Reason For God: How Can a Good God Send People to Hell?

The Reason for God- What the hell is Hell?

Here are some notes culled from Tim Keller's book The Reason For God, for a study group at CDPC Puchong next month.

How Can God send Good people to hell? How Can God be full of Love and Wrath at the same time?
Does "Love Win" or... is it more complex and wonderful than that? Check it out

Why Does God Allow Evil And Suffering?

Listen or Download the Audio Podcast for the sermon below at CDPC Puchong website.

Theodicy: Why Is There Evil and Suffering?

CDPC-Why Evil and Suffering

Topic: If God is Good and All-Powerful, Why is There Evil and Suffering in the World?
Date: 8 May 2011  (Sunday)
Time: 10 am
Venue: City Discipleship Presbyterian Church, Puchong

Isn't the Bible a Myth?

We had the second discussion based on The Reason for God centering on the question of the Bible and its reliability and interface with science. These are two huge topics which require some careful reflection, and we didn't have time to do them justice.


But I'm glad that some issues surface: That one can never be perfectly neutral or purely objective when it comes to the Bible. The stakes are too high and personal. We come with prior inclination to either disbelieve or believe it.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle noted that people form their beliefs on the basis of three factors:

logos (the rational dimension: we don't want our beliefs to be mere wishful thinking)
pathos (the emotional/beautiful dimension that resonates with our deepest longings)
ethos (the social dimention of persuasion: beliefs influenced by our upbringing and circle of friends we trust)

I believe all three factors come into play whether you are a believer or a skeptic. The notes above are part of our reading material which interacts with the Reason for God DVD. In the video, a participant asks:

"Is there a dichotomy between myth and truth? Does it have to be factually true in order for it to be important? Art is true for the moment and does not need to be authenticated by history. More importantly, does it emotionally true? Does it resonate with your heart?"

At one level, for example ethical teachings in Jesus’ parables, its truth does not depend on whether the good Samaritan is historical or not. It resonates with theological truth even when it is not authenticated by history.

But on another level, Christianity is not just a set of ethical principles but about God acting to rescue his people in space-time events. That’s why some acts of God in history such as the death and resurrection of Christ are important and need to be verifiable. It is not just collective imagination of believers but something that really took place in order for it to have the meaning it claims to have.

Other participants in the DVD think history is important: The resurrection of Christ is a clincher: It changes everything if Jesus really rose from the dead. Why?

That would be a vindication of the claims Jesus made about Himself – a miracle that authenticates His claim to be God and has authority over everything.

There are two approaches to come to the conclusion that the Bible is God's word.

The classical view starts with the existence of God (based on some theistic proofs) and then inductively looks at the evidence in the Gospels for what Jesus said and did on earth. At this point, we are just taking the biblical texts as generally reliable ancient documents rather than an inerrant Scripture. From there, we could confidently discover that Jesus claims to have divine authority and equal with God. Not only that, His death and resurrection make the most plausible explanation for the historical facts that confront us: an empty tomb and the emergence of the Christian movement. Therefore, Jesus has divine authority and we are justified to embrace His high view of Scripture as our own.

The presuppositional view starts deductively with the self-testimony of the Bible as God's Word and then, proceeds to show how only with this starting point that all our human experiences and knowledge are meaningful and not reduced to absurdity. It is a transcendental argument i.e. unless you presuppose the Bible as God's infallible Word, everything else (morality, knowledge, beauty etc) falls apart.

The Reason for God - Can We Trust the Bible?

What About Other Religions?

Logically, the mutual exclusiveness of religious claims is evident to many people. There are fundamental differences: 

How do we get right with God? (Through good works or by grace) Where do we go after death? When a person dies, he can’t reincarnate, go to heaven or hell, end up in purgatory and cease to exist all at the same time. They can’t all be true. At least, one view must be wrong.

But the pluralist may respond like this: The doctrinal dogmas may be different but the spiritual experience or moral teaching/practice is the same. Different religions are just fighting over words when they are experiencing essentially the same thing (Story of ten blind men encountering the elephant for the first time). 

In reality, although it sounds humble, pluralism says, “All religions are mistaken or partially correct like the blind men. All of them did not get the whole picture. But now I got the truth of what the elephant is like!” The only way you can know everyone else is blind is if you are the one who can see the elephant. Despite their mistaken beliefs, they are all in some way responding to God. It is just that they are not doing so in the manner in which the believers themselves think they are. But it is hard to see why this way of rejecting other’s beliefs as ‘blind’ is any more tolerant than the non-pluralist.

Do all religions really teach us to do good? They do share much ethical insights but differ on moral issues also. Is it good to have many wives or just one? Is it good to eat meat or sacrifice animals?

What is the common subjective spiritual experience that all religions share? (John Hicks: a move from self centeredness to Reality-centeredness) But if the Real is absolutely beyond knowing, how can we know it exists? If no truth claim can describe it, how can one say anything of it?

Zen Buddhism claims mystical, direct, unmediated access to the ultimate nature of reality (satori – enlightenment). It is not just a human response to the Real. If true, then one religion has direct privileged access to truth contrary to pluralist claim. What does it mean to be ‘self centered’ or ‘Reality centered’? (Realize you are one with Brahman? Recognize that nirvana is ultimate? Center your life on Jesus?). It’s too vague and reductionistic in a way not acceptable to what other faiths claim about themselves...

Is belief in ‘one way to God’ narrow-minded as it shuts you off from new insights that come from other religions?

It is common to confuse ‘narrow-mindedness’ with holding a particular view with strong conviction. Gregory Boyd: “Narrow-mindedness does not attach to what you believe, but how you believe it. If I refused to consider any perspective, any religious book, and any philosophy which disagreed with my own, that would be narrow-minded. But just because I hold to a belief that disagrees with other perspectives, other religious books and other philosophies doesn’t itself make me narrow.”

Can we learn insights from other religions? Sure, but it doesn’t mean we cannot be critical as well. “Merely having an open mind is nothing; the object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.” – G.K. Chesterton

Isn’t it unfair that God revealed Himself to only some people and not to others? What about those who have never heard of the good news? Where is the justice in that? It should be more open to all. 

Different theories to reconcile God’s justice with the necessity of the gospel for salvation: God will not offer the gospel to those whom He knows would not have responded positively anyway. Or, after death, those whom God knows would respond positively may be offered the gospel. Keller: It’s a mystery that God has not revealed to us.

What does Romans chapter 1 say about ‘not enough evidence for God’? Actually, people are suppressing the universal knowledge of God they do have because of sin. People are without excuse for God’s moral character, power and wisdom have been evident to all since creation of the world. They are still accountable for how they live by the moral law within their hearts. So it’s still fair because they won’t be judged by what they don’t know. But the bad news is we have all violated our own moral standards and deserve just punishment. That is why we need a Savior (Christ) who died for our sins.

There are different theories to reconcile God’s justice with the necessity of the gospel for salvation. See Terrance Tiessen’s “Who Can be Saved? Reassessing Salvation in Christ and World Religions”


Ecclesiocentrists: Access to salvation is only available to those who hear and receive the gospel at least in the case of competent adults.

Agnosticism: It’s a mystery that God has not revealed to us since Scripture is silent.

Accessibilists: Salvation is through Christ alone but accessible to the unevangelised beyond the boundaries of the church. Non-Christian religions are not salvific.

Religious instrumentalists: Salvation is through Christ but accepts that non-Christian religions are means of salvation.

“[My] position is exclusivist in the sense that it affirms the unique truth of the revelation in Jesus Christ, but it is not exclusivist in the sense of denying the possibility of the salvation of the non-Christian. It is inclusivist in the sense that it refuses to limit the saving grace of God to the members of the Christian church, but it rejects the inclusivism which regards the non-Christian religions as vehicles of salvation. It is pluralist in the sense of acknowledging the gracious work of God in the lives of all human beings, but it rejects a pluralism which denies the uniqueness and decisiveness of what God has done in Jesus Christ.” (Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society)

Pluralism promotes peace and tolerance in a world of religious conflict. When you have exclusive hold on truth, it will lead to problems. Solution: Take religions less seriously or literally i.e. Jesus is God. 

But everybody brings their essential faith commitments (which cannot be proven by science). Everyone has their worldview (about where we come from, who we are, the purpose of life and our destiny) and all have their exclusive views.

For example, even pluralism will exclude other beliefs like the incarnation of God in Christ. It works only if followers of all faiths water down their conflicting truth claims in favor of pluralism. In the end, the only way humanity could attain unity is when they exclusively agree on a ‘faith’ different than their own.

The real question, then, is “Which fundamental belief leads their believers to be the most loving and honor those with whom they differ?” (See: Reason for God, page 18 – 21)

Peace may be achieved not at the cost of truth or dismissal of genuine differences. In fact, tolerance itself implies disagreement. We do not ‘tolerate’ people who agree with us. They are on our side! If every religious person is a pluralist, what room is there for tolerance? Instead, genuine tolerance recognizes conflicting truth claims and does not press for artificial common denominator. Despite our differences, we respect and honor one another as persons who have the God-given right to believe, practice and propagate our faiths. We should avoid what Alister McGrath called ‘a repressive enforcement of a predetermined notion of what something or someone should be, rather than a willingness to accept them for what they actually are.’

OK fine – Only one religion is true or all are false. But how can you tell? How do you choose your ‘home’ or belief (worldview)? By research or upbringing? 

What are some criteria that you think ‘the true religion’ ought to have? There are some tests of truth that can help us measure different religious claims (moral criterion, coherence, empirical/historical claims, trustworthy authority). We can know whether these claims are true or false, rather than wishful thinking.

Greg Koukl: For example, if I told you that out in my car, in my glove box, I have a square circle, how many of you would want to take a peek? There are no square circles because a square circle is a contradiction in terms.

It's like a person who said, "I met a woman who was ten years younger than her son." Now, no empirical search is necessary for you to reject this claim. By definition, mothers are older than their children. That is why there can't be a woman ten years younger than her son. Even if the most brilliant person said this to you, you could immediately reject it.

The point I am making is this. There are some particular things you can judge as false without ever leaving the room because a moment's reflection tells you there is something wrong. These things can't be true because they violate the test of coherence. In other words, it doesn't make sense; it's contradictory.

What about this “all religions are the same” view? What it fails to take into consideration is that much of religious truth is actually competing and not complimentary. Religions have contradictory claims. For example, God in the Christian tradition is personal and in the eastern tradition is impersonal. God can't be personal and not personal at the same time. One view must be wrong.

The point is, we can use this test of coherence to disqualify certain views as being false on their face. The religious pluralism view--the idea that all religions lead to God, that all roads lead to Rome--is false on its face because all religions can't be true at the same time.

Has Science Disproved God?

It is common to believe that there is a conflict going on between science and belief in God. As a result, some Christian youths gave up their faith in college because they mistakenly concluded that science has proved that chance, random natural processes formed human beings and everything else in the universe. On the other hand, it does not help the cause of the gospel if people are not equipped with a robust understanding of Genesis that does not distort or deny scientific facts.

Scientists gain knowledge by making systematic observations, proposing hypotheses as explanations of phenomena and design experiments to to test their results. Good scientific theories are rational, true description of the world and accurately predict future results. By its methodology, science cannot prove or disprove God who is invisible, spiritual, beyond space and time.

C.S. Lewis: “Looking for God by exploring space is like reading Shakespeare's plays in the hope that you will find Shakespeare as one of the characters. Shakespeare is in one sense present at every moment in every play. But he is never present in the same way as Falstaff or Lady Macbeth… My point is, if God does exist, He is related to the universe more as an author is related to a play”.

Far from being a threat, science is only possible based on some faith assumptions: There is a real world out there accessible to our senses, our minds can rationally understand it and the uniformity of natural causes. The same personal Creator who created the world also created our sensory and rational faculties so it’s reasonable there is correspondence between them.

Joe Boots (“Has Science Disproved Religion?”): “If the universe is ultimately chaotic – if all is in flux – then you cannot finally know anything. How can we believe in the uniformity of nature in a chance-driven universe? How can we trust that the chemical accident of our brain is giving us valid knowledge? It is the Christian worldview alone that can provide the pre-conditions of intelligible science. It is God who provides the order, structure and regularity that make the cosmos rational. And he has made us in his image, with mind and spirit distinct from matter, capable of exploring and understanding the world.” The Christian worldview is foundational to science, at least consistent with it

Scientism: “Only what can be quantified by scientific methods or empirically tested is rational and true”. Therefore, miracles are impossible since they cannot be tested.


But scientism is self-refuting because what kind of experiment can prove that? The position itself cannot be quantified or verified in any scientific test. It is a philosophical claim about science rather than a conclusion of science. Alvin Plantinga: 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. If God exists, miracles are possible

What is evolution? 

Microevolution: Variations take place in an organism over time producing modifications of existing characteristics. These are adaptive changes, through natural selection, allow the organism to survive and reproduce. For examples, color variations in moths and bacteria’s resistance to antibiotics. This is not a disputed issue. Greg Koukl: “Microevolution may tell us how finches get larger beaks or how moths take on
darker colors, but it doesn’t tell us how we get finches or moths in the first place.”

Moreland: “Macroevolution is the general theory that all life arose from non-life in some pre-biotic condition (where chemical reactions plus some form of energy gave rise to the first life), and all life evolved from the first life up to Homo Sapiens”. This is the disputed area.

Christian positions in response to Macroevolution: (Reading the World) 

Young Earth Creationists – Ken Ham, Henry Morris, Duane Gish
About 10,000 years old earth, literal reading of Genesis, question the dating of fossils, reject macro evolution. http://www.answersingenesis.org/

Theistic Evolutionists - Alister McGrath, Francis Collins, Polkinghorne. God created the initial materials and set up the natural laws, then guided the whole evolution process.
http://www.asa3.org/

Old-Earth, Progressive Creationists – Hugh Ross, Kenneth Samples. Accepts big bang cosmology, dating of fossil record, rejects macroevolution, holds that God progressively intervenes millions of times to create new species http://www.reasons.org/

Intelligent Design (ID) – Philip Johnson, Dembski, Stephen Meyer, Michael Behe. The theory of intelligent design holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection: the anthropic principle, specified complexity in DNA, irreducible complexity in organic structures, design can be empirically detected. http://www.discovery.org/

Exegetical issues in understanding Genesis 1 & 2: (Reading The Word)

Evangelical biblical scholars who take the Bible seriously have different interpretations of Genesis 1 & 2. What does bara (“to create”) mean? To create out of nothing or create some new thing out of already-existing materials. Does yom (“day”) refer to a 24-hour period or an unspecified period time as well? See Ray and Sue Bohlin in How to talk to your kids about evolution and creation (probe.org) for three possible views:

“The first is the literal or the very recent creation account. Some people would call the proponents of this view "young earth creationists." They believe that each of the six days of creation was a twenty-four hour period similar to our days today. These days were consecutive and in the recent past, probably ten to thirty thousand years ago. They hold that the flood was a world-wide and catastrophic event and that all the sedimentary layers were a result of Noah's flood. All the fossils, therefore, are a result of the flood of Noah.

The second way of looking at Genesis 1 is the Day Age Theory, sometimes called Progressive Creation. Here, each of the six days of creation is a very long period of time, perhaps hundreds of millions of years. God would have created progressively through time, not all at once. The flood was a local event in Mesopotamia or perhaps even a world-wide, but tranquil flood. Therefore, the flood did not leave any great scars or sediments across the earth.

The third view understands Genesis 1 as a Literary Framework. This view suggests that Genesis 1 was not meant to communicate history. Peoples of the Ancient Near East used a similar literary device to describe a complete or perfect work; in this case, a perfect creation. God could have created using evolution or progressive creation; the point is that there is really no concordance between earth history and the days of Genesis 1.”

The literary framework begins with a “formless and void” earth in Gen 1:2. The first 3 days remove its formlessness with light, sea and sky. The last 3 days remove the void by filling them with living things. In any case, humility and respect for differing views among Christians who take the Bible seriously are called for.

The Big Picture: Controversy should not distract us from the key messages of Genesis. (See Tony Watkins’ What you need to know about the evolution debate - http://bethinking.org/)

God is the creator of everything. The universe owes its existence solely to God's will.
The universe didn't create itself and it didn't appear by chance.

The world reflects its creator. The created world is orderly (and therefore understandable by rational human beings) and good. It shows us enough about God that there's no excuse for anyone not to believe in him (Romans 1:20).

God is the law-giver who gave us the responsibility of being stewards of the earth. All created things have a divinely appointed purpose and not a product of random accident.

Human beings are God's image bearers, reflecting His character in our self-consciousness, creativity and aesthetic awareness, rational and moral responsibility and relational and spiritual dimension.

Human beings are rebels against God. Sin ruined our relationship with God, nature and each other. So we live in a world of alienation, fear, violence and lies. We hide from God and from each other. We are under God's judgment. Incredibly, God still sought out the fallen couple and promised gracious redemption (Genesis 3).

A Possible Strategy: Share our convictions in this issue humbly and be willing to listen to others. There is space for diversity on some of the details. Emphasize on the major message of Genesis. Be ready to challenge macroevolution on scientific grounds (Intelligent Design) if required. But even if macroevolution is true, why can’t God guide and superintend the natural processes in creation? It cannot logically disprove God.

The Big Bang: William Lane Craig: “The absolute origin of the universe, of all matter and energy, even of physical space and time themselves, in the Big Bang singularity contradicts the perennial naturalistic assumption that the universe has always existed.”

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/

What about Stephen Hawking’s The Grand Design? 

John Lennox: 

“According to Hawking, the laws of physics, not the will of God, provide the real explanation as to how life on Earth came into being. The Big Bang, he argues, was the inevitable consequence of these laws ‘because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing.’

…But contrary to what Hawking claims, physical laws can never provide a complete explanation of the universe. Laws themselves do not create anything, they are merely a description of what happens under certain conditions... His call on us to choose between God and physics is a bit like someone demanding that we choose between aeronautical engineer Sir Frank Whittle and the laws of physics to explain the jet engine.

That is a confusion of category. The laws of physics can explain how the jet engine works, but someone had to build the thing, put in the fuel and start it up… To use a simple analogy, Isaac Newton’s laws of motion in themselves never sent a snooker ball racing across the green baize. That can only be done by people using a snooker cue and the actions of their own arms.”

What about multiple-universe theory to explain the fact that our universe appears fine-tuned for human life to exist? 

Tim Keller, The Reason for God:

“Alvin Plantinga gives this illustration. He imagines a man dealing himself twenty straight hands of four aces in the same game of poker. As his companions reach for their six-shooters the poker player says, "I know it looks suspicious! But what if there is an infinite succession of universes, so that for an possible distribution of poker hands, there is one universe in which this possibility is realized? We just happen to find ourselves in one where I always deal my self four aces without cheating!" This argument will have no effect on the other poker players. It is technically possible that the man just happened to deal himself twenty straight hands of four aces. Though you could not prove he had cheated, it would be unreasonable to conclude that he hadn't.”

Robert Jastrow:

"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries."

Theodicy: Why Is There Evil And Suffering?

The Reason for God-Why Evil and Suffering


Where is God in the midst of our pain? Why doesn’t He do something about the evil and suffering in this world?

David Hume: Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is cruel. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?

This serious objection against the existence of God is sometimes called the Archilles’ heel of the Christian faith. How would you answer? It becomes a profoundly difficult question (both intellectually and emotionally) if you believe in a biblical vision of God as holy, loving and all-powerful. For people who experienced terrible tragedy, this is a personal issue not just philosophical. Empathy and pastoral care are more appropriate. Remember Job’s friends.

The first thing to note is this: The Bible recognizes, allows, and even invites such questions. If you are troubled by the reality of sin and suffering in the world, you are not alone. Listen to the wailings of suffering Job, the laments of prophet Jeremiah, the angry complaints of Habakkuk or Psalm 22; leading to the climax of Jesus’ cry on the cross: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” You can hardly find any faithful saint who does not wrestle with the why questions. The Bible recognizes, allows, and even invites such questions.


While we cannot explain the detailed purpose behind every specific case of suffering, the Bible gives us clear answers on two other important questions that help us to trust in God’s goodness and power:


1) “Does God care? Where is He in our pain?” 
God is with us when it hurts: He is not far away, looking indifferently at our struggles. Rather he has come in the person of Jesus and suffered personally on the cross on our behalf. The answer cannot be that God doesn’t care. Only the Christian faith shows us a God who suffers injustice, rejection and pain with us and for us.

Albert Camus, the existential philosopher: “The god-man (Jesus) suffers too, with patience. Evil and death can no longer be entirely imputed to him since he suffers and dies. The night on Golgotha is so important in the history of man only because, in its shadows, the divinity ostensibly abandoned its traditional privilege, and lived through to the end, despair included, the agony of death”


“Jesus of the Scars” (a poem by Edward Schiltoff) 

The other gods were strong. But Thou wast weak.
They rode, but Thou didst stumble to Thy throne.
And to our wounds, only God's wounds can speak,
and not a god has wounds but Thou alone.

2) Will evil and suffering be resolved one day?” 


God will renew the heaven and earth: We despair with the question of whether evil will eventually be overcome because it appears so powerful and pervasive. But Jesus promised that God will intervene and stop evil one day. He will wipe the tears from our eyes and turn weapons of war into instruments of peace. There will be future resolution when relationships will be restored, all creation restored and healing justice in society.

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the ultimate sign that God’s righteous rule will eventually prevail over sin and death. Evil shall not have the last word. 

What God has done in Christ on Easter morning, He would do on a cosmic scale for the entire creation, including us! In the meantime, we are to live today as if the future is already present. The way we live should point forward to what God’s kingdom in its future fullness would look like (like a movie preview). Therefore we have every reason and motivation to be His agents of healing justice in a sinful and suffering world.

Perhaps our need is not to have evil explained. A more urgent question is:

What are we doing about the evil and suffering in our world? It’s a call to action, not just reflection. Are we actively working as individuals and church to alleviate suffering of the poor and marginalized?

Read on for further details on some possible Christian theodicy approaches and non-Christian views on evil and suffering 

Global Urban Mission

Dr. Tim Keller at Lausanne - God's Global Urban Mission from Kenny Jahng on Vimeo.

Agora Podcast: Thirsting After God in the Desert

Many times we relate to God in terms of rules and regulations, a list of do’s and don’ts, of duties and obligations. Of course, there is right and wrong and holy commandments that God has given us to keep.

But God’s worth, beauty and manifold excellencies are not glorified by joyless duty, but by our joyful, willing and obedient delight in all that He is. We obey and serve Him because we want to, because we desire to honor and please Him. Not because we grudgingly have to. God loves a cheerful giver. He also loves a cheerful worshipper.

To put it another, our duty is to delight in God. (Psalm 37:4) The Westminster Shorter Catechism would say that the main purpose of our existence is to glorify God and ENJOY Him forever.

Check out the sermon podcast here and let me know what you think.

RZIM Youth Apologetics Conference @ Subang

RZIM Apologetics Conference For Youth Workers 2011
Tools for the Trade-Topics 2011

Agora Podcast: Pluralism

After the Sept-11 tragedy, the world is engaged in a public debate over the meaning of pluralism and how it relates to civil society. The need is pressing for a dialogue platform for the various religious communities to be able to come together and discuss issues affecting our lives together.

Yet some people are understandably concerned that pluralism as an ideology may confuse or weaken their identity or faith. In this podcast, I discuss briefly how Christians can, at the same time, hold to a conviction in the uniqueness of Christ and yet be eager to participate in respectful dialogues with other faiths without fear or compromise.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

Soul At Work

Hi! How's your work coming along?

Quick. What's the first thought that comes to mind? ___________.


Many people find work to be stressful, busy, tedious, and meaningless. For example:

a) Work = traffic jam, back-to-back meetings, endless projects, office politics, meaningless KPIs.

b) Work = cooking, washing, feeding, keeping the house neat, ferrying the kids to tuition.

c) Work = homework, more stupid homework. And trying to stay awake during boring classes.

Do you hope for meaningful work? Do you think it's possible for your work to help you become more Christ-like in the way you think and act? Do you desire to be more attentive to God's presence while you work? Do you long for Christ's presence? Do you want to take your soul to work?

If you identify with any of the challenges and questions above...

Alvin Ung invites you to attend a three-part series on Taking your Soul to Work. The sermons will be interactive, reflective and practical. Each sermon will feature a 10-minute conversation with a "mystery guest."

Details as follows.
-------------------

1: Prayer as Work.

 

Download podcast Prayer as Work

To take our souls to work, we prioritize private prayer as work. Jesus will serve as our mentor in choosing silence and solitude as life became increasingly busy. A lecturer/counselor at a large private university will share her experiences of what led her to spend eight days of silence in prayer -- and why prayer became so important for her as she faced the tyranny of the urgent.

What to expect: we will reflect and seek creative ways to practice prioritizing prayer as work.

2: Praying and Working.
Download podcast Prayer and Work

To take our souls to work, we pray intentionally while we work. The Lord's Prayer will serve as our model and approach in praying regularly throughout the day. A senior business executive at a large corporation will share his experiences of what led him to pray before work, during work and after work -- and why he has found this practice to be so life-giving amid the stresses of daily work.

What to expect: we will reflect and seek creative ways to practice being attentive to God while we work.

3: Work as Prayer
Download podcast Work as Prayer

To take our souls to work, we bring our whole selves to work. The Apostle Paul will serve as our mentor in transforming the fruits of his labor into prayer. A mother, counselor and CEO of a thriving restaurant and boutique business will share her experiences of what led her to place her life and work in God's hands -- to trust that all will be well amid the tough leadership decisions of daily life.

What to expect: we will reflect and seek creative ways to practice becoming 'prayer-full' workers.
Bonus: Download podcast God's Pattern For Work Relationship by Rev Wong Fong Yang as well.

What is Worldview? Why Is It Important?

Worldview-Introduction DNA 2010

Why Worldview - DNous Academy 1

History or Prophecy: The Birth of Immanuel

Harmonizing Historical Context and Messianic Prophecy in Isaiah 7:14

Discover Your Life Calling

One of the guiding principles of CDPC Puchong is Integration of Faith and Work (celebrate God's presence at home, work and rest. Equip followers of Christ in the marketplace). And we had great pleasure and honor to celebrate the dedication of Han Meng and Doris' legal office in Subang Jaya today. We walk through different parts of the office, praying for God's presence and wisdom and courage as they work out their calling in the marketplace. That coincides with this Sunday's sermon on "What On Earth Am I Here For: Discover Your Life Calling"

Discover Your Life Calling


Powerpoint slides downloadable below:
Discover Our Calling

How Do We Know The Bible Is Authentic?

The latest edition of Kairos magazine: "Rediscovering the Whole Bible" is out! There is an article addressing how Christians can be confident that the Bible we read today accurately reflects the original writings and how to choose an English translation of the Bible:


Have you ever played the Telephone Game? It’s an all-time favorite ice breaker where the first player thinks up a phrase and whispers it to his immediate neighbor. And the message gets passed on quietly to the next person until it reaches the last player who in turn shouts it out loud.

In a ‘successful’ game, the final message would bear so little resemblance to the original statement that everyone breaks out in laughter.

Despite their best attempts, mistakes easily creep in somewhere down the line and distort the entire message.

If communication is such a precarious business, how can we know that the Bible we read today accurately reflect the original writings of the authors?

The original manuscripts were lost in the sands of time. All we have were copies of the original. But people make mistakes. Errors accumulate with each successive copy.

In a few hundred years, who could tell how much of the original message was left intact? Just like in the Telephone Game.

Compound that with the fact that the Bible was not written in English. Not even King James English.

Most of the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew (a few passages were in Aramaic) while the entire New Testament was composed in Greek. That means that for most of us, the message of the Bible needs to be translated into a language we can read and understand.

But why are there so many different English versions of the Bible? How much confidence could we have in the accuracy of these translations?

Recovering Lost Lecture Notes

Unlike the telephone game, however, the biblical text was passed down to us in written form. Writings can be tested and less susceptible to distortions compared to oral whispers. In the ice breaker, communication is limited as “one-to-one” with everyone lined up in single file. But the Apostle Paul’s letters can be transmitted via multiple copies, which in turn duplicated into more numerous copies. Its transmission was non-linear.

The fact is that historians can confidently reconstruct what an ancient manuscript says from existing copies even though they may contain differences.

Here is an analogy of how it works.

During secondary school, I had an Economics teacher whose teaching style seems to have missed the invention of the photocopy machine. Mrs. Lee would write her lengthy lecture notes on the whiteboard while the students furiously copy them down before she could wipe them off.

Suppose that the entire class was hit by a flu bug on the crucial day that Mrs. Lee handed out her much-anticipated “spot questions and sample answers” before the exams. Only three students managed to attend the class and copy them down on their notepads. Pitying their sick friends, each of them lent their notes to ten of their classmates who in turn made more hand-written copies.

Since I had missed the class, the original copy on the whiteboard was lost forever. With exams only a week away, I anxiously tried to contact Mrs. Lee and the three students who made those copies. But for some mysterious reasons, they were also down with flu and quarantined for a week. In a state of panic, I rounded up all the remaining classmates and spread out thirty hand-written copies on the floor to recover the original wordings.

Immediately I can detect some differences. Ten copies have a misspelled word (“inflaxion” instead of “inflation”). Five copies had wrongly ordered phrases (“buy high, sell low” instead of “buy low, sell high”). And one copy contains an entire paragraph not found in any of the others.

Do you think I can accurately reconstruct Mrs. Lee’s original lecture notes based on these different copies?

Sure, I can. Misspellings can be easily spotted, mixed-up phrases can be corrected and it is more likely that an extra paragraph was added to one copy than for it to be omitted from twenty nine copies.

Authentic Text: How Many? How Early?

In simplified form, that is how the science of textual criticism works. Even with more numerous and complicated errors, historians can still recover an ancient document depending on two factors:

1) How many surviving copies do we have to compare and test? The more manuscripts we have, the easier it is to detect differences.

2) What is the time gap between the oldest surviving copies and the writing of the original? The closer to the original, the more confidence we have in the manuscripts.

First let us look at the statistics for non-biblical texts:

Caesar's The Gallic Wars has 10 surviving manuscripts with the earliest copy dating to 1,000 years after the original writing; Thucydides' History (8 manuscripts; 1,300 years elapsed); Herodotus' History (8 manuscripts; 1,350 years elapsed) and Tacitus' Annals (20 manuscripts; 1,000 years). The best preserved of ancient non-biblical writings is Homer’s Iliad with about 650 surviving copies (500 years elapsed).

In comparison, there are approximately 5,500 Greek existing manuscripts that contain all or part of the New Testament! The New Testament was written from about A.D. 50 to A.D. 90. Two major manuscripts, Codex Vaticanus (A.D. 325) and Codex Sinaiticus (A.D. 350) date within 250 years of the time of composition. Most fascinating of all, the earliest fragment of a small portion of John’s Gospel dates about A.D. 120 with other important fragments dating within 150-200 years from the time of composition.

On both counts, the manuscript evidence for the biblical texts overwhelmingly surpassed those of other ancient documents. If skeptics dismiss the Bible as unreliable, then they must also dismiss the reliability of virtually everything we learn from ancient documents.

Even if all of these precious biblical manuscripts were somehow lost, we could still reconstruct the entire New Testament from quotations of Scripture found in ancient catechisms, lectionaries and writings of the church fathers. As the gospel spread further by the end of the 2nd century A.D., New Testament translations were made into Latin, Coptic, Syriac, Armenian and other languages. These early versions (more than 18,000 surviving copies) provide valuable resources for scholars to cross-check the original Greek wordings.

Sir Frederic Kenyon, former director of the British Museum and foremost authority on the subject, wrote:

"The interval between the dates of the original composition (of the New Testament) and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established."

Found In Translation

Now, what about the accuracy of the English Bible translations? Even a brief visit to the nearest Christian bookstore would yield a bewildering variety of Bible versions available today.

How shall we even begin to decide on picking one for our personal use?

For almost three hundred years, the King James Version (completed in 1611) was the most widely accepted translation for English-speaking Protestants. Its lofty language had a profound influence on literature and history. However, modern readers began to find its archaic words hard to understand, thus providing impetus for the explosive growth of Bible translations.

Another important reason for fresh translations came about as archaeologists discovered more and older copies of the biblical text (i.e. the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Codex Sinaiticus). As we saw earlier, such a wealth of manuscript evidence enables us to get even closer to the original writings.

Thirdly, the proliferation of English versions resulted from different translation approaches adopted by the translators. Do they aim for an essentially literal word-for-word translation? Or is their goal a thought-for-thought translation that seeks to get the idea across instead? Or is it a free paraphrase like Eugene Peterson’s The Message? Although all translators need to balance readability and faithfulness to the original text, Bible versions differ in how each of these objectives is emphasized.

For the most accurate access to the biblical text, a modern translation that benefits from the best available manuscripts and adopts a ‘word-for-word’ approach that seeks to retain the words that the biblical authors wrote would be a preferred choice. A paraphrased version can provide an interesting read but when it comes to serious study of God’s inspired word, we need a translation that is as close to the original as possible.

Avoid translations made by a single person for it would leave us at the mercy of his or her own private interpretation. Most important translations are done by committees where its members can check on each other.

Choose a readable translation written in contemporary vernacular. You may also find certain Bible study tools like maps, study notes, cross-references and concordances helpful.

Lastly, it may be a good idea to try out a few translations before making your choice. When you come across a difficult verse, read it in several versions and observe the differences. You may also find online resources like Biblegateway.com convenient and inexpensive for this purpose.

Rojak Spirituality

We are spoilt for choice when it comes to food. Imagine walking into a giant food court where you can find char koay teow, sushi, curry, kebab, Nasi Padang, grilled steak, dim sum – almost everything else you can think of under the same roof. You can choose to eat anything you want. You can mix it up – eat a bit of sushi for appetizer, then chicken rice for main course and finish with rojak for dessert. How about that? Are you feeling hungry already?


But for a lot of people, making choices about spirituality or religion is also like eating in a food court. It’s all up to your personal tastes or preference. Some like it hot, others like it cold. It can also be a bit like ‘rojak’ – you just mix up all the ingredients and hopefully it tastes good. “Oh, I like my religion with a pinch of Buddhism, a sprinkle of Christianity, two cups of Lillian Too feng shui and a glass of Hinduism – shaken, not stirred.” What’s your personal religious preference?

So… in today’s society, for someone to even claim that a certain religious practice is wrong or that some religious beliefs are untrue, that would sound arrogant and intolerant. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s as if someone say to you, “You are wrong to choose nasi lemak for lunch today” or “You are a bad person if you chose to eat “char koay teow”. You should have chosen Maggi goreng.” That sounds so intolerant (it doesn’t make sense) because we live in a time of “rojak spirituality”. People choose their faith or spirituality or religion based on personal taste or preferences. You like chocolate ice cream, I like strawberry flavor. You like Islam, I like Christianity, she likes Buddhism. It’s based on what we like. There is no right or wrong answer here.

But truth or reality is not like ice cream. It is more like insulin. When my wife Grace was pregnant with Zhen, she was found to have gestational diabetes. Maybe due to hormonal imbalance, her body does not produce enough insulin to break down sugar in her blood. So what did she need to do? Almost everyday she has to give herself an insulin injection to maintain her health. And she cannot say, “I don’t feel like taking insulin anymore. Let’s see… I think I would prefer to take ice cream instead”. If she stopped taking insulin and choose ice cream, it would be very bad for her health and for the baby. In the same way, we are all sin-sick people in need of a cure that is the gospel. We don’t get to decide what is true based on our subjective tastes. That’s make-believe. Reality is like a solid rock. Just because we don’t like it doesn’t make it false. Just because we like something doesn’t make it true either. When it comes to spirituality or faith, the reason we ought to believe something is because it is true… Truth is like insulin to someone who suffers from diabetes, it’s not ice cream.

And in the passage of Scripture we read just now, Jesus was about to go to the cross. It was just before the Passover feast. He knew His time was near. He had lived the life that we should have lived and now He would face the death that we should have died. He came from God and He was going back to God. He was about to accomplish His mission in the world and return to the Father. So he was having his last meal together with his disciples. But his disciples were worried – “Who is going to betray Jesus? The Master is leaving us but where is He going?”

So Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled; Trust in God, trust also in Me. In my Father's house are many rooms; I am going there to prepare a place for you. I will come back and take you with me. You know the way to the place where I am going."

One of the disciples Thomas asked him: “But Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how do we know the way?” And then Jesus replied with this famous statement: “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me.” Great teachers point us to the truth, but they don't claim to BE the truth. Jesus, however, makes this amazing claim about himself – I am the way, the truth and the life.

So today I’d like to consider THREE implications of Jesus’ unique claim for us, Christians, living in a multi-religious, multi-cultural society such as ours:

1st implication: Jesus is the way so walk in Him with confidence.

Some years back, I met a church leader who believed that all religions are valid paths to God. He told me, “Yes, yes, yes… Jesus is the way to God, but there are other ways to get there too.” All roads lead to Rome. But if you come to think about it for just a minute, actually not all roads lead to Rome. In fact you can’t drive to Rome using any roads in Singapore. Not all roads lead to Rome.

Jesus did not claim to be just one of many ways to God. He says: “I am the way; no one comes to God but by me.” That’s quite a big claim to make. A man who makes a claim to be the only way to God cannot be just another religious guru. He is either a mad man, a bad man or He is really who He claims to be. Jesus did not leave us the option of regarding him as just another wise human teacher. Great human teachers point to the truth, but they don't claim to be the truth. And yet, here we are confronted with the unique claim of Jesus to be the way, the truth and the life.

This is something that many people find hard to accept. In one of our family conversations about Christianity, my dear relatives told me, “How can you Christians believe that Jesus is the only way? That’s too narrow and exclusive. All religions are lead to God. We are like the ten blind men trying to describe an elephant. One guy touched its trunk and said “The elephant is like a snake”. Another touched its body and said, “No, it’s like a wall”. Yet another touched its leg and think it’s like a tree. As they argued amongst themselves, the King walked by and set them straight, “All of you only got part of the truth. The elephant is a huge animal and each of you touched only a part!”

At first, the story appears to be very humble and inclusive: The truth is greater than any one of us can understand. But the only way you can know that all religions have only part of the truth is if you have the whole truth. The only way you could know that none of the blind men have the whole truth is if you can see the elephant. The only way you can tell this story is if you are the King who sees everything. There is an appearance of humility but actually there is a hidden, almost arrogant assumption that the storyteller has a knowledge that is superior to all others. But how did he get this knowledge? How can he see when everyone else is blind? If I am blind and you are blind, then how can you possibly know what the elephant is really like? You see, the problem with this story is it is actually making a very exclusive statement that no one else got it all correct except himself.

And the funny thing is: the story also contains an important truth. Because the only Person who can see everything and know the complete truth is the King… It’s God Himself. No one else can do that. Like blind men, we humans are all limited and sinful creatures who can only see part of reality. There is nothing we can boast about because we are blind like everyone else groping in the dark. We won’t know what the truth is like unless… unless the King has spoken. Unless the King who knows everything reveals Himself to us and corrects our mistakes. And guess what? That is exactly what the gospel is all about. God has already revealed Himself in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. “I once was blind but now I see…” because God has revealed Himself to us. The only way we can know the truth is because He has made Himself known in Christ. He is not just one of many ways or one of many gods. Jesus is the way so let us walk in Him with confidence.


2nd implication: Jesus is the truth so proclaim Him with humility

A few months ago, the Singapore Internal Security Department called up a church leader, Pastor Tan (not to be confused with our own Pastor Tan), after receiving complaints about two video clips he had posted on his church website that showed him making "insensitive comments about Buddhism." The Ministry of Home Affairs said that his remarks were "highly inappropriate and unacceptable as they trivialised and insulted the beliefs of Buddhists and Taoists." The pastor has since removed the video clips from the website and he apologized to the Buddhist and Taoist communities, promising that such incidents would not happen again. This could easily happen in Malaysia as well and it shows the need for Christians to rethink how we relate to people of other faiths. Do we ever catch ourselves making inaccurate, insensitive or insulting jokes about other religious beliefs or practices?


Indeed, we need to share the truth of the gospel faithfully, without watering down the gospel. But we also need to speak the truth in love, gentleness and humility. We need to respect and honor those who have yet to know Christ as persons who were made in God’s image. They have the right to believe, practice and propagate their faiths even if they don’t agree with us. We should celebrate and not begrudge the fact that people of different religions are capable of great moral integrity and profound wisdom too. When we see what is good, true and beautiful being taught by others, we can thank God that in spite of our sinful natures, this is still possible because of the common humanity we share with them. Although tainted by sin, the image of God in fallen people can still produce something good, true and beautiful. And we can use these common grounds (our shared humanity) as a bridge to dialogue with others and communicate the gospel that only in Christ would the truth, the beauty and the goodness that we all cherish make any sense at all. A missionary in Indonesia Martin Goldsmith wrote, “Sin and the remnant image of God interact both in cultures and religions. So we dare not dismiss all cultures and religions as merely demonic, evil or totally false.” Instead, there is every reason for Christians to listen to our non-Christian neighbors and humbly learn what they believe about God, about life, about truth and about salvation. Seek first to understand then be understood.


Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of speaking to a mixed group of medical students at an interfaith dialogue. It was something I have always wanted to do. The topic was on the Purpose of Life. A Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Christian speaker was each given 15 minutes to present their views followed by questions and answers from the students. I felt it was a fruitful time as I learn from the other speakers and students. Interestingly, I also get to (legally and openly) share the gospel in front of a few dozen Muslim students. Open conversation and evangelism should not be seen as mutually exclusive. Instead, gospel witness invites dialogues and questions. And having meaningful dialogue with our neighbors expands and deepens our gospel witness. On a more personal level, interfaith conversations like that can happen at the mamak stall, kopitiam, cafeteria or anywhere. And I’m so glad that some of us in CDPC organized a visit to a mosque with a team from our partner churches in America. We went there to dialogue with the imam, to learn and ask questions about Islam. You see, this is the kind of dialogue, truth encounter and mutual understanding needed not only for our American mission team, but especially for our local youths as well. It would be tragic if we spend our whole lives growing up in Asia but never know anything about what our neighbors really believe or what worship means to them just down the road.

So there is no place for arrogance or insensitive jokes when it comes to speaking the truth. If people want to reject the gospel, let them do so because they refuse to accept the claims of the gospel, and not because they are turned off by our offensive or insensitive behavior. The truth is not an abstract list of dos-and-don’ts or a religious experience. The truth is personal and historical. Jesus is the truth so let us proclaim Him with humility, gentleness and respect.

The last implication: Jesus is the life so live with grace for others

There is a good reason why the idea that all religions are equally valid or “rojak spirituality” (as I call it) is so popular today. In a global village where we live so close to each other, people want to avoid religious violence and conflicts. After the September 11 attack, the ‘war on terror’ or , the world is desperately looking for ways in which different religious groups can live in peace, harmony and tolerance. That is a very noble and sincere motivation that we all share. But the thinking goes like this: “If you claim to have the truth and others don’t, that will lead to conflict and oppression. You will look down on others, right? My faith is better than yours. The followers of my religion are more holy than yours.”

So wouldn’t it be nice if everybody thinks all religions are the same, then there is nothing to fight about rite? Sounds nice, but only if everybody in the world thinks like that… The problem is: You can have peace if and only if followers of all faiths play down their own beliefs and exclusively agree on another ‘faith’ different from their own. A superficial unity is achieved at the cost of ignoring genuine differences. But tolerance itself implies disagreement. You cannot ‘tolerate’ people who agree with you. They are on your side! Tolerance implies that you don’t agree on the same thing. If every person believes in the same thing that all religions are equal, then what room is there for tolerance and respect?

So on one extreme we have people who believe in absolute truth but promote conflict and separation; on the other extreme we have people who want to promote peace but they give up on the truth. Maybe there is another way. Because Jesus is the resurrection life, He can empower us to live as agents of peace and reconciliation in the society. How can the gospel do that? Well, if you believe that God accepts you because of your good works and salvation depends on how holy and righteous you are in obeying laws and regulations, then it’s very easy for you to look down on those who are not as good, holy and righteous. “Hhmph! Those are unbelievers, I want nothing to do with them. They are sinful and unclean.” Or you will look at the religious people and think, “Hmmph! Those religious fanatics, I want nothing to do with them. They are exclusive, crazy and violent!”


But the gospel says you are not saved by your performance, wisdom or morality. You are saved when you admit that you are never good enough so you need Jesus the Savior to save you from your sins. Not because of what you have done but what Christ had done on the cross for you. You are saved by grace. It’s a gift that you don’t deserve… Tim Keller said it this way: The gospel humbles you (you’re not better than others) and leads you to expect that those who don’t agree with you may be morally better than you. You would expect to find nonbelievers who are much nicer, wiser and better than we are. So you can’t look down on others. At the heart of the gospel is the life of a man who died for his enemies, prayed and forgave those who opposed and slandered him. If you follow Him, if your life is modeled after His Life, then how can you be violent to others? You can’t. His Life will release and empower you to be a peace maker, to be generous and sacrificially serve and pray for those who are different and even opposed to you. That’s what the world desperately need today. Won’t you like to be part of it?


Perhaps there is no better time for Christians to be peace makers, to intercede for the well being of non-Christian leaders, sacrificially serve those who are different than us and sincerely invite them to our place of worship for fellowship and conversations… Perhaps that’s what it means to be salt and light in our context… Jesus is the Life so let us live with grace for others.

Biblical Environmental Stewardship

Question: Shouldn't we spend our time and resources helping poor people rather than animals or plants?

Vinoth Ramachandran once remarked that the question is like asking a poor mother not to bother about her child’s education because feeding him is more important. Of course, both basic needs should be our concern although in some contexts, saving lives would have higher priority than environmental conservation.

In most situations, however, it’s not an either/or choice. The well-being of rural poor is often dependent on a sustainable ecosystem. The natural resources are their ‘pharmacy’ (from which they gather medicinal herbs) and ‘local supermarket’ (from which they are supplied daily needs) and water supply system. Environmental degradation disproportionately affects the poor. Since there is close interdependence in the ecosystem, animal and plant extinctions would ultimately be unhealthy to people as well. Helping people to manage and develop their natural resources in a sustainable manner would in turn alleviate poverty.

Therefore, we must care for both people and for non-human elements of God’s creation.

Obeying God’s commandment to be responsible stewards of His world is also an expression of love for the Creator and for people, especially the rural poor.

The main challenge to creation care is to start with ourselves. None of us likes to change our lifestyle if it involves perceived inconvenience. If each of us care enough to act in the light of what we discover, we can begin to live a simpler lifestyle, reduce pollution load and free up more resources for those really in need.

Dean Ohlman wrote, “We must not prioritize our ethical obligations to such an extent that we excuse the plight of animals made to suffer unnecessarily by our neglect or cruelty.”

Question: Isn't this business about ‘saving the earth’ a distraction to the church’s task of ‘saving souls’?


This question is best addressed by asking a similar question – “Is parenting a distraction from our Christian task of evangelism?”

For those of us with children, parenting is a time-consuming responsibility we carry out daily. It’s part and parcel of living in obedience to God. We rarely need to choose between caring for our children and witnessing for Christ. We perform each duty when it is required and doing either one does not contradict the other.

In the same way, Dean Ohlman observed that “earth-keeping is a natural and integral aspect of our day-to-day decision-making regarding spending, work, consumption, transportation, waste management, and so forth. The problem is that not until recently have we come to understand how irresponsible we have been regarding this foundational aspect of daily living.”

A Christian analysis of environmental degradation sees its primary cause in our broken relationship with God which leads us on a futile quest for fulfillment at the expense of the earth. Instead of purveying more gloomy news and passing more laws, lasting progress can only come about when people have a radical change of heart. And the fruit of gospel witness should result in transformed hearts and reordered lifestyles towards God, other people and the creation as part of our discipleship.

The conservation movement today is in dire need of hope that the good news has to offer.

Not only that. Every time we care for creation, we are really witnessing to the Creator.

We are demonstrating to the community the practical outworking of the gospel with our lives.

For instance, A Rocha, a Christian conservation movement, took a piece of unkempt land in West London and turned it into an oasis for wildlife called Minet Country Park. It raised questions among the neighboring people, “Why are they doing this?” It gives opportunities for them to find out that our ecology is based on the gospel and our gospel is centered on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Question: What’s the point? The ecological problems are so huge. What I do won't make any difference.”

Environmental stewardship is a loving response to God and turning away from consumerist lifestyles. As Christians, we can do what is right not primarily because of the perceived usefulness, but as an act of worship. This perspective frees us from the despair that secular environmentalists face – to act rightly while trusting in the sovereignty of God for the results even when the circumstances look bleak.

Suggested Resources:

http://www.arocha.org/

http://arochalivinglightly.org.uk/