Phill Sacre

Tag: bible

  • The Bible: “That’s just your interpretation”

    The Bible: “That’s just your interpretation”

    Over the past few weeks on Facebook, I’ve been in a group discussing (what else?) sexuality and the church. One of the themes that comes up again and again is the issue of interpretation: we all interpret the Bible differently on this, and there is no way of judging between different interpretations, so we may as well just give up and agree to disagree now. Now this is a topic I’ve blogged on before, but I’d like to return to the issue because of the way it comes up so frequently in discussion.

    I’d like to offer a few thoughts and observations having participated in these kind of discussions for a while now. It will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me to see that I don’t believe there can be many valid interpretations of Scripture on this issue (as well as many other issues).

    1) What are the logical consequences of “that’s just your interpretation”? Can we say, for example, “but that’s just your interpretation” about any interpretation of the Bible? Does that mean that every statement in the Nicene Creed is simply an interpretation, and that other interpretations are available? Does that mean the Jehovah’s Witnesses should be thought of as an orthodox Christian church – after all, they simply follow a different interpretation of Scripture?

    Additionally – where does “that’s just your interpretation” actually end? Are we free to hold an atheistic interpretation, for example? Who draws the lines? It seems that the “that’s just your interpretation” argument can be deployed anywhere against anyone, for an alternative interpretation can always be found – irrespective of whether it’s a good or bad interpretation.

    With respect to the specific issue of sexuality – the traditional view of the Bible is that marriage is a lifelong union of a man and a woman, to the exclusion of all others. If the traditional interpretation can be challenged one one area (man and woman), could it not also be challenged in other areas (e.g. could marriage be between two or more people, or could faithfulness be redefined?) I think claiming “that’s your interpretation” is actually shooting yourself in the foot: as soon as you do that, you open the door to someone else saying the same to you for whichever cherished beliefs you hold about marriage. There’s no rejoinder, because “that’s just your interpretation”.

    Once you reduce the Bible to being a matter of someone’s opinion about interpretation, it seems to me that it’s open season on Biblical interpretation and you can simply interpret the Bible any way you like to suit you.

    2) What does “that’s just your interpretation” say about God? Following on from the last point – what we think of God will determine what we think of the Bible and the way it speaks to us. I believe that God, as the one who created us, is able to communicate with us in a way which we will understand. I believe that God is able to speak clearly into our situation, even our situation today. How could God’s statutes be trustworthy and “make wise the simple” (Ps. 19:7) if it was impossible for us to agree on their interpretation?

    One of the things which irks me most about the “that’s just your interpretation” argument is that it essentially seems to deny the fact that God might want to say something to us. God’s authority becomes simply human authority (you think God says that, but I think God says something different). Surely this negates God’s authority: if everything that He says is open to interpretation, in what sense can He be said to communicate with us? God’s voice becomes dependent on the interpretation of the one listening to it.

    3) The strategy of the “that’s just your interpretation” group. I apologise for using the word ‘strategy’, which implies that this is something done purposefully. What I mean is that often those who advocate for “that’s just your interpretation” often use a particular line of thinking, even if they don’t do so intentionally.

    So, rather than trying to advocate for another interpretation, they simply point the finger to a range of interpretations and say “there! there are a lot of options, take your pick. Clearly the traditional interpretation is not the only one on the market.” You can see this happening on Vicky Beeching’s “What does the Bible say?” blog post, to name one example. She doesn’t outline one particular interpretation which she thinks is most plausible: she simply points out a number of books which outline different interpretations. This essentially shuts down discussion (it’s not making an argument, it’s just referring to other people who have made arguments as if their arguments are conclusive).

    To use an analogy, this would be like me saying that Jesus Christ was not eternally begotten of the Father and referring to works by Arius of Alexandria, the Watchtower Organisation and so on in order to prove my case. “Oh, there are lots of arguments for Jesus not being the eternal Son of God. Take your pick”. This would be bordering on dishonesty because it hides the fact that those arguments have been refuted for a long time by people such as Athanasius, Augustine and countless other theologians. Despite the number of people who argued against the eternal Sonship of Christ on the grounds of Scriptural interpretation – the church has simply not found their arguments to be persuasive (rightly, in my opinion).

    4) Not all interpretations are equal. By that, I mean that not all interpretations of Scripture are correct. For example, Jesus himself refuted, corrected and relied upon interpretations of Scripture (Matt. 22:29-32; Mark 12:35-37; John 10:34-39 for example). It seems that there are better and worse interpretations of Scripture. Following on from the point above, it’s impossible to talk about different interpretations without actually dealing in the specifics. Some interpretations of Scripture are better than others – i.e. some are more faithful, explain the Biblical evidence better, fit in with the context, and so on. It’s hard work, but I believe that it is possible to compare different interpretations and come to a reasoned, defensible and persuasive decision on which one is best. We are not without tools to help us in this task.

    In conclusion, my big issue with “that’s just your interpretation” as an argument is that it closes down discussion. It seems to essentially validate “my” interpretation while invalidating “your” interpretation (in the sense that you’re not allowed to hold that an interpretation of Scripture should be binding) – all done without actually looking at the specific interpretations and attempting to judge between them.

    If I were to be cynical, I would suggest that the arguments about Biblical interpretation were more to do with people trying to cling onto Biblical authority: the only other option is admitting that the Bible got it wrong, which is a bridge too far for many people – even if there are some who go down that road. Walter Wink, for example, says: “Where the Bible mentions homosexual behavior at all, it clearly condemns it. I freely grant that. The issue is precisely whether that Biblical judgment is correct.” (‘Homosexuality and the Bible’).

  • The Road to Emmaus: thoughts on seeing Jesus

    Source: Wikimedia

    “How do I see Jesus?” Not a question people ask very often, but nonetheless it has a lot of answers. Do I see Jesus by trying to be a good person? Do I see Jesus by praying a lot? Do I see Jesus by looking deep inside myself to try to find out what God is saying to me?

    I think the story of the Road to Emmaus might help us to answer those questions. On Easter Sunday I preached on this wonderful passage from Luke 24. It’s a poignant and moving story, and there’s a huge amount you could say about it. What I was particularly struck by this time was how the story is like a metaphor for meeting and following Jesus for every Christian.

    The story starts with two men, who had been followers of Jesus, dejectedly walking back home while talking about the events of the past few days (the crucifixion). As they were walking along on their journey, the risen Jesus comes alongside them – but they were kept from recognising him. It turns out that the Jesus they followed was not the Jesus who rose: they believed in a Jesus who they “had hoped … was going to redeem Israel” (v21): in other words, they believed in a Messiah who was going to be some kind of military conqueror, someone who was going to overthrow the Roman oppressors and lead an earthly kingdom. Although they did believe in Jesus, they believed in a false Jesus.

    However, Jesus didn’t let them continue in this dejected state: he opens the Scriptures to them, and shows how all that has happened was a fulfilment of prophecy, and how all the Scriptures testify to himself. Before those two disciples could see him, Jesus had to open their eyes to the Scriptures. Finally, they invite Jesus in, and he comes in and eats with them – they share fellowship. As Jesus breaks the bread, then their eyes are opened and they see Jesus, and they return to the other disciples only to find that Jesus has appeared to them too.

    What does this say to us about discipleship today? I’d like to suggest a few things:

    • Everyone is following a ‘Jesus’ – everyone believes in some kind of saviour. That saviour may not be a person (for example some people trust in politics, or reason, or money, etc). But each of us follows some kind of a saviour, some kind of a ‘fake Jesus’. Like those two disciples on the Emmaus road – the fake Jesus we follow will let us down, the fake Jesus will lead to despondency.
    • But, the good news is, the real Jesus – the risen Lord, the one who is alive and reigns with the Father – comes alongside us, even in the midst of our despair. Because Jesus is alive, he can come alongside us wherever our journey may take us and open our eyes to him.
    • Jesus doesn’t immediately reveal himself to them – he opens their eyes to the Scriptures. This is one of the key things about following Jesus: coming to know Jesus is coming to know God’s plan of redemption. It means understanding who we are as sinners, who God is as a holy judge, who I am as someone in need of forgiveness. In other words, we don’t see Jesus in isolation – understanding Jesus requires understanding the bigger picture of God’s plan.
    • Only after Jesus opens their eyes to the Scriptures and they share fellowship together do they finally see Him. Jesus is the one who takes the initiative, he is the one who comes alongside them and opens their eyes.
    • Yet – once they see Jesus, he disappears from their eyes. They ‘see’ him with eyes of faith now – they do not need him to be physically present. Once their eyes were opened to the Scriptures, once he came and shared fellowship with them, they had by faith what they had previously only had by sight.

    One big lesson from all of this is to do with seeing Jesus, as we started out thinking about. If you want to see Jesus, look no further than a Bible. Pray to God that he would open your eyes to see Jesus, and open the pages of Scripture. And the risen Lord comes alongside us and opens our eyes.

  • Is doubt a good thing? Faith and doubt in the Bible

    Is doubt a good thing? Faith and doubt in the Bible

    In my previous post I asked whether doubt in the Christian life is a good thing. In Greg Boyd’s book, “Benefit of the Doubt”, he answers – essentially – yes, doubt is a good thing. However, I questioned the care with which Boyd had come up with a definition of faith and doubt, and said that I would write another post looking at how I understood the Bible to talk about faith and doubt. This is that post.

    At various points in this post I will point out where I disagree with Boyd, however I hope that this post will stand on its own and be readable without reading the book or my review of it.

    First things first: What is faith?

    I don’t want to focus on faith too much because I think the real meat of what I want to say is in looking at doubt. However, I think it would be helpful to start out by briefly thinking about faith.

    The classic Biblical definition of faith, as Boyd points out in his book, is Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” In other words, the Christian life is in this life a lot to do with things that we cannot yet see, things which are invisible to our eyes – faith is the means by which we gain access to these things we cannot see and enter into God’s kingdom. If you study Hebrews, you’ll see that this world – although we can see it – is actually passing away; the world which we cannot yet see is the one which is unshakeable and will last forever. Faith is the means by which we go from one to the other.

    But what else can we say about faith? I think the most important thing to say here is that faith is a gift. Faith does not come from within ourselves, it is not the case that we need to make ourselves psychologically certain. In Ephesians 2, Paul talks about our salvation, and he says: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God“. Peter O’Brien in his commentary says that the “this” refers not just to faith but to the whole process. Salvation is the Lord’s work from start to finish, he gives us faith as a gift.

    This is backed up elsewhere. In Romans 12:3, Paul says: “do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” Notice that last part – it is enough to note for now that God is the one who gives faith.

    One more reference – in John 6, Jesus has a dispute with the Jewish authorities. They do not believe in him for reasons which Jesus demonstrates are false. In this context, he says: “All those the Father gives me will come to me” (John 6:37). This whole section is highly significant: Christians – those who believe in Jesus – are seen as a gift from the Father to the Son. The Father is the one who brings people to the Son. This is another way of saying that faith is a gift of God. We cannot take the credit for it.

    Why do I take the time to stress this? Because it runs so counter to Boyd’s accusation of a ‘certainty-seeking faith’. Faith can never be something which we psychologically work ourselves up to. A lot of people think of faith like Neo from the Matrix, when he first tries to do something he previously believed was impossible. Faith needed to be something which he built up in his own mind before he reached the full amount. In complete contrast, I believe that the Bible says faith is something which God gives to us as a gift.

    So what of certainty? I’m not sure that what Boyd thinks of as ‘certainty’ in conservative circles is really to do with faith per se – but I won’t go into that now as I think it would be a deviation from thinking about the next topic…

    What about doubt?

    This is where I believe Boyd made some rather serious omissions in his book. Let’s think about what the Bible says about doubt, starting with (almost) the very beginning: Genesis 3.

    Now the snake was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden”?’ (Genesis 3:1)

    This is the first time that sin is recorded in the Bible. What does the serpent do to the woman here? In essence – he causes her to doubt God’s word. The serpent puts a doubt in the woman’s mind about what God really said. In fact, I believe that this is a model for how sin works in general: is sin not, at its root, doubt? We doubt that God is good. We doubt that God’s commands are good. We doubt that God knows best for us. We doubt that God has made us in a particular way. And so, we think that we know best and go our own way rather than God’s.

    You will no doubt recall that God does not give Adam and Eve a hearty slap on the back and congratulate them for doubting. In fact, I think there is a real sense that by distrusting God’s words, Adam and Eve were distrusting God himself. There is a continuity between God’s words and Himself: God’s words are not simply arbitrary words, they spring from his very character. They are truthful, because God is truthful. They are righteous, because he is righteous. And so on. To distrust God’s Word is to distrust God himself.

    This is a pattern we find echoed elsewhere in the Bible. Let’s just look at a couple of examples. Further on in Genesis, chapter 18, we read a rather curious story where “the LORD” himself comes to visit Abraham – “three men” come to see him. God had previously promised Abraham descendants, but as yet he and his wife were childless.

    Then one of them said, ‘I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.’
    Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. Abraham and Sarah were already very old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, ‘After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?’
    Then the Lord said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh and say, “Will I really have a child, now that I am old?” Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.’

    Sarah here doubts that she will be able to have children given her age, and she is somewhat rebuked for it. Is this relevant to the matter of doubt as we have been discussing it? I believe that it does at least establish that there is a kind of doubt which is not commended – and once again, it has something to do with not believing or trusting in words or promises which God has given.

    If we turn to Luke 1, we read a very similar story. An angel of the Lord appears to Zechariah, a priest, while he is serving at the altar. The angel tells him that he will have a son, but – just like Sarah – Zechariah doubts that this will happen:

    Zechariah asked the angel, ‘How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well on in years.’
    The angel said to him, ‘I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.’

    Once again, the angel doesn’t commend Zechariah for doubting God’s words: doubting God’s word is seen as doubting God himself. So, again, we have this connection between doubt and God’s word not being a good thing in God’s eyes.

    And, of course, there is the classic example of ‘doubting Thomas’ (a rather unfortunate nickname). Does Jesus commend Thomas for not believing without seeing with his own eyes? No. Thomas should have believed Jesus when he said that he would rise again, and he should have believed his friends when they told him that they had seen Jesus alive. But, as Jesus says, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).

    Where does this leave us?

    At the very least, I think it’s right to say that there is a kind of doubt which is most certainly not a good thing. G.K. Chesterton puts it so well, in his own inimitable style:

    But what we suffer from to-day is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert — himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt — the Divine Reason. [Orthodoxy, source here]

    I think that Chesterton really nails it here. Is doubt a good thing? Not when it comes to God’s promises and his Word. Boyd does a reasonable job in his book of showing that we need to put our trust in God even despite our difficulties. In many ways the story of Job is about having faith in God despite suffering, despite adverse circumstances – having faith that God is the one who knows what he is doing.

    But Job is not about doubting God’s words. What does the Bible say about God’s Word, i.e. what does the Word of God say about the Word of God?

    “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.” (Ps. 119:105)
    “And the words of the Lord are flawless, like silver purified in a crucible, like gold refined seven times.” (Ps. 12:6)
    “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
    so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isa. 55:10-11)
    “And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.” (1 Thess. 2:13)
    “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (Heb. 4:12)

    I hope that I have made my point. If we trust in God, we must trust in his Word – the Bible – as well as his Word, the Son. God’s words are perfect and pure, because God is perfect and pure. As God is, so he speaks. What we do with his Word will be determined by, and will itself determine, who we think God is.

    Does this mean that Christians will never struggle with doubt, sometimes persistently? No. But doubt itself is not a virtuous thing, it is something which we need to struggle with rather than celebrate! I don’t want to discourage Christians here who are struggling with doubt, because it is something which all of us do from time to time – some more than others. It does not make you a bad Christian! But, on the other hand, it is not a good place to rest: pray, search the Scriptures, ask God for wisdom, ask God to reveal himself to you. Seek and you shall find.

    What about difficult parts of the Bible? Does this mean that we will never have any difficulty in understanding the Bible, especially parts of the Old Testament which we find hard? No. There are still hard parts in Scripture, still parts we may struggle with. But ultimately our posture towards Scripture – towards God’s Word – must be one of humble obedience, rather than standing in judgement over Scripture. We must allow God’s Word – all of it – to be his Word. And, perhaps, when we do that, it will actually be the beginning of answering some of those nagging questions. That is certainly my experience.

  • Review: Benefit of the Doubt

    Review: Benefit of the Doubt

    Is doubt a good thing when it comes to the Christian life? Doubt seems to be in vogue in certain circles these days – uncertainty about doctrine, uncertainty about the Bible, uncertainty about all sorts of things. It’s become deeply unfashionable to be certain about anything to do with the Christian faith (well, nearly anything … in my experience of such circles a belief such as the validity of women being priests/bishops/etc is often held with as much certainty as anything I’ve ever seen).

    Anyway, I’ve been wanting to blog about this subject for a while but just haven’t quite had the right opportunity. However, back in January, fellow blogger The Alethiophile asked “What to read in 2015?” and suggested a sort of exchange – if you suggested a book for him to read, he would suggest one for you to read. I suggested to him “Taking God at his Word” by Kevin DeYoung, and he suggested to me “Benefit of the Doubt” by Greg Boyd. Well, I’ve just finished reading it, and it provides the ideal opportunity to talk about doubt!

    The book is subtitled “Breaking the idol of certainty”, and – as you can imagine – his contention is that doubt is actually a good and healthy thing for the Christian. What I’m going to do in this post is to review the book itself, and then follow up in the near future with a blog post about faith and doubt. [I was going to do all of this in one post, but the review went on a bit. Sorry.]

    (more…)
  • Water into wine: what’s going on?!

    Water into wine: what’s going on?!

    Marriage at CanaYesterday at church the theme was ‘Jesus turns water into wine’, from John 2:1-11. It’s a well-known story – if you’ve ever been to a wedding in an Anglican church, for example, you will have heard it mentioned in the introduction – but the story is nonetheless quite puzzling. To be honest with you, I’ve never really understood it properly: does Mary force Jesus into doing something he didn’t want to do? Did Jesus basically provide people with a load of decent plonk for free, for no reason other than the fact that he was asked to by his Mum? What was the point? Does that really sound like something Jesus would do?

    I don’t know about you, but these kind of questions have always plagued my mind – even when I was studying John at college a couple of years ago, it was still difficult. However, as I was listening to the passage and sermon I had a few thoughts, and I thought I’d write them up in case they’re useful for anyone else. Obviously there are many things you could say about this passage, and I will only be able to pick up a few of them, but hopefully this will help to shed some light.

    Jesus’ mother and the disciples

    Notice in the first couple of verses, John writes “Jesus’ mother” – twice – as if he wants to stress the fact that Mary is here acting as Jesus’ mother. In contrast, Jesus “and his disciples” were invited to the wedding – note that Mary is specified separately to the disciples. Mary is not included as a disciple here.

    And I think this leads on to Jesus’ reply to Mary: “Woman, why do you involve me?” Why doesn’t Jesus call Mary his mother? Even if, as the NIV footnote points out, ‘woman’ was not a disrespectful term – in the normal way, wouldn’t Jesus have said ‘Mother’? I think this is significant: Jesus is highlighting the fact that Mary does not have maternal authority over him. In a sense, Mary is not Jesus’ mother in the same way that the Father is Jesus’ father. In John 19:25-27, Jesus essentially hands over the mother/son relationship to the beloved disciple – I wonder if that is him providing for his mother in the way he was unable to as an ordinary son would. (In this place, too, Jesus calls Mary ‘Woman’).

    Either way, it seems that the point of this is that if Mary is to have a relationship with Jesus, it should be the relationship of a disciple. At this point in Jesus’ life, the need for Mary was to believe in Jesus along with the rest of his disciples – not to be a mother to him. Throughout the whole gospel John gives us little pictures of what it looks like to be a follower of Jesus, and here – as in many other places – he is showing us that what we all need to do is put our faith in Jesus.

    My hour has not yet come

    Another puzzling aspect of this story: does Mary force Jesus into doing something which he didn’t want to do? When Jesus says, “my hour has not yet come” – why does he then go ahead and perform the miracle? If you read through John, Jesus talks a lot about his ‘hour’ of glorification coming. This culminates in 12:23, where Jesus says “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” – referring to his own death. In other words, the hour of Jesus’ glorification is the cross: for John, the cross is the place where Jesus’ glory is revealed.

    In 2:11, we see that “What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory”. So this sign, the turning of the water into wine, should say something about Jesus’ glory – it should say something about the cross. It’s not just a simple miracle, it is a sign. But what sign is it?

    The miracle

    I think here, as with what we have already seen, the clue is in the details: Jesus doesn’t just turn water into wine in an unspecified container. He turns water into wine, John tells us, in “six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing”. The kind used for ceremonial washing, i.e. the kind of jars that were used in the context of ritual purification and worship. And Jesus doesn’t just turn the water into any old cheap plonk – he turns it into the finest wine, wine which causes the master of the banquet to exclaim “you have saved the best till now”.

    What’s the significance of wine? We know from Matthew 26:28 and elsewhere that wine is used in communion as a representative of Jesus’ blood. Although John in his gospel doesn’t include the last supper per se, Jesus does say in John 6, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” So I think it’s quite likely that the wine in this story here is symbolic of Jesus’ blood – the blood which will bring ultimate purification, the blood of the new covenant which cleanses from sin once for all.

    Hebrews talks about Jesus’ blood:

    But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, so obtaining eternal redemption. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! (Hebrews 9:11-14)

    Summary

    So what can we say about this passage? As with many things in John, I think there is an element of misunderstanding and irony going on: Mary thinks that she is doing one thing – compelling Jesus to provide wine for a wedding feast – whereas Jesus is actually showing a sign which illustrates what he has come to do. We see that Mary attempts to assert her authority as Jesus’ mother, but in actuality what she needs to do – as we all do – is turn to Jesus as a disciple. And we see that Jesus came to turn the imperfect nature of purifying with water into the blood that cleanses from every stain of sin.

    This is my fourth post on John’s gospel – if you enjoyed it, you might like previous thoughts I’ve had on John: the woman at the well, the raising of Lazarus, and Jesus’ trial and crucifixion.

  • The Church’s Mission: What’s the point?

    Missionary
    Is this how most people imagine missionaries?

    I was recently asked to contribute a piece to the “Mission Matters” magazine in our church, a magazine looking at mission in the local area as well as the wider world. This is what I came up with.

    One of the privileges and joys of training at Oak Hill was training alongside those who were leaving for the mission field in other countries. I have friends from college who are now in, or shortly to move to, countries which span the globe. They are ministering amongst a whole variety of cultures and religious beliefs – Islam, Buddhism, the Orthodox Church – all sorts of different contexts. So I thought this time for Mission Matters it might be worth going back to basics and asking: what is it that really motivates them to give up their lives here, leave friends and family, journey hundreds or thousands of miles, and invest many years into learning a different language and culture? What could motivate someone to plough years of their lives into a country with little return, even under active persecution? In most of the countries I mentioned, for example, even in countries which are not actively hostile to the gospel the number of Bible-believing Christians is a tiny fraction of the population. Why would anyone do such a thing?

    The book of Acts is a great place to go to when thinking about the mission of the church. Let’s first turn to the story of how the early church got going after Jesus’ ascension.

    In Acts 1, just before Jesus ascended, he said to his disciples: “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) This is one of the most significant verses in Acts: Jesus said when the Holy Spirit came, the disciples would “receive power”. What would they receive power to do? “be my witnesses” – to proclaim boldly the message of salvation in Christ. And this message was not just for a small group of people in a small corner of the world, this is a message which was to go “to the ends of the earth.”

    This is exactly what we see happening in the rest of Acts – the Word of God, the gospel, goes out into Judea and Samaria. Then, in Acts 10, we see the gospel being brought even to the Gentiles. The message spreads further and further from Jerusalem, further and further away from the Jewish context where it originated. This same process, of reaching those who have never heard of Jesus, continues today. It is the mission of the church, as received from Christ: to reach even to the ends of the earth with the good news of salvation.

    Let’s look at one more passage from Acts, where the apostle Paul goes to one of the major cities of the time – Athens. In Acts 17:16, we read: “While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.” In those days, the Greeks liked to have a god for every occasion – as Paul walked down the streets he would have seen statues of many different gods. The worship of idols there was pretty obvious! But have we changed all that much today? In Romans 1, Paul talks humanity in general and says that all of us have “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.” Paul here is not saying that all of us explicitly worship images – but rather, every single one of us has exchanged worshipping the Living God for worshipping a lie. The natural state of humanity is to worship the created rather than the Creator. Every single culture, every single person on the planet, is an idolater in some way. How that looks in practice will naturally vary in different times and places – in the ancient city of Athens the idolatry was obvious. In our modern Western culture, people are perhaps tempted to worship money, sex, or power – anything which is a substitute for God.

    So how does Paul deal with this situation in Acts 17? Does Paul say, with much of our current culture, “let’s celebrate diversity! Let’s rejoice that these people are worshipping God in their own way!”? Absolutely not! He is “greatly distressed” that the city is full of idols and he says to them:

    In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead. (Acts 17:30-31)

    The almighty and living God, the only God of heaven and earth, who does not dwell in temples made by human hands but gives each one of us life and breath, commands us to repent and believe in the good news. Each of us must turn from the idols we worship to worship Him, so we will receive a good verdict on the day when he will judge the world with justice by his risen Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. This message of good news is not limited to a small group of people – it is for everyone, whatever their culture, creed, language or nation. It is a message for us here in the West, it is a message for all those countries my friends have gone to, it is a message for all those countries we support and remember in prayer. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world and those who dwell therein.” (Psalm 24:1 ESV)

    This is the message that motivates us as we look around the world. The same message that gets my friends out of bed in the morning also fires us: our God has good news for all people. Let’s pray that God would send workers out into his harvest field, both at home and abroad, and let’s pray that God would keep bringing people to him in repentance and faith.

    Our loving heavenly Father, we thank you for your message of good news for all people. We thank you that your light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. We thank you that you send out workers into your harvest field, and we pray that through them you may bear much fruit. Please bless all those we support at St John’s and St Mark’s, give them confidence in your glorious gospel, and may they always fix their eyes on you. Amen.

  • Thoughts on the Church from 2 Timothy

    A BibleIn our evening services at church, we’ve been preaching through 2 Timothy. It’s an absolutely wonderful book and I do commend it to you – especially if, like me, you are involved in Christian ministry in some way. As we’ve been going through it, I’ve been reminded time and again how Paul predicts pretty much the exact state of the church in this age – and, really, in every age. I’ve come to believe that 2 Timothy is actually one of the most prophetic books of the Bible, to my mind Paul absolutely nails it.

    As I’ve prepared to preach on various passages I’ve picked up a few insights which I thought might be worth sharing with you today.

    (more…)

  • Evangelicals and disagreement: What can we learn from the Arians?

    Athanasius
    Athanasius of Alexandria.

    If you haven’t seen the news recently, Christian worship leader and media commentator Vicky Beeching has come out as gay. (If you don’t know who she is, or any of the background, that link will hopefully explain). In a similar vein to Steve Chalke, who came out in support of same-sex marriage recently, Vicky wants to retain the label ‘evangelical’. All this has re-opened the same debate which has been bubbling away for some time now: just what is an evangelical? (A subject which I’ve written about before from another angle).

    I read an interesting post this week by Ian Paul about the role of experience in interpreting Scripture, and it made me realise once again that the debate (within evangelical circles at least) largely centres around how we interpret Scripture. Two people can have the same view of Scripture and yet interpret it differently, so it is said – therefore, both interpretations are legitimate.

    It put me in mind of something I studied at college last year – namely, the debate between those defending Nicene Christology and the Arians. If your eyes glazed over when I mentioned the word ‘Nicene’ and you entered a coma-like state at ‘Christology’… I apologise. I will explain. But the similarity between the debates within evangelical circles today and the debates in around the 4th century AD are striking, to say the least. As it says in Ecclesiastes, “There is nothing new under the sun” (Eccl. 1:9). (more…)

  • Jesus vs the Bible

    “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God” – Matthew 22:29

    I’ve come across a lot of people recently who seem to pit Jesus against the Bible. It seems like this is a growing trend. People say things like, “Jesus is the only Word of God. The Bible was written by human authors and it might be wrong” – that kind of thing. The point is: we can trust in Jesus, because he was God and is therefore infallible. We can’t trust completely in the Bible, because it was written by humans and therefore fallible.

    I don’t see how this works logically: how do we know what Jesus said and did? Well, it’s written down here in… oh.

    OK, that was a cheap shot. But I think there are nonetheless good reasons for not pitting the Bible against Jesus:

    • Jesus himself doesn’t. He constantly says “It is written”. For example, when he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness in Matthew 4 he responds by saying “It is written…” and quoting from the Old Testament.
    • Jesus sees himself as the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy, e.g. Mark 14:49 “The Scriptures must be fulfilled”. Jesus begins his ministry in Luke 4:21, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 18:31, “everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled.” Why do I say this? Jesus assumes that what is written about him in the Old Testament is actually accurate.
    • Jesus says things like “Scripture cannot be set aside” (John 10:35).
    • Jesus uses the Old Testament to teach people about himself – Luke 24:27 “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he [Jesus] explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”
    • Finally, as I quoted at the beginning of this post, Jesus claims that a cause of error is not knowing the Scriptures. Jesus responds to the Sadducees by making an argument which is based on a particular verse in the Old Testament. The problem is often not which bits of Scripture to believe or not – the problem is usually that we don’t understand Scripture well enough.

    It seems to me that Jesus himself was comfortable using Scripture and relying on it as the Word of God – and I think this is an attitude which is supported by the rest of the New Testament, e.g. 2 Timothy 3:16 “All scripture is God-breathed”, or 2 Peter 1:21 “prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Or look at the book of Hebrews, as I have blogged about before.

    There is another more subtle way in which people like to pit Jesus against the Bible: reading all Scripture through the “Jesus Lens”. Andrew Wilson nails it in his blog “The Jesus Lens, or the Jesus Tea-Strainer?“:

    In his [Steve Chalke’s] view, the Bible should be read through “the Jesus lens”, that is to say, in the light of God’s self-revelation in Jesus. I agree. But he then goes on to argue that this enables us, and in fact requires us, to correct all sorts of things that the texts actually say, particularly those which involve wrath, death and sexual ethics

    Now this is in some respects a difficult area because we do need to read the Bible ‘Christologically’, i.e. read the whole Bible as pointing to Christ. But, as Andrew Wilson points out, that doesn’t mean using Jesus as a kind of ‘tea strainer’ where we block out all the bits we don’t like because Jesus “obviously wouldn’t have done that”. I’m sure this is a caricature, but nonetheless I think this kind of attitude is very popular: “Jesus showed us the way of love and inclusiveness; therefore we need to be loving and inclusive”.

    As you might imagine, this is applied a lot to the current debates about sexuality within the church: “What would Jesus have done with a same-sex couple?” The implication being that Jesus was loving and inclusive and would have accepted people as they were.

    The problem is – I don’t think this is the Jesus I see in the gospels. Of course he was loving and inclusive – but not to the exclusion of caring about sin. Jesus’ love is not ‘fluffy kittens and rainbows’ kind of love. Jesus did not come to abolish the Scriptures, but fulfil them. How is it that God can be merciful and wrathful at the same time? Look to Jesus’ death on the cross, where he bore the punishment for our sins. How is it that a holy God can be inclusive of sinners? Look to Jesus’ death on the cross.

    Jesus never excuses sin. He never says “Forget about it” when it comes to sin. If anything, he takes the Law and sets the standards even higher (I was struck by this when reading through Matthew recently – especially the Sermon on the Mount).

    Of course Jesus is inclusive and accepting, but he is inclusive and accepting of those who come to him knowing that they need to be healed, knowing that they are sinners who are worthy of God’s judgement but instead will receive mercy, knowing that they need to turn to him in repentance and faith and intend to lead a new life in his power.

    I’d like to finish by quoting Revelation 19, where we see this magnificent description of Jesus as the all-conquering Word of God. I think this is something we would all do well to reflect on – Jesus is not all inclusive and love, he is the just judge who will return to judge the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end:

    I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. ‘He will rule them with an iron sceptre.’ He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:

    King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

  • Questioning Biblical Christian Pro-Gay Assumptions

    I’ve noticed recently there seems to be a trend amongst many Christians who would claim the Bible as their authority of endorsing same-sex relationships. The other day, for example, I was reading about Matthew Vines’ book God and the Gay Christian. Last year, Steve Chalke came out in favour of same-sex marriage, and there have been others.

    I don’t want to deal with the Biblical case for or against same-sex relationships here (I’ve talked a little bit about it before), but I just want to pose a few questions which people who like to talk about the Biblical case for same-sex relationships don’t talk about very much (or at least, not as far as I can see). These are all aspects of the gospel which I think are pretty key to what it means to be a Christian, although none are directly linked to sexuality. (more…)