can calvinists and arminians church together?

Well, the short answer is that in the church to which I belong both have for many years.   Some in the church, if labelled, would be ‘moderate Calvinists’ and others ‘moderate Arminians’.  I suspect both are ‘moderate’ because the influence of the other has protected from extremes.  This does not mean there are no discussions  and exploring of differences, there are, sometimes ‘ardently’.  But we have never lost respect for each other and  differences have never surfaced in any aggravated way publicly.  We disagree, agreeably. Why is this?

I think a number of factors contribute to the Spirit enabling unity in the face of potentially divisive issues of faith.

recognising that unity of the faith is a goal and not a given in any church

A church is a body of believers who are united in the Spirit by belief in a common gospel.  Paul calls all believers to be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Eph 4:1).  Unity of life in the Spirit is the basis of all fellowship among God’s people.  It is the starting point.  Believers may be immature and muddle-headed about many things but through belief of the gospel they are one in Christ.  From this starting point a goal lies ahead – what Paul calls, ‘the unity of the faith’ (Eph 4:13).  This is an unity we are to ‘maintain’ (as with the Spirit) but a unity we should seek to ‘attain’ or ‘reach’ (4:13); the unity of life in the Spirit from which we start has as its goal a maturing in the ‘unity of the faith’ and as Paul says,

Eph 4:13-16 (ESV)
… of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. 

In other words, church allows for growth in understanding, wisdom and holiness.  It doesn’t insist we display this maturity right away.  It doesn’t demand we all think the same from the word go.  It doesn’t require signing up to a full blown theology as a basis for membership.  It allows that it may take many years, in fact, a lifetime, for the kind of maturing that is its goal.  One reason I am uncomfortable with Confessions of Faith is that they seem to demand ‘unity of faith’ as a starting point rather than an end point; a body of divinity to which one may hope new believers eventually arrive becomes a binding force on their conscience  from the beginning.   This allows little room for growth and development.  One must accept the whole system fairly early on or be out in the cold.  Worse, inevitably a confession, every confession, any confession, even a good confession, is narrower and more circumscribed than Scripture.  Its very purpose is to remove ambiguities, delimit and proscribe.

Thus, it is difficult if not impossible for a believer whose understanding is of an Arminian bent to accept the authority of a Calvinistic confession, and vice versa, though both will happily accept the authority of Scripture.   Believers, united by the same Spirit, members of the same body, find it impossible to share church fellowship because confessions insist on beliefs in certain areas that belong at best to a mature ‘unity of faith’ and even then involve tensions.  We should, in my view, trust the Holy Spirit through the teaching of the Word to guide the church into spiritual maturity in belief and behaviour.  After all, if the Lord does not build the house, then who can?

loathing stereotypical labels

I hate labels.  Labels divide.  Labels segregate.   Labels are all too often partisan and destructive.  Their purpose is generally to vilify or glorify and rarely to enlighten.  In fact they cannot enlighten.  They are inevitably caricatures.  They take rounded people and make of them flat and wooden images.   Labels do not define people, they diminish them and distort them.  And people’s views, if guided by Scripture, do not neatly fit into pre-packaged theologies, for the truth of Scripture is inevitably bigger than our systems and labels.  Labels impose and imply a theology, and even if it is a generally good theology it is inevitably a theology that demands more sophistication than is the basis for gospel unity in the Spirit.  Labels mean a theology that leaves other believers out in the cold; they create fences not fellowship.

The more we resist taking and giving labels then the easier it will be for ‘Calvinist’ and ‘Arminian’ to live together as fellow members of the body of Christ.

displaying some theological grace

Now I am aware in our postmodern age ‘theological grace’ can be abused.  Some want certainty where the Bible is silent and uncertainty where it clearly speaks.  I do not support this.  There are many areas where we must be firm and say ‘thus says the Lord’.  I am not by any means advocating a trampoline theology that can bounce in every direction that we please.  There is a faith ‘once and for all delivered to the saints’.  Having said this we must remember the firm words of Paul,

1Cor 8:2-3 (ESV)
If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. 

We should all remember that our knowledge is limited.  And nowhere more so than before the inscrutability of God’s sovereignty working in and through the history of the world.  At the end of the day, each view must confess there are mysteries in this topic that none can answer.  This is because we are humans and not divine, men and not God.  It is our privilege to go as far as God reveals and no further.  We must leave some issues with God.  We must, in the final analysis, allow God to be God and simply trust where understanding is withheld (Roms 9:19-22; Job 38-42).  Humility about our understanding, especially here, is all too appropriate.

We should remember too that while knowledge is important, it is not all-important.  In fact, knowledge is not the truest criterion of Christian maturity of relationship with God, love is.  Knowledge that does not act in love simply ‘puffs up’ and is conceited.  Love is never conceited.  The knowledge that is mingled with love will not insist on its way.  It will not expect others to understand things exactly as we do, to cross our particular ‘t’s and dot our ‘i’s.  Love will bear with slow apprehension, even the misapprehension, of others.  It will welcome those that Christ has welcomed but not for the sake of an argument.  It will not despise the other who holds some of the recognised tensions of Scripture differently.  It will not judge, but leave all judgement to the Lord.  It will not seek to quarrel and debate over matters that are not clear-cut and not of the essence of the gospel (Roms 14).  It will not force its will and opinion but wait upon the Lord.  Truth exists to promote love not destroy it and where truth is used to bash believers we must ask whether what we are pressing is truth and certainly whether it is ‘spoken in love’.

speaking with grace and seasoned with salt

Much aggro can be avoided just by a little grace in how we say things.  Too many who wave a flag for one or other of these positions (Calvinist or Arminian) insist in force feeding them on others.  They use confrontationary and extreme terms to make their point.  They push debate to philosophical and logical conclusions that stretch Scripture and sometimes go beyond it.  They leave their opponent (that brother for whom Christ died) with no wriggle room for individual conscience.  We must distinguish between persuasion and coercion, between verbal appeal and verbal brow-beating.  We should work at presenting our views in ways that are honest but as palatable as possible.  We should judge how able our audience is to ‘hear’ and ‘receive’ what we wish to say.  We should aim to give as little offence as possible without compromising truth. Belligerent and bellicose Arminians and Calvinists do not defend truth they betray it.

listening with love

Do we listen with love and forbearance?  Do we make allowances for infelicities of language?  Do we make allowances for different presuppositions?  When my Calvinist/Arminian brother expresses a prayer in a way that doesn’t quite gel with my theology do I make allowances and simply mentally transpose where necessary?  Do I focus on the 95% that we share in common and refuse to get out of perspective the 5%  on which we differ?   Christian love and forbearance can cover a multitude of sins.  The reality is, when we do listen respectfully to each other and avoid unnecessary abrasion then we even begin to move towards each other.  Love and respect win over those who differ from us, often much more effectively than the force of argument.

recognising scripture’s differing perspectives

A great deal of the heat is taken out of the controversy when we recognise that Scripture works with two perspectives that need to be held in tandem and tension.  Some NT writers focus on God and his grace while others focus on man and his faith.  Now these are never presented in opposition.  Nor is one ever stressed to the exclusion of the other, however, in any one book, one position is normally principal and the other subordinate.  For example, in a books like Romans and Ephesians,  God’s grace and initiative in salvation is primary while faith though important is secondary.  In other books, such as Hebrews and the Catholic epistles,  the imperative of faith is primary and the grace of God is subordinate.

The issue is not the relative importance of each.  Nor is the issue (as some suggest) that some NT writers have Calvinistic leanings and others Arminian. What is written, is written by the Spirit of God and is unified truth.  It has dimensions and perspectives but no contradictions.  No, the differing perspective  or emphasis is due not to different theologies but to different pastoral concerns.  The pastoral purpose determines the theological perspective.  If, as in Romans, the pastoral purpose is the proclamation that God’s promised salvation has broken into the world uniting Jew and gentile in Christ then the emphasis will be on God’s initiative in grace.  Faith will be there and vital, but it will be subordinate to God’s activity in grace.  If, however, the pastoral issue is a potential failure in faith then the stress will be on the human need to persevere in faith drawing from all the grace of God in the gospel to do so.  In each case, to repeat, the pastoral problem determines the theological perspective.

It is always thus in Scripture.  Where the issue is the trustworthiness of God then God and his grace is to the fore.  Where the issue is the responsibility of man then man and his faith is centre stage.  The object determines the subject.

Now, I am not naive enough to think that recognising these differing perspectives eliminates every difficulty and brings immediate harmony between Calvinist and Arminian, far from it.  However, I do think it helps to ease many of the tensions.  Indeed, it seems to me, that if we recognise these two perspectives and give them full credit then many of the more contentious issues disappear.  The differences that remain belong more to the realms of systems and logic where we ought in humility and grace bear with each other.

In my view, if we work with these dual perspectives and live with the above principles of Christian love and forbearing we shall discover that our opponents (Calvinist or Arminian) miraculously morph from a demon with red glowing horns into my brother or sister in Christ, believers like us who by grace are being transformed into the image of Christ, fellow pilgrims to and fellow citizens of the Kingdom of  God.

Wouldn’t it be marvellous if this Christmas the ‘peace among men’ which the angels announced knew part of its realization in Calvinist and Arminian brothers and sisters in Christ sharing together the joy of church fellowship celebrating the birth of their common Saviour and Lord.

rabbi sacks and the soul of europe

Cranmer writes:

Every so often a sermon or lecture is delivered which merits being published in its entirety. In truth, the Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks delivers them all too frequently, but the pithy brevity of the blog is hardly the optimum medium for dissemination. This one, on the question of ‘Has Europe Lost its Soul?’ was delivered today at The Pontifical Gregorian University. It is replete with wisdom and insight (for those who don’t have the time to read it, His Grace highlights some salient points). Lord Sacks’ grasp of history, theology, philosophy, politics and economics is profound.

‘Let me begin with a striking passage from Niall Ferguson’s recent book, Civilisation. In it he tells of how the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was given the task of discovering how the West, having lagged behind China for centuries, eventually overtook it and established itself in a position of world pre-eminence. At first, said the scholar, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we concluded it was because you had the best political system. Then we realised it was your economic system. “But in the past 20 years, we have realised that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West has been so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don’t have any doubt about this.”

The Chinese scholar was right.’

Regarding capitalism he comments.

‘Instead of seeing the system as Adam Smith did, as a means of directing self- interest to the common good, it can become a means of empowering self-interest to the detriment of the common good. Instead of the market being framed by moral principles, it comes to substitute for moral principle. If you can buy it, negotiate it, earn it and afford it, then you are entitled to it – as the advertisers say – because you’re worth it. The market ceases to be merely a system and becomes an ideology in its own right.

The market gives us choices; so morality itself becomes just a set of choices in which right or wrong have no meaning beyond the satisfaction or frustration of desire.’

The whole summary can be found here.  His analysis of the malaise  is excellent; his solution is naturally somewhat lacking since being of Jewish faith he stumbles over the stumbling stone.   For Sacks, the ‘soul of Europe’ lies in recovering creation rather than pursuing redemption.  He concludes,

‘Stabilising the Euro is one thing, healing the culture that surrounds it is another. A world in which material values are everything and spiritual values nothing is neither a stable state nor a good society. The time has come for us to recover the Judeo-Christian ethic of human dignity in the image of God. ‘

For him, salvation lies in an ethic, in rediscovering our dignity as made in the image of God; it is the ancient  Judaistic doctrine of works that caused them to stumble over the stumbling stone.  He does not grasp that this image is hopelessly defaced and can only be renewed in Jesus Messiah.  He is the  true image of God made in true righteousness and holiness (unlike Adam) and only by submitting to his Lordship in redemption can we become through grace God’s sons and bearers of his image (Roms 8).  New birth in the Spirit is vital.  Sacks is a ‘teacher in Israel’ but apparently does not know these things (Jn 3).   The only healing for Europe’s ‘soul’ lies in the people of Europe embracing the gospel to the saving of their souls; they need a righteousness of God that is by faith, not of works lest any should boast.  As God’s people, we must pray that in his mercy the people of Europe will yet again hear the gospel and respond, including Jonathan Sacks.

the shadow of the cross

To identify with Jesus creates a divide between two opposing worlds.  Even before his birth this divide was signalled.  An angel came to Mary, a virgin betrothed to Joseph, and said,

Luke 1:28-33 (ESV)
“Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 

Mary’s response to the angelic announcement is submissive faith

Luke 1:38 (ESV)
“Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

She rejoices in her privilege and in faith exults that future generations will call her blessed.  How much she grasped at this point that her own generation would despise  her as a fornicator is not clear but despise her they did.  Thirty odd years later people still remembered that Jesus was born ‘of fornication’ (Jn 8:31).  Mary’s reputation was in tatters and would never really recover.  Joseph too would forever be a cuckold husband.  In a shame culture (foreign to us today) such ignominy was hard to live with, especially for godly people innocent of wrongdoing.

But such is ever the cost of the Christ.  He forces a choice between reputation on earth and reputation in heaven.  He presses upon those he calls a divide between the approval of two opposing worlds.   His call always costs this world for those who submit.  Mary’s (and Joseph’s) world was turned upside down.  The shadow of the cross was over them before the son who would die upon it was even born.  The message to all who would follow Mary’s Son by faith accepting his Messianic identity was plain – do so and the world will always look at you askance.

Mary embraced the shame and like her son and Lord despised it.  She did so because of the joy of the coming Kingdom that she saw by faith.  She was content to be of no reputation for God had exalted her  And so her soul magnifies the Lord.  She believes his promises and rejoices in his salvation.  She treats as realized what is yet to come.

Luke 1:46-55 (ESV)
And Mary said, ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​“My soul magnifies the Lord, ​​​ ​​​​​​​​and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, ​​​ ​​​​​​​​for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. ​​​​​​​For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; ​​​ ​​​​​​​​for he who is mighty has done great things for me, ​​​​​​​and holy is his name. ​​​ ​​​​​​​​And his mercy is for those who fear him ​​​​​​​from generation to generation. ​​​ ​​​​​​​​He has shown strength with his arm; ​​​​​​​he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; ​​​ ​​​​​​​​he has brought down the mighty from their thrones ​​​​​​​and exalted those of humble estate; ​​​ ​​​​​​​​he has filled the hungry with good things, ​​​​​​​and the rich he has sent away empty. ​​​ ​​​​​​​​He has helped his servant Israel, ​​​​​​​in remembrance of his mercy, ​​​ ​​​​​​​​as he spoke to our fathers, ​​​​​​​to Abraham and to his offspring forever.” ​​​

In the face of a cold disapproving world this is ever the way to stand firm and triumph – the assertions of faith.  This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith (1 Jn 5:4).  Faith gives assurance of things hoped for and  evidence of things not seen (Hebs 11:1).  In the words of Peter,

2Pet 1:3-4 (ESV)
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

studying hermeneutics?

If you are studying principles of biblical interpretation (hermeneutics) you will find a wealth of material here and here.

tradition and traditionalism

Tradition is the living faith of the dead, traditionalism is the dead faith of the living

                                                                                                                                          Jaroslav Pelikan

the psalms – experiences of ot faith realized and resolved in christ

The Psalms are the expression of faith in Israel.  They reveal the complexity of thoughts and feelings that were the response of faith to the experience of life  in the old covenant.  Moreover, they gave individual Israelites the language and thought-forms to express and interpret their own experience according to faith.  If they express the faith of the godly in Israel then it goes without saying that they express too in many ways the faith experience of the true Israel, the Messiah; the Psalms are in large measure the words of Christ, his prayers and petitions.

In fact, I would argue, it is only in Christ that the anxieties, perplexities and apparent enigmas of faith voiced in the Psalms find their resolution.  Without their fulfilment in Christ the Psalms remain a kaleidoscope of confused and apparently contradictory faith.  Thus, in the words of the theologians, the Psalms are ultimately Christotelic – they find their goal and resolution in Christ.  Christ not only experiences the Psalms but he explains them; the disconnects of faith in the Psalms are integrated in him.  Little wonder the NT again and again cites or alludes to the Psalms as it tells and explains the story of Jesus; the Psalms expound Christ and Christ expounds the Psalms.

The Psalter opens with the ‘blessed man’ who meditates day and night in the law of the Lord and prospers in all he does.  But such a man did not exist – until Messiah.  He is the ‘blessed man’.  He is the fully obedient man, the submissive one, who ‘delights to do your will O God’ (Ps 40); the man who has God’s law within his heart (Ps 40:7).  He is the true man of Ps 8, the ‘son of man’  made for a little lower than angels for the suffering of death now crowned with glory and honour, the man to whom God has subjected the world to come (Hebs 2).  (Adam was never a ‘son of man’ though Israel was (Ps 80:7).  And so ‘son of man’ is Christ’s chosen title for himself, the true man and true Israel – a title of humility with overtones of glory. Dan 7:13)

And he is a ‘true man’ who truly suffers for he lives in a fallen world opposed to God.  The Psalter is full of the cries of innocent sufferers, the righteous who suffer unjustly for their covenant faithfulness and bring their complaint to God in belief, yet dismay, for, if the covenant is true, why should the righteous suffer (Ps 73) rather ‘in all they do they should prosper (Ps 1).  Yet, mystery of mysteries, even Messiah suffers.  He is hated and despised  because of his loyalty and zeal for the Lord – the reproaches of those who reproached the Lord fell on him (Ps 69).  Shame, burned deeply in his soul (Ps 44:15) and isolating loneliness was his lot in obedience withering his soul (Ps 102).  Some who are so tried find deliverance in life but many do not.  Such is the experience of the godly sufferer in Psalm 22.  Others trusted and were delivered but he was not; he lay in the dust of death.  He knows what it is to make unrequited pleas for deliverance.  He knows, as no other, the forsakenness and forlornness of soul of one whose loud existential  ‘why’ echoes around the empty and pitiless heavens.   The language of this Psalm and many others that express the suffering of the godly is the language of the Christ. In Messiah, this suffering will be fully experienced and ultimately explained. It is the language on his lips on the cross (Mk 15:34).  Yet in all this harrowing there is no failure of faith.  He knows that when tested no fault will be found (Ps 17).  Even in death, in faith he will cry ‘it is finished’ and commit his spirit to the one who judges righteously.  His faith in death awaits and anticipates resolution.  If we wish to see the interior of the one whose self-given title was ‘son of man’ and who was made in all points like his brothers and tested as they (apart from sin) then we must bathe our minds in the cries of those who suffer unjustly in the Psalms.

Even the weight of sin and its consequences expressed in many psalms find their echo in Messiah.  We must be very careful here.  He had no sin to confess but as the sin-bearer, the one who was ‘made-sin’ (2 Cor 5) he knew only to well what the crushing weight of sin entailed.  The sins that overwhelm him seem more than the hairs of his head (Ps 40; 38:4).  He knows what it is to have the wrath of God sweep over him and lie heavily upon him (Ps 88) and what it is to be cast off and rejected and know God’s full wrath against him (Ps 89).  Note well the wrath-bearing!  The green tree enters into the same judgement (burning) as the tree that is dry (Ps 52:8; Lk 23:31).  Indeed this Psalm explores another theme.  It is not simply the enigma of wrath against a righteous sufferer, it is wrath against God’s ‘anointed’ (Ps 89:38), wrath against the Messiah, the appointed King.

Christ is the Davidic King of the Psalms.  He is the one anointed to bring God’s salvation (and judgement) to the nations (Ps 110:6; 22:27; 45:17).  The ‘blessed man’ of Ps 1 is the anointed King of Ps 2.  Against him the nations plot and rage in vain (Cf Acts 4:25).  In vain, because God has set his King upon his holy hill of Zion and he will rule the nations.  Yet, in Ps 89, this same Davidic King with whom the Lord had promised a father son relationship, whom he declared would be his firstborn over all the kings of the earth, and whom he had covenanted to protect and whose foes to crush, finds the covenant apparently renounced, his crown lying in the dust, and his enemies triumphant (Ps 89).  Is God unfaithful?  This is the besetting fearful doubt with which Satan attacks the godly in Israel seeking to rob them of joy and faith; it is the test of faith.

Only in Christ is the resolution.  The innocent sufferer of Psalm 22 may lie in the dust of death, his pleas for deliverance apparently unheard.  The messianic King may seem to have been abandoned to his enemies, his crown lying in the dust.  But God’s promises will not fail.  God is faithful to his covenant.  He is righteous and will deliver his righteous servant (Ps 18:43).  His fulfilled promise will eclipse all expectation for he will prevail over death itself.  And the innocent sufferer of Ps 22 affirms this.  In the dust of death he declares in faith, ‘ I will declare your name to my brothers and in the midst of the great congregation I will praise you’.   In the words of another Psalm, God will not suffer his holy one to see corruption but bring him into the light of life (Ps 16); deliverance from death would in Messiah take on a new meaning and hope (Acts 2:27).

It would be in resurrection triumph the righteous sufferer, Messiah would ascend the throne and hear the divine vindication and recognition, ‘You are my son , whom today I have begotten’ (Ps 2).  In resurrection he would receive the call to enthronement,  ‘sit at my right hand until I make all your enemies your footstool’ (Ps 110:1).  He would be the King-Priest exalted above all his enemies (Ps 18) , entering after victory in battle into the holy place in glory (Ps 24) commencing a reign that would have no end (Ps 110) and whose dominion will stretch from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth (Ps 72).   Indeed, it is then, in ascension, the greatest mystery of all would be fully revealed, when, ‘I shall be to him a father and he shall be to me a son’ would be understood as more, so much more, than merely Yahweh’s adoption of a Davidic King, rather it would reveal a truly Divine relationship – that he who was the Davidic ”son of David’ (Ps 132) and the Adamic ‘son of man’ (Ps 8 ) was in the fullest sense possible the Divine ‘Son’; he was in truth the ‘Son of God’. Here is the full resolution of the enigma of the Psalms.  This makes sense of the words of Ps 110,  ‘the Lord said to my lord, ‘Sit at my right hand…’ (Ps 110) and Psalm 45, addressed to the Davidic King on ascension to the throne:

Ps 45:6-7 (ESV)
​​​​​​​​Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. ​​​​​​​The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness; ​​​ ​​​​​​​​you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. ​​​​​​​Therefore God, your God, has anointed you ​​​​​​​with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.

Thus, upon the resurrection of the Christ Paul writes:

Rom 1:1-6 (ESV)
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

Total resolution awaits a future day – we too see not yet all things under the feet of man – we await the day of final and complete vindication, but like all who lived by faith in the Psalms, though with a clearer eye from a higher vantage-point, we see Jesus (his very human name) made a little lower than the angels because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honour, and with him we await the day when all his enemies become the footstool of his feet.  This is the Lord’s doing and it is glorious in our eyes (Ps 118:23).

This is a simple outline of the Christotelic nature of the Psalms.  In these weeks that precede advent I hope to reflect on one or two of these Psalms that reveal to us the human thoughts and feelings of the word who became flesh.

more on same-sex marriage

Further to my previous post with links to the same-sex marriage debate I’d like to recommend one other.  My friend Jonathan McLatchie has an excellent post here.  Although general in scope, it addresses the Scottish situation.

our extravagant god

To recognize the fulfilment of his [God's] promises, you must base your expectations not on the minimal but maximal interpretation of their terms’ 

David Gooding An Unshakeable Kingdom (Pg 30)

David Gooding’s small commentary on Hebrews ‘An Unshakeable Kingdom’ is among the finest of its kind on this book.  And it is free for download here along with others he has written!

the best kind of christian leader

Christianity Today’s article, ‘Why we need more ‘Chaplains’ and fewer leaders’,  well deserves a perusal.

same-sex marriage and christian reactions

Same-sex marriage is high on the cultural agenda these days.  As Christians, it is important that our thinking on this issue is biblically informed and guided and not simply visceral.   It is also important that we are able to present our understanding as clearly as possible both to other Christians and to non-Christians.  Below are some links that will help to educate us on the issues.  I do not necessarily agree with all that they say but they present a good launching pad for reflection.  It is also worth reading the comments on some as they often present the opposing case inviting us to clearer engagement.

Let me say, it is absolutely clear to me same-sex marriage has no biblical support and for a Christian it is completely forbidden.  It is clear to me too that churches which promote or condone same-sex marriage among their members are apostate in nature and should be avoided.  Bible teachers who so teach should be disciplined by the church as false teachers.  The harder question to answer for me is how far Christians should oppose same-sex marriage being made legal by society.

The bigger question here of course is the role that God expects of his people in society.  Or, to frame this question in contemporary jargon – what is the mission of the church?  Some questions in the mix include: is the church called to be a moral policeman in society; is the church mission to ‘redeem culture’; if we have an obligation to oppose society’s evils then where do we start and where do we stop; where do we find this moral imperative upon the church to attempt to change culture in Scripture?

On the other side many will ask, when faced with injustice and the ability to do something about it, should Christians pass by on the other side?

See, here,  here,  here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.