More Livingstone

Another quote about Dr. Livingstone:

"[A prayer] - not, to be noted, for his own safety (he never prayed for that) - but only for the furtherance of his enterprise and the salvation of hethen Africa."

And a quote by Livingstone:

"...And [in India], as well as in other lands where missionaries in the midst of masses of heathenism seem like voices crying in the wilderness - Reformers before the Reformation - future missionaries will see conversions following every sermon. We prepare the way for them. May they not forget the pioneers who worked in the thick gloom with few rays to cheer except such as flow from faith in God's promises. We work for a glorious future which we are not destined to see - the golden age which has not been, but yet will be...
"For this time we work; may God accept our imperfect service."

His attitude in the last quote reflects my attitude towards Japan, though I am far from a pioneer. Yet it may be that my work is to prepare the way for another. And look at the results of the preparation of men like Livingstone! The gospel has exploded in Africa, and the center of gravity of the church has shifted there and to East Asia. These words were prophetic indeed.

Livingstone

I'm currently reading a book on David Livingstone. "David Livingstone, His Life and Letters," by a guy named George Seever, Copyright 1957. Livingstone was definitely one of "The Greats," if such a title means anything. He was a missionary through and through, and he endured things that modern missionaries would find unfathomable. He seemed to be a rather serious, dry person, but nothing stopped him. He lived 1813-1873. I'll give you a couple quotes by him:

"I am spared in health, while all the company have been attacked by the fever [malaria]. If God has accepted my service, then my life is charmed till my work is done."

Later, he had "Seven attacks of malaria in nine weeks." However, he kept travelling while sick with malaria.

"It is not the encountering of difficulties and dangers in obedience to the promptings of the inward spiritual life, which constitutes tempting of God and Providence; but the acting without faith, proceeding on our errands with no previous convictions of duty, and no prayer for aid and direction."
-I think by "tempting of God," he's referring to putting God to the test. i.e., it's not when we encounter insurmountable difficulties (7 attacks of malaria in 9 weeks) that we're sinning by putting God to the test, but it's when we act without faith and proceed forward without prayer or conviction of what God wants us to do that we are testing His providence. In other words, if we go forward in obedience and encounter dificulties, there is no testing of Him involved: He is sure to come through. I think that's what he's saying.



"Can the love of Christ not carry the missionary where the slave-trade carries the trader?"

"I shall open a path to the interior, or perish."

If you want to read more about David Livingstone (for free), I recommend this site: http://www.missionaryetexts.org/#davidlivingstone It has his journals, some memoirs, and a few biographies, all of which are now public domain. You can print them out and bind and read them as a book, if you want. I'm wanting to take advantage of that site more. Public domain stuff is amazing on the internet.

The quote most assicoated with him is "Dr. Livingstone, I presume." He was deep in the jungles of Africa, and he met another Caucasian, HM Stanly. Stanly instantly knew he'd found Livingstone (because there were no other white men in those jungles) and said the above quote (so the story goes).

I sometimes feel like that in Japan, though not so much in the Tokyo area. But sometimes, you can say, "I'll be waiting for you at the station. I'll be easy to spot, because I'm a foreigner."

"Mr. Stoll, I presume?"

Good life

October 16, 2009

The Good Life that God has Given Me

Arriving home just now and walking into an empty house, I found myself meditating with simple thanks that God has given me a good life to live, and I am thankful for this. He has given me a good life for the living.

I found myself walking to the train station today singing hymns quietly to myself with a sense of gratitude for the cool air on my skin and the silence occasionally punctured by screeching trains along the tracks.

I had a good family growing up.

I was given an experience of true love... not the romantic kind yet, but a deep family of loving Christians in San Luis Obispo. And I saw a revival in action in that place. Not many have experienced that.

I have now felt true pain and loneliness, and on the other side of it, life is the sweeter and my joy double-rebounded from knowing it.

Naked Men and Simple Testimonies

Oct. 11, 2009

Naked Men and Simple Testimonies

Sunday night

Well, here I am in Chiba-ken, relaxing and seeking what the Lord has for me upon my return to Japan (next year). I've wanted to get back to writing about the holiness of God, but with all the moving and such, this is one of the first times in the last couple weeks that I've sat down to actually write. My author's heart weeps because of this.

Yesterday, I went to a retreat with Jesus Community Chapel (a.k.a. Calvary Chapel Kokubunji), and I just got back. It was a marvellous experience.

It was also a tough experience: there were hours and hours of Japanese sermons (Calvary Chapel pastors talk just as long in in Japan), and though there was a translation, I tried to listen in Japanese, and I picked up somewhere around 50%. It was pretty awesome to listen to a sermon in Japanese and actually get something out of it. However, I was short on sleep and so really struggled, especially during some of those sleepy, mid-afternoon messages. However, I really had a good time communicating with a lot of people in Japanese.

The most powerful part was spending time with men. Apart from just being darn-lonely in Kagawa, I was really short on fellowship with men. And I realized just how powerful that fellowship is this weekend. “As iron sharpens iron.”

The Bath

After all the sessions were done last night, we went to our room (13 guys in one, big room; only me and one other were foreigners) and started donning hotel-provided yukatas (a type of Japanese robe). I knew we were headed for the onsen (Japanese bath).

Now, I've done Japanese baths and know the etiquitte, though I'm still afraid that some rule I don't know will someday stab me in the back. The first and most important part is to walk into the bath labelled “men” (unless you happen to be a woman, of course). Thankfully, I've never screwed that one up. Inside, there's a changing room. The only thing you change into is your birthday suit; welcome to the onsen.

In the actual bath-room, there's a bath and showers. You're supposed to shower before you soak in the bath, so as to keep the water clean. That's another one that would be really rude to screw up. The bath is just for boiling... err... soaking. Anyways, in all this, the one thing you have to cover yourself is a small, white towel (well, till you hop in the bath, at least).

The 4 or 5 times I've done a Japanese bath, it's been alone or with only one or two others. This time, there were about 15 of us. And you know, that's a whole different experience. Working up the courage to go into a public bath isn't quite as hard when you're going in with that many guys, but I still haven't got used to people carrying on a conversation with me while we're all naked. One of the guys commented how cool it was that I shaved with a razor (Japanese men aren't known for their ability to grow beards).

After I was well-boiled, I went out, dried off some, and started putting on my clothes and brushing my teeth. At about 10:00, the official closing time for the onsen, the other foreigner came into the room and took his bath once almost everyone else was out. Somehow, mysteriously, he'd gotten separated from us on the way there. Yeah, foreigners tend to be shy about this sort of thing.

By now, I'm used to the whole onsen concept, but I still get nervous every time I go into one. This time, I realized that it's not being seen naked that bothers me as much as having to see other guys naked. That's just one of those things in this life I'd rather pass on. When you're alone, you can avoid it, but with 15 others in small room... Well, still getting used to that very revealing part of Japanese culture.

Men's Fellowship

After our bath, we went back to the guy's room and played a card game called Cucco (apparently made in 16th century France or something like that) until late at night. Later than was healthy: I really needed some sleep.

However, sometime in the middle of playing that game, I felt a strong sense of peace and goodness. And I realized how much I have been lacking in male fellowship and how much I've been longing for it. Just being a part of that group and having some guys to hang out with, from a couple middle-school-age kids to a man in his 50s, was an experience of sublime contentment for me. And despite everything else, I gotta say that the onsen contributed to it. Some kind of bizarre bonding happens when you're without clothes.

Men need other men for fellowship. I've been on the other side of that (having little fellowship and virtually no time for men to be men). And though I can't yet prove it from scripture, I gotta say that I now know from experience that men need fellowship with other men in a group of only men. You just can't escape that part of human nature.

I give glory to God for that night. We'd been praying in one of the earlier sessions for a filling of the Spirit, and it seems that God answered my prayer to Him, but in a totally different way, not with a spectacular experience of a new depth of knowledge of Himself, but with the simple, incredible pleasure of a guy's night.

The Testimony

I'll tell you about another fascinating experience I had. I spoke to a woman at lunch today, and she told me about the women's evening. They stayed in conversation till deep in the night. Each had talked about how they each came to know Jesus. The testimony that really impressed this lady was another woman's, and it was really a rather simple testimony. She had always felt like there was something wrong in her, so she went to church, and now she's a Christian. I mean, that was basically it. I was surprised that this was the testimony that had stuck out so much from that night.

Here's why it stuck out: when a Japanese person hears about something like a yakuza (Japanese mafia) who repents and becomes a Christian, it's an amazing story, but it doesn't connect in the sense of, “Oh, this is just like me.” It's too big, too grand. A yakuza is a real criminal who deserves to go to jail. But most Japanese are very respectible, kind people.

“Tsumi” is the Japanese word we use for sin. It's not used very often, but I've heard it on the news before when they were talking about a criminal. And that's more how the word comes across when people hear it. Crime. A tsumi-bito (sinner) is like a criminal. So, when they hear one of these testimonies that we Americans would call amazing, the concept of “I'm a sinner” is not understood.

However, when Japanese hear a simple testimony like the above one, it hits home. It's a normal, ordinary Japanese person telling this, not someone on the fringes of society. Apparently, that has some power to break down the “I'm not a sinners” wall that keeps Japanese people out of the kingdom. They realize that even though they're normal members of society, they have sin, and some of the emotional repression of Japanese society begins to crack.

People in Japan who have not had a Christian upbringing are all-but terrified of walking into a church for the first time. Often (most of the time?) they have some huge problem. The ladies who heard that testimony were surprised, and I also was surprised to hear that a women with no major crisis in her life saw a church sign and went to church. That just doesn't happen in Japan. It almost always takes something really, really big (like attempting suicide or something) for a Japanese to come to church.

That woman's testimony was powerful because it says that you can become a Christian without coming to the brink of your sanity.

My wife is ugly

In America, we play things up. That's part of our culture. In Japan, you play things down. Japan is a very modest culture. When you give someone a gift, you say something that translates roughly to: “It's a boring thing, but...” When someone says to you, “Your wife is beautiful,” the proper response is, “No, she's actually ugly.” And when someone says, “Your son is really good at math,” you should reply, “Not really, he's rather stupid.” Why?

In Japan, if you say that your wife is beautiful or your child is actually good at math, you sound really boastful. I personally think that it's best to just say “thank you” rather than scarring your child for life, but that's not what the culture expects. You always make things seem small. You try not to stick out.

So, the testimony. This is a perfect, Japanese testimony! It's small. It's modest. “I felt like something was wrong, so I started going to chuch, and I got saved.” The big testimonies are too loud, too boisterous for Japan. They probably even scare some Japanese off. What self-respecting Japanese wants to go to a church with a bunch of ex-yakuza running around? Most people here manage their lives very well in absolute plainness and don't want anything big or flashy to happen (unless it's a promotion at work). They're really quite like hobbits.

Well, hopefully soon I can return to my meditations on holiness, but I hope you've enjoyed my little account of the retreat.

In Chiba

If anyone is curious, I've arrived in Chiba (which is near Tokyo). Here's a map!


View Some places I've been in October, 2009 in a larger map

I'm staying with the head of my mission for about a month and will be exploring options for future language school and service in the Tokyo area. I just visited Osaka and had a good time there after saying my farewells in Kagawa.

Please pray for wisdom with what I should do and that I'd be able to keep myself busy here!!!

Holiness and the Golden Calf

Sept. 26, 2009

Holiness as Cleanness

For the moment, I'm going to skip my Greek exploration of holiness and look at God's reaction to His holiness being violated by His people. In Exodus 32, we read of the tale of the golden calf, and I think that we can learn a lot about God's holiness from this. Or rather, what His holiness wasn't.

The Golden Calf

In this period of time, the giving of the law, God was revealing to Israel things never revealed before. He was showing them who He was and what He wanted of them. So, I do not think it is too far a stretch to say that from the golden calf incident, God chose to show things about His character.

A first interesting thing to note is that Aaron was not making a new god, He was saying to Israel, “This is your God, oh Israel, who brought you out of Egypt!” (32:4) In verse 5, he even said that they would have a feast to YHWH, meaning that the golden calf (in his opinion) was an idol of YHWH, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He did not seek to create a new god, but simply to give a form to the invisible God.

Why was this such a great sin? After all, it seems like he was just trying to help the people worship God! Well, yes, but there are a lot of problems with the way he went about it. God had already commanded them (Ex. 20:4) not to make idols in the form of anything in heaven above or earth below. Srike one. In addition, it sounds like they were indulging in an orgy. Strike two. But perhaps the greatest strike (and the list could go on) is that this was a violation of God's holiness.

First of all, it's interesting to note that to Moses, the calf was not a perverted version of God, it wasn't God. He said, “They have made for themselves a god of gold.” (32:31). I wish I had the Hebrew knowledge to say for sure, but it sounds like Moses is saying “that's something other than YHWH.” Why? Why didn't he just say that it wasn't right to worship an idol and call it YHWH? Why was the golden calf something that was entirely not YHWH?

I believe the greatest part of that answer is that the idol was not holy. Remember, holiness is separateness. It is the other-worldliness of God. No animal could capture that essential part of God. Not only is a calf an every-day animal, but by worshipping the invisible God as a statue, you make him just like all the gods of the surrounding nations, who are worshipped as idols. In other words, by making him every-day, you strip Him of His holiness.

Perhaps more than anything, that is what the Israelites got wrong at the golden calf. That is why the anger of God burned against them. And so, from that incident, we see the essenense of holiness (separateness) displayed again. This is the negative of it: what holiness is not.

One more interesting note

One more interesting note about the golden calf incident is the description of the tablets which the law was written on: “Now the tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets.” That is appropriate. The tablets were not God. They were not an image of God. They were His writing, and in them people could learn of Him, but they were not objects of worship.

The tablets maintained God's holiness. They were holy, but there was a layer of separation between them and most holy God. They were just His work. Because they were not an object of worship, in a sense, they were an antithesis of the golden calf.

Another interesting part of this story is where Moses intercedes, in verses 11-14. Because Moses pleaded for the people, God relented and did not bring the calamity He was threatening. It's just like Jesus. Because He intercedes for us, God relents and does not punish us as our sins deserve. By not worshipping Him and serving Him as He deserves, we are just as guily as the Israelites. We do not treat Him as holy: no one does. And when you violate the holiness of God, you deserve wrath, a plague. However, like Moses, Jesus steps in the way, and God gives us His mercy.