My blog is under a spam trackback attack at the moment. I have hopefully got rid of most of it now, but please do not click on any trackbacks you see – they might lead to some unpleasant sites. If it persists, I may have to disable comments altogether for a while.
Update: I’ve turned off comments temporarily, as the other methods haven’t seemed to work.
My ISP managed to lose all the data on my webserver a couple of days ago, but thankfully the contents of the blog are still intact as they were stored on a different computer. It serves as a reminder to back things up regularly though.
And here is Ben’s first picture of Steph. The pre-school staff have kindly annotated it with his comments – “Mummy’s hair is very long”
My son Ben drew his first picture of me today at pre-school. Actually he drew two, but this one was the most flattering. (Apparently the second one was a picture of me after I had scratched my eye).
Numbers contains a great diversity of material, but characteristically of the BST series, Brown does not go into detail discussing how the book came to be in its form, or arguing over issues of historicity (e.g. how did the number of Israelites grow so fast?). Rather he views it as a part of Christian scripture, and from a firmly evangelical viewpoint harmonises with the whole message of the Bible. There is rougly one chapter of commentary per chapter of Numbers, obviously with some important sections given more attention, and some of the more repetitive parts moved over more quickly.
The book of Numbers contains quite a few passages that attract criticism – laws that seem sexist, punishments that seem cruel, and even a command to wipe out a nation. Brown does not spend as much time dealing with these issues as he does in his Deuteronomy commentary, but over the course of the book he does provide some balanced guidelines for understanding and applying these passages.
I particularly appreciated the sections on the Aaronic blessing, the principles of giving (Numbers 7 and 18), the Levites as paradigms of modern Christians, and Moses’ strengths and failures as a leader. The story of the Bronze serpent is looked at in the light of John 3 and is used as the basis for a gospel exposition. The difficult chapter 31 is understood in the light of a long section on Balaam earlier in the book.
This book will not answer every question you have about Numbers, but will bring you a long way to appreciating its worth and contribution to Scripture. Rather than there being one key theme running through the book, this commentary on Numbers is a rich source of practical application in the personal, corporate and even political realms. Sin, holiness, worship, community, humility, unity, gospel, marriage, giving, forgiving, leadership – pretty much every aspect of Christian life is addressed in some way by this book.
Today was the final day of our church’s holiday Kidz Klub. One of my contributions was to play the Roman Emperor Nero in a short drama which ran each day (we had a theme of ancient Rome). As usual, the drama was not at all rehearsed, and in fact we only had a script for the first day, ad-libbing the rest. You can imagine then that this was not a theatrical masterpiece.
I quite enjoyed playing the part of Nero as it gave me a chance to throw in a few Roman history jokes (which were lost on the 5-10 year olds, and I suspect most of the helpers too), and I also took the opportunity to develop an N T Wright theme of Jesus as Lord being a direct challenge to Caesar as Lord. So I asked the children to worship me and declare that Caesar is Lord (“kurios caesar”). They were supposed to realise I was the bad guy, but (perhaps due to the sheer strength of my personal charisma?) they obligingly bowed and worshiped. Oops – that’s not supposed to happen in church.
Anyway, today the kids were primed not to worship me, which they did a good job of. I couldn’t shut them up to say my lines because they repeatedly chanted “Jesus”. But I resisted the pressure to have Nero convert to Christianity at the end of the drama – that was just too offensive to my sense of historical integrity, even given the wild amount of artistic license we had already taken.
My friend Dan Bowen has sent me a copy of his (unpublished) book on Ern Baxter, which he has given me permission to make available online. Dan is a nurse, currently working in Bristol, and shares my passion for studying the Bible and theology, as well as a love for Word and Spirit. We both attended the same church (see my story here), where Ern had a lot of input. Ern would come over to the UK once or twice a year and put on a series of meetings at the church or to speak at a Bible week. His teaching left a big impact on everyone, myself included, but Dan especially grew to appreciate Ern through listening to the tapes and videos of the years he was around (we were only in our early teens when Ern died).
Dan spent a lot of time and effort putting this together, and contacted a lot of people as he researched it. He has real skill and patience when it comes to transcribing audio. When he finished it last year, he gave copies to some of the pastors who had known Ern, including Stanley Jebb from Dunstable, and Terry Virgo who heads up New Frontiers. Perhaps it was not coincidence that Terry Virgo’s next editorial in the New Frontiers magazine drew from Ern’s teaching.
Update: A lot of the links in this post are now unfortunately broken. However, if you want access to lots of Ern Baxter MP3s (including Life on Wings), visit Broken Bread Teaching.
Anyway, download it and read it here in Microsoft Word format. I might get round to converting it to HTML format if there is enough interest.
As a free gift of my own to go with the book, here is the famous Life on Wings sermon in MP3 format. Its over 13Mb – the sermon is 1h 17min (that’s actually short for Ern! – many of his sermons are over 90 minutes). I have a good number of other Ern MP3 sermons which I can make available to people on request (its over 250Mb so I’m not putting it online).
ps Dan is also one of the founder members of Full Faith, and can be seen in a number of the photos.
OK, here are a few more thoughts on Christians and materialism. The subject is huge, and perhaps I will post a bit more on it over the coming weeks. I must admit I have felt a bit of a hypocrite as I spent a good amount of time this week wondering whether I should buy this and this (and to be honest, a good few other bits and pieces too).
Perhaps we would be better at not falling into materialistic ways of thinking if we were a bit more wise to some of the mentalities that cause us to part with our money. I mentioned two in my previous post, and here’s two more I have noticed – one for people who like to save money, and one for people who love to spend it.
The bargain hunter
How often have I heard my wife say “I saved £50 today”? As I take great pains to point out, she did not in fact “save” money, she spent it. But somehow we get this trick pulled on us all the time. Of course, there are occasions when we genuinely can save money while spending it. If we had planned and budgeted to buy a particular thing, and then it unexpectedly is available at a cheaper price then we have made a saving. We feel really pleased when this happens. The trouble is, we are duped into thinking it has happened more often than it has.
A classic example is when something that we would not have bought at that time, (but would have done or wanted to in the future), comes on special offer. We buy on the spot, and treat this as a “saving”. However, if we resist the temptation to impulse buy, we often find that we can make do without it for quite some time, and quite probably discover an even better offer closer to the time when we really need it.
The compulsive spender
The marketing people have always hated times when it is not possible for people to spend money. The reason we have Sunday trading after many years of it being illegal is because nowadays it is unthinkable that people should have to survive a day without shopping. But what about night-time? Or while you are at work or out in the countryside? How can you spend money then?
Well the marketing people have a solution – this is where the internet, TV shopping and mobile phones come in. If you make it possible for people to spend 24/7 then they will. I quite often go a week or more without entering a shop, but I’m on the internet every day. Only “one click” and I’ve bought another commentary! Some people take their mobile phones with them everywhere, and since they have them, the temptation to use them is unavoidable. A walk in the countryside or a drive in the car and they have spent £10 on calls.
Lead us not into temptation
Both the “saver” and the “spender” will let go of far more of their money than they wanted to because they can’t avoid the places of temptation. “This bargain is too good to be missed”. “Let me just check if Amazon have got a special offer on anything on my wishlist”. Whatever the exact meaning of the phrase “lead us not into temptation” (Matt 6:13), it is fairly clear that our best intentions to be wise stewards of our money will be thwarted if we constantly put ourselves in situations where we know we are likely to frivolously spend.
I know some friends who don’t use credit/debit cards at all. They simply withdraw their spending money for the month in cash and when its gone its gone. Solutions like that might seem a bit radical (well actually inconvenient), but how serious are we about controlling our spending? Do we really want to spend less so we can give more? Or if truth be told, is our desire to give actually much weaker than our desire to get? Perhaps we don’t really believe that “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35)
Following my recent review of “The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience”, I have been gathering some of my own thoughts on the issues Ronald Sider raises. The question I’m thinking about first is “how can we as Christians (and churches) identify materialistic tendencies, and what practical steps can we take to avoid being sucked into this unbiblical way of thinking?”
I have for some time now been developing a line of thought that there are at least three ways to sell things to people.
1. Its something they actually need (like food or clothing). They’ll just buy it if you make the right thing available and they can afford it.
2. Appeal to the “collector” mentality. They’ve got one in the series, so they just gotta have them all.
3. Appeal to the “upgrader” mentality. They’ve already got it, and it works just fine, but if you make a better one, they want it.
Now since we live in a society where the vast majority can afford their basic needs to be met with some “disposable income” left over, the marketing people are focussing heavily on techniques 2 and 3. And I will admit that I am highly susceptible to them both.
The collector mentality
Six years ago I bought my first commentary. Now I have almost 100. How did that happen? Well they exist in “series”, so my “collector” mentality wants to get the entirity of any series that I have one of. Not only that, but when someone I respect makes a list of their recommendations, that becomes another “collection” that I want. Of course, other people collect shoes, DVDs, guitars, cars and so on. The marketing people know that as long as they sell you one, they can also sell you more.
Jesus said that the person who has two tunics should share with him who has none (Luke 3:11). There were doubtless some very good and pragmatic reasons for having more than one tunic in those days – two is hardly extravagent. But where there are people with nothing, hoarding an abundance is selfish and greedy.
The upgrader mentality
I’m into computers. I have never bought a whole one, but most years I buy a few parts to keep the one I have reasonably up to date. I have so many spare bits now that I have a second computer made out of the old pieces (and many other bits have been given away to friends). One thing is certain – there will always be better software and hardware coming out. Some of it will save me time, and some will open up new possibilities, but most of the things I want to do on a computer, I can do perfectly adequately with what I have. Other people are tempted by better sofas, better packages of TV channels, better cars, better holidays, and better food. The marketing people know that as long as they sell you one, they can also sell you a better one.
Paul says “But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content” (1 Tim 6:8) and the author of Hebrews says “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have” (Heb 13:5). At the heart of the “upgrader” mentality is dissatisfaction with what we have and the foolish belief that the problem is merely that what we’ve got isn’t quite good enough. The fact is, that possessions can never satisfy at the deepest level, so the cycle of upgrading will never end (perhaps unless you are a millionaire and actually own the best of everything – at which point you’ll just get depressed).
The book is only 130 pages long, and so he doesn’t go into great depth on any one topic, preferring to passionately plead that we weep over the state of the church and start praying for and working towards change. While I am in broad agreement with the main message of the book, there are some issues with the way that Sider has presented it which I fear may rob it of some of its impact.
Chapter 1 (out of 5) provides statistics to prove his thesis that Christians (in America) are not living biblically in the areas of divorce, materialism and the poor, sexual disobedience, racism and physical abuse in marriage. Statistics can of course be used to prove all kinds of things, and they are not used in the same way in each section. For example, the statistics on divorce show how evangelical marriages end in divorce as often if not more than nonchristian ones, while in the section on materialism evangelical giving was compared not to nonchristian or nonevangelical giving, but to the standard of a 10% tithe. In the section on physical abuse in marriage, he implies that evangelicals who don’t hold to an egalitarian view are liable to beat their wives, which is perhaps something he should have explored in another book where he has the space to deal with this subject more fully and sensitively. In short, the statistics sometimes show Christians living like the world even though they think differently, sometimes thinking and living the same as the world, sometimes not living like the world but still missing the biblical standard, and sometimes used to prove points of doctrine. When Christians use statistics, they should be careful to state not only what trends they demonstrate, but also note their limitations – what they don’t prove.
Chapter 2 is one of the strongest in the book, and sets out to demonstrate that the New Testament everywhere expects Christians to live a transformed life. This is hardly a controversial point, but it is worth noting how emphatic the New Testament is on this subject. Sider is convinced that the key to evangelistic breakthrough is Christians living transformed lives, and he forces this home time and again in this chapter as in the rest of the book. According to the New Testament, we have an obligation to put to death the deeds of the old sinful nature. In my view this should have been the first chapter of the book, so the argument ran: this is what the Bible teaches, now look how far short we have fallen.
In chapter 3, Sider sets about explaining how we have got into this mess. First we have replaced the whole gospel with cheap grace. While he is at pains to point out that he believes in justification by faith and doesn’t in any way want to encourage legalism, he argues that accepting Jesus as Saviour but not Lord is to modify the gospel beyond recognition. He criticises a seeker-friendly approach that ignores the cost of discipleship. The gospel is not that we are just forgiven but also changed. Sider’s second point was rather less expected. He argues that another problem is that we see people as souls only. Rather than merely talking about “saving souls” we need an understanding of people as a body-soul unity and an emphasis on the importance of community. This third point is that evangelicals have become too embarassed to talk about sin and have completely lost the category of social sin. Amos is held up as an example of a prophet who spoke against sinful structures. He is adamant that the world can’t actually be changed “one person at a time”, suggesting that evangelicals have assumed that they don’t need to get involved in challenging unjust structures.
In chapter 4 the options are set before us – we can conform to our culture, or be the church. Here Sider reiterates some of his main emphases – the importance of community rather than individualism and the need for accountability as well as church discipline. He criticises the lack of accountability that individuals, churches, church leaders and para-church organisation have. Churches should join denominations and Christians should be in small groups. He seemed particularly impressed with the Wesleyan model of directly asking people to confess their sins. He even went so far as to suggest Christians examining and critiquing each others financial situations and experimenting with communal housing schemes. If Christians were accountable in small groups, he believes the need for church discipline to sort out gross sin would be greatly reduced.
Chapter 5 provides some balance to the statistics in chapter 1. Other studies have shown a marked difference in the way that deeply commited Christians live, even if there is still quite a way to go. He urges prayer for revival and a deep commitment to obeying Scripture as the way for the modern Laodecian church (which is how he sees American evangelicalism) to avoid being spat out by Christ.
Overall, I agree that Sider has a message that needs to be heard, even for those like myself who are not American evangelicals. Perhaps if he had chosen some of his statistics and anecdotes more judiciously, and nuanced his suggested practical solutions more carefully, he would have reached a wider audience. Nevertheless, those who read this book will be deeply challenged to think deeply about how Christians can live the radically countercultural life that the Bible calls us to. Those who lead churches or small groups will also have food for thought about how Sider’s suggestions could be implemented in their context.
A brief note to any of my friends from Southampton reading this – if you want to borrow this book (or any of my books), just ask. This one won’t take you long to read.