No hope without character

Life

 

I was in church on Sunday morning, listening to a sermon on Romans 5. In spite of having read it hundreds of times in my life, I was struck by my lack of understanding. Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character and character produces hope (Rom 5:3-4). Why have I never thought about how those things fit into the context of Paul’s argument in this chapter?

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Conversion by law

Life

 

Leviticus, one of the Old Testament books of God’s law, seems, for some reason, to be the target for particular mockery both by non-Christians (who will invariably allude to the silliness of the food laws as they attempt to satirize its opposition to homosexual practice) and even some Christians (who will use it to empathize with some who feel that Bible reading is boring).

But Dave Bish over at the Blue Fish project reminded me of the wonderful story of how Charles Simeon, uber-preacher of Cambridge University during the late 18th and early 19th century, became a Christian:

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Apostasy lit, non-lit and not-yet-lit

Everyday Ministry

 

Last December I read an article over at Reformation 21 that was (as they say in current affairs TV) “a story no parent can afford to miss”. It was a brilliant and frightening piece that Stephen Nichols had written about a genre of literature that he had christened (or de-christened!) ‘Apostasy Lit’—“a genre, usually taking the form of a memoir, in which the protagonist reflects on and recants her Christian, usually of the fundamentalist variety, upbringing”.

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Stirring the affections

Thought, Sola Panel

 

I concluded part 2 of this little series with a challenge:

What we need is a change in our affections. We need to change not what we feel nor even what we know but what we love.
The question is: How does one do that?

Our guide (in part 2 in particular) has been Jonathan Edwards and his classic Treatise Concerning Religious Affections. What does Edwards say about how to stimulate the affections?

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Jesus IS a Jew

Thought

 

Is this a modern scandal for Christians—a truth that some find hard to swallow? I don’t mean that that Jesus was a Jew, but that he is one now.

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Leadership on the Front Foot

Review, Sola Panel

 

Leadership on the Front Foot by Zachary Veron--cover Leadership on the Front Foot

Zachary Veron

Anglican Press Australia, Sydney, 2009. 204pp.

Pragmatism is always dangerous: passages like 2 Corinthians 4:2, 1 Thessalonians 2:3-6 and 2 Timothy 4:3-4 warn against certain methods that seem to get results and gain listeners for your message. But pragmatism is also commended: passages like Matthew 10:16 (in the context of a gospel preaching mission) and Luke 16:8 (in the context of using money to make friends for eternity) recommend ‘shrewdness’, rather than stupidity, in ministry dealings. (more…)

Learning from The Pretenders, or The case for church history, Part 3

Thought

As a middle-aged git, an aspiring baldy man, someone as uncool as you can get and a rock dinosaur, much of my wisdom is drawn from song lyrics from bands that most people under the age of 35 have never heard of. Thus, in this final blog post, I want to make the case for church history with reference to a line in a song by The Pretenders (called, I believe, ‘Hymn to Her’): “Some things change, some stay the same”. It’s not too profound, I guess, but it’s a critical element in the historical task, given that the very possibility of history requires some analogy between the present world in which the historian lives and the past that is being studied. Were they identical, history would be pointless, for the past would be the present; were they utterly different, history would be impossible, for there would be no way of analyzing, categorizing or describing the past. No, for history to be possible, there must be things about my world that are the same as those in the past.

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What I learned from the Mormons

Everyday Ministry

 

My family and I have just returned from two weeks in Utah and Idaho—the areas in the USA (and possibly in the world) with the highest concentration of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons). While their theology is completely graceless and works-based, it was interesting to observe the way they do things. Perhaps there are things we can learn from them.

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Why we don’t sing

Life, Sola Panel

 

Sandy, I am delighted of course that you are with me on so many things. And I hope you will also be pleased to know that I am with you completely on the goodness and value of singing. (In fact, the only thing I wouldn’t be with you on is the need for that ‘but’ at the beginning of your second paragraph. But let’s not quibble.)

As for why we don’t sing more or better, and in particular why your men aren’t singing, I think the Bible also points us to the answer.

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Sticking it to the man, or The case for church history, Part 2

Thought

It is almost a given today that history is oppressive. That is why there has been so much hoo-ha about how it is taught over the last 30 years. Everybody wants their say: if you’re a woman, you need a woman’s history; if you’re gay, you need a queer history; if you’re black, you need a black history, and so on and so forth. The making of many histories is itself a reflection of the priorities and, on occasion, the pathologies of modern society. How long, one wonders, before we get a history written from the perspective of Frank Sinatra impersonators, ginger haired people and compulsive hand-washers?

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When they won’t smile or even sing

Life, Sola Panel

Okay, Tony, I’m with you on not calling our singing the ‘worship time’. I’m with you on not even calling our church gathering the ‘worship service’. I’m with you on wanting to avoid mere emotionalism. In fact, I also know you believe the emotions (or better, the affections) matter.

But I believe singing is important.

I believe the Bible says it’s important.

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The natural salesman

Everyday Ministry, Sola Panel

 

There were only three of us in Bible study group the other morning, and the other two guys were both in sales—one in property and one in software. We were talking about how to encourage other people with the message of the Bible (whether Christian or non-Christian), about why we fail to do so, and so on.

I started to say that I sometimes find it difficult to talk easily about Christian things, especially with non-Christians, because I’m not a natural ‘salesman’ sort of personality—“Not like you two guys”. But one of my friends pulled me up short.

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Calvin’s birthday

Pastoral Ministry, Sola Panel

 

How are you celebrating Calvin’s birthday?

I reckon it’d be hard to be a committed evangelical in the blogosphere without realizing that today is the 500th anniversary of John Calvin’s birth: 10 July 1509.

But we should not leave celebrating this most important Reformation theologian and pastor to the publishers and conference organizers! John Piper’s annual biographical studies of great evangelical leaders has proved the historical interest is there!

So how are you celebrating Calvin’s birthday in your local church or in your own life?

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