Posts by blogpastor

Twenty years in just a snap

By blogpastor, 4 July, 2010, 2 Comments

Joshua, Wen Por, Elaine, Matthew

This old family photograph brings back memories of a time when my children were still in nursery, and kindergarten and primary school. It was about twenty years back in the 1990s when I lived in Bukit Batok East Avenue 4. The long wooden TV console in the background, the cane furniture by the side and the beige ceramic tiles on the floor of the four room HDB apartment.

Their mum had gone so my wife helped her younger sister, Baby, through her confinement periods, when both her children, Wen Mun and Wen Por, were born. Wen Por was a toddler in the picture so I wonder if the family was there because Wen Mun was then born.

Joshua was wearing spectacles at such a young age. He loved to read – always borrowing books from the library. Still does. Matthew was the good-looking one. Still is. Elaine was the amiable one. Still is. All were very huggable and adorable and surprising at that age. But not anymore. Now they are all in their twenties. They are more educated and smarter than me, and taller too(except Elaine), as can be seen in a recent photo below.

Twenty years have come and gone at the snap of my fingers. Will I be staring at an empty nest in another snap?

Joshua, Elaine, myself, Wen Mun, Matthew, Wen Por

“Spirituality” and “Intimacy with God”: screwed up?

By blogpastor, 30 June, 2010, 6 Comments

What is the most misunderstood aspect of spirituality?

That it’s a kind of specialized form of being a Christian, that you have to have some kind of in. It’s elitist. Many people are attracted to it for the wrong reasons. Others are put off by it: I’m not spiritual. I like to go to football games or parties or pursue my career. In fact, I try to avoid the word.

Many people assume that spirituality is about becoming emotionally intimate with God.

That’s a naïve view of spirituality. What we’re talking about is the Christian life. It’s following Jesus. Spirituality is no different from what we’ve been doing for two thousand years just by going to church and receiving the sacraments, being baptized, learning to pray, and reading Scriptures rightly. It’s just ordinary stuff.

This promise of intimacy is both right and wrong. There is an intimacy with God, but it’s like any other intimacy; it’s part of the fabric of your life. In marriage you don’t feel intimate most of the time. Nor with a friend. Intimacy isn’t primarily a mystical emotion. It’s a way of life, a life of openness, honesty, a certain transparency.

Doesn’t the mystical tradition suggest otherwise?

One of my favorite stories is of Teresa of Avila. She’s sitting in the kitchen with a roasted chicken. And she’s got it with both hands, and she’s gnawing on it, just devouring this chicken. One of the nuns comes in shocked that she’s doing this, behaving this way. She said, “When I eat chicken, I eat chicken; when I pray, I pray.”

If you read the saints, they’re pretty ordinary people. There are moments of rapture and ecstasy, but once every 10 years. And even then it’s a surprise to them. They didn’t do anything. We’ve got to disabuse people of these illusions of what the Christian life is. It’s a wonderful life, but it’s not wonderful in the way a lot of people want it to be.

Yet evangelicals rightly tell people they can have a “personal relationship with God.” That suggests a certain type of spiritual intimacy.

All these words get so screwed up in our society. If intimacy means being open and honest and authentic, so I don’t have veils, or I don’t have to be defensive or in denial of who I am, that’s wonderful. But in our culture, intimacy usually has sexual connotations, with some kind of completion. So I want intimacy because I want more out of life. Very seldom does it have the sense of sacrifice or giving or being vulnerable. Those are two different ways of being intimate. And in our American vocabulary intimacy usually has to do with getting something from the other. That just screws the whole thing up.

It’s very dangerous to use the language of the culture to interpret the gospel. Our vocabulary has to be chastened and tested by revelation, by the Scriptures. We’ve got a pretty good vocabulary and syntax, and we’d better start paying attention to it because the way we grab words here and there to appeal to unbelievers is not very good.

Looks like Eugene Peterson, pastor and lecturer, and famous author of Bible paraphrase “The Message” and other notable books, is passionate when talking about how the church’s language has been held captivity by the culture it finds itself in. He has even more to say in the full interview with him done by Mark Galli for Christianity Today(30th June 2010) titled, “Spirituality for all the Wrong Reasons”

The heart of the gospel

By blogpastor, 27 June, 2010, 22 Comments

The heart of the gospel: justification by faith

The heart of the gospel is justification by faith alone. St Paul wrote, “For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous shall live by faith’”(Romans 1:17). “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.”(Romans 3:21,22).

Message for the baptized too

This message is basic, and many pastors feel it is only for the unsaved, and therefore not needed anymore for the baptized. There is a gospelution going on that underlines the need for this “heart” to be preached to the baptized too. The baptized need to hear it over and over again, cooked and served in a hundred different ways, from Old and New Testament texts, to keep them from straying into the unmarked side trails that lead to condemnation, religiosity, Phariseeism and legalism.

Message of the Reformation

Some think that this message originated from Joseph Prince. It does not: it was the message of the Reformation; the message of Martin Luther and John Calvin, and it is still preached today, and needs to be preached much more from all the pulpits in Singapore and Malaysia. R.C. Sproul is a Reformed theologian and John Piper is a pastor. They are respected by many and I include myself among them. Watch them here teaching or preaching about the “heart” of the Gospel.

Marrying Joseph Prince with Kong Hee

By blogpastor, 23 June, 2010, 27 Comments

Two megachurch pastors

Someone who had been listening to messages of both Joseph Prince of New Creation Church and Kong Hee of City Harvest Church (pastors of the two largest churches in Singapore), made an interesting comment to me.

He said, “When I listen to Joseph Prince, I feel confidence and empowered.” “When I listen to Kong Hee, I feel challenged and want to live for the Lord”.

Marry their preaching strengths

The way he said it made me think: we should marry the two of them. Pastor Joseph Prince is great at preaching the indicatives. He loves exalting who Christ is and what He has accomplished for us through His death and resurrection. Pastor Kong Hee, on the other hand is great at preaching the imperatives- what believers can do now that they are in Christ. He is an inspiring and persuasive speaker. You inevitably feel motivated about doing whatever he is exhorting you to do: the will of God. All indicatives and no imperatives give rise to under-challenged, passive Christians; and too much imperatives give rise to over-worked, joyless Christians. If the two strengths can be married in regular pastoral preaching and teaching, it will grow Christians who are steadfast and joyful in witness and service.

St Paul’s way

The book of Romans has most of its indicatives in chapters 3-11 and its imperatives in chapters 12-15. St Paul talked about what Christ had accomplished and who we are in Christ, and then went on to show us how then we needed to respond. The pivotal verse was Romans 12: 1,2. “Now that I have talked about the indicatives, here are the imperatives!”(the blogpastor translation). A good balance of indicatives and imperatives informed his letter writing to the churches. This should inform our preaching. The indicatives empower us by inspiring and strengthening our faith, hope and love. The imperatives give direction to our spiritual energies and renewed love.

Wise “one talent” pastors

Even if God may not have given all pastors “five talent” abilities like these two have been given, “one or three talents” pastors can still learn to optimise their effectiveness by preaching the indicatives and imperatives according to the needs of the congregations.

Most churches have been influenced in the past decade to give the people imperatives, or as Martin Luther would call, “Law” messages – what you should do and shouldn’t do as Christians; or moralistic sermons, as others would characterize them. These churches should start preaching more of the indicatives, about what Christ has done for and in us, to redress the imbalance in the past diet.

Great, healthy churches need a wise dosage of indicatives and imperatives.