For The Love Of God - Oct 30

Just to share (this article), although most if not all of the readers here are not pastors, but nevertheless we're all still supposed to handle the word of God properly, and also have our priorities in the right place too. ;)

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2 Tim 2

ONE OF THE MANY PRACTICAL DECISIONS a busy pastor has to face is whether to engage some particular error that rears its head.

The factors that go into that sort of decision are many. How many people are actually being affected by it? Is it threatening to split the church, or it it the fixation of only one or two people? Is it about some relatively peripheral matter, or does it go to the heart of the Gospel? Is it something about which the Bible is really quite clear, or does it concern something on which the Bible does not pronounce anything very substantial? Moreover, even when the issue is clearly important, one must make sober decisions about how much time and energy you should devote to it. Too little, and many of your flock may be adversely affected; too much, and you are being drawn away from what should be the primary focus of your ministry; you will gradually get sucked into a sea so vast you will never again see the shore.

Over the years I have been invited to address any number of “problems” or “interpretations” that have lasted no more than a few months or a few years. It may be expedient to do the studying necessary to engage a few of them; anything more is a waste of time. Just a month or so before the “Heaven’s Gate” mass suicide, this cult sent me (and doubtless many others) one of their videos and a great deal of literature. I spent all of ten minutes scanning the literature to see where it was going. It was such unadulterated rubbish i filed it away, hoping I would never have to respond to this particular brand of nonsense. A few weeks later, most of the adherents were dead.

Two years ago a pastor phoned me and berated me because I had not yet responded with anything substantive to Michael Drosnin’s book, The Bible Code. Out of interest I had accumulated a fairly substantial file, but that was not enough for this pastor: he felt that the people in his church were terribly vulnerable, and he insisted that I spend some time working on it. I refused. Two months later I discovered that the person in his church most fixated by this problem was the pastor himself, who could not leave the subject alone.

What a welcome contrast, then, to hear Paul telling Timothy what to say to new generations of pastors: “Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen” (2 Timothy 2:14). Or again: “Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels” (2:23). Answer when you must; never fixate on the peripheral; do not lose the focus on what is primary; do not be enticed into stupid arguments. The real issues are simply too important.


Copyright 2005 D.A. Carson

Powderful English

The two new words I learnt on Wednesday: Limerence(from Love, Sex and Marriage CDs) and transcendence (from Romans)

Skype Patches High-Risk Security Holes

Skype Patches High-Risk Security Holes

If you use Skype, would be good to take a look at it...

Will most probably be going on a hiatus for a while, after my conclusion to the 2 polls that have been done, due to my current timetabling for these few months. Do pray for me though, that I'll 'survive' this times.

...

More learning to be done, as usual...

Illusion

Check this out, pretty interesting... =)

(I'm quite bored now...)

Self-steering car

Self-steering car glides to showrooms - Sunday Times - Times Online

Self-steering cars, anyone?

The Gathering?

IMG_0916
Originally uploaded by gunblad3.

For the last bible study we had, instead of meeting in school, we went to Pastor Andrew's instead, to have the bible study, over a dinner of pizza.

Pretty much had a good time relaxing after the bible study: playing games and watching the first half of Kingdom of Heaven on DVD.

(Pity...we didn't get to eat the carrot cake that Cheryl (Pastor's wife) made this time...bleah.)

By the way, you can view the (few) pictures we took here.

(More thinking through/planning to be done with regards to these precious people...)

Indepth

sydneyanglicans.net - indepth

Sern Khoon has finally blogged an entry, indicating his continued existence on this planet... =D

Anyway, he highlighted this new resource page (called Indepth)from sydneyanglicans.net, where they host mp3 sermons from various churches/groups. The mp3 library is still being added to for these few days, so do take a look, or even better, download and listen =P

Anyways, the conclusion to the polls will be coming soon (accoding to my definition of 'soon'? Heh heh), so don't shred your towels as yet.

Love

"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends." (1 Cor 13:4-8a, ESV)

What is love? Of course, we love to talk on the topic of love (no pun intended), and such a passage is more often than not used when thinking (dreamily) about the special someone in our life, or when at a marriage ceremony, the passage used during the short message is this one (and people think "booooorrrriinnnngg...haven't we heard about this a thousand times before?").

(No, I do not write this because of certain recent changes in my life, but please read on anyway, you might catch the reasons for this post. Moreover I might not write as frequently as before.)

In actual fact, if you read the letter more in it's entirety, you'd realise that this passage belongs to a larger section (1 Cor 12-14:25) where Paul is describing how different people should use their different gifts/abilities for the building up of the church (of believers) in love.

(Of course in understanding what Paul originally meant we can also see how it applies in the context of marriage, but it also only means that loving your spouse/family in marriage entails a lot more than just whispering sweet nothings in their ear, or opening the door for the lady, or sending her home everyday, or buying gifts for him/her, or the yearly celebration of the anniversary, etc. But that's a topic for another post, if written.)

This brings up certain implications on how we act towards other believers and non-believers (in love), to bring to them what is best for them:

- (v4) patient: Simply put, we don't expect results of our work in ministry immediately (which also makes sense since the christian's walk with God is a process, not a one-off thing)

- (v4) envy: The bible-study leader/pastor/sunday-school teacher simply is not holier than the one who washes up the dishes; neither is the musician or the guy manning the AVA console of a higher standing in the eyes of God than the guy who mans the church bookshop (which probably sometimes entails fending off kiasu people attempting to wring out a bargain of $0.10 off the Two Ways to Live tracts which costs less than a dollar anyway)

- (v4) boasting and arrogance: In the light of all gifts/abilities being given (not earned) by God (12:11,28) for the building up of the same church (12:12-13), there simply is no reason for such attitudes anymore.

- (v7-8) endures...forever: When the people don't seem to be thinking much, even though they can perfectly recap for you at the end of each lesson what the passages were talking about, when they don't seem to be responding to the Word of God with the response it warrants, when the ones you decide to encourage to live a godly life are exactly the ones who (literally) spit on your face and reject you time and again, when the doctrine you faithfully teach gets rejected by the church leadership (or the rest of the church/organisation you work for), when the opposition to the gospel and the christian gets so bad you wish that they'd just 'crucify' you and get it done and over with, when we so discouraged/tired out/disillusioned from all this, how long should we persevere to live a godly life, to edify other believers? Forever, till we die, for others' sakes.

There's plenty of ways we can see God's love: (Rom 2:3-5)in putting up with sin for the time being so that people can come to repentance rather than rest on their inexistent laurels and face the ultimate judgement; (Rom 5:6-8)shown ultimately, decisively and powerfully in the giving of his only Son to die for the very enemies he's angry with, (Rom 8:29-30)that those that belong to Him be glorified with his Son when Christ comes again, the good that is really nothing short of the best that we can get.

Ultimately, when we're tempted to judge others with our thoughts or even our speech and actions, let us be reminded that (Rom 3:9)we all came from the same plight (all equally UNloveable), only that some of us are saved earlier in time, and that it IS of the utmost importance that as many people hear the gospel as possible, so that they may come to a saving faith in the only solution provided by God himself. And in obeying the great commision given by God to us christians, the way we should be living it out is in love.

If you share the same faith please pray for me also, that I'll continue to love the others around me (be it in NTU, or in church, or family, or anywhere else), striving to help them understand what is christianity and to live it out, and not to be proud as I have the tendency to be, or to be discouraged and to give up as I may be tempted to time and again.

Poll #2

Since all of the replies to date were more or less choice 2 to that effect (thankfully no one chose number 3... unless no one got the joke?), we'll continue with that for the time being. ;)

Here goes~

Upon going to find out about the situation at hand, you realise that there's pretty much reason to believe that there is a fire: there's smoke coming out from the kitchen with a bright flickering orange light coming out from the door, and it gets strangely hot when you go near it. Walking near, you see your maid flailing her hands desperately as she tries to urge you out of the house (yes, the shout came from her). Neither you nor your maid has had any history to insanity, and there isn't any reason to go mad at this instant either.

Walking into the kitchen anyway, you see that most of the kitchen is already on fire, and some of your hairs already start to singe from the heat present.

The fire looks like it's gonna bring your house down any moment, and it's pretty much too late to try to extinguish it counting it's size. That is, if it's all real anyway.

How now, brown cow?

1) Run?
2) Pretend that you're hallucinating and pretend that you're dreaming or something.
3) Run!!
4) Reprimand your maid sternly and tell her not to try to slack off.
5) Just go back to what you were doing.

(PS: this is starting to sound like dungeons and dragons... -_-:: )

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Poll #1

One day (有一天?) whilst happily doing your own stuff in your house, and you hear a shout: "The house's on fire! Run!!"

What do you do?
1) Carry on with what you're doing, oblivious to it.
2) Try to find out whether the fire is real or not.
3) Ignore the warning, fire or not, since you're in the living room.
4) Run out of the house straight away anyway.

(PS: Pls comment leh!)

Crazy Computer Engineer

Crazy computer engineers get laughed at.

I got laughed at.

I'm now branded as a crazy computer engineer...

Panic? Stress?

There are times at which words cannot really describe the kind of stress you're gong through at the time...

...but they do exist at times.

For The Love Of God (Oct 4)

Hope this helps those who read this, in understanding why being christian doesn't mean only being the 'holy' person who goes to church, or does 'christian' things, but rather one who lives out his salvation here on earth, who does not solely accept Christ as a saviour without also living under his lordship.
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Ephesians 4

ONE OF THE REMARKABLE FEATURES of Paul’s letters is that much space is devoted to teaching people how to live. Indeed, the Bible as a whole is interested in teaching us what to believe (because these things are true), and it is no less interested in teaching us faithful conduct. Nowhere is such balance more evident than in Paul’s letters.

The reason for this comprehensiveness lies in the nature of God. The God of the Bible, the God who is there (as Francis Schaeffer taught us to say), is God of everything. He is not the God of thoughts only, or of some spiritual or religious realm exclusively. He is God. As our Maker and providential Ruler, his interests and writ extend to every aspect of our being, beliefs, utterances, and conduct. Thus to preserve some horrible tension between our belief systems and our conduct is not only an invitation to schizophrenia, it is also an insult against God, a horrible rebellion no less ugly for being selective.

This means that our teaching and preaching must include not only truths to be believed, but also instruction on how to live. Entirely exemplary in this respect is the example of Paul in Ephesians 4:17 - 32. No one seriously doubts that this epistle contains rich doctrine. Here, however, we find Paul insisting that his readers “no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking” (4:17). He ties this “futility” to their ignorance of God on the one hand, and to their disgusting conduct on the other. “You, however, did not come to know Christ that way” (4:20). You were “created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (4:24). That means “put [ting} off” the old self, and being “made new in the attitude of your minds” and “put {ting} on” the new self (4:22 - 24).

All of this could remain a little ethereal. Paul will not allow such an escape. The rest of the chapter is frank and practical. The conduct Paul expects includes truthful speech — “for we are all members of one body” (4:25), and a practical commitment to let no day end in anger, lest the devil be given a foothold (4:26 - 27). Converted thieves must steal no more. They must work, doing something useful, learning to be generous with what they earn (4:28). Our talk must not only eliminate what is blasphemous, vulgar, or “unwholesome,” but must learn to utter “what is helpful for building others up according to their needs” (4:29). Comprehensively: “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (4:31 - 32).

Copyright 2005 D.A. Carson

Fighting

Romans 6-7

Fighting means:
- going in the opposite direction from the opponent.
- not going with the opponent.

Fighting sin means:
- taking this struggle seriously.
- going all out to put it to death, now that it's power over us has been broken through Christ's death and resurrection.
- acknowledging sin, but only to deal with it, and not to carry on in the old ways any more.
- helping others to fight, knowing that christians are in the same situation here in this world.

We fight because:
- made righteous by God, in Christ, through faith, we now do not belong in the old world.
- we no longer are under sin's dominion any more.
- we belong to a new master, which is Christ, and it's only right to obey the new master.
- we now live in a tension between the two realms (Rom 5:12-21), as opposed to being originally helplessly stuck in the realm that results in death only.
- no longer under sin's power, but still in it's temporary sphere of influence, till we die or Christ comes to judge the world, whichever is sooner.

So...fight!

Optical Camouflage

Link: Optical Camouflage

What is Optical Camouflage?

Optical camouflage is a kind of active camouflage.

Is this kewl or what?! (Take a look at the videos in the page to see a demo of the system)

Ze' pot calling the kettle black

It's funny, how sometimes we think people are simply proud and rebellious in their thinking, but upon further self-examinng we see that we're not too different from them in that aspect either.