Britain's Loneliest Sheep

A high-profile new resident arrived in Dumfries and Galloway recently – a ewe once known as ‘Britain’s Loneliest Sheep’. Fiona, as she has been named, was rescued after being stranded for more than two years at the foot of cliffs in the Scottish Highlands. Fiona’s plight hit the headlines after a kayaker photographed her still trapped at the foot of a steep cliff at the Cromarty Firth, two years after a previous sighting. An online petition to rescue her attracted thousands of signatures, before four farmers came to the rescue. Despite protests from an animal rights group, she arrived safely at Dalscone Farm in Dumfries under cover of darkness, and has been there ever since.

So what was it about Fiona that captured the nation’s attention? Quite simply, it was that she was on her own. And everyone knows that sheep aren’t meant to be alone. Yet as a minister I often hear people say: ‘I don’t need to go to church to be a Christian’. Or: ‘I can worship God as I walk in the hills’. Or ‘I just watch services online’. One reason why that’s a problem is because the Bible repeatedly describes Christians as sheep. Most people are familiar with the opening line of Psalm 23: ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’. When Jesus came, he described himself as ‘The Good Shepherd’. He said ‘My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me’. If we see a sheep on its own, we know something is wrong. We should look with similar concern on someone who claims to be one of Christ’s sheep, and yet shuns involvement in a gospel-preaching church. Especially if we work on the assumption that God created sheep for the very purpose of showing us what we are like and what we need.

Certainly, our relationship with God must be personal. Too many try to substitute a connection with a church for a personal relationship with Jesus. We must be able to say ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’. But the Bible’s vision is not for ‘you in your small corner and me in mine’. The New Testament pattern is that when people are baptised, they are joined to a particular body of believers. Most of the New Testament letters are written to churches. Those which are written to individuals, are written to church leaders. The New Testament has no concept of an individual Christian (or a Christian family) which is not under the shepherding care of a local church. Christians in the New Testament are frequently described as ‘saints’. Unlike the popular idea of a halo-wearing, super-holy person, the word simply describes those who God has set apart for himself. Significantly, the word ‘saint’ is always plural in Scripture. 1st Corinthians 12 describes the church as a body; some people are hands, some are eyes, some are ears. Everyone has a role to play. Those who isolate themselves (Proverbs 18:1), refuse to play their God-given role. James Bannerman, a great Scottish theologian of the past, said ‘A solitary Christian is a contradiction in terms’.

Some point to a bad church experience in the past as the reason they’ve decided to go it alone. If that’s you, I sympathise deeply. But if a sheep has been badly treated on one farm, the answer isn’t to rescue it and then set it loose to wander. Often, bad church experiences come at the hands of self-appointed leaders who are a far cry from the ‘shepherds after my own heart’ God promises through Jeremiah. These shepherds must be ‘sent’ (Romans 10:15). Just as the New Testament expects individual believers to join themselves to a local church, so it expects the leaders themselves to be under spiritual authority. If you are in a ‘church’ where the leader is not accountable to anyone for his actions, get out! Indeed, the very idea of a church with one individual making the decisions is neither healthy or biblical.

After two years, Fiona the sheep might have been quite content to be by herself. But it was not what was best for her. Surely she is happier now? Living week in, week out, alongside other believers can be a challenge at times. We will sin against one another and be sinned against. We’ll hurt one another, disappoint one another. But by God’s grace we’ll also fulfil the New Testament commands to encourage one another and build one another up. God in his wisdom has not designed sheep to be alone.

Due for publication in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 29 February 2024

Borders' Conference

Back in November, Stephen and Carla attended the annual Banner of Truth Borders’ Conference in Carlisle. It was a great time of hearing from God’s word and renewing fellowship with other believers in our region. On the Saturday afternoon, Stephen had a chance to speak about gospel needs and opportunities in Stranraer, as well as in Dumfries and Galloway more generally.

The official report from the conference says of the Saturday afternoon:

“this was a particularly encouraging time as representatives reported on real-life ministry in places that are in many cases ‘off the beaten track’, whether that be Stranraer in the deep southwest of Scotland, or the small village of Charlesworth on the edge of the Peak District. It was a reminder that the Lord is at work in such places, and of the need to pray for more labourers”

You can watch a video of the opening address by Jonty Rhodes below:

The Heroine of the Princess Victoria

January can be a grim month. Intimations cover shop windows, announcing death after death. In 2021, a Covid outbreak in Thorney Croft Care Home saw 14 residents die. And on the very last day of January 1953, the Princess Victoria sank, with the loss of 135 lives.

The tragic story is known only too well. The Victoria made slow progress up Loch Ryan that morning. Emerging from the Loch she met with a gale-force storm and thirty-foot waves. Captain Ferguson managed to get the vessel turned, but it was then smashed on the stern by powerful waves. The car deck doors were damaged beyond repair and water flooded the deck.

At 09:46, radio operator David Broadfoot transmitted a message saying: “"Vessel not under command. Urgent assistance of tugs required”. An SOS message was sent at 10:32. In the meantime, the captain seems to have concluded that he had no option but to resume his original course and head out into the storm for Ireland. Five miles from safety, with the engine room flooded and the ship badly listing, Broadfoot messaged at 13:15: “We are preparing to abandon ship”.

The weather conditions, as well as confusion about the Victoria’s location, severely hampered the rescue. Only the lifeboats on one side of the ship could be used, and tragically the one containing women and children was smashed against the sinking ship, meaning none survived.

As with similar disasters, there were some who emerged as heroes. Broadfoot was posthumously awarded the George Cross for staying at his post. The captains of the merchant vessels who came to assist were made members of the Order of the British Empire. Officers of the HMS Contest were awarded the George Medal for their bravery in entering the water to assist the survivors.  

One woman, whose story is not so well known, has been hailed as ‘the heroine of the Princess Victoria’. Her name was Nancy Bryson, and she was from my home county of Londonderry. She was a missionary in Kenya, and had come back to the UK with her husband and three children to visit relatives and speak at some meetings. In 2013, her daughter told the BBC: ‘She was one of the bravest women on board who whispered words of comfort to other passengers and led them in singing a hymn. She also tried to help a three year old child into one of the lifeboats but failed to do so, going under the water herself in the process’.

A poem written about her says: ‘God had her there on purpose’. That might seem a strange thing to say. There were those who were booked to be on the ship that fateful January day who ended up not sailing, due to illness or other reasons. Why would anyone think God had her on that ship on purpose?

The answer is because of what she was reported to be doing as the ship sank. The poem recounts ‘She spoke of Jesus and his love and all his power to save’. As a missionary, Nancy Bryson had given her life to tell people of the hope there is beyond this world. She probably imagined that her most important missionary work would be done in East Africa. It may well be that it was done on the Princess Victoria instead. ‘God had here there on purpose, upon the ship that day / To point the soul to Jesus, the true and living way’.

What a contrast she is to another woman on board that day. That secondly lady was seen walking around in a fur coat clutching bags. Someone told her to forget about them, but she replied: ‘This is all the money I have in the world’. She was later seen dead in the water, still tightly clutching those bags. Nancy Bryson, on the other hand, pointed people to true riches, which even death can’t take from us.

In his book on the disaster, Jack Hunter argued that the Victoria’s loss was due less to unseaworthiness than to an unsuccessful rescue operation. More modern ro-ro ships have sunk less than thirty minutes after water invaded their car decks; the Victoria stayed afloat for four hours.

Those four hours would have been agonising – and yet would also have given those on-board time to think about eternity. And in God’s providence there was someone there to point them to the one who endured the waves of God’s wrath so we could live forever.

Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 25th January 2024

Recent Writing

Last month, Stephen had a couple of articles published , dealing with seeing Jesus in the Psalms, as well as the Westminster Divines’ use of a newly discovered Biblical manuscript.

Key quotes from both articles - and links to read more - are below:

The Psalms: Are They Maximally or Minimally Messianic? (Logos Word by Word blog)

“New Testament quotations from Psalms are not intended to set limits as to which are Messianic; rather, they're to demonstrate how we should interpret the rest.”

The Westminster Divines and the Alexandrian Codex (Affinity Foundations journal)

“…despite all the advances in textual criticism since the Annotations were published and despite all the new manuscripts that have been discovered, a straight line can be drawn from half of the ‘various readings observed’ in a single manuscript by a Westminster Divine in the 1640s right through to the latest scholarly edition of the Greek New Testament in use today.”

Veiled in Flesh?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Image credit: Gage Skidmore

There are some great lines in Christmas carols. My favourite is in ‘Joy to the World’, where we’re told that Jesus ‘came to make his blessings flow, far as the curse is found’. That’s a great, one-line summary of why Jesus came into the world. It would be hard to find anyone who would disagree with the statement that the world is not as it should be. Why is that the case? Some would say lack of education. Others would say inequality. Still others would say religion. The Bible’s explanation is that this world has been under a curse ever since humanity’s rejection of God back in the Garden of Eden. It was the effects of that curse that Jesus came to reverse.

Other carols are more problematic, however. ‘Silent night’? – no, it definitely wasn’t! ‘No crying he makes’? – real babies cry. ‘We three kings?’ – they weren’t kings and we're’ not told how many there were. ‘Mary, did you know’? Yes, yes she did. And as for the little drummer boy…

Another problematic line is from a carol originally entitled ‘Hark how all the Welkin rings’. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s now known to us as ‘Hark! The Herald Angels sing’. The line in question reads: ‘Veiled in Flesh, the Godhead see’. It’s saying that in Jesus, we see God, albeit veiled. Surely it should be the opposite, however: Jesus was not God veiled – but God revealed.

He is, as the Bible says elsewhere, ‘the image of the invisible God’ (Colossians 1:15). John’s gospel begins by telling us that while ‘No one has ever seen God, the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known’. Jesus’ own testimony is that he is the Revealer of the Father: ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father’ (John 14:9).

As someone has put it: ‘The Godhead was not veiled in flesh. The Godhead was revealed in flesh. God makes himself known, not hidden, in flesh’

Why does any of this matter? Because if Jesus is the revealer of God, then if we want to know what the invisible God is like, we need to look at Jesus.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was a major figure in the New Atheism movement, along with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens. The latter once described her as the ‘the most important public intellectual probably ever to come out of Africa’. Last month, she announced her conversion to Christianity. Brought up as a Muslim, she became a prominent critic of Islam, opposing forced marriage, honour killing, child marriage and female genital mutilation. In a recent interview, she said ‘the god I grew up with was a horror show’. Her therapist once asked her what she thought that God should be like if he existed; the answer she came up with was Jesus Christ. Ali says that she once hated God – but the ‘god’ she hated was not like Jesus. Similarly, many people today reject a ‘God’ who is nothing like Jesus. If Jesus is the one who reveals God however, he must be our starting point in coming to see what God is like.

Author and Seminary President Michael Reeves used to have an almost physical reaction to the word ‘God’. It was not a word that brought him any ‘comfort and joy’ (to quote another carol). He describes an experience surely not unique to him: 

‘I found myself interested in heaven, interested in salvation, even interested in Jesus, but not attracted to God. I longed to escape hell and go to heaven, but God’s presence was not the inducement. Quite the opposite: I would have been far more comfortable with a Godless paradise’.

So what changed? Through reading some of the great writers of church history, Reeves came to realise that ‘there is no God in heaven who is unlike Jesus’. The great truth of the incarnation is not God veiled in human flesh – but God revealed in human flesh.

And what sort of God does Jesus reveal? A good of perfect compassion, perfect tenderness, perfect justice, perfect love. A God who we were created to be like – but are very unlike.

Jesus’ coming into the world is significant because of how the story would end: with his death on the cross. Far from being a tragic accident, his death was the very reason he came – so that the sin that separates us from God could be dealt with. Truly that is ‘glad tidings of great joy!’

Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 21 December 2023

Another take on the same theme, but aimed at a different audience, appeared on Gentle Reformation earlier this week.