Biblical Illiteracy

I've been challenged a bit recently on the topic of biblical literacy. I have been reading Jerry Bridge's The Practice of Godliness which discusses how we can develop godly character. One of the key methods he suggests, and uses himself is scripture memorisation. He suggests the memorisation of key pieces of scripture that deal with specific godly characteristics that we need to develop. This is helpful in two ways; to facilitate meditation on scripture, and because the Holy Spirit reminds us of pertinent bits of scripture that we have memorised at times when we need it.

This memorisation thing is a key challenge for me, I have always really hated rote learning. I still do not know my times tables because in primary school I refused to apply myself to it because it required rote learning. Similarly, in high school French, I lost interest as soon as we started having to memorise verb conjugations. I do not know my home telephone number (and I've lived here for nearly 18 months) because I hate memorising things.

With scripture, I read it everyday, and lots of it. But the idea of specifically trying to memorise a bit of scripture (let alone the whole Torah like the Jews used to!!!) makes me feel like running for the hills. Now I find this weird, because the bits of scripture that I do remember (sometimes bits just stick) I love having in my head. But if I quote something it'll sound something like "You know that bit (in 2 Corinthians I think) that says.... No temptation has seized you except that which is common to man, and God is faithful He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, He will provide a way out".

I was reading an interesting blog post today which has the text of Clinton Arnold's paper, "Early Church Catechesis and New Christians' Classes in Contemporary Evangelicalism" included in it. Now it is a bit of a read, and I know talk about a riveting title, but it made some very interesting points and is definitely worth it. It discusses how the early church went about bringing new believers into the fold, compared with today's approach.

A key practise of the early church was that each new christian underwent three years of specific teaching before they were baptised and admitted into communion with the rest of the fellowship. The three years included:

• An immersion in the Word of God
• Learning about central doctrines of the Faith
• Being mentored in Spiritual and Moral Formation
• Deliverance Ministry

All of which are fascinating, but I'll concentrate on the immersion in the Word of God! Arnold's early church sources show that the immersion in the Word included:

• The reading of vast portions of the text aloud
• The exposition of the text being read
• The surveying of the entire bible in order to understand "salvation history"

He goes on to ask how many Christians nowadays would have read the majority of the bible in the first three years of their walk with Christ. One of my personal bugbears is that I don't hear a lot of expository teaching. When I do hear an expository sermon, it is like a good steak dinner, I feel FAT on the Word! Well back in the early church to be allowed to be baptised and become part of the Christian community EVERY CHRISTIAN had to have heard vast amounts of the bible READ and EXPOSITED. Man, I was SO born in the wrong century!!!!! Three years of expository teaching, I'd be spiritually the size of the good year blimp!! Yeah, bring it on!!! :)

In our day and age, in western cultures there is now a general literacy level such that most people can read. We also have access to many different translations. And yet, to get this level of education in the Word is for a select few, those who choose to go to bible college, or attend bible study groups like BSF (as distinct from bible studies that feature the "what does it mean to you?" method - a nasty product of postmodernism.)

Now the three years of catechetical instruction does sound intense, and that's without going anywhere near looking at what they did regarding learning of doctrine, spiritual and moral formation and deliverance!! I would so love to see this kind of approach return. The benefits of a return to this kind of approach:

• Christians would expect teaching that is of more depth
• Christians would recognise shallow and false teaching more readily
• Christians would be able to pick scripture that is being quoted out of context

So some practical things we can do to immerse ourselves in the Word and increase our biblical literacy:

• Read scripture aloud
• Read all of scripture (yes even Leviticus)
• Memorise scripture (*gulp*)
• Meditate on scripture
• Find podcasts that feature expository teaching
• Encourage our pastors when they do heavy teaching
• Learn proper exegesis & hermeneutics
• Don't quote or memorise verses out of context

God bless,
Bec

Not another offering sermon!!!

Just to define the offering sermon if you have been lucky enough to have missed out on hearing one... In some churches (typically of the pentecostal bent) prior to taking up the offering, someone will get up and take some piece of scripture (usually out of context) and use it to try and prevail upon you to give. This is sometimes accompanied by some "Make room for God to bless you" teaching, which suggests that if you clear out space in your bank account God will make a suitable deposit to fill it.

I hate this with a passion and think it is straight from the pit of hell because:

1. God gives to us out of His graciousness, and because He is a good father who delights to give good things to His children (Mt 7:11), NOT because we bribe Him. We need to get this straight, we love him, we give because He first loved us, first gave to us (1 Jn 4:19). We need to remember it was while we were sinners that He died for us (Ro 5:8), and having given us Christ He will also give us all things (Ro 8:32). He really is FOR US.
2. If God gave to us because we gave to Him that would be a WORKS based relationship rather than GRACE (Eph 2:8, Gal 3:3). Our giving is a response to our experience of God's grace in our lives. It is one of the good works He has predestined us to do (Eph 2:10) but one we can do only because He first has "created us in Christ Jesus".
3. God loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor 8:7), not one who is guilt-ridden and fearful that God won't bless them unless they give. Generosity comes out of "overflowing joy" (2 Cor 8:2).

We need to be really really careful about thinking that God blesses us because of what we do. Anything good we do is only because He has enabled us to, so we don't actually get any credit for it. It is His grace that enables us to do good, and His grace that gives to us so bountifully. Everything about the way He deals with us is GRACE.

To believe that God gives us good things because we give financially is analogous to Simon the Sorcerer's mistake. He tried to buy a blessing, the ability to give the Holy Spirit with the laying on hands. In Acts 8:20 Peter's response to this was, "May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money!"

In Isaiah 55 God describes His economy of blessing. It is an economy of grace, where we can come to Him and buy what we need "without money and without cost" (v1). This is an economy that makes no sense to us, but as God says, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways" (v8).

I think a biblical stance on this issue is:

1. God doesn't need our money, the whole earth is His (Ps 50:9-12)
2. Give because God has already given to us, He provides well for us (Mt 6:25).
3. Give as a way of loving our neighbour as ourselves (Mt 22:39)
4. Budget for it (1 Cor 16:2)
5. Be aware that money can become an idol in our lives, and that we need to make sure that we are serving God not money (Lk 16:13)
6. Be generous and share (1 Tim 6:18)
7. Place our hope in God not in finances (1 Tim 6:17)
8. Remember that all we have is on trust from God to build the Kingdom, we are accountable to Him for 100% of it, not just 10% (Lk 19:12-27).

I would really recommend 1 Timothy 6:3-10, 17-19 on this whole topic of money and giving. And in that context we need to remember that as we live in the West we count as "rich" in comparison with the majority of the world's population.

This whole issue of giving needs to be framed in terms of love for God and love for our neighbours. Love not compulsion.

God bless,
Bec

Corporate Prayers of Confession

I grew up in the Anglican church, but of recent years have been attending Baptist and Pentecostal churches. I'm not even sure what you'd call me now! Anglibaptacostal???? LOL. I do know I love Jesus, and I'm probably more evangelical than pente.

As a rebellious 16 year old I remember really really hating the set liturgy. I could say the words easily enough but the connection between my heart/head and mouth was uncertain. But it struck me yesterday that prayer-wise I'm a bit illiterate. I have feelings about stuff, but not always the words to express them to God in prayer. And the words of one of the ol' prayers of confession came back to me, and I saw in them the words that expressed what I needed to say to God, and had so much theological richness:

Merciful God, our maker and our judge,
we have sinned against you in thought, word and deed:
we have not loved you with our whole heart,
we have not loved our neighbours as ourselves;
we repent, and are sorry for all our sins.
Father, forgive us.
Strengthen us to love and obey you in newness of life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
(An Australian Prayer Book, 1978: page 137)

There is another form that I also really liked:

Most merciful God, we humbly admit that we need your help.
We confess that we have wandered from your way:
we have done wrong, and we have failed to do what is right.
You alone can save us.
Have mercy on us: wipe out our sins and teach us to forgive others.
Bring forth in us the fruit of the Spirit that we may live as disciples of Christ.
This we ask in the name of Jesus our Saviour. Amen.
(An Australian Prayer Book, 1978, page 39)

I liked the following points from these:

• We are affirming who God is
• We are admitting that our sin is thought, word and deed
• We are admitting that we've sinned also by what we have omitted to do
• We are admitting that we haven't loved God as we should
• We are admitting that we haven't loved our neighbours as we should
• We are confessing and asking forgiveness (ala 1 Jn 1:8-10)
• We are admitting that we are dependent on Him to live godly lives
• We are taking seriously His word that He will forgive us as we forgive others

Generally I had the following thoughts about corporate prayers of confession:

1. I haven't heard sin talked about like this in church for ages, we focus so much on "triumphant living" and ideas like "the best is yet to come" that I fail to have succinct words that express all that these prayers of confession say.
2. Despite what I thought when I was 16, set liturgy isn't evil. It might just be a valuable tool for teaching people how to pray Monday to Saturday.
3. It is good to corporately admit sin, as we are the body of Christ, not just individuals in relationship to Christ. And it reaffirms that idea in Rm 3:23 "All have sinned", places us all equally at the foot of the cross together.

God bless,
Bec

Adam vs Jesus: The Temptation Showdown

Don't you love it when quite accidentally you read two bible passages on the same day that teach you about the same thing?? I had that this morning. My normal quiet time habit is to read a chapter of two of the OT and a chapter or two of the NT each morning, and work my way through sequentially each testament in parallel. Last year that meant I got through the OT once and the NT twice. Since the end of last year up until yesterday I'd had a bit of a break by just working through the epistles, reading each in one go where I had time. Yesterday I restarted the OT/NT reading pattern. So this morning I read Genesis 3 and Matthew 4.

Genesis 3 is the story of the Fall of Humanity. Matthew 4 is an account of Jesus' temptation in the desert after His baptism. Both look at the ways we can approach temptation.

In both cases there is DESIRE. Eve was made with a desire to eat and a desire to gain wisdom. Jesus had been fasting for 40 days and 40 nights so He had a desire to eat. In and of themselves these desires are not wrong, they are healthy.

Next the devil comes along and introduces the LIE. He questions Eve, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" This manipulates her into a response that will highlight not the 99 the trees that she can eat from but the 1 she can't. Her response also falsely exagerates how 'forbidden' it is, "we can't even touch the tree". The devil lies more, appealing to her desire to gain wisdom. Then she saw that "the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom" and so they ate. The LIES here include, what God told you was wrong, He is mean and is trying to hold you back from something that is good. The lies the devil uses do two things, questions the truth about a situation, and questions the loving, good and faithful character of God. When the devil tempted Jesus he raised questions about whether Jesus really was the Son of God, and tried to use Jesus' desire to fulfil His role as the Son of God, and His desire to eat to try and tempt Him. Each time Jesus responded with TRUTH and He did not sin.

This suggests to me the following:

DESIRE + LIE(S) = WRONG BELIEF = SIN
DESIRE + TRUTH = RIGHT BELIEF = RIGHT BEHAVIOUR

This is the point where the two stories diverge. For Adam & Eve there was a descent into SHAME. This manifested itself in two behaviours HIDING and REFUSAL TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY. After they had sinned they realised what they had done, and first of all tried to hide their nakedness (which had not previously been a source of shame between them) from each other, and then when they hear God walking in the Garden they try to hide from Him too. When God calls them out, and asks them if they have eaten the fruit they pass the buck, they refuse to take responsibility for their behaviour. Adam says "The woman you put here with me" - so it was God's fault for giving him "the woman" and "the woman's" fault. Eve says it was the serpent's fault.

As a result of this there are a number of CONSEQUENCES of that sin. Pain in childbirth, desire for the husband who will rule over the woman, the ground is cursed, and death. Ick... Not good. But God also says some other stuff. In verse 15 when God is talking to the serpent about what he has done, God makes the first messianic promise, His PROMISE OF DELIVERANCE. He foretells when one of the offspring of Eve will crush Satan's head. God also has GRACE on them and provides them with better coverings than the fig leaves they had sewed together, by providing animal skins. In this way demonstrating that the shedding of blood is required for forgiveness.

In contrast after Jesus had stood against each of the devil's temptations, "...the devil left him, and angels came and attended him" (v. 11). God met Jesus' needs when the time was right. God is faithful, one of the lies the devil uses is that if we don't take care of ourselves in accordance with our perceived needs that God won't and nobody else will either.

I was thinking about each step in the Genesis 3 account and how good God has been to provide instruction on how to deal with each step or how God has already dealt with it:

• Lies - Romans 12:2
• Wrong belief / Unbelief - Ephesians 6:10-20; Matthew 4:1-11
• Desire - Ezekiel 11:19-20; Galatians 5:13-25; Romans 8:5-13
• Sin - James 1:22, 4:1-10
• Shame - Romans 8:1, 33-34
• Hiding - Hebrews 4:16
• Refusal to take responsibility - 1 John 1:8-10
• Consequences - Romans 8:10-11, John 10:10 (Death); Romans 8:38-39 (Seperation from God); Romans 3:21-24 (Insecurity)
• Covering of shame, cleansing - Hebrews 9:14, 22; Hebrews 10:14, 17-18.

I also noted with some interest that Jesus' temptation comes right after a SPIRITUAL HIGH for Him. At the end of Mt 3, Jesus is baptised and a voice is heard from heaven saying "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." (v.17). This is interesting for a couple of reasons, firstly this temptation is not because God is displeased with Jesus, or that He didn't love Him. Secondly, was the temptation an attempt from the devil to undo the good that what God had said to Jesus had done in His life? This seems plausible as the first thing the devil says to Jesus is "If you are the Son of God...", he questions the very thing that God has just said to Jesus.

The other thing that was interesting contexually to the temptation story is that immediately following the temptation Jesus starts His public MINISTRY. In chapter 4, verses 12-17 he starts preaching, in verses 18-22 he calls His first disciples and in verses 23-25 he heals the sick. This leads me to wonder, what would have happened if Adam & Eve had not eaten the fruit, if they had withstood the temptation? What amazing things would God have done in their lives following that?

This lead me to: "For if, by the trespass of the one man [Adam], death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. " Romans 5:17 and "The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven." 1 Corinthians 15:47-49.

So we've seen how to deal with lies, the devil and temptation through two examples; that of Adam & Eve and that of Jesus. I know which I think is the better way :-)

God bless,
Bec

Why Mark Driscoll is my favourite preacher at the moment

OK, so we should love the word and the preacher is just a vessel for God to say what He wants to and all glory should go to God, but having said that I still have favourite preachers and writers who I hear God through that much clearer than others. Other favourite preacher/writers are Joseph Prince, Charlotte Scanlon-Gamble, Jerry Bridges, C. S. Lewis, Joyce Meyer, John Bevere, Lisa Bevere.

The first thing of Mark's that I heard was his Q&A session from 6 Jan where he answered questions about sex. Not easy questions either! Things like is masterbation an appropriate birth control method and is abortion after falling pregnant because of a rape ok. What I loved was that he dealt with it all with good humour, was not condemning but was really clear about the truth. His responses were clearly educated and his use of scripture was appropriate. He did not proof-text anything out of context. Subsequently, I watched his full sermon on the subject of birth control. I was very impressed by the depth of the research he had clearly done, and the grace-filled approach he took. Where there were ethical questions that were uncertain he said so and did not dogmatically impose a viewpoint. Where the ethical implications were clear but potentially unpopular he was true to scripture.

Last night I watched his sermon from 13 Jan on humour. It is part of Mars Hill's current "Religion saves + nine other misconceptions" series where he is dealing with questions that the congregation have raised (ala the way 1 Corinthians is a response to the questions the Corinthians asked Paul.) The question was whether humour is appropriate, is there humour in the bible, and is it ok to make fun of people. He started by doing a run through of some of the comedic high-points of the bible. A couple of my favourites are Aaron's response when asked by Moses about the golden calf, "What?? I just threw the gold in the fire, and the idol jumped out by itself!!!" and Paul's instruction to the Galatians that if they like circumcision so much why not go the whole way and emasculate themselves!!

I'm really excited about the rest of this sermon series. They are covering some real doozies. Next week is predestination, and why does God destine some people for glory and others for wrath. Definitely worth checking out, one thing to note however is that he does tend to talk for a while, so it's wise to allow an hour to watch the sermons:

http://www.marshillchurch.org/sermonseries/religionsaves

God bless,
Bec

P.S. This is a late addition to this post (15 May 2008). I've noticed that I get a HEAP of hits on this particular blog post. My views on Mark Driscoll's teaching have changed somewhat from when I first posted this so I feel bound to add this comment. I still find his preaching engaging and well studied, but I have found after listening to more of his stuff that his position on gender roles is unbiblical. Everyone has weak points in their theology-- the gender stuff is Mark's. If you take that caveat, then there is much to learn and enjoy in his preaching, just don't be surprised when for instance his series on Ruth turns into a lesson in gender roles.

References to oneself by implication in other blogs

It was a bit of a funny day today blog-wise. I made a comment on another blog where I made reference to some people who had a major influence on the beginning of my Christian walk (I didn't mention them by name). By coincidence one of those people on their blog mentioned in passing having read a comment that had referred to them by inference (they did not mention me by name either). Interestingly, this person has also referred to me in previous posts mostly without use of names.

Now I could mention names, but that doesn't seem to be in the spirit of things, so this post will continue only to refer to those persons by the use of the personal pronouns "they" and "them" :-)

I would like to say that I am very blessed to know them. That I am still years later so very grateful for the grace that they and their family showed me when I was at my worst. I think that as Christians it is easy to talk about grace as a theological concept, it is completely another thing to live it. These people lived that in a way that was exemplary and really caused me to understand for real that God is a God of unconditional love, and that His love and grace were for me, not because of who I am or what I've done, but because of who HE is and what HE has done. His grace has been so very real in my life since then. It is a continuing pleasure and joy to share my life with these people. And although God has been really good to me since that time showing me amazing grace, I have sensed recently that there is still wreckage, for that I am truly sorry. It is one of my most frequent and fervent prayers that the grace God has shown me will be even more abundant in what remains of the situation that needs to be healed for everyone who was involved.

I hope that as they read this they would know that I appreciate them so much and the incredible way that they chose to love me. I pray that the Lord would bless them and keep them, make his face to shine upon them and give them peace. They truly bring glory to God.


God bless,
Bec

On the world's doctrine of Tolerance

I just watched this clip from Mark Driscoll on YouTube. I found it refreshing to hear someone being honest about the concessions that have to be made if we are going to go with the worldly doctrine of tolerance, or "if you don't bug me, I won't bug you". Sometimes we have to say things people don't want to hear for the sake of the truth. It is more loving to speak the truth than to pander to people's itching ears.



God bless,
Bec