Taking every thought captive

I really enjoyed the BBC programme tonight on Galapagos, and look forward to seeing the other two in the series. Beautiful scenery, skillful photography, and enlightening commentary. What a pity Darwin got the glory, and not the Creator. The commentator almost came close to the truth when she started to mention how the islands were created, and I thought for one moment the BBC would give the Creator the credit and glory. But I should have known better: it was only the confluence of the currents that made the islands what they are. I must say, stating that marine iguanas evolved from land-based ones to adapt to the islands’ climate seemed to be stretching things a little. God didn’t make two kinds of iguana? But then how could he; he doesn’t exist. Sorry, I forgot, BBC. And, of course, the programme researchers know this to be a fact because they were there to see it, or have some reliable documentary evidence from those who saw it happen — something like the Bible, only true! Maybe for the next episode I should watch with the sound turned off, then my blood pressure might be a little less elevated.

This morning in the Tenth Presbyterian service, Marion Clark prayed that when our plans are frustrated we might not assume God’s plans are similarly frustrated.

It can be easy to follow that false line of thinking because we often forget that the timescale of eternity is not that of time. We can also make this fundamental mistake because we imagine God to be in our image.

But God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are our ways his ways (Is 55:8). The immense gap should warn us of the danger of attributing our frustration to God.

How foolish it seems in retrospect to attempt to judge one whose judgments are unsearchable and whose ways inscrutable. We rightly ask, “Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counsellor?” When our plans are frustrated we can and must say, “for from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory for ever. Amen” (Rm 11:33-36)

Neil Postman’s third commandment of the philosophy of teleducation is “thou shalt avoid exposition like the ten plagues visited upon Egypt” (Amusing Ourselves to Death, p. 148).

Oh, the uphill struggle of the true expository preacher!  It is not only teleducation that has been reduced to story-telling. The massive reorientation that has refashioned the classroom “into a place where both teaching and learning are intended to be vastly amusing activities” (p. 148) has impacted many more places besides. Postman believed children immersed in such teleducation would come to expect it “and thus be well prepared to receive their politics, their religion, their news and their commerce in the same delightful way” (p. 154). Twenty years on we are reaping the consequences in the Church of Christ.

And yet, there is hope, with the increasing interest in and practice of expository preaching. It’s Corinth all over again: spin doctors, sound bites, and stories versus preaching nothing but Christ and him crucified.

Yesterday I attended a funeral for the 23 year old son of friends. The young man, who poignantly had been with his parents at our wedding as baby, had spend the last 4 months battling against a rare neurological disorder.

At the graveside, his uncle read a passage from John 5 centred around verse 25 that brought very clearly into focus the Christan hope in the face of death. in his brief remarks, he told us that because of the medics’ inability to diagnose the cause of death accurately they had issued a temporary death certificate. He pointed out that this is the only kind of death certificate that can ever be issued for a Christian. How true, indeed, for “the sky, not the grave, is our goal”.

The words uttered glibly over the coffins of so many are most assuredly true, and comfortingly so, for genuine believers in Christ — we lay them to rest in an earthly grace “in sure and certain hope of resurrection”.

The challenge for us, who in the providence of God must continue our earthly pilgrimage a little longer, is to exercise the same obedient hearing of the voice of Christ that those who are asleep in him will exercise when her returns at the last day.