Apostolic Theology

A Feast Doesn't Just Happen

2012-01-31T19:04:00.000Z

A well planned and prepared feast.

Yesterday I decided to cook myself a big dinner. No matter what, I had to go to the shop to buy some food, so I decided that I would at least make it worthwhile; I would make a hearty stew. So I bought all the ingredients and was beginning to really look forward to my dinner. But as I drove home from the shop, I passed a building with a big digital clock on display (there's no clock in my car!) and began to get the sneaking suspicion that my plans had not been well enough laid. Sure enough, when I got home I checked and saw that it was going to take 3½ - 4 hours to cook, by which time I'd be at Christianity Explored. So alas, no stew.

You see that's the thing with a good meal: it takes planning, time and preparation. As yesterday's lack of stew reminded me, you can't just decide to have a feast on the spur of the moment.

As a church, we've been talking in Leeds recently about seeking the face of God. We've seen that, in the Bible, seeking the face of God really means seeking God Himself. And we've seen that God promises that 'He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him' (Heb. 11:6) and that 'if you seek Him, He will be found by you' (1 Chron. 28:9).

Not only are we to seek God's face, and promised that we will find Him in His gracious presence, but the Scripture also tells us where we will find Him. The Old Testament speaks of God's face shining on His people. In those passages the shining of God's face points to His gracious presence - His presence to bless, His presence to act in strength on behalf of His people, His presence in mercy and grace, His presence to show His favour. And the Scriptures are very clear about where we find all those things - only in Jesus Christ. Ultimately God's face shines upon us in Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6). It's from the darkness of Calvary that God's face shines most brightly.

So, if to seek and find God's face in Christ means knowing God Himself in His gracious provision and presence, then seeking and finding God's face is a way in which we feast upon the Bread of Heaven.

Yet, we don't normally partake of his feast on the spur of the moment. Like our feasts of earthly food, feasting takes planning, time and preparation. The Scriptures teach us that seeking God requires that we 'set [our] heart and [our] soul to seek the LORD [our] God' (1 Chron. 22:19). We have to be intentional about it. We don't suddenly wake up and find ourselves seeking God. Rather, we need to consciously 'set' ourselves to seek Him. We need to plan to seek. We need to set aside time for it. We need to prepare.

The New Testament also talks about this 'setting.' ‘If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.’ (Col. 3:1-2). What are those 'things above' we're to set our minds on? They're the things where Christ is. Where is Christ? 'Sitting at the right hand of God.' That means those things are the Father and the Son themselves. We are to consciously turn our attention away from the things of this world and to God Himself.

But, how can we turn our attention to God Himself? How can we set our minds on those things which are above? How can we set our hearts and souls to seek the Lord our God?

1. By Considering His Word

If we want to turn our attention to God, a good place to go is the Word of God, for it tells us what He's like and what He has done. So consider God's Word and meditate on His character and His works.

2. By Considering His Cross

The Cross is the place where God is most fully revealed. The Cross is the very place from which God's face shines upon us. So if we want to seek God, looking to the Cross is the best place to look. And as we look to the Cross, the glories of Calvary will turn our attention away from 'the things on the earth.' As Isaac Watts put it so well:

When I survey the wondrous CrossOn which the Prince of Glory diedMy richest gain I count but lossAnd pour contempt on all my pride.

3. In Prayer

In seeking God, we should call upon Him (Isa. 55:6) and plead with Him (Job 8:5). If we want to seek God's face, we should ask Him to show us His face; we should pray that God would reveal His gracious presence.

4. Trust in His Promises

'He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him' (Heb. 11:6) and 'if you seek Him, He will be found by you' (1 Chron. 28:9). As James puts it, 'draw near to God and He will draw near to you' (Jas. 4:8).

So, be intentional; set your heart to seek God. But remember that you need to be intentional about it. You need that planning, time and preparation in order to enjoy the feast.

What hath Leeds to do with Tokyo?

2012-01-30T23:21:00.000Z

'In Yorkshire the percentage that goes to church once a month or more is 0.9 percent; evangelicals account for only 0.4 percent. Both figures are still falling. This is comparable to the state of affairs in, say, Japan.' (Don Carson)

Be sure you understand what God's saying!

2012-01-26T18:59:00.000Z

Sometimes we can be so used to an expression that we don't even stop to think about what it means. Those who have been Christians for some time have probably got used to hearing all sorts of biblical expressions; they might sound quite odd and incomprehensible to anyone else, but we're so used to hearing them that they just sound normal. Yet being used to something isn't the same as understanding it.

Recently at church God spoke to us prophetically and told us to seek His face. A few days later I was talking to some of the teenagers and realized that it sounded quite odd to them. What did it mean to seek God's face? After all, we don't normally talk about seeking anyone else's face!

Now, the teenagers thought about it and realised they didn't understand what it meant, but sometimes we don't think about these things, and so we don't realize that we don't understand what God is saying. I'm not just talking about prophecy here; this applies to reading the Bible too. After all, to seek God's face is a biblical expression. Sometimes we need to pause and ask ourselves what familiar expressions mean just to make sure we understand what God is saying.

So what does it mean to seek God's face? Well, it's a Hebrew way of speaking about someone's presence. That means that when we seek God's face, we're seeking His presence, which means we're seeking God Himself. The last part of Hosea 5:15 points this out: 'Then they will seek My face; In their affliction they will earnestly seek Me.' This is a Hebrew parallel (two lines which say the same thing in two different ways) which equates seeking God's face with earnestly seeking God Himself. So seeking the face of God isn't about trying to see a vision, nor is it primarily about discovering God's will. Rather it's all about desiring God Himself.

For those of you in the Leeds assembly, that's what we're going to be doing together as a church this Lord's Day, and I'll explain more of what the Bible teaches about seeking God's face at the Breaking of Bread service on Sunday morning.

But for now, the moral of this blog-post is make sure you understand. Don't assume that you understand biblical expressions, but study the Scriptures to make sure you understand properly. After all, you don't want to miss what God is saying.

Worship, Feelings and Biblical Truth (or Confessions of a Theologian turned Worship Leader)

2012-01-24T22:04:00.002Z

Worshipping God at AblazeUK.Wonder what they're singing?

In sundry times and ways throughout the Christian life we can get confused between feelings and truth. C.J. Mahaney addressed this problem in one of the chapters of his excellent book, The Cross Centered Life, called 'What You Feel vs. What Is Real.' Mahaney was writing about the fundamental issue of basing our faith on the Cross rather than our feelings. Yet the same thing comes into play when we gather in our various churches on Sunday mornings to worship: it's all too easy to get confused between truth and feelings. Our worship should be based on the Cross, not on how we feel.

Now for the confession bit...

As a pastor, I'm always reminding people that our worship involves proclaiming biblical truth about God, for our love for God is rooted in the truth of who He is and what He's done. And that's what we're encouraged to do in the Bible: 'Sing to Him, sing praises to Him; tell of all His wondrous works' (Ps. 105:2). So we should be singing songs full of biblical truth, and especially songs full of gospel truth.

But, sometimes in leading worship I'm tempted to look more at the feelings of the people in front of me (as if one could ever really read feelings!). It's tempting to think that when people have their hands in the air, their eyes closed and are singing their hearts out that things are much better than when they're mumbling their way through the fourth verse of a hymn. So, for example, on Sunday we introduced a new/old hymn (new because it was unknown to the congregation, old because it was written during the Reformation). As we often do with new songs, to help people get used to the tune we sang it both morning and evening. The tune was quite simple and the words were full of rich gospel truth. And yet, as we got to the end of singing it for the second time of the day it didn't feel like people were worshipping.

But notice, I say it didn't feel like it. Actually, people were worshipping; they were proclaiming the truth of the gospel and praising God for it. Biblically, that is worship.

So why didn't it feel like it? Probably because the next chorus we sang was so well known. Immediately eyes were closed (as they didn't need to look at the words) and hands thrown in the air. Rather than mumbling words they had never seen until that day, they were singing out words they knew by heart. So of course it felt different. But closed eyes, raised hands and loud singing don't equal worship. Yes, they express worship, but the two aren't identical.

At the time it was tempting to think the new/old hymn hadn't 'worked' and decide not to use it again. But, looking back in the clear light of day, I realise it's only normal for people to struggle a bit more with a new hymn than a familiar chorus. After all, there are a lot more words to get your head around in a hymn. The hymns the congregation love to sing and that 'feel worshipful' (like And Can it Be, When I Survey, or Crown Him With Many Crowns) are the ones that many of the people have been singing all their lives. But you don't need to have sung a hymn all your life, for in recent years we've managed to learn and grow to love many modern hymns like In Christ Alone, Oh to See the Dawn and Before the Throne of God Above. Getting used to all the words that go into a hymn just takes a bit of time for people to become familiar with it. So the new/old hymn will return. Who knows, one day it might be an old favourite.

Feelings are important in our worship. We are to 'delight' (Ps. 37:4) and 'be glad' (Ps. 32:11) in the Lord. Remember, 'man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.' There cannot be any true worship without this disposition of the heart (Matt. 15:8-9). But we can't read people's hearts. Hearts can be stirred by the truth of the gospel even as mouths stumble and mumble.

We shouldn't be looking in any way to diminish people's affections for God in worship, but neither should we be looking in any way to diminish the Truth in worship. True worship involves both. True worship is heart-filled proclamation. True worship is delighting in the Lord. True worship is in Spirit and in Truth.

Of Popularity and Plurality (or Mark Driscoll on the UK)

2012-01-19T19:48:00.005Z

Mark Driscoll seems to have a knack for stirring up controversy in his own country, but that's normally rather an irrelevance to us on this side of the ocean. This week, however, he's managed to stir things up here in the UK with an interview published in Christianity magazine and broadcast on Premier Radio, part of which went as follows:

Driscoll: I go too far sometimes. Almost every other pastor I know doesn’t go far enough and that’s okay ’cause the church tends to be led by people who are timid and fearful of going too far. I mean, let’s just say this. … Right now, name for me the one young good Bible teacher that’s known across Great Britain.

Brierley: Hmm …

Driscoll: You don’t have one. That is a problem. There’s a bunch of cowards who aren’t telling the truth.

Brierley: So you think that the Bible teaches …

Driscoll: You don’t have one. You don’t have one young guy who can preach the Bible that anybody’s listening to on the whole earth.

So, it seems that the Church in the UK must, according to Driscoll's logic, be at a low ebb, because its pastors aren't famous enough! Now, it could be said that he's missing the cultural gap between the UK and the USA in many ways with such a comment; but the more important cultural gap might be the one between the New Testament church and 21st Century evangelical assumptions. Notice when Driscoll cuts Brierley off - just as he says 'so you think the Bible teaches.' The one comment about what the Bible teaches just gets ignored. Driscoll goes on to close this section by saying that what we're doing in the UK isn't working. That seems to be his rationale for thinking we need famous young preachers - it's all about pragmatism.

But, is it a case of pragmatism (and perhaps misplaced pragmatism, for what works in the US doesn't necessarily work in the UK) trumping Scripture? For, while Driscoll brushes off Brierley's question about what the Bible teaches, that isn't to say that the Bible doesn't teach anything on the issue.

Titus 1:5 teaches us that elders (plural) are to be appointed in every city. Acts 14:23 makes it clear that there are to be elders (plural) in every church. And one of the main qualifications of elders (in fact, the qualification which really sets elders apart from deacons) is that they be 'able to teach' (1 Tim. 3:2). In the Antioch assembly we're told that there were 'prophets and teachers' (both plural). So in each local church, the Biblical model is that there should be more than one person who can teach. There will be several elders (all of whom should be able to teach) and perhaps even a few teachers like in Antioch. That means there shouldn't be a personality cult around the preacher - it's not a task reserved for one special man. It's not the preacher that has an elevated status, but the Word which is preached.

When important decisions about doctrine and mission had to be made, the apostles and elders gathered together (Acts 15). It wasn't the best known preacher who decided. But rather, together they sought the mind of Christ. And the one who spoke on behalf of the Council wasn't the most widely travelled or critically acclaimed preacher; it wasn't Peter who boldly cut off Malchus' ear, nor was it Paul, who would go on to oppose Peter to his face, but James, an apostle who never left Jerusalem and was best know for his prayerfulness and piety (according to the few historical sources that remain).

When the apostle Paul visited Troas, by our 21st century logic we would assume that it would be a big deal as the world's most famous preacher had come to town. Yet the Christians gathered that Lord's Day, not to hear a celebrity, but 'to break bread' (Acts 20:7). It was Christ (who is proclaimed in Word and Sacrament) who takes centre stage, not His preacher.

The Bible doesn't make a big deal about famous preachers. The Bible does make a big deal about the Christ who is preached.

The New Testament Church didn't rely on a few world-famous preachers, instead it cultivated plurality and collegiality among its leaders.

Remember, what might look like a good idea pragmatically isn't necessarily biblical.

P.S. Carl Trueman manages to sum the whole thing up in one sentence: 'The Great Man, youth and fame: not high on the list of Paul's priorities; and three basic elements of celebrity culture.'

Follow ActionOverseas for Prayer Updates

2011-11-17T07:00:00.000Z

ActionOverseas, the missionary arm of the UK Apostolic Church, now has a Facebook page for prayer updates about our missionary work. So, if you'd like to hear the latest Apostolic overseas mission prayer requests, then 'like' it. Apparently they're also on Twitter, so you can follow @ActionOverseas.

Desire Spiritual Gifts (Part 2)

2011-11-16T17:09:00.000Z

Yesterday we looked at two important reasons why we should desire spiritual gifts (namely, because the gifts of the Spirit point to the Lordship of Christ, and because the gifts bear witness to the Gospel). Today, let's have a look at a third reason to earnestly desire the gifts.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit build up believers. The sixth Tenet of the Apostolic Church states that we believe in 'The nine gifts of the Holy Ghost for the edification, exhortation and comfort of the Church, which is the body of Christ.' We don't just believe in the gifts, but we also believe that they've been given for a specific purpose; and that purpose is the edification, exhortation and comfort of the Body of Christ. Where does the Bible teach this? Well, in 1 Cor. 14:3 these three purposes are specifically attached to the gift of prophecy. However, prophecy is clearly not the only gift given for our edification: 1 Cor. 14:26 says that everything that's done in a church service is to 'be done for edification.' The immediate context mentions the gifts of tongues and interpretation, as well as the more general term revelation, but this isn't an exhaustive list. Any of the gifts used in a church service must be for edification. Finally, 1 Cor. 12:7 teaches that the gifts are the Spirit are given 'for the profit of all.' That means that the gifts are not given to individuals for their own personal blessing, but rather, for the benefit of others. If I'm used in a gift, it's not primarily for my own personal edification, but for the edification of the church. The gifts are given in the context of the church.

Now, hopefully we'll all agree that edification, exhortation and comfort are all necessary for Christians. And that again highlights the necessity of the gifts. God doesn't give the gifts to bring an optional extra personal blessing, but rather, to bring something that the church has great need of: edification, exhortation, and comfort.

But, what do we actually mean by edification, exhortation and comfort? Well, edification is to do with building up and strengthening. Edification speaks of taking us toward maturity in Christ and preparing us for our role in the Body. Exhortation means pointing us in the right direction. Sometimes we need to be told what we should be doing. Sometimes this comes in the form of encouraging us to act, and sometimes it comes in the form of correction. Comfort speaks of the ministry of the Holy Spirit pointing us away form our trials and difficulties to gaze on the greatness of the grace and glory of Jesus Christ. Each of these three is needed.

And so, again, we see that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are necessary. We need edification, exhortation and comfort, and our Lord has promised to supply these needs, in part through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. So, we should earnestly desire the gifts!

Desire Spiritual Gifts

2011-11-15T17:27:00.000Z

1 Corinthians 14:1 tells us to 'desire spiritual gifts.' It's an imperative, a command. And if we're commanded to desire these gifts of the Holy Spirit, that means they're necessary.

But, why do we need the gifts?

Well, firstly, the gifts of the Holy Spirit point to the Lordship of Christ. We can see this in 1 Cor. 12:1-3. Anyone who speaks by the Spirit of God will demonstrate the Lordship of Christ. How? The content of the gift highlights Christ's Lordship. The words that are spoken in prophecy will point to Jesus as Lord. But, not only does the content of the gift highlight Christ's Lordship, but the very manifestation of the gift itself points to the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord. It is He who is in control of the gifts, not us. We can't decide that there should be a gift in operation, only the Lord of the Church can. We don't determine the content of a spiritual gift, only Christ does through His Holy Spirit. (N.B. 1 Cor. 12:4-6 points to the involvement of all three persons of the Trinity in the operation of the Gifts of the Spirit.)

Furthermore, the gifts of the Spirit also bear witness to the Gospel. In Hebrews 2:3-4 we learn that God uses 'signs and wonders, with various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit' to bear witness to 'so great a salvation.' How does that work? Well, the gifts draw attention to Christ and therefore they glorify Christ. After all, that is the role of the Holy Spirit (John 16:14). The gifts also create opportunities for the Gospel to be proclaimed. We see that happening again and again in the book of Acts. In Acts 3, Peter and John are used to bring healing to the lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the temple. And what happens next? 'Now as the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the porch which is called Solomon’s, greatly amazed. So when Peter saw it, he responded to the people' (Acts 3:11-12). And what was this response that Peter made to the people? It was to preach the Gospel to them; and the outcome of that was that 'many of those who heard the word believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand' (Acts 4:4).

We see the same type of result from the gifts of the Spirit in Acts 9:36-43. Dorcas had died, but God used Peter to raise her to life again, 'And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed on the Lord' (v. 42). The operation of the gifts of the Spirit creates opportunities for the Gospel to advance. Again, in Acts 16:25-34 a miracle (the earthquake that releases Paul and Silas from their chains) leads to evangelism (of the Philippian jailor and his household). So the gifts bear witness to the Gospel by drawing people's attention to the preaching of the Gospel.

But that's not the only way it works. For the gifts themselves can point unbelievers to Christ as Saviour. 1 Cor. 14:24-25 shows us that prophesy can even cause an unbeliever to fall 'down on his face' and 'worship God.' The book of Acts has a great example of this too. On the day of Pentecost, Peter preached the Gospel powerfully and 3000 souls were saved. Yet, the Greek word for what Peter did indicates not a normal sermon, but a prophecy. Peter prophetically proclaimed the Gospel and God used it to bring thousands to salvation!

Tomorrow we'll look at another important reason why the gifts of the Holy Spirit are necessary and why we're called to earnestly desire them.

Reforming the "Spirit Filled" Church (Part 3): Authentic Spiritual Warfare

2011-11-14T19:13:00.001Z

Spiritual warfare is real. The only problem is sometimes the ideas people have about spiritual warfare aren't real. J. Lee Grady's 3rd and 4th reforms for the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements both speak about people's perceptions of spiritual warfare.

3. It’s time for personal responsibility. We charismatics must stop blaming everything on demons. People are usually the problem.
4. Stop playing games. Spiritual warfare is a reality, but we are not going to win the world to Jesus just by shouting at demonic principalities. We must pray, preach and persevere to see ultimate victory.

Unfortunately, from time to time, strange ideas about demons and spiritual warfare seem to come along as the latest fad in charismatic circles. So, instead of a commitment to evangelism to see people in our communities come to faith in Christ, sometimes people decide it would be much more effective to cast out territorial spirits (despite the fact that the New Testament church never once engaged in such a practice). When there is sin that needs to be dealt with in the lives of Christians, instead of the hard work of mortification (which sounds far to morbid for us happy-clappy types), people decide it would be more effective to rebuke the spirit of whatever the sin is, or cast out the demon (despite the fact that there isn't a single biblical example of an evil spirit or demon being cast out of a believer). You see, it's just so much easier to put the responsibility onto evil spirits than it is to accept the responsibility ourselves.

But it's not just a matter of taking responsibility. It's also a matter of taking things seriously. Perhaps some people find it fun to spend a few hours shouting at territorial spirits in a highly charged atmosphere. But the real work of prayer, preaching and persevering isn't quite so easy. Prayer, preaching and persevering demand patience. Shouting at territorial spirits looks more like a quick fix. But God is patient (Ex. 34:6) and He calls us to be patient too (e.g. Ps. 37:7; Rom. 12:12; 1 Thess. 5:14; James 5:7). He is not the God of the quick fix, but the God of the long-term solution. What's more, He has promised to work through prayer, preaching and perseverance!

True spiritual warfare isn't about shouting at territorial spirits or rebuking the spirit of laziness. True spiritual warfare involves standing firm against the devil's wiles (Eph. 6:10-11), clothed in gospel armour (Eph. 6:14-17) and armed with the Word of God and prayer (Eph. 6:17-18). In fact, true spiritual warfare looks a lot more like praying, preaching, and persevering.

P.S. If you want to learn more about spiritual warfare, give Peter Wagner's books a miss and try William Gurnall instead. Gurnall's very biblical The Christian in Complete Armour is a classic for good reason. You can read it in a 3 volume modernized and abridged version (Vol. 1, Vol.2, Vol. 3), or, for the less faint hearted, the full 1244 page 17th century original. David Wilkerson wrote of this book that 'I believe The Christian in Complete Armour, should be in the library of every man and woman of God. No Christian leader, teacher, pastor, evangelist, or Christian worker should be without it.' John Newton, the writer of 'Amazing Grace', said: 'If I might read only one book beside the Bible I would choose The Christian in Complete Armour.'

(This post is part of a series interacting with J. Lee Grady's article 'It's (Past) Time for a Charismatic Reformation'. Here are the links to the previous posts in the series: Part 1, Part 1b, Part 2.)

Don't Outsource Your Discipleship

2011-11-11T17:07:00.001Z

'There is a big difference between saying that pastors discharge an essential ministry by making us disciples and quite another to say that they are vicarious disciples, studying, praying, meditating, and witnessing in our place. We can easily assume that we have discharged our duty by paying "church workers" to be disciples for us.'

Michael Horton, The Gospel Commission: Recovering God's Strategy for Making Disciples (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), p.19

Jesus is coming again! (Part 2)

2011-11-09T07:00:00.000Z

Yesterday we were looking the importance of Christ's return and learning a few things about it from Revelation 19:11-16. We saw that 1. Jesus is coming as King, and 2. Jesus is coming as God. Let's look at two more things about His return from these verses today.

3. Jesus is coming as Judge.
Revelation 19:11 tells us that 'in righteousness He judges and makes war' (cf. 2 Tim. 4:1). First He pronounces the just verdict, then He goes to war. But there's no need to worry; the outcome of this war is certain. The victory has already been assured by the Cross.

And how does He wage this war of judgement? With 'a sharp sword' (Rev. 19:15). Does this mean He's going to hack at His enemies? To answer that, look at where the sword comes from: 'out of His mouth'. The sword with which He wages His war of judgement is what comes out of His mouth; it's His Word. Jesus conquers by the power of His Word!

And, 'He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God' (Rev. 19:15). Jesus Himself is the Judge, so He Himself passes sentence and He Himself brings the punishment.

4. Jesus is coming as Saviour.
His judgement seems to leave us with bad news; but that's not the end of the story of Christ's return. When He comes, He's coming 'with a robe dipped in blood' (Rev. 19:13). But hang on, this is before He treads out any winepresses of wrath; before He unleashes any sharp swords. And where's He coming from? He's coming from heaven, and there's no bloodshed there! So how'd He get this blood on His robe?

Well, there might not be any bloodshed in heaven, but there is shed blood in heaven - Jesus' own shed blood! Always in Revelation, when we see blood connected with Jesus, it's His own blood. Jesus is coming from heaven as the Lamb that was slain. He's coming as the One who shed His blood to save us.

The fact that the robe is dipped in blood points again to Jesus' sacrifice on the Cross, for in the Gospels Jesus spoke of the Cross as a dipping he had to be dipped with (Luke 12:50; Mark 10:38). Jesus is coming as the One who has made atonement for our sins. He is coming in the proof of the Victory He accomplished on the Cross.

And when He comes, He isn't coming alone. 'And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses.' (Rev. 19:14) The fine linen tells us who the armies of heaven are, for if you look back a few verses to verse 8 you'll see that it's the Bride of the Lamb (the Church) who's dressed in fine linen (Rev. 19:8). And back there in verse 8 we also learn how the Bride got this fine linen: it was granted. The granting is Justification. In Justification God clothes us with the righteousness of Jesus. It's now ours; it's granted to us. (Rev. 19:8 also shows how Justification leads to Sanctification: 'the righteous acts of the saints'; how faith leads to works.) But the fine linen is only possible because of the robe dipped in blood. The righteousness of believers is only possible because of Jesus death for our sins on the Cross.

One more thing about this heavenly army: they don't have any swords and they don't have any armour. They're not there to win the battle. Rather, they simply accompany the Victor and enjoy His victory!

Jesus is Coming Again!

2011-11-08T06:30:00.000Z

The return of Christ is a vital part of the Christian faith. It's so important, that's not only people that have spoken about it: in Acts 1:10-11 angels spoke about Jesus' return. And when the angels spoke, they taught that Christ would return suddenly, visibly, personally and bodily. But the fact that Christ would return wasn't some new revelation that the angels were bringing, for Jesus Himself had spoken of it (John 14:3), as had the Old Testament prophets.

So let's have a brief look at this cardinal doctrine. Revelation 19:11-16 describes Jesus' return to the earth, and in these verses we can learn four very important things about how Jesus is coming back.

1. Jesus is coming as King.
Rev. 19:11 describes a Triumphal Entry, but this Triumphal Entry is rather different from the one to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. On Palm Sunday, Jesus rode in on a donkey, but at His return the description is of a war horse. And not just any warhorse, but a white one. In the book of Revelation, white is the colour of victory (see Rev. 2:17). So what we see, is Jesus who enters triumphantly, having already won the victory.

Not only has He won the victory, but He is wearing 'many crowns' (Rev. 19:12). In the New Testament there are two types of crown. One is the victor's crown, the wreath given as the prize to the winner in a competition (like our gold medal today). But this isn't the victor's crown; this is the diadem, the royal crown. So, yes, Jesus is triumphant and victorious, but He's coming as much more than a conquering hero; He's coming to reign as King!

And there's not just one crown upon His head, but 'many'. Jesus isn't just coming to reign in one kingdom of this earth, but to reign over the whole world. No earthly King can compare to Jesus. After all, He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Rev. 19:16).

2. Jesus is coming as God.
But there's something more to this King than simply His great power and authority, for this great, triumphant King is God Himself. Where do we see that in the text? Well, first of all, He's called Faithful and True (Rev. 19:11). Faithful is an important Old Testament description of the LORD. Deuteronomy 7:9 describes the LORD as 'the faithful God' (see also Ps. 31:5; Isa. 49:7; and in the New Testament, see 1 Cor. 10:13; 2 Cor. 1:18; 1 Thess. 5:24; 2 Thess. 3:3; Heb. 10:23; 1 Pet. 4:19). Deuteronomy also calls the LORD 'a God of truth' (Deut. 32:4), and when God reveals His name to Moses, part of it is 'abounding in goodness and truth' (Ex. 34:6). John 3:33 teaches us that 'God is true' (see also John 7:28; John 8:26). So, in the Bible the One who is Faithful and True is God Himself.

Jesus also has 'a name written that no one knew except Himself' (Rev. 19:12). If it's written, how can no one else know it? This again points us to the reality that this coming King is God Himself. You see, because Jesus is God we can't grasp everything about His infinite being. Only God can fully comprehend God. So, if we think we've completely grasped everything about Jesus with our finite minds, then we're putting some sort of limitations on the Infinite God.

Jesus is also called 'the Word of God' here (Rev. 19:13), and as John, the one who received this vision, well knew, 'the Word was God' (John 1:1).

It's also Jesus who expresses the 'wrath of Almighty God' (Rev. 19:15). Who can express the wrath of Almighty God? Only Almighty God Himself!

To see the third and fourth points you'll have to come back tomorrow...

Reforming the "Spirit Filled" Church (Part 2): Back to the Bible

2011-11-07T17:01:00.000Z

Pentecostals love the Bible. In a typical Pentecostal church you'll see many well-worn and well-marked up Bibles. We place emphasis on knowing the Scriptures, giving our children plenty of memory verses to learn and often singing songs that are simply direct quotations of Scripture. Pentecostals love the Bible.

Yet, it seems, sometimes our love of the Bible causes us to take it for granted. Sometimes there's very little Scripture read in our services. Sometimes those well-worn Bibles are carried to church, but don't need to be opened. Sometimes adults seem to think that all the memory verse learning was finished at the age of 11 when you left Sunday school.

That brings us J. Lee Grady's second reform proposal for the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement:

2. Let’s return to the Bible. The Word of God is the foundation for the Christian experience. Any dramatic experience, no matter how spiritual it seems, must be tested by the Word and the Holy Spirit’s discernment. Visions, dreams, prophecies and encounters with angels must be in line with Scripture. If we don’t test them we could end up spreading deception.

Grady's pointing to the problem of experience not being submitted to the authority of Scripture. In the first post in this series, I told the story of one of my former students and his confused ideas about the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Where did his problem come from? It came from placing a greater emphasis on experience than on Scripture. Instead of looking to what Scripture taught about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, he looked to the experience of 'feeling electricity' (which is nowhere mentioned in Scripture).

Unfortunately this isn't an isolated example. Now and again I hear Christians say that they don't obey certain commands of Scripture because 'the Holy Spirit hasn't spoken to me about that!' Well, I've got news for anyone who says that sort of thing: if it's in Scripture, the Holy Spirit has spoken to you about it, for it's the Holy Spirit who inspired the Bible!

If we're waiting for some sort of experience to tell us to follow what the Bible teaches, that means, in practice, we're denying the authority of Scripture. As Wayne Grudem has described it, the authority of Scripture means that 'all the words in Scripture are God's words in such a way that to disbelieve or disobey any word of Scripture is to disbelieve or disobey God.' (Bible Doctrine, p.480). So, if we reject what Scripture says until an experience of the Holy Spirit confirms it, then that simply means that we're rejecting the authority of Scripture: we're forgetting that they are the very words of God.

Instead, it should be the other way round. We don't test Scripture by our experience; we test our experience by Scripture. The Bible, which we know to be the Word of God, is our only sure guide to what God is doing. So, we can't tell people to expect to feel electricity when they're filled with the Holy Spirit, because the Bible doesn't say anything about it. When people start making strange noises or acting in disturbing ways, instead of throwing our hands in the air and rejoicing that the Holy Spirit is there, we should be saying 'Hold on a minute: is this at all Scriptural?'

You see, I think Grady's being overly cautious in his reform. Where he says, 'If we don't test them we could end up spreading deception', I'd change could to will. We might not end up spreading deception every time, but if the floodgates are left wide open by failing in our duty to test everything by submitting it to Scripture's authority, then, undoubtedly the bad, the false, and the dangerous will find its way through, for there will be nothing to stop it.

And if we're going to test everything by Scripture, we need to know Scripture. Know Scripture, not just know isolated Scriptures. We have a terrible habit of reading isolated bits of the Bible out of context. In one country, a Pentecostal pastor asked me if Ezekiel lived before or after David. Now, this man loved the Bible and preached it well. He knew the book of Ezekiel, and he knew the life of David, but he had no idea how the two related in the overall storyline of the Bible. That's what happens when we take a piecemeal approach to the Bible. And, when we can't see how the different parts fit together, then we miss the big picture!

How can we return to Scripture as Grady urges us to do? Well, one of the most practical ways would be to go back to expository preaching. Preach the Word! Don't use the Word to back up a sermon; use a sermon to open up the Word.

Grady's right. We need to get back to the Bible. Personal experience and pragmatism won't set us on a firm footing; only the very Word of God will.

(This post is part of a series interacting with J. Lee Grady's article 'It's (Past) Time for a Charismatic Reformation'. Here are the links to the previous posts in the series: Part 1, Part 1b.)

The Wonderful Exchange

2011-11-07T07:00:00.000Z

This is the wonderful exchange which, out of his measureless benevolence, he has made with us;
that, becoming Son of man with us,
he has made us sons of God with him;
that, by his descent to earth,
he has prepared an ascent to heaven for us;
that, by taking on our mortality,
he has conferred his immortality upon us;
that, accepting our weakness,
he has strengthened us by his power;
that, receiving our poverty unto himself,
he has transferred his wealth to us;
that, taking the weight of our iniquity upon himself (which oppressed us),
he has clothed us with his righteousness.

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, iv.xvii.3

Of Royals, Reformers, and Romans (Or Remember, Remember the Fifth of November!)

2011-11-05T14:32:00.001Z

Don't worry, this post isn't actually about the
finer points of the British constitution.

Nearly 500 years ago Luther, Bucer, Calvin, et al. wanted to reform the church. Nowadays Messrs Cameron, Harper, Key, et al. (not to forget Miss Gillard) want to reform the monarchy.

Last week the Commonwealth heads of government met (along with Her Majesty the Queen) in Australia, a realm with both a female monarch and a female Prime Minister. In fact, even the Governor-General of Australia (the Queen's representative in the realm) is a woman. So perhaps it was fitting that Australia be the place where the Commonwealth Realms agreed to introduce (and coordinate) legislation to change the royal succession so that daughters are treated in the same way as sons.

Yet, that wasn't the only change they agreed to the royal succession. The other change the Prime Ministers agreed was to remove the ban on a monarch married to a Roman Catholic.

A few years ago Autumn Kelly converted from Roman Catholicism to be received into the Anglican Communion. She had to convert before her wedding, as otherwise Peter Phillips would have had to renounce his right to the succession (despite being only 11th in line to the throne). In 1978 Prince Michael of Kent forfeited his right to the throne by marrying a Roman Catholic.

So what's the big deal about Royalty and Roman Catholics?

The last time a Roman Catholic sat upon the British throne (in those days 3 thrones, that of the Kingdom of England, that of the Kingdom of Scotland, and that of the Kingdom of Ireland), was during the reign of James II & VII, whose reign did not end well. It was in response to his reign that the Act of Settlement was introduced, which, among other things, barred Roman Catholics and those who married Roman Catholics from the throne.

But, I hear you say, the Jacobite Wars were a long time ago. What's it all got to do with the monarchy today?

Well, it all boils down to the Coronation Oath. When a British monarch is crowned he or she swears an oath, the last part of which is as follows:

Archbishop: Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England? And will you preserve unto the Bishops and Clergy of England, and to the Churches there committed to their charge, all such rights and privileges, as by law do or shall appertain to them or any of them

Queen: All this I promise to do.

Some of this is to do with the Queen being Supreme Governor of the Church of England, but not all. The Queen has sworn to maintain 'the true profession of the Gospel' and 'the Protestant Reformed Religion.' That's why the monarch can't be a Roman Catholic nor marry one.

Why not marry a Roman Catholic? Because the Catholic spouse in a mixed marriage must, by decree of the Roman Catholic Church (Ne Temere, 1908; Matrimonia Mixta, 1970), do everything in their power to have any children of the marriage baptized into and raised in Roman Catholicism. That would mean that a Catholic consort would by duty bound to raise any princes and princesses as good Catholics. Eventually one of those good Catholic princes would come the throne and have to promise to maintain 'the true profession of the Gospel' and 'the Protestant Reformed Religion'.

'But surely, after all these years', you protest, 'there's not all that much difference between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Reformed religion? Yes, we all know they have some odd ideas about Mary and their priests aren't allowed to get married, but surely that's not the be all and end all! Protestants and Catholics seem to have all sorts of causes in common. After all, it's the Roman Catholic Church that seems to be speaking out the loudest against the Scottish government's plans to bring in same-sex marriage, and evangelical Protestants would certainly be on the side of the Cardinal rather than the side of Mr Salmond.'

Well, yes, there are some things Catholics and Protestants agree on. But there are also many areas where we disagree, and not just about Mary and married ministers, but even more substantial things.

So let's 'remember, remember the fifth of November' by remembering the key difference between Roman Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism.

The big key difference between us is what we believe about salvation. How are we justified? It all comes down to two big words beginning with I. Infusion versus Imputation. The Roman Catholic Church teaches infusion, whilst we evangelical Protestants believe that the Bible teaches imputation.

So what on earth are infusion and imputation?

First Infusion. Think of your cup of tea, or, if you're too trendy for tea think of your cup of Rooibos or lemongrass and ginger infusion (you see, there's that word again), You put your teabag in the cup and then, as soon as the kettle boils, you pour in the boiling water. (Note to American or Belgian readers: you can't make tea with hot water, it needs to be boiling water! Although, strictly speaking, that bit has nothing to do with Justification.) Now, as the teabag sits in the boiling water, gradually the water turns into tea. By the time you come to drink it, you've got rid of the teabag, because it's not the presence of the teabag in the cup that makes it tea - it's tea in it's own right now without the teabag because the water has been changed.

Now, no doubt by this stage you're wondering if I've gone mad. What's the method for making tea got to do with the RCC and Justification? Sure, everyone knows you can't even get a decent cup of tea in Rome!

But, tea making shows us what infusion is. Infusion is all about gradually turning one thing into another. It isn't tea when the tea bag and boiling water first meet. It's only tea after the water has been infused with tea from the bag. It gradually becomes tea as it's properties change. And that's what the RCC teaches about justification. In Catholic dogma, a person becomes righteous gradually as they are changed; you are righteous as you actually become righteous. (Oh, and what's the tea bag? How is the righteousness supposed to get into people? Through keeping God's commands, confession and penance, and the sacraments.)

This is not what evangelical Protestants believe. Instead of Infusion, we believe in Imputation. This one doesn't involve any tea (because if you made tea by imputation, well frankly,it wouldn't be a very good cup of tea!). This one is more like the Prime Minister (no, I don't mean Mr Cameron, but Prime Ministers in general).

When we get a new Prime Minister, he has never led the country before. He has never demonstrated his ability to get bills through the House of Commons. He's never shown his incredibly diplomacy in meetings with the German Chancellor and the French President. He's never proven his capacity to lead the nation through times of crisis. One minute he's got no power whatsoever, then suddenly he kisses hands and, voila, he's the Prime Minister. And then, as a result of the Queen's declaration, he can now lead the Commons and lead the country. In other words, becoming Prime Minister doesn't depend on already being able to do the job, but just on a declaration (of the country in the General Election and then of the Queen). First he is declared Prime Minister, then he (hopefully) grows into the role; he becomes what he is.

That's sort of like imputation. Imputation means that something is declared to be ours when we don't have it. In justification Christ's righteousness is imputed to us. We're not righteous: we're sinners. But God declares us righteous by crediting Christ's righteousness to our account. Then, after we've been justified, we grow in righteousness; we become what we are.

For Rome then, salvation depends on God recognising a righteousness in us (the righteousness which is gradually infused into us). But in the Protestant faith, salvation doesn't depend on anything in us: salvation depends wholly on Christ and what He has done. God imputes to us what we don't have, and then, after saving us, goes about transforming us so that we become like Jesus.

This means that in Catholic teaching, justification depends partly on us, on our cooperation, for the righteousness that is gradually infused is 'according to each one's proper disposition and co-operation' (Council of Trent, Session 6, Ch. 7). But for Protestants, justification depends only on Jesus' blood and righteousness; God justifies us when we are still sinners, because Christ died for our sins.

And, in Protestant theology, we are justified by faith alone. But the RCC believes that 'the instrumental cause is the sacrament of baptism, which is the sacrament of faith, without which no man was ever justified' (Council of Trent, Session 6, Ch. 7).

So ultimately, the key difference between the Roman Catholic Church and evangelical Protestantism boils down to the question of how are we saved. Rome says that God saves us because, through Christ, He infuses righteousness into us and so helps us to become righteous. So, for Rome, we're saved because of something in us.

We Protestants on the other hand say that there is nothing in us that could lead to salvation. We're dead in trespasses and sins, but God acts for us. He does something outside of us to save us. So we're saved only because of what Jesus has done. Only because of His blood and righteousness which is imputed to us by faith alone.

P.S. This post was a friend's idea, but it might not be anything like he had in mind when he made the suggestion, so he can't be held responsible!

Reforming the "Spirit Filled" Church (Part 1b): A bit more on Reforming our Theology

2011-11-04T17:30:00.000Z

Well, this will do wonders for my PhD motivation!

Last year a friend and I went to an academic theological conference. It was an academic event held in a secular university, yet nearly everyone there was a Pentecostal or Charismatic (as the conference was to do with Pentecostal & Charismatic Studies). It's the only time I've ever seen the laying on of hands and prayer for healing during a session of an academic conference!

Yesterday we looked at how J. Lee Grady points to the need to reform our theology when it comes to the Holy Spirit. But today I want to take that reform further than Grady's suggestion. And that's what brings me back to the academic conference.

Now, let me just say that it was a conference I very much enjoyed. My thinking was stimulated. I had refreshing discussions with serious Pentecostal theologians from all over the world. In one day I talked about the liturgy over breakfast with a Singaporean theologian, discussed patristic Trinitarian theology over lunch with a Scandinavian mega-church pastor, and heard about postmodernism in the Swiss church from a fellow Apostolic at tea time. And the papers presented were helpful for my thought and motivating for my research. Some weren't only helpful, but fascinating. All in all, it was a good conference.

So what's it got to do with reforming our theology?

One event that particularly stands out from those few days was a question and answer session one evening. A well-known and careful Pentecostal theologian had delivered a paper in which he had made mention of the Trinity. This provoked a 'lively' question and answer session. The aforementioned theologian had dared speak of 'the monarchy of the Father', and quite a few of the other Pentecostal and Charismatic theologians and biblical scholars in the room were none too pleased.

Now, 'the monarchy of the Father' may not be an expression you hear too often in church on Sundays, but it's not a new and novel teaching. It's actually just a traditional way of expressing Nicene Trinitarianism (i.e. the doctrine of the Trinity we confess in the Nicene Creed). It has to do with the fact that the Father is neither begotten (like the Son is), nor does He proceed (as the Spirit does). Basically, the Father is the one who eternally begets the Son and eternally spirates the Spirit. This is orthodox Nicene Trinitarian theology.

Yet, this orthodox theology sparked a spirited backlash in a room full of Pentecostal and Charismatic scholars. But, not because of any biblical argument against its truth. No, apparently the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity leads to the creation of oppressive power structures and the oppression of women and minorities! That's what got people's backs up.

Pentecostal and Charismatic academic theology has reached a critical stage. Either it stands within the orthodox evangelical tradition and builds its theology upon Scripture, or it goes down another route that sees sociological arguments as being of greater authority for the formulation of doctrine. Only one of these paths leads to true theology, although the other may lead to a greater degree of academic responsibility.

For some reason, it seems that more and more Pentecostal and Charismatic academic theologians don't want to be thought of as Evangelicals. Perhaps they find Evangelical doctrines such as the inerrancy of Scripture restrictive or embarrassing in an academic context (which is odd, as Pentecostal theologians tend to teach at seminaries rather than secular universities). And yet, conservative Evangelicals who uphold inerrancy and the authority of Scripture for the doctrinal formulations seem to be thriving in the realm of academic theology.

We don't just need Pentecostal theologians, we need biblical Pentecostal theologians! We need theologians who will serve the Pentecostal and Charismatic churches by opening up the Word to them, not just academics who go to Pentecostal churches.

Douglas Oss, currently a professor at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary in Springfield, Missouri, was already beginning to warn of this danger over a decade ago. In Are Miraculous Gifts for Today?, he wrote:

The Pentecostal community should reaffirm its evangelical roots and commitments. There is an alarming trend today among some Pentecostals to seek out the approval of theological liberal and even unbelieving organizations, which in some cases has led to the compromise of cardinal doctrines. In these cases, the doctrine of the Word is especially under attack because of this craving for the approval of secular and liberal groups. This in turn has led some to reject mainstream formulations of inerrancy. This shift, mostly confined to scholars for the moment, has the potential for leading people to abandon historic Pentecostalism and turn instead to liberalism and mysticism.

The Pentecostal movement has always been a Bible-based movement, looking only to Scripture as the authority for our theology and experience. Furthermore, we have always been committed to the cardinal doctrines of evangelicalism. Now is not the time to abandon the biblical basis for our faith. Loosed from its moorings in Scripture, the Pentecostal movement will become a rudderless ship, driven by the winds of modernism and mysticism. Perhaps the lessons of the debates over biblical inerrancy among Presbyterians in the 1920s and 1930s, the stand of inerrantists in the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod during the early and middle 1970s, and the recent courage of the inerrantists in the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1980s and 1990s will provide the Pentecostal movement with practical guidance for the future.

(Douglas Oss, in Wayne Grudem, ed. Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? Four Views, p.316)

To that, all I can say is 'Hear, hear!'

(This post is one of a few I'm writing to interact with the proposals for reformation in the 'Spirit-filled' churches set out by J. Lee Grady in his article 'It's (Past) time for a Charismatic Reformation'. You can read my first post in the series here. Don't worry, I won't be so detailed about all of Grady's theses!)

Another Song for the Lord's Supper

2011-11-04T07:15:00.000Z

As a postscript to last week's post on songs for communion, here's one more.

Zac Hicks has taken a communion hymn written by Joseph Hart in the 1750s and transformed it into a contemporary worship song on his new album, Without Our Aid. It's a great album, the aim of which

'is to combine the energy and vitality of the modern worship sound (made most popular by groups like Passion and Hillsong), with the depth, theology, and historical connectedness of Christian hymnody across time.'

Lord I Believe is a communion hymn that includes both our feeding on Christ and the meaning of the Cross. Here are the last two verses:

I eat the bread and drink the wine,

But, O, my soul wants more than sign!

I faint unless I feed on Thee,

And drink the blood as shed for me.

For sinners, Lord, Thou cam’st to bleed,

And I’m a sinner vile, indeed.

Lord, I believe Thy grace is free.

O magnify that grace in me.

The MP3 is available for free from Justin Taylor's site, and you can get the lead sheet and chord chart from Zac Hicks' site. Check out the rest of the album too on Bandcamp.

Reforming the "Spirit Filled Church"(Part 1): Reforming our Theology

2011-11-03T17:00:00.000Z

Martin Luther wasn't able to blog.

Earlier this week I recommended J. Lee Grady's article 'It's (Past) Time for a Charismatic Reformation' from Charisma. If you're Pentecostal or Charismatic and haven't read Grady's article yet, then please do: he's saying things that need to be said.

In Grady's own words:

'I am no Luther, but I’ve grown increasingly aware that the so-called “Spirit-filled” church of today struggles with many of the same things the Catholic church faced in the 1500s. We don’t have “indulgences”—we have telethons. We don’t have popes—we have super-apostles. We don’t support an untouchable priesthood—we throw our money at celebrity evangelists who own fleets of private jets.
In honor of Reformation Day, I’m offering my own list of needed reforms in our movement. And since I can’t hammer these on the Wittenberg door, I’ll post them online. Feel free to nail them everywhere.'

Like Luther, I'm sure Grady isn't just nailing his theses to the door for decorative purposes: these reforms aren't just to be looked at, but to be discussed, debated, and implemented. So discussing and interacting with them is exactly what I propose to do.

So, let's look at Grady's first thesis:-

1. Let’s reform our theology. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. He is God and He is holy. He is not an “it.” He is not a blob, a force, or an innate power. We must stop manipulating Him, commanding Him and throwing Him around.

Sadly, Pentecostals and Charismatics aren't well-known in the wider evangelical world for our great theology. That's not to say we don't have some great theology and some careful theologians, but, alas, there's also an awful lot of wierd and wacky 'theology' to be found in the charismatic camp. I never cease to be amazed at how often I encounter people who don't seem to understand fundamental doctrines like Justification, the Incarnation or the Trinity, yet who can give me amazingly detailed explanations of how to engage in spiritual warfare against territorial spirits or how to command the Spirit's power!

Once when I was teaching the book of Acts to a first year class at seminary one of my students got rather agitated. I wasn't quite sure why, as I didn't think I'd said anything in the least way controversial. But the student was clearly in strong disagreement with what I was teaching.

So why was he so upset? Well, simply because I had said you had to be a Christian to be baptised in the Holy Spirit! 'No, no, no!', he insisted, 'non-Christians can be baptised in the Spirit too.' Unsure about exactly what he meant, I went on to speak about how, yes, it was possible for someone to be saved and baptised in the Spirit at the same time (as we see clearly from the example of Cornelius and his household in Acts 10 & 11). But, 'no, no, no'; that wasn't what he meant at all. My student insisted you could be baptised in the Spirit and still stay unsaved!

'Why do you say that?', I asked as calmly as possible (or words to that effect, as it wasn't an English-speaking class). 'Because I've seen it happen', he replied, and told me of non-Christians visiting his church in his home country, 'being baptised in the Spirit', and then going back out to continue in their disbelief. 'What makes you think that what happened to them was the baptism in the Holy Spirit?', I inquired. The answer: 'because they felt electricity!'

This is one particularly extreme instance, but yet the basic principle is seen over and over again; rather than a doctrine of the Holy Spirit built upon the Word, the Holy Spirit gets downgraded into some sort of religious electric shock. Instead of looking at, and responding to, the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity, equal in power and glory with the Father and the Son, He gets treated as some sort of spiritual force.

And as a result, rather than submitting to Him, people command Him. Rather than humbly following Him, people try to throw Him around. Rather than allowing Him to transform and use us, people try to manipulate Him.

We need to recover the very basics of theology: who our God is, what He's like, and what He likes.

Justification & the Possibility of Falling from Grace

2011-11-02T23:59:00.000Z

Falling from grace is more serious!

Justification is the doctrine ‘upon which the Churchstands or falls.’ So we can't allowourselves to compromise our doctrine of justification in order to overemphasise another doctrine. Unfortunately, this is sometimes what happens with the doctrine of the possibility of falling from grace. Occasionally this doctrine isoveremphasised in a way which distorts the Bible’s teaching on the subject andwhich does damage to the doctrine of justification. This can happen when it is taught that sincauses believers to lose their salvation. The biblical teaching is that believers are simil iustus et peccator(justified and sinful at the same time); in the words of 1 John 1:8, ‘if we saythat we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.’ Thus believers sin and will continue to sinthroughout their earthly lives. Ourcontinuance in a state of having been justified does not depend on us orour works, but rather on Christ and His work. If our sin could make us lose our salvation,that would make salvation dependent on us, not Christ. It is just such thinking that Paul teaches tobe the cause of falling from grace in Galatians 5:4. Confusing the sins of believers with fallingfrom grace threatens the doctrine of justification and, ironically, begins totake us down the path which actually leads to falling from grace.

Theremedy for such a distortion of the doctrine is a close focus on what the Bibleactually teaches about falling from grace. In the New Testament, it isnot sin which causes one to fall from grace, but rather apostasy. It's ceasingto have faith in Christ and His work alone for salvation that causes one tofall. After all, if salvation is foundin Christ alone, those who stop looking to Christ alone for salvation cannotexpect to remain in it.

Therelationship between justification and falling from grace can also help us tounderstand another aspect of this doctrine. Hebrews 6:4-6 clearly teaches that it is ‘impossible’ for those who fallfrom grace to be renewed ‘again to repentance’. Apostasy cannot be remedied; it is a one time change of state. Therefore it isn't possible to fall fromgrace and ‘come back to the Lord’ over and over again. This will help us to see that, each time wesin, we do not lose our salvation, even momentarily. The loss of salvation is a result of aconscious rejection of Christ and His atoning work for salvation. This is related to the doctrine ofjustification. In justification Christ’srighteousness is imputed to us and so all our sins, past, present and future,are forgiven. Justification is aone-time declaration, not a continuous or repeated event. Thus, when we sin, we are still justified(although this is no excuse for continuing in sin). Just as justification is a one-off event, sois apostasy. Apostasy then, althoughpossible, is not something that we should expect to see regularly. Christ is more than sufficient to keep usunited to Him.

And you, who once werealienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His fleshthrough death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in Hissight— if indeed you continue in thefaith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of thegospel which you heard (Colossians 1:21-23).

Reformation Day Round-up

2011-11-01T21:25:00.000Z

494 years ago yesterday, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the castle church door in Wittenberg. He had no idea at the time, but that was to be the beginning of something big. Luther's announcement of a debate ended up sparking the Reformation, which is why the 31st October is remembered as Reformation Day.

Rather than retell the story yesterday, I thought I'd wait until today and point you in the direction of some of the good things that have been written elsewhere to mark Reformation Day this year (with a few comments thrown in along the way).

The Reformation isn't just history. It's lessons still need to be applied today. And for three good ways to apply some lessons of the Reformation today, have a look at 3 Ways to make the Reformers proud (Clint Archer, The Cripplegate). Here's a quick summary (but this is just to make you want to read the original!):-

1. Read more Bible than blogs! After all, the Reformation was all about getting back to the Bible rather than what people say about the Bible. (I like the bit where he says 'If you quoted Calvin in a debate on Election, he would slap you.')

2. Use your Latin! - Sounds strange, but it's actually got nothing to do with a dead language. A few extracts to clarify:-

'Well, not actual Latin. What I mean is that we should be familiar with whatever medium or forum in which doctrine is currently discussed.'

'Today, there is no way anyone with a modem or smartphone can plead ignorance. To be in the dark today is a matter of negligent stewardship.'

'Make sure you are not unplugged from the matrix of theological understanding due to laziness.'

3. Don't go back to Rome! Evangelicals seem to be more and more forgetful of what our differences with the Roman Catholic Church are. Archer encourages us to read what Rome actually teaches, see how far off it really is. 'It will make you love Jesus more, and it will make you run far from Rome on your way to the cross in gratitude for grace by faith alone.'

A must read for Pentecostals and Charismatics is a list of needed reforms for the charismatic movement (J. Lee Grady, Charisma). Inspired by Luther's list of needed reforms, Grady points to some of the abuses that seem more and more prominent within certain charismatic circles (which are, unfortunately, probably the most visible charismatic circles). But his points aren't simply pot-shots at disgraced/disgraceful tele-evangelists, but actually widespread issues that need to be faced head-on. He has 15 demands,all with brief explanations. I'll just tell you what the first few are to whet your appetite, but you'll have to read the article to see the explanations and the rest of the list.

1. Let’s reform our theology. 2. Let’s return to the Bible. 3. It’s time for personal responsibility. 4. Stop playing games. 5. Stop the foolishness. 6. End all spiritual extortion now...

I think I'll do a bit of interacting with Grady's reforms later in the week.

Carl Trueman has pointed out the insight from the Reformation that's been largely forgotten today. Focusing on Luther's concept of being a theologian of the cross, Trueman warns that 'A person's theology, whether true or false, good or bad, is inseparable from the individual's personal faith.'
And here's his application to the contemporary church:-

'At this Reformation season, we should not reduce the insights of Luther simply to justification by grace through faith. In fact, this insight is itself inseparable from the notion of that of the theologians of the cross. Sad to say, it is often hard to discern where these theologians of the cross are to be found. Yes, many talk about the cross, but the cultural norms of many churches seem no different to the cultural norms of -- well, the culture. They often indicate an attitude to power and influence that sees these things as directly related to size, market share, consumerist packaging, aesthetics, youth culture, media appearances, swagger and the all-round noise and pyrotechnics we associate with modern cinema rather than New Testament Christianity.'

Finally, Matthew Barrett gives a warning (at the Gospel Coalition): Abandon the Reformation, Abandon the Gospel. Barrett's article gives a brief history of the beginning of the Reformation, highlights the key issues and shows how important they are for us today. 'It is not about Luther; it is about the Gospel.'

And, after reading all those articles, here's a contemporary worship song that focuses on the 5 solas of the Reformation:
Sola, by Zac Hicks

Soli Deo Gloria!

What is Sin?

2011-10-31T06:30:00.000Z

Eating apples isn't necessarily sinful.

If there's one thing we all know about sin, it's that it isn't good. But what exactly is it? The closest we get to a one verse answer in the Bible is that 'sin is lawlessness' (1 John 3:4).

So, does that mean sin is committing crimes? Does that mean sin is really bad stuff like the looting and rioting that went on during the summer?

A 'yes' answer would come as a relief to most of us. After all, we're not criminals. We even disapprove of the criminal behaviour we hear about on the news. Yet the Bible tells us that 'all have sinned' (Rom. 3:23). How can it be?

It can be, because the law we're talking about when we talk about sin isn't the law of the United Kingdom (or whatever country you happen to be sitting in), but rather, God's law. That means sin isn't just the serious crimes we hear about on the six o'clock news; sin is anything that goes against what God has said.

And God has said things like 'Honour your father and your mother' (Ex. 20:12), so when we rebel against and disrespect our parents, it's sin. God has said 'You shall not covet your neighbour's house' (Ex. 20:17), so when we get jealous of the Jones' conservatory or new carpet, it's sin.

Sin isn't just doing what we think of as the 'serious stuff'.

And sin isn't even just doing stuff.

The Puritans defined sin in the Westminster Shorter Catechism as 'any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.' Doing stuff that's against God's law is what they meant by transgression. But that's only half their definition. The other half's about not conforming to what God wants: not measuring up to His standard. In other words it's about the things we don't do. Sin isn't just doing stuff, it's not doing stuff as well!

Sin is when we do what God doesn't want us to do, and sin is when we don't do what God does want us to do. But, it's not just about our actions, but our attitudes and feelings and desires and even are nature. Sin is when we aren't the way God wants us to be, and sin is when we are the way God doesn't want us to be. As Wayne Grudem sums it up, 'sin is any failure to conform to the moral law of God, in act, attitude or nature.' (Grudem, Systematic Theology).

So, 'sin is lawlessness', and sin is deadly. But 'Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners' (1 Tim. 1:15) and has 'put away sin by the sacrifice of himself' (Heb. 9:26).

Jesus lived for me

2011-10-28T22:27:00.002+01:00

A living lamb. This one might have
spots and blemishes, but the Lamb
of God didn't.

Christ’s sinless life is of the utmost importance for oursalvation. Heneeded to be sinless in order for His sacrifice to be acceptable on ourbehalf. He could only bear our sinsbecause He had none of His own. Indeed,we ‘were not redeemed withcorruptible things, like silver or gold, … but with the precious bloodof Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot’ (I Pet 1:18-19).

However, this is not the only significance ofChrist’s sinlessness for our salvation. Christ’s sinless blood, shed for us, secures the forgiveness of oursins. Yet this only brings us back tothe state of Adam and Eve at the beginning in the Garden of Eden. At that time they didn't have eternal life. They would have had to continue in obedienceto God (keep His covenant) in order to be established in righteousness andreceive eternal life. Yet Christ, likeAdam, is our covenantal representative. As such, He not only died our death, but also obeyed God fully andperfectly on our behalf. This is the activeobedience of Christ; His perfect observance of all God’s law. Christ’s active obedience plays a hugelyimportant role in our salvation, for it's because of His active obediencethat we can have His perfect righteousness imputed to us in justification. Romans 5:19 sums this up: ‘by one Man’sobedience many will be made righteous.’ That means, not only did Jesus die for me: He lived for me too!

One Cup

2011-10-27T23:43:00.000+01:00

'Again, there is to be one cup, just as there is one loaf. The church is one body, for Christ is not divided into one hundred or more fragments.'

Robert Letham, The Lord's Supper: Eternal Word in Broken Bread (Philipsburg: P&R, 2001), p. 42

'As we share the same cup, we realise that we have an equal share, a common interest in the same Saviour. We realise that we are all on the same level - just sinners saved by grace. There is a greater unity and sense of oneness.'

Edwin Williams, 'The Lord's Supper', Riches of Grace, vii 5 (May 1932), p.214

Missing Verses and Theology

2011-10-26T06:30:00.000+01:00

Long mine imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound by sin and nature's night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light:
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

So goes the fourth verse of Charles Wesley's well-loved hymn And Can It Be. Or at least so it goes if you live in the UK, for one day I was leafing through the hymnbook of a certain American Pentecostal denomination which happened to be lying around at work (yes, it's true, that is the sort of place I used to work) only to find that their version of And Can It Be only has 3 verses (as opposed to the traditional 5) and that this particular verse is one of those missing.

As this is one of the greatest of all hymns, and this verse is a great verse in its own right, I've been wondering why it's missing from aforementioned American hymnal. As I see it, there are two possible reasons (okay, I admit there are in fact more possibilities, but these are the two big ones): either it's missing for cultural reasons or theological ones. As America is a different country on a completely different continent with a vastly different culture, one cannot ignore the possibility that some unknown aspect of American culture has resulted in the deletion of some great theology from the hymnal. However, the compilers of hymnbooks are (or at least were - the book in question dates from the 60s and shows no hesitation over copious quantities of thees and thous) generally more interested in theological criteria then cultural ones when deciding what to include and what to omit.

So is there a theological difference between British Pentecostals and their American counterparts when it comes to the fourth verse of And Can It Be? It does speak very strongly of the utter depravity of human nature, but is that something that some Pentecostals don't accept? With that in mind I had a look at a few Pentecostal statements of faith and found that, while they all speak of the fall and man's sinfulness, it is only the Apostolic Church which explicitly affirms the doctrine of utter depravity. That's not to say that the doctrine is denied by other Pentecostals, but it does seem to be one they don't deem essential.

Songs for the Lord's Supper

2011-10-25T21:35:00.000+01:00

When it comes to songs for the Lord's Supper, maybe I'm a bit picky. What I don't want are songs that just focus on remembrance. Why not? Well, for two reasons:

The Lord's Supper is about more than just remembrance! In the Supper we feed on Christ in our hearts with thanksgiving. People often have a tendency to revert to a functional Zwinglianism, so I don't want songs that would reinforce that. Instead I want our singing to remind us that in the sacrament, those who receive in faith, partake of Christ and all His benefits.
Remembrance isn't about remembering to remember - it's about remembering what Christ accomplished through His death. Some worship songs for communion make much of the act of remembering, but then skim over the details of the gospel we're supposed to be remembering. When we remember and proclaim the Lord's death, we're remembering and proclaiming the fact that Christ bore the full weight of God's wrath for our sins on the Cross. We remember that it was us who deserved to die, and yet through His death we have life. So the remembrance and proclamation should be focused on what Christ accomplished at the Cross.

Here are some songs that fit into one or both of my points above:

You have fed us. Lead Sheet.. By Trinity Worship. A very simple song of worship and thanksgiving for the sacrament. The official title is Prayer of St Thomas Aquinas, but don't let that put you off! It's got nothing to do with Aquinas' particular theology of the Eucharist, but is simply based on a prayer of thanksgiving that he wrote for after communion.

You, You have fed us,

with the body

And the blood of Your son

While we, we were sinners,

and unworthy

Of the mercy You've shown

Thank You, thank You

For saving us, for saving us

Thank You, thank You

For saving us, for saving us

Communion Hymn (Behold the Lamb) by Stuart Townend and Keith Getty. Words.

Being a Townend and Getty hymn I suppose this one's probably quite well known in the UK (although I can't say I've ever been in a service where it's been sung).

This one speaks of remembrance, but goes further to speak of what Christ has accomplished ('the wounds that heal, the death that brings us life') and of our partaking of Christ ('so we share in this bread of life/ and we drink of His sacrifice').

Here, O My Lord, I see Thee face to face. Horatius Bonar. Words.

An old one and a good one. The video is of the normal tune (St Agnes, Langran) in a contemporary style. Wayne Grudem says that this is 'one of the greatest hymns ever written regarding this doctrine' (Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 1001) and he's not exaggerating. In fact, it's not only one of the greatest hymns, but one of the greatest songs of any type on the Lord's Supper.

Like Behold the Lamb, this one takes in both the Spiritual Presence and the meaning of what Christ accomplished at the Cross ('Mine was the sin, but Thine the righteousness, Mine was the guilt, but Thine the cleansing blood/ Here is my robe, my refuge and my peace/ Thy blood and righteousness, O Lord my God.')

Bonar even uses the last verse to point to the eschatological significance of the Lord's Supper as a foretaste of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.

Jesus, Thank You. Pat Sczebel (Sovereign Grace Music). Lyrics.

This one is focused on the Gospel. The words are very clear about what happened at the Cross ('Your blood has washed away my sin/Jesus, thank You/The Father’s wrath completely satisfied/Jesus, thank You'), and the fact that it's only because of the Cross that we are now seated at His Table.

Come to the Table of Mercy. Claire Cloninger & Martin J. Nystrom.
Another good chorus that presents our feeding on Christ by faith ('come and your souls will be fed ... eat of the bread of salvation/ drink of the blood of the Lamb'). Although it's only a short chorus, it nicely reminds us that it's not our work of remembrance that's key to the sacrament, but Christ's feeding us ('receive from His nail-scarred hands'). It also has a simple melody. We introduced this one in church a few weeks ago and it was well received.

Q.96 What is the Lord's Supper. Audio. Leadsheet.
This one isn't really a worship song, but it is a song about the Lord's Supper. It's Question 96 from the Westminster Shorter Catechism which teaches what the Lord's Supper is.

Here's an older post with some more Communion songs.
And if you want to know more about the meaning of the Lord's Supper, here are four short posts on the Apostolic theology of the Breaking of Bread. (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4).

How to receive God's love

2011-10-20T21:25:00.003+01:00

'The receiving of it is the believing of it. God has so fully, so eminently revealed his love, that it may be received by faith.'

John Owen, Communion with the Triune God, p.111

Answering Society's Questions about Homosexuality

2011-10-19T07:16:00.000+01:00

More and more attention is being focused by the media on Christian attitudes toward homosexuality. And that means that it's not only journalists asking Christian leaders questions, but increasingly we're all being asked about this issue as we attempt to take the truth of the gospel to an unbelieving world.

Tolerance is one of the most prized values in our society today. Christians, however, are routinely portrayed as intolerant. As a result many people don't even want to give a hearing to the Christian message, for intolerance is, after all, one of our societies biggest 'sins'.

Trevin Wax has written up how he wishes a TV interview of a pastor on the subject of homosexuality would go. In it he gets across that its not about Christians being intolerant (in fact, he turns the tables on the interviewer, pointing out how society can be intolerant of Christian beliefs). He articulates well that Christians are not singling out one sin, but calling all sinners (including ourselves) to a life of repentance.

Trevin's imaginary interview looks at and responds to all the questions on this issue that come up again and again as we try to engage in evangelism. So, it's well worth a read to see an example of how to respond graciously, all the while bringing the focus back to the gospel.

And Can it Be

2011-10-18T17:18:00.000+01:00

And Can it Be is one of my favourite hymns. There are few worship songs of any age that can compare to its celebration of the gospel and wonder at the grace of Christ.

It's been re-hymned a few times and I've always been disappointed at the results. Sagina (the hymn tune its normally sung to) has some quality that sets it apart; it doesn't sound like other hymns, and so it draws attention the great lyrics. There are so many great hymns with terrible tunes that could do with re-hymning, why not do something for them instead?

So, when I saw a few months ago that Phatfish were going to be releasing a new re-hymning of And Can it Be on their latest album, I wan't all that enthused. But I was wrong. Today I heard it. It's beautiful, contemplative, and draws fresh attention to the words, and thus to the wonders of the gospel.

So, here it is. Enjoy. Worship. And survey the wonders of the Cross.

Do Benedict and Rowan have a point?

2011-10-17T23:47:00.000+01:00

The Bishop of Rome recently divulged his thoughts concerning the growth of Pentecostal and Evangelical Christianity around the world:

'Faced with a new form of Christianity, which is spreading with overpowering missionary dynamism, sometimes in frightening ways, the mainstream Christian denominations often seem at a loss. This is a form of Christianity with little institutional depth, little rationality and even less dogmatic content, and with little stability. This worldwide phenomenon . . . poses a question to us all: what is this new form of Christianity saying to us, for better and for worse?'

Benedict XVI, Erfuhrt, Germany, 23rd September, 2011

Benedict admits the 'missionary dynamism' of what he looks at as 'a new form of Christianity', yet he goes on to bring a major critique.

His Anglican counterpart in Canterbury has also given his view of Evangelicalism:

'It is something that I think became very important to me at one or two points when I needed it as a kind of corrective to what can be a slightly precious and elitist anglo-catholicism. Sometimes you just need to sing Blessed Assurance and hit a tambourine. You just need to know that there is something profoundly simple about what an evangelical would rightly call a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and that nothing substitutes for that.'

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury,cited by Gary Williams

Both the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury critique evangelicalism for being too simple. Rowan Williams might be trying to say something nice about evangelicals, but at the same time it seems that it's too simple to substitute for his anglo-catholicism. 'Sometimes' is the key word. Benedict (as ever) is much more direct in his critique: pentecostalism and evangelicalism are, in his view, 'a form of Christianity with little institutional depth, little rationality and even less dogmatic content, and with little stability.' To sum them both up, we evangelicals are just too simplistic.

The question is, though, do Benedict and Rowan have a point?

It would be hard argue that there aren't plenty of examples of 'little institutional depth, little rationality and even less dogmatic content, and with little stability' within the evangelical world. The concept of schism has been virtually excised from our collective memory. It almost seems that these days anyone can start their own church or denomination, or appoint themselves pastor, archbishop or apostle. And ecclesiastical empires can be built around a man. Surely that's evidence enough of a lack of institutional depth.

As for lack of stability, how often do fads not come and go? How often do we not leap from one latest thing to the other? How often are we not told that God is doing a new thing? And the lack of dogmatic content is regularly seen when the popularity of a preacher is more important than whether or not he believes in the Trinity; when statements of faith make much of prosperity and nothing of the Atonement; when preachers proclaim the American dream rather than Christ crucified.

Yet, this isn't the whole of evangelicalism. It isn't even representative. This is the fringe. And even Catholicism, both of the Roman and Anglo varieties, has its unrepresentative fringe. (Yes, unrepresentative was the most charitable word I could think of.)

True evangelicalism is full of dogmatic content, for true evangelicalism is rooted in the Evangel. The Evangel, the Gospel, is, after all, the very heart of Christian dogma. And that evangelical dogma isn't limited to a simplistic concept of a 'personal relationship with Jesus'; rather such language is shorthand for being united to Christ in His death and resurrection by His Holy Spirit, who works faith in us and so having the sinless life and atoning death of Jesus Christ credited to our account, being received as sons of God by adoption, and being conformed more and more to the image of Christ. Even that's just the briefest of summaries. True evangelicalism has profound dogmatic depths.

And dogmatic depth brings with it stability. Christ has given gifts of men to His Church 'till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting' (Eph. 4:13-14). It is growth into the unity of the faith that brings stability.

Institutional depth isn't beyond us either. While we may not see (nor would we wish to) the complexity of institution of the Roman Church, true evangelicals have, since the Reformation, held that the visible church is known where the Word is rightly preached, the sacraments rightly administered and church discipline duly exercised. The last of these three marks particularly guards against the perpetual schism and the ecclesial empires of the 'unrepresentative' fringe. Evangelical belief doesn't necessitate independency.

So do Benedict and Rowan have a point? Yes and No. Yes, there are all too many examples of what they lament. But no, that's not true of all evangelicals, nor should it be. No, that's not the heart of evangelicalism. No, that's not the necessary implication of what we believe.

The gospel is a simple message. Faith in Jesus is a simple trust. But none of it is simplistic.

The challenge for us as evangelicals and pentecostals in the world today is not to drift off to the fringe. Not to allow pragmatism to invade and transform us into something overly simplistic. But rather to wade deeper into the depths of the dogma, to dive into the profundities of the gospel, to 'read, mark, learn and inwardly digest' the Word of God in all its fullness.

Tambourines and Blessed Assurance aren't the content and extent of our evangelical faith. They're simply the unburdened expression of the joy that the depths of the Gospel brings.

Why we still need church government in a 'post-denominational' age: A Biblical case for Council

2011-10-14T19:59:00.000+01:00

The Council of Nicea. (You can tell it's not
a picture of last year's May Council
because we don't wear hats.)

We live in an increasingly post-denominational world. Independent churches and loosely affiliated networks abound. 'Surely that's the way of the future', it might seem. But, there is one argument that can turn our attention away from what seems to be in vogue: the New Testament demonstrates a church government that doesn't stop at the doors of the local church.

One way in which the New Testament shows church government going beyond the local is in the concept of Council. The word Council isn't actually used, but the concept is certainly there.

The major biblical example of Council, is the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15. The Jerusalem Council was held to decide upon an important matter of doctrine. Yet the actual manner of the convening of the Council is worth noting. Paul and Barnabas didn’t go up to Jerusalem for Council because it was May. (We don’t know what month it was.) They went up because there was a matter to be resolved. There was a major problem to be settled in the life of the church, and the response was to send up the local apostles to meet with the rest of the apostleship in order to resolve the matter. It was recognised that this wasn't something that could be decided locally; it was a matter of doctrine, of the one faith, and so any decision had to be made for the whole church. So it was necessary for a central decision to be made.

In fact the decision made at the Jerusalem Council didn’t only relate to doctrine, but also to the direction of the Church’s mission. (The two have a tendency to go hand in hand.) Again, this was an important matter to decide centrally, for it wasn’t about the outreach strategy of a local assembly, but rather, about the direction the outreach of the whole Church was going to take. So there is a biblical model for Council to make decisions relating both to doctrine and mission.

However, the Jerusalem Council is not the only biblical model that applies to our Council. Acts 13:1-3 has always been a popular passage in Apostolic ecclesiology. When we consider this verse it’s normally to show a biblical example of calls coming through the prophet. Yet, these verses also give us an example of a Council: it was a gathering made up of Ascension Ministers. There’s no reason given for this Council; no important decision to be made like at the later Jerusalem Council. All we are told is that they ‘were worshipping the Lord and fasting’ (v.2). It seems the purpose of their gathering was to seek God and His direction. And the result of that Council was two men called to the apostleship and a major turning point in the outreach of the Church (not just the local assembly).

A final biblical model concerning Council is found in the book of Galatians. In Galatians 2:1-10 Paul recounts a visit he made to the apostles in Jerusalem which isn’t recorded in the book of Acts. On this trip the apostles in Jerusalem ‘perceived the grace that had been given to [Paul]’ and gave both him and Barnabas ‘the right hand of fellowship’ (v.9). Paul isn’t writing here about becoming a member of the church (this is ‘after fourteen years’, v.1), but about the recognition of his and Barnabas’ ministry by the apostleship. What ministry is being recognised? Verse 8 shows that this is the recognition of Paul and Barnabas’ apostleship. So, it would seem that Paul and Barnabas were called as apostles through a prophet in Antioch. As at this stage in the history of the church there weren’t yet any apostles outside of Jerusalem, they were ordained by the Ascension Ministers who were there (the prophets and teachers), yet the newly called apostles still travelled to Jerusalem at the first opportunity to receive recognition of their ministry by the Church from the apostleship.

So what does this meeting in Galatians 2 teach us about Council? Well, it shows that Council, or a group of apostles delegated by Council (in that context James, Peter and John; in our context perhaps MAB or the NLT), can recognise calls to ministries.

So to conclude our consideration of Council, the Biblical models for Council show its role in doctrinal decisions, direction in mission, seeking God and His direction, calls to Ascension ministries, major changes, and recognition of calls which came elsewhere.

Nigerian Gospel Treasure

2011-10-13T23:09:00.000+01:00

The city of Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria.
This is where Pastor Philip Olowo is from.

The imputation of Christ's righteousness. That's what the Nigerian pastor spoke about. He extolled the virtues of Christ's active obedience, made sure his listeners were clear on the truth of justification by faith alone, and came back again to the theme of the imputation of Christ's righteousness. Throughout the evening he reminded his listeners of what Jesus did for us at the Cross and encouraged them to walk in the Spirit. And he prayed; godly prayers, biblical prayers. I remember it well, for it was just last night and I was sitting right beside him.

A few months ago, Conrad Mbewe, a faithful, sound, gospel-preaching, Zambian pastor wrote a warning about Nigerian religious junk. Later D.A. Carson interviewed him about it at the Gospel Coalition. (Mbewe is actually very clear in both his article and the interview, however, that Nigeria isn't actually the country of origin for these problems, but rather the USA. He simply identifies Nigeria as the place where the 'prosperity gospel' became Africanised and then re-exported to other African countries.)

I understand what Mbewe was getting at, and even, to some extent, share his concern. After all, as Nigerian Christianity becomes more and more prominent in the UK, we're seeing exactly the type of 'ministries' of which Mbewe warns. But that is only one end of the spectrum of Nigerian Christianity and we shouldn't allow all Nigerian Christians to end up being accidentally tarred with the same feather.

Last night I saw the other end of the spectrum as I listened to Pastor Philip Olowo as he graciously took part in the discussions in our East Leeds Connect Group. In fact, every week when I go to Connect in East Leeds I see the same thing (even though Pastor Olowo isn't normally there - he's only in the UK on holiday), as I'm the only non-Nigerian in that group. About a quarter of all the families in our assembly are Nigerian and sometimes they can make up half the congregation on a Lord's Day morning.That's one of the great things about pastoring the Leeds assembly: it's a truly multi-cultural church, where the various cultures and nationalities have all been made one in Christ through His Cross. Sure, there are cultural differences and even misunderstandings at times, but Christ is what keeps us together. Jesus is much more important than a few cultural differences!

I don't have a TV, so the only reason that I know about some of the religious junk out there at the moment is because the Nigerians (and other Africans) in the flock which God has entrusted to my care have shown it to me in order to warn me about it. These Nigerians know the Gospel, and so they know a false and dangerous counterfeit when they see it.

I've never been to Nigeria itself, but I've heard a lot about it from those who have; from some who were born and grew up there, from some who spent large parts of their lives there as missionaries, and from some who've visited a few times. And what I've heard about it seems much closer to Pastor Olowo and the Nigerians in the Leeds assembly than it does to the reports of religious junk.

I suppose most Apostolics have heard stories about Nigeria. We've had so many missionaries who have served there. And the fruit of their service has been phenomenal with over 4.5 million members in the Apostolic Church in Nigeria. In fact, I'm sure that statistic is long out of date, for the Nigerian church is not only big, but also very fast growing.

Pastor Olowo's sister-in-law is a deaconess in the Leeds assembly. She tells me the story of how she and her late husband were involved in planting a new assembly. They evangelised and the newly-planted assembly planted out enough new assemblies to become a district. Last year when she went home to Nigeria for a holiday she saw that so many assemblies had now been planted out of that district that it had grown into an Area (and apparently they're much more strict about the criteria for districts and Areas in Nigeria; if I remember right she told me a district is 5-8 assemblies and an Area is 5-8 districts, so at the very least that one assembly they helped plant has now become 25 assemblies - fast growing indeed!). This is the sort of story I hear from Nigeria: stories about evangelism, about gospel-peaching and about church-planting. They're good stories of how God is working through His Word and Spirit. And then when I meet the sort of men who are pastoring these assemblies, what do they talk about? - the imputation of Christ's righteousness! No wonder the assemblies are growing and multiplying, for the Gospel is being preached in all its fullness.

Now, I have no illusions - I'm certain that Nigeria isn't heaven on earth. I'm sure that even the Apostolic assemblies have their problems. But I'm also certain that there's a lot more to the Nigerian Christian world than the 'Nigerian religious junk'. There's also a lot of Nigerian Gospel treasure, and for that I give thanks and glory to Christ who is building His Church in Nigeria as well.

Sam Storms on the Gifts of the Spirit

2011-10-12T07:00:00.000+01:00

I saw this book a long time ago in a Christian bookshop and promptly ignored it. You see, despite what they say, I do tend to judge a book by its cover. However, on that occasion, to do so was a mistake.

Now, I've sought out the book. And again, I suppose, its due to the cover. Or at least, due to two words on the cover: Sam Storms. The difference now is that I've encountered Sam Storms' writing on other subjects. Storms is a careful theologian, and so any book he writes is going to look carefully at Scripture. And, Sam Storms is also a good writer; he can take theology and make it understandable and readable (for alas, there are two many theologians who can take simple theology and make it both complicated and tedious!). He is after all the author of Chosen for Life (an excellent overview of the doctrine of unconditional election).

And I'm glad I sought out The Beginners Guide to Spiritual Gifts. Storms doesn't disappoint. Although he does give examples of the gifts in practice, his theology is based on Scripture, not experience. So much so, in fact, that he's not afraid to challenge popular conceptions of some of the gifts (e.g. the word of wisdom and word of knowledge, or the idea that tongues + interpretation = prophecy).

I don't agree with Storms on everything, yet even despite a major disagreement over the nature of prophecy, I found the whole book to be helpful, encouraging, and thought-provoking. Storms takes a view similar to Wayne Grudem on the nature of New Testament prophecy, defining it as 'the speaking forth in merely human words of something God has spontaneously brought to mind' (p.86). I would hold to a definition more in lines with that of D.P. Williams who described prophecy as 'a Divinely generated utterance through human lips by the indwelling Spirit of God' (D.P. Williams, The Prophetical Ministry in the Church, p.7) and argued the case against Grudem's view in an undergraduate dissertation. Yet despite our differences on the nature of prophecy, I still found much of what Storms had to say about prophecy to be very useful.

One of the things that probably made me wary of the cover the first time I saw the book was the statement 'find out about your own gifts.' I simply see too much spiritual gifts inventories and profiling which seems not to take account of the supernatural nature of the gifts, the sovereignty of God, or the Biblical teaching on desiring and receiving the gifts of the Spirit. Much of the profiling approach seems to me more man-centred than God-centred. I need not have feared, however, for Storms too is skeptical of such and approach, writing 'the answer ... is not found in a spiritual gifts inventory or personality profile' (p.163). Storms approach is focused on helping others - asking God to use us to meet a need.

I'm often disappointed with books on charismatic themes, but not with this one. It's careful, biblical, helpful and eminently understandable.

This review was of: Sam Storms, The Beginner's Guide to Spiritual Gifts (Ventura, CA: Regal, 2002)

Of Ordinations and Apostolics

2011-10-11T18:46:00.001+01:00

Ordinations are great occasions. They're celebrations of the gifts that Christ has given to His Church. They point us to God's grace and purpose and to Christ's Headship in the Church. And that means they're times to rejoice and be thankful as we celebrate together what God has done and what He will do.

On Saturday night we gathered together in Bradford for the ordination of an apostle. God has been doing good things in Bradford and it was exciting to see their pastor ordained as an apostle in the body of Christ. And it was great to join together in worship with people from all over the north of England.

In fact, it reminded me of some of the good things about being Apostolic:

Unity. It was good to see people from Derbyshire, Newcastle, Teeside and Sunderland, as well as from all over Yorkshire. There was a real sense of our unity in one body.
Grace. We may have come from all over for a man's ordination, but the focus throughout was on God's action. We exalted our God together as we worshipped, the new apostle's response pointed us to Christ, we heard God speak of His plans and purposes in the prophetic ministry, and the preacher pointed us to the grace of our Triune God and the majesty of His election and predestination.
Apostles and Prophets. Yes, we believe in them. We had powerful apostolic and prophetic ministry, and the joy of seeing a young man ordained to the apostleship.
Tea & Cake. Tea and cake are always good, and I'm sure there must be conducive to something spiritual. They do promote fellowship after all.

On the Practicality of Theology

2011-03-03T19:47:00.003Z

For some reason, theology often gets a bit of a bad press. I'm not sure exactly why. Often from the way people make sweeping statements, it seems that the reason is so obvious that everyone must get it except me. They say things like 'We don't want/need theology' or, even worse 'Theology divides' (when in actual fact it's theology that unites and heresy that divides).

In actual fact, even though we might not always want it, we do 'need theology'. Theology is simply the knowledge of God and His ways, and so if we want to get to know our God, we need theology. And that doesn't just apply in the sense of getting to know Him better; if we want to know Him at all we need theology, for the Gospel itself is theology, as it is only through the Gospel that we come to a true knowledge of God.

Yet theology isn't only necessary for getting our evangelistic presentations right. Theology is necessary in the practicalities of serving God from day to day. I'm a pastor and I need theology everyday to do my job. Not only in the preparation of sermons and Bible studies, but in everything I do, I need theology. When I go visiting I need theology, so that I can apply God's self-revelation to the circumstances of those I visit. When I counsel I need theology, so that I can point people to God's solutions rather than man's ideas. When I'm thinking about what to say when leading a meeting I need theology, so that people are edified, that He might increase and that I might decrease. When I'm planning where to focus my time and energy I need theology, so that my time is spent in ways that bring glory to God rather than ways which please people. When I face criticism I need theology, so that I might respond from a heart and mind renewed by God rather than out of my sinful nature. Theology isn't just needed in the study, but in every aspect of a pastor's ministry. Theology is immensely practical.

But not just for pastors. Theology is practical for all Christians. The Bible tells us that as Christians we are to 'grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ' (2 Pet. 3:18). Remember, theology is the knowledge of God. So that means Christian growth, growth in grace, involves (at least in part) theology: we need to grow in the knowledge of Christ.

The Central Message

2010-11-06T08:23:00.002Z

'If a body calling itself 'church' loses this central message of justification, it will soon have no good news to present. It will become another superstitious, religious institution, falsely bearing the name of Christian. What is more, the people will continue to be in the dark, heading for hell, while at the same time trusting in a Jesus of faulty human thought and heretical church tradition.'

Philip H. Eveson, The Great Exchange: Justification by Faith Alone in the light of recent thought (Leominster: Day One, 1996), p.175

Brilliant Book on True Discipleship

2010-09-29T18:21:00.004+01:00

I was going to write a review of Tim Chester's The Ordinary Hero: Living the Cross and Resurrection, but instead I just want to recommend it. This book is excellent. At the same time it succeeds in being eminently readable, practical and yet also biblically and theologically rigorous. Chester's is no programmatic approach to making disciples. Rather, he shows that discipleship is for all of life (even washing the dishes!). I think I'm going to be recommending this book quite a bit.

A Faithful Minister

2010-09-17T23:37:00.002+01:00

'He that would be a faithful minister of the gospel must deny the pride of his heart, and be emptied of ambition, and set himself wholly to seek the glory of God in his calling. And generally, he that would be a faithful servant of Christ, must set God before him as a judge, and consider that he hath to deal with God: and that he must turn his mind and senses from the world, and all things therein, to God; and seek above all things to approve his thoughts, desires affections, and all his doings unto him.'

(William Perkins, A Commentary on Galatians)

Pentecostal in name, Pentecostal in experience

2010-09-09T23:29:00.003+01:00

Last night I went down to Mattersey Hall to hear Keith Warrington (the vice-principal of Regent's Theological College & author of Pentecostal Theology) speak on issues facing Pentecostals today. (I'm not going to write about his lecture per se, but just a few things that he mentioned that got me thinking.)

Dr Warrington highlighted one particularly significant issue facing Pentecostals, particularly in the West, today: the issue of a loss of expectancy for encountering the Holy Spirit. I think quite a few people were surprised by some research he quoted (carried out by the Pew Forum) showing that out of every 5 converts in American Assemblies of God churches, only 1 is baptised in the Holy Spirit, and that (I think I'm remembering this right) 49% of people in American Pentecostal churches have never spoken in tongues. And, as Dr Warrington suggested, the UK might not be that far behind America. I think it was Margaret Poloma that he quoted as saying something along the lines that glossolalia was in danger of becoming a doctrine devoid of experience. (This is the problem with not taking notes at a lecture - you can't quite remember quotes and things afterwards.)

Now, obviously tongues aren't the be all and end all, but they do carry a certain significance for Pentecostals because we believe that speaking in tongues is the initial physical evidence (IPE) of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit (BHS), which is the most distinctive of Pentecostal distinctives. So such statistics offer a bit of a challenge to us as Pentecostals; are we Pentecostal in name only? Is the BHS just a doctrine in our Tenets, or are people in our churches being taught about and receiving the BHS?

Good Reasons for Godly Change

2010-08-30T09:00:00.003+01:00

Change is a difficult subject. Some people love it, some people hate it. Yet when it comes to our Christian lives and the lives of our assemblies our enthusiasm for change, or distaste therefor, shouldn't be the be all and end all. While change for change's sake isn't the right approach, neither is staying the same for the sake of staying the same.

So when and why should we change? How do we determine when change is a good thing? Well, let's take a biblical example of a big change. For the first few years of the existence of the church, all the members were Jewish. Lots of people were getting saved, and lots of assemblies were being planted, but only really among Jewish communities. Eventually, after the pioneering preaching of Philip (Acts 8), some not-quite-Jews were accepted in, but these were Samaritans, and for all the animosity that existed between Jews and Samaritans, they at least accepted the Torah and were looking for the coming of the Messiah.

Gentiles were another matter entirely. To a first-century Jew, if Samaritans were bad, Gentiles were even worse. Most 1st-century Jews would probably never dream of entering a Gentile house, and certainly they wouldn't countenance eating a meal together. So the shock among some of the believers in Jerusalem when Peter returned from preaching the Gospel to Cornelius and his (Gentile) household was typical of the time and culture (Acts 11:3).

The idea of accepting Gentiles was uncomfortable. For some of the Christians it probably seemed like a change too far. It meant their customs, their culture, their way of life and even their concept of church all had to change. After all, if they were to break bread with Gentiles at the Lord's Table, how could they refuse them at their own tables?

As we can see from the book of Acts and Paul's letter to the Galatians, this change wasn't an easy one. It took some time to get through the issues surrounding the inclusion of Gentiles in the Church. Yet that also allows us to see some of the reasons for good, godly change. The early church didn't change because it would seem more attractive to the world (the Jews around them in Judea would have been put off by the inclusion of Gentile believers). Neither were they pragmatists; they didn't change because it seemed to work. They had much better reasons for change than that.

1. Change because of Scripture

Jesus, before He ascended, sent His disciples to take the gospel to 'all nations' (Matt. 28:19). They had the Word of the Lord on the matter. We too need to act in accord with the Word of God which we have in Scripture. 2 Tim. 3:16 tells us that Scripture is useful for 'correction'. So if Scripture is going to correct us, that means it must bring about change.

2. Change because of the Gospel

The inclusion of the Gentiles in the Body of Christ was a result of Christ's saving work on the Cross. He has reconciled us to the Father, and in doing so has reconciled us to each other, and so made one new man (Eph. 2:11-18). So the early church had to change their church-culture in order to reflect the Gospel. And we too must be prepared to change when our behaviour isn't becoming to the gospel (Phil. 1:27).

3. Change for God's Glory

Back in the Old Testament it had already been prophesied that people of all nations would come and worship God and bring Him glory (Ps. 86:9). In fact, the reaction of those who were shocked at Peter's behaviour in eating with Cornelius, after Peter had explained all that had happened, was to glorify God for the salvation of the Gentiles (Acts 11:18). So this change was needed for God's glory. In the same way we are to do all things for God's glory (1 Cor. 10:31), so if what we're doing isn't bringing glory to God, or is limiting God's glory, a change is needed.

So, there you go, three good reasons for godly change: change for the Scriptures, change for the Gospel, and change for God's glory.

Consultant to the Early Church

2010-08-21T19:12:00.002+01:00

Mark Galli imagines a church-marketing consultancy report for the leaders of the early church in Christianity Today.

Follow-up to AblazeUK

2010-08-21T10:18:00.002+01:00

Pastor Emmanuel Mbakwe (National Leader of the Apostolic Church in the UK) has been blogging about holding onto the impact from the convention.

AblazeUK 2010: The Finale

2010-08-08T20:17:00.000+01:00

Thursday evening brought with it the last night of the Convention. (If you're wondering where Wednesday went, I was on carpark duty for the convention service.) The speaker for the evening was Ps Peter Vincent (Glasgow assembly), who expounded Psalm 2 under the title 'The LORD reigns!'.

Ps Vincent linked Psalm 2 with Acts 4:23-31 where it is quoted at a prayer meeting. The result of that prayer meeting was that the believers received boldness to proclaim the gospel. We want to go from the Convention back to our assemblies with Pentecostal boldness. Boldness means confidence and courage; confidence in the message and courage to take it.

Psalm 2 is made up of 4 speakers.

1st Speaker (verses 1-3): The Voice of Rebellion

The word translated 'rage' means to assemble tumultuously. Think of the turmoil of a storm at sea. Note their stubborn will and unity in their stand against God and Christ. In verse 3 the world sees God's rule as a prison. They think freedom means getting rid of God.

These verses describe very accurately our 21st century world. The world around us is not atheistic, rather Christ and the Church have been marginalized to an irrelevant place. We are living in a broken society.

But 'the peoples plot in vain' (v1). They are constantly trying to push Jesus out and replace Him with futile attempts to bring order. Yet, when you push Jesus out, you are pushing the author of order out. 'Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people' (Prov. 14:34).

2nd Voice (verses 4-6): The Voice of God's Response

God laughs because He sees the absurdity of it all. This is God's world and He laughs at puny man who tries to push Him out of His own world.

Yet it is a serious matter. In verse 5 He pours out His wrath upon them. Calvary shows us that the other side of God's love is His justice and wrath. Sin is not a laughing matter.

God laughs, shows them His wrath, and then points to Jesus (verse 6). The message of this Psalm is very clear: God has sent His Son into the world to save it and Jesus is on the throne! There is nothing that is not subject to Him. Eph. 1:22-23. God has installed Him on the throne and so He will always be on the throne. 'Thy throne O God is forever and ever!'

3rd Voice (verses 7-9): The Voice of the Anointed One

He has proclaimed the decree of the LORD. God has decreed through the shedding of Jesus' blood to save us from our sins. Christ is God's proclamation of salvation. Heb.1:1-2.

'You are my Son' - this phrase comes again and again in the New Testament when the Father vindicates the Son. Resurrection brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. N.B. Tenet no. 3! (Have the Tenets been preached in your church recently?)

He will reign on the earth in the Millennium. His rule and His reign is happening now and it will happen then. Verse 9 is used twice in Revelation. Perfect justice will prevail in the Millennium, when Jesus comes. Perfect peace and justice come to us through the Cross.

4th Voice (verses 10-12): The Voice of the Holy Spirit (Application of the Psalm).

Judgement Day is coming for those who wilfully revolt against God and His Christ.

'Kiss the Son' - Holy Spirit doesn't only speak of judgement, but also calls us out of it through the Son.

Acts 4 - this Psalm used at the Prayer Meeting. Does your assembly pray? Is there a prayer meeting? A church without prayer is like a car without petrol.

Knock on your pastor's door and, after you've asked him about the Tenets, ask him about the prayer strategy in the assembly. It is arrogance for Christians to think they can do everything without prayer.

Prayer links His Rule and His Reign in heaven with His Rule and His Reign on earth. John Wesley - ' God does nothing in this world redemptively except through prayer.'

Christians must not hide behind the size of the fellowship or a perceived lack of influence. God can use you and make you effective. God delights to take the little and produce the miracle (e.g. Gideon's 300 or the boy with 5 loaves and 2 fish). 1 Cor. 1:31.

We can't just go out in the main road and stop the traffic. But dressed in a policeman's uniform it's possible, because there is authority in the uniform. We have the authority of heaven in us by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are clothed with power divine from on high.

We need to recover our confidence in God. The world must understand that God is ruling and reigning. The world needs to know that God has installed His King and the Church cannot be exterminated because it is of eternal origin and eternal consequence.

The broken society needs to be replaced by the alternative society - the Church.

We are not to be ashamed of the gospel. We need confidence in what we believe and boldness to proclaim it!

Ablaze UK 2010: History in the Making (or Tuesday Evening Part 2)

2010-08-05T17:28:00.001+01:00

History was made on Tuesday evening when, for the first time ever, an Anglican bishop spoke at the Apostolic Convention. The Right Reverend Michael Nazir Ali was the 106th Bishop of Rochester in the Church of England. He was born into a Shi'a Muslim family in Pakistan and came to faith in Christ as a university student.

The Bishop's main point on Tuesday night was that Jesus is Himself the Kingdom. It is Jesus who makes the Kingdom present to the world and to us.

There is a rumour around about Jesus, and even in the most hostile people there is something about Jesus that they cannot ignore. Yet sometimes they turn this into blasphemy. Many give Him a place, but not the place He deserves on the throne.

What did Jesus say about Himself?

To answer John the Baptist's disciples, Jesus talks about Himself in terms of Isa. 35, a chapter which speaks about the coming of God. Jesus also spoke about Himself in terms of the Old Testament concept of wisdom.

He called Himself the Son of Man, a reference to Daniel 7, where we are told that all nations will worship Him.

We cannot talk about Christ's Kingship without referring to His work. The Pentecostal revival has highlighted the link between the Cross and healing. In Matt. 8 after Peter's mother-in-law is healed, there is an immediate reference to Isa. 53. All healing flows from the cross. There is no healing of body, mind or relationship, unless it flows from the blood of the Lamb.

At the very minimum, the Cross is an example to us. 'Take up your Cross and follow me'. The Cross also reveals God's love to us. But the Cross is much more than that. On the Cross humanity is remade, a re-creation. It is God making once again humanity in His own image. Col. 1 tells us that Jesus is the icon of God. He is our representative and our substitute. He does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He stands in our place and deals with God's wrath which is directed at our sin and makes us friends of God, we who were alienated with no life in us.

He has won the victory. As Athanasius said, 'because Christ died for all, His victory is also for all. Because death cannot hold Him, it cannot hold us'.

The person and work of Christ both reveal His sovereignty. If He isn't Lord of all, then He isn't Lord at all.

How is He Lord of all?

He is the Lord of culture. He is behind all that is good in human culture. We can see this in every virtuous page in the history of our country. E.g It was Christianity that led to the abolition of slavery and universal education. Nothing will rescue this nation but the Christian faith. No civilisation or culture can match up to God's purpose; this can only be fulfilled by God's grace. It's not about the Christianization of culture, but about salvation through the gospel. Transformation of culture must be accompanied by the salvation of souls.

The church in this country has been salt (invisible and almost taken for granted, but now must be light (visible communities bearing witness to the gospel).

We have a King who transforms people and households and nations. The Bible condemns all false religion. Jesus' harshest words were for false religion that trusted in human rules and human works.

God is preparing people to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. John's gospel tells us that the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin and righteousness. How does this witnessing of the Spirit turn into the salvation of souls? Through the witness of the church. Evangelism is of great importance in affirming the kingship of Christ. There is no substitute for a personal sharing of the gospel.

Ablaze UK 2010: Tuesday Evening Part 1

2010-08-04T23:10:00.002+01:00

On Tuesday evening Ps Emmanuel Mbakwe reminded us that 'the Cross brings us to the heart of the gospel'. In fact the Cross was prominent throughout the evening as the prophet spoke of the riches of God's grace, we sang of the wondrous cross, and an Anglican bishop spoke to us of Christ's penal substitutionary sacrifice on Calvary (more on that in the next post).

In prophetical ministry through Ps Elwyn Williams, the Lord told us that He wants us as a fellowship to focus upon what He is hearing in the nation of Britain. People are crying out for someone to tell them the way, someone to give them an answer, someone to tell them who is in charge of their life. He wants us to realise the agony in His heart when the church is not declaring that they have the answer, and that the truth in our heart is able to set our villages, towns, cities and nation free. God wants us to declare His sovereignty and He wants us to know that our God reigns. He has raised us up to sit with Him in the heavenly places so that we may reign with Him on earth. All power and authority are in God's Son and He has deposited it in His Church. The power which is at disposal at His throne is at disposal in our local church.

As King, God has riches, untold wealth that this world has never seen. These riches are not in eternity, but in us, in earthen vessels. God wants to break open these vessels - us, our assemblies, our fellowship, so that the world may see His riches. The day will come when His glory will be manifest in the glory He has given us. He wants our churches to be rivers of grace. His grace can go beyond our understanding.

He wants us to make that declaration for Him as a fellowship, that our God is sovereign and that He reigns. Nations are working against Him, but He sits and He laughs, for He is the sovereign God and His throne is established from eternity to eternity. He wants to take us and use us to reveal the riches of His grace.

The Lord also spoke through another prophet, saying that in eternity past He was God and in eternity to come He will still be God, and so He has authority, power and might to change things round. He called the Zacheauses from their hideouts to become His chosen vessels. We don't need to climb trees for He is right here with us despite what we have done or haven't done.

Namaan, despite his authority, had to come to God to deal with His shame and reproach. God wants to deal with our shame and reproach and give us a new beginning.

God said to look at the empty seats in our assemblies and districts and these shall be filled, and He will empower is to fill these seats. Like the disciples whom He told to cast their nets on the other side, God wants to make an opening for us. We should not be afraid, for the Lord our God is on our side.

AblazeUK 2010: Tuesday Morning Seminar 2

2010-08-04T23:00:00.000+01:00

His Rule, His Reign in the Family

Next up was Ps Jonathan Morgans (Aberdeen assembly), speaking on His Rule, His Reign in the Family. Jonathan started off reading from Isa. 1:16-17. The ministry of the kingdom finds its source and motivation in love. We won't know the work of the Spirit unless there is love.

1. In Family Relationships

Sometimes we diminish the importance of the family to God. In order to undo this mistake, Jonathan took us through a number of Scriptures which highlight the importance God places upon the family. God even uses family relationships to reveal something of the relationship between Christ and His Church and something of the relationships within the Trinity.

After scaring a good number of pastors into thinking they were about to undergo a mid-life crisis, Jonathan suggested that the antidote to such a problem is to really know our identity as a child of the Father.

Prov. 22:26 speaks of training up a child in the way he should go, not the way he should stay. Coupling this with Gen. 2:24 Ps Morgans spoke of the need for freedom from the positives of the past in order to be able to live in the present, looking to the future.

2. In Loss

After highlighting the extent of those impacted by loss, Jonathan pointed out that God is a God who heals, He is the God of all compassion, and that this place is not our home. Therefore we need a kingdom perspective on our loss.

3. In His Family

Taking up a prophecy from last year's Convention and the story of Mephibosheth in 1 & 2 Samuel, Jonathan pointed out the need to call people to come home. Like Mephibosheth, we may feel unworthy and prefer to flee to a backwater, yet we must know the welcome that Jesus extends to us, just as David invited Mephibosheth to eat at His table.

AblazeUK 2010: Tuesday Morning Seminar 1

2010-08-04T22:59:00.001+01:00

Tuesday morning at AblazeUK 2010 was all about 2 things: seminars and rain (lots of it!).

His Rule, His Reign in the Marketplace

Julie Andrews, the National Women's Leader gave a seminar this morning on His Rule, His Reign in the Marketplace. Julie stressed that all of us are in full time ministry, not just the pastors. God has something for each one of us to be and do. The enemy would try to tell us that there are only a few in each generation that are truly significant, but we must remember that we are significant, not in ourselves, but in who we are in Christ.

There isn't supposed to be a sacred/secular divide. Rather, we should be the church scattered as well as the church gathered. As Spurgeon said, 'Every Christian is a missionary or an imposter.'

Kingdom work isn't about numbers in our churches or notching up converts. We should be helping because that's what God calls us to do.

We need to be the church on Monday morning. The exciting stuff is great, but there were thousands of days when David didn't kill Goliath.

Ablaze UK 2010: Monday

2010-08-03T09:22:00.001+01:00

The prayer meeting at Ablaze is an exciting event. For a start, it's unusual and very encouraging to gather with so many people to pray together. For part of the prayer time on Monday morning we gathered into regional groups to pray for the cities in our own regions. So people from all across the north of England gathered in one block to pray for key cities like Newcastle, Bradford and Leeds. For those under the mistaken impression that prayer meetings are boring, the Ablaze prayer meeting will certainly change your mind.

In Monday's morning meeting God spoke through the prophet to all those who were battle-weary, saying that He had come to refresh, renew, bind up and help us understand that the battle is His already and He reigns victorious. The sound of rustling is not the enemy but rather God's hosts behind us and no weapon formed against us will prosper for we are more than conquerors. So stop cowering! Declare in your hearts that the battle is the Lord's and He is victorious in your circumstance. Listen carefully and hear the footsteps of the heavenly host.

To those in leadership God spoke in the prophecy of the need for five smooth stones, saying that we are to identify, release and nurture ascension ministries in our setting, for they are of strategic importance.

Ps David Patterson (Great Victoria Street Assembly, Belfast) was Monday morning's preacher. Ps Patterson drew our attention to what Martin Luther said about the 'Thy Kingdom Come' petition of the Lord's Prayer: 'if we really knew what we were praying for then we would shudder with fear'! The Kingdom is both here and yet to come, for the kingdom is present wherever God reigns. When we pray 'Thy Kingdom come' we are really praying for God to transform us. As Luke 17 tells us, the Kingdom of God is among us and therefore we are Representatives of the King ( 2 Cor. 5:20).

Even in tragedy, God is sovereign. Sometimes the will of God may involve us going through very difficult situations, yet we must trust in God's sovereignty. We need to have trust that God is always in control.

Matthew 6:33 tells us to seek fist the Kingdom of God. However many Christians have given Jesus a prominent place in their lives, without giving Him the preeminence. We need to submit every area of our lives to His rule and His reign.

As for the evening service, well I was on carpark duty again, but by all accounts it was a wonderful meeting. God spoke through two prophets (Stuart Walker and Ps David Williams) about His light piercing into the darkness, and many people received ministry. Finally, Dr John Avant preached his last message of the Convention from Colossians on living as if we were about to die.

Ablaze UK 2010: God of the Impossible

2010-08-02T00:15:00.001+01:00

Sunday night at Ablaze is a wee bit different from a typical Sunday night in the Leeds assembly, and I was very happy to share it with such a large Leeds contingent.

God spoke through the prophet to remind us that, although the rule and reign of man is subject to limitations, the rule and reign of God has no limit and so where impossibilities begin with man, there possibilities begin with God. God promised that He is here in power and authority to make every impossibility bow before Him. We were reminded of how God visited Israel in Egypt to rescue them and bring His promises to pass, but they were pursued by pharaoh. Yet God surprised them when He parted the Red Sea. They were in a place of impossibility for man, but at that point the possibilities of God began to be made manifest. Then God challenged us, saying that although we had come bearing many impossibilities, we should rejoice, for the sea will not drown us as He is in control.

The prophetical ministry brought such a response that there was need of a time of prayer and ministry right then in the middle of the meeting.

Later, John Avant, our American guest, spoke on Acts 10, showing how God used a Roman Centurion to open wide the door to the Gentiles. What type of man does God use in this way? John Avant answered that God uses:

1. Warriors who fight on their knees. (Acts 10:1)

Real belief in God leads to prayer. If we really believed we would need to sell tickets to our prayer meetings.

2. Leaders who pioneer movements

Cornelius had never become a proselyte. We need to be willing to lay ourselves down and pay the price.

3. Followers who hear God and Act (Acts 10:33)

Dr Avant closed with the story of a terrorist who had had his life turned around completely by the Gospel. He had gone from planning to kill Christians to becoming a full-time Christian evangelist in the Middle East.

It was the sort of sermon that's difficult to summarise in words, but just requires listening. Just as I had heard about John Avant's message this morning, a faith lifting convention message.

Ablaze UK 2010: Sunday morning

2010-08-01T16:36:00.001+01:00

It's Sunday and the marquee was packed this morning, or at least the carpark was, as that's as far as I made it. (The pastors have jobs to do during the convention, so this morning I was on carpark duty.)

Dr John Avant, our American guest speaker, preached what was by all accounts a faith inspiring message from Eph. 3:20-21. The Lord also spoke prophetically through Pastors David Olphert and Elwyn Williams.

Out in the carpark, whole we may have missed the meeting, things were still interesting. We had everything from a Bentley driver who wanted to know what was going on in the marquees to someone who was convinced we were selling caravans! I also discovered that I'm not the only pastor with a large theological tome in the back of the car.

Tonight I'll be in the tent and not the carpark, so hopefully I can bring you more informative news from the evening meeting.

Ablaze UK 2010: We Stand Forgiven at the Cross

2010-08-01T00:47:00.002+01:00

'He is exalted, the King is exalted on high...' So began Ablaze UK 2010: His Rule, His Reign. And right at the beginning of the convention the Lord spoke through the prophet to us, not as a denomination, but as individuals, of our need for His rule and His reign in our lives and our experience, no matter what it may cost us. Through the prophetical ministry we were reminded of the decline of Israel when they rejected God as their king. Instead we were encouraged to open our hearts to God.

Ps Roy Lewis (Bridgend Assembly) was the preacher for the opening night of this year's convention, preaching from the text from which this year's convention got its theme: the Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6). Before he began, Roy shared the counsel he had received this morning from one of our retired apostles - 'Put Jesus right at the centre' - excellent advice for every preacher, whether at convention or on a typical Sunday.

Ps Lewis noted that, although we say we follow the Bible rather than a liturgy, the Lord's Prayer is rarely used in our public worship and suggested that this might be a great omission, before getting us to stand and pray the Lord's Prayer together.

The sermon was about 3 values of the Kingdom of heaven.

1. We know the Fatherhood of God

The God whose name couldn't even be spoken can be approached by us as Father.

We are not only subjects of the Kingdom, but children of the King.

2. We are forgiven freely by His grace.

'Forgive us our debts'. Our debts were the result of our sin. So we need a Redeemer - Jesus Christ, who shed His blood as a ransom so that we could be forgiven.

So everyone who is in the Kingdom of God has been forgiven of His sins. Yet many children of God lack an assurance of forgiveness. Many fear that 'if I'm not living the life I won't go' and so love under condemnation, still carrying scarves of guilt, blame and shame.

But we won't get any further in knowing His rule and His reign in our lives unless we know that we are forgiven through Christ's substitutionary sacrifice.

Some who have grown up in Christian homes need to know the wonder of God's forgiveness and release from all guilt.

3. Submission

'Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven'. Compare Jesus' prayer in the garden on Maundy Thursday - 'Not as I will, but as You will'.

Submission involves pain.

There is a danger today that we only think of the Kingdom in terms of blessing and gain. Remember in Acts we are told that 'through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom'.

If you want to see the Kingdom of God at its greatest, come to Calvary and see Jesus dying. Nowhere do we see a greater display of God's glory than at the Cross.

He won by surrender and in the Kingdom of God we win by surrender. We win the way of the Cross.

We can only know His rule and His reign when we know God as our Father, when we know His forgiveness, and when we live our lives in submission to His sovereignty.

Well, hopefully that gives you a bit of an idea of the first night's ministry. These brief notes can't do justice to an excellent sermon and a powerful prophecy. I'll try to keep you up to date with the convention as best I can during the week.

It's Time!

2010-07-30T18:36:00.004+01:00

Yes, it's that time of year again. Tomorrow sees the beginning of Ablaze UK in Swansea. This is the 94th year of the Convention and even after all that time it's as popular as ever. In fact, we're not having any services in Leeds this Sunday as so many of the members of the assembly will be 275 miles away in Swansea for Ablaze UK!

In the balance: Music or the Word

2010-07-06T06:56:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I wrote about having confidence in God's Word. Today let's take it out of the abstract and into real life.

A month or so ago we ended up in a situation where we usually don't have any musicians to play in church on a Sunday. When I knew this was going to be happening, I have to admit that I was a bit discouraged. Music has become so much a part of the western church that the idea of no musicians is almost unthinkable.

(In fact, the early church didn't use musical instruments, so it's perfectly possible to follow the 1st-century model without a piano or guitar. In the village where I grew up, the village church only sings psalms and without any musical accompaniment, on principle. There are even many Apostolic assemblies in the world who sing without musical accompaniment; when I was in Malawi, the only instrument in the assemblies was a hand drum - nothing to carry a tune.)

Anyway, I digress. I was somewhat discouraged about our impending lack of music. How would people come to our church and get saved if we didn't have any music?

Then God very graciously, in a few different ways, showed me the problem in my thinking. God has promised to work through His Word, not through music. So as long as God's Word is proclaimed, music is just a side issue.

The first way God pointed this out to me was through a lady at church. The first Sunday that we didn't have any musicians, we struggled a bit with the recorded music and by the end of the evening service I was thinking that the day had been a bit of a disaster. Then a lady came up to me and said: 'Pastor, I feel just like Peter.' I started trying to think of what disaster she could be referring to in the life of Peter, but fortunately, after a brief pause, she continued. 'You know, at the Transfiguration. He didn't want to go home. He just wanted to stay there in the presence of God. That's how I feel tonight.'

Wow. There we were with multiple hiccups with recorded music and a record low attendance (apart from the mid-week meeting when I was the only person to show up) and yet God was still at work. God doesn't need all the things we think should be in place for Him to work. With a handful of people listening to His Word preached, He was at work in a powerful way.

A few weeks later I was reading Mark Driscoll's Confessions of A Reformission Rev, which tells the story of the growth of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. Mars Hill places great emphasis on the Word, with sermons lasting well over an hour. Yet, with a Sunday attendance now of somewhere around 10,000, they can also have a number of talented bands to accompany the singing. Yet, apparently it wasn't always that way. At one point in the early days they lost all their musicians, and this is what Mark Driscoll writes:

One of our core values was beauty, and we had built much of our church identity on being cool and having good music, but suddenly we had nothing. So our church services were reduced to me preaching for about an hour, taking prayer requests, and closing in prayer. It was a brutal time. I decided that being cool, having good music, understanding postmodern epistemology, and welcoming all kinds of strange people into the church is essentially worthless if at the bedrock of the church anything other than a rigorous Jesus-centred biblical theology guides the mission of the church. And I needed to labour to continually improve as a Bible preacher because there is enough power in the preaching of God's Word alone to build a church from nothing. It seemed that we were in a spiritual war and that if light was going to spread throughout our dark city, it would have to emanate from the pulpit.

(Driscoll, Confessions of a Reformission Rev, pp.77-78)

It can be so easy to place an undue amount of emphasis on the music, or some other aspect of church life, but at the end of the day, as Mark Driscoll points our 'there is enough power in the preaching of God's Word alone to build a church'.

Hearing the words of the lady from church and reading that passage from Driscoll made me realize that worrying about the music was actually evidence of a lack of confidence in the power of God's Word. I need to trust the Word to do its work.

We're not reduced to a sermon and prayer requests in Leeds. We still sing, even if the music is recorded. And sometimes God intervenes like a week ago. On Friday night at the prayer meeting quite a few people had been praying that God would send us musicians. And then on the Sunday we had an answer to prayer with two different full bands, one for the morning and one for the evening. (It was a treat for one week, but it was still an answer to our prayers.) But through it all, God is certainly teaching me (and perhaps others as well) that my confidence needs to be in His Word alone to do its work.

Confidence in God's Word

2010-07-05T22:58:00.004+01:00

As evangelicals, we believe that God's Word is inspired, inerrant and authoritative. Sometimes we refer to ourselves as 'Bible-believing Christians'. So the Bible is clearly of great importance to evangelicals.

Yet, having a high regard for God's Word is not always the same as having confidence in God's Word. Sometimes, even though we believe the Bible, we act as though we think it needs our help. And hence the plethora of methods and programmes which abound within the confines of evangelical Christianity. We become beholden to the latest fad, because it promises to work. We become pragmatists, placing our confidence in what works (or seems to work, or perhaps is marketed as if it works) rather than in how God has promised to work.

The problem here is that our trust is misplaced. Instead of trusting in God to work in His way, we can easily end up trusting in men and their man-made ways of doing God's work.

So is there a remedy to the predicament? Yes. Trust in God's Word to do its work.

Martin Luther trusted in God's Word to do its work:

'Take myself as an example. I opposed indulgences and all the papists, but never with force. I simply taught, preached and wrote God's Word; otherwise I did nothing. And while I slept or drank Wittenberg beer with my friends Philip and Amsdorf, the Word so greatly weakened the papacy that no prince or emperor ever inflicted such losses upon it. I did nothing; the Word did everything... I did nothing; I let the Word do its work.'

Like Luther, sometimes we need to do 'nothing' and just let the Word do it's work. We need to get ourselves and our programmes and methods out of the way of God's Word and trust it to do its work.

God has promised that His Word will not return to Him void (Isaiah 55:11) and that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word (Romans 10:17). He has promised that people will be saved through His Word, and that He will accomplish His purpose through His Word. So in that case, we should allow the Word to do its work. We should read the Word, preach the Word, sing the Word, learn the Word. We should have much more confidence in God's Word than in our methods.

Back from Bangor: Theological Conferences & Pentecostals

2010-07-01T18:54:00.003+01:00

There we were, sitting in a trendy cafe-bar, eating fashionable finger-food on a university campus in Welsh-speaking North Wales, a British pastor, a Swedish missionary/theology lecturer, a Swedish mega-church pastor and a Swiss pastor-theologian. Not exactly my typical day off! Earlier that morning my Swedish missionary friend and I had had breakfast in the same place with a Singaporean theologian, whilst chatting about liturgical worship and Cambridge experiences. But back to lunch. I'm sure it's not too often that influential mega-church pastors chat with the pastor of a church less than a hundredth of the size about the Trinitarian theology of the Cappadocian Fathers. To be honest, I was quite surprised to encounter a mega-church pastor at an academic theological conference, yet over lunch he raised a very valid (and important) point; the theology circulating in the academy today is the theology that will be circulating in the pews in 30 years time and so it's important for pastors to know what's going on in the world of academic theology. He's right. Just take Ladd for example: what he was writing about the kingdom in the 1970s is pretty much standard evangelical fare today. Sometimes what's circulating in the academy might be helpful and sometimes not, but it needs to be understood in order to be either embraced or addressed.

The Swiss-German pastor-theologian was, in fact, a pastor in the Apostolic Church. (It's amazing how common membership of the Apostolic Church creates some sort of bond, even in an academic context!) He was telling me about how in German-speaking Switzerland the Apostolic pastors get together for theological study days.

One of the best aspects of the conference was the opportunity for informal discussions over tea and coffee or at meal times; presenters could be asked questions about their papers or issues coming out of papers could be talked over at greater length.

The papers were good too though. The first evening was a particular highlight as Drs Simon Chan and Daniela Augustine read papers on The Empowered Community, looking at the the ecclesiological implications of Spirit Baptism. Both Augustine and Chan are incredibly learned, thought-provoking, even challenging, yet reverent and humble systematic theologians. (Dr Augustine says she's really a theological ethicist, but her paper at the conference was wonderful systematics, where academic theology and worship collided before our eyes).

Dr Kimberly Alexander surprised me with a paper on the church as healing community. Beforehand I wasn't really convinced that healing had great ecclesiological implications, but Dr Alexander's paper convinced me that I was wrong. She also demonstrated the validity of a 'from below' ecclesiological methodology, extracting the implicit ecclesiology of early American Pentecostals from their healing practices.

Dr Matthias Wenk (the aforementioned Swiss Apostolic pastor) brought together serious New Testament scholarship with serious pastoral concerns in his paper on the church as holy community.

Although not physically present, Dr Frank Macchia joined us by video-link to present a very stimulating paper on the church as eschatological community. Some of his proposals were very helpful to some issues I had been thinking through in my own research.

Dr Peter Althouse also stimulated my thinking by rooting his paper right in the centre of the issue I'm working on: the relationship of Christ's Ascension to Ecclesiology. Althouse's finding of promise in Michael Horton's work for Pentecostal ecclesiology also resonated with me (although I'm sure it wouldn't resonate with Michael Horton) as did his desire to restore the sacraments to the status of sacraments (rather than ordinances) within Pentecostalism.

A book containing the conference papers should be coming out before the end of the year from the CPT Press. There were a number of other theologians presenting papers in addition to the few I've mentioned, so the book should contain 11 papers and 3 responses. (Yes, that's how many papers we listened to in less than two days.)

So the Pentecostal ecclesiology conference in Bangor was an intellectually stimulating way to spend two days off work. Hopefully the motivation it's provided for my PhD research won't disappear too soon.

Driscoll on How to Destroy Scripture

2010-06-24T22:14:00.001+01:00

On Sheep

2010-06-22T21:34:00.003+01:00

Let me just say that I know nothing about sheep. Although I did grow up in sheep-farming country, I didn't grow up on a sheep farm, so sheep have generally been on the other side of the hedgerow from me. Today, however, I went for a walk surrounded by sheep. And, while I was walking I noticed two things that made me think about the sheep of God's pasture.

1. Sheep are scared of people!

I was a bit surprised at this; after all, sheep are domestic animals and the particular sheep I met today were grazing on a field through which ran a public footpath. Yet, every time I got within a few metres of a sheep, it ran away. I didn't even have to get very close. Some ran, others walked away calmly; but every one of them got out of my way before I could get too close.

Now, the sheep didn't mind at all that I was in their field. I was quite welcome and they were quite content, provided that I didn't get too close. This made me think about us as Christians. Sometimes we can be quite content, even very comfortable among ourselves. We're quite happy and can even be quite welcoming to a stranger who visits a church service. We're happy if a non-Christian comes along to church. Yet, like the sheep, it seems that we can sometimes be scared of people. Rather than 'go[ing] into all the world' with the gospel, sometimes we're quite content to stay within the comforts of our own field. Rather than taking the opportunities God gives to share the Gospel, sometimes we exhibit more of the fear of man than the fear of the LORD.

The sheep today had nothing to fear from me. I simply wanted to walk along the footpath through their field. Likewise, God's sheep have nothing to fear from man. So, we shouldn't shy away from evangelism, but take every opportunity God sends our way.

2. Sheep will (try to) eat anything!

Apparently sheep do not have very discerning palates. One of the sheep I encountered today was rather unimpressed with the lush green grass surrounding him and much more interested in trying to eat the plastic label from a lemonade bottle that someone had thrown into his field. Fortunately he was frustrated in his attempts by his inability to get the label off the bottle. Unfortunately we can be a bit like that too. Although we have a plentiful supply of healthy and nutritious food in God's Word, sometimes we prefer the rubbish with which men strew our way. Like plastic labels in the sunlight, it might be shiny and interesting, but it's not good for us. We live in a day when people are trying to feed God's sheep with all sorts of rubbish. But we need to stick to the good food of the Word. We need preachers who will expound the Scriptures to us and not turn us 'aside to fables' (2 Tim 4:4).

So from my brief observation of some sheep today, those are two ways we shouldn't be like them.

Reading the Bible: Jesus vs Moralism

2010-06-18T20:17:00.002+01:00

Unless Jesus is the central message of the Scriptures, many errors abound. The most common is moralizing. Moralizing is reading the Bible not to learn about Jesus but only to learn principles for how to live life as a good person by following the good examples of some people and avoiding the bad examples of others. That kind of approach to the Scriptures is not Christian, because it treats the Bible like any other book with moral lessons that are utterly disconnected from faith in and salvation from Jesus.

Mark Driscoll & Gerry Breshears, Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe (Crossway, 2010), p.47

Preparation for Evangelism

2010-06-15T07:07:00.002+01:00

On Sunday morning someone in our assembly read from 1 Peter 3. It was one of those great moments where you see God's hand directing open worship. Little did that person know, but another group in the assembly had been looking at the same passage during the week. Specifically we had been looking at the instruction to be always 'prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect' (1 Peter 3:15).

According to 1 Peter 3:15 we Christians need to be ready to answer people's questions about our faith. We need to be able to explain why we believe what we believe. In other words we need to be prepared for every evangelistic opportunity.

In our housegroup in East Leeds we've been endeavouring to do just that. In order to be prepared to share our faith we've spent the last 2 months doing a Two Ways to Live course. Two Ways to Live is probably best known as a gospel tract (and a very good one at that), but it's actually a simple gospel outline used in a variety of resources such as tracts, CD-Rom multimedia presentations and evangelistic Bible studies (all available in the UK from The Good Book Company). The Two Ways to Live: Know and Share the Gospel course is designed to help Christians to know what exactly it is that they're supposed to be telling non-Christians in evangelism, and to learn how to communicate it effectively. The course uses the Two Ways to Live outline to help Christians present the gospel in an ordered way so as to be understood, as well as to convey the necessary background information that those without any knowledge of Christianity or the Bible will need to make sense of the gospel.

In East Leeds we greatly profited from the course. We had quite a mixed age group (from 11 years old up to adults) and all ages seemed to cope quite well with the material. But even more importantly, all ages got a renewed motivation and confidence for evangelism. The course may be over, but we're still praying that it would bear much fruit in the weeks and months (and years) ahead.

So if you're looking for some material to help your group prepare to know and tell the gospel, I highly recommend Two Ways to Live: Know and Share the Gospel.

True Spirituality & the Cross

2010-06-08T06:02:00.006+01:00

We are already at the stage where many evangelical leaders simply assume the message of the cross, but no longer lay much emphasis on it. Their focus is elsewhere. And a few, it seems to me, are in danger of distancing themselves from major components of the message of the cross, while still operating within the context of evangelicalism. It is at least possible that we are the generation of believers who will destroy much of historic Christianity from within - not, in the first instance, by rancid unbelief, but by raising relatively peripheral questions to the place where, functionally, they displace what is central. And what shall the end of this drift be?

We must come back to the cross, and to God's plan of redemption that centres on the cross, and make that the point of our self-identification. We must consciously resist all blandishments from movements and philosophies and value-systems that tolerate the cross, or even nominally promote it, but in reality displace it. We must recognize that what it means to be wise, what it means to be spiritual, is to embrace, by the help of God's Spirit, the message of the crucified Messiah.

D.A. Carson, The Cross and Christian Ministry, 63-64

Not an Afterthought

2010-06-03T23:05:00.000+01:00

The Cross of Calvary was planted in past eternity to make Creation, Redemption, Forgiveness and the Eternal Plan possible.

W.R. Thomas, On Ephesians, 132

The Normalization of Murder

2010-05-24T22:36:00.000+01:00

Tonight British society changed forever, and yet it has probably gone relatively unnoticed. For tonight the first ever ad for abortion was shown on British television. I don't have a TV so I didn't see it when broadcast, but I've just watched it on the website of one of the broadsheet newspapers. And I'm saddened, deeply saddened. I can't say that I'm shocked and appalled, for I'm not. There is nothing shocking about the ad and I was already appalled that (through a legal loophole) it was to be aired. But I'm deeply saddened, perhaps mostly by the fact that there is nothing shocking about the ad. It's just so normal. Words like 'abortion' or 'termination' aren't used. There's no hint of any 'procedures'. All you see are images of women in everyday situations. Normal situations. They even show a mother pushing a baby in a pushchair! And then at the end comes the voiceover saying: 'If you're pregnant and not sure what to do [x] can help.' Abortion is reduced to normality. It becomes just as mundane as 'not sure what to do' about a problem at work, 'not sure what to do' about the best way to commute, or 'not sure what to do' about a foreign holiday in the current economic climate. With words like 'not sure what to do', abortion is reduced to something that's not all that important in the great scheme of things. But therein lies the problem, for abortion is all that important in the great scheme of things. It's the taking of a human life. In normal circumstances we call that 'murder'.

The organisation being advertised claims that the ad is intended to 'empower women to reach confident informed decisions about their sexual health'. The goal is almost as scary as the ad itself. The life of a child becomes a matter of a woman's sexual health. Our society has become so sex-saturated that life is of lesser importance than sexual health!

In reading the press reports about the ad before it was shown, I was shocked by one thing. Apparently 1 in 3 women in the UK have had an abortion. That is a shocking and scary figure (and one which must demonstrate that the spirit of the 1967 Abortion Act is being widely ignored, as abortion on demand is not legal under the terms of the act). Perhaps it's because I come from the only part of the UK where the Abortion Act does not apply and so abortion is still illegal (and thankfully the broadcaster acted responsibly and did not show the ad in Northern Ireland due to abortion being illegal there), but I didn't realize that abortion was so prevalent on the mainland. I'm saddened by the huge number of lives being taken that that statistic represents. And I'm struck by the fact that those women need to hear the gospel.

For there is hope for them, and there is hope even for those who have organised this advertising campaign, because Jesus Christ came to save sinners. Although it is very right for Christians to speak out in defence of the lives of unborn children, it is also right for our hearts to go out to the 1 in 3 women who have had an abortion. That does not mean ignoring or excusing the evil of abortion, but it does mean telling people that even such a sin can be forgiven through the death of Christ. But such forgiveness can only come through repentance.

The reality is that many women are guilt stricken after an abortion. Yet the aim of this ad is to prevent that. The organisation wants a woman to be 'empowered' and 'confident' about the decision to end her child's life. What we sometimes forget is that a guilty feeling can be a good thing. When we actually are guilty, feeling guilty is good for us, as it reminds us of the fact that something needs to be done about our guilty standing. And so it provides an opportunity for repentance and faith in Christ.

That our society can tolerate ads for abortion is appalling.

That our society can tolerate abortion being advertised in such a mundane way and with such normalcy is deeply saddening and troubling.

May God have mercy upon us.

A Whitsuntide Song

2010-05-24T06:06:00.002+01:00

They were gathered in an upper chamber,

As commanded by the Risen Lord,

And the promise of the Father

There they sought with one accord,

When the Holy Ghost from heaven descended

Like a rushing wind and tongues of fire:

So, dear Lord, we seek Thy blessing,

Come with glory now our hearts inspire.

Let the fire fall, let the fire fall,

Let the fire from heaven fall;

We are waiting and expecting,

Now in faith dear Lord we call;

Let the fire fall, let the fire fall,

On Thy promise we depend;

From the glory of Thy presence

Let the Pentecostal fire descend.

As Elijah we would raise the altar

For our testimony clear and true,

Christ the Saviour, loving Healer,

Coming Lord, Baptizer too,

Ever flowing grace and full salvation

For a ruined race Thy love has planned;

For this blessèd revelation,

For Thy written Word we dare to stand.

‘Tis the covenanted promise given,

To as many as the Lord shall call,

To the fathers and their children,

To Thy people, one and all;

So rejoicing in Thy Word unfailing,

We draw nigh in faith Thy power to know –

Come, O come, Thou burning Spirit,

Set our hearts with heav’nly fire aglow.

With a living coal from off Thy altar

Touch our lips to swell Thy wondrous praise,

To extol Thee, bless, adore Thee,

And our songs of worship raise;

Let the cloud of glory now descending

Fill our hearts with holy ecstacy,

Come in all Thy glorious fulness,

Blessèd Holy Spirit, have Thy way.

Redemption Hymnal, No. 249

Sunday's the Day

2010-05-22T22:48:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow morning we're going to be singing an old chorus at the beginning of the meeting. It's old, but it's also particularly appropriate for the Lord's Day and especially for Whitsun. What is it? This is the Day.

Our songbook only has one verse to This is the Day, but we're going to resurrect the other two verses as well to get the full meaning of the song. It's not just the day that the Lord has made, but also the day that He rose again and the day that the Spirit came. In other words, it's not just any old day, it's the Lord's Day.

The first day of the week is indeed the day that the Lord has made. In fact, it is the day He made days, as well as being the day He made the heavens and the earth. But more than that, it is a day of great importance in Redemptive history. It is the day that Jesus conquered the grave and rose from the dead. And then seven weeks later, it was the same day of the week on which Jesus poured out the Holy Spirit from heaven.

So as we meet to remember Christ's death on the Lord's Day by breaking bread, we should remember as well that He rose from the dead and has poured out the Holy Spirit upon His Church. And we should give all glory to our Triune God who has not only filled the day with meaning, but who even made the very day in the first place. Sunday's the day!

A Different Type of Service

2010-05-14T19:07:00.002+01:00

"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.

A Service Centred on the Breaking of Bread

2010-05-08T15:54:00.004+01:00

On the Lord's Day morning we have a Breaking of Bread service. But what does that mean? Is it simply a service that contains the Breaking of Bread, or is it something more? Acts 20:7 shows us that for the early Christians, the Breaking of Bread was the purpose of their meeting together on the Lord's Day. On this occasion the apostle Paul was in Troas. Yet, although he did preach (and at considerable length), the primary purpose of the meeting was to break bread.

If the goal of our Lord's Day morning meeting is to break bread, then that should have an effect on the whole meeting. Therefore everything in the meeting should contribute to this purpose. Hence, the focus of the meeting should be on Christ and above all on His Cross. This means:

· Songs – we should sing about Christ and His Cross. The focus should be on Him and what He has done, rather than on us. This means that some songs which would be very appropriate at other times are not so appropriate on the Lord’s Day morning.

· Prayers – the main focus of prayer in this meeting should be on praise and thanksgiving, as well as the accompanying confession. It's not a prayer meeting; there are plenty of opportunities in other meetings for supplication and intercession

· Preaching – ‘Him we proclaim’ (Col 1:28). Our preaching should be Christ-focused, faithfully proclaiming Christ, the chief subject of the Scriptures, in all the Scriptures.

· Rubrics (the transitions between bits of the meeting) – should not distract from the purpose of the meeting. They should be kept on focus, and kept Scriptural. They should highlight God’s grace to us in Christ shown at the Cross.

In short, the Breaking of Bread service should be full of Gospel content.

A Vital Day to Pray

2010-05-05T23:01:00.000+01:00

Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.

1 Timothy 2:1-2

In order to 'lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness' we need to pray for 'all who are in authority'. So may the next 24 hours not only be a day of voting, counting, watching, and waiting, but also a day of prayer.

Pentecostal = Protestant; & that's important

2010-05-03T21:41:00.003+01:00

Some people are probably tutting at me already. Why would I say such a thing? It seems that the Protestant label is being more and more eschewed by Pentecostals. Yet Pentecostals are Protestants. They always have been, and I hope they always will be.

You see, being Protestant isn't about a label. It's about theology. Protestant theology is the theology of the Reformation (even though some 'protestant' churches no longer hold to true protestant theology, and thus today we often have to specify that we're evangelical protestants). Being Protestant is about holding to the 5 Solas of the Reformation.

Sola Gratia (Grace Alone)
Sola Fide (Faith Alone)
Solus Christus (Christ Alone)
Sola Scriptura (Scripture Alone)
Soli Deo Gloria (Glory to God Alone)

These five points which define what it means to be Protestant show us that we should not be ashamed of our Protestant heritage, because it's all about the Gospel.

Having grown up in Northern Ireland where 'Protestant' is often turned into something other than a theological description, I can understand when some who are Protestant by theology prefer not to make a big deal of the label. It's not the label that's most important, but what that label represents. I've just preached a series of sermons on the 5 Solas and don't think I used the word Protestant once, simply for that reason; it's the doctrine, not the label that's important.

But we must hold onto the doctrine. It seems some in the Pentecostal academy are heading in a different theological direction. Douglas Oss was already beginning to warn of this danger over a decade ago (Douglas Oss, in Wayne Grudem, ed., Are Miraculous Gifts for Today? Four Views, p.316). At that time Oss was most concerned about Sola Scriptura, but today it seems that even Sola Fide and Solus Christus have come under attack. Having first eschewed the Protestant label, it seems some are now moving on the eschew Protestant theology.

But this is no small matter. The heart of Protestant theology is the Gospel itself. It centres on the uniqueness of Christ and the grace of God in salvation. That's the heart of our faith. In the words of David Wells, we need 'the courage to be Protestant'.

The Un-Noticed Culture War: Cremation

2010-05-01T12:08:00.005+01:00

Have a look at what Russell Moore has to say.

Jesus Paid It All

2010-04-30T22:34:00.003+01:00

Propitiation is Important

2010-04-30T16:53:00.002+01:00

The substitutionary work of Christ on the cross is marginalized whenever and wherever a fully orbed doctrine of propitiation is marginalized.

J.I. Pack & Gary A. Parrett, Grounded in the Gospel, p. 105

On Biblical Evangelists

2010-04-29T22:24:00.003+01:00

When someone says 'evangelist', it seems that many Christians automatically think of a Billy Graham-esque figure: someone who draws huge crowds and preaches the Gospel to thousands of people at a time. But is this a Biblical picture of the ministry of the evangelist or a cultural model? Although we may be able to learn from historical as well as living examples of evangelists to a certain extent, they cannot be a higher authority than the Biblical picture.

In fact, the Bible doesn't present us with vast swathes of information regarding this ministry. It's mentioned in Ephesians 4:11, and in Acts 21:8 Philip is identified as an evangelist. The third usage of the word evangelist is when Paul tells Timothy (an apostle) to 'do the work of an evangelist' in 2 Timothy 4:5. Perhaps it's because the word is only used these three times in Scripture that we can be so quick to turn to famous examples to learn about evangelists. Three verses doesn't seem like an awful lot, yet these three verses are exactly what God wanted us to know about the ministry of the evangelist. The doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture tells us that the Bible means that the Bible tells us all that we need to know on the matter.

In actual fact, there is quite a lot that we can learn from these three verses. Acts 21:8 identifies Philip as an evangelist, which allows us to look at his ministry (recorded in Acts 8) to learn about the ministry of an evangelist. And there we learn something interesting. Yes, Philip speaks to the crowds in Samaria, but he also shares the gospel with individuals (i.e. the Ethiopian eunuch). The work of an evangelist is not simply to fill vast concert halls and sports stadia, but also to tell individuals the Good News. Philip was faithful to his calling to preach the Gospel in whatever situation God set him.

Ephesians 4:11-12 tells us another important detail about the ministry of the evangelist. Evangelists (along with the other Ascension Ministries) are given 'for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry' (Eph. 4:12). That means that an important part of the evangelist's role is directed toward the church. He is not just someone who speaks to non-Christians and tells them the gospel. He is also someone who equips the saints for evangelism. This is something hugely important. Many Christians feel guilty about evangelism. They know that it is something they should be doing, but yet they don't know how, and so they don't. They haven't been equipped for this important responsibility. But God has set in His Church evangelists who will equip the saints for evangelism.

Finally we have 2 Timothy 4:5. What can this verse contribute to our understanding. It's not even actually about an evangelist. Yet this verse can serve as a great encouragement to us. So often we lament the lack of evangelists in the church today. They often seem to be so few and far between. So how can Christians be equipped to make the gospel known if they're aren't evangelists available to equip them. Well, 2 Timothy 4:5 gives us an answer. Other ascension ministries can also be involved in this equipping work. Yes, it might be the primary responsibility of the evangelists, but the evangelists can be joined in that by the apostles (like Timothy) and pastors. So if there is no evangelist, that's no excuse. Pastors can help equip the saints under their care for evangelism and perhaps even through that God will raise up new evangelists.

We need biblical evangelists: evangelists who will proclaim the gospel faithfully in whatever openings God grants them and who equip other believers to take part in the great task of evangelism. Let's pray that God would raise up such evangelists. But let's not just wait around for the evangelists to come, rather, like Timothy, we should 'do the work of an evangelist'.

No preservation without it!

2010-04-28T05:58:00.003+01:00

Believe me, Monseigneur, the Church of God will never be preserved without cathechesis.

John Calvin writing to the Lord Protector of England in 1548.

First Apostles

2010-04-27T06:10:00.001+01:00

'God has appointed these in the church: first apostles...' (1 Corinthians 12:28). The Bible clearly states that God has set the apostles first in the church, but what exactly does that mean?

Some have argued that apostles had unquestionable and infallible authority (and so they also argue that there couldn't be any apostles today if we are to uphold the priciple of Sola Scriptura). However, this certainly doesn't follow from the text in question. 1 Corinthians 12:28 goes on to say 'second prophets, third teachers'. This is not a passage that sets up the apostleship in a highly exalted unique position over against the rest of the Church, but rather one that speaks of different positions and different ministries within the Church.

Others, such as D.A. Carson, have argued that this passage is referring to the chronological order in which various ministries and gifts appeared in the history of the Church. But this doesn't stack up either; the verse places 'varieties of tongues' in the last position, yet tongues were given at the founding of the Church on the day of Pentecost, whereas prophets and teachers (the 'second' and 'third') are not mentioned until much later in the book of Acts. So it cannot be a chronological list.

What then does it mean? F.F. Bruce speaks for many prominent commentators when he states that this verse marks out apostles, prophets and teachers 'as exercising, in Paul's estimation, the three most important ministries'. 'First apostles' speaks of the importance of the apostleship, whilst 'second prophets, third teachers' shows that the apostles are not alone in their importance and authority.

As a result, in the Apostolic Church we believe that the Apostle is 'the first office in church government' (Constitution, 1.1.1.1), yet they are not the only office in church government; after all, our Tenet states 'Church government by apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, elders and deacons.'

As the first office in Church government, the apostleship play an important role. In the words of the catechism, the apostleship 'reveals the mind of God in connection with the government of the Church'. The Apostleship functions in a way that the pastorate doesn't, bringing insight that no one else can. And so the apostleship is necessary for the good governance of the Church. God has set 'first apostles' and so we need 'first apostles'.

Sola Scriptura: Sunday's Sermon

2010-04-26T22:00:00.004+01:00

Seeing as we've just put up a new website for the Leeds assembly and it's all a bit new-fangled, here's a link to yesterday's morning sermon. At the moment we're looking at our Apostolic Identity. So this month we've been focusing on what it means to be Evangelical. Next month it'll be being Pentecostal, and then in June being Apostolic. For this month on being Evangelical we've been looking at the 5 Solas of the Reformation, so yesterday was Sola Scriptura.

Profitable

2010-04-23T22:49:00.002+01:00

Sometimes it's very easy to skip the significance of a word. When the rest of the sentence is so full of important meaning, then it's almost easy to neglect the odd word here and there, thinking of it almost more like filler or simply a linking word. This evening as I was reading Calvin as an afterthought after most of my sermon preparation was done I realized that I was almost doing that with an important word in Sunday's text. It's not that I was neglecting the word; in fact the word in question is actually one of my 3 points. Rather it's that I was neglecting an important implication of the meaning of the word. Happily, a bit of last minute Calvin reading proved profitable.

The word in question is, in fact, profitable. The verse is 2 Timothy 3:16. It's an important verse, with lots of important implications, and so it wouldn't be hard not to notice that one little word like profitable was not getting its full voice.

What Calvin points out is that if all Scripture is profitable, then it should be used profitably. Scripture is not there to satisfy our curiosity. It is not a source for our speculations. It is not there to give us something to talk about or debate. Scripture is inspired by God to be profitable.

I suppose Calvin was reacting to the speculations of the scholastics (you know, how many angels can fit on the head of a pin and that sort of thing). Yet, even if the scholastics and their speculations are no longer with us, his point is still very valid. How many Bible studies have you not been to where someone has been more concerned about speculation than about the clear meaning of the text? How many Christians are more concerned with the 'secret things' that 'belong to the LORD' than with 'the things that are revealed' which 'belong to us and to our children' (Deuteronomy 29:29)? Sometimes speculation can seem more fun than actually putting what the Bible clearly teaches into practice, but it's certainly less important. All Scripture is profitable. And all Scripture should be used profitably.

Evangelism and "The Church"

2010-04-22T18:20:00.004+01:00

We live in a world where it's easy not to take responsibility. It seems normal to us that if we don't do something, someone else will. And so that means that it comes very easily to us to neglect the responsibility of personal evangelism. Yes, we know that evangelism is important. Yes, we want to see people saved. Yes, we agree that the church should be doing evangelism. But, it's just there that we so often put off the responsibility onto someone else. "The church" we say, should be doing evangelism. Rather than thinking of evangelism as our responsibility as Christians, we think of it as "the church's" responsibility. And rather than thinking of the church as us, we think of "the church" as some vague entity that does things by itself.

But, the church cannot evangelize unless we evangelize! The Body of Christ evangelizes as the members of the Body evangelize. If it's an important responsibility for the church, then it should be an important responsibility for the members of the church. We can't leave evangelism to "the church"; we must evangelize as the church.

New Website for Leeds Assembly!

2010-04-21T07:10:00.000+01:00

Well, our new website for the Apostolic Church in Leeds is ready, so take a look. The sermon archive isn't working yet, but we hope to get that up and running in the very near future.

One Mediator, Three Responses

2010-04-19T22:29:00.000+01:00

1 Timothy 2:5-6 tells us that there is only 1 Mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus. A mediator is someone who intervenes between two parties to produce reconciliation, so Mediator is a wonderful word to describe Jesus as that's exactly what He has done - He has produced reconciliation between us and God. 1 Timothy 2:6 tells us how He did that; He 'gave Himself a ransom for all'. At the Cross, Jesus bore God's wrath in our place and so He has reconciled us to God. He is our only Mediator! Salvation is found in Christ alone.

The fact that Christ is our only Mediator, our only Saviour, leads us to respond to that marvellous truth. Three important responses spring to mind.

Firstly, such a wonderful truth should draw us to worship, praise and thanksgiving. He is the only one who could save us. He is the only one who has given His life to save us. How could we not want to praise and thank Him for the wonders of His saving work on our behalf. Worship should flow as we gaze on the truth of Christ our One Mediator.

Secondly, the fact that Jesus is the only mediator should encourage us to evangelism. As we think about how there is no one else who can save, we see the urgency of telling others about Jesus, for there is no other way for them to be saved. If they don't have a Mediator, then they have no one to take God's wrath for them and so must pay the price themselves. Unless those around us put their trust in Christ alone as Saviour, they're doomed. We need to tell them about Jesus, because Jesus is the only one who can save.

Finally, the truth that Christ is our one mediator should highlight for us the importance of praying for people to be saved. You see, it is Christ who is the only mediator, not us. We can preach the Gospel; we can tell people about Jesus; we can share the good news of His cross and resurrection; but we cannot save. Only He can. So we should accompany our evangelism with prayer, praying that the only one who can save would.

The fact that Christ is our only mediator is a doctrine of great importance. The fact that Christ is our only mediator should also be a doctrine that impacts how we live our lives.

ESV Bible for the iPhone

2010-03-20T21:05:00.005Z

Crossway has just this week put out an ESV Bible app for the iPhone. You can read the Bible, search it, highlight verses, take notes, easily look up crossreferences and even share verses.

Who does Evangelism?

2010-03-05T19:24:00.001Z

More from Mark Driscoll on being a missional church.

Lead with Theology or Lead with Pragmatism

2010-03-04T19:22:00.004Z

Mark Driscoll on being a missional church.

Signs of the Spirit

2010-03-02T20:08:00.002Z

The Bible is certainly clear that it's important to be filled with the Spirit. But how do you know if you're full or not? Most of the time when we think about such questions we think of tongues as the sign of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, but what about after being baptised in the Spirit? The Bible tells us about people being re-filled (e.g. Acts 4:31) and even commands those who had been baptised in the Spirit (Eph. 1:13; Eph. 4:30) to 'be filled with the Spirit' (Eph. 5:18). So what does this fullness look like? How can we know that we're full?

Ephesians 5 doesn't only tell us to 'be filled', but also tells us what that fullness looks like. Verses 19-21 provide 4 signs of the Spirit's fullness in believers. These can be seen in:

Speaking to one another about Christ and what He's done (Eph. 5:19)
Singing our praises to Christ (Eph. 5:19)
Thanking God for Chirst (Eph. 5:20)
Our respect and honour for others for Christ's sake (Eph. 5:21)

Each of these four signs of the fullness of the Spirit is all about Christ. This passage tells us of a life where what we say, how we act, and why we do what we do is all centred on Christ. It is a life in which everything is about Christ, to Christ, through Christ and for Christ. In short, a life full of the Holy Spirit is a life that glorifies Jesus Christ. After all, that is the role of the Holy Spirit; as Jesus said about the Holy Spirit, 'He will glorify me' (John 16:14).

The Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus Christ, therefore a life full of the Holy Spirit is a life that glorifies Jesus Christ.

Inseparably Linked

2010-03-01T22:39:00.005Z

It is a mistaken idea which disassociates the Baptism of the Holy Spirit from the preaching of the Gospel. They are inseparably linked together.

D.P. Williams, Herald of Grace, July 1944

Resources on Justification and the New Perspective

2010-02-12T21:40:00.004Z

Tabletalk has put together a collection of helpful resources on Justification and the New Perspective on Paul (NPP). If you've been wondering what all the fuss is about the NPP or N.T. Wright's view of justification, then this collection is a good place to start. There are videos to watch, audio to listen to, and even articles to read with contributors such as Don Carson, Ligon Duncan, Sinclair Ferguson, John Piper and Al Mohler (as well as many more). Justification is the doctrine by which the church stands or falls, so guarding sound teaching in this era is vital.

Prayer in the Dark

2010-02-12T05:59:00.000Z

Mark 1:35 speaks of Jesus getting up early to pray while it was still dark. In the European winter it's quite normal to get up in the morning while it's still dark, but Jesus didn't live in northern Europe. In Israel, even in the middle of winter, the sun is up by half past six: in the summer at about half past five. So getting up early to pray really did mean getting up early.

Today when we get up in the dark in the European winter it's okay. We turn on the light and work can begin even before the sun comes up. In 1st century Israel there were no electric lights. Everything was very quiet before the sun came up as nothing much could be done. Most people would have got up with the sun.

So by getting up early while it was still dark to pray Jesus was choosing a time to pray when there would be nothing else going on. It was the distraction-free time of the day.

If you're anything like me, you probably need a distraction-free time of the day for prayer. At some times of the day I can be very easily distracted by everything that needs to be done and all that's going on around me. At such times lots of little prayers might be said, yet such distraction doesn't really allow for spending time in God's presence in prayer. We still need some distraction-free time to spend in God's presence. For some people that might mean getting up early, for others it might mean praying in the middle of the night, others can escape distraction during their lunch break or at some other time during the day. It's not so much the exact time that's important, but the prayer. I heard last weekend about an assembly where different people in the prayer meeting reported waking up at the same time every night, spending an hour in prayer and then going back to sleep. As they discovered that many people in the assembly were saying this was happening, they began to discover that each one was waking up at a different time and that, in fact, there was a chain of people praying all night long. This wasn't something planned and structured, but simply something God was doing quietly and people only discovered later.

Every Christian doesn't have to pray at the same time. God has not given us a command to pray at 8:15am. It's the prayer that's important, not the clock. So find a time when you won't be distracted to spend time in God's presence in prayer.

Trains, Taxis and Evangelism

2010-02-11T20:03:00.004Z

Last weekend I was travelling. Travelling nearly always means talking to strangers. Not just the people who take our tickets, check our passports or x-ray our luggage to whom we speak for a only few seconds; but talking to people with whom we end up passing considerably more time.

Now, I'm not the most outgoing of people. I don't strike up conversations with everyone I meet. As I was returning to Brussels on the Eurostar at the end of the weekend I couldn't help but overhear as the two (rather loud) people in front of me struck up a conversation which was to last the entire journey. These were two complete strangers, yet sitting across the table from each other in a railway carriage made a two-hour long conversation both acceptable and even, in their case, desirable. Apart from exchanging a few pleasantries, I kept myself to myself. The business woman sitting beside me clearly wanted to get on with her work without being disturbed. That's vital to the whole speaking to strangers on the train thing: recognising who wants to speak and who doesn't.

Now, why on earth am I mumbling on about conversations with strangers whilst travelling? Well, because of the sovereignty of God really. You see, because God is sovereign, that means that it is ultimately He and not someone in charge of seat reservations who has chosen whom we end up sitting next to on the train. So, if God has put a stranger beside us in what is probably the only remaining situation where we actually have extended conversations with strangers, perhaps that should influence the content of our conversations. Instead of discussing the weather, politics or our travelling experiences, a conversation on a train could be a very good time to talk about the Gospel.

In the middle of Friday afternoon I was sitting on the train from Paddington heading towards my connection in Wiltshire with my head buried in a book. I had asked for a seat in the quiet carriage and so was a bit miffed by the amount of noise around me. It was a very good book: a book about evangelism in fact. And then my concentration was interrupted by the man across the table asking a question. 'What's the book about?' I froze; how do you explain a book about evangelism to a non-Christian?

'It's about church', I finally feebly offered. 'Now I've done it', I thought, 'here I am reading about evangelism, and I can't even think what to say when I'm asked about what I'm reading. This conversation'll be over before it's even begun.' But it wasn't. In fact the man was a Christian and one who was very enthusiastic about evangelism. He told me all about how he and a group of other Christians from his town go out at night to tell drug-addicts and rent-boys about Jesus. This relatively new Christian was so excited about telling others the good news; 'I just tell them about Jesus' he said. And his words hit home to this theologian. He didn't tell them about how he was a Christian; he didn't talk about himself, just about Jesus.

Sometimes we can really want to tell someone about Jesus and what He's done, but we don't actually manage to; we can so easily fall into talking about being a Christian and going to church and end up not explaining the Gospel. Instead of saying the book was about 'church', I could have said it was about Jesus - a much better and truer answer. Evangelism means telling people about Jesus.

When I finally got off the last train of my journey that Friday evening, I still had a few more miles to go, so I hopped into a waiting taxi. Immediately I gave my destination the driver had some inkling that I was a Christian and began asking questions. He was an immigrant from another continent with a completely different religious and philosophical background. He had heard some things about Christianity, but wanted answers to some questions. The taxi trip only took ten minutes, but we talked the whole way and even sat on talking after reaching our destination. I talked about Jesus and what He did on the Cross. I talked about why He had to die. I talked about grace and faith and how we couldn't earn God's favour. But at the end my taxi driver went away without understanding.

That reminded me of something very important: evangelism isn't dependent on how well we explain the Gospel. A clear Gospel presentation doesn't automatically lead to evangelistic fruit. It is God who must open hearts to understand and believe. We need to remember that salvation is of the Lord, not of our fantastic evangelistic efforts. I'll keep on praying for that taxi driver. I'll pray that he continues to come into contact with Christians who will tell Him about Jesus. I'll pray that God would soften his heart to hear the Gospel and open his eyes to understand it. I'll pray that God would save him. God Himself is the power of evangelism.

So what is the lesson of a weekend of trains, taxis and evangelism? Simply this: God is sovereign, so take the opportunities He gives, talk about Jesus and what He has done at the Cross, and remember that the results don't depend on us, but on God alone.

Good Evangelism

2010-02-10T21:43:00.002Z

The test of our evangelistic method is a simple question: does it make justification clear? The vital question is for people to know if they are acquitted by God.

Will Metzger, Tell the Truth, p.189

Our Plans and God's Purpose

2010-02-04T05:58:00.002Z

God's Purpose Will Come to Pass

2010-02-03T20:39:00.006Z

Eph. 3:11 tells us that God has an eternal purpose. Just pause there a moment to think about that word purpose. It's not a wish or a hope, it's not something that God would like to see happen if at all possible. No, it's the eternal purpose of our sovereign God.

When we make plans they depend on many things around us. They may depend on circumstances or on other people. They may depend on the economy or the weather. They may depend on our strength or intelligence. They also depend on us. That means that some of our best laid plans come to nothing. Much as we would sometimes like something to happen, it isn't always possible for there are reasons beyond our control. There are no reasons, however, beyond God's control. There is no one upon whom and nothing upon which God is dependent. He is the sovereign Lord who controls the whole of creation, and so nothing can get in the way of His plan. God's plan is not like our plans because God is not like us; He is the all-powerful and all-sufficient One.

That means that we can have confidence that God's purpose will come to pass. No matter how discouraging the circumstances around us may be at times, God's purpose will come to pass. When we see little fruit from evangelistic efforts we can take comfort in the fact that God's purpose will come to pass. If things are discouraging at church we are reassured by the fact that God's purpose will come to pass. If all we can see are obstacles and difficulties in our lives, we can look ahead with confidence for we know that God's purpose will come to pass.

God's purpose will certainly come to pass, for it is not a nice thought, a wish or desire, but rather the eternal purpose of the eternal God.

Lloyd-Jones on the Church's Greatest Need

2010-02-02T22:20:00.001Z

The greatest need of the church from every standpoint is a great visitation of the Holy Spirit, and it is only as she receives this she will be enabled to understand again, to grasp and to preach to others, the saving message of the gospel of the Son of God!

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Joy Unspeakable, p.164

The End of an Era (well, for me at least)

2010-01-30T20:46:00.004Z

Today was my last day teaching at seminary. Or rather, today was supposed to be my last day teaching at seminary. My last class actually had to be cancelled due to bad snow. So the end has already been and gone without me even noticing. No more chalk-dust or class debates. After 5 years teaching theology (the last 3 of which at CTS) I'll certainly miss it, but although the setting and the structure might be changing, teaching the Bible and Christian doctrine is not something I'll be leaving behind.

It's not just seminary students after all who need to be taught the truth of God's Word. Every Christian needs teaching. That's why Christ placed teachers in His church (Eph. 4:11) and not simply in educational establishments. That's why elders must be 'apt to teach' (1 Tim. 3:2) and not just able to organize. After all, one of the marks of the early church was that 'they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine' (Acts 2:42). So the teaching might take on a rather different style, but as a pastor my teaching role must continue. Shepherds must feed the flock, therefore pastors and elders must teach.

I've learnt many things from these last few years teaching at seminary (yes, it's not just the students who learn). Perhaps one of the most important is patience. Every year I'm reminded that I can't take it for granted that everyone knows what I'm talking about. Becoming a Christian doesn't suddenly mean an immediate understanding of Christian doctrine. And each year as a new first year class starts out, I'm reminded once again that in the church I need to make sure I explain what I'm talking about and not assume that everyone understands. But also every year I see the progress the students make and their growth, not only in knowledge, but also maturity. These things don't happen overnight, but neither do most good things. And such patience is necessary in church life as well; if we want to make disciples we're not going to see the finished product in 48 hours or even 48 weeks. Patience (and prayer along with it) are vital.

So as I leave I pray that the students would apply themselves to the study of God's Word, that they would be transformed and conformed more and more to the image of Christ by that Word, and that they would go on to proclaim that powerful life-giving Word to others. I pray that they would be patient and let God work in them by His Word and Spirit, and that they would have the patience to continue announcing that Word to others even when progress is slow in coming. I pray for CTS, that it would continue always to be an institution that upholds God's Word, teaches it faithfully and has fosters the faith that God would use the proclamation of His Word to the salvation of souls.

Us-focused or God-focused: The Baptism of the Holy Spirit

2010-01-27T22:14:00.006Z

It seems that some really good Christians do not realize that the Holy Ghost is doing the extraordinary today - this Pentecostal blessing, the fullness of the Spirit is not something merely to prepare us for heaven, but to bring to fruition the purposes of God.

So said Pastor Thomas Rees back in 1939 at the Penygroes Convention, and His point is still important today 70 years later. The focus of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not on us, but on God and His purposes. Sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit primarily as an experience we have. In that case the focus falls on us; we're at the centre. It's true that the Baptism in the Holy Spirit is an experience, and an important one at that, but the most important aspect is that it is an experience given by our Triune God for His own glory and purpose. God the Father has promised the Baptism of the Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49), God the Son has poured it out (Acts 2:33) and it is God the Spirit with whom we are filled. All the action is on God's side!

The goal of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit is also all about God. Through the baptism in the Holy Spirit we receive power for service, including evangelism (Acts 1:8). So through the Baptism in the Holy Spirit our God equips us to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. He equips us to speak His Word. It's all about Him, not us. It's all for His glory not ours.

The Baptism in the Holy Spirit is not so that we can 'live our best life now', but for the outworking of God's purposes. It's not to make me more blessed, but so that God can bring a blessing to others through me. And that's much more extraordinary than simply doing something for me. The baptism in the Holy Spirit is all about Jesus.

2 Great Reasons Not To Fear Evangelism

2010-01-26T15:09:00.004Z

Recently a few different people in a few different contexts have asked me questions about fear and evangelism. Unlike us, it seems the first Christians didn't really associate fear and evangelism. The words used to describe their witness are words like 'assurance' and 'boldness'. But we have the same message and same commission as them, so that means we too can evangelize with assurance and boldness, instead of fear.

The Bible makes it clear that we have no reason to fear. Most Christians are probably quite familiar with the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19-20. We've memorized the 'go and make disciples' bit. But have you ever noticed what Jesus says in the immediate context? Right there where He tells us to 'go and make disciples' He also gives us two great reasons not to be scared to do so.

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen. (Matthew 28:18-20)

The great commission is actually sandwiched between these two great reasons: first Jesus tells us that He has all authority in heaven and on earth, then He tells us to therefore go and make disciples, and finally He reassures us of His presence with us as we go about fulfilling His Great Commission. The word therefore is important; it shows us that we cannot leave out verse 18. It is only because Jesus Christ has all authority that we could ever possibly make any disciples. It is His authority and not ours that is key. You see, we're not relying on something in us to do evangelism, we're relying on Christ alone in His authority. Then the promise in verse 20 reminds us that we're not alone as we tell others the Gospel: Christ is with us, working through our weak words. It's Christ's authority and Christ's presence that make evangelism possible and effective. We have nothing to fear, because it's not about us at all, it's all about Jesus.

Lloyd-Jones on the Baptism in the Holy Spirit

2010-01-18T05:41:00.003Z

Christian experience and Christian doctrine belong together. Consider these

words of 'the Doctor':

Would you know the Christian truth, would you know the Christian doctrine? Would you have a firm grasp and understanding of God's great and glorious purpose? The highway to that is the baptism with the Holy Spirit. It gives greater light and knowledge and instruction than anything else, and it does so in order that we may be witnesses.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Joy Unspeakable, p.111

Objecting to Objections: Don't Let Political Correctness Keep You From Evangelism

2010-01-14T17:49:00.003Z

Trevin Wax posted a piece over on the Gospel Coalition blog pointing out what's wrong with some common objections to "proselytism" (or as most of us tend to call it, evangelism). It's in response to a recent controversy in America involving someone we don't know on this side of the Atlantic, but the objections to the objections are just as relevant on this continent as they are on that one. In conclusion, proselytism (or evangelism) is a good thing logically (as well as biblically).

For Aspiring Academics

2010-01-13T21:32:00.003Z

Carl Trueman has written an article for 9 Marks which should be compulsory reading for any aspiring Christian academics. Pointing out the dangers of craving academic respectability, Trueman reminds us that such should not be the true goal of evangelical academics:

The highest achievement any evangelical theological scholar can attain is not membership of some elite guild but the knowledge that he or she has done work that strengthened the church and extended the kingdom of God through the local church.

Academic rigour is a good thing, but academic responsibility can become a poisoned chalice. After all, our chief end is to glorify God, not please our peers.

Pentecost Means A Person

2010-01-12T17:39:00.000Z

Pentecost then means a Person, moreover a Holy Person not tongues, nor miracles, and, in some respects, not even power. These are only outward evidences, and must always be subordinate to and demonstrative of that fact. They are the results of filling and not the filling itself, the gifts and not the Giver.

A. Ferran (past principal of the Apostolic Church Bible College), A Running Commentary in the Acts of the Apostles, 38