Suffering and Glory
Mon, November 10, 2008 at 11:15 Check out the next session in our walk through Romans 8. (http://www.bethanycitychurch.org/recent-talks-mp3/) Philip Robson, a member of Bethany Christian Centre in Houghton-le-Spring spoke on 'walking in the wilderness' from Romans 8:18-25. His unpacking of the passage was fine, but his testimony of his wife and his experience of living for glory in the context of suffering was moving, challenging, full of hope and clearly born through the struggle of trying to live with NT perspective that our current problems (for them tragic) are 'light and momentary' whereas the glory to come is eternal. A much needed bolt to the system, to reboot an eternal perspective we so easily lose.
Lost but found
Fri, November 7, 2008 at 09:59 I met the parents of a guy who used to come to our Globe Cafe in Sunderland. They were from an EU country and were visiting the UK, so they wanted to come and visit the group and people who helped their son find his feet. He came to the UK with a fractured relationship with his parents, and no motivation or impetus to do anyhing with his life. He spent a good few weeks camping down by the sea front and living off chocolate biscuits, but he has gone back home a different man. And his parents wanted to say thanks. From our perspective, we only did what we always do - befriend, accept people as they are in a non-judgemental way and take opportunities to share the gospel when they come. It is not rocket science.
As far as we know, he has not come to faith, but he has a significantly repaired relationship with his family, is motivated to work and is a different guy.
Maybe this is a surprise simply because we are not good at this. One guy feeling acceptance and finding friends is - frankly unusual. And maybe his parents relief and thanks stands out because we don't expect to see it because we don't provide the opportunities for it to happen. Maybe, in our evangelism and outreach we should provide more opportunities, over the long haul for people to find community, friendship and a room full of people who will not judge them, but provide them with the gospel on an open hand, rather than a clenched fist.
'Asserting his authority'
Thu, November 6, 2008 at 10:09 What would happen if you went up to a random someone in the street, and with your most authoritative voice commanded them to 'Follow me'? I suspect very little would happen, other than blank, irritated looks and a few expletives. It would make a very interesting experiment!
But Jesus knew the authority that mean't when he spoke, people followed. And we are to call people to follow him in the same way.
'We should be preaching the Lord Jesus Christ and asserting his authority......Why are people expected to want to accept Christianity? Because...it does this or that. It promises you happiness. It gives you peace and joy...this is false evangelism. Our one business is to preach the Lord Jesus Christ, the final Authority...We are to declare him, and to bring people face to face with Him.' (Martin Lloyd Jones, Authority 20-21)
Sometimes I wonder what 'asserting his authority' is like? Confidence? A certain tone of voice? Being particularly persuasive? Surely for us it is prayerfully presenting the person of Jesus with absolute clarity, knowing that the authority is in fact his. It means unapologetically calling people to do what Jesus called them to do. To leave their nets and follow him, to repent and believe without caution or compromise. I am conscious that sometimes I fear the lack of authority of Christ and so lean towards compromise to attain an audience. I don't trust his power to change hearts.
Not that I wholeheartedly agree with MLJ. Jesus offered a 'peace that the world couldn't give', he offered joy - and so must we. But we are not calling people to take out and grab, but to bow the knee.
Countercultural? Yes, which is why I struggle with it!
Living by the Spirit - Romans for today!
Wed, November 5, 2008 at 15:51 At Bethany City Church we are currently half way through a series in Romans 8. In 8 weeks we will have walked our way through the whole chapter, but will it have had any effect. Personally, I think I have had more comments about how stretching, challenging and encouraging this series has been so far than any previous series. Of course we all struggle not to slip back into slavery to law, but for many this is particularly pertinent. Having grown up with a religious piety that says your Christian experience defines your faith, for many this is a freeing chapter, allowing our faith the lead to genuie Christian experience.
If you fancy a look at an overview of Romans, check out 'Romans for Dummies', and a more indepth look at Romans 8:12-17 can be found at 'Dare to call him Father'. And of course the mp3 files can be downloaded at www.bethanycitychurch.org/recent-talks-mp3
Creative Preaching is crucial - metaphorically speaking!
Thu, September 25, 2008 at 12:19 Timothy S Laniak in his excellent book 'Shepherds after my own heart' (IVP, Leicester: 2006 ) says that
'We use elements of and efects from physical phenomena to understand and describe transcendent realities. Theology is, therefore, metaphor-dependent and metaphore-rich. We need metaphors if we are to understand God...The metaphorical phrase 'God is my shepherd' is thus...'necessary and not just nice'.' p35
I think this is extremely helpful for 2 reasons. Firstly, it assumes, and is built on the bedrock of something that we often forget - that God is 'other' than us, is transcendent, is Spirit, is the 'I am who I am' who is simply self-defined. So often 21st century Christians live and function as though God were someone we can judge as to the rights and wrongs of his behaviour, who can be defined and explained in our terms and whom we can squeeze into our box so that he 'makes sense'. But he is not - indeed he cannot be described other than in terms that he has revealed or that 'compare' him to something we are otherwise familiar with. We live in a world that sits in judgement upon God because it thinks it knows what he is like. But he is the judge (another metaphor) before whom we are accountable and whom we should worship.
Secondly, it means we can be creative and culturally relevant in the way we describe the character of God to others. The Biblical authors spoke using metaphors that their culture would understand and comprehend - that is why they used the metaphors they did, to creatively communicate what God is like into a specific culture throuch culturally relevant metaphors. We can do the same. This means creativity in preaching and teaching is essential. Faithfully expositing scripture (so understanding the original metaphor) should, and must be combined with creatively 'linking' to culture so that we understand the same truths in our context.
Working from 'metaphor to metaphor' will mean we keep clear of unbiblical but culturally engaging talks (a crime) whilst aslo avoidind 'accurate, but dull and uncommunicative' sermons (also a crime). I have sat through (and probably delivered) both, but the God who is worthy of all our delight, desire and worship is worth expressing in terms that provoke that delight.
We can't know who he is without metaphor, so we should use metaphor to help people to know him.