James's Weblog

It's no secret that I'm a big fan of Has Bean Coffee. From time to time, I'm asked about whether their coffees are "fair trade". In this day and age when information is so much more freely available, there's a welcome movement - which Christians have been at the forefront of - to make sure that we shop in ethical ways. The price we pay for goods matters; the way workers are treated matters.

There is a real danger that we are so familiar with John the Baptist fulfilling Isaiah 40:3 that we lose sight of the staggering implication this has for Jesus.

So France comments:

It's easy to trot off the tongue that we believe in a doctrine called "the priesthood of all believers".

It's harder to explain what we mean by that, and what we don't mean.

It's harder still to articulate the cash-value: What impact does this doctrine make to the lives of Christians and churches on a daily basis?

Jesus warns the 12, as he sends them out in Matthew 10, that if they speak to others of him they will be opposed. The warning is given in the context of their mission during Jesus' earthly ministry, but many of the details in there make fuller sense in the period after his ascension. Jesus taught them with the deliberate intention of preparing them for more than just that one mission, and Matthew recorded those words with the Great Commission at the end of his gospel in mind.