Hopes and Expectations. Black Holes and Revelations. John 5:1-29.

As we work through the Gospel of John, we are in awe of the persistence and insistence of God in calling people to himself, and so simultaneously, the great tragedy that the Jews, to whom were given the promises of blessing and the symbols of future rescue would be the ones who would kill the promised Christ.

But perhaps even now, anywhere in the world and at any point of time, people can gather united in the name of God, yet the great tragedy might be that even a premier bible-teaching church may reject the very Saviour they claim to proclaim.

Read John 5:1-29
Q: It's a remarkable thing to heal a man who has been lame for 38 years with just a word. But what was the special significance of the healing of the lame man to a Jew?
Read Isaiah 35:3-7. Isaiah prophesised that when God came to rescue his people, inter alia, the lame man would leap like a deer. This was a sign that God's Saviour had come.

Q: What was significant about the day on which the healing took place?
Read Deuteronomy 5:12-15. Sabbath was a day of rest instituted by God when God's people were meant to remember God's rescue of them from slavery in Egypt (and a future rest/rescue). It should have been doubly significant for them that the sign of the Messiah should occur on the day set apart by God to point to his past (and future) rescue.

Q: Remember that John wrote his Gospel so that we would believe that Jesus is the Christ and by believing have life in his name (John 20). How does this convince us that Jesus is the Christ?
.....

Q: But how did the Jews respond instead?
They wanted to kill him (John 5:18).

Q: What did the Jews find so offensive?
Healing on the Sabbath and making himself equal to God (John 5:18).

Q: What was so tragically ironic about what they found offensive?
They were offended by the very thing they claimed to be waiting for, the person whom all this pointed to.

Q: Jesus explained why they should not be offended. Why did Jesus do what he did?
The Father commissioned him to do this work. He is acting in imitation of and obedience to the Father. (John 5:19-23)

Q: We have seen in past studies that Jesus was with God in the beginning and that he is the only one to have seen God. What else do we know about his relationship with the Father from this passage?
Close, open (to each other) relationship. Obedience from Jesus. Love from Father.

Q: The miracle that it was, the healing of the lame was nothing compared to two greater works that God has given Jesus to do. What are they?
To give life and to judge the world.

Why did God give Jesus this work to do?
So that they would honour him like they honoured the Father (John 5:23). Because he is the Son of Man (John 5:27) - not a new commission but because of who Jesus already is.

How should people honour God?
Believe him. (John 5:24)

How should people honour Jesus?
Hear his words (John 5:24-25) - believe him.

[Q: Who has the right to give life and to judge the world?
Only God since he created life and since he is the one sinned against.]

Who is Jesus that all people should respond in this way?
.....

Was this good news or bad news for the Jews?
Supposed to be good news but their response makes it very bad news indeed.

What are the consequences of not believing God/Jesus?
Judgement, death. (John 5:24-28)

What was going to happen to those Jews who were so zealous in defending God's rest day and God's name?
Judgement, death.

Even as people who call ourselves Christian, our response to Jesus is very important. We can be enthusiastic about church, serve in many ways, lead ministries, give to the poor etc but without a saving relationship with Christ, we will still face judgement and eternal death.
Q: Think through a typical day in your life. How have you believed God/Jesus from the time you got out of bed until you climbed back in at night?
Q: How have you believed God/Jesus in participating in abjectly Christian activities?

Breakfast - Dinner

"Just Looking" Studies
Just Looking Study 1 (John 20:30-31, John 1:1-18)
Just Looking Study 2 (John 3:1-21)
Just Looking Study 3 (John 4:1-30) - from-a-Christian-family version
Just Looking Study 4 (John 5:1-29)
Just Looking Study 5 (John 11:1-57)
Just Looking Study 6 (John 18:28-19:16a)
Just Looking Study 7 (John 19:16b-42)
Just Looking Study 8 (John 20)

Chinese Lunar New Year, 2 Thessalonians 1

The Chinese Lunar New Year is usually heralded by transatlantic calls from relatives speaking in tongues, the parentals declining to build a spit in the backyard for roasting a suckling pig (why not go the whole hog for the guests, eh?) and a pot-luck of stapleszzz.

Jamon! Chorizo!

On the way for more groceries, the driver mentioned with great glee that a small present, just off the plane from Bilbao, awaited in a cooler bag in the backseat. Perfecto! Hasta la vista suckling pig, the dead Spanish pig for personal consumption cometh!

The soundscape to accompany the peeling and chopping of a molehill of garlic and weeping into another molehill of onions started with The Mountain Goats' Life Of The World To Come, which like many an un-sermon, featured bible verses as inspiration for songs*. Half way through the garlic molehill, it seemed strange that Jack Johnson was singing about being made holy instead of, say, banana pancakes: Chris Rice's Deep Enough To Dream wasn't half-bad musically and fairly reasonable lyric-substance-wise, with a little more variety in Past The Edges and Smell The Color 9.

Trying to understand 2 Thessalonians 1:5 is also like trying to smell the colour 9, though in this case our faculties (and also late night discussions with people touting more well-oiled clogs) are meant to be of help. Perhaps it smells approximately like this:

2 Thessalonians 1:3-4
The Thessalonians' faith, love and hope ("steadfastness", cf 1 Thessalonians 1:3) has grown and increased so that Paul is able to boast about them to the other churches of God. Not that Paul sees them as a good pad for his CV as evangelist and church planter and grower, for he thanks God for this since it is God who has wrought their growth in these things (cf 1 Thessalonians 4 - "more and more").

2 Thessalonians 1:5-10
God considers it just (after all, who else can define "justice") to judge people according to how they respond to him (and his children): vengeance and the punishment of eternal destruction for those who do not know God and who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus (1:8-9); relief to the Thessalonians and to Paul, Silas and Timothy from the afflictions they are suffering (most likely because of the gospel, cf 1 Thessalonians) (1:7); affliction to those who are persecuting those who know and obey God (1:6), who have been called by God to do his work and empowered by him to fulfil their task for which they are being afflicted (1:11). Squeaks of "Oh I thought the vengeful violent God was the God of the Old Testament" would be moot because God himself determines what is right, and since he made the world, it is naturally and necessarily right that he punish the bits of his creation who not only decline to worship their creator but in fact, hinder and afflict those who are trying to tell the world about him (1:10). This is the righteous judgment of God.

The suffering of the Thessalonians (whom Paul has already established are true children of God) for knowing God and obeying the gospel of the Lord Jesus is evidence of the righteous judgment of God (1:5). This sounds as silly as saying that the prison term for the man convicted for breaking into his own house because he lost his keys is manifest evidence of the righteousness of the Singapore legal system. How can the unfair situation facing the Thessalonians be evidence of the righteous judgment of God?

Perhaps in these ways:
(i) in the sense that because this is an unjust situation, therefore, the inevitability of a day when the just God will make all this right, when the wicked and the righteous will get what they deserve (as discussed above);

(ii) in the sense that because of (i), it is proof to the Thessalonians of their current and eventual eternal standing before God - that they will not be away from the glory of his might (1:9) but marvelling at him who will be glorified in them (1:10,12); and also

(iii) in the sense that on the Day of Reckoning, it will show that God's counting them worthy of the kingdom will be right because in their affliction for his work and word, for they would have made it manifestly obvious that they had been obedient to God. Conversely, the righteousness of punishing those who are vexing them for this very reason would also be plain.

(Which would mean that those who preach that peace, prosperity and security now are evidence of God's blessing and approval are dangerously misdirecting their audience.)

Even if we not currently suffering because of the gospel (though rare would be the Christian who never finds himself in tribulation for living out his beliefs and a request for more holiness please usually takes care of that lack!), is the imminence of the Day clouding our waking moments and our dreams?

Are we eager to, boldly without flinching, keep growing in works of faith, in labour of love and steadfastness of hope (cf 1 Thessalonians 1:3, 1 Thessalonians 4)? For we already have great comfort that even if nastiness comes upon our placid lives because of this, it is all the more proof of our status before God now and on the Last Day and the glory our perseverance will bring Him who enables us to persevere.

And whether or not we are amassing questions for the eternal question time in heaven, it would be strange if the desire has not been awakened in us to yearn for the presence of God, if Jesus is not the person we are missing most even if we can avail ourselves to the sentiment of (if not the coupley set dinner menus that inevitably accompany) Valentine's Day; if we are not looking forward to celebrating God's glory in the people who have believed the gospel.



Nick Malgieri's Supernatural Brownieszzz, with some AP flour swapped out for wholewheat, an addition of roasted pecans, underbaked by 20 minutes.

*The Mountain Goats, Life Of The World To Come

1 Samuel 15:23


Genesis 3:23


Hebrews 11:40


Romans 10:9


1 John 4:16


Matthew 25:21


Deuteronomy 2:10


Isaiah 45:23


Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace

Authentic Gospel Ministry: Tough But Tasty

There is something deliciously and transformingly wholesome about true gospel ministry; like from-scratch pasta sauce with its layered texture and complex flavour that inevitably prompts the singing of (silly) songs late into the night thereafter. Or that could have been the pinot noir.

Bad simile, bad bad simile. Go sit in the naughty corner.

Right.

Authentic gospel ministry is deliciously and transformingly wholesome. It concerns the authentic gospel of course (1 Thesslonians 1). But mainstream Martha Stewart fans would snub it, as would the editors of the most niche food or shelter magazines. It's just not pretty enough. It does not rely on effective technique or any display of human power.

(Jesus, who displayed more out-of-this-world power than any human in history, was not keen on making it the cornerstone of his ministry. He did not seem to think that healing and driving out demons were great evangelistic tools to draw the crowds (though they did in droves so he could not enter a town openly (Mark 1:45) or even eat (Mark 3:21)). Instead, he was far more concerned about preaching the gospel of God (Mark 1:39) - the fulfilment of Scripture (Mark 1:14), the repentance of sins and the good news that he had come as king (Mark 1:14, 2:17), the promised Son of Man who would have the authority of God to, inter alia, forgive sins and give real rest (Mark 2:9, 2:28) and usher in a new era (Mark 2:22ff).)

Paul arrived in Thessalonica beaten black and blue from his reception at Philippi. It would seem that both he and Silas still had the dust of shame of failure on their cloaks (1 Thessalonians 2:2) and could be sure of more of the same in Thessalonica. There was no triumphalism in their coming nor anything impressive about them as messengers. Boldness in continuing to preach the controversial gospel required more than human courage - it required the power of God and for us today it will always depend on the power of God (1 Thessalonians 2:2). For if the gospel belongs to God, then the courage to proclaim it will come from God as well.

Because it comes from God and is all about God, authentic gospel ministry also always seeks the approval of God(1 Thessalonians 2:4a). God is not hoodwinked by the doing of seemingly right things with impure motives for he knows and tests men's hearts (1 Thessalonians 2:4b).

And since it is God's gospel and depends on God's power and seeks the approval of God, then it would be smack-forehead silly to use deceptive methods to get people to believe in Jesus, no matter how desperate we are for the salvation of those we love. It would completely miss the point to flatter men or become the nice, tame religious person they would prefer, allegedly to win souls. Jesus, who wept over Jerusalem and died for the sins of the world, did not hesitate to alienate those of his hearers who were opposed to his gospel (not his personality) (Mark 3).

The authentic gospel, because it must have already transformed its messengers, is communicated with the love of God (1 Thessalonians 2:6-12). Like a nursing mother thoroughly committed to her child, Paul and Silas' whole lives revolved around sharing the gospel and their very beings with the Thessalonians without wanting anything in return and concerned not to burden them. Only God could have given a love that was/is not content with the mass spraying of the gospel but was/is eager for a long-term commitment to sharing lives. Like a father with his children, this love is keen to nurture: to come alongside, to put strength in and to demonstrate how to walk in a manner worthy of God.

Do we minister to each other depending on God's power (not relying on the latest sure-win-others-for-Christ technique), for God's approval (not to demonstrate to the Evangelist Idol panel that we are godly or effective workers for Christ), with God's love (not just human interest)?

Do we minister with the authentic word of God? For the authentic gospel carries authority of God, not of men. And it will work in authentic believers so that after they have accepted the objective truth of what has been proclaimed, they will have faith in God and in the message and turn to the living and true God and serve him, waiting for his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead who is coming oto save from coming wrath, and because of this hope, be prepared to suffer as Christ did and as church always has rather than deny truth of gospel or to desist from proclaiming it. (1 Thessalonians 2:13-16)

Are these very basic requirements part of our church leadership selection criteria?


Someone was demonstrating a guitar technique with this song yesterday and now its a earworm.

Everlasting God (Lincoln Brewster, popularised by Chris Tomlin)
Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord
We will wait upon the Lord
We will wait upon the Lord

Our God, You reign forever
Our hope, our Strong Deliverer
You are the everlasting God
The everlasting God
You do not faint
You won't grow weary

Our God, You reign forever
Our hope, our Strong Deliverer
You are the everlasting God
The everlasting God
You do not faint
You won't grow weary

You're the defender of the weak
You comfort those in need
You lift us up on wings like eagles

It's just crying out for an 80s drum machine. Anyway, horrible paucity of lyrical substance made up by embarrassing riches of 1 Thessalonians 1-2, Mark 1-3 and Acts 10-12 (see the St. Helen's Bishopsgate series on The Advance of the Gospel). Yums.

Fast (But Satisfying) Food (1 Thessalonians 1)

Paul and Silvanus (Silas) had served up some very good food indeed (the bread of life) in Thessalonica for three Sabbaths before they were forced to leave by jealous Jews (Acts 17:1-9).

Afraid that the Thessalonians might have gone on to ruin their lives with poisonous junk, they sent Timothy to check in on them and encourage them to keep feeding on the good stuff (1 Thessalonians 2:17-3:10).

Fruity

Paul, Silas and Tim were now writing to provide (further) assurance that they did really have the gospel of God and were on track.

The gospel of Paul/Silas/Timothy/God had objective content. The Thessalonians had neither been persuaded by Paul/Silas' eloquence nor their cutting illustrations nor confident speech. Rather, they had been convinced (1) by proof from scripture (Acts 17:2-3) that Jesus was the Christ who had to suffer and rise from the dead; (2) by proof from the lives of Paul/Silas/Timothy (1 Thessalonians 1:5) that they were really convinced about their message - suffering for the proclamation of the gospel and leading holy, righteous and blamesless lives (Acts, 1 Thessalonians).

The Thessalonians then came to trust in objective realities: they had faith that Jesus was the Son of God, that he died on cross as an atoning sacrifice for sins, that he was raised from dead and that he would come to save them from God's coming wrath (1 Thessalonians 1:10). Knowing the love of God (1 Thessalonians 1:4), they loved others (1 Thessalonians 3:12, 4:9-10). They had a sure and certain hope of the future when God's Son would come from heaven and deliver them from the wrath to come.

Therefore, there was two-fold (or perhaps just one-fold) proof that they were alright by God: (1) that they were intellectually persuaded and had accepted the gospel; and (2) evidence that they had really accepted the gospel was that their lives had been changed and shaped by these doctrines (their faith worked, their love laboured and their hope was steadfast) because they had come into a relationship with God who was now their Father (1 Thessalonians 1:3). So the three letterwriters observe that the gospel had come to them not only in words but, as evidence that they had been chosen by God in power, in the Holy Spirit and in full conviction and so they received it with joy.

Remembering Babel

If this is so, then:
- one cannot claim to be on a "mission trip" or be serving God if one is merely building houses in a developing country or being hospitable to all and patient to the longwinded and, by common consensus, irritating. These were certainly not the things Paul/Silas/Tim/the Thessies were concerned about and persecuted for. If it is the word (1 Thessalonians 1:5,6,8), and the work of the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 1:5,6) through that word (and the choice of God ultimately), that transforms lives, then any work of God must include the proclaiming of the good news. After all, this was also why Jesus came to earth (Mark 1). And after all, this shows that one's own life has been transformed so to the service of the living and true God who wants all to be saved and not perish.

- while there is a place for bridge-building to, eg. the yet-unnamed post-cyberspace generations, it is the pure gospel that must be preached, not adulterated in the desperate but baseless hope that leaving out sin or Jesus might make "Christianity" much more attractive to unsubscribers. The God who is to be worshipped must be proclaimed in his full justice and glory so that he can be worshipped, and in so doing show that the preacher does actually worship this God. His Spirit will work in those who are his.

- we know we are alright by God and really believe the gospel not because we are in the right (Bible-believing) church or that the church leadership demonstrates their approval of us by appointing us to positions in the church hierarchy or because our friends so assure us, but by the proof in our lives that we have turned from idols to serve the living God, with love for all, while clinging steadily to the hope of Jesus' coming.

- elders, pastors, overseers, leaders and the like who have to account for their flock and who see their sheep wandering off cliffs and taking candy from wolves, need, themselves not to lose sight of the way God has designed lives to be turned back and transformed - by the Spirit, through the word - in both the sheep's lives and their own. Therefore, better music with emotional song leaders, a more persuasive and/or emotive preaching style, church-wide programmes for unity, love and service, a push to missions, more rules on what should or should not be done, accountability groups, topical comments on the latest scandal or political hot potato etc will, of themselves and despite the best of intentions, never bring anyone into a living relationship with God because they point to man rather than God. Better to be preoccupied with God and concentrate on teaching faithfully from the Bible the Christ to be worshipped (or rather, not to obfuscate God's word in proclaiming what God says about the his own glory) and praying, and also (and simultaneously by so doing) demonstrating the conviction of one's faith in one's life, setting the example of living according to the center of one's faith, love and hope. The gospel must first convict the undershepherds before they can so speak and so live in a way that, with the power of the Holy Spirit, generate conviction in the sheep.

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

Fruit tart recipe from Keiko Ishida's Okashi.
Double chocolate cookie recipe from Donna Hay.


Blood sugar high and failure to make much sense not completely attributable to Mark Bittman's macaroni animal pasta and cheese recipe (accidentally left for too long while Rabbids invaded the Phone).

Anniversaries of Birth-Days

Hello, my name is Sick Like Dog. Which is how I came to be stuck in a hot little room with a dead chick, Kami Sakura. Easy pickings for a weekend dinner.

Said chook felt faint at the prospect of something somewhat indelicate being done to her with a lemon.

1 chicken
salt
pepper
butter
olive oil
lemon

1. Give chook a rinse.
2. Pat dry, paying special attention to her under-wing area.
3. Massage with butter.
4. Anoint with olive oil.
5. Season with salt and pepper inside and out.
[At this point, she will ignore your offer of chardonnay.]
6. Roast at 220°C for 1h.
7. Deglaze pan with residual chardonnay.

Very Dead and Also Resting.

My name is Pukka, I live on the second floor.

And enough to shred and make a sandwich of good thick bread, slightly melted "cave-aged" gruyère, lingonberry jam and fried sage leaves.

After superinfecting the office, managed to recover somewhat in time for the boss and colleagues poking their heads round the piles of paper with a cake (and the injunction not to blow out the candles for fear of infecting the uninfected - a heavy reference book snapped close suddenly did the job as well);


a satisfying lunch with colleagues at Brotzeit, satisfying someone's sauerkraut cravings, discussing parenting styles;


an old friend popping down for lunch at Ajisen, chatter about missionaries and OMF, old preachers and male leadership in churches;


surprise longevity buns during a very tasty work dinner at East Ocean Teochew Restaurant where the off-menu food was fantastic and remarks were continually made about my relative youth amongst the two tables;


the mish-mash hilarity of too many journos and ex-journos in the same room brimming with stories of the gross and grotesque and something about mystery shoppers and food reviewers,

washed down with much alcohol, salty Sakura tea, and fortified with three different types of cakes;


good shabu-shabu buffet at En Dining, Crown Centre. Well-marbled sliced beef, good beef capaccio, yummy grilled beef cubes, sashimi salad, bittergourd with egg and spam. The yakitori was ok. But the chicken dishes were either made from poor quality chicken or overcooked. An interestingly milky sake not on the menu. Later, the smoochee was traumatised, but the smoocher was quite proud of himself. Still later, the 12 year Bowmore would have gone down even better after a ski trip, while lounging before a roaring fire in a snow-covered chalet. Godstuff gossip;


favourite Teochew-Hokkien ngor hiang and hei cho, fish maw soup, stodgy dark noodles (and not so favourite roast chicken) at Beng Hiang;


long overdue catch-up nosh at Nirai Kanai then dessert at P.S. Cafe, Palais;


and of course, what would celebrations be without a juicy patty of dead cow, with bacon, melted cheese and portobello mushroom. Behold a burger so thick you'd have to dislocate your lower jaw eating it. Washed down with Flying Dog's Doggie Style Classic Pale Ale.

While sms greetings clogging up the inbox, cards in the mail, presents tied up with silk ribbons and good food with good friends and much more slated in the weeks to come are all nice things, I have never really gone in for the celebrating of birthdays. Too me-centred. And I hadn't even asked to be born, so not much of an achievement there.

However, listening to William Taylor of St. Helen's Bishopsgate on a series on Discipleship with Distinction: the Book of Daniel has made me repent of this. In Daniel, we see the God who not only outlasts generations of Babylonian kings who come and go like a breath in the wind, we also see the God who raises up and brings down these kings to suit his purposes. So while birthdays aren't celebrations of me and a measure of my personal popularity, they should at least remind us that it was God who ordained this birth, who kept such-and-such a person watered and fed and gave him/her growth, and who ultimately gave him/her life for only one purpose: to worship God.

And the scales (Daniel 5:27) that weighed the great kings of the past like Nebuchadnezzar and Darius and the lesser kings like Belshazzar will too weigh us. If a birthday boy/girl was sent to meet his/her Maker still togged out in party hat with cake knife in hand, will we be found wanting, massively failing the purpose of our very existence?

Possibly a self-check question best asked more than once a year.

(Notes, mostly to self, 'bout changes in interests, recently observed:

1. fiction - either written or in audio-visual format is rarely interesting anymore. The gritty reality of really living in a community of sinners and being fairly aware of own sinfulness is enough drama for me.

2. nature programmes - having grown up on marigold yellow piles of National Geographic, we took a break from all that eating, thinking that Yann Arthus-Bertrand's Home would be just the thing to end the week. But though the aerial shots were beautiful, the irritation just grew through the 90 minute film. Glenn Close as narrator tried to make the most of a weak emotive script that unsurprisingly failed time and time again to acknowledge the Creator, instead attributing the miracle of life to the earth or to inheritance. (Watch the movie here.))

Braised Short-Ribs of Dead Cow, Creamless Strawberry Pav, 44th POTUS' Inauguration and James 2:1-13

Childhood fantasies are funny things, and in their own way, naive and selfishly insular.

For children barred from eating any sort of red meat, fascination with the smell and texture of the cooked flesh of dead cows.

For children for whom sugar (refined, or of the fresh cherry or strawberry sucrose variety) could only be obtained by sneaking sugar packets from restaurants and eating the white stuff surreptitiously in a corner hidden by piles of yellow National Geographic magazines, dreams of the desserts and edible delights that were the bricks and motar of the witch's house in Hansel und Gretel.

Two nights ago, we stayed up, cherry tart in hand, to watch the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States of America. Chief Justice John Roberts flubbed Barack Hussein Obama's swearing-in, but the cool-headed dude went on to give a speech pitched at the oratory (and history) books. He painted a sweeping vision for Americans, united as one; a vision that encompassed not just that part of the continental mass separating the Pacific from the Atlantic but also one that would radiate throughout the world.

The seemingly grander fantasies of grown men.

"Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions...," said Obama because if nothing he is skilled enough to anticipate and address audience response,"their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done..." The basis of his confidence in the vision of Americans working together for a common purpose is their glorious history and their forefathers who "struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. [Who] saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction" and of whose legacy they were keepers.

(Arguably however, the past does not necessarily inform the future, especially for neo-nazis and regulars at KKK meetings who would see no reason to perpetuate the "mistakes" of America's history. Though citizens of the land, they will have no part in any "common purpose".)

"My brothers!" James calls out (James 2:1) in a tone of familiarity not unlike that invoked by the 44th POTUS. But James is claiming more than a common humanity or a common citizenship. For on those bases, we give to charity and help little old ladies cross roads. But not all of us all of the time. Because sin has entered into the world, sometimes monies are spent on frivolous luxuries and little old ladies are honked at and knocked down.

And the scale of James' stated ambition, the vision of a church not split by partiality or discrimination, is not based on the great and glorious history of Israel, heavily varnished by sweeping rhetoric. Scripture is more realistic than that. It recognises the innate sinfulness of men and women everywhere of all races and positions and creeds. There can be no multi-racial un-class-conscious society in any deep meaningful way except in the real brotherhood that is united by faith in the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ (James 2:1).

Jesus: as American as cherry pie? After all, a distinctive characteristic of Jesus was that he showed no partiality, supping and dining with sinners and tax collectors and consorting with prostitutes while the rabbis tsked and tutted outside. This presented an excellent opportunity for enemies to try to trip him up. Oh, an equal opportunist are you? Friend of the poor and the rich same-same? Then you must not think anything of that chap Caesar and surely you're telling us to ignore him and his Roman colonialist pan-handling as well? (Mark 12:14-17)

But in a manner not too popular with modern Americans, Jesus and later Paul failed to encourage us to consider ourselves equal in all respects with everyone else. They emphasised the need to give due honour where such honour was due: to the governing authorities instituted by God, even though they might not have been Christian, slaves were to obey their masters, respect was to be given to those senior in years. Age and authority merit from us a reasonable and courteous respect. We are not told to respect nothing.

Furthermore, even the most outwardly egalitarian of humans will make judgements on peoples and situations as part of daily life. And without the guiding hand of the Bible, we inevitably respect the wrong things. Judging people by the magnitude of their wealth in particular is a common folly in democratic capitalist societies. To treat wealth as meaningless is intellectual imbecility - the markets have evolved so that it is money that pays for food, shelter, nealthcare, transportation, and arguably, civilisation. The patently non-materialists too cannot avoid the inadvertent snobbery of giving uncalled-for preferential treatment to the allegedly disadvantaged, like the black politican who was interviewed as saying that the antidote to a corrupt senator who happened to be white was to put a black man in that office. The favouritism of the coloured skin.

And again, netizens often enjoy seeing the rich get punished both for their crimes as well as for their wealth in courts of law. But the Bible has always been refreshingly clear in stating that there be no discrimination in judgement - no partiality to the poor, nor deference to the great (Leviticus 19:15, Deuteronomy 1:17).

It is inevitable that if we do not take the Bible as truth, then we take on the standards of the world as truth. But if we profess to accept God's word and claim we have faith in him, then why how can we hear but not do (James 1:22-25)? How can we still play favourites within the church family (James 2:2-7)?

So we may not suck up to the politican during service with sycophantic motives towards his riches and influence and usefulness, but if we think that preaching in a savage reservation is greater than preaching to the owners of luxury yachts, or that the Chief of Defence Force volunteering as door-greeter is more humbled and thus more godly than the roadsweeper performing the same task, then perhaps we have subscribed to the half-truth that communism thrived on - the favouritism of farmers and dismissive and harsh treatment of the educated and well-off.

Obama's political vehicle of government through mutual love and respect has been well-received. God is love? Even those opposed to Christianity have no problem with this statement. But they do not understand that because God is the Creator, God alone defines what love is, not us. And it's not about warm waffles and fuzzy hugs. God's specs of this thing called love can be found in his laws and commandments. Only if we obey his laws and commandments can we be making some headway in loving others properly. Hence, the outcry from certain communities over what they perceive to be outdated "conservative" Christian distaste over their way of life, and the accusations of the unlovingness of these Christians are unfounded. The protestors do not truly understand what love is.


If we turn the spotlight on just one facet of God's love, what glimmers forth here is love as lack of favouritism (Romans 2:11). If we claim to show love to some people and not to others, then our actions cannot have come from true love, divine love. The all-encompassing law of loving neighbour is not a relaxation of the law of obedience of the 10 commandments because they were so darned hard to keep but an explanation of their depth and the consequent scope of human obligations. So the 10 commandments were in fact, only examples of what it meant to love one's neighbour. We cannot claim to have kept to the spirit of the law (by our own interpretation) if we did not even obey the explicit details of what it means to keep the law.

And if the royal law, the law of liberty, is a direct reflection of the character of God, then we cannot call some details important and others not (James 2:10-13). We cannot divide them into venial sins and mortal sins. This guards us against the deceitfulness and self-righteousness of taking refuge in our disobedience by stressing our obedience to other bits.

James does not merely administer a friendly slap on the wrist here. He puts out a dire warning: discriminate and die. For if you show partiality, you break the law of loving neighbour and sin and shall be convicted as transgressors (James 2:9). And the sentence for such law-breaking is death (James 1:15), because it demonstrates that despite your profession of allegiance to Christ, you worship the king of this world, not God; you are an enemy of state, of the kingdom that will triumph in the end.

We who are the firstfruits of God's creatures (James 1:18) have no excuse: we know God, we are not ignorant of his laws (because not only has God revealed to us his statutes time and again in the Bible, we also have the implanted word (James 1:21)) nor of the need to obey them, nor do we lack the ability to do what is required of us through the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-26).

• The Obama Inauguration Speech Generator
• Deb at smitten kitchen - Braised Beef Short-Ribs
• Dick Lucas on James 2:1-7, James 2:8-13
  

James

• Muaythai Aftermath and Two Cents on Sickness and Sin, and Prayer in James 5
• Baking Bread and James 4:13-17
• Beef Tournedos, Thaipusam and James 3:13 - 4:12
• Stories, the Tongues That Tell Them and James 3:1-12
• Lunar New Year Lunacy with the Ox-y Morons, and Faith, Works and Justification in James 2:14-26
• Braised Short-Ribs of Dead Cow, Creamless Strawberry Pav, 44th POTUS' Inauguration and James 2:1-13
• Mirror Masks and True Religion and Worship in James 1:19-27
  
• A Feather Duster, Discipline and Happiness, Righteousness and Trials in James 1:2-4

Feasting and Larval Thoughts On Faith and Romans 4

In the prolonged festive season that spanned Christmas and the Lunar New Year, friends and family were shooting stars, flying asteroids, shining rocks, zipping through the darkness, dilating time to, like the Months of Neil Gaiman's October In The Chair, come together, sit around a fire, eat fat sausages, drink fresh apple cider and tell each other stories.


Sometimes, the stories were of well-lit parallel paths converging on a common future.


Sometimes, the stories were of farewells at crossroads; one person turning off to a path unexplored.


Sometimes, the stories are about winning Kids Central's Record Breakers.


Sometimes, there was just feasting first and stories later.


(And feasting is fine if one is not the wild-eyed cook who still trails the unmistakeable smell of curry and garlic the morning after.

The story is: my nose was deep in Slavoj Žižek's The Puppet And The Dwarf when the orders came to get into the kitchen for the reunion dinner. The Puppet And The Dwarf was set in Joanna type, which was reminiscent somewhat of one of the fonts used in Irene's Peranakan Recipes.

So by process of free association, ayam buah keluak for reunion dinner it was[1]...to the consternation of Peranakan colleagues, who admonished that ayam buah keluak was the epitome of Peranakan cooking and a dish undertaken only by experienced cooks to demonstrate their culinary prowess; to the alarm of secretaries who immediately googled and printed out several recipes for me and then, as a backup plan, gave me the contact details for Guan Hoe Soon Restaurant in Joo Chiat Road (for the record, it's 214 Joo Chiat Road. Tel no.: 63442761); to the concern of the L who also insisted on formulating another backup plan; to the amusement of the B who suggested takeaway from Ivins down the road at Binjai Park.


Despite the unanimous no-confidence vote, I am pleased to report that no member of the Family was fatally poisoned. In fact, expressions of delight (with the food) were actually heard around the table. And this without me holding the household bottle of antacids ransom. Wonders never cease.[2]


Oh. Plus the rice was cooked in a claypot. Retro or what. Enough water to cover grains + wind blowing out fire at right moment = unburnt rice. Nice.)

Sometimes, the stories were of long-distance relationships, which led to late-night discussions (until the coffeehouse we were at switched off the lights on us) on whether long-distance relationships required greater faith in one's partner.

What is faith? Søren Kierkegaard, writing as Johannes De Silentio in Fear And Trembling, thinks that faith is the highest passion in a man. There are perhaps many in every generation who do not even reach it. And he famously attempts to discover the movement of coming to faith itself, in which process he inevitably elucidates a definition of faith:

Kierkegaard/De Silentio commences his study by looking at the life of the "Father of Faith", Abraham. Specifically, he examines what must have been the most trying, faith-testing, part of Abraham's life: the almost-sacrifice of his only child and delight in his old age, Isaac. (Kierkegaard/De Silentio's many re-interpretations of the story would have made him BFF with Jorges Luis Borges.)

Perhaps Abraham's faith, says Kierkegaard/De Silentio, is great because of his lack of understanding, great by reason of his wisdom whose secret is foolishness, great by reason of his hope whose form is madness. But he runs up against the problem that the faith that is required of Abraham is paradoxical, for if he does his absolute duty to God, then he is being commanded by God to contravene the God-instituted ethical prohibition on murder. Perhaps then, understanding and reason can have no part to play in faith. Perhaps, it falls to passion to produce the final movement to faith. Kierkegaard/De Silentio does not expect the discussion to make Abraham's faith more intelligble. In fact, the discussion was in order that the unintelligibility might become more desultory. In the end, says Kierkegaard/De Silentio, Abraham I cannot understand, I can only admire him.

So Slavoj Žižek takes Kiekegaard as saying that faith must exclude knowledge. There must be a leap of faith that leaves the brain behind. Once something is proven, like how Bible Belt swindler Steve Martin in Leap of Faith discovers he can actually perform miracles, belief in it is no longer faith.

But, ever the contrarian and modern-day Socrates, Žižek adds that belief is far more complex:

Interestingly, the last time I was in Israel, I spoke with some specialists over in Ramallah who told me that they know people from the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. They told me that even those people who are usually portrayed to us [Westerners] as true believers, their belief is more complex that it appears. First, there are much more secular motivations at work. This is our Western racism, when we imbue them with motives like, "I blow myself up, and then I awaken with those famous forty virgins at my disposal." No, no, no, it's more like, "This sacrifice is for my nation." Even more importantly, it's a strange logic in which the bombers themselves have doubts, and their suicide becomes a way of confirming their belief. "If I kill myself in this way, I can calm my doubts and prove, even to me, that I do believe." So, even here, the issue of belief is more complex that it might seem. (Liberation Hurts: An Interview with Slavoj Žižek by Eric Dean Rasmussen)

On another occasion, Žižek opines that faith though because it is fictional, is a thing of sublime beauty:

The logic is here the same as that of Anne Frank who, in her diaries, expresses belief in the ultimate goodness of man in spite of the horrors accomplished by men against Jews in World War II: what renders such an assertion of belief (in the essential goodness of Man; in the truly human character of the Soviet regime) sublime, is the very gap between it and the overwhelming factual evidence against it, i.e. the active will to disavow the actual state of things. (With Or Without Passion: What's Wrong With Fundamentalism?)

I wonder what Kierkegaard or Žižek might say to a plain porridge reading of Romans 4. This, then, is the faith of Abraham:

...it is written,"I have made you the father of many nations" — in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told,"So shall your offspring be." He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. (Romans 4:17 - 21)

The faith of Abraham is not merely propositional (ie. belief that God exists) for even the devil believes that. The faith of Abraham is attitudinal (ie. belief in God). What about God does Abraham believe in? God's promises - that God was able (both ability and commitment) to do what he had promised (Romans 4:21). Specifically, that Abraham would be the father of many nations when, at the time of the giving of the promise, Abraham and Sarah were old and childless (Romans 4:17-19); but also generally, that Abraham and his offspring (those who share in the faith of Abraham) would be heirs of the world (Romans 4:13).

Doing exactly what you've promised to do? Sorry mate, that doesn't quite make the news these days. But only if one doesn't understand the full import of Romans 1 - 3.

If Romans 1 - 3 is right, and we are in danger of being put to death for our abject failure to worship our Creator to whom worship is due, then, we suppose, this is easily remedied by doing what ought to be done in the first place. Except we can't. So corrupted are our minds and our hearts that we cannot get right with God by doing good works. We can only get right with God by having faith in him that somehow he will remain consistent to his own laws and ethics and yet be able to fulfil his promise to make Abraham and his offspring heirs of the world.

This is not a faith to the exclusion of knowledge, wisdom or understanding; nor a faith just to be commended because it is a thing of sublime beauty, aesthetically pleasing like Oscar Wilde's Catholicism of rituals and incense but otherwise quite useless. This faith is based on all that God has done through the centuries that has been recorded by various authors in the Bible. Everything God has promised, he has delivered; everything God has spoken about, has proven in time to be true.

Our relationship with God is, in a sense, the longest-distance relationship we have in our lives. Yet, that God can be trusted is one of the most certain things in life.

How can people so corrupted in mind and heart, think or decide rightly enough to make any movement to faith though? The answer is in Romans 5.

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[1] and also because am uncommonly fond of this nut. Would use it as a condiment with every meal if I could.

[2] For the record, accidentally forgot to use Irene's recipes. Went off on own little jaunt. Turned out alright though, eh.

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Working through current series on Romans:
First Thai, Jay Chou's Birthday Concert and Romans 1
Feasting and Larval Thoughts on Faith and Romans 4
Privé, Cilantro and the Marvellous Comfort of Romans 8:1 - 16
Basil Alcove and the Pre-destination-based Comfort of Romans 8:17 - 39
Kapok at Newton and Romans 9 - 11
Tin Hill Wine Bar & Bistro, The White Rabbit at Dempsey, Dim Joy, True Worship and Romans 12:1 - 2
Sodagreen 苏打绿 Sing With Me 陪我歌唱 Concert, Futsal Tournament, Romans 13