Theological Reflections — Haiti — for giving see next article down

Posted by Paul on January 15th, 2010

Some theological reflections on the tragedy.

How do we reflect on a tragedy of this magnitude?  The media is full of the fact that an evangelical has suggested this and other tragedies go back to a dark period in Haiti’s history as if the country were under some sort of Satanic curse.  I believe Scripture would have us look at this and other such tragedies around the world in an entirely different way.

Our series on Revelation has shown us many times over that the whole world suffers.  Believers and unbelievers are caught up in this.  So sad and heart-wrenching is this existence that throughout Biblical history the cry has gone up from God’s people “How Long, O Lord?  How Long?”  It is never for us to say that we know a specific horrific incident must be God’s judgment on someone or a group of people.  This was the problem that Jesus had to correct with the  Pharisees in Luke 13:1-5.

In Siloam a building had fallen and had killed 18 people.  Political corruption was rampant and had led to an incident in which some Galileans were horrifically killed.  We might say these examples that Jesus chooses could have been drawn from Haiti where a far worse tragedy has occurred, or we could apply the  teaching to any natural tragedy here in the States such as Tornadoes going through our villages and towns or earthquakes on the West Coast.

So what does Jesus teach us from his examples? He specifically says that these people were no worse sinners than anyone else.  There is no one-to-one correlation between death through murder or through natural disaster and the sin of the individual who dies.  But he goes on to make a very serious point.  All these deaths remind us of our own frail humanity and should cause us to repent and be prepared ourselves for meeting the Lord.  Jesus does not get involved in a deep theological discussion about the tragedies, but rather he makes a direct application to us.  Rather than speak of others who may or may not have sinned, we are to recognise that all of us sin and these tragedies call us to repentance for who knows when we may meet our Lord?

But we learn more from Scripture than this, of course.  Above all we learn that our Lord Jesus comes as God himself right into the midst of our struggling fallen world with all its murders and natural disasters and wars.  He comes with extraordinary love and compassion and heals the sick and lame, and feeds the hungry, and gives sight to the blind. Jesus is concerned for the physical well-being of people. Yet still more amazingly he comes with such love that he was prepared even to give his own life for people so that, however tragically they may die, through faith in him they will be raised with him to a “new earth” where these things will no longer happen.

The reaction of Christians to Haiti should be the reaction of Christ to the world in which he walked and talked.  We are called upon to imitate him. We are to show compassion and love to all. We are to work for healing, restoration and the physical well-being of a devastated people all of whom are in the image of God and many, many of whom share our faith in Jesus.  If God allows, then this may provide for us further opportunity to speak of the faith that is ours.  But we get our hands dirty with works of compassion and help and healing not for any other reason than because we love people!  This is what Christ modelled for us and what Scripture asks us to do.

What a joy it is that, in God’s common grace, we live in a nation in which, very quickly, our government has reflected the concern of us all and is pouring in millions and millions of dollars into such a needy situation.  But we can do still more. We can and should give still more and we should of course pray.  Perhaps later, as needs become known, some of our number can also go to Haiti to help.

Let us pray specially for our Haitian Christian brothers and sisters of all denominations.  Hundreds camping out at St Pierre’s Plaza sang hymns through the night.  One hymn had the line: “God, you are the one who gave me life, Why are we suffering?”   This is the cry, as we’ve seen in the book of Revelation, of all God’s people at such times.  Truly, with them, we cry out “How Long, O Lord, How Long?”

Tags: ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Click to comment (2 Comments so far) »

Haiti — Giving at ChristChurch

Posted by Paul on January 15th, 2010

Dear ChristChurch Family,

HAITI

Haiti is once again in the news and, as Christians, we must do all we can to help and demonstrate the love of Christ. Our church will be taking up a special offering on Sunday 17th and Sunday 24th January. Baskets will be available at the back of church after each service. Checks may be made payable to ChristChurch Presbyterian and marked in the memo: “Haitian Relief”.

This money will be sent directly to our denominational relief agency who are working to assist PCA Pastors Dony St. Germain and Brian Kelso. These men already have established relationships with key leaders in Haiti. Some have said that the 7.0 earthquake that struck near Port-au-Prince is the most significant disaster to strike the western hemisphere in modern times. In the aftermath of such a situation it is natural to ask, “What can I do?” Well, the most important things we can do are to pray, give and act.

Pray for God to open the hearts of neighbors to be generous to the people of Haiti;
pray for His mercy to enable the rescuers to find the living;
pray for the physical and spiritual needs of Haitians and the rescuers to be met;
pray for His peace to comfort the pain of loss so many are experiencing.

For updates and information on what is happening in Haiti from pastor Dony St. Germain, please visit their website at www.esmihome.org For updates and information from our mission agency Mission to the World, see their Facebook link at http://www.facebook.com/pages/MTW/176614515627
If you wish to donate on-line directly through the PCA use this link—
https://processor.pcanet.org/mna/donationsII/donation.cfm

Other Christian agencies are already working relief in Haiti. Below I list two of these which are experienced evangelical disaster relief agencies. Their web sites provide good up to date information. If you wish to donate via these agencies their links below provide access.

World Vision has had a permanent presence in Haiti now for nearly 30 years and at the time of the earthquake has around 800 staff in place! They are a member of the Disasters Emergency Committee and already have planes that have landed in Haiti. It is an evangelical organisation and utterly reputable with enormous experience of emergency relief and of long term support for economically deprived peoples.

http://www.worldvision.org/worldvision/eappeal.nsf/egift-haiti-earthquake-relief?Open

http://www.worldvision.org/home.nsf/pages/home.htm

TEARfund (The Evangelical Alliance Relief Fund) also has a permanent presence in Haiti and is specifically geared up for emergency relief and also provides long term support.

http://www.tearfund.org/giving Follow the links for “Prayer pointers” and other detailed information.

I hope these links and our own agency will enable you to choose how God would have you give.

Tags: ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

A Conservative Bible?! Beware!

Posted by Paul on October 7th, 2009

Some may have seen references to a “Conservative Bible”.1  I have looked this up on line and this is some of the most extraordinary nonsense I have seen in Bible translating.  Ever since Marcion was condemned as a heretic by all branches of the Christian church in the early second century (for leaving out parts of the New Testament because they seemed too Jewish), we have had people distorting the truth of Scripture for their own political ends.  As Christians we need to speak out against this sort of work.  Some of us have done so in the past as we have seen the Bible being distorted by, say, a “feminist agenda”, but this latest work is exceptionally dangerous because it could truly confuse many Christians.

Whether it is the right or wrong term to use, many Christians see themselves as theologically “conservative” (I do) and some Christians also regard themselves as politically “conservative” (though the two are not to be equated).  So the danger for many Christians is that they will be misled by this project simply because they see themselves generally as “conservative”.  Do not be misled by the use of this slippery word!

The depth of the perversion of Scripture these people are seeking to accomplish to further their political ends is well summarised in one of their “examples” of what they want to do.  They say,

“The earliest, most authentic manuscripts lack this verse set forth at Luke 23:34: Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”    Is this a liberal corruption of the original? This does not appear in any other Gospel, and the simple fact is that some of the persecutors of Jesusdid know what they were doing. This quotation is a favorite of liberals but should not appear in a conservative Bible.”

Actually, the quotation is surely a favourite of all Christians who have come to experience the love and grace of Jesus. What a Savior we have who can look on his persecutors with such love and compassion! However, I guess we can safely say, according to these people, that if Jesus says something that is not in line with their political philosophy they are allowed simply to delete it and then tell people “Jesus never said it!” or that it may not have been in the original.  For example, I suppose we could delete the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 because it only appears in one Gospel and certainly contains a message which these people would probably not like (judging by their web site).

Incidentally they claim the KJV is the better version to use as their basis.  Whether or not this is true, the KJV does have this verse in it as does the NIV and the ESV and all other good translations (though the NRSV that some might consider to be a little more “liberal” puts the verse in brackets!).  The KJV also has the story of the “woman taken in adultery” which they also want to delete.

A second of their examples is interesting:

“At Luke 16:8, the NIV describes an enigmatic parable in which the “master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.” But is “shrewdly”, which has connotations of dishonesty, the best term here? Being dishonestly shrewd is not an admirable trait.     The better conservative term, which became available only in 1851, is “resourceful”. The manager was praised for being “resourceful”, which is very different from dishonesty. Yet not even the ESV, which was published in 2001, contains a single use of the term “resourceful” in its entire translation of the Bible.”

As a contributing editor to the ESV which was translated by thoroughly “theologically conservative” scholars, it is perhaps worth mentioning that one of the reasons “resourceful” is not used is that no Hebrew or Greek word used in the Bible actually means “resourceful”.  I guess that such a minor matter as that will be of no importance to these distorters of God’s word!  That Luke 16:8 is a difficult verse is obvious to us all, but the Greek word (which no one disputes at all) is adikias which is common in the New Testament and means “unrighteous” or “wicked”.

These people even want to change the title given to Jesus in John 1 (”The Word”) and replace it with the “Truth”.  For those who might not be aware, there is rather a lot of difference.  After all in that chapter John tells us that “The Word was full of grace and truth”.  In other words,  truth is just one aspect of who The Word is.  The Word is a title full of extraordinary Old Testament background and full of depths of meaning that go far beyond the word “Truth”.

There is almost a paranoia revealed in some of what they say as, for example, they criticise the “socialist” word “comrade”.  This word, used in the ESV only in Judges 7, is used in a way that long precedes any form of socialism.  In Judges 7 the person being described is a fellow soldier with Joshua and so the word is used accurately in the sense to be found in all main dictionary articles of “fellow soldier”.2   They suggest the “conservative” word “volunteer”!  How extraordinary!  Would anyone seriously believe that soldiers in those days “volunteered”?  We have long suffered under so-called “politically correct” language from other quarters, now it seems we are going to be inflicted with another whole list of politically incorrect words from this quarter.

Well, I could go on.  But for those who love God’s word and have truly “conservative” theology (and that will include people who are a-political, people on the left and people on the right in modern politics), for us, we need to remember that whatever our human views may be, God’s word challenges all of our ideas and philosophies and does so in an uncompromising way.  Instead of changing God’s word to meet our political ideas, Bible-believing Christians will constantly be seeking to change their political view (whether on left or right) to be more in line with Scripture.

One other point.  The ESV and the NIV both come in for criticism from this group.  I would be the first to say that no translation is perfect, but I also believe that both of these are good translations done by people committed to the inerrancy of Scripture and are truly reliable.  At ChristChurch we use the ESV, but many still use the earlier NIV.  You need not be fearful at all of the bias that this group claims is inherent in  these translations.  What they say is simply “WRONG”.

To mess around with God’s word, as they wish to do, to distort one aspect of the Lord’s teaching and set it against another, and to make the Bible mean something that we want it to mean rather than what it does mean is a very, very serious sin.

1. http://conservapedia.com/Conservative_Bible_Project
2. Etymology:
From the Middle French camarade:  a group sleeping in one room,
and from Old Spanish camarada, from cámara room, from Late Latin camera,
camara — This also gave rise to "chamber".  It has
various meanings but most dictionaries list first friend or associate, and then fellow soldier and only finally
the socialist use of the word.

Tags: ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Click to comment (3 Comments so far) »

Revival. The Challenge.

Posted by Paul on August 16th, 2009

Revival excites me.  True revival is something very, very different from even a large turning to God through some evangelistic effort.  In our evening service, we have recently played a recording of the evangelist, Duncan Campbell, speaking before he died of the revival that was witnessed from 1949 to 1951 in the Hebrides off the coast of Scotland.  From  time to time over the years I have gone back to listen to this (a sermon delivered in Canada) called “When God stepped down”.  I have also listened to various eye witness testimonies.

Throughout our own ministry God has been pleased to let Sharon and me see a good number of people come to faith.  Even in the last few months, we have seen some wonderful conversions as people have come to faith.  And we thank God so much for this, for we know that even in heaven there is rejoicing for even one person who was lost and is found by God.  But this is not revival.

I suppose the greatest accounts of revival for me, apart from this one in the Hebrides, are the accounts of the revival in the UK during the time of Wesley.  In the States, I think of the accounts of Jonathan Edwards.  Extraordinary things happened as huge numbers came to faith, often simply because of God’s work and with no intrusion till later of any minister.

This is what I long for and pray for.  But I have to admit I don’t pray as I should.  One thing that is common to all the revivals I have ever read about (and there have been few enough in history), is that somewhere some people prayed in ways that most of us know nothing about.  Maybe this is where we should start, rather than simply listening to CDs and reading books and “wishing” for Revival.  God alone can deliver true revival.  He is the one we must seek.

(Though I do not agree with  Duncan Campbell’s commitment to a “second blessing”, a separate outpouring of the Spirit on Christians that happens after conversion, the rest of this teaching is truly inspiring and reflects much the same happenings as we read of in the Great Awakening and in the works of Jonathan Edwards.) Incidentally, I believe that everything that he might attribute to a second outpouring of the Spirit can be accounted for, as we find in Jonathan Edward’s writing, by the work of God’s Spirit in bringing about conversion.  Our problem is that we do not expect to see truly changed lives when people come to faith … and so we don’t teach as we should!

Tags: , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Resurrection Joy

Posted by Paul on April 11th, 2009

Easter is always a very special time for me.  In some ways I love it more than Christmas.  It has a little less commercialism about it.  On the other hand, long gone are the days when most people took Good Friday off so they could spend time in quiet reflection on the extraordinary events that culminated in the death of Jesus and led to the redemption and forgiveness for all who would believe in him.  With the busy-ness of people’s lives and many having to work all day Friday, we are left to an hour’s service in the evening rather than the ancient three hour service of meditation.  Still, for me it has to be the most moving and meaningful service of the Christian calendar.  To hear the readings from the Gospels of the death and passion of our Lord, and to take time in the communion to give thanks for our salvation is indeed very special.

Easter Day is also always a marvellous service.  Gone is the quietness and sadness of Good Friday.  Now we are into the glorious remembrance of the resurrection.  The apostle Paul says Jesus was raised for our justification.  It is always amazing to me that the resurrection  both shows God’s acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf and also reminds us that, without Christ’s resurrection, we would still be in our sin and facing God’s judgment.

So how then do we make this festival even more meaningful for ourselves and our children in this busy world?  Surely this festival of Good Friday and Easter more clearly speaks the Good News of Christ to this world than any other.  In the short time we are together and worshipping, how do we more clearly make the point  that this is above all a festival for the church, not just for individuals, a festival for the body of Christ?  It is not easy when we are always tempted as western Christians to say (rightly) Christ died for me, and down play or ignore that Christ died for all his people, the people who are called his church.

Tags:
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Now the election is over …

Posted by Paul on November 7th, 2008

At last the Election is over!

I surely cannot be alone in being thankful that, after two years of debate and discussion and a fair amount of plain “nastiness” on all sides, the people have finally voted. Last Sunday evening I spoke about the differences between growing up in a “modern” world and a “post modern” world. At least to a certain degree some of the differences we have seen between the candidates and their different campaigns is down to the fact that the two candidates do come from these two different world views. Of course the lines between the two worlds are not hard and fast, but they are interesting.

My concern for many years is that Christians must understand the way the world is changing and has changed. Throughout history Christians have found this hard to do. (We only have to think of how the apostle Paul had to speak to Peter.) Yet we are called to speak the Gospel into the world in which we live and so we must not just be aware of changes but also understand them. Only in this way will we continue to develop a Christian mind in which we can be self critical (first) and then also analytical of what we see around us. And only then will we have any chance at all of reaching out with the love of Christ in a way which can be heard.

When we look at a postmodern world and its people we shall see much for which to be thankful. We shall see a new desire for something called “spirituality”, a new openness to people of other colors, or languages or religions. We shall see a renewed love for creation, the world, and the animal kingdom. We shall see a respect for others and a willingness to live with people who hold other views, and so on. However, as Christians, we will want to stand back a little and see what we can affirm and what we must challenge in this newer world.

Had we done this with modernism over the last 75 years or more the western church might not be in the mess it is with falling numbers and with little real influence. In that world we let our faith be relegated to “opinion”. We let secular humanism convince us and the world that it was the “big story” with power and knowledge and that it was not a “faith” position (imagine that!). But we forgot that ours is the story about the king of the whole cosmos. We forgot to speak of how our faith reaches to every area of life. In so many areas we missed the boat.

Let us thank God that there are real advantages to living in this changing world. The bridges for the Gospel into our world are now different but they are numerous. But let’s also carefully and constructively point out where we do differ from the prevailing views of the day.

Let’s talk about those “bridges” …

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

God and the Arts

Posted by Paul on October 6th, 2008

On October 5th, we enjoyed an extraordinary evening of music, drama, dance, and film while being encircled by a glorious gallery of paintings, design, sculpture and other artistic presentations.  It was a wonderful time and the gallery presentations will remain in place for a few weeks for all to see.  As I sat and enjoyed the evening it struck me again just how amazing are God’s multiple and diverse gifts to us in this church.  But such events also cause me to reflect again on why God should have created so many people with great gifts of artistry.

In the Image of God.
We know God has created all men and women in his image (Gen 1:27), and this is where we must begin in our thinking about God and the arts.  God is the great creator God. Time and again in Scripture God is revealed as one who has planned things for this world and has his designs that cannot be thwarted. With a blank canvas in front of him, God created what he wanted.  Indeed we might say he even created the canvas itself, for what he created came out of nothing!

Jesus himself comments on the beauty of the lily in the field and sees it as a work of art in its glory that even exceeds the wonder of Solomon’s temple.  At the same time Jesus refers to God’s care even of a sparrow (Lk 12:6, 27).  God is a creating artist and designer who also cares for what he has made.  It should not surprise us, therefore, that people who are in his image will reflect this aspect of the person of God. When we read that God gave man and woman dominion over the earth (Gen 1:28), God was delegating to people aspects of his own prerogatives including abilities to create and to design and to bring about that which is beautiful.  Their sole responsibility was to use these gifts and delegated responsibilities to bring glory and honor to God.

To the Glory of God.
This delegated responsibility is specially seen when God gave orders for the building of the place of worship (the Tabernacle or Tent of Meeting) that the Israelites used when traveling in the wilderness. He asked that great artistry should be used (Exod 31).  In fact, this is the earliest recorded example of a specific “gift of the Holy Spirit” coming upon a person.  The Spirit came upon an artist so that he might oversee many different artists as they worked on the place of worship (Exod 31:3; 35:31).  Of course, in New Testament times we do not have a specific temple where God’s presence is specially known as they did in the Old.  But, we know that God is with his people wherever they are and specially as they gather together in worship.  Thus it is precisely right that, in our worship, we should seek to bring glory to God with our artistic gifts as much as we would with our financial gifts or the giving of our time to work for him and so on.

Always, the goal of the gifts God has given our artists should be to bring glory to God.  J.S. Bach understood this precisely when he wrote:  “The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.”   But bringing glory to God through arts of course does not mean the art has to be presented in church.  Nor does it mean that every work of music should speak of Jesus or that every picture that is painted should present some romantic idealised version of the world, nor that everyone depicted should either be represented with horns or a halo! Rather, we know we are asked by God to bring glory to him whereever we are, and we do this in all sorts of ways.

A prophetic voice?
Many of our artists at ChristChurch are involved full time in the arts.  They bring glory to God by making the best and most honest and most careful use of the gifts God has given them.  Often the lot of the artist can be almost “prophetic”.  Artists will frequently reflect back to us, not just the beauty of God’s creation, but also its falleness, its sadnesses, its injustices.  A Christian artist may sometimes have the difficult task of reflecting back to the world the “struggle” it is undergoing which Paul so vividly describes in Romans 8 — a struggle in which “all creation” is “groaning” while waiting for the time when Christ will return.

Such art is sadly often dismissed by Christians for they fail to see the prophetic call of the artist. Perhaps they fail to see the challenge, or fail to accept the judgment on them or on society that is being made by the artist.  Such art work can frequently be profoundly disturbing, and yet it will often be produced by people who love the Lord and to whom he has given great insights about his world and its hurt and pain while waiting for the coming of the new earth.

Let us not dismiss the voice among us.
For those of us who are not “artistic”, at least not in the sense that we have seen such artistry in “Expressions”, we must be  careful not to dismiss these voices among us — the voices which describe the beauty of God’s creation, yet which also describe the frustration and hurt of that creation, and the voices which sometimes challenge a fallen people to look around and see the twisted and distorted world which results from our sin, yet also the voices which can often describe our deepest feelings while using no words.

This is what God has done for us in his creation.  He speaks to us of beauty and perfection, but also of our sin and the fallenness of our world. The same God who artistically created all beauty and perfection also designed and brought about the distortions and frustrations in his work of art (Rom 8:20).  He did this so that his creation might constantly speak to those who have eyes to see of the consequences of sin, and the end result of the rejection of the creator.

All the time, though, God holds out another picture that is, for us, no more than an artist’s dream at present (Revelation 21-22).  He holds out the promise and commitment to his people that one day there will be a new earth where the darkness and hurt and pain will be gone and God himself will be the light among us as we see him face to face.  I wonder what our art will look like then?

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off

1740 Peachtree Street

Posted by Paul on August 11th, 2008

After several years of praying and looking, ChristChurch has finally found a permanent home. On Thursday 7th August we bought the property at 1740 Peachtree Street (on the corner of Peachtree and 25th Street).

This is a very exciting time for us all. Over the last couple of years we have seen one prayer after another answered as we have pursued this and other properties. We thank God for his grace and blessing to us in opening up this wonderful opportunity to purchase. We hope to move the offices to the existing building by early November.

Much more prayer will now be needed as we raise large amounts of money and draw up plans for the best use of the property so we can start worshipping there as soon as possible (probably around 30 months to three years).

This is a great time to be at ChristChurch. If you do not attend another church, come and join us and see who we are and learn of the love of the Lord Jesus.

Paul Gardner

Tags: ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Be the first to comment »