Recently, it came to my attention that there was some conflict amongst some people I knew at church, and it spilled into what could be characteristically called - a blog war. Accusations, sniping and who knows what else was thrown on each side. To date, it still has not been resolved.
One of the good and bad things about the internet is that it has given voice to the dienfranchised. If I feel wronged, I blog, email, twit about it. Far more effective than making 100 phone calls or writing 100 letters (and a lot cheaper too). The problem here is the phrase "If I feel wronged"
Rather than talk about that. Let me point to the Word of God as usual (yes, yes, I know..we Calvinists always go on and on about the Word). Throughout the story of the Bible, it has been one of humanity feeling 'wronged'. Eve feel wronged for being duped by the serpent. Adam felt wronged by being sucked in by his wife. I bet both of them felt wronged when God gave them marching orders out of Eden. Cain felt done in by Abel, then did him in. Esau - done in by his deceitful brother Jacob. The list goes on...
History is one whole litany of man feeling he's been 'wronged'. Well, sorry, my Oprah sensitised touchy-feely people..there's only one who's been 'wronged' here - and it's God. Somehow or another, from day 1, we have been the abject failure of whatever it is we were supposed to be. We kill with words, then objects, or both. Hate, discord and greed is what we are best at sowing, not seeds of grace and love
And then we committed the ultimate wrong - we sent the Son of Man to the Cross.
Yes, you, chum. With your filthy, sick sins. You and I might as well have pounded the nails into his hands, or picked up the scourge to whip and tear his flesh. We are stand condemmned; and rightly so.
However, Jesus, the only man to have been wronged by every person in existence, bore the wrath that was due to us and took our sins. He who was justifiably wronged and should have exacted just retribution to us for our inquities gave his life for us instead. What grace..what mercy..what humanity. The truest sense of it. And beyond.
In finality, I am not saying that we shouldn't seek justice, resolution, reconciliation or dialogue. All of those things under the banner of Christ is all good. Damn good. What I am leaving you with is this - there is a bigger picture, and it goes beyond some bits of jottings on a blog. We should all seek to remember that, including me
SDG
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
At times, I have asked why I nit-pick over certain points or words in the Bible. I suppose it is a sign of the times that this current generation seems to eschew the practice of careful thorough analysis, as opposed to a cursory reading with an emphasis on the subjective experiential result at the end. Their feeling is: “ Why do you want to argue so much, I mean, can’t we all just stick to John 3:16, hold hands and sing ‘Kumbaya’?”
Unfortunately, I would call them out of their own hypocrisy. They say that words don’t really matter. Really? Ask your girlfriend or boyfriend how they felt about you. And if they said they ‘liked’ you when they meant they ‘loved’ you or vice-versa, can you see how much confusion and grievance that could possibly cost? Words, and their correct definition and placement within a context are tremendously important, and no more so than in God’s Word
One word that, by the grace of God, has made a comeback is “Propitiation”. It is not a word that we use very much any more but one that is vitally important in understanding the whole message of the Gospel. To ‘propitiate’ is to make a sacrifice to avert some form of judgement, wrath or anger. It is a word used to describe the conciliatory and atoning sacrifices made in order to avoid a divine punishment.
In recent times, this word was seen as primitive and not representative of what a ‘loving’ God should look like. So, it is no wonder that as some translations of the Bible omitted the aforementioned word, and used the term ‘expiate’ instead. This was seen in the New English Bible, where it is mentioned:
“ For God designed him to be the means of expiating sin by his sacrificial death, effective through faith. God meant by this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had overlooked the sins of the past..” ( Romans 3:25 : NEB )
What is the difference? To ‘expiate’ means that sin is removed, or put out. The root word ‘ex-’ is the same as the one used in words like ‘extinguish’ and ‘exhale’. Is a wrong word to describe God’s saving grace? No. Christ’s death on the cross indeed cancelled the debt of sin over us. It was redemptive in the removal the sin curse.
Is the word sufficient? No. It hardly does justice in depicting the real nature of his death. In using the word ‘propitiation’, as seen in the ESV translation below, we finally see that Christ’s death did not just remove the sin debt, but also appeased the wrath of God who previously had judged us all as sinners worthy only of receiving death. It also depicts that the very act of sending his own son is a testament to his loving grace and mercy and also characteristic of God as a just being. It is crucial that we see this, otherwise our depiction of God will be a one dimensional, mono-perspective one and our whole understanding of the Gospel will have been built on shaky foundations
“ whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance, he has passed over former sins.” ( Romans 3:25 : ESV )
‘Expiation’ is insufficient because it does not refer to the satisfaction or appeasement of God’s wrath, turning it to favour. God’s righteous anger needs to be appeased before sin can be forgiven (note the sequence), and God in his love sent his Son (who offered himself willingly) to satisfy God’s holy anger against sin. In this way, God demonstrates his righteousness, which here refers to his inate nature of being holy, and just.
Thus, one word is of matter of grave importance. At the very heart is the nature of salvation itself, and if one lacks a proper understanding of it, one does not have the correct understanding of God. It is that important, and it is that serious
SDG
Unfortunately, I would call them out of their own hypocrisy. They say that words don’t really matter. Really? Ask your girlfriend or boyfriend how they felt about you. And if they said they ‘liked’ you when they meant they ‘loved’ you or vice-versa, can you see how much confusion and grievance that could possibly cost? Words, and their correct definition and placement within a context are tremendously important, and no more so than in God’s Word
One word that, by the grace of God, has made a comeback is “Propitiation”. It is not a word that we use very much any more but one that is vitally important in understanding the whole message of the Gospel. To ‘propitiate’ is to make a sacrifice to avert some form of judgement, wrath or anger. It is a word used to describe the conciliatory and atoning sacrifices made in order to avoid a divine punishment.
In recent times, this word was seen as primitive and not representative of what a ‘loving’ God should look like. So, it is no wonder that as some translations of the Bible omitted the aforementioned word, and used the term ‘expiate’ instead. This was seen in the New English Bible, where it is mentioned:
“ For God designed him to be the means of expiating sin by his sacrificial death, effective through faith. God meant by this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had overlooked the sins of the past..” ( Romans 3:25 : NEB )
What is the difference? To ‘expiate’ means that sin is removed, or put out. The root word ‘ex-’ is the same as the one used in words like ‘extinguish’ and ‘exhale’. Is a wrong word to describe God’s saving grace? No. Christ’s death on the cross indeed cancelled the debt of sin over us. It was redemptive in the removal the sin curse.
Is the word sufficient? No. It hardly does justice in depicting the real nature of his death. In using the word ‘propitiation’, as seen in the ESV translation below, we finally see that Christ’s death did not just remove the sin debt, but also appeased the wrath of God who previously had judged us all as sinners worthy only of receiving death. It also depicts that the very act of sending his own son is a testament to his loving grace and mercy and also characteristic of God as a just being. It is crucial that we see this, otherwise our depiction of God will be a one dimensional, mono-perspective one and our whole understanding of the Gospel will have been built on shaky foundations
“ whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance, he has passed over former sins.” ( Romans 3:25 : ESV )
‘Expiation’ is insufficient because it does not refer to the satisfaction or appeasement of God’s wrath, turning it to favour. God’s righteous anger needs to be appeased before sin can be forgiven (note the sequence), and God in his love sent his Son (who offered himself willingly) to satisfy God’s holy anger against sin. In this way, God demonstrates his righteousness, which here refers to his inate nature of being holy, and just.
Thus, one word is of matter of grave importance. At the very heart is the nature of salvation itself, and if one lacks a proper understanding of it, one does not have the correct understanding of God. It is that important, and it is that serious
SDG
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Chicken or beef, sir?
Picture this:
You're at your wonderful, large comfortable middle class church with numerous programs. You've got programmes coming out of the wazoo. And all of them look good. Maybe a worship workshop? How about a power prayer seminar? Or maybe a retreat for some spiritual invigoration? Sounds good, right?
Decisions, decisions. Choice after choice
And yet..all so wrong
When you are faced with alternatives, and all those alternatives look good - how do you choose? I mean, it's not as though I've a choice between church or drugs, right? They are all 'spiritual' and 'godly' choices
Oh,oh..my normal readers (about 1 or 2 in the world..:-) )know that when I start using quotation marks, I'm about to get snarky, and they would be right
Listen very carefully:
If you choose what your heart is telling you to..chances are...it's the wrong choice.
Remember what it says in Jeremiah: "The Heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick. Who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9 ESV )
Your choice should be the one thing that you find boring, painful, a chore you wrestle with and the very thing you fear
For most people in church, it's serious Bible study. The one with no jokes, no trendy topics and dazzling music or video. Just you, a Bible and God. That's it.
I have seen the most spiritual looking and sounding people suddenly go weak at the mention of reading the Bible seriously. I have seen the same people in worship, raise their hands in glorious ecstasy to the King of Kings, promise that they will go to the ends of the earth for their Lord and fall to their knees in supplication..
..but they will not pick up his Word to know him better. His very precious divine word that has come through millenia, literal blood, sweat and tears and now is neatly bound in leather and sits in front of us in an airconditioned study room at church. We will not touch it.
Why? I've been asking over the weeks. Why is that?
Paul knew the answer, and it is a sobering one indeed:
" For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.."
( 2 Timothy 4:3 ESV )
Think about that for this week
SDG
You're at your wonderful, large comfortable middle class church with numerous programs. You've got programmes coming out of the wazoo. And all of them look good. Maybe a worship workshop? How about a power prayer seminar? Or maybe a retreat for some spiritual invigoration? Sounds good, right?
Decisions, decisions. Choice after choice
And yet..all so wrong
When you are faced with alternatives, and all those alternatives look good - how do you choose? I mean, it's not as though I've a choice between church or drugs, right? They are all 'spiritual' and 'godly' choices
Oh,oh..my normal readers (about 1 or 2 in the world..:-) )know that when I start using quotation marks, I'm about to get snarky, and they would be right
Listen very carefully:
If you choose what your heart is telling you to..chances are...it's the wrong choice.
Remember what it says in Jeremiah: "The Heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick. Who can understand it?" (Jeremiah 17:9 ESV )
Your choice should be the one thing that you find boring, painful, a chore you wrestle with and the very thing you fear
For most people in church, it's serious Bible study. The one with no jokes, no trendy topics and dazzling music or video. Just you, a Bible and God. That's it.
I have seen the most spiritual looking and sounding people suddenly go weak at the mention of reading the Bible seriously. I have seen the same people in worship, raise their hands in glorious ecstasy to the King of Kings, promise that they will go to the ends of the earth for their Lord and fall to their knees in supplication..
..but they will not pick up his Word to know him better. His very precious divine word that has come through millenia, literal blood, sweat and tears and now is neatly bound in leather and sits in front of us in an airconditioned study room at church. We will not touch it.
Why? I've been asking over the weeks. Why is that?
Paul knew the answer, and it is a sobering one indeed:
" For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.."
( 2 Timothy 4:3 ESV )
Think about that for this week
SDG
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