N. T. Wright: Is He the Most Dangerous Theologian of Our Time?

by John H. Armstrong

From the first moment I heard the name of N. T. Wright, about twenty years ago I think, I was told to avoid him like the plague. Why? He was a dangerous man with a theology that would undermine the entire Protestant Reformation. Dutifully I avoided him because those I respected told me to do so. I limited my reading of Tom Wright to a few articles and to only one book about him (not by him). I was told that he embraced a position called "The New Perspective on Paul" (NPP). This position was a damaging (some say, quite literally, a damning) stance on Paul's corpus of New Testament material because it directly attacked the most important truths of the Reformation. Thankfully a very good friend, who had taken the time to begin to read Tom Wright for himself, challenged me bluntly and forcefully to my face. In effect he told me to keep my mouth shut about Tom Wright until I had really bothered to read him for myself. In the mid-1990s I began to read Tom Wright and have appreciated his work profoundly ever since.

Shortly after I began to study Wright's work I decided to conduct an interview (a friend did it for our journal) with Bishop Wright. (He is the Anglican Bishop of Durham today.) We published this interview in our quarterly journal. Later on we did an entire issue of our journal on the theology of N. T. Wright. Time and again I heard stories of people saying that John Armstrong had given up the gospel and embraced the NPP. (Oddly, I heard all of this second-hand and in books and articles after the fact.) In almost every case the people who made these statements didn't seem to realize that Wright actually did not promote the NPP at all. He is admittedly appreciative of certain aspects of the NPP and openly writes of which parts he agrees with and why. But it made no difference to his critics. A label was found and a great scholar, who was and still is doing some remarkable biblical work, was deemed dangerous. The only problem with all of this hype was that it all only made Wright more interesting to a horde of younger readers, some inquiring pastors who would still read beyond what they were told to read, and a lot of us who just wanted to know what the hullabaloo was really all about. The end result is that Tom Wright is now one of the most widely read biblical theologians of our time.

I remember the first time I heard Tom Wright preach. I thought to myself, "If this man doesn't preach Christ and the gospel then who does?" He warmly commended the grace of God and the sufficiency of Christ alone to save those who believed the good news. He spoke with spiritual fervor and human warmth. I knew heresy when I hear it and see it and this did not seem like heresy to me. I was not alone in this response. A growing number of people made this same discovery by meeting and listening to Wright and over time they too found Wright compelling in so many ways.

Some years ago, before John Piper decided to write his book against Tom Wright's teaching on justification, The Future of Justification: A Response to N. T. Wright, several friends joined me for an evening of discussion with John about Paul's teaching on the nature of saving faith. It was a spirited and revealing dialogue. We clearly disagreed about some aspects of faith and the doctrine of imputation but parted peacefully. I had no idea, at least at that time, that John would eventually devote an entire book to this subject, seeking to show why Tom Wright's views compromised the gospel at several serious points. Wright then answered John Piper in his 2009 book, Justification: God's Plan and Paul's Vision.

I have longed argued that the vast majority of ordinary folks, and many pastors must also be included here, criticize Tom Wright without paying careful attention to what he has actually written or spoken. I often begin a conversation about Wright with one simple question: "What books of Tom Wright's have you read in whole and what did you learn? Tell me what he actually says about such and such and tell me what did you object to and (very specifically) why?" The silence is often staggering. One critic, according to a source who knows this author personally and informed me of this fact recently, has read one small book by Tom Wright, What St. Paul Really Said. Based upon his reading of this little popular primer (with its one offensive chapter about imputation and 2 Corinthians 5:21) this man has written a rather large book that can very easily be construed as one of the more anti-Tom Wright books available to ordinary readers. (There are some excellent scholars who do disagree with Wright in a serious and engaging way and have done a wonderful job of expressing disagreement in a rigorous and proper academic way!) So hearing Wright critiqued in a context where he would personally interact with critics has always been a personal hope of mine. This is precisely what happened at the annual Wheaton College Theology conference on April 16-17. I was pleased to attend the entire event and enjoyed it immensely. I was not surprised, however, that I could not find a serious critic of Wright's in the entire crowd as I mingled and engaged scores of people one-on-one. (I am sure there had to be a few in a crowd of 1,100 plus registrants! ) The serious academic critics who disagree with Wright will tell you why. Some of this came out at the Wheaton Conference as you can see for yourself. He doesn't pretend to have everything figured out and admits he is still thinking through the implications of his own paradigm.

For those who are I remind you the same is true of great theologians of the past like Augustine, Luther, Calvin, etc. Scholars speak, for example, of the early-Luther, the middle-Luther, and the late-Luther. Why will we give him a pass and if a living teacher like Tom Wright admits he is growing this is a sign that he is dangerous? Like I tell friends, fall in love with the work of a theologian who is dead and things will be tidier and a great deal safer for you.

This theology conference was filled with hordes of ordinary people, local church pastors and bible professors who have read Tom and wanted to hear him speak. Like me they wanted to hear various academics respond to his work in a gracious, critical and helpful way. You can be the judge of all of this for yourself since the entire conference is now available on video at Wheaton College. I hope you will take the time to watch and listen. I think you will find Tom Wright to be one of the truly great Christian thinkers of our time. And I also think you will be impressed by his gracious, humble and winsome manner throughout. If you are going to call this man dangerous then make absolutely sure that you know why before you repeat such a warning. If you are wrong then you may well be keeping yourself, and a lot of others, from the very theological truths that need recovery in our time so that we will discover the unity in the church that Jesus and Paul worked and prayed for in their own ministries.

Personally, I think Bishop Tom Wright is very dangerous. I think he is dangerous precisely because he winsomely and powerfully challenges some esteemed (and I think incorrect) ideas that need to be challenged by a fresh and faithful biblical theology. He seeks a theology that focuses upon the Jesus who is revealed to us in the New Testament. He wants a theology that lines up with the central emphasis of the Apostle Paul upon our unity in Christ in the church. (He refers to this as covenantal inclusion!) Two presentations by Wright were the very best in this conference if you do not have time to watch them all. First, watch the short chapel address that he gave the Wheaton student body on Ephesians. Second, watch his Saturday night presentation on the theology of Paul. I was moved deeply by both messages and gladly commend them to you. Meanwhile, be forewarned. Tom Wright may well be a dangerous theologian in your life. I believe he is so dangerous that his work will very likely change your thinking in ways that call for repentance and real faith. He will make you see the Jesus of the Bible and long for the unity of the Spirit that Paul labored for throughout his entire ministry. I have grown to love Christ more by reading and listening to this highly esteemed teacher of the gospel of Christ. I believe this is a danger that we can afford to take on board when the church is in desperate need of a new biblical reformation.

Is Gallipoli/ANZAC Day a christian celebration?

Gallipoli or Calvary from The Work Of The People on Vimeo.

Will the true Jesus please stand up?

Intro

“The great servant of God”. I’ve heard that said so many times, I don’t even remember which was the first.

There are some ‘servants’ that travel first class, eat in the finest restaurants, sleep in the best hotels, and gathered around the finest people. Why? Because they think that being servants of God, they deserve the best at all times, at all places, at all costs.

In this passage, we see Jesus doing exactly the opposite. He didn’t ride a horse as conquerors did, and still do (if you remember Napoleon’s painting), rather, he comes in a colt, whic is a sign of peace, cf. Zach. 9:9. Jesus “triumphal” entry to Jerusalem, follows from the recent parable, in which the people were waiting for the kingdom of God to appear at once, cf. Lk. 19:11. But the way the people were expecting the unfolding of the kingdom, just as in the parable, was not God’s way of working in the world.

We face a similar dilemma today. As the “great servants” of God, we may create our own image of Jesus to suit our needs and desires. In this passage Jesus is correcting the Jewish expectation of what a messiah should be. Jesus also in this passage, is correcting the attitude we, as his disciples, should have towards him. Even more, there are many assumptions as to who God is, what the Christian life is supposed to be, and who Jesus is. Jesus breaks all the assumptions that the Jews had, that the world has, and that we may have.

Jesus is ruler of all creation. 28-34.

Bethphage and Bethany. They are Two miles east of Jerusalem. It is interesting that Jesus is coming from The Mount of Olives, where the messiah is said to make his appearance, Cf. Zach. 14:4, and from where Jesus ascended and promised to come back, cf. Acts 1:11. Jesus, through this act, is claiming to be who the Scriptures say about him, he is the Messiah.

The colt refers back to Zac. 9:9, but may also refer to I Kings 1:32-40, where Salomon is placed on a mule and is proclaimed king. There’s a play of words in the Greek in vs. 33 and 34. The words ‘owner’ is kurioi, plural for lords, but the disciples answer that the LORD needs. Jesus is the Lord of all creation!!!

Jesus does not come, therefore, as a conquering messiah, to destroy the Romans. This is what the Jews expected. Jesus came to show us that their, and our real slavery is to sin, John 8:31-37. Still, they claimed to be free, and did not listen to Jesus.

We find ourselves in a similar situation. We expect Jesus to be the one who supplies us with every desire that our heart comes up with. James tells us that we ask with wrong motives and for our own pleasures, James 4:1-3. We think we are so good, that we deserve all good things that come up in the culture, society, among our friends, etc. We must renew our minds by the power of the Spirit, cf. Rom. 12:1-2, if we are to confirm God’s will for our life. Suffering is not usually because we lack faith, rather, because it’s a trial sent by God to purify our faith, James 1:12.

But the world has the same type of assumptions. They ask, “How can a good God let bad things happen to good people?” My answer to them is that no one is good but Jesus, everybody else, is as Michael Jackson sings, “Bad”. Rom. 2:9-20. Have you noticed how we never blame ourselves for bad things, but always God?? People usually think so highly of themselves, but they think that they can do a better job than God. This reminds me of another being who thought the same thing, Satan, cf. Eze. 28:6-19.

If we have trusted in Jesus that he is our Lord and Saviour, we must accept him as the Lord of all, of every aspect of our lives. No matter what may happen to us, we will never be forsaken by Jesus, and this is not an assumption, it’s a fact, cf. Rom. 8:37-39.

People’s praise is not always what it seems. 35-40.

The disciples threw their cloaks on the colt, while the people threw theirs on the road. This was done in ancient Israel, cf. II Kings 9:13. Psalm 118:26 was used in the Passover to commemorate the liberation of Israel from their oppressors. The Jews were being oppressed by the Romans, so they saw Jesus as their liberators.

The “stones will cry out”, may be referring to Isaiah 55:12, where the inanimate creation will praise God.

The Jews based their own hope of how a Messiah would be on Scripture. They had a proper reason to praise Jesus, for he was the real Messiah, but they had the wrong motives. Their motives were for self gratification, not for real love towards Jesus, since 7 days after, they were asking for him to be crucify, cf. Jn. 19:14-15. Their assumptions about Jesus apparently proved wrong, so it was easy for them to dispose of him.

We are also reminded how we can be at church, praising God, singing to Jesus, yet, our hearts may be far away from meaning it, Isa. 29:13. It is very easy to praise God when all things go our way, but we when things go wrong, we are so fast in blaming him. We don’t see that in Job, cf. 2:10, or Jesus at the garden of Gethsemane, where he knew what was awaiting for him, yet, he prayed, “not my will, but yours be done”, cf. Lk. 22:42.

The way the world gives praise to Jesus is by saying that he was a great man, a wise man, but no more. A relationship with him is not necessary, or anything to do with him in any case. People like to imagine Jesus, yet, when confronted with the biblical Jesus, they despise him, because he doesn’t meet his expectations. I was talking to a family member recently, who claims to be a Christian, and her definition to the human condition was that we are tempted by the devil, and therefore, he is to blame, for our sin, and Jesus came to die to deliver us from the devil’s grip. It is some true to what she said, cf. Colossians 1:13, the real source of our problem is within our selves, cf. Matt. 15:19; Mark 7:21. She couldn’t accept that Jesus had said such a thing, and dismissed it as my own interpretation, even though I was only reading the text!!! Some people, after knowing what the real Jesus said, stop praising him, and even come to despise him, thinking that their version of Jesus is a better and improved one from the one found in Scripture.

Reversal. Jesus weeps for Jerusalem. 41-44.

Jesus knew better, his coming would not bring the liberation the people wanted, rather, calamity for their lack of understanding. Jesus is not the first prophet to weep for Jerusalem, cf. Jer. 13:17; Lam. 1:1-4; Mic. 1:8; Isa. 22:4.

The whole assumption that the Messiah would bring them victory was dashed by Jesus. No wonder one of the accusations brought against them was that he was going to destroy the temple, Matt. 26:61. The Jews did not recognised God’s coming to them; therefore, they missed Jesus’ real intent all together. They thought their view of Scripture was a lot better than God’s.

Both some Christians and unbelievers think that because they are related to a church, or have some spiritual knowledge, they are right with God. Unbelievers have a problem, because they see themselves as spiritual, yet, the Bible say to us that without Jesus, we are dead in our sins and trespasses, cf. Ephe. 2:1; Col. 2:13. Some who believe, have the problem that they may claim to know and love Jesus, yet, they say they despise his bride, the church!!!! Cf. Heb. 10:25. Only by being confronted by Scripture, and the real Jesus, they, and we, can fully know who God is, and what he wants from us.

Conclusion.

Is your view of Jesus shaped by the aspirations of the world of by what he says about himself??

N. T. Wright and the Media

N. T. Wright picks on some points that I have already touched in some conversations with friends and fellow church goers.

Not against technology, but very against its possible dangers.

NT Wright on Blogging/Social Media from Bill Kinnon on Vimeo.

False Worship. The Golden Calf. Exodus 32:1-14

False Worship

How Worship that appeals to our liking may lead as stray

INTRO

You find a bag full of money. Of course you are happy. You think of all the things you can buy…. or pay. No name, no address, no way to trace the bag’s origins. You start spending the money, buying a new car, a new LCD High Definition TV, a new stereo, a new bed, etc. You still have a lot of money left, so you take the decision to put the rest of the money into the bank, so you can earn some interest, a sensible thing to do. But that’s when your apparently struck of luck turns sour. The bank sees that the money you have is counterfeit, not real, and they start enquiring as to where you got it, and what you have done with it. The police is brought in, and you have to return all the goods that you have bought, and worst of all, you become a suspect in the police investigation, since you can’t prove where you got the false money from.

This morning, we are looking at how the people of Israel, in order to have immediate self gratification, turned away from the Lord’s commands as to how to carry on with the worship of the Lord, and started to make up their own. The worst thing of all is that they deluded themselves into worshipping a statue, ‘honouring’ the Lord, but the Lord had rejected such worship in the first and second commandment. The anger of the Lord was against them, but Moses, their leader, the one they had said they didn’t know what had happened to him, interceded on their behalf and God didn’t give them their rightful punishment.

Two very different conversations

The Rejection of God’s appointed leaders, lead us to finally reject God Vss. 1-6.

Moses had been on the mountain around 40 days, and the people were getting anxious. Moses did not take a vacation from them; rather, Moses was receiving the Law to govern them from God. We can understand their desperation. They are in the desert, they need to move on, and maybe they think Moses is dead. They attribute Moses for bringing them out of Egypt, not God. (cf. vs. 7, where God says the same, but contrast it with vs. 11).

Aaron’s response to their request (vs. 2) is dismaying. Did he also think that his brother was lost? Or did he just give in to peer pressure? From verse 1, it seemed that they jump on him, and made such a request, and from past experiences, he was comprehensibly afraid of the people, cf. 15:24; 16:2; 17:1-4. Aaron’s instructions were to give the most precious metal they had, gold, in order to make an idol in the shape of a calf (picture 1). Having lived in Egypt form 430 years, it is not surprising that the people of Israel would ultimately represent their concept of God as a calf or a bull. The God Apis, in Egypt, was represented as a Bull. Baal in Canaan was also represented as a bull, and was an object of worship for Israel later on, cf. I Kings 12:28.

What we find here, it’s a total rejection of the Lord. The people proclaim the calf to be the god (dispute as to how to read it, plural or singular) who took them out of Egypt. They attribute God’s mighty works to a bull!!!!! Aaron’s runs along with this, proclaiming a festival to the Lord. The idea is that they thought that the calf represented the Lord, and therefore, deserved worship. The festival mentioned, has many links with the previous festival to the Lord in chapter 24. The main problem was that they had changed their leader, and finally, they had changed their God for a calf, and they were celebrating it, (Picture 2).

God’s anger is always superseded by his mercy

The second part of this conversation does not involve the people at all anymore, but it’s between God and Moses. The conversation at first is for the total destruction of the people of Israel due to their idolatry. God had commanded them no to cast idols in Ex. 20:4. They had proclaimed the calf to have them brought out of Egypt, which was not true according to Ex. 20:1. God, in his holiness, was correct to want to destroy the people of Israel. They had broken the commandments that he had given him, and his plan could still go on, since he would make a new people out of Moses.

Moses, far from being proud to have found such an honour, interceded on behalf of the people. He gives two reasons as to why God should not destroy the people. First. Because the Egyptians would attribute God the wrong motives for taking the people out of Egypt, vs. 12, and to fulfil the covenant to the ancestors of Israel.

The Lord relented, and heard Moses. This is not the first time that this happens, cf. Gen. 18:22-33; Amos 7:3, 6. Many explanations have been given about why God seems to change his mind. In the classical period, Christian theologians thought that God was speaking in human fashion. Calvin thought that God was testing Moses. But the best explanation that I have found is that God is not indecisive, rather, when God’s justice is tempered with mercy, and that when the two qualities clash the former yields before the later.

These things occurred as examples for us…

There is a reluctant in some circles to day as to the moral value of Scripture. The saying goes that we cannot learn anything from the lives of the characters of the Bible because they are all faulty and fall short of the perfect image of God. I beg, along with the apostle Paul, to disagree. Paul refers to this incident in I Cor. 10, and specifically vs. 7. Stephen also points to this situation in his recollection of how stiff necked the Israelites have been through out their history, Acts. 7:38.

But we also fall into the same patter of thinking and behaving as the Israelites. Our Moses, Jesus, is up in heaven interceding on our behalf, but because we don’t see him, we turn our impatience and frustration to the one we consider to be his representative for us here on earth, mainly the pastor or the leadership of the church. We sometimes find the church boring, and want to import new, and ‘innovative’ ways to praise and worship God, but at the end, we end up pleasing our selves (café church for example). Willow Creek did an internal survey, and found out that they were so engrossed in bringing seekers in, that the congregation did not grow spiritually, because they had watered down the gospel, and came up as to what is known today as “Christianity light”.

But worst of all, we may have our own golden calves hidden in our hearts. Because they look good and innocent, we may think they won’t affect our worship, just as Aaron did, (Two reverend fun pictures). What are those golden calves, can it be Money? Your House? Work? Your car? Health? Your family, including pets? Your church????

We don’t see Jesus today, but we know what he has done for us. (picture of Jesus carrying the Cross) There’s no reason to doubt that he won’t do what he has promise to do for us.

It has been said, that root of idolatry is when men think that God is not present, unless they see him physically. As with the Israelites, they needed to see something shining, beautiful to see God, but the best representation of God that is shown in the bible is the cross of Christ, (final two pictures). This is not a good sight, but it is the one that God shows his glory, and what he has done for us, saving us from our sins, and giving us eternal life.

Polyamory -- The Perfectly Plural Postmodern Condition

By Albert Mohler.

Once a sexual revolution is set loose, it inevitably runs its course through the culture. While the current flashpoints of cultural conflict are focused on same-sex marriage and gender issues, others are biding their time. As Newsweek magazine makes clear, some new flashpoints are getting restless.

Polyamory, reports Newsweek, is having a "coming-out-party." Polyamory is the current "term of art" applied to "families" or "clusters" comprised of multiple sexual partners. As Newsweek explains, this is not exactly polygamy, because marriage is not the issue. Advocates of polyamory argue that their lifestyle is not "open marriage." Indeed, they define their movement in terms of the moral principle of "ethical nonmonogamy," defined as "engaging in loving, intimate relationships with more than one person -- based upon the knowledge and consent of everyone involved."

Legal theorists and opponents of same-sex marriage routinely (and rightly) make the argument that the legalization of homosexual marriage will, inevitably, lead to the legalization of polygamy. Once marriage is redefined to allow for same-sex unions, any determination to maintain legal prohibitions against polygamy will be seen as merely arbitrary. At the same time, once strictures against adultery were eliminated in the culture and in the law, something essentially like polygamy was inevitable.

The article in Newsweek, written by Jessica Bennett, presents polyamory as a growing movement that now involves persons in the cultural mainstream. As the magazine reports: "Researchers are just beginning to study the phenomenon, but the few who do estimate that openly polyamorous families in the United States number more than half a million, with thriving contingents in nearly every major city."

The movement now claims a number of recognized books, blogs, podcasts, and even an online magazine entitled "Loving More." According to Newsweek, actress Tilda Swinton and Carla Bruni, the First Lady of France, have emerged as prominent spokespersons for nonmonogamy. As should be expected, the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University now features a "polyamory library."

Jessica Bennett suggests that the contemporary polyamory movement has roots in utopian movements of the 19th century:

The notion of multiple-partner relationships is as old as the human race itself. But polyamorists trace the foundation of their movement to the utopian Oneida commune of upstate New York, founded in 1848 by Yale theologian John Humphrey Noyes. Noyes believed in a kind of communalism he hoped would fix relations between men and women; both genders had equal voice in community governance, and every man was considered to be married to every woman. But it wasn't until the late-1960s and 1970s "free love" movement that polyamory truly came into vogue; when books like Open Marriage topped best-seller lists and groups like the North American Swingers Club began experimenting with the concept. The term "polyamory," coined in the 1990s, popped up in both the Merriam-Webster and Oxford English dictionaries in 2006.

In one sense, the polyamorous defy easy categorization. The movement includes couples who openly and with full knowledge of each other engage in sexual relationships with others. Some are involved in group sex and others experiment with bisexuality. The Newsweek article introduces readers to a new vocabulary. The most revealing word is "polyfidelitous" -- which means that the multiple partners keep sexual activity within their own self-identified cluster.

Interestingly, Bennett observes that the movement "has a decidedly feminist bent." If men can have multiple wives or female partners, then, the logic goes, women must have the same in order to achieve "gender equality." Bennett quotes Allena Gabosch, director of an organization known as the "Center for Sex Positive Culture," suggesting that polyamory sounds scary to people because "it shakes up their worldview." But, she insists, polyamory might well be "more natural than we think."

Perhaps the best way to understand this new movement is to understand it as a natural consequence of subverting marriage. We have largely normalized adultery, serialized marriage, separated marriage from reproduction and childbearing, and accepted divorce as a mechanism for liberation. Once this happens, boundary after boundary falls as sexual regulation virtually disappears among those defined as "consenting adults."

The ultimate sign of our moral confusion becomes evident when virtually no one appears ready to condemn polyamory as immoral. The only arguments mustered against this new movement focus on matters of practicality. Polyamory is certainly not new, but this new movement is yet another reminder that virtually all the fences are now down when it comes to sex and sexual relationships. What comes next?

SERVING GOD THROUGH OPPOSITION

Exodus 5.

INTRO
Even when God sends us to do a task, there will always be opposition against us. This should not make us feel defeated, rather, as with Paul in II Cor. 13, we should see our setback as bringing out the glory of God even greater. When facing opposition, sometimes the last thing we think is that God has a plan, but as with Moses, and in the New Testament, Jesus, we should always trust in our Father’s greater plan.

Explanation Vss. 1-9: Moses passes the Lord’s message to Pharaoh, what the Lord requires of his people. He calls “the Lord” in the singular, since Egypt was a polytheistic society. This is the first of many demands, 5:1; 7:16; 8:1, 20; 9:1, 13; 10:3, etc. Knowing. Pharaoh didn’t know the Lord; this is the theme that is central to the book. Reminds us of what knowing means in the book of John, which is being saved.
Moses explains to Pharaoh how the Hebrews were to serve the Lord, with a festival. If this would not take place, they would be stricken by ‘pestilence or sword’, cf. vs. 21 where the sword is mentioned again, but the one using it is Pharaoh.
From vss. 6-9, Pharaoh’s words are repeated in vss. 17-18, and because they came from Pharaoh’s mouth, they are law.
Illustration: Moses lets the Pharaoh know the words of the Lord. Pharaoh’s response is to say that he didn’t know the Lord, and proclaims some words himself, adding to the work of the Israelites, and to call them lazy. Pharaoh calls what Moses says “deceptive words”, or literally “lies”. For Pharaoh, Moses and his God were fakes. So the issue comes down as to whose words are true, Pharaoh or the Lord’s.
What Moses was asking Pharaoh was not an impossible thing, since religious texts show that Egyptian workers took days off for religious festivals.
Application: Moses’ first encounter with Pharaoh’s did not go down well. His first attempt, he found opposition, and very stiff at that. We are also entrusted with the most important message to those who are under the control of the devil, the gospel. Our work becomes more difficult since we have very famous sceptics who put the word of God, the Bible, in doubt. We must press on, although the opposition may seem to be in control. What’s in our lives that we know that Lord has given us promises, and we may lose heart seeing the opposing facts in our lives?? Our faith should look beyond any opposition, and hold on to God’s word.

Explanation Vss. 10-18: The language used by the slave drivers to the Isralite supervisors is legal language. This point out the Pharaoh’s word is law. Bricks in Egypt were as large as 12 inches, 6 inches tall and 6 inches deep. The need for straw comes because it provided humic acid, which increased the effectiveness as binder. Stubble, this was dried out remains in the field after the harvest, which had no humic acid, therefore, less suitable for their work. As the slave drivers were oppressing the Isralite supervisors, they approach Pharaoh to plead their case. Pharaoh again accuses them of laziness, and does not take attention of their pleads.
Illustration: The foreman call themselves “servants”, Pharaoh’s response is for them to get back to ‘serve’, ‘work’, cf. vss. 15, 18. Here we see the Isralites crying to Pharaoh, cf. 15:8. The usual cry is to the Lord, cf. 2:23; 8:8; 14:10, 15; 15:25; 17:4; 22:22.
Application: This is an example to whom we should not go when in trouble. We cannot go to the one who has us in slavery for delivery. How many times have we considered going to those who are afflicting us, in order for them to change their ways. The world will not change, but we have someone to cry out, and it is the Lord. Just as the Isralites were given stubble to complete their task, the world would always give us something that will quickly pass away, that will wither sooner or later. The Lord offers us eternal life, no temporal pleasures. We should always keep our eyes on the author and perfecter of our faith, Jesus, Heb. 12:2.

Explanation Vss. 19-21-6:1: The supervisors turn their anger to Moses and Aaron. They forget that they are sent from the Lord, but quickly attribute the blame for their situation on them. Pharaoh’s sword is the object of their fear, not the Lord’s sword, cf. 3.
Illustration: the foremen are looking for a way out of their trouble, and they have genuine concern for the Isralite workers. They blame not Pharaoh’s reluctance to hear the word of the Lord, but they blame those who brought to him the word of the Lord, Moses and Aaron. Moses cries out to the Lord, and the Lord answers him, explaining to him as to why Pharaoh has acted that way.
Application: We have a tendency to blame others for our own situation. We are not that different from the Isralite foremen. Sometimes we come to church with the expectation to be told how good we are, how gentle, how Christian!! But there’s no one good here but Jesus, cf. Mat. 19:17; Mk. 10:18; Lk. 19:19. Don’t blame the preacher when he is exposing the word of God, and you feel and know that you are not living a Christian life. The word is preached in order to show you how the Lord can take away those things that make us all sinners, and therefore, don’t have a relationship with our Lord. But what if there is no sin, and you still face opposition in your life, work, family, club, church??? Don’t blame others will not fix the problem. Just as Moses cried out to the Lord, we are to do the same. Remember Jesus cried out to the Father when in need in the Garden of Gethsemane, and he got an answer, to go the cross. Moses had much to endure before seeing what God was to do with Pharaoh. We also have a lot to live before we can somehow comprehend God’s plan in our lives.

Conclusion: Life is full of hardship, trouble, and opposition. But as believers, we must trust that God has a greater plan for our lives than we can see from our perspective. God was working his plan through Israel’s suffering, which was the showing of his mighty hand in Egypt. What are you going through at this moment, that you feel there is no way out, that it doesn’t make sense or you don’t deserve it? Let’s remember that we have given our lives to the Lord, and he knows the outcome of our lives, even though we may not see the light at the end of the tunnel. Let us treasure what scripture tells us, “28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Baptists mark 400th anniversary

By John McManus
BBC News

Members of the Baptist Union are gathering in Bournemouth to celebrate their 400th anniversary - the first Baptist congregation was founded in 1609. With four centuries of growth behind them, what are the challenges facing believers in the next 100 years?

Baptists first emerged after the Reformation swept Europe, causing upheaval throughout Christian communities.

Martin Luther's Protestant movement had gained ground in northern Europe, and Henry VIII had broken with Rome and established the Church of England as the country's national church, with him as its spiritual head.

Today Baptists are the fifth largest Christian church in the world, with 40 million members, and Baptists in England and Wales say that national numbers are stable, unlike many Christian denominations.

The sins of the bankers contributed to the mess, but so have all of us The Reverend Jonathan Edwards

But away from the pews, there are practical issues that Baptists are having to grapple with as their Union looks towards the future, many of them familiar to members of other religions.

In 2004 the wealthy Southern Baptist Convention of the USA split from the Baptist World Alliance, citing an increasing trend towards liberalism as the reason.

Closing rift

The theology of the Southern Baptists has been described by one English Baptist as right-wing and fundamentalist, with serious differences over the role of women in ministry and creation theology.

Jonathan Edwards blames churchgoers as well as bankers for the current financial crisis

The general secretary of the Baptist Union, the Reverend Jonathan Edwards, says that although the split was an unhappy one, he maintains close relations with the American Baptists and does not think it is necessarily permanent.

"I would be very surprised if the rift were to last for many years," he says.

Mr Edwards leads an administrative staff of 150 at the Union's headquarters in Oxfordshire, but the Baptists are not a top-down hierarchical church.

Individual congregations are self-funding and self-regulating, and even decide themselves what form their services of worship will take.

Mr Edwards cites this ability to respond to local preferences as the reason why congregations are not dropping, and in some places are even rising.

"Our churches are quite light on their feet. I'm not there telling them what they can and can't do."

Despite this, the Union is persisting in efforts to persuade congregations to be more diverse, a theme that will be continued at this weekend's assembly.

Supporting families

Although the first female ministers began preaching in the 1920s, only 10% of current ministers are women, a statistic the Union wants to change.

However, although ministers can be from either sex, they must be either celibate or in a heterosexual marriage.

Baptist Timeline 1609: first Baptist congregation founded in the Netherlands by John Smyth 1832: Baptist Union formed 1922: Violet Hedger becomes first female minister 2004: Southern Baptist Convention splits from World Alliance

"I believe the norm that God intends for us is hetero-relationships" says Mr Edwards.

"In these times especially, we should be supporting families."

Baptists have always been an evangelising religion, believing that they can help knit together communities by becoming practically involved in them, such as becoming school governors or running children's playgroups.

But their ambitions do not extend to wanting to replace the Anglicans as the national Church, and unlike, for example, some British Roman Catholics, they are not keen on pulling up a chair at the table of government.

Instead, they preach for the disestablishment of Church and state, though for different reasons to secularists.

Mark Woods, the editor of the Baptist Times, explains that politics and religion can be a heady mix.

"The model of one denomination of one religion acting as sort of spiritual broker for the rest of the country - however benevolent and co-operative they are - is no longer appropriate, if it ever was.

Baptists undergo full submersion in water when they join the Church

"That's not to say that religion should be excluded from public life, but we need a better system in which other traditions are represented as well."

Baptists believe that prophetic ministry - warning and advising on the issues of the day - is compromised if a Church is too close to government, so they are keen to stay outside the fold.

And as if to illustrate this, Mr Edwards delivers an uncompromising evaluation of the current financial crisis.

"We're pointing the finger at ourselves.

"We in the Churches have been tied into the selfishness and materialism just like everybody else. This is an opportunity for a radical rethink.

"The sins of the bankers contributed to the mess, but so have all of us."

The Development of Worship within Christianity

INTRODUCTION
Worship has always been a part of the people of God. After the fall, we are told that “people began to invoke the name of the Lord”, cf. Genesis 4:26. This, as Evelyn Underhill has commented, may be the “acknowledgment of Transcendence” . We can see that from the beginning of human kind, there has been a need to acknowledge that that is beyond us. But the definition of worship is not as straight forward as what’s being said. Underhill tells us that worship “is the response of the creature to the Eternal. Geoffrey Wainwright takes a similar view, calling worship a “faithful human response to the revelation of God’s being, character, beneficence and will. The two previous authors have focused on the response of the worshipper, from a Catholic perspective, Patrick Bishop says that worship “consists in a response of veneration in the face of the recognized presence of God”, bringing God into the act of worship along with the worshipper.

Historical Aspects of Worship
As it has been mentioned before, as described by Scripture, worship has been an integral part of humanity’s response to God’s actions around us. Christian worship in particular, borrowed from the worship liturgy found in Second Temple Judaism. Prayer was included in worship as well as the reading and exposition of a biblical passage. The two main innovations introduced by the Christians were that the main day of worship was no longer on the Sabbath, but on Sunday, and that Jesus became the focus of worship. Justin Martyr (100-165) tells us that the Gospels and the writings of the prophets were read aloud during the Christian service, cf. First Apology 67. Worship became a very integral issue in the development of Christology, since Christians saw the worship of Jesus as an integral part of their worship. If Jesus were only a creature, Christians would easily be called idolaters. The church went through great pains in order to formalise her teachings about who the person of Jesus was, and the councils of Nicea and Constantinople served to settle the dispute and affirm that Father, Son and Holy Spirit were equally deserving of our worship, since the three are equally God. It was around this period, that the worship of the Church changed greatly, since there was no need to hide from fear of persecution, and Christianity, being the official religion of the empire, took over the pagan temples. As the early type of worship had been simple in its form, it was during this time and afterwards, that ceremony took central stage in the worship practice of the church. The two stages of the Mass, the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Upper Room, gave way to more elaborate forms of worship. This gradually grew to such an extent that the priest was the only one doing something in the worship service, while the attendants were mere spectators. It must be mentioned that it was during this period, that the Eastern and Western parts of the church took different approaches to worship, the former taking a more mystical approach, while the later, a more rational.

By the time of the Reformation, the Reformers had a reaction to the lack of input from the congregation to the worship service. The response to the manner of worship was threefold, representing the three major trends of the time. The Roman Catholics retained the usage of musicians but with minimal congregational input; the Calvinists, abolished music all together and opted for congregational singing; and the Lutherans, was a combination of the two. For most of the Protestants, the exposition of the word became the highest reason of corporate worship. These developments from the Reformation period are more or less still present in the congregations of both Roman Catholic and Protestant persuasions, with some variations.

The Usefulness of Worship
Worship has an impact on the worshipper that goes beyond the liturgical service. As Patrick Bishop tells us, worship “imposes an ethic upon us”. Romans 12:1-2, tells us to offer ourselves in a spiritual worship, and also not to be conformed to this world. Roman Catholics see worship as the “glorification of God and the sanctification of humanity”. This aspect of worship should be paramount to those who take part of it. Too often people come our churches, take part of the worship experience, yet don’t feel compel to transform their lives to the ideals they have just sang or recited. As Underhill points out, worship “sets the awful Perfection of God over against the creature’s imperfection, it becomes the most effective cause of “conviction of sin”, and hence, of the soul’s penitence and purification”. In this I brake with some of my contemporaries that see worship as a solely spiritual exercise in which God is magnified, to no effect on us apart from feeling gratitude. This sort of worship becomes more mechanical than organic, and has no impact in us or those surrounding us.

Conclusion
Worship may take the form of an individual or corporate expression. However, as with the ethical dimension of worship, I would say that the communal act of worship should take precedent over the individualistic one. The usage of water, table, bread, and other visual aids should be welcomed and accepted as legitimate aids to our worship experience. Too many churches have come to reject such age proven aids, and have rather opted for a projector as the sole instrument to stimulate their senses to worship. Yes, the worship of Christians must always be Theo centric, but as in the case of Jesus, who lived the perfect life of worship, it must also serve to enable the worshippers to help their neighbour. Our worship does not end at the steps of the church, but goes beyond it.

Bibliography

Bishop, Patrick ‘Worship’ in The New Dictionary of Sacramental Worship. Peter & Fink, Eds. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1990.

Manson, P. D. ‘Worship’ in The New Dictionary of Theology, Sinclair R. Ferguson, David F. Wright, Eds. Leicester: IVP, 1988.

Rayburn, R. G. “Worship in the Church” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology 2nd Walter A. Elwell Ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001.

Underhill, Evelyn Worship Nisbet & Co. LTD; London, 1936.

Wainwright, Geoffrey ‘Theology of Worship’, in The New Dictionary of Liturgy & Worship Paul Bradshaw Ed. London: SCM Press, 2002.

White, James F. Introduction to Christian Worship (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1980.

When did churches start using instrumental music? http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/asktheexpert/nov30.html, Christianhistory.net accessed on the 26/05/09.

Luis A. Jovel

Newsweek -- The End of Christian America

Albert Mohler has written an article on the subject of the gradual demise of Christianity in the USA. Now Newsweek, has picked up on the issue, and has written an article and put the issue as its front page news. I invite you to read Mohler's article and Newsweek's.
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"To the surprise of liberals who fear the advent of an evangelical theocracy and to the dismay of religious conservatives who long to see their faith more fully expressed in public life, Christians are now making up a declining percentage of the American population."

Thus writes Newsweek editor Jon Meacham in this week's cover story, "The End of Christian America." The image on the front cover says it all, declaring "The Decline and Fall of Christian America" in type set to form a cross.

The cover story is a serious consideration of the issue Newsweek set as its priority for the week of Easter, and the seriousness of the magazine's approach is evident in the fact that its editor, Mr. Meacham, wrote the cover story himself. The essay, elegant in form and serious in tone, demands attention.

I read Jon Meacham's essay with no small amount of personal interest, for Mr. Meacham had talked to me as he was writing the article. Here is how his essay begins:

It was a small detail, a point of comparison buried in the fifth paragraph on the 17th page of a 24-page summary of the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey. But as R. Albert Mohler Jr.—president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the largest on earth—read over the document after its release in March, he was struck by a single sentence. For a believer like Mohler—a starched, unflinchingly conservative Christian, steeped in the theology of his particular province of the faith, devoted to producing ministers who will preach the inerrancy of the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only means to eternal life—the central news of the survey was troubling enough: the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990, rising from 8 to 15 percent. Then came the point he could not get out of his mind: while the unaffiliated have historically been concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, the report said, "this pattern has now changed, and the Northeast emerged in 2008 as the new stronghold of the religiously unidentified." As Mohler saw it, the historic foundation of America's religious culture was cracking.

I do remember that moment quite well, and I expressed my thoughts in an article posted March 27, "The Eclipse of Christian Memory." The increasingly secular character of New England, now surpassing even the Pacific Northwest, is a portrait of Christianity in retreat. The course of this retreat has been long. Indeed some historians would trace the secular trend in New England to the period of the Revolution itself. In the minds of at least some New Englanders, King George was not the only authority dethroned in that generation.

Still, the region remained under the influence of Christian memory and, for most of the intervening decades, under the influence of the Christian worldview. Now, New England is the most secular region of the nation, representing a model of what I believe is rightly designated post-Christian America.

Mr. Meacham picked up on this description of the pattern, and Newsweek launched a cover story. A good portion of the essay deals with my argument and a consideration of its accuracy and significance. Without doubt, Newsweek considers the pattern to be of great significance -- thus the cover story. Mr. Meacham looked at the same data that had caught my attention, the American Religious Identification Survey [ARIS] and the Pew Forum's U.S. Religious Landscape Study. His summary response to the post-Christian designation: "There it was, an old term with new urgency: post-Christian. This is not to say that the Christian God is dead, but that he is less of a force in American politics and culture than at any other time in recent memory."

Here is the essence of Jon Meacham's analysis:

While we remain a nation decisively shaped by religious faith, our politics and our culture are, in the main, less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were even five years ago. I think this is a good thing—good for our political culture, which, as the American Founders saw, is complex and charged enough without attempting to compel or coerce religious belief or observance. It is good for Christianity, too, in that many Christians are rediscovering the virtues of a separation of church and state that protects what Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island as a haven for religious dissenters, called "the garden of the church" from "the wilderness of the world." As crucial as religion has been and is to the life of the nation, America's unifying force has never been a specific faith, but a commitment to freedom—not least freedom of conscience. At our best, we single religion out for neither particular help nor particular harm; we have historically treated faith-based arguments as one element among many in the republican sphere of debate and decision. The decline and fall of the modern religious right's notion of a Christian America creates a calmer political environment and, for many believers, may help open the way for a more theologically serious religious life.

This is a fair and insightful rendering of the pattern. What does become clear in this paragraph is that what Newsweek sees as the essence of the issue is political influence. While this is hardly a non-issue, my greater concern is not with political influence and what secularization means for the political sphere, but with what secularization means for the souls of men and women who are now considerably more distant from Christianity -- and perhaps even with any contact with Christianity -- than ever before. My main concern is evangelism, not cultural influence.

One key aspect of Mr. Meacham's argument is his suggestion that what binds America together is not "a specific faith" but instead "a commitment to freedom" and, in particular, freedom of conscience. There is something to this argument, of course. The founding generation did not establish the young republic on any religious creed or theological doctrine. Still, there is something missing from this argument, and that is the recognition that freedom, and freedom of conscience in particular, requires some prior understanding of human dignity and the origins of conscience itself. Though the founders included those who rejected the Christian Gospel and Christianity itself, Christianity had provided the necessary underpinnings for the founders' claims.

Mr. Meacham also suggests that this new situation is perhaps healthy for the church. To this extent I agree -- the church gains a necessary knowledge any time the distinction between the church and the world is made more evident. Our first concern is and must be the Gospel. It is good that non-Christians know that they are not Christians and that Christians be reminded of that fact that what sinners need is the Gospel of Christ, not merely the lingering morality of the Christian memory.

I am haunted a bit by this section of the Newsweek article:

Mohler posted a despairing online column on the eve of Holy Week lamenting the decline—and, by implication, the imminent fall—of an America shaped and suffused by Christianity. "A remarkable culture-shift has taken place around us," Mohler wrote. "The most basic contours of American culture have been radically altered. The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture." When Mohler and I spoke in the days after he wrote this, he had grown even gloomier. "Clearly, there is a new narrative, a post-Christian narrative, that is animating large portions of this society," he said from his office on campus in Louisville, Ky.

I appreciate the care, respect, and insight that mark this essay by Jon Meacham. I also appreciated our conversation about an issue that concerns us both. Still, I hope I did not reflect too much gloom in my analysis. This much I know -- Jesus Christ is Lord, and His kingdom is forever. Our proper Christian response to this new challenge is not gloom, but concern. And our first concern must be to see that the Gospel is preached as Good News to the perishing -- including all those in post-Christian America.