Studying The Apostles' Creed

Since I started writing the homegroup notes for our church, we've almost always worked sequentially through books of the Bible. Next term we're going to try something different. D.v. we'll have Bible studies which use the clauses of the Apostles' Creed as a launching off point.

The following might be helpful resources:

Tim Chester, I Believe: The Apostle's Creed 10 studies for individuals or groups Good Book Guide (2007)

Michael Horton, We Believe: Rediscovering the Essentials of the Apostles' Creed (Nashville, Word Publishing, 1998)

Alistair McGrath, I Believe: Exploring the Apostles' Creed (Downers Grove, IVP, 1991, 1997)

J. I. Packer, Affirming the Apostles' Creed (Wheaton, Crossways, 2008) - formerly part of Growing In Christ originally published as I Want To Be A Christian

George M. Philip, The Apostles' Creed: What Christians Should Always Believe (Fearn, Christian Focus, 1990, 1994)

I guess it would also be helpful for leaders to look up the relevant doctrines in something like Bruce Milne's Know The Truth or an evangelical Systematic Theology such as Wayne Grudem's.

I'm thinking the study series might go something like this:

(1) I believe in God, the Father almighty,

creator of heaven and earth.

(2) I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

born of the Virgin Mary,

(3) suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died, and was buried;

he descended to the dead.

(4) On the third day he rose again;

(5) he ascended into heaven,

he is seated at the right hand of the Father,

(6) and he will come to judge the living and the dead.

(7) I believe in the Holy Spirit,

(8) the holy catholic Church,

the communion of saints,

(9) the forgiveness of sins,

(10) the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting.

Here's Tim Chester's outline (with suggested Bible passages) taken from the Good Book Company website:

1. Believing in God
'I believe in God' Romans 1 v 18-25 and John 14 v 1-11

2. The Triune God
'the Father...his only Son...the Holy Spirit' John 17 v 20-26

3. The Sovereign God
'the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth' Psalm 33

4. The identity of Jesus Christ
'I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord' Hebrews 1-2

5. The Sacrifice of Jesus Christ
'who suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead' Matthew 27 v 11-54

6. The reign of Jesus Christ
'On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come again to judge the living and the dead' 1 Corinthians 15 v 1-34

7. The life of the Spirit
'I believe in the Holy Spirit' Romans 8 v 1-17

8. The community of the Spirit
'the holy catholic church, the communion of saints' Ephesians 1-4

9. The work of the Spirit
'the forgiveness of sins' Matthew 9 v 1-13 and Titus 3 v 3-8

10. The hope of the Spirit
'the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting' Romans 8 v 18-39

On 21st January I might speak in our midweek meeting on "I believe in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit: The Apostles' Creed and the Trinity".

Owww!

I'm having a problem with a wisdom tooth that is proving rather distracting.

I've got a vague memory of hearing some terrible statistic about the proportion of people in the Middle Ages who suffered from tooth ache. Its amazing they ever got anything done. Though perhaps there were just less wimpy and got on with it.

I wasted a bit of time looking for a striking statistic for you and it didn't pop out of Google, but I thought this was moderately interesting:

Analysis of skeletons from the post-medieval (1843-1854) catholic mission of Sts. Mary and Michael, Whitechapel, London has revealed high rates of dental disease. Eighty one percent of adults showed evidence of dental caries, 90.7% had calculus, 78.6% suffered from periodontal disease, 35.9% had dental abscesses, 77.8 % had lost teeth during life and 54.4% showed hypoplastic defects of the tooth enamel. The teeth of children were also affected with 33.9% presenting cavities of at least one tooth, 12.1% with calculus and 10.2% with enamel hypoplasia.

I'm pleased to discover that calculus means both (1) tortuous and impenetrable method of calculation that some people seem able to do by occult powers of guess-work that they call "by inspection" and (2) tartar.

Right, back to turning the pages of Calvin's The Sinfulness of Outward Conformity to Roman Rites / On Shunning the Unlawful Rites of the Ungodly, and preserving the purity of the Christian Religion. A Letter by John Calvin to his dear and very excellent friend N. S. (1537)

As every schoolboy knows

I think Calvin is a little over optimistic about how well informed people are when he says:

Who knows not that ancient Christians were wont to give the Eucharist to infants at the breast?

Calvin's Tracts, trans. Beveridge, vol 3, p322

(Wrongly, in my view, Calvin disapproves of young children receiving the Lord's Supper because he thinks 1 Corinthians 11:28 means that to receive it aright they would have to examine themselves in a way they are incapable of).

Slippery "Saviour"

This Times Online article includes the video clip from Sky News where Gordon Brown says, "we not only saved the world..."!

Angelic Prayer meetings?

I was surprised to discover that Calvin held that the angels pray for us. To be honest, I'd never really thought about it.

With regard to the Angels a different view must be taken [than that regarding dead believers], in accordance with the different nature of their office. The care and protection of the pious has been committed to them. They must therefore, in obedience to God, be solicitous about our salvation; and they only discharge the duty assigned to them by praying for us.

'The True Method of Reforming the Church and Healing Her Divisions' (1547) in Calvin’s Tracts 3 volumes Calvin Translation Society Translated by Henry Beveridge Edinburgh 1844 (Eugene, Wipf and Stock, 2002), volume 3, p318

James Carey has some more thoughts on angels.

Christian Stamps

Although the Royal Mail website doesn't exactly trumpet the fact, this year, as an alternative to the Panto stamps, you can request the Christian ones (with images of the Lord Jesus and Mary), though in our local Post Office Mrs Lloyd wasn't offered a choice. No doubt they're carefully hidden away under the counter to avoid offense and so as not to spoil anyone's Winterval. The BBC News Story is here.

Jesus' Secret Food Supply

Here are some jottings for a sermon I preached yesterday on John 4:27-42. An audio file should appear on our church sermon page some time soon.

Vv10-14: Jesus is able to give Living Water

V32: Jesus has a secret food supply (cf. v8, v27, v31, v33)

What is Jesus’ food?

Jesus’ food is to do the will and work of the Father (v34)

That is what sustains and satisfies him (cf. Dt 8:3).

What keeps you going? Where do you look for satisfaction?

When did you last miss a meal you were so taken up with something else? Would you put yourself out for this work?

What is the Father’s will and work?

What has Jesus just been doing?

Seeking worshippers (v23 cf. v27)

5:17-21; 6:38-40; 9:3-4; 17:4; 19:30

Jesus the Saviour of the World (v42; cf. 3:17)

Look: a great harvest has begun (vv35-38; cf. v30)

Do not delay the work of evangelism (vv35-36)

Open your eyes; look for opportunities

How is this work done / this harvest brought in?

Jesus is sent by the Father (v34)

Jesus sends his disciples into the harvest field (v38; cf. Mt 9:38)

Believers will do even greater works than Jesus (14:12)

Be involved in this great work of evangelism

A partnership in which there are different parts (vv36-38)

The Samaritan woman is involved in the harvest; the Samaritans are part of the crop

The value of personal “testimony”, bearing witness (v39)

Speaks of her own experience about Jesus (v29, v39)

Could you give your testimony?

The priority of Jesus’ words (vv41-42)

Work for this food that lasts and satisfies (6:27-29)

True Humanity

A stimulating morning at SEMS with Philip Eveson speaking on “Made Like His Brothers: The Humanity of Christ”. The MP3 should appear on the SEMS website.

I was struck again by the fact that we so easily think that to err is human. Sinless humanity is totally beyond our experience. But it’s important for us to remember that sin is not of the essence of true humanity. Rather, sin spoils our humanity; it makes us less human rather than more human.

As Warfield commented, Jesus’ was the only strictly normal human development the world has ever seen.

The Lord's Prayer (sermon notes)

Here's a Word document with are some jottings I made in preparation for preaching 4 sermons on The Lord's Prayer from August - November '08. The sermons are available as audio files at:

http://www.holytrinityeastbourne.org.uk/sermons.php

Colossians Bible Studies

Here are some Bible Study notes on Colossians I prepared to assist our homegroup leaders in their preparation. (Word document, 5 studies).

Extra Catholicum

"The label “extra Calvinisticum”, applied to the affirmation that in the Incarnation the Eternal Son of God was united to but not restricted to his humanity, is misleading, to say the least. There is nothing uniquely Calvinist about the doctrine, for as a means of interpreting the Biblical witness to Christ it had a widespread and ancient usage.

There is a direct liaison from Calvin to Lombard and especially to St. Augustine. That he learned the doctrine from other portions of the tradition cannot be proved from his writings, but it was in fact almost universally confessed – from Origen and Theodore of Mopsuestia, to Athanasius and Cyril, to St. Thomas and Gabriel Biel….

If one wished to add to the terminological explosion which threatens and delights the theological world, one might coin “extra Catholicum” or “extra Patristicum” as being more appropriate than “extra Calvinisticum.""

E. David Willis, Calvin’s Catholic Christology: The Function of the So-Called Extra Calvinisticum in Calvin’s Theology Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought volume 2 (Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1966), p60

See also Peter Leithart's summary of Barth on this.

What can the so-called Extra Calvinisticum do for me?

It's a question everyone's asking, I know!

In case you need a little reminder, the so-called "extra Calvinisticum" is the idea that "the Eternal Son of God, even after the Incarnation, was united to the human nature to form One Person but was not restricted to the flesh.” (Willis, p1). See e.g. Institutes 2.13.4 and 4.17.30.

If you think that God is essentially omnipresent, it seems to me you have to say that if you think that the Human Christ was fully God and that his humanity was not omnipresent.

Willis writes of the intention, role and effect of the extra Calvinisticum in Calvin's thought:

In teaching what came later to be called the “extra Calvinisticum,” Calvin the Biblical theologian endevours, with the force of his humanist learning turned to the service of Christian theology, to safeguard an essential response to revelation which the Church before him also found it necessary to protect. It is him way of taking account of the fact that in Christ God is powerfully for us. It is not intended to evade the Christ witnessed to by the apostolic message, nor is it intended to buttress an allegedly natural theology. On the contrary, the “extra Calvinisticum” emphasizes that the God at work in Jesus Christ is one and the same with the God who sustains and orders the universe. He is the Triune God, as is manifest in the prominent role assigned to the Holy Spirit in the dynamics of the Incarnate life. The humanity of Christ can develop in a special way without transgressing the bounds of genuine humanity because of the gifts which the Logos conveys to it by his Spirit. In the “extra Calvinisticum,” Calvin is asserting that Christ is able to be God for us because he does not cease to be God over us in the Incarnation and because the humanity of Christ never ceases to be our humanity in the movement of God towards us. In Jesus Christ the vindication of the majesty of God and the re-establishment and fulfilment of the humanity of man take place. It is this gracious relationship – Creator-created, Redeemer-redeemed, Sanctifier-sanctified – on which the right ordering of history depends: such is Calvin’s affirmation in the “extra Calvinisticum,” not the philosophical principle finitum non capax infiniti. The “extra Calvinisticum” is not a sign of the discontinuity between creation and redemption, but of the fact that by assuming our condition the Eternal Son did not relinquish part of his empire but extended that empire over lost ground. Election to the body of Christ means being united to Head by the Holy Spirit, and conforming to the image of Christ in the world by the Holy Spirit. The “extra Calvinisticum” provides for Christ’s Lorship over all the world and yet his special presence with and Lordship over the Church, through the Holy Spirit; and, it bestows a Christological content upon the role which the order of nature plays in ethics.

E. David Willis, Calvin’s Catholic Christology: The Function of the So-Called Extra Calvinisticum in Calvin’s Theology Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought volume 2 (Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1966), pp6-7

Collectanea

It's good to welcome Revd Stuart Dean to the blogosphere at http://stuartpdean.blogspot.com/

Romantic Day Out

Apparently Pastor Douglas Wilson will be speaking in North London on 14th February 2009 on "The Future of Children and Children of the Future" at a conference on hope and the family. See www.wilson2009.blogspot.com. Hope to see you there!

Camp Plans 2009

If you know anyone who'll be 11-14 years old in the summer or any Christians who might be potential leaders, we'd love to hear from you.

Danehill 1

previously Romsey 1

Ref No: EV001503

The best week of the year with something for everyone!

Great food, drama and music. Trips to the beach and Chessington World of Adventure. Choice of on- and off-site activities, sports, crafts, swimming. Indoor and outdoor pools, tennis courts & rope swing on site. Pool table, table football, table tennis. Lots of fun and laughter. Make new friends. Clear Bible teaching. See you there!

Cumnor House School, Danehill, Haywards Heath, Sussex, RH17 7HT

Saturday 1^st Aug – 8^th Aug 2009 (7 nights)

Approx 45 places for ages 11 – 14

£206 (Financial assistance may be available in cases of need)

If you came on a CPAS camp last year, the office should automatically send you a brochure. You can request brochures from the website.

For more information see the CPAS website – click “find a venture”:

http://www.cpas.org.uk/ventures/search/venture_detail.php?id=1503

Bookings open on 3^rd Januray 2009. Camp sometimes books up very fast, so apply early to avoid disappointment

Contact Revd Marc Lloyd – 01323 642406 / 07812 054820

Distress in 1 Corinthians 7

Further to these thoughts, I’m interested in the idea that the “present crisis” of 1 Corinthians 7:26 might be the fall of Jerusalem (and associated events) which Jesus predicted.

Its worth noting that apparently by the time 1 Corinthians was written it already seemed that relations between the Romans and the Jews were deteriorating and the situation was unstable. Paul may well have seen conflict as immanent.

The parallel with God’s command to Jeremiah in 16:1 not to marry and have children in the land because of the terrible times that were coming might also strengthen the case that the fall of Jerusalem is in view in 1 Corinthians 7 since Jeremiah is also concerned with the fate of Jerusalem at the hands of a pagan army.

Sermon Illustrations

I'm not very good at sermon illustrations and I'm not really sure how enthusiastic I am about them, but I'm told that Holwick's Sermon Illustration database is well worth a look. A friend tells me that 50% of the time he finds something usable there.

CICCU talks

The Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (CICCU) have made lots of audio sermons available here. I may plagarise some of them in the future.

LORD seeks tart to worship him

An audio recording of my sermon on John 4:1-26 is available on our church website sermons page. Here are the jottings from my handout.

A typical boy meets girl story – Gen 24, Isaac & Rebekah; Gen 29, Jacob & Rachel; Ex 2, Moses & Zipporah; John 4, Jesus & the Samaritan woman

Jesus at a wedding, 2:1-12; Jesus the Bridegroom, 3:29; Eph 5:32

The LORD the husband of an adulterous people, Hosea 1:2

The Samaritan woman’s 3-fold exclusion: (1) woman, v27; (2) Samaritan, v9 (3) notoriously immoral, v6, 6^th hour = noon, v18

The good news about Jesus is for everyone – good and bad alike

Nicodemus also needs to be born again of water and Spirit, 3:5

Living water: refreshment, satisfaction, (eternal) life, v13, 10:10, cleansing = Spirit, 7:37-39

We are all thirsty, v7, v10, Jer 2:13 – what is your broken well?

Jesus is the only fountain of living waters, nothing else can satisfy, vv13-14, Ps 42:1-2

A free gift, v10 – just ask Him

We can’t pretend to Jesus, vv16-19, v29, 1:47-50; 2:24-25; Ps 139:1-4. We might as well be honest with him.

It is not where you worship but whom you worship and how you worship that counts; Jesus the New Temple, 2:19-22

Jesus the Truth, v24, 14:6

We can worship God only through Jesus and the Spirit he gives

Jesus thirsts, v7, 19:28, Ps 22:14-15, so that we can drink - water flows from Jesus, 19:34

Jesus says “I AM”, v26, Ex 3:14

A betrothal of belief – engage yourself to Jesus, be faithful to him

Calvin on the unborn children of believers

“The offspring of believers is born holy, because their children, while yet in the womb, before they breathe the vital air, are included in the covenant of eternal life. Nor, indeed, are they admitted into the Church by baptism on any other ground than that they belonged to the body of Christ before they were born…. Baptism must, therefore, be preceded by the gift of adoption, which is not the cause merely of a partial salvation, but bestows salvation entire, and is afterwards ratified by baptism.” ('The True Method of Reforming the Church and Healing Her Divisions' (1547) in Beveridge, Tracts vol 3 p275)