Epistle to Hamers (15)

Dear Frank and Lora,

 

How are both of you? I am fine. It has been eight months since I start working as a medical officer in emergency department in Sibu Hospital. Although we still facing stress, managing case that ends up with mortality, it is still wonderful to work in the department that you like, with good working environment and nice colleagues and superiors. The house unit that I rent is also a nice cozy place located just five-minute walking distance from hospital. The town is peaceful generally, and doesn't suffer air pollution in big cities like Kuala Lumpur.

But as the Russian proverb says, "в гостях хорошо, а дома лучше". There is no place like home. Since my last return home in March, I have been in Sibu until now. Initially I doesn't feel the excitement to go back. But as the date to go back home approaching, I was getting more and more excited. I started to clean up my room, wash the bed linen, preparing the necessity to bring back home. If we can get so excited to go back our earthly home, how much more we should be excited to go back out heavenly home? "And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth... Instead, they were longing for a better country - a heavenly one..." (Hebrews 11:13,16)

Recently I start to read The Case For Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity by Lee Strobel. I saw this book in a local christian bookstore in Sibu. Although the list of topics in the content doesn't look that attractive, but after listened to the audiobook The Case For The Real Jesus, I cannot resist my urge to buy this book. After reading the introduction chapter, I did not regret. The opening chapter is breath-taking, he talks about Charles Templeton, who was once an prominent evangelist and went for evangelistic crusades with Billy Graham, but end up as an agnostic  as he cannot accept the existent of a loving God who allows suffering in this world. Surprisingly in the end of the interview, Templeton actually mentioned that he missed Jesus. Unfortunately Strobel was unable to probe in further why Templeton said such thing.

I guess the author of Ecclesiastes says it well, "He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end." (3:11) Although we could not fully understand sufferings from this side of eternity, but man longs for something eternal, and this thirst and desire can only be fill up by God alone. Hence Templeton should have pray ""Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)

Another thing that make me enjoy reading this book is that I have listened another audiobook by the same author, and the audio recording was read by the author himself. Hence I can imagine his intonation and expression as I read this book.

However we are called to have the spirit of the Bereans when reading books or listening to teaching. In one of the interview with Norman Geisler in this book, Geisler mentioned that he actually believes in age of accountability,  which is something not biblical. I remember this issue was mentioned eight years ago in a long abandoned blog of Koinonia. (PS: Do read Kok Tong's comment in part 1)
http://psalm6616.blogspot.my/2008/05/age-of-accountability.html
http://psalm6616.blogspot.my/2008/05/age-of-accountability-part-2.html
http://psalm6616.blogspot.my/2008/06/age-of-accountability-part-3.html

The original article: http://www.mountainretreatorg.net/bible/account.html

Food for thought: "The argument used by most people in support of an age of accountability is that, "it has to be true in order to keep God fair," but this is simply an emotional response based on nothing but personal opinion." - Tony Warren

 * * *

By the way the main reason I came back home during is time is mainly to attend the annual KVBC Bible Conference 2016 and #PreachTheWord CEP Preaching Conference 2016.

​

Let's start with the Preaching Conference in the morning. The tagline is #PreachTheWord, as so that we preach with the Word as the centrality.

Day 1 focus on preaching the whole Bible.

Day 2 focus on preaching the Old Testament.

Day 3 focus on preaching and the Holy Spirit.

The new way they design this conference is that every day started with morning exposition on Galatians and end with afternoon exposition on Jeremiah, with lectures workshops in between.

I can't really write out every single thing here. But the good news is that the committee will try to upload all the recordings to www.kvbctrust.org, maybe by the end of the year. Anyway I will share a few things that left a huge impressions.

On Galatians

"Jesus + Nothing = Everything" - Tullian Tchividjian.

While Jesus + Anything = Nothing.

"Upon a Life I have not lived, Upon a Death I did not die,
Another’s Life; Another’s Death, I stake my whole eternity." - Horatious Bonar

"The coming of the new currency (pound and new pence) makes the old currency (pounds, shillings and pences - £sd) redundant. The coming of the new covenant makes the old covenant redundant." - David Cook.

(The analogy is in reference to the decimalisation of pound sterling in 1971.)

"Do not be a minister of letter that kills. Do not impose the expectation of the laws, rather impose the gospel of grace." - Tan Kay Hoe.

"The law convicts of our sins and made us run to Christ, Live as Christ's man, not as Adam's man, because we have been redeemed!" - David Cook

"Instead of viewing Galatians 5:22-23 as nine fruits of the Spirit, we should view it as nine flavors of the fruit of the Spirit, because we shouldn't be saying I have this fruit, but I don't have that fruit. It is not like the gift of the Holy Spirit." - Paul Barker

"Christian should crucify sins, put to death the flesh; not just pacify it, subdue it, restrict it, suppress it, put it in a cage then let it out once in a while. If the work of the flesh is like weeds, we should then uproot it instead of just cutting the leaves." - Paul Barker

"The aroma of the fruit of the Spirit is pungent to the sinful world." - Paul Barker
(He started off with his exposition on Galatians 5 with the food and fruits in Malaysia, so this saying is in analogy to durian actually.)

On Jeremiah 1, 11, 31

"In time of uncertainty, we need the Word of God, we need God speaking to us." - Andrew Reid.

"The safe place during judgement is judgement itself, because beyond judgement there is hope. Run toward the judgement and punishment of God, for there you will see the cross and resurrection, and there you will find forgiveness and grace from God." - Chris Green.

D.A. Carson ascribes to his father, "A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text."

The Gospel and The Word by D.A. Carson

1. The Gospel is christological.

2. The Gospel is theological.

3. The Gospel is biblical.

4. The Gospel is apostolical.

5. The Gospel is historical.

6. The Gospel is personal.

7. The Gospel is universal.

8. The Gospel is eschatological.

"Most of my students don't remember what I taught, instead they remember what excites me."
The duty of a teacher is not to make the students remember what you teach, how you teach, the fascinating analogies that you used, or the impressive analysis that you made. Rather it is to make them remember what is the thing that excites the teacher to teach.

Preaching the Whole Bible by Paul Barker

"When preaching Old Testament, we tend to fall into one of the two extremes, either we see the story individually, or we relate everything directly to Jesus and ignore the context."

"Do not read the Bible fragmentary. Fragmentary reading leads to fragmentary preaching."

"A word requires a sentence to give it a meaning.
A sentence requires a paragraph to give it a meaning,
A paragraph requires a chapter to give it a meaning.
A chapter requires a book to give it a meaning.
A book requires the whole Bible to give it a meaning."

"A context don't end in a chapter or even in a book, but extend from Genesis to Revelation. This is called Scripture unity, because we have a unified Bible, unified by a divine authour."

Paul Barker divides the whole Bible into six sections:

1. Creation.

2. Fall and sin.

3. Redemption (salvation) initiated.

4. Redemption fufilled (incarnation and resurrection).

5. Redemption lived and proclaimed

6. New creation.

"Each passage need to  be understood from creation to new creation."

"Biblical theology is not ONE of the method to read the Scripture, it is THE method to read the Scripture."

Preaching the Gospel from Old Testament by Peter Lau

Just a side note, though he looks like Chinese Malaysian, and his name sounds like Chinese Malaysian, but Peter Lau is not Chinese Malaysian. He is a Chinese Australian, but have been teaching in Seminari Theoloji Malaysia (STM) for six years. Peter Lau uses a Biblical Interpretation Pyramid to prepare sermons. He did mentioned what it is not THE method to prepare preaching, but it is how he do it,

We work through Haggai chapter 1 and chapter 2:1-9.
The subject is what I am talking about.

The complement is what am I saying about what I am talking about.

The big idea = subject + complement.

The big question = make a question from a big idea.

For example in Haggai 1

The subject = the correct response to God's discipline.

The complement = repent and put God's priority first in life.

The big idea = the correct response to God's discipline is repent and put God's priority first in life.

The big question = what is the correct response to God's discipline?

I tried to explain it out particular on subject, complement, big idea and big question, because it is not self-explained as much as other sections do.

When try to connect between Old Testament with Jesus, i.e. the differences that Jesus makes, he taught us to think alone these lines:

1. Continuity / Similarity?

2. Discontinuity / Differences?

3. Escalation?

Other notes that he used during the lesson.

Some one asked Peter Lau whether we must connect every sermon to Christ, i.e. can we preach a sermon theologically (God-centred) but not christologically (Christ-centred)? He didn't give a yes or no straight away, rather he gave us a quotation from Spurgeon to reflect.

“But do you not know that from every little town and village and tiny hamlet in England there is a road leading to London? Whenever I get hold of a text, I say to myself, ‘There is a road from here to Jesus Christ, and I mean to keep on His track till I get to Him.'” - Charles H. Spurgeon

For the complete quotation:  

https://blogs.thegospelcoalition.org/justintaylor/2008/03/19/spurgeon-on-preaching-christ/

Peter, however, did mentioned that he tries to preach Christ in every sermon, but not every sermon will lead to the person and work of Jesus on the cross. He might point to the teaching or the parable from Jesus instead.

​I remember a few years back, when Shwen mentioned that that she learned something new in Luke 10:30-35 from the Chinese christian in Moscow. She was taught that the parable is talking a person in the parable was on the journey from Jerusalem, a city in Israel to Jericho, a gentile city, signifying a christian stumbles or slides back. He is assaulted and robbed, signify christian attacked by devil. When someone stumbles, neither the law or ritual (represented by the Levite and priest). Only the new covenant (represented by the wine and oil used to treat that person) can save him.

Till today I can remember it, because I am still amazed by how this person try to fit in every single detail into that parable and teach what he want, instead of teaching what is in the Scripture. At that time Frank reminded us well the context of this parable. Jesus said it in response to the question by the lawyer who tries to justify himself, "Who is my neighbor?" After telling this parable, the lawyer himself answered Jesus that the Samaritan is the neighbor. When try to do expository preaching, we have to see the big picture instead of getting too obsessed with the minute details, lest that we trying to be smart by our own intellect and make an inappropriate allegory from something that is not in the text.

Preaching Narrative in Old Testament with Biblical Theology by Andrew Reid

In Gen 9.10, Psa 14:1-3, Eccl 7:20, all of them have the same main point, they are all about sin, but each of them are of different genre. The great irony in preaching is that most preacher finds it the most difficult to preach from the narrative, but the congregation loves to hear from the narrative the most. The matter of fact is that narrative is the most powerful way to teach theology: gospel narrative, parables from Jesus, and historical books in Old Testament.

Below is a module used by Andrew Reid in approaching Old Testament,

​

Why preach narrative?

1. Jesus and apostles urge us to teach from the whole Bible which contain narrative.

2. Narrative allows listeners to enter the story themselves.

3. People love it, and a capable preacher can make the narrative lives.

Some primary things to look out for when preaching narratives:

1. Who is the hero? Reason?

2. Is there a goal or quest? What does it consist of? What is the hero after?

3. Who are the helpers and opponents?

4. Can you feel the narrator's presence in the text?

5. Does the narrator keep to the chronology of the event? If not, where it changes?

6. Where are the gap in the narrative time, why? Where does it speed up, why?

7. Is there a clear plot?

8. Where are the speeches? Why are they important?

9. Is there any particular choice of word that is striking?

10. What are the boundary of the passage?

Just as football is understood differently in different countries, so does the term biblical theology, which is a rather new term. Some define it as the storyline or the plotline of the Bible, but if that is the case, then it should be called as biblical storyline or biblical plotline. The correct understanding is that biblical theology answers the question: Where does the passage fit into the whole theology of the Bible that finds its centre and goal in Jesus. The keyword is theology, not just story.

Issues Facing Evangelicals Today by D.A. Carson

What is evangelicism?

From socialogical view point, it is everyone who call themselves 'evangelicals' but it will include and exclude many.

From historical view point, you need to trace back to the root, but how far? Awakening? Reformation? What about Augustine?

Some said evangelicals are those who embraces biblicalism, crucicentrocism, activism, and conversionism, but this will include the Romans Catholics.

From theological view point, they are those who expound the evangel, i.e. the gospel.

Things to be grateful for:

1. Growth of christians around the world.

2. Missionary movement shift from "west to rest" to "everywhere to everywhere".

3. Rising of first class commentators and scholars.

4. Digital outreach.

5. Rising of reformed theology.

Challenges:

1. Rising of biblical illiteracy.

2. Challenge with digital evolution,

3. Globalization and pushback of it to tribalism.

4. Secularization, pushing religion to peripheries, postmodernism.

5. Age of victimization and ego-centricism.

6. Changing face of tolerance. (in fact he wrote a book Intolerance of Tolerance)

7. Change in sexual morality and sexual identity.

8. Rising of open theism, new perspective, health-wealth-prosperity gospel, questioning on final authority of Scripture.

9. World-wide refugee crisis and differentiated birth rate.

10. Rising of world-wide persecution.

Principles to adopt:

1. Always remember God is sovereign and good.

2. Our first allegiance is with God and Christ.

3. We should not expect to be persecution-free.

4. Church should work hard to balance between:

- free from sin vs. free to sin.

- in the world vs. of the world.

We should live a counter-cultural living but with open heart to outsiders.

"If there is no transformation in life, the Bible will put a big question mark over your life."

* * *

In the evening is the annual Klang Valley Bible Conference, which is an walk-in conference, open for everyone. This year is on the the epistle to the Hebrews.

On Hebrews

D.A. Carson summarised the Epistle to the Hebrews in three words "Jesus is better."

Suddenly I recalled the bible study lessons on Hebrews with Frank, where after comparing Jesus with angels, Moses, Levitical priesthood, sacrificial system, temple, Frank will keep saying "so why go back to the old things?"

So if we want to summarise the Epistle to the Hebrews in ten words, it will be: "Jesus is better, so why go back to the old?"

David Cook put in another way, "Don't drift, because if Jesus is better, you will only be drifting into something lesser."

During this conference I can't help myself to buy more books. I found another two books by Lee Strobel: The Case for Christ, and The Case for A Creator. Both books are cheap, only about RM20 each. Nowadays books are quite expensive, from RM40 to RM80 for a small book (Now the exchange rate is about RM 1 = USD 4). I also bought According to Plan by Graeme Goldsworthy and Expository Preaching by David Helm. Helm used such a diagram to explain how and how not to do expository preaching. Rather insightful.

However I didn't manage to get the books that I initially wanted, A Peculiar Glory by John Piper and Knowing God by J.I. Packer. Both are out of stock at the moment. Hopefully it will be restock when I come back next time. Local bookstore in Sibu is mainly filled with Chinese literature, with a few old English literature at a small corner.

* * * 

It is rather unfortunate that I am attending this event alone. Well, the Bible-Presbyterian (BP) church that attending doesn't recognise them, after all in KVBC people use the newer translations like NIV and ESV, while BP church only see KJV as the only valid translation. Rather sad because this conference was held just 2 streets across from the church, and they missed the blessing.

Every time when I came to this conference, I cannot help to think whether I should continue to attend this church. To be honest over the year I realised their preaching doesn't stray away to something deadly wrong, but it is rather dry, and I can't see the Scripture get alive or holds together in their preaching like what I listen to in the conference. However at the same time I didn't have to decide right away, as I am working in Sibu at the moment and the only sound church that I found is the sister church called Calvary Sibu BP Church. Others are mainly methodist church with some having issues like female pastor, their teaching is not reformed. Almost 99% of the church in Sibu is preaching in chinese, so even in BP church I can put aside KJV-only issue, since there is no KJV in chinese translation. There is a weekly bible study on minor prophets (now in the book of Joel) and prayer meeting. Prayer meeting is fine, but the study on Joel is get not only draggy but also feel very lifeless.

Over the years my question on this KJV-only issue has change from "How to prove that other translations are valid translation?" to "How to persuade KJV-only people to accept other translations as valid translations, and start to accept teaching from other preachers in the evangelical circles?" The essence is that the former can end up just "winning" the argument only without change of heart and mind. As Frank said earlier, there is no use to "get sucked into a quagmire of an academic debate that will not resolve anything of substance". But I am still now sure how the latter can be done, in love and kindness, especially the whole denomination is deep-rooted in this ideology. Maybe one day I will first write down how I myself have settle down to my own viewpoint of this Bible translation and why I still keeping and reading the NIV Bible that Calvin first gave me.

Beside that I tried to invite other brothers and sisters from Koinonia to join this conference but apparently none can make it due to constraint with working schedule. During the conference I met J's mentor in his psychiatry master programme. I was surprised and happy to hear from him that J is expecting soon, maybe in early August. Well it shouldn't surprised me as I was in Sibu for the past eight months. I guess the surprising part is that I heard it from other people instead of J&J. I also manage to meet up with Z, who is doing public health, and is living in the apartment next block to mine. However I am sad to hear from him that his wife had a miscarriage.

* * *

Some doodling that I made.

This cell group consisted mainly of doctors and medical related people. But it is under the charismatic church called City Harvest Church, and I never consider to attend their Sunday service. During prayer many times they will speak in tongue (but every week what I noticed is the same repetition of syllables, with no interpretor) and every week they start with ice breaking by playing games. Some so-called games aren't that bad (those that make you think and share), but I really don't find the point of playing games that are not edifying at all (and how many times you want break the ice?). So when the group leader asks me to prepare for ice breaking, I will prepare bible quiz in the format of ten questions, either multiple choice answer, true/false, or fill in the blank. Hopefully this will encourage people to read the Scripture more. I attached the quiz with this email.

Not only so, sometime when the pastor is able to attend and share the message (other wise the sharing was prepared by the cell group leader, which is not bad), I can see it is rather superficial, topical, and sometime he fit the main points into some strange acronym. Not that acronym is bad, in fact some preachers including John Piper uses acronym occasionally. But the content is rather.... maybe I can say vain or empty, especially when the trace of prosperity gospel is seen (example: there is no point talking about how to dream big and fulfill your dream if your dream is just self-centred rather than God-glorifying, and he actually summarised his points into the acronym DREAM). This really discourages me go City Harvest Church and spend my Sunday to hear preaching of this nature. Yet the encouraging moment is when brothers and sisters sit down together and share their testimonies in life. This might be one of the reasons why I still attend this cell group.

* * *

After typing such a length of letter, I am not sure how to finish it. I guess a list of prayer requests?

1. Pray for J&J that their baby will be delivered safely.

2. Pray for A&Z that God will be with them and comfort them despite of miscarriage.

3. Pray for C as he continue to work in Sibu where English speaking church is hardly found. Pray too for his boy-girl relationship.

4. Pray for me as I need to prepare for poster presentation in an emergency medicine conference in August, and also for Advance Trauma Life Support (ATLS) examination in October.

5. Pray for evangelism in Malaysia, and peace in politics and government in Malaysia.

6. Pray for evangelism in Russia, and the steadfastness of faith among the brothers and sisters in Russia, even if persecution arise because of the new bill.

May the grace and peace of Christ continue be with you always.

In Christ,

Kevin