Two more brothers in Christ

If pathetic fallacy was not derogatory, I would readily say that the weather tonight reflected my mood of the past few days – dark, chilly, stormy. Being Christian has not been easy.

Just now at iClub (an evangelistic programme my church runs on a weekly basis), we had to make last minute changes to the venue because the main building had heating issues. It was pretty hectic, and I was admittedly somewhat grumpy – though I thought I was quite good at hiding it.

Despite the weather, last minute changes to the programme and my weakness, a Chinese guy who has been a regular attendee – Stanley – decided to commit his life to Jesus. And just a week ago, his friend – Caso (also a Chinese student) – repented, and trusted in the gospel.

This week, we looked at the resurrection of Jesus and its significance for us. As we were discussing a few questions, Caso was asked why he decided to become a Christian, and as he answered, I noticed that his voice started to break – and I suspect it was because he was on the verge of tears. Stanley was also very comfortable answering questions; he agreed that Jesus’ death was able to save sinners and his resurrection signified that he had triumphed over it, giving us new life and calling us to live with his as Lord. When we challenged Stanley about what was stopping him from becoming a Christian, he had a few small misunderstandings. But after resolving those, and explaining the cost of following Jesus, Stanley eagerly – with childlike wonder – said he was ready to become a Christian! We prayed with him to confess his sins, ask for forgiveness, and commit to follow Jesus.

It felt surreal when these things were happening. For some reason, I failed to grasp the significance of these events. But now I am moved to tears thinking about the magnitude of what happened in a small room in a church, in a small city like Durham, involving insignificant people like us.

After all that, I witnessed a touching scene: Caso extended his arm towards Stanley, and called him – brother.  

Brother. This is probably an aspect of Christianity that I neglect, not because it is unappealing, but because it is so difficult to actually live out. Christians forget that in the gospel, natural enemies have been reconciled; Christians forget that the gospel transcends culture; and Christians hurt one another too often. But that does not diminish the fact that we are now part of God’s family through adoption (Mark 3:31-35). And so I have gained two more brothers in Christ.

I also want to consider one other thing: the Christian’s call to live in light of the gospel. So I would like to share this theologically-rich song. (I chose this song because another iClub helper was singing it as we were packing down. It also reminded me of my days serving with YFC.)

Hear the call of the kingdom

Lift your eyes to the King

Let His song rise within you

As a fragrant offering

Of how God rich in mercy

Came in Christ to redeem

All who trust in His unfailing grace

Hear the call of the kingdom

To be children of light

With the mercy of heaven

The humility of Christ

Walking justly before Him

Loving all that is right

That the life of Christ may shine through us

(Chorus)

King of Heaven, we will answer the call

We will follow, bringing hope to the world

Filled with passion, filled with power to proclaim

Salvation in Jesus’ name

Hear the call of the kingdom

To reach out to the lost

With the Father’s compassion

In the wonder of the cross

Bringing peace and forgiveness

And a hope yet to come

Let the nations put their trust in Him

I was rebuked for my slothfulness and complacency tonight; and I was reminded of the power of the gospel. Two more people have heard the ‘call of the kingdom’ and responded. So let us strive to keep responding, and to keep proclaiming this call to more people! God will work through our weak efforts to establish His glorious kingdom – such a great reason to be simultaneously humble and confident. 

Thinking about Feelings

It is strange how our feelings are often beyond our control. Naturally, we cannot help but feel angry when we are offended or see injustice; we cannot help but feel sadness when we are hurt, or the people around us are; we cannot help but feel joy when something goes right for us or for people we care for. I believe this is true for most of us – unless we put in great amounts of effort to suppress our emotions.

I am currently feeling somewhat sentimental. Being back in Durham has been great – I have managed to catch up with a few friends, but I am also aware that for a few people I said goodbye to three months ago, our paths may never cross. And at the back of my mind, there is that one person – that I am hoping beyond hope – I would not have to say a permanent goodbye come June next year.

My rational mind cannot convince my feelings to halt its descent into self-destructing infatuation. So in a light-hearted spirit of hopelessness, here’s a poem I would like to share about ‘the one that got away.’ This poem is written by W.B. Yeats. It is pretty straightforward, except for the identity of ‘Love’ and the ‘he’ in the final stanza.

But this is not an essay, it is an avenue to articulate the various threads of thoughts which entangle my mind. So here’s the poem:

When you are old and grey and full of sleep, 

And nodding by the fire, take down this book, 

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look 

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; 

How many loved your moments of glad grace, 

And loved your beauty with love false or true, 

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, 

And loved the sorrows of your changing face; 

And bending down beside the glowing bars, 

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled 

And paced upon the mountains overhead 

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

What should I do now then? Definitely not wallow in the self-constructed prison of my feelings. I believe the gospel has power to save and redeem every part of us – including these emotions. I have not figured out how to deal with this issue, I readily admit I am lost. However, I am sure that I need not despair, I will trust in my saviour as he leads me day by day to face the evil without, and the darkness within. 

Poem: Out of the Mire of Despair

     I haven't written a poem in a long time. I've started on a few but cannot seem to finish them. Perhaps reading great poetry has exposed my poetic inadequacies and I am caught in a fear of failure - a sickening mental paralysis. The past week was tough, but when I really left my house for the first time in a week yesterday, I saw (what I think are) tulips growing on the outside of the wall. I've never really been one who appreciates flowers, but they caught my eyes - bright yellow and red. And I remembered another tulip, rather TULIP and slowly I found words. 

     2 Corinthians 4: 1-6 has been one of the most significant passages that taught me what grace looks like, and how one should respond to it. Here's verse 6 (perhaps my favourite Bible verse) before you read the poem: 'For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.'

Out of the mire of despair,

The Lord has lifted me.

He, whose image I had impaired,

Has heard my hopeless plea.

Far from my flashes of constancy,

The Lord, His word has kept.

Convulsed in rebellious ecstasy,

This being is sunk in debt

To unrighteous consistency -

The payment – yet – strangely met.

For the Curse was pronounced its doom

In tomes of ancient time;

A man would bear weak Adam’s doom,

A swap for humankind.

Then into the midnight of my soul,

My Lord has shone his light;

Evinced in wounds whence a crimson flow

Surely cured sin’s deadly blight.

Book Review: The Gospel - Ray Ortlund

     The full title of this book is The Gospel: How the Church Portrays the Beauty of Christ. And the subtitle is important to understand Ray’s point. He wants to show how gospel doctrine creates a gospel culture – and all that is to display Christ’s beauty.

     Thus, in this short book, Ray seeks to show the gospel implications for the individual, the (new) community (of believers) and the cosmos. These are the first three chapters of the book which provide the theological framework for the next four chapters.

     In chapters 4 – 7, Ray fleshes out what it looks like to ‘do church.’ He is realistic. Thus, he warns of suffering, of discouragement, of difficulty; at the same time he shows readers that because God is building His church, there is the joyful certainty that if the gospel is at the church’s ‘sacred centre,’ it can gradually become the community God designed it to be.

     Ray writes with great humility, gently showing us the folly of Christian self-trust (which, if we are honest with ourselves, is almost always the case), and pointing us to the glories of Christ’s gospel. This book is a call for churches to enjoy the gospel once more if we have lost sight of it, and to behold its beauty every day, because we can never get enough of it. It is also an encouragement and challenge for Christians to live passionately for the gospel.

     He quotes Francis Schaeffer ‘if we do not show beauty in the way we treat each other, then in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of our own children, we are destroying the truth we proclaim.’ And we can only show that kind of beauty if we have tasted, and are daily devouring the beauty of the gospel.

     I know my church needs a truly gospel culture. I don’t think I will suddenly love my fellow Christians in a drastically different (and better way), but this book has pointed out to me what I must do if I want to love better – be gripped by the gospel. So if you want to love the church better, I’d say this gem of a book is for you.

Book Reflection: Church History in Plain Language – Bruce L. Shelley

     Shelley notes that ‘surely one of the most remarkable aspects of Christianity today is how few of these professed believers have ever seriously studied the history of their religion.’ I definitely belong to this category, and I certainly regret not studying the history of Christianity earlier.

     What Shelley sets out to do in this book is to chart the development of Christianity from Jesus till the modern age (my edition is published in 2008, so up to that point). He attempts to do so by telling stories of people rather than merely stating cold hard facts. This writing style makes this crash course in Christian history very readable and accessible. Furthermore, there is no cost to the level of research and scholarship. Admittedly, he cannot explore people and incidents in great depth, but he is clear that his purpose is to do a general survey of the history of Christianity – a sort of appetiser to get us excited about learning more.

     Another feature of the book worth mentioning is the way he structures the chapters. He suggests large epochs:

1)    The Age of Jesus and the Apostles (6 BC – AD 70)

2)    The Age of Catholic Christianity (70 – 312)

3)    The Age of the Christian Roman Empire (312 – 590)

4)    The Christian Middle Ages (590 – 1517)

5)    The Age of the Reformation (1517 – 1648)

6)    The Age of Reason and Revival (1648 – 1789)

7)    The Age of Ideologies (1914 - )

     Under each age, he talks about significant people, movements and events that have shaped Christianity during those eras. Chapter lengths are manageable and quite neatly divided, so top points for organisation!

     Perhaps the only negative thing I have to say about the work is that there is certainly more focus on Western Christianity. We do not hear much about the Orthodox Church; neither do we read much about Christianity in Southeast Asia and Australia. But these complaints could be just me being greedy.

     I’ve definitely learned a few lessons and have been confronted with some questions. Through reading the book, I’ve become more aware of the Christian tradition that I now find myself in. By better understanding its roots, I’ve come to realise that this position – Reformed Evangelical Anglicanism - is quite a minority one. And it is humbling and somewhat scary; humbling in that I need to learn to be more tolerant and appreciative of the diversity of Christian traditions, and asserting I am right (even if I am right) in the hopes of convincing everyone else is already a failed historical experiment. So I definitely hope to be quicker to listen when someone speaks about Christianity differently, and try to understand the backgrounds and presuppositions that have shaped his doctrines and practices.

     And it is scary because for me this raises the question of truth: either some Christians are wrong, or nobody is right. The latter cannot be true, so it has to be the former. But what would that look like? Who determines who’s wrong and right? Protestantism would say take Scripture as the highest authority, but so many denominations claim to do so, yet interpret and apply things so differently. In other words, is there a single way to be Christian, or to do Christian ministry? These are, for me, nagging unanswered questions.

     However, Shelley argues that one thing unites all Christians – the Person Jesus Christ – and I wouldn’t dare disagree. Perhaps methodology may differ, perhaps there is a ‘better’ way of doing things. But what’s likely more important is that people are turning to Christ in repentance and faith and seeking to live under his lordship until he returns, all to God’s glory. I can see a picture of that in the international community here at Christchurch Durham. There’s a Brethren and some Methodists (this is, unfortunately not too diverse a group, but I think it illustrates my point), and though I disagree with many things they believe in, I am unashamed to call them brothers and sisters in Christ and to be ministers of the gospel together. Maybe, just maybe. (Also, I’ll try to ‘convert’ them in the process, haha! XD)

     I remember an illustration our student pastor uses to talk about Christian unity. He talks about planting the gospel flag in the ground, and all who run to it – those are who we will be united with. Sounds pretty similar to what Jesus says in Matthew 12:49 ‘And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”’

The Christian's Ode to Joy

This is arguably the best talk I've heard on the issue of not feeling what I know to be gospel truths. 

Don't listen to ourselves; talk to ourselves, for truth lies outside of us - in God's Word. 

For us men

     Below is an excerpt from Designed for Joy: How the Gospel Impacts Men and Women, Identity and Practice. I was very struck by this passage and thought it was worth sharing. 

     "My (Grant’s) dad, Charles Kelly Castleberry Jr., was a Marine Corps fighter pilot and a Christian. One night my dad’s squadron took a “mandatory” trip to a beach house somewhere along the Atlantic Coast. No wives or children were allowed to come. This was a special night in which many of the young pilots would receive their “call signs.” Shortly after my father arrived at the beach house, he realised why family members were not invited. Someone had invited strippers as entertainment for the evening. Later that night, when he confided this event to my mom, she asked him how he responded. He said that he had stayed in the corner of the beach house with his hand over his eyes.

     A few months later, my father was killed in a midair collision over the Atlantic Ocean. After my father’s crash, a pilot in the squadron gave my mom a picture that someone had taken inside the beach house that night. He told my mom that deep down “everyone respected Kelly for it, but no one had the guts to follow him.” Sure enough, in the photo was my father in the corner, hand covering his eyes. When I was a young boy, my mom showed me that picture and explained the integrity and courage my dad had displayed in that moment – integrity and courage that had characterised his life in Christ. Mom framed the picture and put it in my room as a constant reminder of his legacy.

     When the squadron cleaned out my dad’s locker after the accident, they found taped up inside his locker Paul’s last will and testament to a young pastor-in-training:

For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. (2 Tim. 4:6-8)

     My dad covered his eyes at the beach house because they were fixed on his Saviour. This focus isn’t easy. As Paul said, it’s a fight of faith. It’s a fight for purity. But it’s worth it. Christ is the purity we can count on. Keeping our eyes on him is worth it because he is the only one who can truly satisfy our souls. “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:14)." (pp. 116-117)

     The fight for purity takes guts, it takes courage – I don’t want to be a coward. In the gospel of Christ, I don’t have to be a coward.