Jesus and animal activism

Don’t misunderstand me.  God cares for animals and part of our cultural mandate as human beings is to be good stewards over the earth, including the animal kingdom.  Cruelty to animals is wrong.  The last verse in the book of Jonah tells us that God was concerned for both the people and the animals living in Nineveh.

Mark 5 contains therefore a very surprising account of Jesus’ encounter with a demonized man.   In fact, the naked, bleeding, howling man is possessed by a legion of demons. The demons immediately recognise who Jesus is and beg Jesus not to send them to hell (the place of ‘torment”, v7).  Jesus instead sends the demons into a herd of two thousand pigs, which then immediately run off a cliff and drown.  Animal activists might be upset at this point. 

Human beings more important than animals

Why did Jesus do this?  Did Jesus dislike pork? Firstly, I think it must be said that we must acknowledge that according to the Bible human beings are more important that animals.  Humans are made in the image of God, not animals (Genesis 1).  Rather than getting worked up over two thousand dead pigs, we should thank God for the saving of one precious life created in his image.  One person is worth more than two thousand penguins or two thousand dolphins.  Perhaps we need to re-prioritise our thinking at this point.

Operation destroy

Secondly, I think that the reason Jesus diverted the demons into the herd was to visibly show his disciples and us what Satan’s intention was with that man – and every human.  Satan’s aim is to kill and destroy you and your children (John 10:10).  That’s why the man was cutting himself with sharp stones.  Satan may use direct possession, or he may use lust, drugs, jealousy, divorce, money or something else – but the overall goal remains the same.

Yet, after the man’s encounter with Jesus he is totally transformed.  He is sitting down, dressed and in his right mind (v15). He is forgiven and freed.

You may not be demon possessed, but without Jesus you are also in a desperate situation.  Satan is seeking to destroy you.  Jesus is the one who has conquered Satan through his death for sin and his resurrection to new life.  Like that man, you need to have an encounter with the stronger man who binds up Satan (Mark 3:27).

The divinity of the carpenter’s son

Who is Jesus?  Islam claims that Jesus was a prophet, almost as holy as Muhammad.  The Jehovah Witnesses claim that Jesus is the highest created angel.  Bestselling author and spiritual leader Deepak Chopra would view Jesus as a great spiritual teacher and guide.  In The Third Jesus, he claims also that there is not one Jesus, but three.

According to Deepak:

 First, there is the historical Jesus, the man who lived more than two thousand years ago and whose teachings are the foundation of Christian theology and thought. Next there is Jesus the Son of God, who has come to embody an institutional religion with specific dogma, a priesthood, and devout believers. And finally, there is the third Jesus, the cosmic Christ, the spiritual guide whose teaching embraces all humanity, not just the church built in his name. He speaks to the individual who wants to find God as a personal experience, to attain what some might call grace, or God-consciousness, or enlightenment.”

Ultimately, Deepak argues:

“Christianity needs to overcome its tendency to be exclusionary and refocus on being a religion of personal insight and spiritual growth. In this way Jesus can be seen for the universal teacher he truly is–someone whose teachings of compassion, tolerance, and understanding can embrace and be embraced by all of us.”

Are these views of Jesus correct?

Mark records the account of the disciples joining Jesus in a boat, at Jesus’ request, to go to the other side of the Sea of Galilee (Mark 4:35-41).  V37 tells us that a “great” storm arose and the waves struck the boat, filling it with water.  The experienced fishermen in the boat were panicking.  Jesus, in contrast, is sleeping on a pillow (We see a bit of Mark’s humour here!).  The disciples wake Jesus up and reprimand him for his lack of care.

Jesus’ response is breath-taking.  Jesus’ response enables us answer the question of his identity.  V39 says, ‘Jesus got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.’  Jesus rebukes the wind and speaks to the waves.  More importantly, they listen to him.  Literally v39  says there was a “great” calm. Little red alarms bells should be going off in your head right now.  Where else in the Bible are words spoken and nature obeys?  Genesis 1.  God speaks and it is so.  The words, “And God said let there be” and “It was so” are repeated numerous time.  

What does Mark want to tell us about Jesus?  Its very simple, Jesus is God.  The disciples realised this and v41 says that after seeing nature’s response to Jesus’ words, they “feared a great fear”.  First a great storm, then a great calm, now a great fear.  Creation listens to Jesus and obeys him.  The disciples realised in some small way that they were in the presence of divinity.  Jesus is God the Son, second person of the triune God come into our world to rescue all those who submit to him as Lord and follow him as King.   

Because Jesus was fully human he could bear God’s justice for human’s sins.  And because Jesus was fully God he could bear all the sins of all God’s people and extend God’s forgiveness to all us.

Who do you think Jesus is?

A mustard seed kingdom

Jesus said that God’s Kingdom, which he came to inaugurate, is like a mustard seed - it starts small and ends big.

"What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it?  It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground.  Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade."

Mark 4:30-34

If you were a Jewish person living in the first century you may have had a herb garden with a mustard bush.  You would have known that a mustard seed is very small, and you would know that the shrub hardly has branches big enough for birds to sit on.  You would have found Jesus parable very interesting.

Superpower

In the Old Testament books of Daniel and Ezekiel the superpowers of the day were symbolically referred to as huge trees with braches that even the birds of the air could sit on.  Babylon and Assyria were the great kingdoms and indeed superpowers, wielding great strength and influence.

According to Jesus, the kingdom of God may appear weak, insignificant and negligible, but we need only wait.  The Kingdom of God is growing as people hear and accept the word about Jesus (Mark 4:1-20) and after the growing is done the Kingdom will be established in all its fullness at the “harvest” at the end of this age (Mark 4:26-29).

Daniel referred to the kingdom of God in a similar way in Daniel 2.  He said the kingdom it like a small rock that ultimately destroys all the kingdoms of this world.  The small rock grows to become a mountain that fills the whole earth!

Supernatural

Of course, mustard bushes don’t have big branches.  I think Jesus is saying that the growth of this kingdom is not due to our planning or strategies or programmes, the growth of this kingdom is supernatural, God does it! We are to be faithful and sow seeds, but its up to God to make the seed grow and to that end we must be depending on God in prayer.

The kingdom of God is coming.  We will need to be patient.  Don’t be discouraged.  Don’t be fooled into thinking Christianity is worthless.  The kingdom may appear weak and inconsequential at the moment, but have no fear! When God’s kingdom finally comes in all its fullness we will be amazed and astounded at it bigness, powerfulness and all-encompassing influence. 

Why don’t we pray?

I think there are three main reasons:

1.  Too busy

Our lives are so busy and cluttered.  We tend to schedule everything else, except pray.   We make time to watch rugby, but not to pray.  Perhaps we need to allocate time in our diary or go to bed an hour earlier in order to spend time in prayer.

2.  Don’t believe it makes a difference

Jesus and the early church were convinced that prayer makes a difference.  Jesus often woke up early to pray and would spend the entire night in prayer before big decisions.  The early Christians were often on their knees before God and God worked in awesome ways.

We, reformed people, believe (quite rightly) that God is sovereign over all of life.  We have read Ephesians 1:11.  But often we tend to think like this: If God is sovereign and everything happens according to his will, why pray?  What we should really be thinking however is this:   If God were not completely in charge there would be no use praying!

Think about it! Imagine you prayed, “God please save my children!” and God said, “Well, I tried to but you children are so naughty – they just won’t listen.”  Or if you prayed, “God please give us good weather for the gospel event on Saturday!” and God said, “I tried, but have you seen the weather forecast – just can’t do it. Sorry.”  Or imagine you prayed, “God, please change my husband”, and God replied, “I really tried but he drinks too much and is too stubborn!” 

If God were not completely, totally and actually in charge there would be no use praying.

So, if God is sovereign and his purposes and plans come to pass, does that mean my prayers will not change anything? What will be will be?  We see in the Bible the amazing truth that in God’s Sovereignty he uses our prayers to accomplish his purposes:  We are told to pray because God answers pray and we are also told that God in Sovereign and His purposes will never be thwarted.  As Christians, we hold to both these truths.

3.  Sin

1 Peter 3:7 is an interesting verse, it says, “Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.”

A husband should not sin against his wife as that will hinder his prayers. How?  Deliberate sin tarnishes our friendship with God.  We feel ashamed, full of guilt, embarrassed and reluctant to approach the holy God.  

We should remember that Jesus has paid the price for all our sins by his substitutionary death.  The solution for us is to confess our sins before God, admit that we have done wrong and turn from those sins.  Then thank God for the forgiveness we have through Christ, ask our wife’s forgiveness (or whoever else you sinned against$) and get praying!

Be encouraged to pray, for yourself, for your family, for your fellow Christians, for gospel workers and for people who don’t know Jesus.

The social gospel

Jesus lived at the time when the Roman Empire was the superpower.  The Romans had built magnificent cities, building and roads. 

 At our annual Missions Conference this past weekend we were reminded how the gospel spread via these roads.  Roads were the “social media” and “social platform” of the first few centuries AD.  People chatted on the roads; roads interlinked towns; roads were used for business and for travelling together (strength in numbers); roads were one of the main public social spaces; roads were very social; roads ideally suited the spread of the gospel of Jesus.  Ordinary people spoke about Jesus to others on these roads and shared the gospel in the various towns these roads lead to.  It was ordinary, everyday, organic evangelism. 

New churches, as a direct consequence, were planted all along these Roman roads.

What are our equivalents of the “Roman road” system?  What are the public social spaces open to us in which we can naturally talk about Jesus?

Is it perhaps:

Chatting to other parents at your child's birthday party?
A Mixed Martial Arts class?
The golf course?
Facebook?
An open home as you invite newcomers to tea after a church service?
A hiking club?
A blog?
A regular morning walk with a neighbour to keep fit?
A college social?
Coffee at Vida e cafe?

Covenant baptism: Why we baptise some babies and some adults

Why do we baptise some babies and some adults at our church?  Baptizing babies seems to be quite a controversial practise these days and often the baptizers are accused of flouting biblical principles for the sake of unbiblical tradition.  Convinced Baptists argue that we should only be baptising believing adults because there are, they maintain, only explicit biblical examples of believers’ baptism in the New Testament and because, they maintain, baptism is reserved only for those that have expressed faith in Jesus.

I would like to challenge both those assertions.

The Church of England in South Africa is certainly not opposed to baptising believers, and regards that practise as biblical and indeed mandatory.  Article 27 of our statement of faith reads:

Baptism is a sign of the faith we profess and a mark that differentiates Christian persons from those who are unbaptized; and it is also a sign of regeneration or new birth by which, as by an instrument, those who receive baptism rightly are grafted into the Church, the promises of forgiveness of sin and of our adoption to be the sons of God are visibly signified and sealed, and faith is confirmed and grace increased by virtue of prayer to God.  The baptism of young children is under all circumstances to be retained in the Church as a practice fully agreeable with the institution of Christ.

Four fifths of the above article refers to the baptism of believers, but as the article confirms, we also hold that it is biblical for (believing) parents to baptize their small children as a sign and seal of the new covenant, in continuation of the sign and seal of circumcision under the old covenant.

The question we must ask then is what was circumcision all about?

In Genesis God made a covenant with Abraham to bless families from the entire world.  The covenant sign would be the circumcision of all the males in Abraham’s household, including the butler, the domestic help and the children (Genesis 17:9-14).  Abraham’s descendents were to keep the sign by circumcising all male babies.  Foreigners who wanted to be part of Israel and serve Israel’s God also needed to be circumcised.

 Circumcision, for the male children, was therefore applied to those who had not yet expressed their faith in God.  This may seem to be at odds with our natural evangelical inclination to see faith as a prerequisite to almost everything, but Paul explains the reasoning in Romans 4:11 when he refers to circumcision as a “sign” and a “seal”.  As a sign circumcision marked out the covenant people and illustrated that salvation involves the shedding of blood.  As a seal circumcision was a visible pledge from God to honour his covenant for those who expressed faith in him.  The seal is simply a visible pledge from God that when the conditions of the covenant are met, the blessings he promised would apply.

Under the new covenant this principle remains true, as Peter implied when he told the Jewish crowd that the gospel promise was for them and their children (Acts 2:39).  The covenant sign is no longer circumcision as the shedding of blood has already taken place, but the sign is now baptism which pictures the washing away of sin (cf. Colossians 2:11-22).  So baptism continues to function as a sign and a seal of a family’s faith in God and thus in the New Testament we have examples of whole families being baptised when a parent becomes a Christian (cf. Acts 16:30-31, 33).  When men and women in the New Testament turned to Jesus they were baptized (believer’s baptism) and children present were also baptised as a visible pledge from God that he would fulfil his covenant promises when the child in the future fulfilled the covenant conditions or obligations.

Covenant baptism (both believers’ and infant) must therefore be understood as visible pledges or observable reminders or sacrament from God to us (like the Lord’s Supper), not pledges from us to God, of the gospel promise that all who trust is Jesus will be accounted righteous.

John Calvin wrote, “Since God imparted circumcision, the sign of repentance and faith, to infants, it should not seem absurd that they are now made partakers of baptisms unless men choose to act against an institution of God…For it is most evident that the covenant, which the Lord once made with Abraham, is not less applicable to Christians now than it was anciently to the Jewish people, and, therefore, that word has no less reference to Christians than to Jews. (Institutes 4.16.20, 6)

Why then do we baptise believers’ children and new adult believers?  Because God’s covenant, the framework within which he operates, has not changed.

Ps We do not view baptism as a salvation issue and are very happy to enjoy fellowship with those who hold to  different views on baptism.

Guardian angels and spirit helpers

There is a website where you can find out what the name of your guardian angel is.  It apparently depends on which day of the week you were born. My guardian is  apparently St. Sealtiel, who allegedly “stands before God, with incenser in hand in unceasing adoration of the Most Holy Trinity. As the Archangel of contemplation and worship, his angelic purity transforms the love and worship which we mortals give to God.”  Another world class psychic says, “From the moment of birth our heavenly father assigns Angels to us.  They awaken our consciousness to the presence of the divine that already exist in each and every human being (our soul).”

The Bible teaches that angels are created spiritual beings of high intelligence and able to speak to people (cf. Matthew 28:5).  They do not ordinarily have physical bodies and they cannot be seen unless God gives us the ability to see them (cf. 2 Kings 6:17).  Not only are angels sent by God to guard and protect us (cf. Hebrews 1:14, Psalm 91:11), but they also join with us in worshipping God (cf. Hebrews 12:22).  Angels appeared in bodily form to many people in the Bible.  Two angels – Michael and Gabriel – are the only angels identified in the Bible.

No guardian angels

The Bible teaches that angels although angels are powerful, they are not of infinite power.  Their power is used to aid us in our battle against the world, flesh and the devil carry out some of the commands of God.  The Bible does not teach that we each have a guardian angel or that we should in any way try to communicate with them or seek their guidance. 

Touched by an angel?

How should we respond to the Bible’s teaching on angels?  I think, we ought to acknowledge they exist and be encouraged that if we belong to God they can and do help us (cf. Acts 5:19-20).   On the other hand, we are warned not to receive false teaching from supposed angels.  Galatians 1:8 says, “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!”  The Apostle Paul may have been using hyperbola in that verse, but it is astounding to hear of the number people in South Africa who are into angel-religion and attend workshops on angels run by “spiritual facilitators”.  

More and more people are turning to “angels” for guidance, advice and help.  Instead of listening to the Bible, they are listening to facilitators, angels and shaman.   Instead of believing the gospel about Jesus, they believe the messages from “spirit helpers”.  Satan is also said to disguise himself as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:4).  One just has to consider the number of world religions and individual people who have heard messages from “angels” that have caused them to reject or ignore Jesus to see the truth of what the Bible says.   

Guidance

God has speaks to us through the Bible.  If you ever receive guidance from an angel or know someone who has, I would be highly suspicious and seek to practise a large dose of biblical discernment.  We should worship and listen to the One who the angels worship and listen to.