Stephen recently wrote an article for Gentle Reformation entitled ‘Serving God in Unglamorous Places’. You can read it here. Both that article and an article written a few days later (just prior to the death of Tim Keller), were featured on the website Challies.com. We trust they will be an encouragement to you.
The quest for eternal life is already fully funded
‘Jeff Bezos funds the quest for eternal life’ reported The Times recently. Bezos, 57, the founder of Amazon and the world’s richest man, is said to have a fascination with preventing aging. The company that he’s investing in, Altos Labs, was profiled by the MIT Technology Review under the title: ‘Silicon Valley’s latest wild bet on living forever’.
The new company plans to open labs in California, Britain and Japan and is thought to be looking at how to ‘reprogramme’ the body’s cells to delay the effects of aging.
While Altos Labs have hit the headlines because of the investment by Bezos, there are other companies looking to do similar things. Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal (estimated net worth: $7.5 billion) has invested in Unity Biotechnology. Larry Page, co-founder of Google (estimated net worth: $128 billion) is an enthusiastic backer of Calico Life Sciences.
Their goal? To live forever. OK, the headlines are a little hyperbolic, but they do get to the nub of the mission. While the various big players on the biomedical technology stage follow radically different methodologies, the central strategy is the same: combating death by turning back the biological clock.
These companies have managed to assemble a stellar cast of scientists and given them free rein to delve into the mysteries of their fields. Much of the research focuses on rewiring and resetting our very cells in order to remove the vestiges of age. Some of the achievements these men and women have made are impressive, albeit with some rather eye popping side effects at times.
Bezos and his fellow billionaires may have lorry loads of cash to pump into these projects, but at heart they are really no different from the rest of us mortals. No-one relishes death. Perhaps Woody Allen summed it up best when he said he didn’t want to live on in people’s hearts…he wanted to live on in his apartment. It’s very telling that men with wealth the rest of us could never dream of, are now using that money to try and stave off death. As we look at them, we see their riches – but they are more keenly aware of their mortality than their money.
No doubt at least some of these ventures will produce tangible results, although presumably not in time for most of us. Yet, for all the astonishing progress of centuries past, all we have managed to do is to delay the inevitable. Death is a matter of when, not if.
Christianity provides us with a balanced approach to medicine. Throughout the centuries, Christian pioneers have been at the forefront of the medical advances which we take for granted today. Their belief in the sanctity of all human life has led directly to the dramatically increased life expectancy we have come to expect in the 21st century.
Yet Christians recognise that death is the gateway to what comes next. As grand as these billionaires’ aspirations may be, when we look at them through the lens of eternity they seem to matter a whole lot less. If five hundred billion years is just a drop in the ocean of eternity, it’s hard to get excited about a few extra years on this side of the grave.
For Christians, our ambition isn’t to avoid death at all costs. Our true ambition is to die well; to approach our death beds with hearts full of hope and eyes fixed on Jesus Christ and the life to come. That’s something that money can never buy.
Oh and the price for that? It’s already been paid – in full – at the cross. That’s the message of the Christian gospel. We want eternal life – in fact we were made for it – but the Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death. And so we need someone, not just to deal with our record of wrongdoing, but to live a life of perfect obedience in our place.
The writer of Psalm 49 recognised 3,000 years ago that no billionaire could do this: ‘Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life’. Yet he had the amazing confidence to be able to say ‘But God will ransom my soul from the power of death’. That confidence is one we can share today – if we put our hope for eternal life, not on cheating death, but in the one who defeated death for his people.
Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 23 September 2021.
Based on an article by Rev. Jonny McCollum.
What happens when you die?
In light of the phenomenal death toll in Stranraer, which has been picked up by the national media, Stephen preached a sermon on Sunday morning entitled ‘What happens when you die?’. You can watch it below:
A related series of sermons, preached a couple of years ago, is entitled, One Life. Then What?
If we can be of any help at this difficult time, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
The Moon is Always Round
Stephen recently wrote the following for Gentle Reformation, a blog (mostly) written by American and Irish RP ministers:
How would you go about explaining to a 3-year-old that the baby sister he’s been excitedly looking forward to meeting isn’t going to be coming home? That at 39 weeks she’s died in her mother’s womb?
It’s a heart-breaking question to even consider. But it’s one that Westminster Seminary Professor Jonathan Gibson had to face when his daughter Leila was stillborn in March 2016.
When his son Ben asked ‘Why, Daddy?’, Gibson replied ‘I don’t know why. But the moon is always round’. He was referring back to a simple little catechism he had devised for his son a few months before:
Q. Ben, what shape is the moon tonight?
A. The moon is a crescent moon, or a half-moon, or a gibbous moon, or a full moon.
Q. What shape is the moon always?
A. The moon is always round.
Q. What does that mean?
A. God is always good.
Little did his father know how important that catechism would soon become in his son’s young life. It became their way of discussing what had happened to Leila. Today Ben has a picture of the moon above his bed. Five simple words curve below it: ‘The moon is always round’.
That phrase is also the title of a newly-released, beautifully illustrated children’s book, written by Gibson. It tells the story of Leila’s death and what followed from Ben’s perspective, and is simple enough for a two-year old to understand – but profound enough to move an adult to tears.
If you’ve ever wondered if there was a book you could give a family in a similar situation (believers or unbelievers), I can’t think of anything better.
I’m sure it’s a book Gibson never wanted to have to write. But in God’s providence it’s a beautiful, tear-stained gift to the church.
The moon is always round – even when you can’t see all of it. And God is always good – even on days when you can’t see it.
“For the LORD is good;
his steadfast love endures forever,
and his faithfulness to all generations” – Psalm 100:5
A tragic death remembered
186 years ago today, the six-year-old son of the Stranraer minister, William Symington, was killed in an accident in the manse garden (now McNeil funeral directors - the building is called ‘Mansewood’). The tragic story is recorded below (taken from this article):
Robert’s gravestone - built into the wall of the Reformed Presbyterian graveyard
“During the month that marked fourteen years since his ordination in Stranraer, William and Agnes’s fourth child, Robert, was playing in the manse garden when a stone pillar supporting a sun dial fell on him. He suffered an internal injury, and despite the efforts of three doctors, died within thirty-six hours.
There are a number of touching details associated with the tragic event. His mother gently asked him a number of questions about his faith in Christ and hope for Heaven. Doubtless most of them were catechism questions he had learnt before. But she couldn’t help asking him a final question: ‘Would you not be sorry to leave us all?’ To which he responded by putting his arms around her neck and telling her not to cry because he was going to be with Jesus’.
Thinking back to the event as a widow, nearly 30 years later, Agnes charged her youngest son never to forget a certain friend because of the love he’d shown at the time. The sons don’t tell us his full name, but she was almost certainly talking about James M’Gill. M’Gill was a farmer’s son from Portpatrick and had been part of the Stranraer congregation as a 13-year-old when Symington was ordained. He had gone on to become a minister himself, at Hightae, near Lockerbie.
Agnes told her youngest son: ‘You were an infant six weeks old when Robert died. Mr M‘G- had baptized you, and was on his way home when the tidings overtook him. He turned his horse and came back on the Saturday evening (Robert had died in the morning) and preached on the Sabbath. I crept into the vestry with you at my breast, and heard him preach on “Jesus wept.” Never forget Mr M‘G- as long as you live.”
Tomorrow night we’ll be considering what is a very real question for many who have faced similar tragedies: ‘How could a loving God allow suffering?’
Update: Audio of the talk is available here.
