Warning: This Face Cream Contains False Promises

Where does the time go? This time last year my wife and I were preparing for the arrival of our first baby. Now we’re preparing for Hannah’s first birthday. Last year we had a precious baby waiting to join us, today we have an almost-walking, almost-talking little girl with her own personality. It has been a wonder to see her grow and we now look back at old photos expressing amazement that Hannah was ever that small.
Many of us may also be looking back at our lives wondering where the time went. In our minds we’re still the vibrant youngsters we were but when we look at our bodies… well the less said the better.
The Bible is really matter-of-fact about this passage of time. It doesn’t sugarcoat it for us either. It says: “All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass.” (Isaiah 40:6-7 ESV)
Oh, thanks. My life is like the grass and flowers that look great for a time and then fade away. That message goes against everything we’re told by TV adverts. They tell us that we can be young forever, if only we had the right face cream, clothes or gadgets. The Bible tells us something different.
This may seem depressing – perhaps because we’re so used to the message of modern life. But it leads to great freedom. The Bible continues to say: “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” (Isaiah 40:8 ESV)
Everything around us is getting older but there is one who stands firm. There is one who is unchanging, who is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is the one who experienced our life – and death – and now is alive for ever more with the promise of the same for us. We won’t find the secret of eternal life in a pot of cream, a new jacket or an iPad.
We find it in Jesus Christ who stands forever.

Humility and the Modern Age

Reblogged from Phil Baiden:

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“When you stand on the shoulder of giants you should probably be able to see further than them.” This year is the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin. He was a reformer of the church in Geneva. He was, by all measures, a remarkable man. He studied at university from the age of 13, firstly to train for the ministry and then for the law. He wrote a Latin commentary on Seneca’s On Clemency in his early 20s. In 1536 he wrote the first volume of his systematic theology, Institutes of the Christian …

This is the most viewed piece on this blog. I’d love to think it was for my great writing but the reality is that it’s got a picture of Calvin in it and people were interested in him during 2009.

Who are the true heirs?

In what ways is this statement about those ejected in 1662 true and in which ways is it false?

“Many of these men and their families suffered much hardship; the United Reformed Church, as well as present-day Baptists and Congregationalists, are their heirs.”

Eh?

Can anyone explain to me what any of this means? And then contextualise it for a Doncaster council estate?

New Year address from Moderator-Elect

Round-up

Here are a few things that have caught my eye recently in the URC and wider UK:

Carl Trueman publishes the words of a Church of Scotland minister with a short commentary. It made me think seriously about my place in the URC as I think we’re a little further on than the CoS.

Following on from that: Would the URC publish a book by me giving a strong defence of orthodox Calvinism, perhaps one where I declare that we can only refer to God in the ways that he has revealed? Perhaps it would make a nice companion book to “Naming God”.

Talking of orthodox Calvinism word reaches me of a recent conference in my neck of the woods.

That conference had an excellent session on Reformed Worship. I wonder what the speaker would have made of this story from the URC website? Scrooge as worship leader? I love Dickens’ novel and no Christmas would be complete without watching the Muppet Christmas Carol but using it as the basis for approaching a holy God in worship may not be the wisest thing.

My colleague Matt Stone caused consternation on Facebook last Wednesday when he expressed an opinion that was not 100% behind the public sector strikes. It is a cardinal sin in the URC to divert from left wing orthodoxy so Matt was very brave. I was dreading the worst when I saw a Joint Public Issues statement on the same issue. Amazingly, it was balanced and reasonably fair. However, I do think the word “justice” now needs to be retired from church use. What does it mean? And does that meaning correlate with the Bible’s use of the word?

The first weekend in December saw Doncaster launch Street Pastors. We had a wonderful commissioning service for them at Hall Gate. Pray that they would be kept safe and it would make a difference to the streets of Donny. Also pray that the Street Pastors would have the opportunity to share the Gospel with those they meet.

And as a Christmas treat you could do worse than listen to this great album by Andrew Peterson. Behold the Lamb of God is a wonderful album of scripturally rich songs about the birth of Christ. It’s like an Americana Messiah.

The Necessity of Acknowledging Authority (repost)

Another repost after an interesting week of response to a sermon on Ephesians 5:22

Do you believe that the Word of God in the New and Old Testaments, discerned under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, is the supreme authority for the faith and conduct of all God’s people?

Authority is not something that human beings are naturally comfortable with. All around us we see the consequences of people claiming the supreme authority in their lives. Broken families are often the result of fathers declining to take on their role of authority in the family. School teachers cannot exert authority in the classroom. Politicians lose authority and democracy suffers as a result. And to even assert that there is a greater authority than yourself will result in a puzzled look as if you’ve just spoken fluent Swahili.

As a minister, you’re different. Your allegiance is to Christ. By your initial confession you have declared that there is a God. As one of his creatures you acknowledge that you come under his authority. Now you will promise to base your whole ministry on that authority.

This promise may not be as strong as an inerrantist may want but it is still a strong and vital promise that you are making. The “discerned under the guidance of the Holy Spirit” is a good explanation of the role of the Spirit in sanctification as he opens your eyes to his truth in his word. However, we have seen in the URC how that phrase has introduced a bit of wriggle room for liberals which makes them functional charismatics.

Don’t let that be the case with you, dear minister. The Bible is the Word of God. There is no other place for you to find the will of God. There is no other place for you to go to hear how God has saved you and how you are to live in gratitude for that salvation.

The Bible is your supreme authority for your faith and practice. Everything in your ministry depends on this. No more sermons from Opinions 7:12. No more sanctioning of moral behaviour that is clearly unbiblical. When you do that you are in rebellion against the promise you made before God and the church.

You are under authority. Conduct your ministry as if that is true.

Recovering the Reformed Confession (repost)

I had a Facebook conversation last week that touched on the issue of what’s acceptable in worship. I felt this post from a couple of years back would help to keep the conversation going. If anything, I’d say my convictions in this matter have firmed up.

At my ordination service the first song was Psalm 100, “All people that on earth do dwell”. We sang it to the tune Old Hundreth which was written to be sung in the church in Geneva in Calvin’s day. Despite the efforts of some (tapes of the Vaughan-Williams setting being posted to me, etc) and the uneasiness of a few more we sang it unaccompanied. It was great. For many it was a novelty to sing without the organ/piano/praise band. But why? Especially when Reformed churches have sung a capella psalms from the beginning?

Forsyth: A Theologian for our time

In listening again to some seminars from New Word Alive 2011, I was struck by the suggestion of Carl Trueman that Christians should have a couple of theologians that they really focus on in their personal study. Obviously, John Calvin would be my Reformer of choice and I’ve come to love the writings of Thomas Watson from the Puritan age. I’m toying with the idea of studying more of John Chrystostom so that I don’t fall into the trap of thinking church history goes Jesus, Acts … (here be dragons) … Luther, Calvin, 1662, today.

If the ancient church is a big blank to me then you’ll notice that there’s another gap in that list for me – from 1662 to today. There is one theologian that bridges the 19th and 20th Centuries who I love reading, and always rewards the effort involved to get a copy of his books. That theologian is PT Forsyth. I’ve already written about him here but I’ve started to read Cruciality of the Cross and after just a few pages I’m hooked.

Here’s why:

It is reported from most quarters in England that there is a serious decline in Church membership. For this several explanations are given. But it is well to face the situation, and to avoid extenuation. And if we do, we may discover that the real cause is the decay, not in religious interests or sympathies, but in personal religion of a positive and experienced kind, and often in the pulpit.
Religious sympathies or energies are not Christian faith. Faith is Christian certainty. We have become familiar with the statement (so welcome to easy religion) that there is as good Christianity outside the Churches as in. This is not quite false, but it is much more false than true. It would be true enough if Christianity meant decent living, nice ways, precious kindness, business honour, ardent philanthropy, and public righteousness.
But all these fine and worthy things are quite compatible with the absence of personal communion with God, personal faith as Christ claims it, in the sense of personal experience of God in Jesus Christ, personal repentance, and personal peace in Christ as our eternal life. Yet that is God’s first charge on us if Christianity be true. And it is the kind of Christianity which alone makes for a Church and its membership.
A Christianity merely ethical, refined, or sympathetic certainly makes for the social state, if you can keep it up; but the Christianity that makes for the Church is of a much more intimate, personal, and positive kind. And its presence is the only guarantee for the maintenance of the moral strength and beauty of society at the last. While its absence must not only diminish the roll of membership but reduce interest in the great religious issue between Church and State. The reports that come in are as clear about the cooling of that interest as they are about the drop in the membership of the Churches.
The decay in membership of the Church is due to a decay of membership in Christ.
Our social preoccupation has entailed real damage to personal and family religion. For even among those who remain in active membership of our Churches the type of religion has changed. The sense of sin can hardly be appealed to by the preacher now, and to preach grace is in many (even orthodox) quarters regarded as theological obsession, and the wrong language for the hour, while justification by faith is practically obsolete. Well, it may be wise not to preach too often about grace, though we cannot preach too much (indeed, what have we at last but grace to preach?); but it is fatal if our reserve is because we do not have it, instead of because we reverence it, if the reason be defect of truth and not its economy.

Everything Forsyth says here is true today. If it was being said 100 years ago, why was no one listening?

Zero Interesting Content

The summer has seen the URC have an interesting debate about its upcoming campaign of “radical welcome” – or Absolutely No Bigotry as I’m cryptically calling it. I was a signatory to a letter that expressed concern about the content of the campaign and the process of its implementation.

Other voices were adding to the disquiet and motions were added to the agenda of Mission Council. What was interesting was that it wasn’t just cantankerous old-school Reformed people like me who were worried but many on the opposite side of the spectrum. When the steering group of the campaign published an opinion on a topic that the URC has set up a task group to explore then the disquiet went up a level.

You see, in the URC you can preach against the virgin birth, the divinity of Christ and the atonement of the cross as much as you like but watch out if you don’t introduce something through the right committees.

Mission Council, therefore, created an oversight group to hear what the denomination was saying. They’ve done their work and Absolutely No Bigotry is staying but with changed content.

And this is where things get interesting.

The old content of the adverts was punchy and radical. As far as I was concerned it was also clearly wrong theologically and pushed an aggressive agenda. Now, thanks to the committee, the wording is nice and worthy. And totally boring. Even I’m struggling to get worked up about it. And I can see why some in the steering group were so resistant to opening it up to the whole denomination.

If the campaign had gone ahead in its previous form it would have split the URC and been devastating ecumenically.

But now we’re going along as we have since 1972. We’re desperately trying to keep a denomination together in a mock unity and we’re failing to have any true impact on the millions around us. Absolutely No Bigotry could have been the catalyst to have a real debate about doctrine and our future. Instead we’ve just postponed the future so we can continue to sleepwalk into further decline.

Update

I’m currently in the middle of a busy period. However, I will soon restart my previous blogging regime of Weekly Word, History’s Heroes and URC stuff.

Upcoming on the blog:
Series on the church from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians.
Studies in Luke’s Gospel.
Some thoughts on the Great Ejection.
Exploration of the Evangelical Revival.
Continued comment on the URC’s Absolutely No Bigotry campaign.
Revival of the series on the URC ministry promises.

Note as well that I’m back on Twitter. Please feel free to follow me.