In this series, I explore conversations with friends my generation about the things our shared Christian faith has inspired, affirmed, and challenged in our marriages, workplaces, church, etc. Geoffrey Mbaziira goes to Calvary Chapel Kampala and works with Interface Uganda, an Institute that provides space for conversation dialogue and collective thinking on faith, religion, and culture issues in public life. Married to Jackie, we explored conversations on related.

1. Now that lockdown has introduced online Church, why is Chuch as a “place” still important in the Christian life? 

First of all, the church has never been a building or a place, the New Testament where we find its concept doesn’t define it like that, rather it’s a people called by God, as the Apostle states, “called by God, a chosen race, a holy nation, a people for his own possession”  (1 Peter 2:9) it’s important to have that very clear.

Jesus didn’t die to save a building, but a people joined to himself from eternity past, so even as we think about worship, we think of it not as a 2 hour Sunday thing, but a way of life, a daily living bowing to his rule, so when we are not meeting like now, we are not forsaking God, rather, we forsake him when we don’t live before him in our hours, days.

Does that mean we shouldn’t gather, no, church as “place” as you mentioned is important, because when we do this, we spur each other unto holiness, love, when we lift our voices as the elect, its beautiful, it rises, like the OT metaphor puts, like “a sweet-smelling aroma”, the bonds of togetherness should have been established long before we come together on Sunday, they are developed in our communal settings, family to family, individual to individual, this seems like our present opportunity.

Maybe it should even be our major focus now that we can’t meet, strengthen the joints that make up this chain, grow localized home groups, when we do that, that’s what it means to be a people of God. That’s what eventually makes our gatherings meaningful. That’s what church should be. So church as a place is important but only after we have understood what it means to be a body.

2. What has fatherhood and being a hubby to Jackie taught you most? 

I could say much but I will just highlight, I realize more and more how feeble and weak I am every other day, in leading, providing, protecting, my weaknesses have been exposed daily, I see how unfit I am to do this.

And yet she is still here, this morning listening to Ravi Zacharias, he referred to his wife stating, if salvation were by works, she would get to heaven for the works she does for him, it resonated, because I fall short, but Jackie still loves me, she is a mirror of God’s grace, God is like that and so much more, he’s in covenant with us even when we keep breaking it every other day. Jackie has mirrored that to me almost perfectly!

So I am learning to extend such grace too every day, I could talk forever, but as a dad, the safety my son feels especially when we’ve both been around this lockdown still amazes, small things like him running to me when most scared remind me about God. I am reminded in my fathering that nothing can separate us from his love too, as his children, yet we easily give way under circumstances. Jordan’s confidence about his safety with me has indeed given me a greater picture of God, as the hymn goes “he will hold me fast.”

3. Why are family devotions so hard and where do discouragements in Bible reading come from? 

It’s amazing how hard family devotions are, I am such a culprit, so I see how hard it is to keep up, I start and lapse, only to realize I have fallen behind weeks later, but I remember reading an article where the author insisted we make it too hard sometimes, yet simplicity should rule, so instead of just coming together to read the Bible and pray, we want it a little more complicated. Yet keeping it simple goes a long way. So word and prayer, I would say, are fundamental and enough, those two can do their work. Regularly read or explain a passage and pray, pretty much.

The other thing that usually happens is the right motivation or the lack of it, I have for example thought about the number of times preachers make me guilty about family devotions, so you find I am doing it out of guilt, yet you see, guilt can only go so far as motivation, only when we are convinced about the purpose of devotion can we thrive, the purpose, namely. God has called me to lead a family and point them to Christ and this is the means, and if I am only acting out of guilt, maybe that’s another reason I keep falling behind?

Then, we minimize how the devil fights any devotion to God; we forget its spiritual warfare. We forget that we are at war and that our enemy contends against us with such vehemence, so we start and the whole thing collapses, which calls for perseverance.

4. What have your reflections been after seasons of leading Bible study? 

I think about the importance and sweetness of studying the Bible, David exclaims in Psalms 119:103 how sweet “your words are to my taste” this is the beauty you experience as you dive deep in God’s word. This is the same way I feel devoting myself to the study of his word. When the Westminister catechism begins with the question, “what’s the chief and highest end of man, namely, to glorify God and enjoy him forever”, this is what it means, I find that we cannot glorify God if we do not delve in the study of his word, there is no enjoyable, delighting in him if we have not found his word sweet!

I mean, Peter tells his readers in 1 Pet 2 to desire “the pure milk of the word”, which means our growth is tied to our desire for God’s word, just like babies need milk for growth.  In Psalm 42:1 the sons of Korah talk about “a deer panting for water” alongside their soul-longing. In approaching God through Holy Scripture, the importance of water for thirsty deers is the kind of longing we need, it’s a spiritual thirst we need to give ourselves to over and over.

You’ve noted before how we have lots of professing Christians in Uganda yet our national morality is nowhere, why?  Precisely we have people who have not studied God’s word, given themselves to it, and growth will not come until we do.

5. In Bible study, how do we avoid only going for the most interesting parts of scripture? 

The Bible is one big story of God, so we have to be careful not to pick and choose, we are naturally inclined to run to interesting stories, but because its one story, we have to go at it all. It’s like somebody writing you a letter and you choosing to read a couple of isolated sentences in days apart, the scriptures only make sense as one letter, so the Bible. Like someone has said, the scriptures are God’s letter for us, but not to us.

For most people, having a Bible reading guide helps, there are many online, the most important thing then is not to necessarily read the whole Bible in a year, (I find that pressuring by the way) so as long as you purpose to read through the whole Bible,  don’t feel the pressure to finish in a year.

The point here is that you develop or find a guide, that said, I find that most guides do not follow the order of Bible books, they mix it up, and so that helps you read manageable chunks, for example mixing up synoptic gospels together with the Pentateuch, helps when using guides.

Then, obviously, because it is a story, you need to follow the story of redemption, some guides do that more than others, as it helps bring meaning to the entire Bible storyline of creation, fall, redemption, as you follow from Genesis to Revelation.

6. Doesn’t the Old Testament talk about curses affecting grandchildren, what exactly is wrong in believing in generational curses? 

Exodus 37:7 and Numbers 14:18 among other passages come to mind concerning this question, but the most cited text among purveyors of deliverance theology is Exodus 20:5, but when you look there, the context of that verse communicates something totally opposite to what they propagate, what we have here is a God lavish on grace rather than curses, I argue so because in that text you see a parallelism of verses that contrasts two groups of people and relations, call them responses to God.

Some are conditioned on disobedience and others on obedience, the comparison there is about visiting iniquity to the fourth generation and showing mercy to thousands, we can fully exegete this passage on another occasion but the point is to see how God is lavish in mercy and grace and love rather than seeing God as quick to punish.

This is the very notion Ezekiel 18:3 refutes, insisting that only “a soul that sins shall die, the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son” this is in response to the question that comes before in 18:2 “What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge?”

 So you notice that this notion of generation curses wasn’t even present in the Old Testament, the teaching arises out of a misunderstanding of the scriptural text. Old and New.

Speaking of which, It’s important to note that there is a radical change that happens at the cross, between the Old and New covenant, so to argue for “generational curses” is to deny the very sufficiency of the cross of Christ and the atonement it accomplishes, basically you cannot be regenerate and still have an “undealt with spiritual past”, that’s not the testimony of scripture. Everything from the past has been dealt with, why? Because the cross is enough, when we repent of sin in coming to Christ, the past present and future forgiveness he offers is sufficient to free us from the bondage of sin, and Satan’s power.

We don’t need to always recite or renounce our forefathers’ sin, the clear testimony of scripture testifies to the totality of Christ’s substitutionary saving and finished work! So the cross is the basis that has secured our justification, sanctification, deliverance, freedom from darkness, all of us in Christ are delivered, we are free!

We are complete in him, we don’t do anything to receive this freedom, we only rest in it, we are new and complete in him, without fear. Because God has placed all believers in an unbreakable union with Christ, Paul uses the word “hid,” we are “hidden in Christ” (Col 3:3) and ‘hid’ means we can’t be reached, no power of the enemy can, we are in him; we, therefore, minimize this unbreakable union when we believe these truths and at the same time propagate notions of generational curses.

The other danger, of course, is not teaching these truths well is that they may push some people to another extreme, namely relinquishing personal responsibility for personal sin, shifting their sin fight onto others, their father’s mistakes and so on, instead of owning the good fight of faith, instead of fighting personal sin like scriptures tell us, so as a disclaimer, the cross does not shield us from personal responsibility. And the ground of everything is the good news that Christ has died and no curse has remained on a believer!

ENDS

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