Religious affections Part 1.

I'm reading Edwards' Religious Affections with a member of the congregation here. We meet for coffee tomorrow to discuss part one. Here are some great quotes...

After religion has revived in the church of God, and enemies appear, people that are engaged to defend its cause are commonly most exposed where they are least sensible of danger. While they are wholly intent upon the opposition that appears openly before hem, to make head against that, and do neglect carefully to look all around them, the devil comes behind them, and gives a fatal stab unseen.(18)

That religion which God requires, and will accept, does not consist in weak, dull, and lifeless wishes, raising but a little above a state of indifference: God, in His word, greatly insists upon it, that we be in good earnest, "fervent in spirit", and our hearts vigorously engaged in religion. (27)

The holy scriptures do everywhere place religion very much in the affection; such as fear, hope, love, hatred, desire, joy, sorrow, gratitude, compassion, and zeal. (31)

There is doubtless true religion in heaven, and true religion in its utmost purity and perfection. But according to the Scripture representation of the heavenly state, the religion of heaven consists chiefly in holy and mighty love and joy, and the expression of these in most ferventa nd exalted praises. (41)

Herein appears the subtilty of Satan. While he saw that affections were much in vogue, knowing the greater part were not versed in such things, and had not had much experience of great religious affections, enabling them to judge well, and to distinguish between true and false; then he knew he could best play his game, by sowing tares amongst the wheat, and mingling false affections with the works of God’s Spirit. He knew this to be a likely way to delude and eternally ruin many souls, and greatly to wound religion in the saints, and entangle them in a dreadful wilderness, and by and by to bring all religion into disrepute.
But now, when the ill consequences of these false affections appear, and it is become very apparent, that some of those emotions which made a glaring show, and were by many greatly admired, were in reality nothing; the devil sees it to be for his interest to go another way to work, and to endeavour to his utmost to propagate and establish a persuasion, that all affections and sensible emotions of the mind in religion, are nothing at all to be regarded, but are rather to be avoided, and carefully guarded against, as things of a pernicious tendency. This he knows is the way to bring all religion to a mere lifeless formality, and effectually to shut out the power of godliness and every thing spiritual. For although to true religion there must indeed be something else besides affection; yet true religion consists so much in the affections, that there can be no true religion without them. (49)

Preaching difficult passages

In preaching through Mark's gospel, on Sunday I arrived at Mark 13. This is certainly the hardest chapter to understand in Mark's gospel. After my study on the text there were certainly various questions that for me remained unresolved.
What, for example, was the abomination of desolation? there are several well known candidates (the entry of Titus into the temple, the imperial standard, roman coinage etc, an unqualified high priest)

Then there is the question as to whether the son of Man's "coming in the clouds" is coming back to earth, or coming to the Ancient of Days (Daniel 7). I was 80% convinced that it was coming to the Ancient of Days, (i.e. the destruction of the temple was to signify that Jesus had entered the heavenly temple.)

What do you do when there are some things about which you are totally unsure, and some things about which you are not entirely sure.

The first thing is to see if it actually makes any difference at all to what the passage means.

In this case the identification of the abomination makes not a squat of difference. I am entirely convinced that it came as a sign of the approaching destruction of the Temple (answering the disciple's question in verse 4
"Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are all about to be fulfilled?"

Thus, it wasn't a sign for US, but for THEM, to ensure that there would not be Christians in Jerusalem at its destruction. There were none. So the reader obviously understood. They got the message and fled before it was too late.

The other issue made some difference to the meaning of that section, but not really to the thrust of the whole chapter. It is clear that there are three focuses in the chapter. 1) the time leading up to the destruction of the temple. 2) the destruction of the temple itself and its significance. 3) the last day and the final return of Christ.

All this is to say that it is OK to be honest when you are not sure about something you are preaching. It can help people to see that in order to get the main points of a passage of scripture, they don't have to fully understand every detail.

the audio of the sermon can be found here.

A Prod from a member of my church

I Received an email from a member of Twynholm Baptist Church today which I take as a gentle prod to start blogging a little more regularly and faithfully.
He included a link from the Desiring God website (a great website with loads of good resources).

The link was called "Why Pastors Should Blog."

Abraham Piper, who wrote the post, gives 5 reasons.
1. To Write
2. To Teach
3. To recommend
4. To interact
5. To develop an eye for what is meaningful
6. To be known (by your own congregation).

There is a good discussion off the back of his post here

As someone who has been a sporadic blogger, I am fairly convinced by the arguments in favour.
However, I'd add a couple of cautions.

1) Blogging must be for the sake of building more meaningful face-to-face contact rather than replacing it.
2) Blogging must flow out of the preparation for other teaching rather than displacing it.
3) Blogging cannot be thoughtless or rushed if it is to be edifying, and the pastor must always ask whether he is fulfilling other responsibilities.

That having been said, I take the prod well from the member of the congregation who sent me the link, and shall seek to use this blog to more faithfully serve members of Twynholm.

The Penny Drops late on a Friday night...

On Weekends when I'm preaching I don't allow myself to go to sleep on Friday night until I have an outline for the sermon. Some weeks this works OK... (Last week I had an outline and had written and introduction). Some weeks I really struggle to find a sermon in a text.
This coming Sunday I'm preaching on the whole of Mark 6. Through my devotional time in the text, and most of my study of it today, I could see how I could preach 3, 4 or even 6 sermons on Mark 6. I couldn't really see how I could preach one coherent message.
There are stacks of Old Testament allusions in Mark 6. (Including, I think, Exodus 12, 16, 18, 33, 34, Numbers 12, 1 Sam 16, 1 Kings 19, Esther 1, 5, 7, Job 9, Psalm 77)
So, I've gone with a uniting theme of Exodus.
My exegetical outline is

1-13 A prophet like Moses

1-6 Opposed by his own: House

7-13 An urgency like the Exodus

14-29 An enemy like Pharoah & the King of Babylon.

30-44 A Man who is the Lord

30-44 A provider like the Lord

45-52An encounter with the Lord

53-56 A land like Canaan.

My homiletic outline is:

1) The urgency of Jesus’ message (1-13)

2) The powerlessness of Jesus’ enemies (14-29)

3) The sufficiency of Jesus’ provision (30-56)

a. Food

b. Himself

c. Rest

This sermon will dv complete the first block of 6. having never preached for 6 consecutive Sudnays before, I am glad that the sermon finished with rest, and that we are taking some holiday straight afterwards. And so to bed...

Wordling check on expository sermons.

Bloggers at the moment seem to be fascinated by Wordles.

I thought this might be a good way to do a rough check on an expository sermon as to whether the sermon hits the same themes as the text....

Here's the wordle of my sermon from Mark 4:35-5:43 on Sunday



Here's the wordle of the ESV text that I preached from:

Mmmn, had I made death bigger than Jesus in the sermon, when it doesn't even appear on the wordle of the text? I don't think so! I think that the whole text is about Jesus authority over the realm of death, and so many of the other words on the text world (unclean, tombs, afraid, shackles, chains, disease, demon-possessed, dead, blood) are about death, our fear of it and the shadow it casts.

Wordles are interesting, but if we just look for the biggest words, we might fail to see the whole atmosphere that is created by a text with groups of words that are associated with one big theme. The word at the centre of the theme doesn't appear in this text until the very end - the death of Jairus' daughter.

Sermons now available online

So, the Twynholm website is really shaping together now, and sermons are available for download
and podcast here

Induction service

Pictures from my induction service are available here

New Church Website

Our new website at http://www.twynholm.org/ is now up. It is still a work in progress (pretty much just a homepage at the moment.) some of the other content that will appear there is available at http://wordpress.twynholm.org/

I think the new site looks rather good... Well done Leigh and Jeffrey!

A church where people have come to faith

One of the hugely encouraging things about the church I now serve is the large proportion of the congregation who came to faith through the ministry of the church.
I have started meeting with members of the congregation and interviewing them in a similar kind of way to how I would interview someone applying for membership.
The first four I interviewed, all in their 20's/30's were all saved at Twynholm. Emma through door to door evangelism. Leigh, now her husband, through Emma's witness. Marcos through door to door evangelism. Faye, now Marcos's wife through friends in the youth group at Twynholm.
My guess is that about half of the membership came to faith here. I pray that the Lord would continue to use us to bring many more to faith.

Great quote from Spurgeon for a new pastor

Young pastor, preserve the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace... by not gossiping with your people. So says Spurgeon (HT: DG):
It is the extreme of unwisdom for a young man fresh from college, or from another charge, to suffer himself to be earwigged by a clique, and to be bribed by kindness and flattery to become a partisan, and so to ruin himself with one-half of his people. Know nothing of parties and cliques, but be the pastor of all the flock, and care for all alike. Blessed are the peacemakers, and one sure way of peacemaking is to let the fire of contention alone. Neither fan it, nor stir it, nor add fuel to it, but let it go out of itself. Begin your ministry with one blind eye and one deaf ear.

(HT: Thabiti)