chongs · worship

When my GP invited me to “join us for Matariki” at his family practice to give a “small scripture sharing”, I initially didn’t want to do it! In our cultural moment, it’s not always welcomed when Tāngata Tiriti (people here by right of the Treaty of Waitangi) speak for Māori about their customs and values. Nevertheless, the Lord rebuked me from 2 Timothy 4:5: “But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.” So I showed up at Meadowbank Medical yesterday without my community services card but rather, with a guitar and Bible in hand.

It turned out to be a beautiful time. The hangi was delicious, the chats were appreciative, and I was even roped in to sing “Tutira mai nga iwi” together! Significantly, one of the members of our church (Billy Davis, Ngāti Porou) kindly offered to join me in sharing about what Matariki means to Māori. For my part, I used my time as an opportunity to share from Job 38:31 to the dozen or so GPs, nurses, and healthcare professionals about the unanswered questions that confront us, the wisdom of pondering on Matariki like God challenges Job to do in this verse, and of the joy that stargazing brought to some wise men many years later. I’m still working on the art and craft of being gentle, respectful and persuasive among non-Christian audiences (especially as a novice learner of all things Māori). So feel free to let me know how this 8-minute whakāro (thought) from this whakatauki (saying) speaks to you!

“Unanswered Questions” (Job 38:31), 27.6.24, Meadowbank Medical Centre Matariki Celebration

[Pepeha]
Tēnā koutou e te whānau Ōrakei, (Greetings Meadowbank family)

ko Maungarei te maunga, (Mt Wellington is the mountain)…

ko Tāmaki te awa, (Tāmaki is the river)…

Kei te noho au ki Tāmaki Makaurau, ki Pakuranga, (I live in Auckland, in Pakuranga)…

nō Taina, Taiwana me Marēhia ōku tīpuna; (China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Aotearoa is my ancestry)

ko Wiremu tōku ingoa; (my name is William)

… and most times I’m here as Dr Choonwei’s patient, but today he’s asked me to give a short whakāro (thought) on Matariki. I do so as Tangati Tiriti (non-Māori), and a Christian minister from Te Hahi Iriiri, the Baptist Churches of Aotearoa. Billy and I are both part of Pakuranga Chinese Baptist Church not far from here – with a number of our members also enrolled at MMC, we are supporters of Manaaki Healthcare and your kaupapa.

(No one wants kai that’s cold, and it’ll be great to hear some of your thoughts on what Matariki means to you. So I promise to stay under single consult length!)

Whatever your faith background, all of us can embrace Matariki at some level. We all love a long weekend (though perhaps not the emails afterwards). Some of us will try out some stargazing, or spend time appreciating our country’s Māori heritage.

And as people who care deeply about health and wellbeing, we will resonate with some themes of Matariki: honouring those who have died, giving thanks for seasons past, asking questions about about the road ahead.

[Questions ahead]

Matariki may be our newest public holiday, but the questions around this season are as old as time itself. Granted, sometimes we Christians don’t do ourselves any favours by acting like we “always have the answers” from this 2000-year old book called the Bible. So I find it really interesting that one of the three times the Bible names Matariki itself, it comes not as an answer, but as a question.

Let me read out Job 38:31 with you, it says:

“E taea rānei e koe te here te huihui o Matariki, e wewete rānei ngā here o Tautoru?”

“Can you bind the chains of Matariki? Or loose the cords of Orion?”

It’s obviously not the typical question you’d hear in a consultation room! But it’s worse than you think. Some of us here get worried about consults going overtime, but be thankful Job’s not enrolled in your practice: his problems were too many to count! He lost his fortune, his children died in a storm – and he got an incurable rash! So yes, Job naturally had a lot of questions for God.

It’s always nice to give clients clarity, and patients good answers. (Dr Luke’s latest answer is caffeine for pain relief!) But when God finally shows up in chapter 38, He gives Job no answers – just a barrage of questions, including this one: Can you tie up Matariki’s chains? Or undo Orion’s belt?

Maybe we can relate to poor Job. Suffering can seem like a riddle. Perhaps this Matariki you have similar unanswered questions. In my line of work, there’s been many a time where I’ve driven home with unanswerable questions. Why did it have to be stage 4 cancer? Why this family and not that one?

[No easy answers]

One thing we learn from this whakatauki (saying) on Matariki is that it’s OK to not have answers straight away. It might seem odd to question the limits of our knowledge: I’m sure your patients don’t walk in thinking: “I need to see a doctor who doesn’t have all the answers!” But Matariki should humble us. Can you bind those stars? No! None of us are good at everything. I may be familiar with the Bible, but I can’t auscultate for chips. You’re some of the smartest people serving in Meadowbank, yet you still google for help during some of your cases! It’s OK not to have all the answers straight away. So this Matariki, I plan to fly kites with my kids and leave the messages unread. We can enjoy some rest this holiday, even if our to-do lists are unfinished. You can have a coffee with a struggling friend, leave their tough questions unanswered, and just be present.

Job’s whirlwind encounter with God didn’t turn him into an expert. Yet he was transformed. While Job never got all his questions answered (and nor do we), the next time he saw Matariki rising, he was wiser from his encounter with Te Ihōwa Atua, the LORD God who made the stars (Gen 1:17) and asks this simple question:

E taea rānei e koe te here te huihui o Matariki?
Can you bind the chains of Matariki?

[One stellar answer]

Every time I gaze into the stars on my morning run, I have many unanswered questions. Yet I see the fingerprints of a Maker who loves me and sent His Son to rescue me.

Because many generations after Job’s Matariki moment, a different star led some wise men to the town of Bethlehem. Some of you will know this story. But in this Middle Eastern town still surrounded by soldiers today, the night sky gave one answer to the many questions these magi had. “Where is the King?” they had asked. “For we have come to worship him” (Mt 2:2).

But instead of a god of their own imagining, they come face to face with the boy Jesus. Ihu Karaiti. Descended from kings. A “Bright Star” for dark times: born in Bethlehem, lived in Galilee, died in Jerusalem, rose again to give life everlasting. For Christians, this Jesus is the Bright Morning Star. Our Matariki. “When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.” (Mt 2:10) And if joy sounds too good to be true, talk to someone about it. Find a Wayfinder for your spiritual journey. Can we bind the chains of Matariki? No. But can they point us to the King of Kings? Can I encourage you, don’t leave that question unanswered. Ngā mihi o Matariki, te tau hou Māori. Tēnā koutou.

For Reflection:

1. How will you enjoy this Matariki holiday? What will you leave unfinished and unanswered to do so?
2. What hard questions are you facing in your practice / family / life? What will help you, like Job, be OK about not having all the answers?
3. How can the stars (or who they point to) humble you or change your perspective?

The book of Ruth is a perennial favourite in women’s bible studies, retreats and devotional material. Much of it unfortunately preaches a gospel of prosperity though – “go find your Boaz” and other similar summaries abound. Is Ruth really about a harvest-time romance? Or is there more going on in this ancient tale?

Our immigrant church recently had the joy of preaching through Ruth’s story over 4 weeks. What we found was a timeless immigrant story that showed God’s redeeming love through the faith of courageous individuals. Naomi follows her family to the fields of Moab but experiences tragedy and bitterness. Ruth, her Moabite daughter-in-law, has never been to the “Promised Land” but by faith courageously cleaves to Naomi (1:14) as they return to Bethlehem (literally “the house of bread”). Back here, Ruth chances upon the field of Boaz while gleaning for food to survive. He invites her to “stick closely” or “cleave” to his workers in the harvest field for blessing and protection (2:8, 2:21). After the harvest, Naomi actively seeks for an opportunity to provide “rest” for her daughter-in-law (3:1), Ruth daringly proposes marriage to Boaz in the night, and he swiftly becomes their willing guardian-redeemer at great cost to himself. The author concludes with the women of Bethlehem praising God for providing Naomi with a grandson and not bringing her family line to “rest” (4:14). The rest is “His story”….

While Ruth is a great book that explores themes like suffering, faithfulness, love and the immigrant experience, reading it again reminded me how God’s redemptive plan for his people ultimately comes through Christ our “guardian-redeemer” – someone willing to cling to us with loyal love through his death and resurrection for our sins.

In preparation for the series, I appreciated reading Ruth in Biblical Hebrew alongside two gifted sisters (both starting / finishing their PhDs and very sharp thinkers when it comes to the world of Old Testament and Hebrew!) On the text itself, there are lots of helpful guides out there including fellow alumnus Peter Lau’s NICOT volume on Ruth published this year. I found the most practical for preachers was Teaching Ruth and Esther: From Text to Message by Christopher Ash (from the Proclamation Trust series).

For preachers, bible study leaders and keen readers, here’s a few thoughts on preaching Ruth from the Hebrew text in no particular order:

• Firstly, you can do it! If you’ve completed an introductory Biblical Hebrew course (e.g. Daily Dose of Hebrew’s free lessons keyed to Mark Futato’s grammar), recently or in the distant past, Ruth is a very suitable book to see first-hand the value of translating and teaching from the Hebrew text. It’s a biblical narrative with lots of first-year Hebrew vocabulary, the story gives you lots of practice with feminine parts of speech and word forms, and there are plenty of exegetical payoffs. For the less-confident and rusty (like me!), there are plenty of language-related helps out there from the likes of Aleph with Beth (free), Lingua Deo Gloria (free) and GlossaHouse (paid) to help you enjoy Ruth in the brilliant colours of Biblical Hebrew.
• While Christians typically assume Ruth to be one of the “historical books”, this is an unfortunate result of the canonical tradition inherited from the Latin Vulgate. The earliest Hebrew manuscripts placed Ruth not between history books like Judges and 1 Samuel, but alongside Lamentations, Esther, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs (as the five Megillot or “scrolls”), and adjacent to other wisdom literature like the Psalms, Proverbs and Job. That’s good reason to preach Ruth as wisdom narrative (like Esther and Job).
• Contrary to the stereotypical view of Ruth’s story, the only mention of “love” in the Hebrew text is in the final verses when the women praise Naomi for her daughter-in-law, “who loves you…” (4:15; the phrase “made love” in the NIV translation of 4:13 is better translated as “they came together”, e.g. NRSV). The greatest love story in the book of Ruth isn’t a romantic or sexual love between a man and a woman: it’s the loyal love between a mother and her daughter-in-law. This fact alone should reframe how we present this book to our sex and relationship-obsessed world. Ruth has much to offer to both married and unmarried, both young and old.
• Needless to say, it’s therefore a wrong turn to present Ruth as a “how-to” on dating and romantic relationships. Despite the well-intentioned hopes of church members keen to set up “Ruths” in their church with guys like “Boaz”, unless you live in the time of the judges and live in a family clan that obligates you to ancient Near Eastern customs of levirate marriage (e.g. Genesis 38) and Israelite property redemption (e.g. Leviticus 25:25), what’s described in Ruth should not be prescribed without first considering what the text actually says. The fact is that Boaz (an older man based on how he describes everyone in his field as “young man” or “young women”) explicitly states his reason for marrying Ruth twice: “to maintain the name of the dead [Elimelek, Naomi’s former husband]… so that his name will not disappear…” (4:5, 4:10). Consider too that the climax of the story isn’t Ruth’s wedding: it’s King David’s family tree and the greater blessings that come from his royal line.
• Rather, having spent a fair bit of time in the book of Job previously, I found it especially comforting personally and pastorally helpful to read the book as “Naomi’s story”, and to consider this book as the Bible’s feminine counterpart to the book of Job. No story of suffering is identical, yet I don’t think it’s a stretch to draw connections between Naomi and Job: both share stories of suffering and bitterness, and both end with restoration and redemption, and the main protagonist gaining a renewed vision of the LORD. The book of Ruth is far richer taught as a story of redeeming love amidst great suffering than a saccharine “boy meets girl” adventure.
• On structuring a sermon series, the traditional chapters work well. I found it interesting how each chapter features a particular posture: there’s a lot of “walking” in chapter 1, lots of “coming” / “going” in chapter 2, lots of “lying” / “lying down” in chapter 3, and lots of “sitting” in chapter 4. The author seems to invite us to view Ruth’s story as poetry in motion, over four parts.
• There’s a beautiful symmetry to the story that’s worth highlighting as you travel through the book. Ruth 1 and 4 bookend Naomi’s narrative arc, and emphasise her story arc from bitter and broken after a decade of loss in the “fields of Moab”, to full and satisfied after returning to the land of God’s promises. It’s also worth contrasting Ruth 2 and 3: in one chapter the scene describes immediate provision and loving-kindness out in the open field, the next scene shows the offer of permanent provision and loving-kindness in the more intimate space of the threshing floor.
• While most of God’s activity is implicit, the author explicitly highlights the LORD’s sovereign hand twice: at the start, when He “visits his people” with food (1:6), and at the end when he brings a miraculous conception to a previously childless woman (4:13). Both are wonderful gospel themes fully expressed in the incarnation of Christ, who visits us in the flesh through a miraculous conception to the virgin Mary (Matthew 1:18-25).
• The author repeats a number of Hebrew words that serve as key themes of this book. For example: 1) the word שׁוב (“turn”, “return”) punctuates the opening chapter 11 times as Naomi struggles with which way she and her daughters-in-law should “turn” in the opening episode; 2) the word חֵן (“favour”, “grace”) occurs 3 times and all in chapter 2 to emphasise that is exactly what Naomi and Ruth find when they return to the land of promise.
• Other thematically significant words and ideas include דבק (“stick closely”, “cleave”; 1:14, 2:8, 2:21), חֶסֶד (“loving kindness” / “loyal love”; 2:20, 3:10), and the idea of rest (מָנ֖וֹחַ in Ruth 3:1, הִשְׁבִּ֥ית in 4:14). My favourite Hebrew language insight is that Boaz’s desire to “to raise up” descendants (לְהָקִ֥ים in Ruth 3:5 and 3:10) is the same root word Job uses to express his hope for a Redeemer who will “arise” or “stand” upon the earth (יָקֽוּם in Job 19:25). This “resurrection” hope becomes a reality when King Jesus walks the earth, goes to the cross, lies in the tomb, and finally sits at the right hand of God. The gospel, too, is poetry in motion from a Redeeming Love who was “raised for our justification” (Rom. 4:25).
• The variety of themes in the book of Ruth means it’s possible to preach Christ from the book of Ruth in a number of ways each time. Of course, the genealogy that closes the book can simply be extended further via Matthew 1 to show Jesus as the ultimate King that Ruth’s redemption leads to. But there is also: 1) the theme of immigrating physically (and spiritually) to God’s promised place in chapter 1, and the necessity for us to “turn” to God’s promises and cling to Him by faith; 2) the theme of finding a redeemer in God’s promised place in chapter 2, and the possibility of a greater redeemer than Boaz; 3) the intimacy of the marriage and redemptive proposal in chapter 3, and the greater union we that’s been promised to us through the new covenant that Christ proposes (and completes!) for His beloved Bride, the church (c.f. Eph. 5:31-32); 4) the costly sacrifice that Naomi and Ruth’s redemption requires (the loss of Boaz’s estate), which is a great opportunity to preach the infinitely costly sacrifice God the Son made on the cross for our sins.

Our church considered Ruth over 4 sermons. If you’re interested, you can also listen to and download them on Spotify, Apple and elsewhere.

In some Christian circles, it’s popular to look up the advice of “experts” and “consultants” for help with church planting, worship, preaching and strategy. Yet imagine if you could overhear a conversation between a young church plant in a strategic city, and the pastor and preacher who helped found their church. How helpful would that be?

Our church had the privilege of exactly this as we recently completed a sermon series through the book of 1 Corinthians called “Christ Amid Chaos”. Over six months, we heard directly how similar the church in Corinth was to ours today: gifted, but worldly. Diverse, but divided. Yet despite their (and our!) numerous issues, Paul’s words of love and affection were so helpful in calling us to follow Jesus alone (not other preachers), and to live holy lives. After first hearing an expository sermon series from this book in 2008 as a young follower of Jesus, I found it a huge privilege 15 years on to help guide our young English-speaking congregation through the gospel-saturated wisdom from this part of God’s Word.

To prepare for this sermon series, I translated 1 Corinthians from the Greek NT text (with occasional peeks at the Chinese Union Version / 和合本 for the sake of our more Chinese brothers and sisters). On the text, among the many available commentaries on 1 Corinthians, I found Andrew Wilson’s “1 Corinthians for You” commentary the most helpful and accessible for busy pastors, with Gordon Fee’s magisterial commentary helpful on the details. Andrew Naselli’s contribution in the ESV Expository Commentary was also helpful (and supported by his diligently prepared recitation of the whole letter from memory!)

Around the area of spiritual gifts, I found Don Carson’s “Showing the Spirit” unmatched for depth and breadth on exegetical and pastoral issues (if a bit dated regarding recent trends among Pentecostal and Charismatic movements). On the perplexing and sometimes heated discussions around women in the church of Corinth, I was most grateful for the perspectives from Claire Smith (“God’s Good Design”), Kathy Keller, Michael Bird and Craig Keener (arranged here roughly along the complementarian-egalitarian spectrum). There’s definitely less scholarship out there on 1 Corinthians from non-Western perspectives, so I look forward to keep discovering and learning in future!

For preachers, bible study leaders and keen readers, here’s a few thoughts and tips in no particular order:

• The questions in this book raise a lot of questions and difficult pastoral issues: interpersonal conflict, unrepentant sin, division, sexual immorality, singleness and marriage, eating and drinking, and worship culture. Be prepared to follow up your sermons or studies with time and willingness to chat with those who are struggling with personal or pastoral issues. The goal is not to condemn each other but to lift our collective gaze to our faithful God, who calls his holy people into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ (1 Cor 1:9).
• Paul saves his most important point to the end: it is the gospel that is of first importance (1 Cor 15:3-4), and the answer to our holiness amidst a messy church in a messy world. I made the most of this fact by preaching the gospel every time I could, and showing how the gospel is both the power and pattern for us to live as holy people in Christ. (A bonus was helping the kids in our church learn and recite this memory verse!)

• One key insight for interpreting 1 Corinthians for me was to realise that the church in Corinth was young, cross-cultural, and multilingual — just like ours. This helped me to better connect Paul’s teachings to the actual issues and tensions faced by our immigrant church, situated in a cosmopolitan city like 1st-century Corinth.
• 1 Corinthians is a fairly lengthy letter (after Romans, it’s the longest letter in the New Testament) – so introducing some variety into the preaching schedule and format may help your congregation make it through edified rather than exhausted. I was especially grateful that in the Lord’s providence, I could call on some fellow pastors also journeying through 1 Corinthians this year for advice on exegetical and pastoral issues, but also to guest preach some of the chapters in the series faithfully and reliably.
• Another way to add variation to a 6-month sermon series is to employ different preaching styles and structures. As much as I treasure and prefer Jesus’s style of expositing the Scriptures (c.f. Luke 24:27) as the bread and butter of pastoral preaching, it can get wearisome without some creativity. Some ways I tried to vary my preaching style included a first-person narrative sermon (“Am I Not An Apostle?”, 1 Cor 9), a sermon structured around an extended Corinth x Barbie crossover to explain women in worship (1 Cor 14:26-40), and an 8-minute sermon preached mostly ex tempore to close off the series. Not everything worked perfectly, but perhaps that’s to help us see “foolishness” of the gospel in the world’s eyes, but the greater wisdom of Christ amidst this.
• Concerning spiritual gifts, I found it helpful to flag to our leaders up front my own convictions on 1 Corinthians 12-14 regarding the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and why. Prior to starting a “mini-series” on these chapters (“Spectacular Church”), I prepared an internal Q&A outlining my stance on various questions, and our pastors gathered as a preaching team to discuss areas of agreement and difference (almost unheard of in a Chinese church!) Doing this helped us to preach through this very contested portion of God’s Word in a way that honoured Paul’s own approach: offering pastoral wisdom so as the church in Corinth was not uninformed (1 Cor 12:1), yet making the basis of our unity as a church the belief that “Jesus is Lord” (1 Cor 12:3) and in His gospel “of first importance” (1 Cor 15:3-4), rather than a particular view of spiritual gifts.

• Finally, because of the pastoral and conversational nature of this letter, we offered the church multiple opportunities to ask questions about what they were hearing, culminating in a 30-minute Q&A panel (PDF version here). In our church the questions mostly revolved around spiritual gifts, but our hope was not just that we answered people’s questions, but did so in a gracious way that edified everyone in our worship services (the heartbeat of Paul’s advice in 1 Cor 12-14).

We considered 1 Corinthians over 26 sermons (for 1 Corinthians 12-14, we looked at it over 5 sermons). If you’re interested, you can also listen to and download them on Spotify, Apple and elsewhere.