Gordon Cheng's blog

Find a fool

2012-01-16T05:59:00.000+11:00

Preached this yesterday:

Psalm 14: FIND A FOOL

I was a bit surprised when I came to prepare Psalm 14 to discover just how important it is. It is a Davidic Psalm, which means that it was written by King David, the man who gets called the sweet psalmist of Israel in 2 Samuel 23.

but as interesting as that is, the real reasons why this Psalm is so important I would summarize by saying God, the Bible and Jesus.

The first reason is the obvious reason, God spoke it so it is the word of God.

The second reason, which I’d half forgotten, is that this Psalm is repeated almost word for word later on in the book of Psalms, Psalm 53, only a few words are changed, the word LORD is replaced by God, there’s an added reference to the scattering of bones of the enemy, and there is most likely a new tune, if you check the heading that comes with the Psalm. Why is it so? Well you read them yourself and make the comparison,

but I am quite sure that God doesn’t say the same thing twice in two different places without a reason, in much the same way as you may choose to say to children under your care, be very careful crossing the road because we don’t like getting run over, even though you have said it many times before and even if those children can now repeat it even before you say it. That is the whole point! You don’t want them to forget! It’s why there are 4 gospels that tell us about Jesus, not just one!

And I take it that God does not want us to forget any of his Word but especially he doesn’t want us to forget this Psalm.

The third reason this Psalm is important is that it is a Psalm about Jesus, quoted in Romans chapter 3, but we will get to that in a while.

Right now I want to ask the question who is a fool, you see that the Psalm begins with the words ‘The fool’. The fool has said in his heart ‘God does not exist’

And probably the big distraction to get out of the way is that ‘fool’ is not about intellectual ability.

I felt like a fool in 1980, and many times since may I say, but on this occasion I was sitting quietly as a second year sociology student, and the tutor, who clearly wasn’t a fool by anyone’s estimation said, surely no-one here believes in the idiot notion of human nature any more, to which I foolishly said, I do.

Now the tutor, and lots of other people, thought that they had found a perfect example of a fool, but a fool in this Psalm is not just about not being clever or not keeping up with the programme, because as you can see in verse one, the defining characteristic of the fool is the man who says, ‘God does not exist’ or if you have another translation in front of you, ‘There is no God.’

That is pretty clear isn’t it; being a fool is not about an intellectual limitation, it’s about taking the view that the God of Israel—remembering that it is David king of Israel who writes—doesn’t exist, isn’t there.

Now once we’ve worked out that being a fool is not about being stupid…

I mean the world is full of stupid people isn’t it? On July 2 1982 Larry Walters attached helium balloons to his deckchair and rose to a height of 4.6 kilometres with the plan of shooting some balloons with a pellet gun so that the deckchair would slowly come down. He hadn’t meant to go that high, the original plan was about 10 metres or 30 feet. He shot some balloons, accidentally dropped the pellet gun overboard and eventually caused a 20 minute blackout in Long Beach California when the cords from the balloon got tangled in powerlines.

We are not talking that sort of stupid. Psalm 14 says it is about refusing to acknowledge the existence of God, which means that one of the new atheists, undoubtedly brilliant men, like Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins, comes much more easily to mind.

Now they undoubtedly fit the bill of people who say that God does not exist, but there are just a couple of other things to notice in verse 1, and the first is that it is not just an outward denial that we are talking about, it is an attitude of the heart. So yes, there may be an intellectual component but actually there is more going on here, it is an inward, personal attitude that says no, God is not there. And add to that the second half of the verse brings in the matter of action

‘They are corrupt; they do vile deeds. There is no-one who does good.’

Now that additional information makes it immediately harder and easier to find a fool. Harder, because we all know atheists, at least one person who will loudly and prouldly announce, ‘There is no god, it is all just superstition’ and so as soon as the Psalm begins, we think we’ve nailed the person it’s talking about,

and it turns out that we sort of have, but sort of haven’t, because it is talking about an attitude of heart which may or may not be publicly expressed, and overflows into wickedness of action, it is not just someone who thinks bad thoughts but who does bad things. That may have been Christopher Hitchens and it may be Richard Dawkins but if we are honest neither of them are particularly obvious as wicked people; actually there are plenty of people in the world where we might say much more easily, no they are corrupt, they do vile deeds,

in fact once you bring the whole question of what people do into it, you’d want to finger far more public 20th century atheists like Joseph Stalin, or Mao Zedong, or Hitler who said ‘Nature is cruel, therefore we are also entitled to be cruel’ ; people who both actively denied God and went out of their way to kill people, Christians included, who opposed their ideology.

We have to say there is no doubt in King David’s mind as to who the fools are. They are his enemies, in verse 4, they are the ones “who consume my people as they consume bread, they do not call upon the LORD.” But actually, when we think about it in those terms, there are many fools in the world.

We were up at CMS Summer school this week and had a wonderful time, including catching up with the Clarks from this congregation, andy and Nicole Clark and also Michael and Caroline Clark and their kids, who are going off to Munich for Michael to teach theology.

We heard news from every corner of the world, many wonderful things, and some awful things. did you know that in Eritrea, which is next door to Ethiopia, the Christians are undergoing terrible persecution. They are taking Christian leaders and putting them into containers. They are taking those containers and burying them, so that the men inside suffocate. These Christian leaders are being buried alive.

There are other stories too, I hope that if you don’t already, you will get hold of the magazine from the Barnabas fund which comes out every month and find out how Christians are suffering for being Christian in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Indonesia, Nigeria, the Sudan, Egypt, and many parts of the world, if only so that you can be prompted to pray for them on a regular basis.

The point of what I’m saying is that to be a fool is not simply to verbally or perhaps mentally deny that there is a God, that is, to be an atheist, but to carry that action out into the world. Jesus said that the two greatest commands are to Love God and to love your neighbour; the fool is the person who says, well there is no God, and who hates his neighbour and eats him up, he doesn’t love God, he doesn’t love man. That’s what a fool is.

And indeed once we realize that there is your picture of a fool, you actually realize that the question better asked is, who is righteous? Is there anyone who doesn’t act and think like a fool at least some of the time.

All of the people are all fools, some of the time. If Abraham Lincoln didn’t say it he should have.

Really, is there anyone righteous? Anyone who really does love God and love his neighbour?

Now we know that there must be righteous people, because David speaks of them in v 5. “God is with those who are righteous.”

Again in v6, “You sinners frustrate the plans of the afflicted, but the LORD is his refuge.”

And when we come back next week, we will hear even more about righteous people.

But for the moment, let’s look at ourselves not just from the perspective of David who writes the Psalm, but from the perspective of God himself.

vv 2-3

In other words, when God looks down on us, he finds no-one righteous.

That very idea is taken up by Paul when he quotes this very Psalm in Romans chapter 3, let me turn there now but if you have Ps 14 in front of you, please stay there while I read.

Romans 3:10-18

Paul, writing to Christians, picks up David’s Psalm and says that is absolutely true; possibly even truer than David knew. We are all fools! We are all people who say in our hearts, “God doesn’t exist”. What sort of person are you when no-one is looking, when not even family members are noticing? That is the person that God sees, and he sees people who think he doesn’t see them because they don’t see him, and when we are convinced that even God doesn’t see what we do, then we act accordingly.

So who is righteous?

Notice that David himself is righteous, the writer of this Psalm; and not because he is good! The second time this Psalm comes back, when it is pretty much repeated word for word in Psalm 53, is very shortly after Psalm 51 where David confesses and repents of adultery and murder. He is not righteous because he does good things!

Look with me at v 7

v 7

Here David is speaking as someone who is not a fool, but as someone who calls and cries out to God. Zion is the hill where Jerusalem is built. Jerusalem is the city of David, where God is not because he has to be, but because he has promised to be, and that is why David, in the face of fools, can call out for Israel’s deliverance to come from Zion. God will hear and rescue him, and everyone who with David calls out.

And this is of course where the Christian turns, for exactly the same hope. When Paul takes up this Psalm in Romans 3, he uses it to prove that there is no hope at all for any human being, because we are all corrupt in God’s eyes. We all have our own way of saying, “God doesn’t exist”, whether it’s in our secret thoughts, or our secret actions, or in the way we treat each other when we think we can get away with it.

But the very next thing that happens in Romans 3 is that Paul points us to the Lord Jesus, who is presented as a propitiation through faith in his blood. All the terrible things that we fools do, and that quite rightly deserve the terrible judgement of God who looks down from heaven and sees that all have turned away and become corrupt—all those terrible things have been paid for by the death of Jesus on the cross. He is our propitiation; he pays for all the wrong we’ve done, he bears God’s anger against our foolishness..

And so Psalm 14 isn’t in the end just a lament over fools, or over intellectual limitation, or over evil deeds; it’s a prayer of trust that the God who saved king David from his enemies will also save us, if we will put our trust in Jesus, so that there is for those who trust God nothing that will separate us from his great and powerful love revealed in Jesus Christ.

My plans for 2012

2011-12-22T12:48:00.002+11:00

Firstly, given that the Lord may return before 2012 anyway, and given that we have not in any way given up on 2011, and given that we want to be giving thanks for his grace at all times and in all places,

Merry Christmas!

And thanks to God who gives us his grace in so many ways, but most especially through the life, death and resurrection of his son, the Lord Jesus.

However I wanted to let blog and facebook readers know in a bit more detail what my plans are for 2012. They are in order of importance: one, to keep following Jesus as Lord; two, to keep loving my family in word and action; and three… well read on.

Due to family and personal circumstances I decided to take a break from AFES (Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students) work half way through 2010. I’m convinced under God that it was the right thing to do so, with some sadness, I finished up as campus director at the Cumberland campus of Sydney Uni.

There was never any intention to step back from the work of gospel ministry, however. So in the time since then, I’ve looked for opportunities to keep on teaching the Bible and God’s message of forgiveness in Jesus—whether in the family with my dear wife and daughters, or in meeting one-to-one with various people, or in preaching at church and elsewhere, including a series earlier this year on the book of Daniel at Cumberland campus.

As well as that I’ve done some writing, including some articles on the resurrection, and some writing and editing for a Bible course, Faith Under Fire for use in the Australian Defence forces, and drafting a statement of belief for a Christian school.

I’ve also been producing a video featuring broadcaster Kel Richards and evangelist John Chapman, and working with children’s gospel worker Bruce Linton in putting together a website for children’s ministry resources (we haven’t gone live on that one yet).

Together with the joys and responsibilities of family life, and part time work singing and playing the piano, and driving hearses, most weeks have become just as full and busy as any of the work that I was doing on campus!

However in God’s grace, a new possibility has come up for 2012. Having talked again to various friends in AFES, I will be starting work with the Conservatorium of Music (known to all and sundry as the Con, part of the University of Sydney) as soon as I am able to gain sufficient support to begin.

Initially I will be working two days per week, but there is a very good possibility that this will increase down the track once we all get a chance to see how things are going. The basic job will be the same as previously: Bible teaching, meeting with leaders and meeting one-to-one to read the Bible and pray, together with a team of others including some friends from St Andrew’s Cathedral, Andrew Lim and Sarah Cheng.

There’s a lot more to be said, but one of the things I must do before I can start is work on building a team of friends and supporters who will pray for the campus and the progress of the gospel, and possibly be willing to offer financial support as well. If you’re a facebook friend or a friend from other parts of life I may already have contacted you about this already, and thank you very much to those who’ve already said they want to be part of the support network for what I’m affectionately referring to as ‘the Con job’!

I’m already making plans to contact more people to ask if they (you?) would like more information about how to support the work of this ‘Con man’ in 2012. But if you don’t want to wait for my call or message, please let me know that. The best way is to message me on facebook and ask for more information, or you can send me an e-mail at ggordonc AT optusnet DOT com DOT au with the words ‘Con job’ (or something similar) in the subject line.

So that’s the latest, would love to tell you more and no doubt will do so through this blog or other means, but if want to make sure you find out, please make contact with me and let me know that.

UPDATE: You can contribute financially, if you wish, by going to this link and finding my name on the relevant drop-down menu.

http://www.afes.org.au/support

Advice please, on lingerie model advertisement

2011-11-23T11:12:00.003+11:00

Advice please.

I'm an older man who walks daughters past a lingerie model in the local shopping centre (photo, larger than life size). After school drop-off I went in to complain, saying that in my view the photo was not suitable for public display, and I didn't want said daughters walking past it.

Response from manager was: She was within her legal rights to display, and if the complaint was to be taken further, go to centre management.

She would be ready with her arguments which, in summary, were:

As a Christian, she didn't think the display was

a. provocative

b. immoral

c. illegal.

Different people would offer different opinions on a, and b, but she is correct on c.

What's best next?

beans...

2011-11-22T15:00:00.001+11:00

Going to try these beans.

1 lb fresh green beans (not frozen), stem end trimmed off
1 Tbs dark sesame oil
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

Preheat your oven to 450ºF while you trim off the stem ends of the green beans. Wash and thoroughly dry the beans.

Spread the beans on an aluminum foil lined baking sheet, then toss with the oil, salt, and pepper. Arrange the beans to fit on the baking sheet in a single layer. Cook for 10 minutes, then stir the beans and cook for another 5 to 10 more minutes, or until the skin is wrinkled and beginning to brown in places.

Let cool for a minute, add a dash more dark sesame oil, then commence super-sonic snacking.

Closing my Cumbo blog for a good reason!

2011-11-12T06:13:00.009+11:00

Somewhat late, but I am closing my Cumbo blog. You can read the last post here, or you can hear it here. ;-)

The spur to finally closing the Cumbo blog is to avoid any confusion. In the grace of God, I've begun support raising for a new job, hopefully beginning in early 2012, working two days a week with the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students, still at Sydney University but this time with the Conservatorium Christian Group.

Really excited about joining this team in what Fifi and I are already affectionately referring to as 'the Con job'.

Mozart A minor piano sonata

2011-11-04T22:43:00.002+11:00

Written about the time of his mother's death.

I've always thought what Grimaud expresses here:

Grimaud opened with Mozart’s Sonata in A Minor, playing it as if she were lashing a carriage down the streets of Salzburg. “It’s Mozart’s only sonata with fortissimo markings,” she says. “I like to think of it as something quite extreme, and that’s how I play it.”

From here.

Listen to her brilliant performance, here.

Halloween again

2011-10-30T06:44:00.002+11:00

Here are some thoughts on Halloween I posted about 12 months ago, in the form of a kid's talk at church.

Anyone here scared of spiders?

Hands up who wants to tell me what they're scared of?

I've got a scary joke book here. [visual aid: scary joke book. Read random joke]

I heard a programme on the radio this week where a lady said she was scared of lettuce.

Anyone scared of Pumpkins? [visual aid: Pumpkin]

Anyway it's Halloween time so there are a lot of pumpkins about, I hope you kids are going to be OK and that your parents will make sure that there are no pumpkins in your house or anywhere in the garden.

The Bible talks about scary stuff. Jesus actually met some of the things we're scared about. I can't tell you if he met any pumpkins, maybe after church some of you will be able to let me know about that. But he did meet a lot of other scary stuff. There was the time where he met a man who was full of demons.

(Insert summary of Mark 5:1-20 here. Punchline: 'You see how Jesus is much more powerful than even 2000 scary things?')

I guess if you see something scary today, which is Halloween, especially if something scary dressed like a pumpkin comes to your door, you get a choice of at least two things.

1. You can go out for pizza with your family. The pumpkin won't know where you are and will go to the next house. We do that quite a lot at Halloween, even though we sort of like pumpkins.

2. You can say hello pumpkin, have a lolly. Did you know Jesus is more powerful than any pumpkin, or any powerful thing in the whole world? Happy Halloween.

We may still go out that evening!

John Chapman on John Chapman and preaching

2011-10-19T22:09:00.009+11:00

I'm working to produce a DVD to go with John Chapman's latest book, Making the Most of the Cross. It's an interview between John and Kel Richards.

The first bit of interview between Kel Richards and John Chapman is here, 'On dying'.

The second bit is here, 'And what's the best thing about the Christian life'.

The third bit is here, 'Jesus our Saviour and Substitute'.

This is the last bit, where Chappo talks about himself and preaching. Yes there's more, and if you want it you'll have to wait until the DVD comes out!

Kel: John let’s get to know you a bit. Are you a Sydney boy, were you born in the bush? Where did you come from?

John: Well first of all let me say I’m a five generation Australian and I came from convict stock. My great-many-times-back granny was transported to the colony for passing dud fivers in the Strand. For that she got 10 years. Her husband made the fivers but there wasn’t enough evidence to convict him. He, gallant and all as he was, followed her to the colony. 10 years later and four boys she died.

He was a proper villain; he abandoned the boys and went home to England. The boys were brought up in Governor Macquarie’s NSW boys’ orphanage. They were taught to play cricket and 4 of them represented Australia in cricket. So I—my forebears had a bad beginning but they came good.

Kel: And you have rich blood in your veins—from those people.

John: Well there’s plenty of it. I’m always giving it at Pathology.

Kel: Now your childhood, where was that?

John: I grew up at Oatley and I was schooled there at an intermediate high school at Sutherland and then at Sydney Tech High.

Kel: Now you ended up going into teaching but before you went into teaching you became a Christian.

John: In my last year at high school—in my third year at high school—the boy I sat next to, Dick Tischer, became a Christian, and he began to evangelise me.

I deeply resented that, because he had hardly ever been to church but I’d grown up at church. So I thought—I mean if you go to church all your life you think you are a Christian. It’s nearly impossible to believe you’re not. But I knew nothing about Christianity.

I remember the first time it dawned on me that Christ died for me. It was a terrific shock to the system. I was at church and the guy preaching the sermon said ‘Do you know that Jesus died for you?’ I nearly answered him. And for the life of me I couldn’t work out why he died for me. And then the man said, ‘Do you know why?’ And again I nearly answered him.

And I realized for the first time that Christ had taken the punishment my sins deserved. I remember walking home from church that day and saying ‘Well you don’t have a leg to stand on, because up till now you thought it was about being good’.

But even I could see the stupidity of God saying to me on the day of judgement ‘what are you doing here unforgiven?’ and I say ‘Well I’ve lived a fairly decent life.' Cause He’d say ‘Do you think I’m mad? Why do you think I let my Son die?’

Well that was a big revelation and Dick Tischer was the one who really did that for me. And then I dug my heels in and went on for 12 months knowing I wasn’t Christian but not becoming one, because I didn’t want to have to admit that he was right and I was wrong, which again was stupid.

At 17 I turned to Christ, that was the best decision. I have never regretted that, not for a split second. And it changed the whole course of my life. I personally think for the better.

Kel: John Chapman, young Christian, finished high school, became a teacher. Why a teacher?

John: Neither my parents had finished their primary education. They were highly intelligent, but badly schooled. They didn’t think they were intelligent but they were.

I made all the decisions about my high school career, because Mum and Dad didn’t know anything about high school. Wasn’t their fault. And so I would ask Dad questions like ‘I’ve got to make a decision about whether I do Ancient History or Mechanics.’

Well Dad would look very wise and then he’d say ‘What do you think would be a good thing mate?’ And I’d say ‘Well I think I ought to do Mechanics’ and he’d say ‘Well seems good to me mate.’

So it took me years before I realized that I’d made all the decisions about my schooling. When I finally matriculated with English, Double Maths, Applied Maths, Physics and Tech Drawing, I wanted to do Ancient History.

Well there was no way anyone was going to pay for me to do Ancient History at a University, with Double Maths, Applied Maths, Physics and Tech Drawing. So I became a Manual Arts teacher, by default. I quite liked that, it was good fun and most of the boys liked it because they—it wasn’t like formal education.

Kel: But you didn’t spend most of your life as a teacher because you switched—still as a young man—to full time ministry. How and why?

John: I—Kel it is an interesting thing but when I left teachers college I decided that if I didn’t do exams I’d never study properly.

So I started doing the ThL course that you did for ordination, simply by reading the textbooks and sitting for the exam. So by the time I went to Moore College I’d 8 of the 10 subjects completed.

It’s not a very good way to teach yourself theology. You don’t learn theology by reading books, you learn theology by talking about it with other people, with other Christians about what the Bible means.

Kel: Discussing and debating...

John: Yeah. That’s the way you really learn. And although I had quite a bit of knowledge I wasn’t well educated theologically. I did some time at Moore College, all too little, and then I was ordained. I worked in the North West, in Armidale Diocese for ten years and then I came back to work in Sydney.

Kel: And you came back to work in Sydney as an evangelist and that’s what you spent most of your life, most of your years doing isn’t it?

John: Yes. When I look back on the Armidale days—I was called a youth director and then I went bald, so they changed the name to the Director of Christian Education. And—but I was really evangelising most of the time. And I came to work in the Department of Evangelism in Sydney, yes.

Kel: I was working for a radio station in Armidale when you were the youth— when you came to speak at our Baptist youth fellowship.

John: Yes.

Kel: And you did an illustrated talk. The drawings were awful but I still remember the talk.

John: Yes, I saw Owen Shelley do work at a children’s mission one afternoon and I came away and I thought to myself, I could do all that. So I started running children’s missions and they ran exactly like Owen Shelley had done that one. He may have done other things on other days but I never did.

Kel: Well you spoke about the conversion of Isaiah being in the temple and the great vision, and his mouth being touched by the hot coals and all the rest, awful pictures but a wonderful story.

John: There you go Kel, and that you can still remember it is highly flattering!

Kel: Now, evangelist for many years, you came to Sydney to be an evangelist.

John: Yes. I pioneered in Sydney a form of evangelism that we’d done in the country in Armidale. We’d ask people to host a meeting in their home, ask some of their non-church-going friends if they’d like to come and talk with me about Christianity. And I would give a short talk and then they would ask questions and I would try and answer them.

Kel: Now your years in the department led you to spend the rest of your life preaching the gospel and teaching the Bible, both here and overseas.

John: Yes. Yes, I had a lot of experience here doing that, and I got some invitations to England and I went to America on a couple of occasions.

Kel: Did university missions, did all kinds of things.

John: Yes.

Kel: When you look back over those years, was that a really rewarding, rich time, having the opportunity to stand in front of that many people and tell them the gospel?

John: It was interesting, when I went to England the first time they put me on a bigger platform than I had ever been on in Sydney.

If you pay for an air ticket to bring somebody half way around the world they have to be good don’t they by definition, so I suddenly became good overnight by definition, and what surprised me was that I could do it. They thought I could do things which I never thought I could do.

Adrian Lane, who is an old friend of mine, was the president of Sydney University’s EU. He said, “We want you to come and mission at Sydney University for us.” I said no, you ought to get a graduate to do that for you. He said, I should have thought I’d get an evangelist.

And I said yes, they’re not mutually exclusive, you know that? And he said, no, but you’ve got to go for the best evangelist; that’s what I’ve done. So there was a long argy-bargy about that. And because I’d never been to a university I thought they were all terribly clever, but they’re just like the fellowship kids at church. They are intelligent but they don’t know much about life. And he said, they’re just like the fellowship kids.

And when I thought about it I said, yeah that’s what they are, I could do that. And so I began with Paul Barnett at Sydney University, then I missioned several times with Phillip [Jensen], the students at Oxford and Cambridge University invited me to give a series of lectures for them, and I suppose in terms of university mission that’s the sort of pinnacle, they are the great universities of England.

Kel: And you’ve invested a lot of your life in teaching other people to preach, haven’t you?

John: I’ve tried to. I’ve tried to set myself as a model that other people could copy. If you take a preacher like Phillip [Jensen], he’s almost unique, isn’t he.

Kel: Yes, only he can do what he does.

John: And when people try to copy what he does, they muck it up nearly every time. He is such a clever communicator. And my dear friend Dick Lucas in London is like that. He breaks all the rules but you remember the sermon, ‘cause he’s good. And he, he can see when people are losing interest, and he changes his tack immediately.

I think I’ve heard Phillip making up illustrations on his feet. And I think, no that’s not one of yours, you’ve made that up for this occasion, you’ve got to be cracking to do that haven’t you? I’ve never been guilty of that in my life. I’ve often thought of a clever thing on the way home in the car. But never on the deck.

Now I thought, I ought to preach sermons which, when I’m gone, they’d say well there wasn’t anything marvellous about that, I could do that.

And I’ve tried to do that all the time. And I remember one day at the Bible college the kids came racing back they said, do you know Rico Tice preached one of your sermons? I said Did he? They said Yeah. I said was it good? They said it’s not the point. I said it is the point! Was it any good? They said, it was great Chappo. Well, I said how’d you know it was mine. They said it’s in the back of Setting Hearts on Fire. I said man, if it’s in the public arena, it’s in the public arena. It belongs to anybody.

What he didn’t know was I’d pinched it from somebody else! And I’m good for a pinched sermon from anywhere, they’re so hard to put together.

Kel: I was struggling to put together a talk once and I came to you and asked, I said, I don’t know how to explain this, and you gave me an illustration. And at the end you said Kel, bear in mind anyone will give you an outline, only a friend will give you an illustration!

John: [Laughs] That’s right! Well Kel I tell you what I was in church at Bingara one morning and I heard my dear friend Peter Chiswell preaching and it was such a good sermon that I repeated it at Inverell in the afternoon, and it was a broadcast service and he heard it.

And he wrote to me next week and said here are three more outlines, and I know you don’t mind pinching them from other people. And I was always glad to get an outline from him, they were always good.

Music Typewriter

2011-10-14T16:59:00.000+11:00

Music Typewriter:

Behold the neatest typewriter you'll see today: the Keaton Music Typewriter
that types musical notes on blank sheet music.

The typewriter is so rare that less than a dozen are believed to still
exist (and you can get one for a mere $6K on Etsy): Link
- via Notcot

Chappo: Jesus our Saviour and Substitute

2011-10-13T19:13:00.006+11:00

The first part of these bits of interview between Kel Richards and John Chapman is here, 'On dying'. The second part is here, 'And what's the best thing about the Christian life'.

Kel: John let’s talk about your new book, Making the Most of the Cross.

John: Yes, nobody thinks more highly of my work than I do, brother.

Kel: (Laughs) No-one happier to talk about it than you.

John: No!

Kel: Can I say one of the things that really struck me about the book is that you spend half the book on the cross and half on the resurrection, and you say we shouldn’t think of them as two separate events, they’re two halves of the one event.

John: Yes.

Kel: What do you mean by that?

John: When Jesus dies, there’s a sense in which his death is like everybody else’s. But there’s a sense in which it’s absolutely unique. What Jesus did when he died on the cross, I could not do. That is, I cannot bear the punishment for the sin of the whole world, because I’ve got to bear my own punishment. But Jesus, who is sinless, takes upon himself the sin of the world. OK. So far, so good.

In other parts of the Bible it says, the wages of sin is death. If you sin, you will die. So if your sins are dealt with, shouldn’t we expect the opposite of death, that is, undeath—resurrection. So because Jesus is—in terms of the old prayer book—a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, how do you know that it worked? Because he rose again from the dead.

In fact if he doesn’t do the opposite to death, it didn’t work.

Kel: So when God raises him from the dead, he’s saying, I accept the payment, it has all worked.

John: Yes. That’s exactly right. It says lots of things. Like the death of Jesus says lots of things.

Kel: Well let’s unpack the different things that it says. Talk about the death and then we’ll talk about the resurrection.

John: Yes.

Kel: In the first place, it’s about salvation, and you say in your book, that’s even in his name. Someone said that the name of Jesus, translated out of Greek into Australian would mean something like ‘God to the Rescue’.

John: Yes.

Kel: Does it mean that?

John: Yes. It means exactly that. And, when I became a Christian at the age of 17, which is too far back for me to calculate now, but we used to talk about ‘being saved’.

It’s dropped off the vocabulary of most people, they don’t like it, because it always appears to them to be radical and fundamentalist nonsense. But it’s a good description of what happened to me. It says in the Bible of people who put their trust in Jesus that they were ‘delivered from the coming wrath’. [See 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10] The judgement of God is real, and our age of course never thinks about death. If you want to bring a dinner conversation to a crashing, grinding halt, just whisper to your hostess, have you given any thought to your death lately? See how that goes down.

Kel: (laughing) You won’t be invited back, will you John.

John: You’ll be struck of the Chrissy card list, brother. But you see, the Victorians, they were so close to death, and every Victorian novel’s got a deathbed scene, and then a scene on the wake. Most people are not with their loved ones when they die now.

Kel: It’s all in hospitals, it’s all medicalized.

John: And they’re removed away, you’re in the way as it were.

Kel: Yes.

John: And our age pretends it’s never going to happen. Which is the great fad of everybody trying to look younger.

Kel: So we need to face the fact that there’s something we need to be saved from.

John: Yes. You see, I am not ready to meet God unless I’m forgiven. If I stand in the presence of God unforgiven, and he says, what is this man’s track record like? they say, in terms of loving you and serving you, he was careless.

Now when you are forgiven, and God says, what is his track record like, they say, there’s nothing written against him.

They say, how is that possible?

And Jesus says, I erased the record when I died for him. And there’s a verse in the Bible which says exactly that. [Colossians 2:14 ?]It comes from the root word ‘to wash away’ and it says, the record of our sins are washed away. It’s why we can be right with God. And Kel, it’s very good. It’s good to know that you’re right with God

Kel: Fixed up forever.

John: Yes. I was surfing once in Avoca, and the waves were breaking further out than I normally—I body-surf—you can’t actually see my full extent here.

Kel: I’ll try to imagine it.

John: Well you’ll have no trouble imagining it. I caught one of those brilliant waves, you know you’re rocketing, I was going to say, like a dolphin but I think more like a whale in my case. I’m coming towards the shore, the waves are curling up round my cheeks, and it was just brilliant.

There is no fool like an old fool, is there. I thought I’ll go one more time.

So I swam out. I’d been treading water I suppose for about five minutes, and I looked around and the beach had drifted quite a long way away, and I said to myself, old man, you’d better get closer in to the beach.

So I turned around and I swam carefully for as long as I could; I flipped on my back to catch a breath, and I looked and the beach seemed just a little bit further.

At that stage I looked over my shoulder to see if I could see New Zealand, I didn’t want to waste time going in the wrong direction.

And a head bobbed up in front of me in the surf, he said you alright mate? I said no. He said d’you need a hand? I said yeah. He said, Gimme your hand I’ll drag you in.

And we worked together for a long time and the feet hit the bottom, it’s a lovely feeling. Mind you they’re only there for a split second and the next wave lifts you up, it doesn’t matter.

He said to me, old man, you’re too far out for an old man like you. And I made the understatement of the century I said to him, well actually I wasn’t out that far when I started.

But you see, can you imagine anybody being so stupid as to say, no I don’t need help, I’m alright, I always swim out here.

Kel: So Jesus is that rescuer.

John: Yes

Kel: He’s the ultimate life saver

John: Of course!

Kel: You also say, because there’s a whole lot of things that the cross accomplishes, you also say what’s important it’s that Jesus being a substitute. Talk to us about that for a moment.

John: Yes. Jesus substituted himself in my place.

Tell you what, I was at the doctor’s on Monday, and driving home past the little church at Condell Park there’s a notice up and it says Jesus did a trade. He traded his life for yours.

See, somebody’s got to take the consequences of my sin. I’ve done them. They’re there. Something’s got to be done. And I can take the punishment, or I can accept the gift that Jesus did when he took the punishment.

So you can say, I should’ve been there on the cross, but Jesus is there taking my place.

I often say when I’m teaching little children, say in side your head while I say it out loud, Jesus Christ died for me. Jesus Christ died for me. You’ve got to be an important person if God lets his son die for you. You see and that’s what he did, he substituted himself in place of me.

We’re used to that idea. Parents always substitute themselves for their children, when they’ve committed crimes, by paying their fines. You see, we’re used to that idea.

Kel: You said to me once, that it’s only the star of the movie who has a stand-in to take the risks.

John: Yeah.

Kel: And God has seen us as being that important that he sends his own stand-in.

John: Yeah. And a very good one he is too, I might say.

And what's the best thing about the Christian life?

2011-10-12T21:50:00.006+11:00

This is more of an interview I'm transcribing, between John Chapman and Kel Richards, from a bit earlier this year. Check yesterday's piece of brilliance, On dying.

This starts in on the Christian life and somehow transmutes into a meditation on the possibilities and deep desire for the new creation.

Kel: And what is the best thing about the Christian life?

John: Ah brother, it’s all good. It’s all good. I remember hearing a bloke telling us about becoming a Christian, he was asked that question; he said, the whole box and dice!

See what could be better than to know your sins are forgiven? What could be better to know that you’re friends with God?

When I was a boy my father hardly ever called me by my Christian name. The only time he ever called me John was when I was in deep trouble. And I always went to ground when he called ‘John’. He called me Ned and I would call him George, neither of which were our names, but they were intimate names of affection—

Kel: Friendship names

John: Yes. And it just said ‘I love you’. I care about you.

And I can’t think of anything better than to be able to call God Father. Paul says when we cry ‘Abba Father’, it is the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And to have God as a loving, caring Father—I know that some people have had fathers who aren’t—but ‘Father’ is a big word, it’s not a little word, it means more than ‘my father’, and to have God as Father, oh man, that is really something.

It’s great to know that God keeps guiding you through life, he said ‘I’ve got my hand on you for good. I’m going to see that the best things happen for you’. [See Jeremiah 24:6] Well that’s, nothing wrong with that is there? And the retirement benefits are great.

You see to look forward to the new creation—there’s a lovely poem in Isaiah [Isaiah 11], it says, ‘In the new creation the lion will eat straw with the ox’, that’s very good news for the ox isn’t it? He normally gets eaten by the lion.

And best of all, ‘the child will play at the nest of the viper.’ My observation is that people spend hours seeing that their kids are not in danger. But in the new creation you won’t need to worry, there’ll be nothing’ll hurt them. Nothing’ll destroy them.

This is a wonderful world. I’ve been on the top of Niagara Falls in high spring, on the Canadian side there’re all tulips and two enormous magnolias. The daffodils grow wild on the edge of the fall. And there’s always enough mist blown up for a big rainbow. It’s perfect. It’s just lovely.

I’ve been in the Western plains of New South Wales, where ninety percent of the scenery’s sky, the horizon’s about that far off the ground, and at night time the whole thing’s a blaze of lights. And like a little child I’d say to God ‘Do it again, do it again’, it’s so beautiful.

I was at a performance of the Midsummer Night’s Dream by the Royal Shakespeare Company and I laughed so much I fell out of the chair onto the floor. And I thought, it is so brilliant, people are so clever.

In the aftermath of the opening of the Sydney Opera House I went to a concert where Lorin Maazel and the Cleveland Orchestra played Beethoven, and Kirsten Flagstad, that great soprano, the German soprano, sang ‘Elizabeth’s Greeting’ from Tannhauser. When she came onto the stage she was like a battleship in full dress. And I thought—the orchestra began to play—and I thought, there is nobody who can sing above that din, I’ll never hear her.

And suddenly a voice rang out, like a canon and as clear as a bell, and there followed the most brilliant twenty minutes of music making I’d ever heard. And I was beside myself. I didn’t have enough limbs to clap and stamp with. And the guy in front looked around, I said ‘Shout, shout, she might just do it again!’ And it’s brilliant.

But it is all so mucked up, isn’t it? I saw the other night on television a million Soviet soldiers were killed in the Siege of Leningrad. A million! That’s like one in every twenty Australians! And you say to yourself, Oh, if only I could get rid of that rotten part.

One of the old ladies in this village had her purse snatched, it had five bucks in it! And the damage that’s been done to her is like a million bucks. She’s frightened to go out of the front door, that’s wicked, do that to a poor old thing.

And it’s both breathtaking and horrifying at one and the same time.

And when I think about the new creation, brother, it’s just like the sunset and the rainbow and Kirsten—I know Kirsten Flagstad’s not everybody’s cup of tea, but you’ll have a cup like it. And you say, gee this is a marvellous world.

I remember when I was diagnosed as a diabetic, I was on the brink of going to England and I said to my specialist, I was planning to go overseas. He said, to where? I said to London. He said ‘this may surprise you, they know about diabetes in London.’ And you say to yourself… do you know they’re doing experiments now where they’re activating pigs’ livers to create insulin, I think in a decade there’ll be a cure for it. And you say, isn’t that brilliant? That people put their mind to that?

And I want that world that’s just brilliant without the wretched parts to it. And being a Christian I think has helped me to be a realist. I used to be a romantic, but it’s helped me to be a realist, and say, we have mucked this world up properly. We really have mucked it up. With terrific potential, we use it for terrible evil. Why am I like that?

And Kel it sounds like a sermon coming on doesn’t it?

Kel: A build-up to it certainly

John: Yeah! Quite a good one, I think I’ll make a few notes cause I tend to forget things these days.

Kel: They’ll give you a copy of the tape, then you can jot them…

John: Oh good.

The whole interview links in part to Chappo's new book, Making the Most of the Cross".

On dying

2011-10-11T11:58:00.016+11:00

Here's part of a conversation between John Chapman and Kel Richards on the subject of growing old and dying.

Kel: John Chapman, I get the impression that getting older, aging and sickness, is not a lot of fun.

John: It depends. If you’re sick, it’s no fun being sick, everybody knows that. And it often is associated with growing old isn’t it. Your parts do start to fall apart. You gather up specialists like some people gather stamps. I always keep saying the next book I’m going to write is called, Another Year, Another Specialist.

But I lost two last year, which you may think is careless.

There are fun things about growing old, because people’s expectations lower. They don’t expect you to do much, and that’s quite nice, because if you don’t want to you don’t have to.

And if you do anything which is out of the ordinary, they’re quite surprised and you feel good about that.

But chronic sickness is no fun whichever way you look at it. And I think you’ve got to be a non-realist to pretend—you know those sort of people who say, ‘my granny got run over by a bus this morning praise the Lord’.

And I want to say, for goodness sake wake up. And if you’re honest, you do spend a lot of time going to your doctor…s, of which you’ve got, you know, many, and a lot of the time of the elderly is spent in just putting all their gear on, to start with.

Kel: If someone said to you, Chappo, I know there are some people who handle chronic sickness well, and some who handle it badly; I want to handle it well, how can I approach chronic sickness and handle it sensibly?

John: Kel, the more I think about growing older, is, it’s hard not to be self-centred, because you do spend a lot of time looking after yourself and getting ready to face the day, and I think it’s hard for your world not to sort of creep in and diminish. You’ve got to work hard at being concerned for other people, I think. And the people who seem to me to handle their sickness well have got an eye out to help other people.

I think it helps to know that you’ve got God with you. I can’t imagine what it’s like to live without the hope that comes for knowing that you’re right with God.

Kel: If someone said to you, Chappo, why is there such sickness in the world, what’s the answer?

John: The Bible’s answer is that when we turned our back on God and said, Leave me be, God said alright. I’ll leave you be. But he keeps warning us that all things are not right. You see, if you lived in a world where nobody got sick and nothing ever went wrong, and it was all Pollyanna-ish and, and —would you worry about God? You wouldn’t. You’d say, I’m in heaven now.

And you would be.

And because I’m not in heaven now, I live in a world that’s just ideal for me, because every now and again it says, ‘Oops! Everything’s not right.’ And if you say, why isn’t it right? Well you say, you turn your back on God, that’s what you ask for. Now we’re all caught up in that bind, so the world in which we live is an ideal environment for people who are not right with God. It keeps saying, all is not well.

Kel: It’s a poke in the ribs to say, ‘Pay attention’.

John: That’s right.

Kel: It’s not working.

John: That’s right. And sometimes it’s a big poke in the ribs. It’s a poke in the eye with a blunt stick. And you say to yourself, you know, did I do something for this to happen? And the answer from the Bible is, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus says neither, but you want to see what I can do? Watch this. And he heals him. [See John 9]

Kel: For those of us who turn from our way to God’s way and give our lives to Jesus Christ, we in effect get the same message Jesus gave to the repentant thief, 'you will be with me in paradise'. [Luke 23:43]

John: Yes.

Kel: As you get older, how important is that hope?

John: One of the things that was interesting to me when I came to live in a retirement village was, I was surrounded by lovely Christian people. They had their trust in Jesus, there was no two ways about that, they’d come to terms with their sins, they’d put their trust in Jesus, they knew what it was to be forgiven. But because nobody had taught them about death and life after death, they weren’t looking forward to dying, and they certainly weren’t looking forward to the new creation. Now when I read the Bible stories about the new creation, they’re so exciting!

One poem in Isaiah says, they will beat their swords into ploughshares, their spears into pruning hooks [Isaiah 2:4]. Imagine a world…you can’t imagine a world without war! For as long as I’ve been alive we’ve been at war with somebody.

And to say there’ll be a time when there’ll be no war—it’s breathtaking.

Kel: And in that world with no war there is also no illness.

John: Well, then you get to the New Testament, He says, no more tears, no more pain, which is good for the elderly I can tell you, no more crying, no more death. You see, death’s a terrible curse isn’t it?

In this village where I live there are people whose spouses have died between selling their house and moving in. Now it’s a big enough trauma to sell your house and move. But to have your partner die on the way, that’s a terrible tragedy isn’t it.

And you would think it was all 'Pollyanna' if it wasn’t for the fact that that’s exactly what Jesus does...

So they’ve had the funeral, they’re carrying the coffin out, the widow’s son of Nain, Jesus says young man I say to you arise and the bloke sits up in his coffin. [Luke 7:11-17]

Now Kel I’ve done hundreds of funerals, and it’s never occurred to me to give that a try, enough trouble at funerals without importing idiots aren’t there.

Can you imagine that?

The bloke sits up in his coffin!

So when Jesus says in the new creation, there’ll be no death, well you say, well he can pull that off, can’t he?

Kel: Well in fact foolish people talk about the fact that, I want to die a good death. Every death is a bad death, every death is a reminder of sin.

John: Oh absolutely, and Kel, we ought to make a distinction between dying, and the process of dying. My observation is that the process of dying can be no fun at all. I mean, I’m a born romantic from ways back. I want to go to bed one night and wake up in heaven. But the chances of that happening are fairly slight, aren’t they.

Kel: So, talk to us about Jesus for a moment, because Jesus actually does our dying for us. What does he do, how does that work?

John: The Bible says that when Jesus died on the cross, he took the punishment which I deserve and you deserve, and Old Uncle Tom Cobbley and all. The sin of the whole world, he took on himself, so that he can give to us the gift of forgiveness.

It’s like as if when you turn to Christ, you get a certificate that says ‘The bearer has borne all his sins’.

And you say, well, where’d you get that from? It was given to me by Jesus. Well that’s OK if he wants to give it to you, he’s certainly earned it. If he wants to give that to you as a gift, that’s his business.

Now you see, to know that I’m right with God is terrifically stabilizing in a world which is changing.

The thing about the elderly is they’re always complaining about the fact that it’s changing. When decimal currency came in I said to my ancient mother, how are you getting on with the decimal currency?

She said, isn’t it a fool of a thing John? Wouldn’t you think they’d have waited until all the old people died before they changed things? Which I think is brilliant.

Kel: She didn’t say she was going to go on using the old money because she liked it?

John: Well she converted everything back to pounds, shillings and pence so she knew how much it was costing.

But you see, to know that you’re right with God, it’s marvellous. And to know that when you get there and you meet him face to face, eyeball to eyeball on the day of judgement, he’s going to say, how good it is to see you old friend. I mean, you can’t think of anything better than that can you?

Kel: No, you can’t indeed. In fact TC Hammond used to say, they said to Hammond, what’ll it be like when you die? And he said oh the moment after I die, I’ll hear Jesus say, Father, this is Tom, I died for him. Hard to think of anything better, isn’t it?

John: Yes!

Kel: Talk to me about old people for a moment. We tend to think that as people get older they will think more about God, they will think more about their relationship with God. Do they or don’t they?

John: Well Kel I used to believe before I was converted that if you were a good person you’d probably be right with God. Now the funny thing was I wasn’t all that good. I laboured under the misapprehension that when I grew old, I’d be ever so terribly good to make up for lost time. That’s stupid. When you get old, you don’t become a different person. You’re the same person who was always there, only it takes you longer to do things. Why I thought I’d be able to catch up I’ve no idea. See, when you become old, you don’t become different.

One of the nice parts about living in this [retirement] village is, collectively, we’ve got an enormous amount of knowledge. If you want to know how to do something, there’s somebody here to teach you. And, that’s the nice part about living with a hundred and twenty, hundred and fifty people. Amongst us all, we’ve got a massive amount of skills. You want to learn to use the computer, the computer club’ll spend time, and they’ve got it, to do with you. If you want to play chess and board games, there’s someone who’ll play with you in the living, in the sitting room.

Kel: So if old age is just like the rest of life, then older people, even though death is approaching, don’t give any extra thought to God.

John: Don Howard used to tell a story of a man he visited in Burwood East. And he urged this man to turn to Christ, he was fit and well. And he said Don I don’t need God.

Don said I visited him in hospital where he was lapsing in and out of consciousness. And Don said you don’t have a lot of time left, you should turn to Christ. And he said you don’t think a fit man like me is about to die do you?

Now you see, if you’ve spent a lifetime of saying no, why would you suddenly say yes? There’s no more new information to have. I’m a sinner; Christ died for me; I need to repent; I need to trust him. If I don’t believe that when I’m seventeen, there’s odds on I won’t believe it at 37.

Kel: Or 77.

John: But at 77 I’ve said no so many times, I hardly need to think about it. And that’s why as you get older, you’ve got to take great care. See it’s possible to have been mistaken. And if you’ve been mistaken for a long time, you really start to want to to dig your heels in and pretend you’re right when you know you’re wrong. But the people I admire are the people who say, I’m stupid, I’ve been wrong.

Kel: So can people do that at any age? Is it possible that at any age to say ‘I’ve got it wrong, I’ve offended God, I want to come back.’?

John: I preached one day at Holy Trinity Adelaide. On the way out a lady said to me, I am 87, and this day I’ve told God I’m going to stop fighting him, and I’m going to put my trust in Him. I said well gee you’ve only just made it sister haven’t you. I said, You were lucky to have stayed alive. She said yes, and I think I’ve been foolish. And I said well, I agree with you. Yeah.

[This is part of an interview that Kel Richards did with John Chapman earlier this year. I'm transcribing it for a DVD. More to come!]

We're in for trouble on free speech

2011-09-29T21:26:00.003+10:00

This is bad news.

When Christians speak against the teaching of Muslims or the teaching of homosexuals, they will end up in similar bother and worse, in the near future.

Here's a word of comfort when that day comes.

Riots in London

2011-08-13T06:28:00.003+10:00

They are predictable, but no less shocking or disturbing for the fact that you could have seen them coming twenty, some would say 200, years ago.

... the European model, and the British version of it, certainly include a lavish welfare state, multiculturalism, a high level of economic regulation, the eclipse of any special place for religion (especially Christianity), and political correctness.

That's Greg Sheridan, from here.

Elton Trueblood said that we're living in a cut flower civilization. Everything we love about living in the West comes from the soil of Christianity. But cut the flower from its roots, and it can't be kept alive forever in the vase.

If you were hoping for a similar type of civilization to emerge in your lifetime, assuming you could live 200 years, you'd move first to China, and then contemplate a move to Africa.

The conspiracy theory

2011-07-27T10:50:00.003+10:00

For those who want to believe, a word from Doug Wilson:

As Jonathan Kay has observed, one of the basic features of the conspiratorial mindset is a deep belief in the hypercompetence of the evil cabal that runs the world. But the Calvinist believes that the Holy Spirit runs the world, and that the conspiracies that do exist to resist Him are to be considered on a spiritual level with the Keystone Kops. The Lord laughs; He holds them in derision.

He says it here, on his Blog and Mablog blog.

For those who love Sydney

2011-07-02T07:40:00.002+10:00

For those who love Sydney, and want to remember the world as it was 50 years ago, this blog is worth following.

Chicken for five days, cheep

2011-06-21T05:11:00.003+10:00

Probably not five days in our house.

But I found this series of recipes for stretching a single large chicken over five days, here.

I'm going to try the first couple at least.

What is idolatry?

2011-06-13T18:02:00.003+10:00

Hi all, not dead, just busy with other parts of life.

Wrote a kid's spot on idolatry. It's posted on the Sola Panel, here.

For action on this blog, click through and check the right hand column to see what I've been reading.

The Cross and Spiritual Warfare

2011-04-27T22:39:00.003+10:00

I took these notes from Peter Jensen's talk just under a week ago, at the Cathedral Easter Convention.

The Cross and Spiritual Warfare
Talk by PFJ
April 22 2011
Reading Col 2:13-23

The name of Christ is not so much written into history as ploughed into history.

Why was PFJ’s dad so quick and confident to assure him that there was no such thing as ghosts? Anyway, it was reassuring to a young boy with nightmares.

PFJ met Nigerian bishop Josiah Fearon who didn’t hesitate to ascribe certain sounds to spirits—though more so in Nigeria than in Sydney! What’s going on?

1. The Spiritual enemies of Man
a. The world
b. The devil
c. The flesh

2. The profile of personal evil
a. The miasma of personal evil
b. The operation of personal evil
c. The grip of personal evil

3. Our champion in the conflict against personal evil
a. In life
b. In death
c. Through forgiveness
d. Through adoption

4. Sharing in his victory
a. After the decisive moment
b. Between the ages
c. Clothed in the gospel
d. Faith and love
e. Trust the Lord; turn from evil

1. The Spiritual enemies of Man

The world, the flesh and the devil are the enemies.

a. The world

The World’s culture and philosophy can convince us of our own and humanity’s unqualified greatness.
Or the World and its culture can convince us of the ultimate value of sensual pleasure, even creating a culture of licentiousness.
Or the World can convince us to fear human power.
So the World and its culture is one of the enemies of man.

b. The devil

There is a spiritual world and it is dangerous. Defection into matters occult is a risk for those who accept the reality of Satan and demons.

c. The flesh

We sin, and become more aware of our personal sin as we grow in our Christian life.

Ephesians 2:1-3 brings these together.

Eph. 2:1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
In the face of this, the cross is the centrepoint of Christ's work in reconciling the world to himself.

Col. 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

Not suggesting that all things will acknowledge him willingly or be saved. His enemies will be pacified.

It was the evil powers that conspired to bring about the death of Jesus.

1Cor. 2:6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
What does the cross do for us now? How does it apply in this context?

2. The profile of personal evil

a. The miasma of personal evil

The world, most cultures would agree, is not merely the material things that we can see or touch, but is populated by spirits as well; and the spirit world intersects with the human world. Those spirits are seen by some as ‘gods’—beings a step or three higher than humans who from time to time interfere with human life. Therefore superstition is rampant. Events, particularly bad events, are seen as the operation of an evil spirit, or an evil person (such as a magician or a wizard) controlling the spirits.

The New Testament also gives this sense of a world populated by evil spirits, organized against God—Satan the chief of them.

Gal. 4:3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.
Gal. 4:9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years! 11 I am afraid I may have laboured over you in vain.
‘elementary principles’ (=Gk ta stoicheia); spiritual forces of some sort that Paul here speaks out against.

b. The operation of personal evil

These forces are characterized by deception.

A classic verse about the devil:

John 8:44 You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

The devil is the father of lies. When people are deceived then Satan has worked. Satan loves to foster lies, because lies break relationship, in particular, relationship with God. Hence in Mark’s gospel:

Mark 4:15 And these are the ones along the path, where the word is sown: when they hear, Satan immediately comes and takes away the word that is sown in them.

2Cor. 4:4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

Fear of death:

Heb. 2:14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

Persecution:

1Pet. 5:8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.

BUT

Rev. 12:7 Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, 8 but he was defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world— he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. 10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. 11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. 12 Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

c. The grip of personal evil

John 12:31 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

In these verses Jesus has acknowledged that the world belongs to Satan (but note too that his death breaks Satan’s power). See also:

1John 5:19 We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

We ought not to be surprised by the existence or power of unbelief.

3. Our champion in the conflict against personal evil

a. In life

In Matthew 4, three times Satan aims darts at the head of Jesus, and he uses shield of faith and sword of the word of God to defeat him. This is not primarily a model for us to follow in our war against Satan, but an encouragement that our champion has not failed. He has beaten the devil on his behalf—like PFJ’s older (by 6 years) brother Ralph coming to help against playground bullies.

In many ways Jesus was tested.

He was tested by attack eg Mark 5 Legion. Jesus takes charge. This, again, is not a model for us in dealing with demons. It is the Lord Jesus who takes charge, not us.

He was tested by slander—people claimed that this was the devil at work through Jesus.

He was tested by temptation to deviate from his God-given mission eg Peter’s denial that Jesus would suffer and die.

b. In death

John 12:30 Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. 31 Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. 32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”

Col. 1:13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Through Jesus’ death he brings about forgiveness and adoption

c. Through forgiveness

Col. 2:13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

d. Through adoption

We have been brought, together with the Jews, into a triumphant fellowship in Christ.

Eph. 3:10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him. 13 So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.

We have been set free from slavery to religion and rules because we are adopted as sons and daughters of the living God

Gal. 4:1 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”

Col. 2:16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. 18 Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, 19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

Col. 2:20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— 21 “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” 22 ( referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? 23 These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

Thus our relationship with the world is changed. We are in Christ, set free, we don’t fear the evil spirits, the ancestors, the ghosts. Because Christ has broken the power of these things, we are free.

We can’t bless ‘things’ (like wedding rings, or food), for example. We have no warrant to be superstitious in this way.

5. Sharing in his victory

a. After the decisive moment

We live after the decisive moment, the moment when Satan has been defeated. The victory has been won in the cross.

b. Between the ages

We live between the ages. The victory has been won but Christ has not returned yet to judge the world. However, we have the power of the Holy Spirit now, an assurance to us that the victory will be completed.

c. Clothed in the gospel

Ephesians 6.

Eph. 6:10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. 14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, 19 and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, 20 for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.

We don’t have to buckle the armour on a piece at a time. We are now armoured. We have all these things, and we have them from the moment we became Christians.

Now trust what God has given you in the Scriptures, in the gospel, as you battle against the evil one and the spiritual forces of wickedness. We have prayer and trust in the word of God as our resource, in other words we have the resources of the gospel.

We mustn’t fall back into superstition and magic, eg fear of Freemasonry. Just having a father or grandfather who was a Mason, or happening to own some of the articles associated with freemasonry; is of no spiritual danger to us. Though Freemasonry is wrong, there is no spiritual danger or threat from the ‘objects’ of Freemasonry, or having a family ancestry that includes freemasons. There is nothing in the Bible to support such an idea.

d. Faith and love

We walk instead by faith operating in love. We shouldn’t scorn the superstitious (see the example of freemasonry just above) but lovingly bring them to truth. 1 Cor 8 gives an example of Paul doing and exhorting this in the matter of food offered to idols.

e. Trust the Lord; turn from evil

The real power isn’t occult power like ouija boards. Don’t dabble, but trust the Lord who has broken these things through the blood of Christ.

Rev. 12:10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. 11 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.

PFJ’s dad was right, in a sense. He was expressing a Christian insight, that Satan is nothing to worry about but has been defeated. This was rediscovered at the time of the Reformation, when magic ceased to have the hold that it did in peoples’ minds. Do not fear!

The Cross and Human Suffering

2011-04-24T19:20:00.003+10:00

I took these notes at the Cathedral 2 days ago, from Phillip Jensen's talk at the Cathedral Easter Convention.

The formatting is all over the place, but what you have here is what was typed on the afternoon. It's the outline, followed by the notes.

The Cross and Human Suffering

PDJ
April 22, 2011

3 points.

1. Human suffering

a. Normal abnormal
b. Creation and fall
c. Pain
d. General fall
e. Particular and specific suffering

2. Christ and Christian suffering

a. Christ’s suffering
b. Christian suffering
i. Increases our suffering
ii. Reduces the pain
iii. Enabling us to endure with patience and joy.

3. 1 Peter

[Outline ends]

1. Human suffering
a. Normal abnormal

Sickness is quantitatively normal but feels abnormal.

Sickness is abnormal, in that it is a sign of the curse of death given by God.

b. Creation and fall

Gen. 3:15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
Gen. 3:16 To the woman he said,
“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.”
Gen. 3:17 And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”

c. Pain

Rom. 8:19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? General fall
This pain will come to an end.

Rev. 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

But for the moment, there is suffering, which is felt as pain. We can medicate it eg strong drink for those who are poor (Prov 31), but even the medicating can cause problems and suffering.

d. General fall

It is the human condition to suffer. Eg John 9. Eg Job’s friends were wrong to suggest a specific sin as the cause of his suffering. Satan is unjust. We are unjust. God is just and fair, but at the moment has given us over to our own foolishness. Rom 1.

e. Particular and specific suffering

God does bring particular suffering upon us.

Is. 45:7 I form light and create darkness,
I make well-being and create calamity,
I am the LORD, who does all these things.

Amos 3:6 Is a trumpet blown in a city,
and the people are not afraid?
Does disaster come to a city,
unless the LORD has done it?
The Bible is not dualist. It has a limited dualism. God is sovereign and Satan is his messenger.

Sometimes suffering comes as a judgement.
Sometimes it comes as a warning.
Sometimes it comes as a judgement and a warning.

1Cor. 10:6 Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” 8 We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. 9 We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, 10 nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. 11 Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.
Jas 1, Rom 5, Heb 12, a discipline.

There is so much more that could be said because it is on every page of the Bible.

Nearly every page of the Bible deals with the problem of evil and suffering—contra Phillip’s atheist philosophy tutor at UNSW in 1975.

2. Christ and Christian suffering

See Stott, Cross of Christ on this topic.

a. Christ’s suffering

Christ as a human being shared in our suffering. Knew that humans suffer, knew that the Messiah must suffer and repeatedly predicted his suffering and persecution and death, and yet set his face resolutely toward Jerusalem. Great courage and resolution—not that he thought like Socrates that death would be a release. But rather cried out against it in Gethsemane, yet willingly laid down his life under his father’s will.

Phil. 2:5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

His resurrection the final seal of his approval, the sign that his suffering fulfilled its intention. His death was a death for us. Matt 8, he fulfilled Isa 53.

Matt. 8:16 That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. 17 This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”
Sickness is a result of sin. His atoning death deals with the sin, and so we await

b. Christian suffering

i. Increases our suffering
“All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”
We take up our cross and follow Christ. Mk 9
Col. 1:24 Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church…

“Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” says Paul.

The exact opposite of the prosperity gospel.

ii. reduces the pain

Suffering increases but pain reduces. For our pain is not random meaninglessness, such as atheists believe. Nor is it karma, an endless cycle. In cross we see the personal love of God expressed in Christ, and we see him sharing in our suffering and taking what we deserved.

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Rom. 5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Eph. 4:32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Eph. 5:1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

1John 4:9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.
10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Heb. 2:16 For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. 17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Hos. 11:7 My people are bent on turning away from me,
and though they call out to the Most High,
he shall not raise them up at all.
Hos. 11:8 How can I give you up, O Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender.
9 I will not execute my burning anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and not a man,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath.
Hos. 11:10 They shall go after the LORD;
he will roar like a lion;
when he roars,
his children shall come trembling from the west;
11 they shall come trembling like birds from Egypt,
and like doves from the land of Assyria,
and I will return them to their homes, declares the LORD.

We are not in the hands of an irrational, impersonal force.

1 John 3:1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

Just as we volunteer for pain at the hand of the dentist, so we volunteer to be crucified with Christ—because we trust the one who is at work on us, knowing that the suffering has a good end. God is better than the best of dentists.

iii. enabling us to endure with patience and joy.

Knowing all this enables us to endure with patience and joy.

Acts 5:41 Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonour for the name.

These people can’t be persecuted out of existence. They can’t be imprisoned out of their faith.

Rom. 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

James 1:2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

Our Lord’s crucifixion paved the way for our suffering

3. 1 Peter
1 Peter is written to suffering people.

Pet. 1:10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, 11 inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.
Pressure to turn away from the sufferings of the cross; external and internal.

Internal struggle.

14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

We must focus on cross and resist internal pressure to sin.

We are called to unjust suffering:

1Pet. 2:18 Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. 19 For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. 20 For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. 21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. 22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
We must follow Christ’s example in going through unjust suffering.

Christ bore not his own sins but ours. Resentment, victimology is no part of the Christian psychology.

That is why we suffer as we do, because we are followers of him.

1Pet. 4:12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. 15 But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. 16 Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. 17 For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? 18 And
“If the righteous is scarcely saved,
what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”
1Pet. 4:19 Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.

1Pet. 5:7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

Rom. 8:31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
Rom. 8:37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Blog quietness

2011-04-22T07:54:00.000+10:00

Not really as quiet as it appears, but you need to click through to the actual blog and see that just at the moment, most of my thinking is being done in the right hand column. Lots of updates, regularly.

If you haven't already, you can also befriend me on facebook and see lots of links appear to the Beatles, Andrew Klavan, and other odd things.

Good Friday sadness

2011-04-22T07:47:00.002+10:00

The Lord of life and glory was nailed to the accursed tree. He died by the act of guilty men. We, by our sins, crucified the Son of God.

We might have expected that, in remembrance of his death, we should have been called to a long, sad, rigorous fast. Do not many men think so even today? See how they observe Good Friday, a sad, sad day to many; yet our Lord has never enjoined our keeping such a day, or bidden us to look back upon his death under such a melancholy aspect.

Instead of that, having passed out from under the old covenant into the new, and resting in our risen Lord, who once was slain, we commemorate his death by a festival most joyous. It came over the Passover, which was a feast of the Jews; but unlike that feast, which was kept by unleavened bread, this feast is brimful of joy and gladness. It is composed of bread and of wine, without a trace of bitter herbs, or anything that suggests sorrow and grief.

The memorial of Christ’s death is a festival, not a funeral; and we are to come to the table with gladsome hearts and go away from it with praises, for “after supper they sang a hymn”. Do not many men think so even today? See how they observe Good Friday, a sad, sad day to many; yet our Lord has never enjoined our keeping such a day, or bidden us to look back upon his death under such a melancholy aspect.

Instead of that, having passed out from under the old covenant into the new, and resting in our risen Lord, who once was slain, we commemorate his death by a festival most joyous. It came over the Passover, which was a feast of the Jews; but unlike that feast, which was kept by unleavened bread, this feast is brimful of joy and gladness. It is composed of bread and of wine, without a trace of bitter herbs, or anything that suggests sorrow and grief. …

The memorial of Christ’s death is a festival, not a funeral; and we are to come to the table with gladsome hearts and go away from it with praises, for “after supper they sang a hymn”

That's Charles Spurgeon, from here. Thanks to my friend David McKay for pointing it out.

Calvin on the gospel

2011-04-13T23:19:00.001+10:00

Alistair Begg tonight closed his address with a quote from John Calvin’s preface to Pierre-Robert Olivétan’s 1535 translation of the Bible. “To all those who love Christ and his gospel,” Calvin writes:

Without the gospel

everything is useless and vain;

without the gospel

we are not Christians;

without the gospel

all riches is poverty,

all wisdom, folly before God;

strength is weakness, and

all the justice of man is under the condemnation of God.

But by the knowledge of the gospel we are made

children of God,

brothers of Jesus Christ,

fellow townsmen with the saints,

citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven,

heirs of God with Jesus Christ,

by whom

the poor are made rich,

the weak strong,

the fools wise,

the sinners justified,

the desolate comforted,

the doubting sure, and

slaves free.

The gospel is the Word of life.

(Just a straight copy from Justin Taylor. It's that good.)

I think that God is proud

2011-04-08T20:29:00.000+10:00

I think that God is proud of those who bear

A sorrow bravely -- proud indeed of them

Who walk straight through the dark to find Him there

And kneel in faith to touch His garment's hem.

Oh, proud of them who lift their heads to shake

Away the tears from eyes that have grown dim,

Who tighten quivering lips and turn to take

The only road they know that leads to Him.

How proud He must be of them -- He who knows

All sorrow, and how hard grief is to bear!

I think He sees them coming, and He goes

With outstretched arms and hands to meet them there,

And with a look, a touch on hand or head,

Each finds his hurt heart strangely comforted.

-Grace Noll Crowell

Wild nights

2011-03-28T23:09:00.002+11:00

Wild Nights! Wild Nights!

Were I with thee,

Wild Nights should be

Our luxury!

Futile the winds

To a heart in port, --

Done with the compass,

Done with the chart!

Rowing in Eden!

Ah! the sea!

Might I but moor

To-night in Thee!

-Emily Dickinson (c. 1861)

The problem is moral not mental

2011-03-28T16:40:00.004+11:00

People don't resist the gospel because of intellectual issues; they resist it because they live lives opposed to God and can't stand the idea of change.

So Phillip Jensen highlights the problem with apologetics:

the real problem of apologetics lies in its distorting effect upon Christianity. As we seek to express the Christian gospel in the terms of outsiders we are unwittingly tempted to distort its teaching. Augustine could understand Christianity in Neo-Platonic terms, as Aquinas could in Aristotelian terms. The very activity of apologetics, even aggressive apologetics addresses the gospel to the mind rather than to the conscience. It assumes that people's difficulty with Christianity is mental rather than moral. It easily gives the impression that we are to sit in judgment over God rather than he over us. Thus modern apologetics must attack the lifestyle of the pagan and not just the clever rationalizations that he uses. Giving answer to genuine enquiry is one thing. Treating the rationalization of immorality seriously is another.

I'm editing a course at the moment which is targeted at a particular subsection of Australian society, and I'm very aware of the danger of thinking that once the packaging has been shape-shifted to suit this specific audience, success will follow.

It won't. The success or failure of the message will depend entirely on God's Holy Spirit. What I need to pray is that my packaging won't get in the way too much.

My choir singing Bach

2011-03-21T21:01:00.001+11:00

If you want to hear a wonderful piece of Bach, come along!

we're doing the St John Passion on Saturday 23 April.

A debate on same-sex marriage

2011-03-12T05:32:00.003+11:00

There's an unusually respectful yet sharp debate on this subject at the Sola Panel. Usually public debate on this topic is respectful or sharp, or neither. Rarely both, so this one is worth having a look at.

From Peter Bolt (in the comments on the post):

A marriage is simple: a man and a women in a committed sexual union, public, recognised, agreed to, acknowledged.

Biology matters. No matter how many rights we may or may not have as human beings, a man does not have the ‘right’ to say he is a woman. Biology says he is not. (and vice versa)

The strength of a liberal democracy, such as Australia used to be, is that, despite our differences, we are treated equally.

Therefore, in order to maintain equal treatment, we need to ensure that differences are clearly described/defined.

Same-sex unions are not marriages, by definition. If same-sex unions want recognition from Government, fair enough in a liberal democracy. But this recognition should not be from saying there is no difference. But by saying there IS a difference.

The definition of marriage as between a man and a woman, clearly differentiates this from a union between two people of the same gender. This definition of difference must be maintained, so that equality of treatment might be ensured.

Christians believe marriage is between a man and a woman. Biology matters because God created us male and female. As citizens in a liberal democracy we may say it is fine to press for Governmental recognition of same-sex unions, to prevent any disadvantage for our fellow-citizens. But this should not be through saying there is no difference, that all unions are the same. No, true equality of treatment (in a liberal democracy) needs to be on the basis of saying, no, there are genuine differences. Marriage between a man and a woman is never a same-sex union. Both may be, or even should be, recognised at law, but this should not come through changing the definition of marriage. It should come through clarifying the enormous difference, and then ensuring that those who are so vastly different are still treated fairly.

From Mark Baddeley (also in the comments; SSM=Same sex marriage):

I’m not opposed to SSM because I think it is immoral. I think immoral people, criminal people, good people, law abiding people, all should be able to get married. I think thieves, fornicators, murders, paedophiles, bitter people, racists and the like should be able to get married. I think people who aren’t sure if they are going to stay married for life and those who intend to run their marriage as an ‘open marriage’ should be able to get married. I have strong views as to how successful I think some of those marriages are likely to be, but I think there shouldn’t be any legal bars.

I oppose SSM for the same reason why I oppose people marrying their pet, or marrying themselves, or marrying their child (explaining why that one is in that set will take some words, but I can offer them), or marrying the number seven. Or wanting to be ‘married’ to everyone that is their friend on Facebook – it isn’t what marriage really is, and the more that kind of thing is done it weakens our grasp of what the institution is, and so weakens the institution.

For political reasons—that is, because the current government is flailing around without clear purpose, and being dictated to by a minority party—this is a bigger issue than usual in Australia at the moment.

His eyelids test the children of man

2011-02-25T10:57:00.004+11:00

That's from Psalm 11, and refers to the LORD.

It is a strange little phrase but in its immediate context—

4 The Lord is in his holy temple;
the Lord's throne is in heaven;
his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man.
5 The Lord tests the righteous,
but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence.
6 Let him rain coals on the wicked;
fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.
7 For the Lord is righteous;
he loves righteous deeds;
the upright shall behold his face.

—it does tend to suggest that God can look directly at us and judge even when his eyes are closed.

A comfort for the righteous who think that God has forgotten them, and a terror for the wicked.

I'm blogging Psalm 11 over at the Sola Panel, and there is another post from the other day about a mission statement for church.

Iran then, Egypt now

2011-02-07T13:39:00.002+11:00

Mark Durie is a reliable voice when it comes to contemporary Islam. Here he points to an article by Andrew Boston where the parallel is made between the Muslim Brotherhood currently on the up-and-up in Egypt, and the fawning attitude adopted towards Ayatollah Khomeini as he was coming to power in Iran.

Legalized pornography, legalized prostitution and slavery

2011-02-04T05:02:00.003+11:00

If you favour the continued legalization of pornography and prostitution (and some Christians do argue this on the grounds of freedom of choice for sins they are not personally involved in), then this article, Commercialized Sex and Human Bondage by Ellyn Arevalo and Mark Regnerus suggests at least some reasons why this is not a wise or good idea.

From the article:

While precise figures remain difficult to obtain given human trafficking’s underworld existence, in 2002 USAID estimated that between 700,000 and 4 million persons are trafficked each year into slavery. That number does not include cases of trafficking within a country’s borders, only across them. Furthermore, not only is human trafficking the fastest-growing criminal industry, it is tied with the illegal arms industry as being the second-largest global criminal industry.

and:

rather than eliminate sexual trafficking, the evidence has consistently revealed that legalizing prostitution fosters it.

and

Of course most of us want to end sexual slavery, but the commercial sex industry—which is the very lifeblood of trafficking—is increasingly tolerated. Prostitution is seen by plenty as a legitimate, if suboptimal, form of “work,” and pornography is taken to be harmless. And yet the commercial sex market and sex trafficking are symbiotically related; the latter simply would not exist without the former. Women and girls are trafficked into brothels, strip clubs, and massage parlors. They’re photographed and filmed servicing men. Customers—including men who simply click on free porn on the web—do not and cannot distinguish between trafficked women, prostitutes, and porn stars.

and

In other words, sexual demand is not as stable as you might think; it can be stimulated. Just consider what happened in Australia when its government decriminalized prostitution and took control of the industry: “in New South Wales where brothels were decriminalized in 1995, the number of brothels in Sydney had tripled to 400-500 by 1999, with the vast majority having no license.”

and

in a recent study of trafficking and prostitution across nine countries, researchers found that out of 785 sex workers, “89 percent…wanted to escape prostitution but did not have other options for survival.”

Free choice here is largely a myth.

Ethics classes in NSW schools

2011-02-03T12:46:00.005+11:00

I see that the coalition (that is, the guys who will be governing NSW in just a few months) have reneged on their promise to scrap ethics classes, which means that a lot of state schools in NSW will be offering them as an alternative to school scripture this year.

This is one of those bad news-good news items. In the short term, it is pretty much all bad news. The selling point was that this would provide an option for non-religious families to involve their children in considering ethical issues, but wouldn't be promoted as suitable for all students and certainly wouldn't undermine existing Scripture classes. That was always going to be spin, and even during the trial period rhetoric didn't match reality (see this report for some examples). Lying liars from Mendacity City, Arkansas, have told their lying lies and now we are left with the result—ethics classes available to all state schools in NSW and broadly promoted to all students and parents as a desirable and good thing.

Add to that, the coalition parties in NSW said they'd remove the classes, and then promptly backed down and said they wouldn't. That doesn't look good even when you assess it in purely secular ethical terms. Lots of thoughts here about yes, maybe some of those involved in political promises would benefit from a bit of ethical instruction before promoting it to the great unwashed as the solution to many of life's problems.

The good news (I think and suspect), is that school scripture is now safer than it was. Yes, there were constitutional safeguards to ensure that it always was safe, but the way the ethics trials have been introduced show how easily such things are circumvented at local level when parents are told by governments that their children are being treated unfairly. It may never have occurred to parents that their children were missing out by being denied instruction in philosophical ethics; now many of them are persuaded that they have been deprived in the past and that this new course will meet their needs.

Now that the classes are going to begin to be offered, a lot of the intensity of feeling will go out of the whole discussion.

So I predict that the new classes will be nowhere near as wonderful in execution as they are meant to be in theory, falling at an early hurdle for lack of parents and citizens to teach them. It's one thing to be excited about ethics as a good thing for kids to learn, it's quite another to sign up to a roster to teach it for weeks and terms on end as a volunteer. Ask any school scripture teacher about that cost.

Not only that, but any heat in the campaign of some secularists to remove school scripture from schools will dissipate due to the well-publicized introduction of a secular alternative. The same argument that says 'we want choice for our kids' is the one that Christians will and should use to keep on going with existing school scripture classes (which remain constitutionally protected as a part of the state school education system). If those scripture classes are well-taught and well-run, children will be happy, parents will be happy, schools will be happy and one brilliant opportunity to teach children the gospel will remain in place.

[UPDATE: A lawyer friend corrects me by pointing out that the right to teach Scripture in NSW state schools is strictly speaking legally protected, but not constitutionally protected. Thanks Neil!]

Noisy Plume

2011-01-31T06:07:00.001+11:00

Sometimes when I rise in the morning,
I am so very aware that I'll only be this young today.

Fragile Graces, The Noisy Plume.

One of Fifi's favourite websites.

Scientific consensus and scholarly sheep

2011-01-28T09:00:00.000+11:00

Think of this article, A Blot on Lincoln Historians as a parable, of sorts. For those who believe in scientific and scholarly consensus, it shows how easily it's possible to led and even misled by the zeitgeist.

The article begins:

These facts remain true: on April 14, 1864, President Abraham Lincoln sent a routine, one-sentence, handwritten order to Joseph Holt, the judge advocate general, pardoning a California soldier, Private Patrick Murphy, who had been sentenced to be shot for desertion. “This man is pardoned, and hereby ordered to be discharged from the service,” the president wrote.

The article concludes:

Shame on whoever tried to make of the Murphy order more than it is. And shame on all of us in the Lincoln studies profession for accepting it without question.

Anyone want a sailboat?

2011-01-27T09:34:00.006+11:00

UPDATE: The boat has gone to Sailability

I have a sailboat that about 10 years ago, for reasons best left in the dustbin of history, I decided to accept as a freebie from some very good friends and then never picked up or saw since.

The sailboat, like me, is older but no wiser, and is now available to anyone who would like to make a small donation to the Church Missionary Society. It's in Narrabeen (Sydney), it's about 1.4 metres wide and 3.5 metres long and could be lifted onto roofracks or into a trailer by 2 fit men. The mast is 4.7 metres long.

I am hoping to get photos of it up today or tomorrow, so watch this space. [UPDATE: Done!]

If you are interested you can contact me via facebook messages or via e-mail (ggordonc AT optusnetdotcomdotau).

Money or life

2011-01-27T08:11:00.004+11:00

Mark Shead writes a website with blog called productivity501.

As far as I know he has no particular Christian concern, but in this post he talks about his decision to say no to a large amount of financial wealth, and why he did so.

From the post, his obvious (to Christians) conclusion:

A big bank account won’t provide the same amount of happiness you’ll get from spending time with the one person you decided you’d rather be with than anyone else. A bigger paycheck is poor compensation for missing out on raising your kids.

Mark's major concern, happiness, is not a bad one, and his chosen way of pursuing it makes sense. For Christians, happiness is not particularly important, but godliness is:

Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment

From here.

Incidentally, Mark Shead is the man who put me onto dropbox, which saves me the most inordinate amount of time and anxiety in my daily desire to stay organized and make sure I don't lose data. Click through and use, my friends!

Nicole's blog

2011-01-27T07:51:00.002+11:00

Hot on the heels of yesterday's post where I linked to Nicole Starling's blog, I see that she has characterized her readers in this way:

Up till now, I have always done the blog with the assumption that I'm writing for a readership made up mainly of Christian women with young kids.

Oh well. I don't feel too embarrassed to reveal that I've always enjoyed it, and now I can rest secure in the knowledge that she says she'll

be trying a little bit harder to make things accessible and transparent for people who aren't (yet!) Christians or whose life situation is different from mine.

.

So who knows? A bit more on choral music, my favourite rock group, efficient use of space, or long distance running?

Only time will tell, but even if nothing changes, Nicole's blog is well worth subscribing to or following on facebook.

School lunch season begins.

2011-01-26T08:14:00.004+11:00

Matilda's back to school on Friday, Ruby and Lily Violet on Monday.

Found Lunchbox Treats—Twenty ideas for Wrap Fillings from a link on Nicole Starling's blog.

This year I have to get Matilda out the door by 7 am, so need to decide on whether lunch gets made earlier that morning, the night before, or on the Sunday before and then pulled out of the freezer.

Still inclined towards early morning, but perhaps I will experiment with Sundays. Thoughts welcome, here and on facebook.

When Christians meet

2011-01-08T06:59:00.003+11:00

I've taken on the job of thinking about what we do when we meet at 9 am every Sunday morning at church.

I've got a few ideas.

Our current format is that we start with a joke or friendly observation, end with a joke or friendly observation, have a very good sermon somewhere in the middle, and after the formal bit have morning tea.

I would like to keep everything pretty much as it is, except start with a bit of Bible, end with a bit of Bible, and reflect on all the bits inbetween. I have no problem whatsoever with friendly observations or jokes, and would like to encourage them to continue, as far as it lies in my power to do so.

Dear reader, please comment, I am away for about two weeks and will follow along with interest as I am able.

For those interested in vaccinations

2011-01-08T05:49:00.002+11:00

Here's the rest.

Better than resolutions

2011-01-01T07:42:00.003+11:00

The right way to view New Year resolutions:

So, forget what lies behind, and then press on toward the goal. And any resolutions you make, make in the recognition that you are accepted and forgiven by God in Christ apart from any resolutions, and then seek to fulfill them in the power that God supplies (Colossians 1:29)

From Matt Perman.

Update: Resolutions? No! (from the Desiring God blog)

Farewell Denis Dutton

2010-12-30T07:29:00.002+11:00

The website he curated, Arts & Letters Daily—A Service of the Chronicle of Higher Education, was unique.

New Year organization: dropbox, scanning

2010-12-27T07:26:00.003+11:00

I've got plans...plans!

I'm not big on New Year's resolutions. My last New Year's resolution involved attempting to smoke more. That was about 10 years ago, and I failed miserably.

But the sad reality is that my plans to get myself well organized for 2011 happen to largely coincide with the approach of New Year's day, which is annoying but not sufficient to stop me resolving to make it happen anyway. Does that count as a resolution, or can I claim exemption because I've been working on this project since April? Which, by freaky coincidence, is when New Year's Day used to be (9 months before Christmas—get it?)

Anyway the first part of the plan involves getting you, dear reader, to click through on this link and installing a most excellent back-up system called Dropbox, which allows you to sync your computers (eg home and work, desktop and laptop) and back up all your important files to the internet for free. It's brilliant and has saved me an enormous amount of time and stress since I've used it.

If you use that link I get an extra bit of free storage (thank you!). They are counting on it being so useful that eventually the people who use the free stuff will want to buy extra storage, which in my case may actually happen when I bite the bullet and scan a couple of decades worth of old photos onto one of my computers. But this system is so easy that it actually answers the question 'Yes, but what if I scan all my old photos and my hard drive crashes?'The beauty of this solution is that even if the Dropbox system goes out of business, the scanned photos don't disappear from any of my dropbox-linked computers.

Which brings me to the other thing I've been plotting for a while. I bought a cheap flat-bed scanner which has come in quite useful in getting some paperwork a bit more organized, and in dealing with bureaucracies where, on occasion, they lose the copy of the paperwork you sent them and need it in a hurry. Also, for scanning occasional artworks from my children, and for scanning photos that are precious but needed for school projects and news. Also, for copying music I don't want to lose and occasionally need copies of to give to other musicians (eg Christmas carols at Christmas time).

I've decided to bite the bullet and get rid of a ton of paper in the next month, something I've had in mind to do for decades but had to wait for the technology to catch up. Well, I think it has. You need to be able to scan things cheaply and easily, and you need to be sure that once scanned, you won't lose the thing scanned through a hard drive crash, or because you can't find what folder you put them in within the computer (Apple's Spotlight function helps here). Check, check and check. So, inspired by having a bit of time in the next month, and sparked by this article, I'm going to have a go.

Here's the Dropbox link again if you're feeling similarly motivated.

O Christmas tree

2010-12-25T19:54:00.003+11:00

It's almost, but not quite, too late for this:

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree!

Sung to the tune of 'O Christmas tree'.

Wicked Mitch of the West!

2010-12-18T21:47:00.005+11:00

Peter Roebuck:

By now there was electricity in the air. Everyone could feel it, the crowd, players of both sides, even the fleeing gulls. Johnson surged in again and sent down a delivery as sinuous and slithery and spitting as a snake. Trott shuffled across his crease and too late realised that the ball was changing course. The swinger thundered into his pads and all Australia celebrated as umpire Erasmus raised his arm.

"All Australia celebrated"!

From here.

The Greens are nutters

2010-11-29T06:36:00.005+11:00

So argues Paul Sheehan in today's SMH, in this article entitled 'Green by name, flaky by nature'.

He doesn't mention euthanasia (on which, for some reason, the Greens are not only supportive but activist), but does mention banks, same-sex marriage, immigration policy, X-rated pornography, Zionism and a range of other issues on which you would think that ecologically concerned people—who exist on both sides of politics—should be free to take differing views on.

A waste of space (NT Wright)

2010-11-27T09:04:00.002+11:00

I am personally convinced that there is an element of sarcasm in the title, "What NT Wright really said".

No presents this Christmas please

2010-11-26T05:42:00.003+11:00

At least, not donated to charity in my name:

While I do agree that a lot of rubbish changes hands over Christmas, I cannot get behind the ''a-donation-has-been-made-in-your-name'' gift. Let me see if I understand this correctly. I spent all the money that I wanted to on myself during the year but the money I was going to spend on a gift for you I gave to charity instead. And then I told you about it. Can it get any more parsimonious?

From Nikki Lesley in today's SMH.

New NIV (2011)

2010-11-24T05:07:00.002+11:00

There is a new translation of the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible out and about, at least online. You can only get hold of the NIV (2011) in Cyberia, that is to say, by going to http://www.biblegateway.com/ and poking around.

One significant trouble with the Old New New International Version, the TNIV (Today's New International Version) was their attitude to gender-specific language to describe male and female. They ironed it out ('they' instead of 'he', 'humanity' instead of 'mankind', etc), sometimes with disastrous translational and theological consequences.

The Council For Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (CBMW) were among the early objectors to these changes, and a lot of people followed them on it. So much so that the publishers of TNIV saw their sales figures significantly affected, and realized they had a problem. I blogged some of their response here.

That is a long introduction to explain why I'm linking the CBMW's initial response to the NIV (2011) here.

There have been significant improvements, but significant concerns remain.

As for me, I am continuing to appreciate the good though not perfect English Standard Version, not primarily because of the gender question which is at best a sidetrack, but more because it has restored conjunctions to the text. Hooray for 'and', 'but' and 'therefore', which add significantly to meaning and comprehension of all sorts of things, mainly sentences within paragraphs and paragraphs within documents.

I am reading the ESV at breakfast time to my 7 year old, 9 year old and 11 year old, and all three daughters seem able to cope and answer questions about what we're reading. In fact, eldest daughter managed to pick up from our genealogy reading in Luke 3 some important facts about history which she was able to use in an evangelistic conversation with her friends. But that is another post.

And Do They So?

2010-11-22T06:32:00.001+11:00

Henry Vaughan:

And Do They So?

'Etenim res creatoe exerto capite observantes
expectant revelationem Filiorum Dei.'

'For created things, watching with head erect,
await the revelation of the Sons of God.'

And do they so? Have they a sense
Of aught but influence?
Can they their heads lift, and expect,
And groan too? Why the elect
Can do no more; my volumes said
They were all dull, and dead;
They judged them senseless, and their state
Wholly inanimate.
Go, go, seal up thy looks,
And burn thy books.

I would I were a stone, or tree,
Or flower, by pedigree,
Or some poor highway herb, or spring
To flow, or bird to sing!
Then should I, tied to one sure state,
All day expect my date;
But I am sadly loose, and stray
A giddy blast each way;
O let me not thus range,
Thou canst not change!

Sometimes I sit with Thee and tarry
An hour or so, then vary;
Thy other creatures in this scene
Thee only aim and mean;
Some rise to seek Thee, and with heads
Erect, peep from their beds;
Others, whose birth is in the tomb,
And cannot quit the womb,
Sigh there, and groan for Thee,
Their liberty.

O let me not do less! Shall they
Watch, while I sleep or play?
Shall I thy mercies still abuse
With fancies, friends, or news?
O brook it not! Thy blood is mine,
And my soul should be Thine;
O brook it not! why wilt Thou stop,
After whole showers, one drop?
Sure Thou wilt joy to see
Thy sheep with Thee.

With thanks to Mr Kirsop.

A dying man explains why euthanasia is so dangerous.

2010-11-21T20:38:00.004+11:00

I'm republishing this letter from ethicist Nicholas Tonti-Fillipini in full. Originally on Andrew Bolt's blog:

Dear Mr Premier,

Re: Voluntary Euthanasia Bill 2010

I write this letter to you my own name only and not in the name of my institute, of any Government Committees in which I am involved, or of any organisation. I write because what happens in South Australia on this matter will affect all Australians, particularly those who, like me, meet the requirements of the Bill.

Relevant to this matter is the fact that I am dealing with my own terminal illness (combination of renal failure, advanced ischaemic heart disease and Rheumatoid auto-immune disease) and am dependant on haemodialysis and palliative care. I have undergone 15 angioplasty procedures and the placement of eight stents to attempt to recover some blood flow after the failure of coronary bypass surgery. The last such procedure was unsuccessful as the blocked artery could not be accessed. The Rheumatoid disease causes chronic pleuropericarditis. I mention these matters only to establish that I am no stranger to suffering and disability, and am well aware of the limitations of palliative care. It is particularly difficult to control chronic pain because the effectiveness of most forms of pain relief is of limited duration, given the development of therapeutic tolerance. I have reached the limits of what palliative care can offer.

I cannot speak for all people who suffer from illness and disability, but think I can speak more credibly about suffering, illness and disability than those people who advocate for euthanasia presenting an ideological view of suffering and disability. Facing illness and disability takes courage and we do not need those euthanasia advocates to tell us that we are so lacking dignity and have such a poor quality of life that our lives are not worth living.

Professionally, I have been involved with issues to do with the care of the terminally ill for many years, having been Australia’s first hospital ethicist, twenty-eight years ago, at St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne, where I was also Director of Bioethics for a period of eight years.

Since then I have been a consultant ethicist in private practice and have taught ethics in the medical faculties of the University of Melbourne and Monash University, before taking my current position at the John Paul II Institute. The Institute is associated with the Lateran University in Rome and is a registered Higher Education Provider in Australian offering accredited specialist graduate courses in Bioethics and in Theological Studies in Marriage and Family.

Also relevant is that recently I had the experience of chairing a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Working Committee preparing guidelines for the care of people in an unresponsive state or a minimally responsive state and receiving a large number of public submissions on that topic. The topic is closely related to the topic of your enquiry. The strength of submissions from people who care daily for Australia’s most dependant and needy individuals was overwhelming and I highly recommend that you read the public submissions on the NHMRC’s web-site or at least read the NHMRC Ethical Guidelines for the Care of People in an Unresponsive State or a Minimally Responsive State (2008). Importantly, the guidelines provide a careful analysis of the way in which care decisions may be made so as to preserve respect for the dignity and worth of people who are so profoundly disabled and to provide care for the families and others who care for people with PCU or MRS.

I have also had a long-term association with a home hospice service that serves the eastern area of Melbourne. I would like to record my own view that it would not benefit seriously ill South Australians, particularly those who are terminally ill and suffering intractably, if the Voluntary Euthanasia Bill became law. The current legal situation in South Australia, while not perfect, does provide a measure of protection against the terminally ill being regarded as a burden. As a chronically ill person I know well what it is to feel that one is a burden to others, to both family and community, how isolating illness and disability can be, and how difficult it is to maintain hope in the circumstances of illness, disability and severe pain, especially chronic pain.

For several years, until I objected, I received from my health insurer a letter that tells me how much it costs the fund to maintain my health care. I dreaded receiving that letter and the psychological reasoning that would seem to have motivated it. Each year I was reminded how much of a burden I am to my community. The fear of being a burden is a major risk to the survival of those who are chronically ill. If euthanasia were lawful, that sense of burden would be greatly increased for there would be even greater moral pressure to relinquish one’s hold on a burdensome life. Seriously ill people do not need euthanasia. We need better provision of palliative care services aimed at managing symptoms and maximising function, especially as we approach death. Rather than help to die, the cause of dignity would be more greatly helped if more was done to help people live more fully with the dying process.

The proposal to make provision for a terminally person who is suffering to request, and a doctor to provide, assistance to die makes it less likely that adequate efforts will be made to make better provision for palliative care services. Legalised euthanasia would give those responsible for funding and providing palliative care a political “out” in that respect.

In Australia, too little is done to make adequate palliative care available to those who need it:
• Current entry requirements for palliative care usually exclude people with chronic pain and is often limited to people who are in the last stage of cancer with a prognosis of less than eight weeks;
• The pharmaceutical subsidies for the more effective forms of pain relief are often restricted to cancer patients;
• People living outside major cities have little access to palliative care facilities.
• Few doctors are adequately trained to provide palliative care.
• Such palliative care services as exist are chronically underfunded and struggle to provide the complex range of services that are needed to assist a person to live with pain and disability.
• Most pain clinics are over subscribed and have long waiting lists. For people who are left suffering, such waiting is unconscionable.

Medical research in this area indicates that the desire for euthanasia is not confined to physical or psychosocial concerns relating to advanced disease, but incorporates hidden existential yearnings for connectedness, care and respect, understood within the context of the patient’s lived experience. Euthanasia requests cannot be taken at face value but require in-depth exploration of their covert meaning, in order to ensure that the patients’ needs are being addressed adequately. In Australia, what is needed is often not available or not available in time. It is distressing to note that in the US State of Oregon in 2009, none of the patients who were lawfully killed at their own request were referred for formal psychiatric or psychological evaluation. It is also distressing to note that two thirds of people lawfully killed under euthanasia laws, in those jurisdictions that permit it, are women.

If euthanasia is a legitimate option with a determined structure, such as was the case in the Northern Territory for a brief period, and is now proposed for South Australia, then life for the chronically seriously ill would become contingent upon maintaining a desire to continue in the face of being classified as a burden to others. Essentially the Bill involves setting up a category for people whose lives may be deliberately ended. Their protected status as a member of the South Australian and Australian communities depends on a contingency. Passage of the Bill would imply that our community considers that our continued survival depends on us not succumbing to the effects of pain and suffering, depends on us not losing hope.

I ask simply that the committee find in favour of the status quo in this respect. We need protection and encouragement from our community, we do not need this form of discrimination. Far from protecting the dignity of those who are seriously ill and suffering, the Bill would undermine dignity by undermining our sense of individual worth as a person, no matter our suffering and disability.

It should also be noted that of the seven deaths that happened under the terms of the Rights of the Terminally Act in the Northern Territory that permitted euthanasia, four did not actually meet the criteria . The legislation was manifestly unsafe and I would argue that legislation that permits euthanasia could never be made safe for those of us who have serious chronic illnesses, because the essence of such legislation is to make respect for our lives contingent upon the strength of our will to survive. Such legislation depends on each of us, who have a serious illness and are suffering, not losing hope. If euthanasia is lawful then the question about whether our lives are overly burdensome will be in not only our minds, but the minds of those health professionals and those family members on whose support and encouragement we depend. The mere existence of the option will affect attitudes to our care, and hence our own willingness to continue.

That desire to live is often tenuous in the face of suffering and in the face of the burden our illnesses impose on others, our families and the wider community. You would gain nothing worthwhile for us by supporting the legalisation of deliberately ending the life of those who request death. Such requests warrant a response in solidarity from our community, a response that seeks to give us more support and better care, rather than termination of both life and care.

I note that the Bill has some safeguards including:
• REQUIREMENTS for two doctors, including a specialist, to examine the person making the request.
• DEMANDING a psychiatrist be consulted if either doctor believes the person is not of sound mind or acting under “undue influence”.
• CREATING a Voluntary Euthanasia Board with powers to intervene if any relevant medical practitioner believes a request for euthanasia should not be granted.
• There will be strict obligations on witnesses, jail terms of up to 20 years for misleading statements, and a ban on for-profit centres and the promotion of voluntary euthanasia by insurance companies

However there are many problems with the Bill, in summary:

• The Bill has a very wide scope, it affects not just those who are imminently dying. The definition of “terminal illness” includes people who may be months or years away from their illness causing death. As a person whose life depends on extraordinary care, including haemodialysis for four x four hour sessions each week, on that basis alone, I fit the description. I also have severe angina throughout those sessions, caused by the haemodynamics of the treatment and my own compromised coronary flows, and I have many other episodes of pain throughout the day, including waking at night in pain. Whether that is a profound level of pain and/or distress depends on the support that I receive from those close to me, as much as it depends on my own will. That euthanasia is not offered to me is important to that response. People who are ill and disabled need that support and encouragement and the knowledge that those around them value them.

• The Bill has not been generated by a broad-based enquiry that took into account the interests of all South Australians, and especially those with chronic or terminal illness. It is a narrow approach that excludes the provision of adequate care and support for those in need, and appears to be more a matter of ideology than a genuine attempt to respond to the range of matters that affect us.

• The Bill would expect the doctors involved to prescribe a drug not for legitimate purposes that define the medical vocation, such as the care of the patient or the treatment of illness, but to intentionally and actively intervene to end the life of the patient. In that respect, the Bill is not supported by the Australian Medical Association or any of the medical Colleges. The AMA’s policy on euthanasia is to “strongly oppose any bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia, as these practices are fundamentally inconsistent with the physician’s role as healer” .

• The Bill has not been supported by organizations and institutions directly involved in aged care, the care of the dying or the care of those with chronic illness. Those involved in the day to day care are generally not in favour of being given the capacity to end the lives of those they care for.

• The Bill would not benefit South Australians who suffer from chronic illnesses. Instead it would make protection of their lives dependant on the strength of their will to continue. The fear of being a burden is a major risk to the survival of those who are chronically ill. If euthanasia were lawful, that sense of burden would be greatly increased for there would be even greater moral pressure to relinquish one’s hold on a burdensome life and to remove that burden from the lives of others.

• The Bill is based on a notion of unbearable pain. A major part of pain experience and our capacity to tolerate it is what is sometimes called “existential pain”. Pain of an existential nature arises usually from loneliness and a lack of sense of self worth. The option of euthanasia provides an out for families and carers, and the fact that the option exists would be likely to make someone who had a burdensome illness feel even less valued and increase the likelihood that they would choose death over dying alone or being a burden to others. Serious illness and dying are times when a person needs the support of others so that others can share empathy with that person . The possibility of opting instead for a fatal prescription would cast a shadow over those relationships and would be likely to undermine the person’s wish to be wanted and valued.

• Pain and suffering are complex involving physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual elements. Palliative care seeks to address the needs of those who are suffering in a multi-disciplinary way that reflects the many elements involved . Crucial to good palliative care is the support of the patients socially, emotionally and spiritually. It is not simply a matter of relieving physical pain. For those who continue to live with a burdensome illness, the option of euthanasia would undermine one of the essential elements of good pain relief, the notion that the person is supported, loved and wanted.

• In other places, such as the United Kingdom, for instance, which have adopted very liberal policies on other social policies, such as reproductive technology, gay unions and abortion, the Parliaments have strongly opposed euthanasia because euthanasia cannot be made safe for people who are seriously ill and thus vulnerable. It is worth noting that jurisdictions such as the Netherlands and Belgium that legalised euthanasia, lacked the availability of the kind of palliative care services that developed in the UK.

• Euthanasia law cannot be made safe. The Northern Territory briefly had similar law. As discussed above, several of those for whom the legislation was implemented did not in fact meet the criteria of the Act despite the safeguards. This is reflected also in the Dutch experience where much larger numbers than were expected have been subject to the law, raising human rights concerns, see United Nations’ concern below.
• Euthanasia is contrary to the International Human rights instruments. When the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations considered a euthanasia law enacted in the Netherlands to codify what had become euthanasia practice, the Committee said that where a State party seeks to relax legal protection with respect to an act deliberately intended to put an end to human life, the Committee believes that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights obliges it to apply the most rigorous scrutiny to determine whether the State party’s obligations to ensure the right to life are being complied with (articles 2 and 6 of the Covenant). The Committee expressed the concerns that the new Act (in the Netherland) contains a number of conditions under which the physician is not punishable when he or she terminates the life of a person, inter alia at the “voluntary and well-considered request” of the patient in a situation of “unbearable suffering” offering “no prospect of improvement” and “no other reasonable solution”. The Committee also expressed concern lest such a system may fail to detect and prevent situations where undue pressure could lead to these criteria being circumvented. The Committee was also concerned that, with the passage of time, such a practice may lead to routinization and insensitivity to the strict application of the requirements in a way not anticipated. The Committee learnt with unease that under the present legal system more than 2,000 cases of euthanasia and assisted suicide (or a combination of both) were reported to the Netherlands’ review committee in the year 2000 and that the review committee came to a negative assessment only in three cases. The large numbers involved raise doubts whether the present system is only being used in extreme cases in which all the substantive conditions are scrupulously maintained.

I would welcome the opportunity to discuss this letter and the matters raised by the Voluntary Euthanasia Bill 2010 further.

Yours sincerely,

Assoc Prof Nicholas Tonti-Filippini PhD

Courageous.

Resurrection

2010-11-20T10:41:00.003+11:00

That Nature is a Heraclitean Fire and of the comfort of the Resurrection

Cloud-puffball, torn tufts, tossed pillows flaunt forth, then chevy on an air-
built thoroughfare: heaven-roysterers, in gay-gangs ' they throng;
they glitter in marches.
Down roughcast, down dazzling whitewash,
wherever an elm arches,
Shivelights and shadowtackle in long '
lashes lace, lance, and pair.
Delightfully the bright wind boisterous '
ropes, wrestles, beats earth bare
Of yestertempest’s creases; in pool and rut peel parches
Squandering ooze to squeezed '
dough, crust, dust; stanches, starches
Squadroned masks and manmarks '
treadmire toil there
Footfretted in it. Million-fuelèd, '
nature’s bonfire burns on.
But quench her bonniest, dearest '
to her, her clearest-selvèd spark
Man, how fast his firedint, '
his mark on mind, is gone!
Both are in an unfathomable, all is in an enormous dark
Drowned. O pity and indig '
nation! Manshape, that shone
Sheer off, disseveral, a star, '
death blots black out; nor mark
Is any of him at all so stark
But vastness blurs and time '
beats level. Enough! the Resurrection,
A heart’s-clarion! Away grief’s gasping, joyless days, dejection.
Across my foundering deck shone
A beacon, an eternal beam.
Flesh fade, and mortal trash
Fall to the residuary worm; world’s wildfire, leave but ash:
In a flash, at a trumpet crash,I am all at once what Christ is, since he was what I am, and
This Jack, joke, poor potsherd, patch, matchwood, immortal diamond,
Is immortal diamond.

(Gerard Manley Hopkins)

With thanks to Jennie Baddeley, who reminded me of it again the day before preaching on this.

Building theology carefully

2010-11-18T10:20:00.003+11:00

Whenever I am tempted to consign all theologians everywhere to the basket marked 'brood of vipers' for their slippery ways of sliding over hard texts into defective and dangerous thinking, I stumble across a Mark Thompson who reassures me that it is possible to deal well with matters of life and death.

This post, on what used to be one of my favourite quotes until I discovered it wasn't, is typical of the man's integrity and attention to detail.

To a louse

2010-11-18T05:04:00.001+11:00

Robert Burns:

On Seeing One on a Lady's Bonnet at Church

Ha! whare ye gaun' ye crowlin ferlie?
Your impudence protects you sairly;
I canna say but ye strunt rarely
Owre gauze and lace,
Tho faith! I fear ye dine but sparely
On sic a place.

Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner,
Detested, shunn'd by saunt an sinner,
How daur ye set your fit upon her--
Sae fine a lady!
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner
On some poor body.

Swith! in some beggar's hauffet squattle;
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle;
Wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle;
In shoals and nations;
Whare horn nor bane ne'er daur unsettle
Your thick plantations.

Now haud you there! ye're out o' sight,
Below the fatt'rils, snug an tight,
Na, faith ye yet! ye'll no be right,
Till ye've got on it--
The vera tapmost, tow'rin height
O' Miss's bonnet.

My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out,
As plump an grey as onie grozet:
O for some rank, mercurial rozet,
Or fell, red smeddum,
I'd gie you sic a hearty dose o't,
Wad dress your droddum!

I wad na been surpris'd to spy
You on an auld wife's flainen toy
Or aiblins some bit duddie boy,
On's wyliecoat;
But Miss's fine Lunardi! fye!
How daur ye do't?

O Jeany, dinna toss your head,
An set your beauties a' abread!
Ye little ken what cursed speed
The blastie's makin!
Thae winks an finger-ends, I dread,
Are notice takin!

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An foolish notion:
What airs in dress an gait wad lea'es us,
An ev'n devotion!

Aye laddie! Me spell chek's goin' crazy!

Love—not the basis for a good or gay marriage

2010-11-17T11:59:00.002+11:00

Read Murray Campbell's excellent short article on ABC's the Drum website to find why love is no basis for marriage of any sort, including gay marriage.

A burst of productivity!

2010-11-17T11:27:00.004+11:00

A productive morning, working out with the repair man's help that the leak in our washing machine didn't mean we needed to replace anything, just that I needed to wipe around the door seal with a wettex.

Now I could expatiate at some length as to why that actually counts as productive, but I would rather you save your time and mine and go instead to my post today on the Sola Panel, which tells you why genuine productivity only really comes from those who trust the gospel of the Lord Jesus.

Blue Collar worker

2010-11-13T06:40:00.004+11:00

I was talking to my friend Andrew Beddoe (scroll down on that link) about developing ministry to blue collar workers when it came to me with a bit of a start that I am one! I'm currently working part-time as a hearse driver and musician. My work as a minister (unpaid) on the team of St Paul's Carlingford won't start until next year.

So I'm a blue collar worker!

By the way, if you are interested in blue collar ministry, check out what Andrew's doing with the excellent people at MTS (Ministry Training Strategy).

Friends in the US

2010-11-05T06:28:00.002+11:00

It's wonderful to see The Trellis and the Vine getting attention amongst friends.

Here is a link to various workshops that are being organized around the book, which is really about how you help your church to get on with the gospel ministry it should be getting on with.

Leaf

2010-11-05T06:19:00.000+11:00

From Sandra Juto's blog.

Desiring God and Matthias Media

2010-11-03T12:28:00.002+11:00

The Desiring God blog has given Matthias Media, my former employers, a nice plug.

Halloween

2010-10-30T07:30:00.005+11:00

I have to give a kid's talk at church tomorrow on Halloween.

I've drafted a script:

Anyone here scared of spiders?

Hands up who wants to tell me what they're scared of?

I've got a scary joke book here. [visual aid: scary joke book. Read random joke]

I heard a programme on the radio this week where a lady said she was scared of lettuce.

Anyone scared of Pumpkins? [visual aid: Pumpkin]

Anyway it's Halloween time so there are a lot of pumpkins about, I hope you kids are going to be OK and that your parents will make sure that there are no pumpkins in your house or anywhere in the garden.

The Bible talks about scary stuff. Jesus actually met some of the things we're scared about. I can't tell you if he met any pumpkins, maybe after church some of you will be able to let me know about that. But he did meet a lot of other scary stuff. There was the time where he met a man who was full of demons.

(Insert summary of Mark 5:1-20 here. Punchline: 'You see how Jesus is much more powerful than even 2000 scary things?')

I guess if you see something scary today, which is Halloween, especially if something scary dressed like a pumpkin comes to your door, you get a choice of at least two things.

1. You can go out for pizza with your family. The pumpkin won't know where you are and will go to the next house. We do that quite a lot at Halloween, even though we sort of like pumpkins.

2. You can say hello pumpkin, have a lolly. Did you know Jesus is more powerful than any pumpkin, or any powerful thing in the whole world? Happy Halloween.

If you comment in the next 24 hours, you will earn another 300 points for the house of Hufflepuff.

Stalking my wife

2010-10-25T10:29:00.002+11:00

Fifi follows all sorts of interesting blogs. Sometimes she shows them to me, sometimes I go online by myself and stalk her.

If you want to stalk me stalking her, you could do worse than start here.

Wind power, Christians, and good stewardship

2010-10-21T10:17:00.002+11:00

Christians and right-thinking people everywhere should support renewable energy, correct? Because good stewardship and care for our world means limiting the use of finite resources, yes?

So to be a supporter of wind power should be an absolute no-brainer. Or should it?

Pastor Jay Dennis, who according to his byline is senior advisor to the Cornwall Alliance for Stewardship of Creation, explains why not.

From the article:

Wind turbine farms need ten times more steel and concrete than a nuclear, coal or gas power plant for the same amount of electricity. You also need thousands of tons of raw materials for the backup generators and the thousands of miles of new transmission lines to get the electricity to cities hundreds of miles from the wind farms. All these materials have to be dug out of the ground someplace.

All that mining and manufacturing is powered by fossil fuels, which requires more mining and drilling. The backup power plants have to be running constantly – and then roar to full strength every time the wind dies down. That’s like having to stop your car repeatedly for red lights along miles of highway: idling and then gunning it to 55 mph over and over. That uses huge amounts of fuel and emits enormous amounts of carbon dioxide and pollutants. In the end, we barely reduce America’s CO2 emissions – and may actually increase them.

Saints above (and below)

2010-10-20T05:56:00.004+11:00

From the SMH today:

So Australia has its first Catholic saint. Yet we lowly Protestants in Australia have had millions of saints over the years - the Bible says every follower of Jesus is a saint. Most of the Apostle Paul's letters refer to believers as saints. Jesus himself taught believers to pray to God the Father, by the Son, through the Holy Spirit. It is a terrible offence to God to pray to (or through) a person other than Christ.

Edward Francis, Canterbury

See here.

The Roman Catholic idea of sainthood simply reinforces the Roman Catholic idea that simple trust in God is not sufficient to receive the full and free gift of his approval in Christ. No good work or miracle is sufficient to make us right with God, "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). But here's the good news.

Petition on Freedom of Belief

2010-10-18T06:39:00.004+11:00

Here's a petition to the UN Secretary General on freedom to believe without persecution.

The text of the petition reads:

To: The Honourable Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General

We believe that 'everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion;
this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.' (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 18).

We are deeply concerned that the Defamation of Religions Resolution has the effect of severely restricting these foundational freedoms and undermines the right to religious liberty. We urge that everything possible should be done to ensure that the United Nations rejects this resolution.

I'm not much of a petition signer but I've signed this one; why not do the same?

Thanks to Craig Schwarze.

Huffington Post

2010-10-18T06:14:00.002+11:00

I put this blog into google reader yesterday. It will appear in this blog's sidebar from time to time.

Here's something on family meals.

From the article:

The National Center for Addiction at Columbia University released a decade-long study in 2008 that remains true in showing teens who have dinner with their families fewer than three times per week are twice as likely to use tobacco and marijuana than teens who have more frequent dinners, and that infrequent family dinners raises the risk of depression and eating disorders.

(Even if that means eating leftovers in front of Junior Masterchef!)

NSW State Labor

2010-10-18T06:01:00.003+11:00

They will be walking the plank at the next election. Everyone knows it, but when their own team sticks the boot in publicly, that's got to hurt.

Joan Sutherland

2010-10-12T14:01:00.000+11:00

Died today.

Wisdom of years on euthanasia

2010-10-12T06:38:00.002+11:00

From today's SMH:

During my early medical postgraduate years I was a strong supporter of end-of-life patient requests for euthanasia. Now, in my middle years, with more wisdom and having worked for more than 20 years in government health facilities, I am quite sure no amount of safety nets, protocols or regulations would protect patients from deleterious personality types that are not uncommon within the various professions.

Even one life ended by use of medical misappropriation, deception or abuse of power should remain unacceptable.

Dr Linda Mayer, Pyree

Very few people in the public debate take the idea of sin seriously. This letter at least begins to.

Back and check the sidebar

2010-10-04T08:02:00.003+11:00

Back from a lovely week with family in Tathra on the NSW South Coast. I am now catching up on my blog reading.

If you read this blog via an rss feed or on facebook, Click through to my blog, look at the sidebar and check out a few of the many things I'm reading online. It's a bit like reading over my shoulder, only polite!

Lionel blogs on righteousness

2010-09-24T06:23:00.003+10:00

Lionel Windsor has resolved to blog more regularly, and begins his new expedition into prolixity with this absolute cracker on righteousness.

If this is what he produces, long may his resolve hold! Delete a few of the more long-winded blogs from your rss feeds, dear friends, and follow The Lionel.

A man who dares

2010-09-23T22:34:00.005+10:00

At last! A man—a Christian man—who will publicly slight Bono for his vapidity and (at least by implication) his inability to find a stadium large enough to contain his own ego:

Personally, I blame Bono. That you have the ability to wear ridiculous sunglasses with confidence and the ability to write lyrics that sound cool but do not actually mean anything should not qualify you to have any more significance in the shaping of society than the single vote your nation's constitution allows you come election time; and, in my opinion, as soon as rock music starts to take itself seriously, something crucial (I think it is called `fun') in the genre dies. Whatever one thinks of Bush's legacy, I trust that we can all agree that taking the U2 frontman seriously and giving him a platform was one of his least helpful actions during his tenure as US President.

Carl Trueman, the small but ever defiant group of U2 dislikers, of whom I am an insignificant and lowly member, salute you.

By the way, and totally unrelated to anything, but how many times have you heard the argument that because God made this world beautiful, so we should make every effort to praise and worship him in a beautiful way?

Poppycock and faradiddle, as they said in an Enid Blyton book I read one time. God made all sorts of things, and his making of them doesn't necessarily mean anything for the way we approach him. He made slugs. He made rat droppings. He made those little bits of diced carrot that appear when babies vomit. He made things functional, prosaic, quotidian, ugly, excessive, flat, sleepy, containing traces of nuts, and gaseous. And this means what for the way we approach him?

That's right. Absolutely nothing!

Now don't ask because I'm not telling.

Robert Frost: The exposed nest.

2010-09-16T05:50:00.002+10:00

A poem by Robert Frost:

You were forever finding some new play.
So when I saw you down on hands and knees
In the meadow, busy with the new-cut hay,
Trying, I thought, to set it up on end,
I went to show you how to make it stay,
If that was your idea, against the breeze,
And, if you asked me, even help pretend
To make it root again and grow afresh.
But 'twas no make-believe with you today,
Nor was the grass itself your real concern,
Though I found your hand full of wilted fern,
Steel-bright June-grass, and blackening heads of clovers.
'Twas a nest full of young birds on the ground
The cutter-bar had just gone champing over
(Miraculously without tasking flesh)
And left defenseless to the heat and light.
You wanted to restore them to their right
Of something interposed between their sight
And too much world at once--could means be found.
The way the nest-full every time we stirred
Stood up to us as to a mother-bird
Whose coming home has been too long deferred,
Made me ask would the mother-bird return
And care for them in such a change of scene
And might our meddling make her more afraid.
That was a thing we could not wait to learn.
We saw the risk we took in doing good,
But dared not spare to do the best we could
Though harm should come of it; so built the screen
You had begun, and gave them back their shade.
All this to prove we cared. Why is there then
No more to tell? We turned to other things.
I haven't any memory--have you?--
Of ever coming to the place again
To see if the birds lived the first night through,
And so at last to learn to use their wings.

I like this bit: "We saw the risk we took in doing good,
But dared not spare to do the best we could
Though harm should come of it".

Mark Durie on the Ground Zero mosque

2010-09-12T21:12:00.002+10:00

Mark Durie is an Anglican minister in Melbourne who I know from our time down there. He is an expert on Islam, and everything he writes about it is well worth a read. Here's his take on the proposed mosque at Ground Zero.

He says:

America is in deep trouble. It seems impossible to have any substantive debate about Islam. Facts no longer matter, and genuine analysis has been replaced by prejudice and paralysing, fear-driven denial. A politically correct narrative has taken hold among the elites —that Islam has been hijacked by a few extremists — and a principle of censorship — that we must not offend the sensibilities of the other Muslims. The effect is that Islam is being given a higher place than that accorded to other religions.

A lot of his observations about the cringing way the American elites have approached Islam can be directly applied across to similar ignorances here in Australia.

Definitely have a look not just at this post but his whole website.

Time for some Andy Goldsworthy

2010-09-09T10:46:00.002+10:00

At least, that's who I think did it. From one of my favourite websites, Things Organized Neatly.

Preaching hell from the Bible

2010-09-09T10:21:00.003+10:00

The most recent 9 Marks e-journal prompted me to write this post for the Sola Panel on 'Preaching Hell from the Bible'.

If you read it, don't miss Mark Dever's article in which he explains why fear tactics are a good thing.

Of course, it’s good to teach our children not to be scared by shadows, and to be wary of those who use fear to sell us something. But what if there really is something to fear?

A fine question, and inviting of follow-up.

Tolerance

2010-09-07T06:52:00.002+10:00

Excellent letter from Ian Powell in today's SMH:

I hope Matthew Smith (Letters, September 4-5) has learnt his lesson. It has seemed for some years that you cannot disagree with gay rights advocates on anything without being accused of being filled with hate, anger and homophobia. So Smith is rebuked by Peter Lloyd (Letters, September 6), and David Clarke is attacked by John Greenway. Agree, be silent or put on your helmet.

I thought tolerance was the leading virtue for our times, and yet tolerance has been confused with agreement. Tolerance is the willingness to treat people kindly and respectfully when their views deeply annoy and hurt us.

I visited the University of Sydney recently and saw a fine example of real tolerance. The much maligned Evangelical Union held a large forum on world religions. These Christians gave over two-thirds of the time to people with whom they clearly disagree, speaking for atheism, Buddhism and Islam. This, I thought, was a demonstration of real tolerance, which Herald writers could imitate - where different views and convictions can be discussed without slandering those with whom we disagree.

Ian Powell, Annandale

From here.

Something good: buying back guns.

2010-08-30T05:57:00.002+10:00

The SMH reports on one of the greatest legacies of former PM John Howard.

It's the unexpected saving of 200 lives per year from the guns buy-back in 1996, following the Port Arthur massacre.

From the report:

TEN years of suicide data after John Howard's decision to ban and then buy back 600,000 semi-automatic rifles and shotguns has had a stunning effect.

The buyback cut firearm suicides by 74 per cent, saving 200 lives a year, according to research to be published in The American Law and Economics Review.

A former Australian Treasury economist, Christine Neill, now with Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada, said she found the research result so surprising she tried to redo her calculations on the off chance the total could have been smaller.

''I fully expected to find no effect at all,'' she told the Herald. ''That we found such a big effect and that it meshed with a range of other data was just shocking, completely unexpected.''

Mr Howard's agreement with the states to ban and buy back more than 600,000 weapons after the massacre at Port Arthur in April 1996 cut the country's stock of firearms by 20 per cent and roughly halved the number of households with access to guns.

Speaking of good books, here's another (probably)

2010-08-26T11:40:00.004+10:00

Well I have to say "probably", because I haven't read it. But I know the preacher and his preaching, and this is his book about that preaching, written together with Paul Grimmond.

It's The Archer and the Arrow, a book all about preaching the gospel from one of Australia's greatest preachers, Phillip Jensen.

Tim Challies reviews it here.

Check these kids' books out!

2010-08-25T12:14:00.003+10:00

Matthias Media, the buddies I used to work for, have some new kids books out. They are well worth a look.

Here's the Rag Doll by Stephanie Carmichael, and here's Over the Fence, also by Stephanie.

I would have definitely bought both of these for my 3 girls when they were younger. They were supposed to stay the same forever, but they never did. So now I look at books like these and think wistful thoughts.

I also think 'aha! who do I know with little kids?' Christmas approaches...

Doing theology Luther's way

2010-08-10T18:59:00.003+10:00

Carl Trueman points out:

I want to draw attention to the fact that Luther does not talk about what constitutes theology but about what makes a theologian. This is somewhat characteristic of his approach: many people have noted the importance of his "theology of the cross," which he articulated most dramatically at the Heidelberg Disputation in 1518; but the text of the disputation theses do not speak of a theology of the cross; rather they speak of a theologian of the cross. Theology, for Luther, is the words spoken by human beings in response to the words God has first spoken to them; thus, theology is a personal action; and therefore, there can be no discussion of theology without first discussing the agent, the one who speaks theologically. Theology is an abstraction unless it is understood as the action of the theologian.

From here.

It's not first and foremost an intellectual exercise! The failure to realize that is what distresses me about some of the theology I read from time to time.

Kevin Rudd is back

2010-08-08T07:08:00.002+10:00

You may or may not have noticed that we're having a Federal Election. You may or may not also have noticed that Kevin Rudd is back!

See here.

PS It's funny.

A bit of Yeats

2010-08-03T21:09:00.000+10:00

Sailing To Byzantium, by William Butler Yeats

I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
--Those dying generations--at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unaging intellect.

II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Pray for Indonesian Christians

2010-07-24T08:42:00.002+10:00

The SMH today reports on their persecution by Muslims in cities around Jakarta.

Today would be a good day to pray for these brothers and sisters.

Part time job

2010-07-22T00:36:00.004+10:00

I have a part time job as a funeral director's assistant. My first job was today. I drove a car, attended two funerals, and helped lower a body into a grave.

More news to follow; I am also planning, God willing to return to regularly teaching the Bible in some capacity, not too long from now.

Christians building buildings

2010-07-15T07:07:00.004+10:00

This letter was in today's SMH amongst some other predictably hostile correspondence:

So a ''coalition of evangelical and pentacostal churches'' is going to build a classroom for $40,000. $40,000? Let's disregard the scientific and educational merits of this arrangement. These people should be put in charge of the schools building program.

Jenny Mooney, Karuah

Read the original story here.

Leave aside for a moment the question of whether churches should build buildings for schools, or whether we like the underlying theology of those doing the funding. This particular story only came to the attention of the SMH because it fits the SMH's current campaign do diminish church involvement in schools within their communities.

But the key statement from the original article, which helps explain the ridiculously low price tag that the amazed letter writer refers to, is that "the donation included materials and labour".

The secular world has no comprehension of the generosity of the Christian community and individuals within it. Stories of this type of generosity could be told a thousand times over, across denominations, and with examples that go well beyond just building projects.

If the offer sounds, in financial terms, too good to be true, it's because it is. Christian generosity far beyond mere goodness. Christian generosity is grace; the grace first shown to us by the Lord Jesus.

Bad news for Holland

2010-07-12T17:15:00.002+10:00

Not only did they lose the World Cup but their country is going to sink. In about a hundred years. Maybe.

Should I forgive?

2010-07-09T08:42:00.003+10:00

Yes, just as God has forgiven us. Sort of. As Mark Baddeley begins to argue in this most excellent post on the Sola Panel.

Selective schools

2010-07-06T07:31:00.003+10:00

Quite a few letters in today's SMH on the subject of selective schools.

We've had to work through decisions about this lately, as Matilda will be going into secondary school next year. Our main consideration, however, has been about whether she will find opportunity to be encouraged in her Christian understanding and living. At one of the schools where she might have gone, we asked the principal about Christian activities and got the response 'Well, er, I think a few of them meet for a barbecue sometimes on a Thursday lunchtime'.

Now I have no issue with state schools or selective schools (I went to James Ruse, which is both, and Fifi went to Sydney Girls, which is both), but if the choice is between that and another school where 1/3 of the students are in voluntary Bible studies, let me say that the choice is a no-brainer.

The idea of coaching kids to get into selective schools seems weirdly obsessive to me, but no more weirdly obsessive than coaching kids to get to a world-class level in sports. My own weird obsession is about fitting my girls for the kingdom of heaven, hence questions to school principals about Christian groups.

Becoming clearer

2010-07-06T07:25:00.002+10:00

Thank you to those of you who have been praying about tough decisions. Things are becoming a bit clearer, in a good way, and soon I will be able to give a bit more detail. I am trying to work out, in consultation with friends and family, a more workable arrangement for home and work commitments.

I am hoping that the final arrangements will mean a mixture of campus work, writing, family but as you can no doubt appreciate, these things take time to work out.

Latham on Gillard

2010-06-25T11:47:00.002+10:00

Former ALP leader Mark Latham is so full of bile towards his old party that you almost feel that he may be telling the truth as he predicts the fall of Gillard, just so that he gets to say nasty things about other people.

The winner of Mahut-Isner? Tennis reportage

2010-06-25T06:04:00.005+10:00

Play resumes at 59 games all in the 5th set.

Geoff Dyer:

If not war, then how about its nearest sporting equivalent, boxing? Recalling the 14th round of the 1975 fight in Manila between Muhammad Ali and George Frazier, Ali's doctor, Ferdie Pacheco, said, "That's what gets people killed in boxing, when the fight becomes more important than life and death." It's never that extreme in tennis and this particular game could never become more important than life itself for the simple reason that it was life itself. They were toiling away not for any ultimate meaning or purpose (as John McEnroe said, after a set-to like this, neither of them have a hope in hell of winning their next-round match) but because, within those white lines, a very simple logic holds sway: he hits a ball and you try to hit it back. And so, through some perverse compatibility – those marriages that last for ages because of an insatiable and shared appetite for bickering – they settled into a tranced deadlock. Normally, a player would be under immense pressure when serving to stay in the tournament but there were no nerves because, after a while – after the first two or three hours, I mean – there was no expectation that anything unusual might happen.

Writing in the Guardian.

PS Oh, you want to know who won? Oh, alright then.

This will be remembered longer

2010-06-24T10:36:00.001+10:00

This tennis match will be remembered longer than Kevin Rudd.

Kevin Rudd gone

2010-06-24T05:42:00.005+10:00

You heard it here, 593rd. Well, I don't think I could claim first in good conscience, do you? Here, for example, a New Zealand paper reports on it.

Credit to Andrew Bolt, who called it on May 31.

When you break promises, such as canning an Emissions Trading Scheme designed to confront 'the greatest moral challenge of our time'; when you make a lot of your Christian credentials and get publicly exposed as a swear bear, when you invite an ill-thought out fight with the mining lobby; it's hardly surprising that it might come back and bite you.

What is surprising is how quickly it's happened. Just over six months ago, Rudd was unassailable.

UPDATE 1: The SMH report.

Did Kevin Rudd have any friends at all?

UPDATE 2: Nicole Starling gives the right perspective on this.

Tough decisions coming

2010-06-18T06:03:00.003+10:00

I have some tough decisions coming. Those in the habit of praying might like to pray that God will, as usual, control all things to his glory and our good.

Romans 8:28 says "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose."

Here is that verse in its immediate context.

K Rudd

2010-06-08T18:21:00.002+10:00

Kevin Rudd, surely not long for this political world.

When left-leaning David Marr kicks off an article in the Good Weekend with a quote from Prime Minister Rudd, full of various brands of expletives, and proceeds to ask whether the man is driven by anger, you know that the press gallery is about to turn. As Andrew Bolt documents.

The SMH letter writers have their say as well, and it doesn't look good for our PM.

What surprises me is the number of Christians who were willing to take his profession of church allegiance at face value, without asking deeper questions about visits to strip clubs and the emerging evidence of a foul temper matched by equally foul language.

I'm disappointed because he seemed to offer a more humane response to asylum seekers arriving by boat; but the detention centres around the place are full to overflowing and the rhetoric has turned to how tough the government is being on these people. That's a flip-flop.

Rules of engagement

2010-06-05T05:53:00.003+10:00

If I went in for wordy rules of engagement on blog comments (and I don't), these from Triablogue are absolutely the best I've seen.

What matters matter?

2010-06-01T13:08:00.002+10:00

Because I'm on leave and because I want to use the time on leave well, I've made up a list of seventeen review questions about my own life. The aim is to make reasonable progress on all seventeen, in discussion with some of those closest to me, and to come back to them from time to time to see how the answers are changing (or staying the same).

Galatians 2:20 is preamble:

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Here are the 17 questions:

1. What glorifies God?
2. What relationships has God placed me in?
3. Which of these relationships take priority?
4. What roles flow out of those relationships?
5. What activities flow out of those roles?
6. What causes stress?
7. What gives enjoyment?
8. What has significance?
9. What strengths do I/we have?
10. What weaknesses do I we/have?
11. What opportunities do I/we have?
12. What threats do I/we face?
13. Review existing personal mission statement.
14. What is important enough to schedule daily?
15. What is important enough to schedule weekly?
16. What is important enough to schedule monthly?
17. What is important enough to schedule annually?

I'm trying to apply Galatians 2:20 by looking at these questions in the context of daily prayer and Bible reading. Unlike a lot of the good secular advice out there, I want to start with the assumption that Jesus is Lord of all, that I am a helpless sinner in need of his forgiveness, and therefore that any progress I might make in answering big questions about life revolve around Jesus' work as the Lord who has bought me by his death, and is now changing me by his Spirit.

For some reason, and unfortunately, I'm now thinking of George and Step 9. Once I get past that feeling, I'll return to the 17 questions.

Ruby's work

2010-05-24T21:08:00.004+10:00

Ruby's teacher started a class blog and put some students' work on it. Here's Ruby's effort:

I think tomatoes don't taste very nice but I think they look COOL!!
They have a deep, brightish colour and a sprout of green on top like a bunch of grass placed right at the top of a grassy, green hill. Maybe if a baby saw a tomato it might think it's a ball and start kicking it around.

As I said on the blog, 'Yay Rubes!'

Getting organized—Dropbox

2010-05-24T18:22:00.007+10:00

One of the things I'm doing while on leave is just trying to take a few baby steps towards getting organized. Anyone who has worked with me or had to live with me will be quietly applauding right about now.

Along these lines one of the things that has caused me the greatest joy during the last week or two has been the discovery of this extremely nifty site called Dropbox, which I got onto via Productivity501, which I think I got onto via Unclutterer, which I got onto because I am (half) Swedish and am constitutionally attracted to neatness and order, even if I am not personally capable of achieving it.

Dropbox is totally excellent (so far), and has allowed me to sync *all* my important files (and many unimportant ones) between my laptop and my desktop—and then keep them synched without my needing to pay any attention whatsoever, as well as giving me 2.2+ gig of storage on the internet for free. As far as I can tell they make their profit by me, or people like me deciding that it is too valuable to do without, and so wanting to buy extra storage space. I'm not there yet, but if I decide to get serious about photo and video storage I can see the day coming.

What's more, the other day I was around at my Dad's doing a bit of work for him and realized that I'd forgotten the powercord to my laptop. No problem! I logged onto his computer, found my Dropbox files and was able to work on them over the internet. When I got home and powered up my desktop and laptop, they synched the files I'd been working on with no difficulty whatsoever.

It's a pretty teensy-weensy thing to get excited about in the big scheme of things, but excited I am. Give it a shot yourself, here.