22/10/2009 by paul.

Well this morning I finished my preparations for the Bible study this evening. In the afternoon I went out for a bit of adventure. I needed some fresh air (hard to find a nice crisp English October morning in Taiwan…) so wandered down the Min-Sheng Road, hopped on a bus, got off at Xiang Road and walked North to the Breeze Centre. We have some magazines at the flat from the Breeze Centre, and I thought it was worth a look. Whilst it was not quite as high-class as the 101, this shopping centres discount store was the Louis Vuitton shop, with Jimmy Choo coming a close second. I was looking for two things, and I found them both without too much fuss - the bathroom and then Starbucks. The joy of an ice cold Mocha. After the wander back to the bustop and picking up some groceries and a set of computer speakers tonight, I headed back to the flat to go through my notes once more.

I thought the study went really well tonight. We were continuing to look at 1 Peter, this time chapter 1:13-25. We started by thinking about places we thought were holy, and why they were holy. We then thought about people we thought we were holy and why we thought they were holy. After the novelty of having a discussion wore off people were happy to contribute which made a pleasant change! 1 Peter 1:13-25 is all about being holy. I broke the passage into three section. Firstly we are to be holy by living sinless lives. In verse 14 it says that ‘as obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance’. In verse 13 Peter gives his directives for how to do this. I think v.13 is really interesting, because often, when we talk of sin, we are very quick to look to Jesus. Whilst not wanting to diminish the once-for-all action of Jesus on cross to save me from my sin, here Peter is giving practical life-changing tips on how to be less sinful. He says, prepare your minds for action. God has given you a brain to think about how we live. He says our mind is for action. We are to do something about it. So for example if we know when we may be tempted to sin, what time of day it is, what the circumstances are, who we miught be with - think about it and doing something different to stop yourself. So if you are likely to sin when you meet Mr.X take a friend with you, if you are likely to sin when you are in the house by yourself on a Thursday night at 7.45 - go out, arrange to meet a friend. Think and act. This is what it means to be self-controlled, as it goes on to say. Its funny when you have to think of trying to explain a word or phrase to people who don’t speak English as their first language. Self-controlled. We are not God-controlled, but we are asked to be self-controlled. We take responsibilities for our actions. Yes Jesus has done something which means we can be saved, but we must take control of our livesd ourselves. If we are to become more holy, less sinful in our lives, then we must control our own sinfulness. Then in verse 15 we see the enormity of what we are being asked to, quoting from Leviticus, “Be holy, because I am holy”. Holiness is a characteristic of God. In fact if you are trying to define holiness, you may struggle to do better than to say, ‘it is what God is’.

This lead into our section, be holy by living in reverent fear, faith and hope. In case you were wondering, God is the subject of each of those. Verse 17 says we are to be in reverent fear of God. What does this mean? Usually if we fear something we don’t like it. Jo fears spiders - she doesn’t like them. But this to me is not reverent fear, its just being over-sensitive to creepy crawlies. Reverent fear is like my experience down by the river the other day - seeing the pinnacle of man’s acheivements in flash buildings, seeing the wonderful creation of the hills around and still being able to see that God is much bigger than this - standing amazed, totally over-awed in the presence of the Holy One. If he is truly holy, sinless, pure, perfect, right, true then our attempts to come to him as the same must induce some fear. When I was growing up I was in fear of my parents telling me off - but they loved me and I loved them. Its the same with God just a million times more scary! Peter then goes onto say that we have been redeemed, you could say ransomed by the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish of defect. But what have we been redeemed or ransomed from - our evil desires - to make us holy. We talked about the lamb, and what the symbolism of the lamb is in Biblical history. Starting in Genesis we looked at how Abraham, after waiting so long for God to grant his son, took him, and on God’s command was about to kill him as a sacrifice. God stopped him, because God now knew that Abraham FEARed him. Instead of killing his son, he sacrificed a ram instead - so here we see how the animal was a replacement sacrifice. Then in Exodus we read that the last plague, the Angel of Death passing through Egypt was being sent by God. the Israelites were told to kill a male lamb, one year old, without defect. Eat it and coat their doorframes in blood, and then the angel would pass them by, they would avoid God’s judgement. In Leviticus, the Jewish law, we read how a lamb without defect was to be used as a burnt offering for God. Each time you sinned you would have to take a lamb to the priest, slaughter it in front of him, present it to him, and then the lamb would atone for your sin. Your sin would be written off by God because you had made a sacrifice to him. Then in Isaiah 53 we get the first sign of ONE lamb that would be sacrificed for the sins of MANY. Until now the Jewish people were going through lambs at a rate of knots, but Isaiah said that eventually God would send one lamb whose sacrifice would be sufficient for all our sin. This is then picked up in John’s gospel when John the Baptist sees Jesus walking towards him, right at the start of his ministry and he says, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God.’ By using the term lamb without defect, Peter is immediately drawing his listeners to contemplate the atonement of sin by the passing over of God’s judgement on us, onto a replacement who stepped in to take punishment we deserve for acting on our evil desires. Jesus on the cross made us holy. And so not only do we have fear of God, but we have faith and hope in God.

Finally we looked at the how we are to be holy by living transformed by the Word of God. In verses 23-25 we read that the Word of God is living, enduring, stands forever and is preached. There is something quite unique about the Bible, about God’s Word - it is enduring - it never changes, will never be silenced or destroyed, yet it is living and can speak to each one of us in a different way. When we say God’s Word is living we mean that if I read this passage, 1 Peter 13-25 tomorrow or the next day, or in a month I may well hear God say something different to me through it - it lives because I am living and the God who speaks through it is alive! It is through reading God’s Word that we learn. We learn of things he has done for us, we learn of Jesus on the cross, we learn what that means for us, we learn how to live holier lives. And as verse 22 says that leads us to love one abother deeply.

So be holy because I am holy, says the Lord - what an awesome command to us, made possible only through Jesus, but don’t think we haven’t got work to do - prepare you mind for action, be self-controlled, set you hope fully on the grace to be given you and engross yourself in God’s Word. That way we might get one step further along the line to being holy. We finished the study by watching this video clip which put in perspective for us the awesomeness and wonder of the task before us…

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21/10/2009 by paul.

That’s right.

While I’ve been in Taiwan I’ve taken it upon myself to start some translation of the New Testament from Greek into English. I started with Ephesians chapter 1. This new website displays my efforts, and if you’re so inclined you can tell me how bad my Greek grammar is, or how revolutionary my translation is using the forum - hopefully we can learn together and come up with a single translation for today…

Here’s the link.

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21/10/2009 by paul.

Well the new week began with a relaxing day. It’s a busy week this week, so on Monday I began preparations for Wednesday’ Bible Study in the hope that I might be able to get ahead of myself before the weekend when I am taking an English class and leading the young people’s group. It seemed to work so that on Tuesday I could prepare the powerpoint and the materials.

On Tuesday I was told we would be going out for lunch. I’m beginning to realise that ‘going out for lunch’ means posh lunch, and ‘going out for something to eat’ means local everyday eating establishment. So I asked where we were going, and it turned out to be a restuarant on the 33rd floor of the Taipei World Trade Centre. I guess this building would look quite big in another city, but its right next to the 101 building which is nearly twice as high. The building itself combines an exhibition hall, the hyatt hotel and from what I can see the big four accountancy firms under one roof (oh and a very nice restaurant). This one is for Jo…

Lunch was at a restaurant which I later realised was a private club. Apparently some of our church members are honourary members of the club and so a quick phonecall by them got us a table for lunch. It was quite magnificent, and ever so slightly Westernised. There was a full salad buffet to start, followed by a selection of soup (sweetcorn is always a safe bet!), and then I chose lamb chops from the menu, after which there was a buffet for desserts (awesome! even little creme brulee’s, mum), and then coffee. I think the meal for three of us in the one of the most high-class restaurants in Taipei came to exhorbatant £25.

It was hard to finish of the study when I got back, but I managed, and then settled down to the delights of some English tv made possible through blinktv on the net - you can’t beat a good bit of ‘Are you being served?’. Yes I’m free

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18/10/2009 by paul.

And I have no excuse, but I’ll try one. These three days have gone from quite quiet to crazy busy, so from nothing worth writing about to not having time to write! For those, like me, who are beginning to struggle with which day T32 is - that’s Friday. Friday was exceptionally quiet. I spent most of the day sat in front of the laptop thinking about my English class for Saturday (that’s T33 to you and me) - oh and out of all craziness and against all my excercise-a-phobia, I headed down to the river for a jog. I had quite an incredible experience, which, doesn’t usually happen when I pretend to excercise, but I had one of those moments when I knew God was close to me. I had my ipod blaring out some Chris Tomlin interspersed with the best the sally army could muster, and I was looking out amongst some of the tallest buildings in the world, backed by impressive mountain scenery and yet God is much bigger, yet so much more personal. What joy there is knowing the Father’s touch because of the salvation there is in Jesus! Completely exhausted I flopped when I got home and waited for Saturday - the day the cameras came.

Saturday was the day when I could not afford any more time planning my English lesson, but had to actually put pen to paper, or more precisely mouse to powerpoint. However, after two hours of selecting the right shade of blue for the future intention continuous active (I am going to eat an apple tomorrow) I was told that lunch would be provided downstairs today. hmmm… But before I went I was given some more info: we were going to have lunch with two past members of the church. I didn’t quite get the full story, but they were both pretty high up in politics and law in Taipei, and had been found doing something naughty, so every press car and tv crew were following. They came to the church for advise, so did the camera’s and reports. Apart from some white vans outside with satellites on top, nothing was unusual about lunch. I met the couple, we said hello, and then I went back to choosing the right shade of yello for the past perfect simple passive (The apple had been eaten before we arrived). Saturday evening began with a Sunday School practice for their role in the Sunday (T33) worship, more to follow…

They were then promptly given pizza and lots of coke, which boded well for sitting in an English class for an hour! We had a good lesson, and some of them even grasped the green present perfect simple passive (The apple has been eaten for hundreds of years). I finished by introducing them to the wonder of Wallace and Gromit with a simple listening excercise….

Click here, watch the video (sorry I can’t embed it ), and answer these simple questions (on page 2 of the handout). The winner can have some sponge cake with shredded pork.

After the class, and a few extra showings of shopper 13, I then joined the young adults group, beat Jo on skype bowling before going to sleep.

I’m writing this on T34 - Sunday evening. It’s been a long day and will probably write about it tomorrow when my thoughts are little clearer in my head. Today was the all-age Sunday School Anniversary service. Apart from the children leading the usual liturgy, the service was identical to normal and included the forty minute monologue sermon. All in all I have spent an hour and a quarter in worship today, whilst rehearsing with the choir, the men’s choir and the handbell group for four and three-quarter hours. After my post earlier in the week, I’ve got some mental churning to do - I think it’s a good job I disappeared for a twenty minute walk between choir practice and men’s choir practice!

There are a few grammatical and spelling mistakes in this post - top marks will receive more sponge cake with pork

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16/10/2009 by paul.

Well today was a little more relaxing, which meant that we had a long conversation over breakfast. We talked about worship and music. After the experience of communion and my reflections on the music I suggested that somethings in this church reflected the worship style of some Anglican churches back in the UK - certainly the robed choir, the gold and glove wearing needed for communion, the wafer bread and the focus on practicing music. Hsinte said that this church was quite traditional, and it is very different from my experiences in Tek-Tung. He has only been in the church a few months, so I can imagine that not everything in the church may be to his liking yet. However he did talk about the order of service for each Sunday. Whilst he chooses the readings and the hymns, from what I gather the form of the service has been established by the elders or members, and any deviation away from this would cause some problems. This is not just about what happens after the first hymn, but when to stand and sit, what to play/sing as the collection is brought forward etc etc. This explains to me the emphasis on music and its precision. I would say that in general the musicianship in Taiwanese churches is higher than back in the UK. But because of the culture (well, really Chinese education system and their controlling of culture in the past) anyone who plays an instrument is classically trained. A very nice Yamaha grand piano is used to lead worship, and the hymns are interspersed with short excerpts from the great classical composers and ellaborate piano arrangements. Whilst this can be a wonderful experience, there is more to church music (from my experience in Tek-Tung I can say there is more available in Taiwan too) than simply piano recitals and getting a C sharp major scale into Be thou my vision! Church music is there to lead people in worship, not to sound nice and good (although that helps), certainly not to show off the musicians abilities (although having some ability is useful!). If all that happens is that a piece of music is nice and played well in church then it has failed in its primary task to stir the people to worship in reverence, awe, wonder, amazement, fear, joy, fun. God wants us - all the people in church to worship him as we are, not a performance. My moaning about church music and what we make it stretches across the UK and Taiwan.

All of this, orders of service and music, should be addressed by asking where is the space for God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) to be able to move in and amongst the people during a time of worship, and where is the space for the person leading that service to respond and lead the people? That could mean repeating a hymn, an uplifting key change, scrapping a hymn because the sermon moved somewhere different than planned, adding another reading, prayer etc. To paraphrase one of my tutors at college, if all we do as church leaders is perform a rehearsed, pre-scripted service and/or sermon, we might as well just give people a copy on Saturday night and tell them not to bother. Moan over.

So after breakfast and our interesting conversation, we prepared the evening Bible Study together. Today it’s Nehemiah 9 - a great prayer in which the Israelites recognise what God has done for them, how their ancestors have sinned in the past, how they have sinned, and how they long to come back to God. Interestingly there were very few difference in our interpretation of the passage.

In the afternoon I decided to get some fresh air, and I once again set off for the Taipei 101 building. A bus and two metro trains got me there in about 20mins. It is truly huge - imagine a posher canary wharf. There is a full-on shopping mall there, including top designer shops. Even the mobile phone store only sold phones made from silver, gold or platinum. The tell tale sign of the absence of price tags was over-bearing, and so I left to treat myself to a Starbuck’s - my first since I arrived. Bliss.

Afterwards I walked to the memorial hall before heading back to the metro…

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