After 10 Days

Experiencing a 10-day break from blogging and reading blogs has been good for the soul. You realized that there are many more important things in life than just updating one's blog. Though, after 10 days home in Sabah, I encountered many people who mentioned that they read my blog. Each person pointed to something I wrote that had blessed him or her.

My last ten days have not been idle. Everytime I returned to Kota Kinabalu, for the first two or three days I would get up very early. At the cool of the early morning hours, one could hear the voice of the Lord ever clear and calm. My sermon in my denomination's Bible College went well despite the fact that it was my first sermon in Malay for nearly two years. I spoke about the need to continue learning to those who were graduating. You learn then you teach. Teaching other faithful men who in turn can teach others (2 Tim 2:2). To be an effective servant of the Lord, it is not only a matter of learning and teaching but more so the readiness to suffer for the sake of the Gospel and the ministry. No one enters the ministry of God's Word with the false hope of security, financial or otherwise. It is the least secure of all jobs but the rewards are great, says the Lord for no one who has left houses and wives and children for My sake will not receive a hundredfold now and in the age to come life eternal. My trip to the Bible College was made much more meaningful as I traveled with my President and we had plenty of time to share many things of God's work in Sabah. Even my President mentioned my blog to a number of visitors from West Malaysia who came to join with us at the graduation service.

My most pleasant surprise was to find out that my good friend from Sarawak is now the President of SIB Sawarak. SIB Sarawak is even a larger entity than SIB Sabah. They have 680 churches and in Sabah we have about 480 churches. At the last night of our AGM, the leaders from both Sabah and Sarawak had supper and it was a wonderful time of fellowship and may the Lord bless those whom He had chosen to lead His Church in Sabah and Sarawak.

Finally

I am now at Changi Airport waiting foy my flight back to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. I attended the Closing Communion Service at TTC Chapel. The reading of the day was Mark 13 about the End of Time. I was mentioned in the Principal's sermon, a reference to my Revelation Class which ended last night with a final exam.

Yesterday, Mr Stephen Green, the group chairman of HSBC gave a talk about financial markets, the economic crisis, globalization and urbanization. He was very passionate about the environment and climate change. He mentioned Borneo (where I came from) and how in 20 years the forests were depleted and the satellite pictures prove it. It is sad that Borneo is mentioned in such a light but may God grant us Borneans mercy and may Sabahans rise up to put things right and care for God's creation.

I tried to rush to finish some of my tasks, but to no avail. I met with my MTh candidate for a last time and encouraged her to push on in her research. At 5:30pm yesterday, I went home to pack and then by 7:30pm I went for my last class of the Semester. It was great that a couple of staff and a student helped out and they took care of the students in exams and I left after a few minutes.

When I think of this Semester, I can only think of God's wonderful grace for me. I will take a long vacation and spend a few weeks with my wife and son. I know when I return to Singapore my work will begin again. But God's grace abounds and I will serve in the strength of His Majesty for it is the Lord Christ I serve.

Final Three Days

I can't remember working for such a long period without even a break over the weekends. The End is nigh, but not soon enough. Today 35 students sat for their Greek exams. I expect the numbers to drop for the next Semester's Greek 2. Greek is a subject that you simply cannot take short cuts. Unless one is truly committed to learn this NT language, really the most important language which one can learn even more important than Hebrew since we are now in the new covenant and the New Testament corpus is written in Greek and the fact that almost 90% of the NT's citation of the OT also comes from the Greek Septuagint (LXX) makes it imperative that one must know Greek before undertaking exegesis of any NT passage or book. Like last year, one student wrote to me straight after the exam to say thanks (did he read my post on "Saying Thanks?") and such a gesture makes teaching worthwhile.

During the three-hour invigilation, I read one chapter of the thesis of my MTh candidate on "Gender Distinctions in 1 Cor 11:3-11". I thought enough ink has been spilt on this issue but my student shows great creativity and tenacity in the pursuit of her thesis. Her chapter on the Roman context of women's attire especially veiling is illuminating with reference to many primary and secondary sources. I think it will make an interesting contribution to scholarship though this is only a Masters level thesis. I will be meeting her tomorrow morning and after that I will set my final exam on the Revelation & the End-Times. I have another doctoral candidate whom I am supervising but I am somewhat glad that she is taking her time to come up with a thesis proposal, knowing that I can only do as much and anything more will be beyond any human capability and ability no matter how skilled, efficient and hard-working one tries to be.

I don't think I can finish marking even half my NT 1 exams scripts let alone Greek and Revelation exams before going back to Kota Kinabalu in 3 days' time. My weekend schedule is packed. Early Saturday morning I will leave KK at 6:30am morning to speak at a graduation service in Namaus, at the foot of Mount Kinabalu and on Sunday evening, I will attend a dinner at a restaurant on the occasion of the commissioning of the Women's ministry of my home church. I look forward to meeting my friends from my home church, the church I pastored for five years (2003-2008) and renewing fellowship with my brothers and sisters in Christ and together as one family of God in one Spirit worship the Father through the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Saying Thanks (2)

I wrote a blogpost about saying thanks some months ago. I am reading David Pao's Thanksgiving: An Investigation of a Pauline Theme (Apollos, 2002) and a number of things came to mind. Pao singles out ingratitude as one of the distinguishing marks of non-believers (p. 21). Pao cites Romans 1:21 where unbelieving Gentiles were condemned since "they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him." Further as Pao noted, "ungratefulness" is one of the characteristics of the fallen world in the last days (1 Tim 3:1-5). Are we grateful to God? I think if we are truly thankful to God, we will show it by our appreciation of others as well. It means that we do not only give thanks to God but also to those from whom we have received some benefit or grace. As the Scriptures says, "How can you say you love God whom you have not seen; but do not love your brother whom you can see?" In the same manner, how can we say that we give thanks to God while we do not even say thanks to those whom we have derived some blessings. Whoever offers thanksgiving glorifies me, and to him who orders his way aright I will show the salvation of God (Psa 50:23).

One problem of the lack of thankfulness to others is that we live in a culture of rights and entitlements. We think that just because we pay for something, the service rendered is our right and therefore there is no need to say thanks. In some Western countries it is common to hear people alighting from a bus saying thank you to the driver. Yes, we have paid our fares, and the bus driver is paid to do his job. Thus one can easily justify that there is no need to say thanks. In a materialistic and self-centred world, perhaps not. The teller or check-out cashier is just doing her job and we are paying for our goods and services received, thus there is no reason to say thanks. But how wonderful it will be if Christians become a gracious people, always giving thanks. First to God for He is our benefactor and all that is ours belongs to Him and from him comes all good things, and then to others around us, especially those whom God has used to bless us one way or another.

APEC CEOs Summit

Mr. Steve Green, the Group Chairman of HSBC Holdings PLC who is in Singapore to attend the APEC CEOs Summit 2009 will be giving a talk here at Trinity Theological College this Thursday, 12th Nov from 12:00noon - 1:30 pm (see the announcement here). I was really hoping to see President Obama in his first visit to Singapore on the 14th Nov, but on the 13th I will be leaving Singapore for Sabah.

Form & Content in Revelation

Teaching the book of Revelation to a group of 120 students has been a learning experience for me. From young Christians to pastors with MDiv, it has been a challenge to teach it at a level understood by all. Among the professional men and women were doctors, lawyers, financial analysts, CEOs, and teachers. A student with an agenda (seventh day adventist I think) distributed a number of books. I prayed that they would also be open and the Lord would grant them grace to understand His Word. It's amazing that there were some who had been following the course for 7 weeks but remained stuck in their opinions. I am glad that most students responded very well. I had to apologize several times in class that I could not reply to all the emails I received on my course and lectures. Before last night's class I gave a 3-hour lecture on the Targums and Apostolic fathers to two MTh students at the Faculty Lounge as the lectures halls and rooms were all locked for the end of the Semester.

Unless one is skilled in Hebraic rhetorical compositional techniques like parallelism, parataxis, chiasm, and a number of other Jewish interpretive techniques such as gematria (the no. 666), one will come to the text of Revelation like the blind. For this book, indeed to many it is a book sealed and when one is asked to read it, he would say, "No. I can't." It's a shame the some of the most recent commentaries (I know of 4 English commentaries published in 2009) that knows nothing or very little about some of these Hebraic rhetorical devices utilized by John throughout the book of Revelation. Hence, these commentaries fail completely to appreciate the structural patterns that John used to put his vision into writing, a composition so creatively and marvellously structured that one cannot fail to be impressed by John's artistry in composing this prophetic book. A commentary that pays some attention to some of these literary devices is James Resseguie's The Revelation of John: A Narrative Commentary (2009).

Revelation is one book that understanding the form is vital in interpreting its contents. Like no other book of the NT, form and content fuse as in the book of Revelation. If we follow the literary markers used by John, then these patterns are not difficult to figure out. If we follow the temporal and chronological markers throughout the book, it is not difficult to figure out that John is concerned not only with the what (events) but also with the how and when these events will unfold leading to the coming again of Jesus Christ (cf. Rev 1:19; 4:1; 8:13; 9:12; 10:6-7; 11:14-15).

Prosperity Gospel is No Gospel

Many teachings of the New Testament consist of reversals of conventional wisdom, often including truths taught in the Old Testament. For instance, wealth and riches are seen to be a sign of God's blessings or as rewards for obedience (Deut 28). But the NT reverses this conventional understanding. When Jesus taught that "How difficult it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven", the disciples steeped in the Scriptures and of conventional wisdom responded with surprise to Jesus' statement: "Who then can be saved?" (Luke 19:23-26). For the disciples, the rich and wealthy appear to be the favourite candidates for God's salvation/deliverance seeing that according to conventional wisdom if you obey God, you will prosper financially.

But Jesus reverses this conventional wisdom of equating God's favour with wealth and turns it on its head and warns that riches are in fact hindrance to entering God's kingdom. With this reversal in Jesus' teaching it is easy to explain why in the Lukan beautitudes, Jesus' sayings begin with: "Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God" (Luke 6:20) You can bet that this verse is never preached by prosperity gospel preachers. Today, too many preachers are peddling this prosperity gospel and the crowds flock to their meetings and churches. The whole message hammers on this one point. If you come to Jesus, God will bless you. For these peddlers, the no. 1 blessing is wealth, all the rest are peripheral. The promises of wealth are seductively persuasive for many, for who does not want to be rich? Thus, the prosperity gospel is welcomed by the gullible, the greedy and the worldly whose god is their belly and to those who set their minds on earthly things (Phil 3:19) . Yet, Jesus says that you can only serve one and hate the other: God or money? "No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money." (Luke 16:13)

I haven't heard for a long time anyone preaching that we should hate this other god, Money or Mammon in order that we could serve God wholeheartedly. Again Jesus says, referring to the Pharisees' love of money, "What is highly esteemed by men (money) is abomination in the sight of God" (Luke 16:14-15). Prosperity gospel is no Gospel.

Heavenly Teaching of Christ

John Calvin:

"When I then see how the heavenly teaching of Christ, for which he wants me to be a servant, is everywhere scornfully torn down, how scandalous would it be for me to tie a knot in my tongue and keep silent." (p. 235, Selderhuis).

This photo was taken a couple of months ago at the Arts House. Together with me is my friend and Family Group member, Joel who is also in my Greek Class.

Calvin on Prayers

"What did a typical day look like for him [Calvin]? Calvin began each day with prayer. He prayed a lot because he expected much from it. Thus a fact unknown to many also speaks for itself: the longest chapter by far of the Institutes is devoted to prayer. The Bible calls us to pray continually, but in Calvin's opinion nothing would come of this if you did not establish a regular regimen" (Selderhuis, p. 161).

Typically when I was pastor by early October of each year, I would set apart days to seek the Lord for the tasks ahead in the new year. This year, I only started yesterday to pray seriously for 2010. I asked the Lord what it was that He wanted me to speak (write) forth for 2010. The impressions I got were to focus on prayers, first to renew my own prayer life, to regulate it, at least twice a day and if possible like Daniel, three times a day.

Reformation Weekend

I spent my weekend, quietly celebrating Reformation Weekend (31st October is Reformation Day) and reading Selderhuis' John Calvin: A Pilgrim's Life. There are many quotable quotes in this wonderfully written book. For those studying theology, apart from Augustine, you must read Calvin, first his life story to put into context his writings, and his magisterial Institutes of Religion. Those who have not read and digested Calvin's Institutes have not really learned theology. Selderhuis' succinct style might have been influenced by Calvin:

"His (Calvin's) theology of the experience of being a stranger, of having heaven as one's true home country, reduced the need for strong ties to one's earthly home country, increased mobility and produced a pioneer mentality" (p. 215).

Calvin did not even hold a theological degree but he could preach from Hebrew OT and Greek NT at will, translating to French or Latin as the occasion dictated.