Sola 5 Conference 2006: The Glory of Christ and His Bride

The theme chosen for the conference was “The Glory of Christ and His Bride” as seen in the book of Ephesians, with a seventh sermon summarising the teaching. The speakers comprised Bruce Button, Christo Beetge, Laban Mwashekele, Roland Eskinazi, Doug Van Meter, Ronald Kalifungwa, and Nico van der Walt.

The conference also heard feedback from various missions, church planting, and theological training initiatives.

India boasted a population of roughly 1.2 billion, about 80% Hindu, 12–15% Muslim, and only around 2% Christian. The existing Indian church was largely nominal, syncretistic, and lacking real gospel preaching, with many assuming salvation is inherited through birth into a Christian family rather than through personal faith. Idol worship was pervasive, with household and street-corner shrines common even among professing Christians.

The family had been sent to strengthen a local church body. After some resistance from the initial church the missionary had worked with, he had transitioned to planning an English Bible-preaching church.

Prayer requests for this work included the following:

• for God to raise up faithful, visionary local leadership;
• for the family’s adjustment to cultural difference;
• for safety amid poor roads and traffic during long travel distances; and
• for the children, isolated due to the language barrier and dependence on the pastor’s family for English-speaking community.

Kapambwe had been unable to secure a Botswana work permit, despite repeated attempts, limiting him to visitor’s permits (three months per year), which severely restricted his time on the ground. The core leadership consisted of busy, working professionals with limited capacity. The congregation was composed mainly of Zambian expatriate professionals rather than local Batswana, raising concern about long-term local ownership of the work.

A second plant in Francistown (northern Botswana) was led by Bonang Alekoba, a Motswana national, and was at an earlier stage of development. A proposed personnel swap—moving Bonang to the more established Gaborone work and Kapambwe (or another leader) to Francistown—was under consideration, with logistics still to be worked out.

Botswana’s significant HIV/AIDS burden (among the worst in Southern Africa) underscored the urgency of gospel witness there. Financial support currently came from Kabwata Baptist Church, Lynnwood Baptist Church, and one or two other partners. Further partnership was welcomed.

The Harare church had seen encouraging growth through a series of visiting teams and conferences: Jeff Gage (with a member from his church) drew significant attendance at a one-day conference in November; a further two-day conference in February drew about 55 pastors and twelve other church leaders; and Bruce Button and Jacobus de Koning had led another two-day conference in June, deliberately focused on equipping pastors and leaders rather than drawing large public crowds, in response to what Joseph identified as Zimbabwe’s core problems: weak leadership and a lack of sound doctrine. Bruce had also visited the church plant in Mumvuma and saw the on-the-ground economic conditions firsthand.

Two additional Zimbabwean pastors were present at this conference through developing relationships with international partners. Separately, a church member, a Malawian by nationality but raised in Zimbabwe, had begun a fellowship of about six couples plus young people after relocating to Blantyre, Malawi. The group was praying toward this becoming a constituted church.

Joseph described severe economic hardship: hyperinflation illustrated by bread prices rising from Z$50,000 to Z$210,000, same-day price changes, and many families reduced to one meal a day, with some walking long distances to church to avoid transport costs that would otherwise mean forgoing meals. The church had identified 25 child-headed households in its area needing support. Joseph named training and church planting as the ministry’s core current focus.

The university’s Christian directors, motivated by a concern for the kingdom of God rather than institutional benefit, had invited Sola 5 to establish an independent theological faculty within the university structure. Crucially, while the faculty would use the university’s infrastructure, the churches would retain full control over theological content, addressing a common concern that seminaries accountable to non-believing institutions tend toward liberal drift. The blended-mode model also allowed local churches to provide pastoral training under the oversight of their own elders while drawing on centrally developed curriculum and materials, rather than each church needing to build a full training program independently.

The university had committed to funding salaries for two lecturers and a secretary, office facilities in Pretoria, and travel and related costs for at least the first year. The partner churches’ responsibilities are to oversee curriculum content, supply lecturers, provide student bursaries for fees and books, and offer mentoring and practical ministry training in local churches.

Curriculum and teaching material development would occupy the first half of 2007, with student registration and the start of training targeted for the second semester, beginning July 2007. Bruce asked for ongoing prayer as the project developed, describing it as a providential and potentially significant opportunity for gospel-centred pastoral training across the region.

He worked through the doxology of vv. 3–14, built around a single thesis: God’s blessings and God’s glory are not competing aims but the same aim: “God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in him.” Bruce traced the blessings in turn—election, adoption, redemption, the unveiled mystery of God’s plan, and the sealing of the Holy Spirit—repeatedly returning to the “to the praise of his glory| refrain that structures the passage. He gave particular weight to the initiative belonging entirely to God and to the Jew-Gentile unity of vv. 11–13, which he applied directly to ethnic division within Southern Africa and to the Sola 5 association itself as a picture of that unity.

He closed with the two responses Paul calls for: seeking spiritual understanding of these blessings (since natural reason, whether of subsistence farmer, businessman, or professor, cannot grasp them unaided) and resting in the power described in vv. 19–23. The same power that raised and enthroned Christ, now exercised through his church, however weak that church appears. The sermon ended by pointing forward to Revelation 19 and the marriage of the Lamb.

The dark picture (vv. 1–3, 12): Christo unpacked the “dead … disobedient … driven by desire” description of the natural man, reinforced with the Westminster Confession’s language of total depravity and Genesis 6:5.

The turn (v. 4): The “but” in v. 4 serves as the hinge of the chapter, paralleled with 1 Corinthians 6:9–11. God’s initiative—not human effort—moves people from death to life, from wrath to glory.

Christo drew the following three doctrinal issues from the passage.

1. Christ’s identity within the triune Godhead—Father, Son, and Spirit each distinctly at work in salvation (vv. 4–7, 18–22).
2. The atonement as definite and effective, not merely potential—Christ’s blood actually accomplished reconciliation (vv. 13, 16), not just made it possible.
3. The resulting new humanity/new nation, united in Christ rather than divided by ethnicity (Jew/Gentile), pictured as a temple being built (vv. 19–22).

Laban traced the mystery of grace through the definition, inauguration, reign, program, and management of grace, landing on the point that Jew and Gentile are made “fellow heirs” and one body in Christ. He applied this directly to the multiracial, multilingual makeup of his own congregation, pressing the point that a church segregated by language or culture is a cultural club, not a church.

He then spoke of the ministry entrusted to Paul: his call, his humility, and the goal of his ministry—that the church is God’s appointed means of displaying wisdom to the world and to the heavenly powers. He worked in a call to distinguish self-appointed ministers from those genuinely called and sent.

Laban then addressed the prayer and the praise, read as approach, petition, and appeal, ending in doxology, with the observation that Paul’s letters characteristically open and close in praise even when addressing hardship.

Pulling in the same direction: Unity begins with humility, not self-assertion. Christian unity is structural and given (one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord), not manufactured. This objective unity is the basis for both internal unity and external mission.

Pursuing a stronger body: Every believer is gifted by grace “according to the measure of Christ’s gift” and belongs to the body by divine design, not accident. Roland warned against a lone ranger independence that keeps churches or associations from mutual investment.

Persevering in sincere relationship: Turning to vv. 25–32, Roland focused on anger and grudge-holding as the practical test of maturity. Anger itself isn’t sinful, but it must be short-lived and God-directed rather than self-directed. He closed on the cross as the only power capable of breaking the grip of grudges.

Doug worked through Ephesians 5 as a rapid sequence of exhortations to the family of God, organised around a set of alliterative responsibilities: forgiving the fallen, forsaking sexual and verbal filth, facing false professions of faith with discernment, fearing God with reverence rather than servility, pursuing the fullness of the Spirit (as opposed to counterfeit “spiritual” experience through drunkenness), and expressing that fullness through corporate fellowship—singing, thanksgiving, and mutual submission.

The sermon’s theological pivot came in his treatment of marriage (5:22–33), where he argued that the family is patterned after the church: Christ’s relationship to his bride is the reality, and human marriage is a shadow pointing to it. He briefly touched on complementarian church order as bound up with faithful worship and gospel stewardship and closed urging the gathered pastors to focus their churches on Christ’s sanctifying work in the bride, expecting God to produce fruit and growth even amid opposition.

He structured his sermon around three main points, clearly signposted and built in escalating order.

1. Know your enemy: The devil is real, personal, and commands organised spiritual forces . He targets the “evil day,” often striking when believers feel most secure.
2. Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power: Believers cannot resist Satan in their own strength because indwelling sin gives him a foothold. Strength is found only by abiding in Christ, who is seated far above all rule and authority.
3. Put on the whole armour of God: Ronald worked through each piece of armour, all worn together and sustained through constant prayer.

• sitting (Ephesians 2:6—our position, seated with Christ in the heavenlies, which grounds sanctification and our authority over sin);
• walking (traced through Ephesians 2:10, 4:1, 4:17, 5:2, 5:8, and 5:15—our daily conduct, culminating in being filled with the Spirit and mutual submission in the home); and
• standing (Ephesians 6—the armour of God, equipping us to resist the devil’s schemes).

He showed that each of these three motifs is repeatedly anchored “in Christ,” arguing that the letter’s unifying theme is not morality or philanthropy but a thoroughly Christ-centred life.

The message then turned to Revelation 2:1–7, where the risen Christ rebukes this same Ephesian church decades later for losing its first love despite continued outward diligence and hard work.

Nico warned that busyness and orthodoxy can mask a loss of Christ-centredness, and that the removal of a “lampstand” pictures a church that no longer lifts up Christ and so ceases, in Christ’s eyes, to be a true church.

He closed by applying this warning corporately (to churches and associations) and personally, calling for ongoing, undying love for Christ as the mark of true sanctification, walking, and standing.