The ‘Feel-bad’ Religion

As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us.  (2 Corinthians 7:9) Paul is telling the church of Corinth and everyone subsequently, a very important truth; that the Christian faith is not a feel-good religion.  Indeed, sorrow is central to Jesus’ teaching: Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.  (Matthew 5:4) Mourning precedes assuagement, the fullness of which is deferred to the eternal state.  The word in Greek that is translated ‘mourn’ is πενθέω penteo ‘to lament’, or ‘grieve as for the dead’ and is apposite because all must die to self to gain Christ; that is the ‘godly grief’ of which Paul speaks. Elsewhere in Scripture, remorse and contrition are recognized as essential emotions in approaching God, David realizes that no sacrifice can be holy or honorable unless it proceeds from heartfelt remorse. …a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.  (Psalm 51:17) Jesus contrasted the stance in prayer of the haughty Pharisee and humble Tax Collector who: …standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’  (Luke 18:13) Only the Tax Collector will be made righteous before God, and that because of sorrowful humility. It is essential that all who would hope for forgiveness realize they stand as the Tax Collector, an object of wrath.   Tears cannot soften the heart of God; seven times Jesus informs his disciples that the unrighteous will bewail their fate (eg. Matthew 8:12).  Mercy...

Life in Neutral

One of the great spiritual deceptions is that there is a neutral position or state in which the disciple of Christ can idle.  When back-sliding Israel became idolatrous, they swung from worshiping God to bowing to idols.  Many in the Church today, think this example no longer applies; apostates do not erect a statue to Baal or Molech, yet think that ‘time away from the Lord’ is not an evil; however, Jesus’ teaching is crystal and warns that a person cannot serve two masters: ‘Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money…’ (Matthew 6:24) The word translated ‘money’ is a Greek transliteration from the Aramaic, μαμωνᾶς mamonas, and it means any ‘treasure’ in which we place trust; therefore, the nature of the idol is not the issue; idolatry is turning away from God.  We either serve God or we oppose Him; rebellion knows no middle way – as described in another of Jesus’ teaching: ‘Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.  For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.’ (ibid 7:13-14) Again, this is starkly binary.  Thus, the disciple is either ignorant of Scripture or self-deluded if he believes that he may please himself with impunity.  There is no activity or lack thereof, that is spiritually neutral.  We cannot think that there is ‘down-time’ in God’s economy.  We either...

The Tongue-Tied Evangelist

In his first pastoral letter to the church he established in Corinth, Paul moves to tackle divisions that have occurred over who baptised whom, and says this: For Christ did not send me to baptise, but to preach the gospel – not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. (1 Corinthians 1:17) Devoid of wisdom and eloquence, does this sound like Paul? However, we must believe the self-assessment of his own oratory for he makes this statement: When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.  For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.  I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling.  My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.  (ibid 2:1-5) Paul the apostle to the Gentiles, arguably the greatest evangelist of the early church, was diminished by God to proclaim in weakness; moreover, the man who could dismiss as ‘light and momentary troubles’ (2 Corinthians 4:17) eight severe beatings, a stoning and being thrice ship-wrecked, shook with fear and trembling.  Such is God’s will on the matter; foremost He will be glorified; the comfort of the evangelist is subordinate. Also, we should note, the message was simple, ‘Jesus Christ and him crucified’.  Paul did not bring the complex doctrine – and there is good reason for this, as Peter comments: … our dear...
The Agency of Coronavirus

The Agency of Coronavirus

Throughout history, from the shut gates of Eden to the present, there has been disease. Disease literally means discomfiture, and each bacterium and virus, God-made and God-given, is divinely designed to discomfort men and women at ease with themselves. God says through his prophet, Amos: When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it? (Amos 3:6b) And through Isaiah: I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things. God uses many agents; he uses wind, rain and fire. He ignites volcanoes and shakes the foundations of mountains with earthquake. He commands disaster and calamity. To think otherwise, can only mean one of two things; either God is not omnipotent or that he is indifferent. Both positions would require us to find an alternative object for worship. With the former, we would necessarily seek the higher power; and for the latter, there can be no use for a careless deity. That is all very well, but to what purpose is this suffering? Unless we trust God there can be no good purpose. We must know: The Lord is righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works. (Psalm 145:17) Unless we trust God to act in our best interests, hardship is the product of an indifferent cosmos. It can only have meaning if God purposively directs the hardship: …do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves… (Proverbs 3:11-12) Any agent, however unpleasant, painful or inconvenient is visited on us by God, not randomly or cruelly but restoratively and redemptively. Regretfully for humankind, correction can only be achieved by agents...
God Gets To Choose

God Gets To Choose

     I am one of twenty people who take the message of hope to my home town in Hampshire, England. We call ourselves ‘town pastors’, although only a few us are professional clergy. Sometimes we meet people in Alton late at night who are open and receptive to the Gospel and, of course, we attempt to be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks us to give the reason for the hope that we have with gentleness and respect (paraphrasing 1 Peter 3:15). At times it seems an awesome, if not daunting responsibility. What if we make a mess of things? Of course, we do have responsibility; we should know the Gospel that Paul summarises in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8. We should demonstrate the Gospel by accepting and loving those people. But we can also be reassured that, as for Lydia, it wasn’t Paul’s eloquence that moved her to faith in Christ, but God himself. One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia…the Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message. (Acts 16:14) Paul says of himself that many thought him a poor speaker (2 Corinthians 10:10) but as Luke reports, the response to his witness, whether poor or not, was entirely up to God – and so it is with us town pastors. It is God’s choice to reveal himself through his mighty Spirit, and that is a wonderfully gracious act for those that would ‘be sent’ to bear witness to Christ, as we are therefore released from: Concern over knowing or choosing to whom we speak – it...