ENGAGE wrap up
So, I’ve struggled to pen a few thoughts into a post on ENGAGE. Mainly because I am tired, but I have lots of good stuff that doesn’t seem all that connected in my notes or my head anymore, yet it was at the time. The Friday evening was along the lines of "introductory" material from both speakers, then the Saturday night was a panel on "work" that was very interesting, so the talks happened on the Saturday and Sunday morning. Here are a few thoughts.
Tim Blencowe spoke to us from Titus 3 primarily. The one big point he was making is that while saved by the goodness and grace of God, the outworking of this is that it makes us into people who do good in the world (Titus 3:8) - with a sideline about how we can be so well taught by the Reformation that we think good works are bad, but these good works are modelled and enabled by God, encouraged and expected (see Titus 3:14). This was teased out in relation to how we do our work. So that was all a good a reminder.
Steve Timmis spoke from 1 Peter, based on the idea that Christianity is allowed to be privately engaging but is publicly dismissed as being socially irrelevant, so how do we then live in a society in which we are viewed with contemptuous indifference? Here he emphasised recognising that we are the “people of God” and taking the doctrine of the church and the trinity seriously, with our corporate identity being an important theme in 1 Peter. He also talked about how the bible is full of imperatives but all of them flow out of gospel indicatives – ie we get on with being who and what we are as the people of God. He then also looked at our good works in Chapter 3 and how they point to Christ and declare his praises. Like Tim he made the point that the good works don’t save us, but they define us – and called it “luminous goodness”.
Steve had a good line about their church life in the UK, which was, “whatever the situation, it’s not about me”. So, for example. he looked at 1 Peter 2:11 and the command to flee evil desire, and how the solution in verse 12 is to ask whether the source desires are for the glory of God and the good of others, or my own gratification (he did a little excurses here into pornography but it applies to all "desires" - and he made the point that desire is a given, and without it we are dead, and everything we do is desire-driven, it's just a matter of whether they are good or bad desires).
So, the big take home message of the weekend was how as an outworking of the gospel we do good in the world and thus bring glory to God.