What is idolatry?

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.

A burst of productivity!

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.

Global warming and Sola panels

I can't believe it! The subject of Global Warming has invaded even one of my favourite blogs, the Sola Panel!


In the comments, one reader wanted to link up the Christian attitude to global warming with the Christian attitude to apartheid:

I hope this following comparison isn’t too emotive. I do think we need to heed the warning of the experience of CESA - our evangelical friends in South Africa. They chose a path of political quietism during the apartheid years.

Read the rest somewhere here.

Left a comment as well, which I'll try to rescue from blog comment oblivion, with typos removed, by posting here:

...[T]he comparison with apartheid may or may not be emotive, but it's hard to see how it's relevant.

Discrimination on the basis of skin colour is a sin, the only exception being the positive discrimination associated with the attractive and slightly olive coloured skin of me and my daughters.

By contrast, refusal to be persuaded about whether we've heated the world, and are continuing to do so, is not a 'sin' under almost any meaning of that word. Sure, it may well be silly to fail to be so persuaded. But being silly remains allowable even in these enlightened times, and not being at the top of the class is never singled out as being problematic—not by the Bible, and not even by the Roman Catholic church.

So average people like me still haven't been completely convinced that the world is being heated to perdition, not unlike the biro I stuck on the bunsen burner back in Year 9, and remains fused (AFAIK) to the tripod Mr Boddy took away from me and into the Science staffroom for closer inspection.

And if the right wingers are to be believed, (and even the left wingers, according to this right winger), the climate-change consensus is collapsing anyway.

Whatever the case, those who kept on with their rather foolish and simplistic gospel message will keep doing so whatever the barometer outside the building is telling them.

But those who wanted Christians to switch to the gospel of global warming are in trouble, if the promised warming fails to materialize. They will need to find another clever thing to scare us with.

And let's not even begin to ask how many lives could have been saved if the 'let's stop global warming' money had actually been spent on something that is currently killing people, like malnutrition.

In the meantime, I'm not worried about any of this temperature nonsense. I'm worried about gospel preaching. And what's more, I'm worried about Peak Lithium, really I am. When the supplies of this important metal run out, where am I going to buy my rechargeable batteries?

And so on.

A rich fool

I talk about the identity of the rich fool at the Sola Panel, here.

I hate accountability

The worst thing about Saturday Sola Panel posts is that they get buried under a MEGO* haze because they're long and because they're old
(let JI Packer thank his lucky stars that he's unlikely to get reincarnated as a blog post).

So those of you who are regular Sola Panel skimmers may well have missed this moment of truth in today's blog post about men's ministry:

2. The accountability model

A popular form of men's groups is to be accountable to each other to keep a set of rules or commitments. There are a number of ‘how to’ manuals for Christian men. They promise to sort out men's problems by defining the principles and boundaries of life, and are appealing because they offer simple solutions to complex lives. If we not only read the manual, but someone checks up on our performance, this is a powerful motivation.

But motivation is the problem. In the end, the reason for godly living is not the grace of Christ in the gospel, but the weekly accountability session. The fear of men replaces the fear of God. Such groups, after a while, can operate without any reference to the gospel and, in fact, distort Christianity into legalism (Col 2:20-23).

Read it! Pure gold buried in, er, well, I don't know what because I couldn't be bothered reading the rest of whatever someone said. It was too long.

*"My Eyes Glaze Over". The acronym is from Tom Wolfe's novel, Bonfire of the Vanities, quite a timely little piece of work actually in the current financial crisis.

Gospel ministry: How to blunt the edge

The Sola Panel continues its brilliant work:

Last millennium, I got ordained as an Anglican minister, and Jean Penman, wife of Archbishop David Penman of Melbourne, presented each of my group of candidates for ordination with a copy of John Stott's excellent book I Believe in Preaching. David had died suddenly, but the note from Jean said that David had originally intended to present this book himself. It was a great idea to have a book entitled I Believe in Preaching, especially as, quite frankly, most of us didn't—including the leaders of the silent retreat that all the ordination candidates were invited to attend.

;-)

The Sola Panel

It's up and running! The new Matthias Media blog, the Sola Panel, is up and running, and what's more is open for comments. Check it out, tell us what you think, then click on the blogroll links down the side and come back here!

Still don't know if I like the name, which I probably shouldn't say because I helped choose it.

From the blog:

We're planning to post just one new piece each day, which we think is enough for us to handle, and enough for you to read. Sometimes we'll stay on a particular topic for a while and knock it around between the Panellists. At other times (probably most of the time), we'll just do our own thing and post on different topics.

Oh, and did I mention you can leave comments?

Unlike this blog, the promise on that blog is that it will be:

*thoughtful (offering a considered, crafted piece of writing rather than a dashed-off and/or rabid paragraph in reaction to the latest thing)

*non-trivial (wouldn't feature pictures of the dog, or what the author saw at the movies last night)

*Bible-driven (in other words, it kept “What does the Bible say?” as the foundational question)

*unashamedly Reformed and Evangelical (didn't apologize for or seek to move on from classic Reformed Evangelical theology)

*ministry-hearted (focused me back on evangelism, people and the daily work of ministering God's word to others)

*proactive (didn't just react to the latest controversy, fad or someone else's blog, but drew me back to what was important)

*godly (in the way it dealt with issues, and in the way discussion and comments were handled)

*of a consistently high standard in all of the above!

And I will, of course, be over there as much as I can seeking to undermine as many of these fine objectives as is possible in one hit.

;-)

(except for the Bible and Reformed bit! Oh, alright, I'll try for godliness, but will need your prayers.)

Head on over, and you can even make a comment if you would like to.

If I was in the mood for commenting, I would say what a lousy word 'pro-active' is. But I'll just keep that thought to myself...

UPDATE: D'OH! I spoke too soon. Apparently comments don't work yet. OK, will get back to you. Thanks Adam.

UPDATE: No, the comments work. Karen at Matthias Media just tested it. So have another go! If you are still having trouble, e-mail her at briefingATmatthiasmedia.com.au (with an @ for the AT), as she would like to know.