Christianity
The Narrow Road
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What Do You Remember?
What are your earliest memories? I asked myself that question the other day. In a bit over week’s time I turn 62 years young and so I began reminiscing about my earliest years.
Here are some memories up to the age of 3 and a half years:
- Sitting under a desk listening to the warm conversation of adults at my grandparents’ home.
- Visiting a great grandfather whose false leg was standing in a corner – that made quite an impression.
- Visiting the barber who had a jar of lollies/sweets behind the counter.
- Sitting on the grass in a local square reading a picture book. (This one is reinforced with a photo of the event)
- Checking my aunt’s pocket with my foot as she was holding onto me and hugging me to see if she had brought me a treat.
- “Reading” Bible story books and having them read to me.
- Being separated in child care from my parents on the migrant boat to Australia.
There are many more but these are a few that stand out. The overwhelming emotion that comes from remembering these is security and warmth. I was loved by my parents and my extended family. What a privilege that was and what a joy to remember! I hope that my children have similar memories.
It also leads to me to think of the great number of children today for whom those early years are not surrounded with joy, but in contrast, with pain and neglect.
When you cast your mind back to your earliest memories, what comes back to you?
Categories: Child Theology, christian, Christianity, Devotional, Family
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Why Does God Use Children in His Plans?
After having written the last two posts connected with “Child Theology” I asked myself the question in the title.
And I have a few suggestions but I would love to hear what readers think too.
My first thought is that children are imaginative and spontaneous. For too many of us, the older we get, the less spontaneous we become and we are governed by what other people think and past failures. Children are not bound by that.
My second thought is that God’s uses the young at their stage of development. I have some suggestions from the Bible to back my ideas up.
When Joseph had his youthful dreams about his brothers and family, aged wisdom would have told him to keep his mouth shut. Experience tells us that blabbing these dreams would be a mistake. However Joseph in his immaturity and ego centered youthfulness informs the family. Even his dad was annoyed. Foolish as this was, Joseph’s actions ultimately led to his family’s rescue from starvation.
God used Miriam as the responsible older sister care for her baby brother.
Other events include Isaac’s childlike innocence when being prepared as a sacrifice and David’s childlike faith and idealism when facing Goliath. There is also Samuel’s childlike openness to the idea that God was speaking to him. How many of us would have been that open?
My contention is that God used young people because they had qualities that age had removed from the next generation. Are we missing out on the qualities of our young people simply because we are judging and assessing them on a maturity that we may have but that they haven’t reached?
What are we as churches and families missing out on by not recognising that childishness and youth also have a place in the kingdom?
Categories: Child Theology, christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Uncategorized
Tags: Christian, Christianity, Devotion, Faith
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Children in the Bible
The other day I mentioned the impressive “Child Theology” movement which strives to consider the impact of the child on theological thinking. (See: https://pieterstok.com/2012/07/15/child-theology/).
Today I want to make a simple observation: Children have an amazing place and role in Scripture. Not only are they made in God’s image, like the rest of us, and not only are they part of the pain and joy of God’s people, but God also uses children in a direct way to achieve His ends.
Let us consider some examples:
1. Joseph (OT) was a young lad of 17 when he started his journey under God’s hand to be his family’s improbable saviour.
2. Samuel went to serve the Lord in the temple after he was weaned – he was very young.
3. David is the forgotten young man who God sets aside to become King of Israel
4. In the midst of rebellion, Josiah became a godly King at 8 years of age.
5. Jeremiah started his work as a prophet at 14 years of age.
There are many more, not the least Mary who became the mother of the Messiah. At Pentecost, Peter especially mentions the young as a group of God’s people upon whom the Spirit of God is poured.
I believe there is a challenge for parents and church leaders to remember these facts, that is, to acknowledge openly and often, the significance of the young in the church and God’s call and claim upon their lives. I also believe that this is an antidote to the directionless teenage years and the ennui that seems to grab hold of too many of our young people.
If the young have a place and a purpose in the kingdom, why are they so often neglected in the church when it comes to active roles? We may teach them and even pander to them but do we challenge them to service, as God did, and still does?
Categories: Child Theology, christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, Uncategorized
Tags: Christian, Christianity, Devotion, Faith
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True Faith Oppressed
The following words come from Martin Luther’s sermon: THE METHOD AND FRUITS OF JUSTIFICATION. This was written over 450 years ago. If we put aside the quaintness of the old English translation, the message is still potent and direct. In western counties we may not suffer the direct persecution of Luther’s day, but today, the mockery of the gospel, particularly by militant atheists grows by the day. Luther was standing against those who believed in their own works as the means of salvation. We stand against those who deny God altogether. His call to stand and persevere is still pertinent. Luther declares:
Every one by faith is certain of this salvation; but we ought to have care and fear that we stand and persevere, trusting in the Lord, and not in our own strength. When those of the race of Cain hear faith treated of in this manner, they marvel at our madness, as it seems to them. God turn us from this way, say they, that we should affirm ourselves holy and godly; far be this arrogance and rashness from us: we are miserable sinners; we should be mad, if we should arrogate holiness to ourselves. Thus they mock at true faith, and count such doctrine as this execrable error; and thus try to extinguish the Gospel. These are they that deny the faith of Christ, and persecute it throughout the whole world; of whom Paul speaks: “In the latter times many shall depart from the faith,” etc., for we see by these means that true faith lies everywhere opprest; it is not preached, but commonly disallowed and condemned.
(2011-03-24). The World’s Great Sermons, Volume 01 Basil to Calvin (Kindle Locations 1060-1066). . Kindle Edition.
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Child Theology
Being a naturally conservative person I always tread warily when I come across new (or in the following case, renewed) ideas. But a movement that has piqued my interest is the “Child Theology” movement. Once again, it was my wife, a natural advocate of children, who brought this to my attention. The Child Theology movement is a relatively new movement that gathers together ideas and concerns that have been present for centuries.
It resonated with me because, for a long time, I have had the nagging feeling that we have not acknowledged the place, function and meaning of children in Scripture. I have always been struck by how many children God used (Josiah, Jeremiah, David, Samuel, Mary etc.) in proclaiming and delivering His Word and too often we have treated this fleetingly. Child Theology takes this one step further. It actually asks how children can develop and deepen our understanding of theology.
Let me quote from a website: (http://www.childtheology.org)
Jesus put a child in the centre of the disciples when they were having a theological argument about greatness in the kingdom of God. It is plain that Jesus thought the child’s presence would give the disciples a clue to the essential truth they were missing.
Occasionally over the centuries, the child has disturbed theologians at work, but has not been in a position to shape theology consistently.
In Child Theology, we are invited to take good note of the child in the midst as we think about, for, to, from and with God in Christ. As we do that, we expect our theology to change for the better. In Child Theology, we embark afresh on the journey with Christ into the open secret of God in the world.
One of the movement’s most articulate proponents is Marcia Bunge: Professor of Theology and Humanities at Christ College, Valparaiso University( a Lutheran University in the US). She has edited two key books in this area:
1. The Child in Christian Thought and Practice explores how churches and theologians have touched on this topic over 2000 years.
2. The Child in the Bible uses the writings of a number of theologians to survey the place and function of children throughout Scripture.
This movement is not child centred but God centred. Children come into the picture as a valid and valuable means of strengthening our understanding of His Word. His people, of course, are both young and old.
Pastors, parents and the Christian community in general will be the poorer if we do not hear what our friends in Child Theology have to say.
Categories: Child Theology, christian, Christianity, Devotional
Tags: Child Theology, Christian, Christian Education, Christianity, Devotion, Faith
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Fountain of Life
Categories: Bible, christian, Christianity, Devotional
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“Orthodoxy”
Image courtesy: Google Images
Today I have collected a few tantalising quotes from G.K. Chesterton’s book “Orthodoxy“. Once again, it is available on Kindle and it is free. I hope the following tempt to you to read the book and follow his arguments for faith. Although some of his references to people of his day (excepting well known authors and historical figures) do not connect with the modern reader, his humour and the flow of his thinking are a joy. Best of all, it is an antidote to modernism and post-modernism. The quotes come from Chapter 2, The Maniac and Chapter 3 The Suicide of Thought
The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.
The madman is not the man who has lost his reason. The madman is the man who has lost everything except his reason.
Mysticism keeps men sane. As long as you have mystery you have health; when you destroy mystery you create morbidity. The ordinary man has always been sane because the ordinary man has always been a mystic.
The whole secret of mysticism is this: that man can understand everything by the help of what he does not understand. The morbid logician seeks to make everything lucid, and succeeds in making everything mysterious. The mystic allows one thing to be mysterious, and everything else becomes lucid.
It is vain for eloquent atheists to talk of the great truths that will be revealed if once we see free thought begin. We have seen it end. It has no more questions to ask; it has questioned itself. You cannot call up any wilder vision than a city in which men ask themselves if they have any selves. You cannot fancy a more sceptical world than that in which men doubt if there is a world. It might certainly have reached its bankruptcy more quickly and cleanly if it had not been feebly hampered by the application of indefensible laws of blasphemy or by the absurd pretence that modern England is Christian. But it would have reached the bankruptcy anyhow. Militant atheists are still unjustly persecuted; but rather because they are an old minority than because they are a new one. Free thought has exhausted its own freedom.
Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith) (1994-05-01). Orthodoxy Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.
Categories: christian, Christianity, Devotional, Faith, G K Chesterton, Uncategorized
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The Pelican and the Glory of God
A few days ago as I was camped on the banks of the Murray River I sat and observed pelicans – as you do. The pelican is an unusually shaped bird but is obviously configured appropriately for its life on the water and in the air; effective in the water, graceful in the air and exuding an independent character all the while. It is so unlike the squabbling gulls and raucous galahs.
And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” And there was evening, and there was morning —the fifth day. … God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. (Gen 1)
Too often I come across Christians who are unconcerned about the environment. Their 
argument seems to be, the more we use and abuse creation, the sooner Christ will return. I find this thinking hard to stomach. God made a creation that was “good” and He placed us as stewards over it. When He does return will he have found faithful stewards? Ummm, I wonder.
In the meantime, for me, the pelican is a simple but special reminder of the beauty and uniqueness of what God has made, but even more, it gives me an insight into God Himself.
Categories: christian, Christianity, Creation, Devotional, Environment, Faith
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Little Errors Big Trouble
I have discovered that writing posts on an iPad in a tent can be dangerous. My usual poor spelling and grammar is exacerbated by the small print and the predictive text. A few months ago while we were on the Camino in northern Spain this got me into trouble when I was writing about my wife, Hetty. The predictive text changed it to “hefty” without me noticing … and I didn’t check the spelling carefully. My “friends” who read the blog all made sure my wife became aware of my error, many adding, that they didn’t think it was a real error. One of daughters, however, who has since been upgraded in the will, suggested I was referring to my rucksack.
Apart from finding out who my true friends were it is also a good illustration of the power of sin. “For we all have sinned an fall short of the glory of God,” Paul tells us in Romans 3:23. Sin is falling short of God’s holy perfection. It is missing the mark. Whether the error is big or little the consequences can be enormous. We often categorise sin into serious and less serious. Ours are usually less serious and those of others more serious.
Paul’s point is simple; any sin causes us to miss out on perfection, and any lack of perfection separates us from God.
Christ came to restore us to perfection in God’s sight – a judicial perfection. No judgement hangs over us. All we need to do is have faith in Jesus. The Holy Spirit came to grow us into the people God already sees us as in Jesus. Theologians call this process “sanctification.” There is no room for any arrogance on snobbery on our part no matter how trivial we think our sin may be. In ourselves we will always miss the mark. If you know Jesus as your saviour and king, rejoice in His work for you – you have been declared innocent! If you don’t take time to seek Him out now.
Thanks for reading. It is breakfast time. I will go and make hefty, Hetty a cup of tea.
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Travels from Ur 