Couldn't Help Noticing

Doctrine

Here are a few words about the importance of doctrine in the recent history of the church (by which I mean the last 500 years or so):

It was the authority of true doctrine which shook the whole structure of the Papacy in the sixteenth century and emptied the Roman Church of multitudes of its adherents; it was from the prayerful study of such doctrine at the Colleges of Edinburgh, Glagow and Cambridge that the men who preached in the revivals of the seventeenth century came; it was doctrinal preaching again which resulted in the conversion of thousands in the early days of Methodism; and it was the same heart-acquaintance with theology which characterized all the leaders of the modern missionary movement.

Iain Murray, The Puritan Hope, The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1975, p. 233.

Of course, this is not an idea that was born into the world at the time of the Reformation; in Ephesians 4:11-16, Paul writes that it is through the teaching of apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers—all given by Christ—that the church of God is built to maturity and fullness.

How to read Romans

Much to my own embarrassment, but with great thankfulness for the patience of my friends at the Ministry Training Strategy and at Matthias Media, my writing about ministry training is long overdue. It's now at the stage where I have stitched together a reasonable draft. But the time has come to put a bit of serious work into shooting holes in what's there in order to see whether it all holds together from the broader perspective of Scripture.

One thing I've decided to do is remind myself of what and why the Reformers and the Puritans thought about ministry. That means casting the net wide and doing a bit of reading. One gem that I've rediscovered is The Puritan Hope by Iain Murray (The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1975), which gives a historical survey of how and why the English and American Puritans brought together their reading of Scripture with their confident hope that many, many people, both Jews and Gentiles, would continue to come into God's heavenly kingdom before the final day of judgement. It's proving useful for all sorts of reasons, and in the next little while I'm just going to share a few quotes and reflections from it, starting with this one about how to read Romans:

When the English-speaking churches gained their greatest influence in the world, and when evangelistic endeavour proceeded everywhere with vigour, the inspiration came in the first place from the believing apprehension of biblical truths. As Donald Maclean says of those who initiated the commencement of missions from Scotland, they ‘grasped the fact that Paul's declarations of profound mysteries in his Epistle to the Romans were not the cold intellectual conclusions of an exclusive dogmatist, but flames from the soul of a Christian missionary consumed with zeal for the salvation of souls.’ (pp. 232-33)

(The reference to Maclean is from an article called ‘Scottish Calvinism and Foreign Missions’ in Records of the Scottish Church History Society, Vol 6 pt 1, 1936.)

This passage gives us great insight into how we should all read the Bible (and Romans in particular) not as a text for fiery but ultimately cosy debate, but as a book written by evangelists for evangelists. In contrast, reading what God writes with detachment is a useless and even dangerous activity.

Asking for forgiveness?

It's difficult to feel anything other than positive about the Australian Parliament's statement to say sorry to the Stolen Generation and those deeply hurt by what happened. My only concern is that the statement has baulked at an important element of reconciliation: seeking the forgiveness of the hurt party. Instead, the statement says:

We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.

Perhaps this is just an expression of humility—a reflection of the fact that we have no right to ask their forgiveness, and that forgiveness is an act of grace. But I hope and pray that the leadership of indigenous communities will demonstrate greater grace and leadership than our white community has up until now—by realizing what they need to do to make reconciliation possible and acting on it by offering forgiveness. It's difficult to imagine that without that step of forgiveness, there is going to be a much greater sense of reconciliation and more dynamic for change.

Only human

This article in The New York Times about whether or not a foetus can feel pain (and the resulting implications for abortion) makes fascinating—but highly disturbing—reading. But as opposing viewpoints were traded back and forth between doctors, anaesthetists, and specialists in the area of foetal pain, I couldn't help feeling acutely uncomfortable about their desire to define that line between what is human and what is merely a collection of cells—particularly because that delineation is being drawn on the basis of biology and psychology. This is the problem of looking to humanity to define what it is to be human rather than to the Creator in whose image we have been created (Gen 1:26-27).

Emoting about idols

They say that the psalms are the hymnbook of Israel. I don't know if this is true, but if it is, I sometimes wonder what the atmosphere in ‘church’ was like back then. Take Psalm 96, for example, which has been a favourite source for Christian songwriters for generations. One of the versions we often sing in church (and which I always enjoy) has a joyous, uplifting feel, calling on the congregation to sing a new song to the Lord, and to “worship the Lord in holy array”. This particular song paraphrases verses 3-6 of the Psalm like this:

Majesty and honour are his
Strength and beauty, glory and righteousness
Great is the Lord, and deserving of praise
He is to be feared above all gods.

Marvellous stuff. Except verse 5 of the Psalm is strangely missing. It's the one that says, “For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens”.

I can understand, of course, why the Christian songwriter chose to pass over verse 5: it's hardly uplifting or worshipful to start having a go at the idolatry of the nations. Yet it's perhaps the central idea of the Psalm—that Yahweh is the fearsome, great God over all gods, the majestic creator and Lord of all the earth, and that the nations had better leave their worthless idols and come with an offering to the sanctuary of the king in Jerusalem because he is soon coming to judge them all.

All the same, it's hard to imagine a modern praise-and-worship number with this as its chorus:

Hallelujah, your idols are what?
Hallelujah, they're worth diddly-squat.
Hallelujah, better serve God instead,
Or, Hallelujah, like idols, you're dead.

(Somehow I can't see the music for this one bearing the inscription ‘Slowly and worshipfully’!)

This kind of sentiment is dotted throughout the psalms. What was the mood like when they sang this all together (if they did)? Was it triumphalist? Proud? Was it like the mood of the crowd when Australia once again demonstrates its utter superiority in world cricket?

All of this leaves me thinking that either this sort of stuff wasn't really what Israel sang when they gathered at the temple, or else the emotional range of Israel's poetic and musical expression was a tad wider than ours.