All this week, we’re having an EMA fest. It’s reading week at Cornhill and what better time to catch up with some good content from this year’s EMA. Vaughan’s closing exposition gave us a really good finish. Come, Lord Jesus!

All this week, we’re having an EMA fest. It’s reading week at Cornhill and what better time to catch up with some good content from this year’s EMA. John Wyatt’s one off session was one of this year’s highlights. You can read the edited version in this month’s EN. But the real thing is better! A PDF of the Powerpoint slides can be found here.

All this week, we’re having an EMA fest. It’s reading week at Cornhill and what better time to catch up with some good content from this year’s EMA. I found Reuben’s exposition of Philippians 2 a really helpful challenge. I hope you do too.

I’ve been reading GK’s essays on divorce (The superstition of divorce). Interesting stuff. From another era, obviously and many of the arguments he was challenging seem hopelessly outdated. But his line of attack interests me greatly. He is especially keen that in focusing on divorce the proponents of a loosened law (in his time) were missing the point of what marriage was for! It’s not an unfamiliar issue today – whether it is the argument for same sex marriage or egalitarianism (I’m not saying these are equivalent issues, they just happen to be two I’ve been thinking about). It is very easy to argue your case without thinking or engaging with the bigger issues at stake.

Here he is.

“There is perhaps no worse advice, nine times out of ten, than the advice to do the work that’s nearest. It is especially bad when it means, as it generally does, removing the obstacle that’s nearest. It means that men are not to behave like men but like mice; who nibble at the thing that’s nearest. The man, like the mouse, undermines what he cannot understand. Because he himself bumps into a thing, he calls it the nearest obstacle; though the obstacle may happen to be the pillar that holds up the whole roof over his head. He industriously removes the obstacle; and in return, the obstacle removes him, and much more valuable things than he…
“The chief thing to say about such reformers of marriage is that they cannot make head or tail of it. They do not know what it is, or what it is meant to be, or what its supporters suppose it to be; they never look at it, even when they are inside it. They do the work that’s nearest; which is poking holes in the bottom of a boat under the impression that they are digging in a garden. This question of what a thing is, and whether it is a garden or a boat, appears to them abstract and academic. They have no notion of how large is the idea they attack; or how relatively small appear the holes that they pick in it.”

Next week is the Cornhill reading week. We encourage the students to read all the time but this is the week we are them to particularly focus on one of three titles. You may be interested to know what they’re up to – you even want to read along.

Christopher Ash’s Job commentary (the longer Crossway one)  is perhaps one of the best books I’ve read in a long time, certainly one of the best commentaries. I think this is Christopher at his best, and you will be greatly helped to read Job in ways you never have before. Because of the nature of Job and the struggle with suffering, this is a must for every minister of the gospel.

Don Carson’s Memoirs of an ordinary pastor is an immensely moving book about his father’s ministry. It is the main reason we’ve asked Don to come to the EMA next year, where our topic will be keeping going. It’s an insight into a different age, but more than that, it’s an insight into perseverance in an age of giving up.

Carson’s Jesus: the Son of God will be a more stretching read, but important nonetheless. Carson argues that much of the theological implication of this amazing truth has been lost. Carson ends the book with application for how Christians think, speak and act, so it is not just a seminary lecture.

Why not read along with us?

I once climbed onto one of those 1m springboards at the swimming pool. Quite a sight, I can assure you. But good fun and absolutely brilliant for getting from point A to point B. No turning back. Which is like a lot of preaching really, which pretends to expound a passage (A) but really only ends up at point B.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot as I’ve prepared a sermon on Ephesians 5.21-33. I’ve just (with Mrs R) taken a conference on marriage, we’ve written a book about one (admittedly particular) aspect of marriage, I’ve done marriage enrichment conferences in Yorkshire of all places (Northern Powerhouse!). And I’m just reading another (yes, another!) book on marriage. So marriage is in my head, usefully so.

But it’s quite tempting to preach the Ephesians passage and say all sorts of things that are right and biblical only not in the passage itself. So what, you say? It’s not like it’s false teaching. What’s wrong, for example, with expounding the idea of submission by going to 1 Peter 3? At one level, if it’s a Bible study, for example, there’s nothing wrong with that.

But a sermon is an exposition of the text and is a recognition that the Spirit has inspired these words written in this way. I have the liberty to go to 1 Peter 3 if it helps clarify something in the text, but to fill in what I consider to be the blanks seems the height of arrogance and will end up with the ultimate springboard. As a passing point, all my sermons on marriage will also sound the same. Ever heard preachers like that?

No, the discipline of expository preaching is staying in the text and letting the content, shape, structure and theme of the text shape the sermon. As it happens my Ephesian passage is rich, very rich. There’s no need to feed it from elsewhere, even if I felt it was needed. And that’s where the power lies. The power is always, textually speaking, in letting God set the agenda. That’s my high calling.

I was never very good at diving anyway.

I’ve just finished reading Bill Bryon’s latest book “The road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island.” I used to like Bryson. I liked his infatuation with meaningless, yet intriguing trivia (ask my friends). I liked his slightly ironic way of writing. I liked his love of Britain (which is undiminished). All that and more. Yet he has, I’m afraid to say, become an angry old man. Very angry, indeed, and in places, expletively angry (if that is an adjective: looseness with the English language being – ironically – one of the things he gets angry about).
Notes from a Small Island was a fascinating travelog: laugh out loud funny. Its sequel is like a series of Wikipedia entries strung together with occasional humour and lots and lots of anger. It’s all rather disappointing, and in the unlikely event that Bryson ever reads this blog, I’m inclined to deliberately misspell the next sentence. Its only fair.
There are a lot of angry pastors. I mean, a lot. Sure, there’s lots to get angry about – sin for one thing, and the way that it breaks things. But it seems to me that many pastors are just angry about stuff, period. I see that ugly temptation in my own heart all too clearly, especially as I get older. I get angry about false teaching. I get angry about sinful behaviour. I get angry about scurrilous accusations (although, of course, never ones I make myself).
I know there’s a good kind of righteous anger, but – frankly – that’s mostly a cop out, for I’m rarely really concerned for the Lord’s glory more than my own or my ministry or my church. So – despite all the excuses – my anger is mostly, if not entirely, sinful. And it is ugly. Boy, is it ugly.
You see, angry preachers do not serve their churches except, very often, to make others angry too. And that is no kind of service. Rather, “get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger.” It’s a tough calling, but one every preacher must embrace without question.

I’ve been testing and using both versions of the new NIV audio Bible app sold by Hodder Faith. This app is designed to accompany the excellent audio Bible narrated by David Suchet. This is not the place to review that particular resource, other than to say his reading style is quite superb (apart from his quirky pronunciation of ‘Colossians’!). In terms of audio Bibles there’s nothing else quite in this league.

The iOS app (Hodder tell me an Android version may be released in the future) marries the NIV text with some additional functionality. More of that in a moment. If you already have the NIV audio Bible on your device (either downloaded direct or uploaded from the CDs) then the cheaper £2.99 app is for you. Wonderfully, this automatically senses whether you have the audio files and then links them through on installation, a process which worked perfectly for me. The more expensive version (£19.99) contains all the audio files, but otherwise has exactly the same functionality. Just beware, in terms of installation, you should expect to use 1.4Gb for the full version and 207Mb for the smaller version (though this requires the audio files which, bizarrely, are 2.3Gb on my phone).

So what do you get? At its most basic you get the NIV 2011 text linked through to David Suchet’s excellent audio. This is a useful resource on its own. However, there is more. The text display functions are – to my mind at least – very useful. You can, for example, turn off verse and chapter numbers making a more true-to-life reading experience (something I happily recommend, the app calls this ‘reading view’). There are also other text features that you’ll find in other Bible apps (red letter text on or off and so on).

There is also a powerful journaling function allowing you to add notes and bookmarks to the text – useful, for example, if you make sermon notes. If you have other Bible apps, you will get the same functionality there; I consider this therefore a useful rather than stand out tool.

However, it is in the synchronization between text and audio that this app really stands out and what makes it a winner for me. In my Bible-in-a-year reading, for example, it’s helpful to ring the changes by listening not just reading. In our small groups where we’re reading through the New Testament together, it makes a change to have one of Paul’s letters read to us, rather than us stumbling through the text.

I’m a big fan of the NIV audio Bible and this excellent, clean app has just made it better and more easily accessible. I am very happy to recommend it wholeheartedly.

This review first appeared in Evangelicals Now, an excellent Christian newspaper!

So, here’s a thought. In many of our churches, we have reading rotas for public worship. I like hearing different voices, so I’m broadly in favour of this. But I’m also keen to do my own reading for the sermon for two reasons.

The first reason is practical. I want to read the reading the way that I – having studied it and prayed over it – believe it should be read. There is a tone or pace or emphasis I want the reading to have which befits how it will be expounded. Someone else reading the passage can (sometimes) actually work against this purpose. I know many preachers feel the same.

The second reason is theological. Do you notice how Pastor Timothy is required to commit himself to both the public reading of Scripture and to exhortation (1 Tim 4.13)? I suppose you could argue that being committed to the public reading does not mean he actually has to do it himself, but that seems to go against the grain of the passage where everything else is precisely about what Timmy must do himself. Seems odd if the public reading is not included in that list.

I wonder why that is? We cannot precisely be clear, but it must be something to do (especially in light of pastorals) with the way the Scripture itself is the thing (2 Tim 3.16-17) and preaching itself is only preaching if it is preaching of the word (2 Tim 4.2). For Timothy to publicly read Scripture shows the congregation how he himself sits under it and it is his master too.

Can encouraging others to read and being committed to public reading yourself be reconciled? I think saying that having others read is your commitment is a fudge. There’s an easier way, which most evangelicals would do well to heed. It’s a radical idea and I call it two readings. You do one. Someone else does the other.

Way out, huh?

PS I’m no Anglican expert, but I think you’ll find that in an old book called The Book of Common Prayer.

Have you been to see Everest yet? I can’t say that the film holds much attraction for me; but then you may be completely unexcited about the Lance Armstrong movie The Program, which I can’t wait to get to the cinema for.

Bizarrely, my nephew is a vicar in the parish in Hove where George Everest (1790-1866) is buried and he tells me that there are occasional visitors to see the headstone. Even more bizarrely, he never even saw the mountain itself, but had his name attached to it, almost by accident (George that is, not my nephew, although come to think of it, I don’t think he’s been to see the mountain either).

However, the most bizarre thing about the whole incident is that the boy George didn’t pronounce his name the way we do. It’s not Ev-er-est. But Eve (as in Adam)-rest. So there. Try that one out at dinner parties! I feel sad for poor George. No one is really going to care, are they, and we are not going to start pronouncing the mountain with a different emphasis.

And, of course, it simply doesn’t matter very much. Which – in a roundabout way – brings me to the public reading of Scripture, round one. There’s a bit too much preciousness about how words in Scripture are pronounced in certain circles; what would it really have sounded like, that kind of thing. I think some of that discussion is a load of tosh – as though anybody I know pronounces David with anything other than an Anglo Saxon gloss.

When it comes to public reading we want clear voices and annunciation, good and even pace and tone. I think precise pronunciation comes well down the list, if it even makes it at all (especially given that even scholars are a little uncertain). All of which is to say, let’s prepare people well for public reading, but let’s not add burdens to them that don’t need to be added. It’s an unnecessary mountain to climb.