Topical
sermons & talks
2
Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful for a
man to divorce his wife?"
3
"What did Moses command you?" he replied.
4 They said, "Moses permitted a man to
write a certificate of divorce and send her away."
5
"It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this
law," Jesus replied.
6
"But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.'
7 'For this reason a man will leave his
father and mother and be united to his wife, 8
and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one.
9 Therefore what God has joined
together, let man not separate."
6
"But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.'
7 'For this reason a man will leave his
father and mother and be united to his wife, 8
and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one.
9 Therefore what God has joined
together, let man not separate." Mark 10
4
They said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce
and send her away."
5
"It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this
law," Jesus replied.
Mark 10
3. Divorce is always bad but
sometimes right
Although God permits it in certain
circumstances, it is never his intention (Malachi 2.16)
In what
circumstances does the Bible permit divorce?
a)
Marital unfaithfulness
32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife,
except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and
anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery. Matthew 5.32
But ‘marital unfaithfulness’ may be
too restrictive a translation of the Greek word porneia. There is another
Greek word moicheia which means adultery and this is not used. Porneia
probably means sexual sin in general.
b)
Desertion
But if the unbeliever leaves, let
him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances; God has
called us to live in peace. 1 Corinthians 7.15
What
about remarriage?
To the married I give this command
(not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. 11 But if she does, she must remain unmarried
or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.
1 Corinthians 7.10-11
10
When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this.
He answered, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman
commits adultery against her. 12 And if
she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery."
Mark 10.10-12
These two passages taken together
would appear to rule out remarriage altogether but there is another verse we
need to consider which contains the so-called ‘Matthean exception’:
9
I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital
unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery." Matthew
19.9
Some Christians say that the
teaching of the New Testament is so clear and conclusive that remarriage is
wrong that it would be inconsistent to read the Matthean exception as
permitting remarriage. People in this group
argue that it merely permits divorce, not remarriage as well.
Many in this group maintain that
divorce does not end a marriage but merely creates a state akin to a legal
separation. This group are often called indissolubilists because they
believe that it is impossible to dissolve a marriage and that divorced
people remain married to each other in the sight of God. This, they argue, is why remarriage after divorce
is always adulterous and explains why Jesus says in Mark 10. 11-12
"Anyone who divorces his wife
and marries another woman commits adultery against her. 12 And if she divorces her husband and marries
another man, she commits adultery."
Other Christians say that the
Matthean exception must be read as a real exception and that its plain sense is
to refer to both divorce and remarriage. They point out that the
principal Old Testament passage about divorce, Deuteronomy 21.1-4 assumes
remarriage after divorce and only condemns it in one limited context:
If
a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something
indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her
and sends her from his house,2 and if
after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, 3 and her second husband dislikes her and
writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his
house, or if he dies, then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed
to marry her again after she has been defiled. That would be detestable in the
eyes of the LORD.
4
This
group also believes that marriage is not indissoluble. They appeal to Jesus words in Mark 10.9 which imply that the
marriage bond can in fact be broken: (they imply that the marriage bond can be
broken even though it shouldn’t be)
Therefore what God has joined together,
let man not separate."
1.
Remarriage is never right
2.
Remarriage is sometimes right
Individual believers have
to agree to differ on this important issue. Some will be unable to accept
remarriage in any circumstances. Others will be able to accept in some
circumstances and not others. A third group whilst accepting the principle of
remarriage, will not accept a remarriage in church.
What should our attitude be to the phenomenon of divorce?
1.
Compassion
and acceptance for those who have been divorced or are experiencing marriage
difficulties
2.
A sober
realization of how seriously God views divorce and of the harm that divorce
causes society
3.
A
concern to strengthen marriages (including our own) within the church and
society at large.
Worship
and the Future of Worship (a spectrum talk)
1. What
is worship?
At one level this is something
every Christian knows the answer to. Worship is what we do in church. It is an
activity involving praise, thanksgiving, prayer, the word of God and the
sacraments. We talk about an ‘act of worship’ or a service of ‘worship.’
But are
we using the right terminology? What actually is worship, biblically speaking?
The
meaning of the word ‘worship’ : the English word means ‘worthship’ – ie giving
someone special honour in accordance with their word. The main Biblical terms
for worship emphasise bowing down, paying homage and expressing submission and
obedience.
The
heart of Old Testament worship was the offering of sacrifices to God. To do
this you needed:
·
the Temple, the holy place where God’s presence dwelt and the placed
appointed by God to offer him sacrifices
·
an altar, the place on which to offer the sacrifice
·
a priest, the person appointed by God to offer the sacrifice and to
be the mediator or go-between between God and man
·
the sacrifice – something to sacrifice, usually an animal of some kind
Moving
to the New Testament we find everything has changed:
There is no temple, no priesthood,
no altar, and nothing to sacrifice. Christians
have no need of special buildings (temples), special people (priests), or
places on which to offer sacrifices (altars), because the Old sacrificial
system is now obsolete because Christ has fulfilled it and completed it and
thereby, made it redundant.
In fact,
Jesus himself is the temple, altar, sacrifice, and priest of the Christian
faith as the following verses indicate
Sacrifice:
Jesus Hebrews
9.24-28; 10.10
Altar: Jesus Hebrews 13.9-10
Temple: Jesus
John 2.19-22
Priest Priest Jesus Hebrews 4.14, 5.10;
7.23-28; 10.11-12
Instead,
wherever Christians meet, there Christ is by his Spirit. Christian ministers
are presbyters (elders) not priests and their task is to pastor and to teach
not offer sacrifices.
Christian
Worship
Therefore,
I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living
sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. (Romans 12. 1)
This key
verse which comes after Paul’s panoramic eleven-chapter account of the Gospel,
indicates that true Christian Worship is:
So, What
about what goes on in Church? Should we call it worship at all?
Worship is
much more than what goes in a ‘service of worship.’ Even in the Old Testament
acts of worship that did not flow from lives consecrated to God were not
acceptable him – see Isaiah 1. Romans 12, makes it clear that worship is about
an offering to God of the whole of your life, nonetheless what goes on in church should and can be part
of that. What goes on in church, then, is an aspect of worship but not the
whole of worship.
Our meetings and services of
worship however also have a horizontal dimension and are not ‘only for
God.’ They are also for the for teaching, encouragement and edification of
Christians.
In Ephesians Paul in speaking of
the gathering of Christians to sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs speaks of
both a horizontal and vertical dimension to their meetings, exhorting them to
sing or speak both to the Lord and to one another.
19
Speak to one another with
psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the
Lord, 20 always giving thanks to God
the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ Ephesians 5.19-20
There
are to edify and build up one another even as they sing to the Lord. Church
meetings and services are as much about fellowship as they are about worship.
The earliest account of the meetings of the first Christians describes them
like this:
They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the
fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
-
Acts 2.42
·
It allows everyone to join in
·
It frees us from dependence on the
temperament or experience of the leader
·
It can offer a doctrinally and biblically sound
basis for worship
·
You know in advance
whether you can say ‘Amen’ to it
·
It allows you to memorise the
words so that they become part of you
4. Where
is worship going?
·
Alternative forms of worship
(youth, Celtic, dance culture etc)
·
Charismatic worship
·
Multi-congregational churches/
Niche congregations
·
Cell churches
·
Family worship at home
·
Common Worship
5. Some
Questions
a.
A meal (Matthew 26.17-30)
b.
A meal commanded by Christ (1 Cor 11.23-26)
c.
A meal in remembrance of Christ (1
Cor 11.23-26)
d.
A proclamation of Christ’s death
(1 Cor 11.26)
2. What
happens during communion?
a. The Church of Rome’s view: the bread changes into the body of Christ
(transubstantiation)
b. Luther’s view: the bread contains the body of Christ materially
present (consubstatiation)
c. Zwingli’s view: the
bread represents the body of Christ symbolically
d. Calvin’s view: the
believer when he eats with faith truly partakes of Christ who is present spiritually,
not materially.
Calvin’s view is
essentially that enshrined in the Articles of the Church of England (see below) .The essence of this view is
that it is receptionist. It involves no physical change in the bread and
wine and depends on the faith of the recipient. When there is true faith there
is a true feeding upon Christ. The invitation to communion brings this out:
Draw
near with faith
receive
the body of our Lord Jesus Christ which he gave for you
and his
blood which he shed for you
eat and
drink in remembrance that he died for you
and feed
on him in your hearts
by faith
with thanksgiving.
What
does it mean to feed upon Christ spiritually? What does God do during Holy
Communion? If we understand communion as a sign, as powerful message
from God to us (it is important incidentally to understand that communion, like
baptism, operates in that direction: from heaven to earth and not the other way
round), what is communion’s essential message?
It
speaks to us of Christ’s death and what he has achieved for us on the cross and
it acts as a word of comfort, reassurance, promise, and love from God. The 1662
communion service speaks of the bread and wine as ‘pledges of his love’ and in
the prayer of thanksgiving after communion says that as we ‘receive the
spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood’ of Christ, so God:
‘dost
assure us thereby of (his) favour and goodness towards us; and that we are very
members incorporate in the mystical body of (his) Son…and also heirs through
hope of (his) everlasting kingdom, by the merits and passion of (his) dear
Son…’
In other
words God assures us that he loves, that we belong to him, and that we shall be
with him forever.
3. Who
should receive communion?
If
the receptionist view is correct then any one who has faith should be able to
receive communion. In the New Testament all believers were baptized and so we
could say any baptized believer should be able to receive communion. This
raises two further questions:
What
about confirmation?
Confirmation is often seen as the
gateway to communion in the Church of England but (1) strictly speaking you
don’t have to be confirmed, only ‘desirous of confirmation’ or a communicant
member of another church; (2) confirmation has not always been widely practiced
in the past for logistical reasons (3) it is baptism not confirmation in
biblical terms that is the real gateway to communion because this is the means
by which a person comes to Christ and joins his family
Confirmation might be better seen
as the rite of adult commitment to Christ and less as a qualifier for
communion.
What
about children?
Here are some questions to think
about:
·
Should children be admitted to
communion before confirmation after suitable preparation (as is now
permissible from age 7)?
·
Or should the children of
Christian parents receive communion from infancy?
·
What justification is there for
giving baptism to infants but not communion?
·
Is there any evidence in scripture
of a baptized people who cannot receive communion?
·
Should Christian children be
admitted to the communion meal in the way Jewish children were admitted to the
Passover meal? Or does communion require a level of understanding of which
infants are not capable? In which case what about adults who are not capable of
this degree of understanding eg those with severe learning difficulties?
4. How
can I make the most of communion?
·
Come prepared
·
Come believing
·
Come expectant
THE VIEW FROM THE 39 ARTICLES
THE Supper of
the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among
themselves, one to another, but rather it is a sacrament of our redemption by
Christ's death: insomuch that to such as rightly, worthily, and with faith
receive the same, the bread which we break is a partaking of the body of
Christ, and likewise the cup of blessing is a partaking of the blood of Christ.
Transubstantiation (or the change of the substance of bread and wine) in the
Supper of the Lord, cannot be proved by Holy Writ, but is repugnant to the
plain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament, and hath
given occasion to many superstitions.
The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper, only after an
heavenly and spiritual manner. And the mean whereby the body of Christ is
received and eaten in the Supper is Faith.
The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was not by Christ's ordinance reserved,
carried about, lifted up, or worshipped. (Article 28)
THE wicked and
such as be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press
with their teeth (as S. Augustine saith) the sacrament of the body and blood of
Christ, yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ, but rather to their
condemnation do eat and drink the sign or sacrament of so great a thing.
(Article 29)
b. Baptism is a sign from God to us
c. It is a sign of :
¨
new birth (Galatians 3.26-27, Colossians.2.11-13)
¨
being joined to Christ in his
death & resurrection (Romans 6.3-5, Colossians 2.11-13))
¨
being part of Christ’s body (1 Cor
12.13)
¨
being washed or cleansed from sin
(Acts 22.16)
d. Baptism is an effectual sign
e. Baptism does not work automatically
f. Baptism is not just a symbol or badge
2. Who
should be baptized and when?
a. In the New Testament people were baptized at the very
beginning of their Christian lives, without preparation, discipleship courses,
or time to prove themselves (Acts 2.41; 8.36-38; 9.18;16.14-15: 16.31-33)
b. People were baptized in a response to hearing the Gospel
(Acts 2.41; 8.36-38; 16.14-15: 16.31-33)
c. Baptism was commanded by Christ (Matthew 28.16-20)
d.
Were Children baptized?
The
baptism of children is never directly mentioned in the Bible, but
¨
Jewish children received the signs
of the Old Covenant: circumcision & Passover