Introduction

A number of years ago my wife and I were camping on a beautiful site in the National Park at Jarvis Bay in NSW. Not long before us, several environmental groups had camped there
protesting against the way people abuse the environment. After they left, the rangers who are usually very environmentally conscious complained that they had to clean up the mess the protesters had left behind them. They had left behind bottles, tins, bags and all kinds of rubbish that was dangerous to the animal life in the area. That’s passion without knowledge; without real understanding. What they did contradicted what they were advocating.

Yet passion or zeal is a God-given emotion. I’ve even heard it said from the pulpit that when it comes to Christians, passion always comes from God. Is this true? At what point does it go wrong? That’s a question I want us to think about.

Passion can lead us astray.

A Christian should be the most passionate person in society. When Paul wrote to Titus, he said that Christ has redeemed us for himself so that we might be eager, (or passionate) to do what is good. (Tit.2:14).

Passion can be used rightly or wrongly. When it reflects the way we seek to live for God and obey His will, it is a good thing. But if it isn’t guided by right moral principles, correct
information, or a right direction, it can be destructive.

Jesus condemned the passion of some of the Pharisees when he said, Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. (Mt. 23:15).

At the same time when Jesus saw how the Temple was being desecrated by commercial enterprises, he did not hesitate to drive out the money changers and sellers of birds and animals, although they were necessary for sacrifices. (John 2:12-17).

What was the difference? The latter was an action against abuse of what was holy, for God’s glory, and for the benefit of the nations of the world. The former was a concern for personal glory. Distinguishing between the two, especially in the life of the Christian Church, is all-important. Paul’s life to begin with, was such a powerful illustration of zeal that went completely wrong.

In Paul’s life

When Paul looked back on his past, he said that he used to be zealous for God and His Law—as he understood them—but what terrible consequences his zeal led him to! He said, I persecuted the followers of Christ to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison. (Acts 22:3). He did this because in his zeal he led himself to believe that he was pleasing God. After his conversion he admitted that it was in ignorance, but it was a culpable ignorance. We know the expression that ignorance of the law is no excuse. Whether we break the law in ignorance or deliberately, we are still guilty. Whether it was in ignorance or not, Paul was actually working against God, not for Him, and that had terrible consequences.

Wrongly directed zeal has been a human problem from the beginning of time. When King Solomon was compiling the book of Proverbs he recorded one that says, It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way. (Prov.19:2).

Zeal, or passion that is not based on correct understanding, always ‘misses the way’. That is why to think that passion in the life of a Christian always comes from God is dangerous.

In our lives

We can become very passionate about all sorts of things. People become passionate about politics, about environmental issues, about Wall Street, about their personal ambitions, and even about religion, but it is no guarantee that that passion comes from God or is based on a correct understanding of the Bible.

Following the failure of liberal theology during the 1940s, many church leaders looked for a way to revive the spirits of Christians whose hopes of a utopian world had been dashed by WW2. The credibility of liberalism had disappeared. People still came to church but the message the churches had preached now sounded hollow and empty. Depression or apathy set in. Into this spiritual vacuum church leaders imported the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher and pastor who died 100 years earlier and of whom little was originally known. Kierkegaard was frustrated by the formality, the dryness and sterility of Danish society in general, and particularly in the Church in Denmark. He
said that the problem with Christianity is not that the Christian lacked knowledge but rather that he lacked passion. Passion was everything. He set about promoting the idea that to be truly ‘alive’, a person had to be passionate about something. His philosophy has influenced not only people in the secular world but also in the life of the Christian church. That’s why we hear so much about the need to be passionate.

The danger of promoting passion without content is obvious. People have been caught up in failed causes; in cults that have led to terrible consequences for them and their families; in fads that are here today and gone tomorrow. We can be very passionate and miss the way, or be completely off track.

In Israel’s life

It is bad enough when an individual in his or her zeal has ‘missed the way’, as we see in the case of Paul, it is far worse when a whole group of people ‘miss the way’ in a misguided zeal that supposedly seeks to please God. This is what happened to Israel.

When Israel came back from their Exile in Babylon, they asked themselves the question, ‘Why did we end up being punished by God and sent to live under a nation that is worse than we are? It was quite natural for them to ask such a question. Correct diagnosis is always the first step to looking for a cure. Unfortunately, their leaders came to a wrong diagnosis.

Instead of seeing their disobedience to God due to lack of trust in Him, they interpreted their disobedience as a failure to keep the law. So they set out to amplify God’s laws by adding their own laws to God’s laws and so to educate the people in God’s ways. Society still thinks that wrong behaviour can always be changed through education. The leaders said, ‘If you obey God the way we tell you, you will please God’. Paul says, They were zealous for God, but their zeal was not based on knowledge… They did not know the righteousness that comes from God, and so they set out to establish their own understanding of righteousness, and in doing so they did not submit themselves to God’s righteousness. (Rom.10:2,3)

When Paul says, they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, he regarded the lack of understanding as wilful ignorance. It is
possible to close our minds quite deliberately to what God has to say to us. When
we do, we always substitute it with our own understanding or opinion about what we should do. That means we fail to submit to God. Not to submit to God’s Word is to refuse to submit to God.

Passion with knowledge.

Right understanding in every area of life always begins with God. Proverbs says, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
[Knowledge of God in the OT was always a relational knowing—not just knowledge about Him.] (Proverbs 9:10). And, For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. (Proverbs 2:6).

God’s ‘mouth’ is synonymous with His ‘Word’—that which He has said. God always acts through what He says. David Cook, the former principle of the Sydney Missionary and Bible College tells the story of an Italian family that migrated to Australia in the 1950’s. Ross was the 5^th child and only son in the family. They were all proud of their son, and Ross
was an excellent soccer player. He was actually selected to play with the under 18s soccer squad for Australia. You would think that that would fulfil all the ambitions of an Italian father; that his 17 yr-old son should get into the Australian soccer squad! Ross had packed his kit, and was racing out of the house one morning when his father called out, ‘Rosserio, have you read your Bible today?’ Ross didn’t have time to read his Bible. He was going to train with the soccer squad for all Australia! He said, ‘No.’ His father said, ‘You cut the Bible out of your life and you cut God out of your life.’ Ross couldn’t get those words out of his head. It ruined his soccer career, but it made him a believer.

To believe God is to believe His Word. And that involves coming to understand it correctly. The Bible not only tells us what we should be passionate about, but how that passion should be worked out in our lives. So many Christians have gone ‘off the rails’ by taking one part of the Bible that suited them and building a whole theology around it. They have failed to be truly biblical in the sense of testing their belief against the whole of Scripture. As a result they bring dishonour to God and hold Christianity up to ridicule.

Getting on track

A genuine Christian cannot avoid taking the Bible seriously. This means a lot more than claiming ‘We are a Bible believing people.’ There needs to be clear evidence that we have a serious study approach to it. The only way we can get on track and stay on track is to give the Word of God its rightful place in our lives.

If we base our faith on what we hear others say about God and about the Christian life, whether it is from sermons, or small-group discussions, we have a second-hand faith; which in reality, is no faith at all.

On the other hand, the Word of God is not something we can learn to understand simply academically. It has to be worked out stage by stage as we get older and more mature. Let me explain what I mean.

As we grow through childhood and teenage years we go through various experiences in life. They are important to us, but as we get older we face new experiences. Whether we grow in maturity as a result of these experiences or not, depends on us. That is true irrespective of our chronological age. We can get older but not necessarily more mature. There is nothing more sad than seeing older people who still act like rebellious teenagers.

We need to grow up!

Peter says, Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. (2 Pet. 3:18). The remedy for not slipping backwards, is to grow onwards and upwards into Him who is our Head, Christ. We are to grow in grace, ‘of which Christ is the author; and in the knowledge, of which Christ is the object’.

When we come to the reading and study of the Word of God we bring our level of maturity into that study. If we have been growing in maturity as people, we will want to know how to apply Scripture to our stage of life. We will want to discover more and more how
Scripture provides us with all that is necessary for us as Christians. Peter says, His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. (2 Peter 1:3).

At each stage of life we need to come to God’s Word with an ever-growing  desire to understand better what it is saying—to understand God better. It’s not that we understand
things differently—if the foundations were laid correctly—but rather more deeply, more maturely, and even more practically. We have to be prepared to dig deeper when it comes to passages that are difficult to understand.

Had the study of the Bible been a purely academic exercise, a bright teenager could have mastered it. But it is never an academic exercise for any of us. It is a spiritual exercise, a relational exercise in which we continue to discover more and more of the lordship of Christ in our lives and how we are to live under that lordship. It is an exercise in which our view of life changes more and more to how God wants us to understand it. This growth
should never stop in this lifetime. That should motivate us in what we do and how we do it. That should be our passion in life.

I remember a theatre sister in our congregation years ago saying that when the medical staff in the operating theatre was flat out, having to handle case after case, there was less likelihood of them making a mistake because they were very focused on their tasks. The mistakes sometimes came when the pressure was off, and the staff felt more relaxed.

We need to be constantly on our guard, especially in the life of the Christian Church against Satan’s deceitful ways. We are more likely to be caught out when everything seems to be going well. To be able to distinguish between what comes from God and what does not, even if it comes under a very attractive Christian umbrella, requires constant alertness. We need to train ourselves to distinguish between what is genuine and what is
counterfeit; what is a mature perspective and what is superficial. That kind of
discernment does not come automatically, as Hebrews 5:11-14 points out. Training involves constant application of God’s Word to all of life, and at various stages of life. We need to be passionate about God’s Word, not just with lip-service, but in fact. This involves studying the Bible in a consistent and informed way, and it involves applying its truths to all of life.

When we become passionate about studying God’s Word, we will soon discover what God is most passionate about.

Living God’s passion.

When I was a teenager I was only concerned with my own little world. I was busy studying, I was involved in Christian service, I was busy, busy, busy… Sure, I made my bed, and kept my clothes reasonably tidy, but that’s about all. I didn’t give a thought to helping around the house or the kitchen or the laundry. When I got married, the responsibilities ‘out there’ became real.

Spiritual maturity comes when we cease thinking and living just for ourselves and embrace God’s concerns and passion. And what is that? We see it in the cross of His Son Jesus Christ.

Many of us went to see the film, “The Passion of Christ”. It was difficult for some of us to watch the physical sufferings we saw on the screen. But the screen could never communicate to us the spiritual sufferings Jesus went through on that cross. We can never begin to understand what it meant for Jesus, the utterly sinless Son of God to take all the wickedness and evil of humanity upon himself, and face the judgement of God upon that sin.

Christ’s physical and spiritual sufferings were bad enough, but to have to face all the malice of Satan and the forces of darkness as they vented their hatred against God’s own Son on that cross, is beyond our imagination. That was the price that was paid to bring you and me into a right relationship with God. Nothing less could have achieved it. Can any one of us move from that scene untouched? Can we move away from the cross and readily forget about it? Is it possible for us to remain unaffected in the way we live, … the plans and priorities we set for ourselves?

What was at the heart of God’s passion? Was it not to see lost sinners come to a new relationship with Him, and be part of a worshipping community that at the end of time will encircle His throne in heaven and sing with every tribe and nation, Worthy is
the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honour and glory and praise! (Rev. 5:12).

How related is our passion to God’s passion? Surely, it is to see people reconciled with God through Jesus Christ, and to experience freedom from the bondage and destructiveness of sin! This should be the controlling passion of every believer. But it must begin with knowing God; not just about Him; knowing Him personally, intimately, through Jesus Christ. Only when we come to know Him well, will we understand what is closest to His heart. We live in a lost world for which God has made every provision that people might be saved. What He has made possible, we are to make available, by sharing His passion.

An intolerant tolerance

In our postmodern age, there is confusion about the idea of tolerance to such an extent that to disagree with somebody is to be intolerant of them. This is particularly true of those who consider all worldviews equally legitimate. For them no perspective has the
right to claim more authority than any other. Anyone who claims to have a
superior belief is regarded as arrogant and intolerant. Although this is the
language of intolerance itself, people who advocate uncritical tolerance feel completely
justified in holding this position.

Exclusive claims

All religions, even accommodating religions such as Hinduism, make exclusive claims. The question is, How can Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Muslims, and people of various other
persuasions live together without resorting to violence? It is important for
Christians to reject racism, bigotry, and violence against those who hold a
different worldview. We cannot deny people the right to believe what they want.

However, if we as Christians believe that God has revealed the truth about himself and us in Jesus Christ and His Word, the Bible, then taking the position of uncritical tolerance is
unthinkable. If Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, as he claimed, and
that no-one can come to God the Father except through him (John 14:6), then we
must either believe him, or reject everything he ever said. That is such an
uncompromising statement that our pluralistic society is not prepared to
tolerate. This is where tolerance in an uncritical sense falls on its own
sword. On many occasions those who advocate tolerance are among the most
intolerant when it comes to Christians having a right to hold a biblical perspective
on life.

Freedom to believe

True tolerance respects the views of others while being prepared to disagree with them. Christians should respect other human beings because we have all been created in the image of God, even where that image has sometimes been badly marred. They should be
tolerant of those who hold a different political or religious position.
Everyone has the right to be protected by the law of the land; the right to
believe or not believe; the right to worship and witness to their belief; the
right to change their belief or religion; the right to join together in
worship, and to express and share their belief without intimidation.

Christians cannot be “intellectually tolerant of opinions we know to be false or actions
we know to be evil. What kind of unprincipled indulgence is this? God is not
indifferent to questions of social justice, so how can the church be? To remain
silent and inactive when error or evil is being canvassed has very serious
consequences, for the Christian option has then gone by default. Is it not at
least partly because Christians have failed to raise their voices for Jesus
Christ that our country has slipped its Christian moorings and drifted away
from them?”[1]

Limits of tolerance

We must also identify the limits of tolerance.[2] For example, if a person sees another person being beaten up, it is not tolerance to watch what is happening and do nothing about it. What was being done is either right or wrong, and if it is wrong, then one has the
responsibility to do something about it within the parameters of the law. In
the New Testament, believers had a passion for evangelism because they were
persuaded that people without Christ were separated from God and heading for a
Christless eternity. They were committed to sharing the Christian Gospel. They
saw it as the Good News that could bring people freedom from the destructive influences
in their lives. There was persuasion, but no coercion. If people were to be
genuine converts, they had to embrace the belief wholeheartedly for themselves.
This is where certain religions that force people into their fold fail to
understand the nature of true conversion.

A passion for truth does not automatically make a person intolerant of others, although it should make him intolerant of falsehood. We need to respect the dignity of others in the way we communicate the Good News of the Gospel. Unfortunately, in seeking to be
tolerant of others’ views, we have often lost the passion that should
characterise true Christian living.

Superficiality of tolerance

Uncritical tolerance leads to superficial relationships with others. Don Posterski, a vice president of World Vision of Canada said that,

“rather than taking people seriously, tolerance treats people superficially. Instead of
conveying [that] who you are and what you believe is to be valued, tolerance
says I will endure you. I will tolerate you is just another way of saying I
will put up with you. In doing so the [implied] message is I will not take you
seriously.”[3]

Seriousness of genuine belief

Genuine Christians, in contrast to nominal Christians, do not believe that all religions worship the same God. They believe that God wants us to know Him, and in helping us to discover Him, He sent His own divine Son Jesus Christ to reveal Him to us, and to show us the way back to Him. He knows we are incapable with our sinful natures to know
where to look; and He knows that most of us don’t even have a desire to know Him,
lest in knowing Him we have to change our lifestyle.

If Islam claims that Allah cannot be known, only his will can be
known through the Qu’ran which is Allah’s final revelation of that will, and
the Christian Bible tells us that we can know God, because He has done
everything possible for us to know Him through His ultimate revelation of
himself through Jesus Christ, how can we continue to claim that we worship the
same ‘god’?

Christians are called to persuade others, not to force them into a belief that they will not, or cannot embrace. This is where Christianity is so different to Hinduism, Buddhism,
Islam and other religions that seem to think that by forcing people into their
beliefs they have made them genuine worshippers of their ‘god(s)’? While we
must respect the dignity of people of all religions and persuasions, we cannot
be tolerant of systems of belief that are false and misleading. The basis on
which we make our judgement of what is right and wrong is not a subjective one;
it is based on what God has given us in Jesus Christ and His Word, the Bible.

Tolerance must never be confused with indifference or apathy. When we know the truth in Jesus Christ, and we have experienced the freedom God brings into our lives from self-centred living, we have the responsibility to point others towards this freedom. True
freedom to be what we are meant to be as human beings can only be found in
Jesus Christ.

Changes in ‘mission’.

The concept of Christian ‘mission’ has been in the melting pot for a number of years. Whether we as Christians live in a secularised western culture, or under a repressive atheistic Communist regime, or in a culture that is dominated by Hinduism, Buddhism or Islam, we are challenged to look for the most effective way of communicating the Christian gospel in our day.

A truly biblical view of ‘mission’ must take into account everything in the Bible that contributes to a comprehensive theological perspective on ‘mission’. This perspective then becomes the basis for the way we think of ‘mission’ these days. It is this that we need to keep in mind when we discuss contemporary trends in ‘mission’.

Christians in western Churches will have noticed that there has been a considerable increase in organised short-term mission (STM) trips in recent years. While these have largely involved young people, they have not been confined to young people. This raised the question, Is this trend aiding the cause of mission, as some claim, and if so, what kind of mission?

The Mission Handbook, which is updated every two to four years, is a directory of mission organisations in the United States and Canada[1]. To help us to understand the statistics and the trends, missionary workers are classified under three categories: long-termers who see their calling as a life-time commitment; middle-termers who see their term ranging between two months and four years; and short-termers who go anywhere from two weeks to a year.

Trends between 1972―2005^[2]

Between 1972 and 2005, the number of long-term missionaries sent from the US increased from 31,863 to 41,839; the number of middle-term missionaries remained fairly static; and the number of short-termers increased from 5,000 to 147,852.

For every long-term missionary working overseas there are more than sixty STM trip participants, nearly all of them untrained. There has been an explosion of lay STM teams sent overseas directly from Churches or Christian schools, most serving for two weeks or less. Some of these teams are supervised by mission agencies, but most of them are not.

More recent trends have sought to include high school students and college-age youth in STM. The program in the US particularly has been expanded to expose even pre-teens to personal transformation and spiritual growth. At this point the conception of ‘missionary’ has undergone a subtle change, says Howell. The slogans have been, ‘Help Yourself…Help Others’; ‘Expand your horizons’; ‘Make your mission possible…now!’ It has been claimed that cross-cultural travel represented some of the best opportunities for Christian education, or ‘spiritual formation’, group cohesion and personal development. Youth mission trips became a massive phenomenon between 1990 and 2000. Statistics show that 1.5 million Christians in the USA travel abroad each year on ‘short-term mission trips’.[3]

Distinction between STMs and LTMs

Hesselgrave tables the basic distinctions between those who are often involved in STM and those who see mission as a long-term calling. I have added explanatory comments in italic.

For whose benefit are STMs?

The fundamental question is, ‘For whose benefit are STM conducted? In “The Seven U.S. Standards of Excellence in Short-Term Mission”, the emphasis is on STM needing to be God-centred, and participants needing to keep the primary focus of what they do on the receivers. Australian Mission Interlink’s Short-Term Mission Code of Best Practice seems to have weakened this emphasis when it states, “In some short-term missions the focus has been on the benefits for the goers in terms of exposure to another culture and faith development. However, the focus on the receiver is also needed so that the gospel is effectively proclaimed in the receiving country…”. [Italics mine].

Superficial judgements

Hugh P. Kemp[4], in his study of the coming of Christianity to Mongolia, mentions how upsetting it was for him as a missionary in Mongolia to hear the inaccurate reports of returned short-term ‘missionaries’ to Mongolia. Some went home claiming to have preached the Gospel in Mongolia for the first time! There was complete ignorance of the history of Christianity in Mongolia. Experiences like these make some missionaries and indigenous Churches quake at the idea of uninformed and immature STMs visiting them.

Essential Changes

If the ultimate aim of mission is to see the establishment of indigenous, self-propagating churches, then mission bodies need to assess very carefully the kind of workers they need to send into particular areas of the world. It seems that many countries still welcome professional people who can make a contribution to their economic development, their education (particularly language learning), their health programs, etc. If professional development is the starting point of mission, establishment of indigenous, self-propagating churches is the goal. Therefore, whatever professional skills a Christian might see as usable in a chosen field, adequate Bible training is essential for working towards the ultimate goal. For a Christian, a distinctly biblical worldview must underpin the practice of any profession.

Unfortunately, many professional people think that their abilities and skills in one field carry over into other fields. For example, an engineer with full training and experience in his or her field might feel competent in their profession, but should not think that that competence carries over into helping indigenous people establish a biblically based church unless they also have had adequate Bible training and experience in ministry.

If mission is the responsibility of the Church, then Churches need to accept the preparation of candidates much more seriously, both in Bible / Theological training that they encourage candidates to engage in; in some initial and basic language learning; and in the training of candidates to share the Gospel effectively before they leave the home shores. If people have not been taught in their witness to seek a starting point based in the other person’s worldview in the home culture, they will not realise the importance of this when witnessing in a foreign culture.

Genuine opportunities for STM

There are many opportunities for short-termers to assist those in the field who are sometimes overwhelmed with responsibilities that detract from their long-term goals. Mechanics can service and repair vehicles so that missionaries and Church workers can get on with their ministries. Builders can make a valuable contribution where ministries are curtailed by lack of space to conduct vital ministries. But even in this, it needs to be in cooperation with local manpower. Entertaining STM participants should not wear out long-term workers, or make them feel glad that the ‘helpers’ have gone.

Is there room for people who believe they are being led by the Lord to a particular part of the world to ‘test the waters’, by visiting the intended area to get a ‘feel’ for the living and working conditions so that they can experience a more realistic view of what they can expect to face in the future? Romantic notions have to be tempered by realism. It obviously happened to John Mark when he first decided to accompany Paul and his uncle Barnabas on their first missionary journey (Acts 13:13). But, unless there is a strong sense of calling in the first place, it can be no more than what moderns call a ‘trial marriage’. If it works, good! If it doesn’t and things get tough, well, no harm done. After all, I didn’t commit myself permanently to this job in the first place, did I!’

The ‘new breed’ of missionary

It is true that some mission organisations have died, are dying or have amalgamated with other larger missions in more recent years. On the other hand, some missionary organisations have seen considerable growth. One missionary leader writes, “The good news is that there is a new generation, who are ethnically savvy, culturally sensitive, well-travelled and world-aware, but fired up about Jesus and missions.”^[5]

This ‘new breed’ of missionary, according to this leader, is serving the Lord ‘missionally’ in various parts of the world as cooks in restaurants, managers of shops, hairdressers, running adventure travel agencies, etc. They are passionate for Jesus, ethnically aware and driven by a hunger to make a difference.

That sounds great! But is this open to scrutiny, something that we evangelicals seem to shy away from?

1. How do we understand cultural sensitivity? Is it mere awareness of cultural differences? Cultural sensitivity must surely mean more than that. To be culturally sensitive involves understanding the worldview that produces a culture for what it is. This can only be understood once the language is learned, and strong communication in that language is established. It is true that world travel is becoming much more attainable, even for young people. But world travel creates ‘window shoppers’ of cultures. It does not of itself lead to an understanding of other cultures. Awareness of cultural differences does not necessarily produce the kind of cultural sensitivity that is needed to share the Gospel in an understandable way. Until we can understand the worldview of the recipient, we are simply selling a foreign ‘product’. No matter how much we depend on the Holy Spirit to help us in our communication, not doing our ‘homework’ in the first place will continue to be a barrier.
2. How many of the ‘new breed’ of missionaries stay in the adoptive country long enough to learn the language well enough to begin to understand the other’s worldview?
3. While talking about worldviews, how many of the new breed of missionaries has had enough Bible training to fully grasp the essentials of a distinctively biblical worldview? Unfortunately, many mission boards feel that professional qualifications are more important than adequate Bible training. It is a sad plight that among today’s younger generation, many consider that they know the Bible well enough to teach others without having done any ongoing Bible training themselves.
4. At a time when world travel is becoming more and more popular and available, short-term and medium-term missionary service can be no more than Christian tourism. As Hesselgrave points out, who will question a candidate’s assertion that ‘God told them to…’? Certainly many Churches and Church leaders wouldn’t.
5. Finally, how much of the ministry of the ‘new breed’ of missionaries is closely associated with receiving Churches or groups of believers, and are prepared to work under local Christian direction?

In defence of ‘old timers’

Unfortunately there has been a lot of criticism of ‘old style’ missionary work, particularly by those who have little or no first-hand experience of missionary work themselves. It has to be acknowledged that some missionary work in the past has been closely associated with colonialism and the importation of western cultural influences that has brought missionary work into disrepute. On the other hand, few missionaries of the ‘new breed’ are prepared to make the kind of lifelong commitment many missionaries made in the past. They sacrificed much to live in humble circumstances, devoted themselves to years of language learning, and sought to disturb the local culture as little as possible in their approach to evangelism and the training of pastors for local churches. The criticism some of them have had to subsequently face from armchair missiologists who themselves have not engaged in cross-cultural ministry to any worthwhile extent, has not only been extremely hurtful to them, but has created doubts in their minds on the effectiveness of all the years of service and sacrifice they and their families experienced.

Fred: You know Jon, what I find so liberating about the statement “Love is the fulfilment of the law,” is that it simplifies behaviour for me to a simple motivation that is easy to understand. Didn’t Paul the apostle say at the end of that wonderful chapter on love in 1 Corinthians 13 that of the three ‘greats’, faith, hope and love, the greatest is love? If more Christians practised loving their neighbour, the world would be a better place, and we would have less wrangling about doctrinal differences.

Jonathan: That sounds reasonable, but what do you mean by love? Do you mean sensual love? Or, sentimental love? Or, love that really cares about the material condition of people? Or, the kind of love that is prepared to give of oneself, no matter what the cost, so that other people might come to understand that God loves them and wants them to be reconciled with Him?

Fred: Why can’t we just learn to love other people for themselves; with no strings attached?

Jonathan: Once again I come back to the question, ‘What do you mean by love?’ If you really love the other person, don’t you want the very best for him? But what is the best we can wish for the other person? How well do we understand this? Or is it up to every Tom, Dick and Harry to interpret it for themselves? Let’s agree that genuine love is not a mere emotion. It has to be demonstrated in a practical way. What is to guide our actions so that what we do is not merely a Band-Aid solution to their problem? For example, you can give some money to a homeless person, and that could be considered a loving act, but does that really help him to get out of his situation? Is that kind of love sufficient? Surely, God has something more than that in mind when He tells us to love our neighbour as ourselves. God’s concern for people has long-term implications, and that has to do with their eternal welfare. If we don’t keep that in mind, how can we say that we are truly concerned for the other person?
………………………………………………

This dialogue raises a few issues that need some clarification. Paul, the apostle, wrote these words to the Christians in Rome in the context of the Ten Commandments (Rom.13:8-10). A person who loves his neighbour will not have an adulterous relationship with his wife. He won’t want to murder his neighbour, try to steal what belongs to him, or covet anything that is his neighbour’s. In other words, the law tells us what we should do, or not do, to our neighbour, and love tells us how we should behave towards him or her. The what needs the how, and the how is guided by the what.

As Christians we are constantly faced with the question, ‘How can I express God’s love towards others in a way that reflects God’s love and concern for them. After all, I am merely His representative. Every rep is inducted into his role by those whom he is employed to represent. God has not left us to work out for ourselves either the content of our message or the nature of our approach to people who don’t know Him. He has given us his Word to help shape our perspectives so that we see, and approach life from His point of view.

From God’s point of view
The Bible makes it clear that God is good; and because He is good, He has given us specific directions for how we need to live in community. These directions have the good of the individual and the community in mind. We see this explained in a nutshell in Psalm 25:8-10.

Good and upright is the LORD;
therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.
He guides the humble in what is right
and teaches them his way.
All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful
for those who keep the demands of his covenant.

What God tells us to do is an expression of his loving concern for human beings. When he gave the Law—the Ten Commandments—they were from a deep concern that people experience the best path through life. All that the Old Testament taught was simply an enlargement of these core values. God called on His people Israel to trust Him as someone who knew what was truly good for them.

When Jesus said that he came to fulfil all that the Law and the Prophets taught (Mt.5:17), what did he mean? Some commentators see this is as fulfilling all the Old Testament promises about him. The context in Matthew, however, suggests something more specific. By explaining the deeper implications of specific laws, in contrast to the meanings the common people were taught by the teachers of their day, Jesus went to the heart of God’s requirements. He brought out the deeper implications of the Ten Commandments. For example, long before murder takes place, a person who harbours ill-will towards someone else and allows it to fester, allows a cancerous growth to destroy him from within, and affect the quality of the Christian community to which he belongs. It may not end up in murder among God’s people, but the root problem, nevertheless, has damaging repercussions. It is a human problem in a sinful world, and all of us continue to be plagued by the presence of a sinful nature, even if we are Christians. Jesus wasn’t out to emphasise the harsh requirements of a harsh God. Just the opposite. He showed that a good and loving God really cares about what happens to us, individually and communally.

If love is all that matters in the life of the Christian, why did Jesus bother to give us the Beatitudes? Why did he tell us what God’s requirements are in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7? Why did Paul give careful instructions for Christians living in Romans 12-15—if all that is required of us is love?

If, however, we see these instructions as the expression of God’s love for us in the first place, we won’t regard His laws as being in opposition to His love.
The first aspect of the statement that “love is the fulfilment of the law” needs to be understood from God’s point of view, i.e. that all God’s commandments are an expression of his love.

From the human point of view
How should we interpret this statement from the human point of view? Obedience to God can take place at different levels. It can take place at the level of a child’s understanding, where a child simply does what he is told without grappling with the deep question of why he should. Or, obedience can come from the heart of a person who has matured and realises that what he has been asked to do, is for his good, and for the good of others.

This is the crux of Paul’s argument in his letter to the Galatians. The believers were being told that they needed to adopt the legalistic practices of Judaism, in addition to having faith in Christ. Paul argues that that kind of obedience belongs to mindless infancy, not to those who are seeking to be mature in Christ. The obedience of a child is like that of a slave. You do what you are told; whereas the obedience of a son, comes from the heart. A son loves his father, and therefore would do anything for him. But even a son is guided by what the father wants.

A true appreciation of everything God has done for us in Christ to reconcile us to Himself; and an understanding that all His commands are for our good, must lead to the kind of obedience that flows from a heart that is filled with love for Him. We love because He first loved us and gave Himself for us. (1 John 4:19).
It is this that sheds light on Jesus’ statement, “A new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you.” Loving one another was not a new commandment. Israel was told to love one another in Leviticus 19:18. What was new in this commandment was the depth of love that they were to show one another. It was love that was prepared to lay down its life for the other person.

Just as the commandments of God were the expression of His love for His people, they were at the same time the expression of Israel’s love for God and for one another.
The law told them what to do; and love told them how to do it.

Obedience with a ‘stiff upper lip’ can never satisfy God. But when God’s people respond to him in obedience that is motivated by genuine love and appreciation of all that He has done for us, then the way God intended the law to be worked out in the life of the believer is fulfilled.

Beautiful St Petersburg, gem of the north, was for many years the capital of Russia and the home of the Tsars. Its grand palaces and stately buildings testify to a time when this city was the hub of all that was the finest, grandest and most civilised in all of Russia. Here Russian aristocrats mixed with western European upper classes in French, English, German, and other languages.

Lord Radstock in Russia

Towards the end of the 19th century, Lord Radstock, a British nobleman came to pay the city a visit. As a young Count, he had been involved in the Crimean Campaign where he became very ill and nearly died. The Lord, however, had other plans for him. He healed him and brought him into a new relationship with Himself. Radstock’s life was so revolutionised as a result of his conversion that he decided to devote his entire life to spreading the Gospel. He had open access to the upper classes in England, France, and Europe. But his great burden was for Russia and he continued to pray for this land for ten years.

During one of his visits to Paris he happened to meet a Russian aristocrat who was anxious to avoid him. After listening to his account of the Gospel, and God’s great salvation in Jesus Christ, she invited him to come to St Petersburg to share this same Gospel with her friends.

For all the religiosity of the Russian Orthodox Church, people were starved for a message of hope and for assurance of salvation. As Princess Lieven noted in her Spiritual Revival in Russia, the Orthodox Church had wonderful rituals that were grand, extravagant and moving. Confession and the Eucharist offered a clean conscience without leading to a break with sin. The possibility of salvation by faith in Christ, fellowship with God and harmony with God’s will and purposes were unknown concepts. People were hungry for something that gave them more than ritual and temporary relief.

The home of Princess Lieven

Radstock often preached in a small Anglo-American church on Potchtamskoye, but many of his meetings took place in the grand halls of the aristocracy in St Petersburg. These meetings were quite distinctive as was noted by a cynical reporter from one of the city’s newspapers.

In the home of Princess Lieven peculiar meetings are taking place. At the front stands an elderly Englishman who talks passionately about something in English. Next to him stands a young woman who interprets into Russian. Before him sits a most diverse group of people: here a princess, beside her a coachman, then a countess, a doorkeeper, a student, a servant, a factory worker, a baron, a factory owner, all mixed together. Everyone listens attentively, and then kneels with his face down towards the chair and prays in his own words.

These meetings had a tremendous impact upon many. Among those who were converted under this ministry were people like Count Korf, Master of Ceremonies at the royal palace, Vasiliy Pashkov, a retired colonel of a regiment of horse-guardsmen and a rich landowner, a number of the princesses Lieven, Princess Gagarina, the Princesses Galitzin, and others.

In contrast to much of the aristocracy of the day that was corrupt and driven by self-interest and greed, these believers mixed with the poor, the needy, and the disadvantaged.

Memory 1 — A gypsy woman in a prison hospital

[From the memoirs of Elizaveta Tchertkova]

One morning when I entered the ward I was called into a different building where there was woman who was unconscious and seemed to be dying. I came close and found that this unfortunate woman was the coloured unattractive woman to whom I had previously referred to as ‘the gypsy’. It seemed to me that she had never paid any attention to what I had read to the others. But, in the instant when her fading glance met mine, she stretched out her arms to me and all I could do was bend over to her and let her embrace me. With unusual force she pressed me close to her on that prison bed, and started to speak louder and louder.

“Madam, do you know where I am going? I am going to Jesus! Your Jesus! My Jesus! Where I have come from you don’t know and you couldn’t know, and even if you knew you wouldn’t be able to understand; from what depths of sin and suffering I have come. But, where I am going — oh! That you do know. I am going to Jesus, who has cleansed me with His own blood, who has opened up His kingdom to me. I am going to Him, who gave the thief on the cross the gift of paradise, the One who forgave the sinner at His feet, who is my Saviour and who said that the angels in heaven rejoice over a sinner such as I who comes to Jesus. How I love Him!

Here she stopped, and glancing at me with some fear, said, “But, madam, there will still be a moment of complete darkness?”

“No, my dear,” I answered, “for the Saviour will be there also.”

“Oh, yes,” she continued, and her face lit up. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; …”

To my utter amazement she recounted from memory the whole of this wonderful psalm, that she had heard no more than once or twice in the ward during my morning visits. All the women in the ward were sobbing loudly, and I myself, barely keeping back my tears, thanked the Lord for His love for the soul of this poor woman — now no longer poor — and for His amazing mercy to us all. The dying woman repeated all the words of my prayer, closed her eyes, and, worn out, leaned her head back against the pillow….

Memory 2 — Canteen for students

The Pashkovs had a mansion on the Viborskaye side. There Vasiliy opened a canteen where, for a small charge, one could get simple but good food and tea or coffee with milk. On the walls of the canteen were texts from the sacred Scriptures, and the guests were attended by women and girls who were believers.

This service was first set up for students who often didn’t have sufficient means for their daily needs. Apart from good food and low prices, they were attracted by the gracious and sweet attitude of those who worked there. One of the men who became a member of the Evangelical Society in Paris many years later, shared how he, of a different faith as a student in those days, loved to go to this canteen, where for 10 kopeks he could get a whole lunch, and for 1 kopek a plate full of buckwheat porridge with butter. Who knows the impact this may have had on some of the educated who later became disillusioned with the government and became involved in the class struggles, in atheism and finally revolution!

Memory 3 — Sewing workshops

The Christian women took over a number of sewing workshops and used them not only to help the needy, but to propagate the Gospel. Alexandra Pashkova and her sister Elizaveta Tchertkova chose a workshop in one part of St Petersburg, and Vera Gagarina took over two workshops. The women were visited in their flats where they did their work, and encouraged by the Christian women.

At Christmas and at Easter, celebrations were organised with presents and food for them and their children. In many of these cases the alcoholic husbands had totally neglected their families. At these celebrations there was singing, the reading of God’s Word, and prayer. Once or twice a week the daughters of these workers would come to the workshops to learn to sew. During their work they would listen to the reading of some part of Scripture, or stories that would encourage them in their spiritual life. Some of the Kruze sisters, the princesses Galitzin and princesses Lieven usually helped with the readings.

Exile

Once again the Orthodox Church felt threatened and reacted strongly. The leaders of this movement were labelled ‘free thinkers’, and were seen as a threat to the Church and State.

Pashkov was exiled but continued to support financially Christian missionaries and workers such as Hudson Taylor, General Booth, and others. He finally died in Italy in 1902.

Korf lived out his days in Switzerland, and was buried in Basel. These men were leaders of the movement for many years and never stopped preaching Christ. Princess Lieven shared this experience of Korf when he was a very old man.

One day in Lausanne, we, together with a mutual friend of ours, were farewelling Korf at the station. We went with him as far as the platform and then left him. Changing our minds, we decided to see if our friend had found a comfortable seat on the train and to see if we could help him in case he needed it. Half jokingly I said to our companion, “Let’s have a look. Our dear Count has probably found a ‘soul’ already to whom he is witnessing about the Lord.”

That is exactly what had happened! As we were passing the length of the train we saw the profile through one of the carriage windows of two passengers sitting opposite each other in a lively conversation. One of them was Count Korf. He was holding a little book in his hand that he was apparently offering his companion. That’s how it was. He began the discussion, and found in his companion a brother in Christ. He didn’t waste time, knowing that there was not much time left!

Need for revival

Granted that this kind of revival is God’s sovereign act and visitation based on His timing, should we not be praying for the preparation of the churches for such a visitation?

We read in 2 Chronicles 7:13,

When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people…

Isn’t this the spiritual condition of so much of the Christian church around us today? Then the next verse is very relevant.

If my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land… says God Almighty.

Prince Vladimir of Kiev summoned his envoys: “It’s time to give up our paganism. Our neighbours have adopted monotheism of one kind or another. We too must have a religion that will help us unify the States and help us build a better civilisation. I want you to go to the countries that have the great religions of the world and study them carefully. Look at Christianity, look at Islam, and look at Judaism. Come back and bring me a report on each of them!”

When the envoys returned the Prince listened to their descriptions of each. “No, Islam won’t do,” he said. “We have enough evil in this land without importing it into our religion as well. And, as for their rule on ‘no wine’… we would never survive without it!”

“Judaism? I’m impressed with its high moral and ethical standards, but it’s the religion of a dispersed people. That can’t help us build a successful nation.”

“What about Christianity, my lord?” asked one of his counsellors. “Which one?” asked the Prince. “I don’t want Catholicism. That’s too closely tied to Rome. Once we are under their control we’ll never be our own!”

“And what of Byzantine Orthodoxy?” questioned the Prince. “Oh, my lord,” replied one of them, “we have never seen anything like it! We did not know whether we were in heaven or on earth. The churches were magnificent° and wealthy. The robes of the clerics were wonderful. The processions, the incense, the choir singing all lifted us to another world. What’s more, the Church and State work very closely together. The Christian emperor is seen as the representative of God, and the Patriarch works closely with him to ensure a Christian commonwealth.”

“Ah, this is exactly what we need. This religion will be a good tool to build a great nation and to civilise the people. Byzantine Christianity it will be! I and all Kiev will be baptised in the Dnieper.”

So, in 988AD, the Kieven Russian State became officially Christian. While the seeds of a nominally Christian Rus, had been sown, it would take centuries more to develop into the modern Russia we know today. As the State was seen to be headed by God’s representative, the Church claimed the structure as a theocracy. It was a view that suited both Prince and future Patriarch. The Tsar could depend on the Church to back his claim to the divine right of kings, while the Church looked to the State to keep her members in order.

Dissent begins

By the time of Tsar Ivan III (“the Great”), 1462, the Church had acquired about 25% of all cultivated land in Russia. Its churches and monasteries had become incredibly wealthy, and they worked in close cooperation with the State most of the time. Not all sections of the church, however, approved of this situation, i.e. the influence of the Church in political affairs, the Tsar’s interference in spiritual matters, the inordinate wealth of the Church, and the harsh treatment of those who disagreed with the rulers.

These less than Christian practices aroused protest and debate by monks in the more contemplative orders. The protests, however, never succeeded. All who deviated from official views in any way were labelled heretics. This internal dissent was always dealt with cruelly by the combined power of Church and State…

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Psalm 22:1) Jesus cried these words as he hung on the cross (Matthew 27:46). Today words just like them are cried from prisons in Eritrea, Egypt, China, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea and Pakistan where believers are detained and tortured. They are cried from homes in war-torn Iraq; refugee camps in Uganda, Syria, Turkey and Jordan; UN-protected enclaves in threatened Kosovo; the inhospitable jungles of Papua; by Christians who wonder every day if religious hatred will engulf them and deadly terror overtake them. Traumatised, terrorised believers frequently find themselves wondering if God has deserted them. (Psalm 22:1-11) They need our love, encouragement, advocacy, assistance and prayers. Please remember them this Easter.

When Jesus was betrayed by a disciple, brutalised by soldiers, mocked and abused by the masses, falsely accused, tried in a ‘kangaroo court’ and unjustly executed, it appeared that everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Yet, unbeknown to all who observed, a great battle was being waged in the invisible spiritual realm.

Whilst Psalm 22 is known as the Psalm of the Cross, it has a wonderful and significant progression whereby the heart-wrenching cry of pain and suffering culminates as a song of victory. The Psalm of the Cross is also a Psalm of Good News, a Psalm of the Kingdom! ‘All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him.’ (Psalm 22:27) And this is guaranteed: ‘. . .for he has done it’ (v 31); ‘It is finished’ (John 19:30).

The same progression is evident in Isaiah 53-54 where the portrait of the suffering servant who pours out his life unto death to bear the sins of many, culminates as a call to celebrate, a declaration of life and growth: ‘Sing . . . burst into song, shout for joy . .. Enlarge the place of the tent . . .’

Through the blood of the Lamb shed on the cross the Church was born. Through the witness of the saints to a fallen and hostile world the Kingdom is growing. The Easter message is one of redemption, not only of sinners but of suffering. And because of this we have both peace with God and hope for the future.

A natural order

In the past, people who lived closer to the land were much more  aware of the natural cycle of the seasons and rhythms of life. The God who created harmony in the natural order, has built this understanding into life from the time of creation.

The more we move into the artificial world of our own creation, the further we move from an understanding of the natural laws that operate in life. Solomon understood this when he wrote, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, …” (Eccl.3:1-8).

God’s interruptions

Sometimes life can become so frantic that we resent any ‘interruption’ to our established routines and plans. If we allow these interruptions to get ‘under our skin’, we will become even more frustrated. However, it is in these interruptions that God can meet us in the most unexpected and blessed ways.

In his 4-volume autobiography, In a Tyrannical Abyss, Yuri Grachev tells of his experiences as a believer in Stalinist Russia. In his books he adopts the name of Leva, who, from the age of 19, went through several prison terms and terrible sufferings. Why? Firstly, because he wanted to remain faithful to Jesus Christ when officialdom was determined to obliterate the very memory of Christendom; and, secondly, because he was visiting imprisoned believers in isolated areas and encouraging them in the Lord.

Desperate to get home

Leva was finally released after his third term in prison―a total of 11 years. He was desperately anxious to get back home to see his mother and sisters at Kuybyshev (Samara). To get back home, however, he needed official permission so that he could buy his train ticket. He longed to see his loved ones after all those years, yet delay after delay postponed his departure from Ufa that weekend. How had his family managed while his father was in exile, also for his faith in Christ?

Weak, cold, hungry, and alone, Leva sat down to pray. He then remembered someone telling him about a believer in Ufa who worked at a particular factory.

That’s all Leva knew about him. When he found the factory, he stood outside the gates until it was time for the workers to go home.

“Excuse me. Do you know a believer working here, who is a Baptist?” Leva asked an elderly workman.

“Yes, that’s him over there,” replied the man.

A wonderful surprise!

What joy it was to meet a fellow believer after years of being away from the warmth and encouragement of Christian fellowship! What added to that joy was that on the following day, the believers in Ufa were meeting for worship with official permission for the first time in years.

After dinner that evening, Leva and his host Shangarov, went to prepare the room for the following day’s service. Others joined them, mainly young women. Most of the men were either in the Red Army, or in prison for their faith.

The Church is not dead

In the preceding years, the repressive measures taken against the Church by Communist authorities were so strong, that most of the believers had been silenced. Some denominational leaders had denounced God, and were selling anti-religious literature in the market places. Other believers had become completely silent. Faithful pastors were in prison; others had given up their faith to avoid persecution for themselves and their families. The young people had been strongly intimidated.

What Leva witnessed that Saturday evening, moved him deeply. These young people were excited about their faith in Christ. The embers of faith were beginning to burst into flames. They were ready to live and witness for Christ whatever the cost.

Sunday came. The room was already packed when Yuri and Shangarov arrived. The people’s eyes shone with anticipation. People kept coming. Some had to stand around the walls of the room, while others had to be satisfied with the corridor outside.

Resurrection Sunday

The service began with songs of praise and prayers of thanksgiving. How they thanked the Lord for giving them this opportunity to worship together! God’s Word was preached, and people rejoiced to hear it freely once more.

As the meeting drew to a close, Leva was asked to share something from God’s Word. Gaunt, poorly dressed, with the closely cropped haircut of an ex-convict, he felt very much out of place among people who had come to the service in their best, most festive clothes.

Freedom for the prisoner

Leva read from Luke 4:18,19, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoner and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

As he spoke of the wonder of God’s grace and mercy in Christ, the Holy Spirit fell upon that meeting. People began to weep in repentance, seeking God’s forgiveness for their sins, and their failures throughout the years of repression. The downtrodden received new strength. Some of those who had been ill, were healed. In his account, Grachev went on to say that the angels in heaven, and the earth itself, welcomed the penitent and all rejoiced greatly. He, to whom has been given all power in heaven and on earth, stood among them that day, ready to bless all who called upon His holy name. Taking human frailty and inadequacy, as it was offered up to Him, God poured out His power — at the right time!

As Yuri Grachev witnessed the resurrection of the Ufa church that day, he realised that all the delays at the Ufa railway station, and the government offices, were of God’s making. He had a purpose for keeping him in Ufa that weekend, for his own encouragement, and for the blessing of the Church. While in prison, he had been told many times by his interrogators that there was virtually nothing left of the Christian Churches in Russia.

Preparation for the future

The events in Ufa that Sunday, provided them with the encouragement they all needed, before the next wave of repression broke over them again―a wave that was bigger than anything they had witnessed before.

God’s timing is always right. We, on the other hand, can be so busy with our own routines, activities and plans, that we tend to resent ‘interruptions’ God might be sending our way. The danger is, we can miss out learning and benefiting from these ‘interruptions’. The Psalmist said, I trust in you, O Lord; I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in your hands… (Ps.31:14,15).

The right time

Each Christmas time we are reminded that when the time had fully come (just at the right time), God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons (and daughters). (Gal.4:4). What a moment!

The ability to express confidence in the Lord’s control of all the events in our lives, and His timing, can keep us from frustration and despondency. It can also keep us from missing out on learning the lessons He has for us.

Two young people face the final interview by a panel of a large IT firm. “X”, a quietly spoken young man who had already shown considerable knowledge in his field, and “Y”, a young woman who impressed several of the panel with her looks and her use of contemporary IT jargon―used to cover her lack of real knowledge. Which one of them is likely to gain the position?

Laughing empty cut-out pumpkin heads watermarkA recent article stated that 60% of people interviewed for jobs overstate their qualifications, training, or previous salaries. Yet, many of these people, seem to get on in the world! ‘Spin doctors’ are paid massive sums by large corporations and governments to distract from the real substance in order to convince people to ‘buy’, or to go along with certain policies. This problem has been called ‘style over substance’.

We might smile at the story of a young group of girls in Israel who were trying to copy the British Spice Girls. First they worked up an act they believed would be a ‘hit’, then they decided that they needed to learn to sing! A recent survey in the United States revealed that the desire for fame now exceeds that for material possessions.

What is influential in the secular world, is increasingly influencing evangelical churches. The more we concentrate on image, the less inclined we are to exercise ourselves over the content of God’s will as revealed in the Bible. It would be easy to draw the conclusion at times, that we are more concerned with our public image than we are with real spiritual growth, true worship, and concerned outreach to people who are lost and without hope in this world. The apostle Paul told Christians not to allow themselves to be shaped by the influences of the secular world. Only as we work at renewing our understanding of what life is about from God’s point of view, will we be able to recognise what is God’s good and perfect will. (Romans 12:1–2).

While it is true that the Holy Spirit alone can open the eyes of Christians to recognise what is happening to them, Christian leadership has been charged with the responsibility of leading God’s people in holy living, true worship, and effective Christian service. Many evangelical Christians who avoided the influences of secular humanism when it first invaded the churches, are now succumbing to the influence of the secular.

It seems that we are losing our capacity, or our will to distinguish between what is modern and what is secular. The church is under pressure to ‘change or perish’. What is meant by this, is that we must become modern or we will die. Those who resist the kinds of changes that are being forced on them are considered stubborn, selfish, or out of touch with reality. For some, who refuse to move out of their comfort zone these charges may be true; but, many resist some of the changes because they refuse to be pressured into a secularism that is ungodly.

Leaders in the OT were condemned for failing to teach God’s people the difference between the holy and the profane—or secular: Her priests do violence to my law and profane my holy things; they do not distinguish between the holy and the common; they teach that there is no difference between the unclean and the clean… (Ez.22:26; 44:23). Yet two theological streams have merged to encourage the adoption of secular methods in today’s church.

The first of these comes from the radical, existential theology of the likes of the influential Paul Tillich. Tillich believes God to be a ‘dimension of our deep self’. Any difference therefore between some Holy God who exists apart from ourselves, and ourselves, is rejected leaving us with only the profane. This kind of view has been characterised variously as secular theology, or religionless Christianity, or even Christian atheism, to which it inevitably leads.

The second stream comes from the church growth movement which stresses ‘relevance’ to the ‘felt-needs’ of modern society as a necessary way to reach today’s world. While it is true that we must speak and act in a way that can be understood, the true message of grace and a genuine Christ-like life, is understood in any age. We seem to have forgotten the saying of Bishop Irenaeus, an early church father: “Jesus Christ, in His infinite love has become what we are, in order that he may make us entirely what He is”. Jesus Himself is our example. He entered our world into a definite culture, and he spoke a local language; his life exuded love and the grace of God, yet He remained “the Holy one” who demonstrated the deepest anger at the profaning of “His Father’s house”. Yet, today, many now feel quite comfortable using secular means to ‘attract’ others into the Church, even where the congregation remains static and the means are for the insiders. Once we start on this slippery slope where does it stop? Having attracted them by secular means, we find ourselves having to keep them by secular means. Is it for non-Christians to determine what kind of worship we offer to God? Where does God’s will come into the picture?

Appropriateness

Music has become a touchstone of change. Thankfully, there are some delightful modern choruses and songs—but there are many that are not. A considerable number of modern lyrics are not only unscriptural, but they either leave wrong impressions of ourselves and/or God, or else they leave our minds and hearts unchanged. In what way do they contribute to true worship? Do they meet Jesus’ criteria of ‘in Spirit and in truth’? (John 4:23). Music is often seen as an end in itself, with little concern by musicians to communicate the significance of the message of the songs. On one occasion the pianist and organist were corrected for varying the tempo and volume between verses. The young person making the criticism was surprised when one of the musicians explained that the music should help support the meaning of the hymn or song—not the other way around. The young person was playing without reference to the words.

Frequently, the conflict between those who prefer hymns and those who prefer songs is explained as a ‘generational’ conflict. Often, the conflict does not stem from this source at all; instead, it lies between God-centred worship and our self-preoccupation in worship. We tend to make big claims about our devotion and love for God, forgetting that true discipleship carries a high cost; it can never be taken lightly.

Another trend in Christian music is the vagueness of the message of some of the songs. Are we directing our worship to God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, or to the Holy Spirit? In some cases it is very difficult to know. Some of our songs can have a wide religious application that is not distinctively Christian. Christian songs and choruses are not a modern phenomenon—the church has been singing them for over a hundred years. What is new, is that they are being seen as a substitute for hymns, where formerly they were seen only as complementary. Choruses that are here today and gone next month, do not help us remember the great truths of the Bible. Further, some choruses are not true to Scripture. While, unfortunately, the shallowness of other song messages is the only ‘truth’ some Christians ever learn.

Music is not the only problem. This is the age of ‘edutainment’, of drama and clowning. We do not dispute that drama may help demonstrate a point if well used, but if not, it may actually distract from the true content of the biblical message. Too often, great liberties are taken with imaginative interpretation, so that the real message of the passage is actually changed. Our celebration is meant to be joyful, but this does not mean that the joy of the Lord is the same as empty, light-hearted secular entertainment. Paul warned against ‘foolish talk that isn’t appropriate’! (Eph.5:4). What is appropriate in one kind of meeting, is not necessarily appropriate for worship. What is disturbing, is that there is a lack of discernment to recognise this.

Contemporary worship is being made to suit us. While we claim to worship God, He is not the ultimate centre and the focus of our worship. We expect God to be pleased with the kind of worship we feel comfortable offering Him, and not the kind that He expects of us. This was one of Israel’s problems in the OT. They claimed they were worshipping Yahweh, but were doing so the pagan way; and God would have none of it. (Deut.12:4). In this age of ‘idols’ and ‘images’, we need to be careful that we are not making God in our image instead of the other way round.

Human-centredness

One helpful way of understanding the contemporary trend is to see it as a shift from focusing on God, to focusing on ourselves—while paying lip-service to God. Without realising it, we have become the centre in many ‘worship’ services, and God is invited to enjoy our performance, like an indulgent father at a school concert! God is holy and majestic, and we have to prepare our hearts to worship Him. A holy God is a distant and uncomfortable memory for many. A whole generation is becoming desensitised to who He really is. Not only are we losing touch with what God wants of us, but, how He wants things done.

Let’s stop and think about the implications of some current practices: Has God, the Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, left us on this earth to work things out for ourselves? Has he given us no plan, no directions, apart from telling us to ‘love one another’? This is the message of the Bible in a nutshell, we’re told; so, why worry about the rest of the Book! Having dispensed with the real significance and demands of that love, we fall back on our own wisdom—very much influenced by the world—where ‘style over substance’ rules.

Once the substance of the Bible is set aside, why should we surrender everything to God? If It is all up to us, then everything is under our control? Why should we give God our tithes and offerings? Why should we commit ourselves fully to the Church and its mission? Isn’t it just another organisation, like Rotary, or Lions, or…? One pastor was heard saying that he couldn’t encourage his congregation to read the Bible for themselves, let alone any other (Christian) literature, because people were too busy! That’s a perfectly logical conclusion if we view the Church merely as some kind of organisation that we join as volunteers.

The Lord’s Day

However, for those who see the Church as a community of God’s people, called and redeemed by Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit to grow in Christian maturity and service in the world, then surely, Sunday services are an opportunity for helping us discover what true worship is all about: a time to be refreshed, and to be equipped to serve the Lord more effectively throughout the week. A genuine concern for the welfare of people in the pew, should lead us to use Sunday services to ‘feed’ people with food for the soul—something substantial—instead of offering them empty husks, and trying to entertain them with banalities.

Recently a young mother stated: ‘I stayed home from church last Sunday, and I felt so relaxed as a result. Being Mother’s Day, I was able to visit my mother and mother-in-law without feeling pressured.’ Heb.10:25 exhorts Christians to maintain their worship together carefully as a means of encouraging each other in the face of the influences of the secular world. If Christians receive little spiritual food, spiritual encouragement, or substantial encounters with God, how many will want to set aside each Sunday for church? Someone has sadly quipped: ‘Sunday has become a time to celebrate recreation instead of re-creation.’
Hollowness in teaching

Early in my ministry, a young man who was attending an Institute of Technology, came to me after the service one Sunday evening, to tell me that he had to work very hard during the week to pass course requirements and didn’t come to Church to think! Whether this thought is expressed as blatantly as this, or not, many Christians have a similar attitude when they come to the Bible.

With a declining confidence among many believers in the relevance, integrity and power of the Bible as the Word of God, it is becoming less and less significant in sermons, in our beliefs, and therefore, in our lives. When a high profile denominational leader can say that the Gospel isn’t big enough to deal with the social problems of the world, we have the end result of our rejection of the Word of God, and therefore, of God Himself. If God doesn’t have the answer to the needs of this world, how likely are we to have it? What incredible arrogance!

Hollowness in publications

This hollowness and superficiality is also seen in a great deal of Christian material that is being published. The outward presentations are constantly challenging the artistry of graphic designers, but between the covers, there is often little of biblical substance. No wonder! The two largest Christian publishers in the USA are now owned by secular corporations, where the primary concern is profit.

John Tigwell, late of Scripture Union, has commented about similar trends in Australia. He said, “The few of us who try to publish Australian material for Australian Christians, are so often caught by the prevailing culture that everything has to be ‘easy’ and ‘cheap’; ‘user friendly’ has often meant ‘don’t disturb me’.”…Christians are being bombarded with the lowest common denominator in ‘Christian’ thinking.

Gene Edward Veith of WORLD Magazine, has pointed out that “whenever a trend emerges in the secular arena, wait six months and a Christian version will appear in religious bookstores.” For example, ‘the pop culture of celebrity worship; motivational speakers, or positive-thinking gurus whose thoughts are only remotely connected to the biblical world view; self-help books that are carbon copies of secular views on self-esteem and assertiveness training.’

Veith goes on to say “(US) polls show that many Americans are interested in the Bible, in so far as it can give ‘practical principles for successful living’. Consequently, Christian publishers sometimes domesticate (the Bible) into a rule book for a contented, prosperous, middle-class lifestyle.”

In an increasingly secularised Christian publishing world, the concern is to make a profit, not to help the Christian community discover what God has said, and what He requires.

When Satan has emptied the Christian mind, he is ready to take it over (Mt.12:43-45//Lk.11:24-26). That is why we have been commanded to love the Lord our God with all our heart and mind (Mk.12.30). This is not an optional extra for those who are academically inclined. In loving and serving the Lord we are to use all our God-given faculties. Peter tells Christians who are facing an antagonistic world, “Prepare your minds for action…” (1 Per.1:13). When Paul was addressing the Ephesian elders in Miletus, he said, “Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard.” (Acts 20:30,31a).

God’s wisdom or ours?

If we neglect God’s Word, the Bible, we have no other word from God. And if we can no longer trust God’s Word as reliable, then all of Christendom collapses, and we need no longer play games at being Christian. On the other hand, if we have become so wise that we select what is, and what isn’t God’s Word in the Bible, we put ourselves above God. God’s rules for successful living have not changed. They were given to the children of Israel as they were about to enter the Promised Land. “Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” (Joshua 1:8). In every age, our understanding of ‘success’ and ‘prosperity’ needs to be re-defined by what God has to say about them.

Before Jesus began His ministry, He faced Satan’s temptations to fame, self-display, and shortcuts to ‘success’. Have we succumbed to these temptations? Paul reminds us that the weapons of our warfare are not worldly, but mighty to the pulling down of strongholds? (2 Cor.10:4-5). Do we appreciate the effectiveness of doing things

God’s way? Or, are we striving with our own wisdom to do what only God can do?

If we are to love God with our whole being, as we have been commanded to do, we need to be helped in this direction, we need less distractions, and more lifting up of Jesus Christ as the only solution to the human problem of sin and self-preoccupation, so that God is given the opportunity to draw people to Himself. (Jn.12:32). It is not

entertainment, but challenge, encouragement, and strength given through powerful and faithful preaching of God’s Word that transforms sleepy, out-of-touch Christians in every age. Being in touch with God, who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is the key to the kind of contact with the world that doesn’t lose its distinctive message. The issue is not of making ourselves more relevant to our age, but making God relevant to people’s lives.

CWatermark picture of Jesus washing a disciples feet. Picture by In His Imagehristmas and Easter are times when we are constantly reminded that God’s ways are not our ways. At Christmas time we see how the Lord of Glory came to occupy a manger in a cattle shed, away from all the ‘pomp and circumstance’ of the world. At Easter, we remind ourselves how the same Lord of Glory allowed Himself to be crucified ignominiously, forced to listen to the mocking taunts of a whipped-up crowd. It is in the cross, we see God’s ultimate contempt for all the images of self-respect and acceptability that we long for, so desperately.

Well has this modern songwriter captured the biblical contrast in the following song.

Today, there are Christians who are trying to separate doctrine from Christian living. They do not seem to understand that these two have been ‘hitched’ together for an essential purpose.

To begin with, we need to understand that there is a genuine attempt by many church leaders to communicate biblical truths in a “relevant, meaningful, and understandable” way to people in our present-day society. Unfortunately, many have taken findings from psychology and sociology, and built ‘preachy’ slogans around them. For example, ‘Love and compassion are more important than doctrine’, or, ‘People need to belong before they believe’, etc. Statements like this can be distorting, false, or ambiguous. Because we live in a society where such expressions have become familiar, they can sound quite plausible when used in a Christian context. In this series we will consider some of the most commonly used slogans and ask ourselves whether they are true and faithful to what the Bible teaches.

Competing perspectives

All of life, and the ability to live it, are gifts from God, whether people recognise their indebtedness to Him or not. Wisdom, knowledge, talents such as administrative, musical, artistic, etc., are all God’s gifts to humanity. They are gifts to help people function at the natural, human and social levels of life.

However, the Bible also makes it plain that the coming of sin and rebellion against God, have corrupted the outworking of these gifts in life. They now misrepresent God’s intentions, because they have become inherently self-enhancing, and destructive of their original purpose to enrich individual and communal life that is under God, and bring Him glory.

We are constantly bombarded by ideas, values, and perspectives that devalue life as God intended it to be. It happens at work, through TV, in our association with friends and neighbours, and when we read newspapers, magazines and books. Some of the values we come across may seem very wholesome, but only by comparison with those that are obviously bad. However, our very understanding of life is so corrupted that we no longer are capable of understanding what life under God was intended to be.

This human ‘blindness’ is the consequence of rejecting God’s right to rule, including His right to show us what life was meant to be in the original, positive relationship that Adam and Eve enjoyed with God. There was understanding that came to them in an ongoing revelation that took place within their intimate relationship with God.

In turning away from God, this understanding became corrupted—a fading memory in people’s minds and hearts. What was needed was a fresh revelation of this knowledge that could not be corrupted. The very word ‘revelation’ implies knowledge coming from outside of us; something that we as human beings do not have in ourselves. This knowledge came to human beings from their Creator even before the Fall. God’s revelation can only be understood within a reconciled, and harmonious relationship with Him.

This fresh revelation, that God led people to record for perpetuity, tells us what His intentions are for human beings, and how He will achieve His purposes. This written record, that we call the Bible, is God’s filter through which we are to assess all of life, its values, its perspectives, and its destiny.

Our proficiency in understanding the Word of God, affects our ability to assess the competing views or doctrines which constantly confront us. We frequently talk about certain groups being indoctrinated. In some countries people are indoctrinated with certain class distinctions. This means that there is a doctrine, or view of life that has been inculcated into them from birth. In the minds of some Christians there is confusion between ‘doctrine’ and ‘dogma’. Dogma is a system of belief that is laid down by a human authority or institution, as distinct from Christian doctrine, which is the teaching of the Bible.

For example, in 1997, when the Dalai Lama visited New Zealand, he was invited to address the public in the Anglican Cathedral in Christchurch. He said that ‘our common efforts and experiences bind religions together.’ People of different religions should ‘pray together; if not, then meditate together. This will increase the field of harmony.’ He went on to say that we should seek what is common to our humanity, no matter what our religion may be.

That sounds very conciliatory, very inclusive, and therefore, very popular. However, if we accept what the Bible says, we must admit that the only thing that is common to all people everywhere is their sinful nature that separates them from God, and has brought them under His condemnation. The only way out of that predicament is to seek the salvation God has provided in Jesus Christ, and in Him alone. (Acts 4:12).

While the love of God seeks to bring all people, everywhere into a right relationship with Himself, people exclude themselves from that love by rejecting His conditions. Our natural understanding has to be transformed, so that we start seeing things from God’s point of view, made available to everyone, through His Word. (Rom.12:2). Becoming a Christian does not guarantee an automatic transformation of all our perspectives on life. We need to be re-educated, and that is an ongoing, life-long experience. God’s wisdom is so different from human wisdom, that there is no way of harmonising them.

The measure of our evaluation

Jesus told His disciples that when He departed this world to resume His place with the Father, the Holy Spirit would come and guide His disciples into all truth. He clarified this by adding that it would be on the basis of all that He Himself had taught them. (Jn.14:26; 16:12-15). This re-education is not some kind of private experience that comes from within us through meditation, personal illumination, and leads to an individual interpretation. Nor does it come to us in a vacuum, but through the revealed Word of God available to all, and taught to us by the Holy Spirit.

I have heard Christians say, ‘How can you come to a common understanding of what the Bible teaches, when even theologically trained ministers cannot come to an agreement?’ The problem with this argument hinges on our view of the Bible, and its authority in matters of life and practice. If our view of the Bible’s authority is rather weak, we will seek other ‘authorities’ with whose interpretation of the Bible we are more comfortable. If, however, we accept it as the Word of God, even the most ordinary person can come to an understanding of all that is central to Christian faith, because the Bible speaks for itself—if we are prepared to study it seriously.

We should never use this argument as an excuse for lack of effort in studying the Bible. If a Human Resources Manager about to dismiss an employee claimed that he wasn’t sure what the law regarding unfair dismissal stated, we would consider him either incompetent, or trying to hide something. There is always some basis on which we make decisions and judgements, and it is on this basis we stand or fall. If some professional people applied the same lack of commitment to their work as many Christians do in understanding the Bible, they would soon be out of a job!