stillhaventfound.org

For those of you wondering what I’m doing now (as in work-wise), well, I’m teaching English. Not in a mainstream Singapore school. I’d never survive working under the MOE (Ministry of Education) with the way things are. I’m reminded of Mark Twain’s quote about not letting schooling interfere with education. Going to school nowadays - in most countries but especially Singapore and many Asian countries - is not about true holistic education that values the whole person. It’s not about passion for life, but about exams and money. It’s about doing well so that you can get a good job so that you can earn good money. As with everything done in Singapore, the schooling system is there for just one purpose: to promote economic growth. The ‘god of economic utility’ has become the pre-eminent reason for schooling. That’s in keeping with pragmatic Singapore.

Woops, I didn’t start this post wanting to bash the MOE, the Singapore education system or the Singapore government Singapore’s education system, like its way of governing, is but a reflection of society-at-large. Society not just of Singapore, but of the world. So in a way, I don’t blame them. It’s the way things are. But then again, I do. The youthful idealist in me doesn’t stay silent for long. He (Mr. Youthful Idealist) is quite in sync with the whole of creation which groans… (Romans eight)

Anyway, back to where I was. Not only am I not teaching English in a mainstream school, but I’m not teaching English to those who speak it as their first language. I teach English to those who speak it as their second (or third…) language. The common term for the industry I’m in is TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). It’s a huge thing throughout the world because millions of people desire to take up English as it’s the language of the world. And teaching such people is very different from teaching English to first language English speakers (i.e. most Singaporeans) or even teaching any other subjects. The teaching methodology is different and there are so many things to learn in order to be a good TESOL teacher. Like I said, it’s a huge industry.

Anyway, I won’t get too much into all this. Just to mention that I started moving into this last year. I got my Cambridge CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) - a TESOL certificate - in Perth, Australia. And today was my first day of teaching English in the private school I’m working at. It’ll be a great challenge for me which I’m quite excited about. 90% of my 40 or so students are from China and have only been here for 1-2 months.

Why I went into this area? It’s because I love teaching. I love relating and interacting with students - especially youth and young adults. But why TESOL specifically? I’ve shared a bit here. Basically, I want to do missions work in future and teaching English is a skill that’s greatly in demand in many developing countries. Thus, having this skill would enable me to be a tentmaker.

[M]any people are willing to be God-centered as long as they feel that God is man-centered. It is a subtle danger.We may think we are centering our lives on God, when we are really making Him a means to self-esteem. Over against this danger I urge you to ponder the implications, brothers, that God loves His glory more than He loves us and that this is the foundation of His love for us. (Brothers, We Are Not Professionals)

[W]e have turned the love of God and the gospel of Christ into a divine endorsement of our delight in many lesser things, especially the delight in our being made much of. The acid test of biblical God-centeredness - and faithfulness to the gospel - is this: Do you feel more loved because God makes much of you, or because, at the cost of his Son, he enables you to enjoy making much of him forever? Does your happiness hang on seeing the cross of Christ as a witness to your worth, or as a way to enjoy God’s worth forever? Is God’s glory in Christ the foundation of your gladness? (God Is The Gospel)

Both the above quotes are taken from two books by John Piper. I’ve posted them here because I think they are extremely thought-provoking. The first sentence above is especially insightful I think:

Many people are willing to be God-centered as long as they feel that God is man-centered.

I believe a lot of evangelicals would agree with the above quotes. And I do think that they have a lot to do with the grace message of New Creation. That’s all I’ll say for this post. Free free to leave your comments, if any.

Last Sunday (17-02-08), Pastor Prince preached his first ever Sunday service message on Tithing. That is, this was the first time in all his years at New Creation that he preached a whole sermon on Tithing in a Sunday service. He told the church this. While I haven’t listened in on every Sunday service Pastor Prince has preached in to verify the truth of what he said, I have no problems believing him. I’ve been to enough services at New Creation to know that money has never been much of a focus there. Sure, there’s talk about God prospering His people materially (and I’ll touch on this another time) and New Creation would identify itself as a Word of Faith church, but it’s not a church where the focus is on money. The preaching and services are extremely different from what one sees on many of America’s tele-evangelistic programs. If they were just a bit similar, I wouldn’t be in New Creation.

Many charismatic churches always have a mini-sermon on tithing and giving before the offering bag is passed around. By a mini-sermon, I mean that someone talks about what the Bible says about giving for about 5 minutes or so in order to motivate the congregation to give more. What is normally said is that God will tremendously bless those who give to Him and you can’t out-give God and all that stuff. I believe that the Bible says that. However, I also believe that a lot of people are sick of hearing that over and over again. It can be done - and is often done - in a way where people think that all the church is after is their money. It’s also often done in a way that makes us feel guilty for not giving more. Furthermore, constantly emphasizing that God will bless us 100 fold or that He will bless us tremendously as we give to Him sacrificially tends to promote greed and self-centeredness. The result is that while people may give sacrificially in such churches, a large part of the motivation for giving is wrong. They give to be blessed in return and that’s become main reason.

One thing I love about New Creation is that they don’t have a mini-sermon before the offering bag goes around. They hardly say much before the offering. And this is in keeping with their philosophy that they don’t want to pressure Christians into doing what they may not want to do. They don’t want to make Christians feel guilty or condemned for not giving more. Sit through any service and you’ll realize how much of a non-event offering time is. They don’t believe in manipulating people and I’ve never felt manipulated into giving when I’ve been there. In fact, once I heard one of the pastors who MC-ed during the offering say something like:

While there’s an element of truth that God will bless us back when we give, let our motivation to give be because of how much God has given us, and not because we want to be blessed!

Let me just state that I totally believe that God desires to bless us materially. And I believe that God blesses us as we give to Him. All this is true, eventhough it can be and has been taken to the extreme by many churches that preach about prosperity. I do believe that if your motivation to give is to be blessed in return, that’s not sinful as there’s a biblical truth to that. But I also believe that this is not the whole truth. I think most of the time we should be giving to God and other people out of love, not out of the desire to be blessed by God.

Something that Pastor Prince said on Sunday that really impressed me was:

I don’t want 100% tithers. I want people to tithe from revelation.

As you can see, he wants the members to have the right motivation, to have a revelation of why we tithe. It’s no use if everyone tithes in the Church but do it from the wrong motive and without understanding why they do so.

Another thing Pastor Prince said was:

If you have to ask whether you should tithe from your gross or net salary, then don’t tithe.

The point here is that if Christians are so picky about how much to give God, then we may as well not give anything because we give it with the wrong motivation. The church wants their members to give cheerfully, to give out of gratitude for all God has done for them. Not to give because of guilt.

The way New Creation doesn’t make a big issue about giving is all the more remarkable when you realize that they still have to raise about S$100 million for their new building. I mean, most Churches have huge fundraising events and plead with their members to give sacrificially when they’re raising money for their new building. But if you go to New Creation, you don’t face that at all. To me, that’s pretty amazing. For that to happen, the leaders must have real faith in God to provide. And I believe they know that the church’s calling is to preach the liberating gospel of Jesus Christ in such a way that they can leave it up to the people to cheerfully and willingly give to God (without external compulsion from the church) as the church focuses on how much God has given to them in Christ.

I’ve thought of becoming a vegetarian for many years. Well, I’ve not exactly thought extremely hard about it, but the thought has been there many times over the past 10 years or so. I bought a good Christian book about vegetarianism years back but have yet to read it. I’ve probably avoided reading up on this issue simply because I knew it would be hard for me to let go eating meat! Not that I’m crazy over meat. I’m not fussy at all about what I eat and can refrain from eating meat if I really want to. But maybe it’s more of the inconvenience. It’s not easy to live as a vegetarian in Singapore. And perhaps harder to do so in many parts of the developing world where I hope to live in in future.

But I’ve always known deep down inside that I should strive to become a vegetarian because of my faith. Well, I should do many things, shouldn’t I? I should get the hell out of Singapore and serve the poor in the developing world. I should go and do all I can to reach the unreached peoples. And ya, I should really think about becoming a vegetarian. If not now, then soon. If not dogmatically, then at least more fully.

Greg Boyd has recently written on his blog the reasons as to why he’s a vegetarian. His reasoning is quite simple. I summarize it here:

1) God originally intended for humans and all other creatures to eat plants for food (Genesis 1:29-30). This is confirmed by Genesis 9:1-4, where God said:

Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.

Notice how God’s allowance for fallen humanity to eat animals was something new: “I now give you everything.” Why did God now allow man to eat animals? Because the “fear and dread” of man that now falls on the animals (due to the fallenness of all creation) has disrupted the peaceful and non-violent nature of creation. I think this means that animals will no longer act peaceful towards man and so God allowed man to eat animals.

2) The non-violent and peaceful nature of God’s kingdom which existed before the fall will be restored at the end of this age:

The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. Infants will play near the hole of the cobra; young children will put their hands into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea (Isa 11:6-9).

3) Therefore, in the past before the fall, humans did not eat animals. In the future when we dwell with God, we will not eat animals. But, what ought we to do now? I’ll end with Boyd’s own conclusion:

Now, the most fundamental job of followers of Jesus is to manifest the reign of God. I take this to mean that we’re called to put on display now what the world will look like when God fully reigns over it in the future. In theological terms we’re to be “the eschatological community.”

One way the New Testament expresses this truth is by referring to Kingdom people as the “first fruits” of a coming harvest (2 Thess 2:13; Ja 1:18; Rev. 14:4). The “first fruits” referred to fruit that ripened and was picked before others. In the Old Testament, first fruits were consecrated (set apart) to God and were a sign that God will faithfully bring the remainder of the harvest to fruition (e.g. Ex. 23:19). In the same way, Kingdom people are consecrated to God as a sign that God will faithfully bring his Kingdom to complete fruition.

As the “first fruits” of the Kingdom, our call is to be in the present what the entire world will be in the future, when the Kingdom is fully manifested. In a world that is yet under bondage to the rebel Powers, we’re to display what it looks like to live in the reign of God. Our lives are to reflect God’s will being done “on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt 6:10). We’re to be, as much as possible, heaven on earth and thus a window through which people can see the future into which God is leading the world.

If God’s original ideal of a creation free of violence will be achieved in the future, it seems to me that the job of Kingdom people is to manifest this ideal now, as much as possible. Which to me suggests that since humans won’t be killing animals and eating them in heaven, we shouldn’t be killing them and eating them now.

I’m partly Australian - don’t ask me to explain what I mean by that But I have to say I’ve never been exactly proud to be an Aussie and have never really felt like one since I’ve spent most of my years in Singapore.

Because John Howard was Prime Minister during most of my grown up years, that kind of made it even harder for me to identify with being an Australian. But living in Australia last year changed my thinking quite a bit. One of my happiest days last year was when Kevin Rudd thoroughly defeated Howard and the conservative Liberal-National Party coalition. Good riddance to them. And today, as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued an apology to Australia’s Stolen Generation, I feel proud once again.

I feel proud that the leader of Australia did the right thing. That was the compassionate thing to do. I guess it says a lot that it took so long. And I do know that many Australians are not in agreement with Kevin Rudd on this - which is really sad. And yes, I think there’s a lot more that needs to be done than merely this apology. But I’ll savour the moment anyway.

I don’t think I’ll ever feel totally like an Australian. Socially, I’m more at home in Singapore. Having lived most of my life here, there’s that great connection that I can’t deny. However, politics means a lot to me because it’s about how the government (and people) treat other people - especially the least of them. It’s reflects one’s values and what you view as important. That speaks a lot to me. My heart will always have a place for Singapore, but I can’t identify with the political culture (or party?) that prefers pragmatism rather than standing up for what’s right. As someone said, society is judged by how we treat the least among us.

“Father, our country is in trouble. We pray for peace to come,” an 11-year-old boy prays. “Protect us, Father. Teach people to love one another and not to fight anymore.”

For the last two weeks, Sprenkle says, children in this small slum area have gathered to pray for their country. “The church’s pastor says the children started gathering on their own, so he let them in the church. The daily prayer meeting now attracts more than 200 children ranging in age from three to 17.”

Ever since the children started praying together, the pastor says there have been no deaths, houses burned or even violence in their section of this slum. Adults recite this fact in amazement. The children, however, don’t even mention it because it’s exactly what they expected to happen.

“Pastor told us that there is power in prayer. He said we can change the country through prayer,” 12-year-old Boniface explains. “So that is what we are doing, changing the country.”

(Taken from: Kenyan children pray for their country, ask for rain - and it pours)

…modern American evangelicalism has clearly reshaped the gospel of Christ into a two-part message: what Christ has done (on the cross), and what we need to do to complete the transformation. The announcement of the gospel as the “one way” love of God that declares us righteous through the sacrificial death of Christ, completely apart from our participation or cooperation, is seen as narrowly one dimensional and dangerously antinomian, releasing Christians from the various spiritual disciplines necessary for the exaggerated progress that all followers of Christ are expected to make in this life.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, as the one-way declaration of our righteous standing before God propels us out of gratitude to love and serve him, and any addition to the once-offered sacrifice of Christ is the clearly the Galatian problem; nevertheless, to take such a stand in the modern evangelical camp will no doubt raise some eyebrows and possibly bring on some heat.

(Joseph Martin, Reformation Diaries)

The above is taken from the Modern Reformation website. Modern Reformation is a magazine of Protestant Reformation thinking and very respected among Reformed believers. The magazine, its articles and its authors shaped my thinking quite a lot regarding the issue of the Gospel 10 years ago.

The above quote focuses once again (as with the two previous posts in this series) on how when Christians preach the biblical gospel, they will be accused of preaching a dangerous and antinomian message. The preaching of the biblical gospel in New Creation Church has no doubt raised many eyebrows and brought on lots of heat!

I’ve still yet to touch on an extremely important question of whether the gospel actually promotes antinomianism. Of course it doesn’t and I’ll explain my reasons in greater detail another time. However, I think this is extremely important to note:

There’s a crucial difference between saying that preaching the biblical gospel will inevitably attract accusations of antinomianism and saying that the biblical gospel actually promotes antinomianism.

I’ve been emphasizing the former, but that doesn’t mean I agree with the latter. I strongly believe that the preacher who preaches the biblical gospel will definitely be accused of promoting antinomianism (if he’s preaching the biblical gospel). But the biblical gospel (i.e. the one-way declaration of our righteous standing before God) “propels us out of gratitude to love and serve Him”. The gospel does not result in licentious living - it does not promote antinomianism.

I love the quote (in my previous post) by Martyn Lloyd-Jones. I’ve never heard or read Pastor Prince or New Creation Church mention it (maybe they have?), but if they haven’t they should! Pastor Prince, however, quotes from Lloyd-Jones in his book “Destined To Reign” (2007, p. 253-254). Let me quote it here as it’s good too:

The apostle [Paul] is asserting that if we are Christians, your sins and mine - past sins, present sins and future sins - have already been dealt with once and forever! Had you realized that? Most of our troubles are due to our failure to realize the truth of this verse. ‘There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus’ is so often understood to mean nothing more than that past sins have been dealt with. Of course it means that; but it also means your present sins; even more, it means that any sin you may ever chance to commit has already been dealt with. You will never, you cannot ever, come under condemnation.

…But why does the apostle say this, and on what grounds does he say it? Is it not a dangerous thing to say? Will it not incite people to sin? If we tell Christians that their past sins, their present and their future sins have already been put away by God, are we not more or less telling them that they are free to go out and sin? If you react in that way to my statements I am most happy, for I am obviously a good and true interpreter of the apostle Paul.

(Romans - The Law: Its Functions & Limits: Exposition Of Chapters 7:1 - 8:4, p. 272-273)

This quote really complements the previous one. I can say a lot more about the above quote, but I won’t here. Let me just say that the reason why I’ll be quoting many different authors is not because I think quoting the Bible is not enough. I think the Bible is more than enough. It’s perfect and authoritative. But unfortunately I also realize that many people have different views on what the Bible says. We all differ in our interpretation of the Bible. Equally godly, intelligent and wise Christians differ on so many biblical issues!

So I’m not going to go through a Bible study on Romans and Galatians to demonstrate why I believe New Creation’s message on grace is biblical. I could do that but that would take too much time. One thing I want to show through these posts on grace is that there are many respected Christians who would agree with New Creation’s message on grace. There are many Christians who believe that the moment one has faith in Christ, even future sins are forgiven. There are many Christians who believe that if you’re a Christian, you’ve already been forgiven of all your future sins even before you’ve confessed them. There are many Christians who believe that you won’t go to hell if you die with unconfessed sins - because your sins have already been forgiven (past, present & future) from the time you put your faith in Christ. And there are many Christians (in addition to Paul) who would proudly preach the kind of gospel that people would criticize as antinomian and dangerous.

In fact, I would go so far to say that the whole Protestant Reformation was built upon this belief, but has been corrupted in many ways since then. Just as Paul would have been accused of being an antinomian, so the Protestant Reformers were accused of antinomianism by the works-centered Roman Catholic Church.

Knowing the above, I think it’s sad to see Singaporean Christians singling out New Creation Church as dangerous. Now, if they are fundamentalists, I’d expect that of them. Fundamentalists would take shot at everyone - including themselves. But it’s sad when you see the non-fundamentalistic, charismatic Churches criticizing New Creation’s message of grace. It’s sad because I think it just goes to show how far we’ve deviated from the Protestant Reformation’s view of justification by faith alone.

The number one reason that New Creation Church is the most attacked Church in Singapore is because of what people call “antinomianism”. Basically, that word means “against law”. There are at least two kinds of antinomianism - one doctrinal/theoretical and one practical. The first is the belief that the Moral Law (10 Commandments) are not for Christians today. The second is the belief that Christians can sin all they want because there’s always grace available for them. Christians have accused New Creation of being antinomian in both these ways.

In this post, I’ll only focus on the second kind of antinomianism - i.e. practical antinomianism. The charge goes something like this: “Pastor Prince and New Creation teach that a Christian can sin all they want because grace is always available.” I’ve heard that charge from many Christians who come from many different Churches in Singapore.

Whenever I hear New Creation being accused of antinomianism, I’m both happy and sad. Sad because I know that such an accusation is meant to be a criticism or judgement against the message of New Creation. But I also feel happy, because I know one thing (and I think this is really powerful and profound):

Paul was also accused of preaching an antinomian gospel!

A whole lot of my posts in this series will be dedicated to this area - that is, New Creation’s teachings on grace. So I won’t get too much into this now but I’ll just leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Martyn Lloyd-Jones and some comments below. I won’t say much about him except to say that he was one of the most respected preachers (known as “the last of the preachers”) in the world when he was alive and his works are still very much read today. He’s Reformed in theology yet at the same time open to Charismatic things. Here’s his brilliant quote. I’m not exactly sure where it came from (I came across it about 10 years ago) but I believe it’s probably from his commentary on Romans 6:

It is true that where sin abounded grace has much more abounded; well then, “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound yet further?” The true preaching of the gospel of salvation by grace alone always leads to the possibility of this charge being brought against it. There is no better test as to whether a man is really preaching the New Testament gospel than this, that some people might misunderstand it and mis-interpret it that it really amounts to this: that because you are saved by grace alone, it does not really matter at all what you do, you can go on sinning all you like because it will redound all the more to the glory of grace. That is a very good test of gospel preaching. If my preaching of the gospel does not expose it to that misunderstanding, then it is not the gospel. Let me show you what I mean. If a man preaches justification by works, no one would ever raise the question. If he says, “If you want to go to heaven, you must stop committing sins, live a life filled with good works, and keep this up regularly and constantly until the end, then you will be a Christian and go to heaven when you die.” Obviously, no one will accuse a man who preached like this of saying, “Let us continue in sin that grace may abound.” But every preacher who preached the gospel has been accused of this! They have all been accused of “antinomianism.” I would say to all preachers: If your preaching of salvation has not been misunderstood in that way, then you had better examine your sermons again, and you had better make sure that you really are preaching the salvation that is proclaimed in the New Testament to the ungodly, the sinner, to those who are dead in trespasses and sins, to those who are the enemies of God. There is a kind of dangerous element about the true presentation of the doctrine of salvation.

Understanding the above quote alone would prevent a lot of criticisms of New Creation’s gospel of grace. It’s not about the quote alone, but about understanding the quote and how it’s based on a proper understanding of the gospel as presented by Paul in Romans 1 to 8.

For those who still don’t get how being accused of antinomianism actually means you’re preaching the biblical gospel, please understand one thing. Neither Paul nor Pastor Prince believe that we can sin all we want since grace is always available! Neither of them would encourage Christians to go and sin! Both are against sinning! (Pastor Prince has mentioned many times that he’s thoroughly against sinning). However, the important thing to note here is this: The gospel they preach is such that they will be misunderstood as saying such a thing! It’s about people misunderstanding your gospel. If you preach a works-centered gospel, no one would mistake you for promoting antinomianism. No one would accuse you of that. But then, that’s because you haven’t been preaching the true biblical gospel of justification by faith alone. However, if you preach the true biblical gospel of justification by faith alone, then you’ll face that charge as Paul did - and as Pastor Prince is facing also.

Romans 6:1 says, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” Why did Paul write that immediately after writing about justification by faith alone in the earlier chapters? It has to be one of two reasons. Either people were asking him that question and he’s just responding to it in his letter. Or he anticipates that the glorious gospel of justification by faith alone he had just written in the previous chapters would be open to such a charge (after all, he had just written in Romans 5:20 the “heretical” and seemingly “antinomian” teaching that “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more”!) and so he quotes the charge and then immediately provides a response to it (which I’ll write about in another post). Whatever the case, if you’re truly preaching the same gospel that Paul preached, people will accuse you of saying we can carry on sinning as grace will increase.

If Pastor Prince and New Creation Church are accused of antinomianism in this way, I actually take it to be a wonderful compliment, not a criticism.

What makes the Paradise event unusual is not so much the emphasis on Christ – most praise events can claim that objective – but the de-emphasis on all things not directly to do with glorifying Jesus.

“There will be nothing for sale at Paradise, not one T-shirt or CD, not one pretzel,” Ross said emphatically. “No product tents and no ministry tents. No banners or signs for other causes.”

In essence, it will be a rarity in religion: “No agenda will be raised at all that day; just the undistracted worship of Jesus,” Ross said.

It’s not just lip service. By rule of the event’s constitution, nothing is to echo from the huge speaker boxes except music and scripture. No sales pitches. No sermons, as well-intentioned as they may be. Skilled musicians will be present, including some big names, but those names will not be revealed and they will not be in view.

Perhaps most surprising of all, in this day of bigger, better and best: no attendance figures will be projected or announced.

(Taken from Paradise: Richard Ross’s May Event to Praise Jesus without any Trappings)

I think this is an awesome idea! No distractions, no commercialism, no need to boast about attendance - just purely Jesus. And I definitely like the one about the musicians not being revealed and not being in view. It’s all about Jesus!

Singapore has an awesome once in a year praise and worship event called Festival of Praise. But it hasn’t been able to avoid all the trappings and distractions. I know many Christians come because a “famous” band would be leading worship. But praise and worship is all about Jesus, not about who leads worship, definitely not about the music.

“When the music fades… All is stripped away…”