to the exile, but it was written much later than that. Probably after the exiles returned to Judah. Imagine being there then. Your father told you stories that he had heard. Stories of a great king, a great Kingdom, great battles against your enemies...and a glorious temple. You heard about the time when it really did seem like this little provincial town was at the centre of what God was doing everywhere.

But now... how can it be? You've been wiped out by your enemies. The northern tribes have vanished, and no matter what Nehemiah and Ezra say, you know there's little point in even trying to rebuild the temple. Except, there is something. Ezra's written a history book, a wisdom book. It begins wonderfully. Ezra links this small province in Persia all the way back to Adam, all the way through Abraham and his sons through to...well us. There aren't many more exciting things in all of Judah right now than that list.

So maybe this genealogy, far from being dull and skipable, tells us something marvellous about God's plan and purposes being worked out. About the scepter truly never departing from Judah. 1 Chronicles 1-9 exist to show God's people that they have legitimacy and identity as God's people, despite what their eyes and recent experiences tell them. They can still have faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Get the sword, get the trowel. Build and pray.

Genealogies are part of God's word and they do exist with a purpose, we just need to read the Word for what it is, and trust and enjoy that purpose.

No Mr President (human life is awesome)

2009-05-13T14:31:00.001-04:00

John Piper at the Basics Conference

2009-05-12T11:51:00.002-04:00

John Piper's first two messages from the Basic's Conference are now online thanks to the tireless and speedy efforts of the DG team:

We are workers with you for your Joy
Preaching Justification Undiminished

Also, if you're super keen you can follow along with Piper's current sermon (and subsequent movements no doubt) 'Preaching Regeneration Undiminshed' on Twitter.

Why Jonny Can't Preach: A review

2009-05-10T21:06:00.002-04:00

'Why Johnny Can't Preach' comes in at a diminutive and readable 108 pages. It's helpful without being heavy, and Gordon writes so well that the pages more or less fly by. That, and the compelling subject matter help to make this one of the most readable books i've enjoyed this year.

The Good.

Gordon self consciously titled the book in the vein of 'why johnny can't read,' and 'why johnny can't write.' The author had been diagnosed with cancer shortly before sitting down to write his opus, in fact that what was compelled him to write. The five chapters deal with three major reasons why johnny can't preach (he can't read, he can't write and he can't interpret the Bible) as well as a couple of chapters on solving the problem. As you might expect from a book that comes from the pen of a dying man (he's now happily in remission) the pages come across very much as a heartfelt plea for a churchwide return to sound, solid, nourishing Biblical exposition. It was stirring and challenging. It made me want to bury my face in the text, spend more time writing, compose my speech better, and read Shakespeare's sonnets. Gordon's main point is that though Johnny can neither read or write, he can learn. He can learn to pay careful attention to texts and he can learnt to write. He can learn to preach. There were challenging and inspiring words.

The Less Good

Gordon's background is in media ecology, the study of how current trends in technology and media influence us and the way we think. This helps with many of his observations, but occasionally leads him to overstate his case, as he sees his subject through his expert lense. I'm not sure, for example, that increased use of the telephone has lead to a deterioration in the pulpit. I'm also not sure that the state of the pulpit is as bad as he makes out, but i've just been very blessed to be part of some excellent, Biblical churches in the last few years.

Overall this was an excellent read, if you want to be stirred, challenged and driven to prayer and deeper thought over your preaching, and preaching in general, buy this book!

Conversations

2009-05-09T11:11:00.004-04:00

A while before i moved to the States, someone told me it would be hard to stand at any one point of the country and say 'ah ha, now this is America.' And he was right. How do you sum up a single country that contains the Harvard scholar and the Idaho potato farmer? The Carolina NASCAR fan and the California environmentalist? You can't. But whoever told me that didn't tell me something else thats equally true. It's hard to stand in any single state and say 'ah ha, now this is North Carolina.'

My adopted home state is a good example, split into one hundred counties and three regions of almost equal size, culture and the way of life on one side of the state are very different on the other. In the west you have the mountain region, full of, well, mountains, the middle part of the state is known as Piedmont, and contains the Triangle area, a zone containing all but one of the largest cities in the state, and about the only region left in the country where industry is still growing. Slowly the cities turn to farms, and the farms to beaches and you've reached the coastland region, where i live. Put your figure almost anywhere on a map of eastern North Carolina and you're pointing at the middle of nowhere. The eastern part of the state has it's own feel, it's own food, it's own way of life. People here still farm, hunt and fish meaningfully, men wear cowboy boots to church. Barbecue in eastern Carolina is totally different to barbecue in western Carolina, and nothing life what i grew up calling barbecue.

North Carolina is different from itself, as you might expect from a state probably only slightly smaller than a European country. And the people are different too, open, warm and funny. This was driven home to me clearly last night. It was about 1115, and my next door neighbour was standing at the top of the steps that lead to the first floor apartments enjoying the cool evening air. We've had two weeks of 80-90F days, and this week had been full of tornadoes and thunderstorms, but yesterday evening was perfect. Cool, clear and with a wonderful breeze. A great night for standing out.

I hadn't spoken to him much before but last night we chatted for ages about the weather, the economy, the state of the parking lot, his acting career. Then he mentioned, quite matter of factly, that in the past week he had suffered two awful family tragedies. We'd covered four to six weeks of British conversation in half an hour. All this presents a problem. What do you do with people that are, in effect, inoculated to the Gospel? People who know just enough to make them feel alright, but not enough to get sick on it? With people who are happy to stand and pray with you, but never darkened the door of a church building? I'm still not clear whether this ingrained respect for Church as an institution is helpful or not in the long run. Not sure at all.

As for me and my neighbor. I'll keep praying, we'll keep talking, and maybe one day soon i'll get to ring a bell of my own...

Luther's bedtime

2009-05-06T09:00:00.003-04:00

Isn't the end of the day sometimes the most exciting part? Phone off, doors locked...just you and a bed. I've only been up a few hours and i'm already looking forward to it! It's an odd thing going to sleep though. People who know more than i do about it have said that when we're in our deepest sleep, when our organs and brain have shut down for the night that we're pretty much as close to death as we'd want to be... When we're asleep we can't defend ourselves, can't react to warning aches and pains.

The Psalmist says 'i lay down and i slept, but i awoke, because you sustained me.' Jesus sustains us while we sleep. But isn't Jesus the infinitely holy One who we've spent our day sinning against in thought and word and deed? How can we sleep easy knowing that what we've just spent our day doing could and should invoke holy, just wrath. As always, Martin Luther as a level headed, Biblical answer...

In the evening when you go to bed, make the sign of the holy cross and say: 'in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.' The standing or kneeling repeat the creed and say the Lord's prayer. If you choose you may also say this little prayer: 'I thank you my heavenly Father, through Jesus Christ your dear Son, that you have graciously kept me this day; and i pray that you would forgive me my sins where i have done wrong and graciously keep me this night. For into your hands i commend myself, my body and my soul, and all things. Let your holy angel be with me that the evil foe may have no power over me. Amen. Then go to sleep at once, and in good cheer.'

If you had to sum up Luther in one sentence it could be worse than 'it's outside of you.' We are simil iustus et peccator, and Luther calls us every night to go to Him outside of us, to go to our righteousness, our substitute, our Savior, and remember that He will keep us though the night, and to sleep well, safe in the palm of His hand.

How would you describe The Gospel on Twitter?

2009-05-04T14:51:00.001-04:00

Here's Rob Bell's effort, as reported in Christianity Today:

I would say that history is headed somewhere. The thousands of little ways in which you are tempted to believe that hope might actually be a legitimate response to the insanity of the world actually can be trusted. And the Christian story is that a tomb is empty, and a movement has actually begun that has been present in a sense all along in creation. And all those times when your cynicism was at odds with an impulse within you that said that this little thing might be about something bigger—those tiny little slivers may in fact be connected to something really, really big.

Here are some excellent thoughts from Greg Gilbert

May Miscellenia

2009-05-04T09:19:00.002-04:00

April was a quiet month on the blogging front, for whatever reason, and a month of contrasts at church. Two of our biggest Sundays, 221 on Easter and 330 on Friend Day, and two deaths in the church, one a tragic road accident. I guess you can't be around a church...you can't be around people long before you see the wisdom, the necessity to weep with those who weep, to rejoice with those who rejoice.

This year i've also really been enjoying going through the Bible chronologically. I was a bit sceptical at first, because, after all, that's not how the Bible was written, but i really like it. I'm not sure whether reading longer chunks is more helpful in say, Leviticus than it would be in Romans, but it's definitely helped my understanding of the overall story line of the Bible, so i guess that's a pretty good endorsement. Reading 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles side by side has proved really useful as well, particularly in appreciating why Chronicles were written. Although i still think i'd put it later in the Bible, who am i to argue.

And for those who know me and are wondering. I was at Adams Park on Saturday. I left North Carolina Thursday evening and got back Sunday afternoon. I had no clear idea of what time it was most of the weekend, but to be there, to see us great promoted with my dad and close friends, to experience the joy of hearing that Bury hadn't won by two goals, that we'd promoted by a goal, and then spill onto the pitch and off, and on again was marvellous. No more awful trips to Grimsby or Macclesfield, no more Tuesday nights at Barnet...hello Charlton, hello Southampton, hello Leeds, hello League One!

Hooray for a well designed Christian book

2009-04-27T14:52:00.003-04:00

'Just Do Something' popped through the door the other day. If i was already handing out awards it would be up there in the Best Designed category in 2009:

CS Lewis on thinking

2009-04-25T21:19:00.002-04:00

It might be that humanity, rebelling against tradition and authority has made a ghastly mistake, a mistake that is not rendered less fatal because the corruptions of those in authority have rendered it very excusable. On the other hand it might be that the Power that rules our species is at this moment carrying out a very daring experiment. Could it be intended that the whole mass of humanity should now move forward and occupy for themselves which were once reserved only for the sages? Is the distinction between wise and simple is starting to disappear because all are now expected to become wise? If so our present blunderings would be but growing pains. But let us make no mistake about our necessities. If we are content to go back and becoming plain and humble men obeying a tradition, well. If we are ready to climb and struggle on till we become sages ourselves, better still. But the man who will neither obey the wisdom of others or adventure for himself is fatal. A society where the many simple obey the few seers can live. A society where all were seers could live all the more. But a society where the mass is still simple and the seers are no longer attended to can only achieve superficiality, baseness, ugliness and in the end extinction. On or back we must go; to stay here is death.
CS Lewis, Miracles, P47

Is he right? Maybe. In the next chapter Lewis goes onto talk about common, but 'red herring' objections to Christianity and miracles. 1) People didn't understand enough about miracles in Biblical times to know they were miracles. BUT unless you understand the parameters of nature, you don't know what's miraculous. Unless Joseph understood the way women became pregnant, he wouldn't have been angry at Mary, unless the disciples knew that man can not walk on water they wouldn't have been scared when Jesus did. No one would be surprised if the sun rose in the west one morning unless we understood that it should rise in the east.

2) That the universe is so huge how can we claim that God is concerned with us? Men have known since ancient Egypt the size of the universe, in the Psalms it's used as fuel for praise. No Christian has ever claimed the universe existed for man, it exists for God. No Christian should ever claim that Jesus came to Earth because we were lovely, but because He is love. And if naturalism is right, it still doesn't give us an answer. Old errors don't pass away, they simply change their form.

Are those slightly lazy, ill thought out objections to Christianity and miracles evidence of what Lewis is talking about? Maybe.

Spurgeon on Paul's cry: 'bring me the books!

2009-04-24T17:42:00.002-04:00

Justin Taylor quoted this long section from Spurgeon's sermon on 2 Timothy 4:13:

We do not know what the books were about, and we can only form some guess as to what the parchments were. Paul had a few books which were left, perhaps wrapped up in the cloak, and Timothy was to be careful to bring them. Even an apostle must read. . . . A man who comes up into the pulpit, professes to take his text on the spot, and talks any quantity of nonsense, is the idol of many. If he will speak without premeditation, or pretend to do so, and never produce what they call a dish of dead men's brains—oh! that is the preacher. How rebuked are they by the apostle!

He is inspired, and yet he wants books!

He has been preaching at least for thirty years, and yet he wants books!

He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books!

He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books!

He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things which it was unlawful for a men to utter, yet he wants books!

He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books!

The apostle says to Timothy and so he says to every preacher, "Give thyself unto reading." The man who never reads will never be read; he who never quotes will never be quoted. He who will not use the thoughts of other men's brains, proves that he has no brains of his own.

Brethren, what is true of ministers is true of all our people. You need to read. Renounce as much as you will all light literature, but study as much as possible sound theological works, especially the Puritanic writers, and expositions of the Bible. We are quite persuaded that the very best way for you to be spending your leisure, is to be either reading or praying. You may get much instruction from books which afterwards you may use as a true weapon in your Lord and Master's service. Paul cries, "Bring the books"—join in the cry.

I'm off the sit in the eighty degree evening heat with CS Lewis

Faith and Obediance

2009-04-20T11:59:00.002-04:00

Do you sometimes read something that makes you sit up and go hmm? See the interchange of the word believe and the word obey in John 3:36. If you believe in the Son you will have life, if you do not obey, the wrath of God remains on you. No cheap repentance and easy license here.

The Pyros have been writing about the same thing.

Mark 10:17-31 (2)

2009-04-19T14:32:00.000-04:00

I don’t know how that makes you feel. Discouraged? Upset? Worried ? Well if that’s the case then you’re in good company. Verse 26 says ‘lo, and they were astonished out of measure, saying among themselves, who then can be saved.’ Jesus message is so radical that even His closest followers were struggling with it. Who can be saved if it’s this hard? If even a man who looks so good struggles, how can we have any hope? If it’s not just about being good, who can be saved? Is it possible for me to be saved? Jesus answers that question in verse 27 ‘and Jesus looking upon them sayeth ‘with men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.’ How can we be saved? With man it is impossible. With man there is no way we can do it. There is no way this young man, despite his wholehearted obedience to the commandments Jesus listed could save himself. Just no way. With man it is impossible. But not with God. Not with God. With God all things are possible, with God you can be saved, with God this man can be saved. With God you can give up what you need to give up, you can change what you need to change, you can stop going to the places you need to stop going to, you can give a reason for the hope that you have. With God this is possible. I said earlier that the one thing the man lacked was Jesus. This is what I mean. He lacked a love for Him, a heart to obey Him, an understanding that he needs Jesus to be saved, he needs Jesus to save him, not his own efforts. That’s what he needed, that’s what I need, that’s what you need.

Please don’t miss this. Being a Christian means more than being part of a family that comes to church, or going to a Christian school, or going to camp or competing in competition or being nice to your parents or dressing and acting right. That’s the same sort of thing that the young man presented to Jesus as why he should inherit eternal life. It is impossible for us to be saved because of the things we do ourselves. This is what Jesus says. But not with God. God can save us. Not because of our efforts but in spite of them. Jesus would have saved this young man in a flash if he’d wanted to be, not because he’d kept the commandments, but in spite of that fact.

Then Peter speaks. It’s always worth paying attention to what Peter says in Mark’s Gospel because you know it’s normally something pretty daft. Verse 28 says ‘then Peter began to say unto Him, ‘lo, we have left all and followed thee.’ Peter says ‘hey Jesus, look dude, we’ve given up everything, we’ve done what you said, so…what are you going to do about that?’ Peter always has an answer, and in this case it’s a good one. If anyone has given things up to follow Jesus, it’s his disciples. They’ve given up their jobs, their homes, their family, their friends…everything, to follow Jesus as He walks around Israel. Peter wants Jesus to remember than when it comes to giving things up, he’s up there with the best. So what does Jesus have to say to that? Is He grateful? Does He apologise for speaking so harshly to the young man and let Peter know what a great guy He is? Sometimes we’re like Peter, we want Jesus to remember all the great stuff we could have had, all the fun we could have taken part in if it hadn’t been for Him.

Jesus, as we might have come to expect, has a different answer, and a better one. In verses 29-31, we see this answer: and Jesus answered and said ‘verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left house or brethren, or sister, or father or mother, or wife or children or lands for my sake and the Gospel’s but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brethren and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions, and in the world to come eternal life.

What Jesus is saying here is that it is worth it to be a Christian. It is worth it to give up what you need to so that you might gain Jesus. It is worth the ridicule, worth being an outcast, worth ‘missing out’ because of what you gain. This verse is true, trust me. When I came to America I left my sister, my father, my mother, my land…most of everything that made me who I was. And now? I miss my family every day, but Jesus has given me Christian brothers and sisters, a home at this church, friends, hobbies, a job. Jesus tells us not to worry, that whatever we think we’ll lose in this life for following Him, we’ll get back much, much, much more in the next life. There will be persecutions. We will struggle and suffer sometimes, people will laugh at us, people will end friendships with us. But it will be worth it. It would have been worth it for the rich young man to sell all that he had so that he could follow Jesus. He would have got it back 100 times. The same is true for you and me. There are things we all need to give up, but it’s worth it.

Jesus says it’s impossible to do this by ourselves. It’s impossible for us to do what we need to do. But with God’s it’s possible, He has done it on the cross. Jesus saving work that we celebrate on Easter Sunday is the ground for all His teaching, and all our hope. We can’t do what we need to do to be saved, that’s why Jesus had to die, that’s why Easter is so important, that’s why our response to the cross is so important.

Mark 10:17-31 (1)

2009-04-17T10:36:00.000-04:00

Lets look at a brief outline of the story. Jesus has just come from the famous incident where he holds children in His arms, and tells His followers that they must become childlike if they want to follow Him. Then a rich young man comes and knees before Jesus and asks ‘good master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?’ In 1 peter 3:15 we’re told to always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in you. I think it’s very interesting that this young man came and knelt before Jesus and asked Him this question. He must have seen in Jesus a different hope, a better hope. He must have seen that He was a teacher from God at least. He may not have understood fully who Jesus was, but he had caught a glimpse. When was the last time someone asked you what the reason for your hope was? Do we live differently from the non Christians around us? Do we live like we hope in something different from them?

Jesus’ answer to this young man is both instructive and condemning. He says in verses 18 and 19 ‘why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is God. Thou knowest the commandments, do not commit adultery, do not kill, no steal, do not bear false witness, defraud not, honour thy father and thy mother.’ Jesus answer seems like two different answers, but as we see this incident play out, we’ll understand why He talks as He does. Firstly; there is none good but one, that is God. This is a statement totally opposed to what most people think today. People are regarded as ‘good,’ we’re not so sure about God anymore. People are the judge, God is in the dock. Not according to Jesus. Jesus says there is no one good apart from God. Why do bad things happen to good people? Well, according to Jesus, there are no good people. We’ll come back to this.

The second part of Jesus’ answer is just as interesting. He lists the commandments in answer to the man’s question. Do not commit adultery, do not kill, no not steal. But there’s something missing from this list isn’t there? He’s missed out the commandments that concern man and God. In my experience whenever you ask someone why they deserve to go to Heaven they’ll always say ‘well I’ve never killed anyone or stolen anything, I’m not that bad.’ and that’s exactly what the young man says here in verse 20: ‘and he answered and said unto Him, Master, all these I have observed from my youth.’ He says: ‘Jesus, I’ve done all that, I’ve been doing them all my life, I have kept these commands and kept them well.’ He is, in many ways a typical unsaved member of a church. He does everything, he attends every event, he’s respectful, everyone thinks he’s a good guy…and he’s going to Hell. That’s what Jesus says. Look at verses 21 and 22 with me: ‘then Jesus beholding him, loved him and said unto him, ‘one thing thou lackest, go thy way, sell whatever thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in Heaven: and come, take up thy cross and follow me. And he was sad and that saying, and went away grieved, for he had great possessions.’

The young man thinks he’s good, good enough for Heaven. We know that Jesus says that there is none good, but God only. This man is not good enough for Heaven. You are not good enough for Heaven. So what is he supposed to do? Jesus says ‘sell everything and follow me.’ So is that how we get to Heaven? Being poor? Living in a hut with no electricity? Do I need to sell my laptop to go to Heaven? The man went away sad because as much as he wanted to inherit eternal life he didn’t want it more than his riches. He was more interested in thirty, fourty, fifty years of comfort here than he was in an eternity of joy in Heaven . Jesus said he lacked one thing…what was that one thing? Saving faith! He lacked a love for Jesus. He lacked an understanding that what Jesus called him to lose was nothing in comparison to what he would gain.

Here’s where tonight’s passage gets really relevant for you and me. Jesus says later in verse 25 ‘it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God.’ Will it be hard for you to go to Heaven? Do you find it hard to be a Christian? Do you find it hard to do what you know is right when you’re at school, or when you’re surrounded by your friends? Are there things, like this mans riches, that you need to give up so that you can enter the Kingdom of Heaven? Do you need to take some things to Jesus and give them up because they are making you like a camel going through the eye of a needle? It was hard for the rich man not to be rich and to be a Christian instead. What would his rich friends say if he gave all his possessions away ‘because God told him to?’ They’d laugh at him, he’d be an outcast. Is that true for you? What’s holding you back from giving everything you’ve got for Jesus? What’s stopping you? Do you think you’re ‘good’ like this man because you’ve never killed anyone? If you think it’s tough in middle school it’s going to get a whole lot harder in high school. If you think it’s tough to stand up for Jesus at high school then trust me, it’s going to get a whole lot harder at university. It just is. If you think that you can just not break commandments and be ok as a Christian, Jesus says theirs is one thing you lack. You lack Jesus.

Lest we forget

2009-04-15T10:06:00.003-04:00

Today marks the twentieth annivesary of the Hillsboro' disaster. An awful, awful day. The number of games i've been to, the fanatical way i follow Wycombe Wanderers home and away, i've only felt in serious danger maybe twice so with goosebumps i write, there but for the grace of God go i:

John Alfred Anderson (62)
Colin Mark Ashcroft (19)
James Gary Aspinall (18)
Kester Roger Marcus Ball (16)
Gerard Bernard Patrick Baron (67)
Simon Bell (17)
Barry Sidney Bennett (26)
David John Benson (22)
David William Birtle (22)
Tony Bland (22)
Paul David Brady (21)
Andrew Mark Brookes (26)
Carl Brown (18)
David Steven Brown (25)
Henry Thomas Burke (47)
Peter Andrew Burkett (24)
Paul William Carlile (19)
Raymond Thomas Chapman (50)
Gary Christopher Church (19)
Joseph Clark (29)
Paul Clark (18)
Gary Collins (22)
Stephen Paul Copoc (20)
Tracey Elizabeth Cox (23)
James Philip Delaney (19)
Christopher Barry Devonside (18)
Christopher Edwards (29)
Vincent Michael Fitzsimmons (34)
Thomas Steven Fox (21)
Jon-Paul Gilhooley (10)
Barry Glover (27)
Ian Thomas Glover (20)
Derrick George Godwin (24)
Roy Harry Hamilton (34)
Philip Hammond (14)
Eric Hankin (33)
Gary Harrison (27)
Stephen Francis Harrison (31)
Peter Andrew Harrison (15)
David Hawley (39)
James Robert Hennessy (29)
Paul Anthony Hewitson (26)
Carl Darren Hewitt (17)
Nicholas Michael Hewitt (16)
Sarah Louise Hicks (19)
Victoria Jane Hicks (15)
Gordon Rodney Horn (20)
Arthur Horrocks (41)
Thomas Howard (39)
Thomas Anthony Howard (14)
Eric George Hughes (42)
Alan Johnston (29)
Christine Anne Jones (27)
Gary Philip Jones (18)
Richard Jones (25)
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Carl David Lewis (18)
David William Mather (19)
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John McBrien (18)
Marion Hazel McCabe (21)
Joseph Daniel McCarthy (21)
Peter McDonnell (21)
Alan McGlone (28)
Keith McGrath (17)
Paul Brian Murray (14)
Lee Nicol (14)
Stephen Francis O'Neill (17)
Jonathon Owens (18)
William Roy Pemberton (23)
Carl William Rimmer (21)
David George Rimmer (38)
Graham John Roberts (24)
Steven Joseph Robinson (17)
Henry Charles Rogers (17)
Colin Andrew Hugh William Sefton (23)
Inger Shah (38)
Paula Ann Smith (26)
Adam Edward Spearritt (14)
Philip John Steele (15)
David Leonard Thomas (23)
Patrik John Thompson (35)
Peter Reuben Thompson (30)
Stuart Paul William Thompson (17)
Peter Francis Tootle (21)
Christopher James Traynor (26)
Martin Kevin Traynor (16)
Kevin Tyrrell (15)
Colin Wafer (19)
Ian David Whelan (19)
Martin Kenneth Wild (29)
Kevin Daniel Williams (15)
Graham John Wright (17)

MacArthur: tearing the dress from the Song

2009-04-14T14:56:00.003-04:00

I blogged though some of my reading in the Song of Soloman last year. I think it gatecrashed my 'top five books of the Bible' (a list i keep with the other heretical ones i make, 'top five reasons i love the orthodox church' for example) but the more i read it, the more sure i became that it was about Christ and the Church, and then man and woman. Irish Calvinist has linked to an article by John MacArthur who's no nonsense, straight talking exegetical ministry i'm really growing to appreciate:

But it has become popular in certain circles to employ extremely graphic descriptions of physical intimacy as a way of expounding on the euphemisms in Solomon’s poem. As this trend develops, each new speaker seems to find something more shocking in the metaphors than any of his predecessors ever imagined.

Thus we are told that the Shulammite’s poetic language invoking the delights of an apple tree (Song 2:3) is a metaphor for oral sex. The comfort and delight of a simple embrace (2:6) is not what it seems to be at all. Apparently it’s impossible to describe what that verse really means without mentioning certain unmentionable body parts.

We’re assured moreover that the shocking hidden meanings of these texts aren’t merely descriptive; they are prescriptive. The secret gnosis of Solomon’s Song portray obligatory acts wives must do if this is what satisfies their husbands, regardless of the wife’s own desire or conscience. I was recently given a recording of one of these messages, where the speaker said, “Ladies, let me assure you of this: if you think you’re being dirty, he’s pretty happy.”

Such pronouncements are usually made amid raucous laughter, but evidently we are expected to take them seriously. When the laughter died away, that speaker added, “Jesus Christ commands you to do this.”

That approach is not exegesis; it is exploitation. It is contrary to the literary style of the book itself. It is spiritually tantamount to an act of rape. It tears the beautiful poetic dress off Song of Solomon, strips that portion of Scripture of its dignity, and holds it up to be laughed at and leered at in a carnal way.

'i wish i could describe Him to ya'

2009-04-10T10:53:00.002-04:00

This is probably one of the best presentations of this i've seen:

The King

2009-04-09T12:23:00.003-04:00

Don't you love the providence of God? Don't you love it when your Bible readings collide? This morning i read 1 Samuel 4-8, Luke 22 and Psalm 89.

1 Samuel 4-8 is both instructive and upsetting. Israel is defeated in battle by the Philistines, somehow they decide that if they take the Ark of the Covenant into battle with them they will be guaranteed success. Wrong, Israel is defeated, the Ark is captured and Eli dies as a result of the shock. But as wrong as Israel was about the Ark being a good luck trinket, they were right about it's power. The Ark is placed in the temple of Dagon, but the statue of Dagon can not stand with the Ark. He falls, his limbs broken off. That's so cool. Then the Ark brings disease wherever it goes in Philistia, and is eventually returned.

Israel have obviously had enough of this. Surely rejecting God and having a king 'like the other nations' is the answer. Of course! Samuel warns Israel what sort of king they will get in return for rejecting God, while, probably at the same time writing the book of Judges. Israel will get a King who will take their sons, their daughters and their crops.

Luke 22 sees the beginning of a dark and glorious coronation. here is God's King, God's anointed, God's man. Here is the Messiah. This is the King who will not Lord over his people as the Gentiles but will serve His people. Willing die for His Father and His people. At least Israel is consistent. They didn't want God to be their King in 1 Samuel, and they don't now. But i love how God works, i love that Israel's rejection of God as their King results in God's Son being crowned King.

In Psalm 89 there is great hope. Hope in God's promise to David, hope that in times when God's people are crushed God is faithful. Hope that God will not hide Himself forever because He is faithful to Himself.

Jesus is truly God's King, crowned with thorns, dying to save His people. Even in darkness, even in rebellion, God is King, God is faithful. Since listening to Carson's talks on Jeremiah i've been thinking about my hearts reaction to God as my King and Father. Do i want a King? or just a forgiver? Someone to kindly overlook my failures. This Easter lets look at the cross. Let's see God's man, the Godman, God's King, Jesus, doing what we could never do for the sake of His subjects. And lets be humbled around the cross, and rejoice.

Trying to understand Judges

2009-04-08T09:13:00.003-04:00

Paul linked me to this very helpful online book the other day, when i lamented my lack of understand of the book of Judges. Most of what i'm about to write comes from that, and maybe a little bit from my own study!

1) Judges is about Jesus. Obviously. The whole point of the book is that we need a Judge that will neither be evil or die. And we've got one. We need God to choose our leader, our King, He needs to be God's man, God's anointed. And Jesus is. Judges screams for Jesus. Our hearts should cry to Him and for Him as we read. There was no King in the days of the Judges, we need a King, but not any old human king, God's King.

2) Linked to that, Judges seems to be a polemic against human leadership. Some of the Judges are a pretty shoddy bunch. Look Israel says (probably) Samuel, you're fools for wanting centralised, man made power, this is what it brings. Idol worship, civil war, needless slaughter. Maybe this is Samuel's tract against human Kingship. It shows us how much we need the Godman, how much we need Jesus to rule over us. No human king will ever do it well. Interestingly in Judges Israel is oppressed by foreign powers and rescued by God's judges, in the later history books Israel is oppressed by wicked kings from within and God 'rescues' them by the exile.

3) I see myself so much in Israel in this book. The cycle of sin-oppression-crying out-rescue-sin is pretty familiar. It shows me that my sin is gross. Cosmic treason. It shows me that God is gracious to provide a judge. And if He's gracious to provide Gideon (the mighty man who hid in the gleaning pit) and Deborah and Samson, how much more gracious and generous has He been to provide us with Jesus.

4) Judges gives deeper meaning to Ruth. I think. Israel wanted a King, it needed to be God's King, He had to come from Judah. And in Ruth 4 we see the Kingly line continued. We see that even in the darkest of times spiritually for a nation God's purpose is still at work. He is still planning to provide His King, the King. Israel's rejection of Him would not go unpunished, but they would not go unsaved. Through Boaz and Ruth comes Obed, then Jesse, then David...then Jesus. God is still perfectly at work in the darkest times.

Seven

2009-04-05T15:07:00.003-04:00

1) Driving to the airport Monday to pick up the little sister. It was nice to go to RDU without having to leave or being left for a change. And i had a whole week with Catherine to look forward to. Plus a new episode of House!

2) Tuesday was lunch at Blackbeards, very good, then driving to Kinston to have lunch where Rachel's student teaching, and then in the evening, my/our first baseball game. I love college sports, the collision of the amateur and the professional, knowing that the kids scoring touchdowns and home runs one day are learning about economics and history the next. Thats cool to me. And East Carolina won 15-4. And it wasn't too cold.

3) Wednesday it rained. It seems that spring in North Carolina involves some days in the seventies and eighties and some days where it rains like the end of the world. But we went to a civil war fort, Fort Macon, and learn about the war between the states. And i had blueberry pancakes for breakfast. Excellent stuff.

4) Thursday it was time to rest...we did very little. I actually don't remember anything about thursday...but i'm sure we had a nice time!

5) And then Friday...boo, back to the airport. We had a good meeting with the wedding caterer in the morning and then spent about an hour learning about the Estuary that flows through Washington...which was more exciting than it sounds!

6) I've also been reading Judges, a difficult book. It's probably the one i struggle the most with in the Old Testament, it's my Deuteronomy. My new ESV Study Bible has been very useful though, and i'm seeing in the four part cycle (sin, oppression, crying out, saviour) more and more of myself as well. Which is humbling and instructive. And how amazing to have a Judge that will never die and is good!

7) Sunday. Lunch with a family from church, a great time in Childrens church and going out to eat with the junior school kids after the PM meeting. I <3 church!

Marcus Honeysett: Jesus is the Israel of God

2009-04-02T17:42:00.003-04:00

Warm your heart and inform your worship, part one, part two.

Psalm 81: A hedonist's Psalm

2009-04-02T16:47:00.005-04:00

Aren't the Psalms a treasure trove. I love reading them because that's where i see myself so clearly in scripture. Not because i've got a King David complex, but because the Psalms are full of questions, frustrations and failures, with a few moments of joy and excitement peeking through. That's why i love the Psalms.

I also love seeing ideas that are bought to their fullness in the New Testament introduced in the Old, which is why i love Psalm 81, particularly the last seven verses.

God reveals Himself as the Lord who bought Israel out of Egypt. He is God, He is good. Surely Israel needs to gain his respect, needs to work hard to repay Him right? No. Verse 10 says, 'open your mouth wide and i will fill it.' That's it. That's what Israel needs to do. To be full we don't need to crawl up the Basilica steps on our knees, we don't need to fast to the point of emaciation. There's actually nothing we can do, except open our mouth. This id death to self reliance, death to works fulfillment. Open your mouth and the Lord will fill it.

There's the tragedy of the Old Testament in a nutshell. Instead of relying and trusting the Lord with open mouths, instead Israel followed foreign gos, Canaanite gods. Instead of following God, who would defeat their enemies, they followed gods that demanded child sacrifice. Why? Well why do we ignore the God who saved us and chase after gods that did not, will not. Sex, fame and fortune, more stuff...these things promise much, but why drink from the toilet when there are fresh streams of water?

But it's not just water. God will feed His people will fine wheat and honey from the rock. That's we open our mouths for, the best of the best. Christianity is hedonistic self denial. Deny yourself the things that you love that will destroy you, for what will give you life. Sin looks great, but it's sugar coated poison... Open your mouth and be fed with life.

Cerulean Sanctum: Why Christian men don't find their purpose

2009-03-31T15:32:00.002-04:00

Very thougtful, thought provoking article from Dan Edelen here. Very hard to read in places, and even though i'm not sure all of them are fair, it makes me glad i met my wife on a missions trip really...

Don Carson on Jeremiah

2009-03-30T12:01:00.003-04:00

I've finally just finished listening my way through a six part series by Carson on Jeremiah. Very illuminating, encouraging, challenging, scary, difficult, excellent stuff.

A couple of things i noticed:

1) It seems that most of the problems for Israel occurred because Kings, en masse, ignored the most important command to them in the Scriptures. That is, write down and learn and read and obey this law, that you might fear God. Time and again the prophet is ignored when he has a message from God, time and again we see Kings ignore the Word of God. And so they were judged.

2) Sin hardens our heart. Early on in the book Israel is likened to a camel on heat. 'How can we give up our false gods?' she cries. Sin does this to our hearts. Although we know what is right, we don't want to do it. We'd rather protect and provide for our sin instead of giving it up. Eventually we'll be so hard giving it up won't even be an option.

3) God is jealous and personal. Israel makes a cuckold of God. Israel whores after other gods. This language wouldn't be appropriate unless God was personal, unless He was personally affected by the sins of His people, unless His anger and wrath against it was real. Why does God give up Israel? To punish them and to bring them back. He is Hosea, we all are Gomer.

4) In the middle there is grace. Chapters 30-33 are full of grace. There are 14 'restoration oracles' in this block. God will break the back of Israel's oppressors, God will save His people from a distant land, God will restore them nationally and spiritually, God will restore their honour and end their weariness. And on, and on. God is gracious because God is gracious. He will save whom He will save. That's the best news there is.

Go listen!

Driscoll on ABC Nightline

2009-03-27T14:13:00.002-04:00

I don't mean to turn today in 'Driscoll Video Friday' but i've just spent a very profitable time watching Mark Driscoll, Deepak Chopra, Carlton Pearson and Annie Lobert debating the existence of the Devil.

I think Driscoll does very well, although i suppose i would. I thought he did pretty well not to just get up and hit Pearson on a couple of occasions. It's very, very sad to see and hear Carlton Pearson and, to an extent Deepak Chopra, falling over the same problems that can be well answered by some high schoolers i know. Very sad. I'm so sick and tired of this lazy, subjective, 'real to you' junk that these guys come up with. Also, somewhat illuminating to see that Deepak and Pearson get angrier and more defensive than Driscoll. Top work. I'm glad the Gospel is true, i'm glad that the whole of life isn't a system of enlightened feelings and knowledge. Thats very sad...and the Gospel is good news. I want it to be true...

Driscoll: Men and Marriage

2009-03-27T09:37:00.002-04:00

There have been 23,856 page views of the sermon in the last four days. If you're a man, and you haven't watched it yet, what all have you been doing?

Be encouraged, be rebuked, be challenged, be a bit scared when he starts shouting. It's 71 minutes long including the Q and A at the end.

The Transfiguration

2009-03-25T10:12:00.003-04:00

I'm preaching on Mark 9:2-13 in Teen Church tonight, another passage thats hard to preach. As with so much of the Gospels, and i'm learning as we go though mark, so much of mark, the answers are hidden in the Old Testament.

Why do Jesus' clothes become radiantly white, more intense than anyone on earth could die them? Because in Daniel 7:9 the Ancient of Days took His seat and His clothing was white like snow, and the hair of His head like pure wool.

Why do Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus, (an odd mix in some ways, David and Isaiah might have made more sense)? Because all the law and prophets bear witness to Jesus. Jesus is the one like Moses who was promises in Deuteronomy 18:15. Israel failed to listen to Moses with great consequences, so we, if we fail to listen to Him, we will suffer great consequences.

Why did this happen at all? To show Peter that Jesus was right. Peter had just confessed Jesus as the Christ, but he still didn't seem to know what it meant. In his mind the Christ would overthrow Rome and restore the glorious Kingdom to Israel. That's what he rebuked Jesus for saying he had to die. But look Peter, this is Jesus, the glorious, beloved Son, you must listen to Him. You must.

Jesus is the beloved Son, the last Moses, the Son of Man, the Son of God. But Jesus is also the suffering servant, the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy that Mark paints Him as all the way through his Gospel.

Peter needed to know this, and listen to Jesus. And so do we.

ESV Study Bible for £24.90

2009-03-23T12:35:00.002-04:00

Those heroic fellas at 10ofthose.com have made the splendid ESV study Bible available for just £24.90 plus postage and packing. Is this not the deal of deals?

Email info@10ofthose.com to place your order...

Letting dead men teach you

2009-03-23T10:05:00.001-04:00

Piper blogs about heart devotions and head study:

without a book or a class about what some part of the Bible means and a teacher who is ahead of you, your devotions will probably flatten out at a low level of insight. Year after year you will go over the same biblical ground and find it as perplexing as before. There will be little advance in understanding

Now, for my favourite part of any day...to the books!

Mark 7:1-23 (2)

2009-03-23T09:06:00.000-04:00

This is a serious problem. Your greatest need, my greatest need, is to be acceptable to God. We do so much to try and appear acceptable, but Jesus says that appearances do not matter. What we can not see is more important to Him that what we can see. Jesus explains what He means in verses 14 and 15: ’and when he had called all the people unto Him he said unto them ’hearken unto me every one of you and understand, there is nothing from outside that entering into a man can defile him: but the things that come out of him, those are they that defile a man. If any man hath ears to hear let him hear.’ Jesus is keen for people to hear and understand what He is about to say. He starts of by saying ‘listen,’ then He says ‘understand,’ then He says ‘if anyone hath ears let Him hear.’ Three times he asks for people to listen in such a short period of time, what He is about to say is important. What He says turns the world upside down. It is not what we eat that is the problem. It’s not what we wear, it’s not who we hang out with, it’s not the music we listen to or the tv we watch, although we need to make wise Christian choices all of that stuff. Jesus says that there is a problem inside of us that needs fixing. He says that it is the things that come out of him, those are they that defile the man.

What makes us unacceptable to God? What is inside of us, not what is outside of us. It’s who we are that is the problem, not what we do. What we do is only a problem because it is evidence of who we are. In one sentence Jesus turns the world upside down. In one day He challenges, and changes what everyone things about people and their relationship with God. It wasn’t popular then, and it’s not popular now, but look at what He says. Those things that come out of Him, they are what defile Him. Amazing. And terribly important.

In the Old Testament people thought that God didn’t care about people breaking His law, that as long as they were in the right place at the right time they were acceptable to God. Here in Mark some people tried to keep the law genuinely believing that it would make them acceptable to God. Today, some people think that as long as they’re wearing a tie on a Sunday morning in church it really doesn’t matter what they do the rest of the week. Some people hold to the standards and traditions that we come up with because they genuinely think that God will be pleased with them. Here Jesus makes it clear that they are both wrong. It is the inside that counts.

But why? We need a bit more than that, and, it seems, so did the people with Jesus. We see in verse 17 that when He was entered into the house from the people, his disciples asked Him concerning the parable. We see from this that people then were not really happy with the idea that there is something wrong inside of us. They even thought Jesus was telling them a parable rather than just preaching to them. I love Jesus’ response here. ‘are ye so without understanding also?’ He says, basically, guys, if you don’t get this you are really stupid. Don’t you understand what I’m saying? ‘whatsoever thing that enters a man from outside can not defile Him.’ It’s like Jesus is jumping up and down and yelling right now. ‘It’s not the outside that’s the problem it’s the inside.’ We need to get this, just like the disciples did and we need to respond.

So why is the inside the problem? Because that’s where the action happens. Because the inside controls the outside. What does the heart do? It produces, as verse 21 says: evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. Do you see what the problem is that Jesus is addressing? It is these things that make us unacceptable to God, not the food we eat or the clothes we wear. It’s our evil thoughts, our lying, our pride that is the problem. No amount of coat and ties are going to put these things away. These are the things, verse 28 that come from within and defile a man.

What Jesus needed his listeners in mark 7 to understand is that their problem was not outside them, but inside them. That their problems could not be solved by washing their hands, or eating the right food, or wearing the right clothes. It is a tragic thing in the church today that so many people think, and teach, that by wearing certain clothes, by being in the right place at the right time and behaving ourselves we can be made acceptable to God. What a small, unimpressive, puny ‘god’ they have created for themselves.

I started off by asking how we could be acceptable to God. The bad news is that our problem is much worse than we thought, our problem is deep, deep, deep inside of us. The good news, the best news, is that, as we saw last week, Jesus came for people who are sick like we are sick. He came to heal us. He came to save us, to change us the way we need to be changed, from the inside out.

Mark 7:1-23 (1)

2009-03-21T10:20:00.001-04:00

I once heard a story of a woman who cooked a ham every Sunday for lunch. And every Sunday she would cut off the end of the ham and throw it away even though it was perfectly good. Someone asked her why she did this and she said because that’s what her mom had always done. So then someone asked her mom why she always cut off and threw away a perfectly good piece of ham? She said it was because that’s what her mom had always done. Then someone asked the second lady’s mom why she always cut off the end of a perfectly good piece of ham before cooking it. Turns out that it was simply because her pan was too short to hold the whole ham.

Sometimes our traditions are like that, sometimes the things we do hark back to another day which has passed, sometimes we end up saying and doing things in a certain way just because that’s what people have always done, rather than because there is any good reason for it. All so that that may be acceptable to God.

How to be acceptable to God is, obviously, the biggest question that the Bible answers, the biggest question in our lives, and the biggest question in this evenings passage. How can we be acceptable to God? In the opening five verses of our story tonight we meet a group, not for the first time, who think they know the answer to that question.

They know how to the be acceptable to God, and they think their job is to go around making sure everyone else is doing exactly what they say. We see something of their rules and traditions in verse 3 ‘for the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their hands, oft, eat not, holding the traditions of the elders.’ According to Jewish tradition, unless people often washed their hands, they shouldn’t be eating. And yet we read in verse one that Jesus disciples’ were eating bread with ‘defiled, that is to say, unwashen, hands.’ This would have been very upsetting to the Jewish leaders. Not only were Jesus’ disciples being unhygienic, they were surely being unholy, they were surely acting unacceptably towards God. How could they be God’s people if they were not washing their hands? I love how Mark commentates on this incident, twice in these verses he mentions that the Pharisees were upset because the traditions were being broken, not because they saw Jesus do something unBiblical. This situation is close to home sometimes isn’t it? We’ve all met people who believe in things, and defend things that we can not find in the Bible. Well that’s what’s happening here.

Jesus then spends a long time answering them, between verses 6 and 13. Lets look at what He says ‘well hath Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites as it is written ’these people honoureth me with their lips but their hearts are far from me. How be it in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrine the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups and many other such things you do.’ And He said to them
‘full well you reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.’

What was the problem that these guys had? Why were they so upset with Jesus and then Jesus so angry with them? Because they taught their opinions as if they were from God, and ignored what God Himself taught. They didn’t care about the commandments of God and were more concerned about whether or not people were washing their hands. God had called them to preach but they were acting more like fussy old women. This was not, and is not right. We see the very serious result of that in verses seven and eight. Jesus says that people worship Him in vain, He says that they honour Him with their mouths yet their hearts are far from Him. He wanted people’s hearts. He wants your heart. He’s not interested in just your church attendance record, or just how much you read your Bible, or just how much you serve, He wants your heart to be near Him. Now, He wants you to come to church and read your Bible and serve. But he only wants you to do that because your heart is near Him. If you come to church because of tradition, then Jesus says you worship Him in vain. If you would rather be almost anywhere else in the world than in that sanctuary between 11 and 12 on a Sunday morning, if you sit in church waiting for lunchtime to come, then Jesus says you worship in vain. He says that we are not acceptable to Him.

Mark Driscoll interviews Matt Chandler

2009-03-18T16:09:00.003-04:00

A great way to spend 28 minutes...you can listen here, or watch here

Rachel's Mum and i have a different view of some aspects of Church work

2009-03-17T11:38:00.001-04:00

'so where are y'all meeting?'

'Bojangles in Vanceboro.'

'urghh, Bojanges, why can't you all play racquetball or something?'

'hey if we can not eat, we will not meet.'

The Weekend

2009-03-15T21:13:00.003-04:00

Goodness. I love my job, i love being busy, this weekend has been the daddy...i am ready to go to bed and sleep until people start calling me Rip Van Ed.

First off on friday night we watched the ACC basketball tournament at church. Now a year ago i wouldn't have understood the big deal about college basketball, but the south eastern united states more or less closed down on friday to watch the games. And that was just a regional tournament, the national championships start on tuesday, and from thursday to sunday for the next few weekends there are games for twelve hours a day. We left church just after midnight saturday morning.

Saturday was much the same getting to church about two, watching more of the games, hosting a Bible college choir in the evening before getting home about 830. Then we got a call that one of the older ladies in church was in a very bad way in the hospital, so we headed back to to Greenville, stayed and prayed for a couple of hours, and got back just after midnight sunday morning.

For once it was almost a relief that i'm not teaching on a sunday morning at the moment. I was just about awake enough for sunday school and kids church, but it was a struggle. Then back to the hospital then home for an all too short nap, then back to church, rounding everything off with a 15 minute parent meeting after the service.

I'm bushed right now, but thrilled at everything i'm involved in personally, and we as a church are doing. I'm excited about going to work again tomorrow, preaching on wednesday night, and twice on sunday as Rachel's dad is in Tennessee. I'm also excited about going to bed, very shortly!

Is Theology Poetry?

2009-03-12T12:53:00.003-04:00

Piper said somewhere that in his youth his was never far from a CS Lewis book. Having spent this week reading 'The Weight of Glory,' which includes the eponymous sermon and seven or eight more, i can see why.

This morning i read 'Is Theology Poetry,' which i believe may be my new favourite, maybe even in front of 'The Weight of Glory' itself. In it Lewis is posed, and answers the question of whether people believe the Gospel because it is aesthetically, poetically pleasing rather than because it is true. I'm not sure this is a question a lot of people are asking in exactly these terms, but the way Lewis answers is very helpful in thinking about how to answer the scientific objections to Christianity.

Lewis starts answering the question by admitting that there is a poetic beauty about the Gospel, that one can see before one is saved by the Gospel. Someone can see it's a great story before they believe and treasure it. But, and here's where the contra starts, there are more beautiful stories that people believe, and, in fact, almost every dogma that people believe has a 'poetry' to it.

Science for example, is life against the void, then man against nature, then man subjugating nature, and then the suns going cold, and the void returning. That sort of 'against all odds' story is pleasing to us, it interests us. It is beautiful in it's own way. More so maybe than the Gospel. In fact it could be argued that the Gospel loses some of it's mythical poetry when the God of the universe incarnates into a man that can sleep in a rowing boat. That's not as poetic as 'God said and it was,' it's just not. Lewis also makes the point that just because Pagan religions involve some ideas that Christianity involves it neither proves or disproves the Gospel. We should expect them to if we believe in common grace. The Gospel, the man Jesus brings blurry mysticism into sharp, Christian focus.

So what of science? Lewis concludes with this, with the 'scientific position' or 'Wellsianity,' as it's also called. There are two massive problems with science. The first is that adherents to the scientific position, or maybe more the layman that follow them believe that they've answered the question that they've been asked. The problem, says Lewis, is not that their answer is wrong, but that they haven't even begun to deal with the question that Christians are asking. Not, 'how did the universe begin' (and Lewis does a good job of deconstructing pure evolution at this point) but, 'why is human thought any more important than the rustle of the win in the trees?' Science can't answer that question, it's not even trying to.

And lastly, science is to Christianity as our dreams are to the real world. Lewis can make sense of why he dreams about dragons when he is awake. The dream world fits into the real world, it is contained by it. Dreams can not make sense of the real world, it is merely affected by them. Christianity can contain science. So Lewis finishes with these famous words:

the waking world is judged more real because it can thus contain the dreaming world; the dreaming world is judged less real because it can not contain the waking one. For this same reason i am certain that in passing from the scientific points of view to the theological i have passed from dreaming to waking. Christian theology can fit in science, art, morality and the sub Christian religions. The scientific point of view can not fit in any of these things, not even science itself. I believe in Christianity like i believe the sun has risen. Not only because i see it, but because by it, i see everything.

Mark 2:1-17 (2)

2009-03-11T09:53:00.000-04:00

On first glance the second half of our text tonight doesn’t seem to have much to do with the first story, but I think there is. Jesus moves from a house in the city to a beach, people keep following Him, and He keeps teaching them, He calls Levi, who’s better known to you and me as Matthew, a tax collector, and Levi follows Him. Now we might not see anything very shocking in that, but to the Jewish leaders of the time, tax collectors were really one of the worst sorts of people. The tax collectors were seen as national traitors who had sided with Rome instead of Israel to make a few bucks. These tax collectors essentially stole from their own people to live a good lifestyle. The scribes and Pharisees would have been outraged to see Jesus calling men like Levi to Him.

But the story gets worse for the religious guys in 15 and 16 and it came to pass that as Jesus sat at meat in his house many publicans and sinners sat also together with Jesus and His disciples, for there were many, and they followed Him, and when the scribes and Pharisees saw Him eating with publicans and sinners they said unto His disciples; ‘how is it that He eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners.’ I picture this like a bad hip hop video. People are drinking and partying, people are not wearing enough clothes to have decently left the house, there’s a dude wearing a white suit lying on some pillowa.. From that background we can see why the scribes and Pharisees, the religious temple guys, would have questioned Jesus once more. Maybe they’ve heard His teaching and found Him interesting, or even have some respect for what He’s saying, but they do not have a category for a man like Jesus who hangs out with tax collectors, publicans and sinners. They may not be impressed, they are certainly confused. Jesus answers them with words that we need to listen to, with words that should scare us and make us look at ourselves hard.

Verse 17 says when Jesus heard it He saith unto them, ‘they that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.’ Jesus came to call sinners to repentance. Sinners. Not people who reckon they’re ok because their grades are up and they’ve opened the Bible on their own for ten minutes this week. Sinners. Not the religious types from Israel, but the sinners from Israel. The lowest of the low. We see it in our passage this evening, Jesus heals a man with the palsy, calls a tax collector and eats with sinners and publicans. All the time the religious crowd is standing on the fringes questioning and criticizing.

In our passage tonight Jesus treats a sick man by forgiving His sins, and treats sinners like a doctor. That’s why He closes in verse 17 by saying them that are whole have no need of a physician, but them that are sick. There is a greater sickness in the world than physical sickness. Being seriously ill is an awful thing and when Jesus returns all sickness will gone forever. But there is something worse. Jesus leaves us here by calling attention to our bigger need, our deeper need. The need to have our sins forgiven. He comes not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. So if we, like the religious leaders of the time here think we are righteous, think that we are doing ok, think that we don’t need any help, we need to be careful, we need to be worried, because what we’re saying is we don’t really need Jesus. But here’s the wonderful news. If you woke up this morning, or any morning feeling awful because of your sin, feeling that there is no way out for you because of what you’ve said, and thought and done. If you’re feeling right now that you’ll never, ever be as good as these church folks, then you are in exactly the right place. Then Jesus came for you. He came for you, the sick sinner, if we come to Him in repentance we have nothing to fear.

DesiringGod.org redesigned

2009-03-10T21:01:00.002-04:00

DesiringGod.org has been redesigned, it looks really, really good.

Abraham shares the four major redesign points:

1. Weekly Sermon Featured Front and Center
2. A More Robust Rotating Carousel
3. More Space for the Blog
4. New Place for Latest Resources

I love the new placing the the weeks sermon, its going to make it so much easier to watch online and embed video. And having the blog more prominent makes a lot of sense to...It's a lot more user friendly...

How everything is about footb...the Gospel

2009-03-10T10:01:00.002-04:00

I've just started helping out with Rebekah's school football team. It's kinda fun and kinda different. I have to call defenders 'stoppers' and get blank looks when i tell our roving midfielder that 'you're my Steven Gerrard,' but it's good stuff. Two hours of running in eighty degree heat is better to watch than do, i can say that much.

Football is about the biggest participation sport in the States, amongst girls anyway, so a lot of these girls have been playing for years, but a lot for barely weeks (hence we lost our first two games 4-0 and 3-0 because most of our players were essentially terrified of the other team). And although it's a big participation sport, few of the girls have ever actually seen a game played by professionals before. And thats a real problem. Your strikers can talk about what they need to do, but they've got no one to copy, they didn't grow up arguing over who was going to be Alan Shearer in their lunchbreaks. Midfielders can talk about breaking down and building up, but when do they hold back and when do they break into open space? No example seems to equal no intuition.

Without a vision my people perish. Or as the ESV has it, without a prophetic vision, without revelation my people perish. Greenville Knights Girls Soccer will struggle until they study people who've played the game all their life. They need to be told, to see. To taste and see that possession is good. Without a revelation from God, how will Christians live? How will they know how to eat and drink to the glory of God, or even that they should? How will we know how to love, or how to live, or even that we should love, without the Bible. The Bible changes our categories. Just as watching Bobby Moore would help our central defenders, so reading Romans will expand our hearts. And change our hearts.

This is what we need no? This is meat and drink for us. Can my team survive without spending time studying the game they're supposed to be playing? Of course, with a struggle, with regular defeats. And so it is for us. Do we read the Bible to impress God? Of course not, we read it like hungry beggars. Why would we not want to eat? Why would we want to snack on candyfloss when you can have lovely steak?

The parable of the sowers seems to teach us that the way we treat the Word has eternal importance. We'll either bow to it, or by judged as we ignore it. We must stay in the Word ultimately because thats where we meet Jesus, the Captain of our Salvation, we must stay in the Word because it makes us wise unto salvation. And how we need to be wise!

Mark 2:1-17 (1)

2009-03-09T14:24:00.001-04:00

In the ancient world people associated sickness and sin very closely. People thought that if a man was ill then he must be cursed by God. People thought that these people who sat at the side of the road and begged for a few pennies were not worth bothering with. They thought that God had put them there like this, and that there was nothing more than could be done for them. The crippled man, or the leper, or the blind man would be sentenced to a life of hardship and ridicule, suffering by the side of the road. An understanding of this helps us to see how odd this story, one of the better known in scripture, really is.

Looking at verses 1-4, we see the basic facts of this story as mark recorded them. Jesus’ fame had already spread. Last week we closed with Jesus preaching and saying ‘repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.’ Here, a little later on in His ministry we see that people are listening to His message. We see in verse two that Jesus had gained so much fame that when they heard He was in town ‘straightaway many were gathered together, insomuch as there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door, and He preached the Word to them.’ Jesus already had such a reputation that people were desperate to be near Him and hear Him preach. This is still the way it is in some places today.

If you go to Central America, or parts of Africa and Asia, you’ll still see people standing for hours to hear the Bible preached, waiting in the heat of the day to be prayed for and spending hours at church just to enjoy the fellowship. We see this as a fulfillment of where we left Jesus last week. He promised that as He preached the Kingdom of God would be near. And it is, the sick are getting healed, the poor are being fed, the powers of darkness were in retreat. It’s not wonder that people wanted to be near Jesus. It’s no wonder that these four men wanted to bring their friend, sick of the palsy, to Jesus.

Lets pick up the story in verse 3: and they came unto Him, bringing one sick of the palsy, who was borne of four. And when they could not come nigh unto Him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was; and when they had broken it up, they lay down the bed where the sick of the palsy lay. We’ve already mentioned the crowds who were pressing in on the house, and here we the effect of it. These men wanted to bring their friend through, but they were told, it seems, to get to the back of the line. But they’re weren’t to be put off, they wanted their friend to be near Jesus, they wanted to see Him. I love this next bit, they climbed up onto the roof, maybe ten feet, dragged their friend up with them, and dug their way in. Isn’t that cool? They must’ve thought ‘well, if they won’t pay attention to us in the line, they’ll have to pay attention to us when there’s a bed landing on their heads.’

Imagine what it must’ve been like in the house as well, you’re sitting there, it’s loud and hot and probably a bit dark, you’re trying to get near Jesus so he can touch you, or at least so that you can hear what He’s saying… And then, what’s that noise? Why’s there dust and bits of hard mud falling on my head? Good gracious, is there…there’s someone coming through the roof! I don’t know whether when they made the hole in the roof they just dropped the guy with the palsy on the floor, or whether some people jumped up to help, but somehow, he ended up on the floor, by Jesus.

And we think…that’s some effort, how can Jesus top that? Surely that’s the most surprising thing about this story. But no, Jesus is always the hero of every story in the Bible. Every story. Lets see what happens next in verses 5-7: when Jesus saw their faith, He said unto the sick of the palsy “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee”’ But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, ‘why doth this man speak blasphemies, who can forgive sin but God alone?’ What does Jesus see? Their faith. What does Jesus do? He tells the man to get up and walk… No He doesn’t! He tells him his sins are forgiven Him. And we think, well that’s nice Jesus, but you’ve missed the point, this man wants to be healed of the palsy, he doesn’t want his sins forgiven, whatever that means. His friends carried him in here; they don’t want to have to carry him out again. We’re not the only ones thinking these things. We see that there were some people there, who wondered why Jesus was talking like this. Mark tells us these guys were the scribes, they were like the record keepers in the temple, and they were probably there to report on Jesus to the Pharisees, the guys who ran the temple. These scribes, even though throughout the Gospels there are the bad guys, they’re the ones always fighting Jesus, actually ask the most important question of the story. They wonder, in their hearts, who can forgive sins but God alone?

This is so important to grasp. Who can forgive sins but God alone? No one. Why? Imagine for a moment that when I finish tonight I walk across the parking lot and break into Justinshouse. He's the one I’ve offended right? He’s the one who I need to forgive me. Imagine if after I’m caught Rachel comes up to me and says ‘Ed, I forgive you for breaking into Justin’s house.’ You’re going to think that’s crazy. not the one I offended, she’s not the one who should forgive me, Justin is, because he’s the one I’ve sinned against. Why can only God forgive sins? Because God is always the most offended party. God is always the one, ultimately, that we sin against.

In Psalm 51, when David is repenting for sleeping with Bathsheba he says ‘against you and you alone have I sinned oh Lord.’ And we think, well what about Bathsheba? You’ve sinned against her, and you’ve sinned against her husband, and you’ve sinned against the child in her womb, and you’ve sinned against Israel by forming your military strategy on the basis of getting a man killed. But David understands that because God is God, because He is King of the universe, because He is the most moral being in the universe, all our sin is against Him. I remember my teachers at school used to say ‘if you don’t work hard you’re only cheating yourself,’ but they were wrong. Laziness is an offence against God. Lust is an offence against God, pride is an offence against God, greed is an offence against God. No one can forgive sins but God, because God is always the one you have offended. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t seek forgiveness from people we’ve hurt, we should, but we need to remember that God is the one we’ve upset the most. That was supposed to be a small part of my message!

So what’s Jesus doing saying that He can forgive sins? He’s assuming the identity of God. Lots of people say that Jesus never claimed to be God, and that’s partly because they don’t understand the Trinity, but actually He did. He claimed to be able to forgive sins. That is claiming to be God. Lets see how Jesus deals with this in verses 8-11: why reason ye these things in your heart? Whether it is easier to say to the sick of the palsy ‘thy sins be forgiven thee’ or to say ‘arise, take up your bed and walk’, but ye may know that the Son of Man hath authority on earth to forgive sins.’ (He saith to the sick of the palsy) I say unto thee arise and take up your bed and go thy way into thine house.’

Jesus shows us physical evidence for a spiritual truth. It’s easier for Him to say your sins are forgiven than to say ‘get up and walk’ because there’s no way to prove whether sins have been forgiven or not, but if Jesus had said get up and walk first it would have been easy to prove Him wrong…Jesus healing the man with palsy is a visual demonstration of what He has done spiritually. The scribes, and the rest of the people there, and now us need to know that Jesus has authority on earth to forgive sins as we see in verse 10. This is such an important truth for us. We don’t need Jesus the therapist or Jesus the vegetarian or whatever; we need Jesus the forgiver of sins… We need Jesus the savior. This is an amazing story, it’s no wonder that people said, in verse 12 we never saw it on this fashion. This is something totally new, this is the Kingdom of God coming near.

The Reformers Hermeneutic (or reading the Bible as if it were the Bible)

2009-03-08T16:10:00.005-04:00

Glen points to this excellent article by Nathan Pitchford on reading the Old Testament Christianly. The literal reading is the Christocentric reading. yes! None of the Old Testament can be properly read unless it, as Luther said 'drives us towards Christ.' The point of the Old Testament is not interesting history lessons, not moralism for Kids Church, but for getting to know Jesus better.

As well as everything else, it just makes so much more sense that way!

Some random links about Psalms and Wrestling

2009-03-05T12:39:00.003-05:00

Somehow i missed this, but Bish has posted twelve minutes of Mike Reeves on the titles of the Psalms. It was really helpful, especially as at the moment i'm near about Psalm 40 and Numbers 26!

Also, Paul has set five of the Psalms to music on his Myspace page. Paul, these are excellent...Jesus is the man!

High school wrestling is weirdly popular in North Carolina, and it seems, in Minnesota. For about four days last week, during the state championship meet the front page of the local paper was full of pictures of sweaty high school types rolling around on a mat. Piper comments on men wrestling girls (because ultimately, in high school, that's what it is), and is at his cutting best.

The Unwavering Resolve of Jonathan Edwards...The face of true Christianty?

2009-03-04T12:11:00.004-05:00

The Unwavering Resolve of Jonathan Edwards is the second in the series of 'a long line of Godly men' profiles by Steven J. Lawson. The first was of Calvin, and more are promised in this spin off from the 'Foundations of Grace' series he's also working on. As far as design goes it's really hard to beat these books. They are fit. Well illustrated covers, nice sized readable fonts, endnotes at the end of the chapter rather than the end of the book. There's really no excuse for poorly designed Christian books.

'Unwavering Resolve' is a brief introduction and autobiography of it's subject. Rather than deal with a chronological overview of Edwards' life Lawson helps us to see him through the lense of several of his Resolutions. each chapter focuses in on four or five Resolutions grouped thematically, and tries to shed light on a different aspect on Edwards' life, be it his devotion to study, his discipline, his love for others or his God's glory orientated theology. It was these chapters that really gripped me.

Edwards was the last of the Puritians, and since then it's hard to find a Christian who has thought about life 'from the ground up,' in relation to the Gospel. We view Edwards as the Elizabethans viewed people from the new World, we view him as we might today view societies on Mars; odd, removed from us not so much by time and distance as by category. We hear about him, thirteen hours a day in the study, regulating his diet to the glory of God, losing a good pastorate over who can and can not take the Lord's Supper, and we think he's very strange. A quirk of a great mind and a devoted spirit. The exception.

But what if he's not supposed to be the exception. Lloyd-Jones described him as the man most like Paul. In Resolution 63 Edwards wrote that if there was to be just one true Christian found in his generation that he would have it be him. So what if Edwards is that? What if we only view him as a quirk because we are so far from Biblical Christianity today.

'Unwavering Resolve' is a great overview of the life of the finest mind America has ever produced, but it is a better challenge of what a man deeply affected by the truth of the Gospel should look like...

ESV Study Bible free online

2009-03-04T09:13:00.000-05:00

Crossway is pleased to make the ESV Online Study Bible available free--for anyone and everyone--for a limited time through March 31, 2009.

For full access and free trial use of all the Online Study Bible features, users can create a login and password at www.esvstudybible.org/online. Email information will not be shared, nor will there be any obligation to purchase.

Crossway invites you to share this information with others--with the hope that many will benefit from this online resource and further experience the timeless truth of God's Word as a powerful, compelling, life-changing reality.

Hurrah!

Edwards on Scripture

2009-03-02T21:23:00.007-05:00

I had then, and at other times, the greatest delight in the holy scriptures, of any book whatsoever. . I seemed often to see so much light exhibited by every sentence, and such a refreshing food communicated, that I could not get along in reading; often dwelling long on one sentence, to see the wonders contained in it; and yet almost every sentence seemed to be full of wonders. . . . Sometimes, only mentioning a single word caused my heart to burn within me; or only seeing the name of Christ, or the name of some attribute of God. . . .

Steadfast love in the Psalms

2009-03-01T13:29:00.002-05:00

I'm loving my chronological Bible reading plan this year, it might be the best way to read the Pentateuch to swallow big chunks at once. I also love the Psalms, because that's where i see myself the clearest, that's where i learn to love, to praise, to pray. Last night, in Psalms i saw the joy of trusting in His steadfast love.

Psalm 32:10 tells us that steadfast love surrounds the one that trusts in the Lord. I love that word, 'trust.' Not the one who is moral not the one who never misses church or keeps up with his Bible reading plan. The one who trusts. The one who casts all of their hope, trust, and faith on Jesus. The one who throws up his hands in Godly despair at ever, ever being good enough, and flees to the mediator. The one who trusts in the Lord, he us surrounded by steadfast love. What a reward, what a promise.

We see the same in Psalm 33:22. David needs to know the closeness of the love of His Lord even as he hopes in Him. This seems like sort of that same thing. I hope in the Lord, but before that, i need to ask for His steadfast, satisfying love to be on me. I need to know that he loves me as a son, not as a servant. This love precedes our hope, our faith in Him. This precedes our hope in Him. God loving isn't a reward for our hope in Him, it's what precedes our hope in Him. It's what makes us able to hope in Him. We love Him because He loved us first.

I love grace, although i forget it every day, it's fresh air in my lungs. I love finding it all over the Old Testament, i love reading this stuff before i go to bed!

Next...A promo to make you cry

2009-02-27T18:19:00.002-05:00

I've only ever seen two promo videos that have flat out brought tears to my eyes before, this is number three...

A postscript on House and 24

2009-02-26T11:56:00.003-05:00

Day Seven is the first series of 24 i've ever watched, so apart from the two hour special, i've got no Jack background to work with. Tell me about him... Are we supposed to like him? Is this what happens when our values outweigh our morals? I'm enjoy 24 more than Lost, which i've pretty much completely given up on, although it's clashing with Wednesday night church and important basketball games hasn't helped it's cause.

I know we're not supposed to like House. Can you imagine working with him? Really? And yet, i can't help being pleased every time he's on screen. Not in an Atticus Finch way, but definitely in a 'i wouldn't watch this show if it was called 'Cuddy' or 'Foreman'' kind of way. But more and more in the latest season of House his friendships grow in both dysfunction and closeness. It's obvious Wilson and House value each other, even if they'd never admit it, more so Cuddy and House. Possible spoiler warning. Otherwise why would Cuddy make sure House could get his job back? She seemed more concerned about losing him than he was about losing his job. Why would she value his comfort as a friend more than his effectiveness as a doctor?

And what do the 'House playing the piano on his own and drinking scotch while his colleagues have a good time' scenes mean if not that House is slowing learning the error of his ways?

Or maybe, enjoying them...

Christus Exemplar?

2009-02-26T11:29:00.006-05:00

One of the first, and best, Biblical Theology articles i've read was this one by David Gibson on Luke 3 and 4. What follows is not so much the oak tree that grew from Gibson's acorn, but more a leaf, on a branch of that mighty tree.

The various accounts of Jesus' time in the wilderness can either be of great encouragement, or of nearly always condemnation invoking moralising. Preaching or listening to this text can either serve as a fresh coal on the fire or an idea that can squash the life out of our battle against temptation. Text + Context = meaning, so if we want to understand what's really going on in the desert we need to read the account within in it's place in scripture (Bish taught me that in February 2004 and it's still about the most important thing i've ever learnt about how to read the Bible)

Luke 3:21-4:13

Goodness, is there a more unfortunate chapter division in the Bible? I might cast the Numbers 7/8 hat in the ring, but this comes pretty close. Luke 3 ends with a genealogy...boring. Or in fact, key to our understanding of what follows? Why is Adam called the Son of God in 3:38? Jesus is the Son of God right? Luke draws us to the parallel between Adam, son #1 and Jesus son #1. Where Adam failed to be obedient, Jesus succeeds. Where Adam disobeyed God, Jesus obeyed. Jesus is the better son, the perfect son. But there's more in Luke. Every time the Devil comes to Jesus, he is beaten away with scripture. So we use scripture to fight temptation right? Well that works, and wonderfully so often, but often it doesn't, and i don't believe that was what was on Luke's mind when he was writing this. Jesus fights from Deuteronomy...from the desert book, from the time Israel wondered in the wilderness. Jesus is the better Israel, the perfect Son of God.

Matthew 3:13-4:11

Matthew follows the same pattern. There's no genealogy, but Jesus is out of the water, hailed as the prophesied suffering King, goes into the desert and assaulted by temptation. Did he want bread? Of course he did, but the bread of heaven, the real, true manna; the words from the mouth of God, not just loaves that would go stale with time. Matthew records Jesus quoting the same verses as Luke. The same desert verses from the old, failed son.

Mark 1:9-13

I love the way Mark starts his Gospel, no extended reflection, so Christmas story, lets just get on with it. Again the water, the voice from Heaven hails Jesus as a king who will rule and suffer and is driven into the wilderness where He is tempted. There's no record of the temptation itself, Mark seems to see this as a part of the story of Jesus' baptism...but the images are there.

On his death bed Machen wrote 'so thankful for the active obedience of Christ, no hope without it.' I'm glad he didn't write 'so thankful for the moral example of Christ.' Jesus is the perfect Son, everything Adam never was, everything Israel never was, everything you or i will never, ever be. Jesus is our substitute, the Father 'looks on Him and pardons me.' If we read carefully, we can be so encouraged, so fed, so warmed by the wilderness temptations. If not, we risk reading it as just something else we should do, but very much struggle to. I think 'Christ our example' is right and encouraging, but if we get it from the desert, we'll be struggling, and discouraged.

Gregory House and Jack Bauer

2009-02-24T12:46:00.005-05:00

It all changed with Bonnie and Clyde. At least thats what Graham Daniels said, and used to play professional football, so he must be right. For the first time in Bonnie and Clyde, we're supposed to side with the bad guys over the good guys, we're supposed to cheer the robbers rather than the cops.

I'm sure it's just a fluke of scheduling, but watching House, and then 24 back to back on a Monday night makes you think of some similarities between the two. Gregory House is the obvious heroic anti hero; addicted to vikiden, rude to patients, colleagues and superiors and with questionable morals outside the workplace. Yet House saves lives. Even if he just sees them as a 'puzzle to be solved' people come in dying, and House makes them well. So does it matter how he does it?

I'm less clear, and at the same time, more clear on Jack Bauer. This is the first season of 24 i've watched to forgive me if i overlook some obvious points. Jack should be the all American hero. he fights the bad guys, he does everything to protect his country, inside and outside the law. But that's the problem, the great contradiction with Jack. On the one hand a great hero, a great man who risks life and limb for others' freedom, and on the other hand a man who sees no problem with a baby being held at gunpoint as long as it gets him what he wants.

What should we do about this collision of good and bad? It's not like this in Maybury, there the eponymous hero of the Andy Griffith show defends his 1950s small town America with a firm fairness, and still finds time to take the kids to the fishing hole. He was a simple 'hero' and watching that show is like a window into a different world. I guess that's exactly what it is.

Jack and Gregory and different, but the same. We're supposed to like Bauer, we're not supposed to like House, and yet they're the same. The lines today are as blurred as they can get. Probably. There's only ever been One hero we can trust totally, only ever been one Man who was totally consistent, only ever One never let anyone down. I like the similarities between House and 24 because they illustrate that what ever our expectations, no man will ever be worth all of our trust. And that takes me back to the Bible, and back to Jesus.

Matt Chandler on training in Godliness

2009-02-23T15:08:00.003-05:00

Another reason to admire Matt Chandler, plus the way he sort of dances behind his notes...

'Our grandfather, who art in Heaven' Lewis on Love

2009-02-23T08:56:00.010-05:00

'...by love in this context most of us mean kindness, the desire to see others than the self happy; not happy in this way or that way, just happy. What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like 'what does it matter as long as they're happy?' We want not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in Heaven, a smiling benevolence who, as they say 'liked to see the young people enjoying themselves' and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be said at the end of each day 'a good time was had by all.' Not many people, i admit would form a theology in precisely those terms, but a conception not very different lurks at the back of many people's minds. I do not claim to be an exception, i would very much like to live in a universe governed on such lines. But since it is abundantly clear i don't, and since i have reason to believe nevertheless than God is love, i conclude that my concept of love needs correction.'

CS Lewis, The Problem of Pain, Pp 31-32

A voice from a different time can be like a breath of fresh air, and that's what i'm finding Clive Staples to be at the moment. So far, The Problem of Pain is about the best book i've read on the love of God. He reminds me a bit of Tozer in his slightly 'mystical' tone, but it is good for the heart and the mind. The love of God is a deep, rich, terrible thing. We, as Lewis later points out, might often wish that God would treat us differently, that He might let us alone, as an artist would treat a sketch for a child rather than his life's finest work which he labours over, works over and scrapes over. In that case though, we are not asking for more love from God, but less.

My fake suprise birthday day

2009-02-20T21:55:00.002-05:00

Today i was kidnapped for my birthday. Rachel picked me up from work early this morning and we headed to Raleigh to the North Carolina museum of art. We had a great time, it was nice to just be near stuff that was older than post world war II. I discovered a love for 19th century American art, but not so much for medieval European art...too much gold leaf, not enough perspective. I could stare at ancient Greek art all day.

Then we headed to Southpointe Mall in Durham, and headed to Barnes and Noble. While Rachel drank a girly coffee and ate my slice of cheesecake i headed off to be depressed by the Christianity section. I hid some of the bad books behind good books...there weren't enough good books to go round, obviously, but at least Joel Osteen's smile is now hidden behind some tastefully covered copies of Piper's 'Taste and See.' They didn't have any Carson anywhere...isn't that awful? I managed to pick up 'How then shall we live' and 'the weight of glory' though, so it wasn't a total write off.

Then to the Angus Barn, a steak restaurant par excellence in Raleigh. And there, at a table hidden around a corner was my Dad...my actual dad! I had no idea! It was amazing. As split second moments go it was one of the best of my life...i cried a bit and then we sat down to an evening of paternal stories and high end steak...perfect!

Ireland's Worst Driver

2009-02-19T12:37:00.002-05:00

Somethings are so funny that you can't even make them up...check out the story of Ireland's worst driver!

Finally Alive: John PIper

2009-02-19T08:51:00.003-05:00

'Finally Alive' was described by Adrian Warnock as Piper's most important book. Challies said it's become his favourite John Piper book. It's gate crashed my top three, and i'd agree with Adrian, it is his most important book.

Finally Alive deals with the sometimes murky area of regeneration, of new birth. Piper sets out to answer five questions: What is the new birth? Why must we be born again? How does the new birth come about? What are the effects of the new birth? How can we help people be born again. In 15 chapters and 193 pages he answers those questions.

Piper points out the need for this book in the introduction. The term 'born again' has been almost politicised, it's meaning lost. Studies by the Barna group conclude that born again Christians are little different in practice and living to people who don't claim to be Christians. Piper burden for this book is to reclaim the Biblical truth of being regenerated. Not that it's proved by what we say, but that it's proved by how we live.

Alistair Begg describes this book as having 'crystal clear' exposition, and i think he's spot on. Piper tackles passages from Acts, 1 Peter, 1 John, John and Ephesians and applies them with love and clarity. His chapter on John 3:1-15 bought me a great deal of clarity on what it means to be born 'of water and of Spirit' (very exciting) which is helpful in an area where, maybe even the majority of churches, teach that salvation is by baptism. We are cleansed and new, still us, but new. This is good news.

This is probably one of the most 'popular level' books Piper has written, and ends so strongly. The final section, with chapters on 'How can we help others be born again?' has really stoked my fires for evangelism and personal witness to people and given me a fresh desire to see people saved. This is built upon the firm foundation of the previous section, which talks the role of Gospel proclamation in the new birth. Finally, the section on our faith which overcomes the world made me near enough want to stand on my head for joy. YES!

I can not recommend this book enough, it will refresh, humble, energise and excite. Go buy

Philippians 1:19-24 (2)

2009-02-17T14:18:00.001-05:00

But that’s ok for them, you might think, I’m not a missionary in Ecuador, and I probably never will be. That’s true, but there are so many ways in which we can life to demonstrate Jesus as our treasure right here. The way we spend our money, for example. Do we think about the way we spend our money, do we make sure we have to enough to be generous in the offering on a Sunday morning? Does Christ get the best or our money or just the nickels or dimes that are left over. We don’t hesitate to spend $20, $40 or $60 on clothes, but we’d have to pray about it if anyone ever asked us to give that much to our church.

Spend money in a way that shows that money and stuff is not your treasure, and you will not waste your life. Give money away that you will never see again, and you will get a sense of what Paul means when he says ‘to live is Christ.’ This is hard. We love money, we love the security, opportunity and status it brings. if we learn one thing about our western culture in the current economic climate, it’s that we all love money.

But should we not love Jesus more? Moments after we die, we will know how we should have spent our money in our lives. Forty million years from now, when we have more Christ centered joy in our hearts than we can imagine right now it will seem incredible to us that we thought spending money on ourselves was ever more important than spending money for the sake of Christ.

To live is Christ, says Paul and to die is gain. But what does this mean? How do we make much of Jesus in our death? How can we die to show that Jesus means more to us than life? This is important to think about whether you’re a freshman in high school or whether you’re in your eighties. How will we die?

Death is seen my almost everyone today, including many in the Church as the great enemy, as something to be avoided at all costs. Paul didn’t seem to see it that way. Paul said something quite incredible…he says that to die is gain. This sounds so strange to our ears it may as well be in a foreign language, what does it mean? We see in John 21:19 that Peter would have a death that glorified God, that Peter knew that to die is gain.

But how? Well look at verse 23 with me: for I am in a strait betwixt the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. It is far better to be with Christ, says Paul. Far better. Psalm 16:11 promises that ‘there is fullness of joy in His presence, pleasures forever at His right hand.’ Doesn’t that sound good? Isn’t that what we’d like? Fullness of joy and pleasures forever? Well that’s why death is gain, because that’s what we get being with Jesus when we die. Think of the sweetest times you’ve had with Jesus in your life, and then imagine that multiplied billions and billions of times, and getting better every day, and then you have the slightest, smallest glimpse of what Heaven will be life. The Great Awakening preacher Jonathan Edwards says this on the subject: The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams. But God is the ocean. Death for the Christian is not to be enjoyed, but faced, knowing that it will bring us everlasting joy and happiness at the side of our Savior. Death for the Christian is a vehicle that takes us where we want to go. Paul says it’s better to be with Christ. To not waste our life is to able to say that with him. To not waste our life is to be happy to leave everything behind to be with Him.

This is hard. To view what we can not see as more valuable than what we can see is hard. It’s easy to be happy with a comfortable and safe life. It’s easy to be happy throwing dimes into other’s people’s dreams. So we must pray, we must pray for focus if we’ve lost it, we must pray that we would keep our focus if we have it. We should pray that we would be like Abraham, who was searching for a city as yet unseen, like Moses, who considered reproach for the sake of Christ better than all the wealth of a prince of Egypt, like the Christians in Hebrews 10:34 who joyfully accepted the plundering of their property because they knew they had a better possession with Jesus.

So what is the unwasted life? The life that sees life and death as gift from Jesus to make Him look great. A life that does this by counting everything as loss for His sake, a life which accepts weakness, like Paul in 2 Corinthians 12, as long as if makes Christ look great. A life that will say to Jesus, ‘Lord, you can do anything with me…anything, as long as you are magnified through it, as long as you are my life, you can do anything with me, because you, Jesus, you are worth it.’

Matt, Challies and Scripture

2009-02-15T16:00:00.002-05:00

Former housemate and long time Pro Evo adversary Matt has a linked to a great clip from John Piper about memorizing scripture here.

On the same note Challies is reminding his readers of his scripture memorizing email programme, which i've just signed up for...

Resolved Conference 2009 promo

2009-02-15T15:54:00.001-05:00

Philippians 1:19-24 (1)

2009-02-13T09:50:00.000-05:00

My burden for my own life, and, consequently in this short time we have together, for your life, is that we do not waste our lives. It’s so easy for us to waste our lives, even coming from a Christian school, even in North Carolina. The Bible makes it clear that our lives are short, that our lives are issuing very quickly either in everlasting joy, or everlasting torment. Our lives are short, we must not waste them.

I know you’re thinking this is an odd topic to start with. We’re teenagers, we’ve barely started to live yet, why are you talking to us about death? Well when I was a teenager, I thought two things about my self, 1) that I would live forever, and 2) that I knew everything. I basically thought I was God Himself. If we are not to waste our lives then we must appreciate how short they are, how every day is a unique opportunity. 1 Samuel 2:6 says: The LORD killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up. James 4:15 says: If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. If the Lord will I will finish this message and get back to Greenville safely, if the Lord will I’ll make it to my 24th birthday next week. Life is short, life is fragile, life is totally in God’s hands, and this is very, very good news.

So, in the midst of all this, how do we not waste our lives? Do we, like the rich man in Luke, store up goods for ourselves in barns and then ‘eat, drink and be merry?’ This seems to be the response of many people, earn as much, get as much and play as much as you possibly can. But one day our lives will be required of us, then what good will the abundance of our possessions be? Jesus says in Matthew 16:25 whoever will lose their life for my sake shall find it. Whoever loses their life for Jesus sake will not waste their life. So can we only not waste our life in dying itself?
Or is there a way to live that is not a waste? I think the best answer to that question comes in Philippians 1:19-24 For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I know not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.

These words are, of course, written by Paul, a man who did not waste his life, a man who lived with extraordinary passion, courage, commitment, love and joy in and for Christ. So what is the unwasted life? The passage we just read shows us how to not waste our life, and then how to not waste our death.

Look with me at the end of verse 20: so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether by death or by life, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. Paul wants Christ to be magnified, to be made to look great, and awesome in his body, whether he lives or whether he dies. This is Paul’s all consuming passion, this is the road of the unwasted life, this is the heartbeat of a life well lived, to make Jesus famous. To life up Jesus’ name in all he does whether in life or in death. We were made for this. Our hearts, our brains, our bodies, our desires are made for Jesus. Made to be filled with this and made to put this on display. CS Lewis wrote that: ‘if I try every pleasure and offer of satisfaction in this world, and yet am not satisfied, I can only conclude I was made for another.’ He was right.

What does it mean that to live is Christ? I think Paul expands on this idea in Philippians 3:7 where he says ‘what things were gain for me I counted loss for Christ’ Previous to this he had been listing everything that he used to hope in and build his life upon. His birth, his social standing, his education. He counted all these things as nothing for the sake of Jesus. Nothing! Can we say that? Can we say that we count everything that we have as loss, as nothing for the sake of Jesus? That we count all our possessions as loss for the sake of Jesus? That we count all our dreams for the future as loss for the sake of Jesus? That we count money or food or sex as loss for the sake of Christ? How can Paul say that? How can Paul mean that? Are even the good things in our life to be counted as loss?

Because Paul was a man who knew Jesus Christ. Who knew that what he gained from Him made everything else look like rubbish. And because of that, He loved Jesus. He loved Him His life was so wrapped up in Him that from his conversion every day until the day He died Jesus was His obsession, Jesus was why he woke, why he traveled, why he spoke. Jesus was it for Paul. Jesus was His life. Is that true for us? Is Jesus the deepest passion of our hearts? Do we love to meet with Him in His Word? Do we think about our witness to Him when we make our plans for the weekend? Do we let Him decide what we look at on the internet? Or how much we spend at the mall? Do we let His Word and Will define our every decision? Do we want Jesus to be our God, or just our forgiver? If Jesus is your God, and your single all consuming passion, and all your decisions are placed before Him in prayer, and made with Him in mind, then you will not waste your life.

My fiancée and I are called to the mission field in Eastern Europe, and one of my missionary heroes is a guy named Jim Elliot. He and five others, mostly young World War II veterans followed God’s call to the Amazon rainforest to preach the Gospel to the Auca tribesmen, who had never heard it. Five intelligent, married young men set off for the rainforest, a passion for Jesus in their hearts, a desire not to waste their lives driving them forward. Three days after they made their first ground contact with the Aucas they were speared to death on a sandbank in the Amazon River. The world looks at that and sees wasted lives, we should look at that and see lives lived and lost for the sake of Christ, the greatest cause of all.

Preaching and providence

2009-02-12T18:23:00.002-05:00

I preached on Philippians 1:19-24 at Bethel Christian Academy's chapel service this morning. I like the idea of Christian High Schools (i think, if only because in Eastern NC at least public/state schools are average at best) but they are hard places to preach. And on top of that i'm not sure i did a great job of it.

It attacked my pride as i drove home this afternoon, realising that when i'm speaking somewhere know one knows me, i want to preach as well as i possibly can, and i knew that today i felt some way off that. I don't think i prepared well enough, i don't think i knew my script well enough, i didn't pray enough, i don't think to a large extent what i wrote was finished. I'll stick it up here in the next couple of days in any case, feedback appreciated.

What bothered me more than anything else as a i drove along an empty and dusty Highway 11 was that what i said just wasn't relevant. That somehow these 14-18 year olds didn't need to hear a message about Christ being life and death being gain. That there was something better, more practical i could have spoken on. How do you convince kids that to die and be with Jesus is better than to live an easy life of accumulation? How do you get someone to wear Christian Hedonist glasses in such a short, impersonal space of time?

So i struggled to believe what i shared was relevant or helpful for their lives. I struggled to think that they needed to be persuaded to count their lives as loss for the sake of Christ, that they didn't need to be challenged about what they wore or how they spent their money. Essentially, i thought they needed to hear something other then the root of the Biblical Gospel.

But oh, then lovely providence. My close friend in dark times of the soul. I picked up 'Finally Alive' and on the second page i read was this paragraph:

That...relevance is what guides my sermons and my writings. In other words i want to say things that really are significant for your life whether you know they are or not. My way of doing that is to stay close as i can to what God says is important in His Word, not what we think is important apart from God's Word.

John Piper, Finally Alive P100

So the feeling i didn't deliver a message well does not have the final say in the matter. A few hundred bored looking teenage faces looking at me (and anywhere but!) is not the final word on whether i preached on a relevant text or not. What good news it is, how it clears the fog. Talk about whats important to God, for that is truly relevant.

Guess the Pastor

2009-02-11T09:58:00.002-05:00

Can you name the Pastor who knows how many paces it is from the front door of his house to the front door of his church?

Of course, it's John Piper, briefly interviewed here by C.J Mahaney

Regeneration is bigger than we think

2009-02-10T18:38:00.003-05:00

Regeneration is bigger than i think. Regeneration is bigger that 'a personal relationship with Jesus', regeneration is bigger than starting to go to church on a sunday instead of watching the Hollyoaks omnibus. Regeneration is bigger than you and me.

Regeneration is global, nay universal. Regeneration is getting in touch with nature (maaan). Paul writes to Titus that: he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit. We are saved by the washing of regeneration of the Holy Spirit...we are saved by being made clean and new, by being born of water and Spirit.

But, and here's the huge, heart expanding, humbling news, it's not just us that gets regenerated. The word Paul uses in this verse to Titus for regeneration is palingenesias (according to John Piper anyway), and the only other time that word gets used is in Matthew 19:28 when Jesus says: 'truly i say to you, in the new world (in the regeneration/palingenesias) when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne...'

So what is the regeneration? What gets saved and made new? Creation. You and me, sure, but everything else. The stars, the grass, the oceans, the planets...everything. Jesus is Lord of all, not just Lord of human hearts. This is further mentioned in Romans 8:20 creation was subjected to futility, not willingly but because of Him (God) who subjected it in hope... This was the plan from the beginning, and in the end will lead to renewed men and women, with renewed hearts, living on a renewed earth with Jesus as it's King in glory.

This then makes sense of 'all of life discipleship', of the vision of men like Francis Shaeffer. The church is not a bomb shelter. When we get saved we don't just attend service and mark off days on our rapture wall chart. When we get saved we live! We see what there is of human culture that can be redeemed and we redeem it to the glory of God though Jesus Christ. We don't hide from culture, we engage, redeem what can be redeemed and reject what should be rejected. We rescue people out of slavery to culture by making culture point to Jesus, which is should be easy most of the time, since that's where it's heading anyway!

Will there be art in Heaven? Or music? I really hope so. I really think so. But whether there is or not, Heaven, thank God, will not be sitting on a cloud playing a harp, it will not be some conscious but ethereal state, it will be physical, and real. There'll be rivers, and trees, and goodness knows what else. Christians shouldn't hide from culture, from the material like Gnostics, because culture and the material, like the Christian, is being born again.

Evolution and Exeter

2009-02-09T20:57:00.002-05:00

Very interesting graphic (HT: Challies) about how the Wikipedia entry on evolution has been changed over the years. A great example of the power that the ordinary man can wield over popular news. One of the reasons why Wikipedia is such useful and dangerous tool. The pooling of expertise can be used for the common good, or, in this case, to create polemics against people who disagree with you. And another front opened in the debate between evangelical evolutionists and Evangelical Christians...

Particularly interesting in view of Darwin's church, and in the mission week at ECU. The post modern, humanistic, evolutionists will have their point of view, and in theory Evangelicals can have there, but woe to us if we disagree with them.

Aaron, Adam and Jesus

2009-02-09T10:41:00.003-05:00

Exodus 32 is in many ways one of the lowest points of the Old Testament. Merely days after Israel has been wonderfully rescued from slavery in Egypt they break commandments, forget Moses, and fall down to worship an idol. Whether they thought the Golden Calf was YHWH, or whether it was to replace Him i'm not sure, but it's still awful. As i was reading it this morning, i spotted something that i'm not sure i've ever seen before, so this post comes with an **original though warning** but i thought it was an interesting road to Jesus from right at the end of the chapter.

Exodus 32:35 says 'the LORD sent a plague on Israel, because they made a calf, the one that Aaron made.' When we first read that it doesn't make much sense, it seems like poor English. Who made the calf, Aaron or the people. We read at the start of the chapter that at the people's request Aaron made the calf from all the gold that Israel had plundered from Egypt...So why are the people going to suffer for what Aaron had done? Surely Aaron should be struck with sword and then plague, not the people themselves? Aaron should have known better, why should the people suffer.

Are they suffering under their, albeit temporary, federal head? Jesus is the Moses we wait for at the end of the Pentateuch, just as Moses is the only one who can represent Israel before Pharaoh and YHWH, so Jesus is the only one who can represent His people in front of the Father. But right here, Aaron has responsibility for these people. Just as Adam was our head, just as Jesus is our head, so for this short time, Aaron is the head. Aaron the brother of Moses, Aaron the Levite. he should be a safe pair of hands.

The head sins, and the people are punished. Moses, the real head intercedes for them, and they are rescued. Jesus is punished so that we will not be. So who is our head to be? Jesus, who lead His people away from sin into freedom, or one, who leads His people into sin away from freedom? Aaron is not an Adamic figure throughout Exodus, he is the father of the priesthood in many ways, but right here he sins and leads his people astray, into judgement.

So who is our head to be, the freedom bringing sin killer, or the judgement bringing sin committer, here Aaron, always Adam...

I'd pay good money for a CD of Brian Blessed reading the KJV

2009-02-07T11:40:00.004-05:00

As long as he did it in the style of the King from Blackadder I of course:

Pete Dray on the personification of Bible translations.

Also, if you're as cool as i am, you'll be fascinated to listen to the audio of flight 1549 leading up to it's safe landing in the Hudson River.

And in exciting iPod news, all the audio from the four previous New Attitude conferences are now online.

Carl Trueman on technology

2009-02-05T17:18:00.004-05:00

Carl 'flippin ace' Trueman writes about online communities:

Further, as the language of friendship is hijacked and cheapened by these internet social networks, this cheapening itself is part and parcel of a redefining of intimacy based upon the erosion of the boundaries between the public and private. Self-obsessed exhibitionist celebrities have for many years had the option of the Oprah-style chat show, where they can parade their dirty laundry for all to see; lowlifes have had Jerry Springer and Big Brother and a myriad of `reality TV' shows; but now, with blogs and social network pages, anyone with a computer can continuously flaunt their private lives and conversations, from the boring and trivial to the weird and perverted, for a potentially countless (and faceless) multitude to see.
Now, notions of privacy have always been fluid; but we stand at a point in history where the private could be potentially abolished in its entirety.

I think he's writing in very broad brushstrokes, but he's got a point. What really bugs me is people who complain about Facebook using a Facebook group! You don't have to sign up, if you don't like it, leave! I've also never received an ounce of spam resulting from Facebook, or been worried that my personal details have been sold to some evil multinational.

I do sound like an addict now don't i?

Switchover

2009-02-05T16:29:00.002-05:00

The reminders have been running on TV for as long as i can remember. 'only X days till the digital tv switchover...are you ready?' All over America the analogue TV signal is being turned off and replaced by digital or satellite. This is all the make room for more channels or bandwidth or something else i don't really understand. Anyway, everyone has had a long time to either switch to cable/satellite or get a digital converter for their TV.

But about four or five million people haven't, and so congress has voted not only to delay the switchover by four months, but also to give $40 to everyone who hasn't yet bought a converter box. Now there are a world of issues here, and the right wing media have gone off the scale over it. Twice today i turned the radio on, about four hours apart, and this was the subject. Their point of course is that 1) It's crazy for government money to be spent on people's Tvs, where does that stop? What if i want a digital radio? Or a sit down lawn mower? Isn't America supposed to be a capitalist free market? 2) Obama knows the power of TV and wants to make sure that every traditional Democrat voter can afford to listen to the liberal 'news' about how he's saving their country. (news over here is essentially headlines and comment, it makes me long for Huw Davies and Fiona Bruce) and 3) when did TV become an essential. Can people not service without watching American Idol or whatever else.

There are dozens of political issues here, but there's also a spiritual one i think. Increasingly our culture is built on entertainment. TiVo and Sky + mean we never need to miss a TV show, Wii Fit means that we never need to leave our house to go to the gym, we can achieve our dreams of sporting glory on a PS3, digital TV means there's always another channel to flick to, even if there's nothing to watch on any of them. One package offers 250 channels. 250! Get a huge flat screen and your good to go.

We weren't built to be entertained. Our minds were made to think of the glory of Christ, our hearts were made for deep joy in worship, our bodies were made to serve and glorify Christ. We weren't created to sit on the couch, we were created to worship, with sharp minds and grateful hearts. Where will another Edwards or Whitefield or Simeon or Judson come from if our free time is devoted to watching tv. How will we worship or preach on sunday morning if all our evenings are devoted to television. I'm not advocating Christians getting rid of Tvs (although, given this is the fundamentalist belt, i'd bet i'm not too far from someone who is) i like watching House and 24 and essentially anything involving a ball and thousands of screaming spectators. TV, even 250 channel digital TV isn't evil, but it is invasive, and it can stop our hearts reaching deeply for Christ. And thats not worth all the government money you can spend...

A ledge

2009-02-03T11:26:00.003-05:00

Sometimes reading the Bible is like a mighty soul satisfying feast, verse after verse, chapter after filling chapter making us glad in our savior.

Sometimes a single verse is like a sturdy ledge on a sheer cliff face:

And everyone who has left houses, or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands or Reading Family Church, or UCCF, or lunches with their family, or time with friends, or afternoons at football, for my names sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life

Matthew 19:29 (Ed's Special Version)

Four and a half reasons to feast on Genesis

2009-02-02T16:23:00.003-05:00

This year i'm following a Chronological Bible reading plan, so as i bade farewell to January, i also waved goodbye to Genesis, possibly now out there on it's own as my favourite book of the Old Testament. Here's why:

1) It is the book of mystery. Amen, God reveals Himself though scripture, He doesn't hide in it's pages, but some of what goes on in Genesis is so wonderfully unique (and not, as we'll see). How did Jacob wrestle with God, why do we need to know about Onan (we must need to, or it wouldn't be in there). Is there another book where genealogies and geography are such a key to understanding the overarching story? Is there another book where and old man's bones in a tomb hundreds of miles away from the scene of the action is the cause for such hope.

2) It is the book of beginnings. It is the book that makes sense of everything, both in the Bible and in much of life. Why is that tree there? Because God spoke and it was so. Why is everything, essentially, a mess? Because the serpent spoke and Adam listened. Is there any hope? Yes, lots, as we'll soon see. Beginnings. Of the universe, of man, of the Gospel.

3) It is the book of promises. Right from the chapter 3, we see the proto Gospel, the promise of a serpent crusher. Even though it is these hopes that are crushed time and again, the promise towers over the book. It's not Abel, or Isaac, or Jacob, it's someone much better. Abraham is promised a son, millions of sons, and land. The Genesis promises stretch centuries into the future, they hold the book together. As we read of Isaac's birth, near sacrifice, as we read about the ark it makes us cast our eyes and thoughts upon Jesus.

4) It is the book of us. I'm not sure there's much that happens in the rest of the Bible that doesn't happen first, or is at least promised in Genesis. God being gracious to His people, God judging the sin of His enemies, idol worship, murder, human pride, rampant sin, human failure, sexual perversion, God's purposes ruling over all in spite of man. Brilliant.

5) If it were a TV sitcom, it would be taken off the air. Isn't that true? Especially from Jacob onwards, too much sex, too much violence, no family planning, only one real hero in Joseph. And given that list, it would probably be Christians who complained about it the loudest...

Vintage Church: Mark Driscoll

2009-01-31T18:33:00.002-05:00

Vintage Church is the second in the 'vintage' series from Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears, following Vintage Jesus from last year. In twelve chapter and an appendix and 315 it covers a wide range of topics relating the the Church, from 'Why is preaching important' to 'how can a church utilize technology' to 'how can a church express love' It follows the pattern of the duos last two books with the chapters written by mark, and Gerry following up with answers to common questions at the end of each chapter.

It's excellent. Really really good. I'm so pleased Re:Lit exists, if only for this sort of well presented, well designed book. Of course, that wouldn't matter if the content was no good...but it is. Driscoll shares with passion and candour a mix of gleaned wisdom and experience, taking a look at the major areas of the traditional church, as well as a couple of chapters on technology and multi campus churches, which i really enjoyed. What is, possibly, one of the most remarkable things about this book is that we get to page 91 before there's a joke. 'Death by Love' was obviously a book with serious subject matter, but i'd assumed that Driscoll's usual humour would be worked through this book, as with Vintage Jesus and his two earlier books. It just isn't. There are funny moments, but they are far fewer than i'd expected. Does this make it easier to read or better? I'm not sure, but i thought it was interesting.

I loved this book. The chapters are in depth and lengthy but readable, it's helped clear and clarify my thinking about a couple of areas of church life, given me a refreshed vision for my own service my church and The Church, and, most importantly, made me excited about gathering with my church tomorrow.

I probably had four favourite chapters; 'who is supposed to lead a church,' 'why is preaching important,' 'what are baptism and communion,' and 'how can a church change the world?' the last chapter. I think it's worth buying the book for the last chapter alone. In it Mark discusses how to change the world the Church must look beyond changed individual hearts, and towards changing the way culture involves. If culture is a river, the Church needs to be pumping the Gospel in at the source, rather than in the middle. Culture rarely changes from the bottom up. This is why Acts 29 is so city focused, because cities are where the people that form and inform culture are.

Whether or not you agree with all the conclusions reached in the book, especially the last chapter, Vintage Church is still an excellent, excellent read. Like i said, it's made me excited about going to church, serving the church, and being part of The Church, so in that sense, it must be considered mission accomplished!

Buy it here

On mountains and camps

2009-01-30T13:44:00.004-05:00

I've been reading the book of Hebrews this week in preparation for Sunday school this coming weekend. I've loved spending time in it, going slowly through the book to see what he says about Jesus (that is, a lot) and how he affects my relationship with God (that is, in every way!)

It also got me thinking about mountains and camps. I can't tell you why, it just happened... There's not much about mountains in Hebrews that i can immediately think of, but here's what i've been thinking about this week.

God meets people on meetings, serious things happen on mountains. Abraham took Isaac up a mountain, (the LORD will provide) God gave Moses the law on a mountain, Israel headed for the mountains when they entered the promised land, Moses commissioned Joshua on a mountain overlooking Canaan, Jesus was revealed in all His transfigured in all His glory on a mountain, Jesus (the greater Moses, the Moses-to-come) gave the Great Commission on a mountain, Jesus went to Calvary, a mountain, to die on the cross for our sins. Cool things, great, glorious things happen on mountains...

And, let us go to Him outside the camp? Why outside the camp? That's where the lepers were, the non Israelites, those cursed by God. Jesus went outside the camp to bare the reproach that we all deserve. He went outside the camp to reverse the tree-curse. So we can now follow Him. There's no reproach left to bare, it's all been borne. So now we can risk great things for Him. Why? The cross bought all the future grace we will ever, ever, ever need.

Let's go outside the camp, up the mountain, to Him.

Piper: be courageous Mr. President

2009-01-27T19:25:00.001-05:00

Jeremiah and the cube

2009-01-26T17:03:00.003-05:00

I'm working my way though a series of talks by Don Carson on Jeremiah. I think my ears could listen to his voice all the day long, but my brain can barely stand up to fifty minute bursts. Today i listened to his talk on 3:4-4:4...Long chunks are probably the only way with this book, and Jeremiah says something very interesting about the Ark of the Covenant.

Bare in mind where we are. Israel, to the north, was transported into exile by the Assyrians one hundred years previous. Judah has not learnt this lesson, described in the first section of the book as like a camel on heat, willing to get into bed with any false god it can find. 3:4-4:4 serve as a reminder/warning to Judah, and a forecast from the Lord about the time when Israel repents. The middle section, which refer to the Ark, are some of the most gloriously hopeful verses in the book.

Jeremiah 3:16 says: And when you have multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, declares the LORD, they shall no more say, "The ark of the covenant of the LORD." It shall not come to mind or be remembered or missed; it shall not be made again.

Is that not a bit weird? Isn't the only hope for the remnant in Judah, or the returners from the north the temple worship around the Ark? Isn't the problem that too many people have forgotten the Ark? That it is not being remembered or missed? When Ezekiel reports this turn of events it is horrible news, so why are these verse of hope? The key must be in the first few words... 'when you have multiplied and increased in the land'. When you return, but not just when you return, when the nations return (v17). This verse goes far, far, millions of years beyond Jeremiah's time.

When will finally the lack of an Ark be good news? Verse 17 gives us a clue 'at that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the LORD'. When will Jerusalem be the meeting place of God and man? When will Our God finally dwell with His people? Revelation 21 and 22. There the city has no need of son or moon for the glory of the Lamb is the lamp. They city is a cube, but have you ever seen a cubed city? As long as it is wide as it is high? Of course not. But the cube of the Old Testament is the holy of holies. Behind the veil where priests fear to tread but once a year. In that final and great city, we will always be behind the veil, in the cube, in unobstructed ecstasy with Jesus.

But what about now? Well, 'tear down this temple and in three days i'll rebuild it.' No wonder Jesus' disciples didn't have a clue what He meant when He said that. But here and now for us, Jesus is our Temple, Jesus is our meeting place, Jesus is where we flee, His blood shed for us, He the Passover Lamb. And now Jeremiah's words make sense. Who wants an ark when you can have Jesus. Why settle for the shadow when you can have the substance.

The Doctor on John 4

2009-01-25T15:21:00.003-05:00

I love this from Martyn Lloyd-Jones, via Justin Taylor:

Possibly one of the most devastating things that can happen to us as Christians is that we cease to expect anything to happen. I am not sure but that this is not one of our greatest troubles today. We come to our services and they are orderly, they are nice ‒ we come, we go ‒ and sometimes they are timed almost to the minute, and there it is. But that is not Christianity, my friend. Where is the Lord of glory? Where is the one sitting by the well? Are we expecting him? Do we anticipate this? Are we open to it? Are we aware that we are ever facing this glorious possibility of having the greatest surprise of our life?

Or let me put it like this. You may feel and say ‒ as many do ‒ ‘I was converted and became a Christian. I’ve grown ‒ yes, I’ve grown in knowledge, I’ve been reading books, I’ve been listening to sermons, but I’ve arrived now at a sort of peak and all I do is maintain that. For the rest of my life I will just go on like this.’

Read the whole thing here.

This surely is the answer to the struggle of the Christian life. Come to Jesus! We need to get on our knees over Scripture and ask that the Holy Spirit would illuminate the glory of God in the face of Christ in the text. We should go to the spring of living water, and drink, search for the bread of life, and eat. Gorge ourselves on the glory of God.

I'm following a chronological reading plan this year. The more Scripture i read, the more i want to. The more i discover, the more i want to discover. Jesus Christ satisfies. But how? Only with a deeper hunger for holiness and Him, only by slamming the doors of sin shut in our hearts and opening up wide, deep, long avenues of grace will we be satisfied. Sometimes we plateau, but this isn't to be considered the norm...Jesus Christ appears, and our hearts come alive...

The Inauguration

2009-01-24T13:02:00.003-05:00

Never one to be behind the times, today's probably the last day i can get away with writing something about the inauguration. Tuesday was snow day, so we were able to watch it all, which i'm really pleased about. I didn't want to have to tell my grandchildren that i kept up to date by pressing F5 while pretending to work!

Was it an historic moment? Yes, a hundred million times yes. Going from segregation to inauguration in just about a generation is amazing... Has the press gone a bit bonkers over it? Yes, a little bit. There were nowhere near two million people in Washington watching it, it's probably closer to about half that number. But that's still pretty good.

Will Obama actually be a good president? Who knows to be honest. He's hasn't had much experience of leading Illinois, never mind America. He's probably the first president to take over a country in decline rather than on an upward curve, and coupled with the fact that there's probably more expectation on him than any other President in US history...It's going to be tough. He's ordered the closure of Guantanamo Bay (probably not a bad thing) and repealed Bush's policy of not spending federal money on abortions (a terrible, terrible thing...four days in!). His economic plans could well create a huge number of jobless people relying on government pay outs, which is about as far away from the American dream as you can get...It's going to be an interesting four years.

I though Rick Warren really did pretty well with his prayer. I'm no fan of his, but i thought with the exception of a couple of cringing moments, he did as well as anyone could have done. And i'm sure every time i pray in church there are a couple of cringe moments, and that's just in front of a couple of hundred people, never mind nearly a million!

I really hope Obama is a good, financially responsible, morally upstanding President. But more than that, i hope he comes to saving faith in Jesus Christ, the One who always has, and always will rule America. We need to pray to that end...

Genesis 21:7

2009-01-23T18:49:00.001-05:00

The story progresses in verse 3: ‘Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him Isaac.’ It’s hard to imagine what Abraham had been though in the last few years. A quarter of his life had been lived in the light of the promise of the child he now held in his arms. Twenty five years of waiting for a son by his wife was over. Abraham called him Isaac, just as God had commanded in 17:19. Isaac means ‘He laughs’. I love this part of the story, and it’s significant for reason’s we’ll come back to. You can imagine that upon the birth of the long awaited son Abraham would be full of laughter so maybe this was an obvious name. But why did God tell Abraham to name his son Isaac? I think, as we’ll see in a moment, this is part of how we make sense of this story today.

God’s plan is marching on. We notice again in verse 5 that we’re told ‘Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him’. Why more repetition? Surely for the same reasons that there was repetition in verses one and two. One commentator says that ‘there is great emphasis in the repetition… For he thus retains his readers, as by laying his hand upon them, that they may pause in consideration of this great miracle.’ The next time we ask whether it’s possible for God to do something we need to really ask ‘how big is God?’ Here we see a huge God keeping His huge promises.

The last two verses are given to Sarah, and it’s probably a song. Verse six says: ‘God has made laughter for me, everyone who hears will laugh over me.’ With this miraculous visit and fulfillment, God has turned Sarah’s laugh of disbelief into a genuine laugh of joy. And, of course, as we’ve already seen, the name Isaac means ‘he laughs’. God wanted Isaac to be called Isaac so that every time Sarah looked at her son, she would remember what God has done, and laugh for joy about it. Not only Sarah would laugh, but those in her household and also, those who read this story. Israel would have been expected to laugh with a similar joy when they read this story, because, in a very real way, Isaac’s birth signaled the birth of the nation of Israel. If Isaac had never been born then there would have been no Israel, no nation of God’s people.

Like ancient Israel we can also laugh with joy at what God has done in our lives. Once we were not God’s people, now we are God’s people, once we did not call on His name to save us from our sin, no we can think of no other sort of life. Just as God miraculously called Isaac into existence He has miraculously called us into faith. This is why I started this morning asking why we were here. It’s so easy to get relaxed about being a Christian or coming to church, but our salvation is a breathtaking miracle. It’s a bit like flying. Imagine sitting in a metal tube a few miles above the surface of the earth and traveling at about six hundred miles an hour, only slightly slower than my voice is traveling to you right now. It should be the most thrilling way of traveling that we know, and yet, because flying is such a normal thing today we spend our time reading or watching movies or sleeping, and grumbling when our plane is delayed. We mustn’t let ourselves end up like this about the church, about knowing Jesus. We need to remember that our being saved is a joyful, miraculous thing. Like a ninety year old giving birth, it should be something that we barely dare to believe.

In verse seven Sarah’s song, and our story ends ‘and she said, who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have born him a son in his old age.’ Well Sarah’s right, who indeed would have thought this would happen. And yet it did. A son was born, then a nation, and then another Son.

Who would have thought that a virgin could have given birth? Who would have thought that a homeless carpenter was the Son of God? Who would have thought that His death would bring life to all who believed in Him? Jesus brings the final fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham. Abraham was promised not just that he would father Isaac, but that he would father a multitude of nations. Jesus pours out His Spirit on his followers so that we would ‘make disciples of all nations.’ Jesus shed His blood for the nations that they might be saved. In the birth of Isaac, we see the initial fulfillment of God’s promise to make Abraham a multitude of nations, fulfilled in Jesus and then through us.

So why is Isaac’s birth recorded in the Bible? To stir up faith among God’s people at the wonderful work of our miraculous God. To leave Israel, and then the church, in wonder at what God has done in saving His people, so that we would laugh for joy like Sarah and not become tired in their love for the Lord.

To teach us that His promises are to be trusted. As we saw earlier, Abraham didn’t trust God’s promises and tried to make them work his own way. He didn’t believe that his aged wife could give birth, so he had a son by Hagar. He didn’t believe that God would keep him safe in a foreign land, so he told the king that Sarah was his sister and let him marry her. God wasn’t going to fulfill His promise though Ishmael because Ishmael was possible. Isaac was impossible! All of Abraham’s efforts only took him further away from what God was ding. All God requires of Abraham, and us, is to have faith in His promises.

To remind us that read now that God promised to make Abraham a father of many nations, through the death of Christ this has been made possible, and so to remind us of our responsibility to play our part in the great commission.

Genesis 21:1-7

2009-01-22T17:54:00.000-05:00

Part one of my script from sunday school last weekend

I wonder why we’re at church this morning. I guess our answers would range from the spiritual (‘I want to worship God though Jesus in Sprit and truth’) to the relational (‘I want to spend some time with my friends and church family’) to the more mundane and honest (‘this is just what I do on a Sunday morning’). None of those are bad reasons for coming to church, obviously, but I wonder if sometimes it’s easy to get blasé about being part of a church, about being saved, about being one of God’s sons or daughters though faith in Jesus. Maybe it seems to us that being a Christian isn’t worth it. We seem distant from the days when everything was new and we’ve grown tired of the daily routine of Bible reading and prayer.

I wonder if often times this was how Israel felt. They had lost the wonder of the early years, they had all heard the stories of what God had done generations ago that we read about in the early chapters of Genesis, and maybe, by the exile they felt like we do sometimes. In need of a fresh reminder at the wonderful power of God. In need of a revelation of the purposes of God, and how wonderful it is to be part of His people. Maybe they simply needed to remember that God is always in control, and always working for the good of His people. Maybe we need that reminder this morning as well.I think the story we’ve just read would have served all of those purposes for the Israelites that read it, and hopefully it will do the same for us as well.

Genesis 21:1-7 forms a complete story, about the birth of Isaac, but it’s part of a larger story, the conclusion of a story that started 25 years previous and took many diversions and hit many problems along the way. Before we can understand and enjoy this story in it’s full colour we need to see this back story, so lets take ever such a brief look at the last 25 years of Abraham until this point. The story starts in Genesis 11:30, right after we meet Sarah we’re told ‘now Sarai was barren, she had no child’. Shortly after that God calls Abraham and tells him in Genesis 12:2 ‘I will make you a great nation…’ Genesis 12:4 tells us that Abraham was seventy five years old at this time. Shortly afterwards God visits Abraham again and tells him, in Genesis 13:16 ‘I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth…’ and in 15:5 ‘as the starts of the sky.’ All this time as these promises become more and more incredible Sarah is still barren. So she suggests that Abraham tries to conceive with Hagar, thinking that this must be the way that God was going to fulfill His promise to them. Hagar gives birth to Ishmael and it seems that the wait is over and the tension is relieved.

Abraham and Sarah are happy with this state of affairs for thirteen years until chapter 17, when God appears again to Abraham and says if Sarah in verse 16: ‘I will give you a son by her’ In Genesis 18 God gets more specific about the promise of Isaac saying, verse 10, ‘I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a sin.’ Sarah overhears this from her tent and, perhaps understandably, verse 12 ‘laughed to herself saying ‘after I am worn out and I am old shall I have pleasure?’’

So that’s where we are prior to Genesis 21. So far it’s a story of God making big promises, and His people not believing Him and trying to make God’s plans happen themselves. Sometimes people say that the Old Testament is no longer relevant, but that sounds just like my life sometimes. Lack of faith leading to inappropriate action. It gets even worse in Genesis 20 when Abraham passes Sarah off as his sister to protect himself from King Abimelech. It’s from this point our story starts, twenty five years after God’s first promise, thirteen years after the birth of Ishmael, and a year after Sarah laughed at the idea of bearing a child.

So with out context set, lets look at verses one and two together: the Lord visited Sarah as he had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as he had promised. And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age at the time of which God had promised.’ The tension is resolved, Abraham has a son! This is a huge step forward in the story of Genesis, in the search to find the serpent crusher, and the story of how Abraham was to become the father of many nations. We can see the emphasis in these verses is all on God’s action. The phrases ‘as He had said,’ ‘as He had promised,’ ‘at the time of which God had spoken to Him,’ demonstrate where the author wants to draw our attention here.

Onto God. Onto the LORD of Israel keeping His promises even down to the smallest details. Again we see, clear as a bell from scripture that God is gracious because God is gracious, not because we deserve it or because we have done something to impress Him. God makes a promise and He keeps it. This is a firm rock on which to set our feet. This is what should wake us up every morning thrilled to be a Christian, because today, and tomorrow, and every day, God will keep His promises. This is good news!

Bible Delight: Christopher Ash

2009-01-21T16:25:00.002-05:00

Sometimes modern technology is very good. There's a feature on amazon that you probably already know about where new books/general purchases are recommended based on your previous purchases. And that's how i found this book. Also, i really like Christopher Ash, and have ever since i went on the Cornhill Summer School in 2005. He said it was a treat to spend eight hours a day in the Bible. He was right, and he is right.

So what is 'Bible Delight'? It's a 200 page, 20 chapter journey through Psalm 119, for Bible hearer and Bible teacher. Ash takes a stanza of the psalm in every chapter, with two more on reading and understanding the context of the whole psalm. The aims of the book are three fold. To see whats written, to understand what's written and to sing what's written.

That's what i appreciated the most about this book. Ash is not providing a commentary, though it does provide that function, or a study book, though it does that as well, but a resource four the readers' heart, that we would live and breath Biblical life with more passion, and more delight. Each section is described and applied warmly and pastorally, with Ash never forgetting his initial premise to help us sing.

It's really good: go buy!

Two (more) blogs i've just discovered

2009-01-20T15:27:00.002-05:00

On this, so far, very productive snow day i've spent a good amount of time browsing two blogs i've just found. The first, leithart.com is a veritable mine of Biblical articles. Including this excellent one on Matthew and pretty much all his stuff on Genesis. Plus, he has an excellent beard!

Also, give your iPod a birthday, and check out the faith by hearing audio blog. Especially their best audio of 2008 post. Excellent stuff.

The Weather

2009-01-20T09:06:00.002-05:00

'Affirmative, it is actually snowing...repeat i can see snow falling from the sky.'

North Carolina has definitely had some extremes of weather since the summer. My first three weeks here the heat was tremendous. Barely out of the nineties all day, it felt like we were living in an oven. Then September, October and November were lovely. T-shirt weather most days, sunny evenings and warm days. Mostly. We only really had one or two days of 'need your coat' weather in the whole second half of 2008.

And now...now it's hurling snow out of the sky. We've had the coldest winter in the last six years in North Carolina, night time temperatures getting as low as -17C!. That's cold. I wonder if i've ever gone through a wider range of temperature in such a short time. I doubt it!

Anyway, i'm off to play in the snow...

John Piper: Augustine's battle against lust and the fight for joy

2009-01-18T12:39:00.003-05:00

'take and read, take and read, clothe yourself with Christ'

A lamp unto my feet

2009-01-17T12:56:00.003-05:00

We tend to use v105 as a text for talks on guidance. The problem is for the most part that the Bible doesn't help us with our guidance...it helps us with the simple decisions: 'should i kill my neighbour?' but most of the decisions in daily life the Bible does not actually make for us. And we should not pretend it does. But what the Bible does do is to light our feet so that we do not stumble into wrong.

Christopher Ash, Bible Delight, P 141.

I've often wondered if we think life would be easier if our Bibles were like the wands in Harry Potter. When the times comes we go to the shopkeeper, he asks us some questions, does some tests and then gives us the right Bible for us. The right verses to help us with our specific struggles, some individual advice on careers, marriage, education etc. But it's not like that. So Ash again:

So it is no careers guidance, but a light to keep me walking in the right way. To protect me from the traps of darkness and from falling into sin. When the devil tempted the Lord Jesus, it was the word of God that was a light to his feet.

Feeling cold, getting old, Cranmer and Kaka

2009-01-16T20:59:00.003-05:00

Feeling Cold
Justin Taylor and Challies have both commented on how cold it is on the east coast at the moment. Temperatures here have been below freezing since this morning and will stay that way until Saturday afternoon It's not that bad compared to other places though, we're pretty steady in the low twenties high teens fahrenheit, which is must better than the minus numbers further north.

Getting Old
I felt like an old man this week. I was just paying for lunch at Andy's, a cheeseburger place, when one of the cooks, a guy called Jonny who'd been to church a couple of times came over to say hi. Instead of offering me his hand, or palm, or even first, he sort of waved his elbow at me. Perhaps he was doing an Alan Shearer impression, but i doubt it. Anyway, i awkwardly punched it, and we stumbled on with our conversation. Whats going on with kids today!

Cranmer
I've recently discovered the Cranmer blog. Excellent stuff on politics in religion, and religion in politics...especially this article on Rick Warren, Gene Robinson and the inauguration.

Kaka
And finally, will Kaka sign for Manchester City? Well i hope not, but thats not the point. Is he worth 100M pounds? Well, he's probably not more than twice as good as Zidane was when Real Madrid paid 43M pounds for him in 2001, but if thats what the market says then fair enough. And since Manchester City's owners have got 15B pounds at their disposal it's hardly going to stretch them. This is just the next step on the ladder that started in 1905 when Sunderland signed Alf Common for 1000 pounds. Should he be getting paid 500,000 pounds a week just 'for kicking a ball'. Well, if City want to pay him that, then i guess he should Is this any worse than John Terry getting paid 135,000 pounds a week?

I've never really understood why people get so upset about what premiership footballers get paid. How many other professions are there where thousands of people turn up to watch you work every week, and spend the rest of the week thinking and talking about what they've seen? Should nurses and doctors get paid more? Of course they should, but whats that got to do with the Premier League? It's almost as daft as the idea that footballers should be role models, with amounts to nothing more than a mass abdication of responsibility by so many parents. During all the hundreds of Wycombe games i've watched, many in my formative years, it never once occurred to me that i should want to grow up to be like one of them.

A Second Adam: Garth Ratcliffe

2009-01-14T18:09:00.004-05:00

Garth Radcliffe was nothing short of an RGS legend. School chaplain for years, economics teacher for longer, well loved and remembered for his keen sense of fun and humour which included:
Bursting into Mrs Holt's maths class to assure the children that 'a real teacher would be along soon.'

Teaching a lower sixth class to make jelly and bake cakes during an economics class claiming that he misundertood what 'home economics' meant on the syllabus.

Donning a school blazer and sitting at the back of a year 11 english class without being discovered for twenty minutes.

For this, and many more reasons, Garth Radcliffe is warmly remembered by many from my generation at RGS. He was also one of the men that God used wonderfully, powerfully to draw me to Him in 2002.

Wonderfully, he's written a book: 'A Second Adam'. It combines a well-argued, intellectual case for the historical and physical resurrection of Jesus, with wide ranging, personal applications for how the it applies to our lives.

Buy it here