Category: Theology

Meagre attempts to think God’s thoughts after him. Teaching old dogmas new tricks.

Despising the Shame

Shame dominates our public and private spaces. It drives people to signal their virtue because they fear being publicly shamed if they don’t. Shame tortures our innermost thoughts as we repeatedly ask ourselves, “What will other people think of me?”

If our shame was personified and it thought about Good Friday or Easter, it would generally manifest itself as guilt that we don’t feel bad enough about our sin, or don’t feel good enough about God’s grace. The goodness of Good Friday feels detached and abstract. The triumph of Easter morning should be celebrated with a bang instead of our tired whimper.

But the shame of social guilt in our psychologized world is not the big issue. Instead, the shame of guilt before God is what we must deal with. Adam led the way in this when he and his wife hid in shame from God because of their sin. Instead of going to God and asking for help, they fled from God and tried to cover their exposure with whatever they could get their hands on.

So our social shame is merely a symptom of our shame before God. We are guilty. As Isaiah cried out, “I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the king, the LORD of hosts”.

Our anxieties and depression find their source in this objective foundational guilt before God. The shame is the advance pain of judgement. It is the dread of the doom to come. So, any attempt to banish shame without some kind of atonement is phony. Yet a society that wants to feel good about itself eradicates any mention of shame, while we all carry the load of guilt untouched and un-atoned for.

When the struggling Jewish Christians of the first century A.D. felt the social stigma of following Jesus as their Messiah, they needed to be reminded of what Christ had done on that first Good Friday. He went to the cross, according to Hebrews 12:2, “despising the shame”.

Whose shame was he despising?

In one sense it was his own, or at least how he was being externally perceived and portrayed. He was being treated as if he was the rebellious son of Deuteronomy 21:23, “cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”. He was mocked by the soldiers and derided by the crowds. They heaped all their social shame upon him.  In that sense, Jesus was “despising the shame”.

The taunts and lies and caricatures did not stop him. He refused to be swayed from his course. He refused to give in to the social shame heaped upon him. In this way Jesus Christ was a portrait of courage. He had no tolerance for the shame imposed upon him. He did not accept it as true, but he endured despite the shame and despising it.

Jesus despised the shame of others too. Jesus associated himself with the shame before God that sinners bore truly and rightly. Jesus was well within his rights to disassociate himself from guilty, shameful sinners. He didn’t need to mess with them and be dragged down into the gutter with them. But he chose guilt by association. He took the shame of others upon himself because he took their legal guilt upon himself objectively.

Only God could see that guilt laid on Jesus. Only Jesus could bear the shameful curse against sinners. In fact, Jesus was “not ashamed to call them brothers” because he had been “made perfect through suffering” (Hebrews 12:2). Jesus suffered in the place of the guilty and the ashamed.

Even the terror of the judgement of God against the guilt of sin did not make Jesus shrink back. Jesus knew the calculus. “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). If He was to be associated with the shame and guilt of his people, he would need to pay the debt, the debt of death. But Jesus stepped up and he didn’t balk at paying the tab. He despised the shameful bill, pulled out his wallet and paid with the promissory note of his own life.

When Jesus rose from the dead on the first Easter morning, the news was good and those who believe in Jesus enjoy “the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). The security in Christ is so solid, and the Father’s love so enduring that shame is cast away and in its place is the powerful motive of the apostle Paul:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:16-17)

Is your anxiety or depression or fear of social shame blinding you to what Jesus has done? He despised the shame for sinners like you. Then you will have the courage to keep “a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.”

This Easter, see how Jesus has dealt with sin and shame. You don’t have to accept social shame as true. In Christ, you don’t need to believe the lie that you aren’t acceptable enough. Because of the Son, the Father smiles upon you. Find your security in Him, and you will look upon him with an unashamed, “unveiled face” (2 Cor 3:18).

This article originally appeared at The Gospel Coalition Canada

The Hour of Precision

Recently I posted at TGC Canada about the need for precision in our theological dealings. These efforts by Paul Carter are aiming to practice precision in drawing lines via engagement with an Anabaptist pastor in Ontario. 

Below is how I finished of the post:

If Christians give in to laziness and don’t aim at precision in spiritual discernment, then they will be like that anchor-less boat that Paul talked about, “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” (Eph 4:14). When we pursue precision we are not ignoring the waves, but are aiming to “hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful” (Heb 10:23).

Yes. It is the hour of precision. But if we can practice being precise, using our discernment muscles and doing the hard work of drawing careful lines, we will stay faithful to our Lord. And we will do so as we walk in obedience to the truth that Jesus prayed for: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17).

You can read the rest of it here: Four Ways to Practice Precision. 

The Unholy Demand of Sacred Gayness

We knew that homosexuality and gender dysphoria were being elevated to a sacrosanct level in Western culture. But now there are voices calling for something that amounts to a ‘sacred gayness’ which, we are told, must be celebrated by the church. How is it that self-identifying as being ‘gay’ could be seen as making a person gifted and having a special status among Christians? Let me attempt to explain what I think is going on.

Recently, a watershed event, a conference called Revoice, took place. Like so many things, it was relatively small, yet its influence will ‘punch far above its weight.’ The conference promoted the ideas of people in the church who have been looking for a way to bridge the gap between the ethical demands of the Scriptures, and the powerful cultural demands of ascendant same-sex affinities. Like a black market operating in parallel with a nation’s economy, or a shadow cabinet in parallel to a sitting government, the sacred gayness movement is attempting to set up a parallel universe between LGBTQ+ culture and the church.

This playbook is so often employed by special interest groups that the leaders of the ‘sacred gayness’ movement may not even admit to an explicit strategy. But their habits of mind fit perfectly with the patterns of the world. So they move toward two crucial steps:

  1. Carve out an oppressed minority status.
  2. Demand concessions as reparations for the oppression.  

This is not seeking to paint the worst case scenario. Rather, it is to note the language being used by the sacred gayness evangelists, identifying themselves as ‘sexual minorities’ (see Kevin DeYoung’s TGCUS article on this term).

There are a host of theological errors which are covered over with great subtlety by numerous category switches. In the rest of this article, I want to look briefly at a few of the doctrines affected by this new move for ‘sacred gayness.’ I am not expanding on the doctrines, but assuming the standard discussions by good systematic theologians (See Berkhof, Bavinck, John Murray, etc):

Conversion

  • There is no real ‘turning’: no metanoia, no repentance.

Sanctification

The ‘no-lordship’ position rises again.

  • Progressive sanctification is neither progressive nor sanctification. The Holy Spirit is viewed as powerless (contra, for instance, the Tim Chester book, You Can Change). Or, calls to holiness are viewed as oppressive or arrogant to claim that progress ought to be made in sanctification.
  • Definitive sanctification is neither definitive nor sanctification. Because the same-sex desire is viewed as essential to identity, then definitive sanctification must make being gay sacred. Normally definitive sanctification is viewed as a positional status, but now being gay is included there, making gayness redeemed and sacrosanct.  This idea is developed in the language of ‘redemptive suffering’ which attempts to create a sacred, divine category, akin to a new monasticism, which is on a higher spiritual plane than those not ‘called to’ the sanctity of gay celibacy.
  • The ‘givenness’ of same-sex attraction would make it seem to be a gift, as in ‘the gift of singleness’ (cf.1 Cor 7), and this contributes to the self-understanding that ‘LGBTQ Christians’ have a role as ‘prophets’ to the rest of the church. In other words, they have a special ecclesiastical role to play which is distinguished by their ‘sacred gayness’. (For example, see Nate Collins speaking on Jeremiah 15 at Revoice, as referenced by Al Mohler).
  • The identification of what is sinful as a mere cultural proclivity, leading to the redemption of ‘queer treasure, honor, and glory’ for Christ.

Sin

  • Sin is redefined and reduced to external acts only (such as same-sex intercourse).
  • Absent are the categories of a sin nature which would produce internal affections that are offensive to God’s designed order. Are you a sinner because you sin, or do you sin because you’re a sinner? The sacred gayness (SG) movement is not recognizing the call to mortify the flesh: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Col 3:5).
  • No apparent clarification of the doctrine of the Spirit and the flesh in the Christian believer. It is as if the flesh has been mistakenly redefined as only referring to the physical, when it is actually a metaphysical principle of the old age, that must be mortified according to the power of the Holy Spirit in the new age of the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

Marriage

  • SG advocates will be ‘prophetic’ in challenging ‘heteronormativity’ in evangelicalism, as they view it as the idolization of the ‘nuclear family’ (see, again, Nate Collins).
  • There is a desire for new Christian covenantal partnerships where two people of the same sex can be bound together in a Church-affirmed, Church-celebrated way.
  • If the Church affirms spiritually defined covenant partnerships, then you will have civil ratification for those partnerships. In this way you will have a Church branded version of same-sex marriage that enjoys the same privileges as same-sex marriage in the culture at large. It creates a parallel marriage structure for same-sex partners in the church.

Ecclesiology

Consider the false ecumenism of the sacred gayness movement:

  • Revoice was lead by Protestants and Catholics. Although Nate Collins affirmed a Protestant view, he was sharing platforms with Catholics (for instance, Eve Tushnet). This confuses the gospel and the fundamental question, “What is a Christian?”
  • As Al Mohler points out, SG endorses the Council of Trent’s view that concupiscence is not sin. So same-sex desire is permissible, but acting on it is not. This permissibility then allows them to build massive structures of sacred gayness, much like the declension in the monastic movement which the Protestant Reformers universally condemned.

This new movement is making an unholy demand upon the church. It is the demand to affirm the sanctity of gayness. To do so is to deny the holiness of God and the strong injunctions against same-sex desire in Romans 1:24, 26-27. It is a crafty way of creating a shadow culture that parallels the biblical culture. Yet affirming any sacred gayness is merely another example of permitting the worship of Baal in the house of the Lord (Deuteronomy 23:17).

A Brief Questionnaire for Potential Elders

  1. Do you have any differences with the church’s doctrinal statement?
  2. Do you have any differences with the church’s constitution? (i.e. how the church is structured and governed)
  3. Is there anything you are aware of that would prevent you from becoming an elder some day at our church?
  4. Do you see yourself as compatible with the church’s  pastoral emphasis, associations and overall tone?
  5. Other hot topics:
    • Views on creation, age of the earth, Adam
    • Views on the Millenium
    • Cessationism, Continuationism
    • Sabbath/Lord’s Day
    • Complementarianism
    • Other?
  6. How do you view yourself according to the qualifications of 1 Timothy 3:1-7, Titus 1:5-9?
  7. How do you think others would view you regarding these qualifications? Your wife? Your peers in the church? The elders in the church?

Dog Food: Learning from How Spurgeon Was Treated

I live across from a dog food factory. They make healthy dog treats from unwanted cuts of beef. Living across from it isn’t glamorous. But neither is the dog food.

When I read about Charles Spurgeon I think of the dog food factory. He might be celebrated now, but near the end of his life, he was getting treated like dog food. He said this:

“Posterity must be considered. I do not look so much at what is to happen to-day, for these things relate to eternity. For my part, I am quite willing to be eaten of dogs for the next fifty years; but the more distant future shall vindicate me. I have dealt honestly before the living God. My brother, do the same.” 

(An All Round Ministry, 360-361)

Long Views For Downgrades

Spurgeon’s reputation has certainly been vindicated as the 20th century rolled into the 21st. But for us, the reality of Spurgeon’s experience can be lost on us. We can think that everything was cheery, simply because he had a large church, wide circulation for his sermons, and extensive influence through various networks and organizations.

During the Downgrade Controversy, opponents of Spurgeon thought that he was ‘on the wrong side of history.’ They thought he was an egotistical dinosaur. His clarity about right and wrong was viewed as arrogance in the face of a changing world. Spurgeon was attacked. And in the end, he got eaten alive.

Even though Spurgeon thought that the fight was killing him, he took the long view. He recognized that God holds time, and that many more generations will come and go, if the return of Jesus doesn’t come first.

Being faithful meant that Spurgeon looked utterly weak and weird compared to the sophistication and numerical strength of his contemporaries. Rather than being respected and influential, he was treated like dog food.

A Seat at the Table Or Fed Under the Table?

Today the fight of our lives may be just around the corner. Christians in Canada may soon face— not persecution— that is too strong of a word, but marginalization. While Evangelicals used to be seen in academia, legal and medical professions, public office, and public schools, those days may be drawing to a close.

The Moral Revolution as theologian Albert Mohler calls it, is sweeping the Western world. As a result, Evangelicals are out of step with their biblical sexual ethics, their claims to live under higher laws of supernatural authority, and their confession of necessary judgment on all who do not believe in Christ. Like it or not, we’re dog food.

Sadly for many people, this marginalization will lead to capitulation. They won’t like being un-friended. And so to have a seat at the table, they will drop their biblical convictions. Even Trinity Western University, having fought for so long and so hard for its right to religious freedom, has decided to give in and drop its requirement to keep a biblically inspired standard for community life at the school. It was either that or make their students be treated like dog food by the law societies and professional guilds of the nation.

This is how persecution works in all of its intensities. It wears you down and tries to convince you to offer the pinch of incense in worship to the emperor as Lord, and so denying the Lord who bought you (1 Cor 6:20).

It’s either a comfortable seat at the table or being the fodder fed under the table.

The Dog (Food) Days Will Pass

But as Spurgeon predicted, the dog food days will pass. Our eschatology assures us of the hope of vindication in heaven. And in the meantime, our justification in Christ, means that the Father has accepted us on the basis of Jesus’ blood and righteousness alone. If God is for us, who can be against us (Rom8:31). We are accepted in the Beloved. (Eph 1:6).

We might be dog food now, but we look forward to smile of Jesus’ face in glory, alongside of our brother Charles Spurgeon.

At the Sight of Blood

Since we don’t have animal sacrifices in the New Covenant, we can forget the significance of blood.

Only by the shedding of blood is there atonement for sin, (Heb 9:22), a principle established in the sacrificial system, but fulfilled in a special way by Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).

It is not that Jesus’ blood gives energizing life however. His blood is shed and ‘poured out on the earth’ (Deut 12:16). His life is in evidence by his human blood, but when it was spilled like a lamb’s it was intended “for you on the the altar to make atonement for your souls” (Lev 17:11).

Jesus blood was shed so as to be a propitiation. He did this as the unblemished Lamb slain (Rom 3:25; Heb 2:17; 1 John 2:2, 4:10; 1 Cor 5:7; 1 Peter 1:19; Rev 5:6,12, 7:14). In other words, it is the life, slain in death that is effective.

Penalty

Only in death can the cost of sin be accounted. Only in death does the expenditure of punishment against sin come to an end. Justice is paid out and spent upon sin and when paid in full, there is death. So “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23). This is the great penalty requiring payment.

Substitution

So the Son was sent to propitiate the wrath of God for us (1 John 4:10), serving as a “faithful high priest in the service of God” (Heb 2:17), yet being himself the propitiation by his blood (Rom 3:25). He is both offerer and offering, sinless yet substituting for sinners. He is not merely our representative, like a corporate salesmen at a tradeshow. He is our substitute, standing in our place and recieving every blow that we are due.

Atonement

This blood atonement is the distinctive of the Christian faith. It is why even in the Lord’s Supper, the eucharist is celebrated, as Paul tells us, with the promise that “you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor 11:26).  His righteous resurrected life is confessed and anticipated in his return. But the Lord’s death, that is, his atoning death, is the only ground a sinner may have to stand upon when the Lord returns.

So sinners become a flock and a flock, a church which he obtained “with his own blood” (Acts 20:28, cf. Heb 9:12,14; Eph 1:7; 1 John 1:7 ).

As forgiven sinners, to the surprise of many, we get teary not queazy at the sight of blood.

Ripe Fields

Summer is a gift of God to a people who live in a cold country. Our summers are short and so there is always a certain urgency. We have to take advantage of the warm (hot!) weather.

The same is true for the Christian life. All people need to take advantage of the gospel offer in this season before the last Day. Paul reminds the Corinthians that “now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor 6.2).

A Sense of Urgency

It is also season for calling people to believe in the gospel. This is not just your own personal belief in Christ, but the importance of bearing witness to this news of salvation. The season for this is brief too. And that is all the more reason why we need to have a sense of urgency, even as we are basking in the sunlight of the Son.

Jesus knew this tendency to forget how brief the window is. He said to the disciples:

Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, then comes the harvest’? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. (John 4:35)

The harvest was urgently upon them. And they needed to admit the facts. They couldn’t let themselves think that they still had lots of time before the urgency kicks in.

The Unexpectant

In 1866, Charles Spurgeon preached on this passage and he noted how unexpectant Christians had become. He said:

You know that this is the general feeling at present in the Christian church, not to expect any great things now, but to be waiting and watching for something or other which may one of these days, in the order of providence, “turn up.”

We can be quite unexpectant. That is why we are fearful in evangelism, or we are apathetic in it. We just don’t expect that we can do it, or it will do any good. We almost completely take God out of the equation. All we end up seeing is the indifference or hostility of people toward the gospel.

But could it be that the indifferent person is simply being ripened by God, so that their apathy will be arrested by the drama of God’s wrath that rests upon them? Maybe they’ll be shaken by the profound condescenion and love of God in Christ Jesus? If you speak the gospel to them, they might be ready to burst in relief at finding a refuge to flee from the wrath to come.

You don’t know this for sure. But you can be expectant of God.

As William Carey said, “Expect great things; attempt great things— for God”.

Enter the Harvest

Summer is a wonderful time. Let’s also remember that it is the precursor to the harvest.  Will you pray with expectancy for ways to enter into God’s harvest?

“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Luke 10.2).

Pray this way and God will make you an answer to your own prayer.

3 Ways You Can Expectantly Enter the Harvest this month:

  1. Prayerfully reflect on God’s undeserved favour to you, and start praying in concentric circles for the salvation of those closest to you, and progressively further out.
  2. Pray for the Word Heard Together, in your Sunday gatherings and as people apply it in small groups and one-to-one discipling. Pray that new people would be witnessed to and invited to come and hear the message of the gospel too.  
  3. Go and share the gospel with someone and invite them to your church. –Just like that. 

What does the pastor do?

How does the pastor spend his time? That is a question that sometimes arises from some who are critical and most who are just curious.

Medieval monks would spend their time at appointed hours praying, singing and chanting at their home, while transcribing texts in the intervening hours.

At the Reformation, so little of the previous centuries work had been dedicated to preaching, that the Reformers stood out for their emphasis on the pulpit.

The consistory of Geneva spent a great deal of time reviewing pastoral care issues, thinking through them biblically and apply counsel to people and situations. Sometimes the counsel and care was disregarded and some Genevans preferred to be disciplined out of the church, than to be discipled in the church. All of this took organization and care. But the primary driver of the ministry was the Word work. Calvin’s preaching through the bible provided the basis for doctrine in the church in Geneva, and the surrounding village churches that worked together with Calvin’s, seeking counsel from Calvin’s elders, even making requests for pulpit supply.

Some things have changed, but others have stayed the same.

Word Work & Prayer Work

Today the work of the Word and Prayer (cf. Acts 6:4) are the two greatest tasks which the pastor must undertake. Both of these are work. It is not enough to tell the congregation that you just didn’t ‘get anything out of the Word’ this week. It requires mental and spiritual ‘sweat’. It is taxing. It makes you tired like all work does.

The Word work and Prayer work  have the added problem of being difficult to measure. Prayer is done ‘in the closet’. Word work is  done ‘at the desk’. But consider that the person who is in the closet or at the desk is largely out of sight. That means that it can appear as if the faithful pastor is unaccountable or unavailable or invisible.

What is the measure of the Word and Prayer work? It is seen in the fruit of the ministry. It is seen in the healthy diet which people feed upon. It is seen in the Spirit’s illumination of people to understand God’s word better, to be helped by God’s truth, to glorify God’s ways.

The weakness of the pulpit speaks to the emptiness of the closet and the barrenness of the desk.

Pastoralist Work

But there is another aspect to the pastoral ministry that must have a part. It is the pastoralist part. That is, it is the awareness and care for the condition of the sheep. The pastor must know the people he is feeding. If he doesn’t know what their condition is, then the diet he offers will be too thick or too thin, too spicy or too sweet.

So the pastor exhorts and teaches personally in his interactions with people. He hears their anxieties and cares. He points them to Christ. This is the pastor’s task also.

Not Shopkeeper Nor Therapist

Sometimes people can get confused about their expectations for the pastor. Pastors can be viewed as shop-keepers or therapists.  Some sheep don’t wish to be led to feed in green pastures, but wish to be treated like a pet in the shepherd’s home.

As David Wells has pointed out, our era is a Therapeutic Age. And this emphasis has dominated the thought of pastors and church members. The people expect the pastor to be a therapist, on call to fix them, and the pastor moves increasingly to be responsive to the ‘felt needs’ of the people. This mindset came to dominate the pastoral style of the seeker sensitive movement. And with it, the sufficiency of the Scriptures was lost as desks and closets were left empty.

So there is a constant struggle which the pastor faces. He must be jealous to guard the desk and closet time. As John Macarthur said many times, “the task of the pastor-teacher is to keep his rear-end in the chair until the job is done”. On the other hand, the pastor must know the sheep, and be able to offer feeding and protection according to their needs. He must do this without subtly giving in to worldly expectations of his role which come from the people or from himself.

The Christian’s Passport

Do you have a passport? If you don’t it likely means that you haven’t had the opportunity to travel outside of the country. If you’ve had to travel for work or a vacation, you know that a passport is essential. It’s how you’re identified.

Christians have a passport too. It is given to them by God. It is the gifted identity of being a believer and a sufferer. Paul says:

For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake (Phil 1:29).

To believe and to suffer are the two great gifts which God grants to each citizen, sojourning toward the heavenly city (Phil 3:20, Heb 11:10,16). Their passport is a two-part gift. First, the Scripture says that believing in him is something granted.

To believe is a gift. Faith is a gift given by a generous God

You cannot earn the type of belief that saves.
Faith is not achievement. It is a gift that recieves what Jesus has done. Faith is a gift recieved with a personal note that says, “It is Finished.” The classic summary of this gift of belief is Ephesians 2:8, “By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.”

Second, is the other part of the gift that must be included. It has been granted to you, not only to be believe, but to suffer for his sake.

Suffering is a gift, as much as believing is. But notice again, very carefully here. It is not pointless suffering. Ours are not nihilistic agonies.

The gift is to suffer for his sake. It’s so important that Paul repeats this purpose twice in this verse “for the sake of Christ” “for his sake”.

Recently I’ve been working at getting a travel visa to go to a foreign country. What is clear to me, is that this country considers it a privilege to come there. So they extend visas to foreigners, as a gift. It’s become clear that no foreigner has a right to enter that country. It is the same in Canada.

In the same way, God gives travel documents to citizens of his kingdom. Faith and suffering are the gifts that God gives to us as visa documents to permit our entrance into his kingdom. If we are citizens of the kingdom we will have both: faith in him and suffering for his sake. If we don’t then we will be illegal aliens and will be banned from entering Christ’s kingdom. Like the fool Ignorance in Pilgrim’s Progress, we will attempt to enter the Celestial City and yet have no parchment giving us admittance. Jesus will say, “Depart from me, I never knew you” (Matthew 7:21-23).

Now you might be thinking, “I’m suffering with chronic illness, or depression or unemployment or lonliness, but I’m not really being persecuted for the sake of Christ. I’m not suffering like Christians in Western China or Northern Sudan, or North Korea.”

First we need to recognize that suffering in faith is a great trial. Because although you may not be persecuted (technically), all Christian suffering is a type of persecution, because the world the flesh and the devil wants us to forsake Christ.

Every bit of suffering is an occasion for us to be opposed by the voice that says to us like Job’s wife, “just curse God and die!” (Job 2:9).

So when you suffer, you can still sing the hymn and claim the promise that, “Jesus Shall Reign”.

This is our calling, namely to live by the gifts given to us. That gift is to believe and to suffer for his sake. It’s revolutionary, because it shows that we are “strangers and exiles here” (Heb 11:13, cf. 1Pet 2:11).

Do you have this passport?

Protecting Enquirers, Seekers and Converts

 

It isn’t something that has been written about in the popular Christian leadership magazines in the West. There aren’t conference topics on the subject at gatherings for church leaders in the US, Canada, Britain or Australia. But things are changing.

Now churches have to think about the reality of protecting people who are interested in learning about Jesus Christ, reading the bible, attending the church and hearing the gospel preached. With the recent move by the Canadian government to introduce an Islamophobia law, there is increased unwillingness of Western governments to protect the rights of those leaving Islam and converting to other religions.

Imagine the scenario of an Iranian Shia woman who is witnessed to by a Christian woman, and becomes a believer herself. According to all three schools of Sharia, that formerly Muslim woman is now under threat for her life. Other Muslims have, in their minds, the responsibility to execute that apostate from Islam.

Although some churches in the West have had scenarios when they have had to protect a seeker or a new convert from they violent pressures of family and community, most of these instances are isolated. However, if laws are made and shirk, or apostasy from Islam is rendered an Islamophobic, blasphemous act, then enquirers into the gospel will do so under suspicion and threat.

I think of the Iranian Shia widow who has attended my church a number of times, with great appreciation for the love our church has shown to her, as well as the gospel of Jesus Christ which she hears preached. She is not a believer in Christ, but even her enquiries could come at a cost.

So pastors and congregants must be prepared to sacrifice in order to protect those who are exploring Christianity. We must love them so that they can find security in our fellowship, as they seek Jesus, God the Son, the only saviour for the world.