Preaching is the 'new' sex

Had a great weekend up in Reading catching up with old friends and preaching my last sermon of the year, for Arborfield church, on Acts 5v42-6v7. Apparently it'll be a week before the mp3 goes online, so for now - here are my notes. I had a version of this last Wednesday morning which Tim Keller's "preaching to the heart" lectures made me realise was only half-way to being ready and so this is a substantial rework... From the conversations I had after the meeting it seems that the extra preparation paid off.

Listening in on the Emmaus Road?

So, on the road to Emmaus and with his disciples in Luke 24 Jesus shows beginning with moses and all the prophets that the Christ had to suffer and rise and that repentance and forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed to all nations... I've heard people say - it'd be great to have been in on that Bible study. And it would. Could it be that Luke-Acts is essentially that. Luke's ordered account of what was fulfilled about the Christ and his suffering, resurrection and the subsequent proclamantion of that to bring repentance and forgiveness to the ends of the earth?

Thoughts?

A Christmas Tale

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Ruth and the Temple?

Peter Leithart writes fascinatingly on Ruth

"Ruth adorns herself as a bride, but she also dresses herself as a priest... As 2 Chronicles says, the temple was built on the piece of property that David purchased from Araunah or Ornan, the threshing floor on Mount Moriah. Ruth prepares like a priest in order to approach her husband on the threshing floor. Israelites reading Ruth after the building of the temple would think of the temple and its worship... Ruth seeks a husband on the threshing floor near Bethlehem, and Israel sought her husband Yahweh at the temple built on a threshing floor. We too come to worship, washing, anointed, and clothed by our baptisms, and we come to seek our husband. We are adorned as priests, and as the bride."

24: Redemption

Last Monday evening I went out, played football and came home to watch 24: Redemption at 10pm until 1145pm. It'd been 18 months so any 24 was going to be good 24...

The series needed a reboot and the angle taken is to try and fuse West Wing and Blood Diamond (though the Africa bit should be out of the picture by the time Day 7 starts in January). What we get is Jack shouting in Africa, child-soliders and an introduction to new characters in Washington though with no identifiable focus. A new enemy is coming though we don't quite know why or what for, a new president is being sworn in and hasn't made much of an impact yet.

While it was good to have Jack back this felt a bit weak, a bit unfocussed. Partly the problem was only having two recognisable characters from before - Jack and the exiting president. I know that others will be back in Day 7 but for now we didn't have much to connect with. And likewise, CTU Los Angeles is gone but all we now have are non-specific locations in Washington and a new president delivering an unimpressive speech at her inauguration.

Two hours is a bit short. There were no 'terrorists' to torture. No 24 ringtone. No Chloe. A bit of Jon Voight. It was all a bit forgettable - but good news: Jack is back.

Newfrontiers Church Planting

 

New resource: http://www.ukchurchplanting.org/

Waiting for the Word of God

Genesis 11v10-12v9. Something strangely familiar. A ten generation genealogy ending with a man with three sons. Hello! Seen that before. In the wake of Nimrod's thwarted building project we could use some news. Last time we had a genealogy like this it ended with Noah, a man prophesied to bring relief and rest to a people made for rest. Name after name this one builds expectation. It's a curious one because we've already seen the start before - we've rewound the tape and we're taking a detour. When Eber comes along we don't run with Joktan, but with Peleg. And that brings us to Terah and his three sons.

Hope is high until we get a bit more acquainted with this family. One brother dies but he does have children. One stays put. And the other goes with his father out of the land of Ur and off toward Canaan. This son is called Father (Abram) but he has no children and a princess bride who is barren. It's not looking ideal. His nephew Lot comes along for the ride. Elsewhere we discover what prompts this hapless band to hit the road. Despite being in the line of Shem (the blessed one!) they're moonworshippers, idolators like the other Mesopotamians (Joshua 24). But then The "God of glory" (Acts 7v2-3) appears to Abram and tells them to go to Canaan. For Shemites this is fascinating because Canaanites will serve Shemites (as prophesied by Noah in Genesis 9) and we hear of this comission in Genesis 12v1-3 - just as Adam and Noah have been blessed so is Abram.

Halfway there they stop, at Haran (named after the dead brother) they gain possessions and evangelise the locals with their new found faith in the LORD (12v5). But they stop. Until Terah dies and then Abram continues his journey to the land of Canaan. Along with those who've decided to follow Sheikh Abram on his journey to Canaan. The land is occupied but they can set up altars. Priest Abram begins to call on the LORD as the Sethites did (Genesis 4). He believes that the LORD has said his offspring will inherit this land. While he waits, like any good priest, (1 Peter 2v9) he'll worship God and proclaim the excellencies of the one whose word he has believed.

Abram has promises from God of being blessed, a blessing, of Canaanite servitude, and of an inheriting offspring. This is good. But, in the meantime everyday tests his faith. Everytime he meets someone he introduces himself as father and has to admit to not having a child. Humanly speaking this ex-moonworshipper is a lost-cause, but the word of God accomplishes it's purposes. Abram believes the offspring will inherit. He trusts the promise of the Christ who will come not by human accomplishment but by the living word of God.

Thursday at Gethsemane

Tonight I'm preaching on Gethsemane at Bath. David Gibson (my co-editor at BeginningWithMoses.org) pointed me to Donald McLeod's The Person of Christ, p174-175:

“Here is a man pouring his whole strength, physical and spiritual, into a plea that God would save him. It is clear from all the accounts that Jesus’ experience of turmoil and anguish was both real and profound. His sorrow was as great as a man could bear, his fear convulsive, his astonishment well-nigh paralyzing. He came within a hairsbreadth of break-down. He faced the will of God as raw holiness, the mysterium tremendum in its most acute form: and it terrified him….
…What Christ saw in Gethsemane was God with the sword raised… the sight was unbearable… in a few short hours… he would stand before that God answering for the sin of the world: indeed, identified with the sin of the world. He became as Luther said, ‘the greatest sinner that ever was’ Consequently, to quote Luther again, ‘No-one ever feared death so much as this man’. He feared it because for him it was no sleep but the wages of sin; death with the sting; death unmodified and unmitigated; death as involving all that sin deserved. He, alone, would face it without a covering providing by his very dying the only covering for the world, but doing so… totally exposed to God’s abhorrence of sin. And he would face death without God..… deprived of the one solace and the one resource which had always been there….
The wonder of the love of Christ for his people is not that for their sake he faced death without fear, but that for their sake he faced it terrified. Terrified by what he knew, and terrified by what he did not know, he took damnation lovingly…
…what he faced at Gethsemane we shall never face; and we shall never face it precisely because he faced it, offering his body as the place where God should effect the condemnation of sin. Gethsemane is as unique as Calvary because, as much as the cross, it belongs not to church history but to salvation history."

Tim Keller - Preaching to the Heart (at Oak Hill)

Tim Keller is in the UK on several occasions in 2008/9. Most recently he was at Oak Hill Bible College this month on Preaching to the Heart.

MP3: Tim Keller at Oak Hill College (1) November 2008
MP3: Tim Keller at Oak Hill College (2) November 2008

Jonathan Edwards believed that the ultimate purpose of preaching is not only to make the truth clear, but also to make it real – affecting and life-changing. This is usually covered under the topic of "application", though framing the subject in that way often results in a "tack-on" of practical advice after a dry, academic exposition How can we preach the text from first to last in a way that exalts Christ, changes heart motivations, produces wisdom and wonder, persuades the sceptical and results in real life change? In his two lectures, Tim Keller explores these challenges to the preacher.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vagueness

Mike Reeves writes: Fear and Loathing in Las Vagueness. Published in the latest UCCF nb magazine and now at Theology Network.

Five hundred years ago, the church was in much the same state as today: in desperate, desperate need of reform. Then, in to the rescue galloped a posse of the most talented individuals of the day. They had among their number the very finest scholars, they shared a heartfelt passion for the renewing of the church – and they accomplished virtually nothing towards that goal. The rescue failed.


That was the sad story of the sixteenth-century humanists (nothing to do with later atheistic humanists!). But where did it all go wrong? They were absolutely sincere in wanting people to live whole-heartedly for Jesus; they were unstinting in their efforts. The problem was, they never thought they needed to bother with theology.... Continue reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vagueness.

The Grace of My God (studio version)

 You can now listen to a sample of the studio version of Matt Giles' song The Grace of My God at his myspace.

Would we recognize Jesus as Son of God?

"Mark is known for the understated irony of his gospel, but there is a large-scale irony overarching the book that is worthy of Sophocles. Readers know from the first verse of the gospel that Jesus is Son of God, and that title is used periodically through the gospel by the Father and by demons. But no human beings recognize Jesus as Son until the centurion at the cross. There is the ironic distance between our knowledge and the knowledge of the characters in the story. But that irony is eventually doubled back on the reader: Would we recognize Jesus as Son of God while He’s dying in anguish?" -- Peter Leithart

Also on Mark: Terry Virgo recommends James Edwards Pillar Commentary.I'd agree, it's very helpful - typical of the Pillar series.

Out of the Silent Planet

Currently on Radio 7, ht: Rosemary.
And written about by Pete Lowman: Chronicles of Heaven Unshackled: Part 2. Out of the Silent Planet

...this is basic to his fiction; in seeking to 'widen' his reader's notions of what the universe might possibly be conceived as including, he is aiming to make room for the Christian cosmology, along with much newly-imagined material. This is fiction with an apologetic purpose, even if it is much more than apologetics. The 'fictional hypothesis' is related to the author's worldview more directly than in Tolkien. As Lewis said of the second novel of the trilogy, Voyage to Venus, 'It wouldn't have been that particular story if I wasn't interested in those particular ideas on other grounds.

On Resurrection Living - Stu Alred

Download MP3: Stu Alred on 2 Corinthians 5v1-10 at Frontiers Church, Exeter

"...take not thy Bible from us"

As quoted by Mike Reeves at Transformission:

Mr. John Rogers was at the time on the subject of the Scriptures, and in the course of his sermon, he falls into an expostulation with the people about their neglect of the Bible; he personates God to the people, telling them:  

"Well, I have trusted you so long with my Bible, you have slighted it; it lies in such and such houses, covered with dust and cobwebs; you care not to look at it. Do you use my Bible so ? Well, you shall have my Bible no longer! " And he takes up the Bible from the cushion and seems as if going away with it; but immediately turns again, and personates the people to God, falls down upon his knees, cries and pleads most earnestly, - " Lord, whatever thou doest to us, take not thy Bible from us; kill our children, burn our houses, destroy our goods, only spare us our Bible! " And he personates God again to the people, "say you so ? Well, I will try you a little longer, and here is my Bible for you; I will see how you will use it, whether you will love it more and live more according to it!"

By these actions, the congregation were remarkably affected. The people were generally deluged with tears ; and Rogers deluged himself, when he got out, and was to take horse to be gone, was fain to hang a quarter of an hour on the neck of his horse weeping, before he had power to mount, so strange an impression was there made upon him, and generally upon the people, on having been thus expostulated with on the neglect of the Bible.

Transformision 2008

"We present you with this Book, the most valuable thing this world affords. Here is wisdom. This is the Royal Law. These are the lively oracles of God."

...said at British Coronations to the new Monarch.

Today was our annual South West Christian Unions conference, Transformission, in Exeter. Mike Reeves joined us to speak on The Word of God - stunning us with the glorious doctrines of scripture. Download:


Session 1 - The Most Valuable Word - Judges 3


Session 2 - The Christian Word - John 5 


Session 3 - The External Word - Psalm 42

Transformission 2007 focussed on The Glory of the Cross, also with Mike Reeves speaking.

These MP3s are also available to download from UCCF South West

JFK. CS Lewis. Aldous Huxley.

45 years ago today they died.
Huxley predicted, in the words of Neil Postman, that we'd amuse ourselves to death.
Lewis said we're far too easily pleased.

All three faced the same person that day: Jesus who had freely offered unspeakable joy to anyone who would come to him.

"Heaven help us all when believing in grace becomes a measurable work."

Maurice hits the grace nail on the head.