It’s been a relatively eventful week, so it’s time to do a little updating. I had my interview with folks from my supervised field education (SFE) church on Thursday last week, and that was an encouraging get-together. Unfortunately, they still have to bring it to the congregation, so I’m not comfortable giving the name of the church until I hear some sort of confirmation there.
Marsha and I have been blessed by God through our church family, which continues to encourage us through prayer, and help us meet our needs with their generosity. Marsha had the wonderful opportunity to return to her Mom’s Take-A-Break group, where she was met with both spiritual encouragement, as well as generous gifts welcoming her back to the group. She was so touched, she couldn’t stop talking about it! It was a tremendous joyful blessing for her, and a reminder that God’s leading us, not us. We both would have to confess, however, that we sometimes worry about our SFE ministry, and leaving our wonderful church family for two years. Yet we remind ourself that the care we’ve received isn’t that of people, but God’s moving in people’s hearts. He will provide our needs, no matter where we are.
Meanwhile, my E.I. status is still up in the air, and that’s become a serious problem. To put it another way, I haven’t received any pay for a month and a half now, and with a mortgage and car-payment, you get the idea. On the plus side, our insurance costs has gone down now that I’ve been a non-smoker for a few years, and our new agent came out on Monday to tell us all the scary things that could happen to us if we don’t have insurance. I can’t stand insurance, or the sales-tactics used to peddle it, but this fellow wasn’t too bad and had a decent sense of humour.
A sister in our fellowship came across a hymn last week, so she printed it off and sent it to us. It’s by an ancestor of mine, Thomas W. Freckelton. I’m not sure how we’re related, but we’re all related in one way or another. Anyway, after reading the hymn, one line caught my eye:
The toil of brain, or heart, or hand,
Is man’s appointed lot;
He who God’s call can understand,
Will work and murmur not.
Toil is no thorny crown of pain,
Bound round man’s brow for sin;
True souls, from it, all strength may gain,
High manliness may win.O God! Who workest hitherto,
Working in all we see,
Fain would we be, and bear, and do,
As best it pleaseth Thee.
Where’er Thou sendest we will go,
Nor any question ask,
And what Thou biddest we will do,
Whatever be the task.Our skill of hand, and strength of limb,
Are not our own, but Thine;
We link them to the work of Him
Who made all life divine!
Our brother-friend, Thy holy Son,
Shared all our lot and strife;
And nobly will our work be done,
If molded by His life.
That title, “brother-friend,” is one that you’ll occasionally hear in LDS works, as well as those Unitarians who deny any deity in Jesus (denying even post-baptism adoptionism). Sure enough, after a little bit of investigation, it turns out ol’ Thomas W. Freckelton pastored at the Unity Church, a unitarian congregation in Islington (London, UK), in the 19th century. Their website declares:
In this Unitarian and Free Christian Church there is no set creed or dogma. Most believe Jesus was the greatest of the prophets but not part of a divine Trinity. Nevertheless, no other prophet or teacher has so influenced world history.
There are lots of people out there who don’t consider that a dividing line at all, but I believe that who Jesus is cuts to the very basis of our faith. A human Jesus could not be my substitute. I cannot be clothed in the righteousness of a human Jesus. What good is having faith in a fellow human? Sorry folks, but that’s a different Jesus as warned about in 2 Corinthians 11:4. It reminds me of that famous C.S. Lewis rant:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I am ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.†That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else He would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God—or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool; you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. (C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity)
So, it’s troubling that my ancestor not only may not have known the true Christ, but also taught that heresy to others. If his was the Jesus who died for me, then I remain lost. At the same time, it is a reminder that our need to give an answer for the hope that we have (1 Peter 3:15) is not a futile cause, because it’s not just the person we’re speaking with who hears us. God honours His truth, so be ready to share it with anyone.
