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Faithfully present - when time flies or freezes


"So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only [literally: 'they became'] a few days to him because of his love for her." (Genesis 29:20)

Robert Alter, Genesis Translation and Commentary, on Gen 22:9-10: "In contrast to the breathless pace of the narrative as a whole, this sequence inscribes a kind of slow motion: building the altar, laying out the wood, binding... reaching out the hand..."

Adam Ramsey's beautifully written Faithfully Present is summed up well by the subtitle: "Embracing the Limits of Where and When God Has You." Big idea: God is unlimited by place and time but we are limited. Ramsey gives wisdom on what it looks like to 'make peace' with those creaturely limits, in a way that is rooted not in trendy mindfulness (and not unrealistic about the demands of real life) but is grounded in the gospel realities of creation, fall, redemption, sanctification and consummation.

Highlights

  1. Ramsey's descriptions of seasons of life and his point that we can tend to want to be in a different season than the one we're in rather than embrace the particular opportunities of the season we're in - really helpful - I borrowed heavily from this section for a recent sermon on the parable of the talents. 
  2. The chapter on death is worth the price of the book. I need that reminder. Our hope is not in podcasts promising to crack the food code or the exercise code or the cancer code. We will die. And in Christ that is gain.
  3. The last chapter and epilogue on eternity make a brilliant ending. I loved the emphasis on 'new creation' terminology and the physicality of the new heavens and earth rather than the more common evangelical language of 'heaven' to vaguely refer to both the intermediate and final state. Ramsey very helpfully reminds us both that 'this earth is not our home' (Diognetus 5) and also that 'this earth is not our home yet but one day it will be.' 

Specific ministry applications I took away

  1. Place matters. We are embodied people living in locations alongside thousands of other people each with their own unique history and direction and daily rituals. Places are richly layered. Thick with years of culture. A dizzying superabundance of interactions and particularities that give one place a different feel to any other. Gospel ministers, church planters and missionaries of all sorts need to take account of that particularity. If the balance is shifting, as it seems to be in the UK and across the West, from the Anywheres to the Somewheres, then understanding place is more important than ever.  
  2. Size dynamics matter. Ramsey references Dunbar's number and connects it with the idea of a 'household' in traditional societies (extended family/clan, servants, guests - cf. Gen. 14:14) and with the idea of the church as household (1 Tim 3:5,15). Could that be suggesting that somewhere in the region of 100-300 there is an optimal size for a church congregation or at least that beyond that number there will need to be some special thought given to facilitate effective communication and healthy community?
  3. Mentoring matters. One of the opportunities and responsibilities of the 'autumn' season of life (roughly age 40-60) is that, like Paul in 2 Timothy, "Desiring well, we press onwards by passing on our gifts and wisdom to those coming up behind us" (p. 45 emphasis added).

A couple of minor quibbles:

  1. I'm not sure that the departed saints are conscious of us left on earth and cheering us on in our race (Hebrews 12:1). My reading of Hebrews 11-12 is that the 'great cloud of witnesses' are not witnessing us but Jesus. These OT saints were looking to Christ (e.g. Moses - Heb. 11:26-27). They are not beside the road cheering us on our marathon; they are at the finish line having run their race and they are the model for us of how to run - fixing our eyes on Jesus. The 'rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents' (Luke 15:7,10) could possibly be the departed saints excited over our conversions but much more likely in the context of this triple parable it is the joyful shepherd (v5) / rejoicing coin-finder (v9) / running father (v20) i.e. Jesus the jubilant saviour of sinners. The only other place I can think of that could suggest the departed saints are conscious of us is Abraham-Lazarus in Luke 16 but maybe we shouldn't draw that much from the parable and even there it seems Lazarus needs to explain the details of his family to Abraham (v28).  
  2. Ramsey's discussion of the difference between chronos time and kairos time did grate somewhat as that popular distinction (marching clock time versus fleet-footed appointed time) has been disproved. But it doesn't really affect Ramsey's argument that we don't need to be enslaved to either chronos or kairos because all time is under the feet of Jesus Christ. And he is right to point out that we do experience time as sometimes flying, sometimes crawling. Some cultures and personalities do think of time more relationally (or to put it negatively, can be in danger of putting the present before the promised) while some culture/personalities value efficient use of time (or to put it negatively, can be in danger of clock watching). We do need to look to Christ - the Lord of time, the redeemer of time and our model of being faithfully present in time.



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