Apostle Paul's First Missionary Journey (Acts 13-14)

One of the good thing about journalling is that we often take note of what is not so obvious, something we can miss if we tend to take only the 'popular verses'. In this first missionary of Paul and Barnabas, note Acts 13:2 .... "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work".

Then in verse 9: "Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit,...", we saw a switching of names. It is customary to have a given name, in this case Saul (Hebrew, Jewish background), and a later name, Paul (Roman, Hellenistic background). From then on Saul is called Paul in Acts. The order in which they are mentioned now changes from "Barnabas and Saul" to "Paul and Barnabas." This may be due to the fact that they are now entering the Gentile phase of his ministry. Interestingly, upon their return to the Jerusalam church, the order reverts to "Barnabas and Paul" (Acts 15:12). See how deliberate and intentional every word is in the Bible.

Then in this first missionary journey, see the map enclosed, we see the land route of Attalia - Pisidian Antioch - Iconium - Lystra - Derbe. In your reading, you would notice there were many conversions and persecutions as well. In Acts 14:20 in Lystra we note: "But after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up and went back into the city. The next day he and Barnabas left for Derbe."

Did you know that young Timothy may have been present in the crowd? We know from Acts 16:1 that he's from Lystra. We read in 2 Tim 3:10-11:

You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.

Now you know!

The God of the Word

Every Wednesday morning, the staff pastors in the office meet with our Senior Pastor for MAG time. (MAG means "Mentoring and Accountability Group".) We are going through the book by Rev Edmund Chan titled Mentoring Paradigms. One very useful insight on page 54 (Paradigm 8, Three Arenas of Mentoring: The Devotional, Domestic and Development Life) are these words:

Quiet Time does not automatically become easier as one grows older. On fact, it becomes harder. Why? Because one can browse through God's Word quickly and pick up a thought or two without much meditation and intimacy with God.

One can have the routine and the mere discipline without the encounter and the wonder. One can read the Word of God and miss the God of the Word. One can go on serving the Lord without devotion. Christian life and ministry can be faked all too easily. But God calls us to be authentic.

Guilty as charged! It is a good milestone check right now for those of us who have been faithfully journalling for the last 5 or 6 months. It CAN easily become a routine and we miss the spirit of what we are trying to achieve and that is knowing the God of the Word. We are achievers by nature and can be driven by the need to succeed. It is good to ask ourselves, are we knowing the God of the Word better. Are are loving and serving Him more? Are we a more spirit-filled person? Can our closest family members and friends see the fruit of the Spirit more and more in our lives? Do others see more of Christ in us? Does God take pleasure over our lives?

Jesus hung on a tree, or cross?

Hi Pastor,

 As I was reading the books of Acts, I noticed that Peter & disciples told the people that Jesus was hung on a tree. Why is this so? Isn’t Jesus hung on a cross? Any thoughts on this?

Perplexed...

Rico

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Dear Rico,

This is a good question. Well done! You have observed well! I wonder if anyone else had this anomaly in mind.

 There are five passages that talked about this. I have reproduced it below:

 Acts 5:30 (NIV) The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead—whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.

 Acts 10:39 “We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree,

 Acts 13:29 When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb.

 Galatians 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”

 1 Peter 2:24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.

To understand the phrase “hung on a tree”, we need to look at the Old Testament, as the New Testament was being written then.

Deuteronomy 21:22-23

²² If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a tree, ²³ you must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not desecrate the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.

There are two approaches to answer this. A simplistic logical way would be to say the cross is made of wood, which is from trees. Jesus was crucified and hung on the cross. Therefore in that sense, he is hung on a tree. That I think may not bring out the wealth of spiritual implication from the Old Testament.

In the Old Testament laws, when a man is hung on a tree, it represents a special mark of the curse of God, or what the Apostle Paul in Galatians puts it as, the “curse of the law.” We are all cursed in our sins and the just punishment is death and to be hung on a tree. But Jesus came to redeem us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, and in that sense to be hung on the cross, or tree, on our behalf. He took our sins on His body, and hence the curse, literally implicating Himself with Deuteronomy 21:22-23.

The Jews understood this phrase “hung on a tree” well and appreciate the spiritual implication of the cross.

Acts 5: The young men - what happened to them?

We are now on the book of Acts! It is definitely fast-paced as we see the story of the early church unfold before our eyes! It is exciting to see the birth of the church and how God began to put systems and processes, both human and organizational, in place. 

What was sobering was also the story of Ananias and Sapphira in chapter 5. I can't help but ask the question "Why so severe, Lord?"

As I journal my thoughts, it became apparent that it was necessary at the infancy of the Church as these men and women of the early would be instrumental in turning the world upside down (or right side up, depending on how you look at it!). God neeeded to have purity in the church in its infancy. Any compromise would have been devastating for the early church. Great fear seized the church (Acts 5:5) and then young men (Acts 5:6) came forward to help bury Ananias. Three hours later, they had to also bury Sapphira. Then in verses 13 & 14, "No one else No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. ^ Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number."

Fear by itself may sound terrible and unproductive. But often the Bible talks about the need for holy fear of God, something generative and good that spurs us on to the road of obedience in the Almighty God. For e.g. Ecclesiastes 12:13 Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

When there is a lack of fear of God, we tend to slack in our Christian journey. In fact we wander away from the Way. Often Christians live their lives carelessly and in sin because of the lack of fear of God. In fact, this fear in Acts 5 kept many away from becoming Christian because they now realized holiness is a very serious matter and not to be taken lightly. This became a natural filter for weeding out those who are not serious about living out their faith. It reminds me of a story of a Russian church, while they were worshipping in the cover of secrecy for fear of imprisoment, a soldier with his gun barged through the door demanding that those who wish to renounce their Christian faith to leave right away. After a few have left, he closed the door and instead of doing what all were fearful of, the soldier put his gun down, said to the congregation, "Now we know who are the true believers. Let's now truly worship God together." The fear of God is greater than the fear of men.

Ironically, the Bible tells us many more were added to the Church in spite of this. My mind wandered to the group of young men that had to bury the dead couple. What were they thinking? There must be moments of silence, contemplation and reflections as they go about the unpleasant job of the burial. What became of these young men? Did they begin to take their Christian life very seriously and later on in life to leave a powerful legacy of their faith? Did they die for their faith as well? I look forward to see them in heaven some day and ask them many questions. One of these questions would certainly, "What were you feeling and thinking the day you had to bury Ananias and Sapphira?"

Food for thought: Do we take sin seriously? Is there a holy fear of God that inspires us to live life in a way that pleases God?

Feedback

I notice I have been getting something like 160 regular visitors to my site in the last 30 days, and another 140 that 'dropped by'. While I enjoy writing my own thoughts for my own benefit, very much like online journalling, I would like it to be beneficial for you too. I am pleasantly surprised that there are people like yourself who would bother to read my blog! :) 

Because the WWW can be a blackhole as I don't really know who, what or where, I truly would like to make this blog enjoyable reading for you too.

SO .... the request is, would you mind giving me your feedback, whether by name, or anonymously, I don't mind. This will also give me encouragement to write regularly. Just click on the "comment" icon at the last line of this post. Let me know briefly the following:

1. What has been helpful reading for you?

2. How has this helped you?

3. What else would you like to see included?

4. How often do you think I should post an entry? (Meaning too, how often do you think you would come back to read this?)

Lastly, if you find this helpful and thought of someone else who may benefit from this, do let them know the link, ok?

Blessings,

Pr Chris Kam

Journalling Blogs of DUMC members

I am starting a new section on the right panel just below the "About Me" box, links of DUMC members who have put their journalling thoughts on blogs. This will give you an idea what our people are doing creatively with their journals.

So, if you have a blog like this, or know of someone else who is doing this, please email the blog address. I will be more than happy to link you up to this site so that others will benefit from it.

Priesthood of all Believers

As we read the books of Nehemiah and Ezra, names of the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers and the temple servants, keep popping up. One can't help but to see that these are "specialists" that took care of all matters in relation to God. They were the ones somewhat like go-in-betweens for us to God. Because of the cross, as the curtain of the temple (Matthew 27:51) that separates us from the Holy of Holies (symbolizing the Presence of the Lord, that were accessed by the High Priest once a year) was torn in two, the "specialists" lost their jobs forever.

Instead, we all took these jobs as priests of the Almighty God. We now go directly to the Presence of God, with the Sacrifice for sins offered once and for all by Jesus on the cross. 

1 Peter 2:9 (NIV)

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Don't you see how privileged we are now living in this age of grace? Count your blessings! We go direct to God! The pastors and full-time workers in the church are not "specialists" because you and I all have the same access privilege. Our role is to help equip you to be better priests and not to take over that role from you!

Ephesians 4:11-13 (NIV)

11 It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Nehemiah 2 - some personal thoughts on ancestral lineage

Here's some background information to my sermon this weekend which you may find helpful:

To help us understand the context, the generations after the 70 years of exile in Babylon in the book of Nehemiah and Ezra, is very much like those of us whose grand or great grand parents came from, which is China. My paternal grandfather did this in the 1930’s. This is about 70 years ago. Can you imagine now asking you and me, and our children to go back to China to rebuild it? We are too settled in here as Malaysians and many of us are now with good jobs or businesses. It would take a special earth shattering conviction and reason to get us to go back there as a community. 

When I went to Hainan island with my parents and brother David to visit our ancestral village where my grandfather came from, I discovered that I belong to the 29th generation of the Kam lineage since our very first generation ancestor migrated from the Fu-Chien province to Hainan island. Not sure how I should feel, but knowing that you are the 29th generation Kam is quite something. We had the thrill of entering the names of our children into the ancestry book that reminded me of the name list in Ezra and Nehemiah. Here's a photo of the page where the names of my children are entered. By the way, only male names are found there. Now I see pictorially why male descendants are so important to the Chinese. If there is no son after you, you (if you are a male) will be the last person listed in that book for your family tree.

Of course, we met many uncles, aunties, cousins whom we never knew before :)

My dad had not clue where his father came from as grandpa never mentioned it. We only know he came as a young man, probably out of economic necessity and ended up in tiny chinese village about 10 km from Yong Peng, along a windy road to Paloh. How he got there in the 1930's without the present road system we have now, confound us. The desire for my dad to find out his ancestry root came about 10 years ago. He started making trips to Hainan Island and on making some friends there, he asked one of them to explore if there's any village with the people going by the surname Kam. Lo and behold, this friend did find one village and my dad established that it is the very village my grandfather came from. Apparently, the village was frozen in time. See here in this picture.

This reminded me too that there is an even more important ancestry book, i.e. the Book of Life, where our names are written. Thank God we have a new spiritual lineage and heritage.

I have always wondered how the Israelites can keep such accurate records of their ancestry. Now I see that it is possible!