Every now and again, a historical anniversary crops up that is simply too important not to celebrate. Over the course of the last couple of decades, three landmark Reformation dates have been thoroughly worthy of celebration. In 2009, at Together on a Mission, I ran a Calvin seminar track to celebrate the 500th birthday of the great French reformer. I must admit, I thought the seminars would attract a couple of dozen church history nerds but, to my utter amazement, the room was packed for three mornings with hundreds of leaders. For me, one of the highlights was the late Greg Haslam, then Pastor of Westminster Chapel, revealing a pen portrait of Calvin that he had drawn as an 18-year-old student at Durham University. It was stunning.

In 2017, King’s Community Church Southampton, the church I lead, hosted a Luther 500 conference to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. It was a wonderful time celebrating the great truths that Luther rediscovered, such as justification by faith alone, the authority of Scripture, and the priesthood of all believers. We enjoyed great contributions from people such as Glen Scrivener, Michael Reeves, and Andrew Wilson. We also ate lots of bratwurst, drank German beer, and watched a powerful one-person dramatization of Mark’s Gospel.

Tyndale 500 promises to take my Reformation celebrations to a whole new level. The event will, of course, mark the 500th anniversary of the publication of William Tyndale’s New Testament, the first-ever translation of the Scriptures into English from the original Greek. Tyndale, who was martyred for his faith and his translation work in 1536, is unquestionably the most important influence on English evangelicalism in the Reformation period. His New Testament not only changed Christianity in the English-speaking world but also had a hugely important influence - arguably even greater than Shakespeare’s - on English culture.

Speakers at the conference will include Glen Scrivener, Andrew Wilson, John Stevens, John Risbridger, Natalie Williams, and myself. Other highlights will include a virtual tour of the Reformation by Ben Virgo of Christian Heritage London and a brand-new performance by Stefan Smart, who gave us Mark’s Gospel in 2017. For the last couple of years, Stefan has been committing the Acts of the Apostles to memory, and he will be performing it for the very first time at the conference.

There will also be two interviews and book launches at the conference. I will be interviewing Terry Virgo, the founder and elder statesman of Newfrontiers. I have recently written an authorised biography of Terry, which will be launched at the event. We will also be launching a 21st-century Toposa equivalent of Tyndale’s English New Testament. My friend Simon Fry has been working in South Sudan for the last 20 years. When he began, the Toposa tribe was an unreached people group with only a handful of believers. Not any more - today there are thousands of Toposa believers and, at Tyndale 500, we will be celebrating the publication of the first-ever Toposa New Testament, translated by James Lokuuda, a local pastor who has worked faithfully over many years with the Tyndale Bible translators.

Five hundred years after Tyndale, his work continues. Jesus promised that the gospel would be preached to every people group, and then the end will come (Matthew 24:14). I would love you to join us and be part of our celebrations on 5th and 6th November at King’s Community Church. We are one minute from Junction 7 of the M27. You can book here.

The Face of Dismas

The whole of my life I have heard it said
That God made me dumb for being “half-bred,”
That there’s a reason for my dreadful face:
My father’s sin remains acute disgrace
For me, his only son. So I have spent
These years discerning all that Moses meant,
His tales of sacrifice and holiness—
A path to glory, roads of righteousness
For those like me, outcasts who long to be
Of better blood. Resolved, I faithfully
Obey the law in every thought and deed,
So to solicit alms I’ll have no need.

But in Jerusalem, work’s hard to find
When you’re not of the well-born, clever kind.
Of course the local quarry won’t refuse
The backs of those willing to daily choose
A life of hauling heavy loads. So with
Both flesh and soul I heave a monolith
Of stone and law, for I have heard it said
A man can change himself. And yet instead
Of transformation, I taste still the same
Dull disappointment sharpening my shame.
Excepting sorrow, I remain unchanged
And from ambitious dreams, all but estranged.

Until, that is, I chance to overhear
That on a mount up north will soon appear
A Teacher – or a Healer. Both, say some.
Might either craft impel me to become
At least the likeness of another man?
For I heard it said that this Rabbi can
Make even deaf ears hear and blind eyes see;
What sort of kindness might be done for me?
I have no demon, nor some leprosy —
Just my gray plague of inadequacy.
So with some friends I make for Galilee
To hear this Jesus preach his homily.

But any comfort I had hoped to find
Dissolves as vapor in my muddled mind.
This Rabbi’s teaching I begin to dread
And wince each time he says, “You’ve heard it said.”
For to the law he joins his own decree,
Each one a sheer impossibility.
“Give even to the evil ones your love;
Be Perfect as your Father is above.”
Am I to be like God? How can that be
If even lust is now adultery?
Upon my life it was a curse he spoke,
Condemning me beneath his weighty yoke.

Bereft of fortune and ability,
I plunge into a sea of apathy
And sloth. But I discover small relief
In the mild prospects of the common thief.
For if a king could steal the sacred loaves,
So might we dogs amongst the homeless droves
Find crumbs beneath the table of the world?
But in my clumsy haste, I’m caught and hurled
In jail. So forty days and nights I wait
To hear my sentence from the magistrate.
A lowly death awaits, I’ve heard it said,
For those who dare to steal their daily bread.

And so with trembling I’m brought to court
And listen as a clerk makes the report
Of my offense and also of the poor
Soul standing next to me, who did no more
Than take some bread and wine to feed his bride.
With silent faces we stare terrified,
Like reeds both bent and bruised and fit to break.
The judge but glares at us and I forsake
All hope. He reads our sentence from his seat
With vengeful hatred and self-sure conceit.
O God, the worst is come—I’m horrified
To hear it said we shall be crucified.

Next day the soldiers march us to the place
Called Golgotha and there mark out a space
For a third cross. With us, who shall ascend
This mount of suffering and make his end?
But hearing distant shouts I turn to see
The Preacher I once heard in Galilee
Approaching from within an angry crowd,
Obscured by blood and in a scarlet shroud.
I hear it said from someone passing by,
“His death will hopefully thus satisfy
The wrath of Pilate and the Pharisees–
For they won’t tolerate his blasphemies.”

With Jesus in between, they place us three
Upon our crosses, tools of infamy
And terror I know well. A group of guards
Soon pins us down by driving iron shards
Into our flesh. Hysteric now, I scream
Aloud and twist upon the wooden beam.
Once hoisted up, convulsively I lurch
To somehow breathe upon this wretched perch.
We shiver naked as exposed we stand
In cloudy shadow covering the land.
I’ve heard it said that there’s a curse for those
Who hang from trees, or so the saying goes.

For hours we writhe for breath and gasp and pant,
Until the other thief begins to rant:
“If Christ you are, then save yourself and us!”
But surely that taunt is injurious.
Our suffering is great, yet his seems more;
What sort of judgment is this man in store?
I shout: “To fates of thieves we two belong!
But I tell you that he has done no wrong.
My Lord, when you into your kingdom come—
Remember me!” And as I’m overcome
With grief I hear the words that must suffice:
“This day you’ll be with me in paradise.”

I cannot say for sure what Jesus meant,
Except that even now I should repent.
With my confession made, I hear it said
From those below, “Behold, the Rabbi’s dead!”
Centurions approach with pointed spear
And pierce his side as one in voice sincere
Cries, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”
But to another, he then gives a nod
To signify the time has come for me
To die. They break my legs below the knee
And as the skies remain still overcast
I close my eyes on them and breathe my last.
____________

When I awoke, I could not say
If ages passed or just a day.
But how to you can I relate
My first forays into that great
New land of weighty majesty
And otherworldly quality?
I stood and saw that all around
The earth with glory had been crowned:
Beside me lapped a glassy sea;
Just off the beach, there I could see
A grove of oaks with livened leaves
Applauding sweetly in the breeze.
But then at once I heard it said
In thundering voice overhead,
“Your time of judgment now is come!”
In terror both my legs went numb
As I collaps’d upon the shore
In gloom. It was not long before
The voice again spoke to dictate
My life’s details, both small and great.
For hours I wept as it revealed
The life of sin that I’d concealed.
Humiliations once complete,
I braced for death to soon repeat.
Yet there before me did appear
A flaming creature drawing near.
As I shrunk back in nervous dread,
World-mending words, I heard them said:
“O Heaven’s son, Be Perfect now!”
What came to pass next did somehow
Exceed the marvels thus far seen:
My body glowed in light pristine.
With caution to the sea I walked;
At my reflection there I gawked—
It was my face, but somehow changed.
My ugliness had been exchanged
For noble strength, none other than
The likeness of Another Man.
Then only did I understand
The meaning of his old command:
What I had heard as fatal curse
In Jesus found its true inverse;
What I could not do—happily—
My Lord has done it all for me.

Where is technology taking us?

My friend, and sometime Think contributor, Bryan Hart wrote this poem about AI, voiced by my daughter Nancy, to introduce a sermon on technology.

You can find Bryan’s entire message here.

1. Instruction (torah) is the headline word in 119:1 and the most frequently occurring law word. That it appears only in the singular “suggests that it is a global term for the totality of God’s revelation” (Wenham).

2. Testimony (eduth) appears in the plural. In Exodus 31:18 “the two tablets of the testimony” refers to the covenant Decalogue. The word may have the sense of standing as a “witness” against the people of God (Deut 31:26) and also the sense of bearing witness to the faithfulness of the covenant God.

3. Precept (piqqud) always occurs in the form “your precepts.” This noun derives from the verb “to show concern for, test, visit,” and it conveys the idea of God’s words as deriving from a God who “cares about detail” as he watches over his people (Kidner).

4. Statute (khoq) always appears in the form “your statutes.” This perhaps emphasises the binding force of what God has said.

5. Commandment (mitsvah) usually occurs in the plural. This term simply points to the authority of God to say what ought to be done.

6. Judgment (mishpat) is the most difficult word to translate with consistency. It means the decision of a judge. This decision may be expressed in a law, but it may equally seen in the “judgment” given for or against someone in court. The word “rule” covers the former but not the latter, especially when the ruling is in the plaintiff’s favour, for the divine Judge, as in Luke 18:7, will act to vindicate his elect.

7. Word (dabar) is the most general of the expressions. Usually in Psalm 119 it appears in the form “your word,” where the singular sums up the totality of God’s covenant revelation.

8. Promise (imrah) means “something that is spoken” and is often more or less indistinguishable from dabar. The context often indicates that what is spoken by God has the character of a promise.

What unites these words is covenant. The covenant name (“the LORD”) appears twenty-two times, an average of once for each stanza.

It’s a shame that Andrew’s book on happiness isn’t hitting the shelves until the summer: it’s in the winter that many of us particularly need help finding the joy. From ‘blue Monday’ (the third Monday in January and apparently the most miserable day of the year), till now in February with endless rain, we need a mood boost.

I’ve read Happiness in pre-publication issue, and it is excellent. I encourage you to buy it when it appears. I’ve also recently re-read Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ classic, Spiritual Depression – a book I first read on honeymoon 32 years ago. Yes, Grace did find that a bit odd.

My conviction is that Christians are meant to know joy. God is very happy, so getting close to Him means an encounter with happiness. That means the pursuit of joy should be a central part of our discipleship. There are many ‘joy-suckers’ though, which can rob us of joy. Lloyd-Jones offers an analysis of this which I have found helpful. Here are five things he highlights that we should be alert to if we are not to sink into the doldrums.

Personality type

But while I emphasize, with all my being, the fact that temperament does not make the slightest difference in the matter of our fundamental salvation, I am equally anxious to emphasize the fact that it does make a very great difference in actual experience in the Christian life, and that when you are trying to diagnose a condition such as that of spiritual depression, it is something with which you should start, it is something to put at the very beginning.

Salvation is no more dependent on our personality type than our eye colour, but personality does impact how we feel and respond to things. This is why it is important that we know ourselves. Some people are more naturally tiggerish than others, but whatever our personality, the Lord provides pathways along which we can find joy. We need to follow the paths that lead to true happiness and not the false paths that offer comfort but in the end only make us more miserable. If you want to be happy, know yourself.

Physical conditions

Is anyone surprised again? Does someone hold the view that as long as you are a Christian it does not matter what the condition of your body is? Well, you will soon be disillusioned if you believe that. Physical conditions play their part in all this.

Ill-health can suck joy. The physical and spiritual are deeply intertwined but the reason we are feeling glum might very well be because of physical conditions rather than some spiritual failing. How to overcome in this reality and fight the fight for joy? It is a huge topic but my observation is that it is those who deliberately practice gratitude who overcome illness and pain and find their way to joy. Thankfulness is pain relief.

Post-blessing depression

Another frequent cause of spiritual depression is what we may describe as a reaction—a reaction after a great blessing, a reaction after some unusual and exceptional experience. I hope to call attention sometime to the case of Elijah under the juniper tree.

This is a strange one, but I’ve found it to be true – an emotional slump following hot on the heels of a time of special blessing in God. Elijah went from the triumph of Mount Carmel to suicidal ideation within a matter of hours. If we experience times like this we shouldn’t be surprised but recognise it as a blip, not the prevailing reality. Joy has to be pushed into, not assumed.

The devil

In a sense, and in the last analysis, that is the one and only cause of spiritual depression— it is the devil, the adversary of our souls.

It is just Satan who, though he cannot rob us of our salvation, can definitely rob us of our joy. His great concern is to prevent anyone becoming a Christian, but when that fails, his one object then is to make them miserable Christians.

We have an enemy, a discourager, an accuser of the brethren, and must not ignore the spiritual dynamic at play. God is very happy but the devil is very miserable and he wants to make God’s people miserable too. When that happens to us it is a problem personally, but it is also a problem missionally. If Christians are as miserable as everyone else what do we have to offer the world? The gospel is good news! That must mean it brings us to joy – and that means we must resist the devil.

Unbelief

Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?

All of us experience doubts; the real problem is when doubt hardens into unbelief. That can happen when the narrative in our heads is negative, discouraging, and lying. It is very easy to listen to this negative voice and allow unbelief to grow. Instead of that, we need to preach to ourselves, declaring the truth and power of the gospel and commanding the negative inner-voice to silence.

Earlier today there were a few minutes of brightness. Now the rain is sheeting down again. It’s a grim time of year. But in the Lord there is joy, now, forever and even in February (Ps 16:11)!

1. Generosity begins in the heart of the pastor. If you don’t give generously, why should your people?
2. Money is both a thermometer and a thermostat for the heart.
3. When you teach about money, don’t apologize. Money is one of the biggest competitors with God, and helping people live in line with God’s financial principles is a huge gift. Better to say, “If you’re a guest, you couldn’t have picked a better Sunday to be here.”
4. Keep track of and thank first-time givers. It’s a big step of involvement in a local church (bigger than attending the first time), so treat it accordingly.
5. It’s not necessarily good to say, “I don’t know what anybody gives.” Set up a system where, as the Lead Pastor, you can find out what people give if you have a good reason. If you’re mature enough to know what everyone gives, fine.
6. People typically start giving months after they start attending and stop giving months before they stop attending.
7. There are five “pockets” that people give from. Wise churches provide opportunities over the year for people to give out of all five: (1) General fund — they like supporting the pastors and basics; (2) Building — they want the church to have good facilities; (3) Directed Designated — special projects that you identify; (4) Benevolence — helping the needy; (5) Missions & Church Planting — taking the gospel.
8. You need to disciple high-capacity givers. To whom much is given, much is expected — and they need help stewarding what God has entrusted them. If you don’t know how to help them, find some other higher-capacity financial people and do it together.
9. People do not give first to vision. They give to success.
10. Beware of assuming you have a right to people’s money. Everything they give is a gift.
11. It takes just as much work to do a 3-year initiative as a 2-year, but you typically get 25% more money.
12. Giving begets giving and generosity begets generosity. Don’t fear that giving to a big project or initiative will hurt the general fund. It will usually help it.
13. Create doable classes and pathways for people to get help with learning the nuts and bolts of getting out of debt and managing their money. Then you can say, with integrity, “This is not about what we want from you — it’s about what we want for you.”
14. In your first few hires, make sure they are in positions that will eventually pay for themselves — either by freeing you up to be much more effective or by being in key-growth areas.
15. People respond to being challenged (in general) — it’s true for money too. Don’t be afraid of doing a 90-Day Tithe Challenge.
16. Make the basics of your church’s financial situation visible regularly to the people, either through your bulletin or weekly email. They need to regularly know how the church is doing financially.
17. Every year, talk publicly on a Sunday through the basics of your financial situation. What you budgeted last year, how much was given, what the plan is for that year, etc. Shouldn’t be a sermon; more like an extended vision-casting announcement.
18. Do not outsource preaching on money to somebody else. The church needs to hear it from you and you need to build up your confidence.
19. Set next year’s budget based off of this year’s actual giving. This way you aren’t presuming upon growth.
20. Most people are 3S Givers (Spontaneous, Sporadic, Sparingly). Challenge them to be 3P Givers (Priority, Percentage, Progressive).
21. Sometimes you have not because you ask not. God can prompt people to give without you asking. He is also more likely to prompt people to give if you ask.
22. You will not do the church staff any favors by setting your salary artificially low. Develop a system to set your salary and staff salaries fairly without it having to be a huge ordeal.
23. Figure out your average per capita giving ($/attender/week). Use this as a way to plan for future hires — how much you have to grow to be able to afford them.
24. Churches that are in portable facilities need to have the discipline to save cash (of equivalent leasing payments) so that they have the money to move on something when the time comes.
25. More money rarely leads to more creativity — usually the opposite is true. Remember the “Apollo 13 table.” This is what we have—make it work.

Over on The Gospel Coalition Seth Troutt posts about three things he’s learnt from Brazilian jiu-jitsu that can be applied to discipleship: humility, hierarchy and grit.

Like Seth, I started training in BJJ a few months back, like him after several years of CrossFit, and resonate strongly with his experience. I’m 20 years older than him though, so my progress is most likely even slower, and more painful. Like him, I’ve become very familiar with very quickly being put in my place by more experienced practitioners. I’m the oldest guy at our gym, but that means nothing in terms of seniority. And every training session provokes the question of whether I really want to be doing this, or if I should give up and choose an easier option.

BJJ might not immediately seem an obvious place to learn discipleship lessons but, as Seth observes,

Seventy-five percent of people who start BJJ quit before they get a blue belt. Ninety-five percent never make it to black belt. A black belt is just a white belt who never quit. Likewise, a wise, holy, Christian man is just a new convert who never quit.

I’m too old to have any realistic hope of a black belt but, muscles and joints allowing, I hope to persevere longer than the 75 percent. And I definitely want to persevere into wisdom and holiness. While I’m doing so, there are some other discipleship lessons I can see in BJJ.

The need for physical contact
BJJ is a very up close and personal sport: sparring consists of rolling around on the mats for five minute rounds trying to submit one’s opponent. BJJ not only allows physical contact, it demands it. It is challenging for anyone with intimacy issues.

Many men both crave and fear physical intimacy – and not just of the sexual kind. In fact, one of our most significant problems is how we have confused sexual intimacy, which should be strictly contained and delineated, with the physical intimacy that should be much more part of daily life. Modern life tends to keep us physically separated from one another and there are many barriers to men, especially, expressing physical closeness. Contemporary concerns around safeguarding and appropriate behaviour can make men nervous about any kind of physical contact with others. More people than ever before live alone and might go days, if not weeks, without any kind of physical contact with another human being.

This is not healthy. Humans are made for touch and a lack of it can exacerbate anxiety, depression and other health issues. This was a significant problem during the covid lockdowns especially, but it is symptomatic of modern society generally.

Being married, having a family, two dogs, and being in a church, mean I benefit from more physical touch than many people. Hugs, handshakes and fist bumps are all very much part of my daily experience. BJJ provides a much more intense and confrontational version of that and I suspect it is one of the things that draws men to the sport.

Most people won’t choose to find the answer to a lack of physical contact by taking up BJJ but contact is still needed. Scripture exhorts us to, “Greet one another with a holy kiss”. Week by week we are meant to lay our hands on the sacrament, taking hold of the body and blood of Christ. Modern people can feel squeamish about these things but we need them. 

The need for challenge
Seth says that, “Men hate suffering but love having suffered. War stories, talking about how hard the workout was, and “back-in-my-day” sentimentality are all rooted in the desire to be someone who overcame something.” Many of us feel this intuitively but the world we inhabit has been designed to minimise hardship as far as possible. We have abundant food, heating and hot water, comfortable clothes. Relative to previous generations, certainly, our lives are remarkably struggle free.

Of course, it is not only BJJ that provides an outlet for the challenge our sedentary lives lack. Whether it is parkrun, cold water swimming, or any of the other numerous physical tests so many now engage in, we – men especially – have a need for challenge.

Christian discipleship doesn’t require working up a physical sweat but it does challenge our bodies. Learning to pray will often require learning the discipline of getting up earlier than we might naturally choose in order to ensure time with the Lord. Fasting is physically hard work as well as spiritually. Acts of service demand time and energy. Christian discipleship should challenge us in these kinds of areas. As Seth says,

Do you want to overcome yourself, walk the path of self-conquest, and discover the type of humility that comes from God himself? Repent and believe. Grace is a gift, yes, but you have to lose your life to find it.

And it might just be, for some of us at least, that BJJ can help bring that into focus.