Writing for Africa? Observe, Read, Think, Write. In That Order

While thinking on what to write, I was thinking to myself about it – how do I tell people what to write? You know, at least Norma told them that they should write, they should write something. So, I thought about it and I and I looked at the Book of Revelation 1:19. Just one verse and I just found a Bible here. I thought let me just make use of it. And Revelation 1:19, it says, “And we have a prophetic word more fully…” No, sorry. I’m reading something else now. I’m reading Peter. Revelation 1:19. Let me get to it quickly.

“Write, therefore, the things that you have seen – those are and those that are about to take place.” (Revelation 1:19) I was reading this in the New Living Translation which I think sounds better. Let me read it from there. I was looking at it there. So, it answers the question really briefly of what to write. “Write down what you have seen—both the things that are now happening and the things that will happen” (Revelation 1:19) Okay so, “Write down now what you have seen both the things that are now happening and the things that will happen.” (Revelation 1:19)

So, I think this is a start. You have to write, in my view, as a response to what’s happening around you. For you to write in response to what’s happening around you, I believe you have to have a foundation of your faith well established, so that your writing is in response to – what fathers of our faith did. Because remember, we have a faith that we’ve inherited, that has been passed down to us and had those who lived before us not been faithful in writing what they’ve written down, we would have lost the faith completely. And so, when they wrote, they dealt with a number of things that were challenging during their time: controversies that were taking place in the church and false doctrines and issues that were affecting the centrality of the Gospel, and to them, in response to that, they began to think it’s important to record this stuff so that future generations would know what is it that Jesus said, what Jesus taught.

And so, when we read the Old Testament for instance, we have a book called the Book of Chronicles which chronicles, as the word says, the kings that lived in Israel, how they behaved. And you’ll have stories like, “And this king rose and did what was evil in the sight of the Lord.” Or “This king rose and did what was good in the sight of the Lord.” And then we see that king’s life and we see the result of what that king, what come afterwards and the impact of that in the nation of Israel during the reign of a particular king.

So, there’s writing that chronicles what’s happening around. But also, alongside those kings, God raised prophets. And those prophets would obviously speak the word of the Lord to those kings: correct them, judge them, try to bring them back into alignment, but also prophesy what will take place if those kings continued in a certain path. So, writing therefore chronicles – it takes into consideration what is happening around, responds to it, but also predicts what were likely to happen if people continue in a certain path.

And so, Christian writers don’t just write for the sake of writing. I know I have this habit of meeting a lot of pastors who tell me they want to write. And “I want to write a book.” And so, when I check on the reasons why they wanted to write, I sadly find that they want to write for the sake of writing. In other words, they like the idea of being published. The idea alone appeals to them, so that they think it’s just, it’s a cap in their ministry, and so, and also, they think that you’re gonna sell books.

Now we do sell books. I must say that. We don’t give books away, we do sell books. But South Africa is a very small book market. So, if you’re going to write because you want to sell books and be rich, I have bad news for you: it’s very unlikely to happen in South Africa! I don’t know, the last time I checked, I think if you sold five thousand copies, I’m not sure but the number is so small, you’re already a best seller in South Africa, because of the lack of reading that is being done in South Africa. So, I’m here to tell you I am a bestseller!

And so, I don’t mind, I won’t mind to be like, to be like Rick Warren and write a book that sells 30 million copies like Purpose Driven Life and be a millionaire, but it’s very unlikely to happen in the constant South Africa.

But then why do I continue writing if writing is not going to sustain me financially? I write because I have to be faithful to the call of God. I write because, when I look around at what’s happening and I see people misrepresenting Christ, people making statements about Jesus that are inconsistent with Biblical truth, and I have to apply my mind in addressing those issues.

One of the things that you see concerns, concerning theoretical controversies that are happening today, in my book on leadership I touch on this, A Passion for Position. I wrote this book because I was concerned about patterns of leadership that are inconsistent with the values of Christ, so I decided that I need to respond to this.

Now, I actually, I don’t know what’s happening with me, but I tend to address issues that are very difficult. I asked the Lord one day, like why didn’t you give me a nice topic like, “Seven steps to answered prayer,” something like that. Something light, something enjoyable, something that makes me popular and famous. And then I have to write “The veneration of ancestors” as my first book. I’m like, why? And then and then… So, I don’t know. I just respond to things like that.

So, I write here about the controversy that took place in the church in AD100. I said, “Between AD 100 and AD 313, the church had to deal with internal problems and heretical teaching and consequence schisms and externally, to deal with the prosecution from the Roman State. These issues faced forced the church to close ranks by developing “canon” by the creation of creeds and by obedience to the monachal Bishops.”

So the church in those days, AD 100 onwards, faced stuff that we are currently facing, similar things where, within the church the way internals gives him the way it’s in the church not only external threats of being persecuted by being a Christian, but in internal schisms and controversies and doctrinal errors that Patriarchs, fathers of faith, had to rise up and close ranks by making sure that they have the creeds properly codified and the statements of faith proper articulated, so that there’s understanding of what it means to a child of God. And so, they did that and for that reason, that’s why we have the faith we have passed down to us.

Such a simple, a simple example of a thing that may come up. I was at Wits last night ministering there. So, when I deal with students, one of the things you find: people making and throwing away spurious statements and arguments against the faith that have no foundation. Something like, “The Bible was written by white people to oppress black people.” I like that one because it’s so foolish, it’s just it defies logic.

So, when I deal with that one, I just simply say, “Oh wow, this is very interesting conspiracy that only you and your three friends, in it’s a dark corner…” I mean, in an information age, nobody knows about this controversy except you and the three friends and some dark corner somewhere. I mean, and nobody else is supposed to buy a book that is published, and the Guinness Book World of Records tells the Bible has been sold five billion copies around the world. So, nobody else knows about this controversy except you and your three friends and some dark corner?

And other people are reading the Bible, supposedly written by white people to oppress black people. And white people wrote in the first chapter of the first book, black people are made in God’s image, and they’re trying to oppress them? I think to myself saying, “The white people are not thinking very well about this, are they?”

So, you understand that writing helps us. And some of the people we’re dealing with today are practicing what is called “historical revisionism,” so they don’t even apply history properly. So, some of them will say but you don’t have to read the Bible to answer the Bible’s authenticity. I mean, everybody who reads history knows that Europe was barbaric, was backward, it was not Christian just a few thousand years ago. Europe was not, was cannibalistic, it has no health system, it has no literacy or hygiene. Christianity saved Europe and gave it its civilization. That’s history. That’s not a Christian claiming that. History puts that very clearly.

When Paul went to Corinth, the missionary journeys of Paul, which are well recorded, shows that Paul went to Corinth, went to Galatia. These are European cities. So, the gospel came from Jerusalem to Europe, and these are Chronicles, these are recorded, that Paul did this.

And then, of course, if you deal with leadership today in the church and all the issues that we face in terms of “Larger than Life leaders” and with grandiose titles. So then, in my book I mentioned that look, “The word “Apostle” is used in the Bible about 81 times in the New Testament, never before a person’s name.”

 Writers are Readers