Three ways to live

Our church is doing a series of topical studies on prayer in the month of March, and this is the topic we are also discussing in out small group.

1) What is prayer?

There are two main words which mean pray/prayer in the Bible, Hebrew “palal” and Greek “proseuchomai”. The meaning of both words is roughly the same - making requests to God. So in a away, it is completely correct to split the prayers into “thanksgiving prayers”, “petition prayers”, “meditation prayers”, as all prayers should contain some petition. But as the Bible also shows, alongside the petitions, the prayer usually contained meditations, thanksgivings, etc.

2) Why should we pray?

We don’t have to pray, we have the privilege to pray. Deuteronomy 4:7 (NIV)

7 What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him?

Prayer is God’s given access to Him. Until we understand this, prayer will always be a grind, something that we have to do but don’t really want to.

3) What should be the petition part of the prayer for?

Many, many things are mentioned in the Bible, including such things as daily needs, health, withholding of judgment, wisdom, Holy Spirit, forgiveness, guidance.

4) Whom do we pray to?

This is not as obvious as it sounds. All Old Testament and Jesus’ prayers were addressed to God directly. New Testament has one examples of prayer addressed to Jesus, see Acts 7:59. We are also to pray to God by through Jesus Eph 5:20, since he is the one who intercedes for us Rom. 8:34; Heb. 7:25. Spirit also intercedes for us, but by helping us from inside, Rom. 8:26-27.

So the Christians should be praying to God, through Jesus, in and by the Holy Spirit. Note that this stands in stark contrast with the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox teachings suggesting prayers to God through saints (including Mary, the mother of Jesus). Their reason is that since these saints are now with God and have access to him, they can help us with our requests. Yet, in my opinion, this transforms the mediating authority from Jesus to these saints. This practice is never mentioned in the Bible and only appeared (mistakenly or not?) during early church years.

5) What time, where, In what position to pray?

Scripture does not suggest single correct time, place, or posture for prayer. People pray while standing, kneeling, lying down, lifting their hands, sitting, bowing or pounding their chest. They pray in the morning, afternoons, evenings and nights. Some pray alone in secluded locations, some in public.

Having said that, the external factors do matter, as they often are a good reflection of our heart attitude. Desire to pray in public only may stem from pride. Praying while lying on a couch signals our misunderstanding of whom we are speaking to.

6) How to make the prayer more effective?

a) Faith. The faith does play a role - you have to believe that the prayer will be answered, as Mark 11:24 says “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. ”

b) Hypocrisy and Sin. Prayers may be ineffective because of hypocrisy, see Matthew 6:5-8 and

Mark 11:25 (NIV)

25 And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

or sin, Isa. 1:15-17; Hos. 6:6; Amos 5:21-24.

c) Powerful people. In the Old Testament, the outcome does seem to depend on who prays. For example, Moses and Samuel seemed to have greater access to God. The Lord once said to Jeremiah: “Even if Moses and Samuel were to stand before me, my heart would not go out to this people. ” (Jeremiah 15:1). However, the presence of an “important person” is no guarantee, as even Moses’ prayers sometimes have been rejected, see Exodus 32:30-35

However, the idea of some people having greater access to God has almost disappeared in the New Testament. The often quoted verse from James 5:16-17

16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. 17 Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.

is often misunderstood. The righteous man here refers to us, people who were declared righteous by God through the sacrifice of Jesus. This grants us the same access to God as Elijah used to have!

d) Attitude. Often biblical characters suggest to God that he should act in a given way because his honor, glory, grace, mercy or trustworthiness demands such a response. The narrative accounts of these prayers leave the distinct impression that God is pleased when his character is appealed to but not presumed upon (Ex 32:11–14; Num 14:13–22; Deut 9:26–29; Neh 1:4–11).

e) Content. The content bears great importance. God would grant us things if it is according to his will:
1 John 5:14-15 (NIV)

14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.

7) Remaining questions. The basics mentioned above do not address all the issues. Even after going through all the points, our group still had many questions, of which I mention the main eight:

1) Why pray if God knows what you will ask him before you actually do (Matthew 6:8)?
2) Why pray if God will only grant your request if it is according to his will, but if it is according to his will, he will do it anyway even if you don’t ask him. In other words, can prayer (or its absence) really change God’s mind and if it cannot, why pray?
3) What is the point of praying in groups, should we just do it individually? Is it more effective?
4) Is it a good idea to pray for something or somebody we are not very familiar with or don’t really care about and hence might not care much about the outcome?
5) If we pray for non-Christians, should these prayers be limited to their salvation or we can pray for other things too, e.g. health?
6) Should we continue asking God about the same thing again and again or trust that he has heard us the first time and have faith that he will eventually act?
7) Can we say that if our prayers do not get answered, then we are doing something wrong?
8) What does it mean to pray in and by the Spirit?
9) What can we pray for? Should it be only about important things or mundane ones too? Where do we draw the line? When do we let go and let God?

We will try to address all these question in our study next week.

Just found this announcement on Agora Singapore blog. Daniel Block is teaching at Wheaton College and is the author of several well-respected Bible commentaries (Judges, Ruth, Ezekiel) and several other books. Daniel’s talk will be on Saturday (March 18), 10am, Singapore Bible College. The topic is “Preaching Old Testament Law to New Testament Christians”. Registration is $10, call +65 6559 1532.

The relationship between Old Testament law and Christian life is rather complex. We have just did a study on Romans 7-8 and it appears that there is still a debate on what it means to live according to the Spirit and not according to the written law, see my previous post. I do look forward to what Daniel have to say on the subject!

If in the previous chapter Paul tried to persuade us why, after been justified, we should stop sinning, he now discusses the subject of law and its role in Christian life.

1) Is the law good or bad?

That is a tricky question. On one hand, “the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death” (Rom 7:5). But one the other hand, “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good” (Rom 7:12). So which is it?

The law is good in itself but it was bad for us as it was use by the sin to produce sinful passions in us, see Rom 7:8.

2) What is the solution?

We need to die to the law through the body of Christ, to belong to him (Rom 7:4). We are released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, not the old way of written code (Rom 7:6).

4) What is Paul trying to say in Rom 7:14-20?

We all have split personalities. There is a part of us which is good and a part that which is not. Paul calls the good part the mind or inner being and the bad part - the members of the body.

Commentators disagree on the meaning of “I” in these verses. Does Paul talk about himself prior to conversion or after? My personal opinion is that Paul is trying to say is that we all have good and bad parts, whether before or after conversion. These are waging war against each other (Rom 7:23). However, after the conversion the inner part is transformed by the Spirit and now has the power to overcome the sinful part.

So, to summarize, these are two that we have as Christians to help us live a godly life:

Our sinful nature is weaker than before because it’s lost its most powerful weapon - the written law.
Our inner being is stronger than before because it’s gain its most powerful weapon - the Spirit of God.

5) So, then, how should we live?

We should serve in the new way of the Spirit, not the old way of written code (Rom 7:6). Live by the spirit, not by written law.

What does this mean exactly is debatable. Clearly, it cannot mean that Christians should stop obeying the ten commandments, as this clearly contradicts the desires of the Spirit (Rom 8:5). John Stott’s commentary on Romans was of great help to me here. According to him, not living by the written law means two things:

a) Do not use law for justification
b) Do not use law for sanctification

Point a) is quite clear - no one can be justified by obeying the law (Rom 3:20). No one can earn salvation by trying to live a good life.

To understand what Paul means by not using the law for sanctification, it is helpful to read through Colossians 2:13-23

When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, 14 having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. 15 And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.
…
20 Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

Application

According to John Stott, the right way of applying Romans 7–8 is to recognize that some church-goers today might be termed ‘Old Testament Christians’. The contradiction implied in this expression indicates what an anomaly they are. They show signs of new birth in their love for the church and the Bible, yet their religion is law, not gospel; flesh, not Spirit; the ‘oldness’ of slavery to rules and regulations, not the ‘newness’ of freedom through Jesus Christ. They are like Lazarus when he first emerged from the tomb, alive but still bound hand and foot. They need to add to their life liberty.

Verse 8:4 is of great importance for our understanding of Christian holiness. First, holiness is the ultimate purpose of the incarnation and the atonement. The end God had in view when sending his Son was not our justification only, through freedom from the condemnation of the law, but also our holiness, through obedience to the commandments of the law. The moral law has not been abolished for us; it is to be fulfilled in us.

If in Romans 1-5 Paul expounds the meaning of the gospel, then in chapters 6-8 he turns to a very important topic of how the gospel can change our life, especially our struggle with sin. The main question that Paul addressed in Romans 6 is found in v.15: “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?”

Indeed, if we are justified by faith alone (as Reformers have re-discovered), what incentive do we have to live a holy life? Why can’t we enjoy the best of two worlds - the sweetness of sin and the benefits of salvation?

To answer the question, Paul develops a metaphor where sin is personified as a slave master and we as his slaves, obeying all his desires. Righteousness is also personified as a slave master. What happens to us at the point of conversion is that we change slave masters and start serving righteousness instead of sin.

So Paul’s answer can be summarized as follows. You used to be a slave to a bad master, which would eventually lead to your death. Now you have become a slave to a good master, outcome of which is eternal life. Why would you ever want to come back to your former master and continue working for him (to sin)?

Many of us would find this answer unconvincing. So what if I occasionally serve the old master; after all it gives me a lot of pleasure? The new master’s job may lead to eternal life, but is boring and too restrictive!

The reason Christians can think like this is because

a) they don’t see slavery in their former lives
b) they don’t see freedom in their new lives

I think the best person to go if you need help understanding these concepts in the modern context is Tim Keller. He keeps referring to them again and again, in almost all his sermons. I have explained some of his ideas in my earlier post “Gotta serve somebody“. Go and read it. Listen to Tim Keller’s sermons. Think. But until you start seeing slavery in your old life and freedom in the new, you will never be able to completely understand why you should strive to be a good person if you have already been made right with God.

Here is a lengthy but excellent article on the New Perspective on Paul (NPP) by Simon Gathercole. Gathercole wrote a book on the subject, entitled ”Where is boasting?“, so knows his stuff really well. His explanations are clear and convincing.

Rob Bell, a founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church, is becoming an influential figure in the Christian world; some even call him the next Bill Graham. But he has also been accused by some of heresy, while others associate him with emergent church.

Rob is most famous for a series of short videos entitled “Nooma” (from Greek word “pneuma” meaning spirit). When I first watched some of them, I was quite impressed. But searching the web revealed a lot of negative opinions which suggested the series were not representng the gospel correctly. My personal opinion have swayed back and forth on several occasions, but I think I have finally reached some conclusions I would like to share with my readers:

1) The videos are packaged and presented in a such way that suggests their evangelistic use. However, this should be done with extreme caution. Presentation of Christianity in this videos is rather one-sided, as follows from this three part scoop by Greg Gilbert. In particular, Rob has chosen to focus on God’s love rather than God’s judgment, on what God does for us, rather than what he requires us to do for him. Important to note that I am not completely objecting to this - I very strongly believe in contextualization, which can be defined as giving people a one sided story (to capture their interest) with the intention to come back and tell the rest of the story later. The danger comes when we don’t come back, when we forget to challenge people’s beliefs, to tell them how much God hates sin, how the cross of Christ saves us, and so on. Not doing that amounts to over-contextualization.
2) The videos are great for Christians. D.A. Carson’s recent comment helped me to see this. If you read in all the Christians suppositions into the videos, you will enjoy them. So if you are familiar with and accept all the truths of Christianity but don’t feel it’s real in your life, if all you have is a head knowledge, you might benefit from watching the series. The videos are very well produced and Rob Bell has a gift for “making it real”. I completely agree with Carson that vidoes are empty in the sense of knowledge, but would phrase it in a more positive way - the videos are empty in the sense that they don’t add anything to the head knowledge. Yet they are good at touching you emotionally, making the knowledge get into your heart - something very few other things can do.
3) Despite what I said in point 2), I don’t think Rob’s is only way to make knowledge real. In fact, it’s wrong to think that knowledge and emotion must be separated. I know of plenty good teachers/preachers who can excellently combine the two: C.S. Lewis, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Tim Keller, Mark Driscoll, to name a few.

If you have never watched any of the clips, “Rain” is a good place to start:

1) What is the main idea of this chapter?

There are so many things in this passage, it’s easy to get lost: “peace with God”/“reconciliation” (vv. 1, 10, 11), “access to grace” (v. 2), hope in the glory of God and for final salvation (vv. 2, 5, 9, 10), joy in suffering (vv. 3 – 4), and God’s love for us (vv. 5 – 8). Douglas Moo in his commentary on Romans thinks that a unifying idea is related to the future:

v. 2b: “we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God”
v. 5a: “And hope does not disappoint us”
v. 9: “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!”
v. 10: “For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!”

2) What is the main purpose of this chapter?

Paul is trying to persuade us of something. The logical statement “If something is true, how much more something else should be true” appears four times! And the portion after “how much more” is what Paul is persuading us about - salvation and eternal life. In other words, Paul wants us to be sure that after been justified, we will be saved!

3) What does it mean to be saved? Is it not the same as being justified?

They are two different things. We are justified by Jesus’ sacrifice and resurrection, but we are saved by his life (v.10). Salvation appears to be something that follows justification. Paul refers to justification as a past even (we have been justified) but to salvation as future (we shall be saved).

4) If justification and salvation are two different events, does the former guarantee the latter?

That is the whole point of Paul’s argument. That’s where “how much more” arguments come in.

5) What is the connection between suffering and this hope of salvation?

Suffering helps us better see the hope and be more confident about it. This idea is clearer put in 1 Peter 4:12-16 (NIV)

12 Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15 If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. 16 However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.

God’s justification puts us in a privileged position, to be under his grace (and at peace with Him). Hence the sufferings become the marks of us being Christian and give us further assurance of the hope of God’s glory.

6) How else does Paul try to persuade us of the certainty of salvation?

To understand his second argument, we need to understand the meaning of v.12 “all died because all sinned”. One explanation (so-called Pelagian view) is that we all copy Adam’s sin and hence sin just as he did and hence are punished for it by death. Another view is that we experience punishment because we are in Adam’s sin, whether we actually sin or not (although of course we do). This is the view that is being held by evangelicals today.

There is great support for the second view in vv.12-13. Sin deserves death only when it breaks the law, but people were not given the law until Moses. Yet all these people died. Why? They bore consequences of Adam’s sin, and whether they actually sinned or not is irrelevant (although of course they did).

Does it sound unfair to you? It might. But Paul is using this argument to make us more convinced of our salvation. If we were condemned on an individual level, because of our individual sins, the result would still be death. Yet, we could not have been saved on the individual level, since none of us can live a sinless life. Yet, because we were all condemned through Adam, communally, we can now be saved through one person - Jesus, also communally, not because we deserve it but by grace.

Applications

What is the Christian view on suffering?

Borrowing these application from one of the Tim Keller’s sermons.

Some sufferings caused by sin and some are not, and very often it’s hard to tell. What’s important is not why it happens to us but what our response should be. According to Paul we are to rejoice in our sufferings, as they are the marks that we have been adopted as sons, and God greatly cares about what we become.

However, we must be careful to stay away from two extremes: masochism and stoicism. The former takes pleasure in suffering. While it does help you rejoice, it is completely against God’s nature. Suffering is evil, there is no point rejoicing in it. The suffering is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Our sufferings are a way to blessings, not the blessings in themselves. Stoicism is another extreme, where we deny our sufferings, pretend they are not there. This is a clear contradiction to Paul’s command.

What’s wrong with both approaches is that we do not learn from our sufferings. If you enjoy the pain or deny it, you would not absorb it and it would not lead to any real change in your character or more assurance of the hope of salvation.

I have been writing a lot about faith and what it means to be justified by it, in conjunction with our study on the book of Romans. So I thought it would be helpful to know how Reformers defined the concept of faith. Michael Patton from “Reclaiming the Mind” blog had recently made an interesting post on this, which I found very helpful. Here I provide a short summary.

Three main aspects of faith: notitia, assensus, and fiducia.

1) Notitia. Content of the faith. Reformers understood that you cannot just have faith, you must have faith in something, your faith must always have a content.
2) Assensus. Confidence that this content is true. As Michael puts it, while notitia claims “Christ rose from the grave,” assensus takes the next step and says, “I am persuaded to believe that Christ rose from the grave.”
3) Fiducia. Trust in the content of the faith to the degree that it changes the way you live. Christ died for our sins (notitia). I believe that Christ died for my sins (notitia + assensus). I place my trust in Christ to save me (fiducia).

I agree with Michael that the churches nowadays seem to lack at least one of these. Notitia and assensus without fiducia is the head knowledge and is widespread among nominal Christians. Lack of assensus is blind faith, trusting in something we are not sure about.

The post made me think about what separates the true Christian faith from false? True faith must always have notitia (quite obvious). It must have fiducia - head knowledge that does not change who you are is not a true faith. What about assensus, can a blind faith be true? I don’t know. What I do know is that such faith will be unstable, it will fluctuate depending on your mood or condition. Despite the fact that we can never be 100% sure about anything, whether science or religion, we must be able to live with at least some degree of uncertainty. My understanding of assensus is that it is the confidence in the decision you make by examining all the facts and alternative explanations about something. Building faith on assensus is like building a house on a strong foundation; yes, you can build your house on sand, but it will crumble after first serious storm.

Tim Keller’s new book “The Reason for God” now has its own website. And it’s very well made.

Here is an important recent interview with N.T. Wright about correct Christian understanding of heaven. While teaching of Wright are often rather controvescial, here he presents an orthodox teaching that is oh so often missed nowadays.

So what is life after death? Here are the main points:

1) There is no heaven (or hell) right after death. Instead, we enter so-called itermediate state. It is not clear what happens during this state. We will be with God and with Christ, resting and being refreshed, we will be conscious, but compared with being bodily alive, it will be like being asleep.

2) What is more important is the next stage, life after life after death - the final place where we will live forether, which can only be entered after the final judgment. But this place is not some place in the clouds but rather a renewed physical Earth where our current bodies will be resurrected into something completely different.