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Here are the first 202 posts
from my blog
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they are in reverse chronological order.
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there’s a blank space, that’s probably where a youtube video was.
3 October, 2008 by glenscriv | Edit
These are
a few scattered thoughts prompted by my recent mini-series
on parables.
We all
know Jesus’ rebuke regarding Old Testament understanding - John
5:39ff. Yet I’m sure a rebuke remains for our appreciation of the
New:
You diligently study the
New Testament thinking that now you’re breathing the free air of
apostolic Christianity and therefore, definitionally, have
life. But the point of these Scriptures (as with all Scripture) is
witness to me. Yet you neglect to come to Me for life.
New
Testament does not mean ‘gospel’. It doesn’t mean ‘gospel’ any more
than Old Testament means ‘gospel’. Rather, both are witnesses
to Christ.
You see
it’s not the New Testament that fulfils the Old
No.
Jesus fulfils the OT, not the NT. There’s a
difference. It’s He that stands above both Scriptures.
There’s
nothing inherent in the Greek Scriptures that the Hebrew Scriptures
lack. The point of both - Christ Himself - stands ever above both
Old and New Testament. Life does not exist in the Old
Testament. But life does not exist in the New Testament
either.
This is
one of the problems with the saying: ‘The New is in the Old concealed,
the Old is in the New revealed.’ It easily lends itself to the
thought that the New Testament itself is the fulfilment of the Old.
But no, Christ is the fulfilment of the Old. And
He’s the fulfilment of the New. The Old is in need of fulfilment in
Christ yes. But so is the New. To understand Old or New
demands that we read them as witness to Jesus.
We’ve
been taught to pick a Christ-less Old Testament sermon from a mile
off. Yet we put up with Christ-less New Testament study much more
readily. How can that be unless we secretly believe life really
does exist in the Scriptures - we just happen to prefer the
Greek ones?
.
Posted in New Testament, Old Testament, christology, covenant continuity, hermeneutics, revelation | Tagged christology, covenant continuity,
hermeneutics, New Testament, Old Testament, revelation | 1 Comment »
2 October, 2008 by glenscriv | Edit
Ok,
no-one wants to touch Preaching
Groups. I respect that.
Let’s
return to the parables.
By now we
know. Jesus
is the man who found treasure, the merchant looking for fine pearls
and He’s
the good samaritan. So now we turn to the most famous parable.
And what
shall we call it? The prodigal son? Of course not, there are
two sons. Well then how about that for a title - the two
sons? Perhaps. But are they really the focus? Why not
call it what Michael Ramsden tells us many oriental cultures call it:
The parable of the running father.
Clearly
it’s the father who is the hero of the story. Going out to meet the
younger and then the older son, the father’s deepest passion is to
reconcile his estranged children to himself.
And both
children definitely need to be reconciled. The younger son may have
asked for the inheritance but the older son also takes it when it’s offered
(Luke 15:12). They’ve both taken the fruits of the death of their
father and have spurned their filial relationship with him.
Physical
distance and a slave relationship characterizes both sons, it’s just more
obvious with the prodigal. The younger son puts a lot of distance
between he and his father but the basis on which he returns is
thoroughly calculating. He plots to return as a hired hand and
uses a form of repentance very reminiscent of Pharaoh’s counterfeit
repentance in Exodus 10:16. Everything in the story up until the
father’s embrace shows that the prodigal prefers to be a slave at a
distance than a son in the father’s arms.
And that
is just as true of the older son. We find him out in the field,
refusing to go in (physical distance). And again, how does he
perceive his relationship to his father? “All these years I’ve been
slaving for you.” (v29) Physical distance and a slave
relationship mark both sons. The only difference is how the two
sons receive the approach of the father. The one melts in the arms
of his father, the other remains angry outside the house.
And
now to turn to the title of this post: Who’s the daddy?
Well,
you’ve heard it preached numerous times I’m guessing. What did the
preacher say? The father is God right? I mean it’s obvious
isn’t it? We call God ‘Father’ and here’s a story of a reconciling
father - it must be God.
Well
don’t forget how Luke 15 begins.
Now the tax collectors and
“sinners” were all gathering round to hear Jesus. 2 But the
Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes
sinners, and eats with them.” 3 Then Jesus told them this
parable… (Luke 15:1-3)
The
occasion for the three stories - lost sheep, lost coin, reconciling
father - is the grumbling of the Pharisees. Jesus welcomes
sinners and eats with them, and the religious complain about it. So
then Jesus tells a story about a man who welcomes a sinner,
eats with him, and someone complains about it. Well now - who is
the younger son? The sinners and tax collectors of course.
Who is the older son? The Pharisees and teachers of the law of
course. And who is the father who eats with one and is complained
to by the other? Jesus of course.
Jesus is
the father. Plain and simple. Jesus is the father.
Jesus is the good shepherd (v4-7), he’s the good woman (v8-10), he’s the
good father (v11-32). It just seems blindingly obvious don’t you
think? And have we been confused on this simply because
of the role ‘father’? Well Jesus casts himself as father even in
the Gospels - ‘Son, your sins are forgiven… Daughter, your faith has
healed you.’ He has children (Is 8:18; 53:10; Heb 2:13; see also
Luke 7:35). If He can be a woman and even a mother hen, it’s not at
all inappropriate for Him to be pictured as father.
But
perhaos there’s this objection: Doesn’t this rob us of the story’s
potential to reveal to us the Fatherhood of God. Well no it shapes
our understanding of it properly. Surely we want to
understand God the Father in God the Son. And this
parable helps us do that very well. As we see Jesus running to the
lost and eating with sinners we can hear Him saying “I do none of this by
myself, I am doing only what I see My Father doing.”
But the fact remains we see the Fatherhood of God in Jesus,
who is the central character - portrayed as father. The story
is about Jesus - the Jesus who goes out to reconcile both the religious
and the irreligious to bring them in.
Does this
matter? Well yes. What if the story is spun in the usual
manner - i.e. the father = God and those who come to their senses will
get back into his good books? Well if that’s the story then
we’ve just described Islam not the gospel. Kenneth Bailey puts the case
for the Muslim interpretation like this (h/t
Matt Finn)
“Their case can be stated
thus: In this parable the Father obviously represents God while the
younger son represents humankind. The son leaves home, gets into trouble
and finally decides to return to his Father. He “yistaghfir Allah” (he
seeks the forgiveness of God). On arrival the Father welcomes the son and
thus demonstrates that he, the father, is “rahman wa rahim” (merciful and
compassionate). There is no cross and no incarnation, no “son of God” and
“no saviour”, no “word that becomes flesh” and no “way of salvation”, no
death and no resurrection, no mediator and no mediation. The son needs no
help to return home. The result is obvious. Jesus is a good Muslim who in
this parable affirms Muslim theology. The heart of the Christian faith is
thus denied by the very prophet Christianity claims to follow. Islam with
neither a cross nor a saviour preserves the true message of the prophet
Jesus”.
The Cross and the
Prodigal, Kenneth Bailey, p15
But no,
Jesus is at the very centre of this drama. And His reconciliation
is unlike anything Allah could or would offer. He goes out, He
bears the shame, He pleads, He appears weak and He celebrates
sinners. This is not prompted by the sinner’s repentance,
which was calculating at best, but by His own reconciling love.
Take this together with the other two stories which form a single
‘parable’ according to verse 3 and what do you have? You have
(as Barth put it) the father going into the far country to hoist the lost
onto his shoulders and bring them home. Luke 15 is no Christ-less,
cross-less forgiveness tale. Christ and His cross is the heart of
it all.
.
Matt’s
posts on the parable are great.
Michael
Ramsden’s sermon is extraordinary preaching (though,
if I’m picky, a bit vague on the point at issue here)
Keller’s
sermon is wonderful (though, again, not as straightforward on this
point as I’d like).
.
Posted in hermeneutics, parables, sermons
| Tagged hermeneutics,
parables, sermons | 5 Comments »
1 October, 2008 by glenscriv | Edit
Adrian
Warnock quotes Spurgeon (h/t
Matt Finn):
…to win a soul, it is
necessary, not only to instruct our hearer, and make him know the truth,
but to impress him so that he may feel it. A purely didactic ministry,
which should always appeal to the understanding, and should leave the emotions
untouched, would certainly be a limping ministry…
I hate to hear the terrors
of the Lord proclaimed by men whose hard visages, harsh tones, and
unfeeling spirit betray a sort of doctrinal desiccation: all the milk of
human kindness is dried out of them. Having no feeling himself, such a
preacher creates none, and the people sit and listen while he keeps to
dry, lifeless statements, until they come to value him for being “sound”,
and they themselves come to be sound, too; and I need not add, sound asleep
also, or what life they have is spent in sniffing out heresy, and making
earnest men offenders for a word. Into this spirit may we never be
baptized!
Now I
don’t think I need to argue that such critique applies to the circles in
which I move and which to some degree I represent. In fact to
defend against such critique could easily end up proving the
accusation! I take it on the chin and it hurts.
But why
are we like this?
A
thousand reasons - but let me point to something I’ve been thinking about
lately. This is by no means even a major cause of such ‘desiccated’
’soundness’ but I think it’s emblematic of some of our larger problems.
I’ll
phrase it as a question: Why do we have preaching groups?
By
preaching groups I mean circles of preachers (whether professional or
novice) who get together to critique one another’s talks. As
of three weeks ago I’m in one. In fact I lead one, and I’ve
found it a great pleasure thus far, but we should never be afraid of
questioning why we do what we do. So why do we have preaching
groups?
On one
level, we have these groups because fanning into flame God’s gifts is
something best done within the body. We do it because
preaching, while being the word of God, is also a human
act, and human acts can be practised and improved upon. We do it
because we care about preaching and want to test it against Scripture and
its proper Focus in Christ. We do it because standing in the pulpit, 6
feet above contradiction, is a dangerous place for someone to be
(especially a young male / recent convert - those who tend to populate
the preaching groups I’m thinking about).
Well
then, why have I never joined a preaching group until being asked to lead
one recently?
One
answer: pride. Submitting myself voluntarily to the “pat, pat,
stab” critique on a weekly basis was never my idea of fun. I told
myself “I’m not sure I fit the mould of what is expected of a sermon and
I’m not sure I want to submit to that mould.” But perhaps that
translates better as “I know best what a good sermon is and aint nobody
gonna tell me how to do it.” There’s definitely a good dollup of
that going on.
But then,
there are people I’d take critique from. It’s never easy I know,
but there are some who I would welcome rifling through my sermons to
shake ‘em up good and proper. But there’s something I’ve never
quite trusted about the preaching groups that have been available to me
in the past.
Top of
the list of things I mistrust has to be this: Preaching for the
sake of critique is extremely dangerous ground. (Note well the
italicized phrase, I don’t want to be misheard here).
I still
remember the first time I learned that preaching groups existed in which
people wrote talks not for the sake of public worship or their
youth group but for the sake of critique within the group. I can
remember blinking in total disbelief and asking the person to clarify
what he’d said at least 12 times.
The idea
of a sermon written for the benefit of 9 other hot-prots with clip-boards
and a 21 point check-list makes my head spin. The thought
that these groups, run according to this dynamic, would nurture a
generation of such preachers gives me cold sweats. Really it does.
Hear me
on this. Critique for the sake of preaching is a good and godly
thing. Preaching for the sake of critique is treacherous.
I’ve
written elsewhere on preaching
itself as the word of God, but if this is the case then there is a
spirituality and an authority to preaching that means the forms of
critique to which we submit it should be carefully considered.
Imagine,
for instance, that the standard of public intercessory praying at your
church was pretty poor. Imagine that you decided to do something about
it. You invite all those who pray publicly at your church to a few
sessions that you’re running. Now imagine that these sessions
consisted of asking each member to get up and pray out loud using
prayers they’d written in advance. We’d listen in, pen in
hand, marking the prayers according to a pre-determined
criteria. Good idea?
But you
say - preaching is not the same. Well, perhaps not exactly.
But perhaps it’s a lot closer to praying than you think.
I’m
rambling really. Let me just list ten dangers for preaching groups
off the top of my head. These are dangers mind - they are not
inevitable:
- Preaching itself is
not considered according to its proper nature - a divine encounter
- With this spiritual
nature minimized, the preaching itself takes on a more cerebral tone
(see Spurgoen quote)
- The preacher is
sorely tempted to preach for critique rather than for the
Lord and for the congregation
- The listeners are
trained in standing over rather than sitting under the word
- Preachers are taught
to pretend that they’re communicating to real people (and actually
that can be how a lot of live preaching sounds too - could there be
a link?)
- Check-lists for
critique become old wineskins that will only accommodate old wine
- Therefore we learn to
preach according to the check-list
- The audience for the
sermon becomes extremely narrow
- Not only is it
possible to be unaffected by the word (as we concentrate on its
delivery), we can even be trained in such an innoculation. A
skill that transfers beyond the preaching group.
- Praise for sermons
becomes professionalized and tempered “Thanks,
that was helpful.”
Can you
think of more?
Well what
can be done?
Here are
some pointers I’ve given to our group that I’m hoping to emphasize and
re-emphasize as we go.
- Make sure you preach
what you’ve prepared to real people. It could be to
your sunday school, your spouse, your best friend, I don’t care -
but preach it to someone who doesn’t have a clip-board. And
prepare it with that audience in mind. This is
non-negotiable. We are not preaching for the sake of critique.
- Let the preacher
themselves tell you their criteria. If they say for instance:
‘I’m just wanting to highlight a single verse or a single word from
this passage’, then assess things according to that. Now you
can discuss what makes a good criterion at another point - but
don’t judge people according to check-lists that won’t necessarily
fit.
- First thing I ask
after the sermon is delivered is addressed to the preacher:
What spoke to you most from the word in preparation.
- Next thing I ask is
to the listeners: what struck you most from the word that’s just
been proclaimed.
- At that point we
discuss how the word has impacted us - we spend time being
hearers and receivers of the word
- Only then do we
discuss ways that the preacher has blessed us in the particular
manner that they brought it home.
- Critique comes in the
form of assessing the preacher against their own criteria.
- In the spirit of Spurgeon,
both its didactic and its emotional aspects are up for discussion.
- We give praise to God
for His word and for His preacher.
- We give praise to the
preacher and thank them for how they’ve blessed us
In an
ideal world we’d do all this by watching a video of the talk given in its
true setting, but that’s often unrealistic.
Now some
of you will say - that’s what all preaching groups are like,
why are you so fearful of them. I don’t know. Am I being
too cautious about preaching groups?
.
Posted in evangelicalism, preaching | Tagged evangelicalism, preaching | 5 Comments »
30 September, 2008 by glenscriv | Edit
I checked
my spam the other day and found great encouragement:
Well I think you are a
genius and the post is marvelous.
Brightened
my day no end. The fact that it came from a man calling himself
“Penis Enlargement” is neither here nor there. I have instructed my
filter to allow all such positive comments in future.
.
Posted in blogging | Tagged blogging | No Comments »
29 September, 2008 by glenscriv | Edit
Anyone
else sick of the whole ‘Christ in the OT’ debate? Man… some people just
go on and on.
I’m
announcing a new hobby horse - Christ in the NT. In fact I think
this is where you really see a preacher’s Christ-centredness. We’ve
had the rule drummed into us by now - Thou shalt ‘bridge to Christ’ at
the end of an Old Testament sermon. But does this ‘bridge’ come
from convictions regarding Jesus the Word or is it simply a
preaching convention that we slavishly follow?
Well you
can probably guess at the answer by listening to a preacher’s New
Testament sermons. Now I fail at this all the time but I think the
challenge for all of us is this: Is Jesus the Hero of the sermon on the
mount or Mark 13 or the gifts passages or James? And the issue for
this mini-series - what about the parables?
Last
time I looked at Matthew 13:44-46. Who the man? Jesus the
Man. He seeks and finds us and in His joy He purchases us.
All praise to Him. As Piper likes to say ‘the Giver gets the
glory’ and in this parable (contra Piper’s own interpretation of
it) Jesus’ glory is on show as He gives up all for His
treasured possession - the church.
In this
post we’ll look briefly at the Good Samaritan: Luke
10:25-37
First
notice this: the teacher of the law asks ‘Who is my neighbour?’
This prompts the story. At the end of the story Jesus asks Who was
neighbour to the guy left for dead? (v36). So now, think
about this: With whom is Jesus asking us to identify? The
priest? Levite? Samaritan? No. Not first of all. First
of all we are asked to see ourselves as the man left for dead. And
from his perspective we are to assess who is a good neighbour.
Here’s the first clue - we’re meant to put ourselves in the
shoes of the fallen man.
Why do I
say ‘fallen’? Well the man’s fallenness is triply-underlined in
v30. He “goes down“ from Jerusalem (this earthly
counterpart of the heavenly Zion). He’s heading towards the
outskirts of the land (Jericho) which is due east of this mountain
sanctuary (echoes of Eden). This would involve a physical descent
of about a thousand metres in the space of just 23 miles. If that
wasn’t bad enough, the man “falls” among robbers. He’s stripped,
plagued (literally that’s the greek word), abandoned and half-dead.
That’s the man’s precidament and Jesus wants us to see it as our
predicament. So what hope do we have?
The priest?
Nope. The Levite? No chance. What about a ‘certain
Samaritan’ (mirroring the ‘certain man’ of v30)? He’s not at all
like the religious. In fact the one who ‘comes to where the man is’
happens to be someone who’d equally have been shunned by the
priest and Levite!
Yet this
Samaritan ‘had compassion’ (v33). In the New Testament this verb,
which could be translated ’he was moved in his bowels with pity’, is
used only of Jesus. (Matt. 9:36; 14:14; 15:32; 18:27; 20:34; Mk. 1:41;
6:34; 8:2; 9:22; Lk. 7:13; 10:33; 15:20) In every narrative passage Jesus
is the subject of the verb and the three parables in which it’s used are
the merciful King of Matthew 18 (v27), here and the father in the Two
Sons (Lk 15:20). More about that in the next post.
Well this
Good Samaritan comes across the man left for dead and for
emphasis we are twice told about him ‘coming’ to the man (v33 and
34). The Outsider identifies with the spurned and wretched.
Now
remember whose shoes we are in as Jesus tells this story. We are
meant to imagine ourselves as this brutalized man. Now read v34:
He went to him and
bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his
own beast, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he
took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. `Look after
him,’ he said, `and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra
expense you may have.’
Now I
don’t have to tell you what these things mean. You’ve got blueletterbible - you can do
your own biblical theology of oil, wine, etc. But remember you’re
meant to be putting yourself in the position of this fallen man, left for
dead, unaided by religion, healed by an extraordinary stranger and
awaiting his return. Are you there? Have you felt those
depths and appreciated those heights? Well then, now:
You go and do likewise.
(v37)
Don’t first
conjure up the character of the good samaritan. First be the
fallen man. First experience the healing of this Beautiful
Stranger. Then go and do likewise.
Or… leave
Jesus out of it. Spin it as a morality tale and end with “Who was
that masked man? No matter - just go and do likewise.”
See how
important ‘Jesus in the NT’ is?
.
Posted in ethics, gospel,
hermeneutics, parables | Tagged ethics, gospel, hermeneutics, parables | 13
Comments »
28 September, 2008 by glenscriv | Edit
Not sure
it ever happened (happy to be contradicted), but what a good illustration
as heard in this morning’s sermon by Neil Green (my vicar).
Abraham
Lincoln was once at a slave auction. A young girl was being sold,
naked but for her shackles. Lincoln was so distressed by the
thought of her being bought by any of the rabble present that he bid for
her himself. As the price went up and up, Lincoln continued to
outbid the rest and eventually he paid top dollar for her. The girl
was brought to Abe, petrified of what a man who paid so much would want
with her. Lincoln took off his great black cloak and clothed
her saying ‘You’re free.’
The girl
couldn’t believe it. She said ‘You mean I can go?’
He said
‘Yes’.
‘I can
marry anyone I want?’
‘Yes.’
‘I can
work anywhere I like?’
‘Yes’
‘I can go
anywhere I please?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then,’
she said, ‘I will go with you.’
.
Posted in freedom, sermons
| Tagged freedom, illustrations, sermons | 3 Comments »
27 September, 2008 by glenscriv | Edit
So what
are these parables about?
Matthew
13:44-46: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field,
which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all
that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a
merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great
value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”
I
remember John Piper taking quite a long time (in Desiring God??)
to argue that the man is us, the treasure is Christ and so we should
joyfully give up all for Him. In fact I often read or hear Piper
returning to these parables and this interpretation of them. I
think it’s at least emblematic of three Piper distinctives:
1)
treasuring Christ
2) joy as
the atmosphere and motivation of our wholehearted service.
3) the
gospel is not about Christ making much of us but freeing us to make much
of Him
Now I
have learnt as much from John Piper as I have from any contemporary
Christian leader and I thank God for him. Funnily enough though, it
was his own arguments concerning the parables that convinced me of the
other interpretation. That is, the seeking man is Christ (just
as Christ is the man throughout Matt 13), the found treasure is the
church (eg Ex 19:6) and the world is the field (just as the world is
the field throughout Matt 13). Perhaps what tipped the balance most
for me was the thought: if these were two parables about us finding
Christ (rather than the other way around) they would be the only parables
of their kind. Elsewhere it is always we who are lost and Christ
who seeks and saves.
If this
second interpretation is correct then it’s about Christ giving all to buy
the world so as to possess His church. He is the great Seeker and
He is the great Treasurer. He is the great Rejoicer and He is the
great Sacrificer of all.
What
happens when we go with the Piper interpretation? We become the
great seekers, we are the ones who treasure, we are the great rejoicers
and the ones who sacrifice all. The weight is thrown back onto our
shoulders. Now to encourage us in this gargantuan work, this
sustaining power is held out to us: We are told to prize and value and
esteem and treasure and glory in the inestimable value of Christ.
In that joy will we find the strength to give all for the possession of
Christ. But we are assured that this is the way it has to be
because the gospel is definitely not about Christ making much of
us. It’s about us being freed to make much of Him. In fact I
think it’s this conviction (grounded in Piper’s views of the
self-centred divine glory) that underlies his interpretation of the parables.
What do we
say to this?
Well,
first, just read the parables in context. Shouldn’t we assume
that the main Actor of the chapter remains the same?
Second,
ask questions about the gospel. Isn’t Christ meant to be the active
one? Aren’t we the ones acted upon? The lost who are
found? And don’t we love because He first loved us?
Third,
ask questions about the nature of God’s glory. In the radical
othercentredness of the triune life, isn’t God’s eternal glory precisely
in making much of the Other? Isn’t it entirely fitting that this
immanent love spills over in the economy of grace such that God is indeed
glorified in His self-emptying exaltation of His people? When we
understand the trinitarian glory of God, don’t we then realize just how
glorifying it is for Christ to make much of us? (And even to do so
when people don’t respond!)
Fourth,
ask questions about the nature of the Christian life. Sustaining
joy is a wonderful thing, but doesn’t it flow from receiving Christ’s
electing, sacrificial love first? Doesn’t it overburden the
Christian to put them in the role of the electing, sacrificing seeker?
Just some
questions. Let me state again, I’m a Piper fan. I’ve listened
to hundreds of talks, read loads of his books. Once I even
described myself as ‘a big fan’ to his face (bowel shudderingly
embarrassing!).
It wasn’t
even my intention to write about Piper. This post was meant to be
the introduction to a mini-series on Christ in the parables. Well,
it is that too. This is part one. Christ is the man. He
is the merchant.
There.
Point made.
Up next,
the Good Samaritan, then the Two Sons.
.
Posted in hermeneutics, parables, pastoral theology, trinity
| Tagged hermeneutics,
parables, pastoral theology,
trinity | 11 Comments »
26 September, 2008 by glenscriv | Edit
| 
