Objections, your honour?

This post is a supplement to my main one considering the Church of Scotland’s recent decision regarding the ordination of people in same-sex relationships.  Obviously, mine is not the only view and many objections have been raised to it.  In the main post I dealt with what I saw as key attempts to raise biblical objections but as I said there, those were not the most numerous of the objections I have heard.  Personally, if the case is not founded on scripture then I hope it will not change anyone’s mind but given that people do have other objections I thought I would address those which I have heard.

Churches Built on Sand

 A Little Background

This is a weighty topic for my first blog in a long time but I thought it worth addressing.  This is written hopefully to both inform and challenge those who are considering where they stand in relation to the Church of Scotland after its recent decision at the General Assembly in May.  For anyone who comes to read this and is not from my corner of the world you may not be familiar with the situation facing the Church of Scotland.  Even for those who are from here, even for members of the Church of Scotland, the situation may still seem confusing and bizarre.  What exactly has happened?  Before I embark on an attempt to say something about this situation I will try to give, as briefly as possible, a summary of the crisis which has hit the denomination.

Abide With Me

The Prayer of the Broken Heart

Great hymns often make great prayers.  The richness of the lyrics and, especially with the old ones, the realism and dependence on God they exhibit cry out to be turned to prayer.  Surely none more so than ‘Abide With Me’ by Henry Francis Lyte.  Written as he lay near death at a young age it cries out to God to never, ever leave, even in the face of death and the loss of all life’s pleasures.  It is a beautiful prayer of someone who has lost all his illusions about the treasures of this world and broken-hearted, cries out for the constant presence of the God who never leaves.

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide.
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Father, abide with me.  Stay with me Lord as the evening grows ever closer.  Darkness deepens Lord, it threatens to overwhelm me.  Do not leave me now Father, not now when those I care more about have left me.  Do not leave me now when all the comforts and treasures of my life here on earth have vanished like the ebbing day.  Oh Father stay with me.  I am so helpless, so broken and weak Lord and yet You are the one who helps the helpless.  You are the one who gives grace to the humble.  I have been so greatly humbled Lord.  Give me grace I pray.  Abide with me.

Wonderful Hymns

Singing God's Praise

There is a lot of music produced by the church today.  Most of it is rubbish, some of it is good.  I will blog on that some other time.  Discussing it with a friend recently though they asked for a list of my favourite hymns so for now though I just want to briefly look at what I consider to be important in a good hymn before looking specifically at some of my personal favourites.

1.    It is more focused on God than it is on me.  There is a reason why it is called a him and not a me (sorry, that pun was awful). But seriously, any hymn that puts more stress on me than God is no good.  Now that doesn’t mention it can’t mention me, my struggles, my feelings.  But I really do think it should mention God’s help and goodness more.  Ideally when I’m singing about myself it should be in relation to what God has done for me.

Ae Fond Kiss?

‘Till Death Do Us Part

As part of celebrating Burns night we always stand around the piano for a while and sing some old Scottish songs, some by Burns, some not.  Lots of nationalistic songs proclaiming the many virtues of Scotland, and lots of love songs.  Most of which are incredibly sad ones, there’s something about this country that lends its poets to melancholy…  Still, I think one of the most poignant and beautiful of the many love poems Burns wrote is this one:

“Ae fond kiss, and then we sever

Ae farewell, and then forever

Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,

Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.

Who shall say that Fortune grieves him,

While the star of hope she leaves him

Me nae cheerful twinkle lights me,

Dark despair around benights me.

In the Hour of Trial: Or why I don’t believe that the saints persevere.

Two Men

“¹⁴And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. ¹⁵And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer… ²¹But behold, the hand of him who betrays me is with me on the table. ²²For the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!” ²³And they began to question one another, which of them it could be who was going to do this.

³¹“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, ³²but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” ³³Peter said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.” ³⁴Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me.”…

The Unchanging God Who Changes Everything

New Year, Old God.

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

James 1:17

God the Father doesn’t change; a new year doesn’t bring us a new God.  He is the same, he always will be.  And so is Jesus:

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

Hebrews 13:8

The seasons come and go: people are born, people grow old and people die.  We change our minds, change our outlooks, and change our ideas.  God never does. He is the same yesterday, today and forever.  Is that not an encouraging thought? 

The CoE: England’s Notional Church?

National church

I am not one to comment on the affairs of Episcopalians as a rule.  The issue of whether women can be bishops in the Church of England is one that I honestly could not care less about.  This is not because I do not have an opinion on the question of complementarianism. (Word would like me to change that to ‘complement Arianism’.  I would rather not complement Arianism if it is quite alright.  Santa has the right reaction to that particular nonsense.)  It is rather for the simple reason that as a plain and simple Baptist I do not think there should be bishops of any gender.  Or for that matter a Church of England.  Still ‘the best laid plans’ and all – there was one thing I heard on the matter that made me think perhaps I would mention it after all.  That being a quotation from Sir Tony Baldry MP:

“If the Church of England wants to be a national church, then it has to reflect the values of the nation.”

Hmm.  That is an interesting statement.

Here are another couple of statements:

“I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.”

John 17:14-15 ESV

“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Romans 12:2 ESV

“And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”

Ephesians 1:22-23 ESV

That first one of course is from Jesus, the second two from Paul.  So Sir Tony says that to be a national church the CofE must embrace national values.  God says to be a church you have to be prepared to reject national values.  Sir Tony may disagree but I rather think that the Apostle is more qualified to speak on the church than an MP is.

A Theology of Weeding

“¹The heavens declare the glory of God,

and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

²Day to day pours out speech,

and night to night reveals knowledge.

³There is no speech, nor are there words,

whose voice is not heard”

Psalm 19:1-3

 A Theology of Everything

There is theology in everything.  That is not to say that we take our theology from anywhere except from the Bible.  Nor is it to say that everything is God.  As Daniel Hames says:

“Far from being a sort of polytheistic belief that there is a ‘divine spark’ in everything, or that everything is god, the Christian view of creation and indeed all of reality is that it bears the fingerprints of the one who formed it.”

Rather it is that in everything we can see reflections of theology, images of God and his nature.  It is somewhat like the fact that baptism and the Lord’s Supper are both material events which nevertheless reflect great spiritual realities.  Likewise, the mundane things in life can be seen to reflect profound truths.  The case for forming such a ‘theology of everything’ is laid out more fully by Daniel Hames in his article on Theology Network: Why and How to do a Theology of Everything from where the previous quote comes from.  What I want to do here is not to cover that ground again but rather just to offer some of my own application of that principle.

The attractive holiness of loving.

The sour centre to a sugar coated gospel?

“And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ²“Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, you shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.”

Leviticus 19:1-2

As I discussed last time. the trinity is a doctrine which we tend to either try and ignore or ‘grin and bear it’.   Holiness is another of those and so maybe writing a blog post on both of those together is just going to put people off…  But as I discussed last time, the trinity is good news, and it makes God’s holiness good news too.

My Daddy is bigger than your daddy.

The reality of the Christian life

We often make the mistake do we not of thinking that the Christian life should be easy, as soon as we put our faith in God we expect Him to clear the way forward in front of us – to remove all the trouble and difficulties ahead of us.  The problem with this view is that it’s simply not true and sometimes when that idea is challenged we stumble because it’s so unexpected.  Maybe we confess with our mouths the existence of the devil, maybe we say that we expect persecution but really, deep down it comes as a shock.  And yet the Bible talks candidly about these things:

“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

1 Peter 5:8

“Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours”

John 15:20

Scary stuff.

But I’m not writing some sort of Christian horror story to scare people (although we do need to be woken up from our spiritual complacency) but rather to encourage and equip for those moments when our troubles seem too much to bear.  For all that prowling lion wants to eat us, and the world to break us, we have nothing to fear.

Why is that? Why is it that when supernatural forces are aligned against us, when the whole world stands opposed to us, yet we can stand there unafraid?  Let’s think about it, beginning with an assessment of the enemy, moving on to a playground argument and lastly seeking encouragement from the words of children.

Our Good God.

The Ineffability of the Trinity

If ever there was a topic for making anyone feel like an assistant pig-keeper it must be this, the doctrine of the Trinity.  Three, and yet one.  The Father, the Spirit and the Son.  All three fully God and yet this God is one God, not three.  The sheer impossibility of it defies our feeble mortal minds – how can there be three who are one?

Truly anyone who claims to fully understand the nature of the Trinity is either mad, foolishly arrogant or just lying.  Such a grasp is beyond the reach of human intellect, we can understand the nature of insects – how they function, how each part fits together to create the organism, what drives them and motivates them – because we are greater than insects.  They are simple and lowly compared to us.  Yet surely trying to understand the nature of the God who sits enthroned above the earth and to whom we look like little grasshoppers is madness.  To expect fallen human minds like our own to understand God is like expecting insects to understand us.

“⁸For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.

⁹For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Isaiah 55:8-9

Grasshoppers do not grasp the ways of men, nor do men ever fully understand the ways of God.

So surely then we should not even try to grasp the Trinity at all?  After all if it is an impossible truth about a God we could never understand then why bother?  Surely those who do are merely trying to ‘effor’ the ineffable?

I cannot hope to convey the intricacies of the Triune God in a way that could be understood, perhaps I’ll do a blog post on it when ‘The Good God’ comes out and I can more easily plagiarise the wisdom of Mike Reeves…   Until that day however, I just want to briefly consider some reasons why it’s worth grappling with this truth, why truly the doctrine of the Trinity is the most wonderful and beautiful doctrine that the Bible teaches.

Lest we forget.

A different Remembrance day

11/11/11.  93 years since the beacons were first lit, the nation stopped and silence fell to mark the anniversary of the end of the First World War.  No doubt all across the country people are writing about today, I was going to.  I was going to write about sacrifice and courage, about the nobility of these men and other great heroes.  However there is no doubt in my mind that many people will and that they will do it far greater justice than I ever could.  Also it occurred to me that maybe tales of great valour are not what everyone needs to hear.  On a day when people consider great men, and remember their heroism, let us consider them, and remember their humanity.  Turn with me now to Hebrews 11, the heroes of our faith and let us learn what manner of men (and women) these were.

God Bless Anders Breivik

 

Searching Tragedies

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock somewhere you will have heard by now of the tragedy in Norway of Anders Breivik killing over 90 innocent people as part of his ‘Christian’ crusade against what he saw as the Muslim takeover of Europe.  In a time like this there will be much mud-slinging, blame shifting and many condemnations of Breivik from various leaders and public figures, particularly from those in positions of leadership within the church.

I may not be a great Christian leader, but I hope to offer here what I think is the biblical response to this great tragedy.

Only Once.

A difficult question

There is a really old question that keeps on coming up: “Why do bad things happen to good people?”  It would be completely impossible to address this question fully in just one short post.  There are whole libraries of material written about the topic of suffering and pain which are written by far more experienced and more qualified people on this topic.  We will only attempt to unpack a few small things here which will hopefully be somewhat helpful.

Sunday

Easter

Thursday brought betrayal, grief and abandonment.  Friday brought the agony and darkness of the cross.  Saturday brought the cold silence of the tomb.  But Sunday brought hope.  Sunday brought life.  Sunday brought resurrection.

Sunday brought Easter.

Friday

“And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.”

1 Corinthians 15:14 ESV

Friday, not so good

It’s Friday.  The creator of the world, the God who upholds the planets in their orbits cannot even lift His own cross.  Blood runs down the back of the man who promised us a lighter yoke and an easier burden.

Friday.  The King of kings is mocked and beaten.  ‘King of the Jews’ they jeer.  The one who supports every king, every throne, the one by whose word governments stand and fall is himself crowned with a crown of thorns.  Soldiers mock, those who pass Him sneer and spit.

Friday.  The man who said to love your enemies like you do your friends is abandoned by His friends in His time of need.  His enemies are all around, His friends nowhere to be seen.  He said to treat others as you would be treated.  Seems like no one is listening to that this Friday.

He also said He was God, come to give hope and new life.

The Beatitudes, not what you think.

Some happy people?

The beatitudes – possibly one of the most well known passages in the Bible.  They’re a beautiful collection of different sayings about various people (the poor in spirit, the mournful, the persecuted etc) who seem to be losers on earth but will eventually win out when they die and go to heaven.  Isn’t it an encouraging thought when you fit into one of these nice little categories?  Shall we read them?

Salvation and Grace.

An inspiring truth

Grace.  No matter what I write about, it always comes back to this single, central, splendid truth.  Maybe because I digress too much, or maybe just because in the end everything is about grace.  I think the latter, J.I. Packer says that:

“This one word ‘grace’ contains within itself the whole of New Testament theology.”

And if you disagree with J.I. Packer, then you’re probably a heretic…

But what does grace MEAN, it can’t be covered in a mere blog post, the subject is too vast and too glorious – a lifetime’s study would not exhaust the doctrine of grace.  However, the impossibility of fully grasping something is a terrible excuse for not starting, so let us briefly scratch the surface of what grace is, and then in more depth consider what grace means for salvation.

Rebellion, repentance and the religious reaction.

Tell Me the Old, Old Story

“Tell me the old, old story, tell me the old, old story,
Tell me the old, old story, of Jesus and His love.

Tell me the story slowly, that I may take it in,
That wonderful redemption, God’s remedy for sin.”

When I was a child, that hymn was one of my favourites.  It still stands as a great instruction to all of us, we need to be told that story again and again don’t we.

“Tell me the story often, for I forget so soon;
The early dew of morning has passed away at noon.”

And so I’m going to tell it again, by using an old, old story that Jesus himself told.  A story of rebellion, of repentance and of the religious reaction to them both. A story of a prodigal son and a prodigal God, a story of the gospel, a story of love and rejection.