Category Archives: life

Meditation of my heart #2

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2 Corinthians 4

What a great passage to read the week before MTC mission.

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (vs 4)

A great reminder of the state of our world – so many people are blinded to the good news of Jesus, by his enemy, Satan. (For interesting discussions on demons read this or this)

Paul also remind us about what we are doing when we go on mission.

For we are not proclaiming ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves because of Jesus. For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness” – He has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ. Now we have this treasure in jars of clay, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us. (vs 5-7)

We go to proclaim Christ as Lord!
To be reminded that I am a jar of clay is humbling and exilarating. Humbling because I realise anything good that I do is not of my own ability, but God’s powerfully work. Exhilarating because I know I am not doing this work – the glory is God’s because the work is his.

Mission will be a long, tiring, fun and maybe at time disappointing week. But

we do not give up; even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolute incomparable eternal weight of glory. (vs 16-17)

Amen!

Meditation of my heart #1

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Oddly enough, the last year and a bit that I have spent at bible college has been the worst time for my personal bible reading and prayer times. Not that I don’t want to do these things, but my life seems to be so much busier than before college, and college work always seems to come before everything.
But I want desperately to change my priorities.

In an attempt to be better at holding myself accountable for this I am going to try to blog regularly about what I am reading and how it is affecting me. I hope you enjoy a sneak peek into my thoughts. My prayer for myself (and for you) is this –

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, LORD, my rock and my redeemer. Psalm 19:14

So I start today with 2 Corinthians 1.

Paul talks about a time when he was ‘completely overwhelmed’ (v8). Paul’s circumstances were so bad that he says ‘we personally had a death sentence within ourselves’.

It is fitting that I read this passage today because I feel completely overwhelmed by things at the moment too, although I have no right to complain when compared to Paul.


Paul gives us an incredible example of how to respond to these times in our life.

However we personally had a death sentence within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. (v9)

God raises the dead! Thats incredible! And this is who calls us to trust him. Why would we not trust a God who is powerfully enough to raise the dead?

He has delivered us from such a terrible death, and he will deliver us; we have placed our hope in him that he will deliver us again. (v10)

Chances are that I am not the only one feeling overwhelmed. Paul also encourages his friends to help him, and I can help my friends in the same way –

and you can join in helping with prayer for us, so that thanks may be given by many on our behalf for the gift that came to us through the prayers of many. (v11)


Want to live forever????

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Whenever someone I know goes though any kind of serious, or semi-serious, health issue it reminds me of how temporary this life is.


If someone offered you eternal life in a great new earth where death will no longer exist, and where grief, crying and pain will no longer exist, would you be interested???

Someone is offering this. Want it?? Here it is.

Question time…. ???

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At night church, each week after the sermon we have question time, often referred to as ‘roast the preacher’. Since I started at St A’s I have been mulling over in my head Paul’s instructions to women in 1 Corinthians 14 and how or if this has implications for women during question time at church.

1 Corinthians 14:33 – 35 says

As in all the churches of the saints, the women should be silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but should be submissive, as the law also says. And if they want to learn something, they should ask their own husbands at home, for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church meeting.

So many questions come out of this for me. Here are some of them –

  • Does this mean women shouldn’t ask questions in question time?
  • Does the prohibition of speaking refer back to the speaking in tongues and prophesying that is discussed in verses 26 – 33? If so how does this prohibition of women prophesying relate to Paul’s teaching in chapter 11 that should pray and prophesy with her head covered?
  • If a women is to learn by asking her husband at home, how is a single woman to learn? What about a woman with a non-believing husband?
  • If it is ok for a single woman to asks questions but not a married woman, does this need to be explained every week? Would that make the whole concept of question time more unhelpful than helpful?
  • Is this instruction only related to learning, or does this have implications for woman reading the bible, or leading prayers in church??

I’m sure that this is just the beginning of a long process of learning for me from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. While this has been on my mind for a while, I am yet to really take a closer look at this passage and its implications.

Would love to hear your thoughts?

John Piper responds to N.T. Wright

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My first assessment for second year is due in one week. It is a 2000 word book review. The book I choose to review is ‘The Future of Justification’ by John Piper. 

If you haven’t heard of the book, it is a response to another well known and popular theologian, N.T. Wright. 

One of the things that has struck me the most as I read the book was how respectful Piper is in his critique of Wright’s work. Obviously he rights about an issue that they disagree on, never the less page 3 of the introduction says: 

Nicholas Thomas Wright is a British New Testament scholar and the Anglican Bishop of Durham, England. He is a remarkable bled of weighty academic scholarship, ecclesiastical leadership, ecumenical involvement, prophetic social engagement, popular Christian advocacy, musical talent and family commitment. As critical as this book is of Wright’s understanding of the gospel and justification, the seriousness and scope of the book is a testimony to the stature of his scholarship and the extent of his influence. I am thankful for his strong commitment to Scripture as his final authority, his defense and celebration of the resurrection of the Son of God, his vindication of the deity of Christ, his belief in the virgin birth of Jesus, his biblical disapproval of homosexual conduct, and the consistent way he presses us to see the big picture of God’s universal purpose for all peoples through the covenant with Abraham and more.

While Piper works hard to show the biblical errors in Wright’s views, he has humility as he does it. He speaks of Wright with great respect, knowing that while they may disagree they share a great unity through Christ.


Piper says this later in his introduction:

My little earthly life is too far spent to care much about the ego gratification of scoring points in debate. I am still a sinner depending on Christ for my gratification or regret. Among these greater things are faithful preaching of the gospel, the care of guilt-ridden souls, the spiritual power of sacrificial deeds of love, the root of humble Christian political and social engagement, and the courage of Christian missions to confront all the religions of the world with the supremecy of Christ as the only way to escape the wrath to come.

All too often I think we all forget that these things come so far in front of our need to score points and win the argument. We are puffed up by our sense of being right and forget our real status as sinners who have no knowledge or hope apart from the grace of God.  


And so I pray for us all the prayer Piper finishes his intro with:

May the Lord give us help in these days to see the word of his grace with clarity, and savour it with humble and holy zeal, and spread it without partiality so that millions may believe and be saved, to the praise of the glory of God’s grace. 

Amen.

Loving your husband before you get married

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“Whether or not the Lord attaches an andros to our phileo love, this kind of “heartwork” is crucial to growing in the likeness of Christ. By working to become more like our Lord and Savior, we will be worthy of the full trust of both our earthly husbands (should we get married) and, ultimately, our heavenly Bridegroom.”

This is a quote from an article by Carolyn McCulley called ‘Loving you husband before you get married.’ Its an article that, to be honest, was a bit confronting for me but extremely helpful. Since I’m now willing to admit that I thought it was time to share it with you. I hope it’s helpful for you too.


Read it here.