Ther Funeral of Dr Ralph Martin

Peter Day of Southport kindly sent me a CD of the funeral service for Dr Ralph Martin, which I greatly appreciated and found very moving. The hymns and readings had been chosen by Ralph: two hymns – ‘Sweet is the work, my God, my King’ and ‘Now the day is over’. Unsurprisingly one of the readings was Philippians 2:5-11. I looked to see if I still have the printed copy of his thesis on that passage, Carmen Christi, but I couldn’t find it; when I retired I got rid of quite a number of books and I guess that must have been one of them. Apparently one of his sayings was, ‘A sermon doesn’t have to be eternal to be immortal’! True enough!

One book of his which I still have is The Spirit and the Congregation on 1 Corinthians 12-15. I can’t remember now all it says but I know I found it very helpful in one or two places. In the book of studies entitled Christ the Lord, presented to Donald Guthrie on his retirement, Ralph wrote on the New Testament hymns. As he draws towards his conclusion he says: ‘This way of viewing the relation of Christology to Jesus’ work suggests that it was in worship that the decisive step was made of setting the exalted Christ on a level with God as the recipient of the church’s praise. Hymnology and Christology thus merged in the worship of our Lord, soon to be hailed after the close of the New Testament canon as worthy of hymns “as to God” (Pliny’s report of Bithynian Christians at Sunday worship, AD112).’

Habemus Papam

'For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through who, are all things and through whom we exist.'

Bearing with one another

In preparing an address to be given at the Grace Assembly I have been struck by the opening section of Colossians 3 down as far as v.14. In particular I want to comment on these words 'bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so also you forgive.' It seems to me that words like these are often almost completely overlooked. The context speaks of putting to death all the evils to which even as believers we can be far too prone. But even as we (or some of us!) try to do this there will always be problems and tensions that arise within the church - after all we are not in heaven yet. The only way we can deal with one another's failings is by forbearance and forgiveness. And our mutal sanctification is forwarded by bearing with each other, forgiving each other and together putting to death the things that are wrong and following after those things that are good and right. Yet instead of helping each other as this passage indicates we get exasperated with the faults of our fellow believers, we refuse to forgive, we easily take umbrage and fellowship breaks down. Pride and self so easily spoil our love and the life of the church.

I have not been so well over the past few months, hence no posts. However, following a visit to a cardiologist it seems that there is nothing to worry about. On Wednesday of this week there was an article in the Daily Telegraph about Branse Burbridge. He was well known as a worker with Scripture Union many years ago, but most of us had no idea of his wartime heroics. Though originally a pacifist, when he heard of Nazi atrocities he joined the RAF in 1941 and became a Mosquito pilot. He shot down 21 planes and 3 Doodlebugs, gaining half a dozen medals. He used to aim at the enemy planes' engines in order to give the crew a chance to parachute. Sadly he has Alzheimer's disease now and his medals are up for sale to pay for his care. I also heard that Dr Ralph Martin died on Monday last. He came to London Bible College in 1959 from West Street Baptist Church, Dunstable. He was primarily a New Testament scholar and was not so comfortable teaching Dogmatics, as he did at LBC. Having ministered in Dunstable myself I know of those who were converted during his ministry there; one having now retired after years in the ministry himself.