President's diary - September 2024

This year Becca and I celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. We had planned to take a holiday to somewhere unusual. Becca wanted to visit South America where we had lived for a while in the early years of our marriage. However, before we managed to book anything, we heard that two different sets of elderly relatives who are living in the USA, were suffering health issues and that it might be a good idea to visit them sooner rather than later.

On 3rd September we flew from Heathrow to San Francisco. My aunt and her family live in Oakland which is just across the bay. We spent a couple of nights there before going back to the airport to catch a plane to Albuquerque in New Mexico which is where Becca’s father lives. He is now a widower. We spent the day of our anniversary taking him to the service at his church. We were pleased to find that, after a few difficult months, he is recovering his confidence and taking pleasure in life. We stayed for a week and then flew back to California.

Back in Oakland we spent a few days with my aunt and her family. We had a couple of days away in the Big Sur on the coastal road south of the city where there are some beautiful state parks. We managed to have a couple of days walking in the spectacular scenery. We then headed back for a final couple of nights before getting our flight home.

We were pleased to have seen our families but were obviously sad to see the toll that old age can take on people we love and who we remember as strong and capable. We renewed our determination to make the most of the years we still have and to prepare wisely for the time when our own mobility and capacity may start to be an issue.

Having arrived back home on the Friday, on Sunday we drove to the New Forest for a visit to where Becca’s sister’s ashes are scattered. She was a primary school headteacher who died of skin cancer about 10 years ago.

One of her requests – or was it an instruction? – while she was dying was that I should lead her funeral service which was not to have any religious content. This is not something I would usually agree to do but there didn’t seem to be any way to refuse in the circumstances. Having said that, there were a number of people of faith in the gathering and it became clear to us that God can choose to turn up whenever God wants and is not controlled by our wishes.

On the Monday, I had agreed to visit the Central Baptist Association to speak to ministers and others on the theme of ‘Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book’; Preaching from the book of Revelation. Well, the weather was certainly approaching the apocalyptic. The rain poured down as I drove across the country. I found myself wondering whether, even if I made it, would anyone else get there. As it turned out, a good number turned out for the occasion.

My basic theme was that we should find opportunities to be bold in preaching the gospel from the last book of the Bible. I occasionally get asked to speak on controversial subjects; Adam and Eve, creation, divorce and remarriage, human sexuality, and so on. On these occasions I usually manage to upset somebody. When I speak about Revelation, I’ve been known to upset everybody.

However, they say, ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’ and so here are some of the introductory thoughts I shared in the first part of the talk.

John calls his book an apocalypse. He did not necessarily mean that it was a specific type or genre of literature. He meant it was an unveiling. The prophecy shows those who hear it the spiritual realities that lie behind the institutions and ideologies whose public faces we see.
Nearly all the action described in the book takes place in heaven. Heaven is the dwelling place of God and in John’s vision it is an enormous temple. It is the spiritual reality of which the Jerusalem temple was a model or a shadow.
Revelation tells us a story we already know in a fresh way. It uses picture language to tell us the gospel. It is about the sending of Messiah Jesus, his atoning work, his ascension and his advent.
Time works differently in heaven. When God looks out from heaven, he sees the whole of time and space as one. The human prophet may see the same thing but cannot conceivably express it. And so, we find ourselves hearing about things in ways that do not reckon with our usual rules about chronology. Things are connected through their theological meanings. The text may suggest that the world has ended, yet the story can continue.
The book is an account of visions that John received. However, he has reflected on those visions and taken time to put his book together with great care. As a result, it repays careful study. The numbers and the patterns all have their purposes. The prophecy is given by God and yet is also marked by inspired human creativity.
Revelation is saturated with allusions to the Hebrew Bible. There are very few, if any, direct quotations but ancient themes crop up everywhere. It’s as though John is saying that he is showing us how the Old Testament should, in the light of Messiah Jesus, be understood. There are references to Exodus, Psalms, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and Zechariah, to name just some. Revelation is the climax to it all.
The book is written to encourage the churches to stay faithful in the face of persecution in the present and/or the future. This means that we should take especially seriously interpretations of the book that emerge from the persecuted church.
Finally, John tells us that it’s all about to kick off. In other words, the issues were urgent in his own day. And his warning comes down the years and speaks to the church in every age, including our own. Today is the day of salvation. Today is the day to be faithful. Today is the day to put aside the things that belong to the darkness and to live in the light.

Everyone at Central was very kind to me and I hope they enjoyed our morning together.

The weekend of 28-29 brought two trips. On the Saturday I went to my brother’s home in Oxford. My daughters and their partners were also there. We had all gathered to see my mother’s first encounter with her latest great-grandchild. It’s an astonishing thing to think of four generations being all together in one room.

Then on the Sunday, I travelled to Romford to take part in the church’s 90th anniversary celebrations. 1934 was in many ways a dreadful year. It saw the rise of fascism across Europe. In the face of this evil, the response of one group of Baptist Christians was to plant a new church and help ensure the spread of God’s truth and the light of the gospel.

I also spoke, as I have at other 90th anniversaries, about Abraham’s shock at being told that his wife Sarah was to bear a child at the age of 90. I reminded the church that God may be preparing to do something astonishing among them.

They may be 90 but God may still bring something new to birth among his people.

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