Friendship

I needed to be in a different part of the country recently and it was my privilege to spend a day or so with one of my best friends. This particular friend and I have known each other for about 30 years now. It is the gospel that brought us together and the gospel that has kept us friends. We first met at our local chapel and got to know each other at various gatherings for young people – Friday night club, Bible class, camps. We were both converted in our early teens and attended the same baptismal classes.

In a few short years, however, we were both thrust out into the great world beyond and our paths diverged significantly. My friend left school at 16, went into the forces and served in England, Wales, Germany and the Falklands. He was soon married and is already a (rather youthful!) grandfather. He is now in middle management with a firm that always seems to be gearing up for its next round of redundancies. He belongs to a large evangelical Baptist church well north of London where I pastor a small Reformed Baptist church. I came to London to study for the ministry following a university degree in West Wales. My eldest son is a couple of years younger than my friend’s youngest.

Despite these obvious differences we continue to be good friends and being together again was a great chance to relax, catch up on the news, share views and jokes and enjoy one another’s company. In the course of one conversation we discussed the nature of friendship. From it I draw out the following list of ingredients for a good friendship. We often apply Proverbs 18:24 to Christ A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother but it has a plainer meaning too, one not to be ignored.

1. Time Some friendships are made in a moment. David and Jonathan seem to have hit it off straight away. Usually, however, such things take time. A righteous man is cautious in friendship (Proverbs 12:26). In a busy world we need to find time for making and keeping friends.

2. Shared experience This is probably essential. We had at least one ‘I wonder what so-and-so is doing now’ conversation about half-forgotten people we knew as boys, a conversation I am able to have with very few people these days. Of course, where friends are Christians they continue to know similar experiences and it was good again this time to be able to talk frankly about struggles in our devotional life, resisting temptation, failures as husbands and fathers and the state of our respective churches.

3. Mutual respect and admiration You know when someone respects you. It is one of the pleasures of friendship. Equally, it is good to look with some complacency on another human being. We get a glimpse of the Trinity in that. My friend could perhaps have been a professional footballer, like his two best friends, had concern about playing football on the Lord’s Day not inhibited him. His perseverance in the faith despite many failings always encourages me. Then there is his neighbourliness, his humility and his common sense approach to church life. His faithful visits to a local retired and disabled minister we first heard preach as boys fill me with admiration. I am always stirred to ask whether such things can be seen in my life.

4. Tolerance and acceptance Do not get the idea that my friend is perfect. No more than I am. He does things that I am unsure about and I tell him so. As I am a minister he is a little slower coming forward on spiritual issues but he is not slow to point out my more obvious faults where necessary or to disagree strongly on matters of taste and opinion. A difference of view is usually a pretty matter of fact thing with us. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses (Proverbs 27:6). Such things can be taken too far. I’m sure the unsympathetic sermonettes I wrote when my friend was having his struggles without a decent church to attend were pretty unhelpful. Forgiveness and forbearance is thankfully also part of toleration.

5. Openness A great thing about a good friend is the opportunity to be at ease in their presence and, as appropriate, to talk openly and honestly with them. It is neither right nor feasible to do that with everyone. There is something akin to being in the presence of God about it. In John 15:15 the Lord Jesus says to his disciples I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. It is such a sharing that differentiates friendship and mere servanthood.

6. It takes effort The proverb commands Do not forsake your friend and the friend of your father (27:10). Without effort on at least one side or the other friendships slide. What great opportunities for doing good and for receiving a blessing are lost when we do so. Perhaps you have a few letters to write or a telephone call to make. I know I certainly have.

WFB 1929-2009

My father, William Francis Brady, died in hospital in Pontypool just after 2 pm today - Sunday, November 29th. He was 80 years old. Everyone called him “Bill”. He'd been unwell for several months and we knew that death would probably take him from us before the end of the year. Obviously, my immediate thoughts are ones of great sadness. He was my dad, the only dad I've ever had, and a great dad at that. My mother died 10 years before and so my sister and I are at last left all alone, as it were.
At the same time there is a great thankfulness to God. I am thankful that I had a father who I knew and who I knew well. I am thankful that I had him there for so long – 50 years. I am thankful that for most of that time he was fit and well, especially as I was growing up. I am thankful that he was a moral man who brought me up according to the ten commandments, as best he knew how, and disciplined me so that I would not end up a fool. Although he never taught me the gospel, not knowing it, he never stood in my way but supported me as best as he knew how in seeking to be a Christian and a minister of the gospel. I am thankful that he had a long life and that God gave me many opportunities to testify to him and towards the end to read the Scriptures with him and pray with him too. The last time my boys gathered at his bed and I asked him to say something to them he told them to hear the Bible and listen to what it said.
As far as I'm aware my earliest memories of my dad go back to the time before I was five. My first is of him wet shaving in the kitchen of the first house we lived in. Shaving, especially wet shaving, is a fascinating process for a young boy to watch. Whiskers themselves are fascinating at that age, as is the removal of them. Singing and whistling are in there too, which my dad did plenty of – and quite well. He loved to croon. There was also the concern over hot water. My parents were always very alert to danger and I know they were concerned about that. In my mind's eye I see the plastic cup of hot water into which my dad would dip his shaving brush and in my head I remember learning the word scald and at some point differentiating it from the word scold.
The other main memory from the first house is the day of my fourth or fifth birthday. I recall being at the table with friends from school who were there for the party when we heard someone entering by the side door of the house. “Hello” rang out my dad's inimitable voice. All the kids were afraid or pretended to be. I remember being amazed. Why would anyone be afraid of my dad?
There is also a vague memory of a Christmas in the first house and being given a Scalextric (racing car game) and my dad spinning me some yarn about Father Christmas. (I remember my mother telling me that my dad and the man next door played with the Scalextric most of Christmas morning!).
The other memory finds us in the kitchen of the house we moved into after my sister was born. Again it was my birthday but I am definite this was my fifth. It is not the party I recall, though, but my dad coming home with this box containing a green scooter which he proceeded to assemble before my gazing eyes. His favourite colour was green.
There are loads more memories, of course, including being taken to see Godzilla and The Guns of Navarone when I was far too young but those are the first few. He would often tell me that if I didn't work harder at school I'd “end up on the ash carts”. He found it odd when things that came naturally to him – like a sense of direction, arithmetic, dribbling a ball – didn't come naturally to me. My dad was a big man, six foot two inches, with long legs. He almost never had much hair. He was generally patient but could lose his temper with us at times. He hated lying but believed it was permissible in some cases – but only as an act of kindness. He loved to sing, as I have said, and was a fine yodeller. He liked most types of music, including jazz. I remember watching the Oscar Peterson show with him sometimes. Glenn Miller was his all time favourite. He always felt that not being able to read music was a great disadvantage but he was musical enough to sing with a band or in a choir. Sometimes when singing he would forget the words and inadvertently repeat himself. He loved to dance as well and loved a smooth floor and good musicianship.
He was a natural at most sports and loved soccer. He played football and baseball at a decent amateur level and was a good swimmer. His racing dive was legendary. He would watch any sport on television, especially golf or snooker. He usually read two newspapers a day (from back to front) but avoided books as he tended to get so absorbed that they took over his life. When he was reading the paper it was often difficult to get a response from him. He wanted us to be sensible, thoughtful people who enjoyed life and persevered with the things we set about doing.
He had a good sense of humour and liked jokes and puns. He was quite a good story teller too full of anecdotes. He was careful with money but generous at times too. He liked to gamble, especially on horse racing but even on one armed bandits. He drank bitter weekly and whisky at Christmas. He liked his food and was never a fussy eater. He had a healthy appetite. Marriage was a lifelong commitment never to be questioned. He saw his chief duty to us as a provider and guiding hand.
It is staggering to think at this vantage point of a whole life gone. How quickly the years have somehow passed. It won't be long before we're all in the grave.
My dad belonged to a boys brigade as a boy and possibly heard the gospel but was put off by some wrongdoing that appeared to be going on in the Baptist church he attended. He hated hypocrisy and most forms of deceit, especially of the religious sort. Being a man of great moderation and a strong will he found it difficult to think of himself as a sinner and that probably hindered any spiritual progress. A certain self-confidence of the “I'm no worse than the next man” didn't always help either. But who knows? God is very great and it may well be that in those final years and months he came, like my mother, to accept the truth. In the latter years he would sometimes say to me, quite seriously, “how do you know I don't believe anyway?” Will not the judge of all the earth do right?

This article previously appeared on my main blog

Lessons from a mother

New year celebrations were coloured for me by my mother’s death last November (1999), cancer having been diagnosed last May. It is good to reflect on unsought providences. With a sense of God’s goodness my mind has been on lessons he has taught me through her.

It’s good to put the spotlight on motherhood, something on which the Bible places a high value. 1 Timothy 2:15 (Women will be saved through childbearing …) we can paraphrase as ‘Woman’s role is not preaching or other things some men do but bearing and bringing up children (domestic activities). In such roles Christian women should live and receive salvation’.

Any good I do as a preacher is due greatly to my mother’s nurture. We must never think motherhood a lowly calling. It is crucial. What impact mothers have. My mother had many jobs, perhaps too many. However, she never looked at these as her career. When she was asked to be London buyer for a boutique she refused as it would harm her career - as housewife and mother!

My mother taught me many helpful lessons as I grew up but was not converted until I had grown up. Some things I learned were unhelpful and she failed to teach things I needed to know. She never taught me how to pray, for example. When very young she encouraged bedtime prayers but there was no real teaching or encouragement as until in her fifties she did not know how. By the time she began praying I had been long converted. Though unbelievers can do nothing truly good they can do relative good and in certain areas she encouraged me greatly in the right direction until I was converted. A Salvationist grandfather and a local Brethren Assembly were positive influences. Although converted after me, her influence in leading me to Christ and to the ministry was crucial.

• Most obviously there is the lesson of grace. I prayed many years for her conversion and at last God answered. It seemed impossible, yet it happened. I saw changes in my mother I hardly imagined. They could have come only by God’s grace.
• She taught me to believe in God. But What may be known about God is plain … because God has made it plain … Since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities … have been clearly seen …. However, by nature we deny the facts and attempt to suppress our knowledge. The fool’s There is no God is less unbelief and more refusal to accept facts. Although we know God we neither glorify him as God nor give thanks to him. I am so thankful that even before my mother was converted she believed in God and encouraged me to believe. She had plenty of the usual excuses for unbelief – she grew up in war time; a younger brother fall into an open fire; her nearest sister died at 19. By God’s grace she did not make these things excuses for unbelief. She did nothing to undermine belief in God so much so that I have never had serious doubts.
• When I was a boy, if I did wrong I was reprimanded, smacked with a wooden spoon or sent to bed. I was always encouraged to do right. The idea of no difference between right and wrong was never encouraged. This was, of course, something my own soul told me but my mother did everything to encourage that attitude. I wanted to be good not naughty – partly to please her. Isaiah 5:20 pronounces woe on those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light … light for darkness, …. In the 1960s many efforts were made to blur distinctions but my mother stood firmly against that. There is such thing as right and wrong. I am thankful to have known that from a baby.
• Further, she taught me the Ten Commandments – not formally but I was brought up on the basis of this Law. She wanted me to obey and honour her and my dad. It is one reason I have lived so long. I had friends who shouted at their mothers in the street, something I never dreamt of. I was encouraged to turn from all forms of hatred. Her lifelong devotion to my father bore its own testimony. When I was five my best friend’s mother ‘ran off’. Attempts were made to steal my mother from my father too but it was not something she would even contemplate. Stealing was again alien. Even petty pilfering was beyond her. I was the same. I remember coming home from school with a piece of wax crayon in my pocket. I was horrified at having stolen! For my parents, lying was a great sin. Coveting and greed were again outlawed. The standard answer to ‘So-and-so has got one’? ‘I don’t care what anyone else has – you’re not having one’. My parents bought us good things but we were taught to keep our desires for things within bounds. She not only encouraged me to believe in God but opposed idolatry and bad language too. I remember being called from play once for saying ‘Shurrup’. For some time I thought it was one word and swearing at that. God’s name was certainly not to be used that way. I was encouraged to keep Sunday special too. Sundays were for playing ‘out the back’ not in the street. I remember children calling in the vain hope I would be allowed out. Sunday was special, not boring but special – hair washed, special food, special pastimes, usually a family day. When very young indeed I remember being taken to Sunday School. I still remember having Bible stories in the nursery with paper figures in a sand tray and take home leaflets with biblical scenes. For many years my mother did not attend church herself but was keen to send my sister and I. I grew to loathe Sunday School and finally she agree I could stop. Her non-attendance undercut her argument. It is a mark of this country’s decline that so few keep Sunday special today.
• My mother was never one to sit down. When she eventually did, she would fall asleep. She instinctively agreed with Proverbs 10:4 Lazy hands make a man poor, but diligent hands bring wealth and Ecclesiastes 9:10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might … and, perhaps, New Testament verses about self-control. She was determined to make every day count – up early, working hard, being diligent. Her attitude was a workmanlike one. She would say things like ‘You’ve got to make your brain work’, ‘You need to keep at it’. She would attack me for my ‘Couldn’t care less attitude’. A favourite rejoinder to laziness was a sarcastic ‘Lay down there and I’ll fan you!’. The downside was scepticism about illness and weakness but we all need to recognise the wickedness of laziness, the nobility of hard work, the importance of self-control.
• I must balance that by saying that my mother was good at enjoying life too. There was a liveliness, a zest for life that was attractive. She loved sport as a youngster and dancing all her life. Her face enjoying a Chopin etude was a picture. She would love verses like 1 Timothy 4:4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, Some of us tend to be morbid and depressive – we need to be reminded that God intended us to enjoy life. At first my mother did not see how she could live to God’s glory and still enjoy life. The idea of giving certain things up did not appeal. However, when she came to Christ she saw that life in Christ is not about giving things up but abundant life to God’s glory. Her sins troubled her. It is difficult married to an unbeliever, especially when he can say with justification ‘It’s you that’s changed, not me’.
• Another thing she gave me was thirst for knowledge. She left school at 14 and found facts difficult to memorise. However, she was convinced of the importance of education. From my youngest days she did all she could to fill my head with facts. She was a bit of a Gradgrind but that was partly due to ignorance. Her philosophy of children was ‘they are like sponges’; you need to feed their young minds. She would buy general knowledge quiz books to test me and always loved University Challenge. She encouraged me to read, though no great reader herself. The negative side for me has been a head full of trivia but when I was converted I began to see that she was right about the need to thirst for right knowledge. See Proverbs 4:1-13. With that thirst for knowledge came an emphasis on the power of words. A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver. Like the teacher of Ecclesiastes she liked the idea of searching to find just the right words. I rebelled at first against speaking nicely, etc, but I got hooked on things like Readers Digest’s ‘Expand your vocabulary’ so that I have come to love words. It is one element in the way the Lord has led me to become a preacher (and editor).
• The last lesson was in her death. She is now in heaven, safe forever. To have someone so close in heaven brings its own blessings, despite the pain – something I never knew before.

Not every lesson was positive. My mother’s zeal and drive meant she was sometimes slow to give praise, afraid of feeding pride. God has his ways of humbling people – it is not our job. She was not a great example of patience and at times was perhaps too slow to express emotion. Yet how thankful I am to God to have had such a mother. May these words about her be a blessing to others.

This first appeared in Grace Magazine

Supporting parents

The Bible says a great deal about the bringing up of children. On the matter of physical punishment its stance is clear from several proverbs (13:24, 22:15, 23:13, 14, 29:15). He who spares the rod hates his son; the rod of discipline drives out folly; punishment with the rod imparts wisdom and preserves both physical and spiritual life. Now there is a breadth of understanding among Christians as to how discipline works out in practice. Among our members we have both a theonomist and a pacifist and so I am well aware of that. Nevertheless if the civil government has the intention of enacting laws that are going to hinder Christians in following biblical precepts then all will be concerned, especially those who are parents with children.

Supporting parents?

Corporal punishment has already been banned in all schools, nurseries and children’s homes. Now (2000) the civil government have produced a 25 page consultation document on the matter of physical punishment of children in the home called Protecting children, supporting parents. It has only to do with England, but similar documents will no doubt be produced in connection with legislation in the other home countries.

The document presents itself as a reasoned and unbiased approach to the subject but we should not be taken in by its apparently neutral stance. It begins by saying that as the law presently stands a parent challenged over corporal punishment and taken to court can raise a defence of ‘reasonable chastisement’. This idea, according to the document, ‘has its origins in Victorian times’. Why this phrase is used is unclear unless to undermine the idea as out of date. The European Court of Human Rights is unhappy, it appears, not with the concept but its application and so the United Kingdom is obliged to alter its laws in this area. Hence the document.

The paper goes on to assert that the government does not think it right to make smacking or similar punishments unlawful. They distinguish, in a way that many do not, between beating children and ‘mild physical rebuke’. It promises that the government is seeking to support the institution of marriage and does not want to introduce heavy handed interference in families. All this sounds encouraging. However, the paper also talks of a new National Family and Parent Institute and a new telephone helpline for parents. This prospect is much less re-assuring. It is made quite clear that the aim of such institutions will be to aid and abet parents in finding means of punishment other than those that involve physical punishment. In other words this is a government that is not against ‘mild physical rebuke’ and yet will be ploughing precious resources into encouraging parents not to use this biblically sanctioned method of punishment.

Opinion poll

One of the government’s problems is that, as the paper reveals, a poll revealed that 88% of us are in favour of smacking. Therefore, it is not easy to bring in a law banning it. The plan appears to be, therefore, to chip away at public opinion until it changes. All that is necessary in light of the decision of the European Court is to prevent ‘inhuman and degrading treatment’ from being defended as ‘reasonable chastisement’. However, the government is taking the opportunity to consult widely on further issues with a view to introducing new law in these areas.

Questions

They appear to be asking four questions in particular.

1. Apart from what is set out in the document, what factors should the law require a court to consider when determining whether physical punishment of a child constitutes ‘reasonable chastisement’?

2. Are there any forms of physical punishment that should never be capable of being defended as reasonable. Specifically, should the law say there is no reasonable defence for

• Physical punishment that causes, or is likely to cause, injuries to the head.
• Physical punishment using implements (eg canes, slippers, belts).

3. Should the defence of reasonable chastisement not be open to those charged with the more serious crime of causing actual bodily harm or worse?

4. Should those able to plead ‘reasonable chastisement’ be, as now, both parents and those acting on their behalf or should it be limited to either

• Parents only.
• Parents and those acing on their behalf where express permission has been given for physical punishment.

No rod?

The most disturbing element here is the idea that use of an implement should be outlawed. The Bible specifically refers to use of the rod and so any attempt to outlaw its use is against the Bible and against Christianity. Further, it is a fact that without due care more damage can be done with the hand as its force is spread across the fingers of one hand and can easily jolt the poor child’s whole body. With an implement the blow is concentrated in one narrow area. It can be more painful but it is less likely to do permanent damage.

Though for many it is a not an issue removing the automatic right to physical punishment from those who are in loco parentis is unwelcome to some. The idea of limiting all physical punishment to parents only is even more unwelcome.

One is loathe to make a great fuss in an area like this. It is not that Christians want to beat their children. This is something that affects us all, as a generation grows up without firm and loving discipline at home. As much as some people in this country detest the rod, they are metaphorically making one for their own backs by neglecting children in this way. Other forms of punishment simply do not work and are often psychologically damaging. The short sharp shock is not a panacea for all ills but children who are denied it are certainly being deprived. It is a pity that this government seems unaware of the dangers they are courting as they show their willingness, once again, to completely disregard biblical teaching.

If anyone wants to see the document referred to and respond to the questions put (before April 2000), it can be obtained from the Health Department or accessed at:

This address

Responses need to be in written form and sent by ordinary post.

This article first appeared in Grace Magazine

In 2004 the Children's Act was passed. It updated the legislation on physical punishment (section 58) by limiting the use of the defence of reasonable punishment so that it can no longer be used when people are charged with the offences against a child of wounding, actual or grievous bodily harm or cruelty. Therefore any injury sustained by a child which is serious enough to warrant a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm cannot be considered to be as the result of reasonable punishment. It does not appear to have caused problems for Christians.

It is better to give than to receive

If you pick up one of those rather odd Bibles – a red letter Bible, one with all the words of our Lord printed in red, you will find that most of the red print is, understandably, in the Gospels at the beginning of the New Testament. You will also find some at the end in Revelation, one or two elsewhere, and a few in Acts. Of those in Acts the most interesting is Acts 20:35, where Paul quotes a saying of the Lord Jesus not found anywhere else It is more blessed to give than to receive.

This could, perhaps, be a summary of the Lord’s teaching but is much more likely to be an actual saying. As John intimates (John 21:25), Jesus did and said a great deal more than we have preserved for us in the Gospels. Even the most detailed biography of a man’s life cannot hope to cover everything that has gone on. It should be no surprise to us, therefore, that there are acts and sayings not included in the Gospels. Perhaps what is surprising is that this was a well known saying in Ephesus and yet has only been preserved here. No doubt written or oral collections of Jesus’ sayings were circulating at this early date (about 57 AD). ‘Have we lost other well known sayings too?’ we wonder. A number of independent sayings can be found in ancient literature but this is the only one we can be completely sure is genuine.

Roots

As with certain other sayings of Jesus you can find parallels to this one from other sources. For example, Aristotle said ‘It is more becoming for a free man to give where he must than to receive where he must.’

As with other sayings of Jesus its roots can better be traced to biblical proverbs such as these:

11:24-26 One man gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty. A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed. People curse the man who hoards grain, but blessing crowns him who is willing to sell.

14:21 He who despises his neighbour sins, but blessed is he who is kind to the needy.

14:31 He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honours God.

19:17 He who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will reward him for what he has done.

22:9 A generous man will himself be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor.

28:27 He who gives to the poor will lack nothing, but he who closes his eyes to them receives many curses.

It is reminiscent of another sayings found in Luke 6:30, 35, 38 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back … But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. … Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Of course, the very word blessed was one our Lord often used. J A Alexander says of the saying ‘The words themselves are exquisitely simple, but embody an important truth and principle of action.’

 

Meaning

On the face of it the saying seems wrong. ‘Silly the giver, lucky the receiver’ is more in tune with the world’s attitude. We instinctively question it. No doubt it is put in this way to give it force. Jesus is not saying ‘There is no blessing in receiving’. Of course, there is. Around this time of the year most of us receive gifts of one sort or another. Perhaps some of them are not ‘just what we always wanted’ but even then we can often appreciate the thought at least. To receive is a blessing and that is not denied here. It makes you happy, it encourages and pleases. It is, more often than not, an advantage to receive from others.

However, the argument is that it is more blessed to give. We do not find it difficult to see the advantages in receiving, but Jesus wants us to see that there are greater advantages in giving. The chief reason this is so is because it reflects the character of God himself. He is the God who gives. This reminds us of Jesus’s saying (preserved in Mark 10:45) that he himself came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. As Simon Kistemaker puts it ‘When man follows God’s example, he receives a divine blessing because he demonstrates that he is one of God’s children’.

John Gill helpfully speaks of the blessing as marked by greater comfort, honour, pleasure and profit. 

• Greater comfort because the giver obviously has ‘an abundance or at least a sufficiency and something to spare’
• Greater honour as ‘honour is reflected upon the giver, both by the receiver, and others; when to receive … carries in it, among men, some degree of dishonour’.
• Greater pleasure, whereas ‘to be in such circumstances, as make it necessary … to receive from others, and be dependent on them’ cannot be pleasurable.
• Greater profit ‘both in this world, and that to come’.

Another writer says it is more blessed to give because 

• It delivers us from ourselves – especially from selfishness and excess
• It unites us with those we give to, who are thankful and who pray for us if they are believers
• It brings us nearer to God as we imitate him, share in his delight and wait for out reward

This is a lesson we need to learn – not only at this time but for always. We must help the weak. It is a command. We ought to be motivated both by obedience to Christ and hope of blessing. Who gave more than any other? It is Christ. And who is more blessed than he? If we want to know God’s blessing we will be generous hearted, giving people who like the Apostle Paul are willing to do anything that the gospel may go out.
This article first appeared in Grace Magazine

A surfeit of conferences

In the comic history 1066 and all that death by a surfeit of lampreys and various other surfeits becomes a running joke. Are we in danger, ministers especially, of death by a surfeit of reformed conferences in the year 2000?

Twelve months worth

Already by the time you read this an extra long Carey Conference for church leaders will have taken place in Swanwick. I am not aware of anything in February but in March the BEC* has its study conference on man in God’s image. In April the Banner of Truth ministers conference is the same week as the FIEC’s holiday conference at Caister. In May Assembly 2000 will take place at Childs Hill.

Then through the summer there are various conferences on offer, including the Evangelical Ministry Assembly at St Helen’s, Bishopsgate, the Bala Ministers’ conference, Metropolitan Tabernacle School of Theology, Carey Family Conference, the Aberystwyth conference and GBM’s Family Camp at Athelington. The FEBE Conference is again in England this August. GBM also have a youth conference in Dunstable over the May Bank Holiday weekend and a youth camp at Dorking in August. There are several other worthy camps and other events, large and small during the year, aimed at youth.

Come Autumn there is no let up with a special conference in September at the newly inaugurated John Owen Centre in Finchley. In November it is the Reformation and Revival Fellowship’s annual conference for ministers (wives welcome!) and in December, if any of us, live that long, the Westminster Conference for historical studies.

I know that there are several conferences I have not even mentioned here and plenty of other day conferences, study courses and similar more local gatherings that could be noted too. I will not begin to think of what is available on other continents for those willing and able to make such journeys.

 

Inveterate

Now my purpose in drawing attention to this is certainly not simply to say ‘If only there were less conferences’. As an inveterate conference attender I can testify that I have received many great blessings at the scores of such gatherings I have been able to attend over the years. Conferences do more than help us recharge our spiritual batteries and learn from gifted men. They are opportunities for fellowship, for examining new and forgotten topics, for gathering news and information, for buying books and tapes, for informal discussion and exchange of information and ideas. What a blessing they are.

Every one of the conferences I have mentioned above has its own history, its own distinct ethos and its own contribution to make. No two are uniquely alike. Some never go to conferences which is their loss and ours. Some limit themselves to one conference a year out of necessity, others out of choice. Although it is understandable that those in larger churches feel less need for such gatherings it would be good if we saw more of such people. The multiplicity of conferences is divisive. Obviously we all have to be selective and so there are some who we may be quite on the same wavelength as us who we never see in such gatherings.

 

Concern

My chief concern about the surfeit of conferences is not their number and variety or their quality either. With help from around the globe the standard is generally high. Rather it is that we are rather top heavy in this department. There cannot have been a time in the history of the church when the opportunities such conferences boast have been more abundantly available. Other ages knew their larger gatherings, of course, (synods, prophesyings, associations, double lectures and similar gatherings) but with today’s comparative affluence and ease of travel we know them in abundance.

However, when we consider how many are being converted in our churches we have to say very few. When we enquire how many are preparing for the preaching ministry. Again, we have to say, very few. When we look at the spiritual state of the churches there is often cause for concern. Is the investment we are making in conferences leading to the sort of results we would long for?

 

What to do?

Spotting a problem is easy. What to do about it is much more difficult. Perhaps those of us involved in organising conferences and attending them could ask ourselves the following questions.

 

1. Is this conference really necessary?

2. Is it possible to make this conference shorter?

3. Is it necessary to hold this conference every year?

4. Is the content of this conference really what people need to hear?

 

I have not mentioned merging conferences as having been involved in something of that nature I have learned from experience that it is nearly impossible to do. Finally, something really radical. Bearing in mind what Jesus said about who you invite to parties and the way that in the 19th century members of churches like the Metropolitan Tabernacle would sometimes all give up their seats for others, is there something one of the conferences could try on those lines? Just a thought.

*Now Affinity. The biennial study conference has migrated to February

This article was originally an editorial in Grace Magazine

Why go to church twice on Sundays?

Sadly, we hear increasingly of churches giving up having two preaching meetings on the Lord’s Day. Thankfully most Grace churches continue to have two meetings and sometimes more. Yet not everyone wants to be at both meetings. Let me introduce you to that exotic but hardly rare species of churchgoer sometimes known as The Oncer

Oncers come in three main varieties. Most common are Morning Oncers. They are very faithful on a Lord’s Day morning, never miss. But as for any later meetings, they are nowhere to be seen. Of course, sometimes older people are a little wary of venturing out at night. Legitimate duties keep some away but, sad to say, even when a lift is arranged or circumstances change the Morning Oncer often still refuses to venture out a second time. Evening Oncers are rarer but, especially in some parts of the country where the tradition is strong, you will see such people without fail in the evening or afternoon meeting though they hardly ever come in the morning. Most exotic of all are Random Oncers. With these you never know quite what will happen until the day is over. If they are not there in the morning they may be there in the evening, but then again, you may not see them at all

Such people are often unbelievers but plenty of men and women who profess faith in Christ almost never think of coming along to church twice on the Lord’s Day, even though there are always two meetings and they are well able to come to both. The idea of coming twice on the Lord’s Day is a form of fanaticism they dare not contemplate. When I was converted as a teenager no-one told me to come to both Sunday meetings I just assumed it was the right thing to do. Not everyone finds it so simple. What arguments might induce them to come more often?

1. Remember, each meeting is a ‘public means of grace’

Therefore all healthy believers will want to be at both. At church the Word of God is read and expounded, the sacraments of the Lord’s Supper and baptism are often administered, there is prayer and praise and fellowship. All these are means of receiving blessing from God. How odd that any serious believer should deliberately throw up half the opportunities they have for such things each Lord’s Day.

2. It is a Scriptural command to meet often with God’s people

Hebrews 10:25 shows us that there were problems with attendance even in the earliest days. However, the writer urges his readers not to give up meeting together as some have done but to do so more and more as you see the Day approaching. The nearer we get to the Day of Judgment and the Lord’s Return the more eager we ought to be to meet with God’s people.

3. Coming to both meetings will greatly help you to honour the Lord’s Day

Christians certainly differ in their understanding of the Lord’s Day but there is a general recognition that Sunday should be different, separate from the other days of the week. Surely this should be so not merely of part of the day but of the whole day. If you properly prepare yourself for and properly take part in the two meetings, you will find that most of your day has been wisely filled. One sometimes wonders what Oncers do with the rest of their day.

4. At most churches the two meetings are quite distinctive

Failure to attend both may create an imbalance. In many places one meeting is features teaching for ‘saints’ and the other a gospel message for ‘sinners’. Anyone receiving only one of these is getting an imbalanced diet. Even where this is not strictly followed there is usually a commitment to expository preaching morning and evening. Rarely will a minister preach on a book of the Bible in the later meeting that he has already expounded in the morning and vice-versa. Oncers are likely never to hear some parts of Scripture expounded even though a little effort would give them the opportunity. Listening to the message on tape is hardly the same thing as being there under the Word and worshipping with the people.

5. By coming to both meetings you may avoid the ‘Service’ mentality

Perhaps it is the word ‘Service’ that gives the wrong impression. Undoubtedly some look on the church as providing a service for the public’s convenience. Services at different times of the day mean that one can come when it best suits. If you are a late riser or you like to have an elaborate Sunday lunch, fear not, you can always catch ‘the late show’. Or if you like to stop in on Sunday evenings watching TV or you go to see friends or family after lunch ‘the first sitting’ should be enough to keep you up to the mark. Full involvement in all the meetings of the Lord’s people should help to dispel that sort of consumer mentality which does so much harm to Christians.

6. Paradoxically it will enable you to be aware of everyone in the church orbit, even the Oncers

I have a friend whose church has such a large number of Oncers some the morning sort and some the evening type that the morning and evening congregations are quite different. Some people never meet, even though they go to the same church and hear the same men preach! While Oncers continue to exist the only way to know all those who attend the same place of worship is if you do not do the same.

7. You will be a great encouragement to your pastor and the rest of the congregation who have no doubt put as much effort into the earlier meeting as the later one if you will make the effort to come to both

The super-spiritual will reply that they do not come to church to please men but to please God. However, in Hebrews 10:25 the writer has no embarrassment in urging the people to meet more often in order to encourage one another. What an encouragement it might be, under God, if you decided to give up your lie in, your walk in the countryside, your cosy evenings in or whatever and started coming twice on Sundays. It will do you some good too if you stay humble. What about it?

Population explosion

According to Times reporter Ian Brodie the Washington based Population Institute has recently produced figures suggesting that in the last year the world’s population has grown by a staggering 100 million. The world’s population now stands at 5.75 billion. The previous biggest increase of 95 million was last year and in the last 40 years world population has more than doubled.*

 Werner Fornos, the Institute’s director, predicts that this trend will continue over the next five years unless something is done to change things. What Mr Fornos advocates is the active promotion of ‘family planning’. This, he believes, could ‘make the difference between our setting course for an environmental Armageddon in the 21st century or a better quality of life’. Such prophets of gloom are everywhere as they warn of the ‘people problem’, ‘over-population’ and even ‘the human population monster’. What are we to make of this? Are babies really the enemies of the human race, as Isaac Asimov declared? Was Kingsley Davies right to say that bearing more than four children is a crime worse than most? A number of things can be said.

 

Statistics

Disraeli warned of lies, damned lies and statistics. Groups such as the Population Institute are able to produce impressive sets of figures but the fact is that no-one but God knows the world’s population. No competent method of gathering such data is presently conceivable, regardless of what statisticians and social scientists may claim. As for extrapolations from such figures we need to be doubly careful. A conference held in Cambridge some years ago featured various individuals positing optimum population targets for European countries (eg France 10 million, Germany 6 million.) Such ‘optima’ have no scientific basis whatever.

 

Man’s Ignorance

Man does not know what a day will bring. Predictions of population growth can never take into account possible wars and other disasters that may overtake a people. Someone writing to The Times in 1987 on over-population in Rwanda and Burundi could never have guessed the horrors facing that part of the world and the recent decimation of the population. Who would have dreamt what a swath AIDS would cut through the world’s population twenty years ago? This is quite apart from what appears in the small print as ‘totally unpredictable effects on the population’. There is some evidence, for instance, that civilisations in decay see a ‘psychosomatic’ increase in the death rate. Urbanisation may also hasten life expectancy.

 

Over-population?

What is ‘over-population’? It can be defined as an imbalance between population and food supply or too many mouths to feed. Once the issue is seen in that light, it is clear that there are two sides to the ‘problem’. Even a relatively small population may suffer famine in certain circumstances. Famine can be caused by prevention of crop cultivation or wilful destruction of crops; by defective agriculture due to poor land use; by incompetent or corrupt civil government, etc. The Irish potato famine last century was due not to excessive population growth but to blight hitting an economy based almost exclusively on a single crop. A low population is just as likely to lead to famine as a high population.

 

‘Family planning’

We must never forget the lust for power that grips anti-Christian rulers. They want to control everything. One of the things they want to control is population size. Often policy concentrates on man’s latter end. Meanwhile there have been many attempts, at least from the time Moses was placed in the bulrushes, to limit population at the other end by means of what is today called ‘birth control’ or ‘family planning’. The subtlety of this approach extends from relatively discreet government policy that encourages small families through to mass sterilisation programmes and forced abortions. The family is clearly under threat from the state in many instances. On one hand limiting the number of babies born will not in itself affect population figures. Further, Christians should be alert to the fervour with which the evil of abortion and certain forms of contraception are being advocated by governmental and non-governmental organisations alike. Few Protestants would be opposed to contraception itself but even here there is reason for some to pause and consider their attitudes to the whole matter of ‘family planning’.

 

Scripture

Last, but by no means least, we ought to take note of the positive way the Bible speaks of population growth in several places, such as in Genesis 9:1 and Psalm 127:3-5. On the other hand, we must not ignore other passages that speak of population growth but God’s blessing withheld (such as Ezekiel 5:7,8 and Jeremiah 15:9). Large numbers guarantee nothing on their own, as is often made plain (see Deuteronomy 7:7). India’s problem is not too many people. Rather, the grip of false religion means, for instance, the burden of an excessive bovine population. This undoubtedly works to the detriment of both the people and the environment. Similarly, China’s brutal approach to ‘family planning’ is creating far more problems than it may appear to solve. This world’s problems are not down to the population explosion but to its widespread refusal to bow the knee to Christ.

*By now the figure is 7 billion and rising. See here for a suggested current figure.
This was an editorial for Grace Magazine back in 1996

Late Twentieth Century Barbarity - An example

I sometimes try to imagine a school history class at some future date studying the closing years of the twentieth century (and into the 21st). I imagine their utter disbelief when they learn about attitudes in this period towards the unborn.

It is not difficult to imagine. I remember my own amazement learning about the slave trade that had gone on in the 18th and 19th centuries. What was staggering was not just the slave trade itself but the way it was defended even by some who professed to be Christians.

Will a future generation be equally bewildered?

Will they understand why sometimes in the same street you have people who desperately want to adopt children and others who are having their unborn offspring killed in the womb?

Will they be able to comprehend the anguish of a woman in hospital for fertility treatment who finds herself in the bed next to another woman who has just had an abortion?

Will they be able to comprehend the logic of a hospital where there is a desperate struggle to preserve the life of a baby 24 weeks on from conception in one room, while in another they are destroying another just a few weeks younger?

What will they make of gynaecology professor Philip Bennett for instance? He spoke openly last August of how ‘I dismember the foetus, pull it apart limb by limb and remove it piece by piece.’ Here is a man who kills as many babies as he delivers, yet who does not hide in shame but wallows in his butchery by speaking about it to a Sunday newspaper.

What will they make of another senior gynaecologist who declared that he would sack any of his staff who dared to suggest to an expectant mother that she would be better to have her unwanted child adopted rather than aborting it?

Will they not be horrified to learn how, because a woman finds the thought of twins unthinkable, it is perfectly legitimate for a doctor to inject poison into one of the two children in her womb so that one is born whole while the other dies in the womb? It is difficult to think of anything more barbaric.

How will they react to the trivialisation of life that is part of the IVF programme in this country where thousands of embryos are created with no hope of their survival?

Or what about the mass slaughter of thousands that did survive, despite many genuine offers to save the lives of these unborn innocents?

Will they believe it when they learn how abortion is presented as ‘a woman’s right to choose’, yet all the while women who would really like to have children are being pressurised by men into getting rid of their unborn children.

Will they not be utterly staggered that until relatively recently it has been medical practice to assume that an unborn child feels no pain? ‘What was it like back then?’ they will ask, ‘Were they completely ignorant?’

Far more important than what a future generation may say is what God does say. He says,

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves. Rescue those being led away to death Defend the cause of the weak .... and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

The 19th century slave trade was ended, under God, not only through the work of Wilberforce and other prominent figures but through the work of a host of ordinary men and women who did what they could. By the grace of God, may we also be used so that this barbaric onslaught against the unborn will also soon be brought to an end.

A Grace Magazine editorial from December 1996. Nothing has really changed.

The Nature of Sin

What is wrong with this world? SIN. That is the problem. Most readers of this magazine are well aware of that. But what does the Bible mean when it talks about sin? Not what some mean.

 

Wrong views of sin

Sin is only something very bad such as a crime. Think of how the Pharisees spoke of ‘sinners’. The answer is, therefore, respectability. Just do not do it in the street and frighten the horses.

Sin is a bodily problem. This ancient Greek idea is still around in different forms. The answer is, therefore, hard work, a certain diet, cold showers and may be some self-flagellation.

Sin is the triumph of the lower nature. Some believe sin is simply the result of the struggle between the lower and the higher or better nature. The answer is, therefore, education.

Sin is just an inevitable part of being human. As human beings we are limited. Sin is simply a part of that. The answer is, therefore, in politics. We cannot be rid of sin but at least we can curb its worst effects.

Sin is an illusion. In various ways it is suggested that sin does not exist. For certain reasons we feel guilty, we have a bad conscience, but there is no such thing as sin. The answer is, therefore, psychiatry or psycho-analysis. You just need to get rid of your hang ups.

Sin is selfishness. It is certainly the assertion of self over against God that is part of the problem, but is it the whole of it? The answer is, therefore, altruism. Do what you can to help others. But if a man steals to feed his family that is altruistic but is it not also sinful?

Sin is only deliberately wrong acts. Some simply say we all have free will and every time we choose to do what we know is wrong rather than what we know is right, that is sin. We start with a clean slate but we copy others and, like them, do wrong. Only conscious, deliberate acts can be sin. The answer is, therefore, rules. We must try and keep the law.

 

The right view of sin

Sin is a moral evil. Sin is evil. Sickness and death are evil too, but sin is a particular kind of evil - moral evil. The actual words the Bible uses for sin show this. It talks of missing the target or deviating from the right way; of moral perversion; of revolt or rebellion; of breaking the law. Sin is not simply weakness or a fault or something that just happens. It is active opposition to God for which each individual is responsible.

Sin is an absolute moral evil. Clearly some sins are worse than others. However, all sin is sin. Each sin, no matter how seemingly insignificant, is nevertheless an absolute moral evil. Sin is not a lesser degree of goodness but positive evil. Every action or thought is either good or bad. It is black or white. There are no shades of grey.

Sin is what God declares to be sinful. What makes a thing sinful? Is it just your conscience or the values of your culture? No, it is God who decides. What he loves and commands is good. What pleases him is right. All else is sin. Anything we think or say or do not in conformity to his will is sin.

Sin involves both guilt and pollution. To be guilty is to be deserving of condemnation or to be liable to punishment for breaking the law. It refers to our relationship to justice or to law’s penalty. It can refer both to an inherent quality and to the obligation we have to satisfy justice and pay the penalty. It is possible to remove this latter by a substitutionary atonement and that is just what happens when a person trusts in Christ and his death. Pollution refers to the way we are not only guilty but inherently corrupt. All sinners have a corrupt nature.

Sin has its seat in the heart. Right at man’s centre, in his soul, and extending to every part of him, there is sin. From the heart it affects mind, will, attitudes, even the body. Sin does not consist only in outward acts. It is our sinful state that leads us into sinful acts and sinful habits. It is not just acts that are sinful but words and thoughts and attitudes too. It is not just to do with what we commit but what we omit. In the words of the catechism "Sin is any failure to conform to God’s Law in act attitude or nature."

The remedy cannot, therefore, be any of those suggested above. Sin is deep seated and life controlling not just a physical or outward problem. Rules and laws can never save us. We are both guilty and polluted before God. We need to be cleansed inwardly and outwardly. We need not just education but total renewal. This can be ours through trusting only in the Lord Jesus Christ and his death in place of his people.

This was an Opening Bat for Grace Magazine

Special Articles - 3 Special People

Today’s aversion to anything special is found among a growing number of evangelicals. It manifests itself in various ways. Take the antipathy some Christians have toward revival. Often behind this gut reaction is resistance to the idea that God ever does anything special or out of the ordinary. Such Christians so emphasise that God works in ordinary ways among us that they leave no room for extraordinary visitations of the Spirit.

Or take the common argument that the Bible is to be read ‘just like any other book’. The very suggestion that the Bible is special and needs to be approached in a special way puts some interpreters in a fairy fit!

But consider too the antipathy found among some evangelicals to the idea of ‘special people’. Unlike the aversions we have considered in the last two months to ‘special days’ and ‘special times’, this phenomenon is not entirely new.

 

Confused

It manifests itself today chiefly as opposition to the whole idea of a ‘call’ to the Christian ministry. According to R. L. Dabney, ‘the church has always held that none should preach the gospel but those who are called of God’, but some are not so sure.

A recent survey of some 400 men thinking about ministry in the 21st century revealed that 40 per cent were confused as to what was a divine call. This is not surprising given the current climate.

Some are so impressed by the biblical doctrine of the sacredness or priesthood of every believer and are so taken up with the rediscovery of Reformation teaching on vocation that they run to the opposite extreme. They end up with something unbiblical and potentially damaging to churches and individuals.

One can understand people reacting against the wrong mysticism that is sometimes associated with ‘the call’. Agreed, that while there are analogies to the call to be a prophet or an apostle, the call to the ministry is not the same; Charles Bridges wrote long ago that ministers ‘having no extraordinary commission ... do not expect an immediate and extraordinary call’.

Agreed too, that a mystical experience of God’s call is not a firm enough foundation for it; desire, gifts and opportunity are all vital factors in a true call to the ministry.

But what we are protesting against is the idea that there is no such thing as a call, and that more or less any man will do for the ministry provided he is morally upright, reasonably educated and can speak in public.

‘Woe to me’

If anyone can be a minister of God’s Word and there is no call to the ministry, why in Acts 20:28 does Paul say to the Ephesian elders, ‘Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers’?

If anyone can be a minister of God’s Word and there is no call to the ministry, what does Paul mean when he says in 1 Corinthians 9:16, ‘Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!’?

If anyone can be a minister of God’s Word and there is no call to the ministry, why does Paul say in 1 Corinthians 12:28 that, ‘God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers...’?

If anyone can be a minister of God’s Word and there is no call to the ministry, why does Paul say of Christ in Ephesians 4:11-12, ‘It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up’?

Our concern is not to deny that each Christian must conscientiously use whatever gift he has to God’s glory. Rather, it is to say that to deny that there is a special call to the ministry is to make the mistake of supposing that just anyone can try for it. Such an attitude is bound to lead to disaster.
This article first appeared in Evangelical Times

Special Articles - 2 Special Time

Last month, this column highlighted society’s nervousness about the idea of specialisation and noted how a growing number of evangelicals are nervous about special days, times and people.

How strange that those who believe God has singled out one special planet, one particular species on it and one special people from among them to receive his blessing should think like that!

We considered the fact that the New Testament marks out the first day of the week as special. It is the Lord’s Day, a day to be kept to him. This month we address the question, whether it is right to think in terms of special times of worship.

Is it right to put a notice outside a church building announcing ‘worship services’? Should we speak of ‘coming together to worship’? Or is that, as some suggest, a concept more Jewish than Christian, and one that has no New Testament basis?

Worship services?

For some years, various evangelicals have been advocating the idea that it is wrong to think of those times when God’s people gather together as times of worship. Their arguments are similar to those against a special day.

People who are not keen on keeping the Lord’s Day special often assert that every day belongs to the Lord. Similarly, those who say that our meetings are not primarily for worship often assert that all of life is worship, not just certain hours in the week.

They may then go on to give the impression that there is little difference between going fishing or having a family meal on one hand, and corporate prayer and praise on the other. More often the idea is developed, with reference to Hebrews 10:25 and 1 Corinthians 14, that the main purpose of our meetings is encouragement and edification.

The character of Christian meetings thus significantly shifts from a vertical to a horizontal focus — meetings are seen to be chiefly for teaching, rather than worship.

Certainly Romans 12:1 urges believers to offer their bodies ‘as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God’ and Paul calls it ‘your spiritual act of worship’. There is no suggestion, however, that those who live such lives will not take time apart, especially on the Lord’s Day, to worship.

John 4:24 says that worship in the new age is to be ‘in spirit and in truth’. Surely this does not mean forbidding the church to have any set times and places for public worship? Rather it points out that worship occurs, not automatically when one is in a certain place or following a certain ritual, but when one offers honour to God in accord with his standards.

Examples

Yet, just as some cannot see how one day needs to be special, so there are those who cannot see why Christians need special times to worship. Well consider these points:

If all of life is worship, and there are no special times of worship, why does Acts 13:2 say of the disciples that it was ‘while they were worshipping the Lord and fasting’ that the Holy Spirit told them to set apart Barnabas and Saul?

If all of life is worship and there are no special times of worship, what do we make of Jesus’ statement that when two or three come together in his name, he is there with them (Matthew 18:19-20)?

If all of life is worship and there are no special times of worship, what does Paul mean when he speaks, in 1 Corinthians 5, about God’s people being ‘assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus’ and ‘the power of our Lord Jesus’ being present?

If all of life is worship and there are no special times of worship, what about prayer? We are told to pray continually, but New Testament believers, clearly, still set aside times for prayer (e.g. Matthew 18:19; Acts 12:5; 1 Corinthians 14:23-25).

At times they were praying together; at times they were not. Surely the same is true of sung praise and hearing God’s Word.

God’s glory

What we are saying is not new. It is what believers have practised in all ages. This is not because they have unwittingly imbibed the idea from Jerusalem or Rome, but because it is there in the New Testament.

Some today are nervous about calling their meetings ‘services’ or ‘acts of worship’. This undermines such meetings and detracts from God’s glory. Rather, we should be setting aside regular times for the precise purpose of worshipping Almighty God.

This article first appeared in Evangelical Times

Special Articles - 1 Special Day

Dash: You always say, "Do your best" but you don't really mean it. Why can't I do the best that I can do?

Helen: Right now, honey, the world just wants us to fit in, and to fit in, we just gotta be like everybody else.

Dash: Dad always said our powers were nothing to be ashamed of. Our powers made us special.

Helen: Everyone's special, Dash.
Dash: [sullenly] Which is another way of saying no one is.

This mother and son dialogue is from Pixar's critically acclaimed animation The Incredibles, about a super-hero family living at a time when super-heroes are not fashionable. The dialogue perceptively highlights an issue in western society today.

Specialisation is receiving a negative press. People fear that in the academic and business worlds, for example, it is causing harm.

Another negative influence on perception is the way young people, influenced by phrases such as special education and Special Olympics use the word in a pejorative way.

Besides all this, some evangelicals have had bad experiences when special people, days and times have been held in high esteem and are rather wary of such talk.

Growing numbers of evangelicals are not at all keen on the idea of special people, special days or special times.

Yet surely fear of specialisation should hardly characterise people who serve a God who has singled out one special planet in this vast universe, earth, to be inhabited; one special creature, humankind, to be his focus; and one special people, believers in Jesus Christ, to redeem.

*

There was a time when most evangelicals accepted that not all days are the same. There are seven days in a week but the first is special, the “day of rest and gladness” when “Christ rose from depths of earth”, a special day to celebrate.

In more recent years, however, more and more are shying away from the idea. It is usually put in terms of every day being special rather than no day being special but, as Dash would say, saying every day is special is another way of saying no day is.

Such people often quote Romans 14:5, 6a and Colossians 2:16, 17. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. The one who observes the day, observes it in honour of the Lord. ... let no one pass judgement on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. It is clear, they say, keeping a day special is fine but it is not an obligation. Certainly no-one can say “keep the Sabbath” as it is only an Old Testament shadow anyway.

On the face of it, the verses seem to say that. Seasoned Bible students, however, know that first impressions can be wrong. Rather than simply assume Paul is talking about Sundays, wisdom suggests considering other possibilities. Albert Barnes' commentary points out that Sabbath in Colossians 2:16 is plural and highly unlikely to refer to the Lord's Day. “There is no evidence from this passage that he would teach that there was no obligation to observe any holy time, for there is not the slightest reason to believe that he meant to teach that one of the ten commandments had ceased to be binding.” In 1971 Paul Jewett similarly remarked that “it is unconvincing ... to press Paul’s statement in Romans 14:5 so absolutely as to have considered John a Judaiser for having called one day in the week the Lord’s Day, thus giving it the pre-eminence.” Such statements should give pause.

If no day is special, why did God allocate seven days to creation, deliberately making one different?

If no day is special, why does Moses make the point that one day in seven is specially blessed and set apart to God?

If no day is special, why, in John 20, having met with his disciples on the evening of his resurrection in Thomas' absence, is it only eight days later (John 20:26), the following Sunday, that Jesus meets with them again? Did he not know that all days are now equal?

If no day is special, why was the Spirit poured out on the Lord's Day? Is it simply coincidence?

If no day is special, given that Acts 20:6 says Paul spent seven days in Troas, why wait until Sunday to break bread and preach, especially given that Paul's sermon went on until midnight? If only he had realised there are no special days any more!

If no day is special, why did Paul tell the Corinthians to put gifts aside and store them up as God prospered on the first day of every week not just any day? Did he not know that all days are now equal?

If no day is special, why, in Revelation, does John speak about the Lord's Day? Did he not know that every day is the Lord's day?

One is not naïve enough to think that the Sabbath question is easy to settle but if we can at least agree that the first day of the week is special we will at least make some progress in the right direction.

This article first appeared in Evangelical Times

Guide to the Gospel of Matthew

The focus of Matthew’s Gospel is Jesus, Divine Son of God and Messianic King. Today we more readily turn to John or Mark, perhaps, but for early Christians Matthew was a liturgical favourite – perhaps because, compared with Mark, its narrative style is generally more concise. It is also quite orderly in structure. Maybe we should give it more attention than we do.

Authorship

The Gospel itself gives no indication of authorship but has traditionally been ascribed to Matthew. Many early church fathers held that Matthew or Levi the tax collector, the disciple and apostle, was its author. Around AD 325 Eusebius quotes Papias to the effect that Matthew had composed the oracles of the Lord, probably a reference to the Gospel. About 150 years earlier Irenaeus (c 175) wrote that ‘Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome and laying the foundations of the church Against’ (Heresies 3.1.1). Several early manuscripts are headed According to Matthew.

Matthew was not prominent in the apostolate and so it is likely that this assertion is true. It would be a strange choice of pseudonym. Surely the name of a more prominent apostle would have been preferred.

There are some possible internal indicators to support this. Mark and Luke both refer to him as Levi and use his more familiar name (Mark 2:14, Luke 5:27) - perhaps it is omitted from the first Gospel because the original readers already knew it. Mark and Luke both refer to the banquet he held for the Lord being at his house whereas Matthew simply says it was in the house – again perhaps because he had already told those to whom he wrote where the meal was held.

Words for money appear not found elsewhere in the New Testament, possibly reflecting the author’s contact and financial involvement with Gentiles. Also, it is the only Gospel to record the Lord’s payment of the Temple Tax (17:24–27) and the parable of the unforgiving servant where the servant owes 10,000 talents (18:21–25). Also observe the distinctive way it deals with the parable of the master entrusting wealth to his servants before heading off on a journey (cf Luke 19:11–27, Matthew 25:14–30) and the specific no gold, or silver or copper of Matthew 10:9. He is the only evangelist to use the expression to settle accounts (18:23, 24; 25:19) or refer to debt (18:32), bankers (25:27). Such details help confirm traditional authorship.

The account of his call to follow Christ is in Matthew 9:9; Mark 2:13–17; Luke 5:27–32. He was a tax collector, more like a modern day customs officer, collecting tolls on trade caravans passing through the district centred on Capernaum on Galilee’s northern shores. Publicans were a largely despised group, reviled for their close contact with Gentiles, service to an alien occupying force and their common dishonesty. Nevertheless, the Lord called Matthew to follow and he immediately obeyed, a decision that probably cost Matthew more than most. He was the least able to go back on his decision. The banquet for the Lord, his disciples and friends, that followed included, to the Pharisees’ disgust, notorious sinners (Luke 5:29–30).

As a tax collector he would have been used to taking notes in the course of his work, a habit he may have continued as a disciple. It would have helped in compiling his Gospel.

Beyond his name and occupation little is known. He is listed among the 12 in the Gospels, among the Apostles in Acts 1:13, after which Scripture records nothing more. Tradition says he preached in Judea for about 15 years, then in Ethiopia, Persia and Parthia. This may be mere legend.

Original language?

The idea that Matthew originally wrote in Aramaic was first put forward by Papias (see above). He is quoted in Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History (3.39.16). The view has been rejected because no trace of the original remains. Papias says many attempted to translate into Greek, ‘as they are able’, which does not suggest polished results, whereas the Greek of the Gospel is fine. The book contains no aramaisms but does explain customs, such as Pilate releasing a prisoner at the Feast of Passover (27:15). This would surely be unnecessary for Aramaic readers in Palestine.

It is possible that, having written in Aramaic, Matthew himself produced not a translation but a Greek version of his work. Demand for written information about the life of Christ from Gentile churches would have increased as the first century wore on. Gentile churches soon outstripped Aramaic speaking ones as the gospel spread across the known world.

It is important to remember that this is speculation. Most early Church Fathers seem to know only of a Greek Gospel. Only Papias suggests a Semitic original.

Date of writing

It is impossible to be certain on this but limits can be set and tentative conclusions reached. It was not written after 70 AD, the year the Temple was destroyed. Matthew relates at length the Lord’s teaching on Jerusalem’s destruction (24:1-28). It seems highly unlikely that he could have written this after the event without referring to it explicitly. (Liberal scholars reject predictive prophecy and so readily assign dates after 70 AD).

It is unlikely to have been written before the first dispersal of Christians from Jerusalem (Acts 8:4) when the church was all together with the Apostles in the city. Their presence meant there was no need for a written account of Christ’s life. To some extent, dating will depend on whether we believe Matthew wrote before Mark. Hendriksen narrows down to AD 63–67, which fits Irenaeus’s statement that it was written while Peter and Paul were in Rome. It is as good an estimate as any, though some go for AD 45–55.

It may be that it was written in Syrian Antioch, or at least for the Antioch church, which had a large Gentile element speaking both Aramaic and Greek. The Gospel itself shows signs of having been written for Jews, although it also relates to Gentiles. This would suit a church like Antioch.

Material unique to Matthew

Narratives

Vision of Joseph 1:20–24

Visit of the magi 2:1–12

Flight into Egypt 2:13–15

Massacre of the infants 2:16

Pilate’s wife’s dream 27:19

Judas’s death 27:3–10

Resurrection of saints 27:52

Bribery of guards 28:12–15

Great Commission in this form 28:19–20

Parables

Weeds 13:24–30

Hidden treasure 13:44

Pearl of great price 13:45–46

Dragnet 13:13:47

Unmerciful servant 18:23–35

Labourers in vineyard 20:1–16

Two sons 21:28–32

Marriage of King’s son 22:1–13

Ten virgins 25:1–13

Talents 25:14–30

Miracles

Two blind men 9:27–31

Mute demoniac 9:32–33

Coin in fish’s mouth 17:24–27

Matthew uses miracles more as proof of Jesus’s Messiahship than to advance the narrative, even when he duplicates what is in Mark and Luke.

Purpose and features

The opening phrase: ‘The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham’ is similar to the repeated phrase in Genesis ‘the generations of ...’ Christ’s genealogy follows. Matthew wants to show that all he relates about Jesus goes back to God’s covenants with Abraham and David of a great nation and an eternal house. These are fulfilled in him. Matthew portrays Christ as teacher but especially as king. The phrase kingdom of heaven occurs 33 times; kingdom of God five times; the royal, messianic title Son of David nine times.

Use of the Old Testament

Matthew often speaks of the fulfilment of prophecy, frequently quoting or alluding to the Old Testament. There are some 53 quotations, easily more than in any other Gospel. Matthew shows, for example, that Messiah would:

Be born of a virgin 1:23 Isaiah 7:14

Go down into Egypt 2:15 Isaiah 59:7

Reside in Nazareth 2:23 referring (probably) to prophecies

about Messiah being despised by men.

Be announced by a forerunner 3:3 Isaiah 40:3

Minister in Galilee 4:15,16 Isaiah 9:1

Do healing miracles 8:17 Isaiah 53:40

Be humble 12:18–21 Isaiah 42:1–3

Speak in parables 13:35 Psalm 78:2

Come as a lowly King 21:5 Zechariah 9:9

Be arrested 26:56 Several prophecies

Be crucified 27:35 Psalm 22

These are not random or incidental but are chosen because they suit Matthew’s purpose. They confirm that he is writing for a Jewish audience familiar with these texts and interested in their fulfilment.

Structure

In 4:17 and 16:21 we have the phrase ‘From that time …’ Seemingly insignificant, it marks major turning points. In 4:17, the opening of the Lord’s public teaching ministry. Having established the Lord’s identity from Scripture, Matthew relates that when the Lord heard that his forerunner John was in prison, ‘from that time’ he began to teach and preach, saying ‘Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’. In 16:21, after Peter’s confession, we read ‘From that time Jesus Christ began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer’, etc.
Another distinctive is the way major blocks of teaching occur, including the largest such block in all the Gospels, the Sermon on the Mount. As much as 60% of the work is teaching. To some extent the placing of these blocks gives the book its structure. Matthew obviously wanted to stress the content of the Lord’s teaching, especially in regard to his relationship with God’s Law, so that the full implications of the long awaited coming of Messiah might be clarified. These significant blocks of teaching are marked by a recurring concluding phrase When Jesus had finished these words …. It marks the close of the five sermons Matthew records. The five major blocks are located thus

Chapters 5–7 Sermon on the Mount

Chapter 10 Commissioning disciples

Chapter 13 Parables of the Kingdom

Chapter 18 Humility and forgiveness

Chapter 24, 25 The last things (Chapter 23 could be included here)

Characteristics

Some have seen in these five major sections a parallel to the Five Books of Moses, the Torah. A new Moses gives a new Law for his disciples, a law written on the heart. Certainly fulfilment is a theme and it could be said that the New Testament people of God, Christ’s followers, are to fulfil what the Old Testament people failed to do. The Lord fulfils all that Scripture foretells. He also makes clear (eg Chapters 5–7) their true meaning, which had been obscured by Pharisaic legalism. But Jesus does more than simply complete the old ways, he inaugurates a new way, with new and distinctive teaching.

Some see 13:52 as a key verse. First Century Teachers of the Law never said anything new. They always went back to the traditions. The Lord himself had authority to build on what was given, not rejecting it but bringing out what was old, developing it and taking it consistently further to the fulfilment of God’s purposes. This is one reason why his teaching came to the people with authority and freshness.

Another feature is an apparent love for the number three. Examples include the threefold division of the genealogy (Chapter 1), three temptations (Chapter 4), three illustrations of righteousness, three prohibitions and three commands (Chapters 6, 7), three groupings of three types of miracle (Chapters 8, 9). It is unlikely that Matthew attached symbolic significance to the number. It is more likely that he had in mind the Jewish requirement that truth be established by testimony from two or three witnesses. It is suggestive of how his mind worked.

Finally, it has been noted that, for some reason, the Sadducees are mentioned more times in this Gospel than in any other.

Matthew shows Jesus is the one the prophets foretold, the Messiah. He shows that he came to his own but they would not receive him. He also shows from the start, with the account of the Magi, that Gentiles would be drawn to him. He includes biting denunciations of the Jews for rejecting Messiah. For instance, the woes on the cities that rejected him (11:20-24). Such a statement must have staggered the Teachers of the Law and priests. Also note the lengthy discourse (Chapters 24, 25) on Jerusalem’s overthrow.

Study Plan

Session 1 Navigating the narratives Dealing with the stories unique to Matthew and how to preach them as described above.

Session 2 Teaching the teaching Dealing with the teaching sections in Chapters 5-7, 10 and 18 and how to preach them.

Session 3 Preaching the parables Dealing especially with Chapter 13 and the unique parables in Chapters 20-22 and how to preach them.

Session 4 Meditating on the miracles Dealing especially with Chapters 8, 9 and 17:24-27 and how to preach them.

Session 5 Learning from the law Dealing with the Old Testament as it is employed by Matthew and how to preach these sections – see the appropriate section above.

Session 6 Expounding eschatology Dealing with Chapters (23?) 24 and 25 and how to preach them.

This article first appeared as an Affinity ministers fraternal guide