Living

Many will remember the furore when Prince Charles stated, many years back, that he wanted to be not “defender of the [implied, Christian] faith”, but simply “defender of faith”.

Some of the problems of that should be obvious.

I had a great afternoon at Blenheim Palace on Saturday, listening to Doug Wilson talk about

• The gospel and your church
• The gospel and your family

• The gospel and your government.

I’ve been enjoying reading all of James Cary’s posts on the subject of baptism. His most recent post on infant baptism is paticularly fine and worth reading. It’s refreshing to read some clarity on this.

There are now about 5 posts on this subject, all worth a read.

I found David Field’s recent post on how they, as a family, applied their thinking on infant baptism immensely helpful.

Specifically, it’s worth asking:

• If we know Jesus will get there in the end, do we need to be impatient with others? Especially given Jesus is patient with us.
• Is baptism a purely personal thing (something “I have to do” because of “my relationship with Christ”) or is it about church membership?

• When we are in the position of needing to find a church to attend, it will never perfectly fit our ideal church in every respect. So what do we let go of for the sake of other things we value?

Thanks for sharing your thought with us, David.

I was asked one very specific question after my last sermon on Luke 21.

I developed one implication that the temple was to come to an end, which is the implication developed in Ephesians 2. The era of Jewish national privilege has closed, so that in the new creation none of us will have a second class spot – specifically, no Gentiles will be penalised for being Gentile.

After the service I was asked why, if this is the case, I still hold that there will be a distinction in the roles taken by men and women in church life.

/a

Happy New Year, everybody!

May I take this opportunity to present to you a new website, Edible Words.

Neil Robbie and I have spent a year or so working on this. It’s not taken a year because it has been an enormous project – more because we’ve been fitting it into the time we can carve out from our other commitments. It is now at the stage where we think it is ready to roll out, go live, launch etc.

Following on from the post from two days ago, another resolution I find myself making frequently is to pray more widely. It’s all too easy for one’s prayer life to become focussed in on fewer and fewer concerns, at least that is what I find.

“But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.” (Psalm 1:2)

“The law of God is in his heart; his steps do not slip.” (Psalm 37:31)

“I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” (Psalm 119:11)

Thanks, Neil Robbie, for joining the world of bloggers, even if you only post your starter post. A sobering, but fantastically helpful, quotation from Thomas Boston on how to tell when our mourning for sin might be spurious rather than real and heart-felt.

I look forward to reading more of Neil’s jottings.

I hope every parent of young children has discovered the delights of Wibbly Pig and Percy the Park Keeper:...