New blog address

Heya readers! You may have noticed the scarcity of posts in the last 2 months or so…The reason is because there has been a flurry of activity as the year-end apporaches, as well as a change in blog address. So, to keep connected to Kirst and me, to keep reading the posts, making comments and staying connected – check out the new blog here.

We’d love to hear from you, so check it out, make some comments and stay connected!

Cheers

Mutual Love & Honour

Yesterday, the apprentices at St Stephens had to give an exposition of Romans 12:10. Preparing for this talk really struck me, and challenged me, because of the level of intimacy and ‘mutuality’ Paul expects in the church. We are to show mutual love and honour to each other.

 

 Casting Crowns, a great rock band, have a famous song in which they critique the typical shallowness of Christian relationships. “With a painted grin, I play the part again, so everyone will see me the way that I see them. Are we happy plastic people? Under shiny plastic steeples, with walls around our weakness, and smiles to hide our pain…is there anyone who’s been there, are there any hands to raise, am I the only one who’s traded the altar for a stage?”

 

 

In direct contrast to the superficiality that characterises so much of church relationships, the Apostle Paul writes Romans 12, a chapter describing authentic, reciprocal love relationships. After spending 11 chapters explaining what the Gospel is; Paul now turns his attention to prescribe what the Gospel community should look like. Our focus is on verse 10, where Paul emphasises the reciprocity of Christian love and honour.

 

10a – “be devoted to each other in brotherly love” In one verse Paul combines two family words. The word translated ‘devoted’ refers to our natural love for relatives, often between a parent and a child; whilst ‘brotherly love’ denotes the mutual love of siblings. Paul, by employing language that applied to blood relationships, human family, society’s most intimate social unit, is doing something radical. He is saying that the tender, warm, deep, genuine love that unites a family should characterise the church.

 Specifically, this includes sharing space together, including others into our living space. We have a culture in Cape Town where, when people come over to your house, they expect a nice cup of tea and an intense chat. But that is not just what families do, families do all of life together, we cook for each other, we laugh together, cry together, pray together. We exist in the context of family; do you exist in the context of your Christian relationships? Or are you a lone ranger? Do you shudder to even think of spending time and sharing your space with others? This also means that we should share our possessions, just like a family does. The reason why the people in that song are scared to open up is because they think they will be rejected. But Paul says we are to be devoted to each other, to love with genuine affection, even when we see each others sin.

 

Remember that there is an implied mutuality, a hidden reciprocity, in the phrase ‘one another’. This means that devotion and love are two-way streets in the Christian community; there is a symbiotic balance between giving and receiving. Is this happening? Are you devoted to your brothers and sisters? Do you share life, time and possessions?

 

 

10b – “Honour one another above yourselves”. Mutuality deals not just with affection, but with honour. Christians are to be immune to the world’s status ladders, and confer on each other the highest possible respect. We are to be much more concerned to praise, affirm, honour and celebrate others than we are to receive the same. Concretely, in our context, I think this means seeing businessmen, refugees, students, wives and older Christians mutually honouring each other. In a country which gives no respect to the refugee, the Christian community is to be different. In a society that disregards the elderly, we are to show honour. In an age where humour always involves ripping someone off, we should long to exalt our friends. Mutual honour, reciprocity.

 

Gospel motivation. Finally, we are we going to get the power to do this? The Gospel, the message of a man who needed no-one else, and yet who gave definition to the word ‘love’. Because, by dying as our substitute, and reconciling us to His Father, Jesus showed us the ultimate picture of devotion, of brotherly love, of honouring others. Those in Christ have received this incredible love, and now have the ability to give it. Will they?

 

Casting Crowns end their song with this haunting question: “Would it set me free, if I dared to let you see, the truth behind the person you imagined me to be? Would your arms be open, or would you walk away? Would the love of Jesus be enough to make you stay?” 

Identities and rhythms

Whenever I study or prepare a study on something Jesus says (as I have this morning), two things invariably happen.

Firstly, I get humbled in a huge way as I realise how far I fall short of His ethical standards. His desire for my life is to “be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48) His requirements for personal morality and social concern, as evinced from His manifesto, the Sermon on the Mount, reveal how self-absorbed and cold I am – both in my love for God, and in my love for people.

Then, when I feel the true weight of my spiritual poverty and the inadequacies pile up, another thing happens. I realise that He did something that I could never do. He loved God and people in a way I never could. Not only did He live the life I should have lived but He died in my place, exhausting the wrath of God as my substitute. This is true for me individually but also us corporately. By rising from the dead, He shows us all that His atonement was effective, and that He is coming back soon as Judge. Through His Spirit, He also empowers us to live for Him now.

So, my new life, my new identity, is wrapped up in Christ. Because of that, my new rhythms, my new actions, my new ethics, are the overflow of an inner spiritual reality. My identity determines my rhythms.

So when Jesus says, “You are the light of the world” with all the massive ethical implications that that entails, I don’t hear the demands of a lawgiver but the invitation of a lover and friend. He invites us into spiritual communion with Him, that is our identity – our ethics are the inevitable outflow of a life lived in love with God. We now have the freedom and power to love others the way He did, becuase we have been re-connected to Him through faith.

Meaning? If I struggle to let my good works shine, if I struggle to love others self-sacrificially, then maybe the reality of what Jesus has done is not a reality for me. Maybe the ‘Gospel-penny’ has not dropped – ethics follow faith, so let us pray that our faith in Christ results in transformed lives. Not just for our sake but for the sake of our city, a city in desperate need of communities of counter-cultural Christians pouring themselves out in deeds of love and service.

The problem of the heart

This year, I’ve been struck afresh at just how revolutionary Jesus is. Along with some friends, I’ve been walking through the Gospel of Mark and, again and again, I find Jesus’ words piercing my heart. Take, for example, the passage I’ve been looking at this week; Mark 7.

 

 Jesus gets challenged by the Pharisees (1^st C Jews aiming for ritualistic perfection) because His disciples don’t follow the man-made traditions. You see, like 20^th C philosophers, the Pharisees thought that the source of evil is located externally. By keeping squeaky clean, avoiding the “sinners”, they kept themselves morally pure. Or so they thought.

 

 Jesus responds with a massive claim about Himself (basically, that He gets to lay down the divine law cf. v19) and a shocking counterchallenge (that they nullify the law, v13). Jesus thus judges the man-made religion of 1^st C ethnic Israel, and as well as declaring the Mosaic Law obsolete He shows them that their real problem lies internally.

 

 According to Jesus, the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart. “It is what comes from inside that defiles you. For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.” Jesus identifies our hearts as the source of defilement.

 

 Evil, therefore, does not simply lie in unjust social structures or drug-infested neighborhoods. It lies within us. Within our hearts. Within your heart.

 

 We’re all defiled, we all deserve the judgment of God and no philosophy, not even the coolest existentialist theory, can change this. And no man-made religion – even the most pious evangelical version of it, can save us from deserved punishment. We desperately need a Redeemer.

 

The woman in 7:24-30 models for us how we should respond – she knows she is in need of grace and takes Jesus at His word. Are you like her? Aware of your need for grace? If so, trust in Christ, the Redeemer of all people. You’ll find grace in abundance.

Total Church: a review

You don’t need to be in a church long to hear myriad voices calling for a change to the way things are done. Whether it’s modern/traditional music, longer/shorter sermons, greater authenticity or ‘spiritual experiences’ – we often hear people, and ourselves, saying that things should change. But what? And by what should things be measured? What should be our guiding principles? To this discussion Tim Chester and Steve Timmis add their voices through their book, Total Church. The premise of the book is simple, Chester and Timmis plead for two key principles: the Gospel and Community.

 

Firstly, they say, we have the Gospel as our content. The Gospel is a word so the church must be word-centred. The Gospel is also a missionary word – a word to be proclaimed – so the church must be mission-centred. ‘You cannot be committed to the Gospel without being committed to proclaiming that Gospel.’ (p32)

 

Secondly, they urge us to recognize the Gospel community as our context. As Christians, we should share our lives with each other, as well as offering unbelievers a place of belonging. ‘Church is not another ball for me to juggle, but that which defines who I am and gives Christlike shape to my life.’ (p43)

 

With the pillars of Gospel and Community theologically established (part 1), they spend the rest of the book (part 2) discussing how these two principles give shape to all of church life, practice and methodology covering areas from evangelism to apologetics to pastoral care and more.

 

This book is excellent, and I highly recommend it for a few reasons. Firstly, in seeking a more relational and missional approach to church, it is easy to lose the priority of the Gospel. These guys are strong on the Gospel, but equally strong on the necessity of the Gospel community being on mission. Secondly, they show that ‘church’ is an identity we have been graciously given in Christ – church is not a meeting you attend, or a building. We tend to have a very individualistic approach to church and life – this book rightly critiques our selfishness and calls us to live out our faith in the context of Christian community. Thirdly, the chapter on social involvement is extremely relevant and insightful, particularly for white middle-class South Africans, as it challenges us to realize that we cannot truly help the abstract ‘poor’ outside of having a genuine relationship with specific people. Fourthly, the chapter on church planting is worth special mention as they urge us to see both the necessity and normality of churches planting churches. They say:

 

At present church planting carries a certain mystique. Church planters are portrayed as a unique kind of rugged pioneer. But we need to create a culture in which transplanting is normal. Every local church should be aiming to transplant and raise up church planters. (pp.94-5)

 

I could go on, but for these reasons and more it is well worth the buy! If you’re interested, click here. An excellent book, insightful, provocative and extremely important. If you are going to read one book on the church this year, make sure that this is it! The challenge for us is: will we put it into practice? So read it with a trusted friend, and challenge each other to apply its message to your life.

The promised Redeemer

One of my favourite activities is sharing God’s Word with people. Tomorrow morning I’ll be leading a Bible study on Mark 6:31ff – where Jesus feeds the 5,000.

The Old Testament background to this passage is the Exodus – where God miraculously fed Israel manna from heaven, thus saving them and revealing Himself to be the Redeemer. In fact, He even tells the Israelites to keep a jar of manna to remind themselves of their redemption (Ex 16:32). Later, during the time of the prophets, Isaiah told them about a similar miraculous feeding that would take place at the ‘second’ Exodus.

Jesus, by feeding the 5,000 miraculously, shows us that He is the promised Redeemer -  that He in fact, is God-in-human-form, the fulfillment of promises made to Israel thousands of years before. The Messiah who has come to save and rule.

The shock of the passage is that people, being hard-hearted, fail to recognise Him as the promised Redeemer. A problem, sadly, that continues today. Our culture continues to dismiss Jesus as simply a ‘good’ man and fails to recognise Him as the promised Redeemer (and future Judge).

What about you? Who do you think He is?

Reflections on culture making (1)

An excellent post on Tim Chester’s blog has got me thinking. It’s a review of a book by Andy Crouch on culture making, and it makes some powerful and insightful points.

I’ll start off by quoting it.

“In his new book, Culture Making, Andy Crouch shows us how to use our cultural power to enable the powerless through the gospel.

Crouch defines power as the ability to successfully propose a new cultural good. We all interact with the world and each other through cultural artefacts (language, technologies and customs). We shape the world and relationships by creating new cultural artefacts. Some people, by virtue of their social and organisational setting have the resources and connections to successfully propose new forms of cultural artefact. In other words some have more cultural power than others.”

He then goes on to show how Jesus laid aside His cultural power. On the cross, Jesus loses all power in order that sinful people might be remade in a renewed creation. He lost all His power in order to enable us – guilty, broken rebels – to take part in His new creation.

By dying, He brought reconciliation. By rising from the dead, He pointed ahead to the new creation.

He then uses us (powerless people) as ambassadors of reconciliation; allowing us the privilege of taking part in His renewal project.

So how should Christians use the cultural power that they have? Not by trying to grab more! No, let’s follow Jesus’ example, Crouch says. The church needs to submit its cultural power to Jesus, the true agent of the new creation – disciplining our use of cultural power through service and stewardship (more on this in future posts).

Read the full post here - it’s excellent. And if you can, grab the book. I’ve just finished it, and it’s well worth reading and discussing. The next few posts will be discussions regarding some of the points Crouch makes. Feel free to join in!

I’m back! An update of this year so far…

Hi guys! Sorry for the absence – it’s been a busy month! This is an update of what’s going on in my life and ministerial activities for your perusal and prayer. Please feel free to comment!

 

Well, firstly, Kirsty and I: our flat has been all sorted out, we’ve got our wedding photos framed (eventually!) and it now really looks and feels like home. Which is great, as it’s a wonderful, relaxing environment to be in as well as a place we can have other people come into. We feel very blessed to be able to be hospitable and we look forward to doing it more and more. Kirsty has been struggling quite a lot over the last month or so with very low energy levels. Despite this, the M.E specialist reckons she is definitely on the way to recovery, which is great news – but he has cautioned us to take things very slowly and to have a realistic, long-term view of a significant recovery.

 

Secondly, ministry: schools ministry is going well, busy but fruitful.

Cedar House, a high school, has been very encouraging. I’ve started a bible study there which has been going for a few months now – and the students are really getting on board and seem to be taking it in, which is great. We’re working our way through Mark’s Gospel and they appear to be understanding and enjoying it! Which is wonderful. I’ve also started mentoring a young man, we’re walking through Colossians together and his enthusiasm and growth make every meeting a joy. We can thank God and pray that He would continue to work in the hearts and minds of the CH students.

Abbotts has been slower. Most of the students are suspicious of an organised ‘religion’ and so are much slower to engage with me over ‘spiritual issues’. However, a few students that I’ve been able to build relationships with have asked for bibles ( in one case I gave a student a copy of Mark’s Gospel) while others are increasingly interested and asking questions. I’ve got to keep reminding myself that effective Gospel ministry, in the words of Tim Chester, is long-term, low-key and relational. That is my framework and so I feel as though progress is being made. Please keep the Abbotts students in your prayers, there is so much competing for their attention and desires, pray that their hearts would be gripped by the significance of the Gospel message.

At Rondebosch Boys Junior I’ve been given oversight of the Grade 6′s, which is both a privilege and a challenge! Please pray that I would be able to find godly, capable people to help me, my hope is that we’ll be able to split the grade up into smaller groups so that each child can receive attention. 

John Wycliffe Christian School has been encouraging this term. I started using worksheets in order to make the lessons more inter-active, which seems to have helped. We’re also working our way through a Gospel and I’m increasingly encouraged by the response. A lot of the kids however, don’t seem to have grasped the enormity of the Gospel. Please pray that their understanding would be real, not just a superficial intellectual assent.

Rosmead Junior School is where I teach two classes of Grade 7′s. I love this time, but have often felt frustrated as the students need more time and attention than I can give them. I go to Rosmead with a wonderful, capable and godly woman – Brigitte – who is going to take over completely as I simply do not have the time and the energy to spend at Rosmead each week. At the beginning of the year, I did not realise how much time each school takes. So, in order to prevent burnout, Brigitte is going to run the Rosmead School ministry completely – which, in fact, she had been doing before I came on board to help.

So that’s a quick overview of the schools ministry. I have enjoyed it immensely so far, I find it tiring but I’ve been encouraged by the progress. Students are responding to the Gospel, and for that we can rejoice!

 

Other ministry updates: my apprenticeship @ St Stephens is going really well. We’ve been studying Ephesians in depth this year, and I’m finding it very challenging, as well as satisfying. I also help to lead the 1st year apprentices in a reading group, and we also give Bible-talks to the Staff every few weeks. So, in terms of training, the apprenticeship has been excellent. In fact, I’m going to be preaching from the pulpit on the 19th of July! I will be giving an exposition of the letter to Philemon @ 7pm, so, if you’re in the area, feel free to swing by! 

 

Kirsty and I have also joined the core team of Point Community Church (click on that link to check out the blog) which has been an absolutely wonderful experience. We’re part of a Gospel Community Group and have been abundantly blessed as we’ve experienced a deep sense of other-person-centred community.

 

I won’t go on any more; I know how busy you all are. And please feel free to reply and ask any questions! Thanks again, with much love.

 

Your servant

The power of a new affection

Recently, God has been teaching me how idolatry is the biggest problem of the human heart – even of my heart! Idolatry consists in making something – anything – other than God the basis of your happinness, self-worth and joy.

It is the tendency that we have to find significance, meaning, satisfaction and contentment in anything – but God. And under all our ‘sins’ (our outward, behavioural sins) is the presence of  idolatry. Check out Romans 1:18ff to see how the Apostle Paul argues this.

Recently, I’ve become more aware than usual about the pervasiveness of idolatry in my own heart and mind. And I hate it. I know that looking for satisfaction down any other road besides God-in-Christ will lead me to waste my life and lose my soul. And yet….it seems so hard not to. Woe is me! Who will rescue me from this?

It can’t just be trying harder. Because it’s a problem of the orientation of my heart, it’s not simply an external behavioural issue. It’s my heart that needs to be changed, it needs to be weaned from idols back to Jesus.

The content of  how it is going to happen is through the Gospel. Jesus figured that I (in all my brokenness and guilt) was his treasure, and so he was willing to lose everything – to lose all his treasure – in order to rescue me. He left everything to save and beautify and cleanse me. Wow. When I get that (not just intellectually but in a heart-felt affective/cognitive way) then He becomes my treasure. When I remind myself that He loved me - at infinite cost to Himself - then He takes the place of all the other things my heart is set on.

My heart gets ravished by Him, enamoured with Him. Jesus, in all His saving majesty, beauty and glory, becomes the object of my affection and drives away lesser affections. Believing the Gospel drives idolatry out of my heart with the explosive power that only the Holy Spirit can produce .

The context that this all takes place in is the Gospel community. It’s as Christians meet together that we remind ourselves of the Gospel, we help each other to see the glory and love of Christ, and we help each other to identify and combat our idols by ‘Gospelling’ each other.

So, with the Gospel as the content and with community as our context, let’s set our hearts on Jesus. And when, by the power of the Holy Spirit, He becomes the object of our affection – then the idols that our hearts natually settle upon will be driven away, replaced by the Lord of glory.

The irresistable revolution

I’ve recently finished Shane Claiborne’s The Irresistable Revolution: living as an ordinary radical. I’d like to share some of my thoughts on it, please feel free to add your voice to the conversation.

Shane’s book has a lot going for it. It’s well written, funny, and has a liberating feel to it, so you get the feeling that this guy really practices what he preaches, and enjoys doing life this way.  In that way it is hugely refreshing. Shane Walker, who writes a great review of it here, says “He’s not just writing about an irresistible revolution, he’s trying to lead one. And while he is not a complete stranger to the radical chic lifestyle, he’s willing to poke fun at himself and others for resort conferences and self-absorbed navel gazing. He’s articulate, passionate, well educated, and widely read. Quoting with appreciation Che Guevara, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mama T (a.k.a. Mother Teresa), Jim Wallis, Dorothy Day, Gandhi, John Yoder, Bono, Bonheoffer, Rich Mullins, and the red-letter Christian brigade, he discloses his broad philosophical and theological influences. Tracing the potential trajectory of all these ideas is like observing a cognitive dissonance cluster bomb, and it led me to the conclusion that he truly believes what he teaches: that great social change can come through hokey street theater, the use of sidewalk chalk, and blowing bubbles at bemused police officers (189).”

I sympathised with him a lot. He’s looking at the way so many of us do church and is put off. So what’s the problem with his reaction? Well, I’d like to make a few comments and please feel free to come back at me.

Firstly, his theology is a bit like a “cluster bomb”, a synthesis which lacks clarity and biblical warrant. Instead of militarism he endorses pacifism, which sets a pattern for many subjects he deals with as he always seems to take a leftist approach - however, both options (whether it’s the right or the left, capitalist or communist or whatever the subject is) seem to fall short of the complexity of what Scripture teaches and of the world we inhabit.

This leads, secondly, to his general stance – which appears reactionary and extremely post-modern. Now, the problem with reactionary movements is that they always seem to go too far; they throw out the bathwater with the baby still inside. Which is a pity, because as the reader I felt Claiborne’s frustration. The problem with post-modernity (and I believe it has some good elements) is that truth and categories get mixed up, which is exactly what happens in this book.

Thirdly, he seems to uncritically endorse neo-monastic communities, I know it’s because he has a high view of community (which is excellent) but I still wish that he’d be a bit more discerning. There are a lot of other things one could say: the fuzziness of the cross, why Jesus died (for “joining the poor?”), the necessity of Gospel proclamation, the focus of Christian mission etc.

I’ll give the final words to Shane Walker - ”Perhaps the most ironic issue is that Shane Claiborne has strait-jacketed himself into a theological paradigm that cannot escape the confines of popular Western culture. His avowed interest in the anti-establishment rock band Rage Against the Machine, with their two Grammy Awards and Sony corporation contract, may be entertaining, but it neither furthers the cause of Christ nor social justice. He might like to quote Che Guevara, but Che’s contribution to Communist thought amounts to having an iconic photo taken of himself (by Alberto Korda) and being shot by the C.I.A. while wearing two Rolexes. Clairborne’s moral earnestness and passion are exemplary, but street drama as theology hinders his ability to think carefully about complicated issues; instead he claims that Jesus’ teaching on paying the temple tax in Matthew 17:24-27 is illuminated by the statement “when the emperor passes, the peasant bows. . .and farts” (185, n. 12).”

What are your thoughts?