Watching Movies Through The Eyes of Faith

Sermon podcast for download and listening is available here

Let’s have a show of hands: Who hasn’t heard of Nicole Kidman? Brad Pitt? Shahrukh Khan? Or Andy Lau? Karl Barth? Probably more people here know more about these movie stars than about famous theologians. For those of us in their teens or twenty-something’s, movies are just a part of life. Our young people are more up to date with what’s coming soon from Hollywood, TVB or Korean drama than perhaps, any other topic.

Because we live in an image-driven culture, a film-watching culture. Otherwise Tanjong Golden Village and Golden Screen Cinemas would not be jam packed during weekends. Or if you need more evidence, try to find a home that does not have at least one television set. Or walk around the neighborhood and count the number of homes now installed with Astro satellite dish that can transmit more than 50 different channels to your living room at the press of a button. How wonderful is that?

When the lights dim and the silver screen is lowered, something magical happens. Movies are a magical portal that transports us into another world. To the grand fortresses of Gondor in Middle Earth. Or the wonderful ecosystem of Pandora. Or a galaxy far, far away where Jedi knights roam amongst strange alien creatures. Movies can enchant us and thrill us, make us laugh out loud or scare the living daylights out of us. They can change the way we think and how we feel. They convey values and meaning, what is good and what is important.

A good movie takes raw materials from the stuff of life – friendships, conflict, our quest for significance and redemption – and turn them into an experience, creating characters and a picture of reality that we can all relate to. It’s a visual storybook that could show us new insights about our world that would otherwise remain hidden from our untrained eye.

Like the short clip we watched a moment ago from the Pixar movie “Up”… It not only makes you smile and draws you emotionally into the story. It drives home gently some lessons about life too. It’s not just a cartoon for kids, I tell you. The scene where Ellie lost her unborn baby especially brings back memories of a similar episode in my own married life. Combining the ancient art of storytelling with cutting edge special effects, movies are, of course, very entertaining. But at the same time, they have also become a powerful medium by which people today discover and interpret meaning in their daily life.

Let me show you how different patterns of communication have evolved in human society: at the dawn of history, stories are passed down by word of mouth, focusing on the ear: an oral culture. Think of our grandfather’s stories or the penglipur lara. Then we move into a literate age where the focus is on the eye: Think of libraries, reading books, the Renaissance, the invention of the printing machine. About a hundred years ago, we crossed over to a post-literate age that focus on both the ear and eye: think of television, movies, and news broadcast. And now with the Internet, Youtube, smart phones and social media, perhaps we are coming to a digital age where people not only consume culture, they also want to actively create arts and culture. People want to share stories, create music videos and short motion picture of their own. In fact, some talented youths in CDPC are already doing that, aren’t they? Have you checked out the recent cover songs uploaded by Eugene See and others? CDPC’s got talent!

If that is how people tend to communicate today, how should our Christian faith relate to the movie world? Or put another way, what has Jerusalem to do with Hollywood?

Well, for a long time, the church has a love-hate relationship with movies. They are often frowned upon for promoting worldliness, profanities, violence and sexual permissiveness. And that is quite often the case. And we are right to reject these elements. But sometimes, we can throw the baby out with the bath water.

For some people, movies are sometimes seen as helpful or acceptable when they depict biblical stories like the Jesus film used for evangelistic rallies. Apart from that, some of us don’t see much spiritual value in them.

On the other end of the spectrum, and perhaps more descriptive of us city folks, we may just mindlessly go along and consume whatever is offered at the box office. “All my friends watched it so why I cannot watch? Aiya… I just want to have some fun only. Don’t think so much lar.”. We don’t discern between good and bad movies. We just switch off our brain and allow our minds to “drift” along with the show. Just as a fish in water doesn’t realize that it’s wet; television and movies are so much a part of our lives that we hardly notice their impact on us. For better or for worse.

So I would like to reflect with you today how we can engage with movies with an open mind and yet, to do so in a discerning way. It’s a practical application of earlier CDPC sermons on “being culture maker” and “cultural engagement”. So, here are three ways we can approach movie culture

1) Dare to say no! (Avoidance and caution)

It may sound obvious but there are many movies that we should intentionally avoid. We mustn’t be afraid of saying no. There’s benefit in leaving some films unwatched, some horrible music unlistened to, some junk food unconsumed. We must not worry about being labeled uncool, uncultured, or legalists. It’s more important that we learn to discern what we see in the light of the gospel and know where our own limits are.

For example, food (nasi lemak) like every gift in God’s created world is a good thing. But it can become a bad thing if we eat it recklessly, excessively or selfishly. It’s good if we consume it not as something we must have (“My preciousss... Gollum must have it”) but as something we can have, delighting in God’s good creation.

So ask yourself: Am I free to abstain from these good things as much as I am free to enjoy them? Am I able to say no? There’s no clear command in the Bible against watching movies or drinking coffee. But if we are not able to go without television or Starbucks for a whole day, then it has become an addiction. Or if we are so insistent on our Christian freedom to enjoy these things, that we look down on others who don’t like arty films or whatever, that’s also a form of legalism pretending to be “free”.

There are times when we need to say: Yes, I am not forbidden from watching this film. It is not evil, but because of my particular weakness and tendencies in this area and so that it won’t stumble my children and friends, and for the sake of my gospel witness, I think the wise thing to do is to abstain. I choose to, not because I have to. For example, if you give me a remote control I can surf channels for hours. If that’s also your weakness then you need to be extra careful how you exercise this freedom.

Cultural exposure is always related to a person’s spiritual and personal maturity. Even an excellent movie like Shawshank Redemption may not be appropriate for a 12 year-old.

You are in the best position to decide what films you are comfortable with, and where to draw the line. Ask yourself: How is my habit shaping my desires? Are they drawing me closer to God or to self? To holiness or to worldliness?

We all know of the glorification of guns, sex and materialism in some films. But there are less obvious spiritual dangers. French philosopher Jacque Ellul notes that the person who has the power to edits images in sequence chooses for you; he condenses or stretches what becomes reality itself for us. We are utterly obliged to follow this rhythm.”

Remember how our mainstream media covers the Bersih rallies last time? Someone has already decided for us what is “reality”– you don’t get to see a peaceful multi racial crowd of thousands. We are just fed with images of a few scattered samseng walking down an empty street, throwing bottles at police. A movie director has the same power of propaganda by making fun of certain people as stupid or intolerant in an unfair manner. As passive spectators, we are constantly being fed with a stream of images. Reality is substituted with an artificial construct like the Matrix that distorts our perception and manipulates our opinion. 

Kairos research director Dr Kam Weng warns us that this image-driven culture can have negative impact on our education and spiritual health. TV, i-Pads and video games may over-stimulate children with fast paced sights and sounds. If we are not careful, it can stifle their ability to sustain attention on their own, to read patiently and use language actively. They just can’t sit still: Here we are now, entertain us!

CDPC Puchong has a library ministry that seeks to inspire children to be a lifelong reader. Why? Well, reading a book allows you to control the pace of information input. It invites you to think over and connect the words printed on the page. You can sit down and pause to explore this imaginary world of wonder, beauty and adventure that the author describes. Real learning needs patience, careful reflection.

After getting married, having a son and working on projects at the office, I can hardly find the time to watch a lot of movies these days. So I need to choose carefully which movies to watch so time/money are not wasted. One way to do this is to find out what is the genre of that movie: Is it a romantic comedy? Is it an action thriller? Is it a ‘slasher movie’ like I know what you did last summer? If it is a slasher movie, it is usually about a mysterious psychopath on the loose killing a lot people in all sorts of interesting ways until the final girl (it’s always a girl, don’t ask me why?) defeat him or escaped. Once I know the genre, I have some idea what is the formula of the story and I’d say: No, thank you. And that’s just me.

There are also solid online Christian resources that can help us make such decisions. They give you a good summary of what to expect, background info about the production and biblical evaluation of its major themes. Sometimes I would browse around and pick one or two recommended ones

http://www.damaris.org/

http://www.bethinking.org/culture-worldview/

2^nd Approach: Dare to say yes! (Dialogue and Engagement)

Having said all that, we cannot totally abandon the movie world that modern folks are already immersed in. Otherwise, we will only let this conversation be dominated by other voices and lose our ability to take part and influence it.

We need to talk about the movies we watch in order to celebrate what is good and perhaps clarify our own position on many of life’s questions. This means that we need to "train" our eye to understand the language of movies and not just offer knee jerk response like just counting how many curse words are spoken in it.

In fact, there are many movies that can be watched “redemptively” – when we enter into a conversation with the film on its own terms. As we listen to the story, to ourselves and to God, we may leave the cinema with fresh insights and new inspiration. But to do that, as with any work of art, we need to lay aside our preconceived ideas and biases and listen fairly to what the film has to say. We must first allow another point of view to enter in, to interact and dialogue with our own view before making any judgment. Theological analysis should come AFTER (not before) the aesthetic experience of appreciating a movie. It’s a kind of open minded/suspend-judgment approach that says: “I hear what you say, but I don’t have to believe all you say”.  

When we do that, we may be surprised by some “A-ha” moments that enrich our outlook on life. I’m sure many of you have encountered magical movie moments like that before.

But let me share with you a real story how the movie Awakenings (1990) can impact the life of young man named Yoke Yeow. It appeared at that time of his life when, as a pre-U, he worked hard to get good grades but he has no idea what to do with his life! In this movie Awakenings, Robin Williams plays Dr. Malcolm Sayer, a neurologist who ends up devoting his life to victims of a coma caused by degeneration of nerve cells. He accidentally discovered a wonder drug that brings these coma patients back to life! They have a short but exciting timeframe to recapturing their lost youth. But unfortunately the effect is not permanent. They are doomed to slip back into a prison of catatonia again: living zombies, trapped behind frozen, empty stares.

Struggling through the tragedy, Dr Sayer says: "We can hide behind the veil of science,.. but reality is we don't know what went wrong anymore than we know what went right. What we do know is as the chemical window closed, another awakening took place. The human spirit is more powerful than any drug and that is what needs to be nourished."

That movie changed Yoke Yeow’s life. He cried bitterly as he felt for the patients’ suffering and inspired by Dr Sayer’s passion for his work. Unknown to him, a vocation was being defined: to involve himself passionately in the lives of suffering patients and share in their struggle to keep alive their God-breathed identity. He has found his calling to be scientist, healer and friend.  

Good movies can serve as vehicles of common grace and touch our lives just like that. He who has eyes, let him see.  

Of course, the fun part of a movie is not only in finding some hidden spiritual message hidden inside. But many films actually explore and confront us with themes that relate to faith, relationships and important social issues. They convey our society’s myths, symbols and fundamental beliefs about the meaning of human experience. So we are invited to enter into a dialogue over these overlapping themes where the Bible and film meet together. We need to watch with eyes wide open to appreciate them. Here is just a short sample of such films.

Abortion (Cider House Rules)

Death punishment (The Green Mile, Dead Man Walking)

Biotechnology/eugenics (Gattaca)

Faith and Reason (Life of Pi / Contact)

Freewill/consciousness/Artificial intelligence (I, Robot/The Matrix/Minority Report)

Environment/consumerism (The Lorax, Wall-E )

Conflict diamond trade/child soldiers (Blood Diamond)

Social control/Media ethics (The Truman Show)

Nuclear war (The Sum of All Fears, Terminator 2)

Slavery (Amazing Grace, Amistad)

The Holocaust (Schindler’s List, Life is beautiful)

So as parents and Christian leaders, we can wisely select and use some of them to guide and explore such issues with our children or cell groups for group conversation. A movie study may keep more people interested than a book study, right?

To do this effectively, we need to ask the right questions. In almost any movie, the story of the main character(s) is an argument for a way of living or a world view in the form of a drama. Something is lost and needs redemption: But, how? As the hero changes his attitude or assumptions about the world through his experiences in the ‘reel’ world, so we see what the filmmakers are trying to persuade us about how we see the real world.

When watching a movie, ask yourself,

·                      “What is the character flaw or problems of the hero at the beginning?”

·                      “What makes him change his mind in the story about the way he sees the world?”

·                      “What does he learn about the way life ought or ought not be lived?”

·                      “What is different about the way he sees the world at the end from the way he sees it at the beginning?” (Brian Godawa, “Hollywood Worldviews”)

This could be a good way to start a conversation. Asking such questions and offering answers biblically help us to apply and connect our Christian beliefs both in the ‘reel’ world as well as the real world.

3^rd approach: Divine encounter  

A lot of people experience a sense of awe and wonder when they are confronted with something heart-stoppingly beautiful – whether it is listening to an orchestra playing Handel’s Messiah, or gazing at a masterpiece painting in a museum or even scuba diving on a breath-taking coral reef. People often come way from encountering beauty with a small glimpse of the divine. 

Have you experienced something similar? In the movie American Beauty, a broken young man from a dysfunctional family came across a plastic bag swirling around in the wind. It was just dancing around, like a little kid begging him to play with it. And he stood there and video taped the whole thing for fifteen minutes. He said:

“That's the day I realized there was this entire life behind things, and this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Sometimes there is so much... beauty... in the world, I feel like I can't take it, and my heart is just going to cave in.” It may seem like a mundane event but that encounter with a graceful dancing plastic bag gave him a sense of transcendence.

So it is with a well made film like any great work of art… It can be an opportunity for a burning bush experience if we watch with our hearts open. Common grace is everywhere, ready to burst forth when we least expect it.

Now, let us try to apply these three broad Christian approaches and see how they work with a Steven Spielberg war film “Saving Private Ryan”. Then you can compare and see which one(s) works for you. This is a story of 8 soldiers who were given a mission to rescue one man Private James Ryan from behind enemy lines. Why is he so important? Because his three brothers have all recently been killed in action; leaving him as the only child of a single mother. So the military leaders want him to be brought back alive. At one point, Captain Miller (the Tom Hanks character) says, “This Ryan had better be worth it. He’d better go home, cure some disease or invent the longer lasting light bulb or something.” And it turns out that the rescue mission claims the lives of all these eight soldiers, one after another. At the final battle scene, as the Captain himself dies, his last words to Private Ryan were: “Earn this – earn it”. In other words, look at the sacrifice we have made to save your life. You must earn it. Live a life that is worthy of our sacrifice.

Fifty years pass, and in the closing shots of the film, we see an elderly Ryan returning to the Captain’s grave with his wife, children and grandchildren. He kneels, and as tears fill his eyes, he says: “My family is with me today… Every day I think about what you said to me that day. I’ve tried to live my life the best I could. I hope that was enough. I hope at least in your eyes I’ve earned what all of you have done for me”. Then he turns to his wife and asks anxiously, “Tell me I’ve led a good life… Tell me I’m a good man”. He has lived his entire life with the last words of his savior ringing in his ears. Earn it.

How should we respond? Some Christians may choose to avoid this R-rated film because of the graphic, violent battle on the beach of Normandy at the opening sequence. Or they may be offended by the soldiers’ foul language. That’s one possible response.

But others may recognize that this is a realistic description of World War II. They may be cautious about excessive violence, but they will seek a dialogue on the theme of war. Can war ever be just? Or is war always evil for everyone involved? The discussion becomes less abstract as you ‘see’ the concrete messiness of war. Or we may engage the human values of self-sacrifice and courage portrayed by Captain Miller and his men? How would you feel? How would you live differently if someone really gave away his own life so you may live yours?

Perhaps, some may even be drawn to a divine encounter though it is not be the director’s intention. Jesus says: “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. You are my friends if you do what I command.” The fact is, Someone has already died for us and gave His life on the cross so that we might live to the full. And if we really get it, emotionally and personally, how can we live in the same old way again? It’s going to change everything. Your life is not your own. You have been bought with a precious price. How can we not love and sacrifice for others? How can we not live in a way worthy of the gospel? But there is a big difference: The Savior’s last words were not “Earn it. Earn my love”. His last words were: “It is finished!” It is done. The price has been paid. I have earned it for you. My love is costly and yet it is free.

As we talk about the movies we have experienced, we celebrate what is good and reject what is evil. It can serve as a bridge to connect with others who otherwise would never walk into a church or talk openly about their beliefs. Imagine your small group or family coming together to watch a good movie and then discuss and pray about them together. Wouldn’t that be interesting?

Movie, like art and culture, is a wonderful thing. It’s a gift immersed with general revelation and at the same time, tainted by sin. So we must be good stewards of it.

Sometimes that means having the courage to say no. Other times, it means we need the courage to engage and have a meaningful conversation. On some rare and sacred occasions, they can even be the humble tools by which the Spirit of God works to change and enlighten us. Or perhaps for some of you gifted young people seated here - you may consider film-making as a calling from God .

Phillipians 4:8 – Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 

Overcoming Sexual Temptation

Sexual temptations come easy these days. I’m sure they have always been around but with virtual dirty chats, porn downloads and livestreaming video feeds, they are much more accessible to more people, more discreet and so much more deadly, isn’t it? And it’s big business too. I came across an online dating website on Facebook recently. It has 21 million members and growing fast. Its niche market is for married people looking to hook up for sexual encounters. The tagline: “Life is short, Have an affair”.

 In the Scripture passage we read a moment ago, we read of a story about sexual temptation, a story of Joseph’s encounter with a desperate housewife. If we back up a little in the story, we read that Joseph was sold as a slave by his brothers for 20 pieces of silver. He ended up in a faraway land, in Egypt, where he worked for Potiphar the captain of Pharaoh’s guards. But God was with him and blessed all that he did. Whatever projects were assigned to him, they were on time, within budget and of such quality that his master was very impressed and put him in charge of everything except his food. We are told that God’s favour was on Joseph and that he was also a good looking young man. “Handsome in form and appearance,” we are told.

Unfortunately that worked to his disadvantage. Because Potiphar’s wife took a liking to him and she tried to seduce him. “Sleep with me,” she offered. She wanted a bit of fun and passion on the side. How bad can that be? But Joseph refused her flat. “Thanks but no thanks. Your husband put me in charge of everything but he didn’t ask me to take care of you. Because you are his wife. Not mine”. And he would be right because sleeping with Potiphar’s wife was never part of his job scope. It would be a breach of trust to his boss.

 But Joseph went beyond that: “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” You see, Joseph could have said, “I’ve been dealt a cruel hand by Fate. I didn’t deserve to be a slave here in Egypt so I deserve this little bit of pleasure.” Or he could have rationalized: “I’m so successful in my career now. My boss will never find out anyway. I’m in charge of everything now. I deserve this pleasure”. Both self-pity and pride would have added fuel to the fire of his temptation. But he saw this choice in a God-centered way. Before adultery is a sin against his boss or his desperate housewife, it’s first and foremost a sin against God himself.

An affair is a betrayal of trust, absolutely. But you cannot commit any sine without first committing the sin of betraying God’s trust, of violating his will, of deriving pleasure apart from Him who is the source of all happiness. And Joseph knew that – How can I sin against heaven? Favour with God and right communion with Him is much better than any sex he was offered. So he refused her not once, not twice… but day after day, as she doesn’t take no for an answer. But one day when nobody’s at home, she caught him by his garment and tried to seduce him again. So he quickly ran away and left his garment in her hand. As the saying goes, “Hell knows no fury like a woman scorned”. With the garment as evidence, she accused Joseph of trying to molest her and her husband got so angry that he kicked Joseph into prison for sexual misconduct. Poor Joseph, he was punished for a shameful crime he did not commit. He suffered for something he did not deserve.

But the Lord was again with him and showed him steadfast love so that he prospered in all that he did even in prison. In the bigger scheme of God’s plan, we can see why He is taking Joseph through this painful route. We can see a huge contrast between Joseph’s life of purity in Egypt and Judah’s sordid family affairs in Canaan (Genesis 38). There are major moral problems in Jacob’s family – his grandsons were marrying pagan Canaanites, they did such wickedness that God had to put them to death. Even Judah the firstborn solicited cult prostitutes. They were becoming like the corrupt culture around them instead of being a blessing to the nations. They are losing their covenant identity. But here in Egypt God is now moving and preserving Joseph’s life in purity, preparing him to be the instrument that will save his family not only from famine but from the spiritual corruption in Canaan that would have wiped out God’s covenant family. Because unlike Judah, Joseph kept his heart pure and God’s favour was with him every step of the way.

So that in the fullness of time, the family line would be preserved from which the Messiah Himself would come. For He too would be sold by his brothers for a few pieces of silver. He too would refuse the lust of the eyes, the flesh and the pride of life for the sake of His Father’s will. He would also be slandered and made to suffer for something He did not deserve. He too was punished for a sin he did not commit. Jesus says: If you look at a woman lustfully, you have already committed adultery with her in your heart. And all of us have fallen short on this score. He died a death on the cross that we deserve so that sexually corrupt and adulterers like you and I could be forgive
n. So that God’s favour and steadfast love could now rest on all who would trust and obey Him as Lord.

 When that happens, everything changes. There’s no room for self-pity because you are unconditionally and dearly loved by God. So much so that He died for you. It costs him everything. There’s no room for pride because all our success is a gift from God who prospered what our hands are working on. It’s His favour. That takes away the fuel that feeds the flame of lust. The problem is not that our desire is too strong. It’s too weak. We settle for far too little. When you embrace this costly love of God, when you see and savour Christ for all He is, you begin to experience the expulsive power of a greater affection, a greater desire that overcomes the lure of sexual temptations.

Picture source is from here

Homosexuality: Biblical Perspectives and Pastoral Concerns

Dr Ng Kam Weng: While Malaysian Christian leaders have maintained a silent indifference towards the homosexual controversy, young Christians are daily exposed to aggressive homosexual proselytization by the Western elite through the Internet and global entertainment culture. Not surprisingly, young Christians today are increasingly sympathetic towards homosexual practice. To be fair, this tolerance among young Christians is simply reflective of their easy going attitude in moral and religious commitment.

The church does not need to react defensively to these developments and resort to censorious condemnation of homosexuals. It is more important that the church educate and exhort Christians, both young and old to uphold a sanctified life based on scriptural integrity and covenantal faithfulness. Following the full counsel of God’s Word would encourage individuals to maintain respectful, responsible and restraint courtship intimacy, fidelity in monogamous heterosexual marriage and challenge the church to develop pastoral models to address constructively the homosexual controversy.

I am pleased to share with you two papers that provide a scripturally and scientifically informed approach to homosexuality written by my friend Dr. Roland Chia. He is presently Chew Hock Hin Professor of Christian Doctrine at Trinity Theological College, Singapore.

Part 1 

Part 2

The Dance of Marriage

Sermon audio may be downloaded here

Ephesians 5:21 – 32

²¹ Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

²² Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. ²³ For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. ²⁴ Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her ²⁶ to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, ²⁷ and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. ²⁸ In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.²⁹ After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— ³⁰ for we are members of his body. ³¹ “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” ³² This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. ³³ However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

The Bible begins with a wedding in the Garden of Eden (with the creation of Adam and Eve in the likeness of God as husband/wife). And the Bible ends with a wedding feast (the union of Christ and His church) at the new heaven and new earth. In between and throughout the Bible, the covenant relationship between Christ and His people is described as a marriage. So, when God’s people sin, the Bible doesn’t just say they’ve been ‘disobedient’ – it says they’ve been ‘unfaithful’. And when God’s people worship false gods, the Bible doesn’t just call them ‘idolatrous’ – it calls them ‘adulterous’. Why? Because the Lord is a husband, who has entered into an eternal, committed covenant relationship with any of us who will trust Him… We now belong to each other. This covenant love is the reason behind everything that happens in heaven and on earth. It is also the reason why CDPC is focusing on building strong families (and healthy marriages) in year 2013. In some profound, mysterious ways, our relationship with our spouse echoes God’s design for marriage in creation and God’s plan in redemption.

But everywhere we turn today it seems that the institution of marriage is in deep trouble. Some activists are pushing to legalize same sex marriages at a time when lots of young people no longer believe that marriage is a desirable arrangement – “I don’t need a piece of paper to love someone”. Living together without long term commitment is very common. Broken marriages carry lots of pain and hurt for all involved – both adults and children. The destructive effect of sin could also be seen within marriages. Husbands can be chauvinistic, abusive and emotionally neglect their wives to climb the corporate ladder. Wives can be overly dependent, sexually manipulative and nag their passive husbands into submission. As a result, we have serious confusion about what it means to be a husband or wife when our daughters need a clear model of what it means to be feminine and our sons need a positive vision of what it means to be masculine.

This is an opportunity for the Kingdom community of Jesus as a whole is to live out a different kind of marriage life, and to mirror another culture in our gender relationships. A culture of forgiveness, repentance and change in the midst of this brokenness… In the midst of widespread confusion, we desperately need to recover a biblical, gospel-centered vision of marriage as revealed in Ephesians 5.

Some of us in CDPC may still remember the wedding of Ken and Shirene by the beach in Penang a few years back. They are now studying in Australia to be environmentalists, learning of ways to best care for God’s creation. It was memorable because the couple started their wedding by enacting their story with God and with each other through Latin dance. They were two strong individuals and their shared passion in salsa was an ideal medium to share their stormy journey and happy destination. There was even a risky move in which Shirene trustingly fell backwards and Ken literally “saved her neck”. 

Rev Wong preached from this same passage on that day. And he observed that in Latin dance, the man is expected to lead and the woman responds best to a partner that she trusts and respects. It was a beautiful picture of the mutually enriching roles of man and woman in marriage. In his e-commentary, Pastor Soo Inn also noted that both man and woman are led by the music. The man's leadership in dancing is to help both him and his partner respond best to the music. In one sense it is the music that leads.

So marriage is like a dance. There is unity in that both man and woman move to the same rhythm and mutually help each other to follow the Divine Music. They keep in step with each other and share a common goal. Otherwise they would step on each other’s toes. Marriage is also like a dance in that both man and woman complement each other in their different roles. Sometimes, the lady would leap into the air and the man would catch her as she lands. It’s beautiful when each knows his or her unique role. So far, I haven’t seen a dance in which the guy leaps into the air, waiting for the lady to catch him. It would look a bit odd, right? In short, there is unity in diversity in the dance of marriage.

1)      Unity in Marriage (What does it mean to be one in marriage?)

2)      Diversity in Marriage (How can we celebrate our differences and complement each other in marriage?)

3)      Practical Applications (How do we practically help each other to dance with God’s music?)

Unity in Marriage

From the Ephesians passage just now, we see that the covenant between Christ and His people (the church) is the model, the pattern for our own marriage. Our marriage is a visual aid that points us to the real thing: Christ’s love for His people. So how a husband and wife should relate to each other cannot be separated from the question of how we both are to relate to God. For those among us who are single, perhaps we can gain some insights into the essence of marriage, how to go about discerning future partners and start learning some of these relationship dynamics. Come Chinese New Year, aunties may press you with questions like “Got boyfriend, ah? When are you getting married and start giving ang pow?” The only thing more important to most Asian parents than their precious children getting married is having grandchildren. But the Christian faith sees singleness as good because the kingdom of God provides the most lasting possible legacy and spiritual descendants through the gospel. Unlike Western society that is obsessed with romance and sex, we see singleness as good because our union with Christ can fulfill our deepest longings. Hopefully, there’s something here for you singles to prepare for marriage or decide if this is really something for you.

So what is marriage, anyway?

In His covenant with us, God says: “I will be your God and you will be my people. I will never leave you nor forsake you”. Marriage is also a covenant when we say to our spouse: “I will be your husband and you will be my wife. I will never leave you nor forsake you. All that I am I give to you, and all that I have I share with you.” It is something exclusive between a man and a woman and permanent for life. It is not a contract. In a contract, we say: “This is my part of the deal, I will do this and you will do that and if you do not do your part, the deal is off.” A contract is basically an agreement between two people for the purpose of protecting their rights and limiting their responsibilities. A covenant is an unconditional laying down of our rights, giving up our own agendas for the good of the other, for the happiness of the family before God.

For a Christian marriage, this covenant is made by three (not two) parties: the husband, the wife and God Himself. So before getting into any fights about ‘who’s the boss?’ in a marriage; let’s start by saying that God is the boss of our marriage. He composes the divine music that leads our dance. First of all, the basis of our unity is: We must submit to one another out of reverence for Christ (verse 21). 

Mutual submission means: husbands also need to submit to their wives just as Christ submitted Himself to suffering and death for the good of the church. The motivation for this mutual submission is out of “reverence for Christ” (5:21). “Reverence for Christ” means that we do not just blindly follow even when it means doing something contrary to Christ’s authority… To submit doesn’t mean you are inferior to the other person either. No, Christ is equal to God the Father in dignity and worth, but He willingly chose to say: “Not My will but Yours be done.” He joyfully subjects Himself and subordinates Himself to the Father. This voluntary yielding to others in love is a mark of the Christian community because we want to honor and respect Christ who is our Lord and Savior. He came to serve and not to be served. In the same way, mutual submission is a sign of obedience and reverence to Christ. It should not be seen as a sign of weakness.

In the days of the apostle Paul as well in some traditional societies today, women were not granted full status as human persons. A Jewish man would wake up in the morning and pray: “Thank you, God, that I am not a slave, Gentile or woman”. The ancient pagan Greeks thought that only males are created directly by the gods and are given souls. If they don’t live properly, they reincarnate in the next life as women. But the Christian faith radically changes all that. In Christ, there is neither male nor female. 

The gospel subverts man-dominated systems by insisting that both female and male were made in the image of God. Therefore both are equal in dignity and intrinsic worth. Both woman and man deserve equal respect and honor. And this is rooted not in modern cultural norms but in the original design of the Creator. Matthew Henry commented about why God made Eve out of a rib from Adam like this: “She is not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be loved.” You don’t find anything more romantic than that in a theological commentary…

Which brings us back to the unity of marriage: The Bible says that husbands and wives are “one flesh”, they share the same body: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” In v28, Paul says that husbands and wives are as integrated as a head is to a body. That’s unity. The two have become one. The implication is: you cannot pursue your own separate agendas anymore. If you do, you will only cause harm. If a head goes off in the opposite direction from the body – both will be unhappy – because they’re one. A head can’t be happy if the body is hurting and a body can’t be happy if the head’s hurting.

A few months into my marriage, this reality still hasn’t hit home. I thought that I could play computer games (Starcraft II) late into the night while Grace was sleeping in another room. As a single, nobody cares what time I go to bed. I thought my computer games had nothing to do with her sleep… You do your own thing and I do mine. Only then did I realize that after marriage, you could not now tell where she ended and where I began. We are now one. My life is now forever bound up with another person. “She is now the bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!”

From now on, after marriage, we must pursue our joy in the joy of each other. I must seek my pleasure in the pleasure of my wife. John Piper says: “If you live for your private pleasure at the expense of your spouse, you are living against yourself and destroying your own highest joy. But if you devote yourself with all your heart to the holy joy of your spouse, you will also be living for your joy and making a marriage after the image of Christ and his church." So that’s unity in marriage… The man becomes independent of his parents and the woman becomes united with him so that they become one flesh. If you really understand that, then you cannot pursue your own individual fulfillment apart from the other. Your happiness is now in the other person. You have no joy now if it’s not a corporate joy. So work hard for your happiness by serving each other like crazy.

It also means that the essence of marriage is a commitment and a promise… that no matter what happens in life, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, when you feel romantic attraction or not, through the years when you both will go through all sorts of changes, one thing remains: that you will be true to each other. That is the context that real intimacy, forgiveness, tenderness and spiritual growth can take place.

Diversity in Marriage

Now, is there any difference in our roles or callings or primary responsibilities as husbands and wives? Husbands and wives are both equals in marriage, but they are not exactly the same. Physically they are different, that’s obvious. But is there a difference of maleness and femaleness in our souls? Is the way we see things, the way we think and solve problems different? Diversity means that the music of our marriage should not be merely the sound of singing the same tune. It should be the combined sound of soprano and bass, alto and tenor. It means that the differences of maleness and femaleness are respected and affirmed and valued. We don’t try to compete or duplicate each other. Rather, we enrich each other with our unique qualities.

Scripture says: Wives are to submit to their husbands just as the church submits to Christ. And husbands are to love their wives just as Christ loves the church. Does that mean that husbands don’t need to submit and wives don’t need to love their husbands? Of course not! But there is a primary responsibility and unique, complementary gift that each of us brings into that dance. Some may ask: “Isn’t this just a cultural household code that the apostle Paul adopts rather than a timeless truth for everyone? After all, we now live in a modern world where this kind of traditional role is outdated”. Well, the Bible never gives specific instructions that husbands should go out to work and wives stay at home. Or wives should do the dishes and husbands are responsible to take out the cockroach... You don’t find any of specific lists of do’s and don’ts like that. Proverbs 31 even describes an ideal wife who works in real estate, investment, trading and takes care of her family. And do you know that Jesus can cook? You didn’t know that ler… (Read John 21) So we should not confuse what Paul says here with stereotypes that are culture-specific. Like men should be Rambo and women should be like Cinderella.

Having said that, it also appears that Paul’s instruction on marriage points to creation and redemption, rather than any specific culture. The key is to remember that the relationship between Christ and the church is the pattern for the relationship between husband and wife. Are Christ and the church mutually submitted? Yes, they are. But submission doesn’t mean that Christ submits to the authority of the church. Christ submits Himself to suffer and die for the good of the church. The church doesn’t die in the place of Christ, but she gladly submits by affirming His authority and following His lead. So mutual submission does not mean submitting to each other in the exact same way… There is diversity of roles in the relationship.

Similarly, the husband’s role is to take the initiative in sacrificial, loving, servant-leadership to protect and to provide while the wife’s role is to shape, affirm, encourage and nurture that leadership. Submission is her distinct calling and unique strength to help carry through his guidance according to her gifts. And we need each other’s unique gifts and strengths to complement each other. It is not a domineering headship nor is it mindless submission. What does ‘head’ mean? Well, it refers to two ideas:

1) To be ‘head’ is to be the “source” of the body. The body gets nourishment from the head (verse 29). The mouth is in the head so nourishment comes through the mouth to the body. The body also gets guidance and protection from the eyes and ears in the head. The husband is to be a source of provision, protection and guidance to the wife.

2) “Head” also implies authority. For example, we speak of the ‘head of this department’. It doesn’t mean dictatorship. It is to be exercised in Christ-like, servant leadership. Not power over, control over. But authority exercised to serve, to love and to sacrifice for the spouse. Obviously husband and wife (as one flesh) need to have conversations, planning things together in decision making. But what if you can’t agree? Don’t make a decision lor… But what if a decision has to be made? Like, where to send your child to school? You cannot afford not to make a decision and let the child stay at home. In those few, rare cases of a real impasse, let the husband accept the burden of making the final choice… even though he may, very often, choose to surrender his own preference to his wife’s where no moral issue is at stake.

There’s a classic case of a pastor who felt called to plant a church in New York but his wife refused to go. It’s too risky. It’s against her ‘nesting instincts’. So the husband (Tim Keller, by the way) said, “Alright if you don’t want to go, then we won’t go. I’m not going to force you”. But then Kathy, his wife, turned around and said: “Hey, wait a minute… What are you doing? You just let me break the tie. What’s the use of you being the man around here? If you see God calling you to do that, for God’s sake, then be a man. Break the tie.” The husband doesn’t want to take the responsibility to lead. Submission takes a lot of strength and courage. It’s not for the weak. But by deferring to him, in a most feminine way, when she says: “I will support you no matter what and I will not say “I told you so” no matter what happens” she is enabling him to do the most masculine thing he has ever done. Both are submitting to their role in the dance of marriage.  

Ok, so there’s unity and diversity in marriage… now how does that cash out practically? How do we play our part in the dance of marriage?

Well, brothers, we have a huge responsibility on our shoulders. Headship is not a privileged position of control. It is a responsibility to serve our family and lead by example. If the family bought too many things on credit, then the financial debt is ultimately our fault. If the family never reads the Bible or seldom seeks the kingdom of God, God holds us accountable. The ‘head’ must answer first. Scary huh? Sometimes, it can be so intimidating that we would often rather run away from it. But if we feel inadequate or overwhelmed, the good news is we can run to God. Our sense of helplessness can drive us to draw near and find resources from God. We need wisdom – that means we need to take God’s word more seriously than ever before. We need grace and divine strength – so we need to humble ourselves and take our prayer life more seriously than we do. We make mistakes and mess up a lot of the times – we need forgiveness, repentance and the righteousness of Christ. Marriage is a powerful means of grace to help us grow into spiritual maturity and apply the gospel in everyday life.

How do we love the woman in our life? Look at Jesus. He loved the Church and gave Himself up for her. He sacrificed Himself in her place even when she is still a sinner. Jesus gave up His rights, His resources, His freedom, His life for the sake of His Bride. And because of this self-giving love, Jesus has created a people who are radiant, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. So husbands, you are not to love your wives just because she’s beautiful (though she is) – you are to love her in order to make her beautiful. When there is cold silence after a fight, like the way Christ loved the church, we need to die to our ego and take the first step towards reconciliation. The first step is the most painful, right? In a conflict, we are to take the initiative even when she is wrong or unlovely to bring reconciliation.

Wives – would you be happy to respect this kind of servant leadership? Sisters, when you see your husband doing his best in this role, would you use your nurturing strength, use your feminine gifts to affirm, shape, support and share in that leadership? Won’t you feel glad that he is not passive? Would you feel yourself honored and freed and secure by his caring strength? Won’t you respect him for that?

That is a profound mystery. When we do that, we get in touch with a deep part of our souls as male and female. When we do that, we imitate the dance of God in creation and the dance of Christ and His church in redemption.

Credit goes to insights from Ps Wong/Ps Soo Inn. 

It's The End of the World As We Know It

Good morning Mr. Chairman, distinguished panelists, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for this honor to speak before you today. Interfaith dialogues are critical to promote mutual understanding, knowledge sharing and respect in a multi-religious society like ours.


Let me begin with a question: How would you react if someone came up to you on the sidewalk, waving a huge card board saying, “Repent, Repent, Doomsday is near”? I guess you might decide to run away or keep a safe distance, thinking: “How gullible are these people to believe in all these Doomsday predictions? Hmph! Another nutcase religious cult…”

I’d probably do the same thing. But then again, the end of the world doesn’t sound so crazy now that we have the technology (the know how) to destroy the earth and wipe out the entire human race many times over. We have atom bombs, hydrogen bombs and nuclear bombs. See how smart we are! If you consider the very real possibility of a nuclear holocaust, of global climate change, of earthquakes and tsunami, of disease outbreak, pollution or a giant asteroid crashing into our planet, then perhaps we are kidding ourselves to believe that our little world is immune to destruction. Contemporary movies such as Armageddon, The Day After Tomorrow, The Matrix, Resident Evil and Terminator show that we are still fascinated with various plausible end-time scenarios.

DoomsdayNow what do Christians believe about Doomsday (Hari Kiamat)? Well, in order to understand that, we need to first go back to the beginning of the world. Christians believe that this planet and everything in it (the sunsets, the oceans and mountains, the diverse ecosystem of animals and plants, and human beings with the ability to think, love and worship)… all of that is created by God, and therefore they are originally good. But the human race rebelled against the Creator. We wanted to be the boss of our lives apart from God’s way. By doing so, we have distorted the harmony in creation. Relationship with God and relationship with each other were broken. Sin is the root of suffering in the world – the injustice, corruption, discrimination and wars. So God cannot forgive our sins just like that because He is holy and righteous. Sin must not go unpunished.

So what’s the solution? Well, in spite of all that sin and darkness, God did not leave us to rot. He did not just send us prophets and messengers to teach us what is right. He came personally into the world as a human being to rescue us from sin – His name is Jesus the Messiah (or Isa Al-Masih to Arab speaking Christians). He loved us so much that He willingly died on the cross to pay for our sins. That settles the question of God’s justice so that God can now freely show mercy and forgive us. When we turn away from sin and follow Jesus as Lord, relationship with God is restored. Three days after He was dead and buried, Jesus was raised to life again and conquered the power of death. We call it: Resurrection. One day, the Bible calls it the Day of the Lord, Jesus will return to earth to judge both the living and the dead. He will destroy all that is corrupt and evil, and ushers in His kingdom, reign and rule of justice, peace and healing.

So that, in a nutshell, is God’s rescue plan. Christians call it the good news. Instead of an endless cycle of destruction and rebirth, this grand story has a beginning, a climax and an ending. History is linear: it is progressing and moving towards a purpose, an ultimate meaning and final destiny.

The Bible tells us what we need to know about the day of the Lord: “Do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you… He is giving us time, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

But the day of the Lord will come unexpectedly like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.

Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.” (2 Peter chapter 3)

Let us unpack the practical things that we can learn from this Bible passage

1) Christians are skeptical of any attempt to set dates or countdown to the end of the world. Because the Bible clearly said that the day of the Lord would come unexpectedly like a thief in the night. You won’t know when to expect it. Nobody knows the date and time. Come 21 December 2012, you can sleep better.

2) When many people think of heaven, what do they have in mind? Well, from Hollywood movies and cartoon strips, a lot of people have the mistaken notion that heaven is a place where people float around in fluffy clouds, wearing white gowns with a harp in their hand and a halo on their head. The idea is to escape from this material world into that ghost-like, abstract, spiritual existence somewhere else. It creates a mentality where we withdraw from this present life and passively wait for the afterlife. “Why bother making this world into a better place to live in when we will end up in some other place?”

So we need to be careful with how we use terms like Doomsday and end of the world. What exactly do we mean by that? When the Bible says the present earth and heaven will ‘pass away,’ it does not mean that they disappear or go out of existence. It does not mean that the old car is destroyed so we need to replace it with another one. What we mean is: the same car that was destroyed is now fixed, restored, transformed, upgraded and given a complete makeover into a brand new car.

We might say, ‘The caterpillar passes away, and the butterfly emerges.’ It means that there will be such a radical change that the present condition will pass away but there is also a real continuity, a real connection to the new heaven and new earth.

Through fire, the present earth will be dissolved, refined, and purified to give rise to a future world that will be more substantial, more tangible and more solid than one we know. God did not create this material world only to abandon it. Rather, He will renew and rescue it. So Christians have every reason to care for the material world, to protect the ecosystem and to heal the sick and work for social equality and relieve the suffering of the poor and marginalized. Because our hope of eternal life is not to escape from the world. But to renew and transform it… In the meantime, while we wait for that day, we pray and work so that God’s will is done and His kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

3) We see lots of suffering, violence and corruption today. Much of it is caused by people’s greed: consuming and accumulating things as if they will last forever. Often we see the bad guys win and the good guys lose. And we struggle with the question of whether evil that appears so powerful can ever be defeated. Christians do not believe that good and evil are two sides of the same coin. You can’t have one without the other. Rather the day of the Lord is a promise that Jesus will return as a righteous Judge to put right all that is wrong in the world and restore all that is lost. Evil will not have the last word. It also reminds us not to build our security and significance on wealth and power because they will soon pass away. These things are temporal and provisional. The idea that there will be a final judgment is a comfort, encouragement and strength to those struggling with evil and suffering. For God promised a new world where there will be no more sorrow, pain or violence. He will wipe away every tear and restore all that is beautiful, noble and true.

4) Some people may wonder, “Now, that all sounds very good but it’s been 2000 years and Jesus hasn’t come back yet. Why so slow, wan? How can we be sure that it will ever happen?” Well, the Bible says that God is not being slow. He has his own time table. A day is like a thousand years from the perspective of eternity. He is actually being patient with us. He is giving us time to turn away from our selfishness and be reconciled to him before Judgment Day. He does not desire for anyone to perish in their sin because it would mean eternal separation from God’s presence. Forever.

And how do we know that God’s kingdom will indeed come? Well, the evidence is found in what happened to Jesus after his death on the cross. If He stays dead, there will be no Christian movement starting in Jerusalem. But on the third day, His tomb was found empty and many eyewitnesses testified to have seen Him alive. It changes everything. His resurrection (coming back to life in a glorious, incorruptible, physical body) is a sign, an evidence and guarantee that the future kingdom has already broken into the present. It is like a seed that will grow until it covers the whole earth. It means that death will not be final. It is a foundation of hope when you are faced with the shadow of death or cancer. It is the sign that Jesus has won the decisive battle over evil, the evidence that He is indeed the Lord of the universe and has now received authority and power to judge the nations.

For Christians, the physical body is not evil in itself. It is not a prison from which our souls need to be set free. The ultimate hope of Christians is the resurrection of the body. On that great Day, those who follow Jesus as Lord and Savior will also be raised to life in an incorruptible, glorified and physical body just like Jesus. These are the ones who say: “God, I am a sinner. I cannot save myself with my religious performance, my moral achievements. When I do achieve these moral standards, I feel proud and superior to others. When I fail to do them, I feel condemned and despair. So I will not trust on my own strength, my own merits and performance. I will put my trust in what You have done on the cross for me. You accepted me freely therefore I obey. I will give my life over to You as Lord and Savior to transform me and renew me and forgive me from inside out”.

This is what Christians believe about the destiny of the world, and the destiny of our own personal stories. Thank you.

Book Review: The Other Six Days

Review: The Other Six Days (Paul Stevens)


For most of church history, the people of God have been divided into two categories – those who “do ministry” (the clergy) and the objects of ministry (the laity). This clergy-laity division perpetuates a caste system of “spiritual” work with missionaries and pastors at the top of value chain, followed by people-helping professionals (like doctors, teachers, nurses) and “barely-religious, secular” jobs (such as lawyers, politicians and jazz musicians) close to the bottom! In The Other Six Days, Stevens challenged that dualism with provocative biblical, theological and practical reasons.

In Part I of the book, the author sounded a clarion call for reframing a theology “of the whole people of God” (where every member of the church is gifted, chosen and called by God for service in the world), “for the whole people of God” (which intentionally empowers the ordinary believer for practical, applied living) and “by the people of whole people of God” (where academic theologians work together with ordinary believers in the furnace of marketplace realities). By doing so, we recover an ecclesiology where each member is “ordained” to do the Lord’s work from Mondays to Saturdays and equipped to apply biblically Kingdom values to his daily concerns.

He argued that even in the Old Testament, the entire nation of Israel was called to belong to God and serve His purposes (Exodus 19:6). But within that people, were not some given a special call to be priests, prophets and kings? According to Stevens, the new covenant envisaged by the Old Testament promised a day in which all people will have God’s law written in their hearts (Jeremiah 31:34). The once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus the great High Priest has fulfilled the function of the Old Testament priesthood so that now the entire church is a royal priesthood. But he cautioned against ‘anti-clericalism’, stressing the need for gifted leadership of dedicated pastors as God’s will for the church (page 53). Drawing from the doctrine of Trinity, he outlined how the church needs to mirror that perichoretic life of God by rejecting individualism and embracing every member to contribute to the unity/ministry of the whole community of faith.

In Part II of the book, Stevens explores the thorny subject of calling and vocation in a culture where we no longer find meaning at work in relation to God. It is common to hear believers in ‘full time’ ministry speak of a special call from God but it seems not to apply to other believers. Stevens proposed that we do not separate God’s calling for humanity into two, disconnected mandates – The Creation Mandate (Genesis 1:27 – 30) and The Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). It has tragic consequences to emphasize one and downplay the other. Rather, we ought to see our human calling in terms of a “covenant encompassing creation, redemption and final consummation. Salvation is both a rescue operation (recovering our lost vocation in Eden) and a completion project (preparing for the final renewal of creation at the second coming of Jesus)” . In that sense, all believers are called to communion with God, community-building (relationships, family and holy sexuality) and stewards in caring for the creation. “Every legitimate human occupation (paid or unpaid) is some dimension of God’s own work: making, designing, doing chores, beautifying, organizing, helping, bringing dignity and leading.”

In Part III of the book, Stevens explores how the biblical ministries of prophet, priest and king relate to the whole people of God in the wider world. As priests, the church intercedes for others in God’s presence and offers up everyday life as ‘spiritual worship’ (Romans 12:1). As regents, they bring in Kingdom values to bear on all of life. They embody the rule of God on earth as it is in heaven. As prophets, they bear witness to the gospel and challenge dehumanizing powers and idolatrous systems. People can be encouraged to see the marketplace as a natural place for evangelism by “using workplace terminology to share our faith; by connecting Sunday and Monday through interviewing people about their work, and praying for them; by extending pastoral care to the workplace, especially when there is injustice or unemployment; and dealing with workplace sins and temptations as part of church discipline” .  I am encouraged to put into practice some of these recommendations on a weekly basis during worship service to facilitate this paradigm shift.

The Other Six Days is a most worthy and inspiring read for Christians who seek deeper connections of faith to their work in the office, factory, school, field or at home as well as pastors who seek to send out the congregation to minister in the world. When we recover a biblical theology of work, ministry will be transformed as pastors are liberated from the crushing burden to minister to every need in the church. Rather, they exercise leadership gifts to empower and equip the people to spiritual maturity and service with God’s word. Similarly, mission is transformed when a church of one hundred members serve throughout the week in all the contexts in which God has placed them. They do not need to go into the world because they are already there.

Book Review: How Long, O Lord?

Review: How Long O Lord? (DA Carson)

The Reason for God: The Clues for God

It is one thing to say that there are no good reasons against believing the Christian faith. It is another to argue that there are sufficient reasons FOR believing it.

But what counts as ‘sufficient’ reason? Must it be proven rationally by logic? Must we experience God with our five senses? Or only what can be scientifically proven by experiments is true? Must the evidence for God be so bomb-proof irrefutable that almost everyone will see it?

Tim Keller questions strong rationalism: “How could you empirically prove that no one should believe something without empirical proof?” That’s ultimately a belief. AlvinPlantinga: The argument is like the drunk who insisted on looking for his lost car keys only under the streetlight because the light was better there. Or even worse: Because the keys would be hard to find in the dark, they must be under the light.

No one can be totally neutral when it comes to the question of God’s existence. All of us have a deep desire for Him to exist or not to exist. We all have vested interest in this.

But that does not mean we cannot discern whether a belief is better than another. Some beliefs are more reasonable than others, but all arguments are rationally avoidable in the end. Even scientific theories that are tested and accepted are open to revision or abandoned in light of a better model. They are not ‘proved’ in the strong rationalist sense.

Richard Swinburne: If God exists, we would expect the things we see today – that there is a universe at all, that scientific laws operate in it and that humans have consciousness and moral sense. If there is no God, you won’t expect any of these things. Belief in God offers a better explanation for what we experience daily than the alternatives. Bahnsen goes further: It’s the only view that does not make nonsense of the human experience.

Gargarin thinks there is no God because he couldn’t find Him in outer space. But that is like Hamlet (story character) searching the attic in his castle in hope of finding Shakespeare (author). We shouldn’t expect to prove God as if he were an object within our universe.

C.S. Lewis: I believe in God as I believe the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else”. Look at what the sun shows us. Which belief has more ‘explanatory power’ to make sense of what we see in the world and in ourselves? These are the clues for God.

If God is the Author of everything, then we would find clues to His reality that He has written into the universe (including us). If we are made in God’s image as rational and personal beings, then we would expect some correspondence between His mind and ours.

But reason alone won’t be enough. The Author has written himself into the story as the main character in history when Jesus was born, crucified and rose from the dead. The ultimate evidence for God is Jesus Himself. He is the one we have to deal with.

So, what clues are there for God?

Alvin Plantinga argues that belief in God is properly basic so Christians do not have the burden to prove God. We don’t have to, but that doesn’t mean there are no good reasons for believing in God (if we want to). 

Models of the Atonement

What Did The Cross Accomplish?

Introduction

Every religion or ideology has its representative symbol. The lotus flower depicts the emergence of purity from murky waters in Buddhist thought. The Star of David is a symbol for modern Judaism while the crescent moon became internationally associated with Islam. Even secular Marxism is signified by a hammer and sickle to represent industry and agriculture of the proletariat. At least since the 2^nd century A.D., the cross has been used as the visual emblem for Christianity. For believers, it signifies that the death of Jesus is central to their faith even though crucifixion was a much-feared form of capital punishment.

Throughout the centuries, Christians have cherished and grappled with this mystery of how His death brought about reconciliation with God. The canonical Gospels devoted such disproportionate attention on events surrounding the final week of Jesus’ life on earth that they were sometimes described as “passion narrative with an extended introduction”. It is as if the action shifts into high-definition, bullet-time motion when the story reaches its climax in the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. But what exactly did Christ accomplish on the cross of Calvary? Several frameworks for explaining the atonement have consequently gained wide acceptance in various historical contexts.

Models of the Atonement

Surrounded by pagan occults, many early Greek Fathers interpreted Christ’s death as a ransom paid to Satan to redeem captive humanity from his clutches. In Mark 10:45, Jesus said, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Origen has a popular analogy that likened Satan to a ferocious fish that swallowed the bait of Christ’s human form and got caught by the hook of His deity. The forces of hell bit off more than they could chew when Christ rose victoriously from the grave. 

Drawing from these patristic sources, Gustav Aulen, a Swedish theologian, viewed the cross as Christ’s public triumph over evil powers in a cosmic battle to unshackle humanity from bondage. The Christus Victor motif found biblical support in passages like Hebrews 2:14: “Since the children have flesh and blood, (Christ) too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”

Influenced by Roman legal codes, early Latin Fathers such as Ambrose construed the cross as Christ satisfying the requirements of God’s law. They drew support from Galatians 3:13, which read, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us”. During the medieval period, the satisfaction theory of the cross was developed further by Anselm as satisfying God’s honor. In feudal societies, an overlord whose dignity was offended could either punish the guilty peasants or forgive them when his honor is satisfied by another. Although God was dishonored by our rebellion, Anselm believed that we are forgiven because Christ’s obedient, meritorious death compensated for His honor. 

Peter Abelard, a younger contemporary of Anselm, reacted strongly against the prevailing theories and insisted that Christ’s suffering is primarily a display of how great God’s love is for us. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). His sacrificial death melts away our enmity, awakens moral change and moves us to seek forgiveness. Some proponents of the moral influence theory also reject any objective requirement to appease God’s anger. Rather, the sole obstacle to salvation lies in the subjective resistance of sinners. Consequently, the cross as an expression of God’s love is required to inspire us to imitate Christ’s self-giving ethics.

Last but not least, some influential Church Fathers such as Athanasius in the East and Augustine in the West (to name just a few) also held that Christ took upon Himself the deserved penalty of fallen humanity as a sinless substitute in their place. The penal substitutionary view was further developed by the Reformers. 1 John 4:8-10 declares, “God is love. . . . This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” In explaining this biblical passage, Calvin wrote that God, at the same time when he loved us, was also hostile to us because of our transgressions. [1] Reconciliation was made possible because Christ appeased His holy wrath and opened the way for our pardon. By doing so, God can be both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Romans 3:21-26).

Pierced For Our Transgressions

Although penal substitutionary atonement has been the predominant theme in evangelical preaching, some theologians today seem to favor a plurality of atonement theories. In differing degrees, the various models stress crucial facets of Christ’s work on the cross that should be recovered. They need not be mutually exclusive. Indeed, it appears that when we understand the centrality of the cross as something accomplished primarily in relation to God Himself that its implications for the cosmos, demonic powers and ethics come into more balanced perspective.

Let us attempt a synthesis of these themes: The heart of the cross is, first and foremost, Christ’s vicarious sin-bearing to take upon Himself the just wrath of God (Isaiah 53). He absorbed the punishment that we deserved as a substitute so that sinners may be forgiven while satisfying the righteous demands of God’s law. However, the moral law ought not to be seen as a higher abstract entity independent of the Law-giver, but a reflection of God’s own holy character.

Unless the cross objectively rescues us, it would be an empty show of sentimentality just like a silly lovesick boy who declares, "Darling, I will prove my love for you by jumping off Niagara Falls". It is only a meaningful act of love if the beloved is in real danger so that diving into the waters would be an attempt to rescue her. And would it not be inappropriate to conceive of the cross as Jesus paying the devil a “pound of flesh”? God owed the devil nothing but retribution. Rather, the ransom was paid to God on behalf of sinners so that we now could belong to Christ.

And yes, by looking at the cross, we can learn much about Christ’s obedience even unto death and denying one's will to do the Father's. 2 Peter 2:21 says, “Because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.” Yet, it is because Christ has rescued us from moral condemnation that we have the most powerful, liberating motivation for obedience in life. Otherwise, our moral performance degenerates into yet another self-salvation project.

Furthermore, a painful death by crucifixion is not apparently victorious if we conceive it exclusively as cosmic warfare. The demonic powers were stripped of their condemnatory weapons and made a public spectacle precisely because Christ forgave our trespasses by nailing our legal debts on the cross (Colossians 2:13-15).

The first Passover serves as an illuminating paradigm for connecting the deliverance of God’s people from spiritual bondage with penal substitutionary atonement. Nine plagues had fallen upon their Egyptian oppressors while the Israelites were spared in a protracted “power encounter”. But Pharoah stubbornly refused to let His people go. The stage was set for the climactic “judgment on all the gods of Egypt” (Exodus 12:12). If the tenth plague followed the same pattern as the preceding ones, it would be a coherent narrative of how divine judgment liberated humanity from evil powers. But unlike the other plagues, the firstborn of the Israelites were not automatically spared when God struck down the firstborn of Egypt. Instead, they were instructed to slaughter a spotless lamb and apply its blood to the door so that the wrath of God would “pass over” them. The Passover lamb was a sacrificial substitute for the Israelite firstborn so they may be spared from divine judgment (Exodus 13:11-16). What a sobering caution against triumphalism to realize that God’s people are not merely victims but guilty sinners in need of atoning grace! Similarly, our own liberation from Satan’s accusing condemnations is secured on the grounds of Christ’s once-for-all atonement as the Lamb of God (Hebrews 9).

The Divine Conspiracy

In summary, we can make much sense of various biblical themes of atonement through the lens of Christ's vicarious sacrifice. But in and of themselves, these motifs are emptied of their power. Unfortunately, this doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement has recently been described by critics as 'cosmic child abuse', portraying a fierce Father who needs to punish the innocent Son before He could forgive the guilty. But the objection fails to see that Jesus is not just a third-party bystander.

He is the Judge Himself receiving the punishment. He is the incarnate God, eternally one with the Father. The cross is biblically portrayed as a Trinitarian conspiracy of love where the Father ‘so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son’ (John 3:16) and the Son voluntarily accepts the cross as the supreme expression of His own love: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends.” (John 15:13) That’s the kind of love that continue to inspire countless choruses of worship devoted to the Sinless One who became sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him:

In Christ alone! who took on flesh
Fulness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones he came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied -
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.[2]

---

[1] Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book II. xvii. Section 2.   

[2] “In Christ Alone”, Words and Music by Keith Getty and Stuart Townsend, Copyright @ 2011 Kingway Thankyou Music

The Reason For God (Reloaded)

Reason for God II

CDPC Puchong will organize a series of 8 sessions exploring a positive case for faith in God as revealed in Jesus the Messiah.

1. The Clues of God
2. The Knowledge of God
3. The Problem of Sin
4. Religion and the Gospel
5. The (True) Story of the Cross
6. The Reality of the Resurrection
7. The Dance of God
8. Where Do We Go From Here?

Proposed Time and Venue
Day: Sunday
Time: 12.30 pm
Venue: City Discipleship Presbyterian Church Puchong
Frequency: Twice a month
Recommended Reading: The Reason For God by Tim Keller

If you are keen to join the discussion group, please contact David Chong at "hedonese at yahoo dot com". The point is not about getting armed with generic arguments and answers, rather to be equipped to become conversant with ways to sensitively, humbly and gently think and talk about these big questions in the safe context of community.

Gospel in the City

Dear colleagues in the ministry,

Redeemer Presbyterian Church New York, City to City Asia and our church City Discipleship Presbyterian Church are organizing a 2 days seminar on "Transforming our cities by planting Gospel Centered church" on April 17 & 18. I am one of the coaches for church planting working alongside Redeemer New York and City to City Asia and have been tasked to help churches to understand Gospel as the motivating force that shapes all of life, from the heart to a church and to cities. Our goal is to start a movement of planting gospel centered churches through networks of churches, church leaders and cultural leaders with the aim to transform cities in Malaysia and Asia. The two days seminar will take us through 8 plenary sessions and expose us to Gospel DNA that will bring about deeper commitment to gospel renewal in the family, church and in the city.

Let me know what you think and how you feel. I look forward to hearing from you.

Registration fees cover the cost of lunches, refreshment and printing materials (you will have solid reading materials from Dr. Tim Keller). Please register early

Date: April 17-18 (Tues - Wed) 2012
Time: 9 am to 6 pm
Speakers: Rev Abraham Cho and Rev Wong Fong Yang
Video Plenary by Rev Timothy Keller
Registration Fee: RM 60

The Christian And Interfaith Relations

The Christian and Interfaith Dialogues

The Life and Legacy of John Calvin

The Life and Legacy of John Calvin

When pro-reform supporters regained power in the city councils, Calvin was urged to return and continue his work in Geneva. Martin Bucer, the reformer at Strasbourg, was reported to have employed Farel’s earlier strategy: If Calvin refused to resume his ministry he will be acting like Jonah who tried to run away from God! In September 1541, Calvin reluctantly accepted the request and picked up preaching from the Bible passage where he had left off three years ago. Timothy George commented, “In this way Calvin signaled that he intended his life and his theology to be, not a device of his own making, but a responsible witness to the Word of God”.

Click here to read the life and legacy of John Calvin

Love God With All Your Mind

Love God With All Our Mind

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.

The following is sermon transcript for today's sermon at Klang Presbyterian Church

Love God With All Your Mind

Embryonic Stem Cell Research: Ethical Considerations

Embryonic Stem Cell Research - Ethical Considerations. Dr Roland Chia