Reformational Christianity.

Posted on July 13, 2013 by pneumaandlogos

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Reformational Christianity is also known as Neo-Calvinism, probably because this whole movement exists within the Calvinistic movement. The roots of Reformational Christianity are to be found in the rediscovery by Abraham Kuyper and his colleagues of the greater vision that Calvin had of The Christ’s Sovereignty over area of life. This led Kuyper and his followers to stress the need for a Christian worldview.

Kuyper’s followers articulated this call for a worldview in various ways as I hope to demonstrate below at the outset I must warn against seeing this movement as one that is united in all of its philosophical and theological articulation.

In Holland Herman Dooyeweerd developed his own philosophical approach which saw creation as goodbut fallen and he tried to demonstrate that the whole of reality is divided into various spheres which should not be dominated by other spheres but rather that there is an interrelationship between…

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The Sanctifying Power of the Doctrine of the Trinity

Posted on July 11, 2013 by pneumaandlogos

The great doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not just some abstract thought, but it also points to the greatness of God’s saving work in our lives today. I want to look at this doctrine as it applies to our walk with God and the way that transforms our lives. It is necessary to see that we are being caught up into the plans of the eternal God, it is only our relationship with God that makes sense of our lives and gives them any purpose. As we draw closer to the Lord our lives are changed in a multitude of ways. We are conscious that we have become children of God through the work of Christ, who was sent by the Father into this world and we know this because the Holy Spirit has made this real to us. It is important to see this in Scripture, think about these familiar words that we say so often in Church,

 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God,     and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.  (2 Co 13:14).

We may use this verse as evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity,and it is but, it is far more than that, Paul here is praying that the believers may know the blessing of the Triune God. He wanted his readers to really grasp the life transforming depths of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, salvation is entirely a free gift of God we demerit salvation but God in his grace,love and mercy imparts salvation to us through the finished work of Christ. Down the ages as believers have seen the greatness of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, they have responded by living a life of gratitude to him. but this verse does not stop here it speaks about the love of God the Father, a love which is demonstrated to us by the fact that he sent his only Son into this world to save us, this love is incomprehensible it is so great and yet we live in the good of it. Yet how do we know all this in an experiential way and the answer to this is through the work of the Holy Spirit as he shares the love of God with us. The fact that the Holy Spirit indwells us and makes the work of the triune God real is one that should be a great comfort to us. It is The Holy Spirit who empowers us for living the Christian life, and it is he who opens our eyes to the truth of the Holy Scripture.

This overview of the work of the Holy Trinity is spelt out in much more detail elsewhere in the Scriptures, I can not hope to do justice to all the resources that are available to us in this short article, but let me give you some pointers.

John 14-15: These two chapters show that Jesus himself realised the importance of showing us something of the relationship between the three persons of the Trinity as that applies to our salvation. These verses from John 14 illustrate my point,

   Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12       Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13       And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14       You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

15       “If you love me, keep my commands. 16       And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—17       the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18       I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19       Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20       On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.  (Jn 14:11–20).

Notice here the relationship between the three persons of the Holy Trinity, Jesus speaks about asking the Father to give us the Holy Spirit and it is through the work of the Holy Spirit that we realise that we are united to Christ, Jesus continues to teach us about that union with him in chapter 15,

   “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2       He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3       You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4       Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5       “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6       If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7       If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8       This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
9       “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10       If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11       I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12       My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13       Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14       You are my friends if you do what I command. 15       I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16       You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17       This is my command: Love each other.

18       “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19       If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20       Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21       They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. 22       If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23       Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. 24       If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. 25       But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’

26       “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. 27       And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.
(John 15:1–27).

These verse show the extent of the love of Christ for his people, we are told to abide in him so that we will be fruitful, we are also told that the Father at times will prune us. Our fruitfulness is grounded in the fact that we are to abide in Christ. As we abide in Christ we will also know that Christ abides in us and that the Holy spirit as been given to us to empower us for the mission of God. I challenge you to meditate on these verses prayerfully, and you will see how life transforming they are.

Galatians 4-5. The book of Galatian is a book that demonstrates the importance of confessing that salvation is by God’s grace alone,Paul strongly argues against those who would try to add anything to god’s free gift but at the same time he demonstrates the reality of that salvation. Paul reminds us of the grand sweep of salvation in these verses,

         But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5       to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. 6       Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” 7       So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.

8       Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. 9       But now that you know God—or rather are known by God (Ga 4:4–9).

Here,we see once again that the Trinitarian structure of this passage leads us to the depths of our salvation. Paul puts before us the eternal plan of God, Jesus is sent to redeem us from the curs of the law, so that we might know that we are the adopted children of almighty God, and we know this through the work of the Holy Spirit within us testifying to the fact that we are God’s children. This shows that without a shadow a doubt that we are no longer under the condemnation of the law, but instead we are to live as the free children of God. Paul develops this thinking in chapter 5,

   You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14       For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15       If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
16       So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17       For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. 18       But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19       The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20       idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21       and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22       But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23       gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24       Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25       Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

(Ga 5:13–25).

In this passage Paul shows clearly the meaning of what it is to be a child of God, here he defines freedom, it is a freedom to live for God in the power of the Holy Spirit. A freedom that demonstrates its authenticity by acts of love toward God and man. Once again we see the dynamic work of the Holy Spirit producing fruit in our lives.

Conclusion: In this article I have tried to demonstrate the implications of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity for our lives as believers, I am very aware that I have only scratched the surface of this vast subject, and I hope that you will dig more into the Word of God for yourself because there are many treasures awaiting your discovery on this important subject.

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Who incited David to count the fighting men, God or Satan?

Posted on July 9, 2013 by pneumaandlogos

We sometimes come upon passages of Scripture that seemingly conflict with one another, the parallel accounts in”Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21 are one of the most difficult to deal with as they seem to blatantly contradict one another. Yet that cannot be the case if we believe in the divine inspiration and authority of Scripture, there must be some way of dealing with this which shows the justice and glory of God in his redemptive purposes. So I will look at some questions that have been given to me about these passages, and in doing so I will first of all paint the big picture and then move to the details of the picture.

1.God is Sovereign: The Bible shows us that nothing happens by chance, but rather that everything is under the sovereign hand of God. The whole of history is in his hands. Satan could not attack Job without God’s permission ( see Job 1 and 2). It is true that God allows Satan to do certain things so that God’s ultimate purposes will be fulfilled. It is vital that we grasp the overarching sovereignty of God over all things(see Romans 8). It is only with this in mind that we can begin to understand the narrative accounts in the Scriptures.

2 God is righteous ,holy and gracious. Whenever Scripture describes the work and actions of God it points us to a God who is consistent and faithful in his character. The passages above show both God’s great holiness in his judgement against sin but also the fact that although god never compromises his holiness, he is always willing to show grace and mercy to the repentant. Maybe at first glance we don’t see this here because God still judges, yet in his grace he hears David’s prayer. In our day we tend to see the graciousness of God as something devoid of the holiness of God whereas in the bible we see a god of holy love.

Let us now look at the two passages;

Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. (1 Chronicles 21:1).

Again the anger of the LORD burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.” (2 Sa 24:1).

At first glance these two passages seem to contradict each other but I believe 2 Samuel 24 gives us the clues that we need to reconcile the two. It is obvious that Israel has sinned although we are not told how but God is angry with them. If we understand this in the context of God’s covenant with his people we will understand that there are blessings and curses attendant upon keeping the law or breaking it. God had warned his people in Deuteronomy of the perils of disobedience, let me give you two verses as an illustration,

         Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them.

15       However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:
(Deuteronomy 28:14–15).

The following verses show how this works, god move his protection from Israel and allows them to be attacked by hostile forces. If we take the terms of the Covenant seriously we see that God in his just anger removes the protection from his people thereby allowing their enemies to attack. In this case he allows Satan to incite David to number the people,Satan would not have been able to attack the people of Israel if God had not justly removed his protection from them. We can therefore see that in one sense God is responsible for this act and on the other hand see that Satan is the enemy that attacks God’s people. we can not explain one factor away we must see that under the terms of the Covenant Israel has sinned and has therefore forfeited its divine protection.

The fact that David took a census is interesting because David in his Psalms repeatedly asserts that we are not to put our trust in the power of men but in the power of God. The taking of the census reveals David putting his trust in the power of men more than in the power of God. Obviously this is very relevant to us, it shows us our constant need of standing in the power that only God can give and not in our strength. We need to see that in our own lives we are constantly in danger of doing things in our strength and the individualism of our society encourages us to do this. We are taught to be self-sufficient, a concept that is directly at odds with the Biblical narrative. Our sufficiency is to be in God alone. alsothe Bible calls us to fellowship not solitary individualism. The Christian and Biblical stress on dependence on God and interdependence with men runs as a counter cultural stream. We find it hard to resist the pressures of our culture.

Although it may not be readily apparent God is acting in his gracious ways in this narrative, he provides David with escape routes from this temptation through the advice of Joab and when David repents he is forgiven, but God’s judgement on the nation still has to take place. David realised when he had to make a choice that he was safer in placing himself in God’s hands rather than making his own decision. In our day we have so downplayed the holiness of God that we do not perceive the true extent of his grace. We also forget that sin always has consequences, we may well be forgiven for the penalty of our sin through the blood of Christ but we also have to acknowledge that there are still consequences to our actions..

We ned to come before the God of holy love and realise that his standards are good and just, we must be prepared to walk in obedience to him, these passage have much to say to us today, it would be good to look at the letters from Jesus to the seven churches at the beginning of the book of Revelation, if you look at these carefully you will see that Jesus warns his people against sinning against him and yet at the same time offers his grace and mercy to them.

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Francis Schaeffer: A Personal Tribute

Posted on July 8, 2013 by pneumaandlogos

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In this post I want to talk about how Francis Schaeffer impacted my own life, anyone who has heard me preach will know that Schaeffer is the most influential person in my life. so this is my story.

I became a Christian in 1969 and I had been very involved in the New Left, as a Christian I had many questions about philosophy and politics but no answers. But then one day in 1970 in Luton Library I came across the L’Abri Story by Edith Schaeffer as soon as I read this I knew that I needed to read her husband’s books.  I then discovered on my next visit to the Library “Escape from Reason” and “Death in the City” I read these two books and realized that there were answers to my questions. Later that year I was in a bookshop in London and I purchased “The God Who…

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God and the Emotional Self: some thoughts

Posted on July 3, 2013 by pneumaandlogos

I wrote this over a year ago but I feel it has some content that needs to be thought about constructively.

pneumaandlogos's avatarPneuma and Logos

Recently a young friend of mine has been asked to write 600 words on the impassibility debates as part of a larger essay this has made me think again about this whole area. I just wanted to share some of my thoughts around this whole debate.

Human beings are made in the image of God and therefore our emotional life must in some way mirror God’s emotional life. This is especially true if we regard the key to understanding the image of God in relational terms. If we believe that we are created to relate to God and to one another emotions come into play at once. I am called upon to love God and my neighbour, we can’t do this without some expression of our emotions.

If love is at the heart of our relationships then we realize that as fallen and broken people our love is very often…

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The Holy Trinity; by Stephen R Holmes: A boook review

Posted on July 3, 2013 by pneumaandlogos

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This is an important book on a vital doctrine of the Christian Faith, here we find careful scholarship which guides us through the discussions about the doctrine of the Trinity throughout Church history. One of the things that really impressed me about this volume is the way the author treats his primary sources. Stephen Holmes has a firm grasp of the issues and unlike other recent authors I did not find myself having to check out whether somebody was being treated fairly. This is a good example of how historical theology should be done.
In the first chapter Holmes guides us through the twentieth century revival of Trinitarian theology, here we find helpful insights into Barth, Rahner, Moltmann, Jenson and Volf. He raises some important questions about these theologians.
In chapter 2, we find a helpful outline of the Bibles trinitarian theology and he looks at how the Church Fathers…

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A Healing Communion Service

Posted on June 22, 2013 by pneumaandlogos

 Words of Invitation:

The Lord Jesus says to his church, Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

As we approach this table the Lord calls us to recognise our need of him and to put our complete dependence in him. He through these elements desires to draw near to you, come and receive his grace. Come with an openness of heart to receive every blessing he wants to impart to you. Praise him for the wonder of your salvation and look to him to bring healing to you inbody, mind and spirit.

Come to this table knowing that Jesus wants to bless you more than you can ever imagine. Come having confessed you sin to receive his manifold blessing to you and to his Church.

Communion Prayer.

Heavenly Father we come to you in the name of our exalted King, the Lord Jesus, we seek his blessing around this table. We confess our sins before you knowing that out of your amazing grace you will forgive us. We also come as needy people needing your healing touch upon our lives. Come we pray in the power of your Spirit and minister to us in the way you see we need. Glorify your great and holy name as we celebrate your goodness to us at this table. In Jesus name Amen

 

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Holy Comunion and Healing

Posted on June 21, 2013 by pneumaandlogos

The very essence of Holy Communion is that it demonstrates all that Christ has achieved for us in his redemptive sufferings it therefore seems to make sense to have prayer for healing during a communion service. Of course this implies that healing is in the atonement but it does not imply that we have a right to healing because of the atonement . It is surely undeniable that Jesus died for the whole man body and spirit, and when he comes again the created order will be redeemed. When we celebrate communion we celebrate the love of God in Christ through the empowering of the Holy Spirit, we are therefore communing with the God who created this world good and who in his mercy brings salvation to humankind. The brokeness of this world is the result of man’s sinfulness, his willful rebellion against God and his ways, we have inherited the results of the curse on creation but we are also in Christ those who inherit all that Christ has to give. Complete healing will never come about in this life, but God stands ready to receive our petitions and answer them according to his own wisdom and grace.

The communion table is the Lord’s family table, and it is therefore appropriate to bring the petitions we have for one another to the Lord, healing prayer must logically be included. Paul teaches in !Corinthians 11 that many were sick as a result of not receiving communion rightly, surely part of the reason for this teaching is so that people will repent and be restored to fellowship with the Lord and the Church, if this is the case surely it is not wrong to see that healing is implied when a right relationship is restored.

Some will argue that the day of miracles has passed, many of us have seen the folly of this teaching because we have seen God heal today, furthermore there is no biblical evidence for this strange teaching. The New Testament record consistently shows a god who heals, the ministry of healing will only cease after the return of Jesus. It is because of the clear teaching of the New Testament that we can ask the Lord to heal the body,mind and spirit. It seems to me that if this is so then there can be no better place to ask for healing than the communion table where we are reminded so vividly of the love of God in Christ.

A Prayer for healing.

Heavenly Father as we come around this communion table, we are reminded so vividly of all that you have done for us in Christ Jesus and we glorify your great name. Lord we come to you broken in many ways and we need your redeeming and healing love to work deeply in our lives. Lord you see all our brokeness wether in body or spirit and we ask you to touch us by the power of your Holy Spirit and bring to us the healing that we need. Lord we ask for your forgiveness for our sins and we ask that you would help us to be in a right relationship with you and your Church. Lord come now in your love and your healing grace and bring your healing to us. We ask this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

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Jesus the healer

Posted on June 18, 2013 by pneumaandlogos

Whenever we read the gospels one thing that we notice is that Jesus was concerned to bring healing to people, he was not just concerned about their spiritual state but also about their physical needs. What also becomes clear is that Jesus had no neat formula for healing, the varied accounts show diverse ways of ministering to people. If we are to have a healing ministry in the Church today our ministry needs to be as diverse as his was. There are so many different forms of brokeness in today’s world that need the healing power of Jesus. I want to examine some of the accounts of healing in Mark’s gospel  There are other accounts in the other gospels, but one has to narrow the subject down a little.

   Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out, 24       “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”
25       “Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” 26       The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.
27       The people were all so amazed that they asked each other, “What is this? A new teaching—and with authority! He even gives orders to impure spirits and they obey him.” 28       News about him spread quickly over the whole region of Galilee.

29       As soon as they left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew. 30       Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they immediately told Jesus about her. 31       So he went to her, took her hand and helped her up. The fever left her, and she began to wait on them.
32       That evening after sunset the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. 33       The whole town gathered at the door, 34       and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but he would not let the demons speak because they knew who he was.
(Mark 1:23–34).

In this very first chapter we see that Mark highlights the healing ministry of Jesus. there is an exorcism, a very private healing and then a time of ministry to many who were sick and demonised ,even this first chapter shows the diversity of the way he acts notice how he initiates the healing in Peter’s mother and as result  others are brought to him to receive healing. In this we see the love of God shown in and through the ministry of Jesus, diverse needs have been met by the healing power of God in Christ

.   Some men came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. 4       Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. 5       When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
6       Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 7       “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
8       Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things? 9       Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’? 10       But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the man, 11       “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” 12       He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”  (Mark 2:3–12).

This account shows even more diverse elements, it seems that it was the friends who had the faith and were determined to bring the man to Jesus, Jesus responded to this faith and  healed this man. This should encourage us to bring people to the Lord either physically or in prayer, sometimes we can bring people to a time of ministry in church and some times this is impossible. We see another element that is different in this account, and that is that Jesus start by dealing with this man’s need of forgiveness, sometimes people need to be forgiven before they receive physical healing and we need to be aware of this. We normally will just pray for healing but sometimes we need to start with God’s forgiveness, this is where we need to be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. It is only after the man receives forgiveness that he also receives physical healing, he is lowered through the roof a paralyzed man and yet he walked out of the house having received healing from Jesus.

   Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. 3  Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.”
4    Then Jesus asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent.
5    He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. 6    Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus. (Mark 3:2–6).

It is interesting to note that Jesus met with criticism and opposition to his healing ministry, we find the same today, and we should be like Jesus and continue our ministry despite the critics. There will always be those who oppose a healing ministry and we should attempt to lead people to know the wonder of what God desires to do,but if they resist we must continue to exercise the healing ministry that he has given us.

Here, we see such a diversity of approaches and that in only three chapters of Mark’s gospel, this should encourage us to see what God wants is a real openness from us to receive all that the Holy Spirit has  to give.

 

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Worship and Worldview

Posted on June 12, 2013 by pneumaandlogos

One of the questions that I have been thinking about lately is the relationship between worship and worldview, my thinking has been stimulated in this area by reading the books “Thinking in Tongues” and “Desiring the Kingdom” both by James K A Smith.

Sometimes those of us who feel strongly about the need for a Christian worldview have given the impression that getting our thinking right is the most important step. Sometimes we have given the impression that the whole thing is just a matter of the mind, if we are able to demonstrate the superiority of our worldview we will win the day. Time after time we see the Christian argument strongly put forward, and the person does not respond to this. What is wrong? are the arguments not strong enough? or does something else need to happen?  Surely the problem is that the person does not see their need for salvation at just a thinking level, but needs to grasp in their heart their need of salvation.
When I became a Christian in 1969 I realised immediately that I needed to change my lifestyle and my thinking. I had been involved in the radical politics of the sixties and realised that I needed to rethink everything in the light of scripture. I realised that if my life was to be God centred then some of my past ways of acting and thinking would need to be changed, I therefore resigned from all the groups  and committees that I belonged to. The reason I did this was because I wanted to know what God’s perspective on these issues was. I never thought that politics and Christianity were incompatible, but rather I needed to seek first the kingdom of God. This was to take me on a long journey, but I realise looking back that my wrestling with worldview issues was grounded in my new relationship with the living God, my heart had been changed and I was a new creation but my mind needed to be renewed (Romans 12). I remember my excitement when I found about L’abri and started reading Dr.Schaeffer’s books, what I noticed from the outset was the link between a deep spirituality and our intellectual development. I remember also in the early seventies being introduced to the work of Dooyeweerd, his work was intellectually demanding but I remember so clearly his talk of the heart gripped by God. some people warned me that Dooyeweerd had a mystical slant to his writings, I agreed that this was true but found this was one of the major attractions at that time.
During my time working at L’Abri I saw many people become Christians but this was not just an intellectual change, but rather a change of relationship with the living God brought about change in the person. I have seen many people become Christians and then seen how their thinking and character have changed but in every case worship has preceded any  real and lasting change.
When people were lovingly presented with the claims of the gospel,the Holy Spirit convinced them of the truth of the gospel and their own sinfulness, only then did they respond and by receiving Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord their whole lives were transformed.
My experience confirms the fact that worship leads to a change of worldview, and that change is not just an intellectual one, but at its heart it is relational.

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