Don't Be Road Kill (1 Corinthians 9 - 11:1)

Enough fallen bodies by the wayside these past few months/weeks to be shocked into weeping and duly warned into remembering the sheer hard work and stubborn-mindedness needed to finish running the race (1 Corinthians 9:24-27).

It means nothing to have the "blessings" of this life (material or spiritual) - it is not enough to be "blessed" with fat o' the land in this life, to experience true miracles, to be supernaturally healed or saved from certain physical death, to be approved to lead/teach others, to be fruitful in multiplying one's ministry; none of these are conclusive evidence that God's favour is upon us.

God loved and chose the Israelites. He rescued them from slavery in Egypt through more mighty miracles than the civilised world had ever experienced. He carefully and graciously brought them out and provided for them all along the way. Yet, with most of them he was not pleased and all but two perished in the wilderness (1 Corinthians 10:1-10).

Running race means doing all for glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). But we do not run aimlessly (1 Corinthians 9:26). There is no licence for doing what we think bring him glory; God is fairly clear on what he wants - for all people to be saved. God will be worshipped on his own terms and not ours. We are duly warned by the destruction of the Israelites to made a golden calf as part of their worship and gratitude to the God who saved them (1 Corinthians 10:7), the killing of those who took sins lightly (1 Corinthians 10:8), the destruction of those who distrusted God (1 Corinthians 10:9) and the proud (1 Corinthians 10:10).

How can we then be so blindly bold as to insist on our rights and so hinder people accepting the gospel and its blessings (cf 1 Corinthians 9:1-23)?

How can we then be so glibly presumptuous of our freedom that we are dismissive of our worship of demons? (1 Corinthians 10:14-22)

Yet, God tells us that we will do so. Sacrificing our rights, not stumbling others, being paranoid about whom we worship are not good-to-haves for Advanced Christians. They are matters of eternal life and eternal death. Even the apostle Paul himself was in danger of being disqualified in the race after having seen Jesus and spent a lifetime preaching the Way (1 Corinthians 9:27). What more, we?

Let us beat our bodies and keep them under control, lest we too fall by the wayside. We have no excuse, for God can be trusted not to let us be overwhelmed with the temptation to stop running the race; he will give us an escape route from sin (1 Corinthians 10:13).


*for future personal reference - David Burke/ORPC, NIECU, SMUCF grads, that which caused an elder to leave his church, old lady killer litter and the 4D hunter etc

Being "Well-Taught" vs Real Knowledge (1 Corinthians 8)

Madrinaa Pizza. iPhone 3GS + CrossProcess.

In some Christian circles, it is a virtue to be well-taught - to be able to handle the Word faithfully and to hold to biblical doctrines. And God tells us that these things are indeed important and essential for every aspect of life as a Christian (see, eg, 2 Timothy). These skills alone however, don't make us children of God anymore than getting full marks on music theory papers makes us useful tinklers of ivories.

But our innate sinfulness will not let us remain, harmlessly, completely useless. We quickly become puffed up by our knowledge. Those in-the-know separate themselves from the clueless. We could be robust in our defence of the gospel and have an answer for every objection, we could be fantastic expositors of Scripture and committed preachers or teachers and keen studiers of CCM song lyrics, but we could merely be applying abilities that would formerly have been spent diligently doing our homework, successfully spotting exam questions, trashing our opponents in debating competitions and in completing a postdoctoral thesis on the etymology of the Middle English suffix -more that would be published in preference to a competing postdoctoral thesis on the etymology of the Middle English suffix -hede.

"If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God." (1 Corinthians 8:2-3)

We know that food offered to idols is nothing since idols are nothing (1 Corinthians 8:4-5), just as we know that a text without a context is a pretext and that Above All contains a unbiblically man-centred chorus. All this is true, yet truth, God's truth,is never merely propositional but primarily relational.

When we, in our superior state, scorn the know-nots and their pedestrian tastes in doctrine, we actually deny the very knowledge we claim to have. So the Corinthians, by insisting on their freedom in the truth that there was only one God to the detriment of their weaker brothers, denied the truth that it is only for God and through Jesus Christ that we exist (cf 1 Corinthians 8:6) - they in fact destroyed their brothers for whom Christ died (1 Corinthians 8:11) and were as those who denied Christ (1 Corinthians 8:12).

This isn't so much a case of knowledge vs love. Rather it is that real knowledge is both factual and relational knowledge - that one is known by God and that causes one to love God and people. (Though it must be said that this love flows from the truth of the gospel and isn't a vague niceness that doesn't try to push the gospel.) We take our cue from God the All-Knowing, whose infinite and eternal knowledge is concerned with having loving relationships with the Trinity and his people.

I think! ;-p



Madrinaa Pizza & Pasta
Blk 3, # 02-141 Queen's Road,
Singapore 260003

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

The Desert of the Real

Jamie Oliver's taller buffer blonder doppelganger, an Afrikaner from Capetown, and I were lounged about on piles of brightly woven cushions in the middle of the Oman desert. Through the strawberry-flavoured shisha smoke, we could just make out a twinkling star or two in the night sky overhead, a pair of winking voyeuristic satellites perhaps, or balls of plasma which had, in the intervening lightyears, since fizzed into cosmic dust oblivion.

In our pants, a different sort of dust, from hours of dune-bashing in a tyre-pressure-lowered 4X4 driven by Dubai-born Pakistani with a passion for loud Indian music, from sandboarding down silken dunes with used snowboards and from no-holds-barred (and no safety roll bars) quad-biking.

Despite the driver becoming increasingly reckless after breaking up with his girlfriend via sms while charging up a 45 degree dune, we managed not to flip over and break any vertebrae and by nightfall, had stopped at a campsite to top up our tummies with pita bread, hommus, chickpeas, tabbouleh, biryani and kebabs.

Indulging in a postprandial huddle with the aforementioned strawberry molasses, we were surrounded by, well, nothing. To our right, nothing but sand flats reaching into darkness. To our left, nothing but sand flats and darkness again. Nothingness in front, nothingness behind us. Lyrical waxers love a void and the Afrikaner was filling it with loving accounts of the Kalahari Desert. The Kalahari Desert isn't a real desert of course. Being home to silly creatures like hyenas and meerkats and having a bit of telltale savannah grass showing means that the Kalahari is merely a mock-Tudor Surrey-style noveau-riche wannabe desert. Still. nothing a hot blast of global warming can't fix.

Back in Dubai, where housewives were getting the groceries in Porsche Cayennes, stretch Hummers were family cars (how else to fit 4 families into 1 car?) and the Bugatti Veyrons in the Dubai Motorshow were so ugly someone ought to have smacked the designer when he unfurled his plans, I was putting up with a friend (rather, he was putting up with me tracking half the desert into his posh apartment) and we were up late one night catching up and chatting about the wonder of deserts.

There's nothing like a vast sandpit to spark all sorts of Exodus-related free associations with us Christians. (Apparently, the Hebrews, like the Eskimos for snow, had several words for desert: midhbar, chorbah, yeshimon, `arabhah, tsiyah, tohu; eremos, eremia.) Standing in the midst of its silent barren barrenness, having first come out of the noisy cosmopolitan conspicuous consumption of Dubai, we could empathise with the constant grumbles of the Israelites that so annoyed poor old Moses (Exodus 16:1-3, Exodus 17:3, Numbers 14:2). Contrast weeks of no respite from the monotonous scenery broken only by bitter harrassed scrubbery with the colours and smells of a happening city with its busy marketplaces and magnificent monuments bedecked with decorative stones and advances in writing and literature and art; contrast having nothing but manna and quail for every meal (surely, there are only so many ways of cooking quail) with the rich produce from the fertile Nile lands - barley, wheat, emmer, pots of meat, as much bread as they could eat (Exodus 16:3), water on tap (cf Exodus 17:1-3), and a bit of slavery and a few licks of the master's whip every night wouldn't seem so bad.

How blinkered and narrow-minded. A famished Jesus, faced with a similar temptation to doubt God's goodness in the desert, had his wits about him when he scoffed the ridiculous tempter, saying, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." (Matthew 4:1-4, Luke 4:1-4). Trust God and his promises, than the half-truths of the tempter who deliberately misinterprets our experiences.

Watching the red sun bed down on a dune horizon from the top of another dune, the earworm inexplicably put Newsboy's The Orphan on repeat. The lyrics are mostly conjecture but the sentiment remains. How Moses must have, many years after Abraham, stood upon Mount Nebo after those hard tough years in the desert and looked upon the Promised Land, the end to his labour. And how, knowing that he was forbidden to enter because of his past faithlessness in God (Deuteronomy 34:1-8), he might have wept. If he did, he needn't have turned on the taps, what with all that water scarcity, because that Promised Land wasn't quite the ultimate promised land. It was a sort of mock-Tudor Surrey-style noveau-riche wannabe, yet God-instituted shadow of the real Promised Land still to come.

Constantly on the move, living out of a backpack for days in the Middle East, was to be reminded how we are stateless, rain dogs, gypsies, wandering Jews, longing for the real Promised Land, a place to settle down, a place to sink roots. All the places we sleep in in this life are not ours.

Like Mozart (because who can argue with all the hype that surrounds the chap), I have a great distaste for brass instruments. Their sound is so impure, they make a kleptocrat look like a boy scout. But there's a trumpet I live to hear: the trumpet of 1 Corinthians 15 that will sound on that Last Day, the day when us weak perishable types, with all our petty rebelliousness against God and our half-struggles with sin, will, by God's mercy and grace through the blood of his son, be raised imperishable and immortal. Immortal because we will sin no more and will no longer deserve death that is the punishment for sin.

How nice it'll be to finally arrive at our real home, a place where we can finally fully unpack the backpack and chuck the passport away in the drawer, put on the kettle, tend the garden, and live in wonderful relationship with our Father forever.

But there is a bit tucked away at the end of 1 Corinthians 15:"Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labour is not in vain." Knowing the real Promised Land and new bodies that await us, how can we give up hope now? And knowing that only our work in the Lord - the salvation of souls, will survive, how else shall we spend our time, energy and resources?

Well then, the friend said, shall we pray?

Yes, I said. Because the only way we can keep holding on the promises of God unmoved by the trials of this life and the only way we can keep doing God's work despite the pain in ministry is by dependence on God, through the power of God.

I Long For The Day
I long for the day when faith sees its goal,
When the things now unseen will be seen.
The day when my Saviour comes for his bride,
Whom his blood has washed spotlessly clean.
Whom his blood has washed spotlessly clean.

I long for the day when hope is fulfilled,
On which all of the saints will be raised.
The day all the nations kneel to the Lamb,
Giving him all their honour and praise.
Giving him all their honour and praise.

I long for the day when love will abound,
When the family of God will unite.
Our pain and our tears will have disappeared.
Freed at last from the trials of this life.
Freed at last from the trials of this life.
© 1997 Words by Bryson Smith. Music by Philip Percival.
Plainsong Music/Emu Music Australia Inc.

Human Rights, Human Responsibilities or Just the Gospel?

Lunchtime on a weekday. We had our heads under the hood of my car, ties stuffed into shirt pockets, tooling around. My friend, who indulges his pretty little Bimmer 5-series far more patiently than his own long-suffering girlfriend was bemoaning the singular aloofness with which I had been treating my car. Where was the tender, loving care? Where was the radiator flush? Where was the engine oil check and coolant kiss? Oh, and let's not even talk about a regular wax job. Tsk. A higher class of car would have upped and left me a year ago.

Rights! He pleaded as he stroked the bonnet of my car sympathetically. Your car has rights!

And rights, of course, has been the watch-word of the last 2 decades.

Our recent gambol through 1 Corinthians 8 - 10 brought to mind my final year thesis which was to have been on human rights.

As is fashionable these days, I blame a surfeit of children's books of the knight-kills-dragon-and-saves-village variety for the proclivity for fighting for the underdog, whether in the classroom, playground and later, when there were global movements for these sorts of things, in starting environmental drives (earth as underdog!), protecting abandoned pets (dog as underdog!) and endangered species, petitioning for asylum seekers, preserving local businesses in the face of globalisation and Mardi Gras-ing for gay rights.

By the end of summer of my second year, there'd built up a tottering stack of material that would back my call for greater transnational legislation to prevent multinational corporations from abusing the human rights of inhabitants of developing countries. I'd helped out at human rights conferences where mealtimes were spent chatting with people from international aid and regulatory bodies, getting collectively angsty over stories of ill-treatment and injustice, and challenging very calm folk sent by certain oil conglomerates. I was also considering offers for internships in ILO and UN after graduation.

The body of the thesis was written by the first month of term. But upon commencing the introductory paragraph, I realised that the thesis could not, in good conscience, be submitted: there was a gaping lack of convincing bases for the importance of human rights.

Years later, a final year student asked for help in using the Bible as the foundation for the right to rights. Having become Christian in the meanwhile, I found nothing in the Bible that gave any basis for agitating for one's own rights to be recognised.

Rights are essentially me-centred. We fight for them because they give us ammo to hold other people at gunpoint and demand to be treated nicely and be given the things we want. But the Bible is first and foremost God-centred. In the face of God, we no rights but to be given what we deserve: condemnation to eternal death for our rebellion against God.

What place then of Deuteronomic neighbourliness and matehood-ness of the Gospels?

These are about other-people-centredness; about one's obligations and responsibilities to act correctly to fellow human being, not about demanding to be treated properly; about other people and their needs, not idolising me and my needs; about Human Responsibilities, not Human Rights.

But Human Responsibilities aren't just for their own sake. They aren't about getting ants in the pants over every perceived injustice (of which there are an infinite number in this fallen world), nor do they form some measurement of holiness or godliness - how much more of our rights we have sacrificed for someone else or how much more mercy we strong ones have shown our weaker brothers.

They are a response to the gospel - we live like that only because we know God. Other-person-centred as they may be, Human Responsibilities are ultimately God-centred. They are how God designed us: to know God our Creator and to live in submission to him in his world and amongst his other creatures according to his laws.

And if Human Responsibilities are the result of knowing God, then they are also about knowing God's will for his world. They are a reaction to knowing that God's judgement for the rebelliousness of men is sure to come and that the only way to be saved is through trusting in Christ. So they are all about the gospel, telling people the good news that there is a way to escape the coming judgement. They are about how much God means to us. They're about how much saving another human means to us.

And we will do anything that will further God's kingdom, anything that will make us useful to his purposes, anything that will help our fellowmen: whether it means giving up things we appear to be entitled to, whether it means curbing our "freedom", whether it means being all things to all men, whether pleasant or unpleasant, convenient or inconvenient. We will do everything for the glory of God that will one day shine forth throughout the earth knowing that we will have to give an accounting before him for our time on earth.

Voltaire's Candide, 1 Corinthians 7 and Unwimpy Contentment

A stale-coffee bummer of a weekend spent mostly at work, with Arcade Fire's Neon Bible as office muzak. In the early hours of Monday morning, the howls of the storm and crashing of the thunder outside were easily folded into the rich instrumental layers of portentous pipe-organs, insistent strings and giggling glockenspiels.

Earlier this Labour Day morning, we rested from our labours. Straw-hats and sunshine. Blue skies, fresh air, a quick breakfast and some tending to the garden before getting nicely stuck into 1 Corinthians 7.

The after-rain morning was for a juicy earthworm and scattered seed buffet for the feathered ones; baby spotted-neck pigeons and orioles picking their way through the grass with scarcely a peep amongst them. We've lost a few plants to the recent spate of schizophrenic weather (having been alternately flooded and scorched) but the curry, lime and basil are holding their own remarkably. The weeds, however, have gone one better and proliferated profoundly. Clearly we need some sort of scavenging goat or Japanese poodle (woolly they be) to pop round for a chaperoned nibble.

Voltaire's LOL Candide ends with the titular character saying (in response to the belligerent pontificating and endless arguing of Pangloss and Martin over The Best of Possible Worlds, The Problem of Evil and The Freedom of Will),"That is very well put, but we must cultivate our garden."; that is, the proper response to unfathomable universal misery, despair, pain and generally being dealt with the poor lot in life is not to go around theorising about origins and "metaphysico-theologico-cosmoloonigology" but to hunker down and do some honest work in one's allotment; enforced blinkeredness in face of the absurdity of the vast universe.

Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised? Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision. For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but keeping the commandments of God. Each one should remain in the condition in which he was called. Were you a slave when called? Do not be concerned about it. But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity. For he who was called in the Lord as a slave is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a slave of Christ. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men. So, brothers, in whatever condition each was called, there let him remain with God. (1 Corinthians 7:17-24)

Though appearing to deliver seemingly similar homilies of being content with one's station in life, the mindset of Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 is diametrically opposed to that of Voltaire. For the Christian, tending to one's proverbial garden is not done with a resigned shrug that working without useless speculation on the wide world is the best man can do with his un-understandable life; for the Christian, cultivating that garden is what life is really about and what man was created to do.

The Christian knows that the universe is intricately ordered and under the perfect direction of God. It is not the best possible world of Pangloss because sin has rendered it fallen and under a curse. But there will come a time when God will redeem this broken world just as he has redeemed from death and destruction those who have trusted in Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:13, Titus 2:14, Hebrews 9:15). In the meanwhile, the redeemed, having been bought at the price of Jesus' very life, understand that their life is not their own: by the blood of Christ, they have been adopted as God's own sons (Galatians 3:13), they are now God's possessions zealous for doing his work (Titus 2:14).

The contentment Paul repeatedly advocates (1 Corinthians 7:17, 20 and 24) is far from boring suburban mundanity or cud-chewing passivity or dull doormattery. It is embedded-agent-on-a-mission-ly exciting. The redeemed have been called by God himself (1 Corinthians 7:17, 18, 21, 22, 24). He has called them out of darkness into the light, into salvation by trusting in Christ Jesus. It is a call to be part of God's people, not a call to levitating self-improvement nor to leap like gazelles with tambourines up a holy mountain nor to move up in a hierarchy of money-making monkeys.

God called us while we were decomposing in our little lead boxes. We did not, of our own accord and intelligence, break out to find him but he broke through to find us. He engaged us in whatever unworthy condition and dastardly individual situation we were in. He did not need hastily transplanted sunflowers lining our roads before deigning to turn our hearts and minds to him.

Now that we are his people, then, we ought to realise that just as we were called in whatever condition and situation we were in, so our condition in life is really unimportant. Uncircumcised or circumcised? Mate, God doesn't care. Doesn't count for anything. But be careful to obey God whever you are (1 Corinthians 7:18-19). Slave or free? Well, it might be a little bit more comfy to be free but don't be concerned about it. Freedom from human slavery is ultimately an irrelevance. Regardless, we are slaves of Christ and what's really important, what really counts, is doing his work (1 Corinthians 7:20-23).

We are not to devote our thoughts and energies to changing our circumstances. Instead, we are to obsess about living under God's word and doing his work wherever we are. No, "oh if only I were smarter/a better speaker/a high-flyer/a yacht-owner/on Forbes' list/looked better, if only I could go to an overseas missionfield, if only my personal life was better, I would be more effective for God". We are responsible to God in the life he has assigned to us. Bite the bullet and bloom where we are planted. (Secret agent plus gardening analogy. Score.)

1 Corinthians 7:17-24 is the key the rest of the chapter. Paul applies the principles to marrieds in 1 Corinthians 7:1-16 (with a taster on unmarrieds and widows) and unmarrieds and widows in 1 Corinthians 7:25-40. Lonely and unmarried or married to a naggy, poor, depressed spouse who sneers at your beliefs? Do not get into a hot bother about changing your circumstances. Get hepped up instead on working God's garden in your situation, being devoted to the Lord and being concerned for the salvation of those around you.*

The big problem is not guidance but obedience.

So no small-minded navel-gazing here please. Don't just think about temporal puny renovation on circumstances that will pass away in time. Think big! Think macro! Think eternal! Open your eyes to opportunities for faithfulness no matter what the situation! Get jiggy wid being part of God's plan in transforming the world for all time!

Fierce.

*that is not to say that it is a sin to change one's situation in life: unmarrieds and widows may marry (1 Corinthians 7:9), marrieds may separate if it is the wish of the unbelieving spouse (1 Corinthians 7:15). But changing one's status quo should never be the overarching passion of life.

The Programme to Destroy the Christian Religion in Burma and 1 Corinthians 1:18 - 2:5

The military regime in Burma is intent on wiping out Christianity in the country, according to claims in a secret document believed to have been leaked from a government ministry. Entitled "Programme to destroy the Christian religion in Burma", the incendiary memo contains point by point instructions on how to drive Christians out of the state.

The text, which opens with the line "There shall be no home where the Christian religion is practised", calls for anyone caught evangelising to be imprisoned. It advises: "The Christian religion is very gentle – identify and utilise its weakness."

Its discovery follows widespread reports of religious persecution, with churches burnt to the ground, Christians forced to convert to the state religion, Buddhism, and their children barred from school. (Sunday Telegraph, 21 January 2007)

Ah, Mr. Faceless Military Junta Man. You are taking good old Sun Tzu's Art of War to heart. However, do not be unduly pessimistic in thinking that the Christian religion has only one weakness. Why, the Christian religion is chockful of weaknesses. Let's save your Faceless Military Junta Committee on the Eradication of the Christian Religion some research time and point you straight to 1 Corinthians 1:18 – 2:5 which very neatly encapsulates the main foolishness and weaknesses of Christianity:

• the foolishness of the Christian God
  
• the foolishness of the Christian message: the Cross
• the foolishness of meeting present foolishness with even more foolishness
  
• the foolishness of the Christian followers
• the foolishness of the Christian messengers

Foolishness of God
Let us start at the source of all this foolishness: the Christian God himself. Picture this, the last days of his incarnation here on earth: the apparently Almighty God, the credulous Creator of the Heavens and the Earth, etc etc in his great wisdom determined from all eternity to save mankind from our sins. Think mightiness, think great power, think frentic mega-chorus of strings and pounding drums. And what do we get? A crummy human, naked and helpless, dying on the cross, crying out that his Father has forsaken him. Silence because everyone has deserted him except maybe a few silly gullible women weeping quietly nearby.

Behold my God? You must be joking. What a loser. What a fool.

Foolishness of the Message of God: the Cross
So it is no surprise that the main Christian message, that of Jesus dying on the cross for our sins, has been nothing but foolishness to the whole world, really, right from its inception.

Dick Lucas describes this nicely:
To the Greeks in Paul's time, the cross came straight from the chamber of horrors - it was the hangman's noose; worse than that, it was the cruelty of the Chinese labour camp; worse than that, it was like a Nazi gas chamber. In fact it was worse than that, for the terrible brutality of Roman crucifixion was unspeakable; we probably could not have looked at it. So, if Paul - Paul, apparently a highly educated man, a brilliant intellect, a great thinker, came claiming to preach a message about the true God of heaven and earth and God's plan for the world, and said the symbol of that plan - the central and crucial part of it - was this appalling scene, this terrible instrument of torture and punishment and humiliation, well...no wonder the Greeks would have shouted like Festus in Acts 24:26: Paul, you are out of your mind! Your great learning has driven you out of your mind! A nonsense. Complete absurdity. Utter foolishness.

Fast forward a thousand years +++, to C.S. Lewis in the Common Room at Maudlin College, Oxford, in the early 1940s. That Common Room had some of the biggest brains going, and apparently almost to a man they were unbelievers. When the young Professor C.S. Lewis became a Christian and started to defend the Christian faith on the radio, and by writing books, they found it extremely embarrassing and shunned him. The cross was utter foolishness to these men of great expertise, knowledge, brain power and intelligence.

And very much like we do now, Paul's contemporaries demanded a more credible message than Paul actually had - something more impressive, that would persuade them to believe in God and Christ.

Jews demanded miraculous signs; they were doing exactly what they did with Jesus (as has been recorded in the Gospel narratives). If God wanted to prove himself, why didn't he write a sign in the sky? That kind of thing has been going on down the centuries, and the Jews said Jesus should do some stupendous miracle that could not be explained any other way, and that would persuade them that he was the kind of God who ought to exist and that they wanted.

The Greeks were not so crude; they simply asked for intellectual proof. They wanted God to show them solid reasons for putting their trust in a God who seemed to have made a mess of the world. Man sees himself as a kindly judge, and God in the dock. If God can give a reasonable defence for allowing war, poverty and disease, modern man will listen, and may even acquit him! We have always required God to meet our standards, to be the kind of God we can believe in, and to do the things we think he should do - curing children with cancer, solving this particular national problem, and so on. And does he give us satisfactory answers? Niet. The loser!

To the ancient world, as it is to the modern world, the cross is simply foolishness and God, a fool.

Meeting Foolishness with More Foolishness
And when told of the foolishness of his God and his message, Paul paid no heed to such good advice. Instead, he persisted in his foolishness.

This is totally against anything you learn in business school or, really, just common sense. You do not go on supplying something for which there is no demand. If no one wants it, stop producing it.

This is what a true church is like: it is human, fallible and weak and really a bit daft. Even when there is no demand for teaching about the cross of Christ crucified, they continue churning out the gospel ad nauseum. They don't give people what they want. Can such a venture ever be successful? Foolishness indeed.

Foolishness of the Followers
Ah, now the followers of a movement or a teacher are great indicators of how successful that movement or teacher is. The disciples are the trophies.

But observe the first Corinthian disciples. They aren't much to look at. Now if Paul had snared a high networth individual or an eminent scholar, that might be something. But all he got were these no hopers. Stupid scum. Nobodies. You'd never aspire to belong to this group. In fact, you'd pray you'd never belong to this group. On trophy wall, instead of glorious exotic tigers or lions were a few mangy sewer rats. Laughable. Pathetic.

And so it is with many Christians today. Fools, easily deluded by every other hoodwinker.

Foolishness of Messengers/Leaders
Well, you'd think that with such a poor product, the messengers of the gospel and the leaders of the church might have the decency to dress it up a bit: some pretty packaging, some spit and shine.

But Paul, one of the first messengers of the gospel, couldn't be bothered at all:
We know from tradition that Paul was not the sort you'd see strutting his stuff in a gym. He was said to be bow-legged, have round shoulders, and possibly have something wrong with his eyes. Not a great physical specimen. But, hey, maybe we're not so superficial as to expect the great apostle to be a six-packed hunk. Afterall, personality counts. But Paul really didn't have much charisma to his name either: he went to the Corinthians "in weakness and fear and much trembling". A pathetic picture of a blubbering weakling, painfully conscious of his inadequacy.

2 Corinthians 12 also tells us how God further sabotaged and humiliated Paul by "a thorn in the flesh", whatever that was.

Well, if even the messengers and leaders are such pushovers, what is there to fear about the Christian religion?

*************

So Mr. Faceless Military Junta Man, there is weakness galore in Christianity. But before you clap your hands in gleeful anticipation of the success of your Programme to Destroy the Christian Religion in Burma, it appears that the programme is, well, a bit ambitious. True, the Christian religion is fraught with apparent weakness. Indeed it looks puny to the world's eyes, like the whimpering pale skinny boy at the edge of the playground, ripe for bullying. But mess with it and you are messing with the very power of God the Almighty. You will not sleep well for nights to come, in fact, for eternity.

If you are Christian, well, no worries, mate. Hey, a pint of your finest Wittenberg beer please, m'lass, for the gentleman over here.

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."

Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1 Corinthians 1:18-25)

Apparent foolishness of God and his message actually wiser than wisdom of men
Does God sound foolish? A complex scientific theory sounds foolish to a conceited ignorant infant. If you actually have a good think about it (LOL), how can human wisdom (described as the wise, the scribe, the debater of this age etc) apart from divine revelation be of any use? If God is really God, eternal infiniteness to our temporal finiteness, Creator of us creatures, how can puny human wisdom ever hope to understand the magnitude of God and his ways? We cannot. God must reveal himself and have his Spirit indwell us and explain to us his ways in simple language, and then, perhaps, we might understand dimly.

The message of God does not do away with human intelligence that is so highly-prized by the world; the message of God is far far above anything the most intelligent person, born or yet to be born, in the whole of human history, can ever hope to understand on the best of days. Do we trust infinite God or finite man? The foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of men.

Wisdom of meeting foolishness with foolishness
Christians persist in propagating this unpopular message, neat, unsullied by ice or a cocktail umbrella, because it is the wisdom of God, and also because it is the power of God, for salvation and for preservation.

The unchanging message, day in day out, year in year out, might seem dry and bland to some. They might think that people will be put off by the message of Christ crucified and are themselves embarrassed by the plain message.

"But we preach Christ crucified", said Paul. "I know it is a stumbling block to the Jews; I know it is nonsense to Gentiles, to the world at large; but to those whom God has called both Jews and Greeks" (all sorts of people) "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God". In other words, Paul says:"I know that when I preach this message the power of God satisfies men's hearts, and his wisdom satisfies their minds. I know that if people will only come to Christ crucified they will meet God and find all the power and wisdom they need."

The freshest oysters are best eaten plain. Just schuck 'em, maybe squeeze a little lemon juice, and savour the plump lads still cold from the sea. No corruption by breading and heat, please!

Even for those with pious intentions, with goals of gaining more people for Christ, sometimes stumble over the offensiveness of the cross itself. They may try to dress it up in cool clothes for the youth, or draw the crowds with the testimonies of celebrity Christians or successful businesspeople. Or perhaps, all that is needed is great music and songs. But, they are just embarrassed by the plain provocativeness of the cross. Yet, just like in Blackjack, if you have in your hand a perfect score of 21, asking the dealer to hit you any more cards, means you forfeit the lot.

The foolishness of God is wiser than men's wisdom - have confidence in God's foolishness. And the weakness of God, Christ hanging on a cross, is stronger than man's strength - have faith in his weakness. It is the pure power of God to save us from sin, death and hell. Add or subtract to it, adulterate it, and we invalidate it.

But those who are perishing cannot and will not understand the true wisdom of the cross. In every age God does what he says he will do in 1 Corinthians 1:19:I will destroy the wisdom of the world, I will destroy the wisdom of the philosophers, the scientists, the analysts, the gurus; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate. The world's wisdom comes to nothing and achieves nothing.

Wisdom of foolish followers

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom and our righteousness and sanctification and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. (1 Corinthians 1:26-31)

If people cannot know God unless he reveals himself to them, then knowledge of God, wisdom in knowing God is not by human intelligence but by God's choice in revelation. God has designed it this way so that no human can boast that he came to know God only because of his superior intellect. He can only boast in the Lord. Christ has become for us Christians "wisdom from God" - an extraordinary phrase; Christ has become for us "righteousness, holiness and redemption".

And not only were all Christians, no matter how lowly in the world, privileged to be chosen by God, we are tight like thieves with the Son of God himself. The New Testament has two ways of describing Christians: either Christ is in us - by his Spirit on earth, or we are in him at the right hand of God. Both phrases mean an intimate union with God through Christ. We are now in Christ at the right hand of God; we cannot be nearer God than we are as a Christian today until we die and go to be him in a more direct way.

Man's wisdom has failed to bring us to God, but in foolishness that is God's wisdom, in Christ crucified, at his cross, we can meet God and receive all the treasures of the knowledge of God and a relationship with him. Not only that, but we ourselves are being moulded into the very image of Christ himself.

Ultimate rags to riches story. Totally pauper to prince. But not by our own efforts so nothing we can boast about. And not by the efforts of others so we do not line up behind human leaders and put them on a pedestal as our pathway to knowing God or somehow cosying up to him.

Wisdom of the Weakness of Messengers

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. (1 Corinthians 2:1-5)

Churches may be emptying and DG attendance dwindling. People ask what's wrong with the pastors, preachers and DG leaders. Why not have more socials and social action? More common activities? More special programmes for outreach? Why not get a more charming, more charismatic leader who can rouse the people? A few more jokes, some interesting illustrations, turn up the persuasiveness? And how about some matching clothes for a change? Why wallow in weakness and mediocrity? Doesn't God want us to do more? For him?

Paul reminds the Corinthians that he did not use "eloquence or superior wisdom" when he came and proclaimed the testimony about God to them. From Acts, we know that Paul was not an intellectual slob; he did not jettison his brain before he began to speak. Here in the specific context of the Greek civilisation of the first century, public rhetoric was very popular and an important criteria for judging teachers and speakers.

But even though Paul knew that he, as a messenger of God, would be judged by his oratorical skills, he did not chose the marvels of intellectual display; he chose not to employ affected philosophy. There was nothing in his speech that smacked of high pressure salesmanship, or of political spin, or craftiness or cunning to exploit the ignorant or the impressionable. He did not work the crowd. He did not employ any packaging. He did not win friends and influence people.

He didn't need to because he knew that the message of God, the message of the cross, straight up without garnishing, was wise enough and powerful enough to lift people out of the gutter of unbelief, and turn them from their old sinful ways to the things of God.

And in his wisdom, God also kept him in weakness, saying of the thorn in his flesh,"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness". That makes no sense to us, does it? Among people of the world power can only be made perfect by power not weakness. But Paul is able to say,"For Christ's sake I delight in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and difficulties"! Then comes this great statement, which all Christians have to come to terms with:"when I am weak, then [then only] I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12).

That our faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Perhaps our own weakness is most apparent as we teach a Sunday School or Bible class. Sometimes we despair:Is anything going in? Is the truth gripping their hearts? Can it possibly change their lives? But there is no call to bemoan our own weakness. The fact is that we will always be weak; God won't have us any other way if we are going to be of any use to him - so that we realise that the glory and the strength are all his.

So let us continue to be unembarrassed by the apparent foolishness of God, his message, fellow believers and the messengers. We will be mocked, sneered, jeered at. We will always be fools to the world. We will not be popular, even within churchy circles. But no worries, mate. Do your work, then chill and sleep soundly. We do not know how God is working through our weakness and foolishness. But we know that success in life in the sight of God will be whether we are found living and passing on, faithfully, this foolish message of a foolish God.

A toast, y'all!

Lush Journos, A Departed Chicken, Assurance and 1 Corinthians 1:1-17

1. A spouse away in Hong Kong. Therefore: lush journalists and editors at a table of 42 Below vodka and Bols and bread and pate and martinis and chicken cacciatore and several bottles of Cointreau and quiche and Berllini and boxes of Lindt and Godiva and champagne, castrati-falsetto covers of Christopher Cross' Sailing, a great many toasts, helpless fits of laughter, a man marrying a female of bovine persuasion being quite right in calling his wife a cow, role-playing in the bedroom requiring World of Warcraft and laplink, having Irish blood and an English passport but claiming to be Scottish, a profuse fecundity of unpublishables, saving a date for macroloving with microbrewed beer.

2. A screening of The Departed, but first, against the backdrop of IZ Israel Kamakawiwoʻole: somewhere over the rainbow - a wonderful cosy home, a table of Riesling and gazpacho and juicy departed french fowl and pinot noir and a pot of guinness lamb stew and tiramisu, a rather noisy spy camera, discussions on closing the cavities of chickens, the implications of being hanged and drawn and quartered, and querulous questions for querying gourmet kitchen appliance shopkeepers.

3. A sunny Sunday: Ultimate ultimately on a football field laced with kite strings.

4. 30th birthday of The Koala Bear: excitement of a surprising birthday surprise, Russian spies, overconfident postulations of possible entry points, non-spontaneous combustion of hunks of baked alaska, a blindfolded trip to a karaoke lounge, angsty renditions of dodgy songs, Hokkien gems, a reprise of the infamous 神啊救救我吧. May your next 60 years, God willing, be full of the grace of God as his child, as a husband, as a father and as a son.

5. Most excellently, man does not live on soft buttered rolls alone but on happy hour(s), sequestered in comfy chairs, in the company of 3 very good friends, and more to come after.

Thanks to B the Brilliant Beng, a new 80GB ipod served up a silver platter of rich nosh. 1 Corinthians is champagne and caviar, canard à la rouennaise and foie gras, oysters rockefeller and broiled lobster indeed. (Well, actually, far more satisfying than the over-salted unborn young of sturgeons and the blood of strangled ducks.) Absolutely plump stuff to get you drinking Wittenberg beer and sleeping soundly!

Ah, but scrumptious meal-sized pieces to avoid indigestion. So 1 Corinthians 1:1-17 for starters.

The Cross
When Paul writes of "the cross", he is referring, not to a geometrical figure consisting of two lines or bars intersecting each other at a 90° angle, but to the message of the cross, the gospel. Dick Lucas, courtesy of the Proclamation Trust (full text here), starts well by defining the message of the cross that Paul assumes knowledge of - the wealth of meaning in the little phrase:"Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures".

Efficacy of the Cross
And at the UCCF South East Leaders' Weekend earlier this month (thanks to Dave Bish over at the blue fish project), Saint Mike Reeves smacks his lips, Jamie Oliver-like, at the yumminess of the cross for the Corinthian Christians and for us:
Corinth was the place for anything and everything in Paul's time: a bustling lively great city to live in. There was commerce, intellectualism, promiscuity, spirituality... And the Corinthian church was getting drawn (back) into this stuff. The solution? Paul's solution was simply to take them back to the gospel! Not only was the gospel the power for their salvation, but it was the power to keep them, to mould them into Christ.

Gospel still is the power of God for initial salvation and also for sanctification. Which means we don't have to stress about church unity. Bickering and splitting into parties? The solution is the gospel. Martin Luther must have lived the most all-time greatly stressful life: he was attacked, kidnapped and spent most of his life under death threats (eg. of being burned alive) and while all this was happening, he was pumping out books, bible translations, sermons. Here's what he said:"I simply taught God's word. Otherwise, I did nothing. And all the time I slept or drank Wittenberg beer, the word did everything." It is the gospel and the gospel alone that has the power to change us and our churches.

The Christian's Past

To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours (1 Corinthians 1:2)

Notice the past tense in 1 Corinthians 1:2: the Corinthian Christians had already been sanctified, they had already been made holy. They hadn't been called to be holy in the sense that God called them in the faint hope that they'd become holy at some point in time. Paul was not hoping anything here. Paul was saying that those lousy Corinthians had already been made holy and had already been called saints. When we first trust Christ, we are made saints.

Now, what if we introduce ourselves to people as saints? Hello, I'm Saint Mike. Most people think it weird. Why? What sort of things would we think of someone who called himself a saint? Why, we'd think: you arrogant bastard. Why arrogant? Because we are obsessed by the idea that sainthood is attained by our own good works, by having lived a holy life.

No, said Paul to that. No, no, no. Totally no. Fact is, you can do nothing to attain sainthood. It is the wisdom of the world that you can attain sainthood through good works or piety. Sainthood and holiness cannot be earned. It is not based on your performance.

How do we become saints then? It is absolutely nothing to do with what we do, but it is something given to us, regardless of what we do. It is something available to anyone who calls on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. So if we trust in Christ, God considers us saints!

We have all been born into Adam: he is our father (just a few generations removed), into his family, and into his status - unholiness. But then, when we called on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we were born again, reborn in Christ, into Christ's family, sharing his status - holiness. Christ is our unearned, unchanging identity. We are saints, we are holy, not because of what we do but because when we were born again, we were born into that holy status.

This is the secret of Christian living: that we have holy status before God that does not depend on what we do. This bulldozes all grounds of what we can boast about. We are given a rock solid identity in Christ. Our identity does not come from what people think of us. Our identity does not come from what we do. Christ is our identity. That is how God sees us – clothed in holiness. So we are not holy one moment because we've done our quiet time and, oopsy-daisy, we lost it at the pub down the road. No, we are perfectly holy in Christ; we have been sanctified.

The Christian's Present

so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:7)

1 Corinthians 1:7. The litmus test to whether we've understood the Christian's past is how we view Christ's second coming. Do we think most Christians really do so? If it was judgement day tomorrow, how would we feel? A bit nervous naturally. We worry about God view us on the day of judgement.

But if we remember 1 Corinthians 1:2, we know how Christ will view us: we are saints! We maybe terrible failures as Christians but we have been born into Christ's holiness, so we have nothing to fear for the future! We are going to pass with flying colours because we have the holy status of Christ himself given to us. What is there to fear? It is not doomsday but a happy last day for us! So we eagerly long for that day because it can only positive for us.

The Christian's Future

our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord (1 Corinthians 1:7b-9)

Now this is all well and good but without perseverance we will not be saved on the day of Christ for only "those who endure to the end will be saved" (Mark 13:13). Is this cause for worry? Not so. In 1 Corinthians 1:8, we see that God will keep us strong to the end. We all muck up every day of our lives. If anyone knew what was happening inside us, they would spit in our faces. We are rubbish Christians and we are going to be rubbish Christians until the day we die or until Christ returns.

But this does not make the future uncertain for us. Christ will sustain us, make us firm and stable in faith to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. The assurance of the believer is not that God will save us even if we stop believing (for that is a nonsense), but that God will keep us believing - God will sustain us in faith, he will make our hope firm and stable to the end. He will cause us to persevere.

That's the promise. But what is the basis of the promise? What is the assurance that this promise will be fulfilled? 1 Corinthians 1:9 tells us: God is faithful! He has shown himself to be faithful throughout the human history recorded for us in the whole Bible.

Now, isn't that just astounding. My status and my future do not depend on me. My relationship with the Lord and my future cannot be improved on. All because of the faithfulness of God.

Goal of the Christian
Fellowship is the whole goal of why we have been called, why we have been given a holy status, why we have been given gifts: so that we can have fellowship with Christ. Christ is so satisfying, so infinitely lovely that our highest desire is to know him. It would be heaven to us to be with him forever.

I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. (1 Corinthians 1:10)

In 1 Corinthians 1:10, Paul says to the Corinthian Christians that if they had been called into the fellowship of Jesus Christ, why are they busting it up? If they have divisions amongst them, they must have forgotten the goal of their calling and of their holiness. They must have taken their eye off Christ and moved away from the gospel, everyone focusing on different things - not Christ, leading to divisions between them.

What happens when we forget that sainthood is something we are born into when we become a Christian (1 Corinthians 1:2). We start to think that sainthood is something we work towards. So some would have gotten there and some wouldn't. We get hierarchies - hierarchies to promote ourselves and elevate ourselves as being more holy. But what more can there be than the holiness freely given by Christ? There is no boasting, because we are saved by grace alone.

What when we forget that we don't lack any spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 1:7)? Then we think that some are in and some are out. There's the elite and sorted and there are the others who cannot make it.

What if we forget that we've been called into fellowship with Jesus (1 Corinthians 1:9)? Well, we're just not going to bother with fellowship, are we? Ah, just a little clique of my best pals, that'll do.

Bye bye gospel, hello divisions. Say goodbye to gospel and enter problems. And everything conspires to take our eyes off the gospel: structures, speakers... When we give issues or people the centrality that only the gospel should have, we are heading for trouble. Don't confuse the magnificent gospel with the piddling gospel workers. Was John Piper crucified for you? Was Phillip Jensen crucified for you? Was Don Carson? Don't let anything stand in front of the gospel, not even the apostle Paul.

It is only the gospel of Christ that can save us. It is only the gospel that can sort out the problems in our lives and churches. It is only the gospel that can bring us the unity that Christ has called us to and hold us there.

Forget the wonders of the gospel, and we will start showing off, start boasting of our holiness, start trying to get one up on people. But remember the gospel and you will think this behaviour absurd because how do you get one up on perfect holiness? What do you have to boast about if you didn't earn it yourself? What do you have to boast about if God is the one who is keeping you in him?

Let us hold up the gospel to ourselves everyday.

What massive stuff the cross is, innit! How magnificent the gospel! Why, who would ever be daft enough to stray from it?

Yet, we know from our lives and those of our friends and relatives that it isn't that difficult to deny the gospel, really, or forget the cross.

More later. Must stop bouncing off the walls now before the neighbours complain.

Scholars Agree New Testament "Corinth" Actually Lost City of Singapore

12 March 4067
By N.E. Howe-Lah
Disassociated Press

A panel of 1,789 of the Sol System's pre-eminent archaeologists and biblical scholars have today unveiled fresh evidence that the Bible should be dated about 1,952 Earth years later than previously thought.

"It has been assumed, for the last few millennia, that the Apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Corinthians around 55 AD, according to Planet Earth's so-called Gregorian Calendar System," chirped Biblical Scholar ZX1894032,"however, a thorough study of a recently unearthed (pardon my little pun) time capsule demonstrates that Paul's letter, together with the rest of the New Testament, should be dated around 2007 AD."

The time capsule, a tin of greenish hue on which the letters "M", "I", "L", "O" are barely visible, has been found to contain newspaper cuttings and a paper magazine dated March 2007 AD, purporting to be from the lost city of Singapore.

Newspapers and magazine were printed on thin material made from a combination of recycled matter and wood pulp, and were not intended to last very long.

"It is more than obvious that Paul was actually writing to the Christians in Singapore, which he poetically named 'Corinth', bearing in mind the similarities in the cities' historical reliance on maritime trade, culture and economic drive mixed with superstition. The inaugural Singapore edition of the magazine, 'TimeOut', a popular ancient 'guide to a good time', proves that Singapore gained status as a cosmopolitan city and a great place to live by at least 2007 AD," beeped Archaeologist 7G900875TJ9,"the newspaper cuttings evidence the prevalence of sexual immorality, greed, idolatry, murder, intoxication which Paul writes about in his letters (and also rampant swindling by lawyers, which the New Testament terms 'Pharisees')."

"Besides, I have long suspected that the term for the citizens of Singapore, 'Singaporeans', was just a synonym for 'sinners'".

Tropical Snow Ride, God, Gifts and Giftedness

So we're well into 2006 AD and the excitement from those new year resolutions about knowing God better, godliness, new commitments and ministries still lingers.Some people got a good spurring on last weekend with The Campus Hub Vision Night on Friday and ARPC's Music Camp on Saturday and Sunday.

So while the good people from Red Bull and AXN swore to commandeer Club Street and fill it with fresh snow for snowboarders and their mad runs, big air and sick tricks and bring on Debbie Chia (claim to fame: Singapore's first participant in the Red Bull Music Academy) the night after, the rains came so we sloshed home for dinner. Someone whipped up luscious warm oxtail stew in full veal stock goodness with generous lashings of red wine leftovers from Christmas hampers and someone else brought yummy cupcakes.

And we had CDs from the HMV bargain bin

pots of tea (not beer, as in Chinese restaurants in England), while I opened the last of the Christmas cards and started on the Chinese New Year ones and talked about advertising for friends (here we go me dears. There'll be pre-CNY drinks on Wednesday

)

and about stock-taking, resolutions and ministries.

Every time there is a new evangelistic venture or new ministry set up, or when there is a ministry camp, or when people are making their resolutions for the year, the questions come up:"What are my gifts?", "Where should I serve?" or more basically "Why should I serve?".

Gifts and the Body of Christ
First, most people say, let's talk about gifts. Because we should serve according to our gifts. The popular, oft-quoted gift lists in the Bible are found at Romans 12:6-8, 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4. But there is no mention that the gifts that are given to the church are limited to these 17-18 types. There are surely many others. More likely, Paul is selecting samples from the different sorts of gifts we might expect to find in any given church, a good cross-section of the skill categories by which the body of Christ is to be built up.

Most people, having lived for a number of years, have some sense of what they are good at or what their skills are. It could be writing, teaching and encouraging, serving, playing a musical instrument or singing, showing mercy or leading.

The World's Value on Gifts:I Am Gifted, So Are You!
Despite very recent reminders about loving truly and not conforming to the ways of the world, it's very easy to slip back into coveting what the world holds dear; adopting the world's view of what is important and its style and methods of getting these things.

The world values skills and exalts those they think are gifted. Giftedness is how the world tells us we find self-worth. If we are good at what we do, we are valuable and should feel good about ourselves. The explicit or implicit point of motivational speakers like Adam Khoo is that one can be lifted out of a meaningless life, lack of motivation for living and cesspit self-esteem by finding and understanding one's gifts, unlocking one's talents and becoming high achievers or geniuses (however defined). We are defined by our skills, talents and gifts and what we do with them.

But not so with us. It's too easy to follow the thinking of the world, especially when we aren't sure how to handle certain situations. With difficult teens for example, Christian parents have been heard to advise each other,"Oh, you must find out what he is good at, then praise him for it. You must tell him you love him very much because he can shoot basketballs/play the guitar well."

We are not to be like the world in valuing people for their gifts. We are to value them as our children and really, as children of God, for whom Christ gave his life, saved by the precious blood of Christ to have relationship with the Maker of the Universe. And it is in that stupendous relationship that we find meaning in life.

God's Purpose for Giving Gifts
Every Christian is given a gift by God. We all have different "gifts of grace" or charismata (Romans 12:6) (so in that sense if we are Christian, we are all "charismatic" Christians, for all Christians are given a gift of God's grace).

God gives us these gifts to equip us to fulfil a particular function within the church. The gift is not given for our own personal enjoyment. The gift is not our personal choice either, nor is it the choice of our parents: it is God who decides what gifts we have and he has given us those gifts in order that we may fulfil the role that he has designed for us within his church.

Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others (Romans 12:4-5).

Each of our different gifts are important to the church. Not just the more public ones like the pastor-teacher or the evangelist or the musician. For the body is not made up of one part but of many.

If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. (1 Corinthians 12:14-26)

So it is silly foolish and destructive to envy someone else's gift. It is a complete waste of time sit around pining away and wishing we had this or that gift, or spending obscene amounts of money, time and energy attempting to acquire the gift that we desire. We need all the different parts of the body, not 1,000 heads.

We must get on with using the gifts that we have and that God has bestowed upon us, do our part in the body of Christ that God specifically designed for us. No one is superfluous. Everybody counts. In that sense, everyone is indispensable because everyone is needed in the body of Christ.

The Use of Gifts
We are also tempted to conform to the pattern of the world and begin to think of our place in the Christian community, the church, in terms of prestige, in terms of personalities and popularity. But as soon as we start doing this, we cease to be the sort of church Jesus Christ wants.

Romans 12:3 exhorts us not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought, but with sober judgement. That is, if we are to be part of the body of God, we are to think differently from the world. Our minds must be transformed from the mindset of the world.

We are tempted to conform to the pattern of the world in many ways. 3 obvious ones are:
Fun-loving
The world tells us that we should do what we enjoy and be with people we like. So in church we flirt from ministry to ministry, always moving with our clique to the newest/most "in"/coolest ministry where everyone is fun to be with.

Apathy
or we might be apathetic and lazy; bo chap; not caring less about the contribution we are making (or rather, are not making) in the body of Christ. It often masquerades as a form of humility,"Oh, I don't have any gifts; don't ask me to do lah". It may be that we aren't interested in doing the job because we are not prepared to give some of our time or energy on a regular basis, or that it is boring or low profile work. Perhaps we like our freedom to do what we want to do when we feel like it and don't want to be tied down by any responsibility or commitment.

But Romans 12:6 tells us that the authentic Christian response is just the opposite:"We have different gifts, according to the grace given us". And every Christian is gifted by God to fulfil a role that he or she has been alloted by God in the church. So we are not to let the world squeeze us into its way of apathy; whether you do the job or not does matter to God. And it matters to his body.

The body of Christ is not a cruiseliner where only a few work the ship while the rest lounge around sunbathing. It is a sail boat weathering a storm and trying to get to its destination and all hands have to be on deck. There is no place for stragglers.

Carnal Pride
the opposite error to apathy is that of carnal pride. We say,"If I don't do it, it won't be done properly". If we have responsibilities, we are tempted to take on more of them ourselves. In the world, we use our talents and skills to win power, promotion, popularity or status, to build ourselves up to No.1. Too often, we alert others to the work we are doing by complaining incessantly:"Oh...that secretary (or insert relevant employee or professional adviser) is so stupid/incompetent. What are we paying them for? In the end, I had to do this [insert task] myself! I have so much to do already. I'm sooo tired. I have to do [insert list of tasks]."

But in the church, we are not building ourselves up. We are using the talents and gifts which God has given us to build up others. It is a fundamentally different concept. We are not to use our gifts to minister to ourselves or build up our power, prestige or credentials.

An easy way to tell whether we are using our gifts in the wrong way is this: when we have done something "for the LORD" or "for the church", and we are not recognised by people for what we are doing, we hurt:"They didn't even have the decency to thank me", we think. That is a good sign that we are using our gifts to minister to ourselves rather than to the LORD, to inflate ourselves rather than equip his body.

The sober judgement that Romans 12:3 is talking about means choosing not to strive to be everything, nor sit back and let everyone else doing all things. It is recognising that there is a unique task that each of us has to accomplish for Christ within his body.

If we have a right estimate of ourselves, then we realise that all that we have are gifts from God. And it is our great privilege to be faithful stewards of everything God has given us. When we have a right estimate of ourselves, we realise that any gift we have is not due to our merit, but to God's grace and therefore we are to use those gifts as such.

Commitment and Balance
Notably, on the last night of his earthly life, Jesus was able to say to his Father in haven,"I have finished the work you gave me to do" (John 17:4); no more and no less. What a testimony of commitment and balance. Sober judgement means saying,"I am just a member of this body, and however multi-gifted I may be, whatever my gifts may be, however seemingly great or small my task may be, I am and always will be supremely merely one of many members of the body."

It is not my church. It is not your church. It is not our pastors' or leaders' church. It is the church of Christ. Therefore, I am not the head and you are not the head and the pastors and leaders are not the head, only Christ.

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:11-16)

See also David Jackman's good but somewhat scattered "Understanding the Church" for more useful thoughts.