Three weeks ago, the pastor phoned me before church to say that some mutual friends of ours had lost one of their adult children. I said we would be coming to church, and that we could talk about the matter following the service. In the end, the news meant that I would be preaching twice on this day; the pastor and I agreed that we should seize the moment and head out to the bereaved family's homestead directly after our regular service.
I have been to a bereavement such as this before. It is tradition in Xhosa culture for friends and relatives to visit the family at their home immediately following the death of a loved one. Some form of service inevitably ensues.
Nevertheless, when the pastor and I arrived, I was taken aback by the sight of a rondavel filled, as is typical, with men on one side and women on the other. I knew that we would soon be on. The people were singing as we arrived, and soon they would be expecting the words of comfort for which the visitors had been sent.
Psalm 19 was on my mind, for it was the text I had just preached on that morning in Mandela Park. Now I would have to find its significance for a different occasion.
In the church service, I had focused in on the line "more to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb" (v. 10, NRSV). That which is "to be desired", of course, is what the text calls variously "the law of the Lord", "the decrees of the Lord", "the precepts of the Lord", "the commandment of the Lord", "the fear of the Lord", and "the ordinances of the Lord" (vv. 7-9). These or this--shall we say simply "the word of God"--are/is, according to the Psalmist, the most desirable "thing" in human experience. Nothing, in fact, within the creation is finer or sweeter. Neither gold--the most expensive thing--nor honey--the tastiest thing--appeals to the senses as the word of God.
"It is good that God made us to desire him," I said, "for even if we should lose a beloved child, hope is not lost." Though all the things of creation--humans and plants and animals--should pass away, God and God's Word remain for those left behind.
I don't know whether that sounds trite. I do know that, as I go into situations in which I must speak, I am reduced only to that which is already in my heart, which I already understand. I am made more simple. I am reduced to trusting in the moment the very God I proclaim. I am reduced to trusting that the words and the love which he has already deposited in me are sufficient for the day. That I have found to be true.
-Joe
Monday, February 15, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
persistent waiting
A number of weeks ago I preached on John 2:1-11, or Jesus' "first sign" which he performed at the wedding at Cana. It came on a Sunday within the new year in which the church in Mandela Park, usually high in children and youth, contained but one adult (aside from Anna, me, and the pastor).
"It looks as though we are ministering to the youth," the pastor said to me as it came time for the sermon.
I found myself focusing in this text on the role of "the mother of Jesus". Indeed, her importance is emphasized, for John introduces the setting with reference to her. "On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there." The reader's curiosity is thus piqued regarding her; what role will she play in the unfolding drama?
She plays, in fact, the pivotal role in the story. It is she who tells Jesus that the wine has run out at the party. When he responds that his "hour has not yet come", she refuses to take his "no" for an answer. She presses Jesus until his "no" becomes a "yes."
How? She springs into action. "Do whatever he tells you," she instructs the servants at the wedding. Put in an uncomfortable position, all eyes presumably fixed upon Jesus, Jesus must act. He springs into action. The six stone water jugs are filled. The water is drawn. The water tastes like wine. The wine is the best wine--usually served at the beginning, now reserved for the end. As a result, "his disciples"--who had also "been invited to the wedding" along with Jesus and his mother--"believed in him".
Had the mother of Jesus not acted, not persisted, not insisted that Jesus "hour" had in fact "come", Jesus would not have "revealed his glory" nor his disciples "believed."
The mother of Jesus is, here in John, akin to the persistent widow in Luke 18:1-18, she whose refusal to take "no" for an answer from the "unjust judge" is given as a model to Jesus' disciples for approaching the "just judge", God. Such an approach may be summed up simply as persistence, perseverance, the disciple's determination to trust that God is good despite experience to the contrary. Such persistence will be rewarded. In fact, it finds in store at the end, whenever that end might be, a much better wine than one might have tasted at the start. It finds, in fact, a wine that makes all other wine forgettable, undesirable, useless. It leads to thanksgiving to the God who withheld from us wine for a time in order that we might taste the truly good wine which God has "kept until now."
So what might this story have to say to youth?
In any culture, and particularly South Africa, waiting for the good wine is quite literally a matter of life and death. If the wine is sex, waiting for a trustworthy companion in life, sealed by marriage, may be the difference between contracting or not contracting a deadly virus. Waiting can be the difference in a context of great need between the lure of illusory wealth in the present or lasting stability through the completion of education. For example, in South Africa we have "Mbeki babies", babies born to young women in order to secure government child grants which constitute their only reliable source of income (so named after the former state president, Thabo Mbeki).
More basically, for youth or whomever, waiting is the task of life. Waiting is faith, not of the passive nature which accepts the world as it is, but the persistent kind--that of the mother of Jesus--which demands the action of a seemingly distant but Just Judge to make right the desperate situations of our world.
-Joe
"It looks as though we are ministering to the youth," the pastor said to me as it came time for the sermon.
I found myself focusing in this text on the role of "the mother of Jesus". Indeed, her importance is emphasized, for John introduces the setting with reference to her. "On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there." The reader's curiosity is thus piqued regarding her; what role will she play in the unfolding drama?
She plays, in fact, the pivotal role in the story. It is she who tells Jesus that the wine has run out at the party. When he responds that his "hour has not yet come", she refuses to take his "no" for an answer. She presses Jesus until his "no" becomes a "yes."
How? She springs into action. "Do whatever he tells you," she instructs the servants at the wedding. Put in an uncomfortable position, all eyes presumably fixed upon Jesus, Jesus must act. He springs into action. The six stone water jugs are filled. The water is drawn. The water tastes like wine. The wine is the best wine--usually served at the beginning, now reserved for the end. As a result, "his disciples"--who had also "been invited to the wedding" along with Jesus and his mother--"believed in him".
Had the mother of Jesus not acted, not persisted, not insisted that Jesus "hour" had in fact "come", Jesus would not have "revealed his glory" nor his disciples "believed."
The mother of Jesus is, here in John, akin to the persistent widow in Luke 18:1-18, she whose refusal to take "no" for an answer from the "unjust judge" is given as a model to Jesus' disciples for approaching the "just judge", God. Such an approach may be summed up simply as persistence, perseverance, the disciple's determination to trust that God is good despite experience to the contrary. Such persistence will be rewarded. In fact, it finds in store at the end, whenever that end might be, a much better wine than one might have tasted at the start. It finds, in fact, a wine that makes all other wine forgettable, undesirable, useless. It leads to thanksgiving to the God who withheld from us wine for a time in order that we might taste the truly good wine which God has "kept until now."
So what might this story have to say to youth?
In any culture, and particularly South Africa, waiting for the good wine is quite literally a matter of life and death. If the wine is sex, waiting for a trustworthy companion in life, sealed by marriage, may be the difference between contracting or not contracting a deadly virus. Waiting can be the difference in a context of great need between the lure of illusory wealth in the present or lasting stability through the completion of education. For example, in South Africa we have "Mbeki babies", babies born to young women in order to secure government child grants which constitute their only reliable source of income (so named after the former state president, Thabo Mbeki).
More basically, for youth or whomever, waiting is the task of life. Waiting is faith, not of the passive nature which accepts the world as it is, but the persistent kind--that of the mother of Jesus--which demands the action of a seemingly distant but Just Judge to make right the desperate situations of our world.
-Joe
Saturday, January 16, 2010
faith of our fathers
Perhaps an alternative title to this blog should be "conversations with Pastor Ntapo", as so many of my insights into African culture and biblical interpretation come in give and take with him. Let that be preface to today's entry.
After a separation of several weeks over the holidays, we met back up in our Bible School office last Thursday. He filled me in on one of the sermons he had preached on a recent Sunday.
He tracked for his people the journey of Abram in Genesis 11-12. Abram, he recalled, left Ur of the Chaldeans with his father Terah, who died on the way to Canaan in the land of Haran (11:31-32). From there, God summoned Abram to continue on his father's journey into "the land that I will show you" (12:1). Later, Pastor Ntapo, continued, "Abram went down to Egypt" (12:10).
His point: Abraham's feet touched down in every place where his descendants would go; his journey anticipated theirs.
Indeed, the Israelites came out of slavery in Egypt to Canaan, and back also to the land of the Chaldeans, to captivity under the Babylonians. And just as Abraham would also go up from Egypt (Gen. 13:1),and later his descendants, so also, in centuries later, his descendants would come back from Babylon. From slavery to freedom. From freedom to slavery. And back again.
As Pastor Ntapo recounted the story, I remembered that Jesus too, went down to Egypt and back up again. "Out of Egypt I called my son," wrote Matthew, applying the words of the prophet Hosea to the boy Jesus (Mt. 2:15; Hos. 11:1). "I also touched on that," said the pastor when I brought up Jesus' journey. "Jesus did the same thing [as Abraham] on the other side."
Thus I observed, as I had in previous encounters, the importance to my African brothers in the faith of the reality that the way which we walk has been prepared beforehand for us by our ancestors. Their experience then is ours now; their suffering, ours; their redemption, ours. More than that, in the words of another pastor at Bethany Bible School when recalling one of last year's lessons on the Israelites' wilderness wandering, "the God who helped them is the same God today."
Because of the story--of Abram and Sarai, Moses and Miriam, of Jesus--"I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us" (Rom. 8:18). The story is hope. Without it there is naught.
-Joe
After a separation of several weeks over the holidays, we met back up in our Bible School office last Thursday. He filled me in on one of the sermons he had preached on a recent Sunday.
He tracked for his people the journey of Abram in Genesis 11-12. Abram, he recalled, left Ur of the Chaldeans with his father Terah, who died on the way to Canaan in the land of Haran (11:31-32). From there, God summoned Abram to continue on his father's journey into "the land that I will show you" (12:1). Later, Pastor Ntapo, continued, "Abram went down to Egypt" (12:10).
His point: Abraham's feet touched down in every place where his descendants would go; his journey anticipated theirs.
Indeed, the Israelites came out of slavery in Egypt to Canaan, and back also to the land of the Chaldeans, to captivity under the Babylonians. And just as Abraham would also go up from Egypt (Gen. 13:1),and later his descendants, so also, in centuries later, his descendants would come back from Babylon. From slavery to freedom. From freedom to slavery. And back again.
As Pastor Ntapo recounted the story, I remembered that Jesus too, went down to Egypt and back up again. "Out of Egypt I called my son," wrote Matthew, applying the words of the prophet Hosea to the boy Jesus (Mt. 2:15; Hos. 11:1). "I also touched on that," said the pastor when I brought up Jesus' journey. "Jesus did the same thing [as Abraham] on the other side."
Thus I observed, as I had in previous encounters, the importance to my African brothers in the faith of the reality that the way which we walk has been prepared beforehand for us by our ancestors. Their experience then is ours now; their suffering, ours; their redemption, ours. More than that, in the words of another pastor at Bethany Bible School when recalling one of last year's lessons on the Israelites' wilderness wandering, "the God who helped them is the same God today."
Because of the story--of Abram and Sarai, Moses and Miriam, of Jesus--"I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us" (Rom. 8:18). The story is hope. Without it there is naught.
-Joe
Sunday, December 27, 2009
"Who then is this?"
Our November conference topic at Bethany Bible School was the Lord's Supper. Based on five key repeated words in the text, Mark 14:12-25, I made five points.
1. The Supper is the Lord's. The possessive pronoun "my" in relation to Jesus is prominent in the text.
2. The Supper is for disciples. The word "disciples" makes four appearances, all but one in explicit relation to Jesus through the use of the possessive "his" or "my", depending on the speaker. In addition, the text makes two references to "the twelve", a synonymous term.
3. The Supper requires preparation. Variations on the verb "prepare" number five in the text.
4. The central act of the Supper is eating. Variations on the verb "eat" number four.
5. The Supper was a Passover meal. The noun "Passover" likewise makes four appearances.
I learned much by studying and teaching this text. Above all, the text confronted me again--in the manner of Mark's gospel--with the question of Jesus' true identity.
How? The character of Jesus inspires wonder. He is direct, unequivocal; for that very reason he is mysterious. Ordinary people do not speak as Jesus speaks.
He calls ordinary bread "my body." He takes a cup and says "this is my blood." Earlier, he instructs the disciples to go into the city where they will meet a man carrying a jar of water. As they are to follow that man, Jesus tells the disciples to enter "wherever he enters" and "say to the owner of the house, " 'The Teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples' " (14:14). It is there, in that guest room--"a large room upstairs whose furnishings have been fully prepared"--that the disciples will prepare the Passover.
Though the disciples will prepare the Passover, however, they find that preparations have already been made for them. At the beginning of the text, they do not know where they will observe the Passover: "Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?" (14:12); their Teacher has known all along. His word has gone before, preparing their way. Or perhaps he has foreseen the man carrying water, the owner of the house, the upper room. Regardless, the guest room, like the bread and the cup, are his--"my room"; "my body"; "my blood."
Earlier in Mark, the disciples "were filled with great awe" at him who calmed the storm: "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" (4:41) Similarly, we might ask, "Who is this, who calls bread "my body" and a cup "my blood"? This is not only a looking forward, that is, to his crucifixion--"my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many" (though it is surely that); this is a looking back, to the beginning. Before the disciples mixed the flour and formed the cakes, before the grapes were gleaned and pressed for drink, someone made the sun to shine and the rain to fall. Someone grew the grain and ripened the fruit.
"Who then is this, who says, 'Creation is mine' ?"
This is Jesus, the giver of life, the Lord of creation.
-Joe
1. The Supper is the Lord's. The possessive pronoun "my" in relation to Jesus is prominent in the text.
2. The Supper is for disciples. The word "disciples" makes four appearances, all but one in explicit relation to Jesus through the use of the possessive "his" or "my", depending on the speaker. In addition, the text makes two references to "the twelve", a synonymous term.
3. The Supper requires preparation. Variations on the verb "prepare" number five in the text.
4. The central act of the Supper is eating. Variations on the verb "eat" number four.
5. The Supper was a Passover meal. The noun "Passover" likewise makes four appearances.
I learned much by studying and teaching this text. Above all, the text confronted me again--in the manner of Mark's gospel--with the question of Jesus' true identity.
How? The character of Jesus inspires wonder. He is direct, unequivocal; for that very reason he is mysterious. Ordinary people do not speak as Jesus speaks.
He calls ordinary bread "my body." He takes a cup and says "this is my blood." Earlier, he instructs the disciples to go into the city where they will meet a man carrying a jar of water. As they are to follow that man, Jesus tells the disciples to enter "wherever he enters" and "say to the owner of the house, " 'The Teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples' " (14:14). It is there, in that guest room--"a large room upstairs whose furnishings have been fully prepared"--that the disciples will prepare the Passover.
Though the disciples will prepare the Passover, however, they find that preparations have already been made for them. At the beginning of the text, they do not know where they will observe the Passover: "Where do you want us to go and make preparations for you to eat the Passover?" (14:12); their Teacher has known all along. His word has gone before, preparing their way. Or perhaps he has foreseen the man carrying water, the owner of the house, the upper room. Regardless, the guest room, like the bread and the cup, are his--"my room"; "my body"; "my blood."
Earlier in Mark, the disciples "were filled with great awe" at him who calmed the storm: "Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" (4:41) Similarly, we might ask, "Who is this, who calls bread "my body" and a cup "my blood"? This is not only a looking forward, that is, to his crucifixion--"my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many" (though it is surely that); this is a looking back, to the beginning. Before the disciples mixed the flour and formed the cakes, before the grapes were gleaned and pressed for drink, someone made the sun to shine and the rain to fall. Someone grew the grain and ripened the fruit.
"Who then is this, who says, 'Creation is mine' ?"
This is Jesus, the giver of life, the Lord of creation.
-Joe
Saturday, December 5, 2009
"the good confession"
Two weeks ago, Pastor Ntapo preached a short message based on John 17:3, "And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."
The preacher's point was that Jesus came in order that we might know God, and indeed that the purpose of human life on this earth is to know God. Consequently, he admonished his people to know God before they die.
This probably sounds too typical, another example of standard preaching-for-conversion. Except that it wasn't.
The pastor's message was not accompanied by the question "Where will you go when you die?", the stereotypical warning of revivalism, but "What will you confess at the end of your life?"
He said that many of "our people confess when they die that they have killed so and so through witchcraft"; instead of a confession of evil-doing, he urged his people to do good in order that they could confess it in the end.
Obviously, the pastor thought that having nothing good to confess at the end of one's life is punishment enough--and motivation enough for his people to walk now in the way of Jesus, growing in the knowledge of God.
That the pastor might not accomplish the purpose for which he was placed on this earth is, in fact, his greatest fear. I have heard him say on several occasions that "the cemetery is very rich because of all the people buried there who never used up what God deposited in them."
"When I die," he says, "I want to be empty."
And that is why he presses on, amidst formidable obstacles, to teach a young congregation the way of God. "I was born for that," he testifies, citing Jesus' words before Pilate (Jn. 18:37). It will likewise be his "good confession" when he dies (1 Tim. 6:13).
-Joe
The preacher's point was that Jesus came in order that we might know God, and indeed that the purpose of human life on this earth is to know God. Consequently, he admonished his people to know God before they die.
This probably sounds too typical, another example of standard preaching-for-conversion. Except that it wasn't.
The pastor's message was not accompanied by the question "Where will you go when you die?", the stereotypical warning of revivalism, but "What will you confess at the end of your life?"
He said that many of "our people confess when they die that they have killed so and so through witchcraft"; instead of a confession of evil-doing, he urged his people to do good in order that they could confess it in the end.
Obviously, the pastor thought that having nothing good to confess at the end of one's life is punishment enough--and motivation enough for his people to walk now in the way of Jesus, growing in the knowledge of God.
That the pastor might not accomplish the purpose for which he was placed on this earth is, in fact, his greatest fear. I have heard him say on several occasions that "the cemetery is very rich because of all the people buried there who never used up what God deposited in them."
"When I die," he says, "I want to be empty."
And that is why he presses on, amidst formidable obstacles, to teach a young congregation the way of God. "I was born for that," he testifies, citing Jesus' words before Pilate (Jn. 18:37). It will likewise be his "good confession" when he dies (1 Tim. 6:13).
-Joe
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
of Pilate and the poor
Since re-reading it a couple of weeks ago, Jesus' conversation with Pilate (John 18:33-38) has been on my mind.
Some observations:
1. Pilate acts here as any worldly king does, ultimately disinterested in the plight of the poor in his kingdom. This is obvious from his lack of effort in distinguishing Jesus from the people who have handed him over. Those who handed him over, of course, were Jesus' own people, in the words of Pilate to Jesus "your own nation and the chief priests" (v. 35). Also by implication these are simply what the text calls "the Jews", for Pilate is perturbed that Jesus insinuates that Pilate might be able to tell for himself whether Jesus is truly or not "King of the Jews." "I am not a Jew, am I", Pilate retorts, aghast that he might be associated on any level with the subjects of his rule. In effect Pilate is saying, "I don't know them, I can't know them, indeed I do not want to know them." It is unthinkable that a man of his power shares anything in common with the subjects of his kingdom. Because of this attitude, it is not surprising that Pilate is surprised that Jesus' own people would hand him over; the impassible king does not sense that conflict rages within and among the subjected peoples of his reign. He can only ask,"What have you done?", implying an act of offense great enough to warrant a request for crucifixion, because he sees no reason otherwise why the Jews should be at war among themselves. This is not because Pilate regards the Jews as exceptionally good people, immune to conflict, but simply because he does not care whether they are typically human enough to have passion, disagreement, conflict. To Pilate they are "only" Jews, the subjects of his rule, objects to be moved or crushed for his political gain. In Pilate's eyes, the only conflict of the Jews is that between them and him; they are all out to get him because everyone and everything must always be about the king.
2. Jesus, on the other hand, is not out to get the king, at least not in the manner that Pilate fears. Jesus, rather, contra Pilate, is only concerned with the plight of the poor, his own people (which is to say, and not with Pilate). Jesus knows that the fight which Pilate fears from the Jews is not the fight that will free them. He will not permit them to fight, and see, as he explains to Pilate, his followers do not fight "to keep me from being handed over to the Jews" (v. 36). Rather, Jesus' people will be free on account of their trust in another kingdom--one "not from this world"--and another king. The sign of that trust will be their refusal to fight in the manner of Pilate, with the weapons of blood and flesh. The sign will be that they will "be handed over", but they will hand no one over. It is the sign that distinguishes Jew from Jew, the sign also Pilate might have seen if he had eyes to sees.
3. The question remains whether the sons and daughters of Pilate will ever see. The historical record is not good (At this moment Barack Obama has handed over 30,000 more U.S. troops to a war in Afghanistan). We have little reason to doubt whether the kingdoms of the world have not really been "given over" to Satan (Lk. 4:6), and whether therefore the poor are not more worthy of our attention in the hope of a better world.
-Joe
Some observations:
1. Pilate acts here as any worldly king does, ultimately disinterested in the plight of the poor in his kingdom. This is obvious from his lack of effort in distinguishing Jesus from the people who have handed him over. Those who handed him over, of course, were Jesus' own people, in the words of Pilate to Jesus "your own nation and the chief priests" (v. 35). Also by implication these are simply what the text calls "the Jews", for Pilate is perturbed that Jesus insinuates that Pilate might be able to tell for himself whether Jesus is truly or not "King of the Jews." "I am not a Jew, am I", Pilate retorts, aghast that he might be associated on any level with the subjects of his rule. In effect Pilate is saying, "I don't know them, I can't know them, indeed I do not want to know them." It is unthinkable that a man of his power shares anything in common with the subjects of his kingdom. Because of this attitude, it is not surprising that Pilate is surprised that Jesus' own people would hand him over; the impassible king does not sense that conflict rages within and among the subjected peoples of his reign. He can only ask,"What have you done?", implying an act of offense great enough to warrant a request for crucifixion, because he sees no reason otherwise why the Jews should be at war among themselves. This is not because Pilate regards the Jews as exceptionally good people, immune to conflict, but simply because he does not care whether they are typically human enough to have passion, disagreement, conflict. To Pilate they are "only" Jews, the subjects of his rule, objects to be moved or crushed for his political gain. In Pilate's eyes, the only conflict of the Jews is that between them and him; they are all out to get him because everyone and everything must always be about the king.
2. Jesus, on the other hand, is not out to get the king, at least not in the manner that Pilate fears. Jesus, rather, contra Pilate, is only concerned with the plight of the poor, his own people (which is to say, and not with Pilate). Jesus knows that the fight which Pilate fears from the Jews is not the fight that will free them. He will not permit them to fight, and see, as he explains to Pilate, his followers do not fight "to keep me from being handed over to the Jews" (v. 36). Rather, Jesus' people will be free on account of their trust in another kingdom--one "not from this world"--and another king. The sign of that trust will be their refusal to fight in the manner of Pilate, with the weapons of blood and flesh. The sign will be that they will "be handed over", but they will hand no one over. It is the sign that distinguishes Jew from Jew, the sign also Pilate might have seen if he had eyes to sees.
3. The question remains whether the sons and daughters of Pilate will ever see. The historical record is not good (At this moment Barack Obama has handed over 30,000 more U.S. troops to a war in Afghanistan). We have little reason to doubt whether the kingdoms of the world have not really been "given over" to Satan (Lk. 4:6), and whether therefore the poor are not more worthy of our attention in the hope of a better world.
-Joe
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
old and new
Last Sunday at church, we had a service of blessing for a new marriage. Afterwards, we enjoyed the standard meal: meat, sugar beans and mealies, and potato salad, washed down with Coca-Cola. After that, one of the servers set down at our table a plate of uncooked, red cow livers.
"Can we eat it like this?" the pastor said. "No, I think we must braai [cook over the fire/barbecue] this."
He continued, "Some of our people eat it just like this. They just sprinkle a little salt on it."
"Do you ever eat it raw?" our guest visiting from North America chimed in, asking the pastor.
"I used to," he said, "before I got saved. After I got saved, I read in the Bible that we are not supposed to eat meat with the blood still in it, because it says that the life is in the blood" (Lev. 17:10ff).
The pastor's comments illustrate how the Old Testament, from which the above reference is drawn, can be good news--gospel--to people from traditional cultures. Set against many of his culture's practices, the Old Testament's dietary laws and admonitions against consulting the spirits of the dead, for example, constitute an alternative way of living in the world--one that leads away from death and towards life (Deut 30:19).
Consequently, although the pastor "got saved" in the name of Jesus, the central figure of the New Testament, he experiences the Old also as Jesus' story.
-Joe
"Can we eat it like this?" the pastor said. "No, I think we must braai [cook over the fire/barbecue] this."
He continued, "Some of our people eat it just like this. They just sprinkle a little salt on it."
"Do you ever eat it raw?" our guest visiting from North America chimed in, asking the pastor.
"I used to," he said, "before I got saved. After I got saved, I read in the Bible that we are not supposed to eat meat with the blood still in it, because it says that the life is in the blood" (Lev. 17:10ff).
The pastor's comments illustrate how the Old Testament, from which the above reference is drawn, can be good news--gospel--to people from traditional cultures. Set against many of his culture's practices, the Old Testament's dietary laws and admonitions against consulting the spirits of the dead, for example, constitute an alternative way of living in the world--one that leads away from death and towards life (Deut 30:19).
Consequently, although the pastor "got saved" in the name of Jesus, the central figure of the New Testament, he experiences the Old also as Jesus' story.
-Joe
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