Shady Ladies

Sometimes it's the taking of photographs which reveal more than the photos themselves. The difference between the two sides of my family – my Mum's side and my Dad's – is seen at its most extreme when we take family photographs. Let me state right off the bat though, that I have a great affection for both sides of the family. They have all shown a great deal of care and interest in me and I care for them all. And yet, at times the divergent heritage of each family sticks its head out, and no more so then when we take family photographs.

You see, on one side – the one without the Christian heritage – there is constant joking about not standing on the edge of the family photo if you've married into the family. "Get in the middle [insert name], if you want to be in this photo forever". The reason, in case you're wondering is that if you stand on the edge of the photo, once you're divorced, the scissors are bound to be produced and you'll be quite literally cut off from the family. Being in the middle of the photograph ensures your future in the family! And we all know there are few more sacred truths in this day and age than, 'If there's no photographic evidence, it never happened.' Divorce is a sad, often repeated, and all too present reality for this side of my family. And that little bit of truth that lies behind every joke, in this case is not too far below the surface.

And then there is the other side of my family. The story goes, so far as I understand it, that my grandfather was one of 11 Christian brothers. Ten of these brothers made their way to Australia from England in the early 1900's, and thus began a strong Christian heritage which has been passed down to me. We had a family reunion about 5 years ago where we all had name-tags showing which brother we belonged to. I had "Izaac - Bill's family". Quite strangely though I imagine for family reunions is, ours included a family church service.

At another point in the weekend we all stood in the church hall (where the reunion was held) and we were asked to stand amongst our generations. Of the 11 brothers, at that stage there were just three widows left – a generation virtually gone. My Nana and one other wife present, were seated on one side of the room. To their right stood their children's generation where my parents stood. The next wall around stood my cousins and I, and the final side of the room held the dozen or so great-grandchildren that were present. The question put to us by one of my Dad's cousins (a man of the cloth), was, "We received a spiritual legacy from our fathers, and they are almost wiped out completely. The weakness of death has already been seen in our generation: What of the gospel are we passing on to our children? Have we spurned the spiritual legacy that was handed down to us?"

It was a stirring moment.

And I can think of nothing but thankfulness to God, that I should be born into such a family, even though as they say, 'he had no say in it, no say in it at all'.

Yet it is not that this side of the family is also without its skeletons. We had a big family tree printed off which ran 40 something A4 pages long along a wall. And there were a few sealed sections. Or at the very least, my cousins and I joked, they should have had post-it notes over them. There was the two brothers who married two sisters. Okay, so the brothers weren't related to the sisters, so it sounds worse than it is, but it sounds suspect. Then there was the one couple who divorced, and then the wife re-married one of her ex-husbands cousins. Not surprisingly those two lines from the 11 brothers don't communicate much and one side was virtually absent from the weekend.

The truth is, we all have our own story. Or, if you're a contestant on a reality show, your own journey. And we all have skeletons in the past that we would like kept in the closet. There's a reason we store skeletons in the closet and not in the lounge room.

Jesus had some skeletons in his closet. Have you ever read his genealogy in Matthew 1*? It reads like a script of The Bold and the Beautiful (or a script of Passions for those with better taste). There is a bit of a tension in what is actually on display here. Because the intention is put right out there in v1

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

The genealogy is to show the positive side of Jesus' family history. He is the true son of Abraham, the true son of David. Jesus is the one who had been promised, who would come to be servant of all, despised and afflicted, the one on whom the punishment of humanity would be placed in order to bring life.

And yet, though this is a regal family tree, the details reveal there are a lot of skeletons in Jesus' family closet. Notice the 'shady ladies' mentioned throughout. Prostitutes, illegitimate relationships, foreigners, murder – Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, the wife of Uriah (of which the union is considered so tragic, Bathsheba is not even specifically named). And it is with these reminders that even the long vaunted calibre of the men listed is immediately transferred to their failures. In that sense, Jesus' genealogy reads much like those in Genesis which are haunted by that refrain, "And he died, and he died, and he died". A reminder of the judgment that has befallen humankind.

Jesus' genealogy is a reminder of the past, not just his past but the past of humanity. A history littered with sin and failure yet clothed with grace. And it is also about the future, for the Christ has now come.

*I've blogged on this passage previously.

SMBC has good community, Moore has a good library.

Des from Moore College on Vimeo.

Al says (reflecting on the video above) that he's heard people say, "That SMBC has good community, Moore has a good library." LOL. I've never heard that one before. That must have been in the days before handball. The same joke I guess from the Moore College perspective (which I've only heard once or twice) would be referring to SMBC as SMBT: Sydney Missionary and Bible TAFE.

Whilst Sydney is blessed with many great theological colleges, SMBC and Moore are the two largest evangelical training centres. On the ground though (jibes aside) most people studying at both colleges have dear friends studying at the other college. The world is full of a relatively consistent percentage of jerks, and inevitably some of these find their way into Bible colleges and promulgate this view of fierce rivalry, but for the most of us we have great respect for those training at either college.

Incidentally, I agree with Des (who is in the video) that Moore College is a fantastic community to be a part of (and it also has a good library). I also feel enriched to be in a fantastic year group. I know this won't be everyone's experience of college, and I've personally not had the smoothest 18 months of my life since starting, but the college works hard to care for us, to encourage pastoral care amongst the college students, and it works. We spur one another on in many good and helpful ways.

Though back to Al's comment, does it also communicate something that the video spruiking Moore's community is shot in the library? Hmm.

Bible Translation Principle #37

Retain difficult, yet significant words such as 'propitiation' and 'atonement', because it forces the considered reader to pause and dig deeper.

Attention all parents [UPDATE]

Att: Non-Asian Parents

Please get your kid to learn an instrument. It doesn't really matter which instrument however it is worth noting guitarists are a dime a dozen, drummers are a luxury, but pianists are a dying breed. Music will always be a mark of Christians gathering as we are marked by joy and thankfulness and emotionally expressing our marvelous salvation through song, and so we will always desire musicians to facilitate this.

If money is an issue, then consider only paying for fortnightly lessons, and take the responsibility for their daily practise yourself. The best thing about weekly music lessons for children isn't the instruction per se, but the kick in the pants it gives them to actually practise.

Then once they've had a few years under their belt in classical training, they will need a bit of jazz training. Pay for an extra tutor for six months who can teach them how to build a chord and get beyond the sheet music. Muso's who need the music/follow the music too closely are the achilles heel of most church bands. We should all aim to be like guitarists, who need nothing but the 6 chords scribbled on the back of an envelope.

The other benefit is music is an easy and obvious way for the youngsters to begin serving in the church, because music relies almost entirely on the theological reflections of others. And if they're really self-conscious, get them up there for the first few months without plugging them in.

Att: Asian parents

Keep up the good work.

[UPDATE]
Some further thoughts:

• People can be too precious about music (a true statement in general), but especially about the level of musicianship required to serve the body. It is often as if the idea of training younger members to serve applies in every serving capacity in our gatherings except in the band.
• Asking someone from church who is proficient as a musician to teach your child is no guarantee of quality. Not everyone is a born teacher. Plus, if you're not paying, you might not value it as much, and lose the motivation to practise due to 'getting your money's worth'.
• No one likes the recorder. No one. It's hardly even a real instrument. The recorder was created to be sold to primary school children so they could chew on the mouthpiece when bored, and then pass it on (complete with molar impression) to other sickly primary school children. The tin whistle is a musical instrument only in Ireland.
• The saxophone is dead. Its sound immediately dates the music. Con Campbell is the only exception to this rule.
• Trumpet and violin can add greatly to musical accompaniment, but generally require a longer gestation behind closed doors before they can be released into the world of church bands. Everyone notices the dud note on these instruments. The guy at the mixing desk can't mute an unmiked trumpet.
• There are guy instruments and girl instruments. If a girl plays a guy instrument (guitar/drums) she is incredibly cool. The opposite however, does not hold true. Don't make your son learn the flute, unless his name is Ron Burgundy.

Prayer Praise Erase

Some friends involved in university ministry have for the last 12 months been sending me and other supporters weekly prayer updates. These are generally just a few lines long, give a brief update as to what is going on the following week, some praise and prayer points from the previous week.

It is a great way to ensure that disordered pray-ers, like myself, bring these ministries before God in prayer, and enables me to share in the joy of answered prayer. I read it, pray it, delete it.

One of the new ministry apprentices calls hers the prayer/praise/erase email.

Brilliant.

Back in my day

Back in my day, my family only had two mobile phones.

Time and technology is on an ever-increasing trajectory. This, like most things, is not a recent invention but humans have been pushing the technological barrel, long before the wheel was invented to move said barrel from one place to the next.

Things I've noticed with the changing technological tide in churches:

• When the speaker says something people agree with, charismatic churchgoers shout 'Amen', Anglican churchgoers nod profusely, theological students type furiously. Lecturers at college get feedback from the audible increased flurry of laptop keyboards aflutter.
• I remember reading in the paper a few years ago someone noting that the mobile phone has introduced new phrases into speech such as 'I'm on the train'. Before mobile phones, that fact was pretty much evident to anyone who would hear you speak the words. Other phrases however, are becoming dated. In the middle of my sermon I wanted to say, 'Turn to Hebrews...', but I realised that as more and more people are reading the Bible on their phones (a practice I'm not a fan of), what I really should say is, 'Scroll to...'. At first I was mourning the loss of the 'Turn to' phrase, but then on further reflection I realised the idea of scrolling to books of the Bible is actually much closer to their original form.

Have you noticed any technological changes lately?

Bible Reading and Maintaining the Spiritual Life

Blink and you missed it, but today we had probably the most important two lectures we will have in our entire time studying at Moore College: Keith Condie on 'Bible Reading and Maintaining the Spiritual Life'.

The premise was that the greatest danger for Bible teachers is they tend to move from before college studying the Bible for transformation, to simply studying the Bible for information.

Now the mistake most people make to try to solve this problem, is to completely separate personal Bible reading and prayer, from our regular 'work'. This is achieved by perhaps sitting in a different chair, at a different time, sometimes even with a different Bible. The idea being you engage in devotional reading apart from your theological study.

The problem with this solution is it sounds so attractive. After all, it's lifted straight out of page 2 of the evangelical application manual under 'Read your Bible and pray', sub-point 'Daily devotionals'. However what this action does is fundamentally undermine the practice of theology. Our study of God through his word must never be thought of as being performed in a vacuum. Rather whenever we speak or think or read of God, we are encountering not the concept of God but are faced with and examined by the living God himself.

This is what J.I. Packer had to say in, An Introduction to Systematic Spirituality:

I question the adequacy of conceptualizing the subject-matter of systematic theology as simply revealed truths about God, and I challenge the assumption that has usually accompanied this form of statement, that the material, like other scientific data, is best studied in cool and clinical detachment. Detachment from what you ask? Why, from the relational activity of trusting, loving, worshipping, obeying, serving, and glorifying God: the activity that results from realizing that one is actually in God's presence, actually being addressed by him, every time one opens the Bible or reflects on any divine truth whatsoever. This second stage in theological method, as commonly practised, separates the questions of truth from those of discipleship; it proceeds as if doctrinal study would only be muddied by introducing devotional concerns; it drives a wedge between theology and doxology, between orthodoxy and orthopraxy, between knowing true notions about God and knowing the true God himself, between one's thinking and one's worshipping. Done this way, theology induces spiritual pride and produces spiritual sleep (physical sleep, too, sometimes). Thus the noblest study in the world gets cheapened. I cannot applaud this.

Keith suggested the correct approach is not to separate the two, but to always approach our study with six key attitudes to the study of God's word:
1. Be respectful
2. Be responsive
3. Be reflective
4. Be delighted
5. Be intelligent
6. Be prayerful

Now, the danger of over-indulgence was also touched upon, where it is true for most people at college that we take in more than we can possibly ever respond to immediately. And yet an abundance of spiritual food is no excuse for us to refrain from eating altogether! The analogy of a chef was used – A Chef spends a lot of time preparing food for others, but the Chef herself, still must eat.

The only point of the lecture I disagreed with (perhaps, wished for more clarification on) was Keith suggesting that it is a form of arrogance to come to college thinking you know everything you need to know. Now, I understand Keith was attacking those who feel they are only ticking the college box so someone will give them a job. But it is possible to be too reactive to this issue. Whilst we should expect to be challenged, and rebuked, and changed, and humbled as we study at college, provided we came with a sound knowledge of the gospel it is true also that what we are seeking is added depth of belief. In that sense I would consider it a failure to leave college in any other position than the one I arrived in – knowing the truth of salvation, and dedicated to serving Jesus for the rest of my life.

Perhaps this is because I know from experience that my biggest theological lessons have yet to come from any theologians (in that hoity-toity use of the word), but instead from many supposedly untrained saints who have been following Jesus for 20, 30, 40, 50, or 60 years. This is not being anti-intellectual. It is rather informed by the understanding that we must be like children in our trust of God. Though my depth of understanding of Jesus death on my behalf should only increase with more study and reflection, there remains a simplicity to trusting him that I had when I arrived for that first lecture, and I hope above hope remains in me when I walk up to graduate, and is firm within me still when I close my eyes for the last time in this life.

Thinking that you don't need to go to college might arise from misplaced intellectual arrogance, but it can also be an expression of the Christian knowing you won't leave any more saved than when you walked in.

I'm almost certain that these will end up being the two most important lectures we will have in our time at college.

The wisdom I wish I never had to gain

A lot of my blogging energy over the past month has been directed towards helping Sarah write some posts for the Equip Book Club, where she reviewed Just the two of us? Help and strength in the struggle to conceive.

Sarah did the thinking and the writing. Then we discussed the posts together, I would re-read the chapters, offer suggestions and add a bit of polish, before back to Sarah for final editing.

I hope one day I am part of that group of people who feels slightly guilty talking about infertility, because God has chosen after that season to give the blessing of children. It's strange that many who 'graduate' from infertility*, feel like they have been blessed with a great empathy for others experiencing it, and yet equally feel like any advice they give sounds a bit hollow when the back seat of their car is full of little people.

And so, ever since Sarah and I began on this path, we'd always hoped to take some time to write down some of the things we were feeling in the moment, in the hope that those reflections would be of benefit to others if by God's graciousness we were ever to leave 'the club'.

I hope that these posts of Sarah's have gone a long way to achieving this purpose.

1. Our Story
2. The Cold Hard Facts
3. So Many Questions
4. Acknowledging the Pain
5. Who am I?
6. Marriage, Men, and Miscarriage
7. Treatment
8. The Long Unknown

*I should add that many people who are eventually granted children by the Lord continue to mourn their infertility, whether it be that they cannot have kids without intervention, or even that their peer group will always be those few years ahead of them or have more children.

The Messiah

On the back of a number of enquiries from students, college has announced they will cancel lectures to enable students to attend the 3-day KCC OXYGEN Conference in August with guest speakers John Piper and John Lennox. In other news, Jesus is due to return just a week later, however classes will continue as normal.

I jest. It is a gracious thing for the Board of Studies to agree to, and I would love to go. However, I'm not sure if us Bible College students need refreshing in the way that the conference is aiming for. After all, most of us are pretty much just starting out. We should ideally be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about vocational ministry, not disillusioned, exhausted, and in need of an oxygen hit (Note: If it happened to be around exam time, this would change things completely). For those who want the Christian celeb experience, I assume Piper will be speaking at college at some stage, like most visitors, as well as at ENGAGE where many college students will attend, plus there is the big evangelistic rally too.

As for why I'm not going: at a student price of $295 for 3 days non-residential it is out of my budget. And I'm not sure how many other students will be able to justify the expense as well.

I'd be interested to know if you are planning on going along, especially if you're a student or from interstate. I anticipate it will be be a really encouraging, Jesus-focused time of refreshment.