The Opening Ceremony

Wasn't the Olympic Opening Ceremony tremendous. I love seeing all the larger countries, the UK, the USA and China behind their flag, but much more moving for me are the places like Palau and Tonga who have just a handful of participants. I can't imagine what it must feel like to come from a nation of 12,000 and carry your flag into the Olympic Stadium.

It got me thinking about the Wedding Feast. I wonder if thats how we'll all come in, by nation, tribe and tongue. Walking in our place to our place, not overjoyed about being at the Olympics, but overjoyed at spending an eternity with Jesus. I wonder if we'll gather in the middle somewhere, exchange stories, find old friends, and seek out heroes, while we wait for the King to arrive, the Host of hosts to take His place. I sort of hope so, that would be cool to me.

Refreshed by the Church

One of the things i'm looking forward to the most about next months trip to Bulgaria is the chance the team gets to do some teaching, to encourage and share ideas with the guys out there. The topic i've been given is 'encouragement for the Christian.' I'm looking at the ground for all our encouragement (the cross) the centre of mutual encouragement (the church) and the way of self encouragement (um...read your Bible and pray folks! Needs some work that one) I've spent most of the week in 1 Corinthians 12:11-29, which has so refreshed me for two main reasons.

Aside from the wonderful oneness which the indwelling of the Holy Spirit gives us, Jew or Greek, slave or free, verses 14-22 show us that the church needs everyone...everyone as we are. We need to be different. The body needs feet, eyes, ears and noses. The church needs preachers and singers and instrument types and deacons and set up people and set down people and pa/techie type people. It needs evangelists and councillors and cell leaders and people gifted in hospitality, introverts and extroverts. Imagine if the whole church was made up of PA people, or preachers, or turn up early and put chairs out. Imagine if one particularly ministry of the church had most of the people. The church would be lopsided at best.

So there is encouragement from Paul to those who feel that their gifts aren't needed, and a rebuke to those who are self sufficient and don't feel they need anyone. First the encouragement:

'if the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing. if the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell. But as it is God has arranged each one of them in body, as He chose.'

Be encouraged Corinthians, if everyone had the same gift, where would the church be? We're one body, but we need many parts. What about the self sufficient? Those in Corinth who can prophecy and speak in tongues and don't feel the need for those who can't? Paul has words for them too:

'The eye can not say to the hand, i have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, i have no need of you, on the contrary, the parts that seem to be weaker are indispensable'

There's no room for self sufficient individuals and factions in the church. One group can no more separate from another than the eye to the hand. We need each other. We all rejoice together, we all mourn together. We are all one body.

I love the church. I love that it is as much home for the CEO, the war veteran, the full time mum and the guy who can't find work. I love that in the best churches, Christians really are a family, that what binds us, the Holy Spirit, is so much bigger than what divides us. The Church at is best is the Gospel in action, the Gospel displayed, the Gospel magnified.

New Books

Goodness me but Crossway know what they're about...i've just been browsing the coming soon part of their website...here are some i'm particularly excited about:

The One Who Conquers.
Sam Storms brings us fifty (50!) Christ centered meditation on the seven letters of Revelation 2 and 3. Yummy.

Spectacular Sins and their global purpose in God.
John Piper's recent sermon series in book form. I listened to a couple of these and they were excellent. I'm sure the book will be nothing less.

Worldliness: Resisting the seduction of a fallen world.
I love C.J's writing. And his preaching. This book, about how to guard our hearts, and provide a witness in several areas.

Vintage Church
If the popularity of Vintage Jesus is anything to go by, this new book from Mark Driscoll should be a huge success. I've been refreshed by a lot of time in 1 Corinthians 12 recently, hopefully this book will serve the same purpose.

Stand: A Call for the endurance of the saints.
The Desiring God conference books are always, always worth reading. John Piper, John MacArthur, Helen Rosevere and Randy Alcorn help us to unpack how to endure today, and into the future.

Death by love: Letters from the cross.
Mark Driscoll and Gary Breshears team up again to explore the practical implications of what happened on the cross. Written for those who have sinned or been sinned against.

The Erosion of inerrancy in evangelicalism.
GK Beale explores the latest challenges to the doctrine of inerrancy. His sound Biblical arguments provide a serious challenge to those arguing against the traditional view of the Scriptures.

More on the Joker

I have a feeling this will; run and run. It sure is in my head. Matt Fudge has written the post i wanted to. The Joker is right:

this character fascinated me. Not just because the character was played so well, but because he was right.

You read that right: In this film, the Joker is the only character who isn’t crazy.
The joker is a character who poses at first simply as a really crazy villain. Then we start to see that he seems to engage in evil just for it’s own sake. And then we see that the Joker has a very profound and deliberate point to make. About two thirds of the way into the movie, adding a nurse’s uniform and curly red wig to his already grotesque appearance, the Joker makes this assertion:

“The only sensible way to live in this world is without rules.”

(ht: Bish)

Joker Joshua Jesus

I'm so glad there's a thing called Truth. I'm even more glad that the thing called Truth is real, and true. I've been thinking about this a lot recently, with regard to the Joker in The Dark Knight. Then today, for reasons that still sort of escape me, Paris Hilton became a semi important figure in the election of the Leader of the Free World. News channels seem to be guilty of this too. Turn on Fox News, and there's McCain, loved by Texas, turned on MSNBC, and there's Obama, folks in Europe like him. Neither station has much time for the other man. There is precious little objectivity. On Law and Order last night a baby was described as 'the produce of conception'.

But the thing is, unless there's truth, unless something exists that is true, there's nothing wrong with any of this. Or nothing surprising at least. Why shouldn't a crazed criminal blow up a hospital;, why shouldn't civilians kill hundreds of prisoners, or indeed vice versa, why shouldn't a society heiress be an important figure in the election campaign. If there's no truth, new channels are free to show what they want about who they want. And does it really matter if micro truth is lost if there's no macros truth? Why should anyone prefer the scratching of their finger to the destruction of the universe?

Of course, the common good. So what when your common good is someone's common evil? Democracy? Then why are jails overcrowded?

No, there has to be truth. When Moses died truth continued. Yaweh held back the Jordan for Joshua as He had held back the Nile for Moses. They had the Book. The Commander of the Lord's Army demanded the same respect as the burning bush. There was continuity. Ai routes Israel for the sin of Achan...there is still truth. This wonderful Truth from above.

Jesus said, i am the truth. The truth is not a collective, or an ideology, or a system. The truth us a person. The truth is what He teaches, the truth is what He's done for His Father and for His people. I'm so pleased about that.

We should preach the Gospel so that people want it to be true even if they don't believe it. We should preach the Gospel by placing before people Jesus, the Truth. Jesus who is the answer, both to the needs we feel, and the often more important ones we don't. Jesus, who's very life as the Truth gives human life it's worth, places a responsibility on those who report news not to make it and demonstrate the evil of murder.

Thats Truth, and i'm glad it's so.

'there is no part of life where it is no immeasurably precious'

I don't know how i've previously missed this article on justification by John Piper but it's wonderful! The Biblical, historic, lovely, doctrine of justification  by faith alone, on the basis of Christ's redeeming cross work is indeed the one that the church will stand or fall on.

Help for the listless sinner, who wonders if all the effort and trouble is worth it. yes! Yes it is. God justifies the ungodly. Stop working! Trust. Get up, pray, read the Bible, go and enjoy nature. It's there and it shouts His name. The name of the one who stands ever between you and the Father.

Help for the fallen saint, who can't bare to turn to see their Father frowning at them, who can't face the Lord in prayer with the taunts of the enemy in his ear. Incredibly, because of the cross, the Lord will plead your cause, He will execute judgement for you. For you. So 'fess up. Trust Christ to the hilt with gutsy guilt. Look at the cross and wonder, and sin no more.

Help for the squeamish fellow, who doesn't know whether he can call all the world, all the languages, all the ethnicities, all the differences to one Savior. Who doesn't know if Jesus is important enough for all the nations, who is embarrassed at the claims that all those needs can be wonderfully met by one man. Christ is the second Adam. As the first bought unrighteousness for all, so the second buys righteousness for all. Rejoice!

Isn't that the shame of the penal substitution deniers? That denying penal substitution denies us this Christ exalting, broken, mission mobilising joy?

'wrapped up death'

A while ago a linked the the blog of a good friend, and said that the infrequency of her updating was ok due to the quality of what she wrote. She never blogged again.

So at the risk of repeating that, i won't say anything about this, just go and read it!

i love art, and i love fashion, and i love culture, and i love creativity. i feel passionately that these are God-given, that He's infinitely inventive, that the church should be gloriously and victoriously leading the way in all of the above, but there's a point where all these things are just wrapping up death

Two quotes

Sinclair Ferguson on catechisms (HT Challies)

Christians in an earlier generation rarely thought of writing books on guidance. There is a reason for that (just as there is a reason why so many of us today are drawn to books that will tell us how to find God’s will). Our forefathers in the faith were catechised, and they taught catechisms to their children. Often as much as half of the catechism would be devoted to an exposition of the answers to questions like the following: Question: Where do we find God’s will? Answer: In the Scriptures. Question: Where in particular in the Scriptures? Answer: In the Commandments that God has given to us.

Why were these questions and answers so important? Because these Christians understood that God’s law provides basic guidelines that cover the whole of life. Indeed, in the vast majority of instances, the answer to the question ‘What does God want me to do?’ will be found by answering the question: ‘How does the law of God apply to this situation? What does the Lord require of me here in his word?


John Piper on Saturdays

I am not laying down any law here. I am saying there are Saturday night ways that ruin Sunday morning worship. Don't be enslaved by them. Without sufficient sleep, our minds are dull, our emotions are flat, our proneness to depression is higher, and our fuses are short. My counsel decide when you must get up on Sunday in order to have time to eat, get dressed, pray and meditate on the Word, prepare the family, and travel to church; and then compute backward eight hours and be sure that you are in bed 15 minutes before that. Read your Bible in bed and fall asleep with the Word of God in your mind. I especially exhort parents to teach teenagers that Saturday is NOT the night to stay out late with friends. If there is a special late night, make it Friday.

The Riddle of Jephthah

Judges has to be about the saddest book in the Bible for me. There are probably sadder portions of scripture, the end of 2 Kings, for example, and the end of 2 Timothy is very poignant, but for full on verse after verse chapter after chapter sadness, Judges has to be the nadir. In the time of the Judges, there was no King, and Israel did what was right in their own eyes. Which was a disaster. Will any of these Judges be the promised serpent crusher, or one like Moses, or just an honest judge that won't die?

In chapters 10-12 of Judges we come across Jephthah. At this time Israel was being oppressed from all sides, the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and Ephraim were under attack from the Ammonites. Jephthah was run out of house and home by his step family, because he was the son of a prostitute, and spent his formative years wandering in the desert with a band of 'worthless fellows' attached to him. Eventually the Gilieadites turn to him in the war and ask him to lead their people, an offer which he accepts. 

Jephthah fights successfully against the Ammonites, with the Lord on his side, but not ebfore making a vow. He vowed that whatever came out of his house first to greet him would 'be the Lord's and i will offer it up as a burnt offering' (v31 ESV) or shall surely be the Lords and/or i will offer it up as a burnt offering' (v31 KJV). Tragically, it's his daughter who meets him first from his house.

Jephthah is upset, and explains the situation to her daughter. She willingly accepts what's about to happen, but only asks that she might be allowed two months in the mountains to 'weep for her virginity' (v37 ESV). At the end of the two months her father 'did with her according to the vow he had made. She had never known a man'

When i first read this, it seemed like a tragic example of how terrible things had gotten in Israel. Here is a war hero sacrificing his daughter, returning to his old barbarian ways upon his return home. But now i'm not so sure. The Bible doesn't tell us he killed his daughter, but merely, did what he vowed. The and/or in the KJV makes all the difference. Jephthah would have said or because something might have come out his house first, that wasn't suitable for a burnt offering. A dog, or cat, or mouse...or his daughter. His daughter asks to go and weep for her virginity, not her life, she is remembered in verse 40 for four days in the year. Surely a festival wouldn't grow out of a sinful wrong action? Surely Jephthah wouldn't return from fighting the child killing Ammonites to kill his own child, surely no one with the Spirit of the Lord upon them (v29) could make such a foolhardy vow, even in those days? 

As i prepare to go through this for Sunday school this week, i'm struggling to come to any conclusions about the fate of Jephthah's daughter. Is Jephthah at this point a tragic war hero who's lost his daughter, and any change of succession, or is he a foolhardy, blood hungry man, (as he appears in chapter 12) with no fear of the Lord or love for his family?

On Cricket

One of the many cultural differences in the USA is the lack of cricket. No one talks about it, it's not on the news, every green space isn't taken up by pub and village teams in the summer months...it's all about baseball here, which i'm getting into... I might follow the Baltimore Orioles, partly because they're named after a bird, which i like, and partly because they seem pretty hopeless.

I'm still able to follow the cricket via the BBC text service ably attended to by Ben Dirs and an army of text and email correspondents, one of whom came up with this gem earlier today:

"Vaughan so often seems to get our hopes up like this, only to let us down quick sharp - like when the prettiest girl in school beckons you round the back of the bike sheds only for it be a trap laid by the school bully (called Gunther maybe?) who is waiting to knock seven shades of snot out of you."