"Thinking out of the box?" (2)

Is  the church today facing the similar pitfall like the Jews? Locking ourselves in a box (4 walls church), building our little kingdom which filled with laws, regulation, rituals and failed to understand our Lord’s heart? Are we playing the church games where result, numbers and ministries are our primary focus? People are just the parts of the ministries? Are we recruiting more parts (people) from the community so that we can assemble a larger  organism machine to fulfill our own desire?

Is it God’s will to have us  building a second “perfect world” (the church) and separate ourselves with the world? Has not He commissioned us to be the salt and light IN the world, and make disciples of all nation?

The greatest commandment which Jesus taught us is “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’. How much time & effort have we spent to really reach out to our communities and live with them like Jesus did? Can we sacrifice all the resources the church have for the communities unconditionally? But sadly to say, even  the body of Christ (churches) are not willing to sacrifice for each other, how can we lay down our lives for the world like our Master?

It is crucial for the church today to think out of the box with the help of the Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth who will lead us into all truth! Many time our own fear stop us from thinking out of the box. Lets imagine what kind of impact we will make if all the local churches today united as one to reach out and disciple the communities together? We will share all the resources and let go our own church agenda for the sake of the larger picture- “the Kingdom of God”. But why couldn’t we make this happen? The fear of being taken advantages and losing control have corrupted our heart.  This has blinded us from seeing the truth.

Only when the church is willing to walk out from the box and seek the good, pleasing and perfect will of God, the reconciliation between the church with our Lord and with the communities will take place.

“Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
                                                                                                    John 14:21

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
                                                                                                John 13:34-35

There is no parameter for God working out of the box since He is not in the box. God know everything and hold the future, He know the best way. He is following His own will and plan since the beginning, He never change. The point is we human could not comprehend His heart, and therefore we are lost at the middle of the road. That’s why we have to be renewed and walk out from the box, only then we would understand His best plan and intention(good, pleasing & perfect will of God).

The problem with church today is we rarely spend time to pray and seek God, and spend time to involve in  people’s life. All we focus is ministries after ministries, works after works, meetings after meetings, what we hold on now is no longer the pure intention & the 1^st love of the beginning.

In Jeremiah 33:3, God told us that “Ask me and I will tell you remarkable secrets you do not know about things to come”. How much time we really spend to wait upon the Lord? When God revel the secret to us, what we do will be viewed as “out of the box” by others. Like Simeon and Anna in Luke 2, both of them recognize that Jesus was the Messiah far before any Israelite. People may thought that they were crazy, “How can Messiah born in such a poor and low status family !” But God work beyond men understanding, we will stand out from the crowd only when His revelation fall upon us.

"Thinking out of the box"? (1)

“Think out of the box” is a frequent heard quote in this century. People are driven to do so because they intend to break-through the bottleneck in different aspects of their lives ( business, career, relationship etc). Thinking out of the box is actually a process to search for a hidden or higher truth, hoping that the new found truth will bring them to the next level.

Is God in a Box? Can God “work out of the box”? No box can contain God in the 1^st place, for He is unlimited, omnipotence and omniscience. Only the limited being like human will be trapped in our own limited understanding & knowledge. But as God reveal us the truth, it will set us free from the box ! In John 8:31-32, it clearly shown that it is God’s will to set us free from all the wrong and incorrect conceptions toward God and life, so that we will live a life according what He intended.

“To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”

Jesus constantly challenged His disciples & the  people’s thoughts through his teachings and the way He conducted Himself. Jesus dwelt among the sinners- Tax collectors, prostitute; he healed the sick on Sabbath; Jesus chose the lowly men to be His disciples whom he would ultimately pass on the great commission of God; He chose a church-persecutor (Saul) to be His messenger to spread the gospel! All these go against the norm practices of  religious leaders and human rationale.

Even the salvation plan of the Messiah was totally different from what the Jews expected! They were longing for the Messiah to free them from the Rome regime, but he was hung on the cross by the Roman soldiers! That is why many Jews still could not accept that Jesus is the Messiah, and they are still waiting for their Messiah to come. This was the pitfall which the Jews faced,  In Luke 2:34,  Simeon was inspired by the Holy Spirit and said to Mary,  “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against…” Only those who draw near to God (like Simeon) will know His purpose and plan; Only those who draw near to God will be freed from the box of pitfall.

Why Jesus has to die on the cross?

If God is all-powerful, why did He took all the trouble to come into the world and die for us? Isn't it much easier to use His supernatural power to cleanse us? Perhap just a "click", all of us are saved. Why He chose a hard way?

First of all, we must understand God’s righteousness, it means that the law of God being a true expression of His nature, is as perfect as he is. God behavior will not contradict with His words and promises. As God have set a severe punishment which require the death of those who sin at the very beginning, He did not exempt himself though He have the good intention of saving man from eternal death. He paid every single cost required for His good intention.

Jesus became flesh dwelt among us, bore the cross and died for us as the atonement for sin. Its because we have a God who will never go against Himself (the law He set), an unlimited God limiting Himself within the boundary he set for man, a God with true righteousness! He would not indulgently release people from the consequences of sin. It means if He wish to save mankind, He need to follow the procedure even though He is the creator of the universe.

Even so, a majesty God does not have to do this, He can forsake us and move on. The real question here is why He chose to pay the price for man. The bible told us that “ For God so loved the world….”,it all because He love us. This had demonstrated both the complete Justice and the Greater Love of God.

Natural Theology VS Gospel

There was once Newton spent a month at his basement to make a model of solar system. It was a tedious process, from builing the skeleton, molding the planets to scaling the sizes and distance between the planets,  piece by piece and inch by inch, finally he put together the whole model!

One day, his atheist friend visited him. The friend was amazed as he saw the model, and cried out," Wow, what a beautiful piece of handicraft!! Newton, you made this?" Shrugging his shoulder, Newton answer, "Its not me."  "Then, who made this?" the friend continue asking.

"I don't know, i just heard a bing BANG came from my basement one day, and the whole model emerged just like that!" Newton answer with a clueless expression. The friend was annoyed and replied," Pls stop fooling me, how can things collide together and make up such perfectly organised model?! Its unreasonable!!!"

Newton smiled while calming his friend down and replied wisely," Dear friend, if it is unreasonable for this little model to emerge by itself, how can you believe the vast orderly universe was exist by chance? Don't you think there must be a highly intelligent creator behind all these?"

I often use this story to begin my gospel sharing, because i found its difficult to share the gospel of Christ before you can prove to the atheist friend that there is God. Like what Thomas Aquinas said, all the non-Christians would find difficulty to connect when Christian Theologian cited the Bible or the teaching of the church. "If any real impact was to be made on these persons, it would be necessary to enter some neutral arena where no special authority need be appealed to, and to settle the matter on terms accepted by all rational persons." He stressed in his book - Summa Theologica.

According to Thomas, all truth belongs to one of two realms. The lower realm is the realm of nature which may be known by reason, while the higher the realm of grace must be accepted on authority (special revelation from the bible & church).

However, there are still critiques of Natural Theology like if the proofs are inadequate, then in rejecting the proofs, the unbeliever may also reject the Christian message.

Aware of the critique of natural theology, I still stand with Thomas point of view when confronting the atheist, If we could not settle the core problem in their heart, sharing gospel to them alone will be impossible to convince them. Since they do not believe in God, undertaking reasoning approach of Natural theology to prove the existence of God would be a better way to pace and lead them to the gospel of Christ.

Having say so, I think God's supernatural intervention in the process of evangelism is crucial, let us not depend solely on men wisdom, but the spirit of God who can accomplish all thing.

Human Freedom

I was sharing gospel with a close friend of mine a year ago, and we had a little debate on the existence of God. However, after my "powerful speech", he seems to be convinced that there is God. But he asked me a question after that, "does it means i have to abandon my current lifestyle if I believe your God?"

"if it is so, then I don't think this God should exist, and he cannot exist, because i will let nothing hinder my ability to choose, to decide my destiny, to pursue my pleasure. My freedom is everthing to me!" he stressed. I only got to know recently thru Millard Erickson that human freedom is one of the basic axiom of existentialism.

One thing that sparked me here is that without having to go thru the philosophical reading to form his life- conception, my friend had already possessed such kind of philosophical thoughts inside him! What is the implication behind? I wondered. When I read Psalm 10:4,

"In his pride the wicked man does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God."

it clearly stated that the sinful nature of man will naturally arouse such kind of thoughts, its does not matter if he is a highly-educated philosopher or an ordinary person. So, is it really the philosopher's thoughts which causing the havoc to the world? Think again.

"Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defiles them"  Mark 7:15

Form VS Function

Recently, a dear sister in Christ (young believer) asked me a question. A question that I did not put effort to explore all these while... "Can I still be saved if I was not baptised?" As her mother strongly opposed her being baptised, this question kept troubling her.

As I grew up in church and with all the denominational rituals and teachings, I never really looked into this issue... Baptism is naturally married to Gospel, and is a MUST with no question! The only arguement we heard are about sprinkling versus full immerse, or the baby baptism issue.

So, is baptism a " Gospel" obligation?

"No, it is not!" one of my spiritual mentor argued confidently, then he shared with me the concept of " Form VS Function". We must understand the meaning (function) behind every practice (form), baptism is a form of expression which the sinner is willing to turn back to God, confess his sins and show repentance. "If a man show sincere repentance, and live out his faith to God, does it matter if he was not baptised?" "The criminal who hung beside Jesus was not baptised either, but Jesus promised  him that he will be with Him in the paradise." He claimed.

I agreed on what he said, it is the spirit (meaning or function) that behind the practice that matter. The form or ritual without spirit have no life. In 1 Corinthian 3:6 Paul said :

"He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant. This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life."

Like the priests and Pharisees, the pitfall that we may face today are to hold all the practices as law, and failed to grasp the spirit behind.

Despite this, it does not mean that we should throw away the practice of baptism, as Jesus himself was baptised by John the baptist and said in Matthew 3:15,"... it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness". Just that we should not hold it as the absolute step to salvation.

However, when i read about the process of doing theology in Christian Theology, by Millard Erickson, I found that forming an authoritative theological statement take lots of effort, from collecting, unifying to  analysing the meaning of biblical materials, examine the historical treatment, consulting other cultural perpective.... until the development of  your own doctrinal statement. There is no shortcut, and i learned that i need to go through all these difficult steps to find out the truth.

Is baptism a " Gospel" obligation? With the initial preassumption I hold on now, i started my journey to find the truth :)

Is Studying Theology Important?

When I was the youth president in my previous church, I was very performance & result oriented. There were 3 major zones under my supervision, from the teens zone to young working adult zone.


I was driven to make the youth ministry a success! How can I draw more crowd? What are the programs and attractions that can retain the young people? What are the musics that can boost up the excitement of the youth? What kind of sermon should I preach to motivate the crowd "for God" ?....etc, I constantly figuring out ways that will work. I brought my team to visit the mega-churches, observed their operation and ways of doing things. Then, we applied it into our youth ministry and added in many contemporary elements without questioning it thouroughly. As result, guess what? It did draw some crowd at the beginning, but it never last...


So, I would start questioning God & doubting myself. Why He did not bless our ministries as we were working so hard "for Him"? Am I the chosen one for the ministry? May be I was not holy enough to please God. What a wrong understanding & perceptions!!

In his book “Know the Truth” [Downers Grove, III: InterVasity, 1982, p11], Bruce Milne claims that ‘‘every Christian is a theologian.’’He mentioned that we all know something about God, yet we rarely think of what we know as ‘‘theology.” I agree with what he said, just that are we a good theologian or a bad one. 

A passion for ministry with an incorrect doctrinal beliefs will harm ourself and even others, it may lead us into disaster. As for my own case, the misunderstanding of God and His ways had affected my relationship with Him, and eventually discouraged my heart for the ministry. Like Saul in the NT, he was passionate in persecuting the church, as he thought that what he believed and did were right! But when God revealed to him the truth, this was what he said:

". .. in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ  and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead"    
                                                                                                  Phillippians 3:5-11


When God corrected the doctrinal belief of Saul, he become "Paul" who was the mover and shaker in the church history!


Theology is getting even more important nowadays because of the large number of alternatives and challenges abroad at the present time. For example, the leaven of pragmatism had spreaded widely and rooted deeply in churches. We are result-oriented, looking for ways which can push up the numbers, in both people & saving in bank account! We want the immediate result, ways which can give us the fastest return. That's where the prosperity gospel, gay churches and etc come into place.


The study of theology will help to sharpen our thought and empower us to discern and interpret this present time. As God reminded us that:


Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
                                                                                                             Roman 12:2


How can we able to test and approve God's good, pleasing and perfect will without studying, understanding and seeking HIM? Therefore, is studying theology important?

Who is God

It is a question where no one can answer completely. However people are attempted to do so in the past centuries. People have their own perceptions of God, they formed conclusions through their 5 senses,  observation of the natural world and their own supernatural experiences of "God" or even through their intuition and feeling.

The definitions of the word "God" found in dictionaries are:
...(in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being.... -Oxford Dictionary

A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions. - Wiki Answer

As a limited creatures, we shall agree that how much we know about God is all depend on how much He likes to reveal Himself to us.

" It is God’s privilege to conceal things and the king’s privilege to discover them."- Proverb 25:2

The question is, does this supreme God ever revealed Himself to man kind? As Christian, we believe that God did reveal Himself to men as His purpose of creating men is to have an intimate relationship with them and have them worshipping and serving Him. With that, men can enjoy all the abundance in Him.

According to Millard J. Erickson, God revealed Himself in 2 ways-

1. God's General Revelation- it has been found in 3 areas: nature, history, and humanity. Quoting an example from nature, "Scripture itself proposes that there is a knowledge of God available thru the created physical order. The psalmist says, " the heaven are telling the glory of God" (psalm 19:1) And Paul says, "ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, His eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse"(Rom1:20)" . -Christian Theology 2nd edition (Page 179), Millard J. Erickson 

                 

2. God's Special Revelation- it means God's manifestation of Himself to particular person at definate times and places, enabling those persons to enter into a redemptive relationship with Him. Why was special revelation necessary? The answer lies in the fact that the humans had lost the relationship of favor which they had with God prior to the fall. It was necessary for them to come to know God in a fuller way if the condition of the fellowship were once again to be met. -Christian Theology 2nd edition (Page 201), Millard J. Erickson 

With that, let us not put God in a frame with our limited understanding. Knowing God is not only gather some information about Him, but also experience Him personally. As we see the life of Job in the bible, when he thought that he had known God enough, he repented after the dialogue with God personally during his hardship, and said:

You asked, ‘Who is this that questions my wisdom with such ignorance?’It is I—and I was talking about things I knew nothing about, things far too wonderful for me. You said, ‘Listen and I will speak! I have some questions for you, and you must answer them.’ I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes. I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.”  (Job 45:3-6)

Finally, I will conclude my sharing here with a verse that spoke by our supreme God:

This is what the Lord says: “Don’t let the wise boast in their wisdom, or the powerful boast in their power, or the rich boast in their riches.

But those who wish to boast should boast in this alone: that they truly know me and understand that I am the Lord who demonstrates unfailing love and who brings justice and righteousness to the earth, and that I delight in these things. I, the Lord, have spoken!  (Jeremiah 9:23-24)

There will be more to discover about our God when we grow deep in Him.