on the death of pastor Andrew Stoecklein and of too many others like him

Four days ago, the pastor of Inland Hills Church of Chino, CA, Andrew Stoecklein, committed suicide. From what I’ve heard, about 400 pastors do this every year. That’s 400 too many.

I don’t think it happens because God doesn’t care/can’t help people with anxiety or depression. That would be an erroneous statement that flies in the face of not only the Bible, but of thousands of testimonies, including mine.

I think it happens, number one, because we have a real enemy that wants to destroy us! He wants us to believe his lies and to be held back by strongholds of fear, sadness, addiction and other bad things, and he goes about looking for opportunities to devour people!

The other reason I think it happens is because of the pedestal pastors can accidentally find themselves on. Pastors have so many expectations on them: they have to preach the word of God at all times, have their behavior in line at all times, be ready to provide a caring voice and hand for their flock at all times...it’s a stressful profession! And I think it is all too easy for pastors to fall into the trap that they must be perfect people and they must be able to carry all the people's burdens by themselves. And because they feel like they can’t express their struggles to anyone (or else they’ll lead the flock astray, oh no!) they struggle in isolation. And isolation is an ACTUAL tool of the devil. It amplifies your internal problems by a lot.

What can we do as normal churchgoing people? I think the main thing we can do is continually pray for our pastors. When I was struggling with anxiety and depression myself (mainly in college), what got me back from the brink was the constant prayer and support of my parents. They were not just feelings that came and went; they were spiritual strongholds sent by the devil to take me out. Spiritual strongholds require spiritual weapons, so prayer is the ideal weapon against these things. If you happen to know that your pastor is in a direct struggle with these things, pray that those strongholds would break in Jesus’ name. If you don’t think they’re struggling, pray that they will be able to continually cast their cares upon God and that the joy of the Lord would be their strength.

Another thing we can do is let our pastors be people once in a while. Many times pastors write of not having a vacation in 10 or more years because they’re always on duty. Even doctors don’t suffer that much! I am a big advocate of pastors getting annual vacations or sabbaticals or what not. We all need time to rest and recharge and to simply listen to what God is saying to us. Other than that, we should allow our pastors to be vulnerable with us when needed. The pastor isn’t just there to serve us; he or she is our supervisor, and we are all workers in the body of Christ. Therefore as church people we should be willing to (collectively) bear our pastors’ burdens as well. Again, prayer is key!

One thing that churches can do that lessens the burden on pastors is to have more than one good preacher or leader. My home church, Christian Life Center, and my current church, Hillsong LA, both have multiple main speakers, and this is very key! At CLC, when my pastors take their annual vacation to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, the church isn’t left scrambling because we have other trained pastors and leaders who can take over for the week. These leaders can then help the pastor bear his or her burdens and make the work lighter.

All this is to say that as a church we all need to be on guard against depression and anxiety in our pastors and leaders. When you get the chance, do pray for pastor Stoecklein’s family and his church, and also for the other churches that have undoubtedly gone through the same thing this year.

The United States National Suicide Prevention Hotline can help in times of crisis if you call 1(800)-273-8255.

How To Survive First Year of Med School

Second year of med school starts in three days...SIGH.

In trying to mentally prepare myself to start this year, I am amassing tips for incoming first years or gung-ho premeds.

1. You are going to be surrounded by people who are just as driven and as smart as you are. DO NOT FALL into the comparison trap. Other people have their race to run and you have your race to run. Don't judge yourself on the accomplishments of others.

2. Going with the last note, do be ambitious, but please don't be a gunner. Don't ask people what score they got on the test or try and take advantage of people to make yourself look good. People will not like you!

3. Find a study method (or a couple) that works for you and stick to it. If you're like me, this may change from block to block or from week to week, depending on the material and on whether you like to switch it up (like me). This is okay as long as you KEEP STUDYING throughout the block.

4. You can cram in med school...but it's a lot harder than in college. It's a megaton of information, so you have to give yourself a certain amount of time to learn all of it before the test. The best way to do it is to study at least a couple of hours each day after class. Then when you are reviewing before the test, you'll have seen the information before, and it'll be easier to remember.

5. I always felt better studying the information I learned on the day. If I wasn't able to get through all the material for August 7, for example, instead of spending August 8 trying to catch up, I'd just leave the rest of the August 7 material until the weekend and skip over to August 8 material. This way, I was able to keep up with the material pretty well and not fall behind too much. Falling behind is very discouraging, so I try to avoid that as much as I can.

6. You may fall behind. You may violate your perfect study schedule sometimes. You may even unintentionally take a day off because you're tired. That's okay. You're not perfect, and you don't have to be perfect in order to be successful in medical school. If you make a mistake or two or seven, don't dwell on the fact that you messed up. The righteous person falls seven times and gets back up eight times. If you fall, get up and try again.

7. If you budget your time well, you WILL have time on weekends to have fun! People think that med school is the end of all fun...it isn't. You will study a lot, but there will be some free time! (When studying for Step 1 or on rotations where you work on weekends, there will be less free time. But you'll be okay.)

8. For me, talking to patients was a LOT scarier than studying was! A lot of the confidence for that comes with practice. If your school gives you chances to practice, TAKE THEM. You may feel uncomfortable or like you're being annoying, but your grades third and fourth year as well as your future patients will thank you.

9. Don't be afraid to ask for help. No one expects you to know everything yet; you are a medical student, and a first-year one at that. You've barely been inducted into the profession, and everyone expects you to need help at some point. Also, it reflects badly on the med school if the students do badly, so most schools should have plenty of help resources. Take advantage of them. Get a tutor if needed.

10. Try and get on an exercise regimen and to eat healthy. Most people go into med school after their teenage years, and our bodies start reacting to bad treatment as time goes on. At least in my experience, if I go too long without exercising, my thighs start aching and I get super lethargic, which is not something I can afford with med school's fast pace. I've heard of similar experiences with my classmates. You don't have to look like a model; just find a way to be active for thirty minutes or so more than once a week. It's similar with eating; clean eating makes me feel really good and gives me energy.

11. Going along with number 7, find time for at least one hobby that you liked before medical school and keep doing it. For me the thing I did most consistently was learn languages, a hobby I've had since I was ten years old. It engages another part of my brain and makes me happy.

12. Medicine consists of a lot more than learning copious amounts of biology. It also consists of forming positive relationships with patients (yay social skills) and learning how to do research (at least in my medical school) among other things. Don't skimp on these parts of the job just because learning the science is harder! The science is what gives you good grades now, but the other things (especially the doctor-patient relationship thing) will make you a better doctor later.

There is plenty more advice to give, but I don't know it yet, so you get this. Congratulations on medical school, and hope this helps.

No New Friends?

This summer has been an interesting one for me. The nature of my research means that I have a ton more free time than normal, which is amazing. But the downside to having two months off from med school is that all of my school friends are off doing their own thing, and because I had no connections to the LA area before med school, I realized that I actually had very few friends in LA.

Drake coined the phrase “no new friends”, and I feel like that’s how millennial society approaches friendship. Friends—real ones, anyway—come few and far between, and once you leave school, you essentially have no chance of making any more real friends, so keep your real ones close and keep the rest of humanity at arm’s length. This is a decent philosophy—that is, if you stay in the same area and never move to a new place. For those of us who do make moves across the country to places where you don’t know a soul, we have to revise that a bit, don’t we?

The Bible says, “He who wants to have friends must show himself friendly.” Even our best friends start as people we’ve never talked to before, and it takes time—and multiple conversations—for people to become acquaintances, and even more of that to become friends. Many people (including me, as I found out this summer) stop right before the first conversation. It’s always awkward, and there’s the nagging fear that the person won’t like you or won’t want to hang out with you or will ALWAYS be too busy to hang out with you. As annoying as this sounds, the way to overcome that is to push past the fear and start reaching out to people. That doesn’t mean that you don’t feel any fear; you’re just not letting it dictate what you’re going to do. You’re taking control of the situation.

So without further ado, here are some tips for people who need to make new friends:

1.     As said above, you’re going to have to take control over your fear (AKA timidity or anxiety) or you won’t be able to do anything. That is NOT the same as pretending the fear is not there; you have to acknowledge your enemy in order to defeat it. You also have to learn where the enemy is coming from. Sometimes, the anxiety can be a relic of some bad experiences in your past. This was my case. I spent a large chunk of my childhood with literally no friends, and people essentially kept me at a distance. College and medical school gave me friends and I thought I was set, but then summer came and I was stuck in LA alone and the anxiety came back. My mom told me to reach out to people and the first time she told me that, I nearly had an emotional breakdown because I was so scared that people would reject me! I had to make myself a positive affirmation that basically said that I am not in middle school anymore and that people will like me, and I had to put that on my wall and affirm that to myself all the time. Only then was I able to start reaching out.

2.     Figure out what kind of people you want to meet, and then go where those people go. Meeting random people is great and all, but if you want to meet friends, the type of people that you would want to be around, you should go to the places you expect those people to be at. If you want to meet skaters, go to the skate park. If you want to meet dancers, take a dance class. If you want to meet Christians, go to church. For those who aren’t set on one “type” of person, religious (and probably humanist) organizations, park districts, and YMCAs are places that have diverse activities for diverse ages and stages of people, so those are great places to start. The Internet (Yelp and Meetup come to mind) can also help you find special interest groups where you can meet people. 

a.     A great way of meeting people is doing community service. Community service is the type of hard work that brings people together in solidarity, and many friendships can be made with volunteers as well as with the people you serve. (Also, people who are serving their communities are probably more likely to be generally nice and good people, especially if they’re volunteers.) A major thing that I did was to volunteer at my church’s youth camp, Encounter. With about 50-100 other volunteers, I helped run a three-day summercamp for 350 teenagers. Along the way, I made quite a few new friends, and got a couple of dope pictures.

3.     Go to where the people you want to meet are, and go there regularly. The reason why it’s so easy to make friends in school is because in school, you see the same people every day, so there’s room to have conversations and develop friendships. As an adult, you have to make that regularity a thing for yourself. The first couple of times are the most awkward, and that’s where most people quit. The people you meet the first week you go may not be there the next week, and you might feel left alone as a result. Don’t give up! Keep going there and introducing yourself to people. In time, you’ll meet other “regulars”, and there’s where the friendship starts!

4.     Do go to the places where the people you want to meet are, but also don’t forget that there may be new friends right in front of you that you haven’t met yet or given a chance. Sometimes, we can be such perfectionists that if a person doesn’t look like a best friend immediately we write them off. Your roommate who you get along with but never really talk to, the custodian you pass every day, the kid who sits next to you in class but isn’t in your “friend group”—all of these are potential friends. Strike up some conversations with them and see how that goes.  

5.     So you’ve met another person, and you like him or her. You vibe well and have good conversations. Good! Get their phone number or email and (if applicable) friend them on social media. How do you ask for their number? After a couple good conversations (and preferably when you’re about to leave), ask them, “hey, can we exchange numbers/emails/social media?” It’s likely that the person will give you at least one of the three, especially if they like you. Numbers, emails and social media enable you to keep up the friendship even if you don’t regularly see the person. They are key if you want to extend the friendship beyond just your weekly church meeting or yoga class. However…

6.     Don’t just get the person’s contact and then never contact them. Text them and start a conversation! A good way to start a conversation over text (without getting a one word response) is, “Hey, how are you? How’s your week going?” (They will then hopefully describe their week, and you can go from there.) You can also send the person an encouraging quote or a funny meme, or even a picture of cute kittens—anything that will brighten their day. On social media, don’t just scroll through their posts. Leave a nice comment on their Instagram post or Snapchat story, and give them the chance to reply to you. In time, you can also set up a real face-to-face meeting as well.

Here's a picture of some cute kittens. Send this to your new friend; they won't be able to resist!

These are just a few of the many tips that could be given. Experts have written plenty about this topic: there’s even a famous book called How To Win Friends and Influence People. I am not one of those experts, but I have been able to apply these tips this summer and see results. I hope this helps somebody.  

World Cup roundup: Round of 16 and quarterfinals

I prayed that the World Cup would continue to offer us surprises, and God certainly answered me. Of the three World Cups I have followed, this is certainly the best one, and that's not just because England are in the semifinals for the first time since before I was born (!!!!).

Wow, wow, WOW. Where do we start?

Let's start with the round of 16. Within four hours on a Saturday, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, the two greatest players of this generation, were both sent out. Ronaldo and Portugal crashed out to a clinical Uruguay side, while France put four past Lionel Messi and Argentina to send them out in style. This continued a theme from the group games: the teams that relied too much on one star player were going out. The teams that were staying had unified sides with more than one "star".

The next day brought the biggest upset of this World Cup, as Spain fell to Russia on penalties. I came out of church that morning, looked up the results and reeled in shock. Spain and Russia had gone to penalties! Russia had taken Spain, the 2010 champions, to a penalty shootout. Russia then proceeded to cement my shock by winning said shootout. There has been plenty of shock this World Cup, but this topped it all in my opinion. The lowest-ranked team going into the tournament beat the 2010 World Cup champions, who were favorites to win. It was absolute insanity. (Though honestly, I think I can use the words absolute insanity to describe the entire tournament.)

Picture from the Times of Israel.

Less surprising on the same Sunday was Croatia putting Denmark out on penalties. If anything, I was shocked that Denmark even took Croatia that far. Yet again, no team was to be underestimated in this topsy-turvy tournament.

I was very nervous for England going into the round of 16 game. For those who are not familiar with England's recent footballing history, the prevailing theme is disappointment. England had a lot of talent, but after 1990 (the last time they made the semifinals), they could never pull it together. Eventually, the gap between expectation and reality became a source of pressure and fear for England players, to the point where they were at the brink of collapse whenever they played. Whether against a weak team or a strong team, watching England was always a nervy affair and very often a disappointing one. Their performance at Euro 2016 two years ago is the best example of what they'd come to. They barely scraped into the round of 16, where they found none other than Iceland, a country the size of Pittsburgh, PA. When Iceland scored twice in 12 minutes, the team essentially turned into 11 headless chickens, failing to execute any sort of coherent plan and gifting the win to a grateful Iceland team. The fear of failure haunted them throughout that tournament and many others, to the point where the English players literally could not cope with even the slightest danger. These players, who were so talented for their clubs, would mess up for England time after time because the pressure had paralyzed them.

Terrible memories...Iceland after beating England back in 2016. Pic from The Telegraph.

After Euro 2016, no one really wanted to manage the England national team. The unenviable job went to a former youth coach, Gareth Southgate. I'm no football analyst, so I can't tell you everything Southgate did right, but there are a couple obvious things. The first thing is that he made England confront their fears. England in particular were very bad at penalty shootouts, so he made his team focus on penalties in order to break that fear. He was also very realistic about his team instead of pouring too much expectation on them, and he chose players based on merit, not their "possible potential" or "history with the team". His team had some stars (Harry Kane and Dele Alli come to mind), but most of the the team were not so well known before the tournament. It helped that the players had grown up playing for England's junior national teams together and were able to put aside club rivalries in order to be a team.

Going into the World Cup, people liked Southgate and the new-look team, but expectations were very low. I was nervous for the Tunisia and Panama games; England had faltered against nations like these. But instead, they won against Tunisia and absolutely crushed Panama. They lost against Belgium, but Belgium are #3 in the world, so no one was disappointed. Their loss also meant that they finished second in the group, so they went into the half of the draw with the lower ranked teams, which was very good in retrospect. But still, they had Colombia to deal with. 

Colombia are a very good side, with stars such as James Rodriguez and Radamel Falcao, and most pundits would have favored them to win. But they were not at full strength, and as a result, they mostly tried to defend and play somewhat dirty. The game dragged on with the sides getting one goal each, and it eventually went to penalties, England's old enemy. To my shock, England won the penalty shootout! (They'd been in five penalty shootouts in major tournaments and had never won until then.) As my cousin said after that game, "This World Cup is like a kid in primary school who's been told it's opposite day!"

The magic continued into the quarterfinals, where England played Sweden, who were in the quarterfinals for the very first time. I was fortunate to watch this game live, and it was an exciting one. Sweden were great and fought to the end, but England were the better team, creating most of the chances and scoring twice. It ended 2-0, and for the first time in my lifetime, England were in the semifinals! I'm still wearing my England shirt that I took from my brother four or five years ago. For the first time ever, I'm wearing it with pride. No matter what happens now, this World Cup has made me and many others proud to be England fans again, and for that I have to thank Gareth Southgate and his team!

Happy times...Dele Alli celebrates after his goal vs. Sweden (NDTV)

After winning the penalty shootout vs. Colombia (BBC)

I watched that game out in the San Fernando Valley, also known as "the Valley", and I stayed around to watch the last quarterfinal, Russia vs. Croatia. As it turns out, the Valley is full of Russians, and several of them showed up to the watch party where I was, shouting chants nonstop for 120 minutes and a penalty shootout. 

The game certainly fit the crackling atmosphere. Denis Cheryshev scored a beautiful long-range goal for Russia, but Croatia let them know that it wasn't over just eight minutes later via a header from Andrej Kramaric. In extra time, the roles were reversed; Croatia scored first to go ahead, only for Russia to respond with an incredible header from Mario Fernandes via a corner kick from Artem Dzyuba. They were neck and neck until the penalty shootout, and it was exciting and tiring to watch! I knew Russia's game was over the moment that Fernandes shot his penalty wide. Honestly, though, they have absolutely crushed the expectations and silenced all the haters, and they've done so well just by getting to the quarterfinals.

And honestly, I can say that for almost every team. Sweden weren't even in the World Cup for so many years, but this year they went to the quarterfinals WITHOUT their star player, Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Croatia had been in the World Cup for a while, but they were always crashing out in the group stages. This time they've declared themselves one of the teams of the tournament; not even the hosts, buoyed by an entire nation, could stop them. Belgium have only become good in the past six years or so; their golden generation is finally reaching the heights they're supposed to reach. Japan, who in the past often looked like a waste of a World Cup spot, topped their group and broke into the Round of 16 for the first time in a while. Even Denmark, who crashed out in the round of 16, are better than I can ever remember them being. Almost all the traditional powers are at home watching while the underdogs get to run the tournament, and for that reason, this is my favorite World Cup ever. (Hopefully the next World Cup will involve more African teams, though. Just saying...)

I end this (somewhat biased) review with a shoutout to a Russian player whose name no one knew before this tournament, the aforementioned Denis Cheryshev. Cheryshev plays for a lesser-known Spanish club called Villareal, and prior to this tournament, he was not playing regularly for them. His biggest claim to fame was getting Real Madrid eliminated from an important tournament back in 2015. He has spent the last five years being shuttled between clubs, and he wasn't guaranteed to get into this Russia team for the World Cup. Even then, he was expected to be a fringe player. Instead, he's been the breakout player of the tournament, scoring four gorgeous goals, including this screamer in the Russia-Croatia game just a couple hours before this piece was written.

Six days before this game, he made a post on his Instagram that piqued my interest as I was scrolling through the 'gram today. His Instagram (@cheryshev90) is not particularly interesting, but the caption on his last photo, taken during this World Cup, caught my eye. 

The caption reads: "Thank you Lord for everything! Phil 4:13: I can do everything through Jesus Christ #togetherwithmyteam." And it's not just this post; a lot of his posts have the caption "thank you Lord for everything." Is it not like God to lift his people out of the dust like that? As Hannah put it in 1 Samuel 2: 

"He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them he has set the world." (1 Samuel 2:8 ESV)

The Bible also says this:

"One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much..." (Luke 16:10 ESV)

Cheryshev's previous posts show that he had made a habit of glorifying God in every victory, no matter how many people saw him do it. Now that the whole world can see him, he's decided to continue with what he was doing. Just more proof that God is good to those who serve Him!

ON TO THE SEMIS!

World Cup roundup: the group games

Most people who know me probably don't know that I've been a soccer fan for about 10 years now. It all started on New Year's Eve, 2008. I was fourteen years old and visiting England with my family, and my uncle had a Premier League game on. Intrigued by how fast-paced and smooth the game was (in comparison to the stop-and-start nature of American football), I watched the entire game, and I've been hooked ever since.

I've spent most of my football fan life following the Premier League (with occasional interruptions from Spanish, French and German league football), but my favorite soccer event by far is the World Cup. Every four years, the world comes together around one game. It's amazing. I've had the privilege of following three World Cups now, and though apparently none of them have been as good as the past ones (according to more seasoned fans), I love it just the same. There's nothing quite like a World Cup summer.

This World Cup has been by far the most fun one to watch so far. What a round of group games! I checked results every day, and practically every day there was a surprise to gasp over. It literally started on day 1 when Russia, the lowest-ranked team in the tournament, beat Saudi Arabia 5-0. Even Uruguay, who are a much better team, didn't do as well against Saudi Arabia, and Russia were able to follow it up by scoring 3 goals against Egypt, qualifying to the knockout rounds easily. They may not be a great soccer team, but Russia is definitely a sports country, and home support can make a big difference for teams. (Just look at South Korea in 2002).

For Group B, Spain provided most of the drama when they sacked their coach a mere two days before the World Cup started. Their coach unwisely decided to announce that he'd be managing Real Madrid (one of the biggest clubs in Spain, and one whose administration is known for their prima donna attitude), and the federation was not having it, so out he went! The real question was whether Spain would recover, and they did. It wasn't too pretty, but they managed not to lose, which is more than a lot of favored teams can say.

Argentina were just one of the favored teams that found themselves in huge trouble after less favored teams proved to be good against them. Iceland were able to tie with them, and Croatia outclassed them in every way. I saw Luka Modric and Ivan Rakitic's goals live, and I just remember having my mouth drop after Modric's goal, in particular. It was just one of the many screamers of the group games, but what a goal it was. I did not see Croatia's first goal live, but it was also incredible. Ante Rebic not only took advantage of a goalie blunder, he did so in STYLE. What a volley!

Group D also had one of my "official" teams (AKA a team I support), Nigeria, and they, too, shocked me in their second game by winning against Iceland. After Argentina capitulated against Croatia on the same day, I wanted so much for them to win against Argentina. But Argentina, they of four World Cup final appearances and two wins, were able to dig deep and find the will to win. That was probably my least favorite result of the group rounds, but Argentina likely deserved their win. Group D was one of the deepest groups, with two good teams being forced to leave the tournament early (Nigeria and Iceland).

At least Nigeria went out as the undisputed flyest team of the tournament. LOOK AT THIS KIT! *swoons*

Group E provided some unexpected political tension with Switzerland fielding three Kosovo-born players against Serbia, but other than that, it was relatively uninteresting, with expected results. Its relative lack of drama was made up for by Group F. OH MY DAYS.

Everyone thought Germany was going to contend for the trophy again after their showing in the Confederations Cup, a World Cup preview tournament, last year. Looking back, of course, we're not so sure now, but then they looked incredibly deep and almost invincible. Cue Mexico, who broke that impression with a single goal:

Even after that game, though, people just assumed that Germany would recover, because they always do. It is said that "football is a game where 22 people play for 90 minutes and the Germans always win". They have four World Cup trophies and haven't gone out earlier than the semifinals for the past 20 years at least. But then the game against South Korea came. Like a dead snake who can still kill you with its venom, South Korea, a team that was already eliminated, came in with a vengeance and scored two goals on Germany in stoppage time. At the same time, Sweden, traditionally known as a defensive side that grind out games, burst into the scene with three goals against Mexico. The combination of results put Germany out of the World Cup for the first time since 1938! EIGHTY YEARS!

Hindsight is 20/20, but I must say, I did suspect that the German league was getting weaker over the past four years. Bayern Munich is the only top club right now in the German league; they haven't had real competition in years, and they've had time to get complacent. Compare this to 2014, where the year before, Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund (two German clubs) had played the Champions League final. (The Champions League is the annual all-Europe club competition, generally fielding the best clubs in football.) German football was a lot more competitive then, and the team members had much more ambition than they did this year, in 2018. I sense that Germany spent four years sitting on their laurels, and they paid for it. They'll certainly be back though; their system is solid. All they need is ambition, and I hope this dismal World Cup performance gave them some!

Group G generally made me happy. My other official team, England, did really quite well for themselves. After grinding it out against Tunisia in typical England fashion, I was expecting their game against Panama to be another toughie; they instead blew Panama away with a six-goal rout. The English press, trying not to get excited, called them "clinical", but in what world is SIX goals a "clinical" performance? It was amazing, that's what it was, especially since Panama were playing so dirty and trying to distract them. Unfortunately, England lost against Belgium and they now have to play Colombia, one of the top teams in the tournament. Most people expect them to go out, but this World Cup has been full of surprises so far. Let's see what happens.

Happy England makes me happy. Photo from The Telegraph.

Group H, as it turns out, was the other group of death. Japan, traditionally a nonentity in football, had a coming out party in Russia, opening their tournament with a surprise win against ten-man Colombia. Granted, they were greatly helped by a mistake from Colombian Carlos Sanchez, but a win is a win! Senegal nearly did the same as Japan, winning over favored team Poland in one of my favorite surprise wins of the tournament. I was really rooting for them to do the same against Colombia, but again, the South American team proved stronger, and Senegal went out on a tiebreaker with Japan. Poland, who were ranked sixth in the world going in, were atrocious, and they went out with three losses.

Senegal in happier times, after they scored against Poland with a HOWLER! Sigh. Always in our hearts <3

That sums up the group stages for anyone still reading. It has been an incredible two weeks. Of course there are minuses: Group C in general (what is France doing?) and the fact that there are no African teams left in the tournament (*sobs*). But the amount of surprises and the amount of goals (just one 0-0 draw in 40+ games) has made up for the sad parts, and I am SO excited for the knockout stages. Pray with me that they will be just as good as the group games!

Controversial Bible Verses #2: On Women in Leadership

Disclaimer: I am not a seminarian, and I possess nothing approaching a degree in biblical interpretation. I am just a laywoman with a degree in economics who loves God and his Word. Also, I come from a Pentecostal/Charismatic background.

We pick up where I left off in the second half of 1 Timothy 2, a series of verses that at first seems designed to not let us women be great:

11 A woman[a] should learn in quietness and full submission. 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man;[b] she must be quiet. 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. 15 But women[c] will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with propriety.

I hardly consider myself a feminist, and even I want to get up and picket at the last three verses. Women will be saved through childbearing? Are you kidding me!?

These verses are far harder to interpret than the ones about modesty that I spoke of in my last post. Clothes are one thing; gender roles are quite another. On the one hand, as Christians we are supposed to live by God's Word at all times, and this is part of God's Word. On the other hand, these verses not only go against the currents of the modern age, they go against examples we see in our own Christian circles. Do we repudiate teachers and preachers such as Beth Moore, Joyce Meyer, and Christine Caine simply because they are women who (likely) teach men? Even if they preach as biblically as the men do, do we call them heretical simply because they are women? Were they not called by God, but instead hallucinating? What do we do?

We look for context, that's what we do.

The Bible is God's Word. As 2 Timothy 3:16 says, everything within it is inspired and should be used for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in godly living. But it is also a book and a collection of letters--letters that were not originally divided into chapters and verses. The chapters and verses were added later so that people wouldn't have to sift through 1,400 pages of material backwards and forwards whenever they wanted to find a specific point. Therefore, whenever we find a verse in the Bible, it is entirely reasonable to look at the context and look for other verses that talk about the same theme as the verse we've cited.

The most famous cross-reference for these verses here is 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, which says just about the exact same thing:

As in all the churches of the saints, 34 the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. 35 If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

The two verses don't contradict each other in any way; therefore, it appears that the debate is settled. But, if we look just three chapters earlier in 1 Corinthians 11, we find a contradiction:

 4 Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head, 5 but every wife[c] who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head...

Here, Paul seems to allow women in the church to both pray and prophesy. Both of those, especially prophecy, require speaking. If a woman is supposed to be completely silent in church, then why is she allowed to prophesy? Why, then, are there people such as Philip's four unmarried prophet daughters in the Bible (Acts 21:9)? The most simple answer is that praying and prophesying are different from just speaking. The Greek word for "speak" in 1 Corinthians 14:34 is laleo. One of the meanings of laleo is "to use words in order to declare one's mind and disclose one's thoughts" (Strong's Lexicon). Imagine for a second that you are in church, and the person preaching is speaking straight fire. (If you happen to not be a churchgoer and are reading this, imagine yourself to be at a really cool TED talk.) You're sitting there, listening and gleaning from this person, when someone decides that it is the right time to stand up in the middle of the service and interrupt the speaker to declare their mind and expose their thoughts. Even if their thoughts are somewhat relevant, they are still expressing them at a very improper time. The people there do not need to hear the interrupter's opinion, and they probably don't want to hear that person at any time since they were super rude. Now say that multiple people do this multiple times, at the same time. Before you know it, you don't know what anyone is saying anymore.

Apparently this was the situation with the church in Corinth, the recipients of the two letters to the Corinthians. 1 Corinthians, in particular, sounds like an incriminating letter from your dad who has just found out all of your dirty secrets. The Corinthian church had plenty of potential, and they were especially talented as far as spiritual gifts. They prophesied and spoke in tongues more than any church that Paul writes to. However, they had let the spiritual gifts become the centerpiece instead of the more important Christian values such as love, faith and hope. And they were very out of order. Much of the letter, including chapters 11 and 14, is Paul telling them how to do church. Communion is not a time to get drunk! Don't just yell out in tongues without any interpretation! No, you CAN'T have five people prophesy at the same time! Stop tolerating incest! (I kid you not. Read the book!) Much of the book of 1 Corinthians carries the tone of a person who is trying to establish order. In an orderly church setting, it is good for women (and men, honestly) to learn in quietness, as Paul puts it, and then discuss their questions in a more open setting, like at home or in a small group. Indeed, the word for "quietness" in 1 Timothy 2:11 is hesychia, which describes a person who does their own work and "does not meddle with the affairs of others". The silence demanded, then, is not a complete silence, but one that keeps everything within reasonable order.

This silence is apparently allowed to be broken when praying or prophesying, and I hardly need a lexicon to make a suggestion as to why. Prophecy is when someone gets a message from God by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Regardless of whether the someone is male or female, he or she is inspired by God with a message for the congregation, and should be allowed to speak out. Praying, similarly, is communicating with God. In a congregational setting, when the prayer is not just one person's opinion but that of the entire congregation, it makes no sense that only men should be allowed to pray to God. The only mediator for God, male or female, is Jesus Christ. Anyone can pray to him if he or she pleases.

Fast forward a couple thousand years to our cultural context, where women are just as educated as men are and the head coverings mentioned in 1 Corinthians 11 mean far less than they used to. In an orderly church setting, where people do not interrupt each other in order to express their opinions and one person talks at a time, does it not make sense that a woman who is under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit should be allowed to say what the Holy Spirit tells her to say? Some may disagree with me, but I think it makes perfect sense.

There are many women in the New Testament who are important enough to mention. Priscilla was one half of a great teaching team along with her husband Aquila. The end of Romans mentions a woman named Junia as being "outstanding among the apostles", and another lady, Phoebe, is mentioned as a deacon (Greek: "diakonos"). In fact, Romans 16 mentions plenty of women: Mary, Tryphena, Tryphosa, and Persis are just four women who have "worked very hard in the Lord", as Paul says. The second of John's letters is written to a "chosen lady" and her children, and at the end of that letter, he says that the lady's sister and her children greet her. It is entirely possible that these two unnamed women served as pastors of churches.

From the time Jesus resurrected from the dead and appointed a woman, Mary Magdalene, to be the first witness of his resurrection, there has always been a very significant and powerful role for women in the Gospel story, and this is only likely to continue throughout time.

Scripture quotations are from the New International Version (NIV), via BibleGateway.
Greek words are taken from Strong's Lexicon via the Blue Letter Bible, at blueletterbible.org.