On my ridiculously long “books I want to read” list, there are a growing number on the subject of the church.

Obviously, as a good member of a New Frontiers church, I hope to read Christ’s Radiant Church by John Hosier, and What on Earth is the Church For, by David Devenish. On top of that, I’ve heard recommendations of books such as Stop Dating the Church by Joshua Harris and The Gospel Driven Church by Ian Stackhouse.

Then there’s 9 Marks of a Healthy Church by Mark Dever, a book title that grabbed my attention, because by my calculations there are eight people called Mark in the church I belong to, so just one more needed for us to be healthy. And there’s Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Church (glad I didn’t sign the pledge to do his 40 days of purpose – I only got to day 2). Snyder’s Community of the King and Clowney’s The Church also look like they might be worth a read.

And then I have a feeling that I could do with reading something about this whole emerging church business. Do I read Carson’s Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church to get a critique of it from someone I respect, or MacLaren’s A Generous Orthodoxy to hear it direct from the horse’s mouth? Would Kimball’s The Emerging Church be a better choice? Perhaps I would be better off reading someone who seems to be both emerging and reformed evangelical friendly – Mark Driscoll’s book Radical Reformission.

So my dear blog readers, what’s the best book you’ve read on the church? Which of the above are worth my while, and which are a waste of time? Answers in the comments below please…

I had the chance to watch the National Geographic’s Gospel of Judas documentary this evening, thanks to a friend recording it for me. It was interesting, and as could have been predicted, frustrating at the same time as it was used as a platform for knocking the historicity of the biblical gospels at every point, while presenting the Gospel of Judas as a much more worthy candidate for our belief.

The beginning part in particular built on the idea that the church had suppressed the truth and now the Gospel of Judas would save the day and set the record straight. You can read the gospel of Judas if you like for yourself on the National Geographic’s Lost Gospel site. It’s worth a read, just so you can get a feel for quite how different it is to the New Testament gospels.

I’ll mention just a few things that irritated me about their presentation.

First, the assertion that in the gospel of John, the latest gospel, Judas is portrayed as an evil monster, while in the gospel of Mark, the earliest gospel, Judas is positively saintly by comparison, and not even mentioned as the traiter in the last supper scene. Judas therefore is said to have been progressively vilified over the years. And the tired old assertion that the gospels are thoroughly anti-Semitic was trotted out again.

It sounds impressive enough until you actually read the gospels for yourself. To be sure Mark doesn’t mention Judas much, but he’s a baddie on every occasion, and is identified as the betrayer immediately before the Last Supper scene (Mark 14:10,11), making it painfully obvious who Jesus is talking about when he says “one of you will betray me” (Mark 14:18). John does mention him a bit more, telling us that Judas was the treasurer and was embezelling funds. He also says that it was Satan who inspired Judas to do what he did, but this is balanced with the fact that John emphasises the sovereign plan of God behind the betrayal as well.

Second, the presentation of Irenaeus’ rejection of the gospel of Judas as heresy was odd. You can easily read the reasons he gives for rejecting it online, but the ones the program gave were quite different. They said that he had arbitrarily decided that there should be four gospels simply because there were four corners of the earth, and also that he didn’t like the idea of Judas being a goodie. They made out that the gnostics were these wonderful ‘enlightened’ people, and the church was just angry that they couldn’t control them, so announced that they were heretical.

Third, they made it sound as though the fact that other gospels existed apart from the four biblical ones, was a major revelation, a fact previously hushed up by the church. And also that the church had desparately tried to cover up the contents of these gospels. In fact, the opening of Luke’s gospel readily admits to the existance of many other gospel records, and both New Testament books and early church fathers not only acknowledge the existance of heretical teachings, but show remarkable willingness to give a synopsis of what those teachings were.

Finally, when they eventually let Craig Evans say that he felt the gospel didn’t shed any light on the historical Jesus or Judas, they then cut straight to Elaine Pagels refuting him with the argument “but how does he know?”. Of course, we never got to hear his response to that. If you’re interested in what that response would have been, people such as Scot McKnight, Mark Roberts, and Ben Witherington can explain it far better than I could.

I could add more, but that’s enough for now. Suffice to say that National Geographic probably payed a decent price to have the rights to the Gospel of Judas, and they needed to make it’s contents sound as epoch-making as possible, to help them recoup their outlay in book, DVD and t-shirt sales. Expect Judas the Hero movie to come to your screens soon.

In John Piper’s excellent book, “Let the Nations be Glad”, he provides a list of Biblical prayer topics. I have found these very helpful as pointers for my own prayer life, and I typed it up a while ago so I could print it out and refer to it. If you find your prayers tend to get stuck in a rut and are lacking in a bigger kingdom perspective, then I recommend you try making use of this list:

Call on God…

To exalt his name in the world (Matt 6:9)
To extend his kingdom in the world (Matt 6:10)
That the Gospel would run and triumph (1 Thess 3:1)
For the fullness of the Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13; Eph 3:19)
To vindicate his people in their cause (Luke 18:7)
To save unbelievers (Rom 10:1)
To direct the use of the sword (Eph 6:17-18)
For boldness in proclamation (Eph 6:18-19, Acts 4:29)
For signs and wonders (Acts 4:30; James 5:17-18)
For healing of wounded comrades (James 5:14-15)
For the healing of unbelievers (Acts 28:8)
For the casting out of demons (Mark 9:29)
For miraculous deliverances (Acts 12:5,12; 16:25-26)
For the raising of the dead (Acts 9:40)
To supply his troops with necessities (Matt 6:11)
For strategic wisdom (James 1:5)
To establish leadership in the outposts (Acts 14:23)
To send out reinforcements (Matt 9:38, Acts 13:2-3)
For the success of other missionaries (Rom 15:30-31)
For unity and harmony in the ranks (John 17:20-21)
For the encouragement of togetherness (1 Thess 3:10)
For a mind of discernment (Phil 1:9-10)
For a knowledge of his will (Col 1:9)
To know him better (Col 1:10; Eph 1:17)
For power to comprehend the love of Christ (Eph 3:14,18)
For a deeper sense of assured hope (Eph 1:16,18)
For strength and endurance (Col 1:11, Eph 3:16)
For a deeper sense of God’s power within (Eph 1:16,19)
That our faith not be destroyed (Luke 22:32; 21:36)
For greater faith (Mark 9:24; Eph 3:17)
That we might not fall into temptation (Matt 6:13; Matt 26:41)
That he would complete our resolves (2 Thess 1:11)
That we would do good works (Col 1:10)
For the forgiveness of our sins (Matt 6:12)
For protection from the evil one (Matt 6:13)

I recently looked up all the times when Jesus started a sentence with “I am”. There are of course a lot of famous ones, but a large number of less well known instances too.

One that grabbed my attention was in Matthew 15:32, at the feeding of the 4000:

Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion on the crowd because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way.”

Above and beyond the implications for that crowd’s physical hunger on that particular day, the phrase “I am unwilling to send them away hungry” speaks of Jesus’ ongoing heart towards any who come to him aware of a profound spiritual hunger in their lives. He is unwilling to send them away hungry too. As he said after a similar miracle feeding the 5000, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35). This should give us confidence as we approach him in prayer, hungry for more of him in our lives. He wants to satisfy that hunger as we spiritually feed on him.

Hungry I come to you, for I know you satisfy
I am empty, but I know your love does not run dry

But as well as speaking to me of Jesus’ openhanded attitude to all who come to him, it also challenged me about my own life as a follower of Jesus. Do I send people away hungry?

This could be answered at all sorts of levels – spiritual, emotional, physical. We of course are called literally to feed the hungry (e.g. Isa 58:7,10; Matt 25:41-43; James 2:15,16). Are their people in our church’s hungry for friendship, help and encouragement that we could help and yet we don’t make time for? And spiritually speaking, do we have unsaved friends who are hungry for something more in their lives, yet our cowardice prevents us from offering them the bread of life? Let us learn to have the same heart of compassion for needy people that Jesus did, and be unwilling ourselves to send anyone away hungry.

I posted a while ago about what I think is a misunderstanding of the parable of the wise and foolish builders. I think they both built their houses on the sand, but one dug down to rock first.

Anyway, here’s another Sunday school favourite I think we’ve got wrong. Whenever anyone tells the story of the baby Moses, even in children’s Bibles and in television adaptations, Moses is launched downstream in his basket, his mother saying a sad farewell to him, and sending Miriam to watch what will become of him. I have searched Exodus 2 in vain to see where this idea comes from.

Moses was placed in a basket in the reeds along the bank of the Nile (Ex 2:3). This was first of all so he wouldn’t be seen or heard (rivers have at least a moderate amount of background noise at all times). But it was also so he would not float away.

What mother in her right mind would launch her baby out to float down a river? He would die of hunger or exposure or drowning before long. No, her plan was surely that he remained hidden in the reeds, and she would come regularly and feed him. Miriam wasn’t left to see where the basket would float off too, but to keep an eye on it (watch out for crocodiles or something). In Ex 2:5, we see that the basket was still in the reeds when Pharaoh’s daughter saw it.

From verse 6, we get the impression that the basket had a lid – another feature rarely told in the story. This would serve to keep him a lot quieter. The gentle noise of a river wouldn’t be enough to block out the crying of a 3 month old baby on its own.

I’m not opposed to artistic license when telling Bible stories, but the whole idea of launching Moses off to no particular destination has never struck me as at all convincing.

Yet again, the general business of life as a father of three has kept me from posting much up here, so I’ll direct any visitors to some cool stuff I’ve come across this week.

• Mark Mould has started blogging. Mark has become a good friend over the last year or so as I discovered he shares my passion for theology, an appreciation for the Puritans (he’s reading the works of John Flavel at the moment), and a crazy enough sense of humour to be able to enjoy full faith.
• Jon Brombley has put some of his songs online at myspace. In fact, I’ve just noticed that Harun Kotch another friend from my church has some of his songs online too as well as some from his band Replenish.
• Mark Roberts has been working on an excellent series on the Da Vinci Code, with some very useful posts on the historical reliability of the New Testament
• Paul Schafer has created a great list of newfrontiers churches with audio sermons online.
• If you thought you would skip downloading sermons from Bethlehem Baptist Church while John Piper was on sabbatical, think again. He has a first rate lineup of stand-in preachers, including Wayne Grudem and Sam Storms.
• NT Scholar Andreas Kostenberger is blogging.
• And finally, Richard Collins has produced another podcast. I haven’t listened to it yet, but he’s always thought-provoking.

As you may have noticed, since having my third child I have not had much time for blogging. But that doesn’t mean I’ve spent all my time changing nappies. There’s a book review, and two home studio recordings on their way, and I’m spending a lot of time at the moment preparing for a talk I’m doing on Sunday.

In the meantime, I thought I would direct any readers disappointed with the lack of action here to some other blogs I have enjoyed in recent weeks.

• Ger Jones asks some interesting questions about Restorationist views on Sanctification
• Dave Skipper writes a excellent post about musicians and pride
• Scot McKnight fears that “church borging” may become prevalent
• Richard Collins has started podcasting – well worth a listen
• And finally, Dan has been prolifically blogging on all things Ern Baxter, with a bit of Lloyd-Jones, Owen and Coates thrown in for good measure.

I’m going to be 30 this week, and so I thought I really ought to make the effort to do something to celebrate my birthday this time. So I decided to have a “Puritan Party”:

If you are reading this and I haven’t given you an invitation in person, then you are of course still welcome to come (unless you are a spammer). If you have any suggestions of what would be suitable games and activities at a Puritan party, please add them in the comments.