Glory to God

Hallelujah (הַלְלוּיָהּ)

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding,  he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:4-14, NRSV)

Evening Prayers in 2020

Almighty and merciful father,

You have brought us together this evening in remembrance of your glory and your grace. Against the worldly pleasure of our day and age, you have redeemed us by the blood of Christ and made us holy and blameless in your sight. Please use us as instruments of your will and as you see fit, because we exist to glorify your name and not ourselves or this world. Thank you for your unconditional love that you have bestowed upon us who are your children. Please forgive us for our trespasses and turn our disgrace into the grace of your miracle. We pray that you will shape and mould us into the men and women you have created us and called us to be, so that we might be for the praise of your glory and walk with you in this world and the world eternal. Let us delight in you as you delight in us, and weave us into your tapestry of grace and your divine plan for all things that you have created under the heavens and on this earth.

As we gather together at church and at home tonight, we pray for each other and for your Holy Spirit to strength us when the uncertainty of this pandemic lingers on. Have mercy on this world our Lord, on this nation and on us. Please bring help to Victoria that has now recorded 237 new cases as of today, please bring peace to Israel as thousands gather in protest at Tel Aviv over economic hardship and please bring wisdom to world leaders as global cases passed 12.6 million and as the US has seen over 66,000 cases over the past 24 hours again with fatalities. Father, we pray for your miracle, a solution to this and a vaccine for this virus, as we gather in your name and pray for those who have turned away from you. In Christ, we have obtained an inheritance so that we can set our hope in Him and live to be the praise of your glory. We thank you that you have sent your only Son into this world and that in Christ, we have become your children and your treasure.

As we belong to you, our Heavenly Father, please have mercy on us and help us glorify you in all that we do as we enjoy you forever. 

Amen

Sweet Sorrow of Au Revoir?

Never to bid good-bye  

Or lip me the softest call, 

Or utter a wish for a word, while I 

Saw morning harden upon the wall, 

Unmoved, unknowing 

That your great going 

Had place that moment, and altered all.

- Thomas Hardy

Why does goodbye bring its moments of sadness to our hearts? I have always thought that the French has got it right in the words "au revoir" rather than "goodbye" for having hope until we meet again. Until now. Interestingly, the English word "goodbye" has its origin in "Godbwyes" as a contraction of the phrase of "God be with ye" used in as late as the 16th century.   

And we see this in Christ's ascension. Forty days after Easter, Jesus ascended into the heavens after his death and resurrection from the Cross. As Leon Morris has put it, there is an air of finality about Christ's ascension in Luke's portrayal as part of the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts that followed. "It is the decisive close of one chapter and the beginning of another" because it is the consummation of Christ's earthly work, the indication to followers that His mission is accomplished and His work among them has come to a decisive end. Yet, it is not a parting forever but simply that  they can expect to see Him in the old way no more.

Jesus took the initiative and led the disciples as far as Bethany in the lead up to Easter then forty days after the resurrection, the ascension also took place in Bethany on the slopes of the Mount of Olives. Luke described this event rather simply. His gospel speaks only of Jesus as being parted from the disciples during the act of blessing them and 'they worshipped him' (in Greek). Whatever their view of His Person during His ministry, the passion, resurrection and now ascension of Christ had convinced the disciples that He was divine. It is interesting that their feeling at this final parting was not one of grief but of great joy. Worship is their response to His ascension as Christ was worthy to be worshipped and they gave Him His due with more understanding, far more than what they had previously. 

Leon Morris has pointed out that Luke began his gospel in the temple. Now he brings it to an end with the disciples continually in the temple blessing God. It is a fitting acknowledgement of the grace that God has shown so singularly in the events he has narrated. For "it is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority" (Acts 1:7, NRSV). Yet, all does not end here. Far from it, Jesus continued to say "but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8, NRSV). So "when the day of Pentecost came", we see the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles and other followers of Christ while they were celebrating the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot, חג השבועות) in Jerusalem. 

Pentecost celebrates the incoming wheat harvest which marks God's provision for new life and renewal every year in the Jewish tradition. So the timing of the Pentecostal narrative symbolises both continuity with the giving of the law in Jewish tradition and the central role of the Holy Spirit in the Christian faith that marks a separation from the traditional Jewish faith grounded in the Torah and Mosaic laws, because the spirit is now understood as an aspect of Christ poured into followers of Christ in fulfilment of the prophecy (Joel 2:28-32). Pope Leo I has drawn an analogy between Jewish practices and the Christian feast day in the 5th century. "As once to the Hebrew people, freed from Egypt, the law was given on Mount Sinai on the 50th day after the sacrifice of the lamb, so after the Passion of the Christ when the true Lamb of God was killed, on the 50th day from His resurrection, the Holy Spirit came down on the apostles and the community of believers" whereby such descent of the Holy Spirit upon disciples on Pentecost was "the fulfilment of a long-awaited promise."

So with the departure of Christ from earth to the heavens and the descent of Holy Spirit to earth from the heavens, a new era of renewal and salvation by God began in Trinity. Even though the Father and the Son are now in the heavens, the Holy Spirit, sent by God and the risen Lord Jesus, is their very presence among his people and the same spirit that had filled and empowered Christ for his ministry. In contrast to the Tower of Babel where different languages were used by God to divide men as his judgement fell upon their prideful efforts of building a tower of advancement in arrogance to live without God, here, different tongues united people in God to mark the beginning of a new community of God's people.

Just as theologians see in the ascension a taking into heaven the humanity of Jesus as he is seated on the right hand of God, the ensuing Pentecost sees the descent of Holy Spirit so that God and Christ can be with us in spirit on earth. The incarnation is not something casual and fleeting but a divine action with permanent consequences. The theologian Moule once argued that if the ascension means the taking of Christ's humanity into heaven, "it means that with it will be taken the humanity which Christ has redeemed - those who are Christ's, at His coming. It is a powerful expression of the redemption of this world, in contrast to mere escape from it". So at Pentecost, God brought to us a new life of renewal through the Holy Spirit so we can rejoice and join in with Christ under trinity in this world after his departure from it.

The hymn "God be with you till we me again" is written by Jeremiah Rankin as a Christian goodbye. The etymology of this now modern English word was the basis for this song as Christ does not desert us. “For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever." (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, NRSV).

So here's hoping it is au revoir and goodbye, because we will always have hope in Him.

All moral rights belong to the author except for other works quoted or referred to.

On Solitude and Solidarity

"Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Luke 9:58, NIV)

In crisis do we see humanity at its worst. On a daily basis, we have seen much of the COVID-19 fear and fatigue in response to relentless news and government measures to date and for months to come. For some, it has brought about an upsetting level of upheavals in life including loss of job, family and loved ones. Others suffer from social isolation in very real ways. At times, I am exasperated at how much better we can or should be. Perhaps we have all seen enough of behaviours driven by self-interest on a national and international scale, which manifest themselves sometimes in a disappointing lack of basic human decency in community, personal lives, workplace practices and the mass reaction of utter panic (some are simply unwarranted).

Yet at times, we also see glimpses of humanity at its best. Instead of self-interest, we see self-deprivation for the good of others. Our frontline fighters continue to battle on, in wards and intensive care units, to save patients in public and private hospitals. Beautiful tales of love, compassion and kindness are also not lost, least amongst some churches and communities, even when the church doors are firmly closed. Frankly, the church is never about its building but the body of Christ and us, who are members in the body of Christ.

And Easter is a true reminder of that. Whilst there are no gatherings to recall the fear and foreboding in the Son of Man's last hours alone on the cross or to celebrate the resurrection of the Son of God, perhaps and rightly so, the solemn solitude and solidarity of Easter 2020 should be remembered in our individual psyche as to what the passion narratives actually tell us if we delve deeper. From Christ's triumphal entry into the city of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, we saw the countdown to calvery in six days that culminated in Christ's death, desolation and deprivation on the Friday in the synoptists of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. 

I have disliked the name "Good Friday" because there is nothing good about the Friday that Jesus, on the cross, breathed his last as the Son of Man. In Old English, the day was called "Long Friday" (Langa frigedæg), and this term was adopted and is still used in Scandinavian languages and Finnish. In Latin, the name used by the Catholic Church until 1955 was Feria sexta in Parasceve ("Friday of Preparation [for the Sabbath]"). In the 1955 reform of Holy Week, it was renamed Feria sexta in Passione et Morte Domini ("Friday of the Passion and Death of the Lord"), and in the new rite introduced in 1970, shortened to Feria sexta in Passione Domini ("Friday of the Passion of the Lord"). The word Passion is the short final period in the life of Christ and derived from the Latin verb patior, passus sum, which means "to suffer, bear, endure".

And the Passion narratives tell of a man who was welcomed by the great crowd that spread the palm branches in front of him as he rode into Jerusalem to celebrate a royal King of Israel on a donkey in fulfilment of Zechariah's prophecy, and who, six days later, was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities on the cross labelled the King of the Jews, in fulfilment of Isaiah's prophecy. 

This very man was alone in agony at the garden of Gethsemane in the Mount of Olives after the last supper at the upper room. The day of Unleavened Bread marked when the Passover victims or sacrifices were killed according to the calendar of Jesus' time as some such as Leon Morris suggested in Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. As his soul was "overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death" (Mark 14:32, NIV), Jesus knelt down and prayed alone to the Father that "if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." (Matthew 26:39, NIV). In Luke's gospel, we get a glimpse of Jesus "being in anguish, prayed more earnestly and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground" (Luke 22:39, NIV). And so the Son of Man, who has nowhere to lay his head in this world, prayed alone and was worn out by grief whilst his disciples that followed him simply could not stay awake let alone to truly understand the personal trial of Christ on that sorrowful night. As the cup in the Old Testament has associations of death, suffering and the wrath of God, it was no easy task to which Jesus shall go forth, alone, to the cross. Yet, his prayers centered on the Father's will rather than his own so that God's will may be done and not his will to be spared of what was to come. Frédéric Louis Godet sees this incident with significance for it, amongst many things, differentiates the sacrifice of the freely consenting Jesus from those of sacrificed animals who had no say in the matter. According to Godet, "At Gethsemane, Jesus did not drink the cup but he consented to drink it." A real internal battle was fought there where in true human agony, Jesus, the only person who knew what was to come, did not flee from or forsake the path on which he, and him alone, proceeded.

This is a man, passed over by Judas the Iscariot, disowned three times by Peter, and deserted by all other followers who fled and took flight from him in the moment that Jesus went to the cross alone so that the scriptures must be fulfilled (Mark 14:49, NIV).  And it was on the cross, dying by crucifixion, and often those who were crucified would die by asphyxiation whilst trying to pull oneself up in order to breathe against the gravity of one's own bleeding body through nailed wrists and feet, did Christ cry out "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani", knowing why. In affliction and abandonment, the Son of Man cried out to the Father, “my God, my God, why have you foresaken me" because Christ was human, even though he knew why he must be forsaken by God so the curtain of the temple can be torn in two, so that we can have a direct relationship with God the Father, and so that our sins can be wiped clean by the only innocent man who ever lived and died for us, who cried out in despair and direliction from the worst psychological and physical suffering that there can ever be because he is man, albeit the son of God. In addition to the tormenting and torturous penalty of crucifixion that was known and intended as the cruelest capital punishment at the time, the death of Christ on the cross is one in which after mockery on a man and messiah who performed miracles to save multitudes, he was forsaken by his people, his disciples, his very own Father in which God made him to be sin for us. He was alone, alienated and in the darkest hours, abandoned. 

Yet, in Easter there is hope. Christ is risen and he is risen indeed on Easter (also called Pascha in Greek and Latin or the Resurrection Sunday). So Easter is also about hope because "He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that free from sins, we might live for righteousness" as "by his wounds you have been healed." (1 Peter 2:24).  Just as the Pharisees, Sanhedrin, Caiaphas, Herod and Pilate plotted against Christ and his rise at the time, perceived as a threat to their political and religious rule that may lead to unrest and uprising, ironically, it is in Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection do we see the most powerful Christian message from God and ever since, the widespread message of Christ that has become truly worldwide. 

These 'kingly' authorities which represented law, religion and governance at the time were a stark contrast to Christ, who, as he approached Jerusalem and saw the city six days before the coss, wept over it.  As Jesus said to a city of his own people upon his triumphal entry that marked the beginning of his Passion, "if you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace - but now it is hidden from your eyes...because you did not recognise the time of God's coming to you." (Luke 10:42-43). It is against a backdrop of the joy in the unknowing crowd that Jesus wept and lamented lost opportunity. The Jerusalemites did not know the things that make for peace, which in the Hebrew understanding of peace, lies its emphasis on peace with God, the right relationship between the creature and the creator as a necessary ingredient in the true peace of Shalom (שָׁלוֹם ). It was this that the men of Jerusalem had failed to come to know and their failure to get to grips with the message of God was now final for "nation will rise aginst nation and kingdom against kingdom" (Luke 21:10). Yet, Christ died due to and rose for precisely the people like the Jerusalemites and us. This is because "at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person, someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:6-8)

And there is no greater hope to this broken world than this.

All moral rights belong to the author except for other works quoted or referred to.

On Shedding Tears

"Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away tears from their eyes." (Revelations 7:15-17, KJV)

I never cried much growing up. In fact, I never quite understood why girls cry and shed tears so often and over somewhat trivial things, from receiving a sinister comment, wanting what she did not have, manipulating emotions of others to get what she wanted, to generally, wasting tears over guys. I remember attending my dad's funeral at the age of 8 and not having shed a single tear but stood silently beside my weeping mother, holding her hands in mine and hearing so called adults saying that I am too young to understand what is going on, all the while wishing I will hold it all together and wondering why no one understands the hurricane hurling inside my heart. But as I grew older, the flood gates to my tears seemed to have loosened or lost their strength. Either that or the lacrimal glands of my tears have become a lot more active.

Needless to say that not many ever saw my tears as I always try to hide them and almost never cry in front of people, other than my parents. Almost. Embarrassingly, tears rolled off my cheeks two days ago over a lovely dinner with a dear friend for no reason when a question triggered so much of what I still do not understand.

Da Vinci once said, "tears come from the heart and not from the brain." As an anonymous writer puts it and paints a more personal picture: "sometimes, memories sneak out of my eyes and roll down my cheeks." So perhaps, tears are how our heart speaks when our lips can't nor can the heart bear? Or perhaps, tears are the words our hearts express when our heads do not yet understand?

A simple and single most powerful moment in John's gospel is that "Jesus wept." (John 11:35). This famous verse occurs in John's narrative of the death of Lazarus, a follower of Jesus, as a prelude to Jesus' own death and resurrection in the later part of John's gospel in the New Testament of the bible. Lazarus' sisters sent word to Jesus of their brother's illness and impending death, but Jesus arrived four days after Lazarus died. After talking to the grieving sisters and seeing Lazarus' friends weeping, Jesus was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. When others asked "could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?" (John 11:37, RSV), Jesus came to the tomb of Lazarus and said "Did I not tell that if you would believe, you would see the glory of God?" (John 11:40, RSV) and brought Lazarus back to life. There is much said and written about the Lazarus of Bethany outside of the scripture, including in medieval Islamic tradition in which he was honoured as a pious companion of Jesus. These days, the name has connotation in science and popular culture as a literary term that is far from the theological view that as the subject of a prominent miracle of Jesus in the gospel of John, Lazarus points to the death and resurrection of Christ from the cross or as we know it, Jesus' crucifixion.

Yet, knowing that he can resurrect Lazarus, why did Jesus shed his tears? In contrast to most translated versions of our bible, the biblical Greek is perhaps the most moving in its encapsulation of emotions through a description of an action that "Jesus, he shed tears" (ἐδάκρυσεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς). What that action embodies is extremely profound. The shortest verse in the bible for all its simplicity is perhaps packed with emotional complexity. Some scholars say that one reason for Jesus' tears is the deep compassion that he felt for those who were suffering, and as "the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:15, RSV), in Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus, we get a glimpse of how the Father feels over the affliction and grief the children of God experience. Linked to that is the origin of sin. Sin grieves God deeply, and so do the wages of sin, death (Romans 6:23, RSV). Ever since the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden eastward in Eden, God, not just mankind, had endured sin's or men's horrific destruction and relentless rebellion, from the early murder of Abel by Cain in Genesis, through raising heroes to their rise and eventual downfall in Judges and to the demise of kings including the best of them in 1 & 2 Kings. Death had consumed almost all human beings that God had created.

As someone with artistic interests and tendency, sometimes we have to start afresh with certain mistakes on a canvass. And what may come of it may never be the same as the original work in a moment of inspiration. So an artist would understand the frustration of a serious mistake that ruins hours of work, especially water colour or acrylic where there is no recourse or remedy other than to start afresh because there is no painting over it or erasing a pencil stroke.  From time to time, it may pain the artist to do this, knowing the work output will never be the same but the best way forward is a clean canvass. So I read the flood in Genesis with a saddened heart because it is a poignant act of God who had little choice. Somewhere along the line in His creation, by giving free will and choice to man, created in His image out of an abundance of love, something went terribly wrong that everything is irreversible except to wipe away creation clean and start again. It pains me personally to read that "The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that He had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the Lord said, 'I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth - men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air - for I am grieved that I have made them.' " (Genesis 6:5-7, NIV).

If all things evil and their temptation are embodied by the biblical reference to "Satan", we recently wandered from the book of Revelations during our bible study discussions and wondered why God allowed this. Why did God not defeat Satan in the very beginning? Jonathan D. Sarfati's view on why Satan was "created" by God in Genesis and why God did not destroy Satan immediately comes back somewhat to love. The reason is the power of contrary choice in the way God created and allowed that in Adam and Eve where they were made in His image and in the image of each other. This power of choice or voluntary will is good or as Sarfati puts it, not actual evil, but the possibility of evil exists in temptation. It is out of love that God said to Adam "you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." So in a world of perfect paradise with an abundance of fruits and all other goodness, Adam and Eve chose not to believe in God but the words of the serpent instead perhaps, and in so doing, disobeyed God that led to the fall of man and the origin of sin. Yet, the true wisdom of God appears in that, though His creation and creatures fall, God is still able to achieve His original purpose through the redemption which is in Jesus. And it is through the covenant with a good man Noah after the flood, that God said in his heart "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease." (Genesis 8:21-22). So the related question of why God did not destroy Satan is, according to Sarfati, because it isn't that "Satan will ever repent, but that if God were to immediately destroy evil, He would destroy all of us as well, with perfect justice." This makes perfect sense to me personally at least as Satan can be a simple voice in our head that does not align with words of God.

So this is the biblical creation story that culminated in God sending his only son, Jesus Christ, into this world to die for our sins. This is in stark contrast to other myths of creation, for example and even the grandest of all, Greek mythology that, as beautifully written by Stephen Fry in Mythos, originated from Chaos then "peopled as it was by primal deities whose whole energy and purpose seem to have been directed towards reproduction" and stories of epic dramas filled with "murderous, cruel, rapacious and destructive" Gods and later demi Gods as "where divine blood fell, life could not help to spring forth from the earth". Nothing compares to the story of God's perfect creation and the gospel of Jesus Christ who simply wept at the reality of this world knowing what it was meant to be.

Someone once said to me that feelings are like temperature which you can test or measure even if they do not tell of why or the underlying reasons. Yet, feelings can be controlled but tears never lie. So perhaps in tears, we know that we have a heart and love is in that heart. And there is nothing greater than God's love for us.

All moral rights belong to the author except other works quoted or referred to.

Art of Apology, If It Ever So Exists?

‘Tis thine to pity and forgive.' - Robert Burns

As someone who sees sorry perhaps said too often, I sometimes wonder if the art of apology is fast becoming an apparatus for absolution in our day and age. When David cried out to God in Psalm 51 that: "against thee, thee only, have I sinned", I used to wonder what about the broken Bathsheba and murder of Uriah? Why does the Bible omit description of, say, David's apology of a profuse and profound proportion in recognition of others and the gravity of his sins in rape and murder? If David pleaded for mercy from God to wash him thoroughly from his iniquity and cleanse him from his sins (Psalm 51:1-2), has he restored the relationships with those he sinned against? The scriptural message cannot be clearer on God's words being "if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them, then come and offer your gift." (Matthew 5:23-24). Yet, David seemed to emphasise that "the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart" (Psalm 51:17)? In truth, Bathsheba's first child by David was struck with severe illness and died unnamed a few days after birth, and Nathan the prophet noted that David's house would be punished for killing Uriah then marrying Bathsheba, which we saw unfolded in 2 Samuel. There are times in life when we may have no recourse to restore a relationship. We may respect the other we have wronged who may not wish to hear words of sorrow or sorry for our sins. In my case, falling short of the fruits of the spirit is far less than what we ought to be, having just understood, at least in theory, that "love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). So when we are less than who we are or ought to be, and are lost in the labyrinth of lament where we cannot present an apology to the one against whom we have wronged and yet who may be the only one able to forgive what we have done, we can only perhaps present penitence to God with a contrite heart. "For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another...let us not live in word or speech, but in deed and in truth. By this we shall know that we are of the truth, and reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us, for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything." (1 John 3:11-18). So in remorse and repentance did David turn to God in acknowledgement of his transgressions in one of the famous Psalms. Perhaps after attempts to apologise, undocumented by the scripture, or knowing no apology in this world would ever mend what he broke, David turned to Him in prayers.
A short piece born out of sorrow. All moral rights (including copyright) belong to the author.

Days of Creation - Myth or Mystery?

For someone who sees time as an archenemy, who shares a similar fascination with time and who hopefully finds humour in this by the time it gets read. 

Einstein once called time as an illusion. Indeed, "for more than two thousand years, the world's great minds have argued about the essence of time. Is it finite or infinite? Does it flow like a river or is it granular, proceeding in small bits, like sand trickling through an hourglass? And what is the present? Is now an indivisible instant, a line of vapor between the past and the future? Or is it an instant that can be measured--and, if so, how long is it? And what lies between the instants?" - The Secret Life of Time, Alan Burdick.

A no less puzzling part about the Bible is perhaps the days of God's creation and its length of time which may appear, on its face, hard to reconcile with science or common sense. Many scholars reiterate that the point of our creation narrative is not to provide a scientific description of natural origins. Yet how should we make of it? Interestingly, Bavinck has emphasised that whether a given section of the scripture contains a poetic description, a parable or a fable, is not for us to determine arbitrarily but must be clear from the text itself. According to him, whilst the creation narrative is a series of miracles that the biblical story portrays to us each time with a single brushstroke without giving too much details, the first chapter of Genesis, however, hardly contains any ground for the opinion that we are dealing here with a vision or myth. It clearly bears a 'historical' character and forms the introduction to a book that presents itself from beginning to end as 'history'. Nor is it possible to separate the facts (being the religious content) from the manner in which they are expressed. For example, as we can see elsewhere in addition to Genesis on the days of creation, there is no objection to the exegesis that God created heaven and earth in 'six days' in Exodus 20:11 and 31:17. So what can we make of this 'miraculous' length of time that God created the universe?

Let's first turn to the words of the scripture. To understand the 'week' and the 'days' of creation, it is important to distinguish the first act of creation - as immediate calling forth of the light to separate from darkness and bringing forth of heaven and earth out of nothing - from the secondary separation and formation of the six days, which begin God's preservation and government of the world according to Bavinck. The work of the first day consists in the creation of light, in the separation of light and darkness, in the alternation of day and night, and hence also in movement, change, becoming. It is not until the fourth day that God said "let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years" (NRSV, Genesis 1:14-15). So 'days' leading up to the fourth day denotes the time in which God was at work creating between alternation of mornings and evenings. With every morning, he brought into being a new world and every evening began when he finished it. The creation days are the work days of God. 

Let's then turn to the Hebrew word yom (יום) for "day". Although yom is commonly rendered as day in English translations, the word has several literal definitions including (1) period of light (as contrasted with the period of darkness), (2) general term for time or point of time or a time period of unspecified length, (3) sunrise to sunset or sunset to next sunset, (4) a year (in the plural; I Sam 27:7; Ex 13:10, etc) or a long but finite span of time (such as age, epoch, season etc).  As Biblical Hebrew has a limited vocabulary with fewer words compared to other languages, words often have multiple meanings determined by context. Thus yom, in its context, is sometimes translated as: time (Gen 4:3, Is. 30:8), year (I Kings 1:1, 2 Chronicles 21:19, Amos 4:4), age (Gen 18:11, 24:1, 47:28, Joshua 23:1, 23:2), always (Deuteronomy 5:29, 6:24, 14:23, 2 Chronicles 18:7), season (Genesis 40:4, Joshua 24:7, 2 Chronicles 15:3), epoch or 24-hour day (Genesis 1:5,8,13,19,23,31).  In other words, the Hebrew word yom relates to the concept of time but is not just for days but for time in general. How yom is translated depends on the context of its use with other words in the sentence around it, using hermeneutics.

So by God's timing of creation and by God's labor, resumed and renewed six times, He prepared the whole earth and transformed the chaos into a cosmos, and for the whole world, it remains a symbol of the eons of this dispensation that it will some day culminate in eternal rest, the cosmic Sabbath on the day of our rest (Hebrew 4). Yet, the days of Genesis 1 are to be considered days and not to be identified with the precise periods of geology or science as Bavinck has reasoned. They nevertheless - like the work of creation as a whole - have an extraordinary character. The essence of a day and night does not consist in their duration (shorter or longer) but in the alternation of light and darkness, as Genesis 1:4 and 5 clearly teach us. This alternation was not affected by the sun, which only made its appearance on the fourth day, but came about in a different way: by the emission and contraction of the light created in verse 3. According to Bavinck, the first three days, however much they may resemble our days, also differ significantly from them and hence were extraordinary cosmic days. 

Most importantly, the creation narrative in Genesis is utterly unique. It is devoid of theogony and is rigorously monotheistic. The Bible's narrative shines through against a backdrop of other creation myths arising from folklore, Pegan beliefs, Roman/Greek, Babylonian and other forms of mythology. In light of the recent lunar new year celebrated in some Asian countries and especially as the Chinese New Year in China, the creation story of Pangu passed on in folklore is a fascinating contrast in its overly detailed approach to how elements of the universe are created over the thousands of years. I sometimes think that the creation narrative in Genesis is poetic. Whilst not meant to be scientific, geological, biological or paleontological, it is also not bogged down by unnecessary details but arguably with enough to withstand the test of time as truth. Personally, I find it extremely powerful that rather than descriptive details on how elements of existence in this world are brought to be, the Bible simply and conceptually highlights God's word. In the Bible, we have seen that God characteristically brings about his purpose through speech. Not only in creation but in providence, it is God's lively speech that is at work: "He upholds the universe by the word of this power" (Hebrew 1:3). So instead of the analogy of the invisible hand, we should think in terms of the audible word. God does not simply operate on the world, causing its history and human actions, but in the world and within its manifold creatures. 

The interpretation of Genesis has a rich and diverse history.  As Bavinck goes as far as to insist on the 'historical' rather than merely mythical or visionary character of the creation story in Genesis, it is perhaps important to recognise that a theological perspective on the material world differs from (but should not be isolated from) a philosophic and scientific one. Whilst the biblical chronology and order of creation seem, on the face of it, at odds with the accounts given by geology, paleontology and other scientific disciplines, various attempts by scholars to harmonise them achieve only modest and not satisfying results. The Bible does not provide us with a scientific cosmology but data of natural science should be taken seriously by Christians as general revelation, yet recognising that only biblical revelation can describe the true state of the world. It is true that the science is still young and faces many unanswered questions. As such, there is much merit in the point made by many scholars that theology should neither fear the sure results of science nor, in immoderate anxiety, make premature concessions to opinions of the day. As the science of divine and eternal things, it should uphold its confessional convictions with dignity and honour and in patience even if certain parts of the scripture remain in mystery, yet. 

Just as someone put to me through an insightful and intelligent question of where did the 'week' concept come from when a year is one orbit of the earth around the sun, a month is one orbit of the moon with respect to the earth-sun line and a day is one rotation of the earth, I will leave this thought with you on matters of your faith.

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Battle of the Bible Forms?

In answer to some recent queries about translated versions of the Bible.

Commercial lawyers are familiar with the battle of the forms. Lord Dennings once wrote that "...where there is a battle of the forms, there is a contract as soon as the last of the forms is sent and received without taking objection to it. In some cases, the battle is won by the person who fires the last shot. He is the person who puts forward the latest terms and conditions and, if they are not objected to by the other party, he may be taken to have agreed with them." So what about the myriad of translated versions of our Bible? Is there a right or wrong version? Is there a version that is more correct, accurate or superior? Having worked as a professional accredited translator, I can understand why the answer is not nearly as simple as contract law where the last accepted version prevails.

As a generalisation, perhaps it is helpful to think of the different translations of the Bible along a spectrum from literal translation that is word-for-word to conceptually-based translation that is more meaning-for-meaning or thought-for-thought or a form of paraphrasing. As the literal accuracy of the translation increases, the readability decreases. As the literal accuracy of a translation decreases, the readability increases. Whilst there are many translated versions which seek to reflect a middle ground between accuracy and readability, there is much more merit in reading different versions of the Bible, whether it be to grapple with a challenging Bible passage or to understand how translation can differ in respect of certain concepts in the scripture. For example, the King James Version is good for the books of poetry on lyrical and poetic aspects (especially the Psalms being one of my favourite parts of the Bible), but always cross reference other translated versions that are more accurate in theological meaning. As Robert Alter criticises with a sense of humour in The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary that: "broadly speaking, one may say that in the case of the modern version, the problem is a shaky sense of English and in the case of the King James Version, a shaky sense of Hebrew." This is rightly so with possible extension of this statement to a shaky sense of Koine (common) Greek given the King James translators were scholars trained in classical Greek with perhaps questionable familiarity with Koine Greek, being the original language of the New Testament.

It is interesting to note that the King James translators commissioned to work on the project had no first-hand study of ancient manuscript sources discovered in recent centuries. These include better manuscripts of the entire New Testaments which are 600 to 900 years older than those available to the King James translators as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls being the Old Testament manuscripts discovered in 1947 dated 100BC-AD70 that are a thousand years older than those available to the King James translators. Furthermore, the King James translation was done by 6 panels of translators (47 men in total) where the New Testament was translated from Greek, the Old Testament from Hebrew and Aramaic as well as the Apocrypha from Greek and Latin (being a set of texts included in the Latin Vulgate and Septuagint but not in the Hebrew Bible) with influence from the Geneva Bible that is in turn influenced by Tyndale's 1562 Bible (which all had secondary reference to Latin Vulgate although translated primarily from Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts). So there is little doubt that meaning or nuance would be lost in translation after so much layering of language and historical circumstances.

As DA Carson points out that the degree of uncertainty raised by textual questions, being what is actually in the manuscripts, is a great deal less than the degree of uncertainty raised by how one interprets what the manuscripts say: "in other words, even when the text is certain, there is often an honest difference of opinion among interpreters as to the precise meaning of the passage. Few Evangelicals, I would like to think, will claim (in)fallibility for their interpretations of the Scriptures; they are prepared to live with the (relatively) small degree of uncertainty raised by such limitations. The doubt raised by textual uncertainties, I submit, is far, far smaller. " 

To help with all this, here are some personal tips. Download Bible Gateway to access different versions and use the below Bible Gateway infographic with facts and spectrum of the non-exhaustive list of translated versions to understand where each translated version is coming from and what differences you may find amongst them. If you are relatively new to Christianity or the Bible, my personal suggestion is to start with the NRSV, NIV or ISV to navigate the scripture for the first time.  Of couse, if you happen to have a KJV to study it academically as a literary classic before becoming a Christian, let me assure you that the experience is an enjoyable one especially if you have the right tools to cross refer other translations of the biblical (rather than canonical) text.

So unlike the battle of forms, this is a situation that speaks for options rather than choice.


This piece is more an aggregator of information to serve, hopefully, a useful purpose as a helpful tool for those with questions on translated versions of the Bible. All moral rights belong to the author except to the extent other works are quoted, extracted or otherwise referred to in this piece.

Job on Pain and Providence

...Ara vos prec, per acquella valor

que vos guida al som de l'escalina,

sovegna vos a temps de ma dolor.

Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina.
        - Purgatoria, XXVI, 145-148, The Divine Comedy by Dante

I would give everything to speak with God. 

Some of the greatest literary poems in this world speak of emotions in my heart. Emotions I know not. Emotions I  know not that I have or still have. Emotions I know not that I could ever have or would wish to have, no, not someone like me. As throbbingly painful and beautiful as lyric poetry can ever be, the poems speak of this world and the worldly emotions we may humanly perceive but with little comfort or consolation to my heart in pain, however crafted by the art of language with the wonder of human creation. They may resonate but they may never tell of why.

As Job cries out in human affliction and emotional agony to come before God for a judgement of his righteousness, the manifestation of theopany in man and the last of secular wisdom through Elihu paint a prelude to the magnificant picture in anticipation of God who speaks at the end in the book of Job. Certain parts of my faith resemble that of Elihu, and I certainly hope to represent, through faith, this scriptural character who says beyond the boundaries of his age: "great things doeth He, which we cannot comprehend." (Job 37:5, KJV). God may not be directly accessible to us but Elihu eloquently calls us to "hear attentively the noise of his voice, and the sound that goeth out of his mouth. He directeth it under the whole heaven, and his lightning unto the ends of the earth...God thundereth marvellouosly with his voice" so "Hearken unto this...stand still, and consider the wondrous works of God" (Job 37:2-4, 14, KJV). Contrary to some scholars who view this as a message that suffering is pedagogic, the message also speaks somewhat of the providence of God. 

And God's providence speaks of omnipotence and His boundless power over both primary and secondary causes. Aquinas, employing the Aristotelian category of natural causes, recognised that the scripture speaks of both divine and natural causes -- in God's predestination of all things that come to pass through primary causes and in the human actions that God honours through secondary causes. Originally, the word providence means the act of foreseeing (providentia, the Latin equivalent of Greek promētheia (ἀπὸ τής πρόμηθείας)) or foreknowing (pronoia, πρόνοια). The Christian faith understands the providence of God to mean that all things are not only known by God in advance but determined and ordained in advance. It is "that will of God by which all existing things receive suitable guidance through their end" - John of Damascus. So providence is the act of God by which from moment to moment, he preserves and governs all things.  It is not only to 'see for' but also to 'foresee'. Yet, the providence of God does not cancel out secondary causes, human responsibility or wishes within the concurrence of God's will. What marks Christianity uniquely different from other religious beliefs (perhaps rooted in deism or pantheism that may come close to secular notions of "fate" and "chance"), is that providence includes God's care through secondary causality of the created order of natural law as he maintains it, including us.

God is never idol. He never stands by passively looking on. With divine potency, he is always active in both nature and grace. According to Bavinck, providence therefore is a positive act, not a giving permission to exist but a causing to exist and working from moment to moment. Scripture tells us both that God works all things so that the creature is only an instrument in his hand, that providence is distinct from creation and presupposes the existence and self-activity of creatures. Secondary causes are subordinated to God as the primary cause and in that subordination nevertheless remain true causes. With his power, God makes possible every secondary cause and is present in it with his being at its beginning, progression and end. It is He who posits it and makes it move into action and who further accompanies it in its working and leads it to its effect. He is "at work' [in us] both to will and to do for his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13) but this energising activity of the primary cause in the secondary cause is divinely great in that precisely by that activity, He stirs those secondary causes into an activity of their own. 

“Concurrence is precisely the reason for the self-activity of the secondary causes and these causes, sustained from beginning to the end by God's power, work with a strength that is appropriate and natural to them.” As Bavinck puts it, precisely because the primary and the secondary cause do not stand and function dualistically on separate tracks, but the primary works through the secondary, the effect that proceeds from the two is one and the product is one. There is no division of labor between God and his creature. The product and effect would be also in the same sense totally the product and effect of the primary as well as totally the product and effect of the secondary cause. For we must not suppose that God works in an iniquitous man as if he were a stone or a piece of wood, but He uses him as a thinking creature, according to the quality of his nature, which He has given him. For what power would there be in faith that recommends stoical indifference or fatalistic acquiescence as true godliness?

While riddles remain for human understanding of providence (and God should have His mystery), this theological framework affords the believer with consolation and hope. For a humble Christian mind like mine, who wonders if the mistakes of mine are part of God's plan and surely, not actions which would change the greater course or cause of His, theology speaks of a God who knows all permutation of all possible action, inaction, decision and determination of ours as well as all and each probability of outcomes which chart out the paths He wills at His good pleasures and works along the concurrence of primary and secondary causes of this His world and our world. In other words to put it crudely, He respects our choices and parents us along the way.

So as Job asks and knows through the rhetoric of his pain: "Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this? In whoes hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind...with him is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding" (Job 12:10-13, KJV), God appears at the end in answer to Job's appeal and speaks directly to Job of the infinite and intimate connection of God with God's world as well as His careful and detailed superintendence that cannot be understood within the human compass, but only within the framework of a vision of God that can clarify the present puzzles of human existence in a life yet to come. So as we are blindsided by broken hearts and drowning in emotions not dissimilar to Job's outcry in the bitterness of his soul that is weary of its life where if "my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together...it would be heavier than the sand of the sea: therefore my words are swallowed up"  "for the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me" (Job 6:2-3, 3:23-25, KJV), be reminded of the limited horizon of our knowledge of this world and of baffling human experiences constricted by the present passage of time. Be reminded of God's words in the interlude of Job where wisdom is found (Job 28: 12-24):

"But where shall wisdom be found?
and where is the place of understanding?
Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living.
The depth saith, it is not in me; and the sea saith, it is not with me.
It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.
... God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place thereof.
For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven" 

Echoing that of Job's emotional turmoil of darkness:"as for that night, let darkness seize upon it...let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein...let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day." (Job 3: 6-10, KJV) is Pablo Neruda's poem. Precisely where Neruda's famous poem ends in "Tonight I can write the saddest lines" is where I would continue with "Tomorrow I will face the world with a smile".  

For we live in hope and in Him and in the hope of Him, and there is nothing I would not give to know Him and speak with Him. 

Take this piece as fictional and not founded in research or facts. All moral rights belong to the author except to the extent other works are quoted or otherwise referred to in this piece.