AP letter, includng poem, and my reply. August 15 -18 2003
Dear David,
I would like to congratulate you on producing such a concise and readable book, which I have enjoyed very much. It is thought-provoking and an excellent stimulant of discussions! On this matter, I should very much like to discuss it with you, if that’s OK. You raised many points which I want to ask about, so I’m going to put them all in this letter. I feel rather cheeky, as I’m aware you have spent many more years in a relationship with God, and many more years studying the bible and theology than I have done, but you seem to be eager for response to your book, so here is mine. It’s somewhat longer that the others on your website though!!!
I agreed with so much of what you wrote, wholeheartedly. The church so often today completely neglects to give the proper place to serving the poor and needy in its ministry, and I am all for getting rid of empty tradition in order to make a way for biblical, Christ-centred practices instead. I really appreciate the way that you have distilled many years of discovery and thought into this one short book; I realise that it has not been an easy journey for you and I am grateful for your generosity in sharing your wisdom so that others can learn from it. Your honesty in writing is a great thing and something I admire very much, I can empathise with many of your feelings. I also found parts of the book extremely amusing; it had me laughing out loud!
So, to get on with the point of this letter(!), I thought that the easiest way for me to make my comments would just be to copy out the thoughts I had and wrote down as I read your book. This is after only one reading of the book, and I didn’t always have pen and paper to hand, so some parts are without comment, but I’m sure there’s enough to chew on here!
The first thing I thought was that it would be nice to know a little of your life history before reading the book, to get an idea of where you are coming from, your authority to write on the subject, etc. Particularly as you refer in various places to your experiences as a schoolboy, teacher, theologian, clergyman, and legal experience, and putting these in order might help the reader to build an image of you in their mind, which is always something I try to do when I’m reading a book (although I had a head start in this case!). If you deliberately left this out in order for the reader not to form any preconceptions, then of course I respect your judgement.
One thing I particularly wanted to discuss, and which takes up about a quarter of all my notes on your book, is the issue of worship in chapter 5.
P82-83: Surely the Psalms were recorded in the bible so that we could use them too, benefiting from David and other’s insight and wisdom, and in the knowledge that, whatever situation we face, we are not alone? Doesn’t the very fact that they are in the bible imply that God wants us to use them and therefore worship Him? Also, it seems to me that the Psalms overflow from the heart and lips of someone for whom worship is a way of life, not from someone who worshipped only at a certain time of the week in a certain place. The Psalms speak of many situations, for example, “on my bed” (Ps 3, 4, 6) or outdoors (Ps 8, 19,) etc., implying that wherever they were used, they were certainly written (and thus worship occurred) in several different places, encouraging us to worship in all situations also.
Matt Redman, in his book The Unquenchable Worshipper, mentions that in the Passover tradition, hymns were sung, the last of which was Psalm 136, and my NIV study bible adds that the Passover was concluded with the second half of the Hallel Psalms (Ps 115-118). Thus, it would seem not only that the Psalms were used outside of temple worship but also that Jesus would have sung worship to God.
P84 – Isn’t all sin the same to God, adultery or otherwise? A wrong attitude in our heart cuts us off from God just as fully as murdering somebody, both need to be confessed and can then be forgiven by the same sacrifice. Therefore, to my mind, everyone who stands in unconfessed sin will not be able to worship God fully in Spirit and in truth. I have always believed that God loves it when we recognise who He is and give Him praise and adoration for that, be it sung, spoken, or inwardly realised, but as you so rightly point out, He does not want the adoration from our lips without it being a reflection of what already exists in our hearts and lives.
I think we are coming from different understandings of what worship is, or at least how the word is defined. With regard to your discussion of praise at the bottom of p 83, I don’t believe that praise and worship are the same thing. I think that praise is a form of worship, but not the sole form. Many of the songs we sing in a church service are praise songs, but I think that above all, worship is a way of life. As you go on to say on pages 88-89, it is action, serving the poor and needy, loving people. Essentially, to love God and love others. With this definition in mind, I think it becomes slightly confusing when you refer to “worship”, for example at the bottom of p 87, when you mean the lip service. You deride worship like it’s nothing, but true worship is precious to God and costly to us (2 Sam 24:4). I think this has been a source of confusion from your interview on the radio as well as later in the book, and perhaps you need to refer to lip service in another way (e.g. singing) to clarify the distinction and preserve the true meaning of “worship”. When you announce that Jesus never commanded us to worship and so we shouldn’t, I presume you are not referring to the meaning of worship that is tied up in service, which you expound on later in the book!
P99 I am a little confused over the way you talk about healing the sick. At a first reading, it appears you are advocating bypassing the divine power in order to do it ourselves, which I presume is not the case! Surely even when you lay on hands, you are asking the Holy Spirit to do it, or the Holy Spirit living in you does it under the authority of Jesus Christ, i.e. you are always asking God to do it, and that is where the power comes from. Could you clarify what you mean by “Jesus told his followers that they were to heal the sick themselves rather than ask God to do it.”?
P100 Re. your comment “Somehow we had to get our focus outside the four walls of the building”: SO TRUE!!! This is something I’ve found myself wishing at different times in many different Christian groups, for example, even the CU at university occasionally. You’re right about the church needing to point towards people, although I think that ultimately it needs to point to God and people. Just so you know where I’m coming from on this, I’m of the opinion that the fundamental thing we need to do as Christians is to love God heart-soul-mind-strength, and love people like we love ourselves; the most important commandment according to Jesus. Everything we should be doing as a church will flow out of this.
P101 I would have thought that teaching the bible was passing on Jesus’ commands? That is to say, Jesus’ commands are in the bible, so surely teaching it is passing them on?
Also, Jesus himself taught in the synagogue (e.g. Luke 4:15-21), so we would be following His example.
P102 Jesus did explain bits of prophecy and proverbs in His teaching (same passage as above, also Mark 11:17, Mark 12:10), in fact, the latter verse (from the parable of the tenants) is an example of Jesus using a parable to clarify a scriptural prophecy. It seems to me that not many Old Testament stories would actually have needed explaining in that culture anyway.
P108, top of the page I don’t understand why drawing lots then was an unwise thing to do. Was it not biblical, according to Proverbs 16:33? I don’t understand the sentence after about the two references to worship and meeting in the temple being suspect, either.
P108-109 I think that group worship is the main job of the church, but as service, as you defined it earlier, not just as singing praise songs. I think this might be another case needing clarification of what is meant. Where you write instead of seeing the Book of Acts as a call to group worship, I see it as an encouragement to abandon the temple, I agree that it is an encouragement to abandon the temple and build the church as the body of Christ, but that involves group worship, i.e. corporately living out the commands of Jesus, individually living Christ-like lives.
P109 Regarding the sermon on Peter’s letter: Surely just as Peter wrote to an audience with specialised needs, so the pastor will be addressing an audience with specialised needs also? Are you implying that Peter’s letter is not Christian teaching? I think I may be getting confused.
P111 I agree that it’s good for people to read the bible for themselves, but surely there are insights that can be gained from listening to someone else talk about it too? In some passages, this is very important, because of the bible being written in a culture totally different from our own, and significant things often pass us by, e.g. the implication of eating a meal together (Matthew 9:10-11), or not greeting anyone in the spreading of the gospel message (Luke 10:4).
P116 In my mind, I think that God does correct us if we ask him. He is a righteous God, which surely means that he won’t tolerate anything that’s wrong. The trouble with us humans is that we don’t usually submit what we’re doing to Him, that is, we don’t give Him the authority to correct us and so He doesn’t. And it’s also a matter of discerning what He’s saying as well. I think He loves being involved in human affairs when we ask Him to be, preferably from the start rather than when they’ve already gone wrong! What is He there for, if He’s not involved in our lives?
Here we move on to the other major issue of this letter, which took up another quarter of my notes on your book (!) – The Holy Spirit. I realise that there are many, many differing and conflicting opinions surrounding this person, but I wanted to throw my thoughts in your direction, hopefully in an iron-sharpening-iron kind of a way, rather than a critical one.
P131 I think that Jesus never called on His followers to prophesy because at that time they were not filled with the Spirit. I have been looking at the Holy Spirit recently and I found it interesting to note:
Jesus actually told the remaining 11 disciples that they would do greater things than Him if they had faith in Him (John 14:12), thus my conclusion is that we are actually meant to do more than emulate Jesus – we are not limited to only the things He did or commanded us to do.
The Holy Spirit came because Jesus left (John 16:7), so in some ways the situation we have now (with the Holy Spirit) is actually incomparable to the situation they had then (with Jesus) as they are different persons of the Godhead.
It could be argued that Jesus did actually call His followers to prophesy by giving them the Holy Spirit. Jesus says of Him: “He will tell you what is yet to come” (John 16:13). I’m assuming we agree on the necessity of being filled with the Spirit, which Jesus commanded (John 14:17, 23, also inference from the list of what the Spirit does – He is going to need a physical body in which to carry out His actions). John 16:14 continues, “He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you”. This is, therefore, something they did not know before, and which is from Jesus. Most of the gifts of the Spirit that come to my mind involve supernatural knowledge in some way, which is clearly something Jesus wants us to have, although He does not specify the form it is to take. As an extension of this, I think that you can argue that Jesus did imply the gifts are essential.
P132 Re. territorial spirits, top of the page: I do not understand in what way you perceive the rest of the bible, outside the gospels. Do you believe it is God’s word? What is the point of its existence?
P132 Re. the incident with Nadab and Abihu: 1) Is it not illogical to use this example from Leviticus to back up your argument, when in the preceding paragraph you have renounced the use of examples from anywhere outside the gospels? 2) The 2 sons were not just going over and above what was ordered, they were acting contrary to an explicit command from God (given in Exodus 30:9).
I agree that we need to obey Jesus carefully and fully. I agree that it is important not to add to His words. But I disagree with the statement on p133: If they needed to know anything, in preparation for making all nations his disciples, he would have told them. In John 14:26, Jesus says to the disciples that the Holy Spirit will not only remind them of what He (Jesus) has taught them, but “will teach you all things”. It seems to me that the Holy Spirit was to provide them with teaching and knowledge supplementary to that of Jesus.
On a slightly lesser point, I don’t see why it’s OK not to want Spiritual gifts, if you believe they are available to you. How could we not want a gift from Jesus?! It would seem that either we don’t know Him well enough or we don’t love Him enough. And as you so rightly pointed out, they are useful and pretty necessary for carrying out Jesus’ commands.
P134 – I agree! I long for a church that marches as one army, where meetings are indeed military briefings to prepare us for the offensive to go down and pound on the gates of hell. And I believe that church like this is already happening in places in this country and around the world. This weekend I was at a gathering of 200 young people from 22 different nations across the globe, born with precisely that idea in mind. The name of the gathering was Consecrate, the image was of pure refined precious metal, which once set on fire, will burn through anything. I believe that God is preparing our generation for something big, and the movement is already starting. Be encouraged!
P135 If only more churches were run in full submission to the will of God! I think that your idea of listening to God speaking through the Holy Spirit was a good one. Don’t dismiss it! Obviously, listening to God needs to take place in conjunction with obeying Jesus’ commands, not one instead of the other. Also, do you not think that God speaks through the bible as well as Jesus and the Holy Spirit?
P138-139 I don’t think that going through with big ideas on your own is always a good idea, so in my opinion you may have been right to hold back from some of your plans. Christ built a church and called it His body because we are meant to work together. You’re not able to do everything yourself otherwise you’d be a whole body on your own (metaphorically speaking!), which I don’t find any biblical evidence for! Also, we need things like accountability and prayer support.
That said, don’t count yourself out for future activity before you’ve even started. I want to encourage you here; if you have an idea that is from God, then run with it! Look 100% to Christ and you will be able to absolutely do what He says, which may be saying no to smiley middle-aged ladies. A very wise lady taught me that as fear of God increases, it replaces fear of man.
If you think that you are not of any real use and could never be, you’re a) believing Satan’s lies, and b) denying the power of the cross. Don’t stand for it! You are a new creation, capable of every single thing that God has called you to, and equipped for any challenge that will rise up on the way. God has given you every spiritual blessing in Christ (Eph 1:3) and full armour (Eph 6:11); He intends for you to use them to overcome the enemy! It is Christ in you that is the hope of glory, and you’ve made a good start by realising your potential uselessness on your own (if I can say that without being rude!). Christ’s sacrifice worked out in your life is sufficient to bring about any change in your personality or character that is necessary to fulfil the calling God has on your life.
Finally, I wanted also to send you a copy of a poem I found in one of my Dad’s books, Patchwork Quill by Gordon Bailey. It made me chuckle and I thought you might agree with the sentiment of it!
If Jesus came to a Gospel Hall,
or a church at its annual Mission,
or a Rally held at intervals,
He’d have a shrewd suspicion
that those who claim to be involved
in evangelistic doings
have so perverted truth that
His example lies in ruins!
Let’s give some Bible happenings
a new interpretation,
and tell the stories in their
evangelical translation:
the waves which smashed into the boat
the disciples were not cherishing,
so Jesus stood and said, “Come lads!
Let’s sing Rescue the Perishing!”
Five thousand hungry people
sitting, longing to be fed,
but Jesus wouldn’t give them food
till each his grace had said.
No, even though the multitude
could see the food they’d share,
they didn’t fill their stomachs
till they’d bowed their knees in prayer.
‘twas on the day of Pentecost,
after the resurrection,
St Peter stood and told the crowd
there would be a collection.
Despite this God’s own Spirit
spoke to men of many lands,
they asked St Peter what to do,
he said, “Just raise your hands!”
When Stephen stood on trial
Jews asked, “Why are you before us?”
He said, “Before I tell you
can I lead you in a chorus?”
When Philip met the eunuch
he gave him a friendly greeting;
took the reins and headed for
the nearest Gospel Meeting.
Paul met the Greeks upon Mars Hill
thought, They must know the facts.”
Then quickly moved amongst them
as he handed out his tracts.
A certain man, attacked by thieves,
lay battered, bruised and bleeding;
the Good Samaritan came by
and held a Bible Reading.
And Jesus Christ healed no-one
though a thousand sick implored Him;
Zaccheus fell and broke his neck
‘cause Jesus Christ ignored him!
Now, you know, just as I do,
things did not occur this way,
but we can see their counterparts
within the Church today!
We seem to be confused about
our real priorities;
I think it all comes down to this:
just who we’re trying to please?
If I have to say why I’m to blame,
why I the fault must share,
I have to say I really lack
the necessary care!
Well, this now being the sixth page of this letter, I think I had better stop! I sincerely hope that I have not offended or been overly critical of you in this letter; that was not my intention. I would very much like to know your response to all my questions and comments; if you want to write back, that is fine; equally, I am happy to discuss it verbally. I look forward to your reply.
Best wishes, A P
My reply
Dear A,
Very many thanks for your letter. Thanks for all the encouraging remarks, and for going into detail, quoting page numbers. Oxford has done you good!
I think it might be best on an initial reply to focus on the main points that you raise, which I take to be
1. The nature and role of worship
2. The role of the Holy Spirit
3. The use of the Bible.
4. Prophecy today.
I reckon that might be enough for one letter!
Here goes.
1. The nature and role of worship
I think the main point here is one of definition. Let me quote you: I think we are coming from different understandings of what worship is, or at least how the word is defined. With regard to your discussion of praise at the bottom of p 83, I don’t believe that praise and worship are the same thing.
What I was trying to do in the book was to address most people’s understanding of worship, which is the activity indulged in by the gathered group on a Sunday morning. I agree with you that it would be good if Christians in the UK all had a more biblical idea of what true worship is, but the reality is that we don’t. My concern is that if you and I use the word worship to include the idea of service, and then agree that worship is the role of the church, what people will actually hear is that the role of the church is to gather on Sunday mornings and sing together. It is this idea, that the church can legitimately operate without showing love and compassion to the needy, that I wanted to combat. Hence my denigration of what most people understand as worship.
Trying to frame this point helpfully and clearly without sounding critical was not easy!
2. The role of the Holy Spirit
I do believe in following the guidance of the Holy Spirit in my daily life, and operating in the Spiritual gifts. The first part of the book makes that plain. However, I also believe in our capacity to be deceived. It seems to me that when we come to the clear instructions of Jesus to his followers, as recorded for us, then we are on safer ground. I want both the word and the spirit. So my chosen way is to be asking, how can I show love to my enemies today (word)? Which enemies would you like me to focus on (spirit)?
3. The use of the Bible.
I was careful to talk about “the use of the Bible in the church” rather than just “the use of the Bible”. The latter is easy; I believe the whole Bible to be the Word of God. As regards the Psalms, for example, scarcely a day has passed in the last ten years without me reading and meditating on a Psalm. I think they are wonderful. Indeed, they have sustained me when there was nowhere else to tuen on many occasions.
With regards to the church, I believe that the agenda is set by Jesus’ instructions to the twelve. This is clarified by the rest of the New Testament, and illuminated by the Old Testamant. How’s that?
4. Prophecy today.
I have always wanted to be a prophet! I believe in prophcy today. What a fool I am - prophets generally come to a sticky end, and are guaranteed pain. I would not have written and produced this book unless I felt I had something to say that came from God.
Having said that, there are believers whom I respect who are dead against the idea of God speaking today. I believe we should only divide on essential issues, and since Jesus nowhere commanded his followers to prophesy, it seems wrong to me to insist that believers today must seek prophecy, and the other spiritual gifts. I would want to encourage anybody who wanted to use the spiritual gifts - I hope the book is clear on that point - but at the same time, I am against setting up any hoops that people must jump through before they can be regarded as full members of the church beyond those things that Jesus specified. I think this is a good policy.
How’s that for a start?
I would enjoy to continue the discussion. Shall I work through the smaller points next, or do you want to come back on these major issues first?
With best wishes, yours ever,
David
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