He must be otherwise we’d hear some condemnation of it in the Bible, surely. But there’s no hint of a biblical program of social reform. In fact, at first sight, the Bible writers seem to endorse the institution. So why don’t we read about the condemnation of slavery in the Bible? 

This is the apologetic equivalent of the poke in the eye. It hurts. And it’s hard to see the issue clearly. However, there are three issues to bear in mind with regards to this subject. 

1. Slavery was not as bad as we think

No one is arguing that the slavery abolished by Wilberforce and his peers wasn’t a disgrace. It was. And we must continue to eradicate anything that approximates to it. But that’s not what the institution of slavery was like in the Old Testament, particularly in Israel. So let’s not read it back into the Bible, just because the word is the same. We need to be careful of committing an illegitimate totality transfer! Though the ancient Near Eastern slave was commonly thought of as the property of his master, the arrangement was more akin to the employer employee relationship that we know of today. I willingly placed myself under bonded employment with the Royal Navy and, had it not been for ‘Options for Change’, would have had to serve my time or buy my freedom! As it was, they paid me to leave in a very wonderful redundancy package.

Though slaves didn’t have any legal rights, they enjoyed a range of privileges. They could start their own business. They could earn money to pay for their own release. They could own their own property. 

They were able to purchase their own freedom. But many chose not to. They preferred the stability offered by their master’s provision of clothing, food, shelter and employment.

They had good job prospects. Some were employed at the highest levels of civil government. Others worked in mines under awful conditions. In between there was a range of experience.

But it wasn’t all bad. It’s not ideal. Social reform is preferable. But let’s not wrongly associate the institution with the worst excesses of the practice.

2. Slavery was regulated by the Mosaic Law

The Old Testament recognised the incongruous practice of slavery in a nation that was once slaves in Egypt (Deuteronomy 15:5). The Mosaic Law did not abolish the institution. It regulated it. It did so in three ways

a. The Mosaic Law reformed a deeply entrenched social convention

A combination of human sin and the deep entrenchment of the practice in the ancient Near East meant that the practice could not be easily eradicated. The only sensible thing to do was to mitigate, limit and control the custom. Therefore, biblical slavery was an attenuated form of that commonly practiced in the ancient Near East. Under the Mosaic Law freedom from slavery was the ideal status in Israelite society. Slaves were released every seven years. But slavery was not an easy thing to eliminate. There were two dominant reasons why it was a difficult practice to eliminate. First, foreign slaves were commonly acquired through one nation’s victory in warfare over another. These foreign fighting men needed to be assimilated into a new society in such a way that they were unable to organise and initiate a new attack. Secondly, in the absence of a welfare state or a generous church, unkind economic conditions meant that for some the only sensible thing was to sell themselves into bonded employment. Destitute Israelites could then pay back their debts but they could only be held in slavery for six years. After this time they were to be set free (Exodus 21:1, Deuteronomy 15:12, Jeremiah 34:14)

b. The Mosaic Law did not grant slave owners absolute rights over their slaves

The biblical demands concerning those who had slaves and servants assumed that their power of the master was not absolute, even though this was the common assumption in the ancient Near East. Consider the following situations

A master could lose his life if he killed his slave (Exodus 20:20&23)

If a master inflicted bodily injury on his slave, the slave was automatically released (Exodus 21:23-26)

The slave had a day of rest each week (Exodus 20:10, Deuteronomy 5:14)

All slaves in Israel were to be involved in the religious life and celebrations of the nation (Deuteronomy 12:12&18)

Any demeaning or oppressive treatment of slaves was condemned by biblical writers since any slaves who had run away from harsh masters were not to be returned but were to be harboured and protected (Deuteronomy 23:15&16)

Israelite servants could not be sold by their masters (Leviticus 25:42)

The Israelite slave master was not permitted to do what he wanted with his slaves.

c. The Mosaic Law improved the conditions for slaves

The Bible affirms that slaves had full personhood, dignity and rights alongside their masters. This was a significant advance on the surrounding cultures. In Exodus 21:20&21 we read this,

‘If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property’.

The point is not that the slave is the property of the master and can be treated however the master chooses. These verses endorse the personhood and dignity of human slaves. If the master struck a slave so severely that the slave died immediately, the master was tried for capital punishment. The slave was considered a human being with dignity. On the other hand, if the slave did not die immediately as a result of this act of using the rod (an instrument of discipline) them the master was given the benefit of the doubt and was judged to have struck the slave with judicial and not homicidal intent. The master would be cleared of murder if the slave got up after a couple of days. But in Exodus 20:26&27 the slightest injury to the slave would entitle the slave to freedom and exemption from further debt. When the passage says that the slave is the master’s property, the point is not that slaves are personal property but that the owner has a personal investment in the slave that he stands to lose either by death or by emancipation. This law is unprecedented in the ancient world where a master could treat his slave as he pleased. 

3. Slavery was undermined by the Gospel

Paul condemns those engaged in the slave trade in 1 Timothy 1:9-11. But we’ll search in vain for any social reform programme. The reason being was that the Apostles prioritised internal individual reform rather than social corporate reform. In the same way that Jesus refused to take on the rule of Rome, neither did the Apostles take on the institution of slavery. But that doesn’t mean that they approved of it. Both Christ and His apostles sought to undermine the socio-political system through the subtle but profound influence of the gospel. The gospel undermined slavery in the following three ways.

a. slaves were treated as Christian brothers and sisters

Paul taught that spiritual status was more important than their social status (Galatians 3, Colossians 3). They were Christian brothers not simply slaves (Philemon).

b. slaves we encouraged to acquire their freedom if offered

Paul laid down clear directions for the appropriate behaviour of Christian slaves and Christian master (Ephesians 6, Colossians 3&4). But he also encouraged slaves to acquire their freedom if that was an option available to them (1 Corinthians 7:20-22).  

c. slaves were given positions of leadership in the church

In Romans 16 Paul mentions two slaves amongst his fellow workers. They were given places of honour within the community. Clearly there was nothing to prohibit slaves from rising to positions of responsibility within the church 

This reversal of social convention within the Christian community would have spoken volumes to a watching world. Over time this would have a massive impact on the larger society. As John Stott says, ‘thus, principles were laid down in Scripture with which slavery was perceived with steadily increasing clarity to be incompatible’ (J.R.W. Stott, Evangelical Essentials, p231).

Conclusion

So where does that leave us? As I understand it we’ve established three things

1. Old Testament slavery was nowhere near as bad as we may have first thought

2. The Mosaic covenant reformed a widespread practice and made it more humane

3. The Gospel undermined the institution and planted in seed form the beginnings of its end

This term’s Christianity Explored has been a real delight. But it’s also been the most demanding I’ve known. The questions have been stimulating and genuinely thought provoking. What’s been especially striking is the objections that have been raised to the Christian faith, especially to the existence of the God of the Bible.

The issue of God’s destruction of His enemies in the Old Testament came up a few weeks ago and I promised that I’d think about it and write something up. Here it is. I don’t suppose it’s the last word on the subject. And so let me recommend another couple of answers here and here. 

Let’s be honest, we find some of what God commands in the Old Testament unpalatable. For example, Old Testament Israel’s foreign policy was pretty full on. Look at Deuteronomy 20:10-18. God commanded the wholesale slaughter of nations. And He wasn’t simply talking about the fighting men. He ordered the destruction of men, women and children. It would be fair to say that it’s not only unbelievers who struggle with this depiction of God. It is incidents such as these that have led people like Richard Dawkins, the proselytising atheist, to accuse the God of the Old Testament of being genocidal. We might not agree but we can see where he’s coming from.  

I suspect that there are two troubling concerns to this depiction of God.

In the first place, we want to know why God commanded the wholesale slaughter of cities. This raises questions about the character of the God we’re expected to worship. Are we really being asked to worship and serve a God who advocates the slaughter women and children?

In the second place, we want to know whether this command still stands. The idea that we should conquer the world in a re-enactment of the Crusades sounds preposterous. Trying to propagate a religious ideology through the use of force is abhorrent. If that’s what Liberal Democracies fear that the Islamic Fundamentalists are trying to do, you can see why they might be suspicious of Christian with similar ambitions.

But the idea that God is guilty of genocide is a distortion of what was going on. We’re in danger of leaving certain aspects out of our reckoning. These are some of them.

1. God was preserving a nation through whom He would bring salvation

God intended to bring the nation of Israel into existence because they would be the means by which He would pour out His blessing to the nations. God’s plan of salvation, which would culminate with Jesus’ birth, began centuries beforehand in the midst of hostile Canaanite territory. Therefore, the command for Israel to engage in military conflict with the surrounding nations was not an isolated, nationalistic agenda. It was part and parcel of God’s intent to bring salvation to the world. He began with the historical situation and had to move the nation through the gruesomeness of war to clear the way for salvation through Jesus Christ. And so we need to come to terms with the fact that war was a normal, though unacceptable, way of life in the ancient Near East. If Israel was to continue as a nation then they had to fight for their existence. Their ‘full on’ foreign policy was shaped with this in mind. They were required to take up arms in self defence as they faced enemies who sought to eradicate them. Therefore, in most of the wars, the Israelites were defending themselves and were not the aggressors. Israel did not initiate most of the conflicts in which they were involved [Exodus 17:8, Numbers 21:1 & 21-32, Numbers 31: 2-3, Deuteronomy 3:1, Joshua 10:4]. In fact as Deuteronomy 20:10 makes clear, Israel’s first responsibility in warfare was to offer terms of peace. If the city complied they went into forced labour. But if the city refused then Israel would make war against it. Israel’s foreign policy was shaped with preservation in mind.

2. God was punishing the nations for their wickedness

In Leviticus 18:24-30 we read about God’s attitude to the nations. There are similar warnings about the Canaanite practices in Exodus 23:24 & 32 and Leviticus 18:25. The Archaeologist W.F. Albright, in his book From Stone Age to Christianity, puts some flesh on the phrase ‘abominable practices’. He identifies ‘their orgiastic nature-worship, their cult of fertility in the form of serpent symbols and sensuous nudity, and their gross idolatry’ [W.F. Albright, From Stone Age to Christianity, (Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1940), p214]. And so we need to come to terms with the fact that the nations that were destroyed by the Israelites were not an innocent, decent civilization. God had been patient with this unbelieving and immoral people. But His patience had run out. In fact an argument could be made that it was in the best interests of society in general that this culture was wiped out. Much as we might argue for something similar with regards to Nazi Germany. The eradication of this immoral culture should not be viewed as a regrettable incident in Israel’s history but the righteous act of a God who is intolerant of all forms of evil. The shocking thing is not that God does this but that He doesn’t do it more often.

3. God was purging the land of idolatry

If Canaanite culture survived it would have been a continual temptation for Israel. The idolatrous worship of the original inhabitants of the Promised Land could easily have turned Israel from serving the one true God. This is assumed in Moses’ words in Exodus 23:23-33.

Tolerant co-existence of false worship and wicked lifestyle was problematic in a theocratic state. God’s requirement for Israel to be holy is repeated throughout the early chapters of the Old Testament [Leviticus 18:30 & 20:26]. The ongoing presence of the Canaanite tribes threatened this. The monotheistic faith and practice of Israel could only be preserved through the destruction of corrupting rival cultures.

4. God was exercising His right to take life

We’re understandably appalled at the treatment of the women and children who took no part in warfare. We think that this raises questions about God’s goodness. But that’s not the case at all. It is God’s decision how long we live for. We need to come to terms with the fact that it is God’s prerogative to give and take life. Whatever we think, it’s not an inalienable right that we exist. It’s God’s good and undeserved gift. If He decides that we live for only a few days we cannot charge Him with injustice. He’s done nothing wrong. God was under no obligation to create and having created God is not under obligation to sustain the universe. So even the termination of women and children, though shocking, isn’t unjust.

5. God was employing Israel as His instrument

The Israelites were instruments of God’s judgement. He directed their military activities. He was the divine commander directing His army. Every conflict in which Israel was supposed to engage was initiated by God. Unlike her neighbours Israel did not fight wars for war’s sake. The conquest of the Promised Land was not simply the means of giving His land to His people, but it was also the means by which He destroyed a wicked people. Moses says sa much in Deuteronomy 9:4&5.

Many of us struggle to rid our minds of the marauding images of medieval crusaders wreaking a campaign of havoc, pillage and rape. But God required His Israelite army to uphold ethical and moral standards even as they were engaged in the act of killing (Deuteronomy 23:9). Israelite soldiers were to stand apart from their ancient Near Eastern counterparts in the way they conducted themselves. It’s also true that God employed other nations as His instruments to exact His punishment on His own people when they compromised their covenantal loyalty. Israel wasn’t exempt from the demands of living under the lordship of God. When Israel broke faith with God, He treated them like the other nations. He struck them down as they incurred His judgement and wrath. God judges disloyalty and disobedience whether it occurs amongst His people of amongst His enemies.

Conclusion

And so with these five aspects duly considered it’s reasonable to conclude that God cannot be charged with immorality. The nations were not innocent, they were immoral idolaters. They did not deserve to live and neither did their offspring. In that sense they’re no different to us. God was entirely just in His treatment of all humanity. But He was especially merciful to Israel and to all those who allied themselves with their ultimate ruler, their covenant keeping Lord. God continues to be merciful to all humanity in our continued existence. But He’s especially merciful to those of us who have allied ourselves to His Son Jesus Christ. In him we are not assured of a lengthy existence in this world but that’s a given for the next.

It ought also to be clear that the particularity of Israel’s situation means that the command to drive the nations out of the Promised Land is no longer applicable. They were strict limits to Israel’s military activities. He determined where they went and who they fought. He told them how to fight. And He gave them victory. It was all tied up with God’s promise of the land of Canaan. They were not to embark on a worldwide crusade to force conversion through the sword. They were simply to establish a theocracy through whom God could bring His Saviour to the world.

That God used Israel as His instrument in the past does not provide justification for nation’s claiming God’s support of their military activities now. There is no theocratic state who can claim God’s permission to engage in modern crusades. God continues to use nations as the instruments of His judgement and punishment. But we have no way of knowing when He does. We simply do not know what God is doing in the world. What we do know is that if we live life as His enemy we will face Him as His enemy. And God doesn’t lose. The wise thing to do, like the cities in Deuteronomy 20, is to make peace whilst we can and to enjoy the blessings of His rule.

Honestly, this was a question from one of the year three lads at our Holiday Bible Club this week; ‘is God a show off?’

The previous day he’d asked why God had created the world. I told him that I’d give him a proper answer if he came back tomorrow. I needed time to think and dig out the Westminster Confession of Faith, which I was sure had it covered!

I suggested that the reason God has created the world in the first place was so that everyone would see how wonderful He is. Creating the world and everything in it does that because

1. You’ve got to be really powerful to make a universe with nothing to work with. We’re good at making something out of something else, but we can’t make something out of nothing. But God made everything out of nothing. And He did so just by speaking. This means that God is immensely powerful and so He deserves our praise (Revelation 4:11). 

2. You’ve got to be really wise to make a universe that works as well as this one does. If God wasn’t really, really clever and if He hadn’t thought of everything, then this world wouldn’t be able to work. But it does. And it’s amazing. This means that God is the most incredibly wise person ever to exist and He deserves our praise (Psalm 104:24).

3. You’ve got to be really good to make a world as enjoyable as this one. God could have created a world which was dull and boring. But it’s not. It’s incredible. There are so many different things in it. Even the colour green has loads of different shades. There are so many good things in it for us to enjoy. And God gave those to us and so He deserves our praise (Genesis 1:29-31).

I was so pleased with my answer that Jake’s comment took the wind out of my sails; ‘So, God’s a bit of a show off then!’ I said something about God’s showing off and our showing off not being the same sort of thing. I tried to explain that our showing off is always about wanting people to think we’re amazing, even though we’re not. But when God shows off it’s OK because He’s the most amazing thing in the whole of creation. I even suggested that it would be wrong if God didn’t let everyone know that He was amazing because He’s the only perfect thing in the universe. I bought myself a bit of time. But I’m not sure he was convinced.   

Completely coincidentally, Al Mohler deals with this topic in his blog. I’m sending Jake the link!

This is something to get excited about! We’re planning a whole range of events in our corner of South London. Rico’s bit is sobering.

Incidentally, the gorgeous redhead is my daughter! And it was produced by Quirky Motion, a film production company run by lads at CCB.

‘How do I get guys to read good Christian books?’ That’s one of the questions we kicked about in Apprenticeship Workshop this morning. It was posed by the pastor of an evening congregation full of professional men and women. He argued that most blokes found books like Vaughan Roberts’ God’s Big Picture a little too demanding. As I remember, I made a funny about the size of the book being a little intimidating. It fell flat. But we don’t need to go there.

In thinking about this issue, it’s worth asking three questions

1. Is it true that guys don’t read?

In other words, does the mud stick? I think it’s probably a fair assumption that it does. It’s not true of all of us, but it’s true of many. We’ll happily browse the Metro on the commute. But that doesn’t really count, does it? I’m tempted to say that it’s too late to get a new generation of people to read. But even the most unlikely characters got back into books when JK Rowling put pen to paper. We can read. We will read. It’s just that we don’t. We especially don’t read Christian books.

2. Why don’t guys read?

• It could be that all Christian books are rubbish! For the record, I don’t think that they are. But it’s undeniable that some of them are very hard to read. Sometimes that’s because the subject matter is mentally demanding. At other times it’s because they’ve been written by people with no understanding of the English language. At other times it’s because they have no understanding of biblical theology. They’re not equally bad!

• It could be that we’re fed up with reading. If we’ve spent the day poring over various documents at work who wants to read? At the end of the day we’re knackered, mentally we just fancy a break. Reading is demanding. Who wants ‘demanding’ for fun? It requires our concentration. TV’s not like that. It stimulates us even when the weary. It might just comatose us. But it’s true that I’ll happily watch rubbish until the early hours but I won’t read a book. I suspect I’m not alone.

• It could be that we’re lazy. If our hearts aren’t spiritually alive and beating with zeal for the Lord then we won’t have a passion for His word or for books that are shaped by His word. So spiritually we may need to be encouraged and challenged to ’step up to the plate’.

• It could be that we’re unaware of the benefit of reading. The Christian life is one in which we need to be discipled by others. That’s especially true when we start out in the Christian life. If someone can draw alongside us and testify to the benefit to our own or others’ spiritual lives then we may be more conducive to the idea. That way it becomes a discipline we develop and value early on.

• It could be that we’re just not readers. At all. Period. That’ll be true of some of us. So teaching DVDs and MP3s are probably the way to go. But we can’t ditch reading altogether. We need to read. If we don’t read the instructions on a bottle of medicine we won’t know how much dosage to take and we put our lives at risk. If we don’t read God’s word in the Bible we put our spiritual life at risk. There’s some reading we simply have to do!

• It could be that we’ve become over reliant on other forms of media. I’ve written on the danger of listening to MP3s elsewhere. Generally I’m positive, with some reservations. 

• It could be that we don’t read. If others pick up from us that it’s possible to live the Christian life without any serious consideration of others’ writings then we can’t blame them if they don’t bother either! Apparently someone once said ‘leaders are readers’, in our ministry context of urban professional people they probably need to be. And that’s a challenge to me.

• It could be that we don’t know what to read. The writer of Ecclesiastes said, ‘Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh’. He had a point. But if there’s a plethora of literary options we can become confused by our options. Sometimes we just need some recommendations.

3. How can we get guys to read? 

Essentially it’s all about desire. If the appetite to read isn’t there then we won’t be able to sustain the discipline. And so, we need to have our interest piqued! One of the ways I’ve done this is to give guys articles to read. Most of us can manage a few papges of A4. If the subject matter grabs us then we’ll read it. We handed out Mark Driscoll’s Porn Again Christian at a recent Men’s Weekend Away. Most guys read it in one sitting!

Find some good books. If guys have had bad experiences of reading dull books then spice up their reading list. Go for some cracking Christian biographies of men who lived wholeheartedly for Christ.

Recommend a book for the term. We haven’t done this for ages. But the enthusiasm generated by a good book combined with the positive feedback from others might just be enough to rouse us from our lethargy! Here are some doctrinal recommendations. I know doctrine’s not everyone’s cup of tea. These aren’t a light read. So perhaps ignore them for a while! But these are my recommendations for ‘compulsory’ reading for guys in their 20s!

Start a reading group. In all honesty it’s easier to read a book with others. Sometimes that means actually reading the words out loud with one or two others and taking it in turns to read. There’s no shame in that. I find it easier to read a book if I’m somehow accountable for reading it. I need to be helped to develop a discipline of reading. Naturally I wouldn’t plough my way through John Frame’s Salvation Belongs to the Lord. But strangely, because I need to talk about it with the Apprentices every Wednesday, I’m making good progress. Go figure!

Following on from the previous post about the dangers of MP3s, it seemed appropriate to pass on some suggestions for how to think about the vast array of online materials. Here are some things to avoid.

1. Don’t feed yourself garbage. Not everything online is helpful or right. There’s a lot of rubbish out there. The internet has led to the democratisation of publishing. In the past there used to be controls to filter out the trash. Not any more. Now any idiot can stick stuff on a website. Broadly sepaking you knew what you’d get from a particular publishing house. We haven’t got that luxury online. And so we need to know what we’re going to be feeding on before we go ahead and stick our snouts in the trough. If we gorge on rubbish then it’ll have a detrimental effect on our spiritual health. You’ll find a few recommendations here. Select with discernment.

2. Don’t become a devotee. Every preacher has his strengths and weaknesses. carson is great on theology, Keller on social analysis and Lucas on expository preaching. But they’ll also have their pet subjects. Mark Driscoll was accused of only preaching on two subjects; sex and Jesus. When asked why he said he loved them both! We need to know what we’re getting from the guys we listen to. It’s sensible to listen to a healthy variety of preachers. Mix it up a little. At the risk of gross over generalisation, the Brits are good expositors, the Aussies are good on theology and ministry and the Yanks are good on apologetics and cultural engagement.

3. Don’t disparage the average. Don’t make unfair comparisons with your local congregational pastor. You’ll discourage him and grow dissatisfied. If you have an issue with his style, content or whatever, pray about it, reflect on it and with humility go and talk to him. Pray that he makes his critics his coaches!

4. Don’t treat them like the silver bullet. Audio sermons are not the key to unlock the secret of the Christian life. Jesus is. They’re really helpful, but then so are Christian books. And so treat them like Christian books. Listen to them, reflect on their content, make notes, evaluate them and respond to them.

5. Don’t ditch the quiet time. Don’t let listening to sermons become a subsititute for personal study of the scriptures. On the northern line commute, it may be easier to open up an audio file than open our Bible. That’s understandable. But don’t let downloading talks through our personal computer replace downloading God’s word through our personal study. Ensure you find another time to dig deeply into the Bible’s treasures.

6. Don’t become an irritant. Don’t spend your life irritating your pastor or your small group by endlessly quoting material that you’ve heard from one particular source. We believe things because God has taught us in the scriptures not because Tim Keller said it!

7. Don’t forget to apply it. Listen not to increase your familiarity with biblical truth but to stimulate your faith and repentance.

 

I love being taught, lectured or preached at. That’s one of the reasons why I’m a conference junkie! At conferences I usually get to hear the finest preachers, theologians and apologists. But now in the days of the ‘interweb’, I don’t need to attend. I can just download. And I’m not alone. I know that many in our congregations feast on the best of Keller, Piper and Driscoll, to name a few. And I’m all for it. I’ve recommended a few here. 

In a Briefing article back in the summer of 2008 Nathan Walter, an old friend from Moore College days, argued that listening to MP3 sermons is a little like reading a Christian book. I think that’s a fair comparison. But he also had some concerns. I don’t want to replicate his material here. But when I dug out his article it was striking how similar our views are. Like Nathan, I want to encourage people to grow in their faith through listening to the word of God and being built up in the faith. But I share a few reservations. Let me try and articulate them.

1. We can’t see their lives

I have no idea how Don Carson treats his wife. I have no insight into the family life of Mark Dever. I don’t get to hang out in the pub with Dick Lucas. I have no reason to doubt that they are godly men. But I don’t get to see that. There are two consequences. First, I can’t hold them accountable, which they need and secondly, they can’t model godliness, which I need. Of course, even local congregational pastors can pull the wool over our eyes. We may have little idea of the secret sins that take place behind the front doors of the Vicarage. But usually our instinct picks things up through our interaction with them and their family and as a congregation we should be pastoring our pastors. In addition it’s worth remembering that godliness is caught as well as taught. I don’t just need to know what godliness looks like on the page, I need to see what godliness looks like in the flesh. And so if a man who runs his family well stands up and talks about how to discipline his children, I’m all ears. If a man who lives an evangelistic life offers a seminar on explaining the faith to others, I’m there. Many will have heard the sad news that Mark Ashton, the Rector of St Andrew the Great, in Cambridge has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. In his announcement to the church before Christmas he said he ‘counted it a great privilege to show them how to die well’. You can’t do that online. We need to see how our pastors live.

2. They don’t know our issues

As brilliant as he is, John Piper doesn’t know how my life needs to be reformed by the word of God. I’m sure he’d work it out, but he doesn’t know what it’s like to be a Dad of three small children, living in an aspirational inner city suburb in 21st Century London with a mortgage, a few mates and a church plant. And I’m not criticising him for that. He’s addressing his own church situation in Minneapolis. Nathan nails this concern when he writes, ‘A sermon is not (or at least, it shouldn’t be!) some timeless exposition of a Scriptural text that is delivered irrespective of a particular group of hearers; it is a passionate and persuasive exposition of a Scriptural text that is aimed fair and square at a particular group of people, exhorting them to mature and active faith in Christ’. And so we need to remember that God is more concerned that we listen to our local church sermon than we do to something travelling through the ether from the other side of the world. And so when we’re downloading sermons make sure that the first sermon you listen to is the last one you missed from your local church.  

3. No one can compare with ‘the greats’

I’m no Tim Keller. No really, I’m not! I still harbour ambitions of becoming Mark Driscoll, but we can keep that to ourselves can’t we? I’ve got the cussing down to a fine art but just can’t bring myself to call everyone ‘dude’. I’m an average preacher. I’m not the worst but I’m not the best. There are many like me. We’re just ordinary pastors who try and understand, teach and apply the scriptures to the local congregations in which God has placed us. But if we constantly compare the average with the exceptional then we’re in danger of disparaging the pastors God has given us. Listening to ‘the greats’ do their thing is like looking at porn. It’s attractive and unrealistic. The vast majority of us will never have a pastor teacher who preaches as well as ‘the greats’. But for just a few fleeting moments we’re willing to believe that we could! If God thought that I needed Vaughan Roberts he’d have given me the brains to get an education at Oxford or made him a pioneer church planter with a predilection for getting up the nose of the Anglican authorities. But He didn’t, because I don’t. And so let’s value the pastor teacher that God has given us and not fester with dissatisfaction because we keep comparing him with ‘the greats’.

4. They can’t lead us from afar

God appoints men to lead local congregations. He calls them elders. Often one of those elders is appointed as a professional pastor teacher. In the New Testament, leading the church is compared to leading a family. No church should have anyone serving as an elder who’s unable to manage his family. We’d never ask someone who wasn’t Dad to take over the running of our family. We wouldn’t go online and ask someone on another continent to be our virtual Dad, no matter how good they were at parenting. Neither should we allow any of these terrific preachers to become our virtual pastors. That happens when we begin to be influenced by and submit to the leadership of others. They become our de facto leaders. And so we need to be wary of inadvertently seeking to undermine local church leadership with an ever growing allegiance to someone else. We shouldn’t automatically assume that because it’s online it’s alright.

5. Nothing replaces reading God’s word

When I’m tired it’s easier to listen to a sermon than it is to read the Bible and pray. Occasionally that’s fine. Trouble is, I’m often tired. And so the regular healthy habit of listening to God’s voice in the scriptures and responding in prayer can easily get ditched in favour of a much less demanding activity. That can’t be good. Somehow I need to carve out time in order to diligently study the scriptures and feed on God’s word. So if I’m going to listen to online talks I need to make sure that I do so with an open Bible and an open mind. I need to test what’s said by the scriptures and ensure, as I should with all teaching, that I believe only what can be substantiated from the text.

Generally speaking I’m enthusiastic about the wealth of online evangelical talks, sermons and theology. Of course, if you really want to have your life shaped by the brilliant men whose sermons we download then move! But just in case you miss my sermons you can find them online here!

Facebook is celebrating its fifth birthday.

All Mohler has written a few reflections here. Carl Trueman has an extensive article here. I love it! It’s so wonderfully curmudgeonly. 

I wrote something a while ago here. I should point out that I’ve since joined Facebook. I weakly caved in to overwhelming peer pressure! As I suspected, it’s been both a useful tool to connect with people but also an unhelpful distraction. I’ve hooked up with a number of old friends with whom I’d lost contact. It’s proved an easy way of informing lots of people of lots of things. I’m not sure they’ve taken much notice. It’s just added to the background noise of life. As Trueman has suggested, it’s taken me quite a while to get comfortable with the concept of the Facebook ‘friend’. It doesn’t mean what it says! Acquaintance or contact would be more accurate, but just less friendly!