It may not surprise most of you – but I’ll just say it – it’s been busy!
Someone asked me on Sunday if we were getting some time off, and I said, “Not yet”…. and in fact, the person who asked is a doctor, so I kind of hung my head in shame and decided that we’d better create some downtime, or we wouldn’t get any!
That confession out of the way, the good news is that it’s been busy but not all work – lots of variety, in fact. There’s always a lot of business packed in when we’re in Canada. Of course, there was Nathanael’s graduation and everything that went along with that. We’ve also had some good chances to visit with people, some time with family, and started our season of ministry here with a prayer meeting this past Thursday.
Windshield
Before our official ministry time even began, we were driving down a well-maintained major highway. A semi-truck was heading toward us, and somehow flung up a rock – a large rock – about the size of a baseball – at our windshield. Having driven all over North America, I admit I’ve never seen anything like it. It pulverized the windshield (so we’ll be buying a new one), but thankfully didn’t go through, because it was heading right for me.
So – we’re thankful again for safety in travel! This trip could have been very different already. Thanks for your prayers!
If you’ve been checking our schedule, you know that we’ll be at West Zion Mennonite Church (between Carstairs and Disbury) this coming Sunday (2nd of July) and then Cremona Country Fellowship on the 9th. Come out to see us!
We’re still looking for churches who would be willing to have the Where did the Bible Come From? seminar. Feel free to contact us for details!
We would appreciate your prayers that we would get everything done that we need to get done – and that we would have rest as well.
And yes, we have carved out some time off, in case any doctors ask again in the near future…
Truth, dependence, purpose. Three things that find their source in God. Without God and His Bible, in an imaginary world, there is no absolute truth, and honesty is not so important. We don’t depend on God, and so there is no salvation. And ultimately, no purpose. But again – that’s not the real world.
What was it that Paul said? “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57).
Let’s go back for a moment to personal responsibility – your own spiritual life. Do you really know Jesus Christ? No “know about” – really know. Do you talk to God? Read His Word? Love Him with all you are? We all fall short, but have you found perfect forgiveness and peace in God, putting your full faith and confidence in Jesus?
I’ve been promising for a long time to share the origin of the phrase “Christ or chaos”. It came from Peter Marshal, who was a pastor in the United States, and who became Chaplain of the United States Senate in the 1940s. He was preaching about the prophet Elijah, who called Israel to decide between Baal and Yahweh. Here’s what he said in part of his message:
Surely the time has come, because the hour is late, when we must decide. And the choice before us is plain — Yahweh or Baal. Christ or chaos. Conviction or compromise. Discipline or disintegration.
I have not stated the matter too strongly. You may agree mildly, or you may disagree violently. But the time has come for us to face the duties and obligations of our citizenship, and willingly to assume the disciplines imposed by the things we believe in, before we are forced to accept the disciplines of tyranny.
Why did the Romans hate the Christians? Why did they feed the Christians to the beasts? Not because they had yet another religion. There were many. Not because they had “received Christ into their hearts”. Why did the Romans hate the Christians? Because they said that Jesus Christ is Lord. Not the Lord of the church. Not the Lord of my spiritual life. Lord of all.
Lord of my body, every day of the week. Lord of my school. Lord of my country. Lord of the leader of my country. Lord of philosophy, Lord of science. Lord of creation. Lord of all.
That was something that Rome could not tolerate. Neither can our world today.
This is no game. We will suffer for this truth. But it remains true. And we serve the Eternal King who has all authority in heaven and on earth. I would prefer to follow Him, wouldn’t you? We may suffer, but this “affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17)! We know who will be King forever.
Let’s finish with a text that we’ve looked at many times before – my prayer for you:
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. … Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.
Colossians 1:13-20, 2:6-10
Amen!
Selected Resources…
I shared a few resources, either in the various articles, or at the end of each section. As I think I mentioned before, the list is probably more limited than it would be otherwise, because I was focusing on resources in Spanish, and not all of them are available in English.
Continuing our review of Biblical Anthropology, the next topic we looked at was Creativity and Communication. We talked about evaluating art, enjoying art, and using our creativity in an extravagant way to glorify God.
We also talked about how the world wants to control art, technology and communication. It’s much easier to control a digital world than the real world. It’s easier to control people when their business and their relationships are online. In this scenario, it’s easier to make the lie look real.
There have been many more interesting developments since that study, so perhaps it’s easier to see now than it was then. There has been a continued focus on getting businesses online, with ways to monitor not only their clients but also their employees. These technologies may have some good uses, but there is a lot of interest in using them to gain more control over others.
But in the end, we thank God for the gift of art and technology and words, communication. We want to use these things for the good of our community and for the glory of God.
Next we talked about the environment – another challenging topic! We drew these four principles from the Bible:
We care for creation for the glory of God.
We care for creation to benefit people (quality and length of life).
We care for creation through local responsibility.
We care for creation through our general obedience to God.
We can say that we care for creation from the point of view of God’s truth and justice. Because frankly, more and more often, powerful voices are not using truth, and are using non-biblical views of justice. And we have to admit that, in the end, there are a whole lot of people making a lot of money through their narrative of environmentalism. Which is often a narrative of fear.
I’ve been thinking about the idea of fear lately – controlling people through a crisis, or a “crisis”. Earlier I talked about the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life”. In one scene, there is a financial crisis, and the financial institutions are in trouble. A rich man in town named Mr. Potter, “Old Man Potter”, offers to help everyone, giving them part of the money that the banks cannot currently provide. By doing this, he basically takes control of these institutions.
The main character, George Bailey, manages a small loan company, and is trying to convince a group of scared and anxious customers that they shouldn’t simply go to Potter for help. I love what he says:
Can’t you understand what’s happening here? Don’t you see what’s happening? Potter isn’t selling. Potter’s buying! And why? Because we’re panicky and he’s not. That’s why. He’s picking up some bargains. Now we can get through this thing all right. We’ve got to stick together!
Ten years ago today we were having a daily sports camp in the community of Jesús María, run by our friends Mike and Teo. In the photo below (click the image for a larger version), you can see the soccer players in the foreground, and if you look closely in the back to the right you can see the basketball court.
Of course, in the middle is the iconic water tower / sundial that became the logo for our community centres. At the bottom of it you can see a mural that presented the gospel.
The sports camp was a great opportunity to share the gospel not only with kids in the community, but also with their parents who came to watch.
If you’d like to read more, check out this post from back in 2013, Why a Sports Camp?
For me, the next two studies that we did in our Biblical Anthropology series were the most challenging – Justice and Partiality. I have no idea how many articles and books I read while I was studying for this topic, which of course also touches on the issue of racism.
I think that one of the reasons why these topics were so challenging was that we do always see truth mixed with lies in our world. Sometimes we think that when someone is talking about love, or justice, or equality, that they’re talking about the same things that we’re talking about. But so often the world changes definitions, or else smuggles in something else with the truth.
As Christians, we know that God is just, and that justice comes from God and His Bible. For example, we protect the innocent before the law, even though this means that some people will temporarily escape justice. Temporarily, because we know that someday God will bring perfect justice to all. There is a final judgement.
We briefly introduced a few terms that have become important in our world, such as Marxism, or neo-Marxism, from the antichristian philosophies of Karl Marx.
“Marxism” doesn’t explain all the philosophy of the modern world, but we only had time to quickly look at some key points.
For example, in Marxism, you’re not judged by your character in the end, but more by the group which you belong to – as oppressed or oppressor.
And I should probably clarify something. If someone today says that a white man is racist, they’re probably not using a stereotype or a generalization. Under this philosophy, the individual white man is not considered racist because all white men tend to be racist, but because he belongs to the group, in this case a group defined by skin colour. Do you understand the difference?
Neo-Marxism is a revolutionary system. Everything must be burned down and rebuilt. Reboot, restart, rebuild better. So if you sometimes wonder why many people in power seem to be doing things that destroy more than build, often this is the reason.
But in biblical justice, we should be punished for our own sin. And there’s a lot of teaching in Ezekiel 18 about this. We are judged for our own character and actions. In God’s law, and so in the human court, we are innocent until proven guilty. And the source of your value is not the group you belong to, but the imago dei. And salvation is in Christ, not in activism.
We are all descendants of Adam, and so we don’t judge people (before the law) based on DNA, or skin colour, or whatever it may be. We judge, in a limited sense, in the way God judges – the fruit tells you what kind of a tree you have. We don’t judge in a different way because someone is rich or poor, because he has power, or has no home.
Another key point here is the unity of the local church. This from Colossians 3:11 – “Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free…” – and we could properly add, there is no man, woman, child, adult, Mexican, Canadian, rich, poor, whatever – “but Christ is all, and in all.” One Church.
Talking about justice in general, we believe that, in a sense, the law is king. The Latin term is lex rex. The prime minister, the scientist, the rich person, all are subject to the law. And the law must come ultimately from God’s Word. And so we could also say – veritas rex – truth is king. The truth, not the person in power, or the person with the scholarly title.
The famous Mexican revolutionary said, “I want to die being a slave to principles, not men.” Well, if those principles come from the Bible, from God’s Word, principles of justice, love, and compassion – then I would agree!
Truth is very important to the Christian. Honesty. Science. Logic. But the world rejects God’s truth to a large degree, and invents new “truths”, other “ways of knowing”. Standpoint epistemology.
The Christian accepts personal responsibility, and practises generosity and love. Many in the world today seem to want to give the government more and more control, so that they can be a saviour and a god. But where there is no absolute truth, when the law of God is rejected and limits are rejected, the lie with the most power behind it wins.
It is not the government that gives us truth, although it should defend the truth. The government does not give us rights, but it should defend the rights that are given to us by God.
That’s a lot to chew on for today. And I realize that some of these things have become even more a topic of discussion since we first did our study in Mexico. We need to keep thinking about these things and discussing them, with God’s Word as our foundation.
It may seem strange to some that Nathanael’s graduation took place before some of his final exams. But – be that as it may – Nathanael’s graduation ceremony is over, even though the exams are not! (Is that why they say, “It’s all over but the crying”?)
Anyway, Nathanael graduated with some of his class (“some” because, being at an “alternate status” school, many of the students were not from the area) on the 10th of June, at a special event at Zion Evangelical Missionary Church in Didsbury, Alberta.
Nathanael was on the grad committee, so he worked all through the year on various projects to make the grad a success. The committee came over the day before to work on the decorations for the banquet, and Nathanael in particular worked on PowerPoints and a unique banner for the event (which we ended up bringing from Mexico!).
The program was very Christ-honouring, and of course student-congratulating!
All four of us were there, along with Nathanael’s three grandparents.
Nathanael and the FamilyThrowing the mortarboards!
We enjoyed a delicious banquet afterwards. Nathanael – great job on the grad committee – oh, and on many years of school! And thanks to all the teachers and staff who worked so hard as well. 🙂
