Hebrew History Writing

Coffee & History*

Our God reveals himself in human history.

He did not merely create the universe, populate the bit called Earth with munchkins and leave them alone to run along on their own, perhaps checking in occasionally to have a quick look round and fix whatever was broken; instead, he created the universe, continued and continues to sustain it to this day, guiding its complete workings and determining its direction. He did not relate to mankind by presenting the first man and woman with a nicely-bound autographed autobiographical "All You Ever Wanted to Know About Me (and More)" with "Laws for Living in My World" in an outlying Appendix XIII; instead, he related to the human race through the lives of individuals and nations, in their physical growth, their interpersonal relationships, their hearts and minds and experiences etc.

Because our God reveals himself in human history, so the important and authoritative snapshots of God's involvement in the Old Testament world are contained in Hebrew historical writing.

Hebrew History Writing
Hebrew history writing is quite different from the modern idealistic ideal of "objective history" ("idealistic" because history can never be objective. Variables inevitably include (i) the observer's interpretation of what happened; (ii) the message the observer tries to communicate about the event; and (iii) the message received by the listener.)

Differentiating Hebrew History Writing
Ancient historical standards allowed, even expected, history writing to have a specific point of view. Authors shaped material to drive home their specific messages, perhaps by a rearrangement of the chronological order, selection of certain facts, or lingering over some events while zooming past others. They were laissez faire with copyright (a new-fangled concept if any) and certainly didn't bother to credit their sources with footnotes like "Spoken by the LORD to Samuel at [insert venue] on [insert date] at [insert time], who later dictated these words to [insert name of scribe] and verified the same on [insert date] at [insert time]". Speeches were not recorded verbatim (bloopers, burps, body language and all) as they are now with, say, parliamentary reports in the Hansard (well, even then the bloopers, burps and body language are edited out. Come to think of it, even reality TV isn't verbatim.).

The other thing is that the Biblical authors were plainly and obviously biased, interpreting history in a theocentric manner.

Perhaps our indoctrinated modern minds are shell-shocked by this flagrant disregard of proper historical methods and intend to approach the Bible with more sneering skepticism ever than before. But hold the lift! There really are good reasons for retaining every confidence in the good book.

Trusting Hebrew History Writing
The Bible does not purport to be a litany of historical facts nor an encyclopaedia of every thing that has ever happened in the universe. It confronts us not with history but with literature about history. What we find in the bible is not a chronology of all the events in the Middle East but an interpretation of selected events.

However, this does not impute that the events that are the subject of this interpretation are fictitious. In fact, the authors made sure of their historical facts - their location and their significance - and frequently appealed to their having-happened-ness. For example, in 1 Samuel alone, the author writes of God reminding Eli and the people of the Exodus rescue from Egypt (1 Samuel 2:27 and 1 Samuel 10:18), of the Philistines remembering God's judgement on the Egyptians before the Exodus (1 Samuel 4:8) and the hardened heart of the Pharaoh (1 Samuel 6:6)... It did matter to the Old Testament authors that the Exodus did actually happen because that event was integral to their message; if there was no Exodus, then there was no evidence of a God who worked in the past to rescue the forefathers of the Israelites from Egypt, and so, no reason to appeal to his goodness and faithfulness and power to spur them to obedience and submission.

In quality of history writing, it is the modern history writers who are deficient, not the Hebrew history writers. Far above the human limitations of the moderns who cannot but focus myopically on, say, the social, economic or political aspects of the same event, the Old Testament authors had a glorious bird helicopter God's-eye view of history. Up there, everything was as clear as day. The interpretation by the Old Testament writers of events in their day was not a product of their superior intellect nor remarkable inference, but rather, God's authoritative disclosure to certain servants of his concerning what he had done, is doing and will do. God granted to selected men an understanding of these things.

And because event + interpretation = revelation, God is thus revealed to us.

So the focus of our exegesis and exposition of Hebrew history writings in Bible studies and sermons is neither to prove the historicity of the text, nor concentrate on the historical facts and ignore the interpretation, nor make up our own interpretation (which we inevitably think is far superior to that of ye olde Old Testament author). The Old Testament events have already been interpreted by God himself, through his servants, and our work is not to say more or less than what the Spirit of God conveyed to those whom he first disclosed the meaning.

*"The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text" by Sidney Greidanus, an extremely helpful homiletician.

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Because our God works in human history, so most Hebrew history writing is inevitably and necessarily narrative. And reading Hebrew historical narrative, it seems, is a completely different kettle of fish.

The Danger of Anthropocentric (Man-centered) Preaching of Old Testament Narratives
Old Testament Narratives: Theocentric Narratives with a Theocentric Purpose

Sunday Night Samuel, Biblical Criticism and Reading Biblical Narrative

I think we're quite done with wedding dinners this month, he said. Before the wedding madness starts again in July, let's skip onedotzero and have a quiet night at home.

So the quiet night was: steak pies in the oven while Artur Rubinstein's necromantic hands wrung the poetic depth out of Chopin's normally anaemic waltzes (it's whingy old Fryderyk. Therefore, not the dancey kind, Pole-dancey or otherwise) and crashed through the nocturnes. Later, cold bottles of Chimay, courtesy of some Trappist monks, fuelled an attempted demonstration of how Vladimir Horowitz might have cheekily decimated a fragile timid poofy audience with his own outrageous interpretation (and also an attempted demonstration of how the same fragile timid poofy audience might have swooned in nervous shock in their plush red velvet seats). And later still, a wedge of brie de meaux, bitty crispbreads and a good readaloud of 1 and 2 Samuel.

Riverting stuff. Loved the dry humour. Can't wait to start the 1 Samuel studies!

The question is, how does one study the Old Testament, especially Old Testament biblical narrative?

Biblical Criticism
To reveal himself to mankind, God spoke in a human language. Had he initiated contact in the language of the angels we would have been none the wiser. He chose, rather, to reveal himself a language understood by humans, and he did so to a particular people, in particular times and circumstances in their own language, in their own dialects and slang.

So if we are to understand those messages, we must somehow seek to put ourselves back into the situation of the original recipients of the Word. We must discover exactly what the original authors of the Scriptures meant by their words. The generic term for techniques used to study the meaning of Bible passages is "biblical criticism" ("criticism" not that the reader sits in judgement over the Word but that he seeks to understand it).

Historical Criticism
In ancient times (as the reallyratherlongdeadhuman author of Samuel is fond of saying), when people drove manual cars, historical criticism was the preferred method of understanding the Bible. Historical criticism sought to investigate the origins of the Bible, the sources of the documents and determine the authorship, date, and place of composition of the text.

Gordon Wenham noted in his 1998 Griffith Thomas lecture*:

To understand the message of the Bible it is absolutely essential to have some understanding of the social setting in which its books were written. Otherwise we shall import our own twentieth-century models, impose them on the text and come up with quite a misleading interpretation. For example, Genesis 2:24 makes a very significant comment about the nature of marriage: 'For this reason a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh.' But what exactly does it mean? A Westerner reading this passage might well conclude that it is endorsing our practice of setting up home independently of our parents, often indeed a long way from them. Indeed I remember reading a book by a missionary in Nigeria who criticized Nigerian men for continuing to live near their parents after they married. This he said was unbiblical and harmful to the marriage relationship! In fact what the Nigerians did was precisely what the Israelites did!! On marriage it was the woman who moved, not the man. The man stayed put, because he would succeed to his father's job and land, and the new wife moved in with him. In a literal physical sense the ancient Israelite man did not leave his family at all. So what is Genesis 2:24 really saying? Something far more profound than telling you where to live when you marry: it is talking about priorities and commitments. Before marriage a man's first obligations are to his parents. In the Ten Commandments, 'honour your father and mother' comes immediately after our obligations to God and before 'Thou shalt not kill'. In the ancient world filial duty was regarded as the supreme obligation. But according to Genesis 2:24 marriage changes this. Now a man's first duty is to care for his wife, and secondarily to care for his parents. 'He leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife.' Read in the context of OT society, rather than modern ideas, we see that Genesis 2:24 is a statement that revolutionizes the status of married women. Wives are not mere appendages or chattels of their husbands, rather the welfare of his wife must be a man's first concern.

Perhaps I may give another illustration of the necessity of understanding the social setting of the Bible if we are to grasp its intentions correctly. Leviticus 19:9-10 says, 'When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap the field to its very border....' The motive of this law is then explained: 'You shall leave them for the poor and the sojourner [i.e. the immigrant].' But J. V. Taylor in his book Enough is Enough expounded this text as proof of the Bible's ecological concern, that we should not exploit the earth to its limits. And in a lecture I heard him say he was outraged at visiting an agricultural show where combine harvesters which boasted of their ability to reap right up to the edge of the field were on display. How unbiblical, he said! But he had failed to grasp the purpose of the law and the difference between our society and theirs. The law is designed to help the poor of ancient Israel, who were scattered throughout the land and could indeed easily go into the countryside and glean in the fields of their well-to-do neighbours (see the book of Ruth). But the poor of our society are in the cities, far from the fields. To leave the edges of our fields unreaped would not help them in the least. We must devise quite different welfare measures in our society to help our poor. So I believe historical criticism has a most important role to play in delineating the nature of biblical society. Without such sociological study we are liable to make terrible mistakes in interpreting and applying Scripture today.

Form Criticism
Form criticism seeks to analyse Biblical texts by first by identifying a text's genre or conventional literary form, such as parables, proverbs, epistles, or love poems by identifying the typical features of texts such, especially their conventional forms or structures. It goes on to seek the sociological setting for each text's genre; its Sitz im Leben (situation in life).

The advantage of form criticism is that it has made us aware of the conventions that guided the biblical authors. It enables us to appreciate why they arranged material in the way they did, for example in the laws, the psalms, and the epistles. Through form criticism we can be more clear about the writers' intentions: why they included certain details and omitted others. And this knowledge should keep us from misinterpreting and misapplying biblical texts today.*

Source Criticism
Source criticism is concerned with elucidating the sources used by the biblical writers. For example, the book of Kings often refers to the royal annals of Judah and Israel, suggesting that if one wants further details about the events recorded these annals should be consulted. And for a historian concerned to reconstruct the exact course of Old Testament history, source criticism is clearly very important if he wants to come as close as possible to the earliest account of events.*

Redaction Criticism
What the editors do, whether they be Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, or the compiler of Kings, is also of great concern to Bible readers. By comparing their work with their source we can discover what their special interests are. We can see what they have left out, what they have added from another source, what aspects of the original they have played up, what they have played down. In this way we gain a much clearer insight into the editor's theological viewpoint and the message he is trying to convey. And this investigation, what is termed redaction criticism, has proved extremely fruitful for more clearly understanding the text.*

[Taken to silly extremes however, form, source and redaction criticism have gotten people's knickers in a twist. Documentary Hypothesis, in which the Pentateuch was thought to be a conflation of various sources – J, E, D and P, is a good example. You see, says Documentary Hypothesis, there were several sources of information out there and someone did a bit of a cut-and-paste job with them. Unfortunately for us, the final editor of the Pentateuch was so uncommonly daft that he didn't realise different sources were contradictory (eg. say, Genesis 1 and Genesis 2), and included them both! Side by side! (He also appeared to have had a singular lack of chums courteous enough to point this out to him.)

David Cline's seminal "New Directions in Pooh Studies: Überlieferungs- und religionsgeschichtliche Studien zum Pu-Buch" masterfully applies Documentary Hypothesis to the Pooh corpus to demonstrate that the text indicates the interweaving of various sources and thus the fallacy of unitary authorship of that corpus must be abandoned. Likewise, Mark Shea shares his thoughts on how "The Lord of the Rings" could not have been written by one so-called "author" named "Tolkien". ;-)]

Biblical Semantics
Linguistical studies have transformed our approach to determining the precise meaning of words in Scripture. Far too often, sermons are based on sloppy etymologies or words or phrases taken out of context, but linguistics has shown that this is quite mistaken. So quite central terms in the Bible's theological vocabulary, e.g. faith, soul, redemption, justification, may have been misunderstood by amateurs who fail to understand how language works. Modern linguistics has taught us to examine the context in which words are used rather than their etymology to determine their meaning. It has taught us to study language synchronically before studying it diachronically. In practice this means we must examine the usage of a word in a particular book of the Bible before examining its usage and meaning elsewhere. Just because a word means one thing in one writer, it does not necessarily follow that another writer uses it in exactly the same way. And once we recognise this principle we may well be on the way to resolving the apparent contradictions between different parts of Scripture, for example between Paul and James.*

New Literary Criticism
Finally, we have the new literary criticism, which focuses on the structure and plot development of stories and characterisation so that characters in the story come alive as real people not as mere names on the page.

For example, literary critics insist that repetition within a story often offers very valuable clues to the attitudes of the people involved. We must examine closely who says what, and what phrases they use: eg. after God has promised Sarah a child, she laughs in disbelief. The RSV says,"After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?" And it is remarkable that such brazen unbelief should be treated so mildly by God. Think of Isaiah's rebuke of King Ahaz when he refused to believe his message (Isaiah 7:13). But Sarah apparently gets away with it. Why?

A careful examination of the phraseology here gives the answer. The narrator first of all gives an objective, almost clinical, account of Sarah's situation:"Abraham and Sarah were old, well on in years. Sarah had stopped having periods". But Sarah describes herself more colourfully:"After I am worn out, shall I have pleasure? And my husband is old too".

From her language we see her real state of mind. It is not blind unbelief, rather it is the hopelessness of a woman exhausted by life who has been disappointed so often that she dare not believe things will change. And this could be why God in his mercy treats her so gently.

In some ways this new-style literary criticism is a reversion to the older exegetical methods used before the nineteenth century. Reading the older commentaries, eg. of Calvin or the mediaeval rabbis, one sometimes comes across interpretations like this. But this new-style criticism is a great advance over these old works. Their insights rested on the imagination of the commentator, and one is therefore never really quite sure whether Calvin's interpretation would have met with the biblical writers' approval. But the new literary criticism is based much more closely on hints contained within the text itself, so I dare to hope it is indeed enabling us to recover the original writers' understanding.*

An example of how literary criticism is used in relation to Old Testament narrative is provided by Iain Provan, V. Phillips Long and Tremper Longman III in "A Biblical History of Israel":

Biblical narratives may be characterized under three rubrics: scenic, subtle, succinct...

OT narratives are scenic — not in the sense of detailed descriptions of the physical setting or scene, but, rather, scenic in the way that a stage play involves scenes. Like a stage play, the OT narratives do more showing than telling. The reader is seldom explicitly told by the narrator how this or that character, or this or that action, is to be evaluated (though this does occasionally occur). Instead, the reader is shown the characters acting and speaking and is thereby drawn into the story and challenged to reach evaluative judgments on his or her own. In other words, the reader comes to know and understand the characters in the narrative in much the same way as in real life, by watching what they do and by listening to what they say. The scenic character of OT narrative leads quite naturally to a second dominant trait.

OT narratives are subtle. As implied already, OT narrators are generally reticent to make their points directly, preferring to do so more subtly. To this end, they employ an array of more indirect means in developing the narrative's characterizations and in focusing reader attention on those aspects of the narrative that contain its persuasive power. Mention of physical details, for instance, is seldom if ever random. If we read that Esau was hairy, Ehud left-handed, Eglon fat, and Eli portly and dim-sighted, we should anticipate (though not insist) that such details in some way serve the characterizations or actions of the story. Sometimes the words or deeds of one character serve as indirect commentary on those of another character. When Jonathan, for instance, remarks that "nothing can hinder the LORD from saving by many or by few" (1 Sam. 14:6), this casts Saul's excuse in the preceding chapter — "the people were slipping away" (13:11) — into a different light than a first reading might have done. Even small changes in the narrator's commentary on events may have far-reaching implications, not just literarily but historically as well. Immediately following King David's charge to his successor, Solomon, in 1 Kings 2:1-10, the narrator registers David's death (v. 11) and remarks (v. 12) that Solomon's "kingdom was firmly established" (made emphatic by Hebrew me)od), and this without Solomon having yet done anything. There follows an account of Solomon's eradication of Joab and Shimei (vv. 13-46), persons deemed dangerous by his father, and the account concludes with another narratorial comment (similar but not identical to v. 12): "So the kingdom was establised in the hand of Solomon" (v. 46). Gone is the adverb me)od, rendered "firmly" in v. 12. Added is the phrase "in the hand of Solomon," which is better rendered in this context as "by the hand of Solomon". Without coming right out and saying it, the narrator hints that Solomon's initial efforts to secure his kingdom by his own hand have accomplished little or nothing. His early days tell "a fairly sordid story of power-politics". No wonder, then, that Solomon confesses, in the next chapter, to feeling like a "little child" who does not "know how to go out or come in" (3:7). Ironically, it will be news of the death not only of David but especially of Joab that will trigger the return of Hadad the Edomite (1 Kgs. 11:21), the first adversary raised up by Yahweh (1 Kgs. 11:14) when it becomes necessary to "chasten" the apostate Solomon with "floggings inflicted by men" (2 Sam 7:14; NIV). If such subtleties often go unnoticed by modern literary readers, how much more so do they escape historians, but they can prove essential to proper reading and reconstruction.

OT narratives are succinct. Perhaps in part because of the constraints of writing in a scenic, or episodic, mode, biblical narrators tend to be economical in their craft. They accomplish the greatest degree of definition and colour with the fewest brushstrokes. Biblical stories, although written, are "geared toward the ear, and meant to be listened to at a sitting. In a 'live' setting the storyteller negotiates each phrase with his audience. A nuance, an allusion hangs on nearly every word". The very succinctness of the biblical narratives invites close attention to detail, and all the more so because the biblical narrators were masters in drawing special attention to key elements in their texts. They use all manner of repetitions to great advantage — words and word stems (i.e. Leitworte), motifs, similar situations (sometimes called "type scenes" or "stock situations"), and the like. The effect of repetition is often to underscore a central theme or concern in a narrative, as, for instance, in the repetition of the phrase "listen to the voice/sound" in 1 Samuel 15. As the chapter opens, Saul is exhorted to "listen" to the Lord's "voice" (v. 1) and destroy all the Amalekites (man and beasts): later he claims to have done so (v. 13); Samuel responds by asking about the "voice" of the sheep and cattle to which he is "listening" (v. 14); Samuel and Saul debate whether Saul has or has not "listened to the voice" of the Lord (vv. 19-20); when Saul seeks to excuse his failure to listen by claiming to have spared livestock only in order to sacrifice to the Lord, Samuel responds that "listening to the voice" of the Lord is vastly more important than sacrifice (v. 22); and Saul begrudgingly concedes that he has "listened to the voice" of the people (v. 24). While the attentive reader can surely judge from the general flow of the passage that Saul's (dis)obedience is a central theme, attention to the literary fabric of the passage underscores and enriches this insight.

Our brief description of the scenic, subtle, and succinct character of biblical narratives only begins to scratch the surface. Beyond these basics, readers—even those (or perhaps especially those) whose interests are in historical questions—will profit greatly from immersing themselves in...works...by Alter, Longman, and Sternberg. The key point is that biblical accounts must be appreciated first as narratives before they can be used as historical sources—just as they cannot be dismissed as historical sources simply because of their narrative form.

If this how Old Testament narrative is to be read, and it is the text that should shape the Bible study or the sermon, then it suggests exciting ways of leading Bible studies or preaching sermons on these texts (more on that here)!

Limitations of Biblical Criticism
However, before we all run off with the newest-fangled theory on how to read the Bible, we must remember that a perfect critical theory is not the end point. We as Christians are not so much interested in say, source criticism, for the sources that lie behind Scripture but in the text of Scripture itself.

And again, historicity is not everything. It of course matters whether Jesus lived, died, and rose again. But there was a Jewish scholar, Pinchas Lapide, who believed in these facts without being a Christian. And I suppose that if the Turin shroud had proved to be genuine, it would not have persuaded many unbelievers that Jesus was indeed resurrected. It is most heartening when archaeologists find evidence corroborating the historical record of the Bible, whether it be the names of the patriarchs, the ashes of towns sacked by Joshua, the pool of Bethesda or the house of Peter in Capemaum. All these discoveries confirm our faith in the historical reliability of the Bible. But the Bible is more than a human history book. Throughout, it claims to be offering a divine interpretation of public historical events, an interpretation that is beyond the scope of human verification. Take for example the book of Kings. It ends with recording the sacking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and Jehoiachin's release from prison. These are events that are beyond dispute because they are also mentioned in contemporary Babylonian records. However these events are not recorded in Kings just because the writer wanted to mention them as important events. He has included them because they reveal God's attitude to Israel, that he was angry with them for breaking the covenant, that he was fulfilling the warnings made much earlier by Moses. Now who can check whether this interpretation is correct? Obviously no one. We cannot telephone God to check if that was his attitude or not. We simply have to accept or reject the view of the book of Kings. We have no means of checking his view. It is beyond the possibility of human verification. But that does not make it unimportant or insignificant: clearly it was the main theological point being made in Kings that Israel and Judah were punished for their sins. So let us keep the issue of historicity in perspective. As Christians we shall wish to maintain that where the Bible is relating historical events they really happened, but let us bear in mind that it is not so important that they occurred so much as what they teach us about God and his purposes and how we should respond.*

Critical issues can easily divert us from the purpose of Scripture. Like the Jews we should be searching the Scriptures to find eternal life. Or as Paul said, "Whatever was written in former times was written for our instruction, that we might have hope" (Romans 15:4). The purpose of the Scriptures is not simply to stimulate us academically, or to provide a living for professional biblical scholars. It is to lead us to God. Biblical criticism offers us indispensable aids to the interpretation and understanding of the Bible. But often instead of being the handmaid of Scripture it has become its master. I suppose that in the last 200 years there have been more than a hundred scholarly books discussing the criticism of Deuteronomy, its date, authorship, sources and so on. But very few have focused on its theology, or the meaning of its teaching and laws for today. And there is a similar imbalance in some biblical courses too - plenty on critical theory, and little on theology and its application. Yet what is the chief concern of Deuteronomy? "Hear O Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD, and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might".*

When the academic study of Scripture diverts our attention from loving God with all our heart, soul and strength, I think we should pause and take stock. We should ask ourselves whether we are using it as it was intended. The Bible is both a divine book and a human book. Because it is a human book we cannot understand it unless we employ all the types of biblical criticism to the full. But because it is also a divine book we must recognise that these tools are insufficient by themselves for us to grasp and apply its message. To do that we must have a humble mind and heart and the guidance of the Spirit.*

*"The Place of Biblical Criticism in Theological Study", Gordon J. Wenham, Themelios 14.3 (April 1989): 84-89.

Marriage Is Not God's Answer to Loneliness

Emo (Badly Drawn) Boy
Back of a pub receipt with a barmaid's pencil stub

For Emo Boy, who wears his loneliness like a badge; the modern day Prometheus, condemned to having his beating bleeding heart ripped out at every gig. For the sweet StickyDateToffeePudding Girl with no date. And for all the other lonely hearts out there, the tender graphic novelists, those wasting away from the bitter coldcoffeetaste of unrequited crushes, those pining to find and be found by their soulmates...

Aiyah, not like that one lah.

Marriage Is Not God's Answer to Loneliness
Christopher Ash

In one of my favorite cartoons (given me by a fellow minister) a group of cavemen stand on the top of a cliff. One has just been hurled over the edge. As he falls, the leader turns to the group and asks,"Now, is there anyone else here who feels their needs are not being met?" As pastors, we are under insidious pressure to show people how their needs can be met. Perhaps nowhere more so than in the expectations which are promoted of sex and marriage.

We live in a society where sexual relationships (whether married or not) are held up as the place supremely where needs are met; here, we are told, is self-fulfillment, self-realization, contentment, and joy. How many films portray a sociable and contented bachelor or spinster? (And how old-fashioned and fuddy-duddy those words sound!) Either the lead character is in what we call a "relationship" (by which revealing shorthand we mean a sexual relationship) or the drama consists in his or her getting "into" one. If it’s a feel-good movie, they end up in the relationship. They don't often ride off into the sunset in a happy group of unmarried friends!

We pastors encourage this whenever we preach from Genesis 2:18 that God's purpose for marriage is to remedy human loneliness. I write as one who has been guilty of this misreading myself in the past. But I am sure it is a misreading, for two reasons.

First, from the flow of Genesis 2. When we begin a marriage reading at Genesis 2:18 and read,"It is not good that the man should be alone", we naturally interpret it within our cultural framework. So one Christian writer says of this verse,"It's simply said that Adam had a personal need, and this was basis enough for God to fill the void" (my italics). One children’s story bible we used with our children put these words into Abraham's mouth for Genesis 24, after Sarah has died and when he wants Isaac to find a wife:"I must make sure that Isaac has a wife to love him. I don't want him to be on his own when I die." A sweet thought, but far removed from the text or sentiments of Genesis 24. Similarly, on this kind of reading of Genesis 2:18, poor old Adam was lonely. A pet or a farm animal (v. 19ff.) cannot be the companion he needs.

But we forget the context. Adam has just been placed in God's garden with a very responsible job to do: he is "to work it and keep it" (v. 15). He is the gardener (cf., Psalm 8). And in this context God looks at him and says it is not good for him to be alone. He needs a helper (not specifically a companion). Why does he need a helper? Not because he is lonely, but because the job is too big for him on his own. Which is a pointer that the reason God invented marriage is that we might the better serve Him in His world. Marriage is not an introspective religion of coupledom in which each gazes endlessly into the other's eyes and each expects to be all to the other. Rather it is an outward-looking union dedicated to serving God together. When contemporary Protestants buy in to the contemporary idolatry of "relationship", we act as though marriage were a discipleship-free zone. But it is not. There is a world to be cared for, people to be loved and brought into the loving fellowship of the people of God.

Which leads to my second reason. In the rest of Scripture, God makes it clear that His remedy for human loneliness is fellowship, not (necessarily) marriage. Fellowship with the Father and the Son, and with our brothers and sisters in Christ, this is God's remedy for loneliness. It is a remedy gloriously open to all, including all those for whom marriage is not a possibility—those too young for marriage, the widowed, the divorced, those struggling with homosexual temptation, those who cannot find a marriage partner.

Many passages in Scripture speak of love and the fulfillment of human longings; yet very few speak of marriage in this context. For example, in 1 John 4:7-21, we read in wonderful depth about the love of God for His people, the love of His people for God, the love of His people for one another; but marriage and sex are nowhere in sight. In 1 Thessalonians 2:6-8, Paul speaks with great warmth about the sharing of his life with the believers; but again, sex and marriage are nowhere in sight. 1 Corinthians 13, so popular for marriage services, is actually about the love that ought to (but in Corinth does not) mark a fellowship of believers. John 13-16 are all about fellowship love, but again sex and marriage are nowhere in sight. Nowhere in the Psalms are the longings of the human heart related to sexual love (except perhaps Psalm 45, although this focuses more on the joy of a family).

So, as pastors let us keep the challenge of discipleship and the privilege of serving Christ uppermost when we teach about sex and marriage. Those of us who are called to marriage are called to serve God in our marriages and not to expect our needs to be met. Too many who have expected their needs to be met have found themselves falling off the proverbial cliff into disillusion.

This article was originally published in Kairos Insight. Christopher Ash was then the Minister of All Saints Church in Little Shelford, England. He is now the Director of the Cornhill Training Course in London and will be speaking at the Project Timothy Bible Conference in Singapore, come July.

MAAD-ness!

The MAAD-ness starts in July at the Red Dot Traffic Building and we have plans! Any readymade audience is good if you have good news.

MAAD factor
Tell us why you think you are MAAD? Our MAAD curators will assess your idea or work with reference to impetus, originality, innovativeness, aesthetics, functionality, emotional content and commercial viability. You justneed to show two or three of such traits to be MAAD.

MAAD-ness
imagine 10,000 shoppers each Sunday. imagine 200 stalls selling ONLY original creative works in the coolest museum in town. imagine busy selling. imagine not selling at all but still busy, getting feedback and improving on your ideas and works. imagine enjoying each Sunday in the company of other MAAD people!

MAAD house
MAAD is supported by the red dot design museum which occupies the former traffic police hq along Maxwell Road. There is Tanjong Pagar MRT station just 3 min walks away, plenty of bus services nearby, and lots of car parking space.

MAAD curators
Johnny Lau Cartoonist (Mr. Kiasu) and managing director of INC3, an incubator for creative businesses.
Edward Tonino Senior Director, Philips Design
Kelley Cheng Editorial Director in Page One Publishing and founder of ISH Magazine.
"S" An urban art activist, known for his political and social provocative art work on streets all over Europe.
Niko Saurma Director, BMW Designworks
Delia Prvacki Ceramic artist with large scale works at Douby Ghaut MRT, NUS and the new Zouk.
Wykidd Song Fashion Designer, Founder of Song+Kelley
Ken Koo Asia president, red dot design awards
Ketna Patel Artist, Asian pop arts

MAAD sunday
MAAD sunday, the Market of Artist And Designer is a recurring Sunday market for original creative work in the field of art, music, media, design, fashion and innovations. the motivation of this market is to provide a platform to test the commercial viability of the creative works and to promote creative entrepreneurship.

Ok, must think about the application when there's time.

So far the MAAD lineup includes:

• Baked Ideas by Karen
• Killer Heels
• Lave-Laine
• madbeautiful bags
• Oh!Petita
• Summer Fly
• tinyredbird by May

The more complete storelist can be found here!

Lousy Evangelistic Tools for Answering Postmodernists and Others

Answering Postmodernists
How does one answer a postmodernist (or rather pseudo-postmodernists, since there aren't really any real ones)?

Evidentialism
Well many selective postmodernists, pseudo-postmodernists, are really good old-fashioned modernists at heart, convinced that beliefs are justified only if there is sufficient evidence for such a belief.

However, such modern evidentialism, stemming from René Descartes' requirement of absolute proof (or alleged requirement anyway since "I think therefore I am" is hardly absolute proof), fails as a method of justifying any beliefs. The Cartesian requirement for absolute proof in turn requires prior evidence that this standard is indeed correct as a method of justifying beliefs, and if such evidence is produced, that evidence would itself have to be justified, ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

On human terms, evidentialism appeared to be the path I trod to a saving relationship with Christ. But upon further reflection, evidentialism was but a bridge. Coming to Christ was ultimately, not a long road travelled but a miraculous teleportation from one dimension to another.

Evidentialism doesn't force anyone to believe that there is a good God who is control of the entire universe, nor that we rebelled against him by ignoring him, nor that rightful judgement awaits us for this rebellion, nor that Jesus Christ is the only way by which we will be saved from eternal destruction. The historicity of the Gospels, the reliability of the New Testament documents, the textual and manuscript evidence, the archaeological evidence, the internal consistency, the hundreds of fulfilled prophecies might make one think of Christianity as pretty neat and slightly interesting, but they don't cause people to cling to Christ as their only hope of salvation.

Other Apologetic Tools
Other apologetic methodology like presuppositionalism and reformed epistemology can be read about elsewhere.

However, whatever the apologetic poison (whether evidentialism, presuppositionalism (revelational, rational or practical), reformed epistemology or others), the Scriptures are quite clear that none of them are foolproof and all are bound to fail as tools for turning the hearts of the people to God.

Why? Because the problem lies not with the message nor the proclaimer of the message but the listener.

Man's Total Depravity
Says Paul of all mankind every where in the world:

what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. (Romans 1:19-20)

So there are no valid excuses for thinking that there isn't a God, or if there is one, that he's an unworthy unconcerned weakling.

The message of the existence and glory of God is clear as day, very plain to see and very easy to understand. But the listeners blinded themselves, stopped up their own ears and, apparently, sneezed their brains out through their noses. They deliberately suppressed any knowledge of this and instead wallowed in their own dark clouded theories. So no matter what creative evangelistic methods are used to put the message across, the audience just. won't. get. it.

And so

although all men knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened (Romans 1:21).

Instead,

claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles (Romans 1:22-23). They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25).

And the result of this is the suffering and horribleness of this world:

since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. (Romans 1:28-31)

And so

the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. (Romans 1:18)

Escape Route
How can people be saved from this terrible wrath of God? How can we be made to see our folly of exchanging the truth about God for the worship of a self-constructed lie? How can we be saved from our certain destruction?

The thing is, we can't. Remember, our eyes, ears and hearts have been darkened. No amount of reasoning or nagging will dissuade us to come off the edge of the cliff. We don't need to be told the truth, we just need the ability to see and comprehend the truth that is already plain to us. But our sinfulness pervades every part of our being, preventing us from doing so. Then what hope is there for anyone?

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). All deserve eternal death. But (and what a wonderful "but" it is), God, in his divine forbearance, passed over our former sins. How could he do that and still be just? How could he redeem people from hell without paying for them? Through his gift, his payment of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross. (Romans 3:24-26). And all there is to be done to receive this salvation is by having faith, trusting that God will deliver us from destruction as he promised.

Tally ho! We're home safe!

Or are we?

Remember that our eyes, ears and hearts have been darkened. Therefore, even with such a unbelievably shiok precious free gift right in front of us, we will never really be persuaded to take it and hang on to it, creative evangelism, powerful persuasion or not. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14).

What we need is a complete and miraculous overhaul of the heart and mind. And only God can perform such an overhaul.

So while apologetic tools like presuppositionalism and evidentialism do help to build bridges to unbelievers and remove some barriers to belief, they can never cause anyone to be saved. We need to be born again. People in their natural, unregenerate state do not have the ability to turn to God. Rather it is the grace and will of God through the Spirit that causes men who are dead in sin to be reborn through the Word of God. No one can come to Jesus unless the Father who sent Jesus draws him and Jesus will raise him up on the last day (John 6:44).

And we pray and depend on God to work through our faithful proclamation of the gospel to generate this rebirth in others as we were once reborn. For their salvation and ultimately, for his glory.

Gigs, Neil Gaiman, Pseudo-Postmodernism, Meaninglessness and Apologetics

Right. Now that there's been time to do abit of housekeeping, what with the ARPC church camp and youth camp, here's a post from a month ago (21 May 2006):

A smörgåsbord of gig offerings last night:

Unplucked featuring Pat Chng, highrise and ETC at Earshot Cafe and Nat's naked fowl with a feather in her butt,

Openstage 2 showcasing Jim Beam girls in white cowboy hats, Documentary in Amber, Love Experiment and The Stoned Revivals at Timbre,

a rock bash for the Jamwerkz Opening at Gashaus and some sweltering kiddy moshing at IJ Studios, Gordon Industrial Building. So some thoughtful prioritising had to be done.

Then later...early in the cool dark morning, when the screech of cicadas had taken over from the wail of electric basses, we were seated in a line along the curb, spotlit by incandescent street lamps, doing coin tricks to prove we could still walk in a straight line thankyouofficer, peeling wet labels off empty Hoegaardens and setting them alight with snippy Zippos, talking about how it felt to hear some part of your life immortalised in someone's songs and about setting up record labels even as Cafe Cosmo was set to run her farewell lap in the coming week.

Then still later, when heady perfume of night flowers had grown faint in the tentative light and there was an expectant hush as the world gathered itself up for the new day ahead, I was restless and anxious to get back to my postmodernist readings for the seminar next month.

So after some quick shuteye and Chris' sermon at the ARPC service at Kuo Chuan Secondary, we found ourselves tucked away in a nice quiet corner after lunch, with Neil Gaiman between us.

Neil Gaiman's a particularly pleasant introduction to popular postmodern literature. Before Magic The Gathering and the advent of teenage acne, my childhood weekends were spent among the shelves of Comics Mart in Serene Centre, surreptitiously (because I lacked the years and the dollars to purchase them) reading "Black Orchid" and "The Sandman" and marvelling at Dave McKean's fab cover and divider graphic art that were certainly not the usual stuff of primary-coloured DC Comics. (Without the enlightening benefit of the internet then, I also assumed that I was Neil Gaiman's only fan. This assumption was put to bed, authoritatively, by the snaking queues at his book signings in Singapore last year.)

Gaiman's fruitcake mix of the mundane and the fantastical, giggly horror, mystical deception, blatant mystery, nonchalant murder, unconscious magic, screwball comedy, karaoke death songs, romance, maggot-hacking ghosts, divine dysfunction, cuddly scary birds, ancient grudges and alcoholic gods makes for a fine Sunday afternoon book, entertaining understated British humour and strong characterisation baked in a cheeky winking postmodernist vehicle not too clever for its own good, the sort to have with a spot of tea and some pudding. James Joyce, who'd earlier attempted something similar in "Finnegan's Wake" wouldn't hold a candle to Gaiman's entertaining (though not very tight) weaving together of the mythologies across different generations and cultures: European, Asian and Islamic, Blake, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton...

Gaiman's Theology
Named as one of the ten greatest living postmodernist writers (the others presumably dead from sincerely carrying out their postmodernist belief to its logical end), Gaiman's theology, seen especially in the Sandman books and "American Gods" (and less so in "Anansi Boys"), is that gods are created by people. The family of "gods" in the Sandman books are called The Endless. They are seven siblings: Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium (whose name used to be Delight). They are The Endless because they are states of human consciousness itself, and cannot cease to exist until thought itself ceases to exist.

And as Voltaire said of God,"Si Dieu n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer (If he did not exist, it would have been necessary to invent him)", so Gaiman says that humans need gods and dream up gods, be they Allah or Jesus or Krishna, not so much to worship or sacrifice to, but to dream up some sense to our lives, to enable us to believe that in the mundanity and chaos of daily existence there is, after all, meaning and an end point. Storytelling and religion are, after all, the same thing.

There are only two worlds -- your world, which is the real world, and other worlds, the fantasy. Worlds like this are worlds of the human imagination: their reality, or lack of reality, is not important. What is important is that they are there. These worlds provide an alternative. Provide an escape. Provide a threat. Provide a dream, and power; provide refuge, and pain. They give your world meaning. They do not exist; and thus they are all that matters. Do you understand? (Titania in "The Books of Magic", Neil Gaiman)

This was exactly my theology when I was 12 and wrote much embarrassingly arrogant juvenile poetry sneering at the organised religions of the world (fortunately, the Ministry of Education subsequently banned their publication so we have no official records of these past follies).

Meaninglessness
If God doesn't exist, then there is no objective revealer of objective truth or reality. If there is no objective truth or reality, then there is no right or wrong. William Golding said,"If God is dead; if man is the highest; good and evil are decided by majority vote", but he would be wrong. Certainly, it is a remarkably fetching (not to say, convenient) proposition to entertain that I am the centre of anything and the arbiter of all reality. Certainly, one can explain this democratic valuation as some sort of social contract.

But if it is true that there is no true or false, no right and wrong, and by logical extension, we are unable to know anything (even ourselves). Taking a majority vote on value or morality would be like calling a poll to decide on a superstition. If truth or reality is unknowable, then we must admit that there is no inherent value to anything, even life, and (as I said to adults as a snotty kid) we are cowardly fools that mask our terrible meaninglessness with fanciful bedtime stories dressed in religious clothing. We ought to play the man and stop hiding in our little fictional worlds.

But we don't, do we? We don't rape babies, we don't eat each other's eyeballs for breakfast, we don't walk off the roof of tall buildings to attempt to get over to the next. We think the weak should be protected from abuse, we campaign for justice (whatever that may be), we feel deeply about the death of human beings, we all adhere to some form of perceived reality and assumed values.

While it would easy to (1) argue from common experience that we do not live out to the logical end the alleged truth of relativism; and (2) point out that the belief that relativism is true is itself is a logical fallacy, and bridge-building as these may be, I have a sneaking suspicion that their value as biblical apologetic methodology is highly unsatisfactory.

Akan datang.Lousy Evangelistic Tools for Answering Postmodernists and Others

Youth Camp, Word Ministry and Prayer

It was only a few hours ago that we sat at the dinner table, with officedustweariness in our eyes, ingesting caffeine and sugars for the drive home. And we could not help but reminisce (already!) about the Youth Camp, which perked us up immediately. What a superlatively brilliant camp! By human standards it could hardly be considered successful, but for those of us who were there, what an experience to savour for a very long time to come (at least in this lifetime; heaven will, of course, be much much more!).

How could we even begin to describe it? How could we even begin to analyse its causes? All I knew was that this was what a Christian household (whether tied by blood, marriage or otherwise) should be like: authentically living out lives communally in real relationship with God as a genuine member of the household (not some old granny to be visited in the retirement home on alternate Sunday afternoons), saturated with his word and heavily and continually dependent on him. Perhaps we'd experienced something we thought we'd learnt and by experiencing it realised that we were now understanding it for certain: the Christian life, and so Christian ministry, is about God in his word and in prayer.

Prayer
Thankfully, because ARPC is fundamentally a Word-based church, there's never been a lack of emphasis on the revelation of God through the Bible. Criminally, I've been slack in committing time for prayer, for talking to God. Sure, I pray throughout the day, sending God short curt sms-es about things heard, seen, thought about or read in the news or before Bible studies or talks. But setting aside proper times of prayer was always a guilty entry on the to-do list.

[Perhaps this is largely reflective of my past pagan conduct of relationships: largely unconcerned with the long-term, perfectly content to amble my own self-contained way through life, bo-chap about people, always easily bored, always wandering off to look at something/someone else or try something new (my cousins, scattered over several continents, balancing a bevy of girls in each state, assure me that this is genetic. But genetic or not, it's definitely rebels against God's creative intent). The first relationship I've ever committed to was with the triune God and there's still a lot to learn about how relationships work and how to commit to them and love and care for people (and who better to learn from than from the Maker of Relationships himself). So all you designated prayer partners who're reading this: OI! Why you never say I never do?! Please please swot me over the head and pray with me!]

What folly it is that keeps us from prayer, that prevents us, parts of body, from connecting to the Head! The New Testament writers spare no effort in urging the believers to keep praying to God (eg. Ephesians 6:18, James 5:16, Romans 8:26-27, Jude 20). Prayer is of immense importance.

Says Mark Dever:

The battle against such false teaching, such divisions, such sin as [the Christians to whom Jude was writing] faced could not be won on their own. They could not simply argue the church into being built up. God Himself must be involved in building the church, and so they needed to entreat Him for His aid and guidance, His presence and power with them. Christianity isn't simply a mind game; it's not just convincing yourself through argument or emotion. Rather, it is a matter of genuinely and really living in God. We Christians don't look at the world through rose-colored glasses, ignoring reality, just hoping there is a supreme being. No! We live as we do because we are in fellowship with that God, because we know Him and live with Him. Prayer focuses us on our dependence on God.

The Double Pattern Of Ministry
And so ministry, even gospel-centred ministry, without prayer is worse than nothing; it is fraudulent. Christopher Ash, who'll be in Singapore for the Project Timothy Bible Conference in July, explains what he calls the "double pattern of Christian ministry":

'Word ministry' has become something of a catchphrase in evangelical circles. We say things like,"I hope to be involved in word ministry", or "My work is Bible-teaching ministry". Sometimes we refer to members of a church’s staff as "the Bible-teaching staff" to distinguish them from, perhaps, the administrative staff.

This is a very helpful shorthand in some respects. We use it in the Cornhill Training Course where we want, under God, to equip men to preach, and to involve men and women in the ministry of the word of God in all sorts of circumstances. This shorthand makes it clear that the work of the pastor-teacher (like those who do related ministries that involve the teaching of the Bible) is not fundamentally a sacramental work, administering the grace of God through the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Nor is it, at heart, a work of strategic leadership in which the core need is for 'ministry skills'—an understanding of principles of church growth or church planting, etc. Nor is their work the ministry of the so-called 'worship leader', if this is defined in terms of being 'gifted to lead people into the presence of God'. Nor is their work the work of a counsellor or amateur psychiatrist. Nor is their work the work of the skilled and charming manager of a voluntary society, keeping the club happy and harmonious by his enviable 'people skills'. No, the fundamental ministry of the pastor-teacher is to serve the church of Christ by serving and preaching the word of Christ (Col 1:23, 25) because it is by this word that the church is brought into existence and is built up (e.g. 1 Pet 1:23-25). A pastor-teacher is a servant of the word or he is nothing.

But there is one serious danger with this shorthand. 'The ministry of the word' is shorthand for 'prayer and the ministry of the word'. The work of the pastor-teacher is to speak to God first for people and, only in that context, to speak to people for God. A pastor-teacher who speaks to people for God without speaking to God for people may seem on the outside to be a faithful minister, but he is, in fact, a fraud. Let me try to persuade you of this by tracing what we may call 'the double pattern of Christian ministry’' through three stages:

1. The double pattern of prophetic ministry
It is generally assumed that the primary work of a prophet was to speak the words of God to people. Although his work may have included (and sometimes did include) predictions of the future, fundamentally the prophet’s work was to be the mouthpiece of God. So God put his words into the mouth of the prophet who then, without distorting them, faithfully spoke those words to the people.

This is true. But we can easily miss that, alongside that ministry of preaching, there runs, like a golden thread through the Old Testament, a parallel and inseparable ministry which is the ministry of intercession. Abraham was a prophet. He’s explicitly called that in Genesis 20:7. And because Abraham was a prophet, Abimelech could be confident that Abraham would pray for him. Abraham the prophet interceded for Sodom (Gen 18:22-33).

Moses the prophet, who spoke the words of God to the people, interceded for them again and again—at the time of the golden calf incident (Exod 32:11-14, 30-32), at times of judgement in the wilderness (Num 11:2; 14:13-19; 21:7), and on Aaron's behalf (Deut 9:20). The one whom the Lord knew face to face (Deut 34:10) was thereby equipped to speak to God for the people, just as he was empowered to speak to the people for God.

Samuel the prophet interceded for the people (1 Sam 7:8-9). He understood that, for him as their prophet, not to pray for them would be a sin (1 Sam 12:19-23). This was not a general obligation, as if every believer must pray for every other believer, without exception; that would be a heavy burden to bear! No, it is the specific obligation of the prophet to pray for the people whom he serves and to whom he speaks the words of God.

The critical moment of the great confrontation between Yahweh and Baal on Mount Carmel was not when Elijah the prophet spoke to the people for God, but when he spoke to God for the people (1 Kgs 18:36-37). We see the same double pattern in his relations with the widow of Zarephath (1 Kgs 17:17-24). Similarly, Elisha interceded for the Shunammite's son (2 Kgs 4:32-37); Job, who is certainly associated with the prophets in James 5:10-11 and who spoke rightly of God in Job 42:7, prayed for his friends in Job 42:8-9; Isaiah interceded at Hezekiah’s request, as though doing so was a natural and well-understood part of his ministry (2 Kgs 19:4); Jeremiah was specifically told not to intercede in a way that makes it clear that, without this prohibition, he would have naturally interceded, for this was a well-understood part of the prophetic task (Jer 7:16; 11:14; 14:11)[1]; Ezekiel interceded in Ezekiel 11:13; Amos interceded in Amos 7:2, 5; and Daniel interceded in Daniel 9.

Incidentally, we also see this double pattern of ministry in the symbolic priestly intercession of Aaron as he bore the names of the tribes before the Lord (Exod 28:12). And both Nehemiah individually and the people corporately engaged in such intercession (Neh 1:4-11; 9).

The prophet's ministry was most certainly to be God's mouthpiece—to speak to the people for God—but, equally and inseparably, it carried with it the expectation that he would speak to God for the people in intercessory prayer.

2. The double pattern of Jesus' ministry
This double pattern of prophetic ministry is fulfilled in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, our great prophet and priest. For, as the prophet who was (and is) so much more than a prophet, just as he spoke to people words that never a human being spoke before, so also he interceded for his people with an intercession that transcended and fulfilled all the intercession of the prophets beforehand.

Satan asked to sift Peter like wheat. What was Jesus' response? He prayed for him (Luke 22:31-32). If we wonder what and for whom Jesus prayed in his times of prayer in the gospels, we must surely take his great prayer of John 17 as a pointer to at least part of the answer. Just as he spoke to us from the Father, so also he spoke in intercessory prayer to the Father for us.

3. The double pattern of apostolic ministry
In Acts 6, the apostles famously make clear that the priority of their specific, apostolic ministry was to preach the word of God (Acts 6:2). They testified to the resurrection of Jesus—that in the resurrection he was declared both Lord and Christ. This word of God—the word of the Lord Jesus, the gospel—was what they must preach. And they were not to let any other ministry distract them from this.

But when they restated this priority in verse 4, they expanded the shorthand:"But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word". I take it that this expansion is no accident; it arises from a deep scriptural understanding of this great double pattern. If they were to proclaim to people the word of God, they must—inescapably and as an equal priority—devote themselves to interceding to God for the people to whom they spoke for God. If they, as proclaimers of the word, did not intercede for the people to whom they proclaimed, it would be just as much a sin against God as it would have been for Samuel the prophet.

We see this intercession wonderfully lived out in the prayers of the Apostle Paul for the churches to whom he wrote. Even as he spoke to them the words of God in his letters, at the same time he interceded for them again and again (e.g. Rom 1:9-10; 10:1; Eph 1:15-16; Phil 1:3-11; Col 1:3, 9-14; 1 Thess 1:2; 2 Thess 1:11-12; Phlm 4, 6).

However there is one important difference between apostolic intercession under the new covenant and prophetic intercession under the old. The principle for both was that of James 5:16—that only a man who is righteous will be heard by God. Under the old covenant, particular people such as Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, could intercede, but other people could not. But, under the new covenant, the whole thing has become mutual so that, as well as offering intercession on behalf of others, the apostolic writers also asked that intercession be made on their behalf (Rom 15:30; 2 Cor 1:11; Col 4:3-4; 1 Thess 5:25; 2 Thess 3:1; cf. Heb 13:18). Intercession is no longer a one-way mediatorial role, but rather a two-way process in which those who intercede also ask for intercession for themselves.

We may now move on from this great double pattern of prophetic ministry, of Jesus' ministry and of apostolic ministry, to the double pattern of Christian pastoral ministry.

4. The double pattern of Christian pastoral ministry: prayer and the ministry of the word
We can certainly say today that, in general, Christians ought to pray for one another (e.g. Eph 6:18). But can we also say that there is a specific and particular obligation on pastors to pray for those in their pastoral charge? I think we can. Certainly, in the New Testament, it was not just the apostles who prayed for Christians; Epaphras struggled in prayer on behalf of the Colossian Christians (Col 4:12-13).

Although the Christian pastor-teacher is not a prophet or an apostle, the shape of his ministry is, in important respects, apostolic and prophetic. That is, he carries on the tradition of faithfully passing on to others the apostolic preaching of Christ (e.g. 2 Tim 1:13-14; 2:2). He is to speak as one who utters the very words of God in the face of opposition and hostility, just as the prophets did (1 Pet 4:11). He is to be faithful, not distorting his message to please his hearers, but speaking the words that God has given him in Scripture. And if his ministry is prophetic and apostolic in shape, surely we may also say that it takes on this double pattern. It would be unthinkable that the Christian pastor-teacher is now relieved of this obligation to intercede for those to whom he preaches. The point is not that he alone can pray for them (in a mediatorial sense, as under the Old Covenant) for they can pray as well as he can. Rather, he cannot pastor them authentically without praying for them faithfully. Intercession is a necessary and integral part of his pastoral office. If he does not pray, he cannot pastor, no matter how perfect the sermons he preaches.

This calling to intercession has been taken seriously again and again in the history of the church. Martin Luther famously said,"I have so much business, I cannot get on without spending three hours daily in prayer". Examples from great Christian biographies could be multiplied. However, rather than measuring prayer in hours and minutes (which would lead to discouragement), we do well to accept this work as God's call in our lives to the circumstances in which we live with the strength we are given. A heart for prayer that develops habits of prayer is of far greater importance than measuring minutes of prayer.

We must take with great seriousness this obligation. For if we do, it will have three benefits:
(a) It will preserve us from an impersonal and functional concept of 'word ministry' Just as the apostles proclaimed Christ in order that men and women would be drawn into fellowship with them, as well as with the Son and the Father (1 John 1:3-5), so are we to preach as those who long to be in fellowship with those to whom we preach. Our preaching is not an impersonal job we do, that we may emerge from the study to go into the pulpit, deliver our polished sermon and then retreat. No, it is a task done in the context of passionate intercession for those to whom we preach. The more we remember this, the more our churches will be relational as well as functional.

(b) It will enable us to teach, since the ability to teach is relational as much as it is intellectual No man is able to teach unless he loves the people whom he teaches. I used to think that the aptitude of teaching was primarily an intellectual quality—the ability to understand Scripture accurately and then to convey its truth with clarity (1 Tim 3:2; 2 Tim 2:24). But the context in which the word is used in 2 Timothy 2 makes it clear that the aptitude of teaching includes the disposition to love the people we are teaching —even, indeed especially, when they are difficult and recalcitrant!

And if we intercede for our people, we will love them. The systematic, deliberate determination to pray for the people to whom we preach will also work in us a heartfelt love for them, so that we will hold them in our hearts and find ourselves loving them with the affection that is in Christ Jesus (Phil 1:7-8). And this will enable us to teach them.

(c) It will promote a humble dependence upon God and protect us from pride in our preaching Every time we intercede for our hearers, we drive home the point to our own hearts that the struggle in which we are engaged is a spiritual struggle—that our eloquence (if we have any), our ability to ‘get Scripture right’ (if we do) and our clarity in getting the message across (if we succeed) are of no value unless and until God works sovereignly by his Spirit to open the hearts and ears of us and our hearers so that they may hear and obey. We will cry to him, not because we have been told to (e.g. by an article in The Briefing), but because we know that, until and unless he works, our work is in vain.

In his Lectures to my Students, Charles Spurgeon speaks vividly of the minister who limps along like a lame man with unequal legs, "for his praying is shorter than his preaching".[2] Let us who are involved with 'word ministry' resolve never to forget the second leg of that ministry—the ministry of intercessory prayer for our hearers.

ENDNOTES
[1] Jeremiah’s intercessory role reappears in Jeremiah 37:3 and 42:2.
[2] Charles Spurgeon,'Lecture III: The Preacher's Private Prayer', Lectures to my Students, Marshall Pickering, London, 1989 (1954), p. 48.

"On the dangers of Christian shorthand:'Word Ministry'"
Christopher Ash Director, The Cornhill Training Course, London, UK
The Briefing April 2006, Issue No. 331, 21-24 (UK edition)

We pray, O Lord, that you will not allow us to stop praying! Do not let us be false Christians and deceitful ministers of your Word!

Youth Camp

Admittedly, the way to go about preparing for youth camp seminars is not to meet up with partnersincrime and surround crabs staring forlornly out of their vermicelli hot-tubs or slathered with a steaming creamy chilli sauce and have a FIFA World Cup match on the big screen.

But lacking sleep and exhausted almost to the point of swayingonmyfeet incoherence, I was reluctant to shoulder yet another camp so soon after the ARPC church camp.

Yet, thankfully, any thought of moping or whinging was nipped in the bud by the ever-cutting, ever-convicting, ever-refining Spirit within, so that the thoughtpattern went something like this:

the fact is that the judgement of Christ is surely coming, and we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil (2 Corinthians 5:10). Therefore, these are urgent times and there is little time for self-pity. Knowing the fear of the Lord, we must persuade others to avoid the fate that awaits those who do not acknowledge God as God.

God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We must implore those unbelievers, on behalf of Christ, to be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:18-20)

And though our current earthly minds and bodies and persons are but tents that frustrate us by rebelling against God as we struggle to stay in right relationship with him and to obey him; temporal shelters which are to be destroyed, and though we groan in them, waiting eagerly for heavenly bodies that will relate to God perfectly, and even as a call goes out for help and prayers, please*, we are always to be of good courage, for God has already given us the Holy Spirit who dwells within us as a guarantee that all he promised will take place. (2 Corinthians 5:1-9)

And because the Creator made us to find joy in obeying him, and so there is innate joy in obeying God's words and fulfilling the tasks for which we have been designed, in the midst of youth camp, the heart fairly burst with the wonder-fullness of God's Godness, clear as a beautiful white church against the bluest sky on a sunny Icelandic plain. There was the beauty of starting the day with God and members of God's family. There were men and boys down at the tennis courts, swatting away and joking around. Old and young, sporty and dorky, in easy conviviality, joined by the blood of Christ. There were scampering bushy-tailed squirrels and singing birds hidden in trees. There was the kind hospitality of brothers, the lingering perfume of the vast raintree canopies of secondary forests and the comfort of confidently depending on God together. There were brutal basketball games, the absolute joy of having the opportunity to proclaim the gospel to people from many nations, ages and backgrounds and participate in enthusiastic conversations with people creakingly starting to examine their worldviews.

And later later later, as we cleared the campsite, I wanted to say to the other leaders: God's great innit? Isn't it wonderful that his word is true not just on historical evidence but also in our personal experience? And I love y'all because you love the God I love (and there is no other) and I'm glad we're partners in the gospel and pals for eternity. But after we'd loaded the bags, rackets, basketballs, soccer balls, frisbees, cameras, notes, mats, board games, Bibles, laptops, cafetières, cups, uneaten snacks, scores, CD players, CDs, books, utensils, pots, guitars into the cars, there was supper nearby where someone who had to shell his own prawns and there was communal picking at barbecued stingray and stabbing at rojak and swirling of Tsingtao in ice and laughing at silly stories.

And we returned home rejoicing because no matter what greenhornness and fumbling there was at the camp, the salvation of all rested not precariously in our incompetent hands, but securely in our God, the Lord over all the earth. And we were infinitely honoured that he even allowed us to take some part in his work.

How Excellent Your Name
O Lord our God
How excellent Your name is
How excellent Your name in all the earth

Your glory fills the heavens
Beyond the farthest stars
How excellent Your name in all the earth.

When I think about the heavens
The moon and all the stars
I wonder what You ever saw in me
But You took me and You loved me
And You've given me a crown
And now I'll praise Your name eternally.
Text & Music: P. Jacobs

How Great is Your Love
No eye has seen, no ear has heard,
No mind has ever conceived
The glorious things that You have prepared
For everyone who has believed
You brought us near and You called us Your own
And made us joint heirs with Your Son.

How high and how wide,
How deep and how long,
How sweet and how strong is Your love.
How lavish Your grace,
How faithful Your ways,
How great is Your love, oh Lord.

Objects of mercy who should have known wrath
We're filled with unspeakable joy.
Riches of wisdom, unsearchable wealth,
And the wonder of knowing Your voice.
You are our treasure and our great reward,
Our hope and our glorious King.
CCLI# 1360011
Mark Altrogge, ©1991 Integrity’s Praise! Music/PDI Praise

* Thank God for Dave and his notes (will mail you more details about how the seminar went, bro!) and the Chocolate Cow, the Hiding Hamsters, BH&probWH, the ever-patient DG and all their love, encouragement and prayers! :-)

ARPC Church Camp 2006 and the Early Church in Acts

What a brilliant church camp. We were all (except the driver and good thinking too) out like lights on the journey back to Singapore from all the excitement of the talks, fellowship, chendol, biceps-building baby-carrying, chicken rice balls, kids with Crocs, nasi lemak, laksa, preparing Bible studies, beer, strolls down the night market at Jonker Street, satay, late night discussions to edify the biblically-needy within ARPC, dispensing medicine, teasing Chappo, Ramly burgers, games, recaliberating priorities to God, wanton noodles, midnight prayers, Peranakan food, jamming, missions planning...

Interestingly, Luke does not describe the early church in Acts 2 as a missionary church. There was no rallying push to go out into the mission field and reach the unreached (which for them would have been the rest of the known and unknown world!). Instead, Luke records them as a family of God's people committed to the gospel, fellowship, community and prayer (Acts 2:42-47).

What is now labelled separately as "missions" was a natural consequence of their grasping and partaking of the wonder of being saved when they least deserved it. No one who truly understands their amazing change of status from being the hateful enemies of God to becoming his precious children will fail to talk about this unbelievable free gift of new life. So there is no one Christian who is not also innately a missionary.

In Acts 8:1-8 we see that the people who took the gospel out of their tiny ghetto in Jerusalem were not apostles. There weren't hands laid to commission them to be overseas missionaries. What those people were in fact doing was that they were running away, fleeing fearfully from persecution, for Saul was going from house to house and dragging Christians, both men and women, from them.

So as refugees in another country, scattered from each other, these cowardly non-martyrs spoke of the thing that most mattered to them: the word, gospel of the death of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. And many people were saved through their testimonies.

Mission is primarily the Christian living his new life faithfully every day, not a special annual holy pilgrimage to a foreign land. An aeroplane trip does not make one a missionary.

John Chapman spoke of his conversion at the age of 13 through the faithful life of the boy who sat next to him in class. That boy was a freshly-minted Christian barely 3 days old, who was neither schooled in apologetics nor, we suppose, commanded to convert the heathens. But in living his new life faithfully, refusing to continue cheating at tests and wanting Chappo to share in this good thing he had received, God worked through him to change the heart and mind of a boy who would later be one of Australia's greatest (as if these things could be measured by humans) evangelists.

God works through the faithful lives of his children to win others for himself. And we shall pray not for God to be part of our work of evangelising others but that he accord us the honour of including us in his work of building his eternal kingdom, for his glory.