Scripture Engagement

The other day a colleague of mine heard her pastor preach a sermon saying something like, 'Mission isn't about going somewhere else, it's about reaching people here at home!' We have also heard the same from mission boards here in the UK. 'We want to focus more on local mission.' Why the switch from overseas mission to local mission? I think there are several factors we need to consider: Our God is too small, to paraphrase J. B. Phillips. We believe God can help us reach folk in our neighbourhood, but the idea of going somewhere completely different, with another culture and language, seems too far fetched. Also, deep down we may believe that, actually, they are OK with their beliefs and practices, and we have little to share with them. This is tantamount to believing that each region has its own god, and ours is only in charge of the local patch. We have believed the lie that short-term is better than long-term mission. This has turned mission service ...

Can we be saved by law? Paul says many times that we are saved by grace, not law. He even says Christ is the end of the law: Since they [Israel] did not know the righteousness of God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. Romans 10:3‭-‬4 NIVUK https://bible.com/bible/113/rom.10.3-4.NIVUK. There are two things we need to think about first, before we jump to conclusions on this issue: 1. The word nomos 'law' could refer to several different things (Gal 2:19 illustrates this point) 2. The word telos 'end/culmination/goal' also needs interpreting On the first question, Paul, in Romans 10, is likely to be referring to the Mosaic law, with its regulations to offer sacrifices and so on. We cannot be saved by keeping all of the teaching of the Torah. Neither are Jews saved simply by having this teaching. Having a Bible doesn't s...

Another point I made in my blog on syncretism in the Western church is this: 'A kind of intellectual belief in evolution that makes us want to believe any advance is good, not only in technology, but also in morality, world view, spirituality, and so on. There is no biblical basis for this. In fact the Bible tends to view many so-called 'advances' as moves away from God. For example, when the people of Israel asked for a king, so they could be like other nations, the prophet Samuel (in 1Sam 8 ) told them very clearly what that would mean for them, and it wasn't an upgrade!' At the end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century there was enormous optimism in Western culture. We seemed to be making many discoveries, documenting all known life-forms, and progressing at a tremendous rate in terms of scientific progress. Underlying much of this optimism was a belief on evolution - not just evolution of species but evolution of civilisations. We believed th...

In my previous post I said that the Western church exhibits: 'A certain cynicism about miracles, so healing is thought not to be real, but in someone's imagination. This is a result of secularism, and what Paul Hiebert called 'the flaw of the excluded middle' in his article on the subject, which shows that Westerners don't believe in the middle realm between supernatural and natural. The Bible, however, constantly mentions dreams, angels, unclean spirits, and so on, which are very much to do with this middle realm.' This shows itself in two, rather extreme ways. The first is to deny that miracles happen. This is the secular approach to miracles. They don't happen now, they didn't happen then i.e. in biblical times and therefore somebody must have made them up, we think. It is possible to find a whole host of literature in theological libraries that is written from this position. Miracles are something outside our experience, which is much more re...

It's almost Easter, but here I am writing about a serious topic - how the Western church has become syncretistic i.e. it has mixed the surrounding culture in with its culture to form a mix of biblical Christian beliefs and secular beliefs. Here are some areas where I think we are being invaded by the surrounding world view: A certain cynicism about miracles, so healing is thought not to be real, but in someone's imagination. This is a result of secularism, and what Paul Hiebert called 'the flaw of the excluded middle' in his article on the subject, which shows that Westerners don't believe in the middle realm between supernatural and natural. The Bible, however, constantly mentions dreams, angels, unclean spirits, and so on, which are very much to do with this middle realm A kind of intellectual belief in evolution that makes us want to believe any advance is good, not only in technology, but also in morality, world view, spirituality, and so on. There is no b...

I don't know if you're preaching on Easter Sunday? And I don't know what your congregation is like, but imagine you're preaching in an honour-shame context on Easter Sunday. What would you say? How would you explain the efficacy of the work of Christ on the cross? You wouldn't mention Christ 'paying the price for our sins'. Noooo You would mention restoration to a new family, the family of God You would mention a sense of belonging to that family You would mention that Christ's death took away our (collective) shame and restored honour to both God and to us (collectively) You might mention that Christ (as representative of a new humanity) succeeded where both Adam (representative of humans) and Israel failed You might mention that as our elder brother Christ paved the way for us to share the honour that belongs to him You probably would mention that we now have access to the Father, and have the same right to the privileges that Christ won fo...

The other month I pruned our apple trees. I did this not just because they were out of control, too tall, ungainly or too wide. I did it because I want to get more fruit next autumn. I like apples! Note that I did not chop the trees down and they were in no way harmed. In fact, now it's Spring, they are budding and beginning to look beautiful. John 15.2, below: He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.NLT https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.15.2.NLT ...is a verse many people struggle with because they (in my view correctly) assume the vine is believers, plural, and they think some branches i .e. individuals will be thrown out of the kingdom. The trunk, and the roots, are Christ. It's from him that we get our nourishment. It's rare that a gardener will chop off and remove a whole branch. Usually the branches are pruned. We may have to let some things in our lives ...