In Depth:  Jonathan Lamb

Knowing God Better

The Bible has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.

As a small child I would creep downstairs early in the morning to find my father reading its pages. As a teenager I would struggle to defend it to my cynical school friends. As a student I would try to preach its message in small village chapels. And through a variety of critical moments in adult life its rock-solid affirmations have proved foundational, its promises have been the fresh air of heaven in the smog of a sinful heart and a depraved world.

Knowing God Better

I was driving down the main street of San Fernando.

In the pleasant heat of South Trinidad, there it was – a banner advertising the Keswick Convention. Shuffling carefully through the snow in Hokkaido, north Japan, I entered the auditorium where a banner headline again proclaimed: ‘Keswick: All One in Christ’, with no linguistic concessions to non-English speakers. And the same is taking place in Blantyre in Malawi, alongside Lake Balaton in Hungary, in Halifax Nova Scotia, on the beautiful Cayman Islands, at a summer camp over New Year in Rotorua, New Zealand and in many related events across Australia, the Caribbean, North America, Europe, Africa and Asia.

Knowing God Better

‘I believe in the Holy Ghost, I believe in the Holy Ghost.’

It was apparently the habit of the great Baptist preacher, C. H. Spurgeon, to say this quietly under his breath every time he mounted the steps of the pulpit at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. Even if the story is apocryphal, Spurgeon’s ministry affirmed the importance of the Spirit’s work: ‘Men might be poor and uneducated, their words might be broken and ungrammatical; but if the might of the Spirit attended them, the humblest evangelist would be more successful than the most learned divine or the most eloquent of preachers.’

Knowing God Better

Social commentators frequently remind us of a paradox of our age.

Alongside the integration and cohesion of globalisation, there has been an accompanying and more troubling trend – the rise of nationalism and tribalism. Fracture lines are seen across nations, communities and eth-nicities. As Christians we joyfully affirm the counter-cultural unity which the gospel brings. But often we do not see this working as it should. A pastor was once asked if he had an active congregation. ‘Oh yes’, he replied. ‘Half of them are working with me, and half of them working against me’.

Knowing God Better

It was similar to working on the mains electricity of a house, but doing so with the electricity still switched on!

This was how the scholar-clergyman J.B. Phillips explained the experience of working on a paraphrase of the Bible some years ago.

Knowing God Better

I remember the evening vividly.

A frail old man, walking stick in hand and supported by a friend, slowly climbed the steps to the Keswick platform and onwards to the lectern. During his life, he had spoken on every continent of the world, to multiple thousands in baseball stadia, to hundreds in church buildings of every denomination, to congregations gathered under trees and at many student missions.

Knowing God Better

It spans 140 years and crosses cultures and continents.

It’s a remarkable story. It has revolutionised hundreds of thousands of lives. It has had a radical impact on churches and communities. It has launched new mission movements and pushed forward the frontiers of the gospel. And it continues to expand, not through formal organisation or slick marketing but, we believe, as a movement of the Spirit.