Phill Sacre

Category: Christian

Anything I write about the Christian faith.

  • What is an ‘Evangelical’?

    What is an ‘Evangelical’?

    For those outside the church, the label ‘evangelical’ may have a connotation of rainbow guitar straps, the Alpha course, happy-clappy dancing and so on. Inside the church … well, it all depends. It’s a label which somewhat resists definition: it’s not ‘owned’ by anyone, and these days it seems everyone wants to define themselves as an evangelical (so I’ve heard – I’ve not really noticed this myself, but still). I fall very much within the ‘evangelical’ tradition of Christianity, as it is called, and although I think I have an idea of what that means it’s not a clear-cut distinction.

    This debate has been provoked in particular by Steve Chalke coming out in support for gay marriage – in contrast to what many (even most) evangelicals would say. There’s also been some debate on Twitter lately about ‘evangelicals’ and who’s in / out of the club. So, what is the boundary line for saying someone is evangelical or not? Is there such a boundary line?

    The historian David Bebbington describes four historic characteristics of evangelicals (known as the “Bebbington Quadrilateral” – I know, I know, I didn’t pick the name), which are (from Wikipedia):

    • biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible (e.g. all essential spiritual truth is to be found in its pages)
    • crucicentrism, a focus on the atoning work of Christ on the cross
    • conversionism, the belief that human beings need to be converted
    • activism, the belief that the gospel needs to be expressed in effort.

    I would go along with all these – I think they’re all important for defining evangelicalism. In particular, I would like to emphasise the first point – Biblicism – I believe one of the fundamental tenets of evangelicalism is the belief that the Bible is not just important, it is in fact the Word of God (see my previous post on Scriptural authority).

    In particular, for me one of the defining characteristics of an evangelical is how they would answer the question: What do you do with the Bible when it says something you disagree with? It’s not a question which is original to me, but I think it’s important.

    A liberal Christian would say, clearly the Bible is wrong. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard in sermons from liberal Christians that ‘the Bible was edited’ – i.e., the Bible is simply mistaken on a number of issues, and as such we aren’t obliged to believe it at certain points (or even, a lot of points). So – for example, the Bible prohibits gay relationships: clearly this is just a cultural expression, we now know that gay relationships are fine, therefore we can ignore the Bible’s teaching on this matter. In short, a liberal Christian would see reason as being of more value than Scripture in determining doctrine.

    A Catholic Christian would have a more nuanced answer to that question, in that the Catholic church has a tradition of interpretation of Scripture. I think the Catholic church would claim none of its doctrines are opposed to Scripture – but tradition is of equal weight. So, for example, the understanding of Matthew 16:18 (“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church…”) – as I understand it, used by Catholics to defend the apostolic succession of the papacy from Peter – is interpreted that way, even though I would argue that this is not what it means. In short, a Catholic Christian would see tradition as being of equal value than Scripture in determining doctrine. (I hope I’m not being unfair to either liberals or Catholics here; this is just how I understand things.)

    In contrast to both of these, I would say an evangelical should answer that question: defer to the Bible’s teaching. Now, I’d like to qualify that by saying – that doesn’t mean I would disagree with questioning received wisdom – I think it’s absolutely right to question things and make sure that we really do believe what the Bible actually says. In the past I think we’ve had ‘paradigm shifts’ where we’ve actually seen that perhaps the Bible doesn’t say something which it was claimed to – for example, eighteenth-century Biblical supporters of slavery might have used verses which we now know don’t affirm what they thought they did. But the point is, culture and circumstances informed Biblical study – they did not replace it.

    In short, my answer to the question: ‘what is an evangelical?’ is someone who sees the Bible as so important that we must place it front and centre in our life and doctrine. It’s a question of method rather than an end result. So – to take an example – the question of the legitimacy of gay relationships needs to be answered from within the pages of the Bible, not from the prevailing cultural opinion.

    So, going back to Steve Chalke, what I believe he’s started to do (in fact, I think he started to do this with The Lost Message of Jesus and his views on penal substitution) is move away from seeing the Bible as being primary. If you read his article – and the Evangelical Alliance’s excellent responses to it – his arguments do not rely on so much on Biblical study as ‘trajectory’ language. As such I would argue that he’s not on firm footing as an evangelical – he is moving away from that label, even if he would continue to like to use it for himself.

  • Comedy and Christianity

    I watched an interesting programme on TV last night called “Are you having a laugh? Comedy and Christianity” (still available to watch on the BBC iPlayer at the time of writing). I didn’t agree with everything in the programme but I think it raised some interesting points: things do seem to have changed in the past 50 years – Christianity in general seems to be an acceptable target to attack in general now.

    One thing which I found particularly interesting was how a lot of comedians assume that it’s just OK to ridicule Christianity in a comedy show because (according to one comedian), Christians don’t enjoy comedy and don’t go to comedy shows. Now clearly that is stunningly narrow-minded, but at the same time it’s just reflective of the way Christianity seems to have been sidelined in society: it’s perfectly OK to be a Christian, as long as you don’t actually let it influence you in public life (see some of the tolerance stuff I was talking about).

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  • The Trinity: What’s the Point?

    The theologian Robert Letham once wrote:

    For the vast majority of Christians, including most ministers and theological students, the Trinity is still a mathematical conundrum, full of imposing philosophical jargon, relegated to an obscure alcove remote from daily life. (Source)

    I wonder if that’s something you can identify with? Is the Trinity something which you’ve always known you ought to believe, as a Christian, but never really understood why?

    If that describes you, you’re not on your own. That was also my experience until relatively recently: I had some understanding of the different persons of the Trinity, I knew that it was important for there to be a God who was Father, Son and Spirit – but in a very vague kind of way.

    Last year, as part of our course on Church History and Doctrine, we studied the Trinity – and I wrote an essay on ‘The pastoral implications of neglecting a doctrine of the Trinity”. Needless to say, I now think it’s not just important: it’s fundamental for Christians to understand why we worship God as Trinity. Now, my original plan was to write something up about the Trinity on this very blog, but…

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  • The Woman at the Well

    Photo by moregoodfoundation on Flickr.

    And by ‘the woman at the well’ I mean the ‘woman of Samaria’ of John 4. You know, the fattest woman in the Bible (the “woman of some area”… geddit? GEDDIT? HAHAHAHA! Sorry.)

    Anyway, we were studying John 4 in our class a couple of weeks ago, and I really enjoyed it. In our class on John, each of us has been assigned a commentary to look at and every week we look at it and write a couple of sheets summary on what it says, any exegetical issues and questions we have etc. I’ve really benefited from it – I’ve been using Andrew Lincoln’s commentary, which I’ve found to be excellent. Although I don’t agree with everything – he probably takes a more ‘open’ evangelical line on certain issues, and if you don’t know what that means don’t worry – but in general his exegetical insight and theological grasp of the text have been very helpful to me.

    This chapter is a case in point. As with virtually every chapter in John, it is theologically rich and there is much you could say about it.  I’m going to restrict myself to one topic though, something which I don’t think the ‘blessed Don’ (as our tutor describes Don Carson) picks up in his commentary: the idea of this passage being a betrothal scene. When I say ‘betrothal scene’, I mean an Old Testament betrothal scene like that described in Genesis 24.

    First things first, wells / cisterns in the Old Testament are often a symbol of faithfulness, i.e. marital fidelity. So, Jeremiah 2:13 “‘My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” Or Proverbs 5:15 “Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well.” (It’s in the context of marriage, see vv16-20, but I think the idea is pretty clear…)

    It should also be noted that Jesus, when he performed his first miracle (or ‘sign’ in John’s gospel) at Cana – turning water into wine – was performing the role of the bridegroom: apparently, it was the bridegroom’s job to provide wine at a wedding in those days.

    So, given all that, let’s take a quick look at some of the parallels between this passage and Genesis 24:

    • Jesus sits down by a well, tired; in 24:11 Abraham’s servant makes his camels kneel by a well (presumably tired, near the end of the day!)
    • Jesus asks a Samaritan (a woman not from his own country) for water; in 24:17 the servant asks Rebekah for water
    • The Samaritan woman goes back to the town to tell everyone about Jesus; in 24:28 Rebekah runs off to tell her mother’s household
    • Jesus is urged to stay for two days (he is offered hospitality and talks about ‘food’); in 24:54 the servant stays the night with Rebekah’s family after a meal.

    What I find fascinating about all this is how the betrothal scene is taken and widened / subverted. For example, whereas in the standard betrothal scene the bridegroom is offered a meal, in John 4 Jesus says “my food is to do the will of him who sent me” (v34). The chapter in Genesis portrays Rebekah as a virtuous woman, whereas in John 4 the Samaritan woman has had five husbands, and is living with a man who is not her husband (v18).

    Now all this is very interesting, but what does it actually mean? I think this is where we get the payoff from this particular passage. At this point, I’m just going to quote from Lincoln because I don’t think I can do better:

    Jesus, as the unique representative of God who is one with God, is presented as the bridegroom seeking a bride, the new people of God. Represented by the Samaritan woman, the new bride turns out to include women as well as men, Samaritans as well as Jews, and those with dubious pasts who would normally have been considered to be impure. Jesus overturns the usual conventions in choosing his bride. His new covenant bride transcends ethnic, gender and purity divisions so that Jesus as bridegroom can be confessed as truly the Saviour of the world. In this light the water he offers is neither simply that which quenches thirst nor that which gives rise to sexual overtones but represents the revelation from God that is life-giving and that is mediated by the Spirit.

    Isn’t that amazing? A simple scene at a well – but where Jesus reveals himself to be the bridegroom, who is seeking at bride. (This is particularly profound when you consider that marriage is often a Biblical picture of Christ and the Church – see Ephesians 5:25-33; Revelation 21:1-4). The bride is actually not perfect – not a perfect model of beauty, not someone the world might consider desirable – but whom Christ has chosen to redeem. The views of the world are overturned as Jesus seeks the weak and despised things of the world to shame the strong.

    I find it quite staggering that one can read such profound theological truths from a story about a woman and a well. But I found it helpful to think about this, and once again it makes me thankful for the riches of God’s word!

  • Sermon: Genesis 42-45, Joseph and his Brothers Reconciled

    On Sunday night I preached at the evening service of Christ Church Cockfosters. I haven’t got the audio available just yet, but if you’d like to read the approximate text of what I preached, I’ve attached the script. If I get the audio too I will update this post.

    You might want to have the passage open while you read. (Note that the sermon was part of a series on Joseph, from chapters 37 to 50, so it might help if you don’t know the story to read from there, or even before in Genesis, just to get some of the context!)

    Sermon: Genesis 42-45

  • Knowing God: Children of God

    This is the final part of my lent series on J.I. Packer’s ‘Knowing God’ – first post here.

    I’ve now finished reading ‘Knowing God’, and I found it to be an excellent book! I’d like to blog on just one more chapter – although all of them were helpful. The chapter in question talks about being adopted by God. This is a subject we also covered in our Christian Doctrine class recently, so it’s been on my mind!

    I’d like to start by asking a deceptively simple question: should everyone – including non-Christians – be taught the Lord’s Prayer?

    Let me refresh you how it starts, from Jesus’ words in Matthew 6.9: “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘
    Our Father in heaven…’” Notice how it starts: ‘Our Father…’ Can everyone say that? Are we, to put it bluntly, all ‘children of God’?

    This is something of a hot potato issue, because there are many who would answer yes to that question. I mean, God created us all, didn’t he? But actually, what I’ve been learning is that we don’t all have the same privileges of calling God Father.

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  • Knowing God: God’s Wrath

    This is part of my lent series on J.I. Packer’s ‘Knowing God’ – first post here.

    A few years ago we went to New Word Alive (you may remember me blogging about the experience …  but probably not). Anyway, I recall thinking in one of the main meetings, “every song we’ve sung tonight so far has mentioned God’s wrath”. It seems that in the conservative stream of evangelicalism, God’s wrath has received something of a revival: if people are writing songs which mention it, clearly it’s not the taboo subject that it was when Jim Packer was writing this chapter in Knowing God! But at the same time, I do think it’s a fairly uncomfortable issue which we don’t really like talking about very much. But Packer says, “Why, when the Bible is so vocal about [God’s wrath], should we feel obliged to be silent?”

    It is true that the Bible is vocal about wrath – it’s struck me, as I’ve been studying John’s Gospel this term, how much wrath is mentioned even in John. For example, John 3:36, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.”

    That said, wrath is not an easy subject to talk about – and I believe that is the way it is supposed to be. It is meant to drive us out of our comfort zones, to drive us from self-reliance and rely instead on God.

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  • Knowing God: God’s Love

    This is part of my Lent series on J.I. Packer’s ‘Knowing God’ – first post here.

    “God is Love” has to be one of the most famous statements about God in the Bible (1 John 4:8, 16) – it’s in the passage which is often read out at weddings. But, it is also one of the most misunderstood!

    Packer makes a helpful distinction by saying that ‘God is Love’ is not the whole truth about God according to the Bible. We also have to read it alongside other statements like ‘God is Spirit’ and ‘God is Light’ (also written by the apostle John). We cannot say that God is love without also saying that God is light “Light means holiness and purity, as measured by God’s law.”

    So, he says:

    “the God who is love is first and foremost light, and sentimental ideas of His love as an indulgent, benevolent softness, divorced from moral standards and concerns, must therefore be ruled out from the start. God’s love is a holy love … God’s love is stern, for it expresses holiness in the lover and seeks holiness for the beloved. Scripture does not allow us to confer happiness on people who will not seek holiness, or to shield His loved ones from trouble when He knows that they need trouble to further their sanctification.”

    These are indeed tough words! I’m reminded of reading ‘The Problem of Pain’ by C.S. Lewis. Lewis saw that a good and loving God must surely allow us to suffer:

    We may wish, indeed, that we were of so little account to God that He left us alone to follow our natural impulses – that He would give over trying to train us into something so unlike our natural selves: but once again, we are asking for not more love, but less.

    He also said, “Human will becomes truly creative and truly our own when it is wholly God’s.” It made me reflect on the fact that, although God is ‘love’, that doesn’t mean life will always be a bed of roses for me. I will go through difficult times, I will have struggles. But that doesn’t mean God isn’t working in those times and through those times.

    After talking about God’s love not being the whole story according to the Bible – he then goes on to say, it is the whole story for the Christian!

    … so far as he [the Christian] is concerned, God is love to him – holy, omnipotent love – at every moment and in every event of every day’s life. Even when he cannot see the why and the wherefore of God’s dealings, he knows that there is love in and behind them, and so he can rejoice always, even when, humanly speaking, things are going wrong. He knows that the true story of life, when known, will prove to be, as the hymn says, ‘mercy from first to last’ – and he is content.

    Those are amazing words, particularly that last sentence: the story of my life, when it is fully known, will be “mercy from first to last”. So often in this world I find it’s easy to get caught in in the problems of this life, without actually lifting my eyes to think about the bigger picture. How can I be content in every situation? By knowing that God is love, and as far as I am concerned that is the complete truth about God.

  • Knowing God: God’s Wisdom

    This is the third part of blogging my way through “Knowing God” – see the intro post here. Yesterday I read the chapter “God’s Wisdom and Ours”, which I really needed to hear!

    One thing which I found particularly helpful was Jim Packer’s analogy about a railway station. Allow me to explain. If you go to York Station (for example) as a passenger, you’ll see a busy station with lots of trains running across all the different platforms. Now, occasionally a train might be delayed – and you don’t know why. But if you go in to the control room, you’ll see a wall full of computer equipment which will give you all sorts of information about why a train might need to be delayed – by seeing the bigger picture, you’ll be able to understand why. 

    Packer says that this is how we sometimes try to understand wisdom: by thinking that if we were just that little bit closer to God, a bit better at listening to Him, we would be able to understand why things happen. But, Packer says, this is not the case. If we try to understand every little element of why, we will drive ourselves mad! God has hidden his ways from us, to keep us humble and teach us to walk by faith. True wisdom is, instead, to trust in God and rejoice in Him, even when we cannot discern His path.

    He quotes this from Richard Baxter to summarise:

    Ye saints, who toil below,
    adore your heavenly King,
    And onwards as ye go
    Some joyful anthem sing.
    Take what He gives,
    And praise Him still
    Through good and ill
    Who ever lives.

    If I’m honest, this chapter resonated with me in my situation: why do people – like my Mum – get ill? Why have things happened one way and not another? I don’t know. But the appropriate response is not despair; the appropriate response of wisdom is trusting in the One who does know.

  • Co-workers with God

    This is the second of my lenten reflections on Knowing God (see the first post here). I’m not going to be blogging my way through every chapter, but only bits and pieces that strike me particularly. Well, I was especially struck when reading the chapter ‘Knowing and Being Known’:

    What happens is that the almighty Creator, the Lord of hosts, the great God before whom the nations are as a drop in a bucket, comes to him and begins to talk to him, through the words and truths of Holy Scripture. Perhaps he has been acquainted with the Bible and Christian truth for many years, and it has meant nothing to him; but one day he wakes up to the fact that God is actually speaking to him – him! – through the biblical message. As he listens to what God is saying, he finds himself brought very low; for God talks to him about his sin, and guilt, and weakness, and blindness, and folly, and compels him to judge himself hopeless and helpless, and to cry out for forgiveness. But this is not all. He comes to realise as he listens that God is actually opening His heart to him, making friends with him, and enlisting him a colleague – in Barth’s phrase, a covenant partner. It is a staggering thing, but it is true – the relationship in which sinful human beings know God is one in which God, so to speak, takes them on to His staff, to be henceforth His fellow-workers (see 1 Cor. 3:9) and personal friends.

    As Packer says, it is indeed a ‘staggering thing’: God, the almighty God of the universe, should choose to makes us his fellow-workers and even friends! I feel like I’ve been particularly convicted lately of my unworthiness in many respects – why would God use me and how could God use me? But it is true – I believe God has worked through me in the past and will again in the future.

    It’s an incredible thing to be used in God’s service, despite the fact that – as Isaiah puts it, ‘all our righteous acts are like filthy rags’ (Isaiah 64:6).

    In our sermon series at church the last couple of weeks we’ve been going through the story of Joseph in Genesis. In a few weeks  (10th March) I will be preaching on the portion of the story which contains this brilliant phrase: “But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance” (Genesis 45:7). Although Joseph’s brothers didn’t intend any good through what they did to him, nonetheless God did intend it for good – and raised Joseph up to be a key part of His plan!

    It’s encouraging to think that things don’t always have to look like they’re going to plan in order to be part of God’s plan. And it’s amazing to think that God would use even people such as me and you as part of his plan.