How can we be confident and comforted as we live for Christ? Does it have to do with favourable external circumstances or can we be joy-filled, peaceful and secure in situations that rage against us. In this blog post John Piper ponders the lessons of Pilate’s authority over Jesus.
Pilate said to Jesus, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.” (John 19:10–11)
Pilate's authority to crucify Jesus did not intimidate Jesus.
Why not?
Not because Pilate was lying. Not because he didn’t have authority to crucify Jesus. He did.
Rather this authority did not intimidate Jesus because it was derivative. Jesus said, “It was given to you from above.” Which means it is really authoritative. Not less. But more.
So how is this not intimidating? Pilate not only has authority to kill Jesus. But he has God-given authority to kill him.
This does not intimidate Jesus because Pilate’s authority over Jesus is subordinate to God’s authority over Pilate. Jesus gets his comfort at this moment not because Pilate’s will is powerless, but because Pilate’s will is guided. Not because Jesus isn’t in the hands of Pilate’s fear, but because Pilate is in the hands of Jesus’s Father.
Which means that our comfort comes not from the powerlessness of our enemies, but from our Father’s sovereign rule over their power. This is the point of Romans 8:25–37. Tribulation and distress and persecution and famine and nakedness and danger and sword cannot separate us from Christ because “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:35–37).
Pilate (and all Jesus’s adversaries — and ours) meant it for evil. But God meant it for good (Genesis 50:20). All Jesus’s enemies gathered together with their God-given authority “to do whatever God’s hand and God’s plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 4:28). They sinned. But through their sinning God saved.
Therefore, do not be intimidated by your adversaries who can only kill the body. Not only because this is all they can do (Luke 12:4), but also because it is done under the watchful hand of your Father.
Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows. (Luke 12:6–7).
Pilate has authority. Herod has authority. Soldiers have authority. Satan has authority. But none is independent. All their authority is derivative. All of it is subordinate to God’s will. Fear not. You are precious to your sovereign Father. Far more precious than the unforgotten birds.
Wednesday 15 August 2012
Monday 6 August 2012
Olympic Challenge
In 1Corinthians 9:24-27 Paul puts out the challenge to run the race of the Christian life well - like we want to win the prize.
On the last two Sundays we've been reflecting on this challenge and asking what the prize is, why how we run matters, what running well is and is not, how the gospel makes it possible and the role others can play in helping us (the spiritual equivalent of a running club, team, partner and coach.)
We've also used Will Rochfort's drawing to help us identify where we are when it comes to "the race"? Are we just about to start, have we been knocked down? Are we exhausted? Are we aimless and distracted? Are we looking like we're going to finish strong or are we only just going to make it over the line? Or, are we in the stands not quite sure still whether we want to get in the race at all? And then, critically, we asked what will help us to take the next step towards running well, what do we need?
It's been a big challenge but one, I hope, which also encourages us knowing that there is a prize; the crown of righteousness which comes to those saved by Christ and the prize of the "well done good and faithful servant" offered to all who have run well and finished strong.
Check out Olympic Challenge Part 1 http://bit.ly/Rt2rsa
Part 2 http://bit.ly/O1mA4X
On the last two Sundays we've been reflecting on this challenge and asking what the prize is, why how we run matters, what running well is and is not, how the gospel makes it possible and the role others can play in helping us (the spiritual equivalent of a running club, team, partner and coach.)We've also used Will Rochfort's drawing to help us identify where we are when it comes to "the race"? Are we just about to start, have we been knocked down? Are we exhausted? Are we aimless and distracted? Are we looking like we're going to finish strong or are we only just going to make it over the line? Or, are we in the stands not quite sure still whether we want to get in the race at all? And then, critically, we asked what will help us to take the next step towards running well, what do we need?
It's been a big challenge but one, I hope, which also encourages us knowing that there is a prize; the crown of righteousness which comes to those saved by Christ and the prize of the "well done good and faithful servant" offered to all who have run well and finished strong.
Check out Olympic Challenge Part 1 http://bit.ly/Rt2rsa
Part 2 http://bit.ly/O1mA4X
Wednesday 1 August 2012
The God's of Olympus
I thought this piece from LICC was thought provoking about the way in which we view sport in general and the Olympics in particular. I've been bothered for a while with the way people (politicians especially) look to the Olympics as a panacea. There's only one thing that's going to fix things......
Whatever you do, don’t utter the proverbial, ‘It’s only a game’. If you listen to politicians and administrators, the Olympics are the most important thing to happen to London, indeed the nation, in a generation. It’s about national morale and a major business venture. Sport has become socially, politically and economically useful.
But the affective power of sport is usually greater than the effective power of sport. As it happens, no recent summer games have produced proven significant economic benefits to the host city or country. Research also suggests it’s unlikely that the games will yield any increase in sports participation.
As for the claim that sport can make us better people, the evidence is that more often than not it correlates with anti-social behaviour. And as much as it brings people together, sport can also provide a patina of legitimacy for authoritarian regimes (e.g., Bahrain Grand Prix) or another venue for deep divides to be revealed, with athletes from some countries kept away from others in secluded areas.
So why do we indulge these sporting myths? There are, perhaps, two reasons.
First, a distorted Protestant work ethic continues to write itself large across our culture. Every human practice, we think, has to demonstrate its utility to justify itself. As historian Christopher Lasch says: ‘The degradation of sport... consists not in its being taken too seriously but in its subjection to some ulterior purpose, such as profit-making, patriotism, moral training, or the pursuit of health.’ Sport used to belong to the domain of leisure. Now it has been turned into work. We’ve managed to make it less fun than it should be.
Second, sport has begun to overtake us. For some Londoners, this has literally become the case with the building of the sport-industrial complex, and anxieties about certain freedoms being curtailed. The theologian Karl Barth placed sport – along with fashion and transport – amongst those powers of human creativity which threaten to overcome and enslave as much as liberate. Care must be taken that we do not become subject to their law, and their power, which we have released.
Rightly the Olympics will provide opprtunities for connection and celebration. But we will do well to value sport for its intrinsic worth and reclaim it for the common good rather than reduce it to a tool of politics or economics. Enjoy the games, but don’t believe the hype.
Paul BickleyPaul Bickley is the Director of Political Programme for Theos and co-author of the Theos report Give us our Ball Back: Reclaiming Sport for the Common Good (2012), which explores more fully the issues raised above.
Whatever you do, don’t utter the proverbial, ‘It’s only a game’. If you listen to politicians and administrators, the Olympics are the most important thing to happen to London, indeed the nation, in a generation. It’s about national morale and a major business venture. Sport has become socially, politically and economically useful.
But the affective power of sport is usually greater than the effective power of sport. As it happens, no recent summer games have produced proven significant economic benefits to the host city or country. Research also suggests it’s unlikely that the games will yield any increase in sports participation.
As for the claim that sport can make us better people, the evidence is that more often than not it correlates with anti-social behaviour. And as much as it brings people together, sport can also provide a patina of legitimacy for authoritarian regimes (e.g., Bahrain Grand Prix) or another venue for deep divides to be revealed, with athletes from some countries kept away from others in secluded areas.
So why do we indulge these sporting myths? There are, perhaps, two reasons.
First, a distorted Protestant work ethic continues to write itself large across our culture. Every human practice, we think, has to demonstrate its utility to justify itself. As historian Christopher Lasch says: ‘The degradation of sport... consists not in its being taken too seriously but in its subjection to some ulterior purpose, such as profit-making, patriotism, moral training, or the pursuit of health.’ Sport used to belong to the domain of leisure. Now it has been turned into work. We’ve managed to make it less fun than it should be.
Second, sport has begun to overtake us. For some Londoners, this has literally become the case with the building of the sport-industrial complex, and anxieties about certain freedoms being curtailed. The theologian Karl Barth placed sport – along with fashion and transport – amongst those powers of human creativity which threaten to overcome and enslave as much as liberate. Care must be taken that we do not become subject to their law, and their power, which we have released.
Rightly the Olympics will provide opprtunities for connection and celebration. But we will do well to value sport for its intrinsic worth and reclaim it for the common good rather than reduce it to a tool of politics or economics. Enjoy the games, but don’t believe the hype.
Paul BickleyPaul Bickley is the Director of Political Programme for Theos and co-author of the Theos report Give us our Ball Back: Reclaiming Sport for the Common Good (2012), which explores more fully the issues raised above.
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