Not even an angel: on guarding the gospel

It's a striking warning: "if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God's curse" (Galatians 1:8). Paul doesn't mince his words and we can be glad he didn't - the gospel is far too important to mess with. But why extend the warning to include 'an angel from heaven'? Is this just stylistic hyperbole?

Maybe Paul has in the back of his mind the unusual episode in 1 Kings 13 where a man of God from Judah is sent by the Lord to speak God's judgement on Jeroboam and was then to return home pronto, no staying to feast with the king. The message was to be spoken to the altar Jeroboam had fashioned, thus corrupting Israel's worship; it heralded the reign of a Davidic ruler who would be raised up by the Lord (Josiah) and would restore true worship and judge the corrupt.

The man of God played his part well and set off for home, just as he had been told to do. But a certain old prophet ran after him and urged him to return for the sake of hospitality - and he swayed the man of God with these words: "An angel said to me...bring him back". The man of God allowed himself to be persuaded and fell into judgement.

A message about a Davidic king who restores true worship and judges its corruption? The need to hold steadfastly to what God has spoken, even at the cost of the approval of other people? Maybe Paul wasn't being so random after all.

Allow yourself to sleep

Psalm 127:2 says that God gives sleep to those he loves. This is surely the antidote to the endless productivity hacking so many of us find we’re drawn to. It is OK to sleep, to have downtime, to end work without finishing the task. Because all true security and all true prosperity come from the LORD. And whether the best translation is ‘he gives sleep to those he loves’ or ‘while they sleep he provides for those he loves’, the key thing is this: “those he loves”. Loved by the LORD, you can rest in genuine security and slumber in his settled provision. It is in vain to rise early or to stay up late - ‘in vain’: that’s an awesome Bible word. Futile. A waste. Comes-to-nothing. A world without form and void - an empty, trackless waste, without purpose or shape, essentially fruitless. All your efforts at getting things done could amount to that. Ouch. Because unless the LORD builds the house, all labour is in vain.

When God offers you a bigger and better church

The people you serve are a huge disappointment, forever grumbling about one thing or another, looking at you with distrust and treating you with disdain. Then God says to you, ‘OK, enough is enough - I’m through with these people. But I’m going to give you a bigger and better church/ministry.’ Sounds like the vindication you’ve been looking for and a proper reward for all your hard work. It’s a no-brainer, isn’t it? Time to start packing your bags and doing some searching on RightMove.

Moses handles that exact situation very differently. In Numbers 14 it seems like the Lord’s patience with the people has run-out; their refusal to listen to Caleb and Joshua’s report about the promised land has been the final straw. But the Lord is willing to continue with Moses and to make him into a nation greater and stronger than Israel have been (v.12). We might think this is probably the turning-point Moses has been secretly longing for.

Yet Moses declines. If ever there was a moment in ministry for him to indulge a sense of personal injustice and to take the vindication being offered him with both hands, this is it. To convince himself that, yes, he’s worth it and does deserve better, despite his own faults. This was that moment - and he lets it pass; he completely refuses to take it.

Instead, he appeals to 2 things: the Lord’s reputation (‘people will think you don’t have what it takes to finish what you started when you brought this lot out of Egypt’) and the Lord’s character (‘you’re a gracious and compassionate God’). His own reputation isn’t on the agenda, nor his career prospects. This is all about the Lord - his name, his character, his work, his mission in the world. And that is tied to these people, come what may.

Was Moses blind to the people’s faults, naively supposing they would improve with age? Hardly. This isn’t about denying what is plainly true; it isn’t about excusing sin, as though the people might turn the corner sometime soon. It’s about holding-on to that which is bigger than their sin and more worthy than one’s own relief.

No wonder we’re told that "Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth" (Num 12:3). And we know what will become of the meek.

A way of thinking and reading that is passing from the Church

…his story also leaves the reader with the feeling that we shall not see Oden’s like again. To recover tradition as he did, one must not simply see that modernity, or postmodernity, has failed. One must also have the tools for appropriating earlier patterns of thought…The texts that enabled Oden to rebuild his theology require time and effort to master. One cannot read Augustine in tweet-sized pieces. One cannot grasp the full significance of his thought from a Wikipedia article. Oden’s story assumes a way of thinking and a way of reading that is passing from the Church. The same basic questions about human existence remain, but I wonder if the rising generation will have even the technical skills to address them as Oden has done. Hypermodernity is superficial not just in its conclusions but also in its methods. The challenge to us is even greater than it was for Oden.

Carl R. Trueman, Review of A Change of Heart by Thomas C. Oden, in First Things, February 2015 (my emphasis)

Pastoral ministry as stochastic art

Some arts reliably attain their object - for example, the art of building. If the building falls down, one can say in retrospect that the builder didn’t know what he was doing. But there is another class of arts that Aristotle calls “stochastic”. An example is medicine. Mastery of a stochastic art is compatible with failure to achieve its end (health). As Aristotle writes, “It does not belong to medicine to produce health, but only to promote it as much as is possible…” Fixing things, whether cars or human bodies, is very different from building things from scratch. The mechanic and the doctor deal with failure every day, even if they are expert, whereas the builder does not. This is because the things they fix are not of their own making, and are therefore never known in a comprehensive or absolute way.This experience of failure tempers the conceit of mastery; the doctor and the mechanic have daily intercourse with the world as something independent, and a vivid awareness of the difference between self and nonself. Fixing things may be a cure for narcissism.

Matthew B. Crawford, in Shop Class as Soulcraft, p.81

Why I'm doing sermon prep by hand

"…for me the most important thing about handwriting has a lot to do with focus. I often feel like my thoughts act sort of like they are in a wind tunnel. It can make me easily distracted as a passing thought can occupy all of my attention. At a computer this is dangerous, as I can immediately chase down information relating to that thought, and get about three levels deep in related ideas and forget what I was doing initially. On paper if I get lost on a project I am far more likely to get lost in that project instead of floundering about elsewhere."

My Analog Life 

How worship orders life

In worship God gathers his people to himself as centre: ‘The Lord reigns’ (Ps. 93:1). Worship is a meeting at the centre so that our lives are centred in God and not lived eccentrically. We worship so that we live in response to and from this centre, the living God. Failure to worship consigns us to a life of spasms and jerks, at the mercy of every advertisement, every seduction, every siren. Without worship we live manipulated and manipulating lives. We move in either frightened panic or deluded lethergy as we are, in turn, alarmed by spectres and soothed by placebos. If there is no centre, there is no circumference. People who do not worship are swept into a vast restlessness, epidemic in the world, with no steady direction and no sustaining purpose.

Eugene H Peterson, Reversed Thunder, p.60

The biggest barriers to effective evangelism

The following paragraphs from Bruce Milne’s book, The Message of John, relate to the great prayer of Jesus in chapter 17 of John’s Gospel and to the mission on which he sends his people, then and now. The prayer itself is humbling and deeply challenging; Milne’s exposition is a powerful testament to that.

This mission has two hands. The ‘first hand’ is that of proclamation, the communicating to the world of the revelation of the Father in the Son, climaxed by his self-sacrifice for the world’s sin. This revelation (6) is commonly expressed in words (8), and must be shared in words so that the world may believe that the mission of Jesus is authentically the mission of the Father in him, and hence that he is the Saviour and Lord of sinners.

But the mission has a ‘second hand’. It is visible as well as verbal, relational as well as audible. The content of this ‘second hand’ is clearly stated in verse 23: May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you…have loved them even as you have loved me…The Father’s love for his Son in all its richness is persuasively reproduced in the mutual relationships of the Christian congregation! Nothing less than that is Jesus’ prayer.

This ‘second hand’ represents a dimension in evangelism which is commonly ignored or underestimated, and yet which is central to Jesus’ evangelistic strategy for his church (cf. 13:34-35). The local church is the obvious point of application. A group of Christians who are so knit together in the love of God that others can say of them, 'Look how they love each other,' is a church where the gospel will be the 'power of God for…salvation' (Rom 1:16). Evangelism is a community act. It is the proclamation of the church’s relationships as well as its convictions. The preacher is only the spokesperson of the community. The gospel proclaimed from the pulpit is either confirmed, and hence immeasurably enhanced, or it is contradicted, and hence immeasurably weakened, by the quality of the relationships in the pews. In this sense every Christian is a witness. Every time we gather together we either strengthen or weaken the evangelistic appeal of our church by the quality of our relationships with our fellow church members.

The biggest barriers to effective evangelism according to the prayer of Jesus are not so much outdated methods, or inadequate presentations of the gospel, as realities like gossip, insensitivity, negative criticism, jealousy, backbiting, an unforgiving spirit, a ‘root of bitterness’, failure to appreciate others, self-preoccupation, greed, selfishness and every other form of lovelessness. These are the squalid enemies of effective evangelism which render the gospel fruitless and send countless thousands into eternity without a Saviour. ‘The glorious gospel of the blessed God’, which is committed to our trust, is being openly contradicted and veiled by the sinful relationships within the community which is commissioned to communicate it. We need look no further to understand why the church’s impact on the community is frequently so minimal in spite of the greatness of our message. We are fighting with only one hand!

(Bruce Milne, The Message of John, IVP, pp.250,251)

'They just need the gospel.' Really?

You’ve told people the great good news about Jesus. How he died and rose again and in his death is the answer to their sin and estrangement from God. How his resurrection gives them solid hope in the face of death and how he gifts his Spirit to them that they might live a new life of godliness. Wonder of wonders, the message has been received, with great joy, despite opposition, and has resulted in changed lives - lives that are turned to God, lives of service to him and of intense longing for the return of Jesus, the one who saves from wrath.

What do these new Christians now need from you? And if you simply couldn’t stay with them any longer, what would you want to communicate to them from afar? If your answer is, 'They just need more of the gospel, on an ongoing basis', then you’ll likely find the apostle Paul frustrating and, ultimately, disappointing. Because his approach is quite different.

The above scenario is, of course, based on his experiences in Thessalonica. And his first letter to that church discloses very clearly the content of his teaching before he left and then, in absentia, via his correspondence delivered by Timothy. What we discover is quite surprising.

Paul is very clear about the message he preached to them, as is Luke in Acts 17 - Paul reasoned from the Scriptures in the synagogue, "explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead" and that ”this Jesus I am proclaiming…is the Messiah.” The mob that were incited to riot against Paul and his companions reported that they had been preaching that "there is another king, one called Jesus", that Jesus was Lord, not Caesar. Good, solid, reasoned gospel preaching that bore fruit. He also, so it seems, took pains not to exclude teaching about the return of Jesus (presumably the reason they ought to "know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night" 1 Thess. 5:2).

But what did Paul then teach these new believers, both in the few months he was with them and then during his enforced absence from them? What was his teaching strategy for their growth and maturing as new Christians? The answer of 1 Thessalonians is pretty ‘gospel-lite’.

In addition to the gospel (2:9), Paul and his team encouraged, comforted and urged them to live lives worthy of God (2:12). No doubt the comfort and encouragement were solidly gospel-based but it didn’t stop there: they urged these new believers to live lives worthy of God. They spelled-out the consequences of believing the gospel and the demands it makes. They instructed them "how to live in order to please God" (4:1).

The report that Timothy brought from his visit to Thessalonica reassured Paul about their "faith and love" (3:6). It’s quite clear from 1:2 that Paul doesn’t see ‘faith’ as simply a report on their doctrinal correctness - he views it (oh, hello James) as that which leads to, and is authenticated by, works. Their faith and love (for each other) are what tell Paul that these believers are "standing firm in the Lord" (3:8).

But Paul longs to be back there to supply what is lacking in their faith (3:10). Not being able to do that just now, this letter will have to suffice. So to what does he give his attention? He prays for them (3:11-13). He prays that their love for each other (and for everyone else) will increase and overflow; he prays that their hearts will be strengthened so that they will be blameless and holy before God. He prays for their lives to be increasingly changed and his prayer requests are not in the abstract but are asking for direct, visible change.

He also instructs them (4:1-12). He instructs them about living sexually pure lives in a confused and immoral context. He instructs them to intensify their love for each other and the wider Christian community. And he instructs them to live as model citizens, leading quiet lives, working to provide for their needs and not prying into others’ business. Basically, Paul says, this is more of the same teaching that I gave you when present with you (4:1,2). In addition, they ought to acknowledge and respond well to those in leadership in the church (5:12,13) and "strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else" (5:15).

Do you see where his emphasis lies as he teaches these young believers? It isn’t a case of simply reiterating the gospel. In fact, he keeps the gospel basis for his exhortations to a pretty bare minimum. And don’t forget, these are people who are only months into their Christian lives. Some want to suggest - indeed, are suggesting - that all people need is the gospel and they will then live as they ought to live as Christians. Just keep ‘giving them the gospel’, opening up its treasures and its glories. No need to emphasise the actual changes of behaviour, because that will only lead to legalism (which is fast becoming the sin of all sins).

Others would modify that, somewhat, to include ethical instruction on the basis of the gospel, and rightly so. But Paul’s example in this letter is, as we’ve seen, relatively light on a gospel foundation for his ethical instruction. His basis for urging them to grow in godliness is that, unlike the Gentiles, they know God (4:5) and he has given them his Holy Spirit (4:8). The gospel foundation is most certainly there but Paul chooses not to uncover it to any great extent, with the exception of the second coming of Jesus as grounds for holy living in 5:4-11.

What isn’t lacking, and what is conspicuous by its presence, is the strong note of warning for those who refuse to walk worthily of the Lord (4:6,8). We ought, also, to notice that it wasn’t just a matter of what Paul said but, importantly, about what he did. The emphasis in this letter on imitation is super-clear, as is the familial nature of his relationship with them. Paul and his friends had set the Thessalonian Christians an example to follow (1:6; 2:9,10) and the example they set pointed this fledgling church to the Lord Jesus Christ (1:6).

Paul is so eager to get back to them (3:10) because he wants to supply what is lacking in their faith - his presence there and his example of living a gospel-changed life is an urgent need in Paul’s mind as he thinks of these young believers and longs to continue the work of a parent among them. Not just the gospel message, but concrete, detailed ethical instruction. And not just words from a distance but a personal, familial presence that models a changed life. That’s what they needed.

why Jesus wants his people to be sanctified

It seems so very obvious: Jesus wants his people to be sanctified (ie. set apart, holy). In fact, he prays for just that in his great prayer in John 17:

Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. (John 17:17-19)

But what does he have in mind?

He links the setting apart, the sanctifying, of his disciples to his own act of being set apart: "for them I sanctify myself, that they may be truly sanctified". So, he made himself holy so that we too could be holy? Wasn’t he always holy anyhow?

I think the emphasis here works in a slightly different direction. Jesus set himself apart for the doing of God’s will, that he might redeem and reconcile people to God. And he expressly states here that just as he had been sent into the world by the Father on that mission and had responded by sanctifying himself, so too he is sending his disciples into the world.

He is then, it seems, praying that his people would be set apart for God in order that they might be enabled and equipped to fulfil their calling to go into all the world with the good news. Set apart and sent out; that’s us.

Notice the crucial role played by God’s Word in this. Scripture is meant to make us more like Jesus, not simply in terms of what we usually think of as holiness (integrity of character, purity of mind and so forth), but, crucially, our becoming more like Jesus in our commitment to, and sacrificial outworking of, the great mission of God.

If Jesus prayed for that, it would be good if we did too.

corporate identity and moral formation

Paul is concerned not with the virtue or happiness of the individual, but with the corporate identity of his communities as the basis for moral formation.

James W Thompson, Moral Formation According to Paul, p.53

the deal that God didn't make and cannot keep

Psalm 44 expresses deep agony. The nation is in turmoil and, seemingly, a sitting duck for its enemies. They not only feel weak, they are weak, desperately so. And they are gloated over with great glee.

It hadn’t always been like this. In times past, things had been far more positive, far more expansive and assured. Looking back from the rusting present, they were the golden days, shiny and inviolable.

And the writer of Psalm 44 knows where the blame lies. The fault can be laid, fairly and squarely, at the door of the God to whom they belong - the living God, the God of all the earth; the unconquerable, all-powerful God of covenant faithfulness. And right now, this God is playing dead, acting deaf and covering his eyes to their harsh reality. In a devastating charge, he is accused of having sold his people for a pittance and been none the richer for it.

What galls the writer is that this would be understandable if they had acted treacherously towards him, but they hadn’t. They had been faithful to the covenant; they had kept their part of the bargain - and he had reneged on his (cf. Leviticus 26:3-8). And so he must be roused, awoken to their plight, stirred to take his own vocation seriously. Wasn’t it he who said they would be his people and he their God? Then it’s time to make good on that commitment.

Those are serious charges against a God whose character is supposedly marked to the core by faithfulness and integrity. But this is a deal that he did not make and cannot keep.

The apostle Paul quotes from this psalm in Romans 8:36 as he rehearses the security he and his colleagues - along with all Christians - know in Jesus, even in the face of profound suffering. They are not spared the suffering - in fact, they’re like sheep ready to be slaughtered; nevertheless, "in all these things" they are more than conquerors in Jesus.

The experience of God’s people, as much in the Old Testament as in the New, would be traced along the arc of suffering for the sake of God’s purposes in the world. That would, of course, be uniquely exemplified by the Messiah; yet, whilst not replicating his atoning work, his people would nevertheless share in bearing his marks upon their bodies and fill up his sufferings (Gal 6:17; Col 1:24).

The (gospel) mystery of the anguish of Psalm 44 is that, if it wasn’t discipline for sin, then it must have a sanctifying - that is, a missional - dimension to it. The work of God progresses in the world not through sweeping all his enemies away in military victory but by the triumph of love over evil, even in the face of slaughter.

The context of Paul’s use of Psalm 44 in Romans 8 reminds us, too, that such suffering has a demonic aspect to it. Just as the nations raged in Psalm 44, just as Jesus was confronted and opposed by evil, so Paul and his companions knew the reality of such a struggle. It simply will not be otherwise.

And yet, still, in the face of such malevolence, "nothing can separate from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord". Nothing will prevent the whole cosmos being flooded by the light of his glory, as the waters cover the sea, even when the daily reality is that his people ”are considered as sheep to be slaughtered”.

The truth is, he hadn’t forsaken his people; he hadn’t refused to keep the bargain they believed he had made with them. There never was a promise of seamless victories over all hardship and all enemies. Rather, their experience would presage the coming of the Messiah whose sufferings would be for a world of sin. And those who suffer with him will have the Spirit of glory and of God resting upon them as he leads them in the greater security of his love.

The serpent would strike their heel - but in the Messiah, they would crush his head, through the gospel of the God of peace (Romans 16:20).

Two reflections in the light of the above:

i. Some prayer for revival can sound like a refusal to embrace suffering as a means by which the gospel will advance. That sounds dreadfully harsh, I know, but I believe it can be true. The impetus for such praying is the diminution of the church’s standing in the nation and the rise of secularism and other powers. And the answer, the only answer, it is suggested, is the ‘sweeping away’ of all such through a mighty revival. That sounds very much akin to the pleas of Psalm 44 but is sorely lacking the gospel refraction that psalm is given in Romans 8.

ii. Are we not in danger of giving a casual and careless response to the terrible sufferings of God’s people in the world, given that this is, seemingly, how it’s always going to be? And is that danger not increased through the relative ease in which many of us live? Indeed we are and indeed it is - but it need not do so. Whilst recognising the mysterious role of suffering in gospel progress and that to be God’s people inevitably means being caught up into the sufferings of the Messiah, it is still fully right to cry with the martyrs beneath the altar in Revelation, "How long, O Lord, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth…?" A lesser response, a failure to weep with those who weep, would be unconscionable.

the church of the fainthearted and feeble

Ray Ortlund chooses a great quote from Martin Luther as one of his favourites:

“May a merciful God preserve me from a Christian Church in which everyone is a saint!  I want to be and remain in the church and little flock of the fainthearted, the feeble and the ailing, who feel and recognize the wretchedness of their sins, who sigh and cry to God incessantly for comfort and help, who believe in the forgiveness of sins.”

Luther’s Works (St. Louis, 1957), XXII:55.

give your emotions and heart to Christ, not to problems

In handling a difficult issue concerning personal relationships and misunderstanding, Jack Miller wrote the following to a friend (emphasis mine):

I am grieved by this whole matter, very deeply, but I also forgive you and them from the bottom of my heart. But with this letter I now put it out of my mind. I suggest you do the same. Sometimes the world is a most imperfect place. It will take a while before you or I perfect it, and that includes the church. So keep your perspective. Be willing to wait as you work. Watch your emotions and heart. Give them to Christ and not to problems. Let’s keep praising Him and get our own work done.

The Heart of a Servant Leader p.190

witnesses, not stargazers

There was something fundamentally anomalous about their gazing up into the sky when they had been commissioned to go to the end of the earth. It was the earth not the sky which was to be their preoccupation. Their calling was to be witnesses, not stargazers. The vision they were to cultivate was not upwards in nostalgia to the heaven which had received Jesus, but outwards in compassion to a lost world which needed him. It is the same for us. Curiosity about heaven and its occupants, speculation about prophecy and its fulfilment, an obsession with ‘times and seasons’ - these are aberrations which distract us from our God-given mission. Christ will come personally, visibly, gloriously. Of that we have been assured. Other details can wait. Meanwhile, we have work to do in the power of the Spirit.

(John Stott, The Message of Acts, Bible Speaks Today, IVP 1990)

does cheap online video trump text?

Does Cheap Online Video Trump Text?

This makes for interesting reading, especially for those who see themselves as ‘people of the Book’ (who may, in fact, be ‘people of the Story’).

getting your joy from the right things

Do you get your joy from the right things? Jesus’ disciples rejoiced that he was absent from them. Look at Luke 24:52 - after he was taken from them, hidden from them, no longer physically present, no longer within reach and completely out of sight, they went back to Jerusalem "with great joy".

Of course, their joy wasn’t rooted in his absence but in what that absence meant: he had ascended into heaven as the Priest whose sacrifice for sin had been effective and whose blessing would remain on them; he had ascended as the King over all who would govern all things for the sake of his people and for his purposes of grace for the world. That’s why they rejoiced at his absence.

Is your joy rooted in those realities or are you looking to find joy in certain experiences of the nearness of God - something that can be felt, something unusual? Those experiences may come or they may not. But their absence does not invalidate the larger realities of the ascended Lord Jesus Christ whose blessing was, is and remains on his people. That’s where joy can be securely rooted.

Jesus' hands outstretched

He stretched out His hands on the cross, that He might embrace the ends of the world; for this Golgotha is the very centre of the earth. (Cyril of Jerusalem)

quoted in Mike Bird’s Evangelical Theology

quick to reply or mull things over?

I recently read CS Lewis’ book, Letters to Malcolm (Chiefly on Prayer). I’d highly recommend it. It’s a series of letters to a friend (I presume they’re real letters) albeit without the replies in between. That form is what I want to highlight here.

The book was written in the good old days of snail mail and the letters seemingly passed between them on a weekly basis. Of course, almost no-one does that today, it’s just so passé in this world of apps and social media. But something has been lost in the process: the time and space to mull things over. To chew over not only what’s been said to me but what I want to say in response, so that my own thinking has time to mature and be self-corrected.

Replies can be written, responses penned and posted, almost instantly - as though the case someone has made is instantly and fully understood, such that it needs no time to percolate its meaning. But some things need that time. Or maybe it’s that I need space to mull over how and why I’m reacting as I am to what I’ve read: is it simply a matter of plain fact or are there things going on in my heart and mind that I need to become aware of and account for? It might be helpful to talk to someone about the issues raised - a friend, a colleague - before penning the pungent rejoinder.

But here’s the rub: if proper, responsible time is taken to mull things over, the moment to post a reply will be gone; the conversation will have moved on and something else will be making headlines. If the rush to judgement is born of folly, so, too, the dash to comment, to be the first in line with a quip.

Perhaps it’s better to mull things over and miss the commenting boat than to board it with a forged ticket? I think James might add his ‘Amen’ to that (James 1:19).

keller on augustine on prayer

Keller on Augustine on Prayer