wordandspirit

Krish Kandiah asked on facebook recently, “what good women teachers do you know?”

My answers were:

• Amy Orr-Ewing, who has a sharp mind, is an excellent communicator, loves God and knows her Bible well – all the ingredients for a great preacher.
• I also added Karen Jobes. I have no idea how good she is as a speaker, but both the commentaries (on Esther and 1 Peter) I have read by her have been first class.
• Had I thought of it at the time, I would have included Heidi Baker in that list too, a remarkable woman of faith and courage.

Normally this is a subject I steer well clear of on my blog, since even the mention of the word “complementarian” is guaranteed to generate plenty of comments (unlike the cyber-tumbleweed that greeted my recent 22 part series on Ps 119!). But since I’m planning to study (and possibly blog) my way through the pastorals in the very near future, the challenge of explaining 1 Tim 2:12 will soon be upon me, so I need to start thinking again about this whole debate.

In this post I don’t intend to present any arguments for a complementarian position, but I do want to dispel three myths about what we think concerning women teachers, and consider one of the key challenges faced by complementarian churches. So first, let me briefly make my three points:

1. Being complementarian does not mean you believe women are not capable of being good teachers. I have a friend who thinks that Joyce Meyer is reason enough to accept women preachers. Given my theological differences with her, its fair to say I don’t find that a particularly compelling argument. But my answers to Krish’s question above, and answers provided by several other of my complementarian friends reveal that we are not in denial about the existence of women who are very good at teaching the Bible. And I personally do not have a problem with benefiting from their ministry.

2. Being complementarian does not mean you believe it to be a sin to learn something from a woman. This one keeps on cropping up as a kind of reductio ad absurdum rebuttal of the complementarian position. But there is no logical step from having male only preaching, or male only eldership to the belief that it is wrong to learn from a woman. Whatever it was Paul intended to prohibit, it is abundantly clear that he expected all believers, women included, to participate in the “edification” of the body through the exercise of (spoken) spiritual gifts.

3. There are plenty of good women teachers in complementarian churches. Egalitarians often perpetuate the idea that there are no good women teachers in complementarian circles. I beg to differ. Several of the names given as answers to Krish’s question should suffice as examples. Whilst it may be true that there are not as many as there might be, or that those that exist may not enjoy the prominence they might get elsewhere, it is not fair to deny their existence altogether. Many author books, speak at conferences (and not just at women’s conferences), and use their gift in a wide variety of contexts. Two women who have managed to establish international ministries within a very conservative evangelical context are Joni Tada and Elizabeth Elliot. Within my own group of churches, several women gave excellent seminars at last year’s leadership and youth summer conferences.

So it may be that a woman with a remarkable teaching gift can indeed make use of it in a complementarian context, but I want to move on consider a different question, and that is whether we are doing enough to encourage women to develop such a gift in the first place. Last time I raised this question it generated plenty of discussion in the comments. Let me phrase the question like this:

Do complementarian churches hinder women from reaching their full potential in teaching?

This is criticism from egalitarians deserves careful consideration. In one sense, we would have to honestly admit the answer is yes. Suppose someone desperately wanted to be a pilot, yet had a medical condition that meant they would never be awarded a pilot’s licence. You would probably discourage such a person from spending time and money studying to be a pilot. As much as they might enjoy the training, it would ultimately be an exercise in futility. Likewise some might assume that if a church does not allow women to preach on a Sunday there would be no point in training them to be able to teach.

But it would be a big mistake to think like that about training young women in complementarian churches. In fact, I would say that the basic training given to men who seem to have a potential gift for teaching is completely appropriate also for women, irrespective of whether they will get asked to preach on Sundays or not. Let me illustrate by outlining four ways in which I think potential Bible teachers should be developed in their gifting:

1. Encourage going deep in the Scriptures. If anyone wants to be a teacher of God’s Word, they must first be a student of it. I want to see as many people as possible, male and female, going really deep with God’s Word, studying it in detail, learning the principles of hermeneutics, and allowing it to shape their thinking.

2. Encourage teaching in small group settings. I am not a fan of the “let anyone have a go” approach to preaching in some churches. It is much more appropriate for people to develop their gifting by teaching in small group settings. When you ask someone to teach in a small group it becomes immediately apparent how much effort they have put in to studying the passage they are teaching, and how effective they are at helping the group understand and apply it.

Teaching small groups is also important for developing and detecting humility. Someone who wants to preach merely because they wish to show off their skill, or because they want impose their own opinions on others is not ready to be a preacher. Those God has graced to teach should be those who do not despise ministering to just a few people, or “just” the children, or “just” the women. Instead they should be characterised by a sense of love for those they serve through teaching and count it a privilege to do so.

3. Encourage the spiritual gift of the “word of instruction”. As a card-carrying charismatic, I love the fact that the Holy Spirit is an “equal opportunity empowerer”. If anything, I have always felt that it is Joel 2:28-29, and not Gal 3:28 (whose context seems to me to be to do with salvation not church order) that should be the egalitarian trump card.

The “word of instruction” is 1 Cor 14:6 is only mentioned in passing by Paul, but seems to describe someone bringing a brief contribution that is in effect a teaching or an exhortation. Those desiring to teach should be people who always have something on their heart they are burning to share with others, however briefly. Blogging might be one way of sharing it, but much better to do so in a church gathering (whether in small group or large). And there is no reason to think from 1 Cor 14 that Paul restricts this gift to men only.

4. Create contexts for them to grow in their gifts. Often there can be an unhelpful “all or nothing” approach to using a gift of preaching. I think it is important, particularly in a large church, to be creative about finding contexts where people can develop a teaching gift that is less daunting (and risky) than addressing everyone on a Sunday morning. I have often invited friends round to my house to preach to me and my wife in our living room (highly recommended, it’s great fun to do). I also organized some Saturday morning theology training sessions at my church and asked some friends who I felt had potential to grow in a teaching gift to help me out by taking some of the sessions (and they all did brilliantly). It is often in these smaller contexts that a person’s level of gifting becomes apparent. Not all of us are called and gifted to preach before audiences of thousands.

So in summary, though a complementarian church may, out of a genuine desire to be faithful to Scripture, not use women to preach to the gathered congregation, it does not follow that they should not train women in the skills necessary to teach. In fact, I am convinced that our churches will benefit tremendously if we actively seek to include them in such training. Doubtless there will still be tension concerning those who feel they can only be fulfilled in their gifting through addressing the whole church, but better a church full of people bubbling over to share what they have discovered in the Scriptures with others, than one where only a few have a passion to teach.

Anyway, I’m sure I’ve said more than enough to get my head blown off. Fire away in the comments.

In the Qoph section of Ps 119 (v145-152) I want to pick out another recurring theme, and that is that the Psalmist focuses his attention on God’s Word all the way through the night (see for example Ps 119:55,62). So for example in verses 147 and 148 he says:

¹⁴⁷ I rise before dawn and cry for help;
   I have put my hope in your word.
¹⁴⁸ My eyes stay open through the watches of the night,
   that I may meditate on your promises.

Through the night

Both of these verses suggest he is foregoing sleep to meditate on God’s Word. This may be due to his great personal discipline – he is making time to be with God alone by waking in the night. But verse 148 suggests a sleepless night, perhaps because of fear of those who are out to get him. Verse 147 implies that he is in some kind of trouble and is rising early to cry out for help from God at the start of a day he is not eagerly anticipating.

There is something about the night that can make us feel more vulnerable, and fears that we might suppress in the light of day can prey upon our minds when the lights are out. But the Psalmist knows that the word of God is a refuge he can turn to for hope and encouragement. This again highlights the importance of having key promises of God’s Word memorised, in order that we can draw on them to fill us with faith when we are tempted to fear.

All the time

He may also be using the contrast of “early in the morning” and “late at night” as a poetic technique (a “merism”) to simply mean “all the time”. In other words, all day long, from breakfast to bedtime, he wants God’s Word to be filling his thoughts, guiding his actions and inspiring praise:

¹⁶⁴ Seven times a day I praise you
   for your righteous laws.

⁹⁷ Oh, how I love your law!
   I meditate on it all day long.

Again, I don’t see how that is possible unless we are people who know God’s Word really well. In some ways, I think this is why it doesn’t necessarily matter if you felt you “got something” out of your daily Bible reading. It might have seemed quite dry. But the more we simply read the Word of God, the more familiar with its contents we become, and the greater the chances that its teaching will shape the way think, inform our decision making and govern our emotions. It is often pointed out that the Holy Spirit is said to “remind” us of what Jesus said (Jn 14:26), but unless we know what he said in the first place, we are not going to be able to “remember” it. We need to fill up on both the Word and the Spirit in order to maximally benefit from the transformative power of God’s Word.

The key word in the Tsadhe section of Ps 119 (verses 137-144) is “righteous”. Twice God is called righteous and three times God’s laws are called right or righteous:

¹³⁷ You are righteous, LORD,
   and your laws are right.
¹³⁸ The statutes you have laid down are righteous;
   they are fully trustworthy.

¹⁴² Your righteousness is everlasting
   and your law is true.

¹⁴⁴ Your statutes are always righteous;
   give me understanding that I may live.

This theme of God’s laws being righteous regularly surfaces throughout the Psalm (see also verses 7, 62, 75, 106, 123, 160, 164, 172). But while it may make sense for us to speak of God being righteous, or of a person being righteous, what does it mean to call God’s law righteous? I’ll consider two possibilities briefly:

Law as the standard of righteousness

First, we could say that the law is righteous in that it defines a standard of righteousness. It reflects the nature and character of the righteous God. This fits in with the general observation that in this Psalm, the writer more or less conflates God with his law – the things he says about God’s law are also true of God. For example, when he says he delights in God’s law, he is also delighting in God. When he says God’s law is righteous, he is saying that every word that proceeds from a righteous God must by nature be righteous.

It poses an interesting question. Is something right because God commands it, or is it commanded because it is right? Similarly, is something wrong because God forbids it, or is it forbidden because it is inherently wrong? The fact that some of the Old Testament laws have been explicitly abrogated under the new covenant suggests the former is the case. God himself is the standard of what is right. If he forbids something, then doing it is not right. If later he permits the same thing (e.g. eating pork), the moral status of that action has changed.

Law as a means of attaining righteousness?

The relationship between the law and righteousness is something that Paul reflects on at length in Romans. If the law is the standard of righteousness, does it not follow logically that law-keeping is a means of attaining righteousness?

In some places Paul seems to suggest that this might be at least a theoretical possibility. For example:

For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. (Rom 2:13)

But he goes on to make it abundantly clear that this never happens. In reality, the law simply reveals how far short we have fallen, highlighting our sin, and effectively condemning us.

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. (Rom 3:20)

We might expect that the gospel would make us righteous by enabling us to keep the law. But that isn’t how Paul explains it. We have a righteousness that is by faith, completely disconnected from our personal success at law-keeping.

For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. (Rom 3:28)

So though we agree with the Psalmist that the law is righteous, because it is the words of the righteous God, we cannot look to it as our source of righteousness. Simon Ponsonby says that the function of the law is “SOS” – “Shows our sins” and “Shows our Saviour”. And this surely is the most valuable facet of the law of God – it points us to Christ (through the symbols and types of the ceremonial law), an it drives us to Christ (by revealing the full extent of our own shortcomings). In the New Covenant, delighting in God’s law means delighting in Christ.

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes (Rom 10:4)

I’ll just focus in on a single verse in the “Pe” section of Ps 119 (verses 129-136), the final one:

¹³⁶ Streams of tears flow from my eyes,
   for your law is not obeyed.

The reason this verse is important is that it puts all the “hate” verses of the Psalm into a fresh light. The Psalmist has said in v104 and v128 that he hates every wrong path, then in v113 that he hates double-minded people, and later on declares that he hates falsehood. We might be tempted to think that he has a judgemental, bigoted outlook. But his tears tell another story. They reveal a deep love for God and a compassion for both the sinner and those sinned against.

Of course it is Jesus who sets the example for us in how it is possible to love the sinner while hating sin. Ps 45:6-7 (c.f. Heb 1:8-9) prophesies that Jesus will both “love righteousness” and “hate wickedness”. There is nothing wrong when the evil and injustice in the world causes godly anger to rise within us. But if there are no tears, it reveals that the love of God has not taken root in our hearts, and what we attempt to pass off as a passion for righteousness is more likely a symptom of self-righteousness.

Check out a recent post from John Piper applying this verse to a recent gay pride celebration in his city.

The verse that grabbed my attention in Ps 119:121-128 is verse 126:

¹²⁶ It is time for you to act, LORD;
   your law is being broken.

There are many possible reactions we might have to the ungodliness we see in society, ranging from indifference or isolation, to anger and condemnation, to positive campaigning and working for change. But this verse shows that the Psalmist has recognised the heart of the issue – we need God to break in and move if things are really to change.

If God’s laws are being broken the ultimate solution will not be found in stricter rules and more police, but in transformed hearts. As much as I believe the church has a crucial role to play in hands-on social and political action, our first instinct must be to cry out to God to move in revival power. If we don’t, it is likely we are either guilty of self-reliance (attempting to fix society in our own strength), or self-absorption (not being troubled by the evils in society so long as they don’t affect me).

The Old Testament prophets understood this. They didn’t just speak out against evil and call God’s people to action, they called God himself to action:

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,
   that the mountains would tremble before you! (Isa 64:1)

LORD, I have heard of your fame;
   I stand in awe of your deeds, LORD.
Repeat them in our day,
   in our time make them known;
   in wrath remember mercy. (Hab 3:2)

You who call on the LORD,
   give yourselves no rest,
and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem
   and makes her the praise of the earth. (Isa 62:7-8)

I hope my non-newfrontiers readers will forgive me for a few posts reflecting a little on the group of churches I am part of. Today was the final day of the final Together on a Mission conference, as newfrontiers moves into an exciting new phase.  

I have to confess I am something of a sermonoholic. I must have listened to thousands in my lifetime. I used to have boxes and boxes of sermon tapes in the garage (still have some I can’t bring myself to part with even though I have no cassette player anymore). One of the sermons is dated 2nd May 1981, and is by Terry Virgo, when he came to visit the church I attended (West Street Baptist Church in Dunstable) for an “All Saints Night”. I was five years old at the time, so I can’t say I recall it vividly. The text was Num 10:29, “Come with us, and we will do you good”. It’s a sermon I know he has repeated in several places (including his final talk at TOAM 2006), but I suspect this was one of the first times he brought the message. I’ve uploaded it so you can have a listen below:

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My next run-in with what was to become newfrontiers was a visit to some friends Hove in 1987. We attended their church in the morning (sadly I can’t remember who spoke but I’m pretty sure Dave Fellingham was leading worship), and in the afternoon I was told they were going on a “witness march”. It sounded like the most deathly boring and cringingly embarrassing thing for an 11 year old to do on a Sunday afternoon and I almost opted out of it. But what I experienced that afternoon left a lasting impression on me. It was an early one of Graham Kendrick’s “March for Jesus”. I loved the songs, and held on to the song-sheet for years afterwards (probably still have it somewhere). I still instinctively start playing “The Lord is marching out in splendour” whenever I pick up a guitar. Here’s a photo I took on the day:

I had very little contact with newfrontiers after that – our church was part of a different apostolic sphere (or under different “covering” as it was called at the time), under the remarkable Ern Baxter. The Bible weeks we attended linked up more with Barney Coombs from Basingstoke and Bryn Jones from Bradford.

It wasn’t until 1999 that I had my next real run-in with newfrontiers. I agreed to go to Stoneleigh Bible week, taking a handful of young people from my church, although I was fairly cynical and suspicious of the charismatic movement at this stage, believing most to have lost their evangelical commitment to the Bible. My prejudice was blown away as men like Dave Holden, John Hosier, John Groves, Greg Haslam, Dave Devenish, Simon Pettit and Terry Virgo himself hit successive home runs with outstanding Biblical exposition. It restored my faith that churches of “Word and Spirit” really could exist (hence the title of my blog).

So when we moved to Southampton in 2001, I wanted to at least give the local newfrontiers church a try. Almost 10 years ago now, we joined KCC, a church actually located in Hedge End, which we fell in love with immediately. It had recently moved into a new auditorium seating 300 and this Sunday will be our first meeting in our new building seating well over 1000 and we are excited to see what God will do with and through us in the coming years.

It struck me as I listened again to Terry’s talk, “Come with us and we will do you good” that that is exactly what has happened for us. I am so grateful to God for linking us up with a group of churches who love the Word and are filled with the Spirit. I love the emphasis on church planting and mission to the ends of the earth that permeates the movement. I am well aware that no local church or group of churches is without fault, but I have to say that even given my tendency towards cynicism, this is a family of churches I feel privileged and proud (in a godly kind of way) to be associated with.

My advice to any Christian who finds themselves looking for a church is to find a group of people who love God and have a big vision for seeing the earth filled with his glory. It will do you good and you won’t regret it.

In several places in the Psalms and Wisdom literature, the godly person is counselled to keep away from the wicked who are corrupting influences. In Psalm 119:113-120 (the ‘Samekh’ strophe), the Psalmist expresses his desire for them to leave him alone.

¹¹⁵ Away from me, you evildoers,
   that I may keep the commands of my God!

There have been many groups throughout church history who have emphasised the wisdom of avoiding close association with the godless. Verses such as 1 Cor 15:33, “Bad company corrupts good character.” or 2 Cor 6:17 “Come out from them and be separate” are often cited as evidence that as Christians, we are to keep our distance from the ungodly.

But there has been a marked shift of emphasis in recent years. Now the desire is to be “missional”, to develop good relationships with those who don’t know God and to be a “friend of sinners” like Jesus was.

Are these two incompatible perspectives? Or can they be integrated in some way?

We need to begin by acknowledging the fact that it is possible for us both to be an influencer of those around us and to be influenced by them. Becoming a Christian does not make us magically invincible to temptation. Jesus touched the unclean leper and it made the leper clean. But if we are honest, we don’t always find the transfer works that way for us.

Going into situations where you regularly succumb to temptation and blend in with those around you is not being missional, it’s being foolish. But completely withdrawing from unbelievers around you is not being spiritual, it’s being disobedient to the great commission.

So how did Jesus do it? I won’t attempt to give a comprehensive answer, but here are a few brief thoughts. He brought the presence of God with him into every situation, shining light into dark places rather than hiding his light away. He loved and accepted others, but he wasn’t a people pleaser; he was willing to confront where necessary. He  chose to mix with sinners in contexts conducive to meaningful conversation, such as shared meals.

We do need to beware being influenced by evil, but the solution is not monasticism. For an example of how to live a holy yet missional life, we need look no further than Jesus.

God’s promises is a recurrent theme in Psalm 119, but in the “Nun” section (Ps 119:105-112), we see the Psalmist making a solemn promise to God:

¹⁰⁶ I have taken an oath and confirmed it,
   that I will follow your righteous laws.

A few verses later he expresses his determination to obey God not just in the present, but for the rest of his life:

¹¹² My heart is set on keeping your decrees
   to the very end.

This theme of making promises and commitments is also prominent in the Heth section (Ps 119:57-64). For example:

⁵⁷You are my portion, LORD;
   I have promised to obey your words.

In our commitment-averse society, making vows or promises is something we are less and less inclined to do. Some even want to insert get-out clauses into their marriage vows.

I know there are some churches that make a big deal of promises. They have baptismal vows where they pledge loyalty to God, and “commitment Sundays” where they pledge loyalty to their local church. Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life begins by asking you to commit to reading it daily, and his church training program involves signing up to a series of “covenants”. The “Promise Keepers” movement has seven promises or commitments they want men to sign up to. Some preachers include making promises as part of their altar call – people need to come down to the front as a sign that they have definitively committed to some kind of response.

On the other hand, some churches have backed off this kind of language. It can be viewed suspiciously as a kind of guilt-inducing entrapment, manipulating people into making promises they can’t or don’t want to keep. To compound it all, didn’t Jesus tell us not to make promises at all in Matt 5:34?

It is easy to find plenty of examples of “pledges”, “vows” and “oaths” made by the people of God in the Old Testament. But in the New Testament they are few and far between. Apart from Paul vowing to cut all his hair off in Acts 18:18, examples of believers making promises or being asked to do so are hard to find. Some cite 1 Peter 3:21 as evidence of the practise of “baptismal pledges”, which do seem to have been a feature of the early church.

So should we be making vows? For the psalmist, it was very clear in his mind that he had devoted his entire life to knowing and obeying God. As we do with marriage vows he wanted to express his irrevocable decision to live for God – “I’m in this for life, no backing out”. Rather than necessarily making fresh “vows” in some kind of special ceremony, I think he made a habit of regularly reaffirming and articulating this commitment to God. Whilst I agree that our primary focus should be on God’s faithfulness, and his promises to us, I do believe it is appropriate for us to respond to his grace with songs and prayers affirming our own commitment to him.

I have decided to follow Jesus;
No turning back, no turning back.

⁹⁷ Oh, how I love your law!
   I meditate on it all day long.

A key theme of the “Mem” section of Psalm 119 (Ps 119:97-104) is the wisdom the Psalmist gets from his continual meditation on the word of God:

⁹⁸ Your commands are always with me
and make me wiser than my enemies.
⁹⁹ I have more insight than all my teachers,
for I meditate on your statutes.
¹⁰⁰ I have more understanding than the elders,
for I obey your precepts.

This might comes across as a bit arrogant. Reading the Bible has turned him him a know-it-all. He thinks himself wiser than his enemies, his teachers and the elders. Shouldn’t reading the word result in humility not pride?

But, we shouldn’t misread the Psalmist’s motives here. He is not claiming to be inherently wiser or better than others. He simply wants to say that the wisdom he gets from the word of God is the best kind of wisdom there is. It’s the wisdom that really matters. The nature of true wisdom is intensely practical. It is not abstract knowledge or philosophical ideas. It is not even about having smart business sense or clever people management skills. True wisdom has a moral dimension. The wise love righteousness and hate evil:

¹⁰⁴ I gain understanding from your precepts;
therefore I hate every wrong path.

The truly wise therefore move beyond simply knowing what is true and what is false to knowing what is right and what is wrong. They go further; they move from knowing what is right to loving what is right. It’s not just our opinions that need changing, it is our desires.

I’ll save the concept of “hating” every wrong path for a future post, as that is another phrase in this section that could easily be taken the wrong way.

The verse I want to pick out from this portion of Ps 119 is one that came to my attention after watching the movie “Luther”. In Ps 119:94, the Psalmist says “I am yours, save me”. There is a powerful moment in the film where Johan von Stauptiz urges Martin Luther, who was despairing of finding a gracious God at the time, to use it as a prayer, lifting his eyes from himself and looking to Christ:

“Martin, what is it you seek?”
“A merciful God! A God that I can love! A God who loves me…”
“Then look to Christ…bind yourself to Christ, and you will know God’s love. Say to him, “I am Yours – save me!”

Saved from what?

But has this half-verse been snatched away from its context and made to mean something alien to the original text? What was the Psalmist praying to be saved from? Verse 95 might suggest that it is not God’s judgement he wants to be saved from, but the harm that wicked people want to do to him:

⁹⁵ The wicked are waiting to destroy me,
   but I will ponder your statutes.

However, verses 92-93 paint a slightly different picture, one in which the Psalmist links his own personal safety with his loyalty to God’s word. In other words, he recognises that there is a graver danger than falling into the hands of the wicked, and that is falling in line with the wicked and sharing their fate:

⁹² If your law had not been my delight,
   I would have perished in my affliction.
⁹³ I will never forget your precepts,
   for by them you have preserved my life.

So we could say the Psalmist has “holistic salvation” in mind – salvation from harm in this life and salvation from damnation in the next; salvation from the schemes of the wicked and salvation from the judgment of God.

Saved on what basis?

But what is the basis of that salvation? The ESV rendering of verse 94 could be interpreted as presenting a legalistic understanding – he expects to be saved because of his obedience to God’s precepts:

⁹⁴ I am yours; save me,
for I have sought your precepts.

The NIV however phrases the verse quite differently, suggesting that the Psalmist’s hope of salvation rests on the simple fact that he belongs to God:

⁹⁴ Save me, for I am yours;
   I have sought out your precepts.

Theologically, I prefer the NIV here. My confidence that I will be saved is not based on my obedience to God’s precepts, but on the knowledge that I belong to him, that I have been bought by the blood of Christ.

In any case, a careful reading of the ESV reveals that it is not “obedience” that is put forward as the basis for salvation. He says he has “sought” God’s precepts, which, for the Psalmist, is pretty much the same thing as saying he has sought God. Probably if the ESV is right, the sense is that seeking after God is the hallmark of belonging to him. Those who belong to God desire to please him with a life of obedience and therefore “seek his precepts.” In that sense it is no different from the Jesus’ teaching that those who abide in him will bear fruit.

Saviour and Lord

But perhaps the most attractive thing about the phrase “I am yours, save me” is the indissoluble link between having Jesus as your Saviour, and belonging to him. We cannot say to Jesus, “I want salvation, but I don’t want you”. You cannot have him as your saviour without also coming into a new relationship with God as your Father, and Jesus as your Lord. When we are saved we don’t just receive benefits from Christ, we find ourselves, to use Paul’s language, “in Christ”. We enter into a new life in which Jesus is right at the centre.

So I think Staupitz was right to point Luther to a God of grace using this verse. He’s not a God who will save us only if we impress him enough with our commandment-keeping. He’s a God who delights to save all who call upon him, all who lift their eyes off themselves and look to Christ alone for salvation.