taking it whole

Have it your way, someone said. And you can. Take albums, for instance. No longer do we have to suffer the weaker tracks, the songs that bore us and leave us drifting. No need to lift the stylus and replace it gingerly, hoping not to scratch the precious vinyl. No need to press ff and guess where the next track starts. No need to press 'skip' on the CD remote. Just don't bother downloading the track in the first place. Don't rip it; don't burn it. Just ditch it.

But those tracks are part of the treasure because they give the context for the songs you love more than anything else. They help to tell the story, the whole story, even if you aren't listening to a concept album from the heady days of the 70's. We need the fullness. That struck me again whilst listening to Ohio by Over The Rhine. It's a sprawling double-album that is studded with songs that are more than fine; there are also weaker pieces that I often skip over. But taking it whole I realised that mixing and matching was robbing me of the larger canvas of ideas and the need and opportunity to respond to lesser material, even while being drawn more tightly into the finer moments.

Of course I'll still listen to isolated tracks and maybe even play them shuffled. But maybe I need to make time, too, to listen to the whole artistic expression because the artist has something to say. And I won't get it by ipodding them into a parody of Normal Collier.

And listening to the whole might do other things, too. Teach me patience and tolerance. Allow time to uncover gems that only surface on repeated listenings. Gems of rare quality that instant karma cannot yield. To learn the rhythms of life where moments of joy are couched within the lesser. Diamonds in the dark and in the gloom and in the partial light of days undawned.

credit where it's due?

I think that I can safely say that the Judeo-Christian Bible is a self-help book that has probably enabled more people to make more extensive and intensive personality and behavioral changes than all professional therapists combined.

So said 'strident atheist' and pioneer-psychotherapist Albert Ellis in 1993.

Source: Mark McMinn, Psychology, Theology and Spirituality in Christian Counselling, Tyndale 1996.

Two

years passed
since your
passing;
since the moment
your life
ceased
with a final
lunge;
since the loosed
departure
into a void
not seen
and your presence
lost.

Two years of days
and hours
and minutes
and seconds
and breaths
and beats
that never belonged
to you.

Too long
years.


(for Dad)

writing about grace

I have spent a good deal of my adult life trying to understand grace. Most of this has been through the routines of life - marriage, studying, prayer, parenting, worship, reading, and friendship. Many years ago I devoted some of my routine to writing a book about grace. No one has seen or heard of the book since, and though I have quite a knack for authoring books that no one ever hears of, there is a good explanation in this case. The book was never published. I sent my two-hundred-fifty-page manuscript to several different publishers, and each of them responded with a permutation of the standard "thanks, but no thanks" letter.

Fifteen years later, I am grateful that book was never published. It was a book produced by an overachieving young assistant professor who was committed to routine but had not yet had enough moments of insight to write about grace. It was a book written before I began to grasp the depth of brokenness and sin in our world and in my own heart. Understanding grace cannot be done without understanding sin. Sometimes I ponder what that unpublished book, with its anemic view of grace, would have been titled if it had been published. Perhaps, Grace Lite or Grace: Because I'm Worth It or Grace: I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me.

In the intervening fifteen years I have continued to experience occasional punctuating moments - windows of insight - that have brought fresh glimpses of grace. They are not altogether pleasant moments because they are always accompanied with a weighty, breath-stealing awareness of my sin and my desperate need for forgiveness. But they are motivating. It is the second of two such punctuating moments that finally gave me the courage to write this book.

(Why Sin Matters by Mark McMinn, pp.2,3; Tyndale 2004)

ASUS Eee PC - arrived!

I know, words like boys and toys spring into my mind too....but there you go. We are who we are; I'm just hoping words like pain and death don't spring into Anna's mind..... :-)

The new Asus Eee PC that arrived this morning (before the battery was inserted, hence the rather odd shape; I was too excited to sort out stuff like that before snapping it).

When the big boys come calling....

Mike Rohde, we salute ya.

The Last Of The Peasantry

What does he know? moving through the fields
And the wood's echoing cloisters
With a beast's gait, hunger in his eyes
Only for what the flat earth supplies;
His wisdom dwindled to a small gift
For handling stock, planting a few seeds
To ripen slowly in the warm breath
Of an old God to whom he never prays.

Moving through the fields, or still at home,
Dwarfed by his shadow on the bright wall,
His face is lit always from without,
The sun by day, the red fire at night;
Within is dark and bare, the grey ash
Is cold now, blow on it as you will.

(R. S. Thomas)

praying for missionaries

We all need help in praying for others. The prayers in the Bible are a great help and so are the requests for prayer we find there. In Romans 15:30-32, Paul asks for prayer, as he often did. He urges the Roman believers, “by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit” to join him in his struggle by praying to God for him. To pray for others honours the Lordship of Jesus and is an act of love prompted by the Holy Spirit. To pray for others is also to struggle with and for them, as Paul knows. It is a partnership in hard work!

What exactly is the nature of the struggle in Paul’s situation? He says it is twofold. Going to Jerusalem, he needs to be “rescued from the unbelievers in Judea”. Gospel ministry always involves this struggle. It is a frequent, urgent prayer request of many missionaries. The world has not changed in 2000 years and neither has the nature of the struggle. It is not a battle against flesh and blood but it is often manifested through flesh and blood. We must pray for protection and safety.

Paul is also concerned that his “service in Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints there”. Here is a less obvious yet no less real and urgent need for prayer. It is a request that still carries weight for missionaries today.

Paul was taking much needed financial help to the suffering church in Jerusalem, a gift from the Gentile churches. What could possibly be difficult about such a ministry? Why does he fear that his service might prove to be unacceptable? At least two features of the situation may give rise to his concern.

First, there is the history of Paul’s persecution of the church before his conversion and the suspicion of him that followed. He had caused much suffering and the memory of it may still be sharp in many hearts.

We know that we are to forgive as the Lord forgave us, but knowing it is one thing, doing it is another thing entirely. Maybe Paul is simply being realistic in terms of the struggle many of us have with forgiving and forgetting. And it may be that missionaries today encounter suspicion among those they seek to serve because of past failures. Perhaps mistakes made in the early days of ministry are still remembered and poison present fellowship. We need to pray that God will grant healing in such situations.

But it may be that what Paul is most conscious of is that for many Jewish believers something of the old Jew-Gentile divide still exists. Receiving a gift from the Gentile churches may be hard to swallow, because it will mean swallowing their pride. Paul’s approach will need to combine a sensitivity that doesn’t pander to the pride of others with a boldness that doesn’t brutalise their sensibilities. No wonder he is asking for prayer!

Our friends need such prayer too. They need grace to serve national churches with wisdom and humility, without any of the negative overtones of paternalism. They need grace to deal with situations that witness more to old divisions than to the unity of the Spirit. We need to pray that their service may be “acceptable to the saints”.

They also serve...

It’s a moving story. The great poet John Milton finally lost his sight and then was bereaved of his wife. In the trauma of that first loss, he penned the sonnet ‘On His Blindness’ in which he reflects on the parable of the talents in the light of his own circumstances. He expresses in the poem his sense of frustration and perplexity over how the Lord could allow this enforced idleness, “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”

Many will be able to sympathise with his feelings. In Psalm 42, the writer expresses great heaviness of heart and cries out, “Why are you downcast, oh my soul?”. Life had taken a turn for the worse and part of the anxiety and pain were the memories he had of serving God: “These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God.” (v.4). Those times now seemed so long ago and so far away.

As we go through similar times, it’s good to recall that ultimately we are not defined by what we do. Of course, how we serve the Lord is important. Our gifts allow us to express who we are in relationship with him and our gratitude for his grace. But they don’t define us. We are not in the first instance called to serve but “called to belong to Jesus Christ” (Romans 1:6). That clearly involves service but it is not limited to it. Significantly, Adam and Eve’s first full day in Eden was a Sabbath on which they rested in the Lord who had made them. They were created to belong to him and that holds true in the new creation too.

Part of our struggle over this may be because we view service too narrowly. John Milton wrestled with his difficulties and resolved them, declaring “They also serve who only stand and wait”. We too quickly limit what serving God means. We define it in terms of activity but Milton had grasped the profound truth that it depends not on action for its vitality but on the attitude of the heart. Serving God is fundamentally concerned with a response to his grace that recognises and rejoices in the Lordship of Christ over the whole of life.

Yes, Jesus is Lord, even over all our infirmities. The Lord who is sovereign can use us just as he will. His purposes are not thwarted when our gifts are limited through age or infirmity, nor are his purposes overtaken by events beyond our control. Paul had grasped this as he languished in a Roman prison. Despite the curtailing of his ‘active service’ he was still rejoicing in the Lord’s ability to use his circumstances and even the wrong motives of others to further the cause of Christ (Phil. 1:12-18). We may feel chained by age or circumstances but “God’s Word is not chained” (2 Tim. 2:9) and by his Spirit he can still use us to herald the name of Jesus, in our sufferings, through our prayers.

The God we serve called light out of darkness and made all things from nothing. Out of the ‘nothing’ of our limitations and frailties, he can fashion something lasting and good to glorify his Son. It’s interesting that Milton’s greatest piece of work, Paradise Lost, was written after his blindness. And the greatest work in all history was declared ‘Finished!’ when all had seemed lost and the Suffering Servant forsaken by God. His ways are much higher than ours.

quoting the quoted

In order to be able to assume the responsibility for other people’s growth, leaders must themselves have grown to true maturity and inner freedom. They must not be locked up in a prison of illusion or selfishness, and they must have allowed others to guide them...

We can only command if we know how to obey. We can only be a leader if we know how to be a servant. We can only be a mother—or a father—figure if we are conscious of ourselves as a daughter or a son. Jesus is the Lamb before the He is the Shepherd. His authority comes from the Father; He is the beloved Son of the Father.

Jean Vanier, Community and Growth, 1989 - quoted on Out of Ur.

poetry, questions and answers

Yann Martel has been sending books to the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper (see here). Along with the books, he writes letters and in one letter he makes this observation about poems:

The marvel of poetry is that it can be as short as a question yet as powerful as an answer.

How well said, Mr Martel. And happy reading, Mr Harper.

vulnerability: haiku #1

To admit you're vulnerable
is strong and not weak;
it shivers the backs of men.

Two gems from Harold

From the back of the car came these thoughts...

When I grow up I'm going to join the army as a morale booster.

I'm going to join the army to learn self-discipline and then quit.

the best book

on the best of all books is a recent post by Scot McNight and I have to say I utterly agree with him. Peterson writes with greater elegance and more profound insight than most others. I don't think it's the best book I've ever read, though; that accolade would have to go to....

who can forgive sins?

In Matthew 9, when Jesus tells the paralysed man, Your sins are forgiven (v.2), the Pharisees respond by accusing him of blasphemy (v.3); in Mark's account their ire is made more explicit: they ask, Who can forgive sins but God alone? (Mark 2:7). It's a good question - and also a moot point.

The crowd who see the miracle respond with awe and praise because, as they see it, "God...had given such authority to men." Authority to do what? To heal? Yes. To forgive? That would seem to be part of the package they have in mind.

The Pharisees are angered because, as they see it, God alone can forgive sins; and the crowd are amazed because, as they see it, God has conferred authority on men (not just the man) to forgive sins.

Who's right? It's often said (by preachers - I know, because I've said it) that the Pharisees were at least right on this point; where they went wrong was in not recognising that God was among them in the person of his Son. So they were right and the crowd was wrong.

I'm not so sure now. Is it true that only God can forgive sins? Yes, but it is also true that he devolves the authority to do so to people - Jesus tells us that explicitly in Matthew 18:15ff, esp. v.18.

So the Pharisees were only partly right; the crowd, however deficient in their understanding of the true identity of Jesus, had got it spot on.

Blue Guitars

Chris Rea's Blue Guitars was a mammoth undertaking by the man and a wealth of superb material (at an unbelievably low price, packaged superbly). But a really nice bonus is that you can buy some of the artwork that CR painted for the album here.

a heap from ash

A small overview on the book of Job that is big on pastorally-helpful material, grounded in serious exegesis and wise biblical-theology. It also helps that Ash can write well; very well.

Young At Heart

Been listening to Neil Young's latest release - Live At Massey Hall 1971 - stunning vocal performance, great acoustic guitar, appreciative audience, gentle humour and, of course, lyrics that plumb depths of emotional intensity both real and raw, whilst remaining humane and sane. A welcome companion on a miserably-wet morning.

Song for Hefina

Recently came across this piece, written after an 18-week miscarriage in 1995. The little girl was due to be born in June 1996, hence the name we chose for her ('June' in Welsh is Mehefin). Posting it here fwiw.



Song for Hefina

Out of time,
yet your time hadn't come;
Out of the darkness,
into eternal light.

Joy we never tasted
and shared at your dawn,
Is multiplied to you
in heaven's glory song.

And lullabies soft whispered
never soothed a troubled cry;
Yet music wholly other
holds and charms you now.

Our arms never held
and cradled you in love;
His are everlasting,
how can we long for return?

Tested and examined,
consigned to history.
Our hearts will never forget you
nor will our tears dry
until the day faith turns to sight
and God, who is rich in mercy,
unfurls the banner
of love's final triumph.

On the cusp

of a study-week, to be spent in our Dandy, sans famile (as Alain Dah-vey might say). Here are the books I plan to take and (maybe) to read:

John Goldingay, Old Testament Theology Vol 2 - Israel's Faith
Kevin Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine
Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book
Eugene Peterson, The Jesus Way
Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge
Miroslav Volf, The End of Memory
Larry Crabb, Soul Talk
Chris Wright, The Mission of God

I guess that's enough. I've never had a study week before so I figured that it's best to take too many books rather than take only a few and then find they aren't what's most needed. I also decided to take a variety of styles and subjects. And some are small and some are big.

Of course, a Bible or three will also be needed. And a mobile phone, a set of headphones and directions to the nearest public house showing the Champions' League final on Wednesday. The essentials, so to speak.

The Dandy? This is it:

the words that saved my life

I know, LORD, that your laws are righteous,
and that in faithfulness you have afflicted me.

May your unfailing love be my comfort,
according to your promise to your servant.

(Psalm 119:75,76)

Tagged!

Msr Alain Dah-vey has apparently tagged me (it hasn't happened since I was at Junior School in Pwllheli) so I ought to try to reply (this is where he did so).

Three characters I wish were real, so I could meet them:
i) Reginald Perrin
ii) Esther Greenwood (from The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath)
iii) Querry (from A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene)

Three characters I would like to be:
i) Reginald Perrin
ii) Richard Hannay
iii) Alf Tupper (from The Victor comic for boys)

Three characters who scare me:
i) Dr Mary Malone (from Philip Pulman's His Dark Materials)
ii) Maxwell Edison (from Maxwell's Silver Hammer by The Beatles)
iii) The Cook (in Yann Martel's Life of Pi)

I need to tag 3 people. I only know one who qualifies: The Masked Badger. You're tagged, sonny.

Prescience

Americans are not particularly good at sensing the real elements of another people's culture. It helps them to approach foreigners with carefree warmth and an animated lack of misgiving. It also makes them, on the whole, poor administrators on foreign soil. They find it almost impossible to believe that poorer peoples, far from the Statue of Liberty, should not want in their hearts to become Americans. If it should happen that America, in its new period of world power, comes to do what every other world power has done: if Americans should have to govern large numbers of foreigners, you must expect that Americans will be well hated before they are admired for themselves.

Alistair Cooke, The Immigrant Strain, 6th May 1946.

Why bother to read the Bible? Why bother to preach?

Christians feed on Scripture. Holy Scripture nurtures the holy community as food nurtures the human body. Christians don't simply learn or study or use Scripture; we assimilate it, take it into our lives in such a way that it gets metabolised into acts of love, cups of cold water, missions into all the world, healing and evangelism and justice in Jesus' name, hands raised in adoration of the Father, feet washed in company with the Son.

Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book, p.18

faithful servant; faithful son

In Numbers 12 we're told that Moses "was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth" (v.3). The context for that comment is the jealousy of Aaron and Miriam; part of the Lord's response is to declare that Moses "is faithful in all my house" (v.7) and, unlike other prophets who receive the Lord's word in dreams and visions, Moses has face-to-face dealings with the LORD and sees his form (v.8). There could be no clearer nor more powerful affirmation and exaltation of Moses as the LORD's servant.

The writer of Hebrews also makes use of this incident (or at least of the LORD's commendation of Moses) but in a quite unexpected way. Yes, "Moses was faithful as a servant in all God's house" (Heb. 3:5); the commendation is repeated almost word for word, but the writer has in view one who is even greater than this Moses: "But Christ is faithful as a son over God's house" (3:6).

Moses was outstanding in his generation, commended by the LORD and deeply privileged. But there is one even more worthy of commendation, outstanding in all time and whose privilege derives from his being "the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being" (Heb. 1:3). As the house-builder, he has greater honour than the house itself (Heb. 3:3) and as the son over that house is worthy of the deepest devotion and the highest praise.

of nails & masts

5 points from Tom Wright, mediated by Peter Leithart.

hallowing the name

Hallowed be your name - the adoration that springs from the appreciation of God as our Father in heaven. The question I had was this: who does the hallowing and how? My assumption was that it is we (in concert with all humanity) who are to do the former by living hallowed lives, in every context and in every possible way.

But enter Ezekiel 36.

Therefore say to the house of Israel, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: It is not for your sake, house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Sovereign LORD, when I am proved holy through you before their eyes. (vv.22,23)

It is the LORD who will show his name to be holy, who will hallow his name. And he will do so through the return from exile and the gift of his Spirit:

For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God. (vv.24-28)

That is to say, God will hallow his name in and through his Son and his great achievements, through the great events of the gospel. And through those achievements being visible in the lives of the people he brings back from the exile (of sin) and into whom he gifts his Spirit.

Maybe it's startlingly obvious to all & sundry but it was a fresh discovery to me. And a welcome, humbling one.

evening fear

In the cool of the day, the LORD God walked in the garden and the man and his wife hid in fear from him. Sin had spoiled the world.

In John 20:19ff, it is evening once more and again there is fear - but this time of men, not the Lord. A fear that the same fate will befall the disciples that had befallen their beloved Master. And then he's there, among them, speaking words of peace. No longer is there any need for evening fear, because sin has been dealt with and death has been conquered.

He shows them his hands and his side, the evidence of being so recently slaughtered. And their response to such a sight, to such a devastating display of the horrors of death and the mauling meted out by sin and evil? They are overjoyed because the one they see, the one whose ruptured side and battered hands are in full view, is the LORD.

Far from denying his lordship, these marks are the crown he wears, the vindication of his reign, the symbols of victory.

And the reason why evening fear - all fear - can be banished forever.

Chris Wright on Noah & Mission

Although we live on a cursed earth, we also live on a covenanted earth.

This is God's earth, and God is covenantally committed to its survival, just as later revelation will show us that God is also covenantally committed to its ultimate redemption.

Our mission takes place within the framework of God's universal promise to the created order.

The rainbow promise spans whatever horizon we can ever see.

Christopher J H Wright, The Mission of God, IVP 2006, pp.326,7

Blessing, not cursing

In commenting on Genesis 3, John Goldingay (Old Testament Theology p.139) notices that "God actively blesses; God does not actively curse, but declares that the snake and ground are cursed." While acknowledging that "at one level the distinction is purely syntactical" he goes on to (fairly, imo) comment that "To describe God as blessing but not directly cursing suggests that blessing is Yhwh's natural activity, while cursing is less so...In Yhwh's nature blessing has priority over cursing, love over anger, mercy over retribution."

An interesting example that seems to confirm Goldingay's observation is found in Exodus 20:5 where the Lord delcares that he will punish the children for the sin of their parents to the fourth generation but will show love to a thousand generations of those who love him. Because his priority is blessing, not cursing.

The Best Paragraph Ever Written

I believe this to be one of the finest paragraphs ever written. It makes you want to continue reading, its use of english is faultless and its pace and tone are exemplary (I'm sure the venerable Mr Zinsser would agree). The author is Eugene Peterson and he is writing about the pastoral ministry.

Here it is:

The adjective apocalyptic is not commonly found in company with the noun pastor. I can't remember ever hearing them in the same sentence. They grew up on different sides of the tracks. I'd like to play Cupid between the two words and see if I can instigate a courtship.

(from a piece entitled The Apocalyptic Pastor, found in various places including here)

I read the paragraph to my wife (whose name is a palindrome) and told her that I would give my life-savings to be able to write like that. She half-laughed, safe in the knowledge that were my intent true it wouldn't change our lives much. When I told her that I would sell this house to be able to write like that, she stood aghast and said "Surely you wouldn't!" I don't recall my response but it probably masked, for her sake, how real that desire was. Because it's the finest paragraph I have ever read.

sermons on john 13-17

for what it's worth, my sermon notes on john 13-17, preached in swinton a couple of years ago, are available here (and also via the sermons link in the sidebar).

those who sleep in boats

Jonah is commissioned by God but flees.
Jesus is commissioned by God and follows.

Jonah is caught in a storm sent by God.
Jesus is caught in a storm of satanic fury.

Jonah sleeps through the storm while the others on the boat are full of terror.
Jesus sleeps through the storm while the others on the boat are full of terror.

Jonah sleeps callously and carelessly.
Jesus sleeps content in his Father's care.

Jonah is woken and his voice (indirectly) is the means for the storm to be stilled ("throw me into the sea").
Jesus is woken and his voice is the means for the storm to be stilled ("Peace; be still.").

Two ways to sleep in a boat; one way to do so well.

Leah: pain and praise

Genesis 29:31-35 records the birth and naming of Jacob's first four sons by Leah. Interestingly, it is she who names the children, not Jacob (is he really that disinterested?) and the names, along with the reasoning behind them, seem to give some insight into Leah's handling of the pain of her situation.

When the first son is born, she names him Reuben because she believes YHWH has seen her misery, being relatively unloved by her husband. Her hope is that Jacob will love her now.

But that seems not to be the case. When her second son is born, she names him Simeon because YHWH has heard she is (still) not loved. The fond hopes that surrounded the birth of Reuben were clearly not fulfilled.

Leah's pain evidently continues; when her third son is born she names him Levi, ardently hoping that now at last his birth will cause her husband to be attached to her. It seems a forlorn hope. She has been placed in an intolerable situation and not by her own choice. She is deeply pained at Jacob's rejection of her and longs for him to have a change of heart in order to heal the pain in hers. But it seems Jacob is unmoved by the kindness of YHWH in giving sons to he and Leah and blind to the favour of YHWH towards Leah.

Yet when her fourth son is born, she names him Judah saying, "This time I will praise YHWH". No mention this time of her husband, nor of her desperate desire to be loved and accepted by him (an entirely understandable and legitimate desire).

But Leah, so slighted and demeaned, is not abandoned in her misery and with the birth of Judah she recognises this. No doubt the pain remains but she is able now to praise YHWH out of her pain. Reconciled to her situation, she is able to rejoice in the God who is ever-loving and ever-loyal to his people. "This time" her focus is higher than her husband and her joy greater than he could arouse or sustain. To be loved and accepted by YHWH and to know his favour means more than anything else could.

Maybe it's no coincidence that at this point "she stopped having children".

stirring the pot

In many books, a new chapter begins with a quote from some notable or other, or some not-notable-but-still-quotable or other; in his book, The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church, Alan Hirsch does just that. Here are a couple of such quotes that are worth pondering:

A church which pitches its tents without constantly looking out for new horizons, which does not continually strike camp, is being untrue to its calling.. . . [We must] play down our longing for certainty, accept what is risky, and live by improvisation and experiment. (Hans Küng, The Church as the People of God)

If you want to build a ship, don’t summon people to buy wood, prepare tools, distribute jobs, and organize the work, rather teach people the yearning for the wide, boundless ocean. (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

Leithart Links

Peter Leithart's writing is always stimulating - here are some recent posts that seemed especially so to me.

Unbearable Burden of Evangelicalism

You Shall Know Them By Their Fear

Fear and Fear

Christian Idolatry

A huge religious marketplace has been set up in North America to meet the needs and fantasies of people just like us. There are conferences and gatherings custom-designed to give us the lift we need. There are books, videos, and seminars that promise to let us in on the Christian "secret" of whatever it is we feel is lacking in our life-financial security, well-behaved children, weight loss, sex, travel to holy sites, exciting worship, celebrity teachers. The people who promote these goods and services all smile a lot and are good-looking. They are obviously not bored.

It isn't long before we're standing in line to buy whatever is being offered. And because none of the purchases does what we had hoped for, or at least not for long, we're soon back to buy another, and then another. The process is addicting. We become consumers of packaged spiritualities.

This also is idolatry. We never think of using this term because everything we're buying or paying for is defined by the adjective Christian. But idolatry it is, nevertheless. It's God packaged as a product-God depersonalized and made available as a technique or a program. The Christian market in idols has never been more brisk or lucrative. The late medieval indulgences that provoked Luther's righteous wrath are small potatoes compared to what's going on in our evangelical backyard.

Eugene H. Peterson, Living the Resurrection, NavPress 2006, pp.35,36

How to Encourage the Church

The incident of Peter and Cornelius is a major one within the book of Acts. Cornelius is presented as a prime example of the gospel being received by Gentiles. But, in terms of reaching out to Gentiles, Acts 11:19ff could be at least as significant as the Cornelius incident. It may well have begun before Peter’s encounter with Cornelius (see v.19) and, in terms of numbers and the future significance of the church at Antioch, it is extremely important.

All of which makes it very interesting that this expansion to the Gentiles is not an organised mission but takes place naturally as the church scatters following the death of Stephen. In Acts, missionaries are sent out by churches and usually work to a clear plan but that needs to be set alongside what we see here of these early believers sharing the gospel as they went.

The calling and responsibility to reach out to others is not the preserve of pastors, evangelists and missionaries; it is a whole church calling and we each have a responsibility to take it to heart. These early believers shared the gospel naturally, as they travelled, as they set up home, as they worked. And this was the norm, not the exception.

It is, of course, right and good that churches and mission agencies plan and partner in the sending-out of gospel workers. It would be a betrayal of the Lord not to do so. But the responsibility of churches and mission agencies is not simply to initiate ministries; it is also about being sensitive to and catching-up with what the Lord is already doing in spontaneous and (humanly-speaking) unplanned ways. That was the reality faced here by the church in Jerusalem.

As the gospel spreads among the Gentiles, one of the big questions to be faced is, How will the church in Jerusalem react? When Philip preached in Samaria, they sent Peter and John to authenticate the work, to give it the apostolic imprimatur. Given that these are Gentiles, will they react with suspicion and try to suppress what is going on?

What they do is send Barnabas to them. This time they send one man, not two. He isn’t an apostle. He’s a native of Cyprus, as were many of these believers. And he was a man of exceptional spirit, warm and encouraging. This doesn’t smack of control and suspicion but of contribution and support for this young church. The church at Jerusalem was the original one; the apostles were the authentic witnesses to the Lord Jesus and his gospel. But that doesn’t mean they must hereafter control everything that happens in terms of the spread of the gospel. It is the Lord Jesus who directs the mission; they are his co-workers. So instead of sending people to check out this new development, they choose instead to send a man who will cheer on those involved in it.

Sending Barnabas to Antioch was perhaps the greatest thing the church at Jerusalem ever did for their brothers and sisters there. He is an outstanding example of a Christian and of what a church-worker should be. He isn’t jealous of their work, nor does he want to take it over; he rejoices in the work and encourages them to keep going and remain true to the Lord. His concern was not sectarian (to make them Jews) but to strengthen their Christian life and witness.

But this humble man is ready to acknowledge that he doesn’t have all the gifts necessary to help this church and so he goes on a long 200-mile round trip to bring Saul to join him in the work. He recognised the Lord’s calling of Saul and the gifts he’d been given – what a great encouragement to Saul that must have been! And, in God’s providence, this almost incidental action has immense strategic significance for the whole progress of the gospel; it is from Antioch that Barnabas and Saul will be sent out by the church into further mission.

The rest, as they say and as we know, is history.


(this piece first appeared in the UFM Worldwide magazine, 4 Corners, Jan-April 2007)

A Hermeneutic Of Trust

In Shakespeare's Measure for Measure the self-righteous villain Angelo pronounces a death sentence on Claudio, who is guilty of committing fornication. Claudio's sister Isabella comes to Angelo to plead for the life of her brother, but Angelo, who is trying to manipulate Isabella into bed with him, spurns her suit, saying,

Your brother is a forfeit of the law,
And you but waste your words.

Isabella's reply alludes to the great theme of Romans and calls upon the hypocritical judge Angelo to see his life anew in light of God's judgment and grace:

Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once;
And He that might the vantage best have took
Found out the remedy. How would you be
If He, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? 0, think on that;
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made.

Isabella resists the oppressor by applying a hermeneutic of suspicion to his pose of righteousness and by appealing to a hermeneutic of trust in the biblical story of God's mercy. Isabella is a profound interpreter of Scripture. We should follow her example.

Richard B. Hays - The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel's Scriptures; Eerdmans 2005; p.200f

Loving and Hearing the Text

When I was an undergraduate at Yale University, students flocked to Professor Alvin Kernan's lecture courses on Shakespeare. Kernan's work predated the academy's current infatuation with ideological criticism. Even though it was the late 1960s and we were all living in an atmosphere charged with political suspicion and protest, none of this overtly impinged on Kernan's lectures. Kernan was not a flashy lecturer. What, then, was the draw?

He loved the texts. His teaching method - as I remember it - was simply to engage in reflective close readings of the Shakespeare tragedies and comedies, delineating their rich texture of image and metaphor and opening up their complex central themes - moral, philosophical, and religious. Often, Kernan would devote a significant part of his lecture time to reading the text aloud, not in any highly dramatic manner, but with sensitivity to the text's rhythms and semantic nuances. I would often sit in class thinking, "Oh! ... I hadn't heard that in the text before." And I would leave the class pondering the problems Shakespeare addressed: love, betrayal, fidelity, sacrifice, death, and hope.

Richard B. Hays - The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel's Scriptures; Eerdmans 2005; p.200

Loving the text so that others truly hear the text. That's a good aim for 2007.