Impostor "offices" in the Modern Church

One lesson from the Reformation
Protestants learnt some good lessons from the reformation (small "r" because it was only partial - little was done, for example, to reform the church's ecclesiology back to the New Testament's vision of the church as a body; the forgotten Anabaptists did far more than the famous reformers in that department). We don't buy into everything the reformers, whether Zwingli or Calvin, Luther or Melanchthon taught or did - only One Man deserves that sort of following. But they did take us back to the New Testament in important ways - and that is what reformation is always all about (when it is genuine).

The reformers said that no man should be called a priest, rightly so. The office of "priest" is an impostor office, an office that imposes itself unlawfully on the church. Jesus Christ is our High Priest and we need no human priests any longer. For a man to call himself a priest (which means mediator between man and God) puts him in blasphemous competition with the Great High Priest. So away with priests.....

Two Lessons from Jesus and his Apostles
Jesus exhorted us to call no man "father" (Matthew 23:9), because we have only one Father, our Father in heaven. His apostles know of only two church offices, that of pastor (synonymous with bishop and elder) and deacon (1 Timothy 3, Philippians 1:1), and it is not even clear whether those men (in the case of elders) or men and women (in the case of deacons) should be called/named that, "Deacon Helen, Elder Bob".

So there are only two offices, elder and deacon and that's it. There are evangelists and apostles with a small "a" (sent ones - missionaries for example), but no other offices in the church.

A modern reformation needed
However, sneaking into the church by the false academy door, is a new office in the protestant church, or two. There is the "Scholar" and the "Theologian" - or even one I have recently seen "Theologian at large". The idea is that the church needs folk who spend all their time in books, and that these men should be given a voice in conferences and their books given precedence over those written by the mere plebs of the church - namely full-time Gospel pastors. This notion presides over many of the conferences that are held for church pastors: what dignifies the conference is the presence of some famous scholar.

But "scholars", "theologians" and "academics" are impostor offices in the church of Jesus Christ. There is no warrant for them in Scripture, and the sooner we exclude them from positions of influence and authority, the better. The only men who should be listened to authoritatively are those whom God has called by the Holy Spirit to the office of pastor (=elder=bishop).

We honour men like John Piper and Timothy Keller and John MacArthur purely because they are Spirit-anointed pastors (who, by the way, did you know?, spend alot of time studying God's word. But then, every pastor and every Christian should be an avid student of the Word).

Where does this come from?
Where does this foolish honouring of scholars, theologians and academics in the church come from? This crazy pursuit of man-made eternity-forgotten academic qualifications?  It comes from the seductive nature of the academy (i.e. pride) and the academisation of the modern church. To be a something in a scientific knowledge-based, knowledge-honouring culture, you have to be called Dr or Prof or some similar weird title. Such is the power of this seduction that pastors aren't happy with being mere pastors, so they embark on PhDs so that people might be really impressed with them because they will then be called "Dr." It comes, ultimately from Satan's first seduction - Eve was attracted by new knowledge; the fruit would give her desirable wisdom (Gen 3:6).

A great added tragedy of this pursuit of the academy, is that most of the modern errors in the church have come through men and women who hold these impostor offices and are not accountable to their/any local churches. In the most recent spate of moral errors the books propagating immorality are mostly written by Bible College lecturers over the pond.

The next reformation must take us back to fishermen and ex-tax-collectors and ex-scholars like Paul (who called all that academic jazz 'dung') and back to men who filled with the Holy Spirit are called to influence the church; and not because they've studied at some "prestigious" (but unknown in heaven - where it counts) institute of learning or have earned some higher degree, but because they have been with Jesus. "Scholars", "theologians", "academics" and what nots would be consulted when and if necessary, but with no authority whatsoever assigned to them.

Life on Mars?

Mars One
An ambitious project called Mars One is aiming at sending a crew to live on Mars in the year 2027. The team have been told that once they leave planet earth there will be no way to return home - it's a one-way ticket deal.

Six people have just started living in a dome in Hawaii in a NASA experminet to see if it's possible for people to live in Mars-like conditions for a year. They will not be allowed out except in a space suit to test the endurance of human beings for prolonged life on a Mars-like planet.



When living on Mars three obstacles must be overcome. First, bodily survival, food, water, air and climate. Second, in a confined space how will the members handle inevitable conflict? You can't run away and hide for a few weeks. Third, the spiritual dimension. How can human beings exist for long in an environment that is devoid of life and beauty?

Colonization?
Some western scientists talk about colonizing Mars, preapring the planet and the human race to live there should earth become inhospitable and inhabitable. There are good reasons to doubt that this will ever happen. It is likely humans will land on Mars, but I don't believe we will ever live on Mars, and here is why.

Problem 1: Physical life. The temperature and atmosphere of Mars mean that no human will ever be able to walk on its surface without a space suit. (Those who think that we can change the atmosphere of a planet are playing God.) There must be real questions over whether in the long term the necessary resources for life such as water and oxygen - and a secure habitation - could ever be sustained.

Problem 2: Confinement. The fact that the living quarters will be very small and no-one will be able to leave without a space suit on, makes the prospect of life on Mars claustophoic in the extreme. We were created to live in a garden, not an outhouse.

Problem 3: Psychological/spiritual. The greatest reasons for doubting the feasability of life on Mars are psychological and spiritual. We were designed to live on earth, placed in a garden for infinite delight and distraction. Without the need of a spacesuit we can run into forests and plains and explore the beauty of the world.  No other boring planet (and they are ALL boring without life) will ever satisfy the curiosity of the human mind. A man-made environment is simply not enough to sustain "life".

I predict that the end product of settling down to such an artificial life in a dome on Mars will be some form of madness.

Mars One plans to fund the project by "Big Brother" kind of access to the crew. Viewers are likely to get more than they bargained for.

Why I believe in Hell

The most terrifying doctrine in the Bible
There is surely no more terrifying, no more serious, no more difficult doctrine in the Bible than its teaching on hell - a place of eternal, conscious suffering, for those who reject the God they know exists from creation, or worse - reject the Jesus who they have heard about. No Christian should speak about hell without sadness and even tears.

In every age, this difficult truth will be undermined, spoken against, revised and denied - but there are particular reasons this truth will be denied today. First, we live in an easy world. By that I mean, we, speaking of the West, find ourselves in comparative comfort and ease. Any doctrine which implies discomfort will naturally be alien to us. Second, we are a minority-rights culture, where the thought of any group being treated poorly sounds just wrong to a modern ear. Third, we are a rationalistic culture, in which the mind is king  - this doctrine does not seem reasonable to the human mind (which is why liberals have denied it for yonks).

Reasons to believe in hell
I believe in hell, because (1) it runs against the natural mind of fallen human beings. This may seem to be a strange reason, and it's not a main one, but so much of God's truth is counter-intuitive, supra-intellect, beyond our ability to understand, that if a doctrine is automatically denied because it fights against reason, that is a reason to suspect that it may be true; for who can know the mind of God? If all a man believes is understandable to his intellect, his doctrine is very unlikely to have a divine origin. This is not to say that we should believe any doctrine that is irrational, but one good reason to consider as true a well-established doctrine, is that the small feeble and fallen human mind fights it.

I believe in hell because (2) it supports the justice of God. A God who allows Hitlers and Stalins to get away with monstrous sins, indeed allows any sin to be overlooked is not a just God: such a "god" is a monster - overlooking evil and wrongdoing.

I believe in hell because (3) I believe in the cross of Jesus Christ. The suffering of the Son of God who became sin for us and was therefore punished on the cross only makes sense if you believe that God is a just God who must punish sin. If God can overlook sin, if he can turn a blind eye to sin, if there is no hell, why didn't he overlook all sin and spare his Son from Calvary? Why did he send his Son to redeem us at such great cost if  he could have simply overlooked sin?

I believe in hell because (4) I believe in evangelism and mission. There is, frankly, no point in sharing the Gospel around the world, if everyone is automatically going to heaven. Why waste our time  - indeed this is why liberals don't bother with the Gospel, why upset people if there is no need to? Just feed their bodies, don't bother with their souls.

I believe in hell because (5) the Bible teaches it. Now of course we are getting closer to the core reasons. The only way to deny the Scriptures' plain teaching about hell is rip out considerable chunks of the Bible or do one of those pathetic revisionist interpretation. Take one example alone. Paul says to Christians who are being persecuted that one day God, "will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord..." (2 Thess 1:8-9). No amount of liberal hickledy pickeldy pockery "this doesn't mean that, that doesn't mean this" magic can alter the plain meaning of the words "punished", "everlasting", and "destruction".

I believe in hell, most of all, because (6) Jesus, the Son of God, the lover of souls, taught it.  In fact, it is a well-known and well-quoted statistic, that Jesus taught more about hell than anyone else. I believe Jesus when he says: "But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matt 8:12), and "It is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell" (Mark 9:46), and "In hell where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham.." (Luke 16:23) and, "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life" (Mat 24:46).

The essential message of the Gospel is "flee from the wrath to come"; come to Christ who has paid hell for us, so that we don't have to bear it ourselves and instead become the recipients of the amazing grace of God.

The Beauty of Change

The English drop in temperature
Here in England, we know that Autumn is on the way by sudden drops in temperature, often felt most acutely in the evenings. These temperature drops signal the onset of a long winter ahead with all the inevitable changes in clothing and behaviour the cold will entail.

The beauty of change
And yet how beautiful change is! Each season has a beauty and charm of its own, and God has designed the seasons to give us variety, hungry as we have been created for new things. We would be distraught if our children remained children, we would be disppointed if seeds remained seeds. Change is built into God's design of the world.

The seasons of life
As in nature, so in life. Life is filled with new seasons as age, family, providence and health all lead us into new pastures. How we respond to these changes is crucial. Most of us are naturally reserved and resistant - or even reluctant to change. Change will involve new challenges and we can so easily find ourselves settled in our old (comfortable) ways.

How to embrace change
The way to embrace change - and especially the winters of our lives - is first, to realise how important change and winter is. Vernalisation is a process in plants which enables them to flower in spring only after a prolonged cold spell. Without the cold spell, there can be no flowering. And so often that is the way change works in our lives, before spring must come winter. Many years ago I read a sermon by, I think a Puritan, called "Winter afore Harvest" in which he showed from the Scriptures that before there can be any spiritual harvest in our lives, the cold snap of God's humbling winter must be felt.

So if you are in the winter of spiritual life, take hope; spring and harvest will soon be here!

Secondly, remember that even in the winters of our lives, God is at work in our souls, pruning us, accomplishing his sanctifying work. In this season we often cannot see God at work, but we need to be assured that the good work God has begun he will bring to completion, and so often that is through  cold shivery winters.

Thirdly, remember that God is faithful even when we cannot see his hand at work. We worship a faithful God whose love is steadfast and enduring and whose love does not depend on our feelings, but on his majestic unchangingness. Let is trust in him at all times.

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take;
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err
And scan His work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain.

Family and Gospel - an unpredictable mixture

The Good....
Families can be a tremendous asset in the work of the Gospel. Jesus chose two sets of brothers (Peter/Andrew and James/John) among his disciples. Missions around the world have been started by brothers, and even more by husband and wife teams.  John and Charles Wesley worked together in the cause of the Gospel (though Charles complained that John was bossy - he was!), and many families have worked together in the cause of the Gospel.

...the Bad
But there is a problem with families - their love is often blind love. We tend to love our flesh and blood so much that we are unable to see a situation in our family in a neutral way. We all too easily big up small gifts and graces and play down big foibles and sins. Families cannot see a church issue objectively - if it includes a member of their own family.

Here is the heart of the problem: across close loving family relationships, not only does truth and good pass, evil and error can also pass unnoticed - or at least pass unchallenged.

The Bible illustrates this in many ways....

...and the Ugly
Adam is standing with his wife, Eve, watching the temptation proceed and instead of rebuking the serpent and protecting his wife by taking charge, he allows it all to happen. Was he charmed at Eve's clever responses to the serpent?

Solomon is so besotted with all those wives from foreign lands that he gave into their "can I have a little idol from my home country on the mantelpiece please - if you love me...." pleas and became an idolater.

Eli was unable to deal with the sins in his two wicked sons. He allowed them to serve in the temple even though they were wicked men! Surely he would have been outraged had he seen these sins in anyone else's family and would have complained if such wicked men were serving at the temple!

Barnabas was blind to the weaknesses of his cousin John Mark who was unsuitable for a church planting mission (because he had abandoned a previous mission - that's no small weakness when you're planting a new church!) and fell out over Paul over him. (Those who have ben involved in church planting know that a leader backing out damages the credibility of the whole mission in the eyes of new converts and is a stumbling block too big to handle).

Anyone who has been involved in church life will know that a large family in a church can strangle the life right out of it with "block votes" and all kinds of other political machinations: no move can be made unless the patriarch (or matriarch) approves - even though they might be blindingly wrong.

Safeguards
How do we safeguard ourselves and our churches against the negative sides of the family, from the blindness of our families?

1) Don't believe members of your flesh and blood family blindly. They may be wrong, totally wrong. Be discerning. Just because a member of our family says something or believes something is no reason for that to be true. Adam is blamed for listening to his wife - that was his fault. He should have corrected her, not lisetend to her.

2) If you are involved in a mission with a family member, beware of your family blind spots: no one single family can ever see an issue straight, they are simply too biased.

3) Learn to discern when your decision is shaped by family or by Gospel priorities, and at least be honest about your motives.

4) Look beyond your own family.

5) Church leaders must never give in to the demands of a family in the church - no matter who they are; the commands of Jesus must always trump the demands of a family, whatever the cost.

6) While it may be necessary to start a mission with members of one family, quickly diversify and include non-family members who will be able to see objectively.

7) It is better not to start any outreach work dominated by a single family. Jesus sets the statistic - he had no more than 2 out of 12 or 1 out of 6 - or 17% - of his disciples coming from one family. In a church plant for example, that's a healthy statistic to adopt - don't have more than 17% of the core from any one family.

One day all earthly families will be dissolved and all family blindnesses and prejudices ended. In that final and eternal family it will not be family blood that binds us and sometimes blinds us together, it will be a different blood that binds us together, the blood of the Lamb on the throne.

Lessons from Corbyn & Trump

Something is happening.....
...on both sides of the Atlantic.

People are voting for straight-talking plain-speaking "ordinary blokes", rather than smooth-talking career-minded politicians.

On this side of the Atlantic the labour party is trying to find a new leader. Three of the four candidates sound exactly the same - politically-correct, bland, polished smoothies. Standing out by a few light years is an old geyser who speaks his mind simply and tells it like it is. He "aint bovered" what the media think, he has convictions and tells it like it is. You may not like what he stands for but at least you know what he stands for. The other three might change their minds on everything, should some opinion poll come out against what they presently believe. (For all I know they may have changed their minds six times since I began writing this blog, that's only a few minutes ago...)

On the other side of the Atlantic something similar is happening. Though Mr Trump is making a thousand politically incorrect statements, he's gaining in popularity.

Why this yearning for plain speakers?
Because we are surrounded by leaders who have no convictions and only one ambition - to get votes at all costs. If they need to change a view of theirs - any view - because it is making them unpopular they are very happy to do so. Popularity leading to power is all that matters, not principles.

Our nations seem to be weary of such politicians and would prefer someone real who "aint bovered" what people think of him/her.

It is intriguing to watch how the old dogs (e.g. Tony Blair) and the establishment media (e.g. BBC) absolutely hate these guys - they are stepping all over their polished blue-swede shoes (the opposition of a pagan institution like the BBC in itself should make us stand up and listen).

And the church?
I notice that Jesus bypassed the polished smoothies of his day (Pharisees and Sadducees and the like) and choose rough ordinary blokes as his followers. The leaders of the early church were uneducated ordinary blokes, filled with the Spirit, rather than filled with Degrees. And if there is something lacking - seriously lacking - in the western church, it is leaders who come from the ranks of fishermen and tax collectors. Most of the top leaders in the Western Church today are highly educated smoothies, who, frankly, all too often sound just like one another. We look in vain for the Peters and James's.

One example: I went to a church planting conference this year "A Time to Plant." The highlight for me was a small side seminar led by Dai Hankey, a proper Welsh "fisherman" church planter. So I thought when it came to interviewing church planters in the main sessions, this Welshman would - of course - be on the stage. The conference organisers would, of course, want wide representation.  Not at all, they opted for, "he's safe for the small side meeting attended by very few, folks, but we only want safe smoothies for the big show."  

We need Pauls, don't get me wrong, I'm talking about balance, here. Can you name one single major leader in the Western church, who is just a 'regular guy' to balance the books?

No? Well then, that's the point.

And we wonder why such great swathes of our nations are untouched. They are untouched because they look and listen to the preachers of our day and think, "Those guys aren't like us", and walk away - and in rejecting a culture they don't understand, they reject the Gospel and the Christ they need. 

How the Gospel Changes Sexual Morality

Unfortunately, we can no longer dance around the subject of sexual rights and wrong in the western world we now live. We have to be plain - and sometimes this means saying things we would much prefer not saying; but if we are not plain, we will loose this generation who are being deeply influenced by a pagan sexuality.

An example from history - the Roman world of the New Testament era

In Kyle's Harper's excellent book, "From Shame to Sin" (in a Harvard University series of books) he describes the sexual code of first century Rome (the world of the New Testament):

1. Adultery was defined as sex with a married woman - but a married man was not committing adultery if he had sex with slaves or prostitutes! And many married men did have sex with their slaves and with prostitutes, and nothing was thought about it.
2. Women were to be chaste before marriage (at the age of around 14-16) and pure within marriage, but men could play the field in the decade before marriage (at the age of around 25) and then they could play the field afterwards - provided of course that they didn't play the field with an already-married woman. In other words there were double standards for men and women.
3. Homosexual acts were divided into two groups - one allowed, the other not: Allowed: sex with boys or sex with male prostitutes. Not Allowed: passive sex.

The Gospel absolutely changed all of this, and soon after the "conversion" of Constantine (312 AD), this is what happened:

1. Adultery was defined biblically - as any sex outside of marriage
2. The standard before and after marriage was the same for both men and women: no sex before marriage and no sex outside of marriage
3. Homosexual sin was redefined most radically: ALL homosexual acts were wrong, and that included acts between men and acts between women. What is more this sin was regarded as the one that demonstrated more than any other mankind's rebellion against God and his creatorily design.

Today's situation
In the world in which we now live, the following sexual mores hold true:

1. After marriage, adultery and porn is OK provided you don't get caught for the former
2. Before marriage, for both men and women, sex and porn are OK
3. Homosexual acts are divided into three groups: not allowed: with children; sort of OK - promiscuous sex; totally permissible: sex in a long term partnership

In the face of this present (pagan) situation we must re-assert God's standards for Christian people: all sex outside of sex between one man married to one woman is sinful in God's eyes. All homosexuality is sinful and wrong. All pornography is wrong.

We're not called to judge those outside the church, but we are called to judge those within the church, and God's standard is very simple: sex is right within a heterosexual marriage, and outside of marriage sexual immorality is one of the sins which will bring down God's righteous wrath.