Gilcomston Church

Monthly Letter – May 2024

TAKING SCOTLAND OUT OF THE BOY

Dear Friends,

I have a coaster on my desk which says very simply – “You can take the boy out of Scotland, but you can’t take Scotland out of the boy.”

A conviction. A warning. A reminder. Depending, I guess, who reads it.

It was given to me many years ago now – I forget by whom, or indeed on what occasion: but it sits there daily on my desk: and this light-hearted, comic one-liner reminds me each day of an important truth which has countless applications.

It’s a reminder to me, for one thing, of the nature of both sin and salvation: and a necessary, salutary reminder thereby from the start of each day, of what ministry must always be about. The heart. What lies beneath. That which is inside; and not any mere externals.

Changing a person’s location, changing the outward ‘trappings’ of a person’s life – shifting, as it were, the furniture of their lives, is only ever tinkering with appearances: it neither resolves nor even addresses the basic problem. That’s to say that ministry is never a case of simply exhorting and helping a people to ditch some graceless vocab from their lips, to hitch up the socks of their daily walk, to stitch up the glaring inconsistencies in their living, and to pitch up at worship on Sundays.

All of that’s just ‘taking the boy out of Scotland’: no more and no better than rearranging deck chairs on the metaphorical Titanic, when the problem, of course, is an underwater, beneath-the-surface iceberg. As Jesus Himself insisted, the problem lies within – not with the externals. What lies beneath. The heart.

Preaching and pastoring must always get beyond a simple scratching of the surface. There’s pressure always to keep it superficial: to ‘scratch’, as it were, where the ‘itching ears’ of contemporary culture demand – a bit of entertainment, some gentle, general platitudes, some ‘feel-good-factor’ messages to help us on our way. Ministry, though, must always target the heart, probing beyond the defences that people have stubbornly placed round their hearts, and being bold to present the sword of His Word to the Spirit of God that He might then use it to confound and convict and convert. He alone can take the rebellious spirit of ‘Scotland’ out of ‘the boy’.

And it’s to that deep work of the Spirit of God in people’s lives that the work of all ministry must ever be directed. And setting my cup on that coaster again is a statement of fresh intent on my part each day.

It’s a reminder, also, therefore, of the generally long-term nature of that work of the Spirit of God – and the generally long-haul character of what ministry’s going to involve. ‘Taking the boy out of Scotland’ is the work of a single day. ‘Taking the Scotland out of the boy’ is the work of potentially decades.

In a context and culture where the demand for the instant is always both pressing and loud, the coaster provides a salutary reminder again each day that the transformative work of the Spirit of God is invariably a long-term project. The narrative of the Exodus is as good an illustration of precisely this as any you will find. Taking the people of God out of slavery was one thing. Not exactly the work of a day. Nor exactly easy, either, in that more than a few miracles were involved on the part of the living God. But taking the ‘slavery’ out of the people was an altogether longer – and far more demanding – part of the commitment which God had made to deliver His people from Egypt.

He would “rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and .. bring them up out of that land”: that was the relatively easy part, accomplished in a matter of days. But He would then “bring them .. into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey” (Ex.3.8) – and that was by far the harder part, involving close on forty years of painful, persistent, frustrating, front-line leadership from the man the Lord had called to lead them. Getting the ‘slave mentality’ out of this people was infinitely harder than getting the people out of Egyptian slavery – however impossible that must have seemed. The mentality of slavery had become so deeply ingrained within the psyche of this people that it took a whole generation to root it out of the system.

And so it is with ministry. Conversion is but one significant step in the saving work of God which culminates in conformity to His risen Son: a necessary step, a challenging step, a miraculous step indeed. But only a step, and only the first small step, taking the boy out of the ‘Scotland’ (or ‘Egypt’) of sin – and stepping out on the long and laborious trek which God’s taking the ‘slavery of sin’ right out of the boy will demand.

Conversion must be followed by discipleship: and you only need to read through the letters of Paul to appreciate how frustrating, distressing and exasperating such ministry can be. Remember the catalogue of trials that the man endured (2 Cor.11.23-27)? Hard work, imprisonment, floggings, the 39 lashes, beatings, a stoning which left him for dead, shipwrecks, hunger, dangers – trials by the score: and then, on top of all that – and in some ways the climax to that, the toughest of all, as it were – he goes on to add that “besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for the churches. Who is weak and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?” (2 Cor.11.28-29).

Taking the Corinthians out of Corinth was one thing. Hard, for sure: so hard, indeed, and so wholly unthinkable from a human point of view it would seem, that the Lord had to reassure this man in a vision one night at the start, and exhort him not to be afraid but to keep on speaking: “for I am with you, and .. I have many people in this city” (Acts 18.10). He did keep on speaking. And people were wonderfully converted, from all sorts of messed up backgrounds. But taking the Corinthians out of Corinth was one thing: taking ‘Corinth’ out of Corinthian believers was something wholly different and something a huge deal more demanding.

There’s no ‘quick fix’ in ministry. And every morning when I place my cup on the coaster I’m committing myself once again to the long-haul labour of making disciples of all – sharing with Christ in the making of those who are wretches His treasure. Prayer. Patience. Passion. Providing a model. Rehearsing the message. Becoming a mentor. Preaching. Probing. Pastoring. Befriending. Beseeching. Sometimes even berating. Forgiveness. Forbearance. Formation. It’s long-haul stuff: a privilege, for sure, and one which requires real persistence. But long-term labour in the Lord like that is never in vain: in the words of Matheson’s hymn, embracing this joy which seeks you through real pain, you trace the rainbow through the rain and know the promise is not vain that morn shall tearless be.

The slavery of sin is neither easily nor speedily removed from the folds of our fallen flesh. You can take the boy out of Scotland, but taking Scotland out of the boy is a wholly different challenge.

And yet that, in some ways, is precisely the focused intent of elites in our land in these days: the desire and resolve to take the ‘Scotland’ for which our forebears all strove right out of the ‘boy’ which is the nation.

Scotland has a distinctive, privileged history. We have a heritage of Christian faith here in this land which stretches back a long, long way – across hundreds and hundreds of years. Back to the time of Columba in the 6th century and before him to Ninian in the 5th century – both of them bold, full of passion and zeal, and intent on showing the world so far as they could that Jesus is risen, that He reigns from His throne, and that He alone brings the sort of renewal which both individuals and communities alike all desperately need.

The words of a hymn we sometimes sing express it well – To our shores, remote, benighted, barrier of the western waves, tidings in Thy love Thou sentest, tidings of the cross that saves. Saints and heroes strove and suffered here Thy gospel to proclaim: we, the heirs of their endeavour, tell the honour of their name (Timothy Rees).

And certainly, down through all those countless centuries since, there’s been a catalogue of noble, faithful followers of Christ, through whose costly ministries and lives the word of the gospel has been sounded out – and the truths of God’s Word have been soundly taught and woven into the very warp and woof of national life. For that heritage of Christian faith not only stretches far, far back in time – it’s a heritage whose reach is deep, reaching way down into all the foundational fabric of our common life.

Back at the time of the Reformation, for instance, John Knox and his fellow reformers understood, perhaps as clearly as any in Europe, that to change a nation you needed to change its institutions: and thus they were careful to ensure that all the major institutions of our national life were shaped and informed and defined by the Word of God. Not everyone, of course, was a Christian. But the whole of a national psyche was thereby infused with gospel truth: and to some extent it’s that simple fact which alone, I suggest, best explains how one small and widely scattered nation, stuck out on the western fringes of the vast and sprawling continent of Europe, has had such a disproportionately large and positive impact on the world at large in terms of the notable figures who have been to the fore in almost every sphere of life. From the impact of Celtic monasticism, through the influence of Reformed presbyterianism, to the stand which the stalwarts of recent generations have been bold to take – Scotland’s significance has been out of all proportion to her size.

And that’s the ‘Scotland’ which the elites in our land are resolutely seeking to take out of ‘the boy’. Partly through a subtle but persistent re-writing of history. Andrew Wilson has an interesting book entitled ‘Remaking the World’ in which he quotes the uncannily prescient words of George Orwell in his book ‘1984’ – “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

There’s a pervasive use of just that subtle (and sometimes not so subtle!) re-writing of history being made today, through which that ‘Scotland’ of a former age is presented as some sort of ‘slavery’ from which we need to be freed, and is then forcibly taken out of the ‘boy’: the books are re-written, the ‘pictures’ re-painted, the statues and streets re-named or replaced – the whole ‘1984’ phenomenon. A whole historical perspective on the world and on life has now been removed, that is, from the minds and the hearts of a rising generation, and replaced with the tyranny of self: anarchy is redefined as freedom.

Except, of course, you are not in fact free to argue with such redefined analyses. History has stopped. And the Party is always right. For with that subtle rebranding of Scottish history there has come as well a redefining of ‘values’, the second main means by which this process of taking ‘Scotland’ out of the ‘boy’ is ruthlessly engineered. And it is, indeed, with the boys and the girls growing up in our land not least that this wholescale redefinition of values is taking place: a thorough-going re-education. Words have their meanings distorted and changed. Norms are repeatedly turned on their head through a campaign of media exposure. A changed set of virtues is prescribed and required. This, it’s insisted – this is what it is to be Scottish now: these are the true, new ‘Scottish’ values.

A sustained and concerted attempt to take the Scotland which once bound herself to Christ right out of the boy. My coaster says you can’t do that. Our culture says we can, we must, and we will. Stark battle lines have been long since drawn: and when I place my cup on the coaster each day, I’m putting a marker down once again, I’m enlisting again in the wars of the Lord, I’m contending again for the faith. My coaster isn’t Scripture, of course: it’s no more than a mere reminder, not some fresh revelation from God. But the Scripture affirms there’s a battle: the Scripture insists that it’s long-haul work: and the Scripture declares that such patient, persistent labour in Christ won’t be found to have been in vain.

May the Lord be pleased to prosper the cause of His gospel through the life of His people here!

Yours in the glad service of the Lord Jesus Christ

Jeremy Middleton

TAKING SCOTLAND OUT OF THE BOY

Dear Friends,

I have a coaster on my desk which says very simply – “You can take the boy out of Scotland, but you can’t take Scotland out of the boy.”

A conviction. A warning. A reminder. Depending, I guess, who reads it.

It was given to me many years ago now – I forget by whom, or indeed on what occasion: but it sits there daily on my desk: and this light-hearted, comic one-liner reminds me each day of an important truth which has countless applications.

It’s a reminder to me, for one thing, of the nature of both sin and salvation: and a necessary, salutary reminder thereby from the start of each day, of what ministry must always be about. The heart. What lies beneath. That which is inside; and not any mere externals.

Changing a person’s location, changing the outward ‘trappings’ of a person’s life – shifting, as it were, the furniture of their lives, is only ever tinkering with appearances: it neither resolves nor even addresses the basic problem. That’s to say that ministry is never a case of simply exhorting and helping a people to ditch some graceless vocab from their lips, to hitch up the socks of their daily walk, to stitch up the glaring inconsistencies in their living, and to pitch up at worship on Sundays.

All of that’s just ‘taking the boy out of Scotland’: no more and no better than rearranging deck chairs on the metaphorical Titanic, when the problem, of course, is an underwater, beneath-the-surface iceberg. As Jesus Himself insisted, the problem lies within – not with the externals. What lies beneath. The heart.

Preaching and pastoring must always get beyond a simple scratching of the surface. There’s pressure always to keep it superficial: to ‘scratch’, as it were, where the ‘itching ears’ of contemporary culture demand – a bit of entertainment, some gentle, general platitudes, some ‘feel-good-factor’ messages to help us on our way. Ministry, though, must always target the heart, probing beyond the defences that people have stubbornly placed round their hearts, and being bold to present the sword of His Word to the Spirit of God that He might then use it to confound and convict and convert. He alone can take the rebellious spirit of ‘Scotland’ out of ‘the boy’.

And it’s to that deep work of the Spirit of God in people’s lives that the work of all ministry must ever be directed. And setting my cup on that coaster again is a statement of fresh intent on my part each day.

It’s a reminder, also, therefore, of the generally long-term nature of that work of the Spirit of God – and the generally long-haul character of what ministry’s going to involve. ‘Taking the boy out of Scotland’ is the work of a single day. ‘Taking the Scotland out of the boy’ is the work of potentially decades.

In a context and culture where the demand for the instant is always both pressing and loud, the coaster provides a salutary reminder again each day that the transformative work of the Spirit of God is invariably a long-term project. The narrative of the Exodus is as good an illustration of precisely this as any you will find. Taking the people of God out of slavery was one thing. Not exactly the work of a day. Nor exactly easy, either, in that more than a few miracles were involved on the part of the living God. But taking the ‘slavery’ out of the people was an altogether longer – and far more demanding – part of the commitment which God had made to deliver His people from Egypt.

He would “rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and .. bring them up out of that land”: that was the relatively easy part, accomplished in a matter of days. But He would then “bring them .. into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey” (Ex.3.8) – and that was by far the harder part, involving close on forty years of painful, persistent, frustrating, front-line leadership from the man the Lord had called to lead them. Getting the ‘slave mentality’ out of this people was infinitely harder than getting the people out of Egyptian slavery – however impossible that must have seemed. The mentality of slavery had become so deeply ingrained within the psyche of this people that it took a whole generation to root it out of the system.

And so it is with ministry. Conversion is but one significant step in the saving work of God which culminates in conformity to His risen Son: a necessary step, a challenging step, a miraculous step indeed. But only a step, and only the first small step, taking the boy out of the ‘Scotland’ (or ‘Egypt’) of sin – and stepping out on the long and laborious trek which God’s taking the ‘slavery of sin’ right out of the boy will demand.

Conversion must be followed by discipleship: and you only need to read through the letters of Paul to appreciate how frustrating, distressing and exasperating such ministry can be. Remember the catalogue of trials that the man endured (2 Cor.11.23-27)? Hard work, imprisonment, floggings, the 39 lashes, beatings, a stoning which left him for dead, shipwrecks, hunger, dangers – trials by the score: and then, on top of all that – and in some ways the climax to that, the toughest of all, as it were – he goes on to add that “besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for the churches. Who is weak and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?” (2 Cor.11.28-29).

Taking the Corinthians out of Corinth was one thing. Hard, for sure: so hard, indeed, and so wholly unthinkable from a human point of view it would seem, that the Lord had to reassure this man in a vision one night at the start, and exhort him not to be afraid but to keep on speaking: “for I am with you, and .. I have many people in this city” (Acts 18.10). He did keep on speaking. And people were wonderfully converted, from all sorts of messed up backgrounds. But taking the Corinthians out of Corinth was one thing: taking ‘Corinth’ out of Corinthian believers was something wholly different and something a huge deal more demanding.

There’s no ‘quick fix’ in ministry. And every morning when I place my cup on the coaster I’m committing myself once again to the long-haul labour of making disciples of all – sharing with Christ in the making of those who are wretches His treasure. Prayer. Patience. Passion. Providing a model. Rehearsing the message. Becoming a mentor. Preaching. Probing. Pastoring. Befriending. Beseeching. Sometimes even berating. Forgiveness. Forbearance. Formation. It’s long-haul stuff: a privilege, for sure, and one which requires real persistence. But long-term labour in the Lord like that is never in vain: in the words of Matheson’s hymn, embracing this joy which seeks you through real pain, you trace the rainbow through the rain and know the promise is not vain that morn shall tearless be.

The slavery of sin is neither easily nor speedily removed from the folds of our fallen flesh. You can take the boy out of Scotland, but taking Scotland out of the boy is a wholly different challenge.

And yet that, in some ways, is precisely the focused intent of elites in our land in these days: the desire and resolve to take the ‘Scotland’ for which our forebears all strove right out of the ‘boy’ which is the nation.

Scotland has a distinctive, privileged history. We have a heritage of Christian faith here in this land which stretches back a long, long way – across hundreds and hundreds of years. Back to the time of Columba in the 6th century and before him to Ninian in the 5th century – both of them bold, full of passion and zeal, and intent on showing the world so far as they could that Jesus is risen, that He reigns from His throne, and that He alone brings the sort of renewal which both individuals and communities alike all desperately need.

The words of a hymn we sometimes sing express it well – To our shores, remote, benighted, barrier of the western waves, tidings in Thy love Thou sentest, tidings of the cross that saves. Saints and heroes strove and suffered here Thy gospel to proclaim: we, the heirs of their endeavour, tell the honour of their name (Timothy Rees).

And certainly, down through all those countless centuries since, there’s been a catalogue of noble, faithful followers of Christ, through whose costly ministries and lives the word of the gospel has been sounded out – and the truths of God’s Word have been soundly taught and woven into the very warp and woof of national life. For that heritage of Christian faith not only stretches far, far back in time – it’s a heritage whose reach is deep, reaching way down into all the foundational fabric of our common life.

Back at the time of the Reformation, for instance, John Knox and his fellow reformers understood, perhaps as clearly as any in Europe, that to change a nation you needed to change its institutions: and thus they were careful to ensure that all the major institutions of our national life were shaped and informed and defined by the Word of God. Not everyone, of course, was a Christian. But the whole of a national psyche was thereby infused with gospel truth: and to some extent it’s that simple fact which alone, I suggest, best explains how one small and widely scattered nation, stuck out on the western fringes of the vast and sprawling continent of Europe, has had such a disproportionately large and positive impact on the world at large in terms of the notable figures who have been to the fore in almost every sphere of life. From the impact of Celtic monasticism, through the influence of Reformed presbyterianism, to the stand which the stalwarts of recent generations have been bold to take – Scotland’s significance has been out of all proportion to her size.

And that’s the ‘Scotland’ which the elites in our land are resolutely seeking to take out of ‘the boy’. Partly through a subtle but persistent re-writing of history. Andrew Wilson has an interesting book entitled ‘Remaking the World’ in which he quotes the uncannily prescient words of George Orwell in his book ‘1984’ – “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

There’s a pervasive use of just that subtle (and sometimes not so subtle!) re-writing of history being made today, through which that ‘Scotland’ of a former age is presented as some sort of ‘slavery’ from which we need to be freed, and is then forcibly taken out of the ‘boy’: the books are re-written, the ‘pictures’ re-painted, the statues and streets re-named or replaced – the whole ‘1984’ phenomenon. A whole historical perspective on the world and on life has now been removed, that is, from the minds and the hearts of a rising generation, and replaced with the tyranny of self: anarchy is redefined as freedom.

Except, of course, you are not in fact free to argue with such redefined analyses. History has stopped. And the Party is always right. For with that subtle rebranding of Scottish history there has come as well a redefining of ‘values’, the second main means by which this process of taking ‘Scotland’ out of the ‘boy’ is ruthlessly engineered. And it is, indeed, with the boys and the girls growing up in our land not least that this wholescale redefinition of values is taking place: a thorough-going re-education. Words have their meanings distorted and changed. Norms are repeatedly turned on their head through a campaign of media exposure. A changed set of virtues is prescribed and required. This, it’s insisted – this is what it is to be Scottish now: these are the true, new ‘Scottish’ values.

A sustained and concerted attempt to take the Scotland which once bound herself to Christ right out of the boy. My coaster says you can’t do that. Our culture says we can, we must, and we will. Stark battle lines have been long since drawn: and when I place my cup on the coaster each day, I’m putting a marker down once again, I’m enlisting again in the wars of the Lord, I’m contending again for the faith. My coaster isn’t Scripture, of course: it’s no more than a mere reminder, not some fresh revelation from God. But the Scripture affirms there’s a battle: the Scripture insists that it’s long-haul work: and the Scripture declares that such patient, persistent labour in Christ won’t be found to have been in vain.

May the Lord be pleased to prosper the cause of His gospel through the life of His people here!

Yours in the glad service of the Lord Jesus Christ

Jeremy Middleton