Reformation Day 2009

In conjunction with Reformation Day (Oct 31), I have just completed a 5 series introduction to Reformed Theology sharing to a Chinese speaking church planting team in Subang Jaya. We tried to explore how the history of Reformation (5 solas'), the emphasis on cultural mandate, the sovereignty of God and the doctrines of grace have implications in planting a church in and for the Malaysian city.

Much of the notes are taken from resources on the Internet especially by Matt Perman. I came across his articles long before he became the Desiring God ministry website anchor person and he is very lucid and helpful in almost everything he wrote - always pastoral and clearly, well-thought-out. Here are the notes I have compiled for the group:

An Introduction to Reformed Theology

Asian Disasters!

Living by Faith In Future Grace – John Piper

As part of our initiative to encourage a reading habit and developing a Christian mind in the church, we are looking for volunteers to do book reviews. Here is a start

By Davin Wong

The full title of the book is “The Purifying Power of Living by Faith in Future Grace”. The reason becomes clearer in the introduction: “the aim of this book is to emancipate human hearts from servitude to the fleeting pleasures of sin. Sin is what you do when your heart is not satisfied with God. No one sins out of duty. We sin because it holds out some promise of happiness. That promise enslaves us until we believe that God is more to be desired than life itself (Psalm 63:3)”

His ultimate purpose: That God be prized above all things and the praise of the glory of God’s grace. According to him, prizing is the authenticating essence of praising. You can’t praise what you don’t prize. Therefore, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him!

The author believes that behind most wrong living is wrong thinking. We nullify the words of Jesus because our conceptual framework is disfigured. Some of the inherited ways of “Christian” thinking are so out of sync with the Bible that they work against the very obedience they are designed to promote. One of such ‘wrong thinking’ is what he calls the Debtor’s ethic (Chapter 1). This is arguably most relevant for us Asians. The debtor’s ethic says, “Because you have done something good for me, I feel indebted to do something good for you.” This impulse is not what gratitude was designed to produce. God meant gratitude to be a spontaneous expression of pleasure in the gift and the good will of another. He did not mean it to be an impulse to return favours. If gratitude is twisted into a sense of debt, it gives birth to the debtor’s ethic – and the effect is to nullify grace!

Here Piper is quick to qualify his statement. Make no mistake, I exalt gratitude as a central biblical response of the heart to the grace of God. The Bible commands gratitude to God as one of out highest duties…(Psalm 100:4). God says that gratitude honours him…(Psalm 50:23). In spite of being misused in the debtor’s ethic, gratitude is not guilty. He goes on by relating debtor’s ethic to our relationship with God and how we should repent of this mindset by embracing a different approach in our relationship with God.

The book is spread over 31 chapters with the intent that the reader would spend some time each day reading a chapter for a month (hopefully, in unrushed reflection!) It also shows how living by faith in future grace is the way to prevail over the deceptive promises of sin in 8 areas of human struggle with evil – anxiety, pride, misplaced shame, impatience, covetousness, bitterness, despondency and lust.

Finally, I echo John Piper’s words that it is where we end that matters. His prayer is that for every reader of his book will hear and follow the call to find their joy in all that God promises to be for them in Jesus. That the expulsive power of this new affection will go on freeing them from the fleeting pleasures of sin and empower them for a life of sacrificial love. This too is my prayer both for my self and for those of you who will read this book.

Joshua 6: Siege Of Jericho, Rescue of Rahab

Joshua 6 - Siege of Jericho, Rescue of Rahab

The conquest of Canaan took place within the larger inter-textual setting of God’s covenantal commitment to bless Abraham and through his descendants, make him a blessing to all nations on earth. The redemptive purpose of God would weave through the nation of Israel and its land to ultimately embrace all nations and the whole renewed creation. Having been liberated from Egyptian oppression, the theocratic state of Israel would now be established in the land once promised to the patriarch. Therefore, the book of Joshua stood as a fulfillment of covenantal promise to Abraham and Moses regarding the possession of the land (Genesis 12:7; Deuteronomy 1:6-8). It also set the stage for the rest of redemptive history including the establishment of Davidic dynasty, Babylonian exile, eventual restoration and the coming of the Messiah. Read on for the rest of exegetical paper and sermon

New Perspective On Paul

Credo500 has released my work in progress paper on the New Perspective On Paul, interacting with Stendahl, Sanders and Wright here with a review from Ps Lu Tsun En. Do check it out and leave your comments and feedback.

Here is an excerpt:

In summary, there are crucial insights to be gleaned from the New Perspective. Sanders put us all in his debt by refuting a simplistic portrait of Judaism and Dunn brought to our attention much-neglected sociological aspects of Pauline theology. N.T. Wright’s ongoing project on the centrality of the Kingship of Christ in the gospel poses a much needed correction to the popular concept of Christianity as an individualistic, otherworldly religious experience. I have come away breathless and challenged by the clarity and incisive insights with which Wright unpacked Paul’s proclamation as a rhetoric against pagan worldviews and political oppression.

However, if we are to understand the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith, we would do well to heed Westerholm’s call to return and read exegetical masters like Luther once again. The great ecumenical article of faith that once held together orthodox, pre-schism traditions in the East and West needs to be rediscovered, not abandoned, if genuine unity in the gospel is to be achieved . [45] I expect to see the Church’s historic understanding of justification by faith would be significantly refined, but vindicated, in the process of the ongoing debate for the glory of God and the good of His people. The practical pay-off should therefore be nothing less than a renewed zeal and urgency to a missionary enterprise that truly transcends racial and cultural boundaries.

Loving The Enemy

Download sermon on "Loving The Enemy" with discussion questions. Sermon transcripts available at TheAgora

Faith And The World of Business

Business And Faith Seminar (Grace@work)

A Christian Perspective On The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

The global community was rudely shocked by the stark reality of jihad on 11th September 2001 when hijacked planes crashed into iconic buildings that symbolize American economic and military power. In response to the specter of religiously-inspired violence, the subsequent ‘war on terror’ would loom large over the early years of the 21st century.

At the center of this worldwide unrest is the long-standing Palestine-Israeli conflict that continues to be a source of its political and religious impetus. Orthodox Jews honor Jerusalem as the city of peace that once housed the temple of Yahweh. Christians make pilgrimage to the Promised Land where Jesus Christ once lived, was crucified and resurrected. Muslims treasure the city as the third holiest site in Islamic history. With the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1949, many adherents from these three major faiths have staked a claim in supporting or opposing it in the name of God or Allah.

However, the idea of ‘holy war’ is not unique to Islam. In the book of Joshua, a scriptural text embraced by both Jews and Christians, we would find the concept of Yahweh as a warrior waging battle against Canaanite deities and nations through His covenant people Israel in the conquest of the Promised Land. In some military campaigns, the Israelites were divinely decreed to utterly destroy an entire population of men, women and children (Joshua 6:18-19).

This raises difficult moral dilemma for sensitive believers as well as concerns that such warfare narratives may be used to justify violence and genocide today.

In this paper I would attempt to answer three questions: “What is Old Testament teaching and justification for ‘Yahweh war’ in the conquest of Canaan? How should Christians perceive the continuity and discontinuity of these Old Testament concepts in light of New Testament revelation of Jesus Christ? Finally, what are the resulting theological implications for how we understand the establishment of the modern state of Israel?”

Yahweh War and Modern Israel

Chinese Calvinists Celebrate 500th Year with Weblog Conference

Saturday, Feb. 21, 2009 Posted: 2:42:19PM HKT

From The Christian Post Singapore: "In commemoration of the unprecedented 500th anniversary of Protestant reformer John Calvin this year, Chinese Reformed churches in Singapore and Malaysia are about to embark on an equally historic initiative to stir up theological discussion among Chinese Calvinists on the worldwide web.

In what is called Chinese Reformed Evangelical Discussion Online or CREDO for short, 15 pastors and specialists of the Calvinistic branch of Protestant Christianity were invited to submit articles on Calvin�s thoughts and influences in the 16th and 17th centuries and explore their implications within Chinese churches today, according to the organisers.

�The aim of this conference is to foster theological reading habit and research discipline on reformed and puritans� heritages among Chinese theo-bloggers via the blogosphere,� stated Pastors Jonah and Lemuel.

The conference, which will run from May 4 to 8, will see essay contributions on nearly every theological field of study including biblical theology, Christian ethics, historical theology, pastoral theology and Christian culture.

During the five-day period, the dissertations will be published and comments from the online community encouraged.

Articles will cover topics including evaluating the New Perspective on Paul�s exposition of the doctrine of justification by faith alone, evaluating the Purpose Driven paradigm and recapturing the vision of the centrality of the gospel and the place and necessity of creeds and confessions in the modern church.

Contributors, who represent Baptist, Reformed, Reformed Presbyterian and Methodist denominations and various occupations ranging from church ministers and leaders to ministry leaders to apologists, include David Chong from the Agora online ministry, Daniel Chew and Pastor J J Lim and Linus Chua from Pilgrim Covenant Church in Singapore.

For more information, click here to visit the CREDO 500 website."

Edmond Chua
edmond@christianpost.com

The Beauty of the Body: Has Medicine Lost the Plot?

The Center for the Study of Christianity in Asia and Trinity Theological College's Student Council are organizing this wonderful Faith and Society Forum:

About the speaker:
Prior to his present appointment, Professor Campbell was Professor of Ethics in Medicine at the University of Bristol and Director of its Centre for Ethics in Medicine. He is a former President of the International Association of Bioethics. He has published more than 30 books and book chapters, as well as contributed many dictionary chapters in the field. His latest book is The Body in Bioethics (Routledge-Cavendish, 2009). Prof. Campbell is a member of the Bioethics Advisory Committee to the Singapore Government, of the National Medical Ethics Committee of the Ministry of Health.

Why is Creation Waiting For Christians?

By Shirene Chen

The provocative title of A Rocha’s inaugural conference in Asia, “Why is creation waiting for the Christians?” is perhaps the most overlooked, urgent question to be asked in the Christian church today.

A Rocha is science-led, research-based Christian nature conservation organisation with projects in 18 countries. A Rocha means “The Rock” in Portuguese, a tribute to its humble beginnings in a field study centre in Portugal.

The conference, held in the City Discipleship Presbyterian Church (CDPC) in Subang Jaya, Selangor on 18 July 2009 consisted of two parts. In the first part, Peter Harris, the founder and director of A Rocha taught the biblical foundation for Christian action in creation care. In the second part, Dr. Graham McAll, a family doctor in England, presented scientific evidence that climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.

So why is creation waiting for the Christians? Or put another way by Peter, “Although more and more, the environment is on page one of our newspaper, it is rarely on page anything in the Christian news.”

Peter explains that our neglect of creation is an example of the disconnect between what the bible says and what we do that can be traced back to the times of slavery in the southern states of America in the 17th to 19th century. At the time, Christian slaveholders, unwilling to give up their slaves, supported the institution of slavery and inhumane practices.

There is also the telling story of John Newton, the converted English slave-ship captain who read his bible on the decks while slaves perished beneath his feet.

Since then, the split between private faith and public affairs exists in the church and the bible is relegated to speak only on strictly “spiritual” matters.

Today, Christians are not connecting what the bible says to what we are doing to creation. We have allowed the “consumerism DNA to infiltrate the church, creating a genetically modified church preaching a genetically modified gospel.”

Three biblical pillars for creation care

What does the bible really say about creation care? Peter gives a framework of three biblical pillars.

1) Psalm 24:1
The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.

The earth is the Lord’s and we ought be accountable to the One who owns it. Yet we have lost the sense of whose world we live in. By using the word “environment”, we tend to think of the material world as what is around us, and put ourselves, idolatrously, in the centre of it.

Christians should learn to use the word “creation” more instead of “environment” because “creation” is the biblical perspective that puts humans as part of God’s created world together with the plant and animal creation. Because the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, we are to value all of God’s handiwork including the non-human part of it.

One consequence of the utilitarian, human-centred view of creation is the tragic fact that we only know 4% of the plants on the planet and we stand to lose 50% of them in next 50 years through climate change and loss of natural habitats.

Psalm 104 speaks of the extraordinary range of species that God has made in His wisdom. But we are behaving like children who burn the library of their father without reading the books.

2) Hosea 4:1-3
Hear the word of the LORD, you Israelites,
because the LORD has a charge to bring
against you who live in the land:
There is no faithfulness, no love,
no acknowledgment of God in the land.

There is only cursing, lying and murder,
stealing and adultery;
they break all bounds,
and bloodshed follows bloodshed.

Because of this the land dries up,
and all who live in it waste away;
the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky
and the fish in the sea are swept away.

3000 years before the advent of the environmental movement, Hosea bleakly described symptoms of our ailing creation and the root cause of it. He showed us that our broken relationship with creation is the result of our broken relationship with God.

People think that the environmental crisis is only about saving plants and animals but the core of the problem is actually about changing human hearts. What changes the human heart? The secular environmental movement is angry, depressed and radical because it has no answer to this question. But the bible gives us an answer and a hope.

3) Romans 8:19-22
The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

Sermons on this passage seldom deal with the idea that the creation is groaning and there is hope for its liberation from decay. Why is this idea often neglected? Peter offers one possible reason – the church is afraid of getting the gospel mixed up with pantheism.

But the bible wants us to talk about creation. Psalm 148, written at a time when Israel is surrounded by nature worshipping religions, puts nature in its rightful place. In the psalm, all of nature sings praises to God “for he commanded and they were created” (v.5).

Creation is groaning because our relationship with the Creator is broken. While the old Adam broke our relationship with God (Gen 3), the new Adam, Jesus Christ, came to restore our relationship with Him (Romans 5:12-21). Therefore, those in restored relationship with God, the children of God, are to bring healing and wholeness to creation.


Awakening the sleeping giant

All over the world, Christianity has allowed the secular green movement to provide leadership in the field of creation care. Peter urges us that “most effective environmental campaign is to teach the bible because the church is the world’s largest NGO!”

In Asia, Christian leadership in this area is paramount because a large treasure trove of biodiversity is still concentrated in this region. However, our green landscapes are fast disappearing, falling to the same destructive forces – climate change, pollution, over-harvesting - that have wiped out the natural habitats in the West.

God has purposes for where and how we live (Acts 17:26-28). Peter believes that the Asian church can speak where the Western church cannot. If the Asian church gains the vision of creation care, it can lead and rouse the global church, the sleeping steward, to wake up before it’s too late and respond to the biblical call to be responsible earth-keepers.

Putting God’s word into action – an A Rocha project in Kenya

Arabuko-Sokoke Forest in Kenya is the largest remaining remnant of coastal forest that once spanned the East African coast from Somalia in the north to Mozambique in the south.

It is home to a great variety of mammals, amphibians, insects and birds including rare species such as the tiny Sokoke Scops Owl and the peculiar Golden-rumped Elephant Shrew.

Mida Creek, adjacent to the forest is home to one of the most productive mangrove ecosystems on earth and is a significant feeding ground for internationally important migrating birds including Crab-plovers and a small population of Greater Flamingos.

However, the forest and the creek are being threatened by over-harvesting by local people as a means of earning money, largely to support their children's education.

To break this human-wildlife conflict and poverty cycle, A Rocha Kenya has developed eco-tourism facilities in the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest and Mida creek and channels the funds from eco-tourism into scholarships for secondary school children who would otherwise be unable to afford the school fees.

Called the Arabuko-Sokoke Schools and Ecotourism Scheme (ASSETS), this project has encouraged the local communities to value their natural habitats because they benefit directly from their conservation.

More information on ASSETS: www.assets-kenya.org

A Rocha resources for churches

www.arocha.org - A Rocha’s main website with case studies of projects around the world, audio sermons, videos and books.

www.ecocongregation.org - tools for churches to integrate creation care into their worship, teaching, building, land, church management and mission.

www.arochalivinglightly.org.uk - resources to live out the biblical understanding of creation care in everyday lives.

www.climatestewards.net - A Rocha’s carbon offset climate change programme.

Being Salt And Light For The World

Download Sermon Audio here

Matthew 5:13-16 "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. 14"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

Good morning church! We have just started a series of sermons based on one of the greatest sermons ever preached - the Sermon on the Mount as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew. Last week, Rev Wong preached on what it looks like to be people living under the Kingdom or the Rule of God, to be a people who follow after Jesus as King. We found out that those who inherit the kingdom of heaven are the poor in spirit, meek, merciful, peacemakers, they thirst and hunger for righteousness, the pure in heart. Here Jesus is laying down what it means to be blessed under His Kingship and what this alternative way of being human looks like.

When Mahatma Gandhi was once asked about how to solve the problems between Great Britain and India, he picked up a Bible and opened it to the fifth chapter of Matthew and said: "When your country and mine shall get together on the teachings laid down by Christ in this Sermon on the Mount, we shall have solved the problems not only of our countries but those of the whole world."

He’s onto something there. When Gandhi put into action his non-violent struggle for the independence of India, it inspired civil rights movements all over the world. Yet the Sermon on the Mount is not just about Jesus telling people to be nice to each other. There’s a bit of that, of course, but you don’t need to go up the mountain to learn that. Some monks or spiritual gurus climb up the mountain to get away from the worries and problems of this world and devote themselves to a life of meditation. But others go up the mountain for less peaceful reasons.

Historian NT Wright gives us some background: “In the time of Jesus, the hills above the Sea of Galilee also used to be the hangout (or lepak place) for holy revolutionaries, for outlaws ready to fight the pagan Romans and bring in the kingdom of God - by force if necessary. Up in the hills there are caves; a generation before Jesus, some of the revolutionaries had been smoked out from these caves by King Herod”.

Many first-century Jews were expecting a Messiah who would pick up the sword and ride out to destroy their enemies like Aragorn in the movie LOTR. And there were many wanna-be messiahs like that … They usually ended up dead (crucified on a Roman cross). In any case, this kingdom of God business is really quite dangerous. It comes with a stern warning: Don’t try this at home.

Given this historical background, you can imagine when Jesus first gave the message we now call Sermon on the Mount, saying things like “Repent! The kingdom of God is at hand”, he would have looked like someone gathering followers for a new movement, inviting people to sign up for a great cause. He was calling his hearers to a new way of being Israel, a new way of living as God’s people for the world. It would have felt more like a political rally than a philosophical lecture today.

But how will this kingdom of God come about?

Try to imagine (if you can) just how radical Jesus’ message was to his original audience when He says: “Yes, the kingdom of God is here. Yes, the LORD YHWH Himself is come at last to usher in His divine rule over all the earth. But who are the blessed people entering into this Kingdom? They are the meek, the peacemakers, the poor in spirit, the merciful, those who mourn, those persecuted for righteousness…”

You can almost hear His audience go: “Hello? What’s going on here? Are you sure Jesus didn’t say “Blessed are the war-mongers… Blessed are those who are strong, brave and violent for they will kick the Roman army out of Israel forever?! And what’s this business about turning the other cheek? No way. We should be the ones giving out persecution, not receiving it!”

But to Jesus, the way of the Kingdom is not through waving the sword (or waving the keris in our Malaysian context). The way of the kingdom is through bearing the cross. God’s kingdom turns the values of this world upside down and inside out. Yet it’s the only way to live. It’s the only way to be the people of God. The Sermon on the Mount is an exciting and yet dangerous manifesto for change in the world. Jesus did not go up the mountain to escape the world’s problems. Instead He is starting a revolution. But it’s a revolution of love. The Kingdom of God is here as a present reality today. And it’s subverting the world order as we know it.

In the Gospel passage we read just now, Jesus used two metaphors to describe the influence that His followers would have on society: "You are the salt of the earth; you are the light of the world." If we live our lives the Jesus way, according to the vision laid out in the Sermon on the Mount, we will make an impact in a spiritually decaying culture. If we become who we were meant to be, we cannot help but be shining light to a world surrounded by darkness.

Will you sign up for this movement? Will you be part of this revolution of love?

John Stott puts it this way: "Jesus calls his disciples to exert a double influence on the society - a negative influence by arresting its decay and a positive influence by bringing light into its darkness. For it is one thing to stop the spread of evil; it is another to promote the spread of truth, beauty and goodness." — John R. W. Stott, The Message of the Sermon on The Mount.

John Stott and Tim Keller are two Christian leaders who have reflected deeply on how the church can be salt and light in the world today so I’d like to draw out three implications from these metaphors based heavily on what they have written:


The First Implication is this: Be radically different, don’t compromise

In the old days, people do not have a fridge (or refrigerator) so salt was used primarily as a preservative. Salt prevents food from going bad or rotten and slows down the process of decay. But if salt is mixed with sand, for example, it is no longer effective as a preservative to delay corruption. It has become useless and gets thrown out on the streets.

In a similar way, as salt of the earth, the church has a preserving influence in a spiritually decaying society. Every day we read of depressing news in the papers, how crime rates, sex scandals, corruption cases and racial tensions have gone from bad to worse. The more rotten the world becomes, the more it stands in need of salt.

But to do that, the Church needs to maintain her integrity as salt of the earth. If it has compromised its purity or gets mixed up with worldly values, then it loses its saltiness and is no longer of any use.

In every culture, there are always areas where we would find tension or opposition against Kingdom values and also areas in culture where we would have find some common ground. For example, in the rural Muslim heartlands of Kelantan, what Jesus taught about sexual purity in the Sermon on the Mount would make a lot of sense. But they would find Jesus’ command to turn the other cheek and love your enemy quite hard to swallow.

In the more urban, more liberal places like Bangsar or Sri Hartamas, what Jesus taught about non-violence and forgiving your enemies may be easier to accept. But what He taught about sexual purity would seem strange, even offensive. “Wah! Look lustfully also cannot ah”. So they would have a problem there.

That tells us something important: The gospel (because it is God’s word) will never fit in perfectly well with any human culture including our own. And it is always tempting for us to downplay or ignore the offensive parts and harp on the bits we find easy to digest. So as we spend some time exploring the Sermon on the Mount in the next few weeks, we need to allow ourselves to be confronted again and again by the challenge of Jesus. There are some parts that are easy to accept – that’s great, but don’t stay there. Move on. You’d also find there will be parts, especially those parts of His teachings that are hard to accept – we need to slow down and let them challenge and transform us again.

Because if we just pick and choose what we like to hear and ignore those that challenge our lifestyles, we run the danger of domesticating the gospel. That means we water down the gospel to fit nicely into our own biased cultural baggage. Instead of being countercultural, we have compromised with the world. We have lost our saltiness. Our gospel has become too small and too tame. And too lame

Sometimes in our eagerness to be ‘relevant’ and ‘reach out’, it is tempting for us to be so attracted to the surrounding culture that we downplay the centrality of the gospel and stress more on an emotional fix or self-help advice. Some may even downgrade the importance of truth in the name of cultural engagement.

But to be salt of the earth, we must live as a radically different kind of community. Not just as individuals. Jesus says we are "a city on a hill" that reflects God's glory to the world. We are called to be a countercultural community within the earthly city of Kuala Lumpur. And the way we treat sex, money, success and power should point to an alternative (and more authentic) way of being human.

For example, when it comes to sex, our Malaysian culture either makes sex into an idol or we have a phobia of sex. I came across a local magazine slogan that says “In Lust, We Trust!” instead of “In God We Trust”. That’s making sex into an idol. Malaysian politicians say crazy things all the time but one f’ler said something like this: “Ladies, you must cover up your face or else the guys can’t control themselves! And it’s all your fault!” That’s phobia of sex. But the Kingdom people should be different. It avoids both extremes of hedonism and prudishness. It is a community that so loves and cares for its members that sexual purity makes sense. Because sex is so precious, we do not cheapen it but rather celebrate it in the context of an exclusive, self-giving commitment. That means abstinence outside of marriage and faithfulness within marriage.

Regarding money, the Kingdom people encourage a radically generous sharing of time, energy and resources to social justice and the needs of the poor, the immigrant, and the physically weak. Jesus’ Kingdom turns the world upside down: You must die to live. You must lose to gain. Weakness is strength. Joy in the midst of suffering. Love those who persecute you. Pray for those who hate you. It is not the strong or the violent who will inherit the earth, but the meek.

Which brings us to the question: Are we radically different like that? Or are we just the same? Are we worshipping a Jesus who only exists to provide us with health, wealth and comfort? Are we transforming culture or are we just conforming to culture?

If all the Christians in Malaysia were to suddenly disappear today, would anyone notice? Would it have big, small or no effect whatsoever on Malaysian society? What do you think? Are we salty enough? Am I?

The Second Implication is this: Be creatively engaging, don’t isolate

You know, darkness is not a thing. It has no force of its own. Darkness is simply the absence of light. When light is turned on, darkness is gone. The very presence of light dispels darkness. As light of the world, we reflect God’s truth to a world in darkness through word and deed. “Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven”
So just being different is not enough, the kingdom community must also be in touch with the society at large. Salt does nothing good if it stays in the saltshaker. Light does no good if you hide it under a bowl. It has to permeate the darkness. If we isolate ourselves in our own little corner, separated from the rest of the world, our light won’t reach anyone else.
There’s a famous saying: “The only thing needed for evil to prosper is for good people to do nothing.” All you need to do is to fold your arms and do nothing. And darkness will have its way.

But in the past, the church at her best has been a fine example of how the gospel can transform and reform a society like ours. During the Great Awakening revival under such men of God as George Whitefield, the Wesley brothers, William Wilberforce, Lord Shaftesbury and others, the gospel was faithfully preached, churches were planted and people were inspired to take up social causes in the name of Christ. The proclamation of the gospel (in word) and the demonstration of the gospel (in deed) have always come naturally together.

Let me share a story how this can happen. You can watch it in action in a movie called “Amazing Grace”, based on the life of William Wilberforce. Wilberforce was a Christian Member of Parliament in Great Britain who worked all his life to abolish slavery of African people. (By the way, human trafficking and modern-day slavery is not a thing of the past, it’s something happening at our own doorsteps. Even in Malaysia!)

Wilberforce first launched his campaign for abolition of slavery in 1787 and lived to see it finally succeed in 1833 (just three days before his death). That’s 46 years in total! His life reminds us that social justice is a long, painful marathon. It’s not a 100 meter sprint. For the first twenty years, he suffered nothing but defeats, rejection from friends, insults from enemies, physical illness and even threats to his life. And it’s so easy to burnout.

But social justice is a community project, not a solo effort.

Fortunately for him, William Wilberforce has a group of friends who work and walk together with him. This famous small group was nicknamed “The Clapham Sect” or “The Saints”. They shared a deep conviction in the evangelical Christian faith, a long-term commitment to a social cause and a lifelong spiritual friendship. Won’t you like to be part of a cell group like that?

What’s more amazing is that in their lifetime, this little platoon of committed believers managed to start a Missionary Society, a Bible Society, they promote agricultural reform to supply affordable food to the poor, prevent cruelty to animals (RSPCA), promote Sunday school education, prison reform, improve harsh child labor conditions and championed the freedom to preach the gospel in India! It’s simply amazing… It’s both word and deed. And the impact of their work can still be felt today. So don’t underestimate the power of small, committed groups to start social change.

It’s not necessary to use political power (we don’t need to start any “Christian Rights Action Force” movement called CHRISAF). We don’t need to wait until there’s a huge Christian population to make a positive influence in society. Small groups of committed people empowered by the gospel can make a significant difference where we are!

We may not do exactly what Wilberforce did but just imagine what we can do if each small group in church creatively commits ourselves long term to at least one social cause that we are passionate about? Be it Makasih, education for orang asli village, advocacy for environmental care, evangelism amongst the surrounding student population and so on.

Let’s continue to open up the windows and let the light out! If you are not part of this revolution yet, sign up today. Talk to the pastors how you also can help out.


The Final Implication is this: Be influencers for the common good, don’t be narrow


Being salt and light implies that Christians can and should influence the wider society. Salt hinders bacterial decay. Light dispels darkness. We cannot create a perfect society today as suggested by the “social gospel”. But we can improve it.
The moment we say that, however, some people will cringe with fear. “Uh-oh. Are you trying to impose your Christian values on everybody else? Please keep your faith private ok... Keep it at home. Don’t bring it out in public.”

Well, there are many public issues that call for our prayer and action today like the ban on the word Allah in our Malay language Bibles. That has serious impact on our bumiputra brothers and sisters in East Malaysia. And the famous Lina Joy case, church buildings being demolished and yes, we need to speak up on such issues. But if we only get worked up over ‘Christian’ issues and do not care or speak up for our fellow Malaysians who are not Christians, then our social agenda is too narrow and too inward looking. We need to be influencers for the common good of all, regardless of race, gender, social class or creed. This is very much in line with our CDPC anniversary theme last month - “Loving Our City”.

Tim Keller says it so well at this point I may as well quote him in full. He says: “Christians should be a community radically committed to the good of the city as a whole. We must move out to sacrificially serve the good of the whole human community, especially the poor… the ultimate purpose of redemption is not to escape the material world, but to renew it. God's purpose is not only saving individuals, but also inaugurating a new world based on justice, peace, and love, not power, strife, and selfishness.

So Christians work for the peace, security, justice, and prosperity of their city and their neighbors, loving them in word and in deed, whether they believe what we do or not. In Jeremiah 29:7, Israel's exiles were called not just to live in the city, but also to love it and work for its shalom—its economic, social, and spiritual flourishing. The citizens of God's city are the best possible citizens of their earthly cities.

(Listen to this, I love this part) This is the only kind of cultural engagement that will not corrupt us and conform us to the world's pattern of life. If Christians go to urban centers simply to acquire power, they will never achieve cultural influence and change that is deep, lasting, and embraced by the broader society. We must live in the city to serve all the peoples in it, not just our own tribe. We must lose our power to find our (true) power. Christianity will not be attractive enough to win influence except through sacrificial service to all people, regardless of their beliefs.”

Wow! In other words, our cultural engagement must be shaped by the cross. It is sacrificial giving in the service of others. With no strings attached.
Remember the movie Lord of the Rings? The Dark Lord Sauron puts his own evil power inside a magical Ring to rule over the world. Whoever has the Ring will have great power, so powerful he can even beat the Dark Lord. Many people want to use the Ring of power for good, but eventually they themselves become corrupted and wanted the Ring for themselves. Like Gollum who became a twisted, little dark lord himself: My precioussss… Those who keep the ring for themselves shall lose it.

So what’s the solution? The good guys got a peace-loving hobbit named Frodo to do the unthinkable. His mission: “Carry the ring of power to Mount Doom and destroy it.” By doing so, Frodo is saving the world through weakness. He’s not using the ring of power but destroying the ring of power. That’s the only way to beat Sauron.
The story reminds us of our Lord Jesus who instead of grabbing power with an army of angels chose instead to carry the cross for the sake of others. Those who lose their lives shall find it. He saved the world through weakness and self-sacrifice. In the same way, true spiritual power for the church comes when we renounce coercive power and bear our cross and follow Christ instead.

A few years ago, there was a flood in some parts of Johor and some Christian volunteers were helping to distribute food/clothing to flood victims still trapped in their homes. One Christian guy saw that there is a village that was not yet covered so he said: “Let’s go there!” To his shock, some other Christians told him, “No la, it’s a waste of our time. There’s no use going to that community because we are not allowed to preach the gospel to them. It’s better if we go to this other village (mostly Chinese) because after we distribute the food we can preach to them also”. In my personal view, that’s too narrow!

Yes, the good news is the power of God unto salvation. We should not be ashamed of the gospel. Although evangelism and social action belong together (hand-in-hand), neither is a means for the other. They are equal partners. Our good works should be an expression of genuine love for our neighbor who is in need. And love doesn’t need to justify itself. It is not a means to another hidden agenda. There is no string attached.

We share the good news because we love people. As we genuinely minister to physical needs, we will find opportunities to minister to their spiritual needs as well. But we don’t show love to people primarily as an excuse to evangelize. If they don’t respond or listen to the gospel, does that mean we stop loving them?
Our social agenda must not be narrowly defined, but broad and embracing enough to include the city as a whole. That’s why we should care for issues like environmental conservation, eradicating poverty, abolishing human trafficking, and defending the human rights of women and children and so on.

A friend Marvin Wong wrote: Christian involvement in society is therefore not a part time activity that we engage in after our main task of evangelism is done, but an integral part of our overall Gospel witness. It would be inconsistent for a Christian to claim to love one’s neighbor as oneself and yet remain passive and silent when the same neighbor is in need or treated unjustly.

So here’s the big story: The Creator God has created human beings in His own likeness but they have rebelled against His loving rule. As a result, our fellowship with God is broken. Then the Creator God sets in motion this plan to rescue these rebels by blessing Abraham as the father of a great nation so that they in turn will be a blessing to all the nations of the earth. The nation of Israel was born and then redeemed from slavery in Egypt. The creator God established a covenant with Israel and appointed Israel to be a light to the Gentiles so that through its witness, the surrounding nations will come to know God and His ways. But Israel has failed her calling again and again through disobedience and unfaithfulness.

Now enter the Messiah, the King Himself has come to usher in the Kingdom of God. He will renew, restore and transform the heaven and the earth so that every part of creation is filled with the glory of God. But His kingdom is also a present here-and-now reality. God’s redemptive, missional plan is still moving forward.

His redeemed people are to live today as if the future is already present. The way we live are to be signposts pointing forward to what God’s kingdom in its future fullness would look like. The church is like a movie preview: We are to display some teasers/highlights from the full movie so people go: “Wow I wanna go see the real show”. Coming soon to a planet near you!

Will you sign up for this movement of God for the world?
Will we choose to follow a safe Jesus who exists to provide us with health, wealth, comfort, and happiness? Or do we want the real thing even when it costs us a great deal?

Let us pray…

Christian Imagination: Faith & Arts

The Agora and Labu Ministry will organize a forum to connect like minded Christians in connecting their faith with arts in CDPC, 22 August 2009 (Saturday) at 10.00 am. Do register with me at hedonese at yahoo dot com


Center For Faith And Work: Artists tell the stories of our culture, and impact 21st century society as perhaps no other field does. To the extent that art reflects the heart of its creator, lives transformed by the Gospel serve as agents of cultural change.

Why Art?

This is a talk Makoto Fujimura gave in Leesburg, Florida to the board of Leesburg Center for the Arts. It was originally published on Mako's "Refractions" blog.

"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance."
—Aristotle

As an artist, I often find myself trying to answer “Why Art?” Why is art necessary in our lives and in our education? How can I justify spending so much of my time and expenses invested in being an artist, and helping others by advocating for their artistic expressions? Why do we need the arts here in Leesburg? We have now much research pointing to the economic benefit of bringing art into communities. We have efforts to scientifically prove that the arts help us directly in education, in improving children’s school grades, and helping them to engage better with their worlds. I can give you evidence of how the arts help slow down dementia and reduce stress. (see Gifts of the Muse, by Rand Corporation)

But usually, in these gatherings, I end up listening to people, by finding out what deeply matters to them. And I often find that in the areas that they are most engaged in, and most passionate about, art is already present in that conversation. The person I may be speaking with may not know anything about art in New York, but he/she may talk about their children’s dream to become a dancer or an actor. They may talk about a movie they just saw that affected them deeply. They may speak of their business enterprises and find out that now businesses are starting to realize that the “bottom line” is not really sufficient; but there is a “second bottom line,” or a third. Business schools are now inviting designers to discuss creativity and design, to apply these principles into business practices because worker are no longer content to work in “bottom line” driven companies, but they want their whole person affirmed, and they want community. What I hear these workers stating, is that they want their humanity back. And in that conversation, art always presents itself as an expression of that humanity.

I was recently speaking at a church in NYC, and asked the people what they enjoy doing on Sundays apart from going to church. And everything they listed had something to do with the arts and entertainment. Art is everywhere, from the food we order in restaurants, to clothes we purchase, to paintings hanging on museums. Aristotle defined the arts as “our capacity to make.” So we could broaden our discussion into medicine and sciences. Even if we do not include these sister disciplines in our discussions, one thing is for sure: Our cultural productions and our art will defines us, whether we like it or not. Art expresses who we are.

One of the most frustrating moments in recent memory, for myself as an arts advocate, was to see the Super Bowl half time show knowing, that for the first time, that Janet Jackson fiasco was being broadcast in China. What do the Chinese think of us now? We have come to define ourselves by how we degrade ourselves, and we have exported that vision to the world.

When I traveled with The First Lady to represent the USA at the UNESCO general assembly several years ago, one of the the UNESCO officials told us of her fears in America’s reengagement with UNESCO: “We are struggling to believe that the US can bring more than McDonalds, Coca Cola or Hollywood movies (I might add pornography to that list, but she was too polite).” We tried to convince her and other UNESCO leaders that we have a very unique patronage system that encourages our democratic patronage of the arts like the NEA and NEH. But it was when she connected with our projects with Shakespeare and Jazz Masters programs and touring of Martha Graham dance troops that convinced her that we were committed to a higher vision. These distinctively American forms of art, I would argue, are the greatest fruits of our democracy. And we have every reason to celebrate and broadcast with pride what freedom has brought us.

Tolstoy stated “Art is not a pleasure, a solace, or an amusement; art is great matter. Art is an organ of human life, transmitting man's reasonable perception into feeling”.

Art is a building block of civilization. A civilization that does not value its artistic expressions is a civilization that does not value itself. These tangible artistic expressions help us to understand ourselves. The arts teach us to respect both the diversity of our communities and the strength of our traditions. I encourage people not to segment art into an “extra” sphere of life and decorations. Why? Because art is everywhere, and has already taken root in our lives.

Therefore, the questions is not so much “why art?” but “which art?” We are presented with a choice. And this choice is a responsibility of cultural stewardship. Just as we have responsibility for natural resources, so do we have to take stewardship care of our culture.

What, then, does the current cultural ecosystem look like? NEA Research such as Reading at Risk, is pointing to a cultural epidemic of disengagement. The studies point to how we are reading less and less, but even more pronounced, in my mind, is how we are less engaged with civic activities, with nature (and even sports!).

The Columbine High School incident and 9/11 taught us that we can either use our imagination for destroy lives or to save lives. We have on the one hand a girl reading Macbeth (she wanted to be an actor) in the library, and on the other a teen pointing a gun at her head and asking her “do you still believe in God?” And she said “yes” and was shot. Her words affirmed the source of her life and salvation, and inspired countless others to express that belief: His actions prompted others to copy the destructive acts of horrors. On 9/11 we had, on the one hand, militant hijackers who took their imaginative vengeance into determined evil acts. On the other hand were firefighters who climbed the falling towers. We have to realize that before any of these acts were committed, they were imagined. We swim in the ecosystem of imagined actions. We do have a responsibility to that power. We do have a choice between saving lives, or destroying lives.

If we do not teach our children, and ourselves, that what we imagine, and how we design the world, can make a difference, the culture of cynicism will do that for us. If we do not take the initiative to love our neighbors by imagining better neighborhoods and cities, despair will take the imaginations of their children and turn them into destructive forces.

A few hopeful examples in the ecosystem of culture today:

1) Rafe Esquith, a National Medal of Arts recipient two years ago for his efforts among the Hobart Elementary School children of inner city Los Angeles, challenges immigrant children, many of whom do not speak English, to memorize and perform Shakespeare. In the recent ceremony announcing "American Masterpieces," a new N.E.A. initiative to bring masterpieces of visual art, dance and music to American cities, regional museums and schools, the First Lady and other guests sat in awe as two of Mr. Esquith's students performed Henry the Fifth. Beyond knowing their demanding lines, they gave life to the words and elevated us all in the audience. Their childlike but confident orations had a beauty and a deeper resonance, something that this nation desperately needs to hear and understand today when these sounds are too often drowned out by crass commercial noise. Our children's voices can be elevated, drawing the world's attention to excellence, and the nobility of civilization.

2) About 20 years ago, Mayor Joseph Riley of Charleston, South Carolina woke up one day and realized that being a mayor means that you are the chief architect and designer of your city. He came to the NEA and asked for help because he knew nothing about design. What a humble man. He states: “We mayors exhaust ourselves with lots of decisions – political, personnel, budget. But 100 years from now, there will be no real evidence of how we made those decisions. In contrast, a decision about the physical design of a city will influence the city and its people for generations.” Now the Mayors Institute has helped over 625 mayors become the chief urban designers of their cities. 8 mayors are locked up in a room with 8 designers without the media or their aids. They share solutions, and dreams. Then they go home to their towns to see how the real life solutions can also benefit the environment and the general quality of life. This effort was so successful that it has grown to affect leadership at the state level. I just attended a press conference with NEA chairman Dana Gioa and Former Governors Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey and Parris N. Glendening of Maryland to begin a Governor’s Institute on Community Design that brings this transformation into the state level.

The Governor’s Institute is co-sponsored by the NEA and the EPA. Strange bedfellows? No, it’s smart to connect the two —again, it’s the issue of stewardship. The best design is most efficient, and friendly to the environment. The best design considers what the community needs first, and even her voiceless inhabitants. The best design brings beauty into our lives.

A journey of an artist in the ecosystem of culture:

I get to spend my days, thinking and imagining, painting and writing. I think about a journey that started as a child, simply wanting to draw and express, having encouraging parents, and being blessed with a wife who suffers alongside with me. The life of an artist is never easy, but I take it seriously because I know that imagination has consequences.

But I do, on occasion, go back to that question "Why Art?" Because it was a question I addressed to myself in a diary for a creative writing class in college, many years ago. My professor, wrote back in his comments: “Your questions are valuable, and I encourage you to push that question further, as many of the writers and artists have done in the past: 'Why Live?'”

Perhaps that’s why we need the arts in Leesburg. By continuing to create and imagine a better world, we live .

Faith, Medicine, Climate Change

Graham McAll on the medical community and climate change (1:22 minutes) - Melissa Ong & Daniel Tay

Dr. Graham McAll – family doctor, member of the UK’s Climate and Health Council, and conference speaker – found that medical professionals agreed on the major impact climate change has on human health and that important initiatives designed to combat the effects are already under discussion.

In the wake of A Rocha's "Why Creation is Waiting for the Christians" conferences in Singapore and Malaysia in July 2009, Dr Graham McAll who spoke on the relationship between medicine, Christian faith and climate change, states that the medical community can play an essential part in connecting the scientific community and the general public, because "we know the suffering of the poor... we know the suffering of our patients."

What do faith, medicine and climate change have to do with each other?

Many Christian health care leaders are now fully aware that environmental conservation is an integral part of their faith commitment. Over 500 people were involved in two weeks of A Rocha meetings and conferences in Malaysia and Singapore this July, examining the links between creation care and health care.

Dr. Graham McAll – family doctor, member of the UK’s Climate and Health Council, and conference speaker – found that medical professionals agreed on the major impact climate change has on human health and that important initiatives designed to combat the effects are already under discussion. They also expressed great concern about the effects of pervasive haze and poor air quality – those who met in Kuala Lumpur were particularly aware of the problem.

Meanwhile, many beautiful species are endangered by habitat destruction, including this Blue Nuthatch, found in Malaysia’s spectacular montane forest. Others, like the globally endangered Straw-headed Bulbul from Pulau Ubin island in Singapore, are harder to see – but take a moment here to listen to its song!

Love God With All Our Mind

Mark 12:28-34 (sermon audio download available here)

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'31The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."

"Well said, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices." When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.

Have you ever wondered what happened to the dinosaurs? How did those giant lizards become extinct? And did the Bible ever mention anything about them? Have you ever asked these questions before? I suspect quite a number of you have.

I came to know Christ as a 15 year old student in secondary school. That’s not too long ago. As a curious new believer, I began asking how the Genesis account of creation in seven days explains those interesting dinosaurs you’d find watching Jurassic Park or National Geographic. So hoping to get some answers, one fine day I picked up the courage to ask my science teacher who is also a Christian. I asked him: “Why did God create dinosaurs and let all of them die, ah? Were the dinosaurs safe inside Noah’s ark? Did the flood drown all of them?” He gave me “one kind” of look and then asked me another question in return. He said: “Tell me. Does God answer your prayers?”

I was a bit shocked at first. “Er… Don’t blame me la… I didn’t pray for the dinosaur’s extinction ok!” Maybe he sensed that I was confused, so he went on, “Aiya… If God has answered your prayers, why do you need to ask so many things?” So if you have an experience that God is real in your heart, why bother thinking so much?

From that day on, I found out that for many Christians an intellectual understanding of what we believe and why you believe is not important as long as you have an experiential feeling in your heart! The heart is what you used in a relationship with God but the brain is what you used while studying science, computers, economics and history in school. There is a separation of the heart for spiritual stuffs and the mind for secular stuffs like dinosaurs. When that happens, no wonder our faith has so little impact on how we do our work or studies in the world. And no wonder our ‘daily activities’ outside the church has very little to do with God or the gospel.

But the Bible seems to say: “Do not be conformed to the patterns of this world but be transformed by the renewal of your minds”. It doesn’t say “Be transformed by the removal of your minds”! So we don’t need to remove our brains in order to be a Christian. In fact, renewing our mind with God’s truth and kingdom values is crucial to our spiritual growth. Last month, I was working in Vietnam and met an American lady on a tour bus who works for a research program, trying to find a cure for cancer. As we talked, she told me that she envies her Christian friends for their faith. She says “It’s so easy for them but it’s hard for me to believe because as a scientist, I’ve been trained to think critically and ask questions first”. So I encouraged her, “Sometimes people ask questions not because of unbelief, but because they are serious about the truth”. Then I recommended her a book by a famous Christian scientist and hope it’s helpful to her.

To a lot of people, when you wish something is true but suspect that it actually doesn’t exist you need faith. And when you know for sure that something isn’t true and you still believe in it, then you must have very great faith indeed. But biblical faith is not like that. True faith involves knowledge, agreement and trust. For example, I can examine that this is a chair, it has four legs. That’s knowledge of the facts. But knowing alone is not enough, I must agree that yes, this chair is strong enough to support my weight. But knowing and agreeing alone won’t do me any good unless I put a personal commitment to rest my weight on that chair. So faith has both objective facts as well as personal trust.

In the passage we read just now, Jesus calls us (his disciples) to love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our strength, with all our soul and with all our mind. This is the great and first commandment that sums up the entire law. True Christian spirituality involves our whole being - heart, head and hand. Our feeling, thinking and doing are all involved.

If we do not love God with all our heart, what happens? Our spiritual life will be all head knowledge but there is no real passion, desire or joy in it. We merely analyze God but we don’t worship Him. And if we do not love God with all our strength, then no practical fruit comes out of our beliefs. It’s NATO “No Action Talk Only”. Next Sunday Pastor Aik Khiam will preach on the Great Commandment of Jesus in more detail so…

Today I just want to zoom in on loving God with all our mind and ask 3 questions:
- Now, what happens if we do not love the Lord our God with “all our mind”?
- What are some practical benefits of developing a Christian mind?
- If this is important and practical, what can we do as disciples of Jesus to follow after God’s thoughts? To disciple our minds to love God…

So I hope to suggest why the role of the mind is so crucial to our discipleship, how a renewed Christian mind can be intensely practical (not just theoretical) and how we can go about loving God with “all our mind” as a church.

Many of us know about Billy Graham… he’s a great evangelist who has probably preached the gospel to more people than anyone else through radio and TV broadcasts and mass evangelistic rallies. Almost 30 years ago, the Billy Graham Centre was launched with a mission to help churches to evangelize. At the dedication service, they invited a Lebanese Christian named Charles Malik to deliver a very challenging message. He said: “I must be frank with you: the greatest danger facing American Evangelical Christianity is the danger of anti-intellectualism. The mind as to its greatest and deepest reaches is not cared for enough… The problem is not only to win souls but to save minds. If you win the whole world and lose the mind of the world, you will soon discover you have not won the world. Indeed it may turn out you have actually lost the world.” In other words, he’s saying, even if the whole world become Christian in name but their thinking is still captured by worldly patterns, then it may turn out that we have actually lost the world. If he is right and I think he is about a very common neglect to care for the life of the mind not only in America but also in Malaysia, then perhaps it is appropriate for us as a church to spend a bit more time exploring how we may love God with ‘all our mind’. So that’s one reason to devote a whole sermon on this aspect of obeying the Great Commandment. Not because the other areas are not important, but because there is such widespread neglect for such a crucial need today.

So what happens if we do not love the Lord our God with “all our mind”?

Nowadays, information about anything under the sun is just a Google search away. We cannot totally isolate ourselves or our loved ones from ideas… even dangerous ideas or deceptive philosophies out there in the market.

And if we do not submit our thinking to God’s truth, then obviously our minds will be easily influenced by worldly ways of life. We may still call ourselves Christians but we absorb notions about wealth, about sex and about success from MTV, popular movies or Youtube without even knowing it. Our thinking will be shaped by the patterns of the world, all those big words like hedonism that says (Life is short. Grab all the fun you can get), or consumerism (I shop till I drop because my social status depends on what I buy) or pragmatism (Whatever. As long as it works, I don’t care how you do it), and all sorts of other ‘ism or philosophies about life.

If we do not care for our mind, we may also run around with lots of programs and activities (giving an appearance of vibrant spiritual life) but we don’t stop and reflect “Why are we doing this? Is this biblical? We may do things right but are we doing the right things?” Or we may also run the danger of emotionalism – that means, having lots of misguided passion, having lots of zeal but without wisdom. Sad but true, I’ve come across some sincere but seriously misguided people who slither on the floor like snakes, roar like lions, bark like dogs because they mistakenly believed that is what God wanted them to do. Truth without emotion produce dead orthodoxy but emotion without a true vision of the greatness of God produces a shallow frenzy. The Father in heaven looks for worshippers who worship in spirit and in truth. Passionate feelings for God rooted in sound doctrine about God will express itself in songs, shouts, tears, silent awe, confessions and obedient lives. Head and heart and hands…

Last but not least, if we do not know what we believe and why we believe, then our evangelism or our witness of the gospel will suffer. We will lack boldness because we are afraid of the questions people may ask. When I have lunch with some colleagues, we usually talk about work, the economy, Malaysian politics or family stuffs. And there’s a guy who is very shy and has no opinion when it comes to topics like these. But if the conversation suddenly turns to football, then his eyes will light up and he cannot stop talking. Why? Because he knows a lot about football and he can offer expert opinions on anything relating to football like Shebby Singh. So he’s not shy or quiet anymore. It’s the same when it comes to sharing the gospel. That’s why 1 Peter 3:15 says: “Be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you for a reason for the hope you have in Christ.” This command to be ready with a reason or defence for frequently-asked questions from sceptics and seekers is not given to an elite group of scholars or intellectuals. No, it’s for the whole church. Be prepared. Be equipped with answers. Then boldness kicks in.

But if it is so important to love God with our mind, why do many Christians often downplay the role of the mind when it comes to spiritual things? When it comes to secular knowledge, we say “Ah Chai: Stop your computer games, study harder, memorize these facts and pass all your exams”. We encourage them to devote much time to read books and use their minds. But when it comes to theological knowledge, we say “Who needs theology? Aiya, don’t think so much la... Just have more faith. Read books ah? Where got time? Busy la…” This common suspicion towards the role of the mind in our spiritual life may sometimes be caused by misunderstanding certain Bible passages. For example: “What’s the use of reason since Jesus says we should have faith like a child? (Matthew 8:13) Didn’t the apostle Paul say Knowledge puffs up our pride (1 Corinthians 8:1) so we should stop pursuing knowledge?”

But actually, a childlike faith refers to a humble, dependent trust in God. It is the humility and dependent trust of a helpless child that Jesus praises. He is not encouraging childish thinking. The apostle Paul wrote, “Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be adults.” (1 Corinthians 14:20) When he wrote that knowledge puffs up, he is warning us against a proud attitude that show off one’s spiritual knowledge for self-promotion instead of using it to build up each another. The real problem he’s getting at is arrogance, not knowledge in itself. So our proper response is humility and love, not ignorance. There are people who are knowledgeable and yet humble just as there are people who are proud and know a lot. But it is also possible to be arrogant and ignorant at the same time. I’m in the consulting line and sometimes people say of consultants: “Know a bit but pretend to know it all”. Gordon Fee: why must we choose between ‘fool on fire’ or a ‘scholar on ice’? Lord, help me to be a “scholar on fire”. Not everyone is called to be a scholar, but we should all be disciples of Jesus whose minds continually grow in knowledge and hearts continually burn with passion.

Q2: OK, fine but is it practical or not? This business about developing a ‘Christian mind’ - Isn’t it just theoretical, head knowledge that does not help us live properly?

When Doctor Wendy and I look at the same skin problem, we “see” radically different things. She can observe more because with years of study, her mind is filled with relevant medical concepts that enable her to look for the right things and tell me whether it’s a basal cell carcinoma or not. Whereas I can stare at the sore all day and not see what she saw. Believe me, this ability to see is something very practical. It can make a difference between life and death. Similarly, if your mind is equipped with biblical concepts like creation, sin and redemption, you are able to look at life and the world and see things that others don’t even notice. You can see beyond surface appearance in world events, culture or people and discern truth from error, right from wrong, beauty from ugliness.

Although there is some truth to the perception that scholars always argue over irrelevant issues, the best theologians actually help us to gain wisdom for life. After all, a good theory is a very practical thing. When I don’t know the way to KLCC, having a good map helps me decide whether to turn left at this junction or right at that traffic light. The map itself is not KLCC but just a theoretical model of the real thing. But if the map is accurate, it can be very useful. In the same way, an accurate mental map of reality guides our navigation through difficult decisions in the world.

Because what we believe to be true has a powerful influence over how we should live. For example, if we view human life as just a biological machine, we won’t be terribly inclined to treat it with much dignity or respect. But if we see human beings as more than biology but also a person made in the image of God with infinite worth, it compels us to treat life as sacred and other people with dignity and respect. Sound theology is practical when it connects to life and flow from the head to the heart and to the hands. True knowledge and living experience should enrich each other.

And if we are serious about our witness for the gospel in a multi religious society like Malaysia, we need to intentionally raise up a generation of confident, informed and winsome ambassadors for Christ. We can preach with all the fervor of a Billy Graham but win only a beggar here and there if we allow the intellectual atmosphere of our society to oppose the gospel by sheer logic. The strategy is not retreat and isolate ourselves in a safe little corner. But to cultivate a robust Christian worldview that understands and engages culture. To do that, we need to provide thinking tools that empower our youths and children, so they will learn how to evaluate what’s true and good on their own. My wife Grace is scheduled to deliver tomorrow. Newborn babies get a vaccination jab which contain some virus or bacteria so that their immune system can be developed. Similarly, we can boost up our spiritual immune system by being informed of what other religious beliefs are first and be equipped to evaluate them from a biblical perspective.

Today, there is an urgent and serious need for us to explore how the church as a redeemed community in the world responds to issues like racism, inter-religious harmony, economic inequality, caring for creation, the spread of infectious diseases, and ethics in medical technology. Since the gospel is public truth (not just private experiences), we have a responsibility to speak sensibly in the public square, through the media, in places where these crucial and practical issues of life are discussed and decided. We cannot address these burning issues in our Malaysian society without faithfully and diligently applying our minds to connect God’s word with God’s world.

Lastly, if the mind is crucial and practical to our spiritual life and witness, how then shall we recover and develop a Christian mind in ourselves and in others? (Q3)

Here are four simple suggestions which are by no means exhaustive:

a) Our mind needs to be fed. You are what you eat. If you eat junk food, your body will be weak or sick. You are what you read also. If you read healthy, solid books, your mind will also develop strong mental muscles or habits. There is no short cut. Let’s start small: Have we read the whole Bible at least once? LT Jeyachandran: If we don’t even know what’s inside this book, why do we believe it is God’s word?

b) Memorizing bible verses and facts alone doesn’t mean that we have developed a Christian mindset. Our minds need exercise. We need to re-imagine creatively and critically how to apply the biblical teachings of creation, sin, and redemption to life issues we face daily in the marketplace as a lawyer, artist, businessperson, teacher, healthcare workers etc. Advertisement: The church library has invested in many interesting helpful resources to equip us to do just that. Start with your own interests and passions.

c) If you are a student, do you think Christianly about the subjects you learn in school or college? I once met a student in church who was studying psychology at HELP Institute. So I encouraged her: “Wow, that’s an interesting field. There are many areas in which psychology overlap to what the Bible teaches about the soul. Some faculty members like Dr Goh Chee Leong are committed Christians”. What she told me next broke my heart: “You know what, most Christians would frown when they hear that I’m doing psychology and you are one of few people who actually encouraged to pursue it”. I know there are some theories in psychology that may be incompatible with the Christian faith. But in every discipline, including law, economics, arts and science, you’d find some theories which do not fit well with our beliefs. If we discourage people from studying and run away then who’s going to get in there and do better psychology, better economics and better science from a biblical outlook? Speak to the pastors and see how you may discern what is true, beautiful and right expressed in these disciplines of your research. They could well be your “fulltime ministry” in future.

d) Volunteer to join or lead evangelism groups like Alpha or Christianity Explored where small groups are trained in the art of giving a reason for our faith in Christ. So you learn to handle frequently asked questions from seekers with humility, confidence and knowledge. When you are stumped once, just say “I don’t know but I’d find out for you” – then go home and do your homework, ask around and get back to them. That way, all of us learn to grow in our journey of faith.

Can you imagine what the transformation of our spirituality and witness in society looks like when our minds are regularly renewed with such practices? It is a lifelong project that requires lots of energy and time, but the effort will be worth your while. And you’ll never know just when a curious young believer may approach you with questions like “Why did God create the dinosaurs?”

You know what, recently, a student in MMU asked me about the dinosaurs and how they fit in Genesis. Ask and you shall be asked in return.

Do you know how I answered him? Basically I gave him a few possible Christian answers to that question, some pros and cons in each theory depending on how you look at the fossils and how you understand the book of Genesis. But in the end, the Bible is not meant to be a biological textbook to tell us everything about dinosaurs. Genesis tells us who created the universe and why everything is created, but its main purpose is not to tell us specifically how it all came about. Then one female student chipped in: “If God didn’t create dinosaurs, we won’t have any petroleum today! Our cars depend on fossil fuel ma...” And I thought “Ya hor… Have you ever thought of becoming a theologian?”

The point is this: Loving God with “all our mind” does not mean that we can understand absolutely everything about God and His ways. Because God is God, and we are finite creatures, there will always be mystery. And some of our questions will only be answered when we meet God one day. That should not be an excuse for us to be lazy in our thinking, but it is a needed reminder that there is a limit to our ability to reason and sometimes, all we can do is save up our questions for heaven… To ask God when we finally meet Him face to face…

Let us pray.