It’s supposed to reach 31 deg today and when I got out of the house this morning it was already about 20deg.

So, my decision to hop on the treadmill when I got into the gym this morning, wasnt the best. Everytime I run, i dont stop sweating for easiliy an hour. So I might have stopped at about 7.20am, but I was in the office about 5 to 8, but was still sweating for the next half hour.

It’s also not the best day for a run because of course, United was playing Real Madrid. It was a long anticipated match and though I caught the last 30 minutes or so in the tea room at work, I could only watch under very unpleasant conditions – I was still sweating…

The 1-1 draw was obviously satisfying in a way – being an away tie of a 2-leg context. But when I started to look at work after the match however, the sweating became the least of my challenges.

A few emails were in my inbox, all of which had chunky attachments with swathes of mark-ups I had to plough through. The bigger issue appears to be a couple of other emails from a mate of mine. He sounded really tired and maybe disillusioned. How a pastor can have such effect on a normally positive and rallying, gathering sort of lay leader, has been an eye-opening lesson for me.

The fact that the church this pastor came with, tipped in a paltry $80+k into the collective kitty – less than 40% of the total reserve, not to mention zero contribution to the multi-million dollar asset base – was the furthest issue in my mind when the merger took place. Now, with this pastor and the bulk of his people from the Cornerstone church calling the shots (and missing the mark) I’m beginning to wonder how far off my mind this issue should have been. The pastor (Tham Fuan) said something about this in the early days, apparently in jest. That he said this (in jest or otherwise) without any prompting or cause, should have been a giveaway then.

I was too naive to think because it is church property, no one would begrudge new believers sharing in the benefits.

There were so many things we gave the pastor the benefit of the doubt for. I wonder if we should have been stricter with him and apply the same standard of probity. The lesson from TA Securities in Malaysia and their purported Christian business ethics should have been remembered. Fool me twice… guess I’m the fool.

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A US president makes the State of the Union speech every January or February to “give to Congress information of the State of the Union and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” In other words, a status report – of the union of the United States of America.

I reckon the self-labelled chief executive of a local church should likewise be asked to account to the congregation the “state of the union”, particularly a union of two churches. It has been more than 2 years since ICC Church and Oakleigh Cornerstone Church came together to form the LIfeGate Church of Christ in Glen Waverley. I wonder what the state of that union is.

At the board level, I am gone. My mate is on his way out, unless those of us who have been trying to persuade him otherwise, succeed. Strangely, Tham Fuan the pastor, who sees himself as the chief executive, was also given the prerogative to appoint the Board and the Chair. Disingenuously, he made a mate his Chair. The youngest of all board members and the most tied up with 3 young kids, a young and inexperienced chair was exactly not the sort of chair an enigmatic and reclusive “chief executive” needs but there it was – a Chair and “CEO” combination that wreaked havoc on the board for the next two years – not by any careless or reckless act but the opposite.  Inaction and non-responsiveness seems to be the order of the day. Even when plans and “strategies” appear to look good on paper, such inaction and unresponsive mantra meant much of what was tabled and approved just got ignored, only to be “reviewed” months later. I haven’t got a clue how to review something when no action has been taken.

 Initially, my mate the Chair of ICC and de facto pastor of ICC for 5 years before that, was omitted. He may have expressed a desire to be left out to have a rest but leaving aside the Asian tendency to be self-effacing, surely that expression needs to be countered – as not only good manners but also wisdom dictates – and cajoled if necessary, so that the preceding “pastor” and chair, continues to serve in a senior role. I discussed the matter with Tham Fuan at length at that time, and he finally invited my mate to be part of the Board. This was more than 2 years ago. Since then, he has all but by-passed virtually one half of the adult congregation. He does not engage the board and sits and mulls things either by himself or in some other forum – anything but before the board. In fact the board was discouraged from even getting involved in ministry matters. Ministry leaders appointed by him eventually formed the view that the board has no place in terms of providing input on ministry matters. He was to be their source of input. So the board is told to go sit in a corner and just approve what the ministry leaders ask for, nary a question to be asked.

Anyway, here I am… without a church and not knowing where I will find fellowship. My mate is unmotivated and disillusioned. We both feel betrayed and lied to. A third person feels even worse but that is another story. We were at his house for CNY last weekend and he regaled all his unhappiness with Tham Fuan and it is just incredible how many similar accounts I have now heard, all of which he seems to show no interest to engage the injured party to address the matter in a deep and meaningful way. “Touch and go” I once called it, meaning superficial touching on the surface and hurrying along, not dwelling to attempt a more engaging and meaningful outcome but skirting over things. Lazy mind, maybe. That appears to be his MO

State of the Union? Shudders. All the right appearance maybe, but dig deeper and you’d find mangled remains – wounds and scars everywhere.

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I think some of us do stuff our minds tell us to, when our hearts say otherwise. For others, it’s the reverse. We do what our hearts tell us to, when our minds tell us differently. Sometimes a person listens to the mind for some things or at some time, and acts emotionally or intuitively for other things or at other times.

I guess no one acts entirely out of intellect at all times and I  hope few act entirely emotionally or intuitively all the time.

I’m afraid I tend to act according to my thoughts. more than my feelings. I dont know if that means I am often harder to live with and maybe that’s what makes me a person who is happier with a book and a good CD (or iPod tune) somewhere in a corner of a room, than in the middle of a room full of people making merry. When I want company, I also prefer a small group with good conversations, to a large one with small talk for the most part.

We were at a couple of Chinese New Year parties over the weekend. Yesterday arvo there were about 20+ people in a mate’s house and though I did strike up a few conversations with a few people, they didnt make me feel like I engaged with those people with whom I spoke, in meaningful ways. A day earlier, we had dinner with a couple of other families. There were only about half a dozen of us adults around the dining table and though the conversations were still very casual and easygoing, I felt as though I connected and engaged better with that group. Maybe there were other factors at play but food and good people aside (there were no differentiating factors between the parties), the smaller crowd made me think and engage better.

Sometimes my tendency to act on my thoughts alone, can bring unpleasant consequences.

We went into the city on Sat morning to shop at the Vic Markets. The fish and meat there are often better and cheaper and we were also getting veg and fruits so we decided to drive there instead of doing our usual thing of catching the train in. On the way back, we decided to stop at Madam Kwong’s for lunch. We pulled into  a council car park at Court Street, and were met by a couple with fluoro vests who walked up to us to say we couldnt park there unless we had permits for the Chinese New Year street party in Boax Hill.

I said we were going to be just a while and since there were only about 2-3 cars there at that time, I didnt think our presence was going to deprive anyone involved with the street party of a car park space. This was met with a categorical “no”. I got a bit annoyed so I asked for some proof of authority as this couple didnt have anything to suggest they were acting on authority of the local council or any other authority. I was to trust their word that the car park was off limits. Their fluoro vests were those you could but off your local Dimmey’s so i pretty much ignored those, which meant they had nothing to go on.

The man sort oof knew he was in a spot of trouble when I asked for proof of authority. The lady however, raised her voice and said she had papers giving her authority and when I asked to see those “papers” she said they were confidential. I said well if it was confidential she could keep it and I will just park. She then rang someone and asked me to speak to that someone on her mobile. I asked who that was and she said “my Manager”. Well she must have not understood my point. If she didnt have anything to show me she had authority, why would I speak to her Manager. That person would be a manager who didnt provide his ward with anything useful for anyone and was I going to wait while he makes his way to the car park? She must have rocks in her heads. She asked what language best suited me (must be thinking I didnt understand her unintelligible smutterings because of MY language deficiency). Iasked her what language I have been speaking to her in the past few minutes and that riled her. She started raising her voice, called me rude, etc.

I igonred her and parked, and we walked to Madam Kwong while she followed us saying she was going to call the police. I told her to go nuts and continued walking.

I was acting based on my thoughts. Problem was – by the time we got to Madam Kwong’s Tress felt she couldnt eat anymore as a result of the exchange. I wasnt upset until that moment, so I said let’s just go home. So we missed lunch and I got angry with Tress that arvo for reacting emotionally with a couple of looneys when Iwas simply reacting based on facts which had presented themselves.

Anyway, we were cool later that arvo and all was well and when we got to J’s for dinner that night we enjoyed ourselves very much.

This morning I was thinking if there was a lesson in that encounter – that maybe more could have been achieved if I acted less on my thoughts and more on my emotions. I thought about our church life and wondered that.

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A bunch of us didnt need an excuse to get together for good food and when one presents itself, i’m only too happy to indulge.

Chinese New Year js just around the corner and so last night TT & Maudrene, Jason & Mel and Tress, Kiddo and i went to the “Shangri-La” for dinner. TT had wanted to get some Yee Sang for his do on Sat night so last night was a trial run of sorts.

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It has been a bit of a busy week, not helped by what can only be seen as third-world standard of Metro trains’ crisis management practices. Trains were crawling the last couple of days and on Tuesday, it took us nearly three times as long to get home. I usually didn’t mind standing on the way home as the 20-25 minute ride was perfectly fine standing. On Tuesday though, if not for Barry Wain’s very interesting book on Dr Mahathir which kept my attention drawn away from the journey, standing in a crowded train on a 37deg day for about 1½ hours would have been far worse.

Apparently the problem was with some faulty signals, caused by bats. The problem had started on Tuesday morning at 6am, when my usual 30minute ride took nearly 45 minutes. Peak hour escalated the problems as expected and up until yesterday afternoon the problem was still not fixed. Thankfully though, the ride has returned to normal.

Last night a mate came over for coffee with his wife. He wanted a listening ear to a precipitating problem – one which had caused issues for one far less patient such as yours truly, to fold pretty quickly. His was a far more noble cause. Tress and I talked with them for a couple of hours and while I’m not sure it helped him better process the decision-making, I hope just having someone to talk things through helped.

I still think the problem he wanted to talk through, was down to a major root cause and that’s non-communication and non-engagement.

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The office was refurbished over the weekend and while with better natural light and closer interaction the new place is better, the cluster configuration takes some getting used to. It’s such a far cry from days of having an office to myself…

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We went to dinner at Noble Park on Friday night, along with Gezza and Jason and their families. It was a nice little place called Verona, just on Blackburn Road. It was about 10mins away from Jason and Mel’s place and they had asked if we wanted to adjourn there for coffee after dinner. Their coffee machine had broken down so their generosity was even more impressive. They have been making the Malaysian version – the type where a muslin-like sieve is used to get hot boiling water through the ground to extract the coffee, which was then served with sweet condensed milk. It’s less about the coffee and more about an after dinner sweet drink which was very satisfying and it was lovely all the same.

On Sat we went to a nursery in Braeside, on Springvale Road. About a couple of weeks earlier, I had removed one of the several flax plants outside our bedroom. We wanted to replace that with something with a little more colour and with less dangling long sheaths of leaves that end up pressing against our bedroom windows. We couldn’t decide however, which plant we wanted. So it’s more research.

We had to pass Springvale on the way home so we stopped to have a Pho lunch. We had gone to Westfield at Doncaster on Thursday night and had a quick dinner at a Japanese outlet where we had soupy noodle which made us think about Pho – something we haven’t had for a while – so it was a perfect opportunity to plug that gap. We then did some quick grocery shopping there before heading back and got the little black jedi to Brighton. We recently discovered the Sandown Street beach there, which has a fenced-off and off-lead beach for pooches. We had taken the little fellow there the previous weekend and on his second visit, he was visibly more relaxed and did a whole lot more splashing around.
When we got home, Kiddo gave LBJ a bath and Tress busied herself with laundry stuff. The Wizard of Oz was on and it has been about two thousand years since I last watched it so we decided to treat ourselves to this timeless classic again. Kiddo and I were laughing a bit about the CGI but we had to remind ourselves this was almost 74 years ago!

Early Sunday morning I got up to catch the last 15 minutes of the United v Fulham game and caught Rooney’s strike to give us a narrow 1-0 lead. It was a hard won battle and very nervy to hold it out – for a 10point lead at the top of the table. I went back to sleep just before 7am.

After church we went to a place in Doncaster known as “Meals at Jackson” – very decent Malaysian food – after which we went and watched Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty”.

It has been such a quality filled summer movies wise. Skyfall, Les Miserables, The Hobbit, Life of Pi, Silver Lining Playbook, and now Zero Dark Thirty. A slight blemish was “Pitch Perfect” but even that was fun stuff. No doubt, had Kiddo not been home, we would not have caught all of those offerings.

After the movie, we came back and took the little fella out to the park for his walk and run-around, and then came home to start thinking about the start of a work week. Work has well and truly assumed normal pace and load. We had to pack up early last Friday to allow movers to move stuff out of the way. The office space where I am got renovated over the weekend and this morning we got in and had to spend some time to set everything up again. Since I was the first to get in and nothing was ready for me then, this entry was the result.

This weekend will be Kiddo’s last at home for the summer. She returns to Ngambri next weekend and Tress and I will then have to relearn how to live our lives the way we had started to know, before summer began.

It feels like God knows I’m useless for abrupt changes such as this so He has allowed me time to become accustomed to gradual warming-up runs. This feels like a prelude. Later this year Kiddo will be doing an exchange program that would take her overseas for a year and a half and Tress and I would have to really get used to being by ourselves (and LBJ). Hopefully we’d be better at it then but until then, I am very grateful for the wonderfully fun summer we’ve had so far. 

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Found this on the web earlier today… pretty good!

http://www.davidcox.com.mx/usa/our_promo/guidelines_for_discerning_a_bad_pastor.htm

Guidelines for discerning a Bad Pastor by David Cox God wants us (His people) to understand what the ministry of oversight is all about, and to make sure that those who are in a position of oversight fulfill their God given duties FAITHFULLY. We can discern from God’s word what would amount to a serious warning if the spiritual leader steps out of line. KJV Ezekiel 34:1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, 2Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks? 3Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock. 4The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them. 5And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered. 6 My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them. 7Therefore, ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD; 8As I live, saith the Lord GOD, surely because my flock became a prey, and my flock became meat to every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd, neither did my shepherds search for my flock, but the shepherds fed themselves, and fed not my flock; 9Therefore, O ye shepherds, hear the word of the LORD; 10 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against the shepherds; and I will require my flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them. 11For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out. 12As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.This passage of Scripture was written for the Old Testament leaders of God’s people. It is written specifically against “the shepherds of Israel”. “Shepherd” is the same word as “pastor”. This would define what the concept of shepherd or pastor is, as God sees it. Failure to fulfill this task brings railing condemnation against that pastor. From this we too can learn much about New Testament church oversight (i.e. pastors). Beware when your pastor … 1. Is overly concerned about remuneration and his own life style instead of his preaching. Ezekiel 34:2 The first and great overriding condemnation by God is that the pastors feed themselves instead of feeding their charge, the flock of God. We must admit that God’s principles are that the local church is to give the pastor a livable wage or salary, and they are to even give him “double honor” if he ministers well, and the pastor is to live of the gospel. But when the balance becomes to great towards “feathering his own nest” instead of tending to his charge, then the pastor is not what he is supposed to be. The charge of God to the pastor is the same as the owner of sheep in Palestine to a shepherd of sheep, “whatever is wrong, fix it.” What this means is that the pastor should confront all problems and resolve them however it is necessary to do so. A pastor who by-passes and ignores problems in the local church is not doing his job. We must give time to many matters, and we must labor over them in prayer, but some matters need to be confronted and dealt with instead of being prayed over. For example God rebuked Joshua in Joshua 7 because he was praying instead of rooting out sin in the camp. In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul rebukes the church for not confronting sin in their midst. Paul’s comparison is that this is like kneading a lump of dough with leaven in it, soon it will saturate the entire lump if not stopped quickly and decisively. The preacher should preach, and he should do that well. Preachers that do not spend a lot of time preparing, and that includes study, prayer, and meditation, just are slighting their duties. Even the most scholarly preachers still spend many hours on a sermon if it is to be a good, effective sermon. Moreover, when a preacher spends a large portion of his time in other things (such as administration of a Christian school, counseling, writing, fellowship, or entertainment concerns) be careful. A person’s priorities are reflected by his attention to that things, i.e. what he spends the most time, energy, and resources on is his highest priority. Beware when your pastor … 2. Hurts more people than he helps. Ezekiel 34:2 The sense of “the diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken” is that he should be building up the flock so that they are not crippled by spiritual disease or sickness. The broken perhaps refers to the difficult crises of life that cause a person to become disabled or unfruitful and unproductive.  Focus on our task as Christians. We must ask ourselves, “what should the sheep be normally doing that these diseases, sicknesses, and crises (brokenness) would hinder?” The answer is very simple, sheep are supposed to roam around after the pastor eating and feeding all they can get, and they are to reproduce more sheep, and give fruit (wool and milk). Christians then are supposed to go to church and feed on the Word of God that the pastor feeds them with. This Word of God explained (feeding grounds) is supposed to promote the Christian to bear spiritual fruit and to reproduce (evangelism). This evangelism is the mission of the church (Matthew 28:19-20). It is a single mission that must all come under the focus of the local church. The local church must evangelize the lost, baptize them (membership – integration) into the local church, and teach them all God has commanded us (discipleship so that they are just like the rest of the church). This is the work of God, and the sheep are supposed to be doing it, and the pastor is supposed to promoting it, making it happen. Moreover the Christian is to bear spiritual fruit. Let us mention what the Christians should be moved to produce from their “church experience”. Gal 5:22-23 Love – The practice and attitude of placing somebody else before their own self. Seeking the benefit of another before your self. Joy – Happiness (well being) that is not necessarily linked to physical well being. Comfort or thoughts that overwhelms the person even if that person finds himself in conflict, affliction, distress, anguish, agony, or pain. Peace – The absence of conflict in the soul, even though outwardly the person may be in great conflicts. Longsuffering – Suffering long, waiting and having patience even though the events and pressures of life would force the person to immediate response, vengeance, attack, rebuke, conflict, or improper speech. Gentleness – Treating others softly instead of harshly and brutishly. Gentleness means not seeking to hurt others even when it is fully possible. Faith – Faith is belief. But much more than some doctrinal point somebody ascribes themselves to, faith is spiritual force to wait or go forward when the evidence before ones eyes is to the contrary. Meekness – This is to approach others as though you believe them to be better and superior to yourself. While it may not be so, still the meek person will treat others with this respect and dignity even though he himself may be a king. Temperance – Self-control. A control over one’s self so that one does not indulge in sins and excesses of life. This is a strong control over oneself, or perhaps better put, it is a complete rendering of one’s self to the control of God to decide and guide their life, actions and speech so that what a person does is God’s will. KJV Ephesians 5:9 (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)The Christian is supposed to have his life full of all goodness and righteousness. Good is free from the element of sin. Righteousness is the opposite of sin. It is what we are supposed to be doing instead of sin. Truth is God’s banner (identifying flag) over us. We are supposed to be champions of the truth. Beware when people claim to be Christians and tell lies to protect or promote their version of Christianity. No obedient Christian will use Satan’s methods to do God’s work. It just does not work. Beware when your pastor … 3. Drives away people instead of gathering them. Ezekiel 34:4 KJV Ezekiel 34:4 brought that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost The biblical pastor will be active in evangelism. Any church or pastor that slights evangelism is making light of the verse heart of God. “For God so loved the world He sent …” Evangelism is hard and discouraging, but it is the essence of God’s work. We cannot get around it. We cannot use the world’s methods, especially not Madison Avenue’s methods to do God’s work. We must use God’s methods. Some pastors drive away and scatter the sheep instead of gathering them. This is seen by the pastor doing and saying things that drives people away from the Lord for unbiblical reasons. God’s purpose is to change people so that they obey the will of God. When a pastor preaches the will of God, then at times he will drive disobedient people away from the Lord because they will not obey God’s word. This is normal and not what we are talking about here. (Christ said he came to bring a sword into this world). What is a bad sign is when the pastor delights or accepts driving people away when there is no need to do so. For example, the pastor is sarcastic or bitter or sharp with his words when he could have said the same thing in a different way and not offend. The offense must  always be between the individual and God, not the pastor and the individual. The pastor shows them God’s word and they may get offended or repent and follow God’s will. Another aspect of a good pastor is that he seeks the lost. This goes beyond evangelism. It goes to the pastor’s relationship with his own sheep. When the pastor offends somebody, or somebody just stops coming or distances himself from the church, the good pastor will go out and seek that person seeking to “fix what is wrong” and restore that person into the fellowship as an active and fruitful member. Beware when your pastor’s … 4. Leadership style is marked with cruelty and force. Ezekiel 34:4 KJV Ezekiel 34:4with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them “Force” here means excessive force, vehemence, might, strength. “Cruelty” means to break apart, to break down, to fracture, to use severity or cruelty, rigor. The idea is that the bad pastor is somebody who gets his will done no matter what. He is very forceful, and reserves all right for himself. Seldom is he ever wrong (in his own eyes), and even when he is wrong, he will ignore it and wants all others to ignore his errors, adhering absolute loyalty to his “always right” way. Beware when your pastor … 5. Decides not to give pastoral counseling and get involved in correcting people’s lives. Ezekiel 34:5 One of the most important points to understand about pastors is that they government the sheep. That “government” simply is that they make executive decisions for the welfare of the sheep. The word for shepherd (ra’ah) means and is translated on occasion, “to govern”. They are personally responsible to God for their charge (Hebrews 13:17). This governing takes a public form in guiding the decisions of the local church, and a private form in personal one on one counseling. Public guiding of the church is done by preaching and teaching, setting the norms, understandings, and standards of that local church. Also he has the burden of biblically expositing the direction, activities, and work of the local church to set its course. He does not make these decisions privately, and the church simply obeys him, but rather he exposits biblically why and how we are to do what we do, and the church follows his leadership. His “validity” is not found in his authority (position) but rather in his right to “have the ear of the church”. He feeds them daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, with information from God that illuminates the church, and is the pastor’s principal means of governing. When a pastor comes to a person position in his own life in which he is not willing or able to “risk” giving counsel and getting involved in correcting the wrong in people’s lives and in the church in general, he must be removed, either voluntarily or by the people of that church for failure to fulfill his primary work burden. Pastors today think that they can split and divide their work such that they personally do not have to do the “dirty job” of dealing with people’s problems. This is the primary burden for the pastor. He gets his validity in everything else because he has helped the personal problems of his people and church. Bottom Line: Whatever is wrong, the pastor has to fix it however it has to be done. Comments webmaster@davidcox.com.mx

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• Luke 2:8-11 – And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. (church4u2.wordpress.com)
• “Divine Encounters: Meeting God By Showing Up (Shepherds)” ~ December 24, 2012 Sermon (nearwestclevepastor.wordpress.com)
• January 24 Devotional (cherokeebaptistmemphis.wordpress.com)
• Applebee’s fires waitress for exposing pastor’s ‘give God 10%’ no-tip receipt (rawstory.com)
• Pastors? – SoS Saturdays (ptl2010.com)

Bible burning in Malaysia?

The threat by a small Muslim group is against the physical book and it is over an argument over form. That form is in the use of Allah in Malay Bibles. I know there are possibly significant substantive arguments that may lead to fundamental truths about God but that is not what the bible burning is aimed at. These Muslims dont have any issues with the teachings per se of Christianity – just the form of lingual expression which they are challenging. Do these Muslims pose a bigger threat than people who perhaps seek to make us hate our neighbours and rebel against God?

The one who burns a bible is not to be feared or fought as one who teaches us to hate our neighbours and disobey God. The command to love neighbour and God (substance) is more important than the physical book (form). The book is only a book. It is what is in the book that matters. The ink and paper dont magically transform into something else because of the message that they carry. If someone wants to burn that physical elements of ink on bound paper – go crazy. But if someone challenges and poses serious issues against what those pages teach, then that is when I take issue. Or more seriously at least.

I hope the churches in Malaysia dont react in a way which makes reaching out ever more challenging. The edict to love our neighbours and love God is not impacted by this threat to burn bibles. Our ability to obey the command  may however, be badly impacted by reaction of the church to this threat.

I say: bake a cake and serve it to whoever is burning a bible. Love him. He isnt burning the bible out of rebellion against God. He burns it over an argument over form. The war should be over other matters. I think.

“And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” – Matt 10:28

 

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• Burn al-Kitab Day on Jan 27? (hornbillunleashed.wordpress.com)
• Malaysians clash over calls to burn Bibles using ‘Allah’ (rt.com)
• Call to burn Bibles heightens Malaysian election tensions (updatednews.ca)
• Why Malaysian politicos get worked up by a Bible written in jawi (theunspunblog.com)
• The Bible: Exhaustive or Essential? (hippiexpastor.wordpress.com)