NSCF 9: The Challenge of Apprenticeship

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At this point, some are beginning to wonder; "Ben's NSCF reflections are getting longer and longer. When will they ever end?" So, I officially declare, this is the final entry!


On Saturday morning, Uncle Jason gave the most inspiring closing challenge I have ever heard for any event/camp. He talked about the Chinese characted 'tu' (above), which means 'disciple.' It is a compound word, comprising 'two persons' and 'walking,' and implies that discipleship is 'a Master and an apprentice walking together.'

He described our lives as Christ's apprentices, as a series of arrivals, journeys, celebrations and departures, and illustrated our journey thus;

Walk with God...
Walk away from God?
Walk back to God!
Walk again with God...

At one point in the middle of his challenge, he gave some examples of the problems that plague today's youth--the very context into which we apprentices of Christ will be plunged upon our return to the 'real world':

Disco and clubbing
Foul talk and thoughts
Lying and cheating
Cigarettes, liquor and drugs
Lust and pornography
Pre-marital sex

If I remember correctly, he said that these would usually become more of an issue as a person grows older. Having seen eighteen years of life, I cannot disagree with him, and am myself guilty of many of them.

And this is where we must consider question with which he began; is it easier to die for Christ, or to live for Christ?

Indeed, it is harder the live for Christ, for it requires a daily dying to self, an hourly denial of desires, thoughts and actions that oppose the Spirit of Christ.


There's a J. Oswald Sanders quote in the Teachers' Christian Fellowship (TCF) of Malaysia's newsletter, In Step, Volume 15 Issue 4, which reads as follows;

"In most decisions the difficult part is not in knowing what we ought to do; it is in being willing to pay the price involved."

But Uncle Jason pointed out, very wisely, that there is no real sacrifice. To give something up in order to receive something greater is no sacrifice. The price we pay is nothing compared to the reward which awaits us.

I didn't understand this until I read similar thoughts in Willard's 'The Divine Conspiracy' some days later;

"There is no such thing as a dreadful price for the 'pearl' in question [Matt 13:45-46]... The point is simply that unless we clearly see the superiority of what we receive as his students over every other thing that might be valued, we cannot succeed in our discipleship to him."

Paul famously wrote to the Philippians (and do bear in mind that he wrote this while under Roman house imprisonment);

"...I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him..."

Wow! I consider my Cambridge Ph.D rubbish; my Olympic gold medals are worthless; the datuk-ship is nothing; all authority I wield amounts to nought.

Uncle Jason put it bluntly when he said, "The King James Version uses the word 'dung,' but Uncle Jason says, 'I consider them shit."

For what? Why do we consider them shit? Because we have found something worth so much more, against which all that we now possess can register no weight. The excerpt from Philippians closes with what is unmistakably the prayer of an apprentice;

"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."


And this is where the encouragement comes in.

In John 21, Jesus asks Peter three times, "Do you love me?" Willard points out that Jesus uses the word 'agapas' the first two times, then switches to 'philo' on the third. Peter answers all three with 'philo.'

So, far from being an exercise in redundancy, Jesus is showing Peter just how small Peter's love is, which cannot rise above 'philo' to the perfect 'agape' love.

But that did not deter Jesus, and he turned this flimsy apprentice into the rock upon which the church was built. Even from the beginning of his ministry, Jesus gave him the name 'Peter' which means 'rock.'

We may not be good enough to answer God's call, but that's no excuse. As Sanders writes in 'Spiritual Leadership';

"When God calls us, we cannot refuse from a sense of inadequacy. Nobody is worthy of such trust. When Moses tried that excuse, God became angry (Exodus 4:14). Let us not pass the buck of leadership because we think ourselves incapable."

We must follow, not because we are capable, but because God is. Indeed, as Sanders adds elsewhere in the book, quoting the Salvation Army preacher Samuel Brengle;

"The axe cannot boast of the trees it has cut down. It could do nothing but for the woodsman. He made it, he sharpened it, and he used it. The moment he throws it aside, it becomes only old iron. O that I may never lose sight of this."

In camp, Nigel said again and again to remind us, echoing the words of John the Baptist, "He must increase and I must decrease." In retrospect, he admits that it was really God who ran the camp.

Prior to camp, I actually told Nigel I wanted to put on a different image. Eventually, I remained myself at camp, because that was what I was meant to be. And the image I wanted to try was some radical, John-the-Baptist-type character.

But now I find that I could not be John the Baptist, simply because I wasn't ready. And that is the challenge that now lies before me; to yield to Christ, and let him increase in my life, displacing the power I have over myself.

In an amazing irony, as C.S. Lewis wrote, it is once we fully surrender to God, that we truly become ourselves and realise our full potential.


Some four years ago, I took a course in evangelism. Every week, we would gather as a class to discuss and evaluate our respective team's work during the week. The purposes of these meetings were for Instruction, Inspiration and Intercession.

At the end of the course, I would've gotten a perfect score in the exam, had I not forgotten the word 'intercession.' Never again would it slip my memory.

I never mentioned one of the most moving experiences I had at camp. After Uncle Earn Soo's last talk on Thursday night, I went forward for the altar call, and spent some time there kneeling.

Only when I got up did I realise that it was Simon who spent a long time kneeling beside me, and who prayed for me, after Runa and an unidentified intercessor did so much earlier on.

Intercession is what the Christian community in many ways exists for. It is the hallmark of what I believe d'NA stands for: being there for one another, representing each other before the throne of heaven.

At the end of the day, it was just a six-day camp. So what? Why bother writing so many reflections? Isn't this all just a sudden spiritual high?

If I may say so, with no hint of dishonesty or exaggeration, I don't think so. I do not believe the work God started in camp will amount to nothing. After all, the entire Christian movement has been based on a wooden crossbeam and three nails... not to mention a giant rock which ones sealed a cave.

There is no power in objects or humans alone, but it is God who gives meaning and significance and purpose.

When camp began, Nigel posed this question to us all, "Why are you here?"

I wrote something then. And at the reflection on Friday, I wrote something again, as we were supposed to evaluate our purpose as we saw it differently after the few days.

Now, if asked that question, I can only say, it was the will of God. By his grace I was led to the camp, for purposes which I am only beginning to discover. In short, I do not yet know.

But God does, and I pray I may find out by following him ever so closely, walking with him and watching him do what he does. Being his apprentice in the unforced rhythms of his boundless grace.

Amen.