So I just came back from 10 days travelling around the Danube Capitals - Prague, Budapest, Bratislava and Vienna. Along with my good chums Reg and Loz… see photos on Facebook.

Prague

Arrived in Prague to find the main square filled with a sea of Irish football fans, they lost. There are 3 main Czech beers; Pilsner Urquell, Budweiser and Staropramen (we went to the brewery in Prague). Pilsner Urquell is the best and wonderfully is exported to the UK.

Prague castle and the Cathedral within it’s walls is the best sight, it’s amazing. It looks even better at night from across the bridge. Unfortunately our old pubs tour guide never turned up, which was sad. We went to the Communism museum to learn about the history of Communism in Czechoslovakia.

Budapest

Beautiful. Loads of grand buildings, palaces, churches, basilica, squares… we stayed right in the heart of the diplomatic quarter, between the British embassy and the parliament. Was more expensive than I expected, but really nice. Drank alot of Krusovice (which is a Czech beer as well). There’s a really cool park with loads of ex-communist statues just outside the city, didn’t make it there sadly.

Bratislava

Everything worth seeing here is contained within about 1mile square. Churches and towers and loads of little pubs/cafes. We drank 60p pints here of Zlaty Bazant, and also had some really pricy Pina Coladas. Smoked some Cubans… Got a boat to Vienna…

Vienna

It was nice, but just full of museums, and theatres and galleries and generally places of ‘culture’, beer and food was most expensive yet, but we did find the best pub ever… if you go to Vienna you must visit ‘7 Stern Brau‘ they have loads of beautiful home-made brews served in 1l jugs.

and in summary…

always take a pack of cards travelling to play Wist with… photos on Facebook!

Yet again we come to one of those posts which has been sitting unfinished for some time - remember the thought of blogging through TULIP, well I made it to T! But I thought it was important to keep going, to ponder my understanding of these points. Anyway… I was thinking that Unconditional Election isn’t really much different to Total Depravity, it’s just the next step…

Why Election?

Universalism isn’t Christian, it’s a heresy - Driscoll mocks it referring to it as “Justification by death”, you get your ticket to heaven when you die. Jesus says there’s a heaven and a hell, and everyone is going to spend eternity in one of these places. Since God is sovereign, then at the very least he has foreknowledge of ‘who goes where’. But Election is more than this, God as sovereign wills and purposes all things to his glory, including salvation. God chooses (elects) those who will come to faith, and by the same logic, the same truth, God also chooses people who will not be saved.

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory… Romans 9: 22-23 ESV

We see two groups here in Romans 9, “vessels of wrath” and “vessels of mercy”. Both groups have been chosen, elected - to say “prepared beforehand” is to choose in advance, to… predestine?? Both groups have been dealt with by God, one with “wrath”, and one with “mercy” to show his power and glory. Wrath is God’s righteous anger and judgement upon sin that all of mankind deserve. Mercy is not for everyone, it’s not universal, although the fact that God has “endured with much patience” is a sign of common grace, of some mercy shown to all. Mercy is undeserved, it’s unconditional because it’s a free gift from God.

That’s my reasoning of Romans 9 - if we don’t accept that then we have to seriously consider what election is? who are the elect? what does it mean to be predestined? The Bible tells us that God elects and predestines, that seems to be what Romans 9 tries to explain…

Why Unconditional?

The mercy shown in Romans 9 is unconditional. Ephesians 2 showed that we’re dead and unable to get to God. So if this is true then our ‘eternal destiny’ cannot be in our hands, we’re dead! We can’t do anything. Romans 8 makes it clear that it’s all God - he forknew, he predestined, he called, he justified, he glorified - we didn’t contribute or by our actions cause any of these things, they were all the free gift of God. It was by grace we were saved, not works.

As I understand, an Arminian position would say that, God in his foreknowledge chooses to save (elects) people based on their response to the gospel - conditional election. Other less acceptable positions might say that God doesn’t have foreknowledge and salvation is unknown until the Day, realistically this is probably going to lead to universalism - everyone is elected, or at least saved in the end.

Conditional election may at first glance be easier to swallow, but it has two major flaws: first the focus is taken away from God and shifted to us, but this is not right, Ephesians 2:8 says that even our faith is a gift of God’s grace. Secondly there is the problem of children who die young, tribes who never hear the gospel, the mentally incapable (is that PC? anyway you know what I mean). If election is conditional on the choice of the individual, then that automatically condemns the above who for one reason or another are unable to hear/understand/respond to the gospel. So in fact, believing in a God who chooses unconditionally, in my mind is much easier to accept!

The Next Step…

At the start I said I thought this was simply the next logical step, following on from Total Depravity. TD says that we are corrupted in every area and incapable of approaching and responding to God. Unconditional Election affirms our state of total helplessness - there is nothing we can do to merit salvation, nothing that might persuade God that we’re not that bad - it’s the story of the God who in his mercy saves people like you and me, who without him are lost, hopeless and helpless.

He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure - Psalm 40: 2

Recently I’ve very much enjoyed Driscoll’s series on Ruth at Mars Hill. Some things I particularly liked was the use of video to produce a interactive bible reading, Dricoll’s own special way of bringing the story to life and helping us to understand 3000 year old events in today’s culture, and his emphasis on God’s redeeming grace in the life of Ruth, Naomi and Boaz. Also they made a nice desktop background to accompany the series. You can see all the series here…

Recently I have been quite disappointed on this subject… I don’t like having to shave, it’s just a hassle, but I find that before too long I look like a hobo with a ginger beard. But when I leave it, the beard never quite matches my expectations, it’s either ginger, or patchy, whatever it just doesn’t look cool.

Anyway, I’m hoping that one day it may be something like this…

If you’re in Brighton this weekend why not check out the World Beard and Moustache Championship 2007 to see these guys and other weirdos…

It was commented at the EMA that all of Vaughan Roberts’ books have no more than 3 words in their titles… I paused for a moment, reading and counting through the titles in my head - it was true. Interesting but somewhat irrelevant fact… shouldn’t judge a book by the length of its title!

Anyway, sometimes when I hear Vaughan speak I find him a bit dry, a bit too conservative in his style and sometimes content. But his writing is altogether different, it’s much more accessible, concise, easy to read and take in, and of course like his preaching thoroughly sound, true and Biblical. I haven’t read all of his books yet, need to read his Bible overviews at some point, but True Worship and Distinctives (2nd Christian book I read I believe, after John Dickson’s ‘Hanging in there’) were both excellent.

His latest book which I’ve just read is called ‘Battles Christians Face’ looking at 8 issues, or battles that Christians face in life. From the start it’s clear that this isn’t some kind of self-help book, a certain solution to win the battles, or a ground-breaking new perspective on the issues. No, rather Roberts sets out a Biblical example of the battle in question, takes us through that example looking at what we can learn about us and about God in these situations.

Roberts takes us through the issues with a related Bible text, looking at; Image (Col 3), Lust (David & Bathsheba), Guilt (Psalm 32), Doubt (Doubting Thomas), Depression (Psalm 42 & 43), Pride (Mark 9), Homosexuality (Matt 19 and 1Cor 6) and Keeping Spiritually Fresh (Luke 7).

I love Roberts’ simplicity and honesty, his realism and gentle approach to hard issues. There’s no great detail here, it’s a small book, so he gets straight to the point, but there’s enough here to give us both a firm biblical grounding and some practical application. There’s also a challenge here, where we feel we don’t struggle with the issue Vaughan bring God’s word to rebuke us - are we proud of our humility? do we judge others for their struggles?

Well worth a read - currently £7 along with some more reviews at the Good Book Company

On the Desiring God blog there’s a link to an excerpt from a John Piper sermon that says “we don’t need to contextualize the gospel”. My first thoughts, initially are to say rubbish… look at Paul in Acts 17, read Driscoll’s ‘Radical Reformission’. But Piper has a universal gospel presentation from Romans 5… the context is that we’re human beings, made by God, descendants of Adam. Have a look, I thought it was interesting…

Joshua Harris has kissed Facebook goodbye, a good thing I feel. I’m not sure how anyone who isn’t a student-bum has time for things like Facebook! Anyway, upon leaving he did go out with these last words…

“Enjoy Facebook. And if you’re a godly single man, receive it as a gift from God to assist you in nonchalantly building a friendship with a godly Christian woman. I’m serious, men! If you’re mature enough to pursue marriage, Facebook should be ‘Courtbook’ for you. Don’t just sit there, get on the ball and go ‘poke’ a godly girl.”

So naturally I added this quote to my Facebook profile. Fortunately (for the ‘godly girls’) I’ve never really understood the point of ‘poking’, just seems silly, along with those stupid superpokes, giving people drinks, throwing sheep, pirate arrrs, aquariums and other such rubbish. I want Joshua Harris to know that ‘Facebook is not the problem (the applications are)’… grrr…

Some selected quotes, some paraphrased…

“hairy armpits like Don King in a headlock”

“Did Ruth cross the line? No, she just danced on it vigorously!”

“She’s hot… So’s Hell!”

“godless women run after men, godly women get in the way”

“we’re putting the fun back into fundamentalism”

“our official position is no sex outside marriage - get married then make up for lost time”

“Boaz, he’s a man, a dude of dudes”

“people in Seattle think they’re good by being green - justification by recycling”

“Jesus was no limp-wristed hippie”

Driscoll’s latest book has been reviewed by Tim Challies and it seems that some people can’t cope with his sarcasm, “vulgarity” and “crudeness”. Personally I think these people need to get a life and instead of criticising guys like Driscoll, who’s doing faithful gospel ministry among unchurched people in a pagan society, should stop being legalistic and self-righteous and consider engaging with their society some more.

And what does Facebook have to offer…

Mark Driscoll is the new Dr. Lloyd Jones

Mark Driscoll is my homeboy

A number of things recently have caused me to write another cliche busting post about Evangelism. The quote from St. Francis of Assisi - “Preach the Gospel and if necessary use words.” is often presented as a good model for evangelism. When I Googled this quote, Bish came forth - here’s 6 thoughts from him about this quote.

So what were these number of things…

1. Last year James Webb spoke at BH from Romans 10 (in particular verse 17) and set about what I’m about to do in getting rid of this cliche. Also a guy called Jon Hobbs (formerly UCCF staff in Southampton, now a vicar in Uckfield) spoke at the last CU meeting, he said we need to live to gospel, but this is pointless unless we speak it as well.
2. A few weeks ago I was chatting to the youth minister at BH about this topic - he spoke about his experiences of other youth leaders teaching that “people become Christians when you give them hot chocolate”, as well as having debates with well known ‘youth people’ about the purpose of things like Hope 2008.
3. In the past at Sussex we have done evangelistic service through things like doing people’s washing up and giving out free hot chocolate - with a few exceptions the resulting conversations have rarely been helpful in directing people to Christ.

What does the Bible say?

Matt 5:16, 1Pet 2:12 - Good works cause people to give glory to God

Acts 9:36 - Tabitha is praised for her “good works and acts of charity”

Eph 2:10 - We were created for good works

Titus 3:8 - devote yourselves to good works

James 2:17 - Faith and Good Works are inseparable

Rom 10:17 - faith comes through hearing the word of Christ

What does this mean?

1. Christians are called to do ‘actions’, works of service, social action
2. Good works should bring glory to God and point people to Jesus
3. Works are a sign to unbelievers, but these need to go alongside words explaining the gospel

At EMA this year Tim Keller was clear that we need to contextualise the gospel, and a Christians we should be engaged in social action. However, when it came to this subject of words and actions he was clear (paraphrased by me):

“If you want to tell someone how to do something then you show them - like the school boy learning how to do up a tie, explaining it is hopeless, you need to demonstrate it! However, if you want to tell someone what somebody else has done, in history, then you need to tell them - with words!”

Mr. Keller is spot on, there’s no way you can explain an event in history, Sin and salvation simply by the way you live your life. Rather the truths of the gospel need to be presented and explained with words - at the very least.

Keller also recommended this sermon by Jonathan Edwards - Christian Charity (Deut. 15)…

Unlike Jesus Christ (Heb 13:8) this website changes frequently. Partly due to a few design issues I wasn’t happy with and in part due to my desire to procrastinate I’ve sorted out this new theme (credits at the bottom) still on wordpress. I like the colours and it’s a better use of space with two sidebars. Also there’s some Google and Amazon ads down there… if you click on them, I make money - this is part of my ongoing experimentation to see if I can make some money out of the WWW, having failed at Poker, advertising could be it…