Sound Doctrine

I notice I tend to write reflections and thoughts on the world or life quite abit. And its about time I talk about doctrine, as in doctrine itself. There is a problem here because the moment this is pointed out, people switch off instantly because they think its uninteresting or inconsequential. Let me say that this cannot be further from the truth. Sound doctrine in our layman's language refers to the teachings of Jesus and the rightful understanding of them. What is then clear is that doctrine is tremendously delightful, because it reveals to us who Christ is. And thus the apathy toward doctrine is pretty dangerous.

People say " What is the use of knowing about doctrine if you don't know Jesus?" And i acknowledge that this might be possible, but its impossible to know Jesus unless one is revealed the right doctrine about who He is.

The apostle John made it very clear from the start,

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John1:1)

If Christ reveals Himself as indivisble from His Word, how infinitely important it must be to have the right understanding of it! If one does not know the Word or be revealed the truth about the Word then there is no basis for any legitimate claim to knowing Jesus. The Word is inseparable from the person of Christ and to say I know Christ with a dismissive attitude towards the Word and its appropriate understanding, is a sign of gross immaturity. Doctrine therefore reveals to us the workings of the Word, its exhilarating depth and awe striking beauty. To not know the Word is to not know Christ. In knowing Christ, we delight in His Word.

Herein the great trouble with many of us, for we have sought the Lord for all the good feeling and emotions without understanding the basis of His love and power. To say, give me experience without boring me with the doctrine, is to build foundations upon the sand. It is important to note that both man and devil can make man emotional but only the God of the Word can change lives. Not that God's work is unemotional, it certainly is, but not all emotional experiences are moved by the Holy Spirit. We must begin to seek truth which is the basis for real experiences with God and not experiences alone.

I suspect this huge problem began because it appeared that doctrine was stripped of any power and real application. This segregation of doctrine and its power started when Man began to treat doctrine as an academic experience, carefully and tediously constructed in the laboratory of the human mind and thus more a logical exercise rather than being centered on the great purpose of knowing Jesus. We quickly swung to the other side where we abandon doctrine for practical application, thinking that the letter kills. Indeed the letter killed when we drained it of intimacy with God, but without a real intimacy with God, how can we say that the doctrine is understood correctly? In confining doctrine to an academic box, we took away its most important element- the exemplification of the God we were made to Love. Indeed, the problem with powerless doctrine is more to do with the men who fail to understand it and teach it then it is with the doctrine itself. More so then ever, the teachers of doctrine need to be changed by the Holy Spirit and not that the doctrine requires changing to suit our needs. The nub is that we haven't realised the reality and power of what we are coming into contact with. Sound doctrine that does not change lives and dramatically alter perspectives away from the world and towards a deeper intimacy with Christ and His kingdom is either poorly and lazily understood or is false doctrine to begin with.

Indeed, Paul says it well to Timothy, then actively pastoring churches and we do well to remember how doctrine and christian living are indivisible(I need to remember this more earnestly)

"Watch your life and your doctrine closely, persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourselves and your hearers." (1 Timothy 4:16)

Paul is very clear about the effectiveness of sound doctrine which is sufficient for the salvation of souls and thus must be so closely examined. When doctrine is carefully pruned by God, it exemplifies the work of Christ and thus saves souls. It is that powerful! For when God rescues a man by exposing the wretchedness of the mans' heart, the man is utterly changed through a faith which is given by God through grace. His life and the doctrine become inseparable. His new life is reflected in the doctrine and the doctrine tells the story of how a Just and loving God rescued the man by inflicting His Son. Of course man is not saved by doctrine! He is saved by Christ and doctrine is the right understanding of Christ and His work.

Indeed as doctrine diminishes in importance amidst the growing consumer christian culture that looks actively for short pithy sayings rather returning to the bible itself and the theology of many is built around the lyrics of contemporary christian songs, we are in danger of abject shallowness. The difference is that understanding doctrine requires pure hard work, alot of prayer and the grace to know that it is solely upon the mercies of Christ that truth is known. He is the prize of the race and as more truth is revealed, the cost of knowing the truth increases but He reveals Himself more and more. One thing i have come to discover about sound doctrine is this, it is uncompromising and demonstrates the supremacy of Christ. Indeed, that is why the doctrine that pervades the airwaves today seem rather odd, because they always pander to the desires of man. Thus it is good to remember this

For there will come a time, when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead to suit their own desires they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear (2 Timothy 4:3)

We do well to not fall into the habit of picking what doctrine we like and not like, but as John Piper so points out, real solid doctrine is always about the supremacy of Christ and Christ and Christ.

Army looms.

Today, while I was fiddling with my army uniform, I began to laugh. There was a distinct hilarity to the chuckle and before long I gathered myself and allowed the full weight of the oncoming severity to seep in. For want of preserving my dignity while facing this sense of foreboding, I folded my arms and tried to handle this more responsibly. My thoughts unfolded in this disjointed sequence.

For as much as I would like to scoff in the face of danger and laugh before the giants , much honesty can be found if I said that there was a tragic undertone to the chuckle. There was a battle within me, one that was fightingto avoid conforming to the overshadowing fatalism. You see, the army for me, was not as easy as the jokes I'd told about it and neither was it a slaughterhouse physically but there was always so much to dislike about it.

I was a 19 year old, well rounded gentleman, who loved reading, contemplation and the occasional chess game. I was unceremoniously thrown into lengthy jungle stays with green packeted field rations and a gun loaded to the teeth with blanks so as to ward of wild, aggressive swine. Neatly zip locked and tucked away in my attached pouch was a copy of Plato's Republic where, ironically, the benefits of a citizen army are argued systematically through the person of Socrates. Every time this man was given time for a long breather, the book was drawn from the all purpose pouch and devoured copiously - Indeed brownish marks that used to be the dirt from the Tekong forests are still evident on its pages today though the section where the citizen army is discussed is still clean. Then as it might be shortly, it was abit too much to weigh and ponder the utility of National service while one was in the jungle. Better in those times to think of protecting reason and morality and not allow these critical faculties to be overwhelmed with biaseness.

Was I overdoing it? Tugging The Republic to the jungle of all things! Back then, I was so worried of my mind malfunctioning, I did all I could to ensure that I did not stop thinking. The truth is that I was and still am not cut out or made for the military and though I like strategy and tactics, I like the air con room with my books alot more than charging up a slope followed closely by a competent platoon of mosquitoes. And yet come the day of re-enlistment, if i should stare in the sky and feel resigned, or badger my friends to sympathise with my plight, I would like to say that this is where God wants me to be and if entering gladly is how He is leading me to learn to love Him more, I pray He gives me the strength to do so with joy.

When I was in the army, God inspired so real a concern for my soul and the souls around me thatI was made to be utterly desperate in finding time for Him such that every spare moment was alternated between reading and staring into creation- hoping to catch a glimpse of my Maker. When my Seargent gave me a shelling for bringing my bible during field camp and then pillaging me thereafter when I was found reading it by a light stick 10 minutes before bed time, I got myself a new black notebook and copied come chapters of Romans into it so that I could do my quiet time in the jungle. And that was how God's grace was shown to me, in that I, a terribly weak man, who was not physically conditioned for the military in like forever, could be graciously given grace and strength to discover the goodness and faithfulness of God even in these difficult times.

Did it dawn upon me to pray that I would do well in the army? to give my best so that I could rise up the ranks and achieve high pay(army terminology)? Yes and I prayed a few of those prayers. Was I ever led to pray these prayers? The answer is a resounding NO, though He gave me strength to endure the tough trainings. Yet, when He met me, the focus of my utterings were, as I remember it, rather different. He taught me to pray for grace to know Him and wisdom to make Him known. At no point was I taught to pray for an easy way out though I wanted it very very much (if i'm honest, a huge part of me still does).

Truth is, the real battle is waged with a force invisible and so evil that to lament the ways of man and circumstance without seeing the forces behind it would be like jumping into a huge ditch despite smelling it a mile away. The moulding of any christian against this horde can only come by trials and tests of all sorts and victory in this is not about going to OCS or achieving a return to my comfy room without hassle a year-ish later. It is after we have glorified God through living our lives the way the bible commands through the power and only through the power of the gospel of Christ.

So I'm going to give my best, come what may, not the best that i can muster, but the best that comes by faith in Christ. It is not the best that might attain to accolades with man, though I will work on my SOC and IPPT (AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, a deep breath, AHHHHHHHHHHHH), I trust that it is the best that comes only by grace - one that can claim to no strength of man but is a gift from on High.

So let the drums row and the hoofs bite dust, let the forces conjoin along the bloodied banks where ancients have fought. With God as my shield and portion forever, I can hope for no better.

With that, I shall now go to sleep for I know I won't be getting much of that soon.

Absurdity in the counterfactual is still oddly valuable

Suppose Frederick defied his father and escaped to France instead of being captured at the border of Prussia, one can safely say the 7 years war would not have happen. Britain would not have captured Canada and huge swathes of Indian territory in that conflict. The Mughal empire would have gotten many more years of respite since it had grown quite apt at playing the British and the French against each other for much of the earlier 18th century. India was certainly in greater danger of colonisation after the War since the East India Company was now the sole and unopposed colonial force in the sub-continent. Indeed, similarly, had India not become so great a concern for Britain, trade with China wouldn't have taken on so vast a significance and perhaps the opium war might have be delayed just long enough for the Chinese Army to modernise. If Britain had not gotten so firm a grip on India and thus trade with China, I wonder if Singapore would ever have been? We could have been Portuguese, Spanish or French.

Had the British and Prussians not win so resounding a victory in the 7 year conflict in Europe, the British wouldn't have indebted the treasury quite so heavily and pushed it to enact a tax on its American colonies, which would have prevented the rowdy Americans from rebellion in 1776 and the geopolitical environment of America as we know it today would have been significantly different. Had France not lost the 7 years War, it probably wouldn't have sought for revenge in the same War of 1776 by allying itself with the Americans against the British. The resultant debt that the Bourbon French incurred was a debt so heavy that it had little choice but to revert to the ancient council of the notables and the Estates General which sparked off the French revolution. In fact if the 7 years war hadn't happen, France might not have intervene as willingly and the colonies would have lost, which did not happen and as history would have it, the idea of a constitutional American republic with enlightened ideas inspired the French to revolution in 1789. Had the French revolution of 1789 not occur, the ideas of nationalism and liberty would have ingloriously incubated in the books of the philosophers.

Without the French Revolution, Thomas Jefferson, then president of 13 colonies of America could not have secured the Louisiana purchase- 828000 square miles of territory, approximately the size of 11 states of the United States of America at a discounted price from Napoleon in 1803. Arguably, this single purchase, empowered an otherwise flimsy and nascent coastal empire toward greatness and superpower status. Had she not garnered these lands from the French, one shudders to think about the outcomes of the cold war.

Of course, had the french revolution not happen, what should one make of the writings of Karl Marx! since Europe's social and political upheavals of 1848 would be a dream within a dream. Without the examples of 18th century revolutions and the ideas of nationalism, Karl Marx could never have drawn inspiration for the communist manifesto and Des Capita and he would have been some ignominous teacher in the german provinces. The Russian Revolution would probably have slept in the possibilities of the improbable. The peasants could have revolted but it was more likely that a new tsarist dynasty would have emerged rather than a communist one. The cold war, if it ever happened, could only be vastly different from the one that ended in 1991; a competition between two monarchies and their empires rather than two competing systems of government and economic systems.

The age of ideology began with the French revolution of 1789 and had it petered out, as could have been the case, the Chinese Monarchy would have remained - frail but alive and possibility a new dynasty would have emerged with the same governing system and philosophy but probably a different family in charge. Absolutism and the mandate from heaven would ever and only be the sine qua non of Chinese civilisation. Sun Yet Sen would still be a doctor who lived happily in Hongkong with a decent paying job.

How the world has changed, simply because a precocious child made good after being forcibly returned to his Prussian father in the then insignificant state of Prussia. Indeed, one could say that I'd taken things too far, by over emphasizing causality and since history cannot repeat itself, I cannot be proven otherwise. Yet there is value in the counter factual, for like in a game of chess, one could have asked what would have happened if i had chosen to move another piece instead of this, and from this counter factual point, learn the significance of this move that I'd made. How indeed, the whole world of politics and ideas has changed because a young man failed in his escape! Yet it is not about that young man, it is about the fragility of the past. It is about how man cannot see beyond his own hand and how he cannot control the consequences of his choices.

By pushing the boundaries of the absurd, I'm saying that even the grotesquely nonsensical is oddly valuable for historical pedagogy. Imagine our lives being written in this manner. Some might try to push this argument back to free will and predestination, i think that would be missing the point utterly. The point is to say that in the many permutations and combinations of historical possibilities, should not man say that even with the power of choice, he cannot even fathom the vast consequences of a single instinctive action. Man is not in control of his own destiny. He is played as much as he is a player.

History, oh history, the study of accidents, intertwined and humorously conjoined.

God made the world round, humans made their maps flat

Intellectual categorisations have a greater impact on the flow of events, more than we are willing to suppose. Take any map of the world and immediately we are led to split the world into East and West, North and South. By this simple and crude differentiation, we associate cultural norms, language barriers and ethical idiosyncrasies to these geographical constructs. Certainly, this makes for generalisations and caricatures that have at once gained common currency amidst the age of imperialism and Colonial nations have encouraged the spread of these rude categories when it tended to encourage superior underpinnings to their dominance and oddly many colonies of the past have cynically bought into these idea when it suited them to play up the victim to victor narrative. At once, we are faced with the orientalist and occidentalist problems, not that they are intellectual incredulous but that they are useful to the ends of nation states.

Clearly to divide the world into East and West is to concede an intellectual hilly billy behaviour. Only 60 years ago, the West was made up of nations at each others throats. America, commonly associated with everything West, is internally so diverse, racially so complex that its pretty hard to define what America is. Europe is a Hodge podge of little nations of contrasting nationalists, religions and political alignments. Problem cases like Russia, with 2/3 of its territory in the East, prefers to be part of the West and for most of the last century engaged in a global battle with all things American. So really, there isn't much of a western bloc, in economic, ideological and social terms.

To say the least, the East is equally divided. China is twice as large as Europe, 4 times the population of America and clearly 10 times more diverse. And even so, its similarities with India or Indonesia for that matter are polarities as different as good wine is from coca cola. We add the problem of countries like Australia which clearly resides in the Eastern portion of the world but whose values are closer to the West, to speak the language of this polemic. In short, there is no east or west, not even north or south. God made the world round, humans made their maps flat.

The value of such reductionist mindsets can be deduced from our desire for identification. I suspect that the need for commonality has driven people groups into nation states and from there into regional blocs, not because they are similar but because it pays to find similarity. In a recent hardtalk interview, my dean pointed at Steven Sackler and said "you, the west" and immediately I cringed and thought how this underlying need for identification and shared values could produce combative behaviour despite the problems of this categorisation process. Being part of the rising east, develops a sense of destiny even though it could well be falsely harnessed. In the realm of the psychology nation states, a good idea, no matter how badly developed is better than being on the losing side.

Indeed as I begin to sense, the real point of such categories is because of sheer pragmatic behaviour. We've bought into this East West Dogma because it suits the nations well. Along the way, some dumb intellectual (oxy-moron :P), would actually buy into this idea and develop a view that justifies this crude idea in a most academic manner. Here I can think of a number of intellectuals and I think it would be impolite to name them, but the point is clearly made. Constructs founded on utility hand poison chalices to intellectuals who gladly commit Seppuku. The realm of nation states is the a realistic nightmare that moves and shapes constructs according to interests and while the world is round to the leaders of the nation states, they make it a point to sell flat maps.

Reading and Thinking of LTC

I've been reading quite alot more these days. I've got a biography of Truman and one on David Brainerd, The complete Armour of God by Gurnell, The Trojan Horse and the Tiger by Bloodsworth, The Secular Age by Charles Taylor and I'm trying to re-read Narnia all over again (i just got past the Magician's Nephew). I'm also thinking of travelling to a few countries before I re-enter the military and to finish a paper on disaster relief for YMCA. And I would be an awful downer if i said that I did not enjoy doing all this despite the foreboding calamity of running around a semi-dense jungle in an unworthy age of 24. It was well that Tolstoy said that in impending doom, living becomes more alive. I'm more alive than ever.

On a separate page, I've just finished this Leadership Training Camp for Year 3s in the BB. Not that I had to go through it as a participant but I dug up my old well worn uniform and attire for the camp. Hovering at the back of my mind was the knowledge that this was probably my last bit of heavy duty involvement with the Company and I did relish the opportunity to talk to the year 3s. I would be lying if i said that I did not like them very much indeed and because of that I desired greatly that they will be a cohort that will pursue righteousness and mercy with great zeal. I believe very firmly that Christ is calling them to Himself in both Love and Holiness.

In that light, I was touched by the work of many of the officers within that cohort. It is a great testimony to God alone that it pleased Him to use these men. As I grow older, I am coming to see what Proverbs calls the follies of youth and how teaching a child to love God young is so much better than mending him as he grows older.

Indeed, I heard a sermon on the last night of the camp which was titled, God is made strong in our weaknesses. I found much of that message valuable, especially since the teacher friend of mine shared his own struggles with sin when he was young. Demonstrated humility by an older man in that manner is always something to be embraced and I found myself agreeing for the most part. However, I thought I had to make a small clarification, in case any young chap pushes the lessons of that sharing to the extreme which i suppose is not the intention of my teacher friend at all. Firstly, God is made perfect in our weaknesses does not mean that He is made perfect in our sins. Weakness in the bible refers to the fragility in our humanity - sicknesses, tiredness and as Paul suffered, the pain in his neck. In these, His grace is sufficient. However, His perfection reveals our sins and He desires that we repent quickly and urgently. Thus we should say there is a difference between sin and weakness.

Secondly, it is important to add that when we are entrapped in sin, God hates sin and will judge the sinner accordingly unless Jesus so rescues His soul. We are in a state of utter depravity and our hearts deceive ourselves. If God is not angry with sin, He cannot be loving. If He is indeed loving, He must be just. And if He is just, He will impound the world of its folly by judgement and concurrently inflict His Son so that the world might know Him, the one True God. We can boast in our sins only when we know that we hammered Christ on the cross and how He has forgiven us. No cross = No boasting.

Lastly, I should always say, that the outpourng of emotions does not mean that we met God. Jonathan Edwards was always immensely prudent in warning his reader of the difference between emotionalism and the real work of the Holy Spirit. The latter is marked by real repentence and real fruit. Both can have tears and both might even have convictions, but only one can change lives. It is a dangerous trend in our culture when after we've had an emotional experience, we think that the mission hath ended. It did not matter how we've hardly thirst for His presence before and after the event but you know, we've sang our hearts out and emotions met us along the way.

Real change comes with confronting the cross and asking Jesus to put one on it. In all professed honesty, there is no other way.

Wilkerson

There is a post i want to write, now that LTC is over, and so much can be learnt from it. However, I shall save it for a day later or perhaps two. I think Nicholas has neatly summed up a very important precet on his blog with his paul washer quote. I've attached a David Wilkerson snippet, of what i believe to be a very powerful message. Is it ever a wonder that the Prophets and Watchmen of our time, Ravenhill, Wilkerson, Washer and Tozer rarely get much acclaim until they're old or have moved on to glory.

So please please listen to this message.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6VbCvSUWnU&feature=related