Category Archives: Family & Society

Isa 58 – It’s Sunday – but Monday’s coming! – sermon notes

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[I have borrowed my title from a thought expressed by John Piper in one of his excellent messages on this passage]

God has no interest in anything I am about to say.

Nor does he much care whether you pay any attention or not.

If fact, God is not impressed by anything we have done our service this evening.

Or any other service, for that matter.

We might go to church twice every Sunday. We might listen to faithful sermons from which we take copious notes.…

Christianity and Politics DO Mix

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John Stott has some wise words about Christian political influence:-

Although it is hardly the responsibility of a church or denomination as such to engage in direct political action, yet Christian individuals and Christian groups should be doing so, and should be encouraged from the pulpit to do so.  For Christian should aovid the two opposite mistakes of laissez faire (making no Christian contribution to the nation’s political well-being) and imposition (trying to force a minority view on an unwilling majority, as with the American liquor laws during the period of Prohibition). 

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Dig Those Plausibility Structures

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D.A Carson has a helpful comment on ‘plausibility structures’ – patterns of thought that are taken for granted within a given culture – and how these change over time:-

As western culture progressively drifts from its Judeo-Christian heritage, new challenges to accurate and forceful communication are erected. It is sometimes helpful to think in terms of ‘plausibility structures’. A plausibility structure is a social structure of ideas that is widely taken for granted without argument, and dissent from which is regarded as heresy.

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Isa 10 – Passionate about justice – sermon notes

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Should Christians devote themselves only to evangelism and personal morality, or should they concern themselves also with issues of social justice?

Consider the following scenarios:-

An elderly lady lives on her own just down the road from you. She has difficulty getting out. Do you (a) tell her that God loves her; (b) offer her a lift to the shops once a week, or (c) lobby for improved public transport so that she and people like her can get out and about themselves?…

Remarriage after divorce

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The Christian church has never reached agreement over the question of remarriage after divorce .

The Catholic church, taking a sacramental view of marriage, has held that a marriage is indissoluble, whereas the reformed churches rejected the concept of indissolubility.

Cranmer had proposed a revised Canon Law (1553), which would have provided for divorce on the grounds of adultery, malicious desertion, prolonged absence without news, attempts against the partner’s life and cruelty.

Some of the issues to be considered are:-

1.…

Verbal engineering

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Christian Today tells of the horror of Lisa Saunders, mother-of-three from Northern Island, over the number of words associated with Christianity that have been omitted from the latest edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary.

Christian-related words like “bishop”, “chapel”, “disciple”, “minister”, “sin” and “devil”, have been replaced by words like “blog”, “biodegradable”, “MP3 player”, “democratic”, and “celebrity”.

Of course, language changes and some old words become obsolete or change their meaning.  But large numbers of people in our country do follow the Christian faith and even those who do not cannot afford to forget who they are and where they come from.…

Children and Communion 2

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I was once asked to present a discussion paper to our Church Council on this subject.  Here’s what I came up with:-

1.  A Statement of the Case

The Anglican Church, in common with most other branches of the Christian church, supports the baptism of adult believers and their children.

When a child is brought by Christian parents to be baptised, the minister welcomes the child with the words,

“God has received you by baptism into his church.”…

Children and Communion

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Some time ago, I participated in a debate on this subject, and was asked to argue in favour of the following motion:-

“We believe that it is right and proper for children who are baptised members of the church to be admitted to Holy Communion prior to their confirmation but following suitable preparation and instruction.”

Here’s my argument.  (Please bear in mind that the debate took place within an Anglican context).

Specifically, the parish may ask for the bishop’s permission for children to be so admitted, providing that the child has reached the age of seven years; that the child is regularly involved in Christian teaching and attendance at Sunday worship; and that the child has undergone a period of instruction and preparation.…

Age of admission to the Lord’s Supper

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This is a summary of an article by Roger T. Beckwith in Westminster Theological Journal.

This is an issue which has been widely discussed in recent years.  The WCC Faith & Order Commission of 1971 supported the admission of baptised infants or children to the Lord’s Supper.

The practice rests on the following assumptions:-

1.  that, like infant baptism, infant communion is early attested in church history;

2,  that, if baptism is a ceremony suitable for children, then so is communion;

3. …

Harvest – God’s part and ours

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John Stott tells the story of the cockney gardener who was showing a clergyman the beauty of his garden, with its herbaceous borders in full and colourful bloom.  Duly impressed, the clergyman broke out into spontaneous praise of God.  The gardener was not very pleased, however, that God should get all the credit.  “You should ‘have seen this ‘ere garden,” he said, “when Gawd ‘ad it to ‘isself!”  He was right.  His theology was entirely correct. …