Desired in Daniel

One thing which hit the cutting room floor on Sunday's sermon on Daniel 10.1-12.4 was the root chamad (חמד) which is used several times in these chapters.
The first three are the most interesting, and may bear on the later uses:

10.3 - desirable food
10.11,19 - esteemed man (cf. 9.23 for the only other use in Daniel)

In repentance Daniel refrains from eating choice food, meat and wine, as an outward expression of his repentance.
In answer to his acts of penance, God sends his messengers, for Daniel is a man of high esteem.
Putting this together, it is because of his self-denial of that God has recognised him. Or perhaps, to use synonyms, out of Daniel's desire to please God, he has withheld desired food, and now God has desired him.

In contrast, the further four uses of chamad are with regard to things opposed to God:

11.8 - precious vessels
11.38, 43 - costly things
11.37 - a false god worshipped by women

The first three in the list are quite similar - they are things desired by people. Things which are bestowed worth by the desire accorded them.

The fourth (11.37) is referring to an idol that women get right into. Perhaps it is women's Baal, to men's Ashteroth. 

Whatever the case, all of these things are desired by people who have no self control, whereas food - a good thing created by God to be enjoyed - Daniel refrains from, that he might better focus his affections on God. And because he does this, he is acknowledged by God.

There are surely a bunch of implications that flow from this (I'm thinking 1 Corinthians and food and freedom). But no time on Sunday. Oh well. Enjoy.

Cradle.Cross.Crown.Choice Series

Series finished.
Think it was good.

All the talks are now up:

Cradle
Why it is legitimate to search for God, and why that search is rightly begun in trying to understand Jesus.

Cross¹
That Jesus willingly went to the cross points to a great problem, which can only be solved by his death.

Crown
If Jesus was raised from the dead, it vindicates him, it points to the goodness of our physicality (our bodies), and points to his authority both now and into the future.

Choice²
Jesus' message was that we need to choose between the true God that he reveals, or a false god of our own making.

1Recording failed - re-recorded later on in my lounge room (hence no laugh-track!)
2Projector died, AND laptop also. People had to squint to see laptop, which was crashing every couple of minutes. Fun technological times!

Getting Angry

Here's a short talk i did this week on anger.

Intro] 

Marcion is one of the earliest, and most interesting heretics.
he's the guy 1st/2nd Century who had two Gods - the jealous creator God of the OT, who is all about reciprocal justice, punishment - in sum, an angry God.
the other God was the one Jesus professed - characterised by love, benevolence, forgiveness, mercy.

OT] 

And we can get where Marcion is coming from - the God we meet as we read through the OT is an angry God.
he is constantly provoked, and responds in anger. and yes, he is slow to anger, but he gets angry, and when he gets angry, Israel get exiled.

NT] 

In contrast, the God of the NT says 'no' to anger:

• 2 Cor 12.20 
• Gal 5.20 
• Eph 4.31 
• Eph 6.4 
• Col 3.8 
• 1 Tim 2.8 
• Jas 1.19-20 

these all say no to anger. anger is the antithesis of the new Christian life.
the one who is born again is no longer angry.
this is one of those things which the gospel tells us to put off.
Col 3 is a perfect example with a classic vice/virtue list.
Put to death and put away, among other things, Col 3.8 anger, wrath, malice, slander and obscene talk.
These are all part of the old self Col 3.9.
But Col 3.10 we've put on the new self, which is modelled after and renewed in Christ.

defn]

before we think about what this looks like, let's have a quick think about what anger is, what it looks like, and what it might mean to put it off.
so what is anger?
all the related words (anger, wrath, malice) are along some spectrum of displeasure.
they may be internalised, or realised in some way.
psychologically anger is a response to a threat - something important to us is threatened, and one response to that threat is anger.
now what is threatened might be a good thing to be worried about, but it also might not be.
it might be a loved one, a virtue, a value. but it may also be our own kingdom, our own plans. our own sense of worth.
sometimes it's hard to work out disentangle the reason - if someone lies to your face or about you - is it what's right and wrong, is it betrayal, or is it just that people won't think you're perfect any more?

personally, i am someone who historically has gotten angry a lot.
i used to get on detention a lot in primary school, not for ever starting a fight, but for retaliating, for hitting back, for not letting sleeping dogs lie.
And anger has continued to characterise my response to many many situations.
Living in Sydney's eastern suburbs, not being able to park anywhere - there was literally no spot to put my car - within a reasonable walk from my house, used to drive me absolutely mental. I used to curse the apartment blocks, the boats, the scooters, people taking up more than one spot, parking inspectors, fig trees, backpackers, abandoned cars; everything and everyone.

In Joined Up Life, Andrew Cameron describes his journey as an angry man. He writes that when anyone questioned the compatibility of his anger with his Christian faith, he received such criticism as questioning his very identity - that's just who he is.
But what he came to understand, and what I need to understand, and what we need to understand, is our own identity - not from our own perspective, but from Christ's perspective.
It's a question of identity.

for example] 

have a think about when you've been recently angry, whether it was with unreasonable demands from your family, with systems and structures, with sermon feedback, with tardiness or non-attendance.
How much of your response is tied up not with righteous anger, but with pride, on insisting on things you see as key to your identity?
do you get angry playing sport? with traffic? when your computer doesn't work?
have a think, what is being threatened?

The Bible teaches us that wrath is rightly left to God, for in him alone is anger orderly, pure and rightly expressed. Whereas mine isn't. God teaches us that our way of relating to him and to others is primarily in response not to his anger but to his mercy, as we understand it in Christ.

good anger] 

i chatted to someone who's just written a paper on Anger - and he describes a pathway of anger which is godly, and modelled after God. the key, for him, was seeing God describing himself as a jealous God.
Love-driven-jealousy expressed in anger is what is modelled by God in the OT, shown in Jesus, and evident in Paul where he confronts immorality and false teachers, as well as in Jude and 2 Peter in conflict with heretics.

now, this friend has done much more thinking and reading than me about the topic, and his pathway makes sense to me.
But I think the danger of thinking about righteous anger is that our intentions are so easily perverted by sin.
it's so easy.
sin is so pervasive that we can be angry at appropriate evils, but for the wrong reasons.
and even if we are angry for the right reasons, anger can so easily lead to things that aren't right - obscene speech, lack of self-control - even, as we see with Cain and many other crimes of passion, to violence and murder.

what we need to hear]

So the opportunity for righteous anger is not what I first need to hear.
I don't need to hear the two times some measured anger is permitted in the NT.
I need to hear the many other times anger is referred to as a wicked vice, that anger does not produce the righteousness of God.
ultimately, we treat others in response to God's treatment of us. less anger, more compassion, more mercy, more love, and more prayer, for it is hard to be angry at those you pray for in love.
and we need to keep reconsidering our own hearts and our identity.
are we angry at the same time as living out all the other virtues in the list?
or is anger another example that we haven't truly put on the new life, that the peace of Christ doesn't truly rule our hearts?

trinity talks to download

they're up.

the story of the Trinity
the story of the Son
the story of the Spirit

let me know what you think.
more particularly, if you had a 3-talk series on the trinity, how would you break it up? as you can see, i did one on how we went from the Shema to the creeds, then one on why Jesus being God matters for salvation, then the same for the Spirit.

part-way thru, i thought about for 2 and 3 doing salvation and creation or something. so as not to split it up artificially. but i think this worked well as a series.

i won't think less of you if you don't listen. you're still my friend. and you're still welcome to comment on how you'd break it up.

the story of the trinity

i'm going to be doing a series of three talks at wild street at 5 on the trinity.

here's my plan so far.
but it doesn't really sound like sermons, rather three lectures with some points i thought were interesting and worthy of inclusion.

so any ideas would be appreciated!

1. the story of the trinity
   how do we get from the shema to the creed?
   perichoresis
   act and being
   Yhwh
   who's who in the OT?
   St Francis and the Crusades
   heresy? Trinitarian controversies i the 4th Century.
   dynamic vs modalistic monarchianism
   
   
2. the story of the son
   mediator
   theopoiesis
   eternal word in creation
   hypostatic union
   heresy? Christological controversies.
   4th Century truly God.
   5th Century two natures.
   
   
3. the story of the spirit
   individual and communal
   spotlight on the son
   OT & NT indwelling
   Nazianzus: OT reveals Father clearly, Son opaquely; NT reveals Son clearly, spirit opaquely; Church reveals the Spirit.
   heresy? Pneumatological Heresies.
   continuing revelation (montanism, anabaptists, mormons?).
   4th Century: fully God.
   

UPDATE: i've added a few more things to the list. mainly the heresies.

talk on galatians 3-4

if you've missed my posts, you've probably missed my voice also. the previous talk on Genesis 3 didn't work, but i think this one on Galatians 3.19-4.7did.

my favourite analogy was that the law is just like Mary Poppins:

she came in for a set period of time, was found to be practically perfect in every way; she taught the children how to tidy up and take their medicine and enjoy life, whilst the parents learnt to love their children. but then they were all off flying kites - and they didn't even notice that the wind and changed and Poppins had left.

Galatians says the law was like a locum. as good as it was, it was not meant to bring life, for God gives life. so Abraham was blessed by God as he trusted him, and Jesus likewise, and the law has now gone. and all are children of God through faith in Jesus.

work on the web

my article from my post from my sermon on work last year is up at websalt. check it. comment there or here or at my original post. love to hear your thoughts.

the wisdom of wedlock

i tried to follow the same basic outline for all three weeks, so the outline was again

i] what is wedlock?
ii] we need wisdom to guide us through wedlock
iii] Proverbs is not the end of the story - Jesus redeems wedlock

again, it was an opportunity to put together some of the strands from ethics this year.

i] we first thought through the importance of wedlock in the media - both the gossip columns as well as the political sphere. we also recognised that we all have some interest in the topic - most of us are the product of wedlock, and most of us either are, will be, or desire to be married one day.

again, we looked at Gen 1-2 and 3, to see that there is a tarnished goodness in marriage - it is spoilt by sin, but there is still goodness in marriage.

ii] Proverbs is a bit politically incorrect - the context is the father to the son. and you can't just make it all gender non-specific, it doesn't always work. so that, as well as the context where most people are married (most at church aren't) means we need wisdom to apply the wisdom of Proverbs to us in our situations and contexts.

the two extremes are the adulteress and the quarrelsome woman.

• as far as the adulteress is concerned, this is not marriage advice but fooling around/sowing-wild-oats kind of advice. she is alluring
  

  Come, let us take our fill of love till morning;
  let us delight ourselves with love.
  For my husband is not at home;
  he has gone on a long journey;
  he took a bag of money with him;
  he won’t be back for a month.”
  Prov. 7.18-20

  but despite the intoxication of the thought of 'lovemaking till morning', this woman leads us to death.
  
• the other extreme is marrying poorly
  

  a quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping.
  Prov. 9.13b
  
  Better to live on a corner of the roof
  than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.
  Prov. 25.24
  
  Better to live in a desert
  than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife.
  Prov. 21.19

  
  
• the middle point, the third way, is to choose your wife well and enjoy your life with her.
  

  May your fountain be blessed,
  and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
  A loving doe, a graceful deer—
  may her breasts satisfy you always,
  may you ever be captivated by her love.
  Prov. 5.18-19

  
  
• an even better good tho, than finding a good wife, is finding miss wisdom herself, and marrying her.
  

  Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,”
  and call understanding your relative.
  She will keep you from the forbidden woman,
  from the adulteress with her smooth words.
  Prov. 7.4-5

  that is, finding true wisdom will keep you from following the path of folly to death.
  this places the good of marriage into it's appropriate place, that is, it is a good thing to marry (Prov. 18.22), but this good is secondary to the goodness of seeking wisdom; the folly of marrying the quarrelsome woman is therefore not a good to be pursued.

iii] this then is how Jesus redeems wedlock. such that Paul can write to the Corinthians both of the goodness of marriage, but also great good of not being married. so then marriage is seen differently, as it points people to the love of Christ for the church. but singleness is seen differently also:

1. because we’re part of a community of believers, unmarried people can honour marriage, by being glad for those who are married without bitterness and envy, and caring for those who are married in their own areas of need.
   
2. part of this can be making sure marrieds don’t turn their marriages and families if they have them into an idol. you can do this by reminding them of those beyond their immediate horizon, that God’s Kingdom is to be our horizon, and service of others is to be the way of life for all Christians, whatever our marital status.
   
3. single people can model in a different way what it looks like to be a Christian who is content with the riches we share in Christ. this means being sexually pure, making the most of the gift of singleness. this also means that while you may ask God for the gift of marriage, there is no place for thinking of yourself as a second-class Christian, or for making crass jokes about getting people married. there may be many reasons that people are single, some not by choice, but others are single for well-thought through reasons.

finally, i reflected a bit more on the sadness that singleness can be, because it is good part of God's good creation.
and then there was a call in line with Heb. 13.4, that all are to honour marriage.
and lastly, a reminder to all, to keep focussing on the thing greater than the greatest marriage, the future of all believers, in the closest of relationships with our saviour.

the wisdom of work

doing a series on proverbs at church atm.
the first week was an intro (1-9), 2 weeks ago was wine, last week i was on with work, as well as the next two weeks with wedlock and then words.
i stole the titles from st albans lindfield when we did these a while ago (you may remember me posting thoughts from my intro talk)

i've really found ethics helpful this year, and we spent a bit of time thinking about work, so it was nice to try and put it all together

my basic outline:
i] what is work?
ii] we need wisdom to guide us through work
iii] Proverbs is not the end of the story - Jesus redeems work

i] tried to show that work is part of creation, that even though tarnished by sin and cursed by God, it's not devoid of good. there's usually both good and bad in all work, and what's good one day can be toilsome the next.

ii] talked through three areas where proverbs is particularly vocal:

1. honesty
   

   The balance and scales must be just according to the Lord;
   he concerns himself with the weights of the pouch.
   Prov. 16.11

2. the way you work
   here i talked about the two poles - the sluggard on the one hand
   

   The sluggard buries his hand in the dish;
   it wears him out to bring it back to his mouth.
   Prov. 26.15

   - and the wicked, on the other, who i tried to show were not dissimilar to the workaholic.
   

   10 My son, if sinners entice you,
   do not consent 11 If they say,
   “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood;
   let us ambush the innocent without reason;"
   [...]
   18 these men lie in wait for their own blood;
   they set an ambush for their own lives.
   19 Such are the ways of everyone who is greedy for unjust gain;
   it takes away the life of its possessors.
   Prov. 1.10-19

   what proverbs advises is therefore contentment, such that we can pray this prayer with Jesus in the Lord's prayer:
   

   Two things I ask of you;
   deny them not to me before I die:
   Falsehood and lies keep far from me;
   give me neither poverty nor riches,
   but give me only my daily bread.
   lest I be full and deny you
   and say, “Who is the LORD?”
   or lest I be poor and steal
   and profane the name of my God.
   Prov. 30.7-9

3. generosity
   

   Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the LORD,
   and he will repay him for his deed.
   Prov. 19.17

iii] Proverbs is not the end of the story - Jesus redeems work.   yet even saying this, we need to recognise the deep fallen-ness of so much work, where people are forced into demeaning jobs, where people are unable to find work, where physical or mental illness or disability deny people the opportunities to work, and others are in pointless, purpose-less jobs. thankfully we can see how even in jobs that seem close to pointless, these areas of work have value

1. Creation
   this is stuff like subduing and having dominion. like mothers changing nappies, people building engineers, weeding
   
2. Community
   keeping society functioning. IT, accountants, all these sort of things which seem quite pointless in any eternal sense are hence given purpose
   
3. Gospel
   

i finished off talking about Luther, his idea of vocation (Beruf), that we are called by God into his service - thus making all of life holy, be it changing nappies, applying for jobs, plucking chickens, taking out the rubbish.

therefore we can understand why Luther, even if Jesus were coming back tomorrow, would still plant an apple tree today.


and that was it.
i wanted to talk about the idea of rest, and how that fits in. but no time.

psalm 32 (reprieve) - forgiven by God

i had the privilege of preaching from Psalm 32 again on sunday just gone. in a preaching group at college i got some great feedback leading into it. in thinking about 'exegeting your congregation', it was a completely different congregation. from the north shore to a city asian congregation was in many ways a whole different world.
i think the main change was from challenging the average north-shorer's expectations of the good life, to what the psalm promises - freedom from guilt and shame.

i'm still struggling with the both-and of exegeting the passage and exegeting the congregation, but having the talk already (from 18 months ago) and then rethinking it with a different group in mind really helped me to hone the message.
perhaps preparing a talk for one group and then redoing it for another is a good way to check if you're on message (God's) or just trying to target what you see as the particular traps a stereotyped group fall into.


this sunday: i'm redoing matthew 18vv15, the same congregation shift. just rereading the talk means there's a lot of change to do!

Prayer as Mission

to my surprise they decided to put last week's talk on prayer on the web


24 May 2009 Promoting Jesus :: Our prayers Matthew 9:35-10:5

feedback was:

you were positive, encouraging us to pray, and showing that it's a great and powerful thing because we have a great and powerful God

some good catch phrases (something i've been encouraged to do)

you didn't link that well

you didn't think about biblical theology
good to get feedback. even better to get feedback that pushes you on (as opposed to bemusing/befuddling you!)
cheers guys

feedback welcome
warnings as per last time

sermon downloads a plenty

if you don't find my voice whiney, nasal, dull, or patronising, you may be tempted to listen to some of my sermons which are available to download.


09 Mar 2008 Grace that Works Philippians 2:12-30
    i particularly liked the way Daniel 12 helped us think through what this meant.

15 Jun 2008 Between A Rock & A Hard Place Exodus 16-17
    i tried something quite different here - i tried to start with the OT, jump to the NT and explain how that increased our understanding of what is going on in the OT. i wanted to get away from the 'here's the OT, but don't worry about that so much: here's where it points to in the NT' - as if there were no value in it of itself, as if the OT were only of value for showing us the NT. tell me if you think it worked!

20 Jul 2008 The King with Authority Luke 4.1-13
    how to do a sermon on Isaiah 61 without really going there properly

11 Jan 2009 The Blessing of Forgiveness Psalm 32
    interestingly, i did a sermon in October on Matthew 18 also on forgiveness (the guest speaker in the evening is the one who made the web page, mine obviously didn't make the cut), so i really enjoyed having a second dip into this really tough topic.

19 Apr 2009 The value of wisdom Proverbs 1-3
    an introductory sermon on the prologue to Proverbs, focussing on ch3

i'm also on tonight, talking about prayer as mission, but the boss is speaking (as i write this!) on the same topic: i'm assuming i won't make the cut, but thinking about how our prayers promote the gospel has been quite rebuking for me as i think through it. perhaps i'll post some thoughts on it sometime.

UPDATE:

24 May 2009 Promoting Jesus :: Our prayers Matthew 9:35-10:5
    trying to think through where prayer fits in in promoting the gospel. i wonder where you might have gone, what you would have emphasised, whether you would have done a bit more of a systematic theology of prayer.

last week's talk

went a bit like this one:
i should add: except for the asking questions bit at the end.
it made a change from the way i normally picture myself as preaching - start watching about 10 seconds before the end to see that style!

if you're interested, the talk was from Luke 4:31-44, was called:
Confronting Jesus :: The King with Authority (it was part of a series we're doing called confronting Jesus, or for the oldies: encountering Jesus!
and it went a bit like this:

• 31-32 Authority to Teach
  
• 33-37 Authority to cast out Evil Spirits
  
• 38-39 Authority to cast out Sickness
  
• 40-41 Authority of the Christ
  
• 42-44 Authority for the Kingdom

i thought it went ok. had a bit of fun.
the wordle:

against introductions: parallels or patronising?

one thing i’ve been really challenged about this last week is the use of illustrations and introductions in sermons.

so today: a quote from Paul Keating (Australian Prime-minister 1991-6) – ‘[your performance] is like being flogged with a wet lettuce’, ‘you’re like a shiver waiting for a spine’, and so on .

the sermon then continues (starts) the pharisees and saduccees need to trap Jesus like an aspiring Paul Keating.

huh?
i like it, it’s fun, it seems to be relevant to the passage – but what it says is THE BIBLE IS BORING – so here’s a really interesting story. so when you think pharisees and saduccees, think Paul Keating, and then you’ll find it really interesting.

how do we do introductions that aren’t just trying to ‘make the bible more interesting’? or is that the point of an introduction?

another one – the gripping story of Australia’s America’s Cup win (in 1983), an unlikely victory. But with that really interesting story in your mind, here’s the not quite so interesting story of the Israelites being saved from certain death, with Pharaoh’s army on one side, the Reed sea on the other.

i don’t want to be a party-pooper, but, neither do I want my introductions to make the Bible boring by implication.

whaddya reckon?

(big ups to ae for beginning this thought process - tho not in the blogosphere)

my best line

still tapping away, trying to get this sermon sorted, but i thought i'd share my best line so far:

i'm trying to explain the harshness of the examples jude uses from the OT, 1Enoch, the Assumption of Moses (a non-extant text - we have the rest), in terms that we might understand today.

... it's like saying, "these turkeys are as useless as wet toilet-paper, as destructive as the asian tsunami, as untrustworthy as paedophiles, and as mentally unstable as britney spears."