The Shame about The Shack

Interest in and enthusiasm for William's Young's "The Shack" will run and run. More's the pity. I need to acknowledge that I haven't read the who book, but the bits I have are truly, truly dreadful.

My wife Sarah writes a monthly Column called Shelf Life for Evangelicals Now. She reviewed The Shack a few months back. What she says in the review is highly relevant for any who want to read and think discerningly about this book. Here it is:-

THE SHACK
By William Paul Young

Hodder & Stoughton 248 pages.

£7.99 ISBN 978-0-34097-949-5

Where do I start with this book? Its front cover hails it as a new Pilgrim’s Progress, and the back tells us that it is ‘the most heart-warming, inspirational… the most absorbing work of fiction’.
It’s been number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and is being handed out free in a good number of churches; a film is also in the pipeline. So should we be thrilled that a ‘Christian book’ is reaching such a massive audience? Or should we shake our heads because to receive such plaudits the author must surely be compromised?

Conversations

The Shack tells the story of Mack’s loss of his daughter Missy, his subsequent ‘great sadness’, and return to the shack where she was murdered. There God deals with Mack’s pain, helps him to forgive, heals his past and restores Mack’s relationship with himself. So far so good, you might think. But The Shack is not just a story about a Christian’s experience of God’s grace; the main bulk of this book is a series of conversations, perhaps we might even call them revelations, in which God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, all in human form, speak directly to Mack. That direct representation of the Lord is where the biggest problem lies.

Putting words in God’s mouth

Of course this book is fiction, but that doesn’t negate the fact that W.P. Young has deliberately written a book which puts words into God’s mouth, extraordinary words at that. When researching this article my breath was taken away by this paragraph on Young’s blog, a response to a rather gushing post in the form of a prayer: ‘As We watched and heard and saw the oozing out on paper of Our love and joy and laughter; Our power and delight, Our mercy and grace and Our overall creativity, We were delighted with the substance of the text. …. Knowing Me is the goal. Paul [Young] knows Me. Better still, I know Paul, and I have trusted him enough to reveal a little of Myself to him.’

So Young has got not just Eugene Peterson or J. John to give a testimonial, but God himself, and clearly Young is his amanuensis. This is significantly different from misinterpreting Scripture in a commentary or describing dubious experiences in an autobiography or using an allegory to explain some rather wonky theology. To represent God in the way that Young has done is a form of idolatry; it is a recreation of God.

It is a relief to me that this book is not well written. The story, affecting though it is, is so clearly a vehicle for the theological arguments that the characters are unconvincing and the dialogue very stilted. Even the depictions of the Trinity I felt were stereotypical. God the Father is, at the outset, a laughing African-American woman who is very keen on baking (a stereotype of caring competence?), while the Holy Spirit is an Asian woman who seems to hover above the ground (a pretty common idea of someone ‘spiritual’?). The weakness of the writing is a relief because I hope fewer people will find it appealing, though I have been surprised by the uptake among some shrewd friends of mine. It seems that the emotive subject can lead some to remove their discernment as they begin to identify with the characters.

Is suffering unanswerable?

And this, I think, is intentional. This is a book for our Western age, one in which suffering seems to be the trump card; our friends ask, ‘How can God allow suffering?’ and we stutter.
So the book seeks to give us and our friends palatable half-truths to answer the unanswerable, which, of course, accounts for its great popularity. There are some wonderful doctrines clearly explained here: the relational nature of the Trinity, the nature of Heaven, and the satisfaction of God, for example. However, these can cause the reader to overlook the blatant untruths. Young’s God is about relationship, not judgment. His God is in control enough to have a plan for your life, but not in control enough ever to plan suffering for your good. The cross is about reconciliation, but not punishment. Young’s God brings freedom, but not service. This God is known only through Jesus, but Jesus communicates through all religions.

Caring but undemanding

Now some I know will say that the half-truths are bearable because at least the readers, Christian or non-Christian, are being forced to think about and question their prejudices. A friend of mine has given copies of this book to all the backslidden members of her old youth group. I’m challenged by her commitment to them, and, yes, they are probably more likely to read The Shack than the Bible, but I think her enthusiasm is misguided. The Shack may well confirm their comfortable beliefs about a God who is caring but undemanding. They may be moved to tears, but are unlikely to be convicted of sin.

John’s Gospel is far more powerful, relevant and moving than this book. If we take our friends and our hearts to God’s word and let it strike and challenge us, if we lay ourselves bare in prayer before the Lord, then he can challenge our friends and mature us in ways this book cannot hope to do.

Sarah Allen

What else, but Blood?

For my friend Steve, it was just another trip to Marks and Spencer for a ready-meal. But when he saw the young man cram his rucksack with expensive cuts of meat and bottles of wine and then dash for the door, he knew that he had to get involved. Never a shrinking violet, Steve soon had the thief on the ground in an excruciatingly painful armlock while he waited for the police to arrive. They were grateful to Steve, but less than impressed when they saw the shoplifter: 'Darius, not you again?' That, the police said, was his ninth arrest in the last few months for shoplifting. Their response? Steve got £50 as a token of appreciation from our state, while the state let the culprit off.

We all want justice when we are offended or harmed. We all want leniency, grace, even, when we are the transgressor. We want a God of vengeance when we or our loved ones are harmed. If we are at fault, though, then we would love the Almighty to shrug His shoulders. So which God is He, then? A God of vengeance, or of indulgence? Is God on Steve's side, or Darius's? The answer is that He is on the side of each men, but not as they would think He is. He is just, terrifyingly so. He is incredibly forgiving, though. He is these things because He’s the God of penal substitution.

Penal substitution if you're not familiar with it, is the belief that Christ died in the sinner's place, substituting His life for ours, taking our death, our punishment and our curse. He took it all for us, instead of us. He died so that we might not die. It’s the message which we must stay so close to and be willing to contend for. This belief has been under fire by different teachers through the centuries, and has come under sustained attack again recently, even by those who are well-known in the evangelical community. Now as before, Christian people are uncomfortable with the timeless message of the cross, of a sin and wrath-bearing Saviour.

Why the ill-ease with the central doctrine of the Gospel? Well, the answers multiply themselves. At the core of them, I think, it's that the blood-sacrifice of the cross reveals a God Who is just so utterly different from us, a God we're not sure we can be so comfortable with. In the Cross we see the sheer, towering holiness of God, and the fury of His wrath against human sin. God reveals Himself in holy fury against human wickedness, and unleashes all of His anger on His Son. That never makes the cross devoid of love - far from it, the Father sends His Son as the highest expression of His love, and the Son willingly embraces His Father's will (Ro. 8.32, Matt. 26.42). The Cross does say that God cares massively about our wickedness, cruelty and ruthless selfishness. He cares so much about it that He brings hell on earth at the Cross. Jesus the sin-bearer was burned up by God's blazing anger at Calvary. This God is to be feared.

That is Steve's comfort, isn't it? As that thief walked free for the ninth time the cross tells Steve that he won't, he can't escape God's justice. In a world where justice is frequently trampled on and evaded, the God of heaven is a just Judge. He does punish sin. God knows what Darius did, and will punish it. But should Steve be so comfortable at the cross? Steve knows his own heart, and he knows his own sins. All I know is that one day last week he caught a thief, and the next he was having a blazing row with his colleague, and smashed a door off its hinges. If the cross says that God judges thieves, it says, too, that He judges violent, angry men. Whatever is in your heart, or in your life, be sure that you can't bring it to God unless you are very sure about the blood-sacrifice of Jesus.

'All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God' (Ro. 2.23). Some of us have sinned against God through the morality and religion which we have offered to Him and are ultimately putting our trust in. Augustine said "Good works, as they are called, in sinners, are nothing but splendid sins." So we trust in our splendid church attendance or involvement, our splendid giving to charity, splendid parenting of our children, splendid generosity to people at work or in our street, even in the splendid feelings of remorse we have when we do something bad. We look to our own performance and get great satisfaction from it. We're sure God does, too. Many Steves think that God has already opened heaven for them, and until they arrive, drums His fingers impatiently for their company. How wrong they are. But how wrong, too, are the Dariuses, to despair. Each has a blood-sacrifice for them. Each needs to take hold of it, and to put their trust in it.

Let's hear the Apostle Paul: 'There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus' (Ro. 3.22-26).

Do you get it? The Just God is the Reconciling God. Paul says that the Cross teaches us that God judges sin, and that God forgives sin, too, at one and the same time. Our sin is judged in Jesus, as Jesus dies absorbing it and its penalty. The Substitute dies to bring us forgiveness. When we trust in Jesus God brings us this forgiveness, making us right with Him ('justifying' us). Darius, listen! This is the Saviour you need. Your sins condemn you; but look to Jesus and see what He did there on the Cross, and go to him. And Steve, here is your good news. You're a sinner, we all are, whatever our sporadic 'splendid' good deeds. And here is mine. I'm trusting in Him.

We live in shallow age, where people will do and think anything, rather than be serious for a little while. So let the foolish talkers back off from the biblical message of the cross, let them deride it, rework it. Christianity is not for the proud, and it's not for the squeamish. I'm trusting in the cross. I'm resting everything on one lonely man, degraded, brutalised, grunting, groaning, abandoned, sweating out His lifeblood for us. I need His sacrifice for me. I know that you do, too. And let's be eternally thankful and confident before such a mighty and merciful God.

You don't always get what you want

So, I blanked on Saturday morning fishing the Thames, and the pike eluded us. Still, it was brilliant to be training up our sons in the way they should go.

Happily, this Salmon on Loch Ness didn't escape me a few summers ago!

John Flavel in 3D

The good people at the Banner of Truth put my appreciation of John Flavel in last month's magazine:

If ever there were a Puritan for today’s church and world it is surely John Flavel (1627-91). Flavel is a man whose passion and spiritual insight need to be discovered by a new generation of believers, and his urgent message needs to be taken to the lost world which Flavel ministered to so effectively in his own day. Read this man!

Biographies of Flavel are all too brief, as insufficient material remains of this Pastor’s life and labours, chiefly in the then-strategic port of Dartmouth, Devon. The character of the man comes through in his writings, though, which are published by the Trust in six volumes. Three things stand out when reading John Flavel, so I would like to commend him in 3D:

Devotion
Flavel suffered for the Gospel. He witnessed his parents’ imprisonment in Newgate for their faith and subsequent death due to illness caught there. He embraced a life of hardship and personal danger in the years following the Great Ejection of 1662. Flavel dignified all of these trials as he embraced God’s sufficient grace in them all. And it shows. His works are full of Christ as explores the heights and depths of the Gospel. He takes the reader with him into the glories of divine love. Flavel loves His Saviour, and his writings

Depth
Flavel loved clear, Reformed doctrine, and was never more at home when exploring it for the benefit of the believer’s soul. ‘A Treatise on the Soul of Man’, ‘Keeping the Heart’ (a treatise on Prov. 4.23), ‘The Fountain of Life’ (a series of 42 sermons which trace the Person and Mediatoral Work of Christ), ‘The Method of Grace’ (how the Spirit applies the redemptive work of Christ), and ‘The Mystery of Providence’ are all models of theology singing its praise to God and bringing blessing to the Christian. Flavel loves to explore the truth, and is not afraid to lead his readers into its depths. No wonder that in his turbulent times many would expose themselves to such personal risk to seek blessing in his ministry.

Directness
Some writers can be heard as they are read. Flavel is certainly one. When he takes up a theme you feel that you’re listening to a preacher who is urging and encouraging you to live wholeheartedly for Christ. It’s a well-known, and sadly often accurate caricature of the Puritans, that they used ten thousand words when a hundred would have been sufficient. Not so with Flavel, who even when treating a subject in real depth never loses the reader with wordiness. This man knew too much the value of a soul and the shortness of time to risk losing attention.

The Trust has recently reprinted two Flavel sermons in its excellent Pocket Puritans series (on drink and lust). These would be an excellent place to start your acquaintance with Flavel. By all means, get a few copies of the sermons, but get all six volumes and prepare to enjoy a profitable and life-long friendship.

The Domesday Book

"The Domesday Book of Mammoth Pike"

I've recently discovered a man who lives down the road from me who shares the passion for this excellent book. Scroll down on this link for a good description of Fred Buller's tome. I discovered it as a child and its stories and pictures have accompanied and haunted many a fishing trip. In recent years I've had the whole family sitting round the table, transfixed (or so I believe!) by stories of monster pike taken from this wonderful volume. Now my new friend is an enthusiast for the book, pike, and all things fishing. Trust me, it's like falling in love.

We're going piking on the Thames tomorrow, and are taking our sons along, to justify it as enriching dads/lads time.

Expect pictures on Monday morning!

McLaren, Prince of Preachers?

I'm not thinking of Alexander MacLaren of Bible Commentary fame, far less Brian McLaren, Eccelsiastical Emerger, but Bill McLaren, the 'Voice of Rugby' who died on Tuesday at the age of 86. If ever there were a man preachers should listen to and learn from, then it should be Bill. This Prince of commentators should be recognised by preachers. He has much to teach us.

Like so many of my generation, I've still got vivid memories from the seventies and eighties of watching Five Nations games with my dad on a Saturday afternoon (before Italy was a twinkle in anyone's eye), roaring on England. I was often bemused at how my dad would chuckle or sometimes noisily snort with laughter at what this mysterious foreign commentator was saying, but it wasn't too long before I was appreciating McLaren's brilliance for myself. The man's phrases, comments and tone were the stuff of legend. It was quite often, as we played school rugby, that one of us would commentate using those phrases and verbal mannerisms whilst we played. As a busy scrum-half, I reckon that they were often unconsciously going through my head as I tried to read and react to the game.

No longer playing, I still treasure the way McLaren shaped my understanding and enjoyment of the game. Thinking in recent days about his impact, I realise just how valuable his legacy is to all who aspire to preach. Here are four quick lessons:-

McLaren was passionate about what he did. He simply delighted to be involved in rugby. That passion was always genuine, never artificial. Preachers need to be consumed by their subject and their Saviour. Do we preach because we're excited about Jesus Christ, and love to get others enthused about Him, too?

McLaren was always well-prepared. He knew his subject better than anyone else. He studied hard to find out all he could about the players and their form, and was always more than ready to give helpful information, which brought extra colour to the game. He was never showy with his knowledge, but knew just when and how to use it.

McLaren got the tone right in what he said. He never laboured the obvious. He could be animated, overawed by brilliance on the pitch, and sometimes left almost grasping for the right words at some climactic moment, but he always found the right words, and the right tone. He never interfered with your enjoyment of the game, but always manged to take that enjoyment to a new level of appreciation for what was going on. He was always respectful of the players, and had an avuncular fondness for (almost) all of them. Just so, preachers must take great care in the pulpit. Let hearers see what is obvious without sticking on that point, and get to the real heart of the issue without wearying the congregation, and always with warmth and respect to listeners. Many find it hard to concentrate on a text of Scripture preached. Our job is to do all that we can to hold their attention, and to leave them filled with and rejoicing in the truth.

McLaren was a master of language. He knew how to use words. Phrases were vivid, and designed to amuse and delight: 'They’ll be dancing in the streets of [insert town]', 'My goodness, that wee ball’s gone so high there’ll be snow on it when it comes down', and (my favourite) 'He's as quick as a trout up a Border burn.' Wonderful, memorable words designed to make the point and to register with the heart. Preachers, why, with all the resources of our wonderful English language, are we so careless and unanimated with it as we use it in the service of Christ? Dullness in the pulpit is sin, it cloaks the glory of Christ and the drama of redemption. I'm not at all asking for showy or eccentric preaching. But preaching which isn't memorable will not commend the Saviour to the mind and heart.

Passionate, prepared, sensitive, memorable. How far short we preachers can fall as we tell our story, the best, most exciting true story which the world needs to hear, that the Father sent His Son to be its Saviour. God give us the humility to learn from great men, wherever their gifting finds them.

Nothing but the Truth

"Truth is not merely intellectual, something to be known. It has moral beauty. In scriptural language, therefore, knowledge includes love, wisdom includes goodness, folly includes sin, the wise are holy, fools are wicked. Truth and holiness are united like light and heat in the same ray. There can’t be the one without the other. To know God is eternal life; to be without the knowledge of God is to be utterly lost. Saints are the children of light; the wicked are the children of darkness. To be enlightened is to be renewed; to be blinded is to be rejected by God. This is the constant picture of Scripture."

Charles Hodge on Ephesians 4.17

Researching your Sermons

Not the most shattering piece of research in the Times newspaper, but this article tells what most Christians know, that preaching is alive and well.

This is my favourite line:

"In their report the Durham researchers admit to puzzlement that so many people looked forward to the sermons, and confess that more work was needed to find out why."

No, Seriously

On Saturday I was preaching at a Banner of Truth Youth Conference at Grove Chapel, Camberwell, enjoying the company of friends Mark Johnston and Ken Brownell and the group of attenders. It was such an encouragement to be with these like-minded and like-hearted Christians. Grove is a beautiful building and a great place to preach in, with its high pulpit and memorials around the walls to founding members and former Pastors, including Joseph Irons and his 53 year Pastorate.

The highlight was, of course, the group of teens and young adults who attended from different parts of London and beyond. I preached on Ecclesiastes 1 and then later on Job 1, after which we had a discussion time. Many of the youngsters were from small churches in tough parts of London. Their commitment to hearing God's Word and to thinking through its message for their lives was terrific. We shared a day of serious thinking, and I think much good was done.

Yesterday at Gunnersbury my colleague Paul preached from Ephesians 4 in the morning, and what he said was memorable, serious and directly applied to our lives. Through Ephesians the Lord has been teaching us the centrality of the local church in His purposes, and the call to us to work together to reach spiritual maturity and to proclaim the Gospel. As we sang Joseph Irons' hymn 'What Sacred Fountain' at the Lord's Table I was struck by the unity we share with all of God's committed people in these great tasks.

In the evening we looked at a hard passage from Hosea 4. Having told Hosea to marry a woman who would turn to a life of prostitution, the Lord now speaks through Hosea to show His people how His anger burns at their cheating hearts. And yet, as we learned, His mercy is remembered in His wrath. After the final hymn I closed the service with a simple amen, but there was a stillness which people wanted to continue sharing together. Several prayed out loud for us, confessing our cheating hearts, and celebrating the grace which is freely given us in Christ.

We live in a shallow and flippant age. Many preachers are shy about commanding people to believe, to repent, to sacrifice, to follow. The New Testament knows nothing less. May God give us the courage to embrace a faith which is serious, and demanding. Nothing less honours the Saviour who lived, died and rose again for us.

Go to Dark Gethsemane

"Were Christians more with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane - more studious to enter into the mind and love of a suffering Saviour - more given to cultivate the "fellowship of His sufferings", and to realise the deep glories of their own redemption as upspringing endlessly from the unfathomable abysses of the anguish of the Son of God - and boundless and secure to them only because His anguish was so great and all-sufficient - they would be far more awake to the things which are unseen and eternal, and live both more holy and more blessed under the powers of the world to come. Awake, then, you children of God, to a livelier faith and a more penitent and grateful love to Him who died for you and who rose again. It is high time to wake out of sleep, for now is your salvation nearer than when you first believed. He who lay prostrate on the ground in Gethsemane will soon come to sit upon His great white throne. Serve Him, and fight for Him, under the banner of His own most free and forgiving and sanctifying love - the love that braved Gethsemane and the cross for you. And ever tasting that the Lord is gracious, serve Him with godly fear, remembering that the Lord our God is holy. So shall you not be ashamed before Him at His coming."

Hugh Martin, 'The Shadow of Calvary', 1875, first Banner of Truth Edition, 1983, pp. 30-31.

En Garde!

I took one of my sons to his fencing class last night in Shepherd's Bush. A great opportunity to enjoy his antics with one eye and to keep the other in a good book. Watching the class I was reminded of Samuel Rutherford's words, "The devil is but God's master fencer, to teach us to handle our weapons."

En Garde!

Banner of Yoof?

Probably not! The Banner of Truth has never been overly concerned with cultivating an image of trendiness with the kidz. Its raison d'etre, though - Reformed Christianity - speaks to all generations, the young no less than the old.

Saturday sees me preaching twice at the annual Banner South East conference for 15+s at my friend Mark Johnston’s church in Camberwell. The Banner of Truth is a terrific organisation which has influenced thousands upon thousands of people across the globe for more than fifty years, bringing readers the best of historic and Reformed Christianity.
I always look to Banner books and the annual Ministers’ Conference to feed my soul, and am rarely disappointed. On Saturday it’ll be a privilege to serve the upcoming generation of serious-minded and servant-hearted followers of Jesus.

Incidentally, the picture above is of John Paton, 19th Century missionary to the head-hunters of the South Pacific. Paton never had an adolescence as we think of it today, and his family's poverty obliged him to work 12 hours a day before he was a teenager! He found Christ in early life, though, and his teenage years were spent growing in his love of the Saviour and seeking the Lord's preparation for his later service. I will certainly commend his autobiography to my children.

The Church at Worship

Last Sunday evening was a special time at Gunnersbury. Our congregation wasn’t very big, but our praise and our hearing God’s Word was, I believe, honouring worship to the Lord.

After a call to worship from 1 John we sang our confession, a moving setting of Psalm Fifty One, ‘God me merciful to me.’ Due to illness we only had one musician, our guitarist, but his empathy with the sentiments we sang in that and the rest of our songs was superb. The roof nearly lifted off as we sang ‘I Stand amazed in the Presence’! I was standing in the congregation between two superb singers (Mrs Allen being one of them), and it was a really edifying occasion. I later preached on Hosea 2 and 3, which you can listen to here.

Why are many Christians so opposed to corporate worship twice on the Lord’s Day? Probably like you, I know of at least twenty reasons. I belong to that breed of Christian who thinks that it’s neither fanaticism nor empty traditionalism to gather with God’s people under His Word morning and evening on a Sunday. If I hadn’t been with my church family on Sunday evening I would never have had opportunity to hear Him address my heart about the relationships I have with Him and with others, as Hosea 2 and 3 addresses; nor would I have had my heart stirred in confession and praise. Would being at home be more relaxing? Most definitely. But being ‘at home’ with my church family on God’s day is what my heart and soul need. That is the rest which God commands us to seek.

Batter my Heart, Three-Person'd God

We're preaching through the of Book of Hosea on Sunday evenings at Gunnersbury. What a part of Scripture to go to to learn God's passionate love for His people in Christ. My prayer for myself and the church is that through this book God shows us more of His love and impresses it upon our hearts, and brings them to respond to Him in response.

I came to love John Donne's 14th Holy Sonnet many years ago as a student. It's been on my heart and lips a lot this week (it's best savoured read aloud). The first and last lines especially catch my breath, Dare you believe it, and pray it?

Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you

As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.

I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,

Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,

But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.

Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,

But am betroth'd unto your enemy;

Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Tripp's off the Tongue (3)

Another instalment of Paul Tripp form his 'Broken-Down House'. The Greatness of Grace. Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest!

"If you are God's child, grace is the stunning core reality of your existence. It is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to you, or ever will. It has changed everything you have, do and are. It has redefined your past, refocused your present, and reshaped your future. It is the thing that you have needed since your first breath. It is an absolutely essential ingredient of productive living on this side of eternity. It is what you and I will focus on and celebrate for the rest of eternity. And it is vital that in preparation for eternity we start our celebration now.

"The gift of grace is the single most important thing every human being needs. And we all need it equally; no one needs it more and no one needs it less. Without this gift you will never be what you are designed to be, or do what you were created to do. It is a gift you can never earn, achieve, or deserve. It has the power to transform completely you and everything you desire, choose, think, say and do. It is the gift of gifts. It is the gift of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ." (pp. 177, 179)

The Inuit have a word for it

I think they actually have seven words for it (it may be more, I haven’t checked). After today I can see just a little more why our Arctic brethren need so many different words for snow.

I’ve been mesmerised by the snow all day, as have my kids, who made a snowman before breakfast. I love it every year (rare though it’s been in recent ones). Sure, I’m very fortunate to have a five minute commute and a largely inside job. Today I’ve been thrilled to watch the snow outside my study window in all of its different forms, and to be out in it, too. At different times it’s been closer to sleet, sometimes the flakes have been smaller, for the last half an hour they’ve been big and stuck together, and although it’s smaller and finer again, the snow’s only now really beginning to settle here in London and to add to last night’s shower.

Each time it snows I think of Isaiah 1.18, as God addresses His people: ‘though your sins are like scarlet they shall be as white as snow; though they be as crimson, they shall be like wool.’

Who isn’t moved by the beauty of a field or garden covered in fresh snow? What a picture of purity, of a new chapter. What a marvellous picture of God’s undeserved love through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, settling itself on our lives, covering our stains, and removing them forever.

Every language has the word ‘love’, often conveyed in several different words. Remember God’s love in the snow.

Tripp's off the Tongue (2)

More from Paul Tripp's 'Broken-Down House'. One excellent chapter treats our need to learn to wait, as people with a faith in a God who is under no compulsion to reveal His purposes to us, and Who, when He does, does so according to His timescale, not to ours. Here's a morsel:

"If your hope is in your power, you will find it extremely difficult to live through situations where you have been revealed to be powerless. If your hope is in your wisdom, you will find it extremely difficult to deal with circumstances that simply make no sense to you. If your hope has been in a certain person or situation, you will find it very hard to deal with it should that person or situation radically change. Think about it. If my hope and confidence were really in the wisdom and power of the Lord, I would not find this kind of waiting so hard. Waiting is hard precisely because it calls us to live by faith and not by sight." (p.115)

May God give us the wisdom to seek Him in prayer and in His Word this year, and the determination to walk in the paths He reveals.

Tripp's off the Tongue (1)

True and kind theology, and well-written counsel from Paul Tripp:

“You cannot release yourself or your surroundings from the effects of the Fall. You cannot assure that your body will be free of disease and sickness. You cannot independently free yourself or another from sin. You cannot reach in and alter the content of your own heart, let alone the heart of another. You cannot plant faith, courage, and hope into the soul of another person. You cannot assure that your government will have integrity or that your community will be safe. You cannot make your acquaintances respect you, and you cannot assure that your family members will treat you with love. You cannot keep yourself free from natural and environmental disaster. You cannot control the economic environment, making sure that it does not alter your financial health. You cannot lay out a personal life plan and know it will unfold without interruption. You cannot assure that your life will be easy and satisfying.”

“Only when I humbly embrace my weakness, humbly admit my limits, and humbly recognise how small I actually am, can I begin to reach out for the help of the loving, powerful and gracious Redeemer Who is the true source of my strength, wisdom and hope. Only then can I begin to function as an instrument in His powerful hands, rather than being in His way because, in forgetting who I am and Who He is, I have been trying to do His job.”

Paul Tripp, ‘Broken-Down House’, p.67

Back to the Old Regime

A week off, then wham! Sermon prep, services, leadership, people, people, people.

We had a great Christmas. Like most people in ministry, I all but stumbled to the pulpit on Christmas day, but it was a terrific service with lots of people showing up. We then enjoyed a couple of days with my mum and had a wonderful few days on our own, doing fun things and catching up on jobs around the house. We managed a theatre trip with the older children (Simon Callow doing a one man show on two Dickens short stories at the Hammersmith Riverside Studios, terrific), got to the V and A and gambolled around Chiswick, frolicked in Richmond Park, and snorkeled in Acton.

Reading opportunities were all too few in a house of five young children, but I read two books. Eamon Duffy recently published ‘Fires of Faith’, on the burnings of evangelicals in the 1550s in ‘Bloody’ Mary’s regime. Eamon taught me Reformation History at Cambridge. He is the most generous and personable man. A committed Roman Catholic, the ‘Fires’ is an apologetic for the policy of execution of belligerent Protestants. I’ll put something on the blog about it soon, and will review it for the Banner Magazine. I also made time to read Paul Tripp’s ‘Broken-Down House’ (which I’ll review for Evangelicals Now). It’s a really refreshing read, looking honestly at life in a Fallen World, but compelling us to take hold of the Gospel and live purposeful lives in what can be so often the disappointments and heartbreaks of the world. I can now finally get to R. Scott Clark’s ‘Recovering the Reformed Confession’ which I’ve been hoping to read for ages. Amongst other things I bought Sarah was ‘The Story of Edgar Sawtelle’ by David Wroblewski, a modern Hamlet set in the Mid-West, which she’ll be reviewing for her Evangelicals Now column. She’s also reading ‘Whiter than Snow’, Paul Tripp’s meditations on Ps. 51.

And it was a musical Christmas. We managed some carols around the piano on Christmas Eve (alongside the annual Polar Express ritual viewing), and I got CDs by the Blind Boys of Alabama, Jars of Clay, the Waterboys, some Flamenco, and some Gospel. Great new material for singing in the shower.

Church today was very precious. It was wonderful seeing good friends after the Christmas break, and thrilling to worship and to learn together. We took the big step of moving out our pews from the Victorian building just before Christmas, and the attractive and comfortable chairs make the place much more welcoming – and kind to the backside. I preached from Ephesians 4.7-10 on ‘the King of Grace’, Christ as the One who gives gifts, having descended to earth and then to Hell on the cross for our salvation, and then ascended to glory where He rules us and works through us. There’s a lot of cancer in the church just now, and there was a real stillness as we prayed for the various sufferers with all that they face this year. This evening my colleague Paul preached on Hosea 1, and it was good to take those thoughts to the Lord’s Table, reminded of our adulterous hearts but seeing there Christ Who loved us and gave Himself for us.
So, how has your New Year started? May God show His merciful blessings in 2010.