Missions Musings 14 – Re-imagining mission investment

16 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by in Bulgaria, Culture, Evangelism, Gospel, Ministry, Mission

≈ 1 Comment


My friend Paul, or Paulie as many of you know him, often tells me that he is going to suffer for the Gospel in the Cayman Islands.

It’s an interesting picture: Paul, chilling with a Bible in one hand and a pino colada in the other, soaking up the rays, calling out, ‘Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!’ in between sips.

It raises two related issues (perhaps even more with that imagery, but we won’t venture there;).

Firstly, bang for buck drives how we do most things these days.  It describes the economy of life.  For every dollar, minute, bit of care, tear, drop of sweat, answer, essay, holiday, patience, handshake, flirt, and whatever… that Joe gives, Joe asks the question – what will I get back?

The great question of our day is: Is the return worth the cost?

This is not just about the investment portfolio, and the retirement fund, but also about relationships, employment, career and car purchasing.  It’s about light bulbs, dishwashing detergent, brands of toilet paper, up-sizing or not, airfares and…

Mission!

Do we get bang for our buck in the missions that we support?

It’s an interesting conversation because it’s a tricky one.  We know that Gospel proclamation is essential, and we know that there is often a financial cost involved, but where does the bang fit in?  We want to be good stewards of the resources that God has given and so we should want to be savvy with the way that we allocate funds, but how ruthless a steward should we be?

Let me give you an example.  Over at the TGC site they just posted on the state of atheism in East Germany.  Have a read of the data:

Surveys show that in the eastern part of Germany, more than 71% of those under 28 years old say they have never believed in the existence of God. That’s nearly as many as in the 38-47 group, of which 72.6% are non-believers. Approximately 46% of all East Germans surveyed described themselves as atheists, compared to 4.9% of West Germans.

There is clearly plenty of need here, perhaps greater spiritual need than in other classical mission destinations, but who is going to fork out massive amounts of money to see the Gospel proclaimed there, when for the same amount of money you could pay the salaries of dozens and dozens of pastors in the western highlands of Papua New Guinea?

If you’re all about bang for buck then don’t give to people serving in Europe!

And here comes the related issue: Whose going to say to prospective supporting churches, ‘I’m going to Berlin, Paris or Vienna to proclaim the Gospel?’  Now that’s a tough gig!

When my wife and I were looking into cross-cultural mission about 10 years ago we scanned the globe looking and praying for direction as to where God would lead us.  In the following 8 years we trekked to Papua New Guinea, Niger (West Africa), Yemen (Middle East), and the Ukraine (Easter Europe) amount others, checking out these locations as possible places for future service.

On our last trip in 2008 we went to Bulgaria (South Eastern Europe) and then to Greece. I distinctly remember talking with Katie on the way home on the plane about what it would be like to tell our family, friends and church that we were heading to Greece.  We seriously had an issue justifying it, in the sense that it’s not an impoverished nation, it’s decked out with tropical living, the food is good, and it’s a stone’s throw from Western Europe for sweet holidaying.

How could we say that we were suffering for the Gospel in such a place?

Even though we didn’t end up in Greece (for different reasons), we felt the pain of dealing with the issue of wanting to serve in a location that did not fit the typical mission picture.  I was well aware of the nature of the average church’s response to this kind of location because it was only 3 years earlier that a couple came through our church looking for support to head to Greece!  I am ashamed as I reflect back on my response all those years ago to their pitch to the church, ‘Gosh, suffering for the Gospel in Greece.  Tough gig!’

I saw Greece as a waste of money, money more wisely spent elsewhere.  There was no bang for buck and the location didn’t fit my picture of mission.

Their departure had already been delayed by years because they could not get the support that they needed to leave.  Any increase in support from our church certainly (and unfortunately!) didn’t come from me.

What was their problem: They chose a place where you don’t get bang for buck!

So how does a prospective missionary avoid such a pitfall?  It’s really really easy.  Firstly, choose a destination that is at least a little worse off than the financial support catchment area.  Ideally, you want to find a place where the average Joe or Jane does not holiday.  Orphans are always a winner, as are donkeys and carts.  Secondly, make sure that the currency in the chosen destination is as weak as water so that any support that does come in goes a long long way.

Forgive my sarcasm.

We need to re-imagine what bang for buck looks when we are talking about funding cross-cultural mission in the year 2012.  The areas of increasing need for the Gospel are those areas of the world that are expensive to live in.  Often, these places are where you go for holiday, where you are over charged for transport and food, and where money doesn’t go very far at all.

The harvest in plentiful… even in those places where you don’t get bang for buck.

The dangers of putting one’s foot in one’s own mouth

13 Sunday May 2012

Posted by in Atheism, Tolerance, Unbelievable

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Each day I ride my stationary bike for about half an hour.

Throughout the week on my daily rides I listen to a number of podcasts to which I subscribe.   This morning I listened to a debate from Unbelievable (A show that gets Christians and non-Christian talking – is their catch cry) between a Christian apologist David Robinson and the Youtube-ist Mike Lee who has a popular Youtube channel called the Religious Antagonist.

The title of the debate was, Where can antagonistic atheism get us? 

This one was a bit of fizzer, actually.  The Religious Antagonist was claiming that he was a proponent for those that didn’t have biology and philosophy degrees and the like.  He was making atheism accessible to the average Joe.  But to be frank, I’m sure that even the average Joe could have seen though his thin veneer of touted logic, rationality and common sense.  He often spoke illogically, irrationally and with little common sense.  His not so clever pranks and his far less clever defence of them are telling of how poorly thought through this guy really is.

Two things.

Firstly, his attempt to get a homeless family to cross out ‘God’ from the sign that they were holding to beg for money fell very flat.  The last line on the sign read ‘God bless you.’  He gave a pitch that if they would cross out the word God with a marker he would give them $20.  They said that they would not.

He was beside himself at how irrational, ridiculous, and childish they were being.  After all it was a ‘stupid sign worth 50c.’   He even offered a million dollars and they still would not cross off God.

In the podcast debate, when discussing this video, the Religious Antagonist said he would do anything that was not illegal for $20 – fascinating!  You tell me who is irrational, ridiculous, and childish.  One party could be bought for $20, while the other party, was able to hold fast to their convictions.  Principled living – novel, I know – is nothing to be mocked in this day and age.

Secondly, the Religious Antagonist’s clueless use of the term intolerance for David Robinson’s view of eternal hell was humorous, in a not ha ha funny way.  When David Robinson (in the most appropriate way that one can) confirmed that the Religious Antagonist would go to hell if he didn’t believe in Jesus, etc, the Religious Antagonist jumped at the chance to label Robinson as judgemental and intolerant.

Wow!

Once the english lesson had been given there was an uneasy chuckle from the debate host, and an awkward silence in the London studio, the American home where the Religious Antagonist was speaking from, and in every place around the world where people were tuning in.

What was the Religious Antagonist’s definition of tolerance that provoked an english lesson?  Simply not allowing anyone else to have a view that did not line up with his own.  He realised the error, that it was he that was being intolerant.

These two little snippets were just a taste of the cringe-worthy performance by the Religious Antagonist.

I learnt a very valuable lesson from this debate:  Having your own foot firmly in your mouth might do the cause that you are fighting for more harm than good.

Liberalism, nihilism and the meaning of meaningless

08 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by in Culture, Doubt, Ethics, Faith, Liberalism, Life, nihilism, Philosophy, Pluralism, Politics, Rationality, Social commentary

≈ 5 Comments


‘Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless!  Everything is meaningless.’  The liberal would have to agree with the wise king’s words.

What is at the heart of liberty, says another wise man called Justice Anthony Kenny, but ‘the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.’

Liberalism, with its grandiose views of self-empowerment, freedom, inalienable rights, neutrality and the power of the will, has demonstrated with unparalleled linguistic flatulence that the individual human with his/her copious stores of wisdom has the last word when it comes to meaning, meaning, that meaning means, potentially, whatever you want.

Is it a pity that liberalism is being blindsided by the freight train called nihilism?  Granted, this picture understood in the present tense is surely antiquated.  The catastrophic collision has occurred and the disaster zone has been taped off.  Now we trawl through the wreckage looking for anything that might resemble something that could be of use.  We are like the soldier in the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan who picks up his blown off arm.  We pick up something that once gave value, something that once served us, but now this something is nothing but a dismembered piece of grammar lying is a semantic graveyard.

I call their bluff.

In their moment of weakness they employ these dismembered grammars, and attribute meaning in a traditional sense.  They revert back to tried and true notions of language, conception, and, dare I say it, truth, without calling it truth, of course!

Ah, bifurcation they say.  Clearly, split-personality disorders are not the substance of the psychiatrist’s list alone.  Shall I construct or deconstruct, that is the question.  The call is for something more moderate.  More nuanced.  More balanced.  There is a call for sensibility, a middle ground that annihilates nihilation, a haven wherein some measure of meaning can be safe-guarded.  But how can this be?  Meaning is mine to make!

The train, however, has arrived, and this train does not allow the liberal to have his or her cake and eat it too.  It is quite the quandary.  The liberal wants to set me free without sentencing me to a life of meaningless.  The liberal wants to release me from the state without plunging the world into a morass of ego fuelled self-fulfillment.  The liberal wants to ignite purpose without granting that there is some such thing called purpose that contains meaning.  The liberal wants to grant me a moral prerogative without any care to instruct me as to how I should ground that prerogative.

The liberal defines tolerance as a social quality of equality.  Equally true, if true could be construed as such for the time being, tolerance is a social quality that presupposes that everything is truth.  We all know, however, that if every thing is true then nothing is true.  Tolerance renders truth meaningless, unless of course we’ve defined tolerance wrongly.  That presents its own semantic dilemma, doesn’t it?

It appears that we are back where we began.

Liberal ideology is a snake that has turned on itself, twisting, binding, constricting.  Life ebbs.  Expiration is all there is.  It grasps at its own meaningless meaning to gain some traction, but because this meaningless meaning means nothing, there is little to latch onto.

The irony of liberalism is that it does offer meaning, it is just that the meaning it offers is meaningless.

Everything in light of Me: Reviewing Chester and Timmis’ evangelistic overview

06 Sunday May 2012

Posted by in Bible, Evangelism, Faith, God, Gospel, Jesus, Ministry, Mission, Review, Salvation, Salvation History, Sin, Steve Timmis, Tim Chester

≈ 2 Comments


I like to read what the movers and shakers are coming out with.

Recently, I came across an evangelistic program that has been put out by The Crowded House crew (not to be confused with the band!).  It is written by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis.  You can check it out for yourself here.  It’s called, ‘The World We All Want’.  This review is based upon the schema that can be found in the link above.

There are many of these kinds of schemas out there that help us to explain the salvation story clearly.  Part of the genius of these things is their capacity to simplify what is complex.  They manage to capture large swaths of information in a few pictures and words.  I wondered what variation of the theme this one would offer.

Interestingly, it doesn’t follow the general pattern of creation, fall, Jesus, and restoration.  It begins with a startling presumption, that God has promised the world that we all want.  Wow, that’s brave.  Essentially the authors presume that the human desire is for one kind of world, which aligns with God’s overarching plan for the world.  The world that we all want is not surprisingly found in Revelations 21:1-5.  The world we all want is one where there is no crying, mourning, pain and death.

Next, Jesus shows us the world we all want.  He calms the storm, heals the sick, raises the dead, and has control over evil.  This display of authority demonstrates that Jesus has the power to bring the world that we all want to fruition.

Finally…as in, at last, we arrive at sin.  We have spoiled God’s good world – the world we all want.  We are enemies with God.  There is hope, as God promises someone who will defeat Satan.

Now that the doctrine of sin has been introduced, the authors bring in Abraham and the promises given to him, that through him, we can be friends with God again.  A new world is promised.

Following the promise is the law – the means by which humanity would create the world that they want.  But humanity fails.  The law was supposed to bring blessing, freedom and rest, but because we sucked at it, it brings condemnation instead.  Hope still remains as God promises to put it all right.

Enter Jesus and his death and resurrection.  Jesus dies and comes to life taking our punishment so that we can enjoy God’s world – the world, I suppose, we all want.

Exit Jesus – for now.  Jesus returns to heaven and begins to create the world we all want.  At this point in the schema, the authors show that an invitation has been extended to all who want to be a part of this new world.  The schema is wrapped up with one final comment:

We become part of God’s people through faith and repentance. When we become part of God’s people we are forgiven for our rebellion. What was promise to Abraham is for us. Instead of being God’s enemies we can know God and we can look forward to God’s new world – the world we all want.

I have to say that I’m somewhat disappointed with this ‘evangelistic Bible overview’ even though I fully agree with most of the components.

Where does it go wrong?  The title, in two ways.

Firstly, the title and the first part of the schema make a large assumption that we all want the same kind of world.  That’s news to me.  Two things.  Firstly, if the world agreed on what kind of world we all wanted then surely there wouldn’t be so much mayhem in the world as we work towards that end, right?  Secondly, this statement also assumes that we want a world where God is on the throne.

The Revelations 21:1-5 text from which the authors derive the world that we all want depicts God ruling on the throne.  From a Biblical perspective, we know that humanity does not want this kind of world.  They don’t want God as King.  This is the point and reason for any need for Jesus! We all don’t want the world that God originally made and promises because we want to be king. The only bit that we can agree we all want is the bit about no pain, suffering and crying etc, but that is not the heart and soul of the world that God promises:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.

God will be God and his people will be his people.  This is the very heart of the world that he promises and I can think of very few non-believers that want a world like this.  God does not promise a world that we all want!

Secondly, the title betrays the authors’ development of a schema that communicates Biblical truths in a way that it  scratches where it itches.

What we see in the title ‘The World We All Want’ (and in the content, of course) is an anthropocenric view of the Bible and the metanarrative therein.  That is, this evangelistic tool focuses on me (disguised as us!), and what I want.  One does not come to faith in Jesus because of the perks that are associated with such a move.  From the outset the carrot is dangled in front of the inquirer.  Surely, coming to faith has deeper implications than getting something that we all want.

I like the idea of starting at the end, but I think that the way that it has been worded and conceptually put together needs to be reworked to address the above-mentioned issues.

Any schema that we use to share the Gospel needs to demonstrate what humanity is in light of who God is and his desires.

I struggled with this post as I could not help but think I was being unfair.  If you have any thought please let me know:)

Method and Gospel: Good friends indeed

04 Friday May 2012

Posted by in Uncategorized

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I know that many of you have been praying for the Langham Conference that was held in Bulgaria this past week.  Thank you.  It was certainly a blessed time.

We had two great guys from Scotland (hence the very hairy Scottish cow(?) and castle, right) come to Sofia to lead the week – Dominic Smart (actually a Yorkshireman) and Stuart Keir (true blue Scot).  They did a spectacular job and here is why:

  1. They knew what they were teaching, which we all know is never a given
  2. They believed in what they were teaching, again, never a given
  3. They were passionate about what they were teaching
  4. They personally live out what they were teaching
  5. They were still being changed by what they were teaching

This is the point.  Langham is about a method, but not for method’s sake, but for what that method inevitably reveals, that is, the Gospel.  These guys were passionate about the Gospel!

For the Bulgarians that attended, they learnt from Dominic and Stuart how the method of expositional preaching allows the heart of the text to become central to the message communicated.  In other words, the heart of God’s word becomes central to preaching.  It should come as no surprise that the Gospel emerges loud and strong.  Surely, this is what John Stott saw in creating such a movement.  If you preach the Bible as it was written, then the message of the Bible will reveal itself.  It certainly did this week.

It is no coincidence that one participant summed up his week not by saying that he learnt a new method of preaching, but by saying that above all he had been re-acquainted with the Bible and the Jesus that he knew all those years ago when he first became a believer during the communist period.  He felt new again, fresh and vitalized.  The Gospel is the power of salvation.

In my last post (here) I gave some statistics that demonstrated that Bulgaria is the country that suffers the most in the world today.  My last line was short:  The Gospel has never been more relevant in Bulgaria.

Teach the Bible as it is so that we can see that the central character is not you or me, but Jesus.  Teach the Bible as it is and the plot reveals itself, God’s redemptive plan, culminating in the Gospel.

There are six more Bulgarian preachers that have a new preaching method.  Better still, there are six more Bulgarians that are preaching the heart of God’s word – the Gospel.

45% of people in Bulgaria…

27 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by in Borovtsi, Bulgaria, Culture, Fear, God, Gospel, History, Jesus, Life, Ministry, Mission, Politics, Research

≈ 2 Comments


Yemen is an amazing country.

I’ve been there twice to catch up with a good mate who works there.  It is beautiful and the people there were amazingly warm and hospitable.  The smiles of Adeeb and Mohammed stick clearly in my mind.

If you were to do a google search on Yemen you would quickly learn that it is a country that is ravaged by political corruption, sectarian violence, religious extremism, tribal bickering, poverty, and every other ill under the sun.  People live on under $2 dollars a day in this country.  You’re getting the picture, right?  It’s not a nice place to live.

Now, if I was to say that a Gallup poll (here) was taken in an effort to rank countries according to how they are thriving and suffering it would be of no surprise to you to find out that Yemen polled really badly.  It comes in near the very bottom – 2nd last.  I’m surprised that they didn’t come in last!

I was also surprised to find out who had the dubious distinction of coming in last on the suffering scale.  I mean, imagine this country.  It must be hell on earth!  If I was forced to make a guess as to who would take the honours I would have gone with a country like the Democratic Republic of Congo, Southern Sudan, or a Central American country like Mexico or Guatemala (sorry Carrrrrrlos).

What country has the greatest percentage of people suffering on the planet?  And the winner is…. Bulgaria!  Yes, disbelief and shock are appropriate reactions, and it wins by not a small margin too.  In Yemen 38% of its population are suffering, whereas in Bulgaria a staggering 45% of people are suffering.  Wow!  That is nearly one in every two people.

So what does one make of this?  Are people really suffering more in Bulgaria than people in countries like Yemen, Syria, Iran and Southern Sudan?  I mean, c’mon, they’re being bombed, shelled and snipered by their own governments in these places.

For those of us that have the privilege of living in Bulgaria and having an outsider’s perspective on things, this poll comes as no real surprise.  Why?

Yes, Bulgaria is plagued by corruption on all levels and it has its own fair share of social ills and poverty, but we need to remember what this poll is measuring.  Have a quick read:

Suffering – wellbeing that is at high risk. These respondents have poor ratings of their current life situation (4 and below) AND negative views of the next five years (4 and below). They are more likely to report lacking the basics of food and shelter, more likely to have physical pain, a lot of stress, worry, sadness, and anger. They have less access to health insurance and care, and more than double the disease burden, in comparison to “thriving” respondents.

We all know that measurement is problematic when there is no standardised measure, and we must understand that this poll has not been carried out according to a standardised measure.  That is, this poll is not a comparative study of life situations by an objective 3rd party, but is rather a subjective personal response to certain questions about one’s present situation.  For the most part this poll is psychoanalysis.  It measure not how do living conditions compare in various countries, but rather, how do individuals within their respective countries respond to their present situation.

Of course, there is a strong correlation between wealth and thriving, and poverty and suffering, but the fact that Bulgaria comes in last on the suffering list is indicative of a national psyche that is struggling to cope with the present conditions, whatever they are.  But what are they?

Let me put it this way.  I haven’t heard of any Bulgarians looking to immigrate to Iran,  although there are plenty of Iranians already in Bulgaria, and I’m sure there are plenty more that are seeking to get here.

So what’s the story?

One of the first conclusions that I drew about the Bulgarian culture after being here a short time was that the average Joe, or Boris as is the case here, is wracked by fear and hopelessness.

It is palpable!

The causes are complex and historically rooted.

In the present, Bulgarians live within a capitalist system that has proven to be impotent and incapable of providing them with a standard of living and way of life that was promised to them.  Then of course there is the not so recent communist rule that shaped a vast proportion of the minds and hearts of the people who live in Bulgaria today.  And then there is the older but still relevant events of the 500 years of oppression by the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire.

Bulgaria is a product of its past.  It reflects on the current situation and thinks of the future in light of the events of the past.  It has good reason to be fearful and hopeless.  While the government is not shelling its citizens, and while elections are for the most part fair and just, the average Bulgarian is trapped within a life that is fearful of the present and hopeless about the future.

I’ve never pretended to be Bulgarian, and I don’t pretend to understand the average Boris’ predicament – all I know is that to be Bulgarian is to suffer.

The Gospel has never been more relevant in Bulgaria.

God and Whose Burden of Proof?

18 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by in Atheism, Culture, Doubt, Ethics, Evangelism, God, Philosophy, Rationality

≈ 8 Comments


Burden of proof is everyone’s best friend, but nobody wants it.

It’s kind of like a hot potato – you’ve got to get rid of it otherwise you’ll get burned.  And so we use an awkward two-handed shovelling motion to push-throw the thing out of the vicinity.  The general idea is to make it somebody else’s problem.  Let them deal with the heat and the pain if they are not careful.

In the Merriam-Webster online dictionary we find this definition of ‘burden of proof’: the duty of proving a disputed assertion or charge.

This burden is not an optional extra that one can opt in and out of.  It is an obligation.  It is compulsory.  And it is final.  The outcome hangs on the persuasive quality of the case that is made by the one who is left holding the hot potato.

Bags not!

Why does the Christian always end up with the weighty burden of proof on their shoulders?  Why does the Christian have to somehow prove the existence of God, or that Jesus did rise from the dead, or that believing in Jesus is rational?

An easy response to these questions is that the Christian is making the assertion, but are they?  The New Atheists cannot claim that they’re just defending their ground from the marauding evangelising Christians, Muslims and JW’s.  No, they are just as evangelistic in the sense of looking to rid the world of God, or at least people’s ideas that there is a god.

It’s not fair that the burden of proof is only on the Christians’ shoulders.

Today I listened to a talk by a mate.  It was a classic university Christianity vs Atheism showdown.  I liked however that he did not get sucked into the age-old method of trying to prove God.  The angle that he took was one of re-aligning the burden of proof.  He attempted to engage every individual in the ongoing debate by making them take the responsibility for their own ideas.

Like any good Aussie, he threw the rule book out and made his own rules of engagement.  All of a sudden the hot potato is in everyone’s hands.

The question that he was posing was: Why are you still what you are, whatever you are?  Christian or Atheist, do you know what you believe and why?

I like it, a lot, because it makes us all stop and listen, first to our own coherent(?) perspective, and secondly to the opposing incoherent(?) perspective.  By using this rulebook we cannot shovel the burden of proof to the dark-side and expect them to come up with a knockdown, hole-proof argument to convince me of what I should believe.   This rulebook states that that same knockdown, hole-proof measure is now there for me to live up to.

It’s a totally different game. It levels the playing field.  It puts everybody on the back foot.

And in our own hearts we rejoice.  ’Yes, finally, the burden of proof is on them!’

Hmmm, well, yes that’s right.  The burden of proof is on them.  They have to prove empirically, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there is no God, etc.  Tough gig!  That’s the good news with this new game plan.  The bad news is that you need to also prove empirically, beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is a God, etc.  Tough gig!

It’s a new game with new rules, and to be honest, now that you understand the rules, who wants to play?

Thought so:)

Aquinas, the Trinity and knowing God

17 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by in Aquinas, Creation, God, Jesus, Otherness, Philosophy, Salvation

≈ 1 Comment


Two days ago I was in a very squishy seat on Easyjet flight number EZY8973 at 3:15 (in the AM) from Gatwick Airport on my way home to the Sofia International Airport, terminal 1 to be precise, the poor cousin of the newly(?) built terminal 2.

In this seat I was thinking about God.  It was deep!

My ponderance was on Aquinas’ conception of the Trinity.  It doesn’t sound so difficult does it?  However, it was far from a stroll in the theological park.  What we are dealing with here is what ol’ Aquinas calls ‘subsisting relation,’ which can be crassly described as the relationship between the persons of the Trinity by virtue of their substance.

We need to clarify this.

The Trinity cannot be described as being in relationship – a group of persons relating – because God cannot be relational, that is, where relational-ness is understood to be an accident, as though God could become more or less relational with someone or something else, like you or me.  Aquinas says that God is relation in essence.

It’s very clever.

What Aquinas is doing with the ‘subsisting relation’ construction is safeguarding the apparent conflicting notions of God that we hold so dear, those being Monotheism and Trinitarianism, while at the same time refuting the ancient heresies of Arianism and Sabellianism.

I find all this quite fascinating because Aquinas delicately steers the theological ship through unorthodox theological pack ice.

Much of the current work on Aquinas is focussing on his take on God as an abstracted reality.  This inquiry takes the form of questions like these: How does one conceive of God?  If God is not created and other, then what and who is he?  That is, how do we have any idea of what or who God is?  Can one think of God as some kind of abstract; as an almighty and sovereign (platonic?) ‘idea’ that has its being in the realm of the uncreated?  Perhaps God is some indescribable thing that is other than which can be conceived?

Some think so.  Aquinas does not.

We know this because we can see the roles that Aquinas attributes to the persons of the Trinity.  And so the delicate steering between heresies begins.

Three words can sum up the varying functions found within the Trinity.  Procession and return.  In short, creation is the procession, and salvation is the return.  The Trinity is the means and reason for both, but importantly for us the Trinity enables the created world to return to the Father.  The creations’ return to the Father is possible if it is led by the Spirit to the Son, who in turn takes the faithful back to where it all began.

According to Aquinas, God is not an abstract idea but one who is revealed by way of the Spirit and the Son.  Without the not-accidental characteristic of relation-ness, how can God in any way be conceived?

Of course he cannot!

The doctrine of the Trinity is at the heart of Aquinas’ theology of God, and even though we may disagree with other aspects of his theology, we must contend, as he has, for a theology of God that is heartily monotheistic and trinitarian.

If God is not these, then God cannot be known.

The Real Easter Celebration

14 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by in Borovtsi, Church, Death, Easter, Jesus, Ministry, Preaching, Resurrection, Salvation, Salvation History

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We celebrated Easter in the West last weekend, and now we see that the church in the East is in the middle of their Easter festive season.  So when should we really celebrate it?

I reckon it’s a good question to ask.

Last Friday I wrote about how our small group/church in Borovtsi was celebrating Easter even though we were a tad early. In our Friday Easter (though not Easter) study and reflection we looked at how our view of Jesus and his cross-work cannot be understood apart from the salvation signifying events of the Old Testament, in particular the events surrounding the miraculous saving of the Israelites from the oppressive Egyptian regime.

In similar fashion to the study, my post focussed on how the cross is not able to be separated from the larger story being played out on the canvas of history, as recorded in the text of the Bible.

The centrality of Jesus’ cross-work in (redemptive) history sheds light on when we should celebrate the Easter events.

Of course, we all know the answer to the question, ‘When should we celebrate Easter?’ – let’s say in unison – ‘Every day!’

Easy question right?  Wrong!  For some reason we preachers and teachers seem to often miss this bit.

Two guys who also saw this basic answer to the posed question were Peter and Paul in that order, well, in Acts anyway.  If you don’t believe me, read their sermons in the book of Acts for yourself.

Ahhh, but Daniel you miss one vital point, and that is, that Peter and Paul were not speaking to churches or believers, but to unchurched non-believers.  Is this a fair point?  As a matter of fact I think it is, but before we move on please note their use of Jesus and his cross-work in their teaching.  He is the means for salvation, and also the reason for any given life response.

This being the case, have a glance then at Paul’s letters to the various churches in his care.  See how Jesus and his cross-work informs Paul’s instruction of not only how one is saved but how to live one’s life as one saved.  For Paul the so-called Easter events are the heart, soul and content of his teaching ministry.

Perhaps the events (understood as Jesus’ cross-work) should be the heart, soul and content of our teaching ministry too, but not only in theory, or in principle, or by implication, but in practice.

Indeed, Easter should be celebrated always.

His Blood or Mine?

07 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by in Death, Easter, God, Gospel, Jesus, Justification, Life

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My wife Katie is a doctor.

When we were living in Australia Katie would come home from work and I would genuinely ask how her day was.  Of course, she responded with a descriptor like great, good, bad, etc.  A problem often arose, however, because she always took the liberty to take it to the next level.  By that I mean that she always wanted to tell me why it was the case that her day was good, bad or otherwise.  Katie would launch into the gory, blood, guts and puss details of her GP room… SICK!

I was forever having to back pedal on my overly generous question, ‘How was your day?’  I did care about her day, but not of the daily bloodied contents.

Blood is the substance at the centre of this weekend.  It has been somewhat sanitised by 2000 odd years and a culture that is much removed from most of our own.  Mel Gibson did his best to rectify this with his 2004 movie The Passion of the Christ.  There was not a small amount of criticism directed at the director for the violent and overly graphic nature of the film.  If blood characterises Good Friday, then Mel captured it to a T.

Regardless of the merits of trying to re-imagine the event as Mel did, there is something to be said about the bloodiness of the day, and how we are to understand that blood.

How can we not be reminded of all those lambs that were slaughtered in Egypt all those years ago?  The blood was collected by the Israelite families and splattered over the door posts.  I can’t imagine it being a clean and tidy affair.  A gory sight indeed!  And we know that that was not the end of the bloodshed that night.  Later on, God swept through Egypt judging the land, killing all the firstborns who did not live under a roof protected by the blood of a lamb.

There was death and blood in every house in one way or another that night.  This was the point!  Someone or something needed to absorb the ensuing wrath of God.  Would it be the lamb or the firstborn?

The historical event that we now take time to remember on Good Friday was equally saturated with blood, and for good reason.  Jesus’ blood flowed.  Like those lambs in the book of Exodus, Jesus was slain.  He absorbed God’s wrath.  He endured God’s judgement.  He died.

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:9-10).

The sight of Jesus’ blood is not something that we should squirm at or turn from.  It is indeed good news for all.

It means that my blood need not be spilt.  Now that is news worth shouting from the rooftops.  Praise the Lord!

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