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As Ashley mentioned, I preached on Ecclesiastes the last 4 weeks. It’s a difficult book and it would be too depressing to spend much more than a month on it. In my preparation I read a bit of Pascal’s Pensees, which, I think, is an interesting companion volume to Ecclesiastes. I came across this quote from Pascal that I thought was worth sharing. Enjoy!

The Christian religion consists in two points. It is of equal concern to men to know them, and it is equally dangerous to not know them. And it is equally merciful of God to have given signs of both.

And yet they [unbelievers] take occasion to conclude that one of these points is not true from facts which should lead them to conclude the other…

And on this basis they take occasion to blaspheme against the Christian religion, because they know so little about it. They imagine that it simply consists in worshipping a God considered to be great and mighty and eternal; which is properly speaking deism, almost as remote from the Christian religion as atheism, its complete opposite…

But let them conclude what they like against deism, their conclusions will not apply to Christianity, which properly consists in the mystery of the Redeemer, who, uniting in Himself the two natures, human and divine, saved men from the corruption of sin in order to reconcile them with God in His divine person.

The Christian religion, then, teaches men these two truths; that there is a God whom men can know, and that there is a corruption in their nature which renders them unworthy of Him. It is equally important to men to know both these points; and it is equally dangerous for man to know God without knowing his own wretchedness, and to know his own wretchedness without knowing the Redeemer who can free him from it. The knowledge of only one of these points gives rise either to the pride of philosophers, who have known God, and not their own wretchedness, or to the despair of atheists, who know their own wretchedness, but not the Redeemer…

Let us herein examine the order of the world and see if all things do not tend to establish these two chief points of this religion: Jesus Christ is end of all, and the centre to which all tends. Whoever knows Him knows the reason of everything.
Those who fall into error err only through failure to see one of these two things. We can, then, have an excellent knowledge of God without that of our own wretchedness and of our own wretchedness without that of God. But we cannot know Jesus Christ without knowing at the same time both God and our own wretchedness.

Therefore I shall not undertake here to prove by natural reasons either the existence of God, or the Trinity, or the immortality of the soul, or anything of that nature; not only because I should not feel myself sufficiently able to find in nature arguments to convince hardened atheists, but also because such knowledge without Jesus Christ is useless and barren. Though a man should be convinced that numerical proportions are immaterial truths, eternal and dependent on a first truth, in which they subsist and which is called God, I should not think him far advanced towards his own salvation.

The God of Christians is not a God who is simply the author of mathematical truths, or of the order of the elements; that is the view of heathens and Epicureans. He is not merely a God who exercises His providence over the life and fortunes of men, to bestow on those who worship Him a long and happy life. That was the portion of the Jews. But the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of Christians, is a God of love and of comfort, a God who fills the soul and heart of those whom He possesses, a God who makes them conscious of their inward wretchedness, and His infinite mercy, who unites Himself to their inmost soul, who fills it with humility and joy, with confidence and love, who renders them incapable of any other end than Himself.

All who seek God without Jesus Christ, and who rest in nature, either find no light to satisfy them, or come to form for themselves a means of knowing God and serving Him without a mediator. Thereby they fall either into atheism, or into deism, two things which the Christian religion abhors almost equally.

Without Jesus Christ the world would not exist; for it would either have to be destroyed or be a kind of hell.

If the world existed to instruct man of God, His divinity would shine through every part in it in an indisputable manner; but as it exists only by Jesus Christ, and for Jesus Christ, and to teach men both their corruption and their redemption, everything in it blazes with proofs of these two truths.

What can be seen on earth indicates neither a total exclusion nor a manifest presence of divinity, but the presence of a God who hides himself. Everything bears this character…

He must not see nothing at all, nor must he see enough for him to believe he possesses God; but he must see enough to know that he has lost him. For, to know that one has lost something one must see and not see; and that is exactly the state in which he naturally is.

N.T. Wright is quickly becoming one of my favourite authors. Here’s a quote from a recent interview he did with Christianity Today:

The Gnostic conspiracy theory says that orthodoxy hushed up the really exciting thing and promoted this boring sterile thing with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And of course there’s a great lie underneath that. In the second and third centuries, the people being thrown to the lions and burned at the stake and sawed in two were not the ones reading Thomas and Judas and the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary. They were the ones reading Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Because the empire is perfectly happy with Gnosticism. Gnosticism poses no threat to the empire. Whereas Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John do. It’s the church’s shame that in the last 200 years, the church has muzzled Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and turned them into instruments of a controlling, sterile orthodoxy. But the texts themselves are explosive.

Read the rest here.

I recall having an interveiw a number of years ago for an internship at a youth group in which the youth group pastor told me he had about 5 passages of the Bible that he used as a hermeneutic to interpret the Bible. At the time I thought it was kind of a strange idea. But now, several years later, I would like to revise that opinion, for I have arrived at such a position myself.

A hermeneutic is a way of interpreting or explaing (in this case) the Bible. It is not so much a method as a framework or grid or point(s) of reference against which to interpret a specific passage. Everybody has a heremenutic, whether or not they know it, so it’s a good idea to be consious of what one’s hermeneutic is. Here’s mine…

• Luke 24:27 - And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
  This passages teaches that the purpose of all of Scripture is to point us to Christ, not to teach behavioural principles, etc. Scripture is the story of God’s work in redeeming his fallen creation, and central to this story is the redemptive work of Jesus.
• Galatians 2:14 - But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
  This passage teaches that the real problem in our lives is our failure to believe the gospel. When Peter was being a racist, Paul doesn’t tell him to stop breaking the no-racism rule; Paul tells him he is not living in line with the gospel. This means that underlying every sin is the deeper sin of failure to live in line with the gospel. The implication is that the way to deal with sin in our lives is not to try harder to do what is right, but to come to a deeper understanding of the gospel.
• Jeremiah 17:9 - The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?
  This passage tells me that I will always try to trick myself into believing that I can be my own saviour. Because of this, it is not enough to simply explain what a passage of Scripture means; it also has to be applied to the experiential issues of identity and self-perception.
• 1 Corinthians 1:18 - For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
  Here we see the radical antithesis between a gospel-centred worldview and the worldview of the unbeliever. This means that as Christians live lives in response to the gospel, they do so in a distinctly Christian way. This also means that there is no neutral ground between Christians and non-Christians from which we can reason about the existence of God and the truth of the Bible.
• 2 Corinthians 5:21 - God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
  I can never get enough of this verse. It teaches that the entirety of Christ’s life and death were substitutionary. He lived the life I can’t, and died the death I deserve, and I receive the credit. Righteousness is not a word that is used much today, at least not in positive terms. But the concept of righteousness in Scripture is all about acceptance. Everyone today is looking for acceptance. This verse teaches that we are accepted by the God of the universe, not because of anything we have done, but because of Christ. This means that our acceptance is deeper than anything we could have earned ourselves, and, because Christ’s work is done, it means our acceptance will not erode or pass away.

Taken as a whole, these passages provide a framework for interpreting any passage of Scripture. Every passage is pointing to the redemptive work of God in Christ. Every passage uncovers some area of sin in my life, and points me to the gospel to find healing and acceptance with God. Because my heart is deceitful, I will often devise ways to obey the Bible which rest upon my own pride, not on God’s grace, and being aware of this deep-rooted tendency makes me even more aware of my need for a Saviour. When I respond in obedience to God’s grace I should not be proud of what I have managed to accomplish, because I know that change is a gradual process by which God’s grace wears away at the areas of my life that have not been fully redeemed.

Obviously, this is not an exhaustive account of what these five verses teach, nor is it a complete disclosure of all the background I bring to the task of interpreting a passage of Scripture. However, what this framework provides is, 1) a pretty good idea of what a particular passage of the Bible is saying as I begin to study it, and 2) a safety net, so that if my interpretation and application is not in line with what I have said here, I know I have veered off course, and need to take another look.

I wonder what categories you use when you think of Scripture. Our minds tend to want to filter information into different categories, so when we think about the Bible, it is natural that we divide it into different categories. I have been noticing recently that many people talk about the Bible according to the categories of doctrine or practice. They say that everything in Scripture is either doctrinal or practical; every passage contains either something we should believe or something we should do. In our culture of the pragmatic-driven church, the natural tendency is then to value the practical over the doctrinal. People need to be told what to do, not what to believe, apparently. In light of this, it was apparently quite an epiphany for a certain well known pastor when, after careful study, he discovered that the Book of Romans, often regarded as a very doctrinal book, was actually evenly split between doctrinal and practical matters. Reflecting his preference for dividing Scripture this way, this pastor recently said

“I’m looking for a second reformation. The first reformation of the church 500 years ago was about beliefs. This one is going to be about behavior. The first one was about creeds. This one is going to be about deeds. It is not going to be about what does the church believe, but about what is the church doing.”

I want to call this entire distinction into question. The distinction between practice and belief is a distinction that is foreign to Scripture. That’s not to say that we can’t point to some passages as being doctrinal and others as being practical; it is to say, rather, that dividing scripture into doctrine and practice is an artificial division. To say otherwise is to say that what one believes does not affect how one behaves. Some of the most profound doctrinal passages in the Bible, however, are occasioned by practical concerns. Psalm 139’s discussion of divine omnipresence, the humiliation of Christ discussed in Philippians 2, and the vicarious sacrifice of Christ addressed in 2 Corinthians 8 are all occasioned by what are primarily practical concerns. Quite often in his epistles Paul commends a particular way of living to his readers (practice), and then motivates them to obey it by pointing to the greatness of the gospel (doctrine). If we try to divide Scripture along the lines of doctrine and practice, we are cutting against the grain of the Bible.

What categories, then, are legitimate ones by which to understand Scripture? The answer is pretty simple, and therefore may seem pretty dull at first: the Law and the Gospel. The terms “Law” and “Gospel” are familiar to Christians. But many Christians have never considered the themes of Law and Gospel as categories through which to understand the Bible. We tend to think of the Law as the ‘dos and don’ts’ of the Bible—the moral standards—which are summed up in the Ten Commandments, and occasionally pop up elsewhere in the Old Testament. We generally think of the Gospel as the message we use when speaking with non-Christians—the basics of Christianity that, if believed, secures our salvation. But this narrow view of the Law and the Gospel leaves us with a narrow view of the Bible and Christianity as a whole, because the whole of the Bible is either Law or Gospel.

In its fullness, the Law of God is nothing short of God’s holy standard to which all people are held accountable. The Law tells us what God requires of us, and condemns us for failing to obey it. The law threatens us and burdens us and makes no promise of leniency. The intention of the many ‘Law’ passages of the Bible is to expose human need. By showing what is required of us, the Law holds before us a mirror in which we see how far we fall short of God’s holy standard. The Law comes to those who feel confident in their own effort and shows them just how much they are lacking. The Law causes us to despair of our sinfulness and drive us to Christ.

Once the Law has driven the Bible reader to Christ, the Gospel can truly set him free from sin. The Gospel is the message of God’s gracious provision in Jesus Christ. The Gospel comforts the afflicted and brings rest to the weary. It removes the curse that has been placed on us by the Law. The Gospel is the message that God who, having found human beings woefully deficient in regards to the Law, sent his Son Jesus Christ to pay for their sin. In his death Jesus paid for the sin—the failure to keep the Law—of God’s people. Through his death Jesus bears the curse of the Law and then gives us his perfect record of righteousness. The Law of God condemns us and points us to Christ, and the Gospel of God saves us from God’s wrath and preserves us throughout the whole of the Christian life. By understanding the Bible according to the categories of Law and Gospel we cannot help but see how every passage of Scripture points us to Jesus Christ.

For more on this, check out Michael Horton’s article on Knowing What You’re Looking for in the Bible

The Pharisees where pretty creative people. I know we don’t normally think of them as creative; we have generally been trained to see them as the bad guys–the legalists–and of course they were. But I think they were rather creative folks as well. They managed to take the Old Testament, and the Ten Commandments in particular, and extrapolate from them commands that would address ever behavioural situation. And I think they had to be pretty creative to accomplish that. They had, for example, taken the commandment to remember the Sabbath and created rules for every situation one might conceivably find themselves in on the Sabbath. And so on, and so forth. The result of their efforts is reflected in the Talmud, which seeks to apply the Law to every facet of life. To continue the example of the Sabbath, the Talmud specifies no less than 39 types of work that are prohibited on the Sabbath. The Pharisees, in their creativity, had created Laws to govern every conceivable area of life.
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For anyone at a loss about the ‘New Perspective on Paul’ there are some excellent articles over at the Alliance for Confessing Evangelicals’ blog. That’s right, frequent posts from theological heavyweights such as Ligon Duncan, Derek Thomas, Philip Ryken, Rick Phillips and Carl Trueman have a BLOG; you can find it here. Direct links to things on the New Perspective are: Ligon Duncan’s feature article and three of four parts on the New Perspective by Richard Phillips.

Because I said I would, I wanted to post some links for those of you who are interested in seriously using the money you do have in responsible ways — not for necessarily profitable ways but hopefully ways which reflect Christ first and foremost.

At Starbucks last week, I saw they had the Rough Guide for a Better World for free. You can probably get them at your neighbourhood coffee shop or the pdf version is online as well: here

For those in the UK, there’s the Good Shopping Guide, which lists products that “reports and ranks at the ethical behaviour of the ultimate holding companies, behind hundreds of the UK’s biggest brands”. There’s a sample chapter for free but you have to pay for the book.

In the US, there’s a similar thing called the responsible shopper where you can search by company name or brand.

Fair trade resource network can be found here. This is a fair trade bibliography.

Another organisation to support is the International Justice Mission, a group of Christian lawyers who give of their time to global justice issues.

Finally, here is a wonderful article about Christian responsibility to the poor and the meaning of grace and justice by Greg Bahnsen.

Enjoy and *use* the links and do let me know what you think!

No, I’m not going to do one of those things where I ask you a bunch of questions. At least not now. For the moment, I just want to ask you one question…

The first chapter of Jonah recounts a narrative that is familiar to all Christians. God tells Jonah to go preach to Nineveh, and Jonah runs the opposite way. He boards a ship, the seas get rough, and the sailors are crying out to their gods to save them. Jonah says he is at fault, and gets thrown overboard. Jonah is then swallowed by a great fish, where he remains for three days.

We have all heard this story many times, and have likely heard it preached on. The sermon may go something like this: “God called Jonah to do something, Jonah didn’t want to do it, God punished Jonah by commanding a great fish to swallow him. God has placed his call on each of our lives, and sometimes that entails doing something we don’t want to do. But if we run away from God, we risk incurring God’s judgment as well. What is the ‘Nineveh’ in your life? Will you answer the call of God, or will you run away from him?”

Pretty straightforward, eh? Here’s my question: is this a valid interpretation and application of this passage? Please leave a comment and simply answer yes or no, so as not to influence others. I’d really like to get a lot of answers to this, so if you’ve read this far, please leave a comment. Thanks!

***update*** It just occurred to that you might not want to make your views known publicly. While I think we should all be prepared to say whether or not a position is biblical, I’m more interested at this point in getting a bunch of people to respond. So if you prefer, enter some bogus information into the comment section and cast your vote anonymously (I tried to figure out how to set up an anonymous poll, but could do it easily). So comment away, regulars and lurkers alike!

Scottish Presbyterians are remarkably anti-Roman Catholic. They avoid anything that even hints of Catholicism, so worship services tend to be incredibly minimalistic (so as not to be confused with Catholic liturgy). Even though some of the most conservative Presbyterians adhere vehemently to the Regulative Principle, the Lord’s Prayer is not recited in church, because written prayers are ‘Romish’.

Yet for all their anti-Catholic sentiments, Scottish Presbyterians, in general, are surprisingly Catholic when it comes to one important area: the Priesthood of All Believers. The Priesthood of All Believers is one of the central tenents of the Protestant Reformation. Whereas the Roman Catholic Church said (and still says) that ‘ordinary’ Christians need a priest to intercede between God and man, Luther, Calvin and their followers affirmed that Jesus Christ is the great High Priest through whom we have direct access to God. All who believe in Christ, therefore, are priests, since we are hidden in Christ. The pastor of a church, therefore, is not closer to God than the members of the congregation; he simply has a special role to play in the life of the church. Yet many Christians here have put ‘the minister’ on a pedestal, believing (at least in practice) that ‘the minister’ is better able to perform a number of functions which should truly be the responsibility of every Christian.

What is the point of all this, you ask? The point is that this is not merely an idiosyncracy common to a group of people in a country that most American Christians would have a hard time pointing out on a map. This is a problem that, I believe, is also infecting churches in the US. Sure, we would never say that pastors are better Christians than anyone else who believes in Jesus. Yet many pastors have become more than just pastors–they have become celeberties. If you need proof, just look at what happens when a well-known pastor leaves a church. Much of what attracts us to a church is not so much the ministry of the church itself, but the charismatic leader at the helm. When the pastor leaves, all chaos breaks out. Instead of waiting for the dust to settle, groups form and people decide to follow charismatic-leader-man wherever he lands next.

There are, of course, several problems with this. First, it indicates that we are not serious about the fellowship and community in our churches. Many of us have settled for a church with community in the name instead of having community in the church itself. But as members of the Body of Christ, we have a commitment to the local church. We are members of the church, not of the pastor’s fan club. Sure, we may have been attracted to a church because the pastor preached biblical sermons. But once we have joined a church we have a commitment to that church, come what may. If the pastor leaves we need to trust that the God who brought Bible-Preacher #1 will bring Bible-Preacher #2. But we can’t just bail on the rest of the Body of Christ because charismatic-leader-guy is moving.

Secondly, this problem puts too much attention on pastors as individuals. There are few celebrities who don’t know that they are celebrities, and there are few celebrities who don’t act like they are celebrities. When a pastor becomes a celebrity, he starts acting like one–he stops shepherding souls and starts booking speaking engagements and book-signings. He expects people to show up and listen to him. He begins to believe that he has something important to say and basis his own worth on the success of his message. John Piper, in his book Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, says ‘We pastors are being killed by the professionalizing of the pastoral ministry. . . professionalism has nothing to do with the essence and heart of the Christian ministry. The more professional we long to be, the more spiritual death we will leave in our wake. For there is no professional childlikeness, there is no professional tenderheartedness. There is no professional panting after God.’

I think about sums it up. I recently heard a very encouraging story about a pastor of a very large church. Every Sunday, as he is getting into the pulpit to preach to a couple thousand people, he says to the congregation, ‘you are not my righteousness’. Now he doesn’t say this so that everyone can hear him. But he does it to remind himself that preaching to thousands of people is not the goal towards which all pastors strive, and which a talented few attain. He does it to remind himself that even if he preaches the worst sermon of his life, he is righteous in the sight of God because of Jesus. This is the gospel message, and it is antithetical to the cult of celebrity. For both celebrities and those who follow them have missed the boat. We are the church, the people of God, and we exist because of the grace of Christ. In him there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither celebrity nor groupie.

Earlier today I sent an email to a magazine company, letting them know that I would no longer be reading their magazine because they had failed to meet my needs. This company, like all others, exists to fill a need, actual or perceived, in the lives of consumers. When a company no longer fills such a need consumers will no longer pay for their products. So, overly-idealistic as it may be, I informed this magazine today that they are no longer meeting my needs, in the hopes that this may change the way they go about their business in the future. If enough people join me, it’s possible change will result. This, from what I can recall of my high school economics class, is basic capitalism. Businesses are businesses, and this is the way they operate.

But this is not the way things are supposed to work in the church. If you have been around for the last couple of weeks you will know that I’m not a fan of the purpose-driven, seeker-sensitive church model. These churches have forsaken, at least to a certain degree, the principles of ministry taught in the Bible and replaced them with supply-and-demand capitalism. This makes worshippers into consumers of church, which in turn creates a whole host of problems, theologically/biblically and practically. I’d like to highlight one problem in particular, one which I think is perhaps the most glaring indictment of the seeker-sensitive model: when worshippers become consumers of church, they posses the same power that I have when I tell a magazine they must change to retain my business. In other words, those in the pews dictate what comes out of the pulpit. In our society this may not sound like a bad thing; after all, we’re in favour of egalitarianism. Upon further reflection, however, the ridiculousness of this situation becomes clear.

God has equipped each of his people with different gifts and abilities. Some people have a servant’s heart–they love doing things behind the scenes and don’t care to be acknowledged for their efforts. Other people have been given a friendly, outgoing nature which allows them to make people feel welcomed immediately. God has given others knowledge, depth of insight, and discernment to guide and govern his church. It only makes sense that those with such qualifications lead the church in making difficult decisions about the style and content of the worship service, among other things. Paul commands as much in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1-2. Specifically, Paul says that elders (or overseers) ‘must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that [they] may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it’ (Titus 1:9). It is the elders, those who match up to a standard which is incredibly humbling when I consider that I myself am measured against it (see 1 Tim 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-16), who are entrusted with this task, not just any Christian, and specifically not ‘weaker’ Christians.

Yet the seeker-sensitive model turns the biblical mandate on its head. Instead of using their wisdom to organise the worship service such that God’s glory is pre-eminent, leaders of these churches have pandered to the desires of those least qualified to be making such important decisions. The service is not designed primarily to spur and enable people to worship; it is designed so as to make everyone feel comfortable. As much as possible is done to make people happy, so the church doesn’t receive letters from people like me informing them that we are taking our seat-filling, dollar-giving selves elsewhere. These churches know words like ‘repentance’ and ’sin’ will drive people away if used too often; they are convinced that no one today knows what ‘thee’ or ‘thou’ mean; they have the marketing research to prove that people simply will not stay at a church with bad music. And so they tip-toe around the great truths of the Bible and forsake the rich tradition of the church when they should be saying, ‘look, we know this doesn’t make sense and is completely foreign, but there are life and death truths at stake, so we’re gonna give it to you straight’.

The seeker-sensitive model is completely backwards. It places those least-capable of making spiritual decisions in control of the worship of God. It tells more mature Christians to stand aside and figure out how to survive on a spiritual Atkins Diet. And it encourages all of us, not to strive for the ideal, but to let the ends justify the means. Whether or not this method is actually effective is highly questionable; whether or not it is permissible to the Word of God is not in question at all.

So what do we do? Well, if you’re in a church that views worshippers as consumers, I say write the letters, talk to the powers that be, and tell them what you really want is for them to not care about your opinion so much. Tell them you want the law and the gospel, plain and simple. At the interpersonal level those who are more mature, discerning Christians have to be willing to point our friends and family who are less so in the right direction.

I remember once in high school I succeeded in getting a friend to come to an ‘evangelistic’ play at church with me. There was no real substance; not even enough to stimulate conversation afterwards. I now wish I had taken him to a worship service where the gospel was proclaimed clearly and boldly, in its full offence. I had already accomplished the hard work of getting my friend to come to a ‘church’ event with me; why did I waste it? I’m sure I thought I’d start him off easy and he’d move up to the weightier stuff. Well, he never came back. It’s not that he was put off by it, he just left for college. And we haven’t spoken since. He didn’t know what he needed; I did, and didn’t get it to him. I don’t despair because I know that God is sovereign and I am not capable of thwarting his will. Still, I also know that he requires my best (and quite a bit more).

I pray that God would still draw Mike to himself, as well as other friends I’ve let down by pandering to their desires. We don’t have a product to sell, we have a great gospel to proclaim. I think that about sums it up.