Author Archives: Ricardo Borges

Listening to the questions around us 

What kinds of questions are being raised in a time like this? Below you can see one possible exercise in highlighting some of these questions, as I pay attention to them in my own context. Maybe it would be a good exercise if you could also try to identify the questions being raised in your own contexts. How does the biblical story help us to engage and respond to these questions?

1. Questions about humanness

a. In this season, questions about human superiority and how much control we have over our lives take centre stage. We have had to come to terms with our limitations, our creaturely vulnerability and the uncertainty/unpredictability of human life. This also leads to further questions about the meaning and purpose of human living.

b. As we live in forced social isolation our society’s narratives of human individualism and autonomous self-sufficient lifestyles have been brought into the spotlight. Our need of the other, and the value of community has enhanced showing that we are inherently social beings and not autonomous creatures. The call to use the term “spatial” or “physical” distancing as opposed to “social distancing” is another example of this. 

2. Questions about Christian theology, disciplines and community

a. Online Church – We have had to also ask questions about the meaning of church as we meet online. Do we miss something when we meet online? Has any aspect of church life been enhanced?

b. How do we read scripture – Have we had to rethink what we mean when we talk about God’s protection and security? Does a pandemic show that God’s return is imminent or are there other ways of thinking about eschatology?

c. Forgotten Christian practices – Have we neglected some forms of Christian discipleship (e.g. lament) in our Church life? Why and at what cost? What is the relationship between doubt and faith?

d. Deepening our theology – How do we reconcile God’s goodness and the presence of evil and suffering in the world? Does our collective search for a vaccine show a dependence on science over and above God?

3. Questions about the societies we live in

a. Effects of the pandemic – While the pandemic does not discriminate, does it affect some parts of our society disproportionately? What does that reveal about the disparities in our society?

b. Hidden issues – What issues in our societies have been surfaced during this time? (e.g. domestic violence, racial and ethnic discrimination/stigmatization)

c. Crisis of leadership – How would you rate the leaders in your society? What key aspects of leadership have been missing? How have they used the pandemic to further their own political ends?

d. Questions around value – What has the pandemic revealed about the value system in our society? Have we had to depend on segments of our society that we usually neglect? (e.g. shop keepers, garbage disposal workmen, delivery persons, public health inspectors etc.).

e. Questions around structuring society – Have we excluded the environment/non human creatures when we talk about society making/development? What are the limits we are willing to place on ourselves so that we can live in greater harmony with the rest of creation? What social/economic models need to be challenged? Do we need to begin another Jubilee movement calling on a moratorium of national debt?

Yohan Abeynaike, GS FOCUS Sri Lanka

Scripture Engagement & Context

God is a revealing God, his Word is his revelation of himself and his purposes to his world. It is wonderful we are invited by God to meet him, know and love him, through the Scriptures. As we answer this invitation and engage with Him in His Word, it is helpful to acknowledge we are a diversity of peoples, times and contexts. How we approach, view, interpret, understand and connect his Word to our lives is a question we must address with faith and with faithfulness.

Just look at Acts 3:12-26 and Acts 17:22-31 as classic examples of taking the context and those people’s questions seriously when presenting the good news.

When the working group met to reflect and discuss this issue, we thought it would be important to focus on how our contemporary context affects the way we read, interpret and live out God’s Word. We do this in the wide variety of contexts we come from where we seek to be faithful to the Lord – ‘correctly handling the word of truth’ (2 Timothy 2:15) having our thinking, speaking and behaviour transformed by God through His Word and by His Spirit.

Through fostering a growing reflection and exchange in our global fellowship about “Scripture Engagement & Context”, we hope to better recognise our blind spots – those things that because of the milieu we live in/ have grown up in we do not see: about God, His purposes or ourselves. Through mutual learning in our international fellowship we hope to avoid some possible risks: a selective hermeneutic determined by culturally defined questions leading to ethnocentrism and relativism; or cultural ‘imprisonment’/bias leading to a poor reading of Scriptures even leaving out parts that don’t seem to be relevant (in our own eyes). For an extreme example of this see what King Jehoiakim did in Jeremiah 36!

We believe it is important to both grow in how we engage with the Scriptures from our own times and contexts, and at the same time become increasingly aware of how the Word ‘reads’ and engages with us. As we read and are ‘read’, as we participate, God transforms us and our context/community.

When engaging with the Word, we believe we are engaging with God himself in the Scriptures, with Jesus, the Living Word. We can therefore expect that he will engage with us – an experience that will not leave us or our communities the same.

Our different contexts raise a variety of questions which we should pay careful attention to when engaging the Scriptures. At the same time, the Word of God often raises other questions or gives answers that we would not have expected. Scripture reveals agendas and poses questions that people may not be asking. Thus, engaging with the Word will often disturb, question, and challenge what may be fully accepted in our context.

The reader of the Word is therefore not only personally challenged and transformed but challenged to be agents of change and transformation in the context and community within which they live.

In the end, when we are dedicated to a serious study of the Word, it should lead us to discover the heart and mind of God for our world: the Lord who is missionary, who is transforming and reconciling the world to Himself through Christ.

We pray that when paying more attention to the contemporary context we all live in, we will grow to become a better global hermeneutical community, learning from each other and faithfully giving witness to the Lord across the world from each of our contexts.

IFES Eurasia Scripture Engagement Coordinator (no name as in sensitive country) and Ricardo Borges (IFES Associate Secretary for Scripture Engagement)

Inspiring Love of the Old Testament

Meeting God in ancient words, on a journey, as a scattered community…

Deuteronomy 8:3 “…man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

The Deuteronomy Journey:

Over the last year in Eurasia, a group of 10 senior staff participated in a journey together through the book of Deuteronomy. This pilot project was born out of two observable needs that perhaps resonate with you too:

The need for senior staff to have some input and inspiration from God’s Word for themselves when they are usually the ones giving out and training others. We all need to keep growing in our relationship with God and in our knowledge and love of Him.
The need for students to meet with God in all of Scripture – including the Old Testament. Confusion, fear and perhaps lack of teaching can mean that the Old Testament feels distant or even irrelevant rather than the Holy Scriptures ‘that are able to make you wise for salvation…’.
As staff and students, we want and need to be growing in confidence in reading, understanding and teaching the Old Testament.

The Deuteronomy Journey was designed for a group of peers to do together, learning from one another. We wanted to go deep into one book of the Old Testament as a window on to the rest of Scripture. We grappled with the God that we met there; we journeyed with this God who rescued His people and led them through the wilderness. We marvelled at the words He gave to His people to live by (the law that spoke of Him and made them distinctive in the world) and at the gift of His very self!

Apart from one face-to-face meeting at the start and end of the year, we met monthly on Zoom. The basis for these Zoom calls was written responses (shared with each other) to the Deuteronomy chapters that we had read that month. These ranged from a mini-essay to a letter to a friend and creative sessions for students. Meeting virtually wasn’t without its difficulties but coming together from different cultures gave us the opportunity to be enriched by different perspectives. Together we studied this challenging book with its history, law, some poetry and its call to a life of radical discipleship following the One True and Living God.

What participants said:

“It was good to ask the difficult questions and try to see how we can answer these – this has strengthened my faith…”

“This project has encouraged me to help students to value the Old Testament, the big picture of Scripture – so that we can together come to know the merciful and loving God who is revealed in the whole Bible…”

Deuteronomy 32:47 “They are not just idle words for you – they are your life”!

IFES Eurasia Scripture Engagement Coordinator (no name as in sensitive country)

The Bible and Mental Health

Imagine your friend tells you that she wants to kill herself, tonight. Imagine the despair you can see in her eyes. It’s clear: she no longer wants to live. Silence fills the room. What do you say? What can you do?

New Zealand has a very high youth suicide rate. It is twice as high as that of the United States, and five times higher than that of Britain. For many students, the above is not a hypothetical scenario but a real conversation they have had.

This reality became apparent as I trained students in evangelism last year. While we went through the content of the gospel and how we can share it, their insecurity in relating to friends living with depression and anxiety became apparent. They saw the importance of coming alongside them in their suffering, but was the gospel what they now needed? How could it be good news to them?

I realized that there were two needs. Firstly, students need to develop a ‘Christian lens’ from the Bible through which to see mental illnesses. Secondly, students also need to understand what anxiety and depression is and looks like. This will enable them to better love and share the gospel with those around them, to the glory of God. So the training event ‘The Bible and Mental Health’ was birthed.

Tim Capill, a pastor in Christchurch, came and gave us a biblical overview on the origin and solution to our suffering. Based on Psalm 139, he also spoke on six truths we can hold on to about God whilst we suffer. It was a brilliant talk that provided a solid biblical framework on suffering and, in particular, how we can trust God through depression and anxiety.

Dana Lee – a Christian psychologist specializing in youth and trauma also came and ran two seminars focusing on what clinical depression and anxiety look like. We practised in pairs with scenarios focusing particularly on our listening skills.

It was an event with a great turn out: over 50 students came to be equipped. As the organizer, I am encouraged to see that these students now have a better understanding and more compassion for those suffering with depression and anxiety. They have also become more confident that the deepest need of these friends is the same as that of anyone of us: the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Candy Grice, staff worker with TSCF New Zealand
CandyG@tscf.org.nz

Book recommendation (by Sabine Kalthoff, IFES Secretary for Scripture Engagement): Mark Meynell, When Darkness seems my Closest Friend – Reflections on life and ministry with depression. The honest account of a personal journey with very helpful general reflections. A worthwhile read.

A Valuable Training and Mission Resource

“The Word Among Us” is a very valuable resource that we have used as part of our training for new student leaders in Jalisco. This booklet has helped students to have stronger convictions regarding Scripture and to love the Bible more. It has also encouraged and challenged them to live out their faith according to Scripture, and it has encouraged them to trust in the power and impact of God’s Word.

Isaac was one of the first students who started to explore the six main aspects of Scripture Engagement that we find in this resource. As a result, I could see how Isaac would reflect more in depth about his personal life and his relationship with God’s Word, and in a natural way he could see the relevance and importance of doing mission at university. He also felt more confident and motivated to do it.

The questions on page 27 of “The Word Among Us” also helped us to invite new students to our Bible studies on campus. We ask them if they are fine with us asking them a few questions, and when they say yes we start by asking, “Have you had any contact with the Bible?”. If so, “where and when?”. Many people say yes, but when we ask a few more questions they end up realising that they actually know very little about the Bible, and when they acknowledge this they are open to learning more about it. At this point we invite them to the Bible study on campus. Many people agree to come and others say they might come sometime.

This is how we met Monica, a biology student. She agreed to come to our Bible study after we interviewed her using the questions on page 27. That day we looked at Mark 2:13-17, which is about how Jesus calls Levi. Monica was very enthusiastic and took part in the session. She went home happy and came back the following week. She started attending regularly throughout the whole semester and we have been able to get to know her better over this time.

It is our responsibility as staff workers to equip students to carry out our mission and help them to engage with Scripture. This is why we use this valuable resource, “The Word Among Us”, when we equip new student leaders.

Rosa Angélica Ramírez Blanco
Staff worker in Jalisco
Compañerismo estudiantil

A Message of Transformation

My name is O.F.S. and I’m a Bible group coordinator in Nicaragua. 2018 and 2019 have been crucial years of change and surprises for me, my country and our student movement. What has happened in Nicaragua over the past two years? In April 2018 students marched to protest the lack of measures to deal with forest fires in an important reserve in our country. A few days later, a law to reform the public health service came out, which affected minority groups, and hundreds of people took to the streets to demand justice. What followed were days of violence, death and repression by the government. Since these events, human rights organisations have reported many deaths, people have been exiled and hundreds of others have disappeared.

Universities were closed for eight months, the country came to a standstill, people became desperate and in our groups many were asking questions – how can we offer hope in our context? And how can we continue the student work if the universities are closed?

I returned home feeling anxious, looking for answers and facing the challenge of continuing our mission; so I decided to meet up with some friends and young people from church and read the Bible together. This gave us strength and meaning in the midst of so much pain and suffering. We used the booklet called “The Word Among Us” and tools like “Writing a Psalm”. It was a liberating experience and our spirituality was really challenged. We were sorry we weren’t engaging with our community because the situation was so delicate, and we felt powerless because we weren’t helping our neighbours enough. As we tried to express our whirlwind of thoughts and examine them in the light of Scripture, we felt peace as we poured out our hearts to God and to one other. This helped us to experience a kind of faith that we should put into action thanks to Scripture engagement, and it showed us how prayer also calls you into action.

I was in exile. But I returned to my country because I want to be salt and light in this moment in time and because I believe that if we change the university we’ll change Nicaragua and we’ll change the world, because we should continue to proclaim the prophetic message of our God of true PEACE, JUSTICE AND LOVE. I realised that where there was a student, there was student work to be done. Our movement continues to embrace this belief, the call to be defenders of justice and ambassadors of faith. This is our commitment and it is only through Jesus Christ that we can change our reality and our country.

We cling with all our hearts to the redeeming hope that we find in Jesus!

At the table

There have been a number of ‘wow’ moments that have dramatically changed my life, especially regarding the way I view God and ministry. One such moment was the 2007 IFES World Assembly in Canada. The Bible expositions from the Gospel of Luke by Peter Kuzmic (Croatia), Jacques Buchhold (France) and Ziel Machado (Brazil) were soul-searching and very challenging. Ziel Machado’s first exposition stood out for me and at the same time took a strong grip on my heart. I could not let go of it until I put it into practice. Ziel Machado reflected on where ministry is done: the table as a place of acceptance, community and kindness; contrasting it to the desk, a place of business, achievements and success.

It was so challenging to me personally as I reflected on how I was involved in ministry. Was I doing it at the table or from my desk? At that time, I had served for four years as staff worker in my national movement, the Student Christian Organization of Malawi (SCOM). At that point, ten more years of service were ahead of me. God spoke to me so clearly that student ministry was to be done at the table, where students should feel welcomed, where they could be built into strong communities of believers, and as a way to take Christ to their universities. This changed how I was involved in student ministry. I took this Word from God in a literal way and opened my home to students, transforming the table of my home into a place of ministry. Countless students have eaten at this table: it became a place of discipleship and evangelism to so many young people.

At my home’s table, students who were struggling academically got confidence and performed better. Around it, Christ revealed Himself to many students and gave them a purpose for living. At this table, broken relationships have been restored. It was at that table where students have found life partners. Gathered around the table, students have learnt from Christ. At my family table, students have seen the frailty of our humanity and the sufficiency of God’s grace through interacting with my wife, our son, and myself, engaging with God’s Word and allowing it to bring amazing fruits in our lives. The Word of God must always be allowed to move from the head to the heart, then to the hands and feet: that is when we experience genuine transformation.

Duncan Chiyani, EPSA Associate Regional Secretary for Southern Africa

Sharing the Word in the context of student ministry

The Bible has a central position in student ministry. We organise our devotional life, our training activities, our dialogue with the university and our evangelistic activities around the Holy Scriptures. The high value we place on Scripture is the base for three steps that I consider whenever I share the Word at our meetings.

Step 1: Seriously study the biblical passage and strive to apply it in a fresh and appropriate way.

We frequently receive instructions to develop a profitable reading of the Scriptures. We learn a variety of biblical study methods and use many auxiliary resources, which allow us to make a good approach to the text. Indeed, from the initial steps found in devotions, to the ability of some of us to work on the original languages, we face the challenge of using every resource available to do a good and appropriate reading of the text. Meanwhile, we need to find pathways that allow our audience to apply the lessons learned in a faithful, opportune and fresh way. Because “all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3.16-17).

Step 2: prayer support

The nature of biblical exposition implies permanent prayer support, because it requires putting the heart of all those involved in the process (those who minister and those who listen) before the Word of the Eternal God. I once heard from a teacher; “the purpose of biblical exposition is to comfort the broken-hearted and challenge those who have become accommodated”. Nobody is indifferent before the Word, neither the person who exposes nor he who listens. As the Paul the Apostle said, “Pray also for me, that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.” (Ephesians 6:19-20)

Step 3: becoming accessible to listen to those who listen

When developing biblical expositions, one of the most important moments in learning is when I decide to make myself accessible to listen to those who listened to me. This allows me to see how they have understood the text and how they are applying it to their lives; I listen to their questions, suggestions and doubts, and this has deeply enriched my continuous learning process in the ministry of biblical exposition. We should seek these moments to learn to listen in an attentive, humble, reverent and respectful way towards our brothers and sisters who received “the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit… became a model to all the believers.” (1 Thessalonians 1:6-7)

These are the three simple steps I try to follow in the ministry of sharing of the Word of God.

Ziel Machado, Former IFES Regional Secretary in Latin America.