TheVirtualWord

So I have been meaning to post some thoughts on the new BBC sitcom, Rev, but was waiting until I had watched the first three episodes to make fair comment.

But two of my friends have beaten me to it. Glen Scrivener highlights the importance of not being too earnest. He reckons the moralism is punctuated by fairly blunt sex gags and fails to deliver any real edge. He also makes a point which I heartily agree with – we must learn to take God very seriously, and ourselves not too seriously.

Stephen Watkinson in a Facebook Note (so you may not be able to read this link if you are not a friend? Not sure how FB works in this context) observes that the writer seems to know more about the Church of England than about God. He also bemoans the caricature of a ‘charismatic’ (in week 2) and the sub-Biblical virtue of doubt (by this I don’t think Stephen is advocating certainty on all things – but surely at the heart of Biblical Christianity are a number of very important things that we can be certain about.

All I would add to this, is that I love the title character’s prayers – which seem conversational and real and not ‘polished’ – which is surely how we should address our Heavenly Father. And there is also a degree of reality about the ‘on call 24/7′ nature of the ‘job’, and the variety of characters the church seems to attract – which is certainly true in every church I have been a part of. And there is some humour that arrives out of this truth.

A bit of a curate’s egg of comedy then?

One of the things I love about the information revolution is the way it unleashes folks creativity to a wider audience. Here is an excellent video which clearly explains the message of the Gospel in words and pictures.

What is the Gospel? from Southern Seminary on Vimeo.

(With thanks to Tim Chapman who brought it to my attention.)

I have been horrified to read this morning of calls for the execution of Christnas (Muslim converts) made from the floor of the Afghan Parliament. The initial horror is in no way diminished by the fact that this is precisely what we should expect from an Islamic government. The Afghan constitution, based on Islamic Sharia law, clearly calls for the arrest and public execution of anyone who leaves Islam for another religion.

It also calls into question the wisdom of seeking to ‘buy peace’ with the Taliban. President Karzai appears to be pursuing a policy designed to produce a ‘Taliban-friendly’ society. When International forces withdraw, what kind of state will be left? Why does this aspect of the situation in Afghanistan never make the headlines?

Please pray for persecuted Christians in Afghanistan – and for those Afghan Christians who have been forced to flee the country due to the threats against them. And pray against such an oppressive regime establishing itself more firmly.

Recently, I was talking with a friend about the idols that tempt us and lead us into sinful behaviour, and I was struck by some parallels with ‘Boggarts’ in the Harry Potter novels. I don’t know whether I have read this somewhere else, or whether it was a genuine idea – so apologies if I am repeating something someone has said before – as a wise man once said there is nothing new under the sun.

Anyway, for anyone unfamiliar with HP, a boggart is a shape-shifting nasty that takes on the form of its intended victim’s worst fear. For our purposes, the key thing to know is that in order to defend oneself against a boggart, you need to use the spell “Riddikulus” and at the same time think of something very funny or ridiculous.

Now, in a sense, we become fearful of our idols – because we feel trapped by their power – we can feel there is nothing we can do to overcome their hold on us. But a very helpful strategy is to carefully examine that idol and to uncover the lie that it is promoting. As soon as we see how ridulous that lie is – the idol begins to lose something of its power over us.

Of course, we need to confront the lie with the corresponding truth of God’s word. And we cannot do any of this in our own strength or wisdom, but only in the Lord’s. But I think there may be a helpful tool in the armoury here.

I should note that these reflections arose out of a discussion of part of Tim Chester’s extremely helpful book You can change.

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1)

Here is a beautiful song from Sovereign Grace Music with a very moving animation to illustrate the parable.

In a lot of British evangelical preaching, there is a focus on having ‘memorable’ points. The test of a good sermon has become whether or not a listener can recall the points, 1 week or even a month later. There is obviously some benefit in this approach. It will be helpful for truth to be memorable. People are more likely to discuss and reflect on truth if they can remember it. But there may be an even more excellent way…

Some years ago I remember someone (John Piper?) speaking on this subject at the EMA and they made a helpful comparison to music lessons. The aim of a music lesson is not that a week later you can remember you need to press this finger in order to get that note. You actually want the knowledge to have become internalised – you don’t remember the process of learning it necessarily, but you will forever know that pressing this finger has that result.

Of course, there is nothing new under the sun. I have just finished reading, and thoroughly enjoyed Marsden’s awesome biography of Jonathan Edwards. Edwards, famously, is known for the rigour and ruthless logic of his preaching. But here is one of his comments on the subject:

The main benefit that is obtained by preaching is by impression made upon the mind at the time of it, and not by the effect that arises afterwards by a remembrance of what was delivered.

As Marsden comments – “Preaching, in other words, must first of all touch the affections.”

We must never lose sight of the fact that more is going on when we preach than just the transfer of information. We trust and pray that God is at work, by His Holy Spirit, who will be at work in our mind, our hearts and our will.

theVirtualBinaryWord

Just occasionally the author of this site has to reveal his geeky tendencies. And although this is comprehensively off the main topic, when I have tracked down a reliable solution to an annoying technical problem, I like to post it for the benefit of fellow-frustrated-travellers.
On the arrival of our first child, my wife and I splashed out on one of these:

It’s brilliant!  It is so simple even I can use it – you just turn it on and press the big red button to record and then the big red button to stop.  Picture quality is pretty impressive – especially given the size of the unit (barely larger than my mobile phone).  And you can pump it out on an HDMI enabled TV (if you are lucky enough to own one) for glorious results.  But enough of the plug.

My problem was trying to upgrade the bundled FlipShare Software to the latest version (which it kept on asking me to do).  Every time I tried to do it, I got a ‘2738′ error and it didn’t install properly (NB this was running under Vista Home Premium 32 bit version, SP2).  I finally tracked down the following solution:

1. On the Start menu, click All Programs.
2. Click Accessories.
3. Right-click Command Prompt and choose Run as administrator from the shortcut menu.
4. When the User Account Control dialog appears, click Continue.
5. At the command prompt type the following: regsvr32 vbscript.dll
6. Press Enter on your keyboard.
7. A message should appear stating “DllRegisterServer in vbscript.dll succeeded.”
8. Click OK and then install FlipShare again.

Hope it helps anyone in the same boat.

I am rapidly become a big Tim Chester fan. I am reading a couple of his books at the moment and they are a real blessing. Today’s encouragement comes from:

I’ve just had a wonderful reminder of the way humility and assurance are rooted in the Cross of Jesus. Particularly good to be reminded that Jesus wasn’t in some kind of ‘pacifier’ role – making up with God the Father – but that it was God the Father’s eternal plan to send Jesus. It was our Heavenly Father’s love which resulted in our salvation. And that as we are in Jesus he delights in us. Wonderful!

It is somehow strangely fitting that on Easter Sunday I should hear of the death of Mark Ashton (yesterday). Mark was the minister of the church I attended when I first became a Christian at university, and so like many others I owe him a huge debt of thanks for his ministry and example.

How wonderful, on Easter Sunday, to celebrate the Christian hope – that death is not the end, and that we will be raised with Christ. Here are a few words from Mark, recorded about 8 months ago, which show how that hope has transformed his life.

I have just finished reading Adrian Warnock’s excellent book, Raised with Christ.

As the book’s subtitle suggests, this is a book about “How the Resurrection changes everything.”

One of the central arguments of the book is that we Christians often spend a lot of time talking, singing and preaching about the death of Christ, without carrying on to talk, sing and preach about the vindication which followed. He demonstrates from the Bible how the two concepts of ‘death’ and ‘resurrection’ go together, and notes how much more air time ‘resurrection’ gets in New Testament preaching than ‘death’.

As such, this is a really timely reminder (in fact there seem to be a spate of such books – Sam Allberry’s Lifted: Experiencing the Resurrection Life being another example).

The book is saturated with Scripture which is a joy – barely a page goes by without us being pointed to some truth from the Bible. Dave Bish notes Adrian’s fondness for quoting Martin Lloyd Jones, and to this I would add Spurgeon and John Piper. But they are all Godly preachers worth hearing from and help us to see that this isn’t some novel doctrine he is presenting.

The first half of the book covers ’standard’ ground – but is a helpful summary and reminder of the Biblical teaching on resurrection, the apologetic defence of the resurrection, union with Christ etc. I am sure that I will come back to much of this again in my own studies and teaching.

The second half of the book seeks to work out some of the implications of the resurrection in our life as believers. I was delighted to be encouraged to reflect on what this ‘looks like’ in the Christian life, and challenged about how little of this ‘resurrection power’ I seem to experience day by day. Adrian’s theology would be more ‘charismatic’ than my default position, but he kept leading me back to the Scriptures to support his arguments and there was plenty to make me think.

I would certainly recommend this book. It will encourage you to look forward to the day when we will be finally raised with Christ and be like Him in our resurrection bodies; it will challenge you to think about the implications of that same power which raised Christ from the dead being at work in our bodies even now; and it will remind you that we worship a living, vindicated and raised Saviour. And hopefully it will help me with my Easter Sunday sermon too!

(you will find some more resources related to the book at http://raisedwithchrist.net/)