something I'm thinking about in scripture
I was reading 1 Samuel 21-23 in a 1-to-1 Bible study and the claim to power that Saul made struck me:
⁷And Saul said to his servants who stood about him, “Hear now, people of Benjamin; will the son of Jesse give every one of you fields and vineyards, will he make you all commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds,
Here King Saul is frustrated that no one seems to be willing to betray David. Everyone seems to be quietly on the side of a rival to his throne, and Saul tries to sway people to his side, essentially saying, Look, David is this weak, helpless person running away from me. There's no point choosing to support him over me because I own the field and vineyards, I command the thousands and hundreds, and I can give these things to you.
And yet the keen reader of 1 Samuel knows that Saul's words are rather empty. He has twice rejected God's rule over his decisions, choosing to make unlawful sacrifices and choosing to keep some of the Amalekite spoil for himself. But in the present, supporting Saul looks like the wise choice as he sit in power, holding his spear, addressing his troops and servants. David, on the other hand, is hiding in a cave, surrounded by distressed, bankrupt people, running for their lives. It's hard to trust God's words that David will be exalted, and Saul brought to an end.
I too, am tempted to distribute my trust according to the present situation. I'm tempted to think that pursuing and siding with the world as it rejects Jesus is the wise choice. It's hard to see that supporting Christ, who is most known for receiving a Roman criminal's execution, is supporting the King who will be exalted in the end. But in the end, it will be the son of David who will give us, in the age to come, eternal life. As Jesus warned, "For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it." (Mark 8.35)
ministry updates
This past month was pretty exhausting for us as the academic year started and a whole bunch of freshmen joined us, as well as our regular activities kicking off.
There was Vivace, SMU's CCA fair where we talked to people walking by to encourage them to join SMUCF!
(credits to Sarah for snapping a pic)
We had good conversations but lots of rejections too so we went to comfort ourselves by catching some fake fish.
Vivace was quite worth it though, we actually had the chance to share the gospel with a large number of non-Christians. There would be curious freshies who would come up asking what we do and if they were non-Christians we'd ask if they heard about the gospel before, and if they didn't we would share it using the two ways to live booklet!
We also had a welcome dinner which was quite exciting with so many new people coming, but somewhat tiring having to get to know a lot of new people all at once.
Lastly, we had a welcome camp where I took a nap and my shoelaces were tied (then untied before I woke up) by Paul.
Welcome Camp was actually my first time going through the whole book of Haggai which helped me to appreciate the worth of living life with the gospel as the priority. I was struck by how God highlights the futility of focusing on improving our quality of life while ignoring Him. Building the temple is not a futile project because God promises to be with us, and the future temple will surpass all others in grandeur. Although our unclean hands may build an unclean temple where God cannot dwell, He will cleanse us and show us grace. Considering that building the temple today means building each other up (cf. Eph 2:21, 4:15-16), this reframes the project as the most worthwhile and failure-proof endeavor I could pursue on earth—one that God has accomplished at great cost through Christ's death, which washes us clean. We all know the frustration of having a project fizzle out or turn out way below expectations, but this project is one that can't fail and can't disappoint, and so it's worth my every effort.
Paul has also started preaching through Genesis at SUPer Tuesday (please keep him in prayer, he is writing talks for Genesis 6-11 and has found the parts of Noah particularly challenging). Genesis has been rich in helping me understand the worldview side of things. I recently had a conversation in a 121 where we were thinking on how Christians view medical interventions on life threatening situations and one of the things that I realized Genesis 1 shows is that Christians have a distinctive premium that we place on human life leading to why things like abortion and life support is even a debate. Apart from utilitarian considerations like least harm principle or the golden rule, human life is viewed as a gift and a unique dignity from God that has an inherent value in how no other living thing is to be God's image to the world.
On the training side of things, I finished my first preaching practice. We practiced giving 10 minutes evangelistic talks on different passages, I chose the Prodigal Sons. Definitely grew in my appreciation of the gospel being able to hear it presented compellingly and engagingly multiple times, and my appreciation of the practice itself where I was able to hear what my strengths were and how I might improve the talk, as well as learn from how other deliver and explain the gospel.
We're also digging deep into Ephesians now, and I can't express how much I appreciate the space to wrestle with the passage, to learn how to express my thoughts and how to sharpen my understanding of what the passage is saying. In a way it's giving me a new practical experience of the perspicuity of scripture when there are things that we can all see clearly from the text and agree on, and a newfound appreciation for the richness of Scripture where such varied discussions are possible. I've also found the training practically helping me to listen to people as they do Bible studies, and learn what questions to ask that help us move towards a clearer understanding of the passage. Here's a picture from my most recent training session: 
Looking ahead, we're taking one of our SUPer Tuesday sessions to do a Christianity Explored session. It's one of the ways we hope our CFers will be more aware of both CE as a program but also as practical way we hope to partner them in their evangelism.
We're also looking at the Doctrine of Atonement in training, and then we'll kick off a period of looking at Biblical counselling at the end of September.
something fun and unrelated
I went to watch the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra play a few pieces, including Carmina Burana.
Carmina Burana mainly has one famous piece, O Fortuna, but is a rather revealing take on what Deism feels like - believing that there is a higher being that controls things but living in wildly swinging thanksgiving as well as anger towards the being. The opening piece O Fortuna, which laments the fickleness of Fate in introducing misfortune, bookends the whole cantata, where in the middle spring is celebrated and introduced as the time for romance, and loosely follows a protagonist who gets together with a girl until he doesn't, lambasting Fate and asking all to mourn with him.
Funnily enough, the cantata features a tenor soloist whose only job in the 1 hour performance is to come out and sing the song of a roast swan for 3 minutes: 
There is a certain jest to this grand production having such nonsense lyrics that I was rather tickled by.
partner me
Please be praying for our Growth Groups to be putting the CFers into the Word and growing in maturity as they read Ephesians! Pray for our Growth Group Leaders to continue to grow in love for their members and to see the worthwhile nature of the sacrifice they are making. Thank God that we do have a few new and non-Christians who are joining us, as well as God sending us freshmen, pray that we would build them up in maturity.
Pray for me to have a genuine love for God's word and to see godliness as important and desirable. Pray for me to continue to be disciplined in my quiet times even as my enjoyment of them wanes seasonally. Pray that I would also have wisdom as I spend some of my time preparing a purity workshop and a Psalm workshop for next year. Pray also that I would not lose sight of the power of the gospel, and that I would grow in my trust in the Father's sovereign grace.
Thank you also for being so generous with your financial partnership, I've managed to raise 100% of what I need for this year! I've frankly been blown away by the generosity of Christians, it is truly a beautiful thing that God's grace is so powerfully worked.
