Cultural Dominion under Christ’s Dominion

A Christian lives in two worlds. We are saved from the world we are born in and become citizens of heaven, another world, the world to come. Yet all the while, as citizens of heaven, we are still citizens of this world. If we are astute, we feel the tension every day, making us consider how we ought to live as citizens of this world and of heaven. In particular, we wonder what the value is of our day-to-day lives as we contribute to the pursuits of this world, given that this world will pass away. A Christian mother sees the eternal value in raising their child in the truths of God but then struggles to understand the place of secular work as a beauty therapist or dentist. The Bible study leader sees the eternal value in teaching the truths of God to others in the group but might struggle to see the value of their building project or truck driving job. The Christian working in politics to shape climate action might wonder what the point is if there will come a day when there is no sun or moon, but God will be our light.

The doctrine of God’s two kingdoms can help us get clarity on these matters.

Temporal and earthly pursuits are not valueless simply because they are temporary. At the same time, they ought not to be considered eternal things (our cultural pursuits here on earth will not enter God’s new kingdom). There is a distinction between here and there, a discontinuity. If you’re reading the Bible and don’t see a distinction (even a sharp distinction) between the kingdoms of earth and the kingdom of God, you might have your Bible upside down.

“The two kingdoms doctrine strongly affirms that God has made all things, that sin corrupts all aspects of life, that Christians should be active in human culture, that all lawful cultural vocations are honourable, that all people are accountable to God in every activity, and that Christians should seek to live out the implications of their faith in their daily vocations. A Christian, however, does not have to adopt a redemptive vision of culture in order to affirm these important truths. A biblical two kingdoms doctrine provides another compelling way to do so. According to this doctrine, God is not redeeming the cultural activities and institutions of this world, but is preserving them through the covenant he made with all living creatures through Noah in Genesis 8:20-9:17.” (p.14)

The argument posed by contemporary neo-Calvinists is that the new earth will be the return (in sorts) to the garden of Eden’s perfection plus “the fullness of the centuries,” according to Alvin Plantinga. The idea is that the cultural products of the centuries are part of the age to come or will be (they will be redeemed we might say, or contribute to the new heavens and earth). But because of the fall of humanity, God responds by saving humanity. For the neo-Calvinist, the salvation and redemption of Christ is essentially a restoration or re-creation. So, God does not start over new but accomplishes his original plan (p.18). The idea is that the redemption brought for us in Christ frees us from sin and restores us to the ongoing task of the cultural mandate seen in Genesis 1:26-28, to rule creation is to unlock its potential. Hence, the argument goes as Christians we can say all cultural work is kingdom work. That is certainly one way to alleviate the tension within ourselves regarding the value of our cultural labours, to say that they are preserved into the age to come.

VanDrunen proposes a two-kingdoms alternative in his book “Living in God’s Two Kingdoms”. He wants to honour the cultural activities of our age while distinguishing them from the coming kingdom, the new creation. Others might argue that you can’t honour the cultural activities of our age if ultimately they contribute nothing to the age to come, the new creation. But VanDrunen wants to argue that just because something is temporary does not make it worthless (he uses the word ‘preserve’ in respect to the current age). That’s to propose a false dichotomy. Nevertheless, he wants to maintain clear distinctions. Hence politics, commerce, sports, or music are not necessarily going to be activities that build the kingdom of God (p.26).

His big idea is that “redemption does not consist in restoring people to fulfilling Adam’s original task but consists in the Lord Jesus Christ himself fulfilling Adam’s original task once and for all, on our behalf. Thus redemption is not “creation regained” but “recreation gained”, in Him. (p.26)

It is important to understand that Jesus has accomplished redemption in its entirety for us. he does not merely accomplish our freedom to then complete the task of cultural dominion as genesis puts it. He has achieved all; dominion and power through his life, death, resurrection and ascension on our behalf.

By analogy, consider sanctification. In much the way that we are totally and completely sanctified by the Lord’s work at the cross, we are also undergoing a renewal here and now. Even though at the return of the Lord we will be totally transformed. There is a similarity between that process and the way we understand our cultural tasks. The Lord has achieved the dominion we were tasked with in Genesis 1:28, 9:1. Indeed he achieved it on our behalf because we cannot achieve it. Yet, at the same time, we are now living out or living in what Christ has achieved for us. knowing Jesus rules all things, we seek to honour his rule continually even as we long for the return of the Lord when his rule will be absolute in a new way.

Something doesn’t have to last forever to have value. If we think, for example, their artistic pursuits were the of entering into the kingdom of heaven, we have made one of two mistakes. We have either valued our work too much, thinking it’s worth more than it is – even if we made the Mona Lisa or the original matrix trilogy (yes, all three, the fourth one is… interesting). Because compared to the heavenly glory awaiting us, these things indeed are dust. This leads to the other potential mistake; we have undervalued the glory awaiting us. In comparison to literally everything this world has to offer, God is greater. We lose sight of this great truth when we get too focused on our work here on this earth, building sand castles on the beach. Some sandcastles will be more beautiful than others, and there is value in that. Something being temporary doesn’t mean it’s valueless. As a prime example, consider marriage. Biblically speaking, marriage is temporary. If you argue that marriage has no value because it’s temporary, you are making a contrary argument to the Bible.

Now we might say that marriage is a little bit different to cultural works. Without getting into the details of comparing the institution of marriage to cultural pursuits such as music, politics, or healthcare, let’s consider something else temporal in the Bible. What about the temple itself? Or the tabernacle? Or the Ark of the covenant? These were arguably masterpieces in their day. And yet they were temporary. For a time, they pointed beyond themselves to the temple of God’s people, the tabernacle of Jesus’ incarnation, and the presence of God by his spirit. But the physical masterpieces are no longer. Their value wasn’t in their culturally appropriate craftsmanship. Nor are they valueless because they are no longer.

It may be a stretch, but a similar argument can be made for all cultural works (albeit to a lesser degree because capitalism, climate change policy, truck driving, k-pop and the matrix aren’t mentioned in the Bible, and of course, has relative value by a variety of measurements).

In all these matters, the two kingdoms’ doctrine will give us clarity on the value of cultural pursuits and clarity between the earthly kingdom we reside in and the heavenly kingdom for which we are citizens. To muddle these two together will diminish the value of our citizenship in heaven and all that it entails and unduly inflate the value of our earthly works. Clarity in this matter will help us to work better because we will have a clearer purpose for our work (which I haven’t presented in this short post). In conjunction with this, having a clearer view of God’s kingdom will shape everything we do in the common kingdom, the secular kingdom, the world we live in.

For now, we need to understand that Jesus has accomplished all the work of the Kingdom to come. He has won it all. Rules all. We live our lives under his rule and to his honour. To requote Vandrunen, “Christians should be active in human culture, that all lawful cultural vocations are honourable, that all people are accountable to God in every activity, and that Christians should seek to live out the implications of their faith in their daily vocations. A Christian, however, does not have to adopt a redemptive vision of culture in order to affirm these important truths.” (p.14)

VanDrunen, D. (2010). Living in God’s two kingdoms: A biblical vision for Christianity and culture. Crossway.

Growing in faith out of the Pentecostal Church. Part 3.

[Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here.]

What do four years at Moore College do to a man who came straight from a Pentecostal church?

It cooks his brain for one. It puts him through months of despondence. But when he gets over that, it shapes his mind and heart to appreciate God’s goodness in his word, Spirit, and people.

At first, when I arrived, I got culture shock. That means that I was riding a high for a number of weeks, maybe even months. The novelty of it all was fantastic. I was learning new things, although some of it was very challenging (i.e. Greek). I loved the community, which was a significant reason for me extending my course by three years. But as the months passed by and all that wore off, I found myself struggling with terribly low moods at times. I was agitated about why everything was so different to my old church context. It felt restrictive and dry at times. If you knew me before I went to college, even during my time at college, I was toward the end of the spectrum known as ‘quirky’ – to be sure, I was not a straightlaced Sydney Anglican (like I am now…). I felt like I fit into Marrickville and Newtown. Everyone there had crazy moustaches, ponchos, mullets, and is generally of an artistic persuasion which is possibly good and possibly bad. Admittedly there was a lot of change going on for me. I moved city, moved church, got married, quit my job and started a degree in an entirely different field. Perhaps my Pentecostal leaders were right. Before going to college, one of my former pastors and my Bible study leader both gave me disapproving looks and even disapproving words about going to Moore College.

But that was all just culture shock. It comes and goes. As difficult as it is in the moment, what is needed is perseverance.

I was very grateful to have found others in a similar situation as myself at the time. I was in a prayer group with another brother who was formally from a Pentecostal church and I met two other people in my year group from Pentecostal backgrounds. I found some support amongst them and a place to voice my thoughts about all the differences. A listening ear goes a long way.

Despite the first year being difficult, what I found to be most helpful and even crucial to ‘winning me over’ as it were, was the way everything was explained. So we had chapel services two to three times a week (and one of them was plus-ultra-prayerbook-old-skool). Those chapel services were, of course, for our edification. They were also examples of how to run church services in that manner. They were taken as moments to teach us why certain things were being done. I eventually found these chapel gatherings helpful and even edifying by the time the shock has come and gone.

Some modern commentators (such as Jon Anderson) have lamented the fact that when we go into tertiary institutions nowadays, our views are not so much challenged but affirmed, otherwise, the tertiary institution is in trouble. This is a terrible state of affairs. But I’m happy to say that going to Moore College shaped my mind and challenged me. Some things I’ve changed my mind about, and other things I have learned from scratch without prior knowledge so that I’ve grown in my understanding. I am very proud of the college I went to for this reason.

In my estimate, most people attend theological college (at least the one I went to) to be equipped and enter into ministry vocationally. But a number of us went into theological college to be equipped to return to secular work only more prepared as regular church members. While this is how my story started, with the desire to return to secular work more prepared as a Christian, over the course of the degree and then the following two years (partly secular work and partly volunteer ministry), the degree set a fire in my heart for vocational ministry and slowly that’s eventually what happened. An unorthodox pathway, no doubt.

All through my Anglican College’s bachelor of Divinity, I had my eyes on my history. At the end of the fourth year I chose to do my church history assignment researching the first Pentecostal minister (a lady by the name of Jane Lancaster – if I remember correctly, because I lost all of my work when my computer crashed… Still not over that), and I also did my fourth year theology paper with a focus on prayer and faith (as it seemed particularly pertinent given my history in the Pentecostal church). Through college I came to appreciate both my Pentecostal heritage and my Anglican tutelage. I think that I specifically came to appreciate each more because of the other.

At this stage, it’s almost cliché to say, ‘we need both perspectives to strengthen each other and build each other up’. But as I reflect, I think I appreciate my college more than I ever thought I would and as the years go by I continue to appreciate it more and more.

So what do four years at Moore College do to a man who came straight from a Pentecostal church?  It cooks his brain for one. It puts him through months of despondence. But when he gets over that, it shapes his mind and heart to appreciate God’s goodness in his word, Spirit, and people.

Rereading

What is the value of rereading in a context that prioritises speed, efficiency, novelty and practicality?

Of course, in the asking of the question are many hidden premises.

There are some video games I love replaying. I suppose that’s due to a variety of factors. The most replayed of my games are those with substantial variety and multiple plotlines/endings. But it’s not quite the same with a book, at least in my experience. I guess that comes down to the way that I view books. Generally speaking, I view them as a one-and-done experience. A book is static and linear, at least superficially (i.e., there is only one ending). But for the astute reader, that statement is woefully inadequate and displays a kind of ignorance by the one who would say such a thing. The intricacies of a plotline, the deeper meanings that become clear only as the whole is comprehended, a poignant line at first glanced over. These are like side quests we didn’t realise existed which provide great rewards. If only we treated our books like treasured video games (am I speaking only to myself here?)

There is excellent value in rereading.

In the prior posts, we considered the importance of internalising knowledge. We also considered how contemplation plays a vital role in that process. In this post, I want to consider the value of rereading and how it likewise is a discipline worth training in. Especially as a Christian reader (with specific emphasis on rereading the scriptures).

Some people have proposed that rereading is a discipline made unattractive by the digital screen and how digital screens provoke certain habits: to scroll past, never to return. I think that this is worth keeping in mind as we consider the discipline of rereading. Rereading on paper will probably be more effective than on a digital medium for that reason, not to mention the tactile nature of paper books. Certainly, rereading on a Kindle (or some other electronic device) is possible, but it’s worth remembering there are some hidden subconscious challenges that the digital medium entails.

As we considered in the prior posts, one of the traits of a good reader is their ability to internalise knowledge, which allows them to draw more analogies and connections when confronted with more information. It provides more of the necessary basis for critical thinking. Building this internal reservoir obviously requires a certain degree of memorisation and familiarity. Rereading is key for this to take place.

If only there were a shortcut.

Well, for most of us, there isn’t. But sometimes, we mistakenly take external knowledge sources to be shortcuts. We certainly will treat them as such. But in terms of internalised knowledge which promotes critical thinking, analogous connections, and deductions, it is not. So we cant treat it like it is. We must delineate between external and internal. Knowing where to go for information is not the same as knowing the information.

If you are worried by arguments (whether professional, popular or personally made) that don’t carry with them a level of convincing critical thinking and seem to parrot some external source (which they probably haven’t read), then you have felt the effects of someone who hasn’t read and certainly then has not reread.

But in a rushed world, it’s easy to run past this discipline (much like contemplation earlier written on).

But to put this discipline into practice, one must already make the time to decide which books, articles, essays, et cetera, to read amongst the plethora of options. However, on top of that is the added burden of deciding which of these is worth rereading. That’s okay. We are only human, and in recognising as much, we are only trying to be faithful stewards of our time, attention, energy, and enthusiasm.

But one clear place in which we are already putting this into practice (I assume) is with our personal devotions in the scriptures.

Reading and rereading the Bible is something Christians have done for centuries. That is because we never move beyond it (unlike other books more generally). This practice means that our knowledge of the word of God becomes increasingly internalised. But the Bible is big. Its ideas and concepts are vast and deep. One cannot truly plumb its depths.

In reading and rereading the Bible, we are giving ourselves much opportunity to develop deeper thinking so that we might draw more connections. In this way, we are treating the Canon as a Canon, as we measure one part with another part giving clarity to both, drawing clear connections and finding deeper truths.

Keep reading and rereading the Scriptures. But also carry this practice over into our habits of reading other material. Let us shift our focus away from the finish line of the book to the internalising of the book. To that end, rereading will be of great help.

The Reader’s discipline of Contemplation

What does a good reader do?

In a productivity-driven world, a good reader is someone who reads the most books. In a time-poor society, a good reader is someone who reads books the fastest. In the therapeutic age, a good reader is someone who finds the books that makes them feel good.

These perspectives on the skill of reading should hopefully highlight that the way we approach reading a book in part determines what we get out of that process.

In her book, “Reader, Come Home”, Wolf proposes there are three key standards that make a good reader. These standards mirror Aristotle’s standards for a good society. “The life of knowledge and productivity; the life of entertainment and the Greeks’ special relationship to leisure; and finally, the life of contemplation.” (p.13) Drawing from this, a good reader is one who acquires knowledge, one who has learnt to enjoy the process of reading, but important to my thoughts in this post, one who practices contemplation.

The final chapter on contemplation by Wolf has to be my favourite in her book, “Reader, Come Home”. It is the one I’ve thought most about, the one I re-read, and of course, the one I contemplated on.

She writes, “The third life of the good reader is the culmination of reading and the terminus of the other two lives: the reflective life, in which—whatever genre we are reading—we enter a totally invisible, personal realm, our private “holding ground” where we can contemplate all manner of human existence and ponder a universe whose real mysteries dwarf any of our imagination.” (p. 190).

Cultural critiques note that in the first two respects we excel. We want more knowledge and we want more entertainment. But in the critical aspect of contemplation, each day we drift further and further from its practice, which ultimately happens because we drift further and further from valuing it. Generally speaking, people consider that the digital culture undervalues and even threatens the meditative dimensions of human life. I wholeheartedly agree. I agree because I see that happen in my own life and try and fight it off, I see it happening in other people’s lives around me, and I’ve heard it commented on in many places by many different voices.

Just stop and think about the last time you stopped and thought…

That memory may have been easy enough to conjure up. But let’s ask the same question with a bit more of an edge. Stop and think about the last time you stopped reading so that you could think deeply about what you just read…

Those moments are very novel to our experience.

We face many difficulties when it comes to the art of contemplation. We crave novel stimuli which makes the slow burn of quiet contemplation a restless activity. Quiet contemplation itself might be hard to achieve literally because there are many noises around us. I think of the notifications we receive, the phone ringing, the music we are playing non-stop, the people talking around us (in certain situations such as on the train), and of course our own noisy thoughts. Alternatively in our landscape, we fall prey to thinking that it is more important to react than to think deeply. We don’t want to take the time to contemplate, because we want to be distracted. Our distractions then are masquerading themselves as “been in the know”. (p.188) Furthermore, contemplation takes time. This investment of time to sit quietly and think is a big ask when we are time-poor people who are constantly striving for “efficiency.”

For the most part, the last point is the most demanding obstacle to overcome. Contemplation takes time. We have to ask ourselves if we are going to be people who allocate our time to the process of deep reading and deep engagement with a book. Now at this stage, we think we have spent enough time performing the reading process. But we have not (which is precisely the challenge). We need to then perform the follow-up activity of simply doing nothing but sitting quietly and thinking about what we have read. This is the act of inwardly digesting and mulling on the thoughts presented to us.

The consequence of failing to contemplate will mean that we lose the opportunity to grow in wisdom. Knowledge alone is not wisdom. We can have all the facts and figures, as it were, without the skill to implement and apply.

The answer is deceptively simple but will require great self-discipline. We need to allocate time for contemplation.

“Exemplified by the interactive dynamic that governs our deep-reading processes, only the allocation of time to our inferential and critical analytical functions can transform the information we read into knowledge that can be consolidated in our memory. Only this internalized knowledge, in turn, will allow us to draw analogies with and inferences from new information. The discernment of the truth and value of new information depend on this allocation of time. But the rewards are many, including, paradoxically, time itself—for uses that could otherwise go by the wayside of our lives without notice, my segue to turn to the invisible harvests that spool from the third, contemplative life.” (p.192)

As our culture, broadly speaking, transitions into the predominance of digital media, the skill to slow down and reflect is important. The barrage of so-called information increasingly necessitates the immersion of oneself into an involved book to have socially useful skills. And this skill is the character attribute of wisdom. Our world already highly values knowledge. But we might say that it overvalues it to the detriment of its own use. Knowledge requires the time and space to contemplate it in order to then apply it to our lives and this world.

The task of contemplation will take time. But it will be time well spent.

Reference

Wolf, Maryanne. Reader, Come Home. HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

The Reader and External Knowledge

What is more important, to have; a limited but growing amount of internal knowledge, or to have access to a vast and exponentially growing external source of information?

There certainly isn’t anything wrong with having access to vast and exponentially growing sources of external knowledge. I know that you’ve even used these frequently perhaps even recently. Someone raises a topic or asks a question and you don’t know the answer. So you open your phone in your pocket and Google it, or check Wikipedia. Equally, we increasingly inform ourselves about the ongoings of the world through social media. For a lot of topics that randomly appear in our conversation throughout life, we will be informed by snapshots, pithy remarks, two-minute video excerpts, and memes. There can be something good about this. We get a quick overview of many things. We don’t have the time to look at it all. But we get a glimpse of a lot. There is a place for that.

But as to answering the question of importance, we should favour a limited but growing amount of internal knowledge. Compared to the information available and captured around the world, one person’s knowledge is surely close to mathematically being zero. So perhaps it’s strange to say that we should favour the limited amount of internal knowledge we have. But it’s worth highlighting that external data is not knowledge. Information alone is not knowledge. And that’s the key to the importance of internalised knowledge and why we should seek to grow it with a slow and steady approach.

Maryanne Wolfe puts it this way in her book, “Reader, Come Home”, “The relationship between what we read and what we know will be fundamentally altered by too early and too great a reliance on external knowledge. We must be able to use our own knowledge base to grasp new information and interpret it with inference and critical analysis.” (p.55)This last sentence I think is the key sentence. Having an internal knowledge base is how we interpret external knowledge sources. This interpretation is more discerning, more able to come to the truth of the matter, able to connect more data together (inferences), and able to critically analyse better if we have greater stores of internal knowledge.

Consider the opposite. Having little background knowledge, a smaller supply of internal knowledge, means we do not have the tools that are necessary for making inferences, deductions, and analogical thought (transferring meanings through analogies). If all that sounds a bit too abstract, consider your own lived experience of this matter. You’ve seen this play out already when people hold to a view that is obviously one-sided such as the fake news issues of our day, or something more complicated like politically polarised views. Maybe you’ve asked someone after they present a very charged opinion, “but have you actually read what that person said?” You get a very angry remark back which is hiding the sheepish and defensive, “No.” This person has fallen prey to an “unadjudicated position”. (p.56)

So how do we address this issue?

The solution isn’t so much to read more. After all, we could simply spend more hours on social media reading the news headlines that the algorithm gives us, or we could read the taglines and memes. All of this is a mere superficial engagement. More of this kind of reading engagement is not going to help address the issue.

Rather, we should engage in what is called the “deep-reading process”. And it’s exactly as it sounds. Reading a book, reading a long-form essay. And then rereading, and then reading someone who proposes a different view on the subject at hand. If the problem is that we don’t give ourselves enough time to slowly digest and assimilate new ideas into our internal knowledge base, then the solution will be the very uncomfortable and time-consuming practice of reading. Reading slowly. Reading deeply. Consciously reading. Reading with pauses. And doing all of this with others who are doing the same.

As Christians, we have the valuable resource of the church community. We have a community that we meet with regularly who can push us and challenge us. Likewise, you can push and challenge them. Sadly the church can all too easily fall prey to the problem we raised earlier, we can heavily rely on external sources of knowledge without deep engagement. Then we who are to be people of the truth can fall all too easily into misinformation, sketchy foundations, and poor thinking. This undermines our call to be disciples of truth. And so I should hope that we in particular are motivated to promote within ourselves and in our community good reading habits. Especially so because the world around us does not seem to value this kind of reading all that much.

Reference

Wolf, Maryanne. Reader, Come Home. HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

Coffee is life. So why do I like burnt coffee?

I enjoy the unique taste of coffee which makes me a wholly un-unique person. It has a pleasant and interesting taste which differs from cup to cup.

I first got into coffee as a nurse. It was a mix of pragmatism, to stave off sleep, and because there was an expectation that nurses drank coffee. But now I enjoy it simply because I enjoy the taste, appreciate its various aromas, and delight in the making of the coffee (from roasting pan, grinding, through to percolating it). I also appreciate the way that it is associated with my morning routine and the way that it is associated with my social life, meeting with friends and acquaintances.

At first, my favourite coffees were the sachets with lots of sugar that were caramel flavoured. But times have changed. I now love a classic short black – just hot water through grounds, please. Ironically, we might say that my tastes have been refined for I no longer prefer the refined.

Nowadays I roast my own coffee. It was a long journey through life to get to this point, but I think the thread of coffee is somewhat representative of my life – representative of the journey itself.

It represents the unrefined in a refined world, the imperfect in a specialised world, the authentic in a mass-produced world, the analogue in a digital world, and the unrushed in a rushed world.

There is a world of difference between the caramel sachets from the supermarket to the home-roasted, home-ground, home-brewed coffee that I now make. We could say that the refined product is the product of a professionalised, perfected, and convenient process. Indeed, none of these is necessarily problematic. But in our current context, each element is so heavily present in society that it is worth highlighting the exchanges that take place so that we might have “unburnt coffee”.

My burnt coffee represents the imperfect in a specialised world. My coffee is good enough. Maybe only just. Maybe only 51% of the time. But preference dulls the edge on imperfection. I drink specialised coffee in our specialised world. At times I prefer it over my own and at other times I don’t. But whether I prefer it or not doesn’t diminish the fact that professionals made it with professional gear. While on the other hand, I have made very imperfect coffee. It is an unrefined process producing a product of imperfection. But is there a place to say a palate for the unrefined is more mature? We do it in some other ways. Children mature to appreciate foods beyond the simple and the refined. Similarly, we might argue thus for the appreciation of the imperfect as well. Some examples might be the op shop couch over an IKEA couch, or “imperfect picks” over the pear-shaped pears and the apples of our eyes.

Moving on, my burnt coffee represents authenticity regardless of its imperfection. The handmade has its maker’s touch (and some of his hairs floating around too). So every bean which is burnt, and every bean left slightly under-roasted (with the potential to break my grinder), is an authentic work of an artisan who himself is perhaps overcooked in some ways and undercooked in others.

My burnt coffee also represents the analogue in a digital world. You see I get imperfect, although authentic, burnt beans because I use a gas cooker and a thick pan with a wooden spatula. There is always going to be a margin of difference between the bean profiles and that’s because I’m using analogue methods. These methods are old school. There is no algorithm involved. There is much human error involved. But it is simple. Anyone can do it. It is cheap and affordable. The maintenance is minimal. The expectations are low. It has very clear limitations. There is little stress involved. It is analogue in a digital world.

And finally, it represents the unrushed in a rushed world. Making imperfect yet authentic burnt coffee with analogue methods takes time. It takes the time to roast and the time to wait for it to degas, and then the time to do it all over again to produce another small batch. Yet after all that time, I get freshly roasted beans. So although it takes me more time I’m closer to what I want and made. While in one sense, the rushed product leaves me further from what I want. Then consider that coffee is somewhat representative of hustle and rush, productivity and product. But it takes time to burn coffee.

No doubt striving for excellence is worthy. But equally, we should consider what determines excellence. A product is more than its measurable end qualities. It is also the cumulation of its process and even its maker’s motivations. It is part of an interconnected network of relationships – “my mum’s soup”, “my neighbour’s veggies”, “my friend’s signature dish”, and “my mate’s home-roasted burnt coffee”.

But at the end of the day is it really all a metaphor for my life? Or am I just justifying the fact that I make, drink, and serve burnt coffee?

Time and the individual.

One way we see time is as a resource given to an individual. Each person is given an allotment of time to do with what they see fit. But we oft complain of its shortness, the speed with which it passes, and our inability to use it effectively to our own ends and desires. Our lives are short, our time is finite. We feel this way (in part) because we have a view so constrained upon the self that we measure things in reference to the self. I don’t think that this is necessarily wrong because there is certainly a lot of truth to it. Our life is our own, our time is our own and nobody else’s. We are responsible for our use of it.

But it’s not all about what I accomplish with my life. Whether I realise it or not my life is always going to be part of something bigger than my ‘self’. We might feel the need to measure our life according to some narrow conception of achievement with a direct link to our own efforts. Thus, that which I have started and consequently completed, or saw develop is to be numbered in my achievements. To measure my use of time is then a narrow measurement of actions or consequences linked as closely as possible to my ‘self’.

By example, with my time I received a Bachelor of Nursing and I received a Bachelor of Divinity. After a number of years you can view my chess accomplishments according to my chess rating (ELO) which is a pitiful representation of my time. All these examples have a direct link to me and what I have done with my time. They include a perspective that is attributed directly to my efforts and nobody else’s. The bachelor has my name on it. My chess rating has my name on it.

Christian or church history doesn’t have my name on it. Australian history doesn’t have my name on it. My wife or my friends’ holiness does not have my name on. Yet with a view to the bigger picture and the story connected through other people’s stories, I will be a contributor. That’s a keyword – contributor. We are not the sole accomplisher but a mere contributor to a grander story. What I accomplish with my short dishevelled, disjointed and contradictory life, will be nothing of note. What I contribute to, however, may be of great note depending on the cause – it will be bigger than my life, than ‘my’ time.

The point is not to measure my contribution. That’s to make the same error we are seeking to avoid, only in a different guise. The point is to forget yourself as you contribute to something bigger. Perhaps in this sense we consider our time as an investment in something big. My time is not for myself (at least not solely for myself – yes I will be judged according to my life, but I will contribute to more than my life.)

I’m not exactly sure what this means for my life. Perhaps it’s just a passing thought. I think it does give me a little more perspective in a world so preoccupied with the ‘self’ and achievements. In this sense, there may even be some minor anxiety I am relieved of by being a little less concerned about my inability to achieve unrealistic goals with my finite time.

How Dark Can It Get?

In life, in our interactions with one another, we often don’t see very far into the heart, into the past, into the experience of another. We see as far as they will allow us. At times someone can be so broken it’s written all over them, it’s evident. Such is the extent of their brokenness (that might be you – nothing wrong with that, except that it’s a sadness to be so visibly broken). But I think more often we conceal the darkness of ourselves, and the troubles of our past or present from sight. There is a western middle class cultural ethos of having to present as totally functioning and unstained. Being emotionally put together and in control. Otherwise, it’s an embarrassment – we might think.

But in the context of our church relationships as Christians, we will be (hopefully) prompted to share our burdens with others, to speak of the darkness within – sins committed by us or sins committed against us, or simply the ways the world has tempted us or battered us physically, mentally or spiritually. It should not surprise us to hear of the darkness within and from outside. Although I want to say, it often does surprise us to hear it. Why? Because all around us the world puts on emotional, physical and spiritual make-up. We look pretty to others but it’s not the whole picture. So when we finally get to hear a story of pain or hear a story of sins committed, we may be inwardly (or even outwardly!) surprised and perhaps even worried – “This shouldn’t be happening. This isn’t right. I thought you were a ‘good’ person. I thought you were a decent person. I thought you were ‘low maintenance’!” Such internal dialogue is simply a symptom or product of our world’s preoccupation to hide what’s inside.

In order to correct this thinking or prepare for such a thought, encounter or moment, let me suggest you do a few things.

Firstly, read the bible and discover the perspective of the Lord: “The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” (Gen. 6:5) We are capable of great good. But that’s simply the outworking of God’s general grace. Can we truly merit that to our untainted selves? Nope.

Secondly, don’t have merely superficial relationships with people at church. Find out what’s under the make-up. To aid this, take off your own make-up. In the Anglican tradition we together confess our shortcomings in church. This is such an easy opportunity and space to talk with trusted brothers or sisters about the battles we have with sin. There is a wonderful freedom to be so free from sin that you can actually confess sin. We all know we can ‘confess’ without actually ‘confessing’. Sounds unintuitive. But that’s the place we find ourselves in. We may say, doctrinally, we are no longer bound by sin. But there is a cultural shame at certain sins regardless.

Thirdly, be careful not to say things like, “you might be struggling with [insert permissible sin such as greed], but at least you haven’t murdered someone.” Perhaps they have! We think we are (rarely) capable of committing serious sins. Let me advise caution here. We are capable of great evil. Don’t underestimate others, (and your own!) ability to sin.

Let us remember Jesus words,

“While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”’ (Matt. 9:10–13)

Racism, superiority, and love to those outside of our love.

If you have a superhuman olfactory sense for racial disrespect, or an uncanny tingle when arrogance is creeping around, then you’ll either be repulsed, or at least confronted and confused by Jesus in Mark 7:24-30. 

In Mark 7:24–30, there is an infamous interaction. I recommend you read it and the preceding story on ‘cleaness’ (but I’ll summarize it regardless).

Jesus heads into a Gentile land and while he’s meandering around a woman comes up to him. Her daughter is possessed by an impure spirit and begs Jesus to heal her, to cast out the demon. This woman is a Gentile, she is a Greek born in the area. In response to her plea Jesus says, “First let the children eat all they want, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” She responds, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” And for her response, Jesus heals her daughter.

No doubt your eyes fix on one thing. Jesus calls this woman a dog. In today’s language we would call her a minority. She is a pagan dealing with Jews, she is a woman in a mans world, and her daughter is spiritually oppressed – she needs help. No doubt your friend or co-worker would find this kind of interaction “un-P.C” to say the least. And you may find it jarring or difficult to make sense of, especially if strong emotions well up in you.

But if you feel that sort of emotional reaction then you are in a position to understand this story the best.

In the passage immediately prior we see that the religious leaders, the revered in society, were the very ones Jesus condemned. But now in this story, the one who is looked down upon by society is the person Jesus commends. I would argue that she is considered by the Jewish people of the day (at least by the elitist rabbi’s) as “outside” of Gods help.

To help us understand the story I want us to try and be empathetic. Not empathetic towards this Greek woman. That will come later. I want us to be empathetic to the Jewish reader. I want you to put yourself in the Birkenstocks of the first disciples. First of all you’re not really sure why you are even in a gentile land. Sure, you’re following Jesus. But you don’t know why he is in this Gentile land, this non-Jewish land. Jesus is Jewish. He is here for the Jewish people. Now as this woman approaches your Rabbi, you instinctively recoil, perhaps literally taking a step back. This gentile comes from a background which is historically antagonistic to your people. You guys don’t play ball in the park. Her family lives on the other side of the train line.That’s not to mention the fact that she is a woman and the other rabbis said it is improper to be mingling with her. Then you find out that her daughter is under the bondage of an ‘unclean’ spirit. There is a growing sense of disgust inside of you (especially because you have a mind for things ‘clean’ and ‘unclean’).

She asks Jesus for help.

Jesus knows exactly what you’re thinking at this point.  When she asks for help, it’s as if Jesus says the very thing you were thinking, “First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” (Mark 7:27)

“Yes Jesus, thank you for speaking my mind”, says the Jewish disciple. “The Jewish people are ‘the children of God’, and the Gentiles are ‘dogs’.”

But suddenly she replies, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” (Mark 7:28)

You want to tell her to stop bothering the rabbi. You’ve done that before and you’ll be doing it plenty more times. So you’re about to tell her to get going when Jesus speaks, “For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter.” (Mark 7:29)

Now you’re properly confused. Jesus has just helped this woman who you as a Jewish disciple thought was ‘outside’ of God’s help. In your mind, Jesus was not supposed to do that. You were told by the religious leaders that the Jewish Messiah was going to help the Jews. And you fully expect that means only the Jews. But now the Messiah is helping the people you thought were outside of God’s help.

No one in the context of this story is expecting Jesus to cross the geographical, ethnic, gender and religious borders, to help, to bless and to befriend this woman.

In the previous passage the religious elite, the Jewish Pharisee, the teacher of the law, thought they had everything figured out with their rules and traditions. They came from the right pedigree, followed the right rules (and then some), and lived the right way. One problem – it was all in vain. They had evil hearts. They looked good on the outside but were rotten on the inside. It was the most revered of Jewish society who were most criticised by Jesus. It’s not the righteous but the sinner who Jesus came to save. Point been, we are all sinners. But ironically, the religious elite did not nderstand this most basic teaching.

And now, in an incredible contrast, with immense irony, it was the person who was least likely to understand Jesus that actually understands Jesus. The “clean” Jewish religious elitists hate Jesus. Yet the pagan Gentile woman, whose daughter is possessed by an “un-clean ” spirit is saved by Jesus.

Let’s unpack what Jesus said.

“First let the children eat all they want,” he told her, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.” (Mark 7:27)

First let the children eat. Jesus came first for the Jews, then for the Gentiles. There is an order, there is a priority. This is rooted in the promises of God in the Old Testament. Through Abraham all the nations will be blessed.

The deep irony of the story is that the Jewish religious establishment (the children of Abraham) are rejecting Jesus. They’re sitting at the table and they are not eating their food.

The whole parable gets turned on its head. The dog under the table becomes a child of Abraham as they receive the blessings of God in meekness and humility while the children of their own stubborn will reject the food, the blessings of God. She is the first person in this gospel to actually understand one of the parables of Jesus. She puts herself in the parable, “Yes but even the dogs eat the children’s crumbs”

It is difficult to understand why Jesus says what he says. But I would suggest he was been intentionally provocative to make a teaching point. That would be very in keeping with his style. I would suggest that he was ‘voicing’ what all the jews at the time were thinking. And he did so to make a point. To point out the irony of the rejecting Jewish people and the accepting Gentile people.

We will miss this point if we are not reading the Bible in its context. If we get hung up on the verse in isolation. We’ve got to read this verse in light of the whole story (the woman is the one that is saved and helped in the end). Then we’ve got to read the whole story in light of the whole book (the irony that the Jewish establishment regularly reject Jesus).  Then we must read the whole book in light of the whole Bible (through Abraham all nations will be blessed, see Genesis).

At first, to our modern ears we are offended that Jesus did not immediately help this woman but mimicked the thoughts of the time. However, consider, The first century reader is offended that Jesus helped her at all! We are offended that Jesus spoke the way he did only because we have been taught to love her the way that Jesus actually loved her. Jesus was the one who taught us to love beyond our own boundaries.

God’s love extends beyond the people of Israel. Remember the promise, that through Abraham all nations will be blessed. That is why today we experience the blessings of Christ. We forget that Jesus came first for the Jew then for the Gentile. God had an order of priority in keeping with the promises that he made. (This is a blind spot for the average Australian because we are such a “flat” society. We have very little time or respect for hierarchy or priority – not that these distinctions are based on ‘human value’).

All of us today ought to recognise ourselves in this woman. We have become children of Abraham through the loving adoption of God (if we are not Jewish). It is not our birth right, it is God’s gracious gift.

Of course there are further implications that are broader than this. The gospel is for all people. That’s a little bit easier for us to say now because racism is so abhorrent to the modern mind. But as you are surely aware racism is alive and well. The real problem is that we don’t like people who aren’t like us no matter what the difference is.

We can think that some people (people we don’t like) are unable to receive God’s help (or blessing). Let this passage be a warning against that kind of thinking. We must search our hearts and make sure this kind of arrogance is not present.

But I would also suggest that there is a kind of Western arrogance that this passage brings up in us. Out of all the things in this passage the demonic possession highlights it in us. We are naturally inclined to dismiss this woman’s plight, that her daughter is oppressed by an unclean spirit. We might think that it’s merely a medical condition, that the people of their time aren’t enlightened like us today. All the daughter needed was some counselling and Vallium.

If that is our thinking, then let me challenge us. In Africa and Southeast Asia, where witch doctors are the powerbrokers, they would have no problem understanding the demonic oppression happening in this story. Of course we may look down on African and Southeast Asian culture and think that they simply don’t understand as much about medicine as we do. We might think that they are ignorant.

But isn’t that ironic. We are then guilty of the very thing we abhor. We are guilty of the very same thing the Jewish elites of the time were guilty of. They looked down on Gentiles with a sense of superiority. And us Westerners we can easily look down on other cultures thinking them unlearned and ignorant (especially with their spiritual superstitions). But of course, their intuitive sense of the spiritual is not an ignorance of modern enlightenment thinking. I suggest that modern enlightenment thinking has given us an ignorance of the spiritual.

Let me point out that the global church is not Western. It’s African, it’s Asian. The non-Western world is very ready to receive the blessings of God while the Western world is more like the religious elite in the Gospels. Except we’re not “religiously elite”, we consider ourselves “intellectually elite”. The price for this arrogance is that our Western ideals in principle reject God and his blessings. If anything we should be cautious we are not the ones sitting at the table and rejecting the food God puts before us.

Creative Glory and Moral Glory – Psalm 19

There is a sense of God we feel as we wander about in creation. I know you get that sense in your bones because I’ve read about it,

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge” (Psa. 19:1–2)

Psalm 19 raises and addresses one of the most common human experiences and desires we have. We want God to make himself known to us. But that is what God is doing. When we (or those around us) complain that God is obscuring himself, the problem is not with God but with us. Perhaps we are not listening.

Creation is speaking, God is speaking, and we need to be listening.

Psalm 19 speaks to our deep desire to know God and it makes two points. The first point strengthens the latter (although we find the first to be more striking). First, God has revealed himself in the creation and secondly, God has revealed himself, in his word.

Revelation Through Creation

This is a universal disclosure. That means nobody is without a sense of God. We are all trying to make sense of it.

This is what the Psalm says

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.” (Psa. 19:1–4)

I know you’ve had this experience. Think about the time you went camping and looked up at the stars. When you visited that world-famous location. When you went for a simple walk or sat on the porch and marvelled at everything around you; the seasons, the great trees, the tiny flowers, the waves of the sea, or the cliffs carved into the mountains. Even the mathematical beauty of creation, or the minutia of creation. Take a moment to consider how that felt. There was a tangible sense of the divine in it all.

Reading Psalm 19 we get an explanation for this innate feeling of awe and wonder at creation. It is revealing God’s Glory to us. Creation is singing his praising, shouting out his power and glory, his divine nature, his “otherness” – all without a word.

I want to propose that there is no satisfying answer to why we are so filled with an innate sense of God in creation other than the fact that the bible is right. Creation declares his glory. If there were no God behind creation why should we universally feel that there is? No evolutionary psychology does justice to this phenomenon. Instead, those who promote this narrative conveniently dismiss the universal evidence of our subjective recognition that there is a creator behind the creation. This arbitrary dismissal of such strong evidence undermines the whole argument; that there is no God and that we were made by no one for no reason. That our wonder at the beauty of creation is a meaningless evolutionary hangover… how unsatisfying to be told your experience is simply an illusion. Besides the fact that it doesn’t do justice to the experience, it is a dismissal of the experience.

But the bible tells us that we can comprehend God’s power and glory in creation. The problem is, as Romans 1 makes clear, we suppress the truth about God. The ‘world’ around us may tell us that there is no God even though the ‘world’ we live in tells us otherwise.

God is speaking, we need to be listening. Simply look up at the sky and be reminded of the glory of God.

Revelation Through Relation

Earlier we said everyone wants to know if there is a God. But we also want to know what God is like. So although creation reflects the glory of God, his power and his “otherness”, it doesn’t tell us what God is like. We need to hear from God himself. Which is what God does, He speaks.

And what he says is a display of his holiness, his glory.

“The law of the LORD is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever. The decrees of the LORD are firm, and all of them are righteous.”(Psa. 19:7–9)

God’s law, his commands, his guiding words for our lives, reflect his moral character – his goodness. As God speaks to us to teach us about himself and to guide us in his ways, we learn that his word is; perfect, refreshing, trustworthy, right, joy-giving, radiant and enduring. God’s word shows us his moral goodness – his Glory.

But something important has just happened between verses 6 and 7. We just went from verses 1-6 – “The heavens declare the glory of God”, to suddenly, verse 7, “The law of the LORD is perfect”. There is a sudden jarring shift. That’s because the poem is making comparisons. The writer is comparing the glory of God in creation to the glory of God in His word. Creation is great. God’s word is greater.

“[God’s Word] is more precious than gold, than much pure gold; [It is] sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb.” (Psa. 19:10)

Think about what this means in your life, especially as we have just spent some time remembering the awe and wonder inspired by God’s creation. That feeling you get when you look at creation, that sense of the divine, should be eclipsed by the glory revealed in God’s words. His goodness and holiness as seen in his word outshines his power and ‘otherness’ as seen in creation. What we glimpse in creation we get full force in his word.

What we have just read from the psalm is in complete opposition to the modern narrative that you will hear. This psalm challenges the modern narratives we are inundated with and encourages and strengthens the Christian to stand strong in the revealed goodness of God our creator.

You will hear loud voices proclaim that Christianity is bad for you and bad for the world. Society is going through a momentous shift. Far from God’s word being good and promoting holiness and a moral life worth striving for, others argue the Bible promotes an immoral life. But nothing could be further from the truth. We’re not talking about Christians. We’re talking about the bible. Christians are flawed but that doesn’t reflect the bible’s moral teaching.

I think it’s worth pointing out some of the flaws in this sort of argument (that the bible is bad for you), as we reflect on Psalm 19 and its abundant praise of God’s moral teachings set out in his word.

Firstly, to say that Christianity is morally reprehensible (from a western perspective) requires the use of Christian ethics to make that argument. The majority of western secular culture is based upon Judaeo-Christian values. It’s just that pervasive.

Secondly, in the modern western secular culture, a prime example of evil is oppression and the subjugation of powerless people. That kind of moral value is again a Judaeo-Christian value. Eastern cultures, early Greek and Roman cultures would find this argument incomprehensible. In the world of old if you could oppress and subjugate then it was your moral prerogative to do so. In the most literal sense, ‘might was right.’ Honouring the poor and weak was an idiotic basis for a society. It was Judeo-Christian values that said the oppression and the subjugation of powerless people is wrong.

Thirdly, the modern concept of treating people with dignity, respect and ultimately with equality, is entirely a Judaeo-Christian value. You would find it reprehensible, and so would most (but not necessarily all) people in Australia, if I decided to leave my child on the street to die simply because she was a girl. The very thought of it stirs up anger. Yet we find it hard to believe that 2000 years ago nobody cared. There are historical documents, of husbands writing home to their wives saying exactly what I said and saying it in passing. Like it was nothing (read John Dicksons, ‘bullies and saints’). The only reason this stirs up anger in us is because we have been so taught by God’s word and so shaped by God’s word that we can’t help but have a mind for dignity and respect and equality. Thank God for that.

I haven’t even touched on charity, health care, welfare, the existence of a weekend, science or sexual ethics. These systems and values that we have today find their inception in the Judeo-Christian ethic derived from God’s word.

One might argue, “Of course you would say that Robbie, you are a Christian.” But I would simply say back, “You would only say that if you haven’t read the history.” Every argument I just made was made by a non-Christian historian, Tom Holland, in his book “Dominion”. It is simply profound the impact that God’s word has had on our society (through his people, and sometimes despite his people).

We simply must affirm,

“The law of the LORD is perfect, refreshing the soul.”(Psa. 19:7)

That ought to fill us with awe and wonder at God’s moral Glory. It far outshines any sense of awe and wonder that creation inspires in us. Such is the holiness of God as revealed in his word.