It's all about Jesus - sometimes

There’s been a really healthy return to emphasising the centrality of Jesus in the whole of Christian experience and as the focus of all the scriptures. Preachers are often encouraged to (rightly) ask the Christological questions and then make the Christological connections in our preaching. Quite so. But is it possible to have too much of a good thing? Sometimes, yes.

Here’s what I mean: preparing to preach this weekend on Luke 22:39-65, the first scene (vv.39-46) is Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. What more natural passage for a focus on the Messiah and his sufferings on our behalf? What clearer opportunity could there be to dig deep into his person and work? But look at what Luke does here: the incident begins and ends (call it an inclusio if you’re posh) with Jesus urging his disciples to pray that they would not fall into temptation (verses 40 & 46).

Luke’s account of the agonies of Jesus here is quite sparing, more so than the other gospel writers. Using the words of Jesus he foregrounds the disciples’ need to learn from what is happening here. This scene is deliberately written-up in such a way that our focus is drawn to the disciples’ (and our) propensity to fall into temptation and our need to pray earnestly in the light of that.

Now, of course, our help in such circumstances is only and ever found in Jesus - preaching on this passage without emphasising that would be hope-less. And to preach it without a proper reverence for the Suffering Saviour would be distinctly odd - and cold. But to preach it with Jesus as examplar would not be wrong-headed or misguided; it would, rather, be following the signposts in the passage itself.

It would be a real shame if, in our desire to honour Jesus, we failed to properly notice what he was so keen to underline.

When you imagine something does your brain think you see it?

When you imagine something does your brain think you see it?

What is the difference between imagination and reality? Sometimes, not that much. The February 2014 edition of the Monitor on Psychology (v. 45:2, p. 18) lists a brief note about a study published …

I’m linking to this article for a couple of reasons: firstly, it’s both interesting and helpful; secondly, Phil Monroe’s blog is consistently that and worth adding to your list of blogreads.

Praying to keep a gospel focus

Mark 1:35-39 is a great lesson in quiet time maintenance: get up early, far away from other people and pray. Except it isn’t. It’s much deeper, more significant, than that. Those are things you or I might find helpful but they’re scarcely determinative - and certainly not the point of this passage.

So what is the point? Jesus goes out to a solitary place - a wilderness place. Guess what? He’s been to that kind of place fairly recently in this chapter - flip back to verses 12,13 and you’ll find him in a similar place. What’s going on back there? The testing of Jesus.

Mark doesn’t give us as full an account of that testing as Matthew and Luke do; he simply notes that it took place and that Jesus was in the company of wild animals and angels came and ministered to him there.

Fast forward to verses 35-39. Jesus chooses to rise very early and go out to pray in a wilderness place. Why? Maybe for this reason: the night before, he healed and delivered scores of people - the whole town had gathered at the door. And when the disciples eventually find him on this morning they give him the (hardly surprising) news that everyone is looking for him.

They love him - he’s a great guy to have around! They no doubt want this first-century Superman to stay with them a long time. Who wouldn’t? And Jesus tells his disciples that he’s not going to stay, that he’s instead going on to the other towns and villages, because he has to preach the gospel there too.

The response of the townspeople is a powerful temptation for Jesus, akin to the presence of wild beasts in the wilderness. Everyone likes to be popular; the pull of a crowd is subtle and subversive - and will eat you for breakfast. And so Jesus gets up early (before breakfast) to pray, in order that he might resist the temptation to settle for being popular and being needed and, instead, to maintain his focus on what really matters: taking the gospel to those who have yet to hear it.

In so doing, he shows us that prayer is more than simply making request of God. There is an aspect of prayer that is about aligning ourselves with, and committing ourselves to, the will of God and the gospel of God in which that will is most powerfully expressed. A later scene in the gospels, where the wilderness is replaced by a garden, confirms that: 'not my will but yours be done'.

Jesus knew he needed to pray to resist temptation and to maintain focus on what matters most. He needed to pray in order to see the issues clearly and to enter into the struggle to make the choice that would honour his Father and drive his mission forward.

I guess we do, too.

More Reflection, Less Action

More Reflection, Less Action

"we too often view the opposite of ‘doing’ as ‘not doing’ and then demonise inaction. In fact, good judgement grows out of reflection, and reflection requires the sort of quiet time that gets crowded out by the next demand.

Tony Schwartz is always worth reading, but this article is one of his very best. 

a hundredfold: the patriarchal blessing?

Isaac inherited God’s promises to Abraham. In Genesis 26:12 we’re told that he planted crops and in that same year "reaped a hundredfold because Yahweh blessed him”.

When Jesus spoke of the fruitfulness of his word in people’s lives, he spoke of it multiplying thirty, sixty or even a hundred times.

Maybe he had in mind God’s blessing of the patriarchs and his promises to them, which were now coming true through his transforming word?

You cannot stockpile grace

Disciples cannot stockpile…grace and strength beforehand but must learn from Jesus’ own example of prayer on the Mount of Olives that they are dependent on God from hour to hour. When they become aware of that, they will be more likely to pray than to talk big and be less likely to swoon in a crisis.

David Garland commenting on Luke 22:24-38 in his ZECNT commentary

What the mirror tells you (The gospel in James 1:22-25)

What does James have in mind when he speaks about looking in the mirror (James 1:23)? Is he wanting us to see our sins and to come away from the mirror humbled and deflated?

In verse 22 James urges his readers to not simply listen to the word but to do what it says. He then says (v.23) that the person who doesn’t do what the word says is like the person who looks into the mirror and forgets what he sees (v.24). He’s saying that what they saw in the mirror is not repeated and worked-out in obedience to the word.

In verse 25, James then correlates 'looking into the mirror' with 'looking intently into the perfect law that gives freedom'. It seems to follow that looking into the perfect law of liberty/looking into the mirror is about seeing something other than just our own sinfulness - it is, after all, about gazing intently at liberty. I suggest that it’s seeing Jesus, the one who fulfils the law and brings it to its intended outcome, the one who has perfected it; and it’s seeing who and what you are in union with him.

No doubt we will see our imperfections, which are many and complex. But we will see them atoned for; we will see them as antithetical to who we now are in Christ. And in that liberty, we will go into the world not forgetting who we are and, thus, being equipped for keeping the words God has spoken to us.

(preliminary thoughts for a sermon to be preached Tuesday 11th Feb 2014)

The cult of overwork

The cult of overwork

"The perplexing thing about the cult of overwork is that, as we’ve known for a while, long hours diminish both productivity and quality."

And Jesus said, Come apart and rest awhile….

Are you called to be omnicompetent?

Moses is directed by the LORD to make a tabernacle and all its furnishings, exactly like the pattern he would be shown (Exodus 25:9). That tabernacle would be furnished with an ark, a table, a lampstand, an altar for burnt offerings, another for burning incense, And the whole structure was to be covered with elaborate curtains. Every piece had  to be made exactly as he would be shown. In addition to wood, metal and fine perfumes for those items, he was also to provide clothes for the priests to perform their duties and anointing oil to set them apart with.

Moses, a shepherd by trade, is to oversee this great work. How must he have felt? These were areas far outside his comfort zone, requiring multiple competencies - woodwork, metalwork, perfumery, needlework and design. How would he be able to handle all that?

Welcome, Exodus 31:1-11 "I have chosen Bezalel…and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills…(and) I have appointed Oholiab…to help him."

Notice the pronouns in use there - the LORD himself would provide all that was needed, personnel included. The work of God is never about one person. No servant of the church is ever called to be all and to do all. In the church of Jesus Christ, every believer is given the Spirit of God "for the good of all" (1 Corinthians 12:7).

That distribution of gifts and abilities is something to cultivate and to celebrate, with huge relief.

And along with it - and without which the project would simply have never got off the ground - was this: after Moses addressed them and told them of what the Lord had called for, "everyone who was willing and whose heart moved them came and brought and offering to the LORD for the work on the tent of meeting." (Exodus 35:21)

A people stirred by the call of God responded to the opportunity to give themselves to him and his work, to resource those tasked with detailed works. It’s about the whole body.

The Unbusy Pastor (Eugene Peterson)

The Unbusy Pastor (Eugene Peterson)

The word ‘busy’ is the symptom not of commitment but of betrayal

"If I vainly crowd my day with conspicuous activity or let others fill my day with imperious demands, I don’t have time to do my proper work, the work to which I have been called. How can I lead people into the quiet place beside the still waters if I am in perpetual motion? How can I persuade a person to live by faith and not by works if I have to juggle my schedule constantly to make everything fit into place?" (Eugene Peterson)

An article well worth reading, and not just by pastors.

"Our friend...has died" On how NOT to illustrate a sermon

It has to go down as the sermon illustration with the most potential to get me into huge trouble. I spent all that afternoon going over it and making sure I could use it with a straight face and laughing out loud at the prospect of doing so.

I was preaching on Paul’s words in Colossians 2:20ff, on the Christian as having died with Christ and having been raised with him. We had sung a few songs, prayed and read the Bible. It was now time for the sermon. I began with these words:

"As we come to look at this passage, I have some serious news to share with you tonight: our dear friend John Smith* has died."

(*name changed for obvious reasons)

There was an audible gasp in church - John was sat there in our midst, alive and, seemingly, well. I then went on to say, after a short pause,

"That’s what our text tells us - and it says the same is true for every one who is a Christian…."

We were then going on to think about what that meant and its implications for us.

Trouble was, John had arrived reasonably late to the service and had been unseen by many of the not-very-large congregation. The gasp had that quality of "But he seemed well enough this morning - what on earth has happened? Oh, his poor family, they must be in terrible shock…" and other such thoughts that race through your mind at breakneck speed when faced with such news, in those time-is-standing-still moments.

I can vividly recall the horrified look on the face of one of the said gaspers - she seemed as though she might have a coronary at any moment. I think it was then that I realised the illustration could have done with tweaking slightly. The irony of causing a death by announcing a fake one was rather lost on me in the elation of having accomplished the feat of saying it all without the slightest hint of a smirk (the time spent in front of the mirror that afternoon had been worth it). But it has rather haunted me since.

What did John himself think? He found it a very positive experience, albeit initially somewhat perplexing. He looked up at me with a kind of 'hey, what - really?!?' expression on his face. I half expected him to start taking his own pulse and pinching his wife to see if all around him was real.

But it affirmed for him, in a distinct and memorable way, the wonderful and shocking truth that, yes, the person who is ‘in Christ’ has actually - really and truly - died with Christ, that his death counts for ours and that we shall never have to experience separation from God on account of our sins. And, more, that we are raised with him - really, truly and now - in newness of life.

What a great reality! What a wonderful text. What a……..sermon illustration (fill in the blank as you see fit).

On Sunday Services as Prophetic Statements

Tim Challies has stirred the pot on the subject of Sunday evening services and many have expressed their appreciation and agreement. I’m guessing that there are others who don’t share his viewpoint, nor accept his arguments, who have kept their heads down - you can’t enter every debate after all.

I’m not arguing with his approach, but would simply observe that it’s rather anecdotal (which has a place in discussion, of course) and therefore open to significant pushback. What I want to ask is if there is a line of reasoning that could yield the same overall conclusion yet with more biblical engagement? I think there is.

It seems to me that the pattern of the early church has something to say to us. I don’t believe it necessarily has the force of biblical prescription, but I do think their practice is worthy of deeper reflection. They didn’t do what they did for nothing, after all.

It would appear from the biblical account that churches in the New Testament met on the first day of the week (see, for example, Acts 20:7 and 1 Cor 16:2). But at what time of day did they do so and why did they choose that day? Let’s take those in order.

An extra-biblical reference to their practice (Pliny’s letter to the Emperor Trajan, in the early 2nd century AD) speaks of them being

“accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food—but ordinary and innocent food.”

So, at least part of the early church (churches in Turkey) met early in the morning, presumably early enough for those who were slaves to still be ‘at work’ in good time. They also seem to have met later in the day, which would accord with the references in the New Testament to churches sharing in ‘the Lord’s Supper’, a term that can only refer to a meal towards twilight.

Their pattern is interesting to observe. But it becomes something more than that when we consider their reasons for doing so. What made them opt to do it this way?

I’d suggest their choice was not driven by pragmatism nor convenience - they didn’t choose the first day of the week because that was an accepted rest day in their society and would do nicely for them as well. Nor would I subscribe to the notion that they had transposed the Sabbath onto the first day of the week (I can’t see the evidence for that in the New Testament). So what reason could they have had?

I think the clue is in the repeated use of 'the first day of the week' to refer to the day on which they gathered together. When John opens his resurrection narrative in John 20 with the seemingly-small detail that it was "early on the first day of the week", it is not difficult in the light of how his gospel opened ('In the beginning…') to see a reference to the new creation that Jesus had inaugurated by his triumph over death. Meeting together on the first day of the week would be a potent and prophetic declaration by the early church of that reality - that the light of a new day had dawned with liberating power, that a new creation had begun to be birthed.

It becomes possible, in the light of this creation/new creation motif, to see that a gathering of the church both morning and evening could be viewed as reflecting the creation narrative of Genesis 1 & 2 ('and there was evening and there was morning…'). However, the absence of explicit biblical injunction for the pattern should allow for a degree of sympathetic and pastoral flexibility in the matter.

In this way, Challies’ point about an evening service being counter-cultural might take on greater weight. Churches gathering at both ends of the day would not be about pragmatism, nor a matter of biblical prescription but, rather, a deliberate and prophetic statement to a culture of death that there is life in the Saviour, celebrating and proclaiming hope in a world of despair and witnessing to the coming of a new creation in which God is all and is in all.

Of course, merely having a pattern that proclaims those realities is not enough if our gatherings fail to reflect such newness and hope, or if those responses are not also evident throughout the week. The form is not a formula. But it may well be that such a pattern becomes a real tonic for ourselves and a great service to the world around us.

The verse that Satan did not dare to quote

When assaulting Jesus with temptations, Satan quoted from Psalm 91,

He will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
they will lift you up in their hands
so that you will not strike your foot
against a stone. (v.12)

I wonder why he didn’t go on to remind Jesus of the very next verse in that psalm?

You will tread upon the lion and the cobra;
you will trample the great lion and the serpent. (v.13)

Coward.

How a failure was recovered

He was a deserter; a failure. And the cause of a sharp disagreement between two Christian workers, one of them his uncle. So sharp in fact that they no longer worked together, despite years of supportive service (Acts 15:36ff).

Later on, the one who had objected to his continued presence on the team, speaks of him in very warm terms. Paul says that he has proved himself to be a valuable colleague in gospel work; "he is helpful to me in my ministry" (2 Tim 4:11).

So how did the change come about? How was this fallible young man recovered? Who was it that mentored him into being a faithful gospel servant?

Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus. (Acts 15:39)

Presumably, the one who didn’t give up on him.

Ted Hughes: The Horses

He may not be everyone’s cup of tea, even in Yorkshire, but this poem by Ted Hughes has great power and beauty. From the collection, The Hawk in the Rain.

The Horses

I climbed through woods in the hour-before-dawn dark.
Evil air, a frost-making stillness,

Not a leaf, not a bird -
A world cast in frost. I came out above the wood

Where my breath left tortuous statues in the iron light.
But the valleys were draining the darkness

Till the moorline - blackening dregs of the brightening grey -
Halved the sky ahead. And I saw the horses:

Huge in the dense grey - ten together - 
Megalith-still. They breathed, making no move,

with draped manes and tilted hind-hooves,
Making no sound.

I passed: not one snorted or jerked its head.
Grey silent fragments

Of a grey silent world.

I listened in emptiness on the moor-ridge.
The curlew’s tear turned its edge on the silence.

Slowly detail leafed from the darkness. Then the sun
Orange, red, red erupted

Silently, and splitting to its core tore and flung cloud,
Shook the gulf open, showed blue,

And the big planets hanging -.
I turned

Stumbling in the fever of a dream, down towards
The dark woods, from the kindling tops,

And came to the horses.
                                      There, still they stood,
But now steaming and glistening under the flow of light,

Their draped stone manes, their tilted hind-hooves
Stirring under a thaw while all around them

The frost showed its fires. But still they made no sound.
Not one snorted or stamped,

Their hung heads patient as the horizons,
High over valleys in the red levelling rays -

In din of crowded streets, going among the years, the faces,
May I still meet my memory in so lonely a place 

Between the streams and the red clouds, hearing the curlews, 
Hearing the horizons endure.

How to know the truth

Jesus’ words in John 8:31,32 seem to speak of a knowing via the pathway of faith and obedience:

If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Knowing the truth is consequent to holding to Jesus’ teaching, honouring him with our faith and obeying him as his disciples. Even if the kai in v.32 is simply translated as ‘and’ and not ‘then’, there still seems to be a progression in what he is saying; that knowing follows the doing of faith and obedience.

Of course, we ought to expect just this in the light of the wisdom of the Book of Proverbs, that

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge (Prov. 1:7a)

A genuine reverence for the LORD which results in changed thoughts and actions is the precondition for truly knowing.

The implications of this, it seems to me, are surely significant, both pastorally and evangelistically.

Justification

Justification

Latest issue of Credo magazine now online.

seeing glory//being sent (an observation)

Moses saw a bush ablaze, yet not consumed. The ground where he stood was holy, because the living God was present in his burning majesty. And Moses was made to keep his distance.

Isaiah saw the LORD, high and lifted up and the train of his robe filled the temple. All was smoke and sublimity. And he was so deeply conscious of the holiness of God that his own uncleanness became a palpable, damning reality.

Peter listens to the man on the shore and casts his nets where he had no expectation of finding fish. He and his friends were overwhelmed by the haul. In the catch, he caught a glimpse of God’s otherness; in that sign, he saw his sin and was humbled to his knees.

Three men, awed by God’s majesty, made deeply aware of their own fractured and soiled humanity.

And in each case the LORD deals graciously with them: Moses the exile is reminded that this is the God of his fathers, the God of promise; Isaiah’s lips are scorched by coals and told his sin is atoned for; Peter is simply told not to fear, presumably because fear has to do with judgement and he is now in the presence of the source of redeeming love.

And in each case the LORD speaks to them of his mission to rescue a lost and broken world and calls them into the service of that rescue plan: “So now, go…”; “Go and tell this people”; “From now on you will fish for people”.

Three men shown God’s glory - not to crush them but to commission them; to humble them that they might be raised into serving God and his gospel of grace.

Colonialist, proselytizing missionaries...

The Surprising Discovery About Those Colonialist, Proselytizing Missionaries: They didn'€™t set out to change history. But one modern scholar's research shows they did just that.

A positive assessment of the impact of missions.

A different kind of low and high church

These words by Steven Covey (HT: Matt Perman) are very challenging when applied to church culture:

A low-trust culture is filled with bureaucracy, excessive rules and regulations, restrictive, closed systems. In the fear of some “loose cannon,” people set up procedures that everyone has to accommodate.

The level of initiative is low — basically “do what you’re told.” Structures are pyramidal, hierarchical. Information systems are short-term. The quarterly bottom line tends to drive the mentality in the culture.

In a high-trust culture, structures and systems are aligned to create empowerment, to liberate people’s energy and creativity toward agreed-upon purposes within the guidelines of shared values. There’s less bureaucracy, fewer rules and regulations, more involvement.

What sort of environment are we fostering? Are people flourishing, truly?