A
Feast of Books
QUALITIES
of ENDURING LOVE
Terra
Nova Publications 2005
The
above named book edited by Patrick Whitworth has several contributors, it is
certainly recommended reading. In
his introduction, Sandy Millar makes the point regarding the title - we need to
pass on to others, even when we don’t feel like it, the quality of enduring
love shown and given to us by God.
Seven
different subjects are covered under the umbrella title, starting with, Fulfilling
Promises, and Learning to Change and ending with Recycling Grace. God shows his enduring love for us by the promises He makes
and keeps, for example his covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15).
Chapter
3 starts with an emphasis on Love, that quality used to bind all relationships
together (see Philippians 1:9-11). This
chapter also draws our attention to the Fruits of the Spirit listed in Galatians
5:22-23. As well as
learning to love, we are told to ‘Learn to Listen’ (James 1:19).
But be ready to change, we are reminded of St. Paul’s words in
2 Corinthians 5:17, we are new people in Christ Jesus.
Another aspect of our title is
the fact that we all belong to a community – human and spiritual.
Ephesians 1:5 tells us we are created to belong to God’s family, with
all that it implies. And any
conflicts, they will arise, must be dealt with in a godly manner.
Relationships will include conflict from time to time, even with the best
of friendships.
Christian
history has a long record of pilgrim life; in communities, and on journeys.
Sharing resources, and hardships showing love, giving protection, and
being there for other people. John
Wesley is recorded as saying, “There is no such thing as a solitary
religion”. The New
Testament teaches us that the church is, ‘ a Body’ not a collection of
individuals. Hebrews 10:24 tells us to, spur
one another on towards love and good deeds.
The book ends with the chapter
on ‘Recycling Grace’ reminding us that:
For God so loved the world, that
he gave his one and only Son, that we should not perish. (John
3:16)
Remember
the parable of the prodigal son, and the welcome the wayward son received from
his father. God is waiting to
welcome us. May our love be
enduring, by helping, and welcoming others into God’s family.
Brian
Waters
.
Understanding
Revelation by
Paul Langham.
Terra
Nova Publications 2005
ISBN 1 90194 935 4
Paul
Langham is Vicar of Holy Trinity Combe Down, Monkton Combe and South Stoke, and
was formerly Chaplain and Fellow at St Catherine’s College, Cambridge.
It will not take you long to read this book but doing so may change your
whole life, because, as he says: ‘The real point about biblical teaching is not information but
transformation.’ He is
principally concerned with the prophecies about End-times, which means the time
between Christ's departure and return, and so does not include the letters to
the seven churches in chapters two and three in his discussion.
Langham
starts by explaining why we should read the Book of Revelation and how it should
be interpreted. And here he sees
some virtue in each of the Preterist, Historicist and Futurist approaches
while dismissing the Idealist out of hand.
Then he
looks at what the Old and New Testaments, apart from Revelation, have to say
about End times, before getting stuck into the meat of his subject, the
interpretation of John’s apocalyptic message.
He
dismisses the popular view of Revelation which sees the succession of seven
seals, trumpets and bowls as representing events in a chronological order.
Instead they are much better understood as a cyclical pattern.
So John is not giving us a time scale, where we can identify historical
events as they unfold, but is showing the way in which historical events move through cycles of increasingly intense disruption, tribulation and
judgment, with periods of respite in between.
A perfect
example of history repeating itself.
John's primary purpose is to enable
us to be faithful followers of Christ, ready to face the worst that comes our
way.
Moving
on through Revelation we meet the Two
Witnesses whom
Langham identifies as the Christian Church and the remnant of believing Israel.
Their demise indicates that in the
very last days, organised Christianity will be crushed.
This symbolism is continued in the next section where the Woman and
her child also represent God's people, who are always under attack by Satan, in
the form of the Dragon, who tries to devour them.
Then
we come to the Beast from the Sea,
which was a fearful and chaotic place to the Hebrews. The beast itself has, over the years, been identified with
Rome, Napoleon,
Hitler, you name it. Langham picks
up on three characteristics of the beast. It
is invincible, as evinced by its surviving a fatal wound.
It is popular among the masses, and it is totalitarian.
It is world government personified.
It is another cycle of the tyrannical, one party state that we have seen
in the past and still see today, in some countries.
The second beast from the land,
which makes the earth and its inhabitants
worship the first beast, is the new, godless, state religion. It may be humanism, capitalism or communism; whatever way, political
ideology is the modern successor to the emperor worship of Rome.
In
chapters 17-18 the woman Babylon
represents the godless culture of the
world in which we live. This
Babylon is characterised by its global influence, its arrogant moral corruption
and anti-Christian attitude, but this Babylon is also doomed.
When God’s people are called to come out of Babylon, it is a
call to reject the greedy, materialistic life of the world around us; and
Langham describes how we can do this in practice.
The
next two chapters describe the end of human history on earth.
Christ appears in glory as the rider on the white horse,
eyes ablaze, at the head of a heavenly host.
The one thing we can be sure of now is that we are in for total
war and all the forces of evil that are described in this book will be
defeated. This is followed by the
fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy, (65:17), with the creation of a new heaven
and a new earth. And Langham is
quite certain that we shall be living in the city of the new Jerusalem and not
on some heavenly cloud.
Finally
we have two appendices, one on the rapture debate, in which he
nails the fallacious concept behind the
Left Behind series
of novels, where Jesus returns secretly and suddenly to whisk believers away
from the earth, before the great
tribulation. This
is a very comforting theory, the more so because it is claimed by its
adherents to be biblical.
But Langham shows that it is completely untrue, there can be no secret
rapture. When Jesus said: ‘In this
world you will have trouble ‘ (John 16:33), he wasn't joking.
Secondly
the author gives a sober account of the Millennium controversy and plumps for
the pre-millennial view. He is firm
in his opinion but not dogmatic, believing that whichever
cause we espouse, it is no reason for falling out with our fellow Christians.
The important thing to bear in mind is that Christ is coming back and no
one knows when it will be. All we
can do about it is to watch and pray. Watch
for the signs of the times and pray that you will not be found wanting.
As an added bonus, the author provides a prayer, at the end of each
chapter, that links the teaching to its practical application.
Brian Newsom.
45
Minutes in China by
Rowland Evans.
Terra
Nova Publications 2005 ISBN 1
90194 939 7
This
short book contains far more than its title suggests.
It is the distillation of the author's thirty years’ experience of
missionary work in China. The
Introduction and first fifteen minutes,
in a modern development zone, presents the acceptable, public face
of China: with high-tech buildings, tastefully landscaped campuses, efficient,
modern transport, and consumerism.
The
second fifteen minutes, in the shadow of
the moon is, as the title
suggests, very much darker. It
depicts the old part of the city of Taipei, normally unseen by foreigners.
Here in ghastly, single-room dwellings off claustrophobic alleys are
gathered the dregs of Chinese society, unwanted by the state and unloved by the
bulk of the populace. Often
there is no income, there is no social security, no medical care, no lighting,
no heating, no clothes and no food, save for that earned by scavenging from
waste bins. And these are inner
China's better off.
Even worse off are the abandoned
children, victims of China's one-child family policy, who take shelter in drains
and tunnels. Only the likes of
Rowland Evans and his Christian friends are willing to minister to these
outcasts, bringing food and medical expertise and vital drugs, but above all,
the love of Christ.
The
final fifteen minutes - a total eclipse, introduces
us to the Chinese underground church. Its
members operate in great secrecy, pastored by a fearless body of young
Christians for whom the meaning of the word faith,
spelled R I S K, is lived out in a way unknown in the West.
The most we have to fear is abuse or embarrassment, in China the penalty
is imprisonment or even death. But
faith and the hunger for the word of God is so strong that these fears are
overcome.
The
author ends with a personal invitation to readers to take up the challenge of
missionary work in China. There is
so much to do, so many lost souls hungry for the Word of God.
If you read this book you may feel compelled to join them.
Rowland Evans can be contacted at: Nations Trust, International Centre,
Glanmore Road, Llanelli. SA15 2LU.
Brian
Newsom.
The
Anointing to Heal by
Randolph Vickers
Terra
Nova Publications 2005
ISBN 1 901949 38 9
This is the best
book on healing that I have only half read!
Half read because it is in competition with books that I have to read not
because I don’t want to read it.
I find that it affirms so much of the way I look at healing as well as
relating many incidents of healing.
In the chapter
on Teaching the
Basics Randolph points to the necessity of knowing our authority in Jesus.
‘…
if we are to continue in his ministry of healing, we have to know that we truly
are believers.
It is not only a matter of believing in God and who Jesus is.’ and
‘….. not just believe who Jesus is; not just believe in Jesus but actually
believe him and his word.’
These words echo
John 6:29 for me. ‘The
work of God is to believe in the one whom he has sent.’
How many times
have I reflected on how much we really believe and I rejoice in the way that
Randolph has expressed it.
And again he says,
‘
..we need the
confidence of our
sonship…..this will be evident
in the way we minister, for: In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have
confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.
(1
John 4:17).’
This
book will be an encouragement to us all.
Mary Newsom
P.S.
I later read the rest of the book and found that it came up to my expectations.