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Two adulterers and a rapist - 7 February 2010 |
Here are a few news items from the last couple of weeks:
1. A senior Labour MP who cheated on his wife by having an affair with another woman in his Commons office is to stand down at the general election. Mr Nigel Griffiths, 54, was photographed in 2008 with a woman on a sofa in his parliamentary office.
2. John Terry has been removed from his post as England football captain after a Sunday newspaper published allegations that he had an extra-marital relationship with the former partner of Chelsea and England team-mate Wayne Bridge.
3. An American judge has demanded that the award-winning director Roman Polanski should return to the US for sentencing after he found guilty of sexually assaulting a 13-year old girl over 30 years ago. Mr Polanski has refused to return, and remains in Switzerland, where he claims to have been “overwhelmed by messages of support.”
It’s not hard to spot the common thread. It certainly wasn’t hard to find these stories; indeed, there were many more in the same vein. The secular world is in a complete mess over sex and marriage.
This moral chaos is so pervasive, in fact, that it can be hard for us as Christians to discuss the issues of sex and marriage openly. Perhaps we are more affected than we realise by nasty combination of embarrassment and lewdness that we find around us. Besides this, as Christians we find ourselves in a wide variety of different circumstances, and it’s hard to prescribe a single remedy for such a multi-faceted malady. So it’s hard for us to talk about sex and marriage.
But talk about it we must. The word of the Lord on this subject might be hard to hear, but if anything this makes it even more necessary. Here, therefore, are some thoughts on a small part of that word.
Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Minister's Blog
A slightly bigger splash - 5 February 2010 |
The man smiled cheerfully. “I really like what you’re doing. It’s good to talk about religion and stuff. But you really don’t need to spend your time talking to me. I might not be a Christian like you, but at least I believe in God. Look around you – there are loads of people who aren’t religious at all. They’re in a lot worse trouble than me. They’re the people who really need help. Go and talk to them.”
The problem with this kind of thinking is that it imagines a sliding scale where God sees things in black and white. Jesus never talked about a sliding scale. He talked about goats and sheep, death and life, condemnation and forgiveness.
Imagine yourself in a boat, anchored towards the north end of Lake Erie. You’re just a few miles upsteam of Niagara Falls, but you’re perfectly safe, because you’re anchored firmly to the lakebed. All around you are swimmers, people in rubber life-rafts, others clinging to pieces of driftwood. There are even a few other boats just like yours, but none of them are tied to anything. They’re all floating steadily north towards the waterfall.
You might be tempted to think that the guys in the big boats are safer than the drifters clinging to bits of wood. But though they might be more comfortable for the time being, they’re no safer in the long run. Everyone who’s not in your boat is drifting in the same direction at pretty much the same speed. The only difference between the fancy big yachts and the flimsy inflatable dinghies will be a slightly bigger splash.
Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Minister's Blog, Things people say and questions people ask
Written on whose heart? - 5 February 2010 |
These are the questions for week 13 of the Guided Reading Course.
Before you start, think for a few minutes about this question:
1. Can unbelievers do good? If so, how? And in what sense(s)?
Calvin, Institutes, II.ii
2. What do ‘the philosophers’ and some of the Fathers believe about human capacity for good and evil (II.ii.3-4)?
3. Why, according to Calvin, did the Fathers adopt such a position (II.ii.4)?
4. What do you make of the different definitions of ‘free will’ cited by Calvin in section II.ii.4? What does Calvin think of them (II.ii.9)?
5. What effect, according to Calvin, has the fall had on humanity’s ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’ gifts (II.ii.12-13; see also II.iii.1-2)? Do you agree with this distinction? What effect did the fall have on the will (II.ii.12)?
6. How does Calvin account for the competence of unbelievers in fields such as art and science (II.ii.14-16)? Do you agree? You might find it helpful to look also at section II.iii.3.
7. What does Calvin believe fallen human reason is able (and unable) to discern concerning what he calls ‘God’s Kingdom’ and ‘spiritual insight’ (II.ii.18-25)? Do you agree?
8. What does Calvin think Romans 2 means when it says, ‘When Gentiles, who do not have the law, do the works of the law, they are a law to themselves … and show that the work of the law is written on their hearts’? Do you agree with this interpretation?
Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Guided Reading Course, Minister's Blog
That’s nice - 4 February 2010 |
The good folks over at the Bible Learning Blog have numbered this blog among the top 50 evangelical Christian blogs.
Is it a compliment to be included on a list including the Ship of Fools? ‘For people who prefer their religion disorganised,’ apparently. I’m sure it is. They were, after all, in the ‘off-beat perspectives’ category.
Anyway, sitting alongside Tim Challies more than makes up for it.
Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Minister's Blog
Trinity Church York - 4 February 2010 |
Anyone looking for a church in York should definitely take a look at Trinity Church York. Coffee from 10 am on Sunday mornings; services start at 10.30 am.
Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Minister's Blog
Like a tree with many branches - 4 February 2010 |
These are the questions for week 12 of the Guided Reading Course.
John Murray, The Imputation of Adam’s Sin, ch 3-4
Section IV
1. What is the question under discussion in this section? How does it follow logically from the flow of the argument so far?
2. What is ‘mediate imputation’?
3. What was Samuel Hopkins’s position? What attraction might it hold? What is wrong with it?
4. What underlying thread to Nathanael Emmons and Timothy Dwight have in common?
5. What did Charles Hodge and William Cunningham think Jonathan Edwards believed? What did B. B. Warfield think?
6. How did Edwards’s position differ from mediate imputation? How did it differ from immediate imputation?
7. How might Edwards rebut the claim that the imputation of Adam’s sin to his descendants is unjust?
8. What biblical evidence does Murray adduce in favour of the doctrine of immediate imputation?
9. Does the fourth of Murray’s arguments in favour of immediate imputation challenge Jonathan Edwards’s position?
Section V
10. What is the question under discussion in this section? How does it follow logically from the flow of the argument so far?
11. What did Charles Hodge believe is imputed to Adam’s descendants? What is the problem with this view?
12. What do you make of Murray’s attempts to answer the question posed in this section?
Jonathan Edwards: ‘both guilt, or exposedness to punishment, and also depravity of heart, came upon Adam’s posterity just as they came upon him, like a tree with many branches.’
Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Guided Reading Course, Minister's Blog
Children are being nationalised - 2 February 2010 |
Gerald Warner has some sharp observations about the decision of the US authorities to grant political asylum to a German family who were (to quote Judge Lawrence O. Burman, who made the decision) facing ‘a well-founded fear of persecution’ because of their decision to homeschool their children.
This is something we in the UK should be worried about, says Warner. For ‘our rulers subscribe to the same tyrannical statist philosophy’ that underlies state opposition to homeschooling in Germany. Whether or not we happen to be homeschoolers – or for that matter, whether or not we even have children – all of us ought to be share the Americans’ concern about ‘the creeping totalitarianism that has engulfed Europe.’
‘Children are being nationalised,’ claims Warner. The British government’s most recent attempt came in the shape of the Badman Report. After that, they might try just about anything.
If this blog had a category called ‘Shameless Appeals,’ I might just think to mention this…
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Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Current affairs, Minister's Blog
Faith and works - 2 February 2010 |
Our very own David Field was in Cambridge on Sunday, preaching on James 2 at Rock Baptist Church. Well worth a listen.
Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Minister's Blog
One and a half cheers - 2 February 2010 |
Pope Benedict has drawn howls of protest from the secularists again, this time by attacking the UK government’s proposed Equality Bill. The Pope said that the UK ‘is well-known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society,’ yet warns that ‘the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs.’
Well, one and a half cheers.
The problem with the Pope’s statement is the reasoning on which it is based. In his view, the bill is bad because it violates ‘natural law’ and therefore compromises the freedoms of ‘religious communities.’ But the real problem with the the bill is that it violates the word of God and compromises the right of Jesus Christ to be proclaimed as the King of the whole earth.
Ironically, the Pope’s reasoning places him squarely in the camp of the liberals he is attempting to oppose. When he says that the proposed legislation ‘violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded,’ he sounds indistinguishable from the Government Equalities Office spokesman who declared, ‘everyone should have a fair chance in life and not be discriminated against.’
So at first glance the Pope looks like he’s standing against the government by defending the gospel; while in fact he’s standing alongside them by defending ‘equality’, and merely claiming that he’s got a better idea of how to achieve it. This was spotted by a sharp-eyed British official, who pointed out that ‘the Pope acknowledges our country’s firm commitment to equality for all members of society.’ So there we are – we all agree really, and the Pope should just be reasonable and stop complaining.
To defend the gospel on the ground that it secures other values (such as ‘equality’ defined in terms upon which we’re all supposed to be able to agree) in effect turns those values into our gospel, transforming the Lordship of Jesus Christ into a means designed to secure some other end. We should defend the gospel on the grounds that it is true (since Jesus is, in fact, Lord), not because a consistent liberal ought to like it.
Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Current affairs, Minister's Blog
It’s the singing - 1 February 2010 |
Ruth Gledhill has some thoughts (courtesy of Christian Viewpoint for Men) about why men don’t come to church, under the headline ‘Men don’t want to sing “love songs to a man” while the “vicar wears a dress”.’
She’s probably right about that (though, of course, robes ain’t dresses).
The more surprising suggestions to reverse this worrying trend include:
Why not ask the men to decorate the church?
- Give them free rein to do what they like!
- Challenge them to do something masculine.How would it go down to decorate with swords, or pictures of knights, or flaming torches?
Instead of having to queue for coffee, why not ask some of the women to go round with trays of coffee and biscuits or chocky bars? Coupled with a charming smile, many men would find that very attractive!
Faced with advice like this, I’m not sure whether I prefer the disease or the cure.
Perhaps a little historical perspective might help. Is it really credible to identify the praying, robes, modern busyness and long sermons as the reasons why men are absent from our churches? The hardman Nehemiah (Neh 13:25) sat through all of Ezra’s long sermons (Neh 8). And David’s overworked mighty men still found time to worship the living God, pray, rejoice, and even occasionally watch their boss dancing before the LORD wearing a linen ephod.
But perhaps the singing might be part of the problem. Not the fact of it, but its content. Gledhill gives some examples of modern song words (Jesus, I am so in love with you; Beautiful one I love, beautiful one I adore), and points out that ‘Many men wouldn’t sing that to their wives, let alone another man.’
Contrast that with, for example, number 7 in the Old Israelite Hymnal:
1 O LORD my God, in you do I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers and deliver me, 2 lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, rending it in pieces, with none to deliver. 3 O LORD my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands, 4 if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause, 5 let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and let him trample my life to the ground and lay my glory in the dust. Selah 6 Arise, O LORD, in your anger; lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies; awake for me; you have appointed a judgment. 7 Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you; over it return on high. 8 The LORD judges the peoples; judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me. 9 Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous- you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God! 10 My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart. 11 God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day. 12 If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow; 13 he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts. 14 Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies. 15 He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made. 16 His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends. 17 I will give to the LORD the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the LORD, the Most High.
Posted by Steve Jeffery · Topics: Minister's Blog