Contents

FEATURES

Faith amid fear: losing my husband to cancer

The Huguenot massacre and the case for dissidence

‘Safe to be me’

What is our theology?

Ten questions on worship

Jesus the master craftsman

COMMENT

GUEST COLUMN: A Spring of Living Water

A SHRINK THINKS... Physical or mental? Part two

THINKING IT THROUGH: What is a missionary?

A WALK WITH MR O: Then and now

CRUNCH POINTS: How far can we go with scientists on global warming?

NEWS

News in brief

Christian beliefs may be censored on the internet by the Online Safety Bill

It should become a crime to call for ‘repentance’, say Humanists

Exclusive interview with pastor pushed out of his school caretaker job over gay pride tweet

Concerns grow over instances of police officers being sent to visit people’s homes to ‘check their thinking’

Banned ‘abortion reversal’ doctor takes his case to the High Court

Christian barrister calls for police forces to embrace a ‘Street Preachers Charter’

Christian parents push for judicial review of trans teaching in schools

Grace Baptist church plant in Alloa

Free Presbyterian church building opened in County Tyrone

Retirement service for Revd William Macleod

A Christian headteacher reflects on 50 years of state education

‘What is an evangelical?’ and other topics explored at ‘informative and stimulating’ Westminster Conference

End of year wake-up call at Trinitarian Bible Society event

‘Cutting it Straight’ holds first conference near Nottingham

US: YouTube says two-minute John MacArthur sermon clip ‘violates our hate speech policy’

China: Regime must not be allowed to ‘sportswash’ religious abuses during the 2022 Winter Olympics

Ukraine: Christians ready to flee from the Russian border

Finland: Helsinki court hears trial of Christian MP accused of posting a Bible verse on Twitter about marriage and sexuality

Australia: Christian schools under fire for upholding the Bible’s teaching

Burkina Faso: Coup is ‘worrying’ for Christians

OBITUARIES

Jim Handyside (1930–2021)

REVIEWS

Brave by Faith: God-sized confidence in a post-Christian world

Recovering the Lost Art of Reading: A quest for the true, the good, and the beautiful

Into All the World: The missionary vision of Luther and Calvin

Saved from What

A London Sparrow: The inspiring and true story of Gladys Aylward

FEATURES

Faith amid fear: losing my husband to cancer

‘…Now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.’

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Last Battle, C. S. Lewis

In August 2019, my husband Stephen underwent an operation at Westmoreland Street Hospital in London to extract four litres of blood from his left lung. He was then informed by doctors that the lesion they found in the pleura of the lung was malignant.

Thus, at the age of 38, Stephen was diagnosed with Stage III Synovial Sarcoma, a very rare cancer of the soft tissue. Our three boys were aged ten, eight, and five at the time, while I was just over a month younger than Stephen.

Stephen and I met during our first year as students at King’s College London. His degree was in Physics and mine was in Hispanic Studies. After I returned from a year abroad in Spain, Stephen and I began attending church at St Helen’s, Bishopsgate. In July 2004 we were married at St Helen’s and settled down to married life in London.

Although Stephen’s degree was Physics, his passion was writing and he was keen to become a journalist or writer of some description. He began working as a legal journalist and his talent for not only writing but analysing data and presenting it in a clear and manageable manner soon made him stand out to London law firms.

In 2009 he joined law firm Baker & McKenzie in their Marketing and Communications department, eventually becoming their Senior Head. In 2015 Stephen moved to another law firm, Clydes & Co, and was appointed Global Head of Communications, a job he loved because it incorporated his other passion, travelling. As Global Head of Comms, Stephen travelled all over the world meeting many lawyers and firms.

August 2019, however, was not the first time I had been taken into a hospital room to be given ‘bad news’. In 2014 our youngest was born. Four months before his birth we were told (after an ultrasound scan) that he had part of his brain missing and would be disabled.

The consultant at the time recommended we terminate the pregnancy on the grounds that ‘we would have a child that would be highly dependent on us throughout his life’. Nevertheless, our youngest is now seven, he attends a mainstream school, and although he needs help with some things he is by no means ‘highly dependent’. He is a child made in God’s image, knitted together in his mother’s womb.

Just before Stephen’s diagnosis everything appeared well. Our youngest child was thriving, Stephen had just accepted a new position in a different law firm, we had our house on the market, looking to move to a bigger house, and I was homeschooling our boys and really enjoying it. Life was good.

Naively, we believed that the only ‘suffering’ in our lives would be dealing with our son and his different medical needs. I thought that if that was all, then I could well cope with it.

Psalm 112:7 says, ‘He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD.’ Sadly, my heart was all but steadfast when the news of Stephen’s cancer came. Although I had been told five years earlier that our youngest child would have disabilities, the news of Stephen’s cancer was totally unexpected. Stephen was fit and healthy, he didn’t smoke or drink, and there was no reason why this should happen.

For the months that followed, as Stephen commenced chemotherapy and eventually surgery, the Lord felt distant and almost non-existent in my heart. Cries of ‘Why Lord?’ soon turned to ‘Are you even there?’

Just as cancer raged within Stephen’s body, doubt and fear raged within my mind. Fear especially became entrenched in my heart, fear that Stephen was going to die, that I was going to become a single parent, and worst of all that if Stephen could succumb to cancer at thirty-eight, well, so could I, and our children would be orphaned!

At the end of his earthly life, the Lord Jesus spoke to his disciples saying, ‘But the counsellor, the Holy Spirit… will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you’ (John 14:26).

These words proved true, for God’s Holy Spirit spoke to me through Proverbs 3:5-6: ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.’

My fear had been driven by lack of trust in God – I wanted to be in charge, in control. I wanted to know the reason why, I wanted to lean on my own understanding and direct my own path, a path that did not involve cancer. Elizabeth Elliot once said, ‘Fear arises when we imagine that everything depends on us.’

Through Proverbs 3:5-6, I came to a realisation that I was not in control, that nothing depended on me and my abilities, and that if the Lord’s will was for Stephen to have cancer and eventually go home, well, may God’s will be done.

Bit by bit, I let go of my iron will and prayed ‘yet not my will, but yours be done’, just as our Lord did in the Garden of Gethsemane.

As the country went into its first Covid lockdown, Stephen finished his last course of radiotherapy. We had nearly eight months of being cancer-free and some wonderful family time. However, in October 2020 Stephen’s oncologist told us that the cancer was back and that it was terminal.

This time round, when bad news came, I was able (through the grace of God) to be stronger for my husband. I trusted the Lord, I let him lead, and I cast all my anxieties on him (1 Peter 5:7). I won’t lie – fear was still there, but it did not dominate and paralyse me as it had before.

Although physically Stephen became weaker, spiritually he was growing stronger. In September 2020 Stephen commenced a pastoral training course at London Seminary and had wonderful fellowship with the brothers there. Even up to the weekend before the Lord called him home, Stephen preached or led at our church in Stanmore and other churches.

The greatest blessing was the Easter weekend of 2021. Stephen preached on Good Friday, he oversaw the baptism of my father on Easter Sunday, and that evening Stephen and I were interviewed by our pastor Chris Tapp on our situation and why we were sure that there is life after death (this interview can still be viewed on Stanmore Chapel’s YouTube channel).

The very next day (bank holiday Monday) I had to rush Stephen to UCL Hospital as he was coughing up blood. Again, the prognosis was bleak, the cancer was growing rapidly and Stephen had little time left. But, again, the Lord guided us, again his Word spoke through his Spirit.

One evening, Stephen was in horrific pain; he was already hooked up to a syringe driver for morphine and it was 11 p.m. I had called the out-of-hours palliative nursing team for help, but they were not being particularly helpful and I was at my wits end watching Stephen doubled over in pain and unable to help him.

God’s Word enveloped my mind and over and over again I kept saying, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness’ (2 Corinthians 12:9). Within half an hour a doctor and a nurse were at the door. They almost floated in, gave Stephen a shot of morphine, and floated back out again. Stephen fell asleep and the pain subsided.

On 3 August 2021 we as a family drove from Bushey, Hertfordshire, to our new home in Oswestry, Shropshire. Because of God’s goodness we had bought a house ten minutes’ drive from his parents’ house in Oswestry where Stephen had hoped to spend his last days in this world.

Miraculously, Stephen was physically strong enough to make the three hour journey without any medical assistance and spent a good hour of the journey playing I Spy with the boys.

However, God’s timing is not our own and Stephen’s health deteriorated rapidly. On the evening of 7 August, the Shropshire palliative doctor whom we had called out informed Stephen’s parents and me that Stephen was nearing the end of his time with us.

That night, as in the book Pilgrim’s Progress, Stephen crossed the river of death to arrive at the Celestial City and into the arms of his Saviour Jesus. He passed from this temporal life to eternal life with Christ, peacefully and without fear.

I praise my God because the man I love is now with the God-man he loved. I know this is folly to the world, but for those of us who belong to Jesus this is the certain hope that no one can take away from us. Stephen has begun ‘Chapter One of the Great Story….which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before’.

Lorraine Doggett is a mother of three boys who currently attends Holy Trinity Oswestry in Shropshire and was a member of Stanmore Chapel.

The Huguenot massacre and the case for dissidence

This year is the 550th anniversary of a terrible event that marked early European history. It is often thought that the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre of French Huguenots was something that took place in Paris on one day. That is not the case; there were nationwide massacres. They determined the future of Protestantism in France until the Revolution and indirectly also the future of Europe. Moreover, they gave rise to Protestant resistance theory, which contributed to developing ideas of justice and resistance to tyranny.

A shocking event

The St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre on 24th August 1572 was a tragedy for French Protestantism and a human catastrophe that reverberated throughout Europe. 6000 Huguenots were massacred in Paris on that day and the days following.

The city gates were shut. Leading members of the nobility, including the Admiral Coligny, were singled out for slaughter. They had gathered in the capital for the marriage of Catherine de Medici's daughter Margaret, sister of the young king Charles IX, to Henry IV-to-be, a leader of the Protestant armies.

Bodies were dumped in the Seine, which ran red. In the weeks following, the pogrom was repeated in towns throughout the kingdom, making 30,000 victims.

Outcomes

The Reformed faith was numerically reduced as the Huguenots chose one of three options. Getting out of France to Geneva or elsewhere, fleeing to a city of refuge – La Rochelle, Nîmes, Montauban, Sedan – or recanting, which sadly a surprising number did.

This weakened France economically, but also socially, as it removed effective opposition to the tyrannical Bourbon monarchs, four of whom ruled until the Revolution. It has been suggested that without this tragedy there would possibly be around 30 million Protestants in France today.

To make things worse, the massacre, which followed the first three wars of religion, provoked five more before the Edict of Nantes established an uneasy compromise in 1598. More than just wars of religion, this civil conflict was a struggle for royal power between the Catholic and Protestant nobility.

A flood of pamphlets

The major immediate push-back came in a flood of pamphlets inspired by a group of French jurists called the monarchomaques (“king fighters”) who were led by Calvin’s adjudant, Theodore Beza. He wrote a treatise, influenced by John Knox, entitled The Rights of Rulers, considered too hot by the leaders in Geneva to publish there.

His argument was that rights involve duties, because if a people can exist without a king, a king cannot without a people. However, what Beza wrote was the opposite of what the title suggests – he argued for the rights of citizens and the duties of their rulers. This is what made it explosive.

Democracy according to Beza

Beza had four lines of attack: rulers exist by election and the consent of their people; royal authority is conditional, a legal bond binding sovereign and people; when this covenant is broken a king may be removed; the king is a servant to his kingdom. If trust is violated, royal right is forfeited. This may seem small beer today, but at the time it was dynamite.

These four points are undergirded by the biblical notion of covenant. For Beza, the covenant is founded on God’s creation law and its structures, and repeated in the Mosaic covenant and the ten commandments. For the ‘chaplain of the Huguenots’, covenant-breaking by the monarch is a form of idolatry. Tyrants break covenant by serving power, not the rights of citizens. Tyranny is the slavery of the people. It can be legitimately opposed by their representatives. Unjust rulers can be deposed.

This idea that tyranny is idolatrous is not a speculation. It is borne out by the history of the modern world in which ideologies are masks that hide idolatry. They empower human rulers without accountability to anyone.

Fast forward to the present

Christians in the West today have become a minority as the Huguenots were. Since the start of the century we have begun to feel the heat of new ideologies of idolatry. Christians have been gaslighted into thinking that their ruling superiors are some kind of benevolent neutrals. They aren’t any more.

Governments, political parties, the civil service, legal systems, multi-national corporations, the BBC and the media, are all promoting agendas that are opposed to biblical truth. Institutionally they play fast and loose with God’s law, both natural and revealed, and celebrate every form of deviance imaginable. God’s values are anathema to their new codes of secular righteousness. The major churches have surprisingly become “useful idiots” in everything from gender to face masks.

Could it be that Beza had a point? Are not those who rule over us idolatrous covenant-breakers? Why should we kowtow to these blind leaders of the blind? As disciples of Christ are we not called to ‘obey God rather than man’? Is it not time to wake up as protestants and be critically dissident from the spirit of the age?

This article echoes a lecture given by Paul Wells at the Westminster Ministers Conference in December 2021 on the Huguenots and taking up arms, to be published in the Spring with the other lectures given.

Paul Wells, editor in chief of Unio cum Christo (uniocc.com).

‘Safe to be me’

‘Safe To Be Me’ is the name of a conference the UK government is organising in 2022 to promote LGBT rights around the world. I think the conference title is disingenuous. In just four words, it unites two big, popular ideas: safeguarding and identity politics. It combines them into one moral agenda.

‘Safety’ is the new value that our schools, churches, workplaces, and hospitals are busy applying. This kind of ‘safety’ isn’t just about my body, but about my mental wellbeing. I must be kept safe emotionally from those who threaten my sense of ‘self’. The conference title then cleverly wraps identity politics up in that safety.

Of course, who wouldn’t want to be safe to be themselves? No actual argument need be made. And hey presto, for a society to make moral judgments on my sexual proclivities is unsafe. In fact, it’s worse than that: it’s harmful, threatening, vicious, and aggressive.

So the UK government, which is not known for its commitment to morality, is championing a new moral imperative: ‘I’m safe to be me.’ But Jesus Christ is the only person qualified to organise that conference, because Jesus Christ is the only human who can actually say: ‘It’s safe to be me.’

Fallen humanity

Every other human (on earth) is a threat to others and a threat to themselves. Not even Adam and Eve in their innocence could say it’s ‘safe to be me’. They had to watch and distrust their own judgment when tempted to eat the forbidden fruit. The moral of the story is that Adam couldn’t say, ‘It’s safe to be me!’

That’s why God placed the forbidden fruit in the garden in the first place. Humanity has great dignity and value, but we must learn our dignity exists in a very specific way. Our dignity comes from our creation in God’s image.

Human dignity is, therefore, not something to be grabbed, but a precious gift to be received. It was the lie of the devil which got Adam to try and grab dignity, but in so doing to lose it.

This means I’m not safe. Even if I were innocent, like Adam, unstained by sin, my ‘self’ would not be a reliable guide. As a creature, it’s always unsafe to launch out independently of our Creator. It’s never safe for me to define myself.

But now, none of us are like Adam in his innocent state. We’re in a much worse situation, cut off from God. Our human nature has now been seriously damaged by our sin. Our dignity isn’t an unchanging property; it’s now disfigured. Sin is a descent to the bestial. It makes us behave like animals. Before we know it, we’re deformed: ‘evil beasts’ and ‘lazy gluttons’ (Titus 1:12).

Our instincts – whether bodily or mental – are damaged. We pig out and wolf it down. We turn into cannibals, biting and devouring others (Galatians 5:15). We’re like the prodigal son at the pigsty.

This damage isn’t just what we can potentially do to others; it’s a broken relationship with ourselves. We’re muddled and confused, trying to dignify things that should embarrass us. We glory in our shame (Philippians 3:19).

The Bible talks about ‘the dishonouring of their bodies’, ‘dishonourable passions’, and ‘men committing shameless acts’ (Romans 1). There’s a clear ‘yuck’ factor to the human body freely following any and every urge.

The end result of me being ‘safe to be me’ is not my glory, but my eternal shame and embarrassment when I meet God in judgment.

So it’s not safe for me to be me. It’s dangerous. I am a threat to myself. I’m my own worst enemy.

The apostle Paul certainly didn’t think it was safe to be himself – ‘I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh’ (Romans 7:18).

Martin Luther said: ‘I’m more afraid of my own heart than the pope and all his cardinals.’

It’s ‘safe to be me’ is the last thing I need to be told. I’m a loaded gun. Pull the trigger and I’m capable of doing great damage to others and myself.

Jesus ‘humanises’ humans

But there is one human being who can say it’s ‘safe to be me’. Hallelujah! The Lord Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God, sent by the Father to live a human life of perfect obedience before God. After suffering the shame and indignity of the cross, he has been crowned with glory and honour.

He didn’t live that life for his own sake, but for our sake. He came to share his human dignity with us, ennobling us, raising us upwards. He crowns all who believe on him with glory and honour (Psalm 8:5; Ephesians 1:22-23).

The good news Christians are sharing with the world is that Jesus humanises humans! Jesus dignifies our broken, crooked humanity by restoring us to fellowship with God. Only Jesus Christ can organise a conference called ‘Safe To Be Me’, because he’s the only one who can make that statement. And he has organised that conference! It meets every Sunday up and down this land. Everyone’s invited.

But the condition of entry to Jesus’s conference is repudiating the devil’s lie that it’s safe to be me. The Christian ‘Safe To Be Me’ conference (i.e. the church) invites everyone, but its core message is that it’s only safe to be in Jesus. I must cling onto him as the only safe version of humanity, afloat in the chaotic ocean of my desires and thoughts.

Jesus calls us to be converted. At this conference, his Holy Spirit begins to restore and renovate our damaged nature: ‘We all… are being transformed… from one degree of glory to another’ (2 Corinthians 3:18). But it’s not yet a place where it’s safe to be me. One day, you’ll be able to say it.

Jesus has promised to glorify everyone he justifies (Romans 8:30). He ‘will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body’ (Philippians 3:21). One day, I won’t want to sin and won’t be able to sin, and then, finally, it’ll be safe to be me.

But the only way to reach that place of true safety is through joining the conference that Jesus is organising. You’re invited. The ‘Safe To Be Me’ conference is meeting this Sunday, with branches all across the world. Will you come along?

Simon Arscott, has been sent by the International Presbyterian Church to lead All Nations Church, Ilford.

What is our theology?

Several important convictions drive Tabletalk magazine just as they have driven the entire history of Ligonier’s ministry. One of these convictions was expressed some five hundred years ago by Martin Luther – who else? All are theologians; that means every Christian. All are said to be theologians, so that all may be Christians. But what is theology? And, in particular, what is our theology?

Theology

Theology is God-talk (in the best and highest sense) – thinking and speaking about God in a coherent, logical way. And for the Christian believer, that means a theology rooted in and expressive of the revelation God has given.

There is therefore a right sense in which we are called to have a ‘theology of everything’ because in one way or another the entire cosmos – the unfolding of history, the discoveries we make – are all part and parcel of the unfolding of God’s self-revelation in creation, providence, redemption, and consummation.

As Abraham Kuyper noted, nothing in the cosmos is atheistic in the absolute sense. Or to cite a higher authority, ‘From him and through him and to him are all things’ (Romans 11:36).

This is why omnes sumus theologi – all are theologians – whether we are nuclear physicists, astronauts, literature-lovers, gardeners, trash collectors, or even for that matter ‘theologians’.

This is the privilege, the challenge, the romance of our lives – in every conceivable calling. Ultimately, to borrow Paul’s words, we are doing only one thing (Philippians 3:13). Was Paul ever doing only one thing? Surely not. But yes, he was doing only one thing but in a thousand different activities. So with ourselves. In all things we are theologians because we know that all of life is for knowing God.

But how does theology work? Perhaps an illustration may help. There is a program on BBC television I enjoy. It is called The Repair Shop, and – in the midst of so much on TV that is depressing or immoral or both – it is the ultimate feel-good show. Ordinary people bring their damaged, decayed, distorted, and well-nigh destroyed heirlooms for repair.

They often tell profoundly moving stories – of why the article (which may be of little value in itself) is so important to them because of its connection to a loved one. We then watch the extraordinary skills of craftsmen and -women – experts in woodwork and metalwork, mechanical work and furniture work, musical instruments and mechanisms, soft and hard items – working what seems to be magic.

Whereas people like me patch up and hope for the best, they first deconstruct and only then reconstruct and restore the long-lost glory to the precious objects. Then the wonderful denouement: we witness (and share) the various owners’ overwhelming gratitude, their praise, and often their joy as they are moved to tears as the restored object is unveiled in all its finished glory – usually from underneath a very ordinary blanket (how suggestive of a greater restoration).

Theology is the gospel repair shop. Its various ‘loci’ or topics (God, creation, fall, providence, redemption, glorification) are, as it were, so many departments of experts that first deconstruct our personal damage and then reconstruct us until the original vision in our creation is realised.

In this way, what our forefathers called the theology of pilgrimage, in which we see in a mirror dimly, becomes the theology of vision in which we will see face-to-face. Having been created in the image of God to glorify and enjoy him forever, we will at last be made like him. What, then, is the content of our theology?

Our theology

As Thomas Aquinas is reported to have said, theology comes from God, teaches us about God, and leads us to God. And since eternal life is to know God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent (and we do this only through the Spirit; John 17:3; see 14:23, 25), our theology begins (and ends) with God.

It tells us who he is – one God who is three persons, the ever-blessed Trinity, in the eternal fellowship of his tripersonal being as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Such theology leads to knowing his wonderful unified, simple character, which in our limited capacity we manage to grasp aspect by aspect in what we call his attributes.

These are in fact only so many ways of describing his perfection, his Godness, his infinite and glorious deity. So, our theology is a theology of the triune God who is sufficient to himself and in himself and who in all his self-manifestations is holy love.

It is not surprising then that our theology is driven by the twin visions of the Prophet of Holiness and the Apostle of Love – in Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4–5. It is a striking fact that in these two visions the whole of our theology seems to be summarised.

They reflect the Godness of God ‘who was and is and is to come’ (Revelation 4:8) and the story of creation (v.11): that all things in heaven and earth were made by the triune God, ‘the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible’ (the Nicene Creed), through his Word the eternal Son, and by the ordering, filling, completing ministry of the Spirit who hovered over the original waters.

They provide us with a mirror in which we see our created destiny lying behind us almost unrecognisable. We were made by God for his glory and to enjoy him – in a word, for fellowship with him and doxology to him.

But now we find ourselves Isaiah-like overwhelmed by the discovery of who God is – the holy One – and we realise we are, like an ancient Scottish castle that has become a ruined heirloom, destroyed by the assaults of Satan. We are derelict, incapable of self-restoration, undone, and unclean. None of us is capable of opening a scroll that might contain a plan for our salvation and restoration (Revelation 5:4). But this is not how our theology ends. God wants his image back.

True, we must discover we are ruined before we can see our need for restoration work. But then our Isaianic-Johannine theology tells us that it is not a different God, but one and the same thrice-holy God whose messenger brings restoration through an altar-of-sacrifice burning coal that first incinerates and then restores.

This biblically crafted theology tells us that in his vision Isaiah saw the glory of the Lord Jesus (John 12:41). Then, since our theology holds that revelation is both progressive and cumulative, we understand that the person to whom Isaiah’s vision points is none other than the Lion of Judah, the slain Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (Revelation 5:6-10).

And as we delve deeper to ‘learn Christ’ (Ephesians 4:20), we contemplate his one divine person in his two natures united in that one person, in his two states of humiliation and exaltation, and in his three offices as Prophet, Priest, and King – one Lord Jesus Christ.

In this context, we discover that something happens to us: by the seraphic Spirit, our lives are brought into living contact with Christ in his atoning sacrifice. We are forgiven and justified from the guilt of sin. And in that same moment the burning away of sin in us is inaugurated.

It cannot be any other way, for as Calvin regularly noted, to think that we can have Christ for justification without having him for sanctification is to rend him asunder since he has been given to us for both. The Spirit unites us to one Christ who is both ‘righteousness and sanctification’ to us (1 Corinthians 1:30).

Therefore, the sinner who is justified also and simultaneously shares in his death to the dominion of sin and his resurrection to a new life to God (Romans 6:2-4). To have any other theology is to misunderstand how grace reigns ‘through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord’ (5:21). No wonder that the transcendent vision of Isaiah ends in unconditional obedience: ‘Here am I! Send me’ (no matter how rough the road; Isaiah 6:8-13).

And no wonder that the vision of Isaiah echoes in John’s experience of the heavenly chant: ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come’ (Revelation 4:8); and climaxes in endless adoration: ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honour and glory and might forever and ever’ (5:13).

It is no accident that Ligonier National Conferences traditionally end with the singing of Handel’s ‘Hallelujah Chorus’. Yes, this is our theology. It has been Ligonier’s heartbeat from the earliest days of ‘The Teaching Fellowship of R. C. Sproul’ – expressed now for fifty years in a multitude of ways.

Here we all become part of that teaching fellowship. And this theology, our theology, becomes the divine repair shop, bringing us from ruin through redemption to final restoration. Soli Deo gloria!

This article was first published in Tabletalk, the Bible study magazine of Ligonier Ministries. Find out more at TabletalkMagazine.co.uk or subscribe today at GetTabletalk.co.uk.

Sinclair Ferguson is a retired minister and author of several books.

Ten questions on worship

What does it mean to worship God in spirit and truth?

To worship God in spirit and in truth is to glorify him in the public assembly of his people with biblical simplicity, true knowledge of God, and inner engagement of the heart by faith and repentance.

All of these elements appear in the context of Christ’s teaching, ‘God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth’ (John 4:24).

The worship in view pertains to the public assembly of his people, because Christ and the Samaritan woman are not discussing private devotion but the proper location for public worship, whether on the Samaritans’ mountain or the temple in Jerusalem (v.20).

Christ requires biblical simplicity when he tells her that worship no longer involves going to a particular holy place such as Jerusalem (v.21), which for Israel involved all sorts of sacred persons, objects, and rituals that God ordained in the old covenant. Even then, God’s people were to worship only in the way God commanded.

In the new covenant which Christ initiates (he says, ‘the hour cometh, and now is,’ v.23), our worship is vastly simplified, stripped of outward pageantry, and focused on the Word and two sacraments.

Christ requires true knowledge of God when he says to the Samaritan woman, ‘Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship’ (v. 22). She acknowledges, ‘I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things’ (v.25). This is worship ‘in truth’. There is no authentic worship without knowing God through his Word.

Christ requires inner engagement of the heart, for God seeks not only worship ‘in truth’, but also ‘in spirit’. Since God is ‘Spirit’ in his divine nature, he is not pleased with merely outward acts of worship, but looks to the heart.

This involves faith, for Christ had just been speaking to the woman of her need to receive the living water of eternal life that only Christ can give her (vv. 10, 14).

It also involves repentance, for Christ did not give her this living water without first gently exposing the woman’s sins (vv. 16, 18).

What is the connection between worship and service?

Worship, whether private, domestic, or public, is a particular kind of service. To serve the Lord is to do his will for his glory.

God put Adam in the garden to literally ‘serve’ (‘abad) it by cultivating its plants and exercising dominion over its animals for the honour of the Creator (Genesis 2:15).

Serving the Lord is our all-comprehensive duty: ‘And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul’ (Deuteronomy 10:12).

However, God also calls us to a particular kind of service in our worship of him. The Lord’s command to Pharaoh was, ‘Let my people go, that they may serve [‘abad] me’ (Exodus 8:1, 20; 9:1), but in this case the service is specified as holding a feast to the Lord and offering him sacrifices (5:1, 3). This reflects our specific duty to glorify God in praise: ‘Serve the LORD with gladness: come before his presence with singing’ (Psalm 100:2).

We should never neglect worship for the sake of service, as if it were more noble to be feeding our hungry neighbour than to sing God’s praises and hear his Word.

Worship is not selfish; the world’s greatest need is to see and hear the glory of the Lord in the praises of his people, as the Psalms say (Psalm 96:1-6).

How important is preaching to the worship of God?

Preaching the Word is essential to the worship of the gathered church, for worship is always our response to God’s glory. Can we worship a God whom we do not know? Can we draw near to the holy Lord apart from faith in his Son? Christ is the way, the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through him (John 14:6). How shall we believe in him of whom we have not heard?

Furthermore, preaching is not merely a preparation for worship, but an act of worship. God’s people glorify him by receiving his Word with faith (Romans 4:20) and contrite fear (Isaiah 66:2).

The right response of gratitude to God for his salvation is to drink deeply and joyfully from the wells of the gospel (Isaiah 12:3). We honour God when we come thirsty to the ministry of the Word.

How can we rightly conduct family worship?

Leading family worship, especially if our children are young or not used to this practice, can be a challenging experience.

We should approach it with patience, readiness to smile at our little ones, and confidence that God is pleased with our stumbling efforts if we try our best.

We should also ensure that we ourselves are doing regular private devotions, praying for our family before we pray with them.

Working with our spouse to plan family worship times is important, as well as talking to our children about expectations.

Keep it simple: read a passage of Scripture, pray, speak with your children about the main takeaways from the chapter, and then sing together.

Involve your children according to their level of ability and maturity. Have them read a verse. Ask them a question that they can answer. Give them an opportunity to pray.

How vital is the assembling of the church for worship?

It’s crucial. For thousands of years, God has directed his people to worship him not only in private or in their homes, but as an assembled people.

This was the case with Israel, where God centred his worship around the temple on Mount Zion. Hence: ‘The LORD loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob’ (Psalm 87:2). The godly in Israel had vibrant private prayer lives, but they longed to meet with God at his temple (Psalms 42, 84).

Christ promises his special presence to the church ‘gathered together in my name’ (Matthew 18:20). In context, it is clear he is speaking about the gathered church because he talks about church discipline (vv. 15-19).

The writer to the Hebrews exhorts us to ‘draw near’ to God’s holy places through Christ’s blood, and he has in mind public worship, for he says, ‘not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together’ (Hebrews 10:22, 25).

If we desire to meet with God in the fulness of his blessings in Christ, we must participate in the public means of grace with the assembled church.

How is singing an aspect of discipleship within the local church?

While our songs of worship are a ‘sacrifice of praise to God’ (Hebrews 13:15), they are also a means of grace for mutual edification in the church.

Paul says, ‘Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord’ (Colossians 3:16).

When we sing in congregational worship we are ‘teaching and admonishing one another’, corporately bearing witness to each other of ‘the word of Christ’.

This is one reason why it is so important that the church sings God’s Word – ‘psalms and hymns and spiritual songs’.

Paul links this mutual ministry of singing to being filled with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18-19), and there is certainly something profoundly spiritual about singing God’s Word together.

Singing engages the heart in a way that imprints truth on the memory for a lifetime and stirs the affections toward God.

Singing God’s Word in faith and reverence tends to bring theology down from heaven and settle it in the heart and life. God meets with us. Truly it may be said to the Lord, ‘Thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel’ (Psalm 22:3).

Given the poor state of much of the Western church, how does one gladly submit to and financially support their local church?

This question presupposes that one is attending an unbiblical church. Why stay there? Every Christian should make it a top priority to find, join, and participate as a member in a church ordered by God’s Word and filled with God’s Spirit.

If necessary and feasible, move to another place so that you and your family worship according to the Word. A Christian should at least find the most faithful church he can (not a false church teaching doctrinal or moral heresy), support it financially, submit to its elders, and seek to serve it according to his gifts.

We must remember that no church is perfect, and God calls us to show grace to our brethren just as we ourselves need grace.

Pray for reformation and revival in your church, model patience and meekness, and speak the truth of Christ.

While we must separate from the world and its sins (2 Corinthians 6:16-7:1), beware of proud and judgmental separatism that divides the body of Christ.

In a church setting what would the role of women look like in leading music?

To answer this question we must examine the presuppositions behind it.

The contemporary approach to worship typically centres on the office of ‘worship leader’, a position given to a singer/musician who gives direction to the church’s praise.

I understand that it is helpful to have someone who understands music to assist the pastors and elders in planning and implementing worship services.

However, a worship leader often functions as a spiritual shepherd to the congregation, making extended comments before and after songs to stir people’s emotions and set their minds on the Lord.

This approach tends to disengage pastors from a crucial aspect of spiritual leadership, and to give that role to people who may not even have the qualifications for biblical eldership, much less be chosen by the church for such an influential role.

This problem is aggravated when the worship leader is a woman, for she then takes the role of giving authoritative spiritual direction to the church, which is contrary to Scripture (1 Timothy 2:12). Instead, God calls pastors and elders to lead the church, and specifies that they must be men (1 Timothy 3:1-7).

If the worship service is the most important meeting of the church, then should it not be led by the office-bearers that God appoints in his Word?

How important is the public reading of Scripture in church?

The reading of the Holy Scriptures is a divinely-mandated part of public worship. Paul said to Timothy, ‘Give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine’ (1 Timothy 4:13).

This practice is rooted in the law of Moses, who read the book of the covenant to the people (Exodus 24:7) and required that the law be read to the assembly of men, women, children, and foreigners every seven years at the feast of tabernacles (Deuteronomy 31:11-12).

We see public reading of the Holy Scriptures practised by the exiles when they returned to the land (Nehemiah 8:3; 9:3-5), and the Jews continued to do this weekly in the synagogues at the time of Christ and the apostles (Luke 4:16-17; Acts 13:27; 15:21).

Paul instructed the church to have his epistles ‘read among you’ (Colossians 4:16; 1 Thessalonians 5:27).

The last book of the Bible opens with a blessing on the public reading of Scripture: ‘Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand’ (Revelation 1:3).

Therefore, the public reading of the Bible in the church is a means of grace by which God blesses his people, and we must not omit it from our worship.

Nevertheless, reading the Bible is not enough: we must ‘preach the word’ with explanation and exhortation (2 Timothy 4:2). Preaching is the primary means of grace (Romans 10:14).

How is the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture essential to Christian worship?

The perspicuity of Scripture is the doctrine that God’s Word, like the shining of light, has an inherent clarity so that its main teachings on salvation and obedience can be understood by ordinary people. Granted, certain texts need explanation, and all doctrines have a depth that can only be explored by the help of faithful teachers.

This doctrine is essential for Christian worship in several respects, for worship is regulated by the Word, and in worship we sing the Word, read the Word, preach the Word, see the Word in the sacraments, and pray the Word.

First, the Bible’s clarity makes it possible for us to regulate worship by God’s Word, trusting that he has made it clear what he wants us to do in worship (and what he has not authorised us to do). Otherwise, we would have to rely upon our own thinking and feeling to guide what we do in worship.

Second, the Bible’s clarity gives us warrant to sing the Word with confidence so that people can understand the meaning of what they are singing and thus be sincere, engaged, and edified in worship.

Third, the Bible’s clarity encourages the public reading of the Word, because the mere words of Holy Scripture can do much good to people.

Fourth, the Bible’s clarity maintains the authority of Christ in the preaching of the Word, for the preacher does not unfold mysteries accessible only to him, but he exposits the message of Christ, who alone is king of the church, and whose words can be understood by the church.

Fifth, the Bible’s clarity guards the sacraments from human inventions, so that they can function as the ‘visible Word’ in their simplicity as ordained by Christ.

Sixth, the Bible’s clarity supports the practice of praying God’s words back to him in pastoral, congregational prayer. If the Bible were obscure, how could we use its words in prayer without confusion?

Since the Bible is the clear light of God’s truth with even children able to understand its basic message, then pastors can pray God’s Word back to God and the lowliest persons in the congregation can join in those prayers.

By Dr Joel R. Beeke and Revd Paul Smalley

Jesus the master craftsman

Jesus’s use of stories in his teaching is well documented in the gospels, but how much notice do we give to how these stories are constructed? A closer look reveals how Jesus was the master of his craft.

Here we take a look at just one story, the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), to see at least three ways in which Jesus’s stories show his skill as a craftsman.

Words which say a lot

Jesus did not waste words. Consider how much is packed into just one verse: ‘And at his gate was laid a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores’ (Luke 16:20).

The phrase ‘at his gate’ conjures up the Rich Man’s walls and enclosed home. It names the place the Rich Man had to pass every time he entered or left his home, ignoring Lazarus countless times.

Meanwhile, the expression ‘was laid’ (just one word in Greek) tells us that Lazarus had limited mobility and needed help to get into position. In just one sentence Jesus gives each character a history. We’re able to visualise their daily movements and the moment in which their lives converge.

Two verses later Jesus tells us that ‘The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried’ (Luke 16:22). Without highlighting it, he records that the Poor Man died first. Of course, poor people generally live shorter lives.

We hear that the Poor Man was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side, while the Rich Man was buried. Here Jesus leaves a gap in our knowledge concerning whether the Poor Man was buried at all. In being explicitly buried, the Rich Man gets better treatment in earthly terms, but not in heavenly terms.

This underlines the fundamental contrast of the story: the Rich Man chose earthly recognition over heavenly recognition, much to his own regret.

Skilful use of names

In the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus, the presence and absence of names are used to powerful effect. The Rich Man, who was surely known to everyone, is unnamed, whereas the Poor Man, whom society ignored, is named.

‘Lazarus’ is, appropriately enough, a form of the Hebrew name Eleazar, meaning ‘God helps’. By giving a name to Lazarus but not to the Rich Man, Jesus shows that God’s values are the opposite of society’s values.

It’s also worth noting that the Rich Man ignored Lazarus while on earth, but when in torment wanted Lazarus to be his servant. He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame’ (Luke 16:24).

Strikingly, here he reveals he knows the name of the beggar whom he had ignored on earth. This further highlights his guilt.

There is a contrast between the way the storyteller refers to Abraham as ‘Abraham’ (vv. 22, 23, 25, 29) and how the Rich Man calls him ‘father Abraham’ (v.24 and 30) or just ‘father’ (v.27). The Rich Man wants to stress his family relationship with Abraham, but this is precisely where his problem lies.

He asks Abraham to send a witness to his five brothers, but if the Rich Man had considered the five books of Torah and really accepted Abraham as his father, he would have to accept that he had many more than five brothers, since Abraham had been promised offspring as countless as the stars and the sand. He would have to accept that Lazarus was his brother.

Old Testament references

Jesus often filled his stories with Old Testament allusions. The opening verse of this story relates that the Rich Man feasted daily in purple and fine linen.

There’s only one other text in the Bible where we get linen, purple, and feasting: ‘There were white cotton curtains and violet hangings fastened with cords of fine linen and purple to silver rods and marble pillars, and also couches of gold and silver on a mosaic pavement of porphyry, marble, mother-of-pearl, and precious stones’ (Esther 1:6).

This is the description of Ahasuerus’s seven-day feast to which every man in the citadel was invited. This allusion contrasts the Rich Man’s meanness with Ahasuerus’s greater generosity.

Early in the story we are also told that the Poor Man was ‘covered with sores’. The only other man in the Bible covered with sores was Job, who was rich and yet could claim never to have ignored the needs of the poor (Job 31:17-21). This allusion to the Old Testament again highlights the Rich Man’s guilt.

Finally, when we read ‘in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side’ (Luke 16:2), we have an echo of a famous Old Testament text: ‘On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar’ (Genesis 22:4).

These two brief passages have four words or phrases in common: (1) to lift up one’s eyes; (2) far/afar; (3) see; (4) Abraham. Abraham, like Job, was rich, and he entertained strangers. The similar wording in the descriptions of Abraham and the Rich Man serves to highlight their contrast, further emphasising the Rich Man’s lack of hospitality.

Jesus told stories skilfully, but never merely to entertain. His parables often work at a very simple level, but careful attention reveals a much greater depth. In this very short story we see Jesus’s careful use of language, the words and names he chooses and omits, woven into a rich backdrop of the Old Testament.

Each of these three features carry deep moral challenges and show the value of studying Jesus’s words with great care.

Reproduced with permission from Ink Magazine (published by Tyndale House).

Dr Peter J. Williams is author and principal of Tyndale House.

COMMENT

Regulation or censorship?

It was in June 2019 – almost three years ago – here in this very ‘comment’ column that ET first warned about government proposals to regulate the internet. Back then it was called an ‘Online Harms Bill’. Now it’s been rebranded to be called the ‘Online Safety Bill’. Except it’s anything but safe. It gives sweeping powers to the government watchdog Ofcom and big tech companies to define what constitutes an online ‘harm’. Do you really want government officials and big tech deciding what your church can put on the internet?

Sure, there are lots of nasty things on the world wide web. And we do welcome plans to curb children’s access to explicit pornography online. That should have been done years ago. And if it’s illegal to say or publish something offline, it should be illegal online too. But this bill goes much, much further than that.

The bill has the potential to be rocket fuel for the ‘cancel culture’. Already people are being ‘cancelled’ for the things they say online. In this edition of ET there is an interview with a pastor who was pushed out of his part-time school caretaker job because he dared to question, on Twitter, gay pride parades. Police are visiting people in their homes to ‘check their thinking’ because of things they’ve said on social media. A Finnish MP is on trial – in a criminal court – for tweeting a Bible verse. A clip of a John MacArthur sermon was deemed to have breached YouTube’s ‘hate speech’ code.

We could go on. And the shocking thing is, these things aren’t shocking anymore. It happens with such frequency that we just roll our eyes and shake our heads, but we are not surprised.

What should we do? The worst thing we could do is self-censor ourselves. By all means, show some wisdom when you’re posting online, choose your words carefully and graciously, but don’t stop expressing the Bible’s teaching just because someone may object. And we must press the government to have robust free speech and religious liberty protections in its Online Safety Bill.

Above all, we should pray. We should pray that the Lord will allow the gospel to be proclaimed online without hindrance. And we should remember the words of our Saviour in the Sermon on the Mount, ‘Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.’

GUEST COLUMN: A Spring of Living Water

We cannot survive, let alone thrive, without water. The town of Chesham, where I live, grew up along a river to which it later gave its name – the Chess. The river naturally provided a plentiful supply of water for drinking and washing. People could live and farm here. Watermills were built whose remains can still be seen today. Various industries developed next to the river. Watercress grew well alongside the riverbed and for many years was picked each day and transported to London.

The town depended on the river, and even today it is an attractive feature. But how does the river arise? The river is sourced by a number of springs in the area. For centuries, in sunshine and snow, pure water has bubbled up from the underlying rock. There is something very beautiful and welcome about a spring of fresh water – especially if you’re thirsty! It’s so much better than drinking from a stagnant pool.

We can therefore easily understand what God means when he describes himself in the Bible as ‘the spring of living water’ (Jeremiah 2:13). God is saying that he himself is a pure and constant source of life and satisfaction.

But God also brings a charge against his people: ‘They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.’ The people had turned away from God and instead were worshipping other things – things they’d made themselves. And yet these water tanks were cracked – the pleasures these other things brought soon stagnated and drained away.

Isn’t this still what we find today? When we turn away from God and centre our lives on money, better homes, smarter cars, holidays, gadgets, sport, music, food, drink, romance, sex, after a while the newfound pleasures grow stale until perhaps they dry up altogether. We might try something else, but it’s the same story again. To turn away from God our Maker and Sustainer is both wrong and pointless.

In the heat of a Middle-Eastern day, the Lord Jesus once told a woman by a well, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life’ (John 4:13). This woman had been married five times and was now in another relationship. Jesus was not just commenting on the water from the well but on her lifestyle, going from one man to another. He was offering her a relationship of quite a different kind, a spiritual relationship with God. This would be pure and fresh and last forever.

In the same passage Jesus speaks of this offer as a gift. It’s not something we can earn or buy, but something which we need to receive freely, humbly, and gladly from God.

Jesus came into this world and lived and died. On the cross he said, ‘I am thirsty.’ The Bible teaches that through the agonies he suffered we can receive the forgiveness of our sins, the Holy Spirit, and eternal life. Jesus himself rose from the dead and is alive today. He can cleanse us, purify our hearts, and give us enduring satisfaction, joy, and hope.

As Christians we are deeply thankful that through Jesus Christ we’ve come to know God. Augustine wrote long ago: ‘Lord, you made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.’ The local springs here in Chesham sometimes dry up, but God is a never-failing fountain of life, peace, and joy.

Mark Richards, pastor of Newtown Baptist Church, Chesham.

A SHRINK THINKS... Physical or mental? Part two

Last time we thought a little about how our mind can influence our body. We are psychosomatic beings, created with a body and soul which should be united and act in harmony. Death divides us, severing body and soul until the return of King Jesus when we will be made whole again in resurrected bodies and purified souls. But prior to death, diseases damage us, body and soul, and we experience this damage in all kinds of sicknesses.

No such thing as physical illness

Simplistically we talk about physical illnesses and mental illnesses. But there is no such thing as a purely physical illness or a purely mental illness. This follows inevitably from our creation as ‘psychosomatic wholes’; we are body and soul united together. Anything that affects our body must also affect our mind, and vice versa.

This is also widely recognised by doctors. Illnesses classified as physical have mental components. So infections can cause impairments in concentration and memory and often, especially in older people, hallucinations. Changes in mood, periods of anxiety or sadness, are very common when people are physically ill.

In the same way, all mental illnesses affect the body. This is most widely seen with anxiety disorders in which symptoms such as breathlessness, headache, abdominal pain, and many others are part and parcel of such illnesses.

All of this is unsurprising to the Christian because the Bible teaches us to expect such an intimate interaction between the mind and the body. And some symptoms are difficult to classify in this way at all. Is fatigue a physical or mental symptom? It is a core feature of depression and other mental illnesses, yet it also features in many physical illnesses.

What about poor concentration? The temptation may be to say this is mental fatigue and to try and find a neat division of impaired concentration and physical fatigue. But this doesn’t work since both are present together so commonly and occur in so-called mental and physical illnesses. Is sleep disturbance physical or mental? Again, it is found widely in all kinds of mental and physical illnesses.

Mental prejudice

The long-standing and ongoing prejudice against mental illness means that many people want to have a physical illness. This week Sandra is off to hospital again, this time to gastroenterology because of abdominal symptoms. She will get more investigations (ultrasound, endoscopy, and more) which will find everything appears normal.

Last month it was rheumatology because of swellings in different joints and associated pain. A series of blood tests and X-rays revealed nothing in particular. The month before that she had been to a specialist for exhaustion and poor sleep. Brain scans and blood tests had once again found everything was normal.

Sandra’s distress goes on and on because she knows she has these symptoms and she worries about them. One GP tries to explain that her anxiety and low mood were the likely explanation. But she wouldn’t listen. She was convinced she had a real – that is a physical – illness.

Sandra’s symptoms are ones we all get from time to time. If you focus on that new swelling in your finger or worry about your sleep pattern, then the guaranteed result is that each will get worse. And if you take yourself to the doctor, then that will lead to tests, more worry, and further symptoms.

We saw last time, when thinking about my experience of feeling cold, that we are able to influence our experience of such symptoms. How I understand, how I respond, and how much I concentrate on such symptoms affects how tired I feel or how poorly I sleep or the severity of my pain. My mental approach shapes my physical experience.

The weak and the strong

It is difficult to find the right words. My excuse is that Paul uses them when dealing with differences of opinion in the churches (Romans 15, 1 Corinthians 8). While his use of them differs from mine here, the point is that, like Paul, I don’t use them to imply the superiority of one group over the other. We easily recognise that different people have different degrees of physical strength, largely related to their size, sex, and age. And so we can divide people, using some arbitrary cut-off, into the weak and the strong.

At risk of undoing all I’ve been arguing, we can say that some people are mentally weak and some mentally strong. Or to correct myself, some people are psychosomatically weak and others psychosomatically strong. The strong are able to throw off worries about life’s bodily symptoms, minimising any pain or discomfort, and push on.

This is not just mental. A common remark is: ‘She has a strong constitution.’ That is, her family recognise that time and again, while others fall around her with sickness, she carries on, seemingly powerful and immune to the ailments of life. She is psychosomatically strong. But she can become ill and will one day die. The strongest can be afflicted by a stroke or schizophrenia or cancer.

These differences in our degree of psychosomatic strength or weakness (our constitutions) are God’s doing, not ours. This alone is why there is no scope for boasting or belittling, for pride or prejudice. In the award-winning film ‘Chariots of Fire’, Sam Mussabini tells Harold Abrahams (the eventual 1924 100m Olympic champion): ‘You can’t put in what God left out.’ But he also meant that you can train to improve and to maximise the use of God-given talent.

So we can learn to improve how we deal with our symptoms and illnesses. Each of us can learn to handle our aches and pains, our fatigue and sleeplessness, more effectively, thus maximising our usefulness in the Lord’s service.

Alan Thomas, Professor and Consultant in Psychiatry. Elder at Newcastle Reformed Evangelical Church.

THINKING IT THROUGH: What is a missionary?

What is a missionary? Silly question. We all know what a missionary is, don’t we? We have missionary prayer meetings. We get missionary newsletters. We read missionary biographies. A missionary is, well... a missionary.

And yet, nobody seems to be able to tell me just what we mean when we call a person a missionary. There are some Christian workers whom we would all recognise as missionaries. I’m thinking of people sent out by churches to places where there are no churches. They are sent to preach the gospel, to make disciples, to baptise, to plant churches.

It would all be simple if the word ‘missionary’ were kept for such workers. But the fact is that among people who are known as missionaries, such pioneering church-planters are a small minority. Most of the people who are labelled missionaries today are sent to places where there are already established gospel churches. And the majority are not involved in church planting. Rather, they’re involved in a wide variety of other valuable ministries, in some cases ‘spiritual’, in others ‘practical’.

So a girl is encouraged by the church she attends in the UK to move to Sweden. There are plenty of evangelical churches in Stockholm and no one suggests that she should be planting another. Her work will be, let’s say, with an organisation dedicated to evangelising and mentoring students. But her home church in the UK refers to her as their ‘missionary’ and treats her accordingly.

An engineer goes out to work somewhere in Africa, helping villagers dig wells, install irrigation systems, build safer homes. In every village there is a gospel church. But again, the church he attended back home refers to him as their missionary, distributes his ‘missionary prayer letters’, and welcomes him enthusiastically every three years as a ‘missionary on furlough’.

A nurse believes that the Lord has called her to serve him in Japan. So she moves from London to Tokyo to work as a nurse in a secular hospital there. She goes along to a church in Tokyo when she can, witnesses to patients and staff in the hospital, writes prayer letters to her friends back home about her work. And they talk about her as a missionary.

It seems that nowadays the term ‘missionary’ can be used for any Christian who leaves their home, moves elsewhere, and does any kind of work! Providing that the work is motivated by Christian concern, the label applies.

‘Missionaries’ in the modern sense may labour as evangelists, teach in Bible colleges, or be involved in radio work. They may run publishing houses or dental clinics. They may be involved in Bible translation or teach in Christian schools. Or, for that matter, they may work in completely secular jobs. Providing they take opportunities at work to witness to unbelievers, they can still be labelled missionaries. It’s all a bit confusing.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not downplaying the value of any service that any of these folk do for the Lord. Nor am I suggesting that a church should never encourage members to move away to serve the Lord in ministries other than church-planting. I am simply making the observation that the word ‘missionary’ is used very broadly.

Does that matter? In one sense, no. ‘Missionary’ is not a term we find in the Bible. It’s a term that our Christian forefathers invented and we are surely free to define it as we choose.

But – and it’s a big but – if we are going to define all these workers as ‘missionaries’, we must be clear about this: that the norms and expectations that apply to missionaries in one category should not automatically be applied to missionaries across the board.

Let me explain what I have in mind. Scripture makes it clear that every believer should function as a member of a church – a body of believers who assemble together (the Greek word which is translated in our Bibles as ‘church’ just means an assembly, a body that gathers together).

The believers who make up a church encourage one another (Hebrews 10:25), pray for one another (James 5:16), care for one another (1 Corinthians 12:25), teach one another (Romans 15:14), submit to one another (Ephesians 5:21), guard one another (Hebrews 12:15), bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2), use their varying gifts to edify one another (Romans 12:4-6). They learn together, share together, break bread together, pray together (Acts 2:41-42). Every believer needs such church fellowship.

But how can that work when a church sends out a pioneer worker to a place where there is no church? The missionary is sent there with the goal of planting a church, but in the meantime where does he look for church fellowship?

He may not be completely isolated. He may be accompanied by wife and children. Or he may be one member of a church-planting team like the team that normally accompanied the apostle Paul. But he is still bereft of church fellowship – the support of a body of believers with different gifts, different callings, at different stages in life. What are pioneering church-planters to do in such circumstances?

The answer in many cases is that such workers must retain their membership in the churches ‘back home’ that sent them. Where else could they look for support, encouragement, oversight? In doing that, they’re following the example of Paul, who travelled to plant churches, but remained for many years a member of the church in Antioch (Acts 13:1-2, 14:27-28, 15:40, 18:22-23).

Such remote fellowship is far from being a satisfactory arrangement, but it is better than nothing. Belonging to a church thousands of miles away is better than belonging to no church at all.

I can think of missionaries in exactly that situation: pioneering church-planters, sent to remote or barren places where there is no gospel church. So they retain their membership in the church – however far away – that sent them to the field. That is clearly justified as a temporary measure.

But can that practice be justified for all Christian workers who carry the term ‘missionary’? Surely not. The fact is that most missionaries are not in that situation. They labour in places where there are sound and trustworthy churches.

Well then, they should surely be attending those churches. They should be worshipping with believers in the place where they are actually living. They should be learning alongside those believers. They should be exercising their gifts for the edification of those believers. They should be submitting to the oversight of those believers. They should be functioning as part of the body of Christ in the places where they are. In short, they should be members of those churches.

In too many cases, that biblical principle has been abandoned. I’ve had the privilege of attending Christian workers’ conferences in many countries across the world. I meet missionaries at those conferences who have been called to all sorts of ministries: evangelists, literature workers, medics, teachers. I am filled with admiration for their zeal, their devotion, the sacrifices they have made.

But many of them have one blind spot. I ask them which of the local churches they belong to. They look puzzled. And when they finally answer, the answer is along these lines: ‘None really. I do try to support them when I can, but I’m here as a missionary – I belong to a church back home in Singapore/ Seattle/ Sydney...’ They don’t attend any church regularly in their chosen ‘mission field’.

In their eyes, the fact that they carry the label ‘missionary’ apparently exempts them from all the New Testament commands which say that they should be functioning within a local church. They feel no obligation to commit themselves to believers whom they’ll actually see face to face, worship with, learn with, break bread with.

They choose not to be answerable to fellow-believers who will actually observe their life and work on a day to day basis. They claim to act by the authority of a church far away, but for all intents and purposes, they fail to respect the churches which God has actually established where they are.

It doesn’t have to be overseas. I know of Christian workers here in Manchester, commissioned by churches elsewhere in the UK and sent here to get involved in various ministries. They identify as missionaries. And what that means is that they see no need to get involved with any church here. When asked which church they belong to, they talk of their ‘home church’ hundreds of miles away. But they see no need to be part of a church in the place where they live.

That, I suppose, is the worst scenario – the situation where missionaries work in areas where there are established, sound gospel churches, but don’t attend any of them because their ‘membership’ is somewhere far away.

Thankfully, there are many churches here in the UK which recognise that such a practice is unacceptable. If they send out missionaries to places where there are already churches, they encourage them to be involved in those churches. But even then, there is often confusion. Why? Because having sent the missionary off to some distant mission field, they still expect him or her to retain membership with themselves and be under their oversight.

So the missionary has to live with a constant dilemma. ‘Am I under the oversight of the leaders of the church here where I am, or should I be looking for guidance to my home church? Am I to be like all the other folk in the church, committed to this church, answerable to it, or does my commitment to this church always come second to a church many miles away?’

The missionary in such a situation is not allowed to be a church member like any other church member, obeying the commands of Scripture and devoting himself to the church he attends. His primary commitment is apparently to believers far away though he cannot worship with them, sing with them, break bread with them. How can he practically bear the burdens of far-off people whom he only sees on an occasional furlough visit? How can they effectively guard his soul?

I have even known the baffling situation where a man is pastor of a church, say, in Africa or Indonesia, and yet says that he’s a member of a church in England! He may have a team of strong elders around him, and yet the leaders of the church in England expect him to submit to their own direction and be answerable to them!

Where this happens, it creates intolerable tensions. What is the point of this ‘missionary pastor’ holding an elders’ meeting in the church he leads, if at the end of the meeting he has to say, ‘Of course, whatever we’ve decided, I may have to cancel it if the elders in my home church disapprove’? What has happened to the autonomy of the local church?

Sadly, we have seen promising situations torn apart by such folly. I think of one church in the Middle East, led by three gifted missionary workers and a local pastor. The four were recognised as elders. But at least one of the missionaries soon found that his home church thought that they should have direct oversight of their missionary.

From thousands of miles away they wanted to tell him how he must order his family, how he should go about his evangelistic work, how he should use his time. Any decisions he made in concert with his three fellow-elders were subject to the approval of the leaders of his ‘home church’ in a different continent. It is not surprising that the whole situation broke up in disarray.

Part of the problem, of course, is money. Many Christian workers sent out from the Western world are dependent on financial support from the churches that sent them. And because of that, the churches that send them think that these workers should continue to be answerable to them, even if they are settled in stable, well-taught, gospel churches in the places where they are working. ‘He who pays the piper calls the tune!’ Proverbial, but hardly biblical thinking.

The church here a few years back had the privilege of releasing one of our members and encouraging him to move to one of the ex-communist states of Eastern Europe. We believed that he had gifts that could best be exercised in a full-time ministry. We encouraged him to consider moving to serve the Lord overseas. We helped him to make contact with churches in various places that might make use of his gifts. We began discussions on his behalf with one of those churches, one where the needs seemed greatest and matched his gifts most exactly.

Eventually that church extended an invitation to him to move and to become a member and worker there. We encouraged him to accept that call and pledged that we would help that church to support him financially. When he accepted the call, we commended him to that far-off church and we said farewell.

I suppose many people would say that we sent him out as a missionary. But we’ve never called him that. Why not? Because we don’t want any confusion about his status. We don’t want people to think that he is still linked to the church here. His membership has been transferred with our blessing from this church to another, and he is now serving that church.

We continue to pray for him, we are thrilled to think that he is playing his part in the growth of God’s kingdom, we continue to treasure him as a brother, we will support him financially for as long as that help is needed and we’re able to give it.

But he is not ‘ours’ now. He belongs to the church in the place where he lives. He is answerable to that church. He is under its oversight. We give him no directions, do not pass judgment on his labours, expect nothing from him but brotherly love. We don’t ask him to divide his loyalties between the body of believers where he is and the body of this church, 1500 miles away.

To send workers anywhere in the world on any terms is an exciting thing for any church. To be part of the work of planting churches where there are none is thrilling. To give away beloved members to strengthen existing churches is a wonderful privilege too. But it must be done in a way that’s biblical and God-honouring.

The apostle John commended one church for the way that it handled its responsibilities to missionaries – even those they had not sent out themselves. ‘Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers... You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. For they have gone out for the sake of the name accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth...’ (3 John 1:5-8).

When brothers go out for the sake of the Name, how vital it is that everything should be done in a manner worthy of God!

Bible quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, published by HarperCollins Publishers © 2001

This article first appeared in the monthly bulletin of Grace Baptist Church, Stockport.

Stephen Rees is pastor of Grace Baptist Church, Stockport

A WALK WITH MR O: Then and now

Mr O, last Sunday we had a visiting preacher in our church. Like you, he was an older man, but what he had to say really troubled me. He gave the impression that the evangelicalism of years ago was wonderfully healthy, but that today it has lost its way. Was it really like that? What do you think?

All of us who are older are tempted to think that everything was better when we were young. But it’s not true. The fact is that every generation of Christians has its own strengths and weaknesses.

What were the weaknesses of evangelicals when you were young?

Without going into a detailed analysis, there are some things that spring immediately to mind. For example, the robust evangelistic Calvinism of Spurgeon had been largely forgotten. Arminianism and dispensationalism ruled the roost. In most churches expository preaching was completely unknown. And most evangelical people were still members of churches in doctrinally-mixed denominations.

That’s not a very pretty picture! So what were the strengths?

Evangelicals believed the Bible to be the Word of God. Almost everywhere they understood that Sunday was the Sabbath and that the whole day was to be spent in the worship and service of God.

They also understood that Jesus Christ was Lord, and that this meant that every Christian was to live very differently from other people. Yes, it’s true that evangelicals had an unwritten (and unbiblical) list of do’s and don’ts, but they were crystal clear about separation – that is, never to do anything of which you would be ashamed if the Lord returned at that moment.

There were a lot of spin-offs from this. For example, among my Christian friends I did not know of one person who had not spent time with the Lord asking him whether they should spend their life abroad as a missionary.

Wow! I think I am beginning to have a bit more sympathy with last Sunday’s preacher! You have mentioned some things there that I have never thought of. But surely that does not mean that everything about modern evangelicalism is wrong, does it?

No. But before we get round to some of its strengths, let us be clear that there is a lot about evangelicals today which is shameful.

That’s strong language, Mr O. Can you give me some examples?

Here are half a dozen which you might like to think about. At this point I’ll just mention them. And, of course, these are generalisations. Not every Christian individual is guilty in this way.

It is shameful that evangelicals today are not afraid of God.

It is shameful that they don’t take his law seriously. Most of them can’t even recite the ten commandments.

It is shameful that the cross of Christ is not at the heart of every meeting of the church.

It is shameful that they are unwilling to devote one whole day a week to celebrating and proclaiming the resurrection of Christ.

It is shameful that they find themselves able to live without thinking that Christ may return today.

It is shameful that they are willing to let millions and millions of people live and die without hearing the gospel of Christ.

It’s true, it’s true, and I feel both guilty and ashamed. But you mentioned that today’s evangelicalism has some strengths. Please tell me about them.

There are a lot of preachers about who love the Bible and who are seeking to expound it in a way which is faithful, memorable, and relevant.

There is a widespread recognition that every member is important and has something significant to contribute to the life of their church.

There is a healthy stress on the need to do everything in love.

The social distinctions that plagued large swathes of evangelicalism in the past are no longer recognised.

There is an understanding of how hard it is to live as a Christian in a hostile society, and therefore of the need to spend time with each other as a means of encouragement.

A lot of believers are displaying a lot of flair in using social media and new technologies in the service of the gospel.

Thank you, Mr O. I’m going to go away now and think about how we can address our weaknesses and build on our strengths. Please pray for me.

Stuart Olyott, is an actively retired minister and conference speaker. He preaches most Sunday mornings at Caergwrle Evangelical Church.

CRUNCH POINTS: How far can we go with scientists on global warming?

We all value biblical advice from our elders, the first ones to whom we turn for counsel. Jeremy Walker outlines the kind of answer he might give to a question received at the chapel door.

I respond as a Christian pastor in a particular place and time, not as a scientist or a prophet. We therefore deal primarily with theology, not science or politics.

The popular media present us with a widespread scientific consensus that there is such a thing as global warming. The popular media has little or no grasp of theology. The consensus is not absolute, and there are many names, rarely brought to our attention, who dissent from the popular consensus.

The opinions of scientists who credibly profess faith in Christ differ, sometimes significantly. For those of us who are not scientists working in a relevant field, the presentation can seem overwhelming and the data bewildering.

The Bible is not, and does not pretend to be, a scientific textbook. However, being God-breathed, those same Scriptures are infallible and inerrant in all their parts and are, therefore, trustworthy and authoritative in all that they affirm concerning humanity, history, science, doctrine, ethics, religious practice, or any other topic.

So as Christians living in our particular time, place, and sphere, what do we believe and how should we live? Let’s get back to basics. Christians embrace a personal responsibility as stewards of creation, having dominion over the creatures (Genesis 1:26-31). That does not turn you into a modern environmental crusader, nor does it legitimise a greedy drain on natural resources.

Remember that the world is subject to the devastating effects of the Fall (Genesis 3:17-19): while God still shows his goodness here, this world possesses at best a broken beauty, and at worst reveals the most horrific consequences of sin. This creation eagerly waits for the return of Christ and the revealing of the sons of God, suffering ‘cosmic contractions’ with a hopeful eye to the coming liberty and glory (Romans 8:18-25).

We need to understand the Bible’s view of the world and of humanity. This includes creation, the Fall, redemption, and judgment and glory. Modern pagan thinking denies this utterly. Climate activism idolises the present creation, complete with the religious fervour of those whose god is this passing world.

Man is hopelessly responsible and struggling for power – sacrifices are needed to appease the wrath of a wounded planet. As Christians we certainly want to be good stewards, but we know that this world will both come to an end and be renewed by God (2 Peter 3:10-13).

If it seems undeniable that the world is warmer than it once was, let us recall that there is good evidence, over the centuries, of a great variety of global weather patterns. These are hard for us to trace and interpret, no matter how arrogantly we assert our present understanding.

What we do know is that God has promised that, ‘while the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease’ (Genesis 8:21-22). Human beings will not destroy the planet ahead of divine schedule nor prolong it beyond its divinely-appointed end.

That doesn’t mean that we therefore act carelessly with regard to the world God has made: we have a duty of care where God has put us. For most of us, those decisions lie on a personal, at most local, rather than national or global scale. Most of us operate within parameters established for us by civil authorities.

So serve God as a steward of his creation where you are, doing the best you can to take care of all that he has given you. If you want to go for a walk with a scientist, work out your direction and distance in dependence on God’s Word; let them get on with their job, and you get on with yours.

If you would like an answer to a crunch question, please email crunchpoints@evangelical-times.org. We cannot guarantee an answer to every question.

Jeremy Walker, pastor of Maidenbower Baptist Church in Crawley.

NEWS

News in brief

Asylum petition for Pakistani girl

Christian MP Fiona Bruce has handed a petition to the Home Office raising concerns about Pakistani Christian girl Maira Shahbaz. Aged just 14, Maira was kidnapped, forced into marriage, and converted before escaping, only to go into hiding after being accused of apostasy. The petition calls for Maira to be granted asylum in the UK.

Sunday working win in America

An American man who was fired from his delivery job because he was in church on Sundays has won $50,000 in back pay and compensatory damages. He lost his job when he didn’t turn up for his Sunday shift, but the Floridian says he had an agreement in place to allow him to go to church.

Disturbing Iran report published

A disturbing report has been published revealing the way Christians are being targeted in Iran. The joint report by CSW, Article 18, Middle East Concern, and Open Doors International has revealed several trends that were used to violate rights to religious beliefs last year, including the Revolutionary Guard Corps cracking down on Persian-speaking Christians.

Gospel outreach to Holocaust survivors

The International Mission to Jewish People has recommenced its efforts to reach Jewish Holocaust survivors with the gospel in response to an increased openness among Jewish people to hear about Jesus as Messiah. In a newsletter, it said hundreds of Jewish people are now regularly joining Bible tours in Israel.

Roger Carswell was ‘cancelled’

Evangelist and author Roger Carswell had an invitation to speak at a carol service in Durham Cathedral withdrawn last December. Roger said, ‘It was arranged by a Christian group within the NHS, but the Dean of the Cathedral did not want the gospel to be preached and an NHS chaplain did not want an evangelist to speak.’

Lynas debates Jayne Ozanne

Peter Lynas, UK director of Evangelical Alliance, recently debated leading LGBT activist Jayne Ozanne over a UK conversion therapy ban. Speaking on the Unbelievable YouTube channel in January, Lynas advocated for tolerance of consensual, non-coercive practices intended to change LGBT behaviour, while Ozanne argued that any practice aimed at such changes should be unlawful.

Churches face negative media

The scale of negative media coverage faced by churches has been revealed following a PR firm’s investigation. Jersey Road PR monitored print/online stories relating to churches/church leaders from September to November 2021. No less than 460 negative news items were identified, ranging from historic child abuse and controversial comments to the Liverpool suicide bomber who previously attended church.

Audio Bibles for the blind

Torch Trust, a Christian charity for people with sight loss, recently launched an initiative offering audio Bibles on MP3 players to anyone in the UK who is losing their sight. Torch CEO Tim Jeffery said that when eyesight deteriorates, ‘the Bible can be an amazing source of comfort and encouragement’.

Churches suffer negative media

Research by a Christian PR agency has shown that most media coverage of churches is negative. PR agency Jersey Road has found that an average of 150 pieces of negative media coverage are published each month in the UK about churches. They monitored media reports in print and online between September and December last year.

Synod debates conversion ban

The Church of England Synod has debated the government’s planned ban on conversion therapy. Expert speakers discussed what a ban would mean in practice for counselling and Christian ministry. Those pushing for a ban want to put limits on preaching, praying, pastoring, and even parenting in line with biblical teaching on sexual ethics.

David Burrowes given new post

Christian and former MP David Burrowes has been appointed by the Prime Minister to be Deputy Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief. He’ll work with the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy, Fiona Bruce MP, to promote religious tolerance. David Burrowes said he will help the UK government ‘to champion freedom of religion or belief across the world’.

NI pro-lifers may appeal

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children may appeal against a High Court ruling that found Brandon Lewis, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, acted lawfully when he directed ministers in the devolved government to dedicate the funding and resources necessary for a dramatic increase in the number of abortions in the Province.

Christian beliefs may be censored on the internet by the Online Safety Bill

Christian groups have given a mixed response to the government’s Online Safety Bill, welcoming some proposals but raising concerns about others.

Plans for age-verification checks for porn sites have been welcomed, but other parts of the bill have the potential to cause more censorship of Christian teaching.

The Christian Institute is among those who are raising concerns about regulating online content, especially because the definition of what is deemed ‘harmful’ will be decided by government agencies and the big tech companies.

Commenting on the problems, Christian Institute Director Colin Hart said, ‘The bill risks enshrining cancel culture into law.’

He said that big tech companies like Google and Facebook ‘will get to decide what should and shouldn’t be allowed in crucial and controversial areas of debate’.

‘Their yardstick will be their own commercial interest and so will inevitably go much further than what the law requires.’

He noted that the bill contained only a ‘very weak and ineffective duty’ to uphold free speech, and asked, ‘Where will this leave mainstream Christian beliefs on sexual and medical ethics, gender, marriage, and parenting?

‘The bill must be amended to include a presumption in favour of free speech. What is free to say on “the street” must also remain free to say online.’

Meanwhile, Christian group CARE has welcomed the plans contained within the bill to require pornography sites to have age verification checks.

CARE has been lobbying the government since 2015 on this issue, and it is hoped the bill will protect young people from explicit content online.

CARE’s Ross Hendry said, ‘This announcement is hugely encouraging for all of us at CARE who have spent years calling for this safeguard.

‘Tens-of-thousands of children have stumbled across and continue to stumble across porn. They are disturbed, upset, and damaged by it.

‘A just society does not allow this to happen, and it is good that the government has finally recognised our campaign.’

But he added, ‘Age checks on porn sites should have been in place years ago,’ and questions need to be asked. He also said it may be some years before the safety system is ready.

See also Comment

Mike Judge, Editor

It should become a crime to call for ‘repentance’, say Humanists

Christians should be charged with a crime if they call people to ‘repentance’ – that’s the alarming new demand issued by a Humanist group.

It comes as part of a response by ‘Humanists UK’ to government plans to outlaw so-called ‘conversion therapy’, and the group thinks that government plans do not go far enough.

A ban on conversion therapy could restrict Christians from preaching, praying, pastoring, or even parenting in line with biblical teaching on sexual ethics.

But the government insists it does not want to limit free speech or outlaw the ordinary religious practices of churches, it only wants to catch abusive and coercive situations.

However, Humanists UK wants the ban to go much further than proposed. It says verbal communications including ‘confessions/repentances’ should become criminal offences.

It also thinks that declarations of faith, ‘fasting’, and ‘attendance on religious courses’ should become crimes if they are linked to ‘conversion therapy’.

The ‘Let Us Pray’ campaign has been set up to defend religious liberty from a conversion therapy ban.

A spokesman said, ‘As one of the UK’s largest explicitly anti-religious organisations, Humanists UK will be well-aware of how central “repentance” is to the Christian faith.

‘Repentance is at the heart of “conversion” – it means turning away from sinfulness and towards God. Repentance is inseparable from becoming a Christian.

‘By calling for “repentance” to be explicitly outlawed in some circumstances, Humanists UK is really calling for legal limits on who can turn to Christ. It is a clear and direct attack on Christian beliefs and theology.’

Exclusive interview with pastor pushed out of his school caretaker job over gay pride tweet

Pastor Keith Waters was pushed out of his part-time job as a school caretaker because of a tweet he wrote urging parents not to take their children to a gay pride parade. He wrote the tweet because of the nudity and sexually provocative displays that often accompany such events. His case has been heard by an employment tribunal. Here, he talks to ET about his experience.

ET: Would you still write that tweet?

KW: Yes, I would. The reason I wrote it in the first place was that, as a church, we had discussed the ‘in-your-face’ elements of Pride.

Some members thought we should go to the events with our children and evangelise, but I thought that was not a good idea. I said we needed to reach people the right way. The tweet was a follow-up to those discussions, really, and aimed at Christians, in my pastoral capacity.

ET: Do Christians underestimate the power of social media?

KW: I have been toying with this thought. This could easily have happened pre-Twitter, as much of the problem came through print media, using social media to stir things up. Our enemy has always been aggressive.

Christians can avoid confrontation and, to be honest, there are times for that. The problem we have, though, is that if we find ourselves being cowed, that is not the best thing either. We ought to be salt and light and raise issues that we should be congratulating, lobbying on, or praying about.

But while the tweet was the catalyst, the problem was a conversation people were having about what they thought the tweet said – people wording things however they wanted.

ET: Should we be wary of misrepresentation?

KW: In court, the people who had accused me of being homophobic then admitted to my barrister that, based on my tweet, they did not think I was homophobic.

Instead, they had listened to what other people had said. We will have our words twisted. This has always been the case – the Bible shows us this.

ET: What has been the effect on your family?

KW: It was strange. The church family and friends and people who know us were either completely unaware of the storm brewing or were supportive. But if you have people who are deliberately attacking you, they will find ways to harass you.

We had a funeral director turn up at the door to arrange my funeral, and our house was ‘put up for sale’. But that is the life of a pastor. We ought to expect some people will be malicious, but we must give our message with compassion, love, and wisdom.

ET: How can Christians deal with these situations?

KW: At the time, I engaged with those who deliberately stirred up trouble, but, in retrospect, I would have changed that. If people are ‘on a mission’ they will not hear what you have to say. It wasted my time and gave them more ammunition.

So I would say that, if you have said something for a good reason and you stand by it, then think how you can glorify God in this situation. If we have made a mistake, we should apologise. You have to allow God’s grace to be seen.

And pastors: through teaching, preaching, and pastoral work, we all should be equipping people to live in today’s world and to be thinking about these issues in a godly and biblical way.

ET: Why did you take your employer to court?

KW: Whether we win or we lose (and if we do, we will go to appeal) it will become case law and set a precedent. If we lose, anyone else who wants to silence Christians and use school policies to target us could do so. If we win, this could protect Christians from being silenced in their workplaces.

Concerns grow over instances of police officers being sent to visit people’s homes to ‘check their thinking’

Concerns have been raised about police forces who send officers to people’s homes to ‘check their thinking’.

In Scotland, officers were sent to the home of Nicola Murray, the founder of a domestic abuse charity, to ‘ascertain her thinking’ following something she had posted on Twitter.

Murray had used Twitter to question the remarks made by the transgender CEO of the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre.

Murray said, ‘We are a women-only service run by women for women and will not be intimidated into changing our stance on this matter.’

She was then left ‘shocked and panicky’ after the police turned up asking her to explain herself, despite acknowledging no crime had been committed.

Meanwhile, in Wales, police officers raided the home of a women’s rights campaigner because she promoted the reality that people can’t change their biological sex.

Jennifer Swayne says she was detained and questioned by Gwent Police for over 12 hours, being released after 3 a.m.

Officers subsequently visited Swayne’s home, removing ‘offensive’ posters and stickers, along with a copy of an academic book which rejects the notion that children can change sex.

Writing in The Times, Jawad Iqbal commented, ‘The only offence on display in this sorry tale is the obvious waste of police time and resources.’

Banned ‘abortion reversal’ doctor takes his case to the High Court

An NHS doctor who was banned from saving unborn babies has taken his case to the High Court to reverse the 18-month sanction.

Dr Dermot Kearney, a former President of the Catholic Medical Association (UK), was barred from providing emergency abortion pill rescue therapy (APR).

He was banned for up to 18 months by an Interim Orders Tribunal, following a referral from the General Medical Council (GMC).

The therapy involves administering the natural hormone progesterone to a pregnant woman who wishes to urgently reverse the effects of the first abortion pill, mifepristone.

Since the introduction of ‘pills by post’ abortion, which was originally brought in during the 2020 lockdown but has not been revoked, many women have instantly regretted taking the first abortion pill.

Instead of taking the second pill, many have sought emergency support to save their pregnancy.

To date, 32 women who received APR treatment from Dr Kearney have given birth to healthy babies. But the ban was slapped on him in May 2021 by the GMC.

Supported by the Christian Legal Centre (CLC), Dr Kearney’s case hearing began on 24 February at the Royal Courts of Justice.

Andrea Williams, chief executive of the CLC, said, ‘The ban on Dr Kearney is wrong and should be reversed.

‘We have seen many women immediately regret taking the first abortion pill. Dr Kearney offers the possibility of saving the pregnancy when this happens. He should have the freedom to do it.

‘Abortion providers are putting women on a conveyer belt which means once they start the abortion process, they have to go through with it and are pressured to do so or left with no alternatives.

‘Women should be properly informed, as a matter of course, that the baby’s death is not inevitable after the first pill is taken.

‘Women who immediately regret taking the first abortion pill and who urgently need support to try and save the pregnancy are being denied access to care due to this ban. Many women feel unbelievably grateful to Dr Kearney for helping them to save their babies.’

Christian barrister calls for police forces to embrace a ‘Street Preachers Charter’

Christian barrister Paul Diamond has called on police forces to adopt a ‘Street Preachers Charter’ to halt the rise in the number of evangelists being arrested.

In a letter to the College of Policing’s CEO, chief constable Andy Marsh, Diamond says officers must not clamp down on lawful speech.

Diamond says ordinary police officers on the beat are placed under great pressure, especially when resources are stretched.

He believes they are pressed into taking action, and often ‘it’s simpler for them to arrest and move on to the next job’.

In recent years there have been a number of arrests involving street preachers which have given rise to debates about free speech.

It is not uncommon for street preachers to have been arrested and detained for hours in police cells, then released without charge or later exonerated in the courts.

In some cases, they have received thousands of pounds in compensation for wrongful arrest and detention.

Diamond says a charter would seek to ‘educate both sides’ and would include things like definitions on ‘what is free speech, what controversial free speech is, and what is unique about religious free speech’.

He says the charter would also assist street preachers in understanding the law.

Once set up, Diamond hopes to promote the Charter through a variety of national churches and Christian charities.

He would then encourage street evangelists to sign up so that future preaching could be robust, within the law, but also offered with grace and enacted as good ambassadors of the Church.

Christian parents push for judicial review of trans teaching in schools

A Christian couple have been given permission by the Royal Courts of Justice to proceed with a judicial review over extreme trans policies in primary schools.

The High Court heard the challenge from Nigel and Sally Rowe against the Department for Education (DfE) for failing to intervene in their case.

The situation began in 2017 when the family, from the Isle of Wight, questioned their son’s primary school’s wholesale adoption of trans affirming policies.

Nigel Rowe, 48, and his wife Sally, 46, attended the Royal Courts of Justice early in February, and have welcomed the judges’ decision to allow them to go ahead with their legal action.

The Rowes are pursuing the action over the DfE’s refusal to intervene in their case and its promotion of what lawyers describe as ‘politically partisan’ Cornwall Schools Transgender Guidelines.

The policies provide schools, teachers, and governors with guidance on how transgender ideology can be embedded into the fabric of a school’s culture.

But in 2017 the Rowes questioned the effect such policies were having in primary schools after their six-year-old son came home from school confused that a boy in his class had begun inconsistently wearing a dress and identifying as a girl.

Their eldest son had faced a similar issue two years previously at the same school and had to be withdrawn.

The boys’ father said, ‘This is not just about boys wearing dresses. This case is about an ideology that is now embedded in schools, local authorities, and Church of England leadership, and is causing serious long-term harm to thousands of children.’

Grace Baptist church plant in Alloa

Grace Baptist Partnership has received far more enquiries about the Stirling, Falkirk, Linlithgow area than any other, by far.

The usual enquiry is, ‘Where can I find a local church that is faithful to Scripture?’

People in that area will travel many miles to find sound fellowship. This means either the people there are particularly fussy, or that the area is underrepresented by good churches.

Grace Baptist Church Edinburgh was able to facilitate a church plant last summer, and we’re delighted that a small group of disciples have constituted as Grace Baptist Church Alloa.

Commitment to love, unity, and warmth, combined with expository preaching and sincere worship are encouraging new shoots in barren ground. We are grateful for God’s grace at work.

I will be serving as interim pastor while continuing at Grace Baptist Edinburgh.

With 40,000 people within three miles of the Alloa meeting, there is very much work to be done.

Prayers for a concerted week of evangelism in March, for suitable long-term accommodation, and for a pastor to take the work forward long-term are greatly appreciated.

Ali MacLachlan

Free Presbyterian church building opened in County Tyrone

A new page was recently turned in the history of Clogher Valley, Northern Ireland.

For the last year or so, anyone travelling along the A4 between Fivemiletown and Clogher will have spotted building work as the new meeting house at Clogher Valley Free Presbyterian Church gradually took form.

Last October, the Moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church, Revd John Armstrong, accepted the keys from the builder, Mr Lester Weir, and officially opened the new meeting house to the glory of God.

Shortly thereafter the congregation held their first Lord’s day worship service in the new meeting house. Revd Peter McIntyre, minister of CVFPC, used the service to preach from 2 Chronicles 29 about the doors of the temple being reopened and repaired.

He challenged the congregation to use the day of new beginnings to mark a restoration in their spiritual lives.

This has been a long journey in every sense. The congregation started underneath a tree, moved to a wooden building on the current site, and then opened its former meeting house in 1977. But now God has blessed us with a new meeting house, a church hall, and a new kitchen.

The new meeting house has a modern heating and ventilation system, new insulation, and technology to allow meetings to be broadcast online and to adjoining buildings.

God has blessed us in so many ways. Our workers were kept safe. The work progressed and materials were bought before the price rises we’ve seen in recent months.

Most significantly, God blessed us with a team of people who wanted to build a meeting house for God’s glory, and they gave sacrificially in every sense of the word.

Revd Peter McIntyre

Retirement service for Revd William Macleod

Last November, Knightswood Church in Glasgow was filled with around 100 people to mark the retirement of Revd William Macleod.

Ordained and inducted to Partick, Glasgow, in October 1976, he served the Lord there for 16 years before moving to the Isle of Skye where he ministered in Portree.

He returned to Glasgow in 2006 and passed the remainder of his pastoral ministry in Knightswood (formerly Thornwood).

Proceedings began with worship led by Revd Graeme Craig, the congregation’s new Interim Moderator, who preached from Galatians 1:24: ‘And they glorified God in me.’

In his testimony to the Galatians, Paul spoke of how true honour is rendered to someone when God is glorified in them.

The churches of Judea glorified God in Paul’s conversion and in Paul’s ministry. Every person converted to Christ, including Paul, is a trophy of God’s grace and power.

Yet although believers (and ministers) are dependent on sovereign grace and power, this does not deny human responsibility. We are to stir up the gift of God within us.

Thanksgiving for God’s grace to the church in providing Mr Macleod as a minister was evident throughout the evening.

After a supper provided by the ladies of the congregation, a variety of speakers were heard and greetings read. These all showed the high esteem in which Mr Macleod is held.

Thanks were expressed for his careful, passionate preaching and his heartfelt desire for the conversion of souls.

Fellow ministers also spoke with appreciation of the wise advice Mr Macleod was ready to impart, especially in the early days of their ministry. The warm hospitality of the manse and the loving support of Mrs Marion Macleod were also recognised.

Presentations were made to Mr and Mrs Macleod before Mr Macleod spoke of God’s goodness to him, of his thoughts of the ministry from a young age, and of the Lord’s goodness to him in various pastorates.

The evening ended with the singing of Psalm 116:1-7 (a favourite passage of Mr Macleod) and prayer.

It was a time of thanksgiving tinged with sadness for the Knightswood congregation.

It is the prayer of many that the Lord will continue to use Mr and Mrs Macleod in the work of the gospel and that in the Lord’s own time he will provide a new pastor for the flock at Knightswood.

Revd Graeme Craig

A Christian headteacher reflects on 50 years of state education

Last November the 50th anniversary of the Association of Christian Teachers was marked by an online lecture from Alun Ebenezer, executive headmaster of The Fulham Boys’ School and preacher at Amyand Park Chapel.

His subject was, ‘Is there a place for Christianity in Education? An analysis of the shifting cultural sands of the past 50 years.’

Alun spoke first of changes in education over the last 50 years. He singled out Sex and Relationships education as one area that’s undergone radical alteration.

Increasingly younger pupils are exposed to increasingly explicit content about sexuality. The teaching of LGBT ideology has also risen significantly in recent decades: ‘Probably one of the biggest changes over the last fifty years,’ said Alun.

More positively, Alun highlighted that equality, inclusivity, and tolerance have become established mantras in education.

‘Every child in our schools, no matter their ethnicity or background, has to be treated equally… the days of entitlement and privilege in education are coming to an end.’

Alun’s Christian faith came to the fore when he spoke of what has not changed over the last half century.

‘God hasn’t changed. He is still sovereign. The whole world, including education, is still in his hands,’ said Alun, ‘and God still speaks through the Bible, which also hasn’t changed.’

The reality of sin, even among children, also remains unchanged: ‘In my 24-year career, I’ve never had to teach a child to be lazy, lie, punch, kick, push in, answer back – children are “wonderfully made” but born in sin.’

Alun also remarked how Jesus Christ hasn’t changed. ‘He still doesn’t despise little ones. He’s kind, he’s loving, he’s forgiving. He still welcomes children.’

Speaking to an audience of Christians involved in education, Alun concluded his talk with some challenges.

‘What needs to change? We do. Christians in education need to change. We need to be better. We have a responsibility to do what we do well, because we are doing it in the name of the Lord Jesus.’

People, including children, are ‘looking for a better message’ than what secular society can offer, says Alun. ‘Children have questions about the environment, identity, Covid; and Christian teachers can shed biblical light on these issues.’

Moreover, Alun called upon Christian teachers to be ‘braver’ and to beware of a ‘bunker mentality’ because of the spiritual decline in society.

Referring to Romans 1, Alun challenged his hearers ‘not to be ashamed of the gospel… as a group of teachers we need to say to the education world, we are not ashamed of the gospel’.

John Tredgett

‘What is an evangelical?’ and other topics explored at ‘informative and stimulating’ Westminster Conference

It was encouraging to meet again last December, especially after the cancellation of the in-person 2020 conference due to the pandemic.

About 80 attendees met at the accessible and comfortable Salvation Army venue of Regent Hall in Oxford Street, London.

Two of the speakers were unable to join us personally because of coronavirus and so spoke via Zoom on a big screen.

The resulting line-up was Andrew Roycroft (Portadown) on Stephen Charnock’s work, The New Birth; Stephen Clark (Cyprus) on ‘What is an evangelical?’; Philip Haynes (Cardiff) on ‘The Marrow Controversy’, concerning the free offer of the gospel in 18th-century Scotland; Jeremy Walker (Crawley) on ‘Revival and preaching’; Paul Wells (Liverpool) on ‘The Huguenots and taking up arms’; and Gary Brady (London) on ‘Benjamin Beddome’.

All sessions except the last were followed by discussion. The papers were informative, stimulating, well prepared, and well delivered.

The first, on regeneration, was profound and doxological; the last, on Beddome, refreshing in approach and presentation.

Each paper is limited for time and scope, and not everything can be covered.

The following after-thoughts are not criticisms but personal reflections (order as above): What are the practical implications of regeneration for the ordo salutis?

Even though ‘evangelical’ is now a diluted term, how can we best contend for its essence?

Did some ministers opposing the ‘marrow men’ have biblically legitimate concerns?

Is our notion of ‘revival’ as biblically based as it should be?

Do we realise that ‘taking up arms’ is a potentially dangerous subject, even when considered in an historical context?

Did Beddome view the sudden increases in his congregation as ‘revival’ and did he leave any indication of its inward impact on him?

The 2022 conference will be held, God willing, on 6-7 December (westminsterconference.co.uk).

Roger Fay

End of year wake-up call at Trinitarian Bible Society event

The annual Trinitarian Bible Society deputation meeting to the Presbyterian Reformed Church, Stockon-on-Tees, took place on 30 November via Zoom.

Our regional TBS representative, Revd Craig Dennison, gave a most heart-warming address on the verse, ‘How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth’ (Psalm 119:103).

We were reminded of the challenge to have an appetite for the Word of God and how pleasant it is to taste the truth concerning the Lord Jesus Christ.

The extensiveness of the work of the TBS to put Bibles into the hands of those in many countries who would otherwise go without the Scriptures was brought home.

It was of particular interest to hear of the work in the Democratic Republic of Congo because some years ago our congregation had several asylum-seekers from the DRC.

One of these could speak no English at first but sat through the services with a beaming smile, just so glad to be in the house of God. It was quite a challenge to see his determination to learn English and participate.

Towards the close of Revd Dennison’s address, the importance of the reliability of Bible translations was shown in light of Communist Chinese authorities rewriting the Bible to include Jesus saying, ‘I too am a sinner.’

It underlined for me how diligent we must be about the accuracy of translations.

Roy Mohon

‘Cutting it Straight’ holds first conference near Nottingham

Last November, Jacksdale and Selston Community Church (near Nottingham) hosted its inaugural Cutting it Straight conference. The focus was, ‘The gospel – the power of God to salvation.’

The event was opened by Geoff Thomas, who preached a sweet gospel message from Hebrews 1 on the Christ who purged our sins. We were encouraged to do nothing but look to the cross of Christ.

The second day of the conference comprised four sessions of gospel-focused material.

Russell Clarke opened the day by looking at ‘gospel confusion’, reviewing the many heresies that Satan has used to try and unsettle the church through the ages.

Jeremy Walker followed with two sessions addressing gospel assumptions (the substance of the gospel) and gospel actions (the preaching of the gospel), taking texts from 2 Corinthians 5 and Acts 17 to encourage the congregation.

Over lunch, Jeremy also gave a ‘history nugget’, showing how the likes of Andrew Fuller, John Ryland Jr, and William Carey joined in battling hyper-Calvinism and preached the sovereign grace of God in Christ in their own God-given styles.

Ryan Clarke concluded the ministry with a sermon on gospel expectations, declaring that the gospel continues to be ‘the power of God to salvation’ as much today as ever.

The second and final day of the conference was rounded off with a time of fellowship, with a bring-and-share meal enjoyed by all.

Ryan Clarke

US: YouTube says two-minute John MacArthur sermon clip ‘violates our hate speech policy’

A video clip from a sermon preached by American pastor John MacArthur has been labelled as ‘hate speech’ by tech giant YouTube.

The two-minute snippet from a sermon about biblical sexuality was uploaded by talk show host Todd Starnes.

The clip featured John MacArthur saying, ‘There is no such thing as transgender. You are either XX or XY, that’s it.

‘God made man male and female. That is determined genetically; that is physiology, that is science, that is reality.’

But after uploading the clip, Starnes received a message from YouTube saying, ‘Our team has reviewed your content, and, unfortunately, we think it violates our hate speech policy.’

However, the full sermon preached by John MacArthur has been uploaded to YouTube on the ‘Grace To You’ channel, and has not been censored.

MacArthur’s sermon, entitled ‘Such Were Some of You’, was preached in response to a new Canadian law banning so-called ‘conversion therapy’.

The Canadian law, known as Bill C-4, could limit the right of Christian pastors to preach on biblical sexual ethics.

Religious liberty lawyer Jenna Ellis criticised YouTube for labelling the John MacArthur video clip as ‘hate speech’.

She said, ‘The big tech oligarchy in the United States is implementing the equivalent of Canada’s insane law by censoring truth and the right of pastors to teach the Bible.

‘If Americans don’t stop big tech, this new regime will circumvent the Constitution to foreclose our fundamental rights to speak and exercise religion, and the impact will be devastating.

‘I stand with John MacArthur and all pastors across the world who are simply standing firm and teaching biblical truth, and I will continue to fight to protect the church in America.’

In the two-minute video clip uploaded by Todd Starnes, John MacArthur said, ‘This notion that you are something other than your biology is a cultural construct intended as an assault on God.

‘The only way you can address it honestly is to say, “God made you and God made you exactly the way he wanted you to be.”

‘You are not only fighting God in his physical creation, you are fighting God in his sovereignty. You are fighting God in his spiritual relationship to you. This is a war on God.’

Here in the UK, the government is proposing new laws to regulate the internet. Religious liberty campaigners are concerned that the Online Safety Bill may lead to the censorship of Christian beliefs.

China: Regime must not be allowed to ‘sportswash’ religious abuses during the 2022 Winter Olympics

Christians and all human rights advocates should refuse to let China ‘sportswash’ its religious freedom abuses in China as the Winter Olympics take place.

This is the stark message from Paul Robinson, chief executive of global advocacy organisation Release International, which supports persecuted Christians around the world.

The Winter Olympics took centre stage in the sporting calendar in February, with the Paralympics to take place during March.

Robinson said that the three billion people watching the events were ‘three billion opportunities to highlight the truth about how China is persecuting its religious minorities’.

The decision to allow China to stage the Olympics has divided world opinion, with the communist country standing accused of genocide of its Uyghur peoples.

According to human rights organisations such as Amnesty International, a million or more of these mainly Muslim people have been rounded up into camps for ‘re-education’ through labour.

Mr Robinson said China is also acknowledged as one of the worst persecutors of Christians in the world.

It has been named as a country of particular concern by Release International and the US State Department, and stands accused of ‘sportswashing’ its human rights abuses to try to gain legitimacy.

Robinson said, ‘We’re calling for prayer that the international spotlight on China will highlight the day-to-day reality facing many who are suffering for their faith, and that fresh pressure will be applied to finally allow full religious freedom for all China’s citizens.’

One Release International partner, who lives in the US, has declared the games to be a ‘gigantic propaganda show in the city of Beijing’ to showcase the Chinese Communist party.

Bob Fu said he backs a boycott of the Games and is calling for those who do attend to ‘use every occasion, opportunity and gesture to register solidarity with the victims’.

Mr Fu, a former Tiananmen Square democracy protester now in exile in the United States, likened the Games to the 1936 Olympics in Hitler’s Germany, which were staged to legitimise the Nazi regime.

Now a key figure for China Aid, Mr Fu claimed that by locking up Uyghurs in huge compounds ‘China has committed genocide, crimes against humanity’. He likened these massive centres to ‘modern-day concentration camps’.

Countries that have announced diplomatic boycotts of the Winter Olympics include the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and Lithuania.

As reported many times in ET, China has demolished churches, torn down crosses, replaced church leaders with those approved by the state, imprisoned others, and installed advanced face-recognition cameras around places of worship to monitor congregations.

Ukraine: Christians ready to flee from the Russian border

Christian organisations of every denomination have called for prayers for Ukraine as escalating Russian military activity on the border have sent local churches into flight mode.

Various countries, including the US and UK, have publicly denounced Russian military activity, while Ukraine’s Defence Minister Danilov has warned that Russia has about 127,000 troops on the border.

At the time this edition of ET going to press, the situation on the border of Ukraine was fraught, and fears of war have caused significant concern to evangelical churches in Ukraine.

According to the Fellowship of European Broadcasters, an evangelism campaign began in East Ukraine in December organised by the Great Commission Media Ministries (GCMM).

But the campaign office and the call centre are headquartered just 10 miles from active military activity, and partnering churches in the area have advised their members to prepare for a possible evacuation.

One pastor has told his congregation: ‘Keep your bag packed with warm clothes, ID, food, and if you have a car, extra fuel.’

In January the European Union’s OSCE Special Monitoring Mission reported 343 ceasefire violations (artillery fire) by Russian-backed forces in the same area where one GCMM team member was ministering to villagers and soldiers on the front line.

Evangelicals make up approximately two per cent of the population in Ukraine, which has a strong Catholic and Orthodox presence.

But updates from Operation Mobilisation (OM) have shown that, since the military action in 2013, there was a ‘fresh push of Evangelicals toward evangelism and reacting to the human tragedy caused by the war’.

‘Church planting movements are being established and people are open to the Gospel,’ OM added.

But with the possibility of war on the borders again, Christians of every denomination have called on world powers to pursue peace.

The Baptist Press (BP) reported that Protestant churches in the west of Ukraine are preparing for an influx of refugees.

A Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary graduate who now leads a Baptist seminary in Ukraine, told the BP that Baptists in western Ukraine have made plans to shelter fellow believers in the case of a Russian invasion at the eastern border.

Finland: Helsinki court hears trial of Christian MP accused of posting a Bible verse on Twitter about marriage and sexuality

A criminal court in Helsinki has heard the case of Finnish Member of Parliament, Päivi Räsänen, who is being prosecuted for expressing Christian beliefs about marriage and sexuality.

‘The case began as too many of today’s assaults on free speech do: with a tweet,’ wrote Sofia Hörder, Communications Officer for Alliance Defending Freedom International in The Critic.

‘Räsänen is a member of the Lutheran state church. When she discovered that her church had become an official sponsor of the Pride parade in 2019, she questioned their decision by posting a picture of a Bible verse.

‘Then the police knocked on her door. Since she was charged with hate speech, her prosecutors have unearthed more “evidence” of her misdeeds.

‘They clipped a sound bite from a 2019 radio interview and dug up a church pamphlet she authored almost twenty years ago. For publishing this pamphlet for his congregation, Bishop Juhana Pohjola also faces trial.’

In the trial’s opening arguments, Finnish prosecutors described quotations from the Bible as ‘hate speech’.

Finland’s top prosecutor’s office essentially put the Bible on trial, an unprecedented move for a secular court, said Paul Coleman, a human rights lawyer with ADF International who is assisting in the Finns’ legal defence and was present during the trial.

‘The prosecutor began the day by trying to explain that this case was not about beliefs and the Bible. She then, and I’m not kidding, she then proceeded to quote Old Testament Bible verses,’ Coleman said in a phone interview with The Federalist.

‘Trial attorneys, Finnish trial attorneys who have been in and out of court every day for years, said they didn’t think the Bible had ever been read out like that in a prosecution.’

Australia: Christian schools under fire for upholding the Bible’s teaching

Christian schools in Australia have come under fire for upholding the Bible’s teaching on sexual ethics.

One school, Citipointe Christian College, has been attacked for asking parents to sign a document saying homosexuality is a sin.

The principal of the college has since stepped away from his role after politicians condemned the actions of the institution.

And Penrith Christian School, a private school in Sydney, has been criticised for having a statement of faith which says same-sex relationships are not acceptable.

Head of Penrith Christian School Tracey Deal sent a letter to parents in response to the situation.

The letter read, ‘It is disappointing that the media have misunderstood and misinterpreted a small part of the Statement of Faith and inferred mistreatment of students.’

The initial statement – which is attached to all enrolment applications – says: ‘Adultery, same sex attraction, transgender identity, premarital sex, sexual acts between members of the same sex and abusive relationships, are all examples of relationships and behaviours which are not acceptable to God.

‘Sexual relationships should be exercised exclusively in a marital relationship between a male and female.’

Burkina Faso: Coup is ‘worrying’ for Christians

The military coup in Burkina Faso has made an already fragile situation even worse for Christians, religious freedom observers say.

The country was already ‘unstable’ due to a string of attacks from terrorist groups Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Illia Djadi, who works with Christian persecution charity Open Doors UK, has been keeping a close eye on the situation.

He said, ‘This is indeed a worrying development from a country already hit by Islamist insurgency, and one that will eventually turn into a humanitarian disaster.

‘Our fear is to see a country already made fragile by Islamist insurgency become more fragile and that this crisis will only deepen within the country.’

OBITUARIES

Jim Handyside (1930–2021)

Jim Handyside, former pastor of Reformed Baptist Church of Anniesland, Glasgow, passed away last October, aged 91.

He was born in Clydebank in April 1930 and grew up in a working-class family. He experienced the Clydebank Blitz in 1941.

Jim began employment as a printer’s apprentice while also pursuing competitive cycling and music (he was a drummer in a jazz ensemble). Jim also served two years in the RAF.

During this period he remained a stranger to the grace of God, not having heard a clear presentation of the gospel.

However, Jim was wonderfully converted to Christ in August 1957, having been influenced by the witness of his wife Chrissie and his brother Bobby.

Jim became involved with the Open Air Team formed by the well-known evangelist, Raymond McKeown.

Eventually, Jim had his own small group of young people travelling to different locations in Scotland for outreach. Jim was further influenced by the Scottish Covenanters in terms of their devotion, zeal, and theology.

This fellowship of witnessing and praying young people formed the nucleus of Reformed Baptist Church of Anniesland, where Jim laboured for over forty years.

The ministry there has been marked by clear biblical preaching with a strong emphasis on personal and corporate prayer, as well as evangelistic and missionary outreach.

The church sent out missionaries to South America, and Jim himself was active in fruitful overseas work in eastern Europe and India.

Jim also travelled to the USA annually for many years, both to preach and to provide counsel to young preachers.

A man of strong conviction and courage, Jim stood for the truth of God’s sovereign grace during a time of doctrinal and methodological declension.

As an old Covenanter born out of time, only eternity will show the fruit of Jim’s labours.

He is survived by his loving, loyal, and godly wife Chrissie, his brother Bobby, four adult children, and numerous grandchildren.

Andy Hamilton

REVIEWS

Brave by Faith: God-sized confidence in a post-Christian world

Alistair Begg

The Good Book Company

128 pages; £7.99

ISBN: 978-1-78498-610-0

BUY

This short, stirring exhortation based on the story of Daniel is a book which no 21st century Christian should miss.

Although an atheist, the late Tony Benn was fond of quoting his childhood memory (mine too!) of the hymn ‘Dare to be a Daniel – dare to stand alone’. But not many Christians would fail to spot the Hebrews 11 implication in this book’s title: this bravery is only ‘by faith’. Alistair Begg rightly states that without faith in a great God, such daring amounts to nothing. ‘So the real emphasis… is not so much Daniel as God. You and I will only live brave like Daniel did if first we know the God who Daniel did’ (p.27).

As residual knowledge of Daniel’s God is fading fast in our post-Christian society, a Christian who is living bravely by faith will suddenly stand in stark contrast to prevailing culture. Quoting Tim Keller, Begg agrees that the new era we live in ‘knows no social benefit to being Christian, but an actual social cost’ (p.12).

Daniel in the lions’ den and his friends in the fiery furnace therefore present us with the perfect template for transitioning from life with benefit to living with a heavy social cost. Christians have got to learn that living for Christ is not a pragmatic option for maximising their own social good. Rather, ‘We are not called to be pragmatic but faithful: to say, God has said this, and so I will do it’ (p.55).

In a culture which we sense is triumphantly cocking a snook at God, Begg insists we remember Belshazzar, who, in his decadent debauchery, mockingly played with sacred vessels and ‘took the arrogance and mockery up a notch’ (pp. 76-77) to praise the created and debunk the Creator. Quoting Sinclair Ferguson on the den of lions, Begg asserts, ‘This was the hand of the kingdom of darkness seeking to annihilate the kingdom of God’ (p.99). But another hand is always at work. All it took was for God to lift a finger, and the lions’ mouths were shut. And for Belshazzar the writing was on the wall, and party time became the night of judgment.

In an up-to-the-minute challenge, Begg says that our Afghan brothers and sisters have already answered the question which is now posed to us all: ‘Is there anything I would die for?’ (p.95).

Those who have heard the author preach will know this is vintage Alistair Begg: punchy, biblically saturated, wonderfully allusive, and gripping. Don’t miss this book!

Roy Mellor

Bicester, Oxfordshire

Recovering the Lost Art of Reading: A quest for the true, the good, and the beautiful

Leland Ryken & Glenda Faye Mathes

Crossway Books

304 pages; £17.50

ISBN: 978-1-43356-427-7

BUY

The fact that you are reading about this book which I read about reading suggests that you might be a reader. That gives you a head start: I doubt many but committed readers will get through 300 pages about the art of reading.

The first 50 of those consider reading as an art which has been lost; so far, so straightforwardly tight to the title. It is hard to deny the suggestions and conclusions about these challenges we face.

The next hundred pages survey several literary genres (stories, poems, novels, fantasy, children’s books, creative non-fiction, and the Bible). Encouragements are given as to how we read each of these categories, with some discussion of the relative merits or limitations of each.

Despite the authors’ proper qualifications, I am not comfortable with classifying the Bible as another category of literature: it diminishes the Word of God, which should have been set apart by itself, without denying its literary merits.

The balance of the book is given over to those overarching questions of truth, goodness, and beauty. The truth seems to be that of ‘simple, bedrock ideas’ which order human affairs. Concerning goodness, ‘the ultimate determiner of moral influence rests with readers’. Beauty is a matter of artistry and the causing of pleasure – a reflection of God, and a function of our likeness to him.

A further discussion of literary excellence follows, as well as the issue of how we can read, and the spiritual dynamics of doing so. The Bible seems somewhat remote from this discussion, rather than the touchstone of truth, goodness, and beauty. For those who don’t quite trust C. S. Lewis, even when we appreciate him, the reliance throughout on Lewis as our guide to the literary, and the true, good, and beautiful, may seem excessive.

For literature students at A-level or working toward a degree, this is a helpful counterpoint to manifestly secular treatments of literature. It will assist in organising thought and providing a reference point with which to inform arguments from a more Christian perspective. There is a great deal here to stimulate or engage, but there remains a nagging suggestion of art for art’s sake.

I would love to see the Bible more manifestly centred here as the ‘norming norm’, the point from which we can truly measure truth, goodness, and beauty. I am far from suggesting that the Bible and theological works are the only books we ought to read, but I would like to see this question addressed through a more immediately scriptural lens.

Jeremy Walker

Crawley, West Sussex

Into All the World: The missionary vision of Luther and Calvin

Lindsay Brown

Christian Focus Publications

128 pages; £8.99

ISBN: 978-1-52710-422-8

BUY

This little book is an enthusiastic introduction to the 16th century Reformation and its impact, both at the time and right up to the present day.

Starting with a brief sketch of the doctrinal rediscoveries, Brown moves quickly on to describe the impact of the movement in terms of engagement with every area of life – from music to banking, and universities to the visual arts. Luther and Calvin are chiefly in view, but the author mentions a whole array of interesting characters and developments.

The brevity of the book is both its strength and its weakness. It covers a great deal of material in a very short compass, from references to Reformation forerunners right through to missionary expansion in the 20th century. At best this leaves you hungry to learn more; the downside is that no particular topic gets more than a cursory treatment.

A unifying thread is the passionate contention that, contrary to popular misconception, the Reformers were not disinterested in mission, but actually oversaw a great missionary expansion as gospel truth spread throughout Europe. Another frequent note is the need for the church to truly engage with the world in which we live, neither retreating into isolation nor mindlessly assimilating.

The final chapter contains ten lessons for today, including the need to recapture the wonder of the gospel, a confidence in the Scriptures, the value of teamwork, and the gospel opportunities presented by both university students and migrants.

This is a stimulating little book and might be a great primer for someone new to the subject, or as a refresher. Brown’s enthusiasm for his subject is infectious, and should dispel forever the idea that either doctrine or history is irrelevant to everyday life.

Phil Heaps

Highbury, London

Saved from What

R. C. Sproul

Ligonier Ministries

127 pages; £7.99

ISBN: 978-1-64289-299-4

BUY

This very manageable read packs in a remarkable scope and depth of sound biblical truth on the subject of salvation. It is a book that can equally be given to friends as an introductory evangelistic tract to begin to arouse interest and concern about their salvation, or to those professing salvation to take them deeper into what it actually means to be saved.

By presenting the concept that salvation is primarily from God himself, of God himself, and for God himself, Sproul exposes and cuts through many of the popular misconceptions of our day concerning who God is, who we are, and what God has to do to put us right with himself. The subject is brought to a glorious conclusion as it reflects on the meaning of what the ultimate end is in salvation: to ‘see’ God as he is.

Perhaps more could have been made of salvation as the process of being saved from the power and practice of sin – though mention is made of our being adopted into the family of God by our union with Christ, which alienates us from the world and is symbolised by baptism.

Readers without much background in church history or theological terminology will be introduced to some of the great controversies in the church such as those between Augustine and Pelagius, Luther and Erasmus, and the difference between expiation and propitiation. Hopefully these will not prove off-putting for the uninitiated, but will rather spur them on to delve deeper and read more widely on the subject in hand.

Grahame Wray

Leeds

A London Sparrow: The inspiring and true story of Gladys Aylward

Phyllis Thompson

10 Publishing

240 pages; £9.99

ISBN: 978-1-91327-826-7

BUY

‘Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow, or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them’ (Matthew 6:26 NIV).

Gladys Aylward, or Ai Weh Teh, meaning ‘virtuous one’, was an unlikely candidate to be a missionary in China. She had left school at the age of 14, never passed any exams, and had never travelled further from London than the Isle of Wight. After being turned down by the China Inland Mission, she still believed that it was God’s plan for her to go to China, so she started to save her money. This is an amazing story of how God provided for this ‘London sparrow’ throughout her life.

After being inspired by other books about her missionary life, I was intrigued to read this new and well-researched title. The author spoke with Miss Aylward’s relatives and friends and had also met her in person. A London Sparrow recounts not only her time in China, but also when she had to return to England and her final years in Taiwan. This little but determined lady revealed her trust in God as she escaped a war in China with about 100 children in tow, stopped a riot in a prison, and cared for lepers in Taiwan.

There are parts of Miss Aylward’s life that seem to be skipped over too quickly. The author also writes that Aylward ‘preached’ to many, particularly during her time in Taiwan, but doesn’t comment on the context and whether this was in accordance with Scripture.

Otherwise, it is a well-written and easy read that will appeal to older children and adults alike. I was left in awe as to how God often uses the weak to bring himself glory.

Sarah Woollin

Grand Rapids, Michigan

Table of Contents

FEATURES

Faith amid fear: losing my husband to cancer

The Huguenot massacre and the case for dissidence

‘Safe to be me’

What is our theology?

Ten questions on worship

Jesus the master craftsman

COMMENT

GUEST COLUMN: A Spring of Living Water

A SHRINK THINKS... Physical or mental? Part two

THINKING IT THROUGH: What is a missionary?

A WALK WITH MR O: Then and now

CRUNCH POINTS: How far can we go with scientists on global warming?

NEWS

News in brief

Christian beliefs may be censored on the internet by the Online Safety Bill

It should become a crime to call for ‘repentance’, say Humanists

Exclusive interview with pastor pushed out of his school caretaker job over gay pride tweet

Concerns grow over instances of police officers being sent to visit people’s homes to ‘check their thinking’

Banned ‘abortion reversal’ doctor takes his case to the High Court

Christian barrister calls for police forces to embrace a ‘Street Preachers Charter’

Christian parents push for judicial review of trans teaching in schools

Grace Baptist church plant in Alloa

Free Presbyterian church building opened in County Tyrone

Retirement service for Revd William Macleod

A Christian headteacher reflects on 50 years of state education

‘What is an evangelical?’ and other topics explored at ‘informative and stimulating’ Westminster Conference

End of year wake-up call at Trinitarian Bible Society event

‘Cutting it Straight’ holds first conference near Nottingham

US: YouTube says two-minute John MacArthur sermon clip ‘violates our hate speech policy’

China: Regime must not be allowed to ‘sportswash’ religious abuses during the 2022 Winter Olympics

Ukraine: Christians ready to flee from the Russian border

Finland: Helsinki court hears trial of Christian MP accused of posting a Bible verse on Twitter about marriage and sexuality

Australia: Christian schools under fire for upholding the Bible’s teaching

Burkina Faso: Coup is ‘worrying’ for Christians

OBITUARIES

Jim Handyside (1930–2021)

REVIEWS

Brave by Faith: God-sized confidence in a post-Christian world

Recovering the Lost Art of Reading: A quest for the true, the good, and the beautiful

Into All the World: The missionary vision of Luther and Calvin

Saved from What

A London Sparrow: The inspiring and true story of Gladys Aylward