Archive of February 2010
We’ve been where for ten thousand years?
Dan Hames writes a new final verse for Amazing Grace. Next time I’m leading music and we do this song, we’re singing this.
When Jesus Christ returns at last,
All sin and death shall cease.
And face to face, I shall possess
Eternal joy and peace.
Update (8th March): We did this yesterday morning at our church family meeting. Beforehand, I had a couple of scathing comments: “The original verses don’t even imply what Dan says they do!” Afterwards: “Okay, it’s quite a good verse.”
PDF of new introduction to Let the Nations Be Glad
John Piper has written a third edition of his book on the theology of mission, with an expanded introduction about the prosperity gospel:
[I]f a prosperity preacher asks me about all the promises of wealth for faithful people in the Old Testament, my response is: Read your New Testament carefully and see if you see the same emphasis. You won’t find it. And the reason is that things have dramatically changed.
The difference between the mission of “come and see” Israel (let the nations come in and see God’s glory, like the Queen of Sheba) and “go and tell” Christians (go out into the nations to proclaim God’s glory) was very interesting to read about – though I seem to recall reading a critique of this view once. It’s also been helpful in thinking about promises of material blessings (see the above quote, but see the PDF for more).
Either sin is with you, lying on your shoulders, or it is lying on Christ, the Lamb of God. Now if it is lying on your back, you are lost; but if it is resting on Christ, you are free, and you will be saved. Now choose what you want.
Why I’m giving nothing up for Lent
Dan Hames puts into words what I’ve failed to articulate every time Lent comes round and I tell people again that I’m not giving up anything:
I’ve never given up anything for Lent in my whole life. Call it a deep and long-held tradition. Here’s why.
I am already a big enough legalist as it is. I don’t need it suggested to me that I might be able to deal with my sin by my own discipline, hard work, and spiritual focus. Unfortunately I already think that enough! I don’t need 40 days to prove to myself that my efforts at self-justification, self-cleansing, and self-control are beyond useless. The gospel has already shown me that.
Great article.
Two Talent Living
Sallie writes on the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30):
[T]here are a lot of people running around trying to be faithful with five talents when God is really only interested in them being faithful with two. So rather than giving 100% to the two talents God has entrusted to them, they are giving far less than 100% (as well as the other three things God really doesn’t want them to be doing in the first place).
We live in a culture that doesn’t think five talents are nearly enough and two are a laughable joke. We are pressured to maximize everything. Stretch ourselves to the limit. Give 150%. Well, no one can give 150% and I don’t believe this is a biblical attitude.
Via Laurie Elliot, who comments that it “should be required reading for every missionary – no, EVERY Christian!” Worth thinking about.
The gospel and ageing
Great stuff from Lionel Windsor on our society’s attitude to ageing, and what the gospel has to say:
We start using a word or phrase, for example, ‘old man’, ‘old woman’. After a while, we decide that this phrase is really a little derogatory, and so we change to another, more neutral phrase, such as ‘senior citizen’. But after a while, ‘senior citizen’ sounds condescending and slightly offensive. So we try another, more neutral, word—like ‘elderly’. But the same thing happens: after we use the word ‘elderly’ for a while, it starts to sound a bit insulting. So we try ‘aged’. Then ‘ageing’. And so on. The reason this keeps happening is that our underlying concept of ageing itself is negative. It doesn’t matter what word we choose to express it; that word will start to take on the negative connotations that we associate with the underlying concept.