Women in Ministry: Egalitarian or Complementarian

Our church has started preaching from the Pastoral Letters 1 and 2 Timothy and today's passage was from 1 Tim 2:8-15, with these problematic verses:

1 Timothy 2:11-15 ESV

Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing-if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.

I have had sessions from the previous church I attended where the pastor had brought us through his Complementarian view, which I don't fully agree with. 

But I have not delved in deeper on my own. 

Until today. I had to dig out my copy of Two Views on Women in Ministry and I have just started reading. It will be a long read. 

Two Views on Women in Ministry

by Linda L. Belleville, Craig L. Blomberg, Craig S. Keener and Thomas R. Schreiner.

I just remembered I also have a copy of this book by Craig S. Keener who holds the Egalitarian view. I need to dig into it as well.

Paul, Women & Wives: Marriage and Women's Ministry in the Letters of Paul

by Craig S. Keener

It looks like I'm in a church with two opposing views to my own. Their Calvinism and Complementarian views to my Arminian and Egalitarian stand. And I'm not even sure of it's eschatological view yet.

So what does it mean for me? Does it matter?

I am okay with differing views on eschatology and women in ministry. It's only the Calvinism-Arminianism that I am more concerned about. 

But that will be for another blog post. 

pearlie

I’m finally back to reading C.S. Lewis

In my attempt to get back into a more extensive reading regime, I found myself to be gravitating towards C.S. Lewis’s books and books about him. 

C.S Lewis still remains after all this time my most favourite author and I happen to remember this saying that I found most apt in describing him. 

I usually forget what I read, and so it’s interesting I actually remember it but I am even more amazed that I actually remember which book it’s found in. 

It’s in Lewis’s God in the Dock where Walter Hooper said this in his preface - C.S. Lewis is one writer of this century of whom the Greek epigram about Plato seems eminently exact: “In whatever direction we go, we meet him on the way back.”

And if you have read C.S. Lewis, you will totally agree with Hooper. 

The book which I have just finished reading explores Lewis’s thoughts in modern and post-modern thinking. 

Lewis Agonistes: How C.S. Lewis can Train Us to Wrestle with the Modern and Post-Modern World

by Louis Markos

I must say that books by C.S. Lewis and books about C.S. Lewis are tough reads, including this one but I found it is one of the best and most interesting book I have read in awhile. 

The topics that Markos brought up to be argued alongside with Lewis include:

- The War of Reason and Intuition

- Wrestling with Science

- Wrestling with the New Age

- Wrestling with Evil and Suffering

- Wrestling with the Arts

- Wrestling with Heaven and Hell

The chapters on science and on evil and suffering are good but not new to me. 

The chapter on new age was interesting. Markos says, “The pendulum has indeed swung far in the direction of science, empiricism, and objectivity, and it was only a matter of time before this relentless swing towards secularizarion set off a counter-swing back toward the sacred...This reaction has surfaced in various different forms, but it has come (since the 1980s) to be referred to under a single all-inclusive heading: the New Age...the reaction was to be expected, the unchecked, headlong progress of Enlightenment thought could not help but breed its own antithesis.”

The author’s opinion for us Christians is “if we are to accept the New Age not as an all-out threat to the church but as an opportunity to reach a multitude of souls hungry for spiritual truth, then we must learn to identify, understand and sympathize with the desires and yearnings that drive these passionate neopagans.”

And I really like the chapter on Wrestling with the Arts where the author focused on language, poetry, metaphors and parallelisms. The post-modernists have reduced language from being inherently meaningful—that behind the words used was something real, words like love and justice and beauty meant something—to something that is arbitrary in that words are subjective in meaning. They have “killed the ‘illusion’ that words can point back to an absolute, eternal meaning.”

But language is centered on meaning and truth, and the “language of Scripture and of poetry at its most sublime is not singular or linear but polysemous (Greek for ‘many signs’)...[it’s] the slippery nature of poetry and of those images, metaphors, and symbols on which all of the arts finally rest is what enables it to hold in tension a supernatural meaning that could not be expressed in a closed, mathematical system...the Lord’s Supper is the most perfect of symbols, the great reservoir of polysemous meaning. The communion wine remains wine, and yet it is also simultaneously the blood of Christ...language is more meaningful precisely because it is slippery.”

The author then spent considerable time referring to the fiction that Lewis wrote based on mythologies, sagas, legends and medieval romances. 

With that, I promise myself that I must fully read the Chronicles of Narnia. I have read it but not completely. 

The Magician’s Nephew is now my next read. I just bought the Kindle version of The Chronicles of Narnia Complete 7-Book Collection and I am looking forward to digging in. 

pearlie

Can God die? What does it mean for God to die?

In reading and meditating on the portion of Scriptures on Good Friday--the betrayal and arrest of Jesus, the Jewish trials, denial of Peter, the Roman trials, the crucifixion and the death of Jesus--I suddenly began to wonder and ask a question I realized I haven't asked before.

Can God die? 

Jesus is God and he died. I am not sure if that really answers the question. Let's say it does, but it then begs the next question. 

What does it mean for God to die?

I googled for any answers but could not find anyone that provides a good or satisfying one. This article by Veronica Neffinger, Crosswalk seems the best, but even then, she does not fully answer the question. 

She says, "This is a question that can easily get into the deep waters of theology," and I wonder why haven't it been picked up by the scholars. Maybe it's me who have not come across them, and so if you do know of any good books on this, please let me know.

Some explained that Jesus is both divine and human, and it was the human side of him who died. But I agree with the article that said, "Sproul reminds us that this would be a 'mutation within the very being of God.' The doctrine of the Trinity tells us that three separate and distinct persons make up the Godhead, and yet these persons are one." Sproul further explains it here. 

So I think it boils down to what Jesus cried out to the Father when he was on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matt 27:46, Mark 15:34). 

Death is not becoming non-existent. Death, even to us mere human, is the experience of a separation. Where we are at this separation stage is still yet to be known. In that case, Jesus is experiencing a separation from the Father, while still maintaining his relationship with him in the Trinitarian Godhead. 

Jesus took the separation that will indeed be ours if we die without him. But now that Jesus has taken the separation in our place, we are reconciled and are in abode with the Father for eternity, for all time.

But of course, like Sproul suggested, that may even be the wrong question to ask.

Is it?

The article aptly concludes with a quote from Greg Laurie, "This message is so deep and profound that you could spend the rest of your life studying it and still not grasp its full significance. Yet it is so simple that even a child can understand it.  Still, many people do not understand the significance of what took place on that Roman cross 2,000 years ago.  Jesus died so that we might live."

Amen.

pearlie

My 7 Dream Jobs

 

I am too old to have a dream job, let alone seven, but I have them nonetheless. But when I define what I mean by a "dream job", you'll see why I have them. 

My take on a dream is that it is a dream and will always remain a dream, illusive and not attainable, a wishful thinking. But I am a dreamer to begin with, and that is fine with me to have dreams I will never attain. I love the mysterious feel in having them. 

How I come to have these dream jobs is because I have phases of fascination where I do put in quite a lot of resources into them. And having spent so much time and energy in them, I do wish I have become them. 

My seven dream jobs, in no particular order, are:

1. Writer

Anyone who knows me knows my love for books and reading. I collect them, I read them, some again and again, both fiction and non-fiction. I am fascinated with the authors' ideas and knowledge in their area of writing. I am usually amazed at how they express themselves, how plots would turn unexpectedly, and how they can hold the readers. I wish I could write like them. 

2. Theologian

I started having a love for the study of Christian theology about 15 years ago and invested a lot of time and resources into studying the various themes and subjects to get a good grasp of my belief. I did think of specializing in an area and move from there. 

3. Photographer

I got fascinated with photography about 10 years ago and invested quite a lot of money into getting a set of gears. I was also setting my eyes on really expensive lenses. I spent time studying the technicalities of photography but found following my gut more satisfying. I stopped going further when my camera went kaput. Now looking at the amazing photographs by professionals, it makes me wish I was one. 

4. Psychologist

I became fascinated with personality theories 15 years ago and since then I have reading and practicing it like a hobby with people who care to listen me. Psychology was the subject I thought of taking when I was planning for college but it was not something I could get into back then. I wish I had. 

5. Vocalist

I don't care if you have heard this repeated time and again on TV, but I love to sing, right when I was a kid. I started taking lessons maybe about 20 years ago, involved myself in a choral group 10 years ago, and took more serious lessons a few years ago. I suppose I can call myself a vocalist but only an amateur and choralist. But it is a dream to be a professional soprano, which will never happen. 

6. Philosopher

I got interested in philosophy many years ago when I was doing theology but I got more interested in it when I took an online business philosophy course recently. I wished I took it up when I was in college. 

7. Linguist

My fascination with language got a little more serious recently. I felt blessed to know several languages and found it so interesting that when I listen to other languages, there are similarities that tie us together. What more, the English language is used differently in different countries and cultures that when I say something to someone from another country, sometimes I have to think if they will understand what I am saying. 

There, what I wish I could be, which I know I will never be. Maybe when I retire, I may make something out of these 7 things which I have picked up. 

But wow, now that I look back, I certainly had a great time of learning in my last 15 to 20 years. 

pearlie 

Answers to questions you may have on the creation of the world

 

The Creation Answer Book

by Hank Hanegraaff

I have started reading this book and I like it. It is indeed an answer book. It poses multiple questions about creation and provides brief but succinct answers to them, complete with a book reference for each question if you need more. 

There are too many questions to be included here but they fall under these main themes:

- Creation and First Things

- Creation and the Garden of Eden

- Creation and the Flood

- Creation and the Age Question

- Creation and the Problem of Evil

- Creation and Dinosaurs

- Creation and Evolution

- Creation and Re-creation

It is a recommended read and at the moment on sale at $4.99 in Amazon Kindle. 

pearlie

Another worship song off from my list

 

I was singing Christ is Enough by Hillsong Worship this morning when I suddenly noticed the first line of the song that goes, "Christ is my reward". 

I used the word "suddenly" here because even though I have known this song and have been singing it for months now, I only just noticed it. It proves that my brain is usually so bombarded with so much information that I inadvertently filter most of it away.

I think I am more aware now because I am currently reading Visual Intelligence, Sharpen Your Perception, Change Your Life by Amy E. Herman, which I will do a book review when I finish reading it. For now I can say that the book is very good and if you would like an e-copy, now is the time to get it while it's still on sale at $2.99 in Amazon.

While reading the book, I learnt about really seeing and observing things, and while you can't actually "see" a song, I became more aware of the words used. 

When I was singing Christ is Enough, I was visualizing the words as I go and suddenly, I realized that the first four words of the song "Christ is my reward" goes against what I believe as a Christian. 

How can Jesus be my reward? For one, I don't even deserve anything from God if not for his grace. As such, I don't deserve any rewards like I've earned something. What I do get from God, is a gift by his grace. 

And what more, "Christ is my reward" is objectifying Jesus, who is God himself, and that is not right. 

Moreover, now that I am looking at the song more carefully, I find that the lyrics are like a mesh of words and pat phrases that do not really fit that well together. 

It has a good tune but I will have to remove the song from my list of worship songs to sing. I also need to pay more attention to the words of the songs I like. 

It's amazing how I can miss it so easily. 

pearlie 

Understanding Molinism/Middle Knowledge, God's Foreknowledge and Predestination

Salvation and Sovereignty, A Molinist Approach
by Kenneth Keathley

I bought another book! I read the introduction in the preview section and I wanted to read more. Kenneth Keathley grew up within the Reformed tradition but found himself struggling with Calvinism. He sought to bring it all into both being consistent and biblical through Molinism. But before I do read it though, I need to get the basics in place.

My good friend Noel told me that Molinism is an effective alternative to a Calvinistic understanding of divine foreknowledge. But I need to know the difference between Arminianism, which is what I hold, and Molinism or middle knowledge.

I found this article by Roger Olson which was helpful: Are Arminian Theology and Middle Knowledge Compatible? Olson did not give an affirmative yes to this. He said middle knowledge is "knowledge whereby God knows not only what will happen but would happen...once one believes that God uses middle knowledge to render certain that every creature does what they do by creating them and placing them in circumstances where he knows they will “freely” do something, then determinism is at the door if not in the living room and that is inconsistent with Arminianism’s basic impulses. It makes God the author of sin and evil even if only inadvertently.

Now I am re-reading the chapter on the myth of "Arminians Do Not Believe in Predestination" in Olson's Arminian Theology, Myths and Realities, and here is what I found important:

"Predestination is a biblical concept that classical Arminians accept, though they interpret it differently than Calvinists. Predestination is God's sovereign decree to elect believers in Jesus Christ, and it includes God's foreknowledge of those believers' faith."

"God foreknows every person's ultimate and final decision regarding Jesus Christ, and on that basis God predestines people to salvation or damnation."

"The first and most important point is that (Arminius) conceived predestination as primarily the predestination of Jesus Christ to be Savior of sinners."

"God chose Christ as the Redeemer for that group of people who repent and believe, and chose all who repent and believe in Christ as the elect."

"God sees from all eternity who will and will not accept his atoning work. God does not coerce the acceptance of his offer. The Atonement is available for all, but not received by all."

"Arminians claim they are justified in embracing both exhaustive and infallible divine foreknowledge and libertarian free will because both are necessary for a sound biblical worldview. And, not all philosophers believe they are necessarily logically incompatible."

I need to read much more on this to have better understanding or shall I resign to the fact that I will only know when I come to the new heaven and new earth?

pearlie

Jesus is both Saviour and Lord

 

The sermon today stressed on our Christian living coming under the Lordship of Jesus and that our lives in God and service for him should be an outflow of a grateful heart.

Our pastor highlighted the impossibility of separating the person of Christ from the work of Christ, that we cannot have him as our Saviour if we don't also have him as our Lord. I have not heard of such a dichotomy before. But apparently some of us, by our own conscious choice, take Jesus as our Saviour but refuse to live in his Lordship, hence a life without obedience and without the Spirit of God in us.

Some of us may not even realize it and do that in our daily living, thinking that we have Jesus as our Saviour but living our lives as we please.  

Is your life a living sacrifice unto God or do you live by the gratification of your own desires?

pearlie

NT Wright's Online Courses

I was aware of NT Wright's upcoming lectures on Romans and thanks to Kar Yong's reminder, I just checked it out only to realize that he has several MOOC lectures already running in udemy.com and here am I, a MOOC proponent never realizing that my favourite writer is actually running MOOC lectures. But they are not free though, like the other MOOC lectures I that have been following, which explains why I did not know. I have not registered myself in udemy.com yet because they do not give an option to take any courses free.

He has now six courses made available, including the Romans one which doesn't seem to be listed yet in udemy.com though you can access it from his own website. Check them out here in his website where you can send in requests for discounts. The link to the Romans one is here.

• Simply Jesus
• Simply Good News
• Worldviews, the Bible and the Believer
• Paul and His Letter to the Philippians
• Paul and His Letter to the Galatians
• Paul and His Epistle to the Romans

Check out this 20-min video of his Introduction to Romans and see if it will whet your appetite. 

pearlie

Are you sure Jesus is not alive?

Dr. James F McGrath posted this cartoon by Kevin Frank which is so amusing to me. 

But amusing only on the Schrödinger part, more precisely the all-too famous Schrödinger's Cat. The checking of the empty tomb is no joke. Every living person, whichever religion we subscribe to, must seek and question what we believe in. This is so we know for sure it is the right thing.

The Schrödinger cartoon bears a very good message. If you have not checked in the tomb, you will never ever know, will you? Are you sure Jesus is not alive? Are you sure he is not the only way as he says he is? You will never be sure unless you go find out for yourself. 

The good thing about Jesus is that we have with us the most number of earliest and most reliable manuscripts in the world. What you read in the Bible is as accurate as it can get to the historical account two millennia ago. 

For one, parts of the New Testament have been preserved in more manuscripts than any other ancient work, having over 5,800 complete or fragmented Greek manuscripts, 10,000 Latin manuscripts and 9,300 manuscripts in various other ancient languages. 

Bruce Metzgar said, "In evaluating the significance of these statistics...one should consider, by way of contrast, the number of manuscripts which preserve the text of the ancient classics. Homer's Iliad...is preserved by 457 papyri, 2 uncial manuscripts, and 188 minuscule manuscripts. Among the tragedians the witnesses to Euripides are the most abundant; his extant works are preserved in 54 papyri and 276 parchment manuscripts, almost all of the later dating from the Byzantine period...the time between the composition of the books of the New Testament and the earliest extant copies is relatively brief. Instead of the lapse of a millennium or more, as is the case of not a few classical authors, several papyrus manuscripts of portions of the New Testament are extant which were copies within a century or so after the composition of the original documents."

Sure, there are a lot of questions. You may never be perfectly sure. It is indeed by faith. But God has revealed himself to us in no other way than to come to us in person. How more real can it get? It is all in the historical documents. 

Please for the sake of your life, check them out. Ask the questions. Find the answer. 

pearlie

My life is awesome, yours is not. What???!!!

I attended this Christian fellowship in the afternoon for the first time and I am worried. The message given was supposed to be on "following the way of God", but all I heard was man's ways, not God's way. It was man-centered and sounded like prosperity gospel.

This statement was said several times in the message - "Walk in the way of God and you will be walking in his supernatural blessings and your life will be awesome". The speaker then told us how her life was awesome because she walks in the way of God and how the lives of the people she shared with us were not awesome in comparison.

I was aghast. I get worried when Christians tell themselves they must be thankful because they are so blessed compared to the others, that they are so blessed whilst others are suffering. But where is the love? Where is the compassion?

This is not the Gospel of Christ. We don't follow the way of God so that our lives become awesome and that the lives of others are not as great. We belong to Christ only because of his grace, which we do not deserve. Our lives belong to him and we live in honor of him, in good times and in bad, and there will be bad. Life is not all awesome, and when it is not awesome, it does not mean that God has forsaken us. It is in bad times that we have God to depend on, he is all-faithful.

And it is a commandment that we have compassion for others. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:30-31)

(Check here for more on Prosperity Preaching: Deceitful and Deadly.)

Anyway, the irony was that while I was leaving, slips of paper with bible verses were given out. The one that I got was this: Therefore each one of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbour, for we are all members of one body. (Eph 4:25)

Err...does this mean I need to do something about it? But what? I certainly need to pray about it.

pearlie

Abba Isn't Daddy

I will be taking on to teach some college students in my church on Christian theology. I'd rather do biblical studies but I agree with my fellow partner teacher that young people do need a good theological foundation in their Christian life journey.

I will only take about 10 classes and I'm now reading up on the names and attributes of God, which I will be taking on next month.

In my sourcing for articles, I found an interesting one written by James Barr, entitled "Abba Isn't Daddy". I use the term "Abba" in my prayer journal and I totally agree with that. I find it uncomfortable when people call God "daddy". It's just not right, but I don't have the technicalities as to why it is not right. Now there's this article but the problem is that it is not available online, not even in ATLA, the journal repository which I have access to.

But I did find this other useful article from here:
Sigve Tonstad, “The Revisionary Potential of ‘Abba! Father!’ in the Letters of Paul,” Andrews University Seminary Studies, Vol. 45, No. 1 (2007): 5-18.

The portion on Abba isn't daddy is only at the end of the article but on the whole, it covers the various readings and understanding of the term Abba Father. I understand it better now in light of Jesus using it when he prayed in the Garden of Gethsamane - there is nothing childlike about that term. It's as matured as it can be as Jesus called out to the Father in intense mental agony.

pearlie

The new heaven and new earth

I am still reading NT Wright's Surprised by Hope and learning a lot from it and I'm especially glad that it somewhat conforms to what I thought about heaven and what we bring to heaven, or rather the new heaven and new earth. With it, I'm now able to be more firm about my thoughts on the subject.

For one, Wright's gist of the book is about life after life after death, and on one of his favorite subject, the kingdom of God, which he interprets quite differently from the other writers and scholars.

One of the important things that he brought up is how wrong our regular thought of heaven is. After we die, we do not get transferred to a distant and disembodied heaven. But rather, we come back to this very earth, but renewed, like it was supposed to be, good and perfect as created by God.

I blogged before about my nagging thoughts on the existence of God. I made a general reference to the Star Trek series where the beliefs of gods in alien civilisations are seen to be stupid and childish. What I did not refer to was this episode where there is this civilisation of people, or humanoids as they call them, where the dead are sent to "heaven" where they will start a new phase of life with the departed, but it was found that they instead remained as corpses in a cavern in another planet.

That episode stayed with me because I find it a parody of what I believed in. And for that, I'm being denigrated to a childish sort person who believes that I go to a place when I die but actually I still remain dead.

But with what Wright has proposed, that is we finally come back to this earth, fresh and renewed, it certainly makes more sense and I feel more comfortable now that I no longer felt belittled by such parodies.

I highly recommend you to read Surprised by Hope and let your understanding of what heaven and what life after death is be challenged by Wright's proposition.

pearlie

YouTube Weekend

I spend the entire weekend with videos in YouTube by CBN and Answering Islam.

As much as I have no conversion experience, being a third generation Christian, I could experience it vicariously through the testimonies of people in those videos. They were amazing.

pearlie

I'm already overwhelmed

I had a meeting in church today discussing about teaching youth in church next year, and the topic chosen was Theology.

With the topics that was listed out, I am feeling seriously overwhelmed, even though I will not doing all of them.

1. The Evidence of God
2. The Knowability of God
3. The Names of God
4. The Attributes of God
5. The Trinity
6. The Divine Decrees
7. Calvinism and Arminianism
8. Creation
9. Providence
10. The Origin of Man
11. Man as the Image of God
12. The Origin of Sin
13. The Covenant of Grace

pearlie

Doubting God

I started contemplating about asking for signs from God, which inadvertently resulted in these following questions.

If I am not to ask for signs, it is because I should trust him all the time:
- and if I am to trust him, is he for real?
- and if he is for real, is he all-powerful?
- and if he is all-powerful, why are we born in different context, some with more and some with less, i.e. why isn't he fair?

In my search for answers, this book crossed my path, again.


The Case for Faith, A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity
by Lee Strobel

I read it in year 2003. I felt it was a good book back then but I remembered it did not speak to me as personally as his previous book did, The Case for Christ.

But as I leafed through it this time, I came to the second last chapter which began with these two quotations:

In their most inner thoughts, even the most devout Christians know that there is something illegitimate about belief. Underneath their profession of faith is a sleeping giant of doubt...In my experience, the best way to conquer doubt is to yield to it.
~Dan Barker, pastor-turned-atheist

Those who believe they believe in God but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at time without despair, believe only in the idea of God, an not in God himself.
~Madeleine L'Engle, Christian

With that, I embarked on re-reading the book.

Getting to it again 12 years later, the book really speaks to me now. I appreciated the doubts raised, the questions asked and the answers that were given.

The book is divided into 8 Objections:
* Objection #1 "Since Evil and Suffering Exist, a Loving God Cannot" with Peter Kreeft, PhD
* Objection #2 "Since Miracles Contradict Science, They Cannot Be True" with William Lane Craig, PhD
* Objection #3 "Evolution Explains Life, So God Isn't Needed" with Walter L. Bradley, PhD
* Objection #4 "God Isn't Worthy of Worship If He Kills Innocent Children" with Norman L. Geisler, PhD
* Objection #5 "It's Offensive to Claim Jesus Is the Only Way to God" with Ravi Zacharias, D.D., LL.D.
* Objection #6 "A Loving God Would Never Torture People in Hell" with J.P. Moreland, PhD
* Objection #7 "Church History Is Littered with Oppression and Violence" with John D. Woodbridge, PhD
* Objection #8 "I Still Have Doubts, So I Can't Be a Christian" with Lynn Anderson, D.Min.

The wonderful thing is that the experts whom Strobel interviewed were people I respect and whose books I read. Interestingly, I read Dr Lynn Anderson's book mentioned in the interview, If I Really Believe, Why Do I Have These Doubts?, just two years ago, without realising that I have read about it 10 years ago in 2003.

In answering the questions I had, the first chapter was enough. But I got hooked into Strobel's interviewing style of writing and finished the book in no time. It was brilliant.

pearlie

A dangerous fallacy

Our preacher spoke about Watchman Nee in his sermon yesterday and he gave Nee's books high commendation, which I feel is worrying.

I have heard many times from reputable theological speakers and scholars say that Nee's theology is not very sound. And though I have not read anything by Nee, I would take these scholars' word for it.

When I brought this up amongst my friends, one of them commented that even though Nee is not theologically trained, it is good to read something different, something more spiritual and experience based.

I find that a dangerous fallacy.

When we read and learn about God and his truth, his gospel, we must only take God's word for it. Yes, we interpret what he says to understand it better and yes, we interpret it hermeneutically to apply his truth in our lives to live as his children. But we still interpret Scripture with Scripture, not based on our spirituality or experience (what "spirituality" really means warrants another long discussion altogether).

I'm not saying that our spirit and experience are not important. They are but they must rest on the Holy Spirit and the Word of God.

I was reading James M Hamilton's commentary on Revelation for devotion today and what he says here is relevant:

We must know the gospel, know our Bible, and know Christian theology so that we can tell the difference between someone who increases our faith in Jesus by telling us the truth about his greatness and someone who makes us feel good about ourselves by giving us pep talks and “encouragement” to rely on our own resources."

Do what the Bereans did when we listen to sermons and when we read Christian literature: "And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth." (Acts 17:11, NLT)

That is one thing we do not do enough. We do not spend enough time meditating and studying God's Word. We do not need something different. We need the very Word of God. We need to dwell in it, to mull in it, to wade in it, to swim in it.

It's time we pull up a chair, sit, read and study Scripture.

pearlie
Source: 'Revelation' by James M. Hamilton Jr.; R. Kent Hughes, gen. ed.

Small sins, big sins?

I have just found out that Tullian Tchividjian, a pastor and author whom I have recently been reading, whom I have found respect for, has resigned after admitting inappropriate relationship.

With that on top of one that happened closer to home, both of whom has my full respect, is certainly sad, and most disappointing.

And with what I have posted just yesterday, "What a stupid thing to do, but sometimes we are totally blinded by sin," I begin to wonder how really weak we are as human, but we think we are so great, so strong and so right.

In the face of temptations, we think we are indestructible. We think we can do nothing wrong and so what is before us is not wrong. We succumb to it and then reality sets in but it will be far too late. This is where we so wish we can turn back time.

I also begin to think what my friend said a couple of weeks ago, as I have also heard it many times over, "There are no small sin and no big sin. They are equally all sins before God."

I'm thinking shouldn't some pastors also be resigning because they lie, because they hated some people and spoke badly against them, because they manipulated themselves up the ladder, because they are addicted to pornography? I'm not saying that all pastors are such bad people, but why do only pastors who were in inappropriate relationships resign?

So are there small sins and big sins?

What I think it is this: there are no "small sins and big sins" because in the fallen nature of ours, in our total depravity, that there is nothing good in us except for Christ, the gravity of our sins makes no difference to the already depraved situation we are in. The hole is so deep it can't go any deeper. It is so black it can't go any blacker.

However, that does not help to explain Matthew 12:31-32, "So I tell you, every sin and blasphemy can be forgiven— except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which will never be forgiven. Anyone who speaks against the Son of Man can be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, either in this world or in the world to come." (NLT)

But inasmuch as there are no small or big sins, it is different when it comes to the consequences of sin - there will be big or small consequences, and that depends on the expectations of each of us.

Sins that cause the disruption of the fabric of church and community needs to be seriously dealt with.

We can only beat our chest in sorrow and say, "O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner." (Luke 18:13b, NLT)

We can only admit in the face of temptations that we are but weak and in need of Christ, and in doing so we hold our ground with the armour of God, not our own feeble armour, if we can even call it an armour, but God's.

pearlie

My nagging thoughts on the existence of God 2

I finished reading Keith Ward's Why There is Almost Certainly a God today. Yes, it's a tough read but it did help me sort through some of my thoughts about the existence of God.

Whilst he postulates several points to support the existence of God, what convinced me the most is the part on The Problem of Consciousness. Ward writes:

The problem of consciousness is so difficult that no one has any idea of how to begin to tackle it, scientifically. What is that problem? It is basically the problem of how conscious states – thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions – can arise from complex physical brain-states. Even if we are sure that they do arise from brains, we do not know the sorts of connections that conscious states (such as ‘seeing a train’) have with brain-states (such as ‘there is electrical activity at point A in the brain’). We do not know if conscious states can have a causal effect on brain-states, or if they are somehow reducible to brain-states in some way we cannot yet explain.

No one can yet explain where and how consciousness came about. Whilst it does not "prove" God, it highly suggest there is a superior consciousness from where we came from.

My two problems I blogged about several days ago are these:
1. The perceived unsophisticated stance of being a theist whom some deem stupid and childish, being the reputation of theists.
2. The possibility of a God that is more complex than what is revealed. It's a bit tough to explain this. It's just that what if God is not what he describes himself to be. What if there is more to it that makes him less sovereign.

For me, the first is easy to tackle. I like what Ward wrote:

The question of God is not a purely intellectual puzzle. It is bound up with the basic ways in which we see our lives, the cultural histories and traditions from which we spring and against which we often react, and the most fundamental values, feelings and commitments we have. It is not just a question of evidence, in the sense of clear public data that put matters beyond any reasonable doubt. It is a question of basic forms of perspective and action.

As a believer in God, I strongly feel that in such questions it is not a matter of all the good and wise people thinking there is a God, and all the bad and silly people thinking there is not (or vice versa). All of us have partial perspectives, and we need to engage with others to see what the limits and advantages of those perspectives are.

So in my upbringing as a Christian and in my search for truth, I am convinced that I believe and serve the true God. Nothing stupid or childish about that. From my experience and knowledge about who God is, it all make sense and even though I'm not a genius, I am no fool either.

On the second problem, I need to work it out a bit more. And since I've tackled my first problem and have no doubt about his existence, and I'm convinced that the Christian God is the only one that makes sense, to me that is, then I will need to accept that who he says he is is exactly who he is.

And I need to watch less science fiction.

pearlie

My nagging thoughts on the existence of God 1

As much as I am holding fast to my faith in God and Jesus as my Lord and Saviour, I began to have nagging thoughts about the existence of God for quite some time now, as a result of all the science fiction and movies I have been watching over the years.

My thoughts are somewhat circling around two areas, which I can't just simply explain. It's all still a jumble of thoughts in my mind that when I read about God, especially when I am doing my (almost) daily morning devotion--currently on the book of Isaiah--I keep asking, "Is this really who God is?" "Is there a God in the first place?" "What if this is all there is to life?"

The two areas are connected to the ideas I got from science fiction. The first one comes from the Star Trek series. There are many episodes where the crew finds civilizations with their own spiritual inclinations, with a particular set of beliefs, and a god they worship. Every one of these gods in these episodes will then be reduced by the crew to nothing but science or myths. With that, I can see that my belief is seen to be stupid and childish.

The second one come from the Men in Black movie, where a cat called Orion wears a collar round its neck, on which hangs a small sphere that holds the Arquillian Galaxy within. It is as small as a marble but contains billions of stars. And I thought our universe can very well be like that very small galaxy, and beyond our universe may exist another complex universe where God can be a complex community of existence, which is unlike who God is as revealed to us.

With that, I decided to dig up some relevant journal articles to read. But in all this searching, I am not worried that I will lose my faith, I know I will not. I trust in Jesus as the way, the truth and the life. I trust that God and his truth will not be maimed by any vicious attacks let alone mere scrutiny.

And I found these articles useful:

"Puncturing atheism: fourfold God squad brilliantly takes on Dawkins, Hitchens, & Co." by David Aikman in Christianity Today, October 1, 2007, p.110

"My failed atheism: Mark Bauerlein tells how he came to desire something beyond his contemptuous nihilism" by Mark Bauerlein in First Things, May 1, 2012, p.47

"The atheist's dilemma: I tried to face down an overwhelming body of evidence, as well as the living God" by Jordan Monge, in Christianity Today, March 1, 2013, p.88

"The new atheism: reflections of a biblical scholar" by John Barton in Modern Believing, January 1, 2012, p.36

It was in the above final article I read that had a reference to this book:

Why There is Almost Certainly a God: Doubting Dawkins
by Keith Ward

I read a preview of it and thought it might help, and so I bought a copy and started reading. It's not so much Dawkins I want to debunk. I want what the title of the book promises: to tell me why there is almost certainly a God.

As Socrates said, "An unexamined life is not worth living" that would most probably have inspired Dr Elton Trueblood to say "the unexamined faith is not worth having", Ward said, "It is important to be critical of all our beliefs -- to ask what we mean by them and what reasons there are for accepting them."

So here I am trying to see if I can sort it all out. It will be a tough read though -- as I would have to figure it out through the philosophy, logic and physics, topics I am in no way familiar with.

See my subsequent thoughts: My Nagging Thoughts on the Existence of God 2

pearlie