By Faith: Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 (Ordinary 19 Year C)

What faith is

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. (Verse 1)

What is faith? Silly atheists will tell you that it’s believing in something that cannot be true. They tell you they don’t have faith at all, they rely on facts. But of course, they do have faith – they have faith in human reason. And while human reason is a good gift of God, it is corrupted by human sin. That’s why good things like science have also given us bad things such as nuclear weapons and instruments of torture.

So what is faith? It’s a combination of two things: belief and trust. It’s the belief in certain things being true about God, and that leads to the trust that we put in God. So we believe that Jesus died for our sins and God raised him from the dead and declared him to be Lord. We then trust him as Saviour and Lord with the direction of our lives.

This is something we practise in everyday life. We get to know certain things about a person, and when we know them well enough to believe they are trustworthy, we then trust them. We might believe in the qualifications an electrician has and then trust them to repair our lights. We might believe in a romantic partner’s love for us and then enter into marriage with them. Both these illustrations are examples of faith that is made up of belief and trust.

The definition of faith our reading begins with is more on the ‘trust’ end. It assumes we already know things about God. Then, in the light of that, we trust:

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.

Given what we know and believe to be true about God, we can be confident in our hope and sure about what we do not see.

Again, what do we know about God as revealed in Jesus? We know this is a God who even gave up his only Son for us. We know that Jesus suffered to the uttermost with us and will be alongside us in the darkest moments of life. We know that God said ‘Yes’ to all Jesus did on the Cross by raising him from the dead. We know that as God made the body of Jesus new, so he will one day make new the whole of creation.

This is the God we believe in. This is why we can have certainty about our future hope: we have seen this God in action. We know he has good plans.

And so we trust him. We trust our entire lives over to him. Even though walking with him will sometimes be difficult and painful, we know he has good purposes in mind for us and the whole world. We may not be able to see where he is leading us, but he has done enough for us to believe he is trustworthy. Therefore, we say ‘Yes’ to him.

So that’s my first point. What is faith? It is believing we know enough about God in Christ to trust ourselves to him.

What faith does

Here we’re specifically going to look at the example of Abraham in the text. We don’t know how much he knew about God, nor even how he got to know God in the first place. But we do know that he believed enough to trust God when he heard him speak to him.

⁸ By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. ⁹ By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise.

If you know God loves you, if you know he has your best interests at heart, and if you know that the best thing in all creation is the kingdom of God, then what do you do when God asks something of you?

Many of us say, ‘No.’ I knew someone in my home circuit who said, ‘Whenever I think God is calling me to something, I always say ‘No,’ because if it is him, he will ask me again.’

However, some of us say no, because we would rather stay comfortable, and we know that God’s call to obey him with trusting faith may lead us into situations that take us away from that comfort we crave.

Certainly, that happened in the Bible, and it definitely happened to Abraham. We just read that he obeyed and went, even though he didn’t know where he was going, and he ended up making his home like a stranger in a foreign country, even though that place would be part of the Promised Land for God’s people.

It has happened to me in following God’s call in the ministry. I wouldn’t even be in the ministry in the first place if I had limited myself only to comfortable circumstances. And when I first went to visit the circuit that would be my second appointment, I can still remember how disheartened I felt as I drove down a hill into the area. I saw how dirty and run-down the place was. Later, I would regularly walk along pavements that were covered in discarded cigarette butts and other litter.

But had I not gone, I would have missed out on serving with some amazing Christians across a variety of churches and denominations. I would not have made some lifelong friends, many of whom still live there.

And of course, it is where I was living when I met Debbie – not that she came from there. It is where we married and where we had our children.

We need to be careful about saying ‘No’ to God when he calls us to trust him and obey in faith. If we’re seeking clarification of his will, like the friend of mine I mentioned, I guess that’s fine.

But when it comes down to it, if we are people of faith and God has spoken to us about something he wants us to do, we need to say ‘Yes’, even if it’s daunting. God will be with us when we trust him and set out as Abraham did. There may indeed be some struggles ahead of us when we go, but Jesus knows what it is like to walk a dark road. He will never leave us or forsake us.

I wonder if there’s anyone here who is being prodded by the Holy Spirit. Is he prompting you to do something or go somewhere? I challenge you to say ‘Yes’ and then see God at work as you trust him in faith.

What faith sees

Believing and trusting isn’t always easy, as I’ve suggested. But there is something that keeps us going forward and drives us on. It is what faith sees. It is the vision faith gives us. Abraham had it. So did others. We can, too.

What is it?

¹⁰ For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

…

¹³ All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. ¹⁴ People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.

Even if God leads us to a place where we are not comfortable, faith tells us this is not the last stop on the journey. Faith holds before us the vision that God is making all things new, that a new creation is coming, with new heavens and a new earth. And God’s people will dwell in the New Jerusalem, the new holy city, in all its glory and splendour.

This is not just about where we go after we die. This is about what God is building in his kingdom. This vision shows us the ultimate purposes of God. We believe this by faith. We set out in trust in that direction, building for it ourselves, by what we do in our lives.

Has God led you into somewhere or something that is troubling or challenging? Be assured that it is not the last stop on the journey.

When we are in that disheartening situation, it is easy for us to look back to when times were better, but what God says to us is, don’t look back, look forward. Look forward to his great future with solid hope. As verses 15 and 16 say,

¹⁵ If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶ Instead, they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

We often talk about our future hope in terms of what Jesus promises in John 14 when he tells his disciples that he is going to prepare a place for them. But in these verses, the promise is much bigger than that. Not only will Jesus prepare a place for us, God is preparing a whole city for his people. Wow! We might not like the place where we are today, but one day we shall be in the City of God. That is what we look forward to by faith.

So if we are discouraged, if we wonder why on earth God has allowed us to be in some dispiriting location or circumstance, let us lift up our eyes. I know I need to do that at times, so I am preaching to myself here every bit as much as I am preaching to you.

Yes, let us lift up our eyes. Let us say, Lord, all those years ago I learned what you were like, and I believed you. And I have stepped out in trusting faith with you. It may not be great right now, but I am going to lift my vision and see something of that future hope, the City of God.

And if for you things are good right now, then I would still encourage you to lift your eyes and dwell on the future hope. For that new creation, that New Jerusalem, is the template for what we do now by faith. It shows us what we are building for. It informs our decisions and our actions now.

For all of us, let us believe. Trust. Act. And hope.

August 10, 2025 0

Principles of Giving (2 Corinthians 9:6-15)

2 Corinthians 9:6-15

There is a certain cluster of topics that a minister can preach on and will know they are likely to provoke guilt feelings in the congregation. One is evangelism: which of us truly is a good witness to Christ? Another is prayer: can any of us say we pray enough, or are close to God?

And another is today’s subject: giving. How easy it is for a preacher to lay the guilt on thick when it comes to money. You may have had someone use emotional manipulation to obtain greater giving from you, either in the church or in the world. You may have been sucked in by the consumerism of our culture. If I had wanted to do that here, I would have preached this sermon before our annual Gift Day, not after – as is the case.

In our reading, Paul is not talking about regular giving. He is organising a collection among the early churches to support those in Jerusalem who are suffering from a famine. What he’s promoting here is closer to the one-off gifts we make when a natural disaster hits somewhere in the world, and the Disasters Emergency Committee springs into action with TV adverts.

One or two of you will say, so why don’t you go to the Old Testament teaching about tithes and offerings, then? Isn’t that about regular giving? If we did a series of sermons on the subject, I would cover it. But at this point I will just say that tithes and offerings are more complicated than some Christians think. Translating them to our situation is not that straightforward.

But in today’s passage, even though it is about one-off gifts, Paul goes back to basic Christian principles about giving to make his appeal here. Those same basic principles should be at the foundation of all our decisions about giving. So let’s explore them.

Firstly, Generosity

⁶ Remember this: whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.

Now this is a verse that has been abused by some Christian leaders. They have made false promises to congregations on the basis of this verse that if they give a lot of money, then God will bless them with a lot of money. They have appealed to the base instinct that wants to get rich and said, if you want to be wealthy then ‘sow a seed’ – usually into that preacher’s ministry. Sure enough, the preacher then gets enough money to fly everywhere in a private jet, while those who give find no improvement in their financial position and may even be driven into poverty. I think there is a special place in Hell for such preachers.

But there is still an important principle here, and that is the call for the Christian to have a generous character. There is only one way to develop a generous character, and that is to be generous.

We have good reason for doing this: we follow a generous God. I shall have more to say about that in a few minutes, but for now let’s note that Paul ends this passage on that note:

¹⁵ Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

God’s indescribable gift is Jesus! How generous was God in giving up his only begotten Son to take on human flesh and die and rise again for the salvation of the world? We seek to give generously, because we love and serve a God who is the supreme generous giver.

What kind of earthly parent would ask, how little can I get away with giving to my children? We know instead that loving parents give to their children at their own expense. This is what God has done for us. This is why we are called to be generous givers.

So a question we need to ask of ourselves when assessing our giving to the church is not, ‘How little can I get away with?’ but ‘How much from my income and in my circumstances would constitute generous giving?’

Remember: this is about the growth of Christian character. Do I desire to be like our generous God?

Secondly, Cheerfulness

⁷ Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

‘God loves a cheerful giver.’ The late American Baptist preacher and sociologist Tony Campolo put this verse into practice. When driving on a toll road and coming up to the toll booth, he would wind his window down, give money to the clerk on duty, and say to them, ‘This is for me, and also for my friend in the car behind.’ Then, as he drove away, he would watch in his rear view mirror the ensuing conversation between the toll clerk and the next driver. You’ve guessed: Campolo didn’t know the driver behind him from Adam, but he took joy in his giving.

Your trivia fact for this week is that the Greek word translated in English as ‘cheerful’ is hilaros, from which we get our word ‘hilarious’. Does God love a hilarious giver? Why not? Tony Campolo had much hilarity in paying for the driver behind him. And is not God full of joy and hilarity?

So I’m very much trying to avoid making this sermon one of those gloomy ones that load more and more guilt on people. As I said at the beginning, the moment people hear the sermon is on this subject, the risk of ladling guilt on people is high.

And I hope you heard that in Paul’s language, much as he wants the Corinthians to give generously, there is no emotional manipulation here: the decision on how much to give should not be made ‘reluctantly or under compulsion’.

What if Christians are reluctant to give? When [my predecessor] John Illsley began his ministry in Sheffield, the local Anglican vicar was Robert Warren. He was in charge of a massive church with several satellite congregations across Sheffield: St Thomas, Crookes. They saw four-figure attendances on Sundays, and due to their growth had held several appeals to support more building. Warren said in a book that if people did not want to give, the answer was not to make them feel guilty. Rather, it was to give more grace. It is when we truly understand how gracious and merciful God has been to us in Christ that we shall want to give. Then it will be a freewill decision, and it will be joyful.

Thirdly, Trust

⁸ And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. ⁹ As it is written:

‘They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor;
their righteousness endures for ever.’

¹⁰ Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.

Giving is an act of trust. I confess that for a long time I had trouble believing in a God who was a generous Father. My human father certainly showed me love, but my upbringing was one where for the most part my parents didn’t have it easy financially. I would always be the child in the class at school who received the cheapest Christmas presents. I overheard conversations between Mum and Dad about how they were going to manage their money.

But I learned an amazing lesson about the generous Father I could trust when I wanted to go to theological college and explore what God’s call on my life was. It was near the end of the days of student grants, not student loans, and the college that accepted me did not qualify for mandatory grants. My Local Education Authority took that as reason to deny me a grant.

The college told me I needed to guarantee my funding for the first year, and I appealed against the refusal to give me a grant. Forty-eight hours before the deadline the college gave me, I still hadn’t heard about my appeal. Phoning up, I was told, ‘I’m sorry, Mr Faulkner, there is a letter in the post saying we have rejected your appeal.’

It was at this late juncture that people suddenly started giving me money. My parents rediscovered a long-forgotten savings account. A student who was taking a year out between Sixth Form and college to work and save money for a car felt prompted to give that money to me. That student’s boyfriend also felt prompted to give me some funds. As did two elderly ladies at church, one of whom wrote the most moving letter in which she said, ‘It seems like God is calling you to trust him to meet your needs. He will meet ours, too.’

The next Sunday evening I was preaching at another church in our circuit. I preached on ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ and said that God had met my needs for college. In fact, I only had three-quarters, but I didn’t tell them that.

After the service, a middle-aged single man invited me back to his flat for coffee. As we sat in his living room, he explained that he had planned a three-week holiday to New Zealand to see his auntie. But his auntie had since died, and he no longer felt like going. He had already exchanged his sterling currency for New Zealand dollars, but since doing so their dollar had been devalued. Holding onto the money in the hope that the dollar’s value would improve, in fact it kept declining. Now this money was just annoying him. Would I like to take this annoyance off his hands?

Before I could say anything, he had thrown some plastic Thomas Cook envelopes into my lap. I can still remember the precise amount. 2310 NZ dollars. My Dad worked for NatWest and got me a staff rate of exchange: £742.31. Our friend had originally exchanged £1000 – and we’re talking a few decades ago now!

God blesses us, not so that we can financially keep up with the Joneses, but so that we can bless others. Let us trust him.

Conclusion, Thanksgiving

¹¹ You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

¹² This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. ¹³ Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. ¹⁴ And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. ¹⁵ Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

Originally, I wanted to make a whole fourth point about thanksgiving, but time is not on my side and so I just want to emphasise that thanksgiving is the desired result of true Christian giving. The recipients of our generosity will thank God (verse 11). Their thanksgiving will overflow (verse 12). God will be praised, because people will see us living out our faith (verse 13) as we respond to his grace (verse 14). And as I noted earlier, this is all rooted in our thanksgiving for God’s giving to us (verse 15).

If thanksgiving is at the heart of our giving, then this is about worship. Our giving is not a subscription to a club or even fund-raising: that is why in a service, I refer to the offering, not the collection.

By the grace of God, may we learn to give as an act of worship.

June 22, 2025 1

What’s In It For Me? (John 6:24-35) Ordinary 18 Year B

John 6:24-35

When it was announced in one of my previous appointments that I was due a sabbatical, the only reaction from my senior steward was, ‘What’s he going to bring back for us?’ There was no concern that it might be beneficial for me, or that I might need it.

It was rather like the ‘What’s in it for me?’ question that we often find in wider society. Politicians know how significant that question is, and so when elections come around their manifestos are packed with promises to the voters about what they will do for them, rather than casting a vision of a better society.

And ‘What’s in it for me?’ is very much the attitude of the crowd that has hunted down Jesus and his disciples after they tried to escape across the water when Jesus knew they wanted to make him king by force. That’s what Jesus tells them their motives are:

²⁶Jesus answered, ‘Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.

I’m not going to deny that there are many benefits that come from following Jesus, but the crowd were only following Jesus in a geographical sense. They weren’t following him as their Teacher, let alone their Lord and Saviour. They were in it for themselves.

And if we’re honest, sometimes our words and actions as Christians betray similar attitudes. ‘I didn’t get much out of that service this morning,’ say some people – completely missing the point that worship is an act of giving, not getting.

Instead, Jesus says this:

²⁹Jesus answered, ‘The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.’

But is that good enough for the crowd? No! They want a sign like manna from heaven (verses 30-31), despite what they witnessed with the feeding of the five thousand. There’s just no pleasing some people!

Which I guess is the point. Jesus hasn’t come to please people, any more than ministers have. Sometimes when strangers discover what my work is they say to me, ‘It must be hard trying to please everyone.’

My response is, ‘It isn’t my job to please everyone.’

You get the impression that no matter what Jesus says, this crowd has little intention of becoming disciples. In fact, were you to skip to the end of the chapter you’ll find that apart from Jesus’ inner circle, nearly everyone bails on him.

And Jesus lets them go. He doesn’t soften his message for them. He doesn’t redesign his message around their ‘lived experiences’. That’s something today’s church would do well to ponder.

So what does it mean ‘to believe in the one [God] has sent’ (verse 29) and to feed on Jesus, ‘The bread of life’ (verse 35)?

Well, let’s eliminate one very basic, minimal thing. Believing in Jesus is not simply about believing he exists. Jesus is right in front of the crowd – they know he exists – so it can’t be that.

It’s something more. It’s believing in him in the sense of trusting in him – and trusting in him to the extent that we entrust our very lives to him. What does that involve?

Firstly, it’s going to involve trusting in his teaching, and that’s quite a radical step to begin with. So much of Jesus’ teaching cut across the norms of his day and that’s every bit as true, if not more so, today. Loving God and loving our neighbour ahead of ourselves? Forgiving people that our society freely calls ‘unforgivable’? Serving others instead of lording it over them?

Oh sure, when we see other people living selflessly, we applaud and we nominate them for an honour from the Queen, but to think that we should all do this – isn’t that a bit much? We’ll let these other noble people do the good acts vicariously for us.

But if we believe in Jesus and his teaching, we won’t make excuses like that.

Secondly, it’s going to involve trusting in his kingship, which is very different from the kingship that the crowd imagined. No military ruler killing his enemies here.

Instead, Jesus spoke language about being lifted up as if on a throne – you find this in John 12:32:

‘And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’

But he is referring to his death on the Cross! That is where he will be enthroned as King of Israel and King of all creation.

Believing in Jesus means trusting that his Cross is what changes the world. The Cross is where notice is served on the powers of evil. The Cross is where our sins are forgiven, and we begin the journey of living a new and different life.

Thirdly, it’s going to involve trusting in his love, because all that I’ve mentioned so far about the teaching of Jesus and of his Cross indicate what an upside-down approach to life he brings. Does he have our best interests at heart when he calls us to self-denial? How exactly can his death serve as the turning-point of history?

I believe Jesus knows that what he asks of us is the opposite of what the world broadcasts, but he invites us to look at all he has done for us and then answer the question as to whether we will trust him.

In particular, he reminds us of all he has done in giving up the glory of heaven to take on human flesh among the poor, and in going to the Cross for us.

All this is for us to trust in his love for us and hence also trust in his teaching and his kingship.

And with that relationship comes all the blessings we long for. They don’t come by us grabbing all we can have for ourselves with the ‘What’s in it for me?’ mentality.

By trusting ourselves into Jesus’ hands we gain more than bread to feed our stomachs: we gain the very Bread of Life, Jesus himself (verse 35).

August 1, 2021 0

Video Sermon: You Have Never Been This Way Before – How To Face New Challenges

I wrote and recorded this week’s video a week ago, so it was before last night’s announcement by the Prime Minister that England is being placed in another lockdown from Thursday coming.

Joshua 3 has been significant for me for a long time as a guide to how we face new challenges in life. And we certainly need that help right now.

I hope this helps you, too. If it does, please share this on your socials.

November 1, 2020 0

Video Sermon: How God Cures Grumbling

This week, I reflect on the story of God providing manna in the wilderness for the Israelites in Exodus 16:1-15. Given that human nature hasn’t changed over three thousand years, I look at how the ways God cured their moaning can be effective when we become religious whingers today.

If you liked this, please share it on other social media channels. Thanks!

September 20, 2020 0

A Second Conversion: Jacob’s Wrestling Match At Peniel

When I was growing up, my grandmother lived with us. The only time she watched anything that could loosely be called sport was on a Saturday afternoon at 4 pm. That was when ITV’s World Of Sport showed wrestling. Never mind the fact that the bouts were blatantly staged and fixed, Nanna (and Mum) used to enjoy shouting at Mick McManus and Jackie Pallo when they got up to their devious tricks.

Jacob’s wrestling bout with the mysterious stranger at Peniel in Genesis 32:22-32 is very different. This isn’t cheap entertainment. This is a new revelation of God to Jacob, every bit as significant as the encounter he had at Bethel with the dream of the staircase to heaven.

Here are my thoughts on the passage.

August 2, 2020 0

Sabbatical, Day 80: Rebuilding Trust; Todd Bentley’s Second Coming

A Christian businessman friend of mine, Dan Collins (his company is Fresh Tracks), twittered an article this morning that he had written for the website Financial World. Basically, he argues that if companies want to do well today, they should build a culture of trust, especially with their customers. He contrasts this to the woeful track record of banks, who have introduced cost-cutting policies at the expense of customer contact. Here is one striking story from the article. It appeals to me, because it refers to my native North London!

The example that first triggered this thought in my mind was a little restaurant in North London that was always full, predominantly with repeat customers. Despite being quite a trek from the centre of town it was renowned around the world. The reason being, there were no prices on the menu because there was never a bill at the end of the evening. Vasos Michael the 4’10” diminutive proprietor didn’t ever give his customers bills for their meal, he simply presented a list of what had been served, including drinks and asked that the customers paid what they felt the meal was worth. On the whole people rewarded his trusting nature by paying more than a comparable meal would have cost elsewhere and if someone abused the relationship by paying too little, Vasos wouldn’t hesitate to ask why, gaining either valuable feedback or the satisfaction of publicly embarrassing a miser.

I found it refreshing to read Dan’s piece today, not only because it was great to see a Christian friend writing something in the commercial world that is based on implicit Christian values, but because it made me connect with other thoughts.

For one thing, I’d put the breakdown in business trust earlier than Dan does. My father worked in the City for NatWest at the time of the financial ‘Big Bang’ of 1987, when regulatory practices were ‘reformed’. (Deformed, more like.) He always said that was the time when the old City ethic that a man’s (and it was generally a man, in the past) word was his bond. He saw time-honoured practices discarded recklessly by young bucks. That predates Dan – he’s too young to have been in the business world then, I think. But I’m glad to see him voicing these convictions, especially at a difficult time when businesses might be tempted to cut even more ethical corners to survive and prosper. Great stuff, Dan.

But it connects with church issues, too. Only last night I was reading that Todd Bentley may be back in public ministry sooner than expected. There is a large piece in the Canadian Western Standard, which I found via Bene Diction and Richard Hall. Now while there is a certain cynical tone to the Western Standard article that I might find uncomfortable, it isn’t surprising when you consider what it has turned up. Two points in particular stood out for me:

Firstly, Rick Joyner, who is supposed to be overseeing Bentley’s restoration process, now claims that God is overriding that process in order to bring Bentley back into ministry sooner. Secondly, the Standard provides evidence that in its opinion shows Bentley denying the formal relationship they believe was undoubtedly established between him and the Revival Alliance.

With regard to the second, I don’t doubt what the Standard are saying, but I think there was also an issue about what Peter Wagner and the others claimed was happening at Lakeland. It was a matter of considerable debate last summer whether Wagner said he knew Bentley well or not. (Here is what I wrote at the time.)

But the first point raises big issues of trust for me, not dissimilar from what Dan Collins was writing about in terms of business practice. Sin, repentance and restoration to ministry are serious matters. When people have suffered brokenness for a long time (and it seems to be that Bentley has honestly admitted that), then my experience suggests that the quick fix is rarely right or healthy. There is good reason for the process to take a long time. Some will be cynical about the motives behind any attempts to rush Bentley back into the spotlight. I can understand that. We like the crash-bang-wallop approach to spirituality in charismatic circles (or should I say, ‘Bam’?), because we have been seduced by an instant can’t-wait culture.

I can’t help thinking it would be much more merciful to keep Bentley out of the public eye. No videos, no nothing. It would be kinder to him. Remember how Jimmy Swaggart tried to wriggle out of the discipline imposed by the Assemblies of God when he fell? It didn’t look good, did it? Neither does this. I am so not convinced that it is God who is accelerating Todd Bentley’s return, unless others can provide some strong evidence to make me rethink.

In fact, to me there seem to be particular reasons in Bentley’s case why the restoration process needs to be long and slow. (And, I should add, ‘restoration’ is not primarily about a return to public ministry. It is first and foremost about a return to good fellowship in the Body of Christ. Public ministry may or may not follow, but it cannot be a priority.)

The particular reasons revolve around the nature of what brought an end to his ministry at Lakeland, and his personal history. The issue appears to be one of deceit, and that suggests a lot of learned habits to cover things up over a long period of time. There was deceit over the relationship with the woman who is now his second wife, even if there was nothing physically inappropriate. That deceit must have been towards Shonnah, his first wife, towards the now-renamed Fresh Fire ministry, towards the local leadership at Lakeland, and potentially others.

Furthermore, Bentley had a conviction aged fifteen for sexually assaulting a seven-year-old boy, along with other crimes based on his membership of a sexual assault gang. I don’t want to use the facts of those convictions in the way some of his opponents in blog posts have, to smear him, as if there were no such thing as forgiveness. I believe there is forgiveness for the worst of sins through the Cross of Christ. However, I would draw attention to the widespread experience of those who counsel sex crime offenders, especially those whose crimes are against children. Their regular testimony is that these people are astonishingly practiced in the art of deceit. Granted, Bentley clearly hasn’t reached the depths of many such people who so deceive themselves that they justify their behaviour, but they have to engage in serious deceit in order to cover up their deeds. It becomes ingrained.

That is why my own denomination will not anyone hold office who has been convicted of sexual offences against minors. Were Bentley to have been a British Methodist and not an independent, he would not have been allowed to minister in the first place.

Given, then, the likely history of deceit, it’s little surprise it came into play at Lakeland with the inappropriate relationship. This constitutes on the personal level the major breach of trust which Dan Collins laments in much of the business world.

There has to be a long journey back from such places. Real apologies. Deep repentance. New patterns of behaviour, tried and tested over a period of time. Attempts to make amends or restitution, if appropriate. And so on. Pastoral care is not a TV show. It is quiet and long term. That doesn’t seem to be happening here.

Perhaps, if I pursue this theme of trust, Rick Joyner and his colleagues would ask me to trust them. But I would struggle on this evidence. At best, I am concerned about the wisdom being shown in the ‘restoration process’. At worst, others will doubtless make more serious allegations about potential motives. I do not believe that what is being shown publicly presents the Body of Christ in a good light.

As on other occasions, I truly hope I am wrong. But to my mind so far, the evidence is pointing in a worrying direction.

April 21, 2009 12

Tag: trust