Easter Cupcakes at the Easter Cupcakery and Dale Ralph Davis on 2 Kings

The almost perpetual rain over the last few weeks ruled out all macho outdoor sports (cos those huge raindrops frighten us, yeah), leaving us with nancy indoor ones like badminton. And table tennis. And figure skating.

Ugg Cookies
Ugly like the boots but less woolly and more edible

Why not go the whole nancy hog and bake something then. Darkies over blondies any day. Preferably the sort that will stick to the roof of your mouth, then to your gullet and then give you such a sore throat that only the most potent liang cha made from the horn of a pure gold unicorn can cure. It was pointed out however that although this was pretty nancy compared to a mutual friend's Indian curry which has been known to vapourise the digestive tracts of the unsuspecting, it still didn't quite register on the poof-o-meter. And this even though we left some (ugg) blonde highlights in.

Fondant flowers in naff pink and naff purple. Fondant leaves in naff green.

Righto. Would cupcakes do the trick then? Oh, and what if they were topped the sort of useless foul-tasting fondant cuties that people coo at for 2 seconds then scrape off into the dustbin?[1] Unfortunately, despite the attempt at outward adornment to accessorise the innocent cupcake disguise, these still went far wide of the poof-o-meter on account of their actually being if-thrown-will-leave-hole-in-ceiling things densely molten with 85% African Valrhona chocolate at the core and slathered with thick stick-to-your-teeth 70% Venezuelian Valrhona cream cheese[2]. Like Keith Richards in drag.

I am pink. Therefore I am not a cabbage.

(This being my first time with fondant, impeccable logic dictated that I head straight for the rosa centifolia. Meanwhile, a great debate ensued about proportionality in simulacra and the manifestation of Fibonacci sequences in roses and I forgot to hold on to the fondant, then it just got too boring sticking on more petals, hence this halfun-baked attempt.)

Woohoo! Alien eggs! Dark chocolate Maltesers.

When the beta-testers KO'ed after only a bite[3], I knew I'd gotten the recipe right. Unfortunately, since weighing machines weren't a feature in the kitchen and I didn't know how much of what ingredient had gone into the deadly dessert, there was no way of replicating that. (There were loads of "baking essentials" that didn't feature in the kitchen. The kitchenaid, for instance, had opposable thumbs and was powered by elbow grease.)

Da bunny dunna belong to Easter. So Audrey II ates him.

Tooling around the kitchen was actually an awful lot of fun. Especially with Dale Ralph Davis on 2 Kings, which led to a lot of snorting of icing sugar and laughing into the batter.

Staging area for happycake fondant decorations awaiting deployment.

Baking is reminiscent of fooling around with the chemistry set I got for my 12th Christmas but without Rylands v Fletcher consequences. Those experiments were wet squibs compared to the smoke bomb a friend made with a recipe he'd gotten off the web. The resultant product did successfully give off a lot of smoke and, as a bit of a bonus, also left a crater in his backyard. Naturally, he figured he must have gotten the ingredients wrong and tried to make another in his kitchen ex-kitchen.

So comparatively, messing about with these edibles was pretty harmless stuff, a marzipan carrot up the snot, some chocolate warming in the armpit, nothing terrible, except for the time, unbeknownst to me, someone gave away some experiments to the neighbours. I think an ambulance pulled up for the old dear next door shortly after.

Cadbury's Twirl for nesting material, Cadbury's Mini Eggs. Poof-o-meter = +1

Obviously, with such clear confirmation of my incontestable baking talent, the only loving thing to do for Easter was to whip up a batch of cupcakes for my Bible study group. What better opportunity, after all, for them to demonstrate their assurance of salvation?

And yeah so what if these products were chock-full of such healthy nutrients as refined sugar, refined flour, nuts specially for those allergic to nuts, scary E numbers, unidentified preservatives and the recommended daily calorie intake for a woolly mammoth? Focus on those resurrection bodies, people!

Very thankful for the few hours of sabbathing while kneading and stirring, listening to Dale Ralph Davis[4] gossiping about God in 2 Kings 3 - 7 ("The Days of Elisha"). It is always wonderful to have a womble through the Old Testament if for nothing else (but there's so much more to it), then just to ogle again at the internal consistency of different parts of the Bible written over hundreds of years by many different authors all telling parts of the same story.

There is also something about seeing how God worked in Old Testamental times that adds to our knowledge of the richness of his character and person and so the growth of our love for him. A read through a few books of the Bible tosses out the generalisation that the strict Old Testament God changed into a loving God in the New Testament. God's character remains consistent throughout the records of his dealings with mankind, so we don't have to second-guess his will at any given time.

From 2 Kings 3, we see a God who is sovereign over affairs so that he might choose not to help the ungrateful who do not acknowledge him (Elisha points out that Jehoram who has come to seek God to help him out of his impending devastation isn't making much sense. He still worships other gods, why come to God for help? And why should Elisha entertain him?) or still choose to help them inspite of their ingratitude. We also see a God who is generous and sometimes doesn't just give what is asked of him but lavishly more (Jehoram and his pals just needed water supplies. God gave them more water than they needed and not only that, but also gave their enemies the Moabites into their hands.). And wonderfully, God is a God who is willing to listen to his creatures. We do not realise what a privilege this is until we contrast this with how the king of Moab resorted to burning his own son as an offering to call in his god's favour for the battle (2 Kings 3:27).

God's generosity is also demonstrated in his willingness to give abundantly in 2 Kings 4:1-7 - the poor widow whose son was about to be sold off by creditors not only got enough oil to pay off her debts but even more than that so that she and her son could live off the proceeds. God works through the person's faith to bring about the petitioned result.

(Sometimes, when God works wonders in your life, it may be that he wants you to keep it to yourself; it may be that he doesn't want you to put it in your testimony at the next convention (Elisha, God's representative, told the widow to go into her house and close the door behind her).)

There are times that God gives, just because (2 Kings 4:8-37). God gave the wealthy old childless woman a son even though she didn't ask for one. Whereas with Sarah and Rachel a child had been necessary to continue the Abrahamic line so that God's promises could be fulfilled, this nameless son was, in that way, unnecessary.

We see also how God cares that people live in right relationship and full dependence on him. He made the self-sufficient needy so that they would relate correctly as creatures to their Creator and Sustainer. The wealthy old lady had told Elisha that she didn't need anything from God ("I dwell with my own people") but later, after the death of her only son, she held onto Elisha's feet and begged him to resurrect him, which he did.

(Despite Elisha being the agent of this miracle, we must remember the limitations of the LORD's servants. Elisha was God's representative, his wisdom and his power came from God. We must be careful not to make idols of God's servants because they can't bear the burden of God. And we too are God's servants - we may not always know what the Lord is doing in other people's lives so we should not presume to judge or advise if (as is likely) the LORD has hidden it from us (2 Kings 4:27).)

The caring nature of God does not mean that he miraculously spares his people from the circumstances they are in. The sons of the prophets in 2 Kings 4:38-41 weren't spared the famine in Gilgal. They were so in need of food that it was a real problem when the stew was rendered inedible because of some wild gourds someone had cut into it.

(God created the universe just by speaking, but he caters to our human weakness by giving us physical signs of his works: Elisha poured flour into the pot of stew to make it edible again. Similarly Jesus put his fingers into a deaf-and-mute man's ear and put his spit onto the man's tongue in the process of curing him (Mark 7:31-37). So we should not despise God-instituted signs like the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the wine in remembrance of Jesus' death and resurrection.)

Our God is a God who is not only concerned about his great plan for humanity but also for simple needs. For the son of a prophet who lost his axehead in the water, the loss was not trivial in his sight (2 Kings 6). He was poor enough not to be able to own his own axehead and had borrowed it from someone. And God was pleased to help the man in his time of genuine need even though his concern was simple.

Lest anyone think that God is just God of a little Israelite ghetto, 2 Kings 5 reminds us that God is the God of the whole world. God decides who wins and who loses in wars and in that instance, he gave victory to Syria through Naaman. God's rule is sweeping. There are no bounds to his sovereignty. And God is sovereign not just in world affairs but also in the small circumstances. He put a little Israelite servant girl in Naaman's household and she told Naaman's wife about Elisha.

Yet even though God is sovereign all things, we think that we know well enough so that we can presume to find God's ways offensive. Naaman was offended at being directed to wash in the dodgy rivers of Israel rather than the therapeutic waters of Damascus. But God, through Elisha, said that the way was narrow and there was only one way he could be healed from leprosy. In the same way, the gospel is offensive too to some people. It messes with their broadmindedness. Why only this way? Why only one way? The greatest objection to God's ways seems not to be the difficulty of their execution but that they humble our terribly misinformed pride. Yet humility, because of our inadequacy and our creatureliness, has been the right way to relate to our Creator since the first human was created.

The interesting thing is that if we'd invented God, we would have made him far more congenial. The fact that we are offended and irritated and angered by this God suggests that he might, in fact, be real.

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[1] Turns out that people didn't scrape off the stuff after all. In fact, they liked the fondant and thought it tasted like tang yuan (glutinous rice balls).

[2] I therefore dub these "happycakes" (not to be confused with spacecakes) because of the alleged psychoactive tryptophan-carrying endorphin-inducing qualities of the chocolate and the hours of rampant giggling wrought by the silly fondant decorations (though not doubt also caused by the ingested chocolate).

[3] Perhaps this had more to do with the choice of beta-testers. A staffworker came over to our lunch table saying that he'd heard that chocolate cupcakes were emanating from hereabouts. When handed one for a small taster, he shovelled the lot up in about a minute and was perfectly fine after. (He did say however, that even though he was sure of his salvation, he still had young children that needed his care and that his wife mightn't be too pleased if I'd sent him on his heaven-bound way earlier than she expected.)

[4] Davis is a good combination of scholar, preacher and pastor (he current pastors and teaches at Woodland Presbyterian Church). He deals with the critical theories and interpretative problems of the text and traces the Messianic thread through the Old Testament, yet this is never merely academic but breathing doctrine to be lived out in our lives as our God lives and we live. Reckon his commentary on 2 Kings, The Power and The Fury, might be a good read.

Funeral Week

A long week spent taking turns overnighting at wakes.

Sometimes, there were no words of comfort to be spoken. Helpless to address the grief but unwilling that it should be be the sole companion of the bereaved, we sat and talked through the night. And there were stories: stories of Chinese schools, of the ill-disciplined students of prestigious schools, of Chinese teachers, of the optimal number of children in a family, of living abroad, of Cambodian history, of the ARPC Golden Group, of the foundational principles of martial arts and yoga, of Yuk Yee's egg-swapping illustration that explained the relationship between the law and sin, of Swiss dams and Dutch boys, of social osmosis and dissecting the question "Where are you from?"

After the last one, we stumbled home ashen-faced. The darkness was cool from the day's rain. With the last dredges of remnant strength, chucked some pizza into the oven, threw salad leaves, tomatoes and olives into a bowl, and sat outside in the quiet deepening night.

Then, did a faceplant into bed and did not move for many hours.

When we finally woke, the sun was streaming in the window. The sky was the colour of hope and new life. There was a good fry-up and a fresh pot of coffee. Pim-cotton henley dresses and soft pastel tees lazing about on the grass in the breeze.

But some realities grow harsher in the morning light.

Greek Masterpieces From Musée du Louvre and Peter O'Brien On Prayer

"We're back from the National Museum," gushed the parentals some months ago, waving about Greek Masterpieces From The Louvre brochures, "they've brought in sculptures from the Louvre. You must go and see them!"
"But we've seen them...at the Louvre!"
"Did not."
"We did. We went to the Louvre, you criticised I M Pei's pyramid, then you said you were bored and wanted to go shopping."
"Oh."

In any case, last Sunday, after Peter O'Brien'd delivered his 64th talk in the last 3 months, I popped across the road to the museum for a gawk.

Surrounding David by Titarubi.
Poor old David's so commodified he's attained pink kebaya-cloth kitsch-ness.

The exhibition was fairly small but decently and thematically-curated. Peter O'Brien, being a bit of a scholar in Paul's New Testament letters, had, earlier in the day, painted many word-pictures and made many references to cultural context in which the letters had been written. Even though these statues preceded Paul by a century, there were probably quite a few of them still mooching around with their Augustan brothers when Paul gandered about Athens during the Late Roman Empire (Acts 17:16-34).

To my initial shame, having always been fond enough of Greek/Roman literature to have an entire bookcase on the subject and Greek/Roman-themed BBS rooms, my main reaction to some (because others looked like really bad copies) of these drapped bodies was one of great appreciation: the proportionality of facial features, bodies and limbs, the rendering of wet himations, and how nice it'd be to have a quiet empty museum for a sit around and a charcoal sketch.

But Paul, I thought when I got home and had a flip through the Book of Acts, had got it spot on. Upon seeing these beautifully proportioned idols, he did not bring out the sketchpad. Instead, his spirit was provoked within him. Barely able to contain himself, he went about arguing against the wisdom of that age, reasoning with Jews and devout persons and professional philosophers (Acts 17:16-34). So my reaction of great appreciation = FAIL. But someone later pointed out: all cultural lor. Not idols to ppl of our time liao.

Pardon me, but your butt is cracking.

Simulacra of the Roman simulacra of the Greek simulacra of...well, maybe no long-dead bird/hunk in particular; the Baudrillardic phase where the simulacra masks the absence of basic reality by being its own pure simulacra, these chipped blocks of marble may be, but they are not meaningless simulacra qua simulacra. Instead, they form part of a system of signification for the ancient Greeks and their Roman copiers/consumers. So the late night chat was a good reminder of the "nothing is a sign unless it is interpreted as a sign" of Charles Peirce, the cultural subjectivity of the signifier and the signified, and so the subjectivity of idolatry and therefore the necessary failure of any attempt at legalism.

Nevertheless, such utter incompetence in even identifying the right reaction in any given stimulus is probably a good impetus for prayer. (We had an interesting semiological debate in our DG about the word "prayer", but that's another post.)

Notes from Peter's talks on prayer:

Knowledge, wisdom and understanding and thanksgiving (Colossians 1)
In his letter to the Colossians, Paul tells them that he is constantly praying for them (Colossians 1:3,9). He asks of God because he knows that God is generous and will not withhold good things from his children. What does Paul pray for? He prays that they will be filled with knowledge so they will please the Lord (Colossians 1:9-10). He prays that they will have all spiritual wisdom and understanding. This wisdom and understanding is not what we think of as guidance from God, not "Lord, what do you want me to do?". Rather it is more about what God wants done in his world and how we can fit into God's plan for the world.

And what pleases God? Bearing fruit in every good work (Colossians 1:10b). This does not mean being successful in God's work by the world's standards, but having the fruit of the Spirit to be enabled to do things in a godly way, in growing in love for Christ, in wanting to know Jesus more and more.

It's all very well to talk about these things but how will we be able to do them? Through being strengthened in all power by the Spirit (Colossians 1:11). This same power, this same Spirit, raised Christ from the dead. So it's pretty lethal stuff.

Then Paul returns to thanksgiving. We have all been transferred from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of light. Gaining citizenship of a country like Singapore or Australia's pretty difficult, but the difficulty level is nothing compared to trying to gain citizenship of heaven. Yet, Christians have achieved it through the forgiveness wrought for them in Jesus Christ. It is not only children who find it hard to say "please" and "thank you". Adults struggle as well. The writer of Hebrews tells us that we can now enter God's throne room with boldness. This should encourage us to pray prayers of thanksgiving.

Suffering and Weakness (Romans 8:18-30)
Voltaire was of the opinion that God either couldn't stop suffering or that he had the ability to do so but wouldn't.

We all live in the midst of suffering. But we are told that we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. We will share in his suffering before we share in his glory. This tension is not just individual, it is also corporate.

Paul's thesis on suffering and glory is in Romans 8:18 - "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us". Paul was no stranger to suffering. In 2 Corinthians 1, he told the Corinthians that he was being utterly and unbearably crushed; he was so close to death that it was only a whisker away. Paul didn't have a silver spoon in his mouth. But he believed that the glory to come was a sure and certain thing. If it wasn't, then we would do all sorts of things to put our present suffering out of our minds, to try futilely to gain security, to distract ourselves.

The whole of creation is bound up with suffering (Romans 8:20). It was knocked off its perch of God-centredness because of Adam's sin. But again there is the promise that after this suffering will come glory when the sons of God come into glory (Romans 8:21-22). Suffering and glory go together.

And we Christians also groan inwardly (Romans 8:23). We were adopted as sons of God when we first trusted in Christ. But we now wait for that final adoption and the redemption of our bodies. Every time we have to visit the pharmacist or the doctor we are reminded of how our bodies have yet to be redeemed.

And as we wait in hope for this redemption, we continue to suffer and struggle. We are weak. Part of our weakness is that we don't know what we ought to pray for, "ought" meaning in accordance with God's will. This is part of our suffering. There are some people who approach the throne of God with such boldness that they keep telling God what they want over and over again. And when they don't get what they want, they blame God. There are other people who are just at a loss about what to pray for.

But, Paul says, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, interceding for us with groanings too deep for words (Romans 8:26). There is a content to the Spirit's prayer that we don't know about. Paul is not talking about speaking in tongues. The groanings of the Spirit are wordless. And God who searches hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, not just theoretically but the content of intercessions of the Spirit that are in line with his will. And God answers the intercessions of the Spirit. When we pray, we fire arrows at a target which may go far wide. The Spirit redirects the arrows to make sure we hit the bullseye everytime.

When we were younger, we thought that we could do things on our own strength. But when we are older (and hopefully wiser), we rely more on God and his strength and his power. Nothing is too small for God. He numbers the hairs on our heads (Luke 12:7) and does not forget even the littlest bird, the sparrow (Luke 12:6-7).

For those who love God, all things work together for good (Romans 8:28). God works our good through things that were meant to harm us. Joseph, for example. was sold off by his jealous brothers (Genesis 37). After his many adventures in foreign lands, where he was ill-treated and thrown into prison, Joseph met his brothers again. He was now in a position of power and he could have had them killed (Genesis 42-45). But instead he recognised God's hand in his situation, even where his brothers meant evil, God meant it for good. God had sent him to Egypt before them to preserve their lives (Genesis 45:5-8). This does not mean that there are 2 different experiences but that the 2 are sandwiched into 1, the clearest example of this being the death of God's own Son. Wicked men meant for the destruction of Jesus and they will be held responsible for their actions, but their evil was used by God, and infact predestined by God, for good.

We are encouraged to call upon God. His answer to us will not be brilliance in analysing our situation or in summarising the problem. He will not answer us because our motivation is 100% pure because we are wretchedly corrupt. God will answer us because the Spirit intercedes for us.

And we know that God has infinite resources (Ephesians 3:20). Not only that, but also God doesn't hide away his resources like Scrouge. God gives lavishly. God wants to give abundantly. It's almost as if God is waiting to be asked so that he can give.

Faced with the reality of our own weakness, living in a world that is suffering, prayer is real and practical now. We do not need to wait until we are better before we can pray, nor must we do this or that before we can pray.

Prayer: slick? Unrealistic claims? Full of promises too good to be true? (Philippians 4:6-20)
Slick solution? (Philippians 4:6-9)
The poor Philippians were being pressured from without and being given a hard time. But whatever they were distressed about, Paul told them to be anxious about nothing and instead present their requests to God. ("Anxious"ness being unreasonable heresying care.) This sounds like a slick platitude but Paul was in prison then and knew what he was talking about.

God knows all needs. He clothes the lilies of the field etc (Matthew 6:28-33). They weren't to tell God about their needs because he didn't know them and needed to be updated. But by bringing their requests to him and laying their troubles upon him, they were to demonstrate their dependence on him. And this would strengthen their faith.

Did this mean that all our prayers will be answered? Philippians 4:7 promises one sure result: that the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Whether our particular petition is granted or not, we are assured of divine protection against everything. "Peace" isn't a feeling of peace but is that something objective that was done on the corss (Romans 5:1) - reconciliation and salvation. And this peace "transcends all understanding" and is more wonderful than they could imagine.

Philippi was settled by many retired soldiers who had the protection of a garrision or guard. This peace, said Paul, would similarly keep guard over their hearts and minds, those areas of their lives that were vulnerable to attack from desperate heresying care.

Do not be anxious but instead pray and God will guard your hearts and minds. The promise given in Philippians 4:7 is not slick. As I reflect on what God has done for me, this guards me against all sorts of wretched fears.

I can do everything! Unrealistic claim? (Philippians 4:10-13)
"I can do all things through him who strengthens me." says Paul. Will nothing be beyond our capabilities if we pray, if we had the same faith that Paul had? But yet, Paul had an extremely long list of things he still suffered (2 Corinthians 11). This is not a triumphalistic promise.

The context explains the promise. Paul says that he is content in all circumstances. He has experienced life at both ends of the economic spectrum and he knows how to live at both ends.

How does he do this? Through Christ who gives him strength. He can do all things, that is, be content in all things through Christ. Compare this with the Stoics who taught that the happy man was the content man. The content man was content in and of himself, due to his innate resources. But Paul knew that it was when he was most conscious of his inadequacy (2 Corinthians 12) that he could most rely on God.

Every need met! A promise that is too good to be true? (Philippians 4:14-19)
The doxology in Philippians 4:19-20 brings to a close the thanks to the Philippians. They have supplied Paul's needs, God will supply theirs. This is not a reciprocal tit-for-tat.

"Every need" does not mean just material things like money, but also the whole host of things that they were up against. They needed to stand firm in persecution (1:27-30), they needed unity where there were divisions (eg. between the 2 quarrelling ladies forever immortalised for posterity in the Bible), they needed to shine like stars in the universe even though they were under pressure.

"in glory" - these needs which they had would be met gradually and partially in the present but would be met fully at the end.

"in Christ Jesus" - Jesus is the only one in whom God's promises are fulfilled. Therefore, only when they are united with him fully would all their needs be met.

Our Spiritual Battle, the Devil and Prayer (Ephesians 6:10-20)
The spiritual dimension in Christianity is often ignored, whether in moral decay or in evangelism. This may have more to do with the Enlightenment than with Scripture. Scripture describes things from the world's viewpoint and also from a cosmic dimension. We neglect these things at our peril. We will not be seeing things as God sees them.

God has already won the decisive victory but the Devil and his minions still exist and still act even though they have lost. They will do anything to snatch away the Word when it is preached. This is especially so at morning tea after Sunday service when people will talk about anything but God's Word. The Devil distracts people so that they do not come to repentance.

In the Ancient Games, the most important, the blue-ribbon event was wrestling. So when Paul talked about wrestling not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places, he was emphasizing that the battle with evil is close-contact, hand-to-hand combat. If we think that when we evangelise, we are up against flesh and blood, we have misread the battle. We are up against evil.

The attacks against us can be one temptation over and over again. But the Devil can also switch tactics. He has variety and range. The attacks can be internal and external. Uncontrolled anger and the telling of falsehoods are not from the Devil but he can use them to cause strife within the body of Christ.

What is our strategic objective in the battle? It is to stand firm (Ephesians 6:11, 13,14), to stand up against evil powers. We are not to move ahead (which infact, might be a serious wrong) but to stand firm.

Can we take on such a formidable foe with just our own resources? No. But we can do this by relying on the power of God (Ephesians 6:13ff). In actual fact, the victory has already been won by Jesus Christ on the cross. The Devil's final defeat is imminent. Soon, everything will be subject to Christ. We don't have to try to win that victory over and over again. But for the battles in the meanwhile, God has provided mighty armour for us. This is the same armour that the Lord of Hosts fights in in Isaiah 59 and the armour that God's Messiah wears when he goes out to do battle in Isaiah 11. This armour that God himself wears we also wear. This armour is made of truth, righteousness and salvation - aspects of God himself. When we put on the Lord Jesus Christ at conversion, we put on his aspects, his armour.

The breastplate of righteousness is protection in knowing that we are right with God. We can't be blackmailed. The Devil cannot tell us that we aren't a good Christian because we haven't read the Bible or haven't prayed. Who will condemn us when Jesus has died for us? If we aren't sure of ourselves, we won't share the gospel. This is the ploy of the Devil.

The sword for battle, the sword of the Spirit, is also the same one used by the Messiah in battle.

The shield of faith refers not to that little round shield which doesn't protect the head or the limbs in a battle but to the full-length one that covered the whole body. It was soaked in water and could quench dangerous missiles - arrows dipped in tar and then lit and shot. The Devil will try to attack us not just with temptation but also persecution and false teaching. We must trust in God's ability to keep us in the midst of battle.

Prayer is essential and crucial to our being armed. Standing firm and prayer are interlinked.

Summary
Thanksgiving is a mark of being Christians. The world may raise complaints and concerns to an art form, but the Christian is forever thankful because we have been transferred from darkness to light.

The Christian may find it difficult to pray aright. But the Spirit, who intercedes for us, hits the bullseye everytime.

There are some promises in Scripture that aren't what we want them to be. They must be read in their contexts.

We need to pray because our struggles are also in the cosmic dimension. The world is natural, the flesh is natural but the Devil is supernatural. If we live only as if there is the world and the flesh but no Devil, we misread the battle. There are ministers of Satan who will tell falsehoods and who are disguised as ministers of the gospel.

But when Jesus clothed us at conversion, he clothed us with armour that the Devil cannot destroy.

The Light At The End Of The Tunnel Not Being The Headlight Of An Oncoming Train and Bothering About the Resurrection

Then they lay basking in the sun with the delight of those that have been wafted suddenly from bitter winter to a friendly clime, or of people that, after being long ill and bedridden, wake one day to find that they are unexpectedly well and the day is again full of promise. (Fellowship of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien)

A wet week of basking in the Singapore sun. For thanksgiving and archival purposes:

Friday: saying goodbye to BooksActually's up-the-rabbithole-at-the-whitehorsey treehouse on 125A Telok Ayer Street for the frontage of Ann Siang Hill. Kenny and Karen, still love the Birds & Co stuff (thanks strangeknight). Glad you liked the punch. We hope you draw regular salaries soon too!

Sunday: loads of catching up with people after service, then a good chat in the void deck under a block of HDB flats about differing interpretations of Romans 7, then a lazy afternoon of lunch, fellowship, sharing of burdens and being reminded from 1 Corinthians 15 of the reality and importance of Jesus' resurrection for the Christian faith;

Tuesday: being encouraged about the God with whom we can now have a direct relationship and whom we know hears our prayers because of the blood of his Son, at the home of a particularly greedy golden retriever. Every cracking open of a bag immediately precipitated the prick of furry ears, a streak of golden-yellow, a wet-nosed nuzzle and hot hopeful doggy breath by your side;

Wednesday: dinner with old mates interrupted by an sms for birthday drinks on Monday, then a call about unreasonable bosses during which the kid, for my entertainment, attempted to prance up and down in shoes 3,000 times too large for him, then a work telecon - the kid toddled up smiling invitingly and poo-poo-ed in his pampers pants, detonating a stinkbomb so powerful that the counterparty in Vietnam gagged. After the kid was banished upstairs for a bath still grinning and holding his nose to the self-inflicted stench, time for Spreyside and Islay whiskeys (a Laphroaig over a flowery Speyburn any night), plans for the future, the challenges of upfront ministries in church services, conspiracy theories about the escape of Mas Selamat Kastari and how sometimes sorry isn't sorry, disparate World War II dreams, Singapore's secret weapon - militant mothers, sinfulness and life as the body of Christ, and the taste of heaven on earth in authentic Christian communities.

Later, in the midnight drizzle whilst leaning against a car, continued discussion about the authenticity of Christian communities, Book of Acts communities, the necessity of prayer and setting aside time for prayer, the probably non-physical acts of loving God intent on drawing back his recalcitrant people to right relationship with him. Back home, an early morning chat with a wayward actor in New York, who, having previously spoken of the utter loneliness of looking out at a neighbouring apartment full of people, framed by their sitting room windows, eating their TV dinners alone, of the difficulties of Green Cards, of not making rent every month, of caging money at church on Sundays, was finally deciding to head back where steady employment might actually materialise;

Thursday: an ad hoc prayer group, the sharing of food and lives, and the resident toddler, test-driving his 5 new teeth, gnawed on a yellow doorstop, then the plastic pot of a plastic plant, then a rattle, then more successfully, the wrapping paper off old Christmas presents before his mother grabbed him, put her finger in his mouth and fished the piece out;

Friday: free tickets to Soil & "Pimp" Sessions at the Singapore Mosaic Festival where the death jazz was loud, frantic, insistent. Earplugs were handed out at the door. Inside the club-space, jumping about and sweating, afros all round, an agitator, a megaphone, strobe lights, a complimentary round of drinks and hands in the air.

(Thank you Heineken Music.) Then trying to wring out adjectives to describe the last 75 minutes of staged, very polite Japanese madness;

rainy Sunday: stodgy half-decent comfort food at Monster Mash Café where I discovered that few friends (infact, none) shared my nostalgic love for The Beano and childhood Desperate Dan obsession with eating piles of steaming hot creamy mash artfully studded with sizzling bangers about to burst out of their skins. (This dream was finally fulfilled at a greasy spoon known greasily (and leatherly) as S&M Cafe along Portobello Road, London. However, having been ruined by the pouncey Sainsbury's Magazine into making buttermilk garlic mash and pouring rustled-up caramelised onion and red wine reduction gravy over venison and cranberry sausages, I did not quite cry tears of unbridled happiness at this consummation.) The Sunday roast was pretty good though, but missed those little Yorkshire pudding things. And since Old Blighty is all about variations on a theme, what might coupling yorkshire pudding with bangers produce? Toad in a hole! Forward the stodge brigade! Charge for the guns! he said.

Steamed pudding drizzled with caramel sauce and a jug of custard standing by. Later, a good quiet afternoon of reading over a cuppa tea, after which I felt rested enough to poison the household with chocolate chip cookies:

It would be difficult to truly acknowledge and revel in the innate goodness of friendship and mateship, of music and dancing, of drinking and eating, if they were all but trivial niceties, passing distractions to kill time while we wait for death.

That would be like the story told of a town that was known particularly for the jollity of its condemned criminals. These men would laugh and joke all the way to the gallows. This strange phenomenon drew many curious visitors from out of town and was very good for trade. But a sinister reason lay behind this. Every condemned prisoner would be visited by the town mayor and the mayor would tell him that actually, the gallows weren't going to be the end of them. Oh no, once the trapdoor opened beneath them, they would be caught by people stationed below, taken through an underground passage to a place out of town where a coach and four horses waited to take them to a place of safety. Now, the condition to all this that the prisoner must act jolly on his way to the gallows. Of course, the gallows were the end for these poor chaps. There wasn't anyone to catch them as they fell, there was no underground passage and there certainly wasn't a coach and four horses waiting for them anywhere.

Some people think that the Christian faith is like this, an elaborate hoax, a sort of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross acceptance of death covered liberally with Martha Stewart marzipan in Easter colours; that Christians fool themselves into thinking that there is a better place after this life, that there is a God who cares enough about the world to pronounce judgement on evil and to save those who trust in him from judgement, that there is meaning to this life and the sensual pleasures offered by this world.

Paul was well aware of the possibility of delusion. Christians say that death is not the end. But what if it was?

...if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1 Corinthians 15:13-19)

But this little thought experiment in futility is moot, because Christ was in fact raised from the dead (15:20). Jesus did really die (15:3), he was buried (15:4) and was raised again on the third day (15:4). There were many eyewitnesses of this: Simon Peter (15:5; Luke 24:34), the 12 disciples (15:5; Mark 16:14; Luke 24:36; John 20:19, 26; Acts 10:41), and, if one found numbers convincing, over 500 people at one time (15:6) - some of whom were still alive and could verify the event, and then to James and the apostles (15:7; Luke 24:50; Acts 1:3, 4), and then also to Paul himself (15:8). (William Lane Craig has a quick walk through the evidence for resurrection here.)

Jesus' death wasn't an accident. There wasn't a flurry in heaven when he died on the cross. It had been planned from eternity and had been written about in various parts of the Scriptures (15:3-4) hundreds of years before he was incarnated on earth.

Jesus' death was purposeful. God intended that Jesus should die in place of all sinners (that is, all of us) so that those who trust in him will no longer face eternal death.

...Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. (1 Corinthians 15:20-26)

Which, Potterheads, is a far more glorious reality than Harry finally understanding the words on his parents' grave before deciding to face Voldemort in that penultimate The Deathly Hallows showdown.

BooksActually
5 Ann Siang Road from 17 March 2008

Monster Mash
26 Lorong Mambong
Holland Village
Singapore 277685

Oh Noes! I Iz Tainted By Economix!

Hello.[1]

Monday, a week ago, 3am in the morning in Ho Chi Minh City, sweet mangoes and Fanny's mango derivatives at hand, we were online chatting about the possibility of using economic theory to describe Christian conversion, running aground somewhere between the lack of scarcity of grace/salvation and the zero-line demand of depraved hearts and minds, the resultant universal price-insensitivity, and God being both monopoly and monopsony.

4pm that afternoon in Singapore, we were evacuated from a building in Bugis[2] that was swaying in the wake of a Sumatran earthquake. While setting about shovelling down a steaming hot bowl of tonkotsu ramen like a many-armed creature of myth, under a cloud of Marlboro smoke, undergirding talk of the rigour of building codes in Singapore, Jesus ducks in Russia, and the length of tenure of corrupt politicians being proportionally beneficial to the people of that country, was the ghost of Adam Smith.

And how not to notice the bristling of old walrus moustaches at business vehicles far easier to make cross-border bogeymen[2] of than other economic instruments. In place of hardnosed politics and military blood and gore warmed by hotspots, the main dish at client lunches over the past few weeks has been sovereign wealth funds as Jane's choicest centrefold weapon in East-to-West neo-colonialism. Typical of Asians. Take the East India Company model, manufacture it for less and then export it back to the West.

Even in the social world removed from old colonels in walkers, just as, since the Enlightenment, purported truths about the world have been described and discussed under the rubric of reason and science, so it seems that the zeitgeist of the age now favours the use of economic theories for the explication and analysis of non-economic phenomena.

Replacing scientists as scientists once replaced theologians in the popular imagination are undercover economists touting rogue Freakonomics, the explanation of human behaviour by statistical analysis.

This sort of reductivism is not new. It has been going on since the time of Wealth of the Nations and social darwinism versus David Ricardo's comparative advantage, but never marketed as sexily.

What interests me is the current trend of critiquing critical theory, post-structuralism and the amorphorous mass that is variously termed postmodernism, with economic theory.

What is of even greater interest is that in building bridges from the views of this world to the truth, the prevailing zeitgeist of pop economics opens up new vistas for linkways.

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[1] T: now you can say I had you at "Hello".
[2] Incidentally, "bogeymen" was how East India Company sailors described "Bugis men" pirates.