An Evening of Eschatology

You can hear & watch Sam Storms, Jim Hamilton and Doug Wilson discussing the Millenium with John Piper here. They spend quite a bit of time in Rev 20.

Some of my favourite lines were:

Two ministers were talking and one said to the other: “we both serve God, you in your way and mine in his!”

The Millenium, a thousand years of peace that Christians love to fight about!

Not “earth is not my home, I’m just passing through” but “heaven is not my home, I’m just passing through” – heaven is an intermediate state between death and the Final Resurrection consummation of all things.

There are 2 main arguments for postmillennialism: (1) it is a lot of fun (2) Jonathan Edwards believed it

(HT: Dan Green)

Christianity Triumphant

Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch writes:

In 2009 it [Christianity] has more than two billion adherents, almost four times its numbers in 1900, a third of the world's population, and more than half a billion more than its current nearest rival, Isalm.

in A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (Allen Lane) citing The International Bulletin of Missionary Research. Quoted in a review in The Spectator for 26th Sept 2009 p32.

The GREAT commission

When we consider the greatness of the great commission we need not worry about overdoing the depth and extent of gospel mission.

Honey, I shrunk the Kingdom!

Perhaps by assuming that the Kingdom is only to do with the salvation of souls, or that the Kingdom will fail in history.

Jesus the Saviour of the World

Further to my comments on John 3:17, and see also 4:42 on the fact that Jesus "really is the Saviour of the world", I came across this quotation from Charles Hodge:

We have reason to believe that the number of the finally lost, in comparison with the whole number of the saved, will be very inconsiderable. Our blessed Lord when surrounded by the innumerable company of the redeemed will be hailed as the Saviour of men, as the Lamb that bore the sins of the world.

Systematic Theology volume 3, pp879-80, quoted in Lucas and Philip, Teaching John (Christian Focus and Proclamation Trust Media, 2002) p51.

Lucas and Philip add:

We may hesitate to be so bold as he concerning the specifics of the relative number of those saved and lost; Scripture does not seem to put it in exactly these terms - though may it indeed be so, for God's glory! But surely the thrust of what he is saying is what John is proclaiming here in this great third chapter: God is a saving God, and his great purpose for a lost, rebellious world is a purpose of grace and salvation, boundless and free. Jesus is the Saviour of the world.

See also Lucas & Philip pp56-57.

How many will we catch?

I guess there’s always a danger that we see what we’re looking for, even if its not there! But I still reckon that post-millenial kind of texts crop up pretty often. Of course it doesn’t prove it, but in so far as the passage I’m preaching on this Sunday has anything to say about millenialisms, it seems pretty optimistic about the effectiveness of gospel ministry.

If the disciples thought at all about how many men they would “catch” in their new fishing ministry, Luke 5vv10 and 6 might lead them to expect amazingly large numbers of converts. Simon could reasonably expect that as he recognised his sin and inability but believed and obeyed Jesus’ word, he’d have an amazingly fruitful ministry. So it has turned out.

Dear Heathen

I got this from the Christ Church, Moscow, ID website, where Doug Wilson is the Pastor:

A. A. Hodge, the child author, went on to be Professor of Theology at Princeton:

Dear Heathen:

The Lord Jesus Christ hath promised that the time shall come when all the ends of the earth shall be His kingdom. And God is not a man that He should lie nor the son of man that He should repent. And if this was promised by a Being who cannot lie, why do you not help it to come sooner by reading the Bible, and attending to the words of your teachers, and loving God, and, renouncing your idols, take Christianity into your temples? And soon there will not be a Nation, no, not a space of ground as large as a footstep, that will want a missionary. My sister and myself have, by small self-denials, procured two dollars which are enclosed in this letter to buy tracts and Bibles to teach you.

Archibald Alexander Hodge, and Mary Eliz. Hodge,

Friends of the Heathen.

(June 23, 1833. A letter to the "heathen" from ten-year-old A.A. Hodge and his sister Mary Elizabeth, given to J.R. Eckard, a Princeton Seminary graduate who was to go to Ceylon. Quoted in Princeton Seminary: Faith and learning 1812-1868, v. 1, p. 193)

Christian Pubs?

On Thursday we went for our last supper at the Cock and Dragon in Cockfosters, which was very good, but it’s a shame to have to walk past a Buddha (statue of!) to get a pint.

Mrs Lloyd suggested Christian pubs: a cross on the wall, a good Christian name (St George and the Dragon, perhaps), a few Bibles and good books handy, music that doesn’t tell all and sundry to F*** Off!, that sort of thing. No doubt you could do silly things with Bishop’s Finger Ale, Rambling Rector wine, all sorts of Spirits and so on, but those gimmicks are not really the point. And it needn’t be primarily evangelistic, any more than much else in life is. It would just be showing the Christian virtues of hospitality, welcome, friendship, rest, feasting etc.

In the end we realised that what we wanted was not just a Christian pub but a Christian culture and nation.

He Is Coming Soon!

Doug Wilson - one week today - Oak Hill College

The Lord Jesus Christ as Judge of the Living and the Dead - probably a thousand generations or so

Mission & Evangelism

For what its worth, here's an essay I wrote for the Missions in the Contemporary World course here at college entitled: "How are 'mission' and 'evangelism' related?".

There are some thoughts on the relationship between creation and the new creation, and a post-millenial hope. I conclude:

If mission is all that God sends his people into the world to do, then the Christian prayer and task is to look to God for the transformation of the all the nations and every aspect of individual and community life by the proclaimed gospel. Evangelism is thus the indispensable core and priority of the Christian mission, which involves bringing everything in conformity to that gospel. The gospel that Jesus Christ is Lord which the church proclaims implies the whole of her mission to live under Christ’s Lordship.