Tong: The tenth is God's. It is not offering. It is minimum. Christians should give, more willingly. Only the surplus after the tithe, is true offering. True love giving is not restricted by the text.
The common 4 reasons: 财宝 ($)，权柄 (power)，名望 (reputation)，女人 (women)
12/01/2025 Monday
Some Chinese guy saw IP addresses as scarce resource and took a whole chunk of it out of Africa to lease to non-African organizations. Obviously, this made him unpopular as well.
This raises my alarm: AI (Aristotle) proved a conjecture: Erdos Problem #124. It's concerning not that AI will become self-aware, but proving conjectures is normally in the realm of creativity, not brute force logic. If it is by brute force logic, then we are talking about solving proofs, not solving conjectures (recollecting this as something some Indian retards at Drexel/UPenn's graduate level program couldn't distinguish - "oh we solves conjectures all the time in high schools back in India".) If a conjecture remains unsolved, that means either no many know about it (thus brute force would be possible here), or it requires immense creativity (human ingenuity) which is unlikely in AI's domain. But sometimes, creativity is just a matter of applying various not previously relevant fields together, so in that case, AI creativity may be sufficient. AI creativity is good, in that it pushes us better than just being clever.
Ideas for science fictions, literatures, etc.
Intro: When you have lived 1500 years, the hardest part of fitting in, is to convince others that they have just met your parents...
On Forgiveness:
American: Showbiz, uncertainty of willingness, not understanding true forgiveness, by the textbook. Erika Kirk forgiving her husband's alleged murderer:
Christian: To the core of the heart, Gospel-centered. Nigerian widow forgiven her husband's murderers:
(Side note from the video above: Judd Saul, Executive Director and Founder of equippingthepersecuted.org, seems legit. It's the first non-profit organization I know who full staffs are all volunteers.)
On Persecution/bearing the cross:
Wayne Cordeiro sharing a testimony of his trip to China and his experience with underground Christian leaders there. He is the founding and former Senior Pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu, Hawaii:
Seems to be a popular topic lately, thanks to the late Charlie Kirk. So after mentioning it a few times in my journal, I'll gather all continuation of it here.
These are my recent two posts on Facebook:
I wouldn't equate Christian Nationalism with White/European Christian Nationalism. Besides, Christianity is of Eastern origin (which resulted in the word "middle-EAST"), not Western, if we're really playing that game.
But Christian Nationalism = requiring everyone to be Christian/abiding Biblical laws (as interpreted by certain group) as if they are all Christians. With the inevitable belief that their country is also #1 in the world.
It actually despises the Gospel by using the Bible. Thus, it's anti-intellectual, anti-gospel and anti-biblical. And lots of self-righteousness with a sprinkle of having a god-complex.
Christian patriotism/patriot is just a Christian who loves his country. Which is alright.
On my FB Page (regarding the recent commission by PCA to do a study on the topic):
Take your time to do your study of it, but Christian Nationalism is anti-intellectual from a biblical sense, violating Gospel principle in Hebrews 11:6. Jesus never said to the gentiles "It is written...", J.G. Machen knew it well against public school Bible reading.
Therefore, those who like to begin politics in the public settings with "The Bible says so", they are not really saying "Thus saith the Lord", but rather, "You better listen to me, because you are wrong and I CAN NEVER be wrong, for I am a prophet of divine element" in disguise. In a way, they maybe blaspheming the Lord's name by secret implication of having god-complex toward any opponent, but hey, gotta be humble about it, so "Because the Bible says so" is more apt, right?
11/28/2025 Friday
Jim Cassidy's take on the Book of Job is so bad. Basically he's saying that Job blamed God for his suffering. I don't know how these people read Job, because Job (and his friends) clearly was aware of the blameless God, and God-fearingly avoiding that narrative and motive. So Job's sin is not how he view God but how he view man or God's created man and the lack of I-Thou relationship with God which David championed:
11/24/2025 Monday
Of Allie Beth Stuckey's podcast:
Using ultrasound to induce smell. Using sound to mimic smell? What's next, taste?
I think I have a way to test someone's pride level. That is by their reaction through optical illusions. Works on anybody.
It's not about how we are fooled or not fooled by those illusions, but how we react towards them. The ones who find any of these illusions intriguing despite being fooled, curious about them, are the most humble ones, and the reverse is true for the proud ones. The proud ones will get frustrated and even angry.
A quick google search on "optical illusions" provide plenty of samples.
From C.S. Lewis' The Four Love, Chapter 6, Charity.
This Nadia quoted from Tim Keller on one of GCC's Bible Study and she wasn't happy with the pastor's response "...be vulnerable to God." I've forgotten the context, but this is to note where the quote is originally from. I came across it from a comment in Christian.Art.
Someone once said, as a believer, whatever you do, can be a ministry. As true as that is, I believe there needs to be a clear distinction of what is and what is not a Christian ministry, as I notice in America, or the West, that there is a high tendencies for Christians to think that starting a social club, soccer team, being a youtuber, giving money, etc. are the new norms of something they call a legit Christian ministries.
The gets confusing when the fundamentalists attack them because the former would only recognize street evangelism, serving in the church and pastoral ministry as legit. In this case, they cannot agree to my first sentence. So I am not dealing with the fundamentalists here.
But this question must be asked, if we could just call anything a ministry, should we make a distinction between a Christian ministry and a sport club lead by a Christian?
If there is no distinction, then what is a social club that just happens to be run by a Christian if there is no witnessing of Christ? Is Christ still the Lord in the club?
Because Christians don't have to witness by talking Jesus every single seconds with anyone they meet, there is no need to forbid Christians for starting a club in the secular world. Therefore, since a club run by a Christians can be secular, despite having Christian values, which is not the Gospel, not all activities led by a Christian are Christian ministries.
In that case, we would need to distinguish between a Christian ministry and and a program led by a Christian.
So it is clear, that a Christian ministry must be a Gospel centered one, regardless of types of activities and the members who participate in it. Otherwise, it is just a social program founded by a Christian and it is perfectly fine that the program itself doesn't have to be Christian, despite having Christian leaders. But to call something Christian, it must be grounded in the Gospel. The sports, the friendship, the fun, though should be genuine, can be means to the Gospel but the Gospel must be the central motto of the ministry, otherwise, as the old saying goes, "what you win them with is what you win them to", which always applies, will especially be very pronounced here. Even friendship could be what you win them to instead of the Gospel and that makes it sad to be called a "Christian" ministry should this be taken in nonchalant.
