Keller on The Prodigal God

"There are two ways to be your own Savior and Lord, one is by breaking all the moral laws and setting your own course, and one is by keeping all the moral laws and being very, very good."

Tim Keller in The Prodigal God

Read the book review by Challies here, I think it's a must-have book.

As long as you are happy, honey!

A recent Wall Street Journal article entitled Who Wears the Pants discusses the role of women and men in making decisions.

The article cited a widespread opinion that "incomes give women power in their marriages," says Leslie Bennetts, a Vanity Fair writer and frequent "Today Show" guest. Apparently money is not a factor in the influence of women in marriage. The article reported that:

A Pew Research Center study released a couple of weeks ago found that when it comes to decision making in the home, wives in a majority of cases either rule the roost or share power equally with their husbands, regardless of how much money the women earn.

Of the 1,260 men and women whom Pew pollsters surveyed over the summer, 43% responded that the woman makes most of the major decisions for the family, with 31% saying that the couple makes most decisions together. There was a small difference (within the margin of error) between the control exerted by wives who earn more than their husbands and those who earn less (46% versus 42%). But in both cases, women wielded sole decision-making power far more than men did, indicating that what "father knows best" is when to defer to mom.

Certainly that was what University of Iowa researchers found last year when they measured how couples negotiate conflict over household decisions. That study not only confirmed that men will usually go along with their wives but found that when couples do disagree, wives are far more persuasive than husbands in changing their spouses' minds.

This is an interesting social phenomenon, and perhaps it has to do with the natural distribution of tasks, that is women are more attuned to how things are run in the house (e.g., kids' school, family events, etc.) relative to men who are more preoccupied with work. But if more and more women are also working full-time these days, why then wives are still dominating the decisions? How do you make decisions in your family? What has been working best for you?

Interestingly, the article continues by suggesting another more important issue, that is the perception of men and women on marital satisfaction.

The general consensus of sociologists is that, whereas a woman's marital satisfaction is dependent on a combination of economic, emotional and psychological realities, a man's marital satisfaction is most determined by one factor: how happy his wife is. When she is happy, he is. Working within this framework, most husbands are unwilling to dig in their heels on any issue unless they have a tremendous incentive to do so.

For husbands, it's really about "I am happy as long as you are, honey". Does this imply that women are more complex than men when it comes to trying to understand each other to make marriages work?

The Bible teaches that a marriage is like an advertising billboard for Christ and the church. A Christian husband must be like Christ, who was willing to lay his life down for the church. On the other hand, a Christian wife must be like the church, that obeys Christ as the head of the church. A temporal marriage on earth is supposed to reflect this eternal reality of Christ and the church. In that context, it is true that a husband should endeavor to make his wife happy, but that is not the main goal. The main goal is to present the wife before God without blemish. The main goal is not to make her happy, but to set her apart for God, which is why a husband must spiritually lead and become a role model for his wife to relate to God in gratitude obedience.

Stop World Hunger

Around this time last year, The UN World Food Programme, the world's largest humanitarian aid organization, had a call for video submission on hunger. Their goal was "to make a top rated viral video that creates a real buzz and gets people thinking about hunger." Of more than 70 submissions from all over the world, here are the most often viewed videos on YouTube. The winner will be flown to shoot a video at a relief operation in one of the hot-spots where the WFP is locked in a feverish struggle to slow starvation and save lives.

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread: A Prayer

You taught us to pray, O Lord, "Give us this day our daily bread"
To remind us that you are the God from whom all blessings flow
For we often take things for granted, and live as if we are capable of being truly self-sufficient
We boast our achievements, and forget it is you who give us the power to make wealth

The truth is we can only ask "Give us O Lord..." like a beggar begging for mercy
For our daily needs are supplied each day by your loving provision
The food we eat, coffee we brew, jeans we wear, house we live in
The health and sanity we hold dearly, job we work, friendship we treasure,
The broadband we surf the net with, and... ah, Lord, you know our ever-growing list of needs

For what do we have that we did not receive you; we have no reason to boast ourselves
As you provided manna from heaven for your children for forty long years
so are our daily needs given by a gracious Father to whom we owe our lives

You taught us to pray, O Lord, "Give us this day our daily bread"
To make us be a contented person daily as you supply our needs, not wants
You wants us to live one day at a time, not be anxious about the future

So we individually pray o Lord: Give me neither poverty nor riches
Feed me with the food that is needful for me,
Lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?”
or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.

Indeed you can give me abundantly should you choose to do so
Serving me a six-course dinner right in front of my enemies.
And the overflowing cup of blessings that tastes heaven
But other times you want me to go through times of need
To tear down my pride and self-absorbed tendency

Help me learn in whatever situation to be content.
Help me learn the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.
So I can say "I can do all things through him who strengthens me"
Freely submits to and delights in the Father's wise disposal in every circumstance

You taught us to pray, O Lord, "Give us this day our daily bread"
So that when we pray for our needs, that is done solely for one three-pronged purpose
that should become our primary concern, our preoccupation in life:
Hallowed be thy name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth
When we pray for our needs which are temporal, may we do it in view of the eternal

We pray for health, not so that we can continue living in sin, but so that we can serve you with all our might
We pray for food, not so we can satisfy our tastebuds, but so that we have the stamina to carry on your will in our lives
We pray for our partners, not so that they love us more, but so that they love you more than anything or anyone else in their lives
We pray for our kids, not so they can grow up to be nice and smart kids, but so that their lives are spent for the sake of God's kingdom
We pray for the degree we are doing, not so that we can graduate with honour, but so that it equips us to redeem the field we will be working in after we graduate
We pray for our business, not so that we become like Buffett or Gates, but to be able to give more to the Lord's work and to do the business in God's way and for God's glory
We pray for promotion, not so that we can gain top dollars, but so that we can be more effective salt and light in the new position
We pray for a new house, not so we can boast about it nor live in it like a king, but so that we can show hospitality to others
We pray for a new car, not so we can enjoy comfort at the next level, but so that we can assist those without transport to church
We pray for all our needs, so that God's name be hallowed, God's kingdom come, God's will done on earth

You taught us to pray, O Lord, "Give us this day our daily bread"
To remind us that we can’t say the Lord’s prayer in first person –
Saying I, me, my, mine, myself and be enslaved by that desire
For we can only say 'us, us, and us", remembering those around us
And the millions in the world who go to bed each night hungry and helpless

Everytime we pray "Give us today our daily bread", remind us of our world
Where 923 million people are hungry.
Where every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger; one child every five seconds. 
Where 1.4 billion people lived below the international poverty line, earning less than $1.25 per day.
Where every year about 9.7 million children died before they reached their fifth birthday

We pray o Lord for the world where everyone has the basic needs fulfilled
And until that happens, help us to never stop fighting on their side
In prayer and action, in thoughts and deeds, speaking for those who can't speak for themselves
In our respective God-given capacity and according to God's given talents

You taught us to pray, O Lord, "Give us this day our daily bread"
To remind us that our needs will never be satisfied by the bread of this world
Our needs for companion in friendships
Our needs for happiness in marriage
Our needs for meaning and purpose in life
Our needs for a sense of security in our jobs
Our needs for a sense of belonging and acceptance by others
Our needs for a sense of achievements and success
All those needs, once fulfilled, only lead us to deeper hunger and thirst
For those needs are pointers to our deepest need, o Lord, that is you
Only the Bread of Life can satisfy our deepest longing

Amen.

The Lego Church

Welcome to the Lego Church!

Made from more than 75,000 Lego pieces, it seats 1,372 people. It has 3,976 windows, a balcony, a Narthex, stairs to the balcony, restrooms, coat rooms, several mosaics, a nave, a baptistery, an altar, a cross, a pulpit and an elaborate pipe organ.

Its size is about 7 feet by 5 1/2 feet by 30 inches (or 2.2 m x 1.7 m x .76 m). No wonder it took 1.5 years of planning and building.

Those of us who are so used to multitasking and, hence, suffer attention-deficit disorder (thanks partly to Google - see my previous posting here) would be totally puzzled how one could possibly summon all his/her patience cells to do such a huge project.

Christians, Be Perfect!

The following is my recent sermon in Indonesian on the above topic:

Bayangkan kalau saat interview pekerjaan, boss Anda berkata, "Apakah Saudara siap untuk bekerja di perusahaan ini dengan sempurna tanpa cacat sedikitpun?" atau saat mau dating dgn seorang wanita lalu dia berkata, "Mmm...sebelum kita berpikir untuk melangkah lebih jauh, saya ingin kamu tahu bahwa harapan saya tidak lebih dan tidak kurang adalah seorang pria yang sempurna tanpa cacat dari semua segi. Apakah Anda orangnya?"

Tentu Anda akan merasa terpelanting jauh secara mental mendengar ekspektasi yg sangat tidak masuk akal itu. Mana ada pegawai yg sempurna? Apalagi pacar yg sempurna... "Emang gua robot!"

Jika demikian halnya, kita perlu mempertanyakan apakah Yesus serius saat Ia berkata kepada para murid dan calon muridNya, "Karena itu haruslah kamu sempurna, sama seperti Bapamu yang di sorga adalah sempurna" (Matius 5:48)? Struktur present tense yg dipakai dalam kalimat tsb menunjukkan bahwa Ia ingin agar hal tersebut menjadi tujuan yang secara terus-menerus kita miliki.

Yesus tidak menciptakan standar baru. Dalam Kejadian 17:1, Allah berkata kepada Abram 'I am El Shaddai; walk before Me, and be PERFECT' Kata tamiym yang dipakai dalam Perjanjian Lama untuk kata 'sempurna' sepadan dengan kata teleios yg dipakai dalam Perjanjian Baru (Mat 5:48). Allah mengulangi hal tersebut dalam Ulangan 18:13 "You shall be PERFECT before the Lord your God." Dengan kata lain, Yesus hanya mengembalikan standar yang dituntut Allah sejak dalam kitab Kejadian, yaitu agar umatNya sempurna seperti Allah sendiri.

Untuk memahami tuntutan Allah tersebut, kita perlu memahami arti kata "SEMPURNA", dari dua sudut. Pertama, dalam konteks keseluruhan Alkitab. Kedua, dalam konteks yg lebih immediate yaitu Matius 5:21-48.

1. Konteks Alkitab

Alkitab menyatakan bahwa sempurna bagi umat Allah berarti terus-menerus berada dalam sebuah paradoxical tension:

ALREADY PERFECT, but NOT YET PERFECT

NEVER ATTAIN PERFECTION, ALWAYS STRIVE FOR PERFECTION

Sebagai umat tebusan-Nya, kita sudah sempurna tetapi belum sempurna. Rasul Paulus berkata, "Not that I...am already perfect (teleios)...Let those of us who are mature (perfect) be thus minded...' (Phil 3:12-15). Bagian ini menolong kita untuk mengerti bahwa orang yg sempurna bukan orang yang sudah mencapai puncak kematangan rohani sehingga ia tidak dapat lagi bertumbuh. Melainkan orang yg sempurna adalah orang yang senantiasa berjuang untuk terus menjadi sempurna.

Rasul Paulus menulis bahwa dia telah sempurna, dalam pengertian sempurna atas dasar pekerjaan Kristus yg telah genap diatas kayu salib. Apakah setelah menerima Kristus Yesus sebagai Tuhan dan Juruselamat kita, kita tetap masih bisa berdosa? YA, karena natur kita sbg org berdosa. Tetapi tanda kita telah mendapatkan iman yang menyelamatkan itu adakah kerinduan untuk kembali kepada Allah, dan kerinduan untuk bertumbuh dalam anugerah, dalam kebenaran, dalam kesucian. Sampai kapan? Sampai kita sempurna seperti Allah Bapa.

Kita tidak akan mencapai kesempurnaan dalam dunia ini, namun kita harus senantiasa mengejar kesempurnaan. Karena Allah sempurna, maka kita yang sungguh-sungguh adalah anak Allah akan senantiasa berusaha bergerak ke arah kesempurnaan standar Allah. Jika kita suam-suam kuku, jika kita mandeg bertumbuh secara rohani, jika karakter kita tidak ada perubahan, kita perlu memeriksa diri kita. Sungguhkah kita telah mengenal Kristus Yesus?

Kita memang diselamatkan melalui iman, tetapi iman yang menyelamatkan adalah iman yang rindu menjadi sempurna seperti Allah.

Tuhan khan bisa pakai orang yang tidak sempurna, yang berdosa, kenapa kita kok repot-repot amat? Ya, tetapi Yesus berkata kepada setiap murid-muridNya, jadilah sempurna. Saya harus jadi seorang yang sebaik apa untuk menyenangkan hati Allah? Sampai Engkau sempurna seperti Bapa. Tapi saya khan hanya manusia yang tidak sempurna? Yesus berkata: Jadilah sempurna.
Hari ini dia berkata kepada Anda dan saya, Jadilah sempurna.

Pertanyaan selanjutnya: Sempurna dalam hal apa? Pertanyaan ini dapat kita jawab dengan akurat dalam konteks Matius 5:21-48.

2. Konteks Matius 5:21-48.

Kita perlu melihat konteks Matius 5, khususnya ayat 21-48 karena mencabut perintah menjadi sempurna ini tanpa melihat konteksnya seringkali menghasilkan konsep yg salah dan berbahaya. Yesus berkata bahwa Ia datang bukan untuk meniadakan hukum Taurat, melainkan untuk menggenapinya. Menggenapi disini bukan menyelesaikan hukum Taurat shg hukum itu tidak lagi berlaku bagi kita. Menggenapi juga bukan hanya berarti melakukan dengan sempurna.

Menggenapi disini berarti memenuhi apa yang tersirat dalam hukum Allah tersebut. Itu sebab Yesus menyatakan enam buah antitesis di ayat 21-47 dengan mengatakan "Kamu telah mendengar . . . tetapi Aku berkata kepadamu." Ia mengatakan bahwa hidupnya telah menyatakan apa yg diinginkan Allah melalui hukum Taurat. Berikut bagaimana keenam perintah dalam PL tersebut menunjuk kepada sebuah gaya dan pola hidup umat Allah yang telah ditebus:

1. Jangan membunuh ----> rekonsiliasi (21-26)
2. Jangan berzinah ----> kemurnian (27-30)
3. Jangan bercerai ----> kesetiaan (31-32)
4. Jangan bersumpah ----> kejujuran (33-37)
5. Jangan membalas ----> penyangkalan diri (38-42)
6. Jangan membenci musuh ----> Kasihilah musuhmu (43-48)

Komunitas umat Allah ditandai bukan hanya dengan tidak membunuh, tetapi dengan adanya rekonsiliasi. Tidak cukup berkata "Oh, saya sih orang Kristen, jadi saya tidak pernah berzinah." Yang kita perlu tanyakan, apakah kita sungguh menjaga kemurnian hati kita setiap saat? Tidak cukup hanya mengasihi rekan kita dan tidak mencelakai musuh, Yesus ingin kita mengasihi musuh kita. Dan seterusnya.

Konteks Matius 5:21-48 menyatakan bahwa dalam ke-6 itulah kita dituntut untuk menjadi sempurna sama seperti Allah.

Namun kalau kita jujur, apakah mungkin kita terus-menerus rindu untuk menjadi sempurna seperti Bapa dalam setiap hal diatas?

Bapa gereja Augustine dalam Confessions, Buku X, Chapter 40 menulis demikian tentang hal tersebut: "God does not command his people in vain with no power to bring them to pass." Sebelum bertobat, Augustine hidup tidak beres, mengumbar hawa nafsu seksual senantiasa. Setelah ia bertobat, ia bergumul keras dgn masalah itu. Dalam pergumulannya itulah, ia menemukan insight yang saya kira hari ini sangat berharga untuk kita mengerti:

"Thou commandest continence. Grant what thou commandest and command what thou wilt"

Augustine berkata kepada Allah seakan-akan begini: "Tuhan, engkau memerintahkan aku mematikan hawa nafsu seksual-ku... Namun Engkau tahu aku tidak mampu melakukannya dengan kekuatanku sendiri. Bahkan aku akan berdosa jika mengandalkan kekuatanku sendiri. Jadi berikan hal tersebut kepadaku ya Tuhan. Berikan apa yang Engkau perintahkan kepadaku untuk memiliki."

Pemahaman yg sama ditunjukan oleh John Bunyan dalam satu poetry yg dia tulis:

"Run, John, run the law commands,
But gives me neither feet nor hands;
Far better news the gospel brings:
It bids me fly; it gives me wings."

Hukum Allah dan Injil memiliki persamaan, yaitu keduanya memiliki tuntutan-tuntutan hidup benar di hadapan Allah (banyak orang Kristen berpikir bahwa hidup di era Perjanjian Baru berarti hukum Allah tidak lagi berlaku, tentu ini tidak benar karena kotbah di bukit berisi tuntutan-tuntutan Kristus yg bahkan jauh lebih sulit. Namun beda hukum Allah dan Injil adalah hukum Allah hanya menuntut kita untuk ini dan itu, hukum Allah justru menyatakan bahwa semakin keras kita berupaya memenuhinya, semakin kita sadar kita tidak mampu. Sebaliknya Injil bukan hanya menuntut, tetapi memampukan kita untuk memenuhinya di dalam Kristus Yesus. Injil memberi kita sayap untuk terbang!

Injil mendemonstrasikan dua hal kepada manusia. Pertama, bahwa hukum Allah harus kita lakukan dengan sempurna (ini menyembuhkan kita dari arogansi hari kita yang berpikir bahwa kita dapat menyelamatkan dirinya sendiri). Kedua, bahwa Anak Allah telah memenuhi dengan sempurna tuntutan hukum-hukum Allah (ini menyembuhkan kita dari kebangkrutan kita yang senantiasa gagal melakukan hal yg sama).

Dengan demikian motivasi kita untuk taat, utk menjadi sempurna bukan untuk
- Menjaga image diri saya ("kalau saya tidak taat, dosa saya pasti kebongkar dan malu kalau orang tahu").
- Merontokkan rasa PD saya ("dosa membuat saya sulit percaya diri")
- Memelihara tradisi ("saya aktif di gereja, dan aktivis mestinya tidak melakukan hal seperti itu")
- Takut dihukum Allah ("api neraka bagi orang Kristen KTP yg palsu")

Kita harus berusaha hidup sempurna seperti Allah bukan karena kita takut Allah akan membuang kita (itu HUKUM). Kita berusaha hidup sempurna karena Allah telah membuktikan diatas kayu salib bahwa Dia tidak akan pernah membuang kita seberapapun bobrok-nya kita (itu ANUGERAH). Inilah motivasi kita hidup sempurna seperti Allah, yaitu untuk hidup seperti anak-Nya yang telah Ia kasihi sepenuhnya.

Kerinduan untuk menjadi sempurna seperti Allah kita miliki bukan dengan berusaha lebih keras (karena itu akan membuat kita semakin frustrasi dan diperbudak oleh rasa bersalah). Kerinduan utk menjadi sempurna kita miliki dengan belajar lebih berserah lebih sungguh kepada Kristus, yang hidup dengan sempurna mentaati kehendak Allah namun mati di kayu salib bagi kita yang tidak mampu hidup sempurna dihadapan Allah. Kita tidak bersandar pada kemampuan diri kita, tetapi bersandar kepada Kristus yg telah menggantikan tempat kita diatas kayu salib.

Hukum mengutuk kita, anugerah membebaskan kita. Berita Injil adalah berita sukacita karena:
- Ia tidak hanya menuntut kita menjadi sempurna, tetapi Ia memberi kepada kita kerinduan untuk menjadi sempurna.
- Ia tidak hanya menuntut kita hidup suci, Ia memberikan kepada kita kesucian itu.
- Ia tidak hanya menuntut kita untuk mematikan dosa, tetapi Ia juga memampukan kita untuk melawan dan membunuh dosa
- Ia tidak hanya menutut kita untuk menjadi manusia baru, Ia menciptakan manusia baru itu dalam diri kita ("dan mengenakan manusia baru, yang telah diciptakan menurut kehendak Allah di dalam kebenaran dan kekudusan yang sesungguhnya" - Efesus 4:24)

Dengan demikian Kristus bukan hanya sebuah inspirasi atau model untuk kita teladani, tetapi sebagai Juruselamat yg telah hidup dan mati bagi kita, sehingga di dalam Dia kita dimampukan untuk semakin rindu serupa seperti Allah Bapa di surga.

Berikut apa yg saya refleksikan beberapa waktu lalu:

We obey not to earn God's favour.
We obey because God's favour was upon us.

We obey not so that we can find God.
We obey because God has found us.

We obey not to make God indebted to us.
We obey because we are indebted to Him.

Our obedience is not a means of grace.
Our obedience is a response to grace.

"Run, John, run the law commands,
But gives me neither feet nor hands;
Far better news the gospel brings:
It bids me fly; it gives me wings."

Management Practices and Creativity

Teresa Amabile, a Harvard Business School professor, recently started a new thread of discussion centered on the question: "Is Management the Enemy of Creativity?" Here is the problem she posed:

There's a crisis in corporate management. While the basis of competition has shifted decisively to innovation, most management tools and approaches are still geared to exploit established ideas rather than explore new ones.

Perhaps that's why corporate acquisitions have reached such high levels over the past decade. Creativity takes root in entrepreneurial ventures, and big companies, unable to cultivate it within their own walls, end up buying it instead.

The solution she proposed is not to ditch management altogether, but to reinvent it in such a way that management practices are able to engage as many people from diverse backgrounds as possible to jump on board solving problems with creative ideas. The post understanably receives many commments, one of which points to research in Neuroscience which provides a reason why creativity and management practices are strange bedfellows.

Management practices have historically been rooted in analysis and a linear approach in an effort to attain a level of predictability [whereas]... creativity is rooted in dissonance and breaking predictable patterns

Self-Made Salvation and the Gospel

I came across another good piece in the Leadership Journal written by Bob Hyatt. It reminds me the importance of feeding our sanctification on our justification, a concept which I learned not long ago. The solution to our un-Christlikeness is not trying harder but to rest more and delight more on Christ' finished work who lived the life I should have lived and died the death I should have died.

Here is an excerpt from Hyatt's article:

A confession: Since becoming a pastor, I find that I struggle with very different things now than I did before. For instance, I don't look at porn. But I don't look at it for all the wrong reasons.

The truth is, every time I'm tempted to, I begin to think about how much it would cost me if I were to get caught. First, the damage it would do in my marriage is huge in my mind. Second, even though I know my elders and I could probably work through something like that, I'm still conditioned to respond how I was taught in the churches of my youth, where pastors were assumed to be "above reproach" (read: "inhumanly perfect"). When issues such as sexual immorality arose, pastors would disappear—they resigned or were fired.

What I mean to say is that a huge part of why I don't look at porn is that I don't want to lose my job. Right choice, wrong motive. Sometime I wonder, who would I be if I weren't a pastor?

My idol is what my people think of me. That's my real struggle. It is so important, in fact, that when I have an off Sunday, and I think everyone went home grumbling about how badly I preached, I'm devastated. I can't sleep. When someone leaves our community or criticizes my pastoring? More sleepless nights.

Why? Because the truth is that, in many ways, Jesus isn't my Savior. My congregation is. Or, more precisely, their approval is. I want it. I need it. I'd even say that a big part of my identity is based on the results I am getting as a pastor and what people think of me. That idol occasionally, coincidentally, pushes me toward doing the right thing or keeps me from doing the wrong thing.

But the problem is, whenever I come up against a struggle or a temptation and I choose to do the right thing because I need to protect that idol of others' approval—even if I'm ostensibly doing the right thing—in reality, through nurturing that idolatry, I've nurtured serious evil in my heart.

Twisted. Even worse, I've realized that by pursuing my idol of people's approval I'm countering the message I proclaim week after week.

...God began to speak to me about my striving, about my sorry attempts at self-justification and my desire to prove my worth and value—to save myself through my performance as a pastor. Rest is what I needed, but not just the rest of my body in sleep. Not even the rest of my mind from the cares and worries of ministry. All the way down, deeper than both of those things, what I needed was the rest of my soul in the finished work of Jesus.

Ortberg on the Gospel

An excerpt from Ortberg's recent piece in Leadership Journal entitled The Gospel and Happiness Paradox:

Maybe the "if you were to die tonight" version of the gospel falls victim to the happiness paradox. If "heaven" is understood as "ultimate happiness," then I can seek to obtain it while remaining trapped in my self-centeredness. If "heaven" is understood as the eternal pleasure factory, then obtaining it has no intrinsic relationship to transformation, therefore no intrinsic relationship to discipleship.

But if the gospel really is the announcement of the availability, through Jesus, of the "with-God life," then things begin to fall into place. Grace is not just the forgiveness of sin, it is the power to live the with-God life from one moment to the next. Heaven is not a pleasure factory that an angry God chooses to shut some people out of because they don't pass a theology test; it is a community of servanthood that can only be enjoyed by a certain kind of character.

Earth from Above

There is no way we can marvel at these photo shots Earth from Above without wondering whether there is something or someone behind the great design of the world. The more than 700 comments this posting attracts is testament to our amazement of this wonderful creation called planet earth. And its wonder should point us to bow down and worship Him, the Grand Designer.

Yancey on Rumors of Another World

This nearly hour-long talk is based on one of Philip Yancey's book, Rumors of Another World. Yancey is my most favorite author, and perhaps the most influential evangelical writer of our time whose works have had a huge impact on both Christians and non-Christians alike. I think he wrote some 27 books, many of them are award-winning.

In this talk he discussed the central theme that is found in all his books, that is how his faith survived the worst church he grew up in. Thankfully that worse faith journey led him into the loving arms of Jesus, an experience of which that propelled him to write books about the amazing grace he never experienced and the Jesus he never knew growing up in that church.



Two years ago, he talked about the blind-opening experience after surviving that church in an interview with CT. But what captured me most in that interview is his pattern of living as a journalist. I initially thought that Yancey can write with such fresh insights and so productively because he is a brilliant, prolific writer. As I read more of his books, I began to understand that like many other writers he learned from (Henry Nouwen, C.S. Lewis), writing for Yancey is a process of self-discovery. He started to approach subject from a point of curiosity rather than mastery. The following excerpt from that interview gives us a glimpse of what it takes for Yancey to be an inspirational writer he is.

What would people be surprised to discover about your life as a writer?

They would probably be surprised to know how boring most of a writer's life is. Sure, you get to travel a bit and do interviews in magazines or on the radio. But that's the artificial side; that's not the real life. The real life of a writer, for me, is an isolated, paranoid sort of existence. [He laughs.] I cannot write with someone in the room. People write to me and say, "I'd like to be your intern; can I come watch you write?" No way! I have to be alone, and when I get into that zone of writing, I eat the same thing for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day for weeks at a time. I don't want to think about anything else but the writing part. So I'll go away on a writing retreat and spend five days in a row alone, writing. Then I'll take a break for a couple of days and start over again. When I was working on Prayer last year, I did this for about 12 weeks in a row.

How does this affect your interaction with other people?

There has to be a sort of reentry period, because after a while I realize the only human I have talked to all week was the clerk at Starbucks. I'll say, "Tall latte, please." And that's it. I talk to Janet at night, of course. But sometimes when I'm in the thick of it, we'll have dinner with friends, and I realize that I've kind of lost the art of interacting with others. My timing is off.

Mystery Worshipper For Hire

Wall Street Journal ran an interesting article on a new market research ploy to attract and retain worshippers: Hire mystery worshippers. Marketing terms like brand loyalty and customer retention and ecclesiastical watchwords such as church growth and seeker-sensitive used to be strange bedfellows. Now they are often used in the same breath. The WSJ noted the meticulous attention a mystery worshipper does in his undercover inspection which covers anything from sermon to tissue boxes:

"This summer, Mr. Harrison scoured a megachurch in Cedar Hill, Texas, and jotted down a laundry list of imperfections: a water stain on the ceiling, a "stuffy odor" in the children's area, a stray plastic bucket under the bathroom sink and a sullen greeter who failed to say good morning before the worship service. "I am a stickler for light bulbs and bathrooms," he says.

Mr. Harrison belongs to a new breed of church consultants aiming to equip pastors with modern marketing practices. Pastors say mystery worshippers like Mr. Harrison offer insight into how newcomers judge churches -- a critical measure at a time when mainline denominations continue to shed members and nearly half of American adults switch religious affiliations. In an increasingly diverse and fluid religious landscape, churches competing for souls are turning to corporate marketing strategies such as focus groups, customer-satisfaction surveys and product giveaways.

His critiques can be bruising, pastors say. "Thomas hits you with the faded stripes in the parking lot," says Stan Toler, pastor of Trinity Church of the Nazarene in Oklahoma City, who hires a secret shopper every quarter. "If you've got cobwebs, if you've got ceiling panels that leak, he's going to find it."

One weekend this past summer, Mr. Harrison drove up to Trinity Church in Cedar Hill, Texas, in a bright-red rented Chevrolet. Armed with a digital camera, he trolled the church's grounds and its new $13 million sanctuary, snapping shots of weeds growing in the parking lot, loose lighting fixtures and a fuse box missing a lid. "Please cover as soon as possible," he wrote in his 67-page report. Few staff members were around on a stifling Saturday afternoon, but Mr. Harrison had a cover story just in case: He was a friend of the pastor's visiting from out of town, and was touring to get ideas before renovating his own church.

Before inspecting the church grounds, Mr. Harrison called Trinity early in the morning to test its voicemail, scrolled through the church's Web site and asked a clerk at a nearby copy shop if he knew anything about Trinity. The young man hadn't heard of it.

The next morning, Mr. Harrison -- who has a round, dimpled face, a salt-and-pepper mustache and a talent for blending into crowds -- arrived a few minutes before the Sunday worship service started. He strolled past the coffee bar where dozens of people chatted, past the electronic giving kiosk and into the cavernous, stadium-style sanctuary, where he sat alone in the eighth row. Wearing a short-sleeved shirt rather than his usual suit and tie, Mr. Harrison fit into the boisterous, casually dressed crowd of 800 worshippers. He turned off his cellphone and filled out a visitor-information card. The lights dimmed as a 10-piece rock band took the stage and ripped into a rollicking song. Mr. Harrison discreetly scribbled notes onto a tiny pad tucked into his palm.

The church scored a solid four stars -- three stars on hospitality and cleanliness, four on appearance and five on the worship experience. Mr. Harrison praised Trinity for using ushers ("I just think it's classy," he says) but hammered the church for its coolness toward visitors. "None asked my name. None asked about my church background. None asked about my spiritual condition. None invited me to return," he wrote in his report.

I think there is nothing wrong with using marketing strategies to evaluate and improve our ministries so they become more effective for the sake of the church mission. Surely it won't hurt the church to be made aware that the congregation has been so aloof and detached towards newcomers. In fact, it's good to have third-party observation and perceptions particularly if they are complete strangers who can spot things which are often overlooked by the church ministers, staff, and members. In fact I made it a habit to ask overseas visitors what stands out to them before, during, and after the service, both the positives and negatives.

However, there is a limit to what marketing tactics can and should do in advancing the mission of the church. As it is the church of God, its mission, values, culture, structure, design, system, and practices cannot be dictated by consumers. Instead, it should be aligned with God's sovereign will in each of those areas as stated explicitly or implicitly in the inspired Scripture. Instead of making customers their god, churches have to make God their God.

Hence, if the mystery worshipper says that the pew is not as comfortable as the movie theater down the road, for example, one must perhaps ponder the reason why it was made rather uncomfortable in the first place before considering to do a major refurbishment to compete with the theater. One reason would be that the whole point of coming to church is to worship in obedient gratitude a living, sovereign, almighty God, not to enjoy ourselves with free stand-up talk and upbeat music while sitting in comfy couches while sipping a cup of latte.

More subtle and important here is perhaps the question: Church growth according to who? Toilet cleanliness, ample parking space, comfy pews, nice coffee machines, warmhearted and always-welcoming members, uplifting music, inspirational sermons might attract new folks to the church. And possibly, get their hearts changed to love Jesus. Then we thought that's what matters, people are being converted to Jesus. In the end, we get some of the glory as man-made strategies are being employed as a means to that end.

If we stop and ponder for a second what God says in all these, we will be compelled to ask "Is the change we are implementing honoring God?" If it does not honor God, would we be willing to abandon it and obediently follow God's prescribed method of change. This presuppositional view will help us filter all kinds of church strategies we used.

In his letter to a church which would had been rated very low by church consultants, the Apostle Paul taught the change God prescribed: "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." People are changed when they are smitten by the beauty of God, when they see with their ears the glory of God being preached from the pulpit, when they encounter the holiness of God and as a consequence are made aware of their bankruptcy apart from the grace of God. When the church of God lives to proclaim the glory of God, people do come.

On that note, however, the apostle added that the strategy will prove ineffective with some individuals: “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing" (2 Corinthians 4:3). Those who are perishing will not see the glory of God in the gospel, and no marketing strategies will change that fact. The best thing that our man-made efforts can achieve is getting them return and linger in the church, which often is maintained at the expense of the flock of God that needs to be nurtured (today this is called seeker-sensitive strategies).

If the Apostle Paul did not feel the necessity to alter his church strategy because of that, perhaps neither should we.

Black Friday

The 10th of October was Black Friday in the Victorian State of Australia. The day saw the biggest crash in the Australian share market since the 1987 crash, losing more than 8% of their value. Much less known by the public was that on the same day the Abortion Law Reform Bill 2008 was passed by the Victoria State's Parliament with 23 votes to 17 after endless hours of debate.

The bill means that: In Victoria abortion is now 'decriminalised', which is a fancy term for 'not being considered in the eyes of law as a crime'. Specifically the bill stipulates that abortion up to 24 weeks gestation is now legal in Victoria. After 24 weeks, a woman must have the approval of two practitioners to receive an abortion. Doctors who object performing abortion under the legislation must refer a woman seeking one to another practitioner who doesn't have that objection.

The Victorian Premier was quoted by local paper The Age as saying to the effect that decriminalising abortion was a positive step forward for the state and for women. "They welcomed this change. I believe it's a positive step and the parliament and its conscience has now made this decision."

I am not sure which part is positive in the so-called "positive step", especially after one considers the following matter of fact about abortion aptly captured in this Abort73.com clip.



We need to remind ourselves that hard cases ("what about a victim of rape who needs abortion") are insufficient grounds for legislation for abortion. These are exceptions rather than the norm, and should be treated as such. Otherwise, the unintended consequences are the following horrible statistics on Abortion in the US alone (Source: Abort73.com):

- From 1973 through 2005, more than 45 million legal abortions have occurred in the U.S. (AGI).
- In 2005 (the most recent year for which there is reliable data), approximately 1.21 million abortions took place
- 75% of all abortions are to women under 30 (Median age = 24).
- Nearly 1 in 5 abortions are performed on teenagers. 1 in 3 are performed on women between ages 20 and 24.
- Most women who have abortions are unmarried. (Less than 1 in 5 are married.)
- When a teenager becomes pregnant, abortion is a likely result. (For girls under 15, there are 8 abortions to ever 10 live births. For girls 15-19, there are 4 abortion to ever 10 live births.)

The following clip from John Piper highlighted the truth that abortion is eventually about God.



Today I led the public prayer in the church about this sad news in Victoria, pleading for God's mercy for those who voted for, asking for God's strength and wisdom for those who will continue to fight against inside and outside the government including all sorts of medical practitioners, and petitioning for God to awaken the conscience of those who are considering abortion. I also prayed for the church to be able to function according to its nature as salt and light to stop the decay of the society, and for every Christian to not lose its saltiness by responding to God's call in obedient gratitude to actively use their talents in all walks of life.

May God have mercy on Victoria.

Keller, Carson, & Piper

If you are a Gen-Xer like me, you would remember the jaw-dropping experience of watching Superman, Batman, and Flash Gordon engaged the bad guys together. These super heroes rock; standing out among the rest of the Justice League members. For me, watching Tim Keller, D.A. Carson, and John Piper together in an extended dialogue reminded me of these super heroes. Individually they had a tremendous role in the resurgence of the reformed theology in the US and the wider developed world.

Obviously I don't idolize Keller, Carson, and Piper. And that is the last thing they would expect from people like me or anyone for that matter. But no doubt they had a huge indirect impact on my journey of faith. Thanks to JT for the links to these Facebook videos from the 2008 Leadership meeting of the Gospel Coalition.

Part 1 of 6
Part 2 of 6
Part 3 of 6
Part 4 of 6
Part 5 of 6
Part 6 of 6

Who are you serving?

"As someone who has taught seminary students for more than 15 years, I worry about the rising number of seminarians who, when asked where and how they think they might best serve, respond with something like this: “Well, I think I would like to teach somewhere. Every time I have taught, people have told me I have done a pretty good job. I get a tremendous sense of fulfillment out of teaching the Bible. I think I could be satisfied teaching Scripture.” How pathetic. I know pagans who find satisfaction and fulfillment by teaching nuclear physics. In any Christian view of life, self-fulfillment must never be permitted to become the controlling issue. The issue is service, the service of real people. The question is, “How can I be most useful?”, not, “How can I feel most useful?”

Carson, D.A. 1992. A Call to Spiritual Reformation: Priorities from Paul and His Prayers, MI: Grand Rapids, pp 82–83

I came across the four methods of knowing that Kerlinger (1969) suggested nearly four decades ago. Kerlinger and Lee (2000) reiterated the four methods as follows:

1. The Method of Tenacity
People hold firmly to certain beliefs because they have always known them to be true and frequent repetition of the belief enhances its ostensible validity. They adhere to truths that are very dear and long-standing to them (i.e. one knows something to be true because one holds firmly to it, because one has always known it to be true).

2. The Method of Authority
People accept knowledge from an individual or group of individuals who have been, in some way, designated as authoritative producers of knowledge. The method of authority is not necessarily unsound, depending on how the authority acquired its knowledge. It can be unsound, however, if everyone merely accepts the word of authority without examining or questioning the qualifications of the source of its knowledge (i.e. people in power have said so).

3. The Method of Intuition
This method of knowing relies on the use of pure reason based on prior assumptions that are considered to be self-evident with little or no consideration given to the role of experience in the acquisition of knowledge (A priori). A serious limitation of intuition is that experience may show that a self-evident truth is not a valid assumption in a logical system and if an a priori assumption is incorrect, the conclusion will be incorrect (i.e. something is self-evident or logical, hence further explanation is unnecessary e.g. 2+2 = 4).

4. The Method of Science
The knowledge is independent of personal beliefs and depends instead on objective empirical verification. This method
makes it possible for knowledge to be renewed as soon as new evidence appears that contradicts what is assumed to be true at a given moment (i.e. One needs to be objective, free from biases or our past). Kerlinger and Lee (2000, p.14) defined scientific research to gain scientific knowledge as follows: "Scientific research is systematic, controlled, empirical, amoral, public, and critical investigation of natural phenomena. It is guided by theory and hypotheses about the presumed relations among such phenomena"

Reading these four methods of knowing, I wonder which one people often use in studying the the Bible, which is the revelation of God of his redemptive plan in Christ Jesus his son. It is important I think to examine the way we think over this issue, that is to learn the way we learn.

If we rely on the method of tenacity for example we can be led into a certain predisposition towards an issue in the Bible without knowing why we hold onto it in the first place. For example, I know a few brothers and sisters in Christ who believe that they cannot eat meat offered to their Chinese ancestors in the traditional ceremony their family have. As Christians, you don't touch that. Period. It's the kind of NIH (not invented here) syndrome.

Many Christians, myself included in the first few years following my conversion, learn basic Christian doctrines using the method of authority through membership/catechism class. We believe whatever is taught in the Westminster Confession of Faith and learn not to question it. While this is perhaps the route to go for new Christians, spiritual maturity necessitates a more elaborate understanding of the why and how the teachings are formulated as such in those church documents.

The method of intuition and science can be equally insufficient in our learning of the word of God. Our intuition can be flawed, and are flawed in our fallen nature. Our scientific mind cannot possibly grasp the wisdom of God apart from his grace. The cross, which is God's wisdom, will appear as something foolish to an unregenerate, scientific mind. "The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor 2:14) .

We may need the method of authority, intuition, and science (perhaps to a much lesser extent, tenacity), but all of them are severely insufficient to understand God's wisdom.

The Apostle Paul teaches us that there is another method of knowing, the Method of the Holy Spirit, when he wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:9-14. It's the Holy Spirit who illuminates, searches, and teaches us the things of God. It has been said the the Bible is the only book whose author is always present when it is read.

But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

Why Religion & Spirituality Stinks

This short teaching video clip is vintage Driscoll. There are harsh words in it; words God used in the Bible to refer to one's religiousness and spirituality.

"We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment" — Isaiah 64:6 (ESV)

POLLUTED GARMENT in Hebrew means menstrual cloth or in Driscoll's word "bloody tampons"

"Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ" - Phil 3:8 (ESV)

RUBBISH in Greek is DUNG.

God and Our Diet

An article in the New York Times reported that the Mediterranian diet is the most healthy diet for people to commit into on a long-term basis:

Decades worth of research also suggests that this way of eating is healthier. Many studies have documented reduced rates of heart disease and cancer among those adhering to a Mediterranean diet, compared to those eating more red meat and dairy-based regimens. Most of these studies have involved observations rather than actual intervention trials, however, and they have varied in size.

Now the British Medical Journal has published a systematic compilation of a dozen of the most methodologically sound of these observational studies, which included over 1.5 million people followed for up to eighteen years, analyzing cardiovascular consequences and some other important health outcomes. This large meta-analysis found decreased cardiovascular death as well as cancer mortality, as well as a lowered incidence of Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease, in those following the Mediterranean diet versus those on other diets.

According to the American Heart Association, the common Mediterranean dietary pattern has these characteristics (see the above chart):

- high consumption of fruits, vegetables, bread and other cereals, potatoes, beans, nuts and seeds
- olive oil is an important monounsaturated fat source
- dairy products, fish and poultry are consumed in low to moderate amounts, and little red meat is eaten
- eggs are consumed zero to four times a week
- wine is consumed in low to moderate amounts

I think Christians have an extra motivation to follow this sort of diet other than just to live a healthy life. We want to live a long, productive life so we can serve our living God throughout our lives till death stops us from doing so. Many faithful servants of God stop serving the Lord prematurely due to health reasons, many of which were attributed to or associated with unhealthy diet.

No matter how effective or talented we are as God's servants in our ministries, in the absence of a healthy body, we can only do so much for what seemingly a very short time. That's I think part of what the apostle Paul called an unwise way to live.

As someone who was born and bred in the Chinese-Indonesian context, my diet hasn't been the most healthy one. Take a look at the following pictures of some sample meals I often prefer for our, well, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Make no mistake. They are extremely yummy. The mouth-watering type meals that I would go to an extra length to get back to. Take a look at them again...

Consuming this type of food as part of our routine diet over, say, 30 years will do us more damage than good to our body. It's light years away from the standard of a Mediterannean diet. Bad cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure, and a host of other heart-related diseases are often the unintended effects.

If we believe that we owe God our life, then we should use all of it to serve him. If we want to serve him all our life, it is prudent therefore to watch what we eat.

This is not about gluttony. That's obviously wrong (It's one of the seven deadly sins).
This is not about enjoying God's good gifts in moderation and thanksgiving. Roast duck is perfectly fine.
But this is about saying NO when they all become patterns of our routine, long-term diet.
It's about saying NO to consume it in excess and often.
We are doing it for the sake of Christ and his kingdom.

For some of us, this is a small thing to do.
For the rest of us, perhaps this is a big ask.

I think it was John Wesley who once said, "Do small things as they though they were great, because of Jesus Christ. Do great things, as though they were small, because of Jesus Christ."

The Scots' Church Response to Macnab

Last Wednesday the Session of the Scots’ Church Melbourne has agreed to respond to the St Michael's Uniting Church campaign which argues that the Ten Commandments is the one of the most negative documents ever written (see my previous post). Here is the statement issued by the Session. The whole thing is now posted in front of our church, which is directly across the St Michael's church.

The Ten Commandments

The most positive and influential document ever written. More than 3000 years of history that engender

• respect for the Divine Creator, which saves us from the arrogance of our humanity as we enjoy and make use of his creation
• respect for the Divine character, which saves us from misplaced trust in the frivolous and transient gods of our age
• respect for the name of God, which teaches us humility and service
• respect for the spiritual nurture of our soul, because we are more than an accident of nature
• respect for family and especially parents
• respect for life, seeking to nurture and value all people, including the weak, the marginalised and the displaced
• respect for our spouse, for the sanctity of marriage and for the value of commitment
• respect for property and the rights of other people, taking nothing to ourselves that is not ours
• respect for the truth, including the value of rational, scientific enquiry as well as the gospel truth about God and his Son Jesus Christ
• respect for personal integrity and the purity of our hearts’ desires

If that describes a world that you would like to discover, come and join us at Scots’ Church whenever we are open, but especially on Sundays at 11 am or 5:30 pm or Wednesdays at 1 pm, and together we can give thanks to God that he has not left us without guidance and hope in this world.

Francis Macnab and the New Faith Campaign

If there is a clear sign that the church is radically departing from its allegiance Christ Jesus, it would be her adulterous relationships with the idols of the world - humanism, secularism, pragmatism, postmodernism. And a most shocking example today is found in Melbourne when a church minister publicly declares that Jesus Christ was merely a Jewish bloke who was anything but God.

Melbourne's local newspaper The Age on September 16, 2008 ran a story of Francis Macnab, the minister of St Michael's Uniting Church, who launched a $120,000 "new faith for the 21st century" campaign. The Age quoted him saying "Abraham is probably a concoction, Moses was a mass murderer and Jesus Christ just a Jewish peasant who certainly was not God. In fact, there is no God, in the usual sense of an interventionist deity - what we strive for is a presence both within and beyond us."

Chosen as the campaign motto is the statement "The Ten Commandments, one of the most negative documents ever written" which is posted in huge billboards strategically placed in several prime spots in Melbourne CBD, along with newspapers, radio, and internet ads.

A psychotherapist and member of the Jesus' Seminar, Macnab is pushing boundaries to advance his agenda: Re-invigorate an old faith that he thought is no longer relevant. In his own words: "The old faith is in large sections unbelievable. We want to make the new faith more believable, realistic and helpful in terms of the way people live."

The following is Macnab's talk (I won't call it sermon as it merely used the Bible as a convenient peg to hang his heretic thoughts) in which he uttered the comment "The Ten Commandments is one of the most negative documents ever written." You will find it at approximately 3:30.



The Uniting Church Synod has released a statement in response to Macnab's campaign with 3-item resolution:

1. To request the Moderator and the General Secretary convey to the church council of St Michael’s the deep concern of the Synod of Victoria and Tasmania at the offence caused to many Christians, Jews and Muslims by the signs and other media referring to the Ten Commandments, and the potential damage to ecumenical and interfaith relationships and to the Uniting Church’s commitment to respectful relationships and communications.

2. To request St Michael’s church to remove the signs and other media forthwith and to issue an apology for any offence caused.

3. To communicate the substance of this resolution to the Victorian and Tasmanian Councils of Churches and the equivalent statewide bodies of the Jewish and Islamic faiths.

I doubt however that these 3 items will be reinforced since Macnab by his own admission in the above talk has taught this 'new faith' for 30 years and have been doing it under the the Uniting Church Synod. The Age reported that "the church response to Dr Macnab has been tied by protocols that require an official complaint from a member before it can act, and none has yet been made."

Personally I felt a mixture of anger and sadness when I first learned about this parody. It hits home not only because Macnab's church is directly opposite to the Scots' Church where I am serving but also the fact that he can still call himself a Christian minister while entirely rejects the presupposition that Jesus Christ is God Incarnate.

I think the comments he made in the newspaper and his talk above reveal three things about him and his beliefs.

1. His flawed attempt to improve the Gospel in order make it more relevant to and appealing for his postmodern audience.
The Gospel is an offensive news as it reveals the hell-deserving sinful nature of every person who stands at the mercy of the holy God. I think it was Mark Dever who said that the attempt to contextualize the Gospel is meant to make this message clearer and not to make it more acceptable to the sinner. This is precisely the reason why Paul said, "but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles" (1 Corinthians 1:23).

2. His flawed preoccupation with pragmatism.
If the Christian faith is taught on the basis of "if it works, it must be true", people will treat it merely as a helpful product. We stick to it just like we faithfully hang on to band-aids, hand sanitizer, and so on which make our lives more manageable. There is no conversion of the heart and renewing of the mind in this pragmatic, self-serving commitment. The whole point in becoming a Christian then is to use God to fulfill one's agenda, not surrendering to God's agenda and his lordship of our lives. We don't accept or reject God's commands based on whether or not it works. The acid test is how we respond to Jesus' claim "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." Our response to who he is determines our attitudes about his commandments and many other things that have origin and meaning in him.

3. His flawed understanding of the Bible, albeit his exegesis on the issue of law and grace.
In the above talk, Macnab said that

"The ten commandments in the Old Testament are negative. And you know something, Jesus thought so too. That's why he said I give you three more. Three better ones. Love your God. Love your neighbour. And love yourself. That's what he said. Leave the old ones. Follow these. And he went on further and said "You believe in an eye for eye and a tooth for a tooth". And by the way many people still believe that. But he said back then two thousand years ago, I will give you something that will transform the world. Love your enemies. Do good to them that hate you." (4:27 onward)

The following three simple points show Macnab's illiteracy of the biblical teaching of Jesus:

First, Jesus never ditched the ten commandments, or any part of the laws in the Old Testament for that matter. On the contrary, he said bluntly “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished." The operative word in that statement is "fulfill" (Greek = pleroo) which means to carry into effect or bring to completion as it has been predicted. When God gave the ten commandments to the Israelites, "Thou shall not kill", for example, the law was then brought into its intended consummation in Christ where the kingdom community, the church will be characterized not only by the absence of murder but more importantly the absence of hatred among each other. Similarly the command "Thou shall not commit adultery" was fulfilled by Jesus when the redeemed people In Christ Jesus live with sexual purity. Through these characteristics Christians prove that they truly arei n Christ, loving God with their heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and loving their neigbour as themselves.

Second, Jesus never altered, improvized, replaced, or added anything to God's laws. Loving God and our neighbour as ourselves have been deeply embedded in the Israelites' way of life. The Shema, as they call it, was to be taught and talked about every single day that no children would grow up without: ""Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might."

Third, the saying "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" was quoted by Jesus from the Old Testament (Lev 24:20; Ex 21:23-25; Deut 19:21) to disabuse the understanding of the scribes and Pharisee. The law was given by God as a law of retribution which is both prescriptive and restrictive. Prescriptively, it was meant to be used so that the punishment given by the court officers are proportional to the crime. Restrictively, it was meant to avoid blood feud which often occurred when someone took law in their own hands and escalated the conflict above and beyond the first offense. The scribes and Pharisees however took it as a justification for personal revenge, which was a misapplication of the law. Jesus then taught that for personal relationships, his redeemed people should not only refrain themselves from taking revenge, but must engage in personal self-sacrifice for the sake of the kingdom.

Jesus came to fulfill God's law also meant that he himself obeyed God's law in perfect obedience. It was his perfect righteousness that was imputed to us as none of us in our sinful nature can satisfy God's perfect standard. CS Lewis said it best when he wrote in Mere Christianity "No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good."

There is nothing negative about the ten commandments, each and every one of them. The ten commandments free us from our misconception that we can save ourselves with our morality and that we can live a meaningful life apart from God. Our inability to satisfy God's perfect law points us to our need of Christ and brings us to his cross, where the wrath of God upon our sins is met with God's love for sinners.

Blogging and Loving Our Neighbor

Now that a new definition of blogging has been drafted by folks at despair.com (thanks to Justin Taylor for this), I think it's wise for Christian bloggers to rethink how their blogging affects their faith.

At that point I was reminded of something that Betsy Childs, an associate writer at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, wrote last year about loving our neigbors:

Because of the internet and global news coverage, we have twenty-four hour access to people all over the planet. We are now aware of the evils and injustice not only in our own communities, but also in Darfur, Iraq, Indonesia, and everywhere else. With the world as our backyard, our neighbors have become people of every tribe and tongue, and many of them suffer heavy oppression. On balance, I view this awareness of the larger world as a good thing. Awareness may move us to action, and the work of justice and mercy is exactly what the people of God are meant to do.

I am that we will substitute virtual community for real community. Trading emails and reading blogs may simulate some aspects of community, but the truth of the matter is, if you tire of your virtual neighbors, escape is a simple click away. When you live with people, you cannot shut them off when you are feeling selfish, tired, or tempted. Face-to-face relationships expose our sin and sanctify us in ways that internet relationships cannot. Listening to podcasts or watching church on TV is not a substitute for being an active member of the Body of Christ.

The question, "Who is my neighbor?" prompted Jesus to tell the story of the Good Samaritan. The man who was beaten and bruised was the Samaritan's neighbor simply by virtue of the fact that they came in contact with each other.

In our shrinking world we now have neighbors on the other side of the world. We have a responsibility to love those neighbors. But we must guard against passing by those who are literally in our path, whose needs have a claim on us, and who we, in spite of our pretensions to self-sufficiency, need just as deeply.

Funeral for the Living

Albert Mohler blogged about this curious trend in Thailand reported in New York Times. For a little more than US$5, you can "die" for approximately 45 seconds, then have "a new birth" experience. I can imagine they would have a big sign that reads "Be Quiet, Funeral in Session", and somebody would shout "Next nine people in line please!" Thankfully, as Christians, we don't have to kid ourselves with such a practice as we believe in Christ Jesus, the Resurrection, who once said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'

Here is an excerpt from Al's comments:

The New York Times ran a story on September 26 that provides incredible evidence that there is within the human heart a yearning to be born again. In "For a Fee, a Thai Temple Offers a Head Start on Rebirth," reporter Seth Mydans tells of a Buddhist temple that "offers, for a small fee, an opportunity to die, rise up again newborn and make a fresh start in life."

As the paper reports: Nine big pink coffins dominate the grand hall of the temple, and every day hundreds of people take their turns climbing in for a few moments as monks chant a dirge. Then, at a command, the visitors clamber out again cleansed — they believe — of the past.

It is a renewal for our times, as recent economic hardship brings uncertainty and people try seeking a bailout on life. In growing numbers, they come here from around Thailand to join what has become an assembly line of resurrection.

The photographs are gripping. Individuals line up to enter coffins, assume a burial posture, and lie briefly under a shroud. Then, they arise and, in some cases, even take on new names. These so-called "funerals for the living" are attracting so much attention in Thailand that a movie, "The Coffin," is now in Thai cinemas.

Death by Love

A new book from the Calvinist-in-boxer, Mark Driscoll, entitled Death by Love, elaborates on "a rigorous theology of the cross that is practically applied to the lives of real people." Tim Challies reviewed this book here. The following promo video gives you a good idea of the book: