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John Chau, missionary to the Sentinelese: martyr or madness?

You've probably seen it in the news lately: John Chau, the American guy who tried to evangelise the secluded Sentinelese tribe off the coast of India. Much of the debate in secular media has centered around the grief of his friends and family; how he could have brought outside disease to the tribespeople and potentially killed them all (despite this not being their first contact with outsiders, with no known ill effect), or that he ventured there completely in ignorance with no preparation or wisdom — something which the missionary agency, All Nations, has recently debunked. But the question I want to look at is this: was Chau's mission total madness or is...

It's no longer about land!

...thing old has passed away; see, everything has become new! Galatians 6:15 For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything! As Peter also wrote, those who believe in and follow Christ Jesus are "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people" (1 Peter 2:9-10), Israel was once the vine and symbolically referred to as such (Ps 80:8-9; Joel 1:7) but we are now grafted into the true vine which is Jesus (Jn 15:1; Rom 11:17). If the vine represented Israel, and Jesus says he is the "true vine", then Jesus is true Israel and we are grafted in as spiritual Je...

Man-Made Tradition vs Apostolic Tradition

...tion only has its basis in the Roman Catholic Church, and is therefore automatically wrong and invalid in a discussion, and/or in practice. Except that's not exactly true nor a good way to discuss anything (and probably falls under the Post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy). Traditions and creeds go back much further than you might think – all the way back to a time of the Apostles. Yes, Jesus had a go at all the Pharisees for making their traditions greater than Scripture (Matt 15:2-3; Mark 7:9) and in that case dismissing something as "man made" is valid. But what about when it's something based on or inspired by Scripture, something that becomes almost 'l...

Lent, Lament and Lockdown

...Lent is a time of self denial and of giving things up, and also a period of lament in the lead up to Easter where we remember the Passion and death of Christ before we celebrated the glorious resurrection.  Often this is a personal affair on the discipline side of things, even if it's a practice shared within your church community, but this year has been so very different. With the outbreak of the coronavirus, or COVID-19, the whole world has slowly gone into lockdown country by country, creating a strange sort of global “Lent” where everyone is having to practice self control and self denial. This has been underpinned with a sense of lament at the way thi...

Does Jesus mean Hail Zeus?

...nd say it has some sensible meaning! It’s two different languages which don’t mix like that!   But I digress. Back to the other “Hail Zeus” argument.   Claim 1: "PegaSUS means Horse of Zeus" The first point is total nonsense, which doesn't bode well for the the rest. If you have to invent "facts" to prove your point, you've already lost the argument. A quick internet search reveals the lies in this meme. "The poet Hesiod presents a folk etymology of the name Pegasus as derived from πηγή pēgē "spring, well": "the pegai of Okeanos, where he was born."A proposed etymology of the name is Luwian pihassas, meaning "lightning", and Pihassassi,...

Is fasting an expectation for Christians?

...egroom” has been taken away from them. In Acts, the Church was fasting and praying when making decisions about missionary work and who to send (Acts 13:2–3), before appointing leaders (Acts 14:23) and oftentimes fasting preceded receiving visions from God, which we see in both Old and New Testaments (Acts 10:10; 11:5; 22:17). Fasting was also used for various other needs people wanted from God, like petitioning for answers in prayer, for protection, forgiveness or simply for humbling yourself (Ezra 8:21; Nehemiah 1:4; 9:1; Esther 4:3; Psalm 35:13; 69:10; Daniel 9:3; Joel 2:12; Zechariah 8:18–19). As you can see, fasting has a long and active tradition with...