JOURNEY OUTSIDE THE CAMP

Instructing a Child's Heart

As part of the upcoming Spiritual Habits of a Child’s Heart 2 symposium, I’ve been preparing notes and reading up on the subject of parenting. One of the books that I referenced was Instructing a Child’s Heart by Tedd and Margy Tripp. In a sense, this is a follow-up book to Tripp Tripp’s excellent Shepherding a Child's Heart. I say in a sense because this book goes so much deeper.

It opens with familiar material but it then goes much more deeply, not into the child’s life, but into the heart of the parent. This is not a how-to book. The point that the Tripps are making is that how-to parenting books miss the mark by a galaxy. Going about trying to make a child behave is like what Jesus accused the Pharisees of doing when he metaphorically said that they cleaned the outside of the cup but the inside remained dirty (Matt 23:25).

New editions of Firm Foundations and The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus

I was recommending to a friend some books that were useful as Sunday School curriculum. I was telling her about The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus and Firm Foundations: Creation to Christ. Both these books teach the Gospel message chronologically, starting from Genesis and working sequentially and building the story all the way up to the Resurrection. It was the way Jesus taught the two disciples about himself as they walked along the road to Emmaus in Acts 24. Over the years, my wife and I have seen so many people come to a full understanding of the Gospel and put their trust in Jesus because of going through these books.

I was most pleasantly surprised to find that both these books have new editions. Firm Foundations has been around for more than 20 years so it was really good to see this new edition. It has revised text, updates maps and charts and all the resources are also included in a CD-ROM. That's handy.

The Stranger on the Road to Emmaus is into its fourth edition. It has a nice new cover but I couldn't get a sense of what else was updated on the inside.

Big Truths for Young Hearts

Dr Bruce Ware has been a wonderful teacher of mine. Not that I've met the man, or even sat in any of his classes, but I've listened to him teach a semester's worth of lessons on systematic theology by downloading his lectures from BiblicalTraining.org. I learnt so much about God and my deepened understanding caused me to love God all the more and it brought much joy to my life.

I started to ponder how I could teach my children these same truths about God. And God himself helped me out with this challenge. The other day I was browsing at the Campus Crusade Media store and I thought I saw a book on the shelf that was entitled, "Big Truths for Young Hearts". Later, I saw the same book mentioned on Crossway's blog and I was excited to learn it was written by Bruce Ware and the subject was on teaching kids about the big truths of God, the same things I had learnt from his seminary lectures. I was estatic.

The Big Picture Story Bible

A few weeks ago, my wife stumbled upon this book when we were browsing at SKS Books. It's entitled, The Big Picture Story Bible. We were immediately taken with it because it takes a child through the Bible in a chronological manner. I'm a big fan of teaching the Bible chronologically because it explains the Gospel message fully, starting with the Old Testament. The Bible's big theme is how God created the world for his glory and when it fell in sinned, how he restored the world through the death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ. A lot of times, kids are taught the saving work of Jesus but they don't understand why it has to be this way. They don't understand the idea of substitution, they don't understand what sin really is, how righteous God is and so on. Only by having a good understanding of the whole story, starting from Genesis, does God's story and plan become clear. Then children can readily understand, believe and trust in what God has done. We've seen this happen many times in the classes that we teach chronologically.

The Big Picture Story Bible does an excellent job of making the Gospel clear. We grabbed the last two copies that were on the shelf. One copy was a for a birthday gift and the other copy my kids have been devouring. The illustrations are very good and the story is written clearly and simply. A very very good resource for teaching kids the Bible's main message and taking children right through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

A view of the Temple from the ESV Study Bible

I was reading Boundless.com and they had an article about the Herod's Temple. Using detailed illustrations from the new ESV Study Bible, the author describes the scale of the temple and the temple complex and brings to life some of the stories we are all so familiar with in the New Testament. It was quite an eye-opener, literally, for me. I knew the stories that were discussed in the article but now I could see the setting more clearly. Wow. I'm looking forward to taking a look at the study aids in the ESV Study Bible.

The depth of truth in simple verses

I have been learning the value of looking carefully and studying deeply the verses in the Bible. So often, I would just zip pass what seem to be simple verses, especially those verses at the opening of epistles that just appear to be greetings and nothing more. But now I realise how much truth can be embedded in these seemingly innocuous verses. I'm learning that God never wastes a word in His Word.

Romans 1:5-6
Through him and for his name's sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

How often have I breezed through these two verses without giving them a second thought. But I after I had heard a sermon and then looked closely at the verses, oh what joy these two verses have brought.

Through him... we receive grace. Paul is pointing out that through the conduit of Jesus, we receive grace. Grace is God's unmerited love freely given to us. We are all rebels. We are all sinners. We deserve nothing but God's condemnation and punishment and we bound for the hell that he created for his enemeies. But because Jesus died for us, and gave us a righteousness that was equal to his righteousness, we can stand before God and be his friends. That's the moment when God unleashes his grace on us, pouring down his love on us like the Niagra Falls into a cup. Amazing!

And what's the purpose of God dying for sinners and then pouring out his love on us? It is "for his name's sake". In other words, God gets the glory for dying and saving unrighteous sinners. We are unable to rescue ourselves, we blaspheme the name of God by how we live, we trample on his glory by ignoring him and living for ourselves. God corrects all this by wiping out our sin and making us righteous and so he gets the glory for it. Only he has the power do this.

What are the implications for us when we understand this? Joy! Joy unspeakable. Because it means we never have to wonder and worry if we're good enough for God to love us. Are we ever good enough? Can we do anything so that we merit God's love? No and no. We are unworthy. But through Jesus, God rescues us.

Can we ever, on our own, make ourselves understand the message of the Gospel and thus be saved? No we can't! Verse 6 clearly says we are called by God. In other words, we are blinded by Satan (see 2 Corinthians 4:4), lost in this world, with no way at all to understand God's message of salvation. But God calls us and draws us to him. He made us believe! This means that even in our belief and act of faith, we cannot truly claim we did it. God did it. He put understanding and faith in our hearts. And this is good news! Because it means we never have to worry, is my faith right? Am I trusting in Jesus enough? Since God is the one who puts the faith in us so we can trust him, we don't ever have to fear that we didn't believe hard enough. God does it. And he gets the glory for it.

These verses for me, tie in so closely to Jeremiah 32:40. "I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me." I see that God has promised to never let me go. He has promised! And so he will call, he will hold on to me, he will rip out my sinfulness and give me his righteousness, he will pour out his love on me. And in all this, he will be glorified! Ah, the depth of truth in such simple verses.

Folly to the perishing

First Corinthians 1:18 says, "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

I understand this verse. But this morning, I received a lesson about this verse and now I understand it so much more deeply. A friend and I were having a casual discussion and he talked about a book he was reading called, "The Secret". He found it very enlightening and shared what he had learnt from it. I may be a little dense at times, but I recognised this as an opening that God was giving me to share the Gospel. So I did. Very politely, I told my friend that as a Christian, and that I didn't agree with "The Secret" which talked about God as impersonal. I told him that I had a personal relationship with God and that he was by no means, impersonal or far off. In fact, I speak to him and he to me, on a daily basis.

This lead to a discussion on how God speaks to us and I explained that God speaks in many ways, but primarily through the letter he gave us, i.e., the Bible. My friend said he had read the Bible once, and had read a few chapters of Rick Warren's "Purpose-Driven Life" but he didn't understand, especially when Rick Warren kept pulling out references from the Bible.

This lead to me attempting to explain what was in the Bible. I started off with some basic facts: that the Bible was written in span of 1,500 years; it had 66 books; it was written by 40 or so writers but the author behind every word was God himself. And what is amazing is that the message was consistent throughout the text. And we come to learn about God and hear him speak to us by reading the word he gave us.

My friend was clearly boggled at this point and he said that as long as he lived a good life, it was enough. I told him gently that the Bible says that all men are evil and they need to be rescued from their evil nature by God and only with God's help could we have a relationship with him.

I could sense that he was being overwhelmed so I told him that his religion should help him answer these questions:

• What's the meaning of life?
• Why was I made?
• What's my purpose?

He paused to think and said that those were great questions and he would have to find some answers. I could sense the conversation had come to an end for now but I told him we would pick it up again.

The Bible says in 1 Cor 1:20-25:

"Where is the one who is wise? ... Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." (ESV, emphasis mine)

For me, the reality that we, on our own, cannot understand the Gospel came to me clearly today. We regard the Gospel as folly, as rubbish as we struggle to make sense of our lives as we look at ourselves through the lens of the world. It is God in his mercy who calls us to him, who opens our eyes and gives us understanding of his Gospel. My friend was clearly blind. His understanding was veiled. I too, was once like that, but it was such a long time ago, that I can scarcely remember what that was like. Today, I understand better what being blind to the Gospel is like after my conversation with my friend. The Gospel is a stumbling block to those who cannot see. I will continue to pray for my friend, that God will lift the veil and he will begin to understand the Gospel. But I thank God I was obedient to his prompting and shared the Gospel today.

Hole in my sock

In the book I've been reading, "Grace-Based Parenting", there's an anecdote by Tim Kimmel the author that is particularly touching. He mentioned that his family was poor when he was in high school and he was pretty shy in class. Once, during gym class, he was called upon by the gym teacher to demonstrate the use of the trampoline. He felt instantly embarrassed not only because attention had been called on him but because to use the trampoline, he had to remove his shoes. And the socks he wore that day had holes in them, holes right where his toes were. You see, he didn't get many new pairs of socks as he was poor. And his worst fears came true the moment he got on the trampoline. The other kids made fun of his socks and cracked jokes about it.

But the time class ended, he had vowed to himself to sew up every hole in every sock he owned. Right after the class was dismissed, the teacher disappeared into his back room and reappeared a few minutes later. Tim was just about to step out the door at that point but the teacher called him back. He took young Tim aside to a secluded corner and said, "Do you know why I picked you out of all the kids to demonstrate the trampoline? That's because I could see right away that you had the strength and skill to do a good job at it. And you know what? Us agile guys always have problems with holes in their socks." And the teacher pulled off his sneakers to reveal that his socks also had holes in the toes.

 

Tim left the gym, feeling only a little better. But he was curious about the word agile. He didn't know what it meant. In English class, he looked it up in the big dictionary in the classroom and found it had two definitions which he wrote down in his notebook:

   

1. marked by ready ability to move with quick easy grace
2. having a quick resourceful and adaptable character <an agile mind>

Tim related that seeing those words, changed the low perception he had of himself. His gym teacher saw him as someone with physical prowess. More than that, he was said to have a quick and resourceful mind. No one had said that to him before. That incident changed him. It not only made him an athele and more outgoing, it spurred him to academic achievement.

 

It was some time later that Tim understood what had happened. His teacher had run off into his office just after class to take a pair of scissors and cut holes in his socks before going to talk to Tim. He had noticed the heckling and the embarrassment Tim had suffered and had taken the trouble to turn that horrible incident into a positive life-changing moment. It was an example of grace.