The Centrality of the Cross: Part Two - Practice

Here is Part Two of my series on the centrality of the cross. Part One is here

Ok. So the cross is central, someone might say, but if you keep mentioning the Cross all the time, what’s to stop it becoming formulaic and just the magic words to keep a service orthodox? Isn't mentioning the cross just religion?

The truth is that anything you want to keep as a defining principle or event, can be mentioned only out of compulsion, or habit but it is not inevitable. I think the trick is to keep asking throughout the life of the church “How does the cross impact on this?” In major times of teaching we must be clearly showing how the cross makes a difference. Let me show you how this works for three different topics, dealing with evil, relating to people of other faiths and responding to the poor.

The Cross and Responding to Evil

In this world we are constantly faced with the reality of evil. We are confronted with war and terrorism on a global scale, violence, rape and neglect in our communities and anger, hurt and abuse in our own lives. The church, if it is truly going to engage with world needs to know how to respond to evil.

Biblically the church will be calling its people to a ministry of reconciliation, of love for enemies and forgiveness. It will also hold firmly to the principle of justice and the fight against evil.

When the church teaches these things without the cross then it either becomes too hard, too soft or the preacher of two irreconcilable ideals.

If the church preaches forgiveness and love without the cross then evil becomes tolerated and the victim’s suffering gets dismissed. Forgiveness comes free and costs nothing. The suffering victim is told to love their enemy and forgive because that’s what Christ taught we should do. The evil doer escapes punishment and the victim must carry the burden of someone else’s sin.

Any justice achieved now will be unsatisfactory. How do you make a people group adequately pay for the acts of genocide they committed against their neighbours? How do you make the rapist adequately pay for violence they committed against someone created in God’s image? How do you make the mother who neglects and verbally abuses her children adequately pay for all the pain they inflict and the future damage they cause? You don’t because you can’t. We are a church that worships a holy God who hates sin. This means that no punishment and vengeance dolled out by earthly authorities will ever make up for the sins committed.

The end point in the fight against evil must be the destruction of the source of evil. If a church preaches justice and the fight against evil without the cross it must fight a battle that it cannot win with a God who is uninvolved. The reality is that all of us are participants in evil, and if we pursue evil to its end, we will pursue it not to the ends of the earth, but to the centre of our hearts. If we are to destroy evil, we must destroy others and we must destroy ourselves. If we were ever to whole-heartedly fight evil outside of the cross we too would just join in the cycle of violence.

In the history of the Church whenever it has been in charge of the state it has almost without fail ended up punishing sin with an iron fist.* Death for the adulterer, the homosexual, the witch and the disobedient child. And in the churches’ pursuit of justice it becomes the committer of evil.

Yet when we face evil in the light of the cross we see a God who hates sin, who punishes sin, who never trivialises suffering, who puts the wicked to death and gives life to the righteous.

At the cross Jesus takes all the wrath of his father heaped upon him. He, the sinless one, has the sins of humanity placed upon him. There on the cross, beaten and naked, he goes through hell and we see just how much God hates sin, that he would kill even his own Son.

He does this so that through him God would be able to forgive the wicked. Here at the cross we see God’s justice as he punishes evil, rebellion and sin. And we see God’s mercy upon the sinner as he offers his grace and forgiveness.

So when the church preaches forgiveness and reconciliation to the victim in light of the cross it does so knowing that God has already forgiven us. We are all perpetrators of evil and the one who we have done evil to, first and foremost, is God. Yet God forgives us and takes all the wrath we deserve upon himself.

When we call on each other to forgive those who sin against us, we do so in the knowledge that God has already forgiven us. But not only that, one way or another, the sin that has been committed against the victim will be dealt with. Either God has punished it at the cross or he will punish it at the end of time. No evil escapes the hand of God. Justice will be done.

At the cross we see how seriously God takes evil. He doesn’t trivialise suffering but shows that it is so serious that only the life of his beloved Son will pay for it. Jesus takes the wicked, gives them a new heart and a righteousness that is his own. The destruction of wickedness need not mean the destruction of the wicked if it is Christ who makes them righteous. Or to put it another way the wicked person is put to death, as they die to sin, and are born again, a new creation in Christ.

The cross shows us our King who is not dead but will one day come to right the world. What he began on the cross he will finish on that last day. The wicked will be judged and the righteous will be vindicated. Judgement will come and it will be great and terrible just as it was at the cross, yet no more will the innocent suffer for sins they did not commit. We will celebrate because we know that the right response to evil is the wrath of a righteous God.

The church can rest assured. The churches’ fight against evil and for justice can march on knowing that the true judge of the world has come and is coming again. The church fights knowing that we do not, and the systems of this world do not, need to be the final reckoning for sin. When we strive for justice we know that because Jesus is taking care of punishment we must strive for fairness and equality; More than that, we strive for love. As the cross shows us love, love becomes our modus operandi. Because of the example and power of the cross we see that our greatest weapon against injustice is love, and we work so that all people might be changed by love, ultimately to have their evil nature put to death, and to be given new life in Christ. Only that power comes through the cross.

When the church centres it’s response to evil in the cross it finds a response that is more compassionate to the sinner and to those who have been sinned against than could be imagined and harder on evil than is thought possible.


The Cross and Interacting with Other Religions

In Australia we are blessed to live in a multicultural society. This means that one of the great challenges to the church in our country will be how we interact with other faiths.

This is even more important given that we, the people of earth, have a history of fighting over religion more than anything else.

For the church to engage in fruitful dialogue with people of other faiths it must hold the cross at the centre of its thinking and its speaking because the cross gives Christianity it’s greatest distinctive, it clearly sets us apart from every other faith.

Often interfaith dialogue seeks to show the similarities between multiple faiths and find areas of commonality so as to build mutual respect because “we are just like you.” This can end up with people praying to the same God, in the same religious services, under the ridiculous notion that all roads lead to the same God. We flush out all the distinctives in an effort to forge better relations with other faiths.

Unfortunately this insults all involved. Dialogue is vitally important, but dialogue never has to mean acquiescing vital tenets of faith in the name of tolerance.

When the church talks to and about other faiths, it must keep the cross front and centre, otherwise how will we know who we are, and how will they know who we are?

No other religion has a God who is so foolish as to let himself be killed by those who he created. No other faith solves the problem of the human heart purely through divine initiative. No other God has saved its people purely out of his own goodness and through no merit of the people.

This being the case the cross gives the Christian, no right to boast. Knowing that salvation comes only through the death and resurrection of a loving God rather than our own goodness, means that we cannot in any way look down upon people of other faiths. The difference between the Christian and the non-Christian is not that the Christian is smarter, better, more special or more moral. The difference is only Jesus, and the faith that he gives.

So as we relate to those of other faiths, the cross will lead us to love them because, just like us, they too need Jesus. As Luther (or someone) said “We are all mere beggars trying to show other beggars where to find bread.” The cross will lead us not to acquiesce the uniqueness of our faith in the spirit of unity and tolerance but to humbly share with people of other faiths a vision of a God of ultimate love and ultimate mercy. Then they will see Christianity clearly, and true inter-faith dialogue can happen. But until we embrace the cross we insult our God who died for us because we hide away his greatest act of love, because of it’s offensive nature, and we insult those we speak to about our faith, because we think they cannot handle the most distinctive part of our faith.


The Cross and the Poor

People will often feel the church should be focusing on sharing Jesus’ love through deeds of justice and mercy. The church has a responsibility to be loving the poor and marginalised. If the church is to stay true to its mission we will be loving the poor.

This emphasis can be seen as being in tension with preaching the cross. We can spend our time in church talking about Jesus or we can spend our time in the community loving like Jesus. It’s a choice between words and actions. If you follow this thinking to its most extreme the only time we should be talking about Jesus we should be talking about him in relation to how we care for the poor.

But the truth is that the best and true motivation for our love for the poor has to come out of the cross. A proper understanding of the cross has to lead to a changed response to the poor.

Without the cross our care for the poor and marginalised becomes about obeying the rules set forth by our teacher, it becomes an exercise in changing our hearts through our actions. The more we love the poor, the more we will be conformed to the likeness of Jesus, and our hearts will be changed and the more we will love the poor. The more we achieve this, the more we will be living in the will of Christ and worthy of his love and honour. It’s a religion of work with ourselves at the centre. We are at the centre because we try and please God with our own goodness and adherence to his values. We are at the centre because we are doing the work that changes our hearts, and hoping this will please God.

But the cross turns that on its head. The cross says that for our sake Christ became poor (2 Cor 8:9). He came, the most rich becoming the most poor. And he poured himself out for a wretched and sinful people, saving them from their own self-imposed, spiritual poverty, making them children of God and giving them, in himself, every spiritual blessing.

The cross shows us a God who has saved us in the greatest act of generosity ever to brighten the universe. Our life comes from a God who has saved us out of his heart, a heart inclined towards the undeserving poor.

Christ has risen to new life giving us a new heart and his power through the Holy Spirit.

We now have a responsibility to be loving the poor and marginalised because we know that we are the recipients of Christ’s love when we were poor. We know that we are only who we are because God had mercy on us when we had nothing.

As a result we live out the teachings of Christ not to change our hearts, or to please our Lord, but because he has given us a new heart and through the power of his Spirit he changes us to be like him and live out his love. We love because we have been loved and received his love. We love the poor out of grace. We love the poor who are undeserving because we are undeserving. We reach out to the lowest, seek out the most lost and go into the places that are darkest because he came searching for us when we were lower, more lost and in greater darkness, and now he empowers us to search and love like him.

Any church that spends all its time talking about the cross but does not see justice and mercy as an outworking of the cross hasn’t really understood the cross. And any church that forgets the cross when talking about the need for loving the poor and marginalised has forgotten where the true locus of power lies in Christianity.



So there are three ways where the cross is played out in giving meaning to the everyday issues Christians face. Jesus Christ, known and preached as our Lord who came, lived, died and rose again for us, must be at the centre of all we do. Without him and his saving work done at the cross through his death and resurrection, we are to be pitied more than all people. I’ll let John Stott bring it home: “To encounter Christ is to touch reality and experience transcendence. He gives us a sense of self-worth or personal significance, because He assures us of God's love for us. He sets us free from guilt because He died for us and from paralysing fear because He reigns. He gives meaning to marriage and home, work and leisure, personhood and citizenship.”


* I haven’t actually done my research and looked up every time the there has been a Christian theocracy in the past two millennia and examined their penal system. But I can think of plenty of examples of the Church gone feral when given the reigns to power.

The Centrality of the Cross: Part One - Church

I started writing this in February last year. It wasn't meant to be huge. Then it evolved into a monster and I didn't touch it for over a year. Still I didn't want all that typing to go to waste, and I still agree with myself. So I've touched it up a bit and here is part one of my two part series on the centrality of the cross.


When I made my Hillsong post a while ago I mentioned that I thought that it was important that the Cross is mentioned in every church service. In the comments, not one person agreed with me. While this sent me into an apoplectic rage in which I blocked the IP addresses of everyone who disagreed with me and then sent letter bombs to their houses, it also got me thinking about whether or not I was just being a superstitious legalist, as if saying a particular formula of words will make a church service orthodox and pleasing to God. I went to church the next Sunday watching to see if we mentioned the cross. Happily we sung about it, and the Pastor talked about it in his sermon.

But what if it hadn't been mentioned? Would I need to start wondering if my church was a church of heresy? Would I need to sit down with my Pastor and ask him to make sure the church was preaching Jesus?

After thinking about it for a while, I'm still of the view that the cross needs to be talked about and that it should be talked about every week.

I think perhaps what I said about needing to mention the cross in every service in the Hillsong post, needs elaboration. I reckon I need to elaborate for myself, if nothing else.

For starters I want to make clear that when I say the Cross, I mean the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's short hand for the historical event where Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who is God incarnate, was put to death through crucifixion on a Roman cross, only to be physically resurrected on the third day after his death.

This event was a universe shifting occurrence. It's through of this momentous act of God that he makes peace between humanity and himself, by taking the punishment for sin upon himself. And it is out of this act that God draws his children to himself, Christ wins a bride for himself, and the Church is born.

The question is, why do I feel like this needs to be mentioned in church every time we meet together? Is this a requirement of a good church, or just an ideal to be aimed for?

To put it as simply as possible, I think it is out of the Cross that the church finds its identity, and so it needs to be regularly talked about.

But, you might say, I find my identity in where I was born, who my family is, what has happened to me, who my friends are, what job I do, what hobbies I have, what pain I have had to endure, and more. It’s not like I have to mention this every day to remain being who I am. Why should the church have to talk about its defining event every time it meets to retain its identity? Whether you mention defining events or not, they are part of you, nothing will change that.

I guess the difference is between mere history and fact and what you actually value. For instance, the fact that I was once robbed in the street when I was younger, for years had an affect on how I felt in public, and it probably still, to some degree, has an affect on how I respond in situations where I feel threatened. It is an event that is part of who I am. But that said, it’s not an event that I feel particularly attached to, and it not one that I hold on to so it can keep forming who I am.

On the other hand, when I was 18 God called me into full time ministry to young people. This too is a defining event, it has changed the course of my life. Unlike being robbed however, I want this to keep defining who I am. As soon as I forget that call, I forget why I do what I do. When I doubt why I am where I am, and if I really should be living the life I am, I go back to that event and am reminded that “Yes” this is what God called me to. It’s an event I need to keep central because it is important to my identity.

Similarly the cross is a defining event for the church. We need to keep going back to it because it informs who we are and where we’ve come from. For individuals it is important to remain vigilant in telling ourselves the stories that we want to form and inform our identity. For the church it must be doing the same thing. But more so, because a person is only one person only they, the individual, has to decide what events to draw life from, the church is made up of many individuals and all of them have the chance to speak into what should define the church. Deliberately talking about the cross regularly will help everyone in the church remember what is central to who we are. It is our story of value and identity.

Some people will ask, however, why always talk about the cross? There is more to Jesus than the cross. Similarly there is more to the church than the cross. The church needs to be focusing on Jesus rather than just the cross.

My response would be, as I think I responded in the comments, while there is certainly more to Jesus than the cross, there is never less to Jesus than the cross.

Jesus’ teaching is vital for the Christian to know how to live. His miracles point us to the marvellous kingdom that is breaking into this world. His practical love for all people gives us the example we need to go and practically love just like him.

However, it is the death and resurrection of Jesus that sets him apart from all other holy men and wise teachers who have walked the earth. It is the death and resurrection of Christ that sets God apart from the pantheon of gods who are worshiped every day all over the world.

If Jesus did not die and rise again, then his claims of divinity were misguided, and foolish. If he didn’t die and rise again, his assertion that he is the judge of the whole earth is positively foolish. If Jesus didn’t die and rise again, then the life that he calls us to becomes an impossible burden. It is only through the power of the cross that we can live as followers of Christ.

If Jesus didn’t die and rise again, then God has not come to be with us in human form, he has not fully suffered as one of us, and he has not beaten death on our behalf. If Jesus didn’t die and rise again, then God has not graciously taken our sins upon himself, and he is still holding our sins against us, storing up his wrath. He is not a loving and gracious God but an angry or unconcerned God.

There is more to Jesus than the cross, but there is never less to Jesus than the cross. Take out the cross and you have no Christ.

It’s the reason the writers of the New Testament keep coming back to the cross. It’s why Paul says: “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” – 1 Corinthians 2:2

It’s why Peter says: “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.” – 1 Peter 1:18-21

It’s why the writer to the Hebrews says: “Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant… he has appeared once for all at the culmination of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself. Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.” – Hebrews 9:15, 26-28

The cross is central, it defines our faith, it defines us. It puts us in our rightful place and God in his. It shows us the depths our sin and the greatness of his love. The writers of the New Testament kept coming back to the cross because they understood that there is nothing greater and nothing that helps us see who God is more clearly.

With this in mind we see that the cross is the central point in the defining narrative of the church. Out of the cross the church gains it's existence and identity. Just as any intentional community needs to remember it's defining stories, and reasons for existence, whenever it meets the church needs to be pointing itself back to its point of definition – the cross of Christ.

If we want to teach Jesus clearly, if we want to preach him faithfully, if we want churches that are centred on Jesus, then we need to always centre ourselves on the event that the Bible is centred on and on which Jesus centred himself on; his world changing, life bringing, glory radiating, sacrificial death and resurrection.


In part two I’ll look at how you keep the cross central to your teaching, using the examples of teaching on evil, dealing with other faiths, and care for the poor.

Photo by djking

Tough Gig

Tomorrow morning at 8:30am I'm preaching in a school chapel on 1 Corinthians 5. That's the on about the guy sleeping with his step mother.

Hmmm, tricky? Yes. Evangelistic? Difficult. Should I keep the mofo references to a minimum? Definitely.

Still, I'm wondering how much fun is appropriate.

Closer to Inerrancy

I was happy to see today that my most personally upsetting and perhaps the overall most critical translation error of the NIV has now been fixed by the NIV 2011:

NIV 1984

Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king’s belly. Even the handle sank in after the blade, which came out his back. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it.

NIV 2011

Ehud reached with his left hand, drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king’s belly. Even the handle sank in after the blade, and his bowels discharged. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it.

Judges 3:21-22

The translators have put a smile on the face of God.

When God's Word Comes to Town

This got me emotional.

The Kimyal People Receive the New Testament from UFM Worldwide on Vimeo.

Sex and Bible and Ignorant Talkings

It annoys me when I read articles about what the Bible says from people who don't really know what the Bible says. I read an article by Katherine Feeney on SMH who "is a blogger, multimedia guru and entertainment reporter", and has decided to write about what the Bible says about sex. A little bit at least. She's really just using it as a spring board to get people to talk about how they make moral decisions on sex. None the less she speaks authoritatively about things I'm pretty sure she doesn't know about.

I'm sure it annoys scientists when I talk about science and molecules and nuclear atomising and stuff.

Aside from the fact that I was annoyed, it intrigued me that in the article she says this:

If the Bible is actually more erotic, more ‘liberal’ or socially progressive than otherwise assumed, does it deserve more credit as a contemporary reference point for our love and sex lives?

It's interesting that for her the way you decide if the Bible should have an influence is if it is erotic, liberal or socially progressive. She's not concerned if it's right, or true, or God-given. If the Bible is those things, it'll be those things because it's socially progressive. Eroticism, liberalism and social progression are the test for relevancy, authority and contemporary reference points.

That doesn't make much sense to me, I'd have things the other way around, but then again, I don't really know what I'm talking about.

Questions

In Bible study tonight, while looking at Colossians 2:4 ("I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments"), we made a list of the all the different types of teachings and "fine sounding arguments" that might lead the church astray.

Of the ones I can remember, they were:

• Jesus is not the only way to God
• The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are three separate gods
• How can a good God exist when there is so much suffering the world?
• Jesus is not God, God does not exist, Jesus was just a good man
• Jesus didn't physically rise from the dead
• God did not create the world, a big bang did
• There is no absolute truth
• The Bible is a book written in a specific culture and therefore not eternally relevant
• The Bible is not God's revelation, it is not inerrant, it is just a book
• God is unknowable
• Religion has been the cause of too much evil in the world
• Jesus was not the messiah
• You can be saved through being good

We were then asked which ones we struggled with, or had struggled with. I don't know about the answers of the rest of the group, but my answer was all of them. At some stage or another I've wrestled with all of them. If I'm honest, some of them pop up regularly. I can't even say I've satisfactorally solved them all for myself. Jesus, however, is consistantly greater than any question.

If you asked me what questions I regularly ask, it'd be these:

Does God actually exist?

Was Jesus actually God?

Would God really reveal himself through the Bible?

Is Christianity the only true faith?

The rest are just sometimes questions.


What questions do you ask? How often do you find yourself asking questions? What answers have you found?

Me and my Salvation

I was doing my Bible reading this morning, and I'm currently going through 1 Samuel because we're doing it in youth group. Today I read 1 Samuel 12 where Samuel gives his farewell speech. And it's not what you'd expect - "It's been so good leading you all, I love you lots, God bless" - Samuel lays into them and gives them a history their sin, right up until they choose a king and rejected God as their king. Samuel then says God is going to send a storm to prove they have done evil, and he does, which is a pretty awesome endorsement of your speech if you're Samuel.

Israel feels pretty convicted by the thunder and lightning and says: "Pray to the LORD your God for your servants so that we will not die, for we have added to all our other sins the evil of asking for a king." (12:19)

And Samuel replies with, "Do not be afraid. You have done all this evil; yet do not turn away from the LORD, but serve the LORD with all your heart. Do not turn away after useless idols. They can do you no good, nor can they rescue you, because they are useless. For the sake of his great name the LORD will not reject his people, because the LORD was pleased to make you his own." (12:20-22)

That struck me. Firstly because I feel like I regularly get confronted with my sin. And I think "Oh goodness, now I've done this, on top of all my other sins." So I know how the Israelites feel.

But then Samuel gives this great reply. He doesn't say "Oh don't worry about it, it's nothing. God will forgive you." And he doesn't say "Sucks to be you, God is going smash you guys so hard!"

He says "You have done all this evil". He doesn't pull punches. But having done evil their response should be to try and escape his wrath, to get away from him. But Samuel counsels them by saying "Do not be afraid" and "Do not turn away from the LORD, but serve the LORD with all your heart." Just when they should be running away he says come closer. Serve God. Do not be afraid. Why?

"For the sake of his great name the LORD will not reject his people, because the LORD was pleased to make you his own."

God is going to forgive and not destroy the Israelites because God's name is made great when he forgives sinful people and when he looks after his family. It's not because Israel is amazing, or God is fond of their cuteness, or they'll make it up to God. Israel are safe from God and God will forgive them because it glorifies him. For God saving and forgiving is all about glorifying himself.

And that gives me great comfort. I know I have done evil. And I'm not sure why God would want to forgive me. But God doesn't forgive me because there is anything particularly special about me, he forgives me for the sake of his great name. And there is no point where God will give up on me, not because God can't live without me, but for the sake of his great name. I am saved for God's glory. And I am safe for God's glory. Which means, it's not about me.

In my self-centredness I can get all caught up on why would God save me? I'm not good enough, maybe God will stop loving me if I keep letting him down, how much longer will he put up with me? I should work harder to please God. And really it's not about me. But God's not saving me because of how good or bad I am. He's not getting me in his kingdom because I'm a great asset with all my Christian skills, or because he saw me and thought "That guy really needs help." God has saved me, and keeps me saved, because it's an expression of his character and a testament to his greatness. God's not going to stop loving me, or drop me from the team, because I'm here to glorify him. Saving me, and sanctifying me and making me his child, that glorifies which is the primary reason I am saved. My salvation is not about me, it not reliant on me at all, it's not predicated on how good or bad I am, it's about God, who is love, doing what God does best.

It's not about me.

I was an object of wrath, I am a trophy of grace, because I am the glory of God and the glory of God wins every time.

Hallelujah.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. - Ephesians 1:3-6

NIV 2011

For those of us who use the NIV on Bible Gateway, it quietly changed itself up a few days ago.

The new translation of the NIV (the NNIV perhaps?) has been dubbed NIV 2011, but it'll probably just be called the NIV. It won't be out in print till next year but on Tuesday it quietly arrived online. The first I noticed was when I was working on my sermon on Wednesday night and was surprised by the gender inclusive language. It said "brothers and sisters" instead of just "brothers". I thought that perhaps that was just a abnormal translation for this verse that I'd never noticed, and thought nothing more.

But then I found out that it's a new translation. It's odd because it's the NIV but then suddenly it slips a word in your weren't ready for. For instance in youth group tonight we were doing Philippians 2:1-11 and when I was expecting the boys to read this:

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, - Phil 2:5-6 (NIV 1984)

But instead they read this:

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; - Phil 2:5-6 (NIV 2010)

I think it's a better translation, but it jars the ears because you're expecting NIV but you get NNIV. And especially there it jars because you want to sing "Highest Place", that song with too many words per bar, in your head, but you just get thrown out. I'm so used to the NIV and now it's not the NIV and nobody warned me.

I assume they did it to compete with the ESV. Just like Coke brought out New Coke in 1985 to compete with Pepsi. But while you can't improve on Coke's formula, you can always get a better translation.

Anyway as far as I can tell it's a better translation. The language seems more accurate and less clunky. The gender inclusive language is good, and it saves people from having to add it themselves. And as far as I can tell, the translation from the greek is more accurate, but I'm no expert on that.

The NNIV is set to replace both the NIV and the tNIV next year. And it won't be called the NNIV, that's just me being stupid.

If you're interested 60.55% of the NNIV's verses are the same as the NIV. While 8.25% of the NNIV has something completely new from the NIV. If you want to track all the changes you can go here. It's pretty interesting if you're a bible nerd.

Waters Cover the Sea

We sang a song at church tonight which I can't remember. But there was a line in it that said something about "as the waters cover the sea". And I thought to myself "Bah, another dumb lyric. Why are worship songs always full of dumb lyrics? Of course the waters cover the sea. A sea needs water to exist as sea. If there was no water there would be no sea. It'd be just a valley. I'm going go home and blog about that."

Except I got home and realised that that dumb lyric is from Habakkuk 2:14 which says: "For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea." I'm not so sure I feel ready to criticise God's lyrics yet.

Still, if I ever remember when we're hanging out in the new creation, I may politely ask what his definition of sea is, and if it's possible to have sea without water? And if it is not possible to have a sea without water, then why Habbakkuk 2:14? But I'll do all this very respectfully, and I shall probably only get around to it after I've finished asking him about creation, predestination, angels, miracles, babies that die, the virgin birth, who made God, dating, Harold Holt and what would happen, hypothetically, if Jesus was an identical twin.

To live is Christ, to die is to pwn Wikipedia.

Original Sin

Last month Andreana wrote a piece on her blog about how the doctrine of original sin makes people feel terrible about themselves. Then last week I was talking to one of my friends who told me they felt pretty much the same way. They didn’t like that there is this central belief within Christianity that you are basically evil. It’s bad for self-esteem and locks people into seeing themselves only as terrible people, incapable of good.

So I’ve been thinking about this for a while and had some thoughts. What follows is kinda the extended edition of a comment I left on Andreana’s blog.

I guess firstly any discussion of original sin needs a definition, so I’ll tell you what I know. Original sin is the doctrine that through the actions of Adam all humanity have inherited a sinful nature. In conservative evangelical thought, this means that humanity, as descendants of Adam, are born under judgement for Adam’s sin and with a built in predisposition for sin.

Probably the main reason why I believe in original sin is because I think it's biblical.

Obviously the biblical texts are open to interpretation, and need to be understood in the context of the literature, but as far as original sin goes I think there is biblical evidence for it, particularly in Romans 5:12-19. I am unclear as to what extent all people are guilty in Adam or how that works, I am sure that all of us have inherited our sinful nature, and are unable to live righteous lives without the direct intervention of God.

Perhaps the other lesser reason I am inclined to believe in original sin is that I see it in humanity. Kids aren’t taught to sin, they seem to have it built in. No one teaches a kid to snatch, punch, bite, kick, yet they all seem to figure it out for themselves. And if you watch kids interact, they are pretty horrid creatures. Sure they’re cute and precious, and funny, and fun. But they’re also mean, and selfish, and childish. If an adult behaved like a child we wouldn’t say “Oh how innocent they are” we’d say “Oh how horrible they are.” I think we learn civility because we learn that our deviant ways don’t get us what we want.

So I think I’m happy to see humanity as essentially sinful, both from what I read in the Bible and what I see in the world. I’m not saying that humanity is entirely sinful, or that babies, kids or adults are incapable of good, or love, just that I think that all people have a predisposition towards sin. I think sinfulness is built in since the fall, it’s not learned.

Obviously this isn’t a particularly cheery doctrine. I understand if a person accepts this on its own it certainly doesn’t give a person cause to feel excited about being a human or hopeful that they will be able to achieve anything more than evil, or hope that they will be able to move beyond their sin. However if they accept it, it should drive them to Christ. And if it drives them to Christ and they are willing to accept Christ’s work for them on the cross, then they no longer need to worry about their sinfulness, because in Christ they have been given all the righteousness of Christ. They are sinless before God. And they have the Holy Spirit living in them who enables them to live good, loving, godly lives, every day becoming more like Jesus.

The book of Romans seems to be a meditation on this idea. After spending many chapters thinking about the plight of humanity and the grace of God, Paul writes his famous segment in chapter 7 lamenting his inability to live the way he wants to and get rid of his sinful life. He climaxes the chapter with the cry “I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:23-24). It’s certainly a feeling that knowing that you are unable to escape sin’s effects or influence would bring about in you.

But Paul doesn’t stop there. He knows that this feeling shouldn’t drive him to despair, but to Jesus. He goes on to say this: “Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do... God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.” (Romans 7:25-8:3)

Paul is saying that his need to sin forces him to turn to Jesus. Only because of Jesus’ death, in our place, for our sins, do we get saved. And what a glorious rescue it is. If there was not original sin, if we did not have an awareness of our own love of evil, would we really feel like we needed Jesus?

Original sin may not make us feel good, but it makes the love of God all the more sweeter, because we know that in that is everything we need, and the only thing we can hope in.

So if I was to sum up my thoughts I’d say this, the issue with original sin making people feel crappy is not that it goes too far, but that it doesn’t go far enough. The gospel focused Christian should not let their friend wallow in their own guilt, but they should point them to the fact they are in fact guiltless. Our sinfulness is not an end point for how we understand ourselves, it’s a starting point; Jesus is the end point.

If you believe in original sin, you should also believe that through faith a person becomes a new creation in Jesus, and so all the effects of the fall are taken care of, either now, or at the resurrection. Anyone who teaches original sin without teaching redemption through Christ teaches an unbiblical message. And anyone who encourages guilt instead of encouraging people to turn to Jesus for forgiveness and new life, forgets that the gospel is not about the sin of humanity but the glory of God.

And those are my thoughts on original sin.

Watermelons and Pride

Last night at youth group I was speaking on Evangelism as a value for our youth group. I talked about our need to share the good news of Jesus. This gave me the perfect opportunity to talk about our love of sharing dumb videos and to show two of the most watched videos on YouTube this week.

Seeing as I love YouTube, this was perfect.

First I showed this one, because I think it's brilliant:



Then I showed this one because it seemed to have been the biggest thing on YouTube in the previous 24 hours. I'm not normally a fan of people getting hurt videos. Actually I am, but I try not to be. But I showed this not to laugh but to make a point about the uselessness of the things we share. Still, I may have laughed a bit:



Anyway, the talk itself seemed to go ok. I gave the kids an opportunity to become Christians and what was great is that two of them indicated that they wanted to become Christians! So in hindsight, the talk went brilliantly.

But despite the kingdom success I didn't feel all that good about the talk. I came home thinking I spoke too long, that it wasn't interesting enough and it was a bit of a mess. One of the leaders told me they found my gospel presentation "interesting". They clarified that it wasn't wrong or heretical, just interesting. I didn't quite know what this meant, so I worried then about my presentation of the gospel too.

So I came home feeling a little depressed. Which is highly dumb. I'm sure it was partly due to the fact that I was coming off the back of another big week of Bible talk preparing and giving, so I wasn't feeling real happy.

Still, it was dumb. Here I am, two kids have believed the Gospel for the first time and prayed to become a Christian, and I'm worrying about whether my talk was good enough. How full of pride I am that my primary response after my talk is not "How amazing God is that people gave their life to Jesus!" but "Oh dear, I don't think my talk was good/funny/interesting/short enough."

Less of me. More of Him.

Work and Laziness

I'm writing a talk at the moment on work and laziness in the book of Proverbs. It's for a school. I was asked to do it. I didn't realise I could have picked another topic. This is a shame because work and laziness are not very exciting ideas. I'm not passionate about people working hard. I especially don't want to be the guy who turns up to school and says "Work hard and you'll achieve stuff", I hated those speeches at school. And the "Don't waste your education" speeches, I hated them too. I don't want to be that guy. I want to stand there and say "Don't open your HSC. Don't stress. Go out late at night. Only do the homework you want to do. You are not your education." Though I'm pretty sure I wouldn't get invited back.

I might try and find the middle way. I might tell them all to become plumbers, cause plumbers are awesome.

Money for Running

As you may have noticed I'm running the City2Surf tomorrow. I'm doing it for Jesus: All About Life. If you dig the Bible, please sponsor me by going here; you can help raise money to get Bibles in Public Schools and celebrate that I'm going to sweat a lot tomorrow.

The Bible is probably the better motivation.

End of money pitch.

This Good Friday

Good Friday is good.

I love that we spend a day considering the death of Jesus. I love the sombre mood of church. The darkness. The quiet.

The King is dead. Our Lord crucified. Naked, alone, suffering the wrath of man and God. It's hard to know how to feel on Good Friday.

Sad. Contemplative. Thankful.

So often we jump straight to the resurrection from the crucifixion. But at Easter we have time take it slowly, to let the reality sink in.

Now, at this time on the Friday, darkness had fallen on the land. Jesus was in the grave. Hope crushed. The creator's lifeless body, on a cold rock shelf, in a darkened tomb.

Tomorrow our Lord does not stir. Decay begins. The dawn was coming, but who really knew?


He was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors. - Isaiah 53:5,12

He has done it. - Psalm 22:31c

Photo by: jurek d.

Stop Over

I'm currently in Maccas using the free wifi. I'm in between schools visits. I preached in a chapel in Sydney's South West this morning, now I'm about to go to one of Sydney's posher schools to do their chapel in an hour. Happily I'm doing the same talk so it's not going to be too hard. I'm preaching on Jesus feeding the 5000.

At the school I was at this morning I was taken to visit a classroom called Gumnut Cottage. I thought about referencing Summer Heights High but thought better of it.

I'm speaking again tomorrow on the Central Coast, but it's a whole new talk that I've only just started writing. This one is on Jesus with the Woman at the well. The moral is "Don't have lots of husbands you dirty hussy, drink water."

Lara Bingle is on the news here. Poor lass.

I know this isn't a very insightful post but the wifi is free so why not post?

Is hussy realy rude? Can I say it in a school chapel?

Consider the Birds

“You see, He is making the birds our schoolmasters and teachers. It is a great and abiding disgrace to us that in the Gospel a helpless sparrow should become a theologian and a preacher to the wisest of men...Whenever you listen to a nightingale, therefore, you are listening to an excellent preacher...It is as if he were saying, ‘I prefer to be in the Lord’s kitchen. He has made heaven and earth, and He Himself is the cook and the host.’ Every day He feeds and nourishes innumerable little birds out of His hand.” - Martin Luther on Matthew 6:26

Killing in the Name of...

I just read that a US gun sight manufacturer has gotten into trouble for putting Bible references on its gun sights. People are concerned that if US military personnel, who use the sights, are captured, the reference will be seen and their captors will think the US is on a Christian crusade against the Muslim hordes.

So the US, as well as Australia and New Zealand, are looking at ways of getting rid of the Bible references off the sights.

It seems that they want to get rid of it because of what is essentially a PR problem for them if someone gets captured. I don't know, but I'm guessing, that if your soldier is getting captured by an enemy fighter, you already have a PR problem and no amount of scripture reference removal is going to solve that.

What no one has mentioned in any of the articles that I have read (though someone may have mentioned it somewhere), is that the bigger issue shouldn't be that it'll offend Muslims, but that you'll offend Christians. I'm pretty sure the Muslims are already offended. You're in their lands bringing "freedom" to their people, appropriating their resources for your own wealth and bombing their children. Scripture reference or no scripture reference, that's pretty offensive.

I, however, find it terribly offensive that you would take the words of my Lord, the Prince of Peace, and brand them on weapons used to perpetrate evil. I think guns are as cool as the next guy, but the only weapons I will trust are those that are in the hands of Jesus. Anything else is in the hands of a sinful human for, most probably, evil purposes.

Now there may or may not be a place for force in the scheme of things. And there may be times when violence is appropriate for the protection of the innocent and the combating of injustice. But I cannot for the life of me see how it honours Jesus to put a Bible reference on a gun which is primarily designed to take the life of a person created in God's image, who is so precious to him that he gave up his life for them.

Whether they think that any of these wars that we are fighting are just or not (and you can probably tell that I don't think they are), I cannot see how anyone could think they could spiritualise and sanctify something that is one of the most horrific outworkings of our fallen and evil nature with a few Bible verses. That is disgusting and offensive.

If you're wondering the Bible references were these:

The LORD is my light and my salvation—
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life—
of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." - John 8:12

For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. - 2 Cor 4:6


Perhaps if they liked their references to light so much, they should have mediated on this one for a while:

He will judge between the nations
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.

Come, O house of Jacob,
let us walk in the light of the LORD. - Isaiah 2:4-5

Making a Pact with a Devil

I'm currently researching credit cards. Not because I want one, but because it may be the most effective way with my new job to do money stuff. I've never wanted a credit card, the lure of having the ability to spend $5000 I don't have is not one I really want to have to deal with.

On Monday I'm doing a Bible Study on Matt 6:19-24. Verse 24 says: "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."

I feel like, for me, getting a credit card just excites too many feelings of "Oh my goodness I could buy so much stuff!" in me. I'm already feeling that with the reality of a full time salary looming.

Happily at the moment, I'm hating the credit card, so I'm hoping that I'm loving God. I'll see if I can find a way to continue my hostility and make any credit card I have serve my good Master.

Or perhaps I just won't get a credit card. That'd be nice.

Blind Guides

Today I saw a blind person being led by another blind person who was being led by another blind person. It was the blind leading the blind leading the blind. They almost walked into a pole while at the same time almost careening off the foot path. Their stick skills seemed to be a little lacking. While you shouldn't really find these things funny it brought a certain amount of slapstick glee to my callous heart. Can you call that black slapstick? Who would have ever thought you could call slapstick black?

Anyway, I was pretty pleased to see a re-life enactment of Jesus' parable.

But the fun didn't last all that long because a friendly man was condescending enough to go and help the three blind humans and direct them away from the pole and minor precipice. I thought it was very brave of him to acknowledge their disability and help in such an un-PC way. Generally I'm too scared to help people with a disability who I don't know. I think they'll probably get offended that I think they can't help themselves. So I leave them to walk into parked cars or get stuck at the bottom of ditches safe in the knowledge that though they may get a little injured they still have their dignity intact.