Christmas greetings!

Wishing you a very good and blessed Christmas and New Year!

Mike Reeves, The Good God

http://thinktheology.co.uk/blog/article/best_christian_book_ever_read

God's love

God's love, however, is anything but silent. He shouts it in Jesus Christ - John 3.16

no vocabulary

There's no vocabulary
For love within a family, love that's lived in
But not looked at, love within the light of which
All else is seen, the love within which
All other love finds speech.
This love is silent.
T.S. Eliot

That's a great and profound thought! I can see it perfectly in my own experience of family. However, in the context of church, which takes on the metaphor of family, why do we have to keep finding a vocabulary to suggest Christian love and community? We're so self-conscious, sometimes; so artificial; so reminding, perhaps. I found reading Andrew Francis, Hospitality and Community (2012) a real help to a less self-conscious Christianity. Also, Ian Stackhouse, Primitive Piety (2012), chapter 9, 'Untamed Hospitality' a terrific challenge.

Hokey Kokey

I saw the other day a notice that said: 'What if the hokey kokey is really what it's all about?' Food for thought, perhaps!

Light

For with you is the fountain of life, in your light we see light. Psalm 36:9

Just returned from the US - two conferences, ETS and SBL. Both excellent. Great sessions, papers and seminars - particularly those on the Reformation! Great conversations with authors, would-be authors, and publishers. Enjoyed the cities too - Milwaukee and Chicago. Mild weather, blue skies, lots of Starbucks. A privilege!

Divine work

Restore to me the joy of your salvation.
Create in me a pure heart, O God.
Renew a steadfast spirit within me (Ps 51).

We need to pray for the work of his Spirit.

Living with wisdom

'Living with wisdom has the fear of the Lord at the centre: reverence, dread, awe, respect, humility - mysterium tremendum. The mysterium tremendum is the beginning of wisdom, You are not at the centre of the world; he is. To put it bluntly: shut up. Stop messing around with trivialities and banalities and pay attention,' Ian Stackhouse, Primitive Piety (Paternoster, 2012). This is at the centre of Ian's thinking in this book, which attempts to help us make our own Christian faith raw, authentic, what he terms 'primitive' in a world and a generation that needs just that. Our faith and our mission is about God and about Jesus Christ; not us.

A God who speaks

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these days he has spoken to us by his Son . . .  Hebrews 1.1. Amazing!

Anger

'The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil, because it does not get angry enough' - Bede Jarrett. Not surprisingly, immediately after Jesus had overturned the tables in the temple, Matthew tells us that 'the bliond and the lame came to him . . . and he healed them' (Matt 21.12-14).

Has church changed that much?

'I went to church today and am not depressed' - Robert Louis Stevenson. Why is that comment amusing today?

starting to live

An individual has not started living until he (or she) can rise above the narrow contours of their individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. Martin Luther King Jr.

Paternoster: suffering and faith

Paternoster: suffering and faith: Two books on suffering and faith. A remarkable book, Raymond Brown, Spirituality in Adversity. English Nonconformity in a Period of Repressi...

suffering and faith

Two books on suffering and faith. A remarkable book, Raymond Brown, Spirituality in Adversity. English Nonconformity in a Period of Repression, 1660-1668 (Paternoster, 2012). A lifetime's research and thought has gone into this book. In it Brown demonstrates the courage of those being persecuted, their faith, their worship and their perseverance in adversity. A magnificently scholarly and pastoral work.
The other is my own, Michael Parsons, Luther and Calvin on Grief and Lament. Biblical Text and Life-Experience (Edwin Mellen, forthcoming). In this I examine how these two pastor-theologians respond to their own and other's adversity and loss: their faith, their centering on Christ and grace, their trust in God the Father and their advice, too.

two awards

Elmer Thiessen, The Ethics of Evangelism (Paternoster, 2010) has just been given two awards in Canada: one for the category of 'culture', the other for 'evangelism'. It's a great book that offers confidence to those of us who want to speak about Jesus and salvation in him in a pluralistic society.

Gospel messengers

'But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to proclaim him unless they are sent?' Romans 10.14-15. The logic is indisputable - whatever the culture we live in! Tell people about salvation in Jesus.

Grace

'There is no such thing as merit.' 'Everything is forgiven by grace.' Luther. It's just so profoundly simple!

Faith

'Faith is not a feeling, nor is it a magical incantation that turns darkness to light: faith is trusting God even without feeling and even in continuing darkness; faith is faithfulness,' John Colwell, Why Have you Forsaken Me? A personal Reflection on the Experience of Desolation (Paternoster, 2010).

Jesus is the Christ

'Messiahship was redefined around the life and death of Jesus, while the more traditional role of the Messiah as a conquering figure was postponed until the parousia. This conception of messiahship led to a complete reconfiguration of beliefs about Jesus' relation to God, Israel, and salvation in the early church. The primitive church, under duress and persecution, continued to venerate Jesus as the long-awaited Davidic king and saviour who would usher in God's kingdom. Its confession of Jesus as Messiah remains embedded in the simple name "Jesus Christ".' Michael Bird, Jesus is the Christ. The Messianic Testimony of the Gospels (Paternoster, 2012). Which leads me to ask how careful we are with that name!

give me a grateful heart

'Wherefore I cry, and cry again;
And in no quiet canst thou be,
Till I a thankful heart obtain
Of Thee:

Not thankful when it pleaseth me;
As if thy blessings had spare days:
But such a heart whose pulse may be
Thy praise'

George Herbert

Theology is 'good' when it causes us to worship God. The reformers and Moltmann, for example, would demand that our theology turns our hearts to God doxologically. Surely this is right.

Gratitude

'O Lord, that lends me life,
Lend me a heart replete
with thankfulness'
William Shakespeare

Reading the Bible in community

'As we read in community, seeking the help of the Spirit to be transformed by our encounter with the text, the three angles of vision provided by Jesus as prophet, poet, and pastor will constantly come into play. In this way the Bible will always be prophetic – energizing us with its eschatological vision of the shalom of God; that all-encompassing wholeness permeating the whole cosmos and healing creation of the alienating effects of the Powers; subversive – reminding us that we are called to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom of God whose values are so alien to the domination system which holds sway over the world and from which we have been liberated in Jesus; and, sustaining – providing us with nourishment for the journey and equipping us with all we need for the ongoing task of mission,' Lloyd Pietersen, Reading the Bible after Christendom.

Hermeneutics and the Word of God

'Probably the greatest scepticism about biblical truth today arises from the mistaken notion that you can make the Bible mean anything you like.  We must resist this by applying questions about context, genre and formation.  We must be cautious about pluralism, especially in historical report or in theology,' Anthony Thiselton, from Matthew Malcolm and Stanley Porter (eds), The Future of Biblical Interpretation (2013). This exceptional book is the result of an excellent conference held in Nottingham in honour of Anthony Thiselton last month.

Holy love

‘To not come clean about the impoverishment of our soul is to leave ourselves impoverished concerning the greatest drama of them all. Again, we will be left with what Forsyth called those “nicest, kindest people” who can run programmes but cannot make disciples because they have never known grace. In other words, our churches lose their apostolicity to the extent that they lose their instinct for the basic gospel drama. Precisely because the believers within them have never really plummeted the depths of their own depravity, so they will never experience the astonishment of sins forgiven.’ from Ian Stackhouse's book, Primitive Piety.

primitive piety

Another great book, being published in September, is Ian Stackhouse, Primitive Piety. A couple of comments from others will suffice today: ‘This is not a “nice” book. Do not read it if you like your life, your church and your God to be “nice”. But do read it if you want to be stirred, challenged, confronted and inspired to rediscover a gutsy, real, and authentic spirituality' - Emma Ineson.

‘A wonderfully vigorous book, which challenges the anodyne pieties of modern suburban Christianity. Strong, raw and honest. I am glad that I read it.' - Timothy Radcliffe. 'This book will provoke, stimulate, disturb and encourage its reader to constructively critique, reflect and help to engage with an issue that no serious believer can ignore.’ - Roy Searle. Is our Christianity too 'nice'? That's the question. How would you rate yours? How do I rate mine, in middle-class England? More strikingly, how does God rate it?

God of comfort

Here's something from David Cohen's book, Why O Lord? Praying our Sorrows: 'An engagement with distress opened a pathway from relational isolation to greater intimacy with God. While doubtless each person held in high regard God’s ability to respond to their distress the emphasis shifted from a focus on that perceived power to the significance of divine presence. The perception of divine presence in distress cannot be underestimated. This single factor contributed the most to people being able to embrace their experiences of distress, reflect on them and make some sense of them.' Fascinating! I've found this. In a sense we need to know something of God's power in situations of distress, but it's divine presence that really comforts and consoles us. 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in our affliction . . . ' 2 Corinthians 1.3

Faith and lament

Walter Brueggemann, shrewdly speaks of the use of lament psalms as ‘an act of bold faith, albeit a transformed faith’. He suggests this for two good reasons: first, because their use insists that ‘the world must be experienced as it really is and not in some pretended way,’ and, second, because it insists that ‘all such experiences of disorder are a proper subject for discourse with God’. I've just read through David Cohen, Why O Lord? Praying our Sorrows (publishing it in 2013) - a brilliant book about lament, about keeping the faith in difficult times, about somehow locating the absent God, and about faith retaining a sense of the divine Fatherhood. Helpful in explaining what lament is; useful in applying that to our present situations of anxiety and distress.

Have you ever used lament psalms in times of adversity? As a Christian community? Individually?