Saturday 31 December 2016

signing off for the year



Let those who think I have said too little, or those who think I have said too much, forgive me; and let those who think I have said just enough join me in giving thanks to God.  Amen. 

(Augustine City of God 12.30).

Tuesday 20 December 2016

On the importance of ditching the stiff upper lip in ministry


High up on a list of things we don’t talk enough about are the themes of weakness and vulnerability in Christian life and ministry, so I was glad recently to discover two studies of the theme. 

The first is David Alan Black’s Paul, Apostle of Weakness. In this short book, he teases out the way in which weakness is a general way of describing the human condition, and something which has a particular significance for Christians:

“There are two counterbalancing emphases in Paul’s teaching: a solidarity with Adam by which all humanity under the influence of the natural sphere inherit the generic characteristics of weakness; and a solidarity with Christ by which human weakness under the influence of the Holy Spirit is transformed into a showplace of the divine on earth and a badge of honour.” (p155)

“Paul’s view of weakness, regardless of how highly developed it may be, is not to be understood only as an abstract doctrine, for it was developed in view of actual conditions. In the first place, weakness impresses upon us the reality of our finiteness and dependence on God. Human attempts are completely useless to please God; with all our effort, we can do nothing. It is just this attitude that Paul declares when he says that he is weak. He can claim no credit for any of his successes for he knows he has been sustained by God. If he has achieved anything, it is only by God’s power working through a weak, yet yielded, vessel. Thus human initiative, human boasting, and human merit have no place in the thought of the apostle Paul.

Likewise, Paul teaches that God’s way of exhibiting power is altogether different from our way. We try to overcome our weakness; God is satisfied to use weakness for his own special purposes. Too many Christians become disheartened over their infirmities, thinking that only if they were stronger in themselves they could accomplish more for God. But this point of view, despite its popularity, is altogether a fallacy. God’s means of working, rightly understood, is not by making us stronger, but by making us weaker and weaker until the divine power alone is clearly manifested in our lives.” (p.161-62)

There is then something creaturely about our weakness that we need to embrace. We are dependent and weak. But there is also something deeply counter-cultural here: the world wants to shake off this creaturely dependence and assert its strength and self-sufficiency. That is why we are so prone to kick against our weakness. And that is why God works our salvation in a way that confronts us with our own weakness and calls us to embrace it in the footsteps of Jesus. He gives grace to the humble but opposes the proud. 

The danger, as Black says, is that we become disheartened and buy into a different vision of life. This is where the second piece comes in: John Barclay’s superb article Security and Self-Sufficiency: A Comparison of Paul and Epictetus (in Ex Auditu, vol 24, 2008). In this article, Barclay compares two visions of human life. One involves a stability and security that is able to rise above external circumstances and maintain a steady imperviousness to grief and upset. Of course we must show outward grief to sympathise with others in their distress, but we must not let that upset our equilibrium or make our happiness dependent on another. 

In many ways that sounds wise, and very contemporary, advice, but this is not Barclay’s exposition of Paul. It is his account of self-sufficiency in the Stoic philosopher Epictetus, an outlook summarised by Socrates:

“If a person can hurt me, what I am engaged in amounts to nothing; if I wait for someone else to help me, I am nothing.”

Barclay: Epictetus thinks that it is possible to live a life free from the sorts of passions that so often shipwreck lives and ruin society: free from grief or distress that cause emotional collapse… free from fear and anxiety regarding the future; free from the anger, envy, lust, ambition that cause us to harm others; in short, free from every passion that represents the frustration that what we want to happen has not happened or may not happen.

When we turn to Paul there is some overlap of course. He believes that by the Spirit we can bear the fruit of the Spirit and put to death evil desires (Gal 5). He speaks of learning to be content regardless of material circumstances (Phil 4), and there is a confidence regarding the future (Rom 5, 8), but what Barclay develops are the ways Paul departs from Epictetus. In particular, the way in which Paul’s emotions are hitched to the welfare of his churches. “We live if you stand firm in the Lord” (1 Thess 3:8), Epaphroditus’ death would have caused Paul “sorrow upon sorrow,” (Phil 2:27), and he frequently writes with tears and in fear that his labours might have been in vain (Gal 4:11, 1 Thess 3:5). 

So, how to explain this willingness to be so emotionally vulnerable? Barclay mentions two things. First, “Paul’s vision of mutual dependence.” Epictetus’ relationships are one-way – willing to serve others but not to be affected by them but Paul constantly makes himself dependent on others, seeking their prayers, and opening his heart to them (2 Cor 6:11). In all this, the body metaphor is central. Every part of the body needs every other part. That's what life in the church is all about.

Barclay again: “Mutual encouragement, mutual struggle, and mutual dependency are for Paul core constituents of life in Christ. It is only by this means that his joy can be complete. The God on whose encouragement he relies supplies his needs through others, and he is desperately at a loss when they fail to play their part.”

Of course, with this alone, Paul would still have a hard time convincing Epictetus that his is a more excellent way, but there is an additional factor: eschatology.

“The frustration which Epictetus works so hard to eradicate is for Paul an inevitable feature of the ‘the present evil age’ (Gal 1:4). For as long as Christ is putting all his enemies under his feet, and for as long as death, the last enemy, is undefeated (1 Cor 15:20-28), there is no security in this world. In other words, it is only on the eschatological horizon that Paul sees the well-ordered universe that Epictetus takes for granted as the present condition of life. Whereas Epictetus therefore expects and finds the possibility of human fulfilment, so long as correct judgments are made in accordance with the reason we have been given, Paul is prepared to defer that fulfilment to a future that is only partially and inadequately adumbrated in the present.”

This is the secret. In the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, Paul sees that God is at work through weakness and calling out a people who are to be bound to one another in mutual dependence. In the present that will mean bearing with all the griefs and sadness that inevitably come from serving a far-from-sinless church. Epictetus would teach us to close our hearts. Paul tells us to open our eyes to the world to come and to press on, open-hearted.

Thursday 13 October 2016

words do things



 "If only words were a kind of fluid that collects in the ears, if only they turned into the visible chemical equivalent of their true value, an acid, or something curative – then we might be more careful. Words do collect in us anyway. They collect in the blood, in the soul, and either transform or poison people’s lives. Bitter or thoughtless words poured into the ears of the young have blighted many lives in advance. We all know people whose unhappy lives twist on a set of words uttered to them on a certain unforgotten day at school, in childhood, or at university. 

We seem to think that words aren’t things. A bump on the head may pass away, but a cutting remark grows with the mind.  But then it is possible that we know all too well the awesome power of words - which is why we use them with such deadly and accurate cruelty." 

Ben Okri, 'Beyond Words' in A Way to be Free

Monday 20 June 2016

Who needs a theological education?



I often get asked whether pastors need a theological education. Here’s how I answered that question last week:

I think the best way to answer that is actually to ask a different question: Does the church need a theological education? The answer to that is, surely, yes. Every New Testament book is a theological education for the church, helping it to grasp the implications of what God has done in Christ. So then, if the church needs a theological education, what does that mean for her leaders? 

If that’s a helpful way to think about it, then we’re not just talking about one or two verses in the Pastoral Epistles about pastors needing to be “able to teach.” The whole NT demands and models theological leadership.

Friday 27 May 2016

Helping gospel workers to put theology into practice






       Primer is a project I’ve been working on with the FIEC. It’s written for gospel workers to help them put good theology into practice in the life of the church. 

In each issue of Primer we take one pressing topic and over the course of 80 pages or so we offer a kind of theological digest; summarising contemporary debate, drawing on at least one classic historical text, and always keeping the realities of ministry in view. In the first issue we covered the doctrine of Scripture. The second issue (released today) looks at the doctrine of sin. What does that look like? Well, 

      -          We gave Graham Beynon a pile of books recently published on the topic and asked him to go away and juice them for us, discussing the various ways in which they define the essence of sin.

      -          Then we asked Tim Ward to reflect upon the ways in which we customarily preach sin. He considers the dominant models we use to explain sin to unbelievers (idolatry and rebellion), and then asks how well our preaching to believers about their sin stacks up against the New Testament.

      -          Next we reprint a classic passage from Calvin’s Institutes on the extent of human sinfulness. It’s a fantastic passage that takes us into the depths of the human condition in a way that leads us back out to God’s grace as the only possible remedy.   To help that medicine go down, we have Mark Troughton, a serving pastor, guiding us through the text. He sets the passage in its context and helps us follow the argument and apply it to ministry today.


Beyond that, three articles have a more practical focus:

      -          Kirsten Birkett explores addiction and its relationship to sin from both a medical and theological perspective (looking at it through the lens of Augustine’s account of sin).

      -          Next, John Frame gives some short sharp answers to some FAQ’s about sin in the Christian life (Why do we confess sin if we’re forgiven? How does God feel about us when we sin? etc.)

      -          And finally, I’ve written on how we can communicate sin in a culture of entitlement and victimhood. How do we explain sin when everything is someone’s fault?

Primer is published twice a year and is available from the Good Book Company

Tuesday 24 May 2016

Oliver O'Donovan on the limits and possibilities of the body



A few highlights from Oliver O’Donovan’s 1982 Grove Booklet ‘Transsexualism and Christian Marriage”:

“The either-or of biological maleness and femaleness to which the human race is bound is not a meaningless or oppressive condition of nature; it is the good gift of God, because it gives rise to possibilities of relationship in which the polarities of masculine and feminine, more subtly nuanced than the biological differentiation, can play a decisive part. Through masculinity and femininity we claim the significance of males and femaleness for relationship, and give it, through relationship, an interpretation which can express our individuality as persons.” p7.

“One aspect of form common to all matter, of course, is plasticity, an openness to forces that mould and fashion; and this is what makes it possible for man to confer form upon matter while respecting the form that is there. But in more complex organic structures there is also a degree of systemic difference which runs counter to plasticity. The body of a living animal is susceptible to moulding only at the cost of its systemic integrity; sealskins make excellent coats, but the decision to make coats out of them is the decision to kill seals. Respect for natural forms, then, must mean more than the exploitation of plastic possibilities. It implies sometimes the resolve not to exploit plasticity in order that the more complex forms may retain their integrity.” p15.

“To know oneself as body is to know that there are only certain things that one can do and be, because one’s freedom must be responsible to a given form, which is the form of one’s own existence in the material world.” p15

“The first obligation of every human being is to hail that givenness [as male or female] as a created good and to thank God for it, even though he or she may then have to acknowledge that for him or her in particular that created good has taken on the aspect of a problem.” p16