pursuing faithfulness to the Word of God and fullness of the Spirit of God
Archive for December, 2008
What Would Jesus Buy?
Dec 30th
29 Some thought that, because Judas had the moneybag, Jesus was telling him, “Buy what we need for the feast,” or that he should give something to the poor.
(John 13:29 ESV)
I read this verse recently, and it got me thinking about Jesus’ spending habits. The context is that Judas has just left the scene of the last supper to betray Jesus, whose final words to him are “What you are going to do, do quickly.” (v27)
This results in a misunderstanding amongst the disciples. They falsely assume that Judas has been sent out on some kind of financial mission, but I think their suppositions reveal the typical ways in which Jesus spent money.
Feeding Friends
The disciples’ first guess was that Judas had been sent to buy food for the feast. Despite verses that indicate Jesus and his disciples lived frugally (e.g. “the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head”, “Acquire no gold nor silver nor copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, nor two tunics nor sandals nor a staff…”), he does seem to be more than happy to enjoy a good meal with good friends. Perhaps the most notable example would be his miracle to turning the water into wine at the wedding in Cana. It is clear that Jesus was no ascetic when it came to food, despite his 40 day fast in the wilderness.
Feeding the Hungry
Their second guess was that Judas had been sent to give money to the poor. According to Andreas Köstenberger, there was a tradition at this time of allowing the poor to gather in the temple precincts after midnight at Passover time. Perhaps Jesus often gave to the poor at night to put into practice his command to perform such giving in secret:
2 “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.
3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
(Matt 6:2,3 ESV)
Feasting and Philanthropy
Both ways of spending money, whether on feasting or philanthropy, reveal Jesus’ desire to use the little money he did have to bless others. He feasted with not just his friends, but all sorts of people, from tax collectors to prostitutes to Pharisees, all the while seeking to befriend them and point them towards the kingdom of God. And when giving to the poor, he again studiously avoided doing it in a selfish way, simply as a means to get praise, but rather acted out of genuine selfless and sacrificial love.
Reflecting on my own spending over the Christmas period, I think I still have a long way to go before my attitude to money approaches that of Jesus. Perhaps I should start wearing a WWJB bracelet. Now there’s a money-making idea for someone!
Favourite Albums of 2008
Dec 19th
Various bloggers have listed their favourite albums of 2008. Tim Challies lists eight, Neil Bennetts offers four, and Gary Boal can’t think of any.
I don’t buy much music and in recent years it has tended to be simply the live worship album from whatever holiday I went on in the summer. But I have managed to pick out four albums I bought this year that I have particularly enjoyed.
Sovereign Grace can always be relied upon to produce theologically sound and Biblically rich songs. I don’t always like their musical style, but this release is one of their best. Definitely worth checking out and their download store is good value for money.
I really liked Phil Wickham’s first album and this one is even better. He’s another artist that is well worth checking out. He writes devotional songs, but they are not particularly targeted at congregational singing. His lyrics are well crafted and avoid too many typical worship song clichés. True Love is probably my favourite song on the album.
Delirious – Kingdom of Comfort
I’m not really into Delirious. The only other one of their albums I own is King of Fools, released way back in 1997. But I thought I’d give them another try and I liked what I heard. There’s clearly some emerging church influence in the lyrics, but it is good challenging stuff and avoids being preachy.
I was alerted to this one by Emily at Unfurling Flower, and it is the rarest of treats – a Christmas album I actually like. Refreshingly different from the typical batch of carols plus drums churned out by the bucket-load by Christian bands short on ideas. Technically you can get it for free by spamming five friends. I chose to pay $5 for my copy.
I would love to hear from other readers or bloggers what albums they recommend this year. I could do with a bit more variety in my music listening habits.
New Blog Platform
Dec 18th
I have recently had to move my blog to a new server as my ISP was shutting the old one down. I took the opportunity to switch to WordPress and updated the site appearance a little. I have tried to migrate all the posts and comments as best as I can, but there may well be a few broken links around here while I finish tidying up.
If you subscribe to this blog via my feedburner URL (http://feeds.feedburner.com/wordandspirit), then you should experience no interruption in service. Please let me know if you experience any problems.
While I’m at it, I might as well reveal a few interesting facts about my most popular posts over the last year:
1. The Wise Man Built His House Upon the Sand is by far my most popular post ever, and is one of the oldest posts on my blog. Apparently google seems to think I am the authority on it. I preached a sermon on it once.
2. Commentaries and NIV For e-Sword comes second although it is old news now.
3. Biblical Prayer Topics is also very popular – “Prayer Topics” is my top google keyword
4. Commentary Series Reviews – Bible Speaks Today – I have nearly read the entire BST series (perhaps I’ll finish in 2009) and most of them are reviewed somewhere on this blog.
5. Ern Baxter – Life on Wings – this was actually a post to host a friend’s document, but has consistently been one of the most popular items on my blog, and certainly the one I get most email about. Also, Ern Baxter – The Priestly Clothing is equally popular.
6. ESV – A breathtaking translation – is a slightly controversial post where I criticise the ESV (only a little though, it is my translation of choice at the moment and I’m hoping to get an ESV Study Bible for Christmas).
7. Book Review – Prophetic Evangelism – apparently a lot of people get to my blog by searching for Mark Stibbe.
8. The Word of Knowledge – where I ponder what exactly this gift is. Lots of comments on this one!
7. Seven Point Calvinism – not many people blogging about this, so I come near the top of the google hit list.
8. My Reformed Charismatic Journey Part 2 – part of a series where I talked about how I came to be a “reformed charismatic”
9. I do not know Rob Bell – hint for bloggers: write something about Rob Bell. It will be popular.
10. Parachurch Organizations – another slightly controversial one where I dare to question the infallible newfrontiers magazine!
11. My Commentary Recommendations – did I mention that I love reading commentaries?
12. Book Review – Total Church – absolutely brilliant book. Actually got a comment from one of the authors which is a first for my blog!
As for google search words, the top ones are “prayer topics” and an innumerable number of variations on the theme of “the wise man built his house upon the rock” (including one poor soul who got here wanting to know “how to build houses with rocks”). People in the top 20 are Mark Stibbe, Rob Rufus, Ern Baxter, and Simon Ponsonby. There are also a remarkable number of people who arrive thanks to googling a variation on the phrase “is newfrontiers a cult?”. The answer is no.
One person searched for “I was male now I am female”. No, I’m definitely still male. The person who searched for “Simon Ponsonby blog” still has to wait. He’s not even on facebook yet. But my favourite search of all goes to “I love Mark Heath”. Hopefully it was my wife… (and honestly it wasn’t me)
Book Review – Hudson Taylor (Vance Christie)
Dec 7th
Its been some time since I read a biography, and though I have heard plenty of anecdotes about Hudson Taylor, I have never read a complete account of his life. There are, I think, several biographies available and I am not sure whether this is the best available. This one has 19 relatively short chapters, and seems to have been written with younger readers in mind.
But whatever shortcomings the book may have, the life story of Hudson Taylor is a remarkable and fascinating one. What first impacted me was his incredible devotion to his life’s calling, and his willingness to make great sacrifices in order to do what God had called him to do.
His passion to see China evangelised saw him take remarkable steps to prepare himself as he lived in self-imposed frugality, and tried to teach himself to trust God rather than taking his own initiative. Some of this methods might seem unwise or at least a little quaint to our more sophisticated modern ideas about evangelism, and yet his unwavering simple faith in God is a sobering challenge.
The story of his life in China is a humbling tale of perseverance and endurance through much suffering and adversity. Many of his family members and missionary colleagues died of various illnesses, he was often in great danger through persecution, and money was in extremely short supply. It would have been quite understandable if he had given up at any point. Yet he remained single-mindedly devoted to reaching the lost millions of China.
It is interesting to read of a spiritual breakthrough he had in 1869, 15 years after he had first visited China, where he grasps the gospel in greater depth, and learned to rest in Jesus, rather than striving and toiling to be accepted by him. And yet, there was no let-up in his diligence as a result of this. He learned to refresh his own soul in prayer, so he could continue to give of himself to others.
The book is honest about the criticisms he faced, as well as the internal conflicts within the mission society CIM that he founded. It seems to me that a love for God, and a love for the people of China were the prime motivators that enabled him to lose so much and yet still persevere joyfully.
I recommend that anyone who has not read a biography of Hudson Taylor get hold of a copy and allow yourself to be provoked by his example. Let me know in the comments if you know of a particularly good biography, as I suspect that some of the others might be better than this one.
