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Greaves Sports Shop
Scotland’s oldest sports shop has opened for the first time on a Sunday in its 100-year history, with its owner blaming “an Americanised culture” for the move. Greaves Sports began a seven-day operation from January 3 at its store in Glasgow’s Sauchiehall Street.
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Euan Murray
Euan Murray wraps his arms around his 18st body and shivers. The Northampton Saints and Scotland tighthead prop is a mountain of a man, but he looks vulnerable when facing the subject of his religious choices. This Sunday, as Scotland take on France at Murrayfield in their first match of the Six Nations, the 29-year‑old will not be on the pitch.
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Dan Walker
ONE of the new faces of the BBC's football coverage refuses to work on a Sunday because he is a devout Christian. Dan Walker insists on observing the Lord's Day even though there are top-flight matches almost every Sunday this season. Here 32-year-old Dan - who fronts magazine show Football Focus this Saturday at 12.15pm on BBC1 - explains why he WON'T be covering those games.
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Scottish Parliament
The Scottish Parliament in Holyrood, Edinburgh has been closed to visitors on the Christian Lord’s day from the beginning of February 2008. It receives thousands of people a week but only about 400 on the Lord’s day and this has led to the decision to close it off to tourists. It is estimated that the closure will save around £100,000 every year. This action by the Scottish government highlights once again that money and not conviction or principle rules the way our secular society is run.
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Sunday Ferry Sailings to Lewis
Around 500  spectators applauded, cheered, whistled and whooped as the MV Isle of Lewis let go her mooring ropes and slipped off her berth in Stornoway harbour at precisely 2.30pm today.
 
A group from the Free Church Continuing, sang Psalm 46 - God is our refuge and our strength - as passengers boarded and vehicles drove onboard.
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Book Reviews

On the first day of the week

“On the first day of the week”
Rev Dr Iain D Campbell
Cost: £8
Publisher: Day One Publications, 2005
ISBN: 190308795-3

Try before you buy: click here to download a twelve-page abridgement of the book (580 KB)
 

This book has 8 chapters and 224 pages.  It deals with “God, the Christian and the Sabbath”.  The Sabbath is a topic many believers are confused about today and Dr Campbell deals with it in an easy to read book.  The chapter headings are helpful and give us an awareness of the books contents;
1. God and the Sabbath
2. Moses and the Sabbath
3. The Prophets and the Sabbath
4. Jesus and the Sabbath
5. The Apostles and the Sabbath
6. The Puritans and the Sabbath
7. The Twenty-first Century Christian and the Sabbath
8. Heaven and the Sabbath

Although Dr Campbell comes from a community steeped in the tradition of Sabbath keeping this is not a hindrance to this work.  It is obvious that he loves the Christian Sabbath.  Starting in Genesis 2 we are helped to understand the ‘Sabbath Principles’ and what makes the Ten Commandments special.  When dealing with Moses he says “if the Sabbath principle is merely part of the law of Moses, it could be argued that it is no longer binding.  However it is not grounded in the Mosaic law, but the creation narrative.”  Thus “the Sabbath principle is of ancient origin –as old as creation itself” (page 18).

I especially enjoyed chapters 1 and 7.  In Chapter 1, we are treated to a clear exegesis of Genesis 2:3 “God blessed the seventh day and made it holy…”.  In chapter 7 he treats his readers as adults - there is no hint of patronising here – by asking “questions about our Sunday activities which might help us to apply the fourth commandment meaningful”, leaving the reader to work out the practicalities of Sabbath principles for themselves.  As another has said, these questions “are worth the price of the book alone”.

Why bother with the ‘Sabbath Principle’?  Here are some of Iain Campbell’s answers:-

  •  It is part of the created order (p.22)
  •  It is part of the Ten Commandments which are special and moral absolutes (pp.32, 181, 188).
  • “Grace and law are intermingled with God’s Covenant Salvation” (p.31).
  • The law is written on the heart of the believer (p.100).
  • Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath (Mark 2:28).

There are many memorable quotes; here are some of them: -

  • “It is not just Christ or Moses, but Christ IN Moses that must govern our approach to the Old Testament” (p.71).
  • “It is a fallacy to think that the New Covenant is lawless, as if it did not bind us to the law given at Sinai…these laws are now written in the heart” (p.100).
  •  “The Sabbath law is… Christocentric” (p.124).
  • “The Lord’s Day is indeed a Christian Sabbath by divine ordinance” (p.149).

We are indebted to Dr Campbell for this book and we highly recommend it.
 

Robert Murray M'Cheyne's Sabbath Sermons

Robert Murray M'Cheyne: Old Testament Sermons, M D McMullen (ed.), ( Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2004), 183 pages, cost: £13.95.
Robert Murray M'Cheyne: New Testament Sermons, Michael D McMullen (ed.) ( Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2004), 321 pages, cost: £15.50.

Robert Murray M'Cheyne was inducted as pastor of St Peter's Church, Dundee in 1836, sadly he died at the age of 29 years having caught typhus fever in 1843. However he was among the spiritual giants God has used to bless Scotland.

The two above by the Banner of Truth Trust contain mostly unpublished sermons taken from old handwritten notebooks and papers recently discovered in the library of New College, Edinburgh. Book one, Old Testament Sermons contains 23 sermons and book two, New Testament Sermons 48 sermons (this includes 27 talks/outlines on I Peter). The sermons vary in length; some are as long as fourteen pages and as short as two pages.

These sermons exhibit warm evangelical preaching in a Reformed context. He addresses sinners, backsliders and believers. They all exalt Christ and clearly speak of his deep and spiritual knowledge of Him: M'Cheyne says 'Christ is worth a million friends and lovers' (Old Testament Sermons, No.6, p.48). They show skills in sermon construction that allow the Bible text to be clearly opened up and the gospel positively applied. He rejects antinomian ideas and upholds the believer's responsibility to co-operate with God in sanctification. From Phil 1: 23 he states that it is better 'to be with Christ than to be in Christ' because then we shall never have any doubts of our salvation (New Testament Sermons No.20, p.183). There are two sermons on the Christian Sabbath the first from Isa 58:13-14 on 'Delighting in the Sabbath' (OT Sermons) in which M'Cheyne speaks of the renewed hearts desire to keep the Sabbath both inwardly and outwardly: 'this consists principally in delight in the Lord'. The second text is from Mark 2:27 'The Sabbath made for man' (NT Sermons). Here he sets out to 'prove that the Sabbath was made for the whole human race'. Both uphold the Puritan view of the Sabbath.

M'Cheyne gives us something that seems to be lost in contemporary preaching viz., great boldness, a burden for souls, a complete trust in the Bible and a deep personal knowledge of Christ. These books are great value for money. In fact you cannot put a price on the Gospel and here we have it proclaimed par excellence by a man of whom Dr Robert Candlish said 'I cannot understand M'Cheyne; grace seems to be natural to him'. 

The Three Fold Division of the Law

The three fold Division of the Law by Jonathan Bayes ( Newcastle: The Christian Institute), 2005. It is free on request from the Christian Institute, (phone 0191-281-5664).

This small A5 booklet of 16 pages is well produced and most helpful as it sets out for us the rational for dividing God's law into three parts; moral, ceremonial and civil. This has been challenged in recent times, but it validity is important as it helps believers to 'rightly divide the word of truth'. Dr Bayes shows that: -

  •         There was discussion about it in the second and third centuries AD. 
  •         It is found in medieval scholasticisms.
  •         The Reformers accepted it.
  •         The Puritans wrote it into the Westminster, Savoy and Baptist 1689 Confessions.
  •         Jews agree to its validity.

Helpfully Dr Bayes points out that the 10 Commandments, consisting of the moral principles which faith in God demands, are absolute values even although they were enshrined in the civil laws of Israel. The moral law has a civil application. How should we understand the phrase the 'righteous requirements of the law'? This is equivalent to the phrase 'moral law'. He concludes that 'it is virtually impossible to carry through a rigorous rejection of the three fold principle'. Even those who reject the division 'cannot avoid making distinctions by default'. The primacy of the moral law is proved from the Old Testament and the continued necessity to 'keep the commandments of God (1 Cor 7:19) proves a division between the 10 Commandments and ceremonial laws. 

The Moral Law

 The Moral Law: Its place in Scripture and its relevance today.
John L. Mackay
Christian Institute,
P.O.Box 1, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE7 7EF
, 2004, 64pp., £3.50; ISBN 1 901086 27-5
 
A Professor of Old Testament Language, Exegesis and Theology at the Free Church of Scotland College in Edinburgh writing a little book on the moral law is an event hardly likely to set the heather on fire, you might think, and you would be wrong. These two lectures given at the Christian Institute’s Autumn series in November 2003 in Newcastle maintain their learned preachy tone in print, but more, they sing, at least they did for this Welshman. Reading this Scottish prose was a delight. I wanted John to go on and on, leading me further into the intricacies of law and gospel, the Decalogue, the Mosaic Law and the New Covenant. This summary was grand but not enough. Maybe it’s the Welsh that creates the delight in me, or maybe it’s the tension of the particularly divisive Baptist argument about the Christian and the law which found sweet sense and exegetical satisfaction in the theology of these pages. Allied to Iain D. Campbell’s On the First Day of the Week (Day One) we men who believe in the abiding use of the law of God for the Christian have been strengthened by these publications.
 
Whereas Patrick Fairbairn’s Law in Scripture (1868) will be acknowledged, this booklet will be read. Its ten or so chapters on the law are on the Old Testament evidence, the moral law, the Decalogue and the rest of the Mosaic Law, the application of the other laws, the law as a covenant of works, Jesus and the law, the law and love, Paul and the law, the law of liberty and the moral law in today’s world.
 
At a recent Reformed Baptist Conference a paper was given on the subject, “Puritan and New Covenant Baptists: Co-Defenders of the Decalogue.” It was a fine paper. The speaker wants to be known as a “New Covenant man” but he will not eliminate the Decalogue from its importance in sanctifying the believer. However, he regards the Sabbath as a ceremonial sign of the covenant. I am very close to that man; his godliness is illuminating and one acknowledges that there are Mosaic, ceremonial and civil aspects of sabbatical regulations within the seven year and Jubilee structures of Israel. Yet the exegesis and explanation of John L. Mackay is still more persuasive. I was delighted with this book. It will do good pastoral work for me amongst theological students and the more thoughtful leaders of the UCCF.
 
PASTOR GEOFF THOMAS

 

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