Hebrews 1-4

In recent weeks, we’ve begun working through the Book of Hebrews in the evening services. I’ve preached through Hebrews in the past more than once, but in preparing from the text this time I’m using commentaries less than before. Possibly for this reason, I have been startled by what the text confronts me with. Here are some of the observations:

1. The writer quotes from the Psalms so much because both he and his first readers would have known these references by heart: the ‘top 10’ religious songs they learnt from their youth. Helps explain the complicated quotes in first couple of chapters.

2. The writer is really more interested in affirming the real, ordinary humanity of Jesus rather than anything else. He’s not into metaphysics, really. He knows that Jesus said, ‘Come, follow me’. As God called His people Israel to obey and follow, so He continues to call to Israel and the world through Jesus.

3. People sometimes think that Jesus was always perfect: nonsense. Jesus didn’t start out as ‘complete’ or ‘perfect’. That category of thinking is not Jewish, but Platonic. Jesus becomes ‘complete’ or ‘perfect’ through suffering.

4. As it is with Jesus, so with us. In the first 4 chapters, the clear assumption is that a Christian is one who participates with Jesus. And when we realise this, it liberates us into a new view of suffering. Not as something that suggests that God is far away. On the contrary, we realise that it is the midst of suffering that God is close.

Thank God for that. It would be hard to deal with the real suffering I have to deal with with in people’s lives with a ‘candy floss’ understanding of blessing or a ‘Santa Claus’ picture of God. Here, in the Bible, is the real thing.

Some thoughts for our church AGM

Lots of good things about in the church right now, but we see that our focus needs to be on mission. Mmmm, let’s try this: ‘Mission - for this Season Jesus Christ is the Reason’?

Ah, strap lines really sound so terrible to me! But for some people, they really do work. For me though, they don’t do the job too well, probably because I like to get in real close to some depth of conversation and intimacy, and then move on to talk about Jesus when it seems to flow into the conversation. It’s likely I’m most happy with this style because I have spent a lifetime as a pastor using it; yet it is restrictive. The chance to get into deep conversation beyond pleasantries doesn’t arise with passing strangers so easily.

There’s three things I think I might have learnt about mission and evangelism, and probably lots more I should have. But, for starters ….

Firstly, any programme or method is only good for some people at some times, not all people at all times. We’re all different. The way I can reach others for Jesus is quite probably not the same way that God would use you to reach out to someone and introduce them to His Son. So the first question is, ‘Who is God calling me to reach out to in Jesus’ name, and how does He want me to do it?’ And I need to remember that, just because Christians close to me don’t want to do mission and outreach my way, it does not mean they are cold or indifferent towards God or others. If I really want to encourage others in their Christian witness, I need to try and explore with them how God would use them in mission and evangelism.

Secondly, I need to check my motive. Why am I doing this? The only valid reason I can think of is that it both glorifies God and bring salvation to others. My act of witness needs to be an expression of heartfelt love, both towards God and other people. And to touch others in Holy Love, I need to get filled with the Holy Spirit, in order to be authentic and genuine.

Thirdly, when all is said and done, I need to get on with it! As D L Moody once said to a critic, ‘I prefer my way of doing it to your way of not doing it’! Sometimes when I feel tired and get grumpy, I can become critical and dismissive of others and their efforts. That’s not good. I need to get on with what God would enable me to do.

So, who is God calling you to reach out to in Jesus’ name, and how does He want you to do it? Get guidance through Scripture, prayer and listening to God, get filled with the Holy Spirit, and get on with it!

A sad day in Scotland

Yesterday, in the face of gale force winds which struck the central belt of Scotland, a large and impressive tree at the top of my street was toppled, uprooted from its foundations of many years. Within hours, it was despatched with a chainsaw by local workers, having become a nuisance and hazard to both traffic and pedestrians.

Yesterday I also witnessed what I can only describe as a sad day in the history of the church in my home-nation of Scotland. I watched and listened, from beginning to end, to the Presbyterian Church of Scotland’s debate on same-sex relationships as that relates to leadership in the church.

As a young Christian, my thinking and understanding of the Christian life and the Bible was inextricably shaped by the great Church of Scotland preacher, James Philip. Sitting under that godly minister’s exposition of Scripture, I learnt a basic principle of theology that I have never departed from to this day. That is, I learnt to submit myself to the revelation of God that is found in and through the vast complexity of the books of the Bible, the Word of God. I learnt to enjoy having my developing yet defective theological formations knocked down, shattered and again rebuilt in the light of God’s revelation. I learnt to value the complexity and truths of Scripture above my own simple, sinful prejudices and perspectives. And I learnt to see that there was no contradiction between the rich revelation of God’s Word in the Holy Scriptures and the full revelation of Who God is in and through Jesus Christ.

This is why, to this day, I exhort men looking to a ministry of teaching from the Bible to learn both Hebrew and Greek. And, strange and sad as it was at the time, this is why I felt I had to leave the Church of Scotland twenty four years ago, when I came to see truths in Scripture that challenge a restrictive and narrow interpretation of baptismal practice.

Yet still I have a love of that great Scottish institution, and for that reason listened and watched close to tears at times, to comments sometimes being made that gave the impression that there was a conflict or even a contradiction between the revelation of Scripture and the revelation that is Jesus Christ. I can only say that, after 37 years of continuous, rigorous study of the Bible and deepening theological study, I can only explain such comments as being based at best on ignorance of Scripture and, at worst, on prejudices and life-preferences that have little or nothing to do with the Christian life that God calls us to.

So let me be honest and clear. As a Baptist pastor, I deeply feel for people who express their struggles in many areas of life to me. I seek to walk in the knowledge of God’s overwhelming love, mercy, compassion and grace; and also His judgement, wrath and condemnation of human rebellion and sin. As a Baptist scholar, I can only observe that I continue to find consistency throughout the Bible, both New and Old Testaments, on the subject of same-sex relationships. God in Christ neither encourages nor condones them. Same sex relationships are seen and recognised in the Bible to be a blatant manifestation of human sin and rebellion against God.

But please don’t mistake me. I know deeply that am a sinner, a man who makes many mistakes, saved for eternity only by the grace of God that comes through faith in Jesus Christ. But I also am called by the Holy Spirit to seek to live a life that is being restructured. A life constantly being renewed in its understanding under the authority of the Bible, a life that is being painfully reshaped and rebuilt through the working of the Holy Spirit to be like Jesus Christ.

I discover who I am only by denying myself and seeking to follow Jesus. And I am so, so sorry that so many are being led and taught to approach the Christian life in a contrary way.

Yesterday was a sad day for many in the Church of Scotland. Those of us who are in other traditions, claiming to have a faith based both on the Bible and on living experience of God, should carefully and prayerfully watch, learn and discern the signs.

Waking up to reality

The section of Romans 1.16 – 2.1, where the righteousness and wrath of God are juxtaposed in 1.17 and 1.18, leads right through to 2.1:

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.

It is good to be reminded that the Holy Scriptures present us with a realistic yet positive view of mankind. Paul, along with the writers of the history and prophetic books, are untied by the Holy Spirit is seeing mankind as frail and fragile, often failing and always fallible. So much potential yet proved to be, from Eden through Babel and beyond, pathetically impotent in realising that potential.

Until God takes hold of us in Jesus. And reshapes our humanity by the power of the Holy Spirit and directs and invites us under His care into the obedience of faith. All our lives are, in the light of Jesus, capable of rebooting and reorientation, as we view the Cross and hear the call to repentance and faith.

Paul well understands the real failure of all mankind. But he is no cynic, as so many who deal with the debris of human behaviour through the procedures of law and social work sadly become. The Apostle calls us to humility and recognition of the universality of human sin, including our own. But out of that, to respond to the invitation to be lifted up in the power of Christ’s resurrection, enabled and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

God help us all to hold to such a perspective.

Faith follows

Preaching on Romans 1.16-18 and Hebrews 3 this Sunday, it really hit me afresh how much faith is confused with hope. At a popular-cultural level, faith is equated with 'belief', 'opinion'. How far from the Biblical picture that is! Hope is the response God wants us to have to what is revealed to us in Scripture and in testimony to Jesus Christ. We are to hope for the resurrection of the dead. Hope for eternal life. Hope for a renewed creation. All of these and other aspects of Biblical hope are things we believe in, want and long for. But they are not to be confused with faith.

Faith is our engagement in the task of serving the Kingdom of God now, as we hold on in hope. Hope is the font out of which faith and love spring, but all that matters now is faith expressing itself through love. Faith is the same as faithfulness. It's about getting on with the task of being guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit to purposefully participate in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

You don't yet have what you hope for. But faith is about getting our sleeves rolled up and getting on with the Jesus job, in the midst of the sweat, laughter, tears, tensions and sufferings of real living. Such faith is sourced and strengthened by the Holy Spirit and is not to be confused with 'works of the Law'. But it is real and demonstrated by action. It's fruitfulness in Jesus' name. And it makes a real difference, as salt and light.  By such faith you are saved.

Juggling Rainbows

OK - it's mixing metaphors. But it's important. It's so easy to reduce our view of the Holy Spirit into static monochrome. And we end up with far too little appetite for or expectancy of God actively intervening in our lives. The more I read and reflect on both the Holy Scriptures and the history of revival and renewal, the more clearly I see that we have to keep coming back to expand our awareness of how God acts in our lives, from the Father through the Son and by the Holy Spirit. For the Holy Spirit ministers to us:

Promises of God, expressed in the Scriptures

Presence and peace, the touch of His healing and deliverance from fear in our lives

Purpose and the nature of the Kingdom of God revealed

Participation in the life ministry of Christ, as we are baptised into His death and resurrection

Purification and purging of sin from our lives

Power to carry the Good News to others, with signs and wonders

Are you content with the measure of the Holy Spirit that is present in your life? If so, I truly pity you. But if you thirst for more, and ask God for it in Jesus' name, then I rejoice that you are journeying in the path of life.

Romans 1.5-7

Called to the obedience of faith, to be true to Jesus and to be holy people.

Ken Archer, in his recent book, The Gospel Revisited (Pickwick Publications, Eugene, Oregon, 2011), advocates the ‘fivefold Gospel’ of early Pentecostalism, which itself was a development of the ‘foursquare Gospel’ message of late nineteenth century Holiness teaching. The fivefold message is simple and well centred. It speaks of Jesus Christ as Saviour, Healer, Sanctifier, Spirit Baptiser and Coming King. Archer’s analogy of a wheel with Jesus as the hub and these five themes as the spokes is very effective and beautifully simple.

What strikes me most, however, is the acknowledgement of Jesus as ‘Sanctifier’. It is still emphasised among Wesleyan-holiness Pentecostals today. I can go with this. Holiness is what we need today: holiness carved out and filling our flesh with God’s Holy Spirit and making a holy difference. We can do with a lot more holiness among people who claim that they love Jesus.

Let us each start looking for this to fill us afresh: in the power of the HOLY Spirit.