I find the back and forth Mandarin & Indonesian interpretation is very distracting. Also, it shortens the time of the sermon. It really is unnecessary. I gather that this is probably due to the need to accommodate spouses who understood only one and different languages that's worshipping at the same time. If it must, then have the interpretation done in a different channel, I'm sure they have enough professionals to do that. Of course, the con of this would be that Tong wouldn't get the chance to correct wrong interpretations or vice versa (sometimes Tong makes minor errors in scriptural quotes, etc.)
整个世界需要互相怜悯的伦理。
Foundation of the atheists: Wishing God does not exist.
Westminster Abbey had great people's cemetery behind: Handel, Shakespeare, Elizabeth Browning, etc.
Russian literature is deeper than English literature, why? Because they suffered more.
Fyodor Dostoevsky's Brothers of Karamazov: If there is no God, I am free...
Scary.
Romans 13:1 All authority is from God (not Romans 14)
Epicurus' trilemma: If God is almighty, then he is not all good and vice versa, so he cannot be both. For evil exists.
My answer: But the fact that we can say that, shows that God must be so good and so almighty that he allows this to be possible. (Sound bite version)
Defense: If you are given the same premises except there is no evil, how can you actually say them anymore? Since there is no more evil and you know not evil.
Lead us not into temptation, but delivery us from evil: Proofs that there can be hope which leads to prayer. However, one cannot just be stuck on hoping. When actually fell, there can be prayer for delivery as well.
The Indonesian version:
Without naming his name, Tong criticized John MacArthur's "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29) when confronted with why they hold in church service without masks and without social distancing. The criticism is around 1:38:30, calling that gesture as pride, thinking oneself more righteous and closest to God. "Ini pendeta terlalu sok rohani, terlalu sok dekat sama Tuhan."
Unfortunately, the recording was cut, as if the GRII's editors felt that they were doing a favor for Tong in "Don't Judge others". This is a similar character on Rev. Laura Lin as well, which is why she didn't want to use Tong's later lectures, saying that he criticized too many people. This is not the first time they cut Tong's message like this, I remember another time was when Tong was rebuking one of their organist who took the church money and disappeared. This is the unfortunate case for Christianity in America. Bunch of cowards. I'm not quite surprise that the Indonesian churches, which means including GRII, are influenced by Ameristians. I sometimes wonder if they have businesses in U.S. and even greencards...these Chinese-Indonesians or the likes. So that they fake piety in Indonesia but secretly collecting worldly treasures in the States...but this is as extreme as I would imagine. If they were not for worldly materials, perhaps they were for worldly thinking, the lust for the bad of budaya darat, the progressive, the modernism.
I sometimes fear for the future of GRII. Stephen Tong will pass soon, but I have yet to see any matching desire, not to mention talent nor gift. While this is all under God's gracious provision and that alone, rebuke towards those who abuse their opportunity like this must still be made, for such is the gracious realization God blesses us with as well.
Who knows how many of Tong's recordings are censored by his own people. Must I start doing my own LIVE recording?