new places, new faces, new culture

I'm writing this from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  I've only been here for a couple of days, but it's been good to see a new place, meet new friends, and catch up with other friends.

I enjoy seeing new things, meeting new people and eating new foods.  I find it tiring, but I really enjoy it.  As I've been to a number of countries now I feel less surprised by the different things I see.  I'm used to the grime and busyness and different languages and different people.  I think it's cool.

But not everyone feels like that.  My mum is an example of that.  I love mum, but she doesn't cope well in unfamiliar situations.

I plan to do gospel work overseas somewhere.  It will take a lot of courage and effort for my mum to come and visit me!!  But she's said she will.  What a champ!

And I think for me too it will take getting used to - living long term in a different place like that, rather than just for a visit.  But everyone needs to come to Jesus for salvation, so they need to hear about him.

Psalm 3 song - I look to You

I'm reading through Psalms in the mornings at the moment.

Last week I was struck by Psalm 3, and the idea to turn it into a song came to me (yes, I do know that it was already a song!).

In the deep val-ley

And in the dark-ness

I look to You

When foes surround me

And say you won’t help

I look to You

They call out to me

“Your G-od can’t help”

I look to You

Many march out just

To bring me down

I look to You

For You are my shield

My strong protector

I cling to You

When times are tough

You will never let me down

So I can sle-ep

In sweet comfort

You care for me

(I) can lie in my bed

Completely at peace

You care for me

It doesn't have any music to go with it at the moment.  I'm not very good at that.  

Perhaps you would like to write some music for it? :-)

pondering heaven and the nature of the Christian life

This was a story that I made up to tell the kids in Scripture today about what life is like as a Christian, both in this age and the age to come.  Especially since I'm teaching young kids I decided to do this via a story.  As I was thinking about this I realised that a good allegory about this has already been written; namely, Pilgrim's Progress.  But that is a little long to read out to the class.

It was done in a hurry, but hopefully it's not too heretical :-)

~~~~~

There was a girl named Katie.  When Katie was 8 she decided to ask Jesus to forgive her for her sins.   Katie told her friends about Jesus.  She said, “Jesus loves you.  He died to forgive your sins.”  Some her friends said to her, “why do you follow Jesus?  That’s just silly.  It’s a made up story.  You must be an idiot for believing it.  Katie wanted to get really mad at them, but then she remembered that Jesus said, “If you love me, other people are going to hate you and be mean to you.  Don’t worry, they just do that because they hate me.”  So Katie calmed down.  Then she prayed, “Jesus please make them love you and not hate you anymore.”

When Katie grew up she wanted to be a missionary tell people overseas about Jesus.  But one day Katie got sick.  She was so tired she could hardly get out of bed.  Her mum came into her room and said, “Come on Katie.  It’s time to get up.”  “Mum I don’t feel so good”, Katie said, “I’m so so tired.  Can I stay in bed today?”  “OK” her mum said, “you can stay in bed today”.  So Katie stayed in bed and rested.  Before she went to sleep she said, “Jesus I know you’re powerful and you love me, so can you please make me all better by tomorrow.”

So Katie went to sleep.  When she woke up in the morning she was still tired.  Her mum came into her room and said, “Come on Katie.  It’s time to get up.”  But Katie said, “I’m still really tired Mum.”  So her mum said, “I’m going to take you to the doctor.”  Katie had to go see lots of doctors.  Every day she prayed, “Jesus I know you’re powerful and you love me, so can you please make me all better by tomorrow.” 

Eventually one of the doctors said, “Katie you are very sick.  You have leukaemia.”  Every day she kept praying, “Jesus I know you’re powerful and you love me, so can you please make me all better by tomorrow.”  Then one day Katie died. 

The very next thing she knew, she was in a bright and shiny place.  It was very beautiful.  There was a big area of grass.  It looked so beautiful, so she took off her shoes, and went running down the hill.  The grass was so beautiful and soft; there weren’t any prickles in it at all.

When she got down to the bottom of the hill, she started to hear some noise.  So she went to investigate.  She went a bit further, and the noise got louder, then she came to a big high fence.  The noise was coming from the inside.  She said to herself, “It sounds like everyone was having a great time, there’s all this laughter.  Ooh I hope I can go in!” 

So she walked along the fence and found a gate.  On the gate there was a sign.  It had big writing on it “ONLY FRIENDS ALLOWED!”.  Standing next to the gate was a man.  He said to Katie, “Are you a friend of my master?”  “I don’t know”, Katie said, “Who is your master?”.  “My master’s name is Jesus”, he said, “are you friends with him?”  “Oh yes!” she said, “we’ve been friends for so long!”  So the man opened the gate and let Katie in. 

When Katie got inside she saw the biggest party ever.  There were lots and lots of people.  They were all laughing and chatting and eating.  There were all sorts of different people there.  There were old people and young people.  There were people from all different countries too, people with white skin, people with black skin, brown skin and yellow skin.  There were lots of people there.  They were sharing the food around with each other.  No-one was yelling or fighting or grumpy.  And Katie thought to herself, “No-one is fighting or being selfish. I’ve never been a place like this before.”

There was a band playing too.  They sang lots of great songs.  They were praising Jesus, saying, “You are amazing and holy.  You have made a whole new family of people.  You have got rid of all the bad things in the world.”  And Katie thought to herself, “These people love Jesus, just like me”.

As she was listening to the band someone came up to her and said, “Here are your new clothes.”  And they handed Katie the most beautiful dress she had ever seen.  She put it on, and it fitted her perfectly.

She twirled around in her new dress, and out of the corner of her eye she spotted someone who was so bright and shiny she could hardly look at him.  She stopped to get a closer look at him.  Then he looked up and saw her too.  Then he smiled and started walking towards her.  Immediately she knew who he was.  And Jesus said to her, “Welcome home Katie.”  Katie smiled and thought to herself, “This is the best place ever.”

100 posts - yay

I cracked the 100 post mark!

Kids: Smarter than you think

I think I underestimate the perceptive abilities of kids.

This year I've been teaching 7 & 8 year olds in my SRE class at a local public school.

They ask great questions.

Although their attention spans are short, once they're onboard - especially with a narrative - then they really get into it. 

One of the girls has been thinking deeply through some of the stuff we've taught. Here's some of her questions:

• So why did Jesus have die in order to forgive us, why couldn't he just do it while he was alive?
• So you've been saying that Jesus is God.  But Jesus prayed to God.  How can he be God then?
• How do we know this stuff about Jesus?  How do we know that the Bible is true?

Another kid had a cool question today:

• You said that Jesus is a judge, so how come in the pictures of him he doesn't have a hammer?

What a privilege and delight to be able to teach these kids!  I pray that they'll come to grasp the things of God (including the mystery of the limits of our knowledge), but more than that I pray that they'll put their hope in him.

Our Father will certainly welcome them.

blissful rest

This may seem a very strange thing to be feeling at the end of semester with exams looming, but I'm feeling incredibly relaxed.

No, I'm not completely on top of everything yet...

But God has granted me this amazing peace.  I've not been stressed about exams.  I've not been flustered.  I've not had that icky feeling in my gut.  I've been totally calm.

I've even been so calm that I've been wandering around singing.  Even more amazing is that I've pulled out my guitar to play it (it has been months since I've done that!!).

Wow.  Thanks heavenly Dad!!

dishonouring God?

For a little while I've been pondering the outworkings of an honour and shame worldview.

In Western societies (generally speaking) we operate on a guilt-innocence worldview, whereas typically in Eastern societies they operate on an honour-shame worldview.

I'm certainly no expert in these things, but it has been pointed at to me that a person with an honour-shame worldview will not be as gripped by being told about their guilt as they would about being told about their shame.  "Objective" guilt or innocence is not as significant as the perception of honour or shame.  Whether people think you are honourable or not is a bigger concern than doing the right thing.  It doesn't matter so much that you do the right thing or not.  The important thing is not to get caught.

When seeking to explain the Christian gospel, most Westerners (myself included) have learnt how to express the gospel in terms of guilt-innocence.  Jesus takes away our guilt and makes us innocent before God.  But if Easterners respond better to honour-shame, how can we express the gospel terms of that worldview?

This is something I'm continuing to ponder.

The Bible teaches us that his people are able to bring shame upon him.  As his people, their behaviour reflects on him.  For example, "The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you" (Rom 2:24, quoting Is 52:5).

So God's people can bring dishonour upon him, but what about everyone else?  Do they dishonour God by their actions?

Anselm (archbishop of Canterbury in the 11th & 12th C) says yes:

"To sin is to fail to render to God what God is entitled to. What is God entitled to? Righteousness, or rectitude of will. Anyone who fails to render this honour to God, robs God of that which belongs to God, and thus dishonours God."

What do you reckon?

Being a regular...a pathway to relationships and evangelism

Being a regular somewhere is fantastic.  It helps you to build relationships with people. It can be at the gym, a cafe, a park, church, a book club.  Whatever it is, being a regular is fantastic.

In our society we don't spend a lot of time with our physical next-door neighbours.  We're always out and about.  But we do still spend time with people.  We have workmates, baristas, check out chicks, fellow public transport takers.

It surprises me when Christians talk about not knowing many non-Christians, or don't have time to meet with them.  The reality is we have lots of opportunities.  The issue is whether we make the most of them.  Are we being intentional?  Are we taking a little bit extra time?  Are we going to the same place regularly, so that we get to know the people there?

If you're at a cafe why not take 10 minutes at the shop instead of 2?  If you're at the gym why not go to a class at the gym rather than work out individually?  If you play sport why not join a team?  Why not pray for opportunities to share the gospel as you make your way there?

I have been blessed in my time down in Sydney by being intentional.  In Brisbane my life had become so full of church people and events.  But now I have so many non-Christian friends outside of College, all because I was intentional.  By God's grace I get to share the gospel a lot.  And by God's grace I pray that they too will come to Jesus for forgiveness.

Arius: more of a heretic than I thought he was...

Last year in church history we heard about a number of heretics in the early church.

Our lecturer was really great at helping to be sympathetic to them.  That is, to listen carefully to what they say, weigh it carefully, not react to hastily to them, and to see the good things in what they were trying to do.

Arius was a a guy who said that 'there was a time when the Son was not'.  Well today I've been reading a bit of Arius' work for myself.  This is an excerpt in Athanasius' work where he quotes Arius at length.

Moreover he has dared to say, that ‘the Word is not the very God;’ ‘though He is called God, yet He is not very God,’ but ‘by participation of grace, He, as others, is God only in name.’ And, whereas all beings are foreign and different from God in essence, so too is ‘the Word alien and unlike in all things to the Father’s essence and propriety,’ but belongs to things originated and created, and is one of these. Afterwards, as though he had succeeded to the devil’s recklessness, he has stated in his Thalia, that ‘even to the Son the Father is invisible,’ and ‘the Word cannot perfectly and exactly either see or know His own Father;’ but even what He knows and what He sees, He knows and sees ‘in proportion to His own measure,’ as we also know according to our own power. For the Son, too, he says, not only knows not the Father exactly, for He fails in comprehension, but ‘He knows not even His own essence;’—and that ‘the essences of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, are separate in nature, and estranged, and disconnected, and alien, and without participation of each other;’ and, in his own words, ‘utterly unlike from each other in essence and glory, unto infinity.’ 

Cited by Athanisius in Discourses Against the Arians (1.2.6)

I'm struggling to be positive...

Thankfully we can have confidence that Jesus - the Word - is truly God and as such, truly reveals the Father to us.

John 1:1-2

 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God.

John 1:18

18 No one has ever seen God; the only One, who is God,  who is at the Father's side,  he has made him known.

John 14:9

The one who has seen Me has seen the Father.

ode to Newtown

Newtown is an interesting place to live.

It is a hodge podge of busy Sydney-ness, yuppie uni students, people who are a bit more "alternative", and a sizable collection of Bible College students (who I suppose seem a bit 'alternative' in a different way).

For those who know Brisbane, I liken it to West End.  But West End on steroids.  It's a lot bigger and crazier.

I was taking a walk to clear my head the other day, and I took my camera with me.  So here's some of the interesting juxtaposition that is Newtown, shown in terms of sights and shapes.