Men, Women & The Trinity

This post attempts to answer a question perplexing some parts of the evangelical world, namely - should women lead mixed worship services?

A forgotten truth

Tucked away in the eleventh chapter of first Corinthians is a verse of profound, but neglected, significance for understanding the roles of men and women in the church:

"Now I want you to realise that the head of every man is Christ and the head of every woman is man and the head of Christ is God." (1 Corinthians 11:3)

Paul is drawing a deliberate parallel between the relationship that exists between men and women, and the relationship that exists between God the Son and God the Father. 

Order not hierarchy

An order exists between the Three Persons of the Godhead, not a hierarchy. God the Father is the "first" Person, God the Son is the "second" Person and God the Holy Spirit is the "third" Person. 

The Father sends the Son, but the Son never sends the Father. The Son does what the Father tells him, but the Father does not do what the Son tells him. 

Order.

And then both the Father and the Son send the Spirit. 

Order.

But all Three Persons are equal in divinity and glory. There is no hierarchy between the Three blessed Persons. The Father is not "above" the Son, Father and Son are not "above" the Spirit. The Spirit is not in the least "below" the Father. 

Order, but zero hierarchy.

This of course is a high mystery, but is not beyond our grasp: we can all comprehend the distinction between order and hierarchy, even if we cannot fully understand it. 

And this is an "insider truth," known and acceptable only to believers. The moment the world hears that one person - whether human or Divine - has sent another, or that one person obeys another, they immediately see hierarchy - and object.

Order between men and women

According to the Apostle Paul, the same kind of order exists between men and women. In 1 Corinthians 11, quoted above, Paul is not referring to marriage, where a different kind of order exists. 

In Christian marriage Paul draws a parallel between Christ's headship over the Church and a husband's headship over his wife. That isn't the order Paul has in mind in 1 Corinthians 11. 

There's a much more general order between men and women Paul has in mind here, parallel to the order between God the Father and God the Son and revealed in the way God created Adam and Eve.

Paul explains the way this intrinsic order was revealed in the creation of Adam and Eve, Genesis 1-2:

"For man did not come from woman, but woman from man, neither was man created for woman, but woman for man." (verse 8)

Man is not in the least superior to the woman for both were made in the image of God, but there is an order between them.

Lest a misogynist confuse order for superior independency, Paul goes on to say:

"In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God." (11-12)

This order was also revealed in the way Adam was made first and Eve was made second:

"For Adam was formed first, then Eve." (1 Timothy 2:13)

In summary, there are two kinds of order between men and women. One particular order between a husband and wife (modelled on the relationship between Christ and the Church) and another general one between men and women in the church, modelled on relationships within the Trinity.

Order not eradicated by the Fall or Salvation

The married order between husband and wife was twisted by the fall, but it was not eradicated:

"Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." (3:16)

And the general order between men and women is not obliterated either by the fall or the Gospel. The full light of Gospel Day frees men and women to serve, but it does not erase or play down the divine order anywhere in the New Testament. 

That order would have been assumed by all the Jewish believers who possessed the Old Testament and it was left to Paul to explain to the Gentiles converted under his ministry, and to the rest of the Gentile world. 

Both kinds of order - the specific order between a husband and wife and the more general order between men and women are to be maintained by believers,  in Christian marriage and the church.

Both "order" problems at Corinth

At Corinth there were problems with both kinds of order. In chapter 14 there was husband-wife disorder. The details are obscure, the fundamental problem is not. In some way wives were speaking in the church in a way that upturned the order between them and their husbands. While women could pray and prophecy in the church, their contributions - perhaps over the heads of their husbands sitting there? - were now threatening the order of the gathering. 

In chapter 11, it is not the husband-wife order problem Paul has in mind, but the more general order between men and women.

Again the details are obscure to us, but the problem is as clear as day. Something about the way the sisters were dressing - or not dressing (hat/top bun/?) - was obscuring the differences between men and women - and here is the point! - therefore obscuring the divine order between men and women. The women were doing something / wearing / not wearing something which made them look like men. And in that way the divine order between men and women was being obscured. 

The angels are watching our worship gatherings says the Apostle Paul.

Application to Today

We live in an age of vast gender confusion. It's part of a wholesale attack on biblical anthropology, on God's created order. What is mankind? What is male and what is female? And how are they to relate to each other?

Tragically many parts of the protestant churches have followed the world as meekly as Mary's lamb.  

Equally alarming, in many parts of so-called evangelicalism this error is entering the church - indeed has already entered the church.

Women now lead church services in so-called complementarian churches, who say, at least at the moment, that they would not countenance a woman elder or a woman teacher. Women are leading at some conferences, too.

The moment a woman leads a gathering of believers, the divine order between men and women is turned upside down. Every impression is given that this church is led by women, that women are the head. We cannot ignore that impression. 

God's order is turned on its head, the angels are grieved and collateral damage is done to every other form of divine order.

Why this drift?

Why is the so-called evangelical church drifting in this way?

It may be weak men in leadership.

Could be the desire to be avant-garde, hip, cool, a pioneer. 

It may be ignorance of the whole-Scripture teaching of divine order between the sexes.

It may be strong women in the church who are influencing their husbands and Eve-like are leading them astray.

It may be simply a form of worldliness.

The effect?

The effect of women leading church services, I believe, could turn out to be a milestone on the road to other compromises.

For one thing women leading feminizes the church. Men, already on the backfoot in western culture, feel that the church is yet another space for women, not men.

What we need in our age is not weathervane leadership that cowardly follows the contours of every worldly twist in turn, but courageous leadership prepared to stand against the tide of a culture ever-more pagan in belief and in practice.

The Universe God made is Binary

We live in a Binary World

The first two chapters of the Bible reveal a God who creates binary pairs. He makes light and dark, water below (sea) and water above (clouds), he separates dry ground and sea, and he creates male and female.

Genesis chapters 1 and 2 are saying, among many other things, that there is something intrinsically binary about the created order.

(Interestingly in the subatomic world, we find more created binaries. Electrons, for example, can have up spin (+1/2) or down spin (-1/2 spin). And they have a fixed negative charge of a value equal but opposite of their antiparticle counterpart, the positron.)

The Gospel follows exactly the same binary pattern. There is light and there is darkness, spiritual sight and spiritual blindness, the wide road that leads to destruction the narrow that leads to life; there is sowing to please the sinful nature or sowing to please the Spirit, a heaven to gain or a hell to avoid. 

One or the other.

Scriptural truth, you could say, as well as the created order, is binary by divine design.

Perhaps one reason for this is so that we can understand things: after all we are weak and finite little human beings.

Transgender Ideology

Underpinning transgender ideology is a radical rejection of binary categories, especially when it comes to gender; there is no binary male and female, but a spectrum of genders.

The fall of mankind has for sure messed us all up - body and understanding - and so we should have great compassion on all who struggle. 

Unlike previous societal shifts (e.g. same-sex marriage), transgender ideology has little explicit answer in Scripture, simply because there is not one example of someone claiming to be transgender in the Bible. Homosexual practice is mentioned and condemned multiple times in Scripture but no mention of transgender. 

This explicit absence of Scriptural references does not in any way limit the ability of Scripture, which was written for all time and all peoples, to speak plainly to this issue. 

One of the most remarkable indications that the Bible is of divine origin is the fact that tucked away all over are truths that answer any confusing lie Satan may spread in a culture at any moment of history.

"God hath more light to shed from his Word."

Passages that may be passed over unnoticed by one generation suddenly come alive and relevant to another - designedly so.

An example from 1 Corinthians chapter 7: when discussing marriage, Paul says things like this "each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband" (7:2). If those instructions were not inspired by God, if only the product of one man temporarily located in one moment of time, he might have written, "each person should be married," which would have left the door open later in time to someone saying "look Paul just says get married, he doesn't say who to."

But the Holy Spirit closed the same-sex marriage door firmly with the addition of the words man, wife, woman and husband.

In like manner, for thousands of years believers may have overlooked the binary nature of God's creation, but today it is one of the many Scriptural truths that reveal the lie of transgender ideology. 

The world God made is binary. 

Image: AI draw "binary"

Why we (must) have no Popes

 

 The Kingdom of Christ is different

In this blog I want to explore and explain why in the Scriptures there is only one Head of the Church and why we must reject the idea of "single human leadership," such as popes, archbishops or bishops - or any other ecclesiastical equivalent.

One of the triumphs of the 1500s reformation was supposed to be the exposure and eradication of unscriptural man-made offices such as the pope. And yet the shallowist dip into even that era of church history provides us with examples of power-corruption in those very church leaders. 

In "The Reformers and their Stepchildren" Leonard Verduin describes the persecution of the godly Anabaptist Christians by the powerful Luthers, Calvins and Zwinglis. Although these Reformers stood against the doctrine of the pope, they were unable to shake off the spirit of popery. Lesson: even the very best of Christian men fall prey to the corruption of power and fame. 

No-one is immune to power-trip temptation. 

But let's start here: craving for human rule seems to be built into human nature; expressed either in the desire to rule or the desire to follow - to have a visible king, "like all the other nations." 

And there is something good about wanting to follow, providing it is a godly someone we know well, and good about wanting to lead, provided it is for the benefit of those being led.

But central to the Christian Gospel are truths which undermine any kind of single or overarching human rule among God's people. 

Bishop rule. Archbishop rule. Popish rule. 

First of all, the kingdom we serve is the Kingdom of God, which has become the kingdom of Christ. We acknowledge only one Man as our King.

Second, our glorious divine King is in heaven, presently invisible to us, but dwelling among his people by his Spirit and ruling through his Spirit and Word applied by godly local leaders.

In the third place, the prescribed leadership pattern in the New Testament Church is local elders in local churches. The Apostles, capital "A," were a unique and passing band of men who possessed an overarching measure of authority across more than one local church. But that variety of authority, vital for the foundational stage of the church, has disappeared now that we have the full Scriptures. 

Except for that Apostolic band, we find, in the New Testament, no hierarchal inter-church para-church organisations or structures with single leaders "at the top." Churches were bound together by intangible voluntary bonds of truth and love, not by ecclesiological structures with their human intermediaries. 

No human hierarchies in the Church, not one. 

Individual churches (always small in the New Testament) have their own leaders. No bishops presiding over a dozen churches, or up some mythical ecclesiastical pyramid, archbishops, or top of the pile Popes.

All human ranks or structures, except for local elders, are wholly unknown to the Scriptures. 

The Corruption of All human Authority

There is good divine reason why the church is ruled from heaven and it is this sober truth: all human authority is inherently corrupt - no matter how many "safeguards" we might try to put in place. 

Let's explore this together.

Corruption - or at least distortion - of power comes in a myriad of guises. Some intentional, some unintentional, some perhaps even unknown to us. 

Obviously: corruption can come about by human ambition. The world is filled with examples - and tragically so is the church. Men wanting more influence and greater power.

Obviously: corruption can occur by the mother of ambition which is pride. No human being is capable of humbly handling a position of authority beyond the small. 

Corruption can be disguised by class. It is impossible for any human being to be as-broad-as-the-true-church in our associations, affections or appointments. Birds of a feather naturally hang out together; middle-class leaders beget middle-class institutions with middle-class priorities. And before long you may have a religious organisation in the image of its leader(s). (And hence potentially incomprehensible to true believers of any other social class.)

Corruption can occur by personality type. Issues and styles that have nothing to do with truth and everything to do with human personality can become so confused, resulting in the inclusion of some (often of the same personality) and the exclusion of others (of a different personality type).

Corruption can occur by perspective.  We don't need to be postmoderns to know that all of us are perspectival by virtue of the fact of human finitude. The issues we think are important may actually not be all that important. In which case any movement we lead will intrinsically be imbalanced. 

Corruption happens by tribal instinct & bias. Out in the world this may be called the "old boy network." In recent days we've seen "famous" Reformed pastors maligning charismatic pastors (perhaps visa versa?). One tribe maligning another. (What, I wonder, does the Father of all his tribes think of this intra-family squabbling? He weeps?)

Corruption also - indeed always - occurs given enough time. If per chance the first leader of some new Christian movement was godly and relatively balanced, within time, less and less godly men will be appointed, until lines are crossed and apostasy sets in. We have seen this with Christian book publishers and a multitude of denominations. It can happen in decades; for sure it will happen over generations. 

John Wesley and Charles Spurgeon must be turning in their graves. One day, we have to be frank about these things, those who start evangelical Gospel Partnerships or Coalitions will also turn in their graves. 

Every human institution with no exceptions, goes down hill given enough time. It must do so because it is human. 

The Glory of Divine Leadership & the Wisdom of local leadership

For all these reasons and no doubt more, leadership in the Church of Jesus Christ is always by local elders in the local area who know those particular sheep. 

What divine wisdom! 

Those leaders, in turn, must seek to be accountable to their only invisible and glorious Head by applying His Word to their local church. 

And how wonderful to know that in heaven, at the Father's right hand, sits the One and Only Chief, Good, Great Shepherd of the Sheep. He knows each one of his sheep and calls them by name. His global love for them all knows no distortions of class, education, personality, culture or perspective. 

Only Jesus loves all his sheep.

Only Jesus is totally just.

Only Jesus is class-less.

Only Jesus is without any prejudice towards his true flock.

All the rest of us - no matter what checks and balances we may try to put into place - are profoundly parochial, one-sided, biased and therefore unjust.

And so in an age of celebrity Christianity (= the exaltation of individuals) we ought to do everything in our power to stand against that tide, and personally divest ourselves of power and influence, because none of us are immune to its inherent corruptions. 

What can we do, in practical terms, we should ask, to reduce our fame or power?

Local churches must seek to associate with other local true churches, and strive to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 

But they must - at all costs - avoid the tyranny of singular human leadership, wherever it rears its ugly head.

No popes, please. 

The Original "Four Horsemen" of Militant Science - Book Review of The X Club

 

Dawkins-Dennett-Harris-Hitchens

We have become accustomed to regarding Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens as a new breed of anti-religious scientists. Some call them "The Four Horsemen" of the New Atheist movement.

But way back in the misty origins of modern science - which is only mid 1800s - a group of 9 "scientists" formed an alliance with an agenda to gain for science authority and influence which "the church" then possessed.

Who were the X Club?

The X club - hoped to be 10 but only 9 in the end - consisted of the following men:

•  Joseph Dalton Hooker
• Thomas Huxley (probably the most famous and most outspoken)
• John Tyndall
• John Lubbock
• William Spottiswoode
• Edward Frankland
• George Busk
• Thomas Archer Hirst
• Herbert Spencer

By the 1850s they were all in London. Back then it was nigh on impossible to gain a living through scientific employment, as we now know it, so many of these men ended up supporting themselves by other means, whether pensions, journalism or translation.

“few leading scientific men had paid employment in science, and landed gentlemen, lawyers and medical men and businessmen devoted their considerable spare time to science.” (page 41)

All of them were religious to some degree - no-one in those days England admitted to being an atheist, but their religious convictions varied from sincere to liberal.

Their main influence was between a 15 year window from mid 1860s to 1880s. 

Here's how they gained influence for themselves and for science:

• they hob-nobbed with the good and the great, hanging out at the many clubs that characterised Victorian London
• they used religious terms to describe their work; they were evangelists and missionaries for example, seeking converts to to the faith of science
•  they ran Sunday evening science lectures - rather direct and provocative competition in a Sabbatarian culture!
• they used every human title they could muster to bolster their authority, whether Dr, Baron, Professor, you name it, they claimed it
•  they ran lectures for working men - reminiscent of evangelists Wesley and Whitfield
  
• they used journalism and books to gain influence
• they promoted evolution and were openly sceptical about the power of prayer 

By the 1880s their star had fallen and disagreements among them along with old age and ill-health brought their rein to an end - much like our modern four horsemen whose star has largely waned. 

I draw comparison between the two groups of scientists, though separated by 150 years, because, according to the author, Ruth Barton:

 “X Club members were distinctly militant.” (page 371)

Lessons

I so enjoyed reading this book and wholly commend it to you - if you have the time for the 500 pages!

But this is what I take away from the book, and that period of time, for today:

Religion can be a real hindrance to true Christianity

Unfortunately, England was filled with much (false) religion which lacked any real spiritual power. And right throughout the country the curse of Christendom - the unbiblical (and unholy) alliance between church and state - proved a vast hindrance to the true Gospel.

No churchmen should have had "authority" in the land. No scientists should have thought of the church as an institution which possessed secular power which could be envied.

The animosity this group of men felt was wholly unnecssary and has left us with the legacy of "science vs religion."

All oppostion falls one day

In just a short season of time - a mere eyeblink of 15 years - their power was gone. Why do we fret over enemies of the Gospel, when ill health and mortality will take them all away? 

All scientists are biased

It's in the nature of the beast. We begin with presuppositions, assumptions, presumptions before we enter the lab. Even metaphysical presuppositions influence the study of the material world (which is the domain of science).

Science is a noble occupation and a wonderful endeavour. It is very much the friend of true Christianity and never its foe.

How does God change lives?

 The means of divine influence

In this blog I ask the very simple question, "How does God change the lives of his people?"

The ultimate means of divine influence is impossible to discern: who can tell the mysterious working of God in the human soul? 

For sure the Word of God together with the Spirit of God play the central and pivotal role. Through the Word we are regenerated and sanctified.

For that reason preaching and prayer is rightly prized in any genuine Bible-believing church.

The Word made flesh

But for many reasons we have neglected - to our great loss - another, but very much connected, means of divine influence: the influence of one believer upon another.

The starting point for understanding this "means of influence" is God's example: the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

The Word could have stayed in heaven.

The Word could have written books and sent them to earth.

We could have heard the words of God merely through letters on a page or a voice from afar.

But, no, the Word became flesh.

The Word came in person, flesh and blood person. 

And through, not merely his words but also his life, the disciples were transformed.

So much that enemies observing His influence on the disciples noted that these UNSCHOOLED men had been lectured by been WITH Jesus (Acts 4:13).

Enemies knew the power of just being with Jesus.  

The power of example.

The power of life, of word working through life.

Jesus did not ask his disciples to show up once a week to a sabbath lecture. He lived with them week by week and through not only his words but the example of his life, he taught them.

Life (as well as lip).

Living example (as well as words).

Our obsession with the academy

Today, because of our proudful obsession with the academy, with the verbal, with the written, with the textual, we have neglected the incarnational means by which lives are in practice changed, actually transformed.

Place a young Christian in a church community - how does he or she grow? We say "come to the Sunday Sermon, read your Bible, come to the midweek Bible Study."

Words, words, words.

And then we wonder ten years down the line why their lives, Monday to Saturday are largely untransformed by the Gospel. 

No life was ever transformed by sermons.

Alone.

Lives are transformed in living community within the body of God's people.

(Oh yes, where faithful preaching and teaching takes place too.)

This is what Jesus meant by his command "make disciples." He meant "do for the world what I have just done for you over the last 3 years, namely spend many long hours with the next generation of believers, living a godly life before them and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."

Charter for a more incarnational Christianity

If we are to recover a truer Christianity, this is how it might look:

Think apprenticeship model not university model. Take the apprenticeship model as your example. Plumbers are not trained by placing them in an institution, but by watching a master plumber do his day work.

Therefore do not put all your eggs in the verbal basket. If a pastor spends all his time in his study and little time with real people his impact will be cerebral and minimal. (Actually, he will, by default, be influencing them profoundly into his own personal (non)incarnational philosophy: they will pick up that Monday to Saturday they may live as they please and only Sunday religion really matters.)

Does this mean preaching does not matter? Not at all. It means that there is more to communicating a message than mere words. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Live a godly life yourself. Those who you disciple will, by God's grace, rise no higher than you. This may be precisely why discipleship is out of fashion today? Older Christians don't want young believers getting too close to their lives. After all, who knows what they might find? Not to mention the nuisance factor.

Focus on just a few people. Forget numbers, focus on a few. Forget one-mile-wide-and-one-inch-deep religion (as famous as that variety may make you) and opt for one-inch-wide but a world-transforming mile deep true Christianity.

Spend all sorts of time with those few. Time over meals, walks, coffees, whatever. 

Ignore climbing the proud ecclesiastical ladders of evangelicalism (which all ride off big numbers). Of set purpose eschew ecclesiastical ladders which breed off the big numbers that make any real influence an impossibility.  

Don't be deceived by big-number claims. Time and again folk will boast that such and such person has influenced "a generation" of people. It's a lie. If Jesus did not manage to influence more than 12 (11) nor will you - or the big evangelical guru. Oh, yes they may read a book of yours, hear a sermon, but the incarnation teaches that real and lasting influence requires much more than mere words.

So be content with influencing just a few.  Jesus was content with just 12 (11) over 3 years. You and I will struggle to disciple twelve people well the whole of our lives. Settle for just a few and look to your heavenly reward not to earthly fleeting fame.

Suppose, just suppose we said to one another that we would be content with to disciple say 3 people the whole of our lives. The next generation of believers would multiply by a factor of 3...

...the following by 9

...the following by 27. 

You get the picture.  

Religion changes no-one.

Discipleship changes the world.

Ready for Reformation Day?

Reformation Part A - Luther, Zwingli, Calvin

The Reformation in Europe is traditionally dated from the day Martin Luther nailed 95 suggestions for discussion to some door in Wittenberg.

And for sure that was a significant date, October 31st, 1517.

Through great reformers such as Luther, Calvin and Zwingli, much truth was recovered. Centuries of dead tradition, Roman Catholic superstition and heresy were swept away; Gospel truth was restored.

Reformation Part B - Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz

But there is a good case for celebrating another date - 8 years later - as well.  Tuesday 21st January 2025  will be the 500th Anniversary of Saturday 21st January 1525. And on that Saturday something profound took place: a few adults got baptised in Zurich. Here's one account of the event:

“After the prayer George of the House of Jacob stood up and asked Conrad Grebel for God’s sake to baptise him with the true Christian baptism upon his faith and knowledge. And when he knelt down with such a request and desire, Conrad baptised him, since at that time there was no ordained minister to perform such a work.”

Doesn't sound like much to write home about? 

Until you realise that this was the very first known/recorded New Testament church gathering separate from the state in Europe for many centuries.

Until you realise that this gathering broke the perverse 1000 year old connection between church and state.

This one simple baptism signalled the determination of a new band of reformers called the Radical Reformers (nick-named the Anabaptists by their enemies: anabaptist means "baptise again" referring to the fact that they had already been baptised as infants). These believers wanted to form proper New Testament churches outside the control of the corrupting influence of the unbelieving state - just like the New Testament churches.

The Reformation was meant to be an attempt to restore the European Roman Catholic Church back to the Bible. ("Everyone" in Europe was a catholic in those days because State and Church were one.)

But great figures such as Luther, Zwingli and Calvin laboured under a blind spot so big it curtailed anything like the completion of their work.

All of these big name reformers used the powers of the local secular magistrates to push through their reforms, hence we call them "magisterial reformers." (Nothing to do with majesty - a common homophonic misunderstanding).

Zwingli, for example, waited until the council leaders in Zurich - who were not necessarily believers - agreed with the spiritual reforms he was urging. And only if/when these men agreed with his reforms did they pass into law. In this way the dangerous connection between church and state was continued.

Zwingli did not feel the need to act independently of the state, because in his mind the two were one: this was perhaps the biggest spiritual blindspot of this era.

Along came men like Conrad Gebel and Felix Manz in Zurich who argued that the church and state should be totally separate - just as they are in the New Testament.

And so on Saturday 21st Janaury 2025, a few Christians got baptised in a house in Zurich - and this simple act established the first known/recorded proper New Testament church that was separate from the state for centuries in Europe. (And unleashed a torrent of persecution upon them).

(At the end of this blog I list some sources if you wish to find out more about the Radical Reformers aka Anabaptists).

Reformation Part C - us, today

It is a great - but all too common - mistake to bind ourselves to Reformation A or B. To imagine that all the reformation that needs to take place has already taken place in the past. To line our bookshelves with their holy tomes and lock ourselves into the delusion of thinking we're safe, we're "Reformed."

The basic warning of Church History is that the church - however you define it, whatever tribe you find yourself in, is always drifting away from Scripture. That includes the tribe we are in. 

That includes Bible-believing conservative reformed evangelicalism. 

Us. You. Me.

It then remains to discern how the church today needs reforming in the light of Scripture.

To be sure the answer to that question will be as unnerving to us as Luther was to the Catholics of his day.

Here are seven reformation theses we need to sellotape to all our church doors today:

1. The end of Celebrity Christianity. That churches and church leaders should do everything in their power to pursue annonymity in this world and have an eye only to the Court of heaven in the world to come.

2. The end of number worship. That numbers, whether sales of books, congregation size, subscribers or number of hits, should no longer be used as any metric of truth or Gospel success.

3. The reintroduction of deep discipleship. That every believer and church should seek to make disciples in the same manner that the Lord Jesus and the apostles made disciples, to wit, by deep and extensive nurture of a few converts, rather than the illusion of discipling lage numbers.   

4. The end of the CEO pastor. That the office, no less offensive than pope or priest, namely the CEO Pastor, should be abolished. This imposter office is the man or woman who has very little to do with individual sheep in the flock but instead acts as CEO to a sprawling entourage of underlings whom he directs from his ivory palace. 

5. The end of the mega-church. That since the office of CEO pastor is to be abolished so too the babelesque churches - monuments to human pride - they preside over. The church can then return to the pattern of the New Testament - small churches scattered around and connected to one another by an Invisble Head.

6. The end of the new scholasticism. To abandon the ambition of pastors to be known for their scholastic achievements, and the practice of books and sermons to be informed more by the dictates and passing fads of the academy than for the edification of the ordinary believer.

7. A recovery of the doctrine that suffering is the mark of true greatness. That as the apostle Paul (following his Master), had a reputation for suffering, as the chief evidence of his apostleship, so today men and women ought to be judged not by their degrees or supposed ecclessiastical achievements, often purely mythical, sometimes laughable, but by the number of their scars. Count scars not stats.

I am sure that more reforms than these are needed to return the church to the New Testament. But these would make an enormous difference to the Kingdom of Christ in the world today.

---------------------ooooOoooo--------------------

Resources on the Radical Reformation

The first step to knowing more about the Radical Reformation is to ignore, almost completely, what the Magisterial Reformers wrote about them. Virtually to a man these reformers spoke evil and slander about their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. 

And before we judge them for that sin we ought to remember, always remember, that one blind spot spawns another. If you believe that the state and the church are one, then you also will believe that the church can use the same means to get its way as the state - namely the use of force and the sword. (For this reason the statue of Zwingli in Zurich holds a sword and a Bible, and Zwingli himself died fighting in a real, not spiritual, battle). Force and hate was the order of the day in that unholy alliance called Christendom.

So step 1 is to discard the false and unreliable witness of the Magisterial Reformers.

Step 2 is to read a balanced account of the Radical Reformers and truthful biographies of their lives. Here are some examples:

Conrad Grebel: Founder of the Swiss Brethren (Harold Bender)

A History of the Anabaptists in Switzerland  (Henry Burrage)

Anabaptism in Outline (edited by Walter Klassen)

Step 3 is to go back to the primary sources and read what these reformers said themselves, their writings. You could read one of their short statements of faith, here. Thankfully there has been a resurgence of interest in these writers. There is a wonderful series called Classics of The Radical Reformation, 13 volumes, by Plough Publishing House. 

Volume 3 "Anabaptism in Outline: selected Primary Sources" is a great place to start if you are into primary sources.

Or you could save yourself a lot of reading and  get hold of Lost Reformers, a short 40 page summary of the Anabaptists written by myself.

AI image at start of blog: 

Draw Ulrich Zwingli talking to Conrad Grebel

Cherished Christmas Memories

 

However we celebrate Christmas, whether secular or spiritual, (child)ren are (always)often at the heart of it. Here are five childhood memories that spontaneously come to my mind. 

1960s KARACHI 

When I was a little child

 

The Muslim leaders of Karachi allowed an enormous Christian pageant to take place every Christmas. Stretching across parkland, "Joseph" and "Mary" on a real donkey made their way to Bethlehem. A "star" - presumably running along an invisible wire - went before "Wisemen" on real camels. Captivated we watched from an arena where loudspeakers told the familiar Bible story. 

 

What is rooted in my memory most of all are the hauntingly beautiful music and lyrics of a carol that floated over the Tannoy:

O holy night! the stars are brightly shining;
It is the night of the dear Saviour’s birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope- the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!

Whenever I hear the next three lines, five decades later, it evokes those childhood memories and stirs my heart to worship:

Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born!
O night, O holy night, O night divine!

1970s ST PAUL, MINNESOTA

My first Christmas in the West, aged 10 

Moving to the eleventh year of my life, our family of eight arrived in St. Paul in 1970. We thought it would be a six month furlough in Southampton followed by six months in St Paul, before returning to hot dusty Karachi. (That was not how providence led us, and you can read the whole wonderful story in Lives Less Ordinary available from fishermanspress.com).

The singular memory from these two years was the astounding kindness of strangers. My father had been sent out as a missionary by Simpson Memorial Church in St Paul, but it had been over 12 years since he'd been back there. Older people had moved on, new people had arrived, would they remember those strange missionaries?

Not only did they remember, they were extravagantly generous to us. They fixed up a large house, provided a new large car and on our very first Christmas in the West as a family, lavished many gifts on we children.

The kindness of strangers: Simpson Memorial supported their missionaries so well that they provided home and board for a large family of eight for two years.

1980s WOLVERHAMPTON

Living in a church-planting home

 

In 1972 my parents were called to Wolverhampton as missionaries among the Asian population who had arrived in the West Midlands to work in factories. As the Lord blessed the work and it grew, the focus of my parents' attention turned towards their calling as evangelists. I recall nothing memorable from these busy gospel years.

Except that on one Christmas eve (we opened our presents on Christmas Eve - a custom derived from my father's German heritage) the six kids must have misbehaved at the Asian Christian Fellowship's annual Christmas Eve evangelistic meeting. So present-opening was postponed until the next morning. We were gutted.

1990s NORTH YORKSHIRE

When my children were little 

 

Jumping forward in time to when my boys were little and I was a newbie church pastor up North. 

 

Of all the memories of those days I vividly recall the wonder of my four children on Christmas morning. Yvonne would place a sack filled with little individual presents on each bed in the middle of the night. We would hear the boys early in the morning opening each gift with delight in their voices, telling one another of the gift they received. "Look what I've got!" "Wow!" "Just what I wanted!"

WORCESTER
Now my kids are grown up

Now that my children have grown up, Christmas wonder no longer revolves around children or presents but around the all-too-familiar stories of the incarnation. 

This year I have been struck by the radical faith, obedience and courage of Joseph and Mary.

Mary willingly takes on the role of mother of the Messiah, though it puts her reputation and her engagement to Joseph in jeopardy.

Joseph agrees to continue the engagement with Mary though it means taking on a child that is biologically not his own and potentially sharing in Mary's shame.

Their faith in God is revealed in their obedience to God's call on their lives which was communicated through his messenger-angels.

There are two main ways that faith in God is revealed. First, through prayer. If we believe the promises God has made we'll take them to him in prayer and ask him to fulfil those promises.

And second, if we really believe his Word we will obey it.

Trust and Obey, for there is no other way, to be Happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

Ai Image:

Draw Christmas Memories