I’ve been leading a small Cornhill missions team this last week. We’ve been abroad somewhere hot and somewhere increasingly difficult to be a Christian. It’s probably not appropriate for me to say where (or necessary, even) because I don’t want to put believers at risk. But, as ever, my heart has been stirred and my faith has been challenged by being with believers from a different culture. For sure, other cultures have their blind spots – and they are painfully obvious. But, more to the point, being with Christians in another culture allows us to see our own blind spots more clearly. And it’s this I want to write about this week.

I notice here that when people speak about their faith, they are quick to acknowledge that salvation is a remarkable miracle. Not everyone is saved from a heathen background. Many people have similar testimonies to those back home – raised in Christian or nominal Christian homes, a history of Sunday School and Bible class. And yet, nearly everyone I meet talks about their salvation with a deep sense of gratitude to God and a realisation that he has worked a mighty work.

It made me conscious of the rather ordinary view of salvation I sometimes hold. I have lost a sense of wonder and marvel that, though I was dead in my transgressions and sins, Christ died for me and made me his. The particular church I’m in sing quite a few Victorian US hymns: at one level these are quite quaint and it’s possible to long for the deeper and richer theology of a Toplady or a Watts. But on the other, they express a wonder and delight at salvation that we have sometimes lost. “Blessed assurance” and “Count your blessings” and “What can wash away my sins” all capture something of this wonder.

We can be, I guess, in great danger of being far too cerebral about our salvation. We understand what God has done for us in Christ, but do we really feel it? Does it thrill our souls like it used to (if it ever did?). I’m deeply convicted about this. And I’m thinking through how I can encourage my people back home to feel again this renewed sense of wonder and awe at the miracle of salvation.

I’ve been leading a small Cornhill missions team this last week. We’ve been abroad somewhere hot and somewhere increasingly difficult to be a Christian. It’s probably not appropriate for me to say where (or necessary, even) because I don’t want to put believers at risk. But, as ever, my heart has been stirred and my faith has been challenged by being with believers from a different culture. For sure, other cultures have their blind spots – and they are painfully obvious. But, more to the point, being with Christians in another culture allows us to see our own blind spots more clearly. And it’s this I want to write about this week.

The preaching of the word is the thing. I know we think we know this. But do we really? At best, I sometimes wonder whether it’s just the ministers of western churches who appreciate this truth. Church members perhaps go along with it, maybe even some sign up for it – but on the whole it’s an alien concept. What struck me about this last week is that most church planting in this place comes stripped down. There are not fancy arguments about strategies, buildings, locations, music, evangelistic courses, staff and so on. That’s a luxury that most church planters don’t have. It tends to me one man and his Bible. And his church planting work is to go and preach.

Now I know the situations are not identical. There needs to be some culturalisation, sure. But is it not possible we overdo things? And church life here is often simpler. The churches where things are more complex tend to be those which have been influenced by the west. It’s quite possible for services to be not hugely different from a service back home: same song, same order, same jobs (there is a welcome rota!). But get out of the western influenced city-centre and church feels more raw, more basic. And in its basic form, it’s the preaching of the word that is at its centre.

I wonder if we did a little exercise in our churches and we stripped out things one by one, taking a vote each time – a kind of Church edition of Big Brother. Would preaching be last in? I somehow doubt it. And we have to admit that some of the fault for that comes from the front. I recently participated in a service where there was no sermon, nor any thought that one might be needed. That’s extraordinary. But might some of our people feel the same. And how are we going to grip them again with the centrality of the preached word? It’s a thought that is weighing heavily on me.

This is a bit of a generalisation, but I reckon that if we asked our church members to state the main benefit we gain from repentance and faith in Christ, then in many churches ‘forgiveness’ would be high up the list – maybe at the top. It may also be the case that if someone listened for six months to everything we said, both in the pulpit and privately, about what the gospel offers, then they’d also conclude that forgiveness is the main benefit. (That wouldn’t be true of every gospel minister, I know, but I think it would apply to many.)
What’s the problem? In a sense, nothing. Forgiveness is a glorious benefit of Christ’s work for us which has calmed many troubled souls. Praise God for it, and let us never forget it or undervalue it!
But a problem does arise over time if forgiveness is the gospel benefit we primarily mention on 90% of the occasions (or 80%, or 70%) that we speak of Christ. Why? Because it’s so easy to think that God could re-think his forgiveness if he looked hard at what I’m really like. Or that he might withdraw it if I go and do something truly heinous. Solid assurance is then harder to hold onto.

However if our talk of God forgiving us (which we mustn’t lose!) is mingled in with regular talk of God adopting us as his children, coming to dwell in us by his Spirit, uniting us to Christ, causing us to die with Christ and rise with him – ideas very commonly found in the NT – then we are laying down the full foundation of assurance that the NT gives. The definitive and assured nature of God’s action of salvation for us and in us is expressed especially powerfully in these things.
A church family is, I think, quietly but deeply influenced over time by the ways in which its pastor regularly describes what a Christian is. So let’s not be single-issue people on salvation. Forgiven, certainly. But so much more than that, too.

Here is Calvin in fine form. He’s berating a group he calls ‘half-papists’. These people say that when we look at Christ we have an assured hope, but that we ought to ‘waver and hesitate’ when we look at our own unworthiness. His response demolished them at a stroke:

‘I turn this argument of theirs back against them: if you contemplate yourself, that is sure damnation. But since Christ has been so imparted to you with all his benefits that all his things are made yours, that you are made a member of him, indeed one with him, his righteousness overwhelms your sins; his salvation wipes out your condemnation; with his worthiness he intercedes that your unworthiness may not come before God’s sight. Surely this is so: We ought not to separate Christ from ourselves or ourselves from him. Rather we ought to hold fast bravely with both hands to that fellowship by which he has bound himself to us.’ (Institutes, 3.2.24).

This demonstrates how crucially pastoral the sometimes mystical-sounding doctrine of the union believer with Christ is. (I’ve been thinking about this lately, since I’m one of the speakers later this month at an Affinity conference on the subject, and the topic came up in the Cornhill teaching-programme this week.) Calvin is concerned that a certain kind of teaching destroys assurance. To combat it, he appeals to union.
His line of thought is thoroughly biblical. For example, 1 John has assurance as one its key aims. Thus 5.13 says, ‘I write these things to you… so that you may know that you have eternal life’. The verses that follow are full of reminders of what ‘we know’ about Christ and therefore about ourselves. And the climax, in this glorious section on assurance? John speaks of union with Christ: ‘And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life’ (5.20b).

I’ll continue this pastoral thought in the next post.

I’m teaching a course on Genesis at the moment at Cornhill. This morning we were asking what the right lines are to draw from Gen. 22.1-19 (the offering up of Isaac) to the New Testament.
(I like to speak of drawing lines ‘to the New Testament’, to indicate that we need to come forward both to God and Christ and to us. The NT itself draws applications from the OT both to God and Christ and to us, and therefore so should we.)

As regards coming to God and Christ from 22.1-19, the initial thing I wanted the students to see is that the passage is more interested in Abraham than in Isaac. That already suggests that it’s not central to this passage to make much of Isaac as ‘carrying wood on his back up a mountain to his sacrificial death’; that’s a true point, but a subsidiary one.
Once that is clear, Abraham emerges as a foreshadowing (type) of both the Father and of Christ. He is primarily a type of the Father because he is willing to give up even the son he loves deeply (Rom. 8.32 comes to mind). That pictures for us the provision of a sacrifice that the Father will ultimately give.
Abraham is also (a little less obviously, I think, but truly) a type of Christ, since the passage stresses his obedient trust in God in being willing to give up what is most precious to him. Of course his obedience, unlike Abraham’s, actually led to a real death, even his own.
As regards coming to us from 22.1-19, Heb. 11.17-19 gives us a solid basis for taking Abraham as a model of embracing God’s promises through times of testing.

There is such richness in the way God has caused this Scripture to be written so that it points forward to the New Testament. No single sermon can do justice to all of this, and the preacher will have to be ruthlessly selective. But the preacher who sees these things and ponders on them will never be short of solidly text-driven applications, however often he returns to such well-known passages.

Most ministers are reasonably well educated or, at least, have the time to immerse themselves in some richly rewarding reading. But it’s easy for us to make the mistake of thinking that our people have the same access and time to make such reading rewarding. I recently had a conversation with a mature Christian (a believer for 50 years+) who told me that they had never read a Christian book. I was surprised, but perhaps I should not have been.

Casual recommendations in our sermons then, can sometimes do more harm than good. For one thing, that may be because we make Christianity seem a very cerebral and academic study. I worry about this a lot: increasingly in our time poor culture, our pastoral strategy seems to be “let me recommend a book on that.” Don’t get me wrong: I love books and want to promote them, and promote Christian reading. But the books are not our pastors.

The other concern is the kind of thing we are often recommending. I’ve been reminded about this because I’ve just been re-reading Calvin on prayer (Book 3). I love it. I remember first reading it and this one chapter making more difference to my prayer life (and still doing so) than anything I had read before or since. But reading it again, I realise that some of it (much?) is impenetrable. In fact, a long term wish project of mine that I pick up and put down every now and again is to produce a paraphrase of the chapter as a separate book.

But reading through one sentence this morning again and again I realise I have absolutely no idea what it means. Am I allowed to say that? After a while, a light will dawn (I hope!). But for me to stand at the front of church and say with enthusiasm “you must read Calvin on prayer” is profoundly unhelpful to the majority of our congregation. I am not serving them at all.

The Reformers and Puritans, huh? You can have too much of a good thing.

Reformation Heritage Books have sent me this snappily titled little book (just 25 pages) on a very important subject. I wanted to like this book very much for it is a subject dear to my heart. But here’s the problem: the point is, sadly, not made.

The book is, essentially, a Ryan McGraw sermon on John 14.12-14. Ryan says some very useful things on preaching and some very useful things on prayer (together with some sharply pointed application for the corporate prayer meeting, all of which – as it happens – I agree with).

But his thesis turns on the fact that Jesus words in John 14 are describing corporate prayer. He begins this explanation by saying that “the book of Acts illustrates that it is not simply prayer in view [in John] but corporate prayer.” Really? Given how much we make of the tension between the normative and descriptive in Acts, that needs to be proved. And Ryan tries to do this next: “The plural form of the verbs in John (“ye ask”, “if ye shall ask”) indicates this as well….Jesus did not tell His apostles simply to pray as individuals, but together, asking as one body. This shows that He envisioned His people praying together with one heart and one compelling purpose.”

Too much. This seems to me, at least, an exercise in rather casual exegesis. True enough, the words are plural. And true that Jesus sometimes addresses a group of believers in the singular when he is talking about private matters (Matthew 6.6 a good example). True even that this verb matched with a plural is a John favourite. But it is also true that he address groups of believers in the plural, even when he is talking about private matters (see Matthew 5.11). In fact, in the very verse Ryan is expounding (v.12) Jesus uses the plural you to describe the greater things that will be done. These are ‘Spirit empowered preaching for the conversion of sinners.’ By definition, this is a singular work. It is not a corporate activity.

In other words, I don’t think the point is made. It certainly – for me – requires more explanation. Shame though, because I’m convinced the overall point is right; it just seems to require of this particular text more than it can bear.

Which is a sober thought for every preacher.

I first went to the EMA because someone invited me. Thanks Mr G. Most people do. I guess some people see the advertising or get an email, but the most powerful advert for any event is always a personal testimony. And inviting someone else is a great way to serve them and get to know them better. Perhaps there is another minister in the next village alone, beleaguered and in need of encouragement? Perhaps another leader in your own church? Perhaps a potential leader in the making who could take some time off work to taste and see? Perhaps someone on the periphery of our circles who you would like to draw in? Or save from moving away?

For all these kinds of guys, we’ve introduced a new rate at the EMA. We’re calling it the Buddy Rate and it’s for 2 people – as long as one is new. We’re going to trust you on this one, but if you book through the Buddy Rate you get two three day places for £195. Who could you serve this year?

Click here to book for the buddy rate.

I’ve just been sent a booklet to review from Reformation Heritage Books called How do preaching and corporate prayer work together? Not the snappiest of titles! And I’m posting this before I even read it! That’s because – before I get any answers from Ryan McGraw – I’ve been trying to think through the answer for myself.
How would you answer? There must be a link, mustn’t there? But how many of our prayer meetings reflect it? How many spontaneous prayers are there for the preaching of the word and the preachers? It’s not – I guess – top of the list of petitions.
Surely, given the nature of preaching, it should be? There may be manifold reasons why such prayer is uncommon, but may one be – at the very least – you don’t know the answer to the question yourself? Our people, we have to grudgingly admit, generally take their lead from the front.

One of the key issues for me with small groups is finding the right material. As regular readers know, recently we’ve overcome this issue by simply reading the Bible together. Other times we’ve used our own home grown material. But I’ve recently had a detailed look at some new material that I’m very excited about. It’s a joint venture between The Good Book Company and The Gospel Coalition producing material for Adult Sunday School or small groups. It’s produced with the US market in mind, and some might possibly think that rules it out for use in the UK. Not a bit of it.
I really like this material. It is thoroughly biblical with – I think – the right amount of didactic teaching and then discussion (often with the applications being worked out in the discussion). I’ve taken a look at Gospel-shaped worship which has Jared Wilson as the main teacher (see a sample video here). The workbooks are well produced and the videos very accessible – or, in a kind of Christianity Explored way, you can do the talks yourself.
One of the things I like about the material is that it is truly innovative. For each session there is a didactic part, a Bible study and some follow up devotional material to use (or not) throughout the week. In other words, the leader can dip into the various elements in a way that is suitable for the group. I think there’s probably too much material in each session for a standard group – I would imagine using the bulk of the material over two weeks for each session.
I think it’s well worth a look and if you’re along at one of our conferences soon, look out for some great pricing that makes the curriculum accessible.