Rich language, or poverty-stricken vocabulary?

Last night I was re-reading Honey for a Child's Heart (yes, again), and came upon this selection:

"The right word in the right place is a magnificent gift. Somehow a limited, poverty-stricken vocabulary works toward equally limited use of ideas and imagination. On the other hand, the provocative use of the right words, of a growing vocabulary, gives us adequate material with which to clothe our thoughts and leads to a richer world of expression." (Honey for a Child's Heart p18, emphasis mine)

In the phrase poverty-stricken vocabulary, I experienced precisely what Gladys Hunt was describing: 'provocative use of the right words.'

As I walk through our neighborhood, and scarcely hear a sentence without the f-bomb, I cannot think of a better description than poverty-stricken vocabulary. There is no question in my mind that words and imagination are tightly knit.

This is the cycle of poverty: language, imagination and life. To break that cycle, there must be a profound change in all three. Yet in order not to suck those leaving the cycle of poverty in to the whirlpool of greed, there must be conversion. The new words, imagination and life must be characterized by visions of the Kingdom and its King, and not visions of 'progress.' That is precisely the role that literature, and Christian literature in particular, can and should play.

Public truth

I have posted a number of times on public truth. Now, I'm excited that there is a new organization in New York that is engaging social issues through the Gospel with the conviction that this good news is for all, and is the core of addressing social issues. They have a kick-off meeting next week that includes Jim Wallis, for those in the area.

What does "pray" mean?

Today we had a picnic with one of Elisabeth's friends. I asked her if she wanted to pray before we ate, or if she wanted me to pray. Her little friend turned and asked me,

"What does pray mean?"

His question was a powerful reminder to me that our lives provoke questions, and I need to be prepared to answer those really good and sincere questions in a way a 3 year old can understand - and even more importantly to be able to turn focus from a religious activity that people of many faiths do to the good news of Christ.

There must be a profound difference

The first priority, therefore, is the cherishing and nourishing of such a congregation in a life of worship, of teaching, and of mutual pastoral care so that the new life in Christ becomes more and more for them the great and controlling reality. That life will necessarily be different from the life of the neighborhood, but the important thing is that it be different in the right way and not in the wrong way . . . We ought to recognize, perhaps more sharply than we often do, that there must be a profound difference between a community that adores God as the great reality, and one where it is assumed that God can be ignored. (Lesslie Newbigin: Missionary Theologian p145)

Children are some of the most astute observers of human behavior. They, perhaps more clearly than adults, quickly observe the many differences between the community that adores God as the great reality, and the larger society where it is assumed that God can be ignored. Our great privilege as parents is to build every aspect of our new lives around the good news so that our children see that it is the great and controlling reality not only in word but in deed.

Lex orandi lex credendi

Lex orandi lex credendi. 'The rule of prayer is the rule of faith.'

I think one of the great advantages of an intentionally liturgical church is that in the weekly (and even daily) prayers, the theology expressed is profound and true. I find myself worshiping deeply through the words of the Anglican liturgy because they express and celebrate the glory of the gospel. Better yet, they are doxological. They do not merely say true things about God, but address Him with joy and adoration.

It struck me recently that bedtime prayers are rightly subject to this maxim, lex orandi lex credendi. I am praying with Elisabeth, and I am also teaching. I am teaching her the things that are worthy of bringing to the Father, whilst teaching her how to approach Him. Bedtime prayers are, whether we consider it or not, profound daily instruments of theological and practical instruction. For this reason, I think it is both important and appropriate to praise God with our children for the glimpses we have had of Him in the Scriptures and in experience on that particular day, and to ask Him for the extension of His kingdom in our neighborhood and to the ends of the earth. This, I believe, is one important way that children develop a missional approach to life, to the glory of God.

Missionary Parenting

Many of my heroes are, or were, missionaries. I admire them for a host of reasons, not least of which that they have endured tremendous trials to bring the good news to others.

As a parent, I am well aware of the tension of living the Gospel, and the fear of putting our children in harm's way. I have talked with many a parent who would not consider living in certain places (even in this country) because of the challenges and disadvantages for their children. As we are now exploring educational options for Elisabeth (and since we have several friends with children who live in hostile places), I am thinking again much about missionary life.

Graciously, the Spirit reminded me that in the incarnation, the Father sent His beloved Son to be born in a barn under an infanticidal tyrant. The Father was not negligent, or unkind; yet in love sent His Son to be born away from comfort, soon to be a refugee.

If our loving Father was willing to put our Savior in this place for our good, can we not trust Him to take care of our children in the places to which He calls us? Is it possible that love for our children does not require us to shelter them from all harm, but to trust the Father to protect them regardless of how safe or unsafe a place appears to be? I am increasingly convinced that it is my unwillingness to trust the Father that keeps me from obedience. It is easy to say that I trust Him, while doing my best to control the environments in which I place my daughter. But have I truly trusted Him, or merely offered Him lip service, while trusting my own ability to protect my child?

Becoming more bold

I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. (Philippians 1:12-14)

The bold fearlessness that Paul observed among the brothers and sisters as the consequence of his imprisonment is no less real today. I am convinced from Scripture and experience that stories of faithful trust in God through persecution, hardship and imprisonment are frequently the tool of the Holy Spirit to make us more bold to speak the word without fear.

I could list dozens of contemporary and historical Christians whose faithfulness in the hard places has made me more bold in sharing the good news. I realize now that my parents played an important role in giving me a taste for missionary biographies. Those biographies, in turn, challenged me to more trust and boldness. So now, as I have the privilege of parenting, I want to regularly read to my children the faithfulness of God to those who have trusted Him through extremely trying circumstances, so that they too would be emboldened to trust Him.

Two classes of people

I heard Mark Dever say recently that the many ways that we classify people (men and women, Republican and Democrat, pro-war and anti-war, etc.) are all tertiary. The Bible lumps people into one of two camps: either being saved or perishing. I saw that especially clearly today reading 2 Corinthians 2:15,

"For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing . . ."

Either we are being saved by God, or we are perishing. This is the great division of humanity that drives the mission of the church: to spread the good news of Christ in order that through this message the Holy Spirit may depopulate "those who are perishing" and multiply "those who are being saved."

Eric Liddell and the Sabbath

Some years ago I read a book called A Boy's War by David Michell, who was a young boy in a Japanese prison camp in China during the Second World War. His school was imprisoned in the same camp where Eric Liddell was held, and later died just months before liberation.

Eric Liddell is the man on whom the movie Chariots of Fire is based. He refused to run the 1924 Olympic qualifying heats for the 200 meters because they were held on a Sunday. Instead, he ran the 400, a race for which he hadn't trained. He won the gold medal in the 400, and set a new world record. Shortly thereafter, he departed for China, saying that he was "Going abroad to endeavor to do his part to unify the countries of the world under Christ."

Michell recounted something that truly impressed me regarding Eric Liddell:

"Strong as he was in his conviction about Sunday not being a day for sports, he even agreed to referee the games of some of the children whose parents let them play on Sundays, when he found them fighting over the game." (A Boy's War 116)

This man who would not compete in the Olympics on a Sunday for himself was willing to referee games for children in a prison camp on Sundays! He understood that the Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath, and therefore trusted Christ both by refraining from running in the trials for the 200, and in refereeing games for children on a Sunday.

O how I want our children to grow up with heroes like this, who live according to God, and not according to their own wills! I remember being inspired throughout my childhood years by the missionary biographies that my parents read to me. They became my heroes, of whom the world was not worthy.

The peculiar task of the Church

Of late I have been thinking much about the Church's mission. That reflection has recalled these words of Martyn Lloyd-Jones on the primary task of the Church:

So I would lay it down as a basic proposition that the primary task of the Church is not to educate men, is not to heal him physically or psychologically, it is not to make him happy. I will go further; it is not even to make him good. These are things that accompany salvation; and when the Church performs her true task she does incidentally educate men and give them knowledge and information, she does bring them happiness, she does make them good and better than they were. But my point is that those are not her primary objectives. Her primary purpose is not any of these: it is rather to put man into the right relationship with God, to reconcile God to man . . . .

The business of the Church, and the business of preaching - and she alone can do this - is to isolate the radical problems and to deal with them in a radical manner. This is specialist work, it is the peculiar to task of the Church. . . .

When you depart from the primary task of the Church and do something else, though your motive may be pure and excellent, [failure] is the result. . . I argue that in many ways it is the departure of the Church from preaching that is responsible in a large measure of the state of modern society. The Church has been trying to preach morality and ethics without the Gospel as a basis; it has been preaching morality without godliness; and it simply does not work. . . .

But my objection to the substitution of a socio-political interest for the preaching of the Gospel can be stated more positively. This concern about the social and political conditions, and about the happiness of the individual and so on, has always been dealt with most effectively when you have had reformation and revival and true preaching in the Christian Church. I would go further to and suggest that it is the Christian Church that has made the greatest contribution throughout the centuries to the solution of these very problems . . . My argument is that when the Church performs her primary task, these other things invariably result from it . . . And so you will find that the greatest periods and epochs in the history of countries have aways been those that followed in the wake of great religious reformations and revivals.

. . . I would go so far as to say that never has there been a greater opportunity for preaching than there is today, because we are living in an age of disillusionment. (Martyn Lloyd-Jones Preaching & Preachers pp30-41)

I need again and again to be called back to center, to the central task of the Church - of reconciling people to God - in order that He may do His work in us all those good things that we desire to see.

As I read the history of awakening and revival, I cannot deny his claim that the greatest social and political change follow times of awakening and revival. That social and political change is not prompted by preaching about social and political change, but by proclaiming the cross. In times of revival, I think it is fair to say that people amend their ways, public and private, because of the fear and love of God - and so society is transformed.

To turn the hearts of fathers to the children

Luke describes the ministry of John the Baptist in these words:

". . . he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared" (Luke 1:17)

I don't know that there is another portion of Scripture that captures as well my sense of calling. It is the role of an evangelist, announcing the good news of the kingdom, but also that of a prophet, calling for repentance. It is a ministry that starts at home, turning the hearts of fathers to the children (by example as well as with words), and does not confine itself to Christians, but goes to the disobedient in order to turn them to the wisdom of the just. Yet family reconciliation, and the rescue of the foolish from their folly are not ends in themselves. They are for this purpose: to make ready for the Lord a people prepared - this time not for His first coming, but for His return.

This, I think, is where the strands of gospel, mission, theology and parenting (and particularly fathering) are seamlessly interwoven.

The City of God as missiology

For the past several weeks, I have been pressing through the first 7 books of Augustine's City of God. While discovering tremendous insight and clarity in places, I have found him profuse in his deconstruction, and even mockery of the polytheism of his time in the Roman world. So I've been enduring it, knowing that there are keen insights tucked within the longs sections mocking false gods and their worship, and that perseverance through his deconstruction of polytheism and the theology of the philosophers would help me to understand his view of the city of God.

Tonight, however, I got a glimpse of just what a treasure this book can be as missiology. Elisabeth found the pages in Window on the World on Hinduism as we got ready for bed, and I read it to her. As I did, I realized that Augustine's overly thorough treatment of the polytheism of his day is not antiquated. His line of reasoning is just as potent for Hindu polytheism as it was for the Greek/Roman sort.

What difference a little bit of perspective makes, and that from a children's book!

The concrete visible community

“If Christianity is true, then it is the center - not merely in theory but in a concrete visible community - for the reconciliation of mankind. If it is not that center, then it is untrue in its central affirmations and ought to be abandoned.”
(Lesslie Newbigin: Missionary Theologian p75)

These two sentences are why the Gospel so permeates parenting. If the Gospel is true, it is not true merely as a set of affirmations, but is, and must be, embodied in a visible community for the reconciliation of humankind.

I want our children (our own as God gives them, and those of our visible community) to grow up in this reality: the creation of a new community reconciled to God and one another through Christ, who are continually bringing that reconciliation to the enemies of God. If our children grow up hearing the true story, but not seeing it truly embodied, they may well conclude that "it is untrue in its central affirmations and ought to be abandoned." God save us from that sorry state!

Calls into question every human culture

“In speaking of ‘the gospel,’ I am, of course, referring to the announcement that in the series of events that have their center in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ something has happened that alters the total human situation and must therefore call into question every human culture.” (Lesslie Newbigin: Missionary Theologian p109)

This past week I walked through a new exhibit on human evolution at a local museum. As I did, I couldn't help but notice that they were putting forth a story of origins as true for everyone. In other parts of the same museum, the stories of origins of 'native' or 'ethnic' peoples are put forward as religious or cultural, and are not in any sense presented as true for everyone. The modern scientific world view, it is assumed, tells a story that is true for everyone.

The modern scientific world view is not immune from the Gospel. In the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, something has happened that alters the total human situation and calls into question even this human culture. I believe that Newbigin is not mistaken when he says:

Both Christianity and modernity make global claims. Both are necessarily missionary faiths, because they claim to give the true understanding of the human situation, valid for all peoples at all times (ibid. p248).

This makes the clash between these two missionary faiths all the more violent. Yet Newbigin anticipates what we almost inevitably do (having been raised in this culture), and calls us to a truly gospel-centered encounter with our own culture:

The question with which I am wrestling [ . . .] is this: As people who are part of modern Western culture, with its confidence in the validity of its scientific methods, how can we move from the place where we explain the gospel in terms of our scientific world view to the place where we explain our modern scientific world view from the point of view of the gospel? (ibid. p 199)

The Gospel is the starting point, not less so, but even more so when we engage in dialogue those who don't believe it, or perhaps have never heard it because we've been trying to explain it in words taught by human wisdom rather than in words taught by the Spirit.

The nature of the Church

“The whole meaning of this present age between Christ's coming and His coming again is that in it the powers of the age to come are at work now to draw all men into one in Christ. When the Church ceases to be one, or ceases to be missionary, it contradicts its own nature.” (Lesslie Newbigin: Missionary Theologian p126) [emphasis mine]

Newbigin, as clearly as anyone I have read, makes the unity of the church and its missionary nature essential to its identity. The very doctrine that defines its mission is that which defines its unity: the atonement worked on the cross. Thus, "when the Church ceases to be one, or ceases to be missionary, it contradicts its own nature."

Gospel-centered life

“If God did indeed do the things of which the gospel speaks, then . . . The story must either be disbelieved or it must become the fundamental presupposition of all our thought and action” (Lesslie Newbigin: Missionary Theologian p243)

Increasingly, I am convinced of the centrality of the Gospel in all of life, not merely as the means of conversion.

Not prepared to trust Him without

What follows is an excerpt from Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret. It has rebuked me and encouraged me many a time:

After concluding my last service about ten o'clock that night, a poor man asked me to go and pray with his wife, saying that she was dying. I readily agreed, and on the way asked him why he had not sent for the priest, as his accent told me that he was an Irishman. He had done so, he said, but the priest had refused to come without a payment of eighteen pence, which the man did not possess as the family was starving. Immediately it occurred to my mind that all the money I had in the world was the solitary half -crown, and that it was in one coin; moreover that while the basin of water-gruel I usually took for supper was awaiting me, and there was sufficient in the house for breakfast in the morning, I certainly had nothing for dinner on the coming day.

Somehow or other there was at once a stoppage in the flow of joy in my heart. But instead of reproving myself I began to reprove the poor man, telling him that it was very wrong to have allowed matters to get into such a state as he had described, and that he ought to have applied to the relieving officer. His answer was that he had done so, and was told to come at eleven o'clock the next morning, but that he feared his wife might not live through the night.

'Ah,' thought I, 'if only I had two shillings and a sixpence instead of this half-crown, how gladly would I give these poor people a shilling!' But to part with the half-crown was far from my thoughts. I little dreamed that the truth of the matter simply was that I could trust God plus one-and-sixpence, but was not prepared to trust Him only, without any money at all in my pocket.

My conductor led me into a court, down which I followed him with some degree of nervousness. I had found myself there before, and at my last visit had been roughly handled. . . . Up a miserable flight of stairs into a wretched room he led me, and oh what a sight there presented itself! Four or five children stood about, their sunken cheeks and temples telling unmistakably the story of slow starvation, and lying on a wretched pallet was a poor, exhausted mother, with a tiny infant thirty-six hours old moaning rather than crying at her side.

'Ah!' thought I, 'if I had two shillings and a sixpence, instead of this half-crown, how gladly should they have one-and-sixpence of it.' But still a wretched unbelief prevented me from obeying the impulse to relieve their distress at the cost of all I possessed.

It will scarcely seem strange that I was unable to say much to comfort these poor people. I needed comfort myself. I began to tell them, however, that they must not be cast down; that though their circumstances were very distressing there was a kind and loving Father in heaven. But something within me cried, 'You hypocrite! Telling these unconverted people about a kind and loving Father in heaven, and not prepared to trust Him without a half-crown.'

I nearly choked. How gladly would I have compromised with conscience, if I had had a florin an sixpence! I would have given the florin thankfully and kept the rest. But I was not yet prepared to trust in God alone, without the sixpence.

To talk was impossible under these circumstances, yet strange to say I thought I should have no difficulty in praying. Prayer was a delightful occupation in those days. Time thus spent never seemed wearisome and I knew no lack of words. I seemed to think that all I should have to do would be to kneel down and pray, and that relief would come to them and to myself together.

'You asked me to come and pray with your wife,' I said to the man; 'let us pray.' And I knelt down.

But no sooner had I opened my lips with, 'Our Father who art in heaven,' that conscience said within, 'Dare you mock God? Dare you kneel down and call Him "Father" with that half-crown in your pocket?'

Such a time of conflict then came upon me as I had never experienced before. How I got through that form of prayer I know not, and whether the words uttered were connected or disconnected. But I arose from my knees in great distress of mind.
The poor father turned to me and said, 'You see what a terrible state we are in, sir. If you can help us, for God's sake do!'

At that moment the word flashed into my mind, 'Give to him that asked of thee.' And in the word of a King there is power.

I put my hand into my pocket and slowly drawing out the half-crown gave it to the man, telling him that it might seem a small matter for me to relieve them, seeing that I was comparatively well off, but that in parting with that coin I was giving him my all; but that what I had been trying to tell them was indeed true, God really was a Father and might be trusted. And how the joy came back in full flood time into my heart! I could say anything and feel it then, and the hindrance to blessing was gone - gone, I trust, forever.

Not only was the poor woman's life saved, but my life as I fully realised had been saved too. It might have been a wreck - would have been, probably, as a Christian life - had not grace at that time conquered and the striving of God's Spirit been obeyed.

I well remember that night as I went home to my lodgings how my heart was as light as my pocket. The dark, deserted streets resounded with a hymn of praise that I could not restrain. When I took my basin of gruel before retiring, I would not have exchanged it for a prince's feast. Reminding the Lord as I knelt at my bedside of His own Word, 'He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord,' I asked Him not to let my loan be a long one, or I should have no dinner the next day. And with peace within and peace without, I spent a happy, restful night.

Next morning my plate of porridge remained for breakfast, and before it was finished the postman's knock was heard at the door. I was not in the habit of receiving letters on Monday, as my parents and most of my friends refrained from posting on Saturday, so that I was somewhat surprised when the landlady came in holding a letter or packet in her wet hand covered by her apron. I looked at the letter, but could not make out the handwriting. It was either a strange hand, or a feigned one, and the postmark was blurred. Where it came from I could not tell. On opening the envelope I found nothing written within, but inside a sheet of blank paper was folded a pair of kid gloves from which, as I opened them in astonishment, half-a-sovereign fell to the ground.

'Praise the Lord,' I exclaimed, 'four hundred per cent for a twelve hours' investment! How gladly would the merchants be if they could lend their money at such a rate of interest!' Then and there I determined that a bank that could not break should have my savings or earnings as the case might be, a determination that I have not yet learned to regret.

I cannot tell you how often my mind has recurred to this incident, or all the help it has been to me in circumstances of difficulty. If we are faithful to God in little things, we shall gain experience and strength that will be helpful to us in the more serious trials of life. (Taylor, Dr. and Mrs. Howard. "Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret." London: China Inland Mission. 1935, p25-27)

I have never been in the situation of having all my worldly savings in my pocket, and yet how often have I begrudged giving because I had a big bill and not a smaller one in my wallet!

Nothingness and unity

“The greatest task before the church today is simply to take her stand humbly but decisively upon the accomplished work of Christ upon the Cross and to go forth into all the world with the proclamation that here, and here alone, at the place where all men are made nothing, is the place where all men may be one.” (Lesslie Newbigin: Missionary Theologian p80)

Very humble and very bold

In preparing for an upcoming Sunday School lesson on influential missionaries, I have been re-reading Lesslie Newbigin: Missionary Theologian. What follows is one of many treasures to follow in days to come:

The Church, it seems to me, needs to be very humble in acknowledging that it itself is only a learner, needing to pay heed to all the variety of human experience in order to learn in practice what it means that Jesus is King and Head of the human race. But the Church also needs to be very bold, bold in bearing witness to him as the one who alone is the King and the Head. For the demonstration of the truth we have to wait for the end. (Lesslie Newbigin: Missionary Theologian p217)

Worship: The fuel and goal of missions

"Worship . . . is the fuel and goal in missions. It's the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God's glory. . . Worship is also the fuel of missions . . . You can't commend what you don't cherish . . . Missions begins and ends in worship." (John Piper in Let the Nations Be Glad)

So begins one of the best works of theology of mission that I have read. That is the starting point for all work that truly extends the kingdom of Christ.

If the Church is defined by its mission (and it is), and worship is the fuel and goal of missions. Then it is never too early to be showing our children the axis around which our world revolves.