Tenth College Fellowship during COVID-19

By / Sep 1

Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. 
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

Psalm 90:1-2

As we are rapidly approaching the beginning of the semester, Tenth College Fellowship (TCF) is preparing for an unusual semester, but one that we believe will still offer many opportunities for students to connect with one another, grow in their faith, and grow in their witness to their schools. Here is TCF’s plan for the fall semester:

First, TCF is not going to have a Sunday morning Bible study. Instead, there will be a weekly service at 4:30 on Sunday afternoons in Clark Park, where pastors from Tenth will rotate preaching. We’re excited about this time and believe it will be a great way for students to worship with our church and have a venue that is easy to invite friends to as well.

Second, TCF will have one in-person and one virtual Bible study each week. Our hope is that the in-person study will take place in University City somewhere. The specific times will be ironed out soon.

Finally, TCF will continue the Beyond the Bubble events at 7:00 PM each Friday. There will be a virtual event, and there will be a separate in-person event at an outdoor location in Philadelphia.

If you are a student in Philadelphia, know that the TCF leadership team is praying for you, and hopeful that you can still join the Church in worshiping our God, whether that be with us or another local church near your home. It is going to be a strange semester, but the Lord is still sovereign, Jesus is still alive, and his Kingdom will continue to spread. 

If you have questions, please reach out to Jared Cochrum at jaredc@tenth.org. Likewise you can connect with Tenth College Fellowship by joining our GroupMe. 



The New Vulnerable

By / May 19

For decades, the Lord has steadily introduced Tenth members to vulnerable people in Philadelphia. As we are all now aware, to use a word like vulnerable is now a massive understatement. Before the COVID-19 crisis, Tenth’s immigrants and homeless neighbors lacked basic resources. As we are now more than 75 days into the lockdown, any margin these neighbors built into their life has dissolved and the relationships developed through the efforts of Tenth’s Mercy Commission and other charities are essential.

This of course is not a one-sided situation. We as church members live to serve in situations such as this—not because we want people to suffer, but because our Master gives us a deeper wisdom than the world has to offer. We know it is more blessed to give than to receive. Hopefully you are taking opportunities to lean into this blessing through your personal network. As a church, we welcome you to give to our May Project of the Month, which is focused on giving to our homeless neighbors and to SPEAK. SPEAK is an exciting and important ESL ministry at Kirkbride School to immigrant families in South Philadelphia.

Before you decide one way or another how to engage in what Jesus called “almsgiving,” let us provide a little more context to our request. First, since COVID-19 hit Philadelphia, we have been praying for opportunities to minister to the most vulnerable communities in our city. Second, this money (primarily used to buy grocery gift cards) is accompanying the holistic care we seek to provide for these friends of Tenth. Third, while we mourn the crisis, because the venue for our meetings has shifted out of the public elementary school and into Zoom chats, we have much greater freedom to share the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Before this, we respected the school’s rules about focusing on ESL instead of evangelism, but now there are no restrictions on the topics we can discuss. I hope you see why we are both mourning and rejoicing at the Lord’s mysterious providence.

Let me conclude sharing a story from Sunday, May 10. Following strict protocols for health and safety, members of the Mercy Commission set up tables in front of Tenth with appropriate distancing and precaution. Then, Joe Park and I (Enrique) went to Chipotle to pick up burritos. We were discouraged to find out they lost our order and would not be able to process it in time to feed our neighbors. We knew logistics would be a challenge during this pandemic, but we soon rejoiced that we were not in control. Seeing Qdoba down the street, we ran over there and learned that they had time to accommodate our request. After rushing back to the church to pass out the food, we were blessed to hand out our last burrito to the last homeless man in line. All of these friends also received a Bible tract which we pray feeds their soul just as the burritos feed their bodies. As Rudy, Sunlight, Kevin, Joe, and I cleaned up the tables and the empty Qdoba bags, our hearts were full. Of course, that is at best the tertiary goal of giving. On our best days, we first give out of worship to God, second to care for his image bearers, and third to receive his blessing.

This is just one story, but as you can see it is an exciting time to be generous. On behalf of our Lord Jesus Christ, we invite you to share in the excitement and receive the blessing of giving to this important Project of the Month. As you do, you will join us in the worshipful act of blessing our vulnerable neighbors in their time of need.



Beware of Pretentious Prayers

By / May 17


Your Heavenly Father is Perfect

By / May 10


“God’s Word: Abolished or Fulfilled?”

By / Apr 26


“Where is Jesus Now?”

By / Apr 16

The question that we’re asking today is “where is Jesus in the midst of the crisis” and “where is Jesus right now?” There are a couple answers that we can think of that are biblical in their understanding. The first: some people might say “well, he’s in my heart. Jesus lives in my heart and I know that he is in me and so Jesus right now is in my heart in the midst of the crisis.” That’s not a terrible answer.

If we look at Ephesians 3:16, it says that “according to the riches of God’s glory,” Paul is praying that “he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.” You can see that Paul is saying that Christ dwells in our hearts.  But the caveat would be that that’s not exactly the question that we’re asking right now. Christ dwells in our hearts by faith through the spirit, so it doesn’t tell us where Jesus is physically, right now, in the midst of this crisis.

The second answer you might give is, “Well Jesus is present in the Lord’s Supper when we take communion. When we have the bread and the wine, he is present with us. We affirm that that is true. 1 Corinthians 10:16 says that “the cup of blessing that we blessed [that is, the communion cup] is it not a participation in the blood of Christ?  The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” Then Matthew quotes Jesus saying, “This is my blood of the Covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:28) We can see that that Jesus is present in the supper. He says “this is my blood,” “this is my body.” We participate in the blood of Christ. But again, not quite what we are asking because we would say that we are feeding on Christ by the spirit because he is not physically present in the communion in the bread or in the wine. We have not quite answered the question: “where is Jesus right now,” though we are trying to answer it with ideas and in ways that the Lord has given us in our heart and in the Word.

Another way we can answer is, “Well, he’s present with us in the Church.” “We are a spiritual house,” 1 Peter 2 tells us, a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. You might say, “Well, I’m with Jesus when I go to church. That’s where Jesus is. He is with me when I’m at church.” But again, it wouldn’t answer the question that we’re asking which is, “where is Jesus in the flesh, the human being Jesus, the God-Man, right now?”

A fourth answer, one we would not ascribe to, is the pagan view or the view that the original people who found the empty tomb thought was possible. They said, “His disciples came by night and stole the body away while we were asleep.” Whether they thought that was possible or not, they wanted to come up with a story for explaining how Jesus could be alive, so this pagan, or non-Christian, view would be that “He’s in a grave somewhere. We don’t need to ask where Jesus is because he’s in the grave somewhere in Israel.”

Those four answers I would say are answers that people might give. But the answer that the New Testament gives most clearly, and over and over again is that Jesus is at God’s right hand. Repeatedly throughout the New Testament, we can see that Jesus right now is at God’s right hand. Why does that matter? Why would it matter for us in the midst of a crisis that Jesus is in the flesh at God’s right hand? I think the more we meditate on this, the more we see the Bible wants us to meditate on Jesus at the right hand of God.

If you look at Colossians 3:1-2, it says, “If you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things of Earth.” Jesus is at the right hand of God and Paul tells us we should meditate on the fact that he is at the right hand of God. How did that happen? How did Jesus get to the right hand of God? Well, after he died on the cross, atoned for sin, and then resurrected, he at appeared to his disciples. He appeared to many people, even up to 500 once, and then he ascended. That is, he lifted up and went into heaven. Acts 1 tells us that while the disciples were gazing into heaven, he went and “behold two men stood by them in white robes and said, ‘men of Galilee why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’” We see from the Ascension what happened when Jesus rose again and then rose up to his father’s right hand. The men who saw it happen standing there looking up into heaven, gazing up at the sky, as though they were looking at clouds or trying not to look directly at the Sun. But they were looking up into the sky. They were they were gazing into heaven.

When Paul tells us to set your minds on things that are above, he’s not telling us to get a telescope. He’s not telling us to look into the sky to gaze at the clouds. He’s telling us to set our minds on things that are above, to set our minds on the fact that Christ is at the right hand of God. When we ask the question, “Where is Jesus in the midst of the crisis,” the answer is: he is seated at the right hand of God reigning, interceding, and enlivening us in the flesh.  

How do we conclude that he is in the flesh? In Luke, at the end of Jesus’s time on earth, he says to Thomas, “look at my hands and my feet. It is I. Touch me and see a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. After the resurrection Jesus had flesh and bones. He invites Thomas to touch him.  Then in 1 Corinthians 15, we see that that Jesus is now a life-giving spirit. After his resurrection and ascension, he is now in the flesh. A life-giving spirit enlivening his Church, that is, sending his Spirit. And not just enlivening his Church but reigning as a human and interceding on our behalf.

This is where we get to the heart of why it matters that in a crisis Jesus is at the right hand of God: He is a sympathetic high priest. The sympathetic God-man knows what it’s like for us to be in crisis on earth, and yet is outside this space-time continuum. You might say he is outside of this creation. He is the new creation. Christ is the new creation by merit of his resurrection, and he is at the right hand of God doing two things on our behalf. He is reigning on our behalf, the New Testament tells us, and he’s interceding on our behalf. When we look around the world and we don’t know who is in control, we ask questions: “When are things going to lift?” “When are we going to be allowed to go out?” “When are we going to no longer have to be stuck?” “Who’s making these decisions? The federal government? The state? The mayor?” It is extremely complicated to know who’s actually in charge right now.  Except, Jesus is at the right hand of God, reigning on our behalf.

Let’s look at some passages in the New Testament which outline this to conclude. Ephesians 1 says that “God raised Christ from the dead, and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places—far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come.” Paul is telling us is that Christ is ruling at the right hand of God, as we saw from the other passages, in the flesh, as a human, as the God-Man. And he is ruling over all levels of government. He is ruling over every power that we might see, or not see. An intimate, invisible spirit over every dominion and every realm, not only in this age but in this age to come. Beyond that, he is putting all things under his feet as head of the Church. He is ruling on our behalf.

First Peter 3 takes it a little bit farther. He says, “Jesus has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God.” He’s at the right hand of God with the angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.

Where is Jesus right now? He is in heaven, at the right hand of God.  When we set our minds on the things above, we meditate that we don’t have to know who’s in control. One who is like us is at the right hand of God, reigning on our behalf, in control and sovereign. His leading has all power and everything is under his feet. It’s not some ethereal ephemeral notion. It’s not some theoretical concept. It is a human being.

He says to Thomas, “Look at my hands and my feet. Touch me and see. A ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”  Now, Yes, Jesus’s body, as he rose is glorified, but it is still a body. It is still entirely a body. Thus, we know there is one like us reigning on our behalf at the right hand of God.

He’s not only reigning on our behalf. He’s interceding on our behalf. He’s interceding as a human in the flesh, glorified, on our behalf. When we are in crisis as we are now, we know the one who is reigning is also listening. The one who is controlling all things is awaiting our prayers. Romans 8:34 says “who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. This was not something that God came up with suddenly. This was something that was the plan all along: for the God-man to sit at the right hand of the Majesty on High.

We can go to an Old Testament passage quickly to see this. Psalm 110, a psalm that gets quoted throughout the New Testament. The psalm reads, “the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” This Psalm is saying that the son of David would become the Lord of King David, would sit at the right hand of God, and would rule over all things. It was described in the Old Testament and planned in eternity past. It’s not just the past, it’s also the future. Hebrews 10:12 tells us that “when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.”

We know the last enemy to be defeated is death and Jesus is right now interceding on our behalf, reigning on our behalf, and sending the Spirit. He is enlivening us at the right hand of God, waiting until the time when he puts death under his feet. The way we grow in Christ right now is by contemplating, setting our mind, on the things above, that is, Christ, who is reigning, interceding, and enlivening us right now.

If we ask, “Man, where is Jesus? This is getting hard.” There are so many rich things to meditate on, it will calm our hearts. While we may not answer the question, “what’s going to happen in our world in the coming days and weeks and months and years,” we know who is in charge, and the one in charge is reigning on our behalf.



Thoughts on Coronavirus

By / Mar 4

As of March 2, close to 90,000 people worldwide have been affected with the novel corona virus, including about 100 cases in the US. As the virus continues to spread across the nation and world, Tenth’s leadership has thought and prayed about how we should respond. Thankfully, one of our Deacons, Dr. Jerry Jacob (Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine at Penn Medicine and the Director of Infection Prevention at Good Shepherd Penn Partners), was willing to provide his medical opinion. 

Dr. Jacob has recommended two categories for us to think about regarding the corona virus. The first relates to wisdom, and the second to mercy. When it comes to wisdom, Dr. Jacob lists six ways for us to protect members of our community from transmitting or acquiring the virus. First, he advises us to stay home from worship services when ill with fever or when we are experiencing respiratory symptoms (cough, congestion, shortness of breath) and instead to utilize the livestream. Second, we should wash our hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially before eating, after going to the bathroom, and after blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing. If soap and water is not easily available, use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Cleaning the environment around us is also important. We should regularly clean high touch areas in our church and home, such as tabletops, light switches, and doorknobs. Third, we should take extra effort to cover our mouth with a tissue when coughing or sneezing. If a tissue isn’t easily available, use your elbow to cover your face rather than your hands. Along the same lines, we should generally avoid touching our eyes, nose or mouth to prevent any germs on our hands from getting into our body. Fourth, we should avoid close contact with people who are ill where this is reasonable. This is not simply to protect us from illness, but to protect our loved ones who come in contact with us regularly. Conversely, we should keep our distance from others when we are sick to prevent them from becoming ill. Fifth, prepare your household by planning for ways to care for those who might become sick, especially those at higher risk for complications (i.e., elderly), and for emergency operations/closures at your work or children’s school. Finally, if the virus becomes truly widespread in Philadelphia, we as a church will need to consider cancelling services and/or postponing events.

The second category to think about is mercy. Dr. Jacob gives four suggestions about how we as the body of Christ should respond with mercy should we encounter a public health crisis. First, we should pray for those afflicted with the virus, for the healthcare workers placing themselves at risk by caring for sick patients, and for the Christians around the world who live in highly afflicted areas. Second, we should consider what support we can provide for parts of the country or the world that are heavily afflicted, including financially or materially. Third, we should combat potential stigma towards people from afflicted regions through our words and actions. Fourth, we should offer the Good News of Jesus Christ to people who are fearful.

As a Christian and an infectious disease specialist, Dr. Jacob believes following these principles and practices will enable us to respond to this virus with wisdom and mercy, which is befitting for followers of Jesus Christ.