JOURNEY OUTSIDE THE CAMP

Ee-Taow!

Over the Hari Raya Haji weekend, my wife and I conducted a two-day seminar. We taught the Bible chronologically. Based on the book, Stranger on the Road to Emmaus, we brought 30 participants through the gospel message, beginning with Genesis all the way through to Jesus' resurrection. The participants were all youth leaders (or youth leaders to be) as well as several Sunday School teachers from other churches.

As always, teaching for my wife and me, has been a time of worship. Though we were familiar with the material, we were both moved in our spirits as we taught God's truth. And the Holy Spirit really moved—not only our hearts—but the hearts of the participants too. We saw their eyes light up with fresh understanding; we saw the participants coming to a deeper understanding of how amazing God is and how the familiar Bible narratives actually add up to one single gospel message. We saw people weep.

NLTInterlinear.com

Tyndale Publishing House just released the NLT Interlinear online. Essentially, it's an online interlinear Bible and concordance that allows users to see the Greek New Testament lined up against the text of the NLT Bible.

One of the best features is being able to look at the Greek words in the Greek-English Concordance of the New Testament and see all the English nuances of the original Greek. I think it will help me expand my understanding of Scripture when I see how various English expressions actually have the same Greek root word.

While my main Bible is the ESV, I do refer to the NLT from time to time. But since this interlinear Bible is available online (for free!), I'll definitely be using it. Thank God for blessings such as these.

Read more about the NLT Interlinear on the NLT Study Bible blog.

Who's in the driver's seat?

My wife was speaking to a friend who had trouble letting God take charge in her life. This friend said that she was the kind of person who liked to be in the driver’s seat, and she found it very difficult to relinquish control. My wife gave her the following analogy which I found to be very useful.

Suppose the designer of the car wanted to drive you to the destination. The designer knows the car very well since he created it. He knows every nuance of the vehicle: how it turns, how it handles in wet weather, what speeds are optimal, etc. He can handle the car in any situation. He’s also a very good driver, always alert and never tired.

In addition, the designer also knows the way by heart. He knows all the points of interest, where the fuel stops are, the scenic spots and the dangers. He also knows what you like and can take you to interesting stops along the way. What’s more, he actually created the roads and highways too so he knows all the road conditions and he will never get lost.

In such a case, wouldn’t you like the designer to take the wheel and drive you to the destination? It would be such a pleasant drive. You can focus on the scenery and on the conversation.

God is that designer. He wants to take the wheel of our lives because he knows us better than we know ourselves. Why won’t we relinquish control of the steering wheel to such a person?

Parents are the primary spiritual trainers

My wife and I had the honour and privilege to address the fine folks at All Saints' Church this afternoon. We spoke for a little over two hours about how to cultivate piritual habits in children. (The content was very similar to what we taught at the Spiritual Habits seminar. In fact, one of the staff from All Saints' had attended that one and invited us to deliver something similar at her church.)

We emphasised the role of parents as the primary spiritual teachers of their children. After the session was over, one of the Sunday School teachers chatted with us and she lamented that in her experience, many parents had come up to her to complain that Sunday School had not done a good job instilling a spiritual life in their children. This teacher was so shocked that parents were expecting the Sunday School teachers to do the heavy lifting on forming a spiritual life in the children. What was worse, many parents did not have their own spiritual lives but recognised that it was something important that they wanted their children to have. But instead of developing their own spiritual lives and then teaching their children how to do likewise, they pushed the responsibility to Sunday School.

Direction, not perfection

One of the misconceptions about being a Christian is that we are goody two-shoes. People, including Christians themselves, think that once they believe on Jesus, they can become good people overnight.

How I wish that were true. It is true that believing on Jesus justifies us. This means that the punishment we deserve for sin we have (and for future sin we may commit) is paid for completely by Jesus. We can stand before God and be counted as righteous. That is what we call justification (see for example Romans 4:22–5:1).