Spiritual Warfare

Spiritual warfare doesn't seem to be talked about much these days outside Pentecostal circles. It's a dangerous shame.

There's a line in the Anglican baptism liturgy that goes something like this:

Fight valiantly a a disciple of Christ against sin, the world and the devil, and remain Christ's faithful soldier and servant to the end of your life.

One church I used to be at had changed it to:

Stand firm as a disciple of Christ against sin, the world and the devil, and remain faithful and obedient to Christ, to the end of your life.

It's linked to the fact that the Lectionary which most churches use tends to ignore the more military bits of the Bible, especially in Psalms. But I don't follow the RCL, so I've been reading them quite a bit recently. The other day, for example, I read Psalm 59.

Deliver me from my enemies, O God;
be my fortress against those who are attacking me.
Deliver me from evildoers
and save me from those who are after my blood.
See how they lie in wait for me!
Fierce men conspire against me
for no offence or sin of mine, Lord.
I have done no wrong, yet they are ready to attack me.
Arise to help me; look on my plight!
You, Lord God Almighty,
you who are the God of Israel,
rouse yourself to punish all the nations;
show no mercy to wicked traitors.

They can be quite difficult to read these days, because we don't have physical enemies seeking to kill us, like David did, and if we do then on balance we'd prefer it if God changed their hearts so they became our friends.

When we try to apply those Psalms to our lives, there are several helpful routes to take. We can see them as the first stage in letting go of anger – asking God to take vengeance rather than doing it myself. We can see them as Psalms sung by Jesus, entrusting himself to God and asking God to rescue him from attack, which God does in the resurrection. But lately I've found it helpful to read them through the lens of Ephesians 6:12.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

As Christians, we are in a real battle. And it's no less real just because our opponents aren't physical people but ideas, temptations and spiritual forces, and we need to learn to fight them better. I'm finding it really helpful at the moment reading the "fighting Psalms" and thinking of the temptations I experience; the things that want to knock me off course in following God, and asking for his protection and rescue from them.

So when we get a decent hymn that is about spiritual warfare, I'm going to try to encourage folks to sing it...

How conscious were the Old Testament authors of Christ?

There's a bit of a debate about preaching the Old Testament as Christian Scripture (which of course it is) - specifically whether we should preach as though the Old Testament authors knew they were writing about Jesus.

Here's an example of what I mean from the frequently excellent Glen Scrivener:

So how do we keep those two things together: Christ-focus and authorial intent? Only by saying that the OT in its own context is consciously a proclamation of Christ – His sufferings and glories. Without an insistence that the Hebrew Scriptures are already and intentionally Christian – without maintaining that ‘the lights are already on’ – then the “true and better” typology stuff will be good for a sermon or two, but it won’t transform our preaching or our churches.

Are "the Hebrew Scriptures already and intentionally Christian"? I don't think it's as simple as yes or no, and I'd like to illustrate it from three passages I've preached on in the last few months.

Psalm 44 - they can't be!

Psalm 44 is one of the darkest passages in the Old Testament. I don't think that the human author of Ps 44 can have been conscious of Christ when he was writing, otherwise he was being unfaithful.

In v1-8 the Psalmist looks back at God's past action in history, and praises him for it. It's centred on v4 - “You are my king and my God, who decrees victories for Jacob.”
v9-16 are then a series of accusations levelled at God – that it feels and looks like he has taken them to a charity shop and dumped them there.
v17-21 are the Psalmist pointing out that they had not done anything to deserve this punishment.
v23-26 are the Psalmist therefore asking God to wake up and help them because of his unfailing covenant love.

v22 is really interesting. “Yet for your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” There are definite echoes of all sorts of things, but the core idea is that the people are suffering and dying for God's sake – because of him. Perhaps it is opposition to them because they follow God faithfully, and he does not seem to be protecting them.

In Romans 8, Paul takes v22 and quotes it. He treats it as an example of the kind of sufferings which Christians experience in this life, and then goes on to say “No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

My point is this. I do not doubt that Psalm 44, rightly understood is about Jesus. It is really helpful to see it as a song that Jesus sings, speaking of his undeserved suffering for the sake of following God. It is wonderful to notice in v22 that even when we suffer like sheep to be slaughtered, we are following in the steps of the one who became like a sheep to be slaughtered for us. But a Christian take on it requires a stronger vision of God's final victory. All that Psalm 44 has is confidence in God's character on the basis of past action; it is a backward-looking faith rather than the resurrection faith which looks forwards to God's final victory and restoration of all things. That's why the way Paul uses Ps 44 in Romans 8 is so significant – Paul shows how the wonderful truths he has been writing about transform even the darkness of Psalm 44.

Psalm 45 – they must be!

The very next Psalm is a complete contrast in lots of ways. It is a wedding Psalm, which transforms the darkness and despondency of Ps 42-44 into the triumph and security of Ps 46-48. The first half of the Psalm (v2-9) are praising the king, and his language gets more and more exalted, famously reaching the heights of v6-7.

Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a sceptre of justice will be the sceptre of your kingdom. You love righteousness and hate wickedness, therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.

Some people try to weasel out of the king being called “God” here, generally unsuccessfully. Perhaps the best such suggestion is that v3-6 are a prayer to God, which happens to be in the middle of v2-9 addressing the king. But there's no textual evidence for it, and in any case Hebrews 1:8-9 treats it as a continuous section addressing Jesus.

At the very least, you end up with something like G.H. Wilson's position in the NIVAC commentary, where he argues that this Psalm was kept even in the exile because Israel were holding onto God's kingship and marriage to his people even after earthly kings and royal weddings had ceased. In any case, it looks very much as if the Psalmist sees through the earthly royal wedding he is writing for to the wedding of God and his people – of Christ and the Church.

Are "the Hebrew Scriptures already and intentionally Christian"?

I think the best way to answer this question is to recognise the dual authorship of the Scriptures. There is the human author (and sometimes editor too!), and there is the divine author. The same passage can be rightly attributed to both David and God, as with Psalm 110.

Given that, it makes perfect sense to say that for the divine author, the Hebrew Scriptures are already and intentionally Christian, since the author of them is God the Holy Trinity. Certainly to preach them in a way which does not point to Christ is to ignore their significance, and is a fundamentally non-Christian hermeneutic.

But are the Hebrew Scriptures already and intentionally Christian in the mind of the human author? I'd want to say “sometimes, but not always”. What does that mean for preaching? It means we have to work at it!

The third passage is Joshua 2, and I'll try to cover that next time...

Books I've Read Recently 1 - The Way of the Righteous in the Muck of Life

I've long been an admirer of Dale Ralph Davis. His books of sermons on Joshua - 2 Kings are models of what Christian preaching on the historical OT books can be. This book contains 12 of his sermons on the Psalms - specifically Psalms 1-12.

As you'd expect from DRD, each contains his own translation of the Psalm and a discussion of some of the textual and contextual issues, but only where they are relevant to the points he is making. The translations alone were worth the cost of the book, but I found the sermons moving, helpful, and they really pointed me to Christ.

Well worth reading devotionally, as I did. Well worth having if you are going to preach on any of the Psalms in the near future. Well worth studying to get ideas for how to preach poetry. Brilliant book.

The Meaning of Life - Psalm 30

Psalm 30

I used to do a fair bit of theoretical physics. And one of the things that theoretical physicists are especially interested in is finding a theory of everything - one theory which explains all the physical phenomena we see in the universe.

I think David would agree with them that there's one dynamic underlying everything - one basic principle which the universe runs on. But David wouldn't look for the answer in quantum field theory or superstrings. For David, the single dynamic underlying the whole universe is this - worship. Everything that happens to people, everything that God does, according to David, is somehow because of worship.

Maybe that seems a bit weird to you, but bear with me.

The way that most people think most of the time is that worship is a response - God does something amazing for us, so we praise and worship him. And that's what happens in v1-3. David praises God for rescuing him from the grave and from going down into the pit. It's interesting that in v2 he uses "O Lord my God" rather than just "O Lord" like in v1,3. It's kind of an intense awareness of God's closeness to him, and the fact he doesn't use that language in v1 and 3 makes it stand out all the more in v2.

Then in v4-5 we get a slight development. Here, David generalises his own experience to the rest of the nation, and tells them that they can praise God because of what he has seen God is like, and that his love is so much stronger than his anger.

In verses 6 and 7, David develops this theme to describe his own individual situation. His security comes only from God's favour. We may think that mountains stand firm on their own, but it's only when God wants them to. When he hides his face, it doesn't matter how strong the mountain is, it won't stand firm. So why does God show his favour sometimes and hide his face other times? It's not just capricious, as we see in v8-10.

David calls to God for mercy - he recognises he needs it. But it's really interesting how his call is motivated, because it isn't actually about him. David knows that he isn't the centre of the universe, but doesn't then make the mistake that we so often make and assume that everyone is the centre of their own universe. David knows that God's glory and worshipping God is what it is all about. So his prayer for deliverance is motivated by the fact that he knows he will be praising God when God delivers him. Why does David want God to spare him? So that he can praise God for his faithfulness. Prayer motivated by a desire for God to be worshipped.

David doesn't worship because he has been saved, he is saved so that he can worship. Worship is so big and important that it's even behind the doctrine of salvation.

And we see the same again in v11-12.

You turned my wailing into dancing;
you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
that my heart may sing to you and not be silent.
O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.
Psalm 30:11-12, NIV

Why did God save David and clothe him with joy? So that his heart could sing to God and not be silent.

Quick application. Have we been saved? If so, we've been saved so that we can praise God?

Do we want to be saved? Why?

Do we recognise that the underlying dynamic of everything that happens in the universe is God's praise? Are we willing to make that the underlying dynamic of everything that we do?

Psalm 27

I'm back to playing with Bible word art to give people something to look at during my sermons...

Here are some for Psalm 27v1 and 10.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

New Year is traditionally a time for making resolutions. Having absorbed just enough church management-speak to realise that it's a mixture of common sense and gobbledegook, I'm aiming to make my resolutions this year SMART - Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound.

The problem with SMART objectives is that they don't have to be particularly ambitious. I know that some people use the A for Ambitious or the R for Rewarding rather than having both the A and R mean much the same thing, but that's not how I've come across it.

For example, this year I resolve to kick fewer than two dogs into the path of oncoming traffic. That's a SMART resolution, but it's not especially a useful one. And that's part of the problem with management culture in public service organisations. Anyway, I digress.

I have decided to make it my practice every year to read through Psalm 90 slowly on New Years' Day. This year it's especially poignant, as the minister who kept emphasising to me the importance of "numbering my days aright" is dying.

Lord, you have been our dwelling place
throughout all generations.
Before the mountains were born
or you brought forth the whole world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

You turn people back to dust,
saying, "Return to dust, you mortals."
A thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.
Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death—
they are like the new grass of the morning:
In the morning it springs up new,
but by evening it is dry and withered.

We are consumed by your anger
and terrified by your indignation.
You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your presence.
All our days pass away under your wrath;
we finish our years with a moan.

Our days may come to seventy years,
or eighty, if our strength endures;
yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,
for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
If only we knew the power of your anger!
Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.

Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Relent, LORD! How long will it be?
Have compassion on your servants.
Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,
that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
for as many years as we have seen trouble.

May your deeds be shown to your servants,
your splendor to their children.
May the favour of the Lord our God rest on us;
establish the work of our hands for us—
yes, establish the work of our hands.

Psalm 90, TNIV

Becoming Like Little Children

Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them.

Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there.

Matthew 19:13-15, TNIV

Many preachers I know tend to ignore these verses. Possibly that is because they do not see many resemblances between themselves - rushed off their feet, always trying to stir others into action, wanting to see God's church grow – and little children. And these really are very little. The word used - paidion - really means “infant”, but can be used of bigger dependent children. Here, they are brought to Jesus, which suggests they aren't really mobile yet. In a description of the same event, Luke uses the word brephos which clearly means “baby”.

Probably the majority of sermons I have heard on these verses (and on the parallel passages – Mark 10:13-16 and Luke 18:15-17) tend to focus not on what Jesus meant when he said this, but on what the preacher would have meant if they had said it. So they look at what babies mean to them, and from that examine what it means to receive the kingdom of heaven as a little child. (It's pretty much the same as happens when they speak about people being the salt of the earth – they don't look at what salt means in the Bible and what it would have meant to the hearers; they just think about what it means to them or used to mean to people 500 years ago. Incidentally, salt in the Bible tends to either represent the covenant or be about God bringing judgement.)

Some people do a good job at looking at the context, particularly in Mark and Luke, and get the idea that it's about holding onto God and not seeking to get into heaven on the basis of what we do. And that's certainly true, but I think we can do better.

So what did Jesus mean?

We get a very big hint because Matthew 19:13-15 isn't the first time Matthew has mentioned little children. A chapter earlier, we get this...

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?"

He called a little child, whom he placed among them. And he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes a humble place — becoming like this child — is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

"If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were drowned in the depths of the sea..."

Matthew 18:1-6, TNIV

Jesus uses talking about little children as a springboard for discussing “kingdom ethics”. But what he says first is that we need to repent and become like children, and that what matters specifically is humbling oneself like the child. Now I don't tend to think of children as especially humble. I certainly wasn't especially humble as a child. But in a culture where children had a lower status, it means more. Specifically, I think what Jesus is talking about here is becoming like a child in terms of rejection of status, and rejection of trusting in ourselves.

We see that in the way that the becoming like a child stories in Matthew 19, Mark 10 and Luke 18 are all linked to the Rich Young Ruler, whose problem was that he was holding onto his wealth and his status. Jesus applies the need to become like a little child by telling the rich young man that he needed to give all his money away. That was what it meant for him.

Strikingly, and this was what got me thinking about this question originally, we see the same sort of thing in Psalm 131.

My heart is not proud, O LORD,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
But I have stilled and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.

O Israel, put your hope in the LORD
both now and forevermore.

Psalm 131, TNIV

Once again, the being like a child (this is a different word, specifically to do with being weaned) is connected to humility. But also to contentment. The weaned child is calm, and does not have any ambitions beyond being with its mother. Likewise, becoming like a child for us means rejection of ambitions, rejection of status, and simply being content to be with God. And actually, isn't that what Jesus did? He laid down all of his status, to the point of dying on a cross, and was content merely to do his Father's will.

Sadly, with the busyness of life, that is a place that many preachers find it hard to be. We have too many ambitions and plans, even if they are ambitions for God's church, and not enough contentment and becoming like little children.

I suggest reading through Psalm 131 slowly a few times, and praying through it, as a good start to a remedy.

A Stranger to God

This verse really hit me this morning...

Hear my prayer, LORD, listen to my cry for help;
do not be deaf to my weeping.
I dwell with you as a foreigner,
a stranger, as all my ancestors were.
Psalm 39:12, TNIV

This is a "Psalm of David", which roughly means it was written by / with / for / in memory of David. And yet the author says that they only ever dwelt with God as a stranger and a foreigner. He sees a qualitative gap between him and God.

And yet, while even David saw that, we can now dwell with God as sons, rather than as strangers and foreigners.

Loving Your Enemies in the Old Testament

Here's a powerful example from the Old Testament of what it means to love your enemies.

Ruthless witnesses come forward;
they question me on things I know nothing about.
They repay me evil for good
and leave me like one bereaved.
Yet when they were ill, I put on sackcloth
and humbled myself with fasting.
When my prayers returned to me unanswered,
I went about mourning
as though for my friend or brother.
I bowed my head in grief
as though weeping for my mother.
But when I stumbled, they gathered in glee;
assailants gathered against me without my knowledge.
They slandered me without ceasing.

Psalm 35:11-15, TNIV

(The Psalmist then goes on to pray for God to vindicate him in the usual OT way.) But what really struck me was this as an example of loving enemies. What does it mean to love our enemies? To behave like this to them, even if we knew they would turn on us. And to do it again after they have...

Psalm 34:22

The LORD redeems his servants;
no one who takes refuge in him will be condemned.
Psalm 34:22, TNIV

Here we see that the key thing for salvation is where we take refuge; what we hold onto as our only hope when everything else is gone. We also see by the parallelism that God's servants are those who take refuge in him - that taking refuge in God is inseparable from serving him, and serving him properly understood is inseparable from taking refuge in him.

Thoughts from Psalm 10

This is a rough outline for a sermon I haven't been asked to preach (that being by far the most common type).

When we look at the world, it is hard to ignore the injustice, the suffering, the inhumanity of humans to other humans. And we rightly cry out to God for justice. And the message of this Psalm is that God will hear the cries of the oppressed, the victims. He will hold the Hitlers and the Pol Pots and the perpertrators of genocides and the paedophiles to account. He sees. He hears. He listens. And he will act.

But that is only part of the story. You see, we love to think that there are good people and there are evil people, and that there's something seriously wrong with the evil people, but we're ok. But actually, when you look at it and think about it, that's rubbish. Hitler was democratically elected in Germany. If we had been German in the early 1930s, half of us would probably have voted for Hitler. The Hutus in Rwanda were people, just like us, and yet so many of them were driven by their situation to kill and main their neighbours. As GK Chesterton wrote in his Father Brown stories, we are each capable of pretty much any crime, it just depends on our background and the situation. That is why there is an increasing emphasis on restorative justice, on trying to help people break cycles of criminality and so on. Now, I'm not saying for one minute that we shouldn't condemn people who do wicked things. I think we all know that we have to condemn them. I'm saying that when we do condemn them, we also condemn ourselves.

God is ready, willing and able to act against the criminals of this world. So why hasn't he done it yet? Because when he does, it will mean utterly destroying humanity, which is of this earth.

And yet, instead of that, he comes to earth himself as a man and suffers injustice. He becomes the victim of the oppressor as well as their judge. And because he is the victim, he can then forgive the oppressors. He suffers at our hands the punishment we ourselves deserve, so that we - the wicked - need no longer stand under his judgement if only we will put our trust in him and be born again.

The Stone the Builders Rejected...

Isn't it interesting that people's number one problem with God as depicted in the Bible (or pretty much anywhere else) is that innocent people suffer?

And isn't it interesting that the way God solves people's real number one problem - the fact that we all reject God and ignore him and deserve to be separated from him - is by the suffering of the one truly innocent man - Jesus? That God takes what people see as the greatest problem of divine existence onto himself, and uses it to solve what he knows is the greatest problem of human existence?

Truly, as it is written:

The stone the builders rejected
has become the capstone;
the LORD has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes.
Psalm 118:22-23, NIV

Satisfaction

It seems that I have reasonable internet access, for the time being at least.

This morning, I was thinking about Psalm 81. Here's an extract:

Hear me, my people, and I will warn you—
if you would only listen to me, Israel!
You shall have no foreign god among you;
you shall not worship any god other than me.
I am the LORD your God,
who brought you up out of Egypt.
Open wide your mouth and I will fill it.
But my people would not listen to me;
Israel would not submit to me.
Psalm 81:8-11, TNIV

God offers us total satisfation, if only we are willing to look to him for it. He says to us "open wide your mouth and I will fill it". He has shown his ability to do so by rescuing his people from slavry. And yet time and again, even God's own people fail to look to him for satisfaction. We look to money or entertainment or relationships or academic success or beauty or power or whatever. How do we expect those who are not yet Christians to look to God for their satisfaction if we do not?

Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill

I know it's a few days since the bill was passed, but I'm still busy revising.

I found praying about the bill immensely difficult after it was passed (though I guess it still has to get through the House of Lords). As far as I can tell, the majority of MPs voted for a bill which will probably result in the deaths of thousands of innocents who cannot defend themselves. So what should we pray about it?

The first thing, it seems to me, is repentance for all the times we haven't spoken up, and for our complicity in electing them. As a student, I have two MPs, but only one vote. One of my MPs voted against some aspects of the bill, the other one has been known to campaign for a removal of all time limits for abortion and the legalisation of euthanasia. Did I speak publically against him at the last election? No. Am I therefore complicit? To an extent. And I need to repent of that.

The second thing, which quite surprised me, is how refreshing it can be to pray Psalms about God's justice at times like these. We are witnessing the government largely go against the will of the people, and taking a course of action which they know may well lead to large numbers of innocent deaths. Passages like Psalm 10 just seem so appropriate...

12 Arise, LORD! Lift up your hand, O God.
Do not forget the helpless.
13 Why does the wicked man revile God?
Why does he say to himself,
"He won't call me to account"?
14 But you, O God, do see trouble and grief;
you consider it to take it in hand.
The victim commits himself to you;
you are the helper of the fatherless.
15 Break the arm of the wicked and evil man;
call him to account for his wickedness
that would not be found out.
16 The LORD is King for ever and ever;
the nations will perish from his land.
17 You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted;
you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,
18 defending the fatherless and the oppressed,
in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.

Psalm 10:12-18 (NIV)

This link is great for confirming the right-wing bits of my prejudice. 92% of Conservative MPs voted for children needing a father. 82% of Labour MPs voted against, with only slightly weaker patterns on the abortion issue. I prayed, and I think I was right to pray, that every single MP who voted against the unborn would lose their seats at the next election.

What they sung at the Last Supper

Sorry that I've been so poor at updating this blog recently. I'm doing a full-time course on the sacraments at the moment, and I've also got exams on various Biblical stuff later in the week.

The highlight of the sacraments course so far has been realising what hymn Jesus and the disciples were probably singing as they left the Last Supper.

I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the LORD. The LORD has disciplined me severely, but he has not given me over to death. Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the LORD. This is the gate of the LORD; the righteous shall enter through it. I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the LORD's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Save us, we pray, O LORD! O LORD, we pray, give us success! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD! We bless you from the house of the LORD. The LORD is God, and he has made his light to shine upon us. Bind the festal sacrifice with cords, up to the horns of the altar! You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God; I will extol you. Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!

Psalms 118:17-29, ESV

TNIV - Worst Bit Ever

The other day, I came across what I suspect is probably the worst-translated bit of the TNIV. Whoever translated this one should probably be shot or something.

Hebrews 1 is all about Jesus and how much greater than angels he is. The author continues into Hebrews 2...

5Now it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. 6It has been testified somewhere,

"What is man, that you are mindful of him,
or the son of man, that you care for him?
7You made him for a little while lower than the angels;
you have crowned him with glory and honor,
8putting everything in subjection under his feet."

Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. 9But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

Hebrews 2:5-9, ESV

That was the ESV, which is a pretty good translation. It's talking about Jesus, saying that the world to come will be subject to him; we don't see that yet, but we do see him crowned with glory and honour.

Now here's the TNIV, same passage:

It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. 6 But there is a place where someone has testified:

"What are mere mortals that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?
7 You made them a little lower than the angels;
you crowned them with glory and honor
8 and put everything under their feet."

In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them. 9 But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

Hebrews 2:5-9, TNIV

I understand why they've done it, but it is really really stupid. It's because of two bits of translation philosophy, both of which they've mucked up big time.

The first is the idea of gender neutrality. If the original word translates as "person" rather than "man", they've tried to keep it gender-neutral in English. One problem with this is that they often do it by pluralisation rather than just using "they" as a third person singular pronoun, which is what modern English does. So in the quote from Psalm 8, the "Son of Man" has become "human beings".

The second is that where the OT is ambiguous, they don't allow the NT to influence translation choices, or they didn't in this case. So Psalm 8, treated without Hebrews, could be about people generally, or it could be about the Messiah. I've argued briefly that Psalm 8 should be understood as Messianic, even without the New Testament. But interpreting it as about people generally is not the Christian way to understand the Bible (I argue that from Patristics here). As Christians, we know it's about Jesus. So where there's two possible translations of the OT, and the NT makes one of them more plausible (as "Son of Man" in Psalm 8), then that's the one we should use.

Even given those, a better translation of Psalm 8 would be "What is a human that you are mindful of them, the mortal one that you care for them?" (with "Son of Man" footnoted as an alternative) Even then, Hebrews 2 could appear to be talking about Jesus rather than going off on what looks like a bizarre tangent about the authority of people that isn't anywhere in the original. The author of Hebrews thought that Psalm 8 was about Jesus. I'm not going to argue with them. But the translators of the TNIV seem to want to...

The translation of Hebrews 2 and Psalm 8 in the TNIV is not a Christian translation. (Oh, the NRSV does it too.)

Psalm 90

Here's the audio of a short sermon I preached in chapel here this morning. Here's Psalm 90, which I was preaching on.

Or download it from here.

If you'd rather read the sermon, let me know and I can put the text up here too.

Affective Preaching

Random question - why are conservative evangelicals so afraid of affective preaching?

(By affective preaching, I mean preaching where the preacher displays strong excitement or sadness or pain or something. Preaching which engages the emotions as well as the mind and not just through the mind. Preaching that is designed to move people. And I don't mean acted stuff - that's rubbish.)

Is it that we're scared of emotions? Or scared of using other people's? But surely there's an important balance - if we're preaching through something that is really really tragic and where we have to understand something of the depth of the sadness to understand the passage (as Psalm 137), shouldn't we be willing to take them there?

I heard a sermon on Psalm 137 last night. It was good, and very well applied (I think that's the most difficult bit with that passage) but I think it would have been better if we'd gone with the Israelites and seen more of their grief to get inside what they were feeling.

Psalm 21

Here's the audio of my sermon from last night. Let me know if it doesn't work.

Or you can download it from here.

Sermon on Psalm 21

Here's the rough text. I'll try to put the audio on tomorrow...

If our lives are less than we want, it is most likely either because we do not see Jesus clearly enough or because we ignore what we do see of him.

If our lives are less than we want, it is most likely either because we do not see Jesus clearly enough or because we ignore what we do see of him.

Let us pray....

This might come as a surprise to you, and it would certainly come as a surprise to some of my lecturers, but the Psalms weren't just stuck together randomly, which is one of the reasons it's such a good idea to work through them in order. We're in Psalm 21 tonight, which is part of a big group of Psalms which are about God's king – David. That's why it says at the top “A Psalm of David”. It won't surprise you to know that Psalm 21 comes just after Psalm 20, and just before Psalm 22. That might sound like the most stupidly, mind-numbingly obvious thing you've ever heard, but it's important and it's easy to miss. We'll come back to it.

So this is a Psalm about God's king, David, and by the looks of it, it's about David just after a battle.

O Lord, the king rejoices in your strength. How great is his joy in the victories you give.

There's loads of stuff in this Psalm we could look at, but we're just going to focus on two things tonight. First, God's king wins because he prays. God's king wins because he prays. Maybe you noticed that. Verses 1-2

O Lord, the king rejoices in your strength. How great is his joy in the victories you give! You have granted him the desire of his heart, and have not withheld the request of his lips.

God's king wins because he prays. He doesn't win because he has the best army, though 1 Chronicles goes on and on about what an impressive army David had. He doesn't win because of his superior wisdom or tactics. He doesn't win because his enemies are weak or stupid. God's king wins because he prays, and because God gives him the victory.

I said that Psalm 21 comes after Psalm 20. Last week, you looked at Psalm 20, and it is obviously set just before a battle.

Psalm 20:4 May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed. We will shout for joy when you are victorious, and will lift up our banners in the name of our God. May the Lord grant all your requests. Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed – that's the king again – he answers him from his holy heaven with the saving power of his right hand. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.

Psalm 20 is before the battle. Psalm 21 is afterwards. In 20:4 they pray that God would give the king the desire of his heart. In 21:2 God has given it to him. In 20:7 they are saying they will stand firm because they trust in the name of the LORD. In 21:7, the king has stood firm because he trusts in the LORD. God's king wins because he prays.

Now I could try to apply this to us, and say that if we pray, we will win. But it's not that simple. We aren't God's king, so we can't just rip this passage out of context and say straight away that it applies to us.

But Jesus is God's king, and this passage is about him.

Something I find really striking about prayer is Jesus and Peter in the garden of Gethsemane. Flick to Mark 14 if you want – we're not going to be there long.

It's the night before Jesus dies. He knows he is going to be betrayed and arrested and killed, and he tells the disciples. Peter says to him v31 “even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you”. Then Jesus goes to Gethsemane and prays. Peter goes with him, but he can't stay awake. Jesus says v38 “watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Peter falls asleep again Jesus gets arrested. Peter follows him. Jesus keeps going through his trial and execution. Peter doesn't. Peter denies he even knows Jesus. Jesus prayed. Jesus kept going. Peter didn't pray. Peter dropped out. God's king wins because he prays.

But we don't just see it there. The Resurrection happened because Jesus prayed. Hebrews 5:7 – you don't need to turn to it.

During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.

The resurrection happened because Jesus prayed. God's king wins because he prays. And you know what? That is a great reason for us to be encouraged. Jesus prays. Jesus wins because he prays. God gives him victory. God gives him the desire of his heart and does not withhold the request of his lips. And do you know what Jesus is praying for right now?

Us.

Romans 8, from v31.

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Jesus is praying for us. He is praying that those who trust in him will not be condemned, that we will be forgiven and that we will not be separated from his love.

It has been a great encouragement to me over this last year to have some of you folks praying for me. I know the week or so after I send out a prayer letter, I am always hugely encouraged and really want to know God much more.

But how much more of an encouragement should it be to me that Jesus Christ, God's anointed king over the whole universe, that Jesus Christ is praying for me. And God's king wins, because he prays.

If you are a Christian here tonight, be very encouraged because Jesus Christ is praying for you. It doesn't matter what situation you are in, or how bad things are. Jesus is still praying for you, and Jesus wins because he prays.

Of course, if Jesus wins because he prays, that is really challenging to me because I don't pray anywhere near enough. And prayer is one of those things it's really easy to get into an unhealthy guilt trip about, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it; I'm just going to share with you something that happened to me the other day. It was the week after I'd sent out my prayer letter, so this isn't to my credit at all. This is because you guys were praying for me. It was about 10 o'clock at night. I was in bed, and I wasn't feeling very tired. And I was reminded of how important prayer is, and I was starting to think about this sermon, so I decided to pray for a bit. To start with I aimed for 11pm, but I ended up going on past midnight. I prayed through the passage, through difficult issues in my life, for friends who I knew were having a hard time. And that night was so encouraging, and helped me so much, but I'm so rubbish at getting down to prayer that I haven't done that again since.

If we want to spend time in prayer, we need to make time for prayer. I don't know what your prayer lives are like – I imagine some of you are much better at it than me, and some of you are still learning. But why don't we all agree, between us and God, and if you've got an accountability partner or a husband or wife or something, agree with them too to spend more time in prayer. Lets all agree to set aside more time every day for prayer. Maybe first thing in the morning or last thing at night, because those don't tend to get pushed as much. Maybe during the lunch break. Maybe agreeing to spend an hour a week in prayer with a friend. Maybe making sure you pray through your day before checking your e-mail in the morning. When I was in 6th form, I quit my morning paper round because it was making me too tired, but that time was great for reading the Bible and praying. But whatever it is, we desperately need to pray more, so set aside time to do it.

God's king wins because he prays. So we should be confident because God's king Jesus is praying for us and we should pray because prayer matters.

Secondly, God's king wins, so he rejoices.

O Lord, the king rejoices in your strength. How great is his joy in the victories you give. You have granted him the desire of his heart and have not withheld the request of his lips. You welcomed him with rich blessings, and placed a crown of pure gold upon his head. He asked you for life and you gave it to him – length of days for ever and ever. Through the victories you gave, his glory is great; you have bestowed on him splendour and majesty. Surely you have granted him eternal blessings and made him glad with the joy of your presence.

I don't know about you, but the way I think of Jesus is often messed up. I think of him as a guy who walked around Israel healing people and teaching, which he was, or as God who died on the cross for my sins, then rose again, which is true because he is. Or as the one who is in heaven, praying for me and so I can come into God's presence and speak to God. And that's amazing, and that's true.

But when I think of Jesus, I tend to think of him as a man of sorrows, which he was. I don't think of him as rejoicing. I was chatting about this to a friend the other day, and she said that Jesus is the happiest guy she knows. Isn't that striking? Right now, Jesus is rejoicing in the victory he has won, the victory over sin and over death and over the devil, the victory that is being worked out in our lives and that means if we trust Jesus, we will be in glory with him. Listen to Hebrews 12:2.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Jesus went through the cross because of the joy set before him. It's like if you know there's a really exciting ride at a theme park, it's worth queuing for. If there's a really nice place to go on holiday, it's worth being stuck on a plane with your face in someone else's armpit and a baby vomiting all over you for a few hours to get there. It's like with Jacob and Rachel in Genesis. Genesis 29:20

So Jacob served 7 years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him, because of his love for her.

It's like that with Jesus – because he knew how much joy there was in the victory, he was willing to go through the cross to get there.

Right now, Jesus is rejoicing in the victory he has won. He doesn't mind what it cost – it is worth it. And what it cost him was betrayal, humiliation, shame, suffering and dying a horrible death under God's judgement.

We're looking at Psalm 21. Psalm 20 – God's king prays for victory. Psalm 21 – God's king rejoices in the victory. Psalm 22 – the Psalm Jesus quoted as he was dying – God's king dies on the way to victory.

But what makes this victory so joyful? Lets look at Psalm 21 in more detail.

verse 1 – the king rejoices in God's strength, and in the victory he gives. Verse 2 because God answers prayer. Verse 3 because God welcomes the king and places a crown of pure gold on his head – that's a symbol of victory here. Verse 4 – more answered prayer. Verse 5 – victory, glory, splendour, majesty.

Verse 6.

Surely you have granted him eternal blessings and made him glad with the joy of your presence.

The key factor in all this joy is that it is the joy of God's presence. It is the joy not just of knowing about God – that God is strong, that God is victorious, not just the joy of knowing God, but of being with God. It is the joy of being welcomed by God, the creator of the universe, the one who alone gives the victory, the mighty God over everything. Imagine the most amazing, the most wonderful person you possibly can, and they don't even come close If you're in love with someone, you really enjoy spending time with them. But God is far more wonderful than anyone you have ever loved.

Being welcomed by him, knowing the joy of his presence, enjoying being with God. That is the joy that was set before David here. That was the joy that was set before Jesus, but not just the joy of him being with God, because he had that from the beginning, but the joy of us sharing in being with God and rejoicing in God too.

God's king wins, so he rejoices.

So if Jesus went through humiliation, through suffering and through death because of this amazing joy that was set before him, if right now he is rejoicing in being with God and because we can be with God too and we can share in his joy and in his victory, that raises one big question in my mind.

Why on earth are we so miserable?

I mean, I'm not saying we should always walk around with plastic smiles on our faces or something. And yes, things go wrong, and yes, Jesus has gone through suffering and death to glory and joy, but we're following and in a sense we're not there yet because we've still got suffering and we've still got to die and although we can see the end, there's still a bit of a way to go, but why aren't we excited about it?

Little kids are great, because they are useless at hiding what they feel. You see a kid about to go on a ride they are really looking forwards to, and they're jumping all over the place and they're really excited, and they can't stop talking about it or asking “are we nearly there yet”. Why aren't we like that?

As far as I can see, either it is because we aren't that excited at the greatest news that anyone has ever heard or because we've got very good at hiding it. And both of those alternatives are pointless and stupid, and I think with most of us it's a bit of both. So spend time thinking about how amazing God's victory is, how amazing God is and how wonderful it is that we can be with him. Spend time enjoying God's presence. And don't be embarrassed about being excited about what God has done. Look, if there is anything in the whole history of the entire universe that is worth getting excited about, it is this. (I give you permission to get excited about being with God.)

I mean – what could be better? God, the most amazing person in the whole universe, has made it so that we can be with him. It's much better than meeting your favourite celebrity, or even getting to know them as a friend or live with them. This is God we're talking about here!

When I lived round here, I used to go to the monthly church prayer meetings. And they are really important, and it was great that the numbers kept on going up, and there was loads that was good about them.

There was one thing that always upset me though, and that was how little time we actually spent praying. If we had 30 minutes to pray about a topic, someone would stand up and speak for 20 minutes and then we'd pray for 10 minutes, which I always thought suggested that they liked hearing the sound of their own voice twice as much as they liked praying to God.

But looking back, I was wrong. What should have upset me more was that when we just had a time where we weren't told what to pray for except to praise God, that so few people prayed. We saw praying to God for stuff as more important than rejoicing in who God is and what he has done. And sometimes, yes, we can be so overwhelmed with stuff in our minds that we need to commit it to God first.

But surely rejoicing in who God is and what he has done is the main point. I mean, if God is the kind of trustworthy God it's worth praying to, and he is, then surely he's worth praising too! And it is when we spend time praising God and rejoicing in his presence and telling others how amazing he is that our attitudes are right so that we pray properly.

Look at the people in the Psalm – not the king, the normal people, the people singing it. Actually, their situation is a lot like ours. They aren't there yet either. They still have a whole load of enemies to deal with. Just look at verses 8-12.

But they're still praising God. They're singing this Psalm. How do they react to these enemies? They pray to God about them, and they don't worry about them at all. They know God has got it sorted.

Your hand will lay hold on all your enemies, your right hand will seize your foes. At the time of your appearing, you will make them like a firey furnace. In his wrath, the Lord will swallow them up, and his fire will consume them. You will destroy their descendants from the earth, their posterity from mankind. Though they plot evil against you, and devise wicked schemes, they cannot succeed; for you will make them turn their backs when you aim at them with drawn bow.

These people have seen God's victory. They have seen that God's king wins, so they don't worry about the future.

What do they do? They sing and praise God's might. They rejoice.

God's king wins, so God's people trust him, we pray to him and we rejoice in him.

I've been to quite a few services at St Mary's over the years. And they mostly end the same way. There's a final hymn, we say a short prayer, the guy who led and the preacher walk over to that door. Then some people, usually the people who are here because they're getting married soon or something, try to make a quick exit before anyone talks to them. We're not actually that scary, you know! Everyone else stays really quiet for about a minute, then starts chatting to someone sitting near them about football, or the week, or the weather, or exam results, or something like that. It's a lot better than some of the churches I've been to, where people just chat to people they already know well, because then it's really hard to feel like anything except an outsider. But that's not how I want us to do it tonight, because it's really easy if God's been speaking to you or challenging you just to forget about it and not let it affect your life. So what I'm going to suggest is that at the end of the service, if you've got to leave in a hurry, that's fine. But I guess that some people here tonight feel that God has been speaking to them. Maybe you're not a Christian, and you've realised that actually if Christianity is that exciting, you'd like to do something about it. Maybe you are a Christian and God has been challenging you about something in your life, and you know that you don't want to let it go without changing. Maybe you've been reminded of what an awesome God we serve, of what he has done for us, and you just want to praise God and recommit yourself to follow him. If that's you - I'd like you to pray about it with someone, or get them to pray for you. It could be your husband or your wife, it could be a good friend who's a Christian, it could be me or one of the prayer team who are going to be over there after the service. We're happy to pray for anyone who wants praying for.

So if you're wanting to catch up with a friend after the service, ask if you can pray for them first, because it might be that God has been really challenging them and they need someone to pray with. If you don't want to pray with anyone, that's fine too, but I'd ask that you give people who do want to pray the space to do that before you grab them to chat about the footie. God's king wins, because he prays. David won because he prayed. Jesus kept going through suffering and death because he prayed. Jesus rose from the dead because he prayed. Now he is praying for us, so we can be very confident in God, and we can see something of how important prayer is.

God's king wins, so he rejoices. He rejoices in God's presence, in how amazing God is, and because we can share in God's presence and in his joy too. Shouldn't we rejoice and praise God?

Lets just have a short time of silence, then I'll pray and we'll do some rejoicing and praising God by singing our final hymn...