Goodbye 2012, Hello 2013

So we come to the end of another year today and we head into the 9th year of this blog for 2013.

I wish all my readers a happy, peaceful and blessed new year when it comes and hope you will continue to visit, read and comment on my blog next year.

Whatever the year ahead holds for us, may we know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit in all we do.

Apologetics: the Battle for Hearts as well as Minds

There's an interesting guest post on Scot McKnight's blog Jesus Creed from Jeff Cook. You can read it here. Cook makes the point that too often Christian apologists think that all they have to do is win the rational argument against atheists to attract people to the faith. In debates, atheists often seem more persuasive because of the emotional strength of their argument.

Cook suggests it is high time the Christian side considered how important the emotional component of persuading the undecided is. Unless we paint an attractive and desirable portrait of the God we are inviting people to believe in, for most people they won't care how good our rational arguments are.

I think he makes a very valid point.

Merry Christmas

A very merry Christmas to all my blog readers.

This year the words that have been going through my mind over and over again come from the great prologue to John's Gospel (John 1:1-14). There we read these words from verse 14: "The Word became flesh."

In those four words the true meaning of Christmas is captured. John has already identified the "Word" as God, the God who made the world. And this "Word" is the Lord Jesus Christ. The message of Christmas is that in the birth of a baby boy in Bethlehem over two thousand years ago, the God who made and rules over everything - the God of Israel - took on human flesh and became a human being. This is what theologians call "the incarnation". It is because he came that God's plan of redemption could be accomplished. He came to bring reconcilation between God and humankind and thereby reconcilation between all things in heaven and earth.

This is why Christians celebrate his birth every year. Because "He came down to earth from heaven, who is God and Lord of all, and his shelter was a stable, and his cradle was a stall."

From his birth he was one of us in every respect, identifying completely with the poor, the hungry, the helpless and the needy.

And we need him this Christmas as much as we ever did. My prayer is that you will know Christ this Christmas and always. And may God bless you and all those whom you love now and forevermore.

Go Overboard Celebrating Christmas

I agree with Douglas Wilson's article "Go Overboard Celebrating Christmas" in Christianity Today. You can read it here:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2012/december-web-only/go-overboard-celebrating-christmas.html?paging=off

I think he makes a number of good points here. While it is true that there is a lot of stuff associated with the secular Christmas that is perhaps more an excuse for sin than a joyful celebration of the birth of Jesus, the temptation for a certain kind of Christian is to throw the baby out with the bathwater, put on sackcloth and ashes (metaphorically anyway) and seek to turn the celebration into no more than a sombre commemoration and a guilt trip about how messed up the world is around us.

I've always felt there's something strange about claiming to have good news for the world while we go out of our way to show the world that we Christians don't really want to enjoy ourselves too much. All pleasure is sinful after all, right?

The message of the Bible could not be further from this. I think Wilson gets it right when he says:

Do not treat this as a time of introspective penitence. To the extent that you must clean up, do it with the attitude of someone showering and changing clothes, getting ready for the best banquet you have ever been to. This does not include three weeks of meditating on how you are not worthy to go to banquets. Of course you are not. Haven't you heard of grace?

Celebrate the stuff. Use fudge and eggnog and wine and roast beef. Use presents and wrapping paper. Embedded in many of the common complaints you hear about the holidays (consumerism, shopping, gluttony, etc.) are false assumptions about the point of the celebration. You do not prepare for a real celebration of the Incarnation through thirty days of Advent Gnosticism.

Yes exactly! As Wilson concludes, grace is what it's all about. And God's grace in Christ was not a stale mince pie and a lukewarm sausage roll in a cold grey room, it was a sumptuous, lavish banquet with Michelin star cooking, champagne, laughter and song. 

That's why 'tis the season to be jolly as the carol says.

Online and On TV

My wife Laura is disabled, a wheelchair user, and a full-time mother. She has recently written an article for the charity Disabled Parents Network and then was interviewed by for The One Show on BBC1.

You can read her article here: http://disabledparentsnetwork.org.uk/a-new-mums-story/

And, at least in the UK (not sure about the rest of the world) you can watch the TV programme here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01p6rw7/The_One_Show_03_12_2012/

Advent

Happy new year to my readers - new church year that is. Today is Advent Sunday, the beginning of a new church year and the beginning of the traditional season of preparation for Christmas.

How might we mark this season? What does marking advent really mean, beyond putting up an advent calendar and beginning the Christmas countdown.

For me there are two indispensable parts of celebrating and reflecting on advent, which can be summed up as looking back and looking forward. The two activities are not unrelated of course. There is something beneficial in the looking back that helps us look forward more effectively. That is the balancing act involved in keeping advent well.

Looking back each year, we try to imagine how it must have been to be part of Israel in Old Testament times, waiting for the long-promised King and Saviour who would be sent by God, or for the characters in the New Testament stories waiting for the birth, especially Mary and Joseph. Though the events of Christmas are already long in our past, during advent, we somehow try to put ourselves back before the birth of Christ came to catch a sense of the anticipation and longing they must have felt. And so many of our Bible readings look at prophecies concerning the Messiah and our sermons and hymns at this time reflect upon the promised Messiah.

But advent is also about looking forward to Christ's second coming. Just as Old Testament Israel looked forward to the coming of the Messiah that would change the world, the New Testament church looks forward now to the second coming of the Messiah that will end the world as it is and remake it perfectly for eternity. So we also focus on Bible passages, sermons and hymns that look forward to Christ's return in glory.

I hope that this year we will seek to keep the advent season in both ways and prepare for the celebration of Christmas spiritually as we inevitably prepare for it in many practical ways too.

The Divine Spiration of Scripture

The Divine Spiration of Scripture
A. T. B. McGowan
Apollos

Professor McGowan's book is interesting but rather odd. Its main arguments are simple enough to grasp and make for interesting discussion:

• The doctrine of the Bible should not stand as a separate subject in systematic theology but form part of the doctrine of God ("theology proper") and the Holy Spirit in particular.
• We should stop referring to the "divine inspiration" of Scripture and start using "divine spiration" instead.
• We should stop referrring to the "inerrancy" of Scripture and use the word "infallibility" instead.

The ideas are clear enough, but the book takes a rather meandering path through the subject matter which mean that the main points are often lost amid screeds of words dealing with a number of different subjects. Personally, I felt this distracted from the main points.

There are also some difficulties with the main points themselves that need to be addressed.

First, to argue for a change in vocabulary from inspiration to spiration is a difficult one to sell. The word inspiration is so entrenched as a term of art in theology that it is hard to imagine it being displaced, especially by the rather odd word "spiration" which few people will even have heard of. While it is true that inspiration is often misunderstood and confused with the way purely human writings are said to be "inspired" and while it not a very accurate rendering of theopneustos in 2 Timothy 3:16 ("God-breathed" or "breathed out by God" are much more accurate and descriptive), I do not think McGowan makes a sufficient case for replacing what is a problematic term with another problematic term. It is not immediately apparent what "spiration" means. Rather than looking for a Latinate term of art to replace "inspiration," might we not be better to stick the robust Anglo-Saxon term "God-breathed" in future to describe the doctrine?

Second, one of McGowan's central arguments is that there is a divide between American theologians who argue for the concept of inerrancy and European theologian who argue instead for infallibility. Here he pits the likes of Warfield and Hodge against Kuyper and Bavinck. This view of a radical difference between the two continents is not universally accepted. The book would have been helped, in my view, if McGowan had spelled out more clearly what he actually means by infallibility, in particular how this differs from inerrancy.

Third, where we categorise the doctrine of Scripture in systematic theology is of little interest to anyone except professional systematic theologians. McGowan does not really explain why it matters very well.

Because of the book's problems, it is unlikely to achieve what McGowan would like. It seems to be destined to be a mere footnote in the body of evangelical theology on the inspiration and authority of the Bible.

Readers who want to read a more detailed review could do worse than read John Frame's review here.

Remembrance Sunday

 

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

- from For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon.

Café Theology

Café Theology 
Michael Lloyd
Alpha International 2012

It has always been one of my passions to discuss and communicate theology with clarity and simplicity while avoiding being simplistic. This difficult balancing act is more than achieved by Michael Lloyd in this book.

In some 400-odd pages, Lloyd provides an excellent, sensible overview of evangelical theology, dealing with such central subjects as creation, the fall, providence, incarnation, atonement, resurrection, the Holy Spirit, the Trinity, the End Times, and the Church.

What I was impressed by was that Lloyd manages, as well as giving a general overview, to make some very interesting arguments that I haven't come across elsewhere in my theological reading.

His chapter on the Fall was the most interesting for me in the book. Here Lloyd tackles some huge issues and tries to explain how the Fall means far more than simply that we are all sinners. It also means that the world is not exactly as how God would have it. For Lloyd this is the basis for dealing with such matters as the problem of evil and why there is so much suffering in the world from both natural disasters and moral evils.

Lloyd also touches on an idea that the fall of Satan occurred prior to the fall of humanity and accounts for death in creation among animal species even before man was created and fell. This allows him to affirm that death is as the result of sin while affirming animal death prior to humanity's fall. Thus he presents a kind of "Gap Theory" for creation.

It is not surprising that this book comes from Alpha course producers. It is an evangelical theology book designed to be read by the modern, thoughtful, 21st century Christian and would be eminently suitable for new Christians who have maybe been through an Alpha or Christianity Explored course and who wants to explore the faith in greater depth.

This is one of my theology books of the year.

The Milk of Human Kindness?

As I was walking into work today I saw a dairy lorry stop outside an office building in the city centre and the delivery man got out to deliver just six small pint cartons of milk into one of the offices. Less than a minutes' walk away from that office building there is a supermarket that sells milk.

It struck me what an enormous waste of fuel, time and money this is. Imagine that delivery driver coming into the busy city centre each day with a large refrigerated lorry, adding to the congestion and pollution, to leave six pints of milk. It probably isn't the only delivery he makes in the city centre each day, but that's hardly the point. It is an unnecessary journey, so an office can make their tea and coffee without having to go all the way (50 metres max) to the supermarket to buy milk.

Surely this is precisely the kind of waste that we as a society and as a planet can no longer afford. One lorry delivering the milk to the supermarket should really be enough for all the offices around there, shouldn't it?

These are small, apparently insignificant choices we make every day that cumulatively are wrecking the environment.

For more ideas on how we can change things to "live lightly" and ethically, check out the A Rocha Living Lightly website. They are a Christian charity working "to inspire churches and individuals to get involved in caring for God's creation through a whole variety of ways and runs a number of practical conservation projects."

Letter to The Herald on St George's Tron Church

A number of letters over recent days have urged the Church of Scotland to allow the former minister and congregation of St George's Tron Church in Glasgow to take the city centre building and the manse with them. I write as an evangelical within the Church of Scotland and as someone who has benefited from the preaching at the Tron.

Much has been made of the need for Christian charity to be shown by the Kirk to the Tron in this situation. However, many congregations in Glasgow are in great need of the contributions that the Tron chose to withhold from central church funds for some time now as well as the loan given by the Church of Scotland to the Tron for their building project. No one forced the Tron to leave the Kirk at the time they did, and although their stance is understandable, other congregations who have left did so in a principled manner without attempting to take their buildings with them. It needs to be pointed out that by seeking to protect its assets, the Presbytery is only acting in the interests of its remaining congregations, a significant number of which also have evangelical ministries serving other parts of the city.

I am shocked by the tone and content of the public statement and prayer currently on the Tron's website where the minister appears, in his sweeping condemnations, to regard every minister and congregation which remains in the Church of Scotland to be enemies of the gospel and himself and his congregation to be "persecuted" by the Kirk. Not only is this insulting to the millions of Christians in the world facing genuine persecution, it is deeply offensive to every evangelical who remains in the Kirk and is equally committed to serving Christ.

Some letters have talked about "amicable divorce". I agree this should be the aim, yet it appears to me that the Tron has done little to bring this about. To be amicable, a settlement has to be just and both parties have to be reasonable. If the Tron thought it would be able to walk away from the marriage with all the assets while leaving a huge unpaid debt behind, this was not so much an act of faith as fantasy.

Love One Another

Love One Another
Gerald L. Sittser
Inter-Varsity Press, Nottingham 2008

Love One Another is an interesting book about the right attitudes and behaviour we ought to have for one another in the Christian church (and all too often are sadly lacking in it must be confessed).

The chapters are all good expositions of the subjects they deal with, though I felt that the book is far stronger in describing what our attitudes should be like than it is in advising or guiding how we might actually change our churches and ourselves to be like this.

Each chapter begins with a relevant Bible verse. Even to look at the chapter names and the verses is helpful in seeing the kind of aspirations we might have as Christians for the churches where we worship:

1. The New Commandment

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:34-35)

Jesus' most fundamental commandment to his followers is both simple and profound - that we should love one another. The church is therefore a community of people who love each other. The rest of the book explores eleven ways in which we might seek to foster and develop our local fellowship as such a loving community.

2. Welcome One Another

"Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God." (Romans 15:7, ESV)

The most basic thing the church needs to get right is that when we see each other, or when strangers join us, we are to welcome each other. We have to actually be glad to see each other, and we are to make everyone feel that we value their company. Yet it is amazing how many churches fail in this regard.


3. Be Subject to One Another

"Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." (Ephesians 5:21)

Christ commands his people to be different to the way the world is. We are not to "lord it" over each other. Instead, we are to submit to each other. We are to put one another's needs and one another's views and opinions before our own.

4. Forbear One Another

"Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love." (Ephesians 4:2)


Bearing with one another or forbearing each other means giving each other room to be ourselves, to express our doubts and fears, to sometimes fail, and sometimes disappoint. It is one of the most attractive qualities of a good Christian fellowship.

5. Forgive One Another

"Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you." (Colossians 3:12-13)

It is inevitable in any group of people that at times people will do things they shouldn't and things we don't like. In such occasions, Christ and the apostles exhort us to forgive one another just as we have been forgiven for our sins by God.

6. Confess Sin to One Another & Pray for One Another

"Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." (James 5:13-16)

The Bible is at times admirably clear and it is often those clear statements that we find the most difficult to put into practice. But here James is clear we are supposed to confess our sins to each other - to admit when we've done wrong to those we have wronged. Confession is almost the mirror image of forgiveness in a healthy relationship. As well as confession, we are to regularly and always pray for one another.

7. Serve One Another

"You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.'" (Galatians 5:13-14)

One of the most practical expressions of Christian love is in serving one another. Far too often the simple things like offering a helping hand is overlooked, but it is at the heart of the new humanity that Christ is building in the Kingdom of God.

8. Encourage One Another

"Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing." (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

Offering encouragement, using our time with others to be positive and build them up, is another of those little things that is easily overlooked, but when present in a fellowship is like oil that lubricates and keeps the machinery working smoothly. It is something we Scots are very bad at in general. We could all do with giving more encouragement and accepting such encouragement when given in our lives.


9. Comfort One Another

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God." (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

Giving comfort to others operates in a similar way to encouragement, but whereas the latter focuses on when things are going well or when we've done something good, comfort focuses on when things aren't going so well. We all need to be comforted at times of sadness, grief or regret.


10. Bear One Another's Burdens

"Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." (Galatians 6:2)

This is a practical aspect of loving and serving each other. Sometimes we just need to get stuck in and help people in practical ways. Often such help is more deeply appreciated than all the words we could say or offers of prayer we could make.


11. Stir Up One Another

"And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." (Hebrews 10:24-25, ESV)

The key words could be also be translated as "spur one another on" (NIV). It is a special form of encouragement and a real gift for a fellowship that has to be used with much wisdom and discernment. When others are in a period of stagnation or have become lukewarm, this stirring up or spurring on is a healthy prod to get them back on track and more active in Christian life and witness.
 

12. Admonish One Another

"Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts." (Colossians 3:16)

Finally another gift for a church that needs to be used carefully and wisely. In essence it means that there are times when we need to gently point out to others where they have strayed and in a Christlike way seek to bring them back to faith and obedience to God's Word once more.

Holidays

We're just back from a lovely week's holiday at Ambrisbeg Cottage on the Isle of Bute. It was a really relaxing and restful break. As ever for the west coast of Scotland the weather was mixed but warm and sunny a lot of the time and we enjoyed exploring the island. The extra fun this year was going away with our seven-month old son. He had his first experience of the sea, a sandy beach, had a wee paddle in a tidal pool and a wee swim in the indoor pool in Rothesay.

Thoroughly recommended if a holiday in a cottage on a Scottish island is your idea of a good holiday.

The King Jesus Gospel

The King Jesus Gospel
Scot McKnight
Zondervan 2011

In this challenging, radical, yet somehow comforting book, Scot McKnight tackles the centrepiece of evangelical theology - the gospel itself - and makes the stark claim that evangelicals have often failed to understand or preach the full biblical gospel. In fact McKnight takes us back to basics by asking the question: What is the gospel?

Now this is a question that evangelicals think we know the answer to. It's our question. Par excellence. We feel we own it.

McKnight argues that evangelicals have traditionally answered this question wrongly because we confuse the gospel with the plan of salvation. We have often been content with a partial gospel about our own personal salvation instead of the gospel preached by the apostles and by Jesus himself which was much bigger than just answering the question "How do I get saved?"

To borrow a telling phrase from theologian Dallas Willard, we have reduced the gospel to being about mere "sin management"rather than being about Christ's lordship over the whole world and all of life. And we have too often concentrated on making converts rather than - as Christ and the apostles focused on - making disciples. In this respect, McKnight says what we call evangelical Christianity would really be more accurately dubbed soterian Christianity or salvationist Christianity.

The trouble is that a soterian approach leads to a soterian culture instead of a genuine gospel culture. Church life becomes all about getting people into the "saved club" rather than Christ's lordship of all of life and church life being about all of life. A gospel culture's focus - just like the New Testament's focus - is about making disciples, not just converts. Rather than focusing on getting people in, the focus is on what to do with people once they are in.

I found McKnight's analysis convincing. I think he is right that there is a tendency to separate the plan of salvation from its biblical moorings in the Story of Jesus which is in itself rooted in the Story of Israel. McKnight makes the point that the plan of salvation is not the gospel. It exists. It is biblical. It emerges from the Bible's Story. The plan of salvation is dependent on the gospel, but it not the gospel.

It is well into the book before McKnight finally answers the question. The gospel is the Story of Jesus as culmination and resolution of the Story of Israel. The gospel is the announcement that God's King (Jesus) has now come to rule God's world.

He shows that this is the gospel Paul preached, regarding 1 Corinthians 15:1-5; 20-28 as the essence of the gospel:

• Christ died for our sins
• Christ was buried
• Christ is risen from the dead
• Christ has appeared to people
• Christ is victorious over his enemies

It is the telling of this story that is the gospel proclamation and it is the telling of this story that brings people to salvation. Salvation flows from the gospel.

This means that the four books we call "the Gospels" actually are the Gospel. They are therefore not mere story books before we get to the theology of the Pauline letters. They are preeminent. They are the gospel. That's why they are each called "The Gospel [singular] according to..."

This also means the ancient creeds are the gospel. I have heard evangelicals say they believe the Apostles' Creed but are disappointed it doesn't deal the gospel - by which they mean the plan of salvation - but if the gospel in summary is about who Jesus is and what he's done, then the creeds are very close to the 1 Corinthians 15 passage.

And therefore we can also agree that Jesus himself preached the gospel. (It is surprising how many evangelicals would deny this, thinking that we don't get to the gospel before the book of Acts and the letters of the New Testament.) Yes, Jesus preached the gospel because as the Messiah he is the very embodiment of the gospel in his actions as well as his teachings.

On this view, the Jesus of the Gospels with his Kingdom of God emphasis is in total harmony with the Christ of the Epistles. As McKnight shows, Paul's gospel was also Peter's gospel and all the other apostles, and it was also Jesus' gospel. One of the great things about McKnight's understanding is how it really brings the whole New Testament together.

It will come as no shock that I really liked The King Jesus Gospel. I have a feeling that because Scot McKnight challenges the heart of what we evangelicals think we are about he will be attacked for this book and these insights. It is now predictable that this will be so. The same people attacked proponents of the New Perspective on Paul (with which McKnight's views have much in common) for the same reasons. The truth is that McKnight's gospel does not take anything away from us. It gives us a whole lot more. Whether we like the more - the need to build communities of disciples rather than clubs of the saved - is another question again.

The Dawkins Letters

The Dawkins Letters: Challenging Atheist Myths
David Robertson
Christian Focus Publications 2007

I borrowed a copy of this short book from the local library. It is actually a series of open letters from David Robertson (a minister of the Free Church of Scotland in Dundee) to Richard Dawkins about Dawkins' book The God Delusion.

It is amazing how reviews of this book and others like it - and Dawkins' own book to be fair - on places like Amazon are almost all sharply divided down Christian/Atheist lines. Perhaps that should not surprise me, but it does. Basically, atheists seem to love Dawkins' book and hate Robertson's book. And vice versa for Christians.

Well as a Christian, I liked Robertson's book. I thought in the ten letters he succeeded in the most important point, which is pointing out that atheism is primarily a philosophical and not a scientific position. Dawkins' position is in the end consistent with science but not derived from science. Yet I would say the same can be said for many theistic views.

In fact, Dawkins' worldview at times relies on "the science of the gaps" (a phrase I loved that Robertson uses a few times) in theories that sound as much science fiction as science and therefore are as much faith based as Christian doctrines - parallel universes and alien implantation of life on earth and so forth.

In the final analysis, I think theists and atheists tend to bring presuppositions to the table before looking at the evidence. The same evidence leads one man to say "there is no god" and another to say "the heavens are telling the glory of God."

No one book, whether Dawkins' or Robertson's, is going to lay the knock-out blow to the opposing view. But Robertson's book certainly shows that atheist presuppositions and arguments are open to serious criticism, all too often of precisely the same criticisms that are used by atheists against Christianity.

On turning 40

On Wednesday I turned 40. My wife and family made sure I had a wonderful day and I received many great cards and presents.

Each year I enter a new decade I think it's a good time to reflect and take stock of where I am and where I'm going.

So what were my 30s like? It was a decade of great change for me and as the decade progressed from 2002 to 2012 it was a period during which I learnt the lesson that those we love really are the most important thing in life. The decade was one of people leaving my life as they died and other people coming into my life through marriage and parenthood.

In 2002 I lost my grandmother who had lived with us my whole life and right at the beginning of 2011 I lost my dad and I still miss him so much. These losses left two great holes in my circle of the five or six people that everyone keeps closest to them.

But then in 2009 I married Laura, who is my wife, my best friend and my soul mate all wrapped up in one amazing lady. Sharing everything in married life has made me twice the person I could ever have been on my own without her.

Just six months ago our son Jonathan was born and what a wonderful privilege it is to see a life develop from its very beginning and see a person not just a baby begin to take shape. What a great responsibility it also is to know that I will play an important part in how this little person grows up and the kind of man he will one day be.

As I turn 40 I am completely contented with my life and immensely grateful to the Lord for all the blessings he has given me.

As I look forward, I gulp with astonishment that in only 10 years I will be 50!! That can't be surely - it only feels like I was at university a couple of years ago. But I also look forward to having a great decade ahead and to sharing it all with my family and my friends. You all mean more to me than I could ever say in words.

The Church and the Kingdom of God

Have you ever wondered why the Four Gospels refer many times to "the Kingdom of God" (or "the Kingdom of heaven" in Matthew) while they only mention the church a few times, whereas Acts and the Letters from the apostles mention the church many times and the Kingdom of God is seldom mentioned? In fact "Kingdom of God" or "Kingdom of heaven" is mentioned in 83 verses in the Gospels and in only 14 other verses in the rest of the New Testament. "Church" on the other hand is mentioned in only two verses in the Gospels, but in 71 verses in the rest of the New Testament.

Why the massive switch from a "Kingdom" focus in Jesus' ministry in the Gospels to a "Church" focus in the ministry of the apostles?

And what exactly is the difference is between the Church and the Kingdom (if any)?

Do you think they are two ways of describing the same thing maybe? Is the church the Kingdom of God by another name?

These are the questions we're going to have a quick look at in this post.

The first thing I think we need to sort out are our definitions. If we define Church and Kingdom correctly this will help us establish the similarities and differences between the two and enable us to answer some of our questions.

A reasonable definition of “Kingdom of God” is: all spheres on earth where God’s reign and rule (or God’s government) is accepted and embraced. The Kingdom of God is already in existence through Christ, though the fullness of the Kingdom still lies in the future. On the other hand, a reasonable short definition of “Church” is: the community of all who have faith in Jesus Christ.

It is clear therefore that though there is a close relationship between Church and Kingdom, they are not the same thing. The Kingdom of God is not a synonym for the Church. The Kingdom of God – or God’s sovereign reign and rule – is an idea or concept, a state of being, a way of viewing life and the world, and a goal towards which all of history is building and moving and which Christ lived and worked to bring about. The Church is the people who are committed to following Christ, and in so doing they are people who accept the Kingdom idea and work for its growth and further realisation in history.

If we were to put it in military terms, the Church might be compared to a country's army and Christ might be compared to country’s leader and the army’s commander-in-chief. In those terms, the Kingdom of God would be both the goal or objective of the war and the totality of the territory or people where the war aims have already been established and accepted.

The Kingdom of God is therefore both a different and a much wider concept than the Church. The Kingdom includes every area of life that is under the rule and authority of God. If God rules in a person’s life, they are in the Kingdom. If God rules a home, it is part of the Kingdom. Where a business is run on biblical principles, it is also part of the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God includes every human activity that is done according to his will. And God intends his Kingdom to grow and expand into every facet and area of life.

This expansion can take place either as person enters the Kingdom as a new citizen through faith in Jesus (the Bible calls this being “born again” into the Kingdom) or as Kingdom citizens bring different parts of their lives under the will of God. As we have seen this can include family life, work, hobbies and leisure activities, political and civic life, art and cultural life, as well as, of course, spiritual and church life. The Kingdom of God becomes a present reality when a sphere of life is ruled according to the Word of God.

The Church’s role is to work to help build the Kingdom. One of the problems of our time is that rather than seeing the Church (the community of believers) existing to help with the Kingdom project, there is a tendency to see the Church existing for its own benefit and for its own growth. And rather than the Church being the Kingdom vanguard in the world, often it has become a spiritual retreat from the world. What’s wrong with that? Well, to go back to our military analogy, it would be like working to recruit and train for the army as an end in itself, rather than as a precursor to going into battle and making the King's war objectives a reality!

The community of Christ’s people is critical to the God’s Kingdom project, but it is a huge mistake to confuse the project with the personnel. The Church must never be an end in itself. It must always be working to establish the kingdom of God. When Jesus comes back he does not just want to find a holy Church, but a Church that has established the kingdom of God as a reality in the world.

So why did the apostles switch focus from the Kingdom to the Church? I think the answer is that once Christ had inaugurated the Kingdom, the focus had to switch from the concept and project to the establishment of the people through whom the Kingdom project would be continued. That is not to say that the apostles’ forgot about the Kingdom. Quite the opposite – they realised that the Church had to be established to advance the Kingdom, just as an army must be recruited and trained before it can implement the King’s war objectives. There can be no Kingdom of God without the Church, so the Church is the focus of the apostles, but even then, not as an end in itself, but as the divinely appointed agent to work with him for the Kingdom.

Discipleship - Part 8

Introduction

Jesus said: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23)
 
We now reach the last in our series on Christian discipleship and I am very grateful that the late David Watson's book Discipleship has proved to be such a useful and reliable guide on our journey, even though I have often used it only as a jumping off point for my own thoughts on the subjects we have been looking at. Today we reach the final two chapters of the book on "The Cost of Discipleship" and "Abounding in Hope."

My lasting impression from all we have looked at is that being a disciple of Christ is great joy, great privilege and a great challenge! This last part in the series seeks to explore these ideas further.

The Cost of Discipleship

As always, Watson writes nothing if not clearly as he begins his chapter on the cost of being a disciple of Christ. He says, "Jesus never promised an easy life to those who followed him." Those eleven words are enough to destroy any notion that being a Christian protects you, like some kind of spiritual vaccination, from anything bad happening to you. That's simply not the case. Likewise, those words shatter any false notion of the so-called prosperity gospel - that if you are a Christian, you will receive material gain. Again, simply untrue. No, being a follower of Jesus is often anything but "easy"!

As Watson puts it, the church is not a "comfortable club" but "God's agent for the healing of the whole of creation." Think about that for a second. If that's true, a Christian, or more accurately and corporately Christians as the church, no more enjoy a peaceful, easy life, and can no more be said to have withdrawn from the realities of the world than could the staff in a hospital emergency department have been said to have an easy job in a refuge from the world!

The first cost of discipleship is obedience. Once you are a Christian, your life is no longer your own. You are no longer in charge: Christ is in charge. And you cannot surrender yourself to him a bit. He demands unconditional surrender. That means he wants all your trust, loyalty and obedience. It is as simple as this: You cannot claim to be a follower of Jesus while deliberately, wilfully and persistently disobeying his commandments and instructions.

The second cost of discipleship is faith. You cannot really be a Christian without faith. It would be like trying to be a swimmer without water. Being a Christian is all about having an intimate loving relationship with God through Jesus. Everyone knows that trust is the foundation of any relationship, especially any kind of loving relationship or friendship. Faith is simply trust in God. It is far more than merely believing in God (in the sense of believing that God exists). It is even far more than believing in certain doctrines about God. Faith is a lively trust, reliance, dependence and commitment to God. Although faith is different from obedience, faith cannot be separated from obedience. As I think Bonhoeffer put it: "Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedience believes."

The third thing to point out is that the only way to discipleship is the way of the cross. Christian discipleship is the way of the cross because the only way to enter the Christian life and the Christian community is through the cross, in other words through the atoning death of Christ. But the Christian disciple is called to take up his cross daily and follow Christ. So what does that mean? It means that you have to die (and I have to die), at least it means the selfish centre of us, the sinful, ungodly part of us has to be dethroned and destroyed. And in its place Christ takes command of our lives. And it probably means you will face opposition from the world around you.

Watson quotes anonymously what it means for us to be "crucified with Christ" by extending the rather gruesome metaphor like this (incidentally, an Internet search reveals Watson is paraphrasing a very similar quotation from A. W. Tozer here):

To be crucified with Christ means three things. First, the man who is crucified is facing only one direction; he is not looking back. Second, the man who is crucified has said goodbye to the world; he is not going back. Third, the man who is crucified has no further plans of his own. He is totally in God's hands. Whatever the situation, he says, "Yes, Lord!"

Becoming a Christian is like stopping your car and moving over from the driving seat to the passenger seat and letting Christ get behind the wheel. As any driver knows, that's not an easy thing to do. It's not "comfortable". It may feel "wrong". After all, almost from the cradle we are raised to believe that we are in charge of our lives and no-one else. Our default setting is so well captured by the poet W. E. Henley in his famous poem Invictus:

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Yet for the Christian, Dorothea Day's poem My Captain based on Henley's poem is what rings true:

I have no fear, though strait the gate,
He cleared from punishment the scroll.
Christ is the Master of my fate,
Christ is the Captain of my soul.

Scary maybe. But you cannot claim to be a follower of Christ if this is not true of your life.

The fourth cost of discipleship is what Watson calls the pain of relationships. Both the Old and New Testaments are clear: no-one is in relationship with God on their own. There are no solitary Christians. God does have a relationship with you as an individual, but it is always also as part of his relationship with his people as a group. The classic covenant expression in the Bible speaks of this "I will be your God and you will be my people."

The trouble is that we often find relationships with people hard. People do things to us. People say things to us. Or people don't do or say things. And quite often we get hurt by what people do or don't do. The temptation might be to walk away. Now of course there are times when we actually do have to walk away. The Christian life is not a call to live in abusive relationships as if everything was okay. Yet even with this proviso when we as Christians experience others who have hurt us, the normal response we are called to is not to walk away but to forgive and go on to a restored relationship with that person. There is a fundamental principle at work here: as we have been forgiven, so must we forgive. We allude to it every time we say the Lord's Prayer: "Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us." That's not easy, but it is necessary if the church is to show the world that we are really God's people.

God's great plan is to bring reconciliation and peace to all things under Christ. That involves all horizontal relationships between creatures as well as each creature's vertical relationship with the Triune Creator. The church's life is supposed to be a witness to God's grand redemptive plan of cosmic renewal. Indeed as Christians we are supposed to be a foretaste of it on earth now. How heartbreaking it must be to our heavenly Father to see his children squabbling and fighting as much as we do!

Abounding in Hope

Watson concludes his book, as we conclude this series, on a positive note in a positive chapter called "Abounding in Hope".

He begins with a great quotation from F. R. Maltby: "Jesus promised his disciples three things: they would be absurdly happy, completely fearless, and in constant trouble!" And Watson calls this a fair summary of the New Testament church. The point being that throughout the Bible there is a strange paradox that the joy and the suffering of being God's people always seem to go together - along with glory and agony, rejoicing and weeping, life and death. Certainly these ups and downs characterise the earthly life and ministry of Jesus himself.

There has to be autumn and winter as well as spring and summer in the seasons and so with life many of our joys can only exist by coming through sorrows. This might be supremely demonstrated in the death and resurrection of Christ, but it applies equally to most things in life.

One thing that thrives during our seasons of winter is hope. Just as we hope for the spring in winter, not as a vague possibility but as a sure and certain expectation of what will come, so our hope in God for the future is waiting for what we know is certain to happen. In this hope we are also freed up to live in God's love and work in God's service for him and for other people.

This in some ways is the very essence of being a Christian disciple. It is a task in which we need not be fearful. It is a role in which we need never be without hope. There is a great quotation on hope from C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity:

Hope is one of the theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean we are to leave this present world as it is. If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next...Aim at Heaven and you will get earth "thrown in": aim at earth and you will get neither.

You see it is precisely when you don't have to worry about the future because it is all safe and secure in Christ that you can jump headlong into working for God in this life. And that is what Christ is calling you and I to be for him: disciples who are absolutely committed to following him without fear and overflowing with love.

The American missionary, Jim Elliott, who was killed for his faith in South America in 1956 wrote: "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot loose."

The question is: Do you have this hope in your heart? Are you ready to be this kind of radical disciple? May God give us all the grace to answer yes to both questions.

Discipleship - Part 7

Introduction

Jesus said: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23)
 
We now reach the penultimate post in our series on Christian discipleship. We are using David Watson's book Discipleship as our starting off point and guide for our thoughts on this subject. Today we reach the tenth chapter of Watson's book which deals with the kind of lifestyle a Christian disciple is called to follow. Watson calls this the simple lifestyle.

Simple Lifestyle

Watson begins the chapter by highlighting the shocking inequalities that exist between the rich and the poor in our world. It is difficult for people who live in Western Europe or North America to really grasp how well-off the vast majority of us are. Even the poor in our societies are comparatively rich compared to billions of people who live in truly abject poverty in Africa, Asia and South America. Watson's point is that if Christians and the church appear to line up on the side of the rich, it is difficult for the poor to take us seriously. This leads him to question how we live and encourage us to live much more simply in our lifestyle. Watson wrote this in the early 1980s, just before environmental concerns became a major political and lifestyle issue. But if anything the need to life sustainably and simply has only increased in the 30 years since Watson wrote his book.

It is crucial that we get our relationship with material possessions and money right. So much of the Bible and Jesus' teaching in particular focuses on this that it cannot be ignored by any Christian seeking to be faithful to his or her Lord. While Watson balances what he says by pointing out that neither poverty nor riches are to become idols for us, and that Jesus does not call his followers to a life of poverty as such, he does call us to a life of simple living.

What does a simple lifestyle look like? Well first and foremost, it is a life based on faith in God. It means we trust God to provide for us as we follow and obey his commandments. This is not a "let go and let God" mentality. We cannot abandon earning a living and "trust" that God will provide! No, God usually provides by giving us a job to earn money! (Of course, not everyone can work, and this is a separate discussion.) Second, a simple life is a life of integrity. This means we live honestly, that we are trustworthy in business, transparent in our lifestyle, and so on. Third, we are called to identify with the poor and those in need. We need compassion and dedication to keep an eye on our spending habits and be challenged to help others as much as we can. Fourth, our life will be characterised as one of love, that is agape love that is focused on the well-being of others.

These four elements: faith, integrity, identification with the poor, and love, are like tools that we need to shape and mould our lives into how Christ would want them to be. They are tools to make us more Christlike. The raw materials the tools work on are our time, our talents, our possessions and our money. The result will be a simple life that satisfies us far more than gaining the whole world of material possessions, that is a better witness to others, and a life of obedience that pleases God for it seeks first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness.

Next time, we reach the end of this series by looking at the cost of discipleship and the encouragement we have in Christ to keep going as disciples.

Discipleship - Part 6

Introduction

Jesus said: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23)
 
In our sixth post on Christian discipleship we come to the subject of evangelism, which could be thought of as the task of current disciples making new disciples. As throughout we are using David Watson's book Discipleship as our starting off point and guide for our thoughts on this subject. Watson's insights on evangelism form chapter 9 of the book and his insights are particularly valid as he was a skilled evangelist in his ministry.

Evangelism

Watson begins his chapter with a characteristic thought-provoking opening line: "Christ's call to discipleship is not primarily for the benefit of the disciple." I know what Watson is driving at here. His thought is similar in spirit to Archbishop William Temple's famous quip that the church is the only organisation that exists for the benefit of its non-members. It would perhaps be more accurate to say that Christ's call is equally about benefiting the disciple and working through the disciple to make more disciple and benefit others. Yet the point is well-taken that the disciple's focus is to be outward looking, aiming at bringing others into the Kingdom and fulfilling the Great Commission of Christ. As Watson also puts it, Christ's disciples "are called and sent out." In between they were trained by Christ so they could be sent. The same pattern is vital for anyone seeking to do the work of evangelism.

Ghetto Mentality

The first thing Watson addresses is the church's need to break free from a ghetto mentality. If this was true of Britain in 1980 how much more true it is of the church 30 years later in the present day! His point is that so much of the time we spend our time as Christians with other Christians. We attend worship with each other, we pray and do Bible studies together, we socialise with each other, go to events organised for Christians together, and so on. For many of us, apart from the workplace and perhaps one or two other social activities like sports and hobbies, we don't meet non-Christians very much.

Now, I don't personally think that's wrong. The New Testament pattern is that believers spent a lot of time together (Acts 2). The danger is though if we end up spending any real time with non-Christians. In that case, how can we hope to share our lives with people, far less earn the right to share the gospel with them?

We need to find ways to break out of our Christian ghettos back into the world to have much hope of reaching many non-Christians. The solution Watson suggests is for Christians to be better trained to make the most of opportunities in our everyday lives at home, at work and socially. The sad fact is that whereas in 1980 it might have been acceptable to discuss the gospel in the workplace, now there are many workplaces where to mention your Christian faith would be a disciplinary matter. Even with this caveat however, Watson's point is valid.

Witnesses

In the next part of the chapter Watson draws the distinction between being an evangelist and being a Christian witness. The difference being that the evangelist is a particular, specialist role within the church, and not every Christian has been given the gifts or received the calling to be an evangelist. On the other hand, every Christian is called and gifted to be a witness to Christ as their Saviour and Lord.

He goes on to discuss a number of different marks of a witness. First, a witness has to have first-hand experience of Christ. A person who has never met or known Jesus Christ for themselves cannot speak to others of what he has done for them. Second, a witness must be able to express their testimony in words. Although we can communicate much through our lives, in the end we need to be able to speak about it at least at some basic level. Third, a witness will have confidence in the power of God, realising that the potential for his or her witness to bring another person into the kingdom comes not from themselves but from God. Fourth, a witness must have genuine compassion for those to whom they are speaking. If a person gets even a whiff that you don't care about them, why should they listen to what you are saying?

The marks of an evangelist go beyond what is required for a good witness, but they are never any less. They include first, the ability to speak with clarity in explaining the gospel to others; second, the ability to appeal not just to a person's mind, but to a person's will and even a person's heart, to lay down their arms of rebellion against God and accept Christ as their Lord and Saviour; and third, having a strong faith that God will work through his or her work to bring people to salvation.

Motivation, Message and Method (The Three Ms)

Watson identifies lack of motivation as a serious problem that hinders evangelistic efforts. He cites Philip the Evangelist as an example of a godly man who was strongly motivated in his work because he was filled with the Holy Spirit, he had seen God at work, and he was spurred on by the suffering of believers.

He quotes this definition of evangelism with approval: "Evangelism is the presentation of the claims of Christ in the power of the Spirit to a world in need by a church in love."

The focus needs to be on the claims of Christ as rightful Lord and Saviour of the world. The gospel is about more, much more, than making people feel better. It is in many respects a difficult message to take, but it is a life saving one. Much like a doctor having to deliver the news that a person is very ill and needs radical surgery to save their lives.

If our motivations and message are right, this still leaves the method we use. It is possible to have a heart in the right place, and have the doctrines all sorted and still be hopeless at reaching people if we cannot speak in a way that actually communicates with people. Watson summarises this as speaking to the right person, at the right time, using the right words. We need to look out for people who may be open to hearing the gospel, but even when someone is the right person it also needs to be a suitable time when we speak to them, and finally we need to use the right words for them. The New Testament contains many rich themes to explain the work of Christ and salvation. Some people may respond to the idea of being set free, others to being reconciled to God, others to being saved from hell, etc.

Ultimately though, it is not through our eloquence or cleverness that people come to faith, but by encountering the living Christ through what we say, not so much in what we say.

Watson concludes the chapter with a good, simple way to lead a person to faith in Christ if they are open to the gospel and want to respond. It's known as the ABCD method and considers four things the person needs to do. First, there is something to Admit: that they are a sinner in need of Christ. Second, something to Believe: that Christ will save them when they come to him. Third, something to Consider: the Bible is plain that becoming a Christian has certain costs in terms of our need to live as Christ wants and in terms of the opposition we will face from the world if we do. Fourth, something to Do: making the choice to surrender to Christ, accept him as our Lord and Saviour and commit our lives to him in faith and obedience. We might conclude with a prayer that the person might say with us taking them through the ABCDs.

Next time we will look at the very practical matter of living a simple lifestyle day-to-day as a Christian disciple.

Discipleship - Part 5

Introduction

Jesus said: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23)
 
This is the fifth in a series of posts on Christian discipleship, using David Watson's book Discipleship as our starting point and guide. Today we look at chapter 8 of the book on the important subject of spiritual warfare.

Spiritual Warfare

At the beginning of the chapter, Watson puts it plainly: "Discipleship is a struggle." Or as we might also put it - the Christian life is a war, a spiritual war. The struggle is evident every day. Watson gives a number of examples that resonated with me, but it boils down to this: we find it hard to do what we should, and we find it easy to do what we shouldn't. And that's true of individuals, families, churches, and indeed whole societies and nations. That is the Bible's sobering view of human nature and the reasons for it are twofold. First, because we are sinners. We are captives or slaves to sin. Our nature is to rebel against God and do what we want. But second, we are involved in a spiritual battle. The world is a war zone with an enemy, Satan, who is out to harass, frustrate and destroy us.

You cannot understand spiritual warfare until you accept that the devil is real and you cannot engage in spiritual warfare until you know how to fight against him. That the devil is real is the teaching of the Bible from beginning to end. He first appears as a serpent in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3 and leads humanity into disobedience and rebellion against God. He last appears in Revelation 20 when he is destroyed by God in the lake of fire. A significant part of Jesus teaching concerns Satan and the Bible records Jesus being tempted by Satan right at the start of his public ministry (Matthew 4). The apostolic writers also make reference to this mysterious and evil being. This includes Paul (2 Corinthians 2:11, 1 Timothy 3:7, 2 Timothy 2:26, Ephesians 6:11 and Colossians 2:5), Peter (1 Peter 5:8), James (James 4:7) and John (1 John 3:8).

Watson goes on to point out that many Christians down through history have also recognised that we are involved in spiritual warfare against Satan and his minions, including Martin Luther, the puritan William Gurnall (whose massive book The Christian in Complete Armour is a classic on spiritual warfare), John Bunyan (the author of Pilgrim's Progress also wrote the classic The Holy War), John Wesley and Jonathan Edwards.

After laying out this groundwork, Watson then turns to an analysis of firstly the types of attack we need to look out for in spiritual warfare and then the principles of victory for how we might counter the attacks and engage the enemy.

Types of Attack

Watson lists six different types of Satanic attack.


(1) Direct Attack

The first kind of attack is simply the direct attack of persecution designed to cow us into silence and submission to the world, or frighten us into disobeying God. This is what we might call "open warfare". The gloves are off in persecution and it is simply a matter of coming after Christians through the agency of human hatred. For millions of our Christian brothers and sisters in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, this is the reality of their Christian lives every day and we need to remember that and pray for them regularly. We need to familiarise ourselves with the work of charities like Barnabas Fund and Christian Solidarity Worldwide to know about what is going on and take action to help our Christian brothers and sisters in their extreme need.

(2) Accusation

The name Satan means the Accuser. Accusation is more subtle than direct attack, but mere accusation can be an effective weapon in Satan's arsenal. He often tries to stop God's work being carried out by accusing Christians, by name calling, probably hoping this will lead to persecution. But he also comes with his "fiery darts" directly into Christians' minds and consciences to remind us of our failures, to highlight our sins and give us a stifling and crippling sense of guilt and worthlessness that can make us inactive in our Christian service. Sometimes a guilty conscience comes from God - when we have sinned, we should feel guilty. But once we have repented and asked for God's forgiveness, then our sins have been taken away and so should our guilt go with it. If God has forgiven you, don't listen to the devil's lies. Your status as a Christian does not rely on you, but on Christ's work and God's faithfulness.


(3) Exploitation

Satan can take something good and exploit it to become something not good. Watson mentions several examples. He can take the love of truth and pervert it into something harsh, cold and bigoted. He can take emotions and twist them into lust or adultery. He can even take love of peace and tolerance and turn it into appeasement of evil, peace at all costs, so that false teaching is not dealt with appropriately in the church.


(4) Counterfeits

Satan can "appear as an angel of light" as Paul wrote. He uses counterfeit versions of the truth to lead people astray through false teaching.



(5) Temptation

One of Satan's main strategies - the one he even used with Jesus - is to try to lure us into sin. Satan cannot make anyone sin, but he can tempt us to sin. And he is masterful at it. Temptations can be the obvious ones like sex, money and power, or they can be incredibly subtle, like fitting in, being liked, being respected, etc.


(6) Possession

This last one is controversial and reflects Watson's charismatic views. However, the Bible does speak of people being demon-possessed and I do not believe all of the examples can be explained as antiquated ways of looking at mental or physical illness. This is perhaps the least subtle way that Satan can work and it would appear to be extremely rare. We might consider that Satan has been so successful using the other five strategies that he hardly needs to "show his hand" in possession nowadays.

Principles of Victory

Watson then turns to the principles we might keep in mind as we find ourselves as "God's freedom fighters" (Watson's phrase) engaging in spiritual warfare.

(1) Know the Enemy

It goes without saying that in any military conflict it is vital to know and if possible understand the aims and motives of the enemy. As Christians, if we know the devil's tactics and what he's trying to achieve, we will be in a better position to see through the various kinds of camouflage he uses and effectively resist him when we encounter his activity in our lives.

(2) Keep in the Love of God

There are countless stories of soldiers in battle drawing strength from the knowledge that they have  "someone special" back home who loves them. As Christians we have our Father God who loves us more than any human being can love. And when we are "going through it" we need to keep God's love for us constantly in mind and draw comfort from the peace this gives us.

(3) Be strong in Christ

Soldiers in battle often draw courage from their commanding officer as he leads, inspires and motivates them to carry on and "get stuck in". A good officer also looks after his men. Jesus is our commanding officer as Christians. But he is no general safe in a chateau far behind the front lines. He is more like a sergeant major, right alongside us in trenches. We need to draw strength for the fight directly from Christ and our knowledge of his life, teachings and saving work on our behalf. He has already stormed the enemy position and inflicted a crushing defeat on Satan. The decisive battle was won singlehanded by Christ on Calvary. We are merely engaged in a "mopping up" operation until the enemy's final unconditional surrender. That doesn't mean the battle isn't still fierce. Some of the fiercest battles in World War 2 took place between the decisive victory in Normandy and the final German surrender the following year.

(4) Be filled with the Spirit

We lack the strength and power to engage in spiritual warfare without the Holy Spirit. We need him to fill us with his fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, meekness, faithfulness and self-control. These are the kinds of attitudes Christ's army need for the war they are engaged in. We need the Holy Spirit to energise us for the fight.

(5) Be active in witness and service

If we as Christians were never to bear witness to Christ or seek to live out our faith in practical service to Christ and to others, we would be like well-trained soldiers who stay behind in the barracks and never actually engage the enemy in the front line. It is when we go out to be witnesses to Christ and to serve Christ in the world that the devil will really try to stop us. However, we cannot be loyal to our commanding officer and fail to be witnesses and servants to him. Christ's lordship demands it.

(6) Be quick to put things right

This seemingly small thing is actually huge. It is vital in any military unit that the soldiers get along with each other and trust each other, and when there are problems, these need to be sorted out for the good of everyone. So with us as Christians in fellowship with each other. We need to be quick to apologise when we've done something wrong and look always to put things right if we possibly can. We also need to be ready to accept the apologies of others when we've been wronged and be quick to forgive, as God has forgiven us.

(7) Put on the armour of God

One of Paul's great passages in Ephesians 6 tells us all about the different parts of the armour God gives us as Christians. We need to use all the weapons God gives us if we are to have any success in our spiritual battles. We need to study this passage time and again until it is second nature to put the armour on daily and carry it through the day. Here is Ephesians 6:10-18 in full in the NIV:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people.

(8) Be constant in prayer

This point is made in Ephesians 6:18 as we've just seen. As we have already looked at prayer in a previous post, there's not much to add here, except to say it is crucial to pray regularly, just as lines of communication between an army's headquarters and the front line are vital to the success of any military operation.

(9) Praise and Worship God

You know the scene in many a film? The hero rides out in front of the troops to inspire and encourage them and they respond with a roars of approval and cheers that puts fire in their belly for the fight. That's partly what we are doing when we praise and worship God. We are acknowledging him as our hero and leader, and in a way as we worship, we also draw strength and renewal for ourselves. Worship helps us put everything in perspective and reminds us of just who God is and how our victories through him are certain because God reigns!

Next time we will look at the subject of evangelism for Christ's disciples.

Planetwise

Planetwise
David Bookless
IVP, Nottingham 2008

I think David Bookless's Planetwise is an important book because it makes the case that green issues are something that Christians - and evangelical Christians in particular maybe, people who put the full-orbed biblical gospel at the centre of their lives - should be concerned about.

In the first five chapters of the book, Bookless makes the biblical and theological case that that an interest in environmental causes is not something on the periphery of the Christian faith, but actually is a central implication of the Christian gospel.

The argument runs as follows. As people who understand that the world has been created by God and is still owned by God (Psalm 24:1-2), as people who believe that God has given humanity the world to look after and steward on his behalf (Genesis 1:27-28), as people who believe that the saving purposes of God are not about rescuing us from the cosmos, but of redeeming and renewing the cosmos itself and as part of it (Genesis 9:10, John 3:16, Colossians 1:20, Revelation 21:1-3) - we need to see looking after the planet God gave us as an integral part of living as kingdom people who trust in and serve Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Lord. Too often, evangelicals have given the impression that we are about saving souls for heaven, and treating the world in any way we want since it's all going to be destroyed anyway. Such views, whether stated or merely lazily assumed are dishonouring to Christ, by whom and for whom the world was made (John 1:3, Colossians 1:16), and contrary to the truth of the gospel.

In the final four chapters of the book, Bookless draws out a number of practical implications for how we should then live out our lives as Christian disciples, stewarding the creation as God wants us to. These chapters really made me think about how I live and I have to say that since reading them, some of my behaviour has changed, even if only in little ways to begin with - like not leaving the TV on standby and only filling the kettle with what I need. Much more information and many more suggestions are available through the website of the Christian ecological charity A Rocha and its Living Lightly initiative, both of which David Bookless is heavily involved with.

Any Christian interested in green politics would benefit from the biblical and theological case put forward in Planetwise; any Christian who thinks concern for the environment is part of a liberal or even "new age" agenda needs to read this book now.

Discipleship - Part 4

Introduction

Jesus said: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23)
 
This is the fourth in a series of posts on Christian discipleship, using David Watson's book Discipleship as our starting point and guide. After the more theoretical chapters at the beginning of the book, from this point on Watson turns to more practical aspects of discipleship. Today we look at chapters 6 and 7 of the book on the crucial Christian disciplines of prayer and reading the Bible.

Prayer

Watson begins his chapter on prayer by reminding us of how central prayer was in the everyday lives of Christ and his apostles. He also mentions some Christian "giants" like Whitefield, Wesley, Luther and Wilberforce and how they would normally spend 2-3 hours daily in prayer. Watson then goes on to say that it is not hard for us to feel real failures in prayer by comparison. I have to confess that I am not the best "pray-er" in the world. Stories of Christians spending hours each day in prayer make my paltry 5-10 minutes most days look terrible. Prayer is definitely something I know I could do better in.

Does prayer work? Watson - along with the biblical writers to be fair - doesn't spend a lot of time answering this. It is just assumed that prayer does work and is something we should do.  There is a good quote from William Temple on this: "When I pray, coincidences happen; when I don't, they don't." Many Christians would testify to this truth: prayer is effective. But more than that, we have a clear assurance from God's word that this is the case: "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." (James 5:16).

Yet the real reason to pray is not because it works as such but because of what it is: it is meeting with and speaking with almighty God. Watson says that prayer is a sign of living in complete and constant dependence upon God. It is spending time with our Father, not just "talking to God".

So how do we go about prayer? Watson gives some useful guidelines here. First, he begins by pointing out the need for the Holy Spirit to help us if we are to pray as we ought. Even if we can only pray with groans and sighs, the Holy Spirit can take that and interpret it, taking our innermost thoughts and feelings and turning them into prayers before the throne of God in heaven. Second, he stresses the need for times of silence and reflection in prayer. Our prayer life needs to be a two-way conversation, not a monologue from us. In silence we need to listen to God. Third, he briefly discusses posture and correctly points out that we can pray in any position, but suggests sitting comfortably and relaxed in a chair may be the best "normal" position. Fourth, he mentions the need for prayer to begin and end with worship and thanksgiving towards God, and not just be a "shopping list" of things we want God to do. Fifth, Watson discusses when we should pray and makes a number of suggestions on this including: morning and evening, before making big decisions, when busy in life, when concerned for others, when tempted, when in pain and when facing death.

Interestingly, Watson does not just look at all these "how to" aspects of prayer. He also focuses attention on the right character of those who come in prayer to God. Here he mentions nine character traits: humility, surrender, realism, honesty, sympathy, expectancy, persistence, forgiveness and unity (when praying with others). There was a lovely quotation from Michel Quoist regarding our need to surrender to God and come to him like little children: "You must surrender yourself to me. You must realise that you are neither big enough nor strong enough...But you must be very, very little, for the Father carries only little children."

The importance of prayer is summed up Watson's words near the end of the chapter:

Ideally, of course, our whole life should become a life of prayer. When we wake, eat, walk, work, rest, chat or retire for the night, we should cultivate enjoying the Father's presence: rejoicing in him, praising him, thanking him, talking to him, listening to him, saying sorry, keeping silent.

Seeing prayer almost as an attitude we carry through the day rather than a special activity we do has certainly challenged and encouraged me to pray.

The Word of God
 
In the next chapter, Watson turns to the absolutely central place of the Word of God in the life of the Christian disciple. He quotes Jesus' words (himself quoting the Old Testament): "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." (Matthew 4:4, NKJV).

The Word of God is the most important thing in the world, Watson says. But what is the Word of God? Many evangelicals simply believe that the Word of God is the Bible. But Watson defines God's Word in a wider way as "God's total revelation of himself, God speaking to man[kind] in words - ways that make sense." (p.140).

Watson therefore regards the Word of God as something including but wider than the text of the Bible. In fact as he makes clear later in the chapter.

To begin with, Watson looks at what he calls hindrances to God's Word, or to the effectiveness of God's Word in the believer's life. Among those hindrances mentioned are: materialism (putting trust in material things), activism (being so busy doing that we cannot hear God) and humanism (thinking that human beings are the centre of the universe).

Then he mentions something that he calls "textualism" which is a fault that evangelical Christians who value the Bible are particularly susceptible to. It is being so concerned with the Bible that we actually lose sight of God! It is what A. W. Tozer called "orthodoxy without the Holy Ghost." According to Watson, the Bible in a sense becomes the Word of God when read in the power of the Holy Spirit. So in a sense we don't have God's Word "until the Holy Spirit illumines our dull minds and warms our cold hearts." (p.143). It is only when the Holy Spirit activates the biblical text that we receive God's revealed truth. As I wrote in a hymn:

With the Holy Spirit's help,
The ancient words are dead,
But spring to life when he is there:
The Word and Spirit wed.

The text, great though it is, is not enough. We need more than the text, the God the text points towards.

Another hindrance Watson examines is literalism (the view that the biblical text needs to be taken absolutely literally), and then he talks about "intellectualism" (where we become over concerned with approaching Scripture as an intellectual discipline rather than a spiritual one). Watson comments:

In the West we have often embraced the Greek concepts of truth and knowledge to the exclusion of the Hebrew concepts. The Greeks saw truth in terms of propositions, statements and words; whereas in Hebrew thought, truth was seen in terms of deep personal relationships.

Equally, "anti-intellectualism" is also a potential problem, where scholarship is denigrated and wild and fanciful interpretations of Scripture are taught merely on the basis of mystical "promptings of the Holy Spirit."

After the section on hindrances to God's Word, Watson talks about actually hearing the Word of God. Here he comes back to the notion of God's Word as being a wider category than merely the Bible. He talks about the Word of God in three senses:

1. The Personal Word - Jesus
2. The Written Word - The Bible
3. The Spoken Word - Preaching, teaching, witnessing and prophecy

It is important for Watson for Christians to recognise the inter-relatedness of all three senses of the Word of God. He says, "The spoken Word, to be authentic, must be in accordance with the written Word, and glorify the personal Word." (p.149).

Watson's charismatic views are evident here, for he views New Testament prophecy as a continuing gift to the Church, but he also marks out a number of scriptural tests and boundaries for it. But the spoken Word specifically explained and applied to a particular group of the Lord's people in preaching or in another medium, is a valid way of considering God's Word, though it is always derivative from the first two senses.

The final section in the chapter on the Word of God looks at understanding God's Word. Watson stresses the importance of correctly interpreting the Bible. It is a vital link between the Word outside us and the Word of God actually living in our hearts. Two key questions need to be asked whenever we come to the Bible to understand it. First, what did it mean to the first audience? Second, what does it mean for us today? To answer these two questions correctly we need to look at a number of aspects within and surrounding the text itself including the meaning of the words used (and here a good, accurate translation, or more than one, is indispensable to most of us), the context, the literary form of the passage, and the culture in which it was first written.

It is hard to overemphasise the importance of the Word of God to living as a Christian disciple. Our whole lives are to be steeped in the Word of God and we need to orientate our lives around the Word, and not the other way round. We need to constantly and faithfully apply ourselves in three key actions towards the Word of God: listening to God's Word, studying God's word and obeying God's word. When we do that, week-in-week-out, we will surely grow not only in knowledge but in faith and love as we are transformed by God's holy Word.

Next time we will look at the important subject of spiritual warfare, which is discussed in chapter 8 of Watson's book.

Putting yourself in someone else's thumb

I cut my thumb yesterday while cutting up some chicken for dinner. Not too bad a cut, but it needed bandaged and left me unable to use my left thumb for very much for the rest of the day (and today).

The amount of things I've had difficulty doing since has been remarkable. It includes:

• Unable to open packets wrapped in cellophane
• Difficulty opening jars and bottles
• Difficulty changing gear in the car
• A challenge to hold a book and turn the pages
• Great difficulty doing the buttons up on my shirt (especially cuffs)
• A challenge to tie shoe laces

 And all because of a fairly minor cut on the thumb.

I wouldn't be so crass as to claim I understand how many disabled people really cope day-in-day-out (and I say that as the husband of a wife who is a wheelchair user). But to experience even a tiny bit of difficulty makes my heart go out to everyone who struggles with physical limitations whether the disabled or the elderly. And I can't help thinking of the many service personnel who have lost limbs in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are all incredible people and I think it behooves all of us to think about each others needs and look after each other much more than we do.

Discipleship - Part 3

Introduction

Jesus said: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23)
 
This is the third in a series of posts on Christian discipleship, using David Watson's great book Discipleship as our guide. Today we look at chapters 4 and 5 of the book on "Making Disciples" and "Life in the Spirit".

Making Disciples

Watson says near the beginning of this chapter: "A disciple is a follower of Jesus. He has committed himself to Christ, to walking Christ's way, to living Christ's life and to sharing Christ's love and truth with others." To make a disciple or rather to disciple as a verb means to encourage another follower of Jesus in this commitment, walk, life and sharing.

Of course this is what the church is commanded to do by Christ in the Great Commission: "Then Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.'" (Matthew 28:18-20)

Unfortunately, as Watson then points out, the church has often failed in this task. So many churches are lax about the kind of behaviour tolerated in its ranks and there is little thought for personal holiness. Other churches share and propogate heresy instead of truth without anyone turning a hair. Others pursue members but don't seem too concerned with whether they have a living faith, while yet others pursue converts without much concern for nurturing them into mature disciples. The blame for these faults, Watson directs towards church leaders.

Yet, in typically balanced fashion, Watson then points out the dangers of lurching in another direction, where the church leaders "shepherd" their flock so closely, so intensely, that Christian liberty is stifled, and church leaders become church police officers prying into everyone's life and introducing a code of behaviour that is more moralistic than truly about holiness.

So if there is a danger when there is no leadership and a danger when the voice of the leadership becomes blurred with hearing the voice of God himself, where does the correct balance lie? Well surely it lies in the submission of all to the Holy Spirit speaking through the Bible to God's people. But for Watson there is something else that is more-or-less essential to fostering discipleship within a fellowship and that is small groups.

Small groups ministry is something I also feel very strongly about. In a church of anything over 40-50 members it is very difficult to be really close with everyone. A small group of 6-12 people is a good size for getting to know one another well, where there can be effective teaching, sharing, fellowship, prayer and growth in discipleship.

Watson finishes his chapter focusing on the importance of recognising potential leaders, encouraging leaders and training leaders. Rather than "one man from the front" Watson thinks churches do best with a team of leaders all able to share the burden of leadership - not least the pastoral needs of the flock.

Life in the Spirit

David Watson was moderately charismatic in his views and this is reflected in his chapter on "Life in the Spirit". But whether or not we share his perspective there are still many good things in this chapter.

He begins by pointing out that we need the Holy Spirit to live as Christian disciples. This is perhaps obvious, but we easily forget this, don't we? How many of us try by our own efforts, our own moral code, our own will power, to live as Christians, and forget to look to the Holy Spirit to strengthen and guide us.

He then goes through a number of different aspects of our Christian life and reminds us how important the Holy Spirit is to all of them.

First, we need the Holy Spirit to grow spiritually. We need the Holy Spirit to work inside us to enable us to become more Christlike in our lives.

Second, according to Watson, we need the Holy Spirit so the church can fulfil its healing ministry. Obviously this reflects Watson's charismatic views, but I think it is fair to say that in many of our more cessationist churches, there is a shocking underestimate of God's ability to heal us. We will pray for people to get well, but so often this is framed in terms of God guiding doctors and nurses as if we don't expect healing ever to come by supernatural means.

Third, we need to the Holy Spirit for there to be genuine fellowship between people. We need him to open up our hearts to each other and enable us to share our lives with other believers.

Fourth, we need the Holy Spirit to energise our worship.

Fifth, we need to look to the Holy Spirit for spiritual gifts to build up the body of Christ. Again this reflects Watson's charismatic views in part, but the truth is that all Christians believe in spiritual gifts. We just don't all seem to think about them very much! That's a fault of cessationist churches I think.

Sixth, we need the Holy Spirit to give us the power to live as Christians and to be witnesses to others. In order to go and make disciples, we need the Holy Spirit to be our helper and guide, which brings us back full circle. In this respect our call to make disciples and our need of the Holy Spirit are so closely related that they are fused together.

Next time we turn from these more theortical chapters to some practical chapters on prayer and reading the Bible.