Ministry Trainee Apprentice @ Holy Trinity

The advert for our ministry trainee post at Holy Trinity is now on the 9:38 website.

If you love the Lord Jesus, want to test and develop your gifts for bible teaching and ministry in a multi-cultural urban area, we’d be delighted to hear from you.

The top 10 on Transforming Grace

This time last year I posted the top 10 posts of the year.  Like this time last year I’ll take a break from blogging. I’m going back to the CPAS youth summer camp at Edgehill school in Devon then having a rest. I’ve now blogged for about a year and a half, here’s what people have been reading in the past year (the figure in brackets is last year’s rank):

1.  (8)  13 Christian personality types – by far the most popular post on this blog, it looks at what happens when Christians lack one of faith, love, obedience or knowledge of Christ.

2. (2) 8 biblical personality types – the same place as last year, the development of biblical EQ seems popular

3. (5)  8 ways to attain a pure heart – I love Thomas Watson’s advice on developing a pure heart.

4.  (1)  The covenant of grace, not works, between God and Adam – knocked off the top spot, the garden covenant remains a hot topic.

5.  (4)  The doctrine of adoption – still high on the list, it is a blessing to know what it means to be a child of God through faith in Christ.

6.  (7)  Challenging the homogenous church growth principle – This continues to draw attention.  A homogenous church in a multi-cultural community is probably not cross-centred.

7. (-) Cross-Centered 7-week “lent” course. Here I posted my study group notes on C.J. Mahaney’s really helpful book.

8. (-) Eternal torment and torture, annihilation or death-row and execution? This post considers what God meant when he said “you shall surely die” in the Garden of Eden.

9. (-) 9 habits of highly effective churches.  The main points from George Barna’s helpful book on how to make church effective but not necessarily “successful”.

10. (-) The watchtower and blood transfusions.  I’m glad if this post is of any help to a Jehovah’s Witness who wants to think about the Jerusalem Council and what it means for us today.

And my favourite this year?  Christ the Prophet, High Priest and King.

Have a happy holiday.

Robert Haldane on objective faith

I love this quote from Robert Haldane (1764-1842) as it turns believers inside out. As I said yesterday, the neonomian has one eye on the cross and the other eye on self as he mixes faith and works as the basis of his assurance. Here Haldane writes in his commentary on Romans that the believer’s gaze must always be on Christ alone:

To that righteousness is the eye of the believer ever to be directed; on that righteousness must he rest; on that righteousness must he live; on that righteousness must he die; in that righteousness must he appear before the judgement-seat; in that righteousness must he stand for ever in the presence of a righteous God.

Romans 3:21-22 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

When faith is weakened by the law

There is a constant battle in the soul of every Christian believer between the lure of neonomian faith (the mixture of law and gospel) and pure faith in Christ for salvation, justification, acceptance and the love of God. Here Ebenezer Erskine beautifully highlights the nature of that battle:

The more that the legality of the heart is overcome, the stronger a man’s faith. Every man is naturally inclined to the law as a covenant; and while there is any thing of nature in the believer, he will find a strong bias in his heart, turning him into the works of the law, as a ground of acceptance before God. And oh, how easily and insensibly do our spirits glide into this old covenant-channel, imagining that God accepts of us the better, on the score of our inherent holiness, or external acts of obedience! Now, I say, the more that this bias of the heart is conquered, the stronger is our faith. A vigorous and lively faith, it overlooks all graces, duties, attainments, and experiences, as grounds of acceptance; and founds its confidence allenarly [solely] upon the blood of Jesus, the merit and mediation of the great high priest over the house of God, by virtue of the covenant of grace, and free promise of acceptance in him. The strong believer casts out the bond-woman, and her seed of legal works and doings, owning himself only a son of the free-woman, an heir of the promise of grace and glory, through Christ and his imputed righteousness. Upon this rock he drops his anchor, upon this foundation he builds his hope, disclaiming his goodness as a thing that extendeth not to the Lord, accounting his own righteousness, whether legal or evangelical, before or after conversion, as loss and dung, that lie may be found in Christ, having the righteousness which is through the faith of Christ.

Gone has come back

On Wednesday morning I woke early after dreaming that Gone was back at the door. At 10:00am heavy footsteps outside my study made my heart leap and then the bell rang. It was my church warden.

This morning, as I sat in my living room praying, I heard a clunk and a cough outside. I thought, “it can’t be Gone.” It was. He didn’t even check in to Betel, because he says he met people from his past who scared him.

We need to put our contingency plan into action. The problem is, we don’t have one. At least the vicar’s wife returns later today. If nothing else, normal service will resume on our blogs.

Gone has gone

The vicar’s wife is on blog leave this week. If you’ve been following the story of Gone, please pray for him. He is in Betel where we pray God will transform him from one degree of glory into another.

Does faith save us?

In what way does faith save us? Here Ebenezer Erskine gives the best summary I have found of saving faith in the object and person of Christ. Faith as obedience to the law but not work. Faith as living in me but not self generated:

Does faith save us ? Yes it does: but then it turns the glory of salvation over upon the author thereof, saying, “Our God is the God of salvation.” Does the just man live by faith? Yes: but then faith steps in with “It is not I:” Gal. ii.20 . “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Does faith justify ? Yes, it dose: but then its language is, “Surely in the Lord have I righteousness, in him will I be justified, and in him alone will I glory.” Can faith do everything ? Yes, but it is by leaning on the arm of omnipotency. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Thus, I say, faith arrogates [attributes to another] and claims nothing to itself, but gives unto the Lord the glory due unto his name. And so zealous is faith to have God alone exalted, particularly the freedom of his grace in the justification and salvation of a sinner, that, though believing be the highest and greatest act of obedience that a person can yield unto the moral law, yet that boasting may be for ever excluded, it excludes and shuts out itself from the rank and category of works, or acts of obedience, Rom. iv. 5. “To him that worketh not, but believeth in him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith (objectively considered) is counted for righteousness.” It is the peculiar excellency of faith, that it sinks its own act, that its blessed object, CHRIST, may be “all in all; it rejoices in Christ Jesus, and triumphs always in him.” And though, as I was saying, it be the poorest, lowest, and most beggarly of all the other graces; yet it is a grace that prides itself in the Lord Jesus, and by his blood enters with boldness into the holiest.

The BBC: too narrow and negative

I blogged last week on the danger of a gospel denying fault line in the Anglican Communion and am sad to see that the BBC is exacerbating the fault line by its narrow and negative reporting of the matter.

Headlines on radio 4 like and the BBC website are focused only on the moral debate over homosexuality. This quote is from the BBC website on Sunday:

A traditionalist Anglican group has warned the issue of homosexuality could split the Church of England the way the Episcopal Church has done in the US.

The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans will be launched in the UK on Monday.

The group has campaigned against active homosexuality in the Anglican Communion after being established last year.

If the liberal chattering classes who run the BBC were replaced with Christ-centred hacks, perhaps the headline would read:

A mainstream Anglican group has been formed to bring glory and honour to Jesus Christ as Prophet, Priest and King in a denomination which is seen by many as losing sight of true and living faith in Him.

The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans will be launched in the UK on Monday.

The group has promoted real knowledge of Christ, faith in Christ, love of Christ and obedience to Christ in the Anglican Communion after being established last year.

Bring on the day.

From the vicarage July 2009

From the vicarage published in the church magazine in July 2009 (this month as I write).

It’s hard to escape the news this week that Jordon and Pete Andre have split up. Apparently Pete has had enough of the way Jordan treats him. When they first met, Pete was confident and funny and today he’s angry and hurt.

Jordan is reported in the News of the World as saying

“I’m in complete hell, this is a living nightmare for me. I could never imagine life without Pete.”

But despite her fury, Jordan admitted how SHE had started to drive a wedge between the couple.

“I always thought I treated him well but maybe I did take him for granted and could be cruel sometimes. But I never thought he had it in him to do this.”

Pete Andre’s sense of confidence and fun seems to have melted away because of Jordan’s sharp-edged tongue and cruelty. It is sad that their marriage only lasted four years.

There is a pattern in many of today’s relationships which begin when confident, happy, fun men attract powerful, beautiful women. Once in a relationship, the power of the woman quickly saps the man’s confidence and with that confidence gone, the relationship ends.

This is what seems to have happened to Madonna and Guy Ritchie. His “Lock, Stock and Two smoking barrels” confidence was sapped by Madonna’s power.

In our politically correct world where women rightly expect to be treated as equals in the work place, there is lots of discussion about men and women having exchangeable roles and even attributes. In this brave new world women can be macho and men can be gentle. So women can run companies and men can stay at home with the kids. Those sorts of situations exist and work well where the character and skills of the couple work that way.

There is another area which needs to be discussed but which has either been misunderstood or swept under the carpet. In relationships who holds the power? What are we to do with power in relationships? It’s fine for women to be the boss in the workplace, but when women boss men around in the home, men become emasculated. They stop acting like men and lose their nerve and spine. That’s partly what happened to Pete Andre and Guy Ritchie.

What’s the alternative? A return to the days when the man was the boss in the house? No, never, ever. Male dominance is not the answer either. Men should never exert power over women in relationships.

In Ephesians chapter 5 in the bible, God gives us a beautiful solution to the issue of power in marriage. Men must not rule like tyrants but be like Christ. Men are to die to themselves for the sake of their wife and family. Men should ask “what must I do to love, protect, care for, nurture and enjoy my family?” We men must be willing to give things up that we enjoy for the sake of our wives. In return for this self-sacrificing love, women should love their husbands. Husband and wife must discuss her needs and when he has listened, discussed, thought and prayed things through, she should gladly let the man continue to take responsibility by shaping the spiritual life and direction of the family.

In the film the Titanic, Kate Winslet plays Rose, whose fiancé Cal is a selfish, domineering man. Jack, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, is the opposite. He wants what’s best for Rose. With the exception of his sexual weakness, he is a brave and selfless man.

Cal only wants to save himself. He bribes an officer to let him and Rose into a lifeboat. When she returns to the ship to find Jack, Cal chases them trying to kill Jack. When Cal realises that he’s lost Rose, he finally succeeds in saving himself by pretending to carry an abandoned child onto the lifeboat.

Meanwhile, Jack and Rose find themselves on board a sinking ship with no lifeboats. They slide into the water and cling a piece of wood which can only support one of them. Jack hoists Rose onto the plank and slowly dies of hypothermia, slipping quietly away beneath the waves. Rose survives and is rescued.

Every day, men can be like Jack in little ways for the sake of their wives. Every day, women can love their men for dying for them. This is God’s way of stopping men from bossing their wives around like Cal. It is also the way God gives us of stopping women ripping the spine out of their men.

With love

Neil

From the vicarage June 2009

Here’s the third of four, “From the vicarage” first published in the church magazine in June 2009.

We each have a story and I have been reminded of mine as I read Psalm 107 this week. After leaving home aged 17, I spent six or seven years in a downward spiral. I kept messing up relationships with people I cared about. The more I messed things up, the angrier I got, and the angrier I got, the more I messed things up. Old friends, girlfriends, work colleagues, it didn’t matter who it was, I always seemed to blow it by doing something stupid, spiteful or deliberately unkind. On the outside I remained positive and upbeat but on the inside I began to not like myself. At the end of this road my Christian grandmother took her own life, and I found myself crying out to God by the river where her body was found. Here was me, a sworn atheist, someone who hated the idea of God, crying “God, if you are there, will you save me?”

In Psalm 107, three sorts of people cry out the same prayer.

1.The spiritually lost. Wandering without a home.

Psalm 107:4-5 Some wandered in desert wastelands, finding no way to a city where they could settle. 5 They were hungry and thirsty, and their lives ebbed away.

2.People who are prisoners of their own rebellion.

Psalm 107:10-11 Some sat in darkness and the deepest gloom, prisoners suffering in iron chains, 11 for they had rebelled against the words of God and despised the counsel of the Most High.

3.Fools, who do stupid things and so hurt themselves and others

Psalm 107:17-18 Some became fools through their rebellious ways and suffered affliction because of their iniquities. 18 They loathed all food and drew near the gates of death.

All these people cry out the same cry to God and the Lord always acts.

Psalm 107:13 Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress.

The spiritually lost find a home with God. The prisoners chains fall off. Fools are healed by God’s word. And so they all respond the same way to God.

Psalm 107:15 Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men.

From my cry for help, God heard and answered my prayer. From that point on, things began to change. I met loads of great Christians, who were confident, joyful, honest, humble, willing to say sorry when they messed things up. They were everything I wanted to be and knew that I wasn’t. I started meeting with a church where the bible was taught by a Spirit filled 83 year old preacher. Very soon, I thanked God for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men. The most wonderful deed of all was when I came to believe in my heart that Jesus Christ died on the cross for all my stupidity, spite and hurt. He gave me a sure and certain hope of eternal life with God by rising victorious from the grave.

I am not, and never will be the perfect vicar. I will make all sorts of stupid mistakes. And I will continue to cry our to God in my trouble and know that he has saved me. When trouble comes your way, because of things you’ve done. If you feel lost, separated from God, wandering without a home. If sin ties you down like heavy chains, then is the time cry out to God in your trouble, he has promised to save you. All you need to do is be open to answers.

Neil,