Author: Peter Mead

The Best Place to Hide in Evil Times

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

This world can be a sinister place.  I was recently on a missions team serving abroad, and we heard testimonies from several local believers.  One told of his times in prison – a place ordered more by the structure of the dangerous mafia than by any attempt at protecting human rights from the authorities.  Another told of his religious family – a home where this eleven-year-old boy was beaten up by his older brother every time he dared to go back to church, and that at the instruction of his parents.  Another told of his time in the military, where he discovered just how evil a totalitarian communist ideology can be in reality.

Whether it is by crime, religion, or ideology, the evil of this world is evident all around us.  If we scratch the surface of society, we will find all of this lurking today.  No country is free of crime, and the level of organization often goes way beyond what we can imagine.  Billions live under the threat of their religion, a threat that uses family members to beat any hint of turning, and ideologies that require everyone to think the same replace God with government and treat people as collateral damage in an ideological march towards utopia.  Well, they did not die out in 1990 – the same old ideas keep coming back dressed in new garb.

In Psalm 17, we find three cries to God from David’s mouth (see v1, v6, v13).  His cry was essentially: I am innocent, they are attacking me, but I am confident in God (see v1-5, v6-12, v13-15).  Let’s look at these three sections and see if this Psalm might stir us to cry out similarly.  After all, the same God is still the best refuge from wherever the threat comes!

Introduction (v1-5).  In the first verses of the Psalm, David’s cry is based on asserting his innocence.  We know from many other places that he knew of his guilt.  His cry was not for protection because he deserved it.  No, his vindication came from God’s presence, not from his own perfection.  Nevertheless, there is a place for recognizing that we may be innocent with respect to a specific threat, and it is right to cry out to God in the face of injustice.  Whether that be criminal activity, religious persecution, or ideological threats, we can and should cry out to God for his protection.

God protect me from the evil people (v6-12).  The description of the malicious threat is very vivid.  David doesn’t just say they are violent and threatening (v9); he goes on to give four descriptions.  Three descriptions use human body references; the fourth is from the animal kingdom.  Their heart lacks compassion, their mouth speaks with pride (v10), and their eyes are set on sinister plans (v11).  These verses could describe the mafia bosses running a prison, the religious family members intent on guarding family reputation, or a totalitarian regime marching towards its ideological utopia.  Whatever way evil dresses up, underneath lurks the same sinister roar – the lion.  David described his chief antagonist as a lion eager to tear.  Peter used the same imagery of Satan in 1 Peter 5:8.  There is great evil in this world, so we need a great God in whom to find refuge.

In Psalm 17, David described God in the preceding three verses.  He also uses three human body descriptions, followed by one from the animal kingdom.  Notice the description: your ear, right hand, and eye (v6-8).  As we draw near to our great God on the throne, we find him to be a wonderfully good God.  His ear inclines to hear even the weakest of whimpers.  His loving right hand has all the authority needed to protect us from every evil this world offers.  His eye is on us.  The phrase “apple of your eye” is an English figure of speech, but the original language refers to “the little person of your eye” – that tiny reflection in the pupil that reveals the whole focus of the eye.  What a gloriously intimate description – an inclined ear, the loving and full authority of the right hand, the attentive and affectionate eye.  Then the animal image?  We are hidden in the shadow of his wings!

Conclusion (v13-15).  David finishes the Psalm with one last call for God to act.  He desires deliverance.  Those who are against him are living for this world.  They want to gain power and wealth, to have something to pass on to the next generation.

In contrast, what matters to David?  His ultimate goal is not just victory but God’s visage (face).  It is not just about getting a response but about enjoying a relationship with God.  It is not about protecting his inheritance but about having intimacy with God.

God’s goodness can be celebrated in each of the three situations mentioned at the start of this article.  The prisoner may have lost the protection of the mafia leader he was close to. Still, he met a church pastor who came into the prison and told him about Jesus.  Today, he follows Jesus and visits two prisons he once occupied to tell others about Jesus too. 

The eleven-year-old boy never saw most of his family follow Jesus as he does.  Still, he pastors a church that reaches out to the marginalized of society.  He also enjoys telling others that the brother who beat him up for attending church is a believer and a missionary in a foreign land. 

The soldier serving in a communist military realized after three years just how evil the totalitarian regime was in reality.  But God allowed him to be tasked with listening to foreign radio stations to discover any plans to invade his country.  Instead, he heard the good news of Jesus broadcast in his language.  Today, he pastors a church and delights in telling others about the goodness of God!

Whatever evil is evident in your context or working away behind the scenes, seek refuge next to our good God’s throne.  When we see how good he is, we will want nothing else!

Our Great Guarantee

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

We have to be careful when we make guarantees from the Bible.  Sometimes it is better to speak of general principles because people may experience exceptions to an apparent scriptural guarantee that has been misunderstood.  For example, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). That is wise advice, but it is not a guarantee.  However, there is a guarantee at the end of Mark 4.

Jesus was coaching his disciples.  His process of discipleship involved both taught content and practical experience.  When I was a child, my Dad explained how to ride a bicycle without training wheels (keep looking ahead and pedalling, etc.).  But then he also ran behind me, holding me steady as I pedalled.  Then when I spoke to him and got no reply, I realized he had let go, and I started to panic but remembered his words and kept looking forward and pedalling. They did not ride bicycles, but Jesus was a master teacher.

One evening, Jesus invited his disciples to cross the Sea of Galilee in a boat.  They set out.  Others did too.  It must have seemed like a good evening for sailing.  But then, a violent windstorm arose, and the boat began filling with water.  It was a desperate situation.  So the disciples woke Jesus, who was sleeping in the stern.  They rebuked him for not caring about their impending doom.  And then Jesus turned a storm into a famous story.  He rebuked the wind and the waves precisely as he had previously rebuked demons speaking out of turn.  (Some think the storm was a demonic attack on the boat.)  Immediately, calm was restored.  Then Jesus rebuked the disciples for their lack of faith, and they feared even more. (Mark 4:35-41)

We must be careful not to offer guarantees that the text does not yield.  For instance, the common idea is that if Jesus is in the boat of your life, you can smile at the storm.  Why?  Because whatever storm you are facing, Jesus’ presence guarantees a good outcome.  In an ultimate sense, this may be true.  But we must be careful with this line of thought.  Doctors do diagnose fatal diseases that end the lives of Christians.  Wars do take a terrifying toll on entire populations, including faithful followers of Jesus.  Actual storms hit land and devastate the homes of believers and unbelievers.  We must not give believers a false guarantee of safety because life has a habit of showing up our errors.

Recently, I preached this passage in a young church reaching out to marginalized people in an Albanian town.  With poverty, corruption, child kidnappings, and many more troubles swirling around, they would love to know that Jesus’ presence guarantees safe passage through life.  In an ultimate sense, of course, it does.  But they needed to know there are no temporal guarantees of happy outcomes.  However, they also needed to see the guarantee in the passage.

Remember that Jesus gave both taught content and practical experience.  The experience of the stilling of the storm occurred “on that day” (see Mark 4:35).  Which day?  The day when Jesus was teaching Mark 4:1-34.  There was classroom content before the school trip!

What had Jesus been teaching that day?  He had taught about the nature of the kingdom of God.  He used farming illustrations to make the point that the kingdom starts small and grows.  For instance, it is just like a farmer who scatters seed and has confidence that it will grow (Mark 4:26-29). Or like a mustard seed that starts so tiny but grows into a great plant, like the tree representing a great kingdom in Daniel 4 (Mark 4:30-32).  Jesus taught using many of these parables and explained everything to his disciples in private.  It was on that day that they then got into a boat to cross to the other side.

What was it the disciples had been learning?  The kingdom of God will start very small, but its growth is guaranteed.  Where was the kingdom of God at that point in time?  It was asleep in the boat, with the disciples all present.  Then the storm came.  Why should the disciples have had more faith than they showed in their panic?  Not because they were somehow supposed to stop the storm themselves.  Nor because it was no big deal (the experienced fishermen were in a panic too!).  They needed to learn the lesson that Jesus was teaching them. God’s plan for the kingdom in this world is a plan of growth, and it is a plan that the enemy cannot thwart.  Even if the pit of hell throws everything against it, it will keep growing.

The enemy has done everything for two thousand years to stop the spread of the Gospel and the church’s growth.  People have burned Bibles, imprisoned pastors, banned religion, martyred believers, and tried to corrupt the Christian message.  And yet, the Gospel keeps on marching forwards.  Whether we are marginalized young believers in Albania or faithful followers of Jesus elsewhere, we need to know the guarantee of this passage. 

The advance of major religions across the globe at the point of a sword, the secularization of society under the sharp edges of sophisticated educators, the totalitarian persecution of faith under communism – all of these threats never have, and never will, thwart the spread of the Gospel.  Mark 4 guarantees it. 

I may go the way of every other Christian for two thousand years – dying by disease, accident, or foul play.  I must entrust my life and eternity to God’s care and trust him with whatever he allows.  But I can be confident that the enemy will never stop the advance of the kingdom of God in this world.  No matter what happens, Jesus will build his church, and the gates of hell will not be able to stop it.  It was true in that vulnerable little boat and is still true today.

Jesus will build his church, a fact guaranteed in Mark 4:35-41.  In light of that guarantee, perhaps we can all be more “steadfast, immovable, always abounding the work of the Lord, knowing [it is guaranteed!] that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.”

Finishing Strong

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount has undoubtedly stood the test of time.  It remains well-known in church circles and well-quoted even outside the church.  However, we might want to question how much it has been taken to heart and implemented.  Jesus knew there was no guarantee that his hearers (and subsequently, Matthew’s readers) would implement it.  That is why his conclusion is so firm.

Let’s consider the four parts of the conclusion:

1. Everyone must choose their path in light of Jesus’ exclusive claims.  (Matthew 7:13-14)  We live in a world that loves the idea of there being many roads and that they all lead up different sides of a mountain to the same lofty peak.  That is a nice sentiment, but it is not reality.  Jesus taught that there are only two.  There are two roads, two gates, two crowds, and two destinations.  To take the wide gate onto the broad road is easy.  No discernment is needed, no stand needs to be taken, the crowd is large, and affirmation flows freely.  That road leads to destruction.

C.S. Lewis reflected on the point in his education where he began to “broaden his mind.”  He wrote, “I was soon altering ‘I believe’ to ‘one does feel.’ And oh, the relief of it! . . . from the tyrannous noon of revelation, I passed into the cool evening of Higher Thought, where there was nothing to be obeyed and nothing to be believed except what was either comforting or exciting.”

It is easy to pass through a wide gate.  All baggage is acceptable, even our sins, self-righteousness, and pride.  But getting through a narrow gate requires us to pass through alone – without being propped up by others or weighed down by baggage.  Jesus is the only way to God.  That may be uncomfortable to hear in our contemporary culture. Still, it is no less valid or demanding than ever.

2. The narrow road requires vigilance. (Matthew 7:15-20)  There will be false prophets who seek to lead Jesus’ followers astray.  Two things are true of these false prophets.  They are both disguised and betrayed.  Disguised means they are not easy to spot – they are not cartoon villains!  But they will ultimately be betrayed by their fruit. 

Both the Old Testament and the New Testament carry warnings of false teachers and false prophets who will do harm to God’s people and lead them astray.  We live in a time when cults continue to prey on easy targets who may be exposed to the church but who do not have their roots in God’s Word and the church community.  We also live in a day of new pseudo-religions with their own holy story, original sin, required penance, and witch hunts.

We must ensure that we, and others in our church, know how to stay safe.  We need to swim in God’s Word so that his values and truth are familiar to us.  We need to study the truth and keep a curious and thinking mind.  We need to shelter in the security of a healthy local church where shepherds will protect the sheep.  We must soak in the church’s teaching (local and global).  And we must be stretched as we grow together in the community of God’s people, being teachable and open to input.

3. Jesus wants real relationships, not just words.  (Matthew 7:21-23)  These are some of the most sobering verses in the entire Bible!  Of course, saying the right words without any inner reality is possible.  Remember how Romans 10:9 combines words with reality: “confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord” and “believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.” 

The profoundly sober warning here is also a precious gift – Jesus wants his hearers to recognize the danger before it is too late.  The reality he seeks is a real relationship with God the Father so that we want to do his will.  The goal he has made possible is to say on that day, “I know you!”

4. Jesus wants a real response, not just hearing.  (Matthew 7:24-27)  It is possible to hear Jesus’ words but not to apply them.  That is the point of this final parable.  Both builders listened to the words of Jesus, but the difference was whether they put them into practice.  The one who did this was like a builder building on a solid foundation – the one who didn’t put them into practice just built his house on shifting sands.

Again, Jesus offers a profoundly sober warning and a precious gift.  That day is coming, the day when the storm reveals inner reality.  It is better to know now.  Just as it is not enough to say the right words, nor is it enough to hear the right words.

First, let’s take to heart the strength of Jesus’ conclusion to his famous Sermon on the Mount for ourselves.  We need to ensure that these verses can detonate in our hearts and lives.  Second, let’s take his conclusion to heart for others.  The storm is coming, the day of revealing will arrive, and the people we minister to need to be sure that Jesus’ words have ignited profound transformation within.  Stern warnings are sometimes helpful.  Genuine transformation and contagious relationships always are.  Let’s start by joining the crowd that was amazed at Jesus’ teaching.  Then let’s pray for others in our church to be sensitized to these things!

Everyone Hides, But Where?

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For several generations, some of us have lived with relative stability.  Yes, our cultures have shifted and changed.  And yes, we have seen our military forces participate in conflict.  But seismic shifts that rock our world have not been so familiar to many of us.  The past few years have changed that.  If the world can change so suddenly, then maybe we would do well to be ready for significant events.  Actually, if we are involved in church leadership, we should be both preparing our people for the future and preparing ourselves for major moments that will surely come.

Recently, my wife and I enjoyed another anniversary and took some time together in Psalm 46.  This is a great passage to soak in for your own benefit.  And it is a great passage to be ready to share with others both before and when the need arises.  It is a Psalm of healthy hiding.

When the constant stream of news is suddenly shattered by something genuinely significant, where can we go?  When the normal rhythm of daily tasks grinds to a halt because something huge is happening, how can we find safety?  And when we look beyond the normal news narrative and see such significant and terrible agendas at play, who can be trusted?  Psalm 46 points us to the answer.

Psalm 46 falls neatly into three stanzas, neatly demarcated by a Selah to give us the opportunity to contemplate.  The first stanza establishes a key thought that is then picked up in a refrain at the end of stanzas two and three.  It is a clear Psalm, easy to read, and probably well worth committing to memory!

Stanza 1 serves to establish a truth that will weave through the whole Psalm.  Our refuge and strength is God himself, and our God is always accessible to us.  The result is that we will not fear.  Four situations are described to underline how secure we are in our God.  Even an earthquake, even mountains being relocated, even raging seas, even the normal secure boundaries of creation trembling – even if the whole created order should revert to utter chaos, we will not fear.  The character of God is more trustworthy than the apparently permanent mountains and boundaries of the seas?  Yes.  Selah.

Despite appearances in the first three verses, I do not think the writer is really focused on natural disasters.  He seems to be using them as descriptions of having your world rocked.  Even a hypothetical upheaval that impacts everything considered permanent and stable would not undermine the reality of God being our ever-present refuge and strength.

In the second stanza, from verses 4-7, the writer zeroes in on the threat of war.  He begins with two verses describing the tranquil city of God, the place where he reigns and is present.  And then, just as our hearts calm to ponder the hope of one day experiencing life in that city, verse 6 breaks in with a reminder that in this world everything is going crazy!  The nations are raging and tottering, like mountains falling into the seas.  When geopolitical change crashes down around us, and we might add, when the ethical foundations of society are completely turned upside-down beneath us, then we find ourselves experiencing a seismic shift from the stability we have always known. 

But the truth of the first stanza is the anchor for us.  Our God is the LORD of hosts, he is with us, and the God of Jacob is our refuge.  Selah.

Let’s pause and ponder that refrain for a moment.  The LORD is the God who makes promises and keeps them; he is faithfully committed to following through on his plans and purposes, and he will continue to care for us.  He is also so very strong.  He is the LORD of hosts – the God of angel armies.  One angel killed 185,000 Assyrian warriors in one night – presumably powerful, intimidating, physically impressive, well-armed Assyrian warriors.  Imagine two angels.  How about ten?  What if there were 100?  Now try to picture a number so big that it could not be counted – that is the army of heavenly hosts.  Our God leads that army, and that God is with us.  And since that God is our refuge, we run to hide in him.

In light of that truth, the final stanza, from verses 8-11, invites us to come and consider what God has done.  Implicitly, then, we are also to consider what he will do in the future.  God ends wars, he topples powerful foes, and he will take away every weapon.  The armies of the world – whether they fight in military uniform, or with any other costume of control –will one day be commanded to stop!  To stand still.  To be quiet.  Hush.  Know that God is God.  Know that he will be exalted above all.

This world can generate raging nations, swelling armies, plotting despots, powerful dictators, destructive terrorists, and no end of new versions of evil.  But it can never generate anything or anyone that is more powerful than our God.  He is the God of angel armies, and he is with us.  He is our fortress, and we must run to hide in him.  The refrain repeats in verse 11.  This truth needs to repeat in our hearts and drive us to him whenever this world generates the slightest hint of fear in us.

When threats rise up, everyone hides.  One option is to run to God.  We know that he is bigger than anything in creation.  We know that he wins in the end.  And yet, we often struggle to believe that he is with us, or that he will do anything when we cry out to him.  What if I have to face more than discomfort for my faith and God does not immediately show up?  What if standing for what I know is true costs me pain and suffering – is he still a fortress even then?  Psalm 46 is an anchor to the truth that God can and must be trusted in the darkest of times.

The other option that many seem to choose is to hide their heads in the sand.  Just live life pretending there is no threat.  How often does the media reinforce the distraction of this perspective?  Stories get spun so that we think the threat is coming from the opposite direction.  When we have more information than ever before, are we actually growing more numb, and maybe more dumb, the more we watch our screens?  There could be a genocide taking place all around us, and yet we are trained to have our gaze redirected to Hollywood’s latest newsflash.  Our propensity to hide our heads in the sand is supercharged by the media we lean on so heavily.

When the news stirs fear in you, do not choose distraction and pretend all is well.  Instead, hide in a healthy way – running into the fortress that is our God.  That is, our God, the God of angel armies, the God who has chosen to be with us.

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Have you seen the ABCs of application?

Love, In the Church

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

The most famous literary description of love is surely 1 Corinthians 13.  It has been read aloud at countless weddings, and yet, it was not written for a wedding.  It was written for a church.  Actually, it was written for a struggling and divided church in Corinth.  This was a church that was splintered by factions, by immature Christians flaunting their supposed superiority, and by a whole host of interpersonal tensions and issues.  This was the church into which Paul unleashed “the love chapter!”

The chapter sits at the heart of a section addressing the right use of spiritual gifts in the church.  It begins by underlining the necessity of love (v 1-3) and ends with the never-ending reality of love (v 8-13).  And at the heart of the chapter, in verses 4-7, we find a familiar and poetic depiction of the nature of love.  In just four verses, Paul offers fifteen descriptions of love.

Their world, like ours, was a confusing melee of ideas when it came to love.  There was romance, passion (appropriately marital and many harmful alternatives), family, and friendship.  I don’t know whether they used “love” to speak of food and sport, quite like we do in English, but let’s not imagine their culture was any less confused than ours.  In the face of that confusion, Paul offered a confrontation with God’s kind of love.

What do we do with a list like this?  Our tendency is to see it as a behavioural checklist and to consider it as a suggestion for greater effort on our part.  The problem is, not only do we all fall short of God’s perfect love, but we are unable to self-generate genuine godly love.  We can only love, John tells us, because God first loved us (1 John 4:19).  So, while it may look like a list of descriptions, actually, Paul wrote it as a list of verbs.  This is love dressed up and going to work! 

So, as we consider this love in action, we should let it confront our own areas of lack, but also point us to the only one who perfectly lived out God’s love in this world.  Let this list point you to Jesus, and then let his love flow more freely in your local church setting.  As we look to Christ’s love, it will stir Christlike love in us.  And when the body of Christ starts to look like Christ, we can pray for the church to have an impact like Christ!

1. Paul begins with a basic foundation: Love gives.  He begins his list with two positive statements: love is patient and love is kind (v 4a).  Patience here speaks of having a long-fuse with other people, giving them space and time, instead of flaring up at the first opportunity.  Patience is partnered with kindness, which gives of our own usefulness for the higher good of the other.  A loving church is a place where grace infiltrates every relationship.  Grace for the weaknesses of others, and grace that gives of ourselves to build them up.  Love gives.

2. Paul zeroes in on the Corinthian core issue: Love is not selfish.  His list shifts into a sequence of nine points, most of which are negative.  The central thought in this list of nine points is like a summary of the whole section: love is not self-seeking (v 5b).  Ever since the Garden of Eden, we humans have been largely unaware of how self-oriented our hearts now are, by nature.  Our selfishness is built-in from birth, but it is only because our nature is fallen.  It seems so normal to seek our own good, but God’s design is love that is not self-seeking.  (Look at the Trinity for the greatest example of this: how consistently does the Father lovingly honour the Son, and vice versa?  Our God is a God who lovingly and selflessly lifts up the other, and the good news is that can even include us!)

Before and after that central thought, Paul offers two sets of four descriptions of love.  When there are differences between us, love does not self-elevate (v 4b-5a).  It does not envy what others have, longing for self to be satisfied by that salary, that house, that spouse, etc.  Neither does love boast, trying to make the other person long for my ability, possessions, or strengths.  Love is not arrogant, puffing up self to push others down.  And love does not disregard accepted standards of behaviour to elevate self and so disregard and dishonour others.  Some versions have “love is not rude” at this point.  That might bring to mind inappropriate vocabulary or noises at the dining table.  But Paul’s word goes beyond the odd little social faux pas.  It is the same word used for unnatural sexual relations in Romans 1.  It is that casting off of restraint and acceptable norms, because, well, because I want to . . . so I should.  Actually, love wouldn’t.

And when there are problems between us, love does not self-protect (v 5c-6).  Love is not easily angered, that is, it is not irritable and touchy.  If we take any of Paul’s negatives and pursue the opposite, we will discover a painful loneliness.  Now, there is a place in the Bible for legitimate provocation.  Jesus was provoked by death at Lazarus’ tomb, and Paul was provoked in spirit by the idols of Athens.  Luther was provoked by a false view of God and so launched the Reformation, and Wilberforce was so provoked he sought to end the slave trade.  Maybe today many of us have grown too nice before the provocations of society, but perhaps still too easily angered at little personal slights in church life.  Love is not easily angered in church fellowship.  When people say and do wrong things, love lets the grievances go instead of inscribing them in our internal memory ledger of grudges against others.  And when those people that grate on us turn out to be sinners in some way or other, love does not rejoice in their sin.  Rather, it rejoices in what is true – God’s love for them, their position in God’s family, their gifting, and their key role in our lives. 

3. Paul points them beyond any notion of personal ability because true love relies on God (v 7).  Undoubtedly, Paul is offering a literary flourish to complete the list.  The last four descriptions add the word “always” or “all things.”  It feels good to the ear, but if you consider it carefully, it feels impossible to the heart.  How can I always protect?  The idea is to cover, like the seal on a ship that keeps all water out.  One commentator describes the idea of “throwing a blanket of silence over the failings of others.”  Obviously, there are legal and moral exceptions to this.  But as a general rule, when I am annoyed, provoked, antagonized, and bothered, love will keep that sin hidden from others who do not need to know about it.  Paul points upwards to God – love always trusts and always hopes.  That is not easy.  And back to the struggles here below again, it always perseveres.  That kind of persistent endurance of inter-church tensions can easily take us beyond ourselves. 

Paul’s great list is a bit like the Law of Sinai.  A wonderful revelation of what is right and good, but beyond our ability to keep.  And so, let 1 Corinthians 13 not only confront your struggle to love like Jesus.  Let it also point you to Jesus.  We can only love at all because God has first loved us.  May our hearts be so captivated by his love that our churches increasingly look like the body of Christ!  We can only live this life in the flesh by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us.

4 Love is patient, love is kind.

~

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others,

it is not self-seeking,

it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

~

7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

1 Corinthians 13:4–7 (NIV)

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Applicational Preaching

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

So many people seem to want to listen to preaching that is “applicational.” I understand the impulse. After all, who would want to listen to non-applicational preaching? That sounds like preaching that is not relevant to my life and will not make a difference.

Actually, if we are talking about preaching that is relevant to life and genuinely transformative, then I am completely on board with that desire. The problem is that when we talk about “applicational preaching” it can fall short of what we really need. Here are some of the potential weaknesses:

1. Applicational preaching can place emphasis on action points and to-do lists. Now, there is certainly a place for knowing what is expected of us at the end of a sermon. If a passage gives an instruction that applies to us, then we should certainly note it and look to obey it. However, is the Bible primarily an instruction list for life? Some sermons give that impression, but perhaps that is missing something of the richness and purposefulness of God’s revelation.

2. Applicational preaching can point the listener in the wrong direction. When our preaching emphasizes what we must do, then the focus will tend to move toward our own willpower. Sermons that point the listener to their own discipline, their own choices, their own efforts, etc., are not the best sermons. And I don’t just mean they are not the most theologically impressive sermons. I also mean they are not the most effective sermons. Lives are not transformed by to-do lists. They can help, but they remain mostly on the surface. God is in the business of transforming lives from the inside out.

In order to see the full potential of any preaching or teaching ministry, I would encourage you to think about the ABCs of Application. Here is a brief explanation:

Bible Study Mistakes

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

I have recently posted a series of videos on common Bible study mistakes. We have probably all made some, or all, of these mistakes. Please take a look and see if these are helpful to you, or to anyone else you know.

Mistake 1: Proof-Texting – It is just so convenient to find a line of text that says what we want to say. But the danger is that we will not see the richness of the text as it was intended to be understood. It seems obvious once you say it, but it is good to remember that what God made it say is always better than what we can make it say! Click here for this video.

Mistake 2: Collapsing Correlations – When you are reading and you see something that reminds you of something else . . . perhaps a saying of Jesus, or a different epistle, and then you collapse both passages in together, then you are collapsing your correlations together. Easily done, but what if that other passage doesn’t mean the same thing? Click here for the video.

Mistake 3: Ignoring Background – Sometimes it is just easier to read the passage and ignore whatever background may be relevant to your study. Who has the time to think about distant geography, ancient customs, and foreign politics? Well, if we want to understand the Bible, we need to make sure we don’t ignore the background. Click here for this video.

Mistake 4: Genre Override – Apart from sounding like a cool concept, what is genre override? It is when you take some of the rules of interpreting a genre and let those rules run roughshod over your interpretation of the passage. “Since this passage is apocalyptic literature…” is the start of many misleading sentences! Of course, we need to be sensitive to the genre, but that is always a support to our being sensitive to the passage. Click here to find out more.

Mistake 5: Imposing Meaning – Our goal in Bible study is exegesis, that is, drawing out the meaning of the text as intended by the author. But when we impose meaning, we are doing eisegesis. That is, reading into the text what we want to see there. God’s Word is better than yours, or mine! Click here for more.

Mistake 6: Isolationist Confidence – Bible study is something we may do on our own a lot of the time. But we must be wary of isolationist confidence. When it is just me and the Bible, I can easily become overconfident in my own opinion. I may be on the right track, but very superficial. Or I might be wandering off into new (therefore heretical) theological territory. We need to think about the role of the community in our Bible study! Click here for this video.

Mistake 7: Tone-Deaf Reading – The Bible is not just a data store that we are to mine for theological truths or applicational points. It is interpersonal communication and so we need to make sure we are sensitive to the writer’s tone as we seek to make sense of what is written. Here is the link to this video.

I will probably add a few more, in due course. As ever with these things, if you are able to like, share, comment or subscribe to the YouTube channel, it is all helpful in encouraging the algorithm to share this content. Thanks!

Here is the playlist that contains these videos, plus others that are all related!

What’s the Big Deal with Worship?

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

What does gathered worship do?  Sometimes it can make our souls soar.  Other times not so much.  It is easy to understand why non-believers scratch their heads at Christian worship.  If I saw a small group of people awkwardly singing, listening to someone talk about an old book, and sharing a tiny amount of bread and wine, I’d scratch my head too.

As I anticipate returning to Poland for the European Leadership Forum, I am reminded of the sacrifices made by so many during the Communist era.  Russian Baptist pastor, Yuri Sipko, remembers Christians who were sent to prison camps or lost their jobs or their children. “Without being willing to suffer, even die for Christ, it’s just hypocrisy.  It’s just a search for comfort.”  Challenging words, but ponder this thought: “You need to confess him and worship him in such a way that people can see this world is a lie.”

What does gathered worship do?  It declares that this world is a lie.

At the end of Revelation 3, we find that famous verse about Jesus standing at the door and knocking.  He was knocking on the door of the church at Laodicea, but would they open the door and let him in?  They thought they had everything they needed, but actually, they desperately needed Jesus.  As we turn to chapter 4 and John’s great vision from Jesus continues, we find the heavenly door is open for John to come up and participate in the ultimate worship gathering.

In Revelation chapters 4-5, we get to glimpse the ultimate worship gathering, and it reminds us what gathered worship does.  Here are five things that gathered worship does:

1. Worship centres us around God’s throne. (4:1-2)  In worship, we are invited, by Jesus, to gather at the throne of God.  In Eugene Peterson’s Reversed Thunder, he points out how we live in a world that feels like a storm-tossed sea.  We are thrown all over the place by every wind, every wave, every advert, every news story, every problem, and every threat.  But as Christians, we have an anchor that holds us firm, gives us a circumference, and centres us.  God is on the throne, so there can be a constant source of stability in my heart and life. Gathering with God’s people to sing his praise is an anchor point in the frenetic chaos of life.

2. Worship gathers God’s people around his throne. (4:3-11)  In this glorious vision, there is layer upon layer of rich meaning.  The vibrant colours seem to reflect God’s holiness and justice, as well as his life-giving nature as the Creator.  The 24 elders probably represent the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles of the Church (there is debate on all these details, of course).  Perhaps they represent God’s great work through the centuries to reveal his plan and rescue people for himself.  Then there are the four living creatures – a picture of God’s creation (noble, strong, wise, and swift), and some have seen here four glimpses into the person of Jesus Christ.  God’s people, God’s creation, all falling down and worshipping God on the throne.  In worship, we are united together, not only with one another but also with God himself, in the uniquely trinitarian worship we find in the Bible.

3. Worship points us to Christ and his payment. (5:1-7) At the start of chapter 5, John is struck by the disconnect between God’s greatness and the need of humanity.  The sealed scroll, Earth’s title deed, God’s plan of judgment – its existence underlines that no human is worthy to open the seals.  Even apart from the judgment context of Revelation, our gathered worship cannot be satisfied with just lauding God the Creator for his power and majesty.  Christian worship always points us to Christ and his payment.  John turned to see the Lion of the Tribe of Judah and was confronted by the slain Lamb.

4. The Lion/Lamb Redeemer stirs greater songs of worship. (5:8-13)  When God’s people encounter God’s goodness and grace, they sing.  Moses, Miriam, Deborah, David, Mary, Angels, Jesus and the Disciples, Paul and Silas – they all sang.  When we become aware of who he is and what he has done, then we will sing too.  In chapter four, there were two songs to the Creator (4:8, 4:11).  Now the singing swells as more voices join in and more richness is reflected in two songs to the Redeemer (5:9-10, 5:12).  Finally, there is one song to both the Creator and the Redeemer combined (5:13).

5. Worship finishes with a great Amen! – the ultimate reality of God’s person and plan is definitively affirmed!  (5:14)  If you think about it, we humans have a history of saying no to God.  We are all quite adept at saying no.  But Revelation 4-5 underlines that in the end God’s great yes will overcome every one of our noes.  In worship, we are confronted by the reality of God the Creator King on his throne, and of God the Redeeming Lion/Lamb, and we cry out, “Yes!”  When we worship together, we get a pre-taste of what is to come.  “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”  Gathered worship is like an anchor to both the future, when all our questions will be answered, and to the ultimate reality in the present – that God is on the throne and he has redeemed us.

So what does gathered worship do?  It declares that this world is a lie.  More than that, it centres us around the throne of God – for God is on the throne whatever we may be facing down here.  It gathers God’s people around his throne – for God is worthy of every note of praise that can be uttered by any part of his creation.  It points us to Christ and his payment – for we worship not only in response to the majesty on the throne but also to the scars on that Lamb.  It stirs us to sing greater songs of worship – for God the Creator and our Lion/Lamb Redeemer.  It definitively affirms the ultimate reality of God’s person and plan – for in the end we will cry out our great “Yes!” and “Amen!” to God.

Whether we are gathering in a great crowd at a Christian event, or with a handful of dear saints on a Sunday, let us appreciate the privilege of gathered worship and declare with joy that this world is a lie.

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Sipko quote from Live Not By Lies, by Rod Dreher, p185-6.

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Remembering George Verwer (1938-2023)

/ Peter Mead / 5 Comments

I just heard that George Verwer went to heaven late last night (14th April 2023).  So many memories are swirling as I remember all that George has meant to me and my family.  It is hard to overstate how much God has used George in our lives.

I probably met George when I was two years old at the commissioning service for the Doulos.  I don’t remember that, of course.  My earliest memory of George was being introduced to him by my Dad after a service in Bristol.  I was a teen.  I was struck by George’s enthusiastic greeting of my Dad – “One of God’s faithful warriors in Italy!”  It was George’s invitation back in 1962 that motivated my Dad to go over to Europe that summer, indirectly resulting in my parents going to Italy as missionaries.

Once I was introduced to George, he stayed in touch.  It is easy to think of George the public speaker, but many thousands also know of the George who continued to care for the next generation of OM kids.  He had no connection to me except my Dad’s involvement in OM thirty years before, but that was plenty for George.  I remember him phoning me one day.  He was on a train in Scotland and he wanted to let me know that he was praying for me.  Getting a phone call like that as a teen rocked my world.  I used to listen to cassettes of George preaching – those messages consisted of a sort of overflow of his energy, his drive, his gospel passion, and his transparency, blended with some oft-repeated doses of his humour. 

He often told of the time in Pakistan when a pigeon dropped a mess onto the sleeve of his suit.  “Praise God that elephants can’t fly!”  He would tell of the time he lost his temper with his long-suffering wife, Drena, kicked a box which turned out to be full of books, and stormed out of the house in pain, only to re-enter the house by the back door and repent of his sinful outburst.  He would share honestly about his struggles with lust.  He would pour out stories and statistics of the great need in the world.  He would recount God’s goodness through the years of OM’s history.  And somehow it would all fit together in one message.

When I spent a year serving on the OM Ship, the Logos 2, I got to work alongside George a little.  His gopher (travel companion and assistant) and I went to collect George and Dale Rhoton (co-founder of OM) from LA Airport.  George didn’t like the idea of waiting for Dale so he found an empty row of seats and sat down.  When we came back with Dale 45 minutes later George had covered a huge area of airport floor with piles of paperwork that he swiftly collected together.  It was a privilege to listen to George and Dale chatting together in the back of the car.  The third member of the original Send the Light trip to Mexico, Walter Borchard, also joined George during the 40th anniversary celebrations onboard.  (Note – I heard that Walter also went to be with the Lord just a few days before George did.)

I secretly prayed for some months about becoming George’s gopher as I really aspired to the role.  On my 21st birthday, he was onboard the ship and called for me to come to his room.  He found out it was my birthday and so gave me a half-eaten bar of Dairy Milk, as well as a bag full of correspondence that he thought I should look through.  More important than English chocolate, he asked if I’d ever considered being his gopher.  I was so thankful and promised to continue praying about it.

I met up with George again at the OM conference in De Bron, NL, that September.  We went for a walk around the conference site.  He had just left the skylight on his bus open and his wife’s laptop had been rained on.  He was feeling very guilty about that.  He asked again about the gopher role for the following year.  Maybe he sensed my hesitation, because he immediately followed up with, “you’ve met a girl?”  I explained that I had met a girl in Portland.  Of course, George knew her parents – also OMers from back in the earlier years.  “Ah!  Good Brethren stock!”  Actually, Melanie’s parents had met on an OM team, so Melanie’s very existence was a result of George’s ministry! He had prayed for her family for years too. I was disappointed to not be his gopher, but was encouraged by his understanding of my desire to go to seminary and not be travelling in the year before we married.

During the seminary years that followed, my wife and I pondered where our future might lie.  We wanted to be involved in missions.  But where?  We explored options all over the world but no doors seemed to be opening.  Then one day my mother-in-law passed me a note: George wanted me to call him.  I called him from the phone in the seminary building.  He asked me, “Are you prepared to leave America?  I know a lot of people like the salary that they can get from a US church. And I’d hate to see you stuck in a classroom teaching somewhere.”  I assured him that we were looking at missions options rather than salaries and we planned to leave the US.  “Come and be based here in the UK, we need trained Bible teachers like you. The UK is a place of real nee too . . . let me help you launch…”

Our church leaders all felt that this invitation was of God and they gladly sent us to be based in the UK with ministry details still to be determined.  Lots of people in OM warned us that George would not be arranging meetings for me and it might end in disappointment.  It turned out I did not need George to arrange meetings. I was happy to work loosely in his team and arrange my own opportunities with God’s help.  As it turned out, we ended up living next door to George and Drena for that first year.  Our third child was born “through the bedroom wall” of our adjoining houses.  He enjoyed that little fact.  “Which one of you was born next door?” he would ask my children on later visits.

During our time living next door to George, I enjoyed a number of walks with George as we talked about life and ministry and navigating the complexities of theological disputes and issues in world missions.  My wife and I enjoyed a meal out with George and Drena.  I was so enjoying his story of how he had been banned from India for smuggling two typewriters, but then saw the look on Drena’s face – she had endured a lot at George’s side.  The weekly prayer meeting at Forest Hill was always so much better when George was there.  He would whistle through worship songs, sort his mail during various phases of the meeting, spill little tidbits of random OM history in reference to any guests that happened to be there, and refer to an awful lot of ministry as “tremendous.”  George had a way of building people up, and building up their contribution to world missions – even though most would have felt massively intimidated by George’s global impact!

What was George’s impact?  George was a pioneer.  In an age where missionary boards wanted seminary graduates, George pioneered a missionary force of willing volunteers.  In a time when missionaries made a career commitment, George saw the value in short-term teams.  Then there was the idea of getting a ship – totally crazy, but God was in that craziness.  Mexico, Europe, behind the Iron Curtain, India, the Middle East and North Africa, etc . . . all across the world George’s pragmatic pioneering spirit has spread with OM.  And then there are the hundreds or thousands of ministries that have launched out of OM.  People who came to OM for a couple of months or a couple of years, but went on to have lifelong ministries under a different banner.  George’s impact and legacy as a missions pioneer is vast.

George was a prolific speaker.  If you were looking for careful expository preaching, that wasn’t George.  But if you were ready to hear the overflow of a life set on fire by Jesus, then George was pure gold.  Whether it was in front of thousands of students at Urbana, or a handful of saints in a little church, George spoke (often while holding a giant inflatable globe) and lives were marked.  The last time I heard him preach he had three sets of seven points.  It was classic George.  But it was still so good.  He might have been known as a “pied piper missionary speaker,” but his greater passion was always “reality in Jesus” – he knew that if people experienced that revolution of love that comes from really knowing Jesus, then missions involvement would follow naturally.

George believed and preached the radical grace of God for undeserving sinners. He would say, “Where two are three are gathered in my name, sooner or later there will be a mess.” It was not just a humourous line to get a laugh. It was the reality he lived time and again. People mess up, and God’s grace is critical. George would preach about that grace, and then he would live it as a leader drawing alongside strugglers as a fellow struggler and recipient of God’s great grace.

You might assume that George’s impact was all about leadership and speaking. After all, he was the International Director of OM (until 2003), a global missions pioneer, and had a full speaking schedule (apparently he dropped from 900x per year to just 350x per year after he retired!)  But even if he spoke multiple times in a week, there were still so many hours outside of those slots – George wanted to use all of his hours for Jesus.  Living next door for a season and working alongside him during those years, I noted several ministries that could easily be overlooked. 

Prayer.  George prayed for people.  He had his gopher put pictures of people on his phone so he could pray for people when he was on the London Underground and lost his phone signal.  If he couldn’t be talking to someone, then he could be talking to God about someone. He had photo albums full of ancient prayer cards – one day he knocked on our door to show us pictures of Melanie and me as little children.  Another time we had guests and our friend was shocked to meet George for the first time as he held out a picture of her with her family when she was a toddler – he’d pray through these collections of memories again and again. In these last years, George was excited to know that our children also went out with OM – to Ireland, to Albania, and to the Logos Hope. That’s three generations involved in missions, in part, because of George’s prayers.

Connecting.  George would get a phone call from someone.  He would introduce them to someone else.  He literally multiplied his ministry by connecting people to other people that could be an encouragement to them.  He asked me to get in touch with an evangelist that could do with a friend.  It might have seemed like a mess, but the chaos continually spawned more ministry fruit.

Giving.  George was one of those people who God seemed to trust with money.  After raising funds for OM over the years, he focused on his Special Projects for the last twenty years.  Bibles, books, the Dalit Freedom Network, under-supported OMers, etc.  George was constantly passing on funds to where they were needed most.  Only eternity will reveal just how much money was recycled for God’s work through George.  His extreme frugality was well-known in OM (George and Drena trading their wedding cake for gas to drive to Mexico is a well-known story from the early years).  He repented of some of the more legalistic emphases that grew out of his own personality quirks, but that frugality surely led to him being trusted as a faithful conduit of Kingdom funds.

Books.  You can’t have met George and overlooked his passion for books.  Every meeting had an overflowing book table, with his incessant attempts to convince people to take books (post-date a cheque for a year beyond your college graduation!)  His book pushes were superb.  There was Operation World, of course. Grace Awakening – how many times did he push Swindoll’s classic (and mention that the first section was a bit dull, which somehow didn’t seem to put you off reading it!)  Calvary Road – he loved Roy Hession books and worked with the Roy Hession Trust for many years.  He would refer to A.W.Tozer books just sizzling away on the book table.  And his own, Hunger for Reality and Revolution of Love were two powerful examples from the earlier years.  Then Messiology came later – some of his most controversial comments compiled in a book.  Yes, George had a passion for books that came through in every meeting.  But he didn’t stop outside of meetings.  He was constantly sending packages of books, plus calendars, and single sheet papers on subjects like making a prayer meeting work.  If you were on George’s mailing list, then these packages would reassure you that you were in his prayers too.

It was so sad to hear that George was nearing the end.  If you haven’t seen his final blog, please click here to do so.  Right to the end he spoke of the many who still need Jesus.  Hundreds of thousands have been involved in missions directly or indirectly because of George.  That means millions will have heard the gospel directly or indirectly because of George.  To many of us, George was a hero. Of course, he was no superhero.  He was far too real for that.  And he was definitely a little bit quirky and unique too. But he was a hero to my wife and me because of how God used him to mark our lives so profoundly.

Today I grieve for George and I also praise God for his willingness to give his all for Jesus. I will miss his energy and drive, I will miss his passion for Jesus and world missions, and I will miss his love for me and my family. I know there will be many around the globe who are sad at George’s passing, yet thrilled at George’s promotion.  Maybe one of his crowns could be a global jacket like he so often wore.  He will be thrilled to cast that down before his Lord!