In TT(1) I began with man made in the image of God and wrote, drawing on James Sire (who was drawing on John Henry Newman): 'three truths provide most of what is needed to undergird the possibility of human knowledge (and therefore, human thought): first, the primacy of God’s existence; second the nature of this God as intelligent, living, personal and almighty; thirdly, that he is the intentional creator of a rational, orderly universe that is not himself (that is, creation is not just an extension of God as pantheism teaches). Only if there is an objective, orderly universe to which our reason correlates, can there be any real basis for human thinking'.
What is the relation between man's being and God's? First, we are dependent on God. In him we live and move and have our being. Second, there is analogy. unlike any other creature our being is like God's. Third, also uniquely among creatures, there is capacity for response - we know God and should adore him and obey him. The medium of such response is God's Word. The first task of the mind is to receive the Word of God, believe it and obey it. The mind should therefore be in the service of a nature that is responsive to God - as God made it.
In Eden Adam received God's Word and for a time obeyed it. His mind was not only dependent on God's and analogous to it but perfectly responsive to God. He heard God's Word and obeyed. He was also called to be creative. He named the animals 'And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name' (Gen 2:19). So by analogy Adam was creative as God was creative. His mind was able to come to accurate assessments and make decisions that pleased God. It is one of the great 'what ifs' of history, to imagine what man's mind might have achieved without the Fall. Even fallen man, even the line of Cain, accomplished wonderful things (Gen 4:17-22). How much more, had there been no sin. Significantly, the first created thing in the line of Seth was the ark. The line of Cain was constructive but on its own initiative; the line of Seth listened to God's Word and provided for salvation. We take a fuller look at:
The mind in revolt
Sin entered human experience (Genesis 3) because Adam and Eve listened to the snake, through whom Satan spoke, rather than God. They trusted Satan and the evidence of their own senses (Genesis 3:6) and distrusted and disobeyed God. True thinking is dependent on faith in God’s Word. Thinking which is captive to the senses is the characteristic of the sinner. Paul describes the world in sin and the consequences of Adam and Eve’s sin in Romans 1:18-28. Suppressing the truth they knew about God, human beings, although knowing God, did not honour him or give thanks to him but became futile in their thinking (v 21). Claiming to be wise (how contemporary that is) they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles (v 23). God therefore ‘gave them up’ as an act of just punishment to their lusts and impurity, their dishonourable passions and debased mind (vv 24,26,28).
This is man today. What is the effect of sin on the mind?
First, there is no understanding at all of spiritual truth; the heart is darkened (Roman 1:21; Ephesians 4:18). He does not know God except as barely discerned Creator whom he rejects (Romans 1:18-20). He has a residual knowledge of God but it is a knowledge that only condemns him. He has no understanding of spiritual things for which the heart must be enlightened and opened up by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:14).
Secondly, there is defective understanding of all things. The Puritan Richard Baxter put it like this:2 ‘nothing can be rightly known if God be not known; nor is any study well managed, or to any great purpose, if God is not studied. We know little of the creature [that is, anything in creation], till we know it as it stands related to the Creator: single letters, and syllables uncomposed, are no better than nonsense…all creatures, as such, are broken syllables; they signify nothing as separated from God’.
In other words, separated from God we have imperfect knowledge of the parts but no understanding of the whole. We are like non-mechanics confronted with the jumbled components of a car engine: we may understand bits and pieces of what the parts do but have no way of putting them together.
Baxter continues: ‘Were they [creatures] separated actually they would cease to be, and the separation would be an annihilation; and when we separate them in our fancies, we make nothing of them unto ourselves.’
The point he is perceptively making is that in reality, creatures ‘cease to be’ if separated totally from God; when, in our fallen minds, we separate them from God in our perception and understanding, they ‘cease to be’ to us what they really are in that we fail to make any sense of them.
He goes on:
[W] hen man was made perfect, and placed in a perfect world…the whole creation was then man’s book, in which he was to read the nature and will of his Creator. Every creature had the name of God so legibly graven on it that man might run and read it…it was, therefore, his work to study the whole volume of nature, but first and foremost himself. And if any had held this course, he would have continued and increased in the knowledge of God and himself; but when he would know and love the creature and himself in a way of separation from God, he lost the knowledge both of the creature and the Creator…
The point that Baxter makes is profound. Separated from God, our knowledge of creation will never make true sense. We will always be ‘fools’ pretending we are wise. Brilliant though many men and women will be and capable of huge and real achievements in science, arts, technology and every branch of learning, they will never really understand the true use or purpose of anything because they will not honour God and will not know that the purpose of their greatest accomplishments is to glorify him, not themselves. In short, they will not be thinking straight; their thoughts will be futile.
Baxter points us to another important conclusion. I shall suggest later that one of the problems today is the fragmentation of knowledge. This, however, should not surprise the Christian even if the extent to which we see it today is accentuated. Apart from God, knowledge and understanding will be fragmented. It is a feature of man as sinner, not just of the twenty first century.
James Sire quotes John Henry Newman to good effect in this context:
'All knowledge forms one whole, because its subject-matter is one, for the universe in its length and breadth is so intimately knit together … then again, as to its Creator (though He of course in His own Being is infinitely separate from it, and Theology has its departments towards which human knowledge has no relations) yet He has so implicated Himself with it, and taken it into His very bosom, by His presence in it, His providence over it, His impressions upon it, and His influences through it, that we cannot truly or fully contemplate it without contemplating Him'.
In simpler language, all truth is a unity because it is from one God. Moreover, even though God is separate from the universe, his relationship to all he has made means we cannot understand creation without at the same time considering God. Although no longer worshipping and obeying God, creation is still dependent on him and its life can only be understood in relation to him. Supremely is this true of Man whose very being is analogous to God's.
In turn, this means that because of the Fall, we are not thinking properly nor can we, until we know God. It is the work of Christ to bring us back to God and as part of the experience of redemption, to ‘see and admire, to reverence and adore, to love and delight in God, as exhibited in his works – this is the only true philosophy’. The Christian is to be restored to something of a true ability to think, and to the true purpose of thinking. What is that? In John Owen’s words, the mind’s place is first ‘recognising, reacting to and conforming to revealed truth…theology is nothing but the pure Word of God and our part is the apprehension of it with our rational faculties as they are illuminated by God’.
So then we need to look briefly at some of the relevant attributes of the Christian mind.
Monday, 12 December 2011
Thursday, 8 December 2011
Westminster Conference 2011
I wrote a piece last December called 'Westminster Conference - what's the point?' I was positive but after this year's meetings I want to gush. It was excellent and people who missed it missed something special; what a shame there were fewer than a hundred people there.
The theme was religious liberty. Bob Letham gave us a scholarly introduction to chapter 20 of the Westminster Confession but did not go into depth on the issue of the civil magistrate defending Christian faith, worship or conversation. Knox Hyndman gave a stimulating survey of the Covenanters of the 17th C., leaving me feel that while they won my admiration for the way they chose to suffer than to sin (as they saw it) when persecuted, I am not sure I would like to have been a Baptist under any regime they formed. Obadiah Holmes was a Baptist who suffered for his principles in New England and Stephen Rees gave a powerful and challenging presentation of his life. How ironic that the men who went to New England for religious liberty ended up persecuting others; and those who left these shores to find freedom of conscience, would have probably been more free, at least till the Restoration, had they stayed here. And if the 20,000 who left England in the 1630s alone had stayed - how different would the history of England and America have been?
On Wednesday Lewis Allen gave an excellent paper on why the Puritans 'failed'. Perhaps the broad conclusion was that they failed to take the people with them; imposing godliness by statute can only accomplish so much. By the late 1650s, too many were disillusioned, and ready for change. In the eighteenth century there was perhaps a reaction to doctrinal precision and Robert Strivens charted us skilfully through the departure from orthodoxy on the Trinity and the person of Christ. Many at that time were unhappy to have to sign up to Confessions, including men who were orthodox such as Philip Doddridge - for many reasons he believed it was wrong to tie peoples' consciences to forms of human words. He maintained orthodoxy but others departed from it; while trying to retain the doctrine of the Trinity they varied in degrees of Socinianism and arianism in their view of Christ.
The last paper was a moving and inspiring account of the life and missionary labours of John Eliot, 'Apostle to the Indians'. It was a great note on which to leave and we are thankful to Hugh Collier for it.
The venue was excellent - the Salvation Army 'Regent Hall' in Oxford Street. I hope the Conference will be able to find a new home there. I had looked forward to a soup kitchen, but the cafe was fine.
The Westminster Conference is counter cultural. One has to listen for an hour at a time. Handouts are at a premium. One has to concentrate (did you make it to the end of that word without drifting or reaching for the zapper?). After each paper one is invited to discuss - this was better this year, but a discussion of more than two consecutive contributions on the same issue is rare.
A conference on 'leadership' or 'church planting' would no doubt draw many more. After all, such things are immediately relevant and practical. That is how short sighted we have become. We lose touch with our history and historical theology at our peril. This year's papers were of more immediate relevance than usual perhaps because most Christians are aware of the pressure on our liberties from contemporary governments and some of these issues were touched on in questions. But even where this is not the case, we must not be arrogant in our slavery to the present and the immediate.
The next Westminster Conference is 4-5 December 2012; mark it in your diary now.
The theme was religious liberty. Bob Letham gave us a scholarly introduction to chapter 20 of the Westminster Confession but did not go into depth on the issue of the civil magistrate defending Christian faith, worship or conversation. Knox Hyndman gave a stimulating survey of the Covenanters of the 17th C., leaving me feel that while they won my admiration for the way they chose to suffer than to sin (as they saw it) when persecuted, I am not sure I would like to have been a Baptist under any regime they formed. Obadiah Holmes was a Baptist who suffered for his principles in New England and Stephen Rees gave a powerful and challenging presentation of his life. How ironic that the men who went to New England for religious liberty ended up persecuting others; and those who left these shores to find freedom of conscience, would have probably been more free, at least till the Restoration, had they stayed here. And if the 20,000 who left England in the 1630s alone had stayed - how different would the history of England and America have been?
On Wednesday Lewis Allen gave an excellent paper on why the Puritans 'failed'. Perhaps the broad conclusion was that they failed to take the people with them; imposing godliness by statute can only accomplish so much. By the late 1650s, too many were disillusioned, and ready for change. In the eighteenth century there was perhaps a reaction to doctrinal precision and Robert Strivens charted us skilfully through the departure from orthodoxy on the Trinity and the person of Christ. Many at that time were unhappy to have to sign up to Confessions, including men who were orthodox such as Philip Doddridge - for many reasons he believed it was wrong to tie peoples' consciences to forms of human words. He maintained orthodoxy but others departed from it; while trying to retain the doctrine of the Trinity they varied in degrees of Socinianism and arianism in their view of Christ.
The last paper was a moving and inspiring account of the life and missionary labours of John Eliot, 'Apostle to the Indians'. It was a great note on which to leave and we are thankful to Hugh Collier for it.
The venue was excellent - the Salvation Army 'Regent Hall' in Oxford Street. I hope the Conference will be able to find a new home there. I had looked forward to a soup kitchen, but the cafe was fine.
The Westminster Conference is counter cultural. One has to listen for an hour at a time. Handouts are at a premium. One has to concentrate (did you make it to the end of that word without drifting or reaching for the zapper?). After each paper one is invited to discuss - this was better this year, but a discussion of more than two consecutive contributions on the same issue is rare.
A conference on 'leadership' or 'church planting' would no doubt draw many more. After all, such things are immediately relevant and practical. That is how short sighted we have become. We lose touch with our history and historical theology at our peril. This year's papers were of more immediate relevance than usual perhaps because most Christians are aware of the pressure on our liberties from contemporary governments and some of these issues were touched on in questions. But even where this is not the case, we must not be arrogant in our slavery to the present and the immediate.
The next Westminster Conference is 4-5 December 2012; mark it in your diary now.
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
Thinking Theologically (1)
Introduction
This is written out of a particular interest in and concern for the task of ministers and ministerial students in defending and preaching the faith of Scripture. How better may we think theologically, that the legacy we have inherited may not only be passed on but even improved upon?
This is also written in the conviction that due to a variety of pressures in our day, theological thinking is under threat. We at least need to address this fact.
This is not the work the subject deserves. Sometimes, though, it is better to say something badly than not at all. Perhaps it will provoke or inspire someone else to do better.
‘The mind’ and ‘thinking’
One could spend much time discussing and trying to define ‘mind’ and ‘thinking’ and that would take me way beyond the purposes of this piece. Yet some starting point is helpful. These are secular definitions but they are helpful and in no sense conflict with the biblical idea of mind I shall be looking at later.
‘Mind’ according to a fairly standard definition (in the 'New Oxford Dictionary of English' is ‘the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought’. The mind, for present purposes, is that faculty with which we think, though it is more than that.
‘Thinking’ has been defined as ‘the process involved in manipulating information either collected through the senses or stored in the memory from previous experience’. It will be instructive to see how a more specifically biblical approach to the subject alters this, if at all.
We are doing it all the time. Thinking is an intellectual activity – it uses the intellect - but it is of course not just for ‘intellectuals’. I am thinking as I write; you are thinking as you read. Sometimes ‘thinking’ is said to be ‘realistic’ in that it is more purposeful, more focused on outside stimuli and on problem solving; other ‘thinking’ is said to be ‘autistic’ in the sense of imaginative, expressive, and responding more to inner stimuli; this includes daydreaming.
Now if thinking is a basic activity that we cannot avoid for long, why do we need any kind of instruction to help us? Well, first, we can all learn to do things better even if they come naturally. Breathing is natural, but I may learn ways that are more efficient. Public speaking may be ‘natural’ but can be improved by better techniques. Second, this is particularly true if I have to think to a specific purpose such as ministers must do when studying the Bible or thinking about theology. Thirdly, it is even more true if there are factors in our culture which are undermining the whole practice of purposeful thought, which I suggest is the case today.
First however we need to put ‘thinking’ in a Christian context.
Humans as Thinkers
1. We are created in the image of God
Man, male and female, is made in the image of God. If God thinks, we can think. His thoughts are infinitely higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8,9), but at least there is analogy in the function of thought itself. We are called to ‘reason together’ with God (Isaiah 1:18). The first task of Adam’s mind was to receive God’s special revelation (Genesis 1:28) and obey. He was also to use his mind analytically and creatively in the context of general revelation by naming the animals. The animals, meanwhile, could not name him.
There is a case for saying that the presupposition of all thought is the existence of God, the infinite - personal Triune Creator God who speaks. Drawing on a paragraph from John Henry Newman’s 'The Idea of a University' James Sire suggests that three truths provide most of what is needed to undergird the possibility of human knowledge (and therefore, human thought): first, the primacy of God’s existence; second the nature of this God as intelligent, living, personal and almighty; thirdly, that he is the intentional creator of a rational, orderly universe that is not himself (that is, creation is not just an extension of God as pantheism teaches). Only if there is an objective, orderly universe to which our reason correlates, can there be any real basis for human thinking.
2. We are to love God with the mind
The greatest commandment, taught Jesus, is to ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength’ (Mark 12:30). This is the first and great duty of men and women and the first duty of the mind. The mind is to be applied to God through his Word and in obedience. ‘For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments’ (1 John 5:3).
A point of interest here is that thinking, if it an expression of love, is evidently to be accompanied by emotion or affection. Love is not merely feeling but it cannot be without it. Thinking is not to be an ice-cold activity.
This is written out of a particular interest in and concern for the task of ministers and ministerial students in defending and preaching the faith of Scripture. How better may we think theologically, that the legacy we have inherited may not only be passed on but even improved upon?
This is also written in the conviction that due to a variety of pressures in our day, theological thinking is under threat. We at least need to address this fact.
This is not the work the subject deserves. Sometimes, though, it is better to say something badly than not at all. Perhaps it will provoke or inspire someone else to do better.
‘The mind’ and ‘thinking’
One could spend much time discussing and trying to define ‘mind’ and ‘thinking’ and that would take me way beyond the purposes of this piece. Yet some starting point is helpful. These are secular definitions but they are helpful and in no sense conflict with the biblical idea of mind I shall be looking at later.
‘Mind’ according to a fairly standard definition (in the 'New Oxford Dictionary of English' is ‘the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought’. The mind, for present purposes, is that faculty with which we think, though it is more than that.
‘Thinking’ has been defined as ‘the process involved in manipulating information either collected through the senses or stored in the memory from previous experience’. It will be instructive to see how a more specifically biblical approach to the subject alters this, if at all.
We are doing it all the time. Thinking is an intellectual activity – it uses the intellect - but it is of course not just for ‘intellectuals’. I am thinking as I write; you are thinking as you read. Sometimes ‘thinking’ is said to be ‘realistic’ in that it is more purposeful, more focused on outside stimuli and on problem solving; other ‘thinking’ is said to be ‘autistic’ in the sense of imaginative, expressive, and responding more to inner stimuli; this includes daydreaming.
Now if thinking is a basic activity that we cannot avoid for long, why do we need any kind of instruction to help us? Well, first, we can all learn to do things better even if they come naturally. Breathing is natural, but I may learn ways that are more efficient. Public speaking may be ‘natural’ but can be improved by better techniques. Second, this is particularly true if I have to think to a specific purpose such as ministers must do when studying the Bible or thinking about theology. Thirdly, it is even more true if there are factors in our culture which are undermining the whole practice of purposeful thought, which I suggest is the case today.
First however we need to put ‘thinking’ in a Christian context.
Humans as Thinkers
1. We are created in the image of God
Man, male and female, is made in the image of God. If God thinks, we can think. His thoughts are infinitely higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8,9), but at least there is analogy in the function of thought itself. We are called to ‘reason together’ with God (Isaiah 1:18). The first task of Adam’s mind was to receive God’s special revelation (Genesis 1:28) and obey. He was also to use his mind analytically and creatively in the context of general revelation by naming the animals. The animals, meanwhile, could not name him.
There is a case for saying that the presupposition of all thought is the existence of God, the infinite - personal Triune Creator God who speaks. Drawing on a paragraph from John Henry Newman’s 'The Idea of a University' James Sire suggests that three truths provide most of what is needed to undergird the possibility of human knowledge (and therefore, human thought): first, the primacy of God’s existence; second the nature of this God as intelligent, living, personal and almighty; thirdly, that he is the intentional creator of a rational, orderly universe that is not himself (that is, creation is not just an extension of God as pantheism teaches). Only if there is an objective, orderly universe to which our reason correlates, can there be any real basis for human thinking.
2. We are to love God with the mind
The greatest commandment, taught Jesus, is to ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength’ (Mark 12:30). This is the first and great duty of men and women and the first duty of the mind. The mind is to be applied to God through his Word and in obedience. ‘For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments’ (1 John 5:3).
A point of interest here is that thinking, if it an expression of love, is evidently to be accompanied by emotion or affection. Love is not merely feeling but it cannot be without it. Thinking is not to be an ice-cold activity.
Monday, 28 November 2011
Reformation and Revival
Every November seventy or eighty of us (occasionally a few more) gather at Swanwick in Derbyshire for the conference of the Reformation and Revival Fellowship. There is little point in going to this conference unless you like good preaching but if you do, it is one of the best around. Part of the secret of the conference is the subject matter. Reformation and revival enable the preachers to preach God for his own glory's sake. At the ministers' conferences that I also attend, there is always what feels like an ulterior motive; a text is preached with a view to making us better pastors. The professional grid somehow constrains the text. At the RRF the preachers and the listeners are under no such constraints. We join together to hear from God about God and about Christ and about his grace and his purposes. It is liberating and refreshing and not uncommonly the place of rich blessing.
This year Geoff Thomas set us off warmly with a study of the fruit of godly sorrow in 2 Corinthians 7:11; what stayed with many of us, it seemed, was the plea for 'earnestness'. This was pressed home for us by four addresses from Kenneth Stewart (Glasgow) on 'Reformation under Hezekiah'. This good king was nothing if not earnest. We saw his godliness, his thorough reform of religion, his later weakness, his restoration and his pride. Human after all, but determined to serve his God wholeheartedly in his day.
Is earnestness lacking in our day? There seems to be more of a desire to be cool than to be hot. Earnestness is associated with being rather too serious, being old-fashioned, a bit of an anorak. I was leafing through a Christian teenage magazine recently and one of the contributors (a Christian pop chanteuse) was very keen to tell her audience that whatever people said about them, they were beautiful in God's sight. You are not ugly, you are beautiful - that's the message; boost your self-esteem. With that attitude, who is going to be earnest in repentance? Who is going to experience, much less value, godly grief? We are affirming creation to the detriment of affirming the Fall and sin. We all think far too well of ourselves; as Dr Lloyd Jones would say, we are really all far too healthy.
Our third speaker reminded us of this saying of the Doctor's: Philip Eveson gave two excellent papers on Dr Lloyd Jones and his theology of revival. The first paper took us through the influences that formed Lloyd Jones' thinking; his conversion, the Welsh context of Calvinistic Methodism and the 1904-05 revivals; his own spiritual experiences of 1948; his reading of Jonathan Edwards. His concern for revival was no obsession, asserted Mr Eveson; this was a passionate but wholly reasonable conviction. The second paper helped us through the theology of Lloyd Jones, and was very clear but left many of us with more questions than answers and the desire to have had a question session with Philip - a tribute to him, I should say, and no criticism of the clarity of his address.
Some of the questions I might have asked were:
1. Would it have been helpful if the remarkable experiences of great saints of God were not given the term 'baptism in/by the Spirit' as Dr Lloyd Jones does?
2. Is it helpful to read back from an individual spiritual experience to the event of Pentecost and then argue that a repetition of Pentecost is what we want today? Apart from anything else, is that how to look at Pentecost?
3. Does the fear of quenching the Spirit lead to a paralysis in confronting unbiblical manifestations which claim to be of the Spirit?
4. Does it make any difference if we go back beyond the eighteenth century to the seventeenth and sixteenth? What is our model of God 'doing great things'?
This was a good conference and we are thankful to our speakers and preachers for excellent material and much to think about.
If you want to hear the talks or download them go to www.reformationandrevival.org.
This year Geoff Thomas set us off warmly with a study of the fruit of godly sorrow in 2 Corinthians 7:11; what stayed with many of us, it seemed, was the plea for 'earnestness'. This was pressed home for us by four addresses from Kenneth Stewart (Glasgow) on 'Reformation under Hezekiah'. This good king was nothing if not earnest. We saw his godliness, his thorough reform of religion, his later weakness, his restoration and his pride. Human after all, but determined to serve his God wholeheartedly in his day.
Is earnestness lacking in our day? There seems to be more of a desire to be cool than to be hot. Earnestness is associated with being rather too serious, being old-fashioned, a bit of an anorak. I was leafing through a Christian teenage magazine recently and one of the contributors (a Christian pop chanteuse) was very keen to tell her audience that whatever people said about them, they were beautiful in God's sight. You are not ugly, you are beautiful - that's the message; boost your self-esteem. With that attitude, who is going to be earnest in repentance? Who is going to experience, much less value, godly grief? We are affirming creation to the detriment of affirming the Fall and sin. We all think far too well of ourselves; as Dr Lloyd Jones would say, we are really all far too healthy.
Our third speaker reminded us of this saying of the Doctor's: Philip Eveson gave two excellent papers on Dr Lloyd Jones and his theology of revival. The first paper took us through the influences that formed Lloyd Jones' thinking; his conversion, the Welsh context of Calvinistic Methodism and the 1904-05 revivals; his own spiritual experiences of 1948; his reading of Jonathan Edwards. His concern for revival was no obsession, asserted Mr Eveson; this was a passionate but wholly reasonable conviction. The second paper helped us through the theology of Lloyd Jones, and was very clear but left many of us with more questions than answers and the desire to have had a question session with Philip - a tribute to him, I should say, and no criticism of the clarity of his address.
Some of the questions I might have asked were:
1. Would it have been helpful if the remarkable experiences of great saints of God were not given the term 'baptism in/by the Spirit' as Dr Lloyd Jones does?
2. Is it helpful to read back from an individual spiritual experience to the event of Pentecost and then argue that a repetition of Pentecost is what we want today? Apart from anything else, is that how to look at Pentecost?
3. Does the fear of quenching the Spirit lead to a paralysis in confronting unbiblical manifestations which claim to be of the Spirit?
4. Does it make any difference if we go back beyond the eighteenth century to the seventeenth and sixteenth? What is our model of God 'doing great things'?
This was a good conference and we are thankful to our speakers and preachers for excellent material and much to think about.
If you want to hear the talks or download them go to www.reformationandrevival.org.
Monday, 31 October 2011
'Is the church where you would like it to be?'
This canny question (a 'strategy' question, not a geographic one, you understand)was put to me by a mature and savvy Christian when he was talking to me about church membership a while ago.
What, as a pastor, should one say? The knee-jerk reaction might be to say 'yes' as this gives the impression of a CEO in charge and in control and succeeding in getting things where one wants them to be. Thankfully I am not sufficiently CEO material and I paused before answering.
'No' I said. A further short pause. 'I think I would be worried if the church was ever where I wanted it to be'. Thinking it through as I spoke (not to be recommended unless you are put on the spot) I added, in the course of fruitful discussion, that if the church was where I wanted it to be, it would suggest that I was in charge of the church rather than the Lord. Also, it implied that I was setting the church's agenda, and if I was satisfied with where it was it suggested something woefully lacking in my desire for the church, or something woefully complacent in my assessment of where we were spiritually.
Yet - there surely is a place for planning and having a 'vision' for one's church. One can hardly lead effectively without it.
But - a good question he asked, don't you think? How you answer is likely to say far more about you than it will say about the church. It makes one think: where would I like the church to be? What would I like to see changed for the better? Where are we weak? What should I be concentrating on? In a way these questions are never far from the mind of a pastor, but sometimes the demands of the immediate cause one to lose sight of the ultimately important.
I am thankful that this man and his wife, with their children, have joined us. May we all work towards making the church more what the Lord would have us be.
What, as a pastor, should one say? The knee-jerk reaction might be to say 'yes' as this gives the impression of a CEO in charge and in control and succeeding in getting things where one wants them to be. Thankfully I am not sufficiently CEO material and I paused before answering.
'No' I said. A further short pause. 'I think I would be worried if the church was ever where I wanted it to be'. Thinking it through as I spoke (not to be recommended unless you are put on the spot) I added, in the course of fruitful discussion, that if the church was where I wanted it to be, it would suggest that I was in charge of the church rather than the Lord. Also, it implied that I was setting the church's agenda, and if I was satisfied with where it was it suggested something woefully lacking in my desire for the church, or something woefully complacent in my assessment of where we were spiritually.
Yet - there surely is a place for planning and having a 'vision' for one's church. One can hardly lead effectively without it.
But - a good question he asked, don't you think? How you answer is likely to say far more about you than it will say about the church. It makes one think: where would I like the church to be? What would I like to see changed for the better? Where are we weak? What should I be concentrating on? In a way these questions are never far from the mind of a pastor, but sometimes the demands of the immediate cause one to lose sight of the ultimately important.
I am thankful that this man and his wife, with their children, have joined us. May we all work towards making the church more what the Lord would have us be.
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
The Cathedral of Nature
We went to London today. We took the boys to the Natural History Museum. Queueing to get in lasted an hour. Then we 'did' the dinosaurs who 'ruled the earth' from about 230 million to 65 million BC. Funny that, as they showed extracts from films like '10,000 (or was it 10 million? )Years BC' and 'The Flintstones' which had humans and dinosaurs on earth at the same time. There was some catastrophe about 65 million years ago and there have been about 100 possible explanations put forward as to what this was, including that they were all taken up by aliens or died of hay-fever when certain plants came along and the climate changed. A good dose of Beconase then could have saved these creatures for posterity. A flood was not one of the catastrophic options listed by the museum.
On the floor which tells you how we have evolved from apes I was delighted to learn that we are nearer gorillas or chimpanzees than to orang-utans or gibbons; it's something to do with the jaw. Baboons are not in the running apparently. Neanderthal man was prominent, if I recall, from about 500,000 BC to within 100,000 then the race who were our direct ancestors came long. Neanderthals and these ancestors co-existed for a time (a few tens of thousands of years). I must admit I thought the story was that Neanderthals were our ancestors; you learn something every day. When you realise that the total skeletal evidence on which these weighty conclusions are based would fit into the back of a not very large white van, one is amazed at the extrapolatory ability of palaeontologists.
But there is lots of less conjectural stuff in the NHM and it makes for an interesting day out. It is reading between the lines, however, which is interesting. They call it the 'cathedral of nature' and walking in, it certainly has that appearance. Moreover, sitting on his chair (cathedra, like ancient bishops) up on the steps as you enter, is His Grace Charles Darwin. His white marble statue was unveiled in February 2009 and the statue of Richard Owen who founded the museum in the 19th C, has been ignominiously shunted into an obscure corner - still to be seen with a polite plaque to his name. But he did not agree with Evolution as Darwin taught it, you see, and so has been demoted by Commissar Dawkins and his Stalinist atheist cronies, along with one or two contemporary men of science who dare to suggest that Evolution may not be the answer to everything. Cathedral it certainly is; even science needs its religious overtones. Dawkins interestingly has brought out a children's book called 'The Magic of Reality'. So having rubbished religion we are now back to magic.
After leaving the NHM, we took the tube to Victoria, walked to Buckingham Palace, saw a miniature version of changing of the guard, walked through a lovely autumnal St James' Park to Parliament Square, saw the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, Whitehall, Downing Street as well guarded as a military establishment, and Trafalgar Square where punters were abseiling down a specially erected white wall. All wonderful, apart from the scaffolding, plastic sheets and building paraphernalia defacing the Queen Victoria Memorial (outside Buck House), Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square. London, like our culture, seems to be undergoing major reconstruction.
On the floor which tells you how we have evolved from apes I was delighted to learn that we are nearer gorillas or chimpanzees than to orang-utans or gibbons; it's something to do with the jaw. Baboons are not in the running apparently. Neanderthal man was prominent, if I recall, from about 500,000 BC to within 100,000 then the race who were our direct ancestors came long. Neanderthals and these ancestors co-existed for a time (a few tens of thousands of years). I must admit I thought the story was that Neanderthals were our ancestors; you learn something every day. When you realise that the total skeletal evidence on which these weighty conclusions are based would fit into the back of a not very large white van, one is amazed at the extrapolatory ability of palaeontologists.
But there is lots of less conjectural stuff in the NHM and it makes for an interesting day out. It is reading between the lines, however, which is interesting. They call it the 'cathedral of nature' and walking in, it certainly has that appearance. Moreover, sitting on his chair (cathedra, like ancient bishops) up on the steps as you enter, is His Grace Charles Darwin. His white marble statue was unveiled in February 2009 and the statue of Richard Owen who founded the museum in the 19th C, has been ignominiously shunted into an obscure corner - still to be seen with a polite plaque to his name. But he did not agree with Evolution as Darwin taught it, you see, and so has been demoted by Commissar Dawkins and his Stalinist atheist cronies, along with one or two contemporary men of science who dare to suggest that Evolution may not be the answer to everything. Cathedral it certainly is; even science needs its religious overtones. Dawkins interestingly has brought out a children's book called 'The Magic of Reality'. So having rubbished religion we are now back to magic.
After leaving the NHM, we took the tube to Victoria, walked to Buckingham Palace, saw a miniature version of changing of the guard, walked through a lovely autumnal St James' Park to Parliament Square, saw the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, Whitehall, Downing Street as well guarded as a military establishment, and Trafalgar Square where punters were abseiling down a specially erected white wall. All wonderful, apart from the scaffolding, plastic sheets and building paraphernalia defacing the Queen Victoria Memorial (outside Buck House), Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square. London, like our culture, seems to be undergoing major reconstruction.
Saturday, 15 October 2011
Don't blame the referee!
We must not blame the referee for the defeat in Auckland. To lose 9-8 is no disgrace with 14 men, but 14 Welshmen can beat 15 Frenchmen any time. It wasn't the lack of men. The referee's decision actually made it a bit more of a contest. It was the fact that we didn't kick well. You can't expect to win World Cup semi finals if you miss two kickable penalties, a conversion and two drop goals (not to mention Halfpenny's magnificent effort in the last ten minutes).
Wales should have won easily. They lost it themselves. The second best team is in the final. As my wife said, at least Wales will not now have to play a final on a Sunday. It took me a while to be that spiritual.
But well done France for bearing up well against 14 Welshmen.
Wales should have won easily. They lost it themselves. The second best team is in the final. As my wife said, at least Wales will not now have to play a final on a Sunday. It took me a while to be that spiritual.
But well done France for bearing up well against 14 Welshmen.
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