True and proper worship…

Have you ever been at the checkout of a shop and handed over a £20 note and had that awkward moment where the cashier holds it up to the light, rubs it with their fingers and then uses some kind of invisible pen on it? These are all small tests to see if the note is genuine, or if it is a fake. Banks use some of the same methods to see if a note is genuine or not, and the way they are trained to spot a fraudulent note is by studying a genuine note for hours on end. To spot the fake you need to really know the real deal.

In my personal devotions in the mornings I have just finished reading through the book of Romans and one of the verses that has always challenged me in Romans 12:1.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

So often we talk about worshiping together on a Sunday, and by that we usually mean things like singing, praying, reading the Bible and listening to God’s Word being preached, and that is right because all of these things are elements of our worship of God, but they are not the whole of our worship.

The true and proper worship that Paul is describing to the church in Rome is all encompassing, every day worship that is centred on God. As I’ve been thinking about this I’ve always asked two questions; why worship? And what is true worship?

Why worship?

Paul says that the motivation for true and proper worship is to be God’s mercy.  The book of Romans so far has been describing the greatness and mercy of God in His plan of salvation that is promised in Genesis 3 and which finds its fulfilment in Jesus on the cross. Paul summarises the teaching of Romans 3-11 and says that it’s all about God’s mercies, God’s undeserving favour to needy sinners. The amazing things that Paul has been discussing; love, grace, joy, glory, righteousness, sanctification, freedom, identity in Jesus, the Holy Spirit, forgiveness… All of these marvellous things and more are gifts from a great God to an undeserving people and this should lead is to be in awe of and worship our great God.

What is true worship?

Paul describes true worship as the giving up of our bodies as a living sacrifice, this means a complete surrender of ourselves to the will and purposes of God. This means giving all to God regardless of the cost, basing our decisions on His Word and submitting to His will. Sacrifices would have made the original readers think of the death of a sacrificial animal, but Paul urges them and us to be living sacrifices both physically but also spiritually (Rom. 6:13).
This does not come naturally to us, it’s difficult, and this is only possible by our minds being renewed as Paul goes on to say in Romans 12:2. For true and proper worship to take place we need to be a transformed people, and the only way for our minds to be renewed is through the truth of God and the work of the Holy Spirit. That is why it is so important that our lives are built upon the teaching of the Bible, that we preach the Bible, that we read the Bible for ourselves and that we encourage each other with the Bible. The Bible lifts our eyes to God it helps us keep our focus on Him and it fills our minds with truth about God and about ourselves.

True and proper worship matters as Bob Kauflin, a well-known songwriter says;

“It [worship] matters to God because he is the one ultimately worthy of all worship. It matters to us because worshiping God is the reason for which we were created.”

My prayer is that as we go through Christian life together and as Christians meet together on Sundays all over the world and as we meet in each other’s homes that we will be able to encourage our fellow Christians and say that we can see true and proper worship in the lives of our church family.

Gender

Gender has become one of the most talked about topics in recent years. Society has changed. What seemed a given 40 years ago, that a person was assigned their sex at birth, is no longer a given and people can choose their gender. I am glad to see that Christians are not too far behind on this topic but that books are being written and people are speaking out on this vast and difficult topic.

Many books have been written on this topic of gender and how the Christian community should respond in a way that is both Biblical and loving. I have read a good number of books on this topic that I would, and do, highly recommend to people who are being confronted with this issue. But, this is the first that I have read specifically with children in mind.

The truth is that if parents don’t teach their children about gender, sexuality and identity then the educational system and biggest voices in society will. There is no longer such a thing as a ‘Christian bubble’ that remains untouched by the world, this has many many positives, but it also means that there are areas of confusion and difficulties for many people.

Seagraves and Leavine do a tremendous job in this very short, very practical book Gender of setting conversations with children about gender. I am not yet a parents, but I am a member of and Assistant Pastor in a church and these issues are very real for everyone who is involved in any way with children. I find that often when it comes to big topics like this we almost feel as if we need to sit down with the child and have an ‘adult conversation’ too often we forget that kids are kids and that a more natural conversation is the best way forward.

One of the things that impressed me about this book is the way it encourages people to have these conversations really early, and not only to have them as a reaction to a conversation or something happening. A lot of the time Christians can be reactionary, reacting to a situation that happens instead of anticipating it and preparing the child for that situation. This can lead to conversations being awkward and basically kind of weird, if I’m honest. Conversation need to start early and done well.

A true understanding of gender and personal identity must be grounded in a firm understanding of the person of God, His will for and design of humanity and a firm foundation of His authority. Sea grave and Leavine put it like this

“When we start to pick and choose when to accept the authority of God’s word, we are standing on a slippery slope;
if one part is rejected, we will struggle to hold on to any of it.
How we think and talk about gender is connected to our view of God’s word as a whole.”

The way we engage our children with the teaching on the Bible on every issue, not just gender, will shape the importance they put on Scripture in the future and can help them to understand what a good Christian worldview is.

This book is very practical and is gives you questions to ask, answers to give and even situations in which you can naturally talk about gender and what the Bible says about it. I really liked how this book looked at how to have conversations with different age groups (up to 7 years old, 7-11 years old and 12+) this book definitely gave me the confidence to speak about gender and to have an idea of how to approach the topic with children, parents and other who work with children.

I don’t often say this, but here goes… this is a must read for every parents, pastor, youth and children’s worker, teacher… basically if you know a child then you should read this book.  It helps you think through a difficult topic in a simple way whilst being condensed into a small book that can fit into your pocket. I devoured this book in an afternoon, and I suggest that when it comes out in September you get a hold of a copy.

You can buy it here from The Good Book Company: https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/gender

Rating 5/5

Confusion in life…

“The confusion we experience in this life is not from the absence of God, but because of the consequences of sin. In the same way that pain is a signal alerting us that something in our bodies isn’t right, the pain and suffering in our world is a signal that something is broken. As Christian people, we need to speak with great clarity, compassion, and conviction about where the brokenness in our world comes from – sin.”

Brian Seagraves & Hunter Leavine, Gender

Wild at Heart

Generally speaking I read a lot of different material, different topics from all kinds of authors. I don’t review every book that I read, nor do I want to waste your time by reviewing books that you (my lovely readers) won’t find helpful and hopefully insightful. But with some books you just can’t resist…

Wild at Heart is one of those books.

I know that this book was controversial some years ago and so I didn’t look it up online because I didn’t want to be ‘influenced’ by other opinions.

When a book’s title says that it’s about ‘discovering the secret of a man’s soul’ and says that it isn’t a “macho-man pep rally” I am intrigued, but sadly within the first few pages of this book you realise just how untrue this is.

In my mind if you want to figure out the secret of a man’s soul and you are a Christian then go to the very source of that person’s being, go to God. Go to God as He has revealed Himself in the Scriptures and determine from there who man is, what his desires are, and what his obstacles are. I think that’s the most logical thing to do. However through the pages of this book there are more references to movies, fairy tales, secular literature and psychology than there are to the bible and the passages that he does reference are usually misinterpreted and bent to his own agenda.

Eldredge’s problem with the church and with Christianity is that apparently we have turned men into little girls, something that he mentions a number of time throughout the book. I see his frustration, that sometimes Christianity can be seen as faith for a ‘softie’ but I do not think that we are turning men into little girls. Over the last few decades in churches people have tried to get men to open up about their feelings, but this does not make a man any less a man than he was before he opened up.

If anything I find that Eldredge has a shallow view of masculinity, he states that every man has three “desperate desires”; for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue. He bases this finding on the movies that men watch, the games that we like to play and the way we like to spend our free time. If Eldredge were to look at the Bible as his source of reference he would come to a truer conclusion of man’s heart desires and see the depravity of it instead of building a macho alpha-male image that, apparently, all men want to become.

But I am afraid this is just the beginning, there are far far more problems with this book;

1. His view of God.
Eldredges view of God is so small, he does not explicitly state this in his book but he certainly seems to believe in open theism or free will theism, a view that God does not control all events in the future, but that he also can’t even know about them. Be implication this means that God is subject to the will of humanity and that the created has taken the place of the creator. This view of God has been deemed a heresy.

2. His view of Jesus.
Eldredge argues that Jesus failed to cast out the demon in Luke 8:26-38 the first time because he didn’t have all the facts, he apparently needed to know more about the situation before he could act. Such a small view of God and His Son!

3. His view of Adam.
Eldredge argues that God was essentially trying to tame a wild Adam in the Garden of Eden and that is why it didn’t work. This would mean that God is powerless in the face of the will of man, something that the bible does not support at all.

4. His view of Satan and sin.
Eldredge argues that Satan is afraid of real Christian men, but this is simply not true, this is such a confused and dangerous view of spiritual warfare that is far removed from the battle that is implies by the illustration of our need for armour in Ephesians 6:10-17. Furthermore, Eldredge argues that man is the victim when he sins, because it is Satan who is making him do it. This makes Christians puppets dancing for Satan, but the Bible argues that as Christians we have been freed from Satan and sin to becomes slaves to Christ!

5. His view of the Bible.
Throughout this book there are numerous places where Eldredge missuses, misapplies and misunderstands the Bible, and he sees it as insufficient. He speaks of hearing God’s voice audibly a number of times and the things that he hears are contrary to the Bible. This book suggests that Eldredge does not believe that the Bible is sufficient!

There are more things in this book that could be criticised, I have just names some of the big ones.

If you want to know what is means to be a man then look to God revealed in His Word.
If you want to know how to become the man that God intended you to be then look to God revealed in His Word.

Rating 0/5
I have given this book a 0 rating because it teaches wrong things about God, the Bible, personal revelation, sin and masculinity. I would not recommend this book.

 

Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus

I haven’t read a book about somebody’s journey to faith in a long time, I almost forgot how great they can be. Most of the time I read theology books, books about Christian ministry, or Christian living books that I’ve been given to review.
Recently a friend of mine read Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus and said that it was a tremendous book and that I should give it a read, and I’ve had it on my ‘to read’ list for a while now.

Being raised in a relatively normal British household (whatever that might mean) and being brought up in church, my knowledge of Islam is very limited and my only point of reference is really what I have learnt in my theological studies over the past 5 years and my interactions with a few Muslim friends.

Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus is much more than the story of Nabeel Qureshi, a Christian apologist who was born and raised in America to Pakistani parents. The book gives you great insights into Islam, the Koran, Muslim’s views and thoughts about Christians and how to engage with Muslims.

Qureshi was the eldest son of Pakistani immigrants and grew up in the United States and the UK; his father was in the US Navi so they travelled around. He was raised a devout Muslim, brought up to revere the Koran, to learn Muslim history and to be able to recite and defend much of the Koran and Muslim faith. Throughout this book he speaks about his religious devotion and his desire to be the best Muslim he could. Whenever he met a Christian he would engage in discussion/debate about the validity of Christianity and, in his mind at that time, the unfaltering truth of Islam.

Upon going to college Qureshi met a man called David Wood and they became great friends. David was a Christian and as you can imagine the debates about faith started almost immediately.

After years of debating and discussing Christianity with different people, from the ‘average Christian’ to well-known apologists, Qureshi started to seriously think that Christianity could be true. This however, was not a decision that he could take lightly.
When people become Christians from a Muslim background it is not a simple ‘change of religion or worldview’, very often their whole world is changed. Sometimes people are rejected by their families and, depending on the country you live in, becoming a Christian could mean imprisonment, punishment or even death.

This book gives you an insight into the Muslim view of Christians and it gives practical advice on how to reach Muslim friends with the Good News of Jesus. Qureshi also explains the differences between first-generation Muslims and their children. Qureshi explains that in the West we have a very scientific approach to evidence and worldviews, often looking at facts and history and then coming to a conclusion on a topic. But in the East generally, Qureshi explains, the weight is put more on authority and reputation. These differences have huge implications for how Christians should engage in conversation with Muslims, often we can look at the same thing but our worldviews and where we put our focus (authority or fact) mean that we can go around in circles debating.

Qureshi’s book takes a clear and logical look at both Christianity and Islam whilst telling his own life story. Qureshi died in 2017 after a year battle with stomach cancer, he is now in glory rejoicing with the Lord and his testimony continues to challenge both Christians and Muslims and encourages fruitful discussion.

I have found Muslims to be wonderful loving people who are kind, very hospitable and always willing and open to discuss matters of faith. I pray that as Christians we would seriously think through our faith, that we would be able to defend and engage in such conversation as Qureshi had with Wood, and that God would work through this book.

Rating 5/5