The word ‘classic’ is bandied around far too much these days—especially by people like me. Today, however, I bring you a snippet from a Briefing article that actually deserves the title. In fact, it's not one article but a series of three by John Woodhouse called ‘The God of Word’, published back when the world was young (in 1988). Here are the concluding paragraphs of part 1:

We might crystallize the point of all this in a simple proposition: Where you have the word of God created faith in God (and nothing else can create real faith in God) there is all of biblical Christianity. Where the word of God is lacking there is no Christianity.

What does this mean for the accusation that evangelical Christianity with its emphasis on words has become an intellectual's religion? There is, I suspect, some truth in the accusation. However, it is one thing to recognize that our faith and life are less than they ought to be. It is another thing to blame that inadequacy on a particular doctrinal emphasis. Noticing symptoms is one thing; diagnosis is another, and prescription is another again.

If our Christianity has become too cerebral it is not because of an emphasis on words. Words are not the property of intellectuals. To quote Moses:

For this commandment which I command you this day is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up for us to heaven, and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?” Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will go over the sea for us, and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?” But the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it ... (Deut 30:11-14)

What was true of the word of God then is true of the gospel word. It is not the prerogative of intellectuals. It is near to all of us.

But the righteousness based on faith says, Do not say in your heart, “Who will ascend into heaven?” (that is, to bring Christ down) or “Who will descend into the abyss?” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart (that is, the word of faith which we preach); because, if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Rom 10:6-9)

The answer to the error of intellectualizing Christianity is not to change its fundamental word character, but to ensure that we do not obscure or complicate or add to the word of God. We must not seek a level of experience other than faith in God crafted by the Word of God. We need to preach and teach God's word so that every obstacle to the knowledge of God is destroyed (even the obstacle of anti-intellectualism), and every thought taken captive to obey Christ (cf. 2 Cor 10:5).

Evangelical ministry must be flexible and adaptable and imaginative and inventive as far as manner and style goes. But there is simply no liberty for it to be other than ministry of the Word of God:

Him we proclaim, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man mature in Christ. For this I toil, striving with all the energy which he mightily inspires within me. (Col 1:28-29)

Conclusion

It is this that distinguishes evangelical Christianity from all other forms of Christianity. It is what makes evangelical Christianity not one Christian party among many, but authentic Christianity. Giving due emphasis to the Word of God is not only the touchstone for evangelical ministry, it is the point of reference for all our failings.

If our Christianity has become dry and dull and dead, it will be because the Word of God does not occupy the place it should. If our churches have become closed cliques with no concern for society and the world around us, it will be because the Word of God does not occupy the place it should. If we have become prayerless, it will be because the Word of God does not occupy the place it should.

It is not that evangelicals emphasize the Word of God while Catholics emphasize sacraments and charismatics emphasize the Holy Spirit and liberals emphasize good works and Anglicans keep it all in balance! The Word of God is not just the evangelical party flag, some arbitrary element that is our particular hobby horse.

Our whole practice and experience of Christianity flows from this reality: that God has spoken. Everything—and I mean everything—is a consequence of that reality.

(From ‘The God of Word’, Briefing #10, Sept 1, 1988.)

Next Saturday, we'll snip something juicy out of Part 2 of the series: ‘Word and Spirit’.

Add Comment »

Further to Lionel's excellent post about ‘nowism’ (on the insidious Christian tendency to live for this world rather than the next), here is a fascinating snippet from Ross Douhat at The Atlantic Monthly.

Douhat is writing about the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katherine Jefferts-Schori, and the extent to which her “theological premises are shared across the culture-war divide, by Christians who oppose gay marriage and abortion and voted eagerly for George W. Bush as well as by liberal Protestants who consider the contemporary GOP an abomination”. He says:

The people who read Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer and The Prayer of Jabez may be more politically conservative then the people who read A Wing and a Prayer [Schori's book], and read certain passages of Genesis and Leviticus more literally, but the theology they're imbibing is roughly the same sort of therapeutic mush. Indeed, the big difference between the prosperity gospel that Osteen and his ilk are peddling and Schori's liberal Episcopalianism has less to do with any theological principle and more to do with what aspect of American life they want God to validate. And this difference, I suspect, has a great deal to do with social class. Osteen and Co.'s God wants us to pursue financial fulfillment because they're largely preaching to entrepreneurial, upwardly-mobile members of the middle class, whereas Schori's God wants us to pursue a more personal fulfillment—sexually, emotionally, philanthropically—because she's preaching to a demographic that, financially speaking, has already got it made.

Douhat is quite right: social-gospel Liberalism and prosperity-gospel Pentecostalism have this in common: they both seek God's validation for their programmes of ‘nowist’ improvement. Their gospel is a set of aspirations for this world—either soft-left liberal hopes for a better society, or capitalist, middle class aspirations for a better life for me.

How different this is from the apostolic gospel of Paul who preached a “hope laid up in heaven” (Col 1:4-5), or of Peter who blessed God for causing us to be “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you” (1 Pet 1:3-4).

We need to be wary of ‘nowist’ insurgencies—from the left and the right!

Add Comment »

One of the reasons I so much like Colin Buchanan's kid's music is that he clearly agrees with me that no-one is ever too young to grasp the doctrine of the Trinity. My oldest daughter, now nine, is a bit past Colin these days, but my five-year-old and seven-year-old love listening to him. So the other day when our eldest was sick at home, I had the other two in the car and put on Colin's Follow the Saviour. Track 15 says:

Kids: In how many persons does God exist?

Colin: In three persons!

Kids: Who are they?

Colin: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Kids: Prove it!

Colin: Ah well, in Matthew [the sound of pages rustling] chapter 28 verses 18 to 20, “Jesus came to his friends and said ‘God has made me the boss of everything and everyone, so everywhere you go, urge everybody to follow me and baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey everything I have told you. And remember this: I am going to be with you forever and ever and ever and ever!’”

I'm reasonably sure that Colin adapted this question and answer from the Westminster Shorter Catechism with proof texts, as found here. Or he could have got it from Broughton Knox, who says in his book The Everlasting God,

... if it had not been recorded in Matthew 28:19 that Jesus taught the disciples the doctrine of the Trinity, we would have to postulate that he had done so. These words of Jesus in Matthew 28:19 encapsulate the doctrine of the Trinity. The name of the Lord remains one name, yet now God is to be known as Father, Son and Holy Spirit—distinct, personal and equal.

(You can find that on page 154 of Knox's Selected Works (Volume 1).)

Colin riffs this Trinitarian truth, based on Matthew 28:19, into a song that reassures us about God's presence with us. The song, with a strong four-four beat, goes “Matthew 18:20, Matthew 18:20, Matthew 18:20, For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them!” (repeat three times). So Colin takes the doctrine of the Trinity to underlie our personal relationship, and our relationship with God himself. Interestingly, this is exactly what Broughton Knox also does, for in The Everlasting God, Broughton continues:

The fact that God is Trinity shows that personal relationship is basic reality, that is, that:

1. There is nothing more ultimate than personal relationship. Being, considered in itself, is an abstraction. Ultimate, true and real being is and always has been being-in-personal-relationship.
2. It follows that metaphysics of the Absolute or a theology of an impersonal God, such as Aristotle's and any theology of Being which is not thought of as being-in relationship has an error at its centre.
3. It follows that the subject matter of theology is not God, but God in his relationship, for the essence of God is in eternal relationship. Relationship with God and with one another is the subject matter of Scripture. It teaches the infallible truth inerrantly on these matters. God is Trinity eternally. The first words of the Bible are “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”, that is, revelation begins with a statement of God in relationship with our environment and ourselves.

So I am not completely sure whether Colin worked out his Trinitarian teaching by reading Broughton, by contemplating the Westminster Shorter Catechism, by thinking hard about the Athanasian Creed, or just by reading Matthew's Gospel. But I am impressed that he thought it appropriate to fit such Trinitarian truths into 1 minute and 54 seconds in a way that my girls can enjoy, recite and sing along with. It's a little bit Ned Flanders, but we all drove along singing it together.

7 Comments »

SG: Today we interview Mark Thompson.

Mark, how did you come to Christ?

I first heard the gospel in a Sunday School class at the local Baptist Church. However, my faith was nurtured by an ISCF group at high school, during a period when none of my family went to church at all. In the year of my HSC, I began to attend the local Anglican church, and the adventure took off from there.

How do you occupy your time?

I spend a lot of my time teaching theology at Moore College. Apart from my time as a husband and father, almost all my other involvements spring, in one way or another, from my role at college. I am currently committed to far too many writing projects, and I'm involved in the life of the Diocese of Sydney and Anglican evangelicalism more widely.

Tell us a bit about your background and other interests

I grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney, and worked in churches in northern Sydney and the Illawarra. For three years, Kathryn and I lived in the UK, and we made many great friends there. But for the past 20 years or so, my life has been focussed in the inner city and the work of Moore College. Our family attends St Matthew's Anglican Church, Ashbury.

My biggest interest and concern remains seeking to be a godly husband and a godly father to our four little girls.

What are five books that really helped you grow as a Christian?

Very early on John Stott's little study Your Confirmation helped to put some important building blocks in place.

Jim Packer's Knowing God and John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion helped me to see the contours of evangelical systematic theology.

Heiko Oberman's biography of Luther, Martin Luther: Man between God and the Devil, while a little idiosyncratic at points, fuelled a longstanding interest in the German Reformer, and helped me to see in fresh ways why urgency and passion are integral parts of being a theologian.

While not a book, a series of talks from a Katoomba Youth Convention in the early 1980s—John Chapman's series on guidance—provided a brilliant model of biblical theology and its practical import. When I first heard them, they revolutionized the way I read the Bible. (Buy the MP3s here: Talk 1; Talk 2; Talk 3; Talk 4.)

I should add that my time as a student at Moore College was life-changing as well.

What are you reading now?

An assortment:

• Mark Driscoll's Radical Reformission.
• David Hall & Peter Lilliback, Theological Guide to Calvin's Institutes: Essays and Analysis.

It's been a while since I read a good spy thriller.

And what books would you recommend as must-reads right now?

• J Piper, The Future of Justification: it's an important engagement with a very popular challenge to a core Reformation doctrine.
• L Ryken & T Wilson (eds), Preach the Word: these are important essays on expository preaching by people who know how (including David Jackman, Wayne Grudem, John MacArthur, Bruce Winter, Wallace Benn and JI Packer).
• J Woodhouse, 1 Samuel: it will do your soul some good.

What would your friends say are your hobbyhorses?

My friends would undoubtedly say I am focussed on the doctrines of Scripture, the cross and justification by faith alone. Some would also come back to Luther. More widely, though, I'm sure some have not missed my obsession with the critical marriage of clarity and profundity in Christian theology, rather than the far more common habit of thinking only what is hard to understand is really worthwhile.

What's something that makes you angry?

Betrayal of the gospel by those who ought to be defending it (church leaders in particular). There's enough of it going about at the moment to keep me angry a lot of the time if I concentrated on it.

Who inspires you?

• John Stott for faithfulness and perseverance.
• John Chapman for 50 plus years of bold, clear and compelling Bible teaching.
• Billy Graham for just keeping on saying “The Bible says”.
• John Webster for rigorous and confident theological thinking.

What's your ideal day off?

A mountain verandah, good coffee, a good book and my family to drag me away from it all.

Give us your top five chocolate biscuits!

• Westons (now Arnotts) Chocolate Wheaten
• Arnotts TV Snacks
• Arnotts Tim Tams
• Arnotts Monte
• McVities Plain Chocolate HobNobs.

Thanks Mark!

2 Comments »

Thanks to everyone who contributed comments in answer to the question that I raised in my previous post about Paul and his fellow apostles in 1 Corinthians 4 and the woman described in Proverbs 31. The particular, concrete detail that I zeroed in on was the contrast between how they dress (“poorly dressed” versus “fine linen and purple”), but I also had in mind the broader contrast between how they live and how they are seen by others (“held in disrepute” versus “praised in the gates”).

I promised in the earlier post that I had “a few thoughts coming together”, which I would share, so here they are. I'm very conscious as I do this that many of you have far, far more experience than I do in reading the Bible and thinking through how to apply it in the details of life. Please don't think for a moment that I'm offering up these few quick thoughts as the last word in the conversation!

1. As I said in my first post, I don't have the option of ignoring either passage in the way I live my life. Both are Scripture, both are breathed out by God, both are “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness”. Not only that, both are, in their own way, descriptions that are held out as exemplary in some way. One is a kind of identikit picture of “the woman who fears the Lord”; she lives a life that is to be admired and praised and (presumably, as far as one is able) imitated. The other is a real life, unique, flesh-and-blood individual—an apostle, no less, but still one who holds himself out explicitly as an example to be imitated.
2. As a number of people have said, there are some important differences between the times and the places in which the Proverbs 31 woman and the Apostle Paul lived:
   • The city that gives the Proverbs 31 woman and her husband all that respect at the gate is (I think!) the city of the people of God, and possibly an idealized people of God at that, behaving as they ought to behave. (Notice the shift from the description in verse 23 (“her husband is known in the gates ...”) to the command in verse 31 (“Let her works praise her in the gates”). The city that holds the Corinthians in honour and despises people like Paul is the pagan city of Corinth.
   • The time in which the Proverbs 31 woman lives is one in which the people of God are still a nation, called to live out before a watching world the blessedness and the wisdom of fearing the Lord. The time that Paul lived in is one in which the gospel of Jesus was going out with urgency and costly sacrifice into a world hostile to God: as several people pointed out, the time Paul describes is a ‘wartime’ setting. (I wonder whether it is significant, by way of contrast, that the whole exercise of wisdom-collection in the Old Testament is associated with the time of Solomon, when Israel enjoyed “rest from all their enemies” and the king could spend his days entertaining the Queen of Sheba and swapping proverbs.)
   In both of these respects, of course, it is Paul and the Corinthians that I have more in common with than the Proverbs 31 woman: my time is the last days and my city is Corinth (well, Sydney, but there's not a lot of difference!).
3. But the differences are not so absolute that I should ignore Proverbs 31 altogether. I may live in a different time and a different city, but I still live in the same creation, and I fear the same God. So I should still be wise enough to see that forethought and prudence and family and faithfulness and productiveness are deeply respect-worthy, compared with the selfish, individualistic, short-term, wasteful fads and fashions of the world. It's not a bad thing to aspire to all the virtues of the wonder-woman of Proverbs 31, even if my own frailty and folly and the unfairness of a sinful world mean I probably won't always get the sort of success and respect that she gets. (Compare the way that Proverbs-style wisdom works—kinda!—for Joseph in Egypt and Daniel in Babylon, and the way that the wisdom of Proverbs and the lifestyle of the last days are put together in 1 Peter 3-4.)
4. Nor am I to imitate every single detail of 1 Corinthians 4. When Paul tells the Corinthians to imitate him, the details do matter, otherwise he wouldn't have bothered putting them in. He doesn't just give them an abstract principle, he gives them a real, tangible example of a lifestyle, and how it is seen and responded to by the world. But the details of how that lifestyle worked out in Paul's life may well be different, in some respects, from the details of how it works out for the people in Corinth. When he holds out himself as an example to them, he still tells them to take into account the various life situations that they were in when God called them to follow Christ (cf. 1 Cor 7:17). So, for example, while the description of Paul in 1 Corinthians 4 is of a ‘homeless’, itinerant missionary, he knows that imitating him won't mean suddenly abandoning home and family, and becoming similarly homeless. (In fact, when he writes to Timothy, even his advice to young widows is not a blanket command to head off and become cross-cultural missionaries, but a very Proverbs 31-ish word about “marrying, bearing children and managing a household”[1 Tim 5:14].)
5. The core of what I am to imitate in Paul's example is his devotion to humble service rather than the competitive pursuit of worldly status (1 Cor 3-4), his other-person-centred love that seeks the good of others and their salvation (1 Cor 10:33—11:1), and, underneath all that, his fear of God rather than the opinions of people (cf. Proverbs 31:30!), and his desire for God's glory rather than his own (1 Cor 10:31).

Will that make a difference to how I live the details of my life—including how I dress—in this wartime context—in this pagan, greedy, fashion-obsessed city? Surely it has to—not in an artificial, attention-seeking, ‘Gibeonite’ kind of way, as if Paul ‘muddied his suit’ to cultivate an appearance of being poorly dressed—not in a self-righteous, superior, legalistic kind of way, inwardly glorying in how much daggier I am than my more materialistic Christian brothers and sisters—not in a foolish, short-term, wasteful kind of way, buying stuff that falls apart after a few weeks, just because it was cheaper at the checkout—but in a real, practical, sacrificial, deliberate way that often (but not always) makes a visible difference in how I and my family look—in a thousand decisions to keep and mend rather than throw away and replace; to choose Op Shops over fashion shops; to cultivate “strength and dignity” and the “fear of the Lord” over deceptive, fleeting outward appearance; to save more money and give more away, instead of hoarding it and spending it; to take more risks for the gospel in my school-gate conversations, rather than staying trapped in my self-protective anxieties about how I am perceived.

It seems to me that I have some changes to work on!

11 Comments »

This Saturday's classic Briefing extract is about the indivisibility of truth. It's from Briefing #8, August 1, 1988:

If we were to picture all the different things we know to be true as building blocks, what would they look like? Perhaps they would be like Lego: little interchangeable bits that we could fit together in many ways, sometimes using some pieces, and sometimes others. We certainly wouldn't need to use all the bits to make a successful building. Some Christians suggest that God's truth is like this: there are many different aspects to it, and we needn't accept it all to erect a successful building.

However, there are other kinds of blocks. My children have a jigsaw puzzle consisting of three wooden blocks. By themselves, each of the blocks has a strange almost bizarre shape, with no particular meaning, and no stability. When joined together, they form a stable and attractive kiwi. Only when properly joined do these blocks have any meaning and function; even two of the blocks joined together won't stand up.

Christian truth is like these kiwi blocks, not like Lego. The pieces are not interchangeable or irrelevant. Only when the total puzzle is assembled do each of the pieces assume their proper place, function and purpose. And only with all the pieces in place can the total picture be seen in all its truth.

Each of the truths of the gospel depend on each other. Consider, for instance, the following series of statements:

• Jesus is fully human
• Jesus is fully divine
• Jesus was our representative on the cross
• Jesus was able to make a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice for sins on the cross
• God's word is true

Far from being distinct or separate (and dispensable), these truths are interrelated. We cannot dismiss one and still retain the others. If Jesus was not fully human, how could he stand in our place as a representative? If he was not fully divine, how could his death be sufficient payment for sins? If God's word is not true, how can we put our trust in the Jesus that it reveals? To trust God is to trust his word, is to trust his Son, is to trust his Son's word ... and on it goes. These are not interchangeable, independent Lego blocks of truth. They stand, or fall, together. They are indivisible.

The indivisibility of truth has many implications. How does it affect, for example, our fellowship with those who agree on many things but deny or omit some of the truths of the gospel?

4 Comments »

Standing on the 5th tee at St Michael's in Sydney's East, the golfer experiences a mixture of nervousness and dread. Here (with some translational notes for non-golfers) is what it's like.

The hole is a 170 metre par 3 (translation: a long way for hackers). From the tee, there is a shute of dense scrub on either side for the first 80 metres or so, thus doing the golfer's head in. (“Whatever you do, don't go right, I mean left, I mean left or right!”). Directly in front of the tee between the forbidding walls of foliage is 140 metres of low, scrabbly, gorsy stuff and sand, so a short but straight shot is also headed for serious trouble (translation: you hit it in there, and you might as well write 7 on your card and walk directly to the next hole).

And so you stand there, trying not to think of everything that could go wrong, and concentrating on just swinging the club and getting it past all the trouble, somewhere in the vicinity of the green. Very occasionally a minor miracle happens: you manage to remain calm enough to make a half-decent swing. There is a snink (translation: the beautiful sound, halfway between ‘snick’ and ‘thunk’, that a golf ball makes when it comes sweetly off the centre of the club face), and the ball soars up and out, and lands gently, like a little white bird, on the distant green.

What is the feeling when that happens? It's different to elation and more than satisfaction. It's a warm, relieved joy that the dread judgement has been avoided, and that you are safe and home and right where you ought to be.

If you'll forgive the irreverence of the comparison, I had a similar feeling this morning as I prayed my way through Morning Prayer in the Book of Common Prayer. You start by reading a few verses of Scripture like these:

When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth what which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive. (Ezek 18:27)

Rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. (Joel 2:13)

Then you are exhorted:

Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth us in sundry places to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness; and that we should not dissemble nor cloke them before the face of Almighty God; but confess them with an humble, lowly, penitent and obedient heart; to the end that we may obtain forgiveness of the same, by his infinite goodness and mercy.

And then you confess, using a series of brief phrases that shine a piercing light into every corner of your disobedient heart:

Almighty and most merciful Father, We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, We have offended against they holy laws, We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, And we have done those things which we ought not to have done, And there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us miserable offenders ...

Then come these extraordinary words:

Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he may turn from his wickedness and live; and hath given power and commandment to his ministers, to declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the Absolution and Remission of their sins: He pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent and unfeignedly believe his holy Gospel ...

Pardoneth and absolveth. This is not a minor but a major miracle. There is no health in us, but there is pardon and absolution in the gospel promises of God. And a feeling of warm, relieved joy spreads through your soul as you realize that judgement is avoided, and that you are safe and home and right where you ought to be.

5 Comments »

Here at Matthias Media, we read and recommend the English Standard Version Bible (ESV) as a superior English translation of both Old and New Testaments. So it was with interest and some nervousness that I heard that there is coming, just around the corner now, a new ESV Bible: the ESV Study Bible. It was with interest because, well, it's interesting; nervousness because Study Bibles, no matter how terrific they are, are the bane of every Bible study leader's life. When you ask “What does the text say?”, there will always always be one nerdy member of the group who will say, “Well, it says here in the explanatory notes that ...”. The faint thumping sound you hear next is me hitting myself upside of the head prior to saying, “Yes, that's great, and thank you, but WHAT DOES THE TEXT SAY?!?!?”, veins bulging on my neck and eyes popping out of my head. My Bible studies, at least, can be intense affairs.

And I'm afraid that I feel even more irritated when the explanatory notes have got it right—irritated because it robs me of one of the many reasons for telling people to ignore them and READ THE BIBLE PRAYERFULLY FOR THEMSELVES. YES I'M SHOUTING. SORRY ABOUT THAT. THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT.

So I haven't yet had a good look at the full ESV Study Bible—largely because it is not due for release until October 15 this year, but also because I am profoundly bigoted against any scribbles in the margin of my Bible that do not emanate from my pen.

That said, I am disappointed to tell you that, having looked through the free download of the notes on Jonah and enjoyed the interview with author Mark Futato, it's pretty darn good so far.

Futato acknowledges in the notes that some people think Jonah is a fishy story (sorry) that couldn't possibly have happened, but essentially dismisses such speculations as irrelevant to the understanding and application of the message itself, which (he points out) has all the hallmarks of prophetic narrative. In a few concise words, he explains why he thinks it unlikely that the story is allegory or fiction.

What I enjoyed about Futato's notes was his obvious attention to detail and his ability to summarize briefly why Jonah ought to be read as satire. This is a prophet that God has decided to have fun with, largely because Jonah is as bigoted as a red-haired politician from a minor political party in country Queensland. (Which, if you're not sure, is very.) Jonah ends, as Mark Futato observes in his interview, “with the Lord asking Jonah for permission to have compassion on the Ninevites”. To quote Daffy Duck, it is to laugh. And to quote me, it is a sharp little prod about how compassionate we are towards those who are under God's judgement—or even to what extent we realize that we ourselves need to receive God's compassion through his Son. Futato also talks about Jonah's fulfilment in Jesus, but check the notes for that. (Which, if the linked notes accurately represent what the final product will look like, will be quite difficult to use as cheat sheets during the heat of an intense Bible study, though they will be quite useful for any group member who does their preparation in advance. Yes!)

Anyway, on the principle that reviews ought to be shorter than the thing they are reviewing, I'll stop there and encourage you to get your own free download of the notes on Jonah. Thanks, ESV people!

Oh, and Justin Taylor of Crossway books tells me that the notes on Esther are done by Moore College lecturer Barry Webb, so I am looking forward to seeing them too, unfortunately.

12 Comments »

“We are poorly dressed ... Be imitators of me.” (1 Cor 4:11, 16)

“All her household are clothed in scarlet... her clothing is fine linen and purple.” (Prov 31:21-22)

A few weeks ago in Bible study, we studied 1 Corinthians 4. I was struck by the way I look so much more like the Corinthians than Paul, as he describes himself in verses 8-16:

Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you! For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.

I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel. I urge you, then, be imitators of me.

I came home and was thinking through what to do with these verses. For example, should I be more “poorly dressed”? Should I be less comfortably housed? Should I be bolder in evangelism so that I am “reviled” more?

Later that day, coincidentally, I found myself reading Proverbs 31, and was struck by the contrast between the apostles' lifestyle and the lifestyle of the woman described there. In Proverbs 31, the woman who fears the Lord has an extensive household, her husband is respected at the city gate and her whole household are “clothed in scarlet”.

Both passages are Scripture, and the Bible tells us that all Scripture is inspired by God and useful for us (2 Tim 3:16). Both passages describe figures who are, in some sense, exemplary, and hold their life out to be imitated. So what should I be doing? Should I be standing at the school gate as someone people look down on, or should I be there as a woman people respect? Should I be dressed with (modest, understated) style and class, or in the threadbare fashions of a decade or two ago?

I want to go with the first option; I feel a little intimidated by the Proverbs 31 woman, but I have no reservations about whether I want to be like her! The apostles in 1 Corinthians 4, however ... I don't just wonder whether I could be like that, I wonder if I could want to be like that.

So what do I do with these two examples in Scripture, and how do I work out how to apply them in my situation? Does the shape of the Bible's big picture give me any guidance in this? What about the differences between the types of literature that the two examples are found in? Is it a matter of choosing between the two, or is it possible somehow to live a life shaped by both examples?

I have a few thoughts coming together, which I will share in a subsequent post, but first I'd like to hear your ideas. Comments please!

15 Comments »

Christians and soldiers have a lot in common, or at least they should (2 Tim 2:3-4). Firstly they both know that submission equals survival. The wise infantry man always awaits the order to advance—especially when the machine gunner next to him is laying down cover fire.

Secondly, both Christians and soldiers know that suffering is par for the course (2 Tim 3:12). Members of the Australian Defense Force (ADF), on exercises in the outback, don't get up in the morning, stretch and declare, “Man ... I really miss my flannel jammies”.

There is a third attribute of soldiers that, when found in Christians, makes them very effective. It is ‘ambiguity tolerance’ (AT). Soldiers who can tolerate ambiguity are lethal. AT is one of the key attributes military psychologists look for when recruiting soldiers. High AT is what differentiates the special force soldiers (eg. Australian SAS + USA Date Force) from the regular army recruit.

Let me explain what I mean.

In the regular army, you don't really need high “AT.” Why? Because your roles and responsibilities are clearly defined. The Lieutenant barks a command to the Sergeant, he barks it to the Corporal, who then barks it down the line to the Private. The front-line soldier has no confusion about what he must do.

But in the special forces, it is different. When eight Australian SAS soldiers are dropped behind enemy lines during a war, they do have a plan, but they're always ready for the inevitable ‘stuff ups’. Let's say they get inserted 4 km east of their designated DZ (drop zone) under cover of darkness. They don't panic! They stay focused on the mission. They revert to plan B or C ... or even D. They can tolerate ambiguity. Not everything has to be ‘spelled out’.

AT can make a good soldier great.

Growth in AT can also increase the effectiveness of a congregation, a Christian and a pastor. AT is all about your answer to these questions: “How do you respond to a sudden change in circumstances?” “What's your emotional response to situations that turn out differently to what you expected?”

As I observe life in Australia, it appears me that people (especially those under 40 years old) love change. They like ambiguous situations. A big part of life's thrill is waiting to see, or anticipating, what's going to change next. I think that's why most believers love the ‘post-Bible talk question time’. People are fascinated by what questions might crop up. Have you ever noticed this? During the songs, prayers, sermon, etc., the congregation looks like Obelix after he's eaten two wild boars (i.e. drowsy, to say the least), but when question time starts, the body language changes: people are sitting forward, they're attentive, and you can see them thinking, processing, frowning, interacting, objecting, laughing, enquiring, etc. It's quite exciting.

So if a pastor can increase his AT, it helps the congregation. If the congregation can increase their “AT:”, then it can help the elect and the lost.

Here're some examples of high AT ministry and the fruit God has grown as a result:

• MOLDI dinners: In the late 1990s, the Sydney University Christian group realized that it was difficult to get ‘not-yet believers’ to come to outreach events. So they decided to go to them. They organized dinners in King Street, Newtown, which were designed for the express purpose of discussing the meaning of life. Dinner and discussion took place in a neutral territory: a restaurant. A campus in Melbourne adopted this idea, and gave them the name ‘MOLDI dinners’. M.O.L.D.I stands for ‘meaning of life discussed intelligently’. In 2007, this campus ran nine dinners which were attended by 45 ‘not-yet believing’ Uni students.
• Venue relocations: Sometimes meeting in another building binds the brethren. World (Catholic) Youth Day in Sydney forced many school building-based churches to relocate for two weeks. Several I know enjoyed the change. So why not deliberately meet in another location? Just SMS everyone the night before (bulk SMSs are easy with sites like one2many.com), and tell people you're going to meet in the Botanic Gardens and ‘do church 200 AD-style’.
• Family devotions: Our daughter Isabella is seven years old, Edmund is four and Samuel is two. In the past, Bella used to enjoy Bible reading aimed at Edmund. She doesn't anymore. We've had to change the evening routine. I read to the boys, and Emma reads something ‘meatier’ to Isabella. Things change. Roll with it. AT.
• Congregational question time: Give it a go! Are they scary for the speaker? Yep. Are they a great catalyst to edifying the saints? Yep! Give it a crack! (NB: remember it is a skill that takes time to get good at).

AT isn't anything new. AT is just another way of saying “be all things to all people” (1 Cor 9:22) or “consider it pure joy when you suffer trials of many kinds” (Jas 1:2-3). By God's Spirit, we can grow in AT over time.

A greater AT will help you be more ministries-minded, and it will help you focus more on your people, rather than your programmes.

11 Comments »