"Faith shall be my shield"
Minister's Letter: June 2025
Dear Grace Church,
We are in the final throes of June. Schools will empty out at the end of this week. Airports and ferry terminals will fill up. And we will hope that the weather won’t be too bad for those staying in Angus.
July is a month where life slows down. That’s the same for us as a Church. We will still meet every Sunday morning, gathering in worship. Home Groups and Youth Fellowship though are taking a pause for the month. Don’t let that stop you meeting up. Why not arrange to go for a walk with someone from church on one of these long evenings, or invite someone out for a coffee and catch up with one of those free nights?
Like as the armed knight
Appointed to the field,
With this world will I fight
And Faith shall be my shield.
Faith is that weapon strong
Which will not fail at need.
My foes, therefore, among
Therewith will I proceed.
As it is had in strength
And force of Christes way
It will prevail at length
Though all the devils say nay.
These verses come from Anne Askew, one of the earliest published female poets in the English language. Penned in 1545, they were written in the context of prosecution and persecution. From these words, Askew’s fierce resilience shines bright. This was a woman who would not cower before her opponents. In short, sharp lines she writes of a battle that is not of flesh and blood but is happening in the spiritual realms (see Ephesians 6.10-12). And the only weapon she has at her disposal is her faith is the strength and force of Christ.
A couple of Sundays ago, we explored Jesus’s teaching on the inevitable consequences of his ministry. His word will create divisions across communities and through families (see Luke 12.51-53). Shockwaves pulsated across Europe in the 16th century as Christians threw off the shackles of man-made religion and structures, returning to the pure authority of Scripture. This unsettled nations and divided families. One of those was a newly formed union in Lincolnshire.
Sir William Askew had arranged for his elder daughter Martha to be wed to Thomas Kyme. But before their wedding, Martha died. To keep up his end of the bargain, Sir William swapped in his younger daughter, Anne, to be married to Thomas. It was a union solely for financial reasons. They had two children together but it was an unhappy marriage for Thomas was a loyal Catholic and Anne had rejected Rome for the evangelical faith. For Anne had searched the Scriptures and was persuaded that not through human tradition but in the Bible alone can we know God’s will. This caused unresolvable friction between husband and wife.
In 1543, the Act for the Advancement of True Religion had been passed. It forbade the reading of the Bible saved for those of the nobility and gentry, and only then in private. Anne though would not be stymied and would read the Bible aloud regularly to all who would hear. Her husband, embarrassed by this, beat her and threw her out of his home.
Anne moved to London, where she met others in the Protestant movement. She was active and vocal, proclaiming the truth of God’s word on the streets of the capital. Anne was arrested and imprisoned. She was interrogated fiercely by numerous clerics at different junctures over a year. Yet she remained adamantine in her faithfulness to God. Under the heat of incendiary questioning, Askew repeatedly replied she would not be beholden to anything in faith that Scripture does not teach.
Because of Anne’s refusal to recant her evangelical faith and surrender others in the protestant movement, she was imprisoned, tortured, and finally was executed on 16th July 1546. She was one of only two woman ever to be tortured in the Tower of London. The punishment was so severe that she had to be carried to the stake where she was burned alongside others in the reformation movement. She was just 25 years old.
‘I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
-Luke 12.4-7
Anne Askew is a vivid portrait of a Christian who lived out this truth. She suffered tremendously for her trust in the God revealed in the Bible. But she knew that her faith would eventually prevail, even “though all the devils say nay” because her hope was in the God cares for his people.
That is the God we serve. If you’re struggling with the pressures and heat of the Christian life, remember him, just as Anne Askew did.
He knows you. He remembers you. He is for you. He is with you. He will not let you go.
In Christ,
Ciarán R. Kelleher
June Treat
This is a wonderful wee video documenting the transformation in the lives of a young couple who encountered Jesus.
Home Group: Luke 13.1-9
What is the attitude that Jesus warns about here (1-5)? How do we see that coming through in our own lives and how should we counteract that?
What does Jesus say will happen if we fail to repent? What is involved in true repentance?
What does the fig-tree in Christ’s parable symbolise? What are we to do with the extra time that has been secured for us?