Pastoral Exploration by Wan W L

Course Rabbi - Brother Casey

                The Pastoral Exploration is an essential module for all believers, and in particular, for church leaders.  The content coverage of the three Pastoral Epistles to Timothy and Titus in this module benefits both the original recipients and the contemporary readers. The apostle Paul gives instructions on household code of living as well as qualifications of the overseers, elders and deacons. He is concerned with how Christians ought to walk (behave) after being saved by His grace. There is to be no dichotomy in his teaching between belief and behaviour. This is an important truth which has spoken to me. I am reminded that I have often caused the name of God to be humiliated because of my conduct. Very often,  I did not not practice what I preach. Christian’s life must be a model of good works that is consistent with sound doctrine. Appropriate behaviour will not bring discredit or blame on God, the church and oneself and will cause the opponents to be put to shame and have nothing bad to say about us. The right code of conduct will in every way make the teaching or doctrine about God our Saviour attractive to non-believers.

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Eph 2:10 NAS) 

          The Pastoral Exploration has brought me greater awareness of false teachings and the importance to establish myself in the Word of God in order to refute heresy and deception.  The Pastoral Epistles were written on the occasion of encountering false teaching some 2,000 years back. However, in the present age, we are facing the same situation and an even more severe situation during the end times. Paul has already warned us, “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, (1Ti 4:1 NAS);  For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, (2Ti 4:3 NRS) and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths  (2Ti 4:4 NRS).” All believers must therefore realise the urgency and need to diligently feed on the word of God, be able to teach others and to refute doctrinal errors.  Church, or house church, or small group leadership must watch over their sheep and establish them in sound doctrine, showing good ethical living examples to them in love and honesty. The house of God (be it church or household) must be set in the right order. It should be established and organised in the correct structure, submitting to one another and conducting oneself in appropriate behaviour while relating to  one another. In light of the blessed hope of his second coming, Christians must continue to endure and live out a life of good works that is pleasing to the Lord and  able to attract others to God, our Saviour.

          I pick up two interesting concepts from our guest-teacher, sister Davina.

Guest -teacher Sister Davina

The first is Structure Diagramming. This is challenging for me because I have been with the Chinese congregation and reading Chinese Bible since 1997. Fortunately, we were given a pre-module exercise on “Grammar Review”. Sister Davina went through with us the answers before teaching us how to do structure diagramming. I am now able to recognize sentences, clauses, phrases, coordinating conjunctions and subordinating conjunctions again; clauses are linked by conjunctions; and there are independent clauses as well as subordinating clauses. The purpose of the structure diagramming is to analyze the thought-flow of the passage from the Bible, identify the main theme of the passage and be able to come out with sermon outline. It is a very interesting and useful skill to learn, playing with colors, underlining and aligning of words. I enjoyed doing cosmetic surgery to the diagrams. I am still not good in this skill but will continue to practice to improve on it. I am sad to say that I may not be able to it for the Chinese version of a passage.

The  "Crabby" Mind- Map of  Hospitality

The second interesting concept which I have learnt is New Testament Hospitality. This workshop was informative and we also got to analyze the instances of hospitality in Acts, identifying the host, guest and context of each instance.  Through the snippets of life in the first century inns, I get to understand and see the need of the travelling itinerant ministers and importance of having someone to host them during Paul’s time. I like the mind- mapping way of learning the five “W”s - what, who, when, where and why and the “How”. This workshop has caused me to re-evaluate my attitude in hospitability. I host guest-ministers quite often at my home. As I do not have a maid to help out at home, sometimes I really dread all the washing and sunning of the laundry before and after a stay-over. Now, I must learn to enjoy and treasure every opportunity given by the Lord to serve His people. I must sacrifice my sleep to wake up on time to send them to the airport if they are catching an early flight instead of asking them to take a cab because my dear teacher has taught me that hospitality starts from the doorstep and extends till sending them to their next destination. Hospitality is not an option but it is the responsibility of a believer and not just the overseer or leader of the church. It is a must for overseer and expected of all Christians to exemplify the Christian faith and virtue. Hospitality is also expressed in different ways when in different cultures. 

My Wonderful Classmates at work!

The PE class was indeed enjoyable and beneficial to me. I have learnt many other valuable concepts, ideas and truths besides those mentioned here. I thank God for my instructor brother Casey, guest-teacher sister Davina and all my classmates and those who played table-tennis with me to keep me on the move. All work and no play will make me dull! I am proud to say that I have also learnt some very “chim” words like pseudepigraphy, amanuensis, parenesis, probatio and also many Greek words during the course of this module. Praise be to the Lord!