But the thing I loved most was this. In a day when I have heard famous Christians (evangelicals apparently) scoff at the idea that people will meet Jesus in his word as students give it out and study it, when the mood of evangelicalism in Britain has (as we have seen this summer) been so obsessed with the so-called miraculous at the expense of simply testifying about Jesus, when the world and his mother seems to either think there must be some magic technique for winning people to Christ, or that we are due a wave of blessing to make it happen, I loved seeing a world renowned evangelical stand up and say well done to all the students who will be risking much to open the Scriptures with non Christians this year. “It will be better and harder than you ever thought!”

Thank you JP [John Piper] for travelling round the world to affirm that to all the small struggling CUs of 3 and 4, all the CUs who are scoffed at by uber-trendy servant evangelists and sophisticated chaplains, all the CUs where a couple of people and a Gospel of Mark is all that they have. Sometimes, its just good to know that someone you have heard of is with you.

Mo McCracken - reflecting on Forum

Also, Dave Bish… all you need to know about UCCF Forum 2008, John Piper on Ruth, Missions and lots more!

Here’s a little outline from the talk I did at Medical Christian Union at Sussex 2 weeks ago…

Isn’t the Bible full of errors?

The short answer is NO!

If the Bible is God’s word as it says (2 Tim 3:16), then it will be true.

That is a massive circular argument, BUT it has to be - just like the American Constitution!

God’s word must be ’self-authenticating’, but we can look to other evidence to expand this circle of argument.

Expanding the Circle

Textual Errors?

• Eyewitnesses still around when words are committed to paper
• Huge number of copies to compare with one another for errors (see manuscript table)

Factual Errors?

• Written when eyewitnesses were around, starting around 15 years after Christ
• Early Church and historians have no problems with so-called errors
• Eyewitnesses are named (Mark 15:21), 500 at one time (1 Cor 15)
• Secular history is not 100% accurate - see Hittite example where the Bible was right from the start
• If the Bible is fabricated then it’s a bad job - women witness the resurrection, first church leader denies Jesus, and the movement is based on a crucified leader

Social / Cultural Errors?

• Different cultures are offended by different bits of the Bible (see Mark 14, example from Tim Keller - Reason for God)
• We are arrogant when we assume our culture is more progressive than others!
• The Bible should contradict us (see Keller, ‘Stepford God’)

4 Main Points of Christianity

We shouldn’t ignore possible errors in the Bible, we need to think, discuss and research.

But we shouldn’t use possible errors to dismiss the Bible completely or to avoid addressing the central claims of the Bible…

1. We were created by God, for God
2. We’ve been happy to live in God’s creation, but without God, we deserve to die because of this rebellion
3. Jesus Christ, God-as-man, died. His death acts as a substitution, he dies where we should have died.
4. When we face God in judgement, we can take the punishment for our rebellion on ourselves or trust in Jesus that his death in our place restores a right relationship with God.

This is another kind of heresy bashing post again, it happened to come up a few weeks ago, and I guess will do again, so I thought it wise to collect some thoughts…

I hadn’t heard of the ‘baptism of the Holy Spirit’ in those terms before I came to Uni, then I found there were some different beliefs to what I held… I just assumed Christians have the Holy Spirit…

So anyway, this issue came up, I turned to Grudem… disappointed that Bible Doctrine contains nothing on this issue, I assume the bigger one does. The Big Moon man preached a sermon on the work of the Spirit, which was great and then lent me a book called ‘Baptism and Fullness’ by John Stott.

Stott goes through the Bible passages in question, examines the arguments and comes I guess to the same conclusions I had all along, just now I have these with a grasp of what the Bible actually says…
Who has the Spirit?

The basic argument of Pentecostal and some Charismatics is that scripture prescribes a subsequent experience of the giving of the Spirit after conversion. They say that speaking in tongues is the sign of having received the Spirit.

Various scriptures are used to justify this view, but all of them are really just talking about people becoming Christians, and many of the accounts referred to in Acts are hardly normative. For example the Ephesian disciples in Acts 19 are used as an example of a second blessing of the Spirit, but the reality is they hadn’t received the blessing of knowing Jesus, they weren’t Christians! It’s not good to take theology from Acts, when so much of what’s going on is not normative, partly in terms of how God is working, but also in terms of the social, geographic and religious situations that can never be repeated, such as the conversion of some Samaritans in Acts 8, another passage pointed to as proof of a required second blessing.

Tongues?

One church in Brighton states this in their beliefs…

We believe in the baptism in the Holy Spirit as an enduement of the believer with power for service the biblical evidence of which is the speaking with other tongues as the Spirit gives utterance

Six passages from Acts are quoted as a justification of this statement. That’s the problem when you take your theology from Acts, turning narrative passages into doctrine. 1 Cor 12:30 - Paul asks “Do all speak with tongues?” in the context of that passage the answer is NO, the same Spirit gives a variety of gifts.

So what is the sign of having received the Spirit? Outwardly, lots of different gifts, ultimately regeneration, increasing Christlikeness. But the question is not really about signs, inwardly, when do you receive the Spirit? Ephesians 1:13 when you “Believed in Him”

Be filled?

Ephesians 5:18 says “…be filled with the Spirit”, Stott says 4 things about this:

1. It’s a command
2. The verb is plural - it has application beyond the time of writing
3. The verb is passive - let the Holy Spirit fill you
4. The verb is present - it is a continuous action, continually be filled

The Moon talked about this and quoted D.L. Moody… when asked why he preaches that we must be ‘continually filled’ he replied… “I Leak”

Spirit Baptism?

Yes, I believe in Spirit Baptism. It’s just a synonym for ‘being saved’, ‘becoming a Christian’ etc. Passages that Pentecostals refer to are usually simply talking about becoming a Christian or are somehow unusual, not normative for Christians today. Paul is clear that the gift of tongues is not for everyone, and that you receive the Spirit when you believe. Being filled with the Spirit is not a one time event, but a continuous part of the Christian Life, asking the Spirit to fill and renew us.

Went to a UCCF training day today, subtitled “Sharing the Love on the South coast”. Was really good to meet other CU leaders, praise God, pray together, plan, analyse what a CU is and what our CU is like, hear from God’s word about what our purpose is…

I can’t remember when it was, probably at a UCCF new leaders conference when it was said… “A CU is a mission team”, now it wasn’t actually till I went to Bulgaria as part of a UCCF mission team that I realised how radical that was. ‘A Mission Team’, that just changes the whole raison d’etre (yeh that’s French!), it changes why we meet, it changes the way in which we meet, it changes us from just another society or club to a team with an eternal, life-changing focus.

A mission team; meets to pray, to encourage one another, to share testimony, to plan, to get trained and equipped, to be encouraged by God’s word, to seek God and his ways, to help each other… when Driscoll talks about Reformission, he makes the point that just as you need to prepare for overseas mission, to study the culture we are entering, so we need to do the same for mission at home… CUs need to be prepared for the culture they enter, we need to know what people are into, where the average student places their hopes, what their ambitions are, why they believe what they do… CUs need to engage with the student culture, be part of it, befriend and build relationships, yet be distinctive and holy within that culture… CU isn’t about withdrawing into a ‘holy huddle’, a bubble, a safe place from the rest of campus… nor is CU another compartment in student life - do CU one night, go out and get wasted with my mates the next…

Ultimately CUs belong to Jesus, he’s in charge, they are his tools to win students for Christ through the proclamation of the gospel through many and varied means, but never less than simply speaking who Jesus is and what he did at the cross for us.

Anyway… we looked at Acts 17 this morning… I love this passage for a few reasons…

1) Paul contextualizes (Acts 17:16-28) - Paul goes to the Areopagus, he sees their culture, he speaks into that culture, he takes the things that they know, things that interest them and explains how the true God is actually what they are really seeking

2) God is Sovereign (Acts 17:26-25) - God chose exactly where everyone would live and when they’d be there, and his whole purpose in doing that is to give people an opportunity to hear the gospel

3) Proved by the resurrection (Acts 17:31) - Jesus is coming back to judge the world, we know he is because God raised him from the dead… only man who beat death, must be special

4) People respond (Acts 17:32-34) - when you tell people about Jesus, some sneer, they called Paul a babbler, others wanted to know more, and some believed and followed

Just watched (now several days ago) Cromwell on Channel 4 - better than the usual daytime TV. Don’t know how accurate it is historically, but I do like it, generally because I like those classics, historical, war based films, also because it’s very interesting politically, thinking about the establishment of our political system, and in the past debating with my housemate whether Cromwell was right in doing what he did. On top of this we have the Puritan element, the hope a nation under God, Cromwell coming to prayer, seeking to do God’s will.

Interestingly at the end of the film it shows Cromwell’s coffin with the epitaph “Christ, not man, is King”. This quote of his got me thinking about a few things studied recently…

Two weeks ago at CU we were joined by Elliott from Gloucester Place Church in Brighton. The focus of his talk was Acts 5:29 - The Apostles under persecution say “We must obey God rather than men”…

Colossians 1 (we’re doing the book on camp this year), Jesus is king over everything! He created all things and all things were created for him. He is the image of God. He was before all things. The fullness of God was in Him. He reconciles us to God.

I did a talk at Global Cafe this week, Mark 8: 27-29… Peter says “You are the Christ”. You are God’s chosen king - wow! This guy Jesus is chosen by the Father to be his eternal king, king over all things.

Hmm… Piper again…

Last night our CU meeting was a bit different. Since everyone is stressed out with exams (not me of course… hmm) we thought we’d chillax. An acoustic night… we were pleased to welcome a Christian Indie band from Sydney, called Richard Beeston band. They are mates of Ross from BH, so he gave short talk from Ecclesiasties 3 (and a bit of Mark 8).

As well as their own stuff, they covered Coldplay - Clocks, and a different, but very good version of ‘No Woman, No Cry’. Their own stuff is great too - firstly they’ve proved that you can write Christian songs and still musically be good. The songs are about God, sometimes explicity, sometimes less so. I’ve been listening to their album for a couple of weeks and my favourite was track 3 - ‘I give in to you’. It was great to hear it live and to hear the story behind it… all about a young man who came to Christ, but his family didn’t like it and put aside £1.3 million (around 20 years ago - that’s a lot!) and offered it to him to reject his faith - he chose Christ saying that that money didn’t come close to eternity in heaven with Him.

Listen to their music and buy it - it’s great! You can get it on ITunes…

Richard Beeston and on Myspace

I was thinking the other day, possibly after a sermon at church, or maybe a random MP3 one, or actually it was probably chatting to Al about why we elevate Christians to be some kind of celebrities, particularly within the church. So someone preaches great sermons, someone writes great books, some writes amazing songs - yet they’re exactly the same as anyone else in the church, sinners saved only by the grace of God. I kindof feel sorry for these people, surely they have the same struggles, doubts, failings as the rest of us, yet we almost idolise them. And I know I’m guilty of this… I always ‘name-drop’, always ‘big-up’ my favourite preachers and authors… there’s two ways in which I think this is wrong, firstly it idolises these ‘celebrities’, second it devalues the ministry of normal Christians - ministers in small churches, old ladies who keep praying, the people who offer hospitality.

Anyway, I was reminded of this when I met a celebrity the other night. Andy Flanagan, Irish singer-songwriter came to play at Sussex as part of the StopTheTraffik tour - promoting the campaign to end human traffiking. I felt a bit bad about setting up our rather old, not very good PA system for him, but it worked, and he didn’t sound too bad through it. Also chatted to the minister from church.co.uk and managed to avoid asking any contraversial questions about atonement.

Andy Flanagan did an acoustic set…

Another thing struck me… a lot of people care an awful lot about justice, about rights for human beings, about equality, about fair trade. Few people care about Truth, about eternity, about God’s judgement, about Jesus Christ… I’m tempted to say this is true of a lot of Christians too, probably myself sometimes…