China - Again!

Just a little update on our China trip:

I found a video of a car driving along the road at Tiger Leaping Gorge. If you want to know why I was so scared, check this out - particularly the last 20 seconds, which is more indicative of what most of the trip was like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnPOVWkBySU

The Old Testament: The New Black

I've been reflecting on the major things that I've learned at college this semester, and the thing that has most struck me has been the richness and depth that knowledge of the Old Testament gives to reading the New.

Now, we didn't even study OT this semester. Bibilical Theology was good, but since I've read the text before and done a lot of BT thinking, there wasn't a whole lot that was new. So counter-intuitively, the subjects that really brought out the value of the OT was Doctrine and New Testament. John Woodhouse lectured us in Doctrine, and since he came from an OT scholarly background, he really demonstrated how to use the OT, in a biblical theological way, to build a systematic theology. I can get really sick of the proof-texting of systematic theologies, but John's was great.

We had Bill Salier for Mark, and I was really struck by the OT context within which Jesus entered the world. You simply cannot understand Mark without understanding how it relates to the OT. You can't understand Jesus without knowing how he springs out of the OT.

So to all of you who don't like reading your Old Testament: stick with it! Get some resources to help you at understanding it. Ask your ministers to help you. It's an amazing 'book' on its own terms, but even more incredible when you really start to see how all its promises truly do find their 'yes' in Jesus.

What warfare??

Recently, I was looking at Ephesians 6, particularly thinking about spiritual warfare (10-17). In Ephesians, there is a motif of these evil, spiritual forces. 1:20 talks about Christ being raised and seated above 'all rule and authority and power and dominion'. 2:2 speaks of sinners, being dead in sin, following 'the prince of the power of the air'. 4:27 warns us not to give the devil an opportunity in our anger. Until in 6:12, we're told that 'we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places'.

Some people argue that these aren't real 'spiritual' forces, but are worldly power structures, like governments etc. The context of these powers is often Christ's victory over these powers ' in the heavens', so its hard to maintain that they are simply 'mythologised' worldly powers.

However, it’s interesting to think on how to apply this to myself and others. How is it that these spiritual powers manifest themselves such that we must be strengthened against them and put on the armour of God?

It can be easy to think that the devil’s schemes are going to be like something from a horror movie, or buffy the vampire slayer. When we do this, we see that this stuff isn’t real, and so we think that the devil doesn’t work against us.

However, when it comes to the armour, it consists of truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, faith, salvation and the sword of the spirit – God’s word. These are all things that seem to guard against the taking away of the blessings we have already received in Christ: the word of truth of the gospel (1:13), reconciliation with God and our fellow man (2:14-17), salvation (1:13), righteousness, faith in Christ (2:8).

John Stott identifies that the shield of faith is useful against the devil accusing us and causing false guilt. He also mentions doubt, disobedience, rebellion, lust, malice or fear. I reckon that this is spot on, and that it should apply to all of the armour. Doubt and disobedience seem to be at the heart of all Christian struggles. It seems then that these are the work of the devil. It seems that he is most at work when we doubt the truth of the gospel, when we see sin in our lives and doubt our relationship with God, when we at enmity with God and others, we doubt God’s faithfulness and goodness, or we doubt our salvation. And, all of these doubts seem to lead to disobedience.

So it seems that the ‘everyday’ sin in our lives isn’t so ‘everyday’ after all. It’s the schemes of the Devil. Isn’t it a great comfort then that we don’t fight this battle alone, but with a sword from God himself: the power of God’s spirit, working through his mighty word, to reassure us of all that we have in Christ.

How to be beautiful and vigorous!

Do you want to be beautiful and vigorous? I do! Beautiful people are more liked and more successful in life, and surely have a higher self-esteem. And who doesn't want to be vigorous? to defy the aging process, to be strong, agile, alert, ready for whatever life will throw at you. Sounds great!

As many if you know, I exercise fairly regularly. Most days of the week actually. And not just some lameo Pilates on a balance ball - it's fairly intense. It definitely helps to keep me vigorous. And for some, it may actually make you more beautiful. But there are two problems: it takes a lot of effort to keep it up; and it simply doesn't last. Two weeks in China,without my regular exercise and I took a major hit in vigor!

So how can you have beauty and vigor that really last?

As part of my New Testament subject at Moore, we've been studying Ephesians. Alongside our lectures, we've been asked to read John Stott's commentary. Last week, I read a section on Ephesians 4:20-24

that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Stott points out that the verbs for putting off the old and putting on the new, being infinitives, are hanging off the verb ‘you … were taught’ in v21. Thus they had been taught that becoming a Christian involves a radical change: conversion (the human side of the coin), and re-creation (the divine side); involving putting off the ‘old man’ and putting on the ‘new man’. The point is that these aren’t fresh commands, but rather a reminder that this has been done, when we become a Christian.

He also describes our former and new natures. He talks about the old being corrupt, degenerating, on its way to destruction, and the new as being recreated in the image of God; the old was dominated by lusts; the new has been recreated in righteousness and holiness; the old was deceitful, the new is true. What we are in Christ is in complete opposition to what we were in Adam.

While some of us like to be kicked around the head and told to be better people, this is different to that. This is encouraging, because I don’t think this is meant to make us feel bad for not living up to the ‘new man’. It’s supposed to encourage us, helping us to see who we really are. And that’s a huge motivation to godliness (as he then goes on to spur people towards in v25ff).

Stott quotes Charles Hodge on this:
‘… as the former was personified as an old man, decrepit, deformed, and tending to corruption, so the latter is personified as a new man, fresh, beautiful and vigorous, like God…’

In my life, I’m always so vividly aware of the old man – decrepit, deformed, corrupt. Sometimes it drives me to despair, to join with Rom 7:34:

‘Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?’

But the great thing about Romans 7, as with the ‘old man’ in Ephesians is that this is pre-conversion. This old, wretched man has been replaced, by God’s regenerating spirit (Rom 8) with a new man. In light of my current experience, the knowledge and the hope of the new man, fresh, beautiful and vigorous is an unspeakable blessing. To know that God has made me this new man, and will bring this to completion gives me real hope. Beautiful: not how we understand beauty, but God’s beauty – faithful, humble, compassionate. Vigorous: not how we understand athletic vigour, but God’s vigour, full of real, contagious life, a new creation, in God’s perfect image.

So, how can you be beautiful and vigorous? Trust in Christ! It's only in him that you can have true beauty and vigour.

Music in Church (Part 4)

Border Security, or, ‘How To Prevent Pentecostal Theology From Being Smuggled In With Pentecostal Music’

One of the concerns in the evanglical music world is the way pentecostal music is penetrating and influencing our churches and the way we do music. This concern stems from the problem that there is a lot that we disagree about with pentecostals, and we do not want their theology along with their music. In particular, we are rightly concerned about our congregations believing that their emotional response involved with good music and singing is an indication of God’s presence or their closeness with God.

In addition to the obvious ‘first line of defence’ of looking at and rejecting songs with lyrics which convey these theological messages, there has also been a reaction against methods and stylistic elements of pentecostal music in the fear that adopting them will smuggle in pentecostal theology unnoticed. This is understandable and an important factor to consider, but it raises the question: at what point does pentecostal-style singing in church become a danger? When does the style and practice lead us into a pentecostal understanding of relating with God through music?

Trying to answer the this question is notoriously difficult. Is it when the music is above a certain volume? Is it when the lights are low and the drums are in the middle of the stage? What if the drums are a little to the side and the singers have their eyes closed? There are too many variables to be able to precisely answer this question. As such, I believe that trying to answer this question definitively has resulted in unnecessary legalism, division, and unjust labelling of certain churches as ‘Charismatic’, simply because of their congregational singing practices. In addition, even traditional music practices could be used to convey a sense of God’s immediate presence, so the issue is not only linked to contemporay pentecostal musical styles. What is needed is more understanding and acceptance of different music practices throughout our Christian networks.

While there is a place for wisdom in thinking through whether our services and our singing are going to be interpreted as though God has mystically manifested his presence, instead of focusing so much on trying to identify the practices of pentecostal music that we need to avoid, our focus needs to be on correct teaching. Correct teaching of about the purposes of music in church, as well as teaching on how we are to interpret our experiences of music in church.

Now, in our teaching about music in church, it is common to tell people that singing is for the edification of Christians as they sing together in songs filled with the word of God and as a response to God in thankfulness and gratitude (Col 3:16, Eph 5:19). While this is absolutely correct, it is not necessarily the experience of many people at church. Many people do, in fact, feel closer to God after particularly rousing singing – as if they have been brought into the presence of God. If we simply tell them that singing is for encouraging each other and expressing thankfulness to God, they will wonder why their pentecostal friends are allowed to get close to God when they sing while they are not. This leads to people to either go in search for a church which will affirm their feelings of being close to God or to feel guilty for their ‘wrong’ emotional response and thus stifle it.Teaching people the purpose of singing in church is only half the answer. In addition, we need to teach people to correctly interpret their experience of singing.

In order for people to correctly interpret their experience of singing, they firstly need to realise that through Christ, our mediator, we are as close to God as we possibly can be – there is nothing that we can do to be any more or less ‘in his presence’. This does not mean that we are limited in our contact with God, instead it means that regardless of how we feel, even at our lowest points, we are completely right with God and in communion with him by his Spirit, through Christ. Secondly, they need to realise that this means that when we sing in church, we may be emotionally stirred through the truth of the words we are singing or through the music itself, but that does not mean that we are any closer to God. Thirdly, the emotional response involved is a very positive experience, since it is a part of rightly responding to God’s gracious acts and it encourages us and spurs us on in faith, love, and good deeds – helping to achieve the very purposes of singing in church.

These elements must be taught if we are to avoid the pitfalls of pentecostal theology. They should be taught in our preaching, in the way we talk about church and music, in our service leading and in our song leading.

Of course, we can teach through our practice - particularly the way we do church. If we present church in such a way that communicates that we are somehow brought closer to God through our music, then that presents a problem. However, countering this problem could be as simple as making sure that we explain what we are doing to ensure that people do not come to their own, false conclusions.

An example of this happening already is the Lord’s Supper. In the Roman Catholic church, the Lord’s Supper is understood in a way which is very theologically different to a reformed, evangelical view. Its religious nature lends itself very easily to misunderstandings and wrong theology of atonement. Therefore every time we carry out the Lord’s Supper in our local church the minister who is running it is very careful to explain what is going on. He explains that is it not something that makes us right with God, but rather a way of remembering the death of the Lord Jesus for our sin. A simple explanation goes a long way.

Answering the question of how we can effectively teach our congregations to correctly interpret their experience of music in church is more important, and will more robustly address the problem than trying to definitively answer questions of musical style or method. When people come out of a church service feeling ‘closer to God’, the problem is not necessarily the way we did church, but what we have taught (or failed to teach) about Jesus being the solid foundation for our relationship with God. The solution to the problem is not to do church in a way which stiff, cerebral and emotionless, but to teach people that their emotions are a right response to the fact that we are as close to God as we can be, through the reconciling work of the Lord Jesus.

Music in Church (Part 3)

Key Strategies of Music in Church

Based on the theological principles and practical observations of music in church, these are some key strategies to how we do music in church. These are by no means comprehensive, nor should they be taken as hard and fast rules. They are simply some guidelines I have come up with from reflecting and reading other’s work.

We Must Run Our Music Ministry Wisely

In order to be faithful to the bible and wisely engage with the current Christian music culture, we must first teach people (not just our musicians) about the role of music in our church meetings, and we must make sure that we are doing music as faithfully and as best we can. In order to do this, we need to recruit the right people to have responsibility over music ministry: people who are godly, able to think theologically, and musically gifted; and we need to invest time and money into music, to ensure that we are singing good songs, with good quality music, given our resources.

We Must Choose Songs Wisely

In general, we need to be singing songs where: God and the Gospel is the main theme; biblical attitudes and truth are reflected; the lyrics are clear - any unclear or difficult lyrics should be explained; the lyrics are memorable; the music and the lyrics are complementary; the song is truth-driven rather than emotion-driven; The music and lyrics are balanced in terms of emotiveness; the melody is easy to sing and easy to learn. This will require careful thought by song selectors as they work in conjunction with the minister to select songs both for the regular diet of the church and on a Sunday-by-Sunday basis.

We Must Perform Music Wisely

When playing songs at church, we need to take the following into consideration: The performance style of the song should match the lyrics; Volume should be conducive to helping people to sing - this means not too loud, which is just annoying for many people, and not too soft, which can stifle excitement; the music should be of as good quality as possible to encourage enthusiastic singing – when the emotions are engaged with the truth we’re singing about, it’s not only appropriate, but it helps us to learn and be edified. Also, we do not want to alienate people who would otherwise be hearing faithful bible teaching but are not because they choose churches based on the quality of their ‘worship’ rather than teaching; Song leaders should be truthfully and emotionally engaged themselves, to encourage the rest of the congregation.

Music in Church (Part 2)

Practical Observations of Music in Church

We can’t simply jump straight from biblical principles to music ministry. We need to also think about the situation in which we are, so that we can best apply our theological principles. Here are some observations I’ve made.

• We can tend to become complacent with the words of songs which we have sung many times over.

• In conservative evangelical circles, we can generally tend to not show much emotion when singing. However, this may not necessarily reflect inner feelings.

• It seems that people are not clear about all the reasons why we sing in church, due to a lack of teaching in this area.

• Songs teach! This is often underestimated, but people remember song words a lot more easily than they remember a scripture passage on its own.

• Whether we like it or not, there are people who do choose churches based on the quality of their ‘worship’ rather than teaching.

This is just the beginning. Does anyone have any others?