In conversation with daylight #1

“It seems like more people die in a weekend on the Cape Flats than in a week of the war in Iraq“

- Local Cape Flats Pastor, Cape Town, South Africa

A Light to the Nations in the Old Testament – A Riddle

I think we’re all aware of the notion that nation of Israel were supposed to be a light to the nations (cf. Isaiah 60:3). That concept comes from the prophet Isaiah, maybe about 6th century BC. Most of Israel’s history has already taken place by now. So here’s my question:

How would you defend this notion of Israel being a light to the nations from passages earlier than Isaiah’s writings? Put your theologian caps on and give it go…

Vanhoozer in the Spotlight

Gary Shavey interviews Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer – a theologian who has much to contribute a Reformed missional conversation.

Keller, Preaching and Service Leading

“Worship and preaching in the “vernacular”. It is hard to overstate how ghetto-ized our preaching is. It is normal to make all kinds of statements that appear persuasive to us but are based upon all sorts of premises that the secular person does not hold. It is normal to make all sorts of references using terms and phrases that mean nothing outside or our Christian sub-group. So avoid unnecessary theological or evangelical sub-culture “jargon”, and explain carefully the basic theological concepts, such as confession of sin, praise, thanksgiving, and so on. In the preaching, showing continual willingness to address the questions that the unbelieving heart will ask. Speak respectfully and sympathetically to people who have difficulty with Christianity. As you write the sermon, imagine an particular skeptical non-Christian in the chair listening to you. Add the asides, the qualifiers, the extra explanations necessary. Listen to everything said in the worship service with the ears of someone who has doubts or troubles with belief.” Tim Keller – Evangelistic Worship

This is a reminder to me of just how much harder I need to be working on my sermons. I know how I cringe when I listen to guy who has totally ignored the above comment – it grates your ears as you think about the unchurched who might be sitting next to you. It’s not just the preaching but the whole service leading too.I find it so wonderfully refreshing when this is really taken into account and practiced in corporate meetings of the church. It makes the world of difference – in terms of breaking down unnecessary barriers to non-Christians hearing the gospel. At St. Stephen’s we try to make sure, as service leaders, that we’re keeping all of this in the back of our heads. In fact its only recently that I’ve realised just how crucial good service leading is – it means I have to work harder on preparing how I’ll lead the service rather than just rocking up on Sunday evening.

I suppose you also don’t want to make it too rigid where the onlooker gets the sense that everything is programmed. In a liturgical church like ours (albeit contemporary liturgy), this is a real danger. It’s not overcome-able though – I’ve seen plenty of guys, who I know have prepared their service from top to bottom in detail, and yet the way they lead it is relaxed, low-key and very relational. It really comes down to hard work on the part of the service leader.

Keller continues on the subject of clarity in services:

“Explain the service as you go along. Though there is danger of pastoral verbosity, learn to give 1 or 2 sentence, non-jargony explanations of each new part of the service. “When we confess our sins, we are not groveling in guilt, but dealing with our guilt. If you deny your sins you will never get free from them.” It is good to begin worship services as the Black church often does, with a “devotional”–a brief talk that explains the meaning of worship. This way you continually instruct newcomers in worship.”

Some people might question this as to whether it won’t all end up becoming a bit pedantic – and the Christians in the congregation start feeling like they’re being treated as children – and I think that’s a real concern. But once again , I think through hard work and careful preparation it can be avoided. Either way I think Keller’s words are crucial for us to stomach and think about our local churches.

Back to normal…

Well that last post got a lot of attention – which is great – and so I’ll keep you updated about the forthcoming blog. Till then normal posting should resume. To start with here’s a link:

Steve McCoy has posted on the foundational documents of the new Gospel Coalition which includes involvement from the likes of Don Carson and Tim Keller.

Reformed Missional Conversation in South Africa

In the last 3 or four years a lot of my thinking has been captivated by ‘emerging’ culture and thinking through ministry in this ‘emerging’ culture. I only started reading emerging literature about a year and half ago (I did attend a seminar on emerging concepts about a year before that, but I must have been sleeping because I didn’t really make the connection). Only when I started reading McClaren, Miller, Driscoll and loads and loads of blogs did I realise that much of their ‘protest’ was where my thinking was and had already been for a few years.

Soon frustrations appeared as my conservative Reformed theology clashed with much in the emerging conversation. I found myself distancing myself, theologically, from certain streams within the Emerging Church and then beginning to wonder if there was any value to the conversation at all. At that point the likes of Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll and Steve McCoy came to my rescue – showing that Reformed theology could be completely compatible with an emerging outlook on ministry and life. I discovered the emerging watch-word that is ‘missional’ and realised that I was searching for ‘missional‘ all along in my thinking. As I read I became more and more excited about future possibilities of ministry.

At this point a further frustration struck – everything was going on in theory or (in my case) over the Atlantic in North America. So for the last few months I’ve been scratching my head as to how I might bring this whole conversation down to earth – here on the southern end of the beautiful continent of Africa. So here’s what I’m thinking:

I want to start a Reformed missional conversation here in South Africa. In about 3 weeks time I’m giving a talk to a number of ministers in Kwa-Zulu Natal on the subject of the Emerging Church. This is the perfect opportunity for us to begin that conversation – a conversation dedicated to Reformed distinctives that are thoroughly missional and really address the emerging culture – with an end to seeing this conversation earthed in our churches here in South Africa.

At this point I just want to get word out. By the time I give the talk I will hopefully have set up a blog where the conversation can continue and grow. Right now I want to try and gauge general interest out there – so firstly if you are interested in this sort of thing then let me know by posting a comment or dropping me an email – secondly, if you know of anyone who might be interested point them this way – and so I want to open comments on this post for your thoughts and suggestions. For those of you who are outside of South Africa – your contributions and experience will be greatly appreciated and welcome. Let me know what you think.

#Update (14/06): The new blog can be found at The Gospel Conversation

Psalm 82 – Some Enigmatic Reflections

Psalm 82 is an intriguing short psalm of just 8 verses. It is penned by Asaph and is located in book III of the Psalms. The Psalm has something of enigma and mystery to it as one begins to read. The reason for this is that it’s very unclear and murky as to who exactly the Psalm is addressed. Only once the addressees are identified will the Psalm make sense and have true applicational value.

Verse one paints a metaphoric picture of God, that is Yahweh the covenant God, standing and giving judgment in a great assembly made up of ‘gods’. These ‘gods’ are confronted with an accusation in verse 2 as to how long they will keep throwing their lot in with the wicked without passing judgment perhaps by their disassociation. Verses 3 and 4 add the corrective instruction of God to these ‘gods’ who are under judgment – they are to stand firmly for the cause of the marginalized and care for them – which by implication they have clearly failed to do. Verse 5 can be taken as either referring to the ‘weak and needy’ (v.4) or a continuation of the description of the ‘gods’. The latter is perhaps a more favorable interpretation and in keeping with the context of the psalm as a whole. And so it is the ‘gods’ who understand nothing and walk in darkness – further confirmation of their judgment. Verse 6 then enters as a stunning rebuke – God who had once declared these ‘gods’ as ‘gods’ and as ‘sons of the Most High’ will judge them and they will die like ordinary men as is the way of all men. The psalmist then affirms this in the final verse with a call for God to judge the earth and claim his inheritance.

The enigma lies in the identity of the ‘gods’ – who are they? Are they metaphoric gods, symbols of the powers and ideologies that take man’s worship away from Yahweh? Are they, as one writer has suggested, the Jewish rulers who are in view here standing under God’s judgment? Are they angels and the heavenly host (cf. Job 1:6), deviant angels who have rejected God? Or does the clue to their identity lie elsewhere?

One big clue comes in John 10:34 where Jesus makes use of this very verse and sheds some interesting light on who the recipients might be. In John 10 Jesus addresses the Pharisees who are accusing him of calling himself ‘God’s Son’. In verse 34 he draws on Psalm 82:6 to highlight that in the ‘law’ people were referred to as ‘gods’. So at least we must agree with Jesus that the ‘gods’ in the psalm are not angels or gods which are metaphoric representations of world religions and ideologies but rather they metaphorically represent real people.

Who are those real people is the question? John gives another clue, Christ calls them those ‘to whom the word of God came’ (v.35). Most likely we would see that as a reference to the Jewish people, and it is not abnormal for the Jews to be referred to as sons of God or sons of the most high (cf. Hosea 11:1). Added to this is further evidence that in Rabbinic tradition that they thought of this psalm as referring to apostate Israel after the golden calf episode in Exodus 32. The Psalm then is a judgment Psalm warning the reader of the apostasy of Israel. It is not dissimilar to the overall thrust of the letter to the Hebrews in this regard. Israel we’re called to care for the oppressed, the poor and the weak amongst them (cf. Lev. 25), this was a visible sign of the covenant love of God reflected in the community. In this task they failed because ultimately they rejected that covenant love and so its outward manifestation was not evident.

This call of an outward demonstration of God’s covenant love is still impacting upon the believer today. Christians are still called to demonstrate their faith through caring for the weak, poor and oppressed (cf. James 1:27 and 2:14-26). When we, the believing community cease to have that love evident we show ourselves up as did Israel and so a stern warning stands for us – we will die like mere men, not like the redeemed who will be sons and daughters of the living God.

God’s New Community – A Review

Church? 

The word ‘church’, and all its significance, is in desperate need of being biblically reclaimed – enter Graham Beynon and his book, ‘God’s New Community’. Beynon sets out to do this through a series of applicatory expositions of key New Testament texts in order to reclaim this word which is so central to the lives of all Christians. This book comes as a welcome challenge to much wrong thinking in contemporary evangelicalism and provides a healthy corrective to what many might consider minor issues regarding the doctrine of church. It will be helpful to briefly outline the author, his intent, a synopsis of the chapters and then to critically summarize how well Beynon has achieved his goal.

Before continuing on our path we must firstly comment on the readability of the book. The book is concise, making up only 137 pages – hardly a daunting task for even the most trepid reader. Each chapter is well composed with logical flow of thought and littered with helpful contemporary illustrations and anecdotes. Whilst it is clear that the author hails from the United Kingdom, due to his use of certain allusions, it is not to the detriment of the overall thrust of the book and these allusions should be easily understandable to any reader with an understanding of western culture. Each chapter also contains a bible study section that can be utilized in home groups and any other sort of small group setting. Brief appendix of further reading (138) is included for the student who would wish to explore, in more depth, the themes introduced here. The chapters are simple without being simplistic and allow for both the young disciple and the seasoned veteran to glean much insight from its pages. Beynon has an obvious gift in the area of clarity and he puts it to good use concerning a subject that is in need of a crystal clear voice.

The Author

Benyon a pastor in Leicester, England and has been involved in a number of churches prior to his current position, including involvement with St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate. Dave Burke, a former colleague of Beynon, has the following to say about him in the foreword, ‘Graham Beynon’s deep knowledge, passionate commitment and practical involvement have equipped him for the job; you won’t get a better teacher than that’ (8). Beynon notes that the occasion for the book was as the result of delivering a series of sermons on the topic of ‘church’ which he then developed into book form. This accounts the nature of each of the chapters which are sets out largely as expositions of New Testament passages.

Synopsis of the Chapters

In the introductory chapter Beynon expounds 1 Peter 2:4-10. It is in this chapter that he makes a call to join his ‘personal campaign’ (11), and so he explains his campaign is a campaign ‘for Christians to use the word “church” properly.’ (11). Here he sets out the fundamental truth, drawing on the apostle Peter’s teaching, that church is about people, but not any old group of people, rather those who have been redeemed by Christ – they are the church. His view then, on the origin of the church, is deeply wrapped up with the concept that the church is made up of God’s people, and so ultimately he sees church being traced as far back in a redemptive historical trajectory as the Garden of Eden. This chapter helpfully sets the agenda for the rest of the book and puts the emphasis first and foremost on people as opposed to the numerous other tangible objects that enter our heads when we think of church.

In chapters 2, 3 and 4 Beynon, building upon the idea of the church as people, looks at the united nature of the church. Firstly he opens up Ephesians 2:11-22 and challenges the notion that there is any form of division in the church either racially, economically or socially. In Christ the dividing wall of hostility is broken down. Using the analogy of Paul, regarding Jews and Gentiles, Beynon states, ‘When we think of Jesus’ work on the cross we usually think of his purpose as being to reconcile us to God; and rightly so. But along with that he has another purpose. Verse 15 states it very strongly: “his purpose was to create in himself one new man out of two’. Jesus forges them together into a brand new humanity.’ (29). He goes on to contest that the church is the expression of this new humanity, a new family (30). The implications, which he draws out (32), are that we, in the church gently bear with one another in love.

Chapter 3 further extrapolates this by turning to Ephesians 4:7-16 and outlining how this new united family might grow. He states the twofold purpose of the church in their responsibility to testify to the world and also to edify the believers themselves (40). He then zooms in on this growth process of edification and demonstrates from the text the relationship between word gifts and church growth. He helpfully describes the word gifts as acting as orchestra conductors for the rest of the church that they might serve and grow correctly (47).

Chapter four continues with the unified nature of the church and picks up Paul’s metaphor of the body from 1 Corinthians 12:4-27. He Beynon extrapolates that metaphor in order to demonstrate that church members intimately ‘belong’ to one another (51). He calls for a church that actively involves its lives with the lives of one another and that does not promote individualism.

Chapter 5 then shifts the focus to two chapters that deal with love, the motivating force behind the unity. Firstly Beynon opens up Romans 12:3-21 and discusses the sort of love that should be exhibited in the church body. He concludes that the sort of love needed is not a ‘fluid love’ but rather ‘concrete love (76). He suggests that the ultimate way this is displayed is if members of the body reflect the love of God himself (74). Love is such a crucial concept that he then continues ion chapter 6 by looking at a number of places in the New Testament where practical love is exhibited. The list of New Testament references that he assembles are quite overwhelming in conveying the idea that love is central to what it means to be church. He translates these references into some down to earth practical realities in the church today where love needs desperately to be manifest. He concludes, as Jesus concludes, that love ought to be the element which marks out a Christian from the rest (91).

Beynon then goes on, in chapter 7, to discuss the role of leadership in the church. He draws on 1 Timothy 3:1-13 and Acts 20:25-38 and concentrates most of his time on the role of elder/overseer/shepherd/pastor which he sees as essentially one office. He outlines their task as ‘protecting, feeding and leading’ (100). He contends that they are to accomplish this by firstly teaching the word of God and secondly by the examples of the lives they live. He does make mention of the office of deacon but notes carefully that we ought to be careful about what exactly we designate a deacon to be since the New Testament does not give us nearly as much information as it does on the subject of elders. Hence he sees the concept of deacon as being largely tied up to people with specific roles of service (105). In conclusion to the chapter he calls on believers to ‘pray, encourage, respect and give thanks’ for church leaders (106).

In chapter 8 the proverbial rubber hits the road as Beynon gets practical. He notes that we might be tempted to give up on such noble ideals of church and not truly get involved and so he turns to Colossians 3:12-17 for help in strengthening believers to continue with such ideals that the Bible presents. His thesis here revolves around the idea that through the many activities we partake in at church we must be letting the word of Christ dwell in us richly. This means that teaching of the scripture, in its many expressions, is to be central to the life of the church. He suggests that this is the only way in which the peace of Christ will rule amongst us and allow us to fulfill the true concept of church (120).

In the final chapter Beynon looks at Acts 2:42-47 and the early church presented there as he attempts to pull all the threads together into what a church should look like. He highlights Bible learning, togetherness, praise, prayer, fellowship and evangelism as the hallmarks of a healthy growing, biblical church. He concludes with the following words, ‘I hope you have seen from this chapter and from the whole book that church is more about who we are and what we are committed to than about particular meetings we attend.’ (136)

Strengths and Weaknesses

Let us first discuss the weaknesses of the book. Firstly the book is nowhere near a thorough theological treatment of the doctrine of Scripture, nor is it intended to be. A serious student might desire further discussion on certain points. The book is also western, and whilst it still has much to say to the church in the majority world it would still need further packaging in terms of ideas and concepts for this to be a truly global book.

In saying this though I find the overall book to be filled with strength after strength. The most obvious strength is that it deals with the text; the Bible is clearly exegeted, explained and applied by an unashamed workman which is a refreshing approach when one considers much of the Bible handling in large amounts of Christian literature today. The book also has the strength of being profoundly simple. It deals with profound issues in a simple manner without playing down the issues in any way – this is the mark of a good teacher and Beynon steps up to the plate in this regard. Thirdly, the book challenges a large amount of wrong thinking and wrong action within the church, and as on who sympathizes with the thesis presented, this book offers a necessary corrective and many would benefit from reading it. Fourthly the book is practical and full of applicatory insight in order to bring home the Biblical teaching. And finally the book is about people, not structures or organizations, but real people trying to live like united Christians in a real world.

Conclusion

This book deserves a wide reading and, in the opinion of this review, should be given to all young Christians – one can think of no better book for such an audience. Beynon has done his homework and he has done it wish real insight that deserves an airing. One cherishes books that can be both profound and yet simple on such important topics.

Beynon, G. 2005. God’s New Community. Inter-Varsity Press. Leicester.

New Addition

I’ve added Dr Mark DeVine’s blog to my ‘clever guys’ blogroll – I’m really enjoying what and how this guy writes.

BTW – This is post no. 100!

Beynon on Reconciliation

“When we think of Jesus’ work on the cross we usually think of his purpose as being to reconcile us to God; and rightly so. But along with that he has another purpose. Verse 15 states it very strongly: “his purpose was to create in himself one new man out of two’. Jesus forges them together into a brand new humanity.” Graham Beynon – “God’s New Community” p.29

How often do we who have been reconciled to God by Christ’s work on the cross forget God’s other purpose – to reconcile all those ‘in Christ’ with each other. What would our churches look like in South Africa if this truth from Ephesians was really internalized and applied?

Cross-Reference Updates

For all the book-worms out there Cross-Reference has some updates.

New Template

The new template has seemingly had the bugs taken out of it – so it looks like its here to stay. Enjoy.

Challies and Evangelistic Blogging

My blogging has been slack of late due to a number of external circumstances (which might affect the regularity of my blogging in the future) – because of this I started reflecting on why I blog. At the same time Tim Challies started writing a really great series about blogging, with his own personal angle thrown in. In the third installment of his series he looks at the various benefits of Christian blogging – in this discussion he makes so pertinent comments about the role or existence of evangelism in the blogsphere. Here are some of his thoughts:

“Evangelism – The nature of blogs is such that people gravitate to blogs that interest them and away from those that don’t. Thus the best Christian blogs are read primarily by Christians. I have yet to see a blog that has been really successful in any kind of evangelism. If people are only likely to read blogs that interest them, and the hearts of those who are unsaved are opposed to God, it makes sense that they would flee from Christian blogs. And even when unbelievers do show an interest in a Christian blog and leave a comment, they are often quickly bowled over by Christians who are, for some reason, upset when unbelievers act like unbelievers and express unbiblical sentiments. I think that, if Christians are to make a mark in evangelism in this medium, they will have to do what they have always done in society and that is, they will need to filter outwards to blogs dealing with other subjects and try to shine a light there. Rather than beginning a blog dealing with overtly Christian subject matter, they can allow a Christian worldview to inform their efforts to blog about other subjects that are of particular interest to them.”

Wise words from one the most recognized Christian bloggers on the web. Read the whole article here.

Break Things!

If you don’t like music that makes you want to break things then don’t watch this clip. Otherwise enjoy…

No Posting this Weekend

I’m off to Hermanus for the weekend – so read someone else’s blog till Monday – or read some of the older posts on this blog. And I hope all self-respecting South Africans will be watching the rugby tomorrow. Since Arsenal have brought me no joy this season maybe the Sharks can improve my sports viewing track record of late.

Beckwith and Incentive

Most of the blogging world already knows about Francis Beckwith leaving Protestantism and re-joining Roman Catholicism, as well as resigning as the Evangelical Theological Society’s president – so I won’t rehash it. You can read more here. What interested me was a comment that almost blew my socks off that Beckwith made when being interviewed by Christianity Today’s David Neff. (HT – Justin Taylor). Beckwith made the following statement:

“The issue of justification was key for me. The Catholic Church frames the Christian life as one in which you must exercise virtue—not because virtue saves you, but because that’s the way God’s grace gets manifested. As an evangelical, even when I talked about sanctification and wanted to practice it, it seemed as if I didn’t have a good enough incentive to do so.” (emphasis mine).

What knocked my sideways was when I thought about this against the backdrop of historical evangelicalism. As a historic evangelical I look upon the cross and see a bleeding dying savior giving up his life in the world’s single greatest ever act of love and I cannot but strive for godliness in response to that love. How on earth can I lack incentive? Am I just missing something here or does it not add up in your mind either? Surely the love of Christ compels us more than any other single thing on this earth to live a sanctified life before our God? How did Beckwith lose that incentive – the Protestant church needs to answer that question as far as I’m concerned.

My Aspirations

Before I went to Bible college I wanted to be a rock star.

Apprenticeship

One of the glaring needs of our churches here in South Africa is to run good apprenticeships, giving opportunities to people to explore full-time Christian work under the watchful eye of senior ministers before pursing further theological studies. The apprenticeship programme that I did prior to coming to college was probably the best training I could have had before Bible college. One of the people who came as a guest speaker during my apprenticeship was Colin Marshall who heads up MTS in Australia. Colin has a book coming out this month entitled ‘Passing the Baton – a handbook for ministry apprenticeship‘. This guy is the absolute guru of in-church training and so this book will definitely be worth getting hold of. Check the Matthias Media resource guide 2007 for more details.

Links and Prayer

The authors of the Coffee Bible Club are pulling out some good stuff on atonement, especially from the gospels.

Modern Reformation gets a revamp.

Check out the Matthias Media resource guide for 2007.

Please pray for our Young Worker’s “ASK” course which kicks off tonight. We hold a course at the local pub over the next 5 weeks where enquirers can come and ask questions about Christianity and where we get to ask a few back from the Gospel of Mark.

Scripture and Fallacies

From my general reading of other blogs (especially those with Emergent or emerging leanings) I’ve begun to pick up a number of misconceptions about what it means to have a ‘high view’ of Scripture. So, as someone who holds to a high view of Scripture, I want to debunk 10 fallacies. Holding to a high view of Scripture DOES NOT MEAN…

• That one interprets every single thing in the Bible literally
• That one interprets every single thing in the Bible literally where possible
• That human authorial intent should be ignored
• That the human authors were mere puppets contributing nothing of themselves
• That the Bible is a textbook of theological propositions
• That ALL the stories in the Bible have to be historical events
• That one must believe in a literal 6 day creation
• That historical context has no bearing on interpretation
• That God did not work differently, in some things, in different stages of redemptive history
• That there are no textual errors in the transmission over the centuries

Disclaimer: All of these fallacies are practised by certain circles of groups and people claiming to have a ‘high view’ of Scripture – but because they practice it doesn’t mean that’s what having a ‘high view’ of Scripture is all about.