Christ Centred - Bible Based - Spirit Filled
"To believe in heaven without hell is like believeing in Good without evil."
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I’ve taken a weekend off and my mind is filled with, well, nothing in particular. When I go on holiday I try to do it with as few “good intentions” as possible. That way I will rest.
If you’re anything like me, then you have a pile of unread books on your shelf, miles and miles of jogs not taken, a dusty bicycle with soft tyres and a whole gaggle of unfinished projects. When I opened my diary the other day I discovered 72 “to-do” items outstanding. I was horrified and exhausted at the same time.
You can imagine my relief when I discovered that Caryl’s computer had accidentally given me about 55 of her “to-do” items!
What is it about life that seems to make it so difficult to get the simple life-enhancing tasks done? I have a good friend, an old primary school mate, who is a medical doctor. He’s a really busy man, with a practice to run and a family of a wife and three kids. I envy him, because he always finds time to read the latest literature. He’s read Tolkien, Tolstoy, Dickens, Shakespeare, Paton, Byron, Keats, Twain, Lewis, Carol and many biographies of modern and not so modern people.
Stuart is such an interesting guy and you don’t have to spend long in his company to discover that his reading has hugely enriched his life. One thing he has not read is the Bible. You see, it’s easy to read all that stuff. I love reading Byron, Dickens and Shakespeare and biographies are really interesting, but somehow reading the Bible, and books about the Bible, is more difficult.
On Tuesday night, the elders spent time praying for you, the church, the country and the world. In Ephesians 6:10-20, Paul calls this “spiritual warfare”. There is a real reason why it is so hard to do the things that really count. Someone is trying to stop you!
I wish sometimes I could have the determination of Lance Armstrong, to push through the tough times and just get the work done. Of course, I also wish Lance could see the miracle of God in his recovery from cancer. By the way, I’m reading his biography at the moment, a powerful, but sadly lonely life!
I don’t know whether you watched the Bafana-Uruguay match on Wednesday 16 June. There were great hopes for a Youth Day victory, but it wasn’t to be. It must have been a most frustrating game for Bafana. It was as if someone told the Uruguayans that they were easy to tackle. Every time one of our boys had the ball it was taken away by a man in white. Apologies to Uruguay, but it made me think of the Christian life. The evil one, Jesus said, comes to “Steal, kill and destroy”. His aim his only aim, is to frustrate the progress and growth of the Kingdom of God. So, if it seems difficult to do the things which will grow you as a Christian and advance God’s Kingdom...it is!
In my frustration, at times, I think of Jesus’ audience in the First Century. Very few of them could read, but they were good listeners. So one of the ways I’ve found to overcome the difficulty of getting to read all the good Christian books is called the podcast. I download sermons by good preachers from the internet and listen to them in my car. Many books are available as audio-books too. You see, just like Bafana, who had to find a way around the Uruguayans, we need to find a way around the busyness of our lives. Maybe you have other suggestions. Let’s share them. It’s called Spiritual Warfare!
Our match has already been won! Let’s find ways to score more goals.
Love
Tony
SPECIAL BIRTHDAY WISHES TO THE FOLLOWING MEMBERS:
Tracy van Rensburg turns 40 on the 1st July
Three members celebrate their 50th birthdays viz.
Nicolene Vervaet on the 6th
Craig Greenwood on the 22nd, and
Cheryl Quantrill on the 27th
Bessie Perold turns 80 on the 26th
AND
Martha van Wyk turns 90 on the 12th
CONGRATULATIONS to Hannah Botsis who graduated at University of Cape Town on 4 June with a Master of Philosophy in Education.
How difficult it is to lose a loved one!
How easy the carers of BPC make it for you!
We love our church and are grateful for being part of it, but love it even more when times are tough!
Thank you so much to Rod and Tony, your support, presence and prayers carried us.
To our home group, your continuous love and support is an example of the love of Jesus in our group - thank you.
Thank you to Jay and her team of carers for the love, visits and support given to Alice over many years.
Olga, thank you for the many hours that add up into days that you shared with our dear Alice.
She loved you dearly and we are extremely appreciative of what you did for her.
To so many others who showed their love and concern for us, thank you.
BPC is a family that we are proud to be part of.
May God bless you all richly.
Love from Patrick, Jill and family
A child was asked to write a report on the Bible.
“Pretty soon all of the early people died off, except for Methuselah, who lived to be like a million or something. One of the next important people was Noah, who has a good guy, but one of his kids was a kind of Ham. Noah built a large boat and put his family and some animals on it. He asked some other people to join him, but they said they would have to take a rain check.”
“After Noah came Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Jacob was more famous than his brother, Esau, because Esau sold Jacob his birthmark in exchange for some pot roast. Jacob had a son named Joseph who wore a really loud sports coat”.
“Another important Bible guy was Moses, who led the Israel Lights out of Egypt and away from the evil Pharaoh after God sent ten plagues on Pharaoh’s people. These plagues included frogs, mice, lice, bowels and no cable.”
“One of Moses’ best helpers was Joshua who was the first Bible guy to use spies. Joshua fought the battle of Geritol and the fence fell over on the town.”
“After Joshua came David. He got to be king by killing a giant with a slingshot. He had a son named Solomon who had about 300 wives and 500 porcupines. My teacher says he was wise, but that doesn’t sound very wise to me.”
After Solomon there were a bunch of major league prophets. One of these was Jonah, who was swallowed by a big whale and then barfed up on the shore.”
(Submitted by Marj Nicholson in Gardens Messenger July 2009)
A View from the Pew
The last seat on the bus, when it stopped at the Serena Hotel in Kigali, was next to him. We acknowledged one another with nods but his Radio Schack earphones and MP3 made it clear that he was a seasoned solo traveller. I was on my way to a post-conference trip to Lake Muhazi for an afternoon boat ride and African dinner and did not mind being by myself for a while. However, the neat clothes and faint sounds of classical music coming from the speakers made me realise that he was not the normal backpack type one so often sees in African countries.
It was my first free afternoon after a five day conference during which I delivered two papers and conducted a two-day workshop and frankly, I was looking forward to my own company and an interesting time at Lake Muhazi. Rwandan friends have told me that the lake, only half a kilometre wide but 37 km long, produced the best tilapia in Africa and its shore was the birthplace of the Kingdom of Rwanda.
When we were some distance out of the city, and cruising through the gentle green hills of Rwanda, I heard the soft sounds of Cecilia Groop singing Caro mio ben, drifting from his earpieces. By this time, I was a bit nuuskierig to find out who he was, and said: “I think Pavarotti’s rendition was better – even if it was written for a soprano.” “Chuck”, he introduces himself, while offering his right hand. The accent and the fact that only one nation has names like Chuck, Chip, and Ted, immediately made me realise where he was from. He informs me that he lives in rural California with wife and four daughters and works for the biggest cattle genetics marketing company in the world. You cannot fool me pal, jy’s ‘n “blikbul” – not a nice nickname but then, in my industry, a very good descriptive name for a person who sells bull semen. Oh well, we all live by selling something. He is visiting Rwanda as one of the 31 African and Middle Eastern countries he is responsible for and has decided to take the Friday afternoon off before flying to Saudi the next day.
That evening, sipping our sweet urwagwa banana beer before the Rwandan buffet, I spotted the small wooden cross hanging from his North Face rucksack and ask, in my best nonchalant Clint Eastwood-style: “You much of a church man?” “Yeah”, comes the answer. “Do I look like one?” Knowing that the Baptist Church is the second biggest religious body in the States with the most churches, I take a flyer with: “Yes, you look like a Baptist”. “Hell yes, you’re right – I didn’t know one could spot us”. In more Clint-style I inform him that as a Presbyterian Elder living in a Bible Belt area, between Dutch Reform, Baptist, Methodist and Catholic churches, I have special insights into religious matters. I realise he has humour when, with a Charles Bronson-smile on his face, shoots from the hip with: “Yeah, we have Presbyterians in the States as well; they like to serve God – but only as advisors”. Chuck tells me that he grew up in a Presbyterian congregation in the small town of Bentonville, Arkansas where his father worked for Wal-Mart. When I tell him that I have been to Bentonville, to do business with Wal-Mart’s head office, and had once attended a service in that same Presbyterian congregation, I thought he was going to bear-hug me to death. (Hokaai Chucky, just a coincidence pal) Innocent, the op-en-wakker waiter of the Jambo Restaurant comes to tell us that the first course of goat brochette and chicken nyama choma are ready from the fire. He offers French wine from an obscure chateaux at Rf 5 000 (R60) a glass, which I gently decline, with a lie, that I am not a wine drinker. Chuck asks for Perrier but when Innocent tells him that it comes at Rf 7 500, we both decide to go for local paw-paw juice which is cheaper than tap water. We feast on the firm tilapia and a mixture of beans and plantains followed by herby goat meat, pure white potatoes and the ever present cassava. The goat meat is excellent and on par with the best braai, you will ever get on your pal’s farm outside Uniondale.
Over dessert of fresh fruits and cashew nuts, we turn to religion again. Chuck mentions that he has met a local agricultural officer who claims that he often speaks in tongues when praying, and wants to know what I know of this phenomenon. “Not much” I tell him, “except that we once touched on the subject while we were studying Spiritual Gifts during a Session meeting”. I remember that there are two “tongue” gifts, which can be bestowed by the Holy Spirit; speaking in tongues and the interpretation of tongues. We speculate about who are the people who can speak in tongues and agree that it does not mean one is not Spirit-filled if you cannot speak in tongues. All Christians should be Spirit-filled and have received gifts but not every Christian has all the gifts, including speaking in tongues. The various spiritual gifts such as healing, faith, and prophesy are given individually. “Is speaking in tongues not a fruit of the Spirit?” ventures Chuck. “No, no”, I counter, we have covered the fruits of the Spirit in Bible study. “Speaking in tongues has nothing to do with the fruit of the Spirit. The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, goodness etc” I add, feeling clever. “I wonder” says Chuck, “whether one could ask to receive the gift of speaking in tongues” – and then looks at me. “No idea”, is my first impression. Chuck then gives the answer to his own question. “I don’t think one can ask the Holy Spirit for gifts which He, divinely, did not bestow on you”. This sounds right to me; the Holy Spirit will determine who receives what – He is in charge.
Neither Chuck nor I have ever witnessed a person speaking in tongues and we speculate whether it is our imagination that it is more prevalent in charismatic churches. We speculate further (rightly or wrongly), whether speaking in tongues is not sometimes self-induced but then decide that we should drop the subject and rather ask our ministers back home to help us understand the subject better. We do not want to sin in our ignorance, on full stomachs and on a peaceful African evening.
We spent the hour trip back to Kigali discussing things that we know a little bit more about such as selecting cows that can give us more milk. I learn about super bulls with names such as Ha-Ho Chubby and O-Bee Manfred Justice who have offspring in over 80 countries. I tell Chuck that in South Africa, we have bulls with names like Victor, Bakkies and Fourie; we do not judge them on their number of off-spring in foreign countries, but we still call them super bulls – Super 14 Bulls.
May God Bless you wonderful people of BPC.
Kobus Mulder
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