The Dynamics of Kindness, or Why Some Christians Are Cold

What kind of people are Christians? A  common perception is of coldness, judgementalism, arrogance and hypocrisy. That is I think largely a stereotypical caricature that's often refuted by 'christians I know'. What I do know is that I can easily tend towards such unkindness. So maybe it's just me, but I doubt it.

Such coldness looks like Naomi in The Book of Ruth. She and her family go out from the people of God. Her confession in chapter 1 is that God is against her. Bethlehem is celebrating Passover, before the barley harvest - famine is over, salvation is in the air - Naomi is the wet blanket and the grey cloud. To her God is mean, and you need to know that. He is against her sin, he has punished her - but he has also been abundantly gracious. Only when she finds her home again under the saving wings of the LORD among his people does she begin to see that the LORD in his kindness has not abandoned her but rather lavishes kindness upon her.

Studying Ruth again recently with our home group, I've been struck again by the sheer kindness of the LORD in this romantic comedy (yes a Bible Rom-Com). The key picture is of refuge under wings. A bird diving for cover and comfort with its mother, it's warm and vivid and its life-giving

In the middle two chapters of the book, which are the ones that are actually about Ruth (Naomi seems more prominent in chapters 1 and 4), we find a widow who is a foreigner and a Moabite at that. The most excludable kind of woman. We find her being welcomed by the people of God, represented by Boaz. She takes refuge in the people of God (under the wings of Boaz) and under the wings of the LORD. As to the LORD, as to the people of the LORD.These two actions seem inseparable, and no surprise because how could we expect someone to be able to say Your God Is My God if they can't also say Your People Will Be My People? The two go together, and are the way the experience of kindness is found. Ruth experiences the LORD's kindness through his people. This side of the cross the same dynamic is surely at work - we experience the definitive kindness of the LORD at the cross through his people (and in our hearts by the Spirit).

Imagine the Christian who goes out from the people of God, and who says I'll just go solo, a lone-ranger off to win the world for Christ. If such a person detaches from the people of God then what do they win people to? What message do they have other than one of hell-avoidance? What kind of God do they believe in as they speak with no experience of relationship? 

The god of such evangelists would surely be more of a cold monad than Triune God - solo and unrelational. Such evangelism soon becomes functional and not overflowing with kindness and blessing as the people of God are, and the God of such evangelism is soon one who stands over against people rather than for them with an invitation to warm fellowship with himself and his people. I'm not saying don't warn of hell but does not the evangelist appeal on God's behalf with an invite to relationship more than anything else?

Such is the message of the cross. We're right to speak much of propitiation! But let us not think that penal substitution is just about mere wrath-aversion and hell-avoidance. It is also fundamentally a declaration that the Triune God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is now definitively, unchangeably propitious towards His People. He will be forever kind and favourable, not on the basis of anything in his people but on the basis of the blood of the one under whose saving wings they're to take refuge. Favourable because of Jesus. Warm because the Father, Son and Holy Spirit love one another. A invite to find life in the LORD among his people.

In the middle chapters of Ruth we're beginning to see the dynamics of experiencing the kindness of God fleshed out. We're see the abundant kindness of the LORD: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to his people. He invites us - appropriately enough in view of the pattern of Ruth and Boaz - into a marital and familial relationship. This is espousal theology (Sibbes), full of warmth and kindness, full of unconditional kindess for the LORD is kind. A woman of noble character (Ruth 3:10, Proverbs 31:10-31) takes refuge in the kind LORD. As the church we've taken refuge, let us enjoy his kindness and the life of this expanding fellowship of love into which all are welcome to come - whatever ethnicity, whatever gender, whatever their sin - for the LORD is kind, right? 

Download Ruth eBook 

The love of Christ to his church (with the help of Richard Sibbes)

Paul prayed for the local church in Ephesian church that they would "know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge" (Eph 3:19).

My default is to think of that individually. As Ron Frost says: "the great tensions of life need to be framed not as issues of old versus new—of absolutes versus relativism—but as a competition between a relational view of life and a devotion to individualism."

 In Ephesians we know that Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant sacrifice (5:2) and that "Christ loved the church..." (5:25).

Richard Sibbes makes this connection in his fabulously named sermon series "Bowels Opened: a discovery of the neere and deere love, union and communion betwixt Christ and the church; and consequently betwixt Him and every beleeving-soul, delivered in divers sermons on the fourth, fifth, and sixth chapters of the Canticles"

He notes in passing that "the knowledge of the love of Christ to his church is above all knowledge" Eph 3:19. Where do I best see and know the love of Christ? Of course: in his love for the church!

I see Christ and I see the church he fills with his Spirit and clothes in his righteousness - and in that glimpse of his bride we catch the reflection of the immense love of Christ. Nothing else can move the heart like this sight of the gospel, no love is like his love for the church, and no lover like the one who gave himself for her.

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Sibbes was known as “the sweet dropper” because he had such a sweet way of presenting the confidence, richness, depth and encouragement of the gospel. Read some more of "Bowels Opened" here:

"Other books of Solomon lie more obvious and open to common understanding; but, as none entered into the holy of holies but the high priest, Lev. xvi. 2, seq., and Heb. ix.8, so none can eneter into the mystery of this Song of songs, but such as have more near communion with Christ. Songs, and specially marriage songs, serve to express men's own joys, and others' praises. So this book contrains the mutual joys and mutual praises betwixt Christ and his church.
And as Christ and his church are the greatest persons that partake of human nature, so whatsoever is excellent in the whole world is borrowed to set out the excellencies of these two great lovers. It is called 'Solomon's Song,' who, next unto Christ, was the greatest son of wisdom that ever the church bred, whose understanding, as it was 'large as the sand of the sea,' 1 Kings iv. 29, so his affections, especially that of love, were as large, as we may see by his many wives, and by the delight he sought to take in whatsoever nature could afford. Which affections of love, in him misplaced, had been his undoing, but that he was one beloved of God, who by his Spirit raised his soul to lovely objects of a higher nature. Here in this argument there is no danger for the deepest wit, or the largest affection, yea, of a Solomon to overreach. For the knowledge of the love of Christ to his church is above all knowledge, Eph. iii. 19. The angels themselves may admire it, though they cannot comprehend it. It may well, therefore, be called the 'Song of Solomon;' the most excellent song of a man of the highest conceit and deepest apprehension, and of the highest matters, the intercourse betwixt Christ, the highest Lord of lords, and his best beloved contracted spouse.
There are divers things in this song that a corrupt heart, unto which all things are defiled, may take offence; but 'to the pure all things are pure,' Titus i.15.
More samples at Logos.com from Vol 2 of Sibbes Complete Works.

Banana Bread by Lizzie Kevan

Banana Bread from Lizzie Kevan on Vimeo.

The Proverbs 31 Wife? A Spotless Bride

Proverbs ends with an acrostic poem. It's a careful piece of poetic writing like Lamentations and Psalm 119, structured and thoughtful. This is deliberate. This is memorable. This is a song at the end of the story. Yet, who can solve this ultimate riddle? Why is it at the end of the book of Proverbs? It's easy to say it's a model for a wife and maybe it has something to say about marriage - but it's worth zooming out and digging deeper before jumping to application.
Note: in this post I'm doing the zooming out, not the digging deeper into Proverbs 31:10-31 - I'll do that another day.

Peter Leithart summarises the plot of Proverbs, a truly Biblical-gospel book:

The Proverbs begin, then with the son confronted by a choice of two women who are bound up with two divergent destinies. It should be recalled, too, that the Proverbs are written by a King to a Prince. The book largely consists of the Proverbs of Solomon and King Lemuel (chapter 31), and the king consistently addresses his "son." The dramatic premise of the book of Proverbs is this: A Prince must determine whether Lady Wisdom or Dame Folly will be his princess. The dramatic question, then, is: Whom will he choose? (In teaching this to children, I have suggested that the book of Proverbs is structurally similar to Disney’s version of Hans Christian Andersen’s "The Little Mermaid," in which a prince must choose between the mermaid, who cannot speak so long as she is a normal girl, and the sea witch, who has disguised herself as a desirable young woman.)

The answer to our dramatic question is given in the final chapter of the book, the well-known Proverbs 31. It is no accident that the Proverbs ends with a celebration of the excellent wife. In the drama of Proverbs, the excellent wife is Lady Wisdom from the earlier chapters. Her husband, the Prince, now sits in the gates of the city. The prince has successfully resisted the seductions of the adulteress, Folly. He has chosen well. Together, the Prince and his bride form the royal household.

Think of the story - the Little Mermaid. Which woman will the man marry? It's the story of Proverbs, and it's the story of the whole Bible.

This structure and these characters are generally analogous to the major structures and characters of the Bible. The first prince, Adam, chose to follow the word of his adulterous wife (2 Cor 11:1-3), and ended up, as the Proverbs say, in Sheol. The Last Adam listened intently to the Word of His Father, and died to win a spotless Bride. Now He praises His bride in the gates; she is an excellent wife.

Proverbs like The Bible as a whole, ends with a spotless wife. The true son dies to win a spotless bride. Commentator Charles Bridges observes that in Proverbs 31 we find one to whom "no treasure can be compared to the woman in these verses". The language might suggest Christ himself, though the image and language suggest she is indeed a bride, the treasure He gives up everything to obtain - namely the church.

And so, by all means, learn about marriage from this passage, but first learn about the marriage of the Lamb. Learn of the one who doesn't follow the words of the adulterous Eve into sin, but follows his Father's words. See the one who doesn't stand over against us but rather comes into the world to woo and win his people for whom he dies. See the one who is The Bridegroom and know that he comes for sinners, the King who comes to marry the prostitute (the kind of people Jesus used to eat with) and make her the Queen.

To my bride I say, you are beautiful, you are fruitful, you are productive but more importantly you fear the LORD - you believe the gospel - and so by the grace of God you reflect the glory of Jesus' bride to whom we belong. But don't be weighed down by trying to be a Proverbs 31 woman - but let us together become her as Jesus washes us clean by his gospel word, as he makes us spotless and free from blemish by his blemishless sacrifice of himself. Feel the grace of Proverbs 31, the certainty that he we will reach the wedding supper of the Lamb and celebrate there with Him. Til then he calls to us:

10 My beloved speaks and says to me:
“Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away,
11 for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone….
14 let me see your face, let me hear your voice,
for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.”
SONG 2:10-11,14b, ESV

Your comments much hoped for - I'm preaching on this passage in March and as you can see I have a lot more preparation ahead of me... The big picture seems to go against how many people read this chapter as a model for wives - such as this series at girltalk. I'm not saying there's no value there, but I wonder if we need something else first. Bit like my "controversial" views on The Song of Songs... because if we get the big gospel picture first then Biblical manhood and womanhood are first and foremost about cruciformity.

you can't say "your God will be my God" without saying "your people will be my people" Christ & his church always come together

Some studies I've put together on one of my favourite Bible books. It's a book replete with the gospel of grace, and one in which we find a deep association between Christ and his church, and the senselessness of thinking of one without the other. A great story told in a great way.
The Book of Ruth: A Story of Gospel Kindness

See also Esther: A Gospel Story

Why it's okay to stay in bed for the whole of mission week

I met John Hindley while he was serving the Christian Union at Bath during their autumn mission week. Download John Hindley on Why it's okay to stay in bed for the whole of mission week

Catch some of John's preaching on The Song of Song from his previous church, The Plant in Manchester. John and his wife are now church planting in rural Norfolk.

The Essential Gospel by Andrew Wilson

Andrew Wilson's paper - The Essential Gospel is now on the newfrontiers theological papers. Seventeen very helpful pages.

The Bible preaches Jesus as the climax of every story, the fulcrum on which the whole of Scripture turns, the Gospel in every worldview. As those with the profound privilege of preaching the Gospel, we shouldn’t settle for anything less.....  To be honest, so-called ‘preaching’ that simply expounds a Scripture passage, without showing how Jesus is the good news of God, isn’t really ‘preaching’ at all....  I should never stop preaching the Gospel to people.  hen someone becomes a believer, that’s the start of them understanding God’s story, not the end; Paul was eager to preach the Gospel to Christians (Romans 1:15), so I should be too... the Gospel needs to be continually preached to them so that they grasp ever more of its splendour.



Also online, Newfrontiers is publishing it's vision & values over the next year

I'm currently reading Andrew Wilson's GodStories which is an excellent look at the gospel as revealed throughout the Bible. I highly recommend it. It comes in short sharp chapters which I'm reading slowly, day by day and enjoying very much. I like the title too - sounds like a name we could use for a CU mission week someday. Having reflected on CS Lewis' Meditation in a Toolshed I'm keen to invite people to step inside the world of Christianity, into the "GodStories" and see how Christianity feels and thinks and looks.

More from Andrew Wilson, guest speaking at Grace Church Chichester
More from Andrew Wilson at his own church, Kings Church Eastbourne

The Concrete Jesus is No Jesus

I mean obviously, but it's strange how we're prone to think of him. Hum this one in your head and see what comes to mind:

EVERLASTING GOD, The years go by but You're unchanging.
In this fragile world, You are the only firm foundation.
Always loving, always true, Always merciful and good, so good. Yesterday, today and forever, You are the same, You never change.

An unseen, dependable, unmovable lump of concrete is not what @vickybeeching had in mind when she wrote the song about our firm foundation, but what do we mean when we use these words? The who is Jesus but is he just solid, reliable, unseen and just for getting us started with building? A concrete foundation on which I build 'my faith'...

He is the one who the writer to the Hebrews says is the same yesterday, today and forever (13:8). The whole letter is about Jesus, and is very concerned with his foreverness and some very specific senses in which he is brilliant. We open Hebrews with the Jesus vs. the angels celebrity death match. And we're likely to get to the end of chapter 1 and cry out, Jesus is greater than the angels 'woo-hoo... who cares'. But, turns out it's important. the angel delivered the law and when Israel disregarded that they died. Jesus is more important than the angels, drift from him and it's a fate worse than death. Pay more attention to the big man.

We go on, shaken and drawn to Jesus. He, greater than the angels, became less than them for a while - why? To taste death for us and be the wrath-bearer (chapter 2). In all this we find he is our high priest and apostle. He's the one who rules the house (and he's better than Moses). Ergo, pay attention to what he says - hold on to confessing Jesus and not hardening your heart, on a daily basis. In all this we begin to find that this great high priest, the Son, has done his work and gone in to his Father where he intercedes for us - and he is the one who can help us when we're tempted and offers his mercy in our time of need. His is the throne of grace. Far from being concrete, God's ultimate revelation is very much personal, involved and with us.

Then (chapter 5) we begin to be told that he's a Melchizedek-priest. Eh? The line is repeated a third time before we reach the end of chapter 6 (via those apparently scary warnings). The writer doesn't think they'll quit but wants them to grow up - which means holding on to Jesus and not shifting from him. There's already evidence in their lives of it - and why would they want to go elsewhere?

Chapter 7 is all about Melchizedek and begins to explain why the writer cares so much that Jesus is a priest of the order of Melchizedek (who makes a cameo in Genesis 14). The chapter is complex but 8:1 tells us what the point is. This is the kind of priest we have - sat in heaven, job done, completed - not just in the toy temple but in the real thing - and so 8:12 sin is properly dealt with. In all this the key is that he's an eternal priest - unlike the old toy priests he doesn't die and have to be replaced - he lives forever so his priesthood lasts forever. That's the kind of unchanging we're talking about - unfailing, unending, everlastingly for us.

He's the one who comes at the time of reformation and it's the shedding of his blood that deals with sin. By his blood we can be made perfect forever (10:14) not that we would ever have contributed to this, but the really good news is that he hasn't got anything more to do. We can have total full assurance and 10:19 come on in boldly to the presence of the Father where the Son is seated. Like the old heroes (ch11) we then ought to look to Jesus (12:2) considering him. We don't presume on his grace, or trust in our sorrow (like Esau - ch12) - it would be easy to do that, but it's unthinkable too.

Instead we come to Jesus, by his better blood that can and will never fail because his priesthood, in which he offered himself for us, is never going to fail or end. It's this Jesus who is yesterday, today and forever, the same. And it's true that he's our foundation, and it's true that you can't see him at the moment - but he's very much alive, and very much coming back - and in the meantime let us go to him who came to us, (ch13) outside the camp, bearing suffering on his behalf, not quitting on loving his people, and hanging on to the gospel word that Jesus blood never fails me. Not yesterday. Not today. Never.

Interview with Michael Ward (Planet Narnia) by Mike Reeves

The lastest Theology Network Table Talk Podcast is with Michael Ward. Michael Ward, author of 'Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C. S. Lewis', talks with Mike Reeves about what we can learn from Lewis's use of medieval cosmology in his writings.

Take note of the implications for evangelism, inviting people inside Lewis' beam of light...

More at PlanetNarnia.com

God and The Problem of Pain, Evil and Suffering

One of the five talks I'll be giving at Plymouth University in February is on the subject of suffering. To help me prepare I've been digging into the way that other apologists have approached the task. I've been feeding my heart from Richard Sibbes' The Bruised Reed. For time reasons I limited myself to five approaches, three books and two mp3s....


Nicky Gumbel - Suffering (chapter 1, Searching Issues).
The Alpha Course
This is the number one objection to Christianity. Suffering is experienced globally, in our communities and individually. It's not a problem for all religions but it does arise in Christianity because Christians say God is good.
1) Human Freedom (or the free will defence), it's our sin or the sin of others that directly or indirectly causes much suffering, the rest is probably due to the fallen nature of the world.
2) God works through suffering - to draw us to Christ, to bring Christian maturity and to bring about his good purposes e.g. Joseph.
3) God more than compensates for suffering. God has all eternity to make it up to us.
4) God is involved in our suffering - the story of Joni Earekson Tada and The Long Silence.
How will we respond to the suffering in our lives. Ask if it's because of my sin? What is God saying through this? What does God want me to do in this? And then hold onto hope - suffering is an alien intrusion into God's world.
The Cross fits with all of this. Human sin put Jesus on the cross. We see God working through the suffering of the cross of Jesus. See at the cross Jesus dies for the joy ahead of him. See God come into our suffering at the cross.

Michael Ots - "Rape, child abuse and AIDS- What kind of God doesn't prevent suffering?" (chapter 3, What Kind of God?)
Michael Ots Evangelism Trust
We begin with examples of suffering which aren't just statistics they're personal to us. If we deny God's existence we don't necessarily deal with the problem - does atheism have a better answer? Should we deny God's goodness?
1) God allows suffering - a more nuanced form of 'free will' argument than Gumbel. God gives us a choice which makes our life real, unlike The Truman Show. We ask, who is to blame? Is it a manufacturing fault (no), or misuse by the owner (yes).
2) God will end the suffering - we can talk about getting rid of the bad guys but where do you draw the line? We are in danger but God is patient.
3) God has experienced suffering - not just empathy but acting to do something about it, and so suffering isn't the end of the story.

Tim Keller - How could a good God allow suffering (chapter 2, The Reason for God)
Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York
1) Evil and suffering isn't evidence against God - just because we can't see a reason why he should permit suffering doesn't mean there isn't one - e.g. Joseph.
2) Evil and suffering may be (if anything) evidence for God. God came to earth not to get himself off the hook but to put himself on it.
We should ask why Jesus suffering seems to be worse than other people's? Jesus is introduced as the one who was always in the bosom of the Father but at the end of his life he is cut off. We see God with us in our suffering at the cross, and the resurrection promises consolation and restoration. Sam Gamgee - "is everything sad going to come untrue?", Dostoevsky "suffering will be healed and made up for", Lewis: "heaven...will work backwards and turn even that agony into glory".

William Lane Craig - Cambridge Lecture in The Reasonable Faith Tour.
MP3 from Bethinking.org
It's a big step to abandon God over any objection. The issue is two-fold, partly intellectual and philosophical, partly personal and pastoral.
1) The Logical Problem. We can't see how a good God would permit suffering but the objection exposes our own hidden premises about God.
2) The Probablistic Problem. It just seems unlikely that God would allow suffering.
a) But we're not in a good position to judge things - think about the butterfly effect or the film Sliding Doors, who can tell what's good in the long run?
b) Christian doctrine makes it more probable that you can have God and evil in the world. i) Life isn't for our happiness but for knowing God. ii) Our rebellion makes us more culpable and we're given over to our evil. iii) Knowledge of God spills over to eternal life. iv) Knowledg eof God is good, incomparably better than suffering.
3) There are other reasons to believe in God even if suffering is a hard one to swallow.
We end with a brief 'pastoral' response that expounds the Trinity and the cross as the explanation of how God is not the problem to be got rid of, but the solution to the problem.

Andrew Wilson - Why does God allow suffering or evil?
MP3 from Grace Church, Chichester
Evil and suffering feels wrong - if the atheists are right we shouldn't blink. We want God to stop people from doing evil. Genesis 3 - a story about a piece of fruit? Not eating isn't the first command (that's have sex and go travelling) to people God makes in his image. And the issue isn't the fruit, it's not a petty rule like not walking on the grass.
1) We ran off with another woman - sin is an affair, a breaking not of legal restriction but relational.
2) We threw off the safety of that relationship - nakedness becomes a problem. We end up having to compare and climb and this causes a lot of suffering.
3) We wrecked it by trying to be God - we abdicated responsibility and everything has gone wrong. "What just happened?!" - it wasn't always like this, it's not meant to be, and one day it wont be. We said "I did it my way" and it ruins things.  Until the image of God is restored it's ruined. God comes to us to do that - to overcome physical and spiritual death and make the affair right, securing us from nakedness to be sons of God.

SOME OBSERVATIONS
1. I found Gumbel and Wilson very helpful on how out of place suffering is - that it feels so wrong is a positive things. It is alien, and it makes us cry out "what just happened?". The Dawkins "pitiless indifference" answer is unsatisfying.
2. Wilson's was the only one doing an exposition of the Bible and this was helpful - by contrast Craig was almost all philosophy which was also good and in a lecture setting probably appropriate. The other three had similar approaches from present problems through some points and ending with the cross & resurrection which are vital to understand suffering, consolation and restoration.
3. The logical problem comes from who we think God is - when we begin with attributes it is difficult to resolve because we attach so many assumptions to saying "God is good" and almost rule God out by definition. If we speak of the Triune God and what he is like then it's probably easier, and more obvious to speak of God coming into our suffering.
4. Given I'll have 15 minutes plus Q&A I'm really going to have to select what to say carefully. Michael Ots chapters are based on such talks so give me a good idea of what's possible. I'm also aware that in person I want to approach the topic at least as much pastorally as intellectually.

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In case you were tempted to think the issue isn't one people are asking about... BBC publishes philosopher David Bain's thoughts... "But, as for those who believe in an all-good, all-powerful agent-God, we've seen that they face a question that remains pressing after all these centuries, and which is now horribly underscored by the horrors in Haiti. If a deity exists, why didn't he prevent this?"