A happy new year to all our customers from everyone at The Good Book Company.
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14)
Servant… Son… Slave… What does it look like to minister like Jesus?
That’s the question we’ll be looking at during January’s Bible-Centred Youthwork Conference. It’s four days of refreshment, challenge and support for children’s and youth workers:
There are still some spaces left on this, our tenth conference – and we’d love to serve as many youth and children’s workers as possible. The dates are Monday 23rd – Thursday 26th January 2012, at High Leigh conference centre in Hertfordshire. You can find full details, a downloadable brochure and book here. Or contact Alison Mitchell on 0333 123 0880 or alison@thegoodbook.co.uk. Catch the early-bird rate by booking before January 12th.
And to whet your appetite, you can download all of the talks and seminars from last year’s conference for free.
Great radio interview on the BBC website where Jason Robinson, one of England's greatest-ever rugby players in both league and union, talks about how finding Christ saved him from himself, and from the emptiness that worldly success had brought him.
His story is fairly well-known among those of us who love both Christ and sport, but what is always striking is the way he came to faith through his team-mate, Vaiga Tuigamala, who was a living embodiment of 1 Peter 2 v 12: "Live such good lives among the pagans that … they may see your good deeds and glorify God".
His autobiography, Finding my Feet, has been around for a few years, but is a great read—you can get it second-hand here
The scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland are expected to announce today that they’ve found the “God particle”, the Higgs-Boson. I’m not a scientist, and would love someone to explain it all to me in very short words, but I think it’s a particle which, if it exists, proves the “Theory of Everything” and explains what happened right the start of the formation of the universe.
That’s why it’s called the “God particle”.
But there was a fantastic moment on Radio Five Live this morning when a scientist from Manchester University (whose name I missed) said that if the God particle does exist, it’s very exciting because (and I paraphrase) “then we can start finding out even more, and looking for more particles like this one”.
So it’s not really the “God particle” then, is it?! The thing about God is that, if you find Him, you have your first cause, your primary reason, your explanation of everything that is, was and will be. You don’t find God and then need to keep looking for answers.
So if this particle exists, and if once scientists have found it they’ll get on with looking for other, even more exciting, things, because actually the Higgs-Boson was never the ultimate answer, shouldn’t it be renamed: the Idol Particle?
On a more serious note (and again, my understanding is from a couple of newspapers articles and Five Live Breakfast, so do please correct me!), this particle will explain what happened in the nano-seconds after the universe began. Which really is very exciting.
But not exactly on a par with finding God. Assuming the Big Bang is how it all started, God is the One who stands behind the Big Bang. He’s the One whose word was heard nano-seconds before the Big Bang. He’s the One who created the Higgs-Boson.
The God/Idol Particle may tell us more about how creation happened. It will, if we have the humility to do so, enable us to worship the great God of everything more. But nothing that exists within creation can ever explain away, or be offered as a replacement to, the God who stands outside creation. There’s a reason Genesis 1 v 1 starts “IN the beginning”, not “Very, very shortly after the beginning”!
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has weighed in this week on the causes to, and solutions for, this summer’s riots.
It’s fashionable to criticize him every time he pops his head over the parapet, and the Daily Telegraph and other media to the right-of-centre have enjoyed doing so.
There is actually a lot of thought, and a fair amount of wisdom, in what he said. If he were a politician, head of a think tank, a local councillor, or a youth worker, his article in the Guardian would be a thought-provoking, useful contribution.
But he isn’t any of those people. He’s the day-to-day head of the Church of England. And so it matters that in his article, he did not mention God the Father, God the Son, or God the Spirit, or even the Bible or the church.
It matters that one of the comments beneath his article online says this: “Once again Dr Williams has been very brave, considering his position, and he has also not offered faith or religion as a solution to the problem. Top marks!”
It matters that when he could have said that…
…he didn’t.
Interestingly, even some secular writers seem to pine for the “good old days”, when churchmen believed in and talked about the God of the Bible. Here’s a revealing thought, from someone who appears to be an atheist, that “the fear of God was a very useful thing … the idea that, one day, you would pay”.
That idea is a very real thing, too. Which is what Rowan might have mentioned.
Fascinating piece on the BBC website about the origins of "What would Jesus do?" as a global symbol.
The intriguing question started as part of the title of a novel in the 1896 by an American Congregational minister from Kansas, Charles Sheldon. He published a story called In His Steps: What would Jesus do? in which a town is revolutionised when Christians "pledge themselves, earnestly and honestly for an entire year, not to do anything without first asking the question, 'What would Jesus do?'".
Owing partly to a strange quirk - the publisher failed to register copyright for the work - the book became one of the 50 best-selling books of all time as other publishers produced cheap knock-off copies.
Fast forward a hundred years, and we have a fine example of history repeating itself. A youth leader at a church in Michigan read the book in 1989, and discussed it with her group. She was thinking of having some T-shirts printed, with the slogan on, but picked up on the new idea of wristbands - shortened the question to WWJD, and had 300 made for herself and her group. The idea snowballed, and was picked up by commercial companies who made their own and started marketing a range of products with the question on it nationally and internationally. By the time Janie Tinklenberg tried to register the trademark it was too late.
The question has now become so familiar in the culture that it has achieved iconic status - having inspired a thousand rewrites for use in politics, protests, advertising, and cheap shots by stand up comedians.
Certainly, for Christians, the phrase has a powerful encouragement, but is also filled with potential dangers. Christians are those who have responded to Jesus' call, to deny themselves, take up the cross and follow Christ (Mark 8 v 34). So when we ask the WWJD? question of ourselves in the general sense, it can deliver positive encouragements. It should remind me to speak the truth, even when it is unwelcome. It should encourage me to be humble and servant hearted, even when I am exhausted, or the recipient of my kindness is unlovely or unworthy by the world's standards. It should encourage me to pray and trust God, rather than my own resources. These were all things that Jesus most definitely was and did - and importantly, these were the things he commanded his followers to do.
But of course there are many things that Jesus did that we are not called to emulate him in. We don't expect to walk on the water, or multiply loaves, for example. And his first disciples spoke plainly and openly about Christ, whereas the Lord Jesus did much of his public teaching in parables - actually designed to hide the message of the kingdom in some ways (see Mark 4 v 10-12). And there are many questions we face in the modern world, where it is not actually that clear what Jesus would do - because we have no clear word from him on the subject.
So the danger for those who have a less clear grasp of the Bible and the gospel message is that it becomes an opportunity for hitching a "home-made Jesus" to their own interests. We focus only on the parts where Jesus seems to back up our cause, whether that is equality, the fight against poverty, the challenging of a corrupt system, or just being kind to animals and children. The result is that Jesus is used to baptise our particular cause. The result: we become the master, and he the servant, not the other way round. The responses to the BBC article provide a snapshot of this tendency.
WWJD? Is a great question to ask. So long as we recognise its limits. And so long as we search the scriptures carefully to make sure we really know what Jesus would have us do, rather than just doing what suits us in the name of a made-up Jesus.
Ex-world middleweight champion Nigel Benn on becoming a Christian:
"There were two places I was going to end up: a mental hospital or six feet under. And then I read the word of God, Mark 8 v 36: 'What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit your own soul?' Now I'm not chasing anything and my life is splendid."
You can read the full interview here.
Judging by the interviews on the radio, the watchword of those striking today over their public sector pensions is fairness.
Repeatedly over the last few days, union leaders, picketing workers and the compulsory “man-on-the-street-who-supports-the-strike” have essentially said about the changes the government are making: “It’s not fair”.
This post isn’t supporting or opposing the strike. There’ll be Christians on either side of this political dispute. But isn’t it interesting how “fairness” has become the word used to criticise policy? How deeply entrenched in our psyches is the notion that life ought to be fair?
How often do we honk our car horn at someone nipping in ahead of us, because, well, what they’re doing isn’t fair to us. Or become embittered about someone else’s promotion because we feel we’re better at our job than them, and so what’s happened isn’t fair. We want life to be fair.
And then the gospel comes along and turns it all on its head. Because it says to us: You really, really, really don’t want life to be fair. You really, really, really don’t want God to treat you fairly.
“We were by nature all objects of wrath” (Ephesians 2 v 3). Treated fairly, we would all face God’s right anger at our sin. If life were fair, we would all go to hell.
The gospel message is that life can be unfair:
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ … it is by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2 v 4-5, 8).
Sinners can receive mercy instead of wrath. That’s not “fair”. Rebels can be loved by God. That’s not fair. God can treat imperfect people like us as perfect children like His Son, because His Son died in our place. That’s certainly not fair.
The best news of all time is that life doesn’t have to be fair. We live in a world where sometimes we’re treated unfairly by others; if we’re Christians, we live in a world where we are always being treated unfairly by God. And we live in a world where God calls us to respond to unfairness in life with grace, with mercy, with love.
That’s a far, far better world to live in that one where everything is totally fair. Maybe I’ll stop at a picket line on the way home and point that out…
The next month is the biggest evangelistic opportunity of the year.
Between now and Christmas Day, hundreds of thousands will hear the gospel. Tens of thousands will resolve to take Jesus seriously, to look into Christianity, to sort out what they believe.
And by January, tens of thousands will probably have forgotten that resolution.
It’s one of the perennial problems at Christmas. Amidst the wrapping paper, the party hats and the leftovers strewn over a million houses will also lie the people’s good intentions to go to church, or join a course, or read a book about Jesus, in the New Year.
Of course, it needs God to re-awaken the desire to get life and eternity sorted. But humanly speaking, this is one of the ways the evangelistic Christianity Explored website comes into its own.
It’s a great bridge between December’s carol service, nativity play, chats over mince pies with neighbours, and so on, and the New Year. It allows people to keep thinking about Jesus Christ in their own time, in their own way. It helps to keep the Lord on the agenda until January.
Three ways you can get people using the website this Christmas:
If you can’t make these decisions for your church, why not forward this post on to your pastor?
Let’s pray that the Lord would use your outreach events before Christmas, and use the website over Christmas, to bring many people to look at His Son and come to see who He is in 2012!
