A letter to all my Christian friends upset by the recent decision of the CoE on woman ministers21/11/2012 Edited last paragraph because I didn't realise women priests were already allowed by the CoE. Terms like bishops and priests confuse us reformed folk!
Dear friends, A year or so ago I was having a discussion with a friend about girls and I passed on a particular pearl of wisdom (not my own): “Sympathy not solutions.” To my concern the expression on my friend’s face furrowed into a confused frown so I expanded my explanation saying that when a woman comes to you with a problem unless they specifically ask for help all they want is sympathy whereas for men we expect and give solutions. I could see the cogs turning in his mind as he assimilated this information before with a great cry of frustration he said: “But that’s not logical!” My reply was a wry laugh. The point of my hopefully amusing anecdote is that men and women are different. It may seem a pretty obvious observation, akin to the observation of Newton that apples fall to the ground, but it is a truth that I feel is often forgotten. For instance, I bet some people reading this will immediately assume that by different I meant ‘inferior’ or that my story somehow is meant to reflect badly on women (when frankly it says more about men’s inability to cope with anyone more emotionally complex than a teaspoon). The reason I mention this is because of the recent decision by the Church of England not to allow women ministers, well, it was more that not enough people agreed that they should allow them. In particular I write because of the reaction I observed on Facebook to this decision. The comments made by my non-Christian friends did not bother me too much for this is a question of Scripture and theology and the unspiritual man cannot understand the things of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 2 v 14). But it was the reaction of my Christian friends that saddened me for many were expressing disappointment that such a decision had been made. So I write this letter because the love of Christ compels me to and because I know we all share a desire to love God with all our heart, soul and mind; that we want to obey him in every aspect of our life because as Jesus said: “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” (John 14v15) and that we hold Scripture to be the Word of God, inspired and our final authority on all matters of religion.
2 Comments
In economics there is a concept called ‘diseconomies of scale’ which refers to the fact that as firms get larger then they also can become less efficient because size brings with it problems. It is a shame that this concept is not applied more to churches. We are all apt to assume that a large church equals a successful church forgetting that numbers is nowhere mentioned in the Bible as a sign of a healthy church. What will follow is a challenge to think about your church and whether or not it is too big for you.
A few qualifications must be made first though. I am not going to draw lines in the sand and say “over x amount a church is too big”. Life is never that simple, instead I’m going to give you principles to apply to your church experience and let you do the maths. Secondly, as our local church is very much part of our identity then you will feel likely threatened by this article, I would encourage you to read it anyway and read it prayerfully, I’m challenging myself writing it and its good to ask ourselves the hard questions we don’t want to answer. And lastly, my whole argument is based on the premise that in the Bible when it talks about the body of Christ it means the local church congregation. Many, I’m sure, will disagree but if we do not understand the local church as being a physical manifestation of the body of Christ then how can we understand the lessons Paul teaches from this image? “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” 1 Corinthians 12 v 27. In the context of 1 Corinthians 12 Paul is talking about our difference gifts and how they all work together in unity. This only has meaning in a local church context. While as a Christian I am part of the body of Christ universal then this can only work out in practise in a local church. There’s a wonderful story I heard a few weeks ago about some minister somewhere giving a sermon on how Calvinism was wrong and terrible and not at all biblical and that it was all about free will and God gives us all a choice (a truth I fundamentally agree with but it is not the whole truth). He ranted and raved about this for some time and then as he drew his sermon to a close he started to pray and he prayed in particular that God would convict his Calvinist brothers and sisters of the error of their ways and lead them to the truth.
Well, huh, so much for my free will! And it serves to illustrate the point I want to make which is that functionally everyone prays as a Calvinist. As Spurgeon said: “We do not pray because we doubt but because we believe.” And in prayers we cannot help but express a belief in God’s sovereignty over the will of man. Specifically, we cannot help but express a belief that unless God is at work no one will come to Christ, second that if he works no one can resist him and third that he has the power to keep us following Christ to the end. In saying that I’m going to sideline for a moment and deal with prayers for things other than conversion. When we face difficult conversations, hard situations or the need for something or other then we pray to God to provide, to help us, to deliver us and to bring good from evil. In other words we express our firm belief that nothing can stand against the sovereignty of God. We uphold as an article of faith Proverbs 21v1: “The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases.” We do not pray as though God has no say over the will of man. Have you ever heard a Christian pray: “Lord, I am facing a difficult conversation but as you have let us have free will and are not in control over that then I know I cannot ask you to do anything to help me.”? Primarily, this post is a reflection on the recent actions of the Church of Scotland but I’ve taken it as an opportunity to try out a new rhetoric style I call, because I am pretentious, temporal displacement writing. That is to say, I’m writing as though present events are being reflected on as happening years ago. In this context I’ve chosen to do so through an essay question. It may work, might not, feedback appreciated.
I’ve taken a certain amount of imaginative license in dealing with future events. All past events are, to the best of my knowledge, accurate. Church History Exam 2025 Q3: How integral a role did the St George’s Tron play in the demise of the Church of Scotland? Five years ago the Church of Scotland was disbanded, the great domination brought to a premature death with a speed that surprised many. Even as late as 2011 many expected the decline of the state church to be a prolonged and gradual affair taking at least a generation. There is a common misconception that it was St George’s Tron departure from the Church of Scotland in June 2012 that was the stone that caused the proverbial avalanche to fall. This essay will argue that this represents a false narrative and that it was not until the actions of the Kirk in October 2012 that the bell sounded on the beginning of the end of the Church of Scotland. Beforehand October little concern was shown either by congregations or ministers into the reasons for the Tron’s departure. The actions of the Kirk changed this and created the Separatist movement that was so vital to the eventual demise of the Church of Scotland. The reasons for the Tron’s departure are readily apparent. Shocked by even the airing of a debate about homosexual ministers and frustrated by the General Assembly’s obvious move to prolong the debate as long as possible the congregation of the Tron under the leadership of Rev Dr Philip voted to secede from the Church of Scotland. In his press release Rev Philip spoke of his disappointment in the attempts of the General Assembly to normalise the issue of homosexuality. In a strongly worded statement he said: “In doing so the highest court of the Kirk has marginalised the Bible, the written Word of God. We believe the Church of Scotland is choosing to walk away from the biblical gospel, and to walk apart from the faith of the worldwide Christian Church.” The first time I read the statement above I must admit that I reacted against it. The guy who wrote is Francis Chan, one of those hippy Christians who is pretty bonkers but nevertheless can write what turns out to be frustrating biblical stuff. By which I mean that I want to disagree with it because Mr Chan is a little weird and I don’t like his writing style but he backs it up with the Bible and I can’t really argue with that. The book in question is called Crazy Love and it’s in part great and in part not so.
One of the most challenging chapters in the whole book is when Mr Chan goes through various signs of true Christianity and one of those signs is giving to the poor and to the work of God. When I read this sign then my conscience troubled me for while I was telling myself “Oh, I’ll give to God when I have a job” I realized that I had to give when I had little otherwise I would never give when (if) I had more. As Jesus says: “Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Luke 12 v 33 – 34 On the surface it may seem a strange statement: how can one spread the good news of Jesus Christ dying for the sins of the world wrong? Well, obviously you could start sprouting heresy and that would be a problem but let’s say that what you’re saying is theologically correct then is it still possible to be going about things the wrong way?
My answer would be yes and sadly I would have to go further and say that the church today, as a general rule, has lost the plot when it comes to spreading the gospel. I realized this the other year at the CU carol service after I regretted bringing my non-Christian friend along because while what he heard was technically speaking completely true he didn’t hear what he needed to hear because the speaker didn’t tell him what he should have told him. My friend heard a lot about Jesus and how he died for us and how much Jesus loved him and how much Jesus wanted him to be saved which is all good and right and true and also entirely useless. My friend currently thinks he does not need to be saved because his family religion and general good works will save him. This, I imagine, puts him into a similar situation to a lot of people today. So telling him about how much Jesus loved him only served to reinforce his self-righteousness. What my friend needed to hear because he is unwilling to admit it is how much of a wretched, miserable, filthy, vile, corrupted sinner he is standing before a perfect holy God. He needed to be told of Hell, judgement and the dangers of not repenting, he needed to be told that his desperate need was for Jesus. This example serves well to illustrate the failure of a lot of modern evangelism: To give some context for this question I’m going to graduate in nine months and I have no idea where I’ll be afterwards. And I find it hard to hope in a ‘good’ future and though I might ask myself: well, what’s the worst that could happen? the problem is that my active imagination is very good at telling me a dozen different scenarios each as ‘worst’ as the next one. For example, when it comes to graduating and getting a job then one potential outcome is unemployment, applying everywhere and getting nowhere and ending up in some job in retail. And it’s no use telling me that it might not happen because I know that it might.
And you can’t tell me either: God is in control of everything, he loves you, it will not happen because again that’s a lie. Sure, the first two statements are true but trying telling a Christian who has suffered the death of a loved one that the worst will not happen. It’s like the command: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged; for the Lord your God will go with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1v9) This is one of my all-time favourite bible verses yet, as I found out the hard way, it doesn’t promise success. There is a regrettable tendency in Christian circles to make too much of marriage and relationships so to correct the balance here's a collection of hard won wisdom on singleness. I call it hard won because I learnt most of these lessons the hard way and I call it wisdom because not a single piece of it is from me! All of it has dropped, like the proverbial pearl, from the tongues of others and it is all routed in biblical wisdom.
The Superiority of Jesus Christ over the opposite sex The four great words to remember here are: no marriage in heaven. Well, that's not entirely true, there is marriage in heaven but it is the marriage of Christ and the church. This should remind us that Jesus should be first in our hearts for that's where he'll be when we're in heaven! It's good to keep this sense of perspective: human marriage is finite and only a picture of the eternal union of Christ and the church. Likewise, Jesus died for your sins, he is your High Priest, you have no better friend, when everything is taken from you then through Christ you can still have lost nothing. Compared to your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse, well, it's not a competition. You can lose a human relationship; you can't lose Christ, he will not allow it. Don't make a relationship an idol. "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. (Jeremiah 2v13) Don't dig a marriage cistern, keep in mind that God is the spring of living water. Show me a Christian who does not pray and I will declare him to be no Christian at all. For we, as Christians, have been given the Spirit of adoption that cries: "Abba, Father!"; we have not been given a Spirit of silence. Yet even though we have this Spirit within us it is still possibly to be lax in the discipline of prayer and we can lose sight of the incredible power of prayer.
"The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops." James 5 v 16 - 18 Queen Victoria once said that she feared the prayers of John Knox more than all the armies of the world; she was, at least, wise for saying so. For as James writes: the prayer of a Christian is powerful and effective. Notice as well the example James uses to back it up, "Elijah was a human being, even as we are." If we needed encouragement to pray then here we have it! Elijah was just like you and me yet his prayers stopped and started the rain! Likewise, our prayers are powerful and effective. If you pop over to my church's website right here then you'll find three great sermons to listen to.
The first is on Satanic Oppression and the reality of the unseen powers we fight against but how God limits them and Christ is victorious over them! The next is on God's Fatherly discipline of his people for their holiness and how we should not grow weary under the difficulties of life. Based on Hebrews 12. And the third is on Repentance - it's a two part-er on Psalm 51 and David's repentance over his adultery and murder. These sermons, in my biased opinion, perfectly illustrate the reason why Reformed theology is so needed and that the evangelical church misses so much by straying from its doctrines. The reason I say this is because these sermons deal with the hard reality of Christian living. Behind each sermon is a recognition that we are, even as those saved, still extremely sinful! More, that Satan is a very real and present danger and that God's love for us compels him to take action against the sin in our lives. I've felt the need of being encouraged recently and these sermons have been a real meeting place of the soul with Christ, by his grace we feasted together and I have gone away refreshed! |
Archives
November 2013
Categories
All
|