How to Move From Despair to Joy

The root cause of despair
Suffering. Illness, job loss, financial problems, family or marital stress. Suffering is often the root cause of despair: we see no way out, no resolution, no solution.

So it was for the two disciples talking on the Road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. The suffering, the crucifixion of Jesus seemed an insuperable problem. They did not expect the Messiah to suffer. There was no constructive room in their theology for suffering, "they crucified him, but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel..." (Luke 24:21)

The Masterful response of the Master
In their despondency and confusion, Jesus comes beside them and teases out their wrong theology of suffering - so that he can correct it. Their problem was two-fold:

First, they could not see any constructive role in the suffering of the Messiah, and conveniently overlooked all the verses which spoke about his suffering. They were selective in their readings and listenings! They loved the bits about power and glory, but not the portions which spoke of suffering, death and defeat. Jesus had to show them that suffering was in line with God's great plan for his Messiah, "Did not the Christ have to suffer these things?" Suffering played the constructive role of paying for our sins!

Second, they could not see that suffering was an essential step to glory! "Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then  enter his glory?"  Suffering was the route to glory. There could be no glory without suffering, no Easter Sunday without Good Friday. Jesus was raised and exalted because he laid down his life.The Messiah could not leap over Good Friday and get to Easter Sunday!

You see their big problem? Suffering had no constructive place in their theology, and as a result they could understand neither the cross nor the resurrection of Jesus.

Our Problem too
This is exactly our problem too. When suffering comes we whinge, moan, complain and are perplexed - because we too have an inadequate theology of suffering. We want glory and power and think that this ought to be the normal Christian life, and so we are surprised by pain, loss and pain. We want it all to be zapped, prayed and slain away!

And there is no doubt that God is sometimes pleased to relieve us in this world, and no doubt that he will completely deliver us of pain in the world to come, where there will be no curse. But in this fallen world, that is not always - and perhaps not even very often - his way.

What we need is a three-step theology correction plan:

(1) The cross and resurrection are the pattern for our lives too
Good Friday and Easter Sunday are not merely events that happened to Jesus way back when; they are also models for our lives. To be a disciples of Jesus we must place our feet in the footprints of suffering and resurrection.

(2) We should expect suffering
Far too many verses to list, but here's one, "For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him." (Philippians 1:29). One of God's gifts (unwanted by most of us) is the gift of suffering.

(3) We should expect glory - to follow suffering
We should also expect glory, to be sure; but only in the wake of suffering. We don't get to glory, by which I mean fruitfulness, power, holiness, Christlikeness, directly, but only through suffering. Remember, Good Friday first, Easter Sunday second. Far too many Christians want to get to glory without the cross. This is the great attraction of meetings which promise instant solutions to problems. But God's way, the Jesus way, is glory following on the heels of suffering.

Despair to Joy
Those two disciples, their theology of suffering now transformed were filled with understanding and joy, and made the trip back to Jerusalem to tell their friends!

And we too, armed with this theology of suffering now face our suffering in a new light. We see it as necessary and even the prelude to glory of one kind or another. We can see, at last, what the apostle James was on about when he wrote:

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything..." (James 1:2)

The Blessings (and Problems) of the Charismatic Movement

Lots of Pluses
No-one should deny the tremendous blessings that the so-called charismatic movement has brought to the western evangelical churches. Here are some....

• New songs - the false notion that old hymns are the only way to express our praise to God was broken by the many new songs and hymns introduced by our Charismatic friends
• New wine - new ways of doing things and especially a re-evaluation of how we do church, going back to the New Testament has been a tremendous blessing (the idea that a hymn sandwich, for example, was the only way to 'do church' was exposed, for what it was - a human tradition, nothing more, and nothing less)
• New emphasis on the Spirit - we westerners live in a culture which screens out the supernatural (unless its wacky) and this enlightenment spell was if not broken, at least questioned by the Charismatic Movement.
• New emphasis on small groups - a wonderful 'going back' to the New Testament, where Christians not only met together but encouraged and taught one another 
• New emphasis on all-member ministry - when you think of it, how crazy - only one man's gifts in the church (the pastor's gifts) recognised as valuable! Now we expect everyone to exercise their gifts and think of the church much less in clergy/lay terms and more in brother / sister terms. 

From these points, we ought to think of the charismatic movement as a true move of God's Spirit, renewing the church. But since men and women are involved, we discover some flaws. Here are four, none of which detract from the above:

Weakness #1:  A reduced emphasis on God's Word
There is no doubt that as a general rule (noble exceptions abound, this is a generalisation I am aware) the charismatic movement (CM) is weak on the Word. By this I mean, the Word is not so fully or faithfully preached, and believers are not so encouraged to be rooted and live out of the Word.

Weakness #2:  An over-emphasis on the overtly supernatural gifts
All too often the 'showy gifts' are exalted while gifts like administration, giving and helping are either ignored or underplayed. And yet these gifts are just as necessary to the work of the Kingdom and we need just as much empowering to employ them.

Weakness #3:  A failure to be honest about miracles
Let me come clean: I have been to dozens of healing meetings ranging from Kathryn Kuhlman to Toronto Blessing and I have never yet witnessed nor heard of a miracle-meeting or healer whose healings come anywhere near the category of the radical miracles of the NT. I believe God can heal, and I have heard of real healings. But all too often the miracles of our charismatic friends are small fry: back pains gone, headaches subside, and so on - which we don't deny could be of God or are of value - they just do not come into the league of Jesus' or his disicples' miracles. It is for this reason that 'critics' believe that all too often the 'miracles' of the charismatic movement are psycho-somatic - i.e. they deal with symptoms that are caused by mind problems such as stress, rather than dealing with biological ailments.

Weakness #4:  A real problem with glory-through-suffering
None of the above compare with this, my biggest problem with the CM. You and I live under the shadow of the cross and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. His way is more than something for him, it's a paradigm for us. To follow Jesus is to understand in our own life two things: suffering is part of the deal, and suffering precedes glory. The two on the road to Emmaus completely misunderstood this (Luke 24). They read the good bits about the Messiah (reigning, etc.) but didn't want to take on board the bad bits (suffering). Further, they did not see that suffering was not only part of the Messiah's work, it was necessary to it. There is no glory without suffering.

If whenever we have problems of whatever kind in our lives, we get out our spiritual guns and zap them away, we misunderstand the cross and resurrection of the Lord. Problems are allowed by the Lord to prepare us for glory. Out of suffering we become more sympathetic, more holy, more humble, more Christ like. Out of the bitterness of sowing, comes harvest. Suffering is not only part of the Christian life, it is a necessary part of the Christian life. Zapping it away with an experience isn't always the best thing. Working through it, asking for strength in weakness, learning to triumph in sorrow, victory through temptation is a more Christ-ian way of handling suffering.

Sometimes God may want to 'zap' away our problems. More often he chooses to teach us through them and ultimately, through this valley of sorrow, to bring us through to the triumph of the new heavens and new earth.

Untangling Gospel and Tradition

Sometimes it just don't matter, but sometimes it's a matter of life and death
Occasionally the inability to distinguish one thing from another just don't matter: a colour-blind man is not overly harmed by putting on a red shirt in the morning rather than a green one. His dress may not be colour-coordinated, but that's no big shakes (unless he's a fashion junkie).

At other times learning to distinguish one thing from another is altogether more important. A warthog who mistakes a lion for a gazelle is making a fatal error of distinction. And so is a Christian or church that fails to distinguish between Gospel and Tradition.

Tradition good and evil
Tradition is the way we do things, the way we apply the fundamental principles and precepts of Scripture to our own culture and setting. So for example, we know we should celebrate communion but there are so many ways to do this. People can come to the front, people can be served, one cup can be used, songs can be sung during communion, Scriptures can be read, etc., etc. As another example, many Christians love to sing together, but there are a thousand ways to do this. Shall it all be psalms, all old hymns, all new choruses or a proper mixture of all (or none). And so on and so on.....

The helpful thing about tradition is that it facilitates some kind of social familiarity, commonality,  predictability and safety - which we all need. If every week we did everything differently, chaos would reign.

The bad thing about a tradition is that it can so easily raise its status from a tradition to The Tradition and then finally assume the standing of unchangeable Gospel.

Take singing hymns. Some think these are the best expressions of praise. So only hymns are used. Soon it is believed they are the only expression of praise. And soon they are regarded as fundamental as the Gospel. Take music. Some think the organ is the best way to accompany hymns. Soon they think it is the only way. And then, anyone who uses anything other than an organ is viewed as deserting the Gospel.

Where the problem lies
The problem here may be threefold. Sometimes it is this: people who confuse tradition and Gospel have  only worshipped in their own spiritual ghetto. If they got out there and visited churches in different cultures they would quickly see that what they think is absolutely essential, is nothing but a western tradition.

At other times the problem is more serious: people who confuse tradition and Gospel have drawn a circle around their own spritiual ghetto and really do think there are no Christians beyond that sphere. They think everyone outside their community is compromised, and only they do things right. What a shock awaits them in heaven.

The third problem is far more serious: thinking that others have lost the Gospel, they themselves have nigh on lost it themselves.

One of the most amazing features of the New Testament and of the Gospel is how the detail is left for us to work out. What exactly  you do and in what order you do it when Christians meet is nowhere spelt out in detail, for example. What time you meet is not spelt out. The reason lies in the genius of the Gospel. Since the Gospel is for the world, these details must of necessity be left to the culture in which the Gospel bears fruit. If the NT specified that Christians should meet on Sundays at 11.00am and sing only from one particular hymn book, many people would be left out in the cold: people who work in Sundays, people who can't understand dense language or ancient language, for example. By refusing to stipulate these details the Gospel is able to find a home in every community everywhere in the world.

So Christians in India can worship using their own bajas (instruments) with their own kind of music; so too Africans and Eskimos and Maltese. No fixed tradition is fixed upon them by the NT.

The idea that all Christians have to sing the same ancient hymns sung to an even more ancient instrument (organ) in one culture's musical taste is absurd, and smacks more of western imperialism, a subconscious relic of colonialism, than anything found in the Scriptures. People who think like that - and worse, people who impose such traditions on Christians of other cultures - are erecting great barriers to the Gospel among peoples in other cultures.

Beauty and the Beast
The worst example of this confusion was a film I saw some years ago: new Christians from the Auca tribe of Ecuador dressed in smart suits sporting Brylcreamed hair and singing western music (Christian) were paraded on a church platform as 'triumphs of grace'. Stripped of everything authentic and forced into a western mould these poor Christians were as much triumphs of American culture, as triumphs of grace.

This is not the vision of heaven presented to us in the Scriptures where we find the glory and honour of the nations brought into the Heavenly City (Revelation 21:26), the home of the endlessly creative God.

How shall we train the next generation of Gospel workers?

My text is:

"When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realised that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and took note..." (Acts 4:13) 

The common answer: just like the world trains its 'professionals'
Just like we train mathematicians, physicists and economists: stick them in a class room and pack their heads with knowledge. We call it a Bible College or Seminary. End of blog.

Every student's experience: the mind is a sieve
No-one who has subjected themselves to such training will forget the experience. You cram for an exam up to the day / hour / minute and hope for the best. You know full well that if you were to take the exam one week later your result would drop by some significant percentage as the knowledge drains away from the mind. Three weeks later you'd fail the exam. That's one problem with the class room approach - knowledge learnt in an academic environment simply don't stick.

So if you go to 'Bible College' and cram church history and exegesis, by the time an opportunity comes to use the stuff, it has long taken wings. OK, you have a piece of paper - and everyone will be so impressed with the scrawl after your name. And you are more likely to get a job if you can say "I've got a certificate".

The much bigger problem
But retaining knowledge is a much smaller problem than the really big problem: training for Gospel ministry has more to do with non-knowledge-based attributes such as character, love, humility, wisdom, faith, grace and courage. After three years of Bible College a man may be no more qualified to serve than the day he entered the place - that is unless God has done a marvelous work of humbling grace in his soul at college. Guess it could happen. He may have degrees, knowledge and what nots, but these are unimportant and frankly almost irrelevant in the work of the Gospel.

Proofs
And here's the proof. First, from experience. It is common to hear of a young man with his  BA, MA - or these days, so that they can be proper respected, Dmin - cause trouble in his first church. These guys think they know, and they think that knowledge is what counts, but they ain't got an ounce of wisdom, tact, humility, expereince, even common sense.... (you sometimes watch them and think, "Just how many mistakes can someone make all in a row?")

Second, from experience. Contra wise, men who have life experience but no formal training come into the ministry and do well (the only problem here is that the foolish churches then encourage them to 'get proper qualifications' [it's a triffle embarrassing for some church members to inform their friends in another church that their pastor is not 'qualified'] and so these men feel under pressure to spend tons of time in books as well as in homes. For what? Falsely deserved respect).

Third, from experience again. The most used men of God are often men who never darkened the door of a seminary, and so were not formed into any particular mould. They were their own men. By which I mean they were in God's mould. Spurgeon, Tozer, Lloyd-Jones. You see, if you've half a brain (which you do need in Gospel work), you can go to a library and when a knowledge problem arises read up: you don't need to be an expert beforehand. Or you can go to a friend who knows.

I have yet to find any correlation between a man's formal theological education and his kingdom usefulness. (Don't push me, please don't push me, because if you do......)

Fourth, from Scripture. Not one Gospel worker in the Bible went to Bible College. The disciples were unschooled, but experts in the kingdom. They had been with Jesus, which is what matters most. If you are looking for a method of training, apprenticeship is the only Biblical way. Where one experienced man trains a novice over years. Moses trains Joshua on the job, likewise Elijah and Elisha, like Paul and Timothy - and pre-eminently, like Jesus and the Twelve.

The apprenticeship model recognises the fact that truth is burnt into the mind and heart and soul through experience, not exam pressure. Teach people all you like about forgiveness, they'll learn it proper when someone has offended them. Teach them all about servanthood, but they'll only learn it proper when no-one else will wash feet. Teach a man exegesis, but he will only learn it when he has to prepare a talk. Ad totalium.

The "demonisation" of Gospel ministry
Some time ago a man - a very brave man - said that encouraging Gospel workers to get higher degrees was nothing short of the D-Min-ization of Gospel ministry. You see Satan fell through pride. And knowledge puffeth up. So anything that encourages pride in Gospel workers was doing the Devil's work. He was right, wasnt' he?

The need of the hour
The need of the hour is not formal academic training, but men and women and churches who putting aside the foolish ways of the world (addiction to academia) will train the next generation Christ's way.

My text has been:  

"When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realised that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and took note..." (Acts 4:13)

Venturing into politics: Has the west any moral right to preach to the east?

Noam Chomsky, Donald Macleod et al
I remember reading my first book on the interesting philosopher Noam Chomsky (The Chomsky Reader) expecting lots of philosophy but instead discovering a ton of polemics. Called a "dissident intellectual" Chomsky exposed the hypocrisy of western politicians, especially American ones. Here was a philosopher venturing into politics....

About the same time I began reading The Monthly Record (sober magazine of the even more sober Free Church of Scotland) superbly edited by Professor Donald Macleod, and was surprised by the political slant of so many of his articles - a wee-free theologian wearing a politician's hat. (I ended my subscription when the editorship changed: Macleod was different). Here was a Theologian venturing into politics...

A pastor venturing into politics...
And now I find myself, a pastor, venturing into politics. Why? Because of the hypocrisy of the west.

As soon as some kind of political dissent spreads across an eastern country which has "no democracy" (the only legitimate way to run a country of course - didn't you know that?) we get on our high moral horse and condemn those "dictators". As soon as we see these dictators shedding innocent blood we get on our high moral horse, because we don't kill our citizens. Do we.  

The proper basis of moral judgement: the judge is better than the condemned
We all recognise the basic moral principle of legitimate judgement: the judge has to stand above the condemned, the judge has to be morally superior to those he is judging. A convicted criminal, we would say, has no right to cast judgement upon an ordinary citizen of the land, because he is "beneath" that citizen. We even have a phrase to describe the immoral act of condemning another while you yourself have blood on your own hands: "the pot calling the kettle black". (This discussion forces one to see the frailty of all human judgement, and the righteousness of divine judgement: for none but God is holy).

Pot calling the kettle Black
So on what ground does the west go galloping across the world in moral indignation at those ignorant unenlightened eastern peoples?

Do we seriously think that democracy is the only way to govern a country? Is a benevolent king an oxymoron? Does every democracy work smoothly? Do democracies actually work in feudal societies? Do they not often become corrupted at the ballot box, with rigging or billion-dollar campaigns? Do out-voted leaders leave their posts? Are Members of Parliamentary democracies squeaky clean about their expenses?  Do they put the needs of their own people before party and personal ambition? Parliamentary democracy, as one noble politician put it is the worst form of government ever invented. OK, he did add "except for all the others"! The point he was making, is that we westerners need a little more humility (not to mention reality) about our own systems of government.

Worse still is the indignation at these despots killing their own people. Did you know that since 1968, we have killed around 7 million people in our country? Yes, that's how many abortions have taken place since the abortion act. All the so-called dictators in our present world - and perhaps in the history of the world - put together haven't killed that many of their own people.

"Ah but abortion is not the same as shooting your own people in the streets."

4D Scan of 24 week old child

Dead right it's not. A man in the street can choose to be somewhere else, he can run, he can fight, he has friends to help him to hospital. A child in the womb has no choices, nowhere to hide and no friends to fight their corner.

Dead right it's not the same: the child in the womb is the most defenceless and vulnerable form of life in our country: unseen, unnamed - and completely unprotected. (Thanks to  David Steel).

It would be better for our politicians to stay at home, shut up, repent and weep. Gadaffi should listen to Cameron, Clegg and their shadows, only when they first end the massacre of the innocents in their own country. Then they'll be more fit to ascend the hill of judgement and condemn their eastern counterparts.

Source: http://www.christian.org.uk/issues/2007/abortion/40years/index.htm

What, and you still believe in evolution?

The little noble Michael Behe
Sometime ago I heard Michael Behe, the American Scientist who revealed to the public the complexity of the cell in his wonderful book Darwin's Black Box. Every cell in our body is a factory of unimaginable complexity, filled with biochemical machines. The short unassuming scientist ended the lecture by telling us that biology is revealing more and more layers of complexity in the cell - the problem of evolution is becoming more, not less problematic.

And now we hear from researchers at Stanford university the following about the brain:

"One synapse, by itself, is more like a microprocessor - with both memory-storage and information-processing elements - than a mere on/off switch. In fact, one synapse may contain on the order of 1,000 molecular-scale switches. A single human brain has more switches than all the computers and routers and Internet connections on Earth."

No routes to evolution
A system as complex as this requires a great deal more than chance and natural law. Law can produce small amounts of order (salt crystals, sand dunes, waves). Chance tends to work in the opposite direction destroying working systems. No one in their right mind believes that all the  switches in  all the computers and routers and Internet connections on Earth came about by chance. And in the same flush of reasoning, no-one should be fooled into thinking the same happened with the brain.

The only Scripture that comes to mind is this:  "Thinking themselves wise, they became fools..."

Our Forever Hero

The death of a hero
Richard Feynman, the celebrated American physicist once described the day he realised he knew more than his dad, his childhood hero. To sail past his hero proved a kind of bereavement.

Moving beyond a hero is more than a bereavement, it can be a scary experience, because now you are 'on your own'. Without signposts you really are exploring terra nova. 

The death of our Christian heroes
Much the same thing can happen in our walk with God. We may discover over time that brothers and sisters in Christ - personally known and those known only through their writings - are left behind. Perhaps some have gone to glory, perhaps others provided us only with valuable rudiments, perhaps some have tragically fallen, while there are others we believe (hopefully after sober assessment) we have moved beyond in some way. 

The Hero who never dies
But in Jesus Christ we have a hero who will always be ahead of us. For in the realms of knowledge, in him dwells all the treasures of divine wisdom and knowledge. In the realm of the Spirit, he possessed  fulness without measure. In suffering, no-one can outdo the One who sweat drops of blood and endured the forsakeness of his Father. In good works, the world wouldn't be big enough to hold a chronicle of them.

It must be scary to realise you've passed all your earthly heroes. But it's a comfort for every beliver to know that Jesus Christ will always be not only the author (start), but the perfector (end) of their faith.