September 15, 2008 · 12:15 am

death

I have recently finished Peter Bolt’s Living With the Underworld. We did it as part of the Digging Deeper Bookclub at St Paul’s.

I have had a good time reading and discussing this with others, both online and at a discussion group we ran at my place.

One of the things that struck me about the book was the observation about how the fear of death lies at the basis of most human anxiety and behaviour. It is an extended discussion, but here’s a taste:

Now it all comes together! Because of our sin, the world lies under the sentence of death, a sentence we carry around with us in our mortal flesh. This causes a profound disruptive anxiety, a fear of death, that may be expressed in different ways, and masked in different ways, but is always there. This fear of death makes us long for security, for something that will calm our fears. We are security-seeking missles, and this opens us up to believe the lies of the devil, who tells us that our security is to be found in the things of this world. And, of course, these are all his to give, because this world belongs to him. At that point, our fear of death has taken us to exactly where the master of the underworld wants us: we are his slaves.

Peter Bolt, Living With the Underworld Kingsford: Matthias Media, 2007, 98-99.

I reckon he’s right. After I read this, I began looking around for signs of confirmation. And found one in the most bizarre place – the children’s wear department of a local department store. We were looking for clothes for the boys, and I noticed that most of the shirts are covered in skulls. Shirts for 4 year olds, covered in the symbol of death!! What’s going on with that?!

Of course, the designers will print stuff that they think, boy will think is ‘cool’. But I wonder whether the attempt to make death ‘cool’ is just another way of trying to avoid the anxiety that it provokes in us? And why not start that process at a young age?

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September 10, 2008 · 12:53 am

gratitude

Chrisitians bent on maturity should work hard at gratitude. Thankfulness to friends, parents, senior believers who have helped us on our way, and abpve all to God himself, is not only common courtesy, it is something more, much more: it is simultaneously a powerful antidote to bitterness and malice, and potent acknowledgement that we stand by grace. What else could ever displace gratitude as the appropriate response to grace, whether the special grace that brings us salvation or the grace mediated through fellow believers, friends and events? Grace gives; what more can we do than give thanks? What response to grace could be more vile than ingratitude?

D.A.Carson, From Triumphalism to Maturity, 160.

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September 9, 2008 · 12:10 am

the 3rd heaven?

Sunday night we tried the ‘text in your question during the sermon’ thing again, and this time with a bigger response. The question that got asked the most about the passage (2 Corinthians 12:1-10), was, ‘What is the 3rd heaven that Paul talks about in 12:2?’, but we didn’t get time to answer it on the night.

Let me have a go now – feel free to comment!

The passage in question:
“2I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. 3And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— 4was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.”

So what is the third heaven? It seems fairly clear that we can equate ‘the third heaven’ in v.2 with ‘paradise’ in v.4. The point is, he went to ‘the highest heaven’. The context is Paul countering the boasting of the false apostles in Corinth. That the discussion moves to ‘visions and revelations’ in ch.12 suggests that the false apostles were claiming a superior authority to Paul in part because of the visions and revelations they had received. Paul is dragged into a ‘foolish’ type of boasting in order to undercut their claims – you can tell that he wants to distance himself from claiming authority from these visions by the way he speaks of himself in the third person, before he reveals that the ‘man in Christ’ of v.2 is actually Paul himself.

But, even in this ‘foolish boasting’ mode, Paul establishes that the ‘visions and revelations’ that he had were of a higher order than those of the false apostles – they weren’t just ‘great revelations’, they were ‘surpassingly great revelations’ (v.7).

So, the ‘third heaven’ or ‘Paradise’, in this context, is the highest of all possible heavenly places.

Some say that the cosmology of the first century had layers. So, the first layer of heaven was the sky; the second was the place where the ‘ruler of the kingdom of the air’ dwelt (see Eph 2:2 – and Peter Bolt’s book, ‘Living With the Underworld’ for a good discussion of this); and then the 3rd heaven above that, where God dwelt with all of the heavenly beings. That is the possible source for Paul’s choice of words here.

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August 14, 2008 · 9:06 pm

Florida Revival’s leading man leaves his wife

As reported by ‘Charisma’ magazine:

Todd Bentley’s announcement that his marriage is ending has thrown our movement into a tailspin—and questions need to be answered.

It was not supposed to end like this.

Evangelist Todd Bentley had heralded the Lakeland revival as the greatest Pentecostal outpouring since Azusa Street. From his stage in a gigantic tent in Florida, Bentley preached to thousands, bringing many of them to the stage for prayer. Many claimed to be healed of deafness, blindness, heart problems, depression and dozens of other conditions in the Lakeland services, which ran for more than 100 consecutive nights. Bentley announced confidently that dozens of people had been raised from the dead during the revival.

But this week, a few days after the Canadian preacher announced the end of his visits to Lakeland, he told his staff that his marriage is ending. Without blaming the pace of the revival for Bentley’s personal problems, his board released a public statement saying that he and his wife, Shonnah, are separating. The news shocked Bentley’s adoring fans and saddened those who have questioned his credibility since the Lakeland movement erupted in early April.

John Piper has some comments:

Discernment is not created in God’s people by brokenness, humility, reverence, and repentance. It is created by biblical truth and the application of truth by the power of the Holy Spirit to our hearts and minds. When that happens, then the brokenness, humility, reverence, and repentance will have the strong fiber of the full counsel of God in them. They will be profoundly Christian and not merely religious and emotional and psychological.

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August 3, 2008 · 1:07 pm

an atheist conversation

[Hmmm – a month without blogging – been on holidays and living life.]

Had a fascinating conversation today. After church this morning, I met man. He told me his name, and the first sentence that followed was, ‘Of course, I am an atheist.’

I said, ‘Of course?’

‘Oh, I don’t mean ‘of course I am an atheist’ – just, ‘I am an atheist”

He then told me that he had been brought up as a Christian, but recently, events had lead him to a particularly fateful day. He had driven out to a field, where he stood in the middle, and yelled to the four points of hte compass, as well as straight up and straight down: ‘I DON’T BELIEVE IN THE DEVIL, I DON’T BELIEVE IN THE DEVIL.’

He said he had uttered these words in great trepidation. But as he stood there, you know what happened? Absolutely nothing. And from that moment on, he said, he felt tremendous relief, and had ‘converted’ to atheism.

I said to him that I had found relief not in the denial of the spiritual underworld, but through the trusting in the promises that Christ had give nin his word, that his death and resurrection were the acts that landed that fatal blows on the devil, and so uniting my life to his meant there was ultimately nothing to fear.

He listened courteously, and then refused my offer of a free copy of ‘Living With the Underworld’ by Peter Bolt, and left.

So, what do you reckon is going on there?

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July 2, 2008 · 10:30 pm

so its not a waste of time then

I knew there was something in it – check this out in the SMH today!

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July 1, 2008 · 11:46 pm

female toilet seat

This was forwarded to me by a member of the fairer sex. I don’t get it…

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July 1, 2008 · 4:05 am

Chrysostom on assurance

Read this is connection with Rom 8:31:

“Yet even those that be against us, so far are they from thwarting us at all, that even without their will they become to us the causes of crowns, and procurers of countless blessings, in that God’s wisdom turneth their plots unto our salvation and glory. See how really no one is against us!”
Homilies on Romans 15

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July 1, 2008 · 12:15 am

GAFCON Statement

Anglican leaders from all over the world have been meeting in Jerusalem over the past week at GAFCON – the Global Anglican Future CONference.

The reasons for the conference and the things they discussed are all contained in the full statement.

Here’s a sample:

We, the participants in the Global Anglican Future Conference, are a fellowship of confessing Anglicans for the benefit of the Church and the furtherance of its mission.

We are a fellowship of people united in the communion (koinonia) of the one Spirit and committed to work and pray together in the common mission of Christ. It is a confessing fellowship in that its members confess the faith of Christ crucified, stand firm for the gospel in the global and Anglican context, and affirm a contemporary rule, the Jerusalem Declaration, to guide the movement for the future.

We are a fellowship of Anglicans, including provinces, dioceses, churches, missionary jurisdictions, para-church organisations and individual Anglican Christians whose goal is to reform, heal and revitalise the Anglican Communion and expand its mission to the world.

Our fellowship is not breaking away from the Anglican Communion. We, together with many other faithful Anglicans throughout the world, believe the doctrinal foundation of Anglicanism, which defines our core identity as Anglicans, is expressed in these words:

The doctrine of the Church is grounded in the Holy Scriptures and in such teachings of the ancient Fathers and Councils of the Church as are agreeable to the said Scriptures. In particular, such doctrine is to be found in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, the Book of Common Prayer and the Ordinal. We intend to remain faithful to this standard, and we call on others in the Communion to reaffirm and return to it.

While acknowledging the nature of Canterbury as an historic see, we do not accept that Anglican identity is determined necessarily through recognition by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Building on the above doctrinal foundation of Anglican identity, we hereby publish the Jerusalem Declaration as the basis of our fellowship.

The Jerusalem Statement follows on the GAFCON website.

Interesting days ahead for global Anglicanism (of which I am a part!).

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June 30, 2008 · 5:50 am

a preacher’s nightmare

I reckon there’s a common nightmare that preachers share. Its the one where you go to bed on Saturday night thinking everything’s ok, wake up and turn up to church on Sunday morning, only to find that you are rostered to preach that morning. And you’ve done nothing.

I went close to living out that nightmare yesterday. For varying reasons, I turned up for 8am church quite early. And I left my mobile at home.

So, at 7.45am, one of the Wardens of the church said, ‘Did you get the message from the Senior Minister?’

‘Um – what message?’

He showed me the message on his phone. The Senior was sick, and wasn’t coming. ‘Keith will look after the sermon.’

As it turns out, the Senior has messaged me early and told me to do my 5pm sermon from the previous week, but, having left early, and having left my phone at home, I hadn’t received that message!

Soooo – I preached the passage. 15 minutes notice. No notes. Romans 8:12-30.

It was terrifying, and exhilerating, all at the same time.

And, no stones were thrown at the end, so God was good.

I’m preaching there next Sunday. I am very tempted to do the same thing to the Senior, but he’s on hols, so I guess I’ll just prepare and preach…

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