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…

At Word Alive this year, in his talk on Atonement (from Hebrews 9), Richard Cunningham (Director of UCCF) said: “God does not forgive sin, he only punishes it”. He also went on to concur with my thoughts on sin and sinners. This is a bold statement to make, but if true, I believe it cuts to the heart of lots of issues I’ve been blogging on recently; PSA, hell, depravity etc. This post has been sitting uncompleted in the Wordpress system since coming back from Word Alive, unfortunately delayed due to more pressing things. In that time it’s been discussed elsewhere; by Cat and by a less supportive “Speaker of Truth” who accuses RC of heresy (now retracted).

Now the obvious thing to say is that this statement is clearly false, after all the Bible and creeds clearly state that God forgives sin. But is it that simple? What does Joshua 24:19 mean “..he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins”? What about those who advocate a PS (thoroughly Biblical) view of atonement - have we got it wrong? So what is forgiveness? I think part of the problem is that we may have a wrong view of what forgiveness actually is… generally the view seems to be of God ‘forgetting’ sin or simply saying it ‘doesn’t matter’ anymore. These are nice ideas, they make God sound like a big dad in the sky who really wants us to come and say sorry so he can simply ‘forgive’. Biblical forgiveness is not some kind of ‘cosmic insomnia’ but is administered through sacrifice, through blood. Not very popular, makes us sound ‘pre-Christian’! Whatever we think, the Bible states two truths - God forgives sin (1John 1:9) and God punishes sin (Gen 3).

Firstly (in response to Joshua 24), we know that God does punish the sin of the non-Christian, “the wages of sin is death…” Rom 6:23, sin has to be paid for, if all sin is forgiven then there is no punishment to face, no penalty to be paid - no hell - sounds nice, but that belief leads to Universalism, a heresy, the Bible teaches against that belief. But how is the sin of the believer dealt with? Yes, it’s forgiven, but what does that mean??

Biblical forgiveness is the diversion of God’s wrath, propitiation - it’s what we see at the Passover, the temple sacrifices and at the cross. Not diversion into some spiritual void, or diversion that just eventually fizzles out, but diversion in the full force of God’s wrath, his holy anger against sin being placed upon a substitute - a perfect lamb (Exodus 12). The overviews of the passages in ‘Pierced for our transgressions’ (Ex 12, Lev 16 and Isa 53) superbly present the case for God’s wrath being taken on the lamb (not hard as it’s a simple reading of the text) - Jesus our substitute.

And what about Hebrews 9, the text for this talk in question, what does this text have to say?

v.1-10 There’s a problem, despite all the ritual of the OT temple sacrifices, they “…were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper.” , these ceremonies were a picture, waiting for the “new order”, for Jesus and his cross.

v.11-28 The blood of the goats is a picture of the blood of Christ, but Christ achieved far more than animal sacrifices ever could. He cleanses believers from sins and secures the eternal inheritance.

There are two key verse which help to answer our questions:

“In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Heb 9:22

“so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people..” Heb 9:28 - it is the sacrifice that takes away (forgives) sin

So what?

How can sinful people come into relationship with a holy God? - our sins need to be dealt with, by God

How are our sins dealt with? - at the cross

What happened at the cross? - Jesus, the Lamb, took up the sins of his people and bore the punishment for them, he was our sacrifice and our substitute

Why did it have to happen like this? - God’s holiness and justice demands that sin is punished, Jesus was fulfilling the OT law, God did it so it was the best way

What does this mean for me?

1. Sin is serious, it invokes a death sentence
2. God is big, sometimes we misunderstand him when we try to fit him into our mould of what and who we want him to be
3. Forgiving sin isn’t an easy thing, it required the blood of Christ - be overflowing with thankfulness to God for his gift of forgiveness and eternal life in Christ

Adrian Warnock has helpfully pointed his readers to a debate on Baptism - basically Wayne Grudem has rewritten his section in Systematic Theology on baptism, his point being that adult baptism is a necessity for church membership. However, John Piper, while still definitely a credobaptist, has responded by saying that while he would try to persuade all his members or potential church members of the truth and necessity of adult baptism, he would not restrict membership to a brother/sister in Christ who was convinced of their position on baptism. Piper calls closed membership a “preemptive excommunication”.

Now I am a paedobaptist, more by the fact that I was sprinkled as a nipper, rather than my firm convictions that that is the ‘right’ way - though I can give you a biblical case for why my baptism was valid and why having been baptised as a baby and confirmed as a teenager I don’t believe it necessary for me now to also be baptised as an adult.

I have firm convictions for myself and my own baptism but beyond that I’m a bit woolly. For example, if I get married and have kids I’m not sure if I would baptise them, especially if I married a credobaptist! I think whatever position you hold you need to respect the views of others and love them as Brothers, so I think when it comes to church membership, Piper is right and Grudem needs to understand that baptism (in when and how the ceremony takes place) is a secondary issue.

Having slept, and generally done nothing for a couple of days I feel somewhat recovered from the 10 straight days of getting up at 7am and being busy with 70 14-18 year olds. This year’s theme was Australia, so I grew a beard, and put on Phil Moon’s (co-author of the definitive book on Christian youth work) Akubra - trying my best to pass myself off as an Aussie. I failed misserably at the station, ordering an apple danish in my posh southern accent, however I was approached by a Burma veteran who said I looked like “one of those Nips” he used to fight!

Adventures

Colwyn Bay isn’t the most exciting place in the world, but as ever we make the best of a pretty average location - not hard this year as the weather was perfect. Usual fun to be had on the beach, on the lake, up Snowdon, on the Great Orme. We made the customary CB3 Seagull Productions movie, an adaptation of Crocodile Dundee! I was safety officer on camp (what a joke, last time I was at CB3 I impaled myself on a spiked iron fence on the first day (ruining a perfectly good pair of trousers, and boxers!)), and thankfully only spent one night in A&E, with my dorm member who dropped a pool table on his foot! My favourite adventure was our trip to Conwy, having spent all week driving a minibus around I was king of the road, until 4 chavs in a Toyota Yaris had other ideas, thankfully there’s always a heroic Irishman around to save the day and diffuse road rage incidents!

Colossians

We went through the book of Colossians in both the morning studies and the evening talks. The book is a letter from Paul to new Christians in Colossae, defending true faith in Christ against the many and varied voices of the false teachers. It was great to learn…

• Jesus is King over Creation and the New Creation
• All that we need is found in Christ
• Don’t be seduced, judged or disqualified by false teaching
• Set our minds and hearts on Christ, Live with Jesus as Lord in all areas of life
• Keep going like Epaphras, don’t fall away like Demas

Colossians is a crushing rebuke to the false teachers of Paul’s day, and a warm and firm assurance to the Christians there. It’s just as strong a word today…

…to those who place too high a value on ‘experience’, who promote a ’second blessing’, or who impose a legalistic view of ‘the Sabbath’ - these are three false teachings that I’ve come across in recent years, from Bible teaching churches…. “The Reality however is found in Christ!”

But, the assurance is a great one. He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness, and brought us in to the kingdom of the Son he loves. In Him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him. The great news that we don’t need to change anything, we don’t need to move on to a further experiences, some extra rituals or laws, but the truth, the fullness, perfection is found in Christ.

CB3 on Facebook

Also found some good books today. There’s a small Christian book shop in my town (very small) so the last thing I expected to find was some Driscoll - both his books there, so I picked up ‘Confessions of a Reformission Rev’ having enjoyed ‘The Radical Reformission’ so much. Also, in the bargain book shop, £6 bought me a copy of the complete scripts (with images) of series 1&2 of Extras!