What's Involved In Saving The World? (The Elements of Salvation)

(a)    The people of God were chosen before time: ‘He chose us in him [Christ] before the foundation of the world’ (Ephesians 1:4); cf. ‘For those whom he foreknew he also predestined’ (Romans 8:29). ‘Us’ in this context must mean ‘the elect people of God’.

 
(b)    The people of God would be holy: ‘He chose us in him [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him’ (Ephesians 1:4; cf. Colossians1:22; Hebrews 12:14). 

  

(c)    His people are to have salvation: ‘the grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus ages ago [before times eternal]’ (II Timothy 1:9); ‘you were ransomed ... with the precious blood of Christ ... destined before the foundation of the world, but ... made manifest at the end of the times for your sake’ (I Peter 1:18—20).

(d)    His people are to be His children, that is. sons: ‘He destined us ... to be his sons through Jesus Christ’ (Ephesians 1:5); cf. ‘our Father, our Redeemer from of old is thy name’ (Isaiah 63:16); ‘my sons ... and my daughters ... whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made’ (Isaiah 43:6—7; cf. Ephesians 1:4—14).

(e)    His people are to have eternal life: ‘God’s elect ... in hope of eternal life which God ... promised ages ago [before times eternal]’ (Titus 1:1—2); ‘name[s] ... written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb’ (Revelation 13:8; cf. II Timothy 1:10).

 
(f)    His people are to enter His Kingdom: ‘Come, 0 blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’ (Matthew 25:34); cf. ‘He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son’ (Colossians 1:13).

 
(g)    His people are to be glorified and to glorify God for His grace and His glory: ‘we impart a secret and hidden wisdom ... which God decreed before the ages for our glorification’ (I Corinthians 2:7). This glorification glorifies God: ‘we who first hoped ... have been destined and appointed ... for the praise of his glory ... you also [Gentiles] ... to the praise of his glory’ (Ephesians 1:12—14); ‘my sons ... and my daughters ... whom I created for my glory’ (Isaiah 43:6—7; cf. I John 3:1).

 
(h)    His people are to have an inheritance: as in Abraham to inherit the earth, and the Kingdom of God. (Ephesians 1:14, 18; cf. Ephesians 5:5; I Corinthians 6:9ff.; II Thessalonians 1:5).

  

(i)    The whole Creation will be brought into unity by Christ: ‘a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth’ (Ephesians 1:10). Note also ‘filling up’; ‘harmonising’; etc.; Christ ‘who fills all in all’ (Ephesians 1:23); ‘that he might fill all things’ (Ephesians 4:10); ‘reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven’ (Colossians 1:20); ‘love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony’ (Colossians 3:14).

 
(j)    All evil will be judged and eliminated: ‘But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist have been stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgement and destruction of ungodly men’ (II Peter 3:7; cf. Revelation 18—20).

from "God and Man in the Mission of the Kingdom", by Geoffrey C. Bingham, Redeemer Baptist Press: North Parramatta, 2003, pp.26-28

What's on this week? (May 31 - June 5, 2010)

An important letter to the friends of the ministry has been sent out this week. If you have not seen it and would like to do so, please contact Celia at New Creation for a copy, or you can find it posted as a note on the New Creation Teaching Ministry facebook page.

Winter School, on Fight The Good Fight, is coming soon!!! June 11-14. Check out the  brochure at http://www.newcreation.org.au/pdf/WS10_Brochure.pdf
The only cost for the school is for meals. To book in for meals, please use the information on the brochure.

This Saturday (June 5) and next Monday (June 7) is the next in the Monthly Ministry Studies, at the New Creation Teaching Centre. Martin Bleby will be taking the topic: Forgiveness Through The Cross of Christ.

The regular weekly classes continue this week:
Mondays@Christies Beach Baptist Church 7.30-9.30pm:

Acts of the Apostles Martin Bleby

Marriage Martin Bleby
  Christies Beach Baptist Church, Fowey St, Christies Beach

Keith Chessell-The Story of God: The Story of God (New Testament) Keith Chessell

• 7.30pm Monday–Mt Barker;
  
• 7.15pm Tuesday–Victor Harbor;
  
• 7.30pm Wednesday–Mitcham.

Mount Barker: Cornerstone College, 68 Adelaide Road, Mount Barker;
Victor Harbor High School, George Main Road, Victor Harbor;
Mitcham Baptist Church, 20 Albert St, Mitcham


Tuesdays@NCTM (6.45pm tea, $3),7.30-9.30pm:

The Story of Salvation Andrew Klynsmith and Hank Schoemaker
An interactive overview of the whole Bible, helping to supply a reliable framework for faith in God, especially for younger believers and enquirers.

New Creation Teaching Centre, 936 Ackland Hill Rd, Coromandel East

Thursdays@NCTM 9.30-11.30am

Creation and the Liberating Glory Trevor Faggotter

God and Prayer Martin Bleby

New Creation Teaching Centre, 936 Ackland Hill Rd, Coromandel East

Suffering

Like as a woman in pain
Convulsant with expectancy
Bears gladly the agony,
Counts little the anguish,
So writhed your flesh On Calvary’s Cross.
  
I cannot understand—
Who fear the suffering,
Who turn my face from pain
And burn with shame
When comes the agony—
Pain’s purposefulness.
  
One thing I know,
For this my heart cries out to me:
There cannot be true destiny,
True haven’s goal without
The sorrow of the Cross,
Else wounding is eternal.
  
This thing I know,
When I am called to suffer pain:
That had he suffered not I suffer sore,
But since he suffered deep
Pain really is no more.
  
Into pain’s depth he plunged
As never man before,
Taking the sting unto himself,
Denuding pain of agony,
Giving the senseless sense
And useful reality.

From The Spirit of All Things, by Geoffrey Bingham, pp.56-57

The Message Of The Gospel Measured By What It Effects, Not Simpy How It Affects

  
...Christ had to make the soul which should respond to Him and understand Him. He had to create the very capacity for response. And that is where we are compelled to recognise the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as well as the doctrine of the Saviour. We are always told that faith is the gift of God and the work of the Holy Spirit. The reason why we are told that, and must be told it, lies in the direction I have indicated. The death of Christ had not simply to touch like heroism, but it had to redeem us into power of feeling its own worth. Christ had to save us from what we were too far gone to feel. Just as the man choked with damp in a mine, or a man going to sleep in arctic cold, does not realise his danger, and the sense of danger has to be created within him, so the violent action of the Spirit takes men by force. 

  

The death of Christ must call up more than a responsive feeling. It is not satisfied with affecting our heart. That is mere impressionism. It is very easy to impress an audience. Every preacher knows that there is nothing more simple than to produce tears. You have only to tell a certain number of stories about dying children, lifeboats, fire escapes, and so on, and you can make people thrill. But the thrill is neither here nor there. What is the thrill going to end in? What is the meaning of the thrill for life? If it is not ending as it should, and not ending for life, it is doing harm, not good, because it is sealing the springs of feeling and searing the power of the spiritual life.

 
What the work of Christ requires is the tribute not of our admiration or even gratitude, not of our impressions or our thrills, but of ourselves and our shame. Now we are coming to the crux of the matter—the tribute of our shame. That death had to make new men of us. It had to turn us not from potential friends to actual, but from enemies into friends. It had not merely to touch a spring of slumbering friendship. There was a new creation. The love of God—I quote Paul, who did understand something of these things—the love of God is not merely evoked within us, it is “shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us.” That is a very different thing from simply having the reservoir of natural feeling tapped. The death of Christ had to do with our sin and not with our sluggishness. It had to deal with our active hostility, and not simply with the passive dullness of our hearts. 

  

Our hostility—that is what the easy-going people cannot be brought to recognise. That is what the shallow optimists, who think we can now dispense with emphasis on the death of Christ, feel themselves able to do—to ignore the fact; that the human heart is enmity against God, against a God who makes demands upon it; who goes so far as to make demands for the whole, the absolute obedience of self. Human nature puts its back up against that. That is what Paul means when he speaks about human nature, the natural man—the carnal man is a bad translation—being enmity against God. Man will cling to the last rag of his self-respect. He does not part with that when he thrills, admires, sympathises; but he does when he has to give up his whole self in the obedience of faith. How much self-respect do you think Paul had left in him when he went into Damascus? Christ, with the demand for saving obedience, arouses antagonism in the human heart. And so will the Church that is faithful to Him. 

  

You hear people of the type I have been speaking about saying, If only the Church had been true to Christ’s message it would have done wonders for the world. If only Christ were preached and practised in all His simplicity to the world, how fast Christianity would spread. Would it? Do you really find that the deeper you get into Christ and the meaning of His demands Christianity spreads faster in your heart? Is it not very much the other way? When it comes to close quarters you have actually to be got down and broken, that the old man may be pulverised and the new man created from the dust. Therefore when we hear people abusing the Church and its history the first thing we have to say is, Yes, there is a great deal too much truth in what you say, but there is also a greater truth which you are not allowing for, and it is this. One reason why the Church has been so slow in its progress in mankind and its effect on human history is because it has been so faithful to Christ, so faithful to His Cross. You have to subdue the most intractable, difficult, and slow thing in the world—man’s self-will. You cannot expect rapid successes if you truly preach the Cross whereon Christ died, and which He surmounted not simply by leaving it behind but by rising again, and converting the very Cross into a power and glory.

From The Work of Christ, by P. T. Forsyth, pp. 18-21

Propitiation

Who knows how deep the Cross
Save he who hung and died?
Who knows how deep the deep
Save he who into deep’s great depths
Descended?
Who knows how deep the Cross
Save he who let his life-blood flow,
Save he whose mystery is veiled?

Deep, deep; deep in the depths
The darkest wrath of God; its tide
Flowed on, flowed under, through,
Flowed over him, the deepest depth
That none can depth, save Christ,
Who went the deepest depth full down
To reach the other side
Of depthless holiness.
 
So deep the wrath: so deep, so deep,
Full down as God’s deep holiness.

Tide after tide; tide over tide;
Tide upon tide flowed over him;
The burning of the holiness, the wrath
That grips the sin upon him laid,
And holds and shears a burning swathe
Across the alien lonely waste
Of dark pollution;
Bears on it from the endless holy love,
Giving no breath for foulness dark to live
But bears it down to death,
To changeless death, the endless death,
The full annihilation.

Deep down to deep, to depths of death,
And reconciliation.

From The Spirit of All Things, by Geoffrey Bingham, pp. 64-65

Created as Partners in God's Great Enterprise

The making of human beings comes at the culmination of this account of God’s creating. Now the initial action of creation is finished. Where before, after each thing that God made came into being, ‘God saw that it was good’, now ‘God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good’. There is a satisfying completeness about all that God has now done. In the light of this, God is content to rest ‘from all the work that he had done in creation’.
 

Yet we sense that this is only a beginning—there is so much more to come. As this account of creation has unfolded, we have sensed that there is an ordered and purposeful movement about it all. For instance, it would appear that the six days are in two more or less parallel sets of three:

 

1. day and night; 2. sky and seas; 3. dry land called Earth, with its covering of plants—all in readiness to be inhabited and filled—
 

then: 4. the sun and moon, with the stars, to rule the day and night; 5. the birds and fish to fill the sky and seas: and 6. the animals and human beings to people the Earth—there is a thrust here towards fullness and habitation. 

 

Nor does it stop there. In the particular mandate given to humankind, there is a further filling that is to happen. They are told to "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it". As the initial creation is brought to completion, a new chapter is beginning. We start to see there is an ongoing purpose in the whole of creation, a goal to which it is all moving. In this purpose, the human beings are to play a key role.

 

Later Scriptures confirm what this goal is. God says, ‘I am about to create new heavens and a new earth’ which ‘shall remain before me’ (Isaiah 65:17; 66:22). This new creation will be full of joy and delight, with nothing untoward about it—no cause of distress or calamity, nothing evil, unclean or accursed. Yet it is not an alternative replacement of this present creation: it is all these things made new! (See Revelation 21:5.) Other undertakings on God’s part fill this out, as this one from Numbers 14:21:

...as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD.

Habakkuk 2:14 says:

...the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

It is God’s clear intention to dwell in His creation, with His people, in a fitting way (see e.g. Exodus 29:46; Revelation 21:3–4). No less will the creation participate in God’s own restful fullness (see Hebrews 4:9–11). Peter sums it up in this way:

...in accordance with his promise. we wait for new heavens and a new earth. where righteousness is at home (2 Pet. 3:13).

And we thought that we were like microbes on a speck of dust in a vast and endless universe! What difference does this make to our estimation of what a human being is? This, then, is God’s great enterprise. It is with a view to this ultimate new creation that the present initial creation has been brought into being.
 

What is the part in this of the human creatures that God has made? What does it mean to ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it: and have dominion’? Does it mean just ‘Have lots of children and move out and occupy the earth and take charge of it’? If so, what would be the point of that? In the light of this goal of the new creation, is there not much more to it than that?
  

Genesis 2:8 gives us an indication. Genesis 2:4—24 is another more detailed account of the creation of the man and the woman. It is clear that by the time they are both made, they are in the ‘garden in Eden’. This is the garden that God has planted. It is the place where God dwells. In this garden, God is with the man and the woman, and they are with God. This is where God walks with them and talks with them (see particularly Genesis 3:8). From here God rules over His creation, and issues decrees and engages in actions which determine the entire course of history.
  
It is in the context of all of this that the mandate in Genesis 1:28 is given. ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion’, in this setting, means to move out into the whole of creation with all of this! Until ‘all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD’ (Numbers 14:21). For us to be able to do this, God creates us ‘in the image of God’. We are not God, but we are like Him. Whatever else that might entail, it means at heart that we have a direct affinity with God, to be able to early out this mandate—to be with God in this great enterprise!

From God and Prayer, by Martin Bleby pp. 10-11.

Identification

In the dark reaches of Golgotha’s anguish,
His cold and nerveless hands—
Heavy with the pain of entire human sin,
And all cosmic evil (embracing all time)—
Reached out in a purposeful groping,
An attempted desire to reach,
Reach me, the lonesome, loathsome object
Of his insistent love.

In that moment I knew—in the moment of pain
And the high, wild cry—
I knew he had embraced me,
Become me wholly as I was in my dream,
In my ineluctable anger and hate,
With all the dark deceits of my heart.
 
Me he became, and he anguished
As the intolerable pollution spread
Across the pure reaches of his holy self,
Drawing there out of me
The evil that was mine alone.

In the soft silence of his tomb I lay,
One with him in the unconquerable peace,
And with him I rose
When the world dawned new,
And I was the new man.

From All Things of the Spirit, by Geoffrey C. Bingham, p. 1

JESUS—’A GLUTTON AND A DRUNKARD’

Another aspect of Jesus’ ministry by which men were granted the renewal of heart which Jesus demanded was Jesus’ fellowship with sinners and His forgiveness of their sins. We have already noted that this action may properly be included in the miraculous or sign work of Jesus. 

 

Jesus shared table fellowship with sinners, at home and abroad. Admittedly this led to resentment and scandal within the religious (Mark 2: 16, Matthew 11: 19) but met with the sheer delight of the irreligious (Luke 19: 9, Mark 2: 19). Common dining set up a special bond: it symbolised unity of mind, and demonstrated brotherhood. To be invited to a meal was indeed an honour, to participate in life together. Exclusion signified the repudiation of social ties with the excepted person. Shared meals had had a long tradition in sacral ceremonies (Exodus 18:12, 24:11 and I Kings 3: 15), and this sacred character was expressed in everyday life, with the opening blessing uniting the participants in intimate communion, and the concluding responsive ‘amen’.
 

Concern for cleanliness is noted in John 4: 9b, where Jews do not associate with Samaritans. Religious elitism grew up, as the ‘right sort of associates’ were invited to share meals. Obviously the unclean, or sinners were excluded from joining with the ‘righteous’. We see that the ritualistic and moral basis of community were closely linked. Hence publicans, prostitutes, the greedy, dishonest, and adulterers were ‘without the group’.

This social order or structure, Jesus deliberately challenged. This was no mere breach of religious etiquette. Jesus attacked both questions – of the unclean (Mark 7: 17–20) and sinners (Luke 19: 5). He flaunted the most elementary considerations of morality (the Law) as well as purity: contempt(?) for the Law as He breached the directive of Psalm 1: 1, and ritual purity as taught in Proverbs 28: 7, ‘He who keeps the law is a wise son, but a companion of gluttons shames his father’. Surely the God of the Old Testament would not tolerate such action, since ‘he who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the LORD’ (Prov. 17: 15). But Paul saw that God ‘justifies the ungodly’ (Romans 4: 5), and Jesus’ ministry is the concrete expression of this.

 

John the Baptist had already prepared for this novel activity by declaring the bankruptcy of Mosaic religion, as he called the nation to repentance. He used the classic formula of repentance – conversion, then communion (Luke 3: 10–14). Jesus’ novelty consisted in the reversal of this: communion then conversion. The reign of God had not reduced any of its demands, but now it appeared that contact triggered off deep, dynamic repentance, that conversion blossomed from fresh communion. Whereas the Pharisees chided ‘the sinners’ with the Law, Jesus appeared to place no conditions on these same people.
 

When pressed, Jesus explained that this activity was an essential and integral part of His ministry. He was convinced that since these needy folk were ‘sick’, they needed the ‘physician’, so He went to assist them. Jesus had no hesitation: perhaps some of His disciples were, and were relieved when Jesus defended them (Mark 2:15ff). In this simple activity Jesus saw that the forgiveness and conversion of sinners was at stake (Matthew 21:28–32 and Luke 7:41–43), and that men were reconciled to God, and restored to the family of Israel (so Luke 19: 9). And all this was effected without any real undermining of the moral order.
 

The problem Jesus faced was how to win over the good, the pious Jews. What He gave was no embattled defence, nor superior ‘put down’, but a genuine appeal, seeking to win these folk over. It was a persistent effort to win ‘the righteous’, not humiliate them. This was prophesied in Isaiah 49:6 and Malachi 4:6.
 

Jesus knew that forgiveness effected responsive love. When reproached for such ease of forgiveness and acceptance, He responded that forgiveness produced love, not a renewed hardening and guilt. The sinner found acceptance guaranteed, without any conditions, only by returning home. This is clearly seen in the Parable of the Prodigal in Luke 15:12ff (an opportunity for Pharisees to repent and so rejoin the festive family) where Jesus appeals in response to His condemned activities (Luke 15:1–2). Although Jesus had obvious success – Zacchaeus evidenced a character change in his spontaneous giving, the ‘justified sinful woman’ demonstrated her love with service, and Matthew followed as a disciple – His presence with these people did not guarantee automatic renewal. Jesus ate with Pharisees (Luke 7:30ff and 11:37ff), but since forgiveness is an act of grace, not all desired to accept it. In Luke 15:25ff it means giving up any boasting in self–achievement, any slavish attitude of wage earner before God. Neither of the sons in this parable had lived as sons; they had denied their sonship in Israel, and the elder son rejected (finally?!) the fellowship of the father, together with the forgiveness of his brother.
 

Jesus then, by eating at table with any men, welcomed all to fellowship with the Father, and His brothers.

From Miracles of A Domestic Kind, by Dean Carter, pp. 18-21.

So Much, Lord!

This hour I wake, O Lord,
Before the dawn awakens me,
Considering the years of my life
And the vast vista You have opened
To my astounded eyes.
So much, O Lord, You have revealed
Of temporal and eternal mysteries,
So wide a scope of all Your Being
And of Your Son, the King of Kings,
That I sink beneath its glorious weight
And, trembling with this knowledge,
Despair of coping with such wisdom.
This is too much for me.
Like Job of old Your metanoia comes
And makes me simple, humbles me
To live within the wonder of it all.
 
You know, dear Lord, the mystery
Has gripped me since my natal eyes
First saw this world of Yours—
This vast creation of Your heart and will—
And somehow sensed Your plan for it
And all Your Family. Expanding time
Encapsulates creative wisdom
That makes all things celestial and terrestrial
And places at the heart of it
Your own beloved elect, dear family
To occupy eternity as kings and priests,
To serve and worship for ever.
Within this quiet and solemn hour
I sense the amazing gift
Of all the truth my soul can take,
My mind can contemplate
And heart in trembling can receive.
The miser ponders day and night
The treasury that’s his. I ruminate
On things eternal but I do not fear
To lose such treasure as a miser might
Through fear and death’s despair.
 
Forgive me, Lord, the dreams I had
Of telling all to fellow man
And to the vast following
Of Father Adam. I surely thought
They must have pondered also in the womb
And in the newness of the natal day
The things of You, and of Your Son
And of the Spirit—Lord of life—
And Your deep holiness
That purifies the dross of soul
And gives us eyes to see You whole
And face you in this misery
That we have made through sin,
Through primal spurning of Your gifts
And splendid glory innate made
To fit us for eternity.
 
Slow comes the dawn to me
Who restless am with all this truth.
I know a fragment of Your pain
As You reveal Yourself to us
Who will to only dimly see
And scarcely bear to hear
Celestial worship in the holy sphere
And do not care
To glimpse a sight of Thee.
My heart bows down to you
In given gratitude for sight bestowed
And love made known
As boundless mystery.

From All Things of the Spirit, by Geoffrey C. Bingham, pp. 138-9

The Practics of Proclamation

KNOWING HOW TO GO AND PROCLAIM
The term ‘HOW’ is often one of the cleverest words a Christian can use. When we ask the question, ‘How?’ we are really saying, ‘I can’t do this work because I do not know how to.’ Learning ‘how’ can take many years, and waste time. It can encourage procrastination.

We saw that the church at Thessalonica immediately began to preach the Gospel which had gripped them. We saw Paul was converted m order to convert others. Churches can be so inverted, so preoccupied with themselves, or with teaching and training that they are constantly putting off the day of proclamation, in which cases they lose their nerve, and rarely, if ever, actually proclaim!

We have seen in our studies that the Gospel is of itself the power of God. It transforms persons who then wish to transform others. It thus has its own inner drive. Christians often suffer from guilt because they do not obey this inner drive, and tell the good news. When they tell it the sense of guilt vanishes!

The last chapter showed us that ‘word and deeds, the power of signs and wonders, and the power of the Holy Spirit’ are all present to every believer to enable him (or her) to preach the Gospel If we forget the ‘how to’ and get busy proclaiming the ‘how to’ will look after itself.

THE GOSPEL IS ALREADY RELEVANT
We have heard it said that we must make the Gospel relevant. It is already so. It is built specially for sinners and this we all are. Some try to make contact by certain formulae. In one sense man knows the truth since (i) he suppresses it in (acts of’) unrighteousness (Rom. 1: 18f.), and (ii) he has exchanged the truth of God for a lie (Rom.1:25). He knows the truth, hates it, tries to rationalise it away, and yet the Gospel immediately confronts him with the truth and so he is faced with the lie he is living. Doubtless, then, the Gospel is relevant. The Gospel does not need to be made relevant. It is relevant, which is what so angers many hearers.

WHAT OF ‘NEEDS’?
Some see the Gospel as fulfilling needs. In a general sense this is true, but man is more interested in his wants than his needs. Even so he generally realises he has needs. His greatest need may be said to be that of his emotional fulfilment. This emotional fulfilment would happen were he to fall in love with God (because of God’s love to him), and love Him with all his heart, soul, mind and strength. The Gospel is able to bring man to God, and–in this sense–fulfil his needs. However his greatest need is not even to be saved, but to become a son of God, sanctified and–ultimately–be glorified. We should be wary of a need-fulfilling kind of Gospel. We may just be giving welfare emotional hand-outs, and not getting to the heart of the matter, namely God acquitting human beings of their sin, sins, and the judgement which lies upon these.

THE FACILITIES WE MAY USE
These are innumerable. The human person is a great audio-video medium of communication. Most communication is a ‘gut’ one, i.e. ‘out of your belly [inner man] shall flow rivers of living water’. The human person is the greatest medium of the Gospel, but he may extend the faculties of the body by using the present media.

Writing, recordings, audio- and video- tapes, songs, music, records, films, art, printing, publishing, and the use of audio-visuals–amongst numerous others– are all aides to powerful proclamation. There is nothing ‘unspiritual’ about the use of media.

In using media and other facilities we must not be caught up in over- preoccupation with these means, for they can be attractive, and divert us from the Word of God itself. Thus constant reading of the Word, instruction in situations structured for such training are all worthwhile. We ought to remember Roland Allen’s warning that by certain kinds of training we can lose the local idiom, the local flavour and became exotic to it. If we all keep sane in our local situation, then we may be far more effective at long distances! If we keep in mind that God the Father is ever about His creation, that the Son is Head of the church and is ever directing and enabling it, and keep in mind that the Spirit of God always precedes us in any endeavour, then we will not think that all depends on us! When we remember the media that God has used, and continually employs such as the creation, the law, theophanies, angelic visitants, the Scriptures, the prophets, and a host of other–often hidden–means then we will not despair.

From Proclaiming Christ's Gospel In Today's World, by Geoffrey C. Bingham, pp. 66-68.