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.