Couldn't Help Noticing

Sermon illustration

I love this news story about the three guys who escape from prison, only to get caught by inadvertently hailing a ride from a passing unmarked police car.

Not only did they ask for a ride from the wrong driver, they tipped him off by still wearing their green prison clothes.

There's got to be a sermon illustration in there somewhere—something about throwing off the old clothes from our old life of captivity, and taking care to avoid being ensnared and taken captive again.

The elephant’s not the problem

Ross Gittins, economics writer for the Sydney Morning Herald, writes an opinion piece, here, in which he talks about how our brains can be compared to a person riding an elephant. The person riding the elephant has some idea what they want to do and where they want their beastie to go, but the elephant is difficult to bring 'round to the rider's point of view. In the same way, evolution has left us with a brain (and a body) that will sometimes override our best plans and intentions.

At least he recognizes in the article that we are not necessarily rational beings, but in so doing he still ignores that other elephant in the room—sin. St Paul blamed his own fallen nature for the fact that “I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin” (Rom 7:25).

The SMH letters editor committed my response to the metaphorical flames, but through the miracle of CHN, it rises from the ashes for your perusal:

Dear editor,

Ross Gittins provides all sorts of reasons why our elephantine body might trample on the resolutions feebly dictated by our mind, riding precariously up top of this primitive beast. It might be unfashionable to suggest this, but what about ‘sin’?

Yours sincerely,

The Rev Gordon Cheng

When you ‘just know’

When it comes to finding a husband or a wife, I have to admit to inwardly rolling my eyes any time someone says, “Oh, I just knew he/she was the right one for me”. Whether it be in a movie, on the television, out of the mouth of a friend, or from someone who has been married for 50 years, this kind of comment always provokes the same reaction in me: “Yeah, right”.

I'm sorry, but you just can't know. You can take the time to work out whether person x is someone you think you could live with and be married to, and you can choose them over someone you might be less suited to. But in the end, as someone older and wiser than me has said many times, you don't know they are the one for you until after you have married them. Then, of course, they are the one for you because you have committed yourselves to each other. That's what marriage is. This mystical feeling of ‘knowing’ he or she is the one for you is just that: a feeling. And to act on this kind of feeling without also using your brain to think through some of the more pragmatic issues is just stupid.

Take Corinne Hoffmann's story. Corinne is a Swiss lady who, while travelling to Kenya with her boyfriend in 1987, became transfixed by a Masai warrior travelling on the same ferry. When the same Masai turned up a bit later to guide her through Mombasa, she decided it meant something. “I had the deepest feeling I had to follow that man”, she says. So she did. She got rid of her responsibilities at home (including, presumably, the boyfriend) and went off to search for this Masai in Kenya.

So far, this sounds like a classic love story, right? Which is exactly how it is presented in the Sydney Morning Herald article which bears the title, ‘Lovestruck, she was determined to get her Masai’. Corinne has written a bestselling book, The White Masai, telling the story of what happened next. And like all good love stories, the book has been turned into a film which has just opened in Australia.

But this love story ends the same way that so many real life ‘love stories’ end these days: after marrying the Masai, having a daughter with him, and staying for four years, Corinne left. She now lives in Switzerland with her daughter, and has written two sequels which have also become bestsellers.

So just what exactly was that “feeling I had to follow that man”? Obviously it wasn't some magical foreknowledge of a love story that was going to end happily ever after.

The Marty Sweeney story

As I said in my last CHN, from 1 September we will be opening the doors of Matthias Media (USA), under the direction of Marty Sweeney. I thought you might like to hear how all this came about from Marty's perspective. Here's his story...

Some years ago, when visiting the UK, I picked up a Bible study on the book of Titus from a church bookstall (The Path to Godliness, published by Matthias Media). I worked through the studies, and found them very helpful. At around the same time, I was given some recordings of sermons given by Phillip Jensen. The quality of the Bible study book, and the insights into Scripture that I gained from Phillip's preaching, encouraged me to look further into Matthias Media resources. I ordered more Bible studies, and experienced their value in opening up the Bible to me. In fact, it would not be overstating it to say that they transformed not only my biblical insight, but also my life.

Over the ensuing years, I continued to use more resources, and couldn't help but feel that they were of greater value than many of the resources I had used from America. I am convinced that the resources are biblically faithful—and as a result are more aligned and consistent with each other.

By the time I entered seminary, Matthias Media resources had helped persuade me to the strong conviction that the Bible really does change lives. Through those years in seminary, and for a number of years now in pastoral ministry, Matthias Media has continued to provide me with resources to equip me in my own Bible reading and study, as well as resources to help equip others.

Working as a church pastor, I remained thoroughly convinced of the quality of Matthias Media resources, but had a growing conviction of our need for them in North America. I was conscious that because of my experience with the resources, my theological training, business background, and family situation, I was well-placed to be able to offer to help Matthias Media make this happen.

Now, after 15 months of discussion, prayer, planning, and long plane trips, it's all set to happen. I'm starting up “Matthias Media (USA)” and taking on the role of full-time Ministry Director.

I've used Matthias Media's training resources, Bible studies, and evangelism tools for the last five years in various ministry contexts. I hope that this ministry experience will enable me to help other pastors and ministry leaders be better resourced for the task of exalting our Lord and Savior, because it is “him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Col 1:28).

Marty Sweeney

More things I couldn’t help noticing on a trip to the USA…

My previous posts—reflections on my recent visit to the USA—failed to disclose my main reason for going there. In fact, my perusal of the International Christian Retail Show was merely an interesting detour on my way home. (If you enjoyed reading about the ICRS, you can read more in this Los Angeles Times article.)

The primary purpose of my visit was to make final arrangements to start up “Matthias Media - USA”. And this mission was (largely) accomplished: we expect that MMUSA will open its office doors on 1 September, 2006, although it may be a couple more weeks until its shelves are fully stocked with MM resources to sell. (Here is a photo of the office even before we had shelves in it! And here's the outside of the office.)

MMUSA is being set up in a very pretty part of God's world: Pulaski, Pennsylvania. Heard of it? I'd be surprised. Pulaski is not exactly a central hub of industry. It has no traffic lights; in fact, from my time there, I'm not even sure Pulaski has a main street. And coming as I did from a country still largely in drought, the one thing I couldn't get over was how green the grass was. In fact, how green everything was.

So what's in Pulaski that made us choose it as “MMUSA-Central”? Two people: Marty and Abby Sweeney. In September Marty will become the full-time MMUSA Ministry Director. In my next post, I'll let you read Marty's version of the story of how this all came about. Suffice to say at this point that it is the enthusiasm of Marty, and his lovely wife Abby, for Matthias Media resources, and their willingness to serve us by joining the MM team, that has opened up the possibility of starting MMUSA.

In one sense, North America needs more Christian books like the internet needs more web pages. The ICRS was ample demonstration of the size and scope of the Christian retail industry. But, at the same time, it was also an ample demonstration that the number of publishers attempting to do what Matthias Media is attempting to do is very small. In fact, I'm not sure that I saw any who are doing something comparable; certainly not from the same theological perspective as us.

And so we set forth on a new venture for Matthias Media, expecting and hoping that there will be many evangelical pastors and leaders in American churches who are receptive to the idea of using our ‘resources for growing Christians’, and that we will quickly find enough of them to make the whole exercise self-funding.

We hope that our loyal supporters here in Australia and elsewhere will join us in praying, not just for the financial 'success' of this new venture, but that the Lord will use our resources more and more to build his Kingdom and strengthen his people in North America. (Oh, and you might also like to recomend us to any US or Canadian friends you have.)

If you'll excuse the pun, we'll keep you posted.