Yeah – it was tricky – I was trying to illustrate contemporary examples of differences between Christians whilst at the same time attempting to show they are not exactly the same.

So – the Jew Gentile differences around food were matters of gospel freedom. You could eat as much pork as you like with no fear of it ever being close to sin. By contrast, alcohol is not bad (indeed it is considered God’s gift in the Scriptures), but drunkenness is bad. So wisdom would dictate thinking through how to stay well clear of that.

For some Christians, they decide to never drink, for others they might choose to set themselves a limit. They are both trying to avoid an agreed danger – over indulging– but drawing different boundaries. The boundaries are protective – they are not God given. Some Christians will take a more conservative line (ie. a barrier further from the ‘cliff edge’), others will take a more libertine approach (ie. a barrier quite close to the ‘cliff edge’).

The difference should be clear.  Both are issues of freedom.  The Christian is free to both drink alcohol and eat pork.  Yet –  clean / unclean foods are not conservative / libertine distinction. With Jesus – you cannot sin by eating unclean food (insert caveat here from Romans 14 about concern for your brother / sisters conscience; perhaps also overeating / greed!). The food itself does not contaminate you (compare Jesus’ words in Mark 7).

So there are similarities and differences with are situation that are important to understand. In both situations Paul would probably encourage you to make up your mind and then stay relatively silent on your decision. But for different reasons – in Romans 14 – because you are waiting for your Christian brother to catch up on your understanding. With alcohol issues today – it is because you are making personal decisions about what is helpful for you and others around you – there is no absolute rule the Scripture gives.

As an illustration of how that works out…when working with halls students in Australia they had an annual pub crawl in the Orientation week. As a Christian worker in the hall I wanted to get to know the students, but was frustrated by a ‘drinking culture’ the hall created. In the end I went to some pubs along the way – but made sure I was seen to be only drinking orange juice. That was part of concern for students who may never touch alcohol – to be considerate of them. Later on in our home we may have offered wine during a meal if we thought a person would have no concerns in this area – and to perhaps quietly model a different usage of alcohol.

On your question – “How should we respond on issues we are weak on?”

In Romans 14 terms – you won’t know that you are weak. The weaker brothers ironically would have thought of themselves as morally superior and the others as pretty dodgy. That’s the trick – it’s an issue of mature understanding – and hence the need to educate the conscience. Partly that will be carefully listening to your brothers and sisters when they attempt to explain how they read the Scriptures – to hear their rationale for their behaviour, rather than imposing your own framework on them. That underlines the value of consistent teaching of the Scriptures to a church – to gradually but intentionally work through the Scriptures. That is something that will grow the unity of a group.

That’s different to the drinker / non drinker of alcohol…that’s not a weak / strong issue (unless they believe the Bible bans all alcohol) – it’s a question of wisdom.

“Now Barnabas wanted to take with them  John called Mark.  38 But Paul thought best not to take with them one  who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work.  39 And there arose  a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other.  Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus,  40 but Paul chose Silas and departed,  having been commended by  the brothers to  the grace of the Lord.  41 And he went through Syria and Cilicia,  strengthening the churches.”

- Acts 15:37-41

It seems inevitable that Christians will disagree this side of heaven – yet doctrinal diversity is not something we value per se.  We are urged on in the knowledge that unity is the goal, that Christ will bring about. Tongue-in-cheek, Roger Nicole once wrote to a theological adversary:

“I do find comfort in the thought that although you may oppose Calvinism on this earth, you will be a Calvinist when you get to heaven.”

On Sunday we looked at a key passage, Romans 14, on the topic of Christians in disagreement.  How do you disagree well?  You can listen to the talk here.

If you want to do some further thinking on the topic, I have written an extended paper on the topic around the old saying ‘In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity’.  It reflects on the language we use in disagreements – terms like ‘gospel issues’ ‘clear / unclear’ ‘primary-seconday’ and ‘adiaphora’ (things indifferent) and tries to connect them to the gospel and the Scriptures.

Let’s be thankful that Jesus promises to finish the job of bringing us to complete unity – and anticipate that now by the way we relate to each other as brothers and sisters.

I was attending a lecture by a famous, dare I say it, notorious church leader from the United States last night at the University.  It’s always good to hear people first hand rather than interpreted and distorted through the grape vine.

One of the university staff was invited to respond – and denouncing the simplicity and narrowness of her youth group upbringing, she said it was manuscripts that were the clincher for her.  They were the beginning of the end for her youthful acceptance of the Bible.  What did she mean?

She explained (as if it was the first time it had been raised) that she learnt in manuscript studies that we do not have access to the original manuscripts for the New Testament.  So which manuscript was it that represented the Word of God?  She seemed delighted by this insight and many of the group present seemed to think that this was all that needed to be said on the matter.

If you haven’t thought about it recently it would be good to consider Peter Bolt’s recent blog on the topic over at Sola Panel.

Perhaps a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing!  

We’re spending four weeks thinking about our prayer life as a church.

We thought working our way through the Lord’s Prayer would be a good base to work from.  We’re probably more familiar with the term – ‘The Lord’s Prayer’, but perhaps a better title would be ‘The Child’s Prayer’.  It’s from the Lord, but FOR children. It is the prayer that Jesus invites us to pray because we have the unique position as adopted children of God – brothers and sisters of Jesus.

Jesus invites us I think to consider how prayer to a caring heavenly Father will be different to the prayers of the religious showman and the religious pagans.

The showman loves to be seen as both prayerful and theologically profound.  He prays in order to be seen.  Jesus says they have been rewarded – by the applause of the crowd.  They have their reward – and nothing more.

The pagans of Jesus’ day thought that their gods heard them because of techniques and repetition.  Jesus contrasts that with the God of the Bible, who both knows all and is a Father who cares for His children.  He does not have to be spurred into action on their behalf.  Rather, he longs for them to come and lay their needs before Him.

So prayer in Jesus’ terms is neither a duty nor a show.  It is a privilege to be enjoyed.  So let’s spend four weeks reflecting on how we can individually and corporately delight in God in prayer.  If you missed the first talk, you might like to download it here.

In Christ,

Nick

The E100 Bible Reading Challenge comes from a partnership between Bible Society New Zealand, Scripture Union and Wycliffe Bible Translators. It’s a great tool to help churches get Kiwi Christians back into reading their Bibles.

Check out their brand new video!

More details here

If you’ve read Canta #18 you’re probably a little annoyed to hear in the editorial that Canta won’t be publishing a response from Scott Mackay to the anonymous article entitled ‘Come to the Dark side!  We have Pre Marital Sex! and Led Zeppelin!’.

Yet, despite the apparent unquestioning channelling of Richard Dawkins (a number of atheists are wanting to keep their distance from Dawkins), the writer is absolutely correct in attacking Christianity at the point of history.  Christianity is not a philosophy – it stands or falls on the facts of history.

So I’m wanting to say this week that history matters…and perhaps introduce you to someone you may not have met, but should have.

You may be aware of our most famous graduate – the Nobel prizing winning Ernest Rutherford – famous for ‘splitting the atom’.  You may not however, have heard of one who should also be numbered amongst the greats, a classicist named Edwin Judge.  Both were / are keen Christians.

Emeritus Professor Edwin Judge with Chancellor the Hon Justice Kim Santow at the conferring of the degree of Doctor of Letters (honoris causa), 12 May 2006 (Memento Photography)

Edwin Judge is a leading figure in ancient history studies in Australia and New Zealand having studied at Canterbury and Cambridge and taught at Sydney and Macquarie Universities.  Read his citation on receiving his honorary Doctor of Letters here.

It’s worth listening to someone who has spent their life looking at the primary sources.  What does he say on the historicity of the gospel accounts?

Glad you asked!

“An ancient historian has no problem seeing the phenomenon of Jesus as an historical one. His many surprising aspects only help anchor him in history. Myth or legend would have created a much more predictable figure. The writings that sprang up about Jesus also reveal to us a movement of though and an experience of life so unusual that something more substantial than the imagination is needed to explain it.” (as quoted in P. Barnett, The Truth about Jesus, Aquila, Sydney, 1994)

Let me introduce you – here.

See you Sunday,

Nick

Great when Jesus makes it to the front  of Canta isn’t it?!

One of the great legacies of the Christian tradition is the protection of freedom of speech.  Even when people abuse that freedom to promote their idols and defend their ‘leave God out of it’ lifestyles, it’s a freedom worth enjoying.

Ironically, the greatest attack on authentic Christianity on campus comes not from the outspoken atheist or the decadent activist.  It’s the conquering power of Meh!

Meh! is the apathetic and perhaps postmodern response to the message of Christianity.

Does God exist?  meh!

Was Jesus real or unreal?  meh!

Kiwis tend to think that they’ve tried Christianity and found it wanting.  They’re pretty sure that it’s wrong – just not too clear on the specifics when it comes to why.  But – whatever -  no need to worry about all those Christian claims.

Perhaps it was a historical hoax?  Wasn’t that what the Da Vinci Code said?  I won’t check for myself – there’s sure to be lots of opinions.

Who knows?  Who can know?  meh…

Each age and culture has its idols, but the great danger of ours is to think that you can’t know anything, and so (ironically) you can believe just about anything you like.

Being attacked is not much fun – but there’s always one thing worse – being ignored.  Christians need to get over the worry of being attacked for the claims of Jesus and start worrying when they don’t even register.

Nick

What a great example of how to talk to friends..

It’s a boy!

Welcome to Tobias Mackay Orr [aka Toby]

From Katherine’s mum, Helen:

[Toby] arrived 11.21pm on Easter Tuesday, 2 hours 20 minutes after arriving at the hospital and just 40 minutes before my birthday but as I was born on Easter Tuesday, and my Mum and my Nana were also born on Easter Tuesday it was a delightful way of keeping up a Carmichael/Taylor/Burns family tradition. He weiged in at 3.220kg (a smidgin over 7lb) and, of course, is such a precious wee man.

From Dan and Katherine:

Thank you so much for your prayers. God is good and He continues to confirm this through showing His love and care through family and friends. Many thanks!

Congratulations Orrs!

If you’re keen to help with providing meals, then get in touch with Erin at erinrobinson82 AT gmail.com.

The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device, like a dishwasher or a video recorder. Dishwashers washed tedious dishes for you, thus saving you the bother of washing them yourself, video recorders watched tedious television for you, thus saving you the bother of looking at it yourself; Electric Monks believed things for you, thus saving you what was becoming an increasingly onerous task, that of believing all the things the world expected you to believe.

 …….

This Monk had first gone wrong when it was simply given too much to believe in one day. It was, by mistake, cross-connected to a video recorder that was watching eleven TV channels simultaneously, and this caused it to blow a bank of illogic circuits. The video recorder only had to watch them, of course. It didn’t have to believe them as well. This is why instruction manuals are so important.

So after a hectic week of believing that war was peace, that good was bad, that the moon was made of blue cheese, and that God needed a lot of money sent to a certain box number, the Monk started to believe that thirty-five percent of all tables were hermaphrodites, and then broke down. The man from the Monk shop said that it needed a whole new motherboard, but then pointed out that the new improved Monk Plus models were twice as powerful, had an entirely new multi-tasking Negative Capability feature that allowed them to hold up to sixteen entirely different and contradictory ideas in memory simultaneously without generating any irritating system errors, were twice as fast and at least three times as glib, and you could have a whole new one for less than the cost of replacing the motherboard of the old model.