Multicultural Ministry Matters

I wasn't expecting it. I was talking about our sure hope of seeing God face-to-face. Rom 5:1-11. It came from one of the - ah - more mature members of our congregation who - ah - might be seeing God before most of the rest of us. I said "being reconciled to God means when he sees us, he'll call us by name, throw his arms around us and welcome us home!" That's when we heard it. Loud and clear. "Hallelujah!" She didn't stand up & wave her hands around or anything. Just said it. Loud, but not yelling. Dignified, but with conviction. Jonathan Edwards said "true religion consists in holy affections." I obviously stirred a holy affection in that dear old saint. She obviously was genuinely looking forward to seeing her Lord. It's moments like these that make preaching worthwhile.

Found these rib-ticklers at the Merrie Theologian, http://www.theologynetwork.org/ . In the 1562 edition of the Geneva Bible, Matthew 5:9 read ‘Blessed are the placemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.’ A 1716 edition of the King James Bible has Jesus say ‘sin on more’ in John 5:14, rather than ‘sin no more’. A 1795 edition had Jesus say in Mark 7:27 ‘Let the children first be killed’ instead of ‘Let the children first be filled’. Probably the worst mistakes, however, were made in the 1631 and 1653 ‘Wicked Bibles’. In the 1653 edition, 1 Corinthians 6:9 read ‘the unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom of God’ and the 1631 edition had the seventh commandment as ‘Thou shalt commit adultery.’ The bibles were ordered to be burned, and the sloppy (one hopes it was just sloppiness) printer fined a then-hefty £300.

Yesterday I discovered the published version of Gerald Bray’s 1998 John Wenham lecture, and had a riotously good time reading it. Gerald Bray is one of the few theologians I know who can write with hilarity and profundity at the same time. Here’s some gems from Gerald Bray, “Rescuing Theology From the Theologians,” Themelios 24.2 (February 1999): 48-57. Page 49: The first qualification for any true theologian is a personal encounter with the living God, which can only come as his Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, points us to the righteousness which has been won for us by Christ’s atoning sacrifice, and assures us that the prince of this world has been judged by the Father’s acceptance of that atonement. Once we are clear about that, we can go on to the rest, but only once we are clear, because the rest is really no more than an elaboration and application to different areas of life of the great themes of the gospel. Page 52: The subtlety, and therefore the great danger, of heresy is no...

A lot of you may know about this already... but if you don't, you should... The Gospel coalition ( http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/ ) is a network of American pastors who are trying to maintain (reclaim?) a truly Evangelical approach to ministry. That is, ministry that really is driven first of all by the Gospel - driven by Christ, his death and resurrection; pattered according to the Bible; not fundamentally driven by numbers, being "contemporary" or "relevant", or anything else. Some of the Council members I recognised were Don Carson, Mark Dever and John Piper (Reformed Baptists), Ligon Duncan and Tim Keller (Presbyterians), C. J. Mahaney (of Sovereign Grace ministries) and Paul Zahl (Evangelical Anglican). What I found most interesting was their "theological vision for ministry" - part of their foundational documents ( http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/foundational_documents.pdf ). It's a statement of how their convictions shape their appro...

Natural theology is the knowledge of God that can be arrived at through general revelation, independent of the Bible and the person and work of Jesus Christ. Classical medieval theology, following Aquinas, had a high view of human reason. It therefore accorded natural theology an independent status, co-ordinate with Scripture. But this does not take sufficient account of the noetic effects of sin. All people do have knowledge of God; but this ‘natural’ knowledge does not bring them into relationship with him, but only condemns them. Natural philosophy and natural worship, independent of Biblical revelation, inevitable rejects God in favour of idols. This is the burden of Rom 1:18-3:20. Paul's Areopagus speech in Acts 17 on the one hand affirms that the Athenians do know something of God, but is quite stinging in his criticism of their idolatry. God never intended creation to be sufficient for a relational knowledge of him; that has always required a covenantal word. Even in the Gar...

If I may blow my own trumpet for a minute... I've got an article in the latest CASE magazine. "Gospel, Community and the Cyberchurch of God". Pages 20-21 in CASE Newsletter no. 15. In it, I examine the recent phenomenon of Cyberchurches - Christian communities on-line. CASE is the Centre for Apologetic Scholarship and Education. It's the apologetics arm of New College, the Evangelical residential college at the University of New South Wales. It provides training courses, and the CASE magazine, in order to help Christians engage the non-Christian in an intelligent, informed way; and also challenge non-Christians with a coherent world-view in dialogue with their own. I highly recommend becoming a CASE associate - which subscribes you to the mag, and gets discounted (sometimes free) enrolment into CASE courses. See http://www.case.edu.au/ .

Thanks everyone for praying for that Hebrew exam I had on Tuesday - and for asking how it went. I think I'll pass. I nailed the three paradigms (for those who understand - Qal perfect, Qal imperfect, and Piel perfect. And all strong verbs. Piece of cake). I got most of the vocabulary - although there were a couple of words I blanked out at. And I got out enough of the rest of the paper that I think I'll get more than 50%. So it should be okay.

To be a minister in the Presbyterian church, you have to be able to read the Old Testament in its original language - Hebrew - as well as the New Testament in Greek. Languages have always been my weak point. I bluffed - er, I mean struggled - my way through four years of Greek at Moore College. But Hebrew's my worst subject. I've failed it twice (which is why it's my nemesis...). This is the third time I've enrolled in it. I feel much better than the previous two attempts - but I'm still not enjoying it. I have a Hebrew exam tomorrow (Tues 17 June). Would appreciate your prayers. Right - back to the study.

Tomorrow (Sat) my church, St David's, is conducting an outreach day. It's part of our HEAT week ( H eightened E vangelistic A ctivity T ime). We're going knocking on doors in Homebush & trying to chat with people about Jesus. Our opening line is: "we were wondering what we have to do to live forever. Do you have any thoughts?" We're using that line because the passage for Sunday's sermon is Luke 18, the rich young ruler, who asks Jesus "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Door knocking isn't usually much fun. Or productive. Makes me think of another kinds of knocking: Why do we bother? Because we want them to hear about the one who died that we could live. Surely it's worthwhile putting our egos at risk for that...? Rev 3:20: "I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me".

Last weekend, a final-year ministry student asked me what it's like in "real" ministry. Well, what he actually asked was: "what have you discovered over the last few months that you wish they'd told you at college?" My answer didn't exactly fit his question - because I don't think a college can teach you about these things - but here they are anyway: 1. Take your day off. It's vital for everything that follows. 2. Love your wife. She really is your first ministry. 3. Love your children. They're your next ministries. When you retire, you may look back and feel like everything you've done has been a failure - your church / congregation / ministry was always struggling, never got into three-digit attendance, never got written up in a ministry magazine - but if your wife is happy, and your kids are believers, and are living normal, balanced, healthy lives, I reckon that's a "win". 4. Love your congregation. You're their shep...

Speaking of beautiful translations (see previous post, The ABCs of Bible Translation ) - has anyone used the Holman Christian Standard Bible much? It's the third option in the TNIV-ESV debate. I've used it a bit & so far, really like it. What do you think?

Becoming an official Presbyterian candidate made me think of when I became an Australian citizen. I became an Australian citizen in Sept 1991. I'd been living here since 20 Dec 1988. But it took that long to go through the procedures required to get citizenship status. Once I had citizenship, I had access to all the privileges that came with it - passport, social security etc. It's been a bit like that with Presbyterian candidacy. I've been attending a Presbyterian church since Feb 2007. I've been a member of the Presbyterian denomination since March 2007. But it's taken this long to go through the process of becoming a Candidate. And accessing all the benefits that come with it. The biggest benefit is I get the respect and authority of "officially" belonging to this particular denomination, with its history, culture & way of doing things - a history, culture & way of doing things that, as you all know, I really like and identify with. I now "...

A couple of days ago, in our pastoral care group at the Presy college, we did an exercises to see how much under stress we're under, and how close to burnout we are. My results: although I was supposedly under a lot of stress, due to significant lifestyle changes - new place to live; new work routine; new study routine - I'm not under any danger of burnout. In fact, I realised that so far this year, I've been healthier than any other time since leaving Uni in 1999 (constant minor sickness indicates significant stress; overall good health indicates absence of stress). The reasons are probably: 1. Living in Croydon, with the family from St David's church, is a healthier environment than Newtown. Newtown was musty & dusty; Croydon is clean & cozy. And that makes me happy. 2. Although on paper, I have a lot of responsibilities at St David's church, people's expectations of me are reasonable, and they appreciate what I do. So I feel supported & appreciate...

I've just returned from meeting of Sydney Presbytery, at which I was accepted as an ordination candidate. At last, after all these years of floating around, I have a clear "path" for ministry. Praise God. As a candidate, I get formal access the Presbyterian ministry network - local, statewide, national & international - for ministry opportunities, and general fellowship and fraternisation . And, as you all no doubt are aware, the whole point of me wanting to be Presbyterian rather than any other denomination is that I fit the Presbyterian way of doing things. So - I'm now officially part of the Presbyterian world - let's explore it...

Last Friday, Robyn - one of the missionaries our church supports - visited our youth group. She's been translating the new testament into Ramoaina, an indigenous language of one of the people groups in Duke of York Island, PNG. She spoke about the ABCs of a good Bible translation. It has to be: A ccurate - say what the Bible actually says; B eautiful - sound like how people in the target language would say it; it can't sound like a foreigner saying it; C lear - it has to communicate clearly. The "beautiful" category intrigued me. The Bible must be heard not only in the local language, but with a local accent. There's no point if it's in the local language but speaks with a foreign accent. That still sounds alien. It needs to sound local. And that's foreign missionaries need local assistance. So they know what it really "sounds" like. 'Coz God ain't a foreigner - he's a local.

I'm encouraging people at St David's church to organise a social where they introduce their non-Christian friends to their Christian friends (ie: us!). And that's not a big intense evangelistic thing, with a speaker and an altar call & response cards & all that. It's social, friendly - a dinner, a movie, bushwalk, whatever. "Come meet some of my friends from church. You'll like them". At the event, we Christians don't have to be all serious & intense & evangelistic. We just have to be normal - just be ourselves. Many of the guests will be from church, so it's perfectly natural to talk about church & Jesus & "spiritual" matters. Even if Christians are in the minority, Christ is the centre of our lives, so it should be normal to talk about him in a social setting. At least as normal as talking about the other significant relationships in our lives - like our spouse, children, or work. If we're not comfortable tal...