The Power Of The Gospel - Elvira Tan

The gospel has always been not just a message, but a life-transforming power. And through the lives of the Christian migrant worker converts, the power of the gospel was displayed in full view. We saw the power of gospel to bring hope in the face of hopelessness. Many of them are facing a seemingly hopeless situations in Singapore, an irresponsible company who refuses to give them any pay or medical attention, and thus no income to survive in Singapore or to send back to their families. And precisely because of their medical condition, they are unable to even find other small sources of income. 

In this time of darkness, the gospel is what they need, the gospel of hope, of a righteous God who loves and initiates a reconciliation with His rebellious people at His own expense. It gives them a source of never-failing strength, an eternal perspective to a temporal problem.  Because of the gospel, they have been redeemed from despair and are able to rejoice. 

And this is the difference between a Christian’s joy and happiness. Happiness is circumstantial, once circumstances change for the worse, one becomes unhappy. But a Christian’s joy is unchanging, because it is rooted not just in the unchanging gospel of what God has done for us, but also in the unchanging nature of God. And when the source of joy is unchanging, the Christian’s joy will remain even in the worst circumstances. And that is why the Christian migrant workers can rejoice even in the face of despair, because when no one else cares, there is always one who will. Even when all seems lost, there is the shepherd who will take care of His sheep. And that is why they need to hear the gospel. 

But more than just bringing healing and hope, the life-changing gospel transforms once broken lamps into spotlights shining for and pointing others to Jesus. We met Charlie, an ex-convict who used to sell drugs and entered jail multiple times. His wife divorced him, his beloved children left him, and his whole world seemed to collapse, until he met Christ. And because of the gospel, he has now returned to Onesimus garden, helping not just in the running of the farm, but in the restarting of people’s lives through the gospel. 

We also heard from Dr Goh Wei Leong about how the HealthServe ministry grew as more and more migrant workers came to join them, and he realized that the Singaporeans working there were not the source of the growth, but it was the migrant workers themselves. They were the ones bringing their friends to HealthServe, and telling them the gospel, or living it out in such a way that their friends were unable to not be curious about what makes them so different. And because of these living testimonies of the power of the gospel, the gospel continues to reach more and more migrant workers. And this is not just by the original evangelists, but by the evangelized. They too, became fellow participants in God’s mission. 

And yet I find my actions often betray a subconscious trivialization of this power, whether it’s through not being an active enough proponent of the gospel, or not fully living out the gospel in my life, or even not expecting great things through the sharing of the gospel. Often I mask my belittlement of God’s power under the cover of being realistic. Knowing that the ground is tough in this postmodern and religiously plural age does not discount the fact that God is able to work greatly in this place. And I often unconsciously discount what God is capable of doing. But I was reminded this week, that if it is the mission of God, he can and will bring it to fulfilment. And like the conversion stories show, the gospel is a healing and life-transforming power.

Elvira Tan

A Response To A Need - Elvira Tan

The theme for this week’s program was “The commission”, and we saw the different ways people did missions, partners of the mission of God. We were exposed to the different mission fields right at our doorstep. Through this week, my eyes and ears were opened to the many needs right here in Singapore. We heard of and met the ostracized and the forgotten, not just by society, but even by the church. There are so many who are in dire need of the love and comfort that the gospel and Christians living out the gospel can bring. There are teenage mothers, prostitutes, prisoners and foreign workers living in our midst, rejected by or victims of society. 

But knowing the many needs in Singapore should not be an end in itself. And this week we were introduced to people who not just saw the need, but responded to it. Pastor Andrew Choo and his wife Grace, upon hearing the story of a Christian teenage mother rejected by the church, started the Andrew and Grace home for teenage mothers like her. They also opened the Onesimus garden as a form of restorative therapy for prisoners and ex-convicts, where through the whole process of farming, their emotional and physical health is nursed, and they are able to return to a productive and useful life as a contributing member of society. The restoration and rehabilitation is achieved not only through the physical act of farming, but also through the metaphorical association between different stages of plant cultivation and the gospel. 

We were also introduced to Dr. Goh Wei Leong and Timothy who started HealthServe, an organization catering to injured foreign workers and prostitutes. Foreign workers who injure themselves while working in Singapore often have to go for many months without pay or even proper medical attention before finally being sent back to their home country. HealthServe was started in response to this need, providing the workers with medical services, a loving family and most importantly, the gospel. Timothy also works with the poor in Singapore, building relationships with the children through soccer clinics. 

I am a very ignorant and pampered Singaporean, having lived in a sheltered bubble all my life. But now that my claim of ignorance has been invalidated, how should I thus respond to the needs presented before me? That was the challenge that came out very strongly after this week’s experiential learning trips. And thank God for people like Dr. Goh Wei Leong and Pastor Andrew Choo, who not just saw or heard the need, but responded in action to it. Thank God for allowing us to partake in His mission, and for broadening my perspective to see a much bigger field of people in Singapore whom we can be missioners to, and for spurring me to take action. (first by volunteering with HealthServe) And I pray for God to grant us the sensitivity to the needs of people around, and for the initiative to take up action in response to the need.

Elvira Tan

Our Intelligent God - Elvira Tan

This post shall also be based on the science and faith talk, because there are so many things learnt from and to say about it, but not enough words to say it in.  

In the talk, the speaker really painted very clearly the limitations of science. He righted three very common misconceptions about science. Firstly, science is not self-interpreting. It comes with the assumption that what you observe is reality. 

Secondly, science is descriptive, not prescriptive. And thirdly, science alone cannot be the basis of true knowledge. Science can only operate within what can be observed. As such, science has its limits, beyond which science can never answer. Since science is only a description of what is out there, then who put the things out there? Put very clearly, God is the basis for science. Put another way, science is man’s attempt to make sense of God’s creation. Studying science will only let us increasingly see what we do not understand, and what we only think we understand. Creation is a reflection of the creator’s imagination and intellect. Thus studying science can only result in giving glory to God the creator, whose wisdom no one can comprehend. 

I took an astronomy module in NUS that taught more about the universe. The teacher showed us a video of how big the universe is and how big the stars can get. The earth is about 1/100th the size of the sun, and the sun is in turn 1/700th the size of Betelgeuse, another star. And the list goes on. The furthest known galaxy is 13.3 billion light years from earth. (One light year is roughly 9,461,000,000,000 km). And this is only within the known universe, there is even more beyond what we can see. Taking this module really helped me understand a small fraction of the universe more. And as my knowledge of the universe grew, so did my admiration for God the creator. God really is the basis for science.

The speaker also said that science can only tell us how things work, it cannot tell us why things work this way or the cause of it. Religion can. In this way they should not contradict, but in fact complement. But to begin with, science and God are not even on the same level, and thus there is no basis for direct comparison between the two. Comparing the two is misunderstanding the nature of science and is an example of man’s arrogant rebellion against God.

Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. I had always wondered what love God with all your mind means. Someone told me that to love God with all your mind means to love God intellectually. The Christian faith is not a blind faith, and as the speaker said, information and investigation are the singular characteristics of humans, animals do not have these. To use our God-given intellect to investigate the claims of God, to learn more about His creation, among others, would be a form of showing our respect and love for the all-knowing and wise God. 

Laziness; to not want to dig deeper into God’s word, to not want to investigate what God has said or made, is to not give God the glory. In fact, the deeper you dig, the more you investigate, the more you learn about and the closer you get to God. And indeed, as we learn more intellectually, one can only but give all glory to our intelligent God, whose intellect is beyond even the smartest human. 

Elvira Tan

The Rationality of Christian Faith - Elvira Tan

On Tuesday, we had a talk from someone from the Ravi Zacharias International Ministries about science and faith. The speaker said that rationality and the Christian faith are not mutually exclusive. People misinterpret faith to mean a leap in the dark, an irrational decision. In the Christian faith, sure, there is some element of trust, but a lot of it is actually very rational. Even the whole flow of the gospel itself is overflowing with rationality.

In church and at Singapore Youth for Christ (SYFC), we were taught a gospel sharing tool called “Two ways to live”. Through the in-depth learning of the gospel through the tool, it really impressed upon me how logical the gospel is. God, being our creator, has the right to rule over mankind, His creation. If God’s rightful rule was not first established, sin would not seem wrong. But because he was our creator and thus has rightful rule over us, man rebelling against the creator is wrong. And when anybody does wrong, it is natural that the wrongdoer is punished. Thus the death and judgment that results from the rebellion against God is totally deserving. 

This judgment is not unfair, as we have done wrong, and God, being the creator, has the right to punish us when we rebel against His rightful rule. The harder a piece of bad news is, the better the good news after it becomes. The severity of the punishment only makes Jesus’ deliverance from it even greater. And thus everything before must first be established, so we know what Jesus is saving us from and into through His death on the cross. His resurrection shows His power over death and thus His authority and ability to give us new life. 

The gospel is really so logical! (Of course, this depends on whether you first believe that “God is the creator” is true, as the whole logic stems from there. Even coming to the conclusion that God is creator has some element of rationality, but this topic has been addressed so often, and due to a lack of knowledge about it and word count, it shall be skipped.)

In the final box of this gospel tool, the listener is asked to make a response after listening to the gospel. They are asked to make a choice, whether they want to continue living their own way, resulting in them being condemned by God and facing death and judgment, or if they want to live God’s new way, which results in them being forgiven by God and given eternal life. With one way to life and one way to death, personally I find the choice very logical. 

Even if the motive behind the choice might be to escape judgment, who would voluntarily choose death? And yet, in the many times that this gospel tool was used and this response had to be made, many people chose to continue living their own way. They either did not believe that living their own way would result in the aforementioned consequences, or they consciously chose to live the way that leads to death. Indeed, thank God for opening my spiritual eyes, to believe in the truth of the gospel and to see the value and logic of choosing to live His way.

Elvira Tan

Presbyterians' Immense Contribution to Society - Elvira Tan

This week, we learnt briefly about Presbyterian history. During the lessons, one thing that really struck me was the revolutionary contributions to society by Presbyterians in the past. They really played a key role in changing and improving the landscape for various aspects of society. 

For example, we learnt that the Scottish Presbyterians contributed a lot to literacy and education. The first encyclopedia was published in Scotland. Adam Smith, a Scottish moral philosopher came out with a well-known theory that is widely used in economics today. In addition, Andrew Melville, the founder of Scottish Presbyterianism who completely established the current Presbyterian system, was the principle of Glasgow University. Through his stint as principle, he helped to restore the school from its dying state. He introduced a new syllable system where teachers teach a specialized subject rather than the class having the same teacher for all four years. And indeed, this is now the system adopted in universities worldwide. 

In addition, many Presbyterians also helped to promote education in the various places they were in by building schools and providing education for the locals. For example in Singapore, the Presbyterians set up Presbyterian High School, Kuo Chuan Primary and Secondary School, and Pei Hwa Primary School, among others. This provided education opportunities for the locals and increased education standards among them. It can be seen that the past Presbyterians had such a huge influence and impact on society.

These revolutionary contributions to society must have been a great testament to and witness for the powerful God they worshipped! Seeing how wise and generous these Presbyterian forefathers were must have ignited the curiosity in the people about this God that they are so open in proclaiming about. Seeing how they were so influential in the academic arena really reminded me of Solomon. He asked God for wisdom, and his wisdom was unparalleled in all the earth and was known far and wide throughout the world. And yet, these academic fathers that people look up to, and even Solomon, displayed a human wisdom that is but a small shadow and reflection of God’s infinite wisdom. 

The God who created the heavens and the earth, from the whole universe down to the smallest cell, His wisdom is infinite and far beyond what we can imagine. He is the founder of science, the holder of knowledge beyond the best encyclopedia.

At Trinity Theological College (TTC), we were reminded of theological reasons why Christians engage in social work. Aside from the equally important pragmatic reason of being a good testimony which can lead to sharing of the gospel, doing good is also a show of Christian hospitality towards Christians and strangers. This was something that Jesus himself did, and said that we should do. 

This principle was shown very clearly by the father of Crystal, one of the interns. Her parents run a family transport business, and thus have many vehicles for transport, from 14 seaters to 49 seaters. Out of the graciousness and kindness of his heart, he personally drove 13 of us in the big school bus to TTC, because many of us did not know how to go. That was really a touching display of Christian hospitality towards fellow Christians, and of how God has placed each one of us in our various vocations for a reason, whether it is to bless fellow Christians and non-Christians, or to be a good testimony for God, pointing others to Him wherever He puts us.

Elvira Tan

God Is Sovereign - Elvira Tan

From this week’s lessons, God’s sovereignty came across very strongly. We saw very clearly from history how God furthers His kingdom through selfish human agenda.  

At the synod office and later on at Singapore Bible College, we learnt briefly about how Christianity came to Southeast Asia. In the past, all the Southeast Asian countries except for Thailand were colonized by the European powers. The Spanish colonized Philippines, the Dutch colonized Indonesia, and the British colonized Singapore, among many others. 

The first reason for the colonization of many Southeast Asian countries was the precious materials available in these countries, and the European powers wanted to gain ownership of these materials, and thus export these materials back to their home country. Singapore, which, together with Malacca and Indonesia became known as the Straits Settlements, was colonized for its convenient location, and was used as a trading port for the shipping of these materials. 

However, even though the Europeans colonized the Southeast Asian countries for trade, with the purpose of bringing prosperity to themselves, Christianity was brought to Southeast Asia because of this act. By establishing governments in the various Southeast Asia countries, these colonial powers provided the infrastructure that facilitated the spread of missions. With their home country’s government being established in the colony, Christian missionaries will thus feel secure to leave their home country and go to these foreign nations.
 

This was a very impactful testament of the sovereignty of God. Man may rebel against God all they want but through the selfish desires and actions of man, God has and will continue to further His kingdom. Nothing that man do is able to stop him.  

This is just a great reminder of the sovereignty and greatness of God, how He has, is, and will continue to be in control of everything. Everything that happens is part of God’s plan. This brought to mind the greatest example of how our sovereign and omniscient God accomplished His plan through the evilness of man. And that greatest example is the gospel. 

Man tried to kill the precious son of God because of their refusal to believe in Him, yet it is precisely through the worst execution method in history that God fulfilled the greatest redemptive plan for mankind. When we look back at how everything fit so perfectly into God’s plan, one can only but marvel at the perfect wisdom of our God. Oh, how finite our human comprehension is, and yet, sadly, how infinite our arrogance is. When faced with trials of many kinds, may God grant us the trust in His sovereignty and perfect wisdom.

Elvira Tan