Saturday, August 29, 2009

Lord's Prayer Resources

Among the no doubt many excellent studies on The Lord's Prayer are:

Richard Coekin, Our Father: Enjoying God in Prayer (IVP)

Peter Lewis, The Lord’s Prayer: The Greatest Prayer in the World (Paternoster)

Gerald Bray, Yours is the Kingdom: A Systematic Theology of the Lord’s Prayer (IVP)

Derek Prime, The Lord’s Prayer for Today (Day One)

Tom Wright, The Lord and His Prayer (Triangle / SPCK)

Peter Masters, The Lord’s Pattern for Prayer (Wakeman Trust)

Thomas Watson, The Lord’s Prayer (Banner of Truth)

J John, God’s Priorities: Living the Lord’s Prayer in the 21st Century (Kingsway) Your Kingdom Come Study Guide

I haven't used them all, by the way!

Lots of people will have preached on it so you'll find lots of free sermons on the interweb. I had a go myself - 4 sermons (Aug - Nov 08) available on our church website sermons page.

And check out books on the Sermon on the Mount (e.g. Stott, BST) and Commentaries on Matthew and Luke, of course.

See also Calvin's exposition of the Lord's Prayer in Institutes of the Christian Religion Book 3 chapter 20 parts 34-49, Ford-Battles edition vol 2 pp897-917

Anything else you'd recommend?

Friday, August 28, 2009

Church's ministry to Scripture

St Francis Turretin describes the church's ministerial function in relation to Scripture:

The church is charged to be the :

  • keeper and preserver of Scripture
  • guide, pointing to Scripture
  • defender of Scripture, vindicating the genuine canonical books
  • herald, proclaiming the truths of Scripture
  • interpreter, unfolding the true sense of Scripture
Tim Ward, Words of Life (IVP, 2009) p154, citing Institutes 2.16.1-26

Similarly, Article 20 of the 39 calls the church "a witness and keeper of Holy Writ"
(Ward, p155).

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Covenant Words & Food

Timothy Ward argues that the whole Bible is fundamentally and supremely God's covenant book (Words of Life, IVP 2009, p56).

It seems to me that the Bible has its quintessential use and paradigmatic place (I'm struggling for the right words here!) in the Lord's Day Service of covenant renewal where it calls us to the covenant meal of the Lord's Supper which is the climax of the service, a seal of the covenant and a foretaste of the consummation of the covenant.

Prayer Seeking Understanding

On the Lord's Prayer:

Of course we should seek to pray this prayer with understanding, with our minds engaged.

But it's no good waiting 'till we fully understand this prayer before we pray it. If we did that, we'd never pray it.

It's as we pray this prayer, and seek to live in the light of it, and think about too, that our understanding of it will grow.

It gives us a great vision that summarizes the message of the whole Bible.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

An Evangelical Introduction to the Federal Vision (for Brits!)

Since the Federal Vision (FV) seems to be a growing matter of interest and, to some, concern in this country, here is Rev'd Dr Steve Jeffery seeking to introduce Evangelicals in the UK to the ongoing FV conversation (downloadable PDF file). Steve does this by expounding and giving some background to "A Joint Federal Vision Statement" issued in 2007. Steve hopes that British Evangelicals wont feel the need to fall out over all this as some Reformed types in the States have.

Agree with FV enthusiasms or not, Steve concludes that:

The Statement stands demonstrably within the Reformed tradition at every point.


And again:

every single affirmation and denial within the Statement lies firmly within the Reformed tradition. At no point could an evangelical justifiably charge the FV with being beyond the bounds of historical Reformed orthodoxy. FV theology is Reformed theology.


Further, Steve claims that:

it is abundantly clear that FV advocates do not in fact hold a number of the views ascribed to them by their critics. The FV does not represent a denial of justification by faith alone, an Arminian rejection of unconditional election and the preservation of the saints, or a reversion to Roman Catholic views of baptism and the Lord's Supper. It does not undercut the distinction between the visible and invisible church, or downplay the importance of Christ's second coming, or capitulate to the so-called 'social gospel', or deny the distinction between God's covenant with Adam and the covenant of grace, or confuse justification with sanctification, or reject the imputation of Christ's obedience or righteousness, or undermine the possibility of Christian assurance, or entail a legalistic obsession with good works at the expense of free grace. Let us be clear: none of these doctrinal errors is found in the FV. These are misunderstandings of the FV.

Church Administrators' Conference

This Church Administrators' Conference (Mon 9th Nov '09, London SW20) looks well worth a look.

Monday, August 24, 2009

In place of a call to worship / Scripture sentences

Some words based on verses from Psalm 51 that I used to open the service on Sunday evening:

Have mercy on us, O God, according to your unfailing love.

Create in us pure hearts, and renew steadfast spirits within us.

Do not cast us from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from us.

Restore to us the joy of your salvation and grant us willing spirits, to sustain us.

O Lord, open our lips, and our mouths will declare your praise.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Eucharist a key doctrine

I've been enjoying reading about John Williamson Nevin (1803-1886) and the Mercersburg Theology in Mathison Given For You.

Mathison says (p139):

As Gerrish explains, the defense of the correct doctrine of the Eucharist was crucial to Nevin because in his judgement “what a man thinks of the Holy Eucharist is a plain index to what he will think of Christ, the church, and theology itself. Citing B. A. Gerrish, Tradition and the Modern World: Reformed Theology in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1978), 58-59.


And here are some bits of Nevin:


the Eucharist forms the very heart of the whole of Christian worship… Mystical Presence, p3

Our view of the Lord’s Supper must ever condition and rule in the end our view of Christ’s person and the conception we form of the Church. It must influence at the same time, very materially, our whole system of theology, as well as all our ideas of ecclesiastical history. p3

The eucharistic doctrine of the sixteenth century was interwoven with the whole church system of the time; to give it up, then, must involve in the end a renunciation in principle, if not in profession, of this system itself in its radical, distinctive constitution. p3

The Question of the Eucharist is one of the most important belonging to the history of religion. It may be regarded indeed as in some sense central to the whole Christian system. For Christianity is grounded in the living union of the believer with the person of Christ; and this great fact is emphatically concentrated in the mystery of the Lord’s Supper; which has always been clothed on this very account, to the consciousness of the Church, with a character of sanctity and solemnity, surpassing that of any other Christian institution. Mystical Presence p51 (Mathison, p139-140)

The doctrine of the eucharist is intimately connected with all that is most deep and central in the Christian system as a whole; and it is not possible for it to undergo any material modification in any direction, without a corresponding modification at the same time of the theory and life religion at other points. If it be true then, that such a falling away from the eucharistic view of the sixteenth century, as is now asserted, has taken place in the Reformed Church, it is very certain that the revolution is not confined to this point. It must affect necessarily the whole view, that is entertained of Christ’s person, the idea of the Church, and the doctrine of salvation throughout. Not that the change in the theory of the Lord’s Supper may be considered the origin and cause, properly speaking, of any such general theological revolution; but because it could not occur, except as accompanied by this general revolution, of which it may be taken as the most significant exponent and measure. Mystical Presence p52 (Mathison, p140-141)

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Clearest Promises

Its amazing to us, is it not, that Calvin could say that "the sacraments bring the clearest promises" of God? He adds that "they have this characteristic over and above the word because they represent them for us as painted in a picture from life." (Institutes, 4.14.5). We are so used to thinking of the sacraments as controversial, difficult, obscure and unclear. No doubt there is much that is mysterious about the sacraments. It would be a brave person who claimed to understand them at their full depth. Nevertheless, there is much that is wonderfully simple, clear, personal and vivid about the sacraments: Jesus gives us a wash and feeds us. Praise Him!

Broken Body

Mathison, Given For You (P&R, 2002):

Jesus Christ instituted the Lord’s Supper as the sacrament of union and communion with himself. It was institutes as a sacrament of unity, yet it has become the source of numerous divisions within the body of Christ. It is to our shame that we have rent asunder what God has united in Christ. (p.xvii)

Most discussed subject in Reformation

Keith Mathison, Given For You (P&R, 2002):

One of the most interesting phenomena that one encounters when comparing the writings of the sixteenth-century with the writings of their twentieth-century heirs is the different amount of attention devoted to the Lord’s Supper. The Reformers devoted volumes of books, letters, tracts, and sermons to the subject. The sixteenth century was a time of heated controversy over such crucial doctrines as the authority of Scripture and justification by faith alone, yet the doctrine that was discussed more often than any other was that of the Lord’s Supper. In our own day, however, the Lord’s Supper is rarely the subject of books or sermons. (p.xv)

Zwingli’s own strictly memorialist view was generally disowned by the Reformed churches and confessions of the sixteenth century. However, from the seventeenth century onward, it has gradually become the dominant view in the Reformed church. (p.xvi)

Spiritual Famine

R. C. Sproul says in the Foreword to Keith A. Mathison, Given For You: Reclaiming Calvin’s Doctrine Of The Lord’s Supper (Phillipsburg, P & R Publishing, 2002) :

… as divided as they were on some issues, the Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists were solidly in agreement on two vital issues – that the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is a means of grace and that Christ was really and truly present in the sacrament. All three affirmed that the believer is actually nurtured by the risen body and blood of Christ.

Since the sixteenth century there has been a gradual but steady erosion of the Reformed view of the sacrament so that in the present era the doctrine of the doctrine of the real presence is decidedly a minority report.

… When the sacrament is reduced to the level of a “naked sign” or “nude symbol,” its importance and its practice all but disappear from the life of the church.

I am convinced that where the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is taken lightly the people of God are sorely impoverished. Without both Word and sacrament we face a spiritual famine.

The light of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper is in eclipse. The shadows of postmodern relativism have covered the table. For the Lord’s Supper to be restored to the spiritual life of the church there must be an awakening to its meaning, significance, and power. (p.x)

Monday, August 17, 2009

The 5 Rs of a Successful Marriage

From J John, Ten: Living the Ten Commandments in the 21st Century (Kingsway, 2000) pp117-119:

(1) Respect
(2) Responsibility
(3) Relate
(4) Romance
(5) Resolve

Random Marriage Tips

From my sermon on You Shall Not Commit Adultery.

Cultivating a good marriage is part of the antidote to adultery
If you’ve got fillet steak at home, you’re much less likely to go out for a burger!

So here are some random tips on how to affair proof your marriage.
A basic guide to a successful marriage:

Work hard at your marriage
You’re stuck with it, after all.
Its in everyone’s best interests, including your own, that you make your marriage work.
A happy husband is a happy wife, and a happy wife is a happy husband!
How to make your wife treat you like a king: treat her like a queen.

So, married couples, love one another.
Pray for one another and with one another regularly.
Give thanks for your husband or wife.

Don’t make an idol of your husband or wife.
Remember this commandment is given in the context of the 1st commandment, to have no other gods beside the true God.
Don’t have unreasonable expectations of your partner: they’ll make a rubbish God.
Don’t pin all your hopes of happiness on them.

Maintain other friendships.
Intellectual arguments about theology.
Go down the pub with the other curates not bother Mrs Lloyd over breakfast with infralapsarianism.
That’s not her idea of a good time!

A good marriage requires good communication
Spend time together
Talk!
Open up your hearts and minds to one another
Share your joys, sorrows, concerns
Listen, make time
If there’s a problem, discuss it.

Be on one another’s side! You’re a team.
Never criticise or belittle one another in front of anyone else.
Encourage one another.
Sympathise, don’t always criticise or carp.
Lots of little digs can soon burry a marriage.

Remember why you married that person in the first place.
Have fun together.
Go on a date.
Buy her flowers or chocolates or whatever – there doesn’t need to be a special occasion.
Let’s have a little romance in marriage, even though you’ve bagged your wife!
If there were more courtship in marriage, there’d be fewer marriages in court.
Tell her how nice she looks.
Tell one another how much you love one another and why.
When she’s a mother, make sure she remains your lover.

Remember to say sorry, thank you and please.
Don’t let things fester.
Better to let it go or get it out in the open and over with quickly than nurse a grudge.

Don’t take one another for granted.
Show appreciation.
Celebrate what the other person does that you couldn’t do.

Remember that you’ve got your fair share of weaknesses and foibles and sins and failures too.
Be as forgiving and understanding of your husband or wife as you tend to be of yourself – or more so.

Delight in married sexual love
The Bible can be quite direct and graphic about it.
Proverbs 5 well worth reading.
Prov 5:18-20: “Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, 19 a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated1 always in her love. 20 Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?”
Did you know that the Bible commands you to delight in your wife’s breasts?
There’s an application for Sunday afternoon!

When a couple have sex they “make love” – that’s a good euphemism for sex.
When a couple make love they celebrate and deepen their love.
Sex is profoundly relational, not just recreational.
Husband and wife are to be treated as persons, not play-things.
Serve one another in the bedroom
Seek to please your husband or wife, not simply to grasp after your own gratification
Don’t have selfish sex
Enjoy one another
There is nothing wrong, or grubby, or shameful or dirty about sex within marriage
God invented sex!
God is for sex and sex is for marriage.
Sex the kind of thing one can talk about in sermons without the slightest unseemliness!
Sex is a good gift from God to be enjoyed within marriage
Sex is a celebration of married love, mutual self-giving, abandonment

Married couples are to make love often.
1 Cor 7:3-5:
“The husband should fulfil his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”

You Shall Not Commit Adultery (sermon intro)

I’m going to talk about sex today.

Right, now I’ve got your attention!

We come today to the 7th in our series of sermons on the 10 commandments:

“You shall not commit adultery”.

I’m pleased to say I’m not an expert on adultery!

Last time, the 6th commandment, not to murder, taught us that life is sacred.

This commandment teaches us that sex is sacred.

The Bible has lots to say about sex.

God claims our bodies as well as our souls.

He’s cares about our reproductive organs as well as our brains.

God is almost as concerned about sex as some of us are.

Our society is obsessed with sex.

Our society thinks of sex too much, but it doesn’t think enough of it.

Our society almost seems to think that everyone should have as much sex as possible.

But at the same time our society massively underestimates the significance of sex, as if it were nothing more than an exchange of bodily fluids and a way of stimulating a pleasurable chemical reaction in the brain.

As we’ll see, sex is much more than that.

God is for sex, sex is for marriage and marriage is for life.

Agenda:

(1) Literal adultery;

(2) What we might call “Emotional adultery”;

(3) What Jesus calls “Adultery in the heart”

(4) Spiritual adultery



The sermon audio is available on our church website sermon page.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Malcolm Maclean on The Lord's Supper

Here are a couple of snippets from my first perusal of Malcolm Maclean's The Lord's Supper (Mentor, 2009), which, God-willing I will be reviewing for Ecclesia Reformanda in the fullness of time:

“If there is one feature of the Lord’s Supper that has been written on my heart as a result of this study it is that we should be more focused on what the Lord Jesus, as the Head of his church, is doing at each celebration of the Lord’s Supper. I suspect that many believers, including myself, are more concerned with what we are doing. Obviously, our state of heart is very important, but sometimes we can be so occupied with ourselves that we fail to observe the activities of Jesus. Thankfully, his activities are not dependant on our observations.” (p10)

“While the New Testament does not command how often the meal should occur, Acts 20:7 suggests the common practice in New Testament times was weekly. Sometimes the comment is made that frequent occasions would result in over-familiarity, yet such an attitude is not a comment on the Supper but of the spirituality of the believers.” (p212)

“… it is common for some to imagine that solemnity requires the absence of interaction between believers and the necessity of not appearing joyful. In effect, the way the Supper is celebrated, although by a community, results in the Supper being an individualistic event, in which each person tends to focus on his or her relationship to Christ rather than also appreciating the family relationship of brothers and sisters that should mark the occasion.” (p213)

What IS the Supper for?

In the foreword to Malcolm Maclean's The Lord's Supper (Mentor, 2009), Professor Douglas F. Kelly says:

… at times, I am disappointed at being told at communion services what is wrong with non-Presbyterian views, and then there is a ‘full stop’ before the elements are passed out. I wonder, do these ministers have no idea what Scripture actually teaches about how the risen Christ is using the Lord’s Supper to strengthen the bonds of union with himself? I will be surprised if Malcolm Maclean’s new book does not greatly help them get beyond the mere negative critique of defective views, into something beautifully positive and full of life for the congregation of believers, as well as seekers. (p7)

Family Education Trust (Family & Youth Concern)

Worth checking out.

The lost art of reading

In the LA Times for 9th Aug, urges us not to obsess with the news, the latest tweets, blogs or Facebook updates, but to slow down, sit down, focus on a good book and become absorbed in it.

HT: Iain Clements, somewhat ironically on Facebook!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

The Wicked Bible

An edition of the Authorised Version of the Bible published in 1631 earned the printer the significant fine of £300, imposed by Archbishop Laud, for the error of omitting the word 'not' in the seventh commandment; that edition became known as 'The Wicked Bible'.

Brian H. Edwards, The Ten Commandments for Today (Day One, 2nd ed 2002), p198

Ugly Sex

Rev'd Prof J. I. Packer says:

… sexual activity is often out of place – when, for instance, it is directed by such motives as the quest for kicks, or for relief from mental or physical tension, or loneliness or boredom, or the desire to control of humiliate, or mere animal reaction to someone’s sex appeal. Such motives cheapen sex, making it (despite the short-term excitement) trivial and ugly, and leaving behind, once the thrill is over, more disgust than delight. (p84)

...

In casual sex a man does not strictly love a woman, but uses and so abuses her (however willing she may be). Nor can solitary masturbation fulfill God’s ideal; sex is for relationship, not ego trips.

Keeping the 10 Commandments (Crossway, 2007) - previously Growing in ChristI Want To Be A Christian, p85 (1994), originally, I Want to Be A Christian

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Turretin on Prayers to the Dead

If I ask my living friends to pray for me, why shouldn’t I ask my friends who have died, or the other dead, to pray for me too?

invocation of saints has neither a precept, nor promise, nor example in Scripture for its foundation. Thus it is nothing else than a corrupt and damnable will-worship (ethelothre_skeia). Invocation of God is indeed everywhere urged, but mention is nowhere made of the invocation of creatures. (Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, 11.7.2, v2 p42)

… invocation supposes … knowledge … in the one invoked: knowledge to know all our necessities and everywhere hear our prayers (mental as well as oral) and be truly a searcher of hearts (kardiognwte_s)…. Now these belong to God alone (the one searcher of hearts [kardionwste_s], who alone is the object of faith and omniscient….. As to the saints, on the contrary, we have no proof of their knowledge…. Indeed, Scripture (which often ascribes to God alone omniscience, heart-searching [kardiognwsian] and omnipotence, 1 K. 8:39; 2 Ch. 6:30; Rev. 2:23; Jer. 17:10) clearly proved that these cannot belong to creatures and frequently ascribes to the saints and ignorance of the affairs of earth (Is. 63:16; Ecc. 9:6; 2 K. 22:20). 11.7.3 p43

From the mutual prayers of the living to prayers of the departed for the living, the consequence does not hold good. Among the former, there is a mutual communion of offices and necessities; there is none between the dead and the living. The former are enjoined and praised in Scripture, but the latter by no means. Nor does the perfection of charity (with which the saints are blessed) conduce their praying for us particularly because the condition of that life does not allow of it. 14.4.xxii, v2 p390

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Excellence & mistakes okay

We want to have a culture of striving for excellence but also allowing people to make mistakes. We want to be thinking about how we can improve, but there are times when it is adequate to do an adequate job. We mustn't be oppressively perfectionistic: anyone can have an off-day and that's okay. Neither should we misconstrue perfection as necessarily exactly-what-I would-have-done.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Scary Liturgy

According to Rev'd Doug Wilson's weblog:

Jerome commented that in the early church, when visitors used to come the church, they were commonly frightened at the Amen -- it had the sound of thunder, said by people who understood it.

The liturgical responses at Holy Trinity can be pleasingly hearty and lively, but to my knowledge that has never happened yet. May the Amen of the church put the fear of God into people!

How Not To Lead a (Camp) Bible Study

We had the pleasure and privilege of having some young people from the church Mark serves on camp. I hope we didn't do too much of this sort of thing to them, though I recongnise I've done that kinda thing many a time and probably will many times more!

Sabbath

Further to my recent sermon on the Sabbath (see church website), which I also spoke on to the leaders at camp, I agree with Mr Newman, here:

Sabbath-keeping

By way of postscript, it has often been used as an argument against Christian sabbath-keeping (and indeed the Christian calendar as a whole) that Paul points to the observation of days and months and seasons and years as evidence of turning back to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world (3.9-10). I do not think that charge sticks. Paul is talking about observation of the Jewish calender, which is precisely what Christians are not doing. Christians keep the first day of the week as the Sabbath, and they order their year around the events of Christ’s life. Moreover, they are not doing so in order to be marked out as God’s people. The sabbath principle, of one day in seven consecrated for rest and blessing is, like marriage, embedded in the creation before the giving of the law (Genesis 2.3). Just as the coming of Christ has not abolished marriage, even though the relationship between Christ and the church is the ultimate reality of which marriage was created as a picture, so too the sabbath day is not abolished though Christ brings the rest of which the sabbath is a picture. As for the Christian calendar as a whole, Paul expressly gives permission for us to observe days in honour of the Lord (Romans 14.6).

Charles Simeon

A quick look on My Library Thing suggests that I don't own a single thing by or about Charles Simeon, the great Anglican clergyman, preacher and encourager of preachers. Where would you start? Can you recommend a light, colourful biography?

Camp Culture

One of the drums we want to beat on camp is the importance of training to what we're about and our desire to explore our gifts and become more effective in ministry.

As a result, everyone admits that they are a work in progress, not the finished article. We all minister as weak sinners. We always want to celebrate and encourage the good, wherever we find it. Constructive criticism is welcomed. We want to do it better next time. We know that we love and care for each other and are on the same side, rooting for one another, and that Jesus loves and cares for us, is on our side and intends even the tough things for our good. Therefore, we are not crushed by hearing, say, that we need to speak up a bit, try to get more eye contact, stop shuffling about or show how our points come from the text more clearly, or whatever.

It is fine for us to conclude that we've tried such and such a ministry a couple of times and given it our best shot, and perhaps its not us. We don't all have every gift. We are a body. We work together in mutual dependance. It's not a competition. No one is trying to beat anyone else so as to make themselves look or feel better. We all say "he must become greater, I must become less". When one is honoured, all are honured. We carry one anothers' burdens and mourn together.

That's something of the theory, anyway. Of course, being sinners, we mess up even this all the time. But we know something of what we're aiming for.

Grove Chapel

I had the pleasure of meeting someone from Grove Chapel today and I was very impressed. Their website is well worth checking out. Read their article on public worship. Apparently, if I have understood correctly, the vast majority of the children of the church from about 3 upwards remain in church the whole time, and attend to the sermon in varying degrees, completing specially prepared activity sheets.

Off to check out Revd Mark Johnston's books on Amazon.

Sunday, August 09, 2009

How should we eat this Living Bread?

From John 6:


Last time: Who or what is this living bread, in what sense and what does that imply?


This time: How do we eat this living bread?

Spiritually, by faith, with thanksgiving and without grumbling


The sermon which will appear at www.holytrinityeastbourne.org.uk soon d.v., also tries to consider why Jesus might stress the need to eat his flesh and drink his blood, how we receive life from Jesus' human nature.


Next time: Who may eat this living bread?

Buy a new belt!

I was encouraged that the main crit. from my talk on camp seemed to be that I ought to buy a new belt!

Apparently I strode onto the stage, positioned my letcern, and pulled my trousers up.

I've been doing Weightwatchers Online since the end of May now in a pact with my mother that if I lose lots of weight she'll give up smoking. I've lost 1 st 5 lbs so far, though not without the odd blip and blow out. I don't know how my mother's nicotine consumption rate is. Today I feel moderately determined.

Bread of Life Recap

We saw from (or maybe sometimes "using" John 6) that Jesus is bread from heaven – eternal God made man.

Jesus is bread – the essential, fundamental, staple diet stuff of life.

Jesus is the bread of life – he gives real life, life to the full, eternal life.

Jesus is bread that uniquely does not spoil.

Only Jesus can satisfy.

This bread is always fresh, never runs out and is always freely available.

Jesus will keep us going to the Promised Land.

Friday, August 07, 2009

To all Danehill leaders

Today, the following was pushed under the door of the leaders' room at Camp:

To all Danehill leaders,

you are all amazing, and you have changed my life! Thanks for a
lifechanging & amazing, super fab brill week!

love __________ x

(from Buckland with love)

God the Supreme "Judicial System"

The true and living God is not only the perfect and supreme judge, we may also say he is the supreme judicial system:

(1) politician / legislator - he makes and defines the laws

(2) police - he controls the word, restraining wrong and promoting good

(3) jurry - he gives his true and just verdicts

(4) judge - his sentances are true and just

(5) prison guard / governer / executionor - he exectues the sentance

Of course, Jesus is also the perfect loving and merciful judge who pays for the crimes of others by his atoning death, he takes our sentance on himself, satisfying out debt.

HT: DR on Danehill 1 Camp

Thursday, August 06, 2009

Regeneration / Ressurection Illustration

Another idea from camp, this time stolen from DJ:

In the film Shrek, Princess Fiona kisses Shrek on their wedding day and is transformed into a troll, just like him. She is given a new life and a new relationship - and made like Shrek.

Similarly, the Christian believer is given new life and a new relationship at his regeneration and resurrection and is made like the Lord Jesus.

Not bad, eh?

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

What I missed on camp

I was too slow on the uptake to notice that this was an acronim:

Shove off
I'm in charge
No to your ways

What I learnt at camp

Despite 3 years of supposed study, my NT Greek is far from what it should be, but yesterday, Dave Mackie pointed out that in Romans 3, the words for sin (hamartia) and righteousness (dik-) - e.g. in vv22-23 could be used in connection with javlin throwing, according to the Liddel-Scott-Jones lexicon. A javlin that had fallen short (cf. v23) could be described as "sin" (falling short) and a javlin that had reached its target could be described as "righteous".