Dear Friends,
I grew up being a massive fan of Max Lucado, John Stott, Jim Packer and Don Carson. These authors were my Christian heroes. I devoured their books and believed everything they said. Six Hours One Friday was my go to book for Easter. The Cross of Christ was my go to book for understanding salvation. Fundamentalism and the Word of God was my go to book for understanding the Bible. A Call to Spiritual Reformation revived my prayer life!
Things were going along merrily until the day I heard that John Stott was toying with annihilationism and was suggesting that hell may not be what we thought it was. #mindblown
And now, Eugene Peterson…
In an article for an online newspaper, Peterson was asked,
If you were pastoring today and a gay couple in your church who were Christians of good faith asked you to perform their same-sex wedding ceremony, is that something you would do?
EP: Yes.
He also said,
I wouldn’t have said this 20 years ago, but now I know a lot of people who are gay and lesbian and they seem to have as good a spiritual life as I do. I think that kind of debate about lesbians and gays might be over. People who disapprove of it, they’ll probably just go to another church. So we’re in a transition and I think it’s a transition for the best, for the good. I don’t think it’s something that you can parade, but it’s not a right or wrong thing as far as I’m concerned. (http://religionnews.com/2017/07/12/eugene-peterson-on-changing-his-mind-about-same-sex-issues-and-marriage/)
No doubt this will rock many people and make them question everything he has written and perhaps even everything they have believed. If he was on my list back in the early 90s it would have made me question everything.
But I learnt something back then that is super helpful and of utmost importance: our heroes should point us to Jesus and not themselves. We ought to be encouraged by our heroes to see more of Jesus and cling more tightly to the truth of God’s Word than their thoughts. So if you find yourself reading or listening to more of your hero’s words than God’s Words, then your hero has already fallen. If a book or a talk does not drive you to listen more to Jesus, it has failed.
Joe Burrows died this week. “Who” you may ask! Joe was a clergyman in the church I grew up in and was a friend to both Leanne and I. He taught me to preach to people older than me and modelled a firm faith given through trial. Everywhere he went he had a Bible in his hand and he never failed to open it and point people to Jesus. He never wrote a book and is not well known but he pointed away from himself to Jesus. The same Jesus he’s rejoicing with right now.
In Christ
Nigel
Please note that after this blog was published, Peterson appears to have retracted his comments. You can read about it here: http://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2017/july/eugene-peterson-actually-does-not-support-gay-marriage.html
The end result of this is that there are now a million blogs all discussing this including some from pro-gay Christians disappointed that he has been forced into a retraction by his publishers.My point still stands – our heroes should point us to Jesus and not themselves.