'If my fire is not large it is yet real'

Why is it the case that so often our ‘Bible churches’ are so soul-numbingly dull? Why when I recommend ‘expository Bible preaching’ to ministers as the vital Spirit-empowered way of feeding and growing their flock do they so often respond with cagey countenance and evasive action? It’s often because their only acquaintance with said ‘exposition’ summons a feeling of dreary dread and claustrophobic sensations of dust and dryness (and perhaps a memory of stern and stuffy ‘rightness’ too). Yet, for me, the best of such preaching, both that I’ve received and that I’ve given, would by the grace of the Holy Spirit completely soak such choking scenes of hopeless mediocrity and bolshie boredom in an onrushing flood of heart-rending jaw-dropping joy and anguish and energy and mystery and mirth and shock and consolation and conviction and ENCOUNTER with the Living Voice of the Living God!

I recently dusted off my copy of A. W. Tozer’s 1948 little book The Pursuit of God (which honestly changed my life at age 20) and saw in the introduction the very nerve of the thing I’m exasperatedly inquiring about:

‘Sound Bible exposition is an imperative must in the Church of the Living God. Without it no church can be a New Testament church in any strict meaning of that term. But exposition may be carried on in such a way as to leave the hearers devoid of any true spiritual nourishment whatever. For it is not mere words that nourish the soul, but God Himself, and unless and until the hearers find God in personal experience they are not the better for having heard the truth. The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts.’

Yes and Amen and Hallelujah! ‘Intimate’, ‘satisfying’, ‘delight’, ‘taste’, ‘sweetness’, ‘core’, ‘enter into… His presence’. Are these the words we associate with ‘expository preaching’ and a general emphasis on the Bible in the life of the church? They should be! These are the very phrases and images of the ancient Hebrew poets and prophets who wrote artistically and poignantly about their meeting with God in his ‘living and powerful word’ as they had it in the Scriptures of their time. And the people’s hearts resonated with the depiction given them by their poet-prophets because it described their experience of God in his word too.

As Tozer goes on to wisely point out, the only way we who minister the word of our Shepherd to his flock can pass on this sweet knowledge of God is if we are experiencing it for ourselves, however tentative or faulty – just so long as it is real, a reality granted by the limitlessly lavish grace of God:

‘This book is an attempt to aid God’s hungry children so to find Him. Nothing here is new except in the sense that it is a discovery which my own heart has made of spiritual realities most delightful and wonderful to me. Others before me have gone much farther into these holy mysteries than I have done, but if my fire is not large it is yet real, and there may be those who can light their candle at its flame.’

May we who are called by God to this awful responsibility of preaching the Bible humbly share our flame of gospel experience with those we preach to. I’m convinced and convicted that God’s children are truly hungry for this! I’m shocked and chagrined to admit I’ve seen that fiercely starved look on their faces time and time again… as they walk away from a ‘sermon’! (It stings us to acknowledge it, I know; but I humbly submit we need a sound stinging.) Yes, and I see those famished eyes as they simply go about their days. Why on earth should we witness God’s children conducting themselves in such dull desperation – roving and ravenous, aimless and anaemic? Why are we not incensed and ashamed at the sight of this grotesque burlesque? That the people of the Word are so word-shy and word-weary and needlessly malnourished is a bitterly ironic travesty! May our hearts break with longing, as Jesus’ heart did, to graciously gather in these sheep and by the Spirit’s enabling humbly tend and feed Christ’s little lambs, ourselves included, with his strange and beautiful and stimulating and subversive and authentic and powerful and glorious word – the word that he gives us for our nourishment and growth in knowing him, and making known his gospel, and stewarding his creation.

I confess that for me it is this ruefully laughable and lamentable freak-show scenario that constitutes a main inspiration (instigation!) for church planting today, those of us whom God may call. Not only to feed those God will bring into our local fellowship, but to incite all the local churches around us to a renewal of so central and vital a labour of love in God’s kingdom.
Lord, have mercy on your church, your body, your bride. Cleanse us from the sin of safe and ‘sound’ Bible exposition that gives no health at all because it is not truly sound, because it absurdly ignores the presence of the Lion in our midst when the pages of the Bible are opened.

In your mercy, Lord, after you have Clawed us a bit (we know we need it), then be pleased to Heal and Build us again, we ask, in accordance with your promise to do so. Send the grain and wine and oil of your Spirit-illumined, gospel-unveiling, life-giving word to us afresh. Turn your Face to us, O Lord. Bring us Festival again we pray! Thank you for your steadfast love.

My provisional statement on election and responsibility

It seems God’s word wants us to see that we have a genuine responsibility to choose him, that is, to accept his free and gracious offer of salvation in Christ—otherwise we perish. But furthermore, God’s word wants us to see that God did the choosing first, choosing us in Christ long before we were ever born or able to choose, before the world began—otherwise we would have perished. That way we see both the necessity and urgency that we as human beings made in God’s image, fallen into rebellion, lost and condemned, must personally willingly receive his free gift of eternal life that he offers to us in Christ and also that once we have taken hold of that gracious gift, we then know with certainty and humble gratitude and joy that God in his love and grace chose us in Christ long before we chose him, so that we do not boast as if we ourselves had achieved anything at all, but rather humbly thank and praise our Saviour. Human responsibility and divine grace are harmonious and crucial and glorious, if yet mysterious, in Scripture.

It seems to me that, whatever theory we subsequently construct in order to understand that harmony better, once we’ve acknowledged these basic revealed truths we have already accepted the authoritative Scriptural teaching and are being faithful to that in doctrine and life. One theory may lend itself to this double-edged truth better than another, seeing it flower in fruitfulness in some areas more thoroughly than others, while still another theory may be more fruitful in areas the first is not. That is why we must indeed construct these theories in humility and in passion for truth—anything less is irresponsible and lazy and unproductive, resulting in weakness and/or sickness of some form. And of course we must dialogue in grace with each other on these theories, commending our own with both humility and passion, seeking to persuade one another whilst still heartily extending and experiencing fellowship (wherever possible) to and with one another as true brothers due to the acceptance of the aforementioned basic revelatory story-data.

I might add the caveat that if the adherents of some proposed theory eventually, under scrutiny, are clearly only holding to this double-edged revelation nominally, on the surface merely, and are in fact constructing a doctrine that undermines either divine election or human responsibility so that one is effectively swallowed up by the other, then they are not truly being faithful to God’s revelation. Though they may be authentic brothers, they should be humbly and graciously held to account for this erroneous exegesis and considered (technically) unfaithful to God’s word (though again they may be faithful to Christ as a genuine believing Christian). We should be very, very careful indeed about this judgment and be loath to lightly or hastily pass it on anyone. Time and space for growth and clarification should be given in utmost charity. I only add this caveat so that the above ideal of holding the basic revelation of divine election and human responsibility as a first-order virtue and building theories of understanding as something of a second-order virtue will not be misconstrued as a naive and careless license to hold to just any doctrinal understanding one dreams up so long as one verbally says they accept what Scripture teaches.

I know it is precisely here that heat will rise in our hearts and we will be tempted to say ‘but that’s precisely what “that other theory” is doing—swallowing up one into the other and thereby dishonouring God’s word and God’s character!’ I do think, though, that we can even take our compassionate and respectful debate with one another this far, or almost this far, saying rather that the other’s theory is in danger of this outcome. Yet I would guess that most of the time, within reason, if your exegetical ‘opponent’ (but existential brother) holds their position with humility, sincerity, scholarly integrity, accountably within a venerable living tradition of the historic church, then you can only bring them dialogically to this warning point and no further. Continue to give them loving, gracious fellowship as you maintain both the vital doctrinal disputation and also the vital united commending of the faith to the world.

I am moving somewhat (or perhaps more than somewhat) into that essential but second-order theorising when I state my opinion that the above basic Scriptural data-doctrine (affirming real human responsibility and real divine election, so that man is justly held to account and God is justly given all glory) consists of a biblical ‘synergism’ within, encompassed all about by, an overall biblical ‘monergism’. That is, God-given human freedom is required to co-operate (co-work, there are two energies involved) with divine grace and yet even this cooperation is seen to be God’s gracious provision by his goodness and power from beginning to end so that a human person can accurately receive no praise or glory for his or her salvation, though their faith is their own and real throughout the process and into eternity. God’s grace and glory are primary and ultimate. The salvation he provides is God’s work alone. Yet responsible human cooperation within God’s work of salvation is real and significant and necessary. Only God’s inscrutable wisdom could achieve this wondrous, breathtaking, heart stopping, awe-inspiring, mind-bending, jaw dropping, intellect-humbling yet intellect-rousing, praise-inducing, love-attracting feat. It is truly a marvel, one we can only praise and worship God in the face of (Rom. 11:33-36).

Possessing elements of *Emerging* church but not *Emergent* church – this is *Submerging* church

Nuances of ‘where we stand’ in the church-historical spectrum:

Possessing elements of Emerging church but not Emergent church – this is ‘Submerging’ church – that is, we are deeply committed by our theology and by our discipleship to Jesus to profound and ongoing cultural engagement, practicing the Lordship of Christ over the entirety of existence. We are committed to being for our time and culture(s) both prophetically timely (‘relevant’, ‘incarnational’, affirming the image of God in everyone) as well as prophetically untimely (respectfully—but firmly, creatively, and provocatively—challenging idolatry both in and out of the church). This twin emphasis, we believe, shows Christ to be attractive and winsome in the full roundedness of his matchless character. (E.g. even if you find yourself on the receiving end of Christ’s excoriating words, you still find respect for his uncompromising integrity and justice growing within you, every bit as much as when you’re on the receiving end of his deeply compassionate, blessing, comforting words.)

We believe our discipleship and witness must be creative, persuasive, and provocative – simultaneously sharp-edged and warmly attractive, as our Lord has shown us by his own example, and by the example of his prophets and apostles and the Scriptures his Holy Spirit inspired them to write. We believe the Scriptural truth must be ‘culturally translated’ freshly at all times into the lives of people in diverse communities and yet that these Scriptural truths at their core, in what they affirm everywhere at all times, do not change; biblical truth is at once wondrously adaptive to various environments and yet wondrously transformative of those same environments because of its solid, dependable, immutable truth-quality rooted in the faithful nature of God himself who spoke/speaks the word. (All this is just a way of unpacking the Bible’s own testimony of itself as ‘the living and active and enduring word of God’).

While God’s truth remains unchanged, it leaves nothing else and no one else unchanged. We believe following Jesus Christ brings deep subversive challenge and transformation to our own lives as his followers first and foremost and that his holistic justice and peace for the entire world must be both proclaimed and embodied by his disciples. We are persuaded that allegiance to King Jesus saves both souls as well as their physical-temporal environments in every aspect, for the whole cosmic creation was implicated in Jesus’ bodily resurrection from the dead and the ‘hope of glory’ it foretells and is the ‘first fruits’ of.

This would likely place us with ‘emerging’ pastors like Mark Driscoll and Tim Keller but not so much (in many respects) with ‘emergent’ leaders like Brian McLaren and Rob Bell and would place us in a position of being open to hearing mediating ‘emerging’ voices like Scot McKnight. This ‘netherworld’ has been described by some as ‘submerging’ as opposed to emerging. We could probably go with that. We are not primarily trying to rise above some false understanding of God/church/etc.; we’re primarily trying to go down deeper into historic biblical orthodoxy, upholding both mystery and clarity.

Reformed but not necessarily Calvinist

Nuances of ‘where we stand’ in the church-historical spectrum:

Reformed but not necessarily Calvinist – we highly value and consider a move of God the work of men like Martin Luther and John Calvin and we embrace the Five Solas of the Reformation (Scripture, Grace, Faith, Christ, God’s Glory—alone), but we do not necessarily embrace the Five Points of the classical Calvinist ‘TULIP’. Our members and leadership would bridge a spectrum running from 'classically Arminian' (Wesley) to more ‘moderate Calvinist’ or ‘Calminian’ to more classically Calvinist. All our leadership would be required to make every effort to avoid either hyper-Arminian or hyper-Calvinist views (e.g. ‘open theism’ on the one hand or fatalism on the other; denial of God’s sovereignty on the one hand or denial of his universal love on the other), to hold their positions with humble but studious and devotional rigour and integrity, to be theologically located in a living faithful thriving evangelical tradition, and to sincerely exhibit utmost charity and gospel unity toward those with whom they differ (not least in the fellowship itself!).

In terms of recent and contemporary evangelicals, we would recommend in the strong Calvinist tradition, for example, the authors Albert Wolters, Don Carson, Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll, John Piper, Jim Packer, John Stott, William Edgar, Kevin Vanhoozer, and John Frame and in the moderate Calvinist tradition, for example, R. T. Kendall, Udo Middelmann, Millard Erickson, Norman Geisler, and Bruce Demarest and in the evangelical non-Calvinist (classically Arminian or often ‘Calminian’) tradition, for example, Craig Blomberg, I. Howard Marshall, Michael Green, A. W. Tozer, G. Campbell Morgan, Jack W. Cottrell, C. Stephen Evans, William Lane Craig, and J. P. Moreland.

A good book that brings together the solid gospel theological affirmations that all evangelicals (from ‘Reformed’ to ‘Wesleyan’) can unite together on is One Faith: The Evangelical Consensus by luminaries of these two traditions respectively, J. I. Packer and Thomas C. Oden.

Evangelical but not necessarily either 'conservative' or 'post-conservative'

Nuances of ‘where we stand’ in the church-historical spectrum:

Evangelical but not necessarily either ‘conservative’ or ‘post-conservative’ – that is, we value some views and critiques ‘post-conservative’ evangelicals like Roger Olson or Scot McKnight might bring in helping to keep evangelicalism from being ‘conservative’ or ‘traditional’ in an unbiblical way or reverting to a form of neo-fundamentalism. Yet we are critical of ‘post-conservative’ evangelicalism as well, seeking to avoid being ‘progressive’ in an unbiblical way or reverting to a form of neo-liberalism. For the time being we still feel ‘evangelical’, even with its current regrettable ugly associations in popular culture, is the best and most honest banner to place ourselves under as committed ‘gospel men and women’.

We do not generally find what is represented by the banner ‘post-Evangelical’ necessary or helpful. However, any who are coming from any of these backgrounds would be very welcome as ‘investigators’ into our fellowship to see if it is a place in which they can ‘throw in their lot’. Equally, living orthodox historically Christian traditions that are non-Evangelical or non-Protestant, but who firmly embrace Jesus Christ as Lord and God and God as triune Father, Son, and Holy Spirit would also be welcome to ‘try us on for size’. We mention these possible backgrounds to show that though our confessional membership has certain ‘lines’ and ‘boundaries’, we yet view orthodoxy in a wider spectrum and rejoice wherever people confess the historic-creedal faith (e.g. where would we be without the enduring witness of the likes of G. K. Chesterton, Flannery O’Connor, C. S. Lewis, or Fyodor Dostoevsky – just to name a few non-evangelicals that evangelicals tend to love and quote often!).

Of course, those who are not what we would consider orthodox or who are of other faiths or philosophies would also be warmly welcome to ‘taste and see’ our fellowship – lapsed, heterodox, sceptics, seekers, and the curious would always be welcome and respectfully engaged.

THIS BLOG WILL EAT YOU

'Do you eat girls?' she said.
'I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,' said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.
(The Silver Chair, C. S. Lewis)

'Please,' she said, 'you're so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I'd sooner be eaten by you than fed by anyone else.'
'Dearest daughter,' said Aslan, planting a lion's kiss on her twitching, velvet nose, 'I knew you would not be long in coming to me. Joy shall be yours.'
(The Horse and His Boy, C. S. Lewis)

Why does this blog contain 'man-eating' in its title? Because 'Our God is a consuming fire' (Hebrews 12:29) and is the 'Lion of Judah' (Revelation 5:5). [Ok so it's not really this blog that will eat you, but the One in whom this blog lives, moves, and has its being might do.]

Why '(Trans)'? Because it looked cool. And could be associated with the fact that we're from the USA ministering in Scotland and thus it is a 'transatlantic' effort.

Why 'Attack'? Because it sounds B-movie camp. Which is always fun.

What is the blog's purpose? I'm praying about teaming up with some folk to plant a church in the Glasgow area, where we've resided for the past 7 years. This is a place for me to organise some of my thoughts about the theology and practice of said church plant and discuss it with others. Please speak up! Thanks, Daniel Otto Jack Petersen