Feel like a grasshopper?

I was reading Deuteronomy in my daily bible reading and remembered this account in the book of Numbers, where God told Moses to send out men to explore the land of Canaan, which He is giving to the Israelites. I do wonder why God did what He did because 10 out of the 12 men came back in jitters.

Numbers 13 (NLT)
The Lord now said to Moses, “Send out men to explore the land of Canaan, the land I am giving to the Israelites. Send one leader from each of the twelve ancestral tribes.” So Moses did as the Lord commanded him. He sent out twelve men, all tribal leaders of Israel, from their camp in the wilderness of Paran. These were the tribes and the names of their leaders:

Tribe — Leader
Reuben — Shammua son of Zaccur
Simeon — Shaphat son of Hori
Judah — Caleb son of Jephunneh
Issachar — Igal son of Joseph
Ephraim — Hoshea son of Nun
Benjamin — Palti son of Raphu
Zebulun — Gaddiel son of Sodi
Manasseh son of Joseph — Gaddi son of Susi
Dan — Ammiel son of Gemalli
Asher — Sethur son of Michael
Naphtali — Nahbi son of Vophsi
Gad — Geuel son of Maki

These are the names of the men Moses sent out to explore the land. (Moses called Hoshea son of Nun by the name Joshua.)

Moses gave the men these instructions as he sent them out to explore the land: “Go north through the Negev into the hill country. See what the land is like, and find out whether the people living there are strong or weak, few or many. See what kind of land they live in. Is it good or bad? Do their towns have walls, or are they unprotected like open camps? Is the soil fertile or poor? Are there many trees? Do your best to bring back samples of the crops you see.” (It happened to be the season for harvesting the first ripe grapes.)

So they went up and explored the land from the wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob, near Lebo-hamath. Going north, they passed through the Negev and arrived at Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai—all descendants of Anak—lived. (The ancient town of Hebron was founded seven years before the Egyptian city of Zoan.) When they came to the valley of Eshcol, they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes so large that it took two of them to carry it on a pole between them! They also brought back samples of the pomegranates and figs. That place was called the valley of Eshcol (which means “cluster”), because of the cluster of grapes the Israelite men cut there.

The Scouting Report
After exploring the land for forty days, the men returned to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community of Israel at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran. They reported to the whole community what they had seen and showed them the fruit they had taken from the land. This was their report to Moses: “We entered the land you sent us to explore, and it is indeed a bountiful country—a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is the kind of fruit it produces. But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak! The Amalekites live in the Negev, and the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country. The Canaanites live along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and along the Jordan Valley.”

But Caleb tried to quiet the people as they stood before Moses. “Let’s go at once to take the land,” he said. “We can certainly conquer it!”

But the other men who had explored the land with him disagreed. “We can’t go up against them! They are stronger than we are!” So they spread this bad report about the land among the Israelites: “The land we traveled through and explored will devour anyone who goes to live there. All the people we saw were huge. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!”

We, on this side of time, reading Numbers 13 would automatically look down on the cowardice of the 10 and commend the strength and faith of Caleb and Joshua. But I am thinking if I were in their shoes, I may end up feeling like a grasshopper too.

I don't feel very strong or confident most of the time in what I do. I usually tread carefully and mindfully ensuring that I have taken as much as I can into account before I act or make any decisions. So if you were to put me in the same position as the tribe leaders, I would have freaked out as well because of the apparent sheer strength of the people there.

In the same way, how often have we forgotten the omnipotence of God? How often have we felt so small in situations that we are placed in that we cower in fear? I grant that God sometimes places us in difficult situations to mature and build up our faith, but He does not do it beyond what we can bear (1 Cor 10:13) and so we can be rest-assured that we will be safe in His hands. Whatever happens, we are safe in the refuge of the shadow of His wing (Psa 57:1).

We are no grasshoppers!

We are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, and whatever happens, we are to declare the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His wonderful light (1 Pet 2:9).

pearlie
Photo (c) 2007 allergyfre

The History and Theology of the Exile: Day 4

We completed the module today with the Priestly Writings the Chronicler History and the Historical Period Immediately After the Exile.

I have benefitted immensely from the classes in the realisation that the exile played a major role in a large part of the Old Testament so much so that we need to read these portions of Scripture with a good understanding of the exile in mind.

God has revealed to us through Scripture His working and presence through human history in the lives of the Israelites. I am beginning to ask myself: have I been reading Scriptures in a sanitised manner, i.e. whatever it is, it is all God's doing? Or it is a telling of what man is capable of doing and how God has chosen to intervene and direct their lives? I say that because we often live our lives trying to discern God's voice and sometimes that is not easy to do - we often ask if that is really what God says or what we are trying to convince ourselves. I think it is the same with the people in Scriptures - to discern God's voice and to decide to listen to which prophets amidst all the havoc surrounding them.

pearlie

The History and Theology of the Exile: Day 1

Of all the modules that I had planned to take, this has been almost an elusive one. To cut the story short, there were at least three close calls that prevented me from attending it. Finally by God's grace, here I am, though I must say, it's going to be a toughie.

We covered the general history of the Jewish exile today, which consists of two, i.e. (1) the exile of the Northern Kingdom in 722BC by the Assyrians and (2) the exile of the Southern Kingdom in 597/6BC by the Babylonians. We were given a rough sweep of the "history" of Israel and Judah, the north and south respectively, the Assyrians and the Babylonians, and several more neighbouring nations, all in their own conquests of expansion and survival.

The word "history" is an interesting 0ne that does warrant quite a bit of discussion. We were told that the topic of historiography is a hot one right now. Just how objective a historical account is, is a good question. Reb talked about the bible being biased of its historical account. I was not too comfortable about that statement, that the bible is biased. I felt this way because the word "bias" does have a derogatory nuance to it. But I suppose as long as it is meant that the bible relates history in favour of God's perspective, then I should be fine with it. We do need to be mindful when we read history because it can never be presented objectively. Every person writing history writes it in their context, favour and interest. It helps to have a wide panorama of the period of history in question to gain a fair view of what might have happened.

But how does that relate to the exegetical background study of a passage? Is it the same? If the Old Testament is seen to be biased in its historical account, wouldn't the letters of Paul be biased as well, or the Gospel acounts?

pearlie

Eli, good but weak

I was listening to Dick Lucas on 1 Samuel 3 when he mentioned about Eli, the High Priest during that time when young Samuel was dedicated to the LORD. I have never thought much about Eli before, more attention was given obviously to Samuel but Lucas brought up a very important lesson from Eli - he was a very good man but he was very weak and the results were destructive.

After calling young Samuel three times, which by the way is usually where we take as the entire reading of the passage in Scriptures and draw the concluding lesson on hearing the voice of God without hearing out what God has to say to Samuel, which again by the way was why God called him in the first place, and three times.

God said to Samuel, "Behold, I am about to do a thing in Israel at which both ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. In that day I will carry out against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I am about to judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons brought a curse on themselves and he did not rebuke them. Therefore I have sworn to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever." (1 Samuel 3:11-14)

Weakness, which on the surface would be regarded as nothing and can be brushed aside, is indeed a very corrosive characteristic. By being weak and leaving things be, whether they are right or wrong, one will allow sin to eat into the very core of souls, so much so that everything becomes okay.

Just look at Hophni and Phinehas, Eli two sons. Take note that they were the priests of the LORD, but his father who is the High Priest could not control them.

1 Samuel 2:12-13,17
Now the sons of Eli were worthless men; they did not know the LORD and the custom of the priests with the people ... Thus the sin of the young men was very great before the LORD, for the men despised the offering of the LORD.

1 Samuel 2:22-25
Now Eli was very old; and he heard all that his sons were doing to all Israel, and how they lay with the women who served at the doorway of the tent of meeting. He said to them, "Why do you do such things, the evil things that I hear from all these people? "No, my sons; for the report is not good which I hear the LORD'S people circulating. "If one man sins against another, God will mediate for him; but if a man sins against the LORD, who can intercede for him?" But they would not listen to the voice of their father, for the LORD desired to put them to death.

Why was Eli weak? And more than that, why was Eli punished for the sins of his sons? Shouldn't they be accountable for their own actions.

Hophni and Phinehas were finally made to pay for their evil acts. Their story is found if you carry on reading from the passages above in I Samuel.

Eli was also accountable because he was responsible for his sons. He was the parent to teach and lead them in the way of the LORD, to discipline them, to instruct and correct them. It looks like he either failed or failed to.

When I think about it, I am fearful for myself. Some of us are parents of kids, little or grown up and some of us are leaders in the church, with many spiritual children so to speak.

To be a parent these days are challenging, I would not even want to begin to talk about it here. If you are a parent you know full well what we are up against - the expectations, forces and challenges from all sides and perspectives and more so the expectations from other people.

And to be a leader these days, we are expected to be diplomatic and tolerant, albeit with misinterpretation of the word. Would we be rendering ourselves weak as a result?

I have seen pastors who have a stronger will ostracised. I have seen leaders who are firm in their words and expectations pushed to the side. It is the "nice" ones that gets the stage and the accolades. But the results of being nice and weak is disastrous.

Be good but weak or be strong yet good?

pearlie

The Unanswered Prayers and the Answered Prayer

Melissa once asked if I am “into Englishmen and stiff, upper-lip British English”.

Ah, I am not sure about the first one, since I do not really know any Englishman but she is absolutely right on the second!

Anyway, that is beside the point. I have uploaded several of Dick Lucas’ talks into my cellphone and I had let it run as I commute to and fro work. I happened to hear his session on 1 Kings 18 on The Unanswered Prayers and the Answered Prayer.

Talk about my endless study and thinking on the subject of prayer, this session seriously hit the nail in the head for me – it is about the most realistic thing I have heard about prayer.

It won’t do justice to have it summarised here. You have to listen it for yourself – the session is just brilliant. Get the mp3 here.

pearlie

The Revisiting of Hannah's Account

Happy Mommy's Day!

Pastor preached from the narrative of Hannah this morning, from 1 Samuel 1:1-28. As I observed the passage, it is one amazing account of the faithfulness of God.

Elkanah had two wives, Hannah and Peninnah. Peninnah bore Elkanah sons and daughters but Hannah was barren. Elkanah loved his wife Hannah with double portions, but God had closed her womb.

Year after year, Hannah had been bitterly provoked and exarcebated by Peninnah for being barren and it caused her deep sorrow - she'd weep and refuse to eat. Elkanah loved her so and tried to comfort her with his love.

One year, she was so distressed that as she prayed, she wept bitterly. She made a vow: "O LORD of hosts, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your maidservant and remember me, and not forget Your maidservant, but will give Your maidservant a son, then I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life, and a razor shall never come on his head" (v.11).

Eli thought she was drunk but when she explained that she had poured out her soul before the Lord (v.15), Eli blessed her. Eli wished for her prayers to be answered but if the verb is parsed as an imperfect, he actually promised her that God will grant her request. (Klein, WBC, p.9). With that she went away, "her face was no longer sad" (v.18).

I have questions:

1. Out of desperation, a vow was made: what does it imply?

We need to know the context of vows in the ancient world. I quote The IVP Bible Background Commentary of the Old Testament (Walton, IVP, p.282): "Vows are voluntary, conditional agreements that are common in most of the cultures of the ancient Near East, including Hittite, Ugaritic, Mesopotamian and, less often Egyptian. In the ancient world the most common context for a vow was when a request was being made to a deity. The gift would most frequently take the form of a sacrifice, but other types of gifts to the sanctuary or priests would be options Fulfillment of a vow could usually be accomplished at the sanctuary and was a public act."

Vows were commonly made, and must be fulfilled. Vows were serious matters - very unlike in these times where vows are so lightly made, and forgotten the moment the petitions are fulfilled. Therefore in that sense, Hannah's vow was spectacular.

We must revisit our understanding of Hannah's account. Why was she so distressed? Is it because she does not have children? Is it because she was taunted and provoked?

I think not.

In my humble opinion, she was distressed because she was forgotten by God. In the ancient world, childlessness is viewed as a sign of God's punishment. It is a sign that God is no longer with her. I began to see that Hannah's concern is not so much being barren. After all Elkanah loved her so much. But she was distressed at the thought that God has discarded her, banished her. She could not live with it - she cannot live knowing that God had abandoned her.

As such, she had been searching for God's presence for many years - she prayed and wept. Until that one time, she decided that if God is willing to give her a son, as a sign of God's fellowship with her, she will offer her son back to God. If God would remove from her the ostracism, that God indeed had not forgotten her, she will give to God what will be most precious to her.

2. In Numbers 30:6-15, we learn that a woman's vow at that time can only be cancelled by her husband. If he said nothing, however, or did not oppose her, the vow had to be carried through (Klein, WBC, p.8). So why did Hannah still have to carry out her vow?

Now, Elkanah loved Hannah very much - he equated his love to more than that of 10 sons. So on that account, I believe he had cancelled her vows. There is no proof obviously, but imagine that he did and yet Hannah went on to give Samuel to God's service.

She loved God so much that she was willing to give him her one and only child. She now know that God loved her and had not abandoned her because God has open her womb. With that confirmation, she gave to God what is most precious to her in thanksgiving.

Does that not remind us of someone who did the same at the land of Moriah? Does that not remind us of God who loved us so much that he gave us His own Son?

So if you think at any time that God has abandoned you, or nobody wants you, or
life is about the worst it can get - remember that God gave you his Son.

I read Hannah's Song now in new light - more so that we live in the age of the already fulfilled promise of the coming of Messiah, looking toward the final fulfillment of the Kingdom of God, when God's presence is eternally with us in person.

Hannah's Song (1 Samuel 2:1-10)
My heart exults in the LORD;
My horn is exalted in the LORD,
My mouth speaks boldly against my enemies,
Because I rejoice in Your salvation.
There is no one holy like the LORD,
Indeed, there is no one besides You,
Nor is there any rock like our God.
Boast no more so very proudly,
Do not let arrogance come out of your mouth;
For the LORD is a God of knowledge,
And with Him actions are weighed.
The bows of the mighty are shattered,
But the feeble gird on strength.
Those who were full hire themselves out for bread,
But those who were hungry cease to hunger.
Even the barren gives birth to seven,
But she who has many children languishes.
The LORD kills and makes alive;
He brings down to Sheol and raises up.
The LORD makes poor and rich;
He brings low, He also exalts.
He raises the poor from the dust,
He lifts the needy from the ash heap
To make them sit with nobles,
And inherit a seat of honor;
For the pillars of the earth are the LORD's,
And He set the world on them.
He keeps the feet of His godly ones,
But the wicked ones are silenced in darkness;
For not by might shall a man prevail.
Those who contend with the LORD will be shattered;
Against them He will thunder in the heavens,
The LORD will judge the ends of the earth;
And He will give strength to His king,
And will exalt the horn of His anointed.

As I celebrate Mother's Day enjoying the company of my son, who has woken up by himself in the wee hours of the morning getting my gifts in the right places (like under my pillow), who came back from church and prepared the room as if I am checking into a hotel complete with butler service (yes, he is the butler attending to me now seated at the "Library Cafe" enjoying a coffee), I am being reminded and made to realise even more the immensity of God's love for us.

As I celebrate Mother's Day basking in the love of my son, I celebrate life being included in the grace and presence of God, through His Son, Jesus Christ.

As I celebrate Mother's Day with my son's "I love you's", I celebrate God with the dedication of my small little self - the offer of myself as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to Him, in my spiritual service of worship.

Amen.

pearlie
Photo © 2007 Gisela Royo

The Presence of God

I woke up at 5.30am this morning to complete the slide presentation due for worship I am to lead in church today. I thank and praise God that I feel much better though I still feel a bit dizzy now and then, and I almost fell asleep during sermon. Not that it was boring, I still didn't feel too well and I was tired.

Pastor Chris spoke from Joshua 7:1-26 concentrating on the message that the most ultimate in life is the presence of God. Without God, all is in vain.

Trent Butler in his commentary of the book says that "the key promise to Joshua in the book is the presence of God (1:5, 9; 3:7)". It is in the prayer of the people for Joshua (1:17), it is the basis of Joshua's exaltation (3:7) and the hope of possessing the land. (Butler, WBC, 2002, p.85).

Two points of lesson from this passage:

First, Joshua became self-sufficient and sent men to survey Ai, without seeking God. The result was utter failure. Israel lost in the battle they thought was a piece of cake (they decided they only need two to three thousand men).

Secondly, Achan decided to keep some of the devoted/banned things for himself, in utter disobedience. God had warned that they are to keep away from all the devoted/banned things or face destruction. Achan must have convinced himself that nothing bad will happen - he did not believe and went for it. Doesn't this sound familiar? Haven't we done this before? Convincing ourselves that it is not wrong? (Interestingly, I learnt a new word the other day: factoid, an item of unreliable information that is repeated so often that it become accepted as fact.) The result is the complete wipe out of not only Achan himself but sons and daughters, his herd and all that he had. This scene replays itself in Acts in the case of Ananias and Sapphira. This is the wrath of God.

We need the presence of God with us and in us. He has sent us His son to redeem us - we have with us Emmanuel, God with us. And with God in our presence, He demands from us holiness - a godly life, a holy life.

pearlie

The Walls of Jericho

I am rarely more than 2 days late in my daily postings and so I thought I'd at least put in a short post here. (I will be in Melaka from Monday to facilitate a training for work that will last for 4 days.)

Pastor Chris spoke to us from the famous Jericho walls passage and while he was preaching on the walls that we have in our lives that we need to face, my thoughts fell more on the exegetical issues in this passage. The walls were only mentioned at the beginning and the end of the passage and almost the exact same words in the English translation. What does that tell us?

What I say about the passage is that, whatever it is we face, it is God who works. We only worship and obey.

pearlie

Consecration

It was quite an adventurous day today. To start with, Sunday service was longer than usual for the second week in a row - something to do with the new year and the change of the order of service? The sermon had been brought forward from the end of the service to the middle. It is done to accomodate the need for Pastor Chris to make his way to Grace Methodist in Cheras. He is pastoring two churches this year.

His sermon for the day is taken from Joshua 3:1-17. I am usually captured by passages from the Old Testament because I don't study them enough and thus I am not very familiar with them. This passage is about bringing the people of Israel to cross over the Jordan River. God is also establishing Joshua's position in the sight of the Israelites that Joshua is indeed chosen by God and will lead them as Moses did. God really takes care of everything from every angle.

Pastor emphasised on 3:5, Joshua told the people, "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you."

We too need to consecrate ourselves before the Lord and allow him to use us. Like Joshua, we need to hear and listen to God. We must then obey. It only when we are clean and set apart for him, are we able to hear, and when we hear, we must have faith. We then must obey and we will see God work.

However, I was also thinking about the act of consecration:

• What is consecration?
• Who does the consecration?
• How are we consecrated?
• How does consecration relate to justification and sanctification?
• Who needs to be consecrated in the Old Testament?
• Are there consecration performed in the New Testament?

This is a big topic. A bit too big for me to delve in now, not in just one night. The requirement for consecration or holiness is seen throughout the Old Testament, where the people of God is expected to ritually consecrate themselves in the presence of God. It is serious business. In Josh 3:5, "it is purification for battle, in accord with the law of Deut 23:15. When God leads his people into the land of the enemy, her camp must be purified." (Butler, 46)

In the New Testament, holiness is definitely still a requirement in God's presence. This requirement is however fulfilled in Christ our Lord, on the cross. We are justified by faith to be holy and presentable before God.

Romans 5:1-2
1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Romans 5:8-10
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! 10 For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!

But having being justified through Christ, even though we can now approach God with confidence because of Christ, there is still our part to play, that is to work out our salvation with fear and trembling: the process of sanctification. We need to be sanctified by the truth, the Word of God is truth, and through the Spirit of God.

The New International Encyclopedia of Bible Words summarises it very clearly:

The idea of holiness in both Testaments is one of consecration to God. In the OT, holiness involves keeping both cultic (ritual) and moral commandments. Places and things and even persons were set aside as sacred, to have no contact with the common or ordinary. But the OT consistently reminds us that the key to understanding holiness is found in the character of God. Holiness is expressed in his power and his own moral character. So true holiness in his people will necessarily have a strong moral component.

In the NT the cult of the OT is set aside. The emphasis in NT teaching about holiness is squarely on the moral. There is another shift in emphasis as well. The OT maintained strict separation between the holy and the profane. In the NT, holiness is true goodness woven through the lifestyle of the believer and expressed in every daily activity and in every relationship.

In the OT, God's people consecrated persons, places, and things solely for God's use. In the NT, God's Spirit himself acts in salvation to set us apart to God. In addition, the Holy Spirit continues to act in our lives to infuse us with Christ's own likeness and to enable us by his power to express Christlikeness in our daily lives. It is here that we find the true holiness of the NT: joyous commitment to God and to the truly good, expressed in everything we say and do. (Richards, 341)

I was also to start the youth on bible study today. I had prepared introductory materials on the bible, its character, formal structure and divine inspiration. I was initially told that the number of people I will be teaching will be in the 20s. However, I got more than I bargained for - the Trinity Annual Conference of the Methodist Church in Malaysia, which is the "English-speaking conference" of the Methodist Church in Malaysia, has its youth discipleship camp for youth called the Jeremiah School attending our church service today and most of them stayed back for youth fellowship. With more than 40 people, I had to improvise. Nevertheless, it was a good time of learning.

I thank God for his leading and guidance - I never could have done it without God's grace and loving kindness, and I thank God for allowing me to serve him this way.

Soli deo gloria.

pearlie

Source:
Trent C. Butler, vol. 7, Word Biblical Commentary : Joshua, Word Biblical Commentary, (Dallas: Word, 2002): 46.
Lawrence O. Richards, New International Encyclopedia of Bible Words, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1985, 1991): 341.

Myth?

I "met" Tim last year when I was looking for commentaries on Galatians and sent him an email from LibraryThing.com. We sort of "met" again today and started discussing about church planting. He and his wife is planting a church in Clarksville, Tennessee. Check it out here.

He asked me if I have read anything before about how the Gospel functions as a myth or as a symbolic universe. I jumped at the reference of the Gospel as a myth. But before I went berating over it, I had to check the dictionary.

According to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford University, 2004), other than it being "a widely held but false belief; a fictitious person or thing; an exaggerated and idealised concept of a person or thing," it also mean "a traditional story concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon and typically involving supernatural beings or events." Now, what a stark difference between the two possible meanings! One an absolutely false belief while the other is actually history.

If we take a look at Dictionary.com:

• Random House Unabridged Dictionary (Random House, Inc. 2006) gives only the first meaning, i.e. false belief
• American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Houghton Mifflin, 2006) gives a wider definition, which I can't quite differentiate between false or history
• Online Etymology Dictionary (Douglas Harper, 2001) states that the general sense of "untrue story, rumour" began as early as 1840
• WordNet 3.0 (Princeton University, 2006) has it as "a traditional story accepted as history; serves to explain the world view of a people"

This is new to me. I have always taken it along the line of false belief. With such a difference in the array of definitions, when do you take it as a false story and when do you take it as a traditional story accepted as history? It is significant when we use it to talk about the Gospel.

pearlie

Malaysia Jubilee Mission Expo

I wanted to spend most of the day on James 4:4 but I managed to drop into MCA Hall this evening to view the Exhibition of 183 Historical Pictures of the Malaysia Jubilee Mission Expo, which celebrates the 200th Anniversary of Robert Morrison's Mission to China.

The sad thing for me was that the entire exhibition was in Chinese. I was only given a booklet in English describing what each poster and pictures therein say and refer to. I teasingly called the book English Subtitles, except that they weren't really subtitles at all as all it provided was general information of the posters and not a word-for-word translation of the text. Midway through I lost interest, but it would be an excellent walkthrough if and only if I knew how to read Chinese.



I can't say much here about the missionaries and their sacrificial contributions but what caught my attention was this poem (in English!), written by E.H. Hamilton, after hearing of the death of his missionary collegue Jack Vinson. Vinson was martyred in 1931. He showed no fear of death and to his Chinese captors, he said, "Kill me, if you wish. I will go straight to God."

"Afraid?"
by E.H. Hamilton

Afraid? Of what?
To feel the spirit's glad release?
To pass from pain to perfect peace,
The strife and strain of life to cease?
Afraid - of that?

Afraid? Of what?
Afraid to see the Saviour's face,
To hear His welcome, and to trace,
The glory gleam from wounds of grace,
Afraid - of that?

Afraid? Of what?
A flash - a crash - a pierced heart;
Brief darkness - Light - O Heaven's art!
A wound of His a counterpart!
Afraid - of that?

Afraid? Of what?
To enter into Heaven's rest,
And yet to serve the Master blessed?
From service good to service best?
Afraid - of that?

Afraid? Of what?
To do by death what life could not -
Baptize with blood a stony plot,
Till souls shall blossom from the spot?
Afraid - of that?

We are certainly indebted to them. More information here.

pearlie