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If, in the providence of God, we are wise and industrious, and if, in His sovereignty, God gives us fair play, we will win.

If we are foolish and lazy we will lose in providence and should expect no better.

The providence of God is open wide to us.  In it we can, and should, make the most of what God has given us.

But, in God’s sovereignty the victory and recognition do not always go to those who have worked hard, or to the swift, the strong, the wise, the prepared, those we deem deserving or even to the righteous.  To us, this is not right.

We want, and expect and think that God is, and should be, a rewarder of persons.  We believe that if we do our part then God will do what we think His part ought to be.  We expect to get something from God because of our effort, faithfulness and obedience and that others will be justly rewarded for theirs.  To us this would be righteous.  We think all things should be equal and even.

A sovereign God is hard to take and what Job said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21) is far from our hearts and minds.  Proof that we don’t concur with God in this is the focus on, and human assessment of, what is called success.  Job proved himself immensely righteous and comforted in the sovereignty of God when he blessed God even though, from a human perspective, his loss was completely unjust.

If, either for my sins or by the blessing of God, I suffer misery and affliction I will be happy if I bear them, but only if I do not question God’s providence nor fight against His sovereignty.

To ask “Why, God?” is to question His providence.  It is impossible to fight against the sovereignty of God and win.

IN A VILLAGE CHURCH, part four, from Steve Plodinec.

This is the final installment of my four part report on the events of a visit I took to Martin Seliane’s church with two of my children, Kimberly (15) and Michael (6). Martin is one of our students here at Christ Seminary in Polokwane, South Africa.

After lunch on Sunday Martin and I went on visitation. Martin loves visiting people in their homes and he is very good at it. He said it is his favorite part of the ministry. We visited mainly old ladies who could not come to church that morning for one reason or another. One grey haired grandma offered us a Coke and took the opportunity to have one herself until her granddaughter come in and spoke sternly and loudly to her in Sotho. Martin told me the girl was scolding her grandmother because she is diabetic and not supposed to have sugar. The girl took the Coke and the then the old lady scolded her, but the girl just walked away.

As we were driving around Martin saw two boys about ten years old and he told me to stop. He shouted something out the window and the boys came sheepishly and slowly to the car. When they got there Martin spoke firmly to them in Sotho and then sent them on their way. He told me they go to his church but that they were absent that morning and so he warned them not to take God and His church lightly or they will live to regret it. Martin is a firm, and good, spiritual leader. He just needs to know and understand more of what God says, which is why he is at the seminary.

Apparently my discussion of submission in the home on the radio on Saturday was well received because Martin and I were asked to be on the radio again on Sunday evening and to speak on Christian submission. The host was a local pastor who had his own radio show and he had been at the pastor’s meeting I spoke at the day before. His show is three hours long and he gave us free reign for all three hours. The time flew by. I talked on Christian submission in the world, in the home and in the church. I took the listeners to Acts 5 and Romans 13 for submission in the world, to Ephesians 5 and 1 Peter 3 for submission in the home and to the pastoral epistles, Hebrews 13 and a little in Corinthians for submission in the church, passages which every elder should know by heart. We also took calls and one person said he was tired of the topic and of Christians in general, so, the host told him to be quiet, that he did not know what he was talking about and that he better repent or would end up in hell, then he hung up on the caller. I kind of enjoyed that part of the evening. The show ended at 8pm and Martin and I went back to his house and went to bed soon after. It had been a busy two days of ministry.

Before closing I want to tell you about a visit Martin and I had on Sunday afternoon. One of the visits was to the home of a young couple and their five month old baby daughter. They have been going to Martin’s church for a few months and they wanted to talk to him about becoming members. They were not at church that morning. We drove up to their home, which is an extremely small tin shack, about 8 x 20 feet, and is just one room. Martin knocked and without waiting for an answer we walked in. It was dark inside, and close. The only light was coming in through holes in the scavenged tin walls and from the gaps around the closed crooked door. There were a few dozen holes in the walls about a quarter inch in diameter and I thought, “Why don’t they plug the holes with something? The wind just blows right through this place and it has to be cold for the baby.” It took a moment for my eyes to adjust and when they did I looked around at some shelves made from scavenged wood, an old cabinet, a small table with two rickety chairs, a small wood stove and a few cooking pots and utensils. A moth-eaten blanket served as a barrier between the rest of the room and the bed. We stepped around the blanket. The young wife and mother stood next to the bed, her five month old baby daughter wrapped to her back with a towel. They looked at us when we came in and then back down at the bed where the young father was lying. His breathing was fast and shallow, more like panting and gasping for air, and it was the only sound in the place. I heard it when we first walked in. He was covered with probably every blanket they had, but you could tell he was shaking and trembling. He was dying of aids. We greeted them and Martin spoke to him and his wife for a few moments and then asked me to pray for them.

I felt weak and worthless at that point because I was not even sure if they understood English and because there was nothing else I could do for them. I was just a visitor looking in on a culture and its problems that are foreign to me, and always will be. But – but – at that moment I came to know through experience what I have understood for a long time. Martin is their pastor, and he loves them. He does minister to them and help meet their needs and does much more than I or any other outsider ever could. This is why my work here is important and has eternal consequences. The church in Africa has the Holy Spirit, it has the word of God and it has some good men like Martin leading it. But, they don’t have resources or training or access to them, so the church is weak and immature and struggling. God’s people suffer and are fearful and even sin in ignorance. They don’t have good examples of godly homes, godly leaders or godly churches and most of them don’t even know where to go in the Bible to find out about those things. At the seminary we just give Martin what he does not have, a deeper knowledge and understanding of God and His word, hopefully a closer relationship with God too, so that Martin can then go out and minister to his own people and strengthen the church and glorify God. Why should the church in Africa stumble along in ignorance and weakness for decades or hundreds of years when they can improve now by training the men who already lead their churches?

I am not minimizing the power of prayer, but at that moment I realized there was nothing else I could do, but Martin is their shepherd and he loves them and I can, if God is gracious, help Martin. So, I prayed and asked God to show more grace and mercy to this little family and to heal the young father. I also asked for God to give us all the grace to accept whatever He does here. The man lifted his head and extended a trembling hand out from under the blankets, I grasped it, he held on and said, “Thank you, pastor, for coming and for praying” then he sunk back on the bed. We left. The father died less than a week later. He had just gotten a steady, good paying job and things were looking up for the little family, but now there is another child in Africa who has lost a parent to aids. Such is the human wreckage of sin. Some estimate that over half the people living in villages like this one are infected with aids. It is particularly affecting to see first hand the great needs here in Africa. This is one of the reasons the work here is urgent and why we need trained men preaching the true gospel.

It was a good time of ministry with Martin at the funeral, at church, on the radio and in visiting the people. Time will tell if God makes it fruitful. The same is true of the seminary. It is a good time teaching Martin and the other students. Though we still deal with some cultural issues at the seminary, and always will, God has already proven that it is a fruitful ministry and we pray that He will continue to bless the seminary and the church in Africa through it. Please pray for Martin and his church, for all the students, for all the lecturers and for the seminary.

IN A VILLAGE CHURCH, part three.

Here is the third part of my report on the events of a visit to Martin Seliane’s church. Martin is one of our students here at Christ Seminary in Polokwane, South Africa.

[CULTURAL NOTE: It is not at all derogatory in South Africa to refer to the different races as "whites" or "blacks" or "colored" (mixed races). All people of all races use these terms all the time with no insinuation of racism. I use these terms in this update.]

Time and a schedule are more like general guidelines to the black African culture and that is true for when church is scheduled to start. On Sunday morning we arrived with Martin and his family about fifteen minutes before church was due to begin. The time to start came and went and, besides Martin’s family and myself with two of my kids, there were only two other people at church. People started to make their way in and the church was finally full about half an hour after the service was supposed to start.

I feel it would be appropriate to mention that there was a middle-aged white woman at church on that morning. This is highly unusual in that Martin’s church is on the edge of town in an all black settlement where the poorest of the poor live. She is a lawyer (which to me it is more surprising that a lawyer came to church than a white person came to a black church). She lives in town and Martin had been ministering to her and inviting her to church and she decided to come. Martin witnesses to everyone and invites them all to church. He does not care what their color is and he is trying to break down racial barriers and wants a multi-racial church. A few months ago Martin heard that the man who used to be the head of the South African secret police during the time of white rule had become a Christian. This was the man who’s organization kept track of and “dealt with” any dissent in the country. He is an old white man in his seventies. Martin heard he became a Christian and so he found the old man’s phone number, called him and invited him to come to church and share the gospel and what God had done in his life. The old man accepted. Needless to say there was more than just some raised eyebrows among both the whites and the blacks. Martin advertised, rented the meeting hall and the place was packed with hundreds of people that Sunday. It was quite a day and maybe I’ll have Martin write down what happened and I’ll send it along.

Back to the Sunday I was at Martin’s church – In the black African churches the pastors sit up front on a platform and face the congregation. Since there is no platform in Martin’s church he and I sat against the wall at the front of the shack. This meant my six year old son Michael could not sit with me but instead sat with the other kids his age near the front. Whenever we go anywhere Michael is my constant companion and holds on to me tighter than my shadow so he was not comfortable sitting away from me in new place.

We all sat there for a moment and then, it seemed to me, the congregation just spontaneously began to sing. There was no song leader, but different people would start a song whenever they felt like it. All the singing was in the Sotho language but many of the tunes were familiar. It was mainly responsive singing with one person singing a line and then the congregation echoing the line back. There are some strong voices in Martin’s church and the singing was quite loud. The volume increased with each song until everyone up and down the dirt street could hear us clearly.

The rhythm also increased and, as the singing got louder and the service wore on, each group of people took their turn jumping, swaying and marching up and down the short aisle of the church. The old grey haired women (the “mothers of the church”) came first shuffling and bouncing to the rhythm of the songs. Then the middle aged and young women came forward, kneeled in a circle, threw back their heads, sang, shouted loudly and shook themselves as they swayed in and out of the circle. After one song they withdrew to their seats and the little kids jumped around for a minute. Then the young men came forward and jumped and shouted and shook and clapped and sang.

My daughter Kimberly and I had experienced this before so it was no big deal, but for my six year old son Michael this was brand new, and foreign. I glanced at him every few moments and for the whole song service he stood perfectly ridged and upright, arms straight down at his sides and knees locked. His eyes were as big as silver dollars and he did not turn his head. He watched in fear and amazement. He glance at me a few times and I gave him a reassuring look, but when the circle of ladies began to shake and shout he fell back on the bench trembling and sobbing. I walked over to him, sat down and put him on my lap and reassured him. I said, “It’s OK buddy, I got you. It’s OK, they are just singing and praising God in their own way. Listen, do you hear that song? Do you recognize the tune? We sing that same song in our church. They just do it a little differently here.” He buried his face in my shoulder and sobbed for the next five minutes. I began to sing along quietly in English and he began to recover and by the end of the singing he was doing better. I am glad he went through that. One of the big benefits my children have is being in different churches in different cultures and experiencing how they worship and relate to God. It was quite a lesson and growing experience for Michael.

When I got up to preach I had a big wet spot on my shoulder from where Michael had been crying. My text was Romans 1:16. I preached through an interpreter, which I don’t like at all and have never done well. You can never really get going when you have to wait for an interpreter. But, even if I was fluent in their language I will never be as effective a preacher as one of their own. This is why I teach Martin at the seminary instead of trying to plant a church in some village. The students will always be far more effective in reaching their culture and preaching to their own people than I or any other outsider ever could be. We have around sixty-five full time students at the seminary form numerous African countries. We have an immediate impact on dozens of churches from many different African cultures when we teach these men in the classroom. Though I don’t think I preached that well, everyone was kind after the sermon and said I did a good job and someone asked if he could have my notes. I knew they were all being kind and I thought of the proverb, “to the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet.”

The next update will come in a day or two and will be the final one for this trip. In part four I will relate what was, to me, the most poignant and memorable experience of the whole weekend.

IN A VILLAGE CHURCH, part two.

Here is the second installment of my report on the events of a visit to Martin Seliane’s church.  Martin is one of our students here at Christ Seminary in Polokwane, South Africa.

On Saturday afternoon after the funeral Martin had arranged for me to be on a Christian talk radio program for about an hour.  I did not know that we were going to be on the radio, I had not prepared anything.  Martin then said that “we” were not going to be on the radio, but that I was going to be on the radio while Martin went and finalized arrangements for me to speak to a group of eleven local pastors after the radio show.  I did not know that was going to happen either.

I said it was no problem, just let me know what the topic was for the radio program and for the pastor’s meeting so I can go over a few Bible passages and arrange some thoughts.  Martin said he had no idea what the topic was for the radio program because the hostess, who is the wife of a local pastor, just picks the topic at the start of the show and then talks about it and takes calls.  And, for the pastor’s meeting I could talk on anything I wanted.  I thought, OK, this will be cool, I hope we get to talk theology, but it will probably be some sort of practical church ministry or Christian relationship issues.  Those are always popular topics.

We arrived at the radio station just as the program was starting.  I was rushed into the studio, the hostess plugged in an advertisement, Martin introduced us and then left the building.  The advertisement ended, the hostess introduced me to the radio audience and said “Our topic for today is submission in the home.”  I thought, “Bingo! Ephesians 5, 1 Peter 3 – plenty of material there for an hour.  This will be easy.”

The hostess then said, “Since our topic is submission in the home, let’s turn to Matthew chapter 6.”  I thought, “What!?  Matthew 6!?  Submission!?”  As I turned to the passage my mind was racing, scouring every corner of my brain for anything in Matthew 6 that had anything remotely to do with submission in the home.  “Think.  Matthew 6; sermon on the mount, the Lord’s prayer, don’t be anxious for anything . . . think, think . . . ???”  I got nothing.

She said, “Look at verse 9.”  I did.  She read, “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.”  Then she looked at me and asked, “So, pastor Steve, how can we apply this in our families in the home?”  I went *blink*, then thought, “Well, you don’t because it has nothing to do with submission in the home,” but I didn’t say that.  I said something about how the idea behind this verse is giving honor and glory to God and one way we can do that is by submitting to His ordained leadership structure in the home, which is specifically talked about in Ephesians 5 and 1 Peter 3, let’s turn there.  I thought, “Whew – thank you Lord, talk about dodging a bullet.”  It was like a word from the Lord.

This time it was her turn to look at me and blink.  For a moment she tried to tie Matthew 6:9 to submission in the home, but that was going down in flames, so she asked about Ephesians 5.  I turned there and basically just talked through the passage.  She was very interested and we had a few calls then the hour was up.  I am not trying to be cruel nor am I poking fun at her when I say that she probably had no idea that those two chapters specifically address submission in the home.  In general, the church here in Africa uses the Bible as a grab-bag of verses into which they reach and clutch onto some passage with some words in it that they think has something to do with their topic.  She had probably heard that verse used in a sermon on submission in the home and liked it so she went for it.  The concept of a verse gaining meaning from its context is pretty much unknown to a lot of Christians here.

After the radio show Martin took me to the meeting with the local pastors.  Many of them listened to the radio show and they had a number of questions about it.  They also asked about church leadership, specifically about women as pastors.  There were also questions on all kinds of topics.  It was a two hour meeting and I was basically the Bible answer man.  Fortunately I had heard all the questions before from the students at the seminary so I was prepared.

I should mention that none of the pastors there, except for Martin, have had any training or schooling at all.  In general they don’t know what the Bible has to say on most subjects and some of them even get the gospel wrong.  This is why I am here.  Martin was just like the rest of these guys when he came to seminary three years ago.  He sees the huge difference now between himself and his peers, and he is not prideful, but humble and talks about how they need training too.  He said the pastors very much appreciated my mini seminar and my exposition, explanation and application of the passages we looked at.  At the seminary we get to have a big impact on the students who want to learn, like Martin.  We also get to minister to and strengthen the local churches when we visit or students at their homes.

It was a long Saturday.  We got back to Martin’s house at about 6 p.m.  I wanted to treat Martin and his family (he is married with two kids, a boy and a girl) so we went to the only burger place in town.  Everyone enjoyed it and we returned to Martin’s at about 8:30 p.m.  Since the next day was Sunday, and I was going to preach at Martin’s church, I wanted to be well rested so I went to bed soon after.  I slept with my six year old son Michael who kicked and elbowed me most of the night.

Part three will be coming after the weekend.

IN A VILLAGE CHURCH, part one.

A few weeks ago I went to visit one of our students, Martin Seliane, at his church.  Here is part one of what happened over the weekend.  I’ll report on the whole weekend in four updates.

Martin is in his third year here at the seminary and is a good student.  He is in his mid-forties, has been a Christian for less than ten years and pastors a church in a small town surrounded by corn and wheat fields about three hours South of Johannesburg.  He planted the church, called God’s Power Ministries, two and a half years ago.  The church is in an “informal settlement” on the edge of town and, like the dwellings around it, is made of tin and scavenged metal and wood.  The church is one room, about fifteen feet by twenty feet, and is packed with 35-40 people on Sundays.  The little kids sit on the dirt floor next to the pulpit, then the bigger kids behind them, then sitting on the benches are the mom’s with babies, then the young adults and finally the men sit in the back of the church.  There are 6-8 men in Martin’s church, which is very good for a black church of that size.

Martin is a good pastor.  He loves the people and he is with them constantly.  I have visited him twice and when he and I drive around town he seems to know everyone.  We always stop and he chats to the people about whatever is going on in their life and if they were at church or not and that they should come to church and that God wants them to believe the gospel and do what is right.  He is doing what any pastor around the world needs to do to grow a church – love God, preach His word, love the people and be with them and minister to them where they are at.  Though, I know that being a good pastor does not mean your church will grow big.  There are many other good pastors like Martin around the world that God is using and who also have small churches.

My daughter Kimberly and my son Michael went with me on this trip.  I always take some of the kids along when I visit the students.  It is good for them to meet Christians from other cultures and different circumstances in life and to minister to them.  I have them help out as much as they can when we visit churches in the villages.

We drove to Martin’s church on Friday and on the way we took two students to a major bus station in a not so good part of Johannesburg.  It was on that same Friday in that same area just a few hours later that a lot of xenophobic violence took place that many of you heard about.  God was gracious and we were fine though, and so far there is none of that going on where we live.

On Saturday morning Martin and I went to a funeral.  It was my first African funeral so Martin told me to stay close and do what he did.  We first went to the home of the mother of the deceased.  The coffin was in the front room.  Martin said they keep the body at home for one or two days before the funeral.  Needless to say, I was the only white guy for miles and I was not sure how my following Martin and being in the middle of everything would be received.  But, Martin reassured me and said, “I told them you are a visiting pastor, so it is OK and they expect that you would be involved.”

Martin then grabbed one of the handles of the coffin, but I was a little slow on the draw and five other men in the room beat me to one of the other handles.  As they walked out of the room with the coffin I became acutely aware of my standing there doing nothing and appearing dim-witted, so I looked around and saw the folding trolley on which the coffin used to be resting.  I immediately grabbed it and followed the coffin thinking, “Whew – recovered from that one.”  The coffin was loaded onto a small trailer and we drove to the town meeting hall where the funeral service would be held.

The meeting hall is about the size of a basketball court and Martin said almost all funerals are held there because everyone in the town knows they are invited.  Weddings and funerals are community events and anyone can come and at a funeral anyone can speak, a custom that was taken advantage of at this funeral.  The whole funeral, in fact everything that took place all weekend, was spoken in the Sotho (pronounced ‘soo-too’) language.  Martin told me what people were saying.

Martin, another local pastor and myself followed the coffin into the hall.  It was placed on the floor in front of a platform at one end of the room and the three of us pastors walked up on the platform and sat down behind a table.  We looked out on about 200 people who looked right back at us, and, it seemed to me, looked especially at me.

The departed was a member of the ANC (the African National Congress) which is the ruling party of South Africa.  The ANC was well represented at the funeral.  In fact, they had decorated the place with ANC flags and I sat right behind the biggest one which was draped over the table in front of me.  One by one a number of people stood up, came to the front next to the coffin and spoke about the deceased.  Then, an ANC member, one of the leaders of the 30 or so Party members who were there, got up and started in on his speech.  For about two minutes he talked about how the deceased was a member of the ANC Party and had worked for the people against tyranny.  Then he wound himself up and launched in on how the Party was taking care of everyone and bringing equality and making the world a better place.  He was a regular V.I. Lennin and the other Party members there enjoyed it immensely.  He went on for quite a while.

Then, another Party member, more a Karl Marx type, got up and said something to the talkative V.I. Lennin at which Lennin promptly wound up his little political speech.  I guess Karl Marx had decided Lennin had said enough.  I agreed.  But, Lennin immediately struck up a chorus to which the whole ANC crowd joined in.  I am not exaggerating when I say that about every five minutes Lennin stood up and got every one of the Party faithful going again on that same chorus.  The tune is still in my head.  The title is “That’s Why I’m A Communist” and the words are; “My mother was a communist, my father was a communist, that’s why I’m a communist – I’m a communist, I’m a communist, I’m a communist.”  Apparently it is no. 1 on the ANC playlist.  They sang that song about thirty times.  Sort of like singing “Just As I Am” at some churches after a sermon.

After everyone had their say Martin stood up to preach and the whole ANC gang started to walk out.  Martin is no pushover and he pointed his finger at them, spoke loudly and forcefully and said, “Stop.  Come back here.  We listened to you and now it is time for you to listen to the word of God.”  A few seconds later Marx came back in followed by Lennin and the rest of the Party members.  Martin preached a very good sermon.  He started by saying, “At funerals it is too late to preach to the deceased, so I will preach to the living.”  He was sensitive to the family and memory of the deceased, and he gave the gospel and called all to repentance.

When Martin was done the coffin was loaded back on the trailer and we all went to the graveyard.  As soon as everyone had arrived V.I. Lennin got the crowd going again on the chorus.  I thought this was really too much and was a major breach of decorum at a funeral and insensitive to the grieving family.  I told Martin this and said I was going to go tell Lennin to put a sock in it.  Martin said everyone else was already annoyed with them and they were just hurting themselves, so I let it alone.

Martin spoke for another few minutes by the grave and then the coffin was lowered down.  The family began to wail.  The mother of the deceased carried a hand-full of dirt to the grave, threw it down onto the coffin and then fainted right in front of Martin and myself.  We caught her on the way down and the family rushed over and carried her back to her chair.  Martin and I also took our turn in line and each of us shoveled some dirt into the grave.  Martin told me it would be good for me to pray after the grave was filled in because it would show I respected the family, just like my shoveling dirt in the grave showed my respect for the deceased.  After the grave was filled Marx and Lennin were over with the Party members and they were still talking loudly.  I stepped in front of the grave, looked Lennin in the eye and said loudly, “Let’s pray.”  Everyone got quiet.  I asked God to comfort the grieving and to show His mercy and grace and draw all these people to Himself.

We went back to the mother’s home where it seemed half the town had gathered for a meal.  When they brought the goat stew and vegetables I looked at it and remembered what I heard a missionary say years ago, “Where He leads me I will follow, what He feeds me I will swallow.”  The food smelled like water from a dirty gutter.  I ate all of it.  Later that evening Martin said that the family very much appreciated that I, a visiting white pastor, was fully involved in everything.  He said they especially appreciated it when I stood in line and took my turn shoveling dirt into the grave and when I ate their food.  Martin said that the next time I visit the community they will accept me because I identified with them in their grief and did everything they did.  I hope they will also remember Martin’s ministry to them and the gospel he preaches to them.

part two in a day or two