EDITORIAL The problem is that it looks so good, but only from one side. One of the current USA presidential candidates has trumped Don’t Leave Norman as his mentor. I reproduce here a quote from an article I read recently: The Cake Unturned “Christianity is a religion of losers. To the weak and humble, it By Revd Canon Terry Wong offers a stripped and humiliated Lord. To those without reason for optimism, it holds up the cross as a sign of hope. To anyone I recall preaching on Hosea 7:8 almost 20 years ago. who does not win at life, it promises that whoever loses his life for Christ’s sake shall find it. At its center stands a truth that we are prone to forget. There are people who cannot be “Ephraim is a cake not turned.” made into winners, no matter how positive their thinking. They need something more paradoxical and cruciform.” (Matthew Schmitz, First Things, August 2016) f you have cooked or baked long enough, you would probably Ibe acquainted with the dreadful experience of turning out Due to this mixture in our hearts, we need to come before God food that looks cooked, only to discover that it is cooked only constantly in brokenness and humility. The Bible constantly on one side. seeks to alert us to our mixed condition. God calls our attention to - not away from - it. Moving from the kitchen to something that is more visceral in our urban jungle, imagine a half-completed high-rise Jeremiah 17:9 despairs, “The heart is deceitful above all things, building. The builder has gone bankrupt and the project is and desperately sick; who can understand it?” The next verse now abandoned. It has become a Catch 22 situation because gives hope, for “I the Lord search the heart…” Before His Word it costs too much to tear down or to complete it. Instead of and in His presence, we need to constantly bring and open being a part of the city that one can be proud of, it has become our hearts. Like the ancient psalmist, we need to constantly an eyesore. declare, “Search me, O God!” (Psalm 139:23) As old as this verse in Hosea is, God’s people have always There is one part of Jesus’ teaching which seems tolerant of experienced the problem of “mixture.” The Bible uses many mixture. You would have read the message of the Parable of other metaphors to describe and warn us about this condition. the Wheat and Tares. There is a current reality of mixture. We recall the Lord’s message to the Church in Laodicea, that There will be a separation, a result of judgment. As to who is she had become “neither hot nor cold.” It carries the same idea useful wheat or useless tares, this can only be known in the of mixture though metaphorically, it seems like a contradiction future and that task of separation and identification belongs to Hosea’s. to God. This task is not ours nor is it to be done presently. We are too quick to apply any warning about mixture to others This is a reality that we need to grapple with as we live out our rather than ourselves. Christian life and calling. Our motives are mixed. There is a lack of integrity. I am not talking about public-private hypocrisy. We like to imagine who the wheat and tares in the church are. Integrity comes from the root word “integer,” which means The Bible says: Let others be. “one.” Our life is not one, integral or whole. It is only cooked in parts, built up in parts. Instead, focus on your own heart and life. Allow the gaze and grace of God to deal with the mixture. In fact, it is when we are There is a strange teaching going around in Singapore that says conscious of our own brokenness that we are more ready to that we do not need to ask for forgiveness of our sins. It is forgive others. “Forgive us as we forgive those who sin against an idea as old as the “positive thinking” teaching of the late us.“ Brokenness is the wellspring of compassion. American, Norman Vincent Peale, which has dominated huge sections of American philosophy and even Christianity. Don’t leave the cake unturned. EDITORIAL TEAM Advisor: The Right Revd Rennis S. Ponniah Editors: Revd Canon Terry Wong, Ms Lucilla Teoh, Ms Sasha Michael, Mrs Karen Wong Designer: Mr Mark Lee Email: [email protected] Website: www.anglican.org.sg Printer: Hock Cheong Printing Pte Ltd Diocesan Digest©The Diocese of Singapore All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, and recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Diocese of Singapore • www.anglican.org.sg • MCI (P) 120/12/2015 Issue No 266 DIOCESNOV 2016 AN Digest FORMED FOR ROBUST MISSION BY BISHOP RENNIS PONNIAH ne of the important words in the book of Jeremiah advance. I further believe that God has also been sovereignly Ois the word 'formed'. The Prophet is told by God, and steadily forming the Diocese through its development over “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you,’ (Jeremiah 1:4). the years for such a time as this. The formation is quickening Then in the message the prophet is given at the potter’s house at the present time. concerning God’s people, Jeremiah observes, “But the pot he (the potter) was shaping from the clay was marred in his THE CHURCH'S, MISSION TO THE WORLD hands; so the potter formed from it into another pot, shaping As the people of God, we are called and commissioned it as seemed best to him.” (Jeremiah 18:4). The word 'formed' to participate in the mission of God. It was Rev Dr J I Packer, carries with it a strong sense of the purpose and skilful care author of the classic book, Knowing God, who summarised for that the Potter exercises in shaping a vessel that is both useful me over a lunch meeting what the mission of God entails: “It is and beautiful. It harks back to Creation when Godformed the nothing less than the redemption and re-creation of the entire first man (Gen 2:7). fallen created order.” I have recently returned from my sabbatical leave. Several God has established the foundation for the redemption of you prayed for my wife and me, and we are most grateful. and re-creation of the world through the finished work of It certainly was a time of refreshment and replenishment. But Jesus Christ on the Cross. The Lord Jesus has inaugurated the it also was a time of formation; of being formed by God in Kingdom of God (Acts 1:3) in which every person, through new and sometimes painful ways for the road ahead. I found faith in Him, can experience the fatherly and saving rule of God myself being reshaped and refined by God to lead the Diocese in his or her life. The Kingdom of God goes beyond personal in the next lap of my tenure as your Diocesan Bishop. relationship with God, to include the restoring of every aspect of human life (family life, work, leisure, socio-political What is the distinctive feature of the next lap? I believe institutions and environmental responsibility) to divine the Lord wants me to lead you forward in robust mission. patterns so that God’s justice, compassion and righteousness This is the way in which we will experience amazing Kingdom can be reflected in the here and now of man’s existence. BISHOP'S MESSAGE In this sense, the church’s mission of extending the Kingdom of God in the world (Isaiah 42:1-9; Matthew 5:3- 16) is broader than world evangelisation. Our mission must include leading people and people-groups to saving faith in Jesus Christ, and it must go beyond to restore a wayward and unjust world to the ways of the Creator-Redeemer God of the universe. Such a mission is truly tough, but God has been and is forming His Church to meet the challenge to the praise of His glory. There are three aspects of the robust mission that I want to briefly highlight. They are: 1. To proclaim the Gospel faithfully 2. To overcome hostility boldly 3. To shine God’s light winsomely Bishop Rennis with Dr J I Packer at Regent College in Vancouver 1. PROCLAIM THE GOSPEL FAITHFULLY Christ shall return to expunge all evil and bring about a new We need to recover our confidence in the persuasive universe described as the “home of righteousness” (2 Peter power of the Gospel. We are to present truth to the mind, 3:13). That is the certainty that enables us to proclaim Jesus “speaking true and rational words” (Acts 19:25 ESV), and trust as the true King of the universe and to extend His kingdom the Holy Spirit to bring about conviction, faith and a change of on earth as the kingdom which knows no end. We look at heart in the hearer (Acts 19:28-29; Rom 1:16-17). the contested present from the vantage point of a glorious, consummated End (Rev 4-5). Hence, we press on to proclaim We are also to convey the Gospel message in its entirety. the Gospel is to advance Christ’s kingdom in the midst of the In particular, we cannot trim the Gospel message of its darkness that envelops the world.