On wanting to be a contemplative pastor

Was it realistic to think I could develop [into] something maybe more like a contemplative pastor - a pastor who was able to be with people without having an agenda for them, a pastor who was able to accept people as they were and guide them gently and patiently into a mature life in Christ but not get in the way, let the Holy Spirit do the guiding?

(Eugene Peterson, The Pastor, p.210)

Being an example as a pastor (or, How not to be boring)

The single most important way for pastors or church leaders to turn passive laypeople into courageous and gracious lay ministers is through their own evident godliness. A pastor should be marked by humility, love, joy, and wisdom that is visible and attracts people to trust and learn from them. As a pastor, you may not be the best preacher, but if you are filled with God’s love, joy, and wisdom, you won’t be boring! You may not be the most skilful organizer or charismatic leader, but if your holiness is evident, people will follow you.

Tim Keller, Center Church, p.288

deliberate contexualisation

If we never deliberately think through ways to rightly contextualise gospel ministry to a new culture, we will unconsciously be deeply contextualised to some other culture.

Tim Keller, Center Church, p.96

The heavy, golden voice of Aslan

“If you’re thirsty, you may drink.” They were the first words [Jill] had heard since Scrubb had spoken to her on the edge of the cliff. For a second she stared here and there, wondering who had spoken. Then the voice said again, “If you are thirsty, come and drink,” and of course she remembered what Scrubb had said about animals talking in that other world, and realized that it was the lion speaking. Anyway, she had seen its lips move this time, and the voice was not like a man’s. It was deeper, wilder, and stronger; a sort of heavy, golden voice. It did not make her any less frightened than she had been before, but it made her frightened in rather a different way. “Are you not thirsty?” said the Lion. “I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill. “Then drink,” said the Lion.

CS Lewis, The Silver Chair.

God knew the worst about you....and yet

God knew the worst about us before he chose to love us, and therefore no discovery now can disillusion him about us in the way that we are so often disillusioned about ourselves, and quench his determination to bless us. He took knowledge of us in love.

JI Packer, Knowing God.

What matters most in ministry

Let us not measure men, much less ourselves, by gifts or services. One grain of grace is worth abundance of gifts. To be self-abased, to be filled with a spirit of love, and peace, and gentleness; to be dead to the world; to have the heart deeply affected with a sense of the glory and grace of Jesus, to have our will bowed to the will of God; these are the great things, more valuable, if compared in the balance of the sanctuary, than to be an instrument of converting a province or a nation.

John Newton, Letter to Rev Symonds, 1769.

The old weather-beaten Christian

The old weather-beaten Christian, who has learnt by sorrowful experience how weak he is in himself, and what powerful subtle enemies he has to grapple with, acquires a tenderness in dealing with bruises and broken bones, which greatly conduces to his acceptance and usefulness.

John Newton, Letter to Captain Scott, 1768.

Doing Christ-centred hermeneutics (Mere Fidelity podcast)

Very helpful discussion of Christ-centred hermeneutics with the guys from Mere Fidelity:

"Suffering people hardly settle for a puny god."

When 9/11 occurred, I was waking from a comfortable night’s sleep in an upscale San Antonio hotel.  While dressing, I watched the news footage like most people—dumbstruck.  After I gathered a good sense of what was happening, called to check on my wife and daughters in D.C., I joined my coworkers gathering in a hotel conference room for a discussion of public policy and improving the life outcomes of children and families.  When I arrived, I found a room heavy with confusion, sadness, and fear.  We were a collection of policy professionals from around the country—lots of us with family and friends in Washington, D. C. and New York.  In the silence, confusion, and sporadic telephone connections with family were the questions, “What’s going on?”  and, “Who is in control?”  A few dared ask, “Is God involved in any of this?”

I was the lone evangelical Christian in a group of committed political and social progressives.  I wasn’t in the room 3 minutes before everyone was looking to me for an answer and for prayer.

That scene reminds me that everyone needs to answer some basic, deep questions about life.  Is God involved in my life?  Who is in control?  How do I explain this pain?  It also taught me that, at bottom, we all need to encounter the majestic, glorious, merciful, and awesome God of the Scripture.  He’s the only God there is.  And when we really need Him, we need Him in all His bigness and splendor.  Suffering people hardly settle for a puny god.

So, I want to preach in such a way that recognizes that the God that truly is and the God we truly need holds all things in His hand.  He rules and reigns with no rivals.  And when the world seems to come undone, the sovereign God of the Bible is who we need.  In truth, we need that God all the time and the purpose of preaching in a post-9/11 world is to simultaneously reveal Him in sovereign glory while stripping away the mundane to expose our deep need for Him.  Most of us live in a routine-induced daze that distracts us from ultimate matters.  Preaching is the audible interruption of that daze to ask, “Do you see this great God?  Come and love Him!”

Thabiti Anyabwile

John Newton on Jesus' enduring, endearing love to wayward disciples

But when, after a long experience of their own deceitful hearts, after repeated proofs of their weakness, wilfulness, ingratitude, and insensibility, they find that none of these things can separate them from the love of God in Christ, Jesus becomes more and more precious to their souls. They love much, because much has been forgiven them.

Letter to Lord Dartmouth, April 1772

John Newton on Assurance

When young Christians are greatly comforted with the Lord's love and presence, their doubts and fears are for that season at an end. But this is not assurance; so soon as the Lord hides his face, they are troubled, and ready to question the very foundation of hope. Assurance grows by repeated conflict, by our repeated experimental proof of the Lord's power and goodness to save; when we have been brought very low and helped, sorely wounded and healed, cast down and raised again, have given up all hope, and been suddenly snatched from danger, and placed in safety; and when these things have been repeated to us and in us a thousand times over, we begin to learn to trust simply to the word and power of God, beyond and against appearances; and this trust, when habitual and strong, bears the name of assurance; for even assurance has degrees.

Letter to Mrs Wilberforce, Sept 1764. (Letters of John Newton p.74,75)

I asked the Lord that I might grow...

On the Old Testament as the manger in which Christ lies

There are some who have little regard for the Old Testament. They think of it as a book that was given to the Jewish people only and is now out of date, containing only stories of past times...But Christ says in John 5, "Search the Scriptures, for it is they that bear witness to me."...The Scriptures of the Old Testament are not to be despised but diligently read...Therefore dismiss your own opinions and feelings and think of the Scriptures as the loftiest and noblest of holy things, as the richest of mines which can never be sufficiently explored, in order that you may find that divine wisdom which God here lays before you in such simple guise as to quench all pride. Here you will find the swaddling cloths and the manger in which Christ lies...Simple and lowly are these swaddling cloths, but dear is the treasure, Christ, who lies in them!

Martin Luther - quoted by Richard B. Hays in Reading Backwards, p.1

Mission: not how great we are

The mission of God's people is not a matter of how great we are at doing things for God but a matter of how patient and persistent God is in doing things through us.

Chris Wright, The Mission of God's People, chapter 10

John Newton on seeking God's wisdom

Above all, my dear friend, let us keep close to the Lord in a way of prayer: He giveth wisdom that is profitable to direct; He is the Wonderful Counsellor; there is no teacher like Him. Why do the living seek to the dead? Why do we weary our friends and ourselves, in running up and down, and turning over books for advice? If we shut our eyes upon the world and worldly things, and raise our thoughts upwards in humility and silence, should we not often hear the secret voice of the Spirit of God whispering to our hearts, and pointing out to us the way of truth and peace? Have we not often gone astray, and hurt either ourselves or our brethren, for want of attending to this divine instruction? Have we not sometimes mocked God, by pretending to ask direction from him, when we had fixed our determination beforehand? It is a great blessing to know that we are sincere; and next to this, to be convinced of our insincerity, and to pray against it.

John Newton, Letters, pp.40f

faithful: being far from shore

...often the church finds herself far from shore and threatened by strong winds and waves. Those in the boat often fail to understand that they are meant to be far from shore and that to be threatened by a storm is not unusual. If the church is faithful she will always be far from the shore. Some, moreover, will be commanded to leave even the safety of the boat to walk on water.

Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew, p.141

Not speech alone: George Herbert on preaching

Lord, how can man preach thy eternall word?
He is a brittle crazie glasse;
Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford
This glorious and transcendent place,
To be a window, through thy grace.
But when thou dost anneal in glass thy storie,
Making thy life to shine within
The holy Preachers; then the light and glorie
More rev'rend grows, and more doth win:
Which else shows watrish, bleak, and thin.
Doctrine and life, colours and light, in one
When they combine and mingle, bring
A strong regard and aw: but speech alone
Doth vanish like a flaring thing,
And in the eare, not conscience, ring.

How to live in exile

This is no time for panic or resentment; it is certainly no time for hate - we're still to love our neighbours as ourselves...this is a time to be faithful and gentle and firm and evangelistic and loving and principled and not driven by malice or hate or condescension or anger but simply to be Christians.

Don Carson, responding to the decision of the SCOTUS regarding same-sex marriage.

The great shadow departs

'My life' is quintessential Iris DeMent - a bittersweet song, sung with pathos and a lyrical purity. It laments the brevity of life ("only a season, a passing September that no-one will recall"), the seeming insignificance of one human life in this vast cosmos and the futility of "so many things that just never turned out right". Yet it also takes its own small stand against that wall of emptiness by celebrating the possibility that love can bring joy and comfort in pain, even if it can only "make things seem better for a while".

In Psalm 8, David movingly reflects on his own finitude against the backdrop of the endless starry sky and finds meaning and comfort in knowing that the living God cares for humankind and is mindful of them. And, yet, all is not well in that psalm: David refers to enemies - the foe, the avenger - who need to be silenced. In this vast cosmos, home to the blended kindness of God, a darkness prevails.

Psalm 8 O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honour. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet: all flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, and the fish in the sea, all that swim the paths of the seas. O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

The psalm hints at questions left unanswered, questions that are taken up in Hebrews 2:5ff where the writer is quite plain: we do not yet see humanity flourishing as God intended; evil is present, terrorising souls with the endless waste that is death. No, we do not yet see humanity raised to fulness - but we do see Jesus, the Son of God, made lower than the angels for a time and now crowned with glory and honour, having tasted death, having drunk its bitter cup dry, for us. He it is who calls to us in our bittersweet days, telling us that we are not simply noticed and named but that we can be lifted and loved and filled with immeasurable joy.

Hebrews 2:5-18 It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. But there is a place where someone has testified: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, a son of man that you care for him? You made them a little lower than the angels; you crowned them with glory and honour and put everything under their feet.” In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them. But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone... ...Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death —that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Why pastors have to be theologians

Great stuff from Kevin Vanhoozer (HT: Mike Bird).