Author Archives: Mark Heath

Book Review – Christ’s Radiant Church (John Hosier)

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This book is of particular interest to those who like myself are part of the newfrontiers family of churches. In it, John Hosier seeks to set out what are the values of the “new churches” that have sprung up over the past 30 years and of newfrontiers in particular.

Most of the material in this book will not come as a surprise to those who know the movement well. It starts off reiterating an uncompromising passion for the church, which is “fundamental to God’s glorious purpose in the earth.”

I suspect that most, if not all, the chapters in this book were originally seminars or sermons given by John Hosier, edited slightly to make them more suitable for a book format, but it still retains the style of spoken rather than written word. He draws regularly on his thorough knowledge of the book of Revelation, as well as touching on many other Biblical passages as he goes through each theme.

The first chapter is on the topic of Restoration, which is interesting as I feel that this word has been largely lost from the vocabulary of the new churches. “God’s ultimate purpose is restoration”, and this purpose will be accomplished through establishing his church as a colony of heaven on earth. Thus the restoration of the church to match God’s intention as revealed in the scriptures is a matter of the utmost importance. The church is restored in order to be the demonstration of God’s wisdom to the world.

Salvation is listed as a core value, particularly that the church is made up of those who are saved. He expounds Rom 3:21-26, and underscores the newfrontiers’ commitment to a vicarious understanding of the atonement.

As would be expected, apostles and more generally “Ephesians 4″ ministries are covered in some depth. The case is made that while the “twelve” and the apostle Paul are understood to have non-repeatable roles in church history, nonetheless the ministry of “apostle” is ongoing, and indeed one of the gifts that Christ gave the church after his ascension.

This moves on naturally to a discussion of God-given leadership, which is considered vitally important. The main leadership of churches is seen in teams of elders (not apostles), who are to exercise servant leadership.

Next up is God’s lavish and undeserved grace, which perhaps is one of the “flagship” doctrines newfrontiers churches seek to be known for. Avoiding legalism at all costs, the Christian is to look to the Holy Spirit rather than the law as the dynamic for a holy life.

There are two chapters on water baptism and Spirit baptism (fire). Newfrontiers churches practise believer’s baptism, and remain broadly Pentecostal in their doctrine of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. The latter remains the more controversial doctrine, with many prominent charismatics equating the baptism in the Spirit with regeneration. However, Hosier puts forward a strong case, based in part on Lloyd-Jones, and also drawing from David Pawson, that the baptism in the Holy Spirit is a distinct experience, though we should normally expect it soon after conversion.

In a chapter on worship he defends the more lively style of the new churches against the more formal worship of traditional churches, although this debate has moved on a long way now from when the new church movements began. Another chapter deals briefly with the charismatic gifts of tongues and prophecy, again a significantly less controversial topic than it was in the early days of the restorationist movement.

I was interested to see a chapter devoted to prayer. Certainly the new churches have a very different and more dynamic style of prayer meetings than those typically found in the traditional denominations. However, my personal experience is that there were far more prayer meetings in my old Baptist church than I have found in newfrontiers. Possibly this is a value that needs to be recovered.

The chapter on money emphasises the importance of cheerful, generous giving, while rejecting the tithe as a binding law on New Testament believers. Marriage and family each had a chapter of their own. Again the emphasis on these topics varies greatly from church to church.

The topic of women is probably the most controversial in the book, as newfrontiers retain the more traditional evangelical view known as complementarian, against the egalitarian approach which seems to be more prevalent in charismatic circles. Hosier argues carefully but firmly, working mainly from 1 Cor 11 (the passage on head covering), explaining why newfrontiers churches do not appoint female pastors or elders. He did however note that there was a diversity of practise in regards to whether women could preach. I think that this is an issue that does need some clear teaching on, as many churches prefer simply not to mention it and hope that no one asks!

The book then moves on look at the kingdom (already not yet) and mission, underscoring the commitment to plant churches as the primary means of extending the kingdom.

The chapter on flexibility is very interesting. In it John Hosier lists a number of issues over which there has been a change of direction. For example, some churches are now embarking on building projects, having originally intended to avoid doing so. Other changes include various models of house group or “cell group” being tried. I couldn’t help thinking that it wasn’t so much that flexibility is a core value as that we have backed away from a more dogmatic and inflexibile idealism of the early days of restorationism. Whether this is a good thing or not is debatable.

The final chapter is on hope, and again we possibly see a modification of the more postmillenial roots of restorationist churches. John Hosier himself holds to an amillenial eschatology, but an “optimistic” one, in which the church does indeed experience triumph and restoration while at the same time there may be persecution and even apostasy.

After reading the book, I reflected on what the “missing” values were. Perhaps we might have expected to reiterate a confidence in the Bible as the Word of God, along with the conviction that we can find direction for the ordering of our churches in it. Also I felt that preaching and holiness deserved a mention. I don’t think the omission of these mean that they are not valued, but we should be careful lest they be taken for granted. Many in the new churches came out of reformed evangelical circles and so a thorough working knowledge of the Bible was second nature to them. We do need to ask though whether the next generation, those who grew up in the new churches, are getting a well rounded foundation, or whether we are so focused on the values that make us distinctive, that these other things get neglected.

Overall, it is a fascinating book for those in newfrontiers, and it will hopefully challenge all who read it to consider whether these “values” are really being believed and lived out in our churches. If it has a weakness, it is that a book of this length cannot really do justice to such a broad range of topics.

God is Most Glorified…

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John Piper is famous for the quotation “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.” As obvious as it now seems, when I first heard it, it seriously challenged my way of thinking about worship. Before I had the idea that God was most glorified when I did something I really didn’t want to but I did it anyway just because he wanted me to do it. Indeed, the motive of doing something for pleasure was frowned upon by many Christians.

Those who complained of dull worship meetings were deemed unspiritual, because worship is about glorifying God, not about how we feel. This way of thinking, if taken to its logical conclusion would result in us making our worship meetings as miserable as possible, so that by participating anyway we would somehow signal a greater commitment to God.

But John Piper’s groundbreaking book Desiring God changed all that. Suddenly it became clear that passionless worship could never glorify God. In fact it dishonoured him. Churches that were afraid of making their worship more lively or contemporary no longer needed to fear that somehow this was a capitulation to selfish desires.

Twenty years on from the publication of that book, and John Piper’s argument is commonplace in evangelical and charismatic churches alike. We seek after vibrant, enthusiastic (even ‘extravagant’ and ‘undignified’) worship, knowing that the more our joy in God overflows, the more glory we bring him.

But there is a danger. What happens if John Piper’s quotation gets abbreviated very slightly?

“God is most glorified when we are most satisfied.”

I reckon you could say this in many churches and few people would notice the missing words. But it is heresy! And it is becoming the way many are thinking. If this is our guide, then the only criteria for judging a worship service is whether we enjoyed it. Did people dance? Was the worship band on top form?

But God is only glorified if our delight is found in him. Were people’s hearts directed towards him? Was the dancing merely because it was good music or because people were literally overjoyed at the wonder of their salvation?

God is looking for worshipers who will worship in spirit and in truth. Isaiah warned that it was possible to honour God with your lips while your heart was far from him.

Let us therefore not be satisfied with people having “fun” in our worship meetings. Let us press in to ensure that our joy is found in God himself. True worship consists of rejoicing in his truth and delighting in his presence. Good music helps, but can never be a substitute for true worship.

Book Review – Brothers, We Are Not Professionals (John Piper)

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In this provocatively titled book, John Piper urges pastors of churches to focus on what is truly important and be radical in their ministry. He is concerned that so many pastors are getting so caught up in learning professional business techniques that will help them run their churches more efficiently that they lose sight of what they are really supposed to be doing.

But rather than critiquing trends in the modern church, John Piper prefers to write 30 short chapters each giving pastors something to be passionate about. His own remarkable fire and earnestness shines through this book, and you cannot fail to be stirred by it.

He starts off as we would expect with his typical emphasis on the glory of God, calling us to live in “Christian hedonism”, seeking to glorify God by delighting in him.

He controversially urges pastors to tell their people not to serve God. Why not? Because of the potential for a legalistic “debtor’s ethic” – where we attempt to repay God out of gratitude. He states that:

The gospel is not a help-wanted ad. It is a help-available ad. Nor is the call to Christian service a help-wanted ad. God is not looking for a people who to work for Him but people who let Him work mightily in and through them.

Piper moves on to cover a broad range of topics. He makes a plea for the learning of Greek and Hebrew, for reading Christian biography, and for serious study of the biblical text. He urges that we feel the truth of hell, and lead people to repentance through their pleasure, by which he means to point people to God as the source of real pleasure. He warns against fighting sin with “pea-shooter” regulations.

While many of the chapters are about things that a pastor should preach and teach his congregation, the focus is much wider than the Sunday morning meeting. Piper calls his readers to get a passion for mission, to defend the cause of the unborn, to love their wives, to stand up against racism, and to reject materialism.

This book ranks right up there with the best of John Piper’s writings, and I pray that many pastors and church leaders will read it, and heed his call to radical ministry, refusing to be sidetracked by the latest strategies and technologies, and focusing on being who God has called us to be, and doing what he has called us to do.

A Secular Church?

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Dave Bish posted an interesting link to a lecture by Mark Dever on why Jonathan Edwards got fired. In it he quoted J H Thornwell, a Southern Presbyterian Theologian who wrote in 1832 concerning his denomination:

Our whole system of operations gives an undue influence to money. Where money is the great want [i.e. need], numbers must be sought, and where an ambition for numbers prevails, doctrinal purity must be sacrificed. The root of the evil is in the secular spirit of all our ecclesiastical institutions. What we want is a spiritual body, a church whose power lies in the truth and the presence of the Holy Ghost. To unsecularise the church should be the unceasing aim of all who are anxious that the ways of Zion should flourish.

(quote is 32 minutes into the MP3)

Surprising how relevant it seems to our own day (perhaps the ‘church growth’ movement is not as novel as some think). I also like the way he goes beyond a mere diagnosis of the problem to highlight the need of the church to be one whose power is found in “the truth and the presence of the Holy Ghost”. Or as we might say today – a church of “the Word and the Spirit”.

Trinity .NET

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If you ever read a systematic theology, one of the most technical parts is the explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity (or, as my four year old daughter Lily calls it, the “holy, blessed and glorious chimney”). Wayne Grudem has gone beyond mere words and attempted to use diagrams (Systematic Theology p253-255) to explain both what is not meant as well as what Christians believe. But as a computer programmer, I prefer to think in terms of classes and interfaces. So here I present the doctrine of God in C#.

First we need to define some interfaces, to give us the three persons of the Godhead. An interface allows us to define the properties and methods of an object, without having to specify how they are implemented (which is good because it is easier for us to say what God does than how he does it). Naturally, there will be some commonality, defined in IPerson, as well as certain activities unique to each member of the Trinity.

public interface IPerson {
…
}

public interface IFather : IPerson {

…

}

public interface ISon : IPerson {

…

}

public interface IHolySpirit : IPerson {

…

}

Now the temptation would be simply to finish this off by creating a class that implements all three interfaces:

// No! Heresy!

public class God : IFather, ISon, IHolySpirit {

…

}

But this would not do! We would have created the heresy of modalistic monarchianism, and defined a unitarian God – one God who can appear in three different forms. We need concrete classes to represent the fact that the three persons of the godhead are indeed real and distinct persons:

public partial class Father : IFather {

…

}

public partial class Son : ISon {

…

}

public partial class HolySpirit : IHolySpirit {

…

}

Notice we have defined these as partial classes. We will not be able to compile our code. This is because God is infinite and cannot be fully known. There is more to each person of the Trinity than we are able to comprehend. But God is not unknowable – he has revealed himself to us – hence we do have these partial classes. We of course must not stop here, for so far we have got another heresy – tritheism. We cannot simply have three objects kicking around – we need a container class to represent the Trinity. We must continue to construct our C# doctrine of God:

[LoveAttribute]

[HolinessAttribute]

public static final class God : IFather, ISon, IHolySpirit {

private static readonly List<IPerson> persons = new List<IPerson> {

Father.Instance, Son.Instance, HolySpirit.Instance

}

public override Equals(object other) {

return false;

}

…

}

A few things to notice:

  • This is a static class – there is only one God. He is a singleton. We need not concern ourselves with race conditions on startup as he is also eternal (a new keyword perhaps for C# 4.0).
  • This is a final class – we will not be adding any capabilities to God in the future – he is complete
  • This is a public class – God is knowable because of his self-revelation
  • The list of persons is private and readonly - the Trinity will not be accepting any external additions of new IPersons
  • If we want to apply any custom attributes to our class (such as FaithfulnessAttribute, JusticeAttribute, LoveAttribute), we will apply them directly to the God class, as they apply equally to all three persons. I have not shown the definitions of these attributes but naturally some will inherit from CommunicableAttribute and some from IncommunicableAttribute.
  • Despite my comments above on modalistic monarchianism, I have actually chosen to apply the IFather, ISon and IHolySpirit interfaces to this class. At the very least, IFather is necessary as the Bible quite interchangably refers to the Father simply as God. But also the Son and Spirit are not wrongly described as “God” either.
  • This means that the God class implements IPerson. I leave it to your own understanding of ontological equality and economic subordination to determine how a call to a method or property of IPerson would be delegated to the appropriate member of the Trinity. Naturally you could make explicit calls to individual members of the Trinity by casting God into the appropriate Person’s interface, but they may choose to delegate back up to the godhead. Hence calling Jesus.Forgive(me), Father.Forgive(me) and God.Forgive(me) will achieve the same operation.
  • We have chosen to call our class God, but Godhead, HolyTrinity or even Yahweh may have been a more appropriate naming choice (feel free to discuss in the comments).
  • Notice we resisted the good C# programmer’s instinct to implement additional interfaces. God is not ISerializable, IClonable, and certainly not IComparable.
  • We have found it quite easy to override the Equals method – nothing is his equal, so we shall return false.

Thank you for listening to my first installment in my forthcoming magnus opum – Theology .NET. Next up I will be explaining the algorithm behind the doctrine of election.

Book Review – The Great Omission (Dallas Willard)

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The introduction to this book claims that there exists a “Great Disparity” in Christianity, between the hope of “new life”, and the actual experience of many Christians. Despite many shining examples through church history, the fact remains that many believers do not live noticeably differently from the world around them. He asks then, is this a problem with the gospel itself – does it really have power to transform? Or is it a problem with ourselves?

If it doesn’t work at all, or only in fits and starts, that is because we do not give ourselves to it in a way that allows our lives to be taken over by it.

Dallas Willard argues that the urgent need of the church is to recover the practice of “discipleship”.

A disciple is a learner, a student, an apprentice – a practitioner, even if only a beginner. … Disciples of Jesus are people who do not just profess certain views as their own but apply their growing understanding of life in the Kingdom of the Heavens to every aspect of their life on earth.

So the book is devoted to exploring how we become disciples. After all, the in the Great Commission, Jesus tells us “as disciples to make disciples.” It is our failure to do this that is the “Great Omission”.

The book itself was not written as a book. It is a series of essays, lectures, book reviews and interviews all around the subject of discipleship. For the most part, this approach works surprisingly well, although it does mean a certain amount of repeated material, and perhaps a little loss of focus towards the end. While most of the chapters are accessible, a few of the lectures are a bit more academic, and more philosophical in nature. However, Willard is very quotable – I found myself underlining large parts of this book, and I will share some of these sections in this review.

The first chapter establishes the idea that “discipleship is not optional”. He states that:

Most problems in contemporary churches can be explained by the fact that members have never decided to follow Christ.

The problem is not easily fixed by telling people that Jesus is “supposed to be Lord” of their lives, as though it were an optional extra. He points the finger at explanations of the gospel that merely focus on “salvation” and missing any concept of “obedience”. The Great Commission has been modified from “make disciples” to “make converts and church members”.

A disciple is someone who has counted the cost, and desires above all else to be like Christ. They therefore “systematically and progressively rearrange their affairs to that end”. But if there is a cost to discipleship, there is also a cost to non-discipleship:

In short, non-discipleship costs you exactly that abundance of life Jesus said he came to bring.

The second chapter deals with the question of “why bother with discipleship”. After all if you can have your sins forgiven so you get to go to heaven when you die, surely that is good enough. He strongly opposes this viewpoint.

There is absolutely nothing in what Jesus himself of his early followers taught that suggests you can decide just to enjoy forgiveness at Jesus’ expense and have nothing more to do with him.

He agrees with Tozer’s assessment that the idea of accepting Jesus as Saviour but postponing obedience to him as Lord is in fact heretical.

This “heresy” has created the impression that it is quite reasonable to be a “vampire Christian”. One in effect says to Jesus, “I’d like a little of your blood, please. But I don’t care to be your student, or have your character. In fact won’t you just excuse me while I get on with my life, and I’ll see you in heaven.”

Failure to become disciples will result in us remaining “locked in defeat as far as our moral intentions are concerned”.

Only avid discipleship to Christ through the Spirit brings the inward transformation of thought, feeling and character that “cleans the inside of the cup” (Matt 23:25) and “makes the tree good” (Matt 12:33)

Willard anticipates some possible objections to this teaching. The first being that calling to serious discipleship could be construed as Pharasaism.

[The Pharisees] located goodness in behavior and tried to secure themselves by careful management at the behavioral level. However, that simply cannot be done. Behavior is driven by the hidden or secret dimension of human personality, from the depths of the soul and body and what is present there will escape. Hence the Pharisee always fails at some point to do what is right, and then must redefine, re-describe, or explain it away – or simply hide it.

In contrast, the fruit of the spirit, as described by Jesus, Paul, and other biblical writers, does not consist in actions, but in attitudes or settled personality traits that make up the substance, of the “hidden” self, the “inner man”.

The second objection is that the call to discipleship is thought by some to be in antithesis to grace – an attempt to pay back God for our salvation which we did not earn. He repeatedly replies to this objection with the assertion that

Grace is opposed to earning, not to effort. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action.

We must stop using the fact that we cannot earn grace (whether for justification or for sanctification) as an excuse for not energetically trying to receive grace. Having been found by God, we then become seekers of ever-fuller life in him.

In other words, calling Christians to put all their effort into following Jesus is not in any way anti-grace, but is in fact quite biblical.

So having established the importance of discipleship, he then goes on to explain the practical ways one goes about becoming a disciple. He uses the term “spiritual formation” to describe the process of the transformation of our spirits to become more Christlike. The methods he proposes may surprise some. He does not focus on typical devotional activities such as Bible reading, prayer and church attendance. Nor does he suggest things such as exercising spiritual gifts, evangelising or social action. Rather, he sees spiritual disciplines such as solitude, silence, fasting and meditation as being key to spiritual formation. Other disciplines he encourages are private hymn singing and Bible memorisation.

This is perhaps again a point on which many evangelicals will get nervous. While the “spiritual disciplines” are not outright rejected, they certainly are not thought to be primary as means of spiritual growth. The second part of the book sets about explaining in greater detail how these spiritual disciplines are able to transform our character.

Spiritual disciplines are activities in our power that we engage in to enable us to do what we cannot do by direct effort.

Spiritual formation is the process whereby the inmost being of the individual takes on the quality or character of Jesus himself.

Spiritual formation does not aim at controlling action. … God is looking for those who worship him in spirit and in truth. We cannot fake before God. … To focus on action alone is to fall into pharasiasm of the worst kind and to kill the soul.

He takes some time to criticise the concept that God will just transform us with a lightning strike of the Spirit without the need for a process. This is common in some evangelical circles where the prayer is that God will send revival on us to change us in an instant without any need for effort on our own part.

What we must understand is that spiritual formation is a process that involves the transformation of the whole person, and that the whole person must be active with Christ in the work of spiritual formation. Spiritual transformation into Christ-likeness is not going to happen unless we act.

As I often point out to folks, today we are not only saved by grace, we are paralysed by it.

Again he urges us not to reduce the gospel to merely dealing with sin. “A gospel of justification alone does not generate disciples”. We are to trust in Jesus for everything, not just forgiveness of sins. “The gospel is new life through faith in Jesus Christ.”

For Willard, the most important part of spiritual formation is learning obedience. For this reason, we must regain an appreciation of Jesus as teacher. He bemoans the fact that few if any churches have any strategy for systematically teaching believers all the teachings of Jesus. He stresses the vital importance of Scripture memorisation. Being transformed in our characters so that we can obey him involves deliberate planning on our part.

We enter into each of Jesus’ teachings by choosing different behaviours that are relevant, finding the space – making the arrangements – in our lives to put them into action and re-visioning the situation in the new behavioural space that includes God.

The later parts of the book spend some time explaining the value he sees in disciplines such as solitude and silence, both of which he considers to be very important. The final section of the book is given to short reviews of books that may prove helpful. Many of these are written by or about Christian “mystics” and perhaps would be treated with a level of suspiciousness by many evangelicals. But Willard argues that there is much to be learned from them, particularly in regards to focusing our hearts and minds on God as we spend time in solitude with him.

This is certainly a provocative and challenging book and one I would thoroughly recommend. The call to discipleship is conspicuous by its absence in many churches, which can focus solely on doctrinal correctness, or evangelism, or social action without ever really addressing the transformation of the character. He does a good job of addressing some of the concerns that may be raised by his emphasis on discipleship, although I suspect that not all readers will share his enthusiasm for the spiritual disciplines. But in any case, this book deserves a wide readership and I pray that it will be instrumental in putting discipleship and spiritual formation back on the agenda in many churches.

Book Review – Revised Expositor’s Commentary on 1 & 2 Peter & Jude (J Darryl Charles)

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I’ve already reviewed a number of commentaries in this volume of the Revised Expositor’s Bible Commentary (see Hebrews, Revelation, John’s Letters). The same complements on the nice layout apply here.

J Darryl Charles has provided the commentary on 1 & 2 Peter and Jude. The big danger with this commentary series is that it can fall through the gaps between an expositional and an academic commentary. It is aimed at “expositors”, but does not always provide enough space to really engage with the exegetical and theological issues that can be raised. Its strength therefore is in helping the reader to appreciate the meaning and flow of the argument, and briefly filling in background historical details or scriptural cross-references that will elucidate the text. There are brief pointers for application, but this series is not an exposition in the style of the Bible Speaks Today series. For those preparing a sermon or essay on the passage being commented on, I expect they would actually want to consult more detailed commentaries, but this commentary will still have value as a reference book for those wanting to quickly get an overview of a section of these epistles.

In the introduction to the 1 Peter commentary, Charles argues that it is reasonable to believe Peter authored this epistle. He acknowledges some differences in style to 2 Peter, but he gives a list of 41 similarities between the two epistles, which weaken the case for separate authors. In the commentary on 1 Peter, he highlights Peter’s concern for ethical living, which is rooted in eschatology. He notes that the epistle is filled with imperatives, and though it has suffering as a theme, its goal is not to provide a “theology of suffering” but rather to present a Christian ethic which responds to suffering by following the example of Christ.

The commentaries on 2 Peter and Jude have a fairly lengthy introduction which argues for Petrine authorship of 2 Peter, and lists the parallels with Jude. Despite the similarities, the purposes are different: Peter is more concerned with ethics than combating heresy. If Peter is combating anything, it is more likely sexual libertarianism than gnosticism. He presents the Lord’s coming as a day of moral reckoning and calls us to live virtuously. Charles believes that Peter even warns against the possibility of “loss of call” for the Christian. In the introduction to Jude, Charles considers the arguments against an early dating to be merely speculative. Jude uses examples of those who were privileged but who became dispossessed as warnings against apostasy.

For those who cannot afford to buy individual commentaries on each book of the New Testament, the Revised Expositor’s Bible Commentary represents a good compromise – offering essentially six commentaries for the price of one. While none of the individual commentaries would be described as “must haves”, they will prove useful to those who do not have the time or money available to consult the larger commentaries.

1 Peter Study Notes

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I have been studying the book of 1 Peter over recent months, and the cell group I lead is also working through it this term. I tend to keep notes as I work my way through a book, turning each section of a few verses into a mini exposition, which helps me to think through the theological issues it raises and apply it practically. After I have done this, I will then consult one or two commentaries, to check whether I have missed or misunderstood anything. I keep a collection of quotes and interesting observations on each passage as well, which help if I preach or lead a Bible study on that passage.

I’ve been using Google Docs & Spreadsheets recently, which allows me to very easily publish what I’ve done so far. The nice thing about Google Docs is that if I update these documents, they are automatically updated online, which is good, because I will probably update them in the future when I am working on passages from 1 Peter again. It also means I can update them from any computer with internet access.

1 Peter has been a great book to study. It has its share of complicated bits, but I’ve been helped through by the Baker Exegetical Commentary by Karen Jobes and the Revised Expositors Commentary by J Darryl Charles. I’ve also consulted my New American Commentary by Tom Schreiner from time to time as well.

So here is the index to my study notes on 1 Peter, which are now complete for the whole book.

Book Review – Baker Exegetical Commentary on 1 Peter (Karen Jobes)

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In this commentary on 1 Peter, Karen Jobes makes some important contributions to the academic study of this epistle, while at the same time providing an excellent resource for pastors and Bible students who want to wrestle with the meaning and application of the text. The introduction is comprehensive and defends traditional authorship of the letter (bolstered by a thorough appendix on the quality of the Greek which indicate an author whose first language was not Greek) and and early date (based largely on the observation that the letter does not address state-sponsored persecution). She also puts forward her thesis that the Christians to whom Peter writes had been recolonised by the Roman empire – literally exiled and living as resident aliens. She shows throughout the commentary how this makes many of Peter’s points particularly apt, but acknowledges that the main thrust of the argument does not depend on whether his readers are literal exiles or not.

The commentary itself is very thorough, and manages to deal with issues of Greek grammar and syntax without losing focus on the message of the book. Jobes seems to have a very good understanding of the types of questions that preachers will be asking of the text, and while this is not an exposition of 1 Peter, it is full of theological and pastoral observations. As with all volumes in the Baker Exegetical Commentary series, the layout is excellent, including the full text of the passage being commented on, and with regular summaries of argument. Technical notes are kept out of the way at the end of each section rather than as footnotes, and Greek is both transliterated and translated.

Peter quotes from and alludes to the Old Testament regularly in this letter, and whenever he does, Jobes highlights not just the passage quoted but similarities in the flow of argument and thought (especially with Psalm 34).

There is a substantial section devoted to dealing with the difficult passage at the end of chapter 3. She rejects the view that Christ preached through Noah to Noah’s generation, and also the descent into hell view, in favour of the modern consensus that views 1 Enoch as the background to the passage – the risen and ascended Christ has proclaimed victory over fallen angelic beings and powers. She differentiates between Paul’s use of ‘flesh’ (Greek sarx), which connotes our sinful human nature, to Peter’s which is merely referring to bodily life on earth (as opposed to the eternal spiritual state Jesus was in after his resurrection). This means that her interpretation of a number of verses does not fit well with the English translations, which use the word “body” as a translation (for example, in her view baptism in 3:25 is said not to morally transform the believer, rather than not physically wash the believer that most modern translations imply).

It is also of interest to see how a female commentator in a conservative evangelical commentary series approaches the injunctions of 3:1-6 concerning a wife’s submission to her husband. She (rightly in my view) interprets this section along with the preceding section addressed to slaves as being motivated by Peter’s concern for the vulnerable situation that wives and slaves find themselves in if they convert to Christianity. Slaves and wives found themselves right at the bottom of the social ladder of their day, and so Peter writes pastorally, and should therefore not be criticised for failing to undermine these social structures. She defends Peter against modern critics by claiming that he dignifies slaves and wives by affirming their rights to their own religious beliefs.

She notes that Peter leaves the details of how submission is to be worked out to the wives and husbands themselves (for example, would an unbelieving husband allow his wife to worship with the Christian community). She also contrasts Peter’s teaching on wives and husbands with Paul’s, which is targetted at believing couples. While she indicates a moderately complementarian leaning by affirming that the NT does envisage some form of “submission” from wives to husbands, she stresses the freedom that is given to the married couple to work this out between themselves, without specifying the exact details of how this works out in practice. The implication is that in a Christian marriage, this “submission” should have a very different dynamic to that found in other marriages of Peter’s day. She quotes approvingly an unamed evangelical who states that while the NT teaches a wife to submit, it does not ever give the husband the right to demand it.

I found this an excellent commentary to consult as I studied my way through 1 Peter recently. It provides answers not just for exegetical questions, but pointers for application, and discussion of theological implications. Her thesis concerning the recipients of the letter and her appendix assessing whether the quality of the Greek rules out Petrine authorship will probably be of more use to academics than Bible teachers, but these are kept separate from the main commentary so they do not get in the way for those not requiring such information.

Embracing Suffering

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A major theme of 1 Peter is how the Christian responds to suffering for their faith. The nature of the persecution Peter’s readers were facing included:

  • Mocking (4:4)
  • Slander (3:16)
  • Injustice (2:19)
  • Threats (2:14)
  • Insults (4:14)
  • Verbal Abuse (2:9, 23)

Slaves (2:18) and wives (3:1) who had converted to Christianity were particularly vulnerable due to their low social status. Peter calls all the believers to look to the example of Jesus who responded not by anger or cursing but with blessing (2:9). They also called to rejoice in the midst of their suffering (1:8, 4:13), for a number of reasons:

  • They identify with Christ who suffered (1:11,2:21,4:13)
  • Their gracious response serves as a powerful witness (3:1,16)
  • Their faith is purified (1:7, 4:12)
  • They will be vindicated, just as Jesus was (1:7)
  • They will develop endurance (2:20)
  • They experience victory in their battle against sin (4:1)
  • They inherit a blessing and experience God’s presence with them (4:14)

Strikingly, Peter is willing to describe suffering for Christ as being “in God’s will” (4:19). Many Christians find the concept of suffering being God’s will for us very hard to accept, and inevitably the question will come as to what type of suffering Christians can embrace as God’s will for them. Is it only persecution for the gospel, or can other types of suffering, such as illness be embraced in the same way?

Jeremy Pierce reports in his excellent roundup of 1 Peter commentaries that Peter Davids “distinguishes between suffering from persecution and suffering from illness, taking [persecution] to be the only kind of suffering that Christians are being told to endure, since it’s the explicit context of the letter, but we should pray for God to remove illness of any sort.” Jeremy takes issue with this because it does not take into account 2 Cor 12:7-10 (Paul’s thorn in the flesh, resulting in him declaring “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.”) and Acts 12:5 (“So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.”). Not having Davids’ commentary I’m not sure exactly what he claims or exactly what Jeremy’s pronlem with it is. Praying for removal of suffering is not mutually exclusive to enduring through suffering, and the two will often be found together in the life of a believer.

To answer this question we must distinguish between a number of types of suffering that a Christian may experience. First is suffering for the sake of the gospel, which is the specific issue addressed in 1 Peter. Peter’s point is not that we may not pray for God to remove the suffering (after all, even Jesus prayed that the cup should be taken from him), but that we should not compromise on truth or righteous living in order to escape suffering (just as Jesus went on to pray that God’s will be done rather than his own). This type of suffering can be rejoiced in, because we know God’s blessing will come upon us for faithfulness.

There is also a type of suffering experienced as a consequence of our own sinful actions, whether being injured in some way, or perhaps being punished by the authorities. If a Christian commits a crime, or breaks the rules of their workplace, they cannot expect to be blessed in some way for this. Peter actually speaks to this kind of suffering a few times in his letter (3:20,4:15). We should not try to present ourselves as heroes of the faith if we are punished for something we did wrong. A church should not claim to be suffering for righteousness if it fails to comply with tax regulations, and a missionary should not claim to be persecuted if they are ejected from a country for failing to apply for a new visa.

A third type of suffering would be that described as the discipline of God, spoken of a number of times in the Bible (Ps 94:12, Prov 3:12, 1 Cor 11:32, Heb 12:4-11, Rev 3:19). This type of suffering is not so much to be rejoiced in as to be discerned as being God’s correction on our lives. We will reap the benefit of a transformed character. Praying for God to remove this type of suffering may be legitimate, but not if we simultaneously refuse to learn the lesson he is teaching us through it.

A fourth type of suffering is tragedy and loss. Examples include bereavement, being the victim of a crime or losing one’s job. This type of suffering is often about dealing with loss, and in many cases what is lost cannot be restored again. Again we would hardly call for rejoicing in this type of suffering, but it provides a test of our faith. We can either draw closer to God and lean on him for the resources to come to terms with what has happened and trust him for the future, or we can question and blame God, and distance ourselves from him. So this type of suffering can be an occasion to come closer to God.

The final type of suffering to consider is sickness. This is the controversial one, as Christians differ as to whether sickness can ever be in God’s will for the believer. Certainly there is an element of mystery as to why not all who pray for healing receive it, when others do. But just as we would never counsel someone to avoid the doctor if they were ill, so that they could benefit from the opportunity to grow in character that comes through suffering, neither should we discourage people from earnestly praying for healing. (In fact, the latest newfrontiers magazine is devoted to stirring faith for healing, something that the Western evangelical church is distinctly lacking in. Sadly not online yet, but check here for the April-June 2007 issue).

Sickness provides the same “test” of faith that other forms of suffering bring, and so it can be the occasion for our maturing in character and growing in the knowledge of God. But that does not mean that we should welcome sickness as a pathway to holiness. There are other means provided for us for our spiritual growth. So while a person who is ill can take comfort from the fact that God can use their unfortunate condition to bring about good in their life, this is not an excuse for passively accepting it. God can also bring glory to his name through healing you, and work through you to extend his kingdom as he gives you the health to serve him.

So I will summarise with the words of James 1:1,2: “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.” This is the Christian response to all forms of suffering (including persecution and sickness). We know that we have a God who works all things together for our good, so we have confidence that in our suffering, he is transforming us to be more like Jesus. But at the same time we will not feel unable to petition God to remove our suffering, or to take practical steps to avoid it, as long as doing so does not involve moral compromise.