Isolation – self induced, by personal living circumstance or by oppression – is one of the greatest threats to people, including Christians.

One of the greatest challenges to Christians living under religious persecution, oppression and restrictions is isolation, both from God’s Word and from the body of Christ. While many of us who reads this live in places with religious freedom and harmony, and a click away from great preaching and exposition of the bible, there are many more who have no access to this blog, or any Christian blogs, who are isolated, who have not met another Christian for months… or years… who are wondering if the church, or God Himself, has forgotten and given up on them. North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Maldives are the top five countries among the 50 that the WorldWatchList ranks as the worst persecuted countries. Death, arrest, imprisonment, lost of citizenship or identity may be a nightfall away…

While we thank God for this unique freedom of faith, to be able to choose the where, when, what… on the church we are planning to go to this weekend, let us remember and pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ who are living under persecution, with no “where, when, what”  this coming weekend or in fact the uncountable weekends ahead on enjoying a physical gathering around decent number of fellow brothers and sisters in Christ over great songs of praise, hearing God’s word together, having delicious supper out in the open…

Yet, when these brothers and sisters in Christ are encouraged and strengthen by God’s word, by prayer of the church, by fellow suffering Christians, they can exhibit the forgiveness and love that few living in comfort can imagine.

Quoting from the WorldWatchList “Where Faith Costs the Most”,
“The witness of persecuted Christians has a unique power to reach a new generation of lives and communities that would otherwise never be open to the gospel – but they cannot do it alone.”

Are we with them?

Church History in Plain Language by Bruce Shelley

This book takes you through the whole history of the church in one volume, from the days of Paul right through to the present. As the (somewhat hokey) title suggests, it’s extremely easy to read and easy to understand. While it looks like a brick at almost 600 pages, the writing is so light you could actually knock it over in a few sittings. And at the end you’ll have a solid grasp of where the church has come from. Sometimes it feels like you’re listening to an old Southern grandpa – Shelley like to call people ‘folks’ and present them speaking in homey dialogues – but if you can get past the ‘plain language’, it’s a very worthwhile read.

The Story of Christianity by Justo Gonzalez

While it isn’t an academic work, this one’s a bit more in-depth. Gonzalez’s Story of Christianity is in two volumes: the first from the Apostles to the Reformation, and the second bringing the story up to the present. For my money, this is the best general church history you could read. Gonzalez’s history is accomplished and thorough. He is a brilliant writer – he’s very easy to understand, but doesn’t sacrifice subtlety for simplicity. Gonzalez has worked hard to present the history of Christianity as a coherent narrative, with important characters and events, conflicts and tensions. He therefore takes a sweeping overview of church history, punctuated by occasional dives into short biographies of influential Christians and crucial events. It’s one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read this year.

Both of these books are on the shelves at Koorong, or follow the links to Amazon.

But how did the churches know whether a certain books should be included in the New Testament? We often say that the books in the New Testament are “inspired” (“breathed out” by God), and that’s what sets them apart. This is true, but only in hindsight. We often imagine this to mean that God handed these books to us already written, as if Paul’s hand was moved for him as he wrote things he barely understood. As we saw at Hub, this definitely wasn’t the case. Paul wrote what he thought for people he knew.

The Catholic Church has a different take. It says that the books are in the New Testament because the church said they would be. That is, the early Christians decided which books they would trust, and that’s why we trust them now. This is even more problematic than the ‘handed down’ idea. If the books are only in the New Testament because the early Christians liked them, why should they be any better than other books?

The books in the New Testament weren’t handed down to us, nor were they chosen by the early Christians. The New Testament formed as of the early church recognised the authority of the apostles and their writings, and placed itself under their teaching. The books in the New Testament are there because the church recognised that these were the books with the most trustworthy teaching about Jesus, what he did, and what it means for us.

And we’re still doing it. We recognise that the books in the New Testament tell us the truth about the gospel. So we read them, study them, and work out what they’re saying, so we can know more about Jesus and live better lives in response to him.

The day before Jesus was executed, he celebrated the ancient Jewish festival of Passover with his disciples. At Passover, Jews eat a meal together to remember the time, centuries before, when God took the life of every first-born son in Egypt, but passed over the houses of the Israelites, who had sacrificed a lamb in place of their son. It was this first Passover that led to the Israelite’s escape from slavery to the Egyptians.

Jesus and his disciples celebrated Passover as Jews had done for hundreds of years, with unleavened bread and wine. But when it came time to eat, Jesus did something extraordinary. As he handed the bread around, he said, “This is my body.” If you’ve heard these words a thousand times in church, they probably don’t sound strange. But imagine how it sounded to the disciples. This bread is his body? What?

It’s a strange thing to say in itself, but the disciples had greater reason to be confused. Jesus was identifying his body with the Passover meal, and the disciples wouldn’t have missed the implication. He was saying that his body would be a sacrifice which would rescue a people from slavery.

More than that, Jesus was saying that the Passover wasn’t actually about God rescuing the Israelites from Egypt at all; he was saying the Passover was really all about him. Not only was this confusing, it was insulting. The Passover was the most sacred festival in the Jewish calendar, and for Jesus to say it was all about him was outrageous.

Jesus, of course, knew something the disciples didn’t. He knew what was going to happen on Good Friday. He would die in our place, like the lamb that died instead of the Israelite son. His death would rescue us from slavery to sin and death. The first Passover was a momentous act of rescue for the Israelites, but it pales in light of the rescue that Jesus’ death would perform. The Passover really was all about Jesus. Maundy Thursday explains what Good Friday means.

Bonus fact! The name Maundy comes from the Latin word Mandatum, which is the first word in the phrase, “Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos”. If you went to a Maundy Thursday service back in the day, you would have heard the priest say this phrase, and so the day came to be named after it.

Challenge! Ten points to the first person to accurately translate the phrase.

Photo by Paurian via Flickr

1. The City
In a city, you don’t expect to know everyone. Even though that might be a shame, the expectation would never occur to you.  So, why do people live (in increasing numbers) in cities? Well, among many reasons are that cities provide resources and possibilities that country towns never could. That is, we live together in cities to bless each other by providing resources for each other that we couldn’t in small communities. That’s why ethnic and religious and sexual minority groups love cities: because the resources to be who they are are available in cities.

In Perth, I don’t know the guy who runs the art gallery, or the gal who runs Subi Oval, or the people who manage Kings Park, or whatever, but they all bless me by providing me with things that a small town just couldn’t.

My theory is that, once a church gets over about 150, it begins to function more like a City. The possibility of knowing everyone vanishes, but the possibilities of blessing each other in other ways increase. To be positive about being larger would surely involve re-jigging expectations about church: putting aside some that are no longer possible and embracing other that are possible in a whole new way. A good question: How can we bless our community and each other in our present shape?

2. The Tribe
A Tribe in this theory is a group between about 20-100. In this group you can reasonable expect to know everyone. You don’t expect intimacy, but you do expect community. You expect to be able to share life together, to have meaningful relationships and, most of all, to band together in common causes to make a difference. In the past our church was like this, then our Tuesday Hub became the Tribe. Now we have Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday morning’s Unichurch International. They are all Tribes, and we need to work out how to nurture and strengthen these tribal units for God’s glory.

3. The Clan
The Clan is the group of 5-20. This is the group that you do expect to know well. You reasonably expect a degree of intimacy here. A place where people know your struggles and are able to speak into your life personally and deeply. When our Bible studies met in homes, they were strong Clans, but we didn’t have a strong Tribe. Hub gave us a strong Tribe, but at some cost to our Clans.

At the moment, people in the Unichurch leadership are busily working away on a proposal for the next step for Unichurch. We would greatly value your prayers for this, and we hope to have something to present to the congregation for your consideration and feedback by the time of the Weekend Away (24-26 April). If our proposed model includes something like a City (=a continuing congregation of over 150 people), I’d love your thoughts on the following questions:

- How can we maximize the City-type blessings of our community?
- What can we do to strengthen the Tribes? Where and how could we build new Tribes?
- How can we build and strengthen the Clans?

Love, Rory

For over fifty years, Polycarp showed that he had listened to Ignatius’s advice. He served the church and preached the gospel unceasingly. His great pupil, Irenaeus, tells us that Polycarp was a gifted teacher, “a man who was of much greater weight, and a more steadfast witness of truth, than … all the heretics.” His teaching was extremely important and influential at a time when the church was working out what it should believe and fighting a range of false teachings.

When Polycarp was eighty-six, the Romans began and large-scale persecution of Christians in Smyrna. Germanicus, an elderly Christian in Smyrna, was one of the first to be tried. When he refused to deny Christ, he was thrown to wild animals for the Romans’ enjoyment. But the crowd wasn’t satisfied, and called for the church leader, Polycarp, to be executed as well.

Polycarp went into hiding, but he was soon found, and willingly went before the Roman authorities. When Polycarp refused to worship the emperor, the judge ordered him to cry, “Out with the atheists!” But Polycarp, turning and pointing at the crowd, replied, “Yes, out with the atheists!” Romans called Christians ‘atheists’ because they didn’t believe in the Roman gods, but Polycarp pointed out that it was the Romans who didn’t believe in God.

The judge threatened to burn him alive at the stake, but Polycarp just answered that while the judge’s fire would last only a few minutes, the eternal fire would never go out. “Eighty-six years I have served him, and he has done me no evil,” Polycarp said, “How could I curse my king, who saved me?”

As he was tied to the stake and kindling was piled around he feet, Polycarp pubicly thanked God that he was allowed to share in Christ’s sufferings. His godly example would inspire Christians for centuries to come.

Other dead guys who dominate: Ignatius

At the time of Ignatius’s arrest, big festivals were being planned in Rome. So the authorities decided to take Ignatius to Rome and make his execution a part of the entertainment. On the way to Rome, Ignatius wrote seven letters to various churches and church leaders around the ancient world. These letters are some of the earliest Christian documents outside the New Testament that survive to us. They therefore give us some important insights into what the early church was like and the issues it was talking about.

Ignatius was born around AD 30 or 35, so he was well over seventy when he was arrested. Not much is known about his life, but in his letters he often refers to himself as Theophorus, or “the bearer of God”, which may have been his nickname. This indicates that Ignatius was an influential and respected leader in the church. From his letters it is clear that he tenaciously opposed various false teachings popular in Antioch at the time.

On the way to Rome, a number of Christian leaders wanted to meet Ignatius as he traveled past their towns. With these leaders he sent letters of encouragement and teaching back to their churches. In the letters, Ignatius emphasized the importance of communion and good church leadership, among other things.

While he was traveling, news came to Ignatius that a group of Christians in Rome were hatching a plan to free him. But he was determined to die as a martyr, and show the Romans that he was willing to die for Christ, who had died for him less than a hundred years earlier. So Ignatius wrote a letter to the Christians at Rome asking them not to go through with their plan.

Ignatius believed, like Paul, that his suffering would “fill up in [his] flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions” (Colossians 1:24). In his letter to the Roman Christians, he wrote:

I am dying willingly for God’s sake, if only you do not prevent it. I beg you, do not do me an untimely kindness. Allow me to be eaten by the beasts, which are my way of reaching to God. I am God’s wheat, and I am to be ground by the teeth of wild beasts, so that I may become the pure bread of Christ.

Soon after, Ignatius was executed in Rome. He probably was probably torn apart by wild animals in front of a crowd of cheering of Roman revelers. Just as his Lord had suffered and died for him, he was willing to die a horribly bloody death as a witness to his Lord.

If you want to check out Ignatius’s letters, search for Ignatius at CCEL.

Photo by vgm8383 via Flickr.

Some of the kids were really nervous because it was their first time, but they warmed up after a while. Biscuits and games helped. Unfortunately I was a bit forgetful when it came to drying kids hands with a fluffy towel: “What? That’s not your hand? Ooooohhhhh… that’s your arm! Aren’t I silly! What? That’s a leg? My goodness… I have got this wrong”. (Don’t worry—I have a Working With Children check).

It will be fun and challenging to teach these littlies the gospel in a way that is appropriate for them and shows the depths of God’s love for us. I confess that I’m not really sure how to do it! Fortunately for me and the kids I’ll get some help along the way. I can use all the help I can get. Anybody got great tips for teaching the Bible to 4–5 year olds?

Photo by jensebert on Flickr

So, I’ve decided to preach on doubt.

I’ve had plenty of conversations with people in the last few years about doubt. Sometimes it’s doubt as is “is this true?”. Other times it’s more personal, like “am I really forgiven?”. So, I intend to do some thinking, reading and praying about this topic and see what we can come up with by way of a sermon.

Any hot tips on what I should think about, read or be praying for? And I’d be curious–anyone actually heard a sermon on this topic before?
Love, Rory

Meanwhile, our very own humble church-plant, Unichurch International, resumed meeting for 2009 this morning with a Chinese New Year/Indian Republic Day/Australia Day celebratory lunch. So exciting to have so many of us together again. And very excited to be moving onto the campus of UWA (God willing) on the 8th of February.