This is a good 7 part series addressing the root of what has happened and is happening in the North America church
Pt1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzEy4QZJMuA&feature=relmfu
Pt2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yEArSGFyH0&feature=relmfu
Pt3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRzXZ1lU5dQ&feature=relmfu
Pt4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ly15dPJPQ5M&feature=relmfu
Pt5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUze_WQngIk&feature=relmfu
Pt6 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2x2DQ09-8U&feature=relmfu
Pt7 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVbPCqYsUmU&feature=relmfu
Friday, October 26, 2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
Frustration at secular religious studies: or how Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and became dumb
I've been taking a religious studies course on woman in the biblical tradition. It is nice to hear what others pickup from reading the old testament, they point out a lot of things I have missed reading by myself.
But there are a lot of disturbing undertones and assumptions made in the course, and it frustrates me to read the textbook and a lot of the articles, and realizing the course was not at all what I had in mind at first.
An example of which is an article on the book of Luke from the text book Women's Bible Commentary. Basically the summary of the article is Luke is using beautiful language to paint a picture of pious woman, thus being a manipulative jerk who is an enemy of woman's freedom to choose who they want to be.
Not getting into the foolishness of the author injecting so much speculation and imaginative attacks on Luke's character, she missed the whole point of the Gospel that talks about humanity's fallen nature, need for salvation, and hope and redemption in Christ. One of the irony is the Bible speaks against the author's human centered viewpoint, guess she conveniently chose to ignore those portions of the Bible.
Some scholars from the SBL(Society of Biblical Literature, who published some articles that are used by the course) would make statements like "for the purpose of an objective stance on the academic study of the Bible as literature, we should not adopt a religious viewpoint" why can't they just come out and say "we can't adopt a religious viewpoint on the Bible because we don't believe it's true?" If they want to do an objective, academic study of the Bible then what's the point of not looking at both secular and religious view points? But the irony is that when they do this are they not acting like Adam and Eve after eating the fruit? Not really wanting to admit their own bias and unbelief so they hide behind "the purpose of academics", and walking off into whatever seems right in their own eyes.
Anyway, that's enough rant, don't waste your time reading Women's Bible Commentary or most of the articles published in the Journal of Biblical Literature, their language might sound fancy but there is no flavour or substance.
But there are a lot of disturbing undertones and assumptions made in the course, and it frustrates me to read the textbook and a lot of the articles, and realizing the course was not at all what I had in mind at first.
An example of which is an article on the book of Luke from the text book Women's Bible Commentary. Basically the summary of the article is Luke is using beautiful language to paint a picture of pious woman, thus being a manipulative jerk who is an enemy of woman's freedom to choose who they want to be.
Not getting into the foolishness of the author injecting so much speculation and imaginative attacks on Luke's character, she missed the whole point of the Gospel that talks about humanity's fallen nature, need for salvation, and hope and redemption in Christ. One of the irony is the Bible speaks against the author's human centered viewpoint, guess she conveniently chose to ignore those portions of the Bible.
Some scholars from the SBL(Society of Biblical Literature, who published some articles that are used by the course) would make statements like "for the purpose of an objective stance on the academic study of the Bible as literature, we should not adopt a religious viewpoint" why can't they just come out and say "we can't adopt a religious viewpoint on the Bible because we don't believe it's true?" If they want to do an objective, academic study of the Bible then what's the point of not looking at both secular and religious view points? But the irony is that when they do this are they not acting like Adam and Eve after eating the fruit? Not really wanting to admit their own bias and unbelief so they hide behind "the purpose of academics", and walking off into whatever seems right in their own eyes.
Anyway, that's enough rant, don't waste your time reading Women's Bible Commentary or most of the articles published in the Journal of Biblical Literature, their language might sound fancy but there is no flavour or substance.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Love the bible, because we love Christ
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son - Hebrews 1:1-2a
One cannot know God except through his son Jesus Christ. It is impossible for sinners to approach God without a mediator. Creation reveals God's glory, but we cannot perceive it. The best man can get is a fuzzy notion of an unknown God, but whoever has seen the Son has seen the Father, whoever believes the Son sees the glory of God (John 11:40, 12:45)
That's why scripture is so important. Without scripture we don't know Christ, without Christ we don't know God, and not knowing God means we are eternally damned, because eternal life is to know God and his Son Jesus Christ.
Where else can we find Christ revealed truly? The world? The best the world can give us is some moral teacher, some prophet, some liar, because the world does not believe. Historians might agree Christ was a real man, but think of his deity as foolishness, or they might have some notion of him as a doer of wonderous works but never be clear that he is God in the flesh, came to save sinners.(look up Josephus) Only scripture bears witness of Christ truly and fully for us. Therefore understanding what the bible says is important, doctrine is important. There is an error of mystifying the bible, and there is also an error in thinking eternal life is in the scripture, thus stopping at doctrine and knowledge.
O God, let us be wise in reading your word, help us to understand and love your Word.
One cannot know God except through his son Jesus Christ. It is impossible for sinners to approach God without a mediator. Creation reveals God's glory, but we cannot perceive it. The best man can get is a fuzzy notion of an unknown God, but whoever has seen the Son has seen the Father, whoever believes the Son sees the glory of God (John 11:40, 12:45)
That's why scripture is so important. Without scripture we don't know Christ, without Christ we don't know God, and not knowing God means we are eternally damned, because eternal life is to know God and his Son Jesus Christ.
Where else can we find Christ revealed truly? The world? The best the world can give us is some moral teacher, some prophet, some liar, because the world does not believe. Historians might agree Christ was a real man, but think of his deity as foolishness, or they might have some notion of him as a doer of wonderous works but never be clear that he is God in the flesh, came to save sinners.(look up Josephus) Only scripture bears witness of Christ truly and fully for us. Therefore understanding what the bible says is important, doctrine is important. There is an error of mystifying the bible, and there is also an error in thinking eternal life is in the scripture, thus stopping at doctrine and knowledge.
O God, let us be wise in reading your word, help us to understand and love your Word.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Certainly this was a righteous man
This morning I read Luke 23 again, with the account of a centurion who came to the conclusion that Jesus was indeed a righteous man.
I thought very hard about how he came to the conclusion. Did he know Jesus before Him dying on the cross? Or was this just a spur of the moment thing?
When I thought about forming logical conclusions as to Jesus being righteous, I realized everything I came up with can be reasoned away, and I was scared.
Then after dinner more thoughts came, and it made me burst with joy.
Jesus never mocked others.
Jesus spoke truth to people, no matter how ugly it might sound.
Jesus talked with authority, instead of the prophets saying thus says the Lord, He said truly truly I say to you.
I might make fun of people, and withhold the truth to save my face, but He never did. He loved us to tell us about His kingdom and how we might posses it, finally laying down His life to make it possible.
Even though reason can explain everything away, but our hearts know what is righteous and what is not, our hearts and conscious tells us what is love. It didn't matter whether the centurion knew Jesus well or He just saw Him. God opened His heart to see the truth and he believed. How blessed it is to have the righteous die for the unrighteous?
I thought very hard about how he came to the conclusion. Did he know Jesus before Him dying on the cross? Or was this just a spur of the moment thing?
When I thought about forming logical conclusions as to Jesus being righteous, I realized everything I came up with can be reasoned away, and I was scared.
Then after dinner more thoughts came, and it made me burst with joy.
Jesus never mocked others.
Jesus spoke truth to people, no matter how ugly it might sound.
Jesus talked with authority, instead of the prophets saying thus says the Lord, He said truly truly I say to you.
I might make fun of people, and withhold the truth to save my face, but He never did. He loved us to tell us about His kingdom and how we might posses it, finally laying down His life to make it possible.
Even though reason can explain everything away, but our hearts know what is righteous and what is not, our hearts and conscious tells us what is love. It didn't matter whether the centurion knew Jesus well or He just saw Him. God opened His heart to see the truth and he believed. How blessed it is to have the righteous die for the unrighteous?
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Experience!
Experience is so important in the Christian life!
The trend is to downplay experience and exalt knowledge. But then we can just get a whole bunch of pagans who know how to quote the Bible.
It is like thirsty travelers in a desert who find a watermelon. Instead of cutting it open and drinking from the melony nectar inside, they start discussing whether the melon will be red or yellow on the inside, whether it will be sweet or sour, and in the end they die of thirst.
Experience is important because Christ is alive today, the covenant God makes with people in Jeremiah 32 and Ezekiel 37 is not a farse, it can be experienced in real life!! All that good heavenly blessing and deep peace, righteousness and joy from the Holy Spirit can be experienced!
But that makes knowledge so important doesn't it? It is important because without so, our experience will be just superstition, and we will worship a false god.
So dive into the Bible, make sure what you find is the true vine, then drink my dear friends! drink deeply until you are satisfied fully!
The trend is to downplay experience and exalt knowledge. But then we can just get a whole bunch of pagans who know how to quote the Bible.
It is like thirsty travelers in a desert who find a watermelon. Instead of cutting it open and drinking from the melony nectar inside, they start discussing whether the melon will be red or yellow on the inside, whether it will be sweet or sour, and in the end they die of thirst.
Experience is important because Christ is alive today, the covenant God makes with people in Jeremiah 32 and Ezekiel 37 is not a farse, it can be experienced in real life!! All that good heavenly blessing and deep peace, righteousness and joy from the Holy Spirit can be experienced!
But that makes knowledge so important doesn't it? It is important because without so, our experience will be just superstition, and we will worship a false god.
So dive into the Bible, make sure what you find is the true vine, then drink my dear friends! drink deeply until you are satisfied fully!
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Very short summary of Ecclesiastes
This is taken from a preacher's blog.
Human wisdom cannot solve the deep rooted issues of this world.
Trying to defeat sin with morality is like hiding nakedness with a leaf,
trying to defeat death with medicine is like putting paint on a casket.
On this stage of sin and death, We can put on all kinds of drama and comedy,
but in the end it is only a tragedy.
Only the God who created and nurtured us, have taken care of sin and death in Christ, for those who believe in Him.
Human wisdom cannot solve the deep rooted issues of this world.
Trying to defeat sin with morality is like hiding nakedness with a leaf,
trying to defeat death with medicine is like putting paint on a casket.
On this stage of sin and death, We can put on all kinds of drama and comedy,
but in the end it is only a tragedy.
Only the God who created and nurtured us, have taken care of sin and death in Christ, for those who believe in Him.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Is it ok to be good?
I've often struggled with laziness. When I learned about God's sovereignty, that fed my laziness.
In my thinking I thought "If God is in control of everything, what's the point of me doing anything? I can just do nothing!" and I thought I had no choice in anything regarding my life either.
But that is a big lie.
It is true that God is in control of every circumstances that happen in everyone's lives, but we are moral beings who can make and ought to make choices.
God elected people unto salvation, but we ought to consider the cost of following Christ, and actually choose and be committed to following Him.
God woos us and helps us in our weaknesses during our life on earth so we will finally be saved in the end, but we have to draw near to Him, we have to fight our sins.
How that works in detail is a great mystery. But we shouldn't concern ourselves with trying to know the details of how God does things, living believing these truths and acting on them is more beneficial for our souls.
Then I thought about the desire of wanting to be good.
There's a lot of confusion about being good.
Arn't we totally depraved?
Arn't we utterly sinful?
Isn't there no good in me?
Doesn't all our goodness and righteousness come from Christ?
Then what's the point of being good?
Is it even ok to try to be good?
these were a lot of questions that haunted me, and probably a lot of my friends too.
After much thinking, reading the Bible, and listening to what some pastors had to say, I came up with the following conclusions:
Now I need to know what righteousness is...... back to more head scratching goodness.
In my thinking I thought "If God is in control of everything, what's the point of me doing anything? I can just do nothing!" and I thought I had no choice in anything regarding my life either.
But that is a big lie.
It is true that God is in control of every circumstances that happen in everyone's lives, but we are moral beings who can make and ought to make choices.
God elected people unto salvation, but we ought to consider the cost of following Christ, and actually choose and be committed to following Him.
God woos us and helps us in our weaknesses during our life on earth so we will finally be saved in the end, but we have to draw near to Him, we have to fight our sins.
How that works in detail is a great mystery. But we shouldn't concern ourselves with trying to know the details of how God does things, living believing these truths and acting on them is more beneficial for our souls.
Then I thought about the desire of wanting to be good.
There's a lot of confusion about being good.
Arn't we totally depraved?
Arn't we utterly sinful?
Isn't there no good in me?
Doesn't all our goodness and righteousness come from Christ?
Then what's the point of being good?
Is it even ok to try to be good?
these were a lot of questions that haunted me, and probably a lot of my friends too.
After much thinking, reading the Bible, and listening to what some pastors had to say, I came up with the following conclusions:
- We are sinful because our nature is tainted by sin, that nature produces desires and thoughts that manifest into sinful actions. [Genesis 3, Romans 5:12, James 1:13-15]
- Yet we still retain the image of God with the desire of wanting to be good(Normally)[Genesis 1:26-27, James 3:9]
- God does want us to be good and righteous, the imputation of Christ's righteousness and life in salvation will result in real, tangeble changes towards righteousness in real life(!other wise we might not have obtained Christ at all!) [John 8:11, Matthew 5:20, 1 John 3:7]
- Living a righteous life matters, it makes us good representatives of Christ, thus helps our presentation of the gospel. A bad, morally corrupt Christian taints the name of God.
- Therefore it is a noble desire to want to be good and righteous person, Christians ought to pursue righteousness, but we can't force our self into it.
Now I need to know what righteousness is...... back to more head scratching goodness.
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