Resources for Daily Bible Reading

Here are some of the best online resources for daily Bible reading...

• Explore do a free app for iPhone / Android.
• The King's English works through famous phrases from the King James Bible
• Robert Murray M'Cheyne's Bible reading plan is a good way of working through the Bible in a year (New Testament twice). Or you can do it at half speed and cover the NT once a year and the OT once every 2 years.
• For the Love of God is a brilliant series of books which provide helpful devotional thoughts on one of the passages from M'Cheyne's plan as a blog. It lets you do the plan at either full speed or half speed.
• You version is a Bible reading app for mobile phones with built in Bible reading plans.

I don't use any of those. Personally, I find internet-enabled devices too much of a distraction when trying to read the Bible. But I know some people might find them helpful...

Vaughan Roberts - "A Battle I Face"

Vaughan Roberts has done a superb interview with Julian Hardyman, in which he (Vaughan) speaks honestly about his struggle with same-sex attraction.

It's a really good read - I've got a huge amount of respect for Vaughan anyway, and that just went up another notch or two. Someone needed to say what he has said, and I'm glad it was him.

Did Jesus Have a Wife?

There's a lot of chatter going round the internet about a bit of ancient paper which mentions Jesus having a wife. Most if it is the usual bad journalism - here's a proper scholar's take on it.

And a nice article here points us back to the fact that Jesus might not have a wife, but he is engaged - to us.

Prayer, Praise and Prophecy - A Theology of the Psalms

I bought this book on the basis on one quote on the cover. It says this

"...a marvellous handbook to the Psalms. If I were teaching a course on the Psalms, this would be my textbook." Dale Ralph Davis

As so often, I find that I agree with Davis. At theological college, I read quite a few books on the Psalms; this has better scholarship than any of them. He mentions the trendy theological theories, but stands back and evaluates them sensibly. He mentions form criticism (for example), shows some of the value of it, and critiques it too. It's the best treatment I've read of the academic issues, including Psalm ordering and the formation of the Psalter.

But it's also written as a Christian who doesn't feel he has to tick the boxes of the non-Christian academic world. He writes things like "To understand the Psalms Biblically is, of course, ultimately to understand them in terms of Christ." (p.280) There are whole chapters on Christological and Christocentric interpretation of the Psalms, which was somewhat taboo (and wrongly so) at theological college.

There were a couple of omissions - I don't recall any discussion of the history of composite Psalms (e.g. 89), and the Proc Trust hermenteutic of Jesus as the perfect singer of Psalms only got a small look-in, but they're only fairly minor.

Overall - brilliant. Pastorally warm, encouraging, academic but not dry, well-informed but not in thrall to scholarship.

Virtue Reborn - Tom Wright

It seems that Tom Wright had three purposes in mind in writing this book. It is a book about how Christians should seek to act in the light of their faith. It is also a book showing how the ancient philosophical idea of virtue is reinterpreted in the New Testament, and again it seeks to show how many of the alternative models of Christian living (e.g. legalism) are flawed.

The UK title is a characteristic Wright pun. It is about the rebirth of virtue as an idea in modern ethics, about the fact that virtue as classically understood is not enough – we need to be reborn, and about how the fruits of that rebirth can be well explained using the language of virtue. In the US, it's called "After you believe". I don't know if that's because SPCK think Americans are stupid.

There are a lot of good things about this book. It's the first time I've seen Wright rebuff one of the common misinterpretations of his work – the idea that “Christian living in the present consists of anticipating the final kingdom-on-earth by working and campaigning for justice, peace, and the alleviation of poverty and distress.” Instead, Wright's basic scheme is this:

1. The goal is the new heaven and new earth, with human beings raised from the dead to be the renewed world's rulers and priests.
2. This goal is achieved through the kingdom-establishing work of Jesus and the Spirit, which we grasp by faith, participate in by baptism, and live out in love.
3. Christian living in the present consists of anticipating this ultimate reality through the Spirit-led, habit-forming, truly human practice of faith, hope, and love, sustaining Christians in their calling to worship God and reflect his glory into the world. (p.59-60)

Virtue Reborn is just about the best book I have ever read on how difficult obedience leads to habits, which leads to formation of character, which leads to transformed desires. It is brilliant on the importance of thinking through actions and views in the light of the gospel.

The more genuinely spiritual you are,... the more clearly and accurately and carefully you will think, particularly about what the completed goal of your Christian journey will be, and hence what steps you should be taking, what habits you should be acquiring, as part of the journey toward that goal, right now. (p.137)

There is a popular view that when we believe in Jesus, God transforms our hearts so dramatically by his Spirit that afterwards we just need to do “whatever comes naturally”. Wright commendably takes a very strong stand against this. However, as often with Wright, there is a real danger that he throws the baby out with the bathwater. So he asserts that Luther held that view (p.52) and does not even mention the idea of “sanctification” in Reformed theology – it is as if evangelicalism has uniformly taught that view since the Reformation, and therefore the choice is either Wright's understanding or an easy-believism. In his bibliography (p.246), he does recognise that his depiction view on Luther is not wholly “balanced and rounded”, but he doesn't even mention the long and faithful heritage of those Protestants who taught and believed that we need to work out our salvation.

The other danger Wright faces in opposing easy-believism is that he downplays the work of the Spirit. He does not mention the possibility, for example, that the Spirit transforms our hearts and minds apart from the slow work of Christian obedience or that he creates in us new desires to do what pleases God. In reality, of course, it is both/and. We should work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, because it is God who works in us, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Phil 2:12-13).

Overall then, a good book, a helpful and important book. But Wright again seems to make his characteristic error of over-reacting against those whom he disagrees with.

Same-Sex Marriage

Here's my response to the government consultation on same-sex marriage:

The essence of marriage is that it is two different people committing themselves to be together for life. The experience of having to live with, and committing yourself to love, someone who is fundamentally different from yourself, is one of the key drivers for personal growth. It is within the context of two people committed to love the other "for better for worse" that children are best raised, because the couple have learned to accept each other. That is the best societal basis for tolerance.

The most fundamental distinction between people is gender, as recognised on passports and just about everywhere else. Marriage unites two people of opposite gender, who are thus very different and so as they learn to accept each other, so they learn to accept people who are fundamentally different from themselves. The same is not true of "same-sex marriage". It would be a union of two people who are the same at the fundamental level of gender (and of orientation). It therefore is a very different thing from marriage, and hence a different word should be used. It does not provide the same basis for transformation, or for growth in tolerance and acceptance of the other.

Jim Collins - Great By Choice (3) - Things to Learn

The Four Behaviours

As mentioned above, Collins identifies four features of how “great” organisations are led which enables them to thrive in times of great uncertainty. They are:

• fanatical discipline – “20 mile marching”.
• empirical creativity – “fire bullets then cannonballs”.
• productive paranoia - “leading above the death line”.
• SMaC recipes – a well-defined set of specific, measurable and consistent practices.

A little explanation of each will help.

Fanatical discipline is the idea that companies should aim to achieve the same level of progress regardless of the outside environment. That both prevents them from overstretching themselves when times are good and from giving up or cutting core services when times are bad. The classic example he cites is that of Intel, whose corporate strategy was focused on upholding Moore's Law – doubling the complexity of components per integrated circuit every 18-24 months. This meant that they continued to invest in R&D, even through recessions. Perhaps the best example of this, though is from the Scott & Amundsen example. Scott's team would push hard on a day with good weather, but stay in their tents on a day with bad weather. Amundsen aimed to do 15-20 miles per day, regardless of the weather, refusing to do more even when the South Pole was within reach. As a result, they did not tire as much in good weather and stayed more motivated in bad, as well as having a higher average overall speed.

Empirical creativity was an idea that surprised Collins and Hansen. They expected that in an uncertain environment, it would be the more innovative companies that thrived. But instead they found that there seemed to be a minimum threshold for innovation – if companies did not innovate a certain amount, they declined and died. But above that limit, it was not the companies who innovated most who prospered, but the ones who tested their innovations before rolling them out on a large scale or even who just saw what was working elsewhere, and followed that. Hence the idea of firing bullets then cannonballs – one fires a large number of “bullets” to find out what works, and then follows the ones that work well up with a “cannonball”, which costs more and involves a greater commitment.

Productive Paranoia was another surprising idea. They had been expecting to find a sense of confidence, and quick decision making among the leaders of these “great” companies. Instead, they found that the leaders kept far larger cash reserves than in the comparison companies – 3 to 10x as much – that they kept a close watch out for things that could damage their position, and worked hard at finding solutions. Surprisingly, they also found that they took fewer risks than their competitors, especially “death line” risks, which could destroy the company, and “asymmetric risks”, where the potential loss was much greater than the potential profit. They also managed “time based risks” well – when a decision was urgent, they took as much of the time they had available as they could before the risk increased to make the best decision they could.

SMaC Recipes are a set of corporate practices which are specific, measurable and consistent. The “great” companies examined made sure theirs worked and were clear, concrete and replicable, and then held to them rigidly, only changing them rarely and when conditions needed it and only in accordance with productive paranoia or empirical creativity. That enables dramatic change and strong consistency at the same time. One example is Intel's policy, which Collins & Hansen list as 10 points. In 1985, Intel decided to change the entire focus of their business from memory chips to microprocessors because of strong and cheap mass-produced competition. But in doing so they only changed one point in their “SMaC recipe”, and they already had a thriving microprocessor arm as a side business. That enabled them to in some ways reinvent themselves without changing their corporate culture. What especially distinguished the “great” companies from their competitors was that the “great” companies stuck to their policies with greater discipline, and changed them less. They even found one example of two companies with nearidentical recipes, which were similarly successful until one decided to try to change to copy a bigger rival and went into decline. One example of a SMaC principle was Southwest Airways' decision only to fly Boeing 737s, because that meant that any pilot could fly any plane, any engineer could fix any plane and logistics for spares was much easier.

Theological Evaluation of the Four Behaviours

These behaviours, taken as advice for how to cope with turbulent situations, do not seem to suffer from the same kind of problems that Collins' ideas of “greatness” and “choice” do. This is possibly because they are based on research rather than worldly assumptions or hubristic misuse of data.

Indeed, some limited theological parallels could be drawn. For example, the idea of 20 mile marching could be compared to the business environment of Old Testament Israel, where due to the prohibition on interest, it was much harder for individuals to overextend their businesses in good times. The notion of empiricism also stems from a Christian worldview, specifically the doctrine of original sin and the way it has corrupted our understanding so that we do not always make accurate decisions about the world without testing it.

Of course, that does not make them Christian. There is nothing there about the importance of trusting God and finding him to be your Rock. There is nothing there about the need to go deeper into God to find your roots more securely in the work of Jesus on the cross. There is nothing there about prayer or the guidance of the Holy Spirit. They are clearly not sufficient as advice for Christian leaders. But it is possible to take them as potentially wise advice for leading a church through turbulent times.

Jim Collins - Great by Choice (2) - Two Big Problems

“Greatness”

The first potentially problematic area of Jim Collins' work is the idea of “greatness”. It is his major focus across his whole canon of work – Built to Last was about the features of a company which lead to enduring greatness, Good to Great about how a company can change from being good to being great, How the Mighty Fall about how a company can cease to be great and Great by Choice about the role of luck in greatness, and how to lead well in turbulent times.

Collins' research methodology is generally to find sets of two comparison companies, one of which did better than the other from similar starting points, and to study what makes the “great” company different from the other one, then identifying common themes between all of his examples. In Great by Choice, Collins chooses “great” companies to study based on the following criteria:

• They need to have out-performed their industry average on the stock market by a factor of 10x over a period of 15+ years.
• They achieved those results in a particularly turbulent environment, with lots of potential for disaster.
• They began their rise to greatness from a position of vulnerability, being young or small at the start of the study.

Probably the most famous corporate example he takes is Microsoft v Apple prior to 2000, and then examining Apple's resurgence under Steve Jobs. He also uses the recurring example of Scott v Amundsen in the race for the South Pole, observing that most of the same principles apply there as well.

This rather raises the question “Should we as Christian leaders seek greatness as understood by Collins for our churches?” In Good to Great and the Social Sectors, Collins discusses what greatness means for a non-profit organisation.

A great organisation is one that delivers superior performance and makes a distinctive impact over a long period of time. For a business, financial returns are a perfectly legitimate measure of performance. For a social sector organisation, however, performance must be assessed relative to mission, not financial returns. In the social sectors, the critical question is not “How much money do we make per dollar of invested capital?” but “How effectively do we deliver on our mission and make a distinctive impact, relative to our resources?”

He goes on to break down his definition into three factors – superior performance, distinctive impact, lasting endurance, and then to show that many of the principles he advocated in Good to Great still apply, albeit with slight modifications.

I think it is important to draw a distinction here between the calling of God's Church, the calling of the congregations we serve, and our calling as individuals. We are called neither to greatness nor to seek greatness – we are called to seek God and serve faithfully. The congregations we are called to serve may be called to greatness, but they may not. It is far too easy as pastors for our egos to become entangled with the health of the congregations we serve. But superior performance, distinctive impact and lasting endurance are most certainly features of the Kingdom of God, far beyond what any company or organisation could achieve. And that is because it is led by the perfect leader – Jesus Christ. True greatness is to be found in following him, and his kingdom is truly great, whether by Jim Collins' definition or any other.

“Great by Choice”

An even more troubling theme of Collins' work is the idea of choice. Collins' basic thesis in the book is that there is a set of 4 behaviours which, taken together, ensure that one thrives in difficult and unpredictable situations. He examines the role of luck, and finds that the successful companies did not have better luck than their unsuccessful counterparts, but their behaviour during the period ensured that they made the most of their good luck and did not suffer as much from the effects of bad luck – these behaviours ensure a better “return on luck”.

There are several major problems with this from a Christian (and a logical) point of view.

• Firstly, just because those behaviours might lead to a better “return on luck” does not mean that they can be chosen. We are not always free to act in the way that we might want to. Indeed, in Good to Great, he speculates as to how level 5 leaders come about and isn't sure beyond pointing to possible causative factors such as near-death experiences or conversion to Christianity.
• Secondly, he largely ignores the role of catastrophically bad, unavoidable events – events which would ensure that the company closes down no matter how they had behaved beforehand, or which could not have been forseen. He might respond to this by pointing out that such events are by definition unavoidable and hence do not change the fact that one set of behaviours has a better return on luck. However, that misses the point that such events show that it is not merely a “choice” to become great - there are still plenty of factors beyond our control.
• Third, luck does not really exist – it is a matter of the providence of God - The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD. (Proverbs 16:33, NIV)
• Finally, as a result of these, Collins' suggestion that one could become “Great by Choice” is hubristic. It doesn't allow for the fact that it is God who gives the ability to become great. It doesn't allow for the fact that God could easily stop them from becoming great via either changing their character or bringing along an unavoidable catastrophic event, in the way that he did in Daniel 4.

By saying that greatness is a result of choice, Collins commits a logical fallacy. Many companies may have chosen the same course as the “great” companies, but failed. All winners of the men's Olympic 100m final for the past 20 years have been Afro-Caribbean, but that does not mean that ++Sentamu is a good sprinter.

He also undermines some of his own past work by creating the danger of letting the “will” aspect of the level 5 leader undermine the “humility” aspect. He notes that level 5 leaders tend to credit others for their success – how then would they respond to reading his work and learning that becoming great was their choice? How would someone who knew that they had chosen to become great attain the level of humility required for level 5 leadership? The counterpart of being able to choose greatness is that if an organisation lacks greatness, it is the fault of their leader for not choosing it. In some cases, doubtless, that is true. But in others it isn't. Was Jeremiah less than great? Situations and providence play a far greater role than Collins allows them.

Having criticised both the notion of greatness and the idea of choice, it might seem that there is little hope for Great by Choice. However, that isn't necessarily true. What Collins has done is present four behaviours which help people and organisations to thrive in uncertain conditions, even if he has framed it in ways which we might not find helpful. We can still potentially learn from treating those behaviours as examples of research-based wisdom...

Jim Collins - Great by Choice (1)

Who is Jim Collins?

In my experience, Jim Collins is the secular leadership thinker who is most often cited by Christians. Ideas such as the level 5 leader (from Good to Great) and the BHAG (from Built to Last) are common currency in open and charismatic evangelical leadership. He used to be a lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Business, but is now an independent management consultant who runs his own “management laboratory” and spends most of his time speaking and doing research. He has spoken at the GLS four times, more than anyone else except Hybels.

In 2005, he professed to be surprised by how popular Good to Great had been among nonprofit organisations - between a third and a half of all readers32, and therefore decided to write a supplement to the book which discussed some of the differences between business and non-business and applied his work more broadly.

One of the most striking features of Collins' work, and one which explains why it is so popular amongst Christians, is the idea of the Level 5 Leader, introduced in Good to Great and recurring in all his subsequent books. He found that companies that become great and stay great have a particular type of leader to start with. In Collins' own words: Level 5 leaders embody a paradoxical mix of personal humility and professional will. They are ambitious, to be sure, but ambitious first and foremost for the company, not themselves.

Level 5 leaders, notes Collins, are so important because they enable others to become great too. As Lawrence and others have pointed out, this ties in strongly with the Bible's picture of leadership because it reflects the character of Christ who surely is the perfect embodiment of the combination of humility and will. It is also encouraging for Christians when we find ourselves under pressure not to be humble. Can we then learn more about what the combination of humility and will looks like from the examples Collins cites?

As part of my curacy, I wrote an essay evaluating the whole trend of secular leadership thinking in the church, with particular reference to Jim Collins' book Great by Choice.

Welcome to my blog!

Welcome to my blog, particularly for people who are new here! Or rather, welcome to my older blog. Most of the stuff on here goes back many years; there's a decent fraction of it I really don't agree with - notably I've changed my mind on issues of charismatic gifts and experience and women in ministry. The main emphasis here is on church politics and theology, and I don't update it very often - my newer, shinier, more relevant-to-me blog is here.