When Evening Comes

Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me

let me be singing when the evening comes

I love these lyrics from Matt Redman's song, '10,000 Reasons.' I think they demonstrate, as well as you can in two lines, one of the essences of the Christian life.

When we wake up each day, we've got no idea what will happen. Will we get in a car wreck and spend the night in hospital? Will we receive some terrible family news, an unexpected bill? Or will some unexpected good news come our way? We have no way of knowing. So why don't we just hide under the covers all day? Because we know the living God. 

For the Christian, the best is always yet to come. Whether a day may realise your wildest dreams or your darkest nightmares, the best is always yet to come. Look at the book of Ruth. From the unspeakable tragedy of the death of her husband and two sons, life gets better and better for Naomi. She inherits Ruth, a hard working and faithful daughter in law. Her sons land is redeemed by Boaz, then she has a grandson...and then the end of Ruth takes us far beyond the limits of Bethlehem in the time of the Judges, to the eternal plan of God in Christ. For Naomi, even at the end of the book, bouncing her grandson on her knee, the best was still yet to come. The same is true for us today. The best is yet to come. More experiences that Christ will work for our good, more opportunities to grow in our relationship with Him, and, at the end, Heaven, which will get better and better each day.

This logic leads us to the second line. We know when we awake, that there's nothing that can happen that will stop us singing at evening time. John Piper calls this 'faith in future grace.' The knowledge that Christ will never leave us, and that He works all things to our good, gives us a joy and happiness that transcends our circumstances. A joy that is rooted deep in Christ's work, a joy that keeps burning when our happiness merely flickers. These verses understand that, and put them into song.

Christians sing because we can't help it. And i'm thankful for a song that puts so much precious theology onto our lips, and into our hearts...

The Sign of Jonah (Jonah 1:17-2:10)

Last time we saw how Jonah is about more than a man and a big fish. We see more of this idea when we read Matthew 12:40, as Jesus, in typical meek and mild style tells His listeners that evil and adulterous people look for a sign, no sign will be given them apart from the sign of Jonah. Jesus will be three days and nights in the earth, just as Jonah was three days and nights in the belly of the fish. What's the sign of Jonah? A man rising from the dead. This sign should be enough to rest our faith on.

So how does the rest of Jonah 2 point us towards the sign of Jonah?

When we pray, God hears.


Sometimes we can think that we need to be 'doing well,' with the Lord to pray effectively. Now, it's true that when we're mired in sin our prayers will lack the clarity and passion that they will otherwise, but does Christ ignore the prayers of the sinful heart? of course not! He'd have to ignore every prayer if He ignored any prayer. Christ's name is the signature on our crumpled dirty cheques. If He hears Jonah in the fish, he hears you and me, no matter how far we feel from Him. Why? Because of the sign of Jonah, because He died and rose for us, Our sins are dealt with, we can pray freely.

All things for good, even fish.


Jonah doesn't pray to be saved from the fish. He's praying because he's been saved by the fish! Romans 8:28 reminds us that God works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. So? So, when Jonah get's swallowed by a fish, he still knows that God hasn't forsaken him. And no matter where you end up, God is working it together for good, and you will again look upon His holy temple. This has to be tyre iron that holds up the bruised reed of our faith. Our faith goes beyond our circumstances. Why? Because of the sign of Jonah. If God didn't hold back His Son, how will He not also graciously give us all things that we need? Can you see the logic? God did the hard thing, He gave us Christ. Jesus died and rose, and now that means good things, in all circumstances, forever.

Salvation belongs to the Lord.


In some ways Jonah is just like Israel. Called to be a canal, but decides to be a puddle. He doesn't want those people getting saved, so he's off to Tarshish. But he realises that salvation isn't his to dole out as he pleases, it belongs to the Lord. It takes him a while to work out all the implications of that, chapter 4 stops rather than finishes. It's almost like Jonah turns to us and says 'and how about you...?' Do we share our faith with the confidence that salvation is the Lord's not ours? Do we take risks for the risen Christ as we step out and witness? When we grasp that salvation belongs to the Lord, we become liberal sowers of the seed, flinging it left and right, knowing it will find good soil. Why? You guessed it, because of the sign of Jonah! Because Jesus died and rose again, carried sins to the watery depths, so we can share our faith in confidence, knowing the results are in the hands of the sovereign Lord.

Sunday Song: Abide with me

Wasn't this brilliant at the Olympic Opening ceremony on Friday? I wish it was sung more often...

Joy and Obedience

 I love the way that Luke organizes his material. In Luke 15 he helps us to see what is lost and what is found, in Luke 18:25-19:10 he shows us that those who we think can't physically see end up seeing who Jesus is. In Acts 8 he shows us what real saving faith looks like by contrasting Simon and the Ethiopian eunuch. We looked at Simon the magician before, and now Luke shows us two things that demonstrate saving faith.

What do we see from the Ethiopian in verses 36-39? Obedience and joy. He obeys the command to be baptised once he's been saved. Luke doesn't record this part of the conversation, but we have to assume that Phillip had told him. He'd been saved, he saw water, he wanted to be baptised. His faith issued in obedience. What happened next? After he was baptised, Phillip was taken away from him, 'and the eunuch went on his way rejoicing.' He obeyed and rejoiced, because he was saved.

James says the man who hears God's word and doesn't do it is like the man who looks in a mirror and forgets what he looks like when he looks away. What sort of word would we use to describe that a man? A fool? The sort of fool who says in his heart that there is no God. He knows God when he sees him with eyes, but forgets him when he can't. Of course, our obedience will never be perfect until we get to Heaven, but a general course of obedience, growth in love and holiness and growth in service is excellent evidence we're saved. This is what Simon the Magician lacked, and this is what the Ethiopian had.

And he had joy. Jonathan Edwards said 'God is not only glorified by being understood, but by being enjoyed.' Intellectual knowledge of God isn't always saving knowledge. It has to issue in joy. Enjoyment of God in Christ, enjoyment of His word, or His church, of being with Him, and of obeying Him. That's what the Ethiopian experienced when he went on his way from his baptism.

In short, Acts 8 teaches us that non saving faith is inward looking. Simon wanted the show, the power, the glory. Saving faith is outward looking. The Ethiopian looked outward in joy and outward in obedience. He had the faith that saved...

Cool Things Happen On The Third Day

Jonah was three days and nights in the belly of the great fish, on the third day he was vomited out. Cool things happen on the third day...

Abraham took the son of the promise up the mountain on the third day, and he was ransomed for a sacrifice that God provided. 

Genesis 22:3-5  So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. ⁴ On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar.⁵ Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; I and the boy^[a] will go over there and worship and come again to you.” 

As they walked through the wilderness, it was on the third day that the LORD met Moses and gave Him the law. On the third day in the wilderness the story of revelation continued. 

Exodus 19:1-3 On the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. ² They set out from Rephidim and came into the wilderness of Sinai, and they encamped in the wilderness. There Israel encamped before the mountain, ³ while Moses went up to God. The Lord called to him out of the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel

After being chased through the wilderness and fighting a war, on the third day, God's anointed King, David, was crowned King, with the news that Saul was dead.

2 Samuel 1:1-3 After the death of Saul, when David had returned from striking down the Amalekites, David remained two days in Ziklag. ² And on the third day, behold, a man came from Saul's camp, with his clothes torn and dirt on his head. And when he came to David, he fell to the ground and paid homage.³ David said to him, “Where do you come from?” And he said to him, “I have escaped from the camp of Israel.” 

On the third day, showing her total faith in God, Esther went before the King to represent her people. She was the only one who could have an audience with the King, and it might've cost her her life.

Esther 5:1-3 On the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the king's palace, in front of the king's quarters, while the king was sitting on his royal throne inside the throne room opposite the entrance to the palace. ² And when the king saw Queen Esther standing in the court, she won favor in his sight, and he held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. Then Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter. ³ And the king said to her, “What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? It shall be given you, even to the half of my kingdom.”

On the third day, God's people will be revived, they will return, they will be raised up.

Hosea 6:1-3 Come, let us return to the Lord;

    for he has torn us, that he may heal us;    he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.² After two days he will revive us;    on the third day he will raise us up,    that we may live before him.³ Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;     his going out is sure as the dawn;he will come to us as the showers,     as the spring rains that water the earth

The Difference Between Hymns and Praise Choruses

This made me chuckle:

Every Morning?

One of the best things about being on holiday is waking up without an alarm. There's not much that can rival the hatred i hold for my alarm clock in the depths of the school year! When i woke up this morning, i thought what i was going to do first, grab my coffee, sit in the morning sun and read Mark.

Then a thought flashed across my mind. 'Do I have to? I already know what happens!' That thought was right. I've read Mark, preached from Mark, read commentaries and led studies on mark's Gospel, do i really need to read it now? What about Boy Meets World? Thankfully this thought was chased away, and i had a lovely time this morning. But the questions lingers, why do I need to read the Bible every day? I can think of a few reasons.

I don't wake up in Gospel model.


I don't often wake up excited about the Gospel. Sometimes i do, but often i don't. I need to be reminded, i need to be brought back to reality. Away from twitter, facebook and ESPN, and back to the reality that grounds existence. I need to be reminded of the Gospel every day by the Bible.

I'm hungry for breakfast.


I've never considered skipping breakfast because it'll be the same as yesterday. I've eaten thousands of bowls of cereal, and they all taste about the same. But i'm hungry for another one every morning. I think, to some extent, Jesus gave us those sensations to teach us how we need to feel about Him. We wake up physically hungry to remind us that we wake up spiritually hungry. We never have doubts about feeding our stomachs. Why our souls?

The Bible is precious.


'The most precious thing the world affords,' as the incoming Monarch is reminded at their coronation. There is simply and objectively no better way to start each day than by reading the Bible.

Precious because...


There's no magic in the pages of my Bible. I like my Bible very much, but it's not an icon. The Bible is precious because it introduces me to Jesus, i hear His voice, sit confounded with the crowd, stop and pray at Gethsemene, weep over Jerusalem. I meet Jesus in Mark, and Malachi, Lamentations and Romans. It's fresh manna every day, just like a fire needs stoking, my heart needs fresh coal to burn for the morning.

The Bible sets me, centres me, reminds me, envisions me, cuts me, warms me, stops me and starts me, The Bible shows me the glory of God in Christ, and i need that...every morning.

Barabbus and Our Hearts

I read Matthew 27 today, Jesus and Barabbus. Barabbus is a type of you and me isn't he? The first man who could say, 'Jesus died in my place.' Jesus died in my place too, and just like Barabbus, i'm a guilty criminal, hopeless and rightly condemned unless Jesus shows up.

Today, Christian, you and I face exactly the same problem of the crowd in Matthew 27 did. Will we choose Jesus, or a cheap substitute. Will our hearts go after the real joy, real pleasure and deep holiness that we find only in Him, or for the sake of the crowd and convenience and sin choose something else?

Our hearts are naturally, sinfully, turned to Barabbus, only the gracious work of God in Christ can turn them to Jesus. So ask that your heart might be turned to Jesus today. Ask that, come what may, your heart might choose Him and prefer Him. The thing about choosing Jesus over sin is that it's never easy, and it gets easier all the time. It's never easy to go for deferred pleasure is it? Sin is shiny, sin looks good, feels good and everyone is doing it. But Jesus stands there and calls. He calls to those who are weary and heavy laden, promising rest, He calls to the tempted, promising them that they will see God for their pure hearts. He calls the tax collectors, sinners and losers, and gives them a home with Him.

Today, let's train our hears not to listen to the old master. It's never easy, because sin is all around us, and sin still fights a guerilla war in our hearts. But it gets easier all the time, as street by street, building by building, the enemy is driven out of our hearts, and the King takes His place. So listen to the King today. Not the one who cries 'Do this, do that!' but to Jesus who holds out His hand, and tells us 'it's done, come and rest.' Turn your heart towards Jesus today, accept no substitutes...

The Church...What A Wonder

Reflect first that a church exists...what a wonder this is. It is perhaps the greatest miracle of all the ages, that God has a church in the world. When the full force of the pagan emperors came as an avalanche upon her, she shook them off as a man shakes the flakes of snow of his garment, and lived on uninjured. When papal Rome vented her malice more furiously and ingeniously, when cruel murderers hunted the saints in the Alps, or worried them in the low country, she lived still and was never in a healthier state than when she was immersed in her own gore.

When, after a partial reformation in this country, the pretenders of religion determined that the truly spiritual should be harried out of the land, God's Church did not sleep, or suspend her career or life of service. Let the covenant be signed in blood witnesses to the vigour of the persecuted saints. Hearken to her psalm amid the brown heath clad hills of Scotland and her prayer in the secret coventicles of England... here ye the testimony of Bunyan and his compeers who would rather rot in a dungeon than bow the knee to Baal.

Ask me 'where is the church?' and i can find Her in any and every period from the day when first in the upper room the Holy Spirit came down, even until now. In one unbroken line our apostolic succession runs, not through the church of Rome, not from the superstitious hands of hand made priests or King made bishops, but through the blood of good men an true who never forsook the testimony of Jesus. Through the loins of true pastors, laborious evangelists, faithful martyrs and faithful men of God, we trace our pedigree up to the fishermen of Galilee and glory that we perpetuate by God's grace the true and faithful church of the living God, in whom Christ did abide, and in whom He will abide until the world crashes.

The chief wonder is that she abides perfect. Not one of God's elect has gone back, not one of God's blood bought has denied the faith. Not one single soul was ever called effectually was made to deny Christ, even though his flesh should be pulled from his bones by hot pincers, or his tormented body thrown to the jaws of wild beasts. All that the enemy has done is of no avail against the Church. The old rock has been washed and washed and washed a thousand times in the floods of tempest, but even her corners and angles abide unaltered and unalterable. We may say of the Lord's tabernacle that not one of the stakes has been removed, nor has one of her cords been broken. The house of the Lord from foundation to pinnacle is perfect still: 'the rain descended and the floods came and the winds blew and beat upon the house, and it fell not.' Nay, nor a single stone of it, for it was founded upon a rock.

Charles Spurgeon, quoted in 'The Forgotten Spurgeon' IH Murray, P32-33.

Sunday Song: Matt Redman 10,000 Reasons

Amusement and Edification

These two videos are for your amusement and edification...i'm sure you can work out which one is which!

But Jesus Did Leave

I've shared how precious Jesus' last words in matthew are to me. I'll be with you. But there's a problem isn't there? A few days after promising that He'd never leave His disciples, He did just that, He left them. You can understand the giddy excitement in Acts 1:6. Here they all were, back in Jerusalem, surely now Jesus was going to restore the Kingdom. He'd defeated death, the Romans weren't going to be a problem. Let's get them. And then, Jesus leaves, up into the clouds. He'd promised never to leave His disciples, but now He'd gone again.

So did Jesus break His promise? I think one of the patterns i'm noticing more and more in the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament, is that when we don't understand what's going on, it's because something better than we can imagine is about to happen. Habbakuk didn't understand how God could use the Babylonians, but if God told Him what He as doing He wouldn't believe it. Ezra and Nehemiah struggled to lead the returning exiles, but there was a real, final, glorious exile coming.

So when Jesus did leave us, how did He keep His promise not to? By the Holy Spirit. One of the most affecting scenes in the Bible, must be when Jesus rises, and Mary wants to cling to Him. We understand Mary's response. We might not understand Jesus'. Don't cling to me, because i'm leaving soon, and this is better for everyone. How is it better if you go away again? Because when He goes away, the Holy Spirit's full ministry is unleashed. John 17 tells us that the Holy Spirit enables us to be part of the great intra-trinitarian love of God. One day the love that God the Father has for God the Son will be in us, because Jesus went away. It's better to have the Holy Spirit in us than Jesus next to us, because now Jesus is sat at the right hand of the Father praying for us, now the Holy Spirit lives in us to help us hate sin and fight for joy.

The Holy Spirit is the same kind of Helper, another Comforter. Jesus tells His disciples that He must go so that the Spirit can come. And this is how Jesus is always with us, this is how Jesus kept His promise. He's not just leading us around Judea, teaching and healing, He's physically, spiritually with us. He's with us by the Holy Spirit opening our hearts to His Word. He's with us by the Holy Spirit as we share our faith, with us as we battle sin and fear. With us in a much better and more effectual way.

So Jesus did leave us, but He's always with us. Jesus did go, but the Holy Spirit came, and in God's glorious economy, that's serves our good, and His glory...

The Faith That Doesn't Save

The middle of Acts 8 recounts the first impact of the Gospel in Samaria, paying particular attention to Simon the Magician. Simon had bewitched the locals with his magical powers, which led them to ascribe to him the power of the 'great god.' Then Phillip showed up, started preaching, and Simon was apparently saved a baptised. Great right? Well love hearing and telling those sorts of stories. The great Gospel opponent in the town has been baptised. Except here, all is not as it seems. Luke's account ends with Peter saying, in effect, 'to hell with you and your money.' Not a textbook way to handle a new convert. Luke ends to story without telling us whether or not Simon was really saved, but there are a couple of reasons to belief that his profession was false.

Simon was more concerned with power than holiness.


You get the impression that Simon was the only show in town. Certainly he was the biggest and best show in town. Then here comes Phillip preaching the Gospel, and performing signs and miracles, and his head is turned. He's amazed by thew power that flows from Phillip's hands. Perhaps this is why he came forward at the end of one of Phillip's messages. He wanted to be where the power was, he wanted to be a leader of the pack. So, like the rest of them, he got baptised. Then when Peter and John showed up it got even more impressive. he laid his hands on some guys, and they received the Holy Spirit. This is a power that Simon had to have!

Simon wanted the show, he wanted the power to make people say wow. Nowhere does Luke tell us he wanted to honour God, nowhere do we read about him wanting to grow in holiness. He wanted to draw and impress a crowd. That desire never changed, just the source of the power.

Simon was more concerned with Earth than Heaven.


Simon offers to buy the power of the Holy Spirit, and Peter does not mess with him. He even tells him 'your heart is not right before God.' So what does Simon do? He doesn't repent, he just asks Peter to pray for him, that none of the dreadful stuff that Peter just mentioned would befall him. He didn't tear his clothes, he didn't fall to his knees, he even seems quite casual about it. 'Just pray for me Peter, that doesn't sound like much fun.'

We can so easily fall into that trap can't we? If i'm getting a raise, making my car payments on time and going on vacation it must be because God is pleased with me right? It's a crazy thing to think since one of the ways the Devil tempts Christ is with riches! The Devil will give us the easiest, richest life we can imagine, as long as it keep our hearts away from Christ. We must fight tooth and nail every day for Heavenly reward, forsaking Earthly reward when we need to. Simon missed this. He wasn't humbled by his sin, he didn't understand the role of the Holy Spirit and he never grasped his need for salvation.

Ultimately, Simon's problem was that he considered faith to be an outward thing, not an inward thing. Repentance was adding Jesus to what he already had, not turning from one thing to God, which is fully orbed, Biblical repentance. This is the faith that does not save. A faith that strives for earthly reward, a faith that minimizes sin and isn't interested in holiness.

The Gospel coming to Samaria was a great and glorious chapter in the history of the church. But the church still had to be on the look out. There was still a faith that didn't save, and Luke was good to warn us about it...

Book Review: Unplanned by Abby Johnson

I wonder what our great-grandchildren will regard as the great evangelical failing of our day? What will cause them to look at us and shake their heads sadly about our lack of action? Who will be the Wilberforce and Newton in this issue, who stands out from the majority. I guess the very nature of the question makes it hard to answer, but if there a chance that it might be our (relative) inaction on plight of the unborn?

On the plane to Utah (Utah is a long way...a long way from eastern North Carolina) i read Unplanned, by Abby Johnson. To sum it up simply, it's the story of one woman's journey from being the director of a Planned Parenthood clinic to being an advocate for Coalition for Life. From pro choice to pro life. It's a fascinating book.

The great strength is that the author knows good people on both sides of the debate. It's gets pro lifers nowhere trying to demonize Planned Parenthood and their employees. It also helpfully turns the spotlight on some unhelpful pro life tactics. Does it help vulnerable women to show them a huge poster sized picture of an aborted baby, for example? Obviously not.

Abby takes us on a journey with her from the slightly naive girl recruited at Texas A&M, to the slow realisation that a company that makes most of it's money from abortion can never be objective about the rights of the unborn and the health of women. Whether this was a development in the nature of Planned Parenthood, or simply scales falling from the eyes of the author is something each reader can decide. The irony of the story is, if Planned Parenthood had simply let Abby Johnson quit her job, we never would have heard of her. But they pursued her, they dragged her into a pointless court case, and made her a national figure. Now her story is a bestseller.

Abby grew up going to church, but never made a connection between what she believed and the way she lived, at least not in this issue. This challenges me as a youth pastor to make sure that the truth i teach our teens makes the journey from head to heart.

There are good people who work for Planned Parenthood, people whose heart is to help troubled women. In the pro-life camp, we should remember that, these people are our best hope of change within that organisation, if we can reach them in a sensible and sensitive way.

Words really matter. Pro choice soounds so much nicer than pro life. But pro life we are, and pro life Christians must be. We must choose our words as carefully as our actions, remembering that financially and with the liberal media, we're the under dog.

God is capable of anything. So pray for your local Planned Parenthood clinic, and pray for your local pro life clinic, that both the rights of the unborn, and the health, both physical and spiritual, of women would be protected.

If i had one complaint about his book, it would be in it's ecumenism. But, it's not a theological text book, and it's strengths far outweigh it's weaknesses. So buy and read this book. And pray that this wouldn't be the issue that future generations look back on us and shake their heads because of.

Jonah and the Storm

Jonah and the whale is a classic kids story isn't it? And it should be, it's got everything a good story needs. Drama, suspense, a shipwreck, and of course, a whale. But there's so much more in this book, and on Sunday we started looking at this book together in Teen Sunday School.

On the run from God
God called Jonah to go east. Jonah got on a boat and headed...west as quickly as he could. So far west in fact, that he was more or less on the edge of the known world. He was trying to 'flee from the presence of the Lord.' That sounds pretty hopeless doesn't it? Where can one go from the presence of the Lord? We want to say 'nowhere!' Jonah would have known that, so why did he go? We learn later that he simply didn't like the people he was called to preach to.


We may not get on a boat, but don't we want to get away from the presence of the Lord sometimes? There are words, thoughts and actions we simply don't want the Lord to know about. Hopeless of course, because He knows and sees everything. So how did the Lord react? Graciously, as always. What happens on the boat? There is a tremendous, terrifying storm, which Jonah deals with (more of that in a minute) which leads to the men on the boat making vows and making sacrifices to the Lord. Even on the run, the Lord is using Jonah, even on the run, the Lord is gracious. Jonah had to learn, as we have to learn, that salvation belongs to the Lord. Get on board and enjoy the victory!


Man asleep in boat calms storm
There's a huge storm, terrified experienced sailors, and a man asleep in the boat as it takes on water. What does that remind you of? Jesus told us that no sign would be given to the sign seekers except the sign of Jonah. Jonah was in the belly of a fish for three days, just as the Lord was in the ground for three days. But, there's a sign of Jonah here too isn't there? Jesus calmed the storm with a word. Jonah calms with with an idea. Throw me over, sacrifice me, i'll face the storm so you don't have to. I'll face the storm so you don't have to? Isn't that what Jesus did.


Jesus is safe, and we are suffered the effects on our sin. Jesus saves us by getting out of the boat, and conquering the storm of our sin. He faces it head on, pays the price with His blood, with His life. Our response on knowing this has to be that of the sailors doesn't it? Thanksgiving and sacrifice, our hearts being turned to the God of Jonah, the God of Jesus, the God who calmed and conquered the storm...

I'll Be With You

Horatio Nelson's last breath is stored in a jar in a museum in London. I'm not sure how they got it, i imagine a guy standing over him saying 'is that it, is that it?' But the way things end are important aren't they? How did Jesus end things? He told us that he'll never leave us.

Not in the valley, not on the mountain, not on the good days, not on the bad days. Not when we sin, not when we pray. Never leave us. Jesus last words included a strategy to reach the whole world. Jesus last words included a deep theological treatise, but all of Jesus last words speak of relationship.

In John's Gospel Jesus spends His last night teaching His disciples about the Trinity, the very nature of God. What is the nature of God? Relationship, love, giving and spreading and outgoing goodness. What is the nature of God? A commitment to never leave His people.

Jesus was not primarily a teacher, although He did teach. I loved (most) of my teachers, but none of them came into my finals with me. I expect they had better things to do for three hours on cup final Saturday (not bitter!). They taught, and sent us off on our way. Jesus wasn't primarily a religious leader, although He did organize a religion and institute the Church. I love the men that lead my church, and have led the churches i've been part of. But they can't do my devotions for me, can't be sanctified for me.

Jesus comes to save. Jesus comes to create and confirm a relationship with His people, His bride. And He'll never leave us, because He loves us, He is committed, He has died and risen again. He goes into every exam and every devotion...every situation with me. And you.

So, whatever you face today, or tomorrow, know that Jesus faces it with you. Know that as you go, bu the power of the Holy Spirit, He goes with you. In fact, know that it is better that Jesus isn't physically present so that He can be with us by the Holy Spirit. What a great promise from Jesus!

Sunday Song: Defender

This is our song of the month for Sunday at Trinity. Turn it up and worship!

Malachi and Mark

Can i recommend two sermon series for your iPod? These have kept/are keeping me company as i mow the lawn and walk around our new neighbourhood. A series on Malachi by John Piper has helped me tremendously.

Pastor and author Jared C. Wilson is preaching through Mark in his church are the moment. These are some great messages!

Malachi: The Son of Righteousness will rise, John Piper.

Mark, Jared C. Wilson

God is Already Pleased With You

The more i think about 2 Corinthians 5:21, the more i see it as a sword that we must plunge into the heart of weak theology. There a weak theology of pleasing God isn't there? A theology that robs us of joy because we think if i don't do ____ then God won't be pleased. But, if there's something that we can do, or not do, that leaves God displeased, we're all in the mess, because it would mean that we'd never be able to do anything to please God.

What is the end result of this verse? God is pleased with us, because of what Jesus has done. God is pleased, this moment, with you and me, because of Jesus. If we are in Him, all our sins have put on Christ's shoulders. You and I don't walk away not guilty, we walk away innocent. With the righteousness of God in our account! If we owe God a million dollars, Jesus doesn't show up with a million dollars to pay into our account, He shows up with one hundred million dollars! And there's more every day.

If we forget this, our obedience will fearful and joyless. If we forget this, our obedience won't please God. This is the irony. If we aim to please God because of what Christ has done, we won't please Him. We'll steal His glory, we'll grow in pride not grace, people won't ask us for the hope that is in us, because they'll see that we are our own hope. But if we live lives that please God because Jesus has pleased God, then God will be pleased. If we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, and grow in the grace and knowledge of God, as a faithful reaction to what Jesus has done on the cross, then we grow, and God is glorified.

God is more pleased with you right now than you can possibly imagine. Not because of you, but because of Jesus. And Jesus' work will never change. So relax, and prove your faith by your works today, don't try to do it backwards...

What Provo is Teaching Me (II)

Personal reflections in a public space are a difficult thing. We've all got that friend on Facebook who seems to think they're writing in their private diary, but at the same time, i think i'm learning some things that are worth sharing, but i guess that'll be up to you to decide!

In Provo i learnt that the Gospel is our only hope.

Ok, so i knew this already, but it's easy to lose focus on that isn't it? Mormonism is a dense plot of thorns and the Gospel is the only sword that will cut through them. It's easy to think that to introduce Mormons to the Gospel you have to go for the jugular on some of the things they believe. But you don't. The truth speaks for itself, it shines the glory of God out for those that will see it. Obviously there is a huge need for culturally sensitive outreach, for well thought out apologetics, but only if they flow from and to the Gospel.

In Provo i learnt Church planting is hard, so we need to do it.

It's not just Provo that needs a Christian church. It's Francis, and Heber City, and Park City, and South Summit and the innumerable communities that line the interstate on the way to the airport. Church planting out there is hard. It's not just that Utah is full of Mormons, it's also that there just aren't that many churches there. In fact, leave the Bible belt, and there aren't very many churches anywhere. Plant a church 'out west' and you'll probably be up against it. But this is Christianity isn't it? We move away from leisure, like Christ, so that others can move towards God. We who are rich become poor, so that those who are poor become rich.

In Provo i learnt If you're good enough, you're old enough.

You don't need to cross an age threshold to serve the Lord. You just have to have a heart for God and people. Cities need churches, and we need to produce the men who are going to plant them. We might be the men who are going to plant them. Logan and Grayson discovered their passion, and lived it out.

Jesus never leaves us.

Jesus' last words in Matthew are so precious. I will never leave you. On the plane, i'm with you, when you knock on a door, i'm with you, when you have a difficult conversation, i'm with you, when you're discouraged, i'm with you. I am always with you. Beautiful.

What Provo is Teaching Me (I)

This will probably come in two parts, one more 'theological' and one more personal. Or, this post will mutate into the sort of thing you give up on half way through...

For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:21

We arrived back from Provo yesterday evening. Five days had flown by, and we came home with mixed feelings. I always want those sort of trips to be longer, i always leave feeling more burdened by what we didn't do that pleased with what we did. But we a lot for three days.

I shared with you before we left that Provo is overwhelmingly Mormon. In fact, soon Provo will be the only city in the world with two Mormon Temples. The Provo/Orem metropolitan area is literally bursting at the seems with Mormons. It's like the Bible belt on culty steroids. What is Mormonism, basically? From my far less than expert point of view, it seems that Mormonism can be summed up as a system whereby man aims to gain reward by pleasing God. This has some positive side effects. There's a great volunteer spirit in Provo, it's clean and public places are well looked after. We spent a morning picking up litter and weeding a popular running and biking trail, and didn't pick up a single fast food wrapper or beer can. But the (eternal) negatives obviously far outweigh the (temporal) positives.

I defined Mormonism as a system for man to please God. That doesn't sound like a bad thing does it? Evangelicals want to please God, no? I want, very much to please God today in my marriage and ministry. So what's the big deal? Well the big deal, Christianity is about what Jesus has done to please God, not what we must do to please God.

2 Corinthians 5:21 spells this out in slow motion. For our sake, that means, God did something for your benefit and mine that we couldn't do by ourselves. What did He do? He made Jesus to be sin. He counted to Jesus' account all the sins that we've committed today, and yesterday, and forever. And this was a big deal, because Jesus had never sinned. He is the spotless lamb, He is the true Israelite who has the law written on His heart. He is the High Priest in Melchizedek's order, He is the eternal Son of God. And His Father out all our sins on Him.

Why? What benefit does that give us? So that...we might become the righteousness of God. In the glorious economy of God the Father, He looks at you and me, and sees Jesus perfect righteousness. He doesn't see my sin, or your sin, His face doesn't flicker with anger as we approach Him, His mind doesn't weigh up whether or not our prayers deserve a hearing. We become the righteousness of God.  We approached our Father clothed in our blessed brother's robe, that we might receive a blessing from Him.

I missed out a part though. We don't become this righteousness by works. This righteousness comes in Him. In Him might be two of the most important words in the Bible. In Him, you and I are righteous. Not because we have pleased the Father, but because Jesus has. In Him, we have hope, not because we are worthy of merit, but because Jesus is. In Him, in Him, in Him!

Baptism doesn't save, vicarious baptism doesn't move relatives from Hell to Heaven. It's all in Him. We work out our salvation with fear and trembling, because we are in Him. We've been given precious treasure in pots of clay, not so that we can paint the outside of our pots but to show the surpassing power belongs to God! Not us! Not to us, only to Him.

Are you in Him? Are you connected by faith alone to Christ alone? Don't please your Father to earn His smile today, He smiles on you because of Christ, and this frees us to labour joyfully for His glory.

Song 8:6-7

What to do with chapter eight of the Song? It’s lack of flow in our Bibles is not cleared up by going back to the original language. Jenson says it appears as either ‘a repository of an editors frustration,’ somewhere to place all the left over parts of poetry that fits or ‘that they are dialogue for a drama or liturgy.’ He goes with the former idea, but whichever it is, it does not unduly effect our reading of these two verses, regarded as the climax of the Song.

Poem and Man

The woman requests to be the ‘seal’ of her lover. In our day of writing and typing we’ve lost some of the significance of what this means. In the days when all handwriting looked more or less the same, a mans seal was the sure mark of his identity. No one could be sure he was who he said he was without his seal. This is no simile, the woman wants to be the seal of the man, she wants to be intrinsic to his identity. She wants them to be ‘one flesh.’ But how can this be a reasonable, or even realistic request, how can one person be indispensible to the very identity of another? 

The end of verse 6 and 7 give the womans reason. These are classic Hebrew prose that could be lifted straight from the Psalms or the Proverbs. Strong and fierce go together, as do death and grave. What about jealousy and love though? Is love jealous? You’d better believe that real love is jealous. I, the LORD your God am a jealous God. (Ex 20:5)

Death is absolute. It can not be negotiated with, and takes a man when it pleases. So too love, argues our woman. Her claim of love, her claim of ‘sealship’ is not up for discussion. The grave is fierce and will not give up those whom it claims, so too jealous love. All this merely explains the woman’s claim it doesn’t justify it. We know that love, no matter how strong, loses to death in the end. The woman’s claims only make sense if, in some way, love can defeat death. Only! Her claims are too audacious to be merely human, the scope of the poet is too broad to be captured by a man and a woman. Here the poet sees a love that will overcome death. Not a human love, a love deeper, wider, fiercer and more jealous than death. The poet talks about a love that can not be undone by either death, or natural disaster or finances.  We know from bitter experience that this can’t be a human love. This claim to love is too much to be human, as is the love that is the foundation for the whole song. Again, any human application hangs on the divine.

God and Man

Jenson suggests that a second look at the Hebrews yields the intended allegory for these verses. Death is not only the taker of life, but also the proper name for the Canaanite God that Baal, the fertility god battles with. Sheol is grave, but also the catch all name for the Judaic underworld. Flame is also the name of the Canaanite god of pestilence. Love is the flame of flames, which this god is not. The ‘many waters’ that do not defeat love are another reminder of the Jews’ relationship with the sea, a place of chaos and carnage. Simply, verse 6 and 7 take us back into the battle between the LORD and the false gods of Canaan.

The love these verses speak of can only be the victorious love of Israel’s God. The woman as Israel says here ‘we can not be separated by death or disaster because of your love, which is better than that of the false god’s.’ The fact that jealous love defeats death is central to the Old Testament. Jealous is a personal name of God (Ex 34:14). We may not like the idea of a jealous God, but the fact is that our salvation and sanctification relies on it. Here we celebrate God’s victory over the false god’s of the nations: death, disaster, chaos and material gain.

Our thoughts must naturally be drawn to the resurrection. Here a jealous God walks out of the grave for us all, here we become His seal. Jesus died for us, we rise with Him, in fact He can not complete the final resurrection without us! Bernard of Clairvaux says ‘He loved us before we existed, and went beyond that to love us when we resisted.’ Jesus will not share us with any other god, we are His seal and He will jealously defend us.

This is utterly wonderful isn’t it? The climax of the Song is the climax of the passion. Jealous love conquers the grave for His bride, who becomes an eternal part of who He is. See, yet again, the depth of Christ’s love for the Church, see again the depths of His commitment to His bride. Rejoice and bathe, Christian, in the love that God has for us, a love not to be overcome by disaster or even death. A lover who will not watch us go into the night. Compare this with Liberal love, a love that has God letting us go. No thank you, give me the jealous love that keeps me. Give me the jealous God of the Bible.

Woman and Man

What more can be said? We must compare the two types of human love, giving, and desire. The two types of love that found the Song, and indeed the Bible. Love is giving, but whatever we give to our lover, we are the greatest gift, as God is the Gospel. Love is rioted in desire, but the only way we do not consume our lover is to plug into the story of the Gospel.

If it were not for Christ’s death on the cross, we might be well advised to steer clear of love. Love will causes us to give ourselves away and cause us to consume another, antithetical to a post modern way of thinking. We remember Christ’s love. At the cross we see Christ’s gift and desire leading us into the grave and out again. On the first Easter we see jealous love, giving love and desiring love working in perfect harmony. The passion means we can risk giving ourselves to our lover and taking them wholly for ourselves. Here we meet death, but only death as the portal to new life. Where ever love occurs, it only occurs because our Trinitarian God and His love for sinners makes it possible. With that knowledge we can sing the Song and joyfully give ourselves to another, making another a part of who we are, safe in the knowledge that all we are doing is following in the footsteps of the One who has rescued us to life, through exactly this kind of death.

There is much richness here isn’t there? Good, deep, physical, Gospel love flows though these verses. This beautiful picture of human love is only possible because of God’s love for sinners. The human application is only possible because of the Christocentric one. In that we rejoice and love. Human love will sometimes scare us, often times swallow us whole, but that’s ok. It’s just an echo of the God who was swallowed whole by love, only to begin the wedding preparations three days later.

Song 5:9-16

Last time we saw the groom, the voice of God, praising His bride. Today, in 5:9-16 we see the bride return the favour.

Poem and Man
This poem is a clear answer to the perhaps slightly aggressive question asked in verse 8, ‘what is your beloved more than any other man?’ Why is this guy making you love-sick? Surely a question that many women have asked of their friends down the years. The bride responds with beautiful poetry…  He is ruddy, he is radiant, he glows. Every part of his body is the ideal, the perfection. Among ten thousand men there is no one like him. We can pause here to observe some horrible analogizing to try and give the Song a more modern sexuality. One commentator has concluded that ‘his body is polished ivory (v14) is a simile for ‘his member is a tusk of ivory.’ As amusing as it is awful, and proof that not all poor analogy belongs in one camp.
Interestingly ‘his legs are alabaster columns set on bases of gold,’ (v15). It’s as if the bride is pointing to the ideal statue of manhood and saying ‘this is the man I love, this is the man that makes me sick!’ More than the physical, the man’s mouth is sweet, his speech is lovely and perfect and alluring. He’s no quiet strong man, but he lavishes praise on his bride, as we’ve seen. Finally, the groom is perfect in love and company, as a lover and friend, their attraction is mental as well as physical.

God and Man
Gregory of Nyssa says ‘all these similes of beauty do not point to the unseen and ungraspable things of deity, but rather to what was revealed in the history of salvation, when God the Word was seen on earth…and put on human nature.’ Jesus is the most beautiful, the most distinguished among then thousand men. Beautiful in love, in purpose, in righteousness according to the law. 

 The church sings the praises of her Groom. Last time we saw that it was impossible to love Christ but not the church. This time we see why, the church is the earthly organ that communicates her love of Christ. Jesus wants His bride because it is His bride that manifests, shares and communicates to Him, and to the world her love to Him. There is terrible analogy here as well, Honorius of Autun has the ivory body as referring to Jesus ‘belt of chastity.’ Not much better than the opposite alternative really!

Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, the man who was God,  is the desire and delight of the church. In her right state she can not get enough of Him, and her delight issues forth in praise that answers the question of verse 9, ‘what makes your God so special?’ The church can not help but join the Trinitarian spreading goodness as she communicates God to the world. This is the role of the church, not to entertain, not to provide a social scene, not even just to do good works, but to commend Jesus to a world that needs Him. The world says ‘there’s nothing special, divine or wise in your God,’ like the bride in verse 15 pointing to the statue of the ideal man, we must point to the cross and show the world the ideal God. He is all we need.

We must not, again, over look the physical nature of both the Song and the way of salvation. Our faith doesn’t rest in what we feel or believe, but in real historical events that happened. Just as the bride’s man has a body, so does our Savior. He gives us bread and wine, and covers us with water to declare physically the Gospel. The sacraments, rightly understood, do away with the need for ‘Gospel drama’ forever. God knows we need physical presentations, so He’s given them to us!

Woman and Man
Jenson says ‘the woman provides analogies of Israel’s and the church’s devotion to the Lord by her adoration of his body and by her hanging on his word.’ Again, the Christocentric reading of the Song gives us permission, gives us a vocabulary, to express our love for one another. It sets the guidelines and guardrails firmly in place to express our feelings for our spouses.

How? Where love between a man and a woman is not at some point grasped as a reflection of, and a part of the story about, God’s love for His people there is much danger. We love (anything at all) because He first loved us. Without reference to God human love either becomes idolatrous or rife with hopeless rhetoric. Without God we either do that or we end up treating the object of our affections as a deity. Which is obviously idolatry plain and simple. Human love, outside of the love of God is groundless, and eventually will be found to be so.

Without God as the reference point for our human affections, all that is left is a gaping void. Our hearts are restless until we find rest in Him. Human love is a divine gift, but without reference to the Giver, it will destroy us from the inside out. Love is hard, and misunderstood without God, and so we have a multi billion dollar sex industry. What everyone wants is love and purpose, that’s what we were designed for. That’s what we find in God alone, but the pursuit of these things apart from God will destroy us.


 The Song knows this, and it is not so cruel as to cut us off from all joy and hope by cutting off human love from the love which it reflects.

Song 4:1-7

Poem and Man

There are no problems finding the theme in 4:1-7. The man’s theme is the beauty of his bride (v1). Perhaps her teeth are like a ‘flock of shorn ewes…and not one among them has been lost,’ (v3) because they are all there. Probably a rare thing when most tooth problems would have been dealt with by simply taking them out! If there ever was a ‘Tower of David,’ (v4) it’s been totally lost to us today. It’s probably used to communicate grandeur and importance, again beauty, rather than anything else. There were no ‘mountains of myrrh’ or ‘hills of frankincense,’ they had to be imported. We assume from the general progression down the bride’s body that this refers either to the stomach or the ‘modestly covered’ parts of the body (2 Cor 12:23). We notice though that the poet shies away from overt sexual references, because the theme  is beauty. The man loves his bride, sings over her, delights in her (Zeph 3:17). He’s not ashamed of the physicality of his attraction.

God and Man

The voice of the man must be the direct address of God, if we follow an allegorical reading. But this poses a difficult question, ‘does, or to what extent does, God desire us, or His Church?’ We agree with the New Testament’s teaching that God loves us even as we are sinners. Filthy and with nothing to attract us to Him. He justifies (beautifies) us even though He knows we are neither just nor beautiful. Does this reading of the Song suggest then that God loves us because of something in us He finds lovely? If we read it that way we must either throw away the allegory, or throw away the Song.

So what is the answer? Well, the answer is the God is not a lump of divine stuff. He is Trinity. There is no difference between what God thinks and what God says. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was God. We hear a difference between the beauty attributed to us, and the beauty we do not have and we hear a problem. God’s Word, however, is both with the creator and is the creator. There is a deep, rich, wise complexity in God. God’s very Word tells us that His Bride is good and beautiful and righteous, and if we struggle to comprehend that, then the problem is not with God. The Church wears white to her wedding, not because she is pure and sinless, but she has been mad, pure and sinless. Jesus labours to present us spotless and without blemish having washed us with His Word! (Eph 5:26-27). We are very dark but invited to the pasture (Song 1:5, 8). We are simul iujust et peccator.

Christian friend, see the church, with all her problems, all her difficulties, all her failings, as God does, as beautiful. See the church as the bride perfect for her big day. It’s easy, and trendy, to bash the church and talk down to her and on her. Imagine how you’d feel if someone talked about your wife in that way? They love Jesus but not the Church? Impossible.

Woman and Man

The human body is beautiful. Ah, but we only think that because we are human. Really? Show me a non human and his discourse on the ugliness of the human body. Even when the connection between beauty and sex is broken, ignored and disfigured, we must not follow the ‘baleful hermeneutic’ of much modern and post modern thought that trashes the human body. This is just blasphemy, and most of that intentional. God looked at man and woman and said it was very good. How dare we disagree? Disfigured by sin? Yes. Sinful to the core? Yes. But created beautiful.

Beauty, according to Immanuel Kant is ‘the unlaborious coincidence of the actual and the ideal.’ Beauty is a kind of realized eschatology. It shows us what it ought to be by what it is, it gives us a glimpse of the ‘present glow of the sheer goodness that will be present at the end.’ Much like CS Lewis’ ‘stabs of joy,’ when we see and (almost) feel beauty, it’s as if for a moment we’ve been transported, and the only way we realize it’s happening is when it’s over. One day it will never end. Regarding human beauty for it’s own sake is at the same time a rest from, and a refreshment, of sexual desire. Sexual attraction is a gift from one spouse to another and from God to both. It is sacred and pure. Sex can be used in a multitude of ghastly, sinful, life destroying packages, but we must never shy away from what it actually is, and who thought of it first.

Jenson concludes: ‘if God can find us beautiful, that is the least we can do for the one we love.’

To conclude, we must note that this application between husband and wife actually hangs on the allegorical reading, and say with all our hearts ‘amen!’

Song 1:2-7

In these studies on the Song, greatly helped by Robert Jenson, I’ll follow his presentation of the material. How the poem progresses, what it tells us about our relationship with God, and what it tells us about human love. Basically: Poem and man, God and man, man and woman.

Poem and Man

The opening verses of chapter 2 are an exchange of compliments. We have to assume that the ESV has the speaking parts right and say that the man compares himself to a rose in verse 1. He then looks at his bride and sees her as the only thing of beauty in his eyes, the only lily in the brambles.

She returns these compliments in verse 3. To her, the whole world is made up of barren trees, he is the only fruitful one. He is the only one who provides what she needs. The second half of verse 3 and verse 4 have to be read as talking about physical desire and fulfillment. Without ascribing meaning to every jot and tittle we see desire and fulfillment plainly spoken of. The man takes her to some sort of banqueting hall, somewhere designed for a party, and with his banners, lets everyone know how he loves her. She is so overwhelmed by this love that she needs sustenance. A happy, fulfilled scene greets us in chapter 2.

I don’t think the poet meant this intimate scene to be viewed publically, so we have to read verses 6 and 7 as happening later on, as a memory being told in the present tense. What the bride says to her ladies in waiting is another question. Either don’t wake up my husband until he’s ready, or don’t wake me up and ruin this physical bliss, or don’t fall in love too soon. And how is this vow made by gazelles and does of the field? Jenson suggests that this is perhaps one further step of analogy removed from the later Jewish practice of swearing by the temple, or the gold or the Torah. Again, as we are reading a poem, we can simply enjoy the beautiful imagery if we want to.

God and Man

Bernard of Clairvaux says ‘uniquely among the trees of the forest, the Lord Jesus is a tree who bares fruit, and that according to His humanity.’ Amen. Jesus came, with a body, to serve. We worship and physical God, Jesus had hands and a nose and a mouth. He came to serve us and to save us, he fruit is borne to us according to His humanity. But was Israel ever lovesick for her Lord? We have to remember that the prophets spoke ‘not only for the Lord to His people, but for the people to the Lord.’ (Jenson) The first returned Jews were lovesick for a Temple, the Jews in the diaspora were sick for any sort of Temple.

Origen, living after the incarnation of Christ, brings us even closer. He says ‘when (the church) has been pierced through and through by the loveable javelin of knowing Him, she can only long for Him day and night…and have no inclination or desire…for anything except Him.’ This is a wonderful picture of what our love for Jesus should be like. One day in His house is better than a thousand elsewhere, He alone is the eternal thirstquencher. Once we’ve been pierced by His gentle darts, nothing else seems as good, as sweet, as satisfying.

When we are close to Him, in the banqueting hall, intimate with Him, nothing else will ever be the same again. And our hearts long for that closeness again, as a bride for her husband.

Which bring us to the embrace, and makes us ask ourselves ‘could faithful Old Testament believers be happy with the idea that then Lord had a body?’ Well, if we throw out all the physical metaphors and similies of God in the Old Testament, we really throw out most of what the Old Testament says about God. Even at the start God walked in the cool of the day. For Christians the incarnation settles the matter. The New Testament teaches that we are the body of Christ, and that He lives in us. I think all of us have a suspicion that matter is bad and spirit is good. Something that we’ve picked up from living in the 21^st century. The Song, with it’s visual and vibrant depictions of our bridegroom, dismisses such notions, however. God embraces His Church, depicting this embrace with the metaphor of physical love. And it is good.

Let us long to be sick with the love of our Saviour, let us place ourselves where we can pierced with those lovely darts, let us pray for a heart that sees nothing lovely anywhere else.

Woman and Man.

Jenson follows on from the last point: it’s hard for the reader to escape ‘how very bodily that love is which the Song proposes as an analogy for the love between God and His people.  We might have the idea that our love would be better if it was not bodily, but the Song does not agree. The heart may be where human love flows from, but the heart issues through the actions of the lips and hands. The lovers in the Song are ‘incurable romantics’ who have escaped the modern notion that any unconditional declarations of love and foolish, and that any romantic notions must be hidden in layers of irony and pastiche. And good for them, we have to say. Easy for us to observe then, not only how scripture addresses the whole of life, but how scripture speaks to what most people would regard as something deeply private. And just how far we’ve fallen from the ideals of the Bible. We must, it seems, maintain the value of impractical and historically contingent love. Just the sort of love that God has for His people. A love that gets in the way, a love that often makes no sense, but a love that is true and real and deep. Our eyes of faith should see through the atheistic attempts to be ‘cool,’ and to trust our romantic impulses.

Simply, we learn here, to love well, because God loves well, not to fear or look down on the physical, because it was that which God came to save. 

What Is A Plain Reading Of The Song?

Over the next few days i'm going to re-post some thoughts from last year written on the Song of Songs. Hope you enjoy!


Observation, observation, observation. Three keys to good Bible reading. Find the meaning of the text, go via Corinth, take off your twenty first century glasses before you apply. These are things we must do with every book, and every page of the Bible. There's no gnostic secrets hidden in the Word. Jesus reveals Himself to us through prayer and study.

The plain meaning of the Song is clearly the celebration of erotic love right? Anything else is 'allegorical' (boo, hiss). But what if a plain reading of the Song invites the allegory, or better, spiritual reading of the Song? That is Robert Jenson's conclusion in the introduction to his 'Interpretations' commentary on the Song. Most the thoughts that follow (the good ones) are his.

What's the history of this book? Well our author is clearly immersed in canonical literature, which means that much of it must have existed as it does today when the book was written. This may exclude authorship by Solomon (which also excludes the idea that it was written specifically about one of Solomon's weddings, contra some of the wilder allegorical interpretations) but it doesn't have to. Surely the wisest man in the world would have known his Pentateuch? If, however, we can rule out Solomon as the author it means that Solomon takes on prophetic significance as the 'Son of David.'

So when we read the Song we see a series of love poems between a man and a woman, and most modern commentators leave it as that. But we must consider that every other book of the Bible tells the story of God's love for His people. God is love, after all. The Song presents a 'theology of human sexuality,' but much more than that, if we take it on it's own terms. It was the unanimous opinion of Jewish and pre modern Christian thought that these poems belong in the Bible because it communicates the love of God for His people, and vice versa.

Doesn't reading the Song allegorically squash the original meaning if the Song? Aren't we reading back into scripture? Martin Luther answers that question talking about Aaron. When we say that Aaron is a type of Christ, we don't mean that there wasn't an important, historical figure called Aaron. We mean that the historical, important Aaron tells us something of the why and the what of Christ. Furthermore, it's one thing to beware allegorization of historical narrative, quite another when the text we read seems to be presented for allegorization, as with the Song. If the Church Fathers were right, then the allegorical reading is in fact the plain sense meaning. Parts of the Song are in fact, much more plausible, as a theological allegory.

We must remember that we are dealing with poetry, and so need to be on the look out for choices of simile and metaphor, allusions to the rest of Scripture, and plays on words. There are times when it seems like 'the text itself is prodding us to theological reading. We are compelled to think that 'the poet can hardly of written... without expecting the reader to think of...' It seems that whoever made the decision to collect the Song with the canon intended it to be read theologically. Otherwise it's place in the canon makes no sense. A theological reading is appropriate if the text fits into the account of the Lord and His people as told by the rest of Scripture.

As we read the Song we must observe how the story itself progresses, we must then imbibe the metaphors, similes, word plays and allusions which take us into the story of God and His people. We must observe what we can learn about the beauty of human sexuality, but not stop there. We must remember that God came as flesh and bone, that the sacraments of the church are physical, and these physical truths from our physical world are filled with and given meaning by the theology behind them.

Just like the Song itself!

Out West

Early tomorrow morning, so early it will still be early in the UK, myself, Rachel and six teenagers are headed to Provo, Utah, to serve church planters Logan and Grayson Wolf. Provo is something like 99% Mormon, so do pray for us if you think of it...

In the interim, i'm going to repost some thoughts on the Song of Songs, my favourite book of the Old Testament, and we read right, the most Biblical of books... Hope you all enjoy!

Tomorrow People

One of the most compelling Twitter accounts i follow is 'Real Time World War II,' which post updates, as you might have guessed from this date in 1940. Slowing down a war only serves to make it more brutal. The slow, bitter invasion of Norway by the Soviets, the awful, bloody, Italian excursion into France, which gained five miles of land at the cost of perhaps 5000 men. It was during this time in 1940 that Nazi Germany overran France, and the northern part of that country was abandoned and desolate, corpses of men and animals left in the fields.

Desolate would have been a good word to describe Jerusalem during the period of exile. People panicking, abandoning property and responsibility. In the midst of all this awful drama, God comes to Jeremiah, and in chapter 32 tells him to buy a field. You can understand Jeremiah's confusion. Buy a field? What does ownership matter when the Babylonians are about to overrun us. Buy a field? What good will that do me in Egypt, surely it's better to keep my silver. But, in verses 9-12, we see Jeremiah doing everything right and necessary to buy a field. Why? For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.'

The Lord tells Jeremiah this disaster is not the end. God's people will still own God's land, and one day there will be with God there again. The Lord tells Jeremiah that there is a future, there is a tomorrow. There is always tomorrow for the Christian, in fact, Christians should be tomorrow people.

Ruth is a tomorrow person. She trusts God, and goes with Naomi because she knows God will be with her tomorrow, that God is in charge of all her tomorrows. Why could Paul lay his head down and sleep at night? Because he knew that whatever happened, God was going to give him tomorrow. Why should Jeremiah buy the field? Because God was giving His people tomorrow.

That didn't make life easy for Jeremiah. He was arrested, thrown in the public sewer and taken away from his home. Tomorrow didn't come soon. It took seventy years. But come it did, first with the physical return lead by Ezra and Nehemiah, and then finally, ultimately, with Jesus.

The best is always yet to come for Christians. We're always buying fields in besieged cities, we're always investing in ways that don't seem to make any sense, because we know that tomorrow is the Lords, and that tomorrow will come...

Don't Lose Focus on Sunday Mornings

Sunday morning's service was busy. We had the usual welcome and announcements to make, offering to collect and message to be preached. We also had a separate offering for our mission trip to Utah, a baby dedication,  baptisms and people coming into membership. It felt like a lot to fit into an hour and a quarter, and more than that, if felt like a lot was going on apart from the preaching!


How do we avoid losing focus on a Sunday morning. How to keep from slipping out of our busy week into a busy Sunday morning and end up not meeting with God at all? 


First of all, i believe our Sunday mornings are bathed in prayer. We pray throughout the week and throughout the morning, asking God to be honoured and God to speak during our meeting time. The best way to lose focus on God, is to stop praying. When we don't pray, we're liable to work in our own strength, pointing people toward our own wisdom and trying have our needs met. 


Secondly, everything we did on Sunday pointed backwards and forwards to the Gospel. We gave our money joyfully to support the cause of Gospel in Greenville and beyond. We welcomed new members to our church, covenanting with them. We baptised, and we were reminded of Christ's death and resurrection as believers went under the water and rose back up again. We sang songs that reminded us of the depth of our need and the fulfillment of Christ.


And finally, the Gospel was preached. The Bible was opened and God's man was God's mouthpiece. Everything we did was driven by the Gospel, everything we did served the Gospel. 


The main thing is the keep the main thing the main thing. As the Gospel bears fruit in people's lives, it will produce busier church services. And that is good, and Sunday was very good. If the Gospel is the centre, the church will grow, and God will be honoured, and focus will not be lost.

Surprises In The Life of Jonathan Edwards

I've recently finished Elisabeth Dodds' book, 'Marriage to a Difficult Man.' I love reading about Jonathan Edwards, because he makes me want o love God more. This books was good because it made me want to love my wife more as well! Edwards is undoubtedly one of the finest minds America has ever produced. How many other men from before the revolutionary war are still influencing the life and thought of the church today? There are some strange things in Jonathan Edwards life though, strange things that reflect the providence of God, and strange things that should encourage us all.

First of all, Edwards was sacked by his church in Northampton. Sacked! Imagine that! The man whose preaching was used to spark two huge revivals, the man whose books are still read two hundred and fifty years later, sacked by his church. Murray's biography puts this down mainly to Edwards views on communion. He thought and taught that only those who professed faith in Christ should take communion in the church. A big deal in a small town before the separation of church and state. Dodds makes a bigger deal of the lack of a relationship between Edwards and his people. He wasn't a great visitor, which hurt him. He was also, a genius, which puts distance between one man and others. All these things are no doubt true, but providence played a role. Nothing, even the circumstances taken together constitute a sackable offence, Edwards Lord had different plans for him.

And those plans? A big name church in a city, or even in UK? Presidency of the new college in Princeton, New Jersey (he felt he was under qualified for this post!) Both were considered. But he ended up a frontier missionary to Native Americans in Stockbridge, essentially on the edge of the known world. What this small, remote parish gave him the freedom to do was write. Without his writings, we wouldn't know him now. In this hidden away part of the world, his mind bloomed, free from the restrictions and pressures of Northampton. We can read those books today. Stockbridge was a mysterious move for Edwards, but a providential one.

Finally, Edwards died of a smallpox inoculation, shortly after he was installed as the President of Princeton. He's not the only man to die from a vaccination of course, but to think that he was taken at the beginning of what would have been another fruitful season is another mystery. He was working on at least two new books, one of which was on the harmony of the Old and New Testaments. Can you imagine! But the smallpox ran riot through his weary body, and he died peacefully and faithfully.

So what can we learn from these moments in Edwards life? Jonathan and Sarah were held close to each other, and God, by the knowledge that God worked all things, from the death of children, to leaving their home, for their good. That God works for our good, doesn't mean life will always go according to our plans. It probably means that we need to abandon our plans when we're saved. But what lessons in providence God teaches us through Edwards' life. Lessons i'm keen to learn.

Sunday Song: All To Us

We've been singing this in the mornings for the last couple of weeks. I love it, it's great to sing 'let the glory of your name be the passion of the church,' at 1045 on a Sunday morning!