Boating, Transversing Park Connectors and What We Talk About When We Talk About Prayer (Colossians 4:2-4)

A pant-astic Saturday is:


being out in the waters off Raffles Marina, waving to coast guards and getting the power boat driving sorted (and also having the Dynaglass gorge out a bit of flesh from the shin),


sitting on the breakers, chowing down a McDonald's Samurai burger meal while watching the test launches from the Singapore Poly Marina and commentating obnoxiously on the same (the obnoxiousness is intensified if one of you has a strong American drawl that carries across water),


getting a Flying Pigeon from the old Tong Ah & Co bicycle shop,


only to have the right crankarm shear off from the crankset about an hour later, being rescued by an uncle who laughed at the assumption of a return policy or warranty of any sort, nodded his tight perm, stroked his small moustache with uncle-bling-ladden hand, directed me to Teck Bee Brothers on Syed Alwi for a fix, took me along backroads of Jalan Besar and Lavender to Kallang River where he offered his number, expressed fear for my safety, then left to continue his attempt to clear his head from last night's binge-drinking,


riding the Kallang, Ang Mo Kio and Buangkok Park Connectors till it was too dark to see anything. (National Parks' more useful maps from 2009 are here: Kallang Park Connector, Ang Mo Kio Park Connector.)

A few photos from the trip:

the bridge linking Lavender Street to Kampong Bugis across Sungei Rochor,


pitstop at Loysel's Toy at Kallang Bahru for flat white, croissant and water, where a light drizzle made some very nice strangers offer brollies to keep forever,


through Kallang Riverside Park, past the huffing dragonboaters, to cross Sir Arthur's bridge to use the underpass on the other side,


dismounted and pushed bike along the edge of Geylang Lorong 1 Bus Terminal towards Kallang MRT and connected to the disconnected Kallang Park Connector across Sims Avenue,


swept past Chwee Kang Beo temple, crossed a bridge and paused to enjoy the view of the Singapore Flyer,


marvelled at the loveliness of staying in a HDB flat at The River Vista @ Kallang,


carried the 20kg dead weight of F Pigeon up the overhead bridge across the very busy Bendemeer Road,


National Aerated Water Co. Ltd. - Kickapoo in glass bottles no more,


on the opposite bank of the Kallang River from National Aerated Water Co. Ltd. building where people were chatting and fishing,


crossed back over the Kallang River - this bridge had helpful grooves for bicycle wheels,


turned right through a little grove and then left onto Moonstone Lane, headed uphill and turned right towards Topaz Road while being amused by the gemstone road names (in the vicinity, "Ruby Lane" and "Opal Crescent"),


not so amused to be confronted with the mother of overhead bridges across the Pan-Island Expressway (PIE) to St. Andrew's Village, carted the 20kg dead weight across again, (at which point I wished I could, just like one toggles a weapon-change in RPGs, toggle my ride to the 10kg Strida...)


pushed F Pigeon along a narrow path along the walls of the peach-pink Anglican Diocesan Centre, across another bridge where the view of the St. Andrew's bridge was lovely,


from then it was smooth cycling along the feeder into Kallang River with the charmingly un-upgraded Potong Pasir to my right, until I had to dismount and push F. Pigeon through the underpass under the Central Expressway (CTE) or risk a S$1,000 fine,


past the SBS Transit headquarters and ComfortDelgro Engineering, we were confronted with yet another overhead bridge across Braddell Road, this one fortunately with bicycle wheel grooves for the Fat Princess,


another smooth ride along Sungei Kallang SMRT Train Depot to the right, which seemed to promise that trespassers would be electrocuted then shot,


skirted the edge of Bishan next to the artificial river that was being constructed to run through Bishan Park and turned right to the Ang Mo Kio Park Connector to Ang Mo Kio Town Garden West and crossed the road, pushed bike through the extremely busy Ang Mo Kio central to AMK Hub,


moved up along Ang Mo Kio Avenue 8 under the MRT track and right onto Ang Mo Kio Avenue 5 to join the Buangkok? Park Connector towards Punggol Park, past Nanyang Polytechnic on the left, back under the CTE again, and Ang Mo Kio Industrial Park on the right.

Then we headed for dinner and bed. Adventures of F. Pigeon to be continued another day.


Just as references to rivers in Singapore's total defence classic This Is Home would be taken by most residents as metaphor ("alas unexplored blue spaces" say the URA planners), so prayer might be taken by many Christians as imagery and ideal rather than daily reality.

John Woodhouse's discerning application of Colossians 4 is well worth a think:

Moore College - John Woodhouse - Colossians 4:2-4 from Audio Advice

There are a small number of subjects that a preacher or Bible teacher can touch on, and be almost certain to stir the conscience of at least many of his Christian hearers. All but the most insensitive of us find certain topics awkward, threatening and guilt-arousing. This is partly because all of us have secrets. What we are, what we think, what we have done are things only partly known to those who know us, even those who know us well. How could it be otherwise? Among the hidden things abotu us there are things we really are glad are hidden (and we would like to remain hidden forever, even from ourselves, if that were possible). The word for how we feel about these things is "ashamed". When a preacher or Bible teacher starts to talk about one of these things, we cringe inside. Those of us whose consciences are sensitive can be troubled, not only about the matter of which we have been reminded, but by the very fact that it is secret: that our life is at this point a pretence. If you are a serious Christian person, you may be troubled, not only by your sense of guilt or shame, but also by your sense of hypocrisy. I am quite sure that most readers of this book know exactly what I am talking about.

...Whenever I speak about prayer, I know that if my hearers are Christian, then their consciences will be easily provoked.

...As the letter draws to a close, he speaks of prayer:

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison - that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak (Colossians 4:24)

All the evidence suggests that Paul was a remarkable pray-er. At the beginning of this letter he spoke naturally about "when we pray for you" (1:3), and it is clear that this was not an occasional thing: "from the day we heard [of your faith, love and hope in Christ Jesus], we have not ceased to pray for you" (1:9). When you consider that Paul said something quite similar in letters to Christians in Rome (Romans 1:9,10), Ephesus (Ephesians 1:16), Philippi (Philippians 1:3,9) and Thessalonica (1 Thessalonians 1:2), as well as in his letters to Timothy (2 Timothy 1:3) and Philemon (Philemon 4), we can see that praying is something he took very seriously indeed. It must have taken a considerable amount of his time.

As this great man of prayer spoke of his own praying at the beginning of this letter, he now addresses his readers about their praying as the letter draws to a close.

Reading Paul's words, it is difficult for our minds not to turn to our secret failures in praying - how inadequate we feel as pray-ers - how little time and effort we give to prayer - how easily it is the first thing dropped from our daily activities - and so we could go on. Many Christians feel ashamed, even guilty, about their prayerlessness.

However, I want to suggest that God's Word does not work like that. Certainly here Paul is not playing on the sensitive consciences and guilt feelings of believers who do not pray as much or as diligently as they think they should.

(Preachers and Bible teachers take note. It is easy to achieve certain responses through playing on tender emotions in the hearers. There are various techniques, that come with just a little experience in public speaking, to manipulate the feelings of listeners. This is a significant temptation to the preacher, for the Word of God does deal with many sensitive subjects. It is ever so easy to stir up memories you know many of your hearers have (because you have them too!), to touch raw nerves you know so well (because they are raw for you too!). But is this the work of the Spirit of God? Is this what God's Word in fact does with these sensitive subjects? I am not suggesting that the Word of God does not search consciences, nor that shame and guilt are things we should ignore, deny or run away from. The Spirit of God does stir our emotions and our consciences by his Word. I am simply saying that the preacher's task is to ensure that God's Word does God's work rather than manipulative speaking doing the preacher's work. Faithful exposition of the Word of God allows Scripture to set the agenda, and this take great care. As a general principle, we should understand that the Word of God has not done its work if the hearer is left simply feeling terrible, or just determined to try harder in the future.)

The way in which Paul speaks to his readers about prayer is particularly striking.

A call to pray (Colossians 4:2)
The first thing we should notice is that 4:2 is certainly a call to pray - a serious call to pray. Indeed it is a call to follow the example of Paul himself, as we heard of his praying at the beginning of the letter.

The power of this call to prayer, however, comes from its context in the letter as a whole, not just from the words here in 4:2, heard as an isolated rule or command. Like all that we have heard through chapter 3 of the letter, the call to pray comes as a part of an exposition of the life of faith in Christ Jesus. Paul's theme is:"As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving (2:6,7). That will mean praying.

Why? The answer to the questions is: For the same reason that Paul himself had not ceased praying for the believers in Colossae from the day he heard about them (1:9). It is because something absolutely wonderful and extraordinary is going on. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the one through whom on and for whom all things have been made, and by his death on the cross God has reconciled all things to him (1:15-20). Through Christ, God is bringing the universe back together again: order out of chaos, peace out of hostility (2:15), reconciliation out of alienation (1:20). Christ among the nations is the hope of glory (1:27)!

This is why Paul prayed, "asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God" (1:9,10). Paul prayed, not simply as a spiritual exercise or discipline, and certainly not in order to move an inactive God into action. Paul prayed because of the extraordinary work that God had done and that God was doing.

Yet it is even more than that. The call to pray in 4:2 comes to us because through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, God is turning chaos to order, hostility to peace, alienation to reconciliation in our lives (1:21,22; 2:5). Praying is a characteristic of the reordered life. The new life in union with Christ in his death and resurrection has been the subject since 3:1. This life (see 3:12-17) is a stark contrast to the chaos (see 3:5-8). Prayer and peace with God go together. God's enemies do not pray. The reconciled pray; the alienated do not.

In other words, if we have been listening to the teaching in this letter, we will not hear the call to pray in 4:2 as an obligation that condemns and threatens and rouses the sense of guilt but as a gospel invitation. Listen to the particular way in which the call is expressed.

"Continue steadfastly"
"Continue steadfastly in prayer", says the apostle. Other English translations have "Devote yourselves to prayer" (TNIV). Similar expressions are found a number of times in the New Testament. It is what the apostles did in Acts 6:4: they devoted themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. The three thousand who received the word on the day of Pentecost devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers (Acts 2:42). Indeed it is what Jesus' disciples were doing immediately after his ascension as they waited in Jerusalem: they were devoting themselves to prayer (Acts 1:14).

Paul certainly calls for a commitment to praying. There is also a sense of privilege. When you know and understand the grace of God in Jesus Christ, praying is what you do. When we are conscious of what God has done and is doing and will do, we will pray. This is precisely what we heard Paul doing at the beginning of the letter. "We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints...And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will..." (1:3,9). Now he invites his readers to do likewise: continue steadfastly in prayer. Devote yourselves to prayer.

"Being watchful"
What will enable us to heed this call? It requires being watchful in it. Being awake. Praying is not the sleepy activity we may sometimes imagine (and perhaps sometimes practise!). It requires alertness. Yet this is not simply a call not to drift off to sleep as we pray, as the disciples did in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:37). As on that occasion, praying requires being awake to what is really happening. Don't lose sight of the fact that you have been raised with Christ (3:1), that you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God (3:3). Keep awake to what is soon to happen. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory (3:4).

This characteristic of the Christian life is worth emphasising. Jesus taught it:"Therefore stay awake - for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning - lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. And what I say to you I say to all: Stay awake" (Mark 13:35-37); "Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming" (Matthew 24:42); "Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation" (Matthew 26:41).

This wakeful watchfulness is alertness to the realities to which "you have heard in... the gospel" (cf 1:5). It is keeping our eyes of faith open. It is having the work of God in Christ and in his gospel in our consciousness. When we see life and the world in this brilliant light, when we understand what is going on, then we can properly hear this call to pray.

With thanksgiving
The third element in the call to pray in 4:2 settles the fact that this call is not intended to be guilt-driven. On the contrary, we are to pray with thanksgiving. Being watchful is not a matter of being frightened, worried, or anxious. On the contrary, like the whole Christian life, praying is energised by thankfulness.

This has been a repeated note through this letter, which has been described as "one of the most thankful documents in the New Testament". It began with Paul's own "We always thank God...since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus" (1:3,4). Then his prayer for the Colossian believers climaxed with the request that they would be "giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light" (1:12). Indeed the purpose of this letter includes that its readers will "abound in thanksgiving" (2:7). At one point in this letter, Paul simply and starkly says,"And be thankful" (3:15), and then speaks of the "thankfulness in your hearts to God" (3:16). Indeed the Christian life can be summed up as "whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him" (3:17).

The words of 4:2 should move us to be serious about praying, but if we hear these words rightly we will be moved, not by guilt feelings, but by being "woken up" and by thankfulness.

The Ghosts of Cows Past and The Omnivorousness of Faith

Each forkful of juicy fat steak managed somehow to acquire, between plate and masticating organ, a seasoning of lingering guilt; residue, no doubt, of years of vegetarianism that accompanied adherence to earlier beliefs.

Those beliefs were born of a worldview that theorised that human history was circular, that one's spirituality and actions determined one's reincarnative vehicle. Depending on which text one looked at, non-violence towards animals, not taking the lives of other beings, and not making one's body as the graveyard of dead things would contribute mightily to being at least bipedal in the next life.

While some arguments about reality are interesting and plausible (Colossians 2:4), such philosophies are ultimately deceitful because they do not reflect the actual state of things (Colossians 2:8). How lovely then, the amazing freedom that accompanies truth that is according to Christ - we can no longer be disqualified by our abject imperfection:

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— "Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch" referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. (Colossians 2:9-23)

Jesus is fully God - there isn't any extra bit of deity that isn't seen in Jesus. Jesus' death completely cancelled our record of sins - there isn't any remnant particularly stubborn trespass that he hasn't forgiven. Because Jesus is fully God, he has all authority and power over everything - there isn't any tricky insurgent who can give him the slip.

Because we can only be saved from the consequences of all the wrongs we have done in our lives by trusting in Jesus, so all our well-intentioned attempts to be more spiritual via man-made laws and regulations will fail. There is no other way to be saved.

So with deliberate consciousness, I can celebrate the cows (whether their carcasses were well or badly treated) I've had over the past year:







The real stud by far - the complimentary warm cheese puffs, soft pretzel and onion and olive breads, maple-glazed pork belly appetiser, wild field mushrooms and creamed spinach with organic egg sides, cinnamon donut and chocolate souffle desserts at Wolfgang Puck's Cut (Marina Bay Sands) had nothing on the superb "Kobe-style" wagyu beef from Snake River Farms in Idaho. Even the Australian Angus 300+ days grain-fed and aged 45 days from Rangers Valley and the Japanese Wagyu from Saga Prefecture could not distract from the well-marbled yet un-pansy robust flavour "with long finish". Those Jap breeds were really enjoying themselves in America.



The excitement of ingesting gunpowder on steak at The Prime Society was not repaid in taste. Dead cow was on the raw side of medium rare, tough to chew through and fairly bland. Perhaps Restaurant Week threw the kitchen off.



L'Entrecôte, the one dish only French bistro, came highly recommended. S$29 got you a slim glass of kir royale, chewy baguette slices, walnut salad and steak frites served in halves - with the second half kept warm. The decor and proximity to the neighbouring conversation was charming enough but the medium rare steak though rightly red had a bit of a boiled flavour, the secret cream sauce seemed at odds with the meat, the "must have" lemon tart with strangely damp base might have benefited from tips from Dorie and Pierre, and the uninspired plate of profiteroles led to a thumbs-down vote. Sorry, unidentified cows, je ne sais pas!, perhaps we American kids can't appreciate the continental stuff (though we liked well enough a filet mignon in a French resto by the banks of the Mekong in Phnom Penh).


The Australian cows fared slightly better at the French-inspired Le Bistrot. Grass-fed tenderloin was rich and loaded with taste but the corn-fed black angus striploin was somewhat non-commital.


Just the sight of 1kg of Kiwi pasture-fed cote de boeuf in bone at Graze, Rochester, was enough to fire up the gastric juices. Quantity was the draw though the meat was adequately tasty. Dessert platter looked like someone's half-filled buffet tray, but nothing untoward (or outstanding) taste-wise.


Ah, good old Pepper Lunch - that sizzling low-cost-outlay expense.

However, not putting confidence in rules and regulations to attain godliness does not mean that we continue in our foul behaviour. Rather, instead of setting out to achieve a righteous Christian life,
(1) we are to look upwards and consider Christ's/our present status and the state of things - we have died with Christ and have been raised with Christ who is seated at the right hand of God, ruling all things. When he comes into the world again, he will be seen in all his glory that is presently hidden from general view, so also will our new life in him, now hidden, be wonderfully seen (Colossians 3:1-4). Since such things are not currently in plain sight, we are to seek them - our minds must be informed by this reality that is not seen - knowing that rebellion against God and his design for the world (eg. sex, ability to communicate) has caused the wrath of God to come upon us (Colossians 3:6), knowing that God has worked powerfully to save us and that we have indeed been saved, knowing that we have died to all rejection of God and his intention for the world etc...

(2) whereas human laws and new year resolutions are weak things with no power to change us, the power of God has in fact transformed us so that we have put off the old self and put on the new self (Colossians 3:9) - all we need to do is to keep on putting to death the old self and its practices and to keep being renewed in the knowledge of what God our creator has made the world to be (Colossians 3:5-10).

Assumedly, the only way of being renewed in such knowledge is to keep saturating our minds in the word of God, through daily bible reading, sermons, bible studies and generally making an effort to think about our visible lives in terms of that which is yet unseen.


"Top choice, Grade A meat" - Glenn Gulia in The Wedding Singer

(3) and so the Bible's teaching on sex can never be out of fashion because it describes the way God has made this gift to men and women. The impurity or the spoiling of sex would lead to wrong lust, then to perverted sexual desire, then to uncontrolled desire for what, superficially, appears to be pleasures, but which were not designed as such. This erroneous self-indulgence is one way in which we worship ourselves (we think we can define what sexual behaviour works best for us) rather than God the Creator.

(4) in the same way, setting our minds on things above also means understanding how God's gift to us of speech and ability to communicate is not to be abused. To quote John Woodhouse in his excellent commentary on Colossians, "speech is not for putting others down, nor for expressing your frustrations and annoyances, nor for lashing out, but for building others up, for expressing kindness, for turning attention away from yourself" (Colossians 3:7). In a world where half-truths and exaggeration are the norm in advertising and everyday communication, we are to be as disgusted by sins of the mouth as we are by sexual sins.

(5) and if our minds are set on the things of Christ, then the constituents of the church are not to lie to one another (Colossians 3:8-10) - we must not say that sexual immorality or malicious speech is alright. That would be a lie. We must not deny the coming wrath of God - that would be a lie. We must not teach that we need something more than the death of Christ to make us right with God - another lie. We must not distinguish some Christians as being more important than other Christians according to the world's standards (perhaps even that the church would be more blessed by having the services of an intelligent first-class honours president of an approved Christian Union rather than a chap who can't find his way through a maze puzzle) - that would be a lie. (Cf. "let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs... (Colossians 3:16)).

It is thus that we experience the power of the resurrection of Jesus in our lives.


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Interesting deceased bovine-related reading:
Know your Steak
Raising the Steaks
Steve Holzinger, The Great American Steak
Mark Bittman, Why I Love Skirt Steak and just about everything on the New York Times' Diner's Journal blog
Mark Schatzker, Steak: Search for the World's Tastiest Piece

John Woodhouse on Colossians at Moore College

Moore College - John Woodhouse - Colossians 3:5-11 from Audio Advice.