Catching the Fire

and other pieces

Catching the Fire

and other pieces

DON FLEMING

BRIDGEWAY

 Don Fleming 2013

ISBN 0 947342 84 2
All Rights Reserved
Bridgeway Publications
GPO Box 2547
Brisbane 4001
Australia

Printed in Australia

CONTENTS

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30

Preface
Catching the fire
Evangelists, pastors and teachers
A simple message
Mission in the 1960s
Types and shadows
Imitators
The free thinkers
Faith, hardship and growth
Alexandria, city of the learned
A king-priest
To fear . . . and to deny
Living among Buddhists
Understanding Gods kingdom
What did Job learn?
Caleb the leader
Worldwide opportunity
Who are Gods true people?
Religious freedom
Sheep, shepherds and wolves
Guidelines from the Hebrew law-code
Debtors and creditors
Coping with materialism
Full-bodied mission
Television culture
Too easily satisfied
Generosity that upsets
Come and get it
The priesthood of believers
One call, many directions
Some thoughts about heaven

7
9
28
32
34
37
44
46
50
53
57
61
64
68
79
83
86
91
94
99
103
107
110
114
118
129
132
134
135
142
146

Preface
The initial urge to publish these articles came from talks I
gave at a convention aimed at challenging Western Christians to
catch the fire of the vibrant Christianity found in many nonWestern countries. The convenors of the conference, held in
New Zealand, then published an amalgam of my opening and
closing talks in a booklet they circulated around their country.
The contents of that booklet are now made available to a wider
audience by becoming the opening chapter in this book.
After this lengthy opening chapter are many shorter chapters,
for the book is a collection of articles, much in the style of my
earlier collection, Making Sense. That book brought together
fifty articles written for magazines, journals and other
publications in over thirty years, but because of restrictions on
the size of the book, many articles had to be left out. Some of
those are now included in this current book, along with articles
published in more recent years.
In general, this book does not repeat material found in my
Bridgeway Bible Commentary, Bridgeway Bible Dictionary and
other published books. The articles collected here vary in their
subject matter as much as in their style and length, depending on
the kind of publication they were written for. But all articles
have had some updating from the originals, and those from
Thailand, which were first written in Thai, have been rewritten
here in English. Whatever their origins, these articles are
presented with the prayer that, in a world of increasing confusion
and darkness, Christians might catch the fire that awakens
enthusiasm and gives confidence to face life positively.
Don Fleming

Catching the fire

Any view of the church in New Testament times and the
Western world today will reveal a difference between the two
in vitality and growth. The Christians in the early church had a
fire burning within them to show that a commitment to Jesus
Christ and his teaching had changed them and could change the
world. That kind of fire is still evident among Christians in many
of todays needy countries, but among Christians in the affluent
West it seems largely to have disappeared. If, however, they
look beyond their national borders, they may see something that
will awaken their enthusiasm. They may catch the fire that
transforms people into what Jesus wants them to be.

Shocked out of complacency

In the earliest days of the church, many Christians in
Jerusalem thought of Christianity as if it was a renewal within
Judaism. When Stephen asserted that Christianity was no such
thing, his bold stance cost him his life and changed the church
from being popular to unpopular. Instead of being predominantly
Jewish, it soon became predominantly non-Jewish, something
that many well-established Christians found hard to grasp.
Paul was the person who, more than others of his generation,
recognised the changing face of Christianity. Gentiles did not
have to become like Jews in order to be proper Christians.
To the non-Jews of Colossae, in present-day Turkey, Paul
said that God had chosen to make known the riches of his glory
among them, Gentiles, and the message he preached was that
Christ was in them, Gentiles, as the hope of glory. He had
committed all his energies to proclaiming Christ to such people,
instructing, warning and teaching them so that they became
mature believers. And for this he toiled, striving with all the
energy that Christ mightily inspired within him (Col 1:27-29
RSV). The exceptional fruit he saw among the Gentiles was
9

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CATCHING THE FIRE

accompanied by lots of hard work, tears and sweat. Paul used

words like toil, striving and energy to indicate the human
contribution to the divine activity that mightily inspired him.
As the church in Pauls day grew among those who had not
been traditionally prepared for it (non-Jewish people), so it is
today (but now among non-Western people). God is moving
throughout the non-Western world in unexpected ways, while
the church in the West declines. Todays non-Western Christians
are catching the fire of enthusiastic evangelisation as did the
first centurys non-Jewish Christians. From one viewpoint this
may be explained as Gods sovereign working in ways we had
not expected, but from another we may see lessons in the
commitment of non-Western people to hard work, sweat and
tears. This is often in contrast to the comfortable lifestyle that
many Western Christians mistakenly assume to be Gods norm
for humanity.
My aim in this study is to look at some difficult countries
where Gods blessing has been poured out, and then look at the
West to see what are the blockages to this blessing and how we
might clear them.

Todays changing world

Two simple overviews may help give us a picture of the
changing world today. The first is to look at the global church
and see what percentage of Christians within it are from the nonWestern world. (I am speaking of what we might call evangelical
or born-again Christians, as distinct from merely nominal
Christians.) In 1800 the figure was about 1%, and by 1900 it had
grown to only 9%. But the increased missionary activity of the
twentieth century began to see increased results, especially after
World War II and the gradual dismantling of the old colonial
empires.
By 1960 the number of Christians in the non-Western world
had reached 32% and by 1970 was about 36%. Through the
1970s and since, the growth has been extraordinary. By 1980 the
figure had grown to 50%, by 1990 it was 66% and by 2000 it had
reached 75%. Statistics are not always rock solid, but they at

Catching the fire

11

least indicate what is happening. Today, possibly 80% of all

evangelical believers are in the non-Western world. The sad
reality is that most Christians in the West are either unaware of it
or have difficulty accepting it.
The second overview is best understood by looking at a map
of the world that Western missiologists prepared to give a quick
visual impression of the worlds neediest region. Known as the
10/40 Window, it is an imaginary belt between 10 and 40
degrees north of the equator that stretches through North Africa,
the Middle East and Asia. It contains 60% of the worlds
population and 95% of the worlds unreached peoples, but only
3% of the worlds missionary force and a minuscule 0.01% of
average income of Christians worldwide.

Difficult countries that have caught the fire

In the African country of Chad, visionary church leaders
initiated an 8-year program that brought impressive results.
Driven by prayer and a burden to reach the lost, they surveyed
the country according to its regions, with the aim of evangelising
all villages and planting churches in those that had none. Each
year they concentrated on specific regions. In one year, for
example, they evangelised 1,743 villages out of 2,904 planned.
In one sub-region of 172 villages they discovered 35 villages that
had no church, but by the end of the year all 35 had churches.
Evangelicals in India are now estimated to be 3% of the
population, which means there are about 30 million Christians.
They are seeing dynamic growth across the country, in spite of
opposition that has become increasingly widespread and savage.
In 1990, Christians in Zimbabwe set themselves the goal of
planting 10,000 new churches before the year 2000 surely an
ambitious goal for a country whose population then was about
ten million. They reached their goal in just over nine years.
One indigenous mission in Nigeria began its outreach with a
goal to plant ten churches in the first five years, each with its
own leadership, and to have five missionaries from these
churches breaking fresh ground in unevangelised parts of the

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CATCHING THE FIRE

country. Within the next three years these numbers were to

double, and the outreach was to expand by sending five
missionaries to the unreached of other countries. When I was in
Nigeria in 1993, soon after the missions ten-year thanksgiving,
it had exceeded all its goals. It had fifteen missionaries in foreign
countries, and within the next seven years had more than eighty,
plus an additional eighty within Nigeria itself. The number today
is about two hundred and fifty.
Forty years ago Nepal was largely closed to the gospel
there were only 29 known Christians. Today the number of
Christians is estimated to be 500,000. One local mission I visited
had noted that churches in Kathmandu tended to be clumped in
certain areas, but along the city ring-road it identified fourteen
urban regions that had no churches. It then began to work these
regions systematically till each had at least one church.
Myanmar, once known as Burma, is another country where
opposition has been fierce. But a church in the capital that had
struggled to survive in the 1970s now has a regular Sunday
attendance of 700 and has spawned fifty daughter churches. In
neighbouring Thailand, which has become a haven for refugees
from Myanmar, Burmese-language churches are growing
rapidly, and that is in a country where church growth has always
been difficult.
One country whose images of poverty and desperation have
burned themselves into my mind is Ethiopia. Yet there on the
wall of one provincial church was a chart for church growth. It
was a drawing of nine stylized houses (in pink, of all colours),
each representing thirty non-church families. The church was
then divided into nine groups, so that one church group was
responsible for one non-church group of thirty families, helping
with food, education, medicine and other practical needs. No
wonder the church grew. And, as in other parts of Ethiopia, the
growth was in spite of constant opposition from the entrenched
Orthodox Church.
The examples seem to be endless. But I must recount what I
heard from an evangelist in Zambia who was disappointed that

Catching the fire

13

he had got to October and had only just planted his second
church for the year. He, like a number of his colleagues, had set
himself the goal to plant a number of churches each year (in his
case, three) and he was feeling a touch of failure.

Blockages and how we might clear them

The blockages that hinder us in the West are many, but we
either do not recognise them or make excuses for ourselves by
hiding behind our culture. We who have been missionaries in
traditionally non-Western or non-Christian countries were
always quick to see the need for Christians to break from their
cultural norms if they were to be true disciples of Jesus Christ,
but back in the West few Christians see the same need.
Most Christians in the West seem to assume that their way of
life is basically Christian, when in fact it may be far removed
from the way of life that Jesus taught. Christianity seems to have
survived in just about every culture it has entered; the one
culture where it is having difficulty surviving is that of modern
Western civilisation. And one reason for this is that many of the
features of Western civilisation are fundamentally opposed to the
kind of life Jesus called us to.

1. Convenience
Perhaps the greatest obstacle that our Western way of life
puts in the way of Christian discipleship is convenience. Our
way of life gives us a secure and comfortable existence, with all
sorts of benefits and plenty of money to maintain them. But
unconsciously, most Christians have now drifted into a mindset
where if a thing is not convenient, that is sufficient reason not to
do it. They have become used to the notion of choice in just
about everything, but in the process have forgotten that Jesus did
not give his followers a range of choices. He called people to
self-denial, not self-pleasing; to self-sacrifice, not self-fulfilment.
That was the way he lived, and true followers should expect
nothing different.
Christians have no right to convenience. We sometimes
speak of our Western standard of living as if it is our Christian

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heritage an inheritance that goes automatically with being a

Christian.
There was a time when I, like many Christians in the West,
spoke glibly of our standard of living with words like God has
blessed us. Then I began meeting Christians in one country after
another who lived without the material benefits we enjoy, with
little national or economic security, always hungry, always poor,
always struggling, yet they knew far more of Gods blessing than
I did. We are in urgent need of re-assessing what the blessing of
God means. We need to re-orient our lives. The government will
not do this for us, nor will any other elements in our society.
Rather the opposite; they will tell us we deserve a better life and
will promise to help us obtain it.
If we are to be true disciples of Jesus, we must learn to take
his teachings more seriously. In the process we may find, as did
some of his earliest followers, that many of these teachings are
indeed hard sayings.
One thing I notice in the needy countries where I work is that
Christians spend more time than we do reading the Gospels and
building their lives on the things Jesus taught. Many of us in the
West, by contrast, tend to prefer the writings of Paul. They
appeal to our Graeco-Roman way of thinking and do not seem to
be quite so radical. But being radical is just what Jesus calls us to
not in the sense that we dye our hair green, walk the streets in
bare feet and eat orange peel, but in the sense that we reshape
every aspect of our lives. Our Christianity must not be something
we fit around the edges of our lives to suit our private routines,
but something that turns our lives upside down, so that total
commitment to Christ dominates everything.
Christians in needy countries would love to have an
improved standard of living, but they realise that this has little to
do with being a proper follower of Jesus. In being less prone to
the apathy that comes from convenience, they have understood
better the meaning of commitment to Jesus. Recently, I was rereading a book that most of us young missionaries read back in
the 1950s and 1960s, Customs, Culture and Christianity by

Catching the fire

15

Eugene Nida. Whatever else Nida said, he surely had prophetic

insight when, back in 1954, he saw the shift of Christianity that
has now become a reality. He wrote, There is a very great
likelihood that the central dynamic of Christianity will pass from
the West and find a more receptive home elsewhere, among
people who have not engrossed themselves so completely in
gadgets and have not made an idol of material success.

2. Prayer
Across the Western world, prayer is in decline, collectively
and privately. Church activities seem to give less time to prayer,
and for many Christians private prayer has disappeared as a
natural yet disciplined part of daily life. There is little, if any,
passion for prayer.
In many non-Western countries, by contrast, prayer seems to
be at the heart of everything they do. Whereas we often relegate
prayer to private devotions or opening and closing procedures at
Christian meetings, they make it their main priority. A man in
one African country put it well when he said to me, If you
people in the West plan a conference, you maybe spend fifty
minutes planning and ten minutes praying. We spend ten minutes
planning and fifty minutes praying. At times their lack of
planning and our lack of praying are seen in the results much
blessing out of chaos in one case; sterility out of good planning
in the other.
Christians throughout the countries of my travels seem to
practise fasting along with praying not always, but often
enough for it to be a fairly common practice. In two countries,
one where I was teaching at a Bible school and the other at the
headquarters of a local mission, I was told that because the next
day was to be their day of prayer and fasting, they had made
arrangements for someone to bring my meals. They did not want
to impose their obligation on the visitor. They were very
gracious about this, but the thing that impressed was this regular
practice, in one case weekly and the other monthly, to a day of
prayer and fasting. (The outcome of their offer was that while I
was grateful for their thoughtfulness, I insisted that I be part of

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their exercise. There seemed to be something wrong if the

teacher did less than those he taught.)
On occasions my wife and I have had people staying with us
in our home in Brisbane who, when asked about times and
routines for breakfast, said rather sheepishly not to worry
because they awoke early. A Zambian said she normally went to
bed about 9.00 p.m. and woke about 2.00 a.m. so that she could
have four hours in the Word and prayer before facing the day. A
Nigerian went to bed later but woke about 3.00 a.m. so that he
could have three hours in the Word and prayer. The Zambian
was with us for three weeks and the Nigerian for one week, but
each night when I had cause to visit the bathroom, I could see the
light burning and hear the voice praying. Their prayer life
seemed to be on a different plane from mine.
We have all heard about the huge prayer meetings they hold
in South Korea, but I was stunned to hear of what was happening
in Egypt, a country far less hospitable to the gospel. Every
Monday night a large church in Cairo held a prayer meeting that
went for three hours. They had to move all the seats out because
1,500 people attended, which meant everyone had to stand. No
wonder Egyptians began coming to Christ in increasingly large
numbers. Significantly, the person who initiated this prayer
activity was an African, a migrant from Ugandan.

3. View of the world

In general, the view of people in the Western world is that
God has a vested interest in us. For example, most in Australia
would believe that if, let us say, we became engaged in a war
with Indonesia, God would be on our side. After all, we are
Christian and they are Muslim. Yet there are probably more
Christians in Indonesia than in Australia, and even the
Indonesian percentage could be higher; but the statistics are
irrelevant. God does not count the number of Christians in a
country and then say, You win. The whole notion of looking at
our country whether Australia, New Zealand, Britain, America
or anywhere else and thinking God is on our side betrays a lack
of understanding of the Bible.

Catching the fire

17

The people of Old Testament Israel refused to believe the

prophets who told them God would use heathen nations to attack
and destroy them. Jeremiah was vilified and physically attacked
for saying God would use Babylonians to destroy the temple.
But he cant, objected his hearers. Even ordinary Israelites
cant go into the innermost parts of the temple, how much less
heathen Babylonians. Yet God allowed the Babylonians to do
just that.
In addition, said Jeremiah, God will use the Babylonians
to take you out of this land and into foreign captivity. But he
cant, objected his hearers. God gave this land to our father
Abraham as our homeland for ever. Nevertheless, God allowed
the Babylonians to conquer the land and take the people captive
to a foreign country. Israel had more basis than any modern
Western nation for expecting God to preserve it and its way of
life, but it had to learn the hard way that no one has God on a
string.
One wonders what sort of judgment the West is building up
for itself in its pursuit of wealth, its exercise of power and its
rejection of God. Christians in the West have to develop a view
of the world that is not based on national self-interest but on
Gods values of truth, righteousness, compassion and justice.
Christians in non-Western countries are not free of nationalism
either, but because they benefit less from the policies of those
who rule them, they seem more able to assess things from a
biblical point of view than from the perspective of self-interest.

4. The expectation of a pain-free life

In spite of our frequent complaints, we in the West benefit
from high quality health services that most people in the world
could not even dream of. One result is that we expect most of our
ailments to be healed fairly readily and most of our pain to be
controlled or even eradicated. The result is that we become the
worlds greatest complainers. We do not know how to deal with
suffering not just illness, but death, war, poverty, persecution
and brutal injustice much less how to embrace it in the name of
Christ. We know what the Scriptures teach about accepting

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CATCHING THE FIRE

hardship and sharing Christs suffering, but in reality most of us

secretly feel we have a right to a pain-free life. Some Christians
get easily discouraged and others become bitter.
People in difficult countries do not have such high
expectations and consequently tend to complain less when things
go wrong. A human tendency is to blame God for lifes
misfortunes, but this tendency is less evident among those who
would appear to have more cause for complaint. After the
devastating floods of Mozambique in 1999, the response of one
local Christian was, We dont blame God; we trust him.
Our improved standard of living has caused us to become
soft to some extent. We read of missionaries a hundred years
ago, or even fifty years ago, who went into situations of extreme
difficulty, but they persevered. Today, few seem ready to accept
the hardships of Christian service in difficult circumstances and
give in fairly easily. This is not so among many missionaries
from difficult countries who often go into even more difficult
countries. Whereas many Christians in the West try to avoid any
interaction with Muslims, Christians in many countries of Africa
and Asia are looking for ways of reaching Muslims with the love
of Christ. They know the risks and the hardships they may face,
but they accept the challenge.
Christians in the West have recently become more aware of
the enthusiasm that Christians in China have for evangelising out
from their country. These Chinese Christians want to move west
and evangelise the Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim countries till
they arrive back in Jerusalem, from where the first apostles set
out to spread the message of Jesus. In this way the Chinese see
themselves as completing the encircling of the globe with the
gospel. But these Chinese have all been prepared for the task in
the school of suffering and that is why they, like many of their
counterparts in other countries of Asia, Africa and Latin
America, make such effective missionaries. They have not been
spoiled by misguided expectations of a trouble-free life.
In a recent magazine article, an American missiologist,
writing about mission strategies, said, One strategy that Ive not

Catching the fire

19

seen developed in the West is that of willingness to suffer the

loss of everything of life itself, if need be for the advance of
the kingdom. Thats why I find the Back to Jerusalem movement
so powerful. These Chinese believe theyre ready missionaries
because they dont need to invent a strategy. Theyve been living
Gods strategy for two generations.

5. Walking by faith
Our well organised society means that, on the whole, life is
fairly easy for us. Only a handful of the worlds two hundred or
more countries enjoy the sorts of benefits we enjoy. But the
things that help us in daily living do not always help us
spiritually. This does not mean we should resist improvements in
living standards, but it does mean we should not allow our
improved living standards to squeeze God out. Our welfare
system, for example, has so many safety nets that no matter what
our circumstances sickness, age, unemployment, disability
we have a welfare provision to help us through. That is fine, but
in the process we too easily trust in the system and too easily
forget God.
In countries of Africa, I hear Christians say things like,
Prayer is the only way we get through. If we have a conference,
we have to pray that the electricity will stay on. If we post a
letter, we have to pray that it will reach its destination. If we
want to travel to another town, we have to pray for the money to
pay the bus fare. When we get on the bus, we have to pray that it
will arrive at the other end without being held up by robbers.
We should not need conditions like those to make us pray,
but the reality is that for most of us we rarely pray those prayers,
because we do not feel the need. When we pray the prayer, Give
us this day our daily bread, we rarely mean it literally, because
we already have our daily bread in the fridge and if it is not in
the fridge, we have the money to go and buy it at the nearest
shop. For perhaps the majority of Christians in the world today,
that prayer is one they mean literally.
For many Christians in the West, if hypothetically God
ceased to exist, it would make little difference to the way they

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lived. They have learnt to survive without him. For people in

difficult countries, their first response to any kind of sickness, no
matter how minor, is to pray; our first response is to reach for
some medicine or visit a doctor. We are thankful for the
medicines and the doctors, and we should not expect miraculous
solutions when God has already provided adequate means near
to hand, but somehow we have to recover an awareness of the
living presence of God. We are supposed to walk by faith, not by
sight, but everything in the Western world moves us towards
walking by sight, not by faith.

6. Mistaking sophistication for maturity

Unconsciously, we may think of those who speak poor
English as not being very bright. But their inability to speak my
language is no more a measure of intelligence than is my
inability to speak theirs. Most people, except those from the
English-speaking Western world, are competent enough to speak
in a language other than their mother tongue. Yet they may not
be able to read or write.
When we equate literacy with intelligence, we are mistaken.
Most of us are literate; that is, we can read and write; but, to put
it crudely, that is sheer luck. We are fortunate enough to have
been born and bred in countries where everyone is taught to read
and write. Such ability, however, has no direct bearing on
intelligence. I have met illiterate people who are very intelligent,
and literate people who are not very intelligent at all.
It is common to hear people in the West snigger at the
clothing of those from poor countries, perhaps because it does
not fit properly or is not colour coordinated. Or maybe it is
the furnishings in their houses that look to us to be incongruous.
But these things are largely a matter of taste, preference, or,
more to the point, values. We place such a high value on material
things, which is one result of living in a society that is driven by
greed and consumerism. In our own eyes we are more
sophisticated than our brothers and sisters from poorer countries,
but we have mistaken this sophistication for maturity. In spiritual
things, we are often the immature ones. We seem not to have

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21

understood some of the most basics elements of Christian faith

and practice.
Christians in these needy countries have changed my
understanding of Christianity and my understanding of the
world. I may be able to teach the Bible and that is why I spend
time in these countries. People want to understand the books of
Deuteronomy, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Galatians and I have a body
of knowledge in my head that I can impart to them. But in the
matters of Christianity that are common to us all prayer,
worship, giving, witness, discipleship these people have helped
me grow. I go to these countries to teach, but invariably return
home feeling I have learnt more than I taught.

7. Giving
One feature of the growing church in the non-Western world
is the giving of Christians. Everyone seems to tithe. This is not
necessarily the case in some areas where traditional missionary
practices are still dominant. A submissive church is less inclined
to take the initiative; a dependent church is less likely to see the
need for sacrificial giving. But among the new generation of
churches, Christians have a much greater awareness of personal
responsibility to give, and to give sacrificially.
Examples of sacrificial giving are so numerous that I dare
not digress here to recount them. But one thing I have observed
is that the more money people have, the less likely they are to
tithe. I use tithe not as a figure that is locked in as a fixed
percentage for everyone regardless of financial status, though it
is a proportionate calculation nevertheless. One would expect
that the higher the income, the higher the percentage, but in
practice the opposite seems to be the case. Those in poor
countries have meagre incomes but seem to give a generous
percentage, whereas those in rich countries have generous
incomes but seem to give a meagre percentage.
The outstanding exception among the wealthy
Singapore. In an index I saw recently that listed
countries according to per capita Christian giving,
figure was almost twice that of the next country

countries is
the top ten
Singapores
on the list.

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CATCHING THE FIRE

Admittedly, the average income of church members in Singapore

is among the highest in the world, but high income-earners are
not always the biggest givers. In Singapore, however, something
is different.

8. Hospitality
As we in the West have become more affluent we have
become more self-sufficient, and as we become more selfsufficient we become less hospitable. Our Western individualism
militates against concern for others, one result of which is that
hospitality has become a dying grace in the West. It may seem
strange to some that I list hospitality among the blockages to
blessing in the Western church, but a lack of hospitality is
usually one symptom of a sick church. Christians who show
hospitality within the church are thereby practising the sort of
love and care that members of the church are to have for each
other. Christians who show hospitality to those outside the
church are thereby practising love to their neighbours and
opening the way to evangelise them.
I could spend much time recounting examples of hospitality
I have received from poor people in poor countries. But these
Christians are also hospitable to their non-Christian neighbours
and that is how many have been brought to Christ. The poor look
after each other that is the only way they survive. The rich do
not need to look after anyone, because they are already selfsufficient and their survival is not at risk.
These examples show why Christians in the West find it hard
to understand the sort of self-sacrificing discipleship Jesus
taught. Our society has blinded us to our deficiencies. The lives
of believers in poor countries should challenge us to take strong
action to change our lifestyle. Everything within our culture
directs us to more and more self-sufficiency and in the process
takes us further from the sort of life Jesus requires of us.

9. Personal ambition
The drive for achievement is so intense in our society that
most Christians no longer take seriously the demands Jesus

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23

made. The self-sacrificing discipleship Jesus demanded of his

followers is seen as an optional extra something that is okay
for those who are into that sort of thing.
As a consequence, Christians across the entire age range of
our society are drifting along with the tide of common attitudes.
As the middle aged see themselves moving towards old age, they
set their eyes on a comfortable retirement. As parents of growing
families seek out the best for their children, they expend much
time and money on their childrens advancement. And as the
children progress through to their higher education, their goal is
to secure a rewarding vocation. These goals may be legitimate,
but are they being viewed from a Christian perspective? Are
Christian parents and churches presenting the claims of Jesus
Christ to their youth? The issue is not that young people should
be challenged to become full-time Christian workers, but that
they should be challenged to become full-time Christian
disciples, no matter what their ultimate vocation may be.
Christians in the developing world are probably keener than
Christians in the West to see their children receive a good
education, because in the poorest countries most children will
not receive even a basic education. Parents want their children to
have an occupation that is something better than selling sugar
cane along the street or making sandals out of shredded tyres.
Yet in many of these non-Western countries the campuses of
secondary and tertiary educational institutions are awash with
Christian activity. Students in those countries have more
incentive than students in our countries to achieve worthwhile
qualifications, but they also seem more inclined to put the
interests of Gods kingdom at the centre of their vocational
ambitions. The outcome is that these countries see a generation
emerging to provide leadership that is competent in secular
pursuits and motivated by spiritual values.

10. How we view time

Life in the West dictates that most of us are always busy.
Our society almost makes busy-ness a virtue, or even a social
indicator. We are obsessed with efficiency, though much of that

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CATCHING THE FIRE

obsession arises because of economic considerations time is

money. We might not wish our country to be hampered by the
sorts of inefficiencies that hamper countries elsewhere, but
surely there is a more moderate way. Surely, there must be some
pathway that lies between the two extremes.
The values of the kingdom of God are often at odds with
those of modern Western society. Human beings are more
important than things; relationships are more important than
programs; church is more important than vocation; showing
mercy is more important than maintaining routines; human
values are more important than profits.
Any of us who have lived in developing countries have an
endless supply of stories of the frustrations that are part of daily
life. Our obsession with efficiency and timetables drives up our
blood pressure and supplies national Christians with amused
bewilderment. Yet I have heard national Christians complain
about the relaxed attitude their compatriots sometimes have
towards timetables. It is all very well to be laid back, but to
break ones word, put others to unnecessary trouble, or throw a
church activity into chaos because of apathy or laziness is just as
inexcusable in a developing country as it is in the West.
For all that, we in the West can learn from our brothers and
sisters elsewhere. We must learn, as Jesus taught us, not to be
constantly anxious, but to realise that everything is, after all, in
Gods hands. We must be prepared to have our routines messed
up for the sake of others. We must sacrifice our valuable time
for the sake of Gods kingdom. We must put pressure on
ourselves to live less for self and more for others. Unfortunately,
most of the pressure we put on ourselves is of the wrong kind
pressure to achieve things tied to a world that is passing away.
The pressure we have to put on ourselves may be the opposite
of what will enthuse our employer or advance our personal
prosperity, but it is more likely to please Christ.

11. The Word of God

The previous ten points have been listed, more or less, in
order of importance. The final point, far from being the least

Catching the fire

25

important, is among the most crucial. In the West, the Word of

God is becoming less popular (certainly, less palatable), whereas
elsewhere people have a hunger for the Word that we in the West
can scarcely imagine. Instead of reducing the preachers time,
they want to increase it. Instead of dealing with an endless string
of topical issues, they want to hear the Bible expounded. Instead
of sitting and listening passively, they scribble away to record as
much as they can. Instead of walking out of the building with
perhaps a polite comment to the preacher, they ask the preacher
questions so they can learn more. Instead of having just one or
two sermons a week, they want as much as can be given. There
are exceptions, both in the West and in the non-West, but overall
the contrast is stark.
Here in the West we have more versions of the Bible than we
can count, and new versions appear almost weekly, it seems
the Womens Bible, the Mens Bible, the Youth Bible, the
Oldies Bible, the Young Marrieds Bible, the How to be Happy
Bible, the Busy Executives Bible, the Antipodeans Bible the
list seems endless. And all these versions are published for one
main reason they make money for the publishers. Meanwhile, a
large portion of the Christians around the world cannot read the
Word of God in their heart language.
A Nigerian who works in Bible translation put it to me this
way: You have many versions. We cannot even get the verses.
In many churches of Africa, the majority of literate believers do
not own a Bible, even one in a second language such as English,
French or Portuguese.
The West has a lot to answer for in using its resources to
produce a surfeit of versions for a self-indulgent public, while
millions of hungry believers do not own any Bible at all. And
what has just been said about Bibles can be repeated in relation
to biblical reference books, childrens books, Scripture lesson
material, audio tapes and videos to say nothing of the equipment that we consider essential to run our church meetings.
Christians in the West are still buying books, but many of
these books have only a tenuous connection with the Bible. The

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CATCHING THE FIRE

Christian world has followed the secular world, especially the

world of television and advertising, in pandering to a public
whose interests are largely concerned with self self-fulfilment,
self-image, self-worth, self-assertiveness, self-actualisation
while teaching on less attractive subjects such as righteousness,
justice, sin and judgment has largely disappeared.
To make matters worse, this dubious material from the West
is being pumped into some of the poorer countries, because the
Western producers can afford to send it free, knowing that the
poor tend to take anything they can get for nothing. The Western
church should be learning from the church in the developing
world, but instead, it is spreading the Wests disease.

Time to change
The church in the West is in crisis and clearly we have to do
something. That may be hard, but somehow each of us has to
make the effort to change the way we think and act. This will not
happen by itself. We never drift into good habits and no one can
make the tough decisions for us. But before we can make the
tough decisions we have to acknowledge our need. We have to
admit that the Western church is spiritually sick, and all of us
who are part of that church are to a greater or lesser degree
affected by the sickness.
In many ways the Western church is like the church that the
risen Jesus addressed in Laodicea. Like the Laodiceans, we are
neither hot nor cold. We are good, respectable, middle class
citizens, but we have not caught the fire. Some of us even think
that we in the West are Gods favourites; because, after all, we
are rich, we are prosperous and, physically speaking, we have
need of nothing. These are the things that impress us and we
think they are the things that impress God. When Jesus begins to
speak, we are in for a shock.
Jesus says, in effect, You make me sick. You make me want
to throw up. You think you are great and prosperous, but I think
you are wretched and to be pitied. You think you are
sophisticated in all your fancy finery, but from my point of view
youre in the nude. Disgusting! Youll have to repent, and that is

Catching the fire

27

not going to be easy. But if you want to be rich and really well
dressed, youll have to get everything from me. Youll have to
be like the Jews in Philadelphia, who were forced to admit that
they were no longer Gods favourites and had to come and fall at
the feet of the Philadelphians and learn that I have loved them
thats right, Turks, of all people; or Nigerians, Ethiopians,
Indians, Chinese or Brazilians, if you wish.
If you can learn from them and get the right things from
me, Jesus goes on to say, there is hope for you. I am standing at
the door, waiting. Is anyone among you going to invite me in?
Be assured, those who make the radical change I demand will
not be disappointed. On the contrary, they will be conquerors,
and because they choose to share my kind of life in the present
world, they will share my kind of victory in the world to come. If
you have an ear, take heed before its too late.
From Catching the Fire (New Zealand, 2006)

Evangelists, pastors and teachers

In writing to the Corinthians, Paul says God gives abilities as
gifts to individuals, and in writing to the Ephesians he says God
gives individuals as gifts to the church. Among the gifts given to
the church are evangelists, pastors and teachers.
When Paul speaks of these gifts in Ephesians 4:11-16, he
suggests the sequence that has produced them. The risen Christ,
having left his disciples for the last time, equips them to carry
out the task of world evangelisation that his triumphant work has
made possible. Apostles and prophets lay the foundation,
evangelists carry the gospel further afield, pastors and teachers
build up the churches, the Christians within those churches carry
on the ministry, and the church as a whole grows towards the
maturity that is Gods goal for his people.

Evangelists
The words evangelist and gospel come from the same
Greek word. An evangelist is one who announces the gospel, or
good news. The noun evangelist occurs only three times in the
New Testament, but the verb forms occur frequently. They are
translated by expressions such as preaching the gospel or
announcing the gospel.
Although every Christian has a responsibility to make known
the good news of Jesus Christ to others, certain Christians have
been specially equipped by God to carry out this task more
effectively and over a wider area. The chief concern of the early
evangelists was to proclaim the good news to those who had not
heard it and to establish churches that would then carry on the
work. Yet Pauls instruction to Timothy to do the work of an
evangelist shows that established churches also could benefit
from having an evangelist. In every place it is necessary to keep
making known the gospel. Where this is lacking, the church can
too easily become complacent, ingrown and weak.
28

Evangelists, pastors and teachers

29

Pastors and teachers

It appears from the grammatical construction of the Greek in
Ephesians 4:11 that the two words pastors and teachers refer
to the same people. We might call them pastor-teachers. They
are pastors who teach, and teachers who pastor.
The word pastor (or shepherd, which is from the same
Greek word, poimen) speaks of leadership and care of the flock
(Greek: poimnion). The word teacher speaks of the building up
in Gods Word that such leadership involves. In referring to the
leaders of Gods people as shepherds, the New Testament writers
have simply taken over a well understood Old Testament usage
of the word (Num 27:17; Isa 63:11; Jer 50:6; Ezek 34:2).
When the New Testament writers speak of tending, feeding,
pastoring or shepherding the flock, they usually do so in relation
to the teaching of Gods people through the Word and through
the example of the pastor-teachers (John 21:15-16; Acts 20:2728; 1 Peter 5:1-4). In any church, it is natural that the pastorteachers would be leaders, or elders, in that church. That is why a
requirement for elders is that they must have the ability to
discern between wholesome and unwholesome teaching. They
should have the ability to oppose what is wrong and teach what
is right (Acts 20:29; 1 Tim 3:2; Titus 1:9).

A wider ministry
Because the Bible speaks of a variety of spiritual gifts and
uses a variety of words to refer to people and positions in the
church, we should not to be too rigid in classifying people and
their functions. If we seek the Bibles guidance, we must accept
the Bibles flexibility. Although the Bible speaks of apostles,
prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, it also recognises
considerable overlapping between their functions. Some people
combined within themselves several gifts; for example, Paul
(Rom 15:20; 1 Tim 2:7), Silas (Acts 15:32; 17:10-11) and
Timothy (1 Tim 4:13-16; 2 Tim 4:5).
Likewise preaching the gospel and teaching the Scriptures
are so closely related that at times there seems to be little

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CATCHING THE FIRE

difference between preaching and teaching (Acts 5:42; 15:35;

1 Tim 2:7; 2 Tim 4:2). Preaching might specifically concern
proclaiming the gospel to the unevangelised (Acts 8:12; Gal
1:16); teaching might specifically concern instructing those who
have believed the gospel (Acts 20:20; 1 Cor 4:17). But teaching
is also necessary for those who do not believe (Acts 4:2; 5:21;
18:11; 2 Tim 2:24-26), and preaching the great facts of the
gospel is still necessary to challenge believers (Rom 16:25;
2 Cor 4:5).

The ultimate purpose

The deficiencies of the KJV translation of Ephesians 4:12
have often been pointed out. We must not understand the verse
to be saying that Gods purpose in giving various people as gifts
to the church is that they (the evangelists and pastor-teachers)
might do all the service of God in the church. Almost all other
translations give the correct meaning, which is that the risen
Christ has given evangelists and pastor-teachers to the church to
equip the believers so that they (the believers) might fulfil the
tasks of Christian service. The evangelists and pastor-teachers,
far from using their God-given gifts to establish positions of
power for themselves within the church, should aim at producing
greater ability and independence among the church members at
large.
Clergy-dominated churches may need to be reminded that
God wants to use gifted leaders to multiply ministries among the
ordinary members of the church. Churches with a lay leadership
and no clergy may need to be reminded that the church will not
achieve its aim of every-member service till it learns to recognise
and use the gifts God has given it.
The involvement of all believers in the life and growth of the
church does not mean that the church should fill up the week
with every possible kind of activity. The goal, as Ephesians
chapter 4 tells us, should rather be the development of believers,
individually and collectively, till they grow into a state of
mature adulthood (v. 13). There is no point in introducing new
ideas simply out of the desire to be different (v. 14). In fact, a

Evangelists, pastors and teachers

31

highly active church will only display its immaturity if its

activities are of the wrong sort. Vitality must be accompanied by
knowledge.
On the other hand, knowledge without spiritual life is
deadly. In view of this desired balance, Paul speaks of the
combination of truth and love as the way towards Christian
maturity (v. 15). Perhaps this is the reason why he combines the
teacher and the pastor in one gift. To communicate truth
effectively, a person should have love. To communicate love
effectively, a person should have truth.
From Outreach (Australia, 1982)

A simple message
Chapters 28-32 of Isaiah deal with the era of Hezekiah, king
of Judea, which was the southern part of the divided Israelite
kingdom. The northern part, still called Israel, had recently been
conquered by Assyria and its people taken captive to distant
lands. Assyria, in demonstration of its growing power, then
began demanding money from Judah as a kind of tax or tribute.
For a time Judah submitted, but when Hezekiah decided to resist
Assyria by refusing to pay any more taxes, Assyria launched a
military attack against Judah.
Hezekiah was a godly man and brought about many social
and religious reforms in Judah. His weakness was that he
became so anti-Assyrian that was tempted to join an alliance
with any nation that was also anti-Assyrian. The prophet Isaiah,
a close adviser to Hezekiah, opposed any alliance with foreign
nations. He preached Gods straightforward and uncomplicated
message that if the people of Judah, king and ordinary citizens
alike, remained true to God and trusted in him, they would have
victory. There was no need to trust in foreign alliances.
The citizens of Judah became annoyed at Isaiahs persistent
preaching about trusting in God instead of in political schemes,
and indignantly asked him if he thought he was teaching
children. Who does he think he is teaching babies? (Isa 28:9).
For years Isaiah had been issuing them with blunt one-line
statements: Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean. Cease to
do evil; learn to do good. Correct oppression; defend the
fatherless. If you dont believe, you wont be secure. By faith
youll be saved. In trust youll have strength (Isa 1:16-17; 7:9;
30:15). They were tired of hearing this same message over and
over (Isa 28:10).
Isaiah responded that if they refused to listen to these clear
and simple words, God would speak to them in a different
language, one whose words they would not understand. He was
32

A simple message

33

referring to the language of the Assyrians, who would come

and besiege Jerusalem. They might not understand this language,
but its message would be simple and uncomplicated violence,
disaster, suffering, death (Isa 28:11-13).
Most of Gods messages are not difficult to understand, but
they are often hard to follow. We do ourselves a disservice when
we think we are above the simple duties of life and choose
instead to pursue a path that makes us appear learned and
mature. At times we may think the simple words trust and obey
are not scholarly enough, not cultured enough, but they are still
basic to what God requires.
From Daily Power (Thailand, 1982)

Mission in the 1960s

When we look back on things we did in Thailand in the
1960s, Gae and I sometimes say we would do things differently
today. The truth is that if we wound back time by 45 years, for
ourselves and our environment, we would probably do things
much as we did them originally. People in their twenties see life
differently from those in their seventies. Also, the world was
different then.

Assumptions and expectations

As we set out for Thailand, it never entered our minds that
our mission field service would be anything other than longterm. We expected that a period of ten to fifteen years would be
required to learn the language, become effective in our work and
establish something that would last. By that time, we expected to
return to Australia anyway for the years of our childrens
secondary education.
The incentive to become proficient in the local language was
greater in Thailand than in some other countries, such as former
British colonies where English was widely spoken. If we were
not at home in the local language, we could not have an effective
long-term ministry. We were never tempted to get by with
English, because virtually no one spoke English.
From the outset we were committed to full-time language
study, which went on for the entire first year and most of the
second. But language study is not done in a vacuum, and during
those two years we kept using whatever Thai we had to reach out
in evangelism and start a church. Writing notes in Thai for
enquirers and converts marked the beginning of a wider writing
ministry, though I was not aware of that at the time. We went to
Thailand not to write books, but to reach the lost for Christ. Our
aim was to take the gospel to those who had not heard it and
plant a church in some place where there was none.
34

Mission in the 1960s

35

Missionaries
When Gae and I arrived in Thailand, we were only the
seventh missionary couple from Christian Assemblies around
the world. The seven couples (or families) were scattered around
different regions. We were the only ones in Bangkok, and the
other six couples were spread over four provinces of southern
Thailand. As a group, we inherited no mission structure and no
property such as might be found in some former British colonies.
Each of us just rented a house and got on with our work of local
evangelism, discipling and church planting.
Some of the missionaries ran Bible correspondence courses
and others addressed the literacy needs of unreached tribal
groups. Whatever the ministry, all of us spent our energies in
grass-roots ministries, without the distractions that come with
mission property and administration.
The missionaries in our small group came from six countries
and provided plenty of variety in age and outlook. There were
different viewpoints, interpretations and practices in matters that
elsewhere have been known to cause problems, but among us
was a wonderful spirit of love and tolerance. A cynical view
might be that the reason we got on well was that we lived in
different places and saw each other only occasionally, but the
friendships were genuine and have proved to be lasting.

Local Christians
In the 1960s we still had the mentality that saw expatriate
missionaries in a different light from the local Christians, even
though there was much less paternalism in Thailand than in some
other countries. About 700 foreign missionaries were resident in
Thailand in those days. But if ever a matter arose that produced a
difference of view between local Christians and missionaries,
whether our group or the wider missionary community, Gae and
I invariably found ourselves on the side of the locals.
Unlike people from other missions in Bangkok, Gae and I
did not join the missionary fellowships, but found our fellowship
with the local Thai Christians. We were told the expatriate

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CATCHING THE FIRE

fellowships were necessary to recharge the batteries. This

struck us as a bit odd. It seemed to be a contradiction for us to
tell converts from Buddhism that the Lord could sustain them
in a non-Christian environment, if we ourselves, who were
supposed to be mature Christians, had to go off to an expatriate
missionary fellowship to have our batteries recharged.
In the church we tried to follow a practice of only expecting
of the local Christians what we were prepared to do ourselves.
Whether in distributing literature around the streets or breaking
ground into non-Christian environments, we were part of the
group, not organisers who sent others to do the job. At the same
time, we were careful not to start activities that required our
expertise or finances to keep them going. The work had to
belong to the local Christians, not to us. We wanted every
activity to be theirs form the start, not something that we started
and then had to hand over at a later date.
For all that, our worldview was still largely Westernoriented. It was assumed that initiatives in general came from
Western missionaries. Then in the 1970s the Christian world
began to change, and to change dramatically, though not until the
1980s, and particularly the 1990s, did I see how revolutionary
that change was. Today the church worldwide is very different
from what it was when we went out as missionaries in the 1960s.
Instead of being mainly Western, it is now mainly non-Western.
The thrust for world evangelisation is coming not from rich
countries but from poor countries. The churchs energy is found
not among Christians who pursue personal success and
prosperity, but among those who put Gods interests before their
own.
From Serving Together (Australia, 2007)

Types and shadows

Like many brought up in conservative churches, I never
thought of questioning what I heard from the preachers and
teachers within our circles. We had the truth and that was that.
In my late teens I went to what were known as Emmaus Evening
Classes, which were a great help in getting me started on Bible
study. We had good teachers, with end-of-term examinations,
and on the subject covering the typology of the tabernacle, the
priesthood and the offerings, I got 100%. To an enthusiastic but
uncritical teenager, the tabernacle studies showed convincingly
that not only was Christ the only way of salvation, but that
the Christian Assemblies (with which I was associated) were the
only way of doing church. I wondered how any Christian could
not be one of us.
This began to change when, at the age of twenty, I went to a
full-time residential Bible college where lecturers encouraged us
to test all teaching. Preachers may be godly men, but are their
assertions biblical or merely from the imagination?

A wise teacher
The Bible college was located in Sydney and lecturers were
mainly from Christian Assemblies in Sydney. The lecturer on the
Pentateuch was Tom Carson, who in later years became a good
friend and one with whom I shared many conferences. He was
a most careful Bible scholar and was regarded then as probably
the top Bible teacher in Australian assemblies. He was a gracious
man, so measured and sincere in his speech that most of his
hearers would nod their heads approvingly even when he said
outrageous things. Radical statements were understood to be
orthodox, simply because Tom Carson spoke them.
Sitting under Tom Carsons teaching back in 1959-60 was a
revelation for me, mainly in the attitudes he fostered within us
students. He was among those who taught me to think. He had a
37

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CATCHING THE FIRE

number of classic statements, of which the following readily

come to mind. Where able scholars differ it is wise not to be
dogmatic. There is no point in spiritualising the Bible to draw
deep lessons from it if we fail to grasp its original meaning.
Some people preach beautiful sermons on the meanings of
names or the typological significance of details, but miss the
whole point of the passage. Preachers may profess to be giving
us the wheat of the Word, but only be giving us the chaff of
the imagination. He never raised his voice, never spoke
disparagingly, and was never sarcastic or judgmental, yet in the
process he demolished many of the fanciful teachings (another
of his expressions) I had uncritically swallowed.
When Mr Carson (as we respectfully called him) lectured
through Exodus and then into Leviticus and Numbers, I found
myself rethinking a few things. I had been taught that blue was
the heavenly colour and red the earthly colour, but Tom (as we
less respectfully referred to him) pointed out that the Bible
contained nothing to justify such an interpretation. Preachers
were assigning meanings and equivalents as it suited them.
Someone else might say that blue represented peace and red
represented love. In todays world, a person might say that blue
represented conservatism and red represented communism. We
cannot make a biblical detail represent whatever we choose.
The only clue the Bible gives concerning the significance of
the colours of the tabernacle cloth and the high priests clothing
is Exodus 28:2: You shall make for the priests holy garments
for glory and for beauty. Whatever the decorative handiwork
was, it was intended to show colour, splendour, glory, beauty.
Likewise the mixture of spices in the incense was to make a
substance that burnt well and gave off smoke that smelt and
looked good. Nothing is to be gained by inventing spiritual
meanings for each of the ingredients.

The danger of being too clever

After being told in my youth that the timber in the tabernacle
components represented Christs humanity and the overlaying
gold represented his deity, Tom pointed out that such a view

Types and shadows

39

could almost be called heretical. Christs humanity was not

hidden or covered by his deity. The most likely reasons for the
metal covering over the wood were to produce splendour and
protect the wood.
As the years passed and I began to write books, I reached
further conclusions. The metal elements did more than give
splendour and protection. For example, the metal bases put in the
ground to receive the timber components ensured a snug fit and
preserved from decay and termites. Because the tabernacle was a
mobile sanctuary, not a fixed building, it was easy to put
together and take apart a prefabricated structure that was light
to handle and easy to transport.
The details given to Moses are not complete. They give
overall dimensions and specify the products, but much was left
to the creativity of those who made it, such as the thickness of
the timber, the designs of the embroidery and the shape of the
all-covering weatherproof tent. If we tried to build the tabernacle
based on the details given to Moses, we would soon discover that
we needed to add further details to ensure that the structure
would in fact stand up. No details are given to specify the depth
of the foundations, the method by which the tops of the columns
and frames were tied together, and so on.
Instead of searching for New Testament meanings hidden in
the tabernacles details, we should be trying to understand what
the Israelites of Moses time might have understood. And in so
doing we shall learn valuable lessons. We shall learn how
deficient the Old Testament worship set-up was, though it was
the best available till Christ came. When Christ came, his life
and work underlined the shortcomings of the old system. The
book of Hebrews tells us that if we think the old will enhance the
new, we are wrong.

Some examples
A simple example of this fundamental meaning within the
tabernacle system is found in the high priests clothing. We
should not be trying to find typological significance in all the
details, but trying to find what the details might have meant to

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CATCHING THE FIRE

those for whom the system was designed. In the high priests
clothing, the names of the twelve tribes were inscribed on two
sets of precious stones one set on the breast-piece and the other
on the shoulder pieces. This helped the high priest to remain
constantly aware that when he entered the presence of God, he
was symbolically carrying the entire nation with him. He did not
enter Gods presence merely as one highly privileged individual,
but as the representative of all the people.
The high priests application of the blood was the best he
could do as a cleansing ritual, because that is all it was ritual.
People were saved by grace, through faith, which has always
been the case, whether in Old Testament times, New Testament
times, or today. The rituals did not enable anyone to receive
salvation. Without faith, they were pointless. The blood of an
animal could not take away sin (which should have been obvious
to anyone), but it showed that sin could not be atoned for without
cost. It showed what atonement involved. The point I make is
that we do not honour Christ by trying to embellish the flawed
system of Old Testament times. We honour Christ by
expounding his riches as portrayed in the New Testament. That
is what the book of Hebrews does.
Hebrews talks about the Old Testament system not by
showing how it enhances our view of Christ, but by showing
how ineffectual it was. It belonged to the shadows, not the light,
and something from the shadows cannot illumine something that
is in the full light. The glories of Christ, which shine brightly on
page after page of the New Testament, will not be enhanced by
something coming from the dark. The old system provided an
outline or shadow, and that was helpful so long as the reality had
not arrived, but now that the reality has arrived, nothing is to be
gained by going back to the outline or shadow.

Basic consideration
Whatever part of the Bible I am reading or expounding, Old
Testament or New, I have some basic considerations. At the risk
of over-simplifying, I could say that I am asking myself a few
questions about the part of the Bible being dealt with. Who is

Types and shadows

41

saying this? Who is he talking to? Why is he saying it? What

does he mean? Now what can I learn from this?
The Old Testament may be pre-Christian but it is not substandard. We do not have to dress it up in New Testament
clothes to give it legitimacy. All the New Testament proof-texts
we quote in relation to the authority, inspiration, instruction,
usefulness and relevance of Scripture are actually references to
the Old Testament. It is the Old Testament writings that the New
Testament writers refer to, because those writings constitute the
only Scriptures they had.
Problems with typology are part of an overall problem many
Christians have when they carve up the Bible into parts they see
as relevant or not relevant. Dispensationalism made the problem
worse, though it is on the wane these days. It had scarcely been
heard of until J N Darby propagated it. I have no problem with
pre-millennialism, but Darbys theories gave pre-millennialism a
bad name. He also heavily influenced typological teaching,
which, like Dispensationalism, was the arbitrary imposition of a
system upon the Bible, rather than allowing the Bible to speak
for itself.

How to say things

Let me conclude where I began, with Tom Carson. Different
speakers handle things in different ways. Whereas Tom Carson
spoke with precision, I tend to be a bit rough around the edges
rather colloquial. Like him, however, I have learnt that usually it
is not advisable to try to destroy long-held beliefs by head-on
assault. That only gets people angry and offside. They turn off
and refuse to listen to anything else that is said. Yet somehow
we have to deal with views or interpretations that are seriously
flawed.
Tom Carson did not hesitate to do this, but at times his
words were so guarded and his manner so gracious that many
mistook his criticism for approval. While he was saying things
that were radical, his hearers were interpreting him as supporting
their traditional views. They were not startled. It may therefore
be necessary, when tackling things that people think they

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CATCHING THE FIRE

know, to say them in such a different way that they are startled
not knocked off their chairs, but at least made to see things they
had not thought of before.
Concerning the tabernacle and its associated religious
services, it may help our hearers understand things better if we
start not by spiritualising features but by painting word pictures
that help them see things in their original setting. We start with
the practicalities of the old era rather than leap into the theology
of the new era that has come through Jesus Christ. We see how
the ancient Israelites, following Gods instructions, erected a
structure and followed a system that was suited to pre-Christian
times.

Ancient Israel again

In looking at the tabernacle in its original setting, we could
paint a picture showing what the Israelites might have done
when they wanted to set up a new camp. After getting out their
shovels, picks or whatever they used in those days, they dug a
rectangular trench the size of the pre-fabricated structure. Into
this trench they fitted metal bases, which seem to have locked
together and so determined the perimeter of the structure. I
picture these metal bases as something like the concrete blocks
we are familiar with, which have two ready-made holes. Into
these holes they dropped the frames of the tabernacle walls a
kind of mortise and tenon construction. They then ran horizontal
bars through these vertical frames to hold them together, and tied
everything at the corners and tops so that the walls and columns
would not fall over.
With the framework now erected, they then threw various
cloth coverings over the frame to form the ceiling and external
walls. They also hung other pieces of cloth from the columns to
form the entrances and internal partition. An animal-skin tent
was pitched over the whole.
The structure was of a kind Israelites were familiar with,
rather like the Bedouin tents still common today. From the
outside it was just a huge drab-looking tent, but on the inside it
presented a striking display of partitions and hangings made of

Types and shadows

43

beautiful multi-coloured fabric, all of which were highlighted by

gleaming precious metal. Like the high priests clothing, it was a
display of glory and beauty.
One could go on to describe the surrounding courtyard, the
articles in the courtyard and the furniture inside the tent itself,
along with matters relating to the priests and the offerings as
mentioned briefly above. All this helps people today understand
how the pre-Christian system operated. This will yield valuable
lessons in its own right, but at the same time it will show the
weaknesses in the old system and thereby point to a better way.

Full light, no more shadows

Although the interpretation of the Old Testament will be
found within it, the completion of what God was doing will only
be found in the New. In an era when the reality had not yet
come, any shadow or pre-figuring was welcome, but once the
reality has come, no one wants to go back to the shadows. If I am
awaiting my wifes arrival at the international airport, I may be
excited when I see a shadow like hers approaching the exit door,
but once she emerges through the door, I think no more about the
shadow. The real person has arrived.
The ancient Israelite system demonstrated aspects of Gods
truth that at that stage were only shadows, things that served a
purpose till the reality arrived. They could be understood in
broad outline but not in specific detail. They showed what
salvation entailed but they could not bring that salvation. They
gave hope to people living in an era when the Saviour had not
yet come. The system showed that sin needed purging, but the
system could not purge it. Now that Christ has come, the
deficiencies of the old are replaced by the perfection of the new.
The pictures and shadows give way to the reality.

To a correspondent in India (2010)

Imitators
New Christians often copy what they see in older Christians,
and whether they are helped or hindered in this will depend
largely on whether the example they see is good or bad. Paul was
confident enough about his way of life when in Thessalonica that
when he wrote to the new Christians there he said, You know
what kind of men we proved to be among you and You are
witnesses how holy and righteous and blameless was our
behaviour among you (1 Thess 1:5; 2:10). He had been an
example they could well follow.
Christians must be careful, however, not to become
followers of anyone unthinkingly. True, they may be helped by a
good example, but they must remember that not all examples are
good. The only true standard is God, demonstrated in human
form in Jesus Christ.
Paul was well aware of this and when he wrote to these new
Christians he made it clear that as Jesus had suffered at the hands
of his countrymen so would they. Also, they had seen with their
own eyes what Paul suffered in Thessalonica, so when they
accepted his message and believed in Jesus, they knew what to
expect. But no suffering could take away the joy that the living
Christ gave them through his indwelling Spirit. That is why Paul
could say to the Thessalonian believers, You became imitators
of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much
affliction, with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit (1 Thess 1:6).
Whatever encouragement or inspiration Pauls example may
have brought, he reminded these new believers that their
salvation depended not on him, but on God. When you received
the word of God from us, you accepted it not as the word of men
but as what it really is, the word of God which is at work in you
(1 Thess 2:13). If we are upheld in our Christian belief mainly by
the strong personality of some other Christian, our faith is not
firmly based. We could even be heading for trouble.
44

Imitators

45

Paul was never one to deceive people or gain converts

through painting a false picture of what might lie ahead. The
Thessalonians may have been imitators of a notable Christian in
behaviour considered desirable, but they became imitators of
other notable Christians in something not normally considered
desirable, namely, persecution. Some people fear suffering at the
hands of foreign invaders, but the followers of Jesus may suffer
at the hands of fellow-citizens in their own country. This is what
happened to the Thessalonian believers. You became imitators
of the churches in Judea, for you suffered the same things from
your countrymen as they did from the Jews (1 Thess 2:14).
Whether in New Testament times or today, the kinds of
people who killed Jesus also attack his followers. They drive out
evangelists, displease God and obstruct the proclamation of the
gospel (1 Thess 2:15). The assurance that we belong to Jesus
Christ comes from things favourable and unfavourable. If we are
true Christians, we can look back with gratitude to those
exemplary believers whose faith we follow, whether through
good times or bad.
From Daily Power (Thailand, 1983)

The free thinkers

During the 1960s, Francis Schaeffer made a considerable
contribution to the Christian cause by helping people who were
troubled by societys drift towards non-rational experiences.
Although I am not a disciple of Schaeffer, I have met many who
have looked to him for help, especially by way of his book
Escape from Reason. But many said they found the book
difficult, so I bought a copy and read it for myself.
I can sympathise with these confused readers. I have no
expertise in the areas of Schaeffers studies, but I have at least
tried to understand what he is talking about. In this article I have
combined some of Schaeffers main ideas with a few of my own,
in the hope that it might help those who are looking for the sort
of help that Schaeffer can give.

Made in the image of God

Human beings are different from all other creatures in that
God made them in his image. Just as the image of the moon on
the water cannot exist independently of the moon, so human
beings cannot exist independently of God. They are not
autonomous. Other animals have their animality in themselves,
and if they have food, shelter, space and the opportunity for
reproduction, they are satisfied. Not so humans. Their humanity
is not within themselves, but exists in their unique relationship
with God. They are made so that the highest part of their nature
can be satisfied only by God.
People instinctively know there is a higher something, but
if they will not accept God, they will put something else in
Gods place. They may use art, music, cinema, drugs or a range
of other avenues to attain some higher experience. They want
this experience independently of God; they want to be
autonomous. But only God is autonomous, and when people use
their intellect, will-power, skills and emotions to pursue their
46

The free thinkers

47

autonomy, these things take the place of God. Their natural

capacities eat up God, so to speak.
Christians assert that the spiritual element within human
beings can be satisfied only by God. If people do not accept this
Christian assertion, they will seek to satisfy their spiritual desires
with natural things. The spiritual and the natural have been
reconciled through Jesus Christ, so that believers enjoy life that
is truly unified. For unbelievers, the spiritual and the natural are
separated, with a great gulf between them. If they refuse to
bridge this gulf through Christ, they may try to bridge it in some
other way. They try to reach their higher experience by an
irrational leap. This experience may be contrary to reason or
nature, but it is an assertion of their independence of God.

The modern pessimists

We can easily see how the philosophy behind this
irrationality may lead to drug-taking, but it has also produced
much of the modern art, literature and theatre. People want to
exercise their freedom without restraints; they want to be the
centre of the universe; they want to be God. But what is the point
of being God if no one knows what you are talking about?
Human beings crave for autonomous freedom, even if it means
giving up their rationality. Poets, artists, composers and filmmakers can produce work that defies rational assessment. No one
knows whether it is real or illusion, sane or insane.
Despair is one offspring from this new thinking. Logical
thinking and rational art have not led to a higher spiritual
experience. All is pessimism. Life has no meaning, no purpose,
no significance. Only through a non-rational leap will people
get optimism.
This is so not only in art, music and literature, but also in
religion. No longer is there faith in a real Jesus who lived, died
and rose again so that people might have new life. The only
difference between modern liberal theology and modern liberal
thought in other fields is in the terminology. The thinking is the
same. There is no personal God; Jesus is just a symbol; faith is
whatever path one pursues to attain the final experience,

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CATCHING THE FIRE

whether that experience be ones God, ones drama or ones

painting. The main thing is to think there is a God; any God will
do. And because human beings are made to seek after God, their
desires are unlimited. They therefore try all sorts of acts of
desperation in search of the ultimate experience. This is behind
the present-day drug problem.
Christians might readily see the problem of drugs, but they
do not so readily see that the same thinking is behind most
presentations of the arts and the media. In stories relating to
crime and sex, the images and reporting show all the stark
details. They wake us from our sleep and shock us out of our
complacency, only to tell us there is nothing there. Life is
meaningless.
Things that are wrong, instead of being pronounced wrong,
are shown in a better light through the use of favourable images
and music. Slowly but surely, we are being worked on. Faith is
being shifted from the absolute to the relative, from the rational
to the irrational, from the objective to the subjective. It then
becomes nothing more than ones viewpoint or experience, and
therefore is unchallengeable. The irrational has become the
absolute.

Well-meaning, but confused

Many ordinary citizens are uncomfortable with this new
thinking and would like to uphold the traditional dignity and
values of human society. Alas, they do not know how to, because
they too have left God out of the picture. Often they still think in
the right way right is right and wrong is wrong but they no
longer know why. They cannot understand their children who
think in the new way. Words that they use have a different
meaning in the minds of their children.
This applies even to Christian vocabulary, whether used in
Christian circles or in the wider community. To be Christian
might mean nothing more than to be human; that is, to do
whatever is desirable at a particular moment. Sexual relations
between two unmarried people, or between two people of the
same sex, may therefore be spoken of as a Christian expression

The free thinkers

49

of love, even though it may involve breaking the specific

morality that Christ taught.
The modern idea, put simply, is this. In the rational world
life is meaningless. Right and wrong do not exist. What a person
thinks right is right. Pornography and sexual immorality do not
exist, because people do not see their behaviour as morally
wrong or dirty. If there is no God, there is no divine standard by
which to judge things. At the same time, people look for some
higher experience to lift them out of a meaningless world. But
since they reject the role of Christian faith in bridging the gap
between the spiritual and the natural, their only way is by an
irrational leap.

The Christian way

Christians do not need such a leap. They see all areas of
human life as related to God, because all human beings are made
in his image. They may be separated from God through sin, but
they are not nothing. They are not animals or machines. The
marks of Gods image are still upon them; they can still love,
they can still paint beauty, they can still compose melodies, they
can still achieve scientific marvels.
The attainment of the spiritual something that people desire
comes not through an irrational leap, but through a rational faith
in a living person who has himself bridged the gap perfectly.
This person, Jesus Christ, is the complete human being that God
originally intended. By his death he removed sin so that the
image might be restored, the bridge rebuilt. No longer is there a
separation between the natural and the spiritual, and no longer is
there a defiant search for human autonomy. Christ alone is Lord,
and he is Lord of the whole life. Our intellect, our morality, our
emotions, our religion none is independent of God. The image
is restored, not regardless of God, but by finding its true meaning
in God.
From Tidings (Australia, 1972)

Faith, hardship and growth

Christians from poor countries who have stayed with us in
Brisbane are fascinated by many aspects of our everyday life.
One item of frequent interest is the garbage collection truck with
a mechanical arm that picks up the bin, then hoists and upturns it
in one swift movement that transfers the garbage from the bin to
the truck. One person asked me to take a photo, so when I told
the driver what I was about to do, he asked, Dont they have
trucks like this in their country? Trucks like this? I exploded.
They dont even have a garbage collection! The incident shows
what little understanding many in the West have of others. They
cannot believe that our way of life is not the norm for humanity.
On the other hand, the visitors from these countries are just
as incredulous when they learn of the public welfare that our
governments provide and the amount of tax they take from us
to pay for it. They cannot believe that such a system would work
in their country, where citizens do not expect fair government,
do not enjoy national security and have no awareness of the
basic freedoms that we in the West take for granted. Christians in
these countries, living in circumstance of constant uncertainty,
have learnt to trust in God. They survive only by faith.

Faith that works

One reason why many Christians in the West have forgotten
how to live by faith is that for them life is apparently so secure
that they have no need for faith. Through government provisions
and personal affluence, everything appears to be under control.
They thank God for their comfortable circumstances and expect
that he will guard everything for them. Then, when things go
wrong, they become disappointed with God.
Many Christians who live in more difficult circumstances
respond differently to adversity. Their attitude is not If God
makes things right for me, Ill follow him, but Although God
50

Faith, hardship and growth

51

does not seem to have made things right for me, Ill follow him.
Their faith is not conditional upon the removal of hardship; it
gives them the strength to bear hardship. A person in a welldeveloped country may have an under-developed faith, while a
person in an under-developed country may have a welldeveloped faith. A baby yells when it cannot get what it wants; a
mature person has learnt to deny self and exercise patience.

Hardship is no setback
In most countries where the church is growing, Christians
are suffering hardship. This may or may not be through the
hostility of religious fanatics or governments (for some countries
are decidedly pro-Christian), but through natural disasters, wars,
famine, poverty, mismanagement or corruption. Hardship can
come through poor health, inadequate housing, lack of good food
and water, or frequent deaths in the family. But, as the Bible
says, Christians in such circumstances often demonstrate that
suffering produces endurance, character and hope. Faith is
proved to be genuine and believers have a greater awareness of
Gods love.
The number of missionaries from these difficult countries is
increasing, but many seem to pick the toughest places to go to. A
Nigerian, speaking to other Nigerians through a local magazine,
wrote, Suffering for Christ and his kingdom is basic to the
Christian faith, especially as it relates to missionary enterprise.
We are in a violent world. If we are to make any headway in the
assignment given us by our Lord Jesus, we must be prepared to
endure suffering, hunger, rejection and even death. So long as we
remain in this world, suffering is helpful to our faith.
In typically robust Nigerian style, the writer concluded, We
should never allow suffering to deter us. Rather it should
stimulate us towards accomplishing great things for God. To a
large extent our attitude is what determines the role that suffering
will play in our walk with God. Should we embrace suffering or
avoid it; ignore it or endure it? The truth is that suffering for
Christ is part of our calling. Rather than dodge it, we should
anticipate situations that will require us boldly to identify

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CATCHING THE FIRE

ourselves with the suffering of Christ. We should not put

ourselves in unavoidable trouble, but neither should we shy away
from opportunities to suffer legitimately for Christ. It is the
gateway to glory.

Growth where there is risk

At a conference I attended in Cambodia were a number of
pastors and evangelists from Vietnam and Laos, two countries
grouped with Saudi Arabia, Somalia and North Korea as among
the most hostile to local Christians. Although these Vietnamese
and Lao believers risked their lives in travelling to such a
conference, they saw nothing heroic in their actions. The only
Christianity they knew was lived by faith in God and at great
personal risk.
Yet in both Laos and Vietnam the church was growing. In
Laos it had grown from 15,000 to 50,000 in ten years. In the
capital city there were now 8,000 Christians instead of forty, and
eleven churches instead of one. In neighbouring Vietnam, one
pastor I spoke with said that when he left the state-sanctioned
church to go underground, he had a mere six people. From that
beginning, his ministry grew over the next ten years to sixtythree churches with 7,000 believers.
When the governments of Vietnam and Laos saw they could
not control the churchs growth, persecution became intense. But
the believers did not see suffering as something to be avoided; it
was what they expected if they were committed to Jesus Christ.
They read in the Bible that Christians were not to be surprised by
the fiery ordeal that came upon them.
At times we in the West are not only surprised if things go
against us, but may even think God has deserted us. The Bible
says that God will never leave or forsake us, but it says also that
he never promised to excuse us from all hardship and testing.
Disciples of Jesus are followers of Jesus, and the natural desire
we have to avoid suffering should never be used as an excuse for
avoiding the path that Jesus trod.
From International Perspectives (England, 2007)

Alexandria, city of the learned

The conquests of Alexander the Great were decisive and
extensive, as he moved with astonishing speed from his Greek
homeland across all that remained of the Persian Empire. His
conquest of Egypt was marked by the construction of a
magnificent coastal city which he named Alexandria, as a
monument to himself. Alexandria was a strategic sea port and
soon developed into a busy centre of commercial and
manufacturing activity. Its ships carried Egypts corn to Greece
and Rome (Acts 27:6; 28:11). Architecturally, it was so striking
that it came to be regarded as the greatest Greek city of the time.
It was also a centre of learning, from which various influences
were felt in the early days of Christianity.

Scholarly writers
Alexandrias population was a mixture of Egyptian, Greek,
Roman and Jewish people. In such a city it could be expected
that Greek philosophers would be prominent, but a school of
reputable Jewish writers also emerged. From these scholars came
many writings that spread widely among Jews of the preChristian period. But these writings, although highly regarded,
were never accepted into the Old Testament.
A more important contribution from the Jewish scholars in
Alexandria came from a group of seventy men who prepared the
first Greek translation of the Old Testament. This is known as
the Septuagint, often abbreviated as LXX, the Roman letters for
seventy.
The reason for the production of a Greek version of the
Hebrew Old Testament was that the Greek language, through
Alexanders conquests, spread throughout Alexanders empire
and within a short time was its most commonly spoken language.
Although the Septuagint was originally prepared for orthodox
Jews of the pre-Christian era, those who possibly benefited most
53

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CATCHING THE FIRE

from it were the early Christians. Among those early Christians,

most were Greek-speaking, even those who came from a Jewish
background, and the Septuagint provided them with a readymade Greek translation of the Old Testament. The writers of the
New Testament, in quoting from the Old Testament, usually
used the Septuagint rather than make their own translation from
Hebrew.
In matters concerning God and religion, the Septuagint was
particularly helpful to preachers and writers of New Testament
times. This is because the Septuagint translators chose their
words carefully, knowing that words from a pagan background
can convey wrong ideas if used carelessly in matters of the
Bible. This is a common problem, in any era or country, when
translating the Scriptures into languages coloured by other
religions. Many Greek religious words had meanings that related
to pagan religious practices and therefore the Septuagint
translators did all they could to avoid any contamination of the
Old Testament Scriptures. They sought to give words meaning or
significance in the context of Hebrew ideas, not Greek ideas.
This is something that we too must bear in mind when we
read the New Testament. Although many Greek words reflect
popular usage, others reflect theological ideas that come from
the Hebrew Old Testament. The words may be Greek, but they
are used against the background of the Israelite religion rather
than the pagan religions.

Eloquent speakers
While having a reputation for care in translation, the
Alexandrian school of Jewish Old Testament scholars also had a
reputation for extravagance in interpretation. Many of these men
enjoyed the philosophical atmosphere of Alexandria and, when
expounding the Scriptures, often got carried away with their own
imaginative expositions. Among the general public they were
seen as learned and eloquent speakers and they readily became
popular.
The New Testament mentions the activity of one of these
Alexandrian preachers, a man called Apollos, whose knowledge

Alexandria, city of the learned

55

of Old Testament references to the Messiah was extraordinary.

He was an eloquent speaker with a quick mind, which enabled
him to debate with Jews who refused to accept that Jesus was the
Messiah. At the same time, being a fairly new believer in Jesus,
he lacked knowledge in some Christian teachings. But he was
willing to learn, even from ordinary Christians who did not
have his scholastic background. The fluent debater learnt from
a couple of manual labourers and he soon became a powerful
preacher. Learning and eloquence may be assets for preachers,
but only if the preachers are humble and always ready to learn,
no matter who the teachers may be (Acts 18:24-28).
This learning experience of Apollos took place in Ephesus,
on the west coast of Turkey. When he went across to Corinth, in
southern Greece, the Ephesian Christians wrote to the Corinthian
Christians to recommend him to them as a worthy teacher.
Foolishly, the immature Corinthians made favourites of different
teachers and soon there was tension between groups in the
church. Among these groups was a pro-Apollos faction and a
pro-Paul faction. Paul condemned this formation of factions,
pointing out that he and Apollos were not in competition, but
worked in cooperation. They were fellow servants of God (1 Cor
1:11-12; 3:4-9).
Christians are foolish when they make favourites of one
preacher, or indeed of any of Gods servants, at the expense of
another. Sometimes the preacher may also be at fault. Not so
with Apollos, who seems to have been displeased that the
Corinthians created factions. That would explain why, after
leaving Corinth, he thought it best not to return for a while. This
was in spite of Pauls enthusiastic urging showing that Paul
likewise had no thought of any competition between preachers
(1 Cor 16:12).

Good outcomes
Apollos apparently continued as a travelling Christian
preacher for many years. Towards the end of Pauls life, Apollos
visited Crete, where another of Pauls fellow-workers, Titus, had
to deal with serious difficulties in the churches. Paul urged Titus

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CATCHING THE FIRE

to welcome Apollos as someone who could be of help. When

Paul asked Titus to give Apollos, along with his travelling
companion Zenas, further supplies so that he could continue his
journey, it suggests that Apollos might have been sent to Crete
by Paul and been the carrier of Pauls letter to Titus (Titus 3:13;
cf. 1:5).
Whatever the local circumstances were, both Paul and
Apollos kept preaching the gospel, teaching the Christians and
building up churches, probably at all times speaking the Greek
language and preaching from the Greek version of the Old
Testament. The influence of Alexandria was long-lasting and
widespread.
From Christian Torch (Thailand, 1978)

10

A king-priest
One Bible character who has puzzled and fascinated the
people of God down through the years is the man Melchizedek.
Little is said about him in the Bible, but the few references to
him indicate that he was a man of unusual importance.

Melchizedek and Abraham

Melchizedek first appears in the Bible story when he met
Abraham as Abraham was returning from victory over a group of
invaders. Like Abraham, Melchizedek was a worshipper of the
Most High God. In fact, he was Gods priest. In addition, he was
ruler of the Canaanite city-state of Salem, the place that later
became known as Jeru-salem. As king-priest he bore some lofty
titles, but, more importantly, he exhibited the character that was
in keeping with those titles. Here was one who could be called
king of righteousness, king of peace and priest of the Most High
God (Heb 7:1-10).
In blessing the victor, Melchizedek reminded Abraham that
God, and no other, was the true owner of heaven and earth, and
therefore God was the one who had given Abraham victory.
Abraham gladly acknowledged this, firstly by making a costly
offering to Gods priest and then by refusing to accept any
reward from the Canaanite rulers he had helped rescue. God
alone was the ruler of Canaan. He had promised Canaan to
Abraham and his descendants, and he controlled Abrahams
affairs in Canaan (Gen 14:1-24).

Melchizedek and David

God remained faithful to his promises to Abraham, and in
due course Abrahams descendants, the nation Israel, conquered
and possessed Canaan. Jerusalem, however, proved to be very
difficult to take. Not until David became king, more than two
hundred years after Israel had taken possession of Canaan, was
Jerusalem conquered.
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Davids conquest of Jerusalem was probably the most

notable achievement in his illustrious career, for it changed the
pattern of Israels history. It immediately won David nationwide
support, whereas previously the people had been fragmented
through tribal jealousies. Jerusalem would be the centre of
Davids kingdom not merely the political capital, but also the
religious centre. David brought the ark of God into Jerusalem,
and initiated plans for the construction of a permanent temple to
crown the city (2 Sam 5:6-12; 6:16-18; 7:1-16).
Being also a notable song-writer and musician, David often
composed songs to celebrate important events. His conquest of
Jerusalem and the establishment of his throne there seem to
provide the circumstances that produced one of his best known
psalms, numbered in our Bible as 110.

Psalm 110
Although the purpose of this psalm was to celebrate Davids
victory, those for whom he composed it were most likely the
temple singers. David had at last taken Jerusalem and now ruled
as successor to the great Melchizedek. As heir to Melchizedeks
magnificent titles, David was now Jerusalems king-priest (this
priesthood being distinct from the Aaronic priesthood). As ruler
of Salem and Gods representative to his people, David was now
king of peace and priest of the Most High God. It was as if God
had invited David to sit at his right hand, in the place of supreme
power; for if he could conquer Jerusalem, nothing could stop
him conquering all enemies and making them, as it were, his
footstool (v. l).
The singers assured David that God was with him to send
forth his mighty scepter, so that from the hill of Zion David
would rule his people and conquer his foes (v. 2). David was also
assured that his people would offer themselves to him willingly
for the task of spreading his rule throughout Israel and beyond.
An army of young men with the life-giving freshness of dew and
the strength of youth would present themselves to their king.
From the womb of the morning, like dew his youthful ones
would come to him (v. 3).

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59

Just as the authority of Melchizedek, the representative of

the Most High God, was not limited by national boundaries, so
Davids authority in the name of God would be boundless, both
in time and in extent. He too would be a priest for ever after the
order of Melchizedek (v. 4). Because the Lord was at his right
hand, he could expect universal conquest as he executed
judgment against the nations and shattered chiefs over the wide
earth (v. 5-6). David had no need to fear failure in this task,
because God would refresh him as he drank from the brook by
the way. God would renew his vigour continually, lifting up his
head till he stood victorious, master of all (v. 7).

Melchizedek, David and Christ

It becomes clear as we read this psalm that the language is
excessive when applied literally to David. This is hardly
surprising. Most nations have a tendency to exaggerate their
status in their nationalistic songs (land of hope and glory) and
most kings accrue to themselves a list of titles that sound
impressive but may mean little (Shah-en-Shah, King of kings,
Light of the Aryans, Centre of the universe).
David was only a very faint picture of the ideal, universal
king-priest. The words of the psalm are ill-fitting when
interpreted literally of David, but they are entirely suitable when
applied to Davids great descendant, the Messiah (2 Sam 7:1216; Luke 1:32-33).
Jews in later times interpreted the psalm as applying to the
Messiah, and Jesus agreed that this was a correct application.
The words that the temple singers sang in praise to David were
words written by David himself; but, as Jesus pointed out, they
were written under the inspiration of the Spirit in praise of the
Messiah. Thus, the opening words of the psalm, by which
the singers expressed homage to David (calling him my lord),
were the same words by which David expressed homage to the
Messiah. The Messiah, who everyone knew would be Davids
descendant, was also Davids Lord. That Messiah was Jesus.
Though a son of David, he was also Lord of David, for he was
God (Matt 22:42-45; see also Acts 2:34-35).

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The so-called Melchizedek priesthood that David inherited

was a priesthood in name only. It was nothing more than one
more title to add to the impressive list of titles worn by a king.
Christs priesthood after the order of Melchizedek is more than
just a title. It is true, complete and eternal. He is a priest, not by
some physical or national inheritance, but by the power of an
indestructible life (Heb 7:16-17). His conquest and rule is not
limited to the territorial ambitions of some small Middle Eastern
country, but is universal. He will reign until he will actually put
all enemies under his feet (l Cor 15:25). It is he alone who is
called Faithful and True and it is he alone who in righteousness
judges and makes war; for it is he alone who has the name
inscribed, King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev 19:11,16).
From Treasury (New Zealand, 1982)

11

To fear . . . and to deny

Two words that are used in the Bible in both a good and a
bad sense are the words fear and deny. By examining the way
the Bible uses these two words, believers may be forced to look
carefully at the way they live. They might ask themselves if their
lives are characterised by fear and denial, and if so whether this
is in the good sense or the bad.

To fear
People naturally fear things, events, individuals or power
groups that they see as threatening, as having power to control or
destroy them. In some cases this may be a cowardly fear, but in
others a very healthy fear, amounting to respect or reverence
(Rom 13:3-4). It is in this latter sense that people are to fear
those who have authority over them and, in particular, to fear
God (Lev 19:3; Ps 34:11; Rom 13:3,7; 1 Peter 2:17).
Although sinners have good reason to fear God because of
the punishment that will fall upon them, believers fear God in a
different sense. Their fear is mixed with love for him. Without
having seen Christ, they love him, yet in their hearts they
reverence him as Lord (Deut 6:2,5; 1 Peter 1:8; 3:15). Some
believers might obey God simply because they fear his
punishment, but such obedience displays an immature love. They
should obey God because they love him (1 John 4:17-18; 5:3).
Love for God is at the very heart of the relationship that
Christians have with God. This does not mean, however, that
they are excused from Gods judgment. God still requires
obedience and holiness. God is the almighty Judge as well as the
loving Father, and therefore Christians must have a healthy fear
of him as well as a warm love for him (1 Peter 1:16-17). Such an
attitude towards God guarantees Gods help in living a life that is
pleasing to him and beneficial to the believers themselves. The
Old Testament tells us that the Lord takes pleasure in those who
61

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fear him (Ps 147:11). The New Testament tells us that he carries
out his purposes in their lives according to his good pleasure
(Phil 2:12-13).
This awareness of Gods activity in the lives of believers
gives them confidence in a life that is full of dangers and
uncertainties. Those who fear the Lord, as well as enjoying his
Word, have confidence amid lifes uncertainties. They do not
fear, even though the earth should change and the mountains
shake in the heart of the seas (Ps 46:2; 112:1,7). If they
reverence Christ as Lord, they will have no fear of those who
attack them, whether physically or through slander and
accusations (1 Peter 3:14-15).

To deny
The New Testament has much to say about denial, both in
the bad sense and in the good. Denial in the bad sense has to do
with openly disowning or rejecting God. Some people deny God
publicly by declaring openly that they no longer belong to him,
or no longer want to be identified with Christ (Matt 10:33;
26:70-72; cf. Acts 3:12-14). This is a temptation to which
Christians are particularly vulnerable in times of persecution.
The risen and victorious Christ therefore gives special
commendation for those who, in times of stress, steadfastly
refuse to deny him (Rev 2:13; 3:8).
However, it is not only in times of stress that believers might
deny their Lord. Wrong behaviour, even without words, can be a
denial of their Christian faith. Those who are heartless towards
the needy are denying the faith. As Paul says, they profess to
know God, but deny him by their deeds (1 Tim 5:8; Titus 1:16).
But shameful denial of Christ and his teachings, no matter in
what form, is not irreversible. A person might deny Christ in a
moment of weakness and, after genuine repentance, be forgiven,
as in the case of Peter. But the person who totally rejects God
will be totally rejected by him. In such a case it is true that if we
deny him, he also will deny us (2 Tim 2:10-13).
Denial in the good sense has to do with self-denial, meaning
the rejection of self-centredness. People deny themselves for

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63

the sake of Christ by allowing their lives to be ruled by Christ

instead of by themselves. They are controlled by Christs will,
not by their own selfish desires. They promise to be obedient to
Christ always, regardless of what it may lead to. When people
deny themselves in this sense, they find true life. But if they
refuse to deny themselves because they want to keep their lives
for themselves, they lose life in its fullest sense and they lose it
for ever (Matt 16:24-26).
Jesus was the supreme example of self-denial, and in his
case this self-denial led eventually to death (Phil 2:5-8). The
followers of Christ, being united with him, should therefore deny
themselves and live according to the values he lived by. They
should give up attitudes and behaviour that characterise the
populace in general and devote themselves to living godly and
disciplined lives. Their motivation should be, It is no longer I,
but Christ who lives in me, and the life I now live in the flesh I
live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself
for me (Gal 2:20; cf. Titus 2:11-14).
From Bethesda Monthly (Sri Lanka, 1984)

12

Living among Buddhists

Before going to live in Thailand in 1965, I spent a lot of time
studying Buddhism so that I might evangelise effectively. But
when I had settled into life among the Thai people, over ninety
percent of whom are Buddhists, I discovered that in many cases I
knew more about Buddhism than they did. I may not have
known more about the religious ideas and practices that permeate
their lives, but I knew more about the doctrines learnt from
books.
It was, to give a parallel example, as if a missionary of
another religion came to Australia and, knowing that Australians
were Christians, studied the biblical book of Romans to learn the
doctrines of Christianity only to discover that most Australians
knew nothing of genuine Christian beliefs. The closest they got
was Christmas trees and Easter eggs, or perhaps ceremonies to
mark births, marriages and deaths.

Religious practices
Ingrained social habits, which we lump together under the
word culture, are hard to crack, and even harder when they are
reinforced by religion. Religion and culture are so intertwined
that people do not know where one ends and the other begins.
Among the Thai people, to be Thai is to be Buddhist, and those
who turn from Buddhism to Christianity are considered to have
sold out their nation. The starting point in evangelising them is
not to attack their beliefs but to love them for the sake of Christ
and then find ways to explain what motivates that love.
In the days before TV travelogues accustomed us to strange
religious practices, my first sight of idols and their devotees
made a startling impression the colour and activity as much
as the apparent futility. An older missionary friend cautioned,
Youll find it fascinating at first and want to take photos, but
after a while it will get you down. He was right. What became
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65

frustrating and annoying was not the pointlessness or lack of

logic in what people were doing, but the bondage and blindness
it brought into their lives.
Strictly speaking, Buddhism is not supposed to be idolatrous.
The Buddha himself would turn in his grave, so to speak, if
he could see the way Buddhism is practised in Thailand and
Thailand, along with its immediate neighbours Myanmar, Laos
and Cambodia, considers its form of Buddhism to be close to the
real thing, in contrast to the aberrations of places such as China.
But what Thais do not see is that while they pay lip-service to
Buddhist dogmas, they engage in practices that are contrary
to those dogmas.

Some examples
Many things that Christians take for granted are not present
in the Buddhist mind. Buddhism does not accept that there is a
God and that human beings have a soul or spirit that makes them
different from other creatures. Even when Buddhism uses words
that Christianity also uses, the ideas behind those words are
different. We use the word sin in a sense that includes moral
responsibility and accountability, but they hear it as a word that
denotes merely the transgression of a religious taboo. They are,
in a sense, similar to the Pharisees of Jesus day, who accused
him of sin in transgressing a Sabbath taboo but could not see
their own sin in trying to murder him.
There seems to be little moral content in the Buddhism
practised in Thailand. When the owners of a business move into
new premises, they regard it as obligatory to have a religious
ceremony where a group of monks recite incantations, accept
offerings and anoint the premises with spots of white paint. Even
though the building may be a girlie bar (euphemism for brothel),
people see no anomaly in asking for the monks blessing. Worse
still, the monks see no anomaly.
During our period of residence in Thailand, a reasonably
benevolent bunch of army dictators ran the country. The army
strongman for most of this period had to be content with the
status of deputy prime minister rather than prime minister,

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mainly because he was so overbearing and corrupt that it was

thought better to have a more acceptable person as figurehead.
But this dictator, Praphas by name, made sure the press was on
hand to take photos of him offering food to monks and engaging
in frequent ceremonies at a local temple.
On one occasion I was talking with a group of Thai men, all
Buddhists, who were engaging in the usual hushed conversation
about what a rotter Praphas was, when one of them said, But for
all his corruption and rough manner, youve got to admit hes a
good Buddhist. Yes . . . True . . . Agree with you there . . .
came the responses, accompanied by much nodding of heads.
No one saw a conflict between the mans religion and his
morality. Nor did they see any inconsistency in attributing his
enormous wealth to his corruption and at the same time seeing it
as the blessed reward of a former incarnation.

Finding a starting point

In presenting the Christian gospel to such people, there
seemed little point in attacking their religion. Still, religious
issues had to be dealt with, and I found it useful to draw attention
to everyday religious practices as a way of introducing the
Christian gospel.
Thais consider humans to be different from dogs, monkeys
and elephants only in that humans are cleverer the beneficiaries
of improvements in the cycle of reincarnation. Dogs, monkeys
and elephants can all be trained to do clever things, and may
even be cleverer than some humans, but no matter how clever
the animal, there was nothing within it that ever inclined it to
carry out religious practices. A human, by contrast, no matter
how dull, could still be found seeking blessing though offering
food to monks and carrying out temple rituals.
This difference was not related to mental ability but to a
fundamental difference between humans and all other creatures.
Humans seek after something that other creatures do not seek
after. The existence of religions, in whatever country they are
associated with, tells us not only that humans seek fulfilment

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67

outside themselves but also that there must be someone outside

themselves who answers that seeking. That someone is God,
even though Buddhism may not acknowledge him. We are made
in Gods image.
In presenting this argument we have simply drawn upon
what the apostle Paul taught in greater detail in the opening two
chapters of Romans. This is not a full explanation of the gospel,
but we have opened the way for what Paul goes on to explain in
the next few chapters of Romans that this God became human
in the person of Jesus Christ and brought to fulfilment Gods
plan of salvation. The road to belief in Jesus Christ as Saviour
often proved to be long and winding, but at least we had started
the journey.
From Serving Together (Australia, 2008)

13

Understanding Gods Kingdom

Most of the biblical references to the kingdom of God are
found in the teachings of Jesus Christ recorded in the four
Gospels. The kingdom was central in Jesus teaching. Yet Jesus
nowhere said exactly what that kingdom was; nor did the writers
of the New Testament who followed him, even though they too
spoke frequently of the kingdom.
The reason for this must have been that the idea of Gods
kingdom was well known to those who were familiar with the
Old Testament. Jesus teaching was a development of the Old
Testament teaching, and showed that through him Gods
kingdom found its fulfilment.

The rule of God

As we turn to the Old Testament, however, we find that it
does not define the kingdom either. In fact, the expression
kingdom of God is never used in the Old Testament, though the
idea is there from the beginning.
When, at the beginning of human history, the human race
was given dominion over all else on earth, that dominion was a
direct result of its creation in Gods image. Human beings have
dominion only because God has dominion. God is king; he is the
sovereign ruler. The Old Testament understands Gods kingdom
in terms of Gods kingship. The Lord has established his throne
in the heavens; his kingdom rules over all. All your works
speak of the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power, to
make known to all people your mighty deeds and the glorious
splendour of your kingdom (Ps 103:19; 145:10-12).
The kingdom of God is the rule of God. It is not a realm or
territory over which he reigns, but the rule that he exercises. The
Bibles revelation concerning the kingdom may contain many
developments and applications, but basic to them all is the notion
that the kingdom of God is the rule of God.
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69

God chooses a people

A central issue in the revelation of Gods kingdom is the
relation between God and his people. When God chose Abraham
and promised that he would be the father of a great nation, God
confirmed his promise to Abraham by a covenant. The covenant
was an agreement, but not an agreement between equals. It
expressed a relationship, but not a relationship of equals. The
relationship was that of a king to his people, of an overlord to his
subjects. Gods covenant with Abraham was a work of grace that
originated in the free act of a sovereign God (Gen 17:1-18).
Gods covenant with Abraham promised a multitude of
descendants and a land for them to live in, but at its heart it
promised something far greater, a spiritual relationship. I will be
their God and they shall be my people. But the peoples
enjoyment of this promised blessing depended upon their
response of faith and obedience. You shall keep my covenant.
When thinking of the kingdom of God and Old Testament
Israel, we must always keep this covenant in mind. Especially,
we must remember the spiritual relationship that was the
covenants objective. The kingdom of God has always been
something spiritual rather than political.
These facts were emphasized when, as a result of Gods
covenant with Abraham, Israel had become a nation and was on
the way to the land promised to it. When the nation was formally
constituted as Gods people in the covenant at Sinai, elements of
a spiritual response and a spiritual kingdom were prominent. If
you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own
possession among all peoples; for all the earth is mine, and you
shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exod
19:5-6). God is the king; the people are his subjects. His people
are to be different from those of other nations, because their
fulfilment in life will be in worshipping and serving God.

No golden age
If the Israelites had a largely secular attitude towards the
establishment of Gods kingdom in Canaan, they were soon

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disappointed. The promises of God did not carry the guarantee of

a utopian existence in an Israelite state. After the deaths of
Joshua and the leaders who succeeded him, Israel experienced
constant disappointment. The promised rest in Canaan turned out
to be a miserable existence of oppression by enemies, the reason
being that the promises given to Israel did not meet with faith in
the hearers (Heb 4:2). The peoples refusal of God was the cause
of their troubles.
God, however, did not desert the Israelites completely, and
when they turned in heart to him, he graciously responded. He
gave them leaders (judges) who saved them from their enemies
and restored peace. The message for the Israelites was plain.
There would be no utopian kingdom of God on earth, no golden
age, for a disobedient people. But a people who truly submitted
to God could trust him for deliverance, for he would provide the
leaders. The Lord raised up judges (Judg 2:16,18; 3:9).
In spite of this, example after example shows that once the
judge was no longer a powerful national influence, the people
turned from God. In search of stability, they proposed to set up a
monarchy similar to the monarchies of neighbouring countries.
But Israels troubles arose not from the form of government.
They arose from the sins of the people. What Israel needed was
not a new political system, but a new attitude of heart, a new
faith, a new holiness. That was why the peoples demand for a
king was a rejection of God. It was an attempt to solve a spiritual
problem without reference to God.
Gods people still tend to do the same. They tinker with the
structures, change the name, alter the format, fiddle with new
methods, try some new programs, but the problem is usually
deeper. Even though the form and structures may need
overhauling, without changed attitudes and changed lives, other
changes will be spiritually fruitless.
In wanting to change the system of government to a
monarchy, Israel was not, as it were, pushing God off the throne
so that they could put an earthly king on instead. God could be
their king regardless of the form of government. But they did not

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71

want a way of life where their well-being depended upon a

spiritual relationship with God. And without God, they could not
have the kingdom of God.

A new kingdom
Saul provided the transition between the old rustic leadership
of the judges and the centrally based monarchical system
developed by David. Under David, Israel expanded its borders
and grew strong and prosperous. To many, Gods promises to
Abraham seemed well fulfilled.
Moreover, the rule of God was now well expressed in the
rule of a king after Gods own heart, one who ruled as Gods
representative indeed, as Gods adopted son. Through Nathan
the prophet God had promised David a lasting dynasty, whose
kings would be to God as sons. I will raise up your offspring
after you . . . I will be his father and he shall be my son . . . Your
house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before me
(2 Sam 7:12-16). Or, as the psalm for coronation day put it, You
are my son; today I have begotten you (Ps 2:7).
David made Jerusalem the religious as well as the political
centre of his prosperous kingdom. He installed the ark of the
covenant there and made extensive plans for the construction of
a temple and the operation of its religious services. The state
supported the religion and the religion supported the state. If
ever the kingdom of God was to be established on earth, surely
this was the perfect setting for it. A notion became firmly
embedded in the mind of the Israelite people that identified the
kingdom of God with the kingdom of Israel (or Judah). They
expected God to defend the nation, because there alone, in
contrast to the surrounding nations, Gods kingdom was to be
found.
To the people of Israel, the kingdom of God had become
primarily a matter of politics. They, like many in the so-called
Christian nations of the West today, were engaging in tragic selfdelusion. They had government that was hospitable to the
worship of God and gave its citizens a standard of justice,
contentment and material well-being that was far more desirable

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than that of the oppressive regimes of ungodly neighbours. But if

they thought that was the kingdom of God and therefore God
was committed to defending them, they were soon to be
disappointed.

Not my people
In the centuries that followed, one prophet after another
warned the people that because of their disobedience, judgment
would fall upon the nation. The monarchy would be destroyed,
the temple smashed, and the people taken out of the land God
had given them to become slaves in a foreign country.
The people of Israel were so confident in the belief that they
were Gods people to the exclusion of all others, that they
actually desired the day of the Lord; for then God would
intervene in judgment to destroy all enemies and vindicate Israel.
Amos was just one of several prophets who shattered their
dreams. Israel was morally corrupt, even though it maintained its
religious institutions. When people claimed to belong to God but
violated his law, they were inviting his punishment. The day of
the Lord would, for them, be not a day of light but a day of
darkness (Amos 3:2; 5:18).
Believing they belonged to God, the people of Israel thought
they were safe. But they misunderstood the nature of the
covenant if they thought that it guaranteed national security
regardless of the way they lived. God required obedience and
righteousness, but the people were rebellious and immoral. They
were, as God said through his prophet Hosea, no longer his true
people. You are not my people and I am not your God (Hosea
1:9).
In Jeremiahs day the objection to such prophetic
condemnation centred on the sacredness of Jerusalem and its
temple. Surely, God would not allow the heathen to invade
Jerusalem and defile the temple. This is the temple of the Lord,
they said. You trust in deceptive words to no avail, replied
Jeremiah (Jer 7:4,8). He assured them that neither the city of
David nor the throne of David would save a rebellious nation
from judgment. Both would be destroyed (Jer 34:2-3).

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73

The faithful minority

Over the two centuries of prophetic announcements of doom
that culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem (in 587 BC), the
prophets constantly held out a message of hope. They taught
plainly that although a nation as a whole may in a sense be
Gods people, only the repentant within that nation were truly
Gods people. Or, as Paul says, Not all who are descended from
Israel belong to Israel. That is, not all who are physically
descended from Abraham are spiritually the people of God (Rom
9:6-7). He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision
is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal (Rom 2:29).
One prophet who consistently emphasized this truth was
Isaiah. He saw that although God was judging the nation,
salvation was assured for those who trusted in him (Isa 7:9;
28:16; 30:15). Though God would send the nation into captivity,
he would preserve the faithful minority, the true Israelites, and
from these he would rebuild the nation (Isa 6:13; 10:21-23;
11:16). From this rebuilt nation would come one person, Gods
true king, or messiah, through whom the kingdom of God would
have its full expression.
The hopes that had been built up in the reign of David would
now be fulfilled. A new David would appear, a descendant of
David who would set up a new kingdom where righteousness
would dwell. His name will be called Wonderful Counsellor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase
of his government and peace there will be no end, upon the
throne of David, and over his kingdom, to establish it and to
uphold it with justice and righteousness from this time forth and
for evermore (Isa 9:6-7). There shall come forth a shoot from
the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. And
the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom
and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might . . . With
righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for
the meek of the earth (Isa 11:1-4).
From these hopes two important ideas became more clearly
understood. And the two ideas are connected. First, the

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messianic hope was tied firmly to the Davidic dynasty; so firmly,

in fact, that even when Jerusalem and the Israelite state were
destroyed by Babylon in 587 BC, the hope lived on. Second, the
believing minority constitute the true Israel an Israel within
Israel and these are the true people of God. The two ideas are
linked, because these faithful believers are the ones over whom
the new David will rule. They are the people of the Messiahs
kingdom. No national system, whether political or religious, can
bring in the golden age of peace and righteousness.
What the faithful of those pre-Christian days looked for was
not a patched up or streamlined version of the old order, but an
entirely new order; indeed, a new covenant. I will put my law
within them, says the Lord, on their heart will I write it; and I
will be their God and they shall be my people (Jer 31:31-34). If
people pray the prayer, Your kingdom come, the right course
of action for them is to submit to the king and do his will from
the heart on earth, as it is done in heaven.

A kingdom coming from God

If the Jews had lingering hopes that some religious or
political program could bring about Gods kingdom on earth,
those hopes must surely have been destroyed by the experience
of the Babylonian captivity and the subsequent oppression by
various nations. This is clearly expressed in the visions of the
book of Daniel.
Nebuchadnezzar had a vision of a huge image representing
powerful kingdoms of human construction, but then a stone,
supernaturally formed, smashed the image so that it was reduced
to dust and blown away in the wind. The stone, by contrast,
became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. So likewise,
says the interpretation, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom
that shall never be destroyed (Dan 2:44-45). It is a different kind
of kingdom from the earthly kingdoms, and is not identified with
any of them.
In spite of this, people have repeatedly tried to establish
Gods kingdom by force. The Maccabees did so in pre-Christian
times and, although they restored independence to Israel, they

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75

opened the way for oppression, greed, violence and intrigue that
left the nation in a worse state than it was in before. The Zealots
of New Testament times similarly tried to establish Gods
kingdom by force, and instead brought about the destruction of
the Jewish state by the Romans in AD 70. Church history gives
many examples of misguided enthusiasts who have tried to
establish Gods rule by the sword. All of them have learnt the
hard way that those who take the sword perish by the sword.
The violence of war and bloodshed is not Gods method of
establishing righteousness.
Nevertheless, the kingdom of God would be established on
earth, and it would come by a human being even though coming
from God. In a later vision Daniel saw one like a son of man
coming with the clouds of heaven to the Ancient of Days and
receiving from him an eternal and worldwide kingdom. All
people, nations and languages will serve him; his dominion is an
everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingdom
one that shall not be destroyed (Dan 7:13-14).

Jesus the Messiah

With the coming of Jesus Christ, the Old Testament hope for
the coming of Gods kingdom was realised. Gods time had
come; the kingdom had arrived (Mark 1:15).
In contrast to the popular Jewish belief that Gods kingdom
was some future national and political kingdom to be centred on
Israel, Jesus pointed out that Gods kingdom was already among
them. People were not to look for it in the sorts of political signs
that most Jews expected. Rather the kingdom was already there;
it was in the midst of them in the person of Jesus Christ (Luke
17:20-21). Those who humbled themselves and submitted to the
rule of Christ entered Christs kingdom. And when they entered
that kingdom they received forgiveness of sins and eternal life
(Matt 21:31-32; John 3:3). As always, the kingdom is, above all,
a spiritual reality.
A good illustration of these truths is the story of the young
man who came to Jesus asking what he should do to have eternal
life. When the man rejected Jesus answer, Jesus pointed out to

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his disciples how hard it was for a rich person to enter the
kingdom of heaven. He added that a camel could pass through
the eye of a needle easier than a rich man could enter the
kingdom of God. The disciples, astonished at this, asked who
could be saved, and received the reply that nobody could, apart
from the miracle of Gods grace (Matt 19:16-26).
The point to note here is that the expressions eternal life,
kingdom of heaven, kingdom of God and to be saved are
used interchangeably. As always, the kingdom of God is to be
understood spiritually, not politically. To enter the kingdom of
God is to have eternal life, to be saved. Eternal life is the life of
the kingdom of God.

Jews and Gentiles

When Jesus took his disciples out to proclaim the kingdom,
he told them not to go among the Gentiles, but to go rather to the
lost sheep of the house of Israel. Gods purpose was that the
people of Israel be the first to hear the good news of the kingdom
and, upon accepting the Messiah, enter the kingdom. They were
then to spread the good news to other nations (Isa 49:5-6).
But the Jews on the whole rejected Jesus, and therefore the
message was taken to the Gentiles direct. Those Gentiles who
believed entered the kingdom, while the Jews (for whom the
kingdom had initially been prepared) were, on the whole,
excluded. As Jesus said, the kingdom was taken from them and
given to people of other nations (Matt 21:43); or, as Paul said,
since the Jews judged themselves unworthy of eternal life, he
turned to the Gentiles (Acts 13:46).
The reason many of the Jews rejected Jesus was that he did
not bring them the kind of kingdom they were looking for. They
wanted a Messiah who would be a political deliverer, but Jesus
made it clear that his kingdom was not of this world. They
wanted a kingdom of God on earth that would bring material
prosperity, but that was not the purpose of Jesus mission. When
Jesus saw that his multiplying of the food supply caused people
to want to make him king, he quickly escaped to a place where
they could not find him (John 6:15).

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77

Even the apostles did not fully understand the nature of

Jesus messiahship or kingdom, but they did not, as others, reject
him. They knew enough to believe that he was truly Gods
Messiah and that he brought the kingdom and eternal life (John
6:66-69; cf. Matt 16:13-16).
After the spectacular events of the resurrection, the disciples
again had the longing that God might now establish an ideal
earthly kingdom for Israel. Jesus told them they misunderstood
the kingdom if they thought of it only in such nationalistic terms.
Their job was to proclaim the kingdom through the power of the
Spirit to all nations, so that people everywhere might enter it and
receive eternal life (Acts 1:6-8; cf. Matt 28:19-20).

The kingdom today

Whatever misunderstandings existed because of traditional
Jewish longings for national glory, the early church rose above
them when they saw the power of the kingdom at work. The
good news of the kingdom was preached to Samaritans and they
believed. Syrians and Cypriots believed. People of Asia Minor
entered the kingdom, even though it meant persecution. No
matter to whom Paul preached Turks, Greeks, Jews, Romans
he proclaimed the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22; 17:7; 19:8;
28:23,31).
When people repent and believe the gospel, they submit
themselves to the rule of God. They are transferred from the
kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of Gods Son (Col 1:13).
Having submitted to the rule of God in their hearts, they learn
the qualities of life God demands of them. Yet they look upon
his demands not as laws to compel obedience but as expressions
of his will they are pleased to put into practice. Happy, blessed,
are the meek, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. They do not
look for a secular kingdom of God where benefits are political or
material. The kingdom of God is not a matter of food or drink,
but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom
14:17).
The principles that operate in the kingdom of God are
different from those that operate in the power structures of the

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world. Jesus said to Pilate that his kingdom was not of this
world. He knew that the triumph of his kingdom could be
reached only through suffering and death. The Davidic Messiah
of the Psalmists, the heavenly and kingly son of man of Daniel,
was also the suffering servant of Isaiah. The triumph of the
kingdom is always by the path of suffering. This was shown to
be true not just in the life of Jesus but also in the experience of
the early church.
Jesus did not expect praise from his fellow citizens, and
neither should those who belong to his kingdom. They may have
been delivered from the present evil age and have tasted the
powers of the age to come but, like their king, their path is that
of the suffering servant. In the world they shall have troubles
but, says their king, Be of good cheer; I have overcome the
world (John 16:33). All authority in heaven and on earth has
been given to me. Go therefore and spread the good news of this
kingdom; and remember, I am with you always, to the close of
the age (Matt 28:18-20).
Paper, CBRF Brisbane (Australia, 1987)

14

What did Job learn?

A popular belief in ancient times was that those with
prosperity and contentment were enjoying the rewards of their
godliness, while those with poverty and suffering were reaping
the rewards of their wrongdoing. The book of Job contradicts
this belief. It shows that good people may suffer all kinds of ills
and never know why. But God, who is wise beyond human
understanding, is still in control and can be trusted.

The seen and the unseen

Job was a wealthy, well educated, God-fearing man, against
whom Satan made the accusation that Job feared God solely to
protect his personal prosperity and well-being. If he lost these,
said Satan, Jobs apparent devotion would disappear. This might
have been true of some people, and be true of some today, but
God knew that it was not true of Job. He even allowed Satan to
test his own theory by allowing Satan to attack Job, God being
sure that Jobs devotion would not crumble.
God has never promised that those who believe in him will
be protected from all disasters. Even the most godly might suffer
devastating calamities. That is what happened to Job. In quick
succession he lost his working animals, his sheep, his shepherds,
his children and finally his health. But we, the readers of the
book, know various things Job did not know. We have already
been told of Satans accusations against Job, Gods declared
confidence in Job and Gods permission to Satan to test Job. The
series of calamities and sufferings that fell upon Job were a sign,
not of Gods judgment upon him, but of Gods confidence in
him.
We cannot make assertions about why people suffer. We do
not know all the facts. Above all, we do not know what might
be going in the unseen heavenly realms where God, who is in
ultimate control, is engaged in matters about which we know
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nothing. It may even be that the experiences Satan uses to attack

our faith can be used by God to strengthen our faith.
People who knew Job, while professing to be his friends,
were not at all helpful. They followed the accepted theory that
sufferings such as Jobs indicated wrongdoing on his part.
Therefore, according to them, Job needed to admit his wrongdoing and ask Gods forgiveness. The speeches of these friends
are a reminder to us that it is sometimes better to comfort people
by saying nothing, or very little, than by pronouncing easy
solutions to complex problems. When people suffer as Job did,
they might cry out to God to be released from suffering, but that
is a different thing from cursing God. Job cried out in despair,
but he did not curse God. He felt cut off from God and did not
know why, but he never abandoned his faith in God.

Speeches and their outcome

The book of Job is largely a record of a debate between Job
and his friends, the usual pattern being that the friends spoke in
turn and, as each spoke, Job replied. There was a mixture of truth
and error in what the friends said and what Job said, because
theoretical argument could never penetrate into the depths of
what God was doing.
When we reach the end of the book, we see that the friends,
in spite of the truths mixed in with their speeches, were wrong,
while Job, in spite of the rash words mixed in with his speeches,
was right. In accusing Job of great sin, the friends had not
spoken the truth, whereas Job, in claiming to be upright and not
guilty of great sin, was shown to be truthful. Certainly, God
rebuked him for his unguarded words and Job repented of them,
but his devotion to God held firm. Gods announcements in
commendation of Job and criticism of his friends destroyed the
assertions of those, whether in Jobs time or in ours, who assert
that personal suffering is always the result of personal sin.

What Job learnt

Although Job, having reached the conclusion of the events,
still did not have the answer to all his problems, that no longer

What did Job learn?

81

seemed important. He now gladly accepted that God was wise

and loving beyond human understanding and, for Job, that was
enough.
God gave no reason to Job for his sufferings, which is one
thing we must remember concerning lifes unanswered
questions. Christians sometimes say, We dont know now, but
when we get to heaven, then we shall know. That may or may
not be so. It may be that, like Job, having met God and knowing
him better, we see no need for answers to lifes conundrums. Our
life in God through Christ has always been based on living in a
personal relationship, not on having intellectually satisfying
answers to problems.
Job probably never knew the reason for his suffering
(namely, an accusation made against him by Satan). But an
explanation for his suffering seems no longer to be important.
The reality was that he now knew God in a way he did not know
before. He accepted that God works according to his own
purposes, and those purposes are perfect. Though conquered, Job
found peace, for the God who was revealed to him was greater
than he had ever imagined. He no longer made demands of God;
he only worshipped. Previously any knowledge he had of God
was theoretical, but now he knew him personally through having
met him. His questions may not have been fully answered, but he
himself was fully satisfied.

What we might learn

The book of Job is probably of most benefit to us when we
suffer in some way and we do not why. It is also a reminder that
when we preach the gospel or minister to the needs of
Gods people, we should never give the impression that belief in
God, or specifically in Jesus Christ, is a way of escaping lifes
hardships or sufferings. We must not presume to have answers
that God might not have given. The weakest thinkers are
sometimes the strongest dogmatists.
Understanding and sympathy are often what suffering people
cry out for. Others, out of generosity, may give practical help,
which is commendable, but even then we must be careful not to

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use material generosity as a way of escaping the more costly

giving of our time and understanding. Some, however, are not
generous at all, because they are too quick to blame. People with
traditional or dogmatic views can sometimes be cold and
heartless.
In the story of Job we see this in the friends cruel assertions
about Job and his family. They tell Job what they would do if
they were in his position. But they had never been in his
position. Though Job was sometimes foolish in things he said, he
had been provoked by the ignorant rantings of his supposed
friends. Whereas they were convinced they knew everything, Job
was seeking the truth. He never denied that the circumstances of
a persons life were in Gods hands, but he was frustrated that
he could not interpret those circumstances. In the end he had to
be satisfied with not getting an interpretation.
So too we must accept that we do not have all the answers.
What sort of a God would he be if we could know everything
about him? How can everything within the mind of the eternal
and all-wise God be reduced to the limited capacity of one
human beings brain?
From a human point of view, we may see no reason why we
suffer in certain ways, but we must leave it at that. We need not
accuse God of being in the wrong simply because we, so far as
we can see, are not in the wrong. We, like Job, have to accept
that if we cannot govern the physical or moral universe, we are
in no position to dictate what God must do. We are in no position
to challenge God. But God is certainly in a position to challenge
us. The unanswered questions of life may be one way in which
he is challenging our commitment to him. If, in the end, we
know God better and are better people ourselves, the experience
will have been worthwhile.
Abridged from a series in Daily Power (Thailand, 1984)

15

Caleb the leader

Caleb was born in Egypt and spent his childhood there
among the slave families of Israel. As he grew up he must have
shown himself to be a person of some quality, for once Israel
was freed from Egyptian power, Caleb emerged as a responsible
leader. Within a short while he became one of the chief men of
his tribe, Judah.

On the journey to Canaan

When Moses chose twelve representatives (one from each
tribe) to spy out Canaan, Caleb was the representative chosen
from the tribe of Judah (Num 13:2,6,17-20). At that time he was
forty years of age (Josh 14:7).
The spies returned with a report that although Canaan was a
fertile land, its people were fearsome. They mentioned in
particular the giant people of Anak, who lived in the region of
Hebron (Num 13:21-29). This report immediately discouraged
the Israelites from going ahead with the attack; but Caleb spoke
up boldly, believing that in Gods strength they could well
overcome the enemy (Num 13:30).
So far Joshua had not been mentioned in the story. Caleb
was the one who took the initiative and who first spoke up in
favour of moving ahead. But most of the travelling community
chose to accept the opinion of the unbelieving spies, refused to
trust God and rebelled against the leadership of Moses (Num
13:31-14:4). At this point we are told that Joshua, the
representative of the tribe of Ephraim, supported Caleb but he
was the only one who did (Num 14:6-9).
God therefore announced that since the people did not want
to enter Canaan, they would have their wish. During the next
forty years, all who were at that time twenty years of age or over,
except Caleb and Joshua, would die in the wilderness (Num
14:28-35).
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When, forty years later, a new generation had grown up and

the Israelites were about to enter Canaan, Moses appointed one
leader from each of the twelve tribes to assist the national leader
Joshua and the high priest Eleazar in the division of the land.
Caleb was the undisputed leader of Judah, and he was again
chosen to represent his tribe (Num 34:16-19).

Life in Canaan
After several years of battle, Canaan belonged to Israel and
was then divided between the twelve tribes. However, there were
still groups of unconquered Canaanites here and there throughout
the country, and each tribe had the task of overcoming the
enemies within its territory.
Caleb was now eighty-five years of age, but he was still
ready to show that his faith and courage were as strong now as
they had been forty-five years earlier. People often find it easy to
say they have faith, but to give practical proof of it is a different
matter. Caleb could say, with James, Show me your faith apart
from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works
(James 2:18). The people of Anak, before whom the Israelites
had once shrunk in fear, still occupied Hebron, the region that
had been allotted to Caleb within the tribal portion of Judah.
Caleb conquered them and took possession of their towns (Josh
14:6-15; 15:13-14).
People will certainly be strengthened personally when they
have the courage to act according to the faith they profess to
have. But there is an added benefit. Their boldness may help to
develop the faith and courage of others. And this is what
happened in the case of Caleb.
Having set an example by the way he had conquered
Hebron, Caleb offered his daughter as a wife to the man who
conquered the neighbouring town of Debir. The man who took
up the challenge and conquered Debir was Othniel, who himself
went on to become a great national leader. When Israel was
oppressed by powerful invaders from Mesopotamia, Othniel
was the man who roused the Israelites, took control of their

Caleb the leader

85

fighting forces, drove out the invaders and restored Israels

independence.
Othniel became a hero, but Caleb was the one who had given
him the lead. Caleb not merely said what could be done to get rid
of enemies, but he himself gave the example by showing how to
do it. In the process he inspired a younger man. No one can
foresee the extraordinary outcomes that might eventuate from the
good example of one believer.
From Bethesda Monthly (Sri Lanka, 1984)

16

Worldwide opportunity
The political balance of the world has changed dramatically
in recent years. Instead of two major powers there is now only
one (the United States), but there are many power blocs, and the
influences that dominate these blocs may be political, religious,
economic, regional or ethnic. The European Community may
produce one bloc, the Pacific Rim another, the Muslim countries
of the Gulf and the Middle East another; and no one knows
where China is headed. Wars increase, ethnic conflicts escalate,
and the growing number of refugees is now a global problem.

The changing church scene

While all these changes have been taking place, the church
has been growing vigorously. Its growth has been so extensive
over the past thirty years that its centre of gravity is no longer the
West. If there is a centre of gravity, it is probably Africa, though
in parts of Asia and Latin America also Christianity is more
dominant than it is in the West. In sub-Sahara Africa, the
impression that Christianity is the Europeans religion, though
still present in some places, has almost disappeared from others.
The national church has an identity of its own, even though it
may owe its origins to missionaries of European stock.
Things are starkly different in countries where the church
has no dominance, such as Muslim and Communist countries. In
those countries, Christians may still be stigmatised as lackeys of
the West, in particular the United States. Whether they like it or
not, they are identified with Western political decisions and
suffer accordingly.
Although we should no longer equate the term missionary
with Westerner, much of this present article will look at the
role of people from the West, whether full-time missionaries or
others. These days, to send people abroad as missionaries can be
a sensitive issue, especially in countries where a mature national
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87

leadership has developed. Missionaries have to work alongside,

or under, the national leaders.
Some may say that if national churches are as mature as
these comments suggest, missionary help from outside is no
longer necessary. But the Bible shows that Gods gifts are
manifold and we all need to profit from them. That is why in all
our churches, even here at home, we draw on gifted Christians
from outside our own church people who may come from other
churches in our town or region, or even beyond. Christians in
other countries recognise this need for outside help as much as
we do, and just as we want the right sorts of people to help us, so
do they.
The cry from national church leaders in country after country
is the same: they want teachers. By this they do not mean
imported preachers in the pulpit each Sunday (though some may
appreciate input in this area), but those who can teach the
teachers (2 Tim 2:2). In many countries converts are coming at
such a rate as to be a problem. It is easy to make a superficial
conversion by simply adding a Christian veneer to former
beliefs. Without adequate teaching, an apparently growing
church can finish with a huge problem.

Specific issues
Although well-tried missionary activities are still useful in
some countries, things are different in countries that have had
spectacular Christian growth. Many national Christians are so
fired-up about evangelism and church life that it is they, rather
than Western missionaries, who are seen in public activity such
as tracting and preaching. If missionaries are working with these
local believers, they are usually in behind-the-scenes jobs such
as Bible schools, radio work, linguistics, audio-visual ministries,
education, literacy programs, health care, computer technology,
rural development and a variety of other activities where they
can pass on valuable know-how.
An emphasis in present-day missionary enterprise is
reaching the unreached people groups. It is estimated that, in
spite of the churchs unprecedented growth over the past thirty

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years, there are still 12,000 unreached people groups. An

estimated 15-20% of the worlds population has no viable church
within reach. A feature in some developing countries is the
vision Christians have for evangelising the unreached of their
own and neighbouring countries. In the toughest parts of the
world, or even the not-so-tough, one can almost be assured of
finding Nigerian, Korean, Brazilian, Indian, Filipino or other
non-Western Christians who have found a way to tackle the hard
jobs. From a practical viewpoint, Africans, Asians and Latin
Americans would seem better suited for these difficult areas than
missionaries from the West, mainly because of the bias against
the West in many of the difficult countries.
But these non-Western missionaries, like those from the
West, will be effective only if they are well taught in the
Scriptures and well prepared in practical ministries. In most
cases, Christian leaders in these countries welcome missionaries,
whether Western or non-Western. They are not anti-missionary.
Like us, they appreciate the right sort of help; but, also like us,
they do not appreciate people who are dictators or know-alls.

Meeting the challenge

People do not have to be career missionaries in order to
make a contribution to world evangelisation. Many are effective
in short-term missions; that is, ministry that may be, let us say,
for three to twelve months in specific roles such as those
mentioned above. Another option is to go as tent-makers. This
is a term used for those who go to other countries in some form
of secular employment that enables them to support themselves
financially and at the same time carry out worthwhile Christian
ministry.
Whether or not Christians in the West leave their homelands
for other countries, all of them can help with money and goods.
The West spends 96% of the global churchs resources on itself,
although it has barely a quarter of the Christians, while leaving
the remaining three-quarters of the worlds Christians to survive
on only 4%. We in the West must work hard at finding ways to
correct this imbalance.

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89

As Christians we should be able to serve God in whatever

we do and wherever we live. But how often is service for God
our first consideration? Too often we decide our vocation on the
basis of what appears to be personally satisfying and financially
rewarding. Self-fulfilment and personal security are at the root of
much of our decision-making.
The Lord Jesus taught us to deny ourselves for the sake of
the gospel. He showed us the dangers of putting personal
advancement before the interests of his kingdom. He warned
against being more concerned with lifestyle than with helping
the less privileged (Mark 8:34-37; Luke 12:13-21; 16:19-31).
One reason why the church in the West is being spiritually
outrun by the church in the developing world is that people in the
West have largely ignored the Lords teachings.

Never too late to change

When we think about how churches in difficult countries are
growing extraordinarily and sending their own missionaries into
even more difficult places, we might wonder how this can
happen. How are Christians in poor countries able to support
their own missionaries in other countries? How are Christians in
hostile countries able to experience vigorous church growth?
In asking those questions we are probably reflecting the
inferiority of our value system compared with theirs. Our brand
of Christianity causes us to wonder at something that their brand
of Christianity takes for granted. This does not mean we become
starry eyed about these non-Western churches, as if they are not
beset with sin as we are. Human nature shows a remarkable
consistency from one culture to another. Nevertheless, in many
of these countries, Christians know much more about sacrifice,
commitment and discipleship than we do.
In Pauls day the Corinthian church was affluent compared
with the churches of Macedonia, but it was neither as generous
nor as spiritually motivated. The extreme poverty of the
Macedonians overflowed in a wealth of liberality. They gave
beyond their means, which is something most of us know little
about. And the reason for their liberality was that they first gave

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themselves (2 Cor 8:1-5). In the Christianity of todays Western

world, an unspoken element is What can I get from it. In the
churches of New Testament Macedonia, as in many poorer
countries today, it seems to be What can I give?
The thrust of Western society is to drive people towards selfsatisfaction; the thrust of the New Testament is to drive us
towards self-sacrifice. It is tempting to throw up our hands in
despair at the apparently hopeless drift of Western society, but
Jesus would never want his people to give in like that. To
overcome, however, will mean deliberate effort on our part.
Perhaps we have been listening to the messages from our society
instead of listening to the teachings of Jesus. But it is not too late
to change.
From Tidings (Australia, 1994)

17

Who are Gods true people?

In Romans chapter 2, Paul deals with matters of Gods
judgment in relation to those who profess to be his people. In the
previous chapter he had written some colourful but devastating
comments about the Gentile world, which on the whole had
rejected God and refused his authority, but now he goes on to
speak more of the Jewish world. Here, people had not so visibly
rebelled against God, but they were not as pleasing to God as
they imagined. It is easy to be critical of the Jewish community
of Pauls time, but perhaps we need also to look at the Christian
church in our own time. In many ways, Paul is very up to date in
what he says here.

The impartial judge

A common human failing is to think that, because wrongdoing is not immediately punished, it is not a matter of serious
concern. Some may even think there is no God who will judge
them; or, if there is, he approves of their behaviour. What they
do not realise is that God is being patient with them. He does not
act in heavy-handed judgment every time people do wrong, but
in patience he withholds, giving them the opportunity to see their
sin and turn from it. The kindness of God is meant to lead them
to repentance (v. 4). If they take no notice of the opportunity
God gives them to repent, they are storing up a heavier
punishment for themselves (v. 5).
Too many, however, think they are immune from Gods
punishment. Some think that, because they belong to the
community of Gods people, they are better than others. They
sometimes condemn the behaviour of others, yet they themselves
do the very same things (v. 1).
God shows no partiality in judging (v. 11). That is, he
cannot be bribed or otherwise persuaded to be lenient to those
who consider themselves his favourites. He makes a distinction
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between people not on the basis of whether they have the name
Jew or Gentile (or Christian or heathen), but on the basis of how
they have lived. He will render to people according to their
works (v. 6). Our actions show the sorts of people we are. If we
say we are believers but our actions are unchristian, we may be
deceiving ourselves. The judgment will reveal the hidden truth.

Greater and lesser penalties

Christians sometimes ask questions about what happens to
those who have never heard the gospel. Often the question is
asked as if the matter is nothing more than something they are
curious about. People like answers to puzzling questions. Those
who ask such questions may have little concern for those they
are talking about. The Bibles response is not to answer our
queries or satisfy our curiosity, but to urge us to do something.
How shall they hear without a preacher? Therefore, if people
have not heard the gospel, we should go and take the gospel to
them (Rom 10:13-17).
In spite of this forthright challenge, the Bible does at times
have something to say about the question of Gods judgment of
those who have never heard the gospel. Paul says that although
such people may not have the Bible as a written standard to
guide them, they still have a conscience, which is a kind of
standard within them. This at least gives them some understanding of right and wrong. When Gentiles who do not have
the law do by nature what the law requires . . . they show that
what the law requires is written on their hearts (v. 14-15).
Conscience, however, is not a perfect standard, because, like
everything else that makes up a human being, it has been
corrupted by sin. But if people do what their conscience tells
them is wrong, they are held guilty. Wrongdoers will still be
punished (v. 12), but Gods judgment will take into account the
extent of their knowledge and the response their conscience
made to that knowledge (v. 15-16).
As for those who have heard the gospel and do know what
the Bible teaches, God will judge them by a higher standard.
Their clearer understanding means that God requires more of

Who are Gods true people?

93

them. Perhaps in the judgment day, people who get the biggest
shock will be those from countries that are more privileged
through having received the Word and heard the gospel.

The true people of God

The Jews of Pauls day were an example of the privileged
people just referred to. They considered themselves to be Gods
special possession, those who knew his law. But because they
did not practise what they knew, their judgment would be more
severe. They saw themselves as teachers of others, but they did
not practise the things they taught (v. 17-23).
In particular, the Jews prided themselves in certain religious
ceremonies, such as circumcision, which they believed marked
them off as Gods select people. Paul had to remind them, and in
so doing he reminds us, that a ceremony is of no value if a
persons life is not in keeping with the meaning of the ceremony
(v. 25). In Pauls illustration, an uncircumcised person with good
behaviour was more pleasing in Gods sight than a circumcised
person with bad behaviour (v. 26).
Those who join in the Christian church should take note of
Pauls words to the Jews. They can too easily build their hopes
around Christian ceremonies such as baptism and the Lords
Supper, thinking that these give them some acceptability with
God. But just as the Jewish ceremonies did not in themselves
make anyone acceptable to God, neither do these Christian
ceremonies.
The true people of God are not those who have undergone
religious ceremonies, but those who have turned from sin,
trusted in Christ and are now enjoying renewed lives. Any
ceremonies given by God are important, but their underlying
truths are what matter most things of the heart, spiritual and
not literal (v. 29). Ceremonies are never a substitute for purity
of heart and holiness in behaviour.
From Daily Power (Thailand, 1982)

18

Religious Freedom
Most Christians support freedom of religion, something that
is closely related to freedom of conscience. This is not to say that
all religions are equally valid or that all consciences are perfect
standards. Everything about human beings has been affected by
human sin, but at least these instincts are a reflection of the
higher experiences that humans are capable of. Christians believe
that the reason humans are capable of these experiences is that
they have been created in the image of God.

Freedom and tolerance

Because Christians hold certain views about Christianitys
uniqueness and exclusiveness, they are sometimes criticized as
being intolerant. But the critics misunderstand the nature of
tolerance. Tolerance does not mean agreement. On the contrary,
people are only required to tolerate things they do not agree with.
If they agree, tolerance is not required. Christians may not agree
with the beliefs of non-Christians, but they should be tolerant in
that they recognise the right of those people to hold those beliefs,
and to express and debate them. In fact, it seems at times that the
critics of Christians are the intolerant ones. Because they do not
agree with Christians, they want to deny them the right to
expound their beliefs.
Unfortunately, there are occasions when Christians give their
critics a basis for criticism by appearing to be concerned only for
their own rights. It is true that Christians have a primary concern
to maintain their loyalty to God, but they should also be
concerned for promoting the dignity of human beings in general
and the right of all people to respond to the promptings of
conscience. Such tolerance does not mean that Christians should
be afraid to promote their values, as if a society should have no
standards or a government should admit to no moral absolutes.
All legislation reflects some moral value. If there are no
standards, legislation becomes impossible.
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Christian expectations
Some countries have governments that are pro-Christian,
others that are decidedly anti-Christian. The early church
functioned and expanded in a society where many religions
existed side by side and one in particular was promoted as a state
religion. The church evangelised as vigorously as conditions
allowed, but it did not aim to make Christianity the vehicle of
civil government. When churches of a later period tried to, the
results were disastrous.
Here is something that Christians in the West need to
remember. We have become so accustomed to living under
governments hospitable to Christianity that we feel we have a
right to live under pro-Christian laws. Certainly, pro-Christian
laws are desirable and in a free society we have the right to
promote our view as much as others have the right to promote
theirs. But Christians in New Testament times, as in many
countries today, never expected to live under a government that
favoured them. They were not to be surprised at hostility from
the ruling authorities, but at the same time were to be obedient
to them unless the rulers claimed for themselves what rightly
belonged to God (1 Peter 2:13-16; 4:12-16; cf. Acts 5:29).

Hostile societies
History has shown that Christianity, Islam and Communism
have all at times used the power of the state to impose their own
beliefs and silence others. Citizens have thereby been denied the
fundamental human freedoms of being able to think for
themselves, respond to conscience and exercise religious belief.
When the controlling authorities use religious power to remove
religious freedom, they use it wrongly. Moreover, the
curtailment of religious freedom usually leads to the curtailment
of other freedoms.
This is well demonstrated in some Islamic countries of the
Middle East. According to one United Nations report, these
countries rate lowest in individual liberties, civil participation
and press freedom. Many of the countries are fiercely antiChristian, yet the response of the church is not negative. One

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Arab Christian leader roused his fellow-Christians to reach into

neighbouring countries with this positive message: We all share
the same language and traditions, we all face the same challenges
and we all have similar problems. The Lord has opened the door
for Arab missions. We believe many will be blessed and millions
will come to know Christ as their Saviour as a result of our
missionary work. Arab Christians present a challenge to their
Western brothers and sisters in the initiatives they have set up to
provide access for the gospel into countries where religious
freedom is minimal or non-existent.
The stories that usually grab the headlines in Christian news
bulletins are those that have brought violence anti-conversion
laws in India, blasphemy laws in Pakistan, sharia enforcement in
other countries but a more widespread ordeal is what has been
called silent persecution. In many countries Christians might be
stripped of basic freedoms, coerced into converting to the state
religion, denied entrance into schools, barred from working in
the civil service, refused treatment at clinics, excluded from aid
distribution and subjected to other forms of discrimination and
injustice. Churches may be refused registration or have building
applications rejected in attempts to force their closure.

Personal freedoms and state legislation

In view of the anti-Christian atmosphere of some countries,
Christians in pro-Christian countries value their religious
freedom. This, however, does not give them licence to do as they
like. In any society, citizens must live within a framework of
legislation that promotes the well-being of the society as a
whole. The purpose of religious legislation should not be to
impose religion upon people, but to protect them from such
imposition. At the same time it should guarantee their right to
express their beliefs.
Within this overall guarantee of religious freedom there may
be certain pieces of legislation that interfere with the religious
beliefs of certain groups. These beliefs may include such things
as polygamy, combat in war, body mutilation or killing those
considered to be cursed or unwanted. In such cases religious

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97

adherents may be called upon to contest their position. Such

conflicts are inevitable, but they should not weaken the
governments resolve to uphold the right of all citizens to
express, practise, teach and propagate their religion. The
governments responsibility is not to dictate which religious
system its citizens should follow, but to ensure that the citizens
are able to decide for themselves.

Realities in todays world

In many ways Western governments seek to uphold these
ideals of religious freedom in theory, anyway. In fact, most
countries say they uphold religious freedom, but often the
opposite is the case. Perhaps the best example of a government
that tramples all such ideals underfoot is North Korea.
Although professedly Communist and therefore having no
religion, North Korea has through several generations brainwashed an entire nation and then deified the ruling family as a
kind of incarnation of the state. When Christians are caught
resisting this state religion or even talking about Jesus, owning
a Bible, singing a Christian song or attending an illegal Christian
gathering they are thrown into the countrys notoriously brutal
labour camps. The number of imprisoned Christians is thought to
be as high as 100,000. Life expectancy in the labour camps is
three or four years.
A lesser form of government control is found in Myanmar
(Burma), which in many ways reflects the religious policies of
its powerful neighbour, China. There is a government-sanctioned
church, but all over the country there are countless unregistered
churches which the government finds impossible to obliterate.
For more than forty years Myanmar has been ruled by a
paranoid government that mixes superstition, brutality and
corruption in controlling an oppressed people. Yet, as in China,
in spite of decade after decade of affliction, the church has not
only survived, but has also grown enormously. One example I
am very familiar with is that of an unregistered church that
managed to survive into the 1990s with a few dozen members,
but over the next fifteen years saw spectacular growth. Through

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energetic outreach it outgrew its premises and began planting

churches in other areas. Now, fifteen years later, it has more than
seventy daughter churches, while its own congregation numbers
seven hundred. The long-standing anti-Christians laws have not
changed, but somehow the church across an entire nation is
bursting with growth.
While most Christians in the West cling to their desire to live
under a government that is favourable to them, Christians in
many other countries simply get on with life regardless of the
government. We often hear it said that opposition and suffering
produce strong Christians and strong churches. Understandably,
none of us wants our country to become anti-Christian, but the
reality is that when life is too favourable, faith becomes weak.
Christian faith has been strong and the church has grown in
the most unlikely circumstances. The kinds of circumstances
where Christian faith seems weakest and the church seems to
be stagnant are those of prosperity, comfort, pleasant living,
individual freedoms and favourable governments.
To make matters worse, the religious freedom we in the
developed world hold dear is commonly seen as an indispensable
part of this highly desirable lifestyle. Many Christians, though
not putting their feelings into words, assume that God is
obligated to preserve all this for us. Yet the church in the rest
world today, the majority world, following the church in New
Testament times, knows little of these desirable circumstances. It
seems we have wrong expectations. We are trusting in the wrong
things.

Unpublished (2006)

19

Sheep, shepherds and wolves

A common picture that the Bible uses of a leader is that of
the shepherd. There is, however, an important element in the
picture that is frequently overlooked. Perhaps this is partly
because of the illustrations we saw in childrens books of Jesus
holding a cuddly lamb. Usually, the pictures were painted in soft
pastel shades and Jesus was dressed in white. Then there were
the prayers: Jesus, tender shepherd . . . meek and mild . . . bless
your little lamb.
No one doubts the compassion, care and gentleness of Jesus,
but this is only part of the story. The same one was so outspoken
in some of his denunciations that his enemies considered him a
public danger and proceeded to get rid of him. To speak of a
shepherd, even the Good Shepherd, as someone soft and sweet is
not true to reality. If we think of those in our own country who
keep sheep and cattle, we certainly do not have such a mental
picture, and people of Bible times would not have had such a
mental picture of the shepherds they knew.
Perhaps this vague association of shepherds with soft
pastoral scenes has coloured our understanding of what the Bible
calls a pastor. To many, the word brings with it the image of a
person who is gentle and caring, who visits the aged and the sick,
who comforts the feeble and who enjoys a friendly chat over tea
and biscuits. This may be part of the story, but it is not the whole
story.

A leader
Throughout the Bible the shepherd is, above all, a leader. In
Old Testament times, the word shepherd was used commonly
for the leaders of Israel not necessarily spiritual leaders, but
civil leaders as well. Moses, along with Joshua who succeeded
him, were referred to as shepherds over the flock of Israel (Num
27:16-18; Isa 63:11).
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The later history of Israel shows, however, that many of

Israels leaders were worthless, and because of them the nation
crumbled. My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds
have led them astray (Jer 50:6). The shepherds have no understanding; they have all turned to their own way, each to his
own gain (lsa 56:11). Ho, shepherds of Israel who have been
feeding yourselves (Ezek 34:2). Woe to my worthless shepherd
who deserts the flock (Zech 11:17).
In the New Testament likewise, shepherds are leaders. The
believers in any locality constitute the flock of God in that
locality, and those whom God has appointed to lead and care for
that flock are his shepherds (John 21:15-17; Acts 20:28; 1 Peter
5:1-4). But the idyllic pastoral scenes of the picture books are no
more the setting for shepherds in the New Testament than they
are in the Old.

Not for the faint-hearted

Shepherds as portrayed in the Bible are invariably tough
not in the sense of being hard-hearted, but in the sense of being
able to take knocks. They are courageous in the face of hardship
and will do battle with any opponents who threaten the welfare
of those in their care. In the dry semi-desert regions of the Bible
stories, they lived hard, tough lives, moving around from place
to place with their flocks in search of grass and water.
Moses described the barren regions of his sheep-keeping
experience as a great and terrible wilderness, with fierce
serpents and scorpions, and thirsty ground where there is no
water (Exod 3:1; Deut 8:15). Isaacs men had violent clashes
with other shepherds over the use of wells (Gen 26:17-22).
Jacob said, By day the heat consumed me, and the cold by
night, and my sleep fled from my eyes. He had a constant battle
to defend his animals. Sometimes they were torn by wild
beasts, other times stolen by day or stolen by night as robbers
attacked him (Gen 31:39-40).
David fought with, and killed, a lion and a bear (1 Sam
17:34), and Amos knew that the shepherd at times had to rescue
from the mouth of the lion two legs or a piece of an ear (Amos

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101

3:12). Even the much-loved shepherd psalm is set amid danger

and violence. The sheep were thankful to have a feast of green
pastures beside the still waters, but even that well spread table
stood in the presence of enemies. Wild beasts lurked nearby, and
only through the courage and vigilance of the shepherd were the
sheep able to enjoy their royal feast. They were moving through
a valley where death lurked in the shadows in the form of
wolves, lions and other predatory creatures (Ps 23:4-5).
For the Good Shepherd himself, the work was not soft or
easy. He knew that his people were like sheep among wolves
(Matt 10:16). In his constant battle with the Jewish religious
leaders he had to grapple with thieves and robbers who were
attacking the flock and with wolves that were destroying the
flock (John 10:1,8-12). But the Good Shepherd did not yield an
inch, even though it meant that his concern for the sheep
eventually cost him his life (John 10:11,15).

Seeing the job through

The element of conflict persists in the references to church
leaders as shepherds. When Jesus told Peter of the shepherd
responsibilities that were now his, he added that Peter could
expect opposition and even martyrdom. This he said to show by
what death he [Peter] was to glorify God (John 21:17-19).
Paul was equally blunt when telling the elders of the
Ephesian church what they could expect. Immediately after
reminding them that the Holy Spirit had appointed them
shepherds of the flock, he warned that fierce wolves will come
in among you, not sparing the flock (Acts 20:28-29). In pointing
out that the attacks would come from false teachers within the
church, Paul indicated one quality of a true shepherd, namely,
the ability to see the difference between preaching that feeds the
church and preaching that inflicts disease upon it.
By the time Peter was approaching the end his career, Nero
was Emperor and state-backed persecution of Christians was
widespread. It was in the middle of a passage dealing with
increasingly hostile persecution that Peter reminded the
shepherds of their responsibilities to look after the flock (1 Peter

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4:12-16; 5:1-4,8). In a time of such difficulty the church needed

courageous leadership, for the leaders were the ones who bore
the brunt of the attack. Perhaps some wanted to opt out of the
leadership when the pressure was on like the hireling who fled
when he saw the wolf coming. That is why Peter urged the
shepherds to tend the flock that was in their care, not by
constraint, but willingly.

Worth following
Strangely, this necessity for courageous leadership, though
fundamental to the nature of shepherds, is often overlooked. It is
only one aspect of a very broad subject, but unfortunately the
abuse of power by some has caused others to be hesitant in
showing courage and giving a firm lead.
Some of the shepherd-leaders in Old Testament times ruled
with force and harshness, fed themselves but not the sheep,
and even trafficked in the sheep (Ezek 34:4,8; Zech 11:7).
Shepherd-leaders of Gods new people, the church, face similar
temptations. That is why Peter warns them not to use their
position for shameful gain and certainly not to be domineering
over those in their charge. Nevertheless, shepherds are to be
examples; they are to give a lead (1 Peter 5:2-3).
The shepherd, said Jesus, leads his sheep out. He goes
before them and the sheep follow him (John 10:3,5). One result
of good leadership is a good following.
From Links (Australia, 1983)

20

Guidelines from the Hebrew law-code

Anyone looking at the ancient Hebrew law-code must take
into account the cultural and social habits of the time. Hebrew
law was not a blueprint for the perfect society, but a system
designed to maintain order and administer justice within an
established way of life.
The example most frequently quoted to illustrate this point is
that of slavery. Hebrew law did not abolish slavery, possibly
because the social, economic and political order of the age was
such that community life could scarcely survive without it. But
Hebrew law introduced attitudes of consideration for the welfare
of others that were unknown in most ancient cultures. This began
a process that led eventually to the abolition of slavery.

Characteristics of Hebrew law

Hebrew law bore certain similarities to other law-codes of
the ancient world, but in other aspects it was very different. One
distinguishing feature of Hebrew law was that justice was the
same for all. Laws were not designed to suit the ruling classes,
but protected the rights of those who were defenceless or underprivileged. Consequently, people such as the poor, foreigners,
widows, orphans, debtors and slaves were guaranteed a fair
hearing. Also, the punishment was always proportionate to the
offence. There was not the gross brutality that became a feature
of some ancient nations, where punishments were often
excessive in relation to the crime committed.
One reason for these differences is that Hebrew law came
from God, a fact that is mentioned repeatedly. Legal, moral and
religious matters were not separated as in other law-codes,
because in the community of Gods people all aspects of life
were relevant to each other. Everything was viewed in the light
of the Israelites understanding of God, to whom they were
bound in a special relationship.
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An illustration from slavery

A Hebrew slave had rights. Any person, male or female, who
was sold as a slave to another Hebrew could not be held as a
slave for more than six years. If a man took his wife with him
into slavery, he also took her with him when he was released;
though if he was single when enslaved and then later was given a
wife by his master, he did not take his wife and children with
him when released. They remained with the master. The former
slave could, however, choose to remain in the masters service
and so keep his wife and children (Exod 21:1-6; Deut 15:12).
In the case of a female slave who had become a wife or
concubine of the master, things were different. She was not
automatically freed after six years, but neither could she be sold
to a foreigner if she fell out of favour with her master. She had to
be bought back by her parents or someone eligible to become her
new husband. If she was not bought back, her husband-master
had to look after her in accordance with her rights as his wife. If
the husband-master failed in his responsibilities, he had to let her
go free without payment (Exod 21:7-11).
Special laws protected slaves from excessive punishment by
their masters. If a slave, in being punished, was seriously injured,
he received compensation by being set free unconditionally
(Exod 21:26-27). If he was beaten to death, the master was
punished (Exod. 21: 20). If, however, the slave died several days
after receiving a beating, it may have been difficult to ascertain
whether the death had resulted from the beating or from other
causes. In that case, the master was given the benefit of the doubt
and was not punished. But neither could he seek compensation
by obtaining a new slave. He himself had to bear the financial
cost of losing his slave (Exod 21:21).
Slaves were given consideration in the laws that were laid
down to protect or punish the owners of animals that injured or
killed people. The main factor in determining fault and assessing
compensation was the extent to which the owner could he held
responsible for the control of the animal. If the person killed by
the animal was a slave, compensation had to be paid to the

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105

master, since he owned the slave. But the slave was recognised
as a human being, not treated as a mere thing that somebody
owned. Therefore, the animal that killed the slave had to be
destroyed, the same as in the case of an animal that killed a free
person. The destruction or the animal was an acknowledgment of
the sanctity of human life (Exod 21:28-32).

Even-handed justice
When defending the downtrodden, some might have had a
tendency to be persuaded by their sympathy for the poor and
prejudice against the rich. The ruling classes could then become
victims of injustice, simply because of their wealth and status.
Hebrew law, though giving due attention to the exploitation of
the defenceless, also noted the possibility of overreaction.
Therefore, though it warned, You shall not pervert the justice
due to the poor, it also warned, You shall not be partial to the
poor (Exod 23:3,6).
This avoidance of partiality again showed itself in laws
relating to goods that had been damaged or had disappeared
while in the care of another. Those who had been asked to look
after goods on behalf of an owner were not required to pay for
the damage or loss of those goods, provided they could satisfy
the judges that they were not responsible. They did this either
through making a statement on oath or through producing
evidence to prove their innocence (Exod 22:7-8,10,13). If,
however, they had borrowed the goods, different laws applied.
Since the borrowers, not the owners, were the ones seeking the
favour, then the borrowers, not the owners, had to bear the cost
of any loss or damage (Exod 22:14).
In assessing responsibility for injury to animals, there was
again a noteworthy fairness to all concerned. If a farmer failed to
control a bull that he knew to be aggressive, and his bull attacked
and killed another farmers bull, the first man had to replace the
dead animal. However, he could keep the dead animal and so
gain some reimbursement by selling or using its hide or meat.
This also prevented the wronged party from exploiting the
situation for his own profit (Exod 21:36). In a case where one

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mans bull killed anothers and no one could say for certain who
was to blame, the live bull was sold and the two men divided the
money equally. The dead animal was also divided (Exod 21:35).

More than mere law

In view of this even-handed consideration for all parties, it is
not surprising to find in the New Testament that Hebrew law
was leading to something far better than mere adherence to rules.
It pointed to a higher way, as Jesus clearly showed. Even the
ancient Hebrews were told to love their enemies and to do good
to those who ill-used them. If you meet your enemys ox or his
ass going astray, you shall bring it back to him. If you see the ass
of one who hates you lying under its burden, you shall refrain
from leaving him with it. You shall help him to lift it up (Exod
23:4-5).
The tragedy was that people succumbed to the weaker side
of human nature and found it more convenient to hate their
enemies. But this was not an attitude taught or encouraged in the
Old Testament. No blame can be laid on the Hebrew law-code.
On the contrary, Hebrew law taught them You shall not hate
your brother in your heart . . . You shall not take vengeance or
bear any grudge . . . You shall love your neighbour as yourself
(Lev 19:17-18). It was such a lofty ideal that it formed one of the
two great principles that underlay the entire process of
preparation for Christ and the Christian era (Matt 22:37-40). Our
roots go down into very rich soil.
From The Witness (England, 1980)

21

Debtors and creditors

Behind the Hebrew law-code was the constant awareness
that Israel was no ordinary nation. It existed in a special relation
to God and this fact governed peoples relations with each other.
They were to look upon themselves as one big family where no
one was to be refused help in time of need. They were not to
exploit those who fell on hard times. On the contrary, they had a
positive responsibility to help the less fortunate and treat them as
equals (Lev 25:36,42-43).

Loans and interest

When adverse circumstances left people unable to support
themselves, their fellow-Israelites had a duty to help them. They
had to rehabilitate these unfortunate fellow-citizens to the point
where they could become independent again. Under such
circumstance, those who lent money or goods to the poor were
not to take interest (Lev 25:35-38).
If, however, those in need were not destitute, creditors were
allowed to ask for some article to be held as a guarantee that the
debt would be repaid. Even then, they could not take items that
were essential to the other persons everyday living. They could
not, for example, take a millstone, as that would leave a person
with no way of grinding flour to make food for the family.
Clothing taken as guarantee had to be returned by evening so
that the person would not have to sleep in the cold (Exod 22:2627; Deut 24:6,10-13). Creditors could give employment to
debtors who wanted to use their labour as a way of repaying
debts, but they could not force debtors to become their slaves
(Lev 25:39-40).
Wrong practices later developed when creditors took
advantage of debtors, and debtors took advantage of friends
whom they had asked to be guarantors for them. People could
get themselves into trouble by agreeing to be guarantors for
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friends (or strangers) if those friends had no way of getting

enough money to honour their promise. A debtor could slide so
far into debt that the guarantor could be ruined. Guarantors were
therefore warned against making rash promises and were advised
to withdraw guarantees from dishonest debtors before it was too
late (Prov 6:1-5; 11:15; 22:26).
Dishonest creditors, however, were more of a problem than
dishonest debtors. The Bible gives frequent examples of ruthless
creditors who, ignoring the laws laid down in the Hebrew code,
seized debtors food and clothing (Amos 2:6-8; 5:11; 8:6), farm
animals (Job 24:3) and houses and land (Micah 2:2). Some even
took members of the debtors families and made them slaves
(2 Kings 4:1; Neh 5:1-5).

Release from debt

These disorders existed in spite of the law which stated that
at the end of every seven years Israelites were to forgive any
debts owed them by fellow-Israelites. No one was to be declined
a loan in a time of hardship, even if the year of release was
approaching. In contrast to the hard-hearted attitudes referred to
above, the law encouraged generosity, emphasizing that you
shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging
when you give to him. God promised that he would reward
those who were generous to their fellow-Israelites (Deut 15:111).
As with the law concerning interest on loans, the law
concerning release from debt did not apply to foreign debtors.
Foreigners were not bound to God and to one another in a
covenant relationship as were Israelites. In monetary affairs
concerning foreigners, normal business procedures applied (Deut
15:3; cf. 23:20).

Relevance to Christians
In all these laws, the emphasis was on helping fellowIsraelites in need, and the background to the laws was the simple
agrarian society of ancient Israel. What the Bible condemned
was the exploitation of the disadvantaged, not the investment of

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109

money to set up or expand a business as in a commercially

developed society. Jesus too condemned the exploitation of the
needy and the taking of interest on a private loan. If you lend to
those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you?
Even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much again (Luke
6:34). But he approved of wise investment to earn income. Why
then did you not put my money in the bank, and at my coming I
should have collected it with interest? (Luke 19:23).
In spite of all this, Jesus did not approve of investment and
trading where the main concern was to make money while
neglecting the needy (Matt 25:42-45; Luke 6:24-25,30). One of
his best known stories was about a man who was so engrossed in
gathering wealth and enjoying it that he had forgotten God and
no longer noticed the needs of others (Luke 16:19-25). Christians
are encouraged on the one hand to give to those in need (Matt
5:42; Rom 12:13), but on the other to avoid getting themselves
into debt (Rom 13: 8).
Lending and borrowing were frequently referred to by Jesus
and the New Testament writers to illustrate their teachings. The
bondage by which debtors were bound to creditors illustrated
that bondage to the old nature from which believers in Jesus
have been freed (Rom 8:12-13). The generosity encouraged by
the Hebrew law, namely, helping the needy and forgiving
debtors, illustrated Gods mercy and grace in forgiving sinners
(Luke 7:41-48).
This same picture illustrates how Christians, having received
Gods forgiveness, should then forgive those who sin against
them. The law of Moses promised Gods blessing to Israelites
who forgave debts freely without grudging (Deut 15:7-10). Jesus
taught his followers also to forgive freely, reminding them that
only as they forgive the wrongs of others can they confidently
pray to God their Father, Forgive us our debts (Matt 6:12; cf.
18:21-35).
From The Witness (England, 1980)

22

Coping with materialism

Most Christians in the affluent West have a constant battle in
dealing with material possessions and physical comforts. But this
conflict is not new. It is as old as the human race, and people of
different eras and countries have to examine the issues and
determine how to handle them.

The material world is Gods gift

There is nothing inherently evil about the material world.
God created it, and he gave it to the people of his creation for
their enjoyment (Gen 1:26; 2:16; 1 Tim 4:4). Gods gifts will
always be abused by some, but that is no reason for others to
reject those gifts. Christians should neither oppose the proper
enjoyment of material things nor place importance on them at the
expense of spiritual values.
These two extremes were reflected in the gnostic-type
teaching that troubled the early church. False teachers
propounded that matter was evil, and this led to two opposite
errors. Some tried to avoid involvement with things of the
natural world in the false hope that this would promote practical
holiness (Col 2:20-23; 1 Tim 4:1-5). Others, acknowledging the
futility of such efforts, cast off all restraint. They indulged in all
sorts of sensual pleasures in the false assurance that, since they
were spiritually mature, such things could not adversely affect
them (1 John 3:4-10). Both extremes are of the devil (1 Tim 4:1;
1 John 3:3), and both are still with us today, even among
mainstream conservative Christians.
Food, drink, money, pleasures, possessions, sex and social
involvement will all at times create problems for Christians, but
abstinence is not necessarily the answer. Ascetics, celibates and
hermits are not holier than others, nor do they represent Gods
norm for the human race. Gods purposes for different people
may vary, but his gifts must not be despised. They are to be used
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111

in fellowship with God and in accordance with what his Word

teaches (1 Tim 4:5). This does not mean that people have to
become artificially spiritual in their enjoyment of Gods
physical and material gifts. God richly furnishes us with everything to enjoy (1 Tim 6:17), and there is nothing to be ashamed
about in a full-blooded enjoyment of those gifts (Eccles 5:18-19;
8:15; 9:9).
The danger in making a sharp distinction between spiritual
and material things is to treat the latter as if they are of little
interest to God because they do not serve specifically spiritual
ends. When the ordinary things of life are separated from the
spiritual, the result is that people who are religiously strict may
at the same time be more materialistic than those who have a
healthy enjoyment of lifes good things.

Material things can be misused

When John warns Christians not to love the world (1 John
2:15-16), he is not speaking of the physical world or the gifts
God has given through it. He is speaking of the sinful world of
human society (cf. 1 John 5:19) and the selfishness, greed, pride
and status-seeking that characterise that world. Such attitudes
usually express themselves through the wrong handling of Gods
good gifts. It is in their attitude to legitimate things that
Christians must be different from others. Things given for human
enjoyment become a cause of stumbling when people give an allabsorbing interest to them. Those things usurp the place of God
and dominate a person (Matt 6:24; Col 3:5). For this reason a
statement encouraging enjoyment of Gods gifts may be
preceded by a warning of the danger of misuse (Eccles 5:10,19;
1 Tim 6:10,17).
Whatever material prosperity Gods people enjoy, it is not in
itself a sign of divine reward for godliness. In some cases it may
be (Deut 28:1-6; 2 Cor 9:10-11), but in others the prosperity may
have resulted from greed or injustice (Isa 3:14-15; James 5:1-6;
Rev 3:17). Similarly, while in some cases lack of prosperity may
be a chastisement from God (Haggai 1:9; Luke 19:24), in others
it may be inexplicable, having no connection with any wrong-

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doing (Job 1:8-22; Rev 2:9). Neither prosperity nor poverty is a

virtue. To be anxious about the future, whether out of the desire
for wealth or the fear of poverty, is to behave little better than
those who do not know God at all (Matt 6:30-34).
It is true that on one occasion Jesus told a rich man to sell all
that he owned, but the reason was that the mans wealth was his
god (Matt 19:21-22). Jesus did not tell all rich people to sell their
possessions. However, he made it clear that all who follow him
must be ready to do so if that is what God requires of them
(Mark 10:29).
The Bible does not always condemn wealth, for it can be
given away and so be a help to others (1 Tim 6:17-18), but it
consistently condemns luxury, for luxury is self-indulgent (Amos
6:4-6; Luke 6:24-25; James 5:1-6). By comparison with social
standards in Jesus time, most Christians in todays affluent West
are wealthy, and probably live in luxury. The same may be said
of them in comparison with the majority of people in the world
today.

The wider social problem

From the beginning, God intended people to use the material
resources of the world for their benefit. Most citizens in highly
developed countries take for granted the standard of living
available to them through the achievements of science and
technology. But Christians in these countries should want to see
people of the rest of the world sharing those benefits. One of the
inbred evils of Western materialism is that it so insulates people
against major hardship that they become indifferent to the plight
of others. This individualistic view of life is at the root of
present-day consumerism.
God is concerned for peoples material well-being (Exod
22:1-31; Matt 6:32; 14:14,16), and Christians should be also.
They are to work for the good of all (Gal 6:10; Titus 3:1). They
are to be concerned for a just and proper distribution of the
worlds material resources so that people of all nations may
enjoy the same benefits of health, food, clothing, housing,

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113

transport, education, work and recreation as they themselves

enjoy.
One temptation in the West is to look upon material progress
as being unquestionably Christian. Many Christians so regard
their country as being Christian that they unthinkingly accept
the status quo as having Gods approval.
Some Christians have high principles of personal behaviour
but unthinkingly support a system that ignores those principles.
They may, for example, give generous aid to the needy in poor
countries, yet at the same time support a trade policy that ensures
their own nation grows richer while poor countries get poorer.
They may condemn wrong behaviour done by an individual, yet
approve of something done by a nation, society or business that
is equally wrong.
Although material prosperity gives people security, it also
tends to make them selfish. Those in a position to bring about
change in the distribution of prosperity are usually the least
likely to want change. It suits them better for things to remain as
they are. Christians should never be motivated by the selfish
desire to protect their own interests. They should put other
peoples interest before their own (Phil 2:4), and follow the
example of him who, though he was rich, yet for their sakes
became poor (2 Cor 8:9).
From Outreach (Australia, 1984)

23

Full-bodied mission
Some of us were brought up to beware of any presentation of
Christianity that placed an emphasis on improving peoples
social well-being at the expense of preaching the gospel. In the
West many of our daily needs were covered anyway, because of
government-sponsored welfare systems. Our concern for people
in less developed countries often had more to do with saving
souls than with sending practical aid. Today the interest is often
the other way round. This is so particularly among younger
people, who do not cut themselves off from the world to the
extent their parents did, and who are more concerned about the
social impact Christianity should have.
Any reading of the Bible, Old Testament or New, will show
that Gods people have responsibilities in both areas. They are to
be concerned for both the spiritual and the physical well-being of
others. Concentration on one is no excuse for neglect of the
other. This is referred to today as holistic or integral ministry.
We deal with people in the totality of their being rather than
separate the spiritual from the physical.

Poor Christians in action

Many Christians in poor countries are better than some of us
in wealthy countries at getting involved in community affairs.
For them, civil rulers are usually corrupt and uncaring, and
ordinary citizens are so poor that they have no mind for anything
other than personal survival. But Christians are often different.
This is something I observe in one country after another as I
engage in ministry around Africa and Asia. Churches have goals
and strategies that included both proclamation and practical care.
Among the churches of Ethiopia, one of the poorest of
countries, a consistent feature I noticed was that they had
programs to help their communities with such things as food,
water, education, house repairs, clothing, health services and
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115

sanitation facilities. Though poor, these churches were well

organised and kept track of operations using wall charts to record
details of their welfare administration.
Many churches had programs to help people become selfsufficient by giving or lending money to set them up in small
businesses such as tailoring, shoe-making or retailing. These
projects are sometimes referred to as micro-enterprises, which
sounds sophisticated but may be no more than a seat under a
makeshift shelter by the roadside, one person making clothes,
another mending shoes and another selling a few items of
household hardware.
As I see this kind of self-sacrificial yet vigorous welfare
activity in poor countries, I often wonder how the churches pay
for it all. People in poor countries seem to do so much with so
little. Perhaps some receive help from churches and agencies in
the West, but much also comes from the tithes and offerings of
local believers.
At the same time, these churches are fervent about
evangelism. In the West we have almost to take a stick to people
to get them evangelising, but in poorer countries most Christians
seem to be fired up about evangelism. In some places it is the
only preaching they do, which then becomes a weakness. They
focus solely on making converts, whereas Jesus told us to make
disciples. With a narrow emphasis on merely getting decisions
for Christ, a new nominalism can develop. This is not because
of a so-called social gospel that has removed the offence of
the cross, but because of a lack of teaching. People need not
only to be converted, but also to be taught the whole counsel
of God.

One feeds the other

Christians in the West, living in a society where much of the
populace has no interest in the church, often struggle with ways
of reaching out with the gospel. This seems not to be a problem
in many poorer countries. Christians in these countries see no
tension between evangelistic work and welfare work, because the
two go together. Each feeds the other.

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An evangelist in Zambia who had planted more than a dozen

churches in rural areas also, with his wife, helped look after
about a hundred orphans and widows. Some of these lived in
scattered villages, some lived in the evangelists own home, and
some came for once-a-week meals and other provisions that the
man and his wife provided. In another area of Zambia, twentyfive churches had reached out to the needy by taking orphans
and the chronically ill into their own homes. At the time when I
was in the region, fifty-seven Christian families were caring for
160 orphans and an additional 252 who were chronically ill with
HIV/AIDS-related health problems.
This kind of thing is common throughout Africa. Christians
take orphans and other disadvantaged people into their homes
and care for them all this without any welfare assistance from
governments. Giving help to the needy is one thing Christians
should do, but when it is done in the name of Christ, people
respond to the gospel and churches grow. A man in Malawi
spoke of opening several new preaching points, but when this
brought him and his church in contact with the needy of the
district, they soon found themselves involved in care for peoples
physical needs. With its meagre resources, the church reached
out and grew.

Christ is the answer

As these Christians demonstrate Christs love, they share the
message of hope and life that comes through Christ. A man in
Cameroon put it quaintly but sincerely when he said, If you give
somebody something without Jesus Christ, you have done
nothing with that person, but if you give Jesus Christ before any
other thing, that will be very good forever.
This is something of a contrast to a growing tendency among
Western churches. Many Christians, in keeping with the popular
psychology of the day, behave as if an improvement in physical
circumstances will solve social and personal problems. It is true
that Christians ought to be concerned for those around them and
for society at large, but there must be a spiritual new birth if
people are to have the kind of life God wants for them.

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Churches in the West can learn from churches elsewhere

that growth occurs where the churchs approach to mission is
healthy and full-bodied, without over-balancing in one direction
or another. Churches ought to be energetic in community
involvement while at the same time being committed to the
proclamation of the gospel. Social work and gospel proclamation
are not separate and independent ministries; each needs the other
if it is to be truly effective.
From International Perspectives (England, 2008)

24

Television culture
A much-quoted statement about the influence of television in
modern society is Marshall McLuhans the medium is the
message. The statement is perhaps too short to be entirely selfexplanatory and I often wondered about its meaning, till I read
Neil Postmans book Amusing Ourselves to Death. That book
not only helped me understand McLuhans cryptic statement but
also confirmed my misgivings and sharpened my perceptions of
what television is doing to us.

The form determines the content

Another way of saying the medium is the message is to
say the form determines the content. A radio broadcast, for
example, demands a certain style of communication, because it
relies solely upon the receptors hearing, but television demands
a different style of communication because it relies more upon
the receptors seeing. The medium of communication dictates the
content of the communication.
If, in a former era, some indigenous people in a remote tribe
were sending smoke signals, their communication would be
limited to matters that could be transmitted by that medium.
They could not use smoke signals to have a philosophical
discussion. The form determined the content; the medium
imposed itself on the message.
When a person presents his ideas in writing, his physical
appearance is irrelevant. His ideas are the focus of attention. But
on TV, the visual effect is dominant, and the persons image
overwhelms his ideas. Because television is a different form of
communication from writing, it demands a different content. The
image-maker, not the speech-writer, is the one who controls the
message. Serious discussion becomes almost impossible,
because the form of communication is not designed for it. But
since television is the dominant means of getting peoples
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attention, serious issues are adapted to its form, and in the

process are reduced to entertainment, trivia or gimmickry. Ideas
are affected by the form in which they are presented.

Influence of communications on a culture

We usually gain insight into a culture by observing how its
people communicate. Their means of communication reflect and
mould their thinking and interests.
The invention of writing, for instance, changed the way
people thought and acted, because they could now see, as well as
hear, what others said. Instead of being required to give an
instant response, they could think about, analyse, debate,
question and discuss without any limits of time or location. The
invention of the clock changed the way people viewed events,
through causing them to see life as a series of units that can be
measured mathematically. The electronic era changes things
again, so that both the written word and the measured time unit
appear to be superseded by an image that is both wordless and
instantaneous.
In an oral culture, the skills people develop are concerned
firstly with composing sayings that are short and meaningful,
and then with memorising such statements. In a print culture
people develop the ability to read and understand words without
being distracted by their shape. Their concern is with meaning,
not appearance. They must think as they read, and therefore they
expect things to be presented rationally. Each writer is subject to
unlimited public scrutiny (for his words are not restricted to just
one time or location), and each reader is challenged to personal
assessment (because reading is an activity that each person must
undertake individually).
Perhaps the first move away from the use of reading as a
rational activity came with the introduction of slogans, and then
pictures, in advertising. Instead of giving information in factual
or descriptive form, advertisers reduced written language to nongrammatical headings, catch phrases and pictures. Instead of
appealing to peoples reason, they appealed to their impulses. In
todays image culture, the shift goes even further, so that written

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words have almost no place. We can picture the appearance of

people but not understand their words. When we think of Cicero,
the apostle Paul or Dante, what first comes to mind is their
words, not their appearance; when we think of Mao Zedong,
Margaret Thatcher or Billy Graham, what first comes to mind is
their appearance, not their words.

The telegraph and the photograph

People have always been impressed with great inventions
and discoveries, and have enthusiastically looked for ways to
apply their new-found capabilities. As soon as it became possible
to transmit messages by telegraphic means, newspapers seized
the opportunity to broadcast news from the other side of the
world. Whether that news was relevant to the readers was of no
consequence. The fact that something could be done meant it
should be done. Information was given to the public regardless
of whether it served any useful purpose. It became a product to
be traded for commercial profit. News that travelled the greatest
distance or at the fastest speed became the most marketable
product of all. The private life of an American basketballer may
have had no relevance to people in England, but it gave them
something to talk about. The main function of news was no
longer to give useful information, but simply to entertain.
In contrast to a book, which takes time to write, read,
assimilate and assess, telegraphic news was broken into brief
segments that majored on the sensational. Unlike books, which
sought to make contributions that lasted and had quality, radio
news focused on what was of immediate or novel appeal.
Photography augmented this. It could deal only with what could
be photographed, not with values or concepts, but when added to
the news, it became a powerful communications tool.
Most people believe what they see, with the result that,
without stopping to analyse whether the picture is a presentation
or a manipulation of reality, they succumb to the hypnotic power
of televised news. The image replaces the written word as the
basis of understanding and decision-making. Television is not
supportive of the written word, but hostile to it.

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Material must be entertaining

Televisions concern for what is eye-catching means that
news broadcasts give glimpses into events that grab the attention
but are without context. The events may be bizarre, degrading,
catastrophic or pathetic, but they can leave the impression that
life is meaningless. Nevertheless, the news entertains, and that,
for the controllers of television, is reason enough for it to be
broadcast. And therein lies the core problem with television. The
problem is not that it presents entertaining material, but that all
material must be presented as entertainment.
This concern with amusement value means that television is
not a good medium for serious discussion. The nature of the
medium demands a simple format that engages viewers without
requiring too much mental effort on their part. It appeals to the
emotions rather than the mind. Performance and style, not ideas
or reason, are the chief considerations. Watching a person think
is not entertaining. But television is concerned with pictorial
images, not with thinking. The presenters that TV stations like to
put in the public eye are not those who think best, but those who
look good and perform well. The people on screen, from
religious leaders to politicians, must have public appeal, so that
viewers are made to feel good and respond favourably.
These things ought to disturb Christians, because we are told
that whatever we see or hear, we should not gave our assent
simply because it makes us feel good. What happens to our
minds is of critical importance. We ought to think differently
from others because of the transforming effect of the Word of
God. We should develop a Christian mind, which will enable us
to test all things, and thereby see what is worthwhile and what is
not (1 Cor 14:15; Phil 1:9-10; 1 Thess 5:21).
It may be argued that there is nothing wrong with trying to
extract a favourable response from people. Christians, like
others, use many forms of communication, including radio,
books, newspapers and television. But the power of television is
that, sooner or later, it takes over specialised areas of the other
media. People do not buy a CD to get a weather report, do not go

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to the cinema to learn about money management, and do not read

a book for a panel show. Television is able to present material on
all these things, but because it does so in a format designed to
entertain, it changes the way people see life. They watch TV not
to stimulate thought but to relax. Eventually, real life issues are
treated as if they are part of a soap opera.

News and current affairs

Any news presentation, whether by print media, radio or
television, is only a summary of events. The tendency may often
be to major on the spectacular, even though it may be trivial. The
disadvantage of television presentations compared with those of
the other media is that they must feature those elements of the
news for which pictures are available, even though the pictures
may bear little relevance to the subject. The pictures determine
the aspect of news that is presented.
All items in a news broadcast are of necessity brief, which
means they are often without context. If the dominant element is
a picture, an item may be broadcast even though its news value
is minimal. The prime consideration is not an items importance
but its entertainment value. And when the items are broken up by
commercials, viewers are given the impression that the news is
not to be taken seriously. Watching the news is, after all, a
recreational activity.
If the writer of a book on Yugoslavias problems interrupted
his story every few pages with unrelated statements about the
appeal of some hair shampoo or the chance of a free cruise for
some lucky person who buys a pizza, readers would hardly think
he was treating them or the subject seriously. Yet people have
become so accustomed to similar treatment of news on TV that
they are no longer shocked by it. The alarming fact is that they
expect TV to be like that. Something within tells them that news
is supposed to represent fact, but something else tells them not to
worry too much. Anyway, the hosts are nice people and they will
be back with more pictures at the same time tomorrow.
News and current affairs programs avoid complexities, make
no demands on viewers comprehension, reduce most issues to

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simple yes/no propositions, substitute visual stimulation for

thought, and dismiss all problems within a few seconds or, at the
most, minutes. Everything is packaged to entertain. People today
see pictures from more countries than their forebears, but know
less about the world. They are better entertained but more poorly
informed. After years of almost daily viewings of the troubles in
Yugoslavia, most people still have no idea of what the issues are.
The footage gives them an illusion of being informed, though in
reality they know almost nothing.
Television changes the concept of what it means to be
informed. It confuses information with understanding. People
think they hold an opinion, when in fact they have nothing more
than a vague feeling. They have merely been amused.
We readily admit that we remember what we have learnt by
personal study, but rarely remember what we have only heard
or seen. Television actively discourages personal study, because
it wants to keep people watching which means doing nothing.
And because of TVs dominance, other media feel they must
adapt to its style, with the result that the entire information
environment soon reflects televisions superficiality.

Advertising
Most of the features of television are seen more starkly in
television advertising. If television programs are a powerful
influence in shaping public attitudes, perceptions and opinions,
television advertising focuses that influence. By replacing words
with images, the appeal is no longer to peoples rationality but to
their emotions. With little concrete fact, decisions cannot be
based on whether a person or thing is good; only on whether it
appears to be good. Worse still, people can easily base their
decisions not even on what the objects appear to be, but only on
how they feel about themselves in relation to the objects. The
market emphasis is not on making products of worth, but on
making products that people feel good about buying. Market
research outweighs product research.
Advertisements for cars may tell us little about the quality of
the car but a lot about the sense of status that comes through

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driving it. Sports persons advertise products about which they

have no expert knowledge, but we are expected to buy the
product because of their endorsement.
In political advertising, a person who aspires to high office
must have an image-maker, a person who creates pictures that
viewers can identify with instantly. Within thirty seconds, people
must be convinced that their problems can be solved. If someone
wrote a brief statement saying that a certain problem could be
solved instantaneously by a politician, he would be laughed at.
But when a similar message is seen on TV, people respond to it.
If, let us say, the thirty second advertisement was lengthened
to five minutes so that the political aspirant could talk about just
one item more fully, the advertisement would be less effective.
People do not want the uncertainty of pros and cons. They want
the confidence of leaving it to a person who is like them. That
is why the image-makers show pictures of the candidate in as
many roles as possible at home (in casual clothes), in the office
(in business attire), at the sportsground (in sportswear), talking to
workers (in a hard hat) and so on. They want voters to identify
with the candidate. The advertising is not about the product, but
about the consumers.
Successful political advertising is that which provides good
images, not rational analysis. The advertisement may say nothing
about the persons character or ability; the main thing is that the
person appears to be someone voters can identify with, someone
who reflects an image of themselves. Successful politicians are
those who can change themselves into the image voters want.

Education
For the children of todays world, TV is part of life from the
time of their earliest memories. Before they start school, most
will watch television shows that claim to be a preparation for
school learning.
But these shows do not prepare for school learning. There
are no classroom essentials such as interaction with a teacher and
with other pupils, no requirements for behaviour, no disciplines

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of attendance, and no penalties for inattention. The makers of

such shows are not concerned with a classroom environment but
with a television environment. The shows do not help children to
like school; they help them to like television. Some may argue
that the shows are educational, and this may be true, but only in
the sense that anything anybody watches is educational, whether
it is on television or elsewhere. Being amused by activities on a
screen is poor preparation for learning by reading and writing. If
anything, it is hostile to it.
Even so-called educational programs, for children or matureage people alike, are prepared and presented according to the
overall requirements of the television medium. That is, they must
be without context so that viewers can understand them without
the need for historical continuity or prior knowledge. They must
also be simple, in order that viewers will not be mentally taxed.
The presentation will often be in the form of a story, with lots of
visual images, so that viewers are amused and stay tuned.
Television survives on ratings. Its prime concern is with viewers
contentment, not with their education.
We take it for granted that TV sets (also computers) benefit
students at school. This may be so, because students must be
fitted for life in todays world. At the same time we should be
aware that todays world is concerned largely with how things
can be done, not with whether they should be done with means,
not ends; with practical outcomes, not moral values.
Technology provides electronic equipment to help education,
but does not help people understand the values and aims of
education. It prepares them to use electronic equipment in their
future vocations, but does not prepare their minds to evaluate
those matters of ethics, language, religion and history that make
human life meaningful. The fault lies not with the electronic
equipment itself, but with the public perception that those who
know how to use it are thereby better educated.

No sense of history
The fragmented nature of television presentations has
virtually eliminated any sense of history for most people. By a

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sense of history I do not mean knowledge of the names and dates

of rulers and events, but an awareness of the origin and
development of things knowing why things are what they are.
People today may know what has happened in the last twentyfour hours, but have forgotten what happened one year ago, or
one hundred years ago. The problem is not just that they cannot
remember, but that television gives the impression it is not
important to remember. If current images are always the prime
consideration, there is no purpose in considering the patterns of
the past and their relevance to the present.
Because televisions fragmented information comes without
continuity or context, people lose any historical perspective.
They may have feelings of nostalgia in watching old footage, but
that is not the same as having a sense of history. Television gives
people no big picture in which the patterns of history become
significant. Rather the opposite; the presentation of instant bits of
contextless information eventually makes people incapable of
remembering anything of importance.
Totalitarian states have been known for rewriting history to
suit their ideology. The danger in the West is not from the state
but from the media, who hold governments hostage. The danger
is not that history will be rewritten but that it will be made
meaningless by trivialisation. Books are not likely to be banned
by legislation; more likely, they will simply be ignored or
discarded, because the television environment is hostile to them.
Television discourages reading by encouraging watching, but the
material broadcast for watching is packaged to entertain, not to
promote thought.
In such an environment, Christianity suffers. Television has
no place for quiet contemplation. It wants to use the impressive
achievements of the latest technology, and always with a view to
economic profit. The beliefs and practices of Christianity were
not intended to entertain or satisfy personal ambition, but
television encourages both. In the process it will trivialise and
even lampoon Christian beliefs. Like other products of modern
technology, its interest is with technical expertise, not with moral
values. What it can do, it will do.

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Christians, like others, watch television, but unlike others

they should do so with a critical eye. This does not mean being
critical in the sense of finding fault with everything they see, but
in the sense of exercising discernment. It is a case not of simply
objecting to sex, violence and profanity on TV, but of understanding what television does to the minds of those who watch it.
One sign of maturity in Christians is the ability to distinguish
good from evil, but this comes only as they have their faculties
trained by practice (Heb 5:14). The regular practice of making
discerning judgments will help transform the mind to see the
world from Gods perspective (Rom 12:2).

Meeting the challenge

The threat to Western society is not from without but from
within. It is not from a hostile external force that will remove
democratic freedoms, but from a freedom-loving populace that
welcomes any technological advance that brings contentment.
The danger is not that people will be deprived of information by
a dictatorial government, but that their unlimited access to
information has created a world of trivia. It is not that freedom of
speech will be curtailed, but that most serious public discourse
has been reduced to entertainment.
During the era of Communist domination, many in the West
became paranoid about the possibility of being taken over by
totalitarian government. That fear has receded, but they remain
oblivious to the threat from a media environment that appears to
be harmless. In some ways it is easier to resist a totalitarian
dictatorship than the all-pervasive dominance of television. It is
easier to fight military forces than to fight an army of endless
amusements. Western society is under threat not because the
enemy is too grim but because it is too frivolous. And history has
shown that a societys waywardness is often the instrument God
uses to punish it. A society becomes obsessed with the self-made
powers by which it has attained greatness, only to be destroyed
by those same powers.
This is not to say that Christians must throw up their hands
in resigned helplessness. From apostolic times to the present, the

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personal commitment of individual Christian has always been

the churchs central strength and most effective means of
evangelism. There is no easy way to neutralise the debilitating
influence of television in todays world. Even a demand that
programs be more thought-provoking could be counterproductive. Television is a medium of entertainment, and is
helpful when producing entertainment that does not pretend to be
something else. It is unhelpful when it dresses up news and
current affairs as serious television but is in fact merely
providing further entertainment and it can achieve this only by
distorting the material.
Perhaps the best we can do to counter the negative effects of
television is to understand its dangers and question it constantly.
We all watch it, but so long as we are questioning it, we are not
allowing it to control us. We should also encourage a more
critical attitude in others by making them aware of the sorts of
issues we ourselves have considered. The more we make others
aware of what television does and how it does it, the more we are
helping them to break its spell.
This is something that anyone can do, but if we are followers
of Jesus Christ we ought to do so the more confidently and
positively. After all, arent Christians the ones who claim to have
joy, peace, satisfaction and hope that give the fullest meaning
to life?

Unpublished (1993)

25

Too easily satisfied

As a result of the destruction of Old Testament Jerusalem by
the Babylonians, the people of Jerusalem and other parts of
Judea were taken captive to Babylon, where they remained for at
least two generations. They were not held captive in prisons, but
lived in large labour camps where they provided a free workforce for Babylon. Over their many years in these camps they
had managed to make daily life reasonably tolerable.
When God considered that the Jews punishment in Babylon
had been enough, he used Persia to overthrow Babylon and
allow the Jews to return to their homeland and rebuild Jerusalem.
This was part of Gods plan to re-establish Israel in preparation
for the coming of his promised saviour, the Messiah. When we
read Isaiah 55 in that setting, we may see what God was saying
not only to the ancient Jews but also to us.

People: Were settled down; please dont disturb us

When the prophet saw how the people had become rather too
settled in the way of life they had established for themselves in
Babylon, he realised they might not want to uproot themselves to
go and face the hardships of life back in their desolated
homeland. Many were more concerned with making life easier
for themselves than with knowing God and looking to him for
their provision.
Through his prophet, God warns his people against this selfcentredness and invites them to trust fully in him. The blessings
he gives cannot be bought. They are obtained without money;
they are beyond price. But they bring more satisfaction than all
the temporary benefits that people might manage to gain. Why
labour for that which does not satisfy? God once had a purpose
for them to go to Babylon, but now his purpose for them is to
return to Jerusalem. If they want his blessing, Jerusalem is the
place where they will experience it (v. 1-2).
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God: To enjoy my blessings, you must first change

If the people are to experience the life God has prepared for
them, they must listen to what he is saying and respond to him.
Gods purposes are not for the people of Israel alone, but are to
extend far beyond the borders of their restored nation. When
Gods people take his message to other nations, those who
previously had no knowledge of God will become followers of
the God of Israel. The people of these nations will come running
to them, so to speak. God had given promises to David of
steadfast love and an everlasting covenant. These promises
will now be fulfilled beyond their expectations (v. 3-5).
First, however, God requires repentance which is what he
always requires if people are to enjoy his promised blessings.
Too often they want to claim the promises of God without
submitting to the conditions he lays down. They must first of all
seek the Lord, because they cannot find Gods chosen life by
their own efforts. Instead of trying to be self-sufficient, they
must call upon him while he is near. His invitation will not be
open for ever, and his mercy cannot be taken for granted.
Therefore, sinners must forsake their ways, renounce former
patterns of thought and behaviour, and return to the Lord.
When they do this, they will soon find that their all-knowing and
merciful God will abundantly pardon (v. 6-7).

God: My promises do not fail

This divine mercy is so great that it is beyond human
understanding. My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor my ways
your ways, says the Lord. People will always misunderstand
God when they judge him by their own standards. In reality,
what he has prepared for his people is greater than they could
ever imagine (v. 8-9). And these promises of God do not fail. He
told the captive Jews they would return to their homeland, and he
does not go back on his word, whether to the ancient Israelites or
to people today. As surely as rain soaks into the ground and
makes plants grow (it does not bounce back up to the clouds), so
will Gods promise of Israels restoration come true (it will not
return to God fruitless) (v. 10-11).

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131

In the case of the captive Jews, God will lead them out of
Babylon and back to their homeland. They will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace. It will be as if the mountains break
forth in singing and the fields clap their hands. Healthy trees
will replace useless thornbushes, and life in general will bring
fellowship with God and personal well-being such as they could
never have imagined (v. 12-13).

What about us?

Why, then, do people waste their money, their energies, their
lives, on things that do not satisfy (v.2)? As the prophet spoke so
did Jesus, when he pointed out that human beings are more than
just creatures that need to eat if they are to stay alive. We do not
live by bread alone, but by the spiritual input that comes from
God himself (Matt 4:4).
The problem with the Western world, as with the ancient
Jews, is that life can become too settled, too convenient, too
comfortable. Surely, we dont think that self-indulgence is what
gives meaning to life! Prosperity, comfort and ease have not
brought inner peace or happiness to people in our country. On
the contrary, they seem to be more unhappy, insecure, and
dissatisfied than ever. Whereas Jesus said that man does not live
by bread alone, many today have convinced themselves they
can. But we are made in Gods image, and without God, we will
never have the life God intended for us.
There is an urgency about this. Seek the Lord while he may
be found (v. 6). Return to him, give up our self-centredness and
we shall find that he generously pardons (v. 7). If we try to go it
alone, we shall end in despair, but if we put first Gods kingdom
and Gods interests, we shall find that everything else works
itself out. God is waiting, but we must make the first move.
From Chinese Church Bulletin (Australia, 2005)

26

Generosity that upsets

Jesus was well aware that many human beings have built-in
resentments that they sometimes display when they see kindness
shown to those who, in their opinion, do not deserve it. But when
God exercises his love to the repentant, he does so on the basis
of his grace, not their deserts.
In the Yugoslavian conflict of the 1990s, I saw Christians
reaching out with love and practical help to those they might
have had good reason to ignore. Whether on the Croatian side or
the Serbian side, Christians rose above the petty jealousies and
personal interests being stirred up by national leaders, and
through their efforts many came into Christs kingdom. Only by
Gods grace do any at all enter his kingdom, and if Gods
children exercise that same grace, others join them in the
kingdom and receive its blessings. When the Kosovo crisis
erupted a few years later, Serbian Christians again showed Gods
love to people that fellow citizens saw as unwanted intruders.
Not long after the genocide in Rwanda, I was in its next-door
neighbour Burundi, a country that also saw conflict between a
Hutu majority and a Tutsi minority. The devastation in Burundi
was heartbreaking, yet Christians reached out and helped others,
regardless of ethnicity. Their generosity of spirit welcomed all
into Gods kingdom, regardless of what they may or may not
have been previously.
In one of Jesus stories, a vineyard owner illustrated the
breadth of Gods grace by being so generous that people resented
him for it. The man hired workers for an agreed amount, and at
several times during the day hired additional workers. At the end
of the day he paid everyone, but when the first lot of workers
saw that he gave all workers the same amount, they complained.
They felt they deserved more. The vineyard owner replied that
he had paid them the amount agreed upon, and if he paid others
the same, that was his concern. The workers discontent arose
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133

not because the vineyard owner had done wrong, but because
they were jealous of others who received payment equally with
them (Matt 20:1-16).
The relevance of the story in the time of Jesus was that the
Jewish leaders were angry when they saw Jesus welcoming
disreputable Jews, such as tax collectors and prostitutes, solely
because of his mercy on the repentant. In the days of the early
church, other Jewish leaders were angry that Christians
welcomed converts from heathenism straight into the full
blessings of the kingdom. The Jews considered themselves
special in a way that excluded others. After all, they had for
generations worshipped God and studied his law, and they
resented his mercy being poured out on those who had not
worked as they had. Foreigners received equal blessing with
Jews, regardless of their background.
Two thousand years later, when the church is almost entirely
non-Jewish, we find that similar attitudes are still common. This
is so not just among those within the church but also among
those outside. When peoples chief concern is with what they
think they deserve, they lose sight of grace.
Among the ordinary citizens of wealthy countries, some
resent the arrival of those from poorer countries who receive
equal benefits with them. The respectable may be annoyed when
mercy is shown to those they despise. Among Christians, those
of long-standing may even think it unfair that death-bed
conversions lead to the same eternal bliss for which they have
waited a lifetime. If it was not for the grace of God, no person
would ever be saved, because all are guilty before God and do
not deserve his mercy. But, as Jesus story demonstrates, God is
generous in grace. And he is the model for his people.
From Light of Life (India, 2002)

27

Come and get it

Reading the book of Proverbs requires us to use our
imagination. In the second half of Chapter 1, we have to picture
an impressive woman standing in the town square and speaking
with such passion that she commands the attention of passers-by.
This woman represents wisdom (v. 20-21). She calls to all within
hearing, whether they are indifferent, lazy, empty-headed,
irresponsible, cynical or careless, and urges them to come to her
and freely receive wisdom (v. 22-23).
That sounds a very appealing invitation. The trouble is that
before receiving wisdom, people may have to suffer some
rebukes. Before receiving what God offers, they may have to
accept Gods judgment on the worthlessness of their own efforts.
Give heed to my reproof, and I will pour out my thoughts to
you (v. 23). That is what normally we do not like to do. But as
long as we persist in the notion that we are always right, there is
little likelihood that we will receive any help from God. We will
miss out on the wisdom he makes available to us.
Aware that peoples self-centredness causes them to ignore
wisdoms invitation, the woman warns that those who go their
own way will in the end meet disaster. It will then be too late for
wisdom to help. As the foolish people recall how they ignored
wisdom, that wisdom seems now to mock them (v. 24-27).
The urgent lesson for us is to respond to what wisdom,
represented in this woman, is saying: The complacency of fools
destroys them, but he who listens to me will dwell secure (v3233). We need to snap out of our complacency and make the
effort to get Gods offered wisdom while we can.
From Daily Bread (Australia, 1988)

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28

The priesthood of believers

The expression the priesthood of all believers, though
commonly used by Christians, is not found in the Bible. That is
not to say that the notion is unbiblical. There are many
expressions used by Christians that accurately represent biblical
truths even though the expressions themselves may not be found
in the Bible. But it is possible that some views of the priesthood
of all believers may not be as consistent with the Bibles
teaching as we assume.

The popular views

It would surprise many in the Christian Brethren Assemblies
that I was brought up in to learn that the priesthood of all
believers, so far from being a belief held by them and few others,
is a widely held belief across Protestant churches. The idea, put
simply, is this. Under the new covenant there is no intermediary
class of priests between God and his people as there was under
the old covenant, because all his people are now priests, and
through Christ all have direct access to the mercy seat (or grace
throne).
However, many Brethren churches take the notion one step
further and apply it to their own distinctive style of church
operation. In relation to the overall life of the church, they would
argue against what they call a one-man ministry, for all are
priests, and the domination of proceedings by one person denies
others the opportunity of exercising their priesthood. In some
Brethren worship meetings they prefer no one to lead, again
because all are priests and all should be free to express
themselves openly in praise, prayer, devotion or exhortation.
(There is, it should be noted, an inconsistency in the practice
of many Brethren churches. After asserting that all believers are
priests, they then impose a blanket silence upon more than half
of them, namely, the females. But that is another matter.)
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Church practices
If we look first of all at some of the distinctly Brethren
practices, it seems out of place to apply the notion of the
priesthood of all believers to the structures or operations of local
churches. The only New Testament writers who speak of
anything that might be interpreted as the priesthood of all
believers are Peter, in his First Letter (1 Peter 2:5,9), and John
the seer (Rev 1:6; 5:10; 20:6), and neither of these writers relates
the imagery in any way to the structures or operations of the
local church. As for Paul, the favoured source for Brethren
teaching on the local church, he says nothing at all about the
priesthood of all believers.
To develop a simile, metaphor, parable, picture, idiom or
symbol outside its context is always a hazardous procedure.
Invariably, it will lead to wrong practices or, at best, hopeless
inconsistencies and complications. For example, if all believers
are priests after the pattern of the Levitical priests, it follows that
all believers are teachers, for the Levitical priests were the
teachers in Israel (Deut 33:10). Perhaps that accounts for the
practice in some Brethren churches of allowing anyone to
minister the Word publicly, even though such a practice is
contrary to the New Testament assertion that only some are
teachers (1 Cor 12:29).
When the New Testament speaks about the structure and
operation of the local church, it never uses the priesthood as an
analogy. The most fully developed analogy is that of the human
body (1 Cor 12). Here all the members are functioning (the truth
that Brethren churches are justifiably keen to preserve), and
functioning as God intended them. They utilise different gifts,
yet all contribute to the unity and growth of the body.
The details of church leadership (one-man ministry or
otherwise) and conduct of church meetings (open participation or
a structured service) are to be worked out in the light of what the
New Testament says on such matters, not by drawing upon the
analogy of the priesthood. The imagery of believers as priests is
not specifically concerned with such things.

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137

A kingdom of priests
The more widely held view of the priesthood of all believers
(i.e. our unhindered access to God) seems also to be based on a
misunderstanding. This is because, wherever priesthood is
mentioned, most people immediately think of the Levitical
priesthood, which in turn leads them to Hebrews, where old and
new covenants are contrasted. However, in the two books that
speak of believers as priests, 1 Peter and Revelation, the
priesthood referred to is a royal priesthood, or a kingdom of
priests, not the Levitical priesthood.
In 1 Peter 2:9, Peter combines two Old Testament passages,
Exodus 19:5-6 and Isaiah 43:20-21. In those passages Israel is
spoken of as Gods people, his own possession among the
nations, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation and a people whom
God formed to declare his praise. All the expressions are
corporate, not individual. They show what God intended his Old
Testament people to be, and Peter now uses them to show what
his New Testament people should be.
All Israel was a priesthood; or, to put it another way, Israel
was Gods priest among the nations Gods representative, his
chosen instrument to take his message to the nations and to bring
the nations to God. The corporate priesthood of the whole nation
is in no way in conflict with the Levitical priesthood. In fact, one
might say that the priesthood is spoken of in two distinctly
different ways. The national priesthood is a figure of speech, the
Levitical priesthood is literal. For a comparable example, think
of how we might speak of a family of nations, yet speak also of a
family get-together. The former is a figurative use of family,
the latter is literal. Once we recognise the difference, we see no
conflict in using the same word in different ways in different
contexts.
There is nothing wrong in referring to the priesthood of all
Christians, provided we allow that this is a word-picture taken
from the priesthood of all Israelites. The expression does not
mean that each individual is a literal priest in the Levitical sense,
but that corporately the people constitute a priesthood. Peters

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reference to Christians as a royal priesthood answers to the Old

Testament statement that Israel was a kingdom of priests. (Johns
references in the Revelation likewise speak of Christians as a
kingdom of priests.) Peters concern is to show that the church is
now Gods chosen people. Its calling to be a priesthood under
Gods kingship is fulfilled in worshipping and serving him
through proclaiming his message worldwide taking God to the
nations and bringing the nations to God.

The Levitical priesthood

When we look at priesthood in the book of Hebrews, we find
no suggestion that believers are priests. Rather Christ is the
priest, or, more precisely, the high priest, and because he has
made a perfect sacrifice we enter the presence of God through
him. In Hebrews, in contrast to 1 Peter and Revelation, the
imagery comes from the Levitical priesthood, not from the
national or corporate priesthood. The imagery in Hebrews, again
in contrast to that of 1 Peter and Revelation, is not designed to
show that believers are priests, but to show that there are no
priests. Christ alone has made access to God possible, and
believers come to God through him. They come not as priests,
but as ordinary people, and they come through Christ, the one
and only high priest.
Those who speak of the priesthood of believers as giving
them right of access into Gods presence overlook the fact that,
in the symbolic rituals of the tabernacle, ordinary priests did not
have access into Gods presence. Only the high priest entered
Gods presence (the mercy seat, or grace throne), and he did so
only once a year, on the Day of Atonement. It was Jesus Christ,
the Great High Priest, who, on the basis of his one sacrifice for
sins for ever, entered Gods presence once for all and thereby
made free access available to all Gods people. Believers can
come freely into Gods presence only because of what their High
Priest has done for them (Heb 9:6-12,24-26; 10:12,19-22).
In summary, then, there are two separate and distinct usages
of the imagery of priesthood in the passages we have been
considering. In 1 Peter the picture of priesthood is applied to

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139

Christians, not to Christ. In Hebrews it is applied to Christ, not to

Christians. But through carelessness, many have confused the
two pictures. To put it another way, they have got their wires
crossed. The right connections should be: 1 Peter 2:9 (Christians
priesthood) connects with the priesthood of Exodus 19:5-6.
Hebrews (Christs priesthood) connects with the priesthood of
Leviticus. Somewhere a careless switchboard operator has
connected 1 Peter 2:9 with Leviticus.

The offering of sacrifices

A number of places in the New Testament speak of believers
offering sacrifices. This does not mean that, to be consistent with
the imagery, believers must therefore be priests. When the Old
Testament speaks of people offering sacrifices, it is usually the
ordinary people (i.e. non-priestly people) that it is referring to.
Kings and administrators, prophets and preachers, men and
women, individuals and families, the young and the old, the
sincere and the insincere all offered sacrifices. Their purpose in
doing so was, ideally, to express their devotion, worship or
thanks. They provided the animal or food and presented it at the
altar, where the priest officiated over the ritual and, in particular,
applied the blood. Priests offered sacrifices on behalf of the
people and on occasions for themselves personally.
In 1 Peter 2:5 believers are a holy priesthood and offer
spiritual sacrifices. Peter has mixed his metaphors well in this
verse. He says that believers are living stones who form a temple
in which God is worshipped, and then in the same breath says
that they are a holy priesthood who officiate in that worship.
Other passages that speak of believers offering sacrifices
seem to view them as ordinary people, not as priests. The writer
to the Hebrews is consistent in maintaining that believers
approach God not as priests, but as ordinary people through their
Great High Priest. Therefore, they offer their sacrifices through
him (Heb 13:15-16). Paul also speaks of believers sacrifices, but
he does not connect them with believers priesthood. They are
expressions of devotion that Gods people in any age, Christian
or pre-Christian, might fittingly make (Rom 12:1; Phil 4:18; cf.

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1 Chron 29:21; Ps 51:17; Micah 6:6-8). Among the many

pictures Paul uses in illustrating his ministry is the picture of the
priest (Rom 15:16); but he also uses the picture of the builder
(1 Cor 3:10), the farmer (1 Cor 3:6), the steward (1 Cor 4:1) and
the ambassador (2 Cor 5:20).

Practical implications
Certainly, the Bible applies the picture of the priesthood to
believers, but it also applies many other pictures. We should
learn the lessons that are taught us by these illustrations, but we
should not press them too far. In the case of the priesthood of all
believers, the problem is not just that the illustration has been
developed excessively, but that it has been developed in a way
that is inconsistent with its biblical meaning. Consequently, it
has produced faulty doctrine and wrong church practices.
Some may feel that with a more strictly defined priesthood
of believers they are losing something. In reality they are losing
nothing. In the matter of distinctively Brethren church practices,
the church that lives and operates as the body of Christ through
which the gifts of the Spirit function will be healthier than the
church that gets itself sidetracked through misunderstanding
references to Israels religion.
Because the priesthood of all believers has been made a basis
for Brethren worship meetings, much unprofitable public
speaking has been imposed upon congregations. Also, much
unnecessary tension has arisen within the hearts of those who are
godly and well-meaning. Because they have been told that there
is no such thing as a silent priest, they feel they must make solo
contributions to the corporate worship, even though they may not
be so gifted. An understanding of Pauls teaching on the gifts of
the Spirit and the life of the body should help remove such
tension.
Concerning the believers confidence in approaching God, as
set out in Hebrews, this is not diminished by the interpretation
suggested above, for access to God is not based on the believers
priesthood, but on Christs priesthood. The sacrifices that
believers offer do not depend upon their being priests, but spring

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141

from the grateful hearts of ordinary people who have tasted the
goodness of God.
Likewise a correct understanding of the corporate priesthood
of believers, as referred to in 1 Peter and Revelation, is a gain,
not a loss. As believers understand more clearly the purpose for
which God constituted his people a royal priesthood and a holy
nation, they should be challenged to fulfil that calling. The thrust
of 1 Peter 2:9 is distinctly evangelistic.
Emphasis on the corporate nature of this priesthood is no
reason for believers to feel any lack of personal involvement, for
a community operates properly only as the individuals who make
up that community operate properly. The reason the old
community (Israel) failed was that the people within it failed.
The new community (the church) is now called to do what the
old failed to do. It is to be a priesthood in which all Christians
are to be active in worshipping and serving God.
Paper, CBRF Brisbane (Australia, 1983)

29

One call, many directions

It is now fifty years since Gae and I first believed God was
calling us to serve him among the nations. After eight years of
preparation, we took up residence in Thailand with our young
family, believing this would be our home for many years. It was,
though not for as many years as we had planned. But that did not
alter our obligation to love and serve God with all our heart,
soul, mind and strength. Service for God is not something we
do, like a nine-to-five job, after which we use the rest of our
time for ourselves. Circumstances change, but our commitment
to love and serve God is ongoing.
This article is about our own ministry, because that is what
we were asked to write about. The ministry journey may take a
few turns, but it is still one journey. We do not see ourselves as
passive pieces of humanity being moved along some predetermined course by an iron-clad fate, but neither do we believe
we have licence to start or stop things as we choose. The Bible
speaks of God opening and closing doors, but we should not use
biblical language to justify whatever we choose to do. An open
or closed door may be the real thing, but it may also be a
temptation to take the easy way out or avoid the hard way ahead.
Our like or dislike of something is not an automatic indicator of
the direction we should go.

Thailand
When we went to Bangkok, we had the goal to learn the
language, make known the gospel to those who had not heard it
and plant a church in a place where there was none. This was
done mainly through person-to-person evangelism, whether with
individuals or in small groups, and in the course of doing this I
wrote notes and handouts that might help those we worked
among. Over the next fifteen years these writings grew into a
commentary on the whole Bible, a Bible dictionary and a
number of other books, some for non-Christians and some for
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143

Christians. By this time we were back in Australia, but the

circumstances that brought us back were not of our choosing.
Physically, Gae had been reduced almost to immobility
through mysterious illnesses and frequent hospitalisation, which
left us with no alternative but to return to Australia. It was a
tough decision. We believed our work in Bangkok was
unfinished, but we also believed in the sovereignty of God, so
we did what we believed was right and left the outcome to him.
As things worked out, I was able to complete the Thai writing
projects by working at home and making periodic visits to
Bangkok.

Australia
Back in Brisbane, our ministry expanded in ways we never
imagined. After a few years Gae was rehabilitated enough for us
to begin an outreach in a locality where, again, our aim was to
reach the unevangelised with the gospel, disciple the converts
and build them into a church. Our children were going through
higher education, Gae was immersed in the local outreach work,
and my writing work expanded as international publishers asked
to publish my books in English. This was a development we
never expected. When we first went to Thailand, it was not with
the intention of writing books in Thai, and even then it had never
crossed my mind that these books might one day appear in
English.
Initially, the English-language books were published in the
Philippines, Hong Kong and India, but soon they spread around
the world. That resulted in the establishment of Bridgeway
Publications as a non-profit trust to publish the books and
distribute them to national workers and institutions in needy
countries. We then began receiving requests for translations into
other languages, and invitations came for me to go to various
countries in Bible teaching ministry.
The local church we had started in Brisbane was now selffunctioning, so we went back into full-time overseas ministry.
That was in 1995. Our plan was to spend several months during
the first half of each year in countries of, let us say, Africa, and

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then follow a similar pattern for the second half of the year in
Asia or the Pacific. This worked well for several years, till Gae
had crises that landed her in hospital in various countries,
sometimes for emergency surgery, and eventually put an end to
our overseas travel. Things had not worked out as we had
planned, but that was no cause for despair. We simply found
ways of getting around obstacles.

The world
By this time our ministry was extensive. My Englishlanguage books were in more than 130 countries and had been
published in more than forty languages. I still visited some
countries even if Gae could not, but the trips were shorter.
On one occasion we decided to use money we had saved on
Gaes fares to bring a Zambian woman to Australia, where we
could promote her ministry and raise funds to build her a school.
The good response from Australia awakened us to two things.
First, our help to needy countries should extend further than
biblical resource materials; second, people at home should have
their eyes opened to a world that is wider than just one project
in Zambia.
By this time I was sixty-five, which meant that I was
officially old and therefore entitled to write something that
looked back on a life of wide-ranging ministry around more than
fifty countries. I entitled the book A Different World, with the
aim of using money from sales to help Christians and churches
in an increasing number of needy countries. The number of aid
projects has now grown to seventy, the projects are spread over
twenty countries, and donations come in greater quantities and
from more sources.
The recipients of this practical aid may be individuals,
churches or ministries, and the projects may provide bicycles,
sewing machines, generators, computers, printers, photocopiers,
buildings, bookshops, electricity connections, water supply, food
production, income generation, vocational courses, childrens
education and the like. Both of us are deeply involved (as are
others), so that even though Gae can no longer travel overseas

One call, many directions

145

and my own travel is restricted, the work of helping needy

countries still goes on. The apparent limitations have turned into
expanded opportunities.
When one person commiserated with me that we must feel
frustrated because our original ministry was not being fulfilled,
my reply was along the lines that he was looking at the most
fulfilled person walking the planet. Love the Lord your God
with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, and love
your neighbour as yourself. Those are the great commandments,
and our missionary call fits within them. Once we are motivated
by those two commandments, we will always find ways to fulfil
our calling.
From Serving Together (Australia, 2007)

30

Some thoughts about heaven

A friend was grieving over the death of his wife after fiftyeight years of marriage. Both were very committed Christians,
high profile in Christian circles, and very close friends of ours.
I was not surprised to hear that the local churchs pastoral
ministry had been negligible. Most churches seem to be the
same, from what I hear. It seems that everyday friendship is the
kind of pastoral ministry most needed being there, dropping in,
making a phone call. Verses from the Bible and expressions of
Christian hope are all part of the ground of our assurance and
therefore have their place, but in the end we have to admit that
we know only in part, we see things dimly. We have no firsthand experience in matters concerning heaven and the afterlife.
The following represents the edited contents of a lengthy
email I sent my friend after a telephone conversation. The two of
us were accustomed to discussing all sorts of things, whether we
knew a lot about them or not, and in the matter of heaven and the
afterlife we have to admit that much of what we say is
speculation. Very likely, everything will be much different from,
and certainly better than, anything we have ever thought about.
A caterpillar may one day be a butterfly, but crawling along a
leaf it can never understand what life as a butterfly is like.

Hope for the afterlife

Even focusing on heaven rather than on the new heavens
and new earth is probably short-sighted. The Christians hope is
not tied up with disembodied spirits floating around in some airy
existence, but with the resurrected body in the new heavens and
new earth. We shall be the same people, but renewed people, the
kinds of people we always should have been but never were in
body, soul, spirit, mind, personality, the lot.
Whatever the intermediate state might be, it is probably
something that exists only from our perspective. From Gods
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perspective there may be no such thing. The time system in

which we live is bound up with the present world, but out of this
world it does not apply. When a believer dies, the next conscious
moment may in fact be the resurrection.
Certainly, departed believers are with the Lord, but in such
a place there is not the cycle of daily living that we experience
here. God does not go to bed at night and get up in the morning,
and believers already with him are not biding their time waiting
for the rest of us to join them. If, with God, all things
are eternally present, there may not be any intermediate state
once we are on the other side. This is not what some call soul
sleep, because once we are out of this worlds time system, there
is no sleep.
For me C S Lewiss childrens books about Narnia illustrate
this notion of time in relation to the present world and the next.
For the children in the stories, when they were in this world,
normal time operated. When they were transported to Narnia
another kind of time operated which was normal for that world.
But when they returned to this world, the moment of their return
was the very moment on which they had departed for Narnia. It
was as if no time had elapsed at all.

Recollections and fulfilment

As I write, my wife is still with me, so I shall not make pat
statements about experiences I have not yet been through. When
the time comes, it is likely I shall be shattered, having lost the
one I shared my life with and considered the most wonderful
person in the world. From where I stand at present, I hope that if
she went to be with the Lord ahead of me, part of my comfort
would be in the recollection of the many enjoyable things we did
together, rather than in trying to picture where she is or what she
might be doing right now.
When we are in the new heavens and new earth, having been
raised to a new existence in resurrection bodies, I wonder
whether life may be something like the true fulfilment of all the
legitimate things that brought joy on earth. Or perhaps it may be
the true enjoyment of things that we were denied on earth,

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whether through unwelcome circumstances or through denial of

self for the sake of others which ultimately means for the sake
of Christ.
If this is so, it means that heaven will be experienced in
different ways by different people. A friend once spoke of the
joy of playing a heavenly round of golf. Playing a round of golf
would, for me, bring no joy at all. It would be more like a
punishment, something akin to the Mikados elliptical billiard
balls. Visiting friends in Ethiopia, however, would be just the
thing!
As for those friends in Ethiopia, having a home that was free
of war and had an abundance of good food and clean drinking
water may indeed be heaven. People would have the sorts of
enjoyments they legitimately longed for but were unjustly
denied.
Of course, I do not think of heaven as having golf courses or
Ethiopian villages, but whatever might have driven the better
parts of me in this life will have a satisfaction beyond anything I
can imagine. Again I am reminded of words from C S Lewis
when he said that all the beauty and joy on planet Earth
represent only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo
of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have not
yet visited.

Experiencing pleasure, not pursuing pleasure

It seems from my reading of the Bible that the only things
that will prove to be of lasting value are those we give up for the
sake of others even a cup of water, said Jesus. Those things
that we keep for ourselves, even if legitimate (such as a cup of
water), will perish with us.
Another way of putting it is that those legitimate things we
do because they are what we should do or enjoy doing, are the
things that bring pleasure and joy; but those things we do,
whether legitimate or not, with the selfish aim of extracting
pleasure or joy will usually be found to cheat us. Again, as Jesus
said, if we seek first the kingdom of God and its values, all other

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things will be ours as well; but if we seek the other things, not
only will they cheat us, but very likely we shall lose the kingdom
of God also. Lewis put it like this: I think earth, if chosen
instead of heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a
region of hell; and earth, if put second to heaven, to have been
from the beginning a part of heaven itself.

The present taste of heaven

For those who love Jesus and love each other, heaven will
surely bring the best of all fellowship with Jesus and with each
other. I do not necessarily picture a scene where Gae and I are
sitting with Jesus and our best friends in our living room having
a cuppa and chatting over the things we share. Yet, for all that,
such a picture may not be as far from the truth as it sounds. The
central issue is not what might be called the physical details,
but the spiritual substance behind it all. True friendship, oneness
of spirit, sharing of interests and rejoicing in God will all be
there. They will be the fulfilment of all the good things that
brought a taste of heaven in the present life.
Therefore, if we reflect on those good times that we, as
Gods children, had in the past, I think we could be closer to
appreciating what life in the hereafter might be. Christ will be at
the centre of life in the new heavens and new earth, and therefore
he should be at the centre of our lives now. If he is the one who
gives meaning and richness to our lives, the joys of the present
life might be seen as a foretaste of the future. This would apply
not just to church-related matters (as if heaven were nothing
more than an interminable church service), but to all aspects of
life, including the relationships and activities that God originally
wanted human beings to enjoy.

End note
The above is substantially what I wrote to my distant friend
in his grief. A short time later I happened to come across a quote
from C S Lewis in a daily reading devotional book compiled by
a well known writer. Listen, Peter, said the Lord Digory,
when Aslan said you could never go back to Narnia, he meant
the Narnia you were thinking of. But that was not the real

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Narnia. That had a beginning and an end. It was only a shadow

or a copy of the real Narnia which has always been here and
always will be here; just as our own world, England and all, is
only a shadow or copy of something in Aslans real world. You
need not mourn over Narnia, Lucy. All of the old Narnia that
mattered, all the dear creatures, have been drawn into the real
Narnia through the Door.
As we think of those who we once lived with and loved but
who have now departed this world, our recollections of the best
things all of the old that mattered are not to be dismissed as
nothing more than memories. They will probably be closer to the
realities of the new than any attempt to visualise something that
in our present state cannot be visualised. The best moments of
worship, of appreciation of Christ, of love, friendship, music,
reading, work or leisure are all, as Lewis says, a shadow or copy
of the real things. From one point of view we can say they are
only a shadow or copy, but from another point of view we can
comfort ourselves that they are a shadow, they are a copy.
When we awake in the New Jerusalem, we shall have at last
the life we have longed for. What the Bible calls the new heaven
and new earth is the ultimate justification for what we see now as
the present heavens and present earth. In our innermost selves we
know that all the disappointments, tragedies and sufferings of the
present life are temporary, and that should help make them easier
to bear. We know they will not last for ever; the time of genuine
re-creation, of redeemed bodies, will come.
Some Christians may currently be trapped in pain, sorrow
and fear through sick bodies, brutal persecution, broken families,
grinding poverty or social injustice, but for all such people, for
all of us, life in the new heaven and new earth promises a future
that will be a time of wholeness, joy, pleasure and peace. It will
all be focussed in Christ, the one who loved us, gave himself for
us, and brought us the life that is life indeed.

To a correspondent in England (2010)