Jeremy has tagged me to reveal seven lesser-known things about myself! Tricky, tricky thing to do! Here goes:

1) I have a passion for photography! I’ve worked my way up from a film compact through film SLRs through digital compacts until my present pride and joy (Nikon D50 Digital SLR). Sadly though, I haven’t been taking many photos recently because the weathers a bit dull and besides, my fingers would get frozen! But when I get out with my camera it is wonderful! It justs makes you look at the world in a very careful way. You begin to notice things that you never notice otherwise… the texture on a leaf, the colours reflected on still water, the subtle variations in colour in the trees in a wood… it’s good!

2) Like Jeremy, I love reading but buy more books than I can read! Nothing beats sitting down with a nice mug of coffee and a good theology book. Now I do enjoy reading novels but they become problematic when they are wildly interesting… it simply means that I fail to do anything else but sit and read for hours and hours! So they tend to get relegated to holidays only! But books are good. At the minute I’m enjoying Eugene Merrill’s latest book, “Everlasting Dominion: A Theology of the Old Testament” and it’s fascinating!

3) I love computers and technology! For a while I dabbled in programming with C, C++, Java and more recently VB.NET but with school behind me it hasn’t received very much attention. Linux used to run on my other hard drive but with the steady encroachment of large files I felt the need to abandon it and defect to using Windows as my main Operating System. Ah well.

4) A passion for coffee needs to go in here somewhere. Where would the world be without coffee? I investigated the other day whether Starbucks make a better Latte than the local coffee shop (Clements) but to my deep sorrow, the Starbucks coffee was emphatically not as good as the one from Clements. The Starbucks one didn’t have much froth in it and it also tasted a bit weaker (despite the fact that I ordered an extra shot of espresso in it - as I always do!). So I’ve concluded that I shall hereafter buy my coffee from Clements.

5) One thing I really don’t like is verses… and chapters. Really! I remember the old days when most Bibles were printed with each verse printed on a new line as if it was a different paragraph. What were they thinking? There is no doubt in my mind that such a practice is destructive and damaging to the way many people read the Bible. Fortunately some Bibles printed the verses normally and shrank the size of the horrid verse numbers. That was nice for a while but I couldn’t help but think how nice it would be if I could simply read the Bible without numbers sticking all over it and subject headings splashed through the text. Fortunately the kind people at IBS have commenced the Books of the Bible Project in which they print the Bible as plain, paragraphed, single-column text. And it’s so refreshing to read! I love my copy! I know we need verses sometimes for referencing things but I sometimes wonder if we might be better off without them a lot of the time.

6) I have four lovely sisters aged from 6 to 17. They’re wonderful and keep life about the house full of activity!

7) Last but not least, I am afflicted with the awful curse of procrastination! I’ve got a lab report due on Friday but I suppose most of the work will be done on it on Thursday! I’ll need to work on fixing my procrastination!

I think I have to tag three people now, so I’ll choose:

• Rose from Rose’s Reasonings
• Ender from Absolutely Free Grace
• Matthew the Dyspraxic Fundamentalist

God bless,

Andrew

As always, I enjoyed reading the latest issue of Grace In Focus (the newsletter from the Grace Evangelical Society) but it was  Bob Wilkin’s article on the Bereans that really caught my attention. In the article (which will probably appear on the GES website soon), Wilkin uses the examples of the Bereans to show how we should approach Scripture. Rather than simply arguing for tradition for tradition’s sake, we should diligently search the Scriptures to find out what they say.

The article made me think about my own approach to Scripture and how it is sometimes flawed. One truth that has repeatedly came into my mind over the recent days is the fact that no matter what I believe, my belief will not change anything. Yes, it does seem rather axiomatic but it is so easy to forget. Sometimes I so desperately want the Bible to teach a certain thing that I would like to “creatively re-interpret” the difficult passages away. But then I remember that it’s not worth trying to make the Bible say what I want it to say - because at the end of the day, what I believe won’t change the truth.

Sometimes the search for truth will involve us accepting beliefs that we would rather not believe. Sometimes the search for truth will jar with tradition and with what we want to believe. But we need to follow the Scriptures where they lead. What we want them to say doesn’t matter. Some people believe in a pre-tribulation rapture, not because they have carefully thought about what the Scriptures teach, but because that’s what they’ve always believed and it is certainly a pleasant doctrine to believe. Maybe the pre-trib position is correct, but whether we want it to be correct or not doesn’t matter. And if we labour to prove that the Scriptures teach that doctrine with blinders on to prevent us seeing any other view, then our approach is fatally flawed. Let us be subservient to the Word of God and let us diligently seek to follow and believe what it says no matter where it leads. Let us leave our emotions at the door. Let us leave traditions at the door. Then let us diligently seek to know the truth of God by seeking to understand what his word says, and what it means.

“Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” (Acts 17:11, TNIV)

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NB: My use of the pre-trib rapture example was only chosen because it is a controversial subject that often gets tied up with tradition and emotions. My use of this example in no way should suggest that that doctrine is wrong. It is merely the principles by which some people arrive at that doctrine that I am condemning.

In a wonderful letter to his friend Marcellinus, Athanasius tells of a conversation he had with with an old gentleman about the Psalms. In the discourse, the gentleman says some excellent things that are worth reading. Constantly he reminds Athanasius that the Psalms are wonderful representations of the emotions and events we experience in every avenue of our lives:

“So then, my son, let whoever reads this Book of Psalms take the things in it quite simply as God-inspired; and let each select from it, as from the fruits of a garden, those things of which he sees himself in need. For I think that in the words of this book all human life is covered, with all its states and thoughts, and that nothing further can be found in man. For no matter what you seek, whether it be repentance and confession, or help in trouble and temptation or under persecution, whether you have been set free from plots and snares or, on the contrary, are sad for any reason, or whether, seeing yourself progressing and your enemy cast down, you want to praise and thank and bless the Lord, each of these things the Divine Psalms show you how to do, and in every case the words you want are written down for you, and you can say them as your own.” (Letter of Athanasius to Marcellinus)

How important is it that we clearly delineate the content of saving faith? For me, it’s a central issue. We need to make sure that when we present the gospel, the message we communicate is one that clearly defines what a person must believe in order to be saved.

For years, I was uncertain about exactly what a person had to believe in order to get saved. In my early Christian experience, I believed that to get saved, a person must believe that Christ died for their sins upon the cross, that he rose again the third day and that believing that, they were saved. If you had asked me about other beliefs, I wouldn’t have been sure whether to put them into the category of “beliefs necessary for salvation” or some other category. But something always niggled me… I honestly couldn’t find anywhere in Scripture that set forth this message as the essential content of saving faith. Perhaps 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 was the passage that I held most strongly to in order to support this view:

“Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time. “

But really, did a person have to believe all that to be saved? Did a person have to believe that Christ was buried, that he was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve? What if a person didn’t believe that Christ appeared to over five hundred brethren at once? Why didn’t people preach all these truths in their gospel messages?

Furthermore, the condition for salvation in these verses to “hold fast the word that I preached to you.” Now if the salvation here is justification, then we can only be assured of our salvation when we die - for who knows, perhaps we might stop holding fast to this message. It wasn’t a very good foundation for building my content of saving faith.

Some years later (and several months ago) I went through a difficult time. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what a person had to believe to be saved. I spent long hours thinking about it, reading about it and asking question about the essential content of saving faith. When I suggested at one stage that the essential content of saving faith was believing the truth of Christ’s words, I was launched into a sea of confusion - because nearly every “Christian” who goes by that name believes that Christ spoke the truth. Furthermore, what if someone misinterpreted something that Christ said - does that count as denying the truth of his words? What if they really badly misinterpreted something? It was a dead-end street. I could only hope that I had believed enough to get saved. But such a view provided no basis of assurance. Thus it was soon rejected.

If a person is to be sure that they have eternal life then the content of their faith must be simple. A God who desires all people to be saved will not make the message of life so complicated that simply people cannot understand the way of life. But what was that content? I had already read Zane Hodges’ views on the matter: that all who believe in Jesus for eternal life have eternal life. Those views kept on presenting themselves to me. I had several difficulties with them but eventually I came to the point where I realised that what Zane Hodges’ was saying was totally Scriptural. I came to understand that everyone who simply believes in Jesus Christ for their eternal wellbeing can be assured of that. It was simply, it was clear and above all, it was a firm basis for assurance of salvation. I could simply rest on the promise of Jesus that “whoever believes in Me, has eternal life.” (John 6:47)

The issue of the essential content of saving faith is fundamentally important. It is on this foundation that our assurance will either stand or fall. So we need to be clear. It is only when we clearly delineate a Biblical content of saving faith that people can be sure that they are saved. It’s not a matter of allowing people to believe whatever else they want and still be saved - it’s a matter of being able to know that you are saved. And this knowledge must come through God’s word - not tradition, not man’s words - but through God’s word. In his gospel, John writes that “these things are written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God [cf. John 11:25-27] and that by believing you might have life in his name.” Thus John’s purpose is to bring people to faith in Christ for eternal life. His is the only explicitly evangelistic gospel and his is the gospel that is replete with assurances that whoever believes in Jesus has eternal life.

My point in this is simply to point out that it’s important to make sure that we have a strong Biblical content of saving faith that is clearly delineated for without this, assurance is less than certain.

Any thoughts?

Hi everybody,

Just finished my Malachi essay. Don’t know whether it’s any good or not though! You can have a read if you want here.

Blessings,

Andrew.