Msindisi Monthly # 102

SALVADOR & DIANNE’S MSINDISI MONTHLY

NUMBER: 102 Mar 2013

PO BOX 1481
VRYHEID 3100
KWAZULU NATAL
SOUTH AFRICA

+27 (0) 728311008
+27 (0) 815836288

Email: msindisi@gmail.com ,
salv.di@gmail.com

KwaZulu Mission Website: http://www.kwazulumission.com

Dear Friends and family,

February is over and we head into march!!!!!!

For those who may have missed the news in our last newsletter on the 1st of Feb Di finally
received her visa. As you can imagine this news was gratefully received. The beginning of Feb we continued in our usual routine of kids club, discipling, care bear teaching, bible studies, counseling, language lesson, etc. Mid Feb we made our way to Stanger. Magda kindly dropped us at the bus we arrived that evening and were met by Mark and Marie-Anne. On the Friday we visited with St Luke’s a home for disabled people. Marie-Anne ministers there each Friday, sharing the gospel and doing crafts. We had a wonderful time with the residents. Salvi had taken the guitar so we sang and then bought a simple message about Mephibosheth. In the message he spoke of how we all have things we cannot do but as we read in the bible that king David desired Mephibosheth, someone lame and limited in his physical ability, to come and dine at his table everyday. This picture is so true of our Saviour. Though we have nothing to offer Him but our lives broken, stained with sin, He desires all to come to Him, to be cleansed by the precious blood of his son Jesus and come and dine at His table.

The weekend bought the arrival of Alan Mackenzie from Port Elizabeth. Then on the Monday Jannie from Bethany baptist church in Vryheid arrived. This meant a wonderful time was had meeting up and introducing fellow believers to each other. Allan had not met Mark and Marie-Anne before. They had only spoken over the phone. We had a blessed time when Calvin from, Carmel and New Guelderland churches, and Kevin Edwards from “Coming Kings Ministries” also got to visit together. Our friends Sean and Catherine from Joberg happened to be in Ballito over that time celebrating their wedding anniversary so they also got to meet everyone. It really was a wonderful time of fellowship and networking the body together.

On the Sunday Salvi preached firstly at the New Guelderland Fellowship bringing the message of “our inheritance that awaits us: the adoption of sons” . The second service held in Stanger itself at the Carmel Church and was the message on “the root of bitterness”. Monday, Jacob Prash arrived to speak at a meeting that was held that evening in Stanger. He had flown from Joberg and would fly out the next day with Alan to port Elizabeth to continue his speaking tour of South Africa before ending in cape town. Jacob spoke on “the signatures of Satan”. This proved to be an excellent message as after the meeting some of the local pastors asked if they could meet together so they could get a better understanding of the scriptures. Leslie Crickmay and Calvin were passionate in wanting to follow up with people who were left with many questions and desired to know more. Just that morning the pastor if the building that Calvin had arrived to have the meeting in, had spoken with Salvi about extra biblical experiences and Salvi had been explaining to him that the “slain in the Spirit” experiences are unbiblical. He was one of the pastors that wants to have follow up bible teachings from Leslie. In this we see the body of Christ working, each having his part to play. Walking with people is vitally important as they grapple to renew there minds and seek the truth of scripture. This takes time, pray and patiences as the scriptures are taught through. (2 Timothy 2 v 24-26.) We thank the Lord for His faithfulness.

We returned home on the Tuesday. Phumlani had faithfully continued ministering to the believers. Genrod had kindly continued to allow the use of there truck over this time.

While in Stanger we were given the provision of a vehicle, a ford ranger truck with a diff lock that someone graciously provided a interest free loan for. The truck is registered in Road to Recovery’s name which is under Alan Mackenzie. We are truly grateful to our lord for this opportunity to have a truck we can use. The last truck which we used was reg in Phumlani name. This was stolen when we were using it, so we are endeavoring to purchase another truck to replace his. We thank the lord that people have felt lead to help in replacing this loss of his truck. He was using the truck for ministry and selling to the local community. Please keep this in pray that we will be led to the right vehicle for Phumlani.

After cell group on the Tuesday and catching up with everyone we returned to the prayer meeting and Bethany baptist bible study on the Wednesday. Earlier in the year Sal had been invited by Mark Hibberd to return to Roodepoort and share the word with home churches which included Mujuru’s fellowship. So on the Thurs morning we headed to our dear friends Jozua and Veronica who live in Secunda to spend a night there. They are dear brethren in the Lord who are constantly praying for the work and have done so since we were in Springs. For those who are interested in Allen and Sue Wells and their family ministry, Bezaleel:

Allen and Sue Wells have been adopting and fostering children who have been infected or affected by AIDS / HIV for coming up to 20 years. They were one of the first families in South Africa to do a cross cultural adoption when Apartheid ended. Their model is that of a family, the children are their own so that we cannot speak of the children as orphans. They are situated in Springs, Gauteng. Sue has given numerous talks and addresses about AIDS to churches and businesses. More information to follow.

For Video of the Bezaleel ministry please click the following links:

Wells Family Part 1:

Wells Family Part 2:

Wells Family Part 3:

(https://kwazulumission.com/associated-ministries-and-churches/)

The next day we visited Allen and Sue Wells and the children on the Friday before reaching Roodepoort on the Saturday where Mark and ourselves drove through to Mujuru and the brethren that side for Salvi to share that evening.

Salvi shared from Matt 7 v 21-27, and other scriptures about ministry and endurance in the last days. Our ministries can not be our security or justification but must overflow from our relationship with Christ. After much fellowship and a meal we drove back to Mark’s and proceeded to talk into the wee hours of the morning ( as you do !!!!!) lol

On the Sunday morning Sal shared the message again on the “Root of Bitterness”. Our friends, the Roux family, were able to visit the fellowship so we we enjoyed catching up with Bianca, who had stayed with us in 2011, and the rest of her family. We have really enjoyed getting to know the people in Mark’s home church. Monday we hit the road early to avoid morning traffic. We stopped in at the Wells to collect a desk for Phumlani and grab a coffee then back on the road for home.

We met Phumlani in town where we returned Genrod’s truck to them. We would like to thank Genrod for their huge support to the work of the Lord. Every time something has come up with the vehicle wether that be, crashed, broken down, stolen they have provided us with truck for that time. We are truly grateful Genrod !!!!!!!

This month we look forward to the visit of Allen and Sue’s son, Clayton with his wife visiting from the UK with a couple of their South African friends. We have almost finished the book of Romans and so next month we are hoping to start a series on marriage as we have found Christian marriages to be under attack. We are at the moment counseling one couple in particular in the area we live to work through certain issues. Please pray for them.

To all our friends and fellow laborers may we press on looking always to the return of our coming King.

Shalom

Salvi and Di

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For those who are interested the KwaZulu Mission teaching website has more teachings uploaded with a couple by the pastor of Bethany Baptist Church in Vryheid and Mark Van Niekerk of Hazorim. Some teachings are also in Zulu. http://www.sermon.net/msindisi . More teachings will be posted in the future.

EMETH – A CALL TO TRUTH AND CONSISTENCY

PART 3: EMETH AND THE SCRIPTURES

TRUTH IS BOUND UP IN THE WORD

As we have seen in the previous studies, Truth is a vitally important subject. Truth is more than correct doctrine but is also personal, for Truth is manifested in the person of Jesus Christ. Truth is important for God is Truth. Truth is dependable, stable and accounts for all reality because Truth is bound up in the infinite creator God. We said that when we come to God’s word we are not to have the mind set of being engaged only in an intellectual exercise but we are to know that we are cultivating intimacy with the Lord. We are to get into the word and the word is to get into us. In this study we are going to look at the relationship between the Truth and the Bible. In John 17:17 we see that Truth is defined as the Word. “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” God’s word is not simply true but it is Truth. One of the problems with Post Modernism is that it supposes that Truth must be known through experience. Now I do believe in an experiential theology. I believe in experience. When the scripture speaks of belief and repentance and the working of the Spirit through the members of the body with spiritual graces, God means for us to experience these things and not merely to give verbal assent. However I am strongly against experiential based theology. We must not argue concerning the truth of something based on subjective experience alone.

In Acts 15:1-18 Paul and Barnabas testified to all the signs and wonders that God worked among the Gentiles as evidence that God had accepted Gentiles into the kingdom without the need for them to become Jews. When James makes his pronouncement he completely ignores the issue of signs and wonders and highlights how Simeon’s argument had the clear backing of scripture. In this case the man with the argument was not at the mercy of the man with the experience. We can praise the Lord for when He has allowed us to experience Him in unusual ways that do not contradict His word. We may experience the Lord charismatically, according to His will and timing, which can not be invoked. However it is highly dangerous to be seeking the experiential high or to use experience as the barometer of Truth. Signs, as the word suggests, are not the reality. They are merely pointers to the reality. When God gives us a sign it is pointing us to something greater than the sign. If I am on the N2 to Durban I may see a sign pointing to Durban. If I stand under the sign and glorify in the sign, the drivers watching me as they go past will think that I am a lunatic. The real issue is not, do we have signs in our church? The issue is, IF there are signs what is the significance of those signs and what are they pointing to? The ultimate question then is, ‘Is the significance of those signs in line with the Word in its scriptural context? We cannot know the Truth by experience alone or even primarily by experience. Truth is bound up in the Word.

The way to know the Truth is explained by Jesus in John 8:30-32. “As He spoke these things many came to believe in Him. So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”” Many times we quote verse 32 without reference to verse 31. We say that because we are a Church that stands for Truth, then we will know the Truth and the Truth will make us free. But verse 31 says that if we continue in Jesus’ Word, then we are truly His disciples and THEN we will know the Truth which will make us free. What does it mean to continue in Jesus’ word? Does it simply mean to keep preaching correct doctrine? That is part of it but we can preach Truth without continuing in Jesus’ word. Abiding in Jesus’ word is seen more clearly when we compare John 15:7 with John 15:10. To continue in Jesus’ word means to practically do what He has told us to do, not merely to speak correct words. The Hebrew word for disciple is ‘Talmid’ and comes from the verb ‘Lilmod’ which means to study. A disciple is a student or a learner. The problem with looking at this concept from a western mind is that we think of a classroom situation and the apprehending of intellectual knowledge. But the education that a Jewish Rabbi gave was more holistic than that. The student did not only learn intellectual knowledge but also observed and emulated the living example of his teacher.

In the Jewish tractate ‘Pirke Abot’ there are two stories concerning Rabbi Hillel. One day Hillel was walking somewhere and people asked him where he was going? Hillel answered that he was going to carry out a commandment. When asked which commandment he was carrying out Hillel would say that he was going to the lavatory. Then people asked if that really was a commandment and Hillel then answered, “Yes indeed, so that the body does not deteriorate.” In the other story Hillel equates having a wash in the bathhouse with obedience to God’s commandments. In other words God’s law, His teaching, was to apply to every area of life. There was no theological ivory tower separated from the concerns of everyday life in Jewish theology.

Jesus walked in this vein as a Jewish Rabbi. When Jesus said “if you continue in My word” He meant a practical abiding in His teaching throughout the reality of everyday life. It is through obedience to the Word, in this context, that we will know the Truth, and then and only then will the Truth make us free. It is the Word that defines and explains Truth to us. Obedience must then be a response to the Word of God. This is why 2 Timothy 2:15 enjoins all preachers and ministers to be diligent to show themselves approved to God as workmen that do not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the Word of Truth. The reason for this is because our handling of the Word and how we interpret the Word will affect our obedience to it. So on the one hand we keep in mind that the purpose of Study of God’s word is primarily to know God. But we also keep in mind that our study must lead us to walk in His ways actually in the daily reality of all the spheres of our lives. If we wrongly handle the word we will not be walking in God’s ways but in that which we assume to be His ways. This is why James 3:1 warns us not to let many be teachers for they will be judged harsher than the rest of the body. The reason for this is because of the great potential of the teacher to lead everybody down the wrong path, not only in wrong doctrine but in speech that is full of cursing towards brothers in Christ. Just as a small rudder can change the whole course of a ship, so too the small tongue of the bible teacher can change the whole course of the congregation.

Obedience implies subordination. Our relation to the Word must be that of subservient obedience. What right do we have to hold the Word over other peoples heads when we pay no attention to our own transgressions of the Word of God. As Psalm 50:16-21 states, “But to the wicked God says, “What right have you to tell of My statutes and to take My covenant to your mouth? For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you. When you see a thief, you are pleased with him, and you associate with adulterers. You let your mouth loose in evil and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son. These things you have done and I kept silence; you thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes.” When someone does not have a disposition of subservient obedience to the word of God, when they will not bow their knee to the authority of God’s word there will be a necessary distortion of God’s character in their mind. This is acutely related to the phenomenon that Bible theologians call ‘the hermeneutical circle’. When we get saved and start to read scripture we often still have the same cultural way of looking at things as before we got saved. This is where Gnostocism arose from. People who were platonists before they got saved would interpret the bible in light of their platonic thought and then those ideas were expanded and developed over time. Romans 12:2 relates to us the importance of having our minds renewed so that we may be transformed. As long as our old way of thinking is compatible with scripture then we have no problem. But sooner something in scripture will not gel with our way of thinking and we find that in someway the scripture does not make sense or is not agreeable with us.

There are two ways to deal with it. Firstly we can subordinate scripture to our way of thinking. This alienates us from scripture and keeps scripture obscure to the realm of our understanding. Therefore we are locked into a never ending cycle where we get no where nearer to really understanding scripture and claim that it is impossible to know what large sections of it mean. It is a never ending hermeneutical circle. The second way we can deal with it is to submit ourselves to the authority of God’s word so that if we find that scripture genuinely contradicts our world view that we change our world view to conform to scripture. Either conform scripture to our beliefs or we must conform our beliefs to scripture. When we take the first route scripture will be seem so difficult to understand. We may believe that we are following God but in changing His revelation we distort His character and like Psalm 50 says, we presume that God is just like us. When we take the second route we find that scripture starts to make more sense because of the life of Christ in us. We are not locked in a never ending circle of interpreting scripture but never able to come to the meaning but as we are constantly changed we get nearer and nearer to the scriptural worldview and so the hermeneutical circle has become a spiral narrowing closer and closer to an accurate understanding of scripture in its own context.

In showing the Jewish people their own lostness and need for a saviour Paul, in Romans 2:17-23, highlights Jewish privilege. Israel had a name of Jew, they relied in the law and boasted in God. They claimed knowledge of God’s will, were able to discern the important things of God’s law, were called to be a light to the blind, a corrector of the foolish and a teacher of the immature. Paul asks a very personal question to them in verse 21. When they teach another, do they not teach themselves? Are they guilty in any shape of form of the same sins they speak against? Such double standards and hypocrisy brings dishonour to God’s name. In verse 24 Paul quotes from Isaiah 52:5. When ever you see a New Testament writer quoting the Old Testament you need to take time to see what the Old Testament quote means in its own context. Only then will you fully understand the point that the New Testament writer is making and how it applies. In the context of Isaiah, God’s name was blasphemed among the Assyrians who had captured the northern tribes of Israel and exiled them. Ezekiel 36:20 shows why the Assyrians would have been blaspheming God’s name. When a nation went to war, it was not only they who were fighting. They believed that the gods of their tribe were fighting the gods of their enemies. God had to surrender Israel to Assyria because their sins needed to be judged. But Assyria did not see it in that light. From their point of view, their gods had defeated YHWH, the God of Israel and so they mocked Israel asking where their God was. When we profess the Truth of God’s word faithfully, God will hold us to that standard. There is something really disconcerting about being a church that stands for Truth. God will not be more lenient with us for holding to being on ‘the right side’ of His Word. The only church in Revelation that Jesus threatened to remove the candle stick of was Ephesus, the church that most notably held to doctrinal truth. The only thing that they had wrong with them was not heresy, or immorality, nor was it heavy shepherding. The only thing that was wrong with Ephesus was that they left their first love. That was enough for the Lord to put an end to that congregation!

The Lord is calling us to be obedient to God’s word. Then we will know the Truth. Then we will shine the light. Then we will see God as He is and not according to our preference. Our attitude to the word of Truth must be one of subservience. There is no one above the word for the word is the embodiment and arbiter of Truth. By it we seek to walk in righteousness and without it we are lost. This concerns more than doctrinal statements but touches all of our Christian life as the next part in this series shows us.