Here are photos from Pastor Naing Thang's visit to several Reformed (CREC) churches in the north of Myanmar (Burma).
What a joy to see the Body of Christ gathered at the ends of the earth!
Thursday, July 31, 2008
The church in north Myanmar
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Beards
“It is the business of these great masters to produce in every age a general misdirection of what may be called sexual ‘taste’. This they do by working through the small circle of popular artists, dressmakers, actresses and advertisers who determine the fashionable type. The aim is to guide each sex away from those members of the other with whom spiritually helpful, happy, and fertile marriages are most likely. Thus we have now for many centuries triumphed over nature to the extent of making certain secondary characteristics of the male (such as the beard) disagreeable to nearly all the females — and there is more in that than you might suppose….”
—C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
What’s so important about beards? Why do men grow them, why do some men shave them, and does it matter? And why in the world would C. S. Lewis, in his fictional account of the secret life of demons, include some women’s dislike for beards as one of the demonic success stories?
Let us begin at the very beginning. “God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them…. The LORD God formed man [Adam] of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being…. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said:
“‘This is now bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.’
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 1:27; 2:7, 20b-24).
So mankind—both male and female—is created in the image of God. For this reason, men and women are equal in dignity and honor. Yet there are differences also. Adam was created first, from the dust; Eve was formed later out of Adam’s side. Adam was commissioned to work, and Eve to help him in his work. While man and woman are equal before God, they are different in their roles toward each other.
Because men and women were created to hold different positions in human society, God has ordained certain physical and societal differences between them. Obviously, men are distinguished from women by their different body shape and reproductive function. But in addition to this, God prohibited women from wearing what pertains to a man, and men from wearing women’s clothing (Deuteronomy 22:5). He decreed that a man or a woman should not take the position of the other in sexual relations, under penalty of death (Leviticus 20:13; Romans 1:26-32). And by specifying of bishops and elders that such a man should be “the husband of one wife” (1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:6), He restricted the leadership of the church to men, even while linking the salvation of women to childbearing (1 Timothy 2:15)—a role that a man cannot perform.
And besides all these things, God gave to men (generally speaking) the ability to grow a beard.
There is no Biblical requirement that men should be bearded, or that they must wear some kind of facial hair. Yet a beard is one of the natural features that God has given men to distinguish themselves as men and not women. In fact, while beards are mentioned infrequently in the Bible, this seems to be only because it was generally assumed that men would wear them. We are told specifically that King David (1 Samuel 21:13), General Amasa (2 Samuel 20:9), Ezekiel the prophet (Ezekiel 5:1), and Ezra the priest (Ezra 9:3) were bearded men. Psalm 133 compares unity among brothers to the precious anointing oil running down into the beard of the high priest Aaron, who is one of the most important Old Testament foreshadowings of Christ. It is noteworthy that the Hebrew word for “beard” (zāqān) is closely related to the word for “elder” (zāqēn), which helps to illustrate the symbolic value of the beard as a mark of honor and wisdom.
On the other hand, there are only ten Biblical references to shaving the beard, and every one of them is related to either disease, idolatry, judgement for sin, or deep mourning. Consider the list that follows:
1. If a man has a skin disease, he is supposed to shave himself as part of the process of quarantining the potential leprosy (Leviticus 13:29-34).
2. A leper who is healed is to shave his entire head as part of the cleansing ritual (Leviticus 14:9), since his hair and beard were associated with the leprosy that he had before.
3. God prohibited cutting off the edges of the beard (Leviticus 19:27), a practice which was connected with idolatrous pagan worship, just like making cuts in the skin (1 Kings 18:28).
4. Priests, because they were holy to the Lord, were especially forbidden to shave the edges of their beards (Leviticus 21:5).
5. The Ammonite king Hanun seized David's messengers and shaved off half of their beards (along with cutting off half of their robes) as a way to especially humiliate them. David graciously told them to stay in Jericho until their beards grew back, so that they would not be exposed to public shame (2 Samuel 10:4-5). In the Greek translation of this passage, it says that the men were “dishonored” (the verb is atimazō), and the Apostle Paul uses the same root word to say in 1 Corinthians 11:14 that long hair is a “dishonor” (atimia, noun) to a man. Comparing these two passages, both a shaven face and long hair are considered to be dishonorable for men, because they go against what is natural to them and obscure the distinction between men and women.
6. Isaiah describes the coming judgement on Israel metaphorically by saying that the king of Assyria would cut off their beards and also shave their heads and their legs (Isaiah 7:20).
7. Isaiah says that in the coming destruction of Moab, the Moabites would shave their heads and cut off their beards—as a sign of either judgement or deep mourning, or both (Isaiah 15:1-2).
8. Eighty men came to Mizpah with their beards shaved off, their clothes torn, and their bodies cut, to show their profound grief over the ruin of Judah by the Babylonians (Jeremiah 41:5).
9. Jeremiah also prophesies that the men of Moab would have bald heads, clipped beards, cuts on their hands, and sackcloth on their bodies, because of the coming judgement (Jeremiah 48:37).
10. Ezekiel was to shave his head and beard as a sign of the destruction of the people of Jerusalem for their wickedness and rebellion (Ezekiel 5:1-5). (Similarly, Ezra pulled out some of his beard and tore his clothes as a sign of deep mourning over apostasy among the Israelites, Ezra 9:3.)
Along with all of these references to beards, there is Isaiah’s prophecy of the sufferings of Jesus. He speaks of three ways in which Christ’s enemies dishonored Him: they beat Him, they spit in His face, and they plucked out His beard (Isaiah 50:6).
Thus a consistent pattern emerges in the Bible’s references to beards: For men, wearing a beard tends to be a mark of honor and even of wisdom. On the other hand, shaving of the beard is mentioned only in connection with malignant diseases, idolatrous rituals that were banned in Israel, destructive judgements, great disgrace, or deep mourning. Whatever we may think of it in our day, in the Bible it was normal for men to have hair on their faces—and whenever they deviated from this pattern, something was deeply wrong.
Throughout the centuries, much Christian writing and tradition has preserved the same positive attitude about beards on men. Only a few examples from the Church Fathers and the time of the Reformation will be given here. St. Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-c. 215) wrote of beards as an important God-given distinction between men and women: “How womanly it is for one who is a man to comb himself and shave himself with a razor, for the sake of fine effect, and to arrange his hair at the mirror, shave his cheeks, pluck hairs out of them, and smooth them!…For God wished women to be smooth and to rejoice in their locks alone growing spontaneously, as a horse in his mane. But He adorned man like the lions, with a beard, and endowed him as an attribute of manhood, with a hairy chest—a sign of strength and rule.” St. Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258) added, “The beard must not be plucked. ‘You shall not deface the figure of your beard,’” citing Leviticus 19:27 as his authority. The fourth-century “Apostolic Constitutions,” which had great authority in the formation of church law, also quotes Leviticus when it urges, “Men may not destroy the hair of their beards and unnaturally change the form of a man. For the Law says, ‘You shall not deface your beards.’ For God the Creator has made this decent for women, but has determined that it is unsuitable for men.”
When the Western or “Catholic” Church split from the Eastern Orthodox Church in 1054, they condemned the East for many things, including having non-celibate clergy who wore beards. The two issues were apparently connected. Roman Catholic clergy took vows of celibacy and also were clean-shaven, rejecting the beard because of its association with male sexuality. On the other hand, many of the leading Protestant Reformers grew long beards at the same time that they rejected clerical celibacy and other church traditions that they viewed as unscriptural. (And although William Shakespeare does not exactly speak for the whole of English Protestantism, he does have Beatrice say in Much Ado about Nothing, “He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man.”)
It would be wrong to say that for men to be clean-shaven is sinful or wicked. However, God has generally designed men’s faces to grow hair. When a society like our own prefers to have men’s facial hair shaved off, it shows that it does not value masculine honor, since it removes one of the natural marks distinguishing men from women. It is as if either idolatry, shame, illness, or judgement—the Biblical situations in which we see men being shaved—has become the norm for our culture.
Some people may object that Christian men ought to have an agreeable appearance, and a beard detracts from that. In part, this objection is based on worldly preferences that are not founded in Biblical teaching; in fact, the desire to conform to secular standards of attractiveness is sometimes condemned in the Bible when it goes against deeper standards of modesty and beauty (see 1 Corinthians 11:3-16; 1 Timothy 2:9-10; 1 Peter 3:3). However, there is some truth in the objection as well. Trimming or shaping one’s beard, choosing to wear different styles of beards or mustaches, or going clean-shaven when there are strong external reasons for it, are all very acceptable style choices for Christian men. But as we make these choices, we ought to remember that godless Western culture has a deep-seated resentment against men who are masculine (along with women who are feminine). Christian men should always be watchful to do what we can to resist that trend, showing by our appearance as well as our behavior that we honor the role God has given to us as men.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Poetry: Rich Mullins, "Calling Out Your Name"
The American singer-songwriter Rich Mullins (1955-1997) composed a body of songs that were generally contemporary in their style, but often timeless in the depth of their content. His rhapsodies about the praises of God in nature are poetry in their own right, sometimes calling to mind the work of such earlier authors as Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Calling Out Your Name
by Rich Mullins
Psalm 19:1-6, Psalm 65:5-13
Well the moon moved past Nebraska
And spilled laughter on them cold Dakota Hills
And angels danced on Jacob's stairs
Yeah, they danced on Jacob's stairs
There is this silence in the Badlands
And over Kansas the whole universe was stilled
By the whisper of a prayer
The whisper of a prayer
And the single hawk bursts into flight
And in the east the whole horizon is in flames
I feel thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And I hear the prairies calling out Your name
I can feel the earth tremble
Beneath the rumbling of the buffalo hooves
And the fury in the pheasant's wings
And there's fury in a pheasant's wings
It tells me the Lord is in His temple
And there is still a faith that can make the mountains move
And a love that can make the heavens ring
And I've seen love make heaven ring
Where the sacred rivers meet
Beneath the shadow of the Keeper of the plains
I feel thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And I hear the prairies calling out Your name
From the place where morning gathers
You can look sometimes forever 'til you see
What time may never know
What time may never know
How the Lord takes by its corners this old world
And shakes us forward and shakes us free
To run wild with the hope
To run wild with the hope
The hope that this thirst will not last long
That it will soon drown in the song not sung in vain
And I feel thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And I hear the prairies calling out Your name
And I know this thirst will not last long
That it will soon drown in the song not sung in vain
I feel thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And with the prairies I am calling out Your name
Saturday, July 19, 2008
The Trinity and the Bible
One of several thoughts that arose during a discussion with Patrick (Pak Wa) Yau over his postings on "The Fake Four-God Bible".
The doctrine that God is Trinity, three Persons in one divine Being, helps us both to trust the Bible and have hope that we can understand it.
God the Father is the source of the Bible. He is the Giver of the Word. The trustworthiness of the Bible rests on His authority.
God the Son illuminates the Bible. Without Jesus, it would have been very difficult for us to hear and understand God's Word. But in Him, God has become one of us so that we have a person to match with that Voice. The Bible is illuminated by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, by the way He lived and talked when He was with us on earth.
God the Spirit interprets the Bible. If it were not for the Holy Spirit, true explanation of the Bible's teachings would be beyond us. But Jesus promised to send His Spirit to be with us, so that we would understand the things that God has spoken to us. The presence of the Spirit in the Church makes it possible for us to know that we are interpreting God's Word rightly, because the Spirit of the same God is with us teaching us how to read it. The right interpretation of the Bible flows from submission to the Spirit of God, who is present among us and lives in us.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Poetry: St. John of the Cross
San Juan de la Cruz (St. John of the Cross, 1542-1591) composed some of the most beautiful poetry of love for God that has ever been written.
Here is his "Cantar del alma que se huelga de conocer a Dios por fe" (Song of the soul that rejoices in knowing God by faith), in Spanish and with an English translation from Carmelite.com.
Qué bien sé yo la fonte que mane y corre,
aunque es de noche.
1. Aquella eterna fonte está escondida,
que bien sé yo do tiene su manida,
aunque es de noche.
2. Su origen no lo sé, pues no le tiene,
mas sé que todo origen de ella tiene,
aunque es de noche.
3. Sé que no puede ser cosa tan bella,
y que cielos y tierra beben de ella,
aunque es de noche.
4. Bien sé que suelo en ella no se halla,
y que ninguno puede vadealla,
aunque es de noche.
5. Su claridad nunca es oscurecida,
y sé que toda luz de ella es venida,
aunque es de noche.
6. Sé ser tan caudalosos sus corrientes.
que infiernos, cielos riegan y las gentes,
aunque es de noche.
7. El corriente que nace de esta fuente
bien sé que es tan capaz y omnipotente,
aunque es de noche.
8. El corriente que de estas dos procede
sé que ninguna de ellas le precede,
aunque es de noche.
9. Aquesta eterna fonte está escondida
en este vivo pan por darnos vida,
aunque es de noche.
10. Aquí se está llamando a las criaturas,
y de esta agua se hartan, aunque a oscuras
porque es de noche.
11. Aquesta viva fuente que deseo,
en este pan de vida yo la veo,
aunque es de noche.
For I know well the spring that flows and runs,
although it is night.
1. That eternal spring is hidden,
for I know well where it has its rise,
although it is night.
2. I do not know its origin, nor has it one,
but I know that every origin has come from it,
although it is night.
3. I know that nothing else is so beautiful,
and that the heavens and the earth drink there,
although it is night.
4. I know well that it is bottomless
and no one is able to cross it,
although it is night.
5. Its clarity is never darkened,
and I know that every light has come from it,
although it is night.
6. I know that its streams are so brimming
they water the lands of hell, the heavens, and earth,
although it is night.
7. I know well the stream that flows from this spring
is mighty in compass and power,
although it is night.
8. I know the stream proceeding from these two,
that neither of them in fact precedes it,
although it is night.
9. This eternal spring is hidden
in this living bread for our life's sake,
although it is night.
10. It is here calling out to creatures;
and they satisfy their thirst, although in darkness,
because it is night.
11. This living spring that I long for,
I see in this bread of life,
although it is night.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
The Blessings of Fasting
A paper that I wrote recently for Greyfriars' Hall.
“Seeing the crowds, [Jesus] went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: … ‘When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.’ ” (Matthew 5:1-2; 6:16-18, ESV)
In the few years of His earthly ministry, the Lord Jesus Christ gathered a group of disciples and taught them about the Kingdom of God. He knew that He would be with them in body only for a short time, and that the teachings He gave them in those days would lay the foundation for the faith of His disciples throughout all future history. Christ spoke to them about the greatest and most essential things: the need to trust in Him, the progress of the Kingdom in history, blessings and curses, murder and adultery, love and hatred, obedience to God, prayer, and…fasting. But if most of these topics are treated in today’s evangelical church as very weighty and serious matters, why is fasting so widely ignored?
Oddly enough, Jesus’ teaching on fasting (as quoted above) comes right in the middle of His “Sermon on the Mount”—a passage that many present-day Christians take as proof that what they do with their bodies is not so very important. After all, didn’t Jesus just finish saying that the poor and despised of the world are blessed in the spiritual realm, where it really counts (Matthew 5:1-12)? Doesn’t He argue that murder and adultery are committed in the heart long before they work themselves out into physical actions (5:21-28)? Doesn’t He say that there is no need to worry about food and clothes—just seek first God’s kingdom, and you’ll have all that you need (6:25-33)? And finally, doesn’t He warn that even people with all the right words and actions can fall short of truly knowing Him (7:21-23)?
But right in the center of this same foundational sermon, there it is—the teaching on fasting. God the Son came to earth and became man, walked among us on two human feet, endured the weaknesses of hunger and thirst, suffered and died and rose again, in part so that He could give us these teachings about abstaining from food for a time—how we ought not to do this, and how we ought to.
As this passage itself makes obvious, fasting was not a new concept in Jesus’ time. The Old Testament Church practiced many kinds of fasts: national fasts (2 Chronicles 20:1-4), group fasts (2 Samuel 1:11-12), and individual fasts (Nehemiah 1:4); annual fasts (Leviticus 16:29-31) and special occasional fasts (Ezra 8:21-23); public fasts (Ezra 9:3-5) and private fasts (Daniel 9:3); absolute fasts without food or water (Esther 4:16), “normal” fasts by abstaining from food only (2 Samuel 12:16-17), and partial fasts (Daniel 10:2-3); fasts for public concerns (Judges 20:25-26) and for personal ones (1 Samuel 1:6-8). Old Covenant believers were continuing in these practices in Christ’s time (cf. Luke 2:36-37). Just as with His teachings on other aspects of the Law, the Lord was affirming the divinely-ordained practice of fasting by setting it free from hypocritical abuses. If His disciples did not fast while He was with them, it was only because with Him they had a continual wedding feast. But in the future, He said, He would be taken from them, and that would be the time for fasting (Mark 2:18-20). The disciples of Jesus learned this lesson well; several kinds of fasts are clearly illustrated and taught in the remainder of the New Testament (see Acts 10:30; 13:1-3; 14:23; 27:33-38; 1 Corinthians 7:5; 8:13; 2 Corinthians 6:5; 11:27).
How, then, should we fast? A study of Biblical teachings and examples of fasting will illustrate why Christians ought to fast and when we would do well to fast, while also giving us direction about how to fast. First, however, what is fasting? A survey of dictionary definitions for the English verb “fast” gives the common idea of abstaining from all or some foods (and perhaps drinks as well) as a religious observance. The Hebrew and Greek words used in the Bible for fasting can suggest either simply abstaining from food, or else humbling or afflicting oneself through this kind of abstinence (as at the Day of Atonement, Leviticus 16:29, and Ezra’s mourning for the sin of the people, Ezra 9:5). Although abstinence from food is the common thread running through most Biblical examples of “fasting,” the idea of humbling oneself to mourn or to seek the will of God is also prominent, as we will see.
A first reason why to fast, as described in Scripture, is to recognize our dependence on God alone—a lesson that is especially necessary in our current situation. Americans in general are as well fed as any people that the world has ever seen. Even while people in many parts of the world are starving, it is said that the average “poverty-stricken” American is overweight to the point of obesity.
When Jesus “had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry,” and yet He still refused to turn stones to bread. Like the Israelites who ate manna in the desert, He knew that “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:1-4; Deuteronomy 8:3). We may recognize—in theory—our absolute need for God to provide. But until we abstain from food for a few days and feel the extent of our weakness, do we really know just how much we are in need of Him?
Closely related to this first point is the value of fasting for humbling ourselves. The returning exiles under Ezra (8:21-23), holy David when his adversaries were sick (Psalm 35:13), and even the Gentile Ninevites at a time of repentance (Jonah 3:5-9), all fasted as part of the process of humbling themselves before the Lord and seeking His mercy. Some people might object that regular fasting can fail in this purpose and even become a source of pride, as it did with the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable (Luke 18:11-12). But the Bible recommends fasting as generally useful for humbling ourselves. The chance of hypocritical pride should not stop us from fasting, any more than it should keep us from praying at all!
One of the most obvious purposes of fasting is to help in devoting ourselves to prayer. Not only can fasting aid Christians’ prayer life by humbling us and directing our minds toward God, but it can also reclaim the time that would otherwise be given to preparing and eating meals. Anna the prophetess devoted herself to fasting and prayer night and day (Luke 2:36-37), and Cornelius’s earnest prayers with fasting were the occasion for the Gospel to go out to the Gentiles (Acts 10:30-31). There are times when we should support the intensity of our prayer by fasting not only from food, but also from sexual relations (1 Corinthians 7:3-5) and even sleep (1 Samuel 15:10-12; Luke 6:12-13). However, we need to be especially careful to set limits to these fasts, to keep from harming ourselves or defrauding our families from what is due them.
A final reason for fasting, and probably the one that is most ignored in our day, is to seek God’s face corporately. Over time Jesus’ words about not fasting “before men” have been perverted to make fasting (if it is practiced at all) into an exclusively private and individual exercise. But the Bible often speaks of fasts on the part of whole communities of God’s people—whether that be a household (2 Samuel 1:11-12), or a church as represented by its leaders (Acts 13:1-3), or the whole covenant community in a city or region (Esther 4:3, 16), or an entire godly nation (2 Chronicles 20:1-4). Some might object that a whole church could not fast together sincerely or that the proclamation of a fast for an entire church body would be too controlling or cult-like. But these objections fly in the face of what we see God’s people doing throughout the Bible, and they prove nothing against churchwide fasts that could not be argued equally well against churchwide worship services. When there are occasions that call for it, the American Church must recover the practice of corporate prayer with fasting. This may well be the one thing that can turn back the tide of selfish individualism among American Christians before it completely overwhelms us.
What, then, are the right occasions for fasting? Several different categories can be found in the Bible.
First, there are fasts at times of mourning and repentance. A fast can at once help us express humility as we consider past sins and defeats, and prepare us for a chastened and wiser life in the future (cf. 1 Samuel 31:8-13; 1 Kings 21:27-29).
Second, there are fasts at times of personal or social crisis. On these occasions, fasting helps add intensity to our prayers as we cry out to the Lord for deliverance (cf. Judges 20:25-26; Esther 4:1-3).
Third, there are fasts meant to support any other occasions of earnest, focused prayer. Daniel fasted at the end of Judah’s seventy years of captivity as he prayed for God to honor His promise by returning the exiles to their land (Daniel 9:1-3). Times of special prayer with fasting are the only exception to Paul’s command that husbands and wives not deprive each other of physical relations (1 Corinthians 7:5).
Fourth, there are fasts at major beginnings and commissionings, to devote the work and the people to God. Thus Paul fasted for three days at the beginning of his Christian life (Acts 9:8), the leaders of the Antiochian church fasted twice as Paul and Barnabas were set aside for missionary work (Acts 13:1-3), and the ordination of elders in every new church was accompanied by prayer and fasting (Acts 14:23).
The Word of God gives us several cautions that ought to accompany our fasting. In a culture where the habit of godly fasting has all but disappeared, it is a higher priority for us to recover the practice of fasting than to guard against potential abuses. “It’s hard to steer a parked car,” as the saying goes. However, in the hope that the American Church will soon see a revival of Biblical fasting in both its corporate and individual forms, we may also consider a few warnings. First, of course, we must be on guard against hypocrisy and be sure that our fasting is for the Lord, not merely for men to see (Matthew 6:16-18; cf. Luke 18:11-12). We should protect against the pitfalls of extreme self-denial by concentrating on the rich blessings we receive in fasting: the Word of God (Luke 4:1-4; cf. Job 23:12), the nourishment of obedience (John 4:31-34), and the pleasure of restoring the poor (Isaiah 58). We must be careful to balance fasting with feasting, so that our fasts do not lose their meaning (cf. Zechariah 7:5-6; 8:19). And finally, we need to remember that fasting itself is temporary. It will come to an end with the great Wedding Supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:6-9), in which all our fasts and all our feasts will be fulfilled in one glorious, never-ending banquet.
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