Saturday with the Philip Project

I spent most of yesterday teaching for the Philip Project in London. As their website says,

The Philip Project aims to contribute towards the training of faithful Bible teachers among Christian international students, short-term professionals and church volunteers from all over the world residing in UK. This is done by seeking to develop both the skills and the character to faithfully handle the Scriptures.

(OK, there's a split infinitive - but this is about Bible teachers, not pedants like me for English grammar.)

The topic was interpreting and teaching from apocalyptic literature, especially the book of Revelation, and although I've decided that categorizing anything as 'apocalyptic' doesn't really help (it just makes it look scary), it was great to have such an attentive and committed audience.

Many of them are Care Force volunteers, and the plan is that eventually, like the Ethiopian in Acts 8, they will 'go on their way, rejoicing' to places where they will become teachers and evangelists themselves.

Thanks to Geoff and Alastair, the coordinators, for this invite.

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Odd headlines No 12

Thanks to the BBC for this one - well, two really:

The link on the website reads, misleadingly:

Woman repels bear armed only with a courgette

Which goes to a story headlined, equally misleadingly:

Montana woman fights bear with courgette

UPDATE

The Telegraph has a front-page link which is also misleading, but possibly on two levels:

Woman beats bear with courgette

However, the actual story headline comes close to being coherent - close, but thanks to a typo (read it carefully), not quite:

Woman fends of bear attack with courgette



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Is the Pope a Theologian?

Personally, I hold no animosity towards the Pope as an individual. Theologically, however, I have to say that I disagree with him, and I also have to observe that I belong to a Church which, to say the least, distances itself from his theology in its core formularies: the Book of Common Prayer, the Thirty-nine Articles and the Ordinal.

I mention this, because the reaction to the Pope’s visit within these shores seems, with the exception of the ranters (amongst whom we must now include Dr Richard Dawkins) to have ignored issues of theology almost entirely.

Thus, where there has been controversy, it has been almost entirely over matters of morality, and as we know, whilst theology and moral issues overlap, they are not at all the same thing.

I could not help, in the last few days, speculating as to how different this visit would have been had it taken place in, say 1860 rather than 2010. Of course, such a thing would have been impossible, but had it, in some parallel universe, nevertheless occurred, the reaction would surely have been quite different, not only from the Anglican church but from the lay leadership of the establishment.

We must remember that the Roman Catholic Relief Act would only have been passed comparatively recently (in 1829), allowing Roman Catholics full participation in the political process.

More importantly, however, parliamentarians and others possessed then a degree of awareness of and sophistication in religious matters which we would today find astounding (though those of us who are clergy might equally be gratified to encounter it amongst our congregations). Parliament was, in those days, quite capable of serious religious debate. Jumping forward half a century, we must recall that it was the House of Commons which twice rejected the 1928 revised Prayer Book on theological — and specifically Protestant theological — grounds.

Today, such a debate is unimaginable. It is not simply that most MPs are of vague or non-existent religious persuasion. More importantly, they lack the knowledge to be able to debate such issues. (We may be sure, incidentally, that when the Synodical Measure to introduce women bishops is finally brought to Parliament, the debate will be entirely about justice — with maybe a few side references to God not being ‘a man’ — and that few, if any, will stand up for theological principles on either side.)

To illustrate what this means, let us again imagine a different scenario — this time not one where a Pope visits an earlier Britain which still valued theology, but one where present-day Britain was visited by a Pope whose Church had an unblemished track-record on moral behaviour. In that case, we may have little doubt that he would have been welcomed with open arms. Indeed, the former Pope, John-Paul II, did receive such a welcome when he visited these shores in 1982, helped no doubt by the absence of scandal, but also by his being a likeable and popular figure whose previous name had not been as unattractive-sounding as ‘Ratzinger’.

In fact, as it turned out, the scandals surrounding the Catholic Church made little difference to the attitude either of the political or religious hierarchy towards Benedict XVI. The former were generally polite and the latter generally rapturous.

And yet one has to question the wisdom of both.

Going back to the hypothetical nineteenth century scenario for a moment, there is little doubt that the political hierarchy of the day would not only have questioned the Pope’s theology, but would have championed our own national Protestantism as one of the reasons for our national success. In other words, they would have said that we were what we were, and enjoyed the freedom and prosperity we enjoyed, precisely because we were not Roman Catholic. Specifically, they would, I have no doubt, have pointed to the personal freedom that flowed from this, particularly in the area of intellect.

Bishop J C Ryle, a firm but moderate Protestant, nevertheless opposed the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church for their social impact as well as their religious significance. Advocating private judgement in matters of religion, he wrote,

I ask you to remember that the greatest discoveries in science and in philosophy, beyond all controversy, have arisen from the use of private judgment. To this we owe the discovery of Galileo, that the earth went round the sun, and not the sun round the earth. To this we owe Columbus’s discovery of the new continent of America. To this we owe Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the blood. To this we owe Jenner’s discovery of vaccination. To this we owe the printing press, the steam engine, the power-loom, the electric telegraph, railways, and gas. For all these discoveries we are indebted to men who dared to think for themselves. (Prove All Things)

And ‘thinking for themselves’ was precisely what he felt that Rome inhibited! The Pope, therefore, would have been just as unwelcome on social as he would have been on religious grounds.

But the religious opposition back then would have been just as strong, which is why it is significant to see the Pope welcomed today by all but the hottest of the Protestant fringe! The reason, of course, is partly that our own Anglican hierarchy has all the vim and vigour of blancmange. We simply lack anyone who can act as a similar rallying point because we lack anyone of comparable stature. As a result, it seems that anything, even from the Vatican, is better to reignite the theological debate than the nothing with which we are otherwise left.

Yet we must not forget that theology matters, even when those with whom we disagree may be members of the Church Universal. Indeed, it is arguable that the recent scandals involving Roman priests were exacerbated by a wrong theology of priesthood, which isolated the perpetrators from public censure and which created an imbalance of power in their relationships with others in the Church.

Again, in welcoming a Christian critique of social policy, we must not forget that Roman Catholic social teaching is the outworking of Roman Catholic theology, and that this, too, is therefore not above theological criticism. Indeed, Andrew Hartropp offers just such a critique in his solidly-researched What is Economic Justice? (Paternoster, 2007, 134-146), beginning in 1891 and looking at some recent pronouncements by the American House of Bishops. He concludes,

One fundamental inadequacy is the lack of a Christological understanding of the Good News. Christ is mentioned as the one who brings the Good News, and who is proclaimed by it, but no further Christological content is given. The consequence, in terms of justice, is that the relationship of Christ himself to oppression, and to the bringing of justice, is simply not addressed. (140)

Undoubtedly there will be those who would want to answer Hartropp’s objections. But we must not overlook the seriousness of the accusation that a purportedly-Christian social theology is not centred on Christ!

And this is precisely the kind of debate that was lacking in the past few days. What should have been said by our Protestant (and therefore Anglican) religious leadership was that the Pope is undoubtedly a very nice man and that the followers of Roman Catholicism are undoubtedly very sincere people, but that he and they are both in error and thus in darkness, and need to come into the light of understanding properly all that Christ is and has done for us.

Had this been 1860 instead of 2010, this message would have undoubtedly have come from many segments of society — albeit, perhaps, without sufficient grace towards the recipients. We have undoubtedly benefited from an improvement in manners in this regard, but we must not let good taste blind us to bad theology.

John P Richardson
22 September 2010

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Young drivers - told you so

It is good to see some awareness, at last, that road safety is very much dependent on the road user, and specifically that young drivers present higher and different risks from older drivers. A bit frustrating, though (to say the least), that it is taking so long to recognize publicly what has been widely known (not to say blooming obvious) for years.

This, and more, from the BBC website, 21 September 2010:

Newly qualified young drivers should be banned from night-time motoring and carrying passengers of a similar age, Cardiff University researchers say.

They said such "graduated driver licensing" for those aged 17-24 could save more than 200 lives and result in 1,700 fewer serious injuries each year.

This, and more, from the Ugley Vicar,  28 July 2009:

... the same study also identifies another factor which seems scarcely to be taken into account by public policy, namely that, as Mark Easton from the BBC identifies, “The average age of a road death victim is 36.9, and three-quarters of those who die are men —predominantly in their teens, 20s and 30s” (although the pattern for female road deaths precisely mimics that for males, but at a lower level). It has also been established by studies elsewhere that the chances of a young driver having an accident increase proportionately with the number of passengers.

Yet I know of no official policy or campaign addressing this issue. Safety campaigns and measures address speed and alcohol, and of these, speed is taken the more seriously (you still cannot be stopped and random breath-tested in the UK!)

My own view is that safety campaigns largely miss the point, by addressing legal driving rather than safe driving.

Incidentally, I would bet that introducing such a scheme would save considerably more lives and injuries than estimated above, by reinforcing a culture of safe driving (rather than merely focussing on enforced speed reduction), and would impact on the attitudes of young drivers as they turn into older drivers.

John Richardson

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Ordinands must know the formularies!

For much of last week, I was working hard on a talk which I delivered to the Prayer Book Society on Saturday morning. I have not previously been a member of that body, and (to be honest) would not have previously considered joining. However, I was invited to speak to them on the strength of some remarks I made in a talk at Oak Hill College in 2009, and agreed to elaborate on what I said then.

As a precis of the content of my address, I sent them the following, which pretty much sums it up:

            Have we an anchor? Reasserting the doctrinal rôle of the Book of Common Prayer

The Declaration of Assent requires all Anglican clergy at their ordination and their admission to a new post to recognize that the “historic formularies”, which include the Book of Common Prayer, have a special place in witnessing to the Christian faith.

Today, however, we have rather lost touch with the Prayer Book, and even where it is used, there is often little awareness of its doctrinal foundations and signficance. The result is that whilst lip-service is paid to the Declaration of Assent, many people do not realize the liturgy of the Prayer Book is designed to express and teach a particular point of view, and sometimes to contradict other points of view. Indeed, one suspects that many clergy today are quite ignorant of the Prayer Book, and therefore of its doctrinal heritage.

Beginning with the Declaration of Assent, my talk will reassess the position of the Prayer Book in shaping the Anglican church, and ask whether and how we can reassert its doctrinal rôle.

One of the contentious points in this, it is often argued, is what commitment of belief is required by the Declaration of Assent. Are we declaring thereby that we believe what the formularies teach (the question goes), or are we simply affirming the teaching of the formularies as a witness to the historic (but not necessarily contemporary) faith of the Church of England?

Browsing through the PBS bookstall at the weekend, however, my attention was drawn to Canon C 7, of whose contents I must admit to be culpably unaware, but which seems to have considerable bearing on the issue. It reads as follows:

C 7 Of examination for holy orders

No bishop shall admit any person into holy orders, except such person on careful and diligent examination, wherein the bishop shall have called to his assistance the archdeacons and other ministers appointed for this purpose, be found to possess a sufficient knowledge of Holy Scripture and of the doctrine, discipline, and worship of the Church of England as set forth in the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal: and to fulfil the requirements as to learning and other qualities which, subject to any directions given by the General Synod, the bishop deems necessary for the office of deacon.

This would seem to settle one question and to raise another. As to the status of the formularies, Canon C7 states clearly that there is “doctrine” specific to the Church of England which is “set forth in” the formularies, and it further requires that candidates should have “sufficient knowledge” of this doctrine to suit them for holy orders.

Now it would clearly be a nonsense for a Church to require candidates to have knowledge of doctrines belonging to that Church, only for them to be free to reject those doctrines.

It is surely hard, therefore, to avoid the conclusion that Anglican clergy under the authority of the Canons are required both to know and to hold the doctrines set forth in the formularies — the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer, and the Ordinal.

But this brings me to the second question, which is quite simply, “Do they?”

And for an answer we must look in particular to what the colleges and courses teach in this regard (and, of course, to whether the examing bodies who review those colleges and courses are concerned about what they teach).

One would expect, at very least, that candidates would be taught about, and assessed in their knowledge of, the formularies. In my address to the PBS, I argued that it would also represent ‘good practice’ for the colleges and courses to make regular and frequent use of the Prayer Book, especially given that many candidates would have little experience of this resource.

I would be very interested, therefore, to hear of the experiences people have had in this regard. In my day, we were superbly taught by Colin Buchanan, whose infectious enthusiasm for English liturgy was absorbed by many of his students. But then I was also of that generation which grew up on the Prayer Book (albeit the 1928 version). With most people now exposed almost exclusively to Common Worship, DIY liturgies or something closer to Rome, at very least it should be recognized that the colleges and courses have a job to do in this regard.

John Richardson
20 September 2010

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Sermon Notes: Luke 16:1-13 (15), The ‘Unjust Steward’

Just out of interest, I thought I'd post my sermon notes for Sunday on the 'parable of the unjust steward'. I sweated long and hard over this one, though in the end the sermon itself was quite straightforward. There are still puzzling things in the text, but I think I'd almost got the hang of it. As readers will see, I went beyond the set lectionary reading (I was preaching 'away') in order to round off the point of the parable. These are raw notes, so the preached version varied somewhat.

Introduction

Opening question: Is your money working hard for you?

Lots of people these days have investments, whether it's in shares or bonds or in the bricks and mortar of a house. We don’t just save money – we want our money to do a bit more, to make money.

As one advertiser puts it, it makes sense to make sure your money is working as hard as you do.

Jesus agrees

And Jesus agrees – you’ll be pleased to know.

Here in Luke’s gospel this morning he is talking about attitudes to salvation.

Back in chapter 15:1, we discover that he was talking to a crowd of tax collectors and sinners – people most people regarded as beyond salvation, or at least beyond the pale.

And we’re told in v 2 that the religious leadership were complaining about this, because instead of having a go at them, Jesus welcomed sinners and ate with them.

So he began to tell parables. First he told a parable about a man who lost a sheep – wouldn’t you rejoice if you’d lost a sheep and found it? So heaven rejoices over a lost sinner who is found.

Then he told a parable about a woman who lost a coin – wouldn’t you rejoice if you lost a coin and then found it?

Then he told a parable about a man who lost a son. Wouldn’t you rejoice if your wayward child came home? And don’t be like the brother who resented the fact that his father was so pleased.

All these parables were really directed at the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, grumbling about Jesus welcoming lost sinners who were coming to him.

Disciples

But then in chapter 16 we have a parable told to the disciples: Jesus’ followers who would later take on the same task of reaching the lost.

And this time the parable is not about a man who has lost a sheep or a woman who has lost a coin, or another man who has lost a son, but about a rich man who has a useless manager.

Please note, the parable is about the rich man, not the shrewd manager – it is his reaction we have to watch.

Recap

The story is simple, subtle and amusing. A rich man had a man managing his affairs who was useless, so he called him in for a staff review.

The manager realized the game was up, and that he would lost his management post. What was he to do? The answer was make friends while you can, call in the debtors and get them to rewrite their bills.

The question – as in each of the previous parables, is how is the man going to react? And what can we learn from this?

And the way he reacted is in v 8, and it is a bit of a surprise this time. We might expect rage. Jesus said, “The master commended the dishonest manager ...”

Two points to make here. There is no doubt (in my mind) that this is still the man in the parable, not Jesus, though actually it doesn’t really matter.

Secondly, the word ‘commended’ means almost ‘bragged about’, ‘boasted about’, ‘praised publicly’ – ‘Look, I’ve had this useless manager for years, but you’ve got to admire him in the end’.

And the reason is, Jesus says, because the rich man could recognize a shrewd man – a ‘wheeler-dealer’. Commending someone who has cheated you twice over is a strange reaction, but Jesus says

... the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.

Warning

And that’s the message to us – or rather the warning. These guys doing the wheeler-dealing in the city, they all know what it takes to make money work for them.

But Christians are stupid when it comes to money and worldly wealth. He asks, “What are you doing with your money?” And most of us would say we’re investing it. And he would say, “Are you?”

In v 9, he says,

... use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

And that’s the question: is your money working to gain you a place in heaven, or is it just making you more money? In fact, the question becomes, “Is your money working for you, or are you working for your money?”

We all like to think we are shrewd about money. But the disciple who is not investing their money in their heavenly future is not shrewd at all!

Parallels about wealth

And to bring this out, Jesus draws some parallels. In v 10, your trustworthiness in big things is measured by your trustworthiness in small things.

The contrast is not between ‘little’ and ‘much’, but what doesn’t matter and what does. And the parallel in v 11 draws this out: worldly wealth is not the same as true riches.

And v 12 makes a third point along the same lines. Your worldly wealth doesn’t even belong to you.

Someone was once told a rich man had died. He asked, “How much money did he leave?” The answer, “All of it.” And that’s how much you and I will leave – it is not ours. If it were, we could take it with us.

We can’t take it with us. But it could be we are going somewhere where we will be welcomed because of how we have made our money work for us, we will be given something of true value, and it will be ours to keep forever.

Working hard for the money

Donna Summer once sang a song titled, “She works hard for the money.” What she meant was, she works hard to earn money. But what a lot of us don’t realize is that we are working hard to serve money.

We think the money is working for us, but actually we are working for it. Jesus caps this parable with a saying in v 13:

No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

And he uses an unusual word here – not ‘money’ but ‘Mammon’. He only uses it twice in his teaching: once in this saying and once in the parable where the NIV has ‘worldly wealth’.

Why does he use it? Because it gets across the idea that money easily takes on a life of its own, it becomes not just money but a force, a power, something that rules us, instead of us ruling it.

You see, we are like the master in the parable. If we were shrewd we would recognize the wisdom of money working for us, making us friends in the next world. Unfortunately, too often we become the servant of money itself.

Denoument

Now our set reading stops there, but we have to read on, because remember all this started with the reaction of the pharisees to Jesus welcoming sinners.

How do they react to this idea? V 14 tells us:

The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus.

And isn’t that going to be most people’s reaction. Try telling your mates at work, or your family, really our money should be working hard for us, making us friends in heaven.

Won’t they sneer at you? But what made it worse was these were the religious leaders. They ould find a way of squaring the circle. You can have God and you can be just the same as everyone else when it comes to money and material things.

They loved money, we are told, and yet they also wanted to appear to be looking forward to eternity – to the coming of God’s heavenly kingdom and to the place where our kind of money and wealth would be worthless.

Jesus said to them, v 15:

You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight.

The Pope’s visit has raised the suggestion that the big challenge in our society is between aggressive atheism and faith. The big challenge Jesus raised was between half-hearted faith and wholehearted faith. As a disciple, I think this is a much bigger challenge to me. And I think the same is true for all of us.

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Odd headlines, no 42

Occasionally my eye is caught by a misleading, funny or just odd headline which is worth passing on.

This, from the Guardian website, falls somewhere between the first and second - perhaps deliberately, perhaps not:

George Michael is a national treasure, despite the funny fags

I think they mean the 'joints', 'spliffs', 'whacky baccy' or whatever. On the other hand ...


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Back - from the PBS conference

After the best (or worst!) part of nine days without a phone or internet connection, we have now rejoined civilization.

What a lot has been going on, and what a lot I would quite like to have blogged about. But maybe it was good to give us all a rest.

Ironically, in the light of the Pope’s ongoing visit to these shores, I was away from Friday night to Saturday at the annual conference of the Prayer Book Society. (Ironic, because although the religious establishment of this country has been enthusiastically warm towards the Pope, the Book of Common Prayer was of course written to embody and impart doctrines precisely opposed to those held then and now by Rome.)

Until yesterday, I was not a member of the Prayer Book Society, but I’ve now been signed up as an honorary member. It was very useful, however, being forced to think more carefully about the entire Prayer Book ‘project’ for the purposes of producing a coherent talk.

One of the things I realized as a consequence was how the most significant element of Morning and Evening Prayer is — oddly enough — not prayer. This is what we read in the Preface, ‘Concerning the Service of the Church’:

There was never any thing by the wit of man so well devised, or so sure established, which in continuance of time hath not been corrupted: As, among other things, it may plainly appear by the Common Prayers in the Church, commonly called Divine Service. The first original and ground whereof if a man would search out by the ancient Fathers, he shall find, that the same was not ordained but of a good purpose, and for a great advancement of godliness. For they so ordered the matter, that all the whole Bible (or the greatest part thereof) should be read over once every year; intending thereby, that the Clergy, and especially such as were Ministers in the congregation, should (by often reading, and meditation in God’s word) be stirred up to godliness themselves, and be more able to exhort others by wholesome doctrine, and to confute them that were adversaries to the truth; and further, that the people (by daily hearing of holy Scripture read in the Church) might continually profit more and more in the knowledge of God, and be the more inflamed with the love of his true Religion.

The liturgy is indeed there ‘for a great advancement of godliness’. But how is this achieved? By ‘the whole Bible (or the greatest part thereof) being read over by the clergy and heard by the people every year — actually the Old Testament once, the New Testament twice and the Psalter every month.

The prayers surrounding the Bible readings are a ‘delivery system’, designed to put us in the right frame of mind (as the introduction to each service puts it),

... when we assemble and meet together to render thanks for the great benefits that we have received at his hands, to set forth his most worthy praise, to hear his most holy Word, and to ask those things which are requisite and necessary, as well for the body as the soul.

Of course, the agenda is more than just Bible reading — otherwise we would just have the Bible read. But the reading of the Bible is the sine qua non of the daily offices, the necessary condition without which Morning and Evening Prayer would fail to achieve what they were designed to achieve.

And so, likewise, when we read in the Ordinal, that the priest is to

... continually pray to God the Father, by the mediation of our only Saviour Jesus Christ, for the heavenly assistance of the Holy Ghost; that, by daily reading and weighing of the Scriptures, ye may wax riper and stronger in your ministry ...

we realize that, taken in conjunction with the rest of the Prayer Book, the way he will do this is through the daily exercise of Morning and Evening Prayer, wherein he will indeed read through the Scriptures, in large chunks, sequentially, with little ommitted except, as I recall, parts of the book of Revelation.

Incidentally, isn’t there something significant in the fact that although the Declaration of Assent ties us to the Book of Common Prayer as a witness to the truth of the faith we inherit, the Church of England website didn’t contain the full text of the BCP until it was recently added — thanks to the Prayer Book Society?

John Richardson
19 September 2010

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No Talk-ie Talk-ie, no blog!

For eight days now we have been without a phone line and therefore without any internet. Hence the lack of blogging. The phone went down last Wednesday, and despite repeated call to the customer support line (albeit in Bombay) there is still no service and no contact from the phone company to let us know how things are 'progressing'.

I have just gone through the rigmarole of changing the supplier (how hard can it be to fill in an online form? Answer: very!). We'll still have no phone, but at least I'll have someone different I can complain to.

Aaarghh.

PS this may have something to do with my 'going postal' at the Deanery Chapter yesterday when hearing about the new diocesan scheme to discourage encourage lay ministry.

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Shurely shome mishtake?

There is a blog out there by a minister in the Scottish Episcopal Church which has picked up on my article about the latter's introduction of 'inclusive language' in relation to God.

One poster says they are, "glad to see you have a different toake [sic] to that of the Ugley Vicar" and asks, "What d’you make of his perspective?", to which the author of the blog in question, Revruth, replies, "it wasn’t Ugleyvicar’s views but an article he pinched from John Richardson."

Much as I've tried, I can't post in the comments section, but for the record we are still one and the same person.

The other comments are worth reading, though, as they back up my hunch that this is all about revising our outward language about God in ways that conform to people's inward feelings - as I said before, basically idolatry in the sense that 'I' become the arbiter of God's nature, and wind up with a God fashioned by myself (see Isaiah 44:12-20 for the same process using the hands and wood, not the mind and mental images).

The battle to come here is related to that over sexuality but is, if anything, bigger.

BTW she disagrees, but doesn't say why.

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Thought for the day on the verse of the day: Colossians 1:28

“We proclaim him,” writes the Apostle Paul in today’s Bible Gateway verse of the day from Colossians 1:28, “admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.”

And the important word here is “him” (or actually, “whom”, since in the Greek this is a continuation of the previous verse: “To them [the saints] God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory, whom we proclaim ... etc,” cf KJV).

Moreover, the continuation of thought here is important, because Colossians begins with some astonishing statements about Christ, not least the words of vv 15-16,

He [Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.

If we ask that old question beloved of cosmologists, “Why is there something, rather than nothing?” the answer Scripture gives is simple: “Because of Christ” — for “all things were created by him and for him.”

But this has very important implications for our preaching of the gospel. As Paul says, it is Christ whom he proclaims in order to achieve the work God has given him to do, to present on the Last Day a host of people who are “perfect in Christ”.

The idea of ‘perfection’ entails ‘completeness’ — people being what they ought to be. And that must also pick up on something in v 15 where Christ is called the ‘image’ of God. For of course in the beginning the entire human race was made to ‘image’ God (Genesis 1:26).

We must not make the mistake of assuming that Christ has somehow displaced us as image-bearers. On the contrary, later in Colossians Paul writes that all God’s people have,

... put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

All the saints of God are becoming renewed ‘images’ of God. But for that to happen completely they must be constantly and carefully taught and admonished (1:28).

And the content of this teaching and admonition, notice, is not ‘Christian ethics’ or ‘moral behaviour’. It is not a set of ideas or the performance of religious exercises. It is Christ himself. We must therefore ask about the Christ we are proclaiming and who is proclaimed in our churches.

Is this Christ the one who made the world (1:16)? Is he the one for whom the world was made (1:16)? Is he one in whom the fullness of God dwells in bodily form (2:8)? Is he the be-all and end-all, not just of our lives, but of the very existence of all things? Often, for all our acknowledgment of him, there seems to be ‘clear water’ between Christ and God in our thinking and preaching. But if this, diminished, Christ is the Christ we proclaim, how can we expect to produce people who are perfect in him whom Paul proclaimed very differently?

As Paul suggests, to know Christ is to have wisdom, and the more we are taught of him, the more wisdom we have. Let that be our guiding thought for today.

John Richardson
7 September 2010

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Book NOW for the Chelmsford Anglican Bible Conference

I have just noticed that there is a 'late booking' surcharge for the tenth Chelmsford Anglican Bible Conference, which is coming up on the 2nd October. As one of the organizers, I want to say it wasn't my idea! Nevertheless, if you want to hear Don Carson on John's gospel and save yourself a fiver, you need to book before the 16th September.

Still, I suppose it has had the desired effect if it's got me to write this.

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Tame animals are a sign of the kingdom

Earlier this week I had the privilege to take the funeral of a man who had been a lion-tamer. (I regard the taking of all funerals as a privilege, not only because I am asked to be involved in a very difficult time in people’s lives, but because they give me an open opportunity to speak to the unchurched about God.)

As I said in the service, whatever else one heard about this truly interesting man, it was hard to get past the lion-taming. Of course, for some people this would be very hard to accept as a legitimate occupation. Needless to say, the man concerned had very strong views on this and ‘animal liberation’ generally.

Perhaps some indication of what this meant in practice, however, can be gleaned from the fact that when his children were young, they would eat breakfast with a fully-grown lion lying in the same room, which they would ‘shoo’ away if it became an obstruction.

Of course this must have entailed risk. But it was a risk which the family evidently thought both acceptable and minimal.

I am rather reminded, now I think about it, of the household set up by the Director, Ransom, in the third of C S Lewis science fiction trilogy, That Hideous Strength, a key member of which was Mr Bultitude, the bear (who, as it happened, had been rescued from a circus, of the kind of which my subject would have entirely disapproved).

The point Lewis was making was that the animals in the Director’s household had come under an influence which had, as it were, ‘brought them out of themselves’. As Mrs Maggs says,

... if the Director wanted to have a tiger about the house it would be safe. There isn’t a creature in the place that would go for another or for us once he’s had his little talk with them.

Mr Bultitude was thus treated as a legitimate occupant of the house, albeit one whose bulk and stubbornness could be inconvenient, such as when lying in front of the fire with Pinch, the cat.

Those who share the viewpoint of Mr McPhee, the rationalist Ulsterman in the story who nevertheless is also part of the Company, will explain away human behaviour in relation to animals as just some kind of quid pro quo, usually (these days) with some sort of ‘Evolutionist’ gloss to finish it off.

The Christian, however, will see something else, which is why I chose as the Bible reading from which I preached at the funeral Isaiah 11:1-9. The second part of this contains these words,

The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (NIV)

The taming (rather than merely the domestication) of animals is a feature of the coming kingdom, just as the final removal of ‘harm and destruction’ reflects the character and holiness of God.

I was reflecting on this the other day after reading something by a modern-day rationalist to the effect that the animal kingdom is one great mass of fear and terror, as all of them feed on one another. And perhaps there is indeed such ‘emotion’ (albeit in some animal form to which we cannot be entirely party).

But if that is true, it must also, logically, be possible for animals to feel joy and elation. Thus the birds which sing in every dawn chorus are not, on this argument, simply marking out territory in some biological-machine-like process. If they feel fear at the approach of the hawk, why may they not also feel joy at the arrival of the dawn — or, if they are early enough, at the catching of the worm?

And into all this, we must factor the human element. For in our best moments our instinct is to overcome the warring elements in nature. Sometimes this creates an obvious dis-pleasure, such as when I have rescued birds or mice from our cat. The cat’s disgruntlement on such occasions is impossible to ignore. Nevertheless, it may be argued that what I am doing on a small scale is what Isaiah prophesies on a grand scale — transforming nature from being ‘red in tooth and claw’ to being something which corresponds to a very different principle.

Thus, as I said to the funeral congregation, when we pray together, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we must remember that this means a transformation of nature such as we see occasionally on earth already. What we see is partial and incomplete, but it is a sign of something better yet to come.

John Richardson
1 September 2010

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Thought for the day on the verse of the day: Proverbs 22:6

Derek Kidner has an interesting comment on today’s Bible Gateway verse of the day. The NIV renders it,

Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. (Proverbs 22:6)

The principle demand, read thus, would be to teach the child what is morally and socially right: the way he should go.

Kidner, however, writes,

The training prescribed is lit. ‘according to his (the child’s) way’, implying, it seems, respect for his individuality and vocation, though not for his self will (see verse 5, or 14:12). (IVP OT Commentary, 147)

Literally, the verse reads something like, “Train a child in the mouth of his way ...” — an idiom that clearly needs some interpretation before we can reach an application!

What is important to realize from this slight ambiguity is that there is more to raising children than simply given them instructions and making sure they follow them. The book of Proverbs is very much concerned with what the young should learn in order to be wise — especially from their parents.

Wisdom lies, first and foremost, in the knowledge of God. Proverbially (1:7), “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge ...” (NIV). But true wisdom is not found simply in learning and applying rules. The child is expected to following instructions: “Clean your teeth, tidy your room.” The adult should have some understanding of the principles entailed in these instructions, and our whole process of child-rearing should be a preparation for the independence of adulthood.

The archetypal ‘mature child’ in this sense is surely Christ himself, who, on the one hand did only what he saw the Father doing (John 5:19), according to the Father’s will (John 6:38), but to whom the Father had committed his own authority (John 5:22).

This is surely the model we should follow in parenting, and in responding to being parented. The ultimate goal is the entirely trustworthy child to whom all things can be entrusted.

John Richardson
1 September 2010

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