This past Sunday, the Las Palmas Path of Life Bible Church celebrated its 6th anniversary! You can see our theme in the banner below (click for a slightly larger version). For those who can’t figure it out, it’s Matthew 28:18-20. The theme was chosen by the preacher, Ezequiel.
6th Anniversary Service banner
All was chaos before the service, I have to admit. Some people were trying to put up banners from our past anniversaries, with eventual success, but with many trials along the way! I was supposed to be practising with the worship team, but just had to get a video working – didn’t work on that laptop, didn’t work with that software download, connected another laptop… and on and on. The sound system stopped working, so we pulled out an old sound system which we limped along with. The video never did happen, but after we caught our breath – it was a great day! 🙂
Oscar led the service (he’s the first person you’ll see in the video), and did a great job. I made the video below a little longer than I intended to (obviously it’s all in Spanish, although I did subtitle one or two things at the beginning), because I wanted you to see just how many people were involved. People sharing testimonies, playing music, praying… and, of course, after the service – bringing food! And leading games! You’ll see some of that too.
The sermon was a great challenge to us all – very practical. And if we do what we did last year, we might keep this banner up at the front of the church for the year, as a reminder. It’s interesting how various parts of this passage have come alive in recent months – the authority of Christ, our responsibility in ministry – and especially over the last few weeks, the reminder that He is with us – a theme that has been strong in our study of Exodus as well (which we will be finishing in tomorrow’s service!).
You might recognize the song I was leading at the end, at the request of the preacher. If not, here it is in English, one of my current favourites.
Thanks again to so many of you who have prayed for and supported this ministry. Without further comment, here are some clips from Sunday.
If you would like to see the full service, just go here and go to the link for the 6th of November (6 noviembre 2022).
Last time in our Biblical Anthropology series we talked about the desire that many have to make everyone equal. Now, in certain sense, most people would agree that equality is a good thing. But there’s a lot more built into today’s common narrative.
One of the key things we’ve been talking about it that, in the minds of many, there must be a strong central authority to decide what “equality” involves, and then to take from some and give to others in order to enforce this “equality”.
Author A. D. Robles went through an interesting illustration once to demonstrate some problems with this idea. I won’t quote him exactly, but here’s the general idea as I shared it when I first taught this series.
Robles’ main point was that the supposed “mercy” of evil people often ends up being cruelty. How so?
Well, let’s take an imaginary country. In this country, people are at different economic levels. If you’re poor, survival is a challenge. Maybe you have a couple of jobs, just so that you can get by.
Now, let’s say that the imaginary government of the imaginary country decides to control the economy and help the poor people. Now, I don’t think this is the job of a government, but stay with me. They want to help the poor, so what do they do?
First, they give every poor person $1000. Great. Now, they double the minimum wage. Mercy to the poor, right? The most vulnerable.
Wait – here’s a good question to ask: Where did all this money come from? Well, maybe the government took it from the rich people, through taxes. We might call that theft, but they’re doing it for the poor, so we’ll give them a pass for the moment.
Now, what actually happens?
My friend Jake works down at the corner store. It actually belongs to his cousin – nice. His salary is doubled. Sweet! But now the store is having problems – it can’t really afford to pay Jake. Maybe he’s laid off. Or the store has to close.
No problem! There’s a big business down the street. Now, the big business doesn’t exactly have the same concern for Jake as his cousin did. But at least, for the moment, they can pay him the new minimum wage. And as salaries rise suddenly, many small businesses close, and larger companies take their place.
Their bottom line is money, of course. To pay more, they charge more. Prices rise to match the new typical salaries. But now some former small business owners no longer have their businesses. They’re looking for work – unemployment starts to rise.
With fewer people working, there are fewer products, or less variety available. The larger companies have less competition, and so they can afford to charge more.
Meanwhile, Jake is starting to have problems again. Not only are prices rising, he’s now helping to support his cousin.
So who is benefiting most from this “mercy to the poor”? The rich! Big business gets bigger. The rich, who knew how to prepare for inflation, ride out the storm, or even benefit from it. They knew how to invest. They get richer.
Meanwhile, unemployment rose among the poor, some are working in companies that don’t care about them, the $1000 was spent long ago, and if not it is already worth a lot less.
It looked like such a good idea at first. But government simply is not good at controlling all of culture. As we learned in our study of The Authorities, they have their responsibilities and their limits. And sometimes what seems good to us at first can end up as a disaster. The mercy of the wicked can be cruel.
So what’s the answer to a bad government? A new one with more control than the former one? That’s certainly the way we’re moving in our non-imaginary world. “We just need new and better laws! We just need more power to enforce these laws! And then we can finally help the poor children!”
But Jim, I don’t understand – aren’t we in favour of helping the poor? You bet. Absolutely.
So next time we’ll take a deep breath and get back to what the Bible actually says about justice for all.
These have been difficult days for our church. Difficult days drive us to God’s throne in prayer.
An elderly lady recently passed away, after some very difficult final weeks. She didn’t attend our church, but has children and grandchildren and a great-grandchild who do, so her passing affected our church quite a bit.
If you get our email update, you may have been praying with us for our friend who suddenly collapsed two weeks ago, and has not regained consciousness. He is not only a good friend, but a man who has been a key servant to the church. We continue to pray earnestly for him and his family. [Edit: As I was posting this, our brother in Christ Edgar passed away.]
Last week his family and some of his wife’s family came to the service. His daughter and son volunteered to join the worship band, and they helped lead us in praise to God. It was a moving service, as we prayed together for this and many other needs in the congregation.
In the midst of all this, we’re preparing for the 6th anniversary of the church – this Sunday. We’ve simplified the celebration somewhat due to the circumstances, but we’re still looking forward to thanking God for His faithfulness over the past few years.
(The photo above is from the music time last week – Rod is leading, and you can see Nathanael on the ukulele to the right. The banner in behind is actually from last year’s anniversary service, with text from Exodus 6:7 – “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God”. We’re just finishing our study of Exodus now, seeing the fulfillment of this promise in the book, and the application for us.)
You may have also been praying for our fellow missionary Chalo, who was in the hospital. He’s doing much better, and we were able to visit him last week. He’s home and already working, although he probably should be resting some more! 🙂
In the mundane of our own lives, this has also been a strange time. Without going into details, we’ve had some doctor’s visits. And as I mentioned in the last podcast, we went on an overnight trip to get Nathanael’s visa, only to find that the person who needed to complete the process wasn’t at the office! So this past week we made the trek again, and this time – success! Thanks for your prayers.
So in the end, the last few weeks have included a lot of unusual travel and appointments. It makes it hard to keep up with regular work (including Nathanael’s school). On the bright side, we’ve enjoyed some good family time together in the midst of it all. The “unusualness” will probably continue for the next couple of weeks, as we have at least one more appointment, the anniversary service, a wedding, rather urgent van maintenance…
So we appreciate your prayers as we navigate these turbulent times; that we would have the strength to deal with the “mundane” and still to be a light and an encouragement to others. I guess that’s a good prayer request for us all, isn’t it?
When we went through the topic of partiality at our local church, we talked about an illustration that was common at the time – the “privilege walk”.
You may have seen this done – I’ve seen it done in a couple of countries, in English and in Spanish. But here’s the basic idea. Everyone starts off in a straight line. And then the facilitator calls out something like, “You grew up with a father in your home”, or “You have never wondered where your next meal is coming from”, and so on. Everyone who had this perceived privilege or advantage takes a step forward. Then there might be negative statements, like “My parents warned me before I left the house that I could encounter violence”. Take a step back.
In the end, you see that some people are far more “privileged” than others. And what generally happens is that the black woman is in the back, and the white man is in the front (in other words, the most “privileged”).
Now, I have some problems here, but let’s clarify something. Is there discrimination in this world based on the colour of your skin? Is there favouritism based on the country you’re from? Does life tend to be more difficult for someone who lives far from their family?
To all these we say – of course! And so there is no doubt there is something real and true, to say that some people have privileges or challenges, that other people don’t have.
But there are some things that are missing in these “privilege walks”. For example, there’s no personal responsibility. And that’s part of the point – you didn’t “merit” the privileges you have. But there is a danger of ignoring personal responsibility, personal choice (because remember, the ideology here is that personal “sin” or “merit” is deemphasized, and value based on your group is emphasized).
Another problem is that a few questions result in drastic oversimplification. Who decides which questions to ask? It’s easy to “design” such an activity so that a certain type of person ends up at the back of the pack. What’s more important? Being rich? Being powerful? Feeling safe? Living close to family? Living in the country? Again, those in power, the “experts”, decide.
What if someone is lazy? I suppose that the answer would be that everyone should start at the same place. But it becomes not important if the experts decide that you’re in the “oppressed group”. That lazy person should have the same resources as the hard worker. What if a person decides to stay home with the children, instead of being in the workforce? That’s a personal decision – should they be given some of the money of the worker? What if someone decides they would like to live in the country instead of the city?
We actually did a “privilege walk” at our church, but with some twists. First of all, we used completely invented countries and backgrounds to guarantee a certain level of diversity. Everyone received a card with their own invented biography.
Once we finished the activity, and saw who all the “privileged” people were, we had a few more questions. And it turned out that they weren’t so privileged after all.
The point was that the maker of the questions can manipulate where people end up, and that sometimes people with more money and more education are actually not as privileged as you may at first think. People with big houses may have massive debt. People in private schools may be mercilessly bullied. It’s complex – everyone has their own story. Slotting them into groups is not so easy.
Marxism, or neo-Marxism, wants everyone to end up with the same amount. And there are some serious problems with this. We’ve already mentioned one problem – it turns God Himself into an unjust “oppressor”.
Some people put it this way. It’s not about equality of opportunity – for example, the basketball tryouts are open to everyone. If they’re in the top few regarding skill, they’re on the team. No, it’s about equality of results. In other words, everyone gets on the team. Or, the experts choose not based on your basketball skills, but on your group. We need so many of each oppressed group on this team. That’s the idea behind what is familiarly called “social justice”.
Social justice, according to the world, has less to do with equality of opportunity, or equality before the law, and more to do with equality of results, according to the experts in control.
And it might sound great at first. But we’re going to end up with a terrible basketball team (worse, how about airplane designers?). We end up with people who don’t care about working hard, or gaining skills, because it’s simply not necessary. But what does the Bible say?
For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies.
2 Thessalonians 3:10-11
We want equality, that sounds great. And we’ll talk about what the Bible teaches about equality. We don’t want to see anyone hated for the colour of their skin, or because of the country they come from. Agreed. But sometimes the solution that sounds good humanly speaking isn’t wise.
We’ll take a closer look at this concept in action, as an imaginary government tries to bring equity to their country.
There’s no doubt that one of the biggest concerns that the world seems to have right now is racism.
Well, it’s not just racism. There are a lot of words that are used today to identify the “oppressed”. Sexism (against women). Classism. Intellectualism. Sizeism. Or, sometimes we simply say “discrimination”. Discrimination based on age, discrimination against the disabled. And all the phobias, right? Homophobia. Cacomorphobia (that’s a fear of fat people). It’s an endless list. And there are huge problems with the way these terms are used, and with the terms themselves.
Now this may be a shocker for some people, but the term “racism” that is so popular today isn’t found in the Bible. The word “race” is mentioned, but how many times depends on the Bible version you’re using. Actually, in the Authorized (King James) Version, the only “race” is the kind you run in.
Usually in Scripture we have the idea of nations. In Greek, ethnos. We may say in English, ethnic groups. Ethnicity, of course, may include DNA, physical descendants. But it also includes the idea of structures, countries, cultures.
Culture is something that most fundamentally comes from family. You family does things in a certain way. You all talk like that. And then a group of families come together in a community, and that community is influenced to have a certain culture. And so on.
The Apostle Paul was making a speech in the city of Athens, at the Areopagus. During his discourse, he explains a biblical perspective of race and ethnicity:
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us…
Acts 17:24-27
“…he made from one man every nation of mankind…” – there’s that word, ethnos. Literally, in Greek, “he made from one” – that is, from Adam. In that sense, how many races are there in the world? One, of course.
We all come from God, as Creator. We are all descendants of Adam. We are all one family. And God, in His providence, decided where we would live, from what family we would come.
How strange and ridiculous to negate the value of another person in the family, someone else created by God. We are one race.
Of course, today, we commonly use the term “race” somewhat differently. We think about descendants of various groups/families. Or in DNA – physical characteristics, such as skin colour. (Note: this is a more traditional view of race, but new ideas have been introduced here too. Stay with me.)
Dr. Harold P. Freeman has studied this concept of race. He explains that the physical characteristics that we associate with race, differences in physical appearance, are from 0.01% of our DNA! In other words, 99.9% of our DNA has nothing to do with the stereotypical idea of race (see Are There Really Different Races?).
But we insist on a simplistic idea of race – stereotypes. Mexicans have a certain colour of skin, and they eat hot food (in reality, Mexicans come in many shades, and some actually prefer food that’s not so spicy hot). Chinese people are like this. Africans (let’s just have a simplistic view of a whole continent while we’re at it!) are like that. Race.
In 1859, Charles Darwin published a book which is another historical milestone for us. Do you know the title of his book, off the top of your head?
If you said, “On the Origin of Species”, I’m afraid you left out most of the original title, which was “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”. Read it carefully, and it will help you understand where Darwin was coming from.
You see, Darwin believed that some races were more evolved, more advanced, than others. In fact – and you’re going to love this – he believed that men had evolved with larger brains, meaning that they were more intelligent than women!
And the ideas of Darwin (and it’s not just Darwin, but remember, we’re trying to simplify) have been used to promote racism.
In contrast to Darwin’s ideas about various races, we know that there’s only one race, created by God. The human race. Every individual with value and dignity.
So what is the world’s solution to racism? Well, people have come up with various ideas throughout time, but let’s talk about the common narrative that we hear most often today.
You may remember our discussion of intersectionality. We all have various characteristics, various histories, that place us more in the “oppressed” group or the “oppressor” group. But remember, for them, individual sin is not so important, or may not exist at all.
Very often, according to the world, your value doesn’t come from God (imago dei), but from your group. And your sin isn’t something from your heart, it’s from your group (if it exists at all). In fact, because of your group, you may have no sin at all.
How does it feel to be profiled because of the group you supposedly belong to?
As we discussed before, many people believe that the problem is actually the system in which we find ourselves. That may be the “patriarchy” or the “hegemony”. And the problem with the system, they say, is that it gives certain privileges to some, and not to others.
Next time we’ll talk about one way in which this concept is illustrated, and why I have questions.
I mentioned in the last post that we were catching up on a lot of personal things – and that has meant a lot of travelling around. And that is not always simple, as you might imagine…
(Edit: If you get our email update, you know some of what has happened over the past few days. It’s probably appropriate to note that this was recorded earlier.)
