雖然本人並非生蠔粉絲，但亦知道識得食生蠔的人士，食生蠔時絕不會加鹽加醋，只會新鮮拆開「雪」一聲吞落肚，就連殼內新鮮的海水也要品嘗。

食生蠔要加鹽加醋的人，根本不認識生蠔。

同樣地，那些整天嚷著說福音對一般人的生活很「遙遠」，強調教會必需「令」福音「變得」更加 relevant 的人，其實與食生蠔要加鹽加醋的人無異。因為他們根本不認識自己食的東西是什麼。以為自己做了好事，實際上卻破壞了那原有的鮮味。

我認為，福音或耶穌基督根本上與世界上每一樣東西每一件事也 relevant 不過(西1:15-20)，我們只須指出 (“point out”) 它已有的 relevancy，而並非要「令」它「變得」更加 relevant。

遙遠，其實並不是福音，而是那些加鹽加醋的人。

他們離福音的真義才是遙遠。

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Matthew 25:31-40

I’m almost finished reading Rob Bell‘s Love Wins. I don’t think there is anything particularly shocking or troubling. There isn’t anything new either. Those who have studied a bit of the church fathers, esp. Origen and Irenaeus, will know what he is talking about.

Actually I think the video above perfectly illustrates what he is arguing for. He’s not arguing for the traditional exclusivity. He’s not arguing for radical inclusiveness either (which means he’s not arguing that there are other paths of access to God.) Rather, he’s arguing for “an exclusivity on the other side of inclusivity”, which insists that “Jesus is the way, but holds tightly to the assumption that the all-embracing, saving love of this particular Jesus the Christ will of course include all sorts of unexpected people from across the cultural spectrum.” (155)

He furthers, “As soon as the door is opened to Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Baptists from Cleveland, many Christians become very uneasy, saying that then Jesus doesn’t matter anymore, the cross is irrelevant, it doesn’t matter what you believe, and so forth.” (155)

And he responds to this kind of response by saying: “Not true. Absolutely, unequivocally, unalterably not true. What Jesus does is declare that he, and he alone, is saving everybody. And then he leaves the door way, way open. Creating all sorts of possibilities. He is as narrow as himself and as wide as the universe. He is as exclusive as himself and as inclusive as containing every single particle of creation.” (155)

So what is the eternal destination of this compassionate Brahmin guy? I can’t say for sure, because 1) he is still living and he may have many more years ahead to get to know this ultimate source of love (i.e. Jesus), and 2) I’m no judge. I am only told to spread the good news of Jesus whenever and wherever I can.

What I can be sure about is that he is definitely serving Jesus as he serves the hungry, the sick, and the needy. I can only say let the King and the Judge decide who’s righteous or not when he comes in His glory. Meanwhile, we should get busy doing what we have been commanded and stop speculating about other people’s destination, for the Lord has His own plans for every person (John 21:21-22).

Related posts:

1. Rob Bell Comes Clean
2. John Newton seems to agree with Rob Bell
3. Spending a Year Living Like Jesus

Things are moving very fast and there will be an upcoming inaugural conference in March 21-22, 2011, called Discerning Contemporary Culture: Challenges & Christian Ministry in a Permissive Age, co-sponsored by

• Regent College Anglican Studies Program
• Carey Theology College & Carey Institute
• Hudson Taylor Centre for Chinese Ministries at Tyndale University College & Seminary
• Vancouver Chinese Evangelical Ministerial Fellowship (溫哥華華人教牧同工團契)

There are some top-notch speakers and scholars invited, including J. I. Packer (Regent), James Houston (Regent), David Pao (Trinity Evangelical), Brian Stiller (Tyndale), Warren Lai (Tyndale) and more.

I always believe there is no way to do ministry and arrive at the right praxis without first doing serious theological reflection. This is the chance to pick the best minds to understand how to do Chinese ministry in a Canadian context.

For those in Vancouver or even in the east coast who are interested in this, please help spread the word.

Related posts:

1. 120 Years of Good Shepherd

Panoramic of the Lausanne Congress. (Source: Lausanne Facebook Page)

Over 4000 Christians from almost 200 countries around the world is gathering in Cape Town this week for the 3rd Lausanne Congress, to worship, fellowship, and discuss how “the whole church can take the whole gospel to the whole world.”

They are very close to getting a taste of Rev. 7.

P.S. Please also remember in your prayers the Chinese Christians leaders who were banned by the government from attending this event. Individuals have been followed, harassed, pressured by government officials not to go to Lausanne. Some even had their passports confiscated at the airport. Link: Chinese Christians Barred From Conference (New York Times, Oct 15, 2010)

1. Quote and reference cultural icons during sermons (e.g. Stephen Colbert and Lady Gaga)
2. Sponsor the screening of the R-rated movies
3. Give the pastor a metrosexual makeover, with skinny jeans and a $80 haircut
4. Insist on trendy eco-friendly paper and helvetica-only fonts on all printed materials
5. Hold a worship service in a bar or nightclub
6. Stream online church services
7. Encourage texting, Twitter and iPhone interaction with the pastor during the service
8. Shock people with sex-themed marketing gimmicks (e.g. sermon titles like “Biblical Oral Sex”)
9. Worship with indie-rock music

“But are these gimmicks really going to bring young people back to church? Is this what people really come to church for? Maybe sex sermons and indie- rock worship music do help in getting people in the door, and maybe even in winning new converts. But what sort of Christianity are they being converted to?”

“‘And the further irony,’ he adds, ‘is that the younger generations who are less impressed by whiz-bang technology, who often see through what is slick and glitzy, and who have been on the receiving end of enough marketing to nauseate them, are as likely to walk away from these oh-so-relevant churches as to walk into them.’

If the evangelical Christian leadership thinks that ‘cool Christianity’ is a sustainable path forward, they are severely mistaken. As a twentysomething, I can say with confidence that when it comes to church, we don’t want cool as much as we want real.

If we are interested in Christianity in any sort of serious way, it is not because it’s easy or trendy or popular. It’s because Jesus himself is appealing, and what he says rings true. It’s because the world we inhabit is utterly phony, ephemeral, narcissistic, image-obsessed and sex-drenched—and we want an alternative. It’s not because we want more of the same.”

The Perils of ‘Wannabe Cool’ Christianity by Brett McCraken (Wall Street Journal, Aug 13, 2010)

I agree very much with McCracken, and I don’t think it is necessary to do any of those 9 things above in order to attract young people, but what’s wrong with #4?

Any comments or thoughts?

P.S. I just realized I might very well be a “Bookish Intellectual” Christian hipster. What do I do now? =P

The Sermon on the Mount by Carl Heinrich Bloch

“Effective proclamation of the gospel normally takes place when people see the effect of the presence or rule of God in the life of an individual or community…… Evangelism is the natural consequence of Christology and therefore of life under the rule of God.”

“In its most basic form, without deeds (whether works of compassion, the fight for justice or dramatic supernatural encounters) no one listens, but without words (the telling of the story of Christ and the invitation to believe), no one understands.”

“Evangelicals have been very good at what John Wimber calls ‘programmatic evangelism‘…… Planning, organization, gospel outlines all have their place, but if they do not find that place in the context of a community, an individual, or relationships which know what it is to live under the rule of God, and are caught up in God’s initiative towards the world, they are likely to bring little fruit.”

Graham Tomlin, “Evangelicalism and Evangelism,” in Evangelical Anglicans: Their Role and Influence in the Church Today, ed. R. T. France and Alister E. McGrath (London: SPCK, 1993), 91-2.

This pretty much sums up my theological understanding underlying evangelism.

Only Kingdom people can do Kingdom work.

Perhaps it’s time to read Matthew again.

H/T: littleho

This is a great illustration on what the local church is supposed to be. The local church is NOT about creating endless events to attract people to come, but empowering disciples to go into the world who embody the church in them.

We don’t go to church. We are the church, wherever we go.

We must be a missional church because God is a missional God.

Here are some characteristics that I think a good church should embody:

• God-centered – Specifically Trinitarian, in that the Father is glorified in everything when the people of God conforms more and more to the image of the Son, through the reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit.
• Mission oriented – Participating in the mission of God for the redemption of the world. Just as how the Father sent the Son and the Spirit, we are being sent into the world (John 17). The church should follow God’s lead in doing mission, paying attention to where He is currently at work.
• Biblically informed – The people of God should be thoroughly familiar with the over-arching biblical story and live out their lives according to their roles in the trajectory of that story line. They should also be able to retell this story well as part of any evangelistic effort. Telling people the biblical narrative is to tell people who God is and what God is up to with this world.
• Eschatalogically minded – The church should live out the present in light of the future redemption and glory God has prepared. This includes having a worshipful community that patterns after the eternal worship in the future (Rev 5). The church should also convey to the broken world a message of hope in light of God’s salvation and promises. Evil does not have the last word because God is sovereign and in control.
• Servanthood and Cruciform – The church should not be triumphalistic, but be demonstrative of God’s strength in weakness, serving others in humility and in cruciform.
• Be loving and hospitable – The church should demonstrate love, grace, and forgiveness in its congregational life, because that is how people can recognize them as Jesus’ disciples (John 13). Just as God is hospitable to us, the church should demonstrate God’s hospitality in welcoming and embracing everyone without prejudice, especially those who are weak, powerless, and oppressed. God’s compassionate heart is always on the side of those who are marginalized by society.

Related posts:

1. Truly Missional Church
2. 10 Reasons Why Churches Fail to be Missional

Commenting on John 15:18-27, Lesslie Newbigin writes:

The Gospel repeatedly affirms that it is not the work of men but of God to bring people to the knowledge of Jesus as he truly is. To know Jesus as Lord can never be the work of “flesh and blood.” It is always a miracle of God’s grace and never the direct result of even the most impressive “proclamation,” for no one comes to Jesus unless the Father draws him (6:44).

…… It is the Spirit who is sovereign. The promise to the community of the disciples is not that they will have the Spirit at their disposal to help them in their work of proclamation. That misunderstanding has profoundly distorted the missionary action of the Church and provided the occasion for a kind of missionary triumphalism of which we are right to be ashamed. The Spirit is not the Church’s auxiliary.

Leslie Newbigin, The Light Has Come: An Exposition of the Fourth Gospel, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1982), 207-8.

So let us not pray anymore like this: “O God, help us do our work and our ministry”, but rather like this: “O God, we only ask that you make use of us who are fragile jars of clay (2 Cor. 4:7-12), through which you can do your work and your ministry. Amen.”

Related posts:

1. Blow Spirit, Blow!

After some serious studying of the Scriptures, I found two arguments that are helpful to bring clarity to this problem:

Hello, where’s God in the picture?

Most commentators agree that Exodus 15:22-18:27 is a clearly bounded literary unit describing five problems the Israelites faced during the journey from the Red Sea to Sinai. The following structure is taken from the ESV study bible:

1. Water problem: Marah (15:22-27)
2. Food problem: manna (16:1-36)
3. Water problem: Massah and Meribah (17:1-7)
4. Passage problem: Israel defeats Amalek (17:8-16)
5. Judgment problem: Jethro advises Moses (18:1-27)

After I re-read these five sections once again, I noticed that whenever the people grumbled, either Moses faithfully turned to God begging for help (Ex. 15:25, 17:4), or God was actively present giving Moses instructions how to solve the problem (Ex. 15:25-26; 16:4-5, 11-12, 28-29; 17:1, 5-6, 14)…… all except the last one – the judgment problem. In the entire chapter 18, the Lord was silent and uninvolved. It was only a private conversation between Jethro and Moses.

More interestingly, there is no indication that Moses was complaining about his job as the judge of the people. He seemed fine with it. He just did what he had to do. It was only Jethro who saw the situation and thought it was no good (Ex. 18:17). It was an unsolicited advice.

Okay, even if Moses was truly burdened by the sheer amount of work, why didn’t he cry out to God and ask for help, as he always does? Strange, isn’t it? Why did Moses obediently accept an unsolicited advice from his father-in-law, who may not even be a legitimate channel of God’s voice? Who is Jethro that Moses should listen to anyways? (We can also explore the intricate dynamics of in-law relationships here…… but I won’t go there.)

God’s way of alleviating stress

If you go to Numbers 11, there is a parallel story of how Moses dealt with the grumblings of the people during the journey from the Red Sea to Sinai. Here Moses was so stressed out in dealing with the people’s complaints that he cried out to God saying: “I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me. If you will treat me like this, kill me at once, if I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness.” (Num. 11:14-15)

So God said to Moses: “Gather for me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you. And I will come down and talk with you there. And I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone.” (Num. 11:16-17)

What is the difference between God’s way of alleviating Moses’ stress and Jethro’s way?

Jethro’s way (Ex. 18:21-22):

1. Look for able men, men who fear God, who are trustworthy and hate a bribe.
2. Set them up as chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens. (This is known as typical Ancient Near East military formation.)
3. Only great matters they shall bring to Moses, but small matters they shall decide themselves. (First of all, how can they properly distinguish what matters are great and what matters are small? Also, is there a hint of increasing autonomy and independence?)

God’s way (Num. 11:16-17):

1. Specifically instructed to select seventy elders of Israel.
2. There was a personal encounter with God at the tent of meeting.
3. God took some of His Spirit that was on Moses and distributed it to the other seventy elders.
4. Even Eldad and Medad who were not obedient (for they were the extra two who did not go to the tent but stayed in the camp), but they also received the Spirit and prophesied, which led to Joshua’s jealousy (Num. 11:26-30). This only highlights the endowment of the Spirit as God’s pure grace, not contingent upon the piety of the elected.

It is very clear that one is based on human wisdom and the other is based on divine appointment and empowerment.

Conclusion

Remember when Jesus said “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few”, he appointed seventy-two disciples to go ahead of him to towns and villages to preach the Kingdom of God (Luke 10:1-20)? I suspect the Gospel text is echoing the story we saw in Numbers.

In Luke, Jesus is the new Moses leading the new Exodus, appointing seventy-two disciples who are empowered by the Holy Spirit to share the load of His work. The seventy-two are not chosen based on their ability or piety, but by the Lord’s appointment. They go out in pairs and come back reporting to the Lord directly. They need not report to a hierarchy of chiefs above them. When they are legitimately commissioned by Jesus, they receive the full authority to judge the people who receives or rejects them. There is no need to separate matters into categories of “great” or “small”, treating them differently. Jesus affirmed their ability to judge authoritatively by saying to them: “Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.” (Luke 10:16)

Now that’s God’s way of doing delegation.

So are you convinced that Jethro’s advice maybe problematic?

I hope my investigation can serve as a new perspective among all the other views that typically praise Jethro’s advice as wise and appropriate.

Any comment or feedback is welcomed.

Related posts:

1. Obey My Voice

Pastor Ken is truly a godly and courageous man.

Spreading the word

Mark Hasiuk, Vancouver Courier
Published: Friday, October 16, 2009

Despite Kitsilano’s high rent and irreligious reputation, Tenth Avenue Church, an evangelical church led by Pastor Ken Shigematsu, has moved into the neighbourhood.

Read the article here

Related posts:

1. The Missional Church: Simple
2. 10 Reasons Why Churches Fail to be Missional