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11/7/2009 The Glory of God - a Bible study series Over the last week we've been looking at the centrality of the glory of God - and we've been tracing through how this gives shape to a whole range of different areas of Christian life. See parts one, two and three of the table.And the importance of the glory of God is one of those things that people will gladly affirm at an intellectual level ("oh yes, of course we should do all things for the glory of God"). Organisations may also affirm this in their vision / mission statements ("this church exists to blah blah blah ... for the glory of God"). However there is a huge difference between such affirmations - and hearts that see, and love, and are jealous for, the glory of God. How do we get people to that point? I think it is by showing people something of the glory of God - and praying that they might see it and love it. It is, in the end, God who reveals his glory to people, shining the knowledge of his glory into our hearts. And they see his glory primarily in the face of Christ. Paul says, For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. And so here is a link to a seven-week topical Bible study series I wrote for MSG (My Small Group) over the last few months. What these studies try to do is show something of the importance of God's glory to himself, its centrality to everything God has been doing, and the loveliness and terror of God's glory. These are topical Bible studies, and generally they aim at breadth and depth by firstly doing a quick overview of a range of Bible passages, before drilling down into one passage. Towards the end of each study discussion questions allow people can explore the implications of what they've seen. But most importantly, the studies have a front and a back - the back being a table that builds from week to week, helping the group trace out the implications of the glory of God for the Christian life. There are seven studies:
If I had more time, I would have written more... there are definitely other areas worth exploring. But as they stand, I hope you find these studies as life changing as we found it! [ PS: last day at ND today... ] 11/6/2009 Two visions of the Christian life - part 3 This is part three of a series - see the first two parts here and here.
Some of you might think that 'reformed theology' is as far away from a vibrant spiritual life as you can get. Because for many people 'reformed theology' does conjure up images of serious, unsmiling people with thick books of dusty theology under their arms. It makes us think of tiresome people endlessly discussing about predestination... not very attractive! One of the major ways that reformed theology has been misunderstood is that people think it is primarily about predestination and TULIP. But that's actually wrong: reformed theology has always been about the glory of God first and foremost - and God's sovereignty in salvation was only ever a stepping stone towards the end point - of the glory of God.
In fact I have even come across books about reformed theology written by major scholars where they talk a lot about predestination - but who don't mention the glory of God at all! In contrast, here is what AN Martin writes about Calvinism:
The so-called Five Points of Calvinism are cast in a negative form and can in some ways be misleading. Nonetheless we cannot change the course of history, and so the Five Points have come down to us and we must learn to live with them. Take the last four points - unconditional election, particular redemption, the efficacious call of God and the persevering work of God in all whom he has called and joined to his Son: What is the focal point in all of these? The ultimate focal point, of course, is the display of the glory of God's grace, as we read in Ephesians 1; but as the immediate focal point, how is that glory displayed? By what means? By the taking of totally depraved creatures and making them wholly men and women in whom the very likeness of God's Son can be seen. You might be surprised, but John Calvin himself affirms the centrality of the glory of God in all his thinking and practice:
Assuredly, the thing at which I chiefly aimed, and for which I most diligently laboured, was, that the glory of thy goodness and justice, after dispersing the mists by which it was formerly obscured, might shine forth conspicuous, that the virtue and blessings of thy Christ (all glosses being wiped away) might be fully displayed. For I thought it impious to leave in obscurity things which we were born to ponder and meditate. For all its bad press, reformed theology is actually all about being captivated by the glory of God! And the centrality of this in the life of the Christian is not merely a meaningless theological affirmation - from these tables you can see that it comes out in intensely practical ways.
In contrast, other theologies may promise much and have a strong and exciting focus on being serious about doing God's things - but they draw people's attention away from the glory of God to their obedience - and over time they wear people down. The focus of today's table shifts to theology - and as you read across the rows, you'll probably start to pick up how much of our theology - and even our favourite gospel outlines! are not actually centred on the glory of God... And that's because I think that many people who claim to be reformed, are "but halfly reformed." They may be reformed - but only in their doctrine. In terms of their heart, and their ministry practice, they betray how their Christianity has really centred on humans all along. Oh of course, they are committed to God! But they have not seen, nor are they captivated by, nor are they filled with love and jealousy for ... the glory of God.
For more on reformed theology, read talk #1 from SCCCA's SALT retreat earlier this year!
[ PS: stay tuned: the next post will feature a Bible study series on the Glory of God that you can try out... ] 11/5/2009 Two visions of the Christian life - part 2 Last time we looked at the first part of the table outlining two vastly different visions of the Christian life (see previous post).
For many Christians, the battle they are fighting is between selfishness on the one hand, and Christianity on the other.
And in the face of worldly selfishness that elevates my own desires and my own interests, it's probably natural that Christianity is cast in terms of its antithesis: suppression ofmy own desires, and in its place doing God's things.
 And I think, for some Christians, this is how we end up with a Christianity driven by duty and obedience. Instead of selfishly doing our own thing, we should dutifully submit ourselves to doing the things God wants us to do. Because after all, God is God, right? we should let him call the shots, right?
The problem is that this puts the focus on outward obedience and conformance - and not on the inner affections of the heart. Yes, we may be performing the actions of church attendance and prayer - but our hearts may actually be very far away from God. We may have the outward form of Christianity, and even be 'into ministry'! But the inner reality of what we truly love - and fear - is not centred on the glory of God.
 For those of us from Confucian backgrounds however, there is something else... Our culture also strongly predisposes us towards a Christianity of duty and obedience in a way that is unknown to those from Western cultures. I've written more on that here!
In the Gospels, there was in fact a group of people who excelled at outward obedience. They were faultless in their conformance. However when Jesus came across them, this is what he says to them:
7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: Here is more of that table. As before, read down one column, and then the down the other. And as you do so, ask yourself: what is the focus of this vision of the Christian life?
[ PS: stay tuned for more of the table... ] 11/4/2009 Two visions of the Christian life - part 1 I think there is something seriously wrong with a lot of our Christianity. And this is even true of many evangelicals...Over the last short while I've been working on a table and sharing it with some of our leaders at ND, and our Bible study group too. One column is entitled, "Christianity of duty and obedience", while the other is entitled, "Christianity captivated by the glory of God." And what I've done is I've created rows of all different aspects of the Christian life - how we pray, how we think of evangelism, how we conceive of Christian growth - and mapped what it would look like under both of these visions of the Christian life.
While the left-hand column has the form of Christianity, you can probably start to see that the right hand column actually makes absolute sense of that form of Christianity. Under this vision of the Christian life, it makes sense of why Christians are to do the things we do. It gives the practice the meaning and life and colour it was always meant to have!
There are more rows to the table ... stay tuned (but you can read more from talk #2 at SCCCA's SALT retreat earlier this year - download the PDF here).
[ PS: which column represents that kind of reasons you would give for reading the Bible? for prayer? for giving? ] 10/27/2009 Pornography - and what people search for on Google This Sunday night I'm doing a talk on pornography at the evening fellowship at ND. In preparation I've been looking around for some stats on pornography - and quite a lot of the stats available are somewhat old. However one way to get up-to-date data on people's interest in pornography (say) is to check how often it's searched for through Google. And Google Insights allows you to see what people are searching for over the past several years... Just type in the search terms you're interested in, and you get a graph showing you the relative ranking of those search terms over time! Unfortunately Windows Live Spaces won't let me embed the chart. So instead here is a screen grab of the graph where I'm tracking searches for 'sex', 'porn', 'Jesus' and 'Olympics' over the 2004-2009 period (click on the images for a larger version).  You can also isolate a particular country or even state - here for instance are the searches for those terms from Australia. Clearly Australians have an inordinate interest in sports!  Potentially a useful tool if you're looking for a quick graphic to introduce a topic! [ PS: any other search terms you can think of comparing? ] 10/18/2009 SALT 2009 retreat talks online! Back in August I spoke at SCCCA's SALT retreat up in Katoomba. This was a leader's retreat for Asian churches in Sydney, and I was asked to speak about reformed theology. And that's what I did - however I reckon it would have surprised a lot of people who thought they know what reformed theology is about...Many people think that reformed theology (or Calvinism) is all about predestination, the sovereignty of God in salvation, and TULIP. But at the retreat we saw that that's not really true - the heart of reformed theology is actually the glory of God! And these things are merely stepping stones towards the glory of God. In the first talk we look at this, and consider why it is that people focus so much on predestination, and why it's such a big deal that we are on about the glory of God!
In the second talk we move on to look at two broad kinds of Christianity - firstly a Christianity of duty and obedience. We contrasted this with a Christianity that is captivated by the glory of God, and saw what a massive difference this makes to the Christian life. We also saw how our Chinese background predisposes us in a big way towards a Chrsitianity of duty and obedience!
Then in the third talk we move on to talk about what all this means for ministry. We look at the content of our preaching and teaching - but also look at how being captivated by the glory of God completely transforms how we even go about doing ministry!
Unfortunately not all the talks were recorded. However you can get them as a PDF file from the SCCCA website at this page - click the blue arrow to begin the download! You may also need the outlines to make sense of the second talk - the PDF of the booklet can be found here.
[ PS: no updates for a while? I've been busy doing assignments and readings for an MA subject on Calvin at Moore College! ] 8/16/2009 Time to move on We made the announcement this morning - and here is a copy of my resignation letter... [ PS: I'm in Brisbane next weekend speaking at BLT+, looking forward to seeing all you Brissie readers up there! ] 8/7/2009 SCCCA networking dinner 2009Last month SCCCA English held the annual networking dinner for pastors/elders/deacons from Chinese churches to meet students from Bible colleges who are open to Chinese church ministry. It was a great night, with a roughly 50:50 ratio of theologs, to pastors/elders/deacons, and theologs coming from Moore, SMBC and Morling.
 On the night Brian Tung gave a short talk on recruiting staff, Archie Poulos spoke on the need to raise up people from our own churches, and I gave a few pointers for theologs on taking up that first job out of college.
Here, in point form, are the things I said to the students:
1. Trust your Bible college education - we have some great colleges in Sydney, and their job over the years has been to prepare students to think theologically, to be alert to culture, to be prayerful and selfless and profoundly God-honouring. It may not have been obvious, but that's what they've been trying to do! However there is still always more learning, more intergrating that can happen and so... [ PS: should have been there, but missed out? SCCCA English holds it annually - look out for the advertising again next year! ] 7/2/2009 Topical Bible studies on the Affections 1. Topical studies...The difficulty about topical Bible studies is that you have lots of passages that you could look at. So how do you do it well? Do you try to look at all of them? do you only look at only one of them? In these studies what I try to do is firstly give people a quick overview of what a number of passages say. We would get people to turn up and read out different passages, and then process what they've read in a simple and quick way - perhaps by filling in the blank in a sentence that summarises that verse, or connecting that verse to the correct summary. This allows you to have breadth - but quickly. But there will also be a second part of the study where we slow down and look at one passage in some depth. This might be a longer passage, and we'd have several questions for us to explore its meaning and implications. This allows you to also have depth - informed by the breadth they have just seen. Of course, you have to choose the passages well to provide an adequate survey, and make a good choice about which passage will be good to stop and reflect on more. But I've found that this tends to work really well for topical studies.
2. ...on the affections This set of studies in particular was about godly affections of a Christian (see previous posts from Jan 25, 26, and Feb 04, 11, 13 and 28 last year). There were eight studies, addressing the following affections:
The idea was that often we focus on godly actions (eg. read your Bible, turn from sin, don't be greedy) - but we don't focus on the godly affections that underlie and give power and stamina to these actions (eg. thirsting for God's word, hating sin, longing for Christ's return). And yet when we turn to the Bible we find that the Bible is actually very much interested in our affections. A warning also that we found that as we went through the series, they were quite 'big' - in the sense that the kind of change in life and priorities and affections demand was massive. And to have eight in a row like that would have been somewhat overwhelming. And so we actually broke up the studies with two reflection / review studies so that people could stop and reflect on what they'd heard, and how they were going in the things they'd heard the previous few weeks. You can get this set of studies from here as a PDF file. Feel free to download and use them - though be aware that they are very much written for my way of leading studies! In hindsight I think I would have also added a final study about being born again (John 3). Because really, it's impossible for an unregenerate person to grow these affections inside of themselves. It actually takes a new birth for this to happen - and for some long-time regular churchgoers, this new birth may never have actually happened... [ PS: how do you write topical Bible studies? ] 6/25/2009 Narrative-criticial Bible studies on MarkA while back I wrote about narrative criticism - one of the things we learnt at Bible collge (see previous post).Intstead of merely reading biblical narratives as though they were plain matter-of-fact accounts, this is an approach to reading biblical narratives that tries to look out for what narrative techniques the author is employing, in order to see what he is trying to evoke in the reader. In our culture we're not used to sitting and listening to long stories. Instead we sit down to watch stories in the form of a 60 minute TV show or a 90 minute movie - and so we're used to picking up narrative cues in different ways. This means we have to work hard to discern the narrative techniques used in biblical narratives. How is he using irony? how is he describing this character? what themes keep cropping up in this section of the story? And what is the author trying to evoke in us, the reader, with these narrative techniques? These (and more) are the kinid of questions we have to ask. Well, last year for our Thursday night Bible study group I had a go writing Bible studies on Mark using a narrative-critical approach. I thought I'd share with you the results of my efforts. You can download them for free here as a PDF file! We took two weeks to read through the gospel of Mark, with me pausinig the reading from time to time to highlight things. Then we had seven studies, and one final wrapup studies - for a total of ten weeks. The wrapup study is probably a bit puzzling - basically we played a game where people had to guess the phrase. It might have been pictionary or charades - I can't remember. And the last few pages of the PDF file contains some information for leaders. Be aware that it's kind of written for my way of doing studies - so sometimes I would add things that weren't on the sheet. But feel free to download and use them! [ PS: more on Bible study writing soon... ] 2/24/2009 Ten years ago - Bible collegeSome people think you don't need Bible college. That it's a waste of time: three years, or maybe even four locked away learning things you never use again. What's the point? And so there's a trend of wanting to cut short or bypass college altogether, and get out into ministry as quick as you can. Well, I don't agree. Because Bible college changed my world in many different ways. And today I want to share with you some of the major ways that it did so... 1. Biblical theology When I came to college, I knew biblical theology. After all, I had read Gospel and Kingdom (not very well, it turns out), and I had attended all three strands of KYLC. I knew biblical theology - or at least, I thought I did... Boy, was I wrong. In first year, Barry Webb lectured us in biblical theology, and the clarity of the three-epoch kingdom theology he explained was astounding. Suddenly, it made crystal-clear sense how Old Testament passages really applied to Jesus. And I suddenly also saw how badly biblical theology was taught in many other places... even by people who should know better. Since then, I've become quite passionate about biblical theology! 2. How to think theologically Also in first year, Peter Jensen (then principal of Moore College, and now archbishop of Sydney) lectured us for Doctrine 1. What was interesting for me wasn't so much the content of the lectures - but hearing how Peter answered questions put to him by the students. His answers were brilliant - but what's more you could tell that there was a theological system at work. His answers weren't just biblically correct - they were theologically sound. And that started me on a quest of discovering how to think theologically. I read a lot of unsatisfying books and met with lecturers to ask them my questions... But I realised that the framework Peter used was actually the gospel itself. The gospel was, itself his starting place for thinking theologically. And that gave his answers the soundness, the coherency, and comprehensiveness that they had. It sounds simple, but in fact this is revolutionary - other people tended in the past to start with 'God', or 'Scripture', or even 'the Trinity'. And in my fourth year Peter Jensen published this in The Doctrine of Revelation, in the Contours of Modern Theology series. You may not have heard much about it, but that book describes this revolutionary approach. 3. The heart and the affections In second year Ashley Null visited Moore and gave our class two lectures on Thomas Cranmer, the English reformer. He explained to us how Cranmer understood the important place of the heart in the person - that is, that "what the heart desires, the will chooses, and the mind justifies". This was revolutionary, because many of us thought that it was really through the intellect that we could affect people. Not so, we discovered - people are driven by their heart, and what we must do in ministry is first and foremost seek from God a renovation of the heart. And then in fourth year, our whole year had to read and write a book review on The Religious Affections, by Jonathan Edwards. This was my first introduction to Edwards, but he put a language on these things, writing about the central place godly affections played in Christian living. 4. Godly disagreement The evangelical camp is sometimes characterised as being full of people who bludgeon each other in an unloving way with truth. And unfortunately, that can sometimes happen. However in third year as we looked at the New Perspective in NTIII I saw how lecturers spoke in gentle and respectful terms of their disagreement with others who held to the New Perspective. Here was the example of lecturers who were godly, as well as not compromising on matters of doctrine. And if you know what the world of academia is like, this is a world away from professors who are extremely cutting and hostile in their remarks at anyone who dares disagrees with them... 5. Social ethics In fourth year I took Social Ethics - which was a little bit disorganised, being a new lecturer and a new course. The set text was also somewhat incomprehensible... however it got me started in thinking about how a group of people (eg. a country, a denomination, a church) should rightly be ordered in the light of theology. Often evangelicals can be blind to their own capacity to sin - and can create structures that lack the checks and balances that frustrate us - but actually are there for the sake of preserving gospel ministry when things go wrong. 6. Narrative criticism In first year we had Peter Bolt take us for Mark in New Testament 1. And his approach to Mark was something I'd never come across before. He showed us that the gospels should be read as narratives, and that narratives work on us in a different way than epistles did. He showed us how certain characters attracted the reader, and others repelled the reader - and how Mark used these characters to lead the reader in their response to Jesus. How he used tools like irony and juxtaposition to make his points. Basically, to see how the story 'worked' as a story. People think that Gospels are easy to teach, because they're stories. Wrong! Gospels are much harder than epistles, because we're only used to reading stories to be entertained. We're not used to reading stories to be transformed! Think you don't have anything to learn from Bible college? that you already have all it takes for ministry? Think again! [ PS: even a couple of weeks ago I met someone who thought they had nothing to learn from college... ] 2/8/2009 Reformed sanctification I've noticed that a lot of evangelicals who call themselves 'reformed' don't actually know what that term means - and aren't really all that reformed at all... but that's a post for another day! Reformed evangelicals, however, do tend to be reformed in their understanding of salvation. They tend to be quite clear that salvation is all a work of God, and that humans are unable to contribute to their own salvation. That even the faith we use to receive salvation is itself a gift of God. That, at least, is well understood by many reformed evangelicals.However I've noticed that those exact same people who are reformed in their understanding of salvation, tend to be completely non reformed when it comes to sanctification! In fact when it comes to the doctrine of sanctification, they tend to hold a decidedly Arminian view... Those people who are proud to think of themselves as reformed evangelicals tend to be quite shocked when I point this out - but you can quite easily observe it in their preaching and in how they counsel people to make progress in the Christian life. How do you make progress in the Christian life? From previous posts about the Spirit empowered life (here and here) you can see that the answer many evangelicals give is that now you know what God desires of you, you simply just ... do it. And if you fail, then you simply need to try harder. Or use some extra techniques, such as accountability partners, or meeting up one-on-one with someone. And that's all you need to do in order to make progress in sanctification. However can you see that this answer is a completely Arminian answer? It lays the emphasis on sanctification entirely on the human agent. It assumes that the human being is able to choose to do those things that please God, and that all that really needs to happen from God's side is to enlighten the mind of the human so they can see what is the good and right thing for them to do. And that's partly right - that enlightenment does need to happen. Our minds have been affected by the fall. But reformed evangelicals should also know that the fall affected all parts of the human being - including their hearts and their will. It's just that when many reformed evangelicals think about sanctification, they have somehow forgotten that fact, and assume that once enlightened, a Christian will choose to do that which is pleasing to God. However that clearly doesn't happen - we know that from our own experience! And that's because the problem is also in our hearts, and our wills. A reformed view of sanctification will not only acknowledge that Christians need God's Holy Spirit to enlighten our minds to understand his Scriptures to know what is right. No, a reformed view of sanctification will also acknowledge that Christians need God's Holy Spirit to enable our wills to press on in sanctification, and to create a love for God in our hearts. It is pride that thinks that we can choose by ourselves to please God (our wills). And it is folly to think that we can create in ourselves a love for God (our hearts). Certainly, these things are commanded of us - but these are also things that we need God to do for us. This means that reformed sanctification prays - pleads, really - that God would change our wayward hearts and grow in us a love for him above all things. And trusts that God enables our wills to pursue the things of God, even when we feel we are at the end of our own resources. [ PS: is your view of sanctification consistent with your view of salvation? ] 1/27/2009 Teaching children a different gospel Have you noticed? Off-the-shelf curriculum for children's ministry usually do a terrible job of handling the Old Testament. Yet we keep on teaching it to young children.We know that we should use biblical theology in handling the Old Testament, but generally people throw up their hands in despair when it comes to children's ministry, and make do with pre-packaged material that often applies the Old Testament in moralistic ways. "David was kind to his friend Jonathan. Children, when we are kind to our friends, we make God happy," we repeat from the teacher's handbook. And we teach it because it's much easier for us that way. That's because there are three things that make biblical theology for children's ministry difficult:
We applaud the desire of curriculum writers to study the Old Testament and make it applicable to children. But when they do it in this way, they are teaching children that salvation is by good works. And when it's done week after week, and year after year - it reinforces this false gospel in accepting and uncritical minds. The instinctive reply of most teachers is, "but it's just too hard." Well, it is hard - that's what makes children's ministry such a challenge. But simply because it would take some effort to rethink and repackage material is no reason to feed children poison instead of food. I would much rather teachers just teach the story without applying it, than even once feed children the posion of a false gospel. At least the children will remember that story for later on in life. And ideally, I would prefer that teachers teach simple biblical theology. If they reinforced that the Old Testament is about Jesus and the salvation we find in him. Imagine if, instead of week-by-week being told a false gospel of salvation by works, teachers reinforced that "this story actually shows us what Jesus will be like". Or "this story tells us about Jesus." Or "Jesus saves us, just like this." It would build in young minds the superstructure of biblical theology - the details of which they can fill out later in life. But realise what's really being taught in so much off-the-shelf children's ministry material - and let's not teach children a differeng gospel! [ PS: KYLC / Next Gen had a children's ministry strand 1 this year, and next year will have both strand 1 and 2 for children's ministry! ] 10/27/2008 Affections, not emotionsThe thing about the affections is, that people most often confuse them with emotions. And so when we talk about affections, sometimes people get concerned that we're going to end up as shallow Christians However 'affections' and 'emotions' are different from each other, although they are linked. And what we're on about, and what God is interested in, is the affections. For example, you may love your daughter - your affection for her is 'love'. However the feelings that you have for her may change. So if she goes and draws on the walls with crayon, your emotion could actually be anger. However if you take someone else's child, for whom you have no affection, and if he goes and draw on the walls, you may feel nothing at all. So affections are linked to emotions, and they can lead to emotions - like in diagram (a). But affections are different from emotions. The thing about emotions is that we enjoy them, we experience them very strongly - but affections by themselves may not necessarily produce such enjoyable feelings inside of us. But emotions are not affections, and strong feelings of euphoria in a worship session are not necessarily a sign of godly affections at all. When evangelicals see what such ministries are doing, they recognise how hollow and manipulative it is. And so evangelicals tend to avoid this whole area of the inner person entirely. But by doing so what we do is we end up just focussing on the intellect and the will - and we neglect the affections. However God is interested in the affections. He commands our affections. He demands that we love him, that we hate sin, that we fear him and long for his return. And while these may lead to emotions, our focus should be on the affections. [ PS: Jonathan Edwards devotes a whole section in the Religious Affections to false signs of godly affections - signs such as strong emotions... ] 10/4/2008 Three levels of conversationsDid you know that there are three levels of conversation? The first level is where we share facts with one another. For instance, "it is raining outside." The second level is where we share our opinions. For instance, "I think it's going to rain all day." And the third level, where we disclose our feelings. For instance, "I feel sad whenever it rains." Consider at which level you spend most of your conversations. Consider also the different groups of people - your family, your non Christian friends, the people at work. At what level do you spend most of your conversations? Most people operate out of level one, and maybe level two. However, it's particularly when we are sharing with others at the level of our feelings, that we establish close relationships with people. So you can have a lot of conversation with people, and spend a lot of time and energy talking about facts or debating opinions - but that will only get you so far. If on the other hand you move on to share feelings, you will quickly find yourself establishing a quality of relationship that you may never have established, given years conversing at level 1 and 2. Conversations are also one of those things that take two people to play. And so you might intend to go from level one, to two, and down to three. However, you have to do it in a way that your conversation partner will be comfortable following! That's because, in a relationship, we naturally move from sharing facts, to opinions, and eventually feelings. And so it's not often appropriate to jump straight to level three! People will feel very uncomfortable if the first thing you share with them is your feelings! If you go around talking like an emo, people will avoid you. So if you want to build relationships with people, you do want to get down to level three, and you can lead the conversation in that direction - but you don't want to do it too quickly. In leading a person in conversation, observe the principle of reciprocity. When you say something, the other person will tend to respond in kind. And so if you offer an opinion, it's likely that the other person will respond to your opinion with their own. If you want to get the conversation at the level of feelings, you have to disclose something of your feelings first - and then it will create a more favourable environment for your conversation partner to share their feelings too. Note also that culture plays a role in all of this. So a bare statement of fact may actually carry emotional content to it - but it may not be picked up by people who don't share the same background. In counselling, counsellors often listen out for these three levels when their client explains an event. And most often people will report an even in terms of the facts they observed, and their opinions of the event - but will tend to leave out the emotions they felt about the event. Counsellors will then try to draw out the feelings of the client about that event. This is also useful for evangelism. Evangelism happens best in the context of relationship. And in order to get establish a close relationship with someone, you can make use of these three levels of conversations. That way you can intentionally work at your relationship with your colleague at work (say), so as to prepare the way to talk about the more meaningful things of life. [ PS: what are your conversations with non Christians generally like? ] 10/2/2008 Evangelism - and the affectionsBut as I did so, something didn't quite feel right. Have you ever noticed the way we share the gospel with someone? It tends to be in terms of the facts and logic of the gospel. And our apologetics again tends to be about the facts and logic of the gospel. And rightly so - how else will people know the content of the gospel message? However, what worries me is that while we explain the facts and logic in our presentation of the gospel, we tend to leave the affections out of it entirely... That is, we seem to call people to know and believe a set of facts - but the manner of our presentation seems to entirely leave out the joy and delight that we have in knowing Jesus Christ! Someone might well conclude that Christianity was all in the intellect. And that the reason people should therefore become Christians because it 'makes sense'. Or because it is the 'right thing to do'. Christianity does make the most sense. And it is the right thing to do. However, when the Bible talks about people who come to God, it describes it as a wonderful thing! In Luke 14 Jesus paints the picture of people being called - to a banquet. A rich and sumptuous feast! In Isaiah 55 God calls on destitute people to come to him to eat freely, to buy wine and milk without cost. it is a tremendously lavish image! In Matthew 13 Jesus tells the story of a merchant who, on discovering treasure hidden in a field, goes away and in his joy sells everything he has! We aren't just calling people to have a correct diet - maybe a bland meal, but one that is good for them. No: we are calling beggars who have no sense of smell to sense the aromas, who have no sense of sight to see the lavish feast, to come inside and freely participate in a grand feast! The reality is, not only is Christianity right - it is the best. As Christians we know we have greater joy than non Christians. We have greater satisfaction and fulfilment than non Christians. We delight in Christ - we don't just obey him out of sheer rightness! And so I wonder if it would be better if, in the manner, and perhaps even the content of our gospel explanations, we would do well to show some of the joy, the contentment, the delight that we have found in the pearl of great price! [ PS: no wonder the Bible so often describes the kingdom as a banquet! ] 9/11/2008 Fear (and boldness) in preaching - part 1In reality however, not all pastors are bold and fearless in their preaching... Because many preach the word and are bold in speaking out about accepted areas - but in certain other areas, they suddenly become much more hesitant to speak out. And in the rare occasions that they do, they leave lots of wiggle room, and are careful to not offend anyone. That's because pastors are supported by churches. And in certain church structures, if the congregation or the church leaders are unhappy with the preaching of the pastor... hmmm. What might happen if people are unhappy with the preaching of a pastor? At the very basic level, no one likes to be hated. It is just normal to want to be liked, to be included and accepted by the church family. To not be shunned or avoided... But this can also affect the pastor's family - such as the quality of schooling they can afford for their children. Or the kind of food his family can afford to buy. And ultimately, whether they as a family have to leave this church and go elsewhere, with the children leaving all their friends behind. Maybe having to sell their house and move - because they can no longer afford their mortgage... So you see, there's a lot at stake for pastors. There are strong reasons to stay in the accepted areas - and not speak out with boldness about the real issues. And often these things are unspoken, yet understood. Why does this happen? I can think of several reasons.
3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 2 Timothy 4:3-4 (NIV) And sadly, that's what we can sometimes find in our churches today. People who don't like to hear unpalatable things - and who will even silence those who preach sound doctrine. What can be done? More on this next time! [ PS: what are the areas that you would be afraid speaking out about at your church? ] 8/23/2008 Good worksDoing good works feels that we might endanger our salvation and turn us into Roman Catholics. Or that it might compromise the priority of gospel proclamation and turn us into liberals. And so good works tends to be something we avoid for theological reasons! And there are probably other reasons as well holding us back. Perhaps we are afraid that once we start looking into it, we will be overwhelmed by how much there is to be done. Or that it will show up our comfortable lifestyle in the West and make us feel guilty about the new widescreen plasma TV we bought recently. And so it's simply too confronting for us... However the Bible won't let us do this. It tells us that God has actually created for good works (Eph 2:10). Not only that, we are to be eager for good works (Titus 2:14). And James tells us that pure religion is to care for orphans and widows in their distress (James 1:27). We are right to insist that people are not saved by good works (Eph 2:8-9). However, we are saved for good works (Eph 2:10). And so the evangelical fear of good works, and the affluent discomfort with good works, is actually wrong. Far from shunning good works, we should actually embrace them, be eager for good works, and be full of good works ourselves! How then do you put good works and gospel proclamation together? People have gone about it in different ways. One answer is (a) that some Christians should devote themselves to social action, while others do proclamation. Another answer is that (b) we do social action so that it opens doors for gospel proclamation. Others (c) confuse the two and say that social action is gospel proclamation. And still others say that (d) they are two equal partners of the missionary task. Our doing should be gospel proclamation. Paul asks, "How can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?" (Rom 10:14). The biggest need people have is to hear the good news about Jesus - and no one else will do the work of proclamation for us. For some Christians this will mean doing the work of the evangelist (2 Tim 4:5), for others it will be a readiness to give an answer for the hope we have (1 Pet 3:15). But in our being, we are to love good works, and a desire to do good should naturally flow out from us. We shouldn't have to think twice about caring for those who are in need or pleading the cause of the oppressed. We have been created for good works. Once we have heard the gospel and responded to it with faith and repentance - what then? Are we saved to just become messengers of that gospel, passing it on to others? No, in our being, we are to grow to become a people who are attracted to good works, who willingly give and work to see good done, and who mourn the fallenness of the world. [ PS: are you eager for good works? ] 8/10/2008 Emergency jokeIf you're anything like me, you tend to forget jokes right after you hear them. After all, you have much more important things to keep in your head - like birthdays of your loved ones, or statistics on the Chinese in Sydney. But sometimes it's good to have a joke up your sleeve. In case you need to fill in a few minutes' worth of time. Or give people a bit of a break from thinking hard in a workshop. Or entertain some children... If you're the kind of person that finds it hard to remember a joke, you might want to go and learn one - just in case. Earlier this year at our church camp, when the 'variety night' score tally was slow coming in, I was called on to use my emergency joke, so I did - in front of about 300 people, and two guest speakers. So go and learn a joke. Hopefully a clean one. Hopefully one that you can flesh out a little. And even better if it's something that you could segue into an impromptu gospel talk from. Because you never know when you'll need your emergency joke... [ PS: having used up that one, I've now gone and learnt another emergency joke... ] 8/7/2008 Narrative criticismIn the Western world, we are used to reading and making sense of logically ordered pieces of writings, such as Paul's epistles. We generally know how to discern the structure and argument from these things to get at the author's big idea. However, we're not so used to doing this with narrative. While we are used to reading narratives in the form of novels, and see narratives in the form of movies, generally this is for entertainment - and we are not used to narratives that are written to actually get us to do something. We either think that narratives just plainly and historically describe what happened (with no intention to cause a change in us), or are looking for a moralistic way to apply it to ourselves (much like Aesop's fables). However the writers of biblical narrative aren't simply out to record bare historical facts - they actually are wanting to persuade us to do certain things. A good example of this is John, who himself declares that "these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name" (John 20:31). Having read his gospel, John wants us to believe. He writes with the intention to get us to believe. Observe then the different ways that people would get you to believe... First, if Paul is writing a letter and wants to get you to believe, he would go about it this way. He would:
Second, if Mark writes a narrative and wants to get you to believe, he would go about it in an entirely different way. He would show you:
So a narrative may actually have a similar aims as a letter (eg. to get people to believe in Jesus) - but it has the added power of being able to draw in the reader to identify strongly with people who actually do believe in Jesus. This means that when you're doing a Bible study or talk on the Gospels, you want to be alert for what is going on, so you can show it to people and teach the Gospels with the right emphasis. You need to be very alert for the kinds of things that the writer of a narrative uses to shape your response as you read. These include things like:
This might sound a lot like a postmodernism reader-response kind of approach. Postmodernism doesn't care what the author's intention was - that's irrelevant. The only thing that's important in postmodernism is how the reader responds. But that's not what we're doing here. The difference is we're not just interested in our response - we're looking for the kinds of things that the author himself has done, which shows us what the author's intention was. And for those who have been tightly wedded to a plain-historical-account view of the gospels, this might all sound dodgy, as though the gospel writers are deceptively making up incidents and conversations in order to elicit a certain response in his readers. But that's not true - Luke for one is at pains to show that these are in fact actual people and incidents that he writes about (Luke 1:1-4)! Narrative criticism is hard to do. But for those with the patience to look for how the writer is crafting the narrative, there is a lot to learn! [ PS: those who went to the Annual Moore College lectures on Tuesday heard Mike Ovey do a great job of this on Luke! ] |
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