I have been reminded in a number of ways this week that following our saviour is sometimes very hard work. It can be physically and emotionally exhausting to live not for yourself, but for others. In God's kindness, he grants us his very precious promises to encourage us to persevere. I found this little article that Gordon Cheng wrote for Briefing #290 a great encouragement. Hopefully it will encourage you too:

My wife and I have known some of the sufferings of ministry—in our relationships, in opposition from those we thought were in fellowship with us, financial and health struggles. But we can also see that it has been well and truly worth it, for the joy of seeing the gospel at work wherever we have been serving the Lord. But something else has driven us on.

The promise of Scripture is that, as we share in Jesus' sufferings, we will also share in his glory. Along with Romans 8:17, there is the promise of Jesus himself in Mark 10:29-31:

Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.

This is really one of those fundamental Bible truths that you can't illustrate. Suffering now, glory later. Why can't we illustrate it? Because we are really trying to describe the nature of heaven, and eternal life with Christ. We can't illustrate it because no-one's seen the original to know what it is we're illustrating. The faith we have is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Heb 11:1). The best attempts at illustration are in the final chapters of the book of Revelation, and even there we sense a straining at the boundaries of language.

If we can't illustrate it, we can hope for it with a confident hope, remind each other about it, and pray that we will all share in the reality of relationship forever with Jesus in heaven, living in the house that he's prepared for us with the name that he's given us. What a marvellous thing to look forward to.

And we can pray with Paul his prayer in Ephesians 1, that God may give us a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of our hearts enlightened, that we may know the hope to which he has called us, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe.

2 Comments »

Currently we're reading the book of Esther at the breakfast table with our daughters. Sometimes it's a struggle getting through a chapter of the Bible when it's familiar territory or a particularly dry section. But with Esther, the narrative is so exciting, they're begging us not to stop at just one chapter. What a joy!

Why do we bother on the days when it's not a joy? Of course, it's because of our theological convictions regarding the importance of God's word. We want our children to know “from infancy [...] the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim 3:15 NIV).

But practically, I think the inspiration for the goal of reading the whole Bible with our kids came particularly from Dave Martin. Dave penned one of the most moving articles I ever read in The Briefing (Issue #290). Here's an extract

Today, Friday, 20 September, 2002 is a great day. That's because today is the day I finished reading the whole Bible to my eldest son, Ben.

It was a long time ago when I ushered him into my office at home and said, “Let's start reading the Bible together.” He was just five years old and it was his first day at kindergarten. But we started with Matthew chapter one, a hard start indeed. From there we made our way through Matthew in pretty quick time. We ticked that book off and moved onto another one in the New Testament. He usually chose the next book to read. For ten minutes each day we basically read one chapter, talked about it for a minute or two and then prayed about it. This has happened at least four mornings a week during school term (and a bit in the holidays). We did it usually in the same place and the same time each day. After finishing Matthew, we made a chart of the whole New Testament and stuck it on the back of my office door and every day Ben would tick off a chapter.

[...]

And so we came to today. Zechariah chapters 13 and 14. (We have done two chapters for the last four days because Ben was so excited at the prospect of finishing that he couldn't bear to stretch it out another week.) We left Zechariah until last because it's so hard to understand. Two paragraphs from the finish, I was choking with emotion. Reading about cooking pots in the last paragraph was a bit of a blur, and I have no idea what it means. But I did pick up a great statement in that last chapter—“The Lord will be King over the whole earth” (Zech 14:9). So we prayed about that. And today we ticked off Zechariah.

What a great day!

Now Dave admits he did something a bit naughty:

When it came to incentives and milestones, I did something that will be very controversial and that no-one would dare suggest: I paid him! When Ben finished Matthew, I was so pleased with his desire to read with me that I wanted to keep encouraging him. So I actually gave him $5. He was preoccupied with money at the time so, for him, it was a great motivator. But I also cautioned him that he wouldn't get paid for every book he read.

A mate of mine was a little concerned about Dave's use of incentives. Surely the reward should be in the task and not extrinsic to it! My mate is a good educator, but he had not yet had his own children. For me, with my kids a few years younger than Dave's, I was just overwhelmed with the desire to do something similar.

I think Dave Martin put steel in my spine for the task of reading the Bible regularly with my kids—not to imitate his method (we seem to read the Bible better together as a family), but to aspire to the same goal: to see all my children all the way through the Scriptures.

(By the way, we've found the Good Book Company's Bible reading notes—XTB for children and Table Talk for family devotions—really helpful. Those in Australia can still get some of their stock locally via Matthias Media's webstore.)

Recently, I caught up with Dave Martin briefly. (That's what reminded me of his article.) He explained that his oldest two boys have now worked their way through the Bible on their own through high school. He told me that although it was relatively easy with his first two children, the third had found it harder. Yet they are persevering.

He also reminded me of why he did it: he wasn't going too flash in family devotions. So Dave certainly wasn't suggesting he was the perfect dad. But I am so thankful he shared his experience on this particular landmark.

Here's one last extract from his article, providing us with a few tips that worked for him.

• Start immediately. You can do it today or tomorrow.
• Start out small. Just aim for one chapter a day. That's all we did.
• Set the goal before them: to read the whole Bible.
• Let them see their progress.
• Make it a routine activity. ‘Reading the Bible with Dad’ is on our boys' morning routine chart. They get to tick it off each day.
• Skip it on bad days. If there's tension between you and the kids, cut your losses. Just humbly lead them in prayer about the cause of tension.
• Don't stress if you miss a week. Work may take you away for a week, as it did me. But you've got six years. You could try to make it up in the holidays—but, again, don't stress.
• Give lots of verbal encouragement along the way. Lots and lots and lots.
• Celebrate milestones in a big way. e.g. first book, the New Testament, the Psalms, etc.
• Thank God every step of the way. Thank him for the delight that they take in it and for every single day you get to read the Bible to them.

Dave said to me recently, “As I look back over the years of raising my boys, this activity was the single most important thing I did with them”.

(Read the full article. Subscribe to The Briefing.)

4 Comments »

Recently I have observed this phenomenon: there is an inverse relationship between dreaming great visions and faithfulness in the little things. The people who have the grandest, most sweeping plans and strategies for the future are likely to be unreliable and untrustworthy in the smaller, short-term tasks and responsibilities. They talk about the great things they want to achieve for God in the years to come, but right now they tend to drop the ball in significant ways.

What is behind this? It could just be a generational thing: I am a grumpy ‘Generation X-er’ and I'm basically talking about people in Generation Y (aka the spoilt brat generation). Or it could just be the fickle visionary dreaming of youth.

All of this might be true, but it doesn't excuse unreliability and lack of faithfulness in the small things. Jesus is clear in Matthew 25:21 that faithfulness will be rewarded: “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” If you want to achieve great things for God, start by doing the little things well now. Turn up when you say you will. Follow through on your commitments. Finish the tasks set before you. Prove yourself to be reliable.

There are two mindshifts that we need to make on this point:

1. We need to remember that ministry is about godliness, not gifts. Giftedness can deceive. It is a wonderful thing, but we should never mistake giftedness for godliness. The core skill for ministry is the sort of servant-mindedness that is willing to do the unnoticed and unattractive jobs, and work with the hard people.

2. Jesus Christ will judge your ministry. That is both a warning and an encouragement. It is a warning because Jesus Christ will judge your ministry. In 1 Corinthians 4:4-5 Paul writes,

   My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time each will receive his praise from God. (NIV)

   Jesus will hold you to account for your ministry.

   But it is also an encouragement because Jesus Christ will judge your ministry. Once again, Paul insists that “I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself” (1 Cor 4:3). It is Christ alone who judges you, not your peers, colleagues or even yourself. You minister before an audience of one; you are not enslaved to the opinions of those around you. But the one you minister before can see even the motives of your heart.

There is nothing wrong with great dreams. However, what Jesus really wants, and what the church really needs, is the sort of godliness—godliness that will be commended on the last day with the words, “ Well done, good and faithful servant”.

6 Comments »

I believe that every particle of dust that dances in the sunbeam does not move an atom more or less than God wishes—that every particle of spray that dashes against the steamboat has its orbit as well as the sun in the heavens—that the chaff from the hand of the winnower is steered as the stars in their courses. The creeping of an aphid over the rosebud is as much fixed as the march of the devastating pestilence—the fall of sear leaves from a poplar is as fully ordained as the tumbling of an avalanche.

(Charles Spurgeon, ‘God's Providence’, sermon on Ezekiel 1:15-19, 1908.)

In one of his sermons, John Piper tells the story of a couple who approached him one day and shared that they had learned more about God's sovereignty during six months at his church than in their whole Christian lives previously. Some time later, their family went through a time of terrible suffering. The mother thanked Pastor John with tears in her eyes, saying that they could never have made it through this time without the conviction of God's sovereignty.¹

I find God's sovereignty immensely comforting. It enables me to face the future with courage, bear small trials with patience, and entrust my family to God. But when I was at university, an older Christian shared the view that God controls the big history events, not the small, everyday occurrences of life. In other words, God is sovereign, but perhaps not sovereign over the day my son has no friends to play with in the playground, or the day my daughter struggles with an unknown sickness, or the day my car runs out of fuel and I'm stuck miles from a petrol station with four young children. God is sovereign, but not entirely sovereign.

I'm uncomfortable with this idea

1. theologically: It seems to me that God is either sovereign, or he isn't. If God is only half sovereign, his power and glory are vastly diminished: “For I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is above all gods. Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps” (Ps 135:5-6).
2. philosophically: Since big occurrences are a collection of small ones, I'm not sure it's possible to control a tsunami without controlling every drop of water within it, or ordain all the days of a life, but not the small happenings (Ps 135:6-7, 139:16). It seems unlikely to me that there's a certain point at which God's sovereign control comes to an end.
3. biblically. When the Bible says ‘everything’, I assume it means everything (Eph 1:11, Dan 4:35, Ps 115:3). Jesus tells us that not even a tiny sparrow will “fall to the ground apart from your Father“ (Matt 10:29).
4. pastorally: I need to be assured of God's loving providence when I catch a cold, not just when I get cancer. If not, how can I respond with patience, joy and confidence that God is bringing good out of my suffering (Rom 8:28, Heb 11:5-11)? How can I encourage my fellow believers to endure faithfully, trust God, and hope in him during their trials?

So I give thanks to God that when I meet him in the Bible, he not only sustains the universe, but counts every hair on my head (Heb 1:3, Luke 12:7, 21:18); that he directs not only the hearts of kings, but the outcome of every roll of dice (Prov 21:1, 16:33); that he determines not only the fate of nations, but every one of my days (Job 12:23, Ps 139:16).

Every atom, every electron, every quark and undiscovered subatomic particle, every unseen thought and feeling of the human heart is under God's sovereign command. I can face every moment of every day, and every moment of every future day with confidence, knowing that my loving Father guides every circumstance for his glory, my good and the good of the gospel.

¹ I am sorry, but I have lost the reference: if anyone knows it, please share it with me!

6 Comments »

What is culture? We all have one, apparently, and the lucky ones may have several. We are well-tuned to abhor ‘cultural insensitivity’—I know that—but what is this thing called culture?

Wandering around ‘culture festivals’ doesn't seem to help me much. ‘Culture’ seems to be different kinds of music, food and dress. Not to mention the people playing it, eating it, or wearing it: they seem to have ‘culture’. I try not to be insensitive.

Wandering around in the city doesn't help much either. There seems to be some kind of ‘culture’ at the Opera House—at the concert hall—at the Belvoir Street Theatre—and even among the Rockdale Musical Society. I try to pick some up, but it doesn't seem to stick. Being sensitive is getting harder. Rock ‘n' roll seems much easier.

Language seems to be part of it. They either speak in strange tongues, or with strange accents. I, of course, speak properly. So how come they don't seem to understand me when I am in another country? I try to be sensitive. But it isn't easy when you have to shout and speak really slowly to be understood.

And customs—grabbing your wrist as you shake hands. Kissing on one cheek or two (and man-kisses too!). Who eats first, and how they do it. Who speaks to whom, and what do they say? What days or months are special? Who belongs to whom, and how do they acquire such responsibility?

It all seems so nebulous. It is there, but not there. There is a human being in front of me. But where is this thing called ‘culture’? It seems easy to listen to the person who is talking, but how do I hear their culture? I can see them, and I think I see it, but it seems to be beyond somehow—larger than any individual, and yet affecting every individual.

And yet I am supposed to be multicultural, cross-cultural, subcultural, culturally aware, culturally sensitive, and, yet, I am told, I am probably culture-bound.

Culture-bound: that doesn't sound good. Culture blinkered. Culture inescapable. Cultural slavery.

Days and weeks and years: what shall you eat? What shall you drink? What shall you wear? Law, statute and custom. Ritual, feast and festival. Do not handle. Do not taste. Do not touch. Questions of food or drink, a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. Moods, methods, mores. Rules, regulations, restrictions.

Elemental spirits. Principalities and powers. Apparently the gospel liberates people from these evil beings, and from all this long list of strange things that we call culture. Apparently they are only “human precepts and teachings”, and their value is limited, to say the least (Col 2:16-23).

So what does this say about culture? Is human culture simply another vehicle for the principalities and powers?

That doesn't sound very culturally sensitive.

2 Comments »

It's important to say that God is a mystery, as I suggested in my last post, but I can understand why many evangelicals might be a bit nervous about saying it. I'm a bit nervous myself.

The problem lies not in the truth of the assertion, which I think is unarguable, but in the use to which it is put. You see, if we accept that we may know certain things about God clearly and truly, and also that other things about God remain uncertain or a mystery (because they are not revealed to us), the obvious question becomes, “Well, which things do we know truly, and which things uncertainly or not at all?” And what if there is only an extremely small number of things we know truly and a great many things that we should be agnostic about?

Enter the various species of ex-, post-, open-, emergent or liberal evangelicals who will assail the foundational truths of evangelical theology one by one—not by denying them outright, but by reassigning them to the category of uncertainty. You will remember that I suggested that a good theologian must know when to speak clearly and boldly, when to speak hesitantly and humbly, and when to speak not at all. For those who have lost confidence in the Bible and its theology, the desire is to lump as much as possible into the middle category. To achieve their purpose, they do not need to refute or demolish the point at issue; they need merely to raise enough doubts such that we can no longer afford to be dogmatic. The argument is not won, but declared a perpetual draw since no clear answer can every be arrived at.

Examples abound—the clearest one in my lifetime being the debate over the role of women and men in Christian leadership. Here, for example, is a very clear and careful summary of the Bible's teaching on the matter, taken from the Confessional Statement of The Gospel Coalition:

In God's wise purposes, men and women are not simply interchangeable, but rather they complement each other in mutually enriching ways. God ordains that they assume distinctive roles which reflect the loving relationship between Christ and the church, the husband exercising headship in a way that displays the caring, sacrificial love of Christ, and the wife submitting to her husband in a way that models the love of the church for her Lord. In the ministry of the church, both men and women are encouraged to serve Christ and to be developed to their full potential in the manifold ministries of the people of God. The distinctive leadership role within the church given to qualified men is grounded in creation, fall, and redemption and must not be sidelined by appeals to cultural developments.

The Gospel Coalition judged the subject of male and female roles to be in the ‘clearly and boldly‘ category of theological assertion, based on what God had revealed on the matter in the Bible. And in this, they are quite correct. All the elements of their statement have ample and unambiguous biblical warrant. To deny this statement is very difficult if one wants to be an evangelical because there is just so much clear biblical truth in it.

However, many evangelicals have accepted an egalitarian position—not because the Gospel Coalition's key points have been refuted, but simply because enough doubts have been raised and enough important people have acquiesced. Through political persistence and repetitive dust-throwing, the subject has been successfully moved into the ‘tentative’ area, about which we cannot be dogmatic, and thus if someone wants to hold a different view, we can hardly stand in their way.

What's the answer to all this? It's certainly not to overreact and lump everything into the ‘clear and bold’ category, as if there is nothing about which we cannot be ferociously dogmatic. But neither is it to throw up our hands whenever there is disagreement or opposition, and lose our trust in the authority, clarity and sufficiency of Bible. The way forward is to read and re-read the Scriptures with a trembling, humble and obedient heart, and to proclaim without fear the truth about God we find there.

1 Comment »

In honour of it being Reformation Day yesterday (31 October), it seems appropriate to remember the gift that God gave us through the Reformers. What better way to celebrate than to hear from a young preacher straight out of Bible college learning the realities of biblical ministry. This is an excerpt from Briefing #325 called ‘Relishing the Reformation’:

Upon finishing Bible college, I was raring to go. I could not wait to get out into church life. I was ready to tell people all about the way that ‘speech-act theory’ defeats the postmodern agenda. I could not wait to explain how Jesus was the “eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning in our interpersonal relationships”. The only problem was, the language I was talking was not the language my people were able to understand.

I was also ready to launch all the ideas I had seen, heard and thought of onto the unsuspecting people who had just found me as their Pastor. I had training courses, new opportunities to pursue, Bible study ideas and more, all up my sleeve. I had an infectious enthusiasm that I hoped would ensure growth and joy in the congregations of which I was a part. The problem was, my idea of what was needed was not necessarily what was actually required.

In the end, what I was offering was ministry by Nigel alone, with technical language alone, by activity alone. It was not long before it became clear to me that what the people in the church needed, I was not offering. What was required was simplicity. I don't mean that I had to forget all I had learnt. Neither did I have to treat people like Sunday School children. Rather, unless you are simple you will never be understood and unless you are understood you cannot do good to those you serve.

Perhaps my preaching was a case in point and these words of Luther were just what I needed to hear:

If Peter and Paul were here, they would scold you because you wish right off to be as accomplished as they. Crawling is something, even if one is unable to walk. Do your best. If you cannot preach an hour, then preach half an hour, or a quarter of an hour. Do not try to imitate other people. Centre on the shortest and simplest points, which are the very heart of the matter, and leave the rest to God. Look solely to his honour and not to applause. Pray that God will give you a mouth and to your audience ears.¹

Preach the Big Idea with simplicity and purpose. I had heard it a thousand times at Bible college, but it was not until I was serving people full-time that the sound of my preaching lecturer's voice and Luther's wisdom had its real impact. This is something I continue to struggle with today and suspect I will for the first 50 years.

But the crux of the matter here extends beyond preaching. As I said, pastoral questions and theological problems remain the same across the ages. People are always wanting to find out about God. They want to know how to know God. They want to know how to please God. They want to be sure that their version of faith and religion will be acceptable to God. Multicultural Australia has provided people with a smorgasbord of options to pursue. The philosophies that have slowly been seeping out of our universities provide people with every reason not to believe. But the question still remains. Couched in terms foreign to the Reformers, yes, but asked in a way that the Reformers' answers remain valid and helpful—yes!

How is it I can know God and be friends with him? The truth remains: it is by coming to know Jesus Christ (Sola Christi). How can they find out about Jesus Christ? By reading the Bible (Sola Scriptura). What do they find in the Bible? That God has done all that we need to be friends with him (Sola gratia). What must a person then do to make this real for them? Trust God (Sola fide).

(Nigel Fortescue, ‘Relishing the Reformation’, Briefing #325, October 2005.

Praise God for his goodness revealed in Jesus!

Add Comment »

Challenged by Tim Challies, today's post simply links to some of the best resources I've seen for preaching and writing on the Reformation. It's nothing too creative; it's more like me trying to bring some old gems to light.

(I know The Sola Panel has tried to avoid just being an aggregator of links, but hopefully this will slip through just this once ...)

This is not news to anyone, but thanks to my friend Chris for alerting me to John Piper's biographical studies at his annual Desiring God conference for pastors—well, before it became really trendy in Australia. If you are unaware of these, they generally feature Reformation heroes like Tyndale, Luther, Calvin and those who stood on their shoulders—like John Owen, John Bunyan, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Simeon, Haddon Spurgeon, J Gresham Machen, and so on. They're fascinating. Inspiring. And it's good to hear about people outside my normal field of vision—people like Adoniram Judson and Andrew Fuller (who shows the importance to missionaries of those who stay at home). Perhaps you could leave a comment sharing your all-time favourite talk from this list, with a sentence or two as to why. (Or if you can't choose just one, share your top three and why).

The Anglican Church League has some more resources of a similar vein (written with Reformation Sunday in mind) in the old section of their website. In particular, there's some worthwhile resources on Thomas Cranmer, whom John Piper might not get to in a hurry (more's the pity).

The Church Society has put many of its back edition Churchman articles on the web. This includes a good selection of church history—for example, on Zwingli, Wycliffe and Simeon.

However, if you only read one article this Reformation Day, may I suggest Andrew Atherstone's article on the Marian Martyrs and lessons we might learn from them. (Thanks again to the ACL for the hat tip.) The Marian martyrs were those Protestant Christians burned to death for their faith during the reign of Bloody Queen Mary between 1555 and 1558 (with many more imprisoned, displaced as refugees or exiled). Atherstone's article is one of the most stirring articles on church history I've read in ages. He's written a whole book on the topic, and he gives us sad but wonderful examples from a whole range of those who hated even their own lives in order to be Christ's disciple.

Atherstone draws six lessons from their example that are applicable especially to evangelicals within the western branches of the Anglican Communion who face continual hostility because of their commitment to Jesus and the biblical gospel. The martyrs had

1. A passion for God's word: Atherstone concludes, “Where are those with a burning hunger for the Word of God? When will Anglicanism's reputation be restored as a faithful Bible-believing, Bible-preaching denomination?”
2. A passion for God's saving grace: People challenged their minister's failure to preach justification by faith alone at the cost of their lives.
3. A passion for prayer: “Pray, as [martyr George] Marsh did, for ‘grace not to faint but patiently to bear the cross’. [...] Pray, pray, pray. Anglicans will once again be used mightily in the purposes of God when we are down on our knees.”
4. A passion for godliness: “When ministers lose their jobs and their homes because of their commitment to Jesus, what is the response from the evangelical community? Does that note of godliness shine through our actions and our attitudes? Are we quick to bless those who curse us?”
5. A passion for people: “Orthodox Anglicans must hold firmly to that top priority as we continue to battle for the gospel. Is it our great aim to see men and women won for Christ? [...] Why are we involved in controversy?—for the sake of party-spirit, or for the sake of the flock of God?”
6. A passion for eternity: “Those who are forced to put their jobs on the line for the sake of the gospel know that their spouse and children may also have to pay a high price for that conscientious stand. But faced with similar struggles, the early Anglican martyrs were buoyed up by their passion for eternity.”

What is really astonishing is that only 20 or so of these martyrs were clergymen. As Atherstone notes,

But most of the martyrs were Christians in the pews—weavers, fishermen, tailors, barbers, upholsterers, brewers, carpenters, agricultural labourers—often illiterate and unlearned apart from their knowledge of Christ and their love for the Bible. One in five of the martyrs were women. There were elderly widows and teenage girls [...] To admit to evangelical convictions was a matter of life and death.

Read the whole thing!

And don't forget to nominate your favourite Piper biographical talk.

Perhaps you could also suggest some other good resources for Reformation Day.

6 Comments »

Over the last year or so, my husband Dave and I have been thinking about the connection between evangelism and hospitality. We've become more convinced that while evangelistic events and other strategies have their place, they can't be a substitute for real relationships with non-Christian friends. And hospitality seems to us to be a key part of creating and maintaining those relationships.

So we decided that we needed to learn how to cultivate a lifestyle where we give and receive hospitality as part of our relationships with our non-Christian neighbours and friends (especially in this phase of our lives when so many of our networks are local ones within the suburb where we live). With three young children, most of the hospitality has happened between me and the non-Christian mums of our children's friends from school, play group and preschool. It's nothing groundbreaking; just afternoon tea after school, or morning tea with the little ones, or a catch up during school holidays.

And while we have been invited back in some cases, and we've gladly accepted the invitation, I think my bias has been towards having people in my home. With all my thinking about how to do hospitality better, I think I've ignored the benefits of being a guest.

A recent post by Tim Chester made me think about this:

... [E]ven our homes can be safe places for us and alien for others. After all, we follow a Saviour who had no home. I still believe in homes. Homes can become places where people feel they belong. Moreover, it does not have to be my home. We should look to plant churches in the homes of new converts. That way contextualis[ation] will happen more naturally. But we also need to move mission outside of church buildings and outside of Christian homes.

He makes a good point. As Chester writes, “Jesus had no home, but he came eating and drinking!” He welcomed sinners to his table, and he accepted their invitations to eat with them: tax collectors, Pharisees and everyone in between (Luke 5:29, 11:37-8).

In the New Testament letters, the assumption is that Christians will be eating and drinking with their non-Christian neighbours. While Paul tells the Christians in Corinth that they need to separate themselves from people who claim to be fellow believers, but who are living in blatant, unrepentant sin, he quickly adds the clarification that he does not mean that they should separate themselves from ‘the people of this world’ (1 Cor 5:9-11). There are tables that they should not eat at (e.g. the table of the god at the local pagan temple—1 Cor 10:14-22), but their next door neighbour's table is definitely not a place to stay away from (1 Cor 10:25-27).

So how do we become good at being guests? Do we need to build a few more ‘third places’ into the pattern of our lifestyle, or can you skip that step and just keep inviting people 'round, and wait till they begin to reciprocate? What have you found to be the best contexts for cultivating the kind of serious friendships in which the gospel is shared and people come to know Christ?

2 Comments »

The Higher School Certificate (HSC) is a strange beast: apparently it is the biggest test you will ever face in your life. Whoever got that rumour going among the high schools has obviously never tried to understand a mobile phone contract. But the rumour lives on, and it can be used to generate pressure on the students—sometimes a pressure that is too great for them to bear. It is sad to see such high hopes placed upon an exam. It is even sadder to see those high hopes end in tragedy.

Education: who would want to be without it? The rich wealth available for human knowledge in science, the arts, literature and the rest add to life as surely as any compilation of little known items of sporting trivia—perhaps, arguably, even more so. Education brings us information, knowledge and, occasionally, even wisdom. Education promises improvement, advancement, enhancement. For many, it promises upward mobility and a better life than that of the previous generation.

Education: its value was once a point in common between Mr ‘Enlightenment Man’ and his Christian neighbour. To be ‘enlightened’ was to have the soul flooded with the pure light of reason, and once that happened, life could never be the same again. Primitive thoughts led to primitive lives; rational thought led to rational and morally improved lives. Christians got involved in education, in curriculum and in the founding of schools because education was the way to moral improvement in society. The Christians, however, fought tooth and nail for the Scriptures to form a part of a child's education, for how can moral improvement come if the light of Christ is not there alongside the light of reason?

A lot happens in a school. There are values and attitudes that are taught. There are values and attitudes that are just caught. There are things being taught powerfully by the teacher's classroom curriculum, and there are things on the hidden curriculum that are learned even more powerfully. A lot happens as the light of reason is turned on. Many things begin to seem reasonable. Other things are deemed unreasonable.

Peter, the likeable but ham-fisted chief disciple, once found something unreasonable about Jesus. Even if he had a reasonably good education by the standards of his day, it was probably nothing compared to most of those who can now read about his encounter with his master. But by his ‘light of reason’, Peter didn't like Jesus talking about his coming death, and he tried to hush him up. “Get behind me, Satan”, rebuked Jesus. ‘For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (Mark 8:33).

Interesting. Just to think like a human being is to think not like God. Just to be ‘reasonable’, according to human ways of thinking about this world, is to be on the side of Satan.

Education: without God's word, there is no illumination. In fact, education solely by the ‘pure light of reason’—without revelation—is an education that keeps us all in the darkness. It is perfectly possible to be always learning but never arriving at the truth (2 Tim. 3:7).

Education: a force greater than ourselves—a force capable of much good. But when severed from the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ, education is a force also capable of much harm. Sometimes when it is blown up out of all proportion to the rest of life, it can even kill.

The stoicheia, the ‘elemental spirits of the universe’ —the ‘ABC’ of the universe—were another form of the principalities and powers once thought to exert a baneful influence over the world. And they sneak up almost imperceptibly. Why would we notice? They come to be with us at our mother's knee—through our teacher's lessons—at exactly the same time that we are learning to spell.

2 Comments »