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No Contest: Why The Argument Over Genesis
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What Is A Christian?
2
One doesn’t have to be religious to know that a
great controversy surrounds the first chapter in the Bible.
A MESSAGE FROM THE EDITOR
A
s I have been working on this issue this past few weeks I’ve
had to say good-bye to some long time members of this
Church. The first one, Jack Philips, 95 at his death, was a
member of the Worldwide Church of God since 1965. Over
the last few years he was unable to attend services, but many
in the Battleford congregation would visit him from time to
time.
The second person was Floyd Hawley, 92 who at his death, had been
a member for over 20 years. Floyd was an active fixture of our small
congregation up until a few months ago when his health started to deteriorate.
Aucune contestation: Pourquoi tout ce
débat sur le livre de la Genèse ?
6
Une personne n’a pas besoin d’être religieuse pour
savoir qu’il existe une grande controverse à propos du
premier chapitre de la Bible.
After Churchianity—Then What?
16
Some time back I had a very animated conversation with
an Anglican vicar in my home town of Carbonear,
Newfoundland. A University of Toronto grad, he was a
good scholar of church history.
Personal
Director’s Desk
Women’s Ministry
Focus On The Holy Spirit
The Journey
Theme Articles
Pastor’s Corner
Commentary
Bible Study
National News
From Christian Odyssey
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12
13
14
15
22
23
24
30
32
FRONT COVER: There are many thoughts about the question,
“What is a Christian?” Can we actually come up with an answer?
Cover Photo: © Designpics
Back Cover: © Designpics
Additional photos and illustrations: © Designpics unless otherwise
noted
Northern Light magazine is the official magazine of the
Worldwide Church of God, Canada. It exists to share the
stories of our members and congregations on their
Christian journey. Northern Light does this by featuring
articles that encourage, nurture and inform.
Le magazine Northern Light est le magazine officiel de
l’Église universelle de Dieu, au Canada. Il sert à raconter
les histoires de nos membres et de nos assemblées tout
le long de leur voyage chrétien, au moyen d’articles qui
encouragent, nourrissent et informent.
I had the privilege to attend Jack’s funeral, performed by a local minister colleague of mine and to actually officiate at Floyd’s funeral. In
attending both funerals a thought struck me, these two long-time
friends could be best described as prairie gentlemen.
Jack had married into a ready-made family many years ago and during
the funeral reception, his step-family related how they never felt that he
was their step-dad or step-grandfather, he was simply dad. Their glowing words about how much he loved his family and how he supported
them throughout his long life.
In Floyd’s case, he was married three times, with two of his wives dying
of M.S. His story was one of hard work, and concern for his family. One
of the comments he wrote in preparation for his funeral was that he
loved to see his family grow up.
In both of their cases, there were never any ill words heard about their
lives. Simply praise, laughter and good stories about the lives they led.
One thing that united both of these men, besides the fact that they both
had lived a long, and prosperous life, was their decision, so many years
ago, give their lives over to Jesus Christ.
When I think of the question, “What is a Christian?”, posed by this
issue, these two men come to mind. They both lived out their Christian
theology in the arena of life, where the proverbial rubber meets the
road. I can just imagine God telling them, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in
charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!”
(Matthew 25:23).
Hopefully, we all can leave a similar legacy.NL
Bill Hall
1
P E R S O N A L
By Dennis Gordon
No Contest
Why The Argument Over Genesis?
O
ne doesn’t have to be religious
to know that a great controversy surrounds the first chapter in
the Bible. The way it is written
seems to suggest that the
whole universe, including the
Earth and all life, was made by God in
just six days. Some Protestant
Christians insist on taking this literally.
Genealogies in succeeding chapters are
then supposed to lead us to the conclusion that all this happened 10,000 years
ago, more or less.
they fail to consider carefully what type
of literature it is, why it was written, who
the audience was, and what were the
historical/cultural and religious settings
in which Genesis was written.
The fact is, a literal interpretation of
Genesis 1 has nothing to do with science, and it is poor theology to suggest it
does. "Young earth" creationists have
overlooked the first principles of exege-
Cosmogony or cosmology?
Moses wrote the Creation account as a
cosmogony that was intended to counter
the well-known cosmogonies of the
pagans.1
A cosmogony is a story of the genesis or
development of the universe and the
creation of the world, whereas cosmology is strictly a formal branch of philoso-
This creationist viewpoint has been forcefully asserted, especially during the latter
part of the 20th century, and the media
have been very effective in reporting it.
There is, therefore, a
general sense among
the biblically illiterate
general public (and
even many Christians)
that the majority of
Christians
have
always held such a
view. This is not the
case.
According to Conrad
Hyers, author of The
Meaning of Creation,
allegorical interpretations of Genesis 1 were common in the
Patristic (early) and Medieval Church,
whereas Protestant Reformers leaned
toward a literal approach. Martin Luther,
for example, criticized Augustine (A.D.
354–430) for Augustine’s allegorical
interpretation of the six days of Creation.
Today, there are numerous religious
books about the Genesis Creation written by evangelical or fundamentalist
scientists who ridicule evolution and
rewrite geological history, meanwhile
demanding that the Genesis accounts
can be interpreted only and wholly literally. Wedded to a particular paradigm,
2
©iStockphoto.com/Gord Horne
sis. Exegesis is the systematic study of
Scripture to discover the original, intended meaning.
When exegesis is done properly,
Genesis 1 is seen for what it is—a literary masterpiece, an intelligent, carefully
crafted assertion of monotheism against
polytheism (many gods), a matter of
great significance for the people who
were alive when Genesis 1 was written.
Many chapters of the Old Testament
record how the people of Israel preferred
to "go whoring after other gods" than follow the one true God.
phy dealing with the origin and general
structure of the universe. We know what
the commonest pagan cosmogonies
were because they are preserved in
cuneiform script on clay tablets.
The best-known cosmogony, the famous
Babylonian creation epic known as the
Enuma Elish, itself based on earlier, preMosaic versions, was written some time
after Moses. When you read a translation of it (see box), you can see what the
Israelites were up against. It describes a
struggle between cosmic order and cosmic chaos. There are great sea monsters, and the chief divinities, in order of
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pre-eminence, are the stars, the moon,
and the sun. Other gods abound in the
cosmogonies—gods of darkness, water,
vegetation, various animals, and so on.
The Enuma Elish and earlier cosmogonies help us understand why the
Genesis account is written as it is. As
one archaeologist has written, Genesis
freely uses the metaphors and symbolism drawn from a common cultural pool
to assert its own theology about God.
In the beginning…
Let’s now look at the structure of
Genesis 1 to see how this works (for this
you might want to consult a Bible). It
starts out with a summary statement: "In
the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth [the universe]."
Most of the verses in the chapter hinge
upon the next statement, in verse 2:
"The earth was without form and void,
and darkness was upon the face of the
deep." The following verses explain how
God respectively structured and "filled"
the conditions of formlessness and emptiness. The six days are arranged in two
parallel sets of three (noted as early as
Augustine in his City of God), such that
what is created on days four through six
populates the appropriate realm structured in days one through three.
The point of this symmetry in Genesis 1
is that the form of the presentation is at
least as important as the content. With
this perspective, it is clear that the structural framework is artificial and therefore
was never intended by the author to be
taken literally as a seven-day historical
account (with God resting on the seventh day). The fact of God’s creative authority over everything is certainly intended
literally, but the seven-day framework is
just that—a framework.
As Victor Hamilton in his 1990 commentary on Genesis 1 wrote, "A literary reading of Genesis 1…understands ‘day’
not as a chronological account of how
many hours God invested in his creating
project, but as an analogy of God’s creative activity. God reveals himself to his
C O N T I N U E D
people in a medium [a seven-day week]
with which they can identify and which
they can comprehend."
How the ancients saw the world
We need to understand that, for most
peoples of the ancient world, all the
various regions of nature were divine.
There were sky gods, earth gods and
water gods, gods of light and darkness,
rivers and vegetation, animals and fertility. Everywhere the ancients turned,
there were divinities to be petitioned,
appeased, or pacified.
Each day of Creation in Genesis 1 takes
on two principal categories of divinity
and declares that these are not gods at
all but creations of the one and only true
God. This includes humans, none of
whom—not even kings or pharaohs—
are to be worshipped as gods.2
Hebrew monotheism (one God) was a
unique and hard-won faith. The temptations of idolatry and syncretism (blended
religion) were everywhere. Later in history, it came to be understood just how
Problem
Preparation
Population
Verse 2
Days 1-3
Days 4-6
darkness
1(a) creation of light (day)
1(b) separation from darkness (night)
4(a) creation of sun
4(b) creation of sun and stars
watery abyss
2(a) creation of firmament (sky)
2(b) separation of waters above from
waters below
5(a) creation of birds
5(b) creation of fish
formless earth
3(a) separation of earth from sea
3(b) creation of vegetation
6(a) creation of land animals
6(b) creation of man
without form and void
tohu (the formless) is formed
bohu (the void) is filled
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Translaton of the fifth tablet of the Enuma Elish
Compare the order of dieties with that of the celestial bodies of Genesis 1:16, in which the order is
deliberately reversed.
©iStockphoto.com/Michael Fuery
“He (Marduk) made the stations of the great gods; The stars, their images, as the stars of the Zodiac, he
fixed. He ordained the year and into sections he divided it; For the twelve months he fixed three stars.
The Moon-god he caused to shine forth, the night he entrusted to him. He appointed him, a being of the
night, to determine the days, Every month without ceasing with the crown he covered him, saying: “At
the beginning of the month, when thou shinest upon the land, Thou commandest the horns to
determine the six days, And on the seventh day to divide the crown. “When the Sun-god on the
foundation of heaven...the,...”(tablet here damaged)
liberating was the concept of monotheism. From time immemorial, superstitious people have attributed natural phenomena, or calamities like earthquakes,
volcanic eruptions and tsunamis, to
gods who were beyond understanding
(except by a priestly elite) and had to be
appeased and not questioned. Genesis
1, on the other hand, asserts that there
are no gods but God and that his crea-
4
tion is comprehensible and amenable to
investigation. This perspective made
possible the scientific study of nature.
Verse 16 of Genesis 1, when understood, is amusing. As an intentional putdown, it deliberately reverses the order
of the chief deities of a well-known cosmogony. The sun—called the "greater
light" to avoid using the only available
Semitic names for the sun, which were
names of deities—comes first, then the
moon, the "lesser light." The stars—the
highest deities—are barely mentioned in
a throw-away line: "He made the stars
also"! Not only that, Genesis 1 makes it
plain that they are not to be worshipped;
they were made to serve—daily, seasonally, and calendrically. And none is
accorded astrological significance.
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P E R S O N A L
C O N T I N U E D
Further reading
Blocher, H., and R. Preston. In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis. InterVarsity Press, 1984. 240
pages.
Gibson, J.C. Genesis (volume 1). The Daily Bible Study Series. Westminster John Knox, 1981. 228 pages.
Hamilton, V.P. The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1–17. The New International Commentary on the Old Testament.
Eerdmans, 1990. 522 pages.
Hyers, M.C. The Meaning of Creation: Genesis and Modern Science. Westminster John Knox, 1984. 216 pages.
Watts, R. "Making Sense of Genesis 1."
Stimulus 12(4) (2004): 2–12. www.stimulus.org.nz/index_files/Stim12_4RikkWatts.pdf.
You see the contrast? In this chapter,
God overcomes darkness, makes order
out of chaos, and even makes the great
sea creatures, which, as it happens, are
not monstrous. The impressive orderliness of Genesis 1 and its patterned
structure are a deliberate response to
pagan mythologies. The Hebrew God
has no competitor and there is no cosmic battle going on. Everything is under
control.
No contest
Genesis 1 is not at odds with modern
geology and biological science. This is
not an issue here. To insist that it is does
violence both to Scripture and to science. As Victor Hamilton wrote, "This is a
word from God addressed to a group of
people who are surrounded by nations
whose cosmology is informed by polytheism and the mythology that flows out
of that polytheism. Much in Genesis 1 is
patently anti-pagan…. The writer’s
concerns were theological."
rective against polytheistic concepts
encountered by the Israelites in their
old land as well as in their new one.NL
Dennis Gordon is a biologist in a
government research organization in New Zealand and an
Associate Member of the U.K.based Society of Ordained
Scientists. He obtained his PhD
in 1973 (Dalhousie University,
Canada), was baptized in the
same year, and was ordained in
1980.
1 Moses is taken to be the author of
Genesis. As Henri Blocher, Professor
of Theology at Wheaton College,
Illinois, has written: "We stand…with
the contemporary specialists who
maintain the traditional positions, those
suggested by the Bible itself, which
associate Genesis with the work of
Israel’s most powerful thinker, ‘our
Teacher,’ as the Jews call him, Moses."
And for good reason—his training in
Egypt and his later pastoral life uniquely equipped him intellectually and spiritually, as one who was "instructed in all
the wisdom of the Egyptians" (Acts 7:
22) and who was filled with the Spirit of
wisdom, which he later passed on to
Joshua (Deuteronomy 34:9)
2 All humans, men and women equally, not just pharaohs and kings, are
said to be made in the likeness of God,
with the royal prerogative of rulership
(properly, stewardship) over the earth.
This equality of men and women,
extended to common folk, was revolutionary teaching!
Both Henri Blocher and Rick Watts (see
Further Reading) have highlighted the
similarities and differences between the
Genesis account and some themes
apparent in Egyptian cosmogonies
(something relatively few scholars have
attempted). In short, Genesis 1 is a corO C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R
Endnotes
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ÉDITORIAL
de Dennis Gordon
Aucune contestation
Pourquoi tout ce débat sur le livre de la Genèse ?
U
ne personne n’a pas besoin
d’être religieuse pour savoir
qu’il existe une grande controverse à propos du premier
chapitre de la Bible. La façon
dont il est écrit semble suggérer que Dieu a créé tout univers, y compris la terre et toute vie, en six jours seulement. Certains chrétiens protestants
insistent pour interpréter littéralement ce
chapitre. Les généalogies dans les chapitres suivants sont donc censées nous
conduire à la conclusion que tout cela
s’est passé il y a environ 10 000 ans.
suggérer qu’il en soit ainsi. Les créationnistes en faveur d’une « terre jeune »
ont négligé les premiers principes de
l’exégèse. L’exégèse est l’étude systématique de l’Écriture pour en découvrir
la signification originale voulue. Quand
cette exégèse est faite correctement,
Genèse 1 est considéré pour ce qu’il est :
Cosmogonie ou cosmologie ?
un chef-d’œuvre littéraire, une affirmation intelligente et habilement articulée
du monothéisme contre le polythéisme
(plusieurs dieux), un sujet d’une grande
importance pour les gens qui vivaient à
l’époque où Genèse 1 a été écrit.
Plusieurs
chapitres
de
l’Ancien
Testament rapportent comment le
peuple d’Israël a préféré se prostituer
avec d’autres dieux plutôt que de suivre
le seul vrai Dieu.
Une cosmogonie est une histoire de la
genèse ou du développement de
l’univers et de la création du monde, tandis que la cosmologie est strictement
une branche officielle de la philosophie
qui traite de l’origine et de la structure
générale de l’univers. Nous savons ce
que quelles étaient les cosmogonies
païennes les plus connues, parce
qu’elles sont préservées en écriture
cunéiforme sur des tablettes d’argile.
Moïse a écrit le récit de la création
comme une cosmogonie qui avait pour
but de contrecarrer les cosmogonies
bien connues des païens.1
Ce point de vue créationniste a été grandement soutenu, surtout durant la dernière partie du 20e siècle, et les médias
ont été très efficaces à le rapporter. Il y
a donc un sentiment général parmi le
grand public qui ne connaît pas la Bible
(et même parmi beaucoup de chrétiens)
que la majorité des chrétiens ont toujours soutenu un tel point de vue. Ce
n’est pas le cas.
Selon Conrad Hyers, auteur de The
Meaning of Creation, des interprétations
allégoriques de Genèse 1 étaient courantes dans l’Église primitive et dans
l’Église médiévale, tandis que les réformateurs protestants penchaient vers
une approche littérale. Martin Luther, par
exemple, critiquait Augustin (354-430
apr. J-C.) pour son interprétation allégorique des six jours de la création.
Aujourd’hui, de nombreux livres religieux sur la création de la Genèse sont
écrits par des scientifiques évangéliques
ou fondamentalistes qui ridiculisent
l’évolution et réécrivent l’histoire géologique, tout en demandant que les récits
de la Genèse ne soient interprétés que
littéralement. Liés à un paradigme particulier, ils ne considèrent pas soigneusement le genre littéraire de la Genèse,
pour quoi et pour qui le livre a été écrit,
et quels étaient les contextes historiques, culturels et religieux de l’époque.
En réalité, une interprétation littérale de
Genèse 1 n’a rien à voir avec la science,
et c’est une piètre théologie que de
6
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ÉDITORIAL
La cosmogonie la plus connue, la
fameuse épopée babylonienne de la
création appelée la Enuma Elish, ellemême basée sur des versions prémosaïques, a été écrite quelque temps
après Moïse.
Lorsque vous en lisez une traduction
(voir l’encadré), vous pouvez constater
que les Israélites s’y opposaient. Elle
décrit un combat entre l’ordre et le
chaos cosmiques. Il y a de grands
monstres marins, et les principaux
dieux, par ordre de prééminence, sont
les étoiles, la lune et le soleil. D‘autres
dieux abondent dans les cosmogonies :
des dieux de ténèbres, d’eau, de végétation, de différents animaux, et ainsi de
suite.
La Enuma Elish et les cosmogonies
antérieures nous aident à comprendre
pourquoi le récit de la Genèse est ainsi
rédigé. Comme un archéologue l’a écrit,
la Genèse utilise librement les métaphores et le symbolisme tiré d’un bassin
culturel commun pour affirmer sa propre
théologie sur Dieu.
Traduction de la cinquième tablette de Enuma Elish
Comparez l’ordre des divinités avec celui des corps célestes en Genèse 1.16, où l’ordre est
intentionnellement inversé.
©iStockphoto.com/Michael Fuery
Il [Marduk] a fait les stations pour les grands dieux ; il a fixé les étoiles, leurs images, comme les étoiles
du zodiaque. Il a fait l’année et l’a divisée en sections ; il a fixé trois étoiles pour les douze mois. Il a fait
briller le dieu lune, et il lui a confié la nuit. Il l’a désigné, un être de la nuit, pour déterminer les jours ;
chaque mois et à perpétuité, il lui a donné une couronne en lui disant : « Au commencement du mois,
quand tu brilles sur la terre, tu commandes aux cornes de déterminer six jours et, au septième jour, de diviser la couronne. » Quand le dieu Soleil sur la fondation du ciel […] tu,[…] [tablette endommagée à partir
d’ici]
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ÉDITORIAL
« L’exégèse est l’étude systématique de
l’Écriture pour en découvrir la signification originale voulue. Quand cette
exégèse est faite correctement, Genèse
1 est considéré pour ce qu’il est : une
affirmation soigneuse, intelligente et
habilement articulée du monothéisme
contre le polythéisme. Elle est étonnante dans sa concision et dans son efficacité. »
Au commencement...
Examinons maintenant la structure de
Genèse 1 pour voir comment cela fonctionne (pour cela vous voudrez peut-être
consulter une Bible). Elle commence
avec une déclaration sommaire : « Au
commencement, Dieu créa le ciel et la
terre [l’univers]. »
La plupart des versets dans le chapitre 1
gravitent autour du prochain énoncé, au
verset 2 : « Or, la terre était alors informe et vide. Les ténèbres couvraient
l’abîme, et l’Esprit de Dieu planait audessus des eaux. » Les versets suivants
expliquent comment Dieu a respectivement structuré et « rempli » ce qui était
8
informe et vide. Les six jours sont disposés en deux groupes parallèles de
trois (observation faite déjà à l’époque
de Saint Augustin dans sa Cité de Dieu),
pour que ce qui a été créé aux jours 4 à
6 remplisse le domaine approprié structuré des jours 1 à 3.
l’activité créative de Dieu. Dieu se révèle à son peuple par un moyen [une
semaine de sept jours] qu’il peut comprendre et avec lequel il peut s’identifier. »
La raison de cette symétrie en Genèse 1
est que la forme de la présentation est
au moins aussi importante que le contenu. Avec cette perspective, il est clair
que le cadre structurel est artificiel, et
que l’auteur n’a donc jamais eu
l’intention de le prendre littéralement
comme un récit historique de sept jours
(où Dieu se repose le septième jour).
L’évidence de l’autorité créative de Dieu
sur toute chose est certainement voulue
littéralement, mais le cadre de sept jours
n’est qu’un cadre.
Nous devons comprendre que, pour la
plupart des peuples de l’ancien monde,
tous les différents domaines de la nature étaient divins. Il y avait des dieux
célestes, des dieux terrestres et des
dieux marins, des dieux de la lumière et
des ténèbres, des dieux d’eau et de
végétation, des dieux d’animaux et de
fertilité. Partout où les anciens se trouvaient, il y avait des dieux à supplier, à
apaiser ou à calmer.
Comme Victor Hamilton l’a écrit en 1990
dans son commentaire sur Genèse 1 :
« Une lecture littéraire de Genèse 1 […]
comprend le mot “jour”, non comme un
récit chronologique du nombre d’heures
que Dieu a consacrées à son projet de
création, mais comme une analogie de
Comment les anciens voyaient le
monde
Chaque jour de la création en Genèse 1
prend les deux principales catégories de
dieux et affirme qu’ils ne sont pas du tout
des dieux, mais des créations de celui
qui est le seul et vrai Dieu. Cela comprend les êtres humains, dont aucun –
pas même les rois ou les pharaons – ne
doit être adoré comme un dieu.2
Problème
Préparation
Population
Verset 2
Jours 1 à 3
Jours 4 à 6
Ténèbres
Jour 1a : création de la lumière (jour)
Jour 1b : séparation des ténèbres
(nuit)
Jour 4a : création du soleil
Jour 4b : création de la lune et des
étoiles
Abîme
Jour 2a : création du firmament (ciel)
Jour 2b : séparation des eaux d’endessus des eaux d’en dessous
Jour 5a : création des oiseaux
Jour 5b : création des poissons
Terre informe
Jour 3a : séparation de la terre et de
la mer
Jour 3b : création de la végétation
Jour 6a : création des animaux
terrestres
Jour 6b : création de l’humanité
Informe et vide
tohu (ce qui est informe) est formé
bohu (le vide) est rempli
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ÉDITORIAL
Lectures supplémentaires
Blocher, H., and R. Preston. In the Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis. InterVarsity Press, 1984. 240
pages.
Gibson, J.C. Genesis (volume 1). The Daily Bible Study Series. Westminster John Knox, 1981. 228 pages.
Hamilton, V.P. The Book of Genesis: Chapters 1–17. The New International Commentary on the Old Testament.
Eerdmans, 1990. 522 pages.
Hyers, M.C. The Meaning of Creation: Genesis and Modern Science. Westminster John Knox, 1984. 216 pages.
Watts, R. "Making Sense of Genesis 1."
Stimulus 12(4) (2004): 2–12. www.stimulus.org.nz/index_files/Stim12_4RikkWatts.pdf.
Le monothéisme hébreu (un seul Dieu)
était une croyance unique et durement
acquise. Les tentations de l’idolâtrie et
du syncrétisme (mélange de religions)
étaient partout. Plus tard dans l’histoire,
des gens ont compris à quel point le
concept du monothéisme était libérateur. Depuis des temps immémoriaux,
les gens superstitieux attribuaient les
phénomènes naturels ou les désastres,
tels que les tremblements de terre, les
éruptions volcaniques et les tsunamis, à
des dieux qu’on ne pouvait pas comprendre (sauf un prêtre de l’élite) et qui
devaient être apaisés et non questionnés. Genèse 1, par ailleurs, affirme
qu’il n’existe pas plusieurs dieux, mais
un seul Dieu, et que sa création est
compréhensible et relève de la
recherche. Cette perspective rend possible l’étude scientifique de la nature.
Le verset 16 de Genèse 1, lorsqu’il est
compris, est amusant. Comme un dénigrement intentionnel, il renverse
délibérément l’ordre des principaux
dieux d’une cosmogonie bien connue.
Le soleil – appelé le « grand luminaire »
pour éviter d’utiliser les seuls noms
sémites disponibles pour le soleil, lesquels étaient des noms de dieux – vient
premièrement, puis la lune, le « petit
luminaire ». Les étoiles – les dieux supérieurs – sont rapidement mentionnées
dans une courte phrase : « Il fit aussi les
étoiles » ! Non seulement cela, mais
Genèse 1 dit clairement qu’elles ne doivent pas être adorées ; elles ont été
faites pour servir à distinguer les jours,
les saisons et les années. Et aucune ne
reçoit une signification astrologique.
Voyez-vous le contraste ? Dans ce chapitre, Dieu triomphe des ténèbres, il
remplace le chaos par un monde
ordonné, et il fait même les grandes
créatures marines qui, on le sait, ne sont
pas monstrueuses. L’ordre impressionnant de Genèse 1 et sa structure suivie
sont une réponse délibérée aux mythologies païennes. Le Dieu hébreu n’a
aucun compétiteur, et il n’y a aucun
combat cosmique en cours. Tout est
sous contrôle.
Aucune contestation
Genèse 1 ne s’oppose pas à la géologie
moderne ni à la science biologique. Il ne
s’agit pas de cela ici. Affirmer le contraire avec insistance fait violence à la fois
à l’Écriture et à la science. Comme
Victor Hamilton l’a écrit : « C‘est une
parole de Dieu adressée à un groupe de
personnes qui sont entourées de
nations dont la cosmologie est nourrie
par le polythéisme et la mythologie qui
en découle. La majeure partie de
Genèse 1 est manifestement anti-païenne [...]. Les préoccupations de l’auteur
étaient théologiques. »
Henri Blocher et Rick Watts (voir les lectures suggérées) ont souligné les similarités et les différences entre le récit de la
Genèse et certains thèmes apparents
dans les cosmogonies égyptiennes
(quelque chose que peu d’érudits ont
tenté). En résumé, Genèse 1 est un correctif contre les concepts polythéistes
que les Israélites rencontraient autant
dans leur ancien pays que dans leur
nouveau.NL
O C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R
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Dennis Gordon, biologiste pour une
organisation de recherche gouvernementale en Nouvelle-Zélande, est
membre associé de la Society of
Ordained Scientists, établie en
Angleterre. En 1973, iI obtient son
doctorat de l’université Dalhousie, au
Canada. La même année, il est baptisé, et il est ordonné en 1980.
Notes
1 Moïse est reconnu pour être l’auteur
du livre de la Genèse. Comme Henri
Blocher, professeur de théologie au
collège Wheaton, en Illinois, a écrit :
« Nous sommes d’avis [...] avec les spécialistes contemporains qui maintiennent les positions traditionnelles, celles
suggérées par la Bible elle-même, qui
associe la Genèse à l’œuvre du penseur
le plus puissant d’Israël, “notre maître”,
comme les Juifs l’appellent : Moïse. » Et
à juste titre – son éducation en Égypte
et, plus tard, sa vie pastorale l’ont spécialement formé intellectuellement et
spirituellement comme celui qui « était
puissant en paroles et en actions »
(Ac 7.22) et qui était rempli d’un esprit
de sagesse qu’il a plus tard transmis à
Josué (De 34.9).
2 Tous les êtres humains, hommes et
femmes également, non seulement les
pharaons et les rois, sont faits à la ressemblance de Dieu, avec la prérogative
royale de régner (c’est-à-dire administrer) sur la terre. Cette égalité entre
hommes et femmes, offerte aux gens
ordinaires, était un enseignement révolutionnaire !
9
D I R E C T O R ’ S
D E S K
By Gary Moore
National Director
Who Is A Real Christian?
H
ow can you tell who a Christian
really is? Is the clue to be found
in the way they dress? Is it in
the way they talk – the words
they choose? Does it have to
do with their level of education
or income, or lack thereof? Is it determined by the people with whom they are
friends? Can it be determined by their
political affiliation, or lack of one, or
would they be non-political?
The answer is actually so simple it can
escape us. A Christian is any person
who trusts in Jesus Christ (Romans
10:9-13). Placing trust in Jesus has a
profound impact on who we are. The
impact is so great it is described in scripture as a re-birth. Through the work of
the Holy Spirit we are placed through
adoption into a right relationship with
God and with our fellow human beings.
This is all accomplished by God’s grace
– not something we can achieve by any
work or effort or striving on our own
resources. It is a gift God gives us
because he loves us.
As we live in relationship with God, and
grow in that relationship, our lives will
become characterized by the fruit of the
Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). Our
transformed lives are intended to bear
testimony to God’s power, and bring
glory to him. We are meant to live as
Christ’s ambassadors – representatives
of God’s kingdom – in our world (2
Corinthians 5:17-20).
It is really a matter that we are enabled
to participate in God’s life (2 Peter 1:38). We are, by God’s grace, able to
share in God’s nature. As the Holy Spirit
works with us, and we learn to live God’s
way today, we can anticipate entering
into the fullness of that life for eternity.
So to go back to the start of this article,
some of the things mentioned indeed
may be different in the life of a Christian.
For example, the words we choose
should be different as we grow in the
fruits of the Spirit. Love, grace, purity,
kindness and truth should characterize
10
our speech. As we mature in Christ, our
words and deeds will be different. There
are externals that may indeed be indicators of Christianity. However, at its heart,
it is the total reliance on trusting Jesus
Christ that defines our Christianity.
That reliance on him results in the
changes of practice and belief that will
characterize a believer growing in the
faith, but those results aren’t what make
the Christian. Placing our trust in Jesus
Christ is what defines a Christian.
It is as simple – and as profound – as
that!NL
NORTHERN LIGHT
CHRONIQUE
de Gary Moore
Qui est un vrai chrétien ?
C
omment pouvez-vous dire si
quelqu’un est un vrai chrétien ?
Est-ce dans sa façon de
s’habiller ? Ou encore dans sa
façon de parler, c’est-à-dire
les mots qu’il choisit ? Cela
a-t-il quelque chose à voir avec son
niveau d’éducation ou son revenu ? Estce déterminé par les gens qu’il fréquente ? Ou encore par son affiliation politique, ou sa dissociation de tout programme politique ?
En fait, la réponse est tellement simple
qu’elle peut nous échapper. Un chrétien
est toute personne qui croit en JésusChrist (Romains 10.9-13). Mettre notre
confiance en Jésus a une incidence profonde sur qui nous sommes. Cette incidence est tellement grande qu’elle est
décrite dans l’Écriture comme une nouvelle naissance. Par l’œuvre du SaintEsprit, nous, qui avons reçu l’adoption,
entrons dans une relation juste avec
Dieu et avec les autres êtres humains.
Tout cela est accompli par la grâce de
Dieu ; ce n’est pas donc quelque chose
directeur national
que nous pouvons accomplir par une
œuvre quelconque ou par nos propres
efforts. C’est un don que Dieu nous offre
parce qu’il nous aime.
À mesure que nous vivons en relation
avec Dieu, et que nous grandissons
dans cette relation, notre vie sera
caractérisée par le fruit du Saint-Esprit
(Galates 5.22,23). Notre vie transformée
a pour but de témoigner de la puissance
de Dieu et de le glorifier. Nous devons
vivre comme des ambassadeurs de
Christ – les représentants du royaume
de Dieu – dans notre monde
(2 Corinthiens 5.17-20).
En réalité, sans la grâce de Dieu, nous
sommes incapables de participer à sa
nature divine (2 Pierre 1.3-8). À mesure
que le Saint-Esprit œuvre avec nous, et
que nous apprenons à vivre selon les
voies de Dieu ici-bas, nous pouvons
espérer entrer dans la plénitude de cette
vie pour l’éternité.
Certaines des choses mentionnées au
début du présent article peuvent vraiment changer dans la vie d’un chrétien.
Par exemple, les mots que nous choisissons devraient être différents à mesure
que nous grandissons dans le fruit de
l’Esprit. L’amour, la grâce, la pureté, la
bonté et la vérité devraient caractériser
nos paroles. À mesure que nous croissons en maturité dans la connaissance
de Christ, nos paroles et nos actions
devraient changer. Il y a des signes
extérieurs qui peuvent réellement être
des indicateurs du christianisme, mais
c’est notre dépendance totale de JésusChrist qui définit notre christianisme.
Certes, cette dépendance de lui produit
des changements de pratiques et de
croyances qui caractériseront un
croyant qui grandit dans la foi, mais ces
changements ne sont pas ce qui constitue le chrétien. Mettre sa confiance en
Jésus-Christ, c’est ce qui définit un chrétien.
C’est aussi simple – et aussi profond –
que cela ! NL
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11
W O M E N ’ S
M I N I S T R Y
By Dorothy Nordstrom
Canadian Women’s Ministry
Coordinator
I
t was the end of a long tiring day
and the drive from Grande Prairie
under winter driving conditions
had left me a little tense. I walked
into the kitchen to dump an armload of things when I noticed a colorfully wrapped package in the middle of
the table. Nothing like a gift to put a nice
end to the day, I thought, glancing at the
package. In large rough print were the
words “to the Christians”. I burst into
delighted laughter and called to my husband, “A gift from Grumpy!” (Grumpy is
short for “Grumpy old man,” the name
our neighbor asked me to use in order to
remain anonymous when I asked permission to use him in this article.)
Our neighbor is always good for a
laugh; he started calling us “the
Christians” shortly after we adopted
him as part of the family. A few
months after we moved to
Edmonton, Grumpy was widowed
and from that time whenever I made
a meal for our family, I made a meal
for Grumpy. I would phone him that
supper was ready and then pass it
over the fence to him. A few months
passed, and one Sunday the back
door bell rang. When I opened the
door, there was Grumpy on his back
step, holding a long stick that he had
used to press the door bell. He
proudly passed over the fence a freshly
baked loaf of bread. “Holy bread,” he
said with a grin, “for the Christians; I just
bought a bread maker.” Grumpy was
becoming stronger on the road to healing.
Over the years he has been invited to
family parties, birthdays, graduations,
anniversaries, weddings and numerous
dinners. Grumpy doesn’t really care for
politicians or Christians but I know he
loves us. I remember one year for a
ladies retreat, Grumpy helped me make
personal cards for every lady at the
retreat, he even printed every one of
them on his color printer. Now years
later, I realize how much printing 150
cards must have cost. Grumpy has
become one of our dearest friends.
12
The “Christians” Next Door
“Why does your God allow bad things to
happen to you?” asked Grumpy one day.
We were sitting at the kitchen table having a coffee and some cookies while my
husband asked him some questions
about our computer, which once again
was causing problems. Grumpy has
been our neighbor for 12 years, and has
seen us through the many ups and
downs of life. He has seen our basement flooded, the struggles in our
churches, sickness and the loss of
friends and family. He has shared his
struggles with us, saying, “Your God is
out to get me.” I believe he is kidding,
but underneath I think he wonders.
times. I know if I try to force Jesus on
Grumpy I may turn him away.
When Grumpy calls us “the Christians” it
begs the question, what is a Christian?
There are a variety of opinions, some
more
complicated
than
others.
Webster’s dictionary gives this definition, “a follower of Christ, a professed
adherent of the Church of Christ or
Christianity, a person professing
Christianity, pertaining to Christ or his
religion.” Somehow this doesn’t really
answer the question for the average person on the street, as it is so open to
interpretation. I asked Grumpy what his
definition of a Christian was. “A
Christian is any person who values
life and who helps his neighbor,” he
replied. I think he is getting close.
I am not a skilled theologian, just the
neighbor next door who is a
Christian and tries to obey one of
the most often repeated commands
in the Bible: “Love each other.” This
is harder than it may seem at first
glance.
“Why do you ‘Christians’ (his nickname
for us) have problems?” he continues.
“Grumpy,” I answer, “if nothing bad ever
happened to us, if we had all the money
we could want, health, possessions, and
never had problems, if we led a perfect
existence, would you want to sit at our
table having coffee with us and share
your problems with us?”
“Well, maybe not,” he replies.
I long for the day when Grumpy
embraces the knowledge that “our God”
is his God too, and that he is loved
deeply. I think somewhere in his heart he
knows there is a God, but he isn’t sure
he is loved. I struggle with what to say at
In Matthew, Jesus tells us all the
Law and the Prophets hang on
these two commandments: “...’Love
the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all
your mind.’ …And the second is like
it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’”
(Matthew 22:37-40, NIV). This may
sound easy; it is not, but what a beautiful command from a loving God. Nothing
but goodness and happiness can result
from obeying a law like this. We can only
succeed with the love of God flowing in
us and through us to others.
I believe Christians are flawed people
who accept Jesus as their Savior and
embrace the Father’s love. With the help
of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, we respond
to the unfailing love of the Father, and
seek to draw others into it. I hope to do
this by being the Christian next door.NL
NORTHERN LIGHT
FOCUS ON THE HOLY SPIRIT
Having The Spirit
And Producing Fruit
A
farmer once invited his pastor
home for lunch after the
Sunday church service. It was
fall time and the farmer was
showing the pastor the abundant crops he was growing in
his fields. The pastor couldn’t resist
pointing out, “You didn’t grow those
crops, God did.” The farmer looked at
him the way that wise old farmers sometimes do then said, “True, but I helped.
Let me show you a field I let God grow
all by Himself!” A field of weeds!
Any differences?
What defines a Christian? Who are the
true disciples of Jesus? Studies have
been conducted to find the difference
between evangelical Christians and
non-Christians. Areas of behaviour
included basic issues of morality, ethics
and general character. Results indicate
there are no longer any distinguishable
differences. This is why many refer to
Christians as hypocrites.
The fruit of the Spirit and time
The Christian life is characterized by the
fruit of the Holy Spirit. This fruit includes
“love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and
self-control”
(Galatians
5:22-23.)
Through the Holy Spirit, Christ transforms the hearts of believers and produces abundant fruit.
Once my wife planted some seeds in our
garden but when it was time to go back
inside our son refused. He was staring
down at the ground waiting for the seeds
to sprout! Time is required to grow fruit –
it just doesn’t happen overnight.
Preparation of the soil, planting, watering and cultivating are all involved before
the fruit appears. Weeding is important,
as is protection from a host of parasites.
Then there is choosing the right time to
trim and prune until finally harvesting at
the proper time. Some may point out
that the apostle Paul calls this the fruit of
the Spirit and not the result of our efforts.
However it does require our cooperation. The Holy Spirit has chosen to work
through humanity. Just as we on our
own cannot grow the fruit of the Spirit,
neither has the Holy Spirit chosen to do
it without us.
The Vine and the branches
Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my
Father is the gardener. He cuts off every
branch in me that bears no fruit, while
every branch that does bear fruit he
prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the
word I have spoken to you. Remain in
me, and I will remain in you. No branch
can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in
the vine. Neither can you bear fruit
unless you remain in me.
O C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R
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By David Sheridan
Pastor, Grace & Truth Fellowship,
Red Deer, and Lethbridge
congregations
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a
man remains in me and I in him, he will
bear much fruit; apart from me you can
do nothing. If anyone does not remain in
me, he is like a branch that is thrown
away and withers; such branches are
picked up, thrown into the fire and
burned. If you remain in me and my
words remain in you, ask whatever you
wish, and it will be given you. This is to
my Father’s glory, that you bear much
fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples” (John 15:1-8). Apart from Jesus,
Christians can do nothing of any lasting
value. The proof of being a disciple is
bearing much fruit.
Growing in spiritual fruit
God placed Adam and Eve in the
Garden of Eden to cultivate it. This indicates the garden was not yet complete.
Humanity has a part to play. Growing in
the fruit of the Spirit proves whether one
is a true disciple or not. Christians have
a responsibility to respond to the leading
of the Holy Spirit. We make choices that
will determine the quality and quantity of
fruit that is produced. God wants a partnership. There is a step-by-step systematic growth and maturity that comes from
walking in the fruit of the spirit. The true
measure of Christian maturity is the producing of the fruit of the Spirit.NL
13
T H E
J O U R N E Y
By Phil Gale
Member, Victoria congregation
Walking The Walk
When Things Get Tough
“I
n the last days, stressful
times will come” (2 Timothy
3:1). “And because lawlessness will abound, the love of
many will grow cold. But he
who endures to the end
shall be saved” (Matthew, 24:12-13, NKJ
throughout). The inference in Christ’s
message is that he is talking to his followers in this passage. “The love of
many will grow cold” suggests that the
stressful times that could be ahead, will
cause some people to respond negatively rather than positively.
One aspect therefore of the answer to
the question “What Is A Christian?” is
determined by how we might respond in
times of great provocation and intimidation. Not a pleasant topic to think about,
is it?
First of all however, we have at least four
points that reveal the identity of a
Christian:
Accepting Christ as Saviour
Believing the Gospel
Worship and prayer
Committed to revealed truth
Accepting Christ as Savior
When Christ reveals the truth to us, and
we accept him as Savior, how does this
decision change our lives?
Believing the Gospel
What does the belief trigger? What
action is the result of the belief or faith in
Christ?
Worship and prayer
Does worship and prayer become a
deeper part of our lives, wanting a closer relationship with our Creator and
Savior?
Committed to revealed truth
In the parable of the sower, the seed that
landed on good ground produced fruit
14
“that sprang up, increased and produced: some thirtyfold, some sixty,
and some a hundred” (Mark 4:8).
There is no turning back from a
commitment to God.
We can all answer questions about
how our lives change after conversion in our own way, and we would
probably be right in that Christ has
made a tremendous difference.
Many of us will have faced trials and
testing in situations where our faith
has either been strengthened or in
need of some time with our FatherGod.
And here’s the ‘but’: if Jesus’ statements at the beginning of this article
prove to be true in our lifetime, how
shall we then respond?
Looking at the most outrageous destructive act of the 21st century, 9-11, what
was your response? Personally, I was
very angry. I also felt helpless, and
prayed that God would put vengeance
on the perpetrators. Did I respond in
love? No! I wanted the evil people to get
their just rewards. I also wanted them to
understand the futility of their efforts,
and tell them they were being used by
evil forces they could not see.
Retribution, revenge, justice – and
revealed truth.
As a Christian, I can leave the control of
earth’s events in God’s very capable
hands. “See that you are not troubled:
for all these things must come to pass…”
(Matthew 24:6). The Apostle Paul also
sheds some light on our potential
response in times of great stress. If we
read part of his account in 2 Corinthians
11:24-27, we can see how much he suffered for the sake of the gospel. Five
times he received 39 stripes, three times
beaten with rods, shipwrecked, robbed,
hungry and tired. Yet he also tells us in
Philippians 4:11-12, “...I have learned in
whatever state I am, to be content.” Paul
went through the proverbial “hell” on
earth, and yet his faith was not shaken.
God knows our hearts, and he also
knows we cannot perform miracles – at
least not on our own strength. God loves
us and does not stand over us with a big
stick waiting for us to make a mistake.
He encourages us to move forward,
knowing we are not perfect and will
stumble at times. Our job is to get up
and get back on the track. That is what
Paul did continually. One of the signs of
a Christian is to keep the faith, sometimes under very difficult conditions. “But
God is faithful, who will not allow you to
be tempted beyond what you are able,
but with the temptation will also make
the way of escape, that you may be able
to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
A Christian is an ambassador of Jesus
Christ on earth, and will perform duties
becoming of a disciple. When times get
tough, faith will grow also, and man will
once again see God on earth, through
Christians. “And now abide faith, hope,
love, these three; but the greatest of
these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13).
A Christian allows the love of God to be
expressed through him in all circumstances, many of which are beyond our
control and not of our choosing. Ask
Noah, Moses, Joseph (Old Testament)
and Paul. They’ll tell you.NL
NORTHERN LIGHT
T H E M E
By Jonathan Buck
Seeing God’s Heart, As It Really Is
A
lovely definition of a Christian
for me is a person after God’s
own heart, the description
given of King David. David
wasn’t a Christian but his
understanding of God’s heart
was amazing, so much so it was lifted
into the New Testament as a blessing
meant for Christians, too.
It’s what David saw in God’s heart that I
find fascinating because it’s the
Christian message through and through.
“Blessed are they,” David wrote, “whose
transgressions are forgiven, whose sins
are covered. Blessed is the man whose
sin the Lord will never count against
him” (Romans 4:7-8). Somehow David
knew all this: that God’s heart was all
about mercy and forgiveness and not
counting anything we do against us. And
that wasn’t all David saw either, as Paul
brings out in verse 6, “when he (David)
speaks of the blessedness of the man
whom God credits righteousness apart
from works.”
That’s remarkable. Hundreds of years
before Christians arrive on the scene,
David understood the heart and core of
Christianity – that God forgives us for
everything we do and credits us with
righteousness for nothing we do. And
what a blessing life became for David
when he saw God’s heart that way, in
how focused God was in giving to us,
not on demanding from us.
Well, for years I had no idea that was
God’s heart. I thought God was more
interested in what I did for him. That
being the case, I figured it was my works
that would make me a man after God’s
own heart. So I prayed, studied, fasted
and did all my rituals rigorously well,
thinking it was these things that would
transform my heart into God’s heart. But
after years of doing that I couldn’t speak,
as David did, of the “blessedness” of
such a life. It became a somewhat joyless existence, plagued by fears of not
keeping up, and God not blessing me if I
didn’t do my part. David, however, spoke
of a blessedness that didn’t depend one
bit on doing his part.
In Psalm 32, the Psalm quoted above in
Romans 4, David explains where that
blessedness comes from, in verse 10:
“The Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the
man who trusts in him.” David knew and
believed that God’s love for him would
never end. And what a blessing that
became for David, because if God’s
heart had been focused instead on
expecting David to pull his weight, or on
Pastor, Barrie, Huntsville,
North Bay, Peterborough, and
Sudbury congregations
only blessing David if he did his part
properly, then David was up the spout
because he’d dropped some real
clangers in his life. Fortunately, David
knew, as Paul knew, that “the man who
does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked” is the one whom God
credits with righteousness (Romans
4:5). God’s heart was focused on forgiving David for what he did, not on judging
him for it.
Do I see God’s heart in those terms? I
didn’t, but David clearly did, and when
Paul quotes David as an example for
Christians, it really made me think.
David saw God’s heart in terms of unfailing love and forgiveness toward him,
and it resulted in enormous blessings for
David personally. But that wasn’t all that
happened to him. God’s heart also started directly affecting David’s heart, to the
point David treated people as God treated him, as we see in David’s dealings
with Mephibosheth. Where new kings
and dictators usually set about knocking
off the previous dynasty, David asks, “Is
there no one still left of the house of Saul
to whom I can show God’s kindness (2
Samuel 9:3)?” To the crippled grandson
of his deadliest enemy, David’s heart
was the same as God’s. David not only
believed in God’s unfailingly kind and
loving heart, he was taking on that heart
himself.
Seeing God’s heart as it really is, then,
has all kinds of wonderful effects. It not
only becomes a huge blessing to oneself, realizing God loves us regardless of
what we do, it also becomes a great
blessing to others as they experience
that same heart in us toward them. Such
is the heart of God and its unfailing love
and kindness and mercy. A blessing to
us, a blessing to others, a definition of
Christianity I like very much.NL
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15
T H E M E
C O N T I N U E D
After Churchiani
By Neil Earle
Pastor, Glendora, California
congregation
S
ome time back I had a very animated conversation
with an Anglican vicar in my home town of
Carbonear, Newfoundland. A University of Toronto
grad, he was a good scholar of church history.
“Neil, the old Constantinian consensus is dead,” he
told me, “and some of us younger clergy are glad of it.” The
Constantinian Consensus. What’s that theological mouthful?
It’s shorthand for the way the Christian church used to dominate the culture of the Western world –
warrior
Popes,
established churches, Sunday blue
laws,
etc.
The
“Constantinian” label
derives from the first
Roman emperor to
favor the persecuted
Christians (306-337
AD). Constantine left
his mark on the
Christian church for
more than a thousand
years (Justo Gonzalez,
The
Story
of
Christianity, page 115).
As Gonzalez details, such practices as incense, luxurious
robes and garments, mitres, processionals, choirs, elaborate
altars – all this grew out of Constantine’s decision to give imperial status to his mother Helena’s new religion. It certainly was
preferable to the savage persecutions that had seen Christians
flung to the lions. Yet the Protestant Revolt of the 1500s was in
no small measure a reaction to the rich but remote protocol
that had marked the church of the Middle Ages –
“Churchianity”. The call for simpler, heartfelt religion was a
major part of North America’s religious awakenings. Yet
churches, clergy and denominations still loomed large in
America and Canada. Tommy Douglas, CBC’s “greatest
Canadian,” was a Baptist minister, for example. Even down to
the 1950s, people seeking loans in small towns would use their
local Christian minister as a reliable reference.
No longer.
The Secular Sixties
After an impressive spate of expansion across Canada in the
1950s, the radical questioning decade of the 1960s dealt body
blows to the organized churches. Clergymen shared their religious doubts in such tell-all confessionals as Bishop
Robinson’s best-selling Honest to God (1963) and Pierre
Berton followed up with The Comfortable Pew in 1965. The
16
Christians For T
secular revolt was on, never better signaled than by Time magazine’s questioning 1966 cover “Is God Dead?”
We now know that reports of the Christian church’s death were
“greatly exaggerated,” to quote Mark Twain. The religious right,
for one, came roaring back to the public arena in the 1970s
and 1980s. But “Churchianity” – that organized formal, stainedglass window form of expression – that style and approach
was definitely fading. The
emphasis shifted from St.
Paul’s theology to Sir Paul
McCartney’s “Let it Be;”
from John’s Gospel to John
Lennon’s “Imagine there’s
no heaven.” The new laidback spirituality was
much more personal,
informal, more searching
and critical and certainly
less liturgical. The congregation wanted “in.”
“Don’t do it to me, partner with me.” As one
website recently put
it: “The key issue isn’t
whether one is involved in a local church
but if one is connected to the body of
believers in the pursuit of God.”
Barna’s “Revolution”
George Barna, the U.S. pollster of
things evangelical, sees all this as part
of a seven-fold “Revolution.” Trend
one, is the tendency to further deemphasize traditional structure and
structures as the more free-wheeling
Gen Y moves into power. Moral questioning is another – pastors meet more
and more young couples living together who still want church, for example.
It’s dicey to condemn same-sex marriage to a generation reared on “tolerance.” The dismissal of the irrelevant (organs, robes,
stained glass) is a third earmark, as is the understandable passion of cell phone junkies for more applied technology in worship – PowerPoint, high-tech lectures, the works. Audience
involvement is number six: “Don’t lecture me, involve me” is a
new mantra. Finally, trend seven: make it meaningful to me.
“We are the people formerly known as the audience and we
want to see how it all connects, eh.”
NORTHERN LIGHT
T H E M E
C O N T I N U E D
ity—Then What?
The 21st Century
Not all of these challenges are wrong.
Neither are challenges to the faith anything new. After all, there was a time
when stained glass windows were all the
rage and the acoustics in some of
Europe’s oldest cathedrals were (and
are) simply marvelous. However, few
people now show up to see and hear.
So, what does it mean to be an
authentic
Christian, to
“do church”
in
these
challenging
new times?
Every pastor
and congregation
will
have to work
out its own
strategy
on
how to stay
meaningful and
relevant
in
order to reach
lost and hurting
people
with
God’s timeless
message.
But
remember: the
Christian church
has been much
more
adaptive
than its critics
realize.
The
Anglicans themselves
invited
Pierre Berton to
work them over, for
example, and one
is constantly surprised to see where
Christians
keep
turning up in the media, from the NHL to
Canada’s Olympic Team.
The Essentials Remain
That’s why the question posed on our
cover is an excellent one indeed: What
Is a Christian...? A world reared on
sound bytes may not be as shallow as
supposed. Many of the old definitions
and formulas will still work if adapted for
the times. The Worldwide Church of
God, for example, began as a media
ministry – the Radio Church of God. We
have a legacy of being in touch and
reaching the secular audience. (Some
readers will still remember the publication:
Hippies,
Hypocrisy
and
Happiness).
The essentials remain: a Christian is
simply a follower of Jesus as the Christ.
One of those very first Christians was a
man named James, and in his hard-hitting little letter – chock-full of calls to
social action, incidentally – came his
often unnoticed Ten Commands for
Christians (J.A. Motyer, The Message of
James, page 150). These still reverberate today. James encodes the very meat
and potatoes of everyday Christianity,
making a good outline to approach this
issue’s overwhelming question. Here it
is in James 4:7-10:
Submit to God
Resist the Devil
Draw near to God
Cleanse your hands
Purify your hearts
Be wretched
Mourn
Weep
Let your laughter be turned to mourning,
your joy to dejection
Humble yourselves before the Lord
O C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R
2 0 0 7
Now who wrote this? No one else but
James the Just, Christ’s brother, the
quiet martyr who defied the Jewish
Zealots expecting a militant Superhero
as a Messiah. His words breathe
“authenticity”, that key buzz word for
people today which asks: “Are you who
you say you are?” In a nutshell, James
offered a path to
true
Christian
discipleship, to a
Biblically-based
holiness which
many seekers
claim to be
looking
for
(Hebrews
12:14).
James repudiated shallow
Christianity
(James 2:1417),
the
deceitful
legalism that says, “I’m not Paris
Hilton, I must be doing OK.” The
Canadian writer-theologian James
Packer offers a meaty exposition of
James’ first command, the call to nononsense submission:
“It means knowing oneself to be a sinner
and Christ to have died for sinners;
abandoning all self-righteousness and
self-confidence and casting oneself
wholly upon Him for pardon and peace;
and exchanging one’s natural enmity
and rebellion against God…through the
renewing of one’ s heart by the Holy
Ghost.” Here’s a style the practical
James might have endorsed. Godly submission means “[to] look to Christ, speak
to Christ, cry to Christ, just as you are,
confess your sins, your impenitence,
your unbelief and cast yourself on his
mercy; ask Him to give you a new heart,
working in you true repentance and faith;
ask him to take away your evil heart of
unbelief and to write His law within you,
that you may never henceforth stray
from him” (John Owen’s Death of Death:
Introductory Essay).
17
T H E M E
C O N T I N U E D
To find God is a flat-on-our-face submission before the merciful Shepherd of our
souls, the offended Deity who is also
both Judge and Advocate. Yes, God is
love, indubitably. But he doesn’t play
games. Says Motyer: “The same God
who says, ‘Here is my grace to receive,’
says in the same breath, ‘Here are my
commands to obey’” (page 151).
For, even though God is drawing us by
His grace, we can respond or let it go.
Hence the “cleanse and purify” commands (four and five) referring to the
removal of obvious sinful practices.
Digging Deeper
What about command two: resisting the
devil? As Ralph Martin shows in his
James Commentary, page 152, Satan’s
tactics are evident. They include listening to demonic wisdom, the kind that
says “raw competition is O.K.” (3:15);
pursuing absolutely selfish ambitions,
e.g. “make sure you’re not kicked off
Survivor Island” is fine (3:16); resenting
and setting out to dish dirt on others
(4:2); total lifestyle immersion in a world
system whose one controlling heartbeat
is Self above all – our family, our town,
our firm, our nation (4:4). Satan’s deceitful packaging has grown more widespread with the misuse of such marvelous tools as the Internet. James is
clear: The friend of the world system –
its commercialism, its obsessive pursuit
of products, its biases and prejudices –
is the enemy of God.
Command number three is “Draw near
to God.” Packer expands on this: “Turn
to Him and trust Him as best you can,
and pray for grace to turn and trust more
thoroughly, use the means of grace
expectantly (the Communion, wise
counsel, church attendance)…watch,
pray, read and hear God’s word, worship
and commune with God’s people, and
so continue till you know beyond doubt
that you are indeed a changed being, a
penitent believer, and the new heart
which you desired has been put into
you” (page 15).
Wow! That’s really laying it on, but
James promised the ultimate payoff:
God will then draw near to us. James
was a pastor and a good pastor never
leaves us without hope! Hope saves us.
18
Authentic Christianity offers a better
motive in life than Self, a motive in harmony with God’s purposes – to love justice and fair play and to champion
underdogs once in a while, to walk
humbly with God and our fellow-workers
on the job and in the traffic and as we
converse and travel, to give people a
break (Micah 6:8). In all this, James 1:5
tells us, godly wisdom is essential.
Blessed Assurance
Commands six, seven, and eight –
embracing wretchedness (i.e. periods
for lamenting our sins and their effects
on others), being mournful (feeling
empathy for the harm people do to themselves) and adopting a weeping posture
for the sad spectacles we often see on
the national news and elsewhere – now
these attributes are not often endorsed
by the “name it and claim it” religious
channels. Nor are they necessarily the
every day, every hour experience of
Christians. James knew that the deepest
joys are found in the struggle itself
(James 1:2). Christians are happy warriors. But when God’s Spirit convicts us
with the assurance that we have been
straying from him, that we have fouled
our own nests (and who doesn’t from
time to time?), then the good news
breaks in: if we are truly sorry for our
sins, if we take these sins before God in
heaven with a chastened heart and a
broken spirit, then Jesus is our legal
defense in heaven. We’ll never find a
better lawyer (1 John 1:2).
This is the way of the authentic
Christian. Seasons of sorrow and heaviness alternate in every Christian’s life.
Experienced Christians know that disappointments are his appointments. They
also know that receiving God’s mercy
and loving kindnesses is better than life
itself (Psalm 63:3)! Every great saint
was conscious of being a sinner. Legend
has it that James himself had knees as
hard as a camel’s from his lifelong discipline of prayer. God doesn’t punish; He
corrects. He has our best end in view.
Setbacks and testings are the indispensable springboard in pursuing the upward
call of God.
Hence command number nine: the
move from joy to dejection. There is no
easy way through troubles sometimes
except straight through them. This is the
route of the cross. But be of good cheer:
Jesus knows the way. He has gone
before us. He has left telltale markers
along the way – the stains of his own
blood. Once again James holds out
hope: If we yield to God’s chastisement
(always for our good), then he will lift us
up. Command Ten ends with that: the
way down is truly the way up (James
4:10).
These ten commands help flesh out real,
engaged,
committed,
lifelong
Christianity. Most things such as style,
music, liturgy, length of service, where
best to send our money or place our
efforts are negotiable. These are not. As
we set out to reach today’s audiences,
let the message of James reassure us:
The basics remain. Or as the French
say, “Toujours les changements – toujours la meme chose.” NL
NORTHERN LIGHT
T H E M E
C O N T I N U E D
By Camay Achtemichuk
How To Spot A Christian
W
hat is a Christian?
Christians are people.
Huh?? (or “Eh??”) They
are people who come in
all shapes, sizes, colors
and descriptions. We have short hair;
long hair – green hair – and no hair. We
have fallen arches, varicose veins, red
noses, and hang-nails; we have pimples, incontinence, and arthritis.
Sometimes our heads ache so badly the
hair hurts. And that’s just our health.
We have marital problems, drinking
problems, social problems, money problems, and eating problems; our kids “act
up”
and
our
parents
develop
Alzheimer’s. We have too-short tempers
with too-long memories. Sound familiar?
Welcome to the human race, because
Christians are still human. I want to dispel any unrealistic expectations you
have of us – of yourselves. If you expect
perfection we aren’t it. If you’re looking
for a trouble-free life, you ain’t a’ gonna
find it this side of eternity.
You cannot spot a “Christian” by merely
seeing one. We don’t have wings, halos,
sickeningly sweet – vacant – smiles, or
horns. I hope you would have a clearer
picture of one by on-going contact with
him. Yet even careful observation can
give false “readings” because we also
have problems with morale, self-respect,
insecurity, guilt, depression, self-discipline and patience. Sometimes no matter how hard we have tried, our relationships stink. If you catch one of us on a
bad day (and, yes, we have them) you
may even question our sincerity and
depth of conversion. But you would be
“judging” by the outward appearance,
and God looks on the heart.
Yes, Christians are people too – people
who have Jesus in them through the
Holy Spirit, to lead, encourage and comfort in every need. But it takes learning
and it takes living. In fact, it takes a “lifetime” – however long that is.
Christianity is a “done deal” in God’s
sight. If we have understood just a
“smattering” of how much Jesus
loved/loves us, to forgive this whole
world, how can we not turn to him? He
has already forgiven every sin then –
now, ever to be – committed. He died
“from the foundation of the world”
(Revelation 13:8; Ephesians 1:3-7) and
was resurrected to ascend to heaven,
where he still sings
our praises! Then,
“because he first
loved us,” if we
humbly accept him
as Lord of our lives,
God forgets those
sins. But we live
the Christian life
here and now, one
day at a time. In
that
light,
a
Christian is “in the
process” for the
rest of his life. “One
step forward, two
steps back” is not
just for those on
skid-row.
Jesus
knew we would be
this way, and he
loves us anyway.
O C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R
2 0 0 7
Member, Yorkton congregation
We are each a product of each day we
have lived – added to the days before it.
If you could take any day of your life and
change one hour of it, “you” wouldn’t be
the “you” you are now! We need to realize that’s true of everyone else. And the
things some people have gone through
– we can’t even wrap our minds around
them.
The identifying signs of a Christian are
love and grace – grace to others as God
has extended it to us. But even these
signs aren’t automatic. The kind of love
God gives us for others is not a “feeling”.
It must be developed by choice. The
“grace” we extend must involve forgiveness. It takes years and tears and gutwrenching pain and questions without
answers – and submission (yup, ‘fraid
so)! And you might even grieve that
“you” you’re getting rid of, although you
didn’t like her much.
And that’s okay. Learning curves and
styles, abilities and disabilities are as
diverse and far-reaching as the number
of people who have them. A Christian
responsibility is to be in the process of
learning to open our hearts to absorb the
very “life” of Jesus; to open our minds to
the thoughts and impressions he wants
us to have; to recognize differences in
everyone without being “tolerant” of and
diminishing the wrongs they do. We
need to let them know we care and are
“there for them” without putting up with
bad behavior or abuse.
Once in a great while the process may
be dramatic – instant change; but more
often it is so gradual and imperceptible
we aren’t even aware of a difference in
ourselves. But as we “become” the very
“qualities” we have chosen, with God‘s
help, to extend, others will perceive a
difference even if they cannot quite put a
finger on what it is. It’s all about Jesus.
“Christianity” is to be less and less of
what we think, say, do and feel; it needs
to be more and more about who we are
and what we’ve become.NL
19
T H E M E
C O N T I N U E D
By Roy Page
Pastor, Harvest Christian
Fellowship. Abbotsford BC
T
The Great Omission
he biblical definition of a
Christian is straightforward. It is
someone who has received the
Spirit of God, having been
begotten into the very family of
God as a child of his. The
Apostle Paul tells us that if anyone does
not have the Spirit of Christ he or she
does not belong to Christ and therefore
cannot be considered a Christian
(Romans 8:9, 15-16). The problem is
that defining a Christian is not the same
as identifying a Christian. Since God –
However, recent polls state that the values and lifestyles of those in the West
who claim to be Christians differ little, if
at all, from their non-Christian counterparts. This fact has caused many evangelical Christians to re-evaluate the
process by which the church has
brought converts into the Christian faith.
Although evangelicals have been dedicated for decades to faithfully fulfilling
what came to be known as the “Great
Commission” – as stated by Jesus in the
last verses of Matthew (Matthew 28:18-
and his miraculous intervention in a person’s life – is invisible and beyond
human senses, we have to be very cautious when it comes to attaching labels
to other people.
20) – many theologians have made the
point that modern evangelicalism has
been guilty of, as Dallas Willard coins it
in his latest book, “the Great Omission.”
Jesus said those who claim him as their
Lord must do what he teaches.
20
Intent on ensuring that people get
“saved”, many evangelicals have not
considered the specific word Jesus used
when he gave the original commission to
his apostles: “Go and make disciples.”
Dallas Willard asks this question in
another book he wrote on this very subject of disciple-making: “Can we believe
that the essence of Christian faith and
salvation covers nothing but death and
after? Can we believe that being saved
really has nothing whatever to do with
the kinds of persons we are?” (The
Divine Conspiracy, page 39).
Evangelicals, especially those from
legalistic
backgrounds,
can
become quite paranoid when the subject is raised about
what
Christians
should be doing.
But as Willard wisely says, God’s grace
is not against effort
but against earning.
In a number of
Jesus’ parables the
fruitless servant is
condemned for his
lack of effort (e.g.
Matthew
25:26).
Jesus also said that
it is through our
good works that the
Father’s name is
glorified (Matthew
5:16). And Paul, in
the most often quoted scripture on the
subject of God’s
grace, states that
God’s grace has
been given in order
that we can fulfill the
good works that he
prepared
in
advance for us to do
(Ephesians 2:10). Good works do not
nullify grace but should be a fruit of
God’s grace.
The most important question each
Christian needs to be constantly asking
himself or herself is: “Am I being a faithful disciple of Jesus?” To quote Willard
again:
NORTHERN LIGHT
T H E M E
“People who are asked whether they are
apprentices of a leading politician, musician, lawyer, or screen writer would not
need to think a second to respond.
…The same is all the more true if asked
about discipleship to Jesus. But, if asked
whether they are good apprentices…they very well might hesitate.
“They might say, ‘No.’ Or, ‘Yes.’ Asked if
they could be better students, they
would probably say yes. And all this falls
squarely within the category of being a
disciple, or apprentice. To be a disciple
in any area or relationship is not to be
perfect. Someone can be very raw and
an incompetent beginner and still be a
disciple” (page 282).
develop in themselves as they grow
toward ‘the kingdom prepared for them
from the foundation of the world.’ What
they, and God, get out of their lifetime is
chiefly the person they become. And that
is why their real life is so important”
(pages 283-285).
It is in the gospels that we learn how he
lived and what he taught. The rest of the
New Testament reveals to us how the
early disciples of Jesus applied his
teachings to their unique and different
C O N T I N U E D
apprentice’s joint life with his or her
teacher. It is with this entire context in
view that we most richly and accurately
speak of ‘learning from him how to lead
my life as he would lead my life if he
were I’” (page 285).
Since Jesus said that it is by our good
works that our Father is glorified, the
lifestyles and value system of many
Christians in the West obviously need to
change. The solution is for all of us to
rectify “the great omission” and for all
The important thing is that a person
has made the conscious decision to
become a disciple; that he or she
accepts the reality that they need to
learn from another in order to become
like that person or do what that person
does. That obviously begins by
acknowledging one’s own inadequacies and the need to be taught. For disciples of Jesus, our apprenticeship
lasts a lifetime. Therefore we must continue to remain in that humble and
teachable attitude throughout our
entire lives.
Jesus was unique; he lived a very special and unique life. Our challenge is
not to live his life, since it has already
been lived, but to seek to live our lives
the way he would if he were us.
“That my actual life is the focus of my
apprenticeship to Jesus is crucial.
Knowing this can deliver us from the
genuine craziness that the current distinction between ‘full-time Christian
service’ and ‘part time Christian service”
imposes on us. For a disciple of Jesus is
not necessarily one devoted to doing
specifically religious things as that is
usually understood. …The apprentices
of Jesus are primarily occupied with the
positive good that can be done during
their days ‘under the sun’ and the positive strengths and virtues that they
circumstances. Our job is to study these
words with the goal of applying the same
principles in our own, but very different,
lives:
“The cultivation of oneself, one’s family,
one’s workplace and community – especially the community of believers – thus
becomes the center of focus for the
O C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R
2 0 0 7
Christians to commit or re-commit themselves to being not just believers in
Jesus, but also his disciples. That
involves us constantly seeking, with his
help and power, to live our lives the way
he would if he were us.NL
21
P A S T O R ’ S
C O R N E R
By Jonathan Buck
Pastor, Barrie, Huntsville,
North Bay, Peterborough, and
Sudbury congregations
T
o many Christians being true
to every word of the Bible is
what defines Christianity.
Mohammed of Muslim fame
observed this about Christians
in his day too, describing them
in his writings as “people of the book.”
Christianity Is Not Based On The
Bible
The purpose of this new book of scripture was to help people put their trust in
Jesus Christ. It described in great detail
who Jesus was and why God had sent
him, much of it gleaned from the Old
Testament as Christians saw Jesus all
over the pages of that book, too (Luke
Christians, however, do
not base their religion
on the Bible. Jesus himself made this clear in
John 5:39-40 when he
said the purpose of the
scriptures was to point
to him. It is Jesus, therefore, that Christianity is
based on, not a book.
The people Jesus was
talking to at the time
were Jewish scholars
who, like Muslims,
believed their eternal life
depended on their
absolute obedience to
every word in a book. It
was to these well-educated Jews that Jesus
made the startling statement that for all
their diligent study of the Torah they had,
in fact, missed the entire point of it,
which was that he, Jesus, was their
source of eternal life, not the scriptures.
He, not the book, was the key.
When Christians understood this and
went public a few years later, they
weren’t known as people of the book.
They were known as followers of Jesus,
or “Christians.” It was a person they
were identified with, not a book. They
didn’t have a book to base their religion
on anyway, because no book of
Christianity existed until nearly 400
years later. When the New Testament
finally came into being, the reason for its
existence was not to create a new book
that Christians must now obey in every
word to seal their eternity; it was written,
as John 20:31 reads, “that you may
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son
of God, and that by believing you may
have life in his name.”
22
24:44). Old or new, it was the same
underlying message all the way through,
that Jesus is the key to our eternity.
It wasn’t words in a book that were the
key to our eternity, it was him.
Christianity, therefore, is not a book religion like Judaism and Islam, where
every word had better be obeyed if one
hopes to see eternity, because the Bible
cannot save or destroy us. It does, however, point to the One who can
(Revelation 1:17-18).
To many Christians, though, the Bible is
God’s inspired word, therefore it should
be worshiped as infallible, eternally
unchanging and without error, much like
Muslims worship the Qur’an. But
nowhere does the Bible point to itself
that way, as an object of perfection to be
worshiped. It does, however, constantly
point to Jesus Christ as being perfect,
infallible, eternally changing and without
error, and therefore worthy of worship.
There are Christians too, who refer to
the Bible as God’s ultimate word. But
again, the Bible does not speak of itself
that way. It speaks very clearly, though,
of Jesus as God’s ultimate word: “In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God
(John 1:1-2),” referring,
of course, to Jesus
(verse 14). The object of
worship for Christians,
then, is the ever-living
Word, Jesus Christ, not
words in a book.
On the other hand, we
wouldn’t know about the
ever-living Word if it wasn’t for the Bible. So the
Bible serves a wonderful
purpose, not as an object
to be worshiped but as an
aid to faith in Christ. And
that’s why Christians
study the Bible, not out of
fear of losing their eternity if they don’t, but to
grasp the importance of
the ultimate Word of God,
Jesus Christ, as the one through whom
God is accomplishing His plan for the
entire Universe (Colossians 1:19-20).
The Bible isn’t shy about saying it was
inspired by God (2 Peter 1:20-21), or
that the words of Jesus were those of
God Himself (John 14:24), but
Christians open themselves up to needless criticism making a god out of the
Bible. It isn’t the Bible that Christians
worship, or that being true to every word
of it defines Christianity, because the
future of humanity doesn’t rest in a book,
it rests entirely in Jesus Christ.NL
C O M M E N T A R Y
The Year Of The Dove:
Blessed Are The Peacemakers
I
t was just thirty years ago this winter, November 1977, when
Egypt’s then President Anwar elSadat stunned the world with a
surprise semi-secret visit to
the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Israel had conquered in the dramatic
1967, Six-Day War.
If ever there was an “odd couple” to sign
a peace agreement, Sadat and Begin
trigger tensions of the times. Only four
years earlier Sadat had been instrumental in ordering the attack of Yom Kippur,
1973, Israel’s closest brush with extinction.
Yet somehow, an opening
was made. Negotiations
began and weak and fragile they proved to be. Tense
talks held at the presidential
retreat in Camp David,
Maryland,
between
September 5-17, 1978,
earned them the nickname
the “Camp David Accords.”
Begin would contemplate a
phased withdrawal from the
Sinai (captured in 1973) as
long as Israel was not expected to leave the West Bank to
the Palestinians. The last was
crucial to Sadat, as Egypt had
always
championed
the
Palestinian right to a separate
homeland. Somehow Jimmy
Carter was able to get the two
leaders to sign the Peace
Framework in Washington on
March 26, 1979.
“In the name of God, Mr. Speaker
of the Knesset, ladies and gentlemen…God’s peace and mercy be
with you…God’s decrees and
commandments are: love, honesty, chastity and peace.”
Riveting words. To his Israeli
hosts, Sadat offered the “peace
of Abraham…the forefather of
both the Arabs and the Jews.”
This was November 20, 1977. A
Worldwide Church of God publication at the time proclaimed it
“the most sensational overture
toward international peace
made by any head of state in
our time!”
It was. It was indeed and at
this time of year when
Canadians are mourning the
dead of two world wars in
November and celebrating
the Prince of Peace in
December, Sadat’s words
are and were historic and
well worth remembering.
Consider the lineup of forces at that
time. Egypt was the acknowledged
leader of the Arab world. Sadat’s visit
was so unpopular in the Arab world that
the headquarters of the Arab League
moved in haste from Cairo to Tunis.
Egyptian editors and journalists in some
countries were assassinated soon after
by Islamic extremists. On his part,
Menachem Begin, the Israeli Prime
Minister, was barely clinging to power
with a tiny minority government and, like
Sadat, was a man with a past. Begin
was widely regarded as a terrorist for his
activities during Israel’s War of
Independence in 1948 and his hard-line
stance against giving up any territory
By Neil Earle
Pastor, Glendora, California
congregation
were it. With a new President in the
White House, the Baptist Sunday school
teacher Jimmy Carter, the prospects for
a dramatic settlement between Israel
and Egypt looked dim indeed.
So did the tough words of Sadat’s
speech after his hopeful opening. He
demanded an Israeli retreat from territories they had conquered in 1967 and
boldly raised the Palestinian refugee
issue as “the crux of the matter.” To
many observers it still seems that way.
Sadat’s soaring appeals for peace
appeared to be unrealistic in the hair
O C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R
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Sadat’s Old Testament reference
to the “peace of Abraham” would
thus be matched by President
Jimmy
Carter’s
words
in
Washington, D.C. when the two
Middle Eastern leaders heard him
intone: “From the well of the
Senate the words of Jesus:
‘Blessed are the peacemakers’.”
To an extraordinary degree the peace
between Israel and Egypt has lasted, in
spite of the constant harassment from
extremists on both sides. Widely regarded as a traitor by many Islamists, Sadat
himself was killed by some of his own
officers in 1981. Yet Israel and Egypt
have not fought for 34 years. These
events should be remembered when the
prospects for peace in that region seem
as dim and doubtful as they are today.NL
23
B I B L E
S T U D Y
By Michael Morrison
Greetings Friends
A Study Of Romans 16
I
n the last chapter of Romans,
Paul greets a large number of
people and gives a few closing
exhortations. These greetings
reveal a lot about the early
church.
Paul’s emissary
In verse 1, Paul writes, I commend to
you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of
the church in Cenchrea. Although
some older translations say that Phoebe
is a “servant,” this is unlikely because all
believers are servants, and v. 2 indicates
that she was a person of some importance. The phrase “of the church” also
suggests an official role.
Unfortunately, we do not know what deacons did in the church in Cenchrea (near
Corinth). A comparison of Paul’s letters
shows that the “organizational chart”
could vary quite a bit from one church to
another; the description of deacons in 1
Tim. 3 may not tell us much about what
a deacon did in Corinth or Cenchrea.
Phoebe is apparently the person who
carried Paul’s letter to Rome. As the letter-carrier, she probably also read the
letter out loud, answered questions
about it and the author, and conveyed
some verbal news and greetings.
Paul then asks the Roman church to
serve her needs: I ask you to receive
her in the Lord in a way worthy of
God’s people and to give her any help
she may need from you, for she has
been the benefactor of many people,
including me (v. 2).
The word “benefactor” is just one of
many suggested English translations of
the Greek word prostasis. Literally, it
means a person placed in front. In the
Greek Old Testament, it was used for
officials; in ordinary Greek it was used
for patrons—wealthy people who assisted others. Phoebe had helped Paul, and
although she probably would not need
financial help, Paul asks the Roman
Christians to help her in other ways.
24
Notable women and men
Paul then greets a number of people in
Rome—some of them Jewish, most of
them Gentiles, often with names commonly used for slaves and freedmen.
For a city he has never been to, he
knows a surprising number of people
who have moved to Rome. He probably
begins with his closest friends:
Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my coworkers in Christ Jesus. They risked
their lives for me. Not only I but all the
churches of the Gentiles are grateful
to them (vv. 3-4). Acts 18 tells us that
Priscilla and Aquila were originally from
Rome. Paul met them in Corinth and
worked in their tentmaking business.
They became part of Paul’s ministry
team, went to Ephesus with him, and
were instrumental in teaching Apollos
about Christianity.
Paul does not call ordinary Christians
“co-workers”—this term indicates a person who works “in Christ Jesus”—that is,
full-time work in the gospel. He used the
term for himself, Timothy, Titus,
Epaphroditus, Philemon, Mark, Luke,
and a few others. Priscilla and Aquila
had played an important role in the
evangelization of the Gentiles; now they
were back in Rome, leading a house
church, as Paul notes: Greet also the
church that meets at their house (v.
5).
Paul then greets my dear friend
Epenetus, who was the first convert
to Christ in the province of Asia (v. 5).
We do not know anything else about
Epenetus. Nor do we know anything
about Mary, who worked very hard for
you (v. 6). We do not know what kind of
work she did, or how Paul learned about
it.
He then sends his greetings to another
couple: Greet Andronicus and Junia,
my fellow Jews who have been in
prison with me. They are outstanding
among the apostles, and they were in
Christ before I was (v. 7). Junia is a
woman’s name, but in some translations
she is given a man’s name: Junias, suggested as a possible short form of the
name Junianus. But no one has ever
found this form used, and Junia is used
hundreds of times for a woman, so Junia
is probably correct.
Andronicus and Junia were a Jewish
couple who believed in Christ before
Paul did—and that was very early; perhaps they were part of the Pentecost
crowd. They were in prison with Paul,
probably because they were preaching
the gospel along with him. In what way
were they “outstanding among the apostles”? It is possible that Paul meant that
the apostles thought highly of them, but
Paul does not refer to the opinion of the
apostles anywhere else in his writings. It
is more likely that Paul is commending
them for their own work.
However, since Andronicus and Junia
have not left any further trace in church
history, they probably were not apostles
in the same sense that Paul and the
Twelve were. Since the word apostle
can also refer to an official messenger
(see 2 Cor. 8:23), it is possible that
Andronicus and Junia served in that
way.
Greet Ampliatus, my dear friend in
the Lord. Greet Urbanus, our coworker in Christ, and my dear friend
Stachys. Greet Apelles, whose fidelity
to Christ has stood the test [apparently in some severe trial]. Greet those
who belong to the household of
Aristobulus (vv. 8-10).
Paul does not greet Aristobulus, but only
those in his household (which would
include slaves and servants as well as
family members). This Arisobulus may
have been the grandson of Herod and
friend of Claudius Caesar; such a person would have had a very large household, many of them Jewish. Paul knew
that his household formed the core of
another house church.
NORTHERN LIGHT
B I B L E
S T U D Y
C O N T I N U E D
Greet Herodion, my fellow Jew. Greet
those in the household of Narcissus
who are in the Lord. Greet Tryphena
and Tryphosa, those women who
work hard in the Lord (vv. 11-12). The
phrase “in the Lord” suggests that these
women were involved in evangelistic
work of some sort. Narcissus may refer
to another wealthy friend of Claudius
who would have had a large “household,” some of whom had become
believers.
Greet my dear friend Persis, another
woman who has worked very hard in
the Lord. Greet Rufus [possibly the son
of Simon of Cyrene (Mark 15:21)], chosen in the Lord, and his mother, who
has been a mother to me, too. Greet
Asyncritus,
Phlegon,
Hermes,
Patrobas, Hermas and the other
brothers and sisters with them. Greet
Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas and all the believers
with them” (vv. 12-15). Here, Paul may
be referring to two other house churches, and people he does not necessarily
know, but he knows enough about the
churches in Rome to know the names of
the most prominent members.
The early church apparently had an
effective (although probably informal)
system of communication. As people
moved from city to city, churches stayed
in touch and were aware of the doctrines
taught in other churches. That helped
maintain the unity of the faith.
Greet one another with a holy kiss,
Paul concludes. All the churches of
Christ [in Paul’s region, that is] send
greetings (v. 16). Greet one another as
dear friends, he says—and Christians
kissed one another for centuries, and
still do in some cultures.
But the purpose of Paul’s command
would be thwarted if we insisted on taking him literally in American culture
today. Instead of being a sign of welcome, a congregational kiss would not
be welcomed by most today. Paul’s
instructions in this case are limited by
culture—by his culture and ours. There
is no requirement for us today to greet
one another with a kiss.
Plea for peace
Paul then turns to one last, presumably
important, exhortation: I urge you,
brothers and sisters, to watch out for
those who cause divisions and put
obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have
learned. Keep away from them (v. 17).
Paul had experience with divisive people
who taught rules that the gospel did not
have. The solution is simple: Don’t listen
to them. If they say, You have to keep
our rules to be saved, then they are contrary to the gospel of Christ.
For such people are not serving our
Lord Christ, but their own appetites [it
could be an appetite for money, fame, or
just a sense of personal importance]. By
smooth talk and flattery they deceive
O C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R
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the minds of naive people (v. 18). They
make a good argument, but they are
dead wrong. They are not yet causing a
problem in Rome, but Paul knows that it
won’t be long before they try to influence
the Roman churches. And since the
Roman churches already have different
practices (about meat and days, for
example), they are vulnerable to divisive
teachings.
Everyone has heard about your obedience [that is, you are already obeying
enough rules], so I rejoice because of
you; but I want you to be wise about
what is good, and innocent about
what is evil. [That is why Paul urges
them to be alert.] The God of peace will
soon crush Satan under your feet (vv.
19-20). God is a God of peace, not division, and when we focus on the good,
on grace, the adversary will be powerless (cf. Gen. 3:15).
25
B I B L E
S T U D Y
C O N T I N U E D
The grace of our Lord Jesus be with
you (cf. Rom. 1:7).
God be glory forever through Jesus
Christ! Amen (vv. 25-27).
Paul’s companions send greetings
This benediction reviews some of Paul’s
main points:
Paul closes, as many ancient letter-writers did, with greetings from the people
with him: Timothy, my co-worker,
sends his greetings to you, as do
Lucius, Jason and Sosipater, my fellow Jews (v. 21). Why did Paul mention
that these men were Jewish? Perhaps
he was trying to remind the Jewish readers that many Jews supported Paul in
his mission to the Gentiles, and they
supported his message of grace. Luke
may refer to the same men in Acts 13:1;
17:5; 20:4.
I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter,
greets you in the Lord (v. 22). Since it
was difficult to write on papyrus, most
letters were written by professional secretaries. Here, the secretary sends his
own greetings, noting that he is also a
believer.
1.The gospel is rooted in the Old
Testament, but is now much more clearly revealed and is being preached (see
Rom. 1:2).
2. The gospel involves Gentiles in faith
and obedience (Rom. 1:5).
3. The gospel is about Jesus Christ
(Rom. 1:3).
Questions for discussion
1. If I were writing to a church in another
city, which men and women would I
name?
2. Does a handshake convey the
warmth of affection that Paul wanted in
verse 16?
3. How can I know whether a new teaching is divisive, or merely different? (v. 17)
What should the message center on?
4. How well does the gospel give glory to
God in my life? (vv. 25-27)
4. God can and will establish you (that
is, give you eternal life) through this
gospel (Rom. 1:11, 16).
5. God will get the glory, through Jesus
Christ.
To that, we can join Paul in saying
“amen.” NL
Gaius, whose hospitality I and the
whole church here enjoy, sends you
his greetings (v. 23). Paul is staying at
the home of Gaius, and the church
meets at his house (cf. 1 Cor. 1:14).
Erastus, who is the city’s director of
public works, and our brother
Quartus send you their greetings.
Here Paul makes special mention of a
government
official—the
Roman
Christians might be encouraged to know
that an official has accepted the gospel.
They are likely to know Quartus, too, but
we do not.
Paul closes with a benediction:
Now to him who is able to establish
you in accordance with my gospel,
the message I proclaim about Jesus
Christ, in keeping with the revelation
of the mystery hidden for long ages
past, but now revealed and made
known through the prophetic writings
by the command of the eternal God,
so that all the Gentiles might come to
faith and obedience—to the only wise
26
NORTHERN LIGHT
Étude biblique
Salutations aux amis
de Michael Morrison
Une étude en Romains 16
D
ans le dernier chapitre de son
épître aux Romains, Paul
salue plusieurs personnes et
ajoute quelques exhortations
pour conclure sa lettre. Ces
salutations révèlent beaucoup de choses sur l’Église primitive.
L’émissaire de Paul
Au verset 1, Paul écrit : « Je vous
recommande notre sœur Phoebé,
diacre de l’Église de Cenchrées. »
Même
si
certaines
traductions
anciennes disent que Phoebé était une
« servante », cela est peu probable
parce que tous les croyants sont des
serviteurs, et le verset 2 indique qu’elle
était une personne d’une certaine importance. Les mots « de l’Église » suggèrent aussi un rôle officiel.
Malheureusement, nous ignorons ce
que les diacres faisaient dans l’Église de
Cenchrées (près de Corinthe). En comparant les lettres de Paul, nous constatons que le « tableau organisationnel »
pouvait varier considérablement d’une
Église à une autre ; la description d’un
diacre en 1 Timothée 3 ne nous en dit
peut-être pas beaucoup sur les fonctions d’un diacre à Corinthe ou à
Cenchrées.
Phoebé est apparemment la personne
qui a délivré la lettre de Paul aux
Romains. En tant qu’émissaire, elle a
probablement aussi lu la lettre à haute
voix, répondu aux questions relatives au
message et à son auteur, et transmis
verbalement quelques nouvelles et des
salutations.
Paul demande ensuite à l’Église de
Rome de pourvoir à ses besoins :
« Réservez-lui, comme à quelqu’un qui
appartient au Seigneur, l’accueil que lui
doivent des chrétiens. Mettez-vous à sa
disposition pour toute affaire où elle
aurait besoin de vous. Car elle est intervenue en faveur de beaucoup et, en particulier, pour moi » (v. 2).
L’expression « intervenue en faveur »
est seulement l’une des nombreuses
traductions suggérées en français pour
le mot grec prostasis. Littéralement, ce
mot signifie une personne qui est placée
devant. Dans l’Ancien Testament grec,
ce mot désignait des responsables, et
dans le grec courant, il désignait des
protecteurs – des gens riches qui
aidaient d’autres personnes. Phoebé a
aidé Paul, et même si elle n’avait probablement pas besoin d’aide financière,
Paul demande aux chrétiens romains de
l’aider d’autres façons.
O C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R
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Des hommes et des femmes remarquables
Paul salue ensuite quelques personnes
à Rome : certaines d’entre elles sont des
Juifs, mais la plupart sont des Gentils
qui souvent portent des noms généralement utilisés pour désigner des esclaves
et d’anciens esclaves. Pour une ville où
Paul ne s’est jamais rendu, il connaît un
nombre impressionnant de gens qui ont
déménagé à Rome. Il commence probablement par ses amis les plus intimes :
« Saluez Prisca et Aquilas, mes collaborateurs dans le service du Christ Jésus.
Ils ont risqué leur vie pour sauver la
mienne. Je ne suis pas le seul à leur en
devoir gratitude. C’est aussi le cas de
27
Étude biblique
toutes les Églises des pays païens »
(v. 3, 4). Actes 18 révèle que Priscille et
Aquilas venaient de Rome. Paul les a
rencontrés à Corinthe et a travaillé pour
leur entreprise de fabrication de tentes.
Ils ont fait partie de l‘équipe ministérielle
de Paul et l’ont accompagné à Éphèse,
et ils ont également contribué à instruire
Apollos sur le christianisme.
Paul n’appelle pas les simples chrétiens
« collaborateurs » ; ce terme indique
une personne qui travaille « dans le service du Christ Jésus », c’est-à-dire qui
œuvre à temps plein pour l’Évangile. Il
utilise ce mot pour se désigner, ainsi que
pour désigner Timothée, Titus, Épaphrodite, Philémon, Marc, Luc et quelques
autres. Pricille et Aquilas ont joué un rôle
important dans l’évangélisation des
Gentils ; ils étaient de retour à Rome et
dirigeaient une église-maison, comme
Paul le souligne au verset 5a : « Saluez
aussi l’Église qui se réunit dans leur
maison ».
Paul salue ensuite son « cher Épaïnète :
il est le premier à s’être tourné vers le
Christ dans la province d’Asie » (v. 5b).
Nous ne savons rien d’autre sur Épaïnète ni sur « Marie, qui s’est beaucoup
dépensée pour vous » (v. 6). Nous ignorons quel genre de travail elle faisait, ou
comment Paul en a eu connaissance.
Il transmet ensuite ses salutations à un
autre couple : « Saluez Andronicus et
Junia, mes compatriotes : ils ont été mes
compagnons de captivité ; ce sont des
apôtres remarquables, qui se sont
même convertis au Christ avant moi »
(v. 7). Junia est un nom de femme, mais
dans certaines traductions on lui donne
le nom d’un homme : Junias, suggéré
comme une possible forme raccourcie
du nom de Junianius. Mais personne n’a
jamais trouvé cette forme en usage, et
puisque Junia est utilisé des centaines
de fois pour désigner une femme, ce
nom est donc probablement correct.
Andronicus et Junia était un couple juif
qui ont cru en Christ longtemps avant
Paul ; peut-être qu’ils faisaient partie de
28
la foule au jour de la Pentecôte. Ils
avaient été emprisonnés avec Paul, probablement parce qu’ils prêchaient
l’Évangile avec lui. De quelle façon
étaient-ils « des apôtres remarquables » ?
Il est possible que Paul voulait dire que
les apôtres les estimaient beaucoup,
mais Paul ne fait pas référence à
l’opinion des apôtres nulle part ailleurs
dans ses écrits. Il est probable que Paul
recommande ce couple pour leur propre
travail.
Cependant, puisque Andronicus et Junia
n’ont laissé aucune autre trace dans
l’histoire de l’Église, ils n’étaient probablement pas apôtres dans le même sens
que Paul et les douze autres l’étaient.
Comme le mot apôtre peut aussi faire
référence à un messager officiel (voir 2
Corinthiens 8.23), il est possible
qu’Andronicus et Junia aient servi de
cette façon.
« Saluez Ampliatus qui m’est très cher
dans le Seigneur. Saluez Urbain, notre
collaborateur dans le service du Christ
ainsi que mon cher Stachys. Saluez
Appellès, qui a prouvé son attachement
au Christ. Saluez aussi les gens de la
maison d’Aristobul » (v. 8-10).
Paul ne salue pas Aristobul, mais seulement ceux qui sont dans sa maison (ce
qui comprendrait les esclaves et les serviteurs, aussi bien que les membres de
la famille). Ce Aristobul était peut-être le
petit-fils d’Hérode et l’ami de Claude
César ; une telle personne aurait eu une
très grande maison, qui comptait plusieurs Juifs. Paul savait que la maison
d’Aristobul formait le cœur d’une autre
église-maison.
Saluez « Hérode mon compatriote.
Saluez les gens de la maison de
Narcisse qui appartient au Seigneur.
Saluez Tryphène et Tryphose qui toutes
deux travaillent pour le Seigneur »
(v. 11,12). L’expression « dans le
Seigneur » suggère que le ces femmes
étaient engagées d’une certaine manière dans le travail d’évangélisation.
Narcisse était peut-être un autre ami
riche de Claude qui aurait eu une grande « maison », dont certains étaient
devenus des croyants.
« […] ainsi que ma chère Perside qui a
beaucoup travaillé pour le Seigneur.
Saluez Rufus [possiblement le fils de
Simon de Cyrène (Marc 15.21)], cet
homme de grande valeur, et sa mère,
qui est aussi une mère pour moi. Saluez
Asyncrite, Phlégon, Hermès, Patrobas,
Hermas, et tous les frères qui sont avec
eux. Saluez Philologue et Julie, Nérée et
sa sœur, Olympas et tous ceux qui
appartiennent à Dieu et qui sont avec
eux » (v. 12-15). Paul fait peut-être référence à deux autres églises-maisons, et
à des gens qu’il ne connaît pas nécessairement, mais il en sait suffisamment
sur les Églises de Rome pour citer les
noms des membres les plus en vue.
L’Église primitive avait apparemment un
système de communication efficace
(quoique probablement non officiel).
Étant donné que les gens allaient de
ville en ville, les Églises gardaient
contact entre elles et connaissaient les
doctrines qui étaient enseignées dans
d’autres Églises. Cela contribuait à
maintenir l’unité de la foi.
Paul conclut ses salutations en disant :
« Saluez-vous les uns les autres en
vous donnant le baiser fraternel. Toutes
les Églises du Christ [c’est-à-dire dans la
région de Paul] vous adressent leurs
salutations » (v. 16). Paul disait aux
chrétiens de se saluer comme de chers
amis – les chrétiens se donnent la bise
depuis des siècles, et font encore ainsi
dans certaines cultures.
Mais le but du commandement de Paul
serait contrecarré si nous insistions pour
adopter littéralement cette coutume
dans la culture américaine actuelle. Au
lieu d’être un signe de salutation, le baiser fraternel ne serait pas bienvenu par
la plupart des chrétiens aujourd’hui. Les
instructions de Paul dans ce cas sont
limitées à la culture – par sa culture et la
nôtre. De nos jours, nous ne sommes
pas obligés de nous saluer les uns les
autres par un baiser.
NORTHERN LIGHT
Étude biblique
Appel à la paix
Paul fait ensuite une dernière exhortation probablement importante: « Je vous
engage instamment, chers frères, à
prendre garde à ceux qui sèment la division et égarent les autres en s’opposant
à l’enseignement que vous avez reçu.
Éloignez-vous d’eux » (v. 17). Paul avait
de l’expérience avec ceux qui cherchent
la division en enseignant des règles que
l’Évangile ne renfermait pas. La solution
est simple : ne les écoutez pas. S’ils
disent : « Vous devez garder nos règles
pour être sauvés », ils s’opposent à la
vérité de l’Évangile de Christ.
« […] Car les gens de cette sorte ne servent pas le Christ, notre Seigneur, mais
leur ventre [ce peut être un appétit pour
l’argent, la renommée ou seulement
pour se sentir important]. Avec leurs
belles paroles et leurs discours flatteurs,
ils séduisent ceux qui ne discernent pas
le mal » (v. 18). Ils argumentent bien,
mais ils sont totalement dans l’erreur. Ils
ne causent pas encore de problèmes à
Rome, mais Paul sait qu’il ne leur faudra
pas beaucoup de temps avant qu’ils
essaient d’influencer les Églises
romaines. Et puisque les Églises
romaines ont déjà des pratiques différentes (en ce qui concerne la viande et
les jours, par exemple), elles sont vulnérables aux enseignements qui divisent.
« Votre obéissance est connue de tous
[c’est-à-dire que vous obéissez déjà à
suffisamment de règles] et cela me remplit de joie, mais je désire que vous
sachiez discerner le bien et que vous
soyez incorruptibles à l’égard du mal.
[C’est pourquoi Paul leur recommande
d’être alertes.] Le Dieu qui donne la paix
ne tardera pas à écraser Satan sous vos
pieds » (v. 19, 20a). Dieu est un Dieu de
paix, et non de division, et lorsque nous
nous concentrons sur le bien et sur la
grâce, l’adversaire est impuissant
(Ge 1.7).
Les compagnons de Paul envoient
leurs salutations
Paul termine, comme beaucoup de correspondants anciens le faisaient, en
transmettant des salutations de gens qui
étaient avec lui : « Timothée, mon collaborateur, ainsi que mes compatriotes
Lucius, Jason et Sosipater vous saluent »
(v. 21). Pourquoi Paul a-t-il mentionné
que ces hommes étaient ses compatriotes, donc des Juifs ? Peut-être qu’il
essayait de rappeler aux lecteurs juifs
que plusieurs Juifs appuyaient Paul
dans sa mission parmi les Gentils, ainsi
que son message de grâce. Luc faisait
peut-être référence aux mêmes
hommes en Actes 13.1 ; 17.5 ; 20.4.
connaissance
qu’ils soient
croyant. À ce
sagesse soit
siècle, par
(v. 25-27).
de tous les peuples pour
amenés à lui obéir en
Dieu qui seul possède la
la gloire, de siècle en
Jésus-Christ. Amen »
Cette bénédiction est une rétrospective
de quelques-uns des points principaux
de Paul :
1. L’Évangile est enraciné dans l’Ancien
Testament, mais il est maintenant révélé
et prêché beaucoup plus clairement
(voir Ro 1.2).
2. L’Évangile comprend les Gentils dans
la foi et l’obéissance (Ro 1.5).
« Moi, Tertius qui écrit cette lettre,
j’ajoute mes salutations dans le
Seigneur qui nous unit » (v. 22). Puisqu’il
était difficile d’écrire sur du papyrus, la
plupart des lettres étaient écrites par des
secrétaires professionnels. Dans ce verset, le secrétaire envoie ses propres
salutations, en faisant remarquer qu’il
est aussi croyant.
3. L’Évangile est à propos de JésusChrist (Ro 1.3).
« Vous saluent encore : Gaïus qui
m’offre l’hospitalité et chez qui se réunit
toute l’Église » (v. 23). Paul demeurait
chez Gaïus, et l’Église se rencontrait
dans sa maison (1 Co 1,14). « Éraste, le
trésorier de la ville, ainsi que le frère
Quartus » (v. 24). Dans ce verset, Paul
fait spécialement mention d’un représentant du gouvernement : les chrétiens
romains pouvaient être encouragés de
savoir qu’une telle personne avait
accepté l’Évangile. Ils connaissaient
probablement aussi Quartus, mais nous
l’ignorons.
À cela, nous pouvons nous joindre à
Paul en disant « amen ».NL
Paul termine par une bénédiction :
« Béni soit Dieu ! Il a le pouvoir de vous
rendre forts dans la foi, conformément à
la Bonne Nouvelle que je prêche. Elle
est le message de Jésus-Christ et dévoile le plan de Dieu, tenu secret pendant
les siècles passés et qui s’accomplit de
façon manifeste de nos jours. Comme
l’a ordonné le Dieu éternel, il est porté,
par les écrits des prophètes, à la
O C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R
2 0 0 7
4. Dieu peut vous affermir et vous affermira (c’est-à-dire vous donnera la vie
éternelle) par cet Évangile (Ro 1.11,16).
5. Dieu recevra la gloire par JésusChrist.
Questions pour une discussion
1. Si j’écrivais à une Église dans une
autre ville, quels sont les hommes et les
femmes que je nommerais ?
2. Est-ce qu’une poignée de main transmet la chaleur de l’affection dont Paul
parle au verset 16 ?
3. Comment puis-je savoir si un nouvel
enseignement crée la division ou qu’il
est simplement différent ? (v. 17) Quel
devrait être le message central de ma
lettre ?
4. Dans quelle mesure l’Évangile glorifie-t-il Dieu dans ma vie ? (v. 25-27)
29
NATIONAL NEWS
Commuter church puts down roots
Rededicating their local place of worship, Castlegar’s “commuter” church signalled its commitment to community.
Still, the congregation isn’t about to hang
up its wheels.
On Saturday in Robson, the Castlegar
congregation of the Worldwide Church
of God rededicated Resker Hall as a
place of worship and to the purpose of
“providing Christian education and service to community.”
Resker Hall was jointly built by the
Anglican and United Church congregations of Robson and Castlegar in 1967,
and named for Dr. Basil Resker in tribute
to his service to the local religious and
youth community from 1946 to 1958.
Used by the Worldwide Church of God
every Saturday, the hall on Waldie Road
that stands beside the Robson Memorial
Church is used by a number of other
groups for a variety of purposes. The
hall’s interior has recently been refurbished.
“We’ve been in this venue for coming up
to 11 years,” noted parishioner Lloyd
Hetherington — who travels to church
each week from north Nelson. “Anyone
who knows anything about the
Worldwide Church of God, particularly in
this area, knows that’s a long time.”
30
Hetherington described how since the
church’s first service held in the area in
March 1975, the congregation has had a
presence in various community halls,
hotel banquet rooms, and the halls of
the Elks, Eagles, Masons. Starting out in
and calling home the Sons of Norway
Hall, next to the Presbyterian Church in
Kinnaird for nine years, the
church has spent time in halls in
Genelle, Oasis and Warfield.
Castlegar’s “Resker” Hall Re-dedication
“We’ve had a longer stay here
than anywhere else,” said
Hetherington.
The group including ministers and members of 2 local churches gathered at the
hall entrance. Castlegar member, Bob
Bertuzzi spoke about the hall’s founder,
Basil Resker, and Lloyd Hetherington on
the history of the WCG in the area and
its use of the hall. Hope Kelly cut a ceremonial ribbon. A regular church service
followed:
While the church has moved
around, its parishioners have
also been in constant motion.
When the first trial church service was held in 1974, conducted by a pastor sent from the
Okanagan, of the 55 people in
attendance, “you could count the number of people from the Castlegar area on
the fingers of your hand,” noted
Hetherington. People came from Salmo,
Fruitvale, Kimberly, Cranbrook, Nelson,
Balfour and south of the border,
“And that pretty much stayed the same
for the length of time we were in the
church here.”
The example set by the first commuter
pastor continues as well. At times the
congregation’s pastor has come all the
way from North Vancouver. Dennis
Thibault became the congregation’s
pastor in the summer of 2006. He commutes from Kelowna.
In blessing Resker Hall prior to an official
ribbon cutting, Hetherington noted that
the hall is not specifically a church but
has many uses. Accordingly, he asked
that the hall be blessed “not strictly as a
sanctuary for church service” and that all
that use the facility come to experience
its renewal.
Dale West,
Castlegar
(reprinted by permission)
Current
The August 25th 2007 weekly service at
Castlegar was special for a number of
reasons: The congregation with guests
from 2 other community churches celebrating renovations to the Resker hall,
the visit of national director Gary Moore
and the ordinations of Rod Westfall and
Jan Critchlow.
Guests included Wendy Moore and
daughter Kylie. The congregation joined
in the ordination of Rod Westfall, an
Elder and Jan Critchlow, a deaconess. A
service of praise to God and sermon by
Gary Moore showing God the Holy
Trinity as presented to the recent ministerial conference in Palm Springs was
followed by a power point slide presentation by Wendy Moore, former national
coordinator for South Africa. Her narration and photos featured the church and
inspiring efforts of members in southern
Africa. A delicious pot luck meal topped
off a great day.
Dennis Thibault, Pastor, Castlegar BC
Goats for Rwanda
On July 27, 2007, Judith Lawrence,
member of the Worldwide Church of
God congregation in Montreal, returned
from a 3½ week mission trip to Rwanda.
This was her second such trip, the first
being four years ago, with both being
organized by King’s Kids, which is an
extension of Youth With a Mission
(YWAM) – Winnipeg.
One very personally exciting development grew from Judith’s awareness of
NORTHERN LIGHT
N A T I O N A L
Canada” and did the work necessary to
locate both the goats and families to
whom the goats could be given. The
goats were given only after educating
the recipients about proper care and
their committing to give the first kid, after
breeding, to another family in need.
Judith was present for a “Goat Giving” of
27 goats to 27 widows. (see photo-left)
To date, through the efforts of Africa
Mission Alliance, goats have been given
to at least 53 families, offering them the
life-giving milk, butter and cream of a
healthy goat which they could not have
afforded otherwise.
(You can read Judith’s day-to-day
accounts about her mission trip at:
www.xanga.com/thesoundofhope07)
Dennis Lawrence
OBITUARIES
Rwandan culture and of a simple way to
fulfill a need for a source of food for
poverty stricken families.
Judith recognized that for a family devastated by genocide or AIDS, to simply
own a goat can mean the difference
between life and death, wealth and
poverty. In a family conversation she
expressed that she would like to raise
funds extra to what was necessary for
her trip, which could be used to purchase a few goats to assist a few families. Since a goat in Rwanda costs only
$35, the possibility of raising even
enough for three or four goats would be
enough to make a small difference in
this developing nation.
Through various fundraising initiatives,
Judith was able to raise over $1,700 for
goats before she left Canada. It was a
sum that would provide many more
goats than she initially ever imagined.
For the giving of the goats, Judith
worked through her friend Amon
Munyaneza, founder and director of
Africa Mission Alliance. This Christian
agency was excited about the opportunity provided by “this young white girl from
Fishing Down East: Pat Stelmack (right)
Tribute for Pat
How do you say good-bye to a friend?
On July 28th my family and I had to say
good-bye to one of the best friends we
ever had. Let me tell you about him. His
name was Gordon Patrick Stelmack but
he was known to all as Pat. Pat was truly
a great man! What he had, Hollywood
would call magic, but those who knew
him well knew it was called the Holy
Spirit and it flowed from Pat as a mighty
river. (Sound familiar? John 7:38-39).
O C T O B E R / N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R
2 0 0 7
N E W S
C O N T I N U E D
Pat loved His Lord and he loved his
Father. In fact Pat was a chip off the “Old
Block”. If someone needed a meal, Pat
would feed them. If someone needed
work, Pat would give them a job. If
someone needed financial help, he
would give of his resources, even if he
didn’t always have it to give. If you needed someone to talk to, or a shoulder to
lean on, Pat would be there for you.
Children flocked to Pat like the Pied
Piper. The elderly found someone who
would take time with them. The rest of us
found a friend like a brother who was
straight and true as an arrow. Pat was
positive and happy, always ready with a
joke or a riddle. He and his wonderful
wife, Faye, hosted hundreds of people at
their home over the years. Good food
and song were always on the menu
because Pat loved to sing and make
music.
People were drawn to Pat, you just
wanted to move in close and be in his
wonderful welcoming presence, to share
a laugh or a hug. My husband and I
often said we had never met anyone
who yielded himself to Jesus as Pat. It
was a joy to behold and to participate in.
If I had never known the Lord before
knowing Pat, I would now be able to say
I have met Jesus as face to face.
There has been an ache in my heart and
in the heart of my family since the day
that Pat and Faye told us that Pat was
not feeling well. Now we grieve the loss
that is so beyond our understanding. But
I also see another picture, one of Pat
being greeted by his family members
and friends who have gone on before.
And making their way to the front of the
crowd I see three, The Father, Son and
Holy Spirit, rushing to embrace Pat and
saying, “My boy is home! My boy is finally home!”
Vickie Cherry
31
FROM CHRISTIAN ODYSSEY
Stirred—But Not Shaken
U
nlike James Bond’s famous
cocktails, our faith should be
stirred, but not shaken. These
are stirring times to be a
Christian. Critics are having a
field day, questioning, undermining and ridiculing every aspect of our
beliefs. Nothing, it seems, is sacred.
That is because, if you are to believe
some popular authors, nothing is
sacred. The whole idea of God is a delusion, argues the enthusiastic atheist,
Professor Richard Dawkins. Others suggest that religion has had a negative
impact on human society, and should be
banned, and that those who insist on
teaching religious concepts to children
be considered guilty of child abuse.
Recent published books ask us to
believe that nonbiblical “Gospels” may
give us a more reliable source of understanding of Jesus than the New
Testament.
What are we poor ordinary Christians to
make of all this? We seem to be outnumbered and outgunned. Unable to
really understand, let alone respond to
these sophisticated attacks on all that
we hold dear, perhaps the safest course
of action is to retreat behind the barricades of tradition.
We must not do that. Jesus made it clear
that he did not light our lamps only to
have us hide them. So before we allow
ourselves to be spooked by the opposition, let’s remember something else he
said:
“Can you imagine a king going into battle against another king without first
deciding whether it is possible with his
ten thousand troops to face the twenty
thousand troops of the other? And if he
decides he can’t, won’t he send an emissary and work out a truce?”1
Ah, but what if he decides he can win?
And we can. You see, the opposition is
not as overwhelming as it sometimes
seems. Media hype may leave you per-
sonally feeling ill-equipped to face up to
the challenges. But you can be sure that
there are capable men and women out
By John Halford
Stark has analyzed the data to show that
Christianity gained influence and credibility, not by cleverly winning debates,
but by the influence of its followers’ way of life. In times of
plague and famine, it was the
Christians who cared for the
sick and destitute. In an age
when slaves and women were
without power, it was the
Christian way of life that gave
them a voice and self-respect.
Stark shows that it is simply
nonsense to claim that
Christianity has had an overall
negative impact.
As the Old Testament prophet
Jeremiah said: “Don’t let the
wise brag of their wisdom.
Don’t let heroes brag of their
©iStockphoto.com/Daniel Rodriguez
exploits. Don’t let the rich brag
there who are more than able to defend
of their riches. If you brag, brag of this
the Christian turf. They have education
and this only: That you understand and
and experience, and they are not intimiknow me. I’m God, and I act in loyal
dated by clever arguments. When given
love. I do what’s right and set things right
the opportunity, they can more than hold
and fair, and delight in those who do the
their own, and show that the opposition
same things. These are my trade2
has not really done its homework.
marks.”5
Many believing scientists assure us that
the ever-increasing understanding of
life’s processes has deepened, rather
than shattered, their faith. Truth has
nothing to fear from more truth, and you
can be sure that “our side” is holding the
line.3
So don’t let the anti-religious, antiChristian propaganda destabilize you.
This is not a time to cower and bury our
Christian heads in the sand. Most of us
are not trained to challenge complex
arguments or indulge in sophisticated
debate. But all of us are more than able
to make a significant contribution in a
way that really does count.
In a series of fascinating studies, Baylor
University Professor Rodney Stark has
thrown new light on how the Christian
faith spread throughout the Roman
Empire.4 Using the skills of a sociologist,
That is not a put-down of genuine scholarship. Neither is it a flip slogan for selfrighteous triumphalism. It is a challenge
for us to live up to what we say we
believe, whatever our opportunity and
station in life.
Yes, these are indeed faith-stirring
times. There is much that is happening
in this complex modern world to stir your
faith. But nothing that need shake it.NL
Endnotes:
1. Message Bible, Luke 14:31-32.
2. For example, Dawkin’s God and The
Twilight of Atheism, both by Alister McGrath.
3. For example, The Language of God,
by Francis Cousins, Director of the
Human
Genome
project.
4. Cities of God and The Rise of
C h r i s t i a n i t y , b y R o d n e y St a r k .
5. The Message Bible, Jeremiah 9:23-24.
MENDING
BROKEN
RELATIONSHIPS
NORTHERN LIGHT
Vol.10, No.4 October-December
Gary Moore
Editorial Advisor
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Managing Editor
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Northern Light is published 4
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Look around. We all know this: Human relationships are in big trouble today. Tensions
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It’s time you heard about Mending Broken Relationships.
Reconciliation Ministries of the Worldwide Church of God has prepared this 206page equipper full of personal, hands-on strategies to defang the tense flash points in our
society and with each other. Veteran Christian counselor John Paul Eddy of
the University of North Texas is joined by insights from international workshop convener Curtis May of Reconciliation Ministries and award-winning journalist Neil Earle showing how to apply the “Toronto model” for leading successful support groups.
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À moins d'indication contraire,
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Mending Broken Relationships offers a helpful, readable approach both for trained counselors, teachers and lay readers. It shares the counseling highlights of three ministers
with more than 120 years of international experience combined.
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