We have moved to www.theprognosis.org

I’ve just had a holiday. Like a real grown-up, I’ve been away, all by myself, for four days in Manchester. I think SAGA (of the zimmerframe speed dating, and not spikey haired hedgehog variety) call it a city break.

Ok, so technically, I wasn’t by myself for the whole time (I was staying with a friend), and as I did go to college there, the adventurous aspect of a trip away was somewhat nullified… but I did sit on a train, and go to a restaraunt, and go to the cinema, and go to the theatre and walk around alot all by myself. Proper grown up see.

And the rest was so good. Tomtom bangs on about it, and he’s right! ‘Rests are so good for the soul’ (I think that’s why he’s having such a long one soon). I was able to read a bit, sleep a bit, pray a little… all these old friends seemed more than willing to have a good old catch up. In fact, like every good preacher, God stated, and illustrated a very clear message that he wanted me to realise [Spoiler alert - if you happen to from our church, there's a strong to excellent chance you'll hear what is about to follow as an illustration some time in the near future].
 
I’ve been reading 2 Kings in the morning recently, and I’ve been using Dale Ralph Davies’ commentary to help. Very good too…

Incidentally, two thoughts:
i) Doesn’t Dale Ralph Davies use a lot of Civil War illustrations?
ii) Doesn’t Dale Ralph Davies look a bit like the Green Goblin himself, Willem Dafoe? Just fuzz up the picture a bit; take off the glasses, pop a Jonny Raine wig on his head, bend him over a pulpit and make him pray… Et viola! Spiderman’s nemisis is now a Hebrew scholar. 

Anyway; yesterday morning, I got to that strange story about the floating axehead in chapter 6. A bunch of sons of prophets (sounds like some sort of dis, doesn’t it?), take Elisha along with them to build a bigger barn for them all to live in. They start chopping wood near a river, and before you even get a chance to make a pun about a bunch of prophets ‘caught upstream without a paddle’ they’re literally caught upstream without a paddle‘ when one of them swings his axe straight into the deep end.

Of course, once again, it’s God to the rescue, through Elisha. The big man sticks a… er, stick into the water, and miraculously, the axehead starts floating. Panic over!

Now I know that the whole thing may not seem like too big a deal to us; but then again, most of don’t rely on axes to cut wood for shelter, or to cut wood for a fire to cook food… for us, a lost axe means a quick visit to B&Q; but for them, a lost axe, would probably have meant a close brush with death. Here’s the story;

The company of the prophets said to Elisha, “Look, the place where we meet with you is too small for us. Let us go to the Jordan, where each of us can get a pole; and let us build a place there for us to live.” And he said, “Go.” Then one of them said, “Won’t you please come with your servants?” “I will,” Elisha replied. And he went with them. 

They went to the Jordan and began to cut down trees. As one of them was cutting down a tree, the iron axhead fell into the water. “Oh, my lord,” he cried out, “it was borrowed!” The man of God asked, “Where did it fall?” When he showed him the place, Elisha cut a stick and threw it there, and made the iron float. “Lift it out,” he said. Then the man reached out his hand and took it.

One of Davies’ comments is so simple - look how the whole story hinges around Elisha simply ‘agreeing’ to go with them to play lumberjacks. Had he said no, the axe would still be at the bottom of the river. But simply because of the small detail, Elisha saying “I will”, they survived.

So that’s the stating. Now for the illustrating…

Later that day, I’d just met with a college friend, and walked with them to get their bike. Once they left, I checked my watch, and knew that if I was to get back to the other side of the city in time to get to the Hacienda exhibition I would have to walk quickly. I got half way back up Oxford Rd before realising that I hadn’t given another friend the book I’d bought for him, and turned back around. It added a lot of time. I wasn’t going to make it.

I got to Ellis’ coffee shop; we chatted briefly, and he gave me a coffee to go, and, more significantly, £2 to get the97 from the stop across the road, it was the only way I’d now make it in time. There’s about 3 buses a minute on Oxford Rd. I wasn’t waiting long. One arrived, and I got on. Within a couple of minutes, I was talking to the girl next me about Jesus. She wasn’t a Christian, but her parents are. This sort of thing has never happened before, but within another few minutes, we’d both got off the bus at the same stop, and after talking some more, I was praying with her outside Marks&Spencer’s.  

It almost never happened that way. But I see the point. Had I not remembered to take Ellis that book, I would never have got on the bus. Had I not spent a few minutes talking with him in the shop, I would have missed that bus. Had Elisha said ‘no’, then a bunch of Prophets would have gone hungry and cold. But God was there in the small detail.

What are us evangelicals banging on about at the minute? That’s right, atonement. I’m going to resist the temptation to tag Chalke in this post, but it’s because of this fella that this post really exists.

As we’ve discussed, at quite some length at proGnosis, exactly what is wrong with ‘liberal’ Christians theology we’ve come up with some quite varied answers. Some of us think just screwy Cross theology, some think screwy Christology, others that it’s down to a misunderstanding of the nature of sin…or God. Me, I think it comes down to authority, and the authority of scripture at that.

So me and Grudem were snuggled up in bed the other night and I thought, “Hey, let’s check out the preface, see what drives a guy to right ‘Systematic Theology’.” Interestingly enough Grudem had this to say:

“I do not think that a true system of theology can be constructed from within what we call the ‘liberal’ theological tradition- that is people who deny the absolute truthfulness of the Bible… this does not mean that those in the liberal tradition have nothing valuable to say; it simply means that differences with them almost always boil down to differences over the the nature of the Bible and its authority.”

It’s like this, if two people come together to play rugby, one decides he’s playing by union rules, the other by league rules, they’ll never agree as to whether a try was scored or not because they aren’t starting from the same place. And it’s the same with people who slam Jesus and what He did for us. They cannot be coming from the same place with regards to the authority of scripture. The same is true for all manner of areas of theological concern. Unless we agree on the inspired, infallible, absolute authority of the Bible, we aren’t going to see eye to eye on much.

In fact, I think that authority issues play a bigger part in this, after all isn’t sin an authority issue? Instead of letting God be in control man wants to be in control himself. It’s idolatry. And so with the Bible, people don’t want to be ‘told how it is’ by a dusty old book, no they’d prefer to remain in the driving seat. So, their morals lead them or some arbitrary framework leads them, anything other than an outside authority.

When it’s the root of sin, no wonder it’s the root of slander against the cross.