Local induction

It was good to be in Finchley on Saturday for the induction of Spencer Cunnah to the pastorate at the nearby Kensit Memorial Church, oops Kensit Evangelical Church that should be. Former pastor Philip Eveson chaired and the preacher was my father-in-law Geoff Thomas, who preached (having escaped the floods of the Aber area) an excellent sermon (see the basis text here). So it was a rather Welsh affair Spencer and his wife Wendy, like myself, being Welsh and Aberystwyth University graduates. The Finchley church, despite being on the same site as the LTS, has been without a pastor for several years and they are very grateful to have found another Welshman (Andrew Davies was the previous pastor). Despite the rain we've been having Saturday afternoon proved to be nice and sunny in North London and so we enjoyed an excellent tea on the lawn. We'll be having deja vu when the LTS end of year takes place in a fortnight's time.

Me, eating an oyster

The things you can do in London, eh?

Quotations on election and purpose

Election
Never confuse election with partiality. Partiality is favoritism that is corrupted by a willingness to pervert justice for the sake of the favored few; election chooses certain people out of God’s free decision and nothing else, and even then justice is not perverted: hence the cross.

Don Carson

Man' s chief end

The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives. or children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows; but God is the substance. They are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the ocean. Therefore it becomes us to spend this life only as a journey toward heaven, as it becomes us to make the seeking of our highest end and proper good, the whole work of our lives; to which we should subordinate all other concerns of life. Why should we labour for, or set our hearts on anything else, but that which is our proper end, and true happiness?

Jonathan Edwards

Anniversaries 2013

Carbon print of a photograph by Thomas Annan
restored by Adam Cuerdon 

I've just been looking around to see what anniversaries are coming up next year, especially of a Christian sort. Perhaps most obvious is the anniversary of the birth of David Livingstone 1813-1873. Then there is the Heidelberg Catechism, the anniversary of which  coincides with the completion of the Council of Trent the same year. That latter event was marked 400 years later by Vatican II, now fifty years back itself. 1963 is also the year when not only Kennedy died but also A W Tozer and C S Lewis (the latter on the same day as the assassination).

Significant Puritan anniversaries include the death of Isaac Ambrose 1604-1663 and the birth of Cotton Mather 1663-1728. In Scotland they will no doubt be marking the birth of the theologian George Gillespie 1613-1648 and the death of the theologian David Dickson 1583-1663. (Jeremy Taylor was also born in 1613). The Christian man's calling by George Swinnock appeared in 1663.

Given the subject, it is perhaps worth noting that Eusebius the first church historian lived c 263-339. In 313 the Edict of Milan was passed giving freedom to Christians in the Roman Empire.

Camus L'Etranger

Alan Davey put me on to the fact that Albert Camus' novel sometimes known in English as The Stranger and sometimes as The Outsider was being commended to Christians by Leland Ryken. See here. It is a book I have long been aware of and so I got hold of a copy (a Penguin paperback) and found it an easy enough read as the book is short, well written and quite gripping. I guess you are supposed to sympathise with the protagonist, which I did not but that did not spoil it. It is quite an old book now (from 1954) and lacks the impact it might have had because such existential thinking has become more common. It is still a though provoking and interesting book and worth a read. I enjoyed it so much I got straight on to The Plague but that's a longer book and I am taking it at a more leisurely pace.

Gwent Archive Ebbw Vale

I made a brief trip to South Wales last week. I'm not sure I've ever been all the way to Ebbw Vale before  but that was my main destination. That's where they keep the Gwent archive these days in the old general office of the former steel works. I was checking out Micah Thomas there (see my blog here) but also had a chance to say a quick hello to my sister and kids (they were busy playing rounders down by the boating lake). I also went to Abergavenny where Thomas ministered.

Namesake with a bee problem

Of mild interest perhaps 
Busting a hive of bustling bees
It started with a dead bee found inside the house and it ended with a hive of 15-thousand bees safely moved to another location. Gary Brady found the bee in the house and after further investigation realized that he had a been problem in his wall. Brady relied on Tony Sandoval of BBE Tech in Omaha to apply his expertise in safely removing bees and relocating the hive. This project was also a John At Work assignment in which Sandoval and a rookie serving alongside for the removal. My job was to mellow the bees on cue with puffs pine needle smoke from a billow-like contraption. The hive was located on the side of the house where the air conditioning pipe entered the building. ....

Deaths of Bible Commentators

A recent post listed the main evangelical whole Bible commentators. Few individuals have managed to work their way through the whole Bible preaching or commentating, though some have. Most fail part way through.

Matthew Henry, the most famous of them, preached through the Bible but his commentary only goes to Acts 28 which he reached April 17 1714, dying on June 22, 66 days later. He had done quite a bit of work on the rest, especially on Romans and Revelation but other hands had to finish it.

In his diary he sometimes noted when others died seeking to do something similar. On November 17 1707 he wrote "November 17. 2 Kings xi. to v. 16. I find that just here Peter Martyr [Vermigli] was in his learned Expositions when he fell sick and died. Lord, our times are in thy hand." I've not found any other references to this.

Calvin got to Ezekiel 20:44 in his lectures on February 2, 1564, and died shortly after, on May 27th. (He managed to finish the chapter before his death).

Matthew Poole got as far as Isaiah 58 before his sudden death on October 12, 1679.

La du du

Not far from home there is a Vietnamese restaurant called La du du (how would Chandler from Friends cope? It means papaya leaf). Ever since it opened I've been longing to take my daughter-in-law and son there, a she spent six months in Vietnam in her gap year. We finally got round to it last week and had an excellent time. I think it brought back a  lot of good memories for them and I enjoyed seeing that and enjoying a great meal (Sauté beef or Bò lúc lắc). Sibyl went with Bún Chả Giò Thịt Nướng (Char-grilled pork & spring rolls with noodles) and Rhodiri with Crispy skin chicken (Cơm Gà Da Giòn)

Teulu ar y teledu

If you check here you should see Eleri and Gwion speaking about how wonderful our Queen is on Welsh TV (from about 1:07).

Bounchan Kanthavong

There is a remarkable interview with the recently released Laotian believer Bounchan Kanthavong here.

Lancaster Free Grace

This week has whizzed by so quickly I haven't had opportunity to say what a good weekend I had last weekend in the Free Grace Baptist Church in Lancaster. To celebrate their 30-something anniversary they had  a mini-conference on the Saturday and Sunday. The main speaker was Erroll Hulse on holiness but I also spoke on both days. The pastor Phil Arthur also gave us a presentation on Tyndale and one of the deacons spoke about the history of the church. I know Phil a little and it was good to meet other church members including his co-elders Clement and Jeff. An excellent time all round. More here.

Tolstoy on death

This is from the novella The death of Ivan Ilyich

And suddenly the matter presented itself in a quite different aspect. "Vermiform appendix! Kidney!" he said to himself. "It's not a question of appendix or kidney, but of life and ... death. Yes, life was there and now it is going, going and I cannot stop it. Yes. Why deceive myself? Isn't it obvious to everyone but me that I'm dying, and that it's only a question of weeks, days ... it may happen this moment. There was light and now there is darkness. I was here and now I'm going there! Where?" A chill came over him, his breathing ceased, and he felt only the throbbing of his heart.

... Ivan Ilych saw that he was dying, and he was in continual despair.

In the depth of his heart he knew he was dying, but not only was he not accustomed to the thought, he simply did not and could not grasp it.

The syllogism he had learnt from Kiesewetter's Logic: "Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal," had always seemed to him correct as applied to Caius, but certainly not as applied to himself. That Caius — man in the abstract — was mortal, was perfectly correct, but he was not Caius, not an abstract man, but a creature quite, quite separate from all others. ... 

"If I had to die like Caius I would have known it was so. An inner voice would have told me so, but there was nothing of the sort in me and I and all my friends felt that our case was quite different from that of Caius. and now here it is!" he said to himself. "It can't be. It's impossible! But here it is. How is this? How is one to understand it?"

He could not understand it, and tried to drive this false, incorrect, morbid thought away and to replace it by other proper and healthy thoughts. But that thought, and not the thought only but the reality itself, seemed to come and confront him. ... He would go to his study, lie down, and again be alone with *It*: face to face with *It*. And nothing could be done with *It* except to look at it and shudder.

More Doc Watson

Just one more, okay.

Doc Watson

With the death of the blind singer and guitarist Doc Watson the other day (May 29)  I thought we should have something up here to mark his passing. he was 89.