我们看到天主教会在接下来的几个世纪里一直忠实于这些话。在宗徒大事录的结尾，圣保禄终于到达了帝国的中心–罗马。从那里，福音向西进入欧洲。快进到16世纪，传教士在美洲、非洲登陆并返回亚洲。圣方济·沙勿略（St Francis Xavier），亚洲的传教士和传教士的共同主保圣人，试图激发那些自称是天主教徒的人的热情，使他们 “完全听从天主的呼唤。他们确实会从灵魂深处呼喊：’主啊，我在这里。祢想让我做什么？把我送到祢希望的任何地方，甚至远至印度！'”
Let’s face it, if you really think about it, life is scary – There is much more we cannot control than what we can. You might get to your destination safely but an errant driver can mount the sidewalk and mow you down. As part of your weekly routine, you could be going for a leisurely run in the park and then have a tree come crashing down on you like it did the lady in Marsiling park. In many instances in our lives, we actually take it “on faith” that things will work out. We ride the elevators in faith, we take public transport in faith, we soar through the air and cross international time zones in faith, yet, when it comes to the Lord’s will in our lives, we have more faith in the builders of rollercoaster rides than we do our heavenly Father.
What is faith?
In Hebrews 11:1, Faith is described as being “certain of what we do not see.” It is an absolute belief that God is constantly working behind the scenes in every aspect of our lives, even when there is “nothing your senses can discern”. When we fail to understand that God is always working behind the scenes, unbelief gains the upper hand in our thoughts, giving fear a moment to take hold and for anxieties to cloud your judgement. Let me put it this way, we don’t see the maintenance personnel keeping our aeroplanes flight worthy do we? Yet we trust that these winged contraptions will ferry us safely. What gives?
I fear nothing, for all is, as the Force wills
Anti-fragile faith or How to Trust your Heavenly Father
“Daddy, this is yummy! I like all the dishes you choose.” Remember when you didn’t like any food I recommended? “Yes.. but I was young!” And then one day you decided to try the mee goreng I’ve always wanted you to try! “And before that, prata with curry instead of sugar…” And.. it was the dahl curry which wasn’t too spicy for you and now you eat all kinds of curry and spicy mee goreng. “Now I know that daddy knows what I like and I can trust his choices!”
“Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”
Matthew 7:9-11
Suffice it to say, as a father to two young children, I often find myself lacking in wisdom and intellect to steward these souls entrusted to me. We are flawed and with the aid of the Holy Spirit, dare we hope to raise children to reflect His glory. That said, our Father in heaven lacks nothing and so, if our children can trust in our human “goodness”, we definitely can trust in the Lord’s true goodness. Do you trust your Grabcar or Taxi driver to take you to your desired destination? If that is so, what more when Jesus takes the wheel?
What no sense discerns, faith reveals
Testimony: Is this bread? It looks like a stone!
Some time ago, I had prayed for deliverance from a particularly toxic boss, it was because of this boss, I spent all my lunch hours in fasting and prayer at the nearby church for close to two years. Eventually, I had two meetings with a potential new employer and while I was confident of God’s plans to prosper and not fail me (Jeremiah 29:11), what my eyes saw as doors opening, closed. But still, I understood, “His will, not mine be done”. When I finally received the call that it was not to be, I was sad, and even lost for a moment but a minute later, a weight lifted off my shoulders.
Why? Because God’s never breaks His promises. Since God promises that if you ask for bread, He won’t give you a stone, it is therefore not a stone and I trusted that God was planning something even better for me, so I fell to my knees and gave thanks. Indeed, almost a year later, something better did come.
David got up from the floor, washed his face and combed his hair, put on a fresh change of clothes, then went into the sanctuary and worshiped. Then he came home and asked for something to eat. They set it before him and he ate. His servants asked him, “What’s going on with you? While the child was alive you fasted and wept and stayed up all night. Now that he’s dead, you get up and eat.” “While the child was alive,” he said, “I fasted and wept, thinking GOD might have mercy on me and the child would live. But now that he’s dead, why fast? Can I bring him back now? I can go to him, but he can’t come to me.”
2 Samuel 12:20-24
Walk by faith, not by sight
Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us that faith is a gift, and that faithfulness is a “fruit” produced in our lives by the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23). Our faith is a confident assurance in an omnipotent God who loves us and cares about our deepest needs. That faith grows when it is tested and we discover each time that God comes through for us. This gift is further nurtured when we get to know the Father as intimately as possible through the Bible and learn the attributes of His amazing character. Biblical heroes like David too experienced fear as he tells us in Psalm 56, “When I am afraid, I will trust in you.” Through the bible, God wants us to know Him and completely rely on His plan in our lives and the Bible is clear that faith does not mature and strengthen without trials. Adversity is God’s most effective tool to develop a strong faith. After all, in the Our Father, do we not pray “Your Will be done”?
He governs by Divine Providence, intervenes in human affairs at specific moments
Not a day passes by that when we watch the news on television or read the newspapers there is always something contentious going on somewhere in the world that causes us to worry. Wars, threats of conflict, the rise of dictators and autocrats, terrorists killing innocent people or some kind of catastrophe that threaten the safety and survival of communities.
Often, it seems as though we are approaching the Parousia or Second Coming of Christ that 2 Tim 3:1-5 says will be preceded by,
Terrifying times in the last days. People will be self-centered and lovers of money, proud, haughty, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, irreligious, callous, implacable, slanderous, licentious, brutal, hating what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, as they make a pretense of religion but deny its power. Reject them.
But, in our trepidation, we forget that we have a loving God who is in control of everything. Sometimes we forget this even when we seem to remember the point because we unconsciously limit God to what He controls in our lives. But our lives are small and insignificant in comparison to the big things like COVID or the Russia-Ukraine War. Our God is in control of everything, but not truly everything.
So, let us return to the Book of Genesis, to the chapter that literally titled “The Table of Nations”. And let’s read each of the words there. They are not just words or names of people but of countries in the ancient world. Adam, Noah and Abraham were not only individuals, they were also the founding fathers – in a literal sense – of nations.
The Book of Genesis’ stories are about individuals and their relationship with God. At the same time, they are allegories and folk histories of the relationships between Israel and her neighbours in the exilic and post-exilic periods. For example, Esau’s countenance could be used to explain why Persians are tough people.
Abraham, along with Adam and Noah, was the founding father of nations
God intervenes in history when He wills
In his catechesis on 11 March 1998, Pope John Paul II teaches that “As we face the rather slow growth of God’s kingdom in the world, we are asked to trust in the plan of the merciful Father who guides all things with transcendent wisdom”.
Jesus, he says, “invites us to admire the ‘patience’ of the Father, who adapts His transforming action to the slowness of human nature wounded by sin. This patience was already revealed in the Old Testament, in the long history which prepared Jesus’ coming. It continues to be revealed after Christ, in the growth of his Church”.
Jesus speaks of “times” (chrónoi) and “seasons” (kairoí). These two words for time in biblical language have two nuances which are worth recalling. Chrónos is time in its ordinary course and is also under the influence of divine Providence, which governs everything. But into this ordinary flow of history God makes his special interventions, which give a particular saving value to specific moments. These are precisely the kairoí, God’s seasons, which man is called to discern and by which he must allow himself to be challenged.
Pope St John Paul II, 11 March 1998
If we bear in mind this perspective, the Old Testament becomes an epic of international history told through the eyes of Israel – and of God. This God determines the fate of nations by moving people around. If you are a millennial, you may compare this to positioning a hero unit in a real-time strategy game.
In Genesis, God moves Joseph out of Canaan to Egypt. This single action ends up affecting the fates of not one, but two, nations: Israel and Egypt. In Exodus, God takes Moses up the Nile to the Pharoah’s Palace and orchestrates a new season for Israel and Egypt again. As Israel moves through the desert, they encounter many other smaller tribes and nations, and their histories are likewise affected.
The Book of Jonah seems to tell the story of a single errant prophet. As it turns out, however, Jonah was no amateur prophet. He was employed as a professional court prophet in Israel. So he took his embassy to Nineveh not only as a personal mission to the King of the city, but also as a diplomatic mission between Israel and Nineveh, which was the capital of one of Israel’s most fearsome enemy, the Assyrians. At the time Assyria was a superpower just as America and China are today.
And again, in the Book of Esther, God raises Esther to be Queen of Persia. She becomes a bridge between Israel and the Persian Empire. The Jews also believed another Persian, Cyrus the Great, was sent by God to liberate Israel from the Babylonians.
We could say that God works on a chessboard of nations, like a big Risk board. And He knows which pieces to move in order to produce effects in history we can only dream of. God is like an expert chess player who thinks of moves several moves or years in advance.
If we try to look at things from His perspective, we may have a different outlook on history. While much of it may be speculation, it is a good exercise, nonetheless.
Let’s take a normal history question: Why did the British surrender Singapore to the Japanese? The secular reasons, if you are around Asia, should be quite well known. But let’s try a theological spin on the question: Why did God allow the British to lose Singapore to the Japanese? Could we apply a Bible verse to this historical event?
As it turns out, there are two that can fit:
“So, the last shall be first, and the first last”. (Mt 20:14)
“Pride goeth before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18)
The second can work because the British were proud of their belief in the 1930s of their “Empire on which the sun never sets”. They didn’t think much of the threat posed by the Japanese, the Empire of the Rising Sun. And, so, we could speculate that God used the Japanese to bring down Britain’s empire in the East.
If we follow this line of reasoning from Proverbs, the British loss of Singapore, Malaya and Burma was a punishment for their imperial over-confidence.
Matthew 20 can also fit because the Japanese were perceived as the last of the Allies at the end of the First World War, even after they had defeated the Russians. In the Second World War, they became the first in the Far East, eclipsing even China in the process.
But Matthew’s verse also works because of another reason that would not be obvious to a secular historian. After the Second World War, Britain lost its position as the world’s leading superpower.
The country that replaced Britain was the United States, which broke away from the United Kingdom in the 18th Century because they perceived that England was bullying them. From then and right up to the 20th Century, the US was the last of the world’s superpowers, even technically after Japan.
Along these lines, we could speculate that God used the Second World War to reshuffle the balance of power between Britain and the US!
Christ’s vicar, the Pope, is a sovereign religious leader. Image: Unsplashed, Agatha Depine.
Outside the realm of secular nations, in Christianity, we are also taught that the Church is a “holy nation” or the New Israel. Catholicism goes a step further to say that the Church is a visible sovereign government headed by the Pope.
Lumen Gentium (1964) defines the Church as such: “This Church constituted and organised in the world as a society” (LG 76).
The Catholic Church is sovereign
The Church is a society that is complete. That is, She preserves sovereignty separate from all other powers on Earth. The Pope is not just a religious leader, he is a sovereign religious leader. His sovereignty differentiates him from all other religious leaders, including those of other Christian communities. The Church, like the United Kingdom, Singapore, the US or China, is a sovereign nation. Just that it is not one defined by territorial boundaries, but by allegiance given to Jesus Christ.
As the Church is sovereign, She operates at the same level as secular states. When we think of God as literally sovereign, we can understand why the Church is so adamantly against the “privatisation” of religion. As a sovereign society, the Church possesses Her own public sphere that is distinct from the private sphere of Her members, including the clergy.
Participation in the public sphere is an acknowledgement of sovereignty since only a sovereign possesses a public sphere to operate in.
The sovereign interacts with subjects is his sole discretion. In the case of the Church, the true Sovereign is Jesus Christ, and – as taught in Scripture – He seeks to form a personal, brotherly relationship with all of us who are His subjects.
As Catholics, sometimes we hear our Protestant brethren talking about having a personal relationship with God, and may see some Catholic apologists argue against that belief. We may also see the Pope recently very frequently talking about Catholics building a personal relationship with God.
Is the Pope becoming more Protestant, or are those apologists making a mistake? Pope Francis is definitely not becoming more Protestant. The apologists may be making a mistake in some cases, but in most cases, they are trying to argue something totally different.
Sometimes, the Protestant approach risks turning Jesus into some sort of Agony Uncle or coffee shop buddy. But Christ is more than any Christian’s personal assistant or Good Samaritan. He is the Sovereign over all of creation. Therefore, our moral and faith life is not only a matter of private, secret practice, but also something in the public sphere – of laws and government.
Note the term “laws and government”. To govern is more than passing laws and enforcing them. Governing, like other types of leadership, also has a ‘softer’ side. Too often, however, Christians – Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox alike – tend to focus just on the legal aspect. This presents a picture of a God Who is cold, formal and distant, rather than One who cares to establish a familial relationship with His creation.
God is a God of Nations. But, more precisely, He is a God of people organised into Nations and, so, He values interpersonal connections more than procedures and rubrics.
The most important thing to remember is: Nations are first and foremost people before they are procedural administrative structures.
At its heart are starting spiritual conversations, teaching others to form disciples
When we relaunched Lifeline College & Young Adults Ministry at the church of St Francis Xavier in Petaling Jaya, I dare say we did our best to love each person God sent our way. For an English-speaking parish, encountering Sabahans and Sarawakians was novel but we welcomed them.
We were inclusive of the Mandarin-speaking folks. We patiently befriended those who had mental health issues. Every week, after Mass and the gathering, we went for lunch, sports or movie and even dinner.
So when one of the leaders described discipleship as hanging out with each other, it was understandable. But to me who knew discipleship was so much more, it was horrifying.
As Catholics, we were never raised in a disciple-making culture. Maybe I wouldn’t have been such a screw-up if someone had discipled me. So, I was extremely grateful to a college mate who had been with Campus Crusade for Christ for introducing the book, Personal Disciple-making, by Christopher Adsit.
I had never experienced intentionally discipling another person previously, so the dense biblical insights and practical ideas in the book completely overwhelmed me. I am still unpacking it today.
The book introduced me to two critical ideas.
First, I learnt to do discipleship outside of a formal context. As I “did life” with my student leaders, I learnt to broach into spiritual conversations. This is so important, especially when ministering to millennials who wouldn’t come for formal youth gatherings but are willing to chat over dinner.
If I disciple others to disciple others, the ministry grows exponentially as more trained workers are released into the harvest field.
Second, I started to see the vision for spiritual multiplication. No matter how effective I am, if everything only depends on me, every new person I‘m discipling is only a spiritual addition. But if I disciple others to disciple others, the ministry grows exponentially as more trained workers are released into the harvest field.
The next stage in my formation as a disciple-maker was when I encountered the Fellowship of Catholic University Students in the United States (FOCUS) and Catholic Christian Outreach (CCO) in Canada. At last, I was able to see and hear from living witnesses what the discipleship model looked like, especially in a Catholic context.
CCO demonstrated urgency in their bible studies. We only had a few years with the students so we had to be intentional in teaching what they really need to know and practise as Catholics.
FOCUS introduced a one-page Discipleship Road Map that made it clear it starts with calling for a commitment through a kerygmatic presentation of the Gospel. It “ends” when disciples are themselves making disciples.
The Road Map is invaluable as it helps us identify which stage we are at so as to know the next step forward. FOCUS also divided their formations into four areas: human, intellectual, spiritual and apostolic, which really helped me shape the conversations I am having with the people I am discipling. This includes a guideline to talk to men about the awkward topic of chastity.
The larger Catholic Church has entered the conversation on disciple-making primarily through Sherry Weddell’s book, Forming Intentional Disciples.
As more and more church leaders discover that our ad hoc formations and traditional youth and campus ministries aren’t forming missionary disciples who make missionary disciples, more focus has shifted to the discipleship model.
Though I have spent my last 25 years growing as a disciple-maker, I am humbled that there is always so much more to learn.
Where are you on your journey as a disciple-maker? How are you effectively fulfilling Jesus’ last command to “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matt 28:19)?
