Right & Wrong: A Case for Moral Absolutes

"Someone has said that we live in a strange world where the relativity of Einstein is considered absolute, and the absolutes of the Bible are considered relative."

I've just finished reading a small booklet with the above title published by RBC Ministries (which is also the publisher of My Daily Bread). At a short 32 pages, it gives a short introduction to why morality is absolute and not relative, as it is claimed to be in this day and age. Just to share some excerpts:

"There is something wrong with a mind that is so open that can't tell truth from error... If Christ revealed God, then He revealed at the same time the Source of all absolute standards of moral decision. More important for us, he showed that the ultimate absolute is a God who shows us what is right only because He loves us."

On examples of moral absolutes:
"Behind all the Scriptures, is a God who by His own nature is the basis for absolute moral law." There are absolutes to protect faith and worship, absolutes to protect the family ("Cultural relativism has broken down the protective fences of sexual restraint."), absolutes to protect the sacredness of life, as well as absolutes to protect honest relationships. Moral absolutes are timeless because they are consistent with God's unchanging character.

On exceptions to the rules:
"The Bible itself shows us that amongst the laws of scripture there are some that do not qualify as absolute standards for all people, at all times, and in all circumstances." Examples include the non-absolute law against killing ("The key to understanding this is to distinguish between the absolute law against murder and the non-absolute principle of killing.") as well as the non-absolute law of submission. "Only when we see how the whole counsel of Scripture applies a law can we determine whether it is meant to be circumstantial or absolute."

This booklet also includes how we Christians can play a role in society with regards to morality and ethics, and what it means to apply the law of Christ in a pluralistic society. ("Individual Christians must make it their goal to be winsome, honest and civil as they express our spiritual and moral concern for others' welfare. Our response must reflect the spirit of Christ.")

To end off, the booklet expounds on what absolutes can and cannot do. "Only when we understand whether an 'ought' is rooted in a principle, and only when we see the relationship between a timeless principle and the character of God, will we be able to understand the real difference between right and wrong. While the law can show us what is right, that same law can never make us good. There is a great difference between knowing and keeping the law... All the absolutes laws of God could ever do was show us our need for the undeserved help of the Spirit of God."

To find out more, feel free to approach me for the book. It wouldn't take you more than a day to read it, but it'll probably take us all a lifetime to internalise and apply it everyday =)


Emmett

Prayer Meeting 6th Feb (Fri), 7:30pm

It's the 1st Friday of the month again! I hope everyone can try to make it a point to come together as a church to pray for the matters of the church. Personal prayer, prayer as a fellowship or cell group are important, and so is praying as a church with our brothers and sisters in the church.

When we come to pray as a church, we show our eollective dependence on God to bring the church forward, to guide and lead the church, including all its members. We also commit individuals in the church, who have certain needs, non-believers and ministries to the Lord, an act of love for our brothers and sisters.

Hope to see everyone there! =)


Emmett

Burned Out Christians

What is Christian burnout, and what is the cure?

Maybe you’re at church again spending long hours on a project. Nobody else is there, and you bang things around. Why are you always the one left with the responsibility? But you wonder if it’s right to be angry. After all, you said you’d do it. You sigh. You note that you’ve been sighing a lot lately, and you wonder how long you’ll be able to keep up this work for the Lord. As you are truthful with yourself, you don’t want to keep on this religious treadmill one more day. If you could escape to the Bahamas, you’d go in a heartbeat. But then you reprimand yourself. A Christian must persevere and pay the price. You pray for the energy to get this project done, but you don’t really want to pray. You’re disappointed with God. Doesn’t the Bible say we’re supposed to experience joy in serving Christ? So where is the joy?

If any of this sounds familiar, you may be experiencing burnout. And yes, good Christians do burn out in their serving.

What are some symptoms of burnout?

Loss of joy in serving Christ

Physical fatigue

Feeling of always giving and not receiving

Resenting the people we are serving

Possibly seeing diminishing effectiveness in your serving

Other people expressing concern for you

Why do Christians burn out?

The causes usually fall under four headings: Wrong Priorities, Wrong Motivation, Wrong Ministry, or Wrong Way of Serving.

What about PRIORITIES? Your serving is most satisfying and effective when it flows out of a close and growing relationship with God. Ironically, when you’re most involved with doing church work, you may think you have the least time for your own life with God. Churches often applaud “Christian workaholics”. You may not find a lot of support and encouragement to seek rest and spiritual renewal. But you can take charge and stop the activity long enough to listen to God. God may show you how you need to reorder life to have Him at the center and to experience everything flowing out of a vital relationship with Him. Recovery and renewal may start with stopping long enough to listen to God.

What about MOTIVATION? If you are showing signs of burnout, it may be time to examine your motives. Trying to please or impress people in the church, seeking to earn their approval and escape their criticism, is deadly to your own spirit. Often Christians who burn out have trouble setting boundaries and are unable to say “no” to the requests and expectations of others. But sometimes we have our own high expectations of ourselves. When we don’t see the results of our efforts we hoped to see, we get disheartened. When we continually fail to measure up to what we think effectiveness or success looks like, we may become discouraged to the point of wanting to quit. We may express the hurt as disappointment in ourselves, or perhaps as disappointment in God. Pain and disappointment can turn to bitterness when we believe that God has let us down. Recovery and renewal may start with a very honest conversation with God in which you pour out all the pain, disappointment, and bitterness within you. Then you can ask God for God’s perspective on your situation. You may hear God questioning your motives, and wanting to give you different motives, based on His purpose for your life, rather than on your own or other people’s expectations.

What about the MINISTRY you’re doing? (The use of the word “ministry” does not just apply to vocational ministry, but the particular type of service any Christian offers.) Are you doing what you’re “wired by God” to do? Is the ministry a match for your spiritual gifts and talents? Does it really engage you at a deep level? Many of us end up spending a lot of time and energy doing something for God that is not really our passion or our calling. Recovery and renewal may start with a prayerful examination of what God is calling you to do. (A helpful resource is “Writing Your Personal Mission Statement” on the Christview Ministries Web Site: www.christviewmin.org/leadership/leadership.skills.personal.mission ) It may be that a particular ministry was right at one time, but God is calling you to begin a new adventure in serving. God may be releasing you to a new ministry in a new season of your life.

What about the WAY you serve? Are you trying to do it all yourself when you could be delegating, building teams, and helping others use their gifts? Often people say, “I hate to ask anybody to do anything. I would rather just do it myself.” Granted, it can be frustrating trying to organize others. Other people can fail to show up or follow through. But the solution is not doing it all yourself. Recovery and renewal may start with prayerfully asking God how He wants you to do this ministry, and who He wants you to do it with. Renewal may continue as you ask those people to pray about serving on a team with you.

What Helps in Recovery and Renewal?

Pouring out your heart to God, expressing everything you truly think and feel

Listening for God’s response

Letting God heal you, change your inner motivations, and your priorities

Making your relationship with God a priority, and doing the things that help you grow closer

Building spiritual growth and renewal time into your life

*Pray Daily
*Worship Weekly
*Weekly “Sabbath Time” (Article on Sabbath Time in the “Thorncrown Journal” www.thorncrownjournal.com/turners )
*Annual Spiritual Retreat

Getting clear on what God is calling you to do

Learning to say “I’ll pray about it” when someone asks you to do something

Learning to say “no” unless God is not giving you a clear “yes”

Creating ministry teams and delegating

Praying with scripture passages such as:

Psalm 46:10 “Be still and know that I am God”
Mark 6:31 “Come with me by yourself to a quiet place and get some rest”
Matthew 11: 28-30 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest

http://www.thorncrownjournal.com/turners/burnout.htm


Emmett

The Screwtape Letters

The Parables Company, a local Christian theatre company, is putting up The Screwtape Letters. The available dates and timings are:

27th Feb (Fri) 8pm
28th Feb (Sat) 3pm
28th Feb (Sat) 8pm

Tickets are priced at $32 each (incl. booking fee). Venue's at Jubilee Hall, Raffles Hotel.

I would probably be catching the 28th Feb (Sat) 8pm one. Should anyone be interested be catching it with me, please let me know by 1pm this Sunday (8th Feb). Heard that tickets are running out. (:

Synopsis
The Parables Company is proud to present, for the first time in Singapore, a new stage adaptation of C.S. Lewis’ classic satire The Screwtape Letters. At turns philosophical, mercurial and witty, the book following a senior demon’s searing correspondence with a greenhorn tempter on assignment here on earth has now become a play that will shift some long-held paradigms on what we think is “evil”.

It is London, 1938, and the personal life of trainee demon Wormwood’s human “Patient” is beginning to mirror world events. As order and sanity begin to crumble under the growing threat of a second Great War, Wormwood tries to flex his untested tempting abilities to lead his Patient unsuspectingly down a path towards Eternal Damnation. But this is not without his vastly more experienced and merciless Uncle Screwtape, Senior Undersecretary of the Department of Tempter Training, critiquing his every move.

C.S. Lewis, author also of the much-loved Chronicles of Narnia series, dedicated The Screwtape Letters, with its dark sense of inverse morality, to his friend J.R.R. Tolkien, and declared he never wrote anything ‘with less enjoyment’. However, these diabolical epistles proved to be an instant hit and remain a bestseller to this day. As we track Wormwood and Screwtape’s surprising stratagems alongside the choices faced by their Patient, the play promises to be an revealing study of evil in all its varying shades, and the fight we may, or may not, choose to put up against it.

Praise for C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters:

‘Sparkling yet truly reverent, in fact a perfect joy’
– Guardian

‘Excellent, hard-hitting, challenging, provoking’
- Observer

The Parables Company is a theatre company driven by Christian values and a mission to tell stories, for all, that answer as many questions as they ask. More information to be found at www.theparablescompany.com


Emmett

Freedom from Quiet Time Guilt - Part 6 of 6

6. The Theology of Prayer: Means of Grace

So what exactly does prayer do? That’s the question I’m often asked. There are several wrong answers to this question. Some assume that prayer furnishes God with the information he lacks. God doesn’t view it that way. He not only knows what’s going on now, he knows what will be going on next week. Indeed, he even ordained what will be going on next week, the Bible speaks of “the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will” (Eph 1:11).

Neither is prayer an attempt to convince God to do what he wouldn’t otherwise do. He will grant our requests only insofar as they accord with his eternal purpose—his will. “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 Jn 5:14-15).

And I hope we’ve dismissed the idea that prayer shows God how much we love him! It’s not a work, but a grace! But often we think that prayer is something we do to obligate God to bless us. This is the subtlest of errors, for it resembles the biblical teaching. Indeed, it is a caricature of the biblical picture of prayer. Grace-empowered, grace-motivated prayer does bring blessing, but prayer isn’t a work we do that obligates God to give blessing. It’s a subtle difference, but an important one. Prayer is a means of grace, not a work to merit grace.

Theologians have classically called prayer and Scripture (along with the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper) means of grace—highways along which the Holy Spirit tends to travel. The means of grace are the normal instruments God uses to accomplish his saving work in and through us. Does prayer change things? Yes, because God changes things, and prayer is an expression of our reliance upon him to accomplish his purposes.

I remember about six months ago calling upon God in prayer about my finances. Starting a not-for-profit teaching ministry is hard work, and church missions committees would often rather support a missionary doing evangelism than one who is training believers. One evening I called out to God with great urgency. After a year of support raising and teaching, I could still only afford to teach half-time while working another job, and even the funds that had enabled that year of half-teaching were almost all gone. “Father, this is your ministry, not mine. If you have raised me up for this, then something must change. I cannot go without food. I cannot fail to pay my rent. If you wish me to teach, you must grant the resources to do this. If you do not enable me to teach, I will not teach. Apart from you I can do nothing.”

Was I manipulating God by threatening to stop teaching? No. And being a sovereign God, he wouldn’t have been impressed. Rather, I was confessing to God my utter and total dependence on him to fund my work.

The next day, after eight months without any new support, a new friend took me out for coffee and told me he felt compelled to support me at $100/month. That same day, I received a note from an old friend in another part of the country pledging monthly financial support. When I checked my email, I had received a message from a member of my church who had since moved away, telling me a $1200 check was in the mail.

Did my prayer force God’s hand? No. All of this was already in the works long before I prayed. But when I confessed my neediness to God, he was pleased to provide for me. Prayer was the means of grace, not a work I offered for reward. And God was glorified in my weakness. God is faithful to hear our prayers, and he delights in answering them. Prayer is one of the basic freedoms Christians have, and freedoms aren’t given to leave us in bondage. There is a cure for Quiet Time Guilt. That cure is the gospel of Christ, in whom we have redemption. Gospel—our need and God’s provision—is the heart of biblical prayer. God will care for us. We belong to him.


Hope this series has renewed our perspective of QT. (:


Emmett

Freedom from Quiet Time Guilt - Part 5 of 6

5. The Surprise: The Quiet Time is Optional

Imagine for a moment you’re meeting a Christian friend. “How’s your relationship with God going?” they ask you. “Well, I’m struggling with my attitude about my job—but God is teaching me to be content and to not gossip when people rub me the wrong way.” A silent stare greets the words, your inquisitor’s eyes staring you up and down. After a moment of awkward silence, the question comes again, “But how is your relationship with God?” Hmm. What wrong with this picture?

Perhaps this has never happened to you. But I’ve found contemporary Christians are often more concerned about my ‘relationship with God’ than with my relationship with God. Whose idea was it to define the sum total of my relationship with God as my devotional consistency? Your quiet time is not your relationship with God. Your relationship with God—or, as I prefer to say, God’s relationship with you—is your whole life: your job, your family, your sleep, your play, your relationships, your driving, your everything. The real irony here is that we’ve become accustomed to pigeonholing our entire relationship with God into a brief devotional exercise that is not even commanded in the Bible.

Yes. That’s what I said. The daily quiet time—that half hour every morning of Scriptural study and prayer, is not actually commanded in the Bible. And as a theologian, I can remind us that to bind the conscience where Scripture leaves freedom is a very, very serious crime. It’s legalism rearing its ugly little head again. We’ve become legalistic about a legalistic command. This is serious.

But no misunderstand what I’m saying. My goal isn’t that we pray and read the Bible less, but that we do so more—and with a free and needy heart.

Does the Bible instruct Christians to call out to God in prayer? Absolutely. “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Th 5:16-18). But this isn’t a command to set apart a special half-hour of prayer; it’s instruction to continually call upon God. Elsewhere the Apostle calls us to pray: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:6-7). But notice that the focus here is not on the performance of a devotional duty, but on approaching God for grace—for our heats and minds to be guarded by him. Paul’s burden is that we would rely upon God in every circumstance and therefore have peace, rather than relying on ourselves and finding ourselves captive to the anxiety that accompanies self-reliance.

Does the Bible command us to read our Bibles every day? No. Not really.

What Scripture actually instructs is that we meditate on God’s word all the time. Consider the godly man in Psalm 1. “His delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night” (Ps 1:2). This is not exactly the same thing as reading the Bible every day. Personal Bible reading is one—and only one—way we to meditate upon God’s word. At this point it’s helpful to consider the difference between a good idea and a biblical mandate. A biblical mandate is something that God explicitly or implicitly commands in Scripture. Loving your neighbor is a biblical mandate (Mt 5:43). Moving to Philadelphia to work in a homeless shelter, by contrast, is not a biblical mandate. Rather, it’s a good idea, a wonderful possible application of the biblical mandate to love your neighbor. But moving to Philly isn’t the only way you can love your neighbor. Similarly, meditating on God’s word is a biblical mandate. The daily quiet time, by contrast, is a good idea, a wonderful possible application of the mandate of biblical meditation.

It may surprise you to know that the concept of the quiet time as a command is a modern invention. It’s only in recent centuries that Christians have been able to actually own Bibles—the printing press and cheap paper have given us more options so far as biblical meditation is concerned. But remember that most Christians throughout history have not owned Bibles. They heard the Bible preached during corporate worship. They were taught the Bible in the churches. They memorized the Bible profusely—a first century rabbinic saying stated, “If your rabbi teaches and you have no paper, write it on your sleeve.” But for most Christians through history, biblical meditation took place when they discussed the Bible with family and friends, when they memorized it, when they listened very carefully to God’s word preached. The concept of sitting still before sunrise with a Bible open would have been very foreign to them.

We have so many options today, why do we get hung up on the quiet time? Listen to Christian teaching tapes. Invest your time in a small group Bible study. Have friends over for coffee and Bible discussion. Sing and listen to Scripture songs. Read good theology. Tape memory verses to the dashboard of your car. And pray throughout your day. I always reserve the drive to church on Sundays as a time of uninterrupted prayer for my pastors and elders, for those leading worship, and for the peace and purity of the church. Certain landmarks around town remind me to pray for certain churches, Christians I know, or causes God says are important. I suspect I spend more time praying in my car than on my knees. (Though I love praying on my knees as a concrete display of my dependence on God, I can’t do this in my car without causing an accident.)

If you have a regular quiet time, don’t stop. You’ve found a wonderful way to meditate on Scripture. You’ve set aside a specific time to call upon God in prayer. But if the quiet time doesn’t work for you, that’s okay. You should not feel guilty since you have not broken a commandment. The quiet time is an option, a good idea—not a biblical mandate. If the quiet time isn’t working for you, there are other options as well. All of them are good ones. The key is to rely on God to accomplish his plans, a reliance expressed in prayer and fed in Scripture. You have all kinds of opportunities to call upon God in prayer and to meditate upon his word. He loves you and delights in your expressions of weakness and dependence. He is glorified in your weakness.


Upcoming: Part 6 - The Theology of Prayer: Means of Grace


Emmett

Freedom from Quiet Time Guilt - Part 4 of 6

First and foremost, here's wishing everyone a blessed Chinese New Year! Hope the holidays, 'tho short, have been a good time to catch up with relatives and friends!

A reminder to all who have been baptised and are members of the church, there is business meeting at 8pm this friday (30th Jan). Although the meeting may be dry, or you may feel that it is of no relevance to you, I feel that as a part of this community, it is really our duty and responsibility to concern ourselves with the happenings in the church. Think about the question the day you were baptised, when the reverend/pastor asked, "你愿不愿意加入教会，并且履行会友的责任吗？" Not trying to be legalistic, but if your time permits, do try to make church matters on the whole your concern too. =)

4. The Shocker: Grace for the Christian

This grace is for you right now, now and tonight and tomorrow and next week and forever. The deadly assumption made too often among those who claim to heed the Scriptures is that grace is only for non-Christians. Grace is what God offers to people who don’t know Christ. Grace is what makes us Christians; but once we’re Christians, we live by our own resources. This is why advocates of Strength Christianity so often sound like evangelical Christians. They really do believe that God offers grace to unbelievers who will turn to God through Jesus Christ. And they’re right on that. What they wrongly assume, though, is that the Christian life begins by grace, but continues by human works.

I’ve seen this confusion many times. I found it ironic that the very same prayer program that so hurt the church I love included within it an absolutely wonderful children’s program. This at first puzzled me. The children who attended were pointed to Jesus, reassured of God’s love for them, and encouraged to rest in God’s mercy and total acceptance in Christ. In the adult activities, by contrast, people were told to try harder, to persevere, to do better, to be more consistent and to pray more, so that God could bless them. The children heard, “God did it,” while the adults were told, “Just do it.”

Why the difference? The difference was simple. These teachers were assuming that the children of the church were not yet Christians (…an assumption I would question). God offers non-Christians grace. The adults, however, were committed Christians. The Christian’s relationship with God rests not upon God’s grace, but upon his or her performance, particularly the performance of the ultimate devotional duty, the daily quiet time. This assumption that "grace isn’t for Christians" is spiritual venom, which is keeping millions of Christians in bondage to self-reliance, guilt, shame, and despair. Quiet Time Guilt is the great epidemic among Bible-believing Christians today.

If you think the purpose behind this little tract is to absolve you from the call to pray or the need for Scripture, think again. My purpose is to free you to desire prayer—to desire God. I want you to long for the pure message of the gospel, spelled out on page after page of the Bible, and to find the joyous freedom found in Christ. Prayer is a grace, not a work. It is a confession of our neediness to God, not a proof that our “relationship with God” is going well. If you think that God will not bless you today because you missed your quiet time, this has been for you. If subtle legalism has left you in bondage so that you no longer hunger for God’s word or freely call out to him in prayer, then hear this: God has already chosen you, pronounced you righteous, adopted you into his family, and promised to finish his work in you. Perhaps you have been lied to in the past. Now it is time for the truth to set you free. Free to be needy. Free to fail. Free to approach God without dread. Free to delight in him rather than in your performance.

But I have a few more theological reflections to share before you leave. Keep reading.


Upcoming: Part 5 - The Shocker: The Quiet Time is Optional


Emmett