Life as Sagyeonghoe: An Excerpt from Living in the Underground Church

Posted on June 20, 2017 by Pastor Foley

(Tonight I finished writing the introduction to Living in the Underground Church, the third volume of our Underground Church series. The book is due out in November, but I’m eager to share this excerpt with you. You can find Volume 1 of the series, Preparing for the Underground Church, and Volume 2, Planting the Underground Church, on Amazon or directly through VOMK. But for now, Volume 3 exists only on my computer and in this excerpt!)

 

In many ways it could be said that for Christianity to continue to survive and advance into the next, more hostile and restrictive generation in Korea, it must return to the practices of the very first generation of Korean Christians. Here I am not referring to the generation of Korean Christians who emerged from the Great Pyongyang Revival of 1907. Instead, I am referring to that generation of Korean Christians from whom the Great Pyongyang Revival emerged: The Korean Christians of 1873 through 1906.[1]

Much is known about this first generation of Korean Christians by historians, but little of it is taught to ordinary Korean Christians today, and, grievously, almost none of it is held up for emulation by Korean churches, missionaries, or Christians. Yet the life and practice of this first generation of Korean Christians were so transformative, so unprecedented in modern Christian history, that they were the focus of books and articles and study in America and Europe well before the Pyongyang Revival ever happened.

This book is not the history of this pioneer generation, though it contains some of their stories in order to help us reclaim and recover that original form of Korean Christianity—a Christianity without ordained pastors or pulpits or church buildings or denominations or money or legal standing or government permission or public acceptance.

Instead, the focus of this book is what was the focus of their Christianity: The Bible.

So focused were the first generation of Korean Christians on the Bible that their religion was described by the newly-arrived foreign missionaries as “bible Christianity”.[2] The first Korean Christians were not the converts of those foreign missionaries. Instead, they had been converted by the Bibles they read and the Korean colporteurs who smuggled them in—colporteurs who were new converts to Christianity themselves.

These first generation Korean Christians did not simply read the Bible as one of many Christian activities in their life. Reading the Bible was their life. For them, sagyeonghoe (bible examination meeting) was not a special annual event led by a pastor or distinguished guest speaker. It was a daily event engaged in by each Korean Christian as they attempted to make their way through this “strange new world of the Bible” they had entered. As Korean church historians Sebastian Kim and Kirsteen Kim explain,

Once Korean Christians accepted the Bible as their sacred text, it was reverenced as the authority above others. Students read it in the Confucian manner; aloud, memorizing texts and reciting them, and then following its teaching literally in daily ethics, moral conduct, and matters of socio-political principle. People accepted the texts as authoritative, without critical evaluation or consideration of their validity in the context of Korea.[3]

What does it mean to be a Christian living in the underground church? It means that life becomes sagyeonghoe. It means that as we read the Bible in the place we currently live, among the people we currently know, we awake from our sleep like Jacob and say with him, “Surely the LORD is in this place; and I knew it not.”[4] It means that we read aloud, memorizing the Bible texts and reciting them, and then following their teaching literally in daily ethics, moral conduct, and matters of socio-political principle. It means that we accept the texts as authoritative, without critical evaluation or consideration of their validity in the context of Korea. It means that we undertake this single task as the length and breadth of our Christian life, with the same intensity, focus, abandonment, and allegiance to God as did the earliest Korean Christians.

The purpose of this book is to provide a simple method for living that life, which, as we will see, always leads one perpendicular to the world and thus, inevitably, underground. The method laid out here is not one especially drawn from the first generation of Korean Christians or even from underground Christians. In fact, Bible reading methods that are particular to a time or a place or a people or a pastor are rightly suspect. A Bible reading method should do nothing more or less than place us in the proper relation to the text and its Triune God. From that point, as Karl Barth says, “There is a river…”

There is a spirit in the Bible that allows us to stop awhile and play among secondary things as is our wont – but presently it begins to press us on; and however we may object that we are only weak, imperfect, and most average folk, it presses us on to the primary fact, whether we will or no. There is a river in the Bible that carries us away, once we have entrusted our destiny to it—away from ourselves to the sea.[5]

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Action Step

What can I do today to put into practice serving and learning from our persecuted brothers and sisters?

For the earliest Korean Christians, the Bible was not only theologically central to their faith, but practically central to their lives. Spend time to read your Bible every day and, when you read, think about how you can adapt your everyday life to the “strange new world of the Bible.”

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[1] 1873 is the year Missionary John Ross began to sell Chinese language Christian books at the Corea Gate. See J. Ross, Mission Methods in Manchuria. London: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1903, p. 17.

[2] BFBS (British and Foreign Bible Society), The Leaves of the Tree: A Popular Illustrated Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society for the Year, 1906-1907. London: Bible House, 1907, p. 70.

[3] S.C.H. Kim and K. Kim, A History of Korean Christianity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 87-88.

[4] Genesis 28:16, KJV.

[5] K. Barth, The Word of God and the Word of Man. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith Publisher, Inc., 1978, p. 34.

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Why Does God Seem Distant?

Posted on June 16, 2017 by Editor

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John 14:15-21

Think about someone who you know very well.

You know this person’s favorite foods, their birthday, and their personality. But you also know their mood or opinion without asking. You know their hopes, their dreams, and—sometimes—you even know things about them of which they are unaware!

Think about that person.

Now, think about why you know them so well.

Most likely, you know them well because you spent time with them. You laughed with them, became furious with them, and cried on their shoulder. Through everything, you each became a part of one another.

Our relationship with God is very similar.

If we wish to develop our relationship with God, we must pay attention to Him. When we read scripture, we must ask ourselves “What is the character of God?” By doing this, we can begin to build a relationship with our heavenly Father.

What better scripture to start with than John 14:15-21? This passage is full of descriptions of God’s character! For example, in John 16, Jesus mentions that God is sending us an advocate (the Holy Spirit) that will be with us forever. God is eternal—he will always exist and will be with us forever.

In John 14:17, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of Truth,” meaning that God is Truth. Human beings are, at best, “mostly truthful.” Even when we try our best to be completely honest, deception is still in us. We can even deceive ourselves! God, however, is completely truthful—there is no deception in him. Truth is an essential component of his nature.

We also learn in John 14:17 that God is knowable. “The world cannot accept [the Spirit of Truth] because it neither sees nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you” (John 14:17). God is the author of creation, an entity higher than being, itself. But we can know him. Most of us are unable to meet (much less know) the leader of a country (or even the mayor of a city.) But we can know God!

God is eternal, true, and knowable—but he is so much more!

“If you love me, keep my commandments,” Jesus says in John 14:15. His disciples would immediately connect Jesus’ words with the Shema, an important prayer composed from the words of Deuteronomy 6:4-9. The Shema is one of two prayers that the Jewish people are directly commanded to pray and is an essential declaration of the Jewish faith. In ancient times, the Jewish people had to recite this prayer twice a day—once at sunrise, once at sunset—so the disciples would have known the Shema better than the back of their own hands.

Why the Shema? The Shema begins with the words, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4). The Lord is one. Jesus is reminding his disciples that there is ONE God. He then reveals that this God is of three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

A holy trinity.

The concept is so simple, yet so complex. Something our brothers and sisters in the twelfth century knew full well.

This is called “the Shield of the Trinity.” It’s a diagram of God’s nature created by Christians from twelfth century Europe who were seeking to create a visual interpretation of the trinity. As you can see here, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of the same substance, but they cannot be reduced to one another (the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father and etc.) How can this be?

Perhaps we should introduce the trinity by examining what it isn’t.

The Trinity is not:

  • One God in three forms When explaining the trinity, many Christians like to use the analogy of water, ice, and steam. But this is a faulty analogy. If steam cools or if ice is heated, it becomes water. But The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit never change forms. Furthermore, different states of water do not exist in relationship to one another; they are simply different states of one form. God is not like this.
  • A hierarchy One of the most common modern heresies is the idea that the Father is superior to the Son and Holy Spirit—or that the Holy Spirit isn’t a person at all. As we have discussed in previous blogs, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not only equal persons, but they are constantly serving one another.
  • Three distinct gods Christians have always believed in ONE God in three persons—you can find proof for this all throughout the Old and New Testaments (as well as the creeds from the church throughout history).

Today’s scripture is filled with references to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In verse 16, for example, we see every member of the Trinity: the Son asks the Father for the Holy Spirit to rest on his disciples. Then in verse 21 we see that the Father loves us because we receive the commands of Christ. The Holy Spirit helps us to remember these commands (John 14:26).

Later in John 14, Jesus tells us that he does exactly what he sees his Father doing. If we think about it, this is a difficult thing to wrap out head around. Why would Jesus mindlessly follow his Father? Unlike us, Jesus doesn’t worry about being “authentic” or “independent.” Instead, he concerns himself with following his Father; knowing that his Father has his best interests at heart.

All three members of the Trinity are fully God and worthy of worship and praise. However, we do not see them dominating one another; we see them serving and following one another. We see them giving glory to and caring for one another.

What a difficult form of love! This love requires sacrifice and devotion. It requires giving up glory and allowing others to be right. Jesus gave up his life on the cross, but he never once asked for praise. He never asked for glory. Instead, he simply continued to listen to his Father—and his Father lifted him up.

If we really want to know God, we cannot insist on saying, “I love you, but I won’t listen to you.” Think about it in another way: a husband completely ignores his wife for several months. When she breaks down and asks him about it, he replies, “I love you, but I don’t want to listen to you.” Does he really love her? It’s the same way with our relationship to God. The feeling of love is not real love.

We cannot do works to earn favor, but if we really love someone, we will act in a certain way toward them. We will listen to them, we will spend time with them, and we will learn all of the little things about them that makes them who they are. To love God then, we must listen to Him through the scripture, to spend time with him through prayer, and to learn all of the little things about Him that makes Him who he is.

It is then that Jesus will reveal himself to us.

“Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching,” Jesus says in John 14:23. “The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them”

God doesn’t live in buildings. He chooses to live in us, his Church. The Bible describes us as being the home of God. When we obey Christ’s commands, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit come to live in us—the Creator comes to live in the Created—and we become to know Him better than we ever knew ourselves.

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The Three Circumstances In Which The Church Is Obligated to Go Underground

Posted on June 5, 2017 by Pastor Foley

John Calvin identified two marks of the true church: “the word of God purely preached and heard, and the pure administration of the sacraments.”[36]

The only legitimate reason to take the church underground, then, is to overcome any hindrance to the word of God being purely preached and heard, and the sacraments purely administered.

  • When the government determines who may preach, what may be preached, or where preaching may take place, the church is obligated to operate underground rather than accommodate the restrictions.
  • When the government or the general public restrain the free hearing of the gospel, the church is obligated to go underground rather than accommodate the restrictions.
  • When the pure administration of the sacraments is impaired, the church is obligated to go underground rather than accommodate the restrictions.

Let us consider an increasingly common example. Suppose a government permits the church “freedom of religion”: they may preach and hear the word and participate in the sacraments, but only inside buildings officially registered with the government. Is the church obligated to go underground?

Yes, the church is obligated to go underground because in such a situation the word and the sacraments are no longer able to be purely preached, heard, or administered almost anywhere in that society. In such a situation the church goes underground not so it can preach and hear and participate in the sacraments only in a small secret cave or in a clearing in the middle of a forest. (This is the stereotype of the underground church.) Instead, it goes underground so the word and the sacraments may not be bound, in faithfulness to the truth of 2 Timothy 2:9. (For the Christian, truth is defined by the scripture, not the government or the general public. The scripture says that the word is not bound, and the church believes this even when the government insists otherwise.) Since the word and sacraments are not bound, then the Lord will lead the church to many places outside the church building where he desires that these means of grace be shared.

Let us consider another example. Suppose a government enacts laws criminalizing statements against homosexuality in public places or media, including Christian teaching that homosexuality is a sin. The government assures the church it can still do whatever it wants in its own building. Is the church obligated to go underground?

Yes, the church is obligated to go underground because once again there is an attempt to bind the word. The church is the servant of the word and the sacraments; the word and the sacraments are not servants of the church. This means that the church must serve the word wherever the Lord wants the word to be heard. The Lord does not respect the world’s boundaries of where, when, and by whom he may send his word, nor to whom he may send it. He has overcome the world, not simply acquired real estate in it.

The church in the free world, however, is prone to accept restrictions like these from the government, rather than go underground. The church says, “Our congregation is still able to preach and hear the word and administer the sacraments; it is not necessary for us to go underground.” But this attitude makes the church Lord, and the Lord, servant. The church in this case is like the fool in the Lord’s parable who says, “I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of grain laid up for many years’”:

But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.[37]

The word and the sacraments are not to be stored up for the church in the church by the church. The church can no more bind the word and the sacraments than the world can. They are not bound. The church is obligated to follow them and serve them wherever the will of the wind pleases to take them.[38]

Action Steps for Church Planters:

  • Are you planting an underground church because you are against something in society or in the existing church? If so, cease immediately and repent; no church may be planted because the planter is “for” something or “against” something else. The church is the servant of the word and the sacraments, not their master.
  • Are you physically and spiritually prepared to die for the enemies of the gospel? If not, you will not be able to keep the main thing the main thing in the underground church. First, prepare to preach, pray, or die anywhere at a moment’s notice, and only then will you be ready to plant the underground church.

Action Steps for Existing Churches:

  • Study when, how, and why existing churches in Germany went underground. Study especially the Confessing Church’s Barmen Declaration[39] and add it to your church’s foundational documents and creeds for memorization and study.
  • Ask yourself, “Can the word of God be purely preached and heard, and the sacraments purely administered everywhere in Korea?” If not, where not and why not?
  • Is the main thing still the main thing at your church? Or are sermons becoming shorter and shorter and sacraments becoming less and less frequently administered so that other, more popular things may become main things? When the congregation can only endure 20 minutes of sound biblical preaching, should the pastor accommodate that or preach as long as necessary for the fullness of the gospel to be heard, no matter how unpopular that may be with church members and visitors?
  • The rich young ruler (Mark 10:17-27) was prepared to obey the word within his own domain, but he was not prepared to abandon his own domain and follow the word wherever the wind was pleased to take it. Scripture says this is because “he was one who owned much property”. As the government and the general public begin to try to bind the word in Korea, are you prepared to sell all your church has in order to go underground so that you can accompany the word wherever it wants to go? The Lord says that the man with big barns was not wise to be tearing them down in order to build bigger barns at such a time. What does wisdom dictate that you do now to be able to follow the word and the sacraments into the areas where the Korean government and general public are likely to try to bind them?

(Excerpted from Pastor Foley’s book, Planting the Underground Church. To order a print or electronic copy of the bilingual Korean/English edition, visit Amazon or click here to visit the bookstore page on our website.) 

 

 

[36]  Eric J. Titus, “Calvin’s Marks of the Church: A Call for Recovery,” UDK:265.1:265.3 Professional paper, 2011, p. 114.

[37] Luke 12:19-21, NIV.

[38] See John 3:8, NIV.

[39] See http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/barmen.htm.

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