GIVING as we should . . .

“Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this," says the Lord Almighty "and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.” (Malachi 3:10)

What is the storehouse, here? It was initially associated with the Tent of Meeting and later with the Temple at Jerusalem (Neh 13:4,5). Why should there be food in His house? It was to meet

the expense for worship at the temple and to provide living to the Priests and Levites who work while serving at the Tent of Meeting (Num 18:21). Every third year, the alien, the orphan and the widow may also eat of it and be satisfied (Deu 14:29; 26:12).

Where is the Lord’s work being done now? In churches, in mission fields, in various ministries that take the gospel to the sick in hospitals, the inmates in jails, and in various services being rendered to the orphans, the destitute and the sick. Pastors, Missionaries and Evangelists who take the Gospel to people, and doctors, nurses and caretakers at the orphanages, old-age homes and hospitals run by missions, all need to be taken care of. God’s children who have received from the Lord need to share a portion with those laboring for the Lord.

Ephesians 4:11-13 talk about the five-fold ministry (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers) in the church. Romans 12:6-8 talk about various ministries involving gifts (prophesying, serving, teaching, encouraging, contributing, governing, showing mercy). Combining the 2 lists, we see atleast 9 ministries (which is not an exhaustive list but only indicative). Acts 6:1-4 talk about widows receiving daily distribution of food, and I Tim 5:3-9 talk about widows being put on a list and served. James (in Jam 1:27) writes to the Christian Diaspora exhorting them to take care of orphans and widows in distress.

I Cor 9:11-14 lay down the principle that those preaching the gospel must receive their living from the gospel. Paul talks about several others receiving such support from the church in Corinth, to whom he had ministered (maybe more than they did). Paul tells Timothy that every elder who is involved in ministry (particularly those who preach and teach but additionally those who take care of widows) is worthy of double honor.

The Bible does not say that the ministry that brought them to salvation or the Pastor of the local church is alone the Levite, and must therefore receive the complete Tithe.

‘GIVING’ TODAY

Since perfection could not be attained through the Levitical priesthood, there was the need for Jesus to come as our High Priest. When there is a change of the priesthood, there is also a change of the law. (Heb 7:11, 12) The sanctuary together with its sacrifices and rituals were an illustration for the reality that was yet to come. He has now set aside the first to establish the second (Heb 9:9; 10:9). Christ himself is the High Priest as well as the sacrificial lamb, and we are all his royal priesthood (I Pet 2:5,9). The old covenant was with the Jews only, which has now been set aside with a new covenant with all his children. Christ himself is the fulfillment of the first covenant.

Now, every believer is a temple of the Holy Spirit that lives in him, and he is not his own. He is bought at a price, and he is required to honor God with his Body (I Cor 6:19, 20). Like Christ who said,

“Sacrifices and offerings you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me…I have come to do your will O God (Heb 10:5-7)”, we too are to honor God with our Body. We are to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. This is our spiritual act of worship (Rom 12:1). We are to honor God not with just a tenth of our possessions and finances as with the Old Covenant, but with all our being – all of our senses, our priorities and our possessions.

There were numerous occasions when people selfishly held on to their money rather than give it to the Lord in regular tithes and offerings. During the building of the second temple, the Jews seemed more interested in building up their own property, while leaving God’s house in ruins. Haggai and later Malachi highlight this (Haggai 1:3-6; Malachi 3:8-11). Because God’s people refused to give Tithe, he judged them. Today, he looks at our hearts. He is pleased with one who gives enthusiastically for the building of his kingdom. A Christian gives not out of greed for material prosperity or out of fear for punishment but out of reciprocation. Having received God's love that gave even His only begotten Son on the cross for him, he is filled with love and gives himself back to God.

With the Old Covenant, salvation came through a faith expressed by obedience to his law and its sacrificial system. With the New Covenant, coming to the Lord with faith and obedience brings grace and blessing.

HOW IS ‘ONE-TENTH’ SIGNIFICANT TODAY?

Today, God does not mandate that each person gives one-tenth to God. We are expected to give ourselves completely. We are to consider ourselves as stewards of the blessings God has placed into our hands. As faithful stewards, we are to manage what God has entrusted to us according to His will for the establishment of His kingdom and for administering his grace to the world he created, to His glory. It is not true that one-tenth belongs to God and nine-tenth belongs to us. All the tenths belongs to Him and so it is important not just what we do with the one-tenth but also what we do with the nine-tenth.

So if all tenths are God’s and what we do with all of it is important, what then is the significance of one-tenth for a New Testament

Christian? It is this -- He can use that as a scale (or a reference point) to measure himself and see if he loves money more than God, if his possessions are more important to him than fulfilling God’s wishes. If he is not even giving one-tenth to God, chances are, he is after money more than after God. On the other side, there are those like John Wesley, who were intent on not increasing their lifestyle so that while they started with one-tenth for God, over time, they could move on to two-tenth, three-tenths and more.

May God give us the grace to value money for just what it is so that we master it for God’s glory rather than be mastered by it. The bible says, the desire of money is the root cause of all evil. Let us beware.

Faith - what is it ?

‘Faith’ is a very important subject but has also been the object of great confusion caused by diverse interpretations. Bible defines faith as “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Heb 11:1).

A boy flipped through television channels and listened to a message on faith. He then prayed telling God that he desired to have a bicycle if it was His will and at the time of His choosing. A few days went by and there was no sign of a bicycle, and he was wondering if he prayed right. Another day, he watched a different preacher on TV and then prayed a different prayer. He announced to God his need for a Blue bicycle of a certain brand and his desire that it be delivered at his doorstep within the next 48 hours, and then said that he was claiming that bicycle by faith. A few days went by and again there was no sign of a bicycle. He grew frustrated and watched a third preacher on TV. He then grew restless causing his mom to wonder what he was up to. At bedtime, his mom approached his bed and found him fast asleep. Underneath the bed he had put a statue of Jesus that he had picked from elsewhere within his house, and underneath the statue he had put a paper with a prayer written on it. It read “Dear Jesus, If you want to see your mother, give me my bicycle.”

Some people almost go to the extent of preaching that when you desire to own a car, if you strongly hope that you will have it, that is faith. You do not see the car physically, but with your spiritual eyes if you can see yourself owning that car, that is faith. Is that what the author of Hebrews has hinted at? If not, what are the things that we hope and do not see that we need to be sure and certain about?

Paul writes to the Corinthians, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (I Cor 2:9). We do not see today the glorious eternity that God has in store for us. We do not see the glorious purposes that he accomplishes through us every day, when we measure our accomplishments through the world’s yardstick. Again Paul talks of God’s invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - in his letter to the Romans (Rom 1:20). We do not see his goodness, his love, his personal attention to each of us and his power. These are things that we do not see but we need to sure of and certain about.

God is loving and good. He spoke through Prophet Jeremiah, saying “I know the plans I have for you . . . plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jer 29:11). Elsewhere through the same prophet he said, “My eyes will watch over them for their good . . . I will build them up and not tear them down; I will plant them and not uproot them” (Jer 24:6).

I remember a time when I was learning to ride bicycle as a 10 years old. A cousin who was in college used to take me and my twin brother to a large ground on his bicycle, while pulling with one hand a small bicycle from a cycle rental shop around the street corner. While we learned to ride, he was always running behind us and after we had started cycling on our own, he still used to catch hold of the cycle to help us alight when we were done. One day he refused to help me alight and cried out that I should try getting down on my own. Despite frantic protests, he refused to budge. I then ran the cycle between two heaps of dust and got down safely but was fuming inside that he had withheld help and refused to speak to him for days. He humbly kept explaining and apologizing but I was adamant. When I now look back upon that incident, I understand that he had done that so that I could learn to be more complete as a bicycle rider. My little mind did not understand then.

It is the same with God. He allows certain trials and difficulties so that we grow and become more complete. We have faith if we are certain of God’s love and goodness, even when we are passing through life’s turbulences.

God is all-knowing and yet personal. He spoke through Prophet Isaiah, saying “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come” (Isa 46:10a). We do not know our future, but he has our future in his hands.

A girl in New York became pregnant outside marriage and was let down by the man who caused her pregnancy. Since she was malnourished herself, she had to deliver a premature baby. The hospital that facilitated the delivery discharged her the same day due to paucity of beds. Having no food and not able to breastfeed her baby, she soon decided to go to work, leaving her newborn baby in the attic that was her home. When she returned from work in the evening, to her horror she found that a dog had ravaged her baby. So much had gone wrong in one life and when a city councilman was questioned how no one could check her plight, he responded, “Life is too busy and complicated for me to hear the cry of every person in my community. As a matter of fact, I struggle to find time to even hear the cries of my own family. If I had to listen to the cry of everyone in New York city, you may as well ask me to listen to every blade of grass growing and to the heartbeat of every squirrel. The noise would be deafening on the other side of silence”.

Our God not only knows the big picture, he also knows the details.  He is not overwhelmed by the volume of details or the cacophony of human cries. Jesus asked, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father” (Mat 10:29). Scores of people die of heatstroke in summer. If not a sparrow can fall without his permission, not one human life can be lost without his permission. He continued, “And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered”. Wow! Not just life, not even a strand of hair can be lost without his knowledge. He therefore reassured, “So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows”. He told us through Prophet Zechariah, “whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye” (Zec 2:8)

We have faith if we are certain that God’s knows our every circumstance and that the God who allowed it will also see us through, even when our problem looks big and appears to have no end in sight.

God has the power to accomplish his plans. He had spoken through the same Isaiah, saying “My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please” (Isa 46:10b). King David said of Him, “For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Psa 33:9). He not only has good plans for us, he also has the power to fulfill them.

Imagine a spark developing in a flight flying at 30,000 feet above sea level. The pilot hurries to land the plane, establishing contact with the control tower of a nearby airport. As the plane lands, there are vehicles all around to attend to any emergency – fire engines, ambulances and police vans. As the doors are flung open, air gets sucked in, causing the flame to grow. The pilot and his crew – co-pilot, flight stewards and air hostesses – help children, aged ones and disabled passengers to come out even as able people help themselves. Finally after all passengers have been evacuated, the air hostesses, flight stewards and co-pilot come out. The pilot is the last one to emerge out, his uniform ablaze and fire fighters quickly roll him over in a blanket and whisk him away. Though the pilot had been noble in seeing every passenger out of the hazardous zone before saving himself, there are bound to be casualties depending on the age, amount of injury sustained, state of general health before the incident and the place they occupied inside the airplane. But he had done his best, and if you were to take your first flight the subsequent week and came to know that this very same heroic pilot is in charge of the cockpit, are you not sure to feel confident as you take your maiden flight?

Our God is not just good and loving, he is also able to protect those in his loving care from harm’s way. We have faith if we are sure that God is all-powerful and his inability to save is never a reason for our plight. If we do not see the solution we desired, it is just because he has a better way of solving our problem.

The Opposite of FAITH is FEAR. If we have faith, we will never be afraid when trials come our way. If we are afraid, we are not having faith.

In India, though parents often find a match for their son or daughter, it is inconceivable to think that the boy or the girl would leave the decision completely to the parents without even seeing the prospective bride or groom. One would not tell his or her parents , “I leave this completely to you; I do not want to see the girl or the boy (not even in a photo), as you know my mind, my taste and what type is an appropriate match for me”. I am not suggesting they should. I am saying it is understandable given that parents, though wiser by experience than their son/daughter are still not all-knowing and certainly not infallible. However, can we trust our Lord with such faith, saying “you know what is best for me”? “What I ask from my limited knowledge and wisdom may not be the best; you are the best person with your infinite knowledge and wisdom to determine what is best for me”.

“ Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Rom 12:1b,2). Let us have the faith that Jesus had. Let us be sure of what is ahead of us, and not be frightened by the dangers we see around us.

Life is unfair but GOD is GOOD

Do all of us have something to thank God for? We find ourselves spread across different strata in life – physically, economically, intellectually, and so on. Some are beautiful, attracting a second look while some are ugly. Some have so much that they splurge, not knowing how to use their money, while some have nothing or so little that they struggle to make both ends meet. Some are brilliant in thought and in expression while some just don’t seem capable of thinking new or big. Does each one of us, no matter which side we fall off the dividing line, have something to thank God for?

Some suggest that a positive attitude is required to feel gratitude towards God. When looking at a cup that has some water in it, while one calls the cup as half-full and feels thankful for what he has, another may call the cup as half-empty and complain for not having enough. In the same way, while looking at a rose, one may appreciate the richness of its color or the sweetness of its scent while another may be distracted by the presence of thorns all around. They ask us how we see God, when we look back at our life? Do we remember him for all the good things that we have received -- health, education, profession, family, income, etc., or do we complain that we did not receive sufficient goodness? It is true that the way one looks at the cup or the rose, colors his emotions, but the emptiness and the thorns are very much reality. Does one always have to look at someone less privileged to feel thankful to God?

Let’s face it – Life is unfair! While one has no logical reason to expect why one should have been born in a wealthier family or with greater beauty or intellect, one can’t resisting comparing with someone more fortunate (lucky?), who equally has no reason and has yet been gifted with greater wealth and beauty. Now wait a minute! Gifted by whom? That is when one starts attributing this unfairness to God. If God is sovereign and has absolute control over circumstances, why does he choke one with all goodness while depriving another of even the basic necessities. We tend to expect that if God has been fair, life too would have been fair. We conclude that life is unfair and therefore God too is.

Let us look at God and try to figure out if he is fair or unfair. He has revealed himself through his word and through his own Son who became flesh 2000 years ago, and what do we find? Jesus’ disciples were emphatic in reiterating that God shows no favoritism. Peter told a group of people in Cornelius’ house, considered gentiles by the Jews, “I realize now how true it is that God does not show favoritism" (Acts 1o:34). Paul wrote to the church in Rome that “God does not show favoritism" (Rom 2:11) and to the church is Ephesus that “He who is [everyone’s] master is in heaven and there is no favoritism with him" (Eph 6:9). If this is what the disciples found and had to say, what do we see directly from Jesus’ own life on earth?

While no one could choose the family he would be born into, God who could do for his own Son when sending him into the world, chose the family of a poor carpenter. Can we be sure that Joseph was a poor carpenter and not a rich one? While the rich sacrificed a lamb as offering, Joseph could only offer a dove that was a poor man’s sacrifice. While the Roman imperialists who ruled the Jews in Jesus’ time, rode on horses as they demonstrated their power to the world, Jesus chose to ride on a donkey while being greeted as Saviour. He associated himself with fishermen and social outcasts such as the Samaritans and Tax-collectors.

At a time, when God gave the civil rules to the country of Israel, his objective was that “there should be no poor among [them]” (Deu 15:4). He commanded them to “not take advantage of a widow or an orphan” and warned them of punishment if they did (Ex 22:22). Moses talked loftily about God in the following words: “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien” (Deu 10:18). King David, Israel’s most cherished King, had realized this and sang (Ps 146:7-9) :

  "He upholds the cause of the oppressed
   and gives food to the hungry.
   The Lord sets prisoners free,
   the Lord gives sight to the blind,
   the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down . .
   the Lord watches over the alien
   and sustains the fatherless and the widow”

Elsewhere, he called God, “a father of the fatherless, a defender of widows” (Ps 68:5).

If God is good, how do poverty, sickness and death rule the day? If God’s desire is to see poverty removed, sickness healed and families restored, how did all these come here in the first place? God made man in his own image as a free being. The moment man decided to be his own God and not obey his creator, sin entered the world. Fallen man is depraved and has become very much unlike God. While God is love, man is full of hatred causing violence and making many widows and orphans. While God is selfless, giving himself for us on the cross, man is selfish, hoarding and accumulating, leaving sections of the society poor. Socialism, Communism, Capitalism have all failed to combat life's unfairness.  Nature itself has fallen along with him leading to diseases and death.

But if God is certainly a father to the fatherless, and a defender of widows, we wonder why the world still finds injustice meted out to the weaker ones in society – the orphans, widows, immigrants and all who are poor? Why is God not wiping out everyone who does injustice? The hard truth is that there will be no one left on earth if he were to do so. God is therefore going through a slower process of working inside out. Today, he comes to live inside us through his Holy Spirit to renew us and transform us. He gives us the strength to bear the unfairness of life, so that together with Paul we may also say "Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day" (2 Cor 4:16).  Great many renewed people have then been transformed to wage war against illiteracy, poverty, suffering :

Mother Teresa who founded Nirmal Hriday for the destitute and the dying of Calcutta;

Dame Cicely Saunders who founded the modern hospice movement that helps people die with dignity and without pain;

Bill Magee, a plastic surgeon whose program Operation Smile has repaired facial deformities on more than thirty-six thousand children;

Millard Fuller who founded Habitat for Humanity with the belief that every person on earth deserves a decent place to live;

Dr.Paul Brand who inspired several medical missionaries through his work with leprosy patients;

and countless others who did what they did because they were being obedient to Jesus.

Would we realize today, how depraved we are and thank God for not snuffing us out, from impatience, but waiting to live through us to not just transform us but also uplift a needy and impoverished world!

God in History

I have always wondered what kind of evidence for Jesus' life and teachings exists outside the Bible. I was fascinated to find that Lee Strobel, an award-winning former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, a one-time atheist educated at Yale Law School, had set out to determine how reliable the New Testament is and what evidence exists outside the Gospel. He had cross-examined experts to find this out for himself, and here are the highlights:

First, how much are the Gospels (of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John) credible as biographies of Jesus ? How much are they immune from possible legends developing over time?

Craig L. Blomberg Ph.D., widely considered to be one of the foremost authorities on the biographies of Jesus, states, “The standard scholarly dating even in very liberal circles is Mark in the 70’s, Mathew and Luke in the 80’s, and John in the 90’s. That’s still within the lifetimes of various eyewitnesses of the life of Jesus, including hostile eyewitnesses who would have served as a corrective if false teachings about Jesus were going around.” He goes on to make a very instructive comparison. “The two earliest biographies of Alexander the Great were written by Arrian and Plutarch more than 400 years after Alexander’s death in 323 B.C. Yet historians consider them to be generally trustworthy. Yes legendary material about Alexander did develop over time but it was only in the centuries after these two writers. In other words, the first five hundred years kept Alexander’s story pretty much intact; legendary material began to emerge over the next five hundred years. So whether the gospels were written 60 years or 30 years after the life of Jesus, the amount of time is negligible by comparison. It’s almost a non-issue.”

Blomberg then goes on to prove how these eyewitness accounts must be dated much earlier than that held by liberals. “The book of Acts written by Luke ends apparently unfinished. – Paul is a central figure of the book, and he’s under house arrest in Rome . With that the book abruptly halts. What happens to Paul? We don’t find out from Acts, probably because the book was written before Paul was put to detah. That means Acts cannot be dated any later than A.D.62. Since Acts is the second of a two-part work, we know the first part – the gospel of Luke – must have been written earlier than that. And since Luke incorporates parts of the gospel of Mark, that means Mark is even earlier. If you allow maybe a year for each of these, you end up with Mark written no later than A.D.60, maybe even the late 50’s. If Jesus was put to death in A.D.30 or 33, we are talking about a maximum gap of thirty years or so.” Here is how he summarizes the authenticity of eyewitness accounts in the Gospels: “Historically speaking, especially compared with Alexander the Great, that’s like News Flash.”

Now comes the next logical question: When I hold a Bible in my hands, essentially I am holding copies of ancient historical records. The original manuscripts of the biographies of Jesus and all the other books of the Old and New Testaments have long ago crumbled into dust. So how can I be sure that these modern-day versions – the end-product of countless copying through the ages – bear any resemblance to what the authors originally wrote?

Bruce M. Metzger Ph.D., who has authored or edited 50 books, several of which have been translated into German, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Malagasy and other languages and who is considered an authority on the New Testament text, responds, “This isn’t an issue that’s unique to the Bible; it’s a question we can ask of other documents that have come down to us through the ages. But what the New Testament has in its favor, especially compared with other ancient writings, is the unprecedented multiplicity of copies that have survived. The more often you have copies that agree with each other, especially if they emerge from different geographical areas, the more you can cross-check them to figure out what the original document was like.”

Metzger goes on to show how much greater cross-check is possible in the case of the New Testament. “There is something else that favors the New Testament. We have copies commencing within a couple of generations from the writing of the originals, whereas in the case of other ancient texts, maybe five, eight or ten centuries elapsed between the original and the earliest surviving copy.” He continues, “In addition to the Greek manuscripts, we also have translations of the gospels into other languages at a relatively early time – Latin, Syriac and Coptic. In addition to that, we have what may be called secondary translations made a little later, like Armenian and Gothic. And a lot of others – Georgian, Ethiopic, a great variety.” He cites these to show how if we even lost the Greek manuscripts today, by piecing together information from these translations from a relatively early date, we could actually reproduce the content of the New Testament. Not just that; if we even lost all the early translations, we could still reproduce the contents of the New Testament from the multiplicity of quotations in commentaries, sermons, letters and so forth of the early church fathers.

In terms of multiplicity of manuscripts and the time gap between the originals and our first copies , how does this compare with other ancient texts? Metzger points to the Annals of Imperial Rome written by Tacitus in about A.D.116. “His first six books exist today in only one manuscript, and it was copied about A.D.850. Books seven through ten are lost. Books eleven through sixteen are in another manuscript dating from the eleventh century. So there is a long gap between the time that Tacitus sought his information and wrote it down and the only existing copies.” Metzger also points to The Jewish War written by the first century historian Josephus. “We have nine Greek manuscripts of his work and these copies were written in the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries. There is a Latin translation from the fourth century and medieval Russian materials from the eleventh or twelfth century.” Lee was stunned that there is but the thinnest thread connecting these ancient works to the modern world.

The contrast with the New Testament is striking. According to Metzger, more than five thousand Greek manuscripts have been catalogued. “Today we have 306 of uncial manuscripts which are written in all-capital Greek letters, several dating back as early as the third century.” 2,856 of miniscule manuscripts exist, which are written in a new style of writing, more cursive in nature, that emerged in roughly A.D.800. A total of 2,403 lectionaries have been catalogued, which contain New Testament scripture in the sequence it was to be read in the early churches at appropriate times during the year. In addition to the Greek documents, there are 8,000 to 10,000 Latin Vulgate manuscripts plus a total of 8,000 in Ethiopic, Slavic and Armenian. In all, there are about 24,000 manuscripts in existence.

Metzger adds, “Next to the New Testament, the greatest amount of manuscript testimony is of Homer’s Iliad, which was the sacred book of the ancient Greeks. There are fewer than 650 Greek manuscripts of it today. Some are quite fragmentary. They come down to us from the second and third century A.D. and following.” When you consider that Homer composed his epic about 800 B.C., the gap is a thousand years. The manuscript evidence for the New Testament is overwhelming when compared against revered writings of antiquity – works that modern scholars have absolutely no reluctance treating as authentic.

Thirdly, Do we find corroborating evidence for Jesus’ life outside the gospels, in the writings of contemporary historians?

Edwin M. Yamauchi Ph.D., a graduate in Hebrew and Hellenistics, and a Master and Doctor in Mediterranean studies, who has delivered papers before learned societies and has participated in excavations cites references from Josephus, Tacitus and Pliny the Younger.

Josephus records in The Antiquities, a history of the Jewish people until his time that he completed in about A.D.93, of how a High Priest name Ananias took advantage of the death of the Roman Governor Festus, to have James killed. “He convened a meeting of the Sanhedrin and brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ, and certain others. He accused them of having transgressed the law and delivered them up to be stoned.” He has recorded more directly about Jesus in a section called the Testimonium Flavianum. ”About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man [if indeed one ought to call him a man]. For he was one who wrought surprising feats and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. [He was the Christ.] While Pilate upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. [On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvelous things about him.] And the tribe of Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.” Given the nature of Josephus' writing, Yamauchi thinks that the statements shown within braces above, may have been added by some copyists at a later date.

Tacitus in A.D.115 explicitly states that Nero persecuted the Christians as scapegoats to divert suspicion away from himself for the great fire that had devastated Rome in A.D. 64. “Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign on Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome . . . Accordingly an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their influence, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind.”

Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia in North-western Turkey , wrote the following in his correspondence with his friend, Emperor Trajan, that have been preserved to this day. “I have asked them if they are Christians, and if they admit it, I repeat the question a second and third time, with a warning of the punishment awaiting them. If they persist, I order them to be led away for execution; for, whatever the nature of their admission, I am convinced that their stubbornness and unshakeable obstinacy ought not to go unpunished . . .
“They also declared that the sum total of their guilt or error amounted to no more than this: they had met regularly before dawn on a fixed day to chant verses alternately among themselves in honor of Christ as if to a god., and also to bind themselves by oath, not for any criminal purpose, but to abstain from theft, robbery and adultery . . .“This made me decide it was all the more necessary to extract the truth by torture from two slave-women, whom they called deaconesses. I found nothing but a degenerate sort of cult carried to the extravagant lengths.”

Yamauchi adds, “It was probably written about A.D.111, and it attests to the rapid spread of Christianity, both in the city and in the rural area, among every class of persons, slave women as well as Roman citizens, since he also says that he sends Christians who are Roman citizens to Rome for trial. And it talks about the worship of Jesus as God, that Christians maintained high ethical standards, and that they were not easily swayed from their beliefs.”

The conclusion this leads to is that there is no dearth of evidence. Rather, men tend to suppress evidence because of its implications for them. If Jesus had indeed walked planet earth 2000 years ago, and if indeed all he said and did were as recorded in the gospels, it implies that men's intent are evil and they need God's redeeming love. It would be prudent to accept the truth and experience freedom, than to buy a lie and remain in bondage.

Sweet fellowship that carries us through!

The God who on several occasions rescues us, at other times chooses to carry us and sustain us. To see how he does this, we need to live in a close relationship with him. Without the relationship, time deepens the hurt and drives us towards despondency. ‘Time is the Healer’ goes the popular proverb. However as someone in the audience once resonated with Dr. Ravi Zacharias, “Time is not the healer, it is just the revealer of how God does the healing”. One needs to have a personal relationship with his Saviour, to be able to discover this.

The Lord is known by names such as Jehovah Shammah (The Lord who is present) and Emmanuel (God with Us). He cherishes fellowship with man who he has created. In John 14:23, we find Jesus telling his disciples, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him." In Rev 3:20, John is told by the Lord to write to the church in Laodicea, "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." Imagine Jesus dining with you inside your humble home, talking with you, always available for help in your difficult circumstances. What an encouragement such a presence will be?

One finds this blessedness in the serenity at the Home for the Dying and the Destitute, run by Mother Teresa and her nuns. The sisters rise long before the sun, at 4 o'clock in the morning, awakened by a bell and the call, "Let us bless the Lord". "Thanks be to God", they

reply and file into the chapel, where they sit on the floor and sing and pray together. They immerse themselves in worship and in the love of God, before they meet the first needy. They begin their day with God and end their day with him back in the chapel for night prayers; and offer everything in between as an offering to God. God alone determines their worth and measures their success. Philip Yancey notes in Reaching for the Invisible God, "If I tackled such a daunting project, I would likely be scurrying about, faxing press releases to donors, begging for more resources, gulping tranquilizers, grasping at ways to cope with my mounting desperation. Not these nuns."

We find that heroes in the Bible had this experience. The weeping prophet Jeremiah, who prophesied to the people of Judah in the last 40 years of its history, and who lived to see the Babylonian invasion that resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, realized what kept him while there were afflictions all around. "Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him. The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord." (Lam 3:23-26) God told the Israelites through Prophet Isaiah, "Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near" and in Proverbs 8:17 "those that seek me early shall find me (KJV)."

There are however challenges in meeting with an invisible God. What we see hits us very hard that it is difficult for us to think of the Invisible God. Distractions push God away from our consciousness altogether. C. S. Lewis points out how the way we live keeps us from sensing God's presence. "Avoid silence, avoid solitude, avoid any train of thought that leads off the beaten track. Concentrate on money, sex, status, health and (above all) on your own grievances. Keep the radio on. Live in a crowd. Use plenty of sedation. If you must read books, select them very carefully. But you'd be safer to stick to the papers." He also offered help. "What is concrete but immaterial can be kept in view only by painful effort. That is why the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the first job each morning consists in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of you, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day . . . We can do it only for moments at first. But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our systems because now we are letting Him work at the right part of us."

If we can wait for God in solitude and in silence, we can hear God whispering in our hearts. Jesus had this experience of rising up in the silence of the wee hours of the morning, and going out in solitude to pray and to be in His father’s company. We find in Mark 1:35, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” While starting a new day, following a very busy day, he knew that this was the way to restore him.
He knew the promise in Isa 40:31, “but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

The eagle is a powerful bird with very large hooked beaks for tearing flesh from their prey, strong muscular legs, and powerful talons claws. It has very good eyesight with a resolving power 8 times more powerful than a human and can spot prey from a long distance. This keen eyesight is primarily contributed by their extremely large pupils that ensure minimal diffraction (scattering) of the incoming light. It has long and broad wings, and a direct fast flight in which it can quickly swoop down and pick its prey. It is a powerful flier, and soars on thermal convection currents. It may ascend in a thermal and then glide down, or may ascend in updrafts created by the wind against a cliff or other terrain. It reaches speeds of 56–70 kilometers per hour when gliding and flapping, and about 48 kilometers per hour while carrying prey. Its dive speed is between 120–160 kilometers per hour. It lives for 30 to 50 years and it is fascinating to learn how the Eagle grows in strength with passing years. Every year between April and July (which may sometime extend all the way from March to October) it loses a third of its feathers through a process known as molting, when it slows down and waits to get new ones and fly again with renewed strength. We too can grow in strength like an eagle, if only we will wait on the Lord each morning.

Paul compares the Christian life to a (marathon) race in his letter to the Corinthians. "Everyone who competes in the games go into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever." (I Cor 9:25) Philip Yancey notes how we live in a society that honors professional football players who work out with weights five hours a day and undergo a dozen knee and shoulder surgeries to repair the damage they inflict on themselves in the sport, and yet cannot comprehend those who fast or carve out two hours for a quiet time. He writes, “Love is what God wants from a relationship with us, but we humans tend to experience love like any emotion: intermittently, waxing and waning. Discipline nurtures in us a spiritual staying power - the kind of love a couple enjoys on their golden anniversary, not at their wedding."

Brother Lawrence, a cook in a seventeenth century monastery, has explained his spiritual discipline in a devotional classic The Practice of the Presence of God. “He does not ask much of us – an occasional remembrance, a small act of worship, now to beg his grace, at times to offer him our distresses, at another time to render thanks for the favors he has given, and which he gives in the midst of your labors, to find consolation with him as often as you can. At table and in the midst of conversation, lift your heart at times towards him. The smallest remembrance will always please him. It is not needful at such times to cry out loud. He is nearer to us than we think.” Frank Laubach, the father of modern literacy movement who strove to put Brother Lawrence’s principles to practice throughout his lifetime, reported that his efforts were duly rewarded. “After months and years of practicing the presence of God, one feels that God is closer, his push from behind seems to be stronger and steadier, and the pull from front seems to grow stronger . . . God is so close then that he not only lives all around us, but also all through us.”

This then is the lesson. Rather than seeking confirmation of his presence in our emotion, we need to put ourselves in God’s presence. I need to remind myself that God is all around me and strive to conduct my life in a way appropriate to his presence. As David who said in Psa 16:8, “I have set the Lord always before me”, can we refer back to God whatever happens today, as a kind of offering? We will then be able to say like David, “because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.”

God's Active PROVIDENCE

Some feel that God after fashioning the world like a master clockmaker, has let it slowly unwind on its own. On the contrary, the Bible tells us that He continues to take care of all His creation as a Father cares for his little ones. Jesus himself said “If [that is how] God clothes the grass of the field which is here today and tomorrow is thrown in to the fire, will he not much more clothe you . . . So do not worry, saying ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow.” [Mat 6:30-34] When sending out the twelve disciples, Jesus gave them an assurance while also providing an eternal perspective. He assured them that nothing can happen outside the will of God. Jesus told them “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet none of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid, you are worth more than many sparrows.” [Mat 10:29-31] We have record of several glorious promises in the Old Testament. “Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”[Isa 46:4] “Whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye.” [Zec 2:8] “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” [Isa 49:15, 16] “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” [Isa 43:2]

We might wonder then, “How come we find so much suffering!” The Bible tells us that this is so because the devil is the ‘God of this age’ [2 Cor.4:4] and that “the whole world is under the control of the evil one.” [I John 5:19] However, the devil cannot touch God’s children without His permission. When Pilate threatened Jesus saying, “Do you refuse to speak to me? Don’t you realize that I have power either to free you or crucify you", Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.” [John 19:10, 11] We find the same principle in the case of Job. “Does Job fear God for nothing”, Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has?” [Job 1:9] We find this in Peter’s case too. “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.” [Luke 22:31] We will do well to remember his parting comments during the Last Supper. “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” [John 16:33] All the promises and the assurances that we looked at earlier all stand good. The God of Love who cares for us is also powerful to keep us safe in His care. No evil or suffering can thwart the purposes of God. He has said, “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.” [Isa 46:10]

I have heard Dr.Ravi Zacharias speak of a miraculous escape of an Eastern Airlines plane that took off from Miami to a resort destination. Suddenly, while it was cruising at 35,000 feet above the sea level, one of its engines lost power. Soon, the 2nd engine too lost power and the plane began to plummet down to the sea. A frightened pilot spoke on the microphone, “Ditching is inevitable”. As the plane was about to hit the waters, just a few feet about the sea, one of the engine started and the pilot was able to lift the plane to safety. I am sure the passengers onboard the flight and the pilots thanked God for the wondrous escape. However, our problem is that not all accidents are averted! And we struggle for an answer.

In his book “Disappointment with God”, Yancey records an account by a disappointed Richard of a Sunday evening church service. After the usual testimonies and praise, one report in particular rankled him. Earlier that week, a plane carrying nine missionaries had crashed in the Alaskan outback, killing all aboard. The pastor solemnly related the details and then introduced a church member who had survived an unrelated plane crash the same week. When the church member finished describing his narrow escape, the congregation responded, “Praise the Lord!” The pastor prayed, “Lord, we thank you for bringing our brother to safety and for having your guardian angels watch over him. And please be with the families of those who died in Alaska.” That prayer triggered revulsion, something like nausea, in Richard. “You can’t have it both ways”, he thought. “If God gets credit for the survivor, he should also get blamed for the casualties.”

Saint Augustine writes of God’s providence, “You give us many things when we pray for them, and whatever good we received before we prayed, we have received from you. We have received it so that we might afterwards know that we received it from you. I was never a drunkard but I have known drunkards who were made sober by you. It was from you that they who never were drunkards should never be so, and it was from you that they who were drunkards should not be so any longer. And it was by you that both might know from whom they came”. It is the same God who rescues on certain occasions while sustaining us or carrying us through the suffering on other occasions.

We see this contrast at several places in the Bible. In Acts 12, we find that the King Herod had James, the brother of John, put to death with the sword. When he saw that this pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also. While God allowed James to die, yet he sent an angel to rescue Peter. [Ver 3-17] In I Kings 19:20, we find Elijah praying “The Israelites have . . . put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left.” In Jer 26:23, of the two prophets who prophesied against king Jehoiakim, Uriah is struck down with a sword, but Jeremiah finds support so that he is not handed over to the people to be put to death. We can be absolutely sure that nothing, not even death can touch us, until God’s purpose in our life is fulfilled.

God does not always intervene in the way we want, but He has all along been intervening in line with his purpose. People often want God to be predictable. C.S.Lewis wrote of Pantheism in his book Miracles, “An ‘impersonal God’ – well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness, inside our own heads – better still. A formless life-force surging through us; a vast power which we can tap – best of all. But God Himself, alive, pulling at the other end of the chord, perhaps approaching at an infinite speed, the Hunter, King, Husband – that’s quite another matter . . . People who have been dabbling in Man’s search for God suddenly draw back. . . . It is a sort of rubicon. One goes across, or not. But if one does . . . One may be in for anything”. Even Christians often think of God as a Genie. They want to be able to tap into His power to serve their ends. They do not want to submit to His will as their King, as the Church’s groom. When we intend to 'use' God rather than 'be used' as an instrument to serve God’s purpose, we are set for disappointment. On the other hand, if we submit to His purpose and have a close relationship with Him, we can trust Him even when God’s intervention does not come along the lines we expect. We will then be able to see how he carries us and sustains us.

Let me sum it up with a quote. In the words of Dr.Ravi Zacharias: "Faith is confidence in the person of Jesus Christ and in his power, so that even when His power does not serve my end, my confidence is in Him because of who he is.”

God, Why do you let me suffer?

When we are hurt the first question that comes up in our mind is "Why Me?" It is easy to philosophize and explain away sorrow and suffering in this world until it hits us personally. C.S.Lewis once remarked "I can write another chapter on pain, if only my toothache will go away". Years after coming out with an excellent treatise on "The problem of Pain", when it struck him personally in the demise of his loved wife, he wrote "Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, if you turn to Him then with praise, you will be welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away."

When trouble comes our way, we are confused by the cacophony of voices that we hear around us.

• "Surely you must have done something that has displeased God. He is trying to tell you something."
• "Suffering is never God's will. Have you not read in the Bible that faith can move mountains? Name your promise, muster your faith and claim victory."
• "Praise God for everything that happens, good ones and bad ones."
• "You have been appointed to suffer for Christ because of your great strength and integrity. He is using you as an example to others. You should feel privileged not bitter."

And the resultant confusion just adds to our misery:

• What unconfessed sin do I have ?
• Why am I not able to muster enough faith to see deliverance ?
• How do I thank him for the suffering ? Is he a sadist who will hurt me and then desire to see me thank him for the hurt?
• Couldn't God choose someone more stronger than me to suffer for Him ?

Philip Yancey begins his book Where is GOD When it Hurts? with an appreciation for pain. Pain alerts us of dangers and keeps us from harm. When we have a ligament tear in our ankle, the pain alerts us of the problem and demands that we provide rest so it can heal. A hurt in our soul such as guilt helps us to locate the cause and undo the wrong. It is said that you appreciate shade only when you are out in the sun. Even so, to appreciate the benefit of pain, one needs to look at what absence of it does. For thousands of years it was believed that the loss of tissue in leprosy patients was caused by a certain fungus. Dr. Paul Brand through his pioneering research uncovered the fact that the ulcers were actually caused by abuse of body parts in the absence of pain. He therefore relishes pain as God’s gift. He points out how to even mop a floor without hurting or to dress nicely and walk normally, one needs the gift of pain. In Dr.Brand's words, "Pain is often seen as the great inhibitor, keeping us from happiness. But I see it as a giver of freedom." People generally tend to view pain as God's singular mistake in an otherwise wonderful creation. Why not alert of danger through some means that does not hurt? Simply alerting does not lead one to respond; the stimulus has to be unpleasant to demand action. The Bible tells us that “suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope”. (Rom 5:3,4). The pain network in the human body is a brilliant design by the Creator to keep us from danger and to build our character.

But what about pain that rages out of control? In patients suffering from Cancer or Arthritis, even after pain has given away the underlying problem and treatment has commenced, pain refuses to die. What do we make of such pain? Yancey points out that just as pain is a symptom of a deeper problem, sorrow and suffering in this world are symptoms of a world that has gone awry. He points out that we now live on a groaning planet. Paul tells the Romans in Rom 8:22, "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time". 24,000different types of bacteria have been identified and only a few of them cause illness. The earth's climatic system needs major disturbances such as the Tropical storms to bring rains. But why permit hurricanes? God looked at His creation and found it to be good, but today we see the consequences of man’s fall. C.S.Lewis said, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience but shouts in our pains. It is His Megaphone to rouse a dead world." Three centuries before him, John Donne used a different phrase to describe the same concept. "I need thy thunder, O my God; thy music will not serve thee." His father-in-law got him fired and brought his law career to a halt. He then turned to church and took order as an Anglican priest. A year later his wife Anne died of cancer and a few years later he himself contracted the bubonic plague. On his death bed, he wrote the book Devotions which contains the celebrated passage: “No man is an island . . . Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee”. Suffering and death serve as stark reminders of what everyone spends a lifetime trying to forget -- We will all die.

Thirdly, Yancey looks at what the Bible tells us about suffering and how Jesus himself responded to suffering while on this earth.

• Many Old Testament passages warn against painful consequences that follow specific actions. Proverbs is full of such advice: Laziness brings on deep sleep; shiftless man goes hungry (Prov 19:15). A person who speeds on rain-slick highways courts the danger of hydroplaning. A person who eats all fried-foods exposes his body to health hazards such as heart-attack and cancer.

• Some Old Testament passages show God causing human suffering as punishment for wrong behaviour. Amos, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Habakkuk, Hosea and Ezekiel all bristle with dire warnings of judgment but also hold out the hope that God will restrain himself if Israel turns to God. The people of Israel know why they were being punished; the prophets had warned them in excruciating detail. They do not sit around asking “Why?” They know very well why they are suffering. To be effective a punishment needs to be clearly tied to a behaviour. A parent who sneaks up at odd times and whacks the child with no explanation, will not produce an obedient child. Therefore, unless God distinctly reveals that we are being punished, it would do us good to look at other models in the Bible. [In the New Testament too, we see suffering as punishment -- as in Paul’s warning about participating in the communion without due regard (I Cor 11:29,30) and in the case of Ananias & Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11).]

• When we turn to Jesus, we find him extremely sensitive to suffering and setting about to remedy. He never spoke about “accepting your lot in life” or “taking the medicine God has given you”. In Luke 13, Jesus talks about Satan causing the disease of a woman bound for 18 years (v10-16). But early on in the same chapter, Jesus is asked about 2 “current events” that had evidently prompted much local discussion – the parallels to today’s accidents and gruesome crimes. One was an act of political oppression in which Roman soldiers slaughtered a religious minority, and the other a construction accident that killed 18 people. He does not answer the question most on their mind with a “Here’s why these tragedies occurred”. But he makes it clear that they did not occur as a result of specific wrong-doing. "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no!" He quickly adds, “But unless you repent, you too will all perish." He implies that we “bystanders of catastrophe” have as much to learn from the event as do the victims. It does not help to ask "Why?" He will not answer just as He did not explain the cause to Job. A tragedy should rather alert us to make ourselves ready in case we are the next victim of an accident or an act of terrorism.

We see that Pain is God’s grand design to protect us from harm. We also see that Pain that today ravages out of control, is a result of Adam’s fall in the Garden of Eden. However, the Lord who transforms and redeems pain has allowed it to serve as His Megaphone, His thunder to remind us that we are not to find comfort in temporal things but to set our sights on what is eternal. In the meantime, pain hurts. But he has given us a glorious hope that lightens the pain and makes it bearable.

• “Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who . . . will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” (Phil 3:20,21)

• “We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for . . . the redemption of our bodies.” (Rom 8:23)

• “The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” (I Per 5:10)

• “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (II Cor 4:17,18)

• “For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality." (I Cor 15:52,53)

We all seek deliverance from pain and suffering. Our good Lord gives all of us a sample of his miraculous healing at some point in our life, but it is just a sample. Anyone who has experienced God’s healing may still experience pain or suffering again at some later point in life. Even Lazarus and the widow’s son who were raised by Jesus had to die again. We will all experience perfect deliverance only in eternity. In Hebrews 11, we find two types of deliverance. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jeptha and the prophets all received miraculous deliverance. Others were tortured, jeered, flogged, chained, imprisoned, sawed, killed by sword. They did not receive what was promised in this world but will be made perfect together with us in the world to come. Cheer up. A glorious future awaits us.