Category Archives: Theology

Meagre attempts to think God’s thoughts after him. Teaching old dogmas new tricks.

The Trickling River

Posted on by under Theology

 

In Ezekiel 47 there is a vision of the Temple given to the prophet. In the vision, a flow of water spills out of the temple. It starts as merely a trickle (v.2).The flow begins like so many things associated with the glory of God revealed. It starts small. It is almost imperceivable. It’s a trickle.

Like when you go into the Rockies and you will see one of those trickling places where the water only makes the rock damp, but there’s not enough of a flow to fill your water bottle.

But like that trickle on the mountainside, the trickle from the temple slowly accumulates. It becomes ankle deep, then knee deep, waist deep, and then above your head so you have to swim, and then so large and powerful that it cannot be passed through. This is the trickling river that surges with more volume and power than the Bow.

And this powerful river from the Temple would make pure and make fruitful all that it met. It would turn salt water fresh and cause fruit to grow, with the leaves of the trees for healing.

Now if you know, the vision at the end of the Book of Revelation, you will know that this vision is fulfilled ultimately in that last day Temple and its River (Revelation 22.1-2). John calls the trickling river, “the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb” (Rev 22.1).

This is the promise for all who believe in Jesus, the Lamb of God who said,  “If anyone thirsts let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’” (John 7.37-38).

Don’t be fooled by the trickling stream. It will become a purifying river. Through faith in Jesus Christ, the fullness of that water of life can wash over your parched soul.

Protecting Enquirers, Seekers and Converts

Posted on by under Theology, World

 

It isn’t something that has been written about in the popular Christian leadership magazines in the West. There aren’t conference topics on the subject at gatherings for church leaders in the US, Canada, Britain or Australia. But things are changing.

Now churches have to think about the reality of protecting people who are interested in learning about Jesus Christ, reading the bible, attending the church and hearing the gospel preached. With the recent move by the Canadian government to introduce an Islamophobia law, there is increased unwillingness of Western governments to protect the rights of those leaving Islam and converting to other religions.

Imagine the scenario of an Iranian Shia woman who is witnessed to by a Christian woman, and becomes a believer herself. According to all three schools of Sharia, that formerly Muslim woman is now under threat for her life. Other Muslims have, in their minds, the responsibility to execute that apostate from Islam.

Although some churches in the West have had scenarios when they have had to protect a seeker or a new convert from they violent pressures of family and community, most of these instances are isolated. However, if laws are made and shirk, or apostasy from Islam is rendered an Islamophobic, blasphemous act, then enquirers into the gospel will do so under suspicion and threat.

I think of the Iranian Shia widow who has attended my church a number of times, with great appreciation for the love our church has shown to her, as well as the gospel of Jesus Christ which she hears preached. She is not a believer in Christ, but even her enquiries could come at a cost.

So pastors and congregants must be prepared to sacrifice in order to protect those who are exploring Christianity. We must love them so that they can find security in our fellowship, as they seek Jesus, God the Son, the only saviour for the world.

 

Too Much or Not Enough?

Posted on by under History, Theology


Too much or not enough? That is always the challenge when we look to church history, historical theology and the history of biblical interpretation. How much credence do we give to the reflections and conclusions of those who have gone before us. The Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck is really helpful :

The history of dogma and dogmatics is therefore to be regarded as a mighty attempt to appropriate the truth of God revealed in Christ and to fully understand the essence of Christianity. In evaluating that agelong dogmatic labor, people have erred both to the left and to the right and in turn been guilty both of overestimation and underestimation.[1]

So the trick is to find the right balance: not too much but not too little.  Part of this includes the humility to recognize that we aren’t the first people to look at theological questions. As Bavinck says:

Processing the content of Scripture dogmatically, however, is not just the work of one individual theologian, or of a particular church or school, but of the entire church throughout the ages, of the whole new humanity regenerated by Christ. [2]

How is your view of the biblical and theological conclusions of those believers who have gone before you? How much weight do you give to their opinions?

Too Much or Not Enough?

[1] Herman Bavinck, John Bolt, and John Vriend, Reformed Dogmatics: Prolegomena, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 116.

[2] Ibid. 116–117.

Canadian Christians: Dwarfs, Deadheads or Douglas Firs?

Posted on by under Theology

It’s really encouraging to see all of the good and godly resources that are available to Canadian Christians today.

Consider what a blessing it is to have Tim Challies writing and  resourcing us, assisting in the discipleship of Christians all over the world. There are new initiatives like The Gospel Coalition Canada getting off the ground that intend to help Canadian churches grow in depth and unity. Good publishers print more books than mere mortals can attempt to read.

But for all of our resources, when we look at ourselves with a properly Canadian self-criticism, we can see that we’re not really where we ought to be in spiritual maturity. Our churches could be so much sounder, our prayers could be more frequent, our witness could be more winsome and consistent and our thoughts of God more clear and honouring to Him.

As usual, JI Packer has crafted a perfect picture of the contrast between first, what we look like today, and second, what we could aspire to under God’s grace.

Dwarfs and Deadheads

First of all, Packer says that the contemporary church is so affected by affluence that it has been making, “dwarfs and deadheads of us all.” [1]

With gospel-centred this, and grace-based that, it is jolting to think that we’re not really very far along. It can sober us up to think that our misplaced priorities, worship of glass ‘screens’ and affluent anxieties have kept us stunted.  All of these God-centred resources are helpful, and we should praise God for the blessing of them. But we need to be careful about being too big for our britches. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble (James 4.6).

One of the graces which God gives, is the memory of faithful believers who have gone before us. The biblical summary of this practice is found in Hebrews 11 where the author reminds his readers of the example of believers who have gone before them. Their historical example is intended to be a ‘useable past’ to encourage renewed faith and obedience.

Redwoods

That was Packer’s second point in the contrast.  If we are dwarfs and deadheads, we need to look at some examples of folks who weren’t.  So Packer turned to the English Puritans. In doing so, he crafted one of the most picturesque descriptions of Christian maturity which has come down to us:

On a narrow strip of the northern California coastline grow the giant Redwoods, the biggest living things on earth. Some are over 360 feet tall, and some trunks are more than 60 feet round. They do not have much foliage for their size; all their strength is in those huge trunks, with foot-thick bark, that rise sheer for almost half their height before branching out. Some have actually been burned, but are still alive and growing. Many hundreds of years old, over a thousand in some cases, the Redwoods are (to use a much-cheapened word in its old, strict, strong sense) awesome. They dwarf you, making you feel your smallness as scarcely anything else does. Great numbers of Redwoods were thoughtlessly felled in California’s logging days, but more recently they have come to be appreciated and preserved, and Redwood parks are today invested with a kind of sanctity. A 33-mile road winding through Redwood groves is fittingly called the Avenue of the Giants.

California’s Redwoods make me think of England’s Puritans, another breed of giants who in our time have begun to be newly appreciated. Between 1550 and 1700 they too lived unfrilled lives in which, speaking spiritually, strong growth and resistance to fire and storm were what counted.

Packer then summarized the appeal of this kind of maturity which the Puritans had:

As Redwoods attract the eye, because they overtop other trees, so the mature holiness and seasoned fortitude of the great Puritans shine before us as a kind of beacon light, overtopping the stature of the majority of Christians in most eras, and certainly so in this age of crushing urban collectivism, when Western Christians sometimes feel and often look like ants in an anthill and puppets on a string.

Douglas Firs

In Canadian churches we can pray that we would grow more like Redwoods and less like deadheads, as we seek to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with our own needy generation. Maybe a Canadian way to think about this Puritan-like goal would be to swap the picture of Redwoods for Douglas Firs.

Just stop and imagine what it could be like if local churches in Canada were filled with people who were like spiritual Douglas Firs. Not one or two “Big Lonely Dougs” (like the tallest one in Port Renfrew), but a spiritual forest of godly people, with new and old growth climbing skyward. We know it will only happen if our churches send their roots deep, and we withstand many trials of wind and fire. But let us hope and pray that God would grow the church in Canada “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4.13).

[1] J. I. Packer, A Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1990), 11–12.

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