Growing in Faith in the Pentecostal Church. Part 2.

In part one of my journey in the pentecostal church I told the story of my conversion in the pentecostal denomination. There was a battle between Catholics and Pentecostals over the affections of my heart, there were strobe lights and deadly perilous youth games, there were the typically un-typical Pentecostal spiritual experiences, and there was Bible and prayer. Anyways that was part one. (Check it out here)

What I wanted to write about in this blog post was how I grew in the faith in the following years.

As I mentioned earlier, I had become a Christian through the pentecostal church at my home town. But my conversion to the faith also occurred during my first year at university, and the university itself was in a different town. So in a sense my life was split to some degree by my degree. I had my pentecostal church at home which I would attend on the weekend and I had my evangelical group in my university home which I would attend through the week.

So what was it like to attend both at effectively the same time?

First of all, I didn’t know anything different. This was how it all started and so it was that I didn’t immediately grasp the difference between the two. What I mean by this is that aside from the very obvious differences in style and presentation, I wasn’t particularly aware of the differences in theology or their degrees of significance.

In fact, during the car trips (in my 1980’s hand-me-down V6 Holden Commodore) between the two towns I would listen (with the help of a radio transmitter contraption) to both the Bethel Church Sermon of the week, and John Piper’s sermon of the week, to Brian Houston then Mark Driscoll, to Steve Furtick then Tim Keller. Now if you don’t know the difference between each of these people, then you need to know there is a difference between each of these people. Which again, is not something I immediately grasped.

Over time however, I found myself drawn to the substance of the reformed crew. There was a certain kind of compelling logic that gripped my mind. But when I say, “over time”, I mean over at least a couple of years. So over a couple of years, I would make a two-hour car trip just about every weekend (not to mention all the different trips in between, such as going to work in another town), and in these car trips I would be listening to this diametric selection of preachers. There was a great deal of content being consumed which meant I was learning a good deal during that time (which is typically the case for a new Christian). I mention this in order to give a sense of how much content I was consuming, because eventually when I found myself drawn more to the reformed crew, it certainly wasn’t for lack of engagement and consideration of the pentecostal crew’s content. It was the ideas themselves that won me over and I genuinely became persuaded of the reformed evangelical framework. These preachers and teachers had a depth to their preaching, it was exegetical, the whole counsel of scripture was on the table, it was deeply coherent philosophically, and there was a variety of pastoral concerns – the word of God was shown to apply to every part of my life in many different ways. But at this point let me provide a caveat, there’s no reason the Pentecostal crew couldn’t achieve all these aforementioned qualities. I’m just saying it wasn’t my experience. I think my experience says something about the Pentecostal framework, or ‘vibe’. Even though it’s a generalisation, I think it is fair to say they will not produce teachings of the same calibre. That’s because they’re using a different framework that produces a different kind of teaching. In my opinion, I was listening to some of the most popular and important preachers from the pentecostal church.

In the end, I favoured listening to the reformed evangelical preachers for all those reasons listed above. As you might have assumed, this profoundly shaped my theology.

Did I stop going to my pentecostal church at home? Absolutely not! I was still a young christian at this stage. So although my thinking was very much reformed I nevertheless held to some of the more typical points of Pentecostal theology (notions about the Holy Spirit, tongues, prophecy, etc.). Yet at the same time, I had the inkling that Pentecostals and reformed Christians didn’t necessarily get along too well. Not that I ever really saw this in action. I just had some Pentecostal friends who wouldn’t attend the reformed evangelical AFES Uni group which I attended. And I believe it was because of differences regarding prophecy and maybe some other things like that. I’m very sympathetic to these differences. Having been in both traditions, to the members of either tradition, the practices of your church are important (I might even now say, worth disagreeing over). I, however, didn’t feel the pinch quite as hard as others. I had good friends in the reformed uni group and in the Pentecostal circles – still do!

There was also a lot of intentional discipleship from the AFES uni crew: a mid-week meeting, one-to-one meetings with friends who discipled me, one-to-one meeting with the head of the AFES group as well – I asked a lot of questions and I had a lot of questions asked of me, many challenges were put to me, I was thrown into walk-up evangelism, more to watch than to do at this stage. All generally good. Probably the only difficult time I had that I particularly remember was when one bro tried to read Deuteronomy with me. I thought it was so boring. I just couldn’t quite track with it all. I’m glad I no longer think that way.

When I finished university or was coming to the end of university I had to decide what kind of church to go to. What kind of church do you think I went to?

Well, I attended my local pentecostal church. Steve and Sherryl were my pastors. My very dear friend Nathaniel ran the youth group and I would occasionally help out. There were nights of prayer and praise and wonderful fellowship together.

Eventually I had to move town for work. What kind of church do you think I decided to go to then?

I attended my local pentecostal church. Greg and Tina were my Pastors. It was hip and happening. The walls were dark. The lights turned down. The music was pumping and the people were of a variety of ages and ethnicities (which was rather special in a rural city I thought). Not typically all young, although there was certainly that demographic. But I attended both the young adults Bible study and also a Bible study in which I was the youngest member by a couple of decades! I attended this church for about a year and I gotta say it was a pretty mixed bag on reflection. It was the classic kind of Pentecostal vibe I became a Christian in. Lots of music. Topical sermons (one was even on hell! Which is notable if you know what I mean). Big flashy building. Lots of prayer meetings. As part of this church I managed to be involved in some outreach as a ‘Red Frog’ at the university campus. Which also got me connected to the university ministry there (run by an AFES worker. But I couldn’t attend that very often unfortunately). I also met up one-to-one with a number of people which was good.

But memorably and sadly, I gotta say there were a couple of times when the teaching was not right in the least. And somehow they both managed to be on the book of Jonah! I don’t think that the minister necessarily screened what was being taught before it was being taught. Occasionally the minister would invite people to come and preach, whether from within or without the church (as a guest). But there were some moments that were definitely below par. Sometimes the preachers would start with, ‘I prepared something to teach on today… But the Holy Spirit spoke to me and told me to preach on something else just this morning.’ Another time it was from someone who seemed to be respected by the senior minister. So it was a bit of a contradiction. The senior minister was himself a decent preacher and I thought he was solid (generally speaking). But then at other times under his authority he would let other people say things that were in error. I’ve seen this sort of pattern in other churches as well, big notable churches. For example there have been times that Hillsong have endorsed preachers that they ought not to have endorsed. Although Hillsong themselves, at least certain key individuals, haven’t necessarily made the same errors (at least not regularly in my understanding).

By this stage I was dating my now wife. And while I travelled up to Sydney I would visit an evangelical church (Urban Grace). I thought the teaching at Urban Grace was absolutely solid. It was the kind of nuanced and gritty teaching I’d heard so many times in the podcasts. But by this stage I wasn’t prepared to leave my old church, the pentecostal church. Rather I committed to the pentecostal church all the way through till my marriage.

Then I spent four years at Moore College…

On Pandemic Prayers

Over the last while I’ve heard prayer requests from people around me for the Covid-19 pandemic to end. 

This reminds me of other prayer requests I have heard from both adults and children for God to protect us from bad things. 

I was reflecting on this. So often we want God to take our troubles away. To end the pain. To deliver us from evil. And I want to affirm that it is good and right for us to ask him to do this – after all, there is firm biblical precedent for this – many psalms call out to the Lord to save us, to deliver us from evil people or bad things (eg, Psalm 54:1-2, 59:1, 64:1, 69:1, 70:1, 71:2, etc.). There is even a line in the very prayer that our Lord Jesus taught us to pray, ‘deliver us from evil’ (Matthew 6:13). And the Lord delights to answer our prayers and save and deliver his people from all kinds of trials. 

However, this is not the complete picture. Because the Bible also richly describes the place of suffering in the life of believers – suffering which involves the Lord allowing us at times to be impacted by evil people and bad things – like a pandemic. Just this morning I was reading Revelation 7:9-17, where in v14 it is revealed that the great multitude in white robes who stand before God are the ones who have come out of the ‘great tribulation’. Whatever the ‘great tribulation’ is, it doesn’t sound like a life unaffected by suffering – in fact, quite the reverse. In fitting with this, Hebrews 11:35-39 lists a whole lot of painful things that various people of God have suffered because of their faith, and multiple apostles write about the place of suffering in our spiritual formation – e.g, see Paul in Romans 5:3-5, James in James 1:2-4, and Peter in 1 Peter 1:6-7.

So I could just pray for God to end the Covid-19 pandemic, but it seems apparent that there is a good and right place for hardship in the Christian life. 

So, how do I communicate to people around me that it is both good and right to ask God for protection from bad things, but that if they still come it does not mean that he hasn’t heard us, or that he doesn’t exist, or that he doesn’t care about us? 

I am reminded of another passage, in Daniel 3:17-18, where Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are before king Nebuchadnezzar, and are being threatened with being thrown into the blazing furnace if they don’t worship the king’s statue. In their defence, they both affirm that God is able to save them from the furnace and will save them from Nebuchadnezzar’s hand, but also affirm that, ‘even if he does not…’ they would not serve the king’s gods. This response both affirms God’s ability to act in this world to protect his people, and that he will ultimately save us (which, as Christians, we know he will do when Jesus returns), but also expresses that God is free to do otherwise – his power and his faithfulness are not undermined by him not always acting in line with our requests. We are called to worship him alone regardless of how he answers our prayers. And in fact, as we have seen elsewhere in Scripture, he may have very good reasons to let us suffer for a time (see the list of apostolic passages above).

So, when confronted with requests like our starting one, I do two things. On the one hand, I do indeed pray for God to end the pandemic. However, I also want to affirm that God greater and wiser than us, and that even if he doesn’t, I know he is good and faithful, and I pray he would give us strength to endure whatever hardship we are facing, and for God to grow us in our character and our trust of him through this time. 

A Therapeutic or a Moral World.

We find what we look for. In many ways, big and small, this is true. We are looking to convince someone of the truth about lollies, they give us bouts of energy and help us complete those pressing tasks. Of this, I am completely convinced. But likewise, it happens on bigger and grander scales too. A whole people can be looking for water from a well, convinced the well has water because after all, they are all there trying to get water from it. It would be rather silly if the well had no water. After all, look how many millions of people are here at the well!

So it is in our world. Our worldview is a self-propagating one. We live in a psychologised and therapeutic world. Chasing happiness is the name of the game. Unfortunately, it’s one of those new kinds of games that technically doesn’t have an ending. It’s just a good ride.

As has been well documented and talked about in many different places, we are peoples who are suffering from a cacophony of distractions, a multitude of choices, a growing collection of un-assimilated knowledge and a proportionally growing weight of the burdensome responsibility towards it all. One particularly is the burden of happiness. We hear of pleasures, we must seek them. We hear of injustices, we must right them (and feel good doing so). We hear of new opinions and positions, we must adjudicate them (which is really fun, thrilling almost). All this, done in a bid to find some happiness: to feel good for stomping on injustice, feel good for experiencing the thrill of some chase, feel good informing the ignorant of the views they should hold. There is a lot to do to feel good. Many buckets to fill. It’s a job to fill them, isn’t it? Luckily, God is on our side right? He helps us fill the buckets of happiness we need filled up. And there are lots, even for God to do. Where did all these buckets come from? No idea, I just put them out here to fill up. Just doing my job here pouring water into them. Help me out will you God!  The sun is out today and it’s evaporating as I pour all this good stuff in.

David Wells makes this point about our happy-hunting culture,

 “[Our culture] shapes the way we see things, what we see, and what importance all of it has to us. It allows us our own private reality because it inclines us to live only within ourselves and to see all of reality from behind this peephole. We see everything from the position of the self with its senses and aches and needs. This shapes everything else. In this psychological world, the God of love is a God of love precisely and only because he offers us inward balm. Empty, distracted, meandering, and dissatisfied, we come to him for help. Fill us, we ask, with a sense of completeness! Fill our emptiness! Give us a sense of direction amid the mass of competing ways and voices in the modem world! Fill the aching emptiness within! This is how many in the church today, especially in the evangelical church, are thinking. It is how they are praying. They are yearning for something more real within themselves than what they currently have…” (p.126)

This is a pretty astute comment. It cuts me somewhere inside. Perhaps the work of the Spirit within… The culture around me is very much like this. It tells me to look for happiness wherever I can find it. And I also happen to be a Christian living in this culture, so I have someone I go to when I have a problem, God. Except what I have done is I’ve taken my culturally produced felt need to God without considering necessarily if this is indeed the burden of God toward me in his word. This happens because of the subtlety of culture – it’s everywhere around us in the thought world (but paradoxically it’s also relentless at the same time, throwing its barrage at us). 

What’s the right way of viewing the world then? If the world is not there to provide for me a sense of contented happiness, what then? David wells continues,

“Those who live in this psychological world think differently from those who inhabit a moral world. In a psychological world, we want therapy; in a moral world, a world of right and wrong and good and evil, we want redemption. In a psychological world, we want to be happy. In a moral world, we want to be holy. In the one, we want to feel good, but in the other, we want to be good.” (p.126)

This is a shift of the mind that requires one to be born all over again, such is the difference in worldview. But that is the Christian experience. We are born into the moral world, the world made by the holy God of love. His character is imbibed by his creation. The presence of moral darkness and corruption introduced by his creation has tilted this world on its axis. Our man-made compasses led us astray but led us exactly where we wanted them to go. We sought after the blessings, not the one who blesses. But no longer. As Christians we know we live in a moral world ruled and governed by the holy and loving God. We confessed our moral failures and experienced his redemption. Now we too seek to image the one we are made after, the Lord Jesus. He is goodness. His presence is happiness to us.

In our broken therapeutic world, we will never stay long in the feel-good climate. The therapeutic world spins on its axis and we are taken to another season of discomfort or worse, all too soon. But in a moral world, we seek redemption through the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Now in Him, we are as He has made us. We seek now, not to feel good, but to be good, no matter what darkness we find ourselves in through all the seasons.

Wells, D. F. (2014). God in the whirlwind: How the holy-love of God reorients our world.

Societal Morality – Do vs Be

When it comes to societal morality there are certain things we may more readily associate with what is right and wrong. This is assisted by the system of laws we have set in place. To murder is wrong because jail time is associated with such an act. To speed is wrong (I think people still believe this…) because there is a fine associated with speeding. To launder money through a casino or some other shopfront is wrong because the laws constitute so. To lie is wrong in court. To lie to a neighbour…. It’s almost tempting to say, ‘well depends on the circumstance…’

These codified rules make it seem like morality is ultimately a matter of doing or not doing things. So perhaps you could be a complete jerk, but a law-abiding jerk. Conversely, you could be the most beloved person at the office, but a thief and a liar who gets locked up behind bars, and becomes the most beloved person behind bars!

David Wells puts it this way, “The law is an exceedingly blunt instrument when it comes to controlling human behaviour. There are many things that are unethical that are not illegal. Most lying, for example, is not illegal but it is always unethical. Our criminal and civil laws can control only so much of our behaviour. It is virtue that does the rest. And that is precisely what is been eroded in this self-orientated, self-consumed culture.” (p.29)

Virtue ought to shape our lives. We are to ‘be’ virtuous people not merely ‘do’ what virtuous people would do. But what is virtuous? Once it was defined according to who God is. We mirrored the characteristics that we saw in God (the communicable characteristics that is, such as love, grace, mercy etc.). Now, what is the spring of virtue? It is the self. We look within ourselves to find what is good, and so if we are authentic to ourselves, we are virtuous. And it is this that Wells says is eroding the very foundations of culturally accepted virtues. 

So as society collectively reimagines what is good, it is doing so as each individual looks within themselves. We have this strange and ironic paradox at work. Every individual in a society is looking within themselves to find out what is good to do according to what they want, and so the collective good becomes the notion that what an individual sees within themselves is good. This leads us all to a dead end. We don’t look outside of ourselves, to God, but within ourselves. Wells says, “When God – the external God – dies, then the self immediately moves in to fill the vacuum. But then something strange happens. The self also dies. And with it goes meaning and reality. When those things go, anything is possible. Huxley’s dystopian novel, Brave New World, does not seem so far off into the future after all.” (p.31)

The solution is easy, right? We simply need to look outside of ourselves. Look to God. Look at God and see his great character. Live our lives according to this, as mirrors of God, as image-bearers of his glory.

That is very easy to say but each of us can testify how hard that is. Our selfishness draws us within ourselves. And it does so in strange ways. For some of us as we are drawn into ourselves, we only see the darkness of ourselves all the more and it disgusts us. But we can’t stop looking in self-pity. For others of us, we look into ourselves and we are blinded by our own greatness (purely subjective of course), and we can’t stop looking, understandably. If only you knew how beautiful my insides are.

It is not easy to look beyond ourselves to God. I trust our subjective testimony to this is sufficient. We need many signs to point the way, we need many warnings to deter our wanderings. We need glimpses of the greatness of God to keep us facing true North like rays of sun breaking through the canopy of the forest. So it is that God’s word points the way. So it is that the society around us is itself a warning to our wandering feet (sadly our experience tells us this). And so it is as we look at Christ in his word we do get glimpses of something greater, someone to live our lives for and to live our lives by.

“This is why we must come back to our first principles. And the most basic of these is the fact that God is there and that he is objective to us. He is not there to conform to us; we must conform to him. We do not go inside of ourselves to find him. We are summoned to know him only on his terms. He is not known on our terms. This summons is heard in and through his word. It is not heard through our intuitions.” (p.32)

Wells, D. F. (2014). God in the whirlwind: How the holy-love of God reorients our world.

God’s character – an obscured climb, but a vista not to be missed.

To behold the character of God is a sight worth working for. Much like a great vista can be obscured by shrubs and rocks, trees and mist, the glory of God can be obscured by the world around us, encroaching ever closer to our eyes and putting us out of focus, even misleading us.

God is love. God is holy. Both are in unity with one another, neither are at odds with one another. But that is not necessarily readily accepted by many. That is because our culture affects how we see things, not excluding how we see God. We see God through his all sufficient word, the Bible. That is of course as our minds are renewed by God’s spirit working in us through his word. Oppositely however, we can be conformed to this world. And now our conformity to the world affects how we view God because it affects how we view his word.

How are we going to be renewing our minds? Simple in one sense. We must be reading the word of God. The word of God must be confronting us regularly, and shaping us. However this task is not going to have its effect if we cannot focus long enough, linger long enough, to receive the truth of God from his word. “Every age has its own challenges. This is one of ours, it is the affliction of distraction.” Says David Wells (p.18).

One of the ironies is, however, that we are so distracted because we have such an abundance of good things. Our standard of health is high, our choices for entertainment – endless, the range of experiences we can have – vast, the feats that we can accomplish – great. And yet with all the things we could do, we are a depressed people, a lonely people, a sad people. It is a paradox (see p.22). Stimulated in every conceivable way, yet not stimulated enough.

In our Western world where we experience an abundance of blessings (generally speaking) and yet a deprivation of emotional and mental well-being, we want God to provide more blessings while fixing our emotional and mental burdens. ‘Please God give us more stuff,’ we secretly hope for in our hearts (or not so secretly), and give me an emotional perk up, and encouragement.

Now there’s nothing wrong with these things. But these are the desires of everyone around us. Hopefully it’s a little bit unnerving for us to realise that our hopes of God’s provision towards us are really no different from the God-less hopes of others.

What might be happening? Perhaps we are addressing the god that is within us, and not the God that is outside of ourselves, the objective God.

The centre of reality does not come from within, it is not subjective. The centre of reality is God who is not within us, but ultimately outside of us, in front of us. He is encountered in his word (of course God dwells within us by his Holy Spirit, but I’m more thinking here about God’s transcendence).

God does meet our needs, more than we could possibly fathom. Ultimately these are spiritual needs. And every spiritual deficiency within us is met by the one who is outside of us, the Lord Jesus.

Yes God does meet our physical, emotional and psychological needs. But the problem is that we are so inwardly focused that these needs become our god. And in a strange cyclical downward spiral, our needs are our gods and we want our god to meet our needs. That’s to say, our needs are our idols, and we want our idols to meet our needs.

But we need to clear our eyes from the mist. We need to climb higher to see more. We need to take ourselves to the heights that the Bible takes us to see God’s holy-love towards us and to be re-orientated by it. As we see God’s holy-love displayed towards us in Jesus, it is then that we see our needs met.

Wells, D. F. (2014). God in the whirlwind: How the holy-love of God reorients our world.

Proverbs of Livingstone Rd

Like a bee returning to the hive, is every conversation to house prices.

Beware the skin of the scantily dressed, it demands your attention but never gets enough.

The slugger brings his hand to the remote, but cannot even press the power function.

Answer a fool in the comment section and you will be like them.

The fool says, “There is neither right nor wrong”. But his way is right in his own eyes.

Food for the eater, wine for the drinker. Uber delivers them both.

The sluggard works his upper body alone. His legs are like that of a newborn fowl, in the day of trouble they will surely fail.  The diligent are made of iron, his legs are of bronze, fine bronze from the mines of Western Australia. He will never stumble.

Another sequel, another season. But it’s never as good as the first.

The fool’s speech is like the obnoxious exhaust of a modified sports car. Only he thinks it sounds any good.

Words posted in haste are not forgotten with time.

Discovering the Particular Love of God

Redemption is the process whereby an individual guilty of sin before God is saved from the just punishment of sin, namely death, through the vicarious death of Jesus. There are some particulars regarding redemption that are worth teasing out because they provide an abundance of joy and greater understanding of the particular love God shows to us. As we mine God’s word, the gold we find does not become scarcer the deeper we dig. Quite the contrary, the veins become thicker and richer the deeper we find ourselves searching God’s word.

We may start with some basic understanding of the Gospel to begin with, as is fitting. We learn about the historic death of the Lord Jesus on our behalf and we are called to repent and place our faith in Jesus. Going hand-in-hand with this, we seek to obey the call to live a holy life. All the while we have a vague idea that this world is not our home, but ultimately heaven is.

This basic grasp of the gospel is mostly focused on our present situation with some view to the future and it is also mostly focused on us. There is nothing wrong with this, after all, these are our concerns in the infancy of faith. We hear the call of God, we repent and believe in Jesus, we are justified, sanctified, and look forward (vaguely) to being glorified – not that we would use this language ourselves. All this is cause for endless rejoicing in itself!

But what happens as we dig a little further? If the veins grow thicker the deeper we dive then we will find ourselves with greater joys and greater blessings. I think we discover a few more articles of interest which we must assimilate with all we’ve already learnt. Underneath the surface layer, we discover that yes, everyone is called to believe in the gospel (universal calling performed by Christians through evangelism) and yet not all believe. It takes God to call individuals to himself (known as effectual calling). Closely associated with this is the doctrine of regeneration. As we think about how we journeyed along this path we think about the person who told us the gospel and then immediately think about the part where we repented and believed. But in between these two steps is the incredible work of regeneration by the Holy Spirit. At first we never saw this. But we might have wondered why it is that some people believe the gospel and others do not. Well, we must know that it is the Lord who effectually calls and his call is effectual because it brings dead people to life spiritually (regeneration).

Shortly after, we learn that we are now included in the family of God (adoption). The gravity of the doctrine of adoption takes quite some time to grasp (in my own experience). Likewise, the implications of the doctrine take some time to seep into our consciousness. Oppositely, consider justification. We are regularly reminded of our justification (I hope) due to the fact that we sadly fail to live a holy life. For every moment of failure, the gospel reminds us that in fact we are already declared righteous in Christ. As for the heights of adoption, seldom might we consider this despite the fact that it likewise affects the way we carry ourselves throughout life. Just like justification, adoption is a legal declaration. On the one hand, justification takes us out of the shackles of death. But adoption brings us into the family of God. One takes us out of the depths of despair while the other takes us to the heights of joy. So it is that a Christian’s identity is not only ‘innocent and free’, but greater still, ‘child of God’. If you feel the warmth of the love of God in your justification, how much greater ought you to feel the fires of the love of God in the way he has brought you into his adopted family. Having dug a bit further to see what is happening in our redemption, we are reaping great rewards of joy.

This leads me to another thought somewhat linked. God has a particular love for his children. God loves the world and all in it (in one sense of the word, ‘love’). But God particularly loves those whom he saves. I think we come to appreciate this much later in our Christian journey. Everything that we’ve considered so far (effectual calling, regeneration, faith and repentance, justified, adopted, sanctified) we experience in time, particularly our lifetime. But what about in eternity past? Well, in eternity past God has shown you particularly a kind of love that only a Christian gets to experience. Before time you were chosen and predestined to salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. This all too easily grates us, but stop and consider, it’s this kind of distinction that we enjoy in the doctrine of adoption. So just as we experience a special kind of love from our adoption as children of God born by the Spirit of God, so too before that distinguishing love came God’s loving predestination of your salvation. And now our focus has very much left ourselves, I hope. For what at all do we see ourselves doing in the act of God’s predestination and choosing before time? We are simply looking back and enjoying the grandeur of God’s work on our behalf.

As I recently re-read John Murry’s Redemption Accomplished and Applied, the great intricacies of God’s work in saving us struck me: the scope of his love reaches through time, condescends through all the levels of humility and is more certain than any reality we might consider. It is a beautiful work the Lord has done, and a wonder to behold in all its detail and grandeur.

Taking Hold – Reflecting on Ellie

Recently my wife and I remembered the death of our daughter as it was the anniversary of the day she died (28.07.20). As with such important times, we tread carefully. It is a time of remembrance, of reflection, of joy at life, and morning of death. Also, as it was the first anniversary – the establishing of family tradition.

The Lord ushers us through times of trial and discipline. It is unavoidable. It is certainly unpleasant. But under the sovereignty of God it is not without purpose, care and hopefully – on our part – thankfulness.

Let me share a reflection as I consider the tragedy of our daughter’s death.

It is a reflection on the words of our former principal Mark Thompson from Moore Theological College. He wrote to us during that time and said, “Take hold of the God you know and who has hold of you both.”

The Christian life is a life of faith. What exactly does faith entail though? First of all you must know the object in which you place your faith. There is an intellectual aspect to this faith (an important aspect which is sometimes misunderstood or forgotten, or misused even).

The object of Christian faith is the Lord Jesus Christ. What must you know about this person? Well, we must know that he is our Lord and our saviour. We must know that he died in our place and we must know it is out of love that he did so.

We might call this the propositional knowledge of our faith. These are propositions that we believe. Facts we assent to.

But to know these facts is not enough. Indeed to merely know them is insulting. For it is only fitting that possessing such knowledge we would then trust in the person of Christ. And this is what I want us to focus on today – the ‘who’ that we take hold of.

Our faith is in the person of Christ (or more broadly speaking, in God). The act of personally trusting in God is what must follow.

And so as we learn about God, we learn that he is good, just, righteous, holy, gracious, loving et cetera… We must not only be learning propositions, but we must be growing in a personal knowledge leading to the relational act of trusting in that person. Is this not the essence of the Christian faith, to know the person of God and not merely to know about God?

Yes it is.

During times of suffering we will come undone if we have not grasped this distinction. If our understanding of God is knowing things about the great “it” rather than knowing “Him”.

In times of suffering should you grasp after ideas then you will find no substance in your hands to hold onto.

But instead, if you “Take hold of the God you know…” then you will find yourself holding on to a person.

And the great thing about this person is that he will be holding on to you.

This you can trust.

Remembering Ellie

This week my husband and I remember the birth, life and passing of our first child and daughter, Ellie.

It’s strange to think that it’s been a year. Recently my husband reminded me of something that Mark Thompson, the principal of our theological college wrote to us at the time: “Take hold of the God you know and who has hold of you both.”

I know that God is good, wise and faithful. And it has been humblingly comforting to watch him shower us with his love and kindness, through his people, in the months and year since Ellie left us. I am grateful. 

But despite this, I know that God is good, wise and faithful because of his son, Jesus. His love is shown in action in history – through Jesus’s life, and ultimately at the cross. And this is a statement of love that is definitive: it is how I know God loves me. His goodness towards me, his wisdom and his faithfulness are all shown there. 

I know from my own life how he has been faithful – holding on to me through various ups and downs. We may say ‘God is good’ when we feel his material and circumstantial blessings, and it is true that all things – including the beautiful goods we enjoy – come from him. But if we limit our understanding of God’s goodness to just the material goods we enjoy, then we will be unprepared to perceive his persisting goodness when times of testing and calamity strike. And I know that in his wisdom, our God sends times of hardship to discipline and refine his people – because he is a father who loves us.

And Ellie has been a blessing. 

Because of Ellie, I understood grief first hand, and how to better support others in such times.

Because of Ellie, my husband and I could connect with other couples who had suffered various griefs of their own – especially the lack of children. 

Because of Ellie, we were made vulnerable, and were blessed by our brothers and sisters in Christ who then had the opportunity to practically care for us – and through whom, we were reminded of God’s love.

And there is so much more.

So I am thankful for the gift of our daughter Ellie. 

And this year, the first anniversary, we have started to form our own family traditions to remember her with. Everyone grieves in different ways, but there is something joyful to having a fry up in honour of a loved one, and I look forward to future children enjoying this and remembering her through it too.

Media consumption: Practical tips for moderation.

Last week we considered our attitude to media. You cannot take the right actions without first having the right attitude. Laws and rules don’t help without a renewed heart and mind. So implement change in your mind before you implement change with your hands. One follows the other but what you do follows very closely on what you think. First, have the right attitude toward media and the garden of the mind.

But what about some practical tips for media consumption. Well let me share with you what I do to help me manage what I watch and therefore manage what I think about.

Firstly, I limit the time I spend watching video streaming services, and of the given video streaming services I only have Netflix. That’s to say, there is only a limited amount of media I can watch because I only subscribe to one service and what it offers. I don’t want to endlessly watch shows. I want to read and write, and spend time in community. I want to game, and exercise and do a range of other things. So I limit myself to one service and its limited content. And even then, I don’t use it a lot. I basically never use it alone, but always watch shows with friends and mostly with my wife. In one sense this is because I don’t want to eat my whole birthday cake on my birthday. I want to enjoy the cake for the next week or two. I want to pace myself and get the most out of it. So I only have Netflix and even then I manage the time I spend watching it.

Secondly, and most importantly, I pre-emptively screen every TV show/movie that I watch on IMDb’s parents’ guide. I have a list of shows and movies and they only make the list if I’ve screened them beforehand for any sexual contact (particularly). I’ve been practising this meticulous process for some time now and it’s basically become second nature to me. I don’t at all trust the tags or content ratings provided by the shows themselves. They are too general. Nudity might be forensic nudity and not sexualised nudity. Sexual references might not be sex scenes, but they can be so vivid and perverse regardless, very little is left to the imagination. Some shows say they only contain strong violence. But as I look at the IMDb parents’ guide, so much sexual content passes through the radar seemingly undetected. The IMDb parents’ guide also has different levels; mild, moderate, severe. If anything makes it into the severe category, it is immediately out. I’m not going to watch it. Even if it’s just one scene in one episode, the whole series doesn’t make the cut. If it says it’s moderate, it’s not going to make the cut. These scenes are often, “implied sex.” Contributors might say, “you can only hear them but you can’t see them”, “it’s happening in the background but it’s out of focus”, “they start undressing each other but the scene only lasts for a minute until it cuts away”. It doesn’t make the cut. The director knows exactly where your mind is going and what its thinking. If the IMDb parents’ guide says the content is “mild”, then I have to read it carefully. Because these are just ordinary people who are filling out the parents’ guide. They have very interesting ideas and very different standards at times to myself. What is “mild”? I like to watch a lot of anime, so “mild” might be, “every female character has large breasts and tight clothing”, “some characters grab females breasts, but it’s only for comical effect”, “a shot of a fully nude lady from behind, but you don’t see any breasts.” This sort of stuff is not going to make the cut, but it is still considered “mild” by many. So I would be reading it carefully. Other times I can put up with “mild” content such as, “two people kissing”, “two people kissing passionately”, “crude sexual humour”, “scene with a naked woman’s silhouette in the shower, although nothing explicit is seen”. I have to make a wisdom call on these things. And I have to consider the genre of the show or movie. Action movies tend to be more liberal with their sexual content, leaning towards the side of eye candy. Crime shows tend toward a tense atmosphere, so sexual content may not necessarily be sexualised content. These are the kinds of considerations that I want to be making before I watch any show or movie.

Finally, I am experimenting with Netflix and limiting the content it shows me to Australian ratings M+ and below. I am not sure how long this will last, as some MA+ content is rated as it is due to action violence more than anything else. Nevertheless, I am curious to see how this goes and it’s actually quite an effective way of limiting content of a sexual nature. But it’s still crazy to see what kind of sexualised material is only considered M+. (As a side comment, I’m particularly talking about sexual content obviously. You might apply what I am doing to violent content, or supernatural content etc. Generally speaking however, I think action is more permissible than sexual content. But that’s a whole other discussion.)

Perhaps that seems rather dramatic to you. But I, “Do [not want to] conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of [my] mind.” (Romans 12:2). I’ve set high standards for myself because God has set high standards for me. And I’m better for it; a clean and clear conscience, peace of mind, better relationships with people, and most pertinent to the topic, greater enjoyment of what I watch. Isn’t that the whole point? Only watch the best stuff. If you only watch the best stuff (the cleanest stuff, the most well thought out stuff, the most story rich, ingenious writing), then get this, you will be watching the best, more well thought out, story rich, ingenious shows and movies. Isn’t that what we want? The answer is not always an obvious “yes” given what people watch these days. Consumer culture churns out algorithmic violence and sex. And then consumers wonder why the fast-food gives them colon cancer, diabetes, constipation, and a range of other undesirable conditions. But for the person who moderates what they watch, eating only the best food for thought, will you not reap the benefits? Moderating your own content with particularity will pay dividends.

However, it does come with some drawbacks. Besides the obvious amount of work you have to put into considering what you will watch, there is the fact that you will miss out on some critically acclaimed and renowned shows and movies. There will be conversations that you are not able to engage with because you are ignorant – and that, intentionally so. In fact, I was looking for some crime-dramas/detective stories recently, and heaps of the highly ranked and recommended shows contained explicit nudity and sex. I’ll be missing out on some of the best crime fiction/detective shows there are. And if you adopt higher standards, then you will too. At first this will be annoying, and it will continue to be annoying (although less as time goes by). But consider it a badge of honour. You have a higher calling, you have high standards. Don’t put up with trash, throw it out. Better still, don’t bring it into the house in the first place.

“Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.” (Romans 8:5–6)

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