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Pretty much anyone who knows anything about Christianity is able to quote that ‘God is love’ (1 John 4:16), so it’s been commonplace for Christians to avoid saying that God, and Christians, hate anything; how can a Person whose very character is love hate at all?

Well, the Bible unashamedly claims that God ad0pts Christians into his family, so the love of a father to his child is going to be the most easily-applicable analogy out there. Now let’s say that there’s some dangerous dog whose owner is specifically training it to kill this child. Is it right for the father to hate the dog? Or the owner? Or the consequences? How otherwise can God rightly say ‘Every evil of theirs is in Gilgal; there I began to hate them.’ (Hosea 9:15)?

Maybe the analogy isn’t quite perfect (we’re talking about an infinite God beyond our comprehension so I wouldn’t expect it to be!) but maybe Christians should speak out more strongly and more specifically about what God hates? That’s not going to be very popular I know, Christians already get bad enough press for being judgmental, homophobic and prudes but when managed biblically isn’t this exactly what the Old Testament prophets were accused of?

This needs wisdom – I think that ‘Jesus loves pornstars‘ is more biblically accurate than ‘God hates fags’ (I’m not going to link to them) – but it seems to me that the church in the UK falls into one of two camps. One side, in the name of love, simply ignores sin in reaction to societal pressures. The other side has a clear idea of what’s sin and what isn’t, and legalistically pursues righteousness resulting in ‘whitewashed tombs’.

Is there a third way, one which highlights God’s righteous hatred toward sin and therefore shows his love when we realise that his love overcomes that hate? I think that’s a far more powerful message than the command that today’s church has a tendency of giving to God: ‘take me as you find me’.

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Presumption is generally seen as a bad thing, but in truth we all presume something to a certain extent. And presumption on its own is certainly not bad, it’s only bad if it’s incorrect.

So Andrew Wilson has acknowledged that he has presumptions when it comes to his view on women as elders (i.e. that women shouldn’t be elders). But he’s then laid his presumptions out for all to see, critique and comment. They’re available over here, where a little conversation has started, but here they are in summary form:

1. We should presume the Bible is true for everyone until it’s proven it’s only true for some (e.g. ‘fetch the parchments’ 2 Tim 4:13).
2. We should presume that 2,000 years of history is more correct than 20 years of societal change until proven otherwise.
3. We should presume that specific teaching in the Bible is of great importance.
4. We should presume that teaching in the Bible is compatible, however incompatible it may seem.
5. We should presume that if two Christians hold different positions from the same Bible passage, the most counter-cultural is the best.

Obviously he unpacks it all in his original post but hopefully that should give you a flavour.

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Some readers of this blog may find this completely uninteresting, fair enough. See you after the break.

For the rest of you, you may be aware that a guy I’ve always really respected, CJ Mahaney, was accused of a whole bunch of pretty significant stuff getting on for a year or so ago. Because of the society we live in these accusations were made in a wikileaks style viral document, which was quickly circulated among every church leader within the global ministry he oversees, Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM), and all his critics. For examples of the sort of hatred he received (and I wouldn’t waste your time on them), have a look at this blog post, and this one, both of which were written at around that time.

CJ’s immediate response was to resign from his position as Chair of SGM. He said this was so as not to appear to be influencing any response the Board would want to make, but it obviously looked like an immediate admission of guilt.

Tim Challies is a blogger who I really enjoy reading, and he did a great summary at the time of what happened, and what the plans were going forward.

An independent review panel has completed its work, and has issued this report. The conclusions of the report are complicated and not just related to CJ so if you’re interested do go and read it, but in terms of addressing the accusations made in the wikileaks thing it turns out that the guy who raised the concerns in the first place was seeing sin where there was none.

The report by no means paints CJ as some victim or saint, but does come up with the following, significant conclusions:

1. The panels exonerated CJ from any charge that the things he did wrong are areas of unrepentant sin. With respect to [one of the specific situations raised], CJ repented and apologised to the family; with respect to [another], the panel found that the process was handled appropriately (and did not involve CJ); and with respect to his practice of fellowship, they found that his practice was in keeping with the teaching of Scripture.
2. Months ago, an outside panel representing the perspectives of three denominations reviewed the sins CJ confessed – which includes the most serious allegation against him – and advised that they were not grounds for removal from ministry. And in our own internal review with the three panels (comprised of nine SGM pastors), the same conclusion was reached – not one panel recommended that CJ be disqualified from ministry.

So there you have it. CJ confessed and repented of sin in accordance with biblical teaching, and hasn’t done anything to disqualify himself from a ministry position.

I have to admit I am one of the ‘CJ fanboys’ who hopefully expected that this wasn’t the last we’d seen of a man who I’ve experienced to be a wonderful, humble, grace-filled man (not without his faults, but who is?). I was glad to read last week that CJ’s taken this time away to re-evaluate his role in the global church and will be planting another church in the near future.

Soli deo gloria!

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One of the biggest issues around right now is debt; watch TV for half an hour and just see if a lot of adverts aren’t for payday loans, consolidation of loans, weekly payment stores and ‘buy now pay next year’ deals.

So when it comes to giving money to the church, a key question that a lot of people have is surely: How much should I give if I’m in debt?

I’m not giving a definitive answer here, but I’d like to suggest that the answer should be: Nothing yet, lots later. The reason for this answer is that if I’m in debt then the money in my bank account is actually owed to someone else, so (1) whose money am I giving to the church, and (2) how much am I giving to whom?

Before I get into the meat of this post I think it’s worth saying this: if you’re currently in debt so are reading this from a position of real-life experience but look at all the numbers below and think ‘nope, don’t understand it, it’s all too complex,’ I’d encourage you not to bury your head in the sand! If you need, print this post and take it to someone who does understand finances and can apply this to your specific situation.

Maybe an example will be useful. Imagine I’ve borrowed £5,000 to buy a car, and pay back £150 per month at 10% interest per year. My income means that I’m able to give £100 per month to the church. I now have two options:

Option 1 – Give Now

So I’m a bit of a geek and created a spreadsheet to work this all out for me, but if I give £100 per month then over the next 41 months (more than three years) I would have given £4,100 to the church, and £5,882.08 to the lender.

So I’d be down about £10,000, the church would be up about £4,000, and the lender would be up almost £6,000.

Option 2 – Give Nothing Yet

As an alternative, instead of giving that £100 to the church, what would happen if I paid off the loan using it? Well, that way I’d pay off the loan in 22 months instead (so that’s less than two years), and I’d have paid the lender £5,492.44. By planning ahead, drawing up a decent budget, it would be possible therefore to re-engineer my cash over the same period of time (41 months) like this:

I’d be down the same £10,000 or so but the lender would be up less, and the church would be up £4,489.64 – that’s a difference of nearly £400 that could be used to feed the poor.

Conclusion

I’m not for a moment saying not to give; our fallen minds quickly look at the numbers above and think ‘but I could give the same, and keep that £400 for myself!’ What I’m saying is that instead of giving that £100 now, you look at what that £100 is worth over the life of the loan – in this case it’s worth almost twice as much if you pay it off now, so I’d drop an IOU into the pot for £190 per month!

Does that make sense? It does to me.

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39 years ago, 22 January 1973, a controversial court decision in the US changed the way abortion was viewed and addressed. The decision was called Roe v. Wade, and it basically set a precedent meaning that anyone can have an abortion right up to the date of birth, providing that killing the child in the womb would prevent any health issues in the mother. But ‘health’ in this case means any level of health; physical, mental, emotional, financial, anything you want. Obviously having a baby costs money, so the pro-choice advocates placed the choice firmly in the hands of the mother.

In response to Roe v Wade, every 22 January since people have remembered that decision, and have remembered the millions and millions and millions of children who have been killed since (1/3 of all unborn children in the US are killed). Internet articles have appeared all over the place again this year, so I wanted to mention a couple of them.

The Resurgence published a list of 15 things to consider about abortion before drawing a conclusion on it; here are a few:

• Existing fetal homicide laws make a man guilty of manslaughter if he kills the baby in a mother’s womb (except in the case of abortion).
• Living on its own is not the criterion of human personhood, as we know from the use of respirators and dialysis.
• Infants in the womb are human beings scientifically by virtue of their genetic make up.
• Justice dictates that when either of two people must be inconvenienced or hurt to alleviate their united predicament, the one who bore the greater responsibility for the predicament should bear more of the inconvenience or hurt to alleviate it.
• Jesus Christ can forgive all sins and will give all who trust in him the help they need to do everything that life requires.

Also, three sermons preached by John Piper have been made into a short 27-page booklet entitled Exposing the Dark Work of Abortion. Download it for free over here.

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A friend recently told me that there’s far too much teaching in the church and not enough learning, but I read this the other day and was intrigued…here’s a smattering of quotes to whet your appetite:

It seems to me the normal pattern of pastoral ministry should not one of drowning in administration or getting in over your head in meetings or under water in visitation. Normally, the pastor should say of his week, “I was immersed in the public ministry of reading, teaching, and exhorting from the Scriptures.”

From 1549 onward Calvin preached twice on Sundays and every weekday on alternating weeks.

The picture one gets is of a church with a  number of teachers, which would hardly be a necessity were there but a single sermon each week. In fact, if there were but a single sermon each week one could well imagine that all these prophets, teachers, and bishops might get into considerable competition for the pulpit. On the other hand, if there was daily preaching one might be glad to welcome a traveling evangelist from time to time.

A man in the ministry for over ten years who has been a serious student of the Scriptures knows more about any part of the Bible than almost anyone else in his congregation.

Perhaps those quotes on their own have been enough food for thought for one day…or perhaps you’d rather read it all in context over here.

So I do. And it turns out to be a warning that I’ve got low battery. But it feels so good to touch that phone again and slip it back into my pocket. Perhaps I’ll surreptitiously leave it on the table next to my plate in case it buzzes again.

Then someone else takes a quick glance at their phone as they text their ‘real friends’ to organise to go out for drinks after without me. Idiot. How rude. Put your phone away.

Thankfully, this entire situation could be avoided if we all committed to The Phone Stack. Everyone puts their phone in the middle of the table as they arrive – not only are you then constantly reminded of how intrusive mobiles are, but the first person to touch the phones has to pick up the entire bill. Ouch. I like it.

Now, before you hail me as a genius I’d like to point you to the source of this genius idea I’m going to enforce next time I go out anywhere. As you’d expect, there were initial objections but these have all been dealt with over here.

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Dustin Morrison, a soldier in Afghanistan, experienced a horrific explosion and ended up in hospital. It was bad:

You know you’re bad when a broken jaw, lacerated spleen and kidneys aren’t a top priority to address.

His family prayed for him to recover.

On Easter Sunday, doctors finally removed the machines—not to end his life but because they had witnessed a miracle. Against all odds, his lungs began to breathe on their own. When the news came to the family, Pedersen says that their reaction was overjoyed—but not shocked. “It was just like, ‘We know.’” She attributed the recovery in part to the thousands of people who were praying in the small communities of Iowa back home.

Still, the doctors were realistic with Morrison, explaining that despite the miraculous recovery he would never walk again. “I knew if I did,” Morrison says, “it would be of God. I’ve learned never to trust man before God.”

Ultimately, this journey to the shadow of death ended up bringing Dustin a real conviction to live as a Christian rather than just preaching Christianity:

An old friend recently pulled Morrison aside, complaining about his new lifestyle and all that he could be doing instead. “My buddy said, ‘You’re missing out on the some of the best years of your life.’ I said, ‘No, I’m just starting them.’”

Read the full story over here.

Perhaps I’m cynical but I’d have expected far more to lean towards evolution! The most surprising fact for me, however, comes in the detail:

…younger pastors are the least likely age bracket to strongly disagree that the earth is 6,000 years old…24 percent age 18-44 strongly disagree

So, this post-modern, liberal, cynical younger generation of pastors are actually more likely to believe in a ‘young earth’ – who’da thunk it?!